Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.

0108263 License for publishing multimedia online



Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349


 UNICEF/UN068325/Hatcher-Moore

JUBA/NAIROBI, 15 December 2017 - South Sudan is in the throes of a tragedy for children that affects more than half the child population - victims of malnutrition, disease, forced recruitment, violence and the loss of schooling - UNICEF said in a report released today.

Years of insecurity and upheaval have had a staggering impact on children, threatening an entire generation, the report, Childhood under Attack, says.

The numbers tell a grim story:

 Almost three million children are severely food insecure;

 more than one million are acutely malnourished;

 2.4 million have been forced from their homes;

 two million children out of school, and if the current situation persists, only one in 13 children are likely to finish primary school;

 an estimated 900,000 children suffer from psychological distress;

 more than 19,000 children have been recruited in the ranks of armed forces and armed groups;

 and more than 2,300 children have been killed or injured since the conflict first erupted in December 2013, with hundreds of incidents of rape and sexual assault against children having been reported.

No child should ever experience such horrors and deprivations, said Leila Pakkala, UNICEFs Regional Director in Eastern and Southern Africa, and yet children in South Sudan are facing them on a daily basis. The children of South Sudan urgently require a peaceful and protective environment. Anything less places children and women at even greater risk of grave violations and abuse.

Getting assistance to those most in need continues to be a challenge in many insecure areas of the country. Humanitarian organisations in South Sudan are looking for the full implementation of a recent Presidential order calling for unrestricted access to those in urgent need of aid.

UNICEF has been delivering lifesaving assistance to children across the country since the crisis started in December 2013, including: treatment of more than 600,000 for severe acute malnutrition, vaccination against measles for more than 3.3 million children, the provision of primary health care services to more than 3.6 million children, and supporting the access to safe water supply for 1.8 million people. This has been done despite the huge challenges faced in a country that ranks among the worlds most dangerous for aid workers. Since the conflict started in 2013, 95 aid workers have been killed, including 25 killed so far this year.

In releasing Childhood under Attack, UNICEF warned that new funding is essential in order to provide critical assistance to children and women. In 2018 UNICEF requires $183 million, and currently has a funding gap of 77 per cent (or $141 million).

###

Notes to Editors:

Photo and video assets are available for download here
UNICEF/UN028722/Vincent

Download the report and multimedia content here: http://uni.cf/2bVEGu6

DAKAR, 25 August 2016  Years of violence by Boko Haram in Africas Lake Chad basin have led to a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced 1.4 million children and left at least one million still trapped in hard-to-reach areas, UNICEF said in a report released today.

The Lake Chad crisis is a childrens crisis that should rank high on the global migration and displacement agenda, said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. Humanitarian needs are outpacing the response, especially now that new areas previously unreachable in north-east Nigeria become accessible.

Released ahead of the United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants (19 September 2016), Children on the move, children left behind, looks at the impact of the Boko Haram insurgency on children in Nigeria, Cameroun, Chad and Niger and its devastating toll on children.

The report notes that:

In addition to the 2.6 million people currently displaced, an additional 2.2 million people  over half of them children  are feared to be trapped in areas under the control of Boko Haram and need humanitarian assistance.

An estimated 38 children have been used to carry out suicide attacks in Lake Chad basin so far this year, bringing to 86 the total number of children used as suicide bombers since 2014.

An estimated 475,000 children across Lake Chad will suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, up from 175,000 at the beginning of the year.

In north-east Nigeria alone, an estimated 20,000 children have been separated from their families.

The report also notes that most of the displaced population  more than 8 in 10 people  are staying with families and neighbours, putting additional strain on some of the worlds poorest communities.

Local communities are sharing the little they have to help those in need in an act of humanity that is replicated in thousands of homes across the conflict-affect areas, said Fontaine.

UNICEF is working with partners to meet the basic needs of children and their families in the conflict-affected areas. So far this year, nearly 170,000 children received psychosocial support, almost 100,000 were treated for severe acute malnutrition and over 100,000 took part in learning programmes.

UNICEF has received only 13 per cent of the US$ 308 million it needs to provide assistance to the families affected by Boko Haram violence across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The childrens agency is appealing to the donor community to step up its support for the affected communities. Additional resources will help UNICEF and its partners scale up the response  particularly as access to areas previously under Boko Haram control is revealing growing humanitarian needs.

###

For further information, please contact:

Helene Sandbu Ryeng, UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office, Tel: +221 778 199 097, hsryeng@unicef.org

Toby Fricker, UNICEF Nigeria, Tel: +234 816 992 4644, tfricker@unicef.org

Anne Boher, UNICEF Niger, Tel: +227 96 96 21 59, aboher@unicef.org

Brigitte Helali, UNICEF Cameroon, Tel: +237 690 031 739, bhelali@unicef.org

Maria Fernandez, UNICEF Chad, Tel: +235 663 600 042, mfernandez@unicef.org
Cambodias national election body this week told reporters it remained politically neutral after it was targeted by the European Union for sanctions.

The EU on Tuesday announced it was suspending funding for the National Election Committee (NEC) in response to a government crackdown on political opposition to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Last month, the United States also suspended funding for the NEC, as well as issuing visa restrictions on dozens of senior officials.

In September, the government arrested Kem Sokha, the president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, on treason charges. The party was ordered closed last month in a court decision and more than 100 of its members banned from politics for five years.

The EU should understand that the NEC implements technical work and it is not reasonable for the EU to relate the court issue and political situation to the technical work of the NEC, the NEC said in a statement.

The EU mission in Cambodia could not be reached for comment, but in a statement when it announced the withdrawal of funding it said the dissolution of the CNRP meant the government could not organize a free and fair election.

The NEC was reformed in 2014 as part of an agreement between the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party and the CNRP, which saw NEC members selected by both sides of the political divide.

Three of its members resigned in November in protest at the crackdown on the opposition.
Landmines and unexploded ordnance remain a persistent threat in Cambodia, according to a new report from the U.S. State Department.

The report, titled To Walk the Earth in Safety, released on Wednesday, highlighted efforts around the world to destroy conventional weapons.

A lot of different efforts going on around the world in conventional weapon destruction, helping civil society, helping our national security interest, and putting civil society in a place where they can recover from upheaval of conflicts and heal the wounds that often continue after the actual fighting is over, Stanley Brown, director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, told a press briefing in Washington.

Cambodia received some $124 million between 1993 and 2016, second only to Laos in the region.

Mines and unexploded ordnance kill and injure some 100 people annually in Cambodia, keeping poor communities impoverished by limiting access to farmland, the report states.

The Department of State and Department of Defense have been working in partnership with several deminers including Golden West, Halo, MAG and NPA operating in the densest areas West of Cambodia along the K-5 mine belt and focusing on U.S.-origin contamination in eastern Cambodia.

From the standpoint of US legislation it is always written into our managers statement that we will first focus on US-caused unexploded ordnance, Stanley Brown told VOA Khmer in an interview. But, as I said earlier in the context of our humanitarian current operation, we think its important to do both as long as we can.

Prime Minister Hun Sen has claimed that the United States left chemical weapons in Cambodia, which were recently discovered during demining operations, and called on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

But Brown said the substances were simply the remnants of tear gas canisters. The OPCW has been called in to look at that and our Department of Defense actually provided training about three years ago to Cambodian forces to be able to clear those items and were looking forward to what the OPCWs outcome is.

However, the director general of the Cambodian Mine Action Center, Heng Ratana, said there is no doubt that some 50 to 60 chemical bombs had been discovered in Cambodia.

Brown said it was unfortunate that humanitarian demining efforts had been politicized.

So our intent is to continue the life-saving work that weve been doing to this point and continue to do work in the east and the west of Cambodia because we know it helps the people of Cambodia.
This week on Issues in the News, a would-be bomber from Bangladesh sparks more immigration debate. Join moderator David Rennie of The Economist, along with our panelists, Philippe Gelie of Le Figaro and Michael Williams, CBS Radio News Contributor, as they discuss the this and other headlines in the news. Listen this Saturday and Sunday on the Voice of America!
South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) will announce current president Jacob Zuma's successor as party leader on Sunday as it looks to conclude a bruising leadership battle and focus on policy, a party spokesman told radio station 702 on Friday.



"On Sunday morning as we arrive we should be able to make an announcement of the top six and take nomination of the rest of the leadership. We need to take out this item from the conference agenda as quickly as possible," party spokesman Zizi Kodwa said.

The ANC holds an election this weekend to replace Zuma as party leader in a closely fought contest whose winner is likely to emerge as the nation's next president.

The front runners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a

former trade union leader and one of South Africa's richest people, and Zuma's preferred candidate, his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a former minister and chairwoman of the African Union Commission.

The top six lead the party's national executive committee which sets the tone for policy and the appointment of members of parliament.

The structure includes the president, deputy and key positions of secretary general and treasurer.

In the last 18 months, the executive has been the scene of fierce factional battles as Zuma's leadership came under scrutiny, particularly after the most recent cabinet reshuffle in March that saw Pravin Gordhan fired as finance minister.

In August, Zuma narrowly survived an umpteenth attempt in parliament to force him from office after some members of his party voted with the opposition.
Taxi driver Eduardo washes his blue car just a few blocks from the Presidential Palace of Guinea Bissau's leader, Mario Vaz.



He says the political stalemate  the country's parliament has not met in over two years  going on just down the road has led to a decrease in his income.



"The situation of the country is getting worse, nothing is getting better. The price of petrol is cheaper now, but food is more expensive," he said. "It's harder now to find customers. You just drive and drive and you have no customers. The roads are empty and everything has stopped."

The 21-year-old used to profit only about $5.50. But now he earns almost nothing after paying gas and the owner of the car for its use.

Eduardo is just one voice of many in this West African capital bemoaning the government's lack of action. Since August 2015, the parliament has not held session due to a disagreement between President Jose Mario Vaz and the PAIGC ruling party about who should be the prime minister.



The PAIGC won a majority of parliament seats in the last elections. So they say according to the constitution, they have the right to approve the best candidate for prime minister. But Vaz will not appoint their nominee. He dismissed their original choice, Domingos Simoes Pereira, in August of 2015.



The Conakry Agreements, reached in October 2016, were meant to solve the crisis. At the agreements, Vaz presented three names to PAIGC leaders to choose from for prime minister. PAIGC chose Augusto Olivais to rule the government, but Vaz named General Umaro Sissoco Embalo as prime minister.

The differing factions are meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Friday and Saturday to come to an agreement on who should lead the government. But a member of parliament for the PAIGC, Suzy Barbosa, said she has doubts the long-standing issues will be resolved.

"We have been having hope all these last years, all these times the president said he was going to make a change," she said.



Barbosa said a change must happen before the next elections, scheduled for April 2018.



"What we don't accept is to go to elections with this government, created by the president where we don't feel confidence in the people who are going to lead the process," she said.



She added that with the parliament standstill there is no government budget, and the economic effects are staggering.



"It's really bad. I think the country is not breathing," she said. "Our economy is completely suffocated. There will be a moment people won't be able to go on like this because they will be suffocated. They won't be able to live like this because with such a tension, something really bad can happen at any moment."



Protests against the president scheduled for this week were cancelled. Carlos Da Silva had planned to march. Da Silva is a spokesman for the civil society group known as the Movement of Conscious and Nonconformist Citizens. He said more needs to be done.



"The president must overturn the assembly and call for elections, general elections," he said. "Both presidential elections and legislative elections. This is what we want, because they are fighting, they are disputing over the power. The power is given by the people."



The president's supporters, such as Joaquim Batista Correia, member of the PRS party, say it is PAIGC that is holding up action. Fifteen members of the PAIGC party have defected to the president's side. Correia said they shot themselves in the foot by not reaching an agreement within their own party.



"There are 15 deputies who are not with their party, so they don't have a majority," he said. "We can have a consensus in democracy, and democracy is the majority."



Whether it's the PAIGC or the president who is at fault, for residents like Eduardo, an agreement cannot come soon enough.
Volkswagen says a study has revealed that security guards at its operation in Brazil cooperated with the country's 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

The study that was commissioned by the German automaker last year did not find any evidence, however, that the cooperation was "institutionalized," according to Christopher Kopper, a history professor at Germany's Bielefeld University, who conducted the study.

Kopper said in the study "there was cooperation between individuals of site security at Volkswagen with Brazil and the former military regime. But there is also no clear evidence found that the cooperation was institutionalized by the company."

The study found that "Works Security monitored opposition activities by the company's employees, and by its conduct aided the arrest of at least seven members of staff."

Volkswagen said Kopper's research was based on statements from former employees, documents from Volkswagen's corporate archives in Germany and Brazil and Brazilian state archives.

The results of the study were announced Thursday at VW's factory at Sao Bernardo do Campo.

Former employees and human rights activists held a demonstration outside the factory, protesting VW's refusal to issue a formal apology and compensate victims.

"We don't want a celebration. We want justice," said Lucio Bellentanio, a Communist Party member who once worked for Volkswagen. He says he was arrested and tortured while working for VW and later suffered months of torture while in prison.

The company says it does not plan to extend the study and has no plans to provide financial compensation to victims.
A firefighter was killed Thursday battling a large wildfire north of Los Angeles, California.

California forestry fire chief Ken Pimlott said Cory Iverson, an engineer from San Diego, died while battling the so-called Thomas fire. He released no other details.

Iverson, 32, had been with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection since 2009.

His death is the second blamed on the Thomas fire  a huge blaze that erupted Dec. 4. It has already burned nearly 98,000 hectares and destroyed 730 homes in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, northwest of Los Angeles. A 70-year-old woman died last week while evacuating the fire.

Officials say it is the fourth-largest wildfire in California history.

As of Thursday, the Thomas fire was only 30 percent contained. But firefighters have been able to bring a number of other large blazes in and around Los Angeles under control.

With numerous massive fires near San Francisco and Los Angeles, 2017 has been one of the worst wildfire seasons ever in California.

Experts blame global warming, a recent extreme drought, and the hot dry winds that blow down from the California mountains every fall.

California Governor Jerry Brown has warned residents that such devastating fires will be "the new normal" in the state.
Cameroon Christian and Muslim religious leaders are calling for peace and talks to end the crisis in English-speaking regions of the central African nation that has prompted secession calls.

The religious leaders say the crisis could add to the bloodshed from the Boko Haram insurgency in the north and the crisis in neighboring Central African Republic.

At Yaounde's Catholic cathedral, the Saint Anne choir sang for peace in Cameroon at an ecumenical service attended by all Christian denominations and Muslims. Among the hundreds of priests, pastors and imams is Chieck Mohamadou Muktar of the Etoudi central mosque in the Cameroonian capital.

"Every one of us must apply the command of the almighty God to live in peace, in harmony with the other people everywhere we are, and we must be all of us, without any distinction, ambassadors of peace," Muktar said.

Apostle Paul Keng of the Living Word fellowship, who spoke for Pentecostal denominations, said his greatest wish is for peace to return to Cameroon in 2018.

"All Cameroonians, come together on the table and let peace be on our nation, because nobody can develop a nation when there is war, Keng said. I am calling on our leaders that are in the position of influence to open their hearts to the Lord. Cameroon has a great destiny. Please come to the Lord, and God is more than able to do it. He is going to heal our land, so peace in Cameroon in Jesus' name."

Cameroons challenges

Cameroon has experienced few major challenges since its independence in the 1960s. But in the past several years, it has been enveloped by a bloody Boko Haram insurgency in the north, the spillover of the violence in the Central African Republic, and calls for secession in its English-speaking southern regions.

In the English-speaking southwestern towns of Eyumojock and Mamfe, attacks on military positions escalate by the day.

Alain Mukete, a 36-year-old resident of Eyumojock, says he supports the secessionists. He says he preferred to speak in French, so authorities in Yaounde would get the message that English speakers in the country, where French is also an official language, want their independence because they can no longer bear mistreatment by the French majority.

He says even if they are arrested, they will press for their independence. As a sign of dissatisfaction with the injustices they have suffered, he said, they have decided not to send their children to school. He says they have decided they must separate from French-speaking Cameroon, and when they have their independence they will reorganize their own school year and start over again.

Schools have been closed in most of English-speaking Cameroon for more than a year.

Separatists

In early October, the separatists declared the independence of a state they call "Ambazonia" and claimed Julius Ayuk Tabe, an information technology executive with the American University of Nigeria, was their president. Cameroon says many separatist fighters were going for training in Nigeria.

So far, the separatist fighters have killed at least 12 soldiers and policemen in the two English-speaking regions, according to the government. Residents and local newspapers say at least 20 soldiers have been killed. Dozens of the separatists have also been killed, and at least 40 suspects arrested.

Cameroon President Paul Biya declared war on the fighters, calling them terrorists.

UN prepares

Last November, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it was working with the Nigerian government and other U.N. agencies on a contingency plan for humanitarian assistance to thousands of Cameroonians crossing into Nigeria as a result of tensions and fighting between armed separatists and government troops.

Nigeria and Cameroon are in a war with Boko Haram that has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with about 25,000 people killed and about 2.5 million displaced. Cameroon is also grappling with the crisis in neighboring CAR that has led to sporadic attacks on its territory by armed groups for supplies.

The clergy are calling for honest and sincere dialogue between the government and the separatists to stop what they say may be genocide in the making, but Biya has maintained that he is not open for negotiation with the separatists.
Two titans of U.S. business have come together to demand that Congress find an immediate solution for DACA recipients, whose legal immigration status will come to an end in March without intervention.

Charles Koch, chairman and chief executive of Koch Industries, and Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday in The Washington Post that we strongly agree that Congress must act before the end of the year to bring certainty and security to the lives of dreamers. Delay is not an option. Too many peoples futures hang in the balance.

Dreamers is another term for participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children and provided them with work permits.

President Donald Trump ended the DACA program in September although it will not begin to phase out until March, 2018.

His action put the ball in Congress court to find a long term solution for dreamers.

In their op-ed piece, the two CEOs note that both of their companies employ DACA recipients. We know from experience that the success of our businesses depends on having employees with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. It fuels creativity, broadens knowledge and helps drive innovation.

Koch Industries encompass a variety of companies including manufacturing and refining of oil and chemicals. Forbes Magazine lists Koch as the second largest privately held company in the U.S. Apple is the worlds largest information technology company, producing such familiar products as the iPhone and the Mac computers.

Firmly aligned on DACA issue

Koch and Cook are as different politically as their companies. Deeply conservative, Charles Koch has made significant financial contributions to rightwing causes and mostly Republican candidates. Tim Cook has been more bipartisan in his donations but did host a fundraiser for Democrat Hillary Clinton when she was running for president.

We are business leaders who sometimes differ on the issues of the day, the two concede in their piece. Yet, on a question as straightforward as this one, we are firmly aligned.

Congress seems unlikely to provide a DACA solution by the end of the year.

While some Democrats have remained firm in linking the spending legislation to a measure that would allow nearly 800,000 DACA immigrants to continue to work and study in the United States, the effort seems to have lost momentum.

Speaking Wednesday to a group of DACA recipients, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois said he wished he could "tell you that we're totally confident we can get it done. I can't say that. I don't want to mislead you. Durbin is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act which would protect DACA recipients.

Republican lawmakers have maintained that there is no reason to act on DACA in 2017.

"There is no emergency. The president has given us until March to address it," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Sunday on ABC's This Week program. "I don't think Democrats would be very smart to say they want to shut down the government over a nonemergency that we can address anytime between now and March."

But that was said before a major Republican donor urged immediate action.

We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington, and we know that people of good faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy, Koch and Cook write.

By acting now to ensure that dreamers can realize their potential by continuing to contribute to our country, Congress can reaffirm this essential American ideal.

This is a political, economic and moral imperative.
For his first state visit to China, South Korean President Moon Jae-in came with an entourage of more than 300 business people, an actress who is wildly popular here and heartthrob boy band EXO, which sings in both Korean and Chinese.



The charm offensive was aimed at helping get frosty trade relations back on track, analysts said.



While the liberal-leaning South Korean leader is in sync with China and its approach toward North Korea - leaning heavily against military action - he hasnt given ground to Beijing on his countrys deployment of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system.



A friendlier South Korea



That is a stance China now appears to have learned to stomach in exchange for a friendlier South Korea, some analysts said.



They [China] dont want to see South Korea driven to making security deals with Japan. They dont want to see South Korea driven to nuclearize, which is often discussed although its [a] very long shot, said David Kelly, who leads research at Beijing-based strategic advisory group China Policy.



They are also concerned about the Indo-Pacific [strategy] and the Quad [United States, Japan, Australia and India] and South Korea would be a target in that. So, better to have a warm and friendly South Korea, he added.



Kelly said it appears that a new deal has been cut as China is no longer objecting to the anti-missile system.

Part of the reason for that, he adds, is that Beijing realizes that South Korea is not going to budge on the issue.

"Both Koreas are in the situation of needing to keep these strategic equalizers; its a nuclear one in the northern case, and its this high-tech [missile] detection system [in the South]," Kelly said.



Relations began to sour last year after South Korea agreed to deploy the anti-missile defense system to help shield itself from a possible attack from the North.



Sanctions issue

China believes the system is a threat to its own security and rolled out punishing economic sanctions on Seoul in response when the system was deployed earlier this year.



The punitive measures included a ban on group tours to the South. South Korean pop stars weren't allowed on Chinese television shows, wildly popular Korean soap operas were banned and sales of Hyundai and Kia autos plummeted.

Those sanctions impacted trade and tourism and some of South Koreas biggest companies, including Lotte, which owned the plot of land used for the missile systems deployment.



Although the general public in China agreed with its government and believed that the defensive missile system is aimed at China instead of North Korea's growing nuclear threat, the boycott and government's heavy-handed approach, ironically, were not welcomed by all Chinese.

[We] dont like such top-down restrictions, imposed by the government. The government could have taken a guiding approach, but it shouldnt have cut off [the ties] on our behalf, a man surnamed Hu told VOA.



We still live normal lives and do whatever we like. Theres not been a big impact on our lives. However, if [South Koreans] have posed a huge threat to us, we will still side with our own government, said one woman surnamed Wang.



With China now reversing its earlier course, a fresh start in its relationship with South Korea appears to be in sight.



By using its economic clout, China has also succeeded in drawing South Korea closer to its strategic approach toward North Korea.



A restart in sight?

During their third summit meeting on Thursday afternoon, Moon and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping reached a four-point consensus, according to South Korea media.

Both countries agreed that war on the peninsula is unacceptable and that dialogue and negotiations should be re-started to facilitate the Norths denuclearization on top of an aim to improve relations between both Koreas.

Their first emphasis on ruling out the use of military force, however, has highlighted a salient and growing division between Seoul and Washington, according to Clint Work, a foreign and national security writer for current affairs magazine The Diplomat.

Everyones official policy is the denuclearization of North Korea. But we see on the part of Beijing and Seoul, and this is not a new thing, but we see them constantly stressing that war is not an option, a solution to this issue. We must preserve peace, no matter what is the first principle. This is something that you dont hear, coming from Washington, D.C.., Work told VOA.



The U.S. has never ruled out military action against Pyongyang, with President Donald Trump having called Moons pro-dialogue policy talks of appeasement with North Korea.



Work, however, disagreed that China has put its THAAD dispute with Seoul on the back burner. On the contrary, he says he believes that China still aims at an eventual removal of the anti-missile system.



He said that while their dispute is far from settled, Moon has to seize the opportunity to re-engage China after Beijing used its economic clout to seriously punish Seoul over THAAD.



Work notes that according to Hyundai Research estimates, China-imposed sanctions might have cost Seoul $7.5 billion in the first 10 months of this year, about 0.5 percent of its GDP, although overall South Korean exports to China still rose 12 percent to $88.1 billion between January and August.



Re-normalizing ties with China will always spell good news for the South Korean economy, although economic benefits from better ties shouldnt be overstated, given the South Korean economy is facing a range of structural challenges itself, Work added.
1 A picture taken from Vodno Mountain shows the tops of some of the city's highest buildings above clouds in an area with a high level of air pollution in Skopje, Macedonia.
In the past several hundred years, English has borrowed words and terms from other languages.

And with those words, history and culture are imported. Some words are obvious, such as rendezvous from French. The word can be used as a noun or verb to suggest a meeting. But where do words like skosh, honcho, tycoon and, most recently, emoji, come from?

Emoji

In the late 1990s, Japanese computer programmer Shigetaku Kurita invented emoji* -- images, icons and symbols that express meaning without words, not unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics.

In Japanese, the word emoji means pictograph and comes from the word e meaning picture and moji, meaning letter or character.

The similarity to the English word emotion is only by chance.

Skosh

Another word the English language borrowed from Japanese is skosh.

The English meaning of skosh is a small amount. The word is used informally in English.

It comes from the Japanese word sukoshi, which means the same thing. In Japanese, sukoshi can also mean a few, a little" or "some." Notice the similarity between the English and Japanese pronunciations: skosh and sukoshi ((skoh-shee)).

American soldiers picked up the term sukoshi while stationed in Japan after World War II. They brought it back to the United States in the 1950s.

While the English word is a noun, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that, sometimes we also use the word as an adverb, such as in the example, Im a skosh hungry. In other words: "I'm a little bit hungry."

Honcho

Honcho, another word borrowed from Japanese, also came into use around World War II.

In English, honcho means "person in charge. In Japanese, the word is hancho. It means "squad leader" and comes from two words: han meaning squad" and cho meaning "head" or "chief."

American service personnel learned the word when they were Japanese prisoners-of-war and brought it back to the U.S.

Sometimes, native English speakers say "head honcho." That is redundant.

Tycoon

In English, tycoon refers to a very wealthy and powerful businessperson. It comes from the Japanese taikun, meaning great lord or prince.

In the mid-1800s, the United States was ready to use military power to force Japan to re-open trade relations with the West. Navy officer Commodore Matthew Perry led the negotiations. When he arrived in Japan, he refused to meet with anyone other than the highest official in the empire.

The Japanese presented Perry with their shogun, or general of the Japanese army. But they worried that the English translation would not seem powerful enough. So, they introduced their shogun as taikun.

What Perry  or the West  did not realize was that shoguns had more power than emperors in Japan at the time.

Perrys negotiations with Japan were successful. And the word tycoon soon became popular in America. It came to mean top leader. Tycoon first appeared in print in the U.S. in 1857. Even Abraham Lincoln began to like the word. When he was president, members of his Cabinet nicknamed him tycoon.
Turkey is launching an initiative at the United Nations to annul a decision by the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, President TayyipErdogan said on Friday.

Erdogan was speaking two days after a Muslim leaders meeting in Istanbul condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's decision, calling on the world to respond by recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.



"We will work for the annulment of this unjust decision firstly at the UN Security Council, and if a veto comes from there, the General Assembly," Erdogan told crowds gathered in the central Anatolian city of Konya via teleconference.



The United States is a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, meaning any move to overturn Washington's decision at the council would certainly be blocked.



Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam's third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognized internationally.



Trump's decision broke with decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the city's status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks, leading to harsh criticisms from Muslim countries and Israel's closest European allies, who have also rejected the move.



A communique issued after Wednesday's summit of more than 50 Muslim countries, including U.S. allies, said they considered Trump's move to be a declaration that Washington was withdrawing from its role "as sponsor of peace" in the Middle East.



Asked about the criticism during an interview with Israel's Makor Rishon daily, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said Trump had done "what is good for America".



"President Trump...does not intend to reverse himself, despite the various condemnations and declarations," Ambassador David Friedman said.


The European parliament has voted to consider suspending Cambodia's preferential "Everything But Arms" trade access to the European Union in response to the country's authoritarian backslide.

Such a move could have dramatic consequences for the country, which sells about half of its exports to the EU, mostly in the form of garments and footwear - industries that employ more than half a million Cambodians.

In a motion passed Thursday condemning the dissolution of the countrys opposition party, EU parliamentarians called on trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom to immediately review Cambodias duty free and quota free access to the single market through the Everything But Arms scheme.

...if Cambodia is acting in violation of its obligation under the EBA regulation, the tariff preferences it currently enjoys must be temporarily withdrawn, the motion stated.

It also called on the unions external action service to prepare a list of individuals responsible for the dissolution and other human rights violations for potential visa restrictions and asset freezes.

EU lawmaker Charles Tannock told the parliament that the dissolution of the Cambodia National Rescue Party and jailing of its leader, Kem Sokha, was a damaging blow to democracy and the text book move of a typical tyrant.

The people of Cambodia, after the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime last century deserve democracy; they deserve better, he said.

The U.S. and EU have both already pulled funding for Cambodias elections next year, while Washington has also placed dozens of government officials on a restricted visa list in response to the Cambodian governments ongoing crackdown on the opposition, civil society and the media.

Sweden has suspended any new government-to-government aid to Cambodia except for education or research.

Wednesday during an unannounced visit to Phnom Penh the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Southeast Asia, Patrick Murphy, told reporters Washington was considering taking further measures against Cambodia.

Coordinated action proposal



At a congressional hearing to discuss sanctions Tuesday U.S. lawmaker Brad Sherman (D-Cal), said Washington, the U.S. and Japan needed to take coordinated action against Hun Sens regime.

If we decide to forego the special access to U.S. market that any company buying garments from Cambodia can immediately void this contract, and so we can put that in the matter of law, he said.

Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia secretary-general Ken Loo could not be reached.

But in recent statement, GMAC instructed foreign governments, the U.N. and buyers that the current political situation in Cambodia shall not be translated into into any actions bearing negative impacts on the daily production and supply chain of the industry.

We would like to maintain smooth operation of our 600 member factories that economically support more than 700,000 workers and about 2 million more people as their family members, the statement said.

Prime Minister Hun Sens government has brushed off threats of sanctions from western governments as irrelevant thanks to the growing economic might and generosity of China.

In a speech on Friday he reiterated those sentiments, daring the EU and U.S. to freeze the assets of his partys officials while declaring he himself held no money outside of Cambodia.

[You] don't need to threaten. Let's do it. If you are good at that, please, you do it. Let's [see] you do it, he said.

Referring to an article in The Phnom Penh Post, the premier suggested a lack of concrete actions resulting from five previous EU resolutions showed such motions had little impact.

On the other hand, the EU needs to have consensus, he said, referring the requirement for unanimous agreement from all 28 member countries for the EU to pass decisions related to foreign affairs.

EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom did not reply to VOA inquiries. EU ambassador to Cambodia George Edgar said in an emailed response that the European External Action Service and the European Commission would seriously consider the recommendations made in the resolution but declined to comment further.

The premier also seemed to suggest that foreign businesses would ignore the laws of their own governments if trade sanctions were imposed on Cambodia.

Not everyone just follows what you want to do - your sanction measures; your requests, he said.

The purchase order contracts from Cambodia have been already been signed. The question is whether they will follow you? It's like you will repay until you die here; repay until you die here.

Majority of exports to US, EU



The U.S. and EU absorb the vast majority of Cambodias exports - billions of dollars worth - while China enjoys an overwhelming trade surplus with the tiny kingdom.

Chinese investment in Cambodia was close to $1 billion last year - vastly eclipsing all other nations - while Beijing also provides hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and multi-billion dollar infrastructure loans. More than 60 percent of Cambodias garment factories are Chinese owned.

An op-ed in the Chinese state controlled outlet Global Times this week lashed western nations for pretending to talk democracy when their real motivation was to protect the billions of dollars they had invested in implementing that political system in Cambodia.

While dismissing purported western accusations that Chinas own investments in Cambodia amounted to neocolonialism, the article declared the last thing Cambodia wants is chaotic revolution.

Hun Sens protracted crackdown on his opponents has been buttressed by the accusation they have all conspired with the U.S. government to overthrow him in a color revolution.

The premier has provided no credible evidence to support this conspiracy theory and observers say his regime has crushed opposition ahead of next years election because it was spooked by strong CNRP results in two prior ballots.
The use of giant rats to sniff out the potentially deadly disease tuberculosis (TB) in Tanzania is set to nearly double by the end of the year thanks to successful detection rates, a charity who trains them said Thursday.

African giant pouched rats, which are taught to detect TB using their olfactory abilities, have been so successful at the task that they will now service nearly 60 clinics countrywide, up from 29.

The rats, which can measure up to 3 feet (0.9 m) and can spot TB in samples of human mucus, were introduced in Tanzania in 2007 by Belgian charity APOPO as an alternative to more costly and slower traditional chemical testing.

APOPO is very encouraged about the support and trust in our diagnostic service, Lena Fiebig, the nonprofits head of TB, said in a statement.

Tanzania a TB hotspot

Tuberculosis, which is curable and preventable, is one of the worlds deadliest infectious diseases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), killing 1.7 million people in 2016.

In Tanzania, some 287 in 100,000 people are thought to be TB-infected, putting the country among 30 nations that the WHO views as TB hotspots because of the diseases high incidence.

Yet, lack of money or awareness often means people in the east African nation fail to get screened.

Rats quick, accurate

Under the rat programs growing footprint, mucus samples are dispatched by motorbike from across the country to laboratories, including one in the capital Dar es Salaam that employs 10 rats. Seventeen more clinics will be located in Dar es Salaam.

APOPO said trained rats take 20 minutes to screen 100 samples, compared with four days for a lab technician, with almost 100 percent accuracy although the rodents cannot distinguish between normal and drug-resistant strains.

The rats, nicknamed HeroRATs, undergo a training process that begins when they are 4 weeks old and involves receiving banana rewards for good behavior.

APOPOs rats are also at work fighting tuberculosis in Mozambique and Ethiopia with APOPO one of various organizations fighting to meeting the global plan to end TB by 2030.

The rats are also deployed to detect explosives in minefields from Cambodia to Colombia.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

Thousands of displaced Iraqi Sunnis who fled the Islamic State to the refugee camps of Iraqi Kurdistans regional capital of Irbil are complaining about a lack of services amid the looming winter season. VOAs Ahmad Zebari reports from the region.
A white nationalist accused of killing a 32-year-old woman when he plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August was charged with first-degree murder Thursday, local media reported.

James Fields Jr., 20, appeared at Charlottesville District Court for a preliminary hearing, during which a previous charge of second-degree murder was changed to first-degree murder, local TV station WSET and others reported from the court.

Fields would face up to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder, while second-degree murder carries a penalty of five to 40 years in prison, according to the Virginia penal code.

Court officials and the local district attorney were not immediately available for comment.

Ohio-native Fields is suspected of killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 people.

The incident took place amid clashes between hundreds of white supremacists and counterprotesters. After hours of clashes, a sedan driving at high speed plowed into the crowd before reversing along the same street.

Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginias flagship campus.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe blamed neo-Nazis for sparking the unrest in the city, where rival groups fought pitched battles using rocks and pepper spray after far-right protesters converged to demonstrate against a plan to remove a statue of a Confederate war hero.

After the rally, Republican President Donald Trump said there were very fine people on both sides, drawing condemnation from some Republican leaders and praise from white supremacists.
A court in Myanmar sentenced four members of a family to as much as 16 years in prison with hard labor on Friday after finding them guilty of enslaving and abusing their two teenage maids, in a case that has prompted widespread public outrage over the girls' treatment.

The two girls were 11 and 12 when they were sent to the city from their poor village in Myanmar's delta to work as maids for a family that owned a tailor shop. Five years later, a local journalist heard allegations of child abuse at the shop and investigated, pretending he wanted a suit. He wrote an article about the girls' broken fingers and scars from cuts, burns and beatings.

Police then investigated and arrested six family members who were accused of locking up and torturing the girls for five years, stabbing them with scissors and knives, and burning them with an iron. They were charged with assault and violations of anti-trafficking and child protection laws.

After a trial lasting more than a year, a district court in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, on Friday sentenced the mother, Tin Thuzar, to 16 years and one month and two adult children to 13 years and one month, defense lawyer Hnin Su Aung said. The husband of one of the children also received a sentence of 13 years and one month.

The two others were freed after the judge ruled that they had not been involved, Hnin Su Aung said.

Across Myanmar, tens of thousands of rural girls leave their families each year to become domestic workers in cities to provide money for their families, but often end up isolated and powerless. Child protection groups say maids are often underage and vulnerable to various forms of abuse, and that the country has no laws that specifically protect working children and ensure their health and safety on the job.

"There are often unreported abuse cases because of the victims' lack of knowledge of how to stand up to their employers and no labor laws that protect housemaids," said Tin Win, a child rights activist at the non-profit Yadana Maha children's educational group.

The widespread publicity given the case has put added pressure on the government of Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to counter human rights abuses. Thousands of young girls working as maids in the cities are from impoverished Kawmhu township, which is Suu Kyi's constituency.
Saying you have spotted the first sliver of the moon could lead to a year in jail and a fine of about $2,000, according to proposed legislation in Pakistan.

Moon sighting is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, which has a special body, comprising religious scholars, to make sure the countrys nearly 200 million Muslims are 100 percent right in observing the religious festivities of Eid, Ramadan and the prophets birthday.

So spotting the baby crescent on the horizon in the evening is a big deal, and influential religious leaders have been stealing the governments thunder at the start of the fasting month, Ramadan, by saying theyve seen a tiny sliver a day or two before the official declaration.

The proposed law suggests the moon sighting is the property of the state and only the state body can make a formal announcement on when to start the lunar month.

Pakistan follows Saudi Arabia on major political and religious stances. In moon sightings, however, Pakistan has kept intact its independence from the kingdom, and its not a scientific issue.

The implementation of the proposed law is not possible. It will be challenged in the courts, argued Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai of Qasim Ali Khan Masjid Mosque in Peshawar. The states moon sighting body considers him the main culprit as he has historically led northwestern Pakistan in observance of the major religious festivals a day earlier than the rest of Pakistan.

The proposed draft has been forwarded to the federal cabinet for approval. For media outlets, it also suggests a fine of $10,000 and possible suspension if they declare the sighting of the moon before the official government announcement.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that North Koreas growing nuclear capabilities are a direct threat to the United States, and Washington will use all necessary measures to defend itself against such aggression.

In the face of such a threat, inaction is unacceptable for any nation, Tillerson said.

We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation, the secretary told a packed chamber of the U.N. Security Council in New York. But we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea.

Tillerson spoke at a meeting on North Koreas proliferation convened by Japan, which holds the rotating Security Council presidency this month.

The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution, Tillerson added.

North Korea reacts

Saturday North Korean state media again targeted U.S. President Donald Trump, referring to him as old lunatic Trump and warning his administrations officials to be prudent if they dont want to meet bitterer disgrace and destruction.

The article went on to warn that if the Trump regime resorts to military counteraction, it will face tougher countermeasures from North Korea and fall deeper into a quagmire.

Calling Russia out

In Washington, Trump pointed to Russia to step up pressure against Pyongyang, a day after his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump said the primary focus of his conversation Thursday with Putin was North Korea, noting Washington needs help from Moscow on Pyongyang.

China is helping. Russia is not helping. Wed like to have Russias help  very important, Trump told reporters.

When asked if he supports talks with North Korea without precondition, Trump said, Were going to see what happens with North Korea. We have a lot of support. There are a lot of nations that agree with us  almost everybody.

Prospects for talks

At the U.N. Security Council meeting, the top U.S. diplomat repeated his openness to talks with the North Koreans, but added the caveat that Pyongyang must earn its way back to the table.

The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved, Tillerson said. We will in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Tillerson further distanced himself from comments he made Tuesday that the U.S. is ready to talk to North Korea without precondition.

We are not going to accept preconditions, he told U.N. reporters. We do not accept a freeze-for-freeze as a precondition to talks; we do not accept any relaxing of the sanctions regime as a precondition to talks; we do not accept a resumption of humanitarian assistance as a precondition of talks.

As to the communications channels, he repeated that they remain open.

North Korea knows they are open, he said, they know where the door is, they know where to walk through that door, when they want to talk.

Regional voices

A peaceful solution is desirable, however, its North Korea that has consistently rejected such a solution, said Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, who chaired the meeting.

Kono called on the international community to maximize pressure on Pyongyang to change course, and announced that Japan had just imposed asset freezes on 19 additional North Korean entities.

China Deputy U.N. Ambassador Wu Haitao echoed the concern of several council members that the situation risks spiraling out of control, an outcome that no one wants.

The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is mired in a vicious circle of tough posturing and confrontation, which hardly makes one optimistic about its future, Wu said. However, the hope for peace is not totally obliterated; there is still a possibility for negotiation and the option of use of force is unacceptable.

Both North and South Korea addressed the council.

With a sense of urgency, we should make North Korea perceive without a doubt that it will pay heavily for its provocations; that it will never be accepted as a nuclear weapon state; and that dialogue for denuclearization is the only viable option, South Korean Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun said.

In a rare appearance at the council, North Korean U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam defended Pyongyangs action as a self-defense measure in the face of what he said is the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail.

The envoy said his country would continue to march forward making great advancements as the worlds most powerful nuclear and military state, but would do so as a responsible nuclear power.

Secretary Tillerson responded, saying Pyongyangs unlawful acts cannot be ignored or explained away, and he emphasized the international communitys united opposition to a nuclear North Korea.

They alone are responsible for these tensions; they alone must take responsibility for these tensions; and they alone can solve these tensions, he said of the regime of leader Kim Jong Un.

Growing capabilities

In 2017, the DPRK conducted activities related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs at an alarming and accelerated pace, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told council members. Its actions show blatant disregard of the will and resolutions of the Security Council and undermines the international norm against nuclear testing.

The DPRK remains the only country to continue to break the norm against nuclear testing, Guterres noted, using the abbreviation for North Koreas formal name.

On September 3, Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test, setting off an underground explosion that registered a magnitude 6.1 on the seismic scale.

On November 28, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and later claimed that it now possessed the capability to strike any location in the continental United States, a claim that was denied by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday.

WATCH: Tillerson: North Korea Must 'Earn its Way Back' to the Negotiating Table

Mattis told Pentagon reporters that Pyongyang has not yet shown to be a capable threat against Washington.

Throughout the year, the regime has also conducted 20 ballistic missile launches, including the first tests of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), as well as new medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

No access to North Korea

International nuclear watchdog agency the IAEA has been unable to gain access to North Korea to verify the status of its nuclear program. It uses satellite imagery to help monitor developments.

The U.N. chief called on North Korea to comply with all Security Council resolutions and to allow space for the resumption of dialogue.

While all concerned seek to avoid an accidental escalation leading to conflict, the risk is being multiplied by misplaced overconfidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communications channels, Guterres cautioned.

Last week, his top political official, Jeffrey Feltman, traveled to Pyongyang for the first in-depth political exchange of views between U.N. and North Korean officials to take place in that country in almost eight years.

Feltman, the highest-ranking American at the U.N., told reporters earlier this week that he engaged in more than 15 hours of talks over several days with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Pak Myong Guk. He did not request a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The North Korean interlocutors agreed it was important to prevent war, Feltman said, but added they made no commitments toward talks.

VOA's Nike Ching at the State Department and Carla Babb at the Pentagon contributed to this report.
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday dismissed speculation about his possible retirement reported earlier in the day.

Asked at the end of his weekly press conference whether he was leaving Congress soon, Ryan chuckled and replied as he walked off the stage: Im not, no.

Politico and The Huffington Post published reports speculating that Ryan would make this two-year congressional term his last or even resign after lawmakers approved the $1.5 trillion tax bill, which could happen next week.

Politico published a story detailing what it said Ryan, 47, has told confidants  that he will retire after the 2018 midterm election and that "this will be his final term.

But Ryans spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, called the Politico report pure speculation, saying, As the speaker himself said today, hes not going anywhere anytime soon.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also said President Donald Trump called Ryan and said hed be unhappy if Ryan left Congress.

The speaker assured the president that those were not accurate reports and that they look forward to working together for a long time to come, Sanders said.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., an obvious candidate for the top GOP job if Ryan leaves, dismissed the rumors as well.

The speaker is not retiring, McCarthy told reporters. He enjoys his job. He loves it.

Ryan, his partys 2012 vice presidential candidate, was initially reluctant to take the speakers post. It calls for long hours meeting with colleagues to line up votes or address other problems and frequent fundraising trips for the party. Ryan has three young children and initially said he was uninterested in being speaker, calling it a job for empty-nesters.
In 2017, Somalia elected a new president as it battled severe drought and a resurgent al-Shabab. In October, the worst terror attack in the country's history killed more than 500 people. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is ramping up its military operations as the African Union draws down its 10-year-old peacekeeping mission. From Nairobi, Jill Craig has more.
The U. N. refugee agency has begun a mass voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees in the Central African Republic to the homes they fled a decade ago, in what was then war-torn Darfur.



The U. N. refugee agency said a first group of more than 230 refugees have arrived at Sudan's Nyala airport from their camps in Bambari, Central African Republic. The UNHCR said it plans 66 more chartered flights to bring another 1,300 or so refugees to their homes of origin in Sudan's Darfur region by the end of the year.



The refugees are among nearly 3,500 that have lived in Bambari since they fled fighting between Sudanese forces and armed groups in South Darfur. The war in Darfur, which broke out in 2003, has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people within and outside the country.



Although sporadic fighting and skirmishes continue with different degrees of intensity, the security situation in South Darfur has been steadily improving, persuading many refugees in the C. A. R. to return home.



UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told VOA agency teams have visited the places of origin in Darfur to assess conditions. He said it was deemed safe enough for, at least this first group of refugees to return home.



"But, let us not forget that once they are back, some challenges will still remain," he said. "The places are really remote. There is no infrastructure there as well. So, we hope to continue working with government and other organizations to improve services and keep a watch on what happens when they go back home."



Despite the dark legacy left by the Darfur conflict, a growing number of refugees and internally displaced people have been returning spontaneously to their homes in the last few years.



The UNHCR saod this is largely due to improved security, the signed peace agreements between the government and some armed groups and the presence of the U. N.-African Union hybrid peacekeeping mission in the region.
A survey conducted at the U.S. Interior Department found that 35 percent of its employees say they were harassed or discriminated against in the past 12 months.

The anonymous survey of the departments nearly 70,000 employees show 16 percent said they experienced gender-based harassment, 8 percent reported being victims of sexual harassment, and 9 percent described harassment based on race or ethnicity.

Those harassed said in about 40 percent of the cases no action was taken by the management or they were encouraged to drop the issue.

The survey, which more than 28,000 employees took part in, was conducted from January to March 2017. The employees answers covered the 12-month period before the survey was completed.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement released Thursday, that he has zero tolerance for any type of workplace harassment. He said he has directed department leaders to move quickly to improve accountability and transparency with regard to this absolutely intolerable behavior.

But a department spokeswoman declined to provide specific examples of supervisors or other employees who were fired, citing personnel rules.

The new survey follows findings released by the Interior Department in October that found widespread harassment within the National Park Service. About 40 percent of Park Service employees reported having been harassed in some way in the previous 12 months.

The findings suggest there was a meltdown of the accountability mechanisms at the department, said Jeff Ruch with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group for government employees that has been critical of Zinkes handling of harassment.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will join members of the United Nations Security Council on Friday to discuss putting "maximum pressure" on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program just days after he appeared to extend an olive branch to Pyongyang.

The State Department said Tillerson would call on all UNSC members to work together to continue the economic and diplomatic pressure campaign against North Korea in order to compel its regime to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Tillerson will also meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday.

North Korea was high on the agenda in the meeting between Guterres, who was visiting Tokyo on Thursday, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"The objective is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and it is extremely important to preserve the unity of the Security Council. Unity of the Security Council  that is a very important tool to achieve this goal but also to allow for diplomatic engagement that might allow this goal to be achieved in a peaceful manner," said Guterres during a press conference Thursday at Japan National Press Club.

Guterres reiterated United Nations Security Council resolutions on sanctions against North Korea's nuclear and missile programs needed to be fully implemented by all countries.

Earlier this week, Tillerson said the international pressure campaign has achieved results that were not seen by previous efforts.

"When fully executed, this is going to deny North Korea about $2.3 billion of their export revenue  complete ban on coal, textiles, export of forced labor; import limitations on fuel and oil," said Tillerson in a State Department Townhall meeting on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the chief U.S. diplomat also said Washington is ready to talk with Pyongyang without preconditions, only to have the White House put out a statement hours later, saying, "The president's views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way, not only toward Japan, China and South Korea, but the entire world."

Tillerson had a lunch meeting Thursday with President Donald Trump.
With the ceremonial flourish of oversized golden scissors slicing a giant piece of red tape, U.S. President Donald Trump symbolically cut through decades of regulations on Thursday.

"So, this is what we have now," the former reality television program host said, gesturing toward a 190-centimeter-high pile of what was said to be 185,000 sheets of paper. "This is where we were in 1960," he added, referencing a smaller stack representing an estimated 20,000 pages of federal regulations.

"When we're finished, which won't be in too long a period of time, we will be less than where we were in 1960, and we will have a great regulatory climate," the president added at the event in the White House Roosevelt Room.

Trump decried that an "ever-growing maze of regulations, rules and restrictions has cost our country trillions and trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, countless American factories, and devastated many industries."

The event took place just after the Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-2 vote, repealed a rule of the previous Obama administration calling for "net neutrality," the principle that all internet providers treat all web traffic equally.

WATCH: Trump Touts Progress on Slashing Federal Regulations

Lawsuits filed

The deregulatory zeal has generated a backlash.

The state of California has filed seven lawsuits challenging part of the administration's deregulatory efforts dealing with the environment, education and public health.

The administration's "rule rollbacks risk the health and well-being of Americans and are, in many cases, illegal," according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

In his remarks Thursday, Trump touted his executive order, signed days after he took office in January, mandating that two federal regulations must be eliminated for every new regulation put on the books.

His administration, Trump said, has exceeded that mandate by "a lot."

The president, who as a real estate developer long railed against government regulation, claimed that for every new rule adopted, his administration has killed 22  far in excess of the 2-for-1 pledge.

For the first time in "decades, the government achieved regulatory savings," Trump said, boasting that "we blew our target out of the water."

The administration, over its first 11 months, according to the president, has "canceled or delayed more than 1,500 planned regulatory actions  more than any previous president by far."

He called for his Cabinet secretaries, agency heads and federal workers to "cut even more regulations in 2018."

"And that should just about do it," he said. "I don't know if we'll have any left to cut."

$570M in savings seen

The cost savings, according to administration officials, will total $570 million per year. But they say there are benefits that go beyond money.

"When the government is interfering less in people's lives, they have greater opportunity to pursue their goals," Neomi Rao, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters following the president's ribbon-cutting event.

Asked whether she could verify that this is, as Trump has declared, the largest deregulatory effort in American history, Rao hedged to echo such a sweeping statement, saying, "I don't think there's been anything like this since [Ronald] Reagan, at least." Reagan was president from 1981 to 1989.

The president's former strategist, Stephen Bannon, has said a primary goal of the Trump administration, through deregulation, is achieving "deconstruction of the administrative state."
Turkish prosecutors have taken another step toward the prosecution and possible jailing of the country's main opposition leader. On Thursday, Ankara prosecutors announced they had prepared their case against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party, or CHP, and called for the lifting of his parliamentary immunity.

The CHP responded by criticizing the ruling party and Turkey's president.

"[The] Justice and Development Party, and most importantly, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is different from the parties in the past. It has no tolerance against being criticized heavily and this intolerance is reflected in the indictment written by the prosecutors," said deputy CHP head Sezgin Tanrikulu.

Kilicdaroglu is being prosecuted for his criticism of Erdogan over this year's controversial referendum to extend presidential powers that was narrowly passed amid accusations of vote-rigging.

On news of the prosecution move, Kilicdaroglu told a gathering of party supporters, "You are not a prosecutor. Those who become slaves to the [presidential] palace cannot be prosecutors, or judges." The government dismisses such accusations, maintaining the judiciary is independent.

The last few weeks have seen the opposition leader increasingly targeted by the president and others in government.

"Kilicdaroglu, your mind is rotten and your rope is about to break. I'm saying this very clearly; you are finished," said Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu at a recent party meeting.

Kilicdaroglu had been largely dismissed by the ruling AKP as irrelevant and ineffectual. Last month, however, he accused President Erdogan and his family of transferring large amounts of money to offshore bank accounts. Erdogan demanded Kilicdaroglu prove what he called slanderous accusations. A few days later, the parliament opposition leader produced bank documents appearing to substantiate his claim.

Erdogan's accusations

Speaking to party supporters, Erdogan warned that Kilicdaroglu will "pay the price." The president has widened his verbal attack to the CHP itself, declaring it a party of "treason" and describing it as a security threat. He also referred it to the country's National Security Council, a move that until now was only reserved for the pro-Kurdish HDP, which the president accuses of being a party of terrorism linked to a Kurdish insurgency. Thousands of HDP officials, including its co-leaders, dozens of its mayors and 11 parliamentary deputies are in jail on terrorism charges.

Kilicdaroglu has faced previous accusations, but none has so far reached court. In the current political climate, these latest allegations are seen as by far the most serious.

"If they were to remove him [Kilicdaroglu] from the parliament and subsequently be detained, I don't think the charade that Turkey is a democracy can be sustained. We are talking about the leader of the main opposition being taken in," said political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. "If such a step were taken, I am almost sure the Council of Europe would remove Turkey's membership. I don't know how long the EU can tolerate these transgressions. Relationships at every level are currently frozen, so this could lead to an automatic suspension."

The interior minister's use of emergency powers this month to remove a locally elected CHP mayor in Istanbul on corruption allegations is being seen as a further warning against the party. Further removals of CHP mayors are reported to be imminent.

Moving against Kilicdaroglu

Kilicdaroglu's fate lies with the ruling AKP, which would have to vote to lift his immunity. Analyst Yesilada believes international influence may dictate its final decision on moving against Kilicdaroglu.

"I don't think AKP has settled on a plan for 2019. We may have a scenario where the government goes to a verbal war with [the] United States, but decides to repair the bridges with the EU. We may have a scenario where Ankara defies both its partners and becomes extremely xenophobic and completely turns to Muslim nations and Russia. Then they will have to stamp harder on the opposition. The fate of the opposition would be determined once this main choice has been made," Yesilada said.

The legal woes of the CHP in 2019 are set to grow, with 60 of its parliamentary deputies under investigation.

"Turkey is quickly drifting away from the principles of a country of law and democracy under the leadership of Erdogan," said deputy CHP leader Tanrikulu, who himself is facing prosecution. "It is not possible to talk about an independent and fair judiciary. If immunities are lifted and a case is opened [against Kilicdaroglu], then this may mean that this is the end of democracy and the parliamentarian regime."
1. Yes. The ordinance goes against state law and is not in the best interest of the cities.

2. Yes. At the very least, it should be amended to give police officers some discretion.

3. No. Voters approved the ordinance by large majorities; the councils cant ignore that fact.

4. No. The petition process has to be given a chance to work. Leave the ordinance alone.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say how the cities should move forward regarding the ordinance.

Vote

View Results
A New York judge on Thursday sentenced two nephews of Venezuela's first lady to 18 years in prison for their conviction on drug conspiracy charges.

Judge Paul Crotty announced the sentences in Manhattan federal court after the men apologized for their crimes.

A jury convicted Efrain Campo, 31, and his cousin, Francisco Flores, 33, in November 2016. The nephews of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores were convicted of conspiring to import more than 1,700 pounds of cocaine into the U.S.

A prosecutor said their crime was egregious because the men wanted to raise money in part to keep their family in power.

The judge rejected a request by prosecutors that the men be sentenced to 30 years in prison. The defense had requested no more than 10 years.

The judge said he was struck by the bumbling nature of the men, saying they "were not the most astute drug dealers who existed. They were in over their heads."

Defense lawyers told Crotty the men were novices to the drug trade and never actually transported any drugs.

Campo and Flores listened to the court proceeding through headphones.

Each of them was fined $50,000.
United Nations human rights officials are condemning what they call the shocking and appalling mass executions of 38 men in Iraq on Thursday. The men, who were executed at a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, were convicted for terrorism-related crimes.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liz Throssell, told VOA her office did not learn of the mass executions until after the fact.

"That again just underscores the situation, that suddenly we get sort of word, we get news that there has been a mass execution," Throssell said. "That goes back to the lack of transparency, the lack of information regarding what is happening to these people."

Throssell said that since 2015, the U.N.'s office in Iraq repeatedly has asked the Iraqi minister of justice for information regarding the many men on death row, but with little response. She said no concrete figures are available, although about 1,200 men are believed to be awaiting execution.

She noted the Iraqi justice system is very flawed and it is extremely doubtful that the 38 men who were executed had received a fair trial.

"This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life," Throssell said. "The imposition of the death sentence upon the conclusion of a trial in which fair trial provisions have not been respected constitute a violation of the right to life."

Throssell said there is a disturbing pattern of mass executions in Iraq. She notes about 106 executions have taken place this year, including 42 mass hangings of prisoners in a single day in September. The Reuters news agency cites the Justice Ministry as saying all those convicted were members of Islamic State.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced several days ago that the three-year war aimed at driving IS out of Iraq was successful and had come to an end.

The high commissioner is calling for a halt to all executions and a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Iraq.
More than half of South Sudan's children have suffered abuse, trauma and hunger over the past four years of war, the United Nations Children's Fund says.

According to the report "Childhood Under Attack"  released on the fourth anniversary of the start of the war  more than 2,300 children have been killed or injured since South Sudan erupted into conflict in December 2013. Among those who are living, around three million have very little to eat.

More than one million of those children are acutely malnourished, including 280,000 who suffer from acute severe malnutrition, said UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac.

"A child suffering from acute severe malnutrition is a child who is at risk of dying, at least nine times more likely to die than a child who has the correct nutrition," Boulierac said. "Also, child rights violations  in total, more than 117,000 children have been affected in reported incidents of grave violations against children since the beginning of the conflict."

Those, he says, include hundreds of incidences of rape and sexual assault, leading to many cases of psychological distress. He says there has been an upsurge in the forcible recruitment of child soldiers, with more than 19,000 children in both government and rebel armed groups.

UNICEF says South Sudanese children are in desperate need of every sort of humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, it notes, aid workers are hampered by the inability to access insecure parts of the country and by a chronic shortage of money.
The United States is expanding the requirements for dozens of countries taking part in the Visa Waiver Program, demanding that the countries check traveler information against U.S. counterterrorism information.

Trump administration officials said Friday that the countries will have to use U.S. information to screen travelers crossing their borders from third countries. Many countries in the program already do that, one administration official said.

The changes also affect VWP countries that have higher rates of citizens overstaying their visas to the U.S.

If more than 2 percent of a country's visitors stay beyond the expiration of their visa, that country will be required to carry out a public information campaign aimed at reducing those overstay violations, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

In the 2016 fiscal year, four of the VWP countries Greece, Hungary, Portugal, and San Marino, a wealthy enclave landlocked inside central Italy  had overstay rates higher than 2 percent, according to a DHS report.

The Visa Waiver Program permits citizens of 38 countries, mostly in Europe, to travel to the United States for business or tourism for up to 90 days without a visa.

President Donald Trump has sought to tighten the rules for those seeking to visit or live in the United States in several ways, saying restrictions are necessary for security reasons. The newly-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, attributed the changes to anti-terrorism efforts.

"The United States faces an adaptive and agile enemy, as terrorists continue to explore ways to reach our country and to direct, enable, and inspire attacks against us. ... These enhancements will strengthen the program, and they are part of our continued efforts to raise the baseline for homeland security across the board," Nielsen said, via an emailed DHS statement announcing the modifications.

VWP and terror attacks

In a review of terror attacks on the U.S. from 1975 to 2015, a researcher for the Cato Institute found zero deaths attributable to people in the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program.

The same report found three people out of nearly 400 million visitors under the VWP during that time committed non-lethal acts of terror.

"That makes the VWP the safest visa category," the report's author concluded.

The three incidents involving visitors on VWP were:

 French national Zacarias Moussaoui, who was originally part of the 9/11 conspiracy but was in jail on immigration charges during the attacks;

 British national bomber Richard Reid, who tried but failed to light explosives hidden in his shoe during a transatlantic flight to the United States;

 British national Qaisar Shaffi, who was convicted in 2007 for his role in a foiled terror plot on financial landmarks in New York City.

The VWP changes will apply to all countries in the program.
Expired, moldy, and spoiled foods. Poor conditions in bathrooms. Long waits to receive medical care.



These are some of the observations cited at a federal report released on Thursday that said detained immigrants, at four large U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) centers, are being treated inhumanly.



The report issued by the Inspector General's Office of the Department of Homeland Security shows that facilities in California, Georgia, New Jersey and New Mexico require immediate attention.

The ICE detention facilities were selected for inspections based on OIG hotline complaints, reports from non-governmental organizations, and media reporting, the report says.

The inspectors have concerns about the lack of professionalism and inappropriate treatment of detainees, as well as misusing segregation. One detainee reported being locked down for multiple days for sharing coffee with another detainee.

Christina M. Fialho, executive director of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), said the organization has raised these issued with local government officials more than two years ago.

We filed a formal complaint on behalf of 31 transgender and cisgender women and these strip searches sometimes will turn into sexual assault.  We again raised this issue this earlier April, she said.

Fialho said Santa Ana Jail in California has been operating outside the limits of the Constitution and state law for years.

The report corroborates Fialhos comments.

One facility, the report says, did not adequately have enough staff to ensure thorough intake pat downs of detainees.

At another facility, it shows, personnel conducted strip searches of all incoming detainees, but did not document them, leaving no way to confirm whether the searches were justified based on reasonable suspicion.

Treatment should be humane

Acting Inspector General John Kelly in a statement said ICE has a challenging and highly visible role in enforcing our nations immigration laws.

But added Just as important is ICEs role in detaining and housing the undocumented persons it apprehends. Treatment of detainees in ICE facilities should be humane, adhere to all regulations and be above reproach.

Inspectors findings also show problems with grievance procedure.

Though not specified, at multiple facilities, detained individuals reported that staff obstructed or delayed their grievances or intimidated them, through fear of retaliation, into not complaining.

Detainees should have access to telephones and be allowed to make free calls to the DHS OIG. Furthermore, inspectors observed non-working phones in one facility, and in another access the OIG Hotline number was restricted, according with the report.

In an email to VOA, ICE official said the agency ensures facilities comply with ICE detention standards through an aggressive inspection program.

Danielle Bennett, ICE spokeswoman, said ICE is confident in conditions and high standards of care at its detention facilities. She said the agency work "regularly with contracted consultants and a variety of external stakeholder to review and improve conditions.

"ICE concurs with the IGs recommendation to further enhance compliance monitoring as part of our already robust inspections program," Bennett said.

In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's office released a report on a variety of unannounced visits to centers for immigrant children.

The Washington Post reported inspectors found inadequate food supplies, temperature-control problems and a high employee-to-detainee ratio at some of the shelters for the unaccompanied children.

Fialho, who called the Thursdays report disturbing, said CIVIC is urging city officials to shut down the Santa Ana City Jail.

We've been working to put pressure on the city to actually completely shut down the facility and repurpose for something that the city really needs, she told VOA.

Fialho said CIVIC will continue to monitor immigration detention center.
Top U.S. and Mexican officials met at the State Department in Washington Thursday and agreed to increase their efforts to disrupt the deadly business of transnational criminal organizations (TCO).

Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said the illegal drugs TCOs peddle are taking an enormous toll on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, with more than 64,000 Americans dying from drug overdoses last year.

WATCH: US, Mexico Step Up Fight Against Illegal Drug Crime, Violence

Sullivan said the death toll from synthetic opioids alone claimed more lives than both heroin and prescription painkillers, and said close collaboration is the only way to track a problem that has no regard for international borders.

"This administration refuses to ignore the problem. The United States will no longer turn the other way or sweep this issue under the rug," Sullivan said. "That is why President [Donald] Trump has made a commitment to fight the opioid epidemic that has destroyed the lives of so many individuals and families throughout our country."

Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the sheer scope of the drug problem demands that the U.S. and Mexico work closely together to share information to disrupt TCOs and their lethal activity.

"Thousands of Americans die due to overdoses. Thousands of Mexicans die to the violence generated by illegal drug trafficking. And we will only be able to solve this problem by working together," Videgaray said.

Sharing criminal history information

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced that she and Mexican Interior Secretary Osorio Chong signed a memorandum of cooperation Thursday to provide Mexico with the U.S. criminal history of repatriated Mexicans.

"The agreement we will sign today will transition to a biometric-based platform, so that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] can share biometric data, notice of more than 350 conviction codes, and any known gang affiliations with our Mexican counterparts and partners," Nielsen said.

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump forcefully vowed to tackle what he and others have called an opioid epidemic. He promised more resources for opioid addiction treatment and to stem the flow of illegal drugs coming across the U.S. southern border with Mexico by building a wall and empowering law enforcement officials.

At Thursdays news conference, reporters asked if Trumps proposed border wall and his threats to pull out of the NAFTA trade agreement impaired security cooperation.

Videgaray and Osorio both said Mexico would always work with the U.S. to combat transnational criminal organizations to help save lives on both sides of the border.
Top U.S. and Mexican officials have agreed to boost efforts to disrupt the deadly business of Transnational Criminal Organizations, or TCO's. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said the illegal drugs these TCO's peddle are taking an enormous toll on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. VOA's Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
The chief U.S. negotiator for North Korea said on Friday the United States should engage in direct diplomacy with Pyongyang alongside sanctions imposed over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered on Tuesday to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions, but the White House later said no negotiations could be held until North Korea improved its behavior.

We should exercise direct diplomacy as well as sanctions. That is our policy, which is based on pressure and engagement, and we do want to engage in pressure and diplomacy, Joseph Yun, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, told reporters in Bangkok.

Japan and Thailand

Yun traveled to Japan and Thailand this week to meet officials to discuss ways to build pressure on North Korea after its latest ballistic missile test.

On Thursday, Yun met the head of Thailands National Security Council, General Wallop Rohsanoh, and deputy foreign minister Weerasak Futrakul.

We had very constructive, open-ended discussion, said Yun. The United States had no specific requests for Thailand, he said.

Thailands Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Tuesday no trade takes place between Thailand and North Korea and that Thailand has abided by United Nations resolutions regarding North Korea.

We had no specific requests. ... It seems like, as the deputy foreign minister said, they are fully complying with United Nations resolutions, Yun told reporters.

Thailand and North Korea

Thailands ties with North Korea have been in the spotlight this year. Tillerson pressed Thailand, the United States oldest ally in Asia, for more action on North Korea during a visit to Bangkok in August.

North Korea has an embassy in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

Despite Tillersons call for talks with Pyongyang without pre-conditions, the White House said now was not the right time and that any negotiations would have to be about giving up its nuclear arsenal.

I think what Secretary Tillerson spoke two or three days ago ... is that we do want to have a dialogue with them. We are open to dialogue and we hope that they will agree to have a dialogue ... he made it clear that we were open, said Yun.

The U.S. delegation said in August it believed North Korean companies operated in Thailand and urged the Thais to shut them.

In response, Thailands foreign ministry told reporters that trade with North Korea had dropped by as much as 94 percent over the previous year. It did not give specific details.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley charged Iran Thursday with illegally supplying weapons to rebels in Yemen as part of what she called a pattern of bad behavior in the region. VOA's U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reports Haley made her case while visiting a military base in Washington.
President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday acknowledging America's strong economic performance, the White House said.

The two presidents spoke by phone following Putins annual press conference in Moscow.

They discussed ways to work together to address North Korea's nuclear and ballistic weapons program, the White House said.

In an equally brief statement, the Kremlin said in addition to North Korea, Trump and Putin discussed relations between their two countries and agreed to stay in contact. The Kremlin made a point of noting that Trump initiated the call.

During his remarks in Moscow, Putin accused those investigating potential collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign of damaging the U.S. political situation, incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him.

Putin also warned the U.S. against using force against North Korea. Trump has repeatedly said that all options remain on the table.
The White House says newly-revealed FBI records show there is "extreme bias" against President Donald Trump among senior leadership at the FBI.



Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley tells Fox News Channel that edits to former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Hillary Clinton's private email server and text messages from a top agent critical of Trump are "deeply troubling."



"There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time," Gidley charges, as special counsel Robert Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBI's rank-and-file the Justice Department.



Trump is scheduled to attend an FBI National Academy graduation service later Friday.
Senior Trump administration officials outlined their view Friday that Jerusalem's Western Wall ultimately will be declared a part of Israel, in another declaration sure to inflame passions among Palestinians and others in the Middle East.

Although they said the ultimate borders of the holy city must be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the officials  speaking ahead of Vice President Mike Pence's trip to the region  essentially ruled out any scenario that didn't maintain Israeli control over the holiest ground in Judaism. The issue is sensitive because the wall is beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders and abuts some of the Islamic world's most revered sites.

"We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not be part of Israel. But as the president said, the specific boundaries of sovereignty of Israel are going to be part of the final status agreement," a senior administration official said. Another official later added by email, "We note that we cannot imagine Israel would sign a peace agreement that didn't include the Western Wall."

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the vice president's upcoming trip.

'We totally reject it'

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, reacted indignantly to the comments.

"We will not accept any changes on the borders of East Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967," Abu Rdeneh told The Associated Press. "This statement proves once again that this American administration is outside the peace process. The continuation of this American policy, whether the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or moving the American Embassy, or such statements, by which the United States decides unilaterally on the issues of the final status negotiations are a violation of international law and strengthen the Israeli occupation. For us, this is unacceptable. We totally reject it. And we totally denounce it."

Pence plans to visit the Western Wall next week. The administration officials said he would be accompanied by a rabbi to preserve the spiritual nature of his planned visit to the hallowed wall in Jerusalem's Old City. The officials said Pence's Wednesday visit would be conducted in a similar manner to that of President Donald Trump's visit in May.

Jerusalem's status has been a central issue in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trump's announcement last week declaring Jerusalem to be Israel's capital shook up decades of U.S. foreign policy and countered an international consensus that Jerusalem's status should be decided in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Pence plans to depart for the Middle East on Tuesday after presiding over the Senate's vote on a sweeping tax overhaul. The vice president will meet Wednesday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo and then travel to Israel. Pence's two-plus days in Israel will include meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a speech at the Knesset and a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Abbas cancels meeting

Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has sparked protests in the Middle East, and Abbas pulled out of a planned meeting with Pence. Abbas had originally been scheduled to host Pence, a devout Christian, in the biblical West Bank town of Bethlehem.

A third senior administration official noted the reaction to the Jerusalem decision and "a lot of the emotions that have been displayed on that." The official said Pence's trip was viewed as part of "the ending of that chapter and the beginning of what I would say the next chapter."

Trump officials said Pence would reinforce Trump's announcement on Jerusalem, but the administration also understands the Palestinians may need a cooling-off period.

Israel captured the Old City, home to important Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious sites, along with the rest of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. The U.S. has never recognized Israeli sovereignty over territory occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. For this reason, U.S. officials have refused to say explicitly that the wall is part of Israel.

The Western Wall, a retaining wall from the biblical Jewish Temple, is considered the holiest site where Jews can pray. Israel controls the wall and treats it like Israeli territory, routinely holding solemn state ceremonies there.

It is widely assumed that Israel would retain control over the site under a potential peace deal. But complicating any deal is the adjacent hilltop site revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews as the Temple Mount. The compound is home to Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, and is where the Jewish Temple once stood. It is considered the holiest site in Judaism.
In an open space that Zimbabwes ruling party has called Robert Mugabe Square, delegates gathered Friday to seal the fate of a man they had revered for decades but removed from power in dramatic scenes last month.

Emmerson Mnangagwa has been inaugurated as the new president and party leader, replacing Mugabe, who had led the party since 1975 and the country since independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Fridays ZANU-PF party meeting is the final step in Mugabes fall from grace after the military put him under house arrest, hundreds of thousands rallied in the streets and lawmakers began impeachment proceedings. Under the growing pressure, the 93-year-old who had vowed to rule for life finally resigned.

The decision to remove Mugabe as party leader was made by the Central Committee, and it is a foregone conclusion delegates will ratify, party spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo said.

Mugabe missing

Images of Mugabes face, usually plastered on delegates dress and other paraphernalia, were conspicuously missing, as was Mugabe himself. He flew to Malaysia and Singapore earlier this week to visit family and seek medical treatment in his first overseas trip since last months events.

Mnangagwa at his inauguration described Mugabe as a father, comrade-in-arms and my leader, even though his firing by Mugabe as vice president early last month set the events in motion amid concerns that unpopular first lady Grace Mugabe might succeed him.

Mugabes time was up the moment he surrendered power to his wife, some party delegates said.

The ruling party also was expected to endorse the 75-year-old Mnangagwa as party leader and its presidential candidate for next years elections, Moyo said.

Much for Mnangagwa to do

Now Mnangagwa must find a way out of his longtime mentors shadow, revive the severely weakened economy and win over voters ahead of elections.

On Thursday, he called for longtime sanctions to be lifted to ease foreign investment and promised measures to make the once-prosperous southern African nation a place where capital feels safe.

The opposition, shut out of Mnangagwas Cabinet in favor of military and ruling party members, has joined the United States and others in the international community in urging Zimbabwes new government to make sure next years elections are democratic. Mnangagwa, sanctioned by the U.S. years ago for his activities as a top Mugabe aide, has said the government will do all in its power to make sure the elections are credible, free and fair.
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa appealed Friday to his ZANU-PF party to unite ahead of next year's elections.

Mnangagwa spoke to about 6,000 delegates at a ZANU-PF congress after delegates endorsed him as the party's leader and its candidate for the 2018 elections.

The party was divided for years over who should succeed longtime president Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa took office less than a month ago, after the army forced Mugabe to step down.

The new president spoke of the challenges the country faces as his government tries to revive a moribund economy.

"The task at hand is that of rebuilding our great country," he said. "The government will leave no stone unturned to fully explore rich resources."

Mnangagwa did not castigate his predecessor, whom he had worked with for more than 50 years before being fired, purportedly for showing disloyalty to Mugabe.

Mnangagwa appealed for patience on economic matters, and he asked businesses and officials to shun corruption and unreasonable price increases.

'Turn over a new leaf'

"Let us look forward with hope and love. Let bygones be bygones," he said. "However, let those who have been forgiven should not think we have forgotten. Let us turn over a new leaf and renew ourselves."

As Mnangagwa was speaking at Robert Gabriel Mugabe Square, several of his former allies were appearing before a judge at Harare Magistrates Court.

The defendants face criminal nuisance charges for wearing ZANU-PF hats on social media after being kicked out of the party.

They included Ignatius Chombo, who was finance minister when Mugabe fired Mnangagwa as vice president on November 5, triggering the events that led to Mugabe's downfall. This was the second time Chombo had been arrested since Mnangagwa came into office.

Lovemore Madhuku, Chombo's attorney, said, "It is very likely that we may be under military rule. This is exactly the way the courts were operating under President Mugabe. And we see just that. Unless there is a signal to change, we will just be in for a very difficult scenario."

Madhuku wants the court to dismiss his client's case, saying Mnangagwa was trying to punish all those who supported former first lady Grace Mugabe, who was Mnangagwa's main rival in the fight to succeed Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwes recently-sworn in Foreign Minister, Retired General Sibusiso Moyo, says he and the new government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa are pursuing a new agenda for the country, despite being part of the same party and government of the past 37-years.

Naturally, whilst its the same government, Zanu-PF government, but obviously its doing things differently because of the personalities, he explained to VOAs Zimbabwe Service.

The retired general, most famously remembered for being the face of the November 14th military takeover when he announced it on the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), said his ministrys top priorities include reengaging with the international community and developing the economy and creating a better life for the people of Zimbabwe.

It is a ministry now which is focusing on reassuring our friends and creating new friends, reengagement with those who were sitting on the fence before, said Moyo, referring to western countries such as the United States and countries in the European Union, and others who had pulled away from Zimbabwe and imposed targeted sanctions due to allegations of human rights abuses and rigged elections.

Revisiting his criticism of the testimonies to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations by Tendai Biti of the MDC Alliance, Dewa Mavhinga of Human Rights Watch, and author and journalist Peter Godwin on The Future of Zimbabwe, Moyo said its important for Zimbabweans to show unity at this time, specially on the issue of sanctions, which he said must be lifted.

"If you are going to assert that a particular government must maintain a certain position where we know that there are sanctions which hurt the people of Zimbabwe, then we are not sure exactly who you are representing. If you have got a problem, let's talk about it," challenged Moyo.

He said as a government, they are not opposed to Zimbabweans engaging with the world, but the agenda should be in light with that of his his ministry and government.

"I'ts not an issue of Zanu-PF. We must be responsible citizens. We are all Zimbabweans and we are not a government of a party, we are a government of all the people of Zimbabwe and therefore, when there are issues that need dialogue, they must be discussed in-house. We dont just say if we have got certain grievances, 10-days of a government into office  we dont really restrict personalities going outside the country, it's not our desire, but we are saying the issues which must be discussed, in different forums must be those which resonate with national interest."

On the welfare of Zimbabweans, Moyo said, Our primary interest at the moment is economic development and emancipation of our people. And in that regard, we are expecting that our function is going to be directing direct foreign investment into Zimbabwe and then also create markets where products are going to be exported into the world.

With millions of Zimbabweans in the diaspora looking for answers on whether or not the new government will make it possible for them to vote from abroad, Moyo deferred to the constitution, which does not specifically speak to the diaspora vote, but states that all Zimbabweans over the age of 18 are eligible to vote.

In as far as the issue of vote is concerned, we are going to follow the law, what the law says, and we are going to be constitutionally compliant, throughout., he said.

Secondly, as far as attracting them back, we are going to be creating an appropriate environment so that our diasporians can then be comfortable to come back home and interact, and set up businesses, secure businesses in a very successful economy of Zimbabwe.
Mayor of Rome announces plans to redevelop Tiber river.

Rome will have an artificial beach on the banks of the river Tiber next summer, according to plans announced by the city's mayor Virginia Raggi on 14 December.The proposal envisages transforming 10,000 sqm of riverside land near Ponte Marconi into a sandy beach  based on the Parisian model  with the addition of sporting areas.The plan to reclaim the once abandoned land, between the S. Paolo and Marconi districts south of the city centre, is part of a wider redevelopment project to make the Tiber "more usable" for Rome residents.Acknowledging that Rome's river does not represent "a living and pulsating part of the city unlike many European capitals", Raggi said the beach initiative is the first step in the Tiber's "path of recovery."Central to the plan is the establishment of a special Tiber office to allow for collaboration between the numerous authorities responsible for the upkeep of the river, pooling information across a range of issues including the environment, dredging, security, flooding, cycle paths, illegal camps and dumping.Raggi said her administration is also looking into the installation of a 12.5-km riverside cycle track to connect the capital with the coast at Fiumicino. Other projects being examined include weeding riverbanks and disinfecting for mosquitoes using biological methods.This is not the first time that Rome will have a man-made beach on the Tiber: in 2005 former mayor Walter Veltroni launched the Tevere Village beach under Castel S. Angelo, between Ponte S. Angelo and Ponte Umberto I.

Photo ANSA
News feed

Getting bigger: The seven-lawyer communications and technology law firm Bennet & Bennet is joining Womble Bond Dickinson's Washington office in January. Bennet & Bennet serves as general counsel to the Rural Wireless Association.

Acquisition: A Pittsburgh-based staffing company called System One has acquired GAP Solutions, a Herndon government contractor that employs nearly 400 nationwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Better be good: Germantown weather data provider Earth Networks has been selected by the North American Aerospace Defense Command to feed live weather conditions to the NORAD Tracks Santa online program, allowing visitors to keep tabs on St. Nick as he makes his way across the globe on Christmas.

the buzz

We dont want to let Inova down.

David Ho, founder of Rockville-based HeMemics Biotechnologies, the first young company to join the portfolio of health-tech start-ups that are part of the Inova Personalized Health Accelerator in Merrifield. In an interview published by the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, Ho said HeMemics is working to develop tests that can rapidly diagnose bacterial and viral pathogens, turning around results in 15 seconds instead of the current 24 hours.
Delegates hold signs reading "Make America First Again" during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. It was a theme of Donald Trumps presidential campaign. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

On the Friday before Thanksgiving, Kenny Johnson left the Nelson Global Products plant in Clinton, Tenn., for the last time. Having devoted nearly 13 years to making tractor-trailer exhaust pipes, Johnson, 41, spent some of his final weeks at the plant watching Mexican workers train to take his job.

They brought three or four groups at different times, he said. To learn the jobs that are going to Mexico.

This was the kind of economic dislocation that President Trump vowed to prevent with his America First policies. Over the past year, he threatened to impose a new tax on companies eyeing offshore locales and repeatedly proclaimed the imminent return of millions of lost American jobs from overseas.

But presidential jawboning has been no match for the market. To cut costs in a competitive global environment, Nelson Global executives in May announced the closure of the Clinton facility and a sister plant in Minnesota.

Clintons 149 jobs and equipment were distributed among company facilities in North Carolina and Monterrey, Mexico, workers said, even as the president trumpeted his agenda of economic nationalism in Washington.

He hollered that he was going to put a stop to that, Johnson said. And he obviously did not.

Trump, in fact, might actually make things worse.

What happened to the workers in Clinton, tax experts say, will probably happen to more Americans if the Republican tax overhaul becomes law. The legislation fails to eliminate long-standing incentives for companies to move overseas and, in some cases, may even increase them, they say.

[Despite Trumps ire, Ireland expects to avoid any pain from U.S. tax overhaul]

This bill is potentially more dangerous than our current system, said Stephen Shay, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and former Treasury Department international tax expert in the Obama administration. It creates a real incentive to shift real activity offshore.

As a candidate, Trump vowed to stop companies from moving offshore by imposing a 35 percent border tax on those that sought to ship products home from their new foreign plants.

A Trump administration will stop the jobs from leaving America, he told a cheering crowd in Hershey, Pa., the weekend before Election Day. The theft of American prosperity will end.

As president, he appeared to score a quick victory by persuading Carrier to reverse a planned relocation of 1,100 Indiana jobs to Mexico, though the company proceeded months later with hundreds of layoffs.

Trump has rejected what he called the offshoring model and said a simple pro-American tax code would be essential to reversing the job drain.

The biggest winners will be everyday working families as jobs start pouring into our country, he said in September.

This year, companies such as Wells Fargo, Microsemi and Caterpillar have announced plans to shift work overseas from U.S. sites, according to a Labor Department office that determines worker eligibility for retraining aid. Along with relocating assembly lines, other companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, have avoided U.S. taxes by formally assigning the intellectual properties behind innovative products  and the profit that comes from them  to foreign jurisdictions.

The United States loses about $100 billion annually in forgone tax payments to corporate profit shifting, said Kimberly Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College who specializes in the taxation of multinational firms.

The final version of the tax bill would reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent, one of the worlds highest, to 21 percent. That change, a response to long-standing pleas from the business community, is designed to encourage more investment in the United States, which in turn would create more jobs and lift wages.

Yet as Congress nears a final vote on the almost-500-page legislation, some workers have soured on the plan.

Knowing President Trump, itll probably benefit companies and the higher-up people more than everyday workers like us, said Johnson, who earned $16 an hour as a materials handler.

Under current law, the 35 percent corporate tax is due on profit earned overseas only when it is returned stateside. The legislation, however, would permit the estimated $2.6 trillion that corporations have stockpiled outside the country to return to the United States subject to a rate expected to be around 15 percent.

[GOP considers shortening duration of tax cuts for families as a way to fund changes to tax plan]

In the future, corporations would be required to pay about a 10 percent minimum tax on overseas income above a certain level. The provision is billed as a way to discourage the movement of jobs and profit overseas. But the fine print of the new global minimum tax would make the problem worse, several tax specialists said.

The overall effects of this are going to be unambiguously bad for the workers that its ostensibly designed to help, Clausing said.

There are three reasons, according to nonpartisan tax experts. First, a corporation would pay that global minimum tax only on profit above a routine rate of return on the tangible assets  such as factories  it has overseas. So the more equipment a corporation has in other countries, the more tax-free income it can earn. The legislation thus offers corporations a perverse incentive to shift assembly lines abroad, said Steve Rosenthal of the Tax Policy Center.

Second, the bill sets the routine return at 10 percent  far more generous than would typically be the case. Such allowances are normally fixed a couple of percentage points above risk-free Treasury yields, which are currently around 2.4 percent.

As a result, a U.S. corporation that builds a $100 million plant in another country and makes a foreign profit of $20 million would pay roughly $1 million in tax versus $4 million on the same profit if earned in the United States, said Rosenthal, who has been a tax lawyer for 25 years and drafted tax legislation as a staffer for the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Finally, the minimum levy would be calculated on a global average rather than for individual countries where a corporation operates. So a U.S. multinational could lower its tax bill by shifting profit from U.S. locations to tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

Its unclear how taxes affected Nelson Globals restructuring decision. Company officials did not respond to telephone and email requests for comment. As a rule, factors such as relative wage rates, proximity to customers and availability of workers shape corporate location decisions.

To really slam the door on offshoring, the minimum tax should be calculated on a country-by-country basis, and the rate should be set closer to the 21 percent U.S. rate, Rebecca Kysar, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in international tax law, and other analysts say.

Companies also are likely to continue to locate valuable intellectual property overseas to pay a lower rate than what they would face in the United States, likely to be around 20 percent, analysts said.

The plan does not meaningfully reduce the incentives for companies to move their operations and shift their income overseas, Kysar said. You could say it will make things worse.

Apple is perhaps the most prominent among many corporations that have legally avoided billions of dollars in U.S. taxes through paper maneuvers that assign lucrative intellectual properties behind products such as software to low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

By establishing foreign subsidiaries that legally had no tax residence  and in at least one case had no physical presence and no employees  the company escaped massive tax bills, according to a 2013 Senate investigation.

Such gamesmanship leads to financial results that defy common sense. In 2008, the most recent year available, U.S. companies foreign units booked nearly $77 billion in profit in Ireland, one of Europes smallest countries, and just $22 billion in Germany, the most populated, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The tax codes role in encouraging U.S. companies to move jobs or profit to other countries has been a perennial source of political debate, especially among liberals. In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) decried Benedict Arnold corporations for shirking their tax bills by slipping abroad.

Eight years later, Barack Obama called Mitt Romney the outsourcer in chief for presiding over job movements as a private-equity executive at Bain Capital.

In 2008, the $938 billion in profit reported by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies was more than triple the 2000 figure, while the number of workers employed by those units increased over the same period by just 21 percent.

Still, its difficult to get a precise estimate of the number of jobs that have moved offshore since globalization kicked into high gear with Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The Economic Policy Institute, a labor-union-backed think tank, says 3.2 million jobs were lost or displaced because of Chinese competition; Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University, says trade has cost the U.S. 750,000 workers.

Over the past seven years, almost 1 million new factory jobs have been created in the United States. But total manufacturing employment remains at 12.5 million, almost exactly what it was in 1941, shortly after Nelson Global Products first opened its doors.

In May, Steve Scgalski, the companys chief executive, announced the plant closures in Tennessee and Minnesota, billing them as essential to ensure cost effectiveness and the continued growth of the company.

Workers in Clinton like Robert Powell, 56, a forklift operator, struggled to understand the rationale. The plant was doing pretty good, he said. Keeping up with orders, best safety record around.

When vans began bringing small groups of Mexican workers to the factory this summer, Powell was among those who taught them how to operate the factory equipment. Hampered by the language barrier, he resorted to hand signals.

In October, a Labor Department official in Washington ruled that the Nelson Global workers were eligible for retraining and health insurance through a federal program designed to help workers hurt by trade.

With just a high school degree, Powell worries that his age and relative lack of education will hurt his prospects. But he hopes to use the retraining aid to earn a truck drivers license.

Powell clocked out from his $11.50-an-hour job for the last time Dec. 1, just a few hours before the Senate approved a $1.5 trillion tax cut on a nearly straight-party-line vote. The Republican measure is heavily tilted toward corporations and the well-to-do, analysts say, despite the presidents initial promise of delivering relief for the middle class.

Powell lives in Morgan County, where Trump last year trounced Hillary Clinton 5,441 to 1,054. Hes really wanting to do good stuff for us, he said of the president. Hes pretty popular around this area.

Asked whether he expects to benefit from the tax cut, Powell paused. Its hard to say, he finally said. I was hoping I would.


Recently retired DEA investigator James Rafalski and Sen. Maggie Hassan D-N.H.). (Photos by Mark Abramson and Kristoffer Tripplaar for The Washington Post/Washington Post illustration)

A new law supported by opioid distributors and manufacturers is making it increasingly difficult to hold companies accountable when they run afoul of the nations drug laws, according to recently retired Drug Enforcement Administration investigators on the front lines of the war against opioids.

They join a chorus of voices  including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, 44 state attorneys general and the head of the DEA office that regulates pharmaceuticals  who are calling for changes to the law.

The field investigators said the new law is hurting efforts to halt suspicious shipments of prescription pain pills and slowing the agencys investigative efforts. Morale within the ranks of the DEAs field divisions has plummeted, they said in interviews with The Washington Post and 60 Minutes for a joint investigation that will be published and broadcast Sunday.

The law makes it much harder for us to do our jobs, said James Rafalski, who retired in June after a 39-year career in law enforcement, the last 13 years with the DEA.

The Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016 was pushed through Congress by a small band of lawmakers backed by a powerful array of drug companies. The law has undermined the DEAs most potent tools in the war against the opioid epidemic, according to agency investigators, agents, lawyers and the DEAs chief administrative law judge.

The legislation was the subject of a joint investigation by The Post and "60 Minutes" in October. On Sunday, a follow-up investigation will examine the obstacles investigators encountered during the biggest case the DEA has ever pursued against a drug distributor.

The law was sponsored by Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) in the House. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) negotiated a final version with the DEA in the Senate.

After the October report, Marino withdrew his nomination to become drug czar, which would have put him in charge of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that he was "dubious" about the law when he was a senator and has since come to the conclusion that it should be changed. Forty-four state attorneys general, as well as Democratic lawmakers in Congress, have called for its repeal.

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, the head of the DEA office that regulates the pharmaceutical industry said the law has made enforcement more difficult in urgent circumstances and should be revised.

The DEA, along with the Department of Justice, believes that has to change, said Demetra Ashley, acting assistant administrator in charge of the agencys Diversion Control Division.

John Parker, a spokesman for the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, the leading industry group for drug distributors, said the law has not hampered DEAs enforcement actions, which he pointed out had fallen before the law was enacted. Parker said the DEA has other tools to combat the epidemic, including controlling quotas for opioid production, punishing pharmacists and doctors, and tracking drug distribution data.

The DEA is the only entity that has the full picture and scope of controlled substances across the supply chain, Parker said.

The Post has previously reported that DEA enforcement actions began dropping in 2013 after agency attorneys began requiring higher standards of proof to bring cases, as the DEA pursued a path of greater cooperation with industry.

DEA investigators and agents said in recent interviews with The Post and "60 Minutes" that the law has further hobbled their efforts at the height of the prescription opioid epidemic, which claimed nearly 200,000 lives between 2000 and 2016.

Previously, the agency had broad authority to freeze drug shipments that posed an imminent danger to the community in an action called an immediate suspension. Under the new law, the DEA must demonstrate that a companys actions represent a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat, a much higher bar. The law also allows companies to submit corrective action plans before the DEA can sanction them.

This Marino-Hatch bill is outrageous, said Jim Geldhof, a DEA program manager who retired in 2015 after 43 years with the DEA. It basically takes any kind of action DEA was going to do with a distributor or manufacturer as far as an immediate suspension off the table. And then the other part of that really infuriates me is that corrective action plan.

Geldhof now works as a consultant to lawyers suing drug companies over the opioid crisis.



Retired DEA investigator Jim Geldhof, photographed in New York City in November 2017, calls the Marino-Hatch bill outrageous. He spent 43 years with the DEA. (Mark Abramson/For The Washington Post)

Supporters of the new law defend it as a means of protecting patients while not damaging the DEAs mission.

This was an effort to ensure that DEAs praiseworthy efforts to stem abuse dont end up hurting legitimate patients, Hatch said during Tuesdays Senate hearing. He noted that the law was an effort to provide clearer guidance to supply chain members and to encourage greater cooperation between DEA and the registrant community.

Marino defended the law in a statement issued Tuesday.

Throughout the entire process my office and Senator Hatchs office worked closely with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement [Administration] to find acceptable language, he wrote. When the legislation was finalized in the Senate, both the DOJ and the DEA had signed off on the final language. After the legislation was passed, there was no objection by the White House or any Agency and the bill was signed into law.

DEA investigators and agents said Hatch is misinformed.

I could not disagree more, said David Schiller, who recently retired as the DEAs assistant special agent in charge of the Denver division after a 30-year career. If somebody makes that statement, they dont have all the facts.

Helen Kaupang, who was a DEA investigator and supervisor for 29 years before she retired in September, said the law has made it more difficult to bring cases against companies suspected of violating the nations drugs laws. She called the provision that permits companies to submit corrective plans a get out of jail free card because those plans slow the DEA in taking action against companies and allow them to continue to distribute drugs.

I had young investigators that were enthusiastic. They were excited. They wanted to turn the world upside down, Kaupang said.

Since the passage of the law, she said, morale has plummeted.

Its a very sad state of affairs, she said.

The October investigative report revealed that an early version of the law was written by a drug company lawyer who once worked at the DEA, according to a government email. The law was part of a multifaceted industry campaign to blunt enforcement efforts against drug companies.

Congress approved the bill by unanimous consent, a parliamentary procedure that does not require a recorded vote. President Barack Obama signed it into law in April 2016. Former administration officials said afterward that the White House was unaware of the bills import. A senior DEA official said the bill was completely unnecessary and would have passed with us or without us.

Rafalski, the recently retired DEA investigator, said he was particularly incensed by the provision of the law that allows a company suspected of wrongdoing to submit a corrective action plan before it can be sanctioned. He is now working as a consultant to lawyers suing drug companies.

In August 2016, after the law took effect, Rafalski was examining the documents of a drug company that was failing to properly monitor the controlled substances it handled.

On the third day of a scheduled three-week audit, the company notified Rafalski that it had filed a corrective action plan.

Rafalski said a less-experienced or aggressive investigator might have backed off at that point. But he said he persisted and demanded to see the companys records anyway. As he continued to conduct his audit, he said company officials realized that they would not be able to defend the number of violations he had found. The company voluntarily surrendered its DEA registration to handle controlled substances, he said.



James Rafalski retired in June after 39 years in law enforcement, 13 of them with the DEA. The law passed last year makes it much harder for us to do our jobs, said Rafalski, seen in New York City in November. (Mark Abramson/For The Washington Post)

The attitude by investigators at the field level is there is no basis for this law, he said.

Democratic members of Congress, led by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), have called for repealing the legislation. So far, no Republican senators have signed on.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who is co-sponsoring the repeal bill, said members of Congress were fooled by the legislation. He said it was camouflaged by carefully crafted legal language and carried a misleading title that promised access to drugs for patients who truly need them and tougher drug enforcement efforts against those who violate the law.

Manchin, whose state suffers from the highest prescription drug overdose rate in the nation, said he and his colleagues relied on the word of a handful of lawmakers that the legislation was noncontroversial and should be quickly passed by unanimous consent.

When you get duped as we did, then its our responsibility to fix it immediately, Manchin said. Were going to overturn that bill. It has to be overturned. The power has to be back to the DEA. The DEA has to be held responsible for the job theyre supposed to do, and weve got to make sure thats done and done immediately. There shouldnt be any hesitation.



Sen. Joe Manchin III represents West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of prescription drug overdoses in the nation. The Democrat is co-sponsoring a repeal of the Marino-Hatch bill. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Two days after The Post/60 Minutes report, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) confronted Elizabeth Gallenagh, general counsel and senior vice president for government affairs at the Healthcare Distribution Alliance. The alliance has said the law does not undermine the DEAs enforcement powers.

Hassan questioned Gallenagh about a law review article written by Chief DEA Administrative Law Judge John J. Mulrooney II that was sharply critical of the Marino-Hatch bill.

The point is that your organization  which lobbied aggressively for this law last year  claimed that it does not decrease the DEAs enforcement against distributors, she told Gallenagh during an Oct. 17 congressional hearing. The DEA chief administrative law judge says youre wrong  that the law completely eliminates the DEAs ability to take certain enforcement actions. Its his job to interpret the law. So is the judge wrong? Or was your organizations statement misleading?

I believe that the judges statement was misleading, Gallenagh said. And I stand behind our organizations statement.

Hassan said in a recent interview that she was stunned to hear one of the nations most influential drug industry groups attack the integrity of the DEAs chief judge.

She accused the administrative law judge of misleading the public, of misleading us. And I thought that was astounding, Hassan said. What I am looking for from the pharmaceutical industry is a true recognition that their product has fueled an addiction that is killing people and that they have an actual responsibility to do something about it. And Im not seeing it.

Responding on behalf of Gallenagh, Parker pointed to a recent comment by Ashley, the DEA diversion chief, that agency employees have not been hamstrung in a manner that we cannot continue to do our jobs.

Parker added that the alliance would welcome the opportunity to meet with Sen. Hassan to discuss the law and its effect on enforcement in greater detail.
This week in 1815, Jane Austen was preparing for her 40th birthday on Dec. 16. But rather than looking forward to the gifts she might receive, her thoughts were occupied by what she was in a position to give. Emma would soon be published, and Austen was entitled to complimentary copies. Feeling obliged to offer most of these dozen books to relatives, she was left with only three. These she earmarked for wildly different recipients: an amateur-writer friend, Anne Sharp; the best-selling novelist Maria Edgeworth; and the prince regent, who had already sent a request to the author for a copy. Whats more, he wanted Austen to dedicate her novel to him.



Jane Austen (Johnson Wilson & Co., Publishers/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

The stories behind Austens choice of these three recipients reveal moral dilemmas that still speak with uncanny resonance to women today.

Austen was distressed by the demands of the prince regent, a man shed long despised for his famed womanizing. A few years earlier, when a royal sex scandal swept the nation, her sympathies had rested with his estranged wife. Because she is a woman, the novelist explained privately to a female friend, & because I hate her Husband.

But then, as now, it was dangerous to stand up publicly to a powerful man  especially once he had set his sights on you. On recently receiving a royal command to visit one of the princes residences, Austen had felt duty-bound to attend. It was in these lavishly decorated chambers, heavy on crystal and gilt, that she had been invited to dedicate Emma to His Royal Highness.

Austen abhorred the prospect of associating herself with a philanderer who flaunted his wealth when most of the country was struggling to make ends meet, and so shed dared to ask the court librarian whether she might avoid making the requested dedication. Since his response failed to offer reassurance, Austen grudgingly concluded that she could not risk spurning the ruler of the land.

Nonetheless, she could console herself that such a dedication might help her leverage greater financial security and literary acclaim  aims she was not shy to admit. And she could at least reserve her final copies of Emma for two fellow female writers, although her reasons for choosing each of them could not have been more different.

Maria Edgeworth, then one of Britains most famous novelists, was far better known than Austen. A resulting endorsement from this established author could have brought Austen improved sales and greater recognition. But Edgeworth failed even to acknowledge receipt of the gift. She would later confess to admiring Austens novel, but  perhaps protecting her space at the top  she never openly praised her literary peer.

In contrast, Austens response to the work of her contemporary offers inspiration to ambitious women today. Using one of the few outlets available to her, she publicly complimented Edgeworths work within the pages of one of her own novels, Northanger Abbey. This sisterly act demonstrates the importance of talented women amplifying each others achievements.



A Secret Sisterhood, by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt )

Austens behavior feels particularly relevant in the current climate, since it is only by working together that women will overturn the threatening behavior that still too often prevails among powerful men. The little-known story behind Austens class-defying friendship with Anne Sharp  an amateur playwright whod worked as one of the familys governesses  suggests that these two women understood the importance of female solidarity in the face of male entitlement. By selecting Sharp as the final recipient of a precious copy of Emma, Austen chose to favor this unlikely friend over her own brother, Sharps former employer.

By this stage, Sharp had confided in Austen about the trials she had endured over the course of her working life. In one home, she had suffered the advances of a man who held power over her  a common problem for governesses, who, as neither typical servants nor family members, were vulnerable to predatory upper-class men. Austen, long aware of her friends isolation, had always gone out of her way to help. This included looking for alternative employment for Sharp and inviting her to stay to get her out of harms way. And Austen accepted without question the governesss allegations of sexual harassment.

Sharp would have made a far more fitting dedicatee for Emma than the licentious prince regent. She would have understood the predicament of the heroine, who finds herself trapped in a carriage with a man who repeatedly takes hold of her against her will. When he ignores her quiet attempts to rebut his advances, Emma summons the courage to speak  her voice a gift of resistance to all who read of this struggle today and dare to say, Me Too.

Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney are the authors of "A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf."
A 1920s-era brick garage on Adolf Cluss Court SE in the Capitol Hill neighborhood has been renovated to become two 2,700-square-foot apartments.

The master bedroom at 322 Adolf Cluss Court SE, in a building converted from a three-car garage. Keith Lane/for The Washington Post
Gregory C. Hutchings Jr., a graduate of T.C. Williams High School, will return in July to helm Alexandrias public schools. (Alexandria City Public Schools)

A familiar face is poised to lead Alexandria's public schools.

The city's school board has selected Gregory C. Hutchings Jr., a graduate of the city's T.C. Williams High School and former administrator in Alexandria's schools, to rejoin the 15,000-student school system July 1. Alexandria's school board was expected to formalize a contract with Hutchings at its Thursday night meeting, district spokeswoman Helen Lloyd said.

Hutchings, 40, said the Northern Virginia district is where his lifelong passion for education began.

I am honored to return to my hometown and to advocate for and encourage the next generation of leaders, Hutchings said in a statement. I look forward to collaborating with the school board and community to continue on the path to ensuring that every student succeeds.

The school board conducted focus groups and surveys to determine characteristics that community members desired in a superintendent, Lloyd said. A recruitment agency used that criteria to help vet and search for candidates. The school board conducted interviews based on that search, Lloyd said, and chose Hutchings about a week ago.

Hutchings will return to Alexandria from Shaker Heights City School District in suburban Cleveland, where he is in his fifth year as superintendent. He's credited with helping that district close achievement gaps, leading efforts to refine business processes and galvanizing public support to address school building needs, the release said.

[Alexandria schools superintendent to step down]

Alexandria school board chair Ramee Gentry welcomed Hutchingss homecoming.

We are delighted to have a homegrown leader with deep roots in our community, Gentry said in a statement.

Before moving to Ohio, Hutchings served in Alexandria from 2010 to 2013. He was promoted from director of middle school programs to director of pre-K-12 initiatives, a job in which he supervised principals and instruction in elementary, middle and high schools.

The school district declined to provide details of Hutchings's salary until a contract is formally signed at Thursday's meeting. Alvin Crawley, whom Hutchings will replace after Crawley left to become an education professor at George Mason University, drew an annual base salary of $215,000.

Hutchings taught in Prince William County and served as an assistant middle school principal in Chesterfield County, a Richmond suburb, according to the school district. He also worked in Tennessee, where he was recognized as middle school principal of the year by the Tennessee Association of Middle Schools for boosting student achievement.

Hutchings earned a bachelors degree in interdisciplinary studies from Old Dominion University and a masters in educational leadership from George Mason University. In 2010, he received a doctorate in educational policy, planning and leadership from the College of William & Mary.

Lois F. Berlin, retired Falls Church schools superintendent, is serving as interim superintendent in Alexandria.
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) rejected a request for more flexibility in setting the final day of school in Maryland. (Randy Mays)

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) appeared to reject a request from Montgomery Countys school board to allow more flexibility in setting the last day of classes, suggesting that county officials have more pressing matters than continuing to engage in this debate.

Hogan's letter Thursday said an overwhelming majority of parents, teachers and students support starting the school year after Labor Day, as Hogan required in an executive order he signed in 2016.

The school district in the Washington suburbs has struggled to meet Hogans mandate, which also requires that classes end by June 15  creating a calendar crunch that officials say has forced tough choices about days off on holidays and for spring break.

Montgomerys school board wrote Hogan earlier this month urging he change his executive order so that the third Friday in June is the end of the school year. The change would allow for yearly calendar fluctuations. For example, June 15 is the third Friday in 2018. But in 2020, the third Friday falls on June 19.

The board said it was not asking for a change in when schools open.

But Hogan appeared not to be swayed. He wrote that Montgomery, the states largest school system, had recently approved a calendar that allows days off on religious holidays, while providing for spring break and two full professional days for teachers.

Montgomery County accomplished all of this with a school calendar including 182 instructional days, two more than what is required, Hogan wrote in the letter, addressed to school board president Michael Durso.

Hogan suggested that Durso may have overlooked a previous letter the governor wrote in March, rejecting a request from Montgomery. In that letter, Durso had more generally asked for a reexamination of the requirement that school end by June 15.

[Starting after Labor Day forces some school districts to cut back on spring break]

Durso said in an interview Thursday he was fully aware of Hogans previous letter, which Hogan enclosed in his response.

We were hoping he might be willing to be a bit flexible on the end date, he said. Hes made his point clear, and well do our best to work out the calendar and future calendars within those constraints, but it really is a bit of a challenge.

In his earlier letter, dated March 29, Hogan swiped at the county board, saying its true motivation appeared to be protecting teachers union contracts that require an unreasonable number of professional days. He suggested the board consider shifting its focus from arguing over which 180 days class is in session to ensuring that students are safe in your schools.

The letter was written about two weeks after Montgomery County police charged two students with raping a 14-year-old classmate in a bathroom stall at Rockville High School. But those charges, prosecutors would later say, could not be supported by evidence. Prosectors dropped the rape charges in May.

[Montgomery calendar cuts spring break for 2018-2019]

Montgomerys school board adopted a calendar for the 2018-2019 academic year that cuts spring break by two days, designates two full teacher professional days and continues its practice of closing schools on the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

School is scheduled to start Sept. 4, after Labor Day, and end June 13. In the 2018-2019 year, June 14 is a snow make-up day and June 15 is a Saturday.

Patricia ONeill, chair of a board committee that considers the calendar, said the panel was seeking relief only at the end of the school year as it balanced competing priorities. She described Hogans reaction as knee-jerk.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest someone during a targeted enforcement operation in early 2017. (Charles Reed/AP)

The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security has criticized several immigration detention facilities for having spoiled and moldy food and inadequate medical care, and for inappropriate treatment of detainees, such as locking down a detainee for sharing coffee and interfering with Muslims prayer times.

Acting Inspector General John V. Kelly, who took over Dec. 1, said the watchdog agency identified problems at four detention centers during recent, unannounced visits to five facilities. The Dec. 11 report , released Thursday, said the flaws "undermine the protection of detainees' rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and healthy environment."

Staff did not always treat detainees respectfully and professionally, and some facilities may have misused segregation, the report found, adding that observers found potentially unsafe and unhealthy detention conditions.

[Read the report]

Immigration and Customs Enforcement jails tens of thousands of immigrants for civil immigration violations, holding them until they are deported or released in the United States. The jails are not supposed to be punitive, according to the report.

ICE concurred with the inspector generals findings and said it is taking action to fix the problems, some of which have already been addressed.

Based on multi-layered, rigorous inspections and oversight programs, ICE is confident in conditions and high standards of care at its detention facilities, the agency said in a statement. To ensure the safety and well-being of those in our custody, we work regularly with contracted consultants and a variety of external stakeholders to review and improve detention conditions at ICE facilities.

The Office of Inspector General said it launched the surprise inspections after receiving complaints from immigrant advocacy groups and on its hotline about treatment of detainees. The inspectors also interviewed staff members and detainees and examined records.

Advocates for immigrants said the report reaffirmed their long-standing calls for the detention facilities to be closed. Advocates have complained about reports of physical and sexual assaults, deaths in detention and other concerns for years under past presidents  and say their worries are increasing under President Trump.

Trump has pledged to dramatically increase deportations and is seeking congressional approval for more than 51,000 detention beds this fiscal year, up from about 30,000 under President Barack Obama.

Trump's pick for the permanent director of ICE, Thomas D. Homan, previously ran the ICE detention system.

The realities documented by the OIG inspectors, and many more, are endemic to the entire detention system, Mary Small, policy director at Detention Watch Network, a nonprofit group that monitors immigration detention, said in a statement. ICE has proven time and time again to be incapable of meeting basic standards for humane treatment.

In a statement, Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Project South, in Atlanta, cited the death in May of Jean Jimenez-Joseph. The 27-year-old Panamanian national was held in solitary confinement for 19 days at the Stewart Detention Center in rural Georgia, according to Project South.

Shahshahani said his death should have served as a final wake-up call and resulted in the immediate closure of the facility.

The Inspector Generals office did not provide the dates of the inspections and did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Officials praised one facility, in Laredo, Tex., for its treatment of immigrants and said the severity of problems at the other detention centers varied.

At all four facilities, the Homeland Security watchdog said, kitchens had "moldy produce" and thawing meat in packages that failed to indicate an expiration date. Multiple detainees said they faced long waits for medical care, including those with painful conditions such as infected teeth and a knee injury. Two detainees, one at the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey and another at the Santa Ana City Jail in Santa Ana, Calif., waited months for eyeglasses.

In some facilities, immigrants with criminal records were housed with noncriminals, the report said. Jailers sometimes did not use interpreters to communicate with detainees, and some staff members failed to take detainees grievances.

In the Stewart center, staff members sometimes interrupted or delayed Muslim prayers. In Santa Ana, officers strip-searched all detainees, a violation of existing policy, and one guard launched a hostile and prolonged rant at immigrants and threatened to lock them in their cells.

ICE stopped housing detainees at the Santa Ana facility in May, a spokeswoman said.

Detainees are supposed to be able to make phone calls, including to the Office of the Inspector General to lodge complaints. But at Stewart, a call to the agencys hotline resulted in a message that said that number was restricted. And at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico, inspectors found several broken telephones.

Detainees also complained about mold and peeling paint at the Otero and Stewart centers. At Stewart, some bathrooms lacked either hot or cold water.

Several detainees at the Hudson jail and Stewart also complained that basic supplies, such as toilet paper, soap and toothpaste, were not provided promptly or at all.

The Inspector General issued a separate report in March, after visiting the Theo Lacy detention center in California in November 2016, which detailed similar findings about food handling and other issues it said required immediate attention.
MARYLAND

Massage therapist

admits sexual abuse

A Maryland man pleaded guilty Thursday to sexual abuse committed while working as a massage therapist in Northwest Washington.

Habtamu Gebreslassie, 24, of Silver Spring, was arrested in September after sexually assaulting a woman while giving her a massage at Massage Envy in the 4900 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement.

Gebreslassie, who was a licensed D.C. massage therapist, also tried to engage in a sexual act with a client at that location in August, and engaged in unwanted sexual contact with a client at another massage establishment in Dupont Circle in June, federal prosecutors said.

On Thursday, Gebreslassie pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse of a patient or client, attempted first-degree sexual abuse of a patient or client, and misdemeanor sexual abuse.

Gebreslassie, who has been in custody since his arrest, faces up to 60 months in prison and will have to register as a sex offender for life, prosecutors said.

Court dismisses

case against ex-judge

Marylands highest court has dismissed a disciplinary case against Baltimores former chief judge Alfred Nance, following his resignation.

The order by the Court of Appeals, signed by Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera, said that Nance filed a motion to dismiss in light of his resignation Dec. 1, and that he declared that he would not seek to hear cases as a retired judge.

The order said there was no opposition filed.

The appellate court was to decide whether Nance should be punished for remarks he made during criminal trials two years ago.

The state Commission on Judicial Disabilities found in October that Nance made disparaging and demeaning comments that undermined the integrity of the court, and the panel voted unanimously to recommend the appeals judges strip Nance of his elected post just months before he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.

 Baltimore Sun

VIRGINIA

Man, 73, who died in

fire is identified

Authorities have identified a man who died Sunday in a house fire in Loudoun County. .

The county fire marshals office said the fire is thought to have been sparked by an electrical malfunction in the living room of the home on Taylorstown Road in Lovettsville.

Robert Steves, 73, a resident, died in the house. He had limited mobility and couldnt get out of the home safely, according to Loudoun fire officials.

When firefighters arrived about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, they couldnt immediately enter the split-level house because it was unsafe. When firefighters were able to enter, they found Steves dead on the first floor.

Fire officials said the house did not have working smoke alarms.

 Dana Hedgpeth
Peg Nottingham of Gaithersburg, Md., smokes a strain of medical marijuana called Northern Lights that she obtained at Potomac Holistics in Rockville on Dec. 1. Nottingham uses medical marijuana for nausea from inflammatory bowel disease and chemo-induced neuropathy. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Marylands marijuana regulators on Thursday approved 12 new dispensaries to operate in the states fledgling legal medical marijuana industry, bringing the total number of fully approved legal storefronts to 22.

At least 60 more dispensaries that received preliminary licenses are still waiting for final approval.

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission gave the final sign-off to Positive Energy in Worcester County; Harvest of Maryland, Bloom Medicinals and Herbology in Montgomery County; Natures Cure and Wellness in Cecil County; Pure Life Wellness and Medical Products and Services in Baltimore City; Revolution Relief and Zen Leaf in Howard County; Charm City Medicus and Temescal Wellness in Baltimore County; and Haven in Prince Georges County.

The state's legal medical marijuana industry launched its first sales earlier this month following years of bureaucratic delay. Only a few of the state's 15 approved marijuana growers are ready to deliver their crops to dispensaries and processors, so demand quickly outstripped what storefronts had on their shelves.

The state has more than 10,000 patients fully certified to buy the drug, the commission reported Thursday, and 712 health-care providers approved to write recommendations for marijuana.



Jeremy Wells, 31, of Bel Air, Md., chats with Peg Nottingham, R, of Gaithersburg, as clients stand in line for medical marijuana at Potomac Holistics on Dec. 1. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Thursday's meeting was the first official public appearance with the commission for newly appointed executive director Joy Strand, the third director to lead the agency in two years. Her most recent predecessor, Patrick Jameson, stepped down in November.

If someone had asked me five years ago, would I be here today?, it would have been the furthest thing from my mind, but I think God puts things in front of you when youre ready to accept the challenge, said Strand, a longtime health-care executive who is new to the cannabis industry.

Im still on my honeymoon, so I ask your forgiveness for any missteps, she added.
Former prisoners joined with advocates of criminal justice reform Thursday to back three D.C. Council bills that would make it easier for people arrested by police to shield their court records from the public.

The proposed legislation would automatically seal some court records of people who have been arrested but were never charged or convicted of a crime. It also would allow people to shield public records of many misdemeanor and some felony convictions to make it easier for them to obtain jobs, housing and loans.

Kevin Petty testified at a hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety in the John A. Wilson Building that a felony conviction in 1978, for which he served prison time, continues to impair his ability to find employment.

He asked council members for what he called an authentic second chance and said there is no reason for his decades-old record to be publicly available today. Why should this continue to hang around my neck? he said, noting he is a productive resident of the District.

[Mayor wants to seal some court records to help offenders find jobs]

The bills enjoy widespread support on the council, particularly by the committee chairman, Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), and David Grosso (I-At Large). Allen said there are about 68,000 people with criminal records in the District, 35,000 of whom have arrest records but were either never prosecuted or never convicted of a crime.

Alfreda McKinley submitted testimony saying she was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2005, and the new law would for the first time allow that crime to be sealed. She said she has experience in accounting and procurement but has been unable to find meaningful employment because of my record. Sealing her prior conviction, McKinley said, would allow me to obtain stable, higher-paying employment. . . . I served my sentence, and now I believe I deserve a second chance.

[Youth Offender Act under scrutiny for allowing violent offenders back on D.C. streets]

Opposition came from journalism groups, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, open government advocates, an attorney for The Washington Post and representatives from companies that collect and distribute data.

Robert S. Becker, representing the D.C. Open Government Coalition, read off a litany of newspaper stories that used court records to highlight racial disparities and other problems in the criminal justice system, some of which he said were identical to what the council is trying to fix.

Becker noted a bill moving through the council, sponsored by Allen, to overhaul the Youth Rehabilitation Act, which provided leniency to young offenders, some of whom went on to commit violent crimes. The legislation came after a Washington Post investigation that examined thousands of court records, which Becker testified would not be published had records targeted by the bills been sealed.

James McLaughlin, The Posts deputy general counsel, said that even information on arrests that dont lead to criminal charges are critical to reporting, such as examining whether police engage in unlawful arrest practices. The legislation, if enacted, would instantly seal 100,000 court records in the District and seal an additional 40,000 records each year.

It would in effect create a black hole in which massive portions of the Superior Court docket in any given year would vanish without public trace, McLaughlin said. Over time, it would erode one of the most important checks on the justice system.

He urged the council to find another remedy rather than trying solve societal problems by cutting off the flow of information to the public.
Students at the mock trial Thursday reenacting the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District in the ceremonial courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

As she stood before local students in a federal courtroom in Washington, Mary Beth Tinker held aloft a replica of the black armband that had brought her notoriety  and students like them protections of their freedom of expression.

On Thursday, nearly 50 years after Tinker wore an armband to her Iowa school to protest the Vietnam War  and was suspended  she appeared at a mock trial reenacting her case before students from the Washington area.

In the past year, local students have walked out of class to protest election results and to draw attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants.

And their rights to those protests are bolstered by the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Tinkers case, when a majority of justices ruled that students and teachers do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

It was interesting to see that something that happened so long ago . . . is still so relevant today, said Soracha McGrath, a 17-year-old senior at the School Without Walls in Foggy Bottom.



Eighth graders from G. James Gholson Middle School in Prince Georges County watch the mock trial. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

In a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union over Tinkers suspension, the Supreme Court ruled the First Amendment applied to public schools and that school officials could not censor student speech unless it disrupted the educational process. A black armband, judges ruled, was not disruptive.

Its not just history. The decision in this case governs how students and school officials deal with expression in schools today, Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Thursday.

Tatel, along with Judge Sri Srinivasan, also of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, presided while experienced lawyers reenacted Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District before about 200 students.

Some in the audience in the ceremonial courtroom of the appeals court were eighth-graders, the same as Tinker when at 13 she wore the armband in 1965.

These kids need to speak up for themselves, and it is powerful when they do that, Tinker, 65, said Thursday.

Unlike typical court proceedings, where the audience in a courtroom is hushed, students were animated, amused by some of the questions asked by the judges during oral arguments, including about how many students were punched every day in the Des Moines schools.

Tinker, a retired nurse who lives in Van Ness, arrived Thursday to court wearing a pin of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a relentless voice for minorities and civil rights in a six-decade legal career, and a red ribbon for Yoselis Region Barrios, a 16-year-old student of Capital City Charter School who was killed last month in the District.

Students didnt take their eyes off the lawyers and judges during the arguments, listening intently to the case and how it led to their right of expression in school.

After the reenactment finished, students crowded around Tinker as she asked them what they wanted to change in the world. Tinker had described how she was raised in a family headed by her Methodist minister father and a mother who urged their children to act on their religious ideals.

Tinker fought for something she believed in, said Eliora Brown-Egue, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Alice Deal Middle School in Tenleytown. It was amazing to learn about a part of history from someone who was there.

Before starting a career speaking to students, Tinker was a nurse at Prince Georges Hospital Center.

She decided to travel the country and talk to students about their right to express themselves, she said, because I thought, maybe I can be an inspiration.

When Tinker travels to speak as in Thursdays reenactment, she tells stories of other young people who spoke up throughout history.

Telia Walton, a 17-year-old senior at the School Without Walls, said the event was not just teaching us about the case, it was inspiring us.

Tinker and the case made us feel like we could do the same thing, Walton said.
D.C. police said Thursday that they had charged a Northeast D.C. man in the 2016 beating death of a 29-year-old man whose body was discovered in a wooded area.

Eunise Roosevelt Melton, 62, was charged with first degree murder while armed in the death of Jerimi Stephen Meade, police said in a statement.

Police said a Park Service employee found Meades body about 2 p.m., July 15, 2016, after being called to investigate illegal dumping in a wooded area in the 400 block of Burbank Street, SE.

The Chief Medical Examiners Office later determined Meade died of blunt force injuries to the head and brain, police said.

Police released no additional details about the incident.
A former Prince Georges County liquor board commissioner arrested earlier this year on federal bribery charges pleaded guilty in the case Friday afternoon, the seventh of eight people netted in the wide-ranging scandal to admit wrongdoing.

Anuj Sud, 39, admitted to violating the Travel Act, going between Maryland and Washington, to collect cash kickbacks  that prosecutors said he referred to as wedding gifts  in exchange for official favors.

Suds plea leaves only former state delegate Michael Vaughn set to go to trial in the federal investigation authorities dubbed Operation Dry Saloon.

Earlier this year the former Prince George's County liquor board director, liquor store owners, lobbyists and lawmakers were arrested in the probe. Federal authorities allege liquor store owners paid former state delegates Vaughn and Will Campos, both Democrats representing Prince George's, thousands of dollars in exchange for favorable votes on legislation that would help their businesses.

[Former Md. State Del. Will Campos pleads guilty to accepting bribes for official favors]

Sud was not accused in the larger scheme involving the expansion of liquor sales in exchange for cash, but was arrested in a related bribery investigation.

Sud did not speak at the hearing other than to answer yes or no questions from the judge. His attorney, William Brennan, declined to comment after the hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, but in a letter to the court said his client is profoundly remorseful for his conduct.

Sud, an attorney, was appointed to the Prince Georges liquor board in 2015 and almost immediately began shopping around to sell his votes, according to prosecutors.

How can I start getting paid? Sud was accused of asking someone who represented businesses with matters before the liquor board on Sept. 25, 2015.

Tell your boys you got somebody on the board that can f------ make s--- happen, the government said Sud told the man who turned out to be a confidential source for the FBI. I can influence the votes now.

About two months later, Sud agreed to vote favorably in two hearings involving the confidential source.

On Dec. 2, 2015, Sud voted to reduce the penalty for a business found in violation of a liquor board summons. About two weeks later, Sud voted in favor of granting a liquor license to another one of the informants clients.

Sud was paid $1,000 for each vote, court documents state.

A year later, Sud asked the informant for a wedding gift, which the government said was code for a bribe in exchange for help on liquor board matters. When the informant and Sud talked about helping one of the informants clients, Sud suggested the informant bring payment for the bribe to an auto repair shop Sud owned as a way to hide the transactions, the government asserts in court filings.

Actually, you know what I was thinking? the government states Sud told the informant Nov. 9, 2016, at Suds gas station and repair shop in Silver Spring. Any time you want to drop off a gift, bring your car in. Do the oil change and then when you pay, I can just give you a receipt . . . That way its a legitimate transaction.

Later that month, court files state, the informant gave Sud $1,000 after Sud had voted favorably on a decision affecting one of the informants clients and the client was real happy the informant said before handing over cash.

Speaking of good, the informant told Sud, according to the recounting in court filings. Look. I got a little, whats it called, wedding gift for the, uh . . . deal.

Sud faces up to five years in prison at sentencing scheduled for April 5.
A memorial in votive candles near the wooded area in the Bannockburn neighborhood of Bethesda, where police said the body of Navid Nicholas Sepehri, 17, was found. (Dan Morse/The Washington Post)

The Bethesda teenager found dead in a frigid stream last weekend died of acute alcohol intoxication, complicated by hypothermia and drowning, an official at Marylands Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Friday.

The death was ruled accidental, said Bruce Goldfarb, a spokesman for the office.

The findings are consistent with what police and family members have said about what was known of the final hours of Navid Nicholas Sepehri, 17, who went to a party Saturday night, drank vodka, set off walking and never came home.

[A nightlong search for his missing son ends in the woods: Hes gone. I found him.]

Navids father, Frank Sepehri, found his sons body in a patch of water the next day. Police officials have been looking at their officers interactions with the teen and his father, who each crossed paths with police during a five-hour window Saturday night and into Sunday morning.



Navid Nicholas Sepehris father found him dead on Sunday. Officials say he suffered from alcohol poisoning and drowned. (Family Photo)

We want to determine exactly what the actions of our officers were, Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said this week.

He said his heart went out to the family of the senior at Walt Whitman High School. I just cant imagine the pain theyre going through, the chief said.

Around 7 p.m. Saturday, Navid Sepehri left his home in Bethesda  the last time his family saw him alive. He apparently met up with friends and at some point headed to a teenage party at a house on Elgin Lane in Bethesda.

Police said the homeowners grew concerned that uninvited teenagers had shown up with alcohol. The homeowners asked a group of teens to call their parents for rides home.

Around the same time, police received a call about noise from the party. Officers arrived to find youths scurrying off into yards, police said. Officers spoke with a small group of teens who stayed outside the home on the street, including Navid Sepehri. The teens told the officers they were waiting for rides, according to a police statement, and officers had found no evidence the homeowners had provided alcohol.

Later, after Sepehri didnt return home, his father began driving to search for him as the night grew colder.

In the first hour of Sunday, temperatures in the region were around 31 degrees with a wind chill of 25 degrees.

At about 3:23 a.m. Sunday, Frank Sepehri drove into the parking lot of a county police station in Bethesda and spoke with an officer, according to his account and a police account.

For reasons that are still not clear, the officer did not take a missing-person report, and Frank Sepehri returned to his search.

The information released Friday by the Medical Examiners Office did not address at what time the 17-year-old died.

Police received a missing-person report about Navid Sepehri at 12:46 p.m. Sunday, and searched for the teenager. His father also kept searching, and found his son just before 5 p.m. Sunday in the stream in a wooded ravine behind some homes.
Rebecca Briones, 31, faces murder and child-abuse charges in the death of her 2-month-old daughter. (Montgomery County Police)

A Maryland mother accused of shaking and throwing her 2-month-old daughter to death was ordered held without bond Friday as details of the injuries emerged in a Montgomery County case.

The acts alleged, at least in the statement of the charges, are incredibly egregious and aggravating and abusive, District Judge John Moffett said in court.

Moments earlier, Assistant States Attorney Debbie Feinstein had listed injuries that she alleged Rebecca Briones, 31, had inflicted on her child, Lissana Briones.

Those included, the prosecutor said, trauma to different parts of the childs brain, three fractured ribs and six broken bones in her legs, including both femurs.

Were talking about extensive, extensive abuse that caused these injuries, Feinstein said.

Feinstein alleged that Briones abused her child in separate incidents and that when detectives interviewed her, she demonstrated how forcefully she had shaken the girl and banged her head against a mattress.

Babies dont break in this way unless significant forces are exerted upon them, Feinstein said.

In court Friday, prosecutors said Briones is seven months pregnant. The state has serious concerns about the health of that child and what bodes for that family going forward, Feinstein said.

Lissana died in February, prompting a lengthy investigation that led to the arrest of Briones this week. She was charged with second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse resulting in death.

Assistant Public Defender John Lavigne did not address the specific allegations against Briones. He did argue for bond conditions that could let her leave jail pending further court hearings.

She has absolutely no prior record, Lavigne said, adding that Briones has held jobs at car dealerships. I dont think shes a threat to the public in general.

Brioness family members could not be reached for comment.

Ten months ago, at 5:15 p.m. Feb. 18, Briones and her husband picked their daughter up from a caregiver, court files state.

Both parents agreed the victim was in good health at that time, Detective Randy Kucsan wrote in court papers.

The family made two stops before arriving at their home on North Adams Street in Rockville about 6:30 p.m.

Briones put the baby down to sleep while her husband tended to other matters, police said. A short time later, after the husband went to check on the girl and found her unresponsive, Briones called 911, according to the court filings.

After police and paramedics arrived, the child was taken to a hospital in Rockville and then airlifted to MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in the District, where she died three days later.

Autopsy results were finalized Sept. 25, with the manner of death ruled a homicide.

On Monday, detectives interviewed Rebecca Briones at the departments headquarters, and she was arrested two days later.

Whatever justice she receives wont bring that baby back, said Capt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery Police spokesman.
They all decided they wanted to become preachers and enrolled in seminary to learn how to spread the Gospel. They chose one of the most prominent evangelical seminaries in the country.

Yet here they were, these four young preachers-in-training from the Midwest, the South and the Northwest, hanging around after listening to sermons in class. They were debating whether they wanted to be the one thing Fuller Theological Seminary is known for: evangelicals.

Its still a painful identity for me, coming from this election, said Paul Johnson, one of the students at Fuller.

Discomfort with the term evangelical began in some quarters with the Moral Majority in the Reagan years, which helped make evangelical synonymous with the Republican Party. Ever since, evangelicals have disagreed with each other about mixing faith and politics.

Such debates intensified last year when President Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they werent sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.



President Donald Trump, left, and Jerry Falwell Jr., President of Liberty University, pose for photos with members of gospel choir Lu Praise during a commencement at Liberty University May 13, 2017 in Lynchburg, Virginia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. The term has come to represent white Republicans and . . . sometimes close-mindedness and superiority, said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastors wife in South Carolina.

Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees a mass exodus from the label in her community. The term feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who dont align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences, she said.

At Princeton University, a campus group changed its decades-old name this year from Princeton Evangelical Fellowship to simply Princeton Christian Fellowship.

For years, believers have debated whether Republican politics and culture-war battles have diluted the essence of their label evangelical  which means spreading the Gospel.

The term evangelical became popular decades ago as a way to tamp down differences, emphasizing that all people under its umbrella, regardless of denomination, agree to embrace the Bible and spread its word. But politicians such as Trump and Moore have shown how elusive shared faith and values are today.

Evangelicals make up a huge portion of the American population  about one-quarter of the country. An increasing number of Hispanic Christians have come to describe themselves as evangelical in the past decade. While white evangelicals numbers have been shrinking  with surveys suggesting a decline of between 2 percent and 6 percent over the past decade  its too soon to say from demographic data to what degree a Trump effect may have changed the number of people who identify as evangelical.

But on Fuller Seminarys palm-tree-lined campus, as in other major evangelical institutions across the country, debate over the term has bubbled to the forefront, especially among younger members of the faith.

When I say that Im an evangelical now, I always qualify it, Johnson said. Reports that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for [Trump], thats an offensive statistic for me and something I feel obligated to apologize for. I dont want to be connected to that.

Johnson and the other students hanging out after homiletics class found themselves discussing the four-part definition of evangelical faith, articulated by historian David Bebbington: obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority, belief in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the source of salvation, the necessity of a personal born-again conversion experience, and work to spread the Gospel.

Historically, that definition has helped to distinguish many evangelical churches from more theologically liberal mainline Protestant churches, as well as from stricter fundamentalist churches. But in practice, many evangelicals dont fully embrace those four tenets, and many people who do would never call themselves evangelical. The differences often come down to cultural factors for self-described evangelicals  such as personal piety or beliefs on sexuality. Or race, for black Christians who share those fourfold beliefs but often dont use the term evangelical to describe themselves because of its historical and modern association with racism and the Republican Party.

I think when we start throwing around terms like evangelical to the outside, it can be really ostracizing, said Peter Heilman, a 29-year-old pastor-to-be leaning his tattooed elbows on his ripped blue jeans. He grew up labeling himself lots of ways: conservative, Republican, evangelical. But interning in a more politically and racially diverse church has convinced him to drop those words  hes concerned people wont listen to him preach if they disagree with his politics.

You have to understand the people youre speaking to and whats going to allow them to keep open ears, he said. When it comes down to it, labels can be a dangerous thing.

His classmate Savannah Sturgeon, a 24-year-old Nashville native, replied, Im not ready to give up the term evangelical,  and Heilman asked, Why do you need the name if it has a negative connotation?

Its biblical. We didnt make it up, Sturgeon said. To abandon it now is to say this decade has ruined it for us.

But many fear that the association between evangelicals and Trump, a historically unpopular first-year president, has deeply damaged the reputation of evangelicals.

In recent years, Americans have expressed more positive feelings toward nearly all religious groups, except for evangelicals. In a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, Americans expressed greater approval than in 2014 for every religious group  Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, atheists and more  except for evangelicals, who stayed flat at a 61 percent approval rating.

In the past, evangelical was a useful marker of theological and cultural similarities across denominations  a word providing something broader than Southern Baptist but more specific than Christian.

The term evangelical has helped parents comb through book catalogues, choose schools for their children and decide what charities to support. Ministries such as World Vision and Samaritans Purse receive the bulk of their donations from evangelicals. Book publishers such as Zondervan and InterVarsity Press publish primarily for evangelicals. Institutions such as Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and Wheaton College draw primarily from evangelical students.

Shorthands have always been helpful, said Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton, in Illinois. The question is, Do I want to be affiliated with that? when terms have been redefined, either when its been hijacked or misunderstood.

American evangelicals have never been unanimous on social and political issues, dating back centuries, when evangelical leaders split over their views of slavery. To throw out the term because of some problems in the past several years is so shortsighted, said Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty, which once described itself as a fundamentalist school but has shifted to call itself evangelical.

Unlike the Catholic Church, evangelicals have no centralized hierarchy or leader, which Prior fears could make them more vulnerable to collapse than other religious traditions.

White evangelicals tend to strongly oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but they dont necessarily agree on issues such as climate change or tax policy. The political environment hasnt caused the divisions among evangelicals, but its highlighted the divisions that were already there, said Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, who was an early supporter of Trump. Christians are going to have to decide whats foundational to their faith.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was evangelical momentum behind progressive causes and candidates, including Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who described himself using the evangelical term born again. But with the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, the ties between white evangelicalism and the Republican Party strengthened.

Support for Trump is not a departure from the past several decades of evangelical political behavior, said Heath Carter, a historian at Valparaiso University. The reality is that evangelicals have always been willing to look past, if not outright embrace, questionable behaviors and tactics in the candidates they support, he said, pointing to evangelical support for Ronald Reagan, who was divorced and didnt attend church.

Emmett Price, a professor who focuses on African American studies at the prominent evangelical seminary Gordon-Conwell in Massachusetts, said he worries that white Christians who are abandoning the term are only looking to avoid the negative associations, not to reform their communities. If theyre concerned that politics have tarred evangelicals as racist, he said, they ought to be focused on making evangelical churches less racist  not on calling themselves something else.

Theres a desire to detach from the political landscape right now. If one wanted to go and essentially fight somewhere for inclusivity, one would stay in that space and invite others in, he said. Ditching a term is simply ditching a term.

At Fuller, seminary president Mark Labberton said his students used to be more willing to stay within the broad tent of evangelicalism and hash out their differences.

You could say, Im an evangelical, and Im part of the religious right, or, Im evangelical, and Im not part of the religious right,  he said. In the Reagan era . . . people would have understood that those two things are separate. I think that really changed with the 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump.

Now students are rethinking how they identify. Am I part of a movement that identifies with things I actually think are personally and theologically repellent to me? he hears them asking. If somehow Ive gotten caught up in a movement like that . . . I could try to endlessly unpack it, or I could just abandon it.

For his part, he thinks the label still has value, as he tries to sum up the theology that people from many different denominations who gather on Fullers campus have in common.

What word do you put in its place? Theres no adequate or obviously adequate word to do that, he said. Im an orthodox Christian who cares deeply about being a follower of Jesus and wants to live with an open posture of engagement with culture. Thats not as tidy as simply saying, evangelical. 

Hes editing a book that compiles essays from theologically conservative Christians across a political spectrum. The books title: Still Evangelical?

This story has been updated.
Dang it! Shoot! Jeepers creepers!

Virginia law demands that residents keep it clean, even in moments crying out for the foulest four-letter words. Its illegal in this state to curse in public.

Profane swearing is a Class 4 misdemeanor punishable by a $250 fine, right up there with public intoxication. Its a law that predates the Civil War. Yet modern-day potty-mouths still get charged under it  in small numbers, but in ways that can raise troubling questions about law enforcement.

But a state lawmaker from a county that sounds a lot like a curse word is trying hard to get rid of the law.

Del. Michael J. Webert (R-Fauquier) is a cattle farmer who knows that stuff happens. And that when it does, only a few choice words will do.

When youre working [with] cows and a 1,400-pound animal doesnt do what you want it to, or steps on your feet, every once in a while something colorful comes out of your mouth, said Webert, 38.

A conservative on most issues, Webert says his goal is to protect free speech and shrink a bloated state code by removing a law already deemed unconstitutional decades ago under Virginia Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

When I cursed, my mother told me not to and handed me a bar of soap, he said. You shouldnt get hit with a Class 4 misdemeanor.

Repeal is by no means assured, even in a Capitol designed by free-speech champion Thomas Jefferson. Webert has carried the same bill for the past two sessions. Both times, it died in committee. It might have better chances when the General Assembly convenes next month, with lots of new, more-liberal delegates who were elected in November.

While it might make sense to scrap an unconstitutional law, legislators who vote for repeal could stand accused of promoting profanity. And that has made many wary of discussing Weberts bill. The rare exception was Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax), who steps down in January and served on the House committee that torpedoed Weberts previous attempts.

"We've had conversations about this type of thing over the years. There are a few statutes on the books that have been ruled unconstitutional," Albo said, noting that state law still prohibits flag burning decades after the Supreme Court struck down such bans.

Your opponent is not going to say, Dave Albo voted to let people burn American flags, but to be fair, its unconstitutional. Theyre not going to explain the whole thing, Albo said. For most people, its not worth it.

There are reasons beyond political self-preservation for hanging on to the law.

Daniel Post Senning is the great-great grandson of the late Emily Post, whose musings about etiquette set the tone for polite society in a more formal era.

Senning, who carries on the family business through the Emily Post Institute, thinks theres something to be said for keeping a lid on blue language.

You want some sort of public standards for decorum, said Senning, who has conducted etiquette seminars on the subject of profanity in the workplace. We are definitely advocates for awareness and consideration.

But academics who do scholarly research on swearing  really, they exist  say such bans are futile. It aims to "enforce politeness, and that's not something that the law is equipped to do," said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer, Columbia University professor and author of "The F-Word," a scholarly history of the word.

Jonathan Hunt, a University of San Francisco language professor who has researched cussing, said what's considered profane is always changing. In a more religious era, blasphemy was considered the biggest taboo. In secular times, it was "anything having to do with bodily functions." And today, racist or sexist slurs.

Theres always some taboo in language, some perception that those words have a strange and magical power, often a power to harm, he said. And it moves around.

It is not clear how many people get charged under Virginias law each year. Statewide figures are hard to come by since the statute covers swearing and public intoxication, and a breakdown for swearing alone was not immediately available.

The numbers appear to be small based on arrests in Arlington County, which has a local ordinance modeled on the state law.

In a county of 230,000 residents, police charged a mere three people with cursing over the past two years.

That is not to say the law is all but forgotten. The Arlington County Board voted in 2015 to increase the $100 local fine to match the state penalty. Virginia Beach, which also has a local ordinance, has signs on its boardwalk saying swearing is banned, an effort to enhance the family-friendly atmosphere.

Fairfax County drew attention to its own swearing ban in late October, when police took a reporter from a liberal media outlet to the ground following an expletive-laced argument captured on video.

If you curse again, you will go to jail, an officer says at one point.

The reporters reply  F--- this!  triggers an aggressive arrest, though in the end he was charged with disorderly conduct and avoiding arrest.

[Video shows officers taking reporter to ground at event for GOP candidate Ed Gillespie in Virginia]

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Virginia affiliate, said it is well settled law that generalized prohibitions on profanity in public are a violation of the First Amendment.

This is an interesting issue, in part because (even though they are supposed to issue a summons for misdemeanors) police often use this statute or a related local ordinance as an excuse to arrest someone, or at least stop them, and then do a search incident to arrest so they can arrest the person on another charge, Gastanaga said in an email.

Virginia's aversion to profanity goes back to the nation's infancy, as native son George Washington famously ordered his troops to quit swearing in August 1776.

State law has prohibited public swearing at least since 1860. The fine then: $1 per offense.
In this photo taken Wednesday, March 9, 2011, Jens Soering speaks during an interview at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Va. Soering, a former German diplomat's son who is serving life in prison for killing two people, is hoping new evidence will win his parole. Meanwhile, the woman convicted of helping him kill her parents maintains they are both guilty and belong in prison. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Gov. Terry McAuliffe will leave office without pardoning Jens Soering, a German diplomat's son convicted of a 1985 double murder that he and a growing number of supporters claim he did not commit.

In television interviews Thursday looking back on his four-year term, the outgoing governor said the state is still investigating Soerings claim that DNA evidence shows that someone else killed his girlfriends parents in the central Virginia town of Bedford.

[This 1985 gruesome double murder rocked Virginia. Was the wrong man convicted?]

Mr. Soerings request is still awaiting an investigation by the Virginia Parole Board, after which it will be forwarded to the Governor for his consideration, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said via email. We do not expect that the investigation . . . will be complete before the Governor leaves office.

Soering is serving two life sentences for the deaths of Derek and Nancy Haysom. At the time of the murders, he and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, were honors students at the University of Virginia.

Soering initially confessed to the crime but later said he was only trying to protect Elizabeth Haysom from the electric chair under the mistaken belief that he had diplomatic immunity because of his fathers position. He was convicted in a sensational 1990 trial that drew international media and gavel-to-gavel coverage on local cable television.

Haysom pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact, contending that she helped plan the murders but did not physically take part. She is serving a 90-year sentence at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women near Charlottesville. She has insisted over the years that she was not at the murder scene and that they both belong in prison.

[For German diplomats son jailed in 1985 double murder, a powerful new advocate]

Soerings supporters have raised questions about the case for decades, noting that Soering got some details of the crime scene wrong in his confession. They dismiss as junk science a bloody sock print that prosecutors said tied him to the case.

Soering also has gained attention and supporters for writing a string of books behind bars. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pressed for his release. Now-Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), at the urging of the German Embassy and Richmonds Catholic bishop, agreed when he was governor in 2010 to transfer Soering to a German prison. But his Republican successor, Robert F. McDonnell, stopped the transfer because, once in Germany, Soering could have been freed after two years.

The push to release Soering picked up steam more recently, as new blood analysis performed in the summer of 2016 indicated that a man other than Soering was the source of the type O blood found at Haysoms home. The blood was the only physical evidence to tie him to the scene besides the disputed sock print.

[Va. sheriff calls on McAuliffe to free Jens Soering]

Also last year, German filmmakers released a sympathetic documentary about Soering. Titled The Promise, it suggested Haysom committed the murders, perhaps with help from a drug dealer or two.

The film, now updated with the blood analysis findings, is getting a limited theatrical release in U.S. theaters and video on demand starting Friday, under a new title: Killing for Love.

Actor Martin Sheen, a longtime supporter of Soerings, is slated to appear at the opening in Los Angeles.
Consumers jammed call centers and enrollment offices in the final sprint toward the Friday deadline in most of the country to get Affordable Care Act health plans for 2018, defying months of naysaying by President Trump about the law's insurance marketplaces.

In several states, enrollment helpers reported a crush of interest in recent days. Some navigator organizations, which help people sign up, received more requests for appointments than they could accommodate  a consequence of an enrollment season that is half as long as the past three years' time frame and large cuts by federal officials in grants to those groups.

I could have really used the extra $900,000, said Jodi Ray, project director of Florida Covering Kids and Families, which received $5.8 million a year ago, more than any other organization. We could have used the extra staff.

You hang up from one call, and you get another, said Julia Holloway, who directs the navigator program at Affiliated Service Providers of Indiana. The state lost 82 percent of its anticipated funding, more than anywhere else. And with in-person assistance now scarce, Holloway said one of her only remaining navigators was staffing the phone line to try to resolve as many callers questions as possible.

Since Thursday, people contacting federal call centers in the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov website consistently got a message asking them to leave their contact information and await a call back, according to officials of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). They will be allowed to complete their insurance applications, even if they are contacted after the deadline of midnight Pacific time.

By late Friday afternoon, however, HealthCare.gov itself had not become so crowded that consumers were being diverted into online waiting rooms  as had occurred on the deadline day for ACA coverage each of the federal insurance exchanges past four years.

Navigators said the website functioned relatively smoothly this year, with sporadic and minor glitches and slowdowns  nothing like the profound defects that stymied insurance-shoppers when the laws marketplaces first opened in the fall of 2013.

This fifth year posed a test of the marketplaces staying power, as the boosterism of the Obama administration gave way to Trumps vocal hostility and persistent efforts by a Republican Congress to dismantle many core features of the 2010 health-care law.

On the final day, CMS tweeted encouragement for Americans to sign up by the deadline. By the most recent count released by the agency, nearly 4.7 million people had signed up as of last weekend in the states using HealthCare.gov. That number did not include current ACA customers who will be automatically renewed by the government after the enrollment period or people signing up in 11 states, plus the District, that operate their own insurance exchanges.

The Senate repeatedly failed to pass ACA-repeal legislation over the summer and fall, but a big sideswipe to the law could be imminent. A compromise between the House and Senate over the biggest federal tax overhaul in decades contains a provision that in 2019 would end enforcement of the ACAs requirement that most American carry health insurance. The two chambers plan to vote on the tax agreement next week.

Debate long swirled within both political parties over whether such a mandate is necessary to reach close-to-universal health coverage, but the idea of eliminating the laws tax penalties for people who flout the requirement has become part of GOP orthodoxy. Congresss nonpartisan budget analysts estimate that doing so would lead to 13 million more uninsured Americans within a decade and drive up health plans premiums.

The ACA marketplaces were created to make coverage more accessible for people who cannot get affordable health benefits through a job. The high point for enrollment was the 12.7 million consumer who had signed up for 2016 coverage by the end of that enrollment period.

This season, most of the state-run marketplaces will allow customers to keep signing up for health plans until late December or January.

And residents of a few states in the federal insurance exchange have a special enrollment period until Dec. 31 because their communities were damaged by hurricanes this fall. According to CMS officials, the extra time is available to people in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia  and others who lived in those states during the storms.

Fred Ammons, chief executive officer of the navigator organization Health Care Central Georgia, said he has been trying to play down the extension to encourage as many people as possible to enroll before the regular deadline. After Friday, he pointed out, people will not just be able to go to HealthCare.gov and have it magically work. They will need to telephone a federal call center, although navigators can still help them decide on a plan.

The Georgia group has been functioning with 15 percent of the federal navigator grant it had last year, with a reduced cadre of paid staff and a score of volunteers. Our remaining staff put their heart and soul in this, Ammons said. Even though the grant is intended for work year-round, we will have some significant contraction of staff.

Read more

Fifth years ACA enrollment season opening with daunting obstacle

ACA enrollment schedule may lock millions into unwanted health plans

Timing of While House actions unrolling parts of ACA couldnt be worse, states say
This December 2, 2013 photo shows a woman reading the HealthCare.gov insurance marketplace internet site in Washington, DC. The troubleshooter appointed by President Barack Obama to overhaul a bungled health care website rollout said Sunday that improvements had made a "night and day" difference in handling online traffic. The White House has admitted previously that the launch of Healthcare.gov, where people can sign up for health insurance, was a debacle and the Obama administration pledged that the vast majority of potential customers would be able to enroll online by the end of November. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

In most states, Friday night is the last chance to sign up for Affordable Care Act health insurance for 2018. The enrollment period is half as long as last year's, and it got just a fraction of the marketing budget to tell consumers that.

But how did it go for individual consumers shopping for plans this year? Much depended on where you live and what your financial situation is.

In Tennessee, too, where state regulators approved average rate increases ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent, consumers might have reasonably expected to brace for a big hit to their wallets. But Brenda Linn saw the opposite happen.

Linn had been paying $750 a month in 2017 just to cover her own medical needs; so the retired kindergarten teacher and her husband logged on to HealthCare.gov to check the price of 2018 plans. To her surprise, the website brought up a great deal.

She thought it was a mistake. The price Linn was quoted was less than $5 a month. Why? A slight loss of income had made her eligible for a subsidy for 2018. Because we didnt qualify last year, I wasnt really that hopeful, Linn said.

But a large majority of marketplace shoppers do get subsidies. And for 2018, on aggregate, these subsidies are larger.

Tony Garr, a volunteer application assistant with the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, said more than ever this year, people needed to shop around on the exchange.

Generally speaking, they will find out that help is there, he said.

Any many people who got a subsidy in the past found even more for their money this year.

For example, Daniel Prestwood, who is self-employed and cleans fish tanks around Nashville, said he found a better plan for 2018, with monthly premiums that dropped from $300 to $200. He said he tries not to get too frustrated by the political wrangling over health care.

All I know is that for 2018 Ill have a good health care plan in place, he said, and thats the best I can hope for at this point.

And even with the Trump administration's efforts to hobble the ACA, in Tennessee, the number of applications processed by federally funded insurance guides  known as navigators and certified application counselors  surpassed last year's. With 10 days left in open enrollment, more than 1,200 individuals had applied with official help, eclipsing the total from all of 2016, when the enrollment period was several weeks longer.

While application assistants only work with a tiny fraction of the 235,000 Tennesseans who have marketplace plans, Sandy Dimick of Family and Childrens Services Nashville, said she expects total enrollment will exceed last years total, as well.

But many people across the country had a very different experience than Linn and Priestwood.

Gene Kern of Frederick, Md., has been an enthusiastic enrollee in Maryland's health exchange since it began in 2014. The 63-year-old retired early from Fujifilm, where he sold professional videotape. "When the product became obsolete, so did I," he said, "and that's why I retired."

This fall, Kern said, he received a letter from his insurer explaining that the cost of his policys premium would jump from $800 a month to $1,300 in 2018.

Because of my income, I am slightly above the 400 percent poverty level, he said, and as a result I get no subsidy from the government.

So Kern shopped around on Marylands exchange  which announced on Wednesday that it will be open an extra week, through Dec. 22  and he found an HMO plan for around $900 a month. Thats more than 20 percent of his income, which comes partly from Social Security and partly from his retirement account. But, he said, Its the best I can get. Kern wants to stay insured for the next two years, until he will qualify for Medicare.

Louise Norris, a health insurance broker and analyst in Colorado, said there are a number of people like Kern who earn too much for a subsidy and will pay more for health insurance next year than they did in 2017. "Rates are high," she said. "There's no way to sugarcoat that."

But she warns her clients against the temptation to shop off the exchanges for a less expensive plan that doesn't comply with the minimum standards set out by the ACA.

It seems like a good deal because its cheap, Norris said. But then you find yourself being that person who has a heart attack and needs triple bypass. And hundreds of thousands of dollars later you wish you had that ACA-compliant plan.

While people in states that use HealthCare.gov have until Dec. 15 to sign up, residents of nine states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) and the District of Columbia have slightly more time.

This story is part of NPR's reporting partnership with local member stations and Kaiser Health News. Selena Simmons-Duffin, a producer at NPR's All Things Considered, is working temporarily with NPR member station WAMU, as part of an exchange program at the network. Blake Farmer is the health reporter at Nashville Public Radio.
SOMALIA

Suicide bombing kills 18 at police academy

A suicide bomber disguised as a police officer killed at least 18 people at a police academy in Somalia's capital on Thursday, authorities said. The Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist group asserted responsibility.

Twenty officers were wounded, some of them seriously, Col. Mohamud Aden said.

The bomber, with explosives strapped around his waist and torso, infiltrated the police academy and targeted officers rehearsing for Somalias Police Day celebrations, scheduled for Wednesday, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said.

The bomber walked into the academy undetected and joined a line of officers before he detonated the explosives, Hussein said.

Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaeda, carries out frequent attacks on high-profile areas of Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab has become the deadliest Islamist extremist group in Africa and is increasingly being targeted by the U.S. military.

 Associated Press

ISRAEL

Court: State cant hold Palestinians bodies

Israels Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the state could not keep the bodies of Palestinian gunmen for use as bargaining chips to get back its own dead unless it enacted legislation permitting it to do so.

A three-justice panel ruled in favor of militants relatives who had petitioned to force Israeli authorities to return to them for burial the bodies of their kin killed in attacks on Israelis.

The court gave the state six months to enact legislation if it wanted to keep the bodies.

Israel has said it was holding the bodies to help it effect the return of the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the Gaza Strip in 2014 and two Israeli civilians who Israel believes are being held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

But the court said the bodies were being held without authorization, because there was no Israeli law to regulate their being kept.

 Reuters

NIGERIA

$1 billion approved to fight Boko Haram

Nigerian state governors on Thursday approved the release of $1 billion from their countrys excess oil account to the government to help fight the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.

The account holds foreign reserves from excess earnings from sales of crude. It currently totals $2.3 billion, according to Nigerias accountant general.

The release of such a large sum could raise concerns over corruption, endemic in Nigeria.

The next national election is set for early 2019. Historically, the run-up to an election has seen rampant graft and theft of public funds as politicians build war chests to contest the vote.

The Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast is in its ninth year, and deadly attacks on the military and civilians continue.

The release of the funds is a further sign that the government and the military may be abandoning their two-year-old narrative that Boko Haram has been all but defeated.

 Reuters

Syria talks end without progress: A U.N. special envoy said the eighth round of Syria talks sponsored by the United Nations have ended without progress. The Syrian government delegation refused to talk directly to the opposition over its insistence on President Bashar al-Assad's ouster, even though envoy Staffan de Mistura had warned against preconditions. "It is a big missed opportunity, a golden opportunity missed," he said.

Pakistan moves to evict 21 foreign aid groups: Pakistan has ordered 21 foreign aid groups to prepare to leave after they failed to re-register under tough regulations introduced two years ago, officials said. The Open Society Foundations, founded by American billionaire George Soros, was among the groups reportedly targeted. The organizations have been given two months to vacate the country. Pakistan has long treated foreign aid groups with suspicion, fearing they could mask efforts to spy on the country.

Far-right leader whom Trump retweeted is arrested: A leader of a British far-right group whose anti-Islam posts were recently retweeted by President Trump was arrested in Northern Ireland minutes after being bailed over a separate incident. Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of Britain First, had appeared at a Belfast court to face charges of using threatening, abusive or insulting words in a speech at a rally in the city in August. As she left court, Fransen was arrested over another incident. Britain First leader Paul Golding also was arrested as he accompanied her to the courthouse.

 From news services
Columnist

Poor Al Franken. The Minnesota Democrat was kicked to the curb by a party that, until a few months ago, not only turned a blind eye to sexual misconduct but also lionized serial predators such as Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy. So why was Franken a bridge too far for Democrats? Because he stood in the way of their effort to claim the moral high ground when Roy Moore was elected to the United States Senate.

Democrats were looking forward to spending the next year wrapping Moore around the necks of Republicans. They were gearing up for a Senate Ethics Committee investigation that would keep Moore in the spotlight for months and preparing to demand public hearings where his accusers could be paraded before the media. They were waiting with bated breath for the cavalcade of bigoted gaffes Moore would have made. They were looking forward to seeing Republicans squirm, as they were forced to court an increasingly toxic Moore for his vote in a narrowly divided Senate. And they were ready to pummel Republicans when, in the end, the GOP-controlled Senate would fail to expel him  knowing full well there was no precedent for removing a senator from office for actions he allegedly committed decades ago, before he was a senator, and that voters knew about before electing him.

Sen. Roy Moore (R-Ala.) would have been the greatest Christmas gift Democrats could have wished for. Instead, Santa left them with a lump of coal. Moore isnt coming to Washington after all. There will be no investigation, no public hearings. The voters of conservative Republican Alabama, in their wisdom, decided that Moore was not worthy to represent them in the United States Senate. Roll tide!

Of course, the idea that Democrats could have claimed moral superiority when it comes to the sexual abuse of women was laughable to begin with. Just last year, Democrats gave Clinton  who faced credible allegations of rape and other sexual misconduct  a hero's welcome at their convention in Philadelphia. They nominated Hillary Clinton, who rather than believe the women stood by her husband through the allegations, as their standard-bearer. And just a few years ago, they named a Senate caucus room for Ted and John F. Kennedy, both harassers as well.

Watching the party of Clinton, Kennedy, Franken, Conyers, Weiner, Condit and countless others excoriating anyone over sexual misconduct would have been rich indeed. But Moores election would have given Democrats a credible pretext to do just that.

Instead, they got Doug Jones. Democrats never intended for Jones to win. After all, if they were serious about competing in Alabama, they would not have nominated a pro-abortion extremist in one of the most pro-life states in the country. Indeed, Jones would have lost easily Tuesday night if any Republican other than an alleged sex predator had been on the ballot. And he is virtually guaranteed to lose his seat in 2020.

Democrats will take the unexpected benefits of his victory, which narrows the GOP's Senate majority from 52 to 51, complicating President Trump's ability to pass legislation and confirm judges (including a possible Supreme Court pick) next year. They will try to spin it as a repudiation of Trump, which it was not. (Trump maintains a 59 percent approval rating in Alabama.) And they know it means they have one less seat they need to win in order to regain control of the Senate in 2018.

But all that pales in comparison with what Moore would have done for the Democratic Party as a Republican senator. That is why so many conservatives in Alabama either wrote in another candidate or stayed home, giving Jones the victory. And it is why Alabama's senior senator, Richard C. Shelby  possibly the most astute political mind on the Republican side of the aisle  came out publicly against Moore the Sunday before the election. They knew that Moore is the Democrats' caricature of a Republican come to life. Democrats are glad to gain a Senate seat, but with a Moore victory they might have gained a whole lot more.

Thank God for the people of Alabama.

Read more from Marc Thiessen's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The Dec. 10 Travel article "Recovering nicely," which described resort reconstruction in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was myopic at best. The article tragically contradicted the reality of 107,000 U.S. citizens who yet endure mostly unlivable conditions as a result of a woefully slow Federal Emergency Management Agency and congressional response to the damage wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

It's my assumption that resort workers live mostly out of sight of their work locations and are paid modest wages. About 100 days after Hurricane Irma hit, many of them remain laid off. Their homes, power sources and side roads remain severely compromised, with little hope of prompt recovery. Countless others have no connection to the resorts and languish in the storms' aftermath. In contrast, costs to rebuild resorts and the infrastructure that supports them are capitalized by wealthy off-island corporations in high gear to capture vacation dollars.

Yes, resort recovery will eventually benefit some regular citizens, but prior to the hurricanes, the U.S. Virgin Islands government faced a $2 billion public debt and a structural budget deficit of $110 million. Local leaders are doing the best they can, given the circumstances. As news cycles push the fate of these people further into the background, please keep the spotlight on all U.S. citizens affected by the 2017 hurricane season and the pressure on FEMA and Congress to be accountable.

James Linsell, Traverse City, Mich.
KIEV HAS been the scene of a somewhat farcical drama this month centering on Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president-turned-Ukrainian dissident. Mr. Saakashvili was invited to Ukraine in 2015 by newly elected President Petro Poroshenko to assist in transforming the former Soviet republic into a Western-style democracy capable of someday joining the European Union. Now Mr. Poroshenko is doing his best to jail or deport his former ally  and repeatedly failing, thanks to demonstrations by Mr. Saakashvilis supporters and, most recently, a judges ruling.

Mr. Saakashvili, who led a revolution in Georgia, now aspires to do the same in Ukraine. His attempts to do so were going nowhere until the government first stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship while he was out of the country, then tried to arrest him on dubious charges of conspiring with a pro-Russian oligarch. The resulting street theater  Mr. Saakashvili was wrestled out of a police van by his supporters at one point  has served only to draw attention to the case he has been making: that Mr. Poroshenko's government, which promised to put an end to the endemic corruption that has haunted Ukraine since it became independent in 1991, has instead become a major obstacle to reform.

While police were pursuing Mr. Saakashvili, Mr. Poroshenko's supporters were conducting a lower-profile but more consequential campaign against reformist parliamentarians as well as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an agency set up with Western backing. An undercover investigation against a senior immigration official was disrupted, and the homes of a dozen anti-corruption officials and their relatives raided.

Strong protests from the European Union, the State Department and the International Monetary Fund slowed the offensive. But Mr. Poroshenko appears to be calculating that neither Western leaders nor Ukrainians  who overthrew the country's last, spectacularly corrupt president  will hold him accountable, because of Ukraine's ongoing standoff with Russian-backed separatists in its eastern provinces.

That low-level war simmers on: The United Nations reported Tuesday that 15 civilians had been killed in near-daily skirmishing between mid-August and mid-November. To the extent that it pays heed to Ukraine, the Trump administration is focused on the conflict: A U.S. envoy is trying to turn a Russian proposal for peacekeepers into a viable plan for pacifying the region. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sees a security settlement in Ukraine as a prerequisite for normalizing relations with the regime of Vladimir Putin.

Such a deal would help Ukraine stabilize. But as long as it fails to clean up its institutions and firmly embrace the rule of law, it will remain deeply vulnerable to Russian subversion. As it is, Mr. Poroshenko's apparent defense of the old, corrupt order is increasing public sympathy for Russia and its proxies. Surely no one is enjoying the Saakashvili drama more than Mr. Putin, who with crocodile tears said Thursday that it "makes one so sad to see all this."

The United States and the European Union have considerable leverage over Mr. Poroshenko, who is still seeking defensive weapons from Washington and a pathway to E.U. membership. They should insist that he stop targeting anti-corruption investigators and create a special anti-corruption court. Meanwhile, Ukraines leader should do himself a favor and stop pursuing Mr. Saakashvili. That campaign could only help the Georgian fulfill his misguided dream of becoming a revolutionary leader  or a martyr.
American conservatives are engaged in a generational struggle for the future. In the political press, with its preference for trivialization over ideas, this fight is portrayed as a mere clash of personalities jockeying for power, with Breitbart News chairman and former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon in one corner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the other.

But this battle is bigger than the posturing between the two men and their aides. Its stakes are higher than who won the Alabama special election. On one side are McConnell & Co.'s tired grab bag of 1980s-era slogans  free trade, supply-side economics and American exceptionalism  that, although good ideas, seem to have lost their sense of urgency. On the other is a vibrant new conservatism that takes on the challenge posed by an ambitious, bellicose China, the moral imperative of a pro-citizen immigration policy and the necessity of trade policies that strengthen the middle class rather than undermine its economic foundations.

Under the McConnell regime, too many Beltway Republicans continue to see the base of their own party as the problem, a resource to be used in even-numbered years to fill campaign coffers and pull levers  a necessary evil, not a participant citizenry. In this context, many Republican incumbents look conservative only in the sense of being cautious and resistant to change.

If 2010 was a wake-up call for the Washington establishment, 2016 was the start of a revolution, when 63 million voters rallied to then-candidate Donald Trump's calls to "drain the swamp." And if Trump's White House position requires him to cooperate at times with McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Bannon's new perch outside the official White House structure allows him to use the energy of this new movement to overturn the existing Republican power structure and build something new and, ideally, more responsive to voters.

Despite a years worth of overwrought anti-Trump rhetoric from certain quarters on the right decrying the imminent rule of the one  the tyrant  many rank-and-file Republicans see oligarchy  the rule of the privileged few  as the real threat. In this view, too many elected Republicans are willing to see elites consolidate power at the expense of the people, as long as they can retain their offices and perquisites.

The Bannon wing of the party offers an essentially class-based critique of the nations economic and political woes that argues that the people have lost control, and that they have been superseded by an economic, cultural and political elite.

The fulcrum in this war of ideas is President Trump. From the moment he came down the escalator, Trump has instinctively sided with the base, channeling its anxieties and aspirations and becoming its tribune. Doing so won him the election but engendered some lingering antipathy from party bosses. Now as president, he is head of the party and must work with Republican leaders in Congress who are often hostile to the ideas, and maybe the people, behind Trumps victory.

To persuade or cajole the Republican Congress he inherited to enact his agenda, Trump must make both the intellectual and the political cases for a new conservatism. He was able to win more voters than any Republican candidate in history, and now he must be part of the effort to convince elites if he wants to remake the Republican Party the way President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s.

The cognitive dissonance within the Republican Party that Trump and his allies must resolve is evident in the tax bill. It's a hash of rate reductions and elimination of deductions that does not advance any clearly articulated principle other than the belated recognition by congressional Republicans that they must accomplish something or risk voters' wrath.

It would have been better for Republicans to make sure that the working and middle classes directly experienced the benefits of tax reform. In addition to rate reductions for high-income earners, Republicans could include tax credits for hiring U.S. citizens and for tuition, and exemption of some income from the payroll tax. Each would provide more tangible benefit than a small rate reduction.

Still, elimination of the Obamacare individual mandate fulfills a promise and hands the president an important political victory. Its about time, because the base, which overwhelmingly backed Trump, is impatient with the infuriating combination of insouciance and threadbare slogans offered by Republican elites.

Republicans can build a lasting majority if they act decisively to enlarge and strengthen the beleaguered middle class. That means a pro-citizen immigration policy, a pro-worker trade policy and a foreign policy that is more circumspect of foreign military commitments. And that requires a reformation of the party. Will the GOP be republican or merely Republican? At root, thats what the fight is all about.
Columnist

Oh, Alabama, the devil fools with the best-laid plan.

 Neil Young

Alabama has come full circle. After waging a bloody battle over civil rights throughout the 1960s, George Wallace's home became a target of contempt for the outside world. But with Democrat Doug Jones's shocking Senate victory in the bright-red state this week, Neil Young's words of warning seem more relevant to President Trump's failed plan to remake the Republican Party in his own reactionary image.

GOP leaders have acquiesced to Trump's dreadful designs for too long to escape harsh judgment at the polls. One year after gaining control of Washington, Republicans are being routed by Democrats in the generic ballot test: "Which party would you support in a congressional election?" Perhaps that is because few party members objected to Trump's proposed Muslim ban, or his feigned ignorance of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, or his characterization of Mexican immigrants as rapists, or his discrimination against an Indiana-born judge because his parents were born in Mexico, or his attack on a Muslim Gold Star family, or his use of moral equivalence to embrace white supremacists in Charlottesville, or his promotion of British neo-Nazi videos. Republicans across the United States will now pay a heavy price for two years of moral indifference.

The Virginia governor's race last month was decided, in large part, by women who stood patiently in the rain to vote against the candidate endorsed by Trump. This week's Alabama result was secured by black voters who rushed to the polls in numbers equal to those of Barack Obama's historic 2008 victory.

We are learning that the laws of physics apparently apply to politics in the Age of Trump. Newtons third law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction explains much about the Democratic Partys resurgence. Physics professors teach that force always comes in pairs, and true to form, the harder Trump and his Republican allies push back against gains made in recent years by women and minorities, the harder these same Americans push against Trump and his Republican enablers. The political reaction likely to result from this Newtonian cycle is a complete collapse of the Grand Old Party.

Trumpism is proving to be an amazing elixir for Democratic candidates. Until this week, Democrats hadn't elected a senator in Alabama since 1992. In Virginia, Democratic Gov.-elect Ralph Northam outperformed Hillary Clinton across the state, while Democratic legislative candidates racked in one upset victory after another. That same day in Delaware County, Pa., Democrats outpolled Republicans for the first time ever. Democratic candidates have flipped 14 state legislature seats since Trump's 2016 win, while Republicans have switched none. Even in districts where GOP candidates survive, margins of victory are dropping precipitously. The number of voters who now identify themselves as Republicans has fallen five points  from 42 to 37 percent  in the past year.

During the Obama presidency, Democrats lost 1,042 legislative seats nationally. They were routed in one governor's race after another. The tea party helped Republicans take over the House in 2010; the GOP regained the Senate in 2014. And Democrats did the unthinkable two years later and lost the White House to Trump.

But now, Trump  that one-time Democratic real estate developer  is returning the favor to his old political party. The toxic political formula he used to win the White House is not transferable to would-be demagogues in waiting. That is good news for the United States, but grim news for GOP leaders who foolishly tied their future to a reality-show star whose political rise was fueled by racism.

How ironic that it was in George Wallaces Alabama that the political fever called Trumpism would finally break. The devil fools with the best-laid plans.

Read more from Joe Scarborough's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Regarding the Dec. 13 front-page article "Jones wins in Democratic upset":

While I often disagree with the editorial positions of The Post and occasionally its journalistic liberties, I appreciate its high and correct efforts in exposing and running to ground the abhorrent Roy Moore. As awful as our current politics are, the election of a deranged and perverse charlatan as senator would have so soiled the notion of democracy that I am not sure Mr. Moores victory would not have been the final tipping point into real chaos.

Like many Americans, I remain a big supporter of draining the swamp, upsetting the apple cart, throwing out the bums and shaking up the status quo. That said, if the alternative is mall-trolling, Bible-thumping hypocrites such as Mr. Moore, then put me down as pro-swamp.

Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.

President Trump said Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama, could not win the general election. Mr. Trump originally backed Luther Strange. When Mr. Moore beat Mr. Strange in the primary, Mr. Trump had few options without violating Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican."

Mr. Moore carried the insurmountable baggage of being guilty until proven innocent. Convicted in the court of public opinion. Guilty of a nearly 40-year-old flashback and righteous qualm of conscience. Sen.-elect Doug Jones, a Democrat, and Mr. Moore basically split the vote, and that does not give Mr. Jones a mandate in a solid-red state. A Democratic, middle-class tsunami? Not so fast.

Michael Velsmid, Nantucket, Mass.
Columnist

If the Republican tax plan passes Congress, it will mark a watershed for the United States. The medium- and long-term effects of the plan will be a massive drop in public investment, which will come on the heels of decades of declining spending (as a percentage of gross domestic product) on infrastructure, scientific research, skills training and core government agencies. The United States can't coast on past investments forever, and with this legislation, we are ushering in a bleak future.

The tax bill is expected to add at least $1 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, and some experts think the real loss to federal revenue will be much higher. If Congress doesn't slash spending, automatic cuts will kick in unless Democrats and Republicans can agree to waive them. Either way, the prospects for discretionary spending look dire, with potential cuts to spending on roads and airports, training and apprenticeship programs, health-care research and public-health initiatives, among hundreds of other programs. And these cuts would happen on top of an already difficult situation. As Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution points out, combined public investment by federal, state and local governments is at its lowest point in six decades, relative to GDP.

The United States is at a breaking point. In August, the World Bank looked at 50 countries and found that the United States will have the largest unmet infrastructure needs over the next two decades. Look in any direction. According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the United States has almost 56,000 bridges with structural problems (about 1,900 of which are on interstate highways), and these are crossed 185 million times a day.

Another industry report says that in 1977 the federal government provided 63 percent of the country's total investment in water infrastructure, but only 9 percent by 2014. There's so much congestion in America's largest rail hub, Chicago, that it takes longer for a freight train to pass through the city than it takes to get from there to Los Angeles, according to Building America's Future, a public interest group.

There is no better indication of the U.S. government's myopia than the decline in funding for research. A recent report in Science notes that for the first time since World War II, private funding for basic research now exceeds federal funding. Research and development topped 10 percent of the national budget in the mid-1960s; it is now less than 4 percent. And the Senate's version of the tax bill removed a crucial tax credit that has encouraged corporate spending on research, though the House-Senate compromise version will probably keep it. All this is happening in an environment in which other countries, from South Korea to Germany to China, are ramping up their investments in these areas. A recent study found that China is on track to surpass the United States as the world leader in biomedical research spending.

When I came to America in the 1980s, I was struck by how well the government functioned. When I would hear complaints about the IRS or the Federal Aviation Administration, I would often reply, "Have you ever seen how badly these bureaucracies work in other countries?" Certainly compared with India, where I grew up, but even compared with countries such as France and Italy, many of the federal government's key offices were professional and competent. But decades of criticism, congressional micromanagement and underfunding have taken their toll. Agencies such as the IRS are now threadbare. The Census Bureau is preparing to go digital and undertake a new national tally, but it is hamstrung by an insufficient budget and has had to cancel several much-needed tests. The FAA lags behind equivalent agencies in countries such as Canada and has been delayed in upgrading its technology because of funding lapses and uncertainties. The list goes on and on.

There are genuine problems beyond underfunding. The costs of building American infrastructure are astronomical. But during the Depression, World War II and much of the Cold War, a sense of crisis and competition focused Americas attention and created a bipartisan urgency to get things done. Ironically, at a time when competition is far more fierce, when other countries have surpassed the United States in many of these areas, America has fallen into extreme partisanship and embraced a know-nothing libertarianism that is starving the country of the essential investments it needs for growth. Those who vote for this tax bill  possibly the worst piece of major legislation in a generation  will live in infamy, as the country slowly breaks down.

Read more from Fareed Zakaria's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
I was taken aback by Philip Kennicott's tone and blind assertions expressed about my since-deceased husband Frederick Hart and Hart's sculpture "The Three Soldiers" in his review of James Reston Jr.'s book "A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial" ["The ugly battle over Vietnam's fallen," Book World, Dec. 3]. Hart's opinion of Maya Lin's design was not motivated by race and gender. Hart and Lin represent different aspects of the art spectrum. Hart did not direct his criticism at Lin personally. He voiced his criticism in the context of opposing views of art.

The assertion that Hart demanded more compensation than the competition award Lin received is unfair and incorrect. Harts negotiated contract with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund reflected the fact that Hart was employed to produce a design concept, complete months of work in clay and plaster on three larger-than-life-size figures and bear the costs and responsibility for the bronze casting.

At a time when the notion of compromise struggles for air in our nations polarized atmosphere, perhaps it is worth looking afresh at that divisive time when, despite a roiling controversy, a memorial was built to heal divisions precisely because compromise prevailed.

Lindy Hart, Chevy Chase

I was in charge of obtaining the design and building the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and I take issue with Philip Kennicott's generally favorable review of James Reston Jr.'s deeply flawed book, "A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial."

Despite having as a resource my own 2015 book, "Creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial  The Inside Story," Reston made at least three dozen factual errors. The errors range from the stupid  getting the names of the Commission of Fine Arts and the memorial itself wrong  to the egregious  the idea that some were given an "inside track" to design the memorial. I would have been happy to help him get it right had he contacted me.

Reston also never talked with Maya Lin, and the worst aspects of the book are his ad hominem attacks on her: her uncooperative, hostile behavior and Maya did not walk away from Washington with a single friend. I worked closely with her and did not perceive her behavior as uncooperative. Her strong-willed perseverance kept the design true to what she had intended.

Reston's chief reasons for undertaking this project appear to be his grief over losing a friend in Vietnam and his guilt for not serving there himself. He should have stuck with those issues rather than exploiting his fame and name to muddy the waters of the memorial's historiography.

Robert W. Doubek, Washington

The writer was executive director

and project director of the

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

from 1979 to 1983.
IN OCTOBER, the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether it should limit politicians from tinkering with legislative district lines to advantage their own party. Partisan gerrymandering has become both increasingly sophisticated and increasingly anti-democratic, as parties cement their hold on power at the cost of public faith in representative government. The court's decision to consider Wisconsin's skewed map was the first sign in years that the justices might be willing to intervene. Now, the court has taken on a second challenge.

The Wisconsin case, Gill v. Whitford, involves a Republican effort to entrench the GOP's hold on the state legislature. With the help of sophisticated computer modeling, Republican lawmakers produced maps so distorted that the party won a supermajority in 2012 even after losing the popular vote. The newer case, Benisek v. Lamone, concerns gerrymandering by Maryland Democrats seeking to unseat a Republican member of Congress. In 2011, the state's Democratic government redrew Maryland's 6th District to shift Republican voters out and Democratic voters in. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R) lost his previously safe 6th District seat to a Democratic challenger in 2012  a victory for what Democrats described as their "7-1 plan," named after their effort to net seven of Maryland's eight congressional districts.

It's rare for the Supreme Court to take up a second case concerning an issue it is already considering. The addition of the Maryland case may signal the court's willingness to strike down extreme gerrymanders. During oral arguments over Gill, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy appeared open to siding with the four more liberal justices against Wisconsin's map.

The two cases offer different ways for the justices to think through the problem of partisan redistricting. Marylands challengers  current and former residents of the 6th District  focus only on their own districts reshaping. They argue that gerrymandering limits their political voice on the basis of their party affiliation, violating their free-speech rights. In Wisconsin, the plaintiffs take aim at the redistricting of the entire state in favor of Republicans. They make the case that this unbalanced political influence along party lines goes against the Constitutions promise of equal protection, as well as freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court has hesitated to tackle partisan gerrymandering for fear of entangling itself in partisan politics. But Maryland and Wisconsin show that gerrymandering is an issue of bipartisan concern. The contest is not Republicans vs. Democrats, but political parties seeking an unbreakable hold on power vs. voters who just want representation.

The justices should take this chance to set standards against extreme partisan gerrymandering. Where to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable gerrymanders is a delicate question, and the courts will not want to involve themselves in every electoral dispute. But making clear that theres a limit to constitutionally acceptable gerrymandering would deter lawmakers from chicanery going forward. It should also encourage them to hand the redistricting process to independent, nonpartisan commissions  the ultimate solution to this problem.
Melissa Richmond is vice president of Running Start.

Ive always been proud of the ways Im independent. So when a middle-aged man stopped me in a parking garage and asked me to jump-start his car several years ago, I was happy to help. As we worked to get his car running, we talked. I mentioned I was a first-year law school student who had worked in politics. He said he was impressed that I had jumper cables (he didnt) and that I knew how to use them. He also said he was a member of Congress and asked me to follow up with him if I wanted a summer internship.

I half-expected that the person I had helped wasnt really a congressman. But, sure enough, he was. I called the number he gave me (it was his cellphone) and said I would like to be considered for an internship.

For first-year law school students, securing a summer job is stressful. Naturally, I was excited when I was invited to the congressmans office to interview with his senior staff. For a 23-year-old, I had extensive political experience. I had worked in a governors office, on a PAC and on a presidential campaign. After the interviews, the congressmans office offered me a summer internship focusing on his Judiciary Committee work.

Several weeks went by. Then something unusual happened. The congressman called me on my cellphone  from his cellphone  late on a Sunday night. He mentioned that his family wasnt home and asked me whether I could come over that night for a final one-on-one interview with him.

[The one best idea for ending sexual harassment]

I was stunned. Senior members of his staff had interviewed me weeks before and offered me the position. After speaking with my family, I called the congressman back and told him I didnt feel comfortable going to his house. In that case, he told me, the internship offer was rescinded.

I should have marched back into the congressmans office the next morning and demanded that they honor their offer. Or I should have gone to House leadership and made a formal report. But I didnt want to ruffle any feathers, and, at that point, I didnt want to work for a member who would rescind a job offer because I wouldnt go to his house alone late at night.

Eight years later, that lawmaker  Arizona Republican Trent Franks  has resigned, in the wake of reports that he asked two female staff members to be a surrogate mother for his child. In his resignation letter, Franks said, "I have absolutely never physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have, any sexual contact with any member of my congressional staff." I can't say for certain what would have happened had I gone to his house that night. I do know that I never should have been put in that uncomfortable position or been penalized for refusing.

Looking back, Im struck by my own lack of action. An opportunity was taken from me because I declined to put myself in a situation that felt wrong and dangerous. But I also didnt demand that the opportunity be reinstated, nor did I report the behavior that made me uncomfortable.

I have spent the past five years at Running Start, a nonpartisan nonprofit that trains young women to run for political office. The research that underlies our mission finds that women win at the same rates as men when they run but that there arent enough women running and that women lose their political ambition and confidence in their qualifications in high school and college. Congressmen such as Franks arent helping young women feel politically ambitious or confident in their qualifications.

At the time, I think I felt simultaneously that the harm done to me was not enough to report and that I was not powerful enough to report it. Im thankful to, and inspired by, the women who did speak up. And I am especially cognizant of the additional barriers to speaking up faced by some women, such as women of color, LGBTQ folks, people with disabilities, mothers, immigrants and others.

So, to all young women who want to run for office, you also inspire me. I hope to one day have daughters who will look up to elected leaders such as you. To my future daughters, heres my advice: If something feels wrong or unsafe, speak up. Speak up even if it makes you seem unlikable. Speak up even if youre young or if the other person is far more powerful. Speak up even if, in doing so, you are perceived as less credible. Speak up even if you think it will hurt your political career. Speak up because you deserve to be heard and because, in speaking up, you will make it easier for other young women to run for office someday.

Editor's note:

Former representative Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) provided the following statement via text message to The Post in response to the account in Melissa Richmond's op-ed: "I can categorically state that I have never invited any person applying for any job in my office to be interviewed in my home." Asked whether he recalled meeting Richmond, discussing a summer job with her, inviting her to his home or withdrawing an internship offer, Franks responded, "With all due respect, my statement was unequivocal and will have to stand as my final response to the query."
Columnist

Whos afraid of Trumpism-Bannonism? The noxious stew of nativism, xenophobia, misogyny, manufactured grievance and barely disguised white supremacy that put Donald Trump in the White House now appears less an all-conquering juggernaut than a paper tiger  one that Alabamians, bless their hearts, balled up and threw in the trash.

Incredibly, Trump managed to lose twice in a deep-red state he won by 28 points just a year ago. He supported Roy Moore's opponent, Luther Strange, in the Republican primary, only to suffer a humiliating defeat. And then  prodded by his political "wizard," Stephen K. Bannon  Trump reversed himself and went all-in for Moore in the days leading up to Tuesday's general-election vote. As you might have heard, Moore lost to Democrat and now Sen.-elect Doug Jones.

"I was right !" Trump pathetically tweeted, having been utterly wrong. Sad!

It is possible to read too much into Joness victory. He won by fewer than 21,000 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast, which is not exactly a landslide. And Moore was thought of as a dangerous clown by many Alabama voters even before The Post revealed he was credibly accused of being a child molester.

But let's not read too little into Tuesday's vote, either. Alabama is such a solidly Republican state that in 2014, the last time this Senate seat came open, Democrats didn't even bother to field an opponent against incumbent Jeff Sessions, whose resignation to become attorney general triggered Tuesday's special election.

Moore was, in many ways, the perfect Trumpist-Bannonist candidate: a populist renegade who perfectly fit the description "all hat and no cattle." He was once removed and once suspended as the elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for insisting that his religious beliefs outweighed the Constitution. He expressed disdain for the constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and allowed African Americans and women to vote. He initially issued non-denial denials against allegations that he pursued sexual relationships with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. And he had a keen instinct for theatrics, adopting the habit of showing up to vote on Election Day on horseback, as if he were planning to lead a cattle drive later that afternoon.

Responding to accusations of sexual misconduct, Moore took a page from Trump's playbook, finally settling on the story that the women  none of whom had anything to gain from coming forward  were all lying. Like Trump, he painted himself as the victim of a dastardly plot by nefarious elites.

Bannon supported him early, cowed the state party establishment into going along and reportedly persuaded Trump to climb aboard the bandwagon, too, because Moore would surely win. "The people of Alabama will do the right thing," the president tweeted on the morning of the vote.

Unfortunately for Trump and Bannon, Alabamians did just that.

It is the sweetest of ironies that Jones, when he was U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, successfully prosecuted two aging Ku Klux Klan members for their roles in one of the worst atrocities of the civil rights era  the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, in which four young African American girls, attending Sunday school, were killed. How wonderful it is that a man who struck such an important blow for racial justice defeated a charlatan who has actually expressed nostalgia for the olden days before the Civil War.

What should worry Trumpists, Bannonites and the quisling Republicans who go with the flow of this aberrant presidency is that Alabama cannot be seen in a vacuum. A trend is brewing.

Last month in Virginia, a purple state, Democrat Ralph Northam won the governor's race by the biggest margin for a Democrat in the Old Dominion since 1985. His Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, had run an ugly campaign with television ads appealing to white racial animus against immigrants and minorities. Democrats not only sent Gillespie packing but also virtually erased the GOP's once-unassailable majority in the lower house of the state legislature.

In both Virginia and Alabama, Democratic voter turnout was huge, while Republican turnout was middling. The enthusiasm gap between the parties was more of a chasm. A year ago, Democrats spoke of the 2018 midterm election as an opportunity to make gains in the House and, if possible, keep from losing seats in the Senate. Now, after Alabama, even cautious analysts have to consider the possibility of a wave election that gives Democrats control of one or both chambers.

Dont get me wrong, Trumpism-Bannonism does have a following. Its just that Americanism has a bigger one.

Read more from Eugene Robinson's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
Theres more than one way to harass women. A raft of men in recent weeks have paid for accusations of sexual harassment with their companies, their jobs, their plum political posts. But one point has been overlooked in the scandals: Men can be belittling, cruel and deeply damaging without demanding sex. (Try sloughing off heaps of contempt with your self-esteem intact.) We have no consensus  and hardly any discussion  about how we should treat behaviors that are misogynist and bullying but fall short of breaking the law.

Twenty years ago, when I was a Moscow correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, two Americans named Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames ran an English-language tabloid in the Russian capital called the eXile. They portrayed themselves as swashbuckling parodists, unbound by the conventions of mainstream journalism, exposing Westerners who were cynically profiting from the chaos of post-Soviet Russia.

A better description is this: The eXile was juvenile, stunt-obsessed and pornographic, titillating for high school boys. It is back in the news because Taibbi just wrote a new book, and interviewers are asking him why he and Ames acted so boorishly back then. The eXiles distinguishing feature, more than anything else, was its blinding sexism  which often targeted me.

At the time, the paper had its defenders, even those who acknowledged its misogyny and praised it anyway. A Rolling Stone article by Brian Preston in 1998 described the eXile's "misogynist rants, dumb pranks, insulting club listings and photos of blood-soaked corpses, all redeemed by political reporting that's read seriously not only in Moscow but also in Washington." A 2010 Vanity Fair reminiscence by James Verini wrote: "They call Ames and Taibbi, singly or in combination, children, louts, misogynists, madmen, pigs, hypocrites, anarchists, fascists, racists, and fiends." But "what made The Exile so popular, and still makes it so readable, was its high-low mix of acute coverage and character assassination, sermonizing laced with smut  a balance that has also characterized Taibbi's work at Rolling Stone, where he has been a contributing editor for the last five years." Taibbi still writes for Rolling Stone; Ames, too, works in journalism, running a podcast on war and conflict.

I remember the eXile as a mishmash of nightclub listings (rated on how easily a man could get sex), articles on lurid escapades (sex with a 15-year-old girl, an account Ames now says was a joke), political pieces ("Why Our Military Shopping Spree Has Russia Pissed Off") and press reviews savaging mainstream Western journalists. It ridiculed one female reporter as a "star spinster columnist" and mentioned women's "anger lines" and fat ankles. The paper even had a cartoon called the Fat Ankle News , about a woman who tweezes her nose hairs and gorges on doughnuts while editing a story. Some male reporters came in for scorn as toadies or morons or liars. But their outrages concerned their minds and not their bodies.

I came into the eXiles sights because David Johnson, a Russophile living in Washington who edited an online news group devoted to serious writing about Russia, asked his readers whether he should circulate the eXiles press reviews. Id like to encourage some discussion, he wrote.

Accepting his invitation, I replied. "Let a thousand flowers bloom, let Matt Taibbi print whatever he wants," I began. "But why reprint it? . . . In a recent eXile, the editor [Ames] wrote about how he dealt with his pregnant girlfriend when she refused to get an abortion. She wouldn't listen to reason, so he threatened to kill her. That worked! Then he muses on forever about another pregnant acquaintance who aborted and about his relief that this child  who would have been a 'sloped-head idiot'  was instead a dead fetus properly wallowing in the sewers."

The Chicago Reader , in a review of the 2000 Taibbi-Ames memoir, "The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia," described what happened next. "They decided to give [Lally] the treatment. They had a female friend call her and, posing as an anti-Exile sympathizer, ask her to help shut the paper down by giving a statement" to a reactionary Russian intelligence agency.

I remember getting a call from a woman whom I couldn't quite understand over a crackling Russian phone line. I had never heard the acronym for the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information. We got many odd calls at the bureau, some from the mentally ill, some from those with serious grievances, some from people with mysterious motives. I tried to put her off pleasantly by telling her I'd "think about it." It was a bogus sting, and its aim was to humiliate me.

The eXile published what it said was a transcript, which didnt sound at all like me. The paper quoted me agreeing to organize a boycott of the eXiles sponsors and saying I would consider being a witness in a criminal investigation of Taibbi and Ames. I dont remember my words of 20 years ago  I made an effort to forget the eXile and its editors  but I never had any intention of organizing a boycott. And all I ever said about the eXile publicly was in that email to Johnson. But after that, Ames and Taibbi seemed certain I wanted to shut the paper down, censor them and oppose free speech generally. They ridiculed me in the eXile and, later, in their memoir.

When I wrote an article about advertisements that used sex to sell cigarettes  new for Russia  Taibbi addressed my Baltimore Sun editors in his eXile column: "Lally's article is pathological, illogical, inaccurate, makes no point, and is insulting and hypocritical besides. . . . Lally's gaffes may be comic, the wild meanderings of an aging woman nearing derangement." Once, the eXile declared me the winner of its "Gnarliest Elephantine Ass on a Journalist With No Ethics Award." Another time, it published a cartoon showing me in bed with my editor.

I wondered if I should write a story about the eXile, and I started asking Western correspondents what they knew about it. Taibbi had accused a friend of mine of being paid by Russian oligarchs to write favorable stories, so I thought it was worth asking about the eXile's connections. Do you think any oligarchs are financing them? As a reader, can you tell the difference between what they are making up and what they are not? Are they here on journalist visas? Who are their journalistic role models? I never pursued it, but Taibbi found out about my queries. In the eXile, he described "a full frontal attack by, of all things, a matronly middle-aged American print journalist."

Of course I was angry and upset. I worried about my daughters; the older one was in high school. She had to watch her mothers character assassination unfold  witnessed by her classmates.

When The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia came out, the memoir had a few more surprises in store. We dragged . . . Lallys charred [corpse] through the dust-and-fly-infested streets of our newspaper for all to have a laugh, Ames wrote. In the most unexpected anecdote, Taibbi said that another reporter, Fred Weir, described in great detail how the eXile had made me cry. Good! Taibbi describes himself shouting. I was aware of Weir; probably we had bumped into each other at news conferences. But I didnt know him. I couldnt imagine why I would ever have wept in front of him.

I didn't think about Taibbi and Ames for years; my self-esteem remained intact and my life moved along. Then, just as more and more men were being drummed out of public life for long-ago behavior, Taibbi landed in the news, bringing Ames along with him. Taibbi recently published a book about the death of Eric Garner, "I Can't Breathe," and in an interview about it, an NPR host asked him about the eXile years and a passage, written by Ames, in their memoir that described routine sexual harassment of women.

Taibbi apologized on the program and later on Facebook. "The behavior [Ames] describes is reprehensible. It is also, like a lot of things in the eXile, fictional and not true." He said he regretted putting his name on a book "that used cruel and misogynistic language to describe many people and women in particular." In a second Facebook apology, he wrote: "The eXile did have a satirical idea, at least in the beginning. It was supposed to be an obscene send-up of the Americans who stood behind the crooked Yeltsin government." Ames recently told reporters that the eXile was obviously satire and complained that he is being smeared for that satire.

But so many of their sins were real. Taibbi once wrote in the eXile that women had no business wearing "painter's pants and sneakers" when they ought to be more like Russian women, with "their tight skirts, blowjob-ready lips, and swinging, meaty chests." Ames described going to the senior prom of an international high school with a 17-year-old date he called his "Jew-broad"; he was 34. Back home she would be "jailbait," he wrote in the eXile , but Russia "permits sex with a fourteen-year-old, so long as you had reason to believe she was sixteen, the legal statutory age." A photo shows Ames in the front row with his date.

Before I became a favorite target, Taibbi and Ames took regular aim at Carol Williams, the Los Angeles Times Moscow bureau chief in the late 1990s. After she wrote about terrible Moscow roads in 1997, they proclaimed her the ultimate press villain. They said she was translator dependent, even though, she told me, she was the only one in the four-person bureau to travel without a translator. They were trying to provoke me. They were making up stuff and accusing me of complicity with bad actors in the Russian government. It was completely false. They were pigs.

At the time, silence in the face of its bullying seemed the best way of dealing with the eXile. Criticizing it only brought on attack. But now women are regaining their voices, and Ive found myself regaining mine.

First I sent the memoirs passage about my tears to Weir, the alleged source for that anecdote. He remembered me. That is a totally invented conversation, Weir wrote back. I cant recall you ever calling me up in tears or otherwise. He hadnt read the book and had no idea that the authors had attributed the tale to him. If that sounds odd to you, he said, just consider how bizarre it is that you yourself are only just bringing it up with me.

Then I got in touch with Taibbi and Ames, neither of whom has ever met or spoken to me. Ames did not reply to requests for comment. He has, however, described his stories of sex with 15-year-olds as satire. In a Facebook exchange with me, Taibbi gave some ground. I certainly would not go about things now the way I did back then, he wrote. And I apologize for the physical descriptions. That was gratuitous and uncalled for. But before he stopped answering my questions, he took some jabs, complaining about the efforts to get us removed from the Johnsons list.

Finally, we are confronting men who have abused and sexually harassed women for years. That reckoning has been too long coming. But you dont have to grope a woman or force a kiss on her to humiliate her, to make her doubt herself, to silence and diminish her. Bullying, treating women with contempt, freezing them out of the lunches and meetings that build networks and authority: All are damaging, insidious and difficult to root out. That will take time  and more women who call men out. Thats why Im saying #MeToo.

Twitter: @LallyKathy
Rachel Crooks and Samantha Holvey had never met. But through a twist of fate, they became players this week at the center of a national political storm over sexual misconduct that has now reached President Trump.

Both women have accused Trump of inappropriate advances earlier in his career, and a liberal film producer brought them together for the first time Sunday evening at a private dinner in Manhattan.

Crooks traveled from Ohio and Holvey from South Carolina to take part in a media blitz arranged by the filmmaker to bring attention to womens accusations against Trump. The White House says all the women are lying, and the president tweeted this week that their allegations  first made public during the presidential campaign last year  were false accusations and fabricated stories.

But Crooks and Holvey said their memories of Trump remain vivid and unsettling. Crooks, 34, recalled him kissing her repeatedly in a Trump Tower encounter in 2005 when she was 22 years old.

Holvey, 31, remembered her experience as a 2006 Miss USA contestant, horrified when Trump, the pageant owner, barged into the dressing room to inspect the partially clothed women. She was one of several pageant beauties who had publicly complained that Trump treated contestants like his personal property. He talked about his unannounced dressing room inspections on Howard Sterns radio show.

[Trump accusers say it was heartbreaking he was elected despite sexual misconduct allegations]

No one had thought to try to forge a sisterhood of Trump accusers until former Hollywood producer Robert Greenwald and his colleague Shira Levine reached out to Crooks, Holvey and other women willing to step forward once again with their stories.

The filmmakers from Brave New Films had created a short video in November from old clips of 16 women making a range of allegations against Trump. When they posted it on YouTube, Facebook and other social media platforms, it went viral. They decided to contact the women and bring some of them together for a Monday appearance on NBC's "Megyn Kelly Today" and a news conference that attracted international coverage.

The White House condemned the effort as a liberal political ploy, but it gained traction during a week in which allegations of sexual misconduct became a major theme in the Alabama Senate race. Trump's suggestive tweet about New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) further inflamed his critics. Gillibrand said Wednesday that she believed the women's accusations and called on Trump to resign.

[Trump and sexual misconduct accusations: A complete list]

Not all of the Trump accusers wanted to participate in the new alliance or in the push for Congress to investigate Trumps behavior. A third accuser showed up to dine with Crooks and Holvey, Greenwald said, but did not want to be identified because of repercussions she said she suffered after she came forward a year ago.

Levine said she now has a core group of six to eight women who want to participate and intends to link them all by email.

The atmosphere has changed, Levine said, since the women first stepped forward, many in outraged response to Trumps lewd comments on the Access Hollywood tape and his denial that he had ever engaged in the behavior described on the recording.

Its a new planet this year, said Holvey in an interview, and change needs to happen.

The goal of Sundays dinner, Greenwald said, was to give Crooks, Holvey and the other unidentified accuser a private moment before Mondays media whirlwind. Holvey said the women felt an immediate bond.

I felt very strongly I wanted to support the other women, said Holvey, a former Miss North Carolina. Im going to fight with you, she recalled thinking, and Im going to fight for you.

Jessica Leeds, 75, whose complaint about Trumps behavior on an airplane dates back decades, did not attend the dinner but appeared with Crooks and Holvey on the Megyn Kelly Today show and at the news conference, where another accuser, Lisa Boyne, called in.

Now I think its kind of important that we do sort of form a unit, Leeds said.

Four of the women also issued a statement Tuesday, calling Trumps denials straight out of the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby playbook.

Melinda McGillivray, who said last year that Trump groped her in 2003 at his Mar-a-Lago resort, could not attend the dinner and got a separate interview with Kelly on Tuesday, in which she asked why Congress has not launched an investigation.

Its important that we hold this man to the highest standards, McGillivray said on NBCs Megyn Kelly Today. If 16 women have come forward, then why hasnt anything been done?

[My pain is everyday. After Weinstein fall, Trump accusers wonder: Why not him?]

In an interview with The Post earlier this year, McGillivray said she was initially afraid to make her claims publicly during the presidential campaign. McGillivray also said she received online death threats after speaking out last year.

The White House dismissed McGillivrays allegations against Trump as a false and absurd claim.

Absent thus far from the group public appearances were a few accusers who aligned with Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred, including Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice." Allred, who is representing Zervos in a defamation suit against Trump in New York state Superior Court, declined to comment. A court ruling on Trump's motion to dismiss the case is pending.

[Trump may face a reckoning in case brought by female accuser]

The White House also criticized Brave New Films.

This is nothing more than a publicity stunt by a film studio backed by liberal interest groups intent on lobbing politically motivated attacks against American voters, the White House said in a statement.

Brave New Films has an openly liberal mission "to champion social justice issues by using a model of media, education, and grassroots volunteer involvement," according to its website. The group did a full-length documentary on the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch, which the Kochs called inaccurate.

Brave New Films has a special IRS nonprofit designation that allows it to engage in politics. Executive director Jim Miller said 492 donors give a total of $5,536 a month to create content. The group also gets foundation grants for specific projects, Miller said, and donations from individuals.

The film, 16 Women and Donald Trump, was a low-budget project, Miller said. After the films mid-November launch, the nonprofit solicited new funds to use our platform to share the voices of women that have refused to be intimidated into silence.

Crooks dismissed White House criticism that the womens accusations were a coordinated political ploy.

The things that happened to us spanned decades, states, all over, Crooks told Kelly. What could we possibly have, colluded to come up with these tales that all sound so eerily similar?

Holvey said she has seen suggestions that they were working with Democratic leadership. It was not organized like that in any way shape or form, she said. Were independent of that.

Now, the women say they are braced for more backlash.

Holvey passed on to The Post a threatening, obscenity-laced message she received after speaking on Monday. I would hate for something to happen to you . . . it read in part.

But she said the new bond among the women makes threats seem more manageable.

Greenwald said he sensed a new resolve among the women. Im sure as the days go on the sisterhood will get stronger and more bonded, he said.

Even the shared memories at the Sunday dinner showed that more women may have stories to tell, Levine said.

There were 51 women at each of the pageants that Trump owned for more than two decades, Levine said, and others who might have found his dressing room inspections offensive.

Can you imagine? she said. That is a force.

Karen Tumulty and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Senior White House official Jared Kushner and his legal team are searching for a crisis public relations firm, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Kushners lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has quietly called at least two firms, these people said. The inquiries have occurred in the past two weeks, and officials at the firms were asked not to discuss the conversations with others.

In a statement, Lowell confirmed he was looking for a firm that would handle media for all high-profile clients that receive attention from the press. His other clients include Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat whose months-long corruption trial ended last month when jurors deadlocked. The Justice Department has not announced whether it plans to retry him.

My law firm and I are considering hiring an outside consultant to handle the time-consuming incoming inquiries on the cases in which I am working that receive media attention, Lowell said in a statement to The Washington Post. This inquiry from you about whether I am doing this is a good example of why we need one.

Investigators for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III have asked witnesses questions about Kushner's interactions with former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn as part of his larger investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the investigation. Kushner has been identified by people familiar with his role as the "very senior member" of the Trump transition team who directed Flynn in December to reach out to the Russian ambassador and lobby him about a United Nations resolution on Israeli settlements, according to court documents. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have also subpoenaed documents about his family company's use of the EB-5 visa program at a planned Jersey City development.

Crisis PR firms are often retained to handle a negative development or an avalanche of media inquiries. Kushner has been in the headlines almost daily, and he has complained to friends about the nonstop negative attention from the news media. White House officials have speculated for months that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, would return to New York, but he has told associates over the last month he plans to stay.

At least one firm, Mercury Public Affairs, passed up the opportunity to work with Kushners team, people familiar with the discussions said. Mercurys lobbying work has also come under scrutiny by Mueller, which could have complicated its ability to represent Kushner.

Michael McKeon, a partner at Mercury, declined to comment. The firm, which has not been accused of wrongdoing by Mueller's team, has said it is cooperating with investigators.

Kushner is largely represented in the White House by Josh Raffel, who joined the administration earlier this year to handle media inquiries for the Office of American Innovation, which Kushner leads.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed focused this week on rebooting his image as a beleaguered Cabinet member on the outs with his boss and his own employees  holding a rare town hall with employees, promising foreign trips into 2018 and saying he is learning to enjoy his job.

But then he went off script by offering another invitation for diplomatic talks with nuclear-armed North Korea, putting him at odds once again with President Trump and senior White House officials, who are increasingly exasperated with the secretary of state and say he cannot remain in his job for the long term.

The episode highlights the deep distrust between the White House and Tillerson and suggests how difficult it will be for the relationship to continue. While Trump and Tillerson have clashed on several policy issues  including negotiating with North Korea, the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and planning to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem  much of the distance between them seems personal and probably irreversible, White House officials said.

Tillerson, one White House official said, had not learned his lesson from the last time, when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea.

A senior U.S. official said foreign diplomats and leaders often ask if Tillerson is speaking for the administration and when he will depart. Another White House aide said White House officials, diplomats and other Cabinet secretaries largely deem the former ExxonMobil chief executive irrelevant.



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a U.S.-Mexico bilateral meeting at the State Department in Washington. (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Inside the White House, this person said, there are fairly regular conversations about who will replace Tillerson even as he remains in the job. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, for example, may no longer be the leading choice because it means he would not brief Trump every day, and the president likes him in that role, the official said.

I think our allies know at this point hes not really speaking for the administration, this Trump official said  a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trumps actions.

[White House readies a plan to replace Tillerson at State]

West Wing officials spoke about Tillerson on the condition of anonymity to describe internal personnel dynamics.

Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, said Trump is very pleased with his entire national security team, which includes Secretary Tillerson.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tillerson enjoys a strong relationship with the president. Most importantly, they share a commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the security of our homeland and the protection of our allies.

Nauert noted that Tillerson had lunch with Trump on Thursday. The discussion included North Korea, she said.

The latest dust-up began Tuesday when Tillerson caught the White House by surprise with remarks at the Atlantic Council that appeared to mark a shift away from the Trump administrations demand that North Korea commit to disarmament upfront. Tillersons comments also stood in sharp contrast to Trumps past pronouncements that talking to North Korea is a trap or waste of time.

Were ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk, Tillerson said. Were ready to have the first meeting without preconditions.

Lets just meet and lets  we can talk about the weather if you want, Tillerson said to laughter.

The comments upset Trump and several senior aides, and set off a cascade of emails and phone calls that ended with a terse statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. National Security Council aides were particularly frustrated with the remarks and complained loudly, administration officials say.

The Presidents views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world, Sanders said in the statement. North Koreas actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.

Senior Trump aides say that Tillerson knew he was contradicting Trump, according to White House advisers. The State Department said Tillersons invitation was not a break with the administrations official position.

Tillersons State Department continues to clash with the White House over personnel  picks are often scuttled or delayed, officials say  and Trump would sometimes react with exasperation when the secretarys name is brought up, other officials said. One senior official said Trump will sometimes commend senior policy aide Stephen Miller for the time he clashed with Tillerson, or will mention disagreements Tillerson has had with other aides  and not take Tillersons side.

[Death spiral: Tillerson makes nice but may not last long with Trump]

Inside the West Wing, several aides said people close to Trump essentially were counting down the days until Tillerson leaves, which they guess will be in February.

Trump has told advisers he is amazed at the negative news attention Tillerson receives and has said to at least one adviser that Tillerson probably gripes about him behind his back. But Trump does not believe Tillerson called him a moron as NBC News first reported, a White House official said.

Tillerson has sought out Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) as an ally, frequently meeting with him for breakfast. And Corker has tried to solidify Tillersons standing by vouching for him to Trump and senior aides. But after Corker went on television and praised Tillerson, Trump complained to aides that Corker was defending the secretary of state.

For now, Trump has told advisers that he is not firing Tillerson.

Wheres our Rex? he told supporters at a recent holiday party, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post. Rex is doing a great job!

Tillerson received applause at the event.

During an October visit to China, Tillerson had described U.S. willingness to talk with North Korea as a linchpin in any nonmilitary resolution to the nuclear crisis. Within hours, Trump had hung his top diplomat out to dry with a tweet.

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man, Trump wrote, using a favorite insult for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Save your energy, Rex, well do what has to be done!

Sanders later underscored to reporters that the White House sees no opening for talks except to try to free Americans detained in North Korea.

West Wing aides have cited that example as well as policy clashes behind closed doors to criticize Tillerson for overstepping his role or freelancing on policy issues.

Rumors have swirled since this summer that Tillerson is on thin ice and would soon leave the administration. He has dismissed them as Washington backstabbing and rumor-mongering, saying this month that news reports about an impending ouster were "laughable."

"People need to get better sources," Tillerson said in a Dec. 2 interview with the Reuters news agency.

At the State Department on Wednesday, Nauert said Tillerson was "on the same page" with the White House.

"Diplomacy is our top priority," Nauert said. "We remain open to dialogue, and we've long said this. We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Nauert added that "we are not seeing any evidence that they are ready to sit down and have those kinds of conversations right now."

An open-door policy is just what many U.S. allies and partners want, and what outside policy experts have frequently recommended as the best way to draw Kim to talks that could avert war.

They argue that Kim is likely never to agree at the outset that eliminating his nuclear arsenal is the goal of talks. Kim has used his rapidly advancing nuclear weapons capability to threaten the United States and Asian allies, and has vowed never to give them up.

Speaking to State Department employees Tuesday, Tillerson did not sound like a man with one foot out the door. He said he plans to travel to Canada next week and to Africa and Latin America early next year.

"This is all about modernizing the department and making it easier to complete your mission," Tillerson told employees.

He will attend a United Nations Security Council session on North Korea in New York on Friday.

One adviser who knows Tillerson and Trump well said the president has treated the secretary of state "horribly" and humiliated him unnecessarily. But this person said Tillerson also has made "enough mistakes of his own."

"It makes me angry," this person said of the president's behavior toward Tillerson. The adviser described Trump as "impulsive" and Tillerson as "a patrician Boy Scout," adding that the two are never going to get along but that their mismatch does not need to be so public.
During his Roosevelt Room appearance on deregulation, President Trump stood by stacks of office paper that embodied the extent of federal regulations in 1960 and the current regulatory code. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

President Trump vowed Thursday to scale back the scope of federal regulations to the level it stood in 1960, suggesting that he could get there fairly quickly by pushing ahead with a deregulatory effort that has wiped dozens of rules off the books since he took office.

Were here today for one single reason: to cut the red tape of regulation, Trump said of his tenure, adding that the never-ending growth of red tape in America has come to a sudden, screeching and beautiful halt under his administration.

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Neomi Rao told reporters later Thursday that while the deregulatory push has been pretty impressive . . . I think returning to 1960 levels would likely require legislation.

The administration eliminated 67 regulations between the time Trump took the oath of office and the end of fiscal 2017, according to the White House's newly released "Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions," while proposing just three new rules. Those regulations included imposing restrictions on how dental offices dispose of mercury, stricter energy-efficiency standards for walk-in freezers and coolers, and a new billing and reporting system for skilled nursing facilities.

The initiative has eliminated $570 million a year in regulatory costs, Rao said.

Were planning to keep up the deregulatory effort, she said, adding that undoing federal rules takes time.

Trump touted that in its first 11 months, his administration had canceled or delayed over 1,500 planned regulatory actions  more than any previous president by far.

And you see the results when you look at the stock market, when you look at the results of companies, he added, and when you see companies coming back into our country.

[Trump undertakes biggest regulatory rollback since Reagan]

Many of those rules were either in the planning stages or, in the case of 244 of them, had languished for some time and have now been classified as inactive.

The president brandished several props for his Roosevelt Room appearance, including a chart detailing federal requirements for a highway project that was so lengthy that Chris Liddell, White House director of strategic initiatives, could not manage to fully unfurl it. Trump also stood by stacks of white office paper that embodied the extent of federal regulations in 1960  which ran 20,000 pages, compared with the current regulatory code, which amounts to 185,000 pages.

As he took a pair of shiny scissors to the red ribbon that spanned the two piles, Trump declared, Were going to cut a ribbon because were getting back below the 1960 level, and well be back there fairly quickly.

Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at Public Citizens Congress Watch division, said in an email that Trumps move to require to offset the costs of any new regulation will delay needed public health protections.

The Environmental Protection Agency had nearly finalized an update to the nations 1991 lead and copper drinking water standards just before Barack Obama left office. It announced Wednesday that it was seeking state input on the standards and projected in the Unified Agenda that it would not finalize the rule until 2020.

EPA is evaluating the costs and benefits of the potential revisions and assessing whether the benefits justify the costs, the agenda reads.

The latest unified agenda is a perfect illustration of the deeply harmful real-world impacts of Trumps deregulatory push, Narang said in the email. Corporate interests may celebrate, but the public will pay.
A planned House Intelligence Committee interview with President Trumps longtime personal assistant in New York next week has inflamed long-simmering tensions on the panel, as Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to limit their participation in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Committee staff members are expected to interview Rhona Graff, Trump's longtime gatekeeper, on Dec. 22, according to multiple people familiar with the plans. In addition, they have tentatively scheduled an interview in New York this month with longtime Trump business associate Felix Sater.

The rare out-of-state interviews are the latest of several factors prompting Democrats to accuse Republicans of trying to wrap up the probe early in response to pressure from party leaders.

Im increasingly concerned that the majoritys heeding the presidents call to shut us down, ranking Democrat Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) said in an interview Thursday. The majority has scheduled interviews with witnesses next week who are out of state, when we are voting and the members wont be able to participate. These are key witnesses, and theyre willing to come here to Washington, so theres no reason to do this.

Democrats charge that Republicans have also scheduled witnesses for interviews before subjects turn over requested documents relevant to the committee's questioning and that the GOP has resisted efforts to subpoena witnesses who have provided incomplete responses to the committee's questions and requests. More recently, Democrats say, the GOP has been scheduling multiple witnesses per day  making it difficult for lawmakers to be fully engaged because of other obligations.

Asked about Graffs upcoming interview, a lawyer for the Trump organization, Alan S. Futerfas, said, No comment.

Graff's questioning would come just over a week after members were asked to leave the Capitol and head to a law office in the District to take part in a video interview with Alexander Nix, the head of Cambridge Analytica, a data firm contracted by the Trump campaign. Nix was in London.

Republican leaders reject accusations that they are rushing or responding to pressure from higher-ups in the GOP to shut down the probe.

I certainly feel like weve interviewed the lions share of the parties that would help us with our report, said Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.), a committee member. Weve been doing this for like 10 months, interviewed dozens of witnesses. . . . I feel like we can really start to think about what a report would look like to help the intelligence community get better.

Rooney added that he hoped the panel could wrap up its interviews by the end of the year, despite recent suggestions from Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), a leader of the committee's probe, that a report might not be produced until the spring.

If it goes into the new year, it goes into the new year, Rooney said. But he cautioned against keeping the investigation open much longer, challenging Democrats to list the specific witnesses they say should be questioned.

You could do this for 10 more years if you want to, Rooney said, noting that the purpose of the committees probe is to investigate allegations of Russian meddling, not mirror the criminal investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III. But I dont know if that is serving what our purpose is to be.

Schiff did not list the witnesses Democrats said were outstanding. But he complained that there are dozens of witnesses we have been asking the majority to bring in for weeks, sometimes months, accusing Republican leaders of having delayed and delayed and delayed.

The protracted standoff over witnesses increases the chances that when committee leaders publish a final report, Democrats might not sign on to it. Rooney said Thursday that he hoped the panels report would include some of the transcripts of interviews investigators have conducted with key witnesses, so that the public will be able to hear exactly what we heard, whether it be Samantha Power, Susan E. Rice, Donald Trump Jr.

Schiff has also publicly called for the committee to release the transcripts of interviews.

Carol D. Leonnig and Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) plans to take steps next month to force the Justice Department to decide whether to retry him on corruption charges if it has not done so by then  saying that public comments by jurors in his trial bolster his doubts about the governments case.

If charges are dropped, Menendez said Thursday, he also expects to reclaim his perch as top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he voluntarily relinquished in 2015 when he was indicted on corruption charges.

The senators months-long trial ended last month when jurors deadlocked, and the Justice Department has not announced whether it plans to retry him.

Defiant in his first extended public comments since the trial, Menendez told a group of Latino reporters in his Capitol Hill office that he believes a decision from prosecutors must come within the next 30 days.

If prosecutors dont make a decision by mid-January, we would have the ability to present a motion to say prosecute or dismiss. And if you want to prosecute, bring it on, he said.



Sen. Robert Menendez waves to a crowd of supporters on Nov. 6, 2012  the night he was reelected to the U.S. Senate. (Mel Evans/AP)

After the mistrial, jurors in the case against Menendez and the doctor on trial with him, Salomon Melgen of Florida, said that the jury came close to an outright acquittal, with 10 jurors finding Menendez not guilty and two voting that he was guilty.

In subsequent interviews with his attorneys and prosecutors, Menendez said the jurors didnt believe in the theory of the governments case. They didnt believe in the facts; they had some really harsh words for the government.

You can have a hung jury thats 10-2 against you and two people just couldnt agree, but when its 10-2 for you  and its not just the numbers, its what they said about the governments case  I believe thats the end of it, Menendez said.

Prosecutors said Menendez took gifts from Melgen, including a luxury hotel stay, private-jet flights and campaign donations. In exchange, they alleged, Menendez tried to help Melgen get U.S. visas for his girlfriends, intervened in the doctors $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare, and assisted with a port security contract of the doctors in the Dominican Republic.

Melgen is awaiting sentencing for a previous conviction for defrauding Medicare. The two men were on trial for bribery, and Menendez was also accused of lying on government disclosure forms about his finances when he did not report gifts of flights paid for by Melgen  an omission the senator calls an oversight, not a criminal lie.

Menendez said he spent a considerable amount of time with Melgen and his family during the trial. I still have the greatest affection for them, and I wish him well.

A new trial could be politically perilous for Menendez, 63, who faces reelection next year. On Thursday, he declined to say whether he will seek another term.



Sens. Robert Menendez and Cory Booker D-N.J.) take an escalator after voting for the confirmation of Kirstjen Nielsen to lead the Department of Homeland Security at the Capitol on Dec. 5. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

A majority of New Jersey voters say he should not be reelected next year, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released Nov. 30. Forty-nine percent of poll respondents said Menendez should resign.

But Menendez said that if he is cleared of the charges, I fully expect to go back to the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His reemergence atop the panel could be a politically difficult issue for Democrats, who have pushed out House and Senate members in recent weeks amid accusations of sexual misconduct.

The charges against Menendez are far different, but the National Republican Senatorial Committee is already targeting the senator, saying this week that Democrats are unserious about tax reform because they appointed accused felon Menendez to the House-Senate committee writing a compromise version of the GOP tax plan. The senator is also a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee.

Menendez said in the interview that he has a commitment from the leadership  including the leadership that exists today that he will get his committee assignment back if charges are dropped.

Aides to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) declined to comment. A spokesman for Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who has served as the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee since Menendez stepped aside, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On the day the judge declared a mistrial, Menendez delivered an emotional speech on the steps of the federal courthouse in Newark, declaring, Today is Resurrection Day.

He also issued a warning: For those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I wont forget it.

[After mistrial, Menendez speaks of resurrection, but joy may be short-lived]

Asked during the interview who exactly was trying to dig his grave, Menendez jumped out of his seat, walked to his desk and pulled out of his traveling bag two patches designed by a woman who he said was selling them at a Jersey City craft fair last weekend.

One of the patches said, Today is Resurrection Day. The other is a red patch with Menendezs full gravedigger quote.

When my staffer went to go buy one, there was a line and the lady told us she has sold 800 of these at $10 a piece. So, Im a job creator, Menendez said.

As for the gravediggers, I know who they are, they know who they are, and they know I know who they are  and thats all that matters, he said.

The trial included testimony on behalf of Menendez from Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Asked which of his Democratic colleagues should consider running for president in 2020, Menendez seemed to return the favor, giving a full-throated endorsement to Booker, who has said he has no plans to seek the presidency.

Hes somebody who has unlimited potential. He just has to decide whether thats what he wants to do, Menendez said.

Read more at PowerPost
November 22nd, 2017 - Dunn Loring, Fairfax County, VA in the Dunn Loring neighborhood of Fairfax County, VA Justin T. Gellerson for The Washington Post (Justin T. Gellerson)

1 of 15 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Where We Live | Dunn Loring in Vienna, Va. View Photos Though its tranquil and bucolic, the community is just minutes away from Tysons Corner. Caption Though its tranquil and bucolic, the community is just minutes away from Tysons Corner. Justin T. Gellerson Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

Ali Alavi moved nine years ago to a house in Vienna's Dunn Loring neighborhood with an eye toward improving his quality of life.

The neighborhoods tranquil, tree-lined streets were nice. And Dunn Lorings large plots of land, sporting an array of architectural styles, certainly were a draw.

But the thing that ultimately sold him on the neighborhood was the W&OD Trail, with its maze of paths for hiking, biking, running and walking.

For the sexagenarian, who has diabetes, having access to 45 miles of paved trails that run along the former roadbed of the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad has been a lifesaver, Alavi said.

The trails are vital to my lifestyle because, living with diabetes, I have to be active, said Alavi, who said he exercises outdoors daily. I can exercise anytime I want, and thats helped improve my health, Alavi said. He lives steps away from the parks trails in a 3,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom, three-bathroom Cape Cod on Idylwood Road.

[Good schools, community feel draw residents to Greater Farmland neighborhood]

'Hidden gem': Consisting mostly of single-family houses, with a smattering of townhouses, Dunn Loring is a "great place to live that's under the radar for most buyers," said Traci Oliver, an agent with TTR Sotheby's International Realty.





The community is only about two square miles, and that compactness, Oliver said, results in a true sense of camaraderie that makes people want to stay put.

Dunn Loring is sort of a hidden gem. Its really rare to find a neighborhood thats so close to major highways, and offers plenty of shopping options, still have a sense of community, she said.

Sue Weis, who moved to Dunn Loring 35 years ago, said she remembers when a large part of the surrounding county consisted of woodlands. Over the years, shes enjoyed watching the growth of shopping options around her.

The access we enjoy to seemingly everything is just such an asset, said Weis, who lives in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom split-level on Sandburg Street.

Steve Payne and Holly Bastian had just finished jogging along the W&OD Trail and were making the two-minute walk from the park to the front door of their 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bathroom Colonial on Iliff Drive when they stopped to talk about their affinity for the neighborhood.

[Mount Vernon Triangle gets ringing endorsement from the people who live there]

The couple used to live three miles south of Dunn Loring until they grew tired of having to put our bikes on our car and drive over here, Bastian said. We thought it would be great to live in Dunn Loring and get to use the trails whenever we wanted.

"There's no excuse not to exercise," Payne chimed in. "The pressure is seeing someone out jogging or biking, and then we're like, 'Okay, let me get out there, too,' " he said with a chuckle.

About five minutes from Tysons Corner and close to the Mosaic Districts blend of retail and dining options, Dunn Loring is centrally located to the activity outside its borders, Bastian said.

Were within walking distance of so many takeout and sit-down restaurants that its often too difficult to choose, she said. And were far enough from Tysons Corner that the traffic isnt a problem.



November 22nd, 2017 - Dunn Loring, Fairfax County, VA 2420 Sandburg Street in the Dunn Loring neighborhood of Fairfax County, VA Justin T. Gellerson for The Washington Post (Justin T. Gellerson)

Living there: Dunn Loring is roughly bordered by Leesburg Pike to the north; Interstate 495 to the east; Interstate 66 to the south; and Gallows Road, Electric Avenue and Cedar Lane to the west.

In the past 12 months, 19 properties have sold in Dunn Loring, ranging from a three-bedroom, two-bathroom rambler for $545,000 to a five-bedroom, five-bathroom Colonial for $1,150,000, said Oliver, the real estate agent with TTR Sothebys International Realty.

There are three homes under contract in Dunn Loring, Oliver said. They range from a 2,294-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bathroom split-level for $675,000 to a 3,514-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-bathroom Victorian for $1,049,900.

Schools: Stenwood and Westbriar elementaries, Joyce Kilmer Middle and George C. Marshall High.

Transit: The Dunn Loring-Merrifield station on Metro's Orange Line serves the neighborhood. The community is also served by Metrobus's 2A route.

Crime: In the past six months, there have been four assaults and one robbery reported in the area that includes Dunn Loring, according to Fairfax County police.
Palestinian protesters wave a Palestinian flag during clashes near the border with Israel in the east of Gaza City Friday. (Saber/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)

Four Palestinians were killed Friday during violent clashes with Israeli security forces, marking the bloodiest day of demonstrations since President Trump sparked outrage across much of the Middle East by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Two demonstrators were shot dead in clashes along the fence that separates Gaza from Israel, according to Gazas Health Ministry, which identified one as a disabled 29-year-old who had previously lost his legs. The Israeli military said it had fired selectively towards main instigators.

Two others were killed during confrontations in the occupied West Bank. One had stabbed an Israeli officer, according to Israeli police.

Trumps announcement last week that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will move the U.S. Embassy to the city from Tel Aviv has triggered regular outbursts of violence over the past week. The decision has been followed by the most sustained period of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel since the devastating 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls the coastal enclave.

[Hezbollah rally attracts thousands as Trumps Jerusalem fallout continues]



A Palestinian protester throw stones at Israeli troops during clashes near the border with Israel in the east of Gaza City, Friday. (Saber/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock)

Thousands filled the streets of Gaza for large demonstrations after Friday prayers, where leaders of the main militant factions urged residents to keep alive their intifada, or uprising, against Israel. We are heading to Jerusalem, they chanted, waving Palestinian flags.

After the demonstrations, many headed to the border fence, with some young men loading donkey carts with tires to burn. Israeli forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to keep protesters away from the fence.

The Israeli army said about 3,500 people had participated in the clashes along the Gaza border. About 2,500 Palestinian rioters demonstrated in the West Bank, throwing rocks and firebombs and burning tires, the army added. There, Palestinian factions had called for another day of rage to protest Trumps announcement on the status of Jerusalem.

In Ramallah, a man stabbed an Israeli police officer twice and was shot, police said. A video circulated online showed the young man backing away before officers opened fire. Soldiers and paramedics approach him, then scatter, apparently having spotted what appeared to be a suicide belt. Police said they were investigating whether the device was real.

Another Palestinian died of injuries sustained in clashes near Jerusalem, the Associated Press reported.

[Plan to move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem angers Middle East Christians]

Jerusalem is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews and is at the heart of the decades old-conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The U.S. declaration was considered by Palestinians as a denial of their claims to a section of the city. The United Nations considers the Israeli annexation of the eastern half of the city as illegal.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that the United States can no longer be considered an honest broker in the peace process and is refusing to meet Vice President Pence when Pence visits the region this month. Christian and Muslim leaders also have said they will not meet Pence.

Balousha reported from Gaza.

Read more:

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday called on Russia and China to sever their economic pipeline to North Korea, and said Pyongyang must earn its way back to negotiations by ceasing missile tests for a sustained period.

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council in a session called for foreign ministers, Tillerson backpedaled from a position he outlined earlier this week. In New York, he did not repeat an assertion he made Tuesday that the United States has no preconditions to starting talks. That remark was undercut by the White House, which said there had been no change in position.

Tillerson said Friday that any talks must be preceded by a sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behavior, and the United States will continue to ask countries to step up their efforts to isolate the regime and starve it of cash by adhering to sanctions.

North Korea must earn its way back to the table, he said. The pressure campaign must, and will, continue until denuclearization is achieved. We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open.

North Koreas ambassador to the U.N., Ja Song Nam, joined the Security Council session in a rare appearance. Under U.N. rules, countries being discussed at the Security Council are invited to attend, but North Korean diplomats usually boycott.

Reading from written remarks, he said North Koreas nuclear weapons program was defensive and needed to ward off a U.S. invasion to oust the regime. He accused the Security Council of acting as a tool of the United States, which he said used its own stockpile of weapons to deploy as nuclear blackmail.

If anyone is to blame for it, the U.S. is the one who must be held accountable, he said.

But Tillerson and every other diplomat who spoke at the Security Council expressed disapproval if not alarm over North Koreas defiance of sanctions aiming to get it to abandon its program. North Korea has accelerated the pace of its missile program, launching 40 ballistic missiles and conducting three nuclear tests over the past two years. Each test exhibited technological improvements.

The international community remains firm in our determination that we will not accept a nuclear North Korea, Tillerson said.

[3 big questions about North Korea and no-precondition talks]

That position could by itself preclude any negotiations. Pyongyang has been adamant that it will never even consider abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

The DPRK has a choice, said Tillerson, using the acronym for North Koreas official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. It can reverse course, give up its unlawful nuclear weapons programs, and join the community of nations, or it can continue to condemn its people to poverty and isolation.

The Security Council meeting was called amid rising concerns the world is on the brink of nuclear conflict. North Korea has boasted its missiles are now capable of striking anywhere in the continental United States. The Trump administration has responded by saying it is prepared for a military conflict, if necessary, even while Tillerson continues to try to isolate North Korea diplomatically and economically by getting more countries to fully implement strict U.N. sanctions.

The worst possible thing that could happen is for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

Attending the Security Council meeting, Guteres said North Koreas nuclear program had provoked the most dangerous situation in the world today, and shown a blatant disregard for U.N. sanctions. He said the United Nations could help promote communications.

We must do everything we can to reach that objective  and avoid a level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences, said Guterres.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that the United States should not further aggravate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom President Trump has derided several times by referring to him mockingly as Little Rocket Man.

Tillerson alluded to the possibility of military action but quickly followed up by saying the goal remains a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation, but we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea, he said. The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution.

After calling for an interlude in North Koreas missile testing, he added, The United States will not allow the regime in Pyongyang to hold the world hostage.

Tillerson called on Russia and China to increase pressure on Pyongyang beyond adhering to stringent U.N. sanctions already in place.

Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russias dedication as a partner for peace, Tillerson said. Similarly, as Chinese crude oil flows to North Korean refineries, the United States questions Chinas commitment to solving an issue that has serious implications for the security of its own citizens.

[Trump allies say Tillerson has not learned his lesson and cannot continue in job for long]

In a town hall meeting Tuesday with State Department employees, Tillerson said the "pressure campaign" could potentially deny North Korea of $2.5 billion in export revenue from coal, textiles and labor, and imports on fuel and oil. State Department officials say about 90 percent of North Korea's earnings from exports has dried up because of a strict series of sanctions imposed on the country.

In remarks Tuesday at the Atlantic Council, Tillerson said the United States would talk with North Korea without preconditions. But the White House issued a statement a few hours later that appeared to undercut him by saying: The presidents views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way, not only toward Japan, China and South Korea, but the entire world.

His remarks set off a round of recrimination from White House aides, who said he had "not learned his lesson" since Trump rebuked Tillerson for seeking negotiations with Pyongyang. The aides called Tillerson "irrelevant" and predicted he would be gone by early next year.

Read more:

Life inside of Kim Jong Uns North Korea

Why North Koreas latest ballistic missile test is worrisome
The Trump administration said Thursday it would use what it describes as evidence of Irans deepening military involvement in Yemens civil war to secure a new international consensus for harsher action against Tehran, part of a plan to isolate its chief adversary in the Middle East.

U.S. officials have seized on a series of missile strikes by a Yemeni rebel group against Saudi Arabia as an opportunity to intensify global pressure on Iran.

At an elaborately staged presentation at a Washington military base, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, showcased weaponry that she said constituted undeniable proof that Iran had expanded its support for Houthi rebels in Yemen as it continues to back armed groups in Lebanon, Syria and other countries.

This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behavior in which Iran sows conflict and extremism, Haley said, flanked by an array of mangled missile parts, a broken-up drone and other weaponry recovered by Persian Gulf allies of the United States.

The rare decision to publicly present materiel exploited by intelligence analysts underscores the Trump administrations determination to galvanize new international action against Iran even as President Trump threatens to abandon the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by his predecessor and other world powers.

The focus of Haleys presentation were remnants of what officials say are two ballistic missiles manufactured in Iran, smuggled into Yemen and used by Houthi fighters to launch a series of attacks this year on targets deep within Saudi Arabia, including one of the countrys busiest civilian airports.

U.S. officials point to design features and markings  described as being from government-run defense firms  that indicate the missiles are Iranian Qiam short-range ballistic missiles.

The weapons might as well have had Made in Iran stickers all over them, Haley said, accusing Iran of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions.

[Trump sets new conditions for U.S. to stay in Iran nuclear deal, tossing issue to Congress]

Iran has denied the allegations. In a message on Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif compared Haleys presentation to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powells 2003 allegations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were later found to be false. When I was based at the U.N., I saw this show and what it begat, he said.

While administration officials have already privately briefed allied officials on the new information, it is unclear whether it will be enough to sway European and other U.S. allies that continue to back the nuclear deal and may be reluctant to embrace new punishments against Tehran.

Jarrett Blanc, who served as a senior official on the Iran deal under the Obama administration, said European countries did not share the United States pathological fear of Iran but are worried about Irans military support for groups such as the Shiite Houthis in Yemen.

The question is, what do the Europeans need in terms of confidence that the United States is not going to blow up the [Iran deal] in order to do something on ballistic missiles? said Blanc, who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The public affairs blitz in Washington takes place as a punishing three-year-old civil war continues in Yemen. The conflict, which began in 2014 when Houthis seized control of Sanaa, the countrys capital, and drove the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi from power, has killed thousands and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.

The United States has provided military support to Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition of Arab states that entered the war in March 2015 to beat back what Saudi Arabia said is an Iranian proxy force. While analysts said at the outset of the conflict that the Saudi claims were exaggerated, most agree the war has driven Shiite Iran and the Houthis toward greater cooperation.

[Former Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh has died amid escalating fighting, aides and rebels say]

Most people agree at this point that the Saudis are facing a legitimate security threat and that Iran is part of the problem, said April Alley, a Yemen researcher at the International Crisis Group.

Critics would say that by continuing down this road, things will just get worse, Alley said. The Houthi missile offensive  and its potential to spark retaliation by the Saudis or their allies  raises the specter of escalation in other locations in the region, she said.

The war took another chaotic turn this month with the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the Houthis and Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former president who retained significant influence in the country. After days of clashes in Sanaa, the Houthis killed Saleh, routed his forces and embarked on a withering crackdown on Saleh loyalists.

The events of the past few weeks have both emboldened the Houthis and stiffened the determination of the Saudi-led coalition to defeat them at any cost, analysts said.

We believe the Houthis will never come to peace voluntarily, Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi, the foreign minister of Yemens Saudi-backed government, said in an interview last week. On the contrary  after what happened in Sanaa, they have this false sense of victory.

This has to be broken, he added.

[He threw a fit: Trumps anger over Iran deal forced aides to scramble for a compromise]

Haleys message underscored Trumps largely unwavering support for Saudi Arabia since his election. But the White House has also chided the kingdom in recent weeks for its handling of Yemens humanitarian situation, calling on Riyadh to do more to allow aid and other supplies to reach desperate Yemenis.

The military materiel showcased Thursday also included what officials said was a drone that could be used for kamikaze purposes, equipment from an attack speedboat and remnants of an antitank missile, all of which were described as having been made in Iran. One piece of computer equipment had been mined to extract photos that officials said were taken at a facility of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The officials said the materiel was handed over by the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and that there was no doubt about its provenance, even though in some cases U.S. officials did not have specific information on where the materiel was recovered.

Haley declined to give specifics about what actions the United States would ask allies to take against Iran at the United Nations or elsewhere. The administration might also seek to use the display to increase support among congressional Republicans for taking steps that could ultimately lead to the scuttling of the nuclear deal.

In October, Trump withheld certification of the nuclear pact but did not pull the United States out of it entirely. The next certification deadline is in January.

Richard Nephew, a former U.S. government specialist on sanctions and a senior research scholar at Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs, said there were few options for imposing new sanctions or other measures on Iran, at least in the United States.

It may be pretty straightforward and easy to convince a U.S. congressperson, Nephew said. It is an order of magnitude more difficult to prove that to a European or Japanese official, and its still harder to convince them that its all Irans fault that the war in Yemen is where it is.

Haley cited a report from U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres that she said illustrates U.N. certainty about Irans behavior.

But the report, while citing military materiel presented by Saudi Arabia, stops short of fully embracing Haleys conclusions, saying that the U.N. Secretariat is still analyzing the information collected.

Fahim reported from Istanbul.
President Trump said Friday there is tremendous anger over what he called the FBI's "disgraceful" behavior, taking aim at the bureau just before he appeared at its training facility to praise the nation's police officers.

Its a shame whats happened with the FBI, the president told reporters as he prepared to depart the White House for a ceremony at the FBIs National Academy in Quantico, where more than 200 law enforcement officers graduated from a program that imparts FBI expertise and standards.

Were going to rebuild the FBI, Trump said. Itll be bigger and better than ever. But it is very sad when you look at those documents, and how theyve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it.

The president appeared to be referring to revelations that senior FBI officials exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages while working on last years probe of Clintons use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and again during special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election, including the possibility of coordination with the Trump campaign.

[Internal FBI texts reveal senior officials disparaged Trump, hoped for Clinton]

The remarks come at a fraught time in the White Houses relationship with the FBI and the Justice Department. Trump has said the FBIs reputation is in tatters over its handling of politically sensitive cases.

His comments also highlighted what has become a recurring theme during his presidency: Trumps tendency to criticize the FBI, the nations premier law enforcement agency, and extol the local police officers who have become central to his law-and-order agenda. Police departments, Trump said while at Quantico, are totally underappreciated, except by me.

Trump made the group a promise.

I want you to know that with me as your president, Americas police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House, Trump said, more loyal than anyone else can be, I tell you.

While the event was held at a well-known FBI facility, the audience did not include many FBI personnel. The graduating class comprised law enforcement officials from elsewhere, so the crowd was mostly those individuals and their families.

There were some FBI instructors and officials on hand but few rank-and-file agents, according to people involved in the event. A last-minute invitation went out to FBI personnel, but almost immediately FBI personnel were told there was no room for additional attendees, according to these people.

Trump appeared on a stage alongside FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who introduced the president by calling him "our nation's highest law enforcement official." That title carries possible implications for the ongoing criminal probe into whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice leading up to the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey in May.

The presidents defenders say that, as the nations top law enforcement official, he cannot obstruct justice by firing the head of the FBI. However, in past administrations that phrase has been used to describe the attorney general, not the president.

During a news conference at the Justice Department later Friday, Sessions spoke positively about the FBI but suggested the agency might have problems that need fixing.

You can have arrogance sneak into, sometimes, an institution, he said. I dont share the view that the FBI is not functioning at a high level.

[FBI director defends bureaus integrity as GOP lawmakers press him on Trump, Clinton probes]

When Trump took the lectern Friday, he did not mention or allude to any of his problems with the bureau, instead focusing on the police and other law enforcement officers present.

We as a country must do a better job showing our police officers our respect and gratitude that you have earned, and we will do that, the president said.

Trump said immigration and crime in Chicago, specifically, were among his greatest concerns when it comes to police work. What the hell is happening there? he asked, to some applause from the graduates.

Chicago has struggled with a spike in gun violence and murders in recent years, but police say homicides and shootings there have decreased from last year, which was the deadliest in two decades.

He repeated his call to prevent terrorism by changing immigration policies, including the issuance of visas to relatives of U.S. citizens, a practice that critics call chain migration.

In stark language, he denounced the MS-13 street gang, which is active in Central America and many parts of the United States. He called its members savages who should be jailed or sent back to their native countries.

We dont want them. We dont want them, the president said. Our cities should not be sanctuaries for criminals. They should be sanctuaries for America.

He linked the two recent terrorist attacks in New York City to what he called the nations dysfunctional immigration system.

One came through chain migration  chain migration  the other, visa lottery, Trump said of the alleged terrorists.

They have a lottery. You pick people. Do you think the country is giving us their best people? No, he said to laughter. What kind of a system is that?

They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people. They put them in a bin, Trump went on, apparently comparing the system to televised lottery drawings that use a barrel or bin.

In his hand, when hes picking them is, really, the worst of the worst, Trump continued. Congratulations! Youre going to the United States!

The audience laughed.

Trump drew more laughter when he pointed out journalists there to cover his remarks.

Theres the fake news back there. Look, everybody, Trump said. Fake news. No, actually, some of them are fine people, he said, smiling. About  lets see, whos back there? Yeah, about 30 percent.
Donald D. Lawrence Audio Article

Friends and family of Compatriot Donald D. Lawrence are deeply saddened to announce his passing on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022,...

Guadalupe Lupe Campos Audio Article

Guadalupe Lupe Campos of La Vernia, Texas, passed away in his home on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. Lupe was born...

Manuel A. Acevedo Audio Article

Manuel A. Acevedo passed away in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2022, at the age of 76 years...
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When J.J. Abrams rebooted the Star Wars franchise with The Force Awakens in 2015, reaction was mostly rapturous. Viewed with a little hindsight, that feeling looks more like relief. (As in, Whew, it wasnt The Phantom Menace.)

Abrams is a good synthesizer. But Rian Johnson, brought in as writer and director for the second outing of the new trilogy, has a stubborn instinct for originality. Even handling a huge and, to some extent, predetermined pop-culture legacy like the Star Wars universe, Johnson (whose quirk-laden filmography includes Brick, The Brothers Bloom and Looper) manages to tweak expectations.

The Last Jedi combines sincerity with self-awareness, and fanboy callbacks with ranging cinematic references. The results are fun, funny, rousing and  wondrously  even a little surprising.

AT-M6 Walkers, along with Kylo's Shuttle (Lucasfilm photos)

Like The Empire Strikes Back, the story covers that crucial midpoint in the battle between light and dark. Those First Order fascists have the ragtag rebels on the run. General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) does what she can, but the weary Resistance needs new hope.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) has sought out Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to draw him back into the fight, while pursuing a personal quest of her own.

Rebel pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) keeps up his keeno enthusiasm and impetuous energy, Isaac somehow making every cocky flyboy cliche feel fresh. Finn (John Boyega) ends up on a Hail Mary mission with Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a determined ships engineer.

Meanwhile, over on the Dark Side, Supreme Commander Snoke (really, not a scary name  or is that just me?) tests and torments his protege, Darth Vader-wannabe Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)

Driver continues his tricky mandate, which involves an almost comically mopey exploration of the awkward adolescent stage of villainy. Last time out, Kylo Ren had mommy and daddy issues. Now, having somehow opened up a psychic link with Rey, hes kind of like that bad boyfriend many of us remember from our 20s. Hes possibly deep but mostly sulky and conflicted, and Rey is convinced she can change him.

Johnson manoeuvres all these subplots with fluid ease. He has a talent for mustering set-pieces that are magnificent and massive without feeling impersonal. Along with the usual action sequences dogfights, chases, things getting blown up  Johnson pulls off some visually luscious effects, including a battle on a desert mining planet where the sands turn red with salt and a gorgeously surreal scene in which Rey encounters her shadow self in an underwater cave.

The movie is also packed with the detailed stuff of sci-fi, namely those fleeting and fascinating glimpses into whole worlds and their inhabitants, from a decadent intergalactic gambling port to Lukes desolately beautiful island retreat. Johnson, unfortunately, continues the franchises penchant for cute critters with the porgs, which are sort of like guinea pigs with wings.

Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)

Movie references abound. At one point, Rey deploys an absolutely iconic Princess Leia moment to try to lure Luke back into the battle. That was a cheap move, Luke comments, in a meta sort of way. Along with remixing the Star Wars canon, Johnson also seems to be referencing David Lean and Akira Kurosawa, Soviet cinema and American westerns, with riffs on fast-talking screwball comedy and fatalistic film noir (mostly through a brilliant drop-in from Benicio del Toro).

This genre-jumping sometimes involves stylized dialogue and sly humour. As First Order military leader General Hux, Domhnall Gleeson seems to be taking the old war-movie convention that Nazis speak with posh British accents to its absolute  and absolutely hilarious  extreme. Huxs uptight pomposity is punctured in the opening scene when Poe Dameron manages to drag him into in a crosstalk comedy act that could have come right out of Spaceballs.

The Last Jedi also explores serious themes. Johnson makes some interesting observations about power, going beyond the vaguely New Age notion of the Force to suggest the grit of actual politics.

Examining how change comes about, how momentum builds and dynamics shift, the script keeps punching the word hope, which feels obvious but also sweetly earnest, timeless but also topical. Bringing new hope to an old movie franchise, Johnson manages to reinvigorate the Resistance, in a galaxy far, far away and maybe even here in our worn-out world.

Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)

alison.gillmor@freepress.mb.ca

If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more.

Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/12/2017 (1799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Northern Manitoba is getting some good news for a change, with the announcement a gold mine is a step closer to becoming reality in Lynn Lake.

A feasibility study for Alamos Gold Inc. of Toronto released Thursday estimates two open-pit mines near the northern Manitoba town could yield 1.6 million ounces of gold.

The capital cost to build the mine is estimated at US$338 million, with a potential after-tax return of US$123 million, based on the price of gold at US$1,250 an ounce.

Joe Bryksa / Winnipeg Free Press Files Closed mines have caused parts of the town of Lynn Lake, Manitoba to look like a ghost town. Once, in it's boom years, the population was over 4,000. Those heady days may be returning based on the results of a feasibility study for Alamos Gold Inc. of Toronto, released Thursday. The study estimates two open-pit mines near the northern Manitoba town could yield 1.6 million ounces of gold.

While an Alamos spokesman cautioned there is still a process for the company to go through, a positive feasibility study is usually the catalyst for mine construction.

Its exciting for us, but lets put it in perspective: its excitement for the province, said Jim Fielder, chief administrator for the Town of Lynn Lake.

A mine would mean hundreds of jobs, along with the economic spinoffs that come with it  including a surge in hydroelectricity demand, and requirements for numerous services including food, gasoline and trucking.

Construction is expected to require in the range of 500 jobs. About 500 employees will also be needed when the mine is fully operational, the company said.

Alamos has been conducting mineral exploration since it purchased the mine sites last year for $20 million. Its more recent exploration results are not part of the feasibility study, and could improve the ventures profitability, a company official said.

However, a mine is probably still at least four years away. Alamos must now go into whats called the permitting stage: obtaining government permits, including an environmental impact assessment. That can take two years. Construction would likely take another two years.

The new mining activity would be at two former gold mine sites that have been closed for decades.

The MacLellan site was formerly run as an underground gold and silver mine between 1986 and 1989. The other site, the former Gordon mine, operated as two open-pit gold mines, from 1996 to 1999.

Alamos would run both MacLellan and Gordon deposits as open-pit mining operations, said Alamos spokesman Scott Parsons.

The feasibility study outlines solid economics, Parsons said. Were going to be working to improve the economics before it gets to construction through further exploration and studying things such as the possibility of contract mining.

The biggest factor making the shuttered mines viable again is golds price of $US1,250 an ounce, Parsons said. Thats down from three years ago, when the price reached $US1,800.

Alamos has an exploration agreement with Marcel Colomb First Nation, he said.

Lynn Lake, 820 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, began in 1950 as a mining town and is the northernmost point in Manitoba reachable by all-weather road.

Sherritt Gordon first began mining copper ore in the area in the 1920s. The town was named after Sherritt Gordons chief engineer, Lynn Smith. It has a population of about 700, and is the birthplace of rock musician Tom Cochrane.

In a statement, the province said it is pleased Alamos is progressing with its work in Manitoba.

We will work with Alamos to ensure that a thorough, transparent and predictable permitting process takes place on our part, it said.

The companys shares are traded on the TSX and NYSE under the symbol AGI. Its share price was relatively unchanged Thursday at $7.86. Alamos is a Canadian-based intermediate gold producer with diversified production from four operating mines in North America, including two in Mexico. It employs more than 1,700 people.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of Winnipegs biggest, most secretive companies, MacDon Industries Ltd., has been sold to an Ontario company for $1.2 billion.

News of the sale broke late Thursday afternoon, as Guelph, Ont.-based Linamar Corp. announced it had reached an agreement to purchase the agriculture equipment-maker from the MacDonald family of Winnipeg.

MacDon sells specialized agricultural harvesting equipment in more than 40 countries on six continents. Its global network includes about 1,400 dealers and distributors, with offices in the U.S., Australia, Russia, Brazil and Germany.

MIKE APORIUS / FREE PRESS FILES Employees at MacDon Industries use a powder coat paint system on augers for harvesting equipment at the plant in Murray Industrial Park.

The company has a 900,000- square-foot manufacturing complex on 86 acres of land in the Murray Industrial Park, employing more than 1,400 people. Every MacDon machine is designed and manufactured in Winnipeg.

The company  known for being reclusive when it comes to media coverage  was unable to provide comment on the sale when contacted Thursday evening.

It has long-standing business relationships with prominent agricultural equipment companies such as John Deere, New Holland and AgCo  making private-label products for them all.

MacDon got its start in 1949 as Killbery Industries Ltd., making agricultural equipment such as sprayers, seeders and cultivators.

Two years, later the company produced one of the first self-propelled windrowers  their first in a long line of harvesting innovations.

The MacDonald family purchased the business in 1971  later changing its name to MacDon Industries Ltd.  and shifted the focus to harvesting equipment. Despite the changes, the company has retained its deep roots in Manitoba.

The company is well known throughout the agricultural industry.

In a past interview with the Free Press, John Schmieser, CEO of Calgary-based Canada West Equipment Dealers Association, described MacDon as a great Manitoba success story.

The company is first class top to bottom Theres an awful lot of very good business sense and lots of integrity in the organization. The contribution they make to the Manitoba economy is significant, he said.

In 2013, unconfirmed reports indicated the company was up for sale. While the reason it was on the block remained unclear, some pointed to the difficulty of planning a third-generation succession for such a large business.

At the time of the sale, three MacDonald brothers  Allan, Gary and Scott  were managing the company.

Linamar said the purchase of MacDon will complement its agricultural business in Hungary, and help them serve more markets globally.

The sale should diversify the companys operations, as Linamar predominantly focuses on making precision metallic parts for a range of sectors, including automobiles. The company had sales of $6 billion in 2016, operating 59 manufacturing facilities globally and employing around 24,500 people.

Company CEO Linda Hasenfratz said the agricultural sector is in the early stages of a cyclical recovery and is expected to show strong growth, which played a factor in the purchase.

 with files from Martin Cash and The Canadian Press

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/12/2017 (1799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal has overturned the suspension of a nurse acquitted of sexually assaulting a patient.

The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba found Tousif Ahmed guilty of professional misconduct last year, deeming it more probable than not that he sexually assaulted a patient despite his prior criminal acquittal.

However, his lawyer argued the colleges discipline committee erred in deciding the inconsistencies in the victims testimony were immaterial.

AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra

In a unanimous written decision released this week, the provinces highest court agreed.

The record discloses significant concerns with the reliability of the complainants testimony, the decision reads. The college committee should have explained why it found the complainants evidence to be reliable in light of the evidence as a whole, the courts decision notes before concluding: Simply put, the conduct decision was unreasonable.

The decision comes 13 months into Ahmeds 18-month suspension.

Weve very pleased, his lawyer Mark Toews told the Free Press.

We feel the Court of Appeal identified the concerns that we put forward, he said, adding the colleges decision could not stand because we viewed it as being unreasonable in light of a lot of the challenging testimony that there was.

Ahmed was working in the emergency department at Victoria General Hospital in January 2014 when a woman whose name is being withheld arrived for care following a domestic assault. She alleged that during her examination, he groped her breasts and touched her genitalia.

In finding Ahmed guilty, the colleges discipline committee not only suspended him but also imposed permanent restrictions on his practice following his suspension. But its decision rested on balance of probabilities: was nurse or patient more credible?

On this question, the Court of Appeal found the committees findings to be fundamentally flawed.

It is, of course, one thing to find one or two inconsistencies on peripheral matters to be immaterial, the decision says, it is quite another to find a dozen or more inconsistencies to be immaterial without considering whether all of them taken together, demonstrate an absence of reliability.

By setting aside the ruling, the Court of Appeal has opened the door for the college to conduct a new hearing or drop the case against Ahmed.

But as for what the college will do, executive director Katherine Stansfield said its too early to say.

In September, she told the Free Press the colleges regulatory framework is different from the justice system.

In a court of law, the onus is on the prosecution to prove the case beyond a shadow of a doubt, she said. Our role as a regulator is to protect the public.

Thats still the case, Stansfield said Thursday, and the college is very confident in its regulatory processes.

The mandate is very clear for us and we now have to review this decision and see how it fits with our mandate.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/12/2017 (1799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Confidential documents and emails between City of Winnipeg staff raise doubts that city halls top official and a senior councillor were unaware of a plan to build an east-west corridor through south Charleswood that would involve acquiring all or portions of 92 private properties.

Coun. Marty Morantz and Doug McNeil, the citys chief administrative officer, insist they were never informed staff in the public works department, working with consulting firm WSP Canada (formerly MMM Group), had developed a preferred route that extended Sterling Lyon Parkway in a southwest direction from Kenaston Boulevard.

But two documents appear to contradict their repeated denials.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS files City CAO Doug McNeil says he didnt look at attachments to a 2016 briefing note.

The first is a Nov. 28, 2016, confidential briefing note from Lester Deane, then director of public works, to McNeil. The second is an April 18, 2017, email from McNeil to Deane and four other senior city officials, authorizing them to proceed with contacting property owners whose land would be acquired for the project.

Deane was fired in May without a public explanation.

In the three-page, confidential briefing, Deane requests permission from McNeil to contact the 92 property owners whose land is located on or next to the recommended corridor route.

Deane does not identify the corridor route, but of the four options considered by the department, only the route ultimately known as Option 4 involved that many pieces of private property.

Deane states a draft final report had been received from MMM Group, which was later revealed to include the Option 4 route. Deane tells McNeil that Morantz will be briefed on the next step, and hes been informed of the projects status as it developed.

Coun. Morantz has been kept in the loop throughout the project by the project manager, and we want to set up a meeting with (Morantz) in advance of the impacted property owner meetings to brief him on both IPO and open house materials in advance of the two meetings/events.

Morantz said the followup meeting never happened, and he denies knowledge of the Option 4 route.

I only knew about the three options presented at the open house (in January 2016), Morantz said Thursday. I only learned about the fourth option when contacted by the residents in October.

After the city and MMM had presented three route options to residents in January 2016, the MMM team, apparently on their own initiative, developed the controversial fourth option and submitted it to the province in July 2017 as the citys preferred choice.

Residents learned about the new route in early October, prompting an intense lobbying effort. On Wednesday, city council decided to restart the planning process, taking the residential character of the area into consideration before any route is chosen.

David Ames, president of the South Wilkes Community Association, said he finds the denials from Morantz and McNeil hard to accept given the information thats contained in the email and the confidential briefing note.

Ames said, based on emails he received through freedom-of-information requests, he believes McNeil and Morantz must have known about the Option 4 route.

It seems incredibly astounding to me that a project of this magnitude would have no management or oversight at the senior level, Ames said. If Coun. Morantz and Mr. McNeil said they didnt know the details of a $400-million project, then who would know?

In the April 18 email, which was obtained through a freedom-of-information request and provided to the Free Press, McNeil is updating Deane on the outcome of a meeting McNeil and Morantz had earlier that day with representatives of the Varsity View Community Centre, as they were concerned how the Clement Parkway project would affect their own development plans.

The Varsity View centre is located north of Wilkes Avenue and the extension of the Clement Parkway will pass by the community centre property.

In the email, McNeil refers to Clement Parkway concept plans that had never been made public and instructs Deane to contact the south Charleswood property owners who would be affected by the east-west corridor route and to meet with the Varsity View representatives first.

In an interview Thursday, McNeil said the reference to the concept plans in the April 18 email has been taken out of context. He said it refers to how the Clement Parkway extension would affect the community centre.

But those plans were made public at a Jan. 19, 2016, open house, where the Clement Parkway extension route was detailed and three options for the east-west corridor were on display. The only plans not disclosed at that time was the Option 4 route.

At any time did anybody say to me we have a new alignment for Wilkes that nobody has seen yet? No, McNeil said. Im frustrated with the department. Im not happy with the way this file was handled. Ive very publicly said that we dropped the ball When I say to you I did not see it, I did not see it.

McNeil said the November 2016 briefing note never identified the recommended route. It did contain four attachments, including a design report and a drawing of the 92 properties.

McNeil said he never looked at the attachments and blamed Deane for failing to indicate the chosen route was different than the three options presented at the Jan. 19, 2016, open house.

If you read it, there is no mention in that briefing note that there is an Option 4, McNeil said.

Ive also been accused of not reading all the attachments, McNeil said. I dont have time to read all that stuff. If there is something important in those attachments, then you need to bring it to my attention in the briefing note.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/12/2017 (1799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Concerned by a persistent rift between Manitoba and Ottawa that has left Winnipeg projects in limbo, federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr will play host to meetings between representatives of all three levels of government in the hopes of improving the relationship.

The people of Manitoba and Winnipeg want to know that their political leaders, at all levels, are working on their behalf, Carr told the Free Press on Thursday. A healthy tension can be a good thing. But constant bickering is not healthy.

This year, Manitoba and Ottawa have had dust-ups over health spending, legalized marijuana, carbon taxes and infrastructure funding.

Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press files Federal Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr.

In a Nov. 21 letter, Carr asked both Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman to meet on a regular basis to discuss maximizing the opportunities available to Winnipeggers and Manitobans.

The first meeting, which is being planned for January, will include Carr, Bowman and Manitoba deputy premier Heather Stefanson.

The three will decide how often to meet after that, and whether such gatherings will instead be by phone call.

I would think that several times a year makes sense, said Carr, the only Manitoban in the federal cabinet.

Carr said his goal is to restore conversations, so all three leaders better understand each others perspective and, hopefully, find common ground.

Manitoba has stood out among the provinces on multiple fronts this year.

In March, Pallister claimed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would withhold the $60 million in federal funding pledged for the factory of the future, an aerospace and automotive research hub in Winnipeg.

In August, Manitoba concluded a months-long holdout as the last province to sign Ottawas health accord (a term the province still refuses to use), which slowed the growth of payments to provinces.

Since September, Winnipeg has shelved eight projects, including a pedestrian-bike bridge over Pembina Highway, after the cash-strapped province restricted its spending.

The Liberals have tied most of their infrastructure funding to tripartite agreements, where the city and province have to pony up funds to get federal help.

In October, Pallister proposed a carbon tax that falls short of Ottawas 2022 target.

On Monday, Manitoba was the only province or territory that didnt opt for Ottawas modified excise tax on legalized marijuana. Thats after pushing hard for an extension on the July 1 deadline for recreational pot.

The proposed $1-per-gram sin tax would see 25 per cent go to Ottawa until it hits an annual $100-million cap, and the rest going to the province where the product is sold. Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said Manitoba is weighing the benefits of either joining the deal or crafting a provincial, standalone framework.

Carr said on Thursday its not his role to guess whether Pallister is motivated by political convictions or if its just popular to take shots at Ottawa.

Its my job as a minister of the Canadian government, to take at face value what is done, and to deal with it. Premier Pallister has chosen to disagree, for his own reasons, on a variety of different files. It is my job to make sure that disagreements never are a threat to the interest of the people of Manitoba, he said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Jim Carr invitation letters to Brian Pallister and Brian Bowman
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three Manitoba First Nations outlined plans on Friday that could see retail cannabis locations open on treaty land, including locations in downtown Winnipeg.

They have a partnership agreement with National Access Cannabis, a chain of medical cannabis access clinics with plans to open recreational marijuana dispensaries after legalization on July 1. The chain is responding to the Manitoba governments request for proposals to operate retail cannabis locations in the province.

The agreement includes Opaskwayak Cree Nation, which is a major investor in National Access Cannabis, as well as Long Plain First Nation and Peguis First Nation.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS From right, Chief Dennis Meeches, Long Plain First Nation, Chief Glen Hudson, Peguis First Nation, Onekanew Christian Sinclair, Opaskwayak Cree Nation and Mark Goliger with National Access Cannabis held a news conference Friday to announce their retail cannabis agreement.

The business partnership is in line with the federal governments stance that Indigenous communities should be able to participate in the legal cannabis economy, said Chief Christian Sinclair of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation during a press conference.

We saw it as an economic opportunity which would address our social issues as well, said Sinclair. The war on drugs, or in this case cannabis, is over. That allows us to participate, and now initiate a war on poverty by taking the resources that we can develop from this initiative and apply it to strengthen our governments and our societies as First Nations going forward.

Prohibition doesnt work, and so we support the legalization of marijuana, said Chief Dennis Meeches of Long Plain. Obviously, it would be foolish for us not to be involved in this industry, because of our location.

National Access Cannabis locations on First Nations land would be staffed by members of those communities, said the leaders.

Although the cannabis industry might not be the saviour for First Nations and Indigenous people, it will go a long way to helping provide sustainable development in the years to come, said Meeches. Our people need to work, we need to lift our people out of poverty. The struggle for economic independence is real.

Opaskwayak Cree Nation plans to open a National Access Cannabis store at the Otineka Mall shopping centre in Opaskwayak, Manitoba, according to Sinclair.

Long Plain is looking at locations on its Madison Street urban reserve land near Polo Park in Winnipeg, as well as its Keeshkeemaquah urban reserve land in Portage La Prairie. Long Plains main reserve near Portage La Prairie could also see a dispensary, pending a decision by the reserves government, said Meeches.

Peguis First Nation is considering potential retail cannabis outlets on its land on Portage Avenue and Ellice Avenue, according to Chief Glenn Hudson, as well as the Peguis First Nation itself. More locations are possible, he said.

Future Indigenous-operated cannabis stores on First Nations land could have a business advantage related to tax exemptions, suggested Sinclair.

Recognizing the fact that we have rebate programs with tobacco and gas, it will be very similar to this process with cannabis, said Sinclair.

The position of Long Plain First Nation is, it is a tax exemption, said Meeches.

Even though National Access Cannabis is applying to be one of Manitobas retail cannabis operators, the company hasnt actually won that opportunity yet. The provincial governments RFP closes Dec. 22.

The First Nations leaders partnering with National Access Cannabis suggested they could open retail cannabis stores on Indigenous territory in Manitoba regardless of whether the province selects the company to run retail stores, although Sinclair stressed that the company and its Indigenous partners want to work in partnership with the government of Manitoba and are respecting the RFP process.

We have the Indigenous government right to conduct trade on our First Nation lands, and this is federal legislation, said Meeches, who suggested tobacco sales should serve as a model for First Nations cannabis sales.

National Access Cannabis CEO Mark Goliger said the companys decision to partner with First Nations grew out of its financial partnership with Opaskwayak Cree Nation.

As that relationship materialized, we realized that this is a great opportunity for inclusion, so what we just heard from these very important nations is that they should have been consulted from the beginning, said Goliger.

Well, from our standpoint, theres no time like the present.

solomon.israel@freepress.mb.ca

@sol_israel
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Manitoba fishers are warning that widespread concern about diminishing pickerel is distracting from problems affecting the lake.

On Dec. 1, the Free Press revealed the number of pickerel caught commercially in Lake Winnipeg has dropped by one-third in five years.

That data, reported by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp., bolstered fears by advocates that a hands-off conservation approach led fishers to target its high-priced dish, and possibly create another fishery collapse.

Phil Hossack / Winnipeg Free Press files The number of pickerel caught commercially in Lake Winnipeg has dropped by one-third in five years.

Dauphin Tory MP Robert Sopuck has raised the issue in Parliament, saying allowing fishers to go after large pickerel, which are needed to sustain the species, was tantamount to raping that population.

Sopuck, a former fisheries biologist, fears large, female pickerel (needed to sustain the species) had become the highest-valued catch. But fishers, such as Baldue Nelson, say thats not the case.

Its not that the pickerel is diminishing, he said earlier this month. The whitefish are using up the nets and crowding out the other fish.

In June, the province reduced net sizes, which may have reduced the amount of large pickerel being caught. However, Nelson says pan-size fillets from small and medium pickerel have always netted a better price than the jumbo fish Sopuck is concerned about.

There is nobody, that I know, that is cutting the large pickerel into steaks, he said, adding fishing colleagues complain scrap fish are increasingly taking up net space, meaning fewer pickerel are being caught.

Bruce Benson, who recently owned a fish farm in Arnes, says the smaller nets will likely mean larger pickerel will die off uncaught, leading fishers to target smaller pickerel.

He says politicians should instead be concerned about the explosion in whitefish populations, which have more than doubled in the past five years, according to recent data.

Manitobas multispecies quota system allows fishers to buy rights to 6.52 million kilograms per year, but bundles fish species together. Because whitefish are a low-value species that can contribute to their quotas, Benson says fishers are tossing them back into the lake, where they then prey on pickerel eggs.

Theres so much misinformation out there, that fishermen are getting a little bit frustrated, Benson said.

I feel like Im taking crazy pills when I read the paper.

Benson and Nelson both feel the province should publish more test-netting data, because the corporation reports only speak to what commercial fishers provided the company, not an estimate of how many fish are in the lake.

Yet, Paul Turenne, executive director of the Manitoba Lodges & Outfitters Association, says companies taking tourists out onto frozen lakes have seen a drop in pickerel.

Up until last winter, Lake Winnipeg was known as the best place on earth to catch pickerel, said Turenne, whose organization represents people who pursue subsistence or recreational fishing, but not commercial fishers.

Turenne says the provincial quota for commercial fishing seems to have risen through the years. Were not necessarily trying to point the finger at commercial fishermen, because theyre not catching any more than theyre legally allowed to catch.

Last winter, the province had two envoys rove the province to discuss Manitobas withdrawal from the corporation. Their final recommendations to the province included buying out fishers quota by 20 per cent, because without a mechanism to control fishing pressure on Lake Winnipeg, there is no possibility of sustainable management.

Turenne supports that idea, especially if the province compensates fishers.

Nobody wants to put commercial fishermen out of business, he said, adding without making the quota specific to species, fishers obviously gravitate to the most pricey fish.

He laments the media has covered how Lake Winnipegs algae blooms affect tourism, but mostly ignored concerns about fish health.

The fish are the key economic driver on that lake, he said. These fish matter to Manitoba; this is a very valuable resources for us and wed like to see more attention from the public, from the government.

In a recent email, provincial Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires said the Manitoba government is considering a voluntary quota buy-back to reduce the overall pressure on our fish stocks, but would only do it after more consultation with fishers and other groups.

Our government remains committed to restoring the sustainability of our fish population across all our lakes, she wrote.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

Fisheries envoy report
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the end, it was a deal he couldnt refuse.

After months of sometimes difficult deliberations, sources confirmed Premier Brian Pallister has decided the province will contribute money to the construction of the Winnipeg Art Gallerys (WAG) $65-million Inuit Art Centre.

The decision, which has not yet been made public, ends nearly two years of anxious uncertainty for the art gallery, its other private and public funding partners, and key opinion leaders in the business community and the Progressive Conservative party, all of whom lobbied long and hard to get the province involved.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The WAGs site being prepared in September for the new Inuit Art Centre.

Even though a decision has been reached, the Manitoba premier has remained aloof about the fate of the project.

In a year-end interview on Thursday with several news outlets  his last before he is expected to take a vacation during the Christmas break  Pallister was asked about the proposed Inuit Art Centre. His government had already promised a decision would be revealed by the end of the year.

Pallister would only tell reporters to stay tuned for a formal announcement. His reluctance to use his year-end chat to confirm the final decision could have been a product of the stress he has been under lately, or it could just be a reflection of the fact this is  and will remain  a politically delicate matter.

In the end, the sources said, the premier accepted the argument the return on the provinces investment  $50 million through a combination of private donations and funding from both the City of Winnipeg and federal government  made the WAGs project too good to pass up.

Under normal circumstances, the best deal available to a province on infrastructure is a three-way split of the final costs.

The WAGs new Inuit art gallery includes substantial sums of private money, which provided Pallister with a better cost-sharing formula.

At a time when the business community and construction trades are concerned about cancelled provincial infrastructure projects, this one amenity stood out as a solid investment for taxpayers.

Still, when all of the political complications associated with the project are stacked up, at this point in the Pallister governments mandate, a case could easily be made for not funding it.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Tammy Sawatzky from the Inuit Art Centre Communications at the WAG looks at a piece by Joe T. Arcand, ninohte-nehiyawan, 2017.

First, there was concern high up in the Tory government that by supporting the Inuit Art Centre, it would be helping to build a legacy project for former premier Greg Selinger and his NDP government.

Selinger made the first commitment to provide provincial money for the art centre in November 2015. But  like so many marquee funding pledges made by the NDP in its last two years in power  no money changed hands.

Not making good on that pledge right away could be interpreted in two rather unflattering ways for Selinger: it could have been a reflection of a desperate leader of a desperate government trying anything to stave off defeat, or it could just as easily have been a last-ditch effort to build a few pyramids by a first minister who knew the end was coming.

Either way, sources confirmed Pallister was none too pleased about the fact he was being asked to write cheques to support a wide range of projects approved by the former NDP government that fell well outside the context of core, strategic infrastructure. Some of those projects have been put into funding limbo or spiked outright.

CancerCare Manitobas $300-million expansion was delayed indefinitely. The future of an enormous flagship Liquor Mart to be located on the main floor of the glitzy True North Square is uncertain. The Pallister government also cancelled plans to renovate a downtown Winnipeg office building on Kennedy Street to serve as a consolidated headquarters for the Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp.

The WAG project was also considered awkward because it comes at the same time as the Pallister government making some tough-love decisions on expenditures in core departments, including health and education. Sources said there remains abundant concern some within the Tory grassroots will resent any money going to a museum when Winnipeg emergency rooms are being closed.

However, while those factors might have discouraged the premier, there were others that helped convince him to proceed.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Interactive piece by Tsema Igharas, Esghanana , one of the works of art by twenty-nine Indigenous artists for the Insurgence/Resurgence show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in September.

First and foremost, Pallisters reluctance to sign off on projects (along with decisions to cap investments in core infrastructure) was becoming increasingly unpopular with influential parties under the Tory banner, particularly those members in the business community and construction trades.

In October, Don Leitch, president of the Business Council of Manitoba, contributed a commentary to the Free Press that expressed the business communitys growing concern about the trimming of infrastructure investments. Strategic infrastructure investments are, Leitch argued, part of the business of government.

In the end, however, Pallisters decision is a win in almost every sense of the word.

Governments that make promises but dont get around to writing cheques do not get to claim credit when a subsequent government delivers.

For example, look at the lack of credit given to federal Liberals in Manitoba when the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was finally green-lighted.

Liberal prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin did make early commitments to the museums funding, but it was Tory prime minister Stephen Harper who finally delivered the cheque. As for political credit, you need only ask the prominent Liberals seated in the back row of the audience at the groundbreaking event in 2007 what it feels like to watch a political opponent take the ball across the goal line.

Pallister will not, however, be able to escape the criticism from naysayers who only want government to build hospitals and repair roads.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Group of Inuit, 1974 by Artist, Romeo Eekerkik, 1923-1983

Visionary politicians understand the business of government, as Leitch put it, involves so much more than health care and potholes. Although Pallister has not always demonstrated that kind of vision, he should be congratulated for seeing the long-term benefits of this decision.

No spite. No tantrums. No political posturing.

At the end of a difficult year, where his mettle as a politician has been constantly tested, the premier delivered the best of all possible holiday presents: a fiscally and politically defensible decision.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They put the fun in fundraising.

A bakers dozen of Skills for Learning students representing Dakota Collegiate delivered $1,400 in game-show winnings to the Winnipeg Free Press Miracle on Mountain campaign Friday.

The money goes to the Christmas Cheer Board to help pay for holiday-season hampers provided to city families in need.

Dakota, which has raised money for Miracle on Mountain in the past, generated excitement among students for this years effort with Hamperdy  along with answering Jeopardy-like questions correctly, students were awarded points for every dollar and non-perishable food item they collected.

Skills for Living teacher Tim Conrad said hes thrilled with the support and enthusiasm he has seen from his students, who are living with cognitive and physical disabilities. Theyre responsible for collecting donations from other classrooms and for counting the cash.

It gives them an opportunity to show that they can help like everybody else, he said, adding morale soars at Dakota at this time of year. Were banging on doors collecting money. Were running all over the place filling hampers.

The school, which has a student population near 1,400, set a fundraising goal of at least one dollar for each one, so mission accomplished.

Victoria MacDonald, 15, said she was happy to have played a role in helping kids in need. Classmate Chris Espinosa, 18, who was involved for the first time said he enjoyed participating in the effort to help others in the community.

Last year Miracle on Mountain raised $107,000 for the Christmas Cheer Board.

Meanwhile, the board is looking for some generous elves with vehicles and some time to drive them.

Some 9,000 hampers have to be delivered directly to people unable to pick them up.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Students in the Skills for Living program at Dakota Collegiate arrive at the Winnipeg Free Press with a cheque for more than $1,400 to give to the Miracle on Mountain charity.

Volunteers should go to this years cheer board HQ at 550 Milt Stegall Dr. (between Ellice and Sargent avenues), weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Deliveries will continue until next Saturday.

And if youre still looking for a Christmas tree, Jensens Nursery is doing its annual fundraiser to help Miracle on Mountain. The nursery, located at 2550 McGillivray Blvd., is donating $2 per tree to help us help the citys hungry. Call them at 204-488-5042 for more information.

kiera.kowalski@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  A Manitoba senators attempt at shining the spotlight on how the Red Chamber approves expenses devolved into a shouting match Thursday in Parliament.

Sen. Marilou McPhedran has been appealing two rejected travel claims, though expenses are a particularly sensitive point for the Senate.

The first claim involves a May 4 trip to Winnipeg, where the independant senator spoke at a Manitoba Youth Parliament event, and attended a dental appointment.

The Senate rejected her $1,939.14 claim for flights, taxi and hotels, because rules modified after the 2012 Senate expense scandal prohibit reimbursing costs for speaking engagements and fundraisers that arent organized by the Red Chamber.

She appealed the claim four times, the last of which brought it into the public last week through the Senates budget committee. She has said her goal isnt the money, but rather moving arbitrary decisions held in secret into the public realm.

McPhedran told the committee last week one of her staff, who no longer works for the Senate, had told her the May trip would qualify under expense rules.

Meanwhile, McPhedran has also appealed a $5,500 trip she took to Iceland, for a November conference of women parliamentarians. The Senate places tight restrictions on international travel, except for trips to Washington, D.C., and for United Nations events in New York.

On Thursday, as the committee heard the Iceland appeal, Conservative Sen. Denise Batters confronted McPhedran, saying the committee chairman had received a letter from that staffer.

I understand that staff person alleges that you have misrepresented those facts. I have not seen this letter, but if those allegations are true then, Senator McPhedran, those facts would lead us to the conclusion that you may have misled this committee, Batters said.

McPhedran raised her voice: If what youre doing here, Senator Batters is attempt to smear my reputation go ahead, just try, its not going to work.

The committee chairman, independent Sen. Larry Campbell, confirmed receiving a letter, but said he wouldnt share it, because the staffer didnt want to testify to the committee.

Quite frankly, she was concerned about appearing here, with you in the room, he said.

She glared at Campbell, asking if hed conspired with Batters to have her mentioned the letter she hasnt seen.

He denied doing so.

Really? McPhedran said.

Campbell responded: Are you accusing me of lying, Senator McPhedran? Because if you are, you better be careful where youre going.

McPhedran also pushed back against Batters for introducing a personal smear with no evidence. Youre illustrating part of whats wrong with this, she said, referring to how the Senate oversees expenses.

Last month, McPhedran revealed shes struggled with her role as a senator, due to constraints such as having the Iceland trip expense denied. She said one senator had been approved, so the others were denied  a move she deemed sexist.

Ive been in this new job for a year, and Ive had really mixed feelings about whether I should be here, she told the Free Press. This is like being in high school; the lack of personal freedom is astonishing to me.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/12/2017 (1798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As if Winnipegs urban forest didnt have enough trouble with Dutch elm disease, now our canopy of trees is threatened by the emerald ash borer.

Native to China, the borer is an invasive species in Manitoba which could destroy all of the citys 350,000 ash trees within 10 years. The Canada Food Inspection Agency says infested trees die within two to three years, but heavily infested trees can die in as little as one year.

As reported earlier this week, according to city forester Martha Barwinsky, Our canopy is at risk When we look at the percentage of elm and ash on boulevards and parks, we have 60 per cent of our canopy.

CANADIAN FOOD INSPECTION AGENCY The emerald ash borer is killing our ash trees.

Winnipeggers take our many shady streets for granted, but the comfort and beauty provided by boulevard trees took decades worth of investment. Without those trees, our streets become more intense heat sinks, the sidewalk-level climate is subject to more extremes and we lose a huge chunk of biodiversity. The total value of all boulevard and park trees is an estimated $437 million.

The emerald ash borer has been found in 31 U.S. states. It was first detected in Canada in 2002 in Windsor, Ont., but it has spread rapidly from there. In North America, it has few natural enemies  and the ash trees here have little resistance to it.

The Emerald Ashborer Information Network says the bug has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America and cost municipalities, property owners, nursery operators and forest products industries hundreds of millions of dollars.

The ability to catch their presence is limited, though in the United States, Department of Agriculture scientists have developed a green prism trap system for detecting emerald ash borer infestations.

The City of Winnipeg should continue to look at options for detecting and controlling the ash borer, in addition to the work it is already doing to protect our elm trees.

And given the backlog in combating Dutch elm disease, more money for these efforts is both needed and justified.

The city is strapped for cash, as evidenced by the recently announced hikes in parking rates and bus fares. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Money spent protecting what we have will be less expensive than trying to reforest everything from scratch.

And given the infestation will likely not be limited to the city, the province should move to support protecting our canopy, as well.

It may be that we cant save the ash trees, but we should still have an aggressive reforesting plan in place for areas likely to be hit hard by the loss.

This kind of infrastructure cant be rushed; it takes careful forethought and decades of favourable growing conditions.

We may well be best off to start thinking that way, as we save the trees we can. Going forward, what species (or, better, mix of species, to avoid monoculture) are best suited to our climate? How long does it take them to become fully established? And how would they interact with our existing flora and fauna?

One thing so far is clear: absent naturally occurring predators and resistant trees, the emerald ash borer is here to stay  and its very likely our ash trees are not.
Media reports this week revealed that the Chinese government took the unusual step of officially summoning Australias ambassador to the country, Jan Adams, to a closed-door meeting for a robust discussion last Friday.

According to the Murdoch-owned Australian newspaper, Beijing officials issued a formal complaint to Adams, objecting to hysterical claims emanating from Australias major parties, corporate press and intelligence agencies of Chinese interference in Australian politics.

The immediate trigger for the heightening diplomatic tensions was the revival late last month of accusations by the Liberal-National Coalition government that Labor Senator Sam Dastyari had operated as a Chinese agent of influence.

Those claims form part of a year-long xenophobic campaign, particularly spearheaded by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Fairfax Media publications, in close collaboration with ASIO, Australias domestic intelligence agency.

The witch-hunt has presented activities ranging from political donations by Chinese-born businesspeople, lobbying, meetings of Chinese community groups, and the presence of large numbers of Chinese international students, as part of a coordinated plot by the Chinese Communist Party to subvert Australian democracy.

Dastyari, a right-wing powerbroker from the New South Wales Labor Party, was particularly targeted because of his role in soliciting donations from Chinese business figures. He was also denounced for delivering a speech two years ago, in which he tepidly warned against direct Australian involvement in US-led provocations against Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Dastyari was forced to resign this week.

The campaign against Dastyari has been aimed at legitimising a battery of draconian laws announced by the Coalition government this month, directed against foreign influence operations. The legislation will include the creation of a foreign agents registry and a complete ban on overseas donations for any political activities.

The Global Times, a Chinese state-owned newspaper with close ties to the countrys military, declared on Wednesday that it was disgraceful that in an era of globalisation, some countries exhibit all the symptoms of McCarthyism: suspecting Chinese businesspeople and students, framing China and harassing Chinese visitors on exchanges.

The paper stated that were China to adopt the same attitude as Western countries, communities of foreign expats in Beijing would fall under suspicion and Chinese with close ties to Westerners would be treated like informants to Western spy agencies and be accused of treason, like Australian lawmaker Sam Dastyari.

Last Friday, Chinas foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, similarly warned that the Australian anti-China campaign poisons the atmosphere between the two countries.

Geng was responding to Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbulls comments in parliament the previous day, in which he uncritically repeated media reports that China was interfering with our media, our universities and even the decisions of elected representatives right here in this building.

Underlying the reaction in Beijing is a recognition that Canberras stepped-up allegations of Chinese interference are one aspect of a diplomatic, military and economic campaign, led by the United States and its allies, including Australia, to isolate China in preparation for war.

They coincide with ongoing threats by the Trump administration to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, an act that could trigger a broader conflict pitting the US and its allies against China. Washington is also taking direct measures against Beijing, including the establishment of an alliance with the European Union and Japan this week to target alleged Chinese unfair trade practices.

The Chinese regime is fearful that the Australian campaign against Chinese influence will become a model for the US and its allies, as they seek to legitimise their aggressive actions against Beijing, and create a political climate in which war can be launched.

A senior US congressman hailed Australias anti-China witch-hunt at congressional hearings yesterday, hinting that a similar campaign would be required in the United States.

Chris Smith, co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, declared: Australia in particular is in the midst of a national crisis and all like-minded democratic allies should be supporting their efforts to root out those elements intended to corrupt or co-opt Australian political and academic institutions.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio warned that in Australia and elsewhere, China was seeking to nurture officeholders, think-tanks, opinion-makers and others.

In Canada, Conservative Senator Linda Frum likewise called this week for her countrys parliament to replicate the actions of the Australian government by launching an inquiry into the extent of Beijings subterfuge in Canada, and by changing legislation to prevent China from meddling in Canadian political processes.

A particular concern of the Chinese regime is that the Australian governments proposed legislation goes further than existing foreign influence laws in other countries, including the United States and Britain, and could become a blueprint for measures targeting Chinese nationals and businesses elsewhere.

An Australian government media statement declared that the planned legislation will criminalise covert and deceptive activities of foreign actors that fall short of espionage but are intended to interfere with our democratic systems and processes or support the intelligence activities of a foreign government.

While the full details of the new laws have not been spelt out, the extraordinarily vague designation of covert and deceptive activities could potentially be applied to the public or commercial activities of virtually any foreign national.

An article in the Australian yesterday noted that the legislation casts a cloud over all dealings between foreigners, their representatives and the government. It suggested that foreign nationals or anyone advocating for a foreign company, involved in competition policy, foreign investment, regulatory reform or anything that requires a ministerial decision would likely have to register as a foreign agent.

In an indication of the breadth of the measures being prepared, Peter Jennings, a former defence official and director of the government funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned today there was a likelihood that university research projects were illegally sharing military technologies with China. Jennings used the unsubstantiated assertion to call for the Defence Department to conduct an investigation.

Media reports have previously asserted that joint Chinese-Australian research projects in seemingly benign areas such as marine and solar technology could touch on areas with military potential at an unspecified point in the future.

Another academic, Clive Hamilton, who has been heavily involved in the media denunciations of Beijing, gave an indication of the extent to which the anti-China campaign is being waged in collaboration with the US government and intelligence agencies.

Hamilton said that the collaboration between Chinese institutions and Australian universities could damage relations with the US. I know that our research is being carefully read in Washington and hard questions are being asked of the Australian government, he stated.

Underlying the aggressive anti-China rhetoric is Australias central role in the US preparations for war in the region, especially against China. In 2011, the Greens-backed Labor government signed-up to the Obama administrations pivot to Asia, a vast military build-up directed against Beijing.

Since then, the Australian military has been ever-more integrated into the US war machine, while US influence operations targeted at the Australian political establishment, and the population, aimed at promoting Washingtons aggressive policies, have been vastly expanded.
Ten days after it began, the Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties continues to burn. It is now the largest fire of the 2017 California wildfire season, having burned through 238,500 acres as of Thursday morning and is now the fifth largest wildfire in state history. Thus far, it has destroyed more than 900 homes and is responsible for at least one death.

At the height of its progress last week, the Thomas Fire had advanced at a rate of nearly an acre per second. In fact, the Thomas Fire was burning so quickly at the time that it fit the definition of a firestorm, meaning a fire strong enough to generate its own storm-force winds. Such phenomena are also produced by large-scale explosives, most notably in the aerial fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg in the Second World War as well as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

While firefighters, aided by more favorable weather conditions, had made significant progress early in week to halt the fires progress, it still remains only 30 percent contained and personnel are now racing to protect communities in the fires path before a shift in powerful winds forecast for the coming weekend. The fire also threatens acres of nearby avocado groves, which would have a devastating effect on the industry if burned.

Mark Brown, operations section chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, warned nearby Santa Barbara residents to prepare for the worst. When the wind starts pushing it, we can throw everything we have at it and its not going to do any good, he said.

Nearly 250,000 residents in Santa Barbara and Montecito are at risk from the fires advance, along with 62,000 structures worth $46 billion. Firefighters are now working around the clock to build containment lines, clear brush, dig firebreaks and build small backfires to burn fuel. Trucks are spraying retardant on hillsides and some small buildings are being wrapped in protective metallic sheeting. Thirty-three helicopters and eight airplanes have also been regularly dropping water and fire retardant on the encroaching fires.

While officials believe a few months might pass before the cause of the Thomas Fire is determined, Cal Fire is currently investigating whether utility equipment owned by the Southern California Edison power company initially caused the blaze. A December 11 news release by Southern California Edison suggests that the utilitys role in other fires that burned through Southern California last week may be under investigation as well.

According to an article in Thursdays Los Angeles Times, witnesses reported seeing a line snapping on a high voltage transmission tower in Little Tujunga Canyon with an accompanying shower of bright sparks. The snapped power line coincided with the start of the Creek Fire northeast of Los Angeles last week. That fire burned more than 60 homes and was responsible for the closure of more than 200 schools and the evacuations of more than 80,000 area residents. It burned through more than 15,600 acres.

According to the Times Report, Gail Thackray, a Little Tujunga resident, saw the downed transmission line literally smacking the hill. She said, There was fire concentrated over there and sparks coming off the pylon. It spread each direction. If the witness report is correct, then it appears that a high degree of probability exists that the downed line caused the fire. Southern California Edison owns that transmission line.

Cal Fire is still investigating the role of Pacific Gas & Electric in fires that caused more than a billion dollars in damages and led to the deaths of more than 40 people last October in Northern California.

While these investigations are taking weeks and even months, only a few days transpired before officials claimed it had definitively determined that a wild fire in the upscale Los Angeles suburb of Bel Air started at a nearby homeless encampment. It is believed that a cooking fire was responsible for the blaze, known as the Skirball Fire, which destroyed six homes.

Investigators found the encampment largely destroyed by the fire, with little remaining except for pots, pans and various other metal items. The camp existed in a ravine close to the 405 Freeway and cannot be seen from the freeway or any other nearby streets. No residents of the camp have been found to question since the fire began.

To address similar future risk, a newly assembled fire prevention task force in Los Angeles is considering mandatory evacuations of hillside and brush area encampments during days of elevated fire risk. This is similar to programs currently carried out to clear streetside encampments such as those near the citys infamous Skid Row under the pretext of communicable disease prevention. Possessions taken during such raids are often shipped off to storage units at great distancesand therefore are no longer accessible to the homeless.

Regardless of the intentions of the task force, such a mechanism will inevitably be used to begin clearing the homeless out of wealthier areas. To that end, Nickie Miner, vice president of the Bel Air-Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as advocating for a massive regulatory overhaul to completely eliminate any and all hillside encampments.

Whatever form the new regulations take, they will inevitably be used to restrict the activities of the homeless in hopes that they will abandon certain parts of the city altogether. Similar regulations are being enacted in cities across the country including in Portland, Oregon, where the implementation of pedestrian use zones, after prompting by an op-ed column penned by billionaire Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle, leaves sidewalks off limits to homeless people for sitting or sleeping.

Underscoring the naked class character of the campaign against the homeless people allegedly involved in sparking the Skirball fire were photos recently posted on the Los Angeles Times website showing firefighters carrying heavy artworks out of Bel Air mansions in the midst of evacuations.

One of Bel-Airs wealthiest residents is 21st Century Fox and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch with a current net worth of $13.8 billion. According to Bloomberg News, Murdoch stands to gain another $2 billion as a result of the purchase of 21st Century Fox by Walt Disney Co.

An annual count last May found that the homeless population in Los Angeles County had increase by 23 percent to nearly 58,000 people in the last year alone. The count of homeless in the wealthy areas of Bel-Air and Brentwood rose from 4,659 to 5,511 during the same period.

Last week a special rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council visited a section of the citys Skid Row neighborhood. Phillip Alston, the rapporteur, had also recently visited Lowndes County, Alabama where he found raw sewage disposal into open pits as well as the presence of hookworm, a parasite typically associated with extreme poverty in South America, Sub Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.

In Skid Row, Alston found dozens of homeless encamped outside of a local shelter, which was at capacity. He also witnessed untended homeless in wheelchairs with colostomy bags. I think its on a scale I hadnt anticipated, block after block of people, he said. When you see how concentrated it is, its more shocking.

Alstons preliminary report is expected to be released on Friday, with a full report due next spring. He will also visit Washington state as well as stop in San Franciscos Tenderloin district, where a significant homeless population also resides.

The US is alone among big industrial nations in consistently rejecting access to housing and sanitation as a basic human right. No sanctions or penalties of any kind will be issued as a result of Alstons findings, which can only be described as demonstrating a crime against humanity.

The author also recommends:

Portland billionaire attacks citys homeless

[14 December 2017]
Leading Greek trade unions called a one-day general strike Thursday against the savage austerity measures being imposed by the pseudo-left Syriza-led government on behalf of the European Union (EU), European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The GSEE (General Confederation of Greek Workers) private sector union confederation and its public sector counterpart, ADEDY (Supreme Administration of Greek Civil Servants Trade Unions) called the strike, to coincide with the parliamentary debate currently underway on next years budget.

The one-day general strike affected significant sectors of the Greek economy. In the capital of Athens, services on the metro and surface transportation networks were restricted, with transport operating for limited hours only. No trains were scheduled to run from Athens to Greeces second city, Thessaloniki, between midnight on Wednesday and midnight on Thursday. Seamen and dockworkers joined the strike, with ships and ferries remaining anchored for the duration.

Health care workers also participated in the walkout, with hospitals running on a skeleton staff, and schools were shut. Public Power Corporation workers joined the strike action. Air traffic controllers took part in a four-hour walkout. Journalists in Athens struck, affecting news bulletins on Thursday along with printed newspapers.

Demonstrations and protests were scheduled to take place in more than 50 Greek cities and towns nationwide. In Athens, more than 10,000 workers, pensioners and students marched to the parliament building in Syntagma Square, where the deputies are pushing through the new raft of brutal cuts. They held up placards that read Shame on you! and No more lies!, and they chanted, Take your bailouts and get out of here.

A vote will be held on a draft Supplemental Memorandum of Understanding, already agreed by the Syriza government, next week.

The memorandum is central to the third review of the European Stability Mechanism Programme (ESM) that Syriza entered into in August 2015, after taking power the previous January. The extent to which the EU and the global financial oligarchy have control over all decisions relating to the Greek economy and government policy is clear from the opening sections of the Memorandum.

It states, Success [in imposing the terms of the 2015-2018 agreement] requires ownership of the reform agenda by the Greek authorities. The Government therefore stands ready to take any measures that may become appropriate for this purpose as circumstances change. The Government commits to consult and agree with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund on all actions relevant for the achievement of the objectives of the Memorandum of Understanding before these are finalised and legally adopted.

The filthy Memorandum continues, Greece will design and implement a wide range of structural reforms that not only ensure full compliance with EU requirements, but which also aim at achieving European best practices. The authorities will continue to implement an ambitious privatisation programme, and a new independent Privatisation and Investment Fund  has been established supporting a more efficient use of resources.

Attacks must be imposed for years hence, with the loans being received by Greece from the ESM being returned immediately to pay off its debt mountain that remains at almost 300 billion [$US 353 billion]. Since coming to power, Syriza has handed over 41.6 billion in debt repayments.

The Memorandum commits the Greek government to ensuring sustainable public finances by pursuing the fiscal path agreed in August 2015based on primary surplus targets of the ESM programme of 1.75 and 3.5 percent of GDP in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The primary surplus target of 3.5% of GDP will be maintained over the medium term, until 2022.

The aim of Syrizas budget is to implement a range of austerity measures in order to reach the 3.5 percent of GDP primary surplus demanded by the EU and the IMF. The government must pass 110 prerequisite measures that need to be in place in time for Greeces third assessment in January. These include cuts to pensions of between 20 percent and 30 percent and a rise in stealth taxation, to be imposed from January 1, 2019. Syriza also plans further cuts to the health budget of 28 percent.

The levels of poverty already imposed on the Greek population are without precedent in peacetime Europe. According to World Bank data, household incomes have fallen by about a third since austerity began in 2009, leading to mass unemployment in double digits and up to 50 percent for young people.

According to a recent assessment by economist Panagiotis Petrakisfor the Economic Chamber of GreeceGreeks will not see a return to the level of income they had in 2009 until 2029. Commenting on his findings, the Greek Reporter said, If we are talking about disposable incomewhat is left after deduction of taxes and leviesthen the Greeks will have to be more patient, since we will need to enter the 2030s.

It continued, According to Eurostat data, Greece was at 94% of the EU average in terms of per capita GDP, expressed in Purchasing Power Units. A year later, we had lost 9 whole points, in 2011 another 10, while in 2016the latest data availablewe were at 67% of the EU average, i.e. behind Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, and even Estonia, which was at a lower level than we were a decade ago.

Now, even more is being demanded of a working class that has already been bled dry. This week an EU official warned that the third review of the Memorandum cannot be considered completed, because about 70 percent of the 110 prerequisites have not yet been implemented.

Due to its role in imposing brutal austerity and its eagerness to roll out even greater cuts to the living standards of millions, Syriza is widely despised. Its approval rating stands at just over 20 percent. In an illustration of the popular mood, prime minister and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras was booed and jeered by angry municipal workers Wednesday evening as he left his office in Thessaloniki. The Greek Reporter web site reported, Earlier, the Greek PM apparently refused to meet a delegation of the workers, mostly staff, whose contracts are about to expire.

Syriza is seeking to severely curtail the rights of workers to strike, by increasing the turn-out for local union branches for strike votes to 50 percent. This sparked a protest outside the prime ministers Athens residence on December 5 that was attacked by riot police using tear gas.

While the third assessment is expected to pass, the real test will be over the six subsequent months, by which time Greece will have to implement an additional 82 measures as revealed by the Greek daily Kathimerini last week. These will see further cuts to pensions, reductions to the tax-free threshold, and the sell-off of more public assets, including coal-powered stations and the Thessaloniki port authority, etc.

The Greek trade union federations have called dozens of general strikes since the first austerity-for-loans package was signed in 2010, by the then social democratic PASOK government. These have all been designed to allow workers to let off steam while the measures passed, regardless.

The union bureaucracy are aware that this discredited tactic has run its course, a fact expressed in an ADEDY statement on the strike. It felt compelled to issue an extraordinary mea culpa in regard to its role, along with the GSEE, in facilitating the destruction of workers living standards.

The corporate and government trade unions GSEE-ADEDY are hugely responsible, given that once again they followed a line of defeat and submission as they waited for the governments initiatives instead of calling workers to fight and coordinating the struggle for the overthrow, said ADEDY.

Seeking a means to control an inevitable upsurge in workers militancy as the full extent of Syrizas austerity is felt, ADEDY called for the setting up of committees of struggle and for the co-ordination of local unions in order to facilitate an increase in strikes to prevent the [austerity] measures coming to a vote.

Behind the new, empty rhetoric, the aim is to achieve the opposite: namely to ensure that any future struggles do not break out as unofficial actions, independent of the trade unions, but remain under their control in order that they might be smothered and led into harmless channels.
The last European Union (EU) summit of the year, which began in Brussels on Thursday, is symptomatic of the state of the bloc. Divided by social and national contradictions and paralysed by political tensions, the 28 heads of government agree on only one thing: a major escalation of militarism.

No other major political project has advanced so quickly over recent months as the European military union. On Monday, the foreign ministers of the 25 participating states gave the go ahead for the first 17 projects under Pesco (Permanent Structured Cooperation). It aims in the long term to make the EU more independent from the United States. Pesco was celebrated at the summit.

EU Council President Donald Tusk described Pesco in his invitation to the summit as the best examplethat despite differences, maintaining unity is possible. He wrote, 25 EU countries  with the consent of all EU members and within the existing Treaty rules  are launching cooperation in a new field. This example of unity in practice should be an inspiration to all of us, and hopefully a good omen for other important decisions.

In fact, the summits participants are divided on virtually every other issue. This also applies to the second topic on the summits agenda: refugee policy.

All EU members are agreed on taking all possible measures to seal off the continent. To this end, over the past two years the EU shut down the Balkan route and entered into a dirty deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in exchange for money ensures that hardly any refugees can reach Greece across the Aegean Sea.

In Libya, Italy and the EU are arming the so-called coast guard and other militias, which forcibly prevent refugees from travelling across the Mediterranean, detain them, torture them, and in some cases sell them as slaves. These forces are recruited from former civil war militias, including Islamists, and smuggler groups.

While this criminal policy remains essentially unchallenged, there are bitter disputes among the EU member states about the acceptance of refugees. In 2015, the EU decided by a majority to distribute some of the refugees who had arrived in Greece and Italy to other European states according to an obligatory quota system. This decision has remained largely unenforced. Eastern European states like Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary have continued to refuse to this day to accept any refugees.

Tusk, who comes from Poland, therefore proposed in a paper for the summit that the quotas be eliminated because they had proven to be divisive and ineffective. This was met with stiff resistance.

The German government stated that it does not agree with Tusks opinion and considers the distribution of refugees to be unavoidable. The deputy president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, said, Either we find a European solution for the challenge of immigration, or there will be no solution. Every single member state has to do its part, he continued.

The parliamentary leaders for the Liberals and Greens in the European parliament contradicted Tusk. I was totally shocked by Tusks paper, said the Liberal Guy Verhofstadt. And the Greens Ska Keller raged, It is unacceptable that he strengthens the hand of naysayers like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

A further topic for discussion on Thursday evening was foreign policy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron provided an assessment of the implementation of the Minsk peace agreement in Ukraine. The summit subsequently agreed on the extension of sanctions against Russia for six months. In addition, the participants discussed the decision of US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Today, the summit participants will discuss potential reforms of the euro zone. However, no decisions on the highly contentious issue will be made. Berlin is in no position to do this because Germany has only a caretaker government.

The last item on the agenda will be the Brexit talks. After British Prime Minister Theresa May largely accepted the EUs exit conditions, the EU Commission will recommend initiating the second phase of talks, which will deal with the future relationship between Britain and the EU. No opposition to this is expected from the summit.

But this will by no means resolve these problems. The conclusion of the first phase of negotiations is moderate progress, since we only have ten months left to determine the transition period and our future relations with the UK, Tusk stated in his invitation to the summit. This will be a furious race against time.

A sense of the disunity, weakness and division of the EU can be gauged by considering those attending the summit. It has more in common with a military hospital than the meeting of a world powers general staff. Hardly anyone is present who is not under pressure, struggling for their political survival and deeply unpopular in their own country. The Polish and Czech prime ministers have only come to power this week, and the Austrian Prime Minister will leave office next week. The number of nationalists who view the EU with skepticism or outright opposition is growing.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is the longest-serving European head of government with 12 years in office, and who has long called the shots in the EU due to Germanys economic weight, is currently only a caretaker chancellor and cannot take any major decisions. The government crisis could drag on for months and, should new elections be held, result in Merkels removal.

Emmanuel Macron, who won the French presidential election early this year with two thirds of the vote, is now only viewed positively by little more than a third of the French people and is continuing to lose support. The Republicans, the strongest opposition bourgeois party, apart from the neofascist National Front, has with the election of Laurent Vauquiez chosen a leader who admires US President Trump and explicitly opposes Macrons goal of a strong EU.

Andrej Babis is attending an EU summit for the first time from the Czech Republic. The right-wing populist billionaire, also referred to as the Czech Trump, was sworn in on Wednesday. He leads a minority government. It is doubtful whether parliament will give him its confidence in January since he faces criminal charges for misappropriating millions in EU funds.

In contrast, this will be the last EU summit for Austrias Christian Kern. Following the Social Democratic defeat in parliamentary elections, a coalition of the conservative Peoples Party (OVP) and the extreme right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) will take office next week. It is expected that Austria will subsequently cooperate closely with the EU-skeptic Visegrad states: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is also new in office. He enjoys the trust, like his predecessor Beata Szydlo, of Jaroslav Kaczynski, the leader of the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS), who pulls the strings behind the scenes. In contrast to Szydlo, Morawiecki is a financial expert and it is hoped he will win back the confidence of international finance capital.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who replaced Matteo Renzi a year ago, has never faced an election. Gentiloni and Renzis Democrats (PD) are performing poorly in the polls, being placed far behind a right-wing alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi and the Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo. An EU-skeptic government is expected to seize the reins of power in Rome after parliamentary elections in March.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is only holding onto power thanks to the support of the Social Democrats. As shown recently in the Catalan referendum, in order to stay in power he is resorting to authoritarian methods of rule that recall the Franco dictatorship.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras confronts mass opposition in the working class. As he took part in the Brussels summit, a 24-hour general strike occurred in Greece against his governments austerity policies and a new anti-strike law. In Athens alone, police reported that 20,000 people took to the streets.

Tsipras was elected in 2015 by promising to end the EU-dictated austerity measures. As Prime Minister, he intensified austerity policies with the result that Greek workers have lost up to 40 percent of their income in the past seven years, and the social system has collapsed. 18,000 doctors, and many other people, have left the country.

Contrary to the claims of the bourgeois press, the European Union and its predecessor organisations never embodied the unity of Europe. They were always instruments through which the ruling class pursued its interests both at home and abroad. They enabled the major corporations and banks to organise the continent in their own interests.

But with the increase in social tensions and international conflicts, with the former protecting power of the US in particular, the divisions within the EU that twice transformed Europe into a battlefield during the last century are once again erupting to the surface.

The growth of social inequality, never-ending social cutbacks, labour market reforms and austerity measures have destroyed the trust in the traditional parties and the EU, which bear chief responsibility for this process. Since the social democratic parties, trade unions and petty-bourgeois parties, like the Greens and Syriza, unequivocally support these attacks and the EU, the main beneficiaries of the opposition to date have been right-wing, nationalist and even neofascist parties.

But this will not remain so. The predominant sentiment among workers and young people is left-wing. Many hate the right-wing parties and oppose militarism and capitalism. These sentiments require a political orientation. The answer to the transformation of the EU into a military alliance for waging war around the world, strengthening the repressive state apparatus and organising social cutbacks, is not the return to the nation state. Instead, it must be the united socialist states of Europe.

The European working class must unite and fight for a socialist programme, which connects the opposition against militarism, repression and the rise of the right with the struggle against capitalism. This is the International Committee of the Fourth Internationals programme and that of its European sections, the Socialist Equality Parties.
Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica 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 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 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 Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of 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 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 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 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 Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland 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
Californias widespread fires claimed a second life Thursday, with a firefighter killed as he fought a blaze near Ventura County.

Cory Iverson, a 32-year-old fire-engine strike team member of Cal Fires San Diego unit, was one of the thousands battling to get the Thomas Fire under control since Dec. 4. The blaze is the fourth-largest in the states history.

Iversons wife Ashley is currently pregnant with their second child. The couple also has a 2-year-old daughter, Evie. A GoFundMe page has been created by Ashleys friend to help with expenses following this tragedy.

We are deeply saddened to have to notify you of a fatality involving one of our firefighters, the station agency, which Iverson was a part of since 2009, confirmed on social media.

Today, Fire Apparatus Engineer Cory Iverson has succumbed to fatal injuries while engaged in fire suppression efforts on the Thomas Fire. We ask that everyone take a minute to keep the entire Iverson family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

Around 4 p.m. local time, Iversons body was loaded into a hearse and taken to the Ventura County Medical Examiner, with firefighters lining the road in tribute, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Very sad scene as the flag draped body of @CALFIRESANDIEGO firefighter Cory Iverson is brought in a hearse, with a procession of at least 50 fire and law enforcement vehicles, to the @VCFD Coroners office. Lost his life fighting the #ThomasFire @ABC7 #Air7HD pic.twitter.com/OMSeraHOk9  J.T. Alpaugh (@ABC7JT) December 15, 2017

A procession in Santa Paula for Firefighter Cory Iverson, killed battling the Thomas fire. See photo gallery: https://t.co/aO7dvzNfza by @AlSeibPhoto pic.twitter.com/hGw3dC9fab  L.A. Times Photos (@latimesphotos) December 15, 2017

Cory and Ashley are expecting a second daughter this spring. Our thoughts and prayers are with Corys family and all of his friends and co-workers throughout the department and the fire service, Cal Fire Director Chief Ken Pimlott said, according to multiple local news outlets.

Story continues

How Iverson was killed remains unclear. Speaking in Ventura during a media briefing, Chief Pimlott said an accident review team had been assigned to review the circumstances that led to Iversons death.

We are deeply saddened to have to notify you of a fatality involving one of our firefighters. Today, Fire Apparatus Engineer Cory Iverson has succumbed to fatal injuries while engaged in fire suppression efforts on the Thomas Fire. We ask that everyone take a minute to keep the entire Iverson family and friends in your thoughts and prayers. A post shared by CAL FIRE San Diego (@calfiresandiego) on Dec 14, 2017 at 5:57pm PST

Cal Fire San Diego Chief Tony Meacham said at a media briefing in Escondido, 30 miles northeast of San Diego, that Iverson had engaged in a very active part of the fire just outside of Fillmore when the accident happened as reported by the San Diego Tribune.

As of Thursday evening, the Thomas Fire was approximately 30-percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

Meet hero Cory Iverson, who lost his life today fighting the Thomas Fire. The Lowe family sends our gratitude and love to his family. A post shared by Rob Lowe (@robloweofficial) on Dec 14, 2017 at 8:08pm PST

James Morrison, Rob Lowe and more honored Iverson on social media, sharing tributes and condolences to his family and fellow firefighters.

On Dec. 5 a 70-year-old woman was found dead, it is believed she crashed while trying to evacuate the Thomas Fire.
Five more women have come forward to accuse Dustin Hoffman of sexual misconduct, one of whom was a minor at the time of the alleged incident.

Cori Thomas told Variety she was 16 years old and a classmate of Hoffmans daughter, Karina, in New York at the time of the incident. After the three took a walk in Manhattan, Thomas parents were supposed to pick her up at a restaurant but instead, Hoffman suggested they all wait at the hotel he was staying at while leaving a note for Thomas parents at the restaurant.

When they arrived at the hotel, Either Karina or Dustin suggested that [Karina] should go home because it was a school night. So she left, and I was left in the hotel room with him alone, Thomas said.

Also Read:New Dustin Hoffman Accuser: 'Night After Night I Went Home and Cried'

There, she said Hoffman went to the bathroom to take a shower but came out with just a towel wrapped around him, which he later dropped.

He was standing there naked. I think I almost collapsed, actually. It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man. I was mortified, Thomas told Variety. He eventually put on a robe and asked her to massage his feet, she said, to which she complied.

I didnt know what to do in the circumstance, she said. I didnt know that I could say no, so I did it. And he kept telling me, Im naked. Do you want to see?'

Thomas parents rang the hotel room to pick her up, and she left. She didnt tell the story to her mother until decades later. Speaking to Variety, Thomas mother recalled arriving at the restaurant, seeing the note and picking her daughter up at the hotel  and being concerned that shed been there alone with Hoffman. Thomas also never told Hoffmans daughter. She later told a family member, who corroborated hearing such a story in the 1980s.

Story continues

Also Read:Morgan Spurlock Steps Down From His Production Company After Sexual Misconduct Admission

Another woman, named Melissa Kester, accused Hoffman of sticking his fingers down my pants and putting his fingers inside of me during the production of 1987s Ishtar. Kester was dating a man who worked on the music for the film and would accompany him to the recording studio where Hoffman would record the vocal tracks.

Hoffman allegedly asked her to come into the control room the third time she was there, which was when the incident occurred. People could see into the control room but Hoffman was only visible from the chest up.

She said he kept his fingers inside her for 15 to 20 seconds until he finished his take, at which point she moved away from him.

He kind of laughed, she said. Then I just ran out of there, and I sat in the bathroom crying. I thought, Oh my God. I felt like Id been raped. There was no warning. I didnt know he would do that.

A friend confirmed the account of the incident to Variety.

A third woman, who decided to stay anonymous, also said Hoffman assaulted her while working on Ishtar, but said she later had a consensual sexual encounter with the actor. She was 22 at the time and had a non-speaking role in the film and at one point was asked to come to set. She observed the end of the shoot and went to a wrap party which she was asked to stay for. At 1 a.m., the woman said, Hoffman offered her a ride home but the station wagon was quickly filling up with other people from the set.

He said theyd get in the way back  they laid down in the back of the station wagon, while she was wearing a skirt.

There are people inches from us, she said. And he just took his hand and stuck his fingers right up inside of me. I didnt know what to do. Hes smiling at me. I was frozen. I was outside of my body.

Also Read:Dustin Hoffman Accused of Sexual Harassment by 'Genius' Producer

She was dropped near her apartment but the woman said Hoffman gave her $20 to come to his place. She later went, and claimed he performed oral sex on her and they had sexual intercourse.

The woman said the incident in the car was non-consensual, while she responded, I dont know about whether the sexual encounter after was consensual.

Two more women shared stories about Hoffman in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, published Thursday. A woman identified as Carolyn worked as a tour guide in Washington D.C. when Hoffman (while shooting All the Presidents Men) boarded a bus with his assistant, who later told her Hoffman wanted to spend the evening with her. Carolyn went to his hotel that night and he allegedly answered the door shirtless. After long conversations, she expressed her desire to go home and Hoffman allegedly said, Go home? You dont think youre getting out of here without having sex, do you?

The woman said Hoffman blocked the doorway and presented with her two options, one of which was oral sex: I cant remember the other option.

Another woman identified as Pauline was a TV production stylist based in San Francisco but who grew up in Manhattan. She said she was working in a store when Hoffman came in and asked for help. He would stop by periodically and on one occasion asked her to accompany him to the premiere of his new film Alfredo, Alfredo. On another occasion, Hoffman took Pauline to a movie and mentioned he had gotten his daughter a puppy, asking her if she would want to see it. When they went to his house, she discovered there was no puppy.

After showing her his daughters room, she said Hoffman unzipped his pants and exposed himself to her, at which point he masturbated in front of her. After he ejaculated, she asked, Can I go home now? to which he walked her down the street and hailed a cab.

Also Read:Morgan Spurlock Recalls Accuser From His College Days: 'She Believed She Was Raped'

I didnt want to do acting anymore, Pauline told THR. I just was turned off. And it terrified me of boys, thats for sure.

Hoffman has been accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by three other women. Hoffman was first accused in a guest column by Anna Graham Hunter for The Hollywood Reporter last month. In her piece, Hunter accused Hoffman of attempting to grope her multiple times when she was just 17.

The Graduate actor later said in a statement, 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.

Television writer and producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis became the second woman to publicly accuse Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment. A third woman said he repeatedly groped her during their work together on a Broadway play, with the actor putting his hand up her slip and one night sticking his fingers inside her.

A spokesperson for Hoffman has not yet responded to TheWraps request for comment on this story, but Hoffmans attorney Mark A. Neubauer said in a letter to Varietys owner Penske Media Corp. that the accusations were defamatory falsehoods.

Related Video:

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.



Related stories from TheWrap:

John Oliver Confronts Dustin Hoffman Over Sexual Harassment: 'You Were a Creeper Around Women'

That Time Meryl Streep Said Dustin Hoffman Groped Her When They First Met

How Meryl Streep Got Slapped into Stardom by Dustin Hoffman
Two men were arrested on Monday after one of them allegedly threw a man off a 45-foot bridge in Shelton, Connecticut, on Thanksgiving morning, PEOPLE confirms.

Gregory Rottjer, 25, was charged with criminal attempt at murder, assault in the first degree and reckless endangerment in the first degree in connection with the altercation. Matthew Dorso, 27, was charged with assault in the third degree.

On Nov. 23, Rottjer was spotted having a verbal argument with his 22-year-old girlfriend, Jennifer Hannum, Shelton police said in a statement released to PEOPLE. The 30-year-old victim and his brother were also on the bridge and tried to check whether Hannum was okay before attempting to walk away.

Rottjer and his friend Matthew Dorso then started a physical fight with the victim and his brother, Shelon police alleged in their statement. During the fight, Rottjer intentionally threw the victim over the bridge.

When authorities arrived, Rottjer, his girlfriend and Dorso were all gone  and the victim was submerged in the frigid water below the bridge. He was pulled to shore and transported to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Unfortunately, the victim suffered injuries while stepping in and trying to do the right thing, detective Christopher Nugent, a spokesman for Shelton police, tells PEOPLE.

Officials made a plea for information from anyone who may have seen the incident.

During a subsequent interview with police detectives, Rottjer allegedly said he felt the victim disrespected his girlfriend and started fighting, according to an arrest warrant obtained by local TV station WFSB.

 For more compelling True Crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard

Hannum allegedly told officials she didnt know anything about the incident, according to the report.

Story continues

She was charged with one count of interfering with an officer.

Rottjer is held on $250,000 bond. Dorso was released with a promise to return and appear in front of a judge for arraignment. Hannum was released on $1,000 bond.

According to court documents viewed by PEOPLE, they have not yet entered pleas or obtained attorneys who could comment on their behalf. Dorso and Hannum could not immediately be reached directly.
In 1999, Addie Collins arrived at NBCs Today as a young intern with big aspirations. A few months later, she landed her dream job as production assistant, forming close bonds with her new colleagues Katie Couric, Ann Curry and Al Roker. But Matt Lauer kept more of a professional distanceuntil Collins (who now goes by her married last name Zinone) was ready to leave the show.

One day in July 2000, he invited her to lunch, which Zinone thought would be a chance to ask him for career advice. Instead, Lauer, who was in his 40s and newly married, started to aggressively hit on the 24-year-old employee. Zinone felt dumbstruck and numb. Intimidated by his stature, she gave in to his flattery, and she entered into a month-long relationship with Lauer, who would arrange to secretly meet her in his dressing room.

Lauers publicist didnt respond to multiple requests for comment to this story. A representative for NBC declined to comment, since different managers oversee the news division now.

Last month, NBC News fired Lauer from Today after another staffer complained to about his inappropriate conduct starting at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. After he exited, Variety published a two-month investigation detailing allegations of sexual harassment by Lauer toward multiple women. According to dozens of interviews with former and current NBC News employees, Lauer had a history of inviting colleagues into his office for sexual activity, and hed use a secret button under his desk that allowed him to lock the door without standing up.

Although Zinones situation was consensual, she saw parallels between her own story and several accounts from the unnamed victims. Her situation is different than other allegations against Lauer, which involved unwanted advances. But it illustrates what can happen when a prominent person brings sex into the workplace, and theres an imbalance of power. For Zinone, Lauers behavior had a devastating and lasting effect on her personal and professional life. Heres her story, for the first time, in her own words.

Story continues

Addie Zinone: I was just a small-town girl with a gymnastics scholarship from Temple University. I did four years of competitive gymnastics, and in my fifth year of college I studied broadcast journalism. At the time, Today was at the peak of its success. I was obsessed with it. Wanting to be the next Katie Couric, I wrote her a letter. This was 1998. I didnt have email. I somehow got Katies fax machine number. A month later, her assistant called and left me a message on my answering machine: Katie got your letter and wants you to come and spend a day with her.

She helped me get an internship at Today. In January 1999, I moved to New York with zero money, lived in a womens Salvation Army home and worked my butt off in the studio. I formed really close bonds with Katie, Al Rocker and Ann Curry, who showed me what to do, guided me, loved me, supported me. When I graduated that spring, a position opened up at NBC News as a production assistant, working the overnight shift. My dream had come true.

The unique part of my job was that when I ran the news in the morning, I was in the room where everybody sat when they werent on air. From there, I was able to forge these strong and awesome friendships. I felt so encouraged and supported, that I decided if I ever wanted to be these people, I had to leave and do what they did. In 2000, I accepted a position as a local anchor on WDTV Channel 5 in my hometown in West Virginia.

I only had a few weeks left at NBC. One morning, on June 8, out of the blue, I get a message from Matt Lauer. We didnt communicate much over email back then, but we used a system called Top of Line, which was instant messaging for employees.

hey, Matt wrote. i hope you wont drag me to personnel for saying this. but you look fantastic. i dont know what you have done, or what is going on in your lifebut its agreeing with you.

I thanked him, and I told him about my new job. id like to get a little advice from you before i leave.

He agreed, and that was the end of our conversation for a while. A month later, on July 12, I got another message from Matt. I remember exactly what I was wearing  it was a skirt, heels and a top. OKNOW YOURE KILLING MEYOU LOOK GREAT TODAY! A BIT TOUGH TO CONCENTRATE.



CLICK TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE



CLICK TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE

okay, is someone screwing around with me? I wrote back. I thought someone had stolen his log-in, because sometimes I would see Katie hop in a chair under someone elses account and send messages to other people as a joke. He insisted that it was him. I again him asked for some advice, and he set up a lunch for the day after that.

I didnt know what to do. He was obviously flirting. But Id never seen anything like that from Matt before. As a 24-year-old production assistant, I had no idea how to interpret that. I could truly embarrass myself if I said something like, Where are you going with this?

We went to lunch. My intentions were purely professional. I thought this was a way to get real-world constructive advice. What that turned into was an opportunity for him to come on to me. It was flattering, confusing, overwhelming. I was nervous. I didnt know what to do with it. He was clearly trying to guide the conversation. He was there to hit on me and manipulate the situation, and I fell for it. Heres how I should have known what I was getting myself into. When we left, he told me: You leave first, and Ill leave after. In no lunch Id ever had at Today had anyone suggested we leave separately, as if something was up.

Related Video:

I get back to the office and I couldnt concentrate. It was like an out of body experience. I know that sounds silly to someone who wasnt there emotionally, but I couldnt sit still. I sent him a message, and he wrote back right away.

meet me.

meet you where? I asked. matt, think about this firstyou have a wife.

dressing room.

dressing room where?

studio.

ill be there in 20 minutes, I said.

I cant stay that longI have a car coming at 3:00.

It was 2:42 p.m.

okay, I wrote. ill be over there soon.

He opens the door. There you go. It crossed the line. It was a consensual encounter. It happened in his dressing room above studio 1A, which was empty in the afternoons. He got in his car and I had to go back to work, and now my life had completely changed.

Im carrying this around with me. Theres no cell phone calls, no texts, no emails. The only time I have an opportunity to see him or talk to him is in the studio if theres no one else around. It was a whirlwind. Over the next few weeks, we met several other times.

The situation really took its toll on me. I changed physically. I changed emotionally. Fear crept into my life. I became unsure of myself. Any confidence I had was gone. For him, it was a conquest. One afternoon, he told me to come see him in his office. I thought he was finally going to talk to me and encourage me professionally. I wanted to hear from him that I could succeed in West Virginia. I sat across from him, and he pushes a button from his desk and the door shuts. It was embarrassing, because his secretary was sitting outside. He wanted to do stuff. I was like, No. Im so in over my head. Im not a performance artist.

The last time I saw him that summer was at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in California. The Today Show was live from the Staples Center floor. He was looking at a script, and he leaned over and said to me, Do you see that bathroom over there? Meet me there in five minutes. I was leaving and I had no other chance to talk to him. So I wentand we had an encounter. He was like, Alright. Ill see you later. He had no interest in making sure I was cool.

When I left Today, I was so distraught. One night a few weeks later, Im anchoring the local news in West Virginia. I finish, get in my driveway and there was a reporter from the National Enquirer waiting for me. Holy crap. Whats happening? I reach out to Matt in an email. He wrote back, Who did you tell? After that, he completely ghosted me. He left me to handle all this on my own, which I did. I told the National Enquirer that Matt and I were just friends.

What happened with Matt held me hostage. I was under his spell. It was all-consuming. I couldnt focus. I couldnt concentrate. Every time I turned on the TV, because I anchored the local news in the morning, there was his face. And he was acting all jolly and happy. And here am I, carrying the weight of what had happened and fending off the national press. I didnt want to start my career being known one of Matt Lauers girls.

My experience on air as an anchor turned out to be so traumatic that I quit. I was in a depression. This man who Id held on a pedestal had made me feel like my looks and my body were my true assets. He made it clear that he wasnt interested in my skills or my talent. It just shattered everything.

Even looking back now with hindsight, at the age of 41, I cant envision a scenario under those conditions that he created where I could not have succumb to his advances. I know that sounds naive. I realize it might even sound dramatic. But thats the truth. And now, with everything thats come out, I wasnt the only one. I knew Matt was unfaithful to his wife, because he was unfaithful to her with me less than two years into his marriage. He did it so effortlessly, with ease, and he wasnt particularly concerned with the risk. But was I the only colleague? I had no idea there were other women out there. To wake up one day and hear my story in the accounts of the other victims is one of the most surreal experiences Ive ever had.

After I quit my TV job, I went and joined the army. Im not connecting dots that dont exist, because it makes my story better. I went and joined the army because I on my own couldnt deal with the fallout from this brief but intense relationship. What I found out is that I could be a journalist in the Army Reserve. In March 2002, I went off to basic training.

In early 2003, I moved to California, where I accepted a job at Access Hollywood. Three months later, I was deployed to Iraq for a year. When I came back, I worked as a field producer. Access put me on the air, and I did some correspondent work for them. It was the height of the war and celebrities supporting the military, so they thought it would be a good fit, which for me was an amazing step forward in my career. When I was on my second deployment in Iraq in 2008, Maria Menounos called me. Im a good friend of hers, we had worked together and she was a correspondent for Today. She told me she wanted to pitch a story on me, as a former Today employee, going over to Iraq.

Apparently, others didnt embrace the idea. I was in the Atlanta airport, on my way back to Iraq, when she called, Hey did something happen on Today? Maria asked. Its so odd. When I went to pitch this story, a producer said, Were not going to cover her. Addie said something bad about the show.

I was in complete disbelief. I had never met that producer, nor had I ever had anything negative to say about Today. Thats when I knew I could never get rid of this thing.

In 2009, I was inducted into Temple Universitys Lew Klein Alumni in the Media Hall of Fame. I was invited to this big dinner banquet in Philadelphia. Ironically, Matt was also being awarded that night for his excellence in the media. Steve Capus, the president of NBC News at the time, was in the room, and after he saw me give a speech, he invited me to come on Today for Veterans Day. This time, there were no barriers to me being on TV. So my husband and I come on to do a segment, and I show up, and guess who isnt at work that day? It was super gratifying to be back on Today and surrounded by the people I love. Ann was interviewing me. If Matt was hiding that day, I certainly wasnt.

Even though my situation with Matt was consensual, I ultimately felt like a victim because of the power dynamic. He knew that I was leaving, and that there was no better prey than somebody who is going to be gone. He went after the most vulnerable and the least powerful  and those were the production assistants and the interns. He understood that we were going to be so flattered and so enthralled by the idea that the most powerful man at NBC News is taking any interest in us. He felt like he was untouchable. He lacked so much morality and reality, because he had people enabling him. I see the common threads and how he preyed on women, and I was one of them.

There is no way he could have gotten away with it without others above him making these situations go away  manipulating, strategizing, whatever it is they did to wield their power against the powerless. Its really a frightening place to be as a woman when you know you have a powerful force working against you. He was the golden boy. His contract always got renewed for millions of dollars more, and he was the face of NBC. How is any woman supposed to go up against that?

Despite the fact that Matt took advantage of me and it did impact my career trajectory, ultimately I turned my pain into strength and I landed exactly where I needed to be. And that place right now is as a mother of two amazing kids, a wife, a journalist, philanthropist and two-time combat veteran. I want to make it clear that Im still very nervous and scared about telling my story. This is not an easy choice. This is not an easy thing to talk about. Over the years, I could have spoken. I could have gotten money from the National Enquirer. I never did that. Im not trying to get anything out of this situation, other than be another voice in this important conversation about women in the workplace. The things that Matt Lauer did to me, there are men doing to other women. Although it wasnt a crime in my case, its still not right. Matt took advantage of his power. Its sickening. It breaks my heart that he did this for so long.

Im putting my name and face out there to squash any doubts about the allegations from other women against Matt Lauer. Im validating their stories because some of our experiences are similar. I want these women to know that I believe them, I want to help empower them and collectively we have a voice to change things. I have a 7-year-old daughter. I want to do everything I can to assure this doesnt happen to her.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed from several lengthy conversations. Variety corroborated Zinones story through a friend she told at the time about her relationship and messages that she saved from her conversations with Lauer.

Related stories

With Matt Lauer, NBC News Investigates Its Own Scandal

Matt Lauer, Meghan Markle, Harvey Weinstein Top 2017 Google People Searches

'Today' Ratings Continue to Surge After Matt Lauer Departure

Subscribe to Variety Newsletters and Email Alerts!
Sweden's Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar Receive Their Royal Christmas Trees in Adorable Photo

Christmas has arrived at the Swedish palace!

Princess Victoria and her children Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar took part in an annual Swedish royal tradition when they received their official Christmas trees on Thursday.

Agriculture students presented the trees to the Scandinavian royals in a tradition dating back more than 50 years.

In the photo, Victoria, who wore a festive red skirt, examines the trees as 5-year-old Estelle looks on in a matching red bow.

One-year-old Oscar can take his cues from his big sister, who is already an expert on the subject. The little royal joined her mom last year to accept their royal Christmas trees on the palace grounds.

Proud mom Victoria says her daughter is fascinated by her surroundings.

Princess Estelle is very interested in everything about nature and the environment, she told a group of biologists in October.

Lets hope she has the decorating bug as well  there are a lot of palace trees that need ornaments!
Lenny Pozners darkest day was Dec. 14, 2012, when his 6-year-old son, Noah, was one of 20 children slaughtered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Pozner became a target himself.

Within days, and despite all of the evidence to the contrary, conspiracy theories began to swirl about the attack  speculating that the shooting was a hoax or some kind of cover for something even more sinister.

Some of the people whove been given a voice with the web are hateful people.  But globally, theyre a large group, Pozner tells PEOPLE, and they think that they are in the right for what theyre doing, and they love to publicly shame people who are connected to a tragedy.

Eventually, Pozner could no longer abide such baseless, abusive speculation.

I started to have some of that content removed through online posting platforms  communicating to [the companies], and requesting it, and reporting content  and that grew into connecting with volunteers that were helping me and that cause, he says. And its turned into a lot of work.

In 2014, Pozner founded the Honr Network to combat such behavior online. Or, as the groups website describes it: No one should have to endure  hateful treatment at the hands of fellow members of society, especially after suffering profound loss to an unspeakable act of violence.

This is where Pozner comes in with his group  including hundreds of volunteers over the years, he says  making concerted efforts to take down digital content that they say targets grieving survivors and families.

 For more about the Sandy Hook anniversary, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this weeks issue, on newsstands Friday.

Among those who Pozner has helped is the family of Alison Parker, a TV reporter in Virginia who was killed in 2015 during her morning broadcast by a former employee of her news station.

Theres a very real need for the work that were doing, and I understand some of it. I was in IT before the shooting, so I understand the web, Pozner tells PEOPLE. Its changed, developed a lot obviously because of the mob-type of hate, but I understand that aspect of it.

Story continues

Lenny Pozner (left) with son Noah

Fighting back against online hoaxers, as Pozner calls them, is not without its backlash.

Unfortunately, Pozner says, the internet has enabled a kind of collective hatefulness that attaches itself to tragedy.

If you find yourself being connected to a mass casualty even, such as a mass shooting, not only are you a victim of it by surviving it or having lost a child or a family member, youve also lost your privacy and theres an abusive side to it, he says.

A lot of people just steer clear of it because its that unpleasant, but it comes with it, Pozner adds. So a lot of people shield themselves from it, and we do the opposite. We attempt to repel it, to minimize it, to reduce it.

Five years after Noah was killed in his first-grade classroom, Pozner says his anti-hoax efforts have been occupying most of my time as a way to protect my sons legacy. (He and his two daughters, including Noahs twin sister, relocated to Florida after the shooting.)

The anniversary may be a focal point for people to draw their awareness to the shooting and the victims, he says.

But for me, every day is like that.
Cellphones will soon be banned in schools in France. (Photo: Getty Images)

Starting in September 2018, cellphones will be banned in all primary and secondary schools in France, where 93 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 own them.

French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer explained the choice in a statement saying, These days the children dont play at break time anymore, they are just all in front of their smartphones and from an educational point of view thats a problem.  With headmasters, teachers, and parents, we must come up with a way of protecting pupils from loss of concentration via screens and phones.

Blanquer emphasizes that the new policy is just an extension of the current one, which already bans cellphone use during class in France.

In the U.S., the use of cellphones in class also poses a significant problem. A 2010 study by the Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of American teens bring their cellphone to school, even when their school has a ban. Some 58 percent of teens whose schools already ban phones say they have sent a text during class, and 43 percent of all teens who bring their phone to school say they send a text from class at least once a day.

Compared with France, though, in the U.S. only 75 percent of kids between the ages of 12 and 17 own a cellphone.

The researchers at Pew found that although texting may be teens preferred means of communication with each other, calling from a cellphone is the go-to method when it comes to how they get in touch with their parents  which is why some experts say that banning phones outright wouldnt be the right approach for American schools.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the issue of cellphones in schools is a safety issue, first and foremost.

Kids need cellphones to communicate with their parents and get to and from school safely  once theyre there, the issue becomes how to minimize distractions in classrooms, Weingarten notes. Schools and districts, with the participation of educators, should be free to make their own local decisions about how cellphones are used. In New York City, for example, the UFT [United Federation of Teachers] backed the mayors decision to reverse the citys school cellphone ban in 2015, while working to ensure that phone use doesnt get in the way of student achievement.

Story continues

Common Sense Media, a nonprofit education and advocacy group that helps facilitate safe technology use for kids, suggests that it isnt fundamentally wrong for children to bring phones to school as long as they adhere to school rules regarding when it is OK to use them  which will be largely affected by whether a child is mature enough to have a phone in the first place. The group tells parents that while there is no one right age for children getting cellphones, some good guidelines to follow are whether your child shows responsibility in other parts of their life, whether your child tends to be able to keep track of their things, whether access to a phone would benefit them socially  and whether they might be in need of a phone for safety reasons.

The group does recommend that the dinner table, the car, and kids bedrooms be cellphone-free zones (the former two places so not to impede upon family conversations, the latter so that texting doesnt interfere with sleep and to prevent late-night texts that kids might regret by morning)  but not necessarily school, where kids might need a phone to get in touch with parents in an emergency.

The core principle here is that technology should protect and assist kids and parents, not impede teaching and learning, Weingarten says.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




If youve been struggling to find the perfect holiday gift for your fashionable friend who is always ahead of the trends, tracks all the buzzy red carpet designers, and follows the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund each year to scout the next big designer to watch, why not ask the people who know best?

Yahoo Lifestyle asked 13 top fashion industry insiders to share one high-priced and one low-priced gift they are each coveting this year. Great gifts dont have to cost a fortune, but that doesnt mean everyone cant still dream of one splurge-worthy vacation, furniture item, or piece of jewelry.

If the one youre shopping for this year is classy and elegant, just like Jason Wus gorgeous gown designs, his gift picks might be worth a look. But if your friend is anything like the socially conscious Aurora James, behind Brother Vellies, the shoe brand that is improving the lives of Africans by creating jobs in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Morocco, then Jamess wish list might be something to consider too.

If your lucky gift recipient is similar to the ultracool duo behind Monse and Oscar de la Renta, Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia  known for their high-fashion editorial off-the-shoulder dresses for Monse and show-stopping gowns for de la Renta  then their wish list is one to bookmark.

Ahead, see what these designers, as well as 10 other fashion insiders, including Christian Siriano, Harley Viera-Newton, Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs, Jonathan Simkhai, and others are all coveting this holiday season.

Afterward, head to Polyvore for a chance to win one of 10 $250 Visa gift cards from their #PolyPresents: Wish List contest (open now until Dec. 31) and treat yourself this holiday season.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

 The Amazon gift guide: 45 stylish gifts for the whole family

 From Jason Wu to Jonathan Simkhai: 13 fashion insiders to dish on their holiday wish lists

 15 statement shoes to buy now to boost your 2018 shoe game

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
We made a list of all the mass shootings since Sandy Hook, and its a national travesty

In December 2012, a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In the wake of what was one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history, we said never again. But on the fifth anniversary of the shooting in Newtown, we took a look at the mass shootings since Sandy Hook.

Is the number of mass shootings increasing?

If a mass shooting is defined as an incident where at least four people are killed in a public location, the number of shootings has remained relatively stable. But mass shootings have become deadlier.

The number of mass shootings in the last five years varies depending on how you define a mass shooting. Mother Jones lists 33 mass shootings since 2013, while Vox lists a much larger 1,576. But no matter how you look at it, there have been a lot of mass shootings since Sandy Hook.

It's been 5 years and Newtown is still raw. These beautiful children would now be in 4th and 5th grade. There has been little done to tighten gun laws. There has been 1,576 mass shootings SINCE #SandyHook. At least 1,788 people have been killed.https://t.co/5QwZQak35I  Elizabeth Thorp (@ElizabethEThorp) December 14, 2017

Chart shows Las Vegas mass shooting deadliest in US history: 58 killed, 515 injured https://t.co/20nNOn6abK | https://t.co/bJky5nRDvBpic.twitter.com/fYxY3DW2hR  Arnold Padilla (@arnoldpadilla) October 3, 2017

The deadliest shootings since Sandy Hook:

1. The most recent mass shooting happened in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on November 5th.

The gunman killed 26 people including an unborn child when he shot up a Baptist Church.

2. A month earlier on October 1st, gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire at a music festival from his hotel room in the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas.

This is ranked as the deadliest shooting of all time, with 58 people killed and about 500 injured.

3. On June 12th, 2016, a shooting targeted young LGBTQ people at the nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida.

This is the second deadliest shooting, with 49 deaths and more than 50 injuries.

4. On December 2nd, 2015, 14 people were killed when married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California.

5. Nine people were injured and nine people killed in a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon on October 1st, 2015.

6. Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist shot and killed nine people at an Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

He was convicted of hate crimes and sentenced to death.

7. A shooting in the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on September 16th, 2013, killed 12, including the killer, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis.

No matter how you define mass shotings, the fact is that the U.S. experiences too many of them. Its not enough to say never again after a mass shooting. We need to put a stop to gun violence, and we need to do it now.
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]

It's not exactly a deserted island, but Melania Trump appeared more than happy to revel in some Christmas joy at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

Dressed in a festive green Prada peacoat ($2,480, net-a-porter.com), fitted tan pants, and matching high-heel boots, FLOTUS played a modern Mrs. Claus, as she helped children from military families sort and box donations to the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots campaign. The Toys for Tots program has provided toys and other Christmas gifts to families who can't afford them since the 1940s.

After assisting with the sorting, Melania sat down to help the kids make holiday cards. One little girl, three-year-old Mehreem Donahue, took a particular liking to the First Lady, and happily sat on her lap as they worked on their handmade cards.

In an address to the assembled military personnel and their kids, Melania said she hopes the giving spirit Americans showed over the course of an especially devastating hurricane season will continue over Christmas and into the new year. She also shared her hope for people to remember that the holidays are about family, service, and gratitudenot gifts.

For more information on the Toys for Tots program, and how you can help, visit toysfortots.org.
Omarosa says she wasnt fired from her White House position  she quit

President Donald Trumps administration has faced many resignations in its first year. And that number increased when Omarosa Manigault Newman left her position on December 13th. But after rumors spread that she was forcibly removed from her position, Newman fired back, claiming that she resigned and was not fired.

Newman has served as the director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison since President Donald Trumps inauguration. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced her resignation on December 13th.

Omarosa Manigault Newman resigned yesterday to pursue other opportunities, Sanders said. Her departure will not be effective until January 20th, 2018. We wish her the best in future endeavors and are grateful for her service.

A White House source reportedly told NBC that Newman was forced out of her job. CNN political analyst April Ryan also tweeted that Trumps Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, had fired Newman, who allegedly acted very vulgar and cursed a lot.

Ryan later tweeted clarifying that her sources said Newman signed a resignation letter but was then thrown out of the White House at Kellys request.

Sources say General Kelly did the firing and Omarosa is alleged to have acted very vulgar and cursed a lot and said she helped elect President Trump. The word is a General Kelly had it and got rid of her.  AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) December 13, 2017

Okay the White House still contends Omarosa signed a resignation letter. But Gen Kelly Kicked her out will high drama with the Minister offering vulgarities and curse words as she was escorted out of the building and off campus  AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) December 13, 2017

But Newman denied the claims that she had been removed from the White House on Good Morning America on December 14th. She said she had resigned in a private conversation with Kelly.

Story continues

No one has reported [on the firing] except for one individual who has a personal vendetta against me, Newman said.

Secret Service officers also denied that they forcibly removed Newman from the premises.

The Secret Service was not involved in the termination process of Ms Manigault Newman or the escort off of the complex. Our only involvement in this matter was to deactivate the individual's pass which grants access to the complex.  U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) December 13, 2017

Before her stint in politics, Newman was known for appearing as a contestant on The Apprentice. Her White House role primarily involved outreach work with different groups of voters.

Since no source has said on the record that Newman was forced to leave the White House, its hard to know if this account is true or just a rumor. Until proven otherwise, we believe Newman, and we wish her the best in her future career.
Richard Shelby, Alabamas other Republican Senator, says hes relieved Roy Moore lost

In the wake of the Alabama special election, people all over the country are ecstatic that Democrat Doug Jones won the Senate spot over Republican candidate and accused sexual assaulter Roy Moore. In fact, even Alabamas other Republican Senator, Richard Shelby was relieved Moore lost.

In usual circumstances, youd assume that a member of the Republican party would want a fellow Republican to win. But not this time. When speaking with reporters, Shelby said,

Relieved? Yes thats a good word. Im relieved and I believe a lot of Republicans are relieved that Roy Moore and some of his people arent the face of the Republican party.

Shelby went on to say that he felt voters chose principle over politics. He also referred to Moore as someone who could have been radioactive and controversial for the Republican party.

Shelby  a former Democrat  never supported Moore, even when other members of the GOP did. Before the election, Shelby said that, the state of Alabama deserves better than Moore. He also admitted that he did not vote for Moore  though he did not confirm or deny voting for Democratic candidate Jones. He did, however, encourage write-in ballots, in which citizens vote for people who are not technically on the ticket.

Moore has yet to concede defeat and is still pushing for a recount, but its doubtful that will happen  especially considering the fact that important members of the Republican party refuse to offer their support.

Well be keeping an eye on the situation as it unfolds, though its looking increasingly likely that the results of the December 12th election are final.
(BELLEFONTAINE NEIGHBORS, Mo.)  A gunman shot two suburban St. Louis police officers in the chest during a standoff Thursday, but their bulletproof vests apparently saved them from serious injury.

The shooting happened before 8 a.m. in the city of Bellefontaine Neighbors.

A witness, Steve Jones, told reporters that the officers were trying to reason with the man when they suddenly tackled him on a lawn. He said the officers used pepper spray on him when the man started to stand up, and that the man then shot the officers from about 15 feet away. He then ran down the street and barricaded himself in a house, where police were trying to negotiate his surrender.

Bellefontaine Neighbors Mayor Bob Doerr told the St. Louis Post-Dispatchthat both officers were conscious and talking after the shooting and are going to be OK. He said one is a male sergeant and the other is a female patrol officer.

They were wearing their bulletproof vests, so thank God, Doerr said. Both were struck by at least one bullet, he said. The vests were purchased for officers about a year ago.

He did not know what led to the shooting.
(PARIS)  A school bus and a regional train collided in southern France on Thursday, killing four children and critically injuring seven other people on the bus, the French interior ministry said.

Photos from the scene tweeted by a local television station showed the train derailed and the bus shorn in half.

Nine other people on the school bus and three on the train had less severe injuries.

It happened on a railway crossing in the small village of Millas some 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of Perpignan, close to the border with Spain.

Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne and Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer were at the scene Thursday evening along with 70 firefighters, 10 emergency ambulances and four helicopters. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was en route.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: All my thoughts go to the victims of this terrible accident and their families. The government is fully mobilized to give them emergency help.
Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with advertisers on this site.

Open enrollment on most of the Affordable Care Act exchanges ends Friday at midnight (Pacific Standard Time). If you don't get your insurance through your employer and are still considering buying your own, there are some important things to know before the deadline.

So far, nearly 5 million people have enrolled in health insurance plans sold through the 39 federally run HealthCare.gov platform.

That number doesn't include people in the 11 states and Washington, D.C., that run their own exchanges, many of which are seeing robust sign-up numbers. Nor does it include people who already have ACA insurance and are automatically re-enrolled in the same plan or an equivalent one if they do nothing. Plans for about 1.6 million people were auto-renewed in 2017.

Still, the total number of enrollees is unlikely to match the 9.2 million people who signed up in 2017, when the enrollment period was twice as long and there was a well-funded outreach effort by the federal government.

For those who want to continue buying their insurance through the ACA marketplace, declining enrollment is a troubling sign.

The people who arent signing up are mostly likely healthy people," says Chris Sloan, senior manager in the policy practice at Avalere Health, a healthcare consulting company. "You dont stop buying health insurance if you have a chronic health issue. But when healthy people start leaving the marketplace, the proportion of sicker people to cover is higher, causing insurers to raise rates or exit the market.

Sloan doesnt expect the ACA markets to collapse. Millions of people who are subsidized will continue to buy health insurance, he says. But if the numbers continue to drop because healthy people want to go without insurance and others cant find an affordable option, thats not a good trajectory.

For now, the ACA exchanges are intact as the open enrollment deadline nears. Here are four things you should know if you want to buy insurance for next year:

Story continues

You May Have More Time

The sign-up deadline is midnight (PST) Dec. 15 for the 39 states with exchanges that are run through the federal HealthCare.gov site. But some states that operate their own exchanges are extending the enrollment period. The Maryland Health Benefit Exchange announced that it will give residents an extra seven days to sign up, moving its deadline to Dec. 22. Enrollment on the exchange has outpaced last years, but officials say they want to avoid a last-minute crush.

Maryland joins nine states and Washington, D.C., that earlier announced longer open-enrollment periods. California, New York, and D.C. have the longest, running through Jan. 31. That was the end date for all ACA-related open enrollment in the last few years. Check here to see your state deadline.

Procrastinators may also be given more time. In previous years, HealthCare.gov had waiting rooms during high-traffic times where consumers waited for access to the online exchange. For those caught in the waiting rooms when the deadline passed, enrollment was extended for a few days.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the exchanges, hasnt announced yet whether it will offer a similar extension this year.

Extra time may also be granted in some special situations. If your 2017 plan is no longer being offered, you have 60 days from Dec. 31, when the plan ends, to choose a new one. You can wait as late as March 1 to enroll in a 2018 plan.

That scenario is more likely this year because insurers exited from many markets. The average number of issuers per state dropped from 5 in 2014 to 3.5 for 2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health-policy research nonprofit.

If youre in a hurricane-affected area, you have until Dec. 31 to sign up. The special enrollment period applies to people who live in counties deemed hurricane-disaster areas by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That includes counties in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, as well as people in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico who came to the U.S.

If you think you're eligible for a special extension, you'll have to request one at HealthCare.gov.

Plans May Be More Affordable Than You Expected

Premiums on the most popular ACA Silver plans are up an average of 34 percent from 2017, according to Avalere Health.

But about 80 percent of people who enroll in plans through the ACA exchanges won't feel that steep price hike because they're eligible for subsidies to help pay their premiums. That's up slightly from the number of people who got subsidies in 2017.

In fact, the financial help for those people is likely to be even more generous for 2018 because as premiums increase, so do government subsidies. The financial subsidies are based on the cost of the most popular Silver plans, which are up significantly in many places around the U.S.

Thats why its critical to actively compare plans and not default to the same plan through auto-enrollment, says Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Most people who shop around can find lower cost plans, she says.

But because many insurers raised rates the most on Silver plans, more comprehensive Gold plans that typically have higher premiums could be a better value, because out-of-pocket costs are lower in a Gold vs. Silver plan.

Many people will also find Bronze plans to be much cheaper and in some cases free because their subsidy may be large enough to cover the entire premium. If you choose a Bronze plan, though, the deductibles will be higher than on Silver or Gold, so be sure you can afford to pay them.

If you need to go to a doctor for care beyond preventative services, youll usually have to pay out of pocket until you meet the deductible before your insurance begins to pay some of the bills.

If your income is low enough, you may also qualify for help paying out-of-pockets costs such as deductibles and co-payments. But you can get that help only if you buy a Silver plan in an exchange. If you qualify for this extra help, a Silver plan is going to be the best option, Pollitz says.

You May Have Other Options (Cheaper Ones, Too)

Still, the millions of people who buy their own health insurance and dont get financial help are facing premium sticker shock. If you're one of them, there are other options you should research.

You might find a more affordable plan buying off-exchange, that is, directly from an insurance broker or insurance company. Some insurers boosted their premiums the most on plans they're required to subsidize on the ACA exchanges, so plans sold off-exchange with the same coverage may be cheaper.

You might be able to buy a less-expensive group plan through a professional association, trade or alumni group, or other membership organization. Because you're pooled with the other members of the organization, you get a group rate, which may mean lower premiums. You have until the end of the year to join such a plan.

For other ways to make your insurance more affordable, see our article here.

Youll Still Face a Penalty If You Dont Have Insurance

Congressional Republicans, with the support of President Trump, want to eliminate the penalty for not complying with the ACAs individual mandate, which requires most people to buy health insurance or pay a fine, which could be thousands of dollars a year.

The GOP tax-reform legislation, expected to be voted on next week, reduces the penalty to zero. But even if tax reform is signed into law, the elimination of the penalty won't take effect until 2019. So unless the change becomes retroactive, if you dont buy health insurance for 2018 you may still be on the hook for the penalty.





More from Consumer Reports:

Top pick tires for 2016

Best used cars for $25,000 and less

7 best mattresses for couples





Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright  2017, Consumer Reports, Inc.
A 93-year-old woman was handcuffed and jailed after refusing to leave a care home she claimed was no longer accepting her rent.

Juanita Fitzgerald, from Lake County, Florida, was arrested on Tuesday after she said the National Church Residences Franklin House housing community had decided to put her out after blaming her for mould in her apartment.

Police said she was given notice of her eviction on Monday, but refused to leave the building the next day, reports Florida TV station WKMG.

According to a police report seen by the station, Ms Fitzgerald told officers: Unless you carry me out of here, Im not going anywhere.

A Lake County sheriffs spokesperson said a deputy tried to connect Ms Fitzgerald with members of her family and other housing facilities, but she refused. She also allegedly turned down the offer to stay with a nurse who worked there.

The report states that as officers attempted to escort her out of the building, she intentionally slid down her chair onto the floor, and resisted police when they tried to pick her up.

They eventually managed to get her out of the independent living facility and put her in the back of a patrol car without handcuffs, it said.

Ms Fitzgerald was spared having to spend her 94th birthday behind bars after a judge handed her over to a caregiver on Thursday. Her birthday was on Friday.

But the pensioner still faces charges of trespassing and is due to appear in court on 27 December.

Karen Twinem, a spokesperson for National Church Residences, told WKMG Ms Fitzgerald had said she would not pay rent because she thought she would die soon.

93 year old is out on her own recognizance and won't be spending her birthday in jail afterall - will be spending it with a friend who came to get her. #gettingresults@news6wkmg Here is what she had to say about being released pic.twitter.com/ZkTPWUqKXm  Adrianna Iwasinski (@AIwasinski) December 14, 2017

Story continues

Ms Twinem said she also complained about mould in her apartment, but the facility had found none following testing.

Ms Fitzgerald, who was interviewed in jail while dressed in an orange jumpsuit, tearfully refuted the claims. Asked about why she would not pay the rent, the woman, who was handcuffed and appeared to have bruises up her arms, said of a housing facility employee: She wouldn't take it, that woman blamed me for the mould.

She added: I paid my September rent and when she decided she was going to put me out, she wouldn't accept any rent after that.

The housing facility said officials had tried to contact Ms Fitzgeralds family several times and had reached out to agencies including the Homeless Coalition and the Family and Childrens Services of Lake County. She allegedly refused them all.

Terri Goldberg, a Franklin House resident, told WKMG: I feel like everything was done that could possibly be done to help her I feel a lot of this was brought on herself.

Related Video:
(DENVER)  A former U.S. Air Force Academy official who was harshly criticized for her handling of sexual assaults said the school made her a scapegoat and that commanders are downplaying the number of attacks.

Teresa Beasley told CBS This Morning that she faced retaliation for arguing that the school was underreporting sexual assaults and that victims were facing retaliation. Her claims aired Monday and Tuesday.

The academy released a report last month accusing Beasley of mismanaging the schools Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, which she ran for a decade. The report said the office was crippled by infighting, rumors and shoddy record-keeping and that it was derelict in its duties.

The report said Beasley should be fired, but she resigned instead. She had overseen the office since 2007.

Beasley told CBS that the school wanted to fire her because she challenged commanders over their treatment of victims.

You have to stand up to people who mistreat others and who oppress others. And I did that. And they didnt like it, she said.

The academy has struggled for years to address assaults and other sexual misconduct and has been accused before of badly mistreating victims.

The networks reports did not include any direct response from Beasley about the specific allegations the academy made about her performance. No working phone number could be found for her.

Lt. Col. Allen Herritage, a spokesman for the academy, disputed Beasleys claim that she was a scapegoat. He told The Associated Press on Wednesday that other staffers in her office were disciplined, but he declined to say what action they faced, citing privacy laws.

Herritage said the academy identified Beasley by name because she had already discussed the issues publicly. He acknowledged that some cadets face retaliation from other cadets for reporting sexual assault.

Yes, we know that happens, and we do our level best to stamp it out, he said.

Beasley alleged the academy did not include 16 sexual assaults in its report to the Defense Department and Congress for the 2014-15 school year because of a technicality  the cadets declined to sign a form. She said the academy did not want to include those reports because they would have resulted in a record number of assaults.

Story continues

Dominic Angiollo, an attorney at the academy, told the AP that the school included the 16 assaults in its initial report but the Defense Department removed them because the signed forms are required to document attacks.

CBS reported it had been told by more than a dozen current and former Air Force Academy cadets that they faced retaliation from other cadets and commanders for reporting sexual assault. It wasnt clear how far back the reports were made.

Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, the academys superintendent, told the network Tuesday that he was disgusted by the reports of sexual assault victims being mistreated.

Its been very clear that I expect the cadets and the faculty and the staff to treat each other with respect and dignity, said Silveria, who took over the job in August after his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson, retired.

He said the academy has multiple programs in place to support assault victims.

Silveria contradicted Beasleys claim that the academy is downplaying its sexual assault numbers. He said he hopes the number of cadets who speak up about sexual assault increases because the crime is underreported nationwide.
By Samia Nakhoul and Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerians are facing the eventual departure of their long-serving president, the ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in the knowledge that all is being done to ensure little changes when he goes. The 80-year-old leader, who has ruled the North African country for nearly two decades, was incapacitated by a stroke in 2013 but may decide to run again in the next presidential election due in May 2019. Should he bow out, though, many Algerians believe the person elected to replace him will be secondary. Just as now, observers say, a powerful ruling caste dominated by the army will run the show from behind the scenes. That may be good news for an aged and thinning party elite from the Front de Liberation National (FLN), allied business tycoons and generals - collectively known as "Le Pouvoir" or "The Powers That Be" - that has long managed Algeria's politics. It is a source of frustration, however, for young Algerians who have known no other leader. They worry less about who is in charge and more about jobs at a time of high unemployment, low oil prices and economic austerity. For Samir Abdelaoui, who studies at a private English language school, leaving the country may offer the way out. "I don't care about politics, all I need is a decent job, if not here, then overseas. I want a visa, not a president," said Abdelaoui, who is learning English to increase his chances of getting a work visa abroad. Speculation is rife abroad over what will happen to Algeria after the departure of Bouteflika, who has visited Europe several times for treatment and remained in hospital in France for months after his stroke. But inside Algeria, an apparent oasis of stability in a chaotic region, the regime's allies regard the problem as settled. "After Bouteflika the military command will organize the succession. The political class is weak here," said Anis Rahmani, Chairman of Ennahar TV, an insider close to the authorities. HAUNTED BY WARS One liberal Algerian analyst also expected continuity. "The institutions in Algiers are stronger than the men. The men go but the institutions stay," the analyst said, requesting anonymity. "The institutions are functioning well, whether Bouteflika is sick, in Algiers or abroad. As long as his health allows him to he will continue beyond 2018." Hopes for the election of a reformist, modernizing president who will bring in a competitive democracy and open society, have all but faded away. The priority, according to observers of Algeria's system, is the stability that its citizens see as incarnated in Bouteflika. The former French colony, which freed itself in a brutal independence struggle that ended in 1962, is haunted by memories of a 1990s civil war that erupted after the state canceled elections when an Islamist party appeared set to win. That conflict killed 200,000 people, leaving many Algerians wary later of the unrest that toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in the "Arab Spring" revolts of 2011. "Algeria is a country in a very bad neighborhood and because we are in a bad neighborhood the army should remain involved. I don't think the army would want to seize power after Bouteflika but they will be part of the political process," said another Algerian political analyst who also requested anonymity. DISCONNECTED YOUTHS Young Algerians, who form two thirds of the population of 41 million, nevertheless feel left out and disconnected with a remote political class. By contrast, French President Emmanuel Macron walked through the streets of Algiers on a visit last week and talked directly with excited young people - something they have not experienced with their own leader for a long time. One of the analysts described the ruling class as "totally obsolete in a country of youths". "We dream of a young class that has vitality, but the political class is not ready to give them one inch," said the analyst Bouteflika, in power since 1999, is rarely seen and has not spoken in public since his stroke. Yet if he or his circle decides he will run for a fifth term, sources close to "Le Pouvoir" say, he would be without doubt elected. The ruling FLN and the pro-government National Rally for Democracy dominate parliament while the opposition including leftists and Islamists is weak and divided. MAINTAINING SOCIAL PEACE If Bouteflika doesn't run, the tight circle of army generals and intelligence officials could produce a "joker" candidate from outside the political class. For now, though, the possible alternatives are all members of the old elite such as Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia or former premier Abelmalek Sellal. Any succession scenario involving Said Bouteflika, the president's younger brother and a close aide, would be controversial as the military men don't favor hereditary rule, observers say. Foreign diplomats say they expect the generals to arrange a smooth transition. Instead they worry more about how the country, which relies on oil and gas exports, will manage the state-controlled economy in an era of low energy prices. The government spends about $30 billion a year to subsidize everything from basic foodstuffs and fuel to healthcare, housing and education. This system has helped to keep the social peace, but the government has failed to develop industries beyond the energy sector and is fiscally strapped. Algeria has done little to encourage foreign investment despite the desperate need for jobs, and even less to ease visa restrictions or build hotels to attract tourists to its beaches, mountains and desert wilderness, all a short flight from Europe. So far the uncontested success has been security. Even Western diplomats move freely without the convoys that accompany them in many other Arab capitals. Still, remnants of al Qaeda remain active and have declared allegiance to Islamic State. A twin car bombing killed 67 in Algiers in 2007 and at least 38 hostages died when jihadis seized a gas plant in 2013. The security services have also uncovered and infiltrated sleeper cells while Algeria has closed all its border crossings with Libya, Mali, Niger, Morocco and Mauritania, turning them into military zones to prevent jihadis scattered across the Sahel region from connecting with each other. The next president should be a strongman who will guarantee security because we are in a state of war against terrorism," said Rahmani. "There is an external threat. The borders are all on fire. The next president should have a military background, power and authority to decide." (editing by Mike Collett-White and David Stamp)
A video of a Louisiana 16-year-old and his classmates exploding with joy after finding out about his acceptance to Harvard University has gone viral.

The heartwarming footage, which has already received more than 150,000 retweets and more than five million views, shows high school senior Ayrton Little surrounded by friends as he checks online to see whether hes been accepted to his dream college (hes even wearing a Harvard hoodie).

The group then bursts into excited screams and cheers after learning that Ayrton has achieved a place at the prestigious university. All the hard work was worth it. I got accepted to Harvard at 16!! the teenager posted on his social media account, along with three tearful emojis.

All the hard work was worth it. I got accepted to Harvard at 16!! ???????????? #Harvard #Harvard2022 pic.twitter.com/KjW3pAF0VG  Tha Little Man (@AyrtonLittle) December 13, 2017

According to Today, Ayrton had skipped a grade and joined his older brother, Alex, in the year above at TM Landry College Prep in Breaux Bridge. It was a proud week for the Little family: On Dec. 9, Alex found out that he had been accepted to Stanford University. He posted a similarly uplifting video on Twitter:

I cant believe I got in ???????????????? #Stanford2022 pic.twitter.com/pYF7a6PTWY  Alex Tha Great (@thealexlittle_) December 9, 2017

WBUR-FM reports that Alex was the first student at his school to be awarded a place at Stanford. Those goals we set for each other kind of caused us to become real competitive and push each other to do the best we can, said Alex, of his and his brothers success.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has cooked up a response to "piegate.

It all began on Thanksgiving when she tweeted that she made chocolate pecan pie, which looked more than perfect.

I don't cook much these days but managed this chocolate pecan pie for Thanksgiving, she tweeted at the time.

I dont cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm! pic.twitter.com/rO8nFxtly7  Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) November 23, 2017

There were many in the White House Press Corps who doubted she ever cooked that picture-perfect pie herself.

On Wednesday, night the unflappable press secretary posted step-by-step photos of how she makes the pie, right down to the dough being mixed.

She also showed off the pies in the oven she prepared them for a potluck meal Thursday at The White House.

Thanks to @VP Chief of Staff @Nick_Ayers for supplying the pecans from his family farm in Georgia #piegate pic.twitter.com/Lx7LpMwF4V  Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Sanders also took aim at CNN correspondent April Ryan, who has been openly skeptical of her handiwork.

Story continues

"Ingredients are all mixed up and pies in the oven! April Ryan let me know if you need further documentation #piegate, Sanders tweeted.

Ingredients all mixed up and pies in the oven! @AprilDRyan let me know if you need further documentation #piegate pic.twitter.com/OVYLg1gBgO  Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Ryan then clapped back, saying she couldnt wait to see the pies, but would not be having a bite.

As I said to @PressSec she may be able to burn in the kitchen but I wont be eating. Burn is a good thing! she wrote on Twitter.

After the exchange, Sanders showed off the finished product.

Excited to share these at tomorrows press potluck. Merry Christmas to the WH press corps! pic.twitter.com/PKqfHk3nXJ  Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

RELATED STORIES

Barron and Melania Trump Welcome Christmas Tree to White House

See Melania Trump's Incredible White House Christmas Decorations

Omarosa 'Escorted' Out of White House by Security After She Was Fired: Report

Related Articles:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A firefighter was killed while battling a massive blaze burning in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Thursday.

A department spokesman said the firefighter was an engineer from the San Diego Unit but declined to give further details.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's naval chief has told his Australian counterpart that his country's actions on the South China Sea run counter to the general trend of peace and stability in the disputed waterway. Australia, a close ally of the United States, has repeatedly expressed concern over the disputed South China Sea, where China has built manmade islands, some of which are equipped with runways, surface-to-air missiles and radars. Australia has previously drawn criticism from China for running surveillance flights over the South China Sea and supporting U.S. freedom of navigation exercises there. However, Australia has not conducted a unilateral freedom of navigation voyage of its own. China claims most of the South China Sea, a strategic waterway where $3 trillion worth of goods passes every year. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei all have overlapping claims. Meeting in Beijing, China's navy commander Shen Jinlong told Australian Vice Admiral Tim Barrett that at present the situation in the South China Sea was "steady and good", China's Defence Ministry said in a statement late on Thursday. "But in the last year the Australian military's series of actions in the South China Sea have run counter to the general trend of peace and stability," the ministry cited Shen as saying, without pointing to any specific examples. "This does not accord with the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries nor the atmosphere of the forward steps in cooperation in all areas between the two countries," Shen added. "This also is not beneficial to the overall picture of regional peace and stability." Over the past week or so China and Australia have also traded barbs over Canberra's allegation that Beijing had sought to interfere in Australian politics, with China summoning Australia's ambassador to complain last week. China has continued to install high-frequency radar and other facilities that can be used for military purposes on its man-made islands in the South China Sea, a U.S. think tank said on Thursday. In August, Australia, Japan and the United States urged Southeast Asia and China to ensure that a South China Sea code of conduct they have committed to draw up will be legally binding and said they strongly opposed "coercive unilateral actions". (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Michael Perry)
As fifth anniversary of the mass shooting looms, outspoken gun critic Chris Murphy says Congresss lack of results makes it difficult to face victims families



Senator Chris Murphy waged 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor in order to force a vote on gun control on June 15, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murphy wants the Senate to vote on a measure banning anyone on the no-fly list from purchasing a weapon. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images) Photograph: Pete Marovich/Getty Images

US senator Chris Murphy said he regrets that the Sandy Hook massacre, one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, has been followed by five years of political inaction, and that he finds it difficult to face victims families.

Im always a little embarrassed when I go back to Newtown, the Connecticut senator said in an interview, just ahead of the mass shootings anniversary. I still feel awful that we havent enacted bigger national change.



The school shooting on 14 December 2012, in which 20 children and six educators were murdered, proved to be a defining moment for Murphy. He had been elected senator a month earlier with no intention of leading an anti-gun violence movement. Few, if any, lawmakers would go on to devote as much time, energy and political capital toward the vexing issue of gun laws.

I view this as a long-term political and social movement that started in 2012 and needs time to build, Murphy said.

On Thursday, Murphy will reunite with some of the Newtown families while attending a mass of remembrance at a local church. It was one of several events Murphy participates in annually to mark the day when gunman Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook elementary school and opened fire before claiming his own life.



The aftermath remains seared in Murphys memory.

He was poised to take his own young children to New York City that day to view the Christmas decorations when the call came in. Although he had not yet been sworn into the Senate, Murphy was closing out his term as a congressman whose district included Newtown. He was among the few who bore witness at a nearby firehouse when the victims families were told the unthinkable  that their children, all aged five and six, would not be returning home.

Reuniting with some of those families on Thursday, Murphy said, will be a very emotional night.

Story continues

Obviously, five years is a milestone, and I think its important that theres some event in the community to remember what happened and to celebrate the lives we lost, but also the lives that have continued, he said.

The frustration in Murphys voice is nonetheless palpable when the conversation turns to gun control. There have been at least 1,552 mass shootings in the US since Sandy Hook, according to the Gun Violence Archive, with nearly 1,800 people killed and more than 6,000 wounded.

I still feel awful that we havent enacted bigger national change Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut

I do worry that everyone in this country is becoming desensitized to violence, Murphy said. The shooting now has to have double-digit casualties in order to make the news for more than an hour.

Even on Capitol Hill, the outcry with each shooting appears increasingly muted as a familiar pattern takes hold: Republicans offer thoughts and prayers, insisting it is too soon to politicize the tragedy by discussing gun control, while Democrats issue statements calling for action.

Murphy, for his part, does not want to wait until the next massacre to weigh in.



The senator routinely appears on the Senate floor to shine on a light on everyday gun violence and has delivered more than 50 speeches since taking office dubbed as Voices of Victims.

Murphys activism has made him a frequent target of the NRA, but also positioned him as the Senates go-to lawmaker for gun violence survivors and the families of victims.

Its not (just) about the money. So far this year, the NRA has spent $4.1m on lobbying  more than the $3.1m it spent in all of 2016. But for comparison, the dairy industry has spent $4.4m in the same period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The National Association of Realtors, one of the biggest spenders, has paid out $32.2m lobbying on housing issues.

The NRA has plenty of cash to spend. It bet big on the 2016 US elections, pouring $14.4m into supporting 44 candidates who won and $34.4m opposing 19 candidates who lost, according to CRP.

But the real source of its power, I believe, comes from voters, said Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor of constitutional law.

The 145-year-old organization claims 5 million active members, that number is disputed, but whatever its actual size, membership is a powerful tool, said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland.

They have a very powerful ability to mobilize a grassroots support and to engage in politics when most Americans can barely be bothered to vote, he said. And because so few Americans do those things, if you get a bunch of people in a locality who are all prepared to go out to a meeting they can have a big effect." Read more

Last week, a group of advocates sat around a large rectangular table in Murphys Capitol Hill office to share concerns over a concealed carry bill, passed by House Republicans, that would require states with stricter gun laws to honor permits from states with far looser requirements.

Attendees ranged from a North Carolina woman whose sister was found dead due to a gunshot wound, to a mother who lost her young son in Hartford, Connecticut, to the regular gun violence that plagues urban cities across America.



Right now, as we sit here, people are dying, said Samuel Saylor, a pastor from Hartford, whose own son was shot and killed in October of 2012.

Ive buried a lot of kids since then.

Murphy has chosen to no longer mince his own words, often decrying Congress as cowardly and complicit in the face of Americas gun violence epidemic.

On 15 June 2016, after a mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Murphy mounted a 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor demanding stricter gun laws. Last month, the senators response to the massacre of 26 churchgoers at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, went viral for its scathing candor.

The paralysis you feel right now  the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen  isnt real, Murphy said in a statement at the time. Its a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby.

A memorial to the Sandy Hook elementary school victims during the six-month anniversary of the massacre, in New York. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

None of this is inevitable, he added. It is uniquely and tragically American.

Murphy sounded a more optimistic tone when speaking with the Guardian. The Texas shooting may have provided the impetus for a breakthrough, he said, pointing to a compromise he subsequently struck with John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, on background checks.

Cornyn, who represents Texas, teamed up with Murphy on legislation that would add new accountability measures to ensure that states and federal agencies are entering the proper records into the federal background checks system.

Republicans have always talked about enforcing existing laws, but theyve never been willing to introduce legislation to do that until now, Murphy said.

Its significant that so many Republicans have been wiling to sign onto the bill, he added.

In 2013, only four Republicans crossed the aisle to support a measure expanding background checks in response to Sandy Hook. Four Democrats joined the remaining Republicans in the Senate to kill the compromise, which would have required background checks on all gun sales.

Murphys bill with Cornyn is more modest in its scope, but he views it as a start.

The modern anti-gun violence movement didnt begin until after Sandy Hook, he said. The gun lobby had a two-decade head-start on us.

Few issues have drawn as much cynicism as gun violence. The prevailing sentiment in Washington often remains that if the loss of 20 children wasnt enough to spur meaningful action, its hard to fathom would will change.

But Murphy unequivocally rejects that notion and pointed to the emergence of nonprofits, political action committees and a grassroots anti-gun violence movement to rival the NRA.

Theres a lot of miraculous things that have happened in the last five years in the wake of the slaughter, Murphy said.

Every great social movement is defined by the hard times.
By Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian government negotiator Bashar al-Ja'afari accused its opposition, backed by Western countries and Saudi Arabia, of sabotaging a round of U.N.-led peace talks that ended in Geneva on Thursday without any results. He said Damascus did not want the talks to fail but the opposition had put down a precondition last month by concluding a conference known as "Riyadh 2" with a declaration that President Bashar al-Assad had no role in Syria's political transition. "The Riyadh 2 Communique is blackmail of the Geneva process," Ja'afari told reporters. "Those who drew up the Riyadh 2 statement were the ones who sabotaged this round. I mean by that the other side. I mean the Saudis and the Saudi handlers themselves who are the Western countries. They do not want the Geneva process to succeed." Ja'afari said that the Syrian delegation at the Geneva talks had engaged seriously in the round, which he said had focused on counter-terrorism. The mediator of the talks, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, used a television interview on Wednesday to urge Russia to convince its ally Assad of the need to clinch a peace deal to end the nearly seven-year-old war. Ja'afari said that Russia was its ally but that de Mistura had made an "error" in the interview with Swiss television channel RTS. His mandate as facilitator of the talks would be reviewed in the light of his report to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, Ja'afari said. "Nobody can exert pressure on us," Ja'afari told reporters. "We have allies, we have friends, we have people on the ground fighting with us. Therefore what the Special Envoy may mistakenly say does not reflect our relationship with our allies. Although the Geneva process has made almost no progress, there was some hope at the start of the round that de Mistura would succeed in getting the two sides to meet, rather than shuttling between them. But Ja'afari ruled that out while the opposition stuck to its Riyadh statement, and dismissed a question about what he might say if he were to meet the opposition face-to-face at a possible Syria meeting in Sochi early in 2018, which Russia is trying to organize. "We are politicians, we don't work in science fiction," he said. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Issam Abdallah, writing by Tom Miles Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
Tokyo (AFP) - United Nations chief Antonio Guterres Thursday warned the world against "sleepwalking into war" over North Korea, as he called for diplomatic efforts to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula.

Speaking on a visit to Japan, Secretary-General Guterres said: "The worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances."

The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions over the past year against North Korea over its increasingly powerful missile and nuclear tests.

Guterres said those sanctions need to be implemented "by North Korea first of all, but also fully implemented by all the other countries whose role is crucial".

He urged "diplomatic engagement that allows for...denuclearisation (of the Korean peninsula) to take place in a peaceful way".

"It is important for all parties to understand the urgency of finding a solution," he told reporters at a later briefing.

Speaking alongside Guterres, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe echoed the call to "fully implement United Nations Security Council resolutions" and hold "meaningful dialogue toward denuclearisation".

The secretary-general's trip comes after Jeffrey Feltman, the UN's political affairs chief, visited North Korea earlier this month.

Feltman said he had been told in Pyongyang that North Korea wants to avoid war and said he "fervently" hoped the "door to a negotiated solution will now be opened wide".

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington was ready to talk to Pyongyang "without preconditions", interpreted by many as a shift in the US position.

Washington's top diplomat told the Atlantic Council policy forum that North Korea is welcome to talk about anything at a first meeting -- even the weather.

However, the White House and Tillerson's own department later stressed that the US position on North Korea "had not changed".

Story continues

"The secretary was not creating a new policy, our policy remains exactly the same as it was," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Wednesday.

Asked about Tillerson's comments, Guterres said he would "not like to comment on expressions that sometimes might not translate exactly the thinking" of the administration.

"Dialogue must have an objective and the objective for us is to achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to do it in a peaceful manner," stressed the UN chief.

Asked if he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he said: "Meetings only make sense if there is a purpose to those meetings. I am ready to go anywhere at any time when it is useful but I'm not aiming...just to be in the cameras of the television."

"We are available, but we can only mediate when both parties accept our mediation."
The Hague (AFP) - A Dutch-Ethiopian man was sentenced to life in jail on Friday after Dutch judges found him guilty of war crimes committed during Ethiopia's bloody purges in the late 1970s, a period known as the "Red Terror".

Eshetu Alemu, 63, was "guilty of war crimes and treated his fellow citizens in a cold and calculating manner... including robbing them of their right to life," presiding judge Mariette Renckens told the court in The Hague.

The tribunal "sentences him to life in prison, because this is the only appropriate measure of punishment that can be given," the judge said.

Alemu, who had been sentenced to death in Ethiopia in absentia, has been in jail in The Netherlands for the last two years awaiting trial.

But neither he nor his lawyers were in court to hear the verdict, a situation Renckens condemned as "deplorable."

Families of victims loudly applauded as the judges left the bench, shouting "Finally justice has been done, thank you!"

- Brutal reprisals -

Prosecutors said Alemu, a long-time Dutch resident, was a henchman for former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in the late 1970s, conducting a reign of terror in the African country's northwestern Gojjam province where he was the top administrator.

Mengistu, a senior military commander ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1977 following the toppling of Emperor Haile Selassi in 1974, and carried out a series of brutal reprisals against the political opposition of the revolutionary regime.

A total of 321 victims were named in four war crimes charges, which included "arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment of civilians and fighters who laid down their arms," Dutch prosecutors said.

Witnesses during the trial spoke of so-called "dark cells", where political opponents of Mengistu's Marxist-Leninist junta called the Derg were locked up for days in close confinement without trial or seeing daylight and faced constant torture.

Story continues

Prosecutors said citizens were often forced to attend "exposure meetings" where opposition members were pressured to confess and finger others who opposed Mengistu's regime.

"The accused played a leading role at these exposure meetings -- without him these they would not have taken place," judge Renckens agreed.

One witness, Worku Damena Yifru, testified how, as a 16-year-old prisoner, he saw a mass grave being dug inside a jail at the city of Debre Marcos in Gojjam.

He was later told that Alemu watched as his soldiers strangled some 80 prisoners, and then dumped their bodies in the grave.

"Alemu gave the order for 'revolutionary measures' to be taken against numerous victims," Renckens said.

"The court is of the opinion that 'revolutionary measures' can only mean killing people," the judge said.

Although there was not enough proof that Alemu was physically present at the time of the church murders, "his role as the command giver was so important that the deaths would not have taken place without his involvement," the judge said.

- 'No remorse' -

Although he admitted being a member of the Derg, Alemu denied the charges.

Speaking at a hearing last month, Alemu said he would "apologise on my knees to all the victims and through them to all the people of Ethiopia."

He refused to accept personal responsibility however, saying: "I do not recognise the role that has been assigned to me."

Renckens said Alemu "failed to show any remorse and in actual fact still today" sees the political opposition as the guilty party.

Prosecutors and victims at the hearing hailed the verdict.

"We are exceptionally happy with today's verdict... it's been an emotional case," Jirko Patist, spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor's office, told AFP.

"Today was a big day," said Negus Temesgen, who survived being jailed as a teenager by the Derg.

"I do remember all those young people who had lost their lives in prison," he said.

It is not yet known whether Alemu will appeal.

jhe/jkb/cw
Brussels (AFP) - European leaders will find it "very hard" to reach a compromise in talks on a new policy for admitting refugees by a June deadline, EU President Donald Tusk said at a summit Friday.

Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker nonetheless tried to defuse a row that had even divided them when they opened talks with the bloc's 28 leaders on Thursday.

"Mandatory quotas remain a contentious issue although its temperature has decreased substantially," Tusk told a press conference ending the last European Union summit of 2017.

"Will a compromise be possible? It appears very hard," the former Polish premier said.

During two hours of debate Thursday night, the leaders of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all stood firm against refugee quotas, participants said.

Eastern states have been opposed ever since other EU states adopted by majority the quotas in 2015 as a form of solidarity with frontline states Greece and Italy.

Under the plan, asylum seekers are relocated to other members of the bloc in a temporary exception to the so-called Dublin rules, which requires countries where they first land to process them.

"The discussion was fierce because the differences of opinion are still wide," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said when the dinner talks ended early Friday.

"There's no solution on how to find a consensus on the quotas," Rutte added.

The stubborn divide contrasts with broad agreement among the leaders to contribute to shoring up Europe's external borders through cooperation deals with third countries like Turkey and Libya.

Backed by the leaders of France and other countries, German Chancellor Angela said member states cannot be "selective" when it comes to solidarity.

"Here we still have a lot of work to do. The points of view did not change. But there is a clear task to continue working until June next year," Merkel said.

Story continues

- 'Shameful' -

However, Merkel's 2015 decision to open the doors to one million asylum seekers infuriated a number of European leaders, particularly Hungary's Viktor Orban.

It was seen as drawing even more migrants to Europe, which was facing its worst such crisis since World War II, with people fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

The EU has since stalled on plans for a permanent mechanism for future crises amid the opposition from the eastern countries -- three of which are already facing EU legal action over their refusal to admit any refugees.

Before the summit started, the four eastern leaders offered a financial contribution of 35 million euros ($30 million) to bolster external borders.

However, Rutte, backed by many leaders, said member states cannot use the EU as a place to shop for what they want and ignore what they don't.

"What Orban is doing is shameful," Rutte exclaimed.

Orban has led eastern opposition to refugees and migrants, saying the region will not be able to integrate them and it will face a security threat, particularly from Muslims.

But EU officials said countries have a "window" to try to bridge the gap over burden sharing with the easing of the migrant crisis.

- Arrivals down -

Italy and Greece have seen sharp declines in arrivals as a result of EU financial and other cooperation with Libya and Turkey, but they fear future crises.

The June deadline for asylum reform will also come as the summer weather brings an upsurge in Mediterranean boat crossings.

In the final press conference, Juncker sought to defuse the row when he said he had known Tusk "for centuries" and he was certainly not anti-European.

Tusk sparked the row when he appeared to support the eastern countries, saying in a pre-summit letter that a mandatory quota scheme for relocating refugees from frontline states was "ineffective" and "highly divisive".

Juncker's European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, which first pushed the quota system, shot back that the scheme was effective.

It said 32,000 people relocated under the plan, or 90 percent of those eligible. The scheme was originally meant to relocate 160,000 refugees.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos was even harsher, calling Tusk's stance "unacceptable" and "anti-European".

Juncker said: "Avramopoulos is a good commissioner and this was really a misunderstanding."

With divisions on asylum reform still high, Rutte said member states will probably have no choice but to adopt rules by majority rather than by consensus.
The FCC voted this morning to nullify 2015's Open Internet Order and its strong net neutrality rules, substituting a flimsy replacement with a deeply (and deliberately) incorrect technical justification.

The battle is lost. What of the war? Here's what happens next, and what you can do to help.

First, very little

As rushed as this vote was, it doesn't make the rest of the government move any faster. Voting to adopt the order doesn't magically and instantly eliminate net neutrality. First the new rules have to be entered into the federal register  and that won't happen for a little while, perhaps a couple months.

In the meantime you're going to get a whole lot of blog posts, opinion pieces in newspapers, speeches, statements, notices of intent, and anything else that will keep the topic alive in the public eye.

During this time the FCC will point out that despite having voted in new regulations, the internet has not devolved into a corporate free-for-all. Of course it hasn't, since the rules haven't taken effect yet. They will point out that companies could start changing policies or making announcements ahead of that event, but for reasons we'll go into later, that's extremely unlikely, even if said companies do have evil intent. At any rate, don't be fooled.

Do, however, continue engaging with your elected officials. They are only engaged in this fight  if they are at all  because their constituents have expressed that it is important to them. If they think they can get away with not paying attention for a few months, or that voters have moved on to another hot-button issue, they'll gladly spend their time and money pursuing other things. Don't let that happen. Make sure they are aware (and aware that we're aware) that this problem isn't going away.

Early next year: lawsuits aplenty

When the rules get entered in the federal register, the floodgates open. Right off the bat I can think of a number of different lawsuits or challenges that could be filed, though the details are unfortunately beyond my sight.

Story continues

1. States take issue with preemption. The new order includes considerable provisions preventing states and municipalities from creating rules or regulations that contradict the federal ones. So did the 2015 order, of course  but there's a big difference. The authority granted to the FCC by Title II made it a force to be reckoned with; it could reach in and quash incompatible state laws or practices. The new rules, however, reduce the FCC's reach considerably by restoring it to Title I, under which it repeatedly failed to establish or enforce broadband rules. Without Title II, states may ask, under what authority do you presume to preempt our laws?

2. Arbitrary and capricious. Restoring Internet Freedom has, from its first draft, been predicated on a massive misrepresentation of how the internet works. The details you can find here, but suffice it to say that when the people who actually created the web, internet, encryption, networking layers and all that say you've got it wrong, you've probably got in wrong.

Chances are that net neutrality will find back to the Supreme Court eventually.

Now, what you'll hear about this one is a bit technical: that the Supreme Court in 2005 made a major decision known as "Brand X" establishing the precedent that, in case of ambiguity in the law (like how broadband companies should be defined), the courts would defer to any reasonable interpretation made by an expert agency like the FCC. In 2005, that was one way; in 2015 they went another way; and in 2017 they're going back to the first way. But how it's technically justified in the order now is so demonstrably wrong that it could very well be open to a lawsuit alleging that these rules could very credibly be challenged under the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits regulations that are "arbitrary and capricious."

3. Fraudulent comments and procedural shenanigans. This is a little more hazy, but the cloud hanging over the FCC relating to its handling of the millions of fake comments in its system is a real thing. Congress has repeatedly asked for information on the cybersecurity aspect of this, and New York's Attorney General has gone public with his office's frustration at being stonewalled by the agency when it comes to identity theft. Congress could request an independent investigation (and has, actually) and pending the results of that investigation ask that the rule not be enforced. Similarly, the NY AG could sue saying the FCC failed to fulfill the requirement of allowing fair and open commentary on its process  even if the FCC is itself not obligated to consult that commentary in its decision.

In some of these lawsuits, the plaintiffs may ask that the new rules be suspended while the court case goes on; this type of "stay" worked with Trump's travel ban, but it likely won't work here. That's because in the latter case, there was evidence of immediate and irreparable harm: people in Iran or Syria might lose their jobs or come to harm because of the rule being challenged. Net neutrality is a serious issue, but the harm it may cause is more subtle; judges probably won't be convinced that the new rules need to be stayed for any period of time.

These are just basic ideas (I am not a lawyer, thankfully), but they show the variety of ways in which the new rules could be legally challenged. The 2015 order was also subject to lawsuits, but none made a dent; in fact, having the courts repeatedly upheld the order, something that has been key to the arguments of net neutrality proponents.

There's a risk that the same will happen here, but you can't win if you don't play. As for the Supreme Court, the appointment of Gorsuch could be considered as a hazard for a progressive verdict, but interestingly it is the famously conservative late Justice Scalia who put forth the most famous argument in favor of classifying broadband as telecommunications. So political alignment may not play as much of a role as some would think in these proceedings.

It will, however, play a major part in others.

Congressional action

Ultimately, as many commentators and the FCC on occasion have pointed out, the question may have to be settled by legislation. Ultimately the FCC derives its authority from laws written by Congress, and if those laws are amended or others appended, it could moot the arguments of the past decade or two.

2018 is, of course, an election year, and a particularly important one for a number of reasons. The majority role in the Senate hangs in the balance, and the House as always is up for grabs, though the Republicans have a more commanding lead there.

Political actions will naturally be divided into two sections: the lead-up to the election and what comes after. I hesitate to speculate on what might happen after the election, since the balance of power may shift considerably.

In the lead-up, however, there will be strong Democratic leadership on the topic of net neutrality, since their constituencies have been particularly vocal about it (and must remain so!).

A scene from the net neutrality Day of Action in July.

There are two tacks they might take. First is the possibility of using the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to undo recently instituted regulations, to nix the FCC's plan. This is the most straightforward solution, and one the Republican Congress recently deployed in order to kill several Obama-era regulations, including the Broadband Privacy Rule. That action was particularly unpopular, and Republicans aiming to look progressive may hop on board a Democratic bill. Bipartisan talks will have to take place  this can't be done without work on both sides of the aisle.

A CRA repeal of Restoring Internet Freedom would be devastating to the FCC's plans, but likely would leave intact the legislative ambiguities that gave rise to today's issues.

A true solution would involve amending the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The critical part of all this is the classification of broadband under Title II of the act, and if that could be accomplished by legislation  it would only take a few words  it would put an end to these questions once and for all. However, to amend a major bill is not something a minority party is likely to attempt. And with the threat of a veto hanging over them, it's very unlikely that this will come to pass until a Democratic President is elected.

So, as Senator Brian Schatz told me: "We can generate a lot of emails and thats great. But the moment those emails are converted to votes, we win. This has to be a real political movement."

ISPs will bide their time

The net neutrality rules may be effectively dead, but there are several reasons why broadband providers won't make any overt efforts to take advantage of the fact.

For one thing, everyone is watching them like hawks. ISPs are under extreme scrutiny right now, both from regulators like the FTC (which will be put back in charge of them) to grassroots activists watching for any unseemly network practices. For them to immediately change their practices right after the regulations change would be hypocritical in the context of their repeated arguments that they already respect the no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization rules.

Not that major companies generally shy away from a little hypocrisy now and then, but in this case it would be risky; anything they do could and would be used against them in a court of law in one of the cases listed above. Instead, it's in their interest to appear totally unaffected by all this.

That said, they may try to pull a fast one here and there. You can help here by reporting any changes you do see. TechCrunch will be watching its tip line.

Next, there's really no guarantee these regulations are here to stay. ISPs have strongly supported Chairman Pai's plan, but anyone with a brain can see how flimsy the technical justification for re-reclassifying broadband is.

There's a very real chance that a lawsuit, administrative challenge, or bipartisan legislation could reverse these incredibly unpopular new rules. It's just bad business to use anything so unstable as the foundation for any major practices, and ISPs are plenty aware of that. Imagine the time and money they'd have to invest to institute some fast-lane plan, throttling scheme not considered anti-competitive, or what have you  only to have to turn it off a few months later.

No: until the rules are cemented in place or removed, the ISPs will continue just as they have done for the last few years  with a few exceptions.

You can expect them to resume a few programs that have been considered borderline in the past. Zero rating schemes, you can bet, will flourish. And situations where companies are mixing services  Comcast's Stream TV, for instance, which essentially zero-rated all its own TV traffic  will also get a green light.

You'll be targeted for these practices, and the details of how they work will be interesting to scrutinize. Ordinary users will be the ones who see these things first in test markets and targeted advertising, so if you see something suspicious, bring it to the attention of your friendly neighborhood tech site.

The ISPs will also make some highly visible investments and expansions in rural areas and chalk them up to the freedom afforded them by the new regulatory scheme. Of course, it will turn out these investments were planned years ahead of time or totally unaffected by Title II. But all the same the companies will act as if a great weight has been lifted from their shoulders.

Basically you can expect broadband providers (including mobile ones) to play it safe while keeping a very close eye on the courts, Congress, and all the rest.

Hang tight

This sucks, to be sure. But the reality is that the effects of net neutrality being nullified won't be felt for some time, and even then its precarious position means that for the foreseeable future ISPs won't go hog wild.

Your role now is to be the eyes and ears of the Attorney Generals, Members of Congress, and advocacy organizations that are fighting on your behalf. The next few months will be spent in preparation, and the months after that in fierce litigation  and if we're lucky, a few months after that, legislation.

This vote was as good as set in stone a year ago, a foregone conclusion given the fierce partisan divide, but we didn't stop talking about it or holding companies and officials responsible. Don't stop now.

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch.

Related:

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A firefighter was killed while battling a massive wildfire burning in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, fire officials said on Thursday.

The firefighter was identified only as a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) engineer from San Diego who had been deployed to the so-called Thomas Fire.

Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott declined to release further details on the death, citing a need to gather the facts first.

"In the meantime, please join me in keeping our fallen firefighter and his loved ones in your prayers," Pimlott said.

The Thomas Fire, which erupted on Dec. 4 near a small private college in Ojai, has since blackened more than 242,000 acres (97,930 hectares) in Ventura and Santa Barbara, making it the fourth largest wildfire on record in California since 1932.

The conflagration advanced again overnight to surpass the Zaca Fire, which struck Santa Barbara County in 2007, charring 240,000 acres (97,120 hectares).

The Thomas Fire, which was 30 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, has burned 729 homes to the ground and damaged another 175. The blaze has displaced more than 94,000 people.

The wildfire remained a threat to some 18,000 homes and other structures in the communities of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Summerland and Montecito along California's scenic coastline, especially if hot, dry Santa Ana winds return.

Red-flag warnings, issued for extreme fire weather conditions in the area, were extended through Friday morning.

Many public schools in the Santa Barbara area cancelled classes this week and will not reopen until the annual winter break ends in January.

Some of the other fires burning over the past week in San Diego and Los Angeles counties have largely been brought under control.

Investigators determined that the Skirball Fire, which destroyed six homes in Los Angeles' wealthy Bel-Air neighbourhood and scorched a building at a winery owned by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was started by a cooking fire at a homeless encampment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said earlier this week.

The Lilac Fire, which burned more than 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) in northern San Diego County and destroyed 157 structures, was 97 percent contained as of Thursday, Cal Fire said.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee and Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Jonathan Oatis)
By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A firefighter was killed on Thursday while battling a mammoth California wildfire as crews sought to protect coastal cities and towns in the path of flames that have destroyed more than 700 homes. The flag-draped remains of firefighter Cory Iverson, 32, were driven out of the fire zone in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, in a hearse as his comrades saluted from roadsides and overpasses. "Anne and I are saddened by Engineer Cory Iversons tragic death. His bravery and years of committed service to the people of California will never be forgotten, California Governor Jerry Brown said in a statement. Fire officials released little information about the circumstances surrounding Iverson's death, which came while he was fighting the so-called Thomas Fire, now the fourth-largest wildfire on record in California since 1932. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that Iverson, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection engineer, perished in an accident near the community of Fillmore, where a mayday alert was sounded. The Thomas Fire, which erupted on Dec. 4 near a small private college in Ojai, has since blackened more than 249,000 acres. The conflagration advanced again overnight to surpass the Zaca Fire, which struck Santa Barbara County in 2007, charring 240,000 acres (97,120 hectares). The Thomas Fire, which was 35 percent contained as of Thursday evening, has burned 729 single-family homes to the ground and damaged another 175. The blaze has displaced more than 94,000 people. The wildfire remained a threat to some 18,000 homes and other structures in the communities of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Summerland and Montecito along California's scenic coastline, especially if hot, dry Santa Ana winds return. Red-flag warnings, issued for extreme fire weather conditions in the area, were extended through Friday morning. "Right now, there really is a fear in the community. We're very used to fire, but the magnitude of this one is something that we haven't seen," Monique Limon, a state assembly member whose districts includes parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, told Reuters Many public schools in the Santa Barbara area canceled classes this week and will not reopen until the annual winter break ends in January. Some of the other fires burning over the past week in San Diego and Los Angeles counties have largely been brought under control. Investigators determined that the Skirball Fire, which destroyed six homes in Los Angeles' wealthy Bel-Air neighborhood and scorched a building at a winery owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was started by a cooking fire at a homeless encampment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said earlier this week. The Lilac Fire, which burned more than 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) in northern San Diego County and destroyed 157 structures, was 97 percent contained as of Thursday, Cal Fire said. (Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Leslie Adler)
By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday presented for the first time pieces of what it said were Iranian weapons supplied to the Iran-aligned Houthi militia in Yemen, describing it as conclusive evidence that Tehran was violating U.N. resolutions. The arms included charred remnants of what the Pentagon said was an Iranian-made short-range ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Nov. 4 at King Khaled International Airport outside Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh, as well as a drone and an anti-tank weapon recovered in Yemen by the Saudis. Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with such weaponry and on Thursday described the arms displayed as "fabricated." The United States acknowledged it could not say precisely when the weapons were transferred to the Houthis, and, in some cases, could not say when they were used. There was no immediate way to independently verify where the weapons were made or employed. But U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley expressed confidence the transfers could be blamed on Tehran. "These are Iranian made, these are Iranian sent, and these were Iranian given," Haley told a news conference at a military hangar at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, just outside Washington. All of the recovered weapons were provided to the United States by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon said. Saudi-led forces, which back the Yemeni government, have been fighting the Houthis in Yemen's more than two-year-long civil war. The unprecedented presentation - which Haley said involved intelligence that had to be declassified - is part of President Donald Trump's new Iran policy, which promises a harder line toward Tehran. That would appear to include a new diplomatic initiative. "You will see us build a coalition to really push back against Iran and what they're doing," Haley said, standing in front of what she said were the remnants of the Nov. 4 missile. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who view Tehran as a threat, seized upon the U.S. presentation in calls on Thursday for international action. Still, it was unclear whether the new evidence would be enough to win support for sanctions on Iran from some U.N. Security Council members, like Russia or China. British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said he didnt think "theres anything that could convince some of my council colleagues" to take U.N. action against Iran. Still, he said "we're going to be pursuing with them nonetheless." Under a U.N. resolution that enshrines the Iran nuclear deal with world powers, Tehran is prohibited from supplying, selling or transferring weapons outside the country unless approved by the U.N. Security Council. A separate U.N. resolution on Yemen bans the supply of weapons to Houthi leaders. Iran rejected the U.S. accusations as unfounded and Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, on Twitter, drew a parallel to assertions by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in 2003 about U.S. intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion. IRAN LINKS The Pentagon offered a detailed explanation of all of the reasons why it believed the arms came from Iran, noting what it said were Iranian corporate logos on arms fragments and the unique nature of the designs of Iranian weaponry. That included the designs of short-range "Qiam" ballistic missiles. The Pentagon said it had obtained fragments of two Qiam missiles, one fired on Nov. 4 against the airport and another fired on July 22. The Pentagon cited corporate logos it said matched those of Iranian defense firms on jet vanes that help steer the missile's engine and on the circuit board helping drive its guidance system. It also said the missile's unique valve-design was only found in Iran. Iran, it said, appeared to have tried to cover up the shipment by disassembling the missile for transport, given crude welding used to stitch it back together. "The point of this entire display is that only Iran makes this missile. They have not given it to anybody else," Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Seal said. "We haven't seen this in the hands of anyone else except Iran and the Houthis." A Dec. 8 U.N. report monitoring Iran sanctions found that the July 22 and Nov. 4 missiles fired at Saudi Arabia appeared to have a "common origin," but U.N. officials were still investigating the claims that Iran supplied them. A separate Nov. 24 U.N. report monitoring Yemen sanctions said four missiles fired into Saudi Arabia this year appear to have been designed and manufactured by Iran, but as yet there was "no evidence as to the identity of the broker or supplier." The U.N. Iran and Yemen sanctions monitors "saw a majority" of the weaponry displayed by Haley, said a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. The Pentagon put on display other weapons with designs it said were unique to Iran's defense industry. It pointed to a key component of a Toophan anti-tank guided missile and a small drone aircraft, both of which it said were recovered in Yemen by the Saudis. It also showed components of a drone-like navigation system like the one the Pentagon says was used by the Houthis to ram an exploding boat into a Saudi frigate on Jan. 30. The United Arab Emirates seized the system in late 2016 in the Red Sea, the Pentagon said. The U.N. Security Council is due to be briefed publicly on the latest U.N. report monitoring Iran sanctions on Tuesday. (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Alistair Bell and James Dalgleish)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A man who vandalized a Florida mosque in January 2016 and left a raw slab of bacon on its doorstep was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a hate crime conviction, a state attorney's spokesman said on Wednesday.

Michael Wolfe, 37, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to criminal mischief to a place of worship in a case considered a felony hate crime, said Todd Brown, spokesman for Florida's 18th Judicial District, which includes Brevard and Seminole counties.

Surveillance video after the 2016 incident showed a man with a shaved head and camouflage clothing breaking windows, cameras and lights with a machete at the mosque in Titusville, Florida, near Cape Canaveral, police said.

Muslims are prohibited from consuming pork products including bacon, and hate groups have used pork products as a way to desecrate U.S. mosques, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

The Islamic Society of Central Florida Masjid Al-Munin Mosque agreed with prosecutors and defense attorneys in determining Wolfe's sentence, Brown said.

The Florida Muslim Community is suffering an unprecedented number of hate crimes," Florida CAIR spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz said in a statement issued on Wednesday. "Multiple mosques and Islamic institutions have been broken into, vandalized, and even set on fire."

Wolfe was also sentenced to 15 years of probation, to be served after his prison sentence, Brown said.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by Patrick Enright and Peter Cooney)
Linda Wenzel meets her mother and sister for the first time in a year, in the palace of justice in Baghdad - Weltspiegel extra

A German teenage girl has said she was an idiot for joining Islamic State and the decision has wrecked her future, in her first interview since her arrest by Iraqi forces in Mosul.

Linda Wenzel, 17, claimed her escape was a stupid idea but showed little remorse in the first meeting with her family since she left her hometown of Pulsnitz in Saxony for Syria in July last year.

Linda was briefly reunited with her mother Katharina and sister Miriam, who were allowed to visit her at the Palace of Justice in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

A video of the meeting shows Linda, who is currently being held in prison while she awaits trial, wearing a flowery headscarf sporting round cheeks. She appears hesitant at first and pauses for a few seconds before finally embracing her mother, who hands her a stuffed toy.

Linda embraces her mother in BaghdadCredit: Weltspeigel Extra

She told her mother: I do not know, how I came up with the stupid idea to go to the Islamic State. I have ruined my life.

Speaking about why she left home, she said there were problems with her family at that time.

After deciding to convert to Islam she felt rejected by her parents and friends at school.

You could have talked about it, her mother told her daughter in the meeting. I couldnt talk to you, Linda replied. You said you didnt accept that I had joined Islam."

Linda's mother hands the teenager a stuffed toyCredit: Weltspiegel Extra

Linda said she then fell in love with a Chechen man online and he convinced her to travel to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levants so-called caliphate in Syria.

She said she watched Isil videos, which were so rosy  where men and their wives and children wandered together through parks  they baked bread together. It was like being in another world.

She travelled on her mothers documents to Turkey. From there she says she was married to the man, whose full name she does not know. She called him Mohammed, but said: I dont know (his surname), something Chechen.

Story continues

Linda Wenzel on the day she was capture in Mosul by Iraqi forcesCredit: Social media

The marriage was conducted in Turkey before Linda had even met her fiance. He was on the phone from Syria with a witness. She described the wedding as underwhelming: There was so ceremony, no party, she said.

She said she mostly cooked and cleaned the apartment for her new husband.

We didnt talk much, he came home, then...yes, I cooked, always cooked, and cleaned the apartment, she recalled.

She said spent most of the time with other women and helped look after their children, moving between the cities of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.

Personally, I would not have been able to handle children, she said. "I kept busy with myself. Trying not to go mad when you hear a bomb somewhere and the shrapnel falls on the roof.

Why did you come here, you idiot? she asked herself.

Iraqi security forces film as they apprehend Linda Wenzel earlier this year in the Iraqi city of Mosul

She lamented that none of the other women spoke German, which made it difficult to communicate.

Her husband was later killed in an air strike and she was left alone in a foreign land.

In January 2017 she sent a message to her mother saying: My husband is dead because of you. Because you pay for the bombs here with your taxes.

She called German intelligence dogs and praised the Berlin terror attacker Anis Amri, who carried out last years lorry attack on a Christmas market.

Her case became known after she was photographed being dragged out of the ruins of Mosul by Iraqi security forces near the end of the battle to liberate the city in July.

Iraqi security sources told the Telegraph Linda had been trained as a sniper and was found with a gun.

However, she claimed that while she was brainwashed by the jihadists, she never touched a weapon: I dont know how such a thing works, she said.

Linda said she was an "idiot" for traveling to Syria to join IsilCredit: Weltspiegel Extra

Next month, she will face trial in Baghdad, where she stands accused of being a member of a terrorist organisation.

Iraqi authorities have so far refused to extradite her to Germany.

I've ruined my life with this. I can only recover from my physical injuries, she said, referring to wounds caused by air strikes. Ive wrecked my future. In Germany everyone knows me, everyone knows what I look like, I cant go anywhere without being recognised. I probably wont even find a job and everyone will say, we will employ her anyway.

Now, she just wants to return with her family to Germany. I'm done with Iraq, she said.

Related Video:

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.
As the year comes to a close, Google has released its top searches of 2017.

The tech giant's top search of 2017 was Hurricane Irma. The storm slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida in September and was one of four hurricanes to hit America this year.

Second on the list was disgraced former Today show anchor Matt Lauer.

People were shocked about Matt Lauer and they went to Google to find out more about the Today show host they really felt they had a relationship with all these years, social media expert Kris Ruby told Inside Edition.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty, who died in October at age 66, was third on the list.

The Super Bowl was the fourth most-searched item of the year and rounding out the top five was Octobers horrific shooting in Las Vegas.

On the list of the top people Googled in 2017, you'll find newly engaged Suits star Meghan Markle. She was followed by men embroiled in 2017's sexual misconduct scandals like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Bill O'Reilly.

Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, finished at No. 10.

RELATED STORIES

Zoo Saves 1,500 Sea Turtles Displaced by Hurricanes Irma and Jose

Bill O'Reilly Jumps to Matt Lauer's Defense: 'Accusations Are Not Facts'

Rock and Roll Icon Tom Petty Dead at 66

Related Articles:
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., starred in a viral exchange this week after he repeatedly stumped one of President Trumps judicial nominees with basic questions about the law.

But he said he was just asking questions the nominee, Matthew Peterson, should have been able to answer.

I enthusiastically supported President Trump for president, and I still do. In the past year, I have supported nearly every one of President Trumps picks, but I dont blindly support them, Kennedy said in a Friday statement to Yahoo News when asked whether he would support Petersons nomination for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

I ask questions that I expect them to be able to answer, he continued. In doing so, Im just doing my job. Thats why we have a Madisonian-inspired separation of powers. We need checks and balances so that we can serve the American people well.

In the Thursday exchange, given that he only had five minutes, Kennedy started by asking a panel of Trumps nominees if they had never tried a case to verdict in a courtroom. Petersen raised his hand. Kennedy went on to ask simple questions about his experience in the courtroom.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., walks to the chamber following weekly strategy meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 5, 2017. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Peterson acknowledged that he had never argued a motion or tried a case in state or federal court. He also testified that he has never taken a deposition by himself, and that the last time he read the Federal Rules of Evidence comprehensively was when he was in law school. He could not define or identify the Daubert standard (a measure for determining the admissibility of expert testimony), a motion in limine (a request that certain evidence may not be introduced), the Younger abstention doctrine (the ruling that federal courts have strong obligations to hear cases in their jurisdictions) or the Pullman abstention doctrine (a principle that federal courts should give state courts the first chance to interpret state law).

Video of the questioning spread across the Internet after Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., shared it on Twitter  describing it as MUST WATCH.

Story continues

The Senate unanimously confirmed Peterson in 2008 to his current position  a commissioner on the FEC. Trump nominated Petersen to serve as a U.S. district court judge on Sept. 7, 2017.

Both Petersen and Kennedy received juris doctors from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Photo credit: Getty Images

In celebration of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's anniversary on May 19, we're taking a look back at the highlights of their incredible royal wedding. See every incredible moment of the magical day below:

The Engagement and Wedding Rings

Shortly after Meghan and Harry announced their plans to marry on November 27, we got our first look at the custom diamond engagement ring Prince Harry used to propose. Harry designed the piece, which was then made by court jewelers Cleave and Company using one diamond sourced from Botswana and two smaller stones from Princess Diana's collection.

Photo credit: Getty Images

"The ring is obviously yellow gold because that's [Markle's] favorite and the main stone itself I sourced from Botswana and the little diamonds on either side are from my mother's jewelry collection, to make sure that she's with us on this crazy journey together," Harry said during the couple's first sit-down interview with the BBC.

During their wedding ceremony, the bride and groom exchanged rings made by Cleave and Company. Meghan's ring was created out of Welsh Gold, and Harry's ring is a platinum band, according to the Palace.

Photo credit: Getty Images

The Wedding Date and Time

The wedding took place on May 19, 2018. The ceremony began at 12 p.m. BST (7 a.m. ET), followed by a carriage procession through Windsor at 1 p.m. BST, (8 a.m. ET).

How to Watch the Wedding

Harry and Meghan's wedding was televised and live streamed around the world. If you missed it, you can watch the livestream from the Royal Family's official YouTube account here:

Permission to Marry

On March 15, the Queen gave her formal blessing to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's marriage. "My Lords, I declare My Consent to a Contract of Matrimony between My Most Dearly Beloved Grandson Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales and Rachel Meghan Markle, which Consent I am causing to be signified under the Great Seal and to be entered in the Books of the Privy Council," reads her official consent.



Story continues

According to the Successions to the Crown Act, the first six in line to the throne need the monarch's authorization (Harry is currently fifth in line).

Photo credit: Getty Images

The Invitations

The formal wedding invitations were mailed out in late March. Get your first look at the cards below, then head here for all the details.

The invitations follow many years of Royal tradition and have been made by @BarnardWestwood. They feature the Three-Feathered Badge of the Prince of Wales printed in gold ink. pic.twitter.com/cd7LBmRJxO  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) March 22, 2018

The Ceremony

Meghan and Harry's gorgeous wedding ceremony took place at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. After walking down the aisle with her bridesmaids, page boys, and later Prince Charle, Meghan met her groom at the altar of St. George's Chapel. The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry delivered a rousing sermon during the ceremony, and the bride and groom said their vows and exchanged rings.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Meghan and Harry could have been married in Westminster Abbey had they decided to. A spokesman for the Abbey confirmed that their marriage could take place in one of the world's most famous churches thanks to a recent ruling by the Church of England. The Abbey follows the General Synod Ruling of 2002," the spokesperson said. "Since then it has been possible for divorced people to be married in the Church of England."

Many members of the British royal family, including Prince Edward, have been married at the chapel. "Prince Harry and Ms. Markle are delighted that the beautiful grounds of Windsor Castle will be where they begin their lives together as a married couple," it reads.

A Carriage Ride Through Windsor

Immediately following the exchange of vows, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took a carriage ride through Windsor. The route went go along High Street through town before returning back via the Long Walk. See all of the gorgeous photos from their carriage ride here.

The royal family gathered on the steps of St. George's Chapel to wave Harry and Meghan off on their procession. That's where the royal couple shared their first kiss.



The Role of Harry and Meghan's Families

Harry and Meghan previously revealed their desire to include their families in the wedding ceremony and reception. In late April, the Palace shared that Prince Harry chose Prince William to serve as his best man, a break in royal tradition. William was "honoured to have been asked" by his brother. On May 4, the Palace revealed that on the wedding morning, Prince Harry and his best man, Prince William, will arrive at the ceremony by walking. Will and Harry will also greet the royals fans on the Castle grounds ahead of the ceremony.

Harry and Meghan also paid tribute to Princess Diana on their wedding day. The Palace revealed that all three of Diana's siblings, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Baroness Jane Fellowes, and Earl Spencer would attend the wedding. Additionally, Jane Fellows gave a reading at the wedding.

On the wedding day, Meghan traveled to the Castle in a car through the procession route with her mother Doria Ragland by her side.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Meghan was then joined by her Bridesmaids and Page Boys before arriving at St. George's Chapel. She walked through the first portion of the aisle on her own, and then met Prince Charles for the remainder of the walk. Meghan asked Prince Charles to accompany her down the aisle after her father, Thomas announced he would not attend the wedding this week. Markle Sr. shared with TMZ that he is recovering from heart surgery.

The Wedding Dress

Meghan's stunning wedding dress was designed by British designer Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy. Here's everything we know about her dress. The designer also created Meghan's shoes for the big day. And, royal fans were treated to Meghan's first royal tiara moment: the bride wore Queen Mary's diamond bandeau tiara for her wedding day look.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Meghan also had a second ensemble on her wedding day, just as Duchess Kate did back in 2011. The public got a glimpse of her gorgeous Stella McCartney dress when Harry and Meghan departed Windsor Castle for their evening reception at Frogmore House.

Photo credit: WPA Pool - Getty Images

The Bouquet

Like many details of Harry and Meghan's royal wedding, the bouquet included a personal touch. The all white arrangement featured flowers picked by Prince Harry himself before the wedding. Blooms in the bouquet included Forget-Me-Nots, which were Princess Diana's favorite flower, sweet peas, lily of the valley, astilbe, jasmine and astrantia. Like all royal wedding bouquets, it included a sprig of myrtle, which dates back to the wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Victoria. Myrtle symbolizes hope and love, making it a fitting addition to any bride's bouquet, royal or not.

Bridesmaids and Page Boys

Photo credit: Getty Images

Meghan chose 10 bridal attendants to serve in her wedding party, including her newly-minted niece and nephew, Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Find out who else was a page boy and a royal bridesmaid on the big day.

The Reception

In terms of a reception Meghan and Harry's nuptials were not a repeat of what we've recently seen from the royal family.

Photo credit: Getty Images

After their Westminster Abbey ceremony, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge greeted the thousands of well-wishers who waited to see catch a glimpse of the carriage procession back to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen hosted a lunch for 650 guests. They later enjoyed an evening reception for their most trusted friends and family inside the Palace.

Meghan and Harry's first reception took place at St. George's Hall, a state room within Windsor Castle. Approximately 600 guests were invited to the ceremony and then lunch, which was hosted by the Queen. On May 4, the Palace revealed after the Carriage Procession begins, all guests will walk from the Chapel to the reception at St. George's Hall, and that all guests invited to the ceremony will also attend the reception.

The final public element of Harry and Meghan's wedding day was the moment the newly married couple leaves Windsor Castle for Frogmore House, where their evening reception took place. Around 200 guests were invited to this reception, which was hosted by the Prince of Wales.

The Cake

Royal wedding cakes are typically fruit cakes, but Meghan and Harry bucked tradition, and had a lemon elderflower cake created by Claire Ptak, a pastry chef who was raised in California but now owns London-based bakery Violet Cakes. Get the scoop on the royal wedding cake here.

Who Foots the Bill?

Tradition may suggest the bride's family pay for the wedding expenses, but the royals picked up the tab for Meghan and Harry's celebration. "As was the case with the wedding of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, The Royal Family will pay for the core aspects of the wedding, such as the church service, the associated music, flowers, decorations, and the reception afterwards" reads a statement from Kensington Palace.

Full statement from @KensingtonRoyal about #princeharry & #meghanmarkles wedding next May. The Queen & DoE will obviously be there, as will Meghans parents. The Royal Family will pay for the wedding. #RoyalWedding2018 pic.twitter.com/wzDh3wx1lx  Emily Andrews (@byEmilyAndrews) November 28, 2017

What Will Meghan's Last Name Be?

Now that Meghan Markle has officially married Prince Harry, her last name is technically Rachel Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor. "Junior members of the royal family have the option of using the surname ," royal historian and author Carolyn Harris tells Town & Country. But royals rarely use their surnames. More on that, here.

Additionally, Harry and Meghan received a new title from the Queen on their wedding day: Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

Although Meghan now holds the rank of princess, she won't be known as Princess Meghan. According to the customs of British peerage, a woman takes the title of her husband, meaning Meghan would become HRH Princess Henry of Wales, but she's not a British "blood" princess, so calling her Princess Meghan would be incorrect. More on that, here.

Royal Precedent

With around 1,900 guests invited to the Westminster Abbey service and a global television audience estimated at two billion people, Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding was a major production. Yet history shows that the weddings of second siblings in the royal family aren't always understated either.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Both Princess Anne, the Queen's second child, and her younger brother Prince Andrew got married in Westminster Abbey. Anne's marriage to Mark Phillips in 1973 was declared a public holiday and both occasions attracted a global television audience of an estimated 500 million. The royals also followed the tradition of having a carriage procession after the ceremony, which is a chance for the newlyweds to wave to the crowds before they appear on the balcony at Buckingham Palace for the moment everyone is waiting forthe first public kiss.

Photo credit: Getty Images

But Harry will follow Prince Edward's example of a more private wedding day. Edward was the only one of Charles's siblings not to follow the pattern of previous royal weddings when he married Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999. Like Meghan and Harry, the couple chose to have the ceremony at St. George's Chapel in Windsor and according to the BBC, their reception St. George's Hall was primarily for family and friends.

You Might Also Like
A top congressional ethics official who oversees investigations into misconduct by lawmakers is accused in a federal lawsuit of verbally abusing and physically assaulting women and using his federal position to influence local law enforcement, according to a complaint filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania last month.

The ongoing lawsuit against Omar Ashmawy, staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics, stems from his involvement in a late-night brawl in 2015 in Milford, Pennsylvania, and includes a range of allegations relating to his behavior that evening and in the following two-and-half years.

Ashmawys office conducts the preliminary investigations into allegations of misconduct in the House of Representatives, deciding which cases to pursue or refer to the Committee on Ethics. He is named in congressional documents as the official who presented one of the investigations into John Conyers, the Democratic lawmaker from Michigan accused of sexual harassment, to the ethics committee for further action.

Among other allegations, Ashmawy is accused in the lawsuit of threatening to use his position as staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics to induce a criminal proceeding to be brought against Plaintiff and/or others, according to the federal lawsuit filed against him.

In court filings and in statements to Foreign Policy, Ashmawy denied the allegations laid out in the lawsuit.

To be clear, I did not harass anyone that evening, physically or verbally, he wrote in a statement to FP. To the contrary, I was the victim of a wholly unprovoked assault for which those responsible were investigated, arrested and charged. Any allegation to the contrary is unequivocally false.

The lawsuit, previously unreported, stems from Feb. 14, 2015  Valentines Day. The evening appeared to start off well for Ashmawy: a nearly $400 dinner with his girlfriend at an upscale restaurant in Milford, followed by late-night drinks at a local bar.

Story continues

It ended, however, with him bruised and bloody in the back of a police car.

Two months later, three men were arrested for assaulting Ashmawy. One of those men, Greg Martucci, is now suing Ashmawy in federal court in Pennsylvania in connection to the events of that night.

What exactly led to the physical altercation is in dispute, but in police statements reviewed by FP, three women at the bar that night, including the bartender, accuse Ashmawy of harassing and physically assaulting them.

A former Air Force officer who prosecuted two of the early post-9/11 military tribunal cases, Ashmawy has been a rising star on Capitol Hill in recent years. He was profiled in the Washington Post, which described his job overseeing the first independent office in history charged with overseeing the ethics of the House of Representatives. He was also featured earlier this year in Politicos birthday of the day, where he describes his job as helping the House of Representatives uphold ethical standards by investigating allegations of misconduct by members, staff or officers of the House.

Ashmawys office sits at the center of multiple ongoing, high-profile congressional investigations. Its recent work includes a probe into California Republican Rep. Devin Nuness midnight trip to the White House in March. The investigation led to Nunes stepping down from the committee investigating Russian influence on the 2016 presidential election, according to Office of Congressional Ethics website and news reports. (Earlier this month, the full ethics committee cleared Nunes of misconduct.)

According to the website of the Office of Congressional Ethics, it has pursued investigations into Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) and Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), whose cases, like that of Conyers, began under Ashmawy and were referred to the ethics committee for further investigation. The New York Times this week reported that Republicans are citing a 2015 decision by the Office of Congressional Ethics clearing Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), who has also been accused of sexual harassment.

Ashmawy has also, according to travel disclosures, visited Ukraine, Kosovo, and Georgia to assist governments there in setting up their own ethics and government oversight bodies. He gives talks overseas and in the United States on investigating lawmaker misconduct and on the importance of ethical behavior in and after government service.

Yet the complaint filed in the Middle District of Pennsylvania against Ashmawy, as well as documents related to the case and police and witness statements, raise questions about Ashmawys conduct.

According to the complaint, Martucci on the night of Feb. 14, 2015, witnessed an extremely violent and belligerent Ashmawy become verbally abusive toward two women at Milfords Dimmick Inn, Dawn Jorgenson  the wife of John Jorgenson, the owner of the bar  and Joey Lynn Smith, a bartender there.

Martucci also said he saw Ashmawy physically assaulting Dawn Jorgenson and Christina Floyd, another woman at the bar, a claim echoed in police statements given by the women and reviewed by FP.

According to a three-page statement dated March 12, 2015, Dawn Jorgenson said she witnessed Ashmawy clearly sexually harassing the bartender throughout the course of the evening and saw his behavior spiral toward physical violence. Youll give me drinks, but you wont fuck me, Ashmawy allegedly said to the bartender, according to Dawn Jorgensons written statement.

She said she then saw Ashmawy block the bartender with his body and curse at her, and grab her by the wrists. Dawn Jorgenson said when she tried to intervene, Ashmawy turned against her. Hes holding my wrist so tightly that he falls down to the ground landing to the left of me, she wrote in her statement.

She said her husband, John Jorgenson, came over to help and pulled Ashmawy away, taking him outside.

In statements given to police, the third woman, Christina Floyd, provided a similar account. I watched each time Omar would come down and verbally sexually harass the bartender as he ordered drinks, Floyd wrote in her statement, describing an increasingly angry Ashmawy confronting the bartender.

I am a 5 foot 3 woman who never knew this man. I was very scared of him and was afraid hed come back around for weeks after, Floyd wrote of Ashmawy in her statement to police dated March 14, 2015. I have never had a man physically harm me or scare me in that matter. He was sexually harassing, abusing and I feared for my life.

According to Floyd, Ashmawy was sexually harassing and verbally abusive to the bartender. She also said Ashmawy was very intoxicated, an allegation that is backed up by the police report.

The two other women described abuse at the hands of Ashmawy that same night, providing similar details. Ashmawy did not respond to FPs follow-up email with additional questions, including if he was intoxicated that evening.

Two other people at the bar that night, however, said they saw only the men drag out Ashmawyand did not witness his alleged attacks on the women.

One of those witnesses is referenced in Ashmawys Dec. 6 brief in support of his motion to dismiss. The brief says the witness called 911 after witnessing Defendant Ashmawy be attacked by three men and then one of the men involved in the attack dragging him outside and it seemed like the men set up Defendant Ashmawy to get jumped. (A police report reviewed by FP confirms that the witness who called police was concerned it wasnt a fair fight.)

What all sides appeared to agree on is that, at the end of the evening, Ashmawy was injured.

Months after the incident, three men were charged with assaulting Ashmawy, including Martucci. Ashmawy was never arrested or charged with a crime (a police report from the evening says Ashmawy was the only one at the scene with visible injuries).

Martucci is now suing Ashmawy in a Pennsylvania federal court, accusing him of a range of unethical and possibly criminal conduct tied to the 2015 bar fight and subsequent legal proceedings. Also named in the suit is Milfords police chief and the borough of Milford.

In his lawsuit, Martucci accuses Ashmawy of using his political power and position with the Office of Congressional Ethics to pressure the police and the district attorney into not arresting him for assaulting the women. Martucci also alleges that Ashmawy threatened federal investigation of local government and police if they did not press charges against those accusing him of assault.

An email reviewed by FP from Ashmawy, using his congressional affiliation, to the police chief and officials at the district attorneys office accuses them of not handling the case properly.

As of today it has been over five weeks since I was assaulted. To date, the police departments investigation is not complete and charges have not been filed. I am deeply concerned, he wrote in the email, which is signed with his congressional title and work mail address.

Ashmawy cites his injuries, which he said included a facial fracture and a bruised and bloodied eye.

In the same email, Ashmawy references his own work conducting investigations, and indicates that if charges arent filed the case might attract high-level attention in the capital.

There is no hiding what happened to me from the people I interact with on a day to day basis, he wrote. As result, there are a growing number of individuals in the Washington, DC community who have taken an interest in this matter and are concerned that one of the reasons this matter has languished is because Im not a resident of Milford, PA. Ive assured them that isnt true. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that my ethnicity, as an Arab-American and Muslim, might also be a factor in the delayed investigation and the charging of the individuals responsible. Ive explained that is unlikely.

An attorney representing the town and police chief in the lawsuit declined to comment on why charges werent filed against Ashmawy in light of the womens statements to police.

Please be advised that the official response on behalf of Milford Borough and Chief DaSilva is No comment during the course of pending litigation, Sheryl L. Brown, an attorney with the firm Siana Bellwoar, wrote FP in response to queries.

She noted that a motion to dismiss the case was pending with the court, and then threatened legal action against FP. We reserve the right to subpoena unprivileged portions of your files considering you assert you are in possession of police statements from witnesses, she wrote.

Ashmawys version of events from that evening is markedly different. In his statement to police that night, Ashmawy wrote there was a conflict with women at the bar, but it stemmed from a previous altercation between his girlfriend and the bartender.

The bartender spoke fighting words to me, he wrote, adding that the two other women abruptly came up to me.

At that point, Ashmawy said, three men assaulted him, choked him, and threw him to the ground. My handwriting is affected by the fact that I have only the sight of one eye and Im bleeding from multiple wounds to include my eye and my lip, he wrote in his statement to police.

This matter was fully investigated. I was the victim, and the men responsible were arrested and charged, he wrote in a statement to FP. The three assailants attacked me without any provocation whatsoever, and any suggestion to contrary is nothing but an exercise in slander.

The three men eventually charged in the assault were John Jorgenson, the bar owner, Tim Reilly, and Martucci. Each was charged with three counts relating to the alleged assault. The first two pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge, but the prosecutors eventually dropped the charges against Martucci, a federal air marshal, and the case against him was expunged in October 2016.

While the case proceeded, however, Martucci was suspended from his federal air marshal job without pay and then later fired. In response to a request for comment about Martucci, the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service, said that Martucci was no longer employed with the agency and refused to answer questions about the incident or internal investigation.

Martucci filed the lawsuit against Ashmawy in September.

On Dec. 6, Ashmawy filed a brief in support of his earlier motion to dismiss, saying he was acting as an individual who was a victim of an assault and pursued his legal remedies to their established conclusion.

The police chief and borough of Milford have filed similar motions to dismiss. A case management conference with all parties attorneys before the presiding judge is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2018.

These criminal charges, which Mr. Martucci successfully had dismissed, derailed my clients career and affected his livelihood, Martuccis lawyer, Ryan Lockman, told FP. Mr. Martucci eagerly awaits the opportunity to proceed with his claims.
By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - The online video's message was clear: Supporters of Islamic State who could not travel overseas to join the militant group should carry out attacks wherever they were in the United States or Europe. Bangladeshi immigrant Akayed Ullah, 27, followed those instructions on Monday when he tried to set off a homemade bomb in one of New York's busiest commuter hubs, in an attack that illustrates the difficulty of stopping "do-it-yourself" attacks by radicals who act alone. While harder to stop than attacks coordinated by multiple people - whose communications may be more easily monitored by law enforcement or intelligence agencies - they also tend to do less damage. Ullah was the person most seriously wounded when his bomb ignited but did not detonate in an underground passageway linking the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the Times Square subway statin; three others sustained lesser injuries. "They tend to be less organized and less deadly," said Seamus Hughes, a former adviser at the U.S. government's National Counterterrorism Center. "That's because you're dealing with more, for lack of a better word, amateurs." The do-it-yourself style of attack is on the rise in the United States, according to research by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, where Hughes is deputy director. The United States has seen 19 attacks perpetrated by Islamic State-inspired people since the group declared a "caliphate" in June 2014 after capturing broad swaths of Iraq and Syria. Of those, 12 occurred in 2016 and 2017, almost twice as many as in the two preceding years. "You're going to see continued numbers of plots and, unfortunately, attacks," Hughes said. Ullah began immersing himself in Islamic State propaganda as early as 2014, three years after he arrived in the United States as a legal immigrant, according to federal prosecutors who charged him with terrorism offenses. They said in court papers that Ullah's computer records showed that he viewed ISIS videos urging supporters of the group to launch attacks where they lived. Experts said the success of Western allies in retaking most of Islamic State's territory could inspire more attacks out of anger or vengeance. "No group has been as successful at drawing people into its perverse ideology as ISIS," Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray said in congressional testimony last week. "Through the internet, terrorists overseas now have access into our local communities to target and recruit our citizens." National security analysts generally divide such perpetrators into three broad categories. Some attackers act at the direction of a group, like the Islamic State-backed militants who carried out coordinated attacks in Paris in 2015, killing 130; others have some limited contact with an organization but act largely on their own. A third type has no communication with a group but engage in violence after being radicalized by online propaganda. It is easier for trained, battle-hardened ISIS fighters to travel from the Middle East to Europe than for them to reach the United States. That helps explain why U.S. attacks have largely been the work of "self-made" terrorists, said Brandeis University professor and radicalization expert Jytte Klausen. "In these recent cases, we've seen very few indications that there was any type of direct training," Klausen said. Self-directed perpetrators are the hardest for investigators to identify. Their ranks appear to include Ullah, as well as two other recent New York attackers: Ahmad Rahimi, the man who injured 30 with a homemade bomb in Manhattan in September 2016, and Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight by speeding a rental truck down a bike lane in October. While that type of attacker typically is less destructive, there are important exceptions. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people, and Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando last year. "A single individual or two can still create a lot of damage," said Max Abrahms, a professor at Northeastern University who studies terrorism. "But they're not able to wage sustained terrorist campaigns." (This story has been refiled to restore dropped word "as" in 6th paragraph) (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has told confidants he would like to retire after the 2018 congressional elections, Politico reported on Thursday, but the Wisconsin lawmaker and an aide played down the report, saying he wasn't quitting any time soon. "Ryan has made it known to some of his closest confidants that this will be his final term as speaker," Politico said. Politico said it interviewed three dozen people who knew Ryan - including lawmakers, congressional and administration aides, conservative intellectuals and Republican lobbyists - and that "not a single person believed Ryan will stay in Congress past 2018." White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said President Donald Trump had spoken to Ryan "and made sure that the speaker knew very clearly and in no uncertain terms that if that news was true, he was very unhappy with it." "The speaker assured the president that those were not accurate reports and that they looked forward to working together for a long time to come," Sanders said. Ryan is a long-time champion of tax reform who has helped bring Republicans in Congress to the cusp of a tax overhaul for the first time in a generation. If passed, it would be Trump's first major legislative victory since he took office in January despite being helped by Republican control of Congress. When asked by reporters on Thursday if he was planning to quit, Ryan said with a chuckle: "I'm not, no." Asked later about the Politico report, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong did not directly deny it, instead saying: "This is pure speculation. As the speaker himself said today, hes not going anywhere any time soon." Ryan would be unlikely to publicize any planned departure because it could hurt his fundraising capacity on behalf of fellow Republicans and undercut his ability to make deals in the House of Representatives. A budget hawk who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012, Ryan reluctantly took over as speaker in 2015 following the resignation of John Boehner, who had held the post since early 2011 after Republicans won control of the chamber from Democrats. Boehner's tenure as speaker was marked by fractious divisions among competing groups within the Republican Party. Ryan has tried to move the party beyond those disputes with only limited success. Party divisions earlier this year prevented Republicans from delivering a promised overhaul of healthcare legislation, and the path toward tax reform has also been complicated by internal disagreements and intense lobbying from industry groups. (Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by David Alexander and Bernadette Baum)
New Delhi (AFP) - An Indian court Thursday handed down the death penalty to a man found guilty of raping and murdering a law student in a brutal knife attack in southern Kerala state.

The murdered student was found dead in a pool of blood in her home in Perumbavoor town on April 28, 2016, with nearly 30 stab wounds and bite marks on her severely disfigured corpse.

Muhammed Ameerul Islam was convicted by a district court in Kerala over the gruesome attack which sparked nationwide outrage and drew comparisons with the high-profile gang-rape and murder of a Delhi student in 2012.

Prosecutors successfully sought the death penalty for the crime, describing it as "rarest of the rare" in its violent nature.

"The court sentenced him to death for murder and life sentence for rape," B. A. Aloor, Islam's lawyer told AFP.

He said his client was not treated to a fair trial and the defence team would appeal the sentence in a higher court.

Aloor said Islam was framed by police for the crime to cover up for their botched investigation, which drew protesters to the streets in the coastal state.

Police took nearly two months to identify a suspect, angering women's activists who accused investigators of bungling the case.

The victim, a member of India's lowest Dalit caste who was studying to become a lawyer, lived with her mother who was not at home when the murder took place.

The prosecution described the crime as unprovoked but some media reports say the attack was motivated by revenge over a disagreement.

The level of brutality in the attack sent shockwaves through India and was quickly compared to the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving bus in New Delhi in 2012.

That crime shone a spotlight on the rising levels of violence against women in India, sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of rape laws that increased penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through courts.

India has a grim record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.
Mumbai (AFP) - India's minister for women has warned Bollywood producers over sexual harassment in the Hindi film industry after a scandal that has brought down some leading Hollywood figures.

Maneka Gandhi wrote to leading production houses reminding them that they are "ethically and legally" responsible for providing a "safe, secure and inclusive work environment" for all staff under Indian law.

Bollywood has not so far faced the kind of allegations that have rocked the US film industry and led to the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

But last month a Bollywood actress said she had been harassed by an unnamed director early in her career.

India's Ministry of Women and Child Development said in a series of tweets late Wednesday that Gandhi had written letters to 24 producers urging them to comply with India's 2013 sexual harassment act.

"The aim of this law is to ensure that no woman is sexually harassed at her workplace," she wrote.

"This is to be followed in letter and spirit by all organisations in the country and I expect you to personally lead these efforts with sincerity and commitment, in accordance with all the applicable laws," Gandhi added.

It follows an interview that Bollywood actress Swara Bhaskar gave to the Mumbai Mirror tabloid in November in which she said she had "lost a few roles" over the years because she "didn't give in" to unwanted advances.

Bhaskar urged aspiring actresses to reject parts rather than "get on the couch", a reference to the "casting couch" culture where young women are expected to exchange sexual favours to be cast in a film.

The issue is almost never discussed in Indian media or talked about openly by Bollywood stars, but aspiring actors and actresses are known to regularly share their experiences of it privately.

Since the Weinstein scandal first broke some Indian actresses, including Kalki Koechlin and Richa Chadha, have said Bollywood needs to create an environment where victims can speak out without fear of being ostracised or trolled on social media.

Bhaskar said in her interview that the cliquey nature of Bollywood, where many of the leading stars and directors are either friends or related, made going public with allegations difficult.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The commander of Iraq's biggest Shi'ite Muslim paramilitary group told its fighters on Thursday to take their orders from the national military and cut their ties with the group's political wing. Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Iran-backed Badr Organisation, also called on the group's fighters to withdraw from the cities under their control. The move paves the way for Amiri to stand in parliamentary elections on May 12. Participation in the election by members of Iraq's Iran-backed Shi'ite paramilitaries, collectively known as Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), has been hotly debated in Iraq. PMF members cannot run for office unless they formally resign their posts. Amiri is the second commander to issue such a call in as many days. He called on those in charge of his armed wing to cut their ties with the group's political party, which holds 22 seats in the Iraqi parliament. "I also call on all my brothers, the commanders of various formations, to clear cities of all signs of militarisation," he said in a speech. Badr, which says it is loyal to both Iraq and Iran, is the biggest group within the PMF, which fought alongside security forces against Islamic State. Sunni Muslims and Kurds have called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who declared victory over Islamic State last week, to disarm the PMF, which they say are responsible for widespread abuses. The PMF were officially made part of the Iraqi security establishment by law and formally answer to Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Abadi has said the state should have a monopoly on the legitimate use of arms. Qais al-Khazali, head of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, announced a similar move on Wednesday when he said he would place his fighters under Abadi's command. The fighters and their political wing were now separate entities, he said. Powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set out conditions on Monday for his followers to give the government the weapons they used to fight Islamic State. Iran-backed Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, which has about 10,000 fighters and is one of the most important militias in Iraq, said last month it would give any heavy weapons it had to the military once Islamic State was defeated. (Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - An Israeli undercover unit infiltrated a Palestinian protest where stones were thrown at soldiers on the outskirts of Ramallah on Wednesday before dispersing it by firing into the air and making arrests.

Israeli security forces also fired toward the "lower part" of the body of one Palestinian who threw a large stone at them, according to the military. It was unclear if anyone was hit.

AFP journalists witnessed the operation during the protest by around 100 to 150 Palestinians near a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.

The operation saw a few dozen soldiers move from further down the street towards the crowd.

Suddenly, several men wearing keffiyehs or balaclavas, including one with a Palestinian flag wrapped around his head, pulled out pistols.

One threw a smoke grenade while others fired in the air. The army then rapidly moved towards the remaining protesters, who fled.

Medics on the scene said three Palestinians had been injured during the protests.

Israel's military said forces including an undercover unit carried out the operation during what it called a "violent riot".

It said Palestinians threw stones and firebombs at its forces while rolling burning tyres. Three people were arrested, it said in a statement.

Rare video footage of the operation was captured by an AFP journalist.

- 'You don't own Jerusalem' -

Israeli forces regularly carry out such operations against stone-throwing protests in which agents pretend to be demonstrators before turning on the crowd.

Such agents are referred to by Palestinians as mustarabeen, a word used to refer to those who disguise themselves as Arabs.

Wednesday's protest was part of demonstrations and clashes that have occurred in the Palestinian territories since US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 6.

Four Palestinians have been killed so far in clashes or Israeli air strikes in response to rocket fire from Gaza. One Israeli has been seriously wounded in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

Story continues

In the West Bank city of Hebron on Wednesday, hundreds of Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and live fire, an AFP journalist reported.

Eight people were wounded by rubber bullets and two by live fire, medics said.

The protesters also burned a fake pig with Trump's face on it.

Another 3,000 people demonstrated in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, carrying banners reading "no state without Jerusalem".

"We came out to tell that idiot Trump that you don't own Jerusalem to gift it to Israelis and settlers," said Talal Dweikat of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah.

Hundreds later went to an Israeli checkpoint and clashed with Israeli soldiers.

Jerusalem's status is perhaps the most sensitive issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono told the United Nations Security Council on Friday that North Korea was "nowhere near ready" to abandon its nuclear and missile programs and was not interested in a meaningful dialogue. He noted that North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile launch last month came 75 days after its previous tests. "Some optimistic views labeled 75 days of silence as a positive signal. However, the missile launch in November made it clear that North Korea was continuing to relentlessly develop its nuclear and missile programs even while they were seemingly silent," he told the 15-member council. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Susan Thomas)
Former Alabama Chief Justice and US Senate candidate Roy Moore speaks at a campaign rally: AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

JK Rowling has ridiculed Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore by suggesting he lost Tuesday's election because he was being punished by a black, female God.

Mr Moore  a former state judge with strong support among evangelical conservatives  lost the Alabama special election by only a narrow margin, despite allegations of racism and sexual harassment levelled at him.

Democrat Doug Jones claimed victory on Tuesday, meaning the conservative stronghold has its first Democratic senator since 1992.

But despite preliminary results showing Mr Jones led by more than 21,000 votes, Mr Moore still refused to accept defeat on Tuesday evening.

"When the vote is this close, it is not over," he told a crowd of supporters. "But we also know that God is always in control. Part of the thing, part of the problem with this campaign is we've been painted in an unfavourable and unfaithful light.

"We've been put in a hole, if you will, and it reminds me of a passage in Psalm 40: 'I waited patiently for the Lord,' that's what we've got to do."

Sharing a link to footage of Mr Moore's speech on Twitter, Rowling wrote: "Narrator's voice: Roy was right. God was in control. What he didn't realise was, She's black."

Narrator's voice: Roy was right. God was in control. What he didn't realise was, She's black. https://t.co/pCpVifXgbq  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 13, 2017

Some Twitter users criticised the the Harry Potter author, pointing out black characters did not take primary importance in Ms Rowling's novels.

Why were all the Black characters in your books tertiary characters? https://t.co/3k9tHmTrPw  duality of mandem (@Flames_Baldwin) December 13, 2017

Mr Moore, who was backed by Donald Trump during his election campaign, came under fire when he seemed to express nostalgia for America during slavery at a September rally.

Story continues

When a black man in the crowd asked what Mr Trump meant by his slogan make America great again," Mr Moore said: I think it was great at the time when families were united  even though we had slavery.

"They cared for one another. People were strong in the families. Our families were strong. Our country had a direction."

Introducing her husband at a rally on the eve of the 12 December vote, Kayla Moore defended her husband against the racism allegations, saying: "We have many friends that are black and we also fellowship with them in church and in our home."

The Democrat win in Alabama has nationwide consequences, since it narrows the slim Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49.

Democrats are seeking to build on anti-Trump sentiment to mount a challenge next year to Republican control of Congress.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.)  Dan Johnson, a Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky who defiantly denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl in the basement of his home, died in an apparent suicide Wednesday night, the county coroner said. He was 57.

Bullitt County Coroner Dave Billings said Johnson died of a single gunshot wound on Greenwell Ford Road in Mount Washington, Kentucky. Billings said Johnson stopped his car at the end of a bridge in a secluded area, then got out and walked to the front of the car. He said an autopsy is scheduled for Thursday morning.

I would say it is probably suicide, he said.

Johnson was elected to the state legislature in 2016, part of a wave of Republican victories that gave the GOP control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time in nearly 100 years. He won his election despite Republican leaders urging him to drop out of the race after local media reported on some of his Facebook posts comparing Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys.

The pastor of Heart of Fire church in Louisville, Johnson sponsored a number of bills having to do with religious liberty and teaching the Bible in public schools. But he was mostly out of the spotlight until Monday, when the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published an account from a woman saying Johnson sexually assaulted her in the basement of his home in 2013.

At the time, the woman told police, who investigated the incident but closed the case and did not file charges.

On Tuesday, Johnson held a news conference in the pulpit of his church, which he began by leading friends and family in singing a portion of the Christmas carol O Come All Ye Faithful. He said the allegations against him were totally false and said they were part of a nationwide strategy of defeating conservative Republicans. He referenced Republican Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who faces accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women.

Story continues

Shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday, Johnson posted a message on his Facebook page that asked people to care for his wife. He wrote that PTSD is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer. It has won this life, BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME. The post appears to have been removed.

Michael Skoler, president of Louisville Public Media, which owns the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, said everyone at the organization is deeply sad.

Our aim, as always, is to provide the public with fact-based, unbiased reporting and hold public officials accountable for their actions, Skoler said. As part of our process, we reached out to Representative Johnson numerous times over the course of a seven-month investigation. He declined requests to talk about our findings.

The sexual assault accusations against Johnson were revealed as a sexual harassment scandal involving four other Republican lawmakers was unfolding at the state Capitol. Former Republican House Speaker Jeff Hoover resigned his leadership position after acknowledging he secretly settled a sexual harassment claim with a member of his staff. Three other lawmakers were involved in the settlement, and all lost their committee chairmanships.

I am very sad over the passing of Rep. Dan Johnson. Over the past few weeks in some of the darkest days of my life, he reached out to me, encouraged me, and prayed for me, Hoover posted on his Twitter account Wednesday night.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin posted on his Twitter account that my heart breaks for his family tonight.

These are heavy days in Frankfort and in America, Bevin posted. May God indeed shed His grace on us all.  We sure need it.
Beijing (AFP) - China sidestepped blame Friday for the beating of a South Korean photojournalist by Chinese security, an incident that has marred a visit by the South Korean president to mend frayed ties with Beijing.

The incident has sparked outrage in South Korea, with the opposition calling on Moon to cancel the rest of his four-day state visit, his first in China since taking office in May.

A photographer was thrown to the floor and kicked, reportedly suffering fractured facial bones and ruptured vessels in an eye, as Chinese security personnel stopped South Korean photographers following Moon's delegation at a trade show on Thursday.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang expressed "concern" that someone had been hurt and said an investigation was ongoing.

Officials from both countries have discussed the issue and "we hope we can get the facts straight as soon as possible," he said.

But, he added: "This event was organised by the South Korean side, the journalists involved were invited by the South Korean side, and the security guards were also recruited and hired by the Korean side."

The South Korean organisers should have "found an equilibrium" between the journalists' desire for more time with and proximity to the president, and the guards' "professional requirements... (to) sufficiently guarantee the safety and dignity of the people they protect," he said.

They should have "from the very beginning made clear what rights the media have" as well as "how much leeway and space to manoeuver" the guards had to deal with emergencies, he added.

- 'Warmth of springtime' -

Relations between Beijing and Seoul soured after South Korea allowed the United States to install the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system to guard against threats from North Korea.

China considers THAAD a threat to its own security, and has imposed economic measures against South Korean companies in a move seen as retaliation.

Story continues

Moon and President Xi Jinping both indicated their willingness to reset relations when they held talks on Thursday -- a message that was repeated in the South Korean leader's meeting on Friday with Premier Li Keqiang.

Moon said he hoped that "the recovery and development of China and South Korean relations can happen as quickly as the frequency of our meetings", noting that he had met Li for the first time just a month before.

Li also heralded the thaw, saying "both sides are looking forward to the warmth of the springtime."

But South Korean newspapers reported that Moon had his first three meals in China without any Chinese officials on hand, with an earlier lunch with Li unilaterally scrapped.

He was greeted by an assistant minister when he landed, while Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was welcomed last year by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

- 'Mistreatment' and 'lynching' -

While Moon courted Chinese leaders, South Korean media, opposition parties and internet users voiced outrage over the reporter's beating, many saying the incident epitomised the Asian giant's attitude towards its smaller neighbour.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party urged Moon to return home immediately, saying the violence was a "terror attack against the whole of South Korea".

"Mistreatment of President Moon and lynching of a Korean journalist  This is the Chinese Dream", the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest-circulation daily, headlined its editorial, referring to Xi's promise of prosperity and influence.

Chosun said the perceived diplomatic slight and the violence against a member of Moon's presidential press corps were "not accidental" and were driven by "China's arrogant and violent nature" and "Seoul's subservient attitude".

The English-language Korea Times called it "an appalling use of force by Chinese security".

"We are dumbfounded and enraged at such violence against visitors.... We are outraged by the rude welcome", it said.

Internet users also reacted angrily.

"China trampled upon Korea and the whole Korean people," one said in a posting.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Latest on the Alabama Senate election (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

Democrat Doug Jones says he received congratulatory phone calls from President Donald Trump and other leaders after beating Republican Roy Moore in Alabama's U.S. Senate race.

Jones says the call he got from Trump Wednesday was "very gracious" after the upset win. Trump had harshly criticized him during the race.

Jones told a news conference he's also gotten calls from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Alabama Republican Sens. Richard Shelby and Luther Strange and others.

Unofficial returns show Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes, or 1.5 percent.

Moore hasn't conceded, and Jones says he hasn't heard from the former judge.

___

1:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he "would have liked" embattled Roy Moore to have won the Alabama Senate race, though he acknowledges many fellow Republicans disagree.

Trump tells reporters at the White House that "a lot of Republicans feel differently. They're very happy with the way it turned out."

But the president says that "as the leader of the party, I would have liked to have had the seat."

Trump says he doesn't believe Moore's loss will affect the White House agenda, even though the Republicans edge in the Senate narrower now.

He says it will be important to elect more Republicans to Congress in 2018.

Trump had endorsed Moore despite the fact that Moore's campaign was dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct.

___

1:10 p.m.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Democrat Doug Jones' upset victory in Alabama was "an impressive election."

That's the response when the Kentucky Republican was asked what he thought about Jones' defeat of GOP candidate Roy Moore in Tuesday's race.

McConnell calls it "quite an impressive election. It was a big turnout and an unusual day."

Story continues

Jones' victory will narrow the GOP edge in the Senate to 51-49. He's expected to be sworn into office early next month.

Moore's campaign was rocked after reports that he sexually assaulted teenagers decades ago, when he was in his 30s.

Alabama is overwhelmingly Republican, and Jones is the first statewide Democrat elected in the state in a quarter-century.

___

10:35 a.m.

President Donald Trump is striking a conciliatory tone toward congressional Republicans after Roy Moore's election defeat.

Trump tweets that if Moore's loss to Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race "proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate."

Trump's postelection assessment seems to be an implicit rebuke of his former strategist, Steve Bannon.

Bannon was one of Moore's staunchest backers, and he's pledged to run populist challengers against traditional GOP candidates in the primaries.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has said the party needs "to nominate people who can actually win, because winners make policy and losers go home."

McConnell and Trump backed Moore's GOP rival, Sen. Luther Strange, in the September primary.

___

6:30 a.m.

President Donald Trump is defending his decision to initially back Sen. Luther Strange against Roy Moore in Alabama's Senate election, saying in a predawn tweet that "Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him."

"I was right!" the president said in a pre-dawn Twitter post Wednesday, a day after Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeated Moore, a former state Supreme Court chief justice who was buffeted by allegations of sexual misconduct.

Trump notes in his social media post that the reason he originally sided with Strange was that "I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election."

The president had sent a tweet late Tuesday congratulating Jones, a former federal prosecutor, on his "hard fought victory."

___

3:40 a.m.

In a stunning victory aided by scandal, Democrat Doug Jones won Alabama's special Senate election, beating back history, an embattled Republican opponent and President Donald Trump, who urgently endorsed GOP rebel Roy Moore despite a litany of sexual misconduct allegations.

It was the first Democratic Senate victory in a quarter-century in Alabama, one of the reddest of red states, and proved anew that party loyalty is anything but certain in the age of Trump. Tuesday's Republican loss was a major embarrassment for the president and a fresh wound for the nation's already divided GOP.

"We have shown not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way  that we can be unified," Jones declared as supporters in a Birmingham ballroom cheered, danced and cried tears of joy. Still in shock, the Democrat struggled for words: "I think that I have been waiting all my life, and now I just don't know what the hell to say."
Beirut (AFP) - Lebanon and Syria said Thursday they will reopen a border crossing closed five years ago, in another sign of the Syrian government's increasing control over its territory.

The crossing, called Al-Qaa in Lebanon and Jussiyeh in Syria, was closed in 2012 as fighting raged between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebel fighters seeking his overthrow.

Assad's regime has since reclaimed most of the territory once held by the rebels, thanks to a Russian military campaign in support of his forces and deep divisions among the rebels.

Jihadists from the Islamic State group had moved into the border area but were pushed out in offensives by regime forces in Syria and the Lebanese army and militant group Hezbollah on the other side of the frontier.

Ceremonies were held Thursday on both sides of the Al-Qaa/Jussiyeh crossing, which is set to re-open on Friday morning.

It was the only one of the five crossings between Lebanon and Syria that was permanently closed by the war.

The head of Lebanon's General Security agency, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said the re-opening of the crossing was a moment for celebration after it was closed by "terrorism that targeted the entire region".

The mainly Christian Al-Qaa area in Lebanon was targeted several times in cross-border attacks, including suicide bombings in June last year that killed five people.
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Muslim-majority Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday called U.S. President Donald Trump an "international bully" and a "villain" for his move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump last week reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and said the United States would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in the coming years. The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest barriers to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city's eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally. The anger from Trump's decision "will lead to what is called terrorism", the 93-year-old Mahathir told a protest rally in front of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur. "Today we have an international bully. Trump, go find someone your own size. This (Jerusalem plan) will only stir the anger of the Muslims," said Mahathir, the chairman of Malaysia's opposition coalition. "We must use all our power to oppose this villain who is the president of the United States," he said, urging all Muslim countries to cut ties with Israel. Muhyiddin Yassin, another opposition leader, called on the Malaysian government to not proceed with planned investments in the United States. Last week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak urged Muslims worldwide to oppose any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Social media users in Muslim-majority Malaysia vowed to boycott U.S. companies, such as McDonald's Corp, following Trump's decision. The chain's Malaysian franchise said it did not support or engage in any political or religious conflicts. Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Ahamd Hamidi on Friday said Najib and the leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) would lead a protest rally next Friday in Malaysia's administrative capital of Putrajaya, media said. (Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Melania Trump is helping to spread Christmas cheer this holiday season! The first lady paid a visit to Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to continue an annual tradition. President Donald Trumps wife was on hand to sort and box toys with military families for the Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots campaign.

The program aims to help less fortunate kids throughout the country experience the joy of Christmas, while playing an active role in the development of children. Since her husband took office, Melania has shown an interest in working with children. The mom-of-one was all smiles as she decorated Christmas cards with young boys and girls on December 13.

CLICK FOR FULL GALLERY

VIEW GALLERY The first lady helped decorate holiday cards with children on December 13 Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

During the event, Barron Trumps mother delivered remarks, reflecting on her first year as first lady, while also reminding families about the true meaning of the holidays. On a personal note, as my first year as first lady comes to an end, I have had the privilege to witness the spirit and resilience of so many people in our country. After this year's devastating hurricane season, I hope everyone watching at home will consider giving back through programs like Toys for Tot, Melania said.

GALLERY: MELANIA TRUMP'S FIRST LADY STYLE

I've seen people from all over our great nation pitch in to help those who lost everything, and I want to challenge people to continue with that giving spirit over Christmas and in the new year," the 47-year-old added. It is my hope that during this holiday season, people will remember it is not about gifts  it is about family, service and gratitude. We must continue to look out for, and help each other.

VIEW GALLERY Melania wore a festive green jacket for the holiday event Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

MORE: Melania Trump carries out first lady tradition

Melania looked characteristically stylish for the outing wearing a festive emerald pea coat, khaki skinny jeans and sand-colored boots. Ahead of her visit to the military base, the first lady tweeted, Looking forward to visiting @JBABdc today to help @ToysForTots_USA sort & pack toys to be shipped to children across the country in time for #Christmas! Thank you to all who volunteer time for others  esp during the holidays."
Google may be the household name when it comes to search, but Microsoft is hoping it can make its Bing search engine the smartest. The Redmond, Wash.-based company has announced a handful of new features that it says are powered by artificial intelligence. The updates will start rolling out on Wednesday and will continue over the coming week.

The biggest changes enable Bing to be smarter about the information it chooses to display above search results in response to a query. The search engine will now be able to pull information from multiple sources, rather than just one. If a user has a question or request with opposing answers or viewpoints, Bing will be able to aggregate both perspectives and display them at the top of the page.

One example of where users might see this is when typing in a query like side effects of coffee. Once Microsofts updates start to kick in, Bing will be able to pull bits of information from more than one source and show them alongside one another above results, so that users can see both angles without having to dig through a list of links. Google currently answers this type of question with a featured snippet, which is an informational block that sums up an answer with information extracted from a web page.

Similarly, if a search query involves some type of comparison, such as yoga vs. pilates, Bing will surface an information box that breaks down the differences between the two terms, rather than grabbing a snippet from an article. Microsofts Project Brainwave initiative, a platform for boosting real-time AI performance, provides the foundation for these additions to Bing, the company says.

Microsoft is adding other features to Bing as well. One can identify individual objects within photos that appear in image search results so that users can shop for those items. Another enables Bing to offer clarifying questions based on a search query in order to help filter results more precisely.

Story continues

Read more: The Top 10 Gadgets of 2017

The news comes as Google continues to frequently refine its own search engine. Just this month alone, Google updated its featured snippets section to include more images as well as launched a new program that allows celebrities to answer commonly asked questions in search. These features may be different than the functions Microsoft is pursuing with Bing, but the two companies are undoubtedly working toward the same goal of helping provide relevant information quickly without forcing users to trove through reams of data available on the web.

Bing also only accounts for a sliver of search engine traffic: Google held 81% of search engine market share across desktop and mobile devices between Dec. 2016 and Nov. 2017, according to analytics firm NetMarketShare. Baidu placed in second with 7.82% of the market, while Bing landed in third with 5.72%. Google also has a major advantage when it comes to mobile, considering its search bar sits on the home screen of most popular Android phones, and Android is estimated to account for roughly 85% of worldwide smartphone shipments according to IDC projections. Microsoft, meanwhile, recently said it has doesnt intend to release new Windows Phone products. Bing, however, is the default search engine on Microsofts Edge browser, which comes preinstalled on Windows 10 computers.

But Microsofts improvements to Bing are likely about much more than just trying to steal some attention away from Googles massively popular search engine. Smarter search tools will be important as new tech platforms, like virtual assistants, augmented and virtual reality, and smart home devices continue to spread, particularly if theyre relying on search results and history to answer questions or learn more about a users habits. Search is more pervasive in everything we do as we spend more time online, says Michael Inouye, a principal analyst for ABI Research. That digital profile that we have [online] is going to become more valuable, and search is a big part of that.
Friday, December 15, 2017

What to watch today

Investors will be closely watching developments out of Washington, D.C. into the weekend, however, as Thursday brought new challenges for Senate Republicans trying to get a deal on tax reform done by the end of 2017. Republican Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) added new wrinkles to the current progress on getting a tax bill to President Donald Trumps desk by the end of the year. Rubio, who had previously discussed his displeasure with the bill leaving out an expansion to a child care tax credit, said Thursday he opposes the current deal while Lee said he is undecided. Tennessee Senator Bob Corker has also not said if he supports the current version of the bill. Senate Republicans can only afford to lose two votes to still pass the measure.

The economics calendar will give investors readings on manufacturing activity in New York State and industrial production in the U.S. while the earnings calendar has no major reports due out.

Read More

Top news

Heres what you can expect now that the FCC has killed net neutrality: The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to scrap all of its existing net-neutrality rules. The vote to kill net neutrality will first lead to protracted litigation. Should FCCs plan survive that, internet providers will be free to block sites as long as they say theyll do that. ISPs say they wont (and theres zero long-term business logic for them doing so), but this regulatory rollback will also enable them to engage in less-obvious mischief that the government may not be able to punish until years later. [Yahoo Finance]

Trumps grade on the economy drops: In the latest Yahoo Finance Trumponomics Report Card, President Donald Trumps grade on the economy drops from an A- in November to a B for December. Thats a two-notch downgrade. The main reason is weak earnings, which have barely risen this year. [Yahoo Finance]

Rich will get still richer unless policies change: Global inequality has stabilized at high levels in recent years, the World Inequality Report 2018 said Friday, despite gains among the poor in China and much milder disparities in incomes and wealth in Western Europe. It shows inequality has soared since 1980 although the global top 1 percent saw their share of global income slip slightly after the 2008 financial crisis, to just above 20%. [AP]

Story continues

Goldman wants a 100% margin on some bitcoin futures trades: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. demanded some clients set aside funds equal to the full value of their bitcoin futures trade as a condition for clearing the transaction, according to people familiar with the investments. The demands deterred some clients from seeking to clear trades through the bank and led them to take their business elsewhere. [Bloomberg]

Oracle topped Wall Street targets, but the stock fell: Oracle reported strong quarterly results after the closing bell on Thursday afternoon, beating Wall Street expectations. It reported quarterly revenue of $9.63 billion, up 6.2% year-over-year. Even so, the stock was down more than 4% in after-hours trading. [Business Insider]

Jedi Stormtroopers invade TCL Chinese Theaters to deliver Red Robin Gourmet Burger Bars to fans waiting in line for the highly anticipated movie premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in Hollywood, Calif. (Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews/AP Images)

Yahoo Finance Originals

Watchlist: Stocks with exposure to bitcoin

What Disney will do with Foxs regional sports networks

Walmart employees should use the new early pay policy as a last resort

8 travel gifts under $60







Like what you just read? Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. And feel free to share it with a friend!

The Morning Brief provides a quick rundown on what to watch in the markets, top news stories, and the best of Yahoo Finance Originals.
NASA announced on December 14 that it had found an eighth planet orbiting Kepler-90, a Sun-like star about 2,545 light-years from Earth. The discovery means our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star, NASA said.

The planet, called Kepler-90i, was found in data gathered by NASAs planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope with the help of Google machine learning, or artificial intelligence.

NASA said the sizzling hot, rocky planet orbits the star every 14.4 days. Credit: NASA via Storyful
By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Nigerian man was sentenced to three years and five months in prison by a U.S. judge on Thursday after he pleaded guilty to taking part in email scams to defraud thousands of victims around the world of millions of dollars, U.S. prosecutors said.

David Chukwuneke Adindu, 30, was sentenced U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan, according to an announcement from Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan.

Prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday that Adindu tricked victims into wiring more than $25 million into bank accounts he opened in China, where they said the funds would be difficult for victims in the United States to recover.

Gary Conroy, a lawyer for Adindu, said Adindu's role consisted mostly of setting up bank accounts in China and Hong Kong. He noted that the sentence was substantially less than the 97 to 121 months called for by federal guidelines.

"I think the judge accurately assessed his relatively minor role in this conspiracy," Conroy said.

Adindu defrauded his victims by impersonating executives or vendors of companies, prosecutors said, directing employees of those companies to make large wire transfers. Such scams are known as "business email compromise."

Prosecutors said in Tuesday's court submission that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has found that business email compromise scammers often use Chinese bank accounts.

Adindu was arrested at a Houston airport last year. Prosecutors said in an indictment that Adindu, who during the period in question resided in both Guangzhou, China, and Lagos, Nigeria, worked with others to carry out business email compromise scams from 2014 to 2016.

Prosecutors said the scammers' targets included an unnamed New York investment firm, where an employee received an email claiming in June 2015 to be from an investment adviser at another firm asking for a $25,200 wire transfer.

The employee later learned the email was not actually sent by that adviser and as a result did not comply with a second wire transfer request for $75,100, according to the indictment.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Bill Trott)
Rex Tillerson said America was ready for talks with North Korea, but other Trump officials aren't so sure: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Officials in Donald Trump's administration have appeared to contradict Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's claim that the US could open talks with North Korea without preconditions.

Mr Tillerson broached the possibility of dialogue with the secretive communist state out of a desire to just meet.

He added that such talks would need to occur amid a period of quiet from North Korea, his suggestion still extended a diplomatic opening to a nation that has shown few signs of restraint.

However, other Trump administration officials said no negotiations could begin until North Korea renounced its belligerent posture.

The pariah state has conducted multiple ballistic missile tests in recent months, boasting after its last one that it could strike the mainland United States, and threatened American allies with annihilation.

Clearly right now is not the time, an unnamed National Security Council official told Reuters.

Responding to a question about whether Mr Tillersons position differed from the White Houses policy, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the Secretary was not creating any new policy and that he was on the same page as the White House.

Our policy remains exactly the same as it was, Ms Nauert said, calling diplomacy the administrations top priority and saying we remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a credible dialogue on the peaceful de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. We are not seeing any evidence that they are ready to sit down and have those kinds of conversations.

When somebody is shooting off ballistic missiles, when someone is conducting advanced nuclear tests, theyre not showing any kind of interest or seriousness about wanting to sit down too talk, she added.

Mr Tillerson has diverged from other administration officials in the past. He was said to support keeping America in the Paris climate pact, cutting against Donald Trumps decision to pull the country from the agreement.

Story continues

There have been rumours in recent weeks that the White House has batted down rumours that Mr Trump was seeking to replace Mr Tillerson.

While the President has urged a peaceful solution to escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, he has also provoked the countrys leadership by nicknaming leader Kim Jong-un Little Rocket Man.

In a United Nations speech, he also warned that America would totally destroy North Korea if necessary  a statement that Pyongyang called a declaration of war.
Ms Manigault Newman has maintained that she is leaving the White House amicably: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

Omarosa Manigault Newman has become the latest top White House employee to resign amid rumors of conflict, and her time in the West Wing will reportedly come to an end exactly one year after President Donald Trump took the oath of office in January.

As one of the most prominent African American women supporting Mr Trump  much less serving in the White House  Ms Manigault Newmans departure has garnered attention for the former The Apprentice contestant.

Heres what you need to know about Ms Manigault Newman.

Who is she?

Ms Manigault Newman is a former staffer for former Vice President Al Gore, and a reality television star.

She worked in the 1990s for Mr Gore, and later came into the public eye in 2004 when she became a participant on the NBC reality television series The Apprentice, which Mr Trump hosted.

During her stint on that show, she became well known to the American public for her controversial, and aggressive tactics against her fellow contestants. That behavior led to her being crowned the woman America loved to hate, although Ms Manigault Newman has taken issue with her being seen as a villain, instead saying that she should be considered a shrewd businesswoman because men would not be viewed in a negative light for similar behavioiur.

Ms Manigault Newman later became the only contestant from the original Apprentice to be invited back for the shows sequel, The Celebrity Apprentice, which Mr Trump also hosted. She was later fired after sparking a feud with Piers Morgan.

How did she get involved with politics?

Her most recent spate in the political world began in July of last year during the Republican National Convention, when she announced that she had been named the director of African American outreach for Mr Trumps campaign.

She was later announced as one of the nine members on Mr Trumps presidential transition team following the election.

What did she do in the White House?

Ms Manigault Newman was an assistant to the President, and the Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liason. Individuals in that role generally organize meet and greets and public events between the President and key interest groups.

Story continues

Why has she been controversial?

Some reports have indicated that Ms Manigault Newman was pushed out of the White House for relentlessly pushing to have more access and power, which White House Chief of Staff John Kelly declined to give her (Ms Manigault Newman and the White House both deny these claims).

Other reports indicate that she had significant access while working for the White House, which Mr Kelly reigned in after taking over the chief of staff position, tasked with the challenge of stabilizing what was an incredibly rocky ship. Among the things that reportedly got under Mr Kellys skin were instances like one in which Ms Manigault Newman invited her wedding party to the White House for photos, reportedly without giving adequate prior notice.

Why does she say she resigned?

Ms Manigault Newman and the White House are parting ways amicably, at least publicly. Ms Manigault Newman says that she had always planned on leaving the White House after a single year of service, so she can go ahead and live her life.

She did, however, confirm that she was upset with some things she had seen in the Trump White House, and has indicated that those issues were race related. Those issues have reportedly included a disagreement over Mr Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville, when a white supremacist allegedly drove a car through a crowd of peaceful protesters, killing one.

What is happening now that shes leaving?

Its unclear if her departure will have a significant impact on the current operations of the White House, or if her position will be filled. One thing that is sure, though, is that her resignation will leave behind an even less diverse staff in a White House that is already known for neglecting those concerns.

One thing appears clear, though: Ms Manigault Newman plans on telling the story of her tenure in the White House in the future. While she recently refused to discuss personal interractions while there, she has indicated that she has an incredible story to tell.
Patagonia publicly denounced President Trumps decision to reduce the size of the Bears Ears monument. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

Nearly two weeks after the outdoor apparel and gear retailer Patagonia publicly denounced President Trumps decision to reduce the size of the Bears Ears monument, Congress has called for the companys chief executive to present its case before the nations lawmakers.

Rob Bishop, the Republican congressman representing Utah who is serving as the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, delivered a letter to Patagonias CEO and founder, Yvon Chouinard, inviting him to testify before Congress.

It is apparent through multiple media accounts and appearances that you have strong feelings on this topic as well, the letter reads. The Committee believes that major public policy decisions involving millions of acres of public land should be discussed, debated, and considered in the light of day.

On Dec. 4, Patagonia changed its site homepage to proclaim, The President Stole Your Land. In an illegal move, the president just reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. This is the largest elimination of protected land in American history. While some shoppers threatened theyd stop giving business to the retailer, sales actually spiked in the weeks following the announcement (hardly surprising, considering the general ineffectiveness of consumer boycotts related to the Trump administration.)

We first learned of this invitation through press reports, says Corley Kenna, a Patagonia spokesperson, in a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle. We are reviewing the invitation now and will get back to the committee as soon as we are able.

Read more from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
By Vladimir Soldatkin and Jack Stubbs MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the United States was in the grip of a fabricated spymania whipped up by President Donald Trump's opponents but he thought battered U.S.-Russia relations would recover one day. Putin, who said he was on first name terms with Trump, also praised the U.S. president for what he said were his achievements. "I'm not the one to evaluate the president's work. That needs to be done by the voters, the American people," Putin told his annual news conference in Moscow, in answer to a question. "(But) we are objectively seeing that there have been some major accomplishments, even in the short time he has been working. Look at how the markets have grown. This speaks to investors' trust in the American economy." Trump took office in January, saying he was keen to mend ties which had fallen to a post-Cold War low. But since then, ties have soured further after U.S. intelligence officials said Russia meddled in the presidential election, something Moscow denies. Congress is also investigating alleged contacts between the Trump election campaign and Russian officials amid allegations that Moscow may have tried to exercise improper influence. Putin dismissed those allegations and the idea of a Russia connection as "fabricated." He shrugged off accusations that Russia's ambassador to the United States had done something wrong by having contacts with Trump campaign figures saying it was "international practice" for diplomats to try to have contacts with all candidates in an election. "What did someone see that was egregious about this? Why does it all have to take on some tint of spymania?," said Putin. "This is all invented by people who oppose Trump to give his work an illegitimate character. The people who do this are dealing a blow to the state of (U.S.) domestic politics," he added, saying the accusations were disrespectful to U.S. voters. Moscow understood that Trump's scope for improving ties with Russia was limited by the scandal, said Putin, but remained keen to try to improve relations. "COMMON THREATS" Washington and Moscow had many common interests, he said, citing the Middle East, North Korea, international terrorism, environmental problems and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "You have to ask him (Trump) if he has such a desire (to improve ties) ... or whether it has disappeared. I hope that he has such a desire," said Putin. "We will normalize our relations and will develop (them) and overcome common threats." However, Putin lashed out at U.S. policy on North Korea, warning a U.S. strike there would have catastrophic consequences. In one of the most dramatic moments of the news conference, Ksenia Sobchak, a TV personality who has said she plans to run against Putin in a presidential election in March, asked him about what she said was the lack of political competition. Putin, 65, has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since the end of 1999. In particular, Sobchak asked about the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny who looks unlikely to be allowed to run in the election due to what Navalny says is a trumped up criminal case. Putin, who polls suggest will be comfortably re-elected, warned that candidates like Navalny would destabilize Russia and usher in chaos if elected. "Do you want attempted coups d'etat? We've lived through all that. Do you really want to go back to all that? I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not want this." Putin said the authorities were not afraid of genuine political competition and promised it would exist. Navalny, commenting on social media, said Putin's response showed that barring him from taking part in next year's presidential election was "a political decision." "It's like he's saying we're in power and we've decided that it (Navalny running) is a bad idea," Navalny said. Putin disclosed he planned to run as an independent candidate and garner support from more than one party, in a sign the former KGB officer may be keen to strengthen his image as a "father of the nation" rather than as a party political figure. Putin named as priority issues nurturing a high-tech economy, improving infrastructure, healthcare, education and productivity and increasing people's real incomes. He coughed his way through the first part of the news conference at times, and misread a placard held up by a journalist which he incorrectly thought said "Bye Bye Putin," an error he quipped was due to age affecting his eyesight. (Reporting by Moscow bureau; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrew Roche and Richard Balmforth)
A British music promoter offered to set up a meeting for then-candidate Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the presidential campaign, according to The Washington Post.

The Post said it obtained an email from July 2015 written by promoter Rob Goldstone, who eventually did help arrange a meeting a year later between Donald Trump Jr. and a lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. The lawyer claimed she had dirt on Trumps Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Maybe he would welcome a meeting with President Putin, Goldstone wrote in the email to Trumps personal assistant, Rhona Graff, according to the Post. The newspaper said it couldnt determine if Graff responded.

The email is part of a trove of documents being examined by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose team is investigating possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign to affect the outcome of the election.

The documents add to a list of actions and attempts to draw Trump closer to the Kremlin. A Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, also worked to arrange a meeting for Trump or campaign members with Putin, according to court documents. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts. Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian government.

The email also shows Trumps connections to Russia and Russian business interests. Trump has known Goldstones pop-star client, Emin Agalarov  and his father, Aras Agalarov, a billionaire Moscow developer with ties to Putin since 2013. That was the year the Agalarovs licensed Trumps Miss Universe pageant to bring it to Moscow.

Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow - if so, will he become my new best friend?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2013

An attorney for Emin Agalarov cast doubt on Goldstones overture to Trump, telling the Post his client couldnt arrange a meeting with Vladimir Putin for anybody.

Story continues

Goldstones offer to Trump began with an invitation to Aras Aglarovs birthday in Moscow. Though Trump was too busy to attend, he did send a birthday card, according to the Post.

Goldstone has been interviewed by congressional investigators, the Post reported, and Graff is to be interviewed in New York next week by members of the House Intelligence Committee.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Alabama has found itself the focus of intense political drama after Doug Jones pulled off a stunning victory, humiliating Donald Trump, enraging Republicans and finally delivering hope and energy to the Democratic Party.

With Mr Joness opponent still refusing to concede victory, Republicans quickly plunged their knives into Steve Bannon, Donald Trumps former strategist and the conservative impresario, who believed former judge Roy Moore would kick-start his anti-establishment operation for the 2018 mid-term elections.

Mr Trump, who had eventually endorsed Mr Moore, despite the allegations of sexual abuse levelled at him  accusations Mr Moore denies  was forced to offer congratulations of sorts to the 63-year-old Democrat.

The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017

But he followed his grudging words with a subsequent tweet in which he sought to distance himself from Mr Moores calamity.

The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election, he said. I was right. Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him.

Speaking from the White House later, Mr Trump said: "Wish we would have gotten the seat. A lot of Republicans feel differently, theyre happy very with the way it turned out, but I would have as the leader of the party, I would have liked to have had the seat".

One of those Republicans was Bob Corker, a frequent critic of Mr Trump who is retiring next year.

"I know we're supposed to cheer for our side of the aisle ... but I'm really, really happy with what happened for all of us in our nation, for people serving in the Senate, to not have to deal with what we were likely going to have to deal with should the outcome have been the other way," Mr Corker said.

Story continues

As for Mr Bannon, critics were quick to offer harsh judgement.

"This guy does not belong on the national stage," Republican Representative Peter King said on CNN. "He's not representing what I stand for. I consider myself a conservative Republican... And, to me, it's demeaning the whole governmental and political process."

The race between Mr Moore and Mr Jones, a prosecutor who had made his name as the man who prosecuted two former Ku Klux Klan members who bombed a black church in 1963 and killed four little girls, was closer than any had expected.

Before the flurry of accusations from a number of women alleged that Mr Moore had assaulted them when they were young girls while he was in his thirties and working as a local prosecutor, Mr Moore was leading the Democrat by a double-digit lead in the polls.

After the claims were published, his numbers started to slip as senior Republicans moved to distance themselves from him. The other sitting Republican senator for Alabama, Richard Shelby, said he could not vote for Mr Moore and would instead write in the name of another Republican on his ballot paper.

It also energised Mr Joness campaign, who worked to reach out to African American voters, younger people and women. He told them they are on the right side of history and on the eve of the election, he told The Independent he believed he could pull it off on Tuesday.

He did just that. Shortly before 9.30pm local time on Tuesday evening, first Fox News, quickly followed by the Associated Press and The Washington Post called the race for Mr Jones. A final tally of votes showed Mr Jones had won 671,151 votes to Mr Moores 650,436, giving the Democrat a 49.9-48.4 victory.

The reporter from The Washington Post, whose newspaper had broken the allegations of sexual assault against Mr Moore, was refused press credentials for the election night rally even though journalists were being allowed in without their passes being checked.

Speaking in Birmingham, Mr Jones thanked his supporters and reminded them he was also celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary. At the same time, supporters of Mr Moore were praying and singing religious songs in the hall they had hired in Montgomery, expecting to be celebrating a win.

A key part of Mr Joness victory appears to have been the turnout of African American women. Exit poll data suggests they made up 18 per cent of the vote and approximately 97 per cent of their support went to Mr Jones. This compared to 65 per cent of white women  who made up 30 per cent of voters  opting for Mr Moore.

I have always believed that the people of Alabama have more in common than divides us, Mr Jones told supporters. We have shown not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way  that we can be unified.

He added: This entire race has been about dignity and respect.

Mr Joness win will undoubtedly give heart to Democrats and critics of Mr Trump. Earlier this year, they were hoping another special election, in Georgias 6th district, would provide them with a win and some much-needed momentum.

Mr Moore asked people to pray to God and come back in the morning (Getty)

As it was, despite a media frenzy, Jon Ossoff failed to beat Republican Karen Handel. The Democrat was a victim, perhaps, of too much expectation.

Hillary Clinton was quick to congratulate Mr Jones and said his victory showed Democrats could win anywhere. But it may not be that simple; not every candidate the Democrats will be facing in 2018 will be confronting accusations of sexual assault.

Most observers believed that had it not been for those revelations, Mr Moore, a staunch religious conservative whose base of supporters is among the 49 per cent of adults in Alabama who identify as evangelical Christians, would have won.

As it was, Mr Joness supporters had the opportunity to dance and sing and take in the pleasures of a most unexpected victory.

I honestly did not know that this was even an option. I didnt think that we could elect a Democrat, 26-year-old campaign volunteer Jess Eddington, her eyes red, told Reuters. I am so proud we did.

Elsewhere Democrats were quick to seize on the win.

The people of Alabama sent a loud and clear message to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, said Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez. You cant call yourself the party of family values as long as youre willing to accept vile men like Roy Moore as members.
The news that Republicans had lost a Senate race in deep-red Alabama had barely hit before the recriminations started, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon quickly emerged as a target.

Staunch conservative Roy Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones, conceding a seat in a state where Democrats face nearly insurmountable odds.

Part of Mr Moores loss could likely be attributed to swirling allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers (Mr Moore rejected those claims as false, saying I have never engaged in sexual misconduct).

But Republicans aligned with the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the party establishment quickly turned their ire on Mr Bannon, a nationalist who broke with much of the party  and Mr Trump  by backing Mr Moore in the Republican primary in lieu of the more moderate Republican, Luther Strange. Taking aim at Republicans who had repudiated Mr Moore, Mr Bannon said on the eve of the election that there was a special place in hell for Republicans opposed to his candidacy.

Not only did Steve Bannon cost us a critical Senate seat in one of the most Republican states in the country, but he also dragged the President of the United States into his fiasco, Senate Leadership Fund CEO Steven Law  whose organisation is aligned with Mr McConnell and is dedicated to electing Republicans  said in a statement.

A former aide to Mr McConnell, Josh Holmes, also blasted Mr Bannon.

I'd just like to thank Steve Bannon for showing us how to lose the reddest state in the union, Mr Holmes said on Twitter.

Some Republicans reacted to Mr Moore's loss not with anger but with relief  among them Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who publicly announced he was donating money to Mr Jones and said, simply, decency wins.

Decency wins  Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) December 13, 2017

Even before sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Moore emerged, he was a controversial figure. He was twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for defying the law, once for refusing to take down a monument to the Ten Commandments and once for ordering state judges to enforce Alabamas ban on same-sex marriage despite the United States Supreme Court overruling state law in declaring same-sex marriage legal.

Story continues

He has also argued a Muslim elected official should not be allowed serve in Congress, embraced a discredited conspiracy theory by questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States and called homosexual conduct abhorrent and a crime against nature that should be illegal.

After helping to mastermind Mr Trumps presidential campaign and serving as a senior White House adviser, Mr Bannon exited the administration and returned to a leadership role at the far-right website Breitbart. He has described his role as ensuring Mr Trump stays faithful to the populist promises that helped him win the presidency.

For its part, Breitbart reacted to Mr Jones upset victory with a tweet that simply read Dude. A followup tweet linked to a page for buying flasks.
Matt Damon recently found himself as a guest star in the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Now he just cant escape it.

Matt Damon, at a screening for Downsizing on Dec. 11, spoke out at length about sexual misconduct in Hollywood  and his comments havent been well received. (Photo by Noam Galai/WireImage)

The generally well-liked star of the upcoming Downsizing was widely criticized after initially saying he had no idea that Weinstein, who helped give him his start by championing Good Will Hunting, had a history of alleged sexual misconduct. Damon, 47, who reportedly helped kill a 2004 story about Weinstein, later admitted that his friend Ben Affleck had long ago made him aware that Gwyneth Paltrow claimed the disgraced movie producer had sexually harassed her.

Because his comments sparked criticism back in October, it would seem as though hed be more prepared when broaching the topic again. But during an interview with Peter Travers for ABC News from Thursday, he yet again angered the internet with his Weinstein views.

I knew I wouldnt want him married to anyone close to me, Damon said of the producer, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by nearly 90 women. But that was the extent of what we knew. I mean, and that wasnt a surprise to anybody. So when you hear Harvey this, Harvey that  I mean, look at the guy. Of course hes a womanizer.  I mean, I dont hang out with him. (Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.)

Matt Damon with Ben Affleck and Harvey Weinstein on Oct. 7, 2016. (Photo: Mireya Acierto/WireImage)

However, though he said, Its wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories, and its totally necessary, he also thinks that theres a spectrum of behavior, right? And were going to have to figure  you know, theres a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldnt be conflated, right?

Damon added, All of that behavior needs to be confronted, but there is a continuum. And on this end of the continuum where you have rape and child molestation or whatever, you know, thats prison. Right? And thats what needs to happen. OK? And then we can talk about rehabilitation and everything else. Thats criminal behavior, and it needs to be dealt with that way. The other stuff is just kind of shameful and gross.

Story continues

While Damon probably should have wrapped up there (or, again, not said anything), he persisted. He shared his thoughts on Al Franken, Louis C.K., Kevin Spacey, and more on Weinstein.

Al Franken: I personally would have preferred if they had an Ethics Committee investigation, you know what I mean? he said about the Minnesota senator, who has announced he will resign. Its like at what point  you know, were so energized to kind of get retribution.  When you see Al Franken taking a picture putting his hands on that womans flak jacket and mugging for the camera, going like that, you know, that is just like a terrible joke, and its not funny. Its wrong, and he shouldnt have done that.  But when you talk about Harvey and what hes accused of, there are no pictures of that. He knew he was up to no good. Theres no witnesses. Theres no pictures. Theres no braggadocio.  So they dont belong in the same category.

Louis C.K.: I dont know all the details. I dont do deep dives on this, but I did see his statement, which kind of, which [was] arresting to me. When he came out and said, I did this. I did these things. These women are all telling the truth. And I just remember thinking, Well, thats the sign of somebody who  well, we can work with that.  I dont know Louis C.K.. Ive never met him. Im a fan of his, but I dont imagine hes going to do those things again. You know what I mean? I imagine the price that hes paid at this point is so beyond anything that he  I just think that we have to kind of start delineating between what these behaviors are.

Kevin Spacey: That was smart, Damon said of Ridley Scott erasing the House of Cards actor from All the Money in the World. That was a total business decision by Ridley. I havent talked to him, but  it wasnt a creative choice for Ridley. Ridley has a big movie coming out  and nobody right now is in the mood to see a Kevin Spacey movie.  And I dont disagree with his decision to do that. I mean, that movie, I think, will do much better without Kevin in it.

Harvey Weinstein: Nobody who made movies for him knew, Damon said of the rape allegations. (Rose McGowan has said differently.) Any human being would have put a stop to that, no matter who he was. They wouldve said absolutely no. You know what I mean?

Damon also shared how he would feel if someone he was close to was accused of sexual assault or harassment. It depends on what the accusation is, he said. It depends whats going on. If its a friend of mine, Im always talking to them. I know the real story if its my friend. If its a colleague  I dont know.  I guess it depends on the situation and the allegation and how believable I think it is.

Of course, Damons very good friend, Casey Affleck, settled a sexual harassment lawsuit, so its hard not to read between the lines there. Also, Ben Affleck apologized for acting inappropriately for groping Hilarie Burton.

Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and Ben Affleck in 2005. (Photo: L. Cohen/WireImage)

Additionally, when asked if were going to see the change in the making of movies now with people being so aware, Damon detailed a hypothetical scenario in which if he had a big movie coming out, what he and his team might do if a false allegation was lodged against him. OK, Ill pay it, but you can never talk about this again, he imagined himself saying. Youre f***ing lying about this, but never talk about this again.

Twitter has not reacted well to Matt Damons thoughts on the topic.

Seems to me like Matt Damon doesn't understand that sexual harassment and rape are both bad. https://t.co/ILHd4Lwl32  Persistent Bree (@Miss___Bree) December 15, 2017

This Matt Damon interview is stunningly tone deaf and so insulting to every female colleague he's ever worked with https://t.co/4Vpc8LdgPk  Jessie Thompson (@jessiecath) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon said re: Casey Affleck accusations "if it's a friend of mine, I know the real story." Allow me to show you the NOPE.  Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama) December 15, 2017

If you ever see Matt Damon in public feel free to slap his ass, he's cool with it  jon "porg expert" rosenberg (@jonrosenberg) December 15, 2017

super privileged white men, please keep giving your opinions on how sexual assault committed by yr peers should be treated, PLEASE it is just SO HELPFUL #mattdamon  Kate Foster (@foster_kate) December 15, 2017

And the suggestion that Louie CKs wasnt that bad and hell never do it again  OK dude. Clueless. Just sit down & LISTEN, Matt Damon. Ugh.  marecognito (@marecognito) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon is here to explain which pervy man behaviors are actually bad and which we are overreacting to. Thanks, Matt! https://t.co/hm54xe1P2G  Jillian Sederholm (@JillianSed) December 15, 2017

Who is the genius who decided what #MeToo really really needed was to hear from Matt Damon?  Julie DiCaro (@JulieDiCaro) December 15, 2017

in 2018, Matt Damon should be cancelled.  Laura Jane Williams (@superlativelyLJ) December 15, 2017

I really miss the days when Matt Damon seemed like the next Tom Hanks  Riley Silverbells (@rileyjsilverman) December 15, 2017

Get you a boo who emphatically yells to you, from another room in the house, BAAAABE! Matt Damon gave the worst interview Ive ever read in my life!  Melissa A. Fabello (@fyeahmfabello) December 15, 2017

i, like most, would like matt damon to shut his dumb mouth for all of eternity, but also i cant help but think this is how all men in hollywood are talking to each other about this  Bryanna Cappadona (@brycappa) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon said re: Casey Affleck accusations "if it's a friend of mine, I know the real story." Allow me to show you the NOPE.  Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama) December 15, 2017

I really need Matt Damon to just shut up, act, and look pretty. Seriously, Dude. Shut. Up.  Geek Girl Diva (@geekgirldiva) December 15, 2017

Another day, another Matt Damon interview that reads like one of those long fall videos https://t.co/zLwaPpXLvk pic.twitter.com/UHIQ8YmVJP  Laura Hudson (@laura_hudson) December 14, 2017

Thank you, Matt Damon, for clearing that up, said no woman ever.  Mighty Scribe (@themightyscribe) December 15, 2017

Dear Matt Damons manager. You really should consider telling Matt to just not talk about the climate of sexual assault in Hollywood, its just not gonna go well. Sincerely, everyone else  GhostOfCHRISmasPast (@Clarkey9) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon has revealed his true self during these months pic.twitter.com/T6bBAsFYW7  STIRGUS SACCHETTI (@stirgussa) December 15, 2017

If somehow you're still stan Matt Damon.. please reexamine yourself  FromShan (@shanshiku) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon continues his "Thoughts I have that shouldn't be shared bc I'm really ruining my good guy image " Tour. https://t.co/j6nv4d0kY7  Sara Marie (@Ms_SaraMarie) December 15, 2017

It's almost astounding to me how Matt Damon has the uncanny ability to say the completely wrong thing at the completely wrong time.  Dame James (@rantsofadiva) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon, noted father of 27 daughters, sure does love to tag into the sexual assault defense game a lot  Patrick Hosmer (@patrickhosmer) December 15, 2017

Matt Damon, no one likes these apples. Absolutely no one. https://t.co/sPHQVgLYi0  Kate Ward (@kateward) December 15, 2017

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
China's relationship with South Korea has been testy since Seoul allowed the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system on domestic soil, but that may soon change as the world's second-largest economy needs a few favors from its neighbor too. South Korean President Moon Jae-in arrived in Beijing on Wednesday and will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. This comes after China and South Korea in October agreed to work to get their relations back on track after a year-long standoff over the deployment the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The deadlock hurt trade and South Korea's business interests in China but the two countries are now exploring opportunities to work together against the backdrop of an unpredictable North Korea . "There is no question that China is extremely worried about the downward spiral of the North Korean crisis," said Christopher Hill, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and the current dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. "There seems to be no hope coming, and I think there's going to be an effort with the South Koreans to see if there's anything that can be done," Hill told CNBC on Thursday. Beijing is worried about the short-term fallout from the North Korean crisis as President Donald Trump is untested in the region, Hill said. "The basic concern is that the Trump administration is not willing to move in any new way on North Korea, but neither are the North Koreans," said Hill."There must be a great deal of concern of what could happen in the short run not just because of North Korea, but because of the combustible relationship there is between North Korea and the United States," added Hill.China may also have other items on its wishlist."The hope is that South Korea can play the kind of role that the U.K. has played in European politics, that is South Korea can somehow deliver  in the Chinese view  a more reasonable U.S. (foreign) policy," said Hill. In what is seen as a signal of goodwill, Beijing has started lifting curbs on group tours to South Korea and on K-pop , which is popular in China. China's relationship with South Korea has been testy since Seoul allowed the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system on domestic soil, but that may soon change as the world's second-largest economy needs a few favors from its neighbor too. South Korean President Moon Jae-in arrived in Beijing on Wednesday and will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. This comes after China and South Korea in October agreed to work to get their relations back on track after a year-long standoff over the deployment the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The deadlock hurt trade and South Korea's business interests in China but the two countries are now exploring opportunities to work together against the backdrop of an unpredictable North Korea . "There is no question that China is extremely worried about the downward spiral of the North Korean crisis," said Christopher Hill, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and the current dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. "There seems to be no hope coming, and I think there's going to be an effort with the South Koreans to see if there's anything that can be done," Hill told CNBC on Thursday. Beijing is worried about the short-term fallout from the North Korean crisis as President Donald Trump is untested in the region, Hill said. "The basic concern is that the Trump administration is not willing to move in any new way on North Korea, but neither are the North Koreans," said Hill. "There must be a great deal of concern of what could happen in the short run not just because of North Korea, but because of the combustible relationship there is between North Korea and the United States," added Hill. China may also have other items on its wishlist. "The hope is that South Korea can play the kind of role that the U.K. has played in European politics, that is South Korea can somehow deliver  in the Chinese view  a more reasonable U.S. (foreign) policy," said Hill. In what is seen as a signal of goodwill, Beijing has started lifting curbs on group tours to South Korea and on K-pop , which is popular in China.



More From CNBC


With 2017 coming to an end, were sharing one of the most generous love stories of the year. Brace yourselves.

Houston natives Shellie Schoellkopf and Robert Callaway were supposed to get married in a big Southern ceremony and reception in their home state of Texas on October 7th. Hurricane Harvey had other plans. The couple decided to cancel their reception and donate the $5,000 price tag of the post-ceremony party to help their community, which was devastated after the storm. This story of paying it forward doesnt end there either.

Meanwhile, a few hundred miles north, local New York married couple, Cat Greenleaf (who you may recognize from USAs Talk Stoop where she interviews celebs on her stoop in Brooklyn with her rescue pups) and her husband Mike Rey, had recently opened a stunning wedding venue upstate, The Catskill Mountain House. Moved by Shellie and Roberts story, they flew them out for an elopement re-do and honeymoon on the gorgeous property, complete with a glamorous tour of New York City to see the sights.

From timeless crystal flutes that would make Liz Taylor swoon to charming Airstream caravans and bold patterns, these photos captured by Mekina Saylor Weddings will take you back in time to what feels like a 1960s movie set. If this story of paying it forward (twice!) doesnt give you the warm and fuzzies, I dont know what will.

Photography: Mekina Saylor Weddings | Venue: The Catskill Mountain House
A U.K. surgeon has pleaded guilty to branding his initials on patients organs. (Photo: Getty Images)

Patients going into surgery typically have a list of questions for their doctor. Now they may need to add another: Are you going to brand your initials on my internal organs?

Simon Bramhall, a liver, spleen, and pancreatic surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, West Midlands, has admitted to searing the initials SB inside his liver transplant patients. According to the Denver Post, Bramhall used an electric beam  typically used to cauterize blood vessels  to brand his initials onto the livers of two transplant patients. He has pleaded guilty to two counts of assault.

The brands, while shocking and invasive, would typically heal as the patient recovered from the transplant. But according to the Telegraph, one patient needed a follow-up operation, and thats when doctors discovered the branding. Bramhall was suspended from the hospital in December 2013  only to be reinstated in April 2014 pending an internal investigation. The following month, he resigned, citing a stress-induced illness.

Bramhall is now facing criminal charges, and has pleaded guilty to assault charges at Birmingham Crown Court. The case is without legal precedent in criminal law, the Telegraph reports.

As the case moves forward, Crown Prosecution Service specialist prosecutor Elizabeth Reid sums up the case for the prosecution: It was an intentional application of unlawful force to a patient whilst anaesthetised. His acts in marking the livers of those patients, in a wholly unnecessary way, were deliberate and conscious acts on his part. Those assaults were wrong not just ethically, but also criminally. It was an abuse of the trust placed in him by the patients.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.




NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik is helped out of a Russian Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft just minutes after he and two other spacefliers landed in a remote area of Kazakhstan. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

News Brief: Three spacefliers landed safely in the frigid steppes of Kazakhstan today after riding their Russian Soyuz spacecraft down from the International Space Station. Temperatures were around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds that made it feel like 5 degrees below zero. NASAs Randy Bresnik, Russias Sergey Ryazanskiy and Italys Paolo Nespoli spent four and a half months on the orbital outpost, conducting science experiments, doing spacewalks and dealing with four cargo shipments. Three of their crewmates are still in orbit, and three new crew members are due to arrive on Tuesday.

More from GeekWire:
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson scrapped an offer to talk without preconditions to North Korea from the text of his high-level U.N. speech delivered Friday, marking a further retreat from the diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang he made just three days ago.

The reversal by Americas top diplomat, which followed pressure from the White House, marked an extraordinary turn of events that raises questions about President Donald Trumps willingness to look for a diplomatic answer to North Koreas quest for nuclear weapons.

In remarks before the U.N. Security Council on Friday, Tillerson said we will never accept a nuclear North Korea. While saying that Washington favored a peaceful outcome to the crisis, he made clear this weeks offer to negotiate is apparently no longer valid.

A sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behavior must occur before talks can begin. North Korea must earn its way back to the table, he said.

North Koreas growing nuclear capabilities amount to a direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world, Tillerson told the 15-nation council at a high-level meeting on nuclear nonproliferation convened by Japan, which currently holds the UNSC rotating presidency.

The United States will not allow the regime in Pyongyang to hold the world hostage, Tillerson said. We do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea. But he added: The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression.

On Tuesday, Tillerson expressed interest in restarting talks with North Korea without preconditions, and planned to reiterate that offer, according to the prepared version of his remarks, which were distributed to the press ahead of Fridays speech. But that line was omitted from the speech he gave to the Security Council.

Tillersons speech came just as the Trump administration is scrambling to get its messaging straight on how it wants to deal with North Korea, signaling growing rifts between the embattled secretary of state and the White House.

Story continues

After Tillersons initial offer of talks on Tuesday, the White House rebuffed his comments, and the State Department quickly backtracked. For the third time in recent months, reports emerged from White House sources that Trump was thinking of canning Tillerson, who appeared publicly at odds again with the White House line on North Korea.

In his Friday speech, Tillerson returned to a tougher stance and took particular aim at what the administration sees as lackluster effort by China and Russia to pressure Pyongyang. He noted that Beijing and Moscow continue to engage in economic activity that strengthens North Koreas capacity to fund its nuclear and missile developments, and raised questions about their commitment to peace.

Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions in Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russias dedication as a partner for peace, he added. Similarly, as Chinese crude oil flows to North Korean refineries, the United States questions Chinas commitment to solving an issue that has serious implications for the security of its own citizens.

Chinas deputy U.N. ambassador, Wu Haitao, said Beijing has already made sacrifices by clamping down on business it does with North Korea.

China has made a greater effort and paid a higher price than anyone else, he said. It is irresponsible to doubt or challenge what China has done.

Wu also urged Washington to tone down its belligerent rhetoric, saying there is no military option when it comes to the settlement of the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula, he said. Resort to force can only bring disastrous consequences to the peninsula.

Russias U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, while condemning North Koreas nuclear weapons, also blamed U.S. military exercises in the region, as well as additional sanctions, for aggravating the crisis  which force us to wonder about the sincerity of U.S. claims that it wants to peaceful resolution of the crisis, he said.

North Koreas U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, accused the Security Council of having double standards and prejudice for singling his country out, insisting North Koreas nuclear weapons were defensive and didnt violate any international law.

If anyone is to blame for it, the U.S. is the one who must be held accountable, Ja said, accusing the United States of blackmailing other countries with its nuclear weapons.

Tillerson countered by pinning the blame on North Koreas leadership. They alone are responsible for these tensions, they alone must take responsibility for these tensions, and they alone can solve these tensions, he said.

The diplomatic standoff between Washington and Pyongyang has heightened international anxiety over the prospects of war on the Korean Peninsula.

I am deeply concerned by the risk of military confrontation, including as a result of unintended miscalculation, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the council. Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences.

Guterres sharply criticized North Korea, saying its actions show a blatant disregard for the will and resolutions of the Security Council and undermines the international norms against nuclear testing and the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Since Trump took office, North Korea has conducted 20 missile tests, including the launch of two intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, in violation of U.N. resolutions. North Korea is also the only country in the world to have violated a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing. On Sept. 3, Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear test the year, unleashing an earthquake of 6.1 magnitude.

But Guterres also delivered criticism of Trump, who has insulted and threatened Kim over Twitter, while also publicly undercutting Tillersons efforts at diplomatic outreach.

The risk of war, Guterres said, is being multiplied by misplaced over-confidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels. It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels.
Google released its Year in Search on Wednesday, including the top 10 highest-searched questions of 2017. Its a wide-ranging list that includes everything that grabbed the attention of internet-surfers in a year dominated by political changes and natural phenomena.

Some of the top Google searches this year include questions on how to define both serious and lighthearted words and phrases related to Donald Trumps presidency. One, covfefe, remains a mystery months after its creation. Half of the top Google searches are linked to the Trump Administration. Its unclear how many people searched each question, since Google said it does not have that data. But each search is tied to a significant news event this year.

Here are answers to some of the top-searched Google questions in 2017.

What is DACA?

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a U.S. government program more commonly known as DACA, protects some undocumented immigrants who came to the country illegally as children by allowing them to file a request to temporarily avoid deportation and remain in the country. Supporters say it offered a path out of the shadows for immigrants who have known no other home than the United States. The Trump Administration rescinded the program in September. About 800,000 people are currently protected by DACA, which was launched in 2012 under President Barack Obama. I do not favor punishing children, most of whom are now adults, for the actions of their parents. But we must also recognize that we are nation of opportunity because we are a nation of laws, President Donald Trump said in a statement.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency system that is used to make payments around the world. It has grown exceedingly popular since its development around 2008. Bitcoin uses a technology called the blockchain that functions as a public ledger, helping people spend and receive bitcoin without a centralized oversight system. In December, the value of Bitcoin soared past $17,000 as major trading exchanges began offering investors bitcoin futures. Roger Ver, the CEO Bitcoin.com, called the electronic cash system one of the most important inventions in all of human history, according to the companys website. But doubters like JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon consider bitcoin a fraud.

Story continues

What is a solar eclipse?

A solar eclipse is a celestial event that occurs when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and either partially or completely covers the entire face of the sun. In August, a total solar eclipse  visible only in the U.S.  sailed across the country from coast to coast for the first time in American history.

What is antifa?

Antifa (short for anti-fascist) is a broad term used for a collective group of left-wing activist types who oppose fascism. The term can also be extended to people who oppose anyone who supports their nation in an oppressive manner or anyone who thinks one race is superior to others. The antifa movement gained national attention in August when violent protests broke out in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacy groups had gathered to rally against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Some have accused members of instigating violence and causing more damage than those they oppose  charges antifa supporters deny.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is government regulation that ensures Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon treat all web content equally, meaning they cannot selectively restrict access or slow down or speed up service based on a websites popularity, success or financial ties to the ISP. In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in favor of net neutrality after a push from President Obama. An entrepreneurs fledgling company should have the same chance to succeed as established corporations, and that access to a high school students blog shouldnt be unfairly slowed down to make way for advertisers with more money, the Obama Administration said at the time. However, in November, Trump administration FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he plans to repeal net neutrality regulations. Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet, he said in a statement.

What is covfefe?

Nobody really knows what covfefe means, except perhaps President Trump, who used the word in a strange tweet in which he criticized the news media in May. Before it was deleted, Trumps tweet read: Despite the constant negative press covfefe. While the word was likely a typo, it still garnered significant attention. Trump never explained the message. Instead, he teased those who were baffled by it. Who can figure out the true meaning of covfefe ??? Enjoy! he later tweeted.

Who can figure out the true meaning of "covfefe" ??? Enjoy!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

What is the antikythera mechanism?

The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient analog astronomical computer that was used more than two centuries ago to track planetary positions and predict lunar and solar eclipses. Scientists believe the device could date as far back as 150 BC. Google celebrated the 115th anniversary of its discovery in May. The artifact, which was powered by a crank, was found in 1902 from a shipwreck at Antikythera, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea.

What is a fidget spinner?

Fidget spinners are hand-held toys that took the world by storm in 2017, attracting both children and adults. The gadgets, which fan out when flicked, dominated Amazons top-selling toys and games list after gaining popularity this spring. They were touted as a way for people with fidgets, or even ADHD, to reduce anxieties and increase focus.

What is the Paris Climate Agreement?

The Paris Climate Agreement is a landmark deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that nearly 200 nations agreed to in 2015. Under the Obama Administration, the U.S. was a signatory. In June, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement, saying it handicaps the U.S. economy in regards to jobs distribution and is unfair at the highest level to America.

What is a hurricane?

A hurricane is a massive storm system that forms over water and makes its way toward land. Hurricanes bring high winds, heavy rainfall and flooding depending on its category. Several storms inflicted significant damage and resulted in dozens of casualties this year, including Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Hurricane Irma in Florida and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Hurricane season in the Atlantic typically peaks between August and October, according to Ready, a federal public service campaign.
A new Trump administration effort could prevent the spouses of highly skilled foreign workers from working legally in the U.S., according to a new statement from the Department of Homeland Security cited by CNN.

The plan concerns the spouses of those foreign nationals who hold H-1B visas, which go to individuals with jobs that require a theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge. In February 2015, the Obama administration decreed that such spouses could legally find work while in the U.S. in an effort to reduce the economic burdens and personal stresses of immigrants.

According to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security offered little context for its decision to reverse the Obama-era rule, citing only the new administrations America first emphasis on immigration policy.

The Trump administration also plans to reevaluate and likely narrow the eligibility rules for H-1B visas, saying it wants to increase focus on truly obtaining the best and brightest foreign nationals.
President Donald Trump speaks to a group of families, Young Republicans and College Republicans at the White House: Chris Kleponis/Getty Images

White House officials have claimed they purposefully leave information on Russian interference out of Donald Trumps daily briefings for fear it will upset him.

Current and former administration officials told the Washington Post they frequently plan the Presidents daily brief (PDB,) around his suspected emotional reactions. Information about Russia, and its alleged attempts to influence the American political system, is among the most likely to set him off.

If you talk about Russia, meddling, interference  that takes the PDB off the rails, a former senior US intelligence official told the Post.

For that reason, officials occasionally avoid putting new information about Russia in the oral briefing, leaving it to the written briefing notes instead. At other times, officials said, they place information at strategic times throughout the briefing to keep the President from flying off the handle.

Even the National Security Council does not raise the issue of Russian interference outside of its own, lower levels, for fear of angering the President, a former high-ranking Trump administration official said.

Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, did not directly dispute these accounts, but told the Post that the intelligence community always provides objective intelligence  including on Russia  to the president and his staff".

The CIA, NSA, and FBI have all concluded with high confidence that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election on the orders of President Vladimir Putin. The directors of all three intelligence agencies told Mr Trump earlier this year that they had captured Mr Putins explicit instructions on the project, according to the Post.

Still, the President has repeatedly downplayed the agencies findings and suggested that other countries could be responsible for the interference, too.

I think it could very well have been Russia but I think it could very well have been other countries, and I wont be specific, Mr Trump told reporters over the summer. But I think a lot of people interfere. I think it has been happening for a long time.

Story continues

Among the more than 50 current and former US officials interviewed by the Post, explanations for the Presidents hesitance to accept this information differed. Some said Mr Trump fears that acknowledging Russian meddling would give credibility to allegations that his campaign colluded with Moscow.

Others, however, said insinuations that Russia  and not Mr Trump alone  had bolstered his election victory were simply a threat to the Presidents ego.

If you say Russian interference, to him its all about him, a senior Republican strategist said. He judges everything as about him.

Related Video:
Lawyer Jay Sekulow argued for no dawdling in seating a new senator after a special election. (Photo: Rick Diamond via Getty Images)

Jay Sekulow, one of President Donald Trumps lawyers, excoriated Senate Democrats in a 2010 blog post for not moving quickly enough to seat Republican Scott Brown after he won a special election for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.

Sekulows comments are of renewed interest today because of concern that GOP Senate leaders will drag their feet in seating Democrat Doug Jones, who won a special election in Alabama on Tuesday. Jones unexpected victory means Republicans margin of control in the Senate will narrow. GOP leaders may try to push through their tax plan before Jones is seated.

Democrats are calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to seat Jones quickly, but McConnell indicated on Tuesday that the new senator will not be sworn in during the current session, which ends Dec. 22. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) said the earliest he can certify the election results is Dec. 26. The latest the state can certify the results is Jan. 3.

In 2010, Sekulow wrote that it was outrageous for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to wait for the results of Browns election to be certified before seating him in the Senate. He accused Democrats of disenfranchising Massachusetts voters, and his organization, the American Center for Law and Justice, threatened to sue.

Theres absolutely no reason to wait to seat Senator-elect Brown and with each passing day he is prevented from participating in the legislative process, Sekulow wrote less than a week after Scotts electoral victory. This delay tactic along with reports that top Democrats continue to plot passage of health care reform show that its business as usual in Washington ignoring the will of Massachusetts voters and moving forward with a disturbing health care plan that America simply does not want.

Sekulow did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

When Brown was elected, Reid said that Senate Democrats would halt work on the Affordable Care Act until Brown arrived. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited that precedent on Wednesday when he called for Republicans to delay a vote on their tax bill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, called the idea of slowing down a vote laughable.

Story continues

Brown was sworn in as a senator 16 days after his election.

Also on HuffPost

Alabama State Capitol (Montgomery, Ala.)

Pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Alaska State Capitol (Juneau, Alaska)

Pictured on Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Chris Miller)

Arizona State Capitol (Phoenix)

Pictured on Friday, April 23, 2010. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Arkansas State Capitol (Little Rock, Ark.)

Pictured on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

California State Capitol (Sacramento, Calif.)

Pictured on Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006. (Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

Colorado State Capitol (Denver)

Pictured on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006. (Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Connecticut State Capitol (Hartford, Conn.)

Pictured on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1999. (AP Photo/Bob Child)

Delaware State Capitol (Dover, Del.)

Florida State Capitol (Tallahassee, Fla.)

Pictured on Monday, Jan. 3, 2011. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Georgia State Capitol (Atlanta)

Pictured on Tuesday, November 13, 2007. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

Hawaii State Capitol (Honolulu)

Idaho State Capitol (Boise, Idaho)

Pictured on Monday, Jan. 14, 2008. (Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)

Illinois State Capitol (Springfield, Ill.)

Pictured on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Indiana State Capitol (Indianapolis)

Pictured on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2012. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Iowa State Capitol (Des Moines, Iowa)

Pictured on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Kansas State Capitol (Topeka, Kan.)

Pictured on Thursday, April 15, 2010. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Kentucky State Capitol (Frankfort, Ky.)

Pictured on Wednesday, April 12, 2006. (AP Photo/James Crisp)

Louisiana State Capitol (Baton Rouge, La.)

Pictured on Monday, Jan. 14, 2008. (Matthew HINTON/AFP/Getty Images)

Maine State Capitol (Augusta, Me.)

Pictured on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)

Maryland State House (Annapolis, Md.)

(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Massachusetts State House (Boston)

Pictured on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Michigan State Capitol (Lansing, Mich.)

Pictured on Wednesday, April 13, 2011. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Minnesota State Capitol (St. Paul, Minn.)

Pictured on Friday, July 1, 2011. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Mississippi State Capitol (Jackson, Miss.)

Pictured on Thursday, June 10, 1999. (AP Photo/Rogelio Solis)

Missouri State Capitol (Jefferson City, Mo.)

Pictured on Friday, Oct. 16, 2000. (Photo credit should read ORLIN WAGNER/AFP/Getty Images)

Montana State Capitol (Helena, Mont.)

Nebraska State Capitol (Lincoln, Neb.)

Pictured on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 1998. (AP Photo/S.E. McKee)

Nevada State Capitol (Carson City, Nev.)

New Hampshire State House (Concord, N.H.)

Pictured on Friday, Dec. 28, 2001. (Todd Warshaw//Pool/Getty Images

New Jersey State House (Trenton, N.J.)

Pictured on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

New Mexico State Capitol (Santa Fe, N.M.)

New York State Capitol (Albany, N.Y.)

Pictured on Sunday, March 16, 2008. (Photo by Daniel Barry/Getty Images)

North Carolina State Capitol (Raleigh, N.C.)

Pictured in 1930. (AP Photo)

North Dakota State Capitol (Bismarck, N.D.)

Pictured on Thursday, April 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Dale Wetzel)

Ohio Statehouse (Columbus, Ohio)

Pictured on Tuesday, March 8, 2011. (Photo by Mike Munden/Getty Images)

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Low 22F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 50%..

Tonight

Snow showers this evening. Becoming partly cloudy later. Low 22F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 50%.
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at the FBI inquiry into possible collusion between Moscow and his campaign, and refused to rule out pardoning former aide Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russia.

Trump said it was too early to discuss any pardon for his ex-national security advisor -- which would prompt a political firestorm.

So far, the FBI's sprawling probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election has ensnared at least four members of his campaign inner circle.

"I don't want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet," Trump said before leaving the White House to give remarks at a graduation ceremony at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's academy in Quantico, Virginia.

"I can say this -- when you look at what's gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry," he said.

"When everybody -- not me, when everybody -- the level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad."

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his intelligence and cyber services to help turn the election in Trump's favor.

Amid mounting evidence of campaign contacts with Russian operatives, Trump repeated his denial Friday.

"There is absolutely no collusion. I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it. That was a Democrat hoax. It was an excuse for losing the election," he said.

Trump also blasted as "disgraceful" recently released text messages exchanged by an FBI agent and a lawyer involved in the probe who were critical of the president.

The agent, Peter Strzok, has been removed from the investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director.
President Donald Trump on Friday told graduates of an FBI training program in Quantico, Virginia, hes a loyal champion of police, days after he attacked the bureau and claimed its reputation is in tatters.

I want you to know that with me as your president, Americas police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House, more loyal than anyone else can be, Trump said. He attacked anti-police sentiment and told law enforcers: The president of the United States has your back, 100 percent.

Fridays ceremony honored participants in the FBI National Academy, a 10-week program for police officers and law enforcement leaders. Trump used the speech to praise police officers and promote his anti-immigration and tough-on-crime platform, blasting chain migration policies and a diversity visa lottery, which he has said must be ended to prevent terrorism.

His administration was unable this week to provide any data to support its claim that immigrants who enter the country to join family  chain migration, as they put it  have anything to do with terrorism.

Trump, whose campaign has been under investigation by a special counsel probing Russias meddling in the 2016 election, has frequently attacked the FBI and other national law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters - worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

Trump claimed on Dec. 3 that the FBIs reputation was in tatters and the worst in history under former Director James Comey, whom he fired in May amid the Russia probe. Comey later testified before the Senate that Trump asked him to end the FBIs investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, raising questions of whether Trump obstructed justice.

Story continues

Flynn on Dec. 1 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the Russia investigation.

As he left the White House for Quantico on Friday morning, Trump took another swing.

When you look at whats going on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry, the president told reporters, calling it a very sad thing to watch.

Trump has repeatedly assailed the FBI as the Russia probe intensifies, and has called the investigation a witch hunt.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller removed an FBI agent, Peter Strzok, from the investigation over the summer, after it was discovered that Strzok sent text messages critical of Trump. This also drew the ire of the president, who called the agent tainted (no, very dishonest).

The FBIs Trump-appointed current director, Chris Wray, testified before Congress last week, defending the bureaus brave men and women. During his confirmation over the summer, Wray said Muellers investigation is not a witch hunt.

The FBI National Academy is a prestigious training program that features classes in law, behavioral science, forensic science, terrorism prevention, leadership, communication, and health and fitness. The bureau hosts four sessions each year, with about 220 participants in each, at its campus in Virginia.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
As Republican lawmakers and conservative media continue their attack on special counsel Robert Mueller, President Trump with one word sent a signal that could undermine Muellers investigation, holding out the possibility of a pardon for former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn is believed to be a key witness in the probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In brief comments to reporters on the White House lawn Friday morning, Trump also threw out an attack on the Department of Justice and the FBI.

I dont want to talk about pardons of Michael Flynn yet, Trump said, responding to a question. Well see what happens. Lets see.

Flynn, an early supporter of Trumps presidential bid, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian and is reportedly cooperating with Muellers investigation. A presidential pardon could remove Flynns incentive to continue his cooperation. Trump has stood by Flynn despite firing him less than a month into his administration, telling the general to stay strong as investigators circled him. Trump has previously pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a supporter who was convicted of criminal contempt for illegally detaining immigrants.

President Trump talks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House before departing to visit the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., Dec. 15, 2017. (Photo: Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

On his way to the FBI graduation ceremony in Quantico, Va., Trump also attacked the agency that is currently investigating him.

Were going to rebuild the FBI and make it bigger and better than ever, said Trump, but it is very sad when you look at those documents, its really, really disgraceful and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it. Its a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.

Trump was apparently referring to text messages released by the Department of Justice showing that one of the agents investigating his campaign had earlier made negative remarks about him. The agent was removed from the investigation. A subsequent release of text messages showed he had not limited his insults to Trump but had also criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate last year, and former Attorney General Eric Holder, also a Democrat.

Story continues

Im going today on behalf of the FBI, continued Trump, their new building, when everybody  not me  when everybody, the level of anger at what theyve been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad.

In that remark, Trump was likely referencing the reaction on Fox News, which according to a New York Times report he watches for up to eight hours per day. The conservative network has questioned the legitimacy of the FBI over the last few weeks, with a contributor calling for it to be shut down and an anchor urging a cleansing at the Department of Justice. During his comments Friday morning Trump also said that it had been proven there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia  which is the very question under investigation.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The president visited one of the FBIs campuses, assuring graduates theyre great people despite his criticisms, and yesterday condemned the green card lottery

Donald Trump returns to the White House Friday in Washington DC. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Donald Trump bemoaned the shame of the FBI on Friday, then flew to one of the agencys campuses and declared: You are great people.

The US president also made the false claim that foreign countries send the worst of the worst to America through the green card immigration lottery system.

Having recently claimed the FBIs reputation is in tatters, Trump launched his latest criticism following reports that former an FBI agent watered down director James Comeys statement  in the midst of the 2016 presidential election race  on Hillary Clintons private email server and text messages.

Its a shame whats happened with the FBI, the president told reporters on his way to boarding the Marine One helicopter. But were going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever.

Edits to the Comey draft statement appeared to soften the bureaus finding in its 2016 investigation of Clintons use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

But it is very sad when you look at those documents, Trump added. And how theyve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it. Its a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.

The president then flew to an FBI campus in Quantico, Virginia, where he attended a ceremony for graduates of a 10-week professional course for US and international law enforcement officers.

In his usual improvisational style, Trump seemed to go off script at one point as if to offer reassurance: By the way, you are great people, you are incredible people, he told the gathering. Just so you understand, you are great people doing an incredible job.

Critics regard Trumps frequent attacks on the FBI as an attempt to undermine the credibility of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of alleged collusion between his election campaign and Russia.

Story continues

FBI director Christopher Wray said Trump was the first president to address a graduating class at the FBI training centre since Richard Nixon.

Trump was introduced by attorney general Jeff Sessions, after the pair sat awkwardly alongside one another on stage, apparently not talking and studiously avoiding eye contact.

Trump has been openly critical of his attorney generals decision to recuse himself from oversight of the Mueller inquiry into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and with Russia. Trump said earlier this year if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.

In his rambling address yesterday, the president seemed intent on beginning to heal the rift with the FBI and boosting his law and order credentials. With me as your president, Americas police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House  more loyal than anyone else can be.

He complained: Police departments are overstretched, theyre under-funded and theyre totally under-appreciated, except by me... Anti-police sentiment is wrong and its dangerous and we will not stand for it... We believe criminals who kill police officers should get the death penalty.

The line won cheers and applause.



Not for the first time, Trump bemoaned violent crime in the cities of Chicago and Baltimore, both of which have big African American populations. What the hell is going on in Chicago? he demanded. What the hell is happening there?

Citing recent terrorist attacks in New York, Trump condemned chain migration which allows family members to join relatives and the diversity immigrant visa programme, also known as the green card lottery.

They have a lottery: you pick people, he said peevishly, motioning his hand as if drawing a name out of a hat. Do you think the countrys giving us their best people? He held out his arms in mock incredulity. No. What kind of a system is that?

They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people. They put em in a bin but in his hand, when hes pickin em, is really the worst of the worst. Congratulations, youre going to the United States, its OK. What a system, lottery system.

In fact the US Department of State  not the foreign countries the applicants come from  chooses who has been accepted by the lottery.

Trump added angrily: Were calling on Congress to end chain migration and end the visa lottery system and replace it with a merit-based system of immigration.

The tirade had echoes of the billionaire businessmans infamous campaign launch at Trump Tower in New York in June 2015 when he declared: When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre not sending you. Theyre not sending you. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems, and theyre bringing those problems with us. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Under the green card lottery, up to 55,000 visas are distributed annually to a random selection of countries with lower rates of immigration to the US. Applicants are subject to a minimum education or work requirement. Guidelines posted on the state department website list these as the equivalent of high school in the US or a comparable course of study, and at least two years of experience over the last five years in an occupation requiring a minimum of two years training or experience to perform.

Trump prompted laughter among the law enforcement and family attendees when he attacked the media. Theres the fake news back there: look! he said, pointing to the back of the room. No, actually some of them are fine people. Lets see, whos back there. Yeah, about 30%.
By Lisa Lambert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration is breaking the law in not granting loan relief to students defrauded by Corinthian Colleges and other defunct for-profit schools, according to four U.S. state attorneys general who sued the Education Department and Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, the top law-enforcement officers of New York, Illinois and Massachusetts also said the administration has unlawfully declared that some of the loans are still valid, which has led to involuntary collections from students' paychecks.

Separately, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a parallel complaint in the U.S. District Court in Northern California. According to Becerra, 13,000 former Corinthian students in his state are waiting for the federal government to forgive their loans.

Amid federal and state investigations into how many students found work after graduating from its schools, for-profit Corinthian filed for bankruptcy and abruptly closed its 28 schools in 2015.

The lawsuits come after months of pressure from states, borrower advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who say students cannot repay the often-large debts because the schools did not give them adequate work training or diplomas. By law, anyone the government determines was a victim of education fraud is not required to pay student-loan debt.

The department's inspector general on Monday said it had stopped canceling the debts of people who attended Corinthian, which collapsed in 2015 amid government investigations into its post-graduation rates, and other failed schools.

In the final days of his administration, President Barack Obama approved rules speeding up the debt cancellations. DeVos has delayed implementing those rules, saying they would create significant costs for taxpayers.

Tens of thousands of defaulted borrowers with pending applications for relief are seeing interest charged for the loans mount and their credit scores drop, and are often unable to get additional financial aid to return to school, said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Story continues

Since Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, the department has received 25,991 claims for discharging loans. It has denied two requests and approved none, the inspector general, an independent auditor within the agency, found.

All the attorneys general suing are Democrats.

Representatives from the Education Department did not respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Goma (DR Congo) (AFP) - The UN's chief peacekeeper was in eastern DR Congo on Friday to visit those wounded in last week's deadly ambush that killed 14, the worst attack on a peacekeeping mission in 24 years.

A week after the bloodshed, Jean-Pierre Lacroix was in Goma where he visited around 30 of those injured in the December 7 attack in North Kivu province which targeted a base of the UN's MONUSCO force.

The UN said the ambush, which sparked a prolonged gun battle in which 53 peacekeepers were wounded, was carried out by suspected ADF rebels, a shadowy group dominated by hardline Ugandan Muslims that is one of several armed groups active in the North Kivu region.

All the UN victims, both the dead and the wounded, were from Tanzania, and five Congolese soldiers were also killed.

"I have just come from Tanzania where I was able to see that the whole country is behind you," Lacroix told the wounded at a MONUSCO-run hospital in Goma, North Kivu's capital.

On Thursday, Lacroix was in Dar es Salaam to pay homage to the 14 victims killed in the attack on the base in Semuliki, which is located in a very dangerous area.

During the visit, several peacekeepers spoke about the night of the ambush, telling him there were hundreds of attackers.

"There were a large number of attackers, around 300. They were dressed in civilian clothing although some were wearing Congolese army gear," said two of the men who were lying in neighbouring beds.

The attackers were heavily armed and had RPG rocket-launchers, they said.

- 'They've failed' -

"If they wanted to force us to leave so they can carry on doing what they do, well they've failed. The base will live on," said one UN soldier, alluding to the traffic in minerals which has fuelled the emergence of armed groups in North Kivu.

The attack was the bloodiest against MONUSCO, the UN force that was deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999, and the worst against a UN force since the death of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers in Somalia in June 1993.

Story continues

DR Congo's huge eastern region has long been wracked by violence, but fighting between government soldiers and militia groups, as well as inter-ethnic clashes, has increased significantly this year.

North Kivu province, which borders Uganda and Rwanda, has seen a particular uptick in killings and kidnappings between rival ethnic groups.

Since October 2014, the hardline ADF -- or Allied Democratic Forces -- has been accused by Kinshasa and the UN of killing more than 700 people in the Beni region, where last week's attack also took place.
Geneva (AFP) - The UN on Friday harshly criticised the mass-hanging of 38 men at a prison in southern Iraq this week, urging Baghdad to immediately halt all executions.

Iraq on Thursday hanged 38 jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences at a prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah, according to provincial authorities.

It was the largest number of executions in Iraq on a single day since September 25, when 42 people were put to death in the same prison.

"We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution on Thursday," United Nations human rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.

The hangings, she warned, "once again raises huge concerns about the use of the death penalty in the country".

The UN had determined that all of the 38 executed prisoners were men and had been convicted for terrorism-related crimes, but could say nothing more about their identities, she said.

A prison source however told AFP that they were all Iraqis, but that one also held Swedish nationality.

The executions came after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday declared victory against the Islamic State group after a three-year campaign by government forces backed by a US-led coalition to retake territory seized by the jihadists.

The UN and rights watchdog Amnesty International have repeatedly voiced concerns about the use of the death penalty in Iraq, which ranks among the world's top executioners, after China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"Given the flaws of the Iraqi justice system, it appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases," Throssell warned.

"This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life," she said.

The UN has learned of 106 executions in Iraq so far this year, including the mass-hangings in September.

"We once again urge the Iraqi authorities to halt all executions, establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty and carry out an urgent and comprehensive review of the criminal justice system," Throssell said.
Washington (AFP) - Fentanyl, a potent drug playing a major role in the US opioid crisis described by Donald Trump as a "plague," is now under consideration for use in lethal cocktails to execute inmates.

The states of Nevada and Nebraska are planning to supply prison executioners with the opioid painkiller -- which killed more than 20,000 people in the United States in 2016 -- drawing criticism from doctors and activists who call the move a dangerous human experiment.

They warn of serious risks posed to death row prisoners, who effectively become guinea pigs against their will.

Fentanyl, which also acts as an anesthetic, is 50 times more powerful than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine.

The bid to use fentanyl as a capital punishment tool is due to a shortage of drugs normally used in lethal injections and is not grounded in scientific analysis, according to Deborah Denno, an expert on lethal injection at Fordham University.

"The use of fentanyl by states greatly heightens the risk of a botched -- and therefore painful -- execution in the ways that past execution drugs have demonstrated," she told AFP.

"Each new drug introduces yet another reckless exercise by states in selecting protocols based solely on their accessibility."

The acute shortage of deadly drugs has lasted several years, as several major laboratories refuse to stock US prisons to avoid the bad PR of being associated with the death penalty.

Lethal injections are generally carried out with three substances administered in succession: the first induces a coma, the second paralyzes, and the third stops the heart.

- 'Chaotic' executions -

But in several recent executions the first drug failed to render prisoners fully unconscious, causing them intense suffering prior to death.

"Over the past forty years of their existence, lethal injection executions have never been more chaotic and irresponsible than they are now," Denno said.

Story continues

Last month the state of Ohio had to halt the execution of a critically ill convict, after prison officers failed to find a vein strong enough to receive the lethal dose.

The controversy over lethal substances is contributing to the slowed pace of executions in the United States, a trend confirmed by a report released Thursday by the independent Death Penalty Information Center.

"The long-term national decline of the death penalty continued in 2017, despite efforts by the few states that scheduled executions to carry them out at all costs," the report said.

The US carried out 23 executions in 2017, its second lowest number since 1991 and a far cry from the 98 executions in 1999.

Just eight states performed the executions, while the death penalty is allowed in 31 states.

- New execution methods -

The year should also close with the courts handing down 39 total death sentence verdicts -- again the second lowest since the Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, a decision overturned four years later.

Just 55 percent of Americans say they support the death penalty, according to a Gallup poll -- the lowest share in 45 years.

The controversies over injections are pushing states to consider returning to the electric chair or exploring new methods of execution.

In a controversial move the state of Mississippi in the spring legalized using nitrogen gas chambers if lethal injections are not possible.

"There is no solid information on how such an execution would be conducted," said Denno, emphasizing that it could also violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibiting "cruel and unusual punishment."
By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House natural resources committee chairman on Friday invited outdoor retailer Patagonia's CEO to testify before the panel after the company criticized the Trump administration's decision to drastically reduce two national monuments in Utah.

Chairman Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican, sent a letter to Patagonia founder CEO Yvon Chouinard, asking him to testify before the Committee on the Antiquities Act, national monuments and federal land management.

Patagonia has been feuding with Bishop and Trump administration officials after President Donald Trump said he would reduce the Bears Ears monument, a sacred cultural site for five Native American tribes, by 85 percent and cut the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in half.

Shortly after that announcement, the company changed its website homepage to read: "The President stole your land".

In response, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the House panel criticized Patagonia, accusing the company of lying to the public about the decision to change the monument designations.

"You mean Patagonia, made in China? This is an example of a special interest, Zinke told reporters. I think it is shameful and appalling that they would blatantly lie in order to get money in their coffers. No land, not one square inch, has been transferred or sold.

Patagonia clothing is made in China, as well as other countries, including the United States.

In his letter to Chouinard, Bishop said "it is apparent through multiple media accounts and appearances that you have strong feelings on the topic" and said that it was better to debate land management issues in public.

Patagonia spokeswoman Corley Kenna said the company was reviewing the invitation, which it learned about through press reports.

Patagonia and other outdoor apparel retailers have been outspoken opponents of the Trump administration and the Utah congressional delegation's broader proposals on public lands policy.

Story continues

Patagonia also joined a lawsuit this month challenging the Trump administration's plan to alter national monuments, federal land that is protected from development.

In February, the Outdoor Retailer show, the industry's largest exhibition, decided to stop hosting the multi-million dollar annual event in Utah.

(Reporting By Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Susan Thomas)
ajit pai

Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

The Federal Communications Commission has officially voted to ditch net neutrality, which requires internet providers to treat all data online equally.

A Portuguese internet provider hints at what the American internet could eventually look like.

The company charges people more for additional "zero-rated" data based on the kind of app they want to use, such as those for messaging or for video.



On Thursday, the US Federal Communications Commission officially voted to roll back Obama-era rules governing net neutrality.

Simply put, net neutrality means that all data on the internet is treated equally. An internet service provider can't prioritize certain companies or types of data, charge users more to access certain websites and apps, or charge businesses for preferential access.

Advocates of net neutrality argue that it ensures a level playing field for everyone on the internet. Telecoms firms, however, are largely against it because of the additional restrictions it places on them.

Pro-net neutrality advocates have vowed to fight the FCC in the courts  but what might the American internet look like without net neutrality?

Take a look at Portugal. The country is bound by the European Union's net-neutrality rules, but it allows for certain kinds of pricing schemes that hint at what a net neutality-less internet might look like.

The country's wireless carrier Meo offers a package where users pay for traditional "data" for their smartphones  and on top of that, they can pay for additional packages based on the kind of data and apps they want to use, "zero-rating" those services.

meo internet net neutrality portugal

MEO

Really into messaging? Then pay 4.99 ($5.86 or 4.43) a month and get more data for apps like WhatsApp, Skype, and FaceTime. Prefer social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Messenger, and so on? That'll be another 4.99 a month.

Zero-rating for video apps like Netflix and YouTube are available as another add-on, while music (Spotify, SoundCloud, Google Play Music, etc.) is another, as is email and cloud (Gmail, Yahoo Mail, iCloud, etc.).

Story continues

Net-neutrality advocates argue that this kind of model is dangerous because it risks creating a two-tier system that harms competition  people will just use the big-name apps included in the bundles they pay for, while upstart challengers will be left out in the cold.

For example: If you love watching videos, and Netflix is included in the video bundle but Hulu isn't, you're likely to try to save money by using only Netflix, making it harder for its competitors. (Note: Hulu isn't available in Portugal, but you get the idea.)

And without net neutrality, big-name apps could theoretically even pay telecoms firms for preferential access, offering them money  and smaller companies just couldn't compete with that. (It's not clear whether any of the companies named above have paid for preferential access.)

An ISP could even refuse to grant customers access to an app at all unless they (or the app company) paid up.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California originally shared the Meo example on Twitter in October, though he mischaracterised Portugal's net neutrality laws.

"In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages," he wrote. "A huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people which stifles innovation. This is what's at stake, and that's why we have to save net neutrality."

Yonatan Zunger, a former Google employee, recently retweeted Khanna's tweet, adding: "This isn't even the worst part of ending net neutrality. The worst part happens when ISPs say 'we don't like this site's politics,' or 'this site competes with us,' and block or throttle it."

Tweet Embed:

https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/933024240546193408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Basically, it's a huge giveaway to companies like Comcast and AT&T, who get to charge everyone else piles of money for nothing they aren't doing now.



That money comes from your business, and from every company you buy things from - which means it comes from you.

NOW WATCH: What happens when vegetarians eat meat for the first time

See Also:

SEE ALSO: Tech firms are starting to speak up against the FCC's plan to kill net neutrality: 'We are disappointed'
The White House released the Trump family's first official Christmas portrait on Thursday -- capturing the president and first lady holding hands and smiling as they posed nestled between flags and Christmas trees.

But first son Barron Trump didn't join, which raised some questions -- especially on Twitter. Some users were direct.

"Wheres Barron?" many asked.

SEE ALSO: Trump on Russia-related hearings: 'Next up' is 11-year-old Barron Trump

Others asked if the Trumps forgot about their son.

"Barron didnt make the cut?" one user wrote. Another tweeted: "Trump's e-card seems to be missing what most First Families have. The Family. Have they lost Barron?"

The Obamas also released a handful of Christmas portraits that did not include their daughters, Sasha and Malia, although some photos released by the Obama White House also did include the girls.

But the card marks the second time this week when Barron's absence has raised eyebrows. The Republican Party invited supporters to sign a Christmas card for the Trump family on Monday, in a tweet that featured a photo of the president and first lady, and all four of his children from earlier marriage -- Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany -- but no Barron.

Have you signed the First Familys Christmas card yet? https://t.co/0axqVXwOsNpic.twitter.com/6FGUu9kqv9  GOP (@GOP) December 11, 2017

One possible explanation? Barron is the only Trump child still under 18.

Barron's presence in the White House has been a hot topic all year. The question "Where's Barron?" was first asked when he was conspicuously absent from certain pre-inauguration events. But all those who worried about his whereabouts were calmed by the time the actual inauguration rolled around, as the first son walked alongside his mother and father during the parade.

Story continues

SEE MORE: Ivanka Trump jokes of kids' White House play dates, says Barron 'traumatizes' his nephew

The first lady made waves when she decided to remain in New York for the first few months of the year in order to allow him to finish out the school year in Manhattan. He's attended many kid-friendly White House events, including the annual Easter Egg Roll and even stepped out with his parents to enjoy the Great American Eclipse in August.

And while he may not have made this particular Christmas portrait, Barron is expected to be featured in a father-son portrait.
Doug Jones victory in Alabamas special Senate election Tuesday night upset the status quo in his state in many ways  it put a Democrat from Alabama in the U.S. Senate for the first time in 25 years, and it showed off the political clout of Alabamas black voters.

But amid the tumult of the special election, one thing did not change. White evangelical Christians, longtime supporters of Jones Republican opponent Roy Moore, decided en masse to stand by their man.

According to exit polling conducted by Edison Research, 80 percent of white voters who self-identified as born-again or evangelical Christians voted for the former judge. About 18 percent voted for Jones, while another 2 percent chose to write in a candidate.

About 76 percent of everyone else  those who didnt identify as white evangelical Christian  voted for Jones.

A small number of evangelicals appeared to sit out the election. Evangelicals claimed 44 percent of the total vote in Alabama, The Washington Post reports, even though they made up 47 percent of voters in the 2012 and 2008 presidential elections.

Overall, white evangelical support for Moore in Alabama stayed strong  despite sexual assault allegations that threatened to damage his reputation in national evangelical circles. The exit poll results echoed the overwhelming loyalty that white evangelical Christians across the nation showed the Republican Party during the 2016 election, when about 81 percent voted for President Donald Trump.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore walks on stage Tuesday at his election night party in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters)

Moore has been a favorite of white evangelicals in his state for quite some time. Hes earned a reputation of being a Christian nationalist, someone who believes that America is a Christian nation favored by God, and that the government should advocate Christian, or more specifically, conservative Christian, values. Moores belief that Gods law trumps secular law fuels his approach toward governing, and has gotten him in legal trouble multiple times in the past. He was booted from his post as Alabamas chief justice twice for refusing to follow federal laws that he believed contradicted his religious beliefs.

Story continues

Rev. Carolyn Foster, a deacon at St. Marks Episcopal Church in Birmingham, was one of dozens of progressive Christian ministers in Alabama who signed a letter in November opposing Moores candidacy.

On Wednesday, Foster told HuffPost that she believed the white evangelical voters who supported Moore during the election were blind and deaf to their own unconscious bias.

Roy Moore represented to them a time long past  when blacks and women knew their place and Latinos and Muslims were not even in their sphere of existence, Foster told HuffPost in an email. This type of exclusionary and oppressive form of Christianity distorts the witness of the Church to love neighbor as self. Faith is about attaining love, peace and justice together and never at the expense of another.

A framed Ten Commandments is being carried by a supporter at Republican Roy Moore's election party in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., December 12, 2017. (Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Reuters)

Adam Mixon, pastor of the Zion Spring Baptist Church in Birmingham, signed the letter opposing Moore. He said he believed Republicans were compromising their claim of being the party of family values.

Family values seem not to matter as much as the present conservative agenda. Deep spirituality and faithfulness seem to have been set aside for a pragmatic, win-at-all-cost approach, Mixon told HuffPost in an email. Whatever leverage white evangelicals may have waged with their appeal to family values has been damaged and their witness is bereft of any real consistency.

The unwavering support of Alabamas white evangelicals, particularly after the emergence of sexual assault allegations against Moore, has troubled some national leaders.

In an editorial written before the election, Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of the faith-based publication Christianity Today, stated that no matter the outcome, the biggest loser in the race would be the Christian faith itself.

When it comes to either matters of life and death or personal commitments of the human heart, no one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation. Christianitys integrity is severely tarnished, Galli wrote.

Christian commentator Peter Wehner wrote that the support many Republicans and white evangelicals were giving to Trump and Moore has caused him to rethink his identification with both groups.

Not because my attachment to conservatism and Christianity has weakened, but rather the opposite, he wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. I consider Mr. Trumps Republican Party to be a threat to conservatism, and I have concluded that the term evangelical  despite its rich history of proclaiming the good news of Christ to a broken world  has been so distorted that it is now undermining the Christian witness.

Supporters pray Tuesday during the invocation at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore's election night party in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters)

Although polls demonstrated white evangelical Christians loyalty to Moore and to the Republican Party, black Christians had a decidedly different take.

Exit polls found that black evangelical Christians voted similarly to black Alabamians overall. About 95 percent of black evangelicals voted for Jones, while 98 percent of black non-evangelicals did the same, according to The Washington Post.

Mixon said that black Baptists in his state tended to be very conservative morally and religiously, but progressive on political issues. He compared black Christians in his state to prophets in the Bible who, because of their position at the margins of society, had a better and clearer view of its ills.

I believe this is the gift and the burden that black Christians and other Christians of color have been forced to bear for the duration of our national past, he wrote. Our suffering has proven redemptive for a nation that has often failed to live up to its creed  that all people are created equal! We are the canaries in the mines.

Foster said that black voters presence at the polls on Tuesday should be a wake up call for Alabama.

Black Christians rose up and said, No more. They made the difference in this election, Foster wrote. Blacks have always found strength in the church. That strength showed up at the polls and I believe will continue to move out into the community in the days ahead.

This article has been updated with comments from Adam Mixon.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Also on HuffPost

Rev. Jennifer Bailey

Bailey, a clergywoman for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, on the (s)heroes who inspired her feminism:



"As a Christian leader, my feminism means daily affirming the full humanity and capabilities of women as part of God's beloved creation and their sacred work in the world. It also means honoring the sacrifices, courage and labor of the many female saints of God that it made it possible for me to wear my clerical robe and preach the gospel of Jesus. Historic figures like Jarena Lee, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie paved the way for me as did the unsung (s)heroes and everyday church mothers whose work has kept the church alive and flourishing since its inception. We still have a long way to go to completely shatter the stained glass ceiling but the ancestors have shown is it is possible by holding to God's unchanging hand. Blessed be her Holy Name."

Sarah Bessey

Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, on how feminism could impact the church's mission:



"It was following Jesus that made a feminist out of me! That discipleship lead me to caring about everything from maternal health in Haiti to sexism in the Church as issues of justice close to God's heart. Patriarchy is not God's dream for humanity: It never was and it never will be. I remain hopeful, too - more and more people are waking up to what wholeness and peace-making can look like for both men and women in the Kingdom of God which changes things on both a small personal scale but also helps to move the needle forward when it comes to systemic injustice, too."

Vicky Beeching

Beeching, a theologian, broadcaster, and LGBT activist, on why Christians can be feminists:



"To me, feminism means championing the rights and equality of women. Jesus treated women in ways that were truly radical for his era, so I've argued for years that Christ should be considered a feminist. The church has seemed afraid of the feminist movement, unsettled by it somehow; branding it as harsh and shrill. That seems bizarre as Christians should be at the forefront of women's equality, not bringing up the rear! Many denominations still don't let women preach, become Elders, or get ordained, so there's much work to be done. 'Christian feminism' is not an oxymoron; it's a deeply compatible, healthy response to the injustices that still exist within the faith community."

Gail Song Bantum

Bantum, executive pastor of Seattle's Quest Church, on why feminism is about freedom:



"Feminism cannot merely be an idea but a life embodied. For those of us women who have fought to live out our call in spaces of leadership within the church, we embody feminism daily whether we realize it or not. Any embrace of feminism within the church must be rooted in our deep conviction that we are all created to be free -- that it was for freedom that Christ set us free (Galatians 5:1). It is a desire for this freedom to emerge from the truth that both women and men are created fully and wholly as image bearers of God. In that sense, feminism is not necessarily about equality for me. It's about discipleship - about honoring the creativity of God in our midst, about enabling others to flourish, about fighting for another's freedom, and about submitting to the truth that we have all been gifted this breath each waking moment of the day."

Rev. Dr. Paula Stone Williams

Williams, a pastoral counselor, on how a journey to live out her gender identity helped her understand why feminism is important:



"I have preached in three of the twelve largest churches in America. Today I would not be allowed in the pulpit of a single one. Not only would I be barred because I am transgender, I would be barred because I am a woman. The irony is the things I know now make me twice the person I was before. But women's voices remain silenced while churches stumble in the dark with a leadership blinded by its own entitlement. It has made me into something I never expected I'd be -- a feminist."

Edyka Chilome

Chilome, a spiritual activist, said she believes that the word "feminist" erases her identity as an indigenous mestiza woman who seeks to carry on the traditions of her female ancestors, whom she says "fought for the dignity of life and the sacred worth of women long before the term 'feminist was conceived.



"As a woman of color I don't identify as a feminist although I walk in solidarity with my feminist sisters and am working toward similar goals of transformative justice. I grew up in a christian context that inherited liberation theology born from third world liberation struggles and the continuous survival of indigenous mestizo peoples in the global south. My Christianity looked like rallies at the capital Sunday morning led by indigenous mestiza women who made very clear for me that God, in whatever form, is calling us to walk with the earths people and honor life first. This means that the world is my parish, and at the end of the day, compassion and accountability go hand and hand."

Mica McGriggs

McGriggs, a Mormon, on why she thinks Jesus was a feminist:



"Feminism for me as a Christian means I am working toward being more like Christ; I see the Savior as the ultimate intersectional feminist. He was always concerned and working for 'the least of these' he looked to the margins and created spaces that were inclusive to all. That is what intersectional feminism aims to do. The church would be a safer and more loving environment for all God's children if they were to embrace liberation theology and the practice of intersectional feminism."

Rev. Christine Lee

Lee, the first Korean-American woman ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church, on the value of seeing women as Jesus did:



"As a Christian, to me feminism is about seeing and valuing women as Jesus did. I'm always moved by the stories of Jesus' interactions with women in the gospels. In a time and culture where women were often invisible, he saw them and treated them as ones who were honored by God and deeply loved. If the church followed the example of Jesus in how he treated women, it could heal the world. Just like the human body, the whole flourishes when every part is made stronger."

Nicole M. Garcia

Garcia, a transgender Latina who is a candidate for ordained ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on tracing feminism back to the creation story:



"Genesis 1: 27 is very clear: God made humankind in Gods image. Feminism, to me, does not mean I want more, I want what God gave to each of us -- to be a human being in Gods image. The church has subjugated women far too long and it is time to emphasize the love and compassion Jesus taught us in the Gospel."

Bishop Minerva G. Carcano

Carcano, the first Hispanic female bishop in the United Methodist Church, on women's God-given gifts:



"As a Christian, I view feminism as a commitment to women having the opportunity to fully be who God created us to be. Creation itself allows us to catch a glimpse of Gods amazing creativity with all its beauty, potential and interrelationship. Individually and collectively women bring God-given gifts to life. The church has a responsibility to remind the world of the sacredness of all life including that of women. When women suffer because of discrimination due to their gender, everyone suffers through the loss of the gifts women bring to the world."

Monica A. Coleman

Coleman, a scholar, activist and minister, on what a woman's perspective and questions can bring to the church:



"For me, feminism in religion is about voice and power. It's about what I notice and what kinds of questions I ask: Where are the women in the story? Who has voice? Who doesn't? What might she have said? Who is in leadership in churches? Whose voices and perspectives have the loudest voice and influence? I try to answer these questions when I preach and teach. I want them to feel natural to my daughter's faith."

Rev. Winnie Varghese

Varghese, an Episcopal priest at New York City's Trinity Wall Street Church, on feminism and equality:



"As a Christian, feminism is a reality check on the gospel message of equality among all people in the eyes of God. If we believe we are equal in the eyes of God, we have to work to make that equality a reality in the world we live in. This has implications both for how girls and women understand their full humanity and dignity and how people of all genders understand the worth and dignity of women, which the church has historically profoundly influenced negatively."

Kate Kelly

Kelly, founder of the Ordain Women movement in Mormonism, on how feminism could have an impact on women in society:



"In my home state of Utah, policy is heavily influenced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is an extremely patriarchal religion. Any Church that excludes women from leadership roles is clearly missing out on 50 percent of the potential, talents and wisdom of its adherents. But, religious gender discrimination also leaks out of the bounds of the institution and negatively impacts society at large. Utah has one of the largest income gaps between men and women, as well as one of the lowest female college graduation rates. The influence of the religious teachings that put women below men affect not only Mormon women, but all people that live in Utah Societal parity for women will never be fully actualized until women are spiritually integrated as equals into every major faith tradition in the world."

Emilie M. Townes

Townes, Dean of Vanderbilt University's Divinity School, preferred to use the word womanist, a phrase coined by poet and activist Alice Walker to embrace the experiences of black feminists. Townes described the term this way: Womanism is when historic and current insights of Black women are used to eradicate inequalities for all people with a particular focus on class, gender, race, sex and sexuality as social and theological tools to unseat evil.



"As a Christian, womanism underscores the power of the gospel working in our lives to set us all free from stereotypes based on gender, sexuality, race, class, physical ability, and all of the ways in which we are humans in Gods creation. Womanism is a spirituality of life that calls me to remember that my life is a gift from God and I should use this gift to work for peace and justice by sharing the good news and to work with others to craft a space and place for folks to thrive. This space and place, to my mind, is the church. It becomes the place that is genuine[ly] involved in being partners with God in bringing in the new heaven and new earth and an embodiment of love, hope, peace, and justice in a world that can use a good dose of each these days."

Gina Messina-Dysert

Messina-Dysert, co-founder of the site "Feminism and Religion," on why Christian feminism isn't an oxymoron:



"While many believe the idea of a Christian feminist is an oxymoron, in truth, feminism and Christianity have a long history together. Although, many argue to be feminist is not to be Christian or vice versa, in fact, Christianity has feminist value. If we examine the foundation of the tradition, the idea that every person should be liberated and treated justly, this is very much in line with feminist ideals. Nonetheless, patriarchy has resulted in the manipulation of the tradition into one that has been utilized to oppress women. But with that said, feminism has a responsibility to uproot oppression wherever it exists - and that includes religion. And so, as a feminist lens is used to critique patriarchy in all aspects of society; it is critical that feminists continue to apply the same lens to religious traditions."

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Puerto Rican officials and mayors paid last-minute visits to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to shield the island from a tax proposal they say could destroy 75,000 jobs and wipe out a third of its tax base.

As congressional Republicans said they had a reached a deal on an overhaul of tax rates, Puerto Ricans said the bill could decimate its economy as the bankrupt territory tries to recover from Hurricane Maria.

"This would be worse than Maria," Luis Rivera Marin, Puerto Rico's secretary of state, told Reuters.

Initial versions of the tax bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate proposed taxing U.S. companies on foreign earnings. Puerto Rico - an American territory whose 3.4 million residents are American citizens - is considered a foreign jurisdiction for tax purposes.

Without an exemption from the new foreign earnings tax, drug and medical device makers that are the mainstay of the island's economy would likely leave the territory, taking away jobs and prompting more Puerto Ricans to leave for the mainland, Rivera Marin said.

Failing to grant an exemption would fly in the face of recommendations made by a bipartisan congressional task force just one year ago that Puerto Rico not be "relegated to an afterthought" in tax reform legislation, he said.

"Thats the promise. What did Congress do? The House left us out, the Senate left us out," Rivera Marin said.

SEEKING CARVE-OUT

The top lines of the emerging deal on the joint bill began to emerge on Wednesday, but the finer details - including whether it included an accommodation for Puerto Rico - were unlikely to be clear until Friday.

The top Republican tax writer in the U.S. House of Representatives told reporters that the bill's treatment of foreign companies was still under discussion.

"Part of the overall efforts of international reform here affect Puerto Rico, and we hope will drive investment back towards the U.S. and our territories," said Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Story continues

A spokeswoman said no further details were immediately available.

Spokespersons for the Senate Finance Committee and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the issue.

Before the hurricane hit, Puerto Rico was struggling with $72 billion in debt. Its finances were put under federal control last year.

Introducing taxes on multinational companies in Puerto Rico would mean more uncertainty for the island, a creditor source said, expressing support for the territorial government's argument for a carve out in the bill.

MINI-GRID PLAN

The tax battle comes as Puerto Rico wrangles with a failed power grid and other infrastructure wrecked when Hurricane Maria passed across the island in September.

Puerto Rico has requested a total of $94.4 billion in aid, including $31.1 billion for housing and $17.8 billion to rebuild its ruined power grid.

While in Washington, Rivera Marin met with administration officials and private sector companies working to develop a new system of "mini-grids" using mainly renewable energy to replace the antiquated power system on the island.

"We need to fix it, and theres consensus from all the technical experts that have been looking into this on the solution," he said.

The territorial government also faces a near-term crisis in paying for Medicaid for its poorest residents.

Rivera Marin said he is hopeful that the year-end government spending bill will include some Medicaid assistance.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors said Thursday that they had charged a Long Island, New York woman with laundering more than $85,000 in fraudulently obtained money through Bitcoin to help Islamic State.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, was arrested Wednesday on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, the office of Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde in Brooklyn announced. Shahnaz pleaded not guilty on Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tomlinson in Central Islip, New York, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for Rohde's office.

A lawyer for Shahnaz, Steve Zissou, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Prosecutors said that between March and July of this year, Shahnaz obtained a loan and multiple credit cards by making false representations to financial institutions, and used them to buy Bitcoin.

They said she then laundered the money through illicit transactions involving shell companies in Pakistan, China and Turkey with the ultimate goal of using the money to benefit Islamic State.

In July, prosecutors said, Shahnaz sought to travel to Syria, but was stopped and questioned by law enforcement at John F. Kennedy International Airport when she tried to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan.

The most serious charge, bank fraud, carries 30 years in prison, according to Rohde's office.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's new President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Thursday called for the removal of Western sanctions on his government during a speech to ruling party officials and said elections due in 2018 were nearer than "you expect". Mnangagwa, 75, became leader of the southern African nation last month after the military and ruling ZANU-PF turned against Robert Mugabe who had ruled the country for 37 years and was seen grooming his wife Grace to succeed him. While the European Union removed sanctions on ZANU-PF officials, members of the military and some government-owned firms in 2014, the United States has kept a travel and economic embargo on several ruling party elites. "We call for the unconditional lifting of the political and economic sanctions, which have crippled our national development," Mnangagwa told a meeting of the ZANU-PF central committee in downtown Harare. "We realize that isolation is not splendid or viable as there is more to gain through solidarity, mutually beneficial partnerships." The international community will be closely watching the next elections in 2018, which Mnangagwa said would be free and fair and would be held nearer than most people expect. The vote is due at the end of July in 2018 but there is talk it can be brought forward as early as March. "Government will do all in its powers to ensure that the elections are credible, free and fair. These elections are nearer than what you expect," he said without elaborating. (Reporting by Emelia Sithole-Matarise; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia)
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Bail was set for three people accused of breaking into mailboxes in the Gleed area Friday.
As you probably have heard, RSV is hitting early and hitting hard this year. Here at Winona Health, my fellow caregivers in Pediatrics and Family Medicine and I are fielding many questions from concerned parents and child care providers. We are always happy to be your resource!
Israeli officials believe the Palestinians have decided to stop playing by the rules in the international arena and ask the United Nations Security Council for full UN membership following US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



The Palestinians wish to use the international momentum that has been created against Trumps declaration and see the UN Security Council as a convenient place to do so.

Speaking at the Muslim countries summit in Istanbul, which convened following Trumps declaration, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the Palestinians would turn to the Security Council for a full UN membership instead of their current non-member observer state. He also called for the UN to replace the Americans as mediator in the peace negotiations.

Palestinian President Abbas in Muslim countries summit in Istanbul (Photo: Reuters)

On Monday, the Security Council is expected to hold a closed discussion on the implementation of Resolution 2334, which was adopted about a year agobefore Trump took officeand declared the settlements illegal. Israel managed to thwart a Palestinian move to get the UN to issue a written report about the resolutions implementation. Instead, UN envoy to the Middle East Nikolay Evtimov Mladenov will brief the Security Council on Israels violations in the territories. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are pressing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to physically attend the discussion and inform the members of his activities to implement the resolution.

Israeli officials estimate that Abbas is interested in going to the Security Council now in order to push the Americans into a corner and force them to use their veto right for the first time, in a bid to embarrass them as they go against the entire world.

According to procedures, the only way to join the UN as a member state is to submit a request to the Security Council through one of its members. The Palestinians will likely submit their request through Egypt, which is the Arab League representative, or through Bolivia.

Abbas alongside Turkish President Erdogan (Photo: AP)

Joining the UN as a member state with the right to vote requires a Security Council recommendation from a majority of nine of the 15 member states. Each of the five permanent Security Council membersthe United States, Russia, China, Britain and Francecould curb the move by vetoing it. If the decision is supported by a majority of nine states and isnt vetoed, it is handed over to the General Assembly, where a majority of two-thirds is required to admit the new state. The Arab and Muslim votes give the Palestinians an autonomic majority at the UN General Assembly. Their problem will be to get through the Security Council and avoid an American veto.

This rhetoric has prevented peace for years

Abbas said he would use a clause in the UN Charter preventing a state from participating in a vote on a controversial issue it is involved in. This means, according to the Palestinians, that if they try to pass a resolution against Trumps declaration at the Security Council, the US purportedly wont be able to veto the decision. The last time such a clause was used at the Security Council was in 1960, when Argentina didnt participate in the vote on whether the transfer of Adolf Eichmann to Israel from Argentina constituted a violation of the countrys sovereignty.

UN Security Council (Photo: AP)

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley likely wont let the Palestinians go ahead with such a manipulation and will do everything in her power to thwart it. This move indicates, however, that the Palestinians have decided to stop playing by the rules vis-a-vis the Americans and is in line with their declarations that they would no longer meet with Trumps emissaries, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, and that the Americans would no longer play a role in the peace process.

Fighting back, the Americans slammed Abbas. "The president remains as committed to peace as ever, a senior White House official said. This rhetoric, which has prevented peace for years, is not surprising, as we anticipated reactions like this. We will remain hard at work putting together our plan, which will benefit the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

"It is also important to ignore the distortions and instead focus on what the president actually said last weekthe specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties. The United States continues to take no position on any final status issues and the United States would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides. We will continue to work on our plan for peace that we hope will offer the best outcome for both peoples and look forward to unveiling it when it is ready and the time is right," the official added.

A relatively convenient composition

According to a different scenario, Abbas wont submit a full membership request at the first stage, but rather a proposal for a resolution condemning Trumps Jerusalem announcement, while using the clause allegedly preventing the US from participating in the vote. As a non-member observer state, the Palestinian flag is raised at the UN alongside the flags of the member states and the Palestinians hold the same observer status as the Vatican.

The current composition of the UN Security Council is relatively convenient for the Palestinians: The US, Russia, China, Britain, France, Bolivia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine and Uruguay.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Abbas threats Wednesday, saying that the Palestinians had better acknowledge reality and work for peace rather than for radicalization. They should recognize another fact about Jerusalem: Not only is it Israels capital, but we also maintain freedom of worship for all religions in Jerusalem. So we are unimpressed by all these declarations. The truth will eventually win, and many other countries will recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and move their embassies there.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon slammed Abbas: The Palestinian leadership is doing everything in its power to prevent any chance for negotiations and is making an intentional effort to thwart any initiative that would lead to progress. The international community must not let Abbas flee the negotiating table again under different excuses. It must force the Palestinian leadership to recognize reality and stop the incitement threatening the regions stability.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife Sara presented her statement of defense to the Jerusalem District Labor Court Thursday, denying all misconduct allegations made against her by former Prime Minister's Residence employee Shira Raban.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"Raban must not have come to grips with the fact that the bizarre and unsightly extortion attempt she has fabricated failed and her shame was exposed to the public," the statement of defense's preamble read.

Mrs. Netanyahu's attorney, Yossi Cohen further alleged the suit was an "absurd publicity stunt" and that "someone exploited the plaintiff's naivete and lack of understanding to embroil herfor their own ulterior motivesin a proceeding whose true significance she failed to comprehend."

Mrs. Netanyahu's statement of defense denied all wrongdoing (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Mrs. Netanyahu's legal team also claimed the suit was not worthy of being brought before the court and should be stricken. It further alleged that following the court ordering that the term " slave " be removed from the suit, the plaintiff decidedwhile disregarding both the decision and intelligence of anyone reading itto replace it with another Hebrew synonym for slave.

Raban's suit was dubbed absurd again, as well as contradictory and raising doubts as to Raban's awareness of what it included, while also questioning its bona fides.

As for Raban's claim that Mrs. Netanyahu intended to physically strike her, the statement of defense claimed that "even a dime store novel author will immediately understand someone fleeing in terror would not stop to change clothes and notice out of the corner of their teary eye everything that was going on around them."

The statement of defense further questioned why Raban, who made such heart-wrenching statements, wished to resume her former position. Not stopping at merely doubting Raban's account, however, the statement of defense noted it was "doubtful whether Raban was truly Haredi" and "a true Haredi person would not have acted as she did."

The plaintiff only worked an average of five hours a day over a period of twenty days, the statement noted, with many days only lasting three hours. "Her account, as to the circumstances of her departure from the residence was patently false," it said.

Mrs. Netanyahu's attorney said the suit was a 'publicity stunt' (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

"Once her attendance report was made public in the media, serving as a testament to her lies, Raban amended her account in a manner that undermines her entire claim as she forgot to fit the new version to the previously claimed details: working for eight hours a day only on changing clothes and shoes, washing hands and so on," the statement said.

Mrs. Netanyahu had no intentions of filing a countersuit, her representatives said before concluding with a request to have the suit stricken or demand it be amended again, also ordering Raban to shoulder the prime minister's wife's legal expenses.

Raban's attorneys Oren Gross and Naomi Landau responded by saying, "The statement of defense, belittling and condescending as it is, turns the current plaintiff into yet another victim of slander, like many before her who were mentally beaten by Sara Netanyahu.

"The plaintiff underwent a polygraph test that found her to be telling the truth on all significant articles of the suit. It's sufficient to read the haughty tone of Mrs. Netanyahu's defense to get an unparalleled understanding of the goings-on at the Prime Minister's Residence, and the treatment its employeesmost of whom were of few meanswere subjected to. It all coalesces to gradually uncover a frightening image of terror and fear, and unbelievable demands from her employers," the attorney's continued.

The statement of defense said Raban was not a 'true Haredi' (Photo: Channel 2 News)

"It's regrettable to note that instead of focusing on the ambiance of terror ruling over the Residence, after multiple testimonies only partially uncovered publically, the defense consistently and transparently chose to slander and besmirch every employee who dared sever the bond of silence among second floor employees, and to stigmatize and socially terrorize them in order to dissuade them from coming forward with their account."

Raban, a 24-year-old Haredi woman, described her alleged travails at the Prime Minister's Residence in an interview with Channel 2 News, before what she described as her escape from Mrs. Netanyahu. She burst into tears when she revealed the prime minister's wife called her a "lump of nothing."

"I didn't leave, I escaped. I escaped like my life depended on it. I don't know what might have happened if I'd stayed there another second longer. Not a minute; another second," she said at the time.
A spokesman for Yemen's Houthi group on Thursday dismissed US accusations that Iran had supplied a missile fired at Saudi Arabia last month, saying it was an attempt to divert attention from the United States' decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"After three years of war, America suddenly finds evidence that Iran supports the Houthis," Abdel-Malek al-Ejri said in a message on his Twitter account.

"America did not find any evidence in all the missiles fired from Yemen until now. The story is clear. They want to give Arabs a story to divert their attention from Jerusalem. Instead of being angry at Israel, they wave the Iranian bogey," he added.

Nikki Haley presents pieces of missile fired at Saudi Arabia (Photo: EPA)

The comments came after the United States envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday presented for the first time pieces of what it said were Iranian weapons supplied to the Iran-aligned Houthis, describing it as "undeniable" evidence that Tehran was violating UN resolutions.

Iran has denied supplying the Houthis with such weaponry and on Thursday described the arms displayed as "fabricated."

Haley came to an emptied-out hangar at a military base not far from the US Capitol, where fragments recovered from missiles launched from Yemen were paraded before reporters. Haley said the truck-sized missile segment behind her had been launched at the international airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and "led the US intelligence community to conclude unequivocally that these weapons were supplied by the Iranian regime."

"This is absolutely terrifying," said Haley, one of the Trump administration's most vocal critics of Iran. "Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London or Berlin. That's what we're talking about here."

The newly declassified evidence marked the most aggressive US effort to date to substantiate its claim that Iran funnels weapons to the Houthis, an allegation widely accepted by most countries but that Tehran steadfastly denies. It comes as the Trump administration seeks to rally the world to punish Iran for its ballistic missile program and other worrying activities, despite backing away from the 2015 nuclear deal.

World powers that joined the US in brokering that deal have voiced frustration at Trump's moves to "decertify" Iran's compliance with the deal as a prelude to renegotiating it. The Obama-era deal rolled back Iran's nuclear program in exchange for billions in sanctions relief, but did not address Iran's missile-building or support for militant groups in the Middle East.

Other critics of the deal, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, say that the deal only postpones Iran's path to the nuclear bomb, but it does not block it.

"Everyone has focused on the nuclear deal, and Iran has hidden behind the nuclear deal," Haley said. Gesturing to the missiles, she said, "These are the things they're doing while we're all looking the other way."

Haley and other officials said there were two reasons the US knew the missiles could have only come from Iran.

Some have specific markings indicating they were manufactured in Iran. One shredded piece of metal displayed to reporters bore the logo of Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group, an Iranian defense entity under US sanctions.

Others have specific technical characteristics, such as a certain valve, that only Iranian missiles have"Iranian missile fingerprints," Haley said. One short-range ballistic missile fragment lacked large stabilizer fins that are common to that class of missile. The only known short-range ballistic missiles that don't have those fins are Iran's Qiam missiles, Haley said.

"The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers," Haley quipped.

Not so, said Iran's government, standing behind its assertion that Iran hasn't sent any missiles to Yemen, where Shiite Houthi rebels aligned with Iran have taken over much of the country. Iran's envoy to UN, Gholamali Khoshroo, said it was "fake and fabricated" evidence that illustrates America's "irresponsible, destructive and provocative role" in the region, according to a statement carried by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Haley argued that Iranian weapons shipments violated several UN Security Council resolutions, including the one that enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal. International legal experts have debated whether the allegation, if true, constitutes a clear-cut violation.

Either way, Haley did not articulate any specific steps the US or other nations could take against Iran as a result of the evidence, which was included in a report to the UN secretary-general. But Haley said the US would be working with other countries on "next steps." She added that US lawmakers and delegations from foreign nations would be invited to view the missiles firsthand.

The US acknowledged it couldn't account for the full chain of custody, such as how the missiles got into Yemenan admission that suggests there are still holes in the US intelligence.

"We do not know when they were transported exactly," said Defense Department spokeswoman Laura Seal.

Even so, Haley's presentation was roundly cheered by Iran's enemies, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. With US support, a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis on behalf of Yemen's internationally recognized government. The civil war has turned Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, into a proxy battleground for Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and Shiite-led Iran.
Chairman of the Histadrut Labor Federation Avi Nissenkorn announced Friday morning that a general strike planned for Sunday in solidarity with the thousands of workers being laid off by the Teva Pharmaceuticals company will not include Israels train or public transport.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



In addition, Nissenkorn said that special education institutions would operate as usual.

Archive photo (Photo: Students Association of the Hebrew University)

The strike planned for Ben Gurion Airport, scheduled to begin at 8am and conclude at 12pm, will go ahead and is expected to affect some 12,000 travellers on 57 departure flights and 24 arrivals.

The exclusion of Israel Railways and public transport is due to consideration for the soldiers who need to get to their bases, Nissenkorn said in his explanation.

Halting public transport on the day of the strike would have a particularly heavy impact on hundreds of thousands of IDF soldiers, who return to their bases on Sunday morning and are often required to travel hundreds of miles to arrive on time.

The strike will include the government offices, the Israel Airports Authority, sea ports, banks, insurance companies, communications companies, the judicial system and the State Prosecutor's Office, and many other local institutions, Nissenkorn said.

Hospitals will work as they do on Shabbat. Moreover, operations will cease in all Teva sites in Israel.

Avi Nissenkorn (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The half-day strike comes as a preliminary step by the Histadrut union on the heels of Teva Pharmaceuticals' decision to cut its workforce in half in a bid to alleviate the company saddled with financial misfortunes, leaving some 3,300 people unemployed.

In his original statement on Thursday, Nissenkorn included public transport in his list of services that would be closed in solidarity with the Teva workers.

"On Sunday, we will first shut down all of Teva's factories," Nissenkorn said at a special press conference in Tel Aviv. "The entire economy, banks, municipalities, public transportation, and health clinicsall will strike till noon in solidarity."

Soldiers returning to military bases (Photo: Yaron Brener)

On Thursday, Teva announce its much-anticipated labor cuts, slashing its international workforce incrementally by 25% until 2019.

The new restructuring plan, headed by the companys new CEO Kare Schultz, is expected to but an end to approximately 14,000 out of a total of 56,000 jobs over the next two years.

In Israel, around 1,200 people will lost their jobs in 2018 alone, among them 560 senior employees, 320 Teva workers in Jerusalem, 185 research and development workers and the rest in various Teva sites.

In addition, by the end of 2019, the companys manufacturing factories will be shut down, resulting in the termination of 500 work contracts.
NATO says it is concerned about a Russian missile system that could carry nuclear warheads, and believes it violates a landmark Cold War arms treaty.

The US-led military alliance said in a statement Friday that "allies have identified a Russian missile system that raises serious concerns."

It urged Russia "to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States."

NATO fears the system, which it did not identify, contravenes the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The Cold War-era pact bans an entire class of weapons -- all land-based cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310-3,410 miles).
Parents and families who have lost loved ones in terror attacks have expressed outrage over a ruling made Thursday by the High Court of Justice (HCJ) forbidding the state from indefinitely holding the bodies of terrorists unless the government passes a law empowering it to do so.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



The state currently holds the bodies of nine terroristseven of which have already been buried among which are the bodies of those who carried out attacks in East Talpiot and Kiryat Arba, where the late Hallel Yaffa was murdered in her home about a year and a half ago.

One of the bodies currently being held by Israel is Fadi Ahmad Al-Qunbars, who in January carried out a truck-ramming attack in Jerusalem that killed four and wounded 18 in East Talpiot, also known as Armon Hanatziv.

The family of one of his victims, Shir Hajaj (22) from Ma'ale Adumim, who was an officers cadet, slammed the HCJ ruling, accusing it of favoring the terrorists over law-abiding Israelis.

We are two weeks away from Shirs memorial and we are mourning her. Unfortunately, the terrorists continue to celebrate the future funerals by dancing and giving out candy, said the parents, Herzl and Merav Hajaj in an interview with Ynet.

Again, the HCJ prefers to see to the wellbeing of the terrorists and not the wellbeing of the state and the citizens who abide by the law. It cant be that the HCJ involves itself in matters of security. The HCJ repeatedly given support to terrorists.

Lt. and Cadet Erez Orbach (20) from Alon Shvut, whose rank was posthumously elevated to 2nd Lt., was also killed in the brutal attack.

Shir Hajaj (L) and Erez Orbach

I hope that the legislative authority will stand up to this challenge and formulate a comprehensive, legal arrangement in order to enable to continue holding of the terrorists bodiesdead or aliveaccording to the needs of negotiations, said Orbachs father, Uri.

He added that the legislation should send a clear message to the families of terrorists and to the Arab public that educating people to hate and to murder harms them no less than it does us.

All the while that our kidnapped and missing boys remain in their hands, we will continue to hold on to their bodies, dead or alive, he repeated.

Fadi Al-Qunbar

Also weighing in on the matter were the parents and families of the late IDF soldiers Lieutenant Hadar Goldin and Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul, whose bodies have remained in Hamass hands in Gaza ever since they fell in Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

Hadar Goldin (L) and Oron Shaul

We expect the Israeli Knesset to act as soon as possible in accordance with the HCJs instructions and legislate a law that enables us to keep every bargaining chip in our hands, said Shauls brother, Aviram.

Do not give the enemy gifts while Oron, a Golani fighter who was sent to protect Israeli citizens and who has been held by Hamas for more than three-and-a-half years.
A Palestinian stabbed an Israel Border Policemen in the West Bank Square near Ramalla Friday afternoon, leaving him moderately wounded before being shot by security forces.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



The terrorist ran with a knife at the soldiers facing riots in the area in yet another "Day of Rage" and stabbed one of them in the shoulder. The soldier was originally said to be in light condition and was later evacuated to Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital where he was said to be in moderate condition.

Video of the incident

X

The terrorist, a young resident of Hebron, later succumbed to his wounds in the hospital.

Terrorist evacuated after being shot (Photo: Getty Images)

According to the IDF, the terrorist was wearing what appeared to be an explosive belt. However, soldiers had no time to confirm whether it was real or not due to the rapid evacuation by the Red Crescent of the terrorist who was said to be in critical condition. Palestinian security officials reported to Ynet that the explosive belt was fake.

The knife used by the terrorist (Photo: Israel Police)

Violence erupted for a second consecutive Friday following afternoon Islamic prayers, as rioters vented their anger against President Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital and also marked 30 years since the founding of the Hamas terror movement.

Riots staged by Palestinians in West Bank (Photo: AP)

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said 16 Palestinians were injured in clashes in two locations along Gaza's border with Israel. He said one was seriously wounded and in critical condition, while another 15 were in moderate condition.

Border Police forces in Ramalla (Photo: AFP)

While not directly responding to the report, IDF officials said that during the violent disturbances, shots were fired at central instigators.

Clashes near Ramalla (Photo: AP)

In Nablus and Ramallah there were rallies organized by Hamas with the participation of hundreds of Palestinians. The rallies took place in city centers, with Palestinian security forces allowing them to proceed in set area.

Hamas rally in Nablus (Photo: AP)

In several locations in the West Bank, among them Hebron, Bethlehem, the Qalandiya crossing and near the town of Talmon in Binyamin, dozens of Palestinian youths clashed with Israeli security forces.

Clashes in Nablus (Photo: Reuters)

The IDF reported that some 3,500 Palestinians were rioting in nine different locations across the Gaza Strip and another 2,500 were rioting at various locations in the West Bank, burning tires and throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at IDF and Border Police forces.

In Jerusalem, too, there was friction between the police and demonstrators at the Damascus Gate.

Residents of east Jerusalem leaving Friday prayers on the Temple Mount began shouting incendiary chants such as "In spirit and in blood we will redeem you, Palestine" and "Jerusalem is Arab." They were dispersed by police forces shortly after.
The United Nations human rights office is "appalled" at the hanging of 38 prisoners in Iraq, a UN spokeswoman said on Friday, a day after the executions at a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya.

"We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution," the spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, told a regular UN briefing in Geneva, adding that the human rights office had "huge concerns" about Iraq's use of the death penalty and - not for the first time - urged the government to halt all executions.

"Given the flaws of the Iraqi justice system, it also appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases. This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life."

The 38 male prisoners were convicted by Iraq's judiciary for terrorism-related crimes, she said. She did not have information on their ages or nationalities.

In September, Iraq hanged 42 prisoners in a single day, and the UN has learned of 106 executions this year, Throssell said. Last year the Ministry of Justice announced 88 executions, but the UN believes the number may have been as high as 116.

The world body had repeatedly asked the Ministry of Justice for data about prisoners, sentencing and executions but no such information had been provided since 2015, she said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has strongly criticized Israel in recent days and called it a "terrorist state" and even a "child-murderer state," said Friday that he is working with the United Nations to cancel President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In a speech to an audience of supporters in Antalya, Erdogan said that Turkey would act in the UN Security Council and if it did not succeed, it would appeal to the UN General Assembly.
Three Palestinian rioters and one terrorist were shot dead while about 160 more were wounded on Friday, medical officials said, as "Day of Rage" protests over US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital entered their second week.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



The IDF reported that some 3,500 Palestinians were rioting in nine different locations across the Gaza Strip and another 2,500 were rioting at various locations in the West Bank, burning tires and throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at IDF and Border Police forces.

Most of the casualties, including the two who were killed, were on the Gaza Strip border, where thousands of Palestinians gathered to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers beyond the fortified fence. About 150 rioters were wounded in the clashes there.

(Photo: Getty Images)

One of the protesters killed in the strip is a paraplegic demonstrator who was wounded in Operation Protective Edge and recently participated in demonstrations against Israel. Palestinians sources say he was shot in the head.

The protester who was shot in the head (Photo: Reuters)

The second casualty in the Gaza Strip, 32, was shot in the same demonstration.

In the West Bank, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood along with adjacent east Jerusalem, one rioter from the town of 'Anata was shot, later dying of his wounds, while ten more were wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Another was shot after he stabbed and moderately wounded a member of the Israel Border Police. Reuters witnesses said the Palestinian had a knife and wore what looked like an explosive belt. A Palestinian medic said the belt was fake. He died in the hospital shortly after.

Terrorist wearing fake explosive belt stabs Israeli Border Police trooper, is shot and neutralized

X

Palestiniansand the wider Arab and Muslim worldwere incensed at Trumps Dec. 6 announcement, which reversed decades of US policy reticence on Jerusalem, a city where both Israel and the Palestinians want sovereignty.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Washingtons European allies and Russia have also voiced worries about Trumps decision.

Gazas dominant Hamas Islamists, which reject coexistence with Israel, called last week for a new Palestinian uprising, but any such mass-mobilization has yet to be seen in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.
America's top diplomat stepped back Friday from his offer of unconditional talks with North Korea, telling world powers the nuclear-armed nation must earn the right to negotiate with the United States.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's declaration before the UN Security Council marked a stunning reversal after he proposed discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions earlier this week. That overture was almost immediately rebutted by White House officials.

Still, Tillerson had planned to reiterate his call at a special UN ministerial meeting on North Korea at the council Friday morning. His prepared remarks suggested only that North Korea would have to undertake a sustained halt in its threatening behavior before talks could begin. But Tillerson changed the script.

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," Tillerson told the foreign ministers. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved. We will in the meantime keep our channels of communication open."
A rocket fired from Gaza into Israel Friday hit a residential building in Beit Hanoun in the strip and caused it considerable damage, according to the Arabic-language Facebook page of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.

"Once again, the terrorist organizations launch rockets at the residents of Gaza themselves," the post said. "Only a week ago, a classroom was destroyed in a public school in Beit Hanoun, and this evening, in another unfortunate incident, the house of an Egyptian family from Beit Hanoun was badly damaged by a rocket fired by terrorist operatives from Gaza."
"Security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians is in (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud) Abbas's interest no less than ours, if not more. He is still alive because of (it)," Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday, scorning the Palestinian leader over his criticism of US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"We saw what happened in Gaza and how they killed all the Fatah activists who didn't manage to escape after Hamas took control in the strip," Lieberman said during the Nir David Forum at the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Jerusalem.

"So the security cooperation doesnt always need to be presented as an Israeli necessity only."

PA Pres. Abbas (L) and Def. Min. Lieberman (Photo: AFP, Reuters)

While it is true that Israel also enjoys the benefits of shared security arrangements, Lieberman emphasized that "the other side does so no less."

He added that he did not feel threatened by the threats made that the PA would terminate the ongoing cooperation. "If Mahmoud Abbas wanted to make the dramatic move for a political settlement, why didnt he sign in Annapolis?" he asked in reference to the 2007 Annapolis Conference Middle East peace conference to revive the so-called "roadmap to peace."

"Thats why they look for a reason to flee from the path to a political settlement and theres nothing new here. So now its Trumps declaration about Jerusalem. The ball is in his court because we would be ready to hear a new American initiative."

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh (L) and military leader Yahya Sinwar (Photo: AP)

Speaking about the barrage of rockets that have landed on Israeli soil from Gaza over the past weeks, Lieberman reiterated his claims that the rockets were not the result of an emboldened Hamas and a diminished Israeli deterrence , but rather the result of internal feuds that have ensued following the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas.

"Hamas needs money for its terror. Combined with this fact, the end of Qatari support and Egyptian activities have lead the rebellious organization to feel like they have lost ground," Lieberman argued.

"These struggles always lead to us being the address to direct anger," he added, stressing that, despite it, Israel "will not agree to any spillage."

"We are on our way to destroy all offensive terror tunnels. We killed 17 Hamas activists in recent months. They are afraid of confrontation," he summarized.

Rally in Gaza celebrating 30 years since Hamas' inception

Speaking on the High Court's ruling that Israel has no authority to hold the bodies of terrorists, Lieberman said he already "spoke with the justice minister and there are a few suggestions" as to how to proceed.

Lieberman reiterated his support of a report by the Shamgar Commission on retrieval of captives and missing persons, whose conclusions were submitted more than five years ago, according to which only a few individuals should be released in return for a kidnapped soldier.

"My position is not supported by the government or by the cabinet," Lieberman lamented, expressing his regret that the report, while "necessary both now and in the future," has never been accepted and implemented by the state.

The defense minister also addressed Iran's aim to establish a foothold in Syria , saying "they have a clear strategy and they do not hide their intentions," but stating that the state "will not allow the entire Middle East to be flooded with precision weapons" supplied by the Islamic Republic.

Finally, Lieberman urged people to not jump to conclusion regarding the ongoing criminal investigations against Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"I was interrogated for 17 years and in the end I was acquitted," he noted. "I think the presumption of innocence is for all of us, including the prime minister. He does not have to resign. Let's stop judging people."
A rocket fired from Gaza into Israel Friday hit a residential building in Beit Hanoun in the strip and caused it considerable damage, according to the Arabic-language Facebook page of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"Once again, the terrorist organizations launch rockets at the residents of Gaza themselves," the post said.

Gaza home following IDF bombing (Photo: Reuters)

This is the second time in a week that a rocket fired by Palestinians hits a building in the northeast Gaza city. In the previous incident , a public school classroom was completely demolished.

"Only a week ago, a classroom was destroyed in a public school in Beit Hanoun, and this evening, in another unfortunate incident, the house of an Egyptian family from Beit Hanoun was badly damaged by a rocket fired by terrorist operatives from Gaza," the post added.

Classroom in ruin after rocket makes landfall

The rocket fire followed a day of violent clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces along the Gaza Strip border and in the West Bank over US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Clashes along Gaza border (Photo: Roee Idan)

According to Palestinian medical sources, two Palestinian protesters and were shot dead by IDF forces in two clashes in Gaza, and two more were killed in the West Bank. One of the protesters killed in the West Bank was a wearing a fake bomb belt and was shot by security forces after stabbing and moderately wounding an IDF trooper.

The IDF reported that some 3,500 Palestinians were rioting in nine different locations across the Gaza Strip and another 2,500 were rioting at various locations in the West Bank, burning tires and throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at IDF and Border Police forces.
Turkey is launching an initiative at the United Nations to annul a decision by the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Erdogan was speaking two days after a Muslim leaders meeting in Istanbul condemned US President Donald Trumps decision, calling on the world to respond by recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

We will work for the annulment of this unjust decision firstly at the UN Security Council, and if a veto comes from there, the General Assembly, Erdogan told crowds gathered in the central Anatolian city of Konya via teleconference.

President of Turkey Erdogan (Photo: AP)

The United States is a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, meaning any move to overturn Washingtons decision at the council would certainly be blocked.

Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islams third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognized internationally.

Trumps decision broke with decades of US policy and international consensus that the citys status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks, leading to harsh criticisms from Muslim countries and Israels closest European allies, who have also rejected the move.

A communique issued after Wednesdays summit of more than 50 Muslim countries, including US allies, said they considered Trumps move to be a declaration that Washington was withdrawing from its role as sponsor of peace in the Middle East.

Erdogan shaking the hand of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: AP)

Asked about the criticism during an interview with Israels Makor Rishon daily, the US ambassador to Israel said Trump had done what is good for America.

President Trump...does not intend to reverse himself, despite the various condemnations and declarations, Ambassador David Friedman said.
Richard F. Nava White, 33, of Black River Falls was arrested Dec. 6 after leading the Jackson County Sheriffs Department on a high-speed chase in the town of Brockway on Hwy. 12.

The deputy initiated the traffic stop after midnight for a faulty rear license plate lamp.

The vehicle sped up once the deputy attempted to pull the vehicle over, reaching speeds of 100 miles per hour in areas according to the report.

The vehicle slowed to make a turn off Hwy. 12 onto Brockway Road, but the vehicle did not make the turn and went into the ditch.

Once the vehicle went into the ditch, both Nava White and a passenger exited the vehicle and fled.

The deputy was able to apprehend Nava White, but the passenger got away.

Nava White was in possession of a knife, razor blade and a digital scale with residue on it. The residue was later tested and confirmed to be methamphetamine. Both the concealed knives and scale were a violation of Nava Whites parole according to the report.

Additional drug paraphernalia and an electronic stun gun were located in the vehicle.

The owner of the vehicle also filed an official complaint against Nava White saying she did not give him permission to drive her vehicle, according to the report.

Nava White was transported to the hospital for minor injuries from the crash and then booked into the Jackson County Jail.

Nava White was charged with operating a motor vehicle without owners consent, failure to obey traffic officer/signal, obstructing an officer, carrying a concealed knife and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Sometimes you have to acknowledge what you are and embrace it, even if part of you doesnt like it.

I might wish I were tall and famous and a candidate for People Magazines Sexiest Man Alive. You might wish you had invented Google and appeared on the cover of Forbes. But that doesnt change the fact that were regular schmoes from Wisconsin whose appeal has, to date, gone unrecognized by national periodicals.

What are we to do, attempt to pass ourselves as something were not in hopes of getting attention? I could spend my days strutting about in pantaloons, munching on baguettes and humming La Marseillaise, but that wouldnt make me the king of France.

Alas, some in Wisconsin want our state to deny its nature and create a new identity in hopes of impressing others. They want to discontinue the states slogan  Americas Dairyland  and replace it with something that isnt quite so, well, cheesy.

This fall the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce business group pushed to remove the slogan from license plates. Business leaders want the world to know theres more to Wisconsin than cheese wedges. On this point, the organization is right: Theres also sausage, beer, Harley-Davidsons and the Green Bay Packers.

But those are just the kind of traditional  they might call them tired  images business leaders want Wisconsin to shed. They want to promote exciting things happening in the states economy outside the agriculture sector. They point to the Taiwanese company Foxconns plan to build a massive high-tech manufacturing campus near Racine with help from a $3 billion state subsidy. Perhaps our license plates should read, Wisconsin: Taiwans Sugar Daddy.

I can understand the states chamber of commerce wanting Wisconsin to be known for more than its dairy air. No one wants to be perceived as one-dimensional. But the reputation of the states cheese across the nation and around the world is a commodity to be treasured, not trashed. Any rebranding effort must take care not to throw out the cheese wedge with the whey.

Imagine Las Vegas suffering a crisis of conscience and deciding it would prefer to be known not for gambling, but for something more wholesome such as, say, crocheting. Try though it might to rebrand itself as the Crocheting Capital of the World  What Frays in Vegas Stays in Vegas  it wouldnt change public perception of Sin City.

Wisconsin should count itself lucky that it has a well-established identity. Tell me what you know about Delaware. Im waiting. Ask people in Dover what they know about Wisconsin, and theyll mention cheese, beer, bikes and the Pack.

Business leaders dont like that Wisconsins poster child is a shirtless guy holding a beer and wearing a cheese wedge on his head at Lambeau Field. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. wants to spend nearly $7 million on marketing efforts to recruit skilled young workers, forsaking our agricultural slogan because millennials prefer to live in cities. They want to draw millennials by showing Wisconsin has more to offer than farms and bars. Good luck drawing a generation of vegans with gluten allergies to the land of cheese and beer.

Everyone here wants Wisconsins economy to thrive, of course, and its important to attract and retain bright young minds. Our state has been a hub of innovation since its inception, giving the world the typewriter, stem cell research and the ice cream sundae.

This last example proves innovation and dairy products arent mutually exclusive. And it shows Wisconsin shouldnt hide from its heritage. I could try to masquerade as the Sexiest Man Alive or the king of France or the Wizard of Oz, but in the end the world would learn the man behind the curtain is a Wisconsin newspaper columnist. And theres nothing wrong with that, just like theres nothing wrong with Wisconsin being known being known for its dairy products.

I ask, when it comes to slogans, whats in a name? Limburger by any other name would smell like feet.
Click here for real-time updates from the La Crosse County Courthouse for the sentencing of Todd Kendhammer. Kendhammer, 47, of West Salem fatally beat his wife, Barbara, early Sept. 16, 2016, and then tried to cover up her murder by staging a traffic crash in the town of Hamilton. She died the next day.
A private firm will take a look at the citys parks department finances after the La Crosse Common Council on Thursday overrode Mayor Tim Kabats veto of the audit.

The council voted 9-4, confirming its November decision to pay Wipfli LLC $30,000 from the citys reserves to conduct a review of the Parks, Recreation and Forestry Departments procurement procedures, revenue and expenditures for the past three years.

The council also voted to support a League of Women Voters fair mapping resolution and approve La Crosse United to Amends request to put a question on whether to amend the U.S. Constitution to address campaign finance on the April 2018 ballot as a referendum.

Council President Martin Gaul moved to override the veto, saying the external audit will answer a few questions for the city council. He argued that the audit was meant to give council members a clearer picture of how money is allocated and expenditures made through all of the citys departments.

This is not something against parks in particular. It isnt against anyone. Were trying to identify clearly deficiencies that may exist in the way funds are spent, the way funds are allocated, so that we can correct this going forward, Gaul said.

Council member David Marshall argued that the parks departments expenditures on design should go before council for approval.

Council members have been surprised by money being spent on the design of projects  funded from the parks department operating budget  before council approval, Marshall said. I believe that is a circumvention of council authority.

Kabat, however, argued that the council authorized those kind of design expenditures through the budgeting process, which is laid out in the council handbook and city code.

They have the ability, granted by you, to do what they need to do, which includes hiring marketing firms, architects, engineers and professional services, again, to get their job done, Kabat said. I would encourage you, if you havent, to read up on the code of ordinances about our budget and authority granted.

If were going to get to the point where the council is going to micromanage every single line item, I think thats a recipe for a poor organization, Kabat said.

While council member Doug Happel supported the audit, saying the questions raised by the discussion needed an impartial answer, he also praised Kabat for his support of city staff.

The mayor is doing exactly what the mayor should do: being very careful with the city finances and, as a good leader, hes protecting his staff, Happel said.

However, other proponents of the audit said it had nothing to do with staff and everything to do with the citys processes and procedures.

Its not about trust. Its not about somebody not doing their job. Its about following the procedures we have here at City Hall, Richmond said.

Standing with the mayor were council members Paul Medinger, Philip Ostrem, Patrick Brever and Gary Padesky.

I agree with the mayor that if we expand the yearly audit to include some of the issues we have questions about, we can get the answers that were looking for, Ostrem said.

Padesky added that he could not justify spending that much out of the citys reserves for something that could be accomplished internally.

After the meeting, Kabat said he was unhappy with the outcome, but said, The council has spoken, so we move on and well work with Wipfli to do the audit as the council has directed.

Fair mapping

The council approved a resolution endorsed by the League of Women Voters to call on the state Legislature to develop a nonpartisan redistricting process by a split vote of 8-2 that included three members abstaining.

Council member Patrick Brever introduced the legislation, saying, We at the city recently redistricted from 17 to 13 seats. We did that in a nonpartisan way and I think its fair to ask the state to do the same.

However, several members of the council argued that the resolution was outside the purview of the councils role as a local government.

United to Amend

In a less controversial decision, the council unanimously approved La Crosse United to Amends request to take the question of campaign finance to the voters.

Were not elected to tell our representatives at the state and national level what the people of the city of La Crosse believe. A referendum expresses that, Happel said.
The city of La Crosse is a community that celebrates and preserves its history, according to Mayor Tim Kabat, but its missing one thing: a museum.

Kabat introduced a resolution this week to create a planning task force dedicating to researching the feasibility of facility dedicated to sharing the stories of the areas history, culture and development.

Im very excited about this. I think this is something that has been in the making and in discussions for many, many years, Kabat said. I really believe strongly that La Crosse  especially the city but really our region  is an area thats rich in history, all the way from our native people to our early settlers to our most recent immigrants.

While there are pieces of La Crosses history incorporated throughout the city  including the Hear, Here project downtown, the historic designations throughout the neighborhoods and the historic preservation redevelopment downtown  the mayor thinks a destination museum would help support area tourism.

This is an area that celebrates history. Weve seen the success, especially in our downtown and some of our historic districts and what it means when we focus on history as part of our building blocks and how we develop and how we grow our community, Kabat said.

He envisions a building that would include the history of Native Americans, as well as the logging and brewing industries, plus include more recent cultural developments, such as the immigration of Hmong people after the Vietnam War.

All of those are very important parts really of how La Crosse developed, Kabat said.

Kabat is working with the La Crosse County Historical Society and the citys Planning Department to get the task force up and running.

La Crosse County Historical Society executive director Peggy Derrick sees the museum as the next step in the societys maturation and growth.

While the historical society has programs that interpret history and brings it to life and celebrates it, it also has artifacts that arent quite so mobile.

But we do not have a location that we need to display and interpret the wonderful collection of artifacts that we have, Derrick said. The kind of public programming we could do in a location like this is something I just dream about at this point.

I really see this as not just something to present La Crosse to the outer world, but as something that La Crosse does for itself, she said.

A museum could tell the communitys story in a way that connects diverse cultures for people of all ages and times.

It links people back to people who have lived here in the past and makes them feel like they really belong, she said.

The task force will test the waters of whether there is community support and look into funding options, both for building the facility and maintaining it. City planner Jason Gilman said the group will look at how other local museums have been put together to look for best practices to offer meaningful experiences to visitors.

Kabat intends to have a task force of up to 10 people, including four members who may be nonresidents and one council member. If the creation of the committee is OKd next month by the La Crosse Common Council, he will appoint members subject to council approval in February.
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse graduate Choua Amee Vangs hard work, including her capstone project for her masters degree in public health, goes way beyond graduate school.

Vang will speak to her fellow graduate degree recipients during the hooding ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at the La Crosse Center. UW-L's winter commencement for undergraduates will follow at 11 a.m.

Even though Ill be graduating and walking across the stage, my work doesnt finish there, Vang said.

The 32-year-old wife and mother of four has been in post-secondary school for eight years, receiving a technical degree from Western Technical College in 2005 before beginning her undergraduate degree in sociology at UW-L in 2006. She took a brief break in 2011 after getting her bachelor's degree, taking a full-time job at Gundersen Health System. She launched into her masters degree program 2 years ago.

There are some nights where my kids and I would all be sitting at the kitchen table doing homework together. I would be doing my stuff. Theyd be doing theirs, Vang said.

Her youngest would do her best to help, climbing on Vangs lap and grabbing the keyboard.

The time constraints arent likely to let up any time soon as she prepares to defend her project, which studies the impact of alcohol consumption in the Hmong community Jan. 2, and then present it to the Wisconsin Public Health Council in February. She studied state Department of Transportation and Department of Public Health Services data to analyze drunken driving conviction rates.

Since this is an initial review of the data, our goal is to report this out to not only the Hmong community, but also local health departments, medical health systems, just so they can be aware, and with that we want to provide recommendations, future education program implementation just so we can bring the number of convictions down, Vang said.

If we can help reduce traffic accidents and injuries related to that, we can improve the health of the community, she added.

Vangs advisers, Gary Gilmore and Thai Vue, had seen the need for a study to get a better understanding of the health-related impacts among the Hmong population for some time and found the ideal researcher in Vang.

She not only is very precise and careful with her methodology, but its also important that you know that shes Hmong and has an affinity for understanding that culture that makes a major difference in terms of the appropriate methods that need to be brought to bear with this particular project, said Gilmore, who is the director of UW-Ls graduate community health and public health programs, as well as a professor and board member of Wisconsin Public Health Council.

The topic hits home for Vang both in her immediate family and her community.

Being a member of the Hmong community, too, I think its great that were looking at this and being able to provide the community with information in how they can reduce this and what we as a community can do, Vang said. Im just glad that Im that person thats getting the ball rolling to get more initiatives to better our community.

Vue, who also serves on the state health organization, as well as being the executive director of the Wisconsin United Coalition of Mutual Assistance Associations, praised Vangs hard work and dedication to keeping the project moving forward. She serves as a role model for the Hmong community, which can be male-dominated, he said.

Choua has been a very good asset to us, to WUCMAA, not only through her graduate study and education, but also being a Hmong girl. It helps us overcome and show the Hmong community a girl can go and do as well as a boy, Vue said.

Vang is grateful for the opportunities provided by her education, particularly having such a high-quality program in her area.

Getting into this master's of public health program has opened so many doors for me. The professors have been really great and supportive. And being a student in this program, the professors have all these connections to help you get where you want to be academically and professionally, Vang said.

Gilmore and Vue both were confident that Vang would make the most of her education and her research skills.

Shes one of the individuals who is so diligent, so conscientious, so much an individual who wants to strive to make a difference, we believe, through this project and also through other efforts shell make in her career, Gilmore said.

Vue added, Anybody who works hard like that will be very successful. I wish her the best of luck.

Vang has thought about going back for her doctorate, but decided against it for now. My calling is different, she said.

IF YOU GO WHAT: University of Wisconsin-La Crosse winter commencement WHEN: 11 a.m. Sunday WHERE: La Crosse Center, 300 Harborview Plaza. A graduate studies hooding ceremony will take place at 9:30 a.m. in the La Crosse Center ballroom.
Republican legislative leaders are seeking resignations from the chief staffers of the state Elections and Ethics commissions, citing concerns over partisan influence remaining from their predecessor, the former Government Accountability Board.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald sent letters late Thursday to Elections Commission administrator Mike Haas and Ethics Commission administrator Brian Bell.

You have lost the confidence of our caucuses to be an impartial administrator, Vos and Fitzgerald told Haas and Bell in the letters.

The chairman of the state Elections Commission, Mark Thomsen, responded by dismissing the letters as partisan game-playing. Thomsen, a Democratic appointee, said Haas has acted impartially and has the unanimous support of Republican and Democratic commissioners.

Under no circumstances would I accept a resignation by Mr. Haas, Thomsen said.

Ethics commissioners, Republican and Democratic, also have defended Bell from fallout from a report issued last week by Republican state Attorney General Brad Schimel  to which Vos and Fitzgerald referred in their letters. The report examined a 2016 leak of records to The Guardian from a now-ended probe of Gov. Scott Walkers 2012 recall campaign and outside conservative campaign groups.

Ethics Commission chairman David Halbrooks declined comment late Thursday on the letters from Vos and Fitzgerald.

John Doe II investigation

The Government Accountability Board, the states campaign finance agency at the time of the so-called John Doe II probe, assisted prosecutors with it. The state Supreme Court quashed the investigation in 2015, and Wisconsin Republicans decried it as a partisan witch hunt.

Due to past errors in judgment by leadership and staff at the recently disbanded Government Accountability Board, there are still widespread concerns over partisan influence remaining at the top of the commissions, Vos and Fitzgerald wrote.

Republican lawmakers and Walker, angered by the John Doe II investigation, voted in 2015 to abolish the accountability board and create the commissions to succeed it. Both commissions have three Democratic and three Republican appointees.

Bell is a former employee of the accountability board but was not involved with the John Doe II investigation.

Haas was an attorney for the board and was involved with reviewing and editing court filings for the investigation, according to the Attorney Generals report.

Neither was among the nine current or former public officials that Schimel recommended face contempt-of-court charges for what he described as a failure to follow court orders.

The report did criticize the Ethics Commission for what Schimel described as a failure to secure sensitive documents related to the investigation.

Ethics commissioners responded by dinging the Schimel report for omissions and inaccuracies and called on Schimel to acknowledge that ethics staff cooperated with his inquiries.

Schimel on Wednesday told reporters he wasnt calling on anyone to resign as a result of his leak investigation.

Were leaving that to the management at those agencies to decide whats appropriate, Schimel said.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has ratcheted up the pressure on the states ethics and elections chiefs to resign, threatening to hold Senate votes to force them out if they dont step down.

But its unclear whether he has the authority to remove them.

So far the officials, Elections Commission administrator Michael Haas and Ethics Commission administrator Brian Bell, havent gone anywhere.

Thats creating a power struggle between the bipartisan commissions and the GOP lawmakers who created them in 2015 to oversee elections, public officials and those who influence them.

On Thursday, Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos demanded resignations from Haas and Bell. The GOP legislative leaders cited their past employment at the commissions predecessor agency, the Government Accountability Board, as grounds to question whether the administrators would be impartial.

Haas and Bell were appointed last year with unanimous support from the commissions, both made up of three Democrats and three Republicans.

Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, upped the ante Friday, saying he would hold Senate confirmation votes in January on Haas and Bells appointments  and that they would not receive enough votes to be confirmed.

Differences over laws implications

There was disagreement Friday about what state law says happens in that scenario.

Fitzgerald spokesman Dan Romportl maintained, in a statement, that the administrators are forced out and the commissions begin a search for their replacements.

Elections Commission chairman Mark Thomsen, appointed by a Democrat, disagreed. Thomsen argued the law makes clear the commission has sole power to decide whether Mr. Haas stays on in an interim role  while making clear Haas has the commissions support.

Rick Champagne, chief of the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau, emphasized state law says the administrators serve with the Senates advice and consent.

A Senate no vote on confirming the administrators would mean you do not have their consent. The appointment is no longer valid and the position vacated, Champagne said.

Haas said in a Friday statement that he was surprised by the calls for him to resign and that he has requested to meet with Fitzgerald about it.

I believe he and other legislators know that our agency has operated in a completely nonpartisan manner under the direction of the bipartisan commission, Haas said.

Ethics Commission chairman David Halbrooks, a Democrat, said he was surprised by the call for Bells resignation. Bell did not immediately respond to an email late Friday.

Legislative Democrats, meanwhile, panned the Republican calls for Haas and Bell to step down, which they said lacks any rational explanation.

Republican leaders who continue to struggle with scandals and corruption allegations have a clear motive to disrupt election integrity, loosen ethics enforcement and rig the system in their favor, said Assembly Democratic Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh.

Meanwhile Gov. Scott Walker, speaking to reporters Friday, steered clear of the controversy. Walker said only that a report into leaked court documents by GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel, the release of which preceeded the calls for Haas and Bells departures, speaks for itself.

Concerns over partisan influence

In 2015 Republicans, angered by a secret investigation into Walkers 2012 recall campaign, eliminated the Government Accountability Board and created the commissions.

Fitzgerald and Vos issued letters late Thursday calling for Haas and Bell to resign, citing concerns over partisan influence remaining from the accountability board.

Any leftover remnants of the partisan (board) will never have the confidence of the public to ensure complete non-partisanship in the administration of elections or the oversight of government ethics, Fitzgerald said in a Friday statement.

Bell is a former employee of the accountability board but was not involved with the accountability boards assistance to prosecutors in the investigation into Walkers recall campaign.

Haas was an attorney for the board and played a secondary role in the probe, reviewing and editing court filings, according to the attorney generals report.

Neither was among the nine current or former public officials that Schimel, in his report issued last week, recommended face contempt-of-court charges for what he described as a failure to follow court orders in the John Doe II case.
I need to cut down on the chatter. It serves no purpose, I said to myself out loud to quiet my internal dialogue. As if talking out loud was any more rational than talking in my head.

We have a remarkable ability to kid ourselves. Given a rational argument, we can talk ourselves into just about anything. We might call this voice the man upstairs. For the voice emanating from just above our eyebrows, bolstered by righteous rationalization, has supplanted our sense of right and wrong emanating from any divine or moral authority.

For example, the ability for politicians to convince themselves that gerrymandering, the shaping of legislative districts into politically favorable opportunities to maintain their grip on power, is a completely legal and righteous reward for winning elections.

Whether motivated by self-importance  another consequence of that unbridled conversation inside our heads  or the flow of money from political contributors who expect a return on their investment, or the single-minded allegiance to winning at all costs; the process of gerrymandering has achieved unparalleled power within our political system.

We might call it cheating. But the man upstairs will not allow that discussion.

Our right to vote, upon which the promise of America rests, falls meaningless without protecting everyones right to have their vote counted. In protecting our neighbors rights, we give power to our own.

First coined in 1812 by the Boston Globe to describe the district shaped like a salamander fashioned by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, gerrymandering has achieved not only acceptance within political parties, but a new level of sophistication. Political consultants achieve greater efficiency for their candidates by maximizing wasted votes for their opponents. By packing opponents votes into concentrated districts and cracking other votes into diluted districts, party operatives are able to shape elections results to their favor. The resulting maps, stroked and segmented without regard to reality or geography, resemble the geometric abstractions by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

Im glad these political operatives were not allowed to choose sides for our playground dodgeball games. We would have been slaughtered. We hope the Supreme Court agrees during its review of partisan gerrymandering in Gill v. Whitford during its current term.

In Wisconsin, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos rightly complained that Only three people made a backroom deal, resulting in a state budget that ignored his concerns. Backroom deals of course, are the deals made in the darkness of secrecy that represent a direct affront to the quaint notion of fairness still ascribed to democracy.

Yet Vos, then a member of the Assembly, thought differently when Senate and Assembly Republicans crossed the street in 2011 to a clandestine backroom  the map room in the law offices of Michael Best & Friedrich. There, they signed a nondisclosure agreement to review the gerrymandered maps produced in secrecy.

In Maryland, former Gov. Martin OMalley made no secret during deposition about the gerrymandering process that transpired behind equally opaque backroom doors. He said, Part of my intent was to create a map that, all things being legal and equal, would, nonetheless, be more likely to elect more Democrats rather than less.

If we need to look up the definition of equal in a law book, we have lost our way.

Of course, fairness lies in the eyes of the beholder. I can say with all fairness that law requires state legislative lines be drawn in the first legislative session after each census and that the party in control, duly elected representatives of the people, have every right to control the redistricting process.

I love the sound of my own voice.
Gundersen Health System Cancer Center Director Kurt Oettel, MD, told the story of a 62-year-old woman who faced the prospect of 2-hour round trips to La Crosse for cancer treatment. It required 33 sessions of radiation therapy and 88 hours of windshield time.

She declined the treatment.

Oettel hopes a new facility in Tomah will change that. Gundersen announced plans Thursday to build a 5,200-square-foot Comprehensive Cancer Center at the soon-to-be-constructed Gundersen Tomah Clinic. The facility will allow patients with cancer to receive radiation treatments in Tomah.

Construction is slated to begin next spring with completion in summer 2019.

We are giving patients in Tomah and the surrounding area better access to cancer care closer to their home, said Sarah Rossman, Gundersen Cancer Services administrative director.

Oettel said the woman he described is not unique. He said travel, even more than financial considerations, influences the decision to seek care. He said its common for patients to decide, I cant do that  I cant be in La Crosse every day.

Unfortunately, we see too many patients who make that same decision ... because of the hardships of travel, he said. That is why we are here today to bring comprehensive cancer care to the Tomah region.

Rossman said 100 Gundersen patients in the Tomah area required radiation treatments in 2016.

Since most cancer patients receive treatments daily for up to nine weeks, patients in the Tomah area are driving approximately 100 miles a day, five days a week for nine weeks, Rossman said. She said travel burdens not only take a toll on our patients, but on their families.

The cancer center will have a separate entrance and parking from the 77,000-square-foot Gundersen Tomah Clinic. Rossman didnt have a cost estimate for the facility. She said it would employ at least two full-time physicians.

The clinic and cancer center will be constructed adjacent to the new Tomah Memorial Hospital, which broke ground in September and will be renamed Tomah Health. Oettel said the proximity of the new Tomah hospital is an important feature of the cancer center.

Cancer in this day and age is no longer treated by a single individual, Oettel said. Cancer is treated by a whole group of people ... if you can put all those services into one hub, that is really comprehensive care.

Gundersen CEO Scott Rathgaber, MD, said the collaboration with Tomah Health will increase the quality of care and ensure we are not duplicating services.

We know there is a great need for this, Rathgaber said. The Comprehensive Cancer Center will bring care to patients when they need it, where they want it and with reduced driving times.

Tomah Memorial Hospital CEO Phil Stuart welcomed the cancer center.

We think this will be a great partnership, and it will add huge amounts of care to this region, he said. We are looking forward to this partnership to ensure patients throughout western Wisconsin receive the highest quality cancer care available right here in Tomah.

Rossman said expanded services in Tomah will also benefit Gundersen patients in the La Crosse area.

Our volumes have grown exponentially year over year, she said. This will allow us to grow without having to grow our facilities in La Crosse.
The Viroqua Food Co-op (VFC), through local lender Bank of Cashton, has received a USDA Rural Development Loan Guarantee for their expansion project.

The food cooperative made the announcement at a press conference held on the construction site, Friday, Dec. 8.

Its exciting as an employee to see this come to fruition, said Bjorn Bergman, the co-ops outreach coordinator.

Mike Link, VFC Board of Directors president, said the expansion project has been in the planning process for about six years.

Thank you to the city for allowing us to expand, Bank of Cashton and USDA, Link said, and to the members who invested (and) allowed us to generate the funds for a large project in a small town.

Link also expressed appreciation for the co-ops staff.

Jeff Hudson, USDA Rural Development, Business and Cooperative Programs director, also was on hand for the press conference. Were proud to partner with the project in 2004 and now.

Hudson said the project will impact local producers and have an economic impact on Viroqua, increasing the number of jobs.

Scot Wall, representing Bank of Cashton, said, This is a tremendous opportunity. Thanks for allowing us to be a part of this.

Jennifer Kuderer, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), Regional Economic Development director, touched on the community development aspect of a CDI grant the co-op also received.

The grant program is designed to help communities to move forward with community development projects, she said. There will be an impact on the food economy and it will draw people into town.

Mayor Larry Fanta said the city of Viroqua has been pleased to work with the food cooperative over the years.

Viroqua has always been an ag-based area its nice to see a surge in organic foods, Fanta said. Thanks to the co-op for being a good partner.

Prior to the press conference, attendees were given a tour of the construction site.

According to a press release from the food co-op, USDA Rural Development Loan Guarantee improves the economic health of rural communities by increasing access to business capital through loan guarantees that enable commercial lenders to provide affordable financing for businesses in eligible rural areas.

With a strong focus on local, the USDA Rural Development Loan Guarantee allows us to work with our longtime local partner, Bank of Cashton for our primary loan. It matches our mission of supporting local while we grow our business, said Jan Rasikas, VFC general manager.

The co-ops expansion plans include doubling their retail square footage to 9,200 square feet, a larger seating area both inside and out, a community education room, wider aisles, a larger deli and bakery, more checkout lanes and an expanded parking lot.

According to the release, the newly expanded co-op will increase its workforce by at least 35 percent in next several years. Our expansion project will also create new markets for local farmers and producers, said VFC Marketing Manager Charlene Elderkin. VFC defines local as products that are grown or produced within 100 miles of the co-op; currently, 33 percent of store sales are from local farmers and producers.

Work is now underway project, which is expected to be completed by summer 2018.
This article appears in the December 8, 2017 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

DR. ALEXANDER DEMISSIE

Chinas Belt and Road Initiative and Its

Long-Term Impact on African Countries

[Print version of this article]

This is an edited transcript of the presentation by Dr. Alexander Demissie of Ethiopia to the Nov. 25-26, 2017 Schiller Institute Conference, Fulfilling the Dream of Mankind.

Ill begin with two or three words about myself, so you can understand why Im here. My background is in international relations. Im a Ph.D. holder in China-Africa relations, and have been studying China-Africa relations since 2003, so I am quite aware of what has been happening over the last decade in this area.

Today, I will try to discuss with you the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and how it is connected to Africa. What kind of long-term impacts are we expecting when we are talk about the BRI and Africa?

Chinas Belt and Road Initiative View full size



This is a map I always use in my presentations. I always ask my audiences What do you see here? Its a very simple question. You should see something. Its a rhetorical question. Im not expecting you to answer. It usually takes several minutes until people realize what they see here. What you see is the absence of the American continent. [laughter] You see that the Chinese vision of the BRI is absolutely Eur-Asian oriented. Starting in China, it is primarily Eur-Asian oriented. The idea of the BRI, probably even your idea back in the 1970s, is the Land-Bridge, which we have also been discussing yesterday and today.

Within this map you will see Africa. Africa is prominent. It is not entirely in the center, but is on the left side, and should be part of the BRI idea. We know that Africa is a late-comer. Its an afterthought in China. It was not a primary address for the BRI. Therefore, it took people such as Professor He and Professor Justin Yifu Lin from Peking University to bring Africa into the picture. Starting in 2013-14, they were the first ones writing about Africa and that Africa should be considered as part of the BRI. They coined the term One Belt, One Road, One Continent, to include the African continent. Later we will see that we cannot even talk about the African continent.

How do we understand the BRI from the African perspective? We see that the BRI is a very open and over-arching idea. It is open in that anybody can come in, and dock with it. Earlier we heard about the 16+1 initiative in the Central and Eastern European countries. This is one such idea. If its good or bad, thats another discussion.

The BRI is creating a place for re-writing history, creating space for new voices which have been subdued in the last decades, but which can now come out from their hidden places and start referring to their own past histories and ideas. In the keynote speech this morning we heard of an Indian narrative now coming out. India is partially opposing the whole idea of the BRI, but partially also coming up with their own grand history going back many years. So, we are hearing new voices. The BRI in the context of Africa is creating new voices, new ideas, new narrativeswhich is a good thing.

My third point: the BRI is primarily an infrastructural undertaking. We dont yet have political institutionalization. We have infrastructural ideas. We have corridors, but we dont yet have political institutions. So, if we talk about the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), or the Silk Road Bank, these are just connected to infrastructure; they are not political ideas.

Interestingly, this idea fits perfectly into the current African needinfrastructure development. Africa wants infrastructure, going back here to the African Unions Agenda 2063 strategic framework that has also, coincidentally, been coming up. Together with the BRI, Africa wants a good infrastructure connection, a good internal interconnectivity. So, the idea of the BRI coming from China is perfectly fitting into the ideaactually happening or being discussedwithin the African continent.

On the right side of the map you will see different corridors within Africa, which have been at various times conceived of by various players and have been thought through to some extent as very important corridors. The question remains: who is going to finance all these corridors?

Lyndon LaRouche: (interrupting from the audience): It ought to be done! What happens is, in the process of the. . . . [audio loss] on the development of the new [inaud] system for them. First of all, this goes way beyond anything which mankind, in Russia or elsewhere, has seen. They have no knowledge of this as such. They have now achieved, together with other people, the development of what is really a work system.

Demissie: Are you referring to the BRI?

LaRouche: The system itself. The thing is essentially motivated by what the population has developed, what its opened up on.

Demissie: Yes, yes.

LaRouche: Then people come in and they do some work. By this time, their mind is way beyond anything theyve done before, in terms of an ongoing project. So, the job is: DO IT!

Demissie: Yes! Yes! Exactly! Im fully with you on this. Because if you have been following the debate within Africa, or the African continent, or African institutions, the Agenda 2063, what we call The Africa We Want, is nothing else than, literally, infrastructure development that the continent has been needing for decades actually, but has never happened.

We see now China as an actor coming in and literally taking up or doing part of those needed works. From the African perspective, this is a huge plus for many African countries. The idea of the BRI, coming only since 2013, is helping what has been taking place on the continent between China and the African countries since the year 2000, what we call the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). For those who are not familiar with that forum, it is similar to the 16+1, where we have at least 48 African countries on the one side, with China on the other. Within this forum, the Chinese position has been always, not changing, but always adapting to the current needs.

Lyndon LaRouche: You have to change. . . [inaudible]

Demissie: Yes. I will come to that point. It has changed. I will explain how it has changed. What I meant is that it is happening every three years. Every three years this forum has been adapting, gradually, in my view, to the needs of China, actually, not only to the needs of Africa.

Since the FOCAC Summit and 6th Ministerial Conference in 2015 in Johannesburg, China has been entirely moving its priority from social-related aspects, more to hard infrastructure development aspects. China has clearly declared that they would like to see China-Africa cooperation moving into development of highways, regional aviation networks, or industrialization.

Also China has given a high priority to the African Unions program for infrastructure development. This program has approximately 51 different programs, which has translated into 400 different physical projects. Im speaking about ports, streets, telecommunications lineswhatever is required for a nation or a continent to function.

China has also been very clear since Johannesburg in 2015 that they want to cooperate more with Africa more on infrastructural projects that create regional connectivity. That is where the BRI comes in. Thats why I mentioned earlier that the BRI is primarily an infrastructure topic.

Now maybe Im putting that emphasis here. China has also been changing its emphasis since at least 2016, clearly articulating their desire to have with Africa a cooperation on industrial and agricultural development. Again, a physical-oriented approach. The preconditions for a developing Africa are good infrastructures in place. Good infrastructures first, and then the human resources development needs to take place at the same time.

What we see in Africa since at least two years, is a growing corridorization in the China-Africa relationship. By corridorization, I dont mean that single countries are no longer important, but entire regions are becoming more important for China. This is a huge departure from the bi-lateral single-country-based approach toward corridor development. If you look at the African corridors, the map on the right, you can see right now, as we speak today, around 33 different corridors that have either been developed, are under development, or are thought out and need to be developed. Corridors do nothing else but combine two different areas, and by doing so, create a development initiative, a development paradigm.

China is a big player in the corridorization movement happening in Africa, the same as we have heard about earlier with Bulgaria. You also have the same type of development going on in the Central Asian countries. The BRI is supporting these existing ideas within Africa.

From the African perspective, the questions directed to China, at least from some sub-regions, are Is our relation to China helping us to advance those infrastructure developments we are planning? Is regional interconnectivity happening with our relationship with China? And, is the industrialization process actually happening through this relationship?

LaRouche: Its all are the same thing. They are not separate things.

Demissie: No, its not.

LaRouche: You have to have these characteristics there acting, when those characteristics are coming into play. For example, I know some members of the talent there. Weve worked on this. Ive worked on it, in part, with my wife. The idea lying in the minds of the scientists in there, you see that the whole thing emerges in that way. The danger is that people begin to monkey around with interpretations of how this thing came about. Right now, in a short period of time, this operation has really exploded.

Demissie: True.

LaRouche: It has exploded through other groups of people. There is a connection, a very important connection of relevance, not precise. You have to work on that issue, because you have to integrate what has been the modality that you get usually. You have to work it over, change it. You have to build it up, make it stronger, reinforce it. That what the [inaud] part is. Theres no magic in this thing, as such. What there is, is a hot potato, which has been ready to cook for a long period of time.

Demissie: I agree. But now China is coming in and is starting to cook that potato. Thats actually the whole story. [laughter] Its true! We need to ask ourselves, Why has this potato that has been lying around for ages, not been cooked until today? In a few minutes, Ill come to the point: who is actually losing out in this power game. I call it a power game. Im just giving you a kind of introduction, and hopefully Ill stay within my time limit.

East Africa

Lets go one step lower, to East Africa. This is Africa (TIS) has been around for a long, long time. Its plans at least have been in the drawer for a long, long time. We know also that a lot of American research institutes played a very good role in creating those plans in the 1950s-60s, especially in Ethiopia. The Grand Renaissance Dam that is being built now on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia goes back to American scientists who created such ideas in the 1960s. A lot of ideas in East Africa, for example, have been on the table for decades, but no one was able or willing to pay for them. But now a lot of money is coming out of China, so these infrastructure projects can be built. This is actually the whole game-changing idea here about the BRI, when we bring Africa into the picture.

What is happening in East Africa? In East Africa we have different types of corridors that are shaping up, which will have a lot of effect on the livelihood of the people. There is the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor. The yellow and red, starting from here (Lamu Port) goes up to Nairobi, the capital and largest city in Kenya; up to Juba, the capital and largest city of South Sudan; then to Addis Ababa, the capital and largest city in Ethiopia; and then later to Djibouti, the capital of Djibouti.

A lot of Chinese companies are active in the Lamu Port development, and also in the new standard gauge railway (SGR) that now connects Kenyas port of Mombasa with Nairobi, inaugurated two months ago. Its functioning. Its happening. People can use those trains to go from A to B.

The same is happening now from the Djibouti port to Addis Ababa. These physical infrastructures are now in place. Their idea has always been around, but they are now in place. So, they are effectively there.

How this has changed the lives of the people is easily described. Transportation of cargo from the Djibouti port to Addis Ababa used to take three days. By train, its now only 10 hours. Now we can imagine the economic activity will happen as a result of this single corridor development, or one infrastructure within this corridor. Yesterday, Mehreteab Mulugeta Haile, the Ethiopian General Consul spoke here about some aspects of this.

Looking at other development corridors: In Tanzania, there is the Port of Bagamoyo, approved only two weeks ago, being built with a consortium of Chinese actors with funding by Kuwait. When completed, it will be the largest port in East Africa.

The reason I mention these big projects is just to show you the kind of change they can bring into the entire region, not only to the port, but to the hinterlands behind the port. Here, again, Chinese actors are really at the forefront, changing the narrative within the African countries.

East Africa is for me the main entry point into Africa, when it comes to the BRI. I know that Egypt and Morocco have also a big stake in the BRI, but looking at the entire development of the BRI, I consider that the East African region, starting from Djibouti in the north, down to Mozambique, will have a bigger impact on how the BRI will be coming into the African continent.

The reason why the Chinese attitude towards the African countries is also changing, is easily explained. Since 2016, China has grouped some African countries according to two classifications: industrial cooperation demonstration and pioneering countries, that includes Tanzania, Kenya, Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia; and priority partners for production capacity cooperation countries, that includes Egypt, Angola, and Mozambique. Very interesting wording. The point here, is that these countries will become primus inter pares; they will become a bit better than the others.

We observe the emergence of a two-phase China-Africa relationship. I might get some objection to this from my Chinese colleagues, but thats what we are observing from within Africa. We dont have the kind of big forum where every country is equal. We dont have any differentiation taking place, because of those corridorizations and the BRI entry points.

Another idea I want to give you: Where is all the Chinese money? One of the questions today was Where do the Chinese get all their money? Thats one question. But where is the money going that flows to Africa? To which sectors? Data from 2016 shows that most of the money goes to transportation and energy. Transportation is a big receiver of money from China. It encompasses trains, roads, ports, etc. This is a hint for you of where the story goes.

If we go to East Africa, we see that Ethiopia is receiving a lot of money from China, and Ethiopia is putting this money into productive sectors. They are building dams, streets, industrial parks. These are all preconditions that are required to grow faster and farther. If you dont put the money you receive (from any source) into your productive sector, then probably you will not fly very far.

Looking then at Ethiopia, shown here is the planned train connectivities within the country. Ethiopia is planning on different train routes, one of which I just mentioned, from Djibouti to Addis Ababa, has already been constructed. But there are in total eight different routes to be constructed at some point that are planned by the government. There are others in the system, such as Turkish actors, and also interest from Indian actors, but predominantly these systems will be built by Chinese enterprises.

At the same time, if you see these routes, youll see also the proliferation of industrial zones, industrial parks within Ethiopia, all of which are being built along those train routes: infrastructural corridors. At the end, we will have production corridors going between various countriesDjibouti-Ethiopia, Ethiopia-Kenya, Kenya-Tanzaniaso that the entire sub-region hopefully will be industrialized at some point.

Ethiopia has 22 separate industrial parks that are either planned, built, or under construction. Most are built by Chinese state-owned enterprises. This is the main point here. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and industrial parks exist not only in Ethiopia, but are also in Kenya and Tanzania. Other countries such as Rwanda or even Senegal are following in these footsteps. They are becoming important attractionnauts. Thats how I call them, attractionnauts within the BRI for Chinese companies that want to go out to African countries. Without those industrial parks, there would not be so many Chinese companies in Africa.

Another area which I want to quickly show you, concerns energy production. Who is building the energy for African countries? Again, we see a lot of involvement by Chinese companies. East Africa is predominantly active in this area. Energy consists of anything from power plants, renewables, dams, etc. East Africa is really hard at work here. In the distribution of Chinese projects and power capacity, by sub-region until 2020, you can see that southern and eastern Africa has received quite a number of these projects.

What is the impact for African countries? Chinese actions are increasingly controlling the East African corridor development. This is one takeaway we need to make. They are working on the design, the implementation, and the financing, so the entire supply chain is controlled by Chinese actors. What I call the infrastructure-industrial complex is creating for African countries a very interesting mix. First, it is creating jobs. A lot of people now are getting work because of these development projects. But at the same time we see the first signs of dependency coming up. It is really important to know this. We also observe a new relation forming between increasingly powerful Chinese companies and African states. So, how do we manage those into action? Here, Im talking about industrial capital accumulations. We heard earlier that the money that comes from China is put into the productive sectors; its not speculation money, but money that has a long time horizon, that can stay a long time in Africa. Actually, the only source currently that can have this kind of time horizon. This is distinctly different from the fast-paced speculative money coming from western countries.

Chinas money which is coming into African countries is not only creating industrial capital accumulations, but another contradiction, or question for African countries: How do you organize the labor power of people when you employ them; and how do you organize your space? So, space organization and labor vs. money coming from China. This is one aspect we need to think really hard about.

And then, the new production centersthose industrial zones I mentioned earlierare also creating a new interaction against traditional partners, traditional trade regimes. They are being questioned. Which is good. With the term traditional partners, Im referring actually directly to European actors. [laughs] Traditional development trade partners are increasingly losing out to new forms of manufacturing, capital, and location, especially coming from Asia, from China. But if China can design, finance, and implement those production centers, then that means they can also put in new rules that can exclude, easily, people they dont want. Its very easy. All this means that capital allocation will determine the kind of companies that will come in to those centers and produce.

The problem as I see it, is that the traditional partners are still in the old paradigm in their thinking. They still think with traditional assumptions: Africa is seen as an aid-dependent continent, not as a continent full of opportunities. It is still seen with the wrong mind-set. That is one of the biggest problems, and it has to change.

New market-allocation mechanisms increasingly are making it difficult for companies from the traditional partner countries to even enter the market. Even when they want to compete, they cannot compete anymore, because they are excluded from the markets. They cannot beat the competition, based on prices. So what happens when you dont even have a chance to enter the market? We see this development happening in the telecom sector and with the buildup of other infrastructure. For example, all the dam-building process in Africa right now is taking place only through Chinese enterprises. There are no other specialized players here.

One question that we have been discussing recently with our Chinese colleagues is Could a trilateral corporationtrilateral meaning bringing in the traditional (European) actors, Chinese actors and African actorsbe a solution to this dilemma, especially for European players? On the one hand, we can say, Yes, it could be possible, especially if European players can use already existing Chinese-built structures, for example the special economic zones or industrial zones, to start producing in Africa as well.

We think that the traditional partners need to produce a paradigm shift in their thinking toward Africa. If they persist in thinking that Africa is just an aid-recipient continent and not a continent of opportunities, then we believe they might not have a lot of success in the coming years.

On the other hand, we need also to acknowledge that China and the African countries are not necessarily keen in working with European partners. If there is no paradigm shift, why should they, especially if things are working fine without them.

We see, geopolitically, a big shift happening through the BRI on the African continent that is actually affecting European actors.

That what I have from my side. Thank you very much for your time. [applause]
December 14, 2017 - Tamara Williams

Professor Maryam Ahranjani outlines her views on the rights of undocumented students and the value of diversity in education in an article published in the CLEO EDGE, the magazine for tomorrows law students.

In What Does Immigration Status Have to do with Law School Diversity, Ahranjani suggests that young people who are undocumented remain underrepresented, and that a number of states, including New Mexico, offer in-state tuition and other support for undocumented students. She concludes that immigration status should not be a barrier to higher education and that all students benefit from diverse views.

Following are excerpts from her article:

Although exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, one of the groups that seems underrepresented both in higher education in general and in law school in particular is young people who are undocumented, many of who ended up in the U.S. because they were brought as children by an adult family member or sent by family members.

New Mexico state law explicitly prohibits discrimination against students based on their immigration status and provides in-state tuition and state funds to applicants who attended at least a year of secondary education in New Mexico and graduated or obtained a GED in New Mexico.

Immigration status should not be a barrier to higher education. Not only do law schools have an educational interest in including diverse perspectives, including those of undocumented students, but all students benefit from learning with and from students who have lived in the shadows of our immigration system.
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.
You have permission to edit this youtube.

Edit Close
TWIN FALLS  The City Club of Southern Idaho will be holding moderated discussion on Monday, October 15th at the Turf Club. Our discussion topic will be Proposition 2 and health care of Idaho.

Participants: Lee Heider is a Republican member of the Idaho Senate, first elected in 2010. Heider represents the 24th District, which includes most of the city of Twin Falls. Senator Heider is Chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

Fredrick Leslie Wood III, M.D. is a Republican Idaho State Representative since 2006 representing District 27 seat B. Representative Wood is Chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee.

Moderator:

Maxine Bell is a Republican member of the Idaho House of Representatives and co-Chair of the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. Bell is a native of Logan, Utah. She was educated at the College of Southern Idaho and Idaho State University. She is a retired school librarian. Bell was first elected to the Idaho House in 1988.

There are two options to buy tickets to attend:

Lunch Option  click here

Non-Lunch Option - click here

Deadline to buy tickets is Friday, October 12th.
BLAINE COUNTY  Six people were arrested on drug charges Tuesday and Wednesday after a five-month investigation by a multi-jurisdictional narcotics team, according to the Blaine County Sheriffs Office.

Shauna Wilson of Ketchum, Timothy Little of Hailey, Tracey A. Garnica of Hailey, George H. Brown of Ketchum, and George B. Ross III of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., were indicted on a range of charges involving methamphetamine and heroin.

Jock S. Bell, also of Ketchum, was arrested on two felony counts of delivery of a controlled substance and one count of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. He was set for arraignment Thursday.

The suspects were identified by the Blaine County Narcotics Enforcement Team, which is made up of officers and deputies from the Blaine County Sheriffs Office, the Ketchum Police Division of the Blaine County Sheriffs Office, and the Sun Valley Police Department.

Wilson, 47, is charged with one felony count of delivery of methamphetamine. She was released on a $25,000 bond.

Little, 66, was indicted on seven felony charges that included three counts of delivery of methamphetamine, two counts of aiding and abetting trafficking in methamphetamine, one count of trafficking in heroin, and one count of aiding and abetting delivery and methamphetamine.

He is being held in the Blaine County Detention Center on a $200,000 bond.

Garnica, 46, faces two felony counts of delivery of heroin, one felony count of aiding and abetting delivery of methamphetamine, and one felony count of aiding and abetting delivery of heroin. Bond has been set at $50,000.

Ross, 57, was arrested on a Blaine County warrant in Arizona by the Havasu City Police Department and indicted on two felony counts of trafficking in methamphetamine, with bond set at $300,000.

Brown, 35, was indicted on two felony counts of delivery of heroin and five felony counts of delivery of methamphetamine. He is being held on a $50,000 bond.
BURLEY  The man who police say confessed to shooting another man to death in a robbery gone wrong was arraigned on a charge of first-degree murder Friday.

Luis Gabriel Ponce, 21, is also charged with felony counts of attempted robbery and burglary. He is held on $2 million bond.

Cassia County Sheriff deputies discovered 58-year-old Christopher A. Fassetts body under a car at his shop Wednesday evening. Fassett owned Fassett Transmission, 434 West Main St.

Court documents say Ponce went to the Cassia County Sheriffs Office on Thursday to tell deputies that he had seen Fassett the day before. Upon questioning from deputes, Ponce told them he shot Fassett after asking him for money.

Deputies said Ponce admitted he planned robbing money from Fassett.

Ponce said he had not worked for two months, and he knew Fassett had money at the shop, court records said. He wore gloves when he entered the shop and carried a gun in a holster on his hip. He told officers he took one of the gloves off when he shot Fassett because his finger wouldnt fit inside the guns trigger guard.

When Ponce asked Fassett for money, he became angry. Ponce went outside and loaded a round in the guns chamber, then stuck the gun in his sweatshirt pocket.

He went back inside the shop and shot Fassett, who was lying on a creeper under the vehicle, in the stomach. He told police that Fassett then asked him why?

He told Fassett he shot him because he needed money and Ponce then shot Fassett in the head to finish him off.

Ponce locked the front door and wiped the doorknob off and he moved Fassetts body a little but he couldnt find his wallet or money, court records said.

According to the records, Ponce told police he knew Fassett kept money in shoe boxes in the apartment area of the shop, where Fassett lived, so he went through some boxes but couldnt find any money. He said Fassett had $20 but Ponce had given him that money.

In the end, he said, he didnt steal anything from the shop.

Court documents say Ponce told police he was going to leave through the front door but remembered the business across the street had a camera so he went out the garage door and walked toward the library. He said he threw the gloves in a garbage can and put the gun in his bedroom at his home.

When Ponce went to the sheriffs office he was still wearing his clothing from the day he shot Fassett, police said.

Officers took the gloves and the gun for evidence.

A preliminary hearing is set for Dec. 29 in Cassia County Magistrate Court.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls woman who went missing two weeks ago has not yet been found.

Keri Anne Jensen, 36, left her home on the morning of Nov. 29. She is 4 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 85 pounds, and has brown hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen wearing a white head scarf and black hoodie, and typically wears a thick white headband around her forehead.

Jensen was last reported seen at Denny's restaurant in Twin Falls on Dec. 3, her mother said.

She may be driving a white Hyundai four-door Elantra, with Idaho plates 2T AS187.

Jensen is considered a vulnerable adult and may be suicidal, according to the sheriff's office.

If you have any information or have seen Jensen, call SIRCOMM at 208-735-1911.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls man has been charged with rape after having sex with a 16-year-old he met on a dating app.

Patrick Narcho, 30, met the teenager on a cell phone app called MeetMe in June 2016, his accuser told police.

Narcho claimed to have been 19, the girl said.

She was 16 at the time.

According to the girl, the pair had sex multiple times.

Narcho told police they only had sex once, in the Twin Falls Library parking lot, according to court documents. He said he thought she was 18 at the time.

Bond is set at $100,000. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 22.
TWIN FALLS  Two men have been taken into custody after police say they broke into an apartment and attempted to strangle a woman last weekend.

Now police are seeking the publics help finding a third man who is thought to have participated in the attack.

On Dec. 9, police were dispatched to a house in the 300 block of Lois Street in Twin Falls, where they found a woman who was scratched and bloodied, according to court documents. Three men had kicked in the door to the apartment, choked her, and threatened to kill her and her daughter if she called the police, the woman said.

She identified the three men as Jose Agustin, Cesar Gonzalez-Ramos, and Gaudencio Sandoval-Carbajal.

Gonzalez-Ramos, 21, of Twin Falls, was stopped by police the next day and taken into custody. He told officers that he, Agustin, and Sandoval-Carbajal went over to the womans house after she messaged Agustin over Facebook asking him to return a Bluetooth speaker that belonged to her.

Gonzalez-Ramos was charged with aggravated assault and aiding and abetting burglary, and is currently in the Twin Falls County Jail.

Agustin was taken into custody on Thursday, and charged with aggravated assault, burglary, and witness intimidation. He is currently in the Jerome County Jail.

The Twin Falls Police Department is asking for the publics help in finding Gaudencio Sandoval-Carbajal. If you know his whereabouts, call 208-735-7200 to speak with Detective Paredez.

The police do not consider Sandoval-Carbajal to be a significant threat to the public because the attack was not random, said Lt. Terry Thueson in a statement.
TWIN FALLS  It's Twin Falls police vs. Twin Falls firefighters for the annual Big Kettle Stand-off from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Walmart, 252 Cheney Drive W., Twin Falls. Sponsored by the Salvation Army, this bell-ringing competition raised more than $5,000 last year.

The Salvation Army is still $40,000 away from its $100,000 thousand Red Kettle goal in 2017. As usual, the police and firemen will be on the job to help out.

This year, the police will move to the Home and Living entrance  giving the better-earning Grocery entrance, which they manned in 2016, to the firefighters. Next year, the two organizations will flip a coin for the Grocery door.
TWIN FALLS  Whitney Romans and her mother had talked about her wedding day since she was a little girl. But she never imagined that day would be Sunday  or at a hospital.

Whitneys mother, Debbie Tyler, has stage 4 endometrial cancer. Her health is declining and shes on life support in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls.

(The cancer) has caused a lot of severe complications, Whitney said Thursday in a quiet, empty room in the ICU just a few doors down from her mother.

Whitney  who lives in Hampton, Va.  had never heard of an ICU wedding. But around noon Sunday, she and finance, Nathan, finalized their decision to get married  that day. Theyve been together for eight years and engaged for more than four.

They wanted Whitneys mother to be part of the celebration.

I thought something that might make her very happy is to get married, Whitney said.

On Sunday, ICU director Curt Egbert was sitting in a church class when he received a text message from a charge nurse. She asked if he had any ideas for how to make a nice wedding happen that day for a patients daughter.

Im not a party planner by any means, Egbert said. He left the class and went to get his wife out of her class.

Initially, they thought they had two hours to pull together a wedding. As it turned out, they had a little longer. The wedding was delayed until 5 p.m. and then, until 6 p.m.

Egbert called his sister, ICU nurse April McQueen, for help. McQueens daughter got married about a year ago and had leftover wedding decorations.

Egbert and his wife also gathered up decorations from their own house to bring over to the hospital. Egberts wife and a few other family members brought in their wedding dresses to see if one would fit Whitney. McQueens daughters dress fit her perfectly.

A team of other St. Lukes employees  from nurses to hospital administrators  pulled together to take care of decorations, photography and videography and flowers. St. Lukes food service employees made food and wedding cake for a reception.

It was a total, complete effort to make it memorable, Egbert said.

St. Lukes employees asked Romans what wedding colors she wanted. She decided on red and white. The wedding was in Whitneys mothers hospital room. The outside of the room was decorated with tulle and lights from Egberts Christmas tree.

Beyond decorating for the wedding, medical staff had another huge consideration: We didnt want to interfere with patient care, Egbert said, since Whitneys mother is very sick. Employees transformed the ICU waiting area into a reception room, complete with tables with red and white tablecloths, centerpiece decorations and fresh flowers.

Its pretty amazing what they were able to do in such a short amount of time, Egbert said.

Whitney did her makeup in a hospital bathroom before the wedding ceremony. When she walked into the waiting room  which had been turned into the reception room  she saw a Mr. and Mrs. sign and burst into tears.

I just started bawling, she said. It was just so beautiful.

It didnt feel like an ICU waiting room. It was like we werent in the hospital for a moment, Egbert said.

As the wedding ceremony started, Whitney walked down a white aisle runner in the ICU hallway leading to her mothers room. About 20 to 30 guests  family members and friends  gathered just outside the room at the nurses station watching, many in tears.

Whitney and Nathan picked out a couple of songs for their ceremony, including a hymn her mother used to play for her father. They also called in a pastor to perform the ceremony.

They prayed over Whitneys mother. It was such a powerful thing, Whitney said.

She told her mother after the wedding theyre planning to have a larger reception later, and she wants and expects to have her there. Whitney described her wedding day as perfect. And she thinks her mother loved it, too.

Whitney grew up in Spokane, Wash., and her mother was a single parent for many years. She said her mother is the most important person in her life. She worked at a drug and alcohol recovery center for women, where she touched many lives and often received visits from those she helped.

Whitneys mother moved to the Magic Valley about a decade ago. She was diagnosed with cancer about a month after Whitney moved away to Virginia to start graduate school. She went through two rounds of chemotherapy at St. Lukes Mountain States Tumor Institute.

Whitney and her family members have been at the ICU with her mother, and theyve been hearing a lot about end-of-life decisions.

This morning was especially hard, she said Thursday afternoon. They had a family meeting scheduled that evening to weigh those decisions. I just have this confidence and peace God can use this and heal her.

Nathan flew back to Virginia on Wednesday. He plans to return Tuesday to Twin Falls.

Whitney is staying by her mothers side in the ICU. Now, she and her family is asking for prayers. Were believing for a miracle.
TWIN FALLS  Twin Falls may have to start planning for a public bus system a little earlier than it thought.

Early this week, the City Council and staff met with state legislators and discussed the 50,000 population threshold that would require Twin Falls and surrounding areas to take a serious look at connectivity and public transportation. At the time, City Manager Travis Rothweiler believed the 2020 Census would trigger that requirement after data had been validated by 2022.

But on Tuesday, Rothweiler received a surprise email from the Idaho Department of Labors regional economist Jan Roeser. The email contained an August bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget, delineating Twin Falls city, county and Jerome County as a metropolitan statistical area, or MSA. The region was the only new urbanized area identified in the bulletin. Roeser came across the bulletin while doing research into MSAs after reading about them in the Times-News.

This new status will mandate an entire level of requirements  some yet unknown  years sooner than anyone expected.

We did not have any notification or awareness, Rothweiler said. Were disappointed that our level of notification results in because of one of our partners, who doesnt have connection to it, is reading the newspaper.

We were always working under the now-erroneous assumption that we would have until the 2022 timeframe, he said. Now that its 2019, that really kind of accelerates our timeline.

The designation was based on 2015 population estimates. It impacts not only Twin Falls city, but the entirety of the counties as well, triggering the creation of a Metropolitan Planning Organization, Rothweiler said.

Really a Metropolitan Planning Organization is a regional planning effort to create greater connectivity and planning between all the affected areas. And theres specific rules and responsibilities that will be delineated by the group.

The city will start that conversation with Twin Falls and Jerome counties soon, he said. Rothweiler planned to meet with Jerome County representatives on Thursday.

The designation could also trigger new stormwater management requirements.

We do know that communities above 50,000 have to do stormwater phase two, he said. How thats tied to an MPO designation, Im not entirely certain.

City Engineer Jackie Fields previously told the Times-News that when cities reach a population of 50,000, they are required to get a permit for stormwater discharge into the Snake River.

We thought we were being very forward-thinking, Rothweiler said. I think we were all a bit surprised.  We had a plan, we were moving that plan forward, and the playing conditions changed. So we need to modify our game plan so we are able to comply with those requirements.

A member of the city staff will need to soon begin examining Twin Falls service levels and how becoming a metropolitan area changes those levels.

Twin Falls and Jerome county commissioners also said they hadnt known of the designation. Twin Falls County Commissioner Terry Kramer said the county will be working with the city to find out what it means. Commissioner Don Hall will be the liaison, Kramer said.

Jerome County Commissioner Roger Morley approached the news with enthusiasm about the potential impacts.

Transportation is getting to be a bigger deal all the time over here, he said. The world is getting really little with immediate communication. Transportation is one way to lock us all together.

A Times-News call to the Office of Management and Budget was not returned Thursday.

According to the bulletin, a Metropolitan Statistical Area must have at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.

According to the Census Bureaus 2016 estimate, the city of Twin Falls had a population of 48,260.
Desperate times require desperate measures. The growing suspicions that President Donald Trump has engaged in obstruction of justice led his attorney, John Dowd, to advance the outrageous claim that the president, by definition, cannot commit obstruction of justice.

Rarely has such a monarchical pretension emanated from the White House. The Trump administrations embrace of Richard Nixons theory of presidential power  If the president does it, its not illegal  is bizarre. How did that work for Nixon?

The Trump-Nixon theory that the president is above the law, has historical antecedents, but none in the United States. That model finds inspiration in the mid-17th century when, in England and France, absolutist pretensions to power were at their peak. In the English Civil Wars, King Charles asserted executive prerogatives that gravely assaulted the constitution, offenses that stirred the Brits to remove his head. In France, King Louis XIV told his countrymen: The State? I am the State. That reasoning led his successor, Louis XVI, to the guillotine.

The founders of the American republic laid an ax to those roots, as they dramatically rejected the English and French tradition of executive power. In fact, at the time of the American Revolution, the precise meaning of the rule of law implied executive subordination to the law. At the Constitutional Convention, delegates emphasized that the president, in the words of James Wilson, was amenable to the law. Wilson, destined to become a member of the inaugural U.S. Supreme Court, and the foremost legal scholar of his generation, was described by George Washington as one of the strongest men of the Convention, later told his colleagues at the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention that not a single privilege is annexed to the presidents character. If ordinary citizens could be arrested and indicted for obstruction of justice, so too could the president.

Wilsons words were echoed by others up and down the Eastern seaboard. James Iredell, soon to join Wilson on the Supreme Court, explained to his fellow delegates at the North Carolina Ratifying Convention, that the president may be required to stand trial for his offenses. The Framers commitment to the rule of law reflected the pervasive distrust of executive power at the time of the founding.

Obstruction of justice, the founders determined, was an indictable offense. It was, they concluded, also an impeachable offense. As the framers discussed and debated a laundry list of offenses that warranted impeachment, subversion of the laws and the Constitution was always at the top. In a context in which the president was subordinate to the law, he could hardly be exempt from charges of obstruction, for that would place him in the fantasy world of executive immunity from the law imagined by Nixon and Trump.

It has been argued on behalf of Trump that the framers could not have contemplated prosecution of the president, given that they conferred upon him complete authority over the execution of the laws, which includes power to control prosecutions. When Nixon acted on this theory in October of 1973, and fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox to thwart his investigation of the presidents role in the Watergate cover up and other criminal offenses, the nation responded with outrage. A federal court held Nixons dismissal of Cox illegal. It is absurd to infer that the framers vested in the president the authority to shield himself from criminal indictment by the control granted to him over prosecutions. Certainly there is nothing in our constitutional architecture or history to suggest, let alone demonstrate, that the framers would have undercut their own scheme to subordinate the president to the law.

The lame assertions advanced by Trumps legal team make it imperative for the American public to remain engaged in civic education. The future of the republic requires it.
The only trade show in the Philippines dedicated solely to the air cooling, ventilating, and refrigeration industry, HVAC/R Philippines, will be held from January six to nine, 2018 at the SMX Convention Center Manila, SM Mall of Asia Complex and World Trade Center Metro Manila alongside PHILCONSTRUCT  the countrys largest construction show.

We are excited to celebrate the 20th year of HVAC/R Philippines, said Engr. Leandro Conti, president of the Philippine Society of Ventilating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigerating Engineers (PSVARE)  organizer of the event. The show started with only 10 exhibitors 20 years ago but now has thousands of participating brands not only from the Philippines, but from around the globe. One of them is Daikin (seen in photo), one of the worlds leading air conditioning manufacturers and solution provider.

More air cooling manufacturers will be at at HVAC/R Philippines this January. Register at www.gesi.com.ph/hvacr. Online registration to visit the show is open until December 15

ADVERTISEMENT

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
Iraqi authorities carried out capital punishment against 38 people who were convicted of terrorist acts.

The suspects were IS members in the Nasiriyah town, which has been recently liberated along with other areas in southern and western Iraq.

Tens of thousands of people are currently being held in Iraqi jails accused of affiliations with the extremist organization.

The move may raise concerns from international humanitarian organizations, including the European Union, which have repeatedly called on Baghdad to abolish its death penalty.

Under Iraqi law, being found guilty of being a member of ISIS carries a sentence of life imprisonment or death.

Human Rights Watch warned earlier this month that the mass trials of ISIS fighters seen in recent months are rife with due diligence violations.

In August 2017, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court sentenced 27 people to death convicted of killing 1,700 Iraqi soldiers at the US Camp Speicher base near the central city of Tikrit.
Syrian and Lebanese authorities officially re-opened Thursday one of the five border crossings between the two countries closed in 2012 after Syrian and Lebanese forces launched assaults against terrorists who established bases near the Syrian border.

The re-opening was marked on both sides of the border known as Jussiyeh in Syria and al-Qaa in Lebanon.

Travelers can start crossings as of this Friday (dec.15), reports say.

Syria descended into civil war in 2011 following an uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad. The regime crushed the revolt but had to face an armed opposition on one the hand and the Islamic State group (IS) militants on the other.

President Assad has managed to regain much of the country after securing Russian military intervention in 2015. Moscow with its military arsenal helped the army battle out the terrorists, take back IS-controlled swathes and keep the rebellion at bay.

Around 1.5 million Syrian refugees crossed into Lebanon. Areas around the Lebanese border witnessed several attacks including suicide bombings staged by the terrorists who sneaked into Lebanon as refugees.
The United States Thursday said it has clear evidences that the ballistic missile launched by Yemen Houthi rebels early November was supplied by Iran.

US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley told media that the US has evidences that Iran supplies Yemen Houthi rebels with weapons that enabled them to launch missiles into Saudi Arabia and that the US Defense Secretary will announce new measures against Iran because of its hostile actions.

The US official argued that there are irrefutable evidences Iran supplied the ballistic missile launched by the rebel early last month and which was intercepted near Riyadh international airport.

It was made in Iran then sent to Houthi militants in Yemen, Haley said of the missile.

From there it was fired at a civilian airport with the potential to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in Saudi Arabia, she added.

Saudi forces destroyed the missile, which caused no casualty.

Saudi Arabia described the attack as an act of aggression and vowed not to remain idle in the face of Irans threats against the region and its growing influence.

Iran slammed the accusations noting that the Saudi kingdom points at the Islamic Republic as a scapegoat after it failed in Yemen and Lebanon where Premier Saad Hariri rescinded his resignation that he announced under Saudi pressure.

Hariri early November announced his resignation in a broadcast on a Saudi media.

The presence of Iranian missiles in Yemen violates UN resolutions banning export of Iranian weapons and missiles, Haley said, adding that new measures against Iran will be announced shortly because of its hostile actions.
The republic of Somaliland has sworn-in its fifth president, Muse Bihi Abdi who won the tightly contested November 13 polls.

Abdi, a retired pilot took the powers of office from his predecessor ex-president Ahmed Mahmud Silanyo in a ceremony attended by service commanders, legislators of the two chambers, traditional and religious leaders as well as Opposition politicians.

The new President pledged that during his reign the rule of law will run supreme in the country.

Muse Behi Abdi becomes the fifth president of Somaliland after his Kulmiye party garnered 55% of votes during the November 13 presidential election.

President Bihi will serve a five-year term with an option for a second term. His central agenda is how to win international recognition for Somaliland. An International Election Observation Mission (EOM), funded by the British Government, has supervised the election.

Somaliland declared unilateral independence from Somalia on May 18, 1991. Pressure on Somaliland to hold talks with Somalia have so far been futile.

The small nation of 4 million people has not been internationally recognized but it has recently drawn in sizeable investments from the Gulf.

Earlier this year, the government agreed to let the UAE establish a naval base in its port of Berbera.
A U.S. law firm on Wednesday released a report commissioned by the Rwandan government to examine the role played by France in events leading to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The report compiled by Washington-based Cunningham Levy Muse LLP presented evidence suggesting that French officials were aware of and aided the actions and goals of both the Habyarimana government and the genocidaires who seized power after at the inception of the genocide.

The report cites evidence that purportedly shows French complicity before, during and after the genocide by ethnic Hutu extremists against ethnic Tutsi and some Hutu moderates.

The French officials, according to the report, provided safe sanctuary to some genocide suspects and have obstructed attempts to bring them to justice. French officials are also said to have provided safe communication channels for genocide masterminds and subsequently harbouring fugitives.

Documents show that the French government was a close ally of the Rwandan regime that planned and perpetrated the mass slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people.

Last year, France rejected Rwandan governments request to question some of the 22 French military officers who, Kigali said, bore some responsibility for the killings.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi on Wednesday urged the international community to act quickly against those who ignite the South Sudan conflict, as the worlds youngest nation needs $1.7 billion in aid next year to help 6 million people, i.e. half its population.

According to Grandi, Pressure must be brought to bear on those driving this deadly conflict, which has uprooted a third of South Sudans people in just four years.

Urgent, concerted action by regional and international actors is needed before it is too late, Grandi said. He warned that failure to deal with the refugee crisis could destabilize the region in the years to come.

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) last month said more than 1.1 million children under five are forecast to be malnourished in 2018 including nearly 300,000 at a heightened risk of death.

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his rival and former deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup against him. A 2015 peace deal was left in tatters when fighting broke out in Juba in July last year.

The almost four-year conflict has curbed oil production, sent prices rocketing and could cause the economy to shrink 3.5 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Food prices have soared, with prices for sacks of staples such as sorghum, maize and wheat flour up by 281 percent. Aid groups said the number of people facing hunger is expected to rise.
@alextdaugherty

Last week, a group of 12 House Republicans, including Miami Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, signed a letter encouraging Republican leadership to pass a tax overhaul without a provision that would allow oil drilling in parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But the provision was included in the Senate's tax bill, and is likely to stay when House and Senate negotiators finalize the bill on Friday.

On Thursday, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee called out the 12 Republicans for engaging in "pure posturing."

"It is now clear that the letter from twelve House Republicans opposing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was pure posturing," Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell said. "If these Republicans want to stop their party from turning the refuge into an oilfield, they should vote no. Lip service won't protect the Arctic."

Six of the 12 Republicans who signed the letter, including Curbelo, voted in favor of the initial tax bill before Thanksgiving.

Curbelo hasn't indicated that he will vote against the tax bill even though he opposes expanding oil drilling in Alaska's North Slope. He is also the co-founder of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, a group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers who are concerned about the impacts of climate change.

"I dont think theres any one provision that would motivate me to deny tax relief for all of my constituents," Curbelo said this week.

Curbelo has been a vocal advocate for the tax overhaul, frequently appearing with Speaker Paul Ryan and touting the bill in Spanish.
Senate spokesperson Katie Betta said Friday that the long-awaited report on the investigation of Sen. Jack Latvala is expected to the Senate president "some time next week." Pending a review by Senate lawyers, namely George Meros of the GrayRobinson law firm retained to advise the Senate, the report will then be made available to the public.

Betta said she could not give a timeline on when the report will be public. Betta said one issue the attorneys are reviewing is what to redact from the report on the names of people who came forward as witnesses in the investigation.

Senate legislative aide Rachel Perrin Rogers filed the formal complaint on Nov. 5 alleging that Latvala groped her, inappropriately touched her in a bar and subjected her to verbal sexual harassment over a period of four years. Her complaint launched the effort by the Senate to hire retired Judge Ronald V. Swanson to serve as the special master, review the allegations, subpoena witnesses to testify under oath and determine if there is probable cause to conclude that the allegations are truthful.

If probable cause is determined, the Senate Rule Committee will then conduct a hearing to determine if they are true. Under Senate rules, Latvala could be subject to an array of punishments from reprimand to removal from office.

The Senate hired a separate law firm, Jackson Lewis, to conduct a different investigation into allegations from five unnamed individuals who came forward to Politico also alleging sexual harassment by Latvala. That investigation is "still ongoing,'' Betta said. The final report for that probe will go to the Office of Legislative Services, Betta said.
Fish, Wildlife and Parks will hold a pair of meetings in two Hi-Line towns to explain chronic wasting disease recently discovered north of Chester near the Canadian border.

The meetings are set for 7 p.m., Dec. 21, in Chester and Havre. The Chester meeting will be in the towns high school auditorium, 511 Main St. The Havre meeting will be at the Hill County Electric Coop, 2121 U.S. Highway 2 NW.

At both meetings FWP officials will present a background on the disease, what is known about the disease along the states northern border and what the departments CWD draft management plan identifies for actions and management in the future.

A mule deer buck shot by a hunter Nov. 12 about 30 miles north of Chester near the Canadian border has tested positive for chronic wasting disease. The deer was taken in hunting district 401 in Liberty County.

The test results mark the seventh incident of CWD discovered in Montana wild deer this fall. The other deer came from south of Billings, where more than 1,000 samples were taken from deer, elk and moose this fall. Until this year, CWD had not been found in Montana, though the disease exists in wild deer herds in Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

In anticipation of the disease coming to Montana, FWP recently updated its CWD response plan.

CWD is a progressive, fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk and moose. It is part of a group of diseases called Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs). TSEs are caused by infectious, mis-folded prion proteins, which cause normal prion proteins throughout a healthy animals body to mis-fold, resulting in organ damage and eventual death.

Though there is no evidence CWD is transmissible to humans, it is recommended to never ingest meat from animals that appear to be sick or are known to be CWD positive. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends hunters who have harvested a deer, elk, or moose from a known CWD-infected area have the animal tested prior to consuming it. If hunters harvest an animal that appears to be sick, the best thing to do is contact FWP and have the animal inspected.

Some simple precautions should be taken when field dressing deer, elk or moose:

 Wear rubber gloves and eye protection when field dressing.

 Minimize the handling of brain and spinal tissues.

 Wash hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing is completed.

 Avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes of harvested animals. (Normal field dressing coupled with boning out of a carcass will essentially remove these parts.)

For more information on CWD and FWPs response, please look online at fwp.mt.gov/CWD. You can email CWDresponse@mt.gov.
We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright 2016 by Stella Nesanovich, Everyday Grace, from Third Wednesday, (Vol. IX, No. 4, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Stella Nesanovich and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introductions author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
State police in Michigan are taking an active interest in the bone fragments and teeth of three children found in a Missoula shed.

Tanner, Alexander and Andrew Skelton were 5, 7 and 9, respectively, when they went missing in November 2010 from their home in Morenci, a town of 2,200 in southern Michigan. They were last seen with their father, John Skelton, who is serving a 10- to 15-year prison sentence after pleading no contest to unlawful imprisonment in the case.

The skeletal remains were found in a shed at 2166 South 12th Street in Missoula and were confirmed to be of three children, estimated to be 2-4 years old, 5-8 years old, and 6-10 years old.

The remains have been sent for DNA testing to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, which runs the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs.)

One of the things were looking to get from NamUs is whether or not theyre related, Sgt. Travis Welch of the Missoula Police Department said Friday. If that happens, if we can get DNA out of these fragments, if they can definitely determine they are brothers, that would go a long ways toward making us take a closer look at the Michigan case.

As I understand it, thats a month or even several months out. Its not going to be a quick turnaround.

Michigan will be watching and waiting.

This information has just been presented to our family within the last several hours, Tanya Zuvers, the boys mother, posted Thursday night on the Facebook page Missing  Skelton Brothers, Morenci, Michigan. We are processing it and hopeful that we will have answers soon. We are thankful for all your thoughts and prayers.

The Facebook page was created Nov. 26, 2010, the day the Skelton brothers went missing. According to news reports at the time, their father testified he didn't harm the boys but gave them to a stranger to keep them from Zuvers during a nasty custody fight. Police believe he killed them. Since their bodies could not be found, John Skelton was charged with and convicted of three counts of kidnapping.

Michigan State Police issued a news release Friday confirming that investigators are working with Missoula police to determine if theres any connection to the brothers.

There has been nothing previously reported to police linking the brothers to Montana, and it is not known at this time if the remains are from related siblings, the release said. Until ... testing is completed and additional investigation by law enforcement in Montana occurs, it cannot be determined if these remains belong to the missing Skelton brothers.

Morenci has not forgotten the boys.

A Detroit News reporter and photographer visited the town last winter. A report published by the newspaper on Feb. 6 told of a bronze plaque in a municipal park that pictures and honors Andrew, Alexander and Tanner above the inscription "Faith, Hope, Love." A hair stylist keeps a missing person poster on her shop door and three electric candles in the window. The white board at the Pizza Box that lists the weekly specials also reads, "Keep the boys in your prayers!"

Missoula police said Thursday theyre seeking an unidentified person of interest in the case, though they have no suspect. Welsh said Friday hes not aware of any other connection to the missing Michigan boys other than the correlating ages of the remains.

Michigan police first contacted the Missoula department when Detective Guy Baker, the lead investigator, was out of the office. Welsh believes that was on either Wednesday or Thursday morning. They first spoke and exchanged information Thursday night.

Welsh said hes not aware of any other agencies that have been in contact with the Missoula department about the childrens remains.
A Missoula man who forced a 9-year-old girl to strip and dance for him was sentenced to prison Thursday.

Missoula County District Court Judge Leslie Halligan imposed a 100-year sentence on Wesley Smith, but suspended 80 years of it.

At a trial in June, a jury found Smith, 35, guilty of sexual abuse of children for the incident involving the girl. According to court documents, the girl reported that Smith also removed his own clothing, apart from his underwear, during the incident.

At trial, Smiths public defense attorney Joan Burbridge told the jury the girl lied about what happened.

Smith later pleaded no contest to felonies for assault on a minor and aggravated assault in a separate case. Those charges, as well as two other felonies that were dropped by prosecutors, involved incidents dating back to as early as February 2014. They included allegations that Smith shoved chili powder into a 2-year-old childs mouth and had attacked and strangled his then-wife.

Halligans sentence on Thursday included a provision that Smith not be eligible for parole until he completes the first phase of sex offender treatment while in prison. Upon release, he will be under supervision for the remainder of the 100-year term, and must be tracked by GPS. Smith must also register as both a sexual and violent offender.

On Thursday, Smiths attorney argued for a more lenient sentence of 30 years in prison with 20 of those suspended. Burbridge brought up her clients lack of felony history as well evidence that she said clearly illustrates a home where there were issues.

Prosecutor Brittany Williams had requested a harsher sentence than the one imposed, saying Smith has refused to take responsibility for what he did and blames the girl and his ex-wife for his charge and eventual conviction.

The Legislature has made it very clear that those people who hurt children must spend time in prison, she said.
RONAN  Montanas first cooperative brewery is expected to open its doors sometime next year in Ronan.

The hope is the venture will create a new cornerstone business that will lead to a revitalization of the communitys struggling downtown area.

Ronans downtown used to be the hub of the valley, said Rosie Goldich of the Lake County Community Development Corporation. It used to be this great location. Main Street was thriving back then.

Like many small towns, Ronans Main Street is now dotted with empty storefronts.

In the spring of 2016, local leaders asked a team of professional economic developers from the Montana Economic Development Association to host a series of listening sessions around the community and then offer suggestions on what could be done to revitalize Main Street.

They were basically asked three questions, said Brianna Ewert of the Lake County Community Development Corporation. What are the strengths of Ronan? What are the challenges facing the community? And where would you like to see Ronan in five, 10, 20 years?

The top concern that rose out of this was Main Street revitalization, Ewert said. That was the main priority followed by business development in Ronan  A lot of people were also really interested in seeing more niche marketing, more value added agriculture and more things that would support Ronans agricultural heritage.

Ronan residents were also very interested in the idea of a brewery.

The idea of creating a new cornerstone business on the towns Main Street topped the list in the resource teams subsequent report.

They said if you want Main Street revitalization, you need an anchor business, Ewert said. You need something that will bring people to Main Street. It could be something like Philipsburgs candy store, a bike shop or a bakery. They said a brewery would be a great idea, too.

While there are 68 breweries in the state, there isnt one in the Mission Valley.

The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research estimates that nearly 250,000 people from outside the state spend at least one night in Lake County. On average, 12,884 vehicles travel through Ronan every day, according to the Montana Department of Transportation.

Its literally an untapped market, Goldich said.

Last spring, the Lake County Community Development Corporation hosted a meeting to see if people were interested in the idea of creating a cooperative brewery in town.

Barb Nelson and her husband were among the 60 who showed up to learn more.

The couple lived in Charlo in the 1970s. Back then, Ronans Main Street was thriving.

You used to be able to go there and get just about everything you needed, Nelson said. It was kind of sad to see how poorly it was doing now.

They also had seen what a brewery can mean for a small town after watching the success of 2 Basset Brewery in White Sulfur Springs. The brewery in that community of 908 people became the meeting place for locals and drew others in with a variety of different events.

It seemed like a good way to begin to revitalize Ronans Main Street, Nelson said. People could buy shares in the cooperative brewery and help their community at the same time.

Nelson serves on the cooperatives steering committee.

So far, 116 people have paid $250 to become a part owner in the venture. Some of those have also opted to buy additional $100 shares of preferred stock.

When it comes to creating a new business, Ewert said it was kind of a funny place to begin.

It wasnt an entrepreneur coming in and saying I want to start a brewery, she said. It was a group of people in town saying we want a brewery to help our community.

The Lake County Community Development Corporation had experience at creating agricultural cooperatives. They drew on that to move forward with the cooperative brewery idea.

We were starting to hear about these cooperative breweries in other parts of the country and just thought it seemed like a really interesting idea, Ewert said. They all had sort of similar stories to what was happening here. There were a group of people that got together and said we really want a brewery and so they formed as a cooperative business.

The nearest one to Ronan is the Flying Bike Brewery in Seattle. Ewert said she couldnt find another in Montana or surrounding states.

At that first meeting, Ewert shared what she had learned about brewery cooperatives. Craig Koontz, the former head brewer at Lakesides Tamarack Brewery, shared his knowledge of the industry.

By the time that meeting was over, people were excited. They were really wound up, Ewert said. At the end of the meeting it was like what do we do next. 

Last fall, the necessary paperwork was filed with the state that allowed the sale of common and preferred stock.

A town meeting in early December drew about 80 people interested in buying stock and learning more about the project.

The energy in that room was incredible, Goldich said. People were there to sign up. They wanted to be an owner. After they signed their forms, we told them you own a brewery. People were excited to be able to reinvest in their community.

So far, people from Missoula to Polson have brought shares in the venture. As the word spreads, Ray believes that people from even farther away will be interested.

It is fun that it started organically and the first memberships were local, but the idea of being part of saving a town and being a part of the first cooperative brewery in Montana is pretty fantastic, Ray said. There are some people who dont even drink beer who tell us they love this idea.

The hope is the new brewery can be up and operating sometime next summer, after a brewer is hired.

Ray said there already has been a change in the way many feel about the future of Ronan.

When folks first offered their thoughts during that initial assessment, many said the communitys downtown was dying and there wasnt any way to turn that around.

The team of professional economic developers offered a different point of view. They told the community that things werent all that bad. The towns Main Street still had a bowling alley and movie theater. The street led to the beautiful hospital and there was a really nice park there, too.

They told the community that its not that bad, said Ray. It really did flip the hope. Weve seen that in the excitement thats building around the cooperative brewery. Its really about transformation of this community. Its really about Main Street revitalization.

People interested in learning more or buying shares in Ronans cooperative brewery can contact Lake County Community Development Corporation at 406-676-5901 or stop by their office at 407 Main St. in Ronan.
Montanans who have advocated for protection of the Paradise Valleys public lands from mining, as well as protecting a portion of East Rosebud Creek, got an early Christmas present from Rep. Greg Gianforte.

On Thursday, Gianforte, R-Mont., introduced in the U.S. House a bill (HR 4644) to protect the Paradise Valley from mining on public lands. The measure is identical to the one Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., introduced to the Senate in April. Both bills would withdraw 30,000 acres of federal land in the area from mineral exploration.

The fact is not every place is the right place for a mine, and we must protect our public lands and Yellowstone National Park," Gianforte said in a press release. "The consensus of the community has been clear, which is why I introduced todays legislation."

Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding wildlands are an economic engine for the region, pumping an estimated $196 million into Park County in 2014. More than 4 million people have visited Yellowstone each of the past two years, helping boost Montanas $6 billion recreation and tourism industry.

Its really exciting, said Colin Davis, owner of Chico Hot Springs Resort and Spa. All along weve been lobbying for bipartisan support.

The road past Chico would be the main route to Emigrant Gulch where gold mining has been proposed by a Canadian mining firm, Lucky Minerals. In July the Montana Department of Environmental Quality approved Lucky Minerals exploratory drilling on private land in the historic mining area.

Anybody drilling deep holes in this aquifer is a concern, Davis said. But I still have to appreciate and be thankful for this victory. Weve been pushing for this for a long time.

We still have a long way to go, but its an important step, said Michelle Uberuaga, of the Park County Environmental Council in Livingston. This is the permanent solution to protect those public lands, which is critical. We still have a lot of work to do to protect those private lands.

In September, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against Montana DEQ and Lucky Minerals on behalf of the Park County Environmental Council and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition to try and halt the mining companys drilling on private land.

In a press release, Lucky Minerals called the lawsuit a frivolous attempt to infringe on private property rights and circumvent historic mining laws.

A proposal to reopen an old gold mine on Crevice Mountain, just north of Yellowstone National Park, has not advanced since more details were requested by DEQ last fall.

That leaves Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., as the only member of the state's delegation who hasn't yet introduced legislation protecting the Paradise Valley.

"Sen. Daines supports the local communitys call for a permanent withdrawal," said a Daines spokesperson on Thursday.

In April, Daines had said that any protection would have to be balanced with respect for property rights, and that's what's missing if we want to see this bill signed into law."

Were just hoping and praying hell get behind this like Tester and Gianforte, Davis said. But it has to be a clean bill, dealing with this particular issue. We would love his support, but not if its attached to another piece of legislation.

Last week, Daines introduced legislation to remove five Montana wilderness study areas from consideration, which could free them up to motorized use. In discussing the bill with reporters, Daines told the Missoulian that his bill could be necessary to win bipartisan support for the Paradise Valley protection bill.

East Rosebud

On Thursday Gianforte also introduced the East Rosebud Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (HR 4645) to conserve two sections of East Rosebud Creek, which flows from the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area and is a tributary to the Yellowstone River. Tester submitted similar legislation in the Senate in March, which was co-sponsored by Daines.

We support these two common-sense bills that when passed will keep mines away from Yellowstones gateway, and keep East Rosebud Creek both scenic and wild, said Caroline Byrd, executive director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, in a press release. We thank Congressman Gianforte for introducing both of these bills, which have near-unanimous support in Montana. He has listened to Montanans whove asked him to introduce these clean companion bills in the House, to mirror the popular bills that have already been introduced in the Senate.

Chances are good that 20 miles of the East Rosebud could be protected under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act next year, said Mike Fiebig, of American Rivers, in Bozeman. Pursuit of protection for the creek goes back to 2014 when a similar act was introduced.

These days we look at a Wild and Scenic Rivers Act designation as a 10-year project, Fiebig said.

But he added that the legislation now looks ripe for attachment to a bill, even though the U.S. House and Senate have been deeply divided by partisan issues.

Were really happy that Rep. Gianforte, like his predecessor (Ryan Zinke), decided to support this bill, Fiebig said. We think weve got a pretty good chance of getting this moved through Congress.
MANDAN, N.D.  A blind, potbellied pig found abandoned will get a second chance at life at an animal rescue near Mandan.

Alison Smith, owner of Kitty City animal rescue, took in Wanda the pig, who was found deserted at a residence in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

A volunteer with Kitty City made the more than 500-mile trek this past weekend to pick up Wanda and take her to Mandan to be nursed back to health.

"Shes in semi-rough shape," Smith said Monday.

Wanda doesn't have eyes, which Smith said are believed to have been punctured. She has overgrown hooves and severe infections in both eye sockets.

Wanda was found at a residence on the edge of Albert Lea, according to Lt. Darren Hanson of the Albert Lea Police Department. The person who had been living there had vacated the residence.

The new property owner discovered Wanda holed up in a small pen and turned her over to the Freeborn County Humane Society. Hanson said no charges will be filed against the person previously staying at the residence.

Christa DeBoer, director of the Freeborn County Humane Society, said she had been called out to the property about two months ago because the living conditions there were inhabitable. In addition to swine, there were also horses, cats, dogs and a raccoon.

About two weeks ago, DeBoer and other shelter staff rescued Wanda  found in a small fenced-in chicken coop  and brought her back to the shelter. She was in rough shape, not eating or drinking. DeBoer said she attributed it to stress, but neither she nor her staff had experience with pigs.

"We just thought we took this poor, old blind thing out of a place shes always known," she said.

Smith, who has sheltered pigs in the past, said she learned about Wanda after the Freeborn County Humane Society posted on Facebook asking for animal rescues to help.

"It just tugged at me right away and it was just like, 'I need to just do something,'" Smith said. "I said I would help, but the issue was getting her here."

On Saturday morning, a Kitty City volunteer drove and picked up Wanda from the shelter and they arrived back in Mandan later that night.

Wanda was taken to a veterinarian on Monday and given antibiotics for her infections. Smith said it's not clear how old Wanda is, but she weighs about 150 to 200 lbs.

Smith said her biggest concern is having surgery performed to remove what's left of Wanda's eyes and have them sewn shut.

"She's doing well," said Smith, adding that Wanda is staying warm under a heat lamp and burying herself in straw. She's been munching on vegetables, such as lettuce and cucumbers, to stay hydrated.

Smith said she has experience with other blind animals at her animal rescues, Kitty City and Triple H Miniature Horse Rescue, including horses, cats and dogs. Her work primarily focuses on animals with physical disabilities and behavioral issues.

Weve taken in so many blind animals, and their quality of life is just as every bit of good as a sighted animal," she said. "(Wanda is) getting better, not worse."

Smith has been documenting Wanda's journey on Kitty City's Facebook page. She is also fundraising for Wanda's medical expenses on www.givinggrid.com/ordgxu. Donations also can be made at www.hhhmhr.org.
Hunting, fishing and wildlife are important to Montanans. These are the reasons many of us live here, and tourism and outdoor recreation are now the states largest economic driver. Support for these values helped make Steve Bullock a blue governor in a red state, and politicians took notice. No matter what their ultimate intentions, U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke both took pains to portray themselves as allies of Montana sportsmen. So did U.S. Sen. Steve Daines.

Their performance in Washington, D.C., has proven otherwise. Now Daines has introduced the ominously titled Protect Public Use of Public Lands Act. Why ominously? Because Washington politicians have developed a double-speak that allows them to sugarcoat legislation in ways that imply the opposite of its intention. This bill wont protect anything.

This act calls for the elimination of wilderness study area designation for nearly a half-million acres of public land in Montana. Daines does have a point. These lands have been in regulatory limbo since 1977, and it is time to clarify their status. But that should be done on an individual basis with an eye to compromise, not with the blow of a legislative hammer. Whats good for one WSA is not necessarily good for others.

It is always instructive to note who has signed on in support of bills like this. What about the endorsement from Big Game Forever (BGF)? Since numerous studies show that undisturbed security habitat is crucial for elk  our most popular big game animal  this groups name sounds suspiciously like another example of double-speak, and it is.

BGF is an offshoot of the Utah-based Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife (SFW), founded by Don Peay, a privatization advocate who once said, Its time to revisit the widely accepted principle that game is a public resource. These two groups cut a deal in Utah that allowed them to profit directly from the auction of big-game tags there. They also secured large sums from the state to control wolves even though there were no wolves in Utah. The Salt Lake City Tribune has reported extensively on their inability to account for that money.

In 2011, SWF issued a press release claiming that other sporting groups had endorsed their position on delisting the wolf, when they hadnt. Several of these organizations, including the National Rifle Association, responded: Due to blatant misinformation contained in the press release circulated by these two groups (SFW and BGF) any claims they make in the future should be thoroughly investigated and independently confirmed.

Consider the case of Corey Rossi, one of the initial founders of the SFW Alaska chapter, who became the states Wildlife Division director despite his total lack of qualification for the job. He was eventually dismissed after being charged with multiple game violations, but not before he had drafted a plan to allow private landowners to sell big-game tags and ignore state game laws. That potential disaster reached the governors desk before a leaked internal memo made it unravel. Why would Daines want to work with such a group while ignoring real Montana sportsmen?

The Daines bill predictably comes wrapped in promises of access. Montanans dont need more roads, but we do need legal access to public land we own. If Daines is concerned about access, he should address the millions of acres of public land throughout the West that are landlocked by private interests and illegal gates.

And Montanans should do whatever they can to let Daines know we want to keep Big Game Forever out of our state.
Airborne huckleberries to the Missoula International Airport and to a new effort called Take Flight Missoula. In response to passenger demand, the airport is pushing forward with expansion plans and teaming up with local businesses to bring in more airlines and flights. Speaking at a City Club Missoula meeting this week, airport director Cris Jensen noted that passenger numbers continue to grow, with an 8.6 percent increase over the past year alone. The airport recently announced that United Airlines would begin offering nonstop service to Los Angeles, and next week the airport will hold a press conference to announce yet another nonstop destination, most likely to a major city in Texas. Meanwhile, it is teaming up with local businesses in an effort to raise $400,000 in matching funds that will allow it to access $600,000 in federal grants for revenue guarantees to entice new airlines  and even more direct flights  to Missoula.

Carefully budgeted chokecherries to Montanas dismal D grade on a national ranking of financial literacy education in high schools. The report, released this week by the Champlain Colleges Center for Financial Literacy, graded all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and found that Montana has room for improvement when it comes to teaching financial literacy. High schools in our state tend to teach financial literacy in elective courses, if they teach it at all, and only 3 percent of required social studies courses cover personal finance matters. Montana was one of four states, with Louisiana, Vermont and Wyoming, to earn a D grade.

Overgrown huckleberry bushes to Missoula City Council members for authorizing the Parks and Recreation department to start trimming back encroachments of private property into Greenough Park. The 42-acre park at the base of the Rattlesnake Valley was donated to the city more than 100 years ago, and over time neighboring property owners have extended yards, fences and even decks beyond the park boundary lines. The most recent survey found 26 encroachments; the City Council decision means the owners of these properties will be asked to remove any overlapping property and restore the land to its original state if possible, or to work with city staff to purchase an easement.

Chokecherry poultices to Montanas persistently high rate of workplace injury and illness, among the worst in the nation. Although the state has made some slight progress in decreasing its workplace injury rate - improving from 4.3 injuries for every 100 full-time workers in 2015 to 4.2 in 2016, according to the Department of Labor and Industry  it still placed fourth-highest in a ranking of the states that report workplace injury data. Only Maine, Vermont and Washington had worse rates.

A trailer full of huckleberries to the person who called the Missoula Police Department after spotting an abandoned trailer containing a specialized wheelchair in the Evaro Hill area, and additional huckleberries to all those who helped reunite retired Army Lt. Col. Tim Gardipee with his stolen property. The trailer, which Gardipee received through the Wounded Warrior project, and motorized TrackChair, which Gardipee uses to access the outdoors, were taken from outside his apartment last week but recovered just a few days later after nearly 3,000 people shared his story on Facebook.
The Mount News Center

Featuring the extraordinary people, stories and news of Mount St. Mary's University, America's oldest independent Catholic university. Members of the media looking for information about setting up interviews, finding faculty experts or gaining access to campus for stories should contact Executive Director of Communications Donna Klinger at 301-447-5657 or d.j.klinger@msmary.edu.

Have a question, comment to share or want to find a photo from this week's big event? Check out the Mount on our social media channels!
The Environmental Protection Agency now denies the Flat is part of the area of Butte's Superfund known as West Side Soils.

EPA's Montana Superfund branch chief Joe Vranka gave a presentation at Wednesday's Council of Commissioners meeting to explain EPA's lack of action on West Side Soils. An internal report released in September analyzing the poor staffing levels at Superfund sites across the nation specifically cited West Side Soils  only one portion of the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund site  as a place where EPA does not yet know if residents are being exposed to heavy metals.

During the meeting, Vranka discussed West Side Soils as an area north of Walkerville and west of Uptown. But many of those involved in Superfund work, including state officials, have long considered the Flat to be part of West Side Soils.

Several articles in The Montana Standard this year referred to the Flat, a heavily populated neighborhood southeast of Uptown, as part of West Side Soils, and EPA had not previously disputed that characterization.

The Standard asked specific questions about the Flat in emailed media queries to EPA in both September and October. EPA never addressed specifics about the Flat and never said West Side Soils does not include the Flat in the agency's emailed responses to the Standard. EPA also never asked for a correction or rebutted any of the Standard's previous stories.

In a written statement provided Thursday about why EPA never challenged the Standard's previous reporting, Vranka said:

"EPA appreciates the opportunity to correct this misunderstanding by presenting accurate information to you and the Council. Homes in the area of the Flats have been sampled for arsenic in attics and remediated where necessary."

In an emailed query sent in mid-October, The Montana Standard asked if Blacktail Creek east of the Lexington Avenue Bridge would be sampled for heavy metals.

EPA responded on Oct. 16 with the following response:

EPA "will identify what areas will be sampled and may include areas east of Lexington."

When asked about this Thursday, Vranka responded in writing:

"EPA was looking at areas east of Lexington but, after reviewing the data, we did not find reason to include areas east of Lexington at this time."

Natural Resource Damage Program environmental science specialist Pat Cunneen said that what he understood during the long years of negotiations and cleanup activity on the Butte Hill was that "what was not encompassed in (the Butte Hill) is part of West Side Soils."

One former smelter, the Bell Smelter, was located in the Flat, where Holiday Inn Express now sits off Harrison and Harvard Avenues. Cunneen said that when NRD took a look at Blacktail Creek in 2013, "it was obvious to us nothing had been done about the Bell Smelter."

Cunneen said there are "glory holes"  places where miners explored for minerals  around Maud S. Canyon and mine claims on the East Ridge that were worked by historic miners. He said there is also an unnamed dump west of Williamsburg, which is south of Interstates 15-90.

"If it didn't fit in (the Butte Hill), it fell to the catch-all of West Side Soils," Cunneen said.

Retired state project manager Joe Griffin, who worked on Butte Superfund for 11 years, said that if EPA is "trying to dismiss (the Flat), I'd question it."

Griffin said he is not concerned about the soils in the Flat but is worried about stormwater reaching Blacktail Creek.

"There are problems upstream of the (Butte Hill) boundary for Blacktail Creek," Griffin said.

The boundary for the Butte Hill is the Lexington Avenue Bridge, which crosses Blacktail Creek after passing the KOA.

Griffin said there were smelters in what is now known as the Greeley-Whittier area in the Flat.

"I would ask the question, 'How do we know that isn't the reason we have high levels of metals coming out of stormwater?'" Griffin said.

Butte-Silver Bow Superfund operations manager Eric Hassler previously told the Standard that the county's Residential Metals Abatement Program  most often referred to by its acronym RMAP  does sample attics in what could be vaguely defined as West Side Soils. Hassler said the county samples attics as far east as the East Ridge, as far west as Rocker, as far south as the Basin Creek area, and as far north as the Moulton Road area north of Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond. All of those areas fall outside the Butte Hill.

Hassler previously told the Standard that the county addressed "a couple" of yards in the Flat when a child showed elevated blood lead levels.

Hassler could not be reached for comment as of press time Thursday.

Vranka told the Standard that data for the Flat shows heavy metal concentrations in the soil to be below what EPA deems as unsafe for Butte. He said the smelter emissions caused heavy metals to wind up in the attics of homes in the Flat "but not in the soils."

"We've looked at a lot of data," he said.

He also said West Side Soils is vaguely defined in the EPA document that defines the Butte Hill cleanup.

That document, called the Record of Decision, says:

"West Side Soils encompasses areas of Silver Bow County that have experienced mining activity but lie outside of the other (sections of the Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund site), generally north and west of (the Butte Hill)."

During the commission meeting, Vranka said EPA has known that in north of Walkerville and west of Uptown, there are mine waste piles that exceed levels considered safe, even for occasional use.

EPA has known anecdotally that residents ride bikes and motorcycles and shoot guns in those waste piles.

During Wednesday's discussion, more than one commissioner brought up trust issues with EPA.

"Why do we feel in Butte-Silver Bow it's EPA and BP versus Butte-Silver Bow? Why do we feel that way?" Commissioner Jim Fisher asked rhetorically.

BP is the parent company of Atlantic Richfield Company, the former oil giant responsible for the environmental damage in Butte, Anaconda, and along the Clark Fork River.

Vranka said EPA works with Atlantic Richfield "every day to get things in place."

"We fight the battles. They're (Atlantic Richfield) interested in getting the cleanup done cost efficiently. We're interested in being protective; the community wants something restorative," Vranka said.
Community band concert Dec. 21 in mall

The Butte Community Band will celebrate the winter solstice with a performance at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 21, in the Butte Plaza Mall. Featured are holiday and winter melodies. Admission is free.

Butte tourism board meets Monday

The Butte Tourism Business Improvement District board will meet at 4 p.m. Monday, Dec. 18, at the Butte Chamber of Commerce building, 1000 George St. Discussion will include the vacant board position and status of the airport marketing plan. Any questions, comments, or concerns can be addressed with Maria Pochervina by emailing marip@buttecvb.com.

Free movie Dec. 23 at Washoe Theatre

The Anaconda Ancient Order of Hibernians is sponsoring a free movie at 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 23, in the Washoe Theatre. The movie, "Despicable Me 3," is rated PG. The public is invited.

Irish history writing contest winners announced

Anaconda LAOH recently announced the winners of the 2017-18 writing contest "Expressing Irish History through Music."

Reilly Franklin won the Level 2 Division and $100.

Level 1 winners, all students at Ramsay Elementary School, were Jenna Gilman, 1st, $100; Meredith Varady-Harwood, 2nd, $75; and Joe Phillip, 3rd, $50.

Their entries have been forwarded for judging at the state level.
One in 10 Montanans relies on a Community Health Center for primary care. These federally subsidized, locally directed clinics deliver lower cost and high quality, stretching every dollar they receive from patients and taxpayers.

Montanas federally qualified health centers received $35.5 million in FY17 federal funds to serve vulnerable, underserved and rural communities. Most of those patients are below poverty level.

This holiday season isnt as bright as it should be for Montana health centers. Congress and President Donald Trump havent reauthorized the funding that makes services accessible to all community members. Seventy percent of their federal funding expired on Sept. 30, and the House passed a two-year extension last month. The Senate hasnt yet acted.

Federally Qualified Community Health Centers serve more than 100,000 Montanans  from Hardin and Miles City to Kalispell and Libby. Billings has two: Montana Migrant Council and RiverStone Health. Besides 17 main clinics, there are more than 40 satellite clinics.

RiverStone in Billings, for example, provides medical, dental and other health services from its main clinic. It also delivers health care at Orchard and Medicine Crow school clinics, at Healthcare for the Homeless clinics at Montana Rescue Mission, the HUB and St. Vincent de Paul Society. RiverStone operates rural health clinics in Worden, Joliet and Bridger.

Last Friday, leaders of Montanas Community Health Centers wrote to Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines, asking their support of the multi-year funding extension needed to bring stability for the patients we serve.

FUNDING CLIFF

Eleven Montana health centers will be seriously affected by funding delay starting in early 2018, the leaders wrote, adding: There are at least five Montana health centers that will struggle to survive if funding is not reauthorized to continue coverage for underserved and rural populations.

Community Health Partners serves 11,000 patients in Livingston, Bozeman, Belgrade and West Yellowstone. Executive Director Lander Cooney said her organizations grant runs through April, so the cliff isnt as near as for some other centers. However, Congress also has failed to reauthorize the National Health Service Corps, which reimburses educational loans for doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, counselors and other health care professionals who work in rural and underserved communities.

More than 50 percent of the licensed professionals working in Community Health Partners Clinics receive NHSC loan reimbursement, Cooney said. If there was no NHSC, that would take a significant toll on rural health care, she said. Small, rural clinics just cannot compete without loan reimbursement.

PHYSICIAN TRAINING

Medical education itself is on the line, too. Congress has failed to reauthorize the graduate medical education program that funds three residency positions in the Montana Family Medicine Residency at RiverStone in Billings.

If Congress does not act to fix the primary care fiscal cliff, $3.6 billion of this Community Health Center funding will be lost, along with all funding for the National Health Service Corps and Teaching Health Center program, said John Felton, chief executive for RiverStone For RiverStone Health Clinic, that means a loss of about $2.8 million, or about 20 percent of the clinics total budget. Felton said that could result in loss of up to 25 staff members and loss of capacity to serve 3,200 patients. RiverStone is fully funded until March 31.

Surely Tester and Daines understand how important these health care supports are in Montana. Politics has taken these community health programs hostage  along with the Childrens Health Insurance Plan.

Thats not what Montanans want. We want to take care of our neighbors who rely on community health centers, and we want to ensure that doctors are available to care for us when we need them.

We call on Tester and Daines to press their party leaders to send President Trump legislation that will sustain these vital health care programs for at least two years  before Christmas.

-- The Billings Gazette
I am continually amazed by the lack of understanding of federal public land laws and policies by politicians with Governor Bullocks article President should see first-hand what makes America great. Montana Standard 12-10-2017. He also sent his inaccurate article to the liberal Washington Post. The American Antiquities Act of 1906 16, USC 431-433 states  may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

First important fact is these lands are now and will continue to be public lands of the U.S.A. The law itself was to protect sites, not create vast reserves on what already is public land. Second, existing public land laws protect the integrity of these public lands and sites under the existing Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 43 U. S. C.1701 including other Public Land Laws.

Federal public land cannot be sold, period, or transferred to states to sell and remains a no-brainer to nowhere. Still to find out is how the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation receives $8.5 million per year in federal farm subsidies on OUR public state lands. Where does all the dough go? How about an audit? Maybe Governor Bullock can tell us voters?

These are federal public lands before and after any monument that will continue to be managed by BLM under public land law. The obvious change would be closing public land access roads and, by doing that, is an anti-hunting tool and also loss of recreational use. I recall the Missouri River Breaks Monument by President Clinton vividly with 12 years as a biologist in Malta. On those public lands the monument closed off 46 miles of access roads which drastically impacted hunting and recreation opportunity. Gone then was excellent mule deer hunting. All that land was and still is public land to be managed by the BLM, but vehicle access for all including seniors and disabled was lost with the monument creation. But then President Clinton was anti-hunting and anti-gun ownership.

The public is misinformed about these monuments by politicians these days who never look at an accurate public land status map or laws. I have asked that specific question at a Montana State Land Board meeting in Helena; they would not answer. In Montana we have nearly eight million acres of federal BLM land and 17 million acres of National Forest. We have five million acres remaining of public state land in Montana. The selling any of these public lands before any on-the-ground first-hand professional inventories of every single acre is theft of Montana public lands -- so tell that to the Washington Post, governor!

The governors article is so misleading, political and inaccurate. Who are the ones actually selling public land and violating antiquities and historic preservation laws? It is the Montana State Land Board under Governor Bullock! They have sold nearly 70,000 acres of OUR public state land under the misguided Land Banking Program and with no provision to purchase or replace land sold. I was involved with the state Land access issue from day one starting in 1976 while hunting north of Malta. Governor Stephens signed HB 778 into law on April 21, 1991 for recreational use on 5.2 million acres of OUR public state lands.

The Governor now should read the Montana Attorney Generals Report of 1996 where the Board of Regents illegally sold state land and violated state laws. Montanas state lands were being sold with no professional inventory of a single acre under the Montana Antiquities Act 22-3-421-M.C.A. or for historic values and all the State Laws violated as today are identified in that report. I am pleased we have Mr. Zinke as Secretary of the Interior to oversee our federal public lands and they are in good hands not like Montana where I am worried and no first-hand for Montana.

-- Jack D. Jones, Butte, a Montana native, worked as a wildlife biologist in Montana for 36 years with the Bureau of Land Management.
While three elementary schools celebrated being named "commendable" schools this year, other Muscatine Community Schools were not as lucky in this year's Iowa School Report Card released on Wednesday.

Grant, Franklin and McKinley Elementary Schools all received a "commendable" rank on their report card. For the past two years, they'd been "acceptable."

Mulberry and Jefferson Elementary Schools received "acceptable" ranks. This was nothing new for Mulberry, but for Jefferson, this a jump up from the past year's ranking.

Madison and Colorado Elementary Schools received "needs improvement" ranks. During the 2014-15 school year, Madison and Colorado were "acceptable" and "commendable" respectively. But for the second year in a row, both schools are told they need improvements.

Both Middle School received the same rank they have had the past three years. West "needs improvement;" Central is "acceptable." Between 2016 and 2017, West did not show significant improvements in their reading and mathematics proficiency. While Central's proficiency in reading and mathematics was higher than West, these scores did not show significant improvement over last year. Both middle schools were beneath the benchmarks for college and career readiness, a metric that is tied to reading and mathematics.

Muscatine High School received a "Needs Improvement" Rating for the third year in a row. While metrics, such as attendance (90.9 percent) and staff retention (86.6 percent) were relatively high, Muscatine High has significant work to do in preparing students for post-secondary success and to close the achievement gap within the school between minority students and the school's overall average.

In 2015, a legislative requirement launched the Iowa School Report Card to rate public schools on measures of achievement. It is designed to meet accomplish a component of the 2013 education reform legislation. The report includes measures on math and reading proficiency, student academic growth, achievement gaps among students, post-secondary readiness, attendance, graduation rates and staff retention. Based on their performance on these indicators, schools are given a rating: Exceptional, High-Performing, Commendable, Acceptable, Needs Improvement and Priority.

Muscatine Community Schools Ranking 2014-2017 School 2014-15 Rank 2015-16 Rank 2016-17 Rank Change Grant Elementary School Acceptable Acceptable Commendable Up Franklin Elementary School Acceptable Acceptable Commendable Up McKinley Elementary School Acceptable Acceptable Commendable Up Jefferson Elementary School Acceptable Needs Improvement Acceptable Up Mulberry Elementary School Commendable Acceptable Acceptable Same Colorado Elementary School Commendable Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Same Madison Elementary School Acceptable Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Same Central Middle School Acceptable Acceptable Acceptable Same West Middle School Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Same Muscatine High School Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Needs Improvement Same

Across the state, these ratings are trending down from last year. An analysis from the Iowa Department of Education found that 20.5 percent of Iowa public school received a higher rating than 2016. 50.9 percent received the same rating. 28.6 percent received a lower rating.

Statewide Iowa School Report Card Results Statewide Iowa School Report Card Results Exceptional High-Performing Commendable Acceptable Needs Improvement Priority 2017 2.2% 8.8% 26.4% 41.5% 15.3% 5.7 2016 2.1% 10% 30.6% 38.1% 13.2% 5.9%
MUSCATINE  This week, Muscatine Community School District released metrics it will track its success. The data will act as a baseline to measure growth between 2017 and 2022.

"The hope is that five years from now we won't be where we are today but to be better. The hope is always to be better for our students," said Elena Bobay, who presented on the metrics score card Monday evening to the school board.

This is part of the district's ongoing approach to create internal structures of accountability.

Superintendent Jerry Riibe said the approach comes from the school board's book for the year, Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn's "Coherence." One section in the book discusses how internal accountability can focus the direction of a district while cultivating "collaborative cultures" and deepening learning.

"Part and parcel of internal accountability involves discussing it among staff," they write. "What are we trying to do, how well are we progressing, how (are we defining) accountability among ourselves, and so on."

Each set of metrics was chosen based on three district targets.

Target 1: "Students will graduate prepared for post-secondary options."

The 28 metrics in this section focused on performance on state tests; course enrollment and completion and post-secondary education; and vocational indicators.

Percent of 8th grade algebra ready: Baseline -- 63.8 percent

Percent of 12 grade students college ready (via junior year ACT Reading): Baseline -- 36 percent

Percent of 12th grade students college ready (via junior year ACT Math): Baseline -- 19 percent

Percent of students at advanced math level: Baseline -- 16.4 percent

Percent of students at advanced reading level: Baseline -- 18.6 percent

Percent of students proficient at grade level math: Baseline -- 69.7 percent

Percent of students reading at grade level: Baseline -- 71.9 percent

Percent of students scoring above the state average on ACT assessments: Baseline -- 28 percent

Percent of AP exams with scores of 3, 4, and 5: Baseline -- 56.5 percent

Percent of students taking AP exams: Baseline -- 71.2 percent; (17-18) -- 100 percent

Percent of 5th graders enrolled in PRE-AP Math: (17-18) -- 36 percent

Percent of middle school students enrolled in PRE-AP English Language Arts: (17-18) -- 26.4 percent

Percent of middle school students enrolled in PRE-AP Math: (17-18) -- 24.4 percent

Percent of students accessing online courses: 1st year of measurement

Percent of 12th grade students with one or more college credits: Baseline -- 20 percent

Percent of 9th graders on track for graduation: Baseline -- 81.3 percent

Percent of students graduating from HS in four years: Baseline -- 81.9 percent

Percent of special education students spending 80 percent or more of the day in general education: Baseline -- 58.3 percent

Percent of students below average in one or more class: Baseline -- 24.8 percent

Percent of 12th grade students completing a vocational academy: Baseline -- 1.7 percent

Percent of students showing 1 or more years of growth on PEP: 1st year of measurement

Percent of students on track with vocational planning: 1st year of measurement

Percent of 12th graders complete post-secondary applications: 1st year of measurement

Percent of 12th graders completing FAFSA: 1st year of measurement

Percent of 12 graders enrolling in Iowa Regents Colleges without required remediation: Baseline -- 64.5 percent (based on graduating class of 2010 to 2015)

Percent of students gaining a vocational certification prior to graduation: 1st year of measurement

Percent of students present 95 percent or more of school year: Baseline -- 84 percent

Percent of teachers present 95 percent or more of school year: Baseline -- 38 percent

Target 2: "Students will learn in a positive environment."

The 11 metrics in this section focused on survey results, student participation and student discipline.

Percent of stakeholders feel the first priority of school is student achievement: 1st year of measurement

Percent of stakeholders feeling satisfied with school experience: 1st year of measurement

Percent of stakeholders feeling school is clean and cared for: 1st year of measurement

Percent of stakeholders feeling welcome at school: 1st year of measurement

Percent of stakeholders reporting communication is timely and clear: 1st year of measurement

Percent of stakeholders feel school is safe: 1st year of measurement

Percent of students with positive Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: 1st year of measurement

Percent of students participating in and out of classroom activities: Baseline -- 53.5 percent; (17-18) -- 61.8 percent

Percent of students receiving out of class discipline consequences: Baseline -- 13.7 percent

Percent of students reporting bullying/harassment issues: Baseline -- 0.9 percent

Percent of students with two or more discipline referrals: Baseline -- 18.9 percent

Target 3: "Utilize resources effectively and equitably."

The seven metrics in this section focused on financial indicators and teacher and administrator retention rates.

Percent of classroom exceeding state student/teacher ratio average: Baseline -- 12.62 percent; (17-18) -- 11.92 percent; State -- 12.32 percent

Per pupil spending compared to state average: Baseline -- $10,877; State --$11,267; (17-18 estimate) -- $10,767

Personnel costs not greater than 80 percent of total general fund expenditures: Baseline -- 83 percent; (17-18) -- 83 percent

Solvency Ratio between 5 and 10 percent: Baseline -- 19) percent; (17-18 estimate) -- 19 percent

Unspent budget authority between 5 and 10 percent: Baseline -- 14 percent; (17-18 estimate) -- 14 percent

Percent teacher retention: Baseline -- 92 percent; (for 17-18) -- 81 percent
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 []
Charles Daff has joined Gaw Van Males estate planning team as an associate attorney specializing in estate planning and trust administration. He is the eighth member of that team.

Daff is a graduate of the U.C. Irvine School of Law. He also served as lead article editor and senior editor for the UC Irvine Law Review.

Prior to joining Gaw Van Male, Daff was an associate attorney specializing in estate planning, trust administration and probate administration at a boutique law firm in Orange County, California.

Gaw Van Male is at 1000 Main St. in Napa.

Info: 707-252-9000
Marys Pizza Shack, the family-owned, 19-location casual dining Italian restaurant, is donating $47,778 to the North Bay Fire Relief Fund at Redwood Credit Union.

During November, Marys Pizza Shack held fundraisers at all locations where 15 percent of total sales went to North Bay Fire Relief efforts.

It was great to see such a strong community response to the North Bay Fire Relief Fundraisers," said Vince Albano, CEO of Marys Pizza Shack.

In addition to the three Tuesday fundraisers in November, whenever a guest spends $50 on gift cards through Dec. 31, Marys Pizza Shack will donate $5 to the North Bay Fire Relief Fund in addition to giving the purchaser a $10 gift card.
Rombauer Vineyards has appointed Heather Rehnberg as director of marketing.

Reporting to COO Bob Knebel, Rehnberg leads the Napa Valley family-owned and operated winerys marketing efforts throughout the U.S. and internationally. She is based at the winery in St. Helena.

Rehnberg joins Rombauer with more than 10 years of wine industry experience, most recently as brand manager at Treasury Wine Estates. Prior to that, she worked at Delicato Family Vineyards.

Rehnberg is a graduate of Sonoma State Universitys Executive Wine MBA program. She holds an undergraduate degree in journalism and wine and viticulture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
19372017

Maxine Child Treseder

19372017Maxine came into the world September 10, 1937 in Ogden, Utah, the only child of Grant and Marvilla Thornton Child. Maxine had a great love of life and the many experiences and opportunities she was given. She especially enjoyed her school years, her friendships throughout her life, and her family.

Maxine and Sterling met after Sterling returned home from his mission and they attended college together. They were married on August 29, 1957 in the Salt Lake Temple. They raised their family in Napa, California for 30 years before retiring to Utah. They were blessed to serve a mission in Athens, Greece. It was one of the highlights of their lives. A variety of church callings throughout her life taught her respect for the sacred and an appreciation for the human race. Maxine had a great love for family history; she tried to encourage others in this work and shared her writing with family and friends. She found that life is measured in moments, not years, in sharing love, and the cherished memories we hold in our hearts and the blessings we enjoy along the way.

Maxine was most thankful for her husband Sterling, her wonderful children, their spouses, her delightful 18 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren for making her life so full and happy. Sterling helped Maxine to be a stronger person, encouraged her when she was down, and taught her about sacrifice and to face pain with courage and dignity. Most of all Sterling gave her love, and she felt blessed to have him for her forever companion.

Maxine is survived by her husband Sterling, their children Kristine Hart, Nanette and Gary Moser, Leslie Ann and Steve Chapman, her 18 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Her beloved children Jill, Scott Sterling and baby Michelle preceded her in death. Dont grieve for me for now I am free, Im following the path God laid for me. I took His hand when I heard Him call, turned my back and left it all. I could not stay another day to laugh love work or to play. Tasks left undone must stay that way. If my death has left a void then fill them up with remembered joy.

Services will be held on Saturday, December 16, at 11:00 am with a viewing before from 9:00 to 10:30 am at the LDS Church located at 475 N 700 E, Pleasant Grove, Utah. Internment, Ogden City Cemetery.
19642017

R.Scott Fisher, DDS, died unexpectedly in Napa on November 26th, 2017. Dr. Fisher was a highly respected specialist in the dental field holding advanced degrees in dentistry.

Robert Scott Fisher was born in Santa Clara, CA on April 26th, 1964. He grew up in Huntington Beach and earned a B.S. degree in Physiology and Chemistry from Long Beach State University before pursuing post graduate work. After graduating with honors in 1992 from UCLAs School of Dentistry, he began working in Southern California in general dentistry. In 1995, Dr. Fisher decided to become a dental anesthesiologist and enrolled in the Loma Linda University Medical Center for two years. After successfully completing his postdoctoral anesthesia training, he and Dr. Tom Lenhart established Bay Area Anesthesia in the North Bay. Dr. Fisher worked in numerous Bay Area dental offices as a traveling dental anesthesiologist up until 2002.

In 2003, Dr. Fisher pursued an additional two-year postdoctoral certification at the prestigious UCLA Endodontics Residency Program. Upon completion of this specialty training, he returned to the Bay Area to practice endodontics for several dental offices. With his advanced training, he could perform root canals for patients who required anesthesia. It was always his goal to establish his own office, so in mid-2010, Dr. Fisher made the decision to open his Napa practice specializing in endodontics. Due to his excellent reputation amongst his colleagues, he quickly established a thriving practice and was the most widely referred endodontist in the Napa Valley. Patients of Dr. Fisher would express their appreciation for his kind bedside manner, his simple explanations of their prognoses and his superior ability to relieve their pain. His humble nature was demonstrated in the way he always introduced himself to patients as Scott Fisher, not Dr. A dedicated practitioner, Dr. Fisher was driven to excel in his field and became a master at his craft.

In late 2015, Dr. Fisher had to sell his practice to his associate, Dr. Blake McRay, due to chronic back pain that prevented his ability to work.

Dr. Fisher lived his life to the fullest. He was an accomplished cyclist, scuba diver, snow skier, swing dancer, hiker, and amateur racecar driver with his beloved Porsche Boxster Spec Class team. He traveled all over the world seeking new adventures; his favorite place to vacation and relax was Hawaii.

R. Scott Fisher is survived by his mother Ginny Fisher, his fiancee Michele Ikemire and her two children, Sharayah and Brennan Smith, his sister Ann Johnston and brother-in-law Don Johnston, and his niece Morgan and nephew Jake.

Memorial Services in Napa and in Huntington Beach will be held after the New Year holiday with date and location to be determined.
For decades, the building that once housed Fagianis bar has presented two old and contrasting faces to passers-by in downtown Napa.

Thursday night, the citys historic preservation leaders voted to keep the older one.

The owner of the early 20th century landmark at 813 Main St. has been cleared to begin a throwback overhaul that will peel away the bands of blue and maroon ceramic that have been wrapped across its first-floor exterior since Nicola Fagiani opened his namesake tavern there in 1945.

In their place will return wooden paneling and broad, sliding plate windows inspired by the buildings appearance when it opened around 1908. The Cultural Heritage Commission approved this option in a unanimous 4-0 vote.

The third floor is to receive a metal trellis with a retractable fabric awning.

It was an easygoing and low-key coda to a debate that had sharply divided Napans seven years ago, when the Fagiani sites then-owner battled city officials for the right to keep the ceramic cladding  a fight that inspired FREE FAGIANIS and SAVE THE TILES buttons in a fight against what the tiles backers called city overreach.

By contrast, a mere half-dozen people were on hand in the City Hall chamber to watch the acceptance of owner Joe Wagners back-to-the-past makeover, which required a certificate of appropriateness from the commission because of the buildings place on Napas inventory of historic resources.

A more authentic look  and a design with more light, air and connection to a now-thriving downtown  is needed to give a future restaurant a fighting chance in a space where two other eateries failed in four years, according to Kevin Alfaro, spokesman for Wagner, the owner of Copper Cane Wines and Provisions.

It didnt lend itself for public gatherings other than as a bar, and we wanted something that was more than a bar, said Alfaro. Wagner purchased the property in February 2016.

A new eatery is planned for the Fagianis building, according to Alfaro, with construction scheduled to start in the late winter and completion expected in August.

Fagianis surviving look will be the one penned by its original architect William Corbett, who designed a two-story Main Street facade in Renaissance Revival style. Corbetts vision lives on in its second floor, but the building came to be defined, for many observers, by the Art Moderne-style tile cladding it wore during nearly four decades as Fagianis bar.

The tiled envelope remained part of the downtown streetscape even after Fagianis closure in the aftermath of the July 1974 stabbing murder of the founders daughter Anita Andrews within its walls. (Roy Melanson, who already was serving a lifetime prison sentence for a slaying in Colorado, was convicted of killing Andrews in 2011.)

The storefront remained empty until the developer Steve Hasty bought it from Andrews surviving relatives in 2007. He persuaded the City Council to overturn a Planning Commission veto on keeping its tile-clad exterior.

A restaurant, The Thomas, opened it in 2012 but closed after three years. Its successor, Ninebark, also shut down in July 2016 just nine months after its debut.

Whatever attachments Napans may have to the distinctive tiling, a change of vision is needed for a modern eatery to succeed there, according to Naomi Miroglio, the Oakland architect partnering with Wagner. Two good restaurants failed in this location, and we need to look at our objectives in reusing this location, she told commissioners.

City staff also supported the move to an unmistakably early 20th-century identity for Fagianis. Earlier, senior planner Karlo Felix had described the later tiling as not an exemplary specimen and notable only for its connection to the Fagiani family, rather than as outstanding design in itself.

Fagianis present-day image may not disappear completely, however. A pair of commemorative plaques are planned for the outer pillars of the storefront, and Miroglio said one or both can carry the image of the building as it appeared in the taverns heyday.

Even while complimenting the Fagiani buildings new-old appearance to come, Commissioner Beverly Shotwell asked Napans to respect what the landmark had once been.

There are hundreds of people in this town who appreciated the tile, in that it incorporated different designs and eras into an older building, she said. I dont think you can say the tiles are not a good thing, because thats a matter of opinion. I think the tiles were and are super-cool.

Its time for it to become something else, but there was a time when it had to be this way.
Police: Suspected tagger arrested in Napa for vandalism

A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of vandalism on Wednesday night after allegedly spray-painting his moniker  various versions of Nobody  on businesses and government property all over the city, according to Napa Police.

Izaiah Wayne Metcalf-Valles is suspected of tagging dozens of businesses as well as local bridges, signs and fences, Sgt. Todd Shulman said Thursday.

Its a pretty big deal, Shulman said. Hes probably been our most active graffiti person for the last two or three months.

The graffiti has caused thousands of dollars worth of damage, he said.

Shulman said that a residents tip helped lead to the arrest.

A Napa resident who noticed some suspicious activity in his Westwood neighborhood on Saturday photographed the suspect vehicle and, when the vehicle left the scene, saw that there was wet graffiti in the same area where the vehicle had been. Police were then able to track the vehicle to Metcalf-Valles, Shulman said.

Metcalf-Valles was booked at the Napa County jail on suspicion of two counts of vandalism. His bail was set at $10,000.

Anyone with information may contact Sgt. Todd Shulman at 707-257-9575 or tshulman@cityofnapa.org.

To report any type of graffiti seen in Napa, contact the graffiti abatement hotline at 707-257-9528.
A pattern is emerging in President Donald Trump's foreign policy: Time after time, he's doing what he promised to do.

Last week, Trump announced that the United States is formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving its embassy there, even though some of his aides warned that the move could derail peace negotiations.

"I fulfilled my campaign promise," the president boasted on Twitter. "Others didn't."

Before that, Trump refused to certify that Iran is complying with its nuclear deal and renewed his threat to scrap the agreement, despite protests from Britain, France and Germany.

Before that, he pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, despite Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recommendation to stay in.

And last weekend, at a campaign-style rally in Florida, Trump renewed his complaint that NATO members aren't paying their fair share for defense. He questioned whether the United States should defend them in a war with Russia.

"It helps them a hell of a lot more than it helps us, OK?" he said. "So we'll have a nation that doesn't pay. Then their nation gets frisky with whoever -- Russia. So ... we end up in World War III for somebody that doesn't even pay?"

In Washington, Trump's aides have tried to polish his rough edges. They have implored him to stick to official texts when he talks about foreign policy. They have assured allies that his positions aren't as disruptive as they sound. Their message often boils down to: Watch what we do, not what he says.

From time to time, they've even succeeded in restraining the president from acting on his initial impulses.

Trump wanted to scrap the Iran deal immediately; instead, he's agreed to give Congress a chance to impose new sanctions first. (Congress has not complied.)

They persuaded him, after several tries, to reaffirm the U.S. defense commitment to NATO -- even though he keeps backsliding.

They persuaded him to give sanctions a chance to nudge North Korea toward halting its nuclear weapons program, even though he says diplomacy is a waste of time.

They convinced him to sign a bill from Congress imposing sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016 election -- even though he still refuses to admit it happened.

But once the president is freed from the constraints of the White House, the old Trump returns: combative, blustery and resentful of the idea that the United States has a special obligation to lead the world.

"My job is not to be president of the world," he said in Florida. "My job is to be president of the United States of America."

It's that "America First" impulse that worries the foreign policy establishment most. They believe Trump is eroding the alliances the United States built after World War II, with a corresponding erosion of American influence.

"I'm scared," Madeleine Albright, who served as secretary of State under President Clinton, said at an Aspen Strategy Group conference this week. "I often called the United States the indispensable nation. We are becoming the dispensable nation. Others are deciding they can do without us."

"There is a risk," said Stephen Hadley, a Republican who served as national security advisor under George W. Bush. "The risk is that China, Russia and others will form an alternative international order based on international principles."

That's not the only reason the president's stubborn fidelity to his campaign promises is chilling. If Trump sticks to the unalloyed positions he brought to the White House, we're in for a series of crises: a military showdown with North Korea, if Kim Jong-un continues his nuclear missile program; a break with allies over Iran, if Trump acts on his promise to scrap the nuclear deal; a series of trade wars, beginning with Canada and Mexico if they continue to resist new concessions in NAFTA.

Trump can claim some successes in his first year.

The war against Islamic State is coming to a close (although there's plenty of postwar work to do).

He's pushed NATO countries to increase their defense spending (just not enough to make him happy).

He's on a first-name basis with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Angela Merkel.

But at the age of 71, he hasn't changed much -- and, judging from his speech in Florida, he hasn't learned much, either.

When he ran for president, he promised, in effect, to destabilize the international order. And he's delivering.
I am working on a project to benefit victims of the wildfires and first responders, titled "Unsung Heroes of the Wine Country Wildfires," and am hopeful you can assist in helping to make the community aware of the project to encourage their participation through this letter or any other means you find appropriate.

The project is to collect inspirational stories across Napa and Sonoma counties of the incredible acts of kindness people engaged in to help their loved ones, neighbors, friends, strangers and animals during the fires. A selection of these stories will then be compiled into a book and/or blog, any profits from the sale of which will be donated to wildfire victim and first responder charities.

To date, more than 70 notebooks have been placed across both counties in which people can write their stories. I have also just launched a website, unsungwildfireheroes.com, in an effort to reach a wider audience and provide a means for people to be able to submit their stories online, as well as to sign up for updates, including the ultimate release of the stories.

I lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Andrew, in New Jersey during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, through one near fatal car accident and one life threatening one, and in Manhattan during 9/11. Even in the face of those horrific events, the recent wildfires that ravaged wine country were the most terrifying event I've ever experienced. That's not to diminish in any way the utter devastation that took place during any of these events, particularly the attacks on 9/11.

When I think about why I found the wildfires to be more terrifying, the answer for me is that because as devastating as those prior events were, some of them you knew were coming so could prepare, and each ended relatively quickly. Yes, dealing with the aftermath of those events for many took a very long time, and in the case of 9/11 will always have a lasting impact.

For me, living in danger for a week or more and not knowing where the danger could next arise was something altogether different. The community knew that our incredible first responders were doing everything in their power to get the fires under control, and that many had come from far and wide to help save our community, but the reality was that Mother Nature had taken over.

The wildfires themselves are now months behind us, but the aftermath is something the community will struggle with for years to come. The fires burned more than 245,000 acres, taking at least 43 lives and more than 8,500 structures with them. Thousands were made homeless overnight, lost their businesses, their jobs, or their beloved pets. Some lost loved ones.

Despite the fear, destruction and utter devastation, the strength of our community and the kindness of those who make wine country their home shown through like a beacon of hope. There are no words to describe the heroism of our first responders who worked tirelessly to save our lives, our homes, our businesses, and our community. Beyond the first responders, the people of our beloved community risked their own lives to save others, their homes and the animals, and engaged in countless acts of human kindness to help each other through this tragic event.

This project is an effort to capture the incredible element of human nature than helped get us through this devastation, and hopefully serve as an inspiration not only for those who are continuing to struggle through the aftermath of the fires, but also for people far and wide to get a glimpse into the strength of human kindness. It is also an effort to help raise money for those who lost everything in the fires and the first responders who risked everything to save our lives and our homes.

For anyone who would like to submit their story, please do so through the website unsungwildfireheroes.com. If you were not impacted by the wildfires, please consider signing up to be notified when the book is available to help support the victims of the fires and our wonderful first responders through your purchase.

With the deepest gratitude to our first responders, and all who are working so hard to rebuild our community.

Lisa Barnes

Santa Rosa
I greatly appreciate the thoughtful letter that I received recently from the former principal John Bordelon. Given what I have learned about his leadership and relationships in this community, I am not surprised by his statement.

The Justin-Siena community has been hurt in part by an abrupt departure of two school leaders. I believe that both Robert Jordan and John Bordelon were acting with the best intentions of ensuring excellence in education to the students entrusted to our care, yet now they are both gone.

Johns letter expresses his honest and heartfelt belief that two leaders can sometimes have the same commitment, but not share the same path. Both John and Robert did their best for our school, our children and their futures, and this community. And both should be held in high esteem, honored, and praised by Justin-Siena.

In my short time at Justin-Siena, I have committed myself to providing the necessary leadership during a transition period. Above all, I have been an active listener. Recent events have been confusing, emotional, and have caused a degree of unrest. I know among some, there is anger, mistrust, and a sense of loss. I apologize for those unsettling feelings and the sense of hurt that you are grappling with. I also see great hope and resilience.

I want to thank John on behalf of myself, the Christian Brothers, and the school for stepping up to be an agent of healing for our community. I recognize that it is not easy to rise above and demonstrate leadership. John has done just that. He has been a positive and respected leader for both our faculty and our students.

As John indicated in his letter to relocate to pursue new opportunities, I wish him well and send my prayers to him and his family. John is and will be missed, and we fully support him in his future endeavors.

I have been very proud of our students and their care for each other as they seek to move forward into their promising futures. Let us all come together, in the wake of the fall disruptions, and continue the healing that is necessary for all of us, our children, and our community.

Live Jesus in Our Hearts,

Br. Christopher Brady, Principal

Justin-Siena High School
A decade ago, I wrote an April Fools Day wine column about an optimistic winemaker in Sweden (!) who had planted cabernet sauvignon, anticipating that climate change would put him ahead of the curve.

At the time, the idea was considered radical. Sweden was too cool to grow wine grapes. Not any more.

In fact, a hybrid grape called Rondo now is growing in Sweden, England, and Germany, and making red wines in all three regions. Part of the reason Rondo works in such previously wine-barren regions is that all three areas are seeing warmer average temperatures.

An article published last week (Dec. 6) in the New Zealand Herald addressed how climate change down under will impact one of New Zealands most important wine regions  Central Otago.

Long known as a superb cool location for pinot noir and riesling, New Zealands south island area Central Otago has already begun seeing the effects of increasing temperatures  so much so that the area may soon be warm enough to warrant planting other grape varieties.

Wine enthusiasts may well be able to buy Central Otago-grown syrah and merlot in the next few decades, the Herald article said, quoting former Central Otago Winegrowers president James Dicey.

Temperature changes, including additional heat spells and higher peak temperatures, require changes in farming techniques including better irrigation systems and new techniques to maintain vine character, Dicey said.

Glenn McGourty, UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor for Mendocino and Lake counties, just returned from a technical conference in Argentina where the topic was water  or a lack of it as a result of drought, scant spring runoff, and other difficult conditions for wine grapegrowers.

Part of the problem for many Southern Hemisphere wineries will be the shortage of water, he said.

Specifically, their snow pack (in Argentina) was not as big as in past years, and many areas are very arid, McGourty said. Water is scarce.

We face this same situation in most areas of the Central Coast  they are in dire straits in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Monterey counties. You can see how dry everything is by looking at the fires down there right now.

He said that following the October fires in Napa and Sonoma, the North Coast got ample rainfall. But before all that we had some incredibly hot weeks, even in places where you wouldnt expect it, like San Francisco.

McGourty noted that during the recently concluded harvest, the four North Coast counties had several days in a row of 100 degree temperatures. Really, they were heat storms that lasted for a period of time, and that can change the composition of the fruit.

(Heat) can create sunburn, it increases the pH and the sugar. And yes, wine makers can deal with some of these things in the winery, but its not their favorite way to go.

He said the resulting wines may be satisfactory, but occasionally such conditions will produce characteristics that are atypical: Its contrary to our handcrafted image of wines made from exquisitely grown fruit.

If youre a pinot noir grower and all of a sudden the temperatures rise to 100 degrees for several days in a row, well, thats not the kind of wine you want to make. Its not what you signed up for.

Such high temperatures cause acids to metabolize, and to a degree, the higher alcohol we are seeing is due more to dehydration, which he said can cause many red wines to smell oddly atypical.

McGourty pointed out that Californias Dept. of Food and Agriculture strongly supports the Healthy Soils Initiative, a collaboration of various departments and agencies to ensure that farmers are properly equipped with the right scientific data to deal with climate change issues.

One key issue is fixing carbon in the soil, a vital aspect of modern farming, he said.

In wine regions of California, farming changes are being made to deal with local climate-change problems that will affect the industry. McGourty said similar changes can be anticipated throughout the wine world.

One thing many California growers now are saying privately is that some wines may change in style.

Look at how radically different most red wines are today from what they were just 25 years ago when lower alcohol wines (12 percent to 13 percent) were easy to find. Today, most fine red wines have alcohol levels at 14 percent or more.

Encouraged by some vocal advocates of high-alcohol wines, consumers learned to like the new higher-alcohol style of wine, notably red wines. But if average temperatures continue to rise, grape sugars will accelerate and red wine alcohol levels of 16 percent and 17 percent will be commonplace.

Because of this possibility, many wine makers are seeking grape clones as well as yeast strains that deliver lower alcohols.

In labs around the world, research is underway to develop yeasts and grape clones as well as fermentation techniques that deliver mainstream flavors at lower alcohols.

Any wine changes brought on by increased vineyard temperatures could make for new and interesting aromas and flavors. But global climate change will present all wine lovers, from wine makers to collectors, restaurant and retail personnel, and even casual drinkers, with a number of dilemmas, some of which will change the way we think about wine.

It also may result in us seeing Swedish cabernets or Irish sauvignon blancs sooner than we realize.

No Wine of the Week
Archaeologists Unearth Record of Ancient Assyria's Demise

A team of archaeologists excavating at the site of Ziyaret Tepe in southeastern Turkey have discovered a rare and unique cuneiform tablet -- one that tells a story of frustration and desperation expressed by an ancient Assyrian official, providing a glimpse of conditions in the Assyrian Empire just before its collapse in the 7th century, B.C.

Recovered within the remains of what archaeologists have identified as an administrative complex, the clay tablet, small enough to be held in the palm of one's hand, features, in cuneiform script, a letter written by Mannu-ki-libbali, who was a senior official of the Assyrian provincial capital of Tushan. Tushan was a 7th-century city that governed an area on the outskirts of the Assyrian Empire. In the letter, he responds to an order to assemble a unit of chariotry, but he explains that all of the skilled professionals he needed to accomplish it had already fled the city. He expresses his frustration and resignation with these final statements:

"How can I command? ..... Death will come out of it. No one will escape. I am done!"

"This letter is unparalleled," writes the excavation leadership in an article recently published in Popular Archaeology Magazine. "It can only have been written as the front line drew close to Tushan and the infrastructure of the empire collapsed. As a first-hand account of Assyria in its death-throes it is unique."

The administrative complex in which the tablet was found also yielded a remarkable archive of cuneiform tablets. Totaling 27, they were discovered in fragments on the floors of the rooms of the complex. "The contents of the tablets include movements of grain, the loan of a slave, lists of personnel, the resettlement of people and a census enumerating military officers and their agricultural holdings," wrote the excavation leadership about the finds. "But the majority of the tablets deal with transactions of barley - deliveries from outlying farmsteads, loans and payments for rations." They span the period from 614 BC to 611 BC -- around the time of the the fall of Nineveh.

"This is the first time that Assyrian administrative texts from this period have ever been found," stated dig directors Timothy Matney and John MacGinnis. The archive provides a window on the Assyrian world as the Babylonian king Nabopolassar was waging military campaigns against a disintegrating Assyrian empire.

Full-scale excavations at Ziyaret Tepe began in 2000 and lasted for 12 seasons. Located on the upper Tigris river abut 60 km east of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, the site consists of a central mound 30 m high and the remains of a surrounding lower town about 30 hectares in area. The project, headed in the field by Prof. Timothy Matney of the University of Akron, Ohio, began with geophysical prospection and ceramic surface collection, and work at the site eventually yielded structural and artifact remains that evidenced a massive provincial capital that flourished for almost 300 years. According to written records, it was founded on a previously occupied site by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in 882 BC, but was then finally captured by the Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 611 BC. Archaeologists have uncovered a palace, an administrative complex, elite residences, and a military barracks at the site.
UF selects new Dean of Students

After a national search, the University of Florida announced Dr. Heather White has been selected as Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, effective in January.



The Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students oversees the Dean of Students Office, the Counseling and Wellness Center and Multicultural and Diversity Affairs.

"Out of a robust and competitive applicant and finalist pool, Dr. Whites proven track record of innovation, leadership and excellence will help us serve todays students and plan for tomorrows, said Dr. David Parrott, vice president for Student Affairs.

Dr. White has spent the last six months serving as the interim Dean of Students. During this time, she led the department through extensive organizational and budgetary realignments. She worked with her team to successfully secure more than $600,000 of the Capital Improvement Trust Fund (CITF) allocation for the expansion of the Hitchcock Field and Fork Pantry and jumpstarted a restructuring of the university student medical withdrawal process to an online platform.

Prior to her role as interim Dean of Students, Dr. White led UFs nationally recognized Career Resource Center for six years, pushing the department forward into innovative and groundbreaking models and programing to enhance career support. She has also worked in Housing and Residence Life and campus activities at Jacksonville University, Valdosta State University, and Mississippi State University.

Through the search process, the Division of Student Affairs brought four candidates to Gainesville for on-campus interviews. The finalists were strongly vetted through a review of stakeholder feedback, strengths/weaknesses provided by the search committee, and extensive reference checks with the candidates current and former employers/faculty members. All of this information informed the decision.



For the role of Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, we sought an individual with strategic vision and leadership, strong communication skills, and a history of meaningful collaborations, among other attributes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-14 14:54:15|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Congress took no action before a deadline on reimposing sanctions on Iran on Wednesday, leaving the landmark deal intact and letting U.S. President Donald Trump make a decision in January.

On Oct. 13, Trump announced that he had decided to decertify Iran's compliance with the Iran nuclear deal reached in 2015, a move that did not pull the United States out of the deal but triggered a 60-day window for Congress to decide whether to reimpose nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, even it means violating the deal on the U.S. side.

In the past two months, Congress did not come up with any resolution to reimpose sanctions.

With no action from Congress, the ball was passed back to Trump, who should decide in mid-January if he would like to waive energy sanctions on Iran.

According to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INRA) passed by U.S. Congress in 2015, the Trump administration is required to recertify to Congress Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal every 90 days.

"There was actually no deadline to act by this week, as the administration did not ask that Congress introduce legislation to re-impose JCPOA-related sanctions," claimed the White House Press Secretary Sandra Sanders at a Tuesday briefing, citing the deal by its formal title, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The Trump administration also expressed its intention to wait for another month before the president decides.

"I believe the next deadline comes up in January, so I don't think that we would do anything prior to the deadline," U.S. State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said at a daily briefing on Wednesday.

The nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the six world powers of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany in July 2015. So far, the deal has helped defuse the Iran nuclear crisis and bolstered the international non-proliferation regime.

During his speech in October, Trump blamed Iran for committing "multiple violations of the agreement" and "not living up to the spirit of the deal."

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog tasked to monitor Iran's nuclear activities, has certified eight times Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 00:02:01|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- India said here on Thursday that it looked forward to working with the new democratically elected government in Nepal and extended its support for the all-round development of the Himalayan nation.

"India has age-old unique time-tested ties of friendship with the country," Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told media on Thursday.

"We look forward to working with the next democratically elected government in Nepal to advance our close and multi-faceted partnership across all sectors and to support Nepal in its pursuit of peace, stability, economic prosperity for all round development," he said.

According to results released by Nepal's Election Commission, the leftist alliance won 113 seats of the available 275 seats in the new federal parliament, becoming the winner of the landmark general elections since Nepal's transformation from a monarchy to a republic.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 00:17:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

CAIRO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt on Thursday condemned the deadly terrorist attack on a police academy in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.

"The Egyptian government and people stand in solidarity with the Somalian government and people against terrorism," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in the statement.

A suicide bomber disguised as a policeman blew himself up inside a police training camp in Mogadishu on Thursday, leaving at least 18 killed and 15 others wounded.

Somalia's terrorist group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since January 2016, the armed conflict in Somalia due to Al-Shabaab's rebellion has left over 2,000 people killed and more than 2,500 others injured, according to a recent UN report.

Egypt also suffers from a wave of terror attacks at home that have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers as well as dozens of the Coptic minority since the army toppled former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 00:37:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MAPUTO, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Mozambican police said Thursday that 71 illegal miners were arrested on Wednesday for carrying out illegal activities at a gold mine in Manica province, central Mozambique.

There are children among the 71 miners who include Malawians, Zimbabweans and Tanzanians, said Elcidia Filipe, a police spokeswoman in the Barue district.

The spokeswoman decried the rampant illegal mining in the district, adding that "children's participation in illegal mining is extremely dangerous and urgent measures have to be taken to stop it."

She said the children were digging in tunnels and removing gold to sell to foreign buyers in the mining zones at low prices.

According to the spokeswoman, the police last month launched an operation and detained at least 15 illegal diggers in gold mines in the province.

The campaign also included exhorting the parents to prohibit children from being involved in dangerous gold-digging activities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 00:47:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

DAMASCUS, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Thursday condemned the U.S. airstrike that killed 23 civilians a day earlier in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour, state news agency SANA reported.

In a statement, the ministry said the "illegitimate" U.S.-led coalition committed an "appalling crime" against civilians when its warplanes struck the town of Jurthy al-Sharqi in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zour.

The "new crime" comes at a time when the Syrian army defeated the Islamic State (IS) militants in key cities and areas in Deir al-Zour, it added.

Meanwhile, the ministry expressed dismay with the inaction of the UN Security Council, which has "failed to undertake any measure to stop the aggressions of the international coalition" on Syrian soil.

The statement is not the first by the Syrian Foreign Ministry, which has repeatedly condemned the airstrikes of the U.S.-led coalition on residential areas in the country.

The ministry also called on the international community to shoulder its responsibility and dissolve the U.S. coalition, which started its mission in Syria against IS militants in 2014.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 00:52:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MOSCOW, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Russian president Vladimir Putin said Thursday he believed in U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to honor promises made during his election campaign on getting relations between Moscow and Washington back on track.

"I hope that he still wants it and I assume that finally we will normalize our relations in the interests of the American and Russian peoples," Putin said at his annual press conference.

Putin said that Russia and the United States had many ways of "doing things much more efficiently than before by joining efforts in the interests of our peoples."

These, according to the Russian president, include joint struggle against common threats such as ecological issues, proliferation of mass destruction weapons and all types of crises in various regions of the world including the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula.

Putin praised the recent declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of Washington's readiness for direct contacts with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

He expressed hope that Russia and the United states would be able to cooperate on the basis of common sense in many issues including on a settlement on the Korean Peninsula.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 01:02:20|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

MOGADISHU, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- At least 18 police officers were killed and 15 others injured in a suicide bombing early Thursday at a police academy in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, police said.

The bomber detonated his suicide vest when the officers were having breakfast, contrary to earlier reports the officers were already conducting parade exercise.

"The bomber was in police uniform and detonated the bomb when the officers were having breakfast," acting police chief Muktar Hussein Afrah told journalists.

State minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Abdullahi Hamud also confirmed the police had identified the bomber and will release his details after concluding investigations.

The militant group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility of the attack, which came two months after the Oct. 14 truck bombing in a busy junction in Mogadishu killing 512 people and injuring more than 300 others.

The insurgents behind a series of attacks in the Horn of Africa nation said they killed 27 police officers and injured more.

The militant group frequently exaggerates the number of people they killed or injured.

The group did not claim responsibility for the Oct. 14 attack. The government here also announced it would postpone an inter-state tournament scheduled for today to mourn the departed officers.

Chief Major Gen. Abdiweli Jama Warsame called on the military to remain vigilant following the attack. "I call on all the Somali National Army to remain vigilant and ensure we do not have such attacks again," said Warsame.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 01:37:28|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BEIRUT, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Lebanese Cabinet on Thursday approved licenses for a consortium of three international oil companies, paving the way for their drilling in the country.

The approval will allow the three companies, which have been bidding on blocks 4 and 9, to start their exploration of the oil and gas reserves in Lebanon.

Lebanese Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil presented the results of his negotiations with the three oil companies to the Cabinet before it approved the decision.

"The next step would be informing the companies and asking them to sign the contracts that the Cabinet has approved on along with paying certain guarantees," Abi Khalil said.

"The drilling will start at the beginning of 2019. Let's see if there is a possibility of developing the domain," he said, adding that the three companies were French Total, Italian ENI and Russian Novatek.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 07:14:03|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

LONDON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Britain's recently appointed Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said here Thursday that 2018 will mark the year British and Japanese military forces work even more closely together.

His comments came after Williamson and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met their Japanese counterparts at Greenwich Naval College to strengthen security and defense cooperation between the two countries.

Britain and Japan both agreed a three-year Defense cooperation plan, with a communique after Thursday's meeting saying: "It demonstrates the UK's dedication to working with Japan as a long term security partner, including activity across air, land and sea in the Asia Pacific region."

As a signal of the closer ties, Britain will next year send 45 army personnel to train with Japanese soldiers, the first time British troops will exercise on Japanese soil.

With plans already agreed, Britain will send two Royal Navy warships to visit Japan in 2018. And the Royal Air Force also plans future joint working with the Japanese Self-Defense Air Force.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 07:24:05|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

MADRID, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two Spanish Civil Guards and a civilian who was accompanying them were shot dead at a farm near the village of Albalate del Arzobispo in the province of Teruel in the northeast of Spain late on Thursday evening, the Civil Guard and Spanish media sources have confirmed.

The deaths happened as the agents were searching for a suspected robber, who's identity remains unknown. The suspect is thought to have fled the scene of the killings in a vehicle described as a Mitsubishi pick-up truck.

The government delegation from the region of Aragon has related the incident to another shooting incident in Albalate de Arzobispo on Dec. 5, when two people, one of whom was a 70-year-old man and the other a locksmith, were shot and wounded.

Spanish Government Delegate Gustavo Alcalde has travelled to the area to oversee the search for the killer. And Civil Guards have sealed off a large area of the countryside.

Meanwhile local residents have been warned that the killer is armed and could have stolen the weapons belonging to the two agents he shot.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 08:03:43|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

People gather near Riga Castle, the Presidential Palace, to protest against a government's plan in Riga, Latvia, on Dec. 14, 2017. Approximately 500 people gathered here on Thursday and protested against the government's plan to make Latvian, the state language, almost the only language of instruction in the country's ethnic minority high schools. (Xinhua/Janis)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 07:59:09|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

THE HAGUE, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Two persons were killed and three others injured in two stabbing incidents on Thursday in Maastricht in the southern Dutch province of Limburg, police said early Friday.

So far the police arrested one suspect. "Investigation showed that there is no reason to believe the attacks had a terrorist motive," the police said in a statement.

One stabbing incident took place at around 9 p.m. local time at the Botsaart street in the Malpertuis district, during which one man died.

The second stabbing occurred 10 minutes later a few hundred meters further at the Joseph Postmes street in the Caberg district, during which one woman died and two others got injured. The third injured was found at a mosque. All three injured were taken to the hospital.

The police are still investigating the incidents and the identity of the victims is still unknown. Local news platform 1Limburg claimed the victims were members of a family of Syrian origin.
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-12-15 08:58:29|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

China now has the world's greatest high-speed rail network -- 22,000 kilometers as of the end of 2016, or about 60 percent of the world's total. Lets have a look at those major high speed railways opened in 2017.

June Beijing-Shanghai

Photo taken on June 26, 2017 shows the China's new bullet train "Fuxing" at Beijing South Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China. China's next generation bullet train "Fuxing" debuted on the Beijing-Shanghai line June 26, 2017. A CR400AF model departed Beijing South Railway Station at 11:05 a.m. for Shanghai. At the same time, the CR400BF model left Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station for Beijing. The new bullet trains, also known as electric multiple units (EMU), boast top speeds of 400 kilometers an hour and a consistent speed of 350 kilometers an hour. (Xinhua/Ju Huanzong)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 08:29:19|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man lights a candle during Hanukkah in Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jerusalem, on Dec. 14, 2017. Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire of the 2nd Century B.C. (Xinhua/Gil Cohen Magen)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 10:04:30|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

BANJUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,500 Gambians who landed in Germany without documentation will be deported, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed Thursday during his official visit to the West African country that emerged from a tense political standoff early this year.

"There are over 35,000 Gambian migrants in Germany, out of (whom) 1,500 are undocumented and awaiting deportation," Steinmeier said at a joint press conference with Gambian President Adama Barrow in capital Banjul.

Steinmeier said the two countries will bring technical experts to work on the problem, including providing skill training to Gambians.

"Europeans do not have answers to Africa's problems. The problems need African solutions," he said.

Steinmeier arrived in Banjul on Wednesday on a one-day whirlwind visit. He was the first European head of state to visit Gambia since Barrow assumed office after winning the presidential election.

It was a tense transition with the defeated longtime leader Yahya Jammeh initially refusing to step down. Jammeh left the country only in January after neighboring Senegal sent troops to enforce the election result.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 10:31:54|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

Workers protest outside Teva Pharmaceutical in Jerusalem, on Dec. 14, 2017. Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical, the world's largest generic drugmaker, has unveiled on Thursday its two-year restructuring plan, stating it will fire 14,000 workers to help balance the company's debt. (Xinhua/JINI)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 10:24:35|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China has been actively promoting the development of global human rights under the rule of law, said a white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office Friday.

"China has always safeguarded world peace and contributed to global development, and upholds the international order," said the document, titled "New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China."

The Chinese government advocates building a community of shared future for humanity, it added.

China actively participates in building a legal system of international human rights, earnestly fulfills international human rights obligations, conducts in-depth international exchanges and cooperation in judicial field, and champions the healthy development of global human rights.

From 1990 to August 2017, 36,000 Chinese military peacekeeping personnel were sent abroad to take part in 24 UN peacekeeping operations. In 2017 China built a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, figures from the white paper show.

In the Second Safe Mekong Joint Operation by China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, organized by China in 2016, 6,476 drug-related cases were solved, 9,927 suspects were arrested, and 12.7 tonnes of narcotics and 55.2 tonnes of precursor chemicals were seized.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 10:29:35|Editor: Liu

Video Player Close

SYDNEY, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Australian State of New South Wales (NSW) unveiled its first "rapid-build prison" on Friday, in an effort to combat a sharp increase in the prison population.

Part of a 2.9-billion-U.S. dollar prison infrastructure program, the Macquarie Correctional Center will house 400 inmates in the state's central west, who are due to arrive in the coming days.

"Less than 17 months ago I stood here in a green, grassy field and turned the first sod for our revolutionary rapid-build prison," NSW Minister for Corrections David Elliott said.

"Today I'm proud to unveil Australia's first high-tech and innovative dormitory-style prison, which has been delivered with unprecedented speed," said Elliott.

"This center will not only go a long way to address the state's rising prison population, but also revolutionise prison life for these inmates."

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the country's prison population has risen over 40 percent in the last five years, which translates to 11,877 extra people.

Over the past decade, the total number of females incarcerated has also shot up around 80 percent.

For this reason, many experts have called on governing bodies to introduce more innovative ways to help stop prisoners reoffending.

Elliott believed the new maximum security complex will address these concerns and give inmates "unparalleled access to education, training and employment" through the prison's innovative workshops and rehabilitation-focused structure.

A second "rapid-build prison" is also due to open 200 km north of Sydney early next year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 10:44:38|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

NAY PYI TAW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has announced the successful completion of 2014 population and household census, with reports now available to data users at home and worldwide.

Marking the completion of the census in Nay Pyi Taw on Thursday, First Vice President U Myint Swe pledged that the government will continue to work toward publishing the remaining data from ethnicity list in the census.

The main result of the 2014 census was released in May 2015, registering a total population of 51.5 million, including estimates for areas not enumerated in Rakhine, Kachin and Kayin states.

Of all the population, 51.8 percent were female and 48.2 percent were male, with urban population accounting for 30 percent and rural population taking up 70 percent.

Half the population is under age 27 but the proportion of children has started to fall. The average number of children per woman has declined to 2.3 from 4.7 in 1983.

Life expectancy at birth, 66.8 years, has improved but is still one of the lowest in Southeast Asia, said the report, adding that female's life expectancy is six years longer than male's.

Infant and under-five mortality rate are high nationwide registering 62 and 72 per 100,000 live birth respectively and nearly twice as high in some states as in others.

Almost 90 percent of adult male and 50 percent of adult female are literate.

Some 85 percent of adult males and 50 percent of adult females are in the workforce, while unemployment is 4 percent.

Yangon stands as the most populated region with over 7.355 million accounting for 14.3 percent, and the least populated state is Kayah state with 286,738 accounting for 0.6 percent.

Myanmar's new capital of Nay Pyi Taw has a population of 1,158,367 accounting for 2.3 percent of the total population.

The results also showed that there are 76 persons per square km in the country.

The most densely populated region is Yangon with 723 people per square km while the least densely populated state is Chin with 13 per square km.

The 2014 census was considered as contributing to Myanmar's national planning to help identify gap and pinpoint need for infrastructural and social services.

Participated by 120,000 school teachers, Myanmar held a 12-day national census in March to April 2014, the first in three decades, collecting 98 percent of the current population.

The country's first population census, conducted in 1872, showed a population of 2.7 million, while the second one in 1983 registered 35.3 million.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 11:04:40|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's economy posted trade surplus for 70 months in a row through November thanks to brisk exports, customs data showed Friday.

Trade surplus was 7.6 billion U.S. dollars in November, keeping the surplus trend since February 2012, according to the revised trade data by the Korea Customs Service.

Exports advanced 9.5 percent from a year earlier to 49.6 billion dollars in November, while imports expanded 12.7 percent to 42 billion dollars.

The brisk exports were mainly attributable to strong demand for locally-made semiconductors, of which shipments surged 68.5 percent. Exports for oil products and automobiles advanced 39.1 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.

Overseas shipments of telecommunications devices, including smartphones, tumbled 10.8 percent as domestic firms increased production in overseas factories. Auto parts exports declined 11.3 percent last month.

Exports to China, South Korea's biggest trading partner, gained 20.3 percent in November from a year earlier. Those to the United States and Vietnam also posted a double-digit expansion.

Imports of raw material climbed 12.5 percent on higher crude oil prices. Capital goods imports gained 11.4 percent on solid demand for foreign luxury vehicles, while capital goods imports jumped 13.7 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 11:19:42|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

By Xinhua writers Wang Chenxi, Hu Yao

MACAO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Walking on the jogging trail circling Colina da Guia, the highest hill on the Macao peninsula, tourists would probably be surprised to find that the hill, once covered in rich and varied vegetation, now has fewer trees and thinner grass on its southeastern slope.

This is an evidence of Typhoon Hato's rampage on Aug. 23, when gusts of more than 120 km per hour battered China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) from the east and south.

Locals, however, have remained optimistic. "The situation was much worse four months ago and now things have returned normal, the trees will flourish again," said Lim, a middle-aged teacher who often walks around Colina da Guia for exercise.

On Aug. 23, the Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau raised its typhoon warning to the highest - Signal No.10 - at 11:30 local time (0330 GMT), marking the first time that Signal No.10 was issued since the return of Macao to China and the strongest typhoon to hit Macao since 1964.

Hato made landfall in Macao's neighboring city of Zhuhai in southern China's Guangdong Province at noon the same day and after a few hours had claimed the lives of 10 people in Macao and injured more than 240 others. Macao sustained a loss of 11.5 billion patacas (about 1.42 billion U.S. dollars).

Shortly after the weakening of the storm, all public departments of the SAR government had mobilized for disaster relief, such as resuming power and water supplies, draining flooded streets and organizing traffic.

At the request of the Macao SAR government and under the approval of China's central government in accordance with the Basic Law of the Macao SAR and the Garrison Law of the Macao SAR, soldiers from People's Liberation Army (PLA) Garrison in Macao came to flooded districts to help clean the streets. It was the first time that PLA soldiers carried out such mission in either Macao or Hong Kong SARs.

More food and disaster relief supplies were also sent from Zhuhai by Guangdong Province.

Typhoon-ravaged Macao's full recovery was a lengthy process. The people of Macao and public servants continued cleaning, repairing and rebuilding for months after Hato's rampage.

The Macao Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau repaired and reopened 109 parks before the end of September by moving 13,400 fallen trees and clearing 34,700 tons of twigs and leaves.

The Macao SAR government issued relief policies and subsidies for residents, flooded shops and small-and medium-sized enterprises, worth 1.76 billion patacas (about 219 million U.S. dollars), according to Chief Executive Chui Sai On in the Policy Address for Fiscal Year 2018.

As a world-renown tourist destination, Macao's recovery was first evidenced by tourist visits and income.

According to the Statistics and Census Service, Macao's visitor arrivals in September 2017 increased by 2.4 percent year on year, with overnight visitors rising by 5.4 percent and guests of Macao's hotels and guesthouses in the same period increased on year by 3.2 percent to 1,047,000.

The Macao Tourism Office said the SAR welcomed a total of 920,631 visitors during the eight-day Golden Week holiday period in October 2017, and the total visitor arrivals from Oct. 1-7 registered an 11.6 percent increase on year.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in October 2017 also raised its forecasts of Macao's economic growth in 2018 to 7.0 percent from a previous forecast of 1.7 percent.

Macao's exhibition industry also recovered soon after the impact of Typhoon Hato. The 13th edition of the annual report on the Trade Fair Industry in Asia, issued by the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, ranked Macao as the most outstanding exhibition market in Asia in September 2017.

In the third quarter of 2017, a total of 304 meetings and exhibitions were held, with visitor arrivals reaching 581,000, according to Macao's Statistics and Census Service.

Above all, the SAR government has been committed to improving its disaster prevention and relief ability in the long-term, and to enhancing its cooperation with the Chinese mainland in these areas.

After the strick of Typhoon Hato, at the invitation of Chief Executive Chui Sai On, a team of experts from the National Commission for Disaster Reduction came to Macao twice to help review and provide suggestions on Macao's disaster prevention and relief work.

During their stay in Macao, the experts visited the hardest-hit regions, talked with local residents and local experts, and held work symposiums with related government departments.

Their suggestions and advise provided valuable knowledge for the SAR government, which was in dire need of such information for improving its own disaster prevention and relief capabilities.

In mid-November, when delivering his Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2018, Chui Sai On said that the SAR government would make a 10-year plan for Macao's disaster prevention and relief work from next year.

In the short-term, the SAR government will improve its flood control and drainage infrastructure, as well as its ability to supply electricity, water and telecommunication services in case of emergencies.

In the long-term, it will enhance its planning for infrastructure construction, such as underground pipelines and windproof designs for high-rise buildings. It will also set up an information publishing platform, and train more meteorological personnel.

The SAR government will also seek to strengthen its cooperation with the Chinese mainland on disaster prevention and relief work, Chui said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 12:04:40|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

Villagers celebrate with a bull, the winner of a bullfight, in Bingmei Town of Congjiang City, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Dec. 14, 2017. Bullfight is a traditional activity for local people to celebrate harvest. (Xinhua/Wu Dejun)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 12:34:54|Editor: Liu

Video Player Close

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- The guidelines established during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in October, such as raising the quality of life of the Chinese, have shown China's ability to set and follow ambitious goals, Mexican academics and politicians have said.

"Which capitalist country has the objective of bringing so many millions of people out of poverty in a set period of time? This is an element that really caught my attention," Romer Cornejo, a professor at the College of Mexico, told Xinhua.

A visiting CPC delegation, led by Fan Ruiping, secretary of the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the CPC, met Mexican politicians, academics and analysts Wednesday to explain China's policy priorities for 2020, 2035 and 2050.

Fan gave the audience a detailed introduction to the CPC's social, political and economic goals to ensure high-quality growth.

The party's objective is to complete constructing a moderately prosperous society and create a modern, prosperous, democratic, civilized, harmonious and beautiful country, he explained.

"Something we value about China and which we must learn is its long-term vision," said Paul Ospital, president of the Institute of Political Development and Training of Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

The CPC's plan reflected that the experiences China has acquired over its long history enable it to face difficulties, said Alberto Rodriguez, a philosophy professor at the National Polytechnic Institute.

The world is about to see the best of China "from the hand of the party," Rodriguez told Xinhua.

Since its reform and opening up in 1978, China has lifted 730 million people out of poverty, helping to reduce the number of poor worldwide by 60 percent. Now the CPC is committed to eradicating poverty by 2020, Fan said.

Cornejo called it a very specific objective which showed the purpose of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Ospital said China's results go beyond its own borders and echo around the world due to its size and economic power.

As examples of China's economic vision, Fan said around 13 million jobs have been created annually in the past years. Also, China was advancing projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

The initiative, comprising an overland Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, envisions reviving and enhancing the ancient Silk Road trade routes to create infrastructure, trade and people-to-people links between Asia, Europe and Africa.

"China always welcomes more countries to board the train of China's rapid development," Fan said.

Regarding Mexico, he said China attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations, as shown by the two countries elevating their ties to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2013.

China has been Mexico's second largest trading partner for 14 years.

Javier Vega, head of international affairs at the Chamber of Deputies, Mexico's lower house of parliament, said the bilateral relationship was currently in its best phase.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:04:59|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- An Australian mango farmer has got an over 19,000-U.S.-dollar fine for underpaying foreign staff.

Vinai Chaipom, a mango grower based on the outskirts of Darwin in the Northern Territory, was fined 19,156 U.S. dollars by Darwin's Federal Circuit Court on Thursday after it was found that he paid migrant staff as little as 2.05 U.S. dollars per hour.

The underpaid staff were mostly backpackers on 417 working holiday visas from Europe and Asia. They got the job after responding to online advertisements or being approached by Chaipom himself.

They were contracted to work for between four days to eight weeks picking, pruning and weeding on mango farms.

As casual staff, the workers were entitled to be paid between 14.9 and 16.5 U.S. dollars per hour.

Four of the workers were not paid at all and the rest made between 383 and 766 U.S. dollars, the equivalent of 3.65 U.S. dollars per hour at most.

In addition to the fine, Chaipom was ordered to back-pay the staff within 30 days.

Natalie James, Australia's Far Work Ombudsman (FWO), said that the abuse of migrant workers' rights was a serious issue in regional Australia.

She said that as a minimum, 417 visa workers should be issued with pay slips.

"It can help them avoid (being) exploited and it can help them avoid difficulties applying for a second year on their visas," James told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.

"This type of treatment... is extremely concerning."

Under Australian law, people in the country on 12-month 417 visas must complete at least 88 days of work in regional areas if they wish to extend their visa by another 12 months.

The requirement has widely propagated modern slavery in Australia with farmers able to use desperate migrants as cheap labor.

The Australian government has flagged laws that would require companies with annual revenues exceeding 75 million U.S. dollars to file a modern slavery report proving there is no labor abuse in their supply chain every year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:05:00|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed "urgent issues" in bilateral diplomatic relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula in a phone call Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"At the initiative of the American side, urgent issues of the bilateral agenda were discussed, as well as the situation in hotspots with a focus on the settlement of the Korean nuclear crisis," the statement read.

Earlier in the day, Putin said at an annual press conference that he believed in Trump's ability to honor the promises made during the latter's election campaign on getting relations between Moscow and Washington back on track.

The White House said in a statement that Trump thanked Putin "for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference."

The two also discussed working together to resolve the "very dangerous situation" on the Korean Peninsula, the White House said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that while the Trump administration is still determined to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, Washington is willing to "have the first meeting without preconditions" with representatives of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:10:00|Editor: Shi Yinglun

Video Player Close

HANOI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will grow young coffee plants or other plants in its current old coffee-growing areas to raise yield.

Vietnam currently has 86,000 hectares of coffee plants aged over 20 years, accounting for 13.8 percent of its total coffee-growing area, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Friday.

Due to the plants' age, the yield is very low, below 2 tons per hectare.

Young coffee plants with higher yield or other crops will be grown to replace the old coffee plants in the next few years, but it is a big challenge because the shift needs huge capital, advanced growing techniques and well-organized cultivation, said the ministry's officials.

Vietnam will pour 170 billion Vietnamese dong (7.5 million U.S. dollars) mainly into creating four varieties of high-quality coffee to strengthen coffee production and export in the 2018-2023 period, the ministry said.

Central highlands Lam Dong province, Vietnam's Arabica coffee center, will increase its Arabica coffee-growing area, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said.

Lam Dong currently has 150,000 hectares of coffee plants, of which 15 percent are Arabica variety, and this rate will increase to 20-30 percent by 2020 to meet increasingly bigger demand from Vietnam and foreign countries such as the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Vietnam exported nearly 1.3 million tons of coffee worth roughly 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first 11 months of this year, witnessing a decrease of 22.5 percent and 3.8 percent respectively, said the ministry.

Vietnam is striving to gain coffee export turnovers of 6 billion U.S. dollars in 2030, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said at a recent coffee promotion event in Lam Dong's Da Lat city.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:20:01|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

HOUSTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- "Human interference with the climate system" could be responsible for the unprecedented rainfall caused in the United States by Hurricane Harvey, according to new research.

A study by Mark Risser and Michael Wehner of Lawrence Berkeley Labs suggests human-caused climate change tripled the chances of a huge storm like Harvey hitting Houston and increased the rain unleashed by Harvey by about 38 percent. Precipitation accumulation in the most affected areas likely increased by at least 18.8 percent.

Another study by researchers from the United States, Britain and the Netherlands found the heavy rains triggered by climate change 15 percent more intense than a storm from the early 20th century.

Texas' state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon told local media that scientists have predicted more frequent and more intense rain globally.

"The magnitude of the increase from place to place is going to be location-specific and storm-specific," he added. "I think what we need to do in policy is to recognize that there's a gradation of risk."

Harvey blew ashore on Aug. 25 as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, and damaging nearly 200,000 homes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:25:02|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia's top law officer has called for a review of legal fees in the nation to "maximise access to justice for ordinary Australians."

George Brandis, Australia's attorney-general, on Friday announced that he has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to review class action and litigation proceedings and provide recommendations on how the practices can be made more affordable.

"With class actions becoming more common in courts across Australia, the Turnbull government wants to ensure the costs of such proceedings are appropriate and proportionate and that the interests of plaintiffs and class members are protected," Brandis said in a media release on Friday.

"There is a significant risk, in such proceedings, that members of plaintiff groups may be required to pay lawyers' fees which are exorbitant and unjustifiable."

The ALRC will review third party funders, specialist companies that finance a client's legal fees in exchange for a share of the case proceeds, as unlike lawyers they are not bound by professional or ethical standards.

The report, which will be delivered by Dec. 21 2018, will provide the government with recommendations on to what extend class action proceedings and third party litigation funders should be subjected to federal regulation.

In analyzing the practices, the ALRC will consult legal experts from the court system and academic community as well as third party funders.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:30:03|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Indian police Friday said they have launched a major manhunt to track down the country's sole happiness minister, a suspect in a murder case.

Lal Singh Arya, the minister for happiness in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has been missing since early this week after a local court ordered his arrest in connection with the murder of an opposition politician in 2009, police said.

"The 53-year-old minister is missing. We have formed special teams that are looking for him. We are hopeful of arresting him and producing him in the court by Tuesday, which is the next date of hearing in the murder case," a senior police official said.

Madhya Pradesh, ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, is the only state in India to have a happiness minister to boost the wellbeing of its citizens.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who has been heading the state government for the past 12 years, is now mulling whether to drop from his Cabinet the accused minister, who also holds the portfolio of five other ministries, highly placed sources said.

The minister has denied any involvement in the murder case and insists he is innocent. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:40:05|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

CANBERRA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Republican Movement (ARM) Friday announced the establishment of a high-level advisory body.

The body consists of prominent republicans including former Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader Kim Beazley, former Nationals leader Tim Fischer, former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks in addition to a host of academics, businesspeople and lawyers.

Peter FitzSimons, Chair of ARM, described forming the panel as "another big step forward" for the movement.

"We're drawing on support from every community and every section of society and today is another big step forward," FitzSimons said in a media release.

"These leading Australians have generously offered their time and energy to a great campaign. They share a simple belief: Australia's head of state should be a citizen of Australia," he added.

Australia's current head of state is the monarch of Britain, currently Queen Elizabeth II, and is represented in Australia by the Governor-General, currently former Australian Army officer Peter Cosgrove.

Any change to the Australian Constitution, such as changing the head of state, must be approved by the public in a referendum. For a referendum to be successful, a majority of voters in a majority of Australia's six states must vote to change the constitution.

The last Australian republic referendum was held in 1999 with 54.8 percent of voters rejecting a republic.

Current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull led the ARM from 1993 to 2000, including during the referendum campaign, and in July he said that he still believed Australia would be beer off as a republic.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:40:05|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's central bank has released measures to regulate automatic pledge financing business to improve financing efficiency and optimize business.

The regulation specifies the financing balance limit of different financial institutions, unifies daytime and overnight rates of automatic pledge financing and expands the scope of collateral bonds, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC) in a statement.

Automatic pledge financing business is a payment support mechanism for financial institutions. It automatically provides funding when the clearing accounts of financial institutions face a funding shortage.

The mechanism helps improve clearing efficiency and ensure clearing security, but is not a liquidity tool, said the PBOC.

The regulation will take effect on Jan. 29, 2018, replacing the interim regulative measures released in 2005.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 13:40:05|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kalashnikov Concern, the Russian defense manufacturing firm making the hugely popular Kalashnikov rifles, has finished testing its advanced AK-12 and AK-15 assault rifles for the next-generation Ratnik infantry gear, local media reported Friday.

The Ratnik is a Russian infantry combat system designed to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Russian army.

A spokesperson for the company said the tests of the new assault rifles for the Ratnik combat kits have been finished and the results would be announced soon.

The Russian Defense Ministry is considering to choose the army's main assault rifle from the AK-12, AK-15 and AEK-971 designed by Russia's V. A. Degtyarev plant, the Sputnik news agency reported.

The Russian army is expected to be fully equipped with Ratnik-2 infantry gear by 2020.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 14:30:17|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

MANILA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a 380-million-U.S.-dollar loan to help the Philippine government strengthen the road network in the southern Mindanao Island, the country's second largest island with about 20 million people, the Manila-based bank said on Friday.

The bank said the Improving Growth Corridors in Mindanao Road Sector Project, ADB's biggest infrastructure investment in the island region, seeks to improve about 280 km of national roads and bridges in Mindanao.

"The project, which is also the first Mindanao-specific loan granted by ADB in 16 years, will help the transport system better deal with the effects of climate change through features such as elevated pavements, enhanced slope protection, and better drainage," the ADB said in a statement.

ADB said that communities will benefit from road safety awareness campaigns to be conducted under the project. All project roads will be geotagged with information accessible on the Internet, so the public can monitor road investment projects throughout the project lifecycle, including procurement and construction.

Moreover, it said the assistance will also help finance the detailed design of 300 km of national highways in Mindanao, which will be constructed through other projects.

Institutionally, it will help the Philippine Department of Public Works and Highways improve the long-term planning, fiscal accountability, and human resource management in the transport sector in Mindanao and the rest of the country.

In the Philippines, about 23 percent of the national road network is in poor condition, due to various reasons including inadequate funding, lack of maintenance, and the impact of climate change, such as flooding.

Mindanao's road network is less developed than the national average, with only 70 percent of the roads paved, compared with 82 percent in the Philippine main Luzon Island and 89 percent in the Visayas in the central Philippines, according to the ADB.

Established in 1966, ADB has 67 members, 48 from the Asia-Pacific region.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 14:40:19|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Are the U.S. top brass' starkly contradictory remarks on possible talks with Pyongyang merely an indication of no fundamental changes in U.S. policies or a clever double-pronged attempt to ease the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula?

Some experts seem to think it's the latter.

TILLERSON'S OLIVE BRANCH

A new note was struck when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said earlier this month that the United States wishes to engage in unconditional talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), whenever Pyongyang is ready.

"We're ready to have the first meeting without precondition," Tillerson said at a forum. "Let's just meet...we can talk about the weather if you want.... But can we at least sit down and see each other face to face? And then we can begin to lay out a map, a roadmap of what we might be willing to work towards."

However, he did not veer off entirely from the official line, saying it would be difficult to talk if in the middle of the dialogue Pyongyang decided to conduct another nuclear test.

"We've got to have a period of quiet or it's going to be very difficult to have productive discussions," he said.

His comments triggered a response from White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who said U.S. President Donald Trump's views on the DPRK issue have not changed.

Pyongyang is "acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China and South Korea, but the entire world," she said.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Wednesday that denuclearization is "the only viable objective" on the Korean Peninsula and talks with Pyongyang "won't be an end in themselves."

The United States will not relieve any pressure on Pyongyang or cave in to any demands for pay-offs, he said.

GOOD COP, BAD COP?

But some analysts see some alignment in the seemingly contradictory stands.

"At best, the divide between President Trump and Secretary Tillerson reflects a strategy of good cop, bad cop where the State Department and diplomats will continue to pursue peaceful means to resolve the conflict while President Trump's rhetoric steps up the pressure on the DPRK," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

"At worst, it reflects a fundamental disconnect between the President and the U.S. chief diplomat. I imagine that the circumstances are somewhere in between, but closer to the best-case scenario," he said.

Many in the President's national security team understand how destructive a conflict with Pyongyang can be, he added.

Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute, told Xinhua that Tillerson was trying to find a way to engage the DPRK as part of an ongoing effort to find a way to resolve the situation peacefully.

He thought Tillerson was proposing to meet to begin a bilateral dialogue instead of negotiations. "In that sense, Tillerson's proposal is not inconsistent with the White House comments that negotiations need to be about denuclearization," he said.

Speaking of the influence Tillerson's announcement might have, he said the ultimate impact will depend more on Pyongyang's willingness to talk.

The fact that Trump was supportive of the recent trip to Pyongyang by Jeffrey Feltman, UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, indicated he is open to finding a way to resolve the DPRK issue through dialogue, Stangarone said.

MOUNTING CALLS FOR TALKS

Meanwhile, there are growing calls in the U.S. political and academic circles for direct talks with the DPRK, which many say is the only way to solve the nuclear deadlock.

William Perry, a former U.S. defense secretary, said Tillerson's remarks on unconditional talks with the DPRK were very encouraging.

"We must find a way to come to the table in order to de-escalate the volatile situation," he tweeted.

Michael J. Green, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration, said some communication and consultation with Pyongyang was appropriate.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 15:10:24|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

The graphics shows a white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office on Friday which lauded "remarkable progress" in the law-based protection of human rights over the past five years. (Xinhua/MengLijing)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office on Friday lauded "remarkable progress" in the law-based protection of human rights over the past five years.

According to the white paper, titled "New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China," the country has opened a new era of human rights protection.

The white paper expounded on the progress in human rights protection in six parts -- improving the legal framework to ensure human rights, promoting law-based administration, enhancing judicial protection of human rights, consolidating social mechanisms, strengthening the Party leadership over legal protection of human rights and promoting the development of global human rights.

The undertaking of human rights protection in China has made much headway and China is contributing to the diversity of human civilization and providing Chinese wisdom and solutions to promote social progress, it said.

China has improved legislation to better protect the civil and political rights of its people. It revised the Criminal Law, abolishing nine death penalty charges and raising the bar on executing convicts that have received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

To implement the rule of law and promote humanitarianism, China has implemented the amnesty system stipulated in the Constitution, and granted amnesty for four types of criminals, the white paper said.

China has also improved its laws to protect special groups. The white paper said China enacted the Anti-Domestic Violence Law, making clear the legal liabilities of the perpetrators and the procedure of investigation to protect victims of domestic violence.

The country has promoted law-based administration to protect the people's legitimate rights and interests, prohibiting administrative organs from expanding power beyond the law and confining the exercise of power in an institutional "cage."

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012, it has canceled the requirement for administrative approval on 618 items, according to the white paper.

To build a responsible government, China has set up a mechanism of internal legitimacy review of major decisions, and explored the means to establish and implement a lifelong liability accounting system for major decisions, it said.

China has enhanced judicial protection of human rights. Efforts to prevent and correct wrongful convictions had seen the correction of 37 major cases of miscarriage of justice involving 61 people, and the acquittal of 4,032 defendants as per the law from 2013 to 2017, it said.

To ensure fairness and justice in each and every legal case, China has worked to guarantee independent and impartial enforcement of judicial and procuratorial authorities as per the law, press forward with reform of the criminal litigation system centering on trials and abide by the rules concerning excluding illegally-obtained evidence.

Since 2013, procuratorates have withheld their approval in the cases of 2,624 arrests and declined to prosecute 870 on the basis of exclusion of illegally-obtained evidence, the white paper said.

China has fought against corruption to guarantee people's interests.

The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has investigated more than 440 Party-member officials at or above the provincial level and other officials registered at and supervised by the CPC Central Committee since the 18th CPC National Congress, it said.

From 2014 to mid-October 2017, 3,453 fugitives were brought back from more than 90 countries and regions, including 48 on the list of 100 most wanted fugitives, and illegal assets worth 9.5 billion yuan (around 1.44 billion U.S. dollars) were recovered.

The white paper said China has been actively promoting the development of global human rights under the rule of law.

From 1990 to August 2017, 36,000 Chinese military peacekeeping personnel were sent abroad to take part in 24 UN peacekeeping operations. In 2017 China built a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, according to the white paper.

In the Second Safe Mekong Joint Operation by China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, organized by China in 2016, 6,476 drug-related cases were solved, 9,927 suspects were arrested, and 12.7 tonnes of narcotics and 55.2 tonnes of precursor chemicals were seized.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 15:15:24|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

LONDON, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- British troops breached the Geneva Conventions by subjecting four Iraqi civilians to cruel and inhumane treatment, the country's high court ruled Thursday, The Guardian reported.

The rule follows an international criminal court conclusion 10 days ago that British troops committed war crimes against Iraqi detainees, the report said.

The test case at the high court could "pave the way" for the British Ministry of Defense to settle another 628 claims, which could cost the government more than 1 million pounds (1.34 million U.S. dollars), the Times reported.

The four Iraqis claimed that they had been detained unlawfully and were abused by British forces, which includes hooding them and taking turns to run over their backs, the Guardian report said.

None of them were engaged in terrorist activity or threatened the security of Iraq, even though there had been "reasonable suspicion" when they were first captured, the report noted.

The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are international treaties that protect people who do not take part in the fighting, such as civilians, medics and aid workers, and those who can no longer fight, including the wounded and prisoners of war, according to the official website of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 15:25:27|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

Indian army troopers stand guard on a road during curfew-like restrictions in Anantnag town, 55 km south of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Dec. 15, 2017. Curfew-like restrictions were imposed Friday in many parts of Srinagar and southern Anantnag district in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Curfew-like restrictions were imposed Friday in many parts of Srinagar and southern Anantnag district in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.

The restrictions were imposed to prevent a separatist rally in Anantnag town, 55 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The region's joint separatist leadership headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, have called for a rally in Anantnag town.

The separatist leadership urged people to march towards Anantnag to "demonstrate before the whole world what people of Kashmir stand for."

The leadership said the government's response to the march would be "the litmus test for the claimants of Indian democracy."

Contingents of Indian police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were deployed to enforce restrictions. The government forces in Anantnag have closed all roads leading to the center of town with barricades and concertina coils.

"The restrictions were put in place to maintain law and order in the city as well in Anantnag," said a police official posted in Srinagar. "We can't allow people to deteriorate peace in the region."

Authorities have suspended domestic rail services running from Srinagar to Bannihal and snapped Internet on mobiles, fearing it would mobilize crowds to participate in the separatist rally.

Police have kept Geelani and Farooq under house arrest, while Malik has been lodged in central jail Srinagar. It has also arrested some separatist leaders to prevent their participation in the scheduled rally.

Authorities fear participation of the separatist leadership would intensify the region's anti-India protests.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the psyche of majority of Kashmiris. Irate residents often take to roads and clash with police.

A separatist movement and guerilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in Indian- controlled Kashmir since 1989.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam November 11, 2017. (REUTERS PHOTO)

MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed "urgent issues" in bilateral diplomatic relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula in a phone call Thursday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"At the initiative of the American side, urgent issues of the bilateral agenda were discussed, as well as the situation in hotspots with a focus on the settlement of the Korean nuclear crisis," the statement read.

Earlier in the day, Putin said at an annual press conference that he believed in Trump's ability to honor the promises made during the latter's election campaign on getting relations between Moscow and Washington back on track.

The White House said in a statement that Trump thanked Putin "for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference."

The two also discussed working together to resolve the "very dangerous situation" on the Korean Peninsula, the White House said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that while the Trump administration is still determined to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, Washington is willing to "have the first meeting without preconditions" with representatives of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 15:50:31|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Indian main opposition Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi Friday said she would retire after her son Rahul Gandhi takes over the reins from her Saturday.

"My role now is to retire," the 71-year-old Italy-born politician told media in Delhi, putting to rest all speculation about her future role in India's grand old party.

The outgoing Congress chief stressed that her 47-year-old son has been playing "an active role" in the party for the past three years, saying he "is now ready to take over" the leadership role of the Congress party.

Rahul Gandhi will formally be made the Congress president Saturday, five days after being elected to the top party post.

Sonia Gandhi, the widow of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has been of late being unwell and was hospitalised a number of times in the past three years.

In 2011, she went to the U.S. to receive surgery for an undisclosed medical condition.

Sonia Gandhi is the head of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which has governed India for most of the time since independence from colonial Britain in 1947.

She herself has been at the helm of the party for the past 20 years, which lost the 2014 general elections to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 16:35:38|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

by Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S.-Russia relations will likely remain tense in 2018, experts said, as myriad issues over which the two are at odds show no sign of being resolved next year.

"U.S.-Russia ties remain strained," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

Washington's relationship with Moscow has been sour for some time, amid disagreements involving the war in Syria, the conflict in Ukraine, and the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

"Congress, as well as many in the Trump administration, remain concerned about the Russian threat to the United States and key allies, and are unconvinced that a rapprochement with Russia could somehow solve issues with Ukraine, Syria, Iran, and North Korea (DPRK)," Mahaffee said.

The sentiment was underscored earlier this week in a speech by H.R. McMaster, U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser, in which he called Russia a "revisionist" power that poses a number of threats to the United States.

"Geopolitics are back and are back with a vengeance after this holiday from history we took in the so-called post-Cold War period," McMaster said Tuesday just a week before the White House is slated to unveil its national security strategy.

Commenting on the heightened rhetoric, Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, said "what you are seeing is a strong desire to push back against Russian ... assertiveness, and you'll probably see more of this in the national security strategy next week."

"There is a sense among some of the top team ... that Russia ... has been taking advantage of us," O'Hanlon added.

Russia is billed a revisionist power because it is seen as a competitor to U.S. interests and seeks to establish spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, despite the relationships the United States has with allies in the region, said Mahaffee.

Experts said Congress believes the United States cannot work with Russia, despite Trump's hopes several months ago that the two could partner on a number of issues.

U.S. policy on Russia is heading only in one direction, and that is an increasing toughening of the U.S. position, the experts said.

Furthermore, quite a few U.S. agencies have been saying that Moscow had aimed to influence the elections in order to boost Trump's chances of capturing the White House.

Trump has dismissed the accusations of collusion with Moscow as a witch hunt by those who were disappointed that Hillary Clinton lost the elections. Russia also denied the allegations.

A Senate committee as well as Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller are undertaking investigations, which are expected to last into next year.

The Trump administration has cooperated with the investigations, but dismissed them as unimportant.

Trump "may have some good instincts that we should be looking for ways to get along with Russia where we can, but the rest of the team I think is largely preoccupied with what Russia did to our democracy last year," O'Hanlon said, speaking of the Kremlin's alleged meddling in the elections.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 16:40:39|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- American Airlines issued a statement Thursday, apologizing for trying to charge a passenger from Mesa, Arizona an extra fee at the gate for carrying frozen breast milk, forcing her to leave the breast milk behind.

Sara Salow, a 30-year-old mother, said she was humiliated as airline staff said that she had too many bags and must pay 150 U.S. dollars for the small cooler filled with eight bags of frozen breast milk, according to the local ABC 15 channel.

"It was humiliating, they kept telling us it was because we were basic economy passengers. It really felt demeaning," said Salow, who was traveling with her husband and their 13-month-old son from Boston to Phoenix on Dec. 7.

When she started crying, other passengers offered to take the cooler but the airlines employees denied all requests. She had to dispose of the cooler and breast milk eventually, Salow told ABC.

"The customer should have been allowed to fly with the breast milk and we apologize that a mistake was made in this case. We have clarified our policies with our team members," the American Airlines said in the statement.

When boarding the plane, Salow and her husband had altogether four items, including a stroller, diaper bag, backpack and the small cooler with breast milk.

Salow said she had called the airlines in advance and confirmed that they were allowed to take one carry-on bag per person, while strollers, diaper bags, breast pumps and breast milk containers would not be counted as carry-on items.

The disagreeable service of major airlines of the United States has come under intense fire many times this year, especially over issues of overbooking and luggage policies.

United Airlines, for example, has sparked global outrage in April for violently dragging a passenger off an overbooked flight, when the man refused to give up his seat.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:10:52|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

by Xinhua Writer Gao Lu

HOUSTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- There is large potential for the United States and China to cooperate in the energy field, John Hofmeister, a member of the U.S. Energy Security Council, said recently.

In an interview with Xinhua, Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil Company headquartered in Houston, a city in the southern state of Texas, believed that the business is never one-way.

"The U.S. and China need each other to prosper," he said.

INTERDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP

The United States has abundant oil and gas resources which China is short of, Hofmeister said, and the fast growth of the Chinese economy needs energy and "that offers a good business opportunity for the U.S. energy sector, especially for natural gas."

"China is a wonderful market for North American natural gas," he said, adding that this harbors the opportunity to develop partnerships and business models that will work for both the United States and China.

"I think (U.S. President Donald) Trump recognizes that the U.S. and China relationship requires interdependencies. And the interdependency ... could have long life and much mutual benefit in the field of energy," he added.

In fact, the energy cooperation between the two giant economies is growing. During Trump's first state visit to China in November, Chinese and U.S. companies signed deals worth over 250 billion U.S. dollars, including huge energy deals.

Hofmeister shared the views of many U.S. scholars that such deals can help reduce the trade deficit between the two countries. But he also pointed out there are many other areas that both sides can cooperate in to help narrow the trade gap.

"The deficits between the two countries can be reduced by virtue of big energy deals," he said, adding there are many other areas in which the exchange of expertise, technology and intellectual property can take place."Many other advances can take place in years to come," he said.

The energy expert noted the size and scale of both economies require collaboration and partnership, which can benefit both countries and the world economy as a whole.

"Most of us don't have the understanding of how big and how exciting it can be to develop mutual understanding that leads to mutual success working together in partnership," he said.

ENERGY SECURITY

In the past few years, the booming production of shale oil and gas in the United States, primarily in Texas, has become a black horse in the industry. In December 2015, the country decided to lift its 40-year ban on crude oil exports driven by an increase in domestic drilling and production.

Commenting on this issue, Hofmeister said oil is a resource that continuously declines. Even with the increasing and promising output, he still believed oil will be more scarce than abundant in the future.

According to him, the reason for the scarcity is the continuous risks associated with the production of oil in difficult geological settings, such as the Arctic or deep-water production. Besides, shale itself can be a very short-term solution.

"I question its long-term potential because wells decline so quickly. We've now seen that the production decline of the average shale well is 50 percent in the first year. So every year after it's even less," he said.

In late November, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to extend the current price-supporting curbs on crude output from March next year to the end of 2018. Some experts believed such a move would allow American firms to raise supplies even more and grab market shares from OPEC in places like China.

However, Hofmeister warned that investing and drilling more for profit would potentially harm the shale industry. He explained that because of the rapid decline of the shale formation, companies have to keep drilling to sustain supply. Besides, more and more borrowed money is used in the shale industry. In order to keep drilling with declining resources, companies have to borrow more.

"The financial support of the shale drillers is the mouse running on the wheel where the mouse could die, because it's going too fast to keep the higher oil supply numbers coming in, given the decline rate of the shale formation," Hofmeister said.

As a senior manager with rich experience in the oil and gas industry, Hofmeister said countries have no other choice but to rely upon fossil fuel in the foreseeable future, as it is much more efficient and makes energy affordable for the masses.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY STILL AN OPTION

After taking office in the White House, Trump has promised to revive the coal industry by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants. Some observers believe such moves would boost the traditional fossil fuel industries.

Hofmeister agreed there is an obvious change in the energy policy of the current administration from the Obama administration, but "not all that big of a change from previous administrations."

He argued that the administrations before Obama, namely the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, adopted policies focusing on "a balanced mix," while "Obama narrowed down American policy, focused primarily on alternative energy and renewable energy."

"I don't think Trump is excluding solar and wind in his policies, but he's putting oil and gas and coal back on the platform," he said. "It's a win-win for the world and society as a whole to approach energy in the fullest possible way."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:10:53|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

COLOMBO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has instructed the island nation's Central Environmental Authority to ban the use of polythene for election campaigns ahead of a crucial local government election scheduled to be held in February, local media reported Friday.

Sirisena, who is also the Minister of Environment, instructed the Central Environmental Authority to instruct all political parties to adhere to the rules or face strict action.

The president also instructed authorities to take prompt measures to improve waste management and ensure that politicians contesting the polls do not resort to any kind of wastage which would harm the environment.

Sri Lanka is to face a crucial local government election in February next year. Although the date of the election is yet to be announced, many candidates have begun preparing for their poll campaigns which will begin after an official announcement on the date.

In Sri Lanka, politicians resort to decorating their hometowns with large cut-outs of themselves. Posters of the candidates are also pasted in public areas while their towns are also adorned in their party color.

President Maithripala Sirisena, however has maintained that campaigning should be carried out without any adverse impact to the environment.

Sirisena, in a step to keep the environment clean, instructed the Central Environmental Authority in September to ban the use and manufacture of polythene products - plastic shopping bags and Styrofoam boxes across the island country.

Cabinet approval was granted for the islandwide ban on the production of polythene less than 20 microns.

Polythene and Styrofoam is widely used by local shops to wrap lunch. Polythene shopping bags is also used in supermarkets and shops.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:10:53|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

Actively participating in the making of international rules related to the protection of human rights. As a founding member of the United Nations, China has been involved in creating the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments, making an important contribution to the development of international human rights rules. It has participated in formulating the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action, the Declaration on the Right to Development, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. China has played a constructive role in international climate change negotiations with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the main channel, and made every effort to ensure that the Paris Agreement on climate change is concluded and comes into force. China has created the Belt and Road Initiative, and pressed forward with establishing international cooperation rules concerning the economy, environmental protection, healthcare, adolescents, the protection and development of children, cyberspace governance, anti-corruption and drug control.

Sincerely fulfilling its obligations to the international human rights conventions. China has acceded to 26 international human rights conventions including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It has also actively created conditions for the approval of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. China cherishes the important role played by international human rights instruments in promoting and protecting human rights, and sincerely fulfills its obligations to the international human rights conventions. It submits timely reports on implementing the conventions to the treaty bodies concerned, holds constructive dialogues with these bodies, takes into full consideration the proposals they raise, and adopts rational and feasible measures in the light of China's actual conditions. In 2012 China's first report on implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was approved. In 2013 China's third and fourth combined report on implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child and China's first report on implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict was approved. In 2014 China underwent the second-round Universal Periodic Review (UPR) held by the UN Human Rights Council, which approved the UPR report on China. China's second report on implementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was approved. China submitted its combined seventh and eighth periodic report on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women for review. In 2015 China submitted its sixth report on implementing the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to the UN Committee Against Torture for review. China actively participates in international peacekeeping operations. From 1990 to August 2017, 36,000 Chinese military peacekeeping personnel were sent abroad to take part in 24 UN peacekeeping operations. In 2017 China built a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops.

Effectively conducting international cooperation on legal matters. China has acceded to the Hague Service Convention (also known as the Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters), the Hague Evidence Convention (also known as the Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters), and the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. By 2016 China had signed judicial assistance treaties or agreements on civil, commercial, and criminal cases with 19 countries, all of which had come into force. It had signed judicial assistance treaties or agreements on criminal cases with 40 countries, 32 of which had come into force, and it had signed judicial assistance treaties or agreements on civil and commercial cases with 20 countries, 17 of which had come into force. Between 2013 and 2016, China's central organs handled more than 3,300 requests for judicial assistance every year. China has strengthened international cooperation against corruption, and promoted the adoption of the "G20 High Level Principles on Cooperation on Persons Sought for Corruption and Asset Recovery" and the "2017-2018 G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan". Ten principles on persons sought for corruption and asset recovery have been established, the main provisions of which are "zero tolerance against corruption, zero loopholes in our institutions and zero barriers in our actions". China carries out "Sky Net" operation and intensifies efforts to pursue, repatriate and extradite fugitives accused of corruption. From 2014 to mid-October 2017, 3,453 fugitives were brought back from more than 90 countries and regions, including 48 on the list of 100 most wanted fugitives, and illegal assets worth RMB9.5 billion were recovered.

Taking an active part in international law-enforcement and security cooperation. China works with the international community to combat terrorism, separatism and extremism and drug-related crimes. Within the framework of international and regional organizations including the UN, Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization), SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian

Nations) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), China works to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation with other countries in order to combat all forces of terrorism. China has enhanced counter-terrorism exchanges and cooperation with other countries through high-level contacts, institutional consultation, and cooperation agreements, and intensified the fight against the "three evil forces" of terrorism, extremism and separatism. China is actively involved in creating international instruments to address the world drug problem, and fights alongside neighboring countries against drug trafficking and smuggling. It continues the Safe Mekong Joint Operation within the law-enforcement and security cooperation mechanism along the China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand sections of the Mekong River. In the Second Safe Mekong Joint Operation by China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, organized by China in 2016, 6,476 drug-related cases were solved, 9,927 suspects were arrested, and 12.7 tons of narcotics and 55.2 tons of precursor chemicals were seized. (more)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:30:57|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan for 499 million U.S. dollars to set up a regional emission-reduction and pollution-control facility as part of a support program to improve the air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

The facility will showcase how advanced technologies, including hydrogen-based low-emission transport and geothermal-based district heating, can be adopted on a large scale by major emitting industries and enterprises, according to the ADB.

It is the third ADB loan aimed at improving air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, following a loan of 300 million dollars in 2015 and 499.6 million dollars in 2016.

The facility will be managed and administered by the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, China's largest state-owned enterprise focusing on energy conservation and environmental protection.

Due to the ADB assistance, the project is expected to attract nearly 1.53 billion U.S. dollars, almost three times the original loan amount, in co-financing from the public and private sector.

By 2023, the project will train at least 200 people in the use of advanced technologies, the selection of business models for sub-projects and investment decisions in certain industries, according to the bank.

"We remain committed to helping the Chinese government improve air quality and reduce pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, where a third of the country's economic growth comes from," said Lin Lu, senior energy specialist at the ADB's East Asia Department.

Despite government effort to fight pollution, frequent outbreaks of smog have become increasingly common in winter in northern China where cold weather conditions and the burning of coal combine to exacerbate the situation.

To improve air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, China has replaced dirtier coal use and penalized polluters in an effort to lower the intensity of smog.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:35:58|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

MANILA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) high command hinted on Friday the possibility of extending the martial law in Mindanao across the Philippines if rebel groups "turn violent" and continue to sow terror to topple the government.

AFP chief Gen. Rey Leonardo Guerrero said the AFP's decision on whether to recommend a nationwide martial law to President Rodrigo Duterte depends "on the political situation" and "the reaction of our adversaries."

"If they turn violent, maybe the answer is obvious," Guerrero told a news conference at the main AFP headquarters.

However, Guerrero said that he would rather not talk about it because the issue is "speculative" at this point.

On Thursday, Duterte said the his administration is keeping its options on whether to limit martial law in Mindanao or to expand it to the entire country.

Duterte said his administration's decision will depend on the actions of "the enemies of the state."

Aside from the pro-IS militant groups in the southern Philippines, the government is also fighting the communist insurgents operating across the country and armed criminal groups, including drug syndicates.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:35:59|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

NEW DELHI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- An Indian lawmaker Friday made a unique entry to the country's parliament by riding a tractor on the first day of the winter session.

Dushyant Chautala, a little-known parliamentarian of the northern state of Haryana's regional Indian National Lok Dal, has become the talk of the town.

However, local media reported that Delhi Police is likely to penalize the lawmaker for driving the tractor near the parliament, a highly secured zone.

However, this is not the first time an Indian lawmaker has grabbed headlines for such acts.

In March this year, a lawmaker of western state of Maharashtra's Shiv Sena party, Ravindra Gaikwad, drove for 23 hours from Mumbai to Delhi to come to the parliament.

That was after he was temporarily barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting a duty manager of national carrier Air India.

And in 2016, Ram Prasad Sharma, a lawmaker of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), went to the parliament on a horse to protest against the odd-even car rationing scheme in Delhi.

Even actor-turned-politician Manoj Tiwari of BJP had pedalled his way on a bicycle to the parliament last year to protest against the car rationing scheme, aimed at curbing pollution.

Earlier that year, opposition Congress lawmaker Ranjeet Ranjan, a mother of two, hogged limelight by riding to the parliament a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the International Women's Day.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:41:01|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

COLOMBO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese delegation is visiting Sri Lanka from Dec. 12 to Dec. 15 and introducing the achievements of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

The delegation, led by Wang Yajun, Assitant Minister of the International Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee, met leader of Sri Lanka's United National Party and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, General Secretary of the United National Party Kabir Hashim, General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party Duminda Dissanayake, and leaders from local left-wing parties.

The Chinese delegation briefed the Sri Lankan political and business communities, think tanks and media on the spirit of the 19th CPC party congress.

The Sri Lankan side spoke highly of the briefing given by the delegation, saying the achievements of the CPC Congress will help boost the cooperation between the two countries and will benefit the two peoples.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:41:02|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

DILI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Navy hospital ship "Ark Peace" arrived at Dili on Thursday for a friendly visit and humanitarian medical services to Timor-Leste.

This is the first time for the ship "Ark Peace" to visit the Southeast Asian island country, and the second time for Chinese naval vessels.

Guided by Timor-Leste's naval ships, this huge movable hospital with 300-beds and over 14,000 tonnage slowly sailed into the Dili Port.

Local people wearing national costumes gave a warm welcome ceremony to the hospital ship. Over 500 representatives, including Defence and Security Minister of Timor-Leste Agostinho Somotxo and Chinese Ambassador to Timor-Leste Liu Hongyang, attended the ceremony.

In his welcoming speech, Somotxo said the arrival of "Ark Peace" has brought health and hope to the people of this country. The visit also enhances bilateral cooperation and friendship between Timor-Leste and China, he said.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army has rich experiences in humanitarian aids and disaster rescue operations, Timor-Leste and China could further deepen cooperation in these fields, the minister said.

Echoing Somotxo's remarks, Liu said the arrival of "Ark Peace" would deepen friendship, strength mutual understanding and expand bilateral cooperation between the two nations during its eight-day visit.

During its stay, "Ark Peace" will offer free medical treatments for a mass of local people including veterans and villagers.

On July 26 this year, "Ark Peace" set sail from Zhoushan Port, China to carry out the task of "Harmony Mission-2017". It arrived in Timor-Leste after sailing for 141 days and visiting seven African countries, including Djibouti, Sierra Leone, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania. Timor-Leste is the last leg of its mission.

Since 2008, "Peace Ark" has visited over 30 countries and provided free medical services for over 170,000 people.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 17:56:07|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

SARI PUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- 18 civilians including women and children have been killed and some 5,000 families have fled their homes as Taliban continues to attack Tabar valley of Sangcharak district in the northern Sari Pul province over the past four days, head of Provincial Council Mohammad Noor Rahmani said Friday.

"Around 5,000 families have left their houses for safer places as Taliban militants attacks on Tabar valley have been continuing over the past four days," Rahmani told Xinhua.

He said so far 18 civilians have been killed, warning that the valley would be overrun by Taliban militants if the government fails to send reinforcement.

Meanwhile, spokesman for Sari Pul provincial government Zabihullah Amani confirmed to Xinhua that the fighting is going on in Tabar area, and eight militants had been killed and three others injured.

The Afghan security forces would soon launch clean-up operations to return law and order in Tabar area, he said.

Local observers fear that a possible collapse of Tabar area would facilitate Taliban militants to target Sari Pul city, the capital of the troubled Sari Pul province.

Taliban militants have yet to make comment on the situation in the strategically important Tabar valley.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 18:16:14|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

KIGALI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda has announced a total ban on importation and smoking of water-pipe tobacco popularly known as shisha.

The use, advertisement and import of water-pipe tobacco is banned on Rwandan territory effective Dec. 15, 2017, said a statement issued Thursday by Ministry of Health of Rwanda.

The ban was in line with the World Health Organization tobacco guidelines underlining smoking health effects such as being damaging, addictive and dangerous on human lives, said the statement.

Failure to comply with the directive would attract sanctions as provided by the country's laws, it said.

The smoke that emerges from the water-pipe is said to contain numerous toxicants known to cause lung cancer and other heart disease, according to the ministry of health.

The ban comes about a decade after the ministry banned public cigarette smoking. The ban on public cigarette smoking applies to smoking in bars, restaurants, night clubs and work places.
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-12-15 18:55:53|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

After promotion at an international tourism trade show ITB Berlin, Sanya, a coastal city in south Chinas Hainan province, has gained increasing popularity among German tourists.

In 2016, the number of German travelers to Sanya reached over 8,000, according to a Hainans official at ITB Berlin convention.

And this number might see a stable increase in the next few years.

Sanyas diversified tourism resources, such as its excellent ecological environment, unique Li and Miao ethnic groups customs and convenient tourism services, attract German tourists, said the official.

Moreover, under the favored entry policy of Hainan Province, German groups of two or more travelers are able to enter Sanya without a visa and stay for up to 21 days, the official added.

Some local visitors at the ITB Berlin convention showed their willingness to travel to Sanya in the future to experience a beautiful coastal city with unique ethnic minority culture.
Source: Xinhuanet| 2017-12-15 19:00:03|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

The government of Haikou city in South Chinas Hainan Province has approved a series of favorable policies in support of the development of civil aviation industry recently.

According to the Haikou Tourism Development Commission, different amount of financial subsidies are given to the airline companies to open more international regular air routes.

Newly opened overseas regular non-stop flights are supported with subsidies ranging from 60,000 to 600,000 yuan.

Of them, air routes operated by large aircraft with more than 200 seats could enjoy an extra 50 percent of funding.

Moreover, once the overseas flight routes open for over three years, Asian routes and intercontinental routes flights will be given a subsidy of 2 million and 3 million yuan respectively.

Financial support is also given to encourage Haikous inbound tourism.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 19:01:21|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

MANILA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine National Privacy Commission (NPC) said Uber Philippines committed that over 170,000 Filipino drivers and passengers were affected by its massive data breach last year.

NPC Chairman Raymund Liboro said Uber Philippines informed the commission that the exposure of the affected data subjects was limited to their registered name, e-mail address, and phone number.

The commission has summoned Uber officials "to appear before the commission to further explain their data processing operations, particularly the organizational, technical and physical security measures Uber Philippines is implementing to protect Filipino drivers and riders," he said.

"We are looking now at the processes and procedures that Uber claims they have taken to ensure that this matter never happens again," Liboro said in a statement.

He said the NPC is "paying particular attention to the steps taken to ensure that in the future, data breaches of this magnitude will not be concealed from regulators and from affected data subjects."

Liboro warned that concealment of data breaches that involve sensitive personal information or data is a criminal offense.

"We have received reports of irregular processing following the report of the breach, but we are still investigating these claims and their link to the 2016 data breach incident. As usual, we expect full cooperation from Uber on these matters," the commission chief said.

Last month, Uber Philippines informed the NPC that Filipino Uber users were indeed among those exposed in the massive breach last year that affected 57 million Uber clients around the world.

In a letter to the NPC, Uber Philippines confirmed that personal information of Filipinos was exposed in the data breach that attacked Uber's "third party cloud-based storage accounts" in October last year.

Uber chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged in a blog post on the company's official website on Nov. 24 that a year ago two hackers broke into a third-party cloud-based system that contained the private information of its customers.

Khosrowshahi admitted that sensitive information had been illegally downloaded, including names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of 57 million Uber users around the world, and the names and license numbers of 600,000 drivers in the United States.

Uber, the ride-hailing giant, has around 66,000 active vehicles/drivers in the Philippines.
A Long March-3B rocket carrying two Beidou-3 satellites lifts off from the Xichang launch center in southwestern China's Sichuan province on Nov. 5, 2017. (Yang Zhiyuan/Xinhua via AP)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese central authorities have shared their vision for economic work in 2018, the first year after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which charted the course for China's future development.

Last week Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, chaired two meetings on economic work in 2018, sending important signals for the first time for next year's economy.

A BIG YEAR

Next year is the first full year for implementing the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress, which was held in October and drew a blueprint for China's development over the next 30-plus years.

"As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the principal contradiction facing Chinese society has evolved," according to a report delivered by Xi during the CPC congress.

"What we now face is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing need for a better life," it said.

An aerial view of Shanghai (Xinhua)

The report set requirements for China to develop a modernized economy focused on quality and performance in order to raise China's capacity for innovation and competitiveness.

"To do next year's economic work well, the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress must be implemented in an all-round way," according to a document released after a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee last Friday.

Meanwhile, 2018 is the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up policy. It is also an important year in working toward becoming a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020, and implementing the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020).

HIGH-QUALITY DEVELOPMENT

"At the present stage, the basic feature of China's economic development is the transition from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development," Xi said when meeting non-CPC representatives last Wednesday.

Realizing quality development is a must for sustaining healthy economic and social development, adapting to China's new principal contradiction and building a modern socialist country in all respects, according to Xi.

"High-quality development is the fundamental requirement for determining the development path, making economic policies and conducting macroeconomic regulation at present and in the period to come," according to Xi.

The concept of high-quality development must be thoroughly understood and earnestly implemented, Xi added.

High-speed rail line links northwest China's Xi'an and southwest China's Chengdu, slashing travel time from 11 hours to four (Xinhua/Liu Xiao)

In recent years, China's economy has slowed from previous fast growth to medium-high growth. Its average annual growth was 9.8 percent between 1979 and 2012, dwarfing the global growth of 2.8 percent in the same period.

However, the fast growth was accompanied by excessive use of resources, environmental pollution and overcapacity.

Since 2012, the country has showed greater tolerance for lower growth rates in the pursuit of improved structure, quality and efficiency.

The stress on high-quality development will help eliminate the emphasis on growth rates to evaluate the economy, according to Zhang Liqun with the Development Research Center of the State Council, a government think tank.

HOUSING REFORM PRIORITIZED

Housing system reform will be prioritized in China's economic work next year, according to the statement following the Political Bureau meeting.

China will step up housing reform and the construction of a housing mechanism with lasting effects, the document said.

No more details were given on how to push reform forward.

"We must not forget that housing is for living in, not for speculation," according to the Xi's report at the CPC national congress.

A bird's eye view of Nanning city, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Lu Bo'an/Xinhua)

"With this in mind, we will move faster to put in place a housing system that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchases and renting," the report said.

Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, said in early October that China is formulating a set of property control measures that will have long-lasting effects, and will unveil the measures at a proper time.

WINNING THREE BATTLES

China will seek solid progress in preventing major risks, targeted poverty alleviation and pollution control in 2018, according to the document issued after the Political Bureau meeting.

An overall plan should be made to "ensure the winning of the three tough battles," said the document.

Lakeside scenery in Shangri-la of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Xinhua/Hu Chao)

For preventing and defusing major risks, China should contain the overall leverage ratio and raise the financial sector's ability to serve the real economy.

For targeted poverty relief, the country must provide precise support for special impoverished groups and intensify efforts in regions with abject poverty.

For pollution control, the country should continue to reduce emissions of major pollutants to improve environmental quality, the document said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 19:11:24|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

BAQUBA, Iraq, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of ten Islamic State (IS) militants were killed Friday in airstrikes on two IS safe houses at a rural area in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala, an army commander said.

Iraqi helicopter gunships pounded two safe houses based on intelligence reports in Maytah area, some 120 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, leaving ten IS militants killed, Lt. Gen. Mezhir al-Azzawi, commander of the security forces responsible for military operations in Diyala province, told Xinhua.

Maytah is part of the volatile al-Udhaim area in the northwestern part of Diyala province. The extremist IS group still use hideouts in the sprawling rugged areas that extend from western part of Diyala to Himreen mountainous area and nearby Mteibijah area in the neighboring Salahudin province.

Dozens of IS militants fled their former bases in Salahudin province and Hawijah area in west of Kirkuk after the Iraqi forces cleared these areas from the extremist militants during anti-IS offensives in the past few months.

On December 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared full liberation of Iraq from IS militants after Iraqi forces recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.

However, small groups of IS militants resorted to deserts and rugged areas looking for safe havens but the security forces are hunting them down from time to time.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 19:36:29|Editor: ZD

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Clashes broke out Friday between the Palestinians and Israeli forces in several locations in the West Bank during protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's decision of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Scores of Palestinians performed Friday noon prayers at the Israeli military checkpoint of Qalandia, north of the West Bank between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Following the prayers, the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint threw tear gas bombs and opened fire towards the worshippers in an attempt to disperse them.

Similar clashes were also reported in several locations including Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilia and Bethlehem, according to local sources.

In Gaza, hundreds marched after the Friday prayers on the Salah Al-Dein highway, which goes from the northern borders of the Gaza Strip towards the southern borders with Egypt.

Islamic Hamas movement leaders in Gaza called on its supporters to head towards the bordering area with Israel and confront with the Israeli soldiers stationed there.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said at one of the mosques in Gaza that "our hands are extended to reconciliation but without making any compromise on our interests or our religion."

"Our main project is the liberation of all Palestine, our battle is going on until the liberation of Palestine and this is the promise of God," he said.

Tensions have been escalating in Gaza and the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinians since the declaration of U.S. President Donald Trump last week that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas called for a nationwide day of rage last Friday to boycott Trump's decision over Jerusalem and his order to move the U.S. embassy there.

Six Palestinians were killed and more than 2,000 injured in the wave of tension that dominated the Palestinian territories after Trump's announcement.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 19:56:35|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

BRUSSELS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of the 27 European Union (EU) members gathering here for the Winter EU Summit had approved the start of the second phase of Brexit talks, European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday on his twitter account.

Meanwhile, in a resolution voted on Wednesday, the European Parliament welcomed the joint Brexit progress report presented by EU and British negotiators on December 8, and recommended moving to phase two.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:06:37|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

MADRID, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A man suspected of shooting and killing two Civil Guards and a person who was accompanying them in northeastern Spain late Thursday has been detained, police sources informed Friday.

The killer has been identified as a former soldier from an "eastern European country" and was arrested at around 5 a.m. local time between the towns of Cantavieja and Mirambel, close to the border of the provinces of Teruel and Castellon, according to police.

Civil Guards, Victor Romero Perez and Victor Jesus Caballero and Jose Luis Iranzo, a local farmer, were killed at a farm near the village of Albalate del Arzobispo, Teruel as they were searching for a suspected robber.

A wide cordon was sealed off following Thursday's shooting after the killer escaped in a pick-up truck.

The Association of Civil Guards has organized a minute's silence to be held outside all of their barracks in Spain as a mark of respect for the two comrades.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:11:39|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Education ministers of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states have vowed provision of quality education for refugees.

Regional ministers of education have expressed their common commitment during the first IGAD Regional Ministerial Conference on Refugee Education underway in the red sea nation of Djibouti.

IGAD Executive Secretary, Mahboub Maalim, said on the occasion that the high-level meeting on refugee children education aims to ensure that every child is guaranteed access to quality education.

"As a regional economic community, which is part of the African Union (AU), IGAD is not a stand-alone organization," Maalim said, adding that "we are to implement continent-wide decisions and initiatives within the priorities of the sub-region."

The east African bloc's recent move came amid similar move from its individual member states.

The Ethiopian government last month had launched a Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), which aims to transform the socioeconomic condition of refugees presently relocated in the country.

The newly introduced CRRF is expected to benefit some of the 890,000 refugees that were relocated to Ethiopia mainly from its neighboring countries such as South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia in 26 refugee camps across the country through the provision of education, trainings and employment opportunities.

IGAD, in a statement issued on Friday, also called on its member states and development partners to strengthen the IGAD Health and Social Development Division so as to leverage and render the new initiative, which envisages to provide quality education for refugees.

United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) Special Envoy for the Somalia Refugee Situation also hailed the move as the first of its kind, according to the statement from IGAD.

UNHCR further called on all parties involved to keep the momentum going for the benefit of refugees and their hosting communities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:36:43|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, who is in Ethiopia for an official visit, has praised Ethiopia's economy and called for sustaining the economic development witnessed in the east African country.

Lagarde, who is on an official visit to Ethiopia from December 13 to 15, has held discussions with senior Ethiopian government officials including, Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on ways of further strengthening the partnership.

The Managing Director also visited some of the development projects in Ethiopia, including the eastern Industry Zone at the outskirts of Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Lagarde told journalist after her visit that one of the main targets of her Ethiopia visit was to witness the development of industrial parks in the country and the determination of the Ethiopian government to reinforce the country's economic growth.

She also noted that the nexus between the east African country's economic development and the export sector as one area of interest behind her trip to Ethiopia.

"I am really pleased to have seen some international companies from China and the Netherlands, manufacturing to international standards for export purposes," Lagarde said after her visit to Dukem Industrial Park.

She also expressed her hopes that the integrated training, employment and value added in the manufacturing sectors would further propel Ethiopia's export sector to be sustainable.

Lagarde also praised the role of the private sector to Ethiopia's economy, saying that "I saw the dynamism and enthusiasm of the people working there and the commitment of private investors to Ethiopia."

She has also lauded the strong combination of public and private sectors as a major impetus in enhancing sustainable and inclusive development of the country.

Lagarde's Ethiopia visit is part of her trip to three African countries that are Benin, Ethiopia, and Djibouti from December 10 to 19.

Lagarde has praised the commitment of the Ethiopian government in realizing the country's development agenda, which includes the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), a national development plan for the 2016-2020 period.

According to Lagarde, the Ethiopian government is clearly trying to provide infrastructure to support the ongoing development endeavor.

The managing director further stressed the International Monetary Fund's full support for Ethiopia's development agenda.

IMF, in its assessment report of the 2017 Article IV that was released last September, had commended Ethiopia's economy for maintaining strong resilience despite the back-to-back drought that wreaked havoc in some parts the country and the continued weak global prices for Ethiopia's key export commodities.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, is presently striving to realize its ambitious development plan that will see the east African nation reach a lower middle-income economy in the next decade.

In her discussion with Teshome, Lagarde also noted that the performance of the Ethiopian economy "is doing very well in terms of growth."

In addition to the economic development that the east African country presently pursue, Lagarde also lauded Ethiopia's role in the Horn of African region, mainly with regards to the country's handling of refugees.

As the Ethiopian government is presently scrutinizing a draft proclamation which allows refugees to live out of camps, the country has received 103,263 new refugees in the first ten months of 2017, pushing the total number of refugees living in the country to 889,071, according to a recent statement by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:36:44|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

OSLO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A recent research showed that 11 percent of young women in Norway's media industry claimed to had been victims of sexual harassment or abuse over the past six months, public broadcaster NRK reported Friday.

The big extent of sexual harassment in the media industry was shown in the first "metoo" research conducted together by several Norwegian media organizations.

This came after series of reports of sexual harassment in Norway as a follow-up of the "#MeToo" campaign in the United States. Several of the reported cases came from Norwegian media industry.

The research showed that 11 percent of women in the media industry between the ages of 18 and 30 claimed to had been victims of sexual harassment or abuse at work or by colleagues in other situations over the past six months.

"By mapping the extent of sexual harassment and sexual assault, we will also be able to put in place measures and make managers and employees better able to prevent and handle cases of sexual harassment in the media institutions," Norwegian Union of Journalists wrote about the target of the survey.

"178 people have reported that they have been sexually harassed only in the past six months. It is a very high figure," Hege Iren Frantzen, leader of Norwegian Union of Journalists, said at a press conference.

According to the the report, 83.71 percent of the 178 victims are women.

A total of 1,607 people, which is 28 percent of the 5,741 people who participated in the research, said they had been exposed to the unwanted behavior for a longer time ago than the last 6 months.

"The figures show that we must targetedly work against harassment. It is particularly important to lower the threshold to talk about it," said Thor Gjermund Eriksen, director-general of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We have now enough knowledge about the problems in our industry to know we need to do something about it," said Arne Jensen, head of the Association of Norwegian Editors.

Most sexual harassment was experienced by temporary workers as 7.5 percent of the temporary employees in media in Norway said they had been sexually harassed.

"It is a high figure for a vulnerable group," Frantzen was quoted as saying.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:51:46|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China will host a symposium for Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates in Beijing from Dec. 21 to 22, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Friday.

Nabil Shaath, foreign affairs adviser to the Palestinian president, and Hilik Bar, deputy speaker of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, will lead delegations at the symposium, Lu said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with the participants, Lu told a daily news briefing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a new four-point proposal on the Palestine issue during his meeting with visiting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in July.

Xi affirmed China's support for a two-state solution to the Palestine issue, and for the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The symposium aims to offer a communication platform for peace advocates from both Palestine and Israel, and provide new ideas to promote the peace process, Lu said.
Photo taken on Nov.16, 2015, shows refugee children playing games at a refugee camp in Juba, South Sudan. (Xinhua/Pan Siwei)

JUBA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan children are bearing the brunt of a crisis that entered its fourth year, the UN children's agency said in a report released on Friday.

UNICEF said the children have been victims of malnutrition, disease, forced recruitment, violence and the loss of schooling, and are growing up in a world of violence and fear and hunger, robbing them of their childhood.

Leila Pakkala, UNICEF's Regional Director in Eastern and Southern Africa, said no child should ever experience such horrors and deprivations.

"Yet children in South Sudan are facing them on a daily basis. The children of South Sudan urgently require a peaceful and protective environment," Pakkala said.

In releasing the Childhood under Attack report, UNICEF warned that new funding is essential in order to provide critical assistance to children and women.

The UN children's agency said it requires 183 million U.S. dollars in new funding in 2018 in order to deliver life-saving supplies and services to stave off hunger and disease. Currently UNICEF has a funding gap of 77 percent.

The report says years of insecurity and upheaval have had a "staggering impact on children," threatening an entire generation.

"The fighting forces must immediately end all grave violations against children. This includes releasing all children from their ranks, as they have pledged to do," says the report.

According to UNICEF, getting assistance to those most in need continues to be a challenge in many insecure areas of the country.

Mahimbo Mdoe, UNICEF Representative in South Sudan, said for children to have a fair chance in life, they need proper nutrition and care.

"They need protection from fighting and from diseases. They need a safe environment so they can learn and play. If children are not given a fair chance in life, what future will the country itself have when those children grow up?" asked Mdoe.

The UN agency called on government forces and armed groups, as well as the international community, to do everything they can to end this conflict so South Sudan's children, and the country itself, will have a future to look forward to.

"All parties to the conflict must allow unrestricted humanitarian access to all areas of the country and immediately end attacks on humanitarian workers and supplies," UNICEF said.

Humanitarian organizations in South Sudan are looking for the full implementation of a recent presidential order calling for unrestricted access to those in urgent need of aid.

The UN agency has been delivering lifesaving assistance to children across the country since the crisis started in December 2013, including treatment of more than 600,000 with severe acute malnutrition, vaccination against measles for more than 3.3 million children, provision of primary health care services to more than 3.6 million children, and supporting the access to safe water supply for 1.8 million people.

"This has been done despite the huge challenges faced in a country that ranks among the world's most dangerous for aid workers," UNICEF said.

Since the conflict started in 2013, 95 aid workers have been killed, including 25 killed so far this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 20:56:47|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ADEN, Yemen, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yemeni government forces battling the Shiite Houthi group on Friday recaptured a southeastern district.

The newly-recruited troops supported by southern tribal fighters engaged in fierce fighting with the Houthi fighters in Bayhan district of Shabwa province, leaving about 38 killed from both warring sides and injuring many others, a military commander told Xinhua by phone.

"About three army brigades backed by the Saudi-led coalition advanced on-ground and imposed full control over the government buildings in Bayhan district. The Houthi fighters were pushed out," the military official said.

He said that more than 32 Houthi fighters were captured during the ongoing fighting in Bayhan district of the oil-rich province of Shabwa that is controlled by the government.

The gain comes amid fierce clashes as the Saudi-backed troops continued pushing toward other areas controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

During the past few months, the Saudi-backed Yemeni forces, made slow progress due to the stiff resistance of the Houthi fighters and a large number of roadside bombs and booby-trapped houses in and around the roads leading to Bayhan district.

Saudi Arabia-led military coalition has intensified military air campaign against Houthi positions in and around the Houthi rebels-held capital Sanaa since Houthis killed Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Dec. 4.

The coalition has intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 to roll back Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels, and backed internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi whom Houthis forced into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The war has killed over 10,000 Yemenis, mostly children, displaced 3 million, and triggered the world's most humanitarian catastrophe.

Tensions have escalated in Sanaa and other northern provinces after Houthis killed their top ally strongman Saleh after he changed alliance and backed the anti-Houthi coalition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:01:48|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

KABUL, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has ordered the Population Registration Department to get ready for issuing electronic Identity Card within coming days, local news agency Pajhwok reported Friday.

The news agency quoted Humayun Muhtat, the census department head, as saying that the process of issuing computerized national ID cards would begin within days not weeks, possibly next week.

Afghans are carrying the old fashion national ID card of a simple paper.

The Afghan government was expected to issue electronic ID cards three years ago but the process has been frequently delayed due to political reasons.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:01:48|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

COLOMBO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will arrive in Sri Lanka Sunday on a three-day visit, the Sri Lanka Government Information Department said Friday.

In a statement, the Information Department said that the Malaysian prime minister's visit is set to further strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries.

During his visit, Najib is expected to hold discussions with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

A high-level team from the Malaysian Foreign Ministry is expected to arrive in the island country as an advance party to help in the upcoming visit by Najib, who will depart to the Maldives after visiting Sri Lanka.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:06:50|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ROME, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- An Algerian national was arrested in southern Italy on Friday, after being sentenced to jail for being part of an international terrorism network, local media said.

Yacine Gasry was found at the train station in the city of Foggia in the Pulia region on Thursday night, and taken into custody by military Carabinieri police and Special Operation Group (ROS) unit, AGI news agency reported.

The man had been firstly arrested in 2004, and later sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in jail on charge of international terrorism, for being part of a network in Italy aimed at providing weapons and identity documents to Islamic radical militants.

At that time, Gasry was arrested along with another Algerian, and both men were suspected of providing support to Algeria-based Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and Islamic Armed Group (GIA), state broadcaster RAI News 24 reported citing a police statement.

The cell was believed to be active in the provinces of Naples and Caserta in the south, and cities of Vicenza and Milan in northern Italy.

The probe coordinated by prosecutors in Naples uncovered the illegal activities of the cell, which include procurement of weapons and false ID documents, incitement to international terrorism, and supporting Islamic radical activities.

"Revenues from the illegal activities (of the group) were intended to finance the subversive structure, and support legal and illicit activities of the FIS and GIA in both Algeria and Europe," police said in the statement.

The network would have also worked to help Islamic militants enter the Italian territory illegally as migrants, according to police.
Photo on top left shows IMF managing director Christine Lagarde during a press conference in Washington D.C., the United States, on Oct. 12, 2017. Top right shows workers go about their daily work at the East Steel Factory in Dukem, about 35 km south of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, April 14, 2015. The East Steel Factory, a Chinese reinforcement bar (rebar) manufacturer, is the leading rebar manufacturer in Ethiopia. Photo on the bottom shows a worker goes about her work at Bole Lemi Industrial Park in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, April 6, 2017. (Xinhua)

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, who is in Ethiopia for an official visit, has praised Ethiopia's economy and called for sustaining the economic development witnessed in the east African country.

Lagarde, who is on an official visit to Ethiopia from December 13 to 15, has held discussions with senior Ethiopian government officials including Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on ways of further strengthening the partnership.

The managing director also visited some of the development projects in Ethiopia, including the eastern Industry Zone on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Lagarde told journalists after her visit that one of the main targets of her Ethiopia visit was to witness the development of industrial parks in the country and the determination of the Ethiopian government to reinforce the country's economic growth.

She also noted that the nexus between the east African country's economic development and the export sector as one area of interest behind her trip to Ethiopia.

"I am really pleased to have seen some international companies from China and the Netherlands, manufacturing to international standards for export purposes," Lagarde said after her visit to Dukem Industrial Park.

She also expressed her hopes that the integrated training, employment and value added in the manufacturing sectors would further propel Ethiopia's export sector to be sustainable.

Lagarde also praised the role of the private sector to Ethiopia's economy, saying that "I saw the dynamism and enthusiasm of the people working there and the commitment of private investors to Ethiopia."

She has also lauded the strong combination of public and private sectors as a major impetus in enhancing sustainable and inclusive development of the country.

Lagarde's Ethiopia visit is part of her trip to three African countries that are Benin, Ethiopia, and Djibouti from December 10 to 19.

Lagarde has praised the commitment of the Ethiopian government in realizing the country's development agenda, which includes the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), a national development plan for the 2016-2020 period.

According to Lagarde, the Ethiopian government is clearly trying to provide infrastructure to support the ongoing development endeavor.

The managing director further stressed the International Monetary Fund's full support for Ethiopia's development agenda.

IMF, in its assessment report of the 2017 Article IV that was released last September, had commended Ethiopia's economy for maintaining strong resilience despite the back-to-back drought that wreaked havoc in some parts the country and the continued weak global prices for Ethiopia's key export commodities.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, is presently striving to realize its ambitious development plan that will see the east African nation reach a lower middle-income economy in the next decade.

In her discussion with Teshome, Lagarde also noted that the performance of the Ethiopian economy "is doing very well in terms of growth."

In addition to the economic development that the east African country presently pursue, Lagarde also lauded Ethiopia's role in the Horn of African region, mainly with regards to the country's handling of refugees.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:26:58|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Friday reaffirmed the central government's long-term and unswerving adherence to the principle of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong and Macao, when he met with chief executives of the two special administrative regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:32:00|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (R), also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang Friday called for the alignment of China's Belt and Road Initiative with Turkey's Middle Corridor plan.

Wang made the remarks when meeting with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek in Beijing.

The Belt and Road Initiative aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

Wang lauded the stable development of China-Turkey relations, saying China was ready to work with Turkey to implement the important consensus reached by heads of state of both nations.

He said the two countries should respect and accommodate each other's core interests, strengthen cooperation in such areas as major projects, trade, finance, science and technology, as well as tourism, to further deepen China-Turkey strategic cooperation.

Simsek said Turkey highly valued its relations with China.

"Turkey will actively participate in the Belt and Road construction and push forward cooperation with China in the fields of transport and energy, so as to continuously further bilateral relations," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:37:04|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China will adjust duties on a number of import and export items from next year, the country's Ministry of Finance said Friday.

"To encourage imports of advanced equipment, key machine components and raw energy materials, import taxes on products including dobby or jacquard looms, cathode materials for power batteries, raw materials for advanced medicine, and coconut fibre will be lowered starting Jan. 1," the ministry said in an online statement.

Export duties on products like steel and chlorite will be scrapped, while those on commodities including apatite, coal tar and wood chips will be reduced, the statement said.

The provisional import tax rate on nickel ingots will be raised, and provisional duties on certain solid waste imports, such as waste steel and ores, will be replaced by tariffs applicable to most favored nations, as the government plans stricter management of such materials.

To boost the development of the Belt and Road Initiative and free trade areas, China will also apply conventional tariffs on products from 26 countries and regions in line with trade pacts, the ministry said.

This will result in lower tariffs with trade partners including ASEAN, the Republic of Korea and Australia, among others, as well as continued tariff concession with members of the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement.

More products will enjoy zero tariffs under the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, and the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan will continue to be effective.

China will also decrease information technology product tariffs for the third time, from July 1, 2018, the ministry said.

The country has already substantially lowered tariffs on a number of consumer goods, starting this month, including certain foods, health products, clothes and infant formula, with certain types of baby milk powder and diapers enjoying zero tariffs.

The number of items to be taxed in 2018 will reach 8,549, according to the ministry.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:47:06|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

NAIROBI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Global Fund to Fight HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis on Friday released 380 million U.S. dollars to Kenya's ministry of health and partners to support the war against the three infectious diseases that are leading cause of deaths in the East African Nation.

Henry Rotich, Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury, lauded the new funding that covers a three year period terming it a giant step towards elimination of HIV/Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis in Kenya.

"With this new grant, we will continue to support prevention, diagnosis and treatment interventions for HIV, TB and Malaria," said Rotich, adding that the Global Fund has approved 19 grants to Kenya worth 1 billion dollars since its inception in 2002.

Kenya's ministry of health and partners in the civil society will utilize the new grant to implement a host of projects geared towards reducing deaths linked to HIV, Malaria and TB.

Rotich said the government has put in place solid mechanisms to facilitate optimal use of the new funding to fight the infectious diseases that have put enormous strain on Kenya's public health care infrastructure.

"The new funding will support capacity development, training and deployment of commodities to strengthen the fight against HIV, Malaria and TB. We have strong measures in place to enhance absorption of the funds," said Rotich.

The East African nation has strengthened its partnership with multilateral lenders in order to bridge a financing shortfall that has undermined the fight against HIV, Malaria and TB.

Cleopa Mailu, Cabinet Secretary for Health, said that sustainable financing is key to revitalize the war against a high burden of infectious diseases in Kenya.

"Our priority now is to achieve sustainable financing in order to achieve better health outcomes in the country," said Mailu, adding that Kenya has reformed the policy environment in order to attract external funding to the health sector.

The new grant from the Global Fund to Fight HIV, Malaria and TB seeks to reach 1.3 million Kenyans living with HIV/Aids with antiretroviral therapy (ART) by 2021 while boosting interventions aimed at discovering missing cases of TB.

Linden Morrison, the Head of Global Fund's High Impact Africa 11 Department, said that Kenya could eliminate HIV, Malaria and TB in the near future subject to policy reforms, better governance, partnerships and innovative financing.

"We have a historic opportunity to end the three diseases as public health threats," Morrison remarked.

He added that Kenya has inspired multilateral lenders through support for domestic resource mobilization to boost the war against infectious and lifestyle diseases.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 21:47:06|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 15, 2017. Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is in Beijing to report the work of the Hong Kong SAR government to the central government. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang Friday pledged full support for law-based governance by the governments of Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions (SARs) when meeting with the leaders of the two regions.

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Hong Kong SAR chief executive, and Chui Sai On, Macao SAR chief executive, were in Beijing to report the work of the SAR governments to the central government.

Premier Li said that the central government will continue to uphold "one country, two systems" and the principles of "Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong," and "Macao people administering Macao" with a high degree of autonomy.

Under the leadership of Carrie Lam, the new Hong Kong SAR government has worked in union to fulfill its promises, connect with the nation's development strategies, address issues of concern to Hong Kong people, and maintain the region's economic growth momentum, Li said, adding that the central government "fully endorses the work of Chief Executive Carrie Lam and the new SAR government."

The premier expressed his hope that the Hong Kong SAR government and Hong Kong people will foster emerging industries and new growth engines, and promote sustainable development while guarding against various risks.

When separately meeting with Chui, the premier praised the Macao SAR government for propelling public administration reforms, improving the Macao economy and the people's livelihood, and maintaining a stable and harmonious society.

The central government fully endorses the work of Chief Executive Chui and the Macao SAR government, he said.

Premier Li said Macao should pursue diversified economic development, intensify talent training and introduction, and step up support for young people in innovative and entrepreneurship.

He also encouraged the two SAR governments to proactively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative and the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Lam said Hong Kong's development had benefited from the development of the country and the support of the central government. She vowed to bring Hong Kong into deeper integration with the nation's development and vigorously promote the development of the financial sector, innovative technology and the innovation industry.

Chui also thanked the central government for its support of Macao's economic and social development, and pledged to synergize Macao's development with national development strategies and pursue appropriate diversification of Macao's economy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:07:12|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ABUJA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,317 Nigerians voluntarily returned home from Libya in the past 10 days, after having been stranded in the north African country en route to Europe, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Friday.

The returnees arrived in batches between Dec. 5 and Dec. 15 with the assistance of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Nigerian government and the European Union.

In a statement, head of NEMA Mustapha Maihajja said some 249 returnees, the latest batch, arrived in Lagos late Thursday.

In November alone, 1, 295 Nigerians voluntarily returned home from the north African country.

The Nigerian official said the government would continue to work with international partners to ensure the return of more Nigerians from Libya where they had been facing severe hardships and rights violations.

Last week, the Nigerian government said it had identified 2,778 of its citizens languishing in detention camps in Libya.

In a statement, the foreign ministry said the Nigerian migrants were kept in some accessible detention camps in Libya. They were identified by officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Libya who visited the detention camps.

As the identification exercise continues, those identified were issued emergency travel certificates, the foreign ministry said.

The Nigerian government vowed to make the repatriation of its citizens a continuous exercise, as the embassy will continue to engage the government in Libya and other stakeholders in addressing the plight of Nigerian migrants in that country.

Meanwhile, the IOM has said many Nigeria returnees from Libya had psychiatric issues.

Noting up to 4,500 irregular Nigerian migrants had returned from Libya between January and November, head of the global organization in Nigeria, Enira Krdzalic, said the number of deaths and those suffering exploitation and abuse along the Central Mediterranean migration route is at an alarming rate.

"Crossing the Mediterranean is by far the deadliest route, with one death recorded for 35 arrivals. European statistics show that the amount of migrants from West Africa in migration flows to Europe have continued to increase, despite the perilous conditions of making the journey irregularly," she added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:07:12|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

SOFIA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said here Friday that his country needed to boost innovations because they are the key to enhancing the potential of the national economy.

"Innovations today are the key to tapping the potential of the Bulgarian economy and raising its efficiency and competitiveness," Radev said while addressing the 13th National Innovation Forum.

Innovations were the best bond between business, education and institutions, and a criterion of the modernity of a country, Radev said.

New technologies and new productions that deliver greater added value could be implemented through innovations, and innovations are one of the factors to alleviate the negative effects of the demographic crisis, he added.

The host of this forum was a proof that business, education and institutions had come to realize that they needed to unite their efforts, Radev said at the event, attended also by the country's Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev, and heads of innovative companies and universities.

"Only in this way we can multiply the talent of our nation, and achieve the successes that Bulgaria has such a huge need at the moment," Radev said.

The president said that, according to some rankings, Bulgaria was still in the group of "timid innovators" and there was no sustainable and efficiently functioning innovation system.

Research and development spending was still far from the average for the European Union (EU), Radev said, adding that funding for innovations came mainly from foreign sources and it hindered the introduction of clear national priorities and policy in this area.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:12:14|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

JERUSALEM, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Israeli police on Friday questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the seventh time over investigations on corruptions.

The questioning lasted more than four hours and took place in the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem, the police told Xinhua.

Israeli media reported that it appears to be the last time the police would question Netanyahu before they will pass their conclusions to State Attorney Avichai Mendleblit, who would decide whether to indict the long-ruling prime minister.

Netanyahu is suspected of getting involved in two criminal cases dubbed by the police "case 1,000" and "case 2,000."

The prime minister is suspected of receiving luxury gifts from Israeli-U.S. Hollywood tycoon Arnon Milchan. Netanyahu said he had been a longtime friend of Milchan and the gifts were given "between friends."

He is also suspected of allegedly making secret deals in exchange for favorable coverage in Yediot Aharonot, one of Israel's largest daily newspapers.

Netanyahu dismissed the suspicions as a "witch hunt" led by hostile media. After Friday's questioning, he wrote on his Facebook account: "Nothing new under the sun. Again, I answered all the questions, and this time too I repeat with absolute certainty: There will be nothing, because there was nothing."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:12:15|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

KAMPALA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China has contributed five million U.S. dollars to the UN World Food Program (WFP) school feeding program in the semi-arid Karamoja region in northeastern Uganda.

WFP Country Director El-Khidir Daloum on Friday said the donation from China will boost the school feeding program, which helps boost enrolment, enable children to finish school and make learning easier in the region.

The contribution will also fill major funding gaps in a program that treats acute malnutrition and another that prevents stunting.

"WFP has faced major funding shortfalls for its work in Karamoja in recent years, which forced the organization to reduce rations in school feeding every now and then and to completely stop the asset-creation program mid this year. However, China recently made a generous contribution of five million dollars," said Daloum.

He said the Asian country is an important new donor to the WFP in Uganda for its humanitarian work.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:17:16|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

ISTANBUL, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey is launching a new initiative at the United Nations to force the cancellation of U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"First we will seek the annulment of the decision at the UN Security Council, and if that fails with a veto, the next step will be to apply to the UN General Assembly," Erdogan said in his video address to a rally over Jerusalem in central Anatolian city of Konya.

The president said Islamic countries are setting up new funds to protect Palestinian families. "With these funds we will support our brothers and sisters in every area, and we will protect Muslim neighborhoods, homes and businesses from being seized by Israel," he added.

In addition, the Muslim world is launching new initiatives to increase international recognition of the State of Palestine, Erdogan said, without disclosing details.

According to the president, currently 137 countries have recognized the State of Palestine. "God willing, this number will increase by courtesy of our efforts," he said.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, following an extraordinary summit in Istanbul on Wednesday, recognized East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, a long-held dream of the Palestinians, in respond to the U.S. decision in favor of Israel.

A day after the summit, Turkey unveiled its intention to open its embassy in East Jerusalem.

The status of Jerusalem is among the core issues related to the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Zambia| 2017-12-15 22:17:16|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

LUSAKA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Zambia on Friday denied being among countries in Africa buying expired drugs, its medicines regulatory body.

Last week, media reports indicated that the southern African nation was among countries named in a World Health Organization (WHO) report as a consumer of fake medicine.

The media reports, quoting a WHO Global Surveillance and Monitoring System for Sub-standard and Falsified Medical Products report, said that 10 percent of the low and middle-income countries consumed drugs that were below standard, falsely labeled or simply fake and that the affected countries were collectively spending huge sums of money on the fake drugs.

But the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority has dispelled the reports, saying the country does not buy expired drugs because of stringent measures that have been put in place.

Bernice Mwale, director-general of the medicines' authority said the media reports were false as they misrepresented the contents of the report and that there was nowhere in the report where Zambia has been named.

She told reporters during a press briefing that the media should be careful with what they report because such reports had the potential to cause alarm and panic among members of the general public.

The agency, she said, has put in place a stringent system of sampling and testing of drugs coming into the country before they are dispensed to health facilities in both the public and private sectors.

She said there were no fake medicines in the country because of stringent measures put in place to ensure the efficacy and quality of the medicines.

According to her, as a member of the WHO Global Surveillance and Monitoring System, a platform for countries to report substandard and falsified medicines that are detected in their local surveillance systems, Zambia and other member countries were expected to report the substandard and falsified medicines if they were found on their markets.
Photo shows a worker going about her work at Bole Lemi Industrial Park in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, April 6, 2017. (Xinhua)

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, who is in Ethiopia for an official visit, has praised Ethiopia's economy and called for sustaining the economic development witnessed in the east African country.

Lagarde, who is on an official visit to Ethiopia from December 13 to 15, has held discussions with senior Ethiopian government officials including Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on ways of further strengthening the partnership.

The managing director also visited some of the development projects in Ethiopia, including the eastern Industry Zone on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Lagarde told journalists after her visit that one of the main targets of her Ethiopia visit was to witness the development of industrial parks in the country and the determination of the Ethiopian government to reinforce the country's economic growth.

She also noted that the nexus between the east African country's economic development and the export sector as one area of interest behind her trip to Ethiopia.

"I am really pleased to have seen some international companies from China and the Netherlands, manufacturing to international standards for export purposes," Lagarde said after her visit to Dukem Industrial Park.

She also expressed her hopes that the integrated training, employment and value added in the manufacturing sectors would further propel Ethiopia's export sector to be sustainable.

Lagarde also praised the role of the private sector to Ethiopia's economy, saying that "I saw the dynamism and enthusiasm of the people working there and the commitment of private investors to Ethiopia."

She has also lauded the strong combination of public and private sectors as a major impetus in enhancing sustainable and inclusive development of the country.

Lagarde's Ethiopia visit is part of her trip to three African countries that are Benin, Ethiopia, and Djibouti from December 10 to 19.

Lagarde has praised the commitment of the Ethiopian government in realizing the country's development agenda, which includes the second five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), a national development plan for the 2016-2020 period.

According to Lagarde, the Ethiopian government is clearly trying to provide infrastructure to support the ongoing development endeavor.

The managing director further stressed the International Monetary Fund's full support for Ethiopia's development agenda.

IMF, in its assessment report of the 2017 Article IV that was released last September, had commended Ethiopia's economy for maintaining strong resilience despite the back-to-back drought that wreaked havoc in some parts the country and the continued weak global prices for Ethiopia's key export commodities.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, is presently striving to realize its ambitious development plan that will see the east African nation reach a lower middle-income economy in the next decade.

In her discussion with Teshome, Lagarde also noted that the performance of the Ethiopian economy "is doing very well in terms of growth."

In addition to the economic development that the east African country presently pursue, Lagarde also lauded Ethiopia's role in the Horn of African region, mainly with regards to the country's handling of refugees.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:22:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with President of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Moon Jae-in in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) agreed to cooperate more in various fields to promote the well-being of the two peoples and regional stability.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made the remarks while meeting with ROK President Moon Jae-in in Beijing.

Li said it is the standard for the two countries to have friendly cooperation since they established diplomatic ties 25 years ago.

China is willing to work with the ROK to enhance trust and properly handle sensitive issues to advance bilateral relations along the right track, he said.

China and the ROK have various cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, Li said, calling for the two sides to make use of opportunities to consolidate the development momentum of bilateral ties.

He said the two sides should promote the alignment of their development strategies and start the second phase of the negotiations of a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) at an appropriate time.

Li called for increased cooperation in finance, artificial intelligence, 5G, big data, business environment and people-to-people exchanges.

Moon said the ROK is ready to work with China to improve and develop bilateral ties and strengthen cooperation in the innovation industry, financial investment, agriculture, environment protection and tourism.

He also expressed his hope that both sides will start the second phase of the negotiations of FTA at an early date.

Moon called for more people-to-people exchanges to contribute to the common development of the two countries and regional peace and prosperity.

China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang also met with Moon on Friday afternoon, and both sides agreed to boost parliamentary exchanges.

Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, said China-ROK friendly cooperation is in accordance with the interests of two peoples, as well as regional peace and stability.

Zhang reaffirmed China's position on the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the ROK and hoped the ROK will properly deal with the issue.

Zhang called on the legislative bodies of China and the ROK to maintain communication to help enhance understanding and consolidate political trust.

Moon said the ROK values its ties with China and called for more communication between the legislative bodies of the two countries.
Aerial photo taken on May 12, 2017 shows the Mazeras Bridge of the Chinese-built Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Kenya. (Xinhua/Chen Cheng)

NAIROBI, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Sub-Saharan African countries are eyeing Chinese investment and technical transfer to revive their manufacturing sectors whose growth has been hobbled by funding and manpower hiccups, officials said on Thursday.

The officials, who spoke at a roundtable on investment promotions held on the sidelines of China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation Expo underway in Nairobi, said Chinese capital, knowhow and experience should be tapped to create vibrant manufacturing hubs in the world's second largest continent.

Aschalew Tadesse, Investment Promotion Team Leader of Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC), said China has occupied a strategic position as African countries embark on industrial revival.

"Chinese investors are welcome in our countries to participate in the establishment of industrial parks that are expected to churn out jobs and process goods for exports," Tadesse said.

The China-Africa Development Fund, International Trade Centre (ITC) and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) organized the roundtable to discuss opportunities in Africa's manufacturing sector.

Tadesse said the African continent could be the next frontier for industrial revival given the commitment of political leaders coupled with demographic dividend and vast natural wealth.

"There is a strong impetus in this region and the entire continent to establish a strong manufacturing sector that can harness raw material and skilled labor from within to boost volume of exported goods," said Tadesse.

He stressed that favorable policies, tax incentives and availability of skilled manpower will be key to attract Chinese investments in the industrial sectors across sub-Saharan Africa.

Jiang Xuejun, Chief Office for Asia and the Pacific, International Trade Centre, called for African countries to create favorable conditions to facilitate Chinese investments in the manufacturing sector.

"Besides exchanging knowhow and expertise, African countries and China should maximize on direct investments in the industrial parks that can unlock benefits on both sides," Jiang said.

Chisanga Pule, Investments Promotion Officer at Zambia Development Agency (ZDA), said that Chinese technology and capital will be key to unlock the potential of Africa's emerging sectors like mining, agro-processing, information technology and aerospace.

"We should showcase the new investment opportunities in our manufacturing sectors to Chinese policymakers and fund managers," said Pule.
Source:Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:28:17|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

The graphics shows from 1990 to August 2017, 36,000 Chinese military peacekeeping personnel were sent abroad, according to a white paper titled "New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China" issued by China's State Council Information Office Friday. (Xinhua/Gao Wei)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:37:22|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HONG KONG, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government released a plan Friday to build Hong Kong into a world-class smart city.

The Smart City Blueprint for Hong Kong maps out development plans for the next five years to enhance the effectiveness of city management and improve people's quality of living and Hong Kong's attractiveness and sustainability by making use of innovation and technology.

The plans cover six major areas, namely smart mobility, smart living, smart environment, smart people, smart government and smart economy.

Speaking at a press conference, Secretary for Innovation & Technology Nicholas Yang said the SAR government will provide an eID for citizens, which can ensure secure access to online transactions and services provided by public and private organisations using a single digital identity and authentication

New technology solutions will also be tested in a smart region living lab.

A steering committee on innovation & technology has started operation to steer development of IT and smart city projects.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:37:22|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

A symposium on further improving the ideological and political work at colleges is held in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 14, 2017, on the occasion of the anniversary of Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks at a national conference on ideological and political work in China's universities and colleges in December 2016. Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong presided over the symposium. Chen Xi, head of the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, attended the symposium. Huang Kunming, head of the CPC Central Committee Publicity Department, delivered a speech at the symposium. (Xinhua/Yan Yan)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China will further improve ideological and political work at colleges, according to the attendees of a symposium on the issue Friday.

Huang Kunming, head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, delivered a speech at the symposium, acknowledging the progress in the work made over the past year.

He asked for adherence to the new missions and requirements put forward at the 19th CPC National Congress in October, and the comprehensive implementation of the Party's policies on education.

Huang called for the inclusion of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in college textbooks and classes, as well as the cultivation of talent who can take on the tasks of national rejuvenation.

Presiding over the symposium, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong asked colleges and relevant departments across the country to focus on the new requirements and tasks in order to build colleges that are in line with socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.

Chen Xi, head of the CPC Central Committee Organization Department, also attended the symposium.

At a national conference on ideological and political work in China's universities and colleges in December 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said ideological work in colleges should be integrated into the entire education process, underlining the need of firm Party leadership in higher education.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:42:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HONG KONG, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Council of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) decided on Friday to appoint Zhang Xiang as the 16th president and vice-chancellor of HKU for a term of five years.

Zhang succeeds Peter Mathieson who will leave HKU in January 2018, according to a statement released by HKU.

Zhang is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the United States.

Arthur Li, HKU Council chairman and chairman of the Selection Committee of HKU, said, "Professor Zhang's excellent academic standing and leadership, his integrity, his vision, the demonstration of his management capabilities, and the effectiveness of his interpersonal and communications skills make him a highly qualified candidate meeting the criteria adopted by the Council."

Zhang was delighted to be appointed president of HKU, saying he was "honored" by the appointment. He pledged to work closely with HKU's diverse stakeholders including the university community as well as government and local communities, to build cohesive and sustained momentum and support.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:42:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HANOI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The 26th Annual Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-26) will take place here on Jan. 18-20 with the theme of "Parliamentary partnership: Peace, Innovation and Sustainable Development."

The APPF-26 comes following the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Week in central Da Nang city and it will be an event for lawmakers across the Asia-Pacific to show support for the Da Nang Declaration, Vietnam News Agency on Friday quoted Tong Thi Phong, vice chairwoman of Vietnam's National Assembly, as saying.

Bringing together parliamentarians from across the Asia-Pacific region, the forum aims to directly assist the APEC, contributing to peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

The forum is designed to address political, security, economic, social and cultural issues, thus furthering regional cooperation and building relations between and among parliamentarians from the region.
A refugee mother and her child look outside of a window at a hospital in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, May 8, 2015.(Xinhua/Sun Ruibo)

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Education ministers of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states have vowed provision of quality education for refugees.

Regional ministers of education have expressed their common commitment during the first IGAD Regional Ministerial Conference on Refugee Education underway in the red sea nation of Djibouti.

IGAD Executive Secretary, Mahboub Maalim, said on the occasion that the high-level meeting on refugee children education aims to ensure that every child is guaranteed access to quality education.

"As a regional economic community, which is part of the African Union (AU), IGAD is not a stand-alone organization," Maalim said, adding that "we are to implement continent-wide decisions and initiatives within the priorities of the sub-region."

The east African bloc's recent move came amid similar move from its individual member states.

The Ethiopian government last month had launched a Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), which aims to transform the socioeconomic condition of refugees presently relocated in the country.

The newly introduced CRRF is expected to benefit some of the 890,000 refugees that were relocated to Ethiopia mainly from its neighboring countries such as South Sudan, Sudan, Eritrea, and Somalia in 26 refugee camps across the country through the provision of education, trainings and employment opportunities.

IGAD, in a statement issued on Friday, also called on its member states and development partners to strengthen the IGAD Health and Social Development Division so as to leverage and render the new initiative, which envisages to provide quality education for refugees.

United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) Special Envoy for the Somalia Refugee Situation also hailed the move as the first of its kind, according to the statement from IGAD.

UNHCR further called on all parties involved to keep the momentum going for the benefit of refugees and their hosting communities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 22:52:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

PYONGYANG, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) on Friday accused the United States of conducting another missile warning drill with Japan and South Korea, the state media said.

The drill led by the United States, the fourth of its kind this year, is "a serious military provocation further exacerbating the grave situation of the Korean Peninsula and the region," the director general of the Institute of Disarmament and Peace of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said in a statement released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The United States continuously stages various kinds of joint military exercises against the DPRK including two missile warning drills in 2016 and four times in 2017. This fact alone fully illustrates the extreme level of the insane military provocations of the Trump administration, said the statement.

The drill "is aimed at accelerating the building of the Missile Defence System and the formation of tripartite military alliance of the United States, Japan and South Korea," which will bring about "a new arms race and a new cold war" on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, it added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:02:27|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

GAZA/RAMALLAH, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Yasser Sukkar, 32, was killed Friday after he was shot in the head by Israeli forces in clashes near Nahal Oz in Gaza Strip, announced Ashram Al-Qedra, Gaza health ministry spokesperson.

Medics also reported over 380 Palestinians were injured in Friday's clashes during protests in support for Jerusalem and against United States declaration of Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the West Bank said that 125 Palestinians were injured in Gaza, including 61 by live ammunition, while over 263 others were injured in West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Xinhua cameraman Nael Bweitel was injured lightly during his coverage of the clashes at the northern entrance of Al-Bireh city, near Bet El settlement.

Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza joined Friday rallies and demonstrations in another day of tension called "Friday of rage," in support for Jerusalem and a rejection to the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The participants waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans condemning Trump's decision. They called on Trump to regret the decision, and emphasize that Jerusalem is an Arab, Palestinian and Islamic city.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said in a speech he addressed at one of Gaza city mosques during Friday prayers "Our hands are extended to reconciliation but without making any compromise on our interests and our religion."

"These words are directed to the collaborators and traitors with the Jews. The Jews, who were kicked out from Europe, will be kicked out from Palestine. This is the promise of God," he said.

For his part, Jameel Mezher, leader of the Popular Front, said during the demonstration that "our people today rise for Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the territories of 1948 to say no to Trump, and stands up against his dangerous decision."

"It is a declaration of war against the Palestinian people. Our people have decided to continue the Intifada and escalate it until Trump retracts his decision," he said.

The left-wing Palestinian group leader said "we are in front of an all-out uprising against Trump's decision and our people can not back down."

Thousands of Palestinians gathered at four points in the central Gaza Strip and formed a human chain along the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij governorates, according to eyewitnesses.

"This huge public participation in Khan Younis expresses our anger at Trump's decision against our capital, Jerusalem," said one of the participants.

Dozens of youths following Friday prayers headed to the points of tension along the eastern border of the Gaza Strip, where Israeli army soldiers are stationed behind the barbed wire.

According to official statistics, four Palestinians were killed and hundreds others were injured in the ongoing confrontations since Dec. 7 in protest against the American decision.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:22:30|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

AMMAN, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of Jordanians took to the streets on Friday in various governorates to protest over U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The largest demonstration was held in downtown Amman with more than 20,000 protesters from various political parties and groups.

People burned the U.S. and Israeli flags, calling for the abolishment of the 1994 Wadi Araba peace deal that Jordan signed with Israel.

"Jerusalem is ours and it is an Arabic city regardless of what Trump says," said the demonstrators carrying pictures of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.

Ibrahim Halabi, a 58-year old protester said, "we are here to peacefully send a message that we all reject this decision which will worsen the situation. Jerusalem is a redline for Arabs and Muslims and Trump needs to understand this."

"We all have to also support and show solidarity with the Palestinians over Jerusalem and Palestine as they are confronted with all Israeli violations and aggressions after this decision," Halabi told Xinhua.

The demonstrators also called for boycotting U.S. products and urged Arabs and Muslims to take further steps to exert pressures on the United States to withdraw the decision.

People also held a demonstration in front of the U.S. embassy in Amman to reject the decision.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:32:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 15, 2017. Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor is in Beijing to report the work of the SAR government to the central government. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Friday reaffirmed the central government's long-term and unswerving adherence to the principle of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong and Macao, when he met with the chief executives of the two special administrative regions (SARs).

In a meeting with Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Xi commended the policies and measures carried out by Lam's administration to foster economic growth, improve people's livelihood and protect social stability since she took office in July.

The central government fully endorses the work of Lam and the new Hong Kong SAR government, he said.

Xi noted that upholding the principle of "one country, two systems" and promoting national reunification were written into the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as part of the basic policy to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.

"This is proof of the great importance the central government has attached to the work regarding Hong Kong and Macao. It also showcases the central government's long-term and unswerving adherence to the principle of 'one country, two systems,'" he said.

Xi called for full and faithful implementation of the policies of "one country, two systems," "the people of Hong Kong governing Hong Kong," and a high degree of autonomy in Hong Kong.

To do so, efforts must be made to combine the central government's overall jurisdiction over the Hong Kong SAR and the high degree of autonomy of the region, he said.

Xi also said the report of the 19th CPC National Congress had proposed to integrate Hong Kong's development into the overall development of the country.

This has pointed the way forward for Hong Kong's future development, and is inevitable given the complementary advantages of Hong Kong and the mainland and their win-win cooperation, Xi said.

He expressed the hope that Lam would continue to lead the Hong Kong administration to unite the people of Hong Kong and contribute to great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

In a separate meeting with Chui Sai On, chief executive of the Macao SAR, Xi commended the work of Chui and the Macao government to stabilize the economy and improve people's well-being.

Xi acknowledged the work in the election of Macao's Legislative Council and handling various emergencies and challenges.

The central government fully endorses the work of Chui and the Macao SAR government, he said.

Reiterating the central government's unswerving implementation of the principle of "one country, two systems," Xi stated the central government's support for the governance of Chui and the Macao SAR government, and for Macao to integrate its development into the overall development of the country.

He hoped that Chui and the Macao SAR government would unite and lead the people of Macao to raise their awareness of the overall situation and hardship, so as to make greater contribution to the successful practice of "one country, two systems" in Macao and the realization of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:47:40|Editor: Yang Yi

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel is a betrayal of the Palestinians and the efforts to bring peace between Israel and Palestine, Palestine Ambassador Frizz Mahedavi to China said Friday.

Mahedavi made the remarks after an seminar held in Peking University to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a UN-organized observance held annually on Nov. 29 to draw international attention to the unresolved Palestinian cause.

"Trump took a stand last week to reward the occupier by giving them another declaration similar, if not worse, to that of Balfour. It is a dangerous step, we will never accept it," Mahedavi told Xinhua in an interview.

Balfour Declaration is a public statement issued by Britain during the World War I announcing its support to the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.

Trump's decision on Jerusalem contradicts international law and UN resolutions, said the ambassador. "He is smashing the peace process, but this will not have any impact on Jerusalem's juridical status," he added.

Israeli occupation is a stumbling block in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, Mahedavi said, reiterating the Palestinian stance that Israeli withdraw from the occupied Palestinian land first.

During the Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967, Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem and claimed unilaterally both East and West Jerusalem under its sovereignty and civil law. Since then, Israel has built housing complexes known as "settlements" in the region in an attempt to change the demographic makeup.

"There will be no sovereign state of Palestine without East Jerusalem as its capital," Mahedavi said.

The Palestinians have been pursuing the establishment of an independent state with full sovereignty on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Mahedavi said Israel is like a spoiled child of the United States. "True friends should tell truth, not let the other act willfully," he said.

Mahedavi thanked China for its continuous support for the Palestinians in diplomatic, political and other fields, and its humanitarian assistance to them over the past more than 50 years.

"China is a big weight of sense of responsibility, and its four-point proposition is welcome. Chinese President Xi Jinping is a leader who walks the talk," he said while expressing the hope to expand cooperation with China in such sectors as economy, investment and tourism, and to learn from China's experience in sustainable development.

The "four-point proposition" was put forward by Xi in July during a meeting with his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing.

The proposition calls for advancing political settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution, upholding a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept, further coordinating and strengthening the concerted efforts for peace, and promoting peace with development.

The ambassador also called upon the international community to release a strong signal to Israel and the United States to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:52:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ROME, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Italy's main association of pilots (ANPAC) cancelled a strike planned on Friday, after budget airline Ryanair offered to recognize unions for the first time ever.

"Having received a formal communication from Ryanair expressing their will to begin a path of recognition of union representatives, ANPAC suspends the strike of its flying staff (pilots and flight attendants) scheduled from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Dec. 15," the union said in a statement.

Earlier on Friday, Ryanair had written to pilot unions in Ireland, Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal "inviting each of them to talks to recognize these unions as the representative body for pilots in Ryanair in each of there countries," according to the company.

"Ryanair will now change its long standing policy of not recognizing unions, in order to avoid any threat of disruption to its customers and its flights from pilot unions during Christmas week," the management said.

Besides ANPAC, the largest association representing flying staff in Italy, all other unions called off a strike Friday. However, the FIT-CISL that said it has not received any communication from the Irish airline.

The strike had been called earlier this week, because unions said Ryanair had ignored all requests to open a negotiation to renew labor contracts for their staff in Italy.

The move sparked tension between the Irish company and Italian authorities, after Ryanair tried to discourage their staff working in Italy from joining the strike. The airline had in fact sent a letter to its cabin crews on Tuesday, warning them they might lose opportunities of pay rises and promotions if they took part in the protest.

Such communication was a violation of the Italian constitution (which recognizes strike as a citizen's right), Italy's authority overseeing the correct implementation of industrial actions (CGSSE) warned on Thursday.

"I also want to recall the Law n. 146 (ruling over strikes) bans business behaviors that may lead to a conflict (in negotiations), or bring about a deterioration of a conflict," the watchdog chief Giuseppe Santoro Passarelli said. The authority can impose penalties on companies in case of "anti-union" conduct.

Italian Labor Minister Giuliano Poletti defined Ryanair's threat as an "unworthy action" on Thursday. Both Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio censored the airline's behavior as disrespectful of the country's rules.

On Friday, after being told of Ryanair's change of position, Calenda said the company's will to recognize unions was not a concession, but "the bare minimum, and still not enough," according to Ansa news agency.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:52:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- China has banned the import of three medicines from two British companies, according to a statement on the website of the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA).

The CFDA found Calcium Sulphate and Synthetic Resorbable Bone Graft were registered independently in China, but the two medicines were sold in a collective package with unregistered injector and water for injection, which violated the registration regulation of medical instruments in China.

Both medicines were produced by Biocomposites Ltd and used in orthopedic surgery.

The CFDA also found Leica Biosystems Newcastle Ltd changed the major raw material suppliers for its HER-2 reagent, but the company did not report the change, which violated in vitro reagent management in China.

The HER-2 reagent was used to identify breast cancer.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:52:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

YEREVAN, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Armenia Friday officially launched a free economic zone (FEZ) with Iran in its southernmost city of Meghri bordering the Islamic republic, state-run Armenpress reported.

Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan attended the opening ceremony with Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan, with presence of the Iranian ambassador, as well as officials and businessmen from both countries.

According to Karayan, the free economic zone should be developed into two phases.

"At the first stage, the minimum necessary infrastructures and preconditions have been set up," Karayan said, adding that in the second phase 70 hectares of territories would be added to create preconditions for profitable business.

The minister envisages 50 to 70 companies' involvement in the coming years, which would bring about 100-130 million U.S. dollar and create 1,500 new jobs, as well as export goods and services up to 250 million U.S. dollar.

The businesses operating in the zone will be exempt from income tax, value added tax, excise tax and custom duties, according to the minister.

In August, 2017, a memorandum of cooperation between free economic zones 'Meghri'(Armenia) and 'Aras'(Iran) were signed by both governments.

Armenia has a strong interest in the implementation of the landmark agreement with Iran with the outlook of new economic opportunities as international sanctions and economic restrictions on Iran are fully lifted. Since Armenia's borders with both Turkey and Azerbaijan have long been closed due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran is one of the only two conduits for landlocked Armenia to the outside world.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during the extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkey, on Dec. 13, 2017. Turkish President Recep TayyipErdogan on Wednesday urged the Islamic world to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, while Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused any U.S. involvement in the peace process. (Xinhua/Anadolu Agency)

ISTANBUL, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey is launching a new initiative at the United Nations to force the cancellation of U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"First we will seek the annulment of the decision at the UN Security Council, and if that fails with a veto, the next step will be to apply to the UN General Assembly," Erdogan said in his video address to a rally over Jerusalem in central Anatolian city of Konya.

The president said Islamic countries are setting up new funds to protect Palestinian families. "With these funds we will support our brothers and sisters in every area, and we will protect Muslim neighborhoods, homes and businesses from being seized by Israel," he added.

In addition, the Muslim world is launching new initiatives to increase international recognition of the State of Palestine, Erdogan said, without disclosing details.

According to the president, currently 137 countries have recognized the State of Palestine. "God willing, this number will increase by courtesy of our efforts," he said.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, following an extraordinary summit in Istanbul on Wednesday, recognized East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, a long-held dream of the Palestinians, in respond to the U.S. decision in favor of Israel.

A day after the summit, Turkey unveiled its intention to open its embassy in East Jerusalem.

The status of Jerusalem is among the core issues related to the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-15 23:57:42|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

NAIROBI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of tourists coming to Kenya in the period ending September rose 10 percent as compared to a similar period last year, defying election jitters.

Kenya held its general election on Aug. 8 after grueling campaigns, with President Uhuru Kenyatta being declared the winner.

However, the Supreme Court annulled the election on Sept. 1 and ordered for a fresh poll leading to a lengthy electioneering period.

Prior to the August polls, several Western nations, including the U.S. and the UK issued travel advisories to the citizens citing fear of violence.

However, the latest arrival figures from the Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) released on Friday points to the fact that elections did not affect the tourism sector.

Some 720,376 tourists visited Kenya in the months leading to September through the main airports Moi and Jomo Kenyatta. This was a 10 percent rise from 655,058 in the nine months in 2016.

In August when Kenya held elections, some 89,782 tourists visited the East African nation, a slight decline from 96,958 that month in 2016.

And in September following the annulment of the presidential election, some 87,440 tourists visited Kenya, up from 75,630 in a similar period in 2026.

Most of the arrivals in the nine months were recorded in the third quarter at 256,150 as Kenya geared for elections. In the first quarter, some 224,370 tourists visited Kenya while in the second quarter 239,856.

Nearly 90 percent of the tourists came through Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi while the rest via Moi airport in Mombasa.

The Kenya Association of Hotelkeepers and Caterers Coast Executive Sam Ikwaye recently said election jitters did not affect international tourist arrivals. Interestingly, domestic tourism was hit as people kept off mainly the Coast.

With elections done and political rhetoric having gone down, the tourism sector is upbeat in 2018.

"We expect continued recovery in the hospitality sector towards the end of the year, and in 2018, given improved security, growth of domestic tourism with Kenyans accounting for 54 percent of total bed nights and growth of MICE where the number of conferences held in the country would increase," noted Cytonn, a Nairobi- based investment firm.

Aggressive government marketing by Kenya Tourism Board has helped restore confidence among key international markets such as Europe and U.S., as well as in new emerging markets in Africa and Asia.

Henry Wandera, an economics lecturer, attributed the growth in numbers to several government incentives to the sector which included removal of Value Added Tax charges on national park fees, capping of Kenya Wildlife Services park fees at 60 U.S. dollars from 90 dollars and scrapping of visa fees for children under the age of 16 years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 00:07:44|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Swedish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Elisabeth Wallstrom said Friday that there is "no military solution" to the Korean Peninsula nuclear crisis.

Speaking to reporters before attending the Security Council's ministerial-level meeting on "non-proliferation/DPRK," Wallstrom said that "we need to intensify diplomatic efforts, as well as to establish a dialogue," adding that "we need to resort to every venue of diplomacy and politics to establish a dialogue again. We will remain actively in these efforts."

Members had also been asked to consider ways to maximize pressure on Pyongyang, including through full implementation of relevant council resolutions and additional sanctions measures "in response to further provocations."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 00:17:50|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

JAKARTA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- As influx of Chinese tourists to Indonesia continued to grow in recent years, Indonesia is keen to expand cooperation in tourism with China to facilitate Chinese tourists and create attractive tour packages for them, an Indonesia minister said on Friday.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya told Xinhua in an exclusive interview that Indonesia had received 1.8 million Chinese tourists as of October and the figure was expected to reach more than 2 million ones in 2017.

"The growth was 45 percent, compared to their arrival figure in the corresponding period last year," the minister said, citing the influx of Chinese tourists to Indonesia during the period.

He added that Chinese tourists contributed the most to Indonesia's foreign tourist figure at present, surpassing Singapore, Malaysia and Australia which used to dominate the figure previously.

He added that his ministry has set target to receive 5 million Chinese tourists, or 25 percent from the 20 million foreign tourists target by 2019.

Indonesia expects to receive 3.5 million Chinese tourists from 17 million foreign tourists targeted for next year, he said.

Conveying Indonesia's efforts to attract more tourists from China, the minister said that his ministry has been actively made promotions to attract more Chinese to spend the Spring Festival holiday in Indonesia.

"We did the promotion related to Chinese's Spring Festival since November," he said.

To achieve the tourism targets and provide more accommodation for Chinese tourists, the minister said Indonesia would provide more Mandarin-speaking guides, to support more direct flights from China to more of Indonesian cities.

"We already asked for assistance from Chinese consulate general office in Denpasar to teach Mandarin language to our guides and sent students to China to learn the language and how to serve Chinese tourists," he added.

The minister also expected Chinese investors to take part in Indonesia's plan to develop more destinations, called 10 New Bali, and integrated sea transportation system which he believed will integrate with China's Belt and Road Initiative.

The initiative "fits with our development of marine tourism. As we are in this field, we give full support for the initiative," the minister said.

The minister planned to build a tour package in observing China's ancient navy commander Zheng He and his voyage throughout Indonesia centuries ago.

"Zheng He is also very famous in Indonesia. We can start by developing tourism package of Zheng He," he said.

According to the minister, Zheng visited 10 cities in Indonesia that spanned from Batam to Bali. Conveying his plan, the tour packages can be accommodated through flights as well as cruise ships that starts from Batam and ends in Bali.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 00:17:52|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday warned against military action on Korean Peninsula.

"Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences," Guterres told the Security Council meeting on the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

"It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military-to-military channels. This is critical to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding and reduce tensions in the region."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 00:32:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BERLIN, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday warned against growing antisemitism in the country.

Speaking at an event in Berlin marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Steinmeier said that hatred of Jews was an evil that appeared in "many guises".

Steinmeier's comments were made in reference to protests in several cities throughout Germany which were sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Joining the debate on Friday, Steinmeier argued that Germany's historical responsibility towards Jews as consequence of the holocaust applied to all of its inhabitants regardless of their origins.

This responsibility was "non-negotiable for all of those who live in Germany and want to live here," the German President said.

Steinmeier outlined his definition of unacceptable antisemitism as including incendiary speech and actions, but also the maintenance and propagation stereotypes.

"Antisemitism must not have a place in this Federal Republic," the president said.

Nevertheless, Steinmeier expressed his skepticism that "the unilateral recognition of Jerusalem would contribute to a peaceful Middle East."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 00:42:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Outgoing president of Switzerland, Doris Leuthard, on Friday called for extending the country's presidential term to two years, instead of the current 12 months, which she said will "better serve Switzerland's interests."

After one year in office, she will in January hand over the Swiss presidency to Alain Berset who heads the home affairs ministry.

The Swiss presidency is rotated on a yearly basis among the seven members of the Federal Council, who do not all belong to the same political party.

Leuthard said in an interview with Swiss public radio, RTS, on Friday that two consecutive years would be ideal, although she noted the Swiss parliament might not like that arrangement.

For Leuthard, limiting the presidency to one year does not help Switzerland on an international level.

"After a year, you have built up quite big network because you are travelling, you get to know quite a few presidents and then afterwards you step back and somebody else has to work on these relations.

"It's not really very good for international contacts," she said in her interview.

Leuthard will shortly finish her second term as president, having last held the post in 2010.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:08:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

RIYADH, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Saudi traffic authority asserted on Friday that women would be allowed to drive trucks and motorcycles, Al Arabiya local news reported.

The country would officially allow females to drive in the mid of next year.

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ordered in September to allow women to drive cars after decades of restricting driving only to male citizens and residents.

The period set before lifting the ban will be allocated to carry certain legislation amendments and find methods for women to receive driving training.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:13:07|Editor: huaxia

Video Player Close

PARIS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- French shares lost on Friday, with the benchmark Paris CAC 40 down 0.15 percent, or 7.84 points, to close at 5,349.30 points.

Eighteen of the 40 selected large companies lost in the day.

French retail giant Carrefour tumbled 2.34 percent, the top loser of the blue chips. French multinational information technology consulting corporation Cap Gemini was down 1.93 percent. French banking giant Societe Generale edged down 1.89 percent.

Building material manufacturer LafargeHolcim advanced 2.92 percent, the top gainer of the day. Air Liquide, a French multinational company which supplies industrial gases and services to various industries, gained 1.26 percent. Schneider electric, French multinational corporation specializing in energy management and automation solutions was up 0.78 percent. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:23:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

KIGALI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda on Friday formally laid the foundation stone paving way for the construction of the first pharmaceutical plant in the country.

With the support of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Cooper Pharma, a Moroccan pharmaceutical company will built a 6 million U.S. dollars pharmaceutical plant at the Kigali Special Economic Zone located in Rwandan capital city Kigali.

The plant will locally produce drugs that include beta-lactam antibiotics in the short term and then expand to non-beta lactam antibiotics depending on local and regional market demand.

The establishment of the first pharmaceutical firm in Rwanda is a significant milestone for the country in reducing imports, as the country currently imports approximately 100 million dollars of medical products, said chief executive officer of the RDB Clare Akamanzi at the event held at Kigali Special Economic Zone.

"This initiative is in perfect coherence with the government of Rwanda's policies, which aim to encourage local production and the promotion of foreign direct investments," she said.

The plant is expected to help reduce the amount of foreign exchange used to import drugs while at the same time creating more job opportunities for the youth in the country, said Akamanzi.

The medical facility is expected to reinforce Rwanda's position as a medical export hub in the region.

According to RDB, about 40 well-paying jobs for local pharmaceutical professionals will be created during the first phase and employment opportunities will increase further as the plant expands.

The factory, set to be operational in 2019, will be built on a plot of 2 hectares of land.

This plant is among the 21 deals that were signed between Morocco and Rwanda in October 2016 during a three-day visit of King Mohammed VI to Rwanda.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:28:10|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (3rd R), Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn (3rd L), Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai (1st R), Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith (2nd R), Union Minister for International Cooperation of Myanmar U Kyaw Tin (2nd L), and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh (1st L) pose for a group photo during the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) foreign ministers' meeting in Dali, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Dec. 15, 2017. (Xinhua/Hu Chao)

KUNMING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Senior foreign affairs officials from China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam on Friday agreed to deepen pragmatic cooperation to benefit their people.

At the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) foreign ministers' meeting held in Dali, southwest China's Yunnan Province, they decided to implement the consensus reached by their leaders to promote more cooperative projects and build a community with a shared future of peace and prosperity among Lancang-Mekong countries.

The Lancang-Mekong River is a natural link between the six countries.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn co-chaired the meeting. Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith, Union Minister for International Cooperation of Myanmar U Kyaw Tin, Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh attended the meeting.

The foreign affairs officials congratulated on the progress made in some key areas including connectivity, industry capacity, cross-border economic cooperation, water resources, agriculture and poverty reduction.

They agreed that LMC has evolved from its nurturing period into the growing period, and all member countries should make greater efforts to advance economic and social development, and narrow development gap, and support the ASEAN community building.

They agreed to synergize LMC with the development strategies of each member country, the Belt and Road Initiative and the relevant development programs of ASEAN.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:33:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- South African banks on Friday warned people not to carry huge sums of money but to transfer money electronically.

This comes after some South African clubs were robbed of their money. On Friday South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC), acting on behalf of the banking industry warned members of stokvel social clubs to be extra cautious during the festive season.

"It is very distressing that bank clients, who are the victims of stokvel robberies are often injured or even killed during these incidents, which is why we urge them to find safer ways to transact, such as internet transfers or mobile banking, instead of carrying large amounts of cash," said Kalyani Pillay, CEO of SABRIC.

Stokvels are invitation only clubs of 12 or more people serving as rotating credit unions or saving scheme in South Africa where members contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.

SABRIC said between 2014 and December 15, 2017, 53 stokvel robbery incidents were reported, with 77 percent of incidents occurring during the festive season.

Pillay said criminals know that people would be winding down their business and some clubs paying out cash. The banking industry warned the people to avoid high risk days like Monday and month ends. They also called for the electronic use in bank transfers as opposed to carrying huge sums of money.

The banks also advised people to carry little money. Businesses were advised to avoid routine days and times of visiting the banks. They also advised some business to pay contract workers through banks accounts and avoid cash payment in the public view.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:38:12|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

LUSAKA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government on Friday condemned attacks on a private radio station by suspected supporters of the ruling party and warned that it will not condone attacks on journalists.

On Thursday, suspected supporters of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) besieged offices of 5FM Radio in Lusaka, the country's capital in order to block an opposition politician who was to be featured on a live interview.

The unruly supporters stoned the radio station's offices, breaking windows and vehicles belonging to the opposition politician and his supporters. They only scampered after one of the opposition supporters fired his gun.

"This barbaric act is not only primitive, but a serious assault on the freedom of the press," Kampamba Mulenga, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting said.

The government, she said, will not condone attacks on journalists as the media play a key role in the dissemination of quality information which was a fundamental prerequisite in any democracy.

It is, therefore, shameful and unfortunate that the alleged assailants have found difficulties to realize this fact and have instead turned against people they are supposed to protect and support, she added.

The minister, who is also chief government spokesperson, has called on law enforcement agencies to investigate the matter and ensure that the culprits are to brought to book.

According to her, journalists should be allowed to work without fear or intimidation from any individual or political party.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:43:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks to the media after the United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation on the Korean Peninsula at the UN headquarters in New York, on Dec. 15, 2017. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday told the UN Security Council that the ultimate goal of solving the Korean Peninsula crisis must be the "complete, verifiable and irreversible abandonment of its nuclear weapons programs." (Xinhua/Han Fang)

UNITED NATIONS, Dec.15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday told the UN Security Council that the ultimate goal of solving the Korean Peninsula crisis must be the "complete, verifiable and irreversible abandonment of its nuclear weapons programs."

Tillerson, who did not repeat his Tuesday stance that there are no preconditions to having talks, urged the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to enter negotiations and give up its nuclear weapons.

"The international community remains firm in our determination that we will not accept a nuclear North Korea (DPRK)," he noted.

The Security Council meeting was called amid rising concerns that the world is on the brink of nuclear conflict.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 01:53:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- More than 3.9 million new displacements were recorded in 2016 as a result of conflicts, violence, and disasters, leaving 12.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) as of the end of the year, according to a new report.

The 2017 African Report on Internal Displacement was launched on Friday at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, during a high level dialogue on displacement, organized by the pan-African bloc and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

About 37 of Africa's 55 countries across every region have been affected to the displacements, according to the report published to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the AU Convention for Protection and Assistance of IDPs in Africa, dubbed the Kampala Convention.

Conflict and violence have caused 70 percent of Africa's new displacements in 2016, a total of 2.8 million across 23 countries, says the report, adding the continent has accounted for 40 percent of conflict displacement globally.

East African region continues to host the highest number of IDPs, with 6.8 million of the continent's total as of 2016. The region has had the highest cumulative figures for seven of last eight years, driven by protracted and cyclical conflicts in Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan.

Conflict displacement in Central Africa is escalating at such a rate, with more than 1.3 million new incidents between January and June 2017, that the region may well overtake East Africa as the worst-affected region both in terms of new displacements and long-term IDPs.

The report further states that the scale and relentless nature of the phenomenon are beyond the scope of humanitarian action.

The report warns that displacement reverses development gains and has profound implications for the future achievements of targets in many African countries and regions.

It calls for full ratification and implementation of the Kampala convention, while emphasizing on the need to have better evidence and data towards more appropriate responses to the issue.

The report also calls for political will across Africa to address the continent's displacement crises comprehensively.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 02:03:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

POGRADEC, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The first joint meeting of Albanian and Macedonian governments was held Friday in Albania's southeastern city of Pogradec, marking the opening of a new chapter of cooperation between two countries.

Following the governmental meeting, Albanian and Macedonian Prime Ministers, Edi Rama and Zoran Zaev had a joint press conference where they both praised the event as crucial to the strengthening of bilateral relations.

Rama said that the first joint session of two governments would take the bilateral relations to a new level of a shared strategic orientation.

"As two neighboring countries, we have the obligation to offer more development and work for more prosperity for our citizens by improving the infrastructure interconnectivity," Rama told reporters.

Rama called for greater cooperation in the field of road and energy infrastructure, exchange of goods and services, border procedures, etc.

He further noted that the two governments had expressed commitment to carry out major development projects, including the construction of the Corridor 8 and the Elbasan-Pogradec railway.

The Premier also informed that the two governments would cooperation on the construction of new two-lane highway, Arbri Road, which will link Albanian capital, Tirana, with Dibra region on the Macedonian border.

Then, Rama affirmed Albania's support for Macedonia's NATO membership bid, saying that Macedonia's membership in NATO would be a strong investment in the region's peace and security.

On his part, Macedonian PM Zoran Zaev said that Macedonia and Albania share common challenges in their aspiration to open the accession negotiations with the European Union.

Macedonian PM hailed the first joint session of the governments of the two neighboring countries as a strong message to regional cooperation.

Zaev also expressed gratitude for Albania's strong support to Macedonia's aspirations to join NATO.

During first session, a series of important documents were signed, including the plan on periodic consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of both countries, a memorandum of cooperation between the Ministries of Interior, and creation of the Bilateral Economic Council.

They also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost cultural and scientific research cooperation through the Institute for the National, Cultural and Spiritual Heritage of the Albanians of Macedonia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 02:13:23|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN refugee agency UNHCR said Friday it started the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees from a camp in Bambari, in the Central African Republic (CAR).

More than 230 refugees have arrived at Sudan's Nyala airport since the returns began on Tuesday, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said at a briefing here.

"Sixty-six UNHCR chartered flights are scheduled to bring some 1,500 refugees home before the end of the year," said Baloch.

Nearly 3,500 refugees had fled from South Darfur to CAR in 2007 during the conflict between the Sudanese forces and armed groups. Refugees were hosted in Pladama Ouaka camp, near Bambari.

Returning refugees are currently hosted in a transit center in the capital of South Darfur State and will return to their home villages in Dafag, South Darfur, located at some 350 km from Nyala.

"UNHCR is working with the governments of Sudan and CAR in assisting the returnees with air and land transportation and return packages," said Baloch.

Returning refugees will also have access to land.

Sudan has pledged to implement international standards governing refugee returns, including the benefit of amnesties, as well as UNHCR's role in monitoring the returns.

The war in the Darfur region of Sudan broke out in February 2003, when rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan. The ensuing conflict killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people within Sudan and over its borders.

Around 2 million people are currently displaced inside the country, while more than 650,000 Sudanese refugees live in the neighboring countries such as Chad and South Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 03:18:36|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TIRANA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Albania is grateful to European Union (EU) countries which expressed solidarity and sent aid to help the authorities here better cope with the floods that affected many areas early this month, Albania's Defense Minister Olta Xhacka said Friday.

Xhacka met the ambassadors of EU countries accredited in Tirana, and extended Albanian government's gratitude to their respective countries who immediately responded to the EU Civil Protection Mechanism request through the Emergency Response Coordination Centre.

The minister noted that Albania managed to cope with the recent floods situation thanks to the aid of other countries.

On her part, Ambassador of the EU Delegation to Albania Romana Vlahutin positively assessed the government investments in prevention of greater flood consequences and thanked the officers engaged in the affected areas.

Ambassadors of Austria, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia highlighted the Emergency Response Coordination Centre and expressed their readiness to cooperate.

The first aid through the Emergency Response Coordination Centre came from Greece and Slovenia, while aid from Austria, France and Slovakia is expected Friday.

Italy has sent a mission of assessing conditions on the damaged bridges.

Meanwhile, EU delegation here Friday informed that EU Civil Protection Mechanism was deployed in Albania to offer assistance after December 2017 heavy rainfall, which caused floods in the central and southern part of the country.

On Dec. 4, Albania requested assistance from the Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC), the operational heart of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The ERCC coordinated with relevant authorities to establish a list of emergency response items, which was then sent to participating states.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 03:23:37|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

RABAT, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 600 Moroccan illegal immigrants remain stranded in Libya, local media reported on Friday.

The Alyaoum24.com news site said these Moroccan immigrants are living in bad conditions in Libya's detention centers.

The families of the stranded Moroccans have held several sit-ins to demand immediate return of their family members, it said.

The last protest was on Tuesday, the news website added.

Despite a promise to solve the problem, Moroccan authorities have not provided any information on the number of these immigrants.

Earlier this month, 235 Moroccan nationals stranded in Libya were repatriated through Tunisia.

Most of these immigrants, who were trying to cross the Mediterranean to Italy through Libya, were held in detention centers in the north African country.

Libya's borders and its proximity to Italian coasts have offered propitious conditions for the surge of illegal immigration organized by human trafficking networks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 04:03:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Swiss court on Friday gave a 31-year-old woman a partially suspended 18-month jail sentence after she tried to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

The Swiss woman from Winterthur appeared before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona near the Italian border, the Swiss news agency, ATS, reported where prosecutors called for a two-year jail sentence.

Switzerland banned Islamic State in 2014 and Al Qaeda is also illegal.

In addition, prosecutors said the woman had endangered the life of her four-year-old son, who could not decide for himself, while she undertook a life-threatening journey.

The court ruled that the woman must serve six of the 18 months sentence in prison, while 12 months were suspended for three years provided she abides by the penalty.

During this time, the women must undergo psychological care and additional she must pay legal fees amounting to almost 16,000 Swiss francs.

In December 2015, the woman, accompanied by her four-year-old child, attempted to travel to Syria via Greece and Turkey to join IS, prosecution said.

She intended to go Raqqa, which was at the time a stronghold for IS in Syria.

The woman was prevented from completing her journey on the way and was arrested at Zurich airport on her return to Switzerland in January 2016.

The woman converted to Islam in 2009 and was radicalized over the internet when she was living in the Swiss city of Winterthur in the northeast of the country, according to the court documents.

According to prosecution documents, she promoted jihad to others once back in Switzerland.

The defense, however, had pleaded for her acquittal arguing she did not commit violence and asserted that the court had not sufficiently proven she had said her son should become a martyr.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 04:13:50|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (C, front) attends a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation on the Korean Peninsula at the UN headquarters in New York, on Dec. 15, 2017. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed concern over risk of military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula and warned against any military action. (Xinhua/Han Fang)

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed concern over risk of military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula and warned against any military action.

"Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences," he told the Security Council.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today. I am deeply concerned by the risk of military confrontation, including as a result of unintended escalation or miscalculation," he said.

While all concerned seek to avoid an accidental escalation leading to conflict, the risk is being multiplied by "misplaced over-confidence," dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels, he warned.

"It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military-to-military channels. This is critical to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding and reduce tensions in the region."

Diplomatic engagement is the only pathway to sustainable peace and de-nuclearization, said Guterres.

"We must do everything we can to reach that objective -- and avoid a level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences."

In 2017, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted activities related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs "at an alarming and accelerated pace," said Guterres.

Security Council Resolution 2375, adopted in September 2017, includes the strongest sanctions ever imposed on the DPRK.

"I reiterate my call on the DPRK leadership to comply with the relevant Security Council resolutions and allow space for the resumption of dialogue on de-nuclearization and sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula."

The unity of the Security Council is an essential instrument to achieve the goal of de-nuclearization and creates the space for diplomatic initiatives aimed at achieving it in a peaceful manner, said Guterres.

He vowed to push for dialogue to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula.

"I believe the United Nations Secretariat adds strategic value in three key areas. First, impartiality. Second, the voice and norms, values and principles for peaceful and diplomatic solutions, in line with international law. Third, offering channels of communication with all parties."

The United Nations is a key venue where all six parties are represented and can interact to narrow differences in understanding and promote confidence-building measures, he said. "As secretary-general, I commit to protecting and strengthening these three areas."

Meanwhile, a DPRK diplomat said here at the Security Council on Friday that his country's possession of nuclear weapons "was an inevitable self-defensive."

DPRK ambassador to the UN Ja Song Nam said, "if anyone is to blame for it, the U.S. is the one who must be held accountable."
DPRK ambassador to the UN Ja Song Nam addresses a UN Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, on Dec. 15, 2017. (Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed concern over risk of military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula and warned against any military action.

"Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences," he told the Security Council.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today. I am deeply concerned by the risk of military confrontation, including as a result of unintended escalation or miscalculation," he said.

While all concerned seek to avoid an accidental escalation leading to conflict, the risk is being multiplied by "misplaced over-confidence," dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels, he warned.

"It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military-to-military channels. This is critical to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding and reduce tensions in the region."

Diplomatic engagement is the only pathway to sustainable peace and de-nuclearization, said Guterres.

"We must do everything we can to reach that objective -- and avoid a level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences."

In 2017, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted activities related to its nuclear and ballistic missile programs "at an alarming and accelerated pace," said Guterres.

Security Council Resolution 2375, adopted in September 2017, includes the strongest sanctions ever imposed on the DPRK.

"I reiterate my call on the DPRK leadership to comply with the relevant Security Council resolutions and allow space for the resumption of dialogue on de-nuclearization and sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula."

The unity of the Security Council is an essential instrument to achieve the goal of de-nuclearization and creates the space for diplomatic initiatives aimed at achieving it in a peaceful manner, said Guterres.

He vowed to push for dialogue to defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula.

"I believe the United Nations Secretariat adds strategic value in three key areas. First, impartiality. Second, the voice and norms, values and principles for peaceful and diplomatic solutions, in line with international law. Third, offering channels of communication with all parties."

The United Nations is a key venue where all six parties are represented and can interact to narrow differences in understanding and promote confidence-building measures, he said. "As secretary-general, I commit to protecting and strengthening these three areas."

Meanwhile, a DPRK diplomat said here at the Security Council on Friday that his country's possession of nuclear weapons "was an inevitable self-defensive."

DPRK ambassador to the UN Ja Song Nam said, "if anyone is to blame for it, the U.S. is the one who must be held accountable."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 04:53:58|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Support Mission in Libya on Friday said that UN Development Program (UNDP) has provided medical, educational, and infrastructure support for Libyan cities.

"UN supports health, education, and infrastructure in Benghazi, Kikla, Obari, Sebha, Sirte, and Bani Walid through the Stability for Libya Fund, led by the Government of National Accord and managed by UNDP in Libya," the Mission said in a statement.

"The fund finalized 15 civil works in Libya, including roads, schools and hospitals, and provided equipment and ambulances," the statement added.

Stability for Libya is a fund set up by the UN Mission, which aims to assist the Libyan government in providing services for the country.

Libya has been suffering political and economic crisis following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime. The country is plagued with insecurity and political division.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 05:24:03|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TRIPOLI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday that 74 refugees were evacuated Thursday and Friday from Libya to Niger.

"UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, evacuated during the night of Dec. 14-15, 74 vulnerable refugees, the vast majority children and women, from Libya to Niger," UNHCR said in a statement.

"With the support of UNHCR's partners in Niger, these refugees, all Eritrean or Somali nationalities, will be accommodated in guesthouses in Niamey," it added.

UNHCR also praised the support of the European Commission in "this life-saving evacuation mechanism."

Also on Friday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said another group of 718 illegal immigrants were repatriated from Libya to their African countries of origin.

The organization and the Libyan authorities have launched a humanitarian repatriation program to repatriate immigrants detained in Libyan shelters to their countries of origin.

Libya is a major departure point for illegal immigrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean toward European shores, due to the insecurity and chaos in the North African nation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 05:29:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

VIENNA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- The National Bank of Austria (OeNB) has revised its 2017 GDP growth forecast upwards to 3.1 percent on the back of a boom in the domestic economy.

In its latest prognosis on Friday, the central bank said GDP growth of over three percent has not been seen since the pre-financial-crisis years of 2006 and 2007.

The new growth forecast marks an upward revision of 0.9 percent over the previous one made in June.

Its growth expectation for 2018 is an also-strong 2.8 percent, a 1.1-percentage-point upward-growth revision.

From there the OeNB anticipates a significant slowing down of growth, first to 1.9 percent in 2019, then further down to 1.6 percent by 2020.

Unemployment is expected to drop from its six-percent high in 2016, to five percent by 2020.

The OeNB said main drivers of growth have been the overcoming of a slump in exports in 2016, as well as a strong expansion in investments.

An increase in employment as well as higher incomes have also been a major contributor to higher consumption.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 05:34:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

by Xinhua writer Zuo Chang

CAIRO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran, long regarded as a thorn in the eye of the United States, has witnessed probably the hardest-fought wrestle with the superpower in 2017, during which their relations hit yet another historic low amid incessant mutual accusations and threats.

It all started with the inauguration of Donald Trump, a former real estate magnate who had no public office experience, as the new U.S. president in January. Since then, the tensions between Tehran and Washington have flared up over the 2015 nuclear deal and Iran's ballistic missile program. The U.S. infuriated Iran by reimposing some sanctions against the Islamic republic.

In face of Washington's tightening sanctions, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the leader of reformist moderates, vowed more interaction with other parts of the world after his successful re-election for a second term by an overwhelming margin in May.

WRANGLE OVER 2015 NUKE DEAL

In July 2015, after a decade of strenuous negotiations, Iran and the six world powers, namely China, Russia, Britain, France, the United States and Germany, struck the final agreement on Iran's controversial nuclear program, in which the West promises to relieve sanctions on Tehran in exchange for a halt in Iran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

However, as one of the most significant diplomatic legacies of Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, the hard-won nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been running the gauntlet of Trump on his campaign trail and since he became president.

Criticizing the deal as a pact of "disaster" and "embarrassment" for the U.S., Trump has repeatedly threatened to scrap the accord if it is not renegotiated in the interests of his country.

Trump saved his harshest words for the deal at the annual United Nations General Assembly in September, where he blasted it as "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into" since the deal "provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program."

In response, Iran has firmly ruled out the possibility of reviewing the JCPOA, and warned of "high costs" for any violation. Calling the U.S. an "unreliable" state and Trump's anti-Iran remarks "spiteful and ignorant," the Islamic republic also said it would mull exit from the deal if the U.S. insists on stronger sanctions.

The dispute between Washington and Tehran culminated in Trump's decision to decertify the nuclear deal in October.

Although the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the monitor of Iran's commitment to the nuclear deal, has again confirmed the country's adherence to the pact, Trump refused to recertify Iran's compliance, citing, among others, Tehran's rejection to the U.S. demand for UN inspection of its military sites.

"In the event we are not able to reach a solution working with Congress and our allies in regards to Iran, then the agreement will be terminated," Trump said, leaving the Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose nuclear-related economic sanctions on Iran.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Congress punted the tricky question back to Trump, who has not yet announced any final decision on it. The fate of the nuclear deal continues to hang in the balance.

IRANIAN MISSILE PROGRAM UNDER SPOTLIGHT

Citing its concern about regional and international security, the Trump administration has slapped several rounds of sanctions on entities and individuals involved in Iran's missile program and other non-nuclear activities since the beginning of this year.

Washington also said Iran's missile and rocket launches constitute threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond, as they contravene both the spirit and the letter of the UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal.

The mounting pressure from Washington, however, has only made Tehran more staunch in asserting its "inalienable right" to develop "defensive" and "deterrent" capabilities for national security.

Iranian officials said the country's ballistic missile activities fall outside the purview of the UN-backed nuclear deal since none of the missiles is designed to carry nuclear warhead.

In July, the Iranian parliament even adopted a motion to reciprocate U.S. "hostile and malicious" polices, which envisages measures to support Iranian armed and security forces as well as Iranian citizens affected by the U.S. sanctions.

Tehran even unveiled a new long-range ballistic missile, which has a range of 2,000 km, during a military parade in late September. In November, on the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran displayed another 2,000-km-range ballistic missile near the old site.

At the core of the issue of Iran's missile program, nonetheless, lies the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), a branch of the country's armed forces which is believed to be the main executor of its ballistic missile tests.

Washington has, more than once, threatened to blacklist it as a terrorist organization, while Tehran, already cornered by U.S. unrelenting sanctions, has vowed "firm, decisive and crushing" retaliation against the potential "strategic mistake."

SILVER LININGS IN IRAN-U.S. TENSIONS

By ruthlessly lashing at the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal and its ballistic missile program, the Trump administration has obviously treated the Islamic republic as its primary antagonist in the Middle East.

From the counter-terrorism war in Iraq to the Syrian civil war, and then to Yemen's Shiite Houthi insurgency, Iran is dubbed by the U.S. as the "leading state sponsor" of terrorism.

Iran has created obstacles in almost every way of Washington's exercising its influence in one of the most complicated regions in the world.

But moderate Rouhani's landslide win against hardliners in Iran's presidential election this year offered hope for the easing of the spiralling tension.

By raising the banner of reforms during his campaign, Rouhani garnered 57 percent of the votes, which reflected Iranians' ardent desire for change, better livelihood and peace with their neighbors and other countries.

Iran's closer economic engagement with European countries after the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal also helped calm down the tensions.

Despite the concern over Iran's missile tests and human rights record, the European Union (EU), a traditional ally of the United States, has validated Tehran's commitment to the nuclear deal on several occasions, while seeking to regain its position as the largest trading partner of the Islamic republic.

Encouraged by the EU support and its close ties with Russia and Turkey, Iran said in September that it intends to stay in the nuclear deal even if the U.S. pulls out.

Russia is also suffering from U.S. sanctions after its takeover of Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in early 2014, while Turkey is a NATO member that is at loggerheads with Washington over the 2016 failed coup.

Iran even extended overtures to Saudi Arabia, its Sunni arch rival in the Gulf. Despite lukewarm responses from the Saudis, who severed their diplomatic relations with Iran in January 2016 due to the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, Iran has said it is seeking to alleviate tensions and ready for rapprochement with the kingdom.

Trump's astounding declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel early the month, if anything, has also struck a positive note for Iran's endeavors to save the nuclear deal.

Jerusalem, revered as the third holiest site in Islam by Muslims and the holiest site by Jews, is one of a few issues that can rally all Islamic countries, including Iran, against the U.S. despite their differences and disputes.

Meanwhile, Trump has placed Washington on the opposite side of the international community, which largely does not recognize Israel's unilateral move to declare Jerusalem as its capital.

More than two years after the nuclear deal came into effect, Iran is still on a bumpy road to realize its full integration into the world.

Apparently, Iran's tensions with the Trump administration have further complicated its bid to seek economic development and expand its regional influence in the Middle East.

The growing rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen has also raised fears about more conflicts between the two regional powers.

The U.S.-Iran wrestle over the nuclear deal and Tehran's missile program has so far shown few signs of easing. The best hope should be that it will not deteriorate into a full-blown crisis that will further shake the already instable and chaotic region.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 05:59:15|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Xinhua) -- Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City Mayor and businessman, criticized the Republican tax cut bill in a column on Friday, calling it "an economically indefensible blunder that will harm our future."

The business tycoon who owns Bloomberg, a global financial service mass media, and software company, said in an op-ed, "it's pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth, as Republicans have promised."

Bloomberg, the 8th richest person in the U.S. and 10th richest person in the world, according to Forbes Magazine, said CEOs "don't need the money."

"Corporations are sitting on a record amount of cash reserves: nearly 2.3 trillion. That figure has been climbing steadily since the recession ended in 2009, and it's now double what it was in 2001," Bloomberg said.

According to the tax cut agreement forged by House and Senate Republicans Thursday, corporate tax would be lowered to 21 percent form 35 percent, and the top rate for individual income would also be lowered to 37 percent from 39.6 percent.

"The largest economic challenges we face include a skills crisis that our public schools are not addressing, crumbling infrastructure that imperils our global competitiveness, wage stagnation coupled with growing wealth inequality, and rising deficits that will worsen as more baby boomers retire," he said.

"The tax bill does nothing to address these challenges. In fact, it makes each of them worse," Bloomberg added.

The Republicans are set to vote for the bill as early as next Monday. President Donald Trump wants to sign the tax bill by Christmas, making it the biggest legislative achievement of his first year in office.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 06:04:18|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom (L, front) addresses a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation on the Korean Peninsula at the UN headquarters in New York, on Dec. 15, 2017. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom on Friday called for diplomacy and dialogue to resolve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, saying that there is no military solution. (Xinhua/Han Fang)

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom on Friday called for diplomacy and dialogue to resolve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, saying that there is no military solution.

"There is no military solution to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. We have to exhaust every avenue for diplomacy and dialogue. Efforts are urgent. The consequences of failure would be disastrous," she told the Security Council.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula is the greatest threat to international peace and security facing the world today, she said.

"Over the last year, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have continued to rise. They have now reached a very dangerous level. Provocations have been accompanied by an increase in confrontational rhetoric. In this environment, the potential for mistakes, misunderstandings and miscalculations is high."

The adoption of Security Council Resolution 2375 earlier this year toughened the targeted sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). It now constitutes the most rigorous sanctions regime ever enforced under the UN system, she noted.

In parallel to effectively implementing the sanctions regime, more efforts are needed to reduce tensions in order to advance the prospects for a comprehensive settlement, she said.

Sanctions alone will not resolve the current situation. Intensified and creative diplomatic efforts that pave the way for a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution are urgently needed, she said.

The situation must be approached without prejudice, and the international community must be prepared to consider both new and previous proposals and agreements. In this regard, there is also a need to explore the possibilities for regional security cooperation and arrangements, she said.

At the same time, it is of utmost importance that the humanitarian exemptions provided for under the sanctions regime are upheld. Reports that international humanitarian organisations' ability to provide assistance has been reduced, therefore, need to be addressed, she said.

The humanitarian situation for the ordinary people of the DPRK remains of serious concern, she said, adding that the responsibility for the well-being of the DPRK people falls on the government.

"The DPRK has repeatedly violated international law, including numerous Security Council resolutions. Its actions are also contrary to the existing global norm against nuclear testing, embodied in the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and global non-proliferation norms," said Wallstrom.

She asked the DPRK to cease all provocations, engage in a credible and meaningful dialogue, abide by relevant Security Council resolutions and fulfil its international obligations, abandon its nuclear and missile programs, and to return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-12-16 06:34:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HELSINKI, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Alcoholic drinks sold in Finnish retail stores will get slightly stronger from next March, and the maximum alcohol content will be raised from 4.7 percent to 5.5 percent.

In a parliamentary vote on Friday, the supporters of stronger drinks won 98-94. Wines and alcohol stronger than 5.5 percent will remain in restaurants and the stores of the state alcohol retail monopoly stores.

Under the new rules, retail stores can sell, besides strong beer, also strong cider and mixtures that include strong alcohol, known as long drinks.

In a reform in the mid 1960s, medium beer was admitted into food stores, but the rest remained in the monopoly shops and restaurants. When Finland joined the EU in 1995, it was allowed to maintain its state alcohol monopoly in retail.

The decision on Friday was received with dismay among those concerned about the health impact of increased alcohol consumption.

Antti Rinne, leader of the largest opposition party Social Democratic Party, said the new level of alcohol percentage will increase both the health care costs and the need to hire more police officers.

He also reminded that Finland was allowed to keep its alcohol monopoly on health grounds, but as Finnish alcohol policies are becoming more market oriented Finland could lose the right.

The right of Finnish residents to order alcohol as mail order from abroad remains unclear. The High Court in Helsinki has defined "distant sales" as a crime, but there is a complaint pending to the Supreme Court.

The minister for social affairs and health, Annika Saarikko, admitted on Friday the decision was taken against the advice of health experts. She said the government has not denied that more health hazards will be seen.

She said the cabinet would consider making new measures against distant sales. She also pledged support to the state alcohol monopoly stores.
The Japanese government has decided to add more entities to its sanctions list for North Korea, which is continuing its nuclear and missile development.

Cabinet ministers approved the decision to freeze the assets of an additional 19 organizations on Friday.

The new entities include shipping companies, trading firms and banks based in North Korea.

The asset freeze now covers a total of 103 organizations and 108 individuals.

The Foreign Ministry aims to step up the pressure on North Korea ahead of Friday's ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council. Foreign Minister Taro Kono will chair the meeting on North Korean issues.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said North Korea's missile launches indicate the need to increase the pressure on the North to change its policies. He added that the North has shown no intention of resolving the abduction issue, which is a top priority for the Abe administration.

Suga said Japan will continue to urge the North to take action to resolve various issues, including its nuclear and missile development and the abductions.
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
Is the US seeking to tap into Moroccos natural gas projects? This question rose to the fore after media reports said that chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt is in Morocco this week to update environmental cooperation under the US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement to include an option to supply the Kingdom with natural gas.

The EPA explained that Pruitts talks in Morocco came on the sidelines of the discussions he had in Rabat on sharing the US best practices for solid waste management, public participation and crisis communication pursuant to the former Environmental Work Plan, which was established under the 2004 trade agreement.

These meetings allowed us to directly convey our priorities and best practices with Moroccan leaders, as well as identify opportunities for continued cooperation, as our two countries further talks around the Environmental Work Plan, said Pruitt.

We are committed to working closely with countries like Morocco to enhance environmental stewardship around the world.

It was not clear how much Morocco is interested in buying liquefied natural gas, or LNG, from the United States, Pruitt told the Washington Examiner.

Moroccos LNG project is attracting the interest of key global suppliers. Last September, Russias Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Russian companies are interested in Moroccos gas projects, notably the liquefied gas terminal in Jorf Lasfar and the Moroccan-Nigerian gas pipeline.

The Minister noted that negotiations are underway between Gazprom and Novatek and Morocco to secure LNG supply from Russias Yamal-LNG and Arctic LNG.

Qatar, for its part, has widened the gap with its competitors over the supply of 5 million cubic meters of LNG annually to the Jorf Lasfar Installation.

Besides investing in renewable energy to cover 50% of Moroccos energy needs by 2030, LNG features prominently in Moroccos energy transition. Morocco launched a gas strategy to boost its energy security and relieve itself from dependence on Algerian gas. The Kingdoms goal is to move from being a coal-dependent importer to a market in which clean energies and natural gas play an increasing role.

Moroccos energy strategy is also geared towards satisfying a rising domestic demand on electricity as the country is projected to consume 65 TW/h by 2025, i.e. a 6.2% increase compared to 2016.

The Moroccan LNG National Development Plan, approved in late 2014, features an LNG onshore terminal in Jorf Lasfar near El Jadida to be completed for a total cost of $4 billion.

The terminal will have a storage capacity of 5 billion cubic meters of LNG per year, a fitted marine jetty, regasification plants and new high-pressure gas transmission pipes.

The LNG import facility at Jorf Lasfar will help bring the share of LNG to 13% of Moroccos energy mix by 2025.

Recently, Sound Energy made breakthrough with several exploitable gas discoveries in Eastern Morocco. The company said that the Kingdom will become a key player in the global gas map by 2019.

The latest natural gas discovery was made by British company, SDX Energy, as part of its well drilling campaign in Sebou, Eastern Morocco.
Members of the European Parliament adopted with an overwhelming majority the EUs annual human rights report, which underscores the significant progress made by Morocco and chastizes Algeria for its deplorable human rights record.

The EU report on human rights and democracy in the world in 2016 gives a broad picture of the EUs human rights efforts towards third countries. The document is divided into a first part that sheds light on the human rights approach to conflicts and crises, main human rights challenges and human rights throughout EU external policies and a second part with a geographical scope covering EU actions in third countries, thus mapping in detail the human rights situation across the globe.

Concerning the Maghreb, a contrast was drawn by the EU between Moroccos progress and Algerias regression when it comes to human rights.

Morocco, Reforms in Line with the 2011 Constitution

The report highlights the legislative reforms undertaken by Morocco to protect human rights, strengthen the rule of law and promote democratic practices as well as the actions taken to protect human rights including those of migrants and women as well as the reform of the judiciary and the penitentiary systems.

The EU document also commends Morocco for the reform of legal texts concerning the organic laws on the Superior Council of the Judiciary and on the Statute of Magistrates, the review of the Criminal Code and the adoption by the government of two organic laws relating to participatory democracy, i.e. the right of legislative initiative and the right of petition, adopted by the Parliament on 31 May 2016.

The report also underscores the launch of Moroccos national anti-corruption strategy, a contractual framework of 10 programs comprising 239 projects across the sectors and bodies concerned.

On womens rights, the document indicates that Morocco approved in 2016 the setting up of the Authority for Equality and Fight against Discrimination (APALD).

Concerning Moroccos efforts to fight human trafficking and improve the living conditions of migrants, the report says that the Kingdom enacted the law against trafficking in human beings in August 2016, and that the laws on asylum and migration are at a draft stage.

The document also recalled that in 2016, Morocco has launched the second phase of regularization of illegal migrants.

In 2016, the EU pursued its cooperation efforts in support of the reforms undertaken by the government, the EU document adds, concluding that in general terms, there has been a positive momentum on the legislative framework, with an important number of texts adopted or in the process of being finalized. The EU remains committed to supporting the reform process through an effective implementation of the Constitutional principles.

Algeria, Backtracks on Freedom of Expression and Assembly

Algeria, for its part, was severely reprimanded by the EU in its annual human rights report. Algeria was notably criticized for the restrictions compromising the freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.

Meanwhile, the 2012 Associations Law continues to pose challenges to the functioning of both local and international associations in Algeria, explained the report, adding that several EU partners have not yet received the authorities permission to officially register as associations and therefore cannot properly operate in the country.

Algeria has also received scathing criticism from the European Council due to imposing restrictions on the right of assembly, where permission for gatherings is systematically refused. Several human rights gatherings organized by associations were prohibited and their organizers arrested.

The report also lambasted Algeria for failing to implement the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 87 on freedom of association and the protection of the right to organize with regard to the creation of independent trade unions.

In 2016, the ILO recommended that Algeria ensure there were no obstacles to the registration of independent unions and reinstate public officials who had been dismissed on the grounds of alleged anti-union discrimination, the report says.

Concerning the media, the European Council notes that despite the dynamic media landscape, Algerias efforts to ensure pluralism and press freedom have not always met with official support in practice. Administrative issues such as the granting of operating licenses for media outlets, the issuing of construction permits or financing through publicity were used to put pressure on independent media. Despite recent constitutional amendments, public prosecutors continued to demand severe prison sentences for media offenses.

The report gave the example of the restrictions facing several bloggers who were accused of defamation and condemned to serve prison terms. The document recalled that in 2016 Algeria ranked 129th in the World Press Freedom Index of Reporters without Borders.
The defense ministers of Egypt, Cyprus and Greece vowed to step up cooperation in combating drug, weapons and human trafficking in the East Mediterranean and to share information on countering the threat of terrorism.

The Ministers also announced the setting up of a coordinating body to oversee joint special forces drills geared toward protecting vital sea lanes in the eastern Mediterranean.

Trafficking in drugs, weapons and people finances radicalism and terrorism, Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told reporters after the ministers first three-way talks in Larnaca Thursday.

Cyprus Defense Minister, Christophoros Fokaides, for his part, said that such a tripartite cooperation is an extremely important regional initiative that has already yielded results in a number of areas, ranging from economy, energy and tourism to health and agriculture.

The Egyptian minister Sedki Sobhy said that the meeting had confirmed the deep and common military relations of the three countries that have been established for several decades as a result of the continuous efforts of the leaders of Cyprus, Greece and Egypt.

Cooperation between Egypt, Cyprus and Greece on illegal immigration, smuggling and obstruction of terrorist movement is imperative, he said, as well as safeguarding energy investments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the maritime shipping routes.

The Egyptian official said intelligence-sharing between the three countries is also a key element of cooperation aimed at heading off potential threats to security.
The audit report on the Morocco-EU fisheries accord, commissioned by the European Commission, concluded that the agreement has worked satisfactorily and that 75% of its socio-economic impacts benefit the Moroccan southern regions, and recommended the renewal of this agreement, which will expire in July 2018 as it stands as an instrument of in-depth cooperation with the North African Kingdom.

The European Union voiced appreciation for the conclusions of the report, which highlight the socio-economic benefits of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.

In this retrospective and prospective evaluation report of the protocol to the partnership agreement in the field of sustainable fisheries between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco, which has just been submitted to the Council of the EU and in the European Parliament, the EU considers that the agreement has proved effective in achieving its sustainable exploitation objective, states the report.

The report, drafted by the maritime affairs and fisheries department of the European Commission, notes that the EU welcomes the scientific cooperation between the two parties, reflected in the joint annual meetings, which allowed the exchange of available data and led to shared diagnoses.

According to the report, the fisheries agreement has also achieved its objective in terms of supporting sustainable development of the sector.

This objective has been achieved thanks to the contribution of sectoral support to the implementation of Moroccos Halieutis strategy projects and the boarding of 200 Moroccan sailors aboard European fishing vessels.

The document also notes that the implementation of the sectoral support of the fisheries agreement is proceeding at a very satisfactory pace, recalling that the regions of Dakhla-Oued Eddahab and Laayoune-Boujour-Sakia El Hamra in the Moroccan Sahara account for 66% of the total amount of nearly 37 million earmarked for sectoral support.

According to the report, the first estimates of the socio-economic benefits of sectoral support already show the creation of 180 direct jobs and the improvement of the working conditions of about 59,000 people employed in the sector or in its related activities. In this vein, the document outlined that 75% of the socio-economic profits benefit these Sahara regions.

As regards the economic benefits derived by the EU, the report stated that the EU investments generate a good return, as every Euro invested generally generates 2.78 euros of total value added, both direct and indirect, for the European fisheries sector.

It is worth recalling that the December 2010 evaluation report estimated that one euro invested by the EU generated only 0.65 Euro in total value added.

The 2017 European Assessment Report further notes that the Morocco-EU fisheries agreement is important to EU needs in that it complements a string of agreements covering the range of small pelagic species in Western Africa and the existing tuna-related agreements, while meeting the fishing needs of the operators.

The document also stresses the coherence of the agreement with other EU initiatives in that it ensures complementarity between sectoral support and the program meant to ensure the success of the Advanced Status with Morocco.

The report recommended the renewal of the fisheries accord when it expires in July 2018, as an instrument of in-depth co-operation with Morocco, which is strongly involved in South-South cooperation and to enable it to complete its actions in favor of the sustainability of stocks within regional fisheries organizations.

The current fisheries agreement between Morocco and the EU entered into force in 2014 for a 4-year period. It gives European vessels access to the Kingdoms Atlantic fishing zone in exchange for a yearly financial contribution of 30 million granted by the EU in addition to 10 million as ship-owners contribution.

The first fisheries agreement between Morocco and the EU dates back to 1988.

This new positive EU report deals a blow to the Polisario and its mentor Algeria, which have spent millions on lobbying to harm the Morocco-EU fisheries accord, claiming the European vessels are illegally operating in the Sahara waters. Once again, their maneuvers are undermined by the report drafted not by Morocco but by the European Union.
What is this thing you call law? Photo: Twitter/Sheldon Whitehouse

The Trump administrations penchant for nominating frighteningly unsuitable people to fill powerful posts was on vivid display Thursday night.

In a widely circulated clip (tweeted by a Democratic senator), Republican John Kennedy questions Trump district judge nominee Matthew Spencer Petersen about basic tenets of the law  and is met, repeatedly, with bafflement.

MUST WATCH: Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrumps US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he cant answer a single one. Hoo-boy. pic.twitter.com/fphQx2o1rc  Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 15, 2017

Senator Kennedy starts out by asking if any of an assembled group of judges had never tried a case to verdict. Spencer raises his hand.

Have you ever tried a jury trial? Kennedy asks.

I have not, Petersen responds.

Civil? Kennedy asks.

No, Petersen responds.

Criminal? Kennedy asks.

No, Petersen responds.

Bench? Kennedy asks.

No, Petersen responds.

State or federal court? Kennedy asks.

I have not, Petersen responds.

Things get worse from there. Beyond his total lack of relevant experience, a clearly rattled Petersen, who is currently a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, is unable to answer basic questions involving the mechanics of trials. For instance, he cant define a motion in limine, an elementary judicial concept. After several such whiffs, Petersen tells Kennedy that I understand the challenge ahead of me if I were fortunate enough to become a district court judge. Kennedy does not look impressed.

Petersens dearth of knowledge isnt much of an outlier among Trumps nominees. During his 11 months in office, Trump has nominated four candidates deemed unqualified by the American Bar Associations Standing Committee of the Federal Judiciary, which has been evaluating judges since the 1950s. There were seven such nominees during eight years of the George W. Bush administration, and zero during President Obamas two terms.

This isnt such a big deal to a party that has become proudly anti-expertise in its philosophy; Republicans have responded, for the most part, by simply accusing the ABA of bias and voting for the nominees anyway. (Blithe ignorance, after all, is a calling card for many of Trumps Cabinet picks, too: See Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, and Rick Perry, among others.)

Senator Kennedy is one of the few Republicans who has expressed reservations. In November, he expressed disdain for the highest-profile of Trumps loony picks, former ghost hunter and Ku Klux Klan defender Brett Talley. It is embarrassing, Kennedy said. And I think the president of the United States is getting some very, very bad advice.

This week, Kennedy gained an ally in Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, who announced that Talley and another controversial nominee who once called transgender children Satans plan would not be confirmed.

But small setbacks aside, Trumps campaign to stack the bench with far-right judges has been one of the few clear successes of his presidency. As an example of his efficiency, the senate has confirmed 12 of his judges to circuit courts  one step below the Supreme Court  which swamps the three confirmed in the first year of President Obamas first term. And, of course, theres newly minted Supreme Court Justice Neal Gorsuch.

And just because one ghost hunter wont be ascending to the federal judgeship, it doesnt mean the Senate is raising its standards all that much. On Tuesday, it confirmed Leonard Steven Grasz, one of the other nominees rated unqualified by the ABA, to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He once wrote that Roe v. Wade decision amounted to moral bankruptcy.
He stands on the shoulders of giants. Photo: John Taggart

Ezekiel: Alright, so George Will says that Trump is the worst president of all time. Agree or disagree? Where would you rank him if he died today?

Trumps Moore endorsement sunk the presidency to unplumbed depths https://t.co/ydPaWyS5QT  George F. Will (@GeorgeWill) December 13, 2017

Ed: Not sure how to assess unlimited potential for horror.

Jon: I dont think hes come close to the damage Andrew Johnson wrought. Its possible, but unlikely, he will. In terms of capability of doing the job, Trump might be the worst. (Johnson would have a decent argument, too.) He just hasnt done enough damage yet.

Eric: Yeah, think its really hard to argue that hes the worst president ever at this point, without whitewashing a lot of American history. Hes almost certainly the worst human being to occupy the Oval Office.

Ezekiel: Ehh, not enough ethnic cleansing.

Ed: If Trump had his druthers, hed definitely be the worst president, and maybe the last elected president.

Jon: Johnson undermined Reconstruction, and if that had succeeded, the arc of American history would have been dramatically better in almost every single possible way we can imagine. He was the hinge to the greatest tragedy and missed opportunity in our history and the damage is ongoing.

Ed: But bad intentions arent enough. Id disagree with Jon about Andy Johnson for that reason. He wanted to thwart Reconstruction, but didnt. It took Rutherford Hayes to do that.

Olivia: Even though we are so early in his term, I think you could argue that while Trump hasnt had an opportunity to truly become the worst yet, hes the worst in terms of long-term damage hes wreaking on the presidency itself, no?

Jon: I think Johnson damaged it quite a bit, though he himself did not end it.

Ed: Nixon did some serious damage to the presidency, of course.

Jon: Olivia, you might be right, though it has yet to play out, I think.

Olivia: Trump has only had, like, 11 months. Give him time!!!

Eric: If you factor in moral conventions of the time, and just what a holistically bad person Trump is  the vanity, intellectual vacuity, greed, lack of taste, in-eloquence, racism, the sheer, effervescent virulence of his misogyny 

Jon: Sure, as a human being.

Ed: If Trump gets to pick another SCOTUS member, and another 30 judges or so, his long-term negative impact will go way up.

Ezekiel: I think hes very embarrassing.

Olivia: LOL.

Ezekiel: And I think people conflate that with damage to the country.

Jon: By the way, its pretty typical of Will that he buried his case for Trump as the worst president as the final line of his column, and did not bother to include even a single sentence worth of substantiation. Thats why we have to argue it for him.

Olivia: But, and correct me if Im wrong, Trumps SCOTUS pick, and judges, are probably not different than who, like President Ted Cruz or President Carly Fiorina (remember when they were a ticket?) would have picked.

Ed: Yes, and for that reason Ted Cruz would have ranked pretty high on the Bad Presidents list as well. Trump, though, is unique in combining horrifying style and substance. Hes the complete package, as they say in sports.

Olivia: Ezekiel, I kind of agree, but Trump has questioned the integrity of our elections, hes fought with his own intelligence community, hes questioned the authority of all others in the federal government, at this point. Maybe because hes so fickle and full of shit, it wont matter long term, but I am inclined to think it might.

Ed: Olivias right: We need to factor in the effect hes having on his supporters, which will last much longer than his presidency.

Ezekiel: I think theres some recency bias at play here.

Ed: Of course. None of us were covering Andrew Johnson every day.

Olivia: Sounds like a vacation to me.

Jon: Yeah, back then, Ed, you only filed weekly, I believe.

Ed: Walked right into that one, didnt I?

Jon: Couldnt resist.

Eric: I think it remains possible that Trumps long-term effects will be a net positive. If Clinton won last November, the Republican Party would very likely have amassed huge congressional margins in the 2018 midterms, and then ousted her in 2020 (by Election Day her disapproval rating was in the high 50s, I believe, and four years of divided governmentfueled inefficacy probably wouldnt have changed that).

With or without Trump, the GOPs donor-driven commitment to a fringe economic orthodoxy with no popular support  and no compelling answers to the problems of the 21st century  was already making them more reliant on demagogic racial appeals, and quasi-authoritarian attempts to restrict popular sovereignty.

A more talented and broadly appealing GOP president might have been able to do more damage, for a longer period of time, on behalf of that coalition. Trump, by putting the ugliest possible face on American conservatism, may well hasten the partys collapse before it can do much beyond pass a temporary tax cut.

Or, ya know, he could get us all killed 

Jon: Bimodal distribution.

Ed: By Erics metric, all bad presidents have some possible long-term value by discrediting themselves and their followers.

Jon: Except bad presidents for your own side (like Jimmy Carter).

Eric: Eh, Nixon managed to discredit liberalism with his failures, by promoting distrust of government.

Ed: Andy Johnson certainly helped the radical Republicans get into the saddle.

Jon: My historical version of this take is that history would have been better if Gerald Ford won in 1976.

Eric: Absolutely.

Olivia: Maybe. I dont know, I know a lot of people were thrilled or relieved by the Alabama results, but I think the fact that it was that close at all is just proof that our politics are completely broken right now. I mean, weve had a lot of bad presidents. Have we ever had a president who knowingly endorsed a man accused of sexually abusing an underage girl?

Jon: Its bad.

Ezekiel: I mean, Jefferson raped Sally Hemings. Pretty bad.

Olivia: Most of our presidents have probably been abhorrent human beings privately. But publicly endorsing someone like Moore  telling the country, and the world, that this is who you are  is different.

Jon: I think Olivia is arguing that Trump is causing a disintegration of political norms, which Jefferson did not do. And Eric is saying the backlash against that might prove more enduring if we dont all die in the meantime.

Olivia: Yes, thank you, Chait.

Ed: Maybe its because Im from the Deep South, but Judge Roy is only marginally more horrifying than some other pols. Alabamas own George Wallace was a nightmare morally, as was the guy who out-segged him (to use the cleaned-up version) in 1958, John Patterson.

Eric: I honestly think that having a Congress that tries to pass sweeping changes to Americas tax and health-care systems as rapidly as possible  because they know a supermajority of the public opposes their priorities  undermines democratic norms about as much as anything Trump has done.

Ed: We are talking about all-time bad, not just the people we have experienced.

Ezekiel: Yes, were talking about two things  personal morality and negative effects on the nation. I dont think Trump ranks at the top on either scale.

Olivia: Its tough to judge people you havent experienced though, or judge them as passionately.

Eric: The modern GOP is the problem IMO, they were always going to get back power, and Trump might expedite their passage back out of it.

Jon: I think its structurally too hard to pass legislation, so making it easier  even in the service of terrible proposals  might do long-term good, Eric.

Eric: Thats fair.

Jon: But on health care, the system worked!

Ed: Im with Jon: Ive argued for a good while that what this country needs is for one party or the other to actually govern for a while.

Eric: I guess, what would really undermine the system is if they got away with it  i.e., paid no political price for ignoring voters and stakeholders shoving heinously unpopular legislation through. But my argument rests on them not doing so.

Ed: Political power always offers a choice between entrenching that power by doing popular things, or using it up to get things done that might be unpopular.

Eric: Yeah.

Ezekiel: All right, so what is Trump going to have to do to take that No. 1 spot?

Jon: Major war, serious undermining of democracy, managerial failure that causes/allows a big disease outbreak or other disaster  the tail risks that come with incompetent government.

Eric: He could make a lot of headway with the right moves on North Korea. I think war + major cyberattack on U.S. voting system in 2018 that he refuses to investigate, these sorts of things.

Ed: Its unclear Trump understands what getting things done means. Does his sheer ignorance make him stand out? Id argue no POTUS since Warren Harding was as clueless.

Olivia: I do wonder, though, isnt his historic dumbness technically  bad? In terms of the effects on the country broadly and our place in the world. I mean, we genuinely do not know, each day, if he will send a tweet about some far-flung murderous dictator having man boobs and get us all nuked. That seems pretty bad!

Ezekiel: I think it protects us from the malevolent things that he might want to do intentionally, but exposes us to bad things he could do unintentionally  that tail risk.

Ed: And as I suggested earlier, if Trumpism remains a thing when hes gone, that will elevate his badness.

Olivia: What even is Trumpism though, without Trump?

Ed: You could argue hes taken a marginally destructive conservative political party and made it entirely destructive.

Eric: Yeah. I wonder  and some right-wing (white) nationalists fear that hell ultimately do damage to their movement. Discredit their ideas.

Ed: Wow, Eric is really dialectical today.

Eric: When a figure like Tom Cotton (but more charismatic) could have truly legitimized them.

Ezekiel: Yeah, I was gonna say  I think the worst thing that could happen is probably someone else taking up the Trumpist mantle who actually knows what theyre doing.

Eric: Yeah.

Ed: Theres a good chance Tom Cotton will get the chance to do just that.

Ezekiel: Well see.

Ed: And remember: Compared to Trump, Cotton is friggin Pericles.

Olivia: Meh, I dunno. The only reason Trump works is because hes Trump.

Jon: In my opinion Trump won because of Clinton. But thats a tangent.

Eric: My hope is that, by the time he gets the chance, enough baby-boomers will have died  and millennials, registered to vote  that that dog just wont hunt.

Ezekiel: I dont think Trumpism needs Trump, but I think it needed someone like him to show the way.

Ed: Trump as Moses, Cotton as Joshua?

Ezekiel: Haha, yeah, exactly. I think he used his shamelessness as a battering ram to open the path he used, no other ordinary politician could have wielded it so effectively.

Eric: I just think, on some level Michael Anton and Steve Bannon arent necessarily wrong  there really might not be enough white people in America a decade from now to make their politics possible (if Trump fails to truly undermine democracy first).

Olivia: I do just wonder though, although Trump hasnt yet had the chance to kill some or all of us, in the contemporary era, I think arguably more Americans are living in fear generally because of their skin color or gender or religion, and in a sense, thats a form of mass terror, which seems  pretty bad! The threat of his badness I think at a certain point is just badness.

Ed: Yeah, if you could quantify years taken off peoples lives, it not as bad as killing people, but its bad.

Ezekiel: Alright, lets get some fake numbers here. What are the chances that Trump ends up being the worst president ever. 25 percent? 60 percent?

Jon: 30 percent.

Ed: Id say 50 percent.

Olivia: If hes a one term president: 30 percent; if its two terms: 75 percent; if he decides hes president forever: 100 percent.

Ed: Haha, good one.

Eric: Olivias calculus seems right  except, if hes only in for one term, Id put that percentage lower.

Jon:

Jon: My final fake number right there.

Ezekiel: Im gonna put it at 10 percent. Have a hard time imagining him doing anything that damages the country as badly as screwing up Reconstruction. And I dont think hes going to get two terms, and I think a Democratic wave will shackle him in the second half of his first term. The 1/10 chance accounts for him doing the Tweet That Started the Last War.

Eric: No question about that. My only doubt is whether the huge economic incentive to exploit black labor in the South would have undermined Reconstruction even without Johnson. (I dont have a strong opinion on that point and consider Andrew Johnson the worst. But not sure I trust the counterfactual would have worked out fine.)

Ed: I agree about Reconstruction, Ezekiel, but Id spread the blame for that around quite a bit. Trumps malevolence is concentrated.

Ezekiel: Yeah, its possible that Im falling prey to a Great Man Theory that doesnt hold up.

Ed: Yeah, if Hannibal Hamlin had been renominated in 1864, Reconstruction would have gotten off to a quicker start, but it would have still been undone.

Jon: Wars of Reconstruction is pretty optimistic about the potential for success under the right level of support, FWIW.

Ezekiel: Any last thoughts?

Jon: George W. Bush is still pretty bad. I think its not a coincidence that within two decades the modern GOP will have produced two of the four or five worst presidents in history. Its a function of the partys ideological and social makeup.

Olivia: All presidents are bad, because anyone who wants to be president is bad, because anyone who wants to run for any public office more powerful than the town mayor (small town) almost certainly has a personality disorder and in short we should bring back monarchies.

Ed: This could make for some interesting reading down the road.

Ezekiel: Yeah, when the world is a postapocalyptic hellscape, people are going to shout 10 percent! at me derisively. Because theyll remember this chat. And curse my name.

Jon: First line of the obit: Writer predicted Trump would be fine, dead in flu outbreak caused by Trump.

Ezekiel: Haha.

Olivia: What an uplifting chat. I feel amazing.

Ed: Next up: a chat on which family will form the coming monarchy.
There is an alternative. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Every few months, Thomas Piketty (and/or a handful of other economists with a social conscience) will remind the world that a tiny elite is binge-eating the global economic pie while 7 billion humans fight for their table scraps. Journalists will then aggregate some alarming statistics and edifying charts; progressives will share these over social media, adorned with red-faced emoji (and/or jokes about guillotines)  and congressional Republicans will carry on trying to establish a special, zero-percent tax rate for people who inherit private islands.

All of which is to say: Itd be understandable if you felt too familiar with  and hopeless about  the inequities of late capitalism to summon much enthusiasm for reading the 2018 World Inequality Report.

But it is a remarkable document, one that consolidates research from Piketty and more than 100 other economists into a broad overview of global income-and-wealth inequality. So, if you want to get a truly holistic perspective on the inequality problem  and how it can be solved  its worth digesting the reports key findings:

Since 1980, the richest 0.1 percent of the worlds population increased its collective wealth by as much as the poorest 50 percent.

The 7 million richest humans (i.e., the top 0.1 percent) on the planet captured 13 percent of all economic growth over the past four decades  about as much as the poorest half of the world population (about 3.8 billion people). The top 0.001 percent (i.e., the wealthiest 76,000 people on Earth) claimed a hefty 4 percent of all economic gains.

The top one percent, meanwhile, lay claim to 27 percent of global wealth growth  a fortune facilitated by a steep rise in the cohorts share of global income beginning in the early 1990s (right after the Soviet Union fell).

The global middle class has seen virtually no income growth over the past four decades.

While the rich have gotten (grotesquely) richer over the past 40 years, the poor havent gotten poorer  not on a global scale, anyway. Socialists have plenty of legitimate gripes with the neoliberal order. But it is true that the fortunes of the worlds most vulnerable people have improved significantly in recent decades. The gains just would have been far greater  like, Poverty? Whats poverty? greater  had the fruits of global growth been distributed more progressively.

But the global middle class  a category that includes virtually every non-rich person in the United States and Western Europe (by global standards, most impoverished Americans do not qualify for poverty, at least in this reports estimation)  really has been all but locked out of economic growth since 1980.

If youve wondered why so many electorates in the U.S. and Western Europe have lost faith in Establishment political parties, this is one compelling answer.

Inequality isnt an economic inevitability, but a political choice  and American policy makers have chosen to accelerate its growth.

Still, Americans and Western Europeans have experienced the past four decades of macroeconomic change very differently. American politicians and public intellectuals will often attribute the rise of inequality to unstoppable economic changes (automation, globalization) that have intensified meritocratic pressures (average is over). But the fact of the matter is that our nations gargantuan economic gaps are the product of our elected representatives policy choices.

If youve ever wondered why Americans trust in institutions has cratered in the decades since Reagans inauguration, this is one compelling answer.

While individuals have become richer in recent decades, governments have become poorer.

In 1970, net private wealth in most nations was worth about 200 to 350 percent of national income; its worth between 400 and 700 percent today. Meanwhile, net public wealth (which is to say, public assets minus public debt) has declined significantly in China and Russia  and actually turned negative in the United States and United Kingdom. This shift in global balance sheets  with assets moving away from the public-sector column and into the private one  arguably limits government ability to regulate the economy, redistribute income, and mitigate rising inequality, the researchers write.

More inequality means more absolute poverty.

This might seem obvious. But when American conservatives wish to downplay the significance of inequality (without arguing that the poor deserve to go hungry) they insist that relative income disparities dont really matter. No one wants an egalitarian economy in which everyone is poor  and all too often, they argue, attempts to make the economy more equal end up stifling growth, and thus, leaving those at the bottom worse off than theyd have otherwise been.

This is incorrect for a lot of reasons (chief among them, inequality is actually bad for economic growth). But Piketty & Co. provide the most obvious one  a more egalitarian distribution of income generally means less absolute poverty.

There is no mystery to solving inequality  you just have to take money from rich people and give it to everyone else.

The report ends with three basic policy recommendations:

1) Countries need to raise taxes on their rich citizens.

Specifically, nations should reestablish confiscatory top marginal rates both to reduce the after-tax income of the wealthy  and to encourage them to pursue less pre-tax income. Conservatives bemoan high marginal rates precisely because they discourage the rich from trying to acquire more wealth  and thus, from adding more value to the broader economy. But Pikettys research suggests that the bulk of the one percents gains these days come from rent-seeking  which is to say, from extracting value, not creating it.

Further, given the size of national debts, Piketty strongly advises countries to expropriate some of the one percents wealth, in addition to its income.

2) Countries need to help each other keep tabs on their rich citizens capital, so that wealth has nowhere to run or hide.

The global super-rich are currently stashing enough wealth in tax havens to account for more than 10 percent of global GDP. A global financial registry  transparently listing ownership of all financial assets  would bring a good chunk of those funds back into the public coffers.

3) Countries need to redistribute the richs money to the masses  through both cash transfers, and investments aimed at equalizing access to a quality education, healthy environmental conditions, and stable employment.

Obviously, there are details for the wonks to work out; poorly designed government programs can have unintended, adverse effects. But the broad strokes of what needs to be done on the policy front are perfectly clear.

How were supposed to build a politics capable of implementing those policies, however, is a genuinely difficult question.
Andrea Ramsey withdrew from a promising congressional race after media reports of 2005 allegations against her for sexual harassment. Photo: Andrea Ramsey for Congress via Facebook

As rumors continue to swirl of investigations that might expose sexual-misconduct allegations against dozens of members of Congress, one of the questions weve all wondered about is when wed have the first case of a congresswoman being accused of harassment or other bad behavior.

That still hasnt happened yet, but today a candidate for Congress in Kansas withdrew from a credible challenge against a Republican incumbent because of a 2005 claim by an employee that she fired him because he refused to have sex with her. The Kansas City Star broke the story:

Andrea Ramsey, a Democratic candidate for Congress, will drop out of the race after the Kansas City Star asked her about accusations in a 2005 lawsuit that she sexually harassed and retaliated against a male subordinate who said he had rejected her advances.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the case told The Star that the man reached a settlement with LabOne, the company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources. Court documents show that the man, Gary Funkhouser, and LabOne agreed to dismiss the case permanently after mediation in 2006.

Ramsey subsequently released an open letter denying the allegations categorically, and blaming the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for pushing her out of the race. But she expressed support for the continuing effort to uncover sexual misconduct in politics and elsewhere, and basically treated her candidacy as an unjust, collateral victim of a just war:

In its rush to claim the high ground in our roiling national conversation about harassment, the Democratic Party has implemented a zero tolerance standard. For me, that means a vindictive, terminated employees false allegations are enough for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign.

On balance, it is far more important to me that women are stepping forward to tell their stories and confront their harassers than it is to continue our campaign.

Ramsey went on to complain that her misfortune may have denied the voters of the Third Congressional District of Kansas a better congressman than Republican Kevin Yoder. And shes probably not the only one who thinks so. In an early analysis of the race, the Cook Political Reports David Wasserman called Ramsey probably the stronger of the two Democrats in the race against the highly vulnerable Yoder.

Well never know how she would have done next November. But she will probably be relieved when shes no longer alone as a female political casualty of the Reckoning.
Rex. Photo: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images

Rex Tillerson is bad at his job. Type tillerson is the worst secretary of state of all time into Google, and you will find that virtually every news outlet in the United States has either published an op-ed making that argument, or quoted an academic who swears by it.

Upon becoming Americas top diplomat, Tillerson fired six of the State Departments senior officials; instructed the rest to never make eye contact with him; and proceeded to chase more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers out of the bureaucracy. With the United States staring down a nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula; a handful of forever wars in the Middle East; a rekindled Israel-Palestine conflict; an ascendent Beijing hell-bent on dominating the South China Sea; and renewed tensions with Iran, the former ExxonMobil executive ostensibly decided that the maintaining an experienced Foreign Service was less important than cutting the State Departments labor costs.

So: The president has plenty of good reasons to treat Tillerson to his signature catchphrase. Unfortunately for the citizens of Seoul, Trump has (reportedly) found a bad one.

In recent weeks, support for a preventive war with North Korea has become the chic position within Washingtons foreign policy Establishment  and, more critically, among Trumps top military advisers. As the Washington Posts Dan Drezner writes:

I have spent the past week talking to people who are closely connected to the East Asia folks within this administrationThe message I heard was clear. Trump officials working on North Korea have developed the odd consensus that Pyongyang will use its nuclear arsenal to attempt a forcible reunification with South Korea. And if that is the goal, then time is running out for military options that would stop that from happening.

This is a remarkable development. It is inconceivable that the U.S. could wipe out Pyongyangs nuclear, conventional, and biological weapons arsenals in a single surprise attack. Which means that any strike on North Korea would almost certainly result in a retaliatory attack on Seoul  and the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including many U.S. citizens. As Steve Bannon, of all people, said last summer, Theres no military solution [to North Koreas nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul dont die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I dont know what youre talking about, theres no military solution here, they got us. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster  the alleged adult in the administration, who was supposed to be a check on Trumps worst instincts  begs to differ.

Anyhow, with the drums of war growing louder this week, Rex Tillerson decided to shake an olive branch toward Pyongyang, during remarks at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday:

Weve said from the diplomatic side were ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk, and were ready to have the first meeting without precondition. Lets just meet and lets  we can talk about the weather if you want. We can talk about whether its going to be a square table or a round table if thats what youre excited about. But can we at least sit down and see each other face to face? And then we can begin to lay out a map, a roadmap of what we might be willing to work towards. I dont think  its not realistic to say were only going to talk if you come to the table ready to give up your program. They have too much invested in it. And the President is very realistic about that as well.

Tillersons core claim here  that Kim Jong-un will never declare his willingness to abandon North Koreas nuclear program at the outset of direct talks  is nigh-irrefutable. Pyongyang has literally starved its people to death for the sake of its nukes. Last month, a North Korean soldier defected to the South  and South Korean doctors found more (malnutrition-induced) parasitic worms inside of him than theyd thought the human body could withstand. Soldiers are a privileged class in North Korean society.

Thus, to say that there can be no talks with Pyongyang until Kim Jong-un formally agrees to put his nuclear program on the table, is to say there can be no diplomatic solution to our conflict with North Korea.

And this is, apparently, what the White House wants to say. As the Washington Post reports:

[Tillersons] comments upset Trump and several senior aides, and set off a cascade of emails and phone calls that ended with a terse statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. National Security Council aides were particularly frustrated with the remarks and complained loudly, administration officials say.

The Presidents views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world, Sanders said in the statement. North Koreas actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.

Even Tillersons own spokesperson, Heather Nauert, repudiated his peace offering.

Our policy on #DPRK has not changed. Diplomacy is our top priority through our maximum pressure campaign. We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a serious & credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization, but that time is not now.  Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) December 14, 2017

Tillerson had made a similar call for talks with North Korea during a visit to China in October. Trump abruptly rebuffed him.

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

...Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017

The Posts reports that Tillersons repeated attempts to prevent mass death on the Korean peninsula has many White House officials pushing for his ouster:

Tillerson, one White House official said, had not learned his lesson from the last time, when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea.

 Inside the White House, this person said, there are fairly regular conversations about who will replace Tillerson even as he remains in the job  I think our allies know at this point hes not really speaking for the administration, this Trump official said  a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trumps actions.

 Inside the West Wing, several aides said people close to Trump essentially were counting down the days until Tillerson leaves, which they guess will be in February.

For the moment, though, Trump appears content to retain Tillerson as his secretary of State, while assuring the international community that the words of Americas top diplomat count for nothing  which seems like a smart and good way for a military superpower to operate, as it prepares for the imminent possibility of nuclear war.
Shockingly, the Trump administration sided with corporate fat cats over her. Photo: Caitlin OHara/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Virtually all of the workplace protections and rights that Americans enjoy were secured during a very different economic age. Erected during the New Deal era, the edifice of American labor law has suffered significant erosion  and only modest renovations  over the past half-century. One consequence of this reality is that our labor laws are designed to protect the typical (i.e. white, male) worker of the mid-20th century  the full-time employee of a large corporation  even as such workers have become increasingly atypical in the economy of today.

These two facts are related. The longer labor laws stand still, the better corporations get maneuvering around them. In recent years, American companies have become increasingly adept at minimizing the number of workers directly beneath their roofs. Instead of taking on new employees  entitled to health care, disability, and collective bargaining rights  corporations have figured out how to satisfy their labor needs through contractors, staffing firms, and franchises.

In 2015, the Democratic-controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided to nudge labor law into closer alignment with this new reality.

At the time, a national chain (like McDonalds) was only considered the joint-employer of workers at its independently owned franchises if the larger corporation exercised direct and immediate control over those workers. This rule had three major  and majorly negative  implications for Americas fast food workers:

1) It made it impossible for the workers at any given McDonalds (or other major chain) franchise to sue the deep-pocketed parent company for labor-law violations they suffered on the job.

2) It made it very difficult for such workers to secure wage and benefit gains through collective bargaining. Often, franchisees have relatively low profit margins, and, thus, limited ability to make concessions to their employees. McDonalds, on the other hand, has plenty of room to fatten their workers paychecks while staying in the black. (And if it were considered a joint employer of workers at its franchises, those workers could collectively bargain with McDonalds, itself.)

3) It made it much harder for franchise workers to unionize in the first place. Employers are not allowed to retaliate against workers for forming a union. But a company is free to end a relationship with a franchise if it suspects its workers are about to form a bargaining unit.

Given these facts  and the growing share of the American working class that performs service labor at franchises  the Obama-era NLRB decided to redefine what it meant to be a joint-employer. In light of changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships, the labor board ruled that if a company exercised indirect control of workers at its franchises  say, by requiring them to use just-in-time scheduling software  then it was, in fact, a joint-employer of those workers.

Americas forgotten men and women applauded this decision. Their (new) bosses hated it.

Youll never guess whose side the Trump administration took.

This week, both of Trumps appointees to the labor board voted to reverse the Obama-era decision, in a 3-to-2 ruling that reestablished the direct control standard.

Democrats condemned the decision.

This shocking and brazen decision to overturn pro-worker precedent is further proof the Trump administration will stop at nothing to line the pockets of corporations  no matter what price workers and their families are forced to pay, Washington senator Patty Murray said in a statement.

Wisconsin congressman Mark Pocan voiced similar sentiments on Twitter.

So much for @realDonaldTrump looking out for the working men and women of this country. Just another example of putting corporate interests/wealthy donors before working families. https://t.co/SKZxE80bD1  Rep. Mark Pocan (@repmarkpocan) December 14, 2017

McDonalds has faced multiple lawsuits from workers seeking to hold it liable for labor-law violations at its franchises this year. The NLRBs decision all but guarantees that the company will evade responsibility in all of those cases.

Five, ten years from now  different party, Donald Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek in 2016, explaining how he would change the GOP. Youre going to have a workers party.

One year from then, the Republicans remain a party for bosses.
Rwanda has banned shisha smoking, an increasingly popular pastime of Uganda's "socialites" and party-goers. Uganda ostensibly banned shisha in 2015, but the toxic product is still sold, promoted and used openly around the country.

In a statement dated 14 December 2017, Rwanda's minister of health, Dr Diane Gashumba stated "the use, advertisement and import of water-pipe tobacco smoking known as shisha tobacco is banned on Rwanda territory effective from 15th December 2017". The statement threatened sanctions for failure to comply with the ban. Rwanda cited advice of the World Health Organisation to justify the ban on water-pipe smoking.

In an advisory note of 2015, WHO noted that all studies show that "during a typical waterpipe use session, the user will draw large doses of toxicants (ranging from less than one to tens of cigarette equivalents)". These toxicants, the note said, "have been linked to addiction, heart and lung diseases, and cancer in cigarette smokers and can result in similar outcomes in waterpipe users if these toxicants are absorbed in the body in appreciable amounts."

The WHO advisory note also stated "waterpipe use has deleterious effects on the respiratory system, cardiovascular system, oral cavity and teeth, and long-term waterpipe smokers have higher incidences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and periodontal disease."

WHO advised governments to implement measures to limit shisha smoking and exposure of non-smokers to shisha second-hand smoke.

How serious a problem is shisha smoking in Uganda? While there are no hard figures on the prevalence of shisha smoking in Uganda, it appears to be a growing practice in urban areas, despite the 2015 ban. In Kampala, there are bars whose primary selling point is shisha, also known as hookah.

The WHO note states "anecdotal evidence for Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania indicates a proliferation of fashionable hookah bars in the larger urban centres in all these countries, which are frequented mainly by the young and business people."

Uganda's Tobacco Control Act of 2015 bans importation, manufacture, distribution, processing and sale of "water pipe delivery system, including the water pipe device or the water pipe tobacco product or other substances to be used in the water pipe delivery system..." The ban appears to exist only on paper.

A Ministry of Health official told The Observer today that lack of money has frustrated efforts to enforce the shisha ban.

The official said that money is needed to engage and train relevant enforcers, including police, Ministry of Health, Kampala Capital City Authority, and local government authorities to "understand the dangers of shisha, which is killing the young generation".

Rwanda has a reputation for enforcing such bans strictly. As Uganda runs around in circles with its ban on plastic bags, Rwanda has virtually eradicated their use. While it has come late to the party, Rwanda could soon leave Uganda in a could of (sisha) smoke.
Organizational Ombuds serve as a

confidential

,

independent

,

neutral

and

informal

dispute resolution resource for a specific entity. They are accessible to a defined population and can advocate for fairness. These unique characteristics distinguish

from

, mediators, arbitrators, and other alternative dispute resolution professionals. The term "Ombuds" is shorthand for "Ombudsman," "Ombudsperson" and "Ombuds Officer," which also are used widely.





Some other variants include:

Austria -- Ombudsstelle

Brazil -- Ouvidor

Croatia -- pravobranitelji

France -- mediateur/defenseur

Germany -- Ombudspersonen

Italy -- difensore

Netherlands -- ombudspersoon

Norway -- ombudet

Poland -- Rzecznik

Portugal -- provedor

Russia -- 

Spain -- ombudsman organizacional

Sweden -- studentombud
I do not see any threat to the government: Shahid Khaqan

LONDON: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Thursday said there was no threat to the government and expressed confidence that it would complete its term.



I do not see any threat to the government. Threats are always there, however, our government will have a smooth sailing with interim government to be formed in June, Abbasi told reporters as he arrived in the city to hold meeting with the key leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).



The meeting was attended by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his children Maryam and Hassan, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif at the office of Hassan Nawaz.



The prime minister said the London meeting was previously scheduled and not meant to take any specific decision.



About a statement by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq that he was not sure if the assemblies would complete their term, Abbasi termed it his personal opinion. He added that he was ready to clear the apprehensions of the speaker, if he had any.



I am not an astrologer  I hope it [the National Assembly] completes its constitutional term but I dont foresee it happening, Speaker Ayaz Sadiq had told a news channel a day earlier. I feel something is about to happen  things are drastically different from 2002 and 2008, he had said, in reference to the continuing political saga in the country following the botched Faizabad crackdown as well as the situation arising after the release of the Model Town inquiry report.



The prime minister, who arrived in London from Turkey after attending the extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), said he conveyed Pakistans stance at the forum and hoped that the United States would review its decision to relocate its embassy in Jerusalem.



According to sources, important matters regarding current political scenario in the country were discussed in the meeting. The PML-N leaders also informed Nawaz Sharif regarding major developments in the countrys politics.



Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif in his interaction with media categorically said that the government would complete its term and the PML-N government would once again come into power. InshaAllah, we will form government after winning the next general election, he said, adding that the interim government would be formed for a period of 90 days.



He said that there was no chance of assemblies being dissolved, reiterating his stance that elections would take place in time.



On a question about Speaker Ayaz Sadiqs remarks, Khawaja Asif said that he had only expressed concern over the ongoing situation in the country.



There is no chance of assemblies being dissolved, he said. Elections will take place as per schedule.



Kh Asif said that the elected government was quite stable and would definitely be able to tackle most of the issues facing the country by the end of its tenure in next few months. Nawaz Sharif is fulfilling the promises he made to the country, he said. The government has executed majority of its agenda for the nation, he added.



The foreign minister rejected the notion that special meetings were held with former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.



The foreign minister also spoke about the sit-in protests and said that such protests take place across the country and never trouble any government. He said that the government was not worried about arbitration by an institution as far as dharnas were concerned.
Kulbhushan Jadhav and his wife-mother-Indian diplomat meeting to take place on Dec 25

ISLAMABAD: New Delhi has accepted Islamabads offer for a meeting between convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav and his wife, mother and an Indian diplomat. Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal, while speaking at the weekly media briefing, confirmed the receipt of Indian acceptance.



The meeting would now take place on Dec 25. The details and modalities of the meeting will now be worked out, the spokesman said.



Pakistan had initially offered a meeting between Jadhav and his wife on humanitarian grounds. However, India made the acceptance of the offer conditional to permission for his mother and an Indian diplomat to accompany her. After extensive deliberations, the Indian request was allowed and last week Dec 25 was proposed as the meeting date.



Jadhav was captured in March last year from Balochistan and tried for sabotage, espionage and terrorism by a military tribunal and was this year convicted and sentenced to death. His appeal against death sentence has been dismissed, while the mercy petition is awaiting Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwas decision.



The development in the spy case has happened around the submission of Pakistans counter-arguments at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that is hearing an Indian petition challenging denial of consular access to Jadhav by Pakistan.



The counter memorial was submitted by Pakistan at The Hague on Wednesday (Dec 13).



The extensive and detailed legal arguments prepared by the Counsel for Pakistan, Barrister Khawar Qureshi Queens Counsel (QC), were filed at the ICJ in accordance with the court timetable, Dr Faisal said describing it as a comprehensive and robust document.



Dr Faisal, who is also governments co-agent in the case, while expressing confidence in the court, said: We are fully confident that the ICJ will have regard legal principles, as well as its existing case law, to reject the claims made by India.



Denouncing latest Indian missile test, the spokesman said, Indian thirst for becoming a regional hegemon is casting a dark shadow on South Asia.



India had last week tested Akash, the first surface-to-air missile equipped with indigenous radio frequency seeker.



The spokesman said India had pushed the region into arms race. Its hegemonic designs are a cause of serious concern not only to Pakistan but also to the entire region, he added.



In what could be a major step towards trust building between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two sides have agreed to set up a coordination mechanism between their militaries.



The spokesman disclosed that the two sides agreed to place liaison officers at each others army headquarters and also establish ground coordination centres.



The agreement was reached during a visit by an Afghan military delegation led by the military operations chief.



Pakistan and Afghanistan had during a visit by Gen Bajwa to Kabul on Oct 1 agreed on having comprehensive bilateral engagement agenda.



Later, Pakistan shared with Afghanistan a blueprint for engagement called Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Solidarity envisioning constructive and meaningful bilateral engagement in political, economic, military, intelligence domains through working groups.



Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had acknowledged the proposal during his statement at the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia-Istanbul Process held in Baku on Dec 1, 2017, saying it would provide the basis of a dialogue. Afghanistan is yet to formally respond to the proposal.



Responding to a question about the extension of Afghan refugee cards, Dr Faisal said different options were being considered and no decision has been taken as yet.
Mehmood Khan Achakzai proposed judicial council-like body for FATA 15 December, 2017



Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos

Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love

Types of Casino Payment Methods

Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino

Are Slot Developers Important for players?

Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo ISLAMABAD: Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Thursday proposed on the floor of the National Assembly that a judicial council-like body comprising judges, generals and diplomats should be formed to decide the future set-up for Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) which should be democratic and as per the aspirations of tribal people.



Reacting on the criticism directed at him and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman by some members for their opposition to the plan of merging Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mr Achakzai said the president should announce abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).



Warning against the planned merger of tribal areas with the province, the PkMAP leader from Balochistan suggested that Fata should be governed either by a governor or a council to be elected through adult franchise.



The PkMAP chief was of the view that the present parliament had no role in Fatas affairs. I am giving you a solution. Have fear of God. I will not abuse anyone. Please, do not abuse us, he implored while joining his hands before taking his seat.



On the other hand, the opposition members continued their boycott of the assemblys proceedings for the fourth consecutive day over the governments move to withdraw the bill seeking to extend the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court and Supreme Court to Fata from the assembly agenda at the eleventh hour on Monday. However, they failed to disrupt the proceedings of the house when their efforts to point of lack of quorum failed twice.



Declaring the house in order after a headcount, Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi intelligently continued the proceedings of the house for more than an hour after the opposition members walkout and almost carried out the complete agenda.



However, the assembly failed to take up questions as the members consumed first hour of the proceedings in discussing the issues of Fata reforms and problems of the wheat growers through points of order.



Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insafs (PTI) MNA Muhammad Ali Khan interrupted Mr Achakzais speech on a number of occasions through his noisy protest against the latters stance over Fata reforms.



I am a Pakistani citizen. It is my democratic right to support or oppose something, Mr Achakzai said after Awami Muslim League president Sheikh Rashid Ahmed accused the government of delaying Fata reforms only because of opposition from two persons.



The PkMAP chief warned that any change in the present set-up in Fata could create trouble for Pakistan. He said Fata had not been a part of Pakistan according to the Independence Act of 1947.



Giving a historical background, he mentioned a number of agreements signed by then British rulers and tribal elders before partition of the subcontinent, mentioning Fata residents as free people.



He was of the view that it was a sensitive issue and Afghanistan could raise objections over any move to change the Fatas status. If we commit any mistake here, our armed forces will be trapped here, he said without elaborating, adding that already on a daily basis they had been receiving reports about attacks on troops in the tribal areas. He said a delegation of the tribal people had met the army chief recently and told him that no step should be taken against their wishes.



In response to Mr Achakzais speech, Leader of the Opposition in the house Syed Khursheed Shah said that all the acts and agreements signed during the British rule had become redundant.



We do not accept India and Afghanistan theories. We are not bound to abide by any decision made by the British, he said. He said that 95 per cent people of Fata wanted accession to Pakistan.



He said the tribal people wanted that they should have the right to appeal before the high court and the Supreme Court and this was their democratic right.



Mr Shah said the opposition would not allow the government to use the parliament as a rubber stamp.



Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Sherpao said that it was time to take practical steps instead of wasting time in debate which had already taken place many times in the past. He said that under Article 1 of the Constitution, Fata was a part of Pakistan. He urged the government to announce merger of Fata with KP as soon as possible and before the time ran out.



Mr Sherpao said the PML-N government should take credit for this historical work and should not wait to do it under pressure.



Earlier, parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party Syed Naveed Qamar said the government had been indicating to them that the army was perhaps against the planned Fata reforms. He said the government now had no excuse in this regard after the army chief had himself made a statement that he also supported reforms in tribal areas.



Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch said the government was determined to implement Fata reforms and it would not allow anyone to snatch the credit for it.
SC to give verdict on Imran Khan-Jahangir Tareen disqualification case today

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will hand down on Friday (today) the anxiously-awaited judgement that will determine the political fate of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen amid the turbulent political environment in the country.



Once again, Courtroom No 1 will be the focus of attention when a three-judge bench consisting of Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab will announce its verdict on two petitions moved on Nov 2 last year by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Hanif Abbasi seeking disqualification of Mr Khan and Mr Tareen for not disclosing their assets, owning offshore companies and running a foreign-aided party.



The verdict will be announced at 2pm after Friday prayers.



Last time, Courtroom No 1 came into limelight when a five-judge SC bench comprising Justices Asif Saeed Khosa, Gulzar Ahmed, Ejaz Afzal Khan, Sheikh Azmat Saeed and Ijaz-ul-Ahsan disqualified Nawaz Sharif as prime minister in the Panama Papers case and directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to file three corruption references against Mr Sharif and members of his family.



The apex court had on Nov 14 closed the proceedings and reserved its ruling on Mr Abbasis petitions.



The Islamabad police have been directed to ensure tight security in and around the Supreme Court to avoid any untoward incident at the time of the announcement of the judgement.



Will the captain [Imran Khan] continue to stand on the pitch or be shown the pavilion is a million dollar question which can only be answered when the judgement is announced, commented a senior counsel who observed the entire court proceedings with interest.



When asked about his expectations, senior counsel Mohammad Akram Sheikh, who had argued the case on behalf of Hanif Abbasi, said: We hope that the Supreme Court will decide in consistence with the law declared by it in a similar matter by a larger bench (Panama Papers case) as the question in the two [cases] are absolutely identical as much as though not corruption or the criminal charge but the concealment of assets and making of false declaration.



But PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry insisted that it would be absurd drawing comparison between the case of Nawaz Sharif and those of Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen, adding that the PTI side had during the course of hearing explained the money trail of even a single penny.



Besides, he said, there was no allegation of money laundering or corruption against Mr Khan.



Likewise, he said, the case against Mr Tareen had started with money laundering but ended with allegations of concealment of assets. In this case too, Mr Tareen did not hide anything from the court and come out with clean hands, he added.



Asked if Mr Khan and Mr Tareen would come to the court, along with other party leaders, to witness the historic moment, the spokesman said he would alone be in the courtroom.



Chaudhry Faisal Hussain, who also assisted the PTIs panel of counsel in the case, said he was confident that the petitions would be dismissed because no allegations of dishonesty could be attributed to Mr Khan or Mr Tareen since both had provided the money trail and accounted for even a single penny. On the other hand, he claimed, Nawaz Sharif and his family had hidden everything from the court and never provided the money trail.



In his concluding arguments, Advocate Naeem Bokhari, the counsel for Imran Khan, had argued that his case should not be treated like that of Panama Papers because there was no question of money going out of the country, though it could be said that there was a young man who could not manage his accounts properly.
Some questioned Saratoga & North Creek Railway's move to cut ties with Polar Express (amid a lawsuit over money) and try a Christmas-themed train of its own dubbed "Train to Christmastown."

So far, it sounds like the move is working out pretty well, though ridership numbers won't be released for a few weeks.

Warren County leaders say anecdotal reports have been good, though. Stony Creek Supervisor Frank Thomas said the ridership has been "decent," with 1,800 riders last weekend and 2,400 or so booked for this weekend. He said he understands the railway is hoping to create a Harry Potter-themed train for next year.

The Times Union ran an article this week about how the train has helped the new owners of Stony Creek Ranch, where the holiday train is based this year instead of the former Saratoga Springs starting point.

Part of it has to do with the novelty, I'm sure. Polar Express was a story that has gotten a bit old to some families who have done the trip several times, frankly.

For a review of the story that was in a recent Boston Globe (SNCR's parent company runs a railroad on Cape Cod), click here.

For ticket information, head over to sncrr.com. Trips run through Dec. 27, according to the website.

-- Don Lehman
Sources in the Senate tell CNN they have been worried about Sen. John McCain recently, following a week when the Arizona Republican was kept from the Senate to address side effects from his brain cancer treatment.

The sources described McCain as looking increasingly frail and said he has not spoken up in recent GOP meetings the way he had before, in addition to his absence this week for treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center.

One source said that McCain always used to speak up in these meetings, and that he hasn't at all recently. The source was not commenting on McCain's mental acuity, but on his energy level, and pointing out that his lack of participation was not normal. One well known side effect of cancer treatments is fatigue.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, McCain's closest friend in the Senate, said he spoke with Cindy McCain on Wednesday about her husband's health.

"He is receiving treatment for the side effects of therapy," Graham said. "I feel pretty good about the way the treatment is affecting his underlying cancer. But the treatment has a downside. So he is trying to rest up. I am very confident that he will come back and continue to participate for a long time to come."

Graham said he did not talk to McCain's wife Cindy McCain about the potential for the senator to return next week for a tax vote; he only got an update on his health. He said he hopes to talk to McCain Thursday or see him in person soon.

"The main thing I am focused on is to just get better. John, take a little time. Rest up. It's OK," Graham said. "Take a day or two off. He's had a heck of a Senate schedule. And I hope he will take some time to regroup, do a little rehabilitation on his leg, and come back and participate in a way that only Sen. McCain can participate."

McCain received medical treatment last month for a minor tear to his right Achilles tendon requiring him to wear a walking boot.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that GOP are being "flexible" on the timing of final votes on a major tax reform bill due to health-related absences from the Senate, and said he has spoken with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell about timing.

"We're simply being flexible to honor their concerns about managing their schedule and some possible absences," Ryan said.

McCain, 81, is five months into treatment for brain cancer. He was diagnosed in July with a primary glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor. He underwent surgery to remove a blood clot associated with the tumor at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, and lab results from that surgery confirmed the presence of brain cancer associated with the blood clot.

McCain returned to Walter Reed this week for treatment that his office said was related to side effects of his cancer therapy.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said he too spoke to Cindy McCain on Wednesday night about her husband's health.

"We expect him back," Flake told reporters. "I expect him back. He's obviously recovering from the effects of the treatment and so we expect him back."

Throughout his treatment, McCain has kept up his reputation as the "maverick" of the Senate -- which was on display in July, when McCain memorably returned from cancer treatment to walk onto the Senate floor and cast his thumbs-down vote against the Republican effort to repeal parts of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

McCain has been a thorn in the side of President Donald Trump -- who'd criticized McCain in 2015, questioning McCain's war hero status and saying he prefers those "that weren't captured."

In a speech in Philadelphia in October this year, McCain fired back at Trump with a complete rejection of Trump's view of the United States' role in the world.

"To fear the world we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history," McCain said then.

As recently as Wednesday, McCain delivered a rebuke of Trump via Twitter, urging him to lay off his claims of "fake news" and saying Trump "must understand his harmful rhetoric only empowers repressive regimes to jail reporters & silence the truth."

Glioblastoma is an aggressive tumor that took the life of Beau Biden, the son of former Vice President Beau Biden, in 2015.

Biden spoke emotionally with McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, on ABC's "The View" on Wednesday, recalling how her father had helped watch over his sons Hunter and Beau decades earlier.

"Look, one of the things that gave Beau courage, my word, was John (McCain). Your dad, you may remember when you were a little kid. Your dad took care of my Beau," Biden told Meghan McCain, holding her hand.

He talked about how the two had run against each other in the 2008 presidential race.

"We're like two brothers who were somehow raised by different fathers or something because of our points of view," Biden said. "Even when your dad got mad at me, said I should get the hell off the ticket, and remember what I said about your dad? I said, I know, and I mean this sincerely, I know if I picked up the phone tonight and called John McCain and said, ... 'I need your help, come,' he'd get on a plane and come. And I would for him."
JACKSON  Ted Berndt is one person who sees what Washington County could be.

When he trudges across the 175-acre site he bought just outside Cambridge  an old mushroom farm, with 24 connected buildings where the mushrooms were grown  he sees a busy indoor-outdoor market, with farmers, artisans and furniture-makers, Amish merchants from Whitehall and Mennonites from Hoosick Falls.

On a recent chilly afternoon, Berndt and I were the only ones at the site, wandering through a complex of metal-sided buildings in the middle of a field surrounded by a chain-link fence.

Berndt has big plans and he has a big site on which to realize them. In the meantime, hes renting out space for winter storage of boats and cars.

Berndt is 52, tall and solid and soft-spoken. He used to work in Baldwinsville as a quality manager for Anheuser-Busch, then was a northern New York sales representative for Pfizer, the drug company.

Hes not the fast-talking, best-buddy sort of salesman. Hes a reasonable sort of man who on this day was dressed in work boots and a canvas jacket, and he laid out in soothing tones why his site is right for a regional once-a-week market.

He let me make my own judgments, and despite the evidence of my senses, as I stood in the chilly field after an hours drive through the sparsely settled hills of Washington County, I felt the stirrings of belief.

Berndt is more than a guy with a lot of land and a dream. Hes practical. He paid only $136,500 for the property at tax sale, and he got the assessment lowered to $240,000 so his taxes are only $7,000 a year. He makes money on the storage.

The complex includes an old packing plant that has functional offices and a 3-phase 16-amp electrical control panel as big as an industrial freezer, which Berndt says would cost $150,000 new.

He has tried out other visions for the site  he applied for one of the states marijuana-growing licenses but didnt get it and he floated a proposal to make the property a gathering place for breweries.

Now he says Windmill Farm in Penn Yan  in the Finger Lakes region  is the model hes working from. The farm and crafts market has about 200 shops, features performances like folk dancing and attracts about 10,000 customers on Saturdays, the only day its open, from May through mid-December.

I dont know if Ted Berndts vision will materialize, but I know hes got the right idea. Washington County has a wealth of attractions, including specialty foods, arts, crafts and an authentic country feel that people from urban and suburban areas will pay to experience.

What the county needs is some way to draw all these attractions together and promote them.

Not many of the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come to Lake George every summer find their way east into Washington County, and not much of the Vermont crowd trickles over the border, either.

But that could change if the county offered tourists a central place to experience its appeal. Right now, the Washington County experience is scattered throughout farms and studios and barns along hundreds of miles of winding back roads.

Its hard to create an attraction out of empty buildings and an empty field on a limited budget. But Berndt has a chance. Sooner or later, Washington County is going to get discovered, and someone like Berndt is going to do very well.
CORINTH  The village will be able to continue efforts to upgrade its old sewer infrastructure, thanks to a $1 million state grant from the governors regional economic development council.

The money will be used to install a new force main that will increase the capacity of the system and a new trunk line leading to the wastewater treatment plant.

Mayor Dennis Morreale said in the last five years he has been in office, the village has had an ongoing program to update its infrastructure.

It was in terrible, terrible shape, he said. Weve replaced water and sewer lines on all the major streets.

This new money will be used for two projects. Don Rhodes, project manager at Laberge Group, said the village received a grant two years ago to upgrade the River Street pump station. During the design of that project, engineers discovered the force main had to be replaced because it was too small and the work was not of high quality.

The pipe is increasing from 6 inches in diameter to 8 inches. Rhodes said the current 6-inch pipe cannot meet demand during peak flows.

If the pump station floods, it overflows into the Hudson River. We cant let that happen, he said.

This funding also will be used to replace the existing sanitary trunk line that leads to the wastewater treatment plant and hook up a drinking water connection to the plant, according to Rhodes.

The existing infrastructure is about 20 years old. If it were to fail, there could also be a discharge into the river. That could lead to a consent order and fines from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Its never the place you want to be. You want to be able to proactively invest in your infrastructure, he said.

The projects should be finished next summer, according to Rhodes.

Rhodes said Laberge helped in developing a plan to upgrade infrastructure and obtain funding.

With this last grant, I think were up to $8.9 million in grants, which is a pretty significant thing for a small village, he said.
State officials and the Washington County Department of Public Safety will host a "citizens preparedness training program" Monday night at the Middle Falls Fire Department station on Route 29.

The program will include a 90-minute training session to teach residents to have the tools and resources to prepare for any type of disaster, respond accordingly and recover as quickly as possible to pre-disaster conditions. The course will provide an introduction to responding to different types of disasters and "active shooter/active violence" scenarios.

Participants will be advised on how to properly prepare for any disaster, including developing a family emergency plan and stocking up on emergency supplies. Each person or family that attends will get a backpack of items to create a "preparedness kit" for use in the event of a disaster.

The event will start at 7 p.m.

Participants were asked to register, so that sufficient kits will be available. It can be done at http://www.dhses.ny.gov/aware-prepare/nysprepare/registration/index.cfm#formbegins.

Those seeking more information can call (518) 747-7520 or email publicsafety@co.washington.ny.us.
FORT EDWARD  A pretrial hearing scheduled for this week in the murder case against a Fort Ann man accused of killing his grandmother was postponed as the judge in the case reviews a request to throw out the charges.

Kevin L. Gonyea was due in court Thursday for a hearing to determine whether the statements he made to police officers who investigated the case can be used at trial in the case.

Washington County Judge Kelly McKeighan instead postponed the hearing until Jan. 9 as he reviews a motion to dismiss filed by Gonyeas lawyer, Greg Teresi. Teresi has claimed there is insufficient evidence to support the charges against his client, and that there were legal errors during the grand jury review of the matter.

Gonyea, 50, faces seven charges, including second-degree murder and charges related to disposing of evidence, for the strangulation death of 95-year-old Leona Twiss last July 9. Gonyea was her grandson, and he is accused of choking her to death with a towel in her home.

His wife, Melissa Gonyea, was charged with helping him dispose of the towel allegedly used to kill Twiss, and she pleaded guilty to seven charges last month, agreeing to testify against her husband in exchange for a 4-2/3- to 14-year prison sentence.

He also faces charges that accuse him of welfare fraud before Twiss death. Court records show the alleged fraud involved forgery of Twiss signature, indicating Gonyea paid rent at her home when he was actually living there for free, and a failure to list money he was being paid to be her caretaker in order to collect public assistance.

McKeighan is also reviewing possible issues with subpoenas for cell phone records that were drawn up in the case, and whether those issues would affect the indictment or evidence in the case. One was dated after the indictment, while Teresi contends the subpoenas were illegal because they were for out-of-state evidence.

Its certainly related to the grand jury proceedings, Teresi said. They used that information at the grand jury proceedings.

He said the problematic subpoenas are another example of a rush to judgment by police and prosecutors to pin the death on the Gonyeas, when there are other suspects.

The Washington County District Attorneys Office has responded to Teresis motion, providing additional details about the allegations and opposing the motion to dismiss. District Attorney Tony Jordan said his office is preparing for trial, and does not see any reason that pretrial motions would change that.

Im not aware of any issues of significance, Jordan said.

McKeighan is expected to rule on the motion to dismiss before the Jan. 9 hearing. No trial date has been set in the case, but trial is likely early next year.

Both Gonyeas are being held in Washington County Jail, pending further court action. He faces 25 years to life in prison on the murder charge, and possible consecutive charges for the lesser counts.

A motive for the killing of Twiss has been unclear, although authorities have speculated the Gonyeas wanted to return to their home state of Florida and Twiss, who had Alzheimers Disease, was an obstacle to doing so.
No U.S. military veteran should be homeless. But despite ambitious efforts on many fronts, the battle to make sure that doesnt happen is fought every day.

It must be.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledges that due to the transient nature of homeless populations, a flawless count is difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, HUD estimates that nearly 40,000 veterans are homeless on any given night.

This is a national tragedy. Veterans are the breadwinners for our nation. They have put their lives on the line for us and we must not turn our backs now.

Kate McClure didnt.

McClure, of Florence Township, New Jersey, ran out of gas on an Interstate 95 exit ramp late one night recently. A homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., walked several blocks and bought her $20 worth of gasoline with what little money he had. She didnt have money to repay him at the time, she told the Associated Press, but visited him a few more times to bring food and water. McClure and her boyfriend later created the online fundraiser page as a thank you and to try to help him get back on his feet.

As of last week, they had raised more than $397,000.

Bobbitt is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and worked as a paramedic in Vance County, North Carolina, before becoming homeless, according to the AP report. Details on how he wound up on the streets of Philadelphia are sketchy, although Bobbitt attributes it to a mix of bad decisions and bad situations.

Whatever the reasons, Bobbitts story is not unlike thousands of U.S. veterans. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, homelessness might be attributed to a variety of complex factors, including an extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income and access to health care. Also, the coalition notes, many displaced and at-risk veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, compounded by a lack of family and social support networks. Additionally, military occupations and training are not always transferable to the civilian workforce, placing some veterans at a disadvantage when competing for employment.

Last month, the Office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released a report that said the number of homeless veterans in the state dropped 78.4 percent between 2011 and 2016, the biggest drop of any state. But Vincent Scalise, founder and executive director of the Central New York Veterans Outreach Center in Utica, said that the level of homelessness among veterans locally seems to have held steady over the past few years.

In Oneida and Madison counties, homeless surveys that measure homelessness on one day in January each year have shown the number of homeless veterans falling from 26 in 2009 to none last year, said Scott McCumber, an associate planner with the states Continuum of Care program. But, he noted, those statistics and those in the comptrollers report only apply to one day a year and they use a specific definition of homelessness  someone staying in a shelter, living in transitional housing or living on the street or staying in a motel room while waiting for space in a housing program.

Meanwhile, efforts continue locally to address the problem. In September, local officials gathered to celebrate planned renovations that will add 17 permanent housing units for homeless veterans on the third and fourth floors of the outreach center on Washington Street. The project will be paid for with $3.2 million in funding from the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistances Homeless Housing and Assistance Program. Scalise said he expects the project to take eight months to complete.

In addition to the Outreach Center, the Altamont Program specifically helps homeless veterans, providing studio apartments to 11 single men and providing services to help them transition back into the community. During his three years with the organization, Residential Director Robert Green said 15 men have moved into their own apartments. When one of the programs studio apartments becomes available, its usually filled again within three weeks, Green said.

Its a problem that cannot be ignored. U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, said last month that the federal government is working to address veterans issues, passing 14 bills in one week alone on all type of initiatives ... to help veterans get jobs, take care of their families and to deal with mental health issues.

But, she said, we have a long way to go.

For sure.

As for Bobbitt, he used some of the money raised for him by McClure to buy a home. He also said that he plans to donate some of his money to a Philadelphia grade school student who is helping another homeless veteran.

Semper Fi.

This editorial appeared in the Utica Observer-Dispatch on Dec. 12.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
Best Travel Apps For 2022

Finding Peace of Mind: Discover These Five Places in Europe to Unwind
A residential counselor at Family Resources' Annie Wittenmyer juvenile facility is facing charges after she allegedly was discovered having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old who was placed at the facility.

Police allege that Danielle A. Puls, 25, of 1706 2nd Ave., Apt. 4, Rock Island, supplied the boy with marijuana, gave him money to buy a gun, and she had an inappropriate sexual relationship with someone placed in the facility.

Puls is charged with one count of drug distribution to a person under 18, a Class B felony under Iowa law that carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

According to the arrest affidavit filed by Davenport Police Detective Richard Voy, Puls gave the 16-year-old marijuana, which he used in her presence.

She also is charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, a Class D felony that carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

According to Voys affidavit, Puls supplied money to the 16-year-old so he could acquire a handgun. She also had knowledge of him possessing handguns.

Puls also is charged with sexual misconduct with an offender as she was involved in a sexual relationship with a boy placed at Annie Wittenmyer while she was a counselor there. That charge is an aggravated misdemeanor that carries a prison sentence of up to two years.

She also is charged with one count of lascivious conduct with a minor for her inappropriate contact with the 16-year-old. The charge is a serious misdemeanor that carries a jail sentence of up to one year.

According to the arrest affidavits, Puls interactions with the teen occurred between June and November.

Puls was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Scott County Jail.

She was being held at the jail Wednesday night on $33,000 bond, cash or surety.
The fatal shooting in November of a Davenport man by a police officer has been deemed a justified use of force.

Matthew Donald Tobin, 26, Davenport, was shot on Nov. 19 during a fight with Davenport police officers Justin King and Brenda Waline, according to authorities. The officers were responding about 5:15 a.m. to a report of a burglary in progress in an apartment at 410 E. 12th St. Officer King was also shot, and both officers suffered other injuries.

When such incidents happen, Scott County Attorney Mike Walton reviews the evidence from the resulting investigation to determine whether the use of force by officers was appropriate. In a Thursday news conference, he said that, in the case of Mr. Tobin, it was and he described the efforts of the two officers as heroic.

"I feel under the circumstances, it was reasonable for them to believe they had a choice between serious injury or death or the use of force to prevent that," Mr. Walton said.

During the news conference, he, Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski, Scott County Sheriff Tim Lane and other officials went through the evidence collected by the Scott County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office is responsible for investigating use-of-force cases from municipalities within the county's boundaries. An outline detailing the timeline of the encounter was also provided.

The two officers, once at the building, first found two women in an apartment at the address, which was supposed to be vacant, according to the outline. Officers King and Waline began to interview them in the kitchen. The two told the officers they were alone in the apartment and were allowed to be there.

The outline states the tenant had been evicted and the locks changed.

One of the doors to the residence did not secure properly, and investigators believed that's how the apartment was accessible, Mr. Walton said Thursday.

The former tenant was not one of the two women, but one of them had been there before, Mr. Walton said. They told the officers they were there to get property for the evicted tenant.

As this interview was occurring, the officers heard a noise, the outline states. Officer King went to investigate, and found a man, later identified as Mr. Tobin. As he was being interviewed, Mr. Tobin identified himself by different names and birthdays. Mr. Tobin had his hands in his pockets and did not remove them when asked to do so.

Mr. Tobin then attempted to run across the kitchen toward the back door, according to the outline. Officer Waline tried to stop him, and Mr. Tobin hit her. Officer King came to her aid. He and Mr. Tobin began to fight hand-to-hand.

During the fight with Officer King, Mr. Tobin pulled out a gun and fired a shot, striking the officer in the ear, the report states. The two continued to struggle together and Mr. Tobin fired his handgun two more times during the fight. After the fight, it was discovered that a bullet passed through one of Officer Waline's sleeves.

Sheriff's Office Capt. Joe Caffery said investigators believe Mr. Tobin was carrying the gun in one of the jacket pockets from which he would not remove his hands.

Sheriff Lane said the bullet that hit Officer King passed through the tissue that joined his ear to his head and investigators believe Mr. Tobin deliberately pulled the trigger.

The fight ended up in a hallway attached to the kitchen, with Mr. Tobin on the floor, Officer King on top of him, and Officer Waline above them both, the outline states. Officer King was attempting to get control of the handgun.

The outline states Officer King warned Officer Waline that he was shot, and believed he was passing out. Officer Waline then shot Mr. Tobin, who continued to fight. Officer King kept trying to maintain control of Mr. Tobin's pistol.

When Mr. Tobin continued to fight, Officer Waline shot him a second time, according to the outline. Officer King warned her again that he was losing consciousness and to "hit him again."

Officer Waline shot Mr. Tobin a third time, and he stopped fighting, the outline states. It was later found he had been shot in the upper left shoulder, the lower left flank and the center of his chest. At one point after she began to shoot, Officer Waline's gun jammed, forcing her to clear the jam during the fight.

Mr. Walton said it is believed the jam happened between Officer Waline's second shot and the final one.

Once the fight began, both officers attempted to call for help, but a clear message did not go out, though sounds of a struggle could be heard, the report states. When dispatchers could not reach the two officers, other officers began heading to the 12th Street address. As this occurred, Officer Waline got out a radio transmission, stating an officer and another man were down and shots had been fired.

Chief Sikorski said the communication problem was a combination of the struggle and an issue with one of the towers in the city, which has been resolved. He did not believe the problem had an effect on the response of the other officers  the distress of the situation was quickly recognized, and the shift knew the two were responding to a potentially dangerous call.

"Radios are not 100 percent, and they never will be," Sheriff Lane said.

The entire fight lasted about two minutes, the report states.

The officers and EMTs arrived shortly after its end, Sheriff Lane said.

The other officers, once inside, found an unconscious Officer King on top of Mr. Tobin, the outline states. They pulled the injured officer off of him and cuffed Mr. Tobin as a precaution. EMTs pronounced Mr. Tobin dead at the scene.

A .380-caliber handgun was found near Mr. Tobin's body, the outline states. It had been fired three times, and three spent casings of that caliber were recovered from the scene. He was also found to be carrying 49 grams of methamphetamine and packaging material.

Mr. Tobin had an active warrant for parole violation, and a felony conviction on drug charges from Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, the outline states.

Officer Waline's gun, a Glock, was fired three times, and three 9 mm casings were recovered, as was one live round, consistent with her account of having to clear a jam, the report states. Officer King did not draw his weapon, and it was not fired.

Chief Sikorski said a jam was not an uncommon occurrence and officers train to deal with it should it happen during a violent encounter, but the department was looking at the malfunction.

One of the two women who were initially found by the officers told investigators she saw Mr. Tobin continue to fight the officers. She said he did so even after she heard him say he'd been shot, and that he did not stop until shot the final time.

Mr. Walton said they knew Mr. Tobin, and investigators believe the three entered the apartment to make use of it, though how had not been determined. He did not identify the two women, and said he did not plan to file charges against them.

Their statements, and those of the two officers were consistent with each other and the evidence found at the scene, the report states.

Chief Sikorski said both officers remained on leave.

"They're both doing well physically," the chief said. "They're both doing well emotionally, but it's going to be some time before they come back to work."

When the Scott County Sheriff's Office is finished with its investigation, the department will be conducting its own investigation to ensure departmental procedure and policy was followed, Chief Sikorski said. He agreed with Mr. Walton's assessment of their conduct.

"Their performance was heroic to say the least," he said.

Mr. Walton said the investigation was ongoing. Results of forensic analysis of the firearms involved, and toxicology and autopsy results for Mr. Tobin were not yet available as of Thursday. That data could take some time to arrive.

He said, however, that he did not believe that material will affect his ruling.

"I feel there is enough evidence at this point to make the decision I need to make," Mr. Walton said.
The Henry and Stark County Health Departments' office will be closed Monday in observance of the Christmas Holiday.

However, limited home health and homemaker staff will be working on those days to provide necessary in-home care.

For more information, call the Health Department at 852-0197 or 792-4011 (Henry) or 852-3115 (Stark) or visit our website at www.henrystarkhealth.com or find us on Facebook at Henry and Stark County Health Departments or Follow Us on Twitter.
DAVENPORT  A used record sale next month will raise money for a new mental-health program in Scott County.

Genesis Philanthropy and University of Iowa Community Credit Union will present The Big Spin noon to 4 p.m. Jan. 28 at the RiverCenter's Mississippi Hall. Early-bird admission at 11 a.m. will cost $20; regular admission is $5.

Each admission includes a record from the bargain bins. Most records will be sold for $3, $5 or $10, to support the Scott County Mental Health Court Pilot Project begun 18 months ago.

It has already produced startlingly effective results, Ken Croken, Genesis Health System chief marketing officer, said Wednesday, noting the program has resulted in a cost avoidance of over $300,000, "but more importantly, a return to productive life for people who are struggling with a chronic issue with mental disease or disorder.

It's what we owe our neighbors to support them as they battle this dreadful, debilitating disease, he said.

Genesis Philanthropy has funded the program so far, donating $120,000, Mr. Croken said. There is no taxpayer support, and cost savings are mainly from fewer incarcerations and involuntary commitments, he said.

There are actual human beings ... who have not been in incarcerated, not been involuntarily committed to a hospital, who are out in the community functioning, contributing, participating  restored to the families who love them. That is the true value, Mr. Croken said. If the financial equation wasn't compelling, and it's way compelling, it would be the right thing to do.

Mental health courts  providing counseling and support for recovery  are designed to reduce the people with mental illness in the court system, reduce criminal convictions and reduce the number of people in prison and jail who may be better served by another path to behavioral health, according to the program.

The Scott County project has served 20 people and has eight pending referrals, said program coordinator Courtney Stenzel of Transitions Mental Health Services. Several people who didn't come into the program have received case management services, support and counseling while they've been in jail, she said.

There definitely is a need in the community for the mental-health court program," she said. "With continued support and funds, we can make a drastic difference in the lives of those in our community struggling with mental health issues.

This program is really contingent on continued community support, Ms. Stenzel said. The lives that have already been changed and saved ... One participant has said, we asked 'Where would you be without the mental health program?' and he said, 'I would be dead.'"

Truly, lives are being affected, she said. We have single moms who have gotten sober, who've gotten their children back, addressing their mental health issues. Kids are coming home. Families are being brought back together.

"But if the funding doesn't come from somewhere," she said, "this program can't exist.

The program works with judges, probation officers and staff from Transitions, Vera French, Robert Young and other organizations, Ms. Stenzel said. Participants either face pending charges or are on probation and don't receive adequate mental-health treatment, she said.

Though every person we're working with has had some contact with the criminal-justice system, what our program is doing is preventing that cycle from continuing, Ms. Stenzel said. We're breaking the cycle.

Obviously, it's always a money issue. There's not enough money for the programs in the community coming from the state level, she said, noting they make seek public funding after demonstrating the program's success and need.

The program requires four phases for completion over a minimum of a year.

Stability takes time. We want to make sure when they graduate our program, they have everything in place, and they've been able to maintain it, Ms. Stenzel said.

No current clients have completed the program, she said, noting some have dropped out. The national average for success is 50 percent, she said. It's not an easy program."

For the fundraiser, iHeart Media donated hundreds of records  virtually all genres, including pop, rock, show tunes, country and polka.

I think there is something for everyone, Mr. Croken said. This will be a great opportunity for serious collectors to come and find the few pieces they're missing.

To donate records or for more information, visit bigspinqc.com.
SHERRARD  Four students under 13 years old are responsible for recent bomb threats made in the Sherrard School District, according to Mercer County States Attorney Meeghan Lee. Superintendent Allen Boucher said four threat messages were left in bathrooms at three of the districts schools during the past two weeks. The students who wrote the messages have been identified, he said, and all four have confessed. None of the threats were considered to be credible. The district is thankful these school threat incidents were not credible, and it wants to take advantage of the opportunity to evaluate our procedures for dealing with school threats, said Mr. Boucher. A meeting requested by Mercer County Sheriff David Staley was held at Sherrard High School this week to address parents concerns about the messages. We hope to ease the minds of parents and explain what options are available for the state, Ms. Lee said. Because the district includes both Rock Island and Mercer counties, sheriffs departments from both counties were included in the investigation. We are fortunate and gracious that we have two superb county sheriffs offices that work together on our behalf and ensure the safety and security of our students, staff, teachers, parents and visitors, said Sherrard school board president Rhys Fullerlove. He also said the meeting offered an opportunity to unite the district as one school community. We must remember we are dealing with children, young kids who do not think about the full consequences of their actions, Ms. Lee said. All threats must be taken seriously. Any other response would be irresponsible and potentially deadly. Response to bomb threats must be taken seriously, she said, adding protocol includes contacting parents while schools are put on lock down for authorities to immediately investigate. Its an ugly situation.
Schools closed over the years by the Davenport Community School District have found many new uses: apartments, a church, a massage school, a business and, with the recent opening of the J.B. Young Opportunity Center, three community centers.

J.B. Young was the focus of the Quad-City Times "Big Story" on Nov. 26; today we bring you a report on what's happened to other schools.

Buffalo Elementary, 329 Dodge St., Buffalo, sees a lot of use in its role as the Buffalo Activity Center, or BAC.

It houses the city council chambers and city hall offices, as well as a food pantry managed by churches in Buffalo, Walcott and Blue Grass; a clothing give-away run by volunteers; a branch of the Scott County Library System; a senior meal site operated Monday, Wednesday and Friday by Milestones Area Agency on Aging; and a barber shop, according to Tanna Leonard, city clerk.

In the summer, a nonprofit group operates a reading program for children. Alcoholics Anonymous rents a room for meetings. And the gym, with a kitchen and a capacity of nearly 400 people, is in demand as a rental space for parties and social functions, Leonard said.

"The rent helps offset the cost of the building," she said.

By the end of December, the city should know if the building will be the new location of the Buffalo Post Office, Leonard said. Postal officials want to move from their current Front Street location because it is in the floodplain. In 2014, they were forced to move temporarily to Blue Grass when the Mississippi River flooded the building's basement.

The BAC opened around 1960 as a school run by the Buffalo district until it became part of the Davenport district in 1966. It closed in 2000 when Davenport built a new Buffalo Elementary School, closing both Buffalo and H.M. Perry School.

The city purchased the building in January 2003, Leonard said.

Johnson Elementary School, 1730 Wilkes Ave., opened in 1910 and closed in 2002.

It's still a school, but now its main curriculum is massage therapy. Another tenant is the Q-C Theater Workshop, now in its sixth season, which packs the parking lot on performance nights.

The building was purchased, shortly after it closed, for $165,000 by Dan and Bonita Howes, whose Institute of Therapeutic Massage, is the largest tenant, said Jessica Howes, the Howes' daughter and the school admissions specialist.

The couple founded the massage business in 1997, and had several locations before Johnson became available, Howes said.

The institute graduates 30 to 40 students per year and offers massage on-site, as well as classes in meditation and yoga. In addition, Dan Howes, a chiropractor, operates his practice, the 5 Points Wellness Center, in the building.

Other full-time tenants include Wiz of Oz photography studio, Hypnosis by JT, and groups specializing in belly dancing, tai chi and ballroom dancing also rent rooms.

Pierce Elementary School, 2212 E. 12th St., opened in 1900 and closed in 1940.

The school has been converted into 41 loft-style apartments, a nearly $10 million renovation undertaken by Quad-City developers Tim Baldwin and Pat Sherman. The apartments opened in 2016, offering the first large-scale housing option in the Village of East Davenport.

Before that, the building was home to Mast Development Co., a research and development firm that occupied the building from the late-1940s through the early 1980s, and built a large addition. The building then became a retail mall and, after that closed, was vacant for several years.

Original Jackson Elementary, 1420 W. 16th St., opened in 1893 and closed in 1940.

The school has been converted into 48 apartments, an $11.8 million renovation undertaken by the Chicago-based Renaissance Realty Group, and known as Jackson Renaissance. Half of the apartments are in the original school and half are a new-construction addition. The work was completed in 2013.

Previously, the original building was the long-time location of Holy Family School and, after that, it housed offices and other commercial and nonprofit ventures.

Taylor Elementary School, 901 W. 15th St., opened in 1897 and closed in 1978.

The school has been converted into 41 senior living apartments, an $11 million renovation undertaken by the Chicago-based Renaissance Realty Group, and is known as The Taylor Renaissance. The work was completed in 2011.

Original Buchanan Elementary School, 2104 W. 6th St., opened in 1904 and closed in 1940.

Quad-City developer Chris Ales has begun a $7.6 million renovation to turn the building into 18 senior living apartments that he hopes to have finished by late-2018.

The building was vacant from 1940 until 1951 when it became a U.S. Naval Training Center. That use ceased in 1978 and, 10 years later, the building was purchased by Donald Lopez, of Davenport, who used it to store his antique auto parts business.

H.M. Perry Elementary School, 5121 Wapello Ave., now 5200 30th St. S.W., is owned by Steve and Kelli Grubbs and houses their three businesses.

Victory Enterprises does consulting, website design and provides other services to companies and political candidates; Victorystore.com does printing, including signs, for businesses, political campaigns, schools and others; and Victory VR develops educational curriculum in virtual reality, Kelli Grubbs said.

The couple bought the school two years after it closed and has doubled its space with additions for production and warehousing. The company employs about 75 people at its Davenport headquarters and locations in three other states, Grubbs said.

The school was part of a different district when it was built, but became part of the Davenport district in 1959. It closed in 2000 when students from Perry and the former Buffalo school were transferred to the new Buffalo Elementary School.

Lincoln Elementary School, 318 E. 7th, opened in 1940 and closed in 2014.

Lincoln is still looking for a buyer after a potential suitor recently backed out.

The school district had agreed to sell Lincoln for $730,000 to a subsidiary of The Woda Group, of Westerville, Ohio, for conversion into 50 apartments. But the cost of conversion was out of the company's comfort zone and more than prospective rents could support, said Nick Surak, Woda vice president for development.

Various community organizations have been renting the space, but are expected to move to the J.B. Young Opportunity Center.
The Moline Police Department has released more information concerning the crash in which Moline Mayor Stephanie Acri was injured.

The crash happened around 7:40 a.m. Dec. 4 when two vehicles collided at the intersection of 7th Street and 34th Avenue, according to an initial release from the department. Acri and two others were sent to the hospital, none with life-threatening injuries.

Police said this week that two citations were issued  one to each driver. Acri, who was driving a 2008 BMW, was cited for failure to yield-stop at intersection, and Doaa Hassan, driving a 1997 Toyota 4Runner, was cited for failure to secure a child younger than 8.

The contributing cause of the collision was the initial failure to yield at the intersection by Acri, police said.

Acri, who said she has broken ribs and breaks in her pelvis, said Monday that she was working remotely and that Alderman Sonia Berg, at large, who is Decembers mayor pro tem, would be helping her with the city workload.

 Lee News Network
Scott County Attorney Mike Walton said Thursday that two Davenport officers use of force that left a 26-year-old man dead last month was reasonable and justified.

In my opinion, based on what Ive seen, Id go beyond that and Id say that the actions of these officers were heroic, Walton said of Officers Justin King and Brenda Waline. They were in a position where that if either one of them had given up or let up, that they very likely would be dead, at least one or the other. They did not do that, they fought through it, they relied on their training. Unfortunately, sometimes heroic actions have tragic outcomes and it resulted in the death of Matthew Tobin.

During an hour-long news briefing at the Scott County Courthouse, Walton laid out a summary of the events of what Scott County sheriffs investigators believe led up to the shooting on Nov. 19.

According to Walton:

At 5:13 a.m. King and Waline were dispatched to a report of a possible burglary in progress at an apartment in the 400 block of East 12th Street.

The call came from a downstairs neighbor who said the apartment should be vacant. The landlord evicted the tenant in that apartment a week earlier and had changed the locks, Walton said.

However, someone had placed a refrigerator at the back door to try and secure it.

Once inside the second-floor apartment, the officers encountered two women who claimed they had permission to be there and they were retrieving property from the previous tenant. They also said there was no one else in the apartment.

King then heard someone in the back room and the officers discovered that Tobin was in the apartment. He initially gave officers false names and incorrect birth dates. Tobin continued to be evasive and refused Kings order to remove his hands from his pockets.

Tobin then tried to run for the back door and punched Waline several times as she tried to stop him. King and Tobin struggled and continued to move around the kitchen and eventually wound up in a narrow hallway on the floor with King on top of Tobin.

King saw Tobin with a gun and alerted Waline; Tobin fired three times and struck King in the right ear.

King remained on top of Tobin and struggled to get control of the handgun. Waline was on top of both of them. It was later discovered that Waline had a bullet hole through the right sleeve of her uniform.

King told Waline that he had been shot and was losing consciousness. Waline shot Tobin twice but he continued to struggle.

During the struggle, her gun jammed and she had to reset it by ejecting a live round and chambering a new round.

King again told Waline that he is losing consciousness and says to hit him again. Waline then shot Tobin for the third and final time.

One of the women who was inside the apartment confirmed that Tobin continued to fight until he was shot the third time. The struggle lasted approximately two minutes.

Numerous officers responded to the scene. King was found unconscious on top of Tobin and he was removed by the first responding officers. Tobin was handcuffed as a precaution.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police found a .380-caliber handgun near Tobin. Kings 9mm Sig Sauer handgun was holstered and was never fired in the incident.

Tobin was shot in the upper left shoulder, lower left flank and center chest. King, aside from the gunshot wound to his ear, had bruises and abrasions to his face and head.

Waline also had abrasions from the incident, according to Walton.

He said police also discovered that Tobin was in possession of 49 grams of crystal ice methamphetamine, packaging materials and cash. In addition, he had been wanted since Sept. 11 on a parole violation.

Tobin had previously been convicted and sentenced to prison on felony drug charges out of Cerro Gordo County.

Walton said it appears that these are the reasons Tobin chose to attempt to kill the officers, rather than be arrested.

He said during the struggle, one of the women had run to the bathroom and the other women had run to another part of the apartment.

There is no evidence that they broke into the apartment to commit a theft or an assault, Walton said and added they will not face charges in the incident.

From my standpoint in looking at what their charges would be versus the totality of what occurred later on, it just doesnt seem like an efficient use of resources to pursue criminal charges against the two females, Walton said.

He added they were interviewed and their accounts of the events were consistent with each other and the officers, and with physical evidence collected at the scene. In addition, they were cooperating with the officers before the shooting and had Mr. Tobin not been there, they probably would have been told to leave.

Walton said it has not yet been determined whether Tobin was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident.

He said investigators are waiting on forensic evidence, such as a toxicology report, and gun analysis by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation before the investigation is officially closed.

However, Walton said while the results of those tests are nice to know, they likely wont change the outcome of what we know occurred.

Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski said King and Waline are doing well both physically and emotionally, but its going to be some time before they come back to work.

We are going to let them process through this life-altering incident that happened to them, he said. Not only them, but their families as well.

Both remain on injury leave, he said. The department is in the early stages of conducting an internal review of the incident, Sikorski said.
CEDAR RAPIDS  One of the four Democrats running for the 1st District U.S. House nomination is challenging another candidate to not take contributions from political action committees and lobbyists while the Iowa Legislature is in session.

Iowa law prohibit lobbyists and political action committees from making contributions to candidates for statewide and legislative offices during legislative sessions. The 2018 session is scheduled to begin Jan. 8 and run for 100 days or until mid-April.

Rep. (Abby) Finkenauer should follow the same rules as her colleagues in the state Legislature by refusing contributions from PACs and lobbyists during the upcoming session, Thomas Heckroth said Thursday. We need to reduce the influence of money in the political process and keep special interest influence out of state government.

Accepting his challenge, he said, would eliminate any appearance or possibility of using her state position to advance her federal campaign committee, the Cedar Falls Democrat said.

She shouldnt use two sets of rules as a giant loophole to Iowas ethics rule, Heckroth said. Im hopeful that Rep. Finkenauer agrees that we need transparency and accountability during the legislative session and follows the rules our state already has in place.

The Finkenauer campaign refused Heckroths challenge, saying it will continue to accept donations to Finerauers congressional campaign, which is not governed by the law against donations to Statehouse campaigns during a legislative session.

The campaign said it doesnt believe Finkenauer should be penalized while performing a public service by serving in the Legislature.

While Im proud to continue fighting back against the anti-woman, anti-worker policies of the Republican majority in the Legislature, that wont stop this campaigns momentum as I look to replace Rod Blum, who puts millionaires and special interests ahead of everyday Iowans, Finkenauer said.

Heckroth spokesman Sam Roecker was disappointed with the response, charging Finkenauer, of Dubuque, isnt willing to take a stand against special interest money in the legislative process.

Democrats Courtney Rowe and George Ramsey, both of Cedar Rapids, also are running for the Democratic nomination in the 20-county 1st District that includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Dubuque and Marshalltown.

The race, however, is seen as a two-person race between Finkenauer and Heckroth.

Finkenauer started earlier and has collected nine labor union endorsements as well as the backing of Emilys List and NARAL, a pro-abortion rights PAC. Shes also been endorsed by End Citizens United, which is fighting to limit the influence of money in politics.

According to the Federal Elections Commission, Finkenauer has raised $308,120 in two quarters and has $168,586 cash on hand. Heckroth has raised $133,822 in one quarter and has $105,296 cash on hand.

The primary election to determine who will challenge U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, will be June 5.
A contingent of the community is rallying behind an undocumented Scott County woman who was briefly taken into custody Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Maria Concepcion Hernandez Calderon was arrested Wednesday on the charge of shoplifting and held at Scott County Jail on an ICE detainer.

Calderon was taken into ICE custody Thursday and transported to Cedar Rapids at noon before being released to her family.

Quad-Cities Interfaith, One Human Family, QC Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees, the Diocese of Davenport, League of United Latin American Citizens and Progressive Action organized a rally in front of Scott County Jail to support Calderon and object to the Sheriff's Office cooperation with ICE.

"People need to know it could be our brother," the Rev. Guillermo Trevino said. "It could be our sister. It could be a family member. We could be next and this is something we need to be very aware (of) and that's why we're here."

According to her family, Calderon, whose six children and husband are U.S. citizens, was arrested for shoplifting at Von Maur after one of her children had put an item in her purse.

Calderon has been in the community for almost 15 years, family members said.

In the frigid conditions Thursday night, speaker after speaker spoke to the need to show the values of the community. Maria Bribriesco said the community must put pressure on the Sheriff's Office and the County Board of Supervisors to exercise discretion because of the voluntary nature of immigration holds.

"It's really heartless and really was not necessary," Bribriesco said.

Before the rally, Sheriff Tim Lane said Scott County Jail has had a contract with ICE for years to hold detainees. Earlier this year, that contract was renewed.

"We are in a contract with ICE where we do hold ICE detainees for up to seven days," Lane said. "They are not our inmates. They are theirs and they do pay us to house them, which we also do for the Marshal Service."

Lane said the county does not have a policy to dictate how any single case is handled, and if there is an ICE detainer, it is honored.

The crowd assembled outside the courthouse said they want the Quad-Cities to be a welcoming community as it has been professed to be as cities and counties made prior proclamations in support of inclusion and acceptance.

Rabbi Henry Karp said this was a defining moment when the community needs to show that "welcoming" was not just a word.

"It's not just for Maria Calderon, but for all the Maria Calderons," Karp said.

While Calderon was released to her family, speakers also reminded the crowd that this is not the end of the matter.

"Every day, we must be vigilant and not allow this kind of injustice to happen," the Rev. Jay Wolin said. "It only will stop if we stop it. We must stand up."
There's no sugarcoating the predicament United Neighbors is in after a tumultuous 15 months.

Without continued support from donors, the organization's future is starting to come into doubt.

The discovery of mismanagement of funds for its tenant-based rental assistance program and lawsuits by former staff have crippled the social service organization that has been a staple in the community for more than 35 years.

Many of the programs it once offered are no longer financially feasible due to the inability to raise funds.

Based on the lawsuits and the loss of funding, unfortunately, the organization's future is looking bleak, said Executive Director Evelyn Nelson.

Nelson was brought into the organization last year as deputy director with the intention of succeeding then-Executive Director Ida Johnson, who was set to retire at the end of 2016.

But as Nelson began to take a closer look at the organization's finances, something didn't add up.

Nelson discovered a now-former employee had made unauthorized purchases of food and household items at Walmart, using United Neighbors' American Express card. Concerns also surfaced over the same employee's access and use of the agency's computer system.

A review of the rental assistance program is where the agency took a fateful turn.

After initially providing an early retirement offer to Johnson, the board of directors elected to terminate her and staff members Tonya Williams, Patricia Williams and Terry Fuller.

Shortly thereafter, Nelson notified the Iowa Finance Authority, which provides grant funding, of potential issues with the rental assistance program and after an on-site visit, it suspended payments until an audit could be completed.

The Finance Authority would ultimately find that the organization did not follow federal rules and regulations in administering the program and issued a notice of fault and termination of grant funding.

In doing so, it demanded repayment of $235,600 that were disbursed and approved while Johnson was at the helm.

United Neighbors appealed the decision in April, but no decision has been made.

In the meantime, Johnson and the staff that was terminated filed suit against the agency over a number of issues, including breach of contract and recovery of unpaid wages, compensation and benefits.

Funds drying up

With these issues casting a shroud over the agency, the damage has been done.

Since the beginning of the problems, we've had to reduce services, Nelson said. The tenant-based rental assistance program was the first major reduction in services after it was determined that the funds were mismanaged. I didn't want to administer it improperly and wasn't sure that it was being administered properly.

To make matters worse, the agency's troubles began to affect funding it had traditionally received.

The city of Davenport's Citizen's Advisory Committee elected not to disburse U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant funds to the agency this year. Those dollars would have supported its Summer Parks and DREAM Homebuyers programs.

United Neighbors did not receive funds from United Way of the Quad-Cities Area, which usually supports its Crisis Program that provides emergency assistance to keep people in their homes.

Nelson said individual donors have also become more reluctant to donate and often have cited its past troubles.

Without those contributions, a once full-service social service organization now focuses primarily on its remaining youth after-school and summer programs.

For the 270 children involved in the summer, Nelson said the programs work well, as evidenced by 62 percent of its participants showing improvements in assessment scores.

The unique aspects of the programs are that they are free and serve ethnically and socioeconomically diverse populations of the Quad-Cities.

There are a lot of other programs, but most of them cost money, Nelson said. For the other ones, theres a limited number that can be served. Where are those kids going to go for free?

If nothing changes, Nelson admitted United Neighbors could close.

From the board's perspective, the frustrating part has been that it has cleaned house and installed leadership committed to the organization's mission of helping people, but they say they are being punished for transparency.

Board members are frantically trying to raise funds to save the agency, president Frank Berka said in a statement to the Quad-City Times. All major donors have refused to give funds because Evelyn was honest and forthright about the misdeeds of the former staff.

Were asking the community to step forward to help support the agency. Its unfortunate that kids and the community are going to suffer because of these actions.
Kraft Heinz said Friday that when it moves from its Rockingham Road factory in Davenport to its new facility at the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center, it will have a full-time hourly work force of about 700 people.

That's about 200 full-time employees fewer than the number currently on the job, the company said, but it's above the 475 minimum that the company guaranteed it would retain when it secured state and local incentives in late 2015.

There had been as many as 1,400 people working at the plant two years ago.

"We currently employ about 888 hourly employees. Moving to our new Davenport facility will allow for the retention of about 700 full-time hourly employees once the original factory closes  significantly more than the 475 initially disclosed to the Iowa Economic Development Authority," Kraft Heinz spokesman Michael Mullen said Friday in an email to the Quad-City Times.

He added the move also will reduce the company's current salaried population by about a third, from 66 to 45.

"For these employees, we will offer severance benefits, outplacement services and other support to help them pursue new job opportunities," Mullen said.

The question of how many people would continue to work at the new Kraft Heinz plant has been unanswered for two years, ever since the company announced it would invest $203 million in a new facility to replace the current one.

The announcement came as part of a wider restructuring of Kraft Heinz's operations in North America that, at the time, the company said would result in 2,600 fewer jobs and the closing of six plants in the United States and one in Canada.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority approved $1.75 million in tax credits for the development, as well as a $3 million forgivable loan for the demolition of the plant on Rockingham Road.

The city of Davenport also approved an estimated $10 million in tax increment financing over 15 years. In addition, the state and city were pooling another $5.8 million to build a road near the new plant.

Officials at the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 431, couldn't be immediately reached for comment Friday. But the local's president, Jerry Messer, said earlier this month that he'd heard the number of employees at the new plant would be about 700.

"It's better than 400. Hopefully, there are plans for expansion," he said.

In his email, Mullen said that two product categories in Davenport have transitioned or will move to other factories. The Lunchable category concluded in November, 2016, he said, while Oscar Mayer Bologna is exiting "sometime in mid- to late-2018."

Mullen said that the new factory was completed in the fall and is operational. "Both facilities currently are producing a variety of Oscar Mayer meats," he said

Earlier this month, Davenport Community Planning and Economic Development Department Director Bruce Berger said that the city had been told the company had indicated its goal was to be fully operational by February, but that there was no requirement that it do so.

Berger said there has been some interest in the older factory on Rockingham Road, including the possibility of a commercial reuse, but he did not identify the prospects.

"There were more than one saying they were interested. Whether they pursued it with the company or not, I dont know," he said.

In the aftermath of the 2015 announcement, there was debate whether it was appropriate for the state to offer incentives because the company was downsizing its operations.

Critics said the incentives amounted to underwriting a net loss of jobs. But state and local officials defended the move, saying it was better to keep some jobs, rather than lose them all.
Moline's former Grant Elementary School  one of eight buildings closed by the Moline-Coal Valley District during the tough economic times of the 1980s  is thriving as the Quad-Cities Autism Center.

The nonprofit center was founded and is directed by Michelle Smyth, whose son has autism, and it fills the entire building with bright, colorful classrooms and other training space.

Over the past 11 years, the center has served 150 children, ages 18 months to 12 years, with one-to-one, research-based instruction to develop and enhance their lives, Smyth said. At any one time, the center enrolls about 25 children, and there is a 12-month waiting list, she said.

The center also provides education, guidance and resources for parents.

In 2015, the Moline-Coal Valley District closed Ericsson and Garfield elementary schools, moving students to the expanded Hamilton School.

Ericsson, 335 5th Ave., was purchased for $50,000 in 2015 by Heritage Church, which operates several campuses in the Quad-Cities. The school became the Esperanza Center, serving the Floreciente community.

Garfield, 1518 25th Ave., was sold for $75,000 to Gorman & Co. for the possible use of senior housing. Gorman is the Wisconsin-based company that renovated the former (1914) Moline High School on 16th Street into 60 loft apartments, opening in 2007. It also built the new Moline Enterprise Lofts along the riverfront. At present, though, Garfield is vacant.

Following is a closer look at what has happened to Moline schools:

When the eight-building closure occurred in 1983, school and city officials held out hope that economic conditions might improve, and some of the schools might reopen.

In fact, that happened with one: Jane Addams, 3520 53rd St., reopened in 1992 and is still open today. Here is what happened to the others:

The former Coolidge Junior High, 34th Street and Avenue of the Cities, is still owned by the district and houses its alternative high school, the office of the Rock Island County Regional Office of Education and other office space, according to the district.

The former Jefferson, 30th Street and 26th Avenue Court, also is still owned by the district and is the Jefferson Early Childhood Center, according to the district.

Coal Valley South/Betsy Ross, 111 W. 23rd St., was sold to what is now Valley Meats Inc., and its new address is 2302 1st St., Coal Valley, according to a representative of Valley Meats.

McKinley School, 4108 5th Ave., is owned by a private individual, according to the Rock Island County Assessor's website.

Maple Grove School, 1535 36th Ave., was purchased by Grace Bible Fellowship Church and is used as a church, according to the church.

Grant School, 2450 6th Ave., is now the autism center. At first, though, it was purchased by the Moline Gospel Temple and housed Temple Christian High School.

When that use proved no longer viable, the building was turned into the New Hope Community Center, and various areas were turned into offices/work space for several nonprofit groups, said Smyth, of the autism center.

As those groups found other locations and the autism center continued to grow, the center decided, two years ago, to buy the building, she said.

A green canopy with a white New Hope sign still hangs over the main entrance, though. MGT New Hope is the new name for what formerly was the Moline Gospel Temple. The initials are a nod to its heritage.

William Carr School, 707 19th Ave., was demolished and the site is occupied by the Salvation Army Family Store and Donation Center and has the address of 701 19th Ave., according to the district.

Going further back

Irving School, 701 12th St., and Lincoln School, 1015 16th Ave., closed as schools in 1970, moving students to a new, bigger school on the Lincoln site called Lincoln-Irving, according to the district.

The land where Irving stood is now the site of the Trimble Funeral Home & Crematory at Trimble Pointe.

Coal Valley North, a kindergarten-second grade school, 411 E. 19th Ave., Coal Valley, was demolished in 1976 and was replaced that year with Bicentennial School, 1004 1st St., Coal Valley. The land of the former school is now the site of a single-family home, according to the Rock Island County assessor's website.

Black Hawk Elementary, 4000 11th St., closed in 1985. It now is owned and operated by Quad-City Christian School, according to the district.

Horace Mann, 3601 69th Ave., closed in 2009, with students moving to the expanded Bicentennial School. The district still owns the building and leases it to Camelot Therapeutic School.

More about the former Moline High School

Former Moline High School closed when the current Moline High School on Avenue of the Cities opened in 1958.

Before the old building was renovated into its current apartments, it was home to Moline Community College, the forerunner of what is now Black Hawk College. When Black Hawk moved to 34th Avenue, the building served as home to Beling Consultants.

After Beling merged with Raymond Professional Group, the building was put up for sale in 2000. A large fire in 2003 had many in the community wondering if the landmark building had a future.

In 2005, Gorman came to the rescue with a $9.4 million public/private investment that included the city of Moline and the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

In doing its work, Gorman preserved the building's original grand entrance, terrazzo floors, monumental stairways, period lighting fixtures, chalkboards and wall sculptures.
For historic preservationists, the demolition of two schools in the Rock Island-Milan School District  the former Lincoln in 2012 and Audubon in 2013  was heart-rending.

In both cases, they argued the schools could have, in time, been converted to other uses.

Audubon Elementary, 26th Street and 18th Avenue, opened in 1922, was closed in 2009 and was demolished in 2013. Demolition came after a plan by the district to sell the property to Fareway Stores, Inc. for a grocery store was derailed by objections of neighbors and others.

Original Lincoln School, 2125 7th Ave., opened in 1894, was closed in 1980, and was demolished in 2012.

The three-story brick-and-limestone landmark had been essentially vacant since it closed. It was designated a city landmark in 1984 and, through the years, several entities tried unsuccessfully to redevelop it.

The city purchased it in 2007, hoping to find a developer. Meanwhile, the building continued to deteriorate, and the city council voted in 2012 that it no longer could justify spending money on it.

Here is a look at other district schools that have closed since 1960:

Central Junior High, 2100 6th Ave., opened in 1937 and has had numerous uses through the years, including as the "new" Lincoln Elementary School. The building currently is vacant, except for the food-production area. It is still being used as the district's central food service, with meals transported from there to other schools. A former manual arts building on the north side of 6th Avenue is used as the district administration center.

Franklin Junior High School, 11th Avenue and 9th Street, opened in 1916, closed in 1981 and was demolished in 1990.

W.L. Eddy Elementary, 111 W. 2nd St., Milan, closed in 1992 and was sold to Kar Mart, a used-car store.

Grant School, 600 11th Ave., closed as an elementary school in 2005 but is still owned by the district and operates as the Thurgood Marshall Learning Center.

Horace Mann, 339 38th Ave, closed as an elementary school but is still owned by the district and operates as the Horace Mann Early Learning Center.
It is disappointing to hear prominent figures, including Iowas senior U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, defending the proposed tax reform bill working its way through Congress that appears calculated to provide a substantial Christmas gift to Americas wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Virtually every independent analysis of the legislation concludes the primary beneficiaries of this bill will be the richest in America  folks who already possess the greatest concentration of wealth since the days of Robber Barons more than 100 years ago, and who are already paying at some of the lowest income tax rates in the last 80 years.

Not only would this so-called tax reform concentrate even more wealth in the hands of a few, but the moderate cuts for middle class taxpayers would largely evaporate for many within a few years. Meanwhile, the federal deficits would soar, with the active support of alleged fiscal conservatives.

One of the more offensive parts of this tax scheme is the proposed elimination of the estate tax, which Sen. Grassley defends. Already a married couple enjoys a nearly $11 million exemption, meaning only couples with more than $11 million in assets have to pay these taxes now. One proposal in Congress would increase this to $22 million; while Sen. Grassley would eliminate it all together. Do we want an aristocracy in America? This would create it.

As to arguments this protects small farmers and businesses, consider this: with the current $11 million exemption, farmers could own up to 1,100 acres of just farmland with prices at $10,000 an acre without any tax liability. At $5,000 an acre this could exempt up to a 2,200 acre farm. Not exactly a small farm - particularly considering the average farm size in Iowa in 2014 was just 345 acres. And under current law, businesses and farms already have the option of taking special use valuation, which can significantly lower a farm or other business value for estate tax purposes if it is being run as a family operation by succeeding generations.

This proposed tax reform needs to be seen for what it truly is: a bald-faced effort to transfer even greater wealth to the richest and most powerful at the expense of working men and women. Related Republican proposals for budget cuts in health care, such as Medicare, environmental, and consumer safeguards, as well as substantial increases to the national debt just add insult to injury.

It has become popular, particularly for one political party, to treat taxes as a dirty word. Yet taking from the hard-pressed workers of America to give to a handful of ridiculously rich folks is far dirtier.

Iowas senior senator may be surprised to hear it is not just the poor who spend money on booze and women. So do the idle rich. And the poor dont spend their money on private jets, fast cars and foreign investment funds as do many wealthy Americans, including Donald Trump.

What is particularly disappointing is that Sen. Grassley is old enough and experienced enough to know better. Perhaps he and his colleagues need to pay less attention to the billionaires from Texas and Wall Street, and more to the working folks back home who will pay for this so-called tax reform.
Now that deep-red Alabama has elected pro-abortion Democrat Doug Jones to the Senate -- defeating teen-trolling Republican Roy Moore -- the air is full of severed political scalps.

The scalp-waving thing is expected after such a historic defeat. And a Republican losing to a pro-abortion Democrat in Alabama is historic indeed.

But the main takeaway here is that Alabama is a conservative Republican state. And many conservatives just couldn't vote for Moore with those questions about his character.

Much of the scalp-waving is ferocious and somewhat entertaining, especially the naked, tribal glee of the elites in the Democratic Media Complex, reveling over President Donald Trump's abject defeat.

Trump twice lost in Alabama, first backing the failed and aptly named Luther Strange, and then Moore, the alleged onetime predator of teenage girls. Now the president must curry favor with anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate.

Look up and see those scalps being shaken in angry tribal fists. There's that thick shag of Moore supporter and Republican populist Steve Bannon, and the thin orange locks of Trump, who listened to Bannon and endorsed Moore in the final days.

And somewhere, the thin, dry pate of establishment GOP Senate boss Mitch McConnell is up on a pointed stick.

It was McConnell who set this debacle in motion, originally backing a pliant minion, the aforementioned Strange, who was rejected in the Alabama GOP Senate primary.

So McConnell's wispy hairs belong up there too, along with the other Republican totems, waving in the breeze.

While scalp-waving is fun, it is agenda-driven and often obscures reality. But if there's one thing that should come out of Alabama unobscured, it's this: Conservative Alabama Republicans, routinely ridiculed by coastal media elites as deplorable, deserve the admiration and praise of the nation. Because enough of them saw who Moore really was, and either stayed away from the polls or voted for another candidate.

Jones ran a credible campaign that used the allegations of sexual predation against Moore.

But Jones also used Moore's statements against him, such as Moore's ridiculous notion that slavery helped keep black families intact. Such idiocy clearly boosted turnout among traditional Democratic groups, particularly black voters.

And suburban women, and younger, college-educated suburban evangelical Christians, were turned off by Moore. That's what should worry the national GOP: Suburban women and the apparent generational divide among evangelicals.

Still, there are enough Alabama Republicans to have voted Moore in, if only to protect conservative GOP policy goals in the Senate, including tax cuts and the future of the Supreme Court. It was this utilitarian argument for Moore that was fronted by Trump and Bannon. That argument was rejected.

Placing policy over character isn't anything new. Like postelection scalp-waving and presidential tweets, it's a part of today's politics.

Democrats are seemingly all about character now, aren't they? They're awash in moral righteousness when it comes to alleged pawing of women. But for decades, character wasn't worth two dried figs to them.

It was policy and power that mattered, and Democrats metaphorically fell on their knees before the Clintons, year after year. If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, there wouldn't be any "reckoning" over Bill.

But it's all different now, isn't it? And all this newfound moral rectitude, the kind loudly expressed by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand -- until quite recently a shameless Bill Clinton toady without peer -- should be obvious to those who can see.

It is cynical positioning before the 2018 midterm elections, because it's all about using allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump. But who says cynical attacks don't work? Ask the president about Sen. Ted Cruz's father.

In Alabama, enough conservatives decided they just couldn't go for Moore, despite the Trump pleas, despite policy implications of the election for the Senate, with its razor-thin GOP majority.

So they stayed home and didn't vote. Or they voted for the write-in protest candidate. And some voted for Jones.

Not enough came out for Moore. And that was the difference.

If U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks had been the Republican candidate, there wouldn't have been a contest. He'd be Alabama senator-elect today.

But Brooks, a conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus, wasn't to Mitch McConnell's liking. McConnell likes his Republicans without much of a backbone.

McConnell's ways are not mysterious. He thought Strange would defeat Moore. He is not infallible.

There are many ways to parse election returns to prove your politics. But in such a red state as Alabama, it's obvious that many Republicans just didn't believe Moore's denials.

How red is Alabama? The former senator, now Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions, ran unopposed in 2014.

Alabama hasn't had a Democratic senator for a quarter-century. In most other years, a Democrat couldn't hope to win a Senate seat.

That's how red it is.

But this year, enough conservatives turned away from their party to make the critical difference. It wasn't a policy election. It was a character election.

Now Moore is free to ride his horse and disappear from public view.

And the people of Alabama have proved that in some places, character still counts after all.
Two special elections this week in conservative strongholds --- one in western Iowa, another in Americas deep South --- have given Iowa Democrats more reason to be excited about the 2018 elections.

As politicos and prognosticators continue to wonder whether a blue wave looms in next years elections, Iowa Democrats this week received a double shot of evidence to bolster their hopes.

Although at least one of those election results comes with a caveat.

In a closely watched and highly contested special election for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama, the Democrat Doug Jones upset Republican Roy Moore, becoming the first Democrat in 25 years elected to represent Alabama in the Senate.

Jones victory has Democrats soaring and believing it is yet another signal that their party is poised to make great gains in the 2018 elections, that voters are rejecting Republican policies and the actions and statements of GOP President Donald Trump.

Democrats feel they are starting to stack success. They won contested gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and now won a Senate seat in a deep red state.

But the latest victory, just like those in Virginia and New Jersey, comes with a disclaimer.

Moore was supported by the national party and Trump, so Democrats see their victory as a rejection of Trump and national GOP policies. While that may be true to a certain extent, Moore also was a fatally flawed candidate: He has been accused by multiple women of having an inappropriate romantic relationship with them when they were underage.

While Democrats were able to motivate and turn out voters, its also true that Moore did not solidify full support of Alabama Republicans. Nearly 23,000 write-in votes were cast, according to data on the Alabama Secretary of State website. That number is larger than the margin by which Jones defeated Moore.

So while Democrats are justified in celebrating their success in Alabama, the quality of Moores candidacy clearly impacted this race. The result may not necessarily be a predictor of election results to come.

Iowa Democrats also this week were excited by a special election for a seat in the Iowa Senate, even though the partys candidate lost to the Republican.

In northwest Iowa, Republican Jim Carlin defeated Democrat Todd Wendt. But it was the margin that encouraged Iowa Democrats: in a Senate district were Republican active voters outnumber Democrats by 22.6 percentage points and Trump won in 2016 by 41 points, the GOP candidate in this weeks special election won by just 9.1 points.

While we came up short (in the special election), Democrats made considerable gains and demonstrated that we can and will fight for every district, every county, and every precinct in Iowa and elect more representatives who will put people first and respect Iowa values, Iowa Democratic Party chairman Troy Price said in a statement.

Whether these actual and moral victories portend big things for Democrats in 2018, as has been written here before, remains to be seen. But as the success begins to stack, Democrats grow more hopeful that a blue wave is rolling in.

Trump's approval in Iowa drops

A new Iowa Poll, published this past week by the Des Moines Register, shows Trumps job approval numbers slipping.

Sixty percent of Iowans said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and 60 percent disapprove of Trumps job performance, according to poll results published by the Register.

Those are big numbers in a state that Trump won in 2016.

And Trumps approval numbers are getting worse. From the Iowa Poll in July to the new poll published this past week, Trumps job approval in Iowa went from 43 percent to 35 percent, and disapproval went from 52 percent to 60 percent, the Register reported.

The new poll also contained one number that had to be concerning for Republicans in Iowas Congressional delegation: 40 percent of Iowans said they would prefer to elect a Democrat to Congress vs. 34 percent who said they would prefer a Republican. Those numbers surely grabbed the attention of campaign staff in Iowas 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts, which historically have been competitive.
The Winter Soltice skies above Agate Fossil Beds National Park will be on display and the focus of a Night Sky program Saturday from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Rangers Alvis Mar and Tony Mincu will take visitors on a tour of the Winter Solstice night skies. Learn about the Winter Solstice, multicultural interpretation of the stars and the night sky. Also the Geminid Meteor Showers will be visible. Tips about night sky photography will also be available.

The visitor center will be open from 8 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. on that day. Starting in the visitor center at 5:30 p.m. the rangers will lead a discussion about the Winter Solstice, shooting stars and the multicultural interpretation of stars and the night sky over the centuries. Then view the celestial objects in the sky, receive tips on night sky photography from Tony Mincu and finish the evening by 7:30 p.m. with smores.

Visitors are encouraged to be prepared for an excellent night time learning experience by dressing for the weather, bringing their camera and a tri-pod, and a flashlight. A red balloon, provided by the park, will allow use of a flashlight to see but not hamper night vision. Spend some time with your camera before the program to learn where your cameras manual settings are located and how to attach to a tripod.

Tony Mincu is a Renaissance man, former Paramedic, Police Prosecutor and Town Manager in various mid-sized towns. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts with a BA in History. He returned to graduate school 20 years later and earned a JD (Juris Doctor) from the University of New Hampshire. Mincu has a passion for history, old things, and anything having to do with the outdoors, as well as photographing everything he sees in nature, including the night sky.

Alvis Mar, Lead Interpretive Ranger, has worked in several national parks over the years including Yosemite, Great Smoky Mountains and the NPS Midwest Regional Office in Omaha. Because Mar grew up in a light polluted city, he has always enjoyed the amazing night skies in national parks.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is located just 22 miles south of Harrison, or 34 miles north of Mitchell, Nebraska, on State Highway 29, then east on River Road for three miles to the visitor center. The visitor center is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., daily. The parks two trails are open from dawn to dusk. Admission to Agate Fossil Beds is free. For more information, call 308-668-2211, go to www.nps.gov/agfo.
PIERRE | The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Commission learned Thursday that state officials spent $1,700 on 200 signs to mark waters off-limits to the public.

The purchase was part of state's response to a new law regulating use of nonmeandered waters that belong to the public but sit above private land. The Legislature approved the law during a June special session.

Kevin Robling, GF&P special projects coordinator, updated the commission regarding the law. So far everything has been moving in a very positive direction, he said.

There have been nine closures of nonmeandered water bodies so far.

Commissioner Doug Sharp of Watertown asked Robling to clarify for the commission how much was spent for signs and buoys.

Robling explained the sign purchase and said the landowners pay for buoys that are placed in the water. He explained that a GF&P website provides recommendations for anchoring buoys, marking waters and purchasing buoys.

The department has a small supply of buoys that could be loaned to landowners until purchases were made, he said. Theyre just on hand in case we need to close a water body immediately, Robling said. The landowner then would be expected to purchase permanent buoys, he said.

A department employee is diligently working on potential agreements with landowners to open their waters, Robling said.

He asked the commission to set a March 1 contested-case hearing for a petition seeking to close part of Goose Lake in Codington County.

The commission at its November meeting denied an application to close water on Cattail Lake and Kettle Lake. The Legislature specifically designated the water to remain open unless the commission agreed with a petition to close it. The petition came from Cattail Lake Land and Cattle Co. near Langford.

Commission chairman Barry Jensen of White River read a summary of the Cattail-Kettle denial and signed the documents. They are available to the public if they wish to read those, Jensen said.

The law contains a sunset clause requiring its automatic repeal in 2018 unless the Legislature reauthorizes it.

GF&P Secretary Kelly Hepler told the commission Thursday that Gov. Dennis Daugaard plans legislation that would change the sunset date to 2021.

We think that would give us some more time to work with the landowners, Hepler said.
A Rapid City-based South Dakota Army National Guard unit has been ordered to mobilize for deployment to the Middle East beginning in June 2018.

The 28-member Detachment 1, Company B, 935th Aviation Support Battalion is scheduled for a nine-month deployment to provide aviation maintenance and repair support for U.S. Army helicopters and avionics systems.

This will be the second mobilization for the unit, which deployed to the Middle East in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2012-13.

The unit will report to Fort Hood, Texas, to complete several weeks of training prior to deployment overseas.
Yellowstone County District Court Judge Ingrid Gustafson has been named to the Montana Supreme Court.

Gov. Steve Bullock made the announcement late Thursday afternoon after notifying Gustafson. Gustafson fills the seat vacated by Mike Wheat, who announced his retirement in August. Wheat plans to leave Dec. 31.

Reached Thursday evening, after spending an afternoon on the bench, Gustafson said she was honored.

Im seeing this as a new challenge, and Ill work hard at it, and I hope Ill do a good job for the people of Montana, Gustafson said.

The announcement creates a new opening for the 13th Judicial District, bringing to three the number of judgeships needing to be filled in Yellowstone County in the next year. (The Legislature approved funding for two new district court judges who will run for election in 2018.)

Just three weeks ago, the district swore in its newest judge, Don Harris, who was appointed to succeed Russell Fagg. Fagg retired in October to run for the U.S. Senate.

Gustafson was notified during a brief phone call from the governor around 3 p.m., and then she went directly into drug court. Her phone was full of missed calls and congratulatory text messages. Drug court members congratulated her at the end of the hearing.

Gustafson earned her bachelor's degree in science from Montana State University and her law degree from the University of Montana.

She has been a district court judge since January 2004, when she was appointed by then-Gov. Judy Martz. She was elected later that year, and re-elected in 2006 and 2012. Gustafson started Yellowstone Countys first felony drug court and was a member of the Commission on Sentencing, a multi-agency effort over the past two years to reform the states criminal justice system.

Gustafson will have to run for election in 2018 to retain the seat. Whoever wins that race will serve until January 2023.

The position pays $144,066 a year.
Blog Archive November 2022 (35) October 2022 (61) September 2022 (60) August 2022 (63) July 2022 (65) June 2022 (68) May 2022 (67) April 2022 (62) March 2022 (68) February 2022 (54) January 2022 (61) December 2021 (70) November 2021 (72) October 2021 (67) September 2021 (59) August 2021 (56) July 2021 (57) June 2021 (66) May 2021 (63) April 2021 (75) March 2021 (73) February 2021 (61) January 2021 (69) December 2020 (62) November 2020 (62) October 2020 (70) September 2020 (51) August 2020 (52) July 2020 (60) June 2020 (57) May 2020 (79) April 2020 (56) March 2020 (52) February 2020 (50) January 2020 (69) December 2019 (58) November 2019 (64) October 2019 (44) September 2019 (49) August 2019 (71) July 2019 (71) June 2019 (71) May 2019 (67) April 2019 (74) March 2019 (85) February 2019 (64) January 2019 (73) December 2018 (66) November 2018 (81) October 2018 (87) September 2018 (66) August 2018 (76) July 2018 (84) June 2018 (86) May 2018 (64) April 2018 (83) March 2018 (78) February 2018 (69) January 2018 (69) December 2017 (82) November 2017 (87) October 2017 (89) September 2017 (77) August 2017 (75) July 2017 (76) June 2017 (90) May 2017 (86) April 2017 (59) March 2017 (61) February 2017 (82) January 2017 (91) December 2016 (90) November 2016 (80) October 2016 (75) September 2016 (95) August 2016 (104) July 2016 (93) June 2016 (96) May 2016 (98) April 2016 (99) March 2016 (113) February 2016 (82) January 2016 (98) December 2015 (113) November 2015 (94) October 2015 (93) September 2015 (98) August 2015 (97) July 2015 (105) June 2015 (103) May 2015 (95) April 2015 (100) March 2015 (102) February 2015 (93) January 2015 (114) December 2014 (110) November 2014 (103) October 2014 (105) September 2014 (96) August 2014 (96) July 2014 (112) June 2014 (119) May 2014 (109) April 2014 (116) March 2014 (117) February 2014 (109) January 2014 (116) December 2013 (117) November 2013 (121) October 2013 (125) September 2013 (93) August 2013 (115) July 2013 (110) June 2013 (102) May 2013 (115) April 2013 (113) March 2013 (119) February 2013 (108) January 2013 (119) December 2012 (132) November 2012 (115) October 2012 (121) September 2012 (115) August 2012 (124) July 2012 (102) June 2012 (121) May 2012 (121) April 2012 (127) March 2012 (130) February 2012 (112) January 2012 (131) December 2011 (129) November 2011 (118) October 2011 (118) September 2011 (110) August 2011 (138) July 2011 (146) June 2011 (139) May 2011 (144) April 2011 (127) March 2011 (140) February 2011 (116) January 2011 (134) December 2010 (133) November 2010 (136) October 2010 (148) September 2010 (128) August 2010 (155) July 2010 (129) June 2010 (138) May 2010 (152) April 2010 (161) March 2010 (119) February 2010 (149) January 2010 (155) December 2009 (177) November 2009 (171) October 2009 (176) September 2009 (159) August 2009 (156) July 2009 (170) June 2009 (157) May 2009 (185) April 2009 (179) March 2009 (183) February 2009 (170) January 2009 (181) December 2008 (189) November 2008 (183) October 2008 (164) September 2008 (164) August 2008 (177) July 2008 (179) June 2008 (170) May 2008 (191) April 2008 (175) March 2008 (195) February 2008 (162) January 2008 (188) December 2007 (187) November 2007 (189) October 2007 (194) September 2007 (156) August 2007 (194) July 2007 (163) June 2007 (176) May 2007 (190) April 2007 (177) March 2007 (192) February 2007 (165) January 2007 (170) December 2006 (182) November 2006 (177) October 2006 (185) September 2006 (180) August 2006 (156) July 2006 (160) June 2006 (177) May 2006 (173) April 2006 (157) March 2006 (158) February 2006 (146) January 2006 (144) December 2005 (135) November 2005 (138) October 2005 (128) September 2005 (141) August 2005 (136) July 2005 (133) June 2005 (119) May 2005 (143) April 2005 (52)
By Pramod Jaiswal/IPCS

The Left Alliance made a clean sweep in Nepals recently held provincial and federal elections. It is speculated that the Chairman of Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), KP Sharmal Oli, would lead the government and the Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Center (CPN-MC), Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, would be the chairman of the new Nepal Communist Party, formed after the merger of CPN-UML and CPN-MC. The election results also show that six out of the seven provinces would have a leftist government.

What were the reasons for the rise of the left in Nepal? What would the future political course in Nepal be? How will the new government deal with its two neighbours, India and China?

Rise of the Left

The chances of forming the government was nearly certain when the two biggest left parties  the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC  announced the formation of an alliance ahead of provincial and federal elections. Both parties were the second and third largest force in the parliament respectively. They also announced that they would work for their formal merger after the election.

There are numerous reasons for the left alliances thumping victory. Foremost of them was the agenda of development and political stability. In the last ten years, Nepal has had ten prime ministers. Due to lack of political stability, Nepal failed to experience development. Hence, it was most appealing to the people. The people were more convinced as they came with a common manifesto and had already announced the merger both parties after election.

The second factor was the image of KP Sharma Oli as the nationalist leader among the hill voters. Third, there was precise calculation in candidate allocation and election management. The leaders continued rigorous election campaign in spite of their health issues and personal tragedies. Similarly, the Nepali Congresss lack of leadership and clear agenda also helped the left. The Nepali Congresss duality during the unofficial blockade failed to impress both hill and Madhesi voters. While hill voters accused them of not speaking against a hidden Indian hand during the blockade, the Madhesi accused them of not standing with them. Moreover, incumbent Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba failed to deliver during his tenure and was mired in several controversies which made him quite unpopular.

Challenges to the Left

There are three major challenges for the left alliance: The first and most immediate challenge would be of dealing with the power sharing. The CPN-UML and the CPN-MC had shared seats in a ratio of 60:40 for the polls. Hence, both parties would claim share in the same proportion while forming the government and the new party after the merger. Though Oli and Prachanda would be able to deal with power sharing in the government, it is yet to see how they would meet the challenges of the unification of the parties, because apart from ideological differences  which is prime among the left parties  they would have to resist tremendous pressure during the management of leaders and cadres from their parties.

The second major challenge to the left would be managing the neighbours. It is an open secret that KP Sharma Oli and India do not enjoy good relations. The relations between the two countries were at their lowest during his tenure as the prime minister. Oli signed several agreements with China to challenge Indias predominant position in Nepal. India sees him as anti-India and pro-China, and suspects a Chinese ploy behind the left alliance. Hence, it would be a herculean task for the Oli government to convince and bring India into its favour.

On the other hand, it is expected that relations between Nepal and China would meet new heights. Chinese President Xi Jinping might visit Kathmandu within a few months and announce several projects under Beijings Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Railway connectivity between China and Nepal would be significant.

The third major challenge would be addressing the grievances of its long-marginalised communities, which, if left unaddressed, could lead to renewed conflicts. Some of the demands of marginalised groups in the Terai region, including Madhesis and Tharus, are still unaddressed. The Madhesi parties also performed well in the elections. The Nepali Congress and Madhesi parties would form a strong opposition. Failure to manage the opposition will affect delivery on the left governments part. Moreover, it is rather alarming that not a single voter turned up for polling at Mahadeva Village, Saptari, owing to CK Rauts call. CK Raut is Madhesi secession activist who was later arrested for carrying out anti-election activities and calling people to boycott voting.

The Way Forward

Though the CPN-UML has emerged as the largest political party, it is highly unlikely that it might grab a simple majority to form the government. Hence, the alliance of the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC is inevitable.

However, even after the merger, the left parties might not get two-third majority, which would mean theycannot fiddle with the constitution. They would require the help of the Madhesis or the Nepali Congress to make any amendments to the constitution. Thus, there will be checks and balances.

Most probably, India and Oli might improve their relations as it will be mutually beneficial. On the other hand, India should stop betting on the old horse as the Nepali Congress lacks proper leadership at the moment. It should improve its relations with all the political parties and cultivate them to serve its national interest, rather than favouring one party. Oli would fail to deliver on the promise of a stable government and development if he fails to balance both its neighbours. If India fails to cultivate good relations with the left, it might lose its geopolitical advantages in Nepal and is bound to adopt a defensive approach vis-a-vis with China.

Pramod Jaiswal is the Visiting Research Fellow, IReS, IPCS
BEIJING: Chinese authorities have commandeered supplies of natural gas to heat homes, forcing chemical plants and factories to shut down, after efforts to clear smog-choked air by banning coal use backfired by causing energy shortages in frigid weather.

The disruption highlights the governments difficulties in its campaign to clean up Chinas smog-choked cities and reduce reliance on coal.

The latest shortages stem from Beijings effort since 2013 to shift 3 million households in Chinas north to gas. That boosted demand while supplies failed to keep pace.

The overall economic impact is unclear, but gas supplies to factories and other industrial users in areas throughout China have been reduced or cut off.

The situation is quite serious due to the suspension of gas supplies to industrial and commercial consumers in hopes of meeting the demand from civilian use, said Chen Yunying, a gas industry analyst for ICIS in Shanghai.

On Tuesday, German chemical giant BASF invoked force majeure, or forces beyond its control, for a disruption in supplies of MDI, an ingredient in polyurethane used in packaging, from its facility in Chongqing in the southwest. BASF said it had no word when gas supplies would resume.

The gas company in the central city of Wuhan, a center for auto manufacturing and other industries, announced last week supplies to commercial customers were being shut off to ensure peoples basic needs.

China, the worlds biggest energy consumer, is investing heavily in solar, wind and other renewable energy to help clean up its despoiled environment. But it is forecast to rely on coal for at least two-thirds of its energy for the foreseeable future.

On Monday, the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank announced it approved a $250 million loan to connect some 220,000 rural Chinese households to a natural gas distribution network

State-owned energy companies have invested billions of dollars to develop shale gas and other sources, but supplies have failed to keep pace with surging demand.

Total gas consumption from January to August rose 17.8 percent from a year earlier, outstripping a 10.8 percent production increase, according to a Cabinet planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission.

Combined with unexpectedly low imports, that left China with a 10 billion-cubic-meter shortfall this winter, according to Chen of ICIS. He said that compares with total annual consumption of about 220-230 billion cubic meters.

News reports say the swift switch in northern China left some households without heat after coal was banned.

The business news magazine Caixin said its reporters found nearly half the 300 households in Zhouzhou, a village in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, had no heating for several weeks in temperatures as low as -6 C (21 F). It said farm families had been ordered to dismantle coal-fired furnaces before gas pipelines were laid to their homes.

The governments effort to shift from coal to gas as an energy source is a good policy that can improve air quality, said Chen of ICIS. But during implementation, some governments went too far and rushed to cut coal supplies when they hadnt found supplemental gas supplies yet.

The city government of Beijing, which in March closed its last coal-fired power plant, issued an emergency order last week to restart a coal-burning generator.

Natural gas supplies about 7 percent of Chinas total energy, according to the government. Beijing wants to raise that to 10 percent by 2020 and to 15 percent by 2030, according to the NDRC.

Chinas annual gas production is forecast to more than double to 340 billion cubic meters in 2040, with shale gas a major contributor, according to a report this week by the International Energy Agency. But it said consumption should grow even faster, reaching 600 billion cubic meters.

To boost imports, government oil companies are spending billions of dollars to build pipelines from gas fields in Russia and Central Asia.

On Wednesday, China National Petroleum Corp. announced it was speeding up laying pipe for a 3,371-kilometer-long line from Russia. Construction began in 2015 and is due to be finished in 2020.

Imports of Russian gas will have far-reaching significance for optimizing Chinas energy structure, cutting emissions and improving air quality, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Guwahati : A delegation from the Japanese Self Defence Force visited the world renowned Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare (CIJW) School on December 12-14, 2017.

This visit holds special significance, seen in the light of growing defence ties between India and Japan.

Kohima based Defence PRO Colonel Chiranjeet Konwer said that, in recent years, there has been an increasing role of various militaries in Counter Terrorism and Counter Insurgency aspects, especially towards combating terrorism in the Arabian Peninsula.

Japan in its endeavors to enhance its contribution towards fighting Global terror, is also catering for its future.

The members of the delegation during their visit were introduced to the infrastructure of the CIJW School and its functioning.

The visit concluded with an open house discussion with the faculty and interaction with Maj Gen MS Ghura, VSM the Commandant CIJW School, where mementos were exchanged between the CIJW School and delegation.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Kathmandu, Nepal: With the Elections result come out, new form of debate has been emerged over the issue of formation of the government.

The issue of forming the national Assembly first or the government is emerged as the confronting issue.

As the UML has emerged as the largest party in the federal parliament and provincial elections, the UML has been insisting for forming government first rather than the National Assembly.

However, the Nepali Congress, the head of the incumbent government, has a claim that National Assembly should be formed first to fulfill the fundamental constitutional procedure to for the government.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has requested the President Bidya Devi Bhandari to authenticate the ordinance to ensure laws required to elect the National Assembly, which is pending since long.

During a meeting with state head on Thursday Prime Minister Deuba requested so stating that authentication of the ordinance is must to expedite the process to form a new government in accordance of the new mandate from the elections.

However, the UML has no patient to wait to form the government under its leadership. The legal experts have also divided over the issue.
Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Education Reporter

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.
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.
If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE).
 Does the election of Doug Jones in Alabama increase the prospects of federal statutory sentencing reform? | Main | Call for Papers associated with the Innocence Network Conference 

December 15, 2017

Looking at the changing demographics of modern mass incarceration

The Marshall Project has this notable new piece headlined "A Mass Incarceration Mystery: Why are black imprisonment rates going down? Four theories." Here is the start of the extended analysis along with the basics of the propounded "four theories":

One of the most damning features of the U.S. criminal justice system is its vast racial inequity. Black people in this country are imprisoned at more than 5 times the rate of whites; one in 10 black children has a parent behind bars, compared with about one in 60 white kids, according to the Stanford Center on Poverty & Inequality. The crisis has persisted for so long that it has nearly become an accepted norm. So it may come as a surprise to learn that for the last 15 years, racial disparities in the American prison system have actually been on the decline, according to a Marshall Project analysis of yearly reports by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBIs Uniform Crime Reporting system. Between 2000 and 2015, the imprisonment rate of black men dropped by more than 24 percent. At the same time, the white male rate increased slightly, the BJS numbers indicate. Among women, the trend is even more dramatic. From 2000 to 2015, the black female imprisonment rate dropped by nearly 50 percent; during the same period, the white female rate shot upward by 53 percent. As the nonprofit Sentencing Project has pointed out, the racial disparity between black and white womens incarceration was once 6 to 1. Now its 2 to 1. Similar patterns appear to hold for local jails, although the data are less reliable given the churn of inmates into and out of those facilities. Since 2000, the total number of black people in local detention has decreased from 256,300 to 243,400, according to BJS; meanwhile, the number of whites rose from 260,500 to 335,100. The charts below from the Vera Institute of Justicealso reveal significant drops in the jailing of blacks from New York to Los Angeles, coinciding with little change for whites. (In both the prison and jail data, the total number of incarcerated Latinos has increased, but their actual incarceration rate has remained steady or also fallen, attributable to their increasing numbers in the U.S. population generally.) Taken together, these statistics change the narrative of mass incarceration, and that may be one reason why the data has been widely overlooked in policy debates. The narrowing of the gap between white and black incarceration rates is definitely optimistic news," said John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert on trends in prison statistics. "But the racial disparity remains so vast that its pretty hard to celebrate. How exactly do you talk about less horrific?' According to Pfaff, Our inability to explain it suggests how poorly we understand the mechanics behind incarceration in general. In other words, how much of any shift in the imprisonment rate can be attributed to changes in demographics, crime rates, policing, prosecutors, sentencing laws and jail admissions versus lengths of stay? And is it even possible to know, empirically, whether specific reforms, such as implicit bias training, are having an effect on the trend line?.... [H]ere are four (not mutually exclusive or exhaustive) theories, compiled from our research and interviews with prison system experts, to explain the nearly two-decades-long narrowing of the racial gap in incarceration. 1) Crime, arrests and incarceration are declining overall.... 2) The war on drugs has shifted its focus from crack and marijuana to meth and opioids.... 3) White people have also faced declining socioeconomic prospects, leading to more criminal justice involvement.... 4) Criminal justice reform has been happening in cities, where more black people live, but not in rural areas.... Even with all of these factors at work, the racial inequity of the American prison system remains vast and continues to wreak devastation on black and Latino communities nationwide. At the current rate, the disparities would not fully disappear for many decades.

I think a lot of other possible factors may be at least marginally contributing to the changing demographics of prison populations between 2000 and 2015, factors ranging from more diversity in the ranks of police, prosecutors and the judiciary to greater concerns with sentencing decision-making (and advocacy) by courts (and lawyers). And perhaps readers have some additional (sensible?) theories on this front that could be shared in the comments.

December 15, 2017 at 10:51 AM | Permalink

Comments

The economy is going well.

In the 2010 Census, the white bastardy rate had shot up tp 40%. The social pathologies of black people, with their bastardy rate of 70%+ are spreading to white people due to the spread of progressive ideas. These ideas are causing bastardy then they complain about the resulting criminality and scapegoat racism. There is no racial difference sin criminality. Nor is racism a factor in the difference. Very dark skinned people from Africa outperformed white on the same 2010 census. They come from patriarchal families, are religious. They are the new Koreans.

Posted by: David Behar | Dec 15, 2017 3:34:02 PM

Disparity is one thing, raw numbers are another. That being said, opiate-related crimes is probably a major factor.

Posted by: Erik M | Dec 15, 2017 3:50:53 PM

"The economy is going well".

Well it is going well for some people. According to the UN, however, the USA has one of the greatest wealth disparities in the world ranking 29/34 among developed countries. Right up there with Mexico. So I don't see anything to brag about.

Posted by: Daniel | Dec 16, 2017 2:03:48 PM

From my perspective, the feds luvs them some kiddy-porn stings a whole bunch. They have fancy-pantsy-named task forces with local, state and federal cops trolling the net posing as 13-year-olds hotties who want to "be with" balding 53-year old fatties. Virtually all of my clients who fell for this farce were caucasian, and the Northern District of Texas relishes top of the guidelines (plus) sentences. These factors writ large could alter the federal demographics. Perhaps my anecdotal experience has been replicated? I've never discussed this theory with any of my colleagues.

Posted by: Mark M. | Dec 17, 2017 1:05:00 AM

I'd hang my hat on #s 2 and 4, and add a) generational cultural changes in the black community and b) a reduction in (though certainly not an eradication of) racist attitudes overall. A black youth who came of age in 1990 both came from and faced a vastly different world than young black folks today. After Rodney King, young black folks rioted. After Michael Brown, they organized.

Posted by: Scott Henson | Dec 17, 2017 9:07:37 AM

Post a comment
 Call for Papers associated with the Innocence Network Conference | Main | "Why hiring people with criminal records benefits all of us" 

December 15, 2017

Remarkable story of jury sentencing, jury actions and a victim's response from Virginia

A helpful reader made sure I did not miss this remarkable story from Virginia as reported in the Washington Post under the headline "First the jury convicted this 19-year-old maid for stealing. Then they took up a collection to pay her fine." Here are highlights:

After she was arrested, Mendez Ortega spent eight days in jail until she was released on $1,000 bond . The jury was not told that. The jury also was not told that Mendez Ortega apparently is not in the country legally, as Copeland said she was told by prosecutors, because it was not relevant to whether she stole the rings. I think its relevant to the case, Copeland said. She said the penalties of a felony conviction, such as not being able to vote or buy a gun, would not be actions available to an immigrant in the country illegally anyway.... The trial seemed utterly ordinary. A 19-year-old maid swiped a womans three rings worth at least $5,000 from a house she was cleaning in Fairfax City, Va., but later returned them after the police questioned her. She was charged with felony grand larceny. What the jury did was extraordinary. They felt bad for the young woman, pregnant with her second child, and agreed that she had made a dumb, youthful mistake. Reluctantly, they convicted her of the felony. But the fine they imposed was her daily pay as a maid, $60. And then they took up a collection and gave her the money to pay the fine. The general sentiment was she was a victim, too, said the jury foreman, Jeffery Memmott. Two of the women [jurors] were crying because of how bad they felt. One lady pulled out a $20 bill, and just about everybody chipped in. Memmott then contacted the public defender in the case, and went to the home of Sandra Mendez Ortega. He gave her the jurys collection, which totaled $80.... The two-day trial was held in July, but the sentencing was last Friday before Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Smith. Mendez Ortegas lawyer, assistant public defender Michael C. Cash, asked the judge to defer the case and not enter a conviction or sentence in light of the defendants actions and the jurys response. Smith declined, entered the conviction and imposed the $60 fine. Numerous veteran criminal lawyers, on both the prosecution and defense sides, said they had never heard of a case where a jury paid a defendants fine. A happy holiday story, right? Well what if youre the woman whose rings were stolen? Although she was not pleased when the jury returned from their deliberations with only a $60 fine for the felony conviction, crime victim Lisa Copeland was appalled when she learned that the jury had also paid the fine. I just pray that theyre never in my shoes, Copeland said. She said Mendez Ortega never accepted responsibility for the theft. If she had accepted accountability, I would be okay with all of this. The fact that she wont accept accountability makes it wrong. Copeland said Mendez Ortega told a series of lies from the start, and then unfurled a tragic life story that convinced the jury to impose a punishment of a $60 fine. I was outraged, Copeland said. I was just flabbergasted. I didnt think $60 equated to the crime at all. She did not know the jury had taken up a collection for Mendez Ortega until she was contacted by a reporter. The case began with Copelands discovery in September 2016 that her engagement and wedding rings were missing from the container where they were usually kept. The engagement ring had been her grandmothers, made in 1943, and the two rings were appraised at $5,000 in 1996, Copeland said. Copeland didnt realize a third, inexpensive ring had been taken until it was turned in.... At trial, the facts were not really in dispute. The jury did not hear from Mendez Ortega during the case in chief, but they were already sympathetic to her. We didnt feel she should have been tried and convicted, said Memmott, the foreman. We tried every way we could to find some way of not convicting her. But the legal standard was very clear. Two other jurors agreed that the felony conviction was appropriate, given the facts and the law. Lisa Copeland was amazed. The fact that she confessed, she said, and they didnt want to convict her? I dont get this. Thats basically saying its okay to steal. Then during the sentencing phase, Mendez Ortega took the stand. She faced a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. She told the jury she had dropped out of school after sixth grade, that she first became pregnant at 15, that she was pregnant again at 19 and had no job, according to court records. The whole time she was telling the sob story, Lisa Copeland said, I looked at my husband and said, Ive heard enough of this.' She noted that after Mendez Ortega took the rings, she lied to the cops, she lied to her employers. She didnt turn in the rings, she made somebody else do it. She confessed, but claimed that the rings were in the bathroom. And then she tried to blame her boss. When the jury went back to deliberate on a sentence, the jurors said they quickly agreed that no jail time was appropriate, and that only a small fine should be imposed. We all came to the conclusion, Memmott said, we should fine her the amount she made for a days work.... The degree of empathy that was shown by these citizens, said a third juror who asked to remain nameless, and the serious way everybody took their responsibility, was really remarkable.

Remarkable is the word I would attach to every part of this story, while also noting that this would only be possible in a jurisdiction like Virginia that includes a system of jury sentencing. Interestingly, this story does not speak to whether or how the victim here spoke during the trial/sentencing proceedings. I am pretty sure victims in Virginia have a right to speak at sentencing, and I wonder if this now-aggrieved victim is upset in part because she did not exercise that right.

December 15, 2017 at 04:20 PM | Permalink

Comments

Conclusion of story? Registered Democrats will always side with the enemies of our country.

Defendant needs to be deported before her spawn is born in our country. If that is allowed, the loss will not be in the $thousands, but in the $millions.

Posted by: David Behar | Dec 15, 2017 8:07:10 PM

Any voir dire without asking about party registration is lawyer malpractice.

Posted by: David Behar | Dec 16, 2017 12:24:04 AM

No jail !

Immediately deport her !

Posted by: Docile the Kind Soul | Dec 16, 2017 1:33:53 AM

She needs to be deported now.

Posted by: federalist | Dec 16, 2017 7:19:54 AM

I recall a report about 20 years ago that a survey was taken among people who attended the OJ Simpson criminal trial daily (and thus heard the whole thing) and people who got all of their information about the trial from the news media. Trial attendees were 80-20 in favor of acquittal and news media consumers were 80-20 in favor of conviction. The comments here remind me of that. The jury's reaction came from people who heard the whole thing. The labeling of the 19-year old as an "enemy" of America and the call for immediate deportation comes from people who, like me, only know about the two-day trial from a few paragraphs of a news story.

I am a conservative, but I confess to volunteering in the local Salvation Army summer lunch program. Our youthful customers are probably 40% Hispanic (we have a lot of migrant agricultural labor in the county). Their families are poor, but the kids are well scrubbed and wear clean clothes, and are polite (especially compared to the universe of our clients). The older siblings take care of the younger ones to an extent that I have never seen among another socioeconomic or ethnic group.

The notion that these kids should be labeled as somebody's "spawn" is very troubling. They are people, are children, and have as much value as any kids anywhere. Avoiding use of the denigrating label does not make me a Democrat. Gratuitous insults of the kids does not make anyone a Republican.

Posted by: Tom Root | Dec 16, 2017 7:44:02 AM

"Avoiding use of the denigrating label does not make me a Democrat. Gratuitous insults of the kids does not make anyone a Republican."

Correct. It makes you a weenie in both parties.

Posted by: Selfie Man | Dec 16, 2017 11:47:05 AM

Tom. I understand your view. To avoid pointless arguing, we need the home address. We are sending the defendant to.your home, to do cleaning. Send me the bill for cleaning. Is that OK?

Posted by: David Behar | Dec 16, 2017 11:59:56 AM

Tom, if you're new here, you might not know that Behar is merely a caricature, not an actual human being. He's generally ignored.

Posted by: Mark M. | Dec 17, 2017 12:54:41 AM

Mark. Are you a lawyer? If you are, you are in denial.



Posted by: David Behar | Dec 17, 2017 12:23:12 PM

Post a comment
Speaking on behalf of the Government at a ceremony hosted by the Central Steering Committee for Flood and Storm Control in Hanoi on December 14, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said the central region is the hardest-hit by natural disasters in recent years.United Nations Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Kamal Malhotra promised to offer further support to flood victims in Vietnam, adding that governments of the Republic of Korea, Russia, New Zealand and the US have also committed an aid worth 7.3 million USD to ensure food security, water supply and environment hygiene in the affected region.The UN, in coordination with humanitarian organisations, is making survey on the needs of central region residents in order to design suitable help.Vietnam needs financial assistance from the UN humanitarian relief programme and international community to restore local livelihoods, he said, adding that the country needs to partner with other entities to launch disaster response plans apart from receiving support from the UN Childrens Fund, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.A representative of the survey mission stressed the need to provide urgent food relief and makeshift houses for affected families in the next six months, as well as strengthen joint work with private sector to diversify support activities and facilitate locals access to insurance.Tran Quang Hoai, General Director of the Directorate for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, said Vietnam has been hit by 14 storms and numerous landslides and floods since early 2017, which left 386 dead and missing and caused losses amounting to 60 trillion VND (2.6 billion USD).In particular, storm Damrey and subsequent floods left serious impacts on the south central region, with 123 dead and missing. The region reported 3,550 collapsed houses and vast inundated areas of rice and vegetables along with destroyed transport and dyke works, with damage estimated at more than 22.6 trillion VND.Around 700 tonnes of rice seeds, 4,400 tonnes of rice, 1 trillion VND and large amount of medicine have been promptly transferred to local people. Domestic and foreign organisations such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the UNDP, the Chinese, Russian and Kuwaiti governments and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management offered relied in cash and kind to affected people.

Vietnamplus
SIOUX CITY | As another deadline to reauthorize critical funding for community health centers approaches, Mari Kaptain-Dahlen, CEO of Siouxland Community Health Center, is optimistic that this time the issue will be resolved.

Extending community health center funding is on Congress's December to-do list along with negotiating an immigration deal and approving a disaster emergency spending package. A slew of other pieces of health care legislation, including extending funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), have to be approved before the government runs out of money again on Dec. 22.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Iowa and South Dakota are projected to exhaust funding for CHIP, which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, between February and March 2018, while Nebraska's funding could dry up sometime in April.

The Iowa Primary Care Association says 28,322 Iowans will lose access to their health care provider if funding cannot be secured for community health centers.

The Community Health Center Fund, which was established in 2010 by the Affordable Care Act, accounts for 70 percent of the federal funding that the nation's more than 1,400 community health centers receive. Community health centers in other states, including North Dakota and South Dakota, are already reporting staff losses and recruiting challenges due to funding uncertainty.

"There's a bill that was introduced in the House to extend our funding for two years and then the Senate actually has a bill that never got out of committee that would extend us for five years," said Kaptain-Dahlen, who said she has heard from Iowa senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley that they are working hard to ensure resolution before Jan. 1. "We are confident that our funding will be secured and that people will be able to access care and we will provide care as we always have."

Prescription drug benefits

Siouxland Community Health Center provides a number of medical services, including general health exams, behavioral and social services, HIV testing and counseling, prenatal care and dental care, as well as a pharmacy for all its patients.

The health center, which has been named a Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home, participates in the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which allows hospitals and other health care providers that are "covered entities" to obtain prescription drugs from drug manufacturers at discounted prices. For example, an albuterol inhaler, which costs between $80 and $90 at a big-box pharmacy, is just $10 at Siouxland Community Health Center.

Shelby Petersen, director of operations for Siouxland Community Health Center, said there are times when patients need a particular medication, but can't afford it even with the health center's sliding fee discount for uninsured patients under 200 percent of the poverty level.

In those desperate cases, she said pharmacy staff refer patients to Center for Siouxland. Through its prescription assistance program, which is currently funded by United Way of Siouxland and Interfaith Resources, the nonprofit Sioux City human service agency issues vouchers to Siouxland Community Health Center patients to ensure they receive their medications.

Jonette Spurlock, executive director of Center for Siouxland, said the program serves about five Siouxland Community Health Center patients a month on average. A patient can receive up to $50 in prescription assistance twice a year.

"We do not check income guidelines. We understand that everybody gets into a bind. If they're running short and they need help, they just need to call," she said. "We've helped in a variety of different cases -- sometimes people just run short for their monthly meds. We've helped people who are between insurances and still need their prescription coverage."

Petersen said more patients became eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which gave states the option of expanding their Medicaid programs to low-income adults. The expansion of Iowa's Medicaid program, she said, eliminated the need for many health center patients, who became eligible for prescription drug coverage under Medicaid, to rely on the prescription assistance program that Center for Siouxland offers.

"If we have a patient come to the pharmacy and they have nothing, we will always tell them, 'Go downstairs and talk to one of our financial counselors,'" she said. "Usually they can leave here signed up for something if they came in here without a payer source."
LE MARS, Iowa | Preliminary autopsy results for 57-year-old John Peter Koley of Le Mars revealed his death was not caused by blunt force trauma, gunshot or knife wounds.

Authorities believe Koley had been dead for several days before his body was found Wednesday afternoon on the kitchen floor in his Le Mars home. At the time police were unable to identify the cause of death.

The body was sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Ankeny, Iowa, Friday morning for an autopsy. The toxicology reports will be known in 10 to 14 days, according to a news elease.

The Plymouth County Sheriff continues to treat the death as suspicious and will follow up on any information it receives. Homicide, suicide and natural causes have not yet been ruled out in the case.
SPENCER, Iowa | Seasons Center for Behavioral Health received a $9,000 donation from the Spencer Rotary and District Rotary to be used to build a fence around Autumns Centers playground.

Autumns Center, a regional childrens center located in Spencer, opened in October 2016 and has since served 1,471 children.

The playground area behind Autumns Center serves as a space for clients to play and work on socialization skills. With this fence, Autumns Center can ensure clients safety and privacy in working toward their specialized goals with their provider.

The Spencer Rotary Club is a service organization coming together to make positive, lasting change in our community. The service organization coordinates two major projects during the year, the Rotary Book Sale and Rotary Radio Day, and funds raised at both events are used to benefit the community. The local Spencer Rotary Club funds were matched by the district Rotary organization for this project.
SIOUX CITY | A South Sioux City man was arrested related to a early Friday morning robbery at Kum & Go, 1005 Gordon Drive.

At approximately 10:42 p.m. Thursday, a male suspect robbed the Kum & Go, located at 3808 Dakota in South Sioux City. The suspect allegedly entered the store, displayed a handgun and left with an undisclosed amount of money.

At 1:08 a.m. Friday, a robbery occurred at the Gordon Drive Kum & Go. Again, the suspect displayed a gun and left with cash and merchandise.

According to investigators, the suspect in both robberies matched the same description.

At approximately 2 a.m. Friday, Sioux City Police officers conducted checks at Sioux City Kum & Go locations. Officers observed a suspect matching the description near the 1821 Hamilton Blvd. Kum & Go. Officers stopped the suspect and took him into custody without incident.

Devon M. Simons, 18, was charged with robbery in the second degree in relation to the robbery at the Gordon Drive Kum & Go, Charges are pending in the robbery in South Sioux City.
SIOUX CITY | The city Engineering Division announced in a press release Friday afternoon the closure of 18th Street, for 200 feet east of Steuben Street, for storm sewer repairs.

Closure of the road begins Monday and is anticipated to last until Dec. 23, weather pending. The detour route will run along Terminal Drive, 11th Street and Steuben Street.

According to the press release, access to businesses along that stretch of 18th Street would continue during the roadwork. Motorists are advised to reduce speed, drive cautiously and obey all traffic signs during the closure.
SOUTH SIOUX CITY | An outspoken critic of Big Ox Energy has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $1.5 million in damages, becoming the latest South Sioux City homeowner to sue the city and company concerning odors and gases from the bioenergy plant.

Robert Baker Jr. and his wife, Rilla, and Baker's company, Kenna Development, became the sixth couple to claim in court that odors and hazardous gases damaged their homes and caused health problems after the plant opened in September 2016.

Baker and Kenna Development owned a four-unit condominium in which Baker lived. He said in his suit, filed Thursday in Dakota County District Court, that he lived in one of the units but because of the odors was unable to finish, sell or lease the other three units.

All six lawsuits said that Big Ox and the city failed to maintain, operate and modify wastewater treatment facilities and sewer systems to handle waste from the plant and prevent the release of hydrogen sulfate and other toxic gases. As a result, the homeowners all say, they and their children suffer from health problems including respiratory illnesses, headaches, nausea, sleep disturbances, anxiety and emotional distress.

The lawsuits allege that Big Ox and the city knew or should have known after initial tests of the plant's operations in August 2016 that the municipal sewer system would unable to handle the pressures and substances being released into it, leading to the release of gases that escaped through manholes and into residences near the plant.

The Denmark, Wisconsin-based company has denied the allegations.

Baker frequently challenged city officials at South Sioux City Council meetings to do something about the odors, improve the sewer system and help residents displaced by the problem. He, like the others who have filed lawsuits, seeks reimbursement for the loss of the use of his home, demolition and reconstruction of his home and loss of furnishings ruined by odors.

Baker's lawsuit claims damages of $402,000 on his condo unit and $382,000 apiece on the other three units. All costs are accruing.

Damages being sought in the other five lawsuits total $2.7 million.

Big Ox Energy's more than $30 million plant extracts organic nutrients from animal, grain and other waste to create methane, which is sold into the natural gas pipeline. The plant went online Sept. 2, 2016, in the Roth Industrial Park.

Residents began reporting odors from the plant a month later, when sewer gas permeated some homes in a five-block area near the plant. Big Ox maintains that faulty plumbing in the homes, not wastewater, was the primary cause of the odor issues.

The families were displaced for months because of the odors, and some families have yet to return home. The city and Big Ox have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover displaced homeowners' relocation and living expenses. The city has also spent $1.5 million for sewer upgrades and modifications.

In May, 16 families and one business filed tort claims against the city, suggesting that more lawsuits will be filed.

On Dec. 5, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that Big Ox will pay nearly $50,000 as part of a settlement for alleged violations of the federal Clean Air Act. That action related to the release of chemical gases that led to the hospitalization of an employee who was injured at the plant in December.
OMAHA | A federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss charges against nine current and former Omaha Tribal Council members accused of misusing federal funds by awarding nearly $389,000 in bonuses to themselves.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Nelson determined that the federal government had the authority and jurisdiction to prosecute the case. Tribal members had argued that the case fell outside federal government oversight, making the case an internal tribal matter to be settled by the Omaha Tribal Court.

"... because the indictment sufficiently describes violations of (federal code sections), and conspiracy to violate those provisions, this court has subject matter jurisdiction over instant prosecution," Nelson wrote in his ruling, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Omaha.

Nelson also rejected the tribal members' arguments that the charges filed were repetitious and charged them with the same crime in separate counts.

A federal indictment filed in September 2016 charged former tribal council treasurer Jessica Webster-Valentino, former council secretary Jeff Miller, council member Rodney Morris and former council members Mitchell Parker, Doran Morris Jr., Forrest Aldrich, Amen Sheridan and Tillie Aldrich and former tribal employee Barbara Freemont with conspiracy, conversion and misapplication of funds from a program receiving federal funds.

All nine have pleaded not guilty. Webster-Valentino, Miller and Rodney Morris remain on the council, though none of them are officers.

In a separate ruling Wednesday, Nelson ruled that Webster-Valentino and Fremont will stand trial separately because they are charged in a separate conspiracy from the other seven.

The indictment, the result of a state and federal investigation, alleges that the nine granted themselves $388,972 in incentive payments from Indian Health Service funds meant to provide health care to tribal members through the Carl T. Curtis Health Education Center.

A defense attorney had argued in the motion to dismiss that the Omaha Tribe was a party in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit in which the Omahas and other tribes had sued the IHS for underpayments. After the Omaha Tribe was notified in November 2012 that it would receive $8.9 million in the settlement, the tribal council voted to pay the bonuses to themselves and other tribal officials for their work related to the lawsuit.

The bonuses were paid out of the settlement funds, their attorney said, giving the council discretion on how the money could be spent.
LE MARS, Iowa | The inability to find an agreeable date to depose a defense witness has led to the delay of the trial for a Le Mars, Iowa, man accused of killing his sister.

Thomas Bibler was scheduled to stand trial Tuesday in Plymouth County District Court for first-degree murder, willful injury and going armed with intent in connection with the June 11, 2016, stabbing death of his sister, Shannon Bogh, 27, of Le Mars.

After a hastily scheduled telephone hearing Thursday, District Judge Jeffrey Neary filed an order Friday to continue the trial so Plymouth County Attorney Darin Raymond can complete the deposition of a defense expert witness. A new trial date has not been confirmed.

Raymond twice has filed motions to strike Dr. Daniel Gillette as a defense witness because Gillette and public defender Billy Oyadare have been unable to provide dates when Gillette is available to finish a deposition that was continued on Nov. 3.

In his order to continue the trial, Neary said that the witness deposition will be completed next week, making it necessary to postpone the trial.

Bibler, 35, has waived his right to a jury trial and will instead have Neary decide his case. The trial was scheduled to proceed with witness testimony next week, then be suspended until Jan. 30, when a state rebuttal witness who was unavailable in December was scheduled to testify.

Neary indicated in his order that the trial could be moved to Jan. 30, depending on the availability of witnesses who had been scheduled to testify next week.

Bibler is accused of assaulting Bogh in her home at 591 15th St. SW with an edged weapon. She died a short time later at the Le Mars hospital.

A witness to the stabbing identified Bibler as a suspect, and he was arrested without incident in the apartment about 30 minutes after the assault. According to court documents, Bibler has told investigators he has no recollection of what happened.
PRIMGHAR, Iowa | A Primghar man has pleaded not guilty to hitting another man in the head with an automobile exhaust pipe.

Jesse Christopherson, 21, entered his written plea Thursday in O'Brien County District Court to single counts of first-degree burglary and assault causing bodily injury.

According to court documents, Christopherson entered a home in the 200 block of West Third Street in Calumet, Iowa, on Nov. 9 carrying a muffler and exhaust pipe. He is accused of striking the victim in the head with the exhaust pipe and causing a large gash on his forehead.

Two other men, Walker Buck, 19, and Austin Eads, 22, both of Primghar, were arrested on assault charges for participating in the incident. They have yet to be formally charged.
OMAHA | A Winnebago teenager was indicted Monday on federal robbery and firearms charges in connection with an October armed robbery of a Rosalie, Nebraska, convenience store.

Manazheega Cleveland, 18, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha on charges of interference with commerce by robbery and possession of a firearm during a violent crime.

According to court documents, two masked males brandished a shotgun and stole $1,389 from the cash register at the Pony Express convenience store at 1504 U.S. Highway 77 on Oct. 24.

The cashier identified Cleveland as one of the robbers because she recognized his voice from his visit to the store earlier in the day.
SIOUX CITY | Some metro area schools received top marks while others showed room for improvement, according to the latest Iowa School Report Card.

The grading system, run by the Iowa Department of Education, evaluates and rates each elementary, middle and high school on a six-tier scale based on test scores and other standardized measurements. The system was developed to meet a state legislative requirement, so parents, school officials and others can gauge success and academic growth of K-12 public schools.

No metro school reached the top-tier, Exceptional, while one, Hunt Elementary School in Sioux City, placed in the lowest level, Priority, for the 2016-17 year. The Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School was the only metro school in the second-highest tier, High-Performing, while three Sioux City public schools -- Irving Elementary, North High, West High and West Middle -- were placed in the second-lowest tier, Needs Improving.

The remainder fell into the Commendable or Acceptable categories, or the district was unable to rate the school for reasons such as newly-opened buildings.

Compared with the previous year, five Sioux City schools improved, while ratings for two schools fell. North High and Irving moved up one spot from the Priority category last year, Liberty Elementary advanced from Needs Improvement to Acceptable and Bryant Elementary and Sunnyside Elementary both improved from Acceptable to Commendable.

Compared to 2015-16, Spalding Park Elementary moved down one spot from Commendable to Acceptable, and West Middle went from Acceptable to Needs Improvement.

Crescent Park, East High, East Middle, Leeds Elementary, Liberty Elementary, North Middle and Riverside Elementary remained at the Acceptable level in 2016-17. Loess Hills Elementary, which could not be rated the previous school year, also received an Acceptable score.

The rest of the Sioux City School District schools to be scored were put at the Acceptable spot: East High, East Middle, North Middle and the elementary schools of Liberty, Loess Hills, Riverside, Unity and Spalding Park.

State officials were not able to rate Loess Hills Elementary, Morningside Elementary and Nodland Elementary, according to the report.

Superintendent Paul Gausman said the report card is one tool that will help the district continue to identify areas where schools can improve, but added that the district also has its own metrics to measure success.

"These improvements demonstrate the work our schools and district are doing under the Focus 2022 Strategic Plan for the Sioux City Community School District. Focus 2022 concentrates on many of the same indicators as the rating system, such as academic growth, graduation rates, staff retention, student attendance, and college and career readiness," Gausman said in a statement Thursday to The Journal.

Compared to the 2015-16 school year, Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School's rating rose one spot from Commendable to High-Performing. SB-L Middle School dropped from Commendable to Acceptable while the SB-L Elementary School's rating remained at Acceptable.

For the 2016-17 school year, the Woodbury Central Elementary School in Moville, and Westwood High School in Sloan were rated High-Performing.

The Westwood Elementary School was placed in the Needs Improvement tier, however. The Woodbury Central Elementary was rated Commendable and the Middle School was Acceptable.

The River Valley School District elementary, middle and high schools in Correctionville and Washta also were in the Acceptable Category.

The Lawton-Bronson Elementary scored a Commendable mark while the middle and high schools were rated Acceptable.

Ratings were based on attendance, graduation rate, annual expected student growth, college and career readiness and related growth, closing achievement gaps, proficiency and staff retention.

Gausman said it is important to remember student achievement is measured in many ways, and the Iowa Department of Education report card is one such summary.

"The challenge I see with the rating system is that most of the data from the ratings is focused on the Iowa assessments," he said of the standardized tests. "The Iowa assessments do not currently measure curriculum and instruction aligned to the Iowa Standards. So, as a community, lets remember the many data points that indicate school performance and achievement."
F&MB employees raise funds throughout the year by paying for the opportunity to wear jeans on the last Friday of each month. The bank then matches the funds raised by the employees. Employees choose the organization to which they wish to donate the funds.
On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast which re-creates the conversations that happen when Iowa's political reporters get together after deadlines have been met. This week's show features Erin Murphy, Ed Tibbetts, Bret Hayworth, and Todd Dorman.

This week's show was produced by Max Freund and the music heard in the podcast is courtesy of TGL. Chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics, and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com.
SIOUX CITY | Leadership in the southeastern South Dakota fire district that includes North Sioux City and Dakota Dunes is edging closer to a solution that could fill its upcoming void in paramedic care when Siouxland Paramedics' emergency response ends Dec. 31.

The Dakota Valley Fire District is exploring an agreement that would allow Sioux City Fire Rescue's new EMS Division to provide paramedic service within the district's boundaries.

For many years, the district -- which encompasses North Sioux City, Dakota Dunes, Big Sioux Township and Wynstone -- has had an agreement with Siouxland Paramedics to provide ambulance services. Siouxland Paramedics responded 348 times in the area during the fiscal year ending June 30.

Siouxland Paramedics' announcement four months ago that it would stop providing those services at year's end prompted discussions among district leaders about how they could fill the void quickly. Potential solutions included contracting with a new private ambulance service, staffing up the district's own ambulance service or contracting with Sioux City.

Earlier this year, the fire district went out for bids on potential private ambulance services, but the rates were too high, he said.

"The bids that came back either weren't interested or were unacceptable," said North Sioux City Fire Chief Bill Pappas.

Discussions have since focused on an offer extended by Sioux City to work toward a partnership. Chief Tom Everett with Sioux City Fire Rescue said the department has been working with the district on a potential agreement.

"We're meeting this week about some questions that we both have," Everett told the Journal Wednesday. He added that a draft agreement is being prepared at this time.

Under such an agreement, Dakota Valley would still provide first response to a scene with its own ambulance, but in cases where paramedic assistance is needed, Sioux City would then respond with a paramedic and transport the patient using its own ambulance.

Sioux City would then require the district to guarantee an amount per patient that would be paid to Sioux City. Sioux City would bill each patient, but if it only collects a portion of the guaranteed amount set forth in the agreement, Dakota Valley would make up the difference. The agreement would also include a minimum amount per year.

Dollar amounts are still under discussion.

Sioux City's EMS Division will include 27 employees. The division will assume 911 services within Sioux City limits Jan. 1. Like Siouxland Paramedics, the city will bill patients for use of the ambulance service.

The Sioux City Council established the fees it will bill patients during a council meeting earlier this week. The division is expected to cost taxpayers between $600,000 and $1 million per year.

Everett said an agreement with Dakota Valley could allow Sioux City to hire more staff, bringing the total number up to around 30. Those details remain under discussion, he said.

Everett said, if all is approved, an agreement could come before the Sioux City Council early next year.

Pappas said this is a potential idea, but things still remain up in the air. Dakota Valley holds its next meeting 9 a.m. Monday at the North Sioux City Fire Station, 205 Sodrac Drive. He said Dakota Valley could end up staffing its own paramedic service whether it forms an agreement with Sioux City or not.

"There's always a chance we would do this on our own," Pappas said. "It's a question of how fast we could get that operation going. We could start an ambulance service tomorrow, but we'd have to hire paramedics."
MILFORD, Iowa | Pending approval of a deal with state and local officials in Iowa, a Minnesota-based office furniture manufacturer plans to bring 100 jobs to Milford.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority Board, at its monthly meeting Friday, will consider awarding a $515,000 financial aid package to Liberty Diversified International, the parent company of New Hope, Minnesota-based Safco Products.

If approved, the new employer could provide a huge boost for Milford, which lost 330 jobs earlier this year after Polaris Inc. ended production at its 430,000-square-foot facility in the Dickinson County city.

After acquiring the former Polaris plant for $4 million and renovating it, Safco would begin manufacturing office furniture and organizational products in the sprawling one-story structure, according to state documents released Thursday. The purchase price is part of Safco's total $15.1 million investment.

Safco has asked the state for a $250,000 forgivable loan, a $250,000 five-year, interest-free loan and $15,000 in tax credits in help to finance the project, according to state documents.

At a meeting Monday, the Milford City Council approved a resolution that would provide Safco with local economic development incentives, a required state to garner support from the IEDA. The city's incentive package includes a $500,000 tax increment finance rebate distributed over 10 years and a $50,000 forgivable loan.

In exchange for the incentives, Safco would promise to create the production jobs at an hourly wage of at least $16.83, the average for Dickinson County.

If the state and local incentives are approved, as expected, Safco said it would close on the property in January, renovate the building in October and have it operational by November.

Originally a furniture factory, Polaris shifted production of some of its vehicles to the plant in 2013. The Roseau, Minnesota-based power sports company still maintains a plant in nearby Spirit Lake that employs around 650.
Iowa congressional supporters of the Renewable Fuel Standard say they're willing to listen to critics of the law, but they'll resist anything that undermines the measure that requires billions of gallons of biofuels to be blended into the nation's fuel supply.

Members of the Trump administration, along with staffers from Senate offices on both sides of the issue met in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to talk about the RFS and ongoing debate about it.

Oil refineries have said the costs of complying with the law are too high. Biofuel supporters dismiss the argument, and while the administration largely rejected proposals to roll back parts of the law this year, the administration has been meeting with lawmakers, like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to hear their concerns.

The latest was Wednesday and included staffers from the administration, as well as congressional offices, including aides to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

Afterward, Ernst said in a statement, "While we are happy to review any proposals Senator Cruz offers in the time ahead, we remain firm that our top priority in these meetings is ensuring that the spirit and the letter of the RFS is supported as intended by Congress."

Michael Zona, a spokesman for Grassley, said the next step to follow the meeting is for Cruz to offer "specific proposals." Nonetheless, he added "there was an understanding expressed broadly in the meeting that any outcome cant undermine the integrity of the RFS."

Refiners argue the cost and volatility of renewable fuel credits are hurting their industry. Biofuel backers say refiners recoup costs through higher margins.

The Environmental Protection Agency this year rejected calls to change some of the RFS rules, including the "point of obligation" for complying with the mandate. In addition, the prospect of shrinking biofuel volumes from levels proposed this summer also was abandoned, even though the final amounts announced two weeks ago weren't as high as some biofuel backers wanted.
LA PLATA, Md. (December 15, 2017)Tony Covington, State's Attorney for Charles County announced that on Thursday, December 14, a Charles County jury convicted Darren Anthony Wimbush, 35 of Waldorf, of Sexual Abuse of a Minor and 10 counts of Second Degree Sex Offense.



On June 30, 2015, the Charles County Sheriff's Office received a Crime Solver's anonymous tip that the victim was being sexually abused by Wimbush. After receiving the anonymous tip, detectives contacted the victim, who later revealed that she was sexually abused repeatedly by Wimbush over the course of a two year timeframe.



An investigation revealed that Wimbush, a registered sex offender, began sexually abusing the victim at age 11 and threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone. The abuse continued until June of 2015. A Sexual Assault Exam conducted on the victim revealed trauma that was consistent with sexual assault.



A sentencing date has been set for March 7, 2018, where Wimbush could be sentenced to life in prison.
Your own two hands.

Thats what it took  plus a bit of paint, pencil or pen, rouge and ribbon and rickrack  to make that of which you are proud. You did that. You made it with your own two hands. As in the new book Self-Made Woman by Denise Chanterelle DuBois, it takes a lot to craft a new life.

It began near a lakeside cabin in Wisconsin.

DuBois says she was four then, a curious little boy who loved the water  until she fell in and nearly drowned. Once fished out, she was dressed in girls clothing while hers dried, and she was enchanted. She fought her mothers demands that she give the clothing up. That was the beginning of DuBois lifetime journey toward womanhood.

Though her parents were both alcoholics and abusive, Catholic school nuns were the ones who showed DuBois that sexual stimulation could come from humiliation. In grade school, she preferred playing with girls because she was a girl herself, but teachers and nuns forbade it. When embarrassed in class, she felt stirrings; she asked playmates to spank her, and she learned to welcome negative attention.

This led to petty theft and a secret life: DuBois began sneaking into her sisters closet to wear her clothing. She broke into random buildings to steal panties from strangers, and she lost a babysitting job when her clients child caught her wearing her clients lingerie; the ensuing humiliation only enhanced the experience. She dabbled in domination by being a slave to women who wanted her money. She experimented with drugs and alcohol; there were run-ins with the law. She became suicidal.

And yet  there were bright moments in her life. DuBois fell in love with a woman who went along with fetishes that had grown into full-blown obsessions. She made friends  albeit, friends who were into drugs. She got married. And she started learning what it would take to be the woman she always knew she really was

Self-Made Woman is a lot of things. Its sad. Poignant. Scary. Its also TMI sometimes and, at just over 200 pages, its a bit too long.

From Wisconsin childhood to womanhood in Bangkok, author Denise Chanterelle DuBois tells readers of a multi-city, lifetime self-search, in an account that feels overly detailed and overstuffed. Reading it is akin to being held captive by someone who really needs to tell all, including unabashed details about the world of submission and female domination. Those details are titillating for those who share DuBois fetishes, but cruelty and graphicness make them wince-worthy. Add in memories of drug and alcohol abuse and an account of imprisonment that seemed rushed and you could have a mess of unreadablility, were it not for the overall uniqueness, vulnerability, and the truthfulness in this tale.

When the story itself lags, those are the things that redeem it. Theyre what make this matter-of-factly-told memoir one that sets itself apart by its brutal honesty. Its what will make you want to put Self-Made Woman in your hands.

Self-Made Woman: A Memoir by Denise Chanterelle DuBois

c.2017, The University of Wisconsin Press

$26.95 / higher in Canada

224 pages
It looks like 2017 could be the year that queer screenwriter and director Mike White (Year of the Dog) might just get his first Academy Award nomination and may even take home an Oscar. White, who also has the smudge of The Emoji Movie on his screenplay resume, along with outstanding films such as School of Rock and The Good Girl, wrote director Miguel Artetas 2017 film Beatriz at Dinner, which has received raves from critics and audiences alike.

White also wrote and directed Brads Status (Amazon Studios), starring Ben Stiller. Brads Status is the kind of movie that looks good on the resumes of people, like Ben Stiller, who need a good movie (see Zoolander 2 or better yet, dont). As it turns out, Stiller has recently been having better luck in indie-oriented features such as Noah Baumbachs While Were Young, and with Brads Status he has reached his peak, delivering the best performance of his career.

With the kind of narration throughout that is worthy of Woody Allen at his funniest and most heartbreaking, Brads Status opens with a sleepless Brad (Stiller), worried about the next days trip to the Boston-area to look at colleges with his 17-year old son Troy (Austin Abrams). Among his anxieties are finances. Will he, a man running a small not-for-profit, and his government-employee wife Melanie (Jenna Fischer) be able to afford the financial burden?

Brad also stresses over how he measures up to his old Tufts classmates, all of whom he thinks are more insanely prosperous than he is, even though he knows its stupid to compare their lives. First, theres Nick (White), a successful, openly gay Hollywood filmmaker who can be seen in the pages of Architectural Digest, luxuriating in the multi-million-dollar mansion he shares with husband Xavier (Xavier Grobet), where he hosts pool parties populated by muscle-boys in Speedos.

Next is Craig (Michael Sheen), the one with whom Brad felt most competitive while in school. Craigs a political bigwig who worked in the White House and has gone on to high-paying consulting gigs and writing bestselling books. Jason (Luke Wilson) runs his own profitable company that includes the use of private jets. Financial whiz Billy (Jemaine Clement) retired early and is living the dream on Maui with two young female lovers.

The time spent with Troy is an eye-opening experience for the self-absorbed Brad. He learns many new things about his son and his talent as a musician and composer. Watching this unfold is one of the great pleasures of the movie. Before long a series of conflicts arise that threaten to ruin more than just the trip. Dinner, and later drinks, with Ananya (Shazi Raja), a former classmate of Troys, exposes new cracks in Brads veneer. When a crisis arises during Troys Harvard campus visit, Brad must turn to Craig, the last person he would ever want to, for assistance.

All is not lost, as it turns out, and while some audience members may feel like theyve gone through the same emotional wringer as Brad, the rewards are plentiful. The combination of stellar performances by the lead (especially Stiller) and supporting cast, marvelous and insightful writing, and a measured balance of comedy and drama, assures that Brads Status will not soon be forgotten. Rating: A-
A near seamless melding of classic sci-fi/fantasy and contemporary cinematic effects, presented from a modern perspective, Guillermo del Toros The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight) is a story of love, loss and the monster who tried to destroy it all, set during the 1960s Cold War era. Mute Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a princess without voice, lives upstairs of a movie theater in Baltimore. An orphan whose voice box was cut when she was a baby, Elisa has a special friendship with gay next-door neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins in a performance worthy of a Best Supporting Actor nod), a freelance commercial illustrator who is the proverbial starving artist.

Elisas daily routine consists of pleasuring herself in the bathtub, eating hardboiled eggs, and riding the bus to work at the secret government laboratory where she works on the midnight shift cleaning crew. Lucky for Elisa, her friend and co-worker Zelda (the always wonderful Octavia Spencer) talks enough for both of them.

Elisa and Zelda are in the containment area when a new, sensitive asset from South America  picture a more advanced version of the creature from the Black Lagoon  is brought in to be housed at the facility. The high security nature of the situation causes Elisa and Zelda to be rushed out of the room by Strickland (Michael Shannon), a monstrous, sadistic and racist security man who delights in abusing the gentle being with a high-tech cattle prod. When the creature fights back, resulting in Strickland losing two fingers, his hatred of the asset, which he considers an affront, only increases.

Elisa, who takes her meal breaks in the room where the amphibian man (portrayed by Doug Jones) is kept in a water tank, strikes up an unlikely friendship with it. She feeds it hardboiled eggs, plays music for it and teaches it to communicate via sign language. Its a beauty and the beast relationship that puts Disneys recent live-action version to shame.

Its one of the healthiest relationships in the movie. Sure, Elisas close friendship with old time Hollywood movie-loving Giles is lovely. But Giles crush on the hot waiter (Morgan Kelly) at Dixie Dougs pie-house backfires on him. Plus, his work-life is in limbo after losing his full-time job due to his drinking problem. Meanwhile, Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), the lead scientist at the facility, is leading a double-life as a Russian spy, under the watchful eyes of his comrades. But creepiest of all is when Strickland comes on to Elisa in a way that would make Roy Moore cringe.

When word comes down from on high that the intricate beautiful asset is to be vivisected for research and then destroyed, a lovestruck Elisa devises a plan to save it. Before you know it, shes convinced Giles and Zelda to assist her, as well as Dr. Hoffstetler. Narrowly escaping death at the hands of Strickland, the creature is whisked away to the bathtub at Elisas apartment, where she plans to keep it until enough rain fills canal that flows to the sea and it can be released.

Typical of del Toro, The Shape of Water, takes some unexpected turns, not limited to an interspecies romance, complete with sex in a flooded bathroom. Theres also a black & white Hollywood movie musical fantasy sequence. Additionally, the movies message about seeing people for who they are, not for what they lack, is sure to resonate with viewers. If ever we needed the cinematic escapism of The Shape of Water, its now. Rating: A-
Cosmonauts (from left) Sergey Ryazanskiy and Alexander Misurkin trade hugs and farewells. Ryazanskiy is departing the station with astronauts Randy Bresnik of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of ESA in the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft. Credit: NASA. NASA

At 9:02 p.m. EST, the hatch closed between the Soyuz spacecraft and the International Space Station in preparation for undocking. Expedition 53 Commander Randy Bresnik and Flight Engineers Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency) and Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos are scheduled to undock their Soyuz at 12:14 a.m. NASA Television will air live coverage of the undocking beginning at 11:45 p.m.

Their landing in Kazakhstan is targeted for approximately 3:37 a.m. (2:37 p.m. Kazakhstan time) and will conclude a 139-day mission aboard the space station, in which they logged 2,224 orbits of the Earth.

On-Orbit Status Report

51 Soyuz (51S) Undock and Landing Preparations: The crew completed packing the cargo for return on 51S. Randy Bresnik handed over command of the ISS to Alexander Misurkin. Following the Change of Command, the new Commanders Soyuz crew became prime for emergencies. Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy, and Paolo Nespoli will undock from the ISS at 11:13 pm CST and will land at 2:37am CST tomorrow. Following undock, the ISS will be in 3-crew operations until the arrival of 53S on December 19.

JAXA Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) #13 Retrieval: Two canister bags containing protein samples were removed from the JAXA Freezer-Refrigerator Of STirling cycle 2 (J-FROST2) and handed over to a Russian crewmember for return on the 51S vehicle. The samples have been stowed in J-FROST2 for processing since their arrival on 68P. PCG #13 contains protein samples prepared by Japanese and Russian researchers from universities, national research institutes, and the private sector. The purpose of this activity was to obtain high quality protein crystals in the microgravity environment at 20 degrees C for about 9 weeks. The results obtained by JAXA PCG #13 contribute to the development of drugs for multidrug-resistant bacteria, Alzheimers disease, muscular dystrophy and periodontitis. They will also aid in the development of a blood substitute and biosensor.

Echo Commissioning: The crew retrieved and setup the Echo hardware in the Columbus module to allow ground teams to perform a commissioning session on the main and backup hard disks for the Echo unit. The purpose of the ECHO investigation is to evaluate a tele-operated ultrasound system, equipped with motorized probes to be controlled by flight controllers on the ground. Additionally, this investigation supports the commissioning of the Echo instrument, which is planned for use with the Vascular Echo experiment on ISS in the future.

Lighting Effects Operations: After providing a sleep log entry to support the two-week sleep shift session, a 52S crewmember setup the Visual Performance Test hardware and performed a Numerical Verification Test and a Color Discrimination Test. The crewmember then configured the Light Meter hardware and obtained light meter readings from specified locations before downlinking the data. The Lighting Effects investigation studies the impact of the change from fluorescent light bulbs to solid-state light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with adjustable intensity and color and aims to determine if the new lights can improve crew circadian rhythms, sleep, and cognitive performance.

Human Research Program (HRP) Collections  Functional Immune: Today blood and saliva samples were collected from two 52S crewmembers and a 51S crewmember which concludes a five day Functional Immune session that began over the weekend. The samples support the mid-mission HRP compliment for the 52S crewmembers and the return minus zero day (R-0) compliment for the 51S crewmember. The Functional Immune investigation analyzes blood and saliva samples to determine the changes taking place in crewmembers immune systems during flight. The changes in the immune system are also compared with crewmembers self-reported health information. Results are expected to provide new insight into the possible health risks of long-duration space travel, including future missions to Mars, asteroids, or other distant destinations.

Fine Motor Skills (FMS): Today a 51S crewmember completed his return minus seven day (R-7) FMS session, which was executed on a touchscreen tablet, where the subject performed a series of interactive tasks. The investigation studies how fine motor skills are affected by long-term microgravity exposure, different phases of microgravity adaptation, and sensorimotor recovery after returning to Earth gravity. The goal of FMS is to answer how fine motor performance in microgravity trend/vary over the duration of a six-month and year-long space mission; how fine motor performance on orbit compare with that of a closely matched participant on Earth; and how performance trend/vary before and after gravitational transitions, including the periods of early flight adaptation, and very early/near immediate post-flight periods.

Earth Imagery from ISS Target Operations: Using the RED camera, the crew captured images and video footage of the Coast of Namibia, the Nile River, and the Tasmania Bass Strait. This investigtation creates a series of videos, showcasing Earth from space. These videos will be taken with cameras on the ISS in 6K hi-resolution, then integrated into videos for screensavers for public enjoyment, exploration, and engagement.

Space Headaches: The 52S crewmembers completed a weekly questionnaire for the Space Headaches investigation. This experiment collects information that may help in the development of methods to alleviate associated symptoms and improvement in the well-being and performance of crewmembers in space. Headaches during space flight can negatively affect mental and physical capacities of crewmembers that can influence performance during a space mission.

Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Cable Arm Rope Replacement: The crew performed a scheduled replacement of the ARED cable rope arm today, with no issues. The new cable arm rope will stretch to its final configuration through several exercise sessions before bar exercises are performed.

Todays Planned Activities

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Functional Immune Historical Documentation Photography

HRF Generic Saliva Collection 10 Minutes  Subject

Life On The Station Photo and Video

Preparation of Reports for Roscosmos Web Site and Social Media

URAGAN. Observation and photography

Preventive Maintenance of SM Ventilation Subsystem. Group 

ECON-M. Observation and photography

HRF Generic Sample MELFI Retrieval And Insertion Operations

Lighting Effects Sleep Log Entry  Subject

VHF2 Comm Test from Soyuz 736 via RGS

Probiotics Capsule Stow

Signing ISS RS Handover Protocol

JAXA Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) Sample Removal

JAXA Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) Sample Handover

KRISTALLIZATOR. Joint Packing, Acceptance of PCG kits, Transfer to Soyuz 736 for Return

KRISTALLIZATOR. Photo of PCG Kits Handover

Echo partial setup

STRUKTURA. Deactivation of Crystallization

STRUKTURA. Photography of Deactivation

Columbus Video Camera Assembly 2 Adjustment

Fine Motor Skills Experiment Test  Subject

STRUKTURA. Transfer of Luch-2 bag to Soyuz 736

Soyuz 736 Return Hardware Stowage Ops (including PL Container stowage)

Emergency Roles and Responsibilities Review

JEM FROST2 Rotate

Environmental Health System (EHS) Acoustic Monitor Setup

On-board Training (OBT) Dragon Attached Phase Operations Review

HRF Generic Ambient Blood Collection Setup

ARED Cable Arm Rope R&R

Environmental Health System (EHS) Acoustic Monitor Survey Data Download

Soyuz 736 Transfer Operations Report

Soyuz 736 [] cool down ops prior to descent

Stowage of Echo hardware

Space Headaches  Weekly Questionnaire

Change of Command

Lighting Effects Sleep Log Entry  Subject

Functional Immune Historical Documentation Photography

HRF Generic Ambient Blood Collection 15 Minutes  Subject

HRF Generic Ambient Blood Collection Pack Handover

HRF Generic Saliva Collection Stow

Pack Return Hardware in Soyuz 736 and photograph return cargo items in [].

Konyugatsiya, Produtsent, Bioplenka, and Microvir P/L transfer to Soyuz 736

BIOPLENKA. Moding thermostat to +37 setting

Functional Immune Health Assessment Questionnaire  Subject

 maintenance

Crew Departure Preparations for Return to Earth

HRF Generic Urine Collection Setup

Verification of -1 Flow Sensor Position

Crew Medical Officer (CMO) Proficiency Training

Lighting Effects Visual Performance Tests Light Setting  Subject

Delta file prep

Lighting Effects Light Meter Setup Alternate

Crew Departure Preparations for Return to Earth

Multi Omics Item Gathering

Lighting Effects Light Meter Readings

Photos of the external surface of Soyuz 736 []- hatch cover

Health Maintenance System (HMS) ISS Food Intake Tracker (ISS FIT)

Downlink external surface of Soyuz 736 - hatch cover photo via OCA

Soyuz 736 Transfer Status Report

ISS HAM Radio Power Down in Service Module

ISS HAM Radio Power Down in Columbus

Lighting Effects Light Meter Stow

Comm Config for Soyuz 736 Undocking and Descent

The following activities will be completed for 51S Undock:

Soyuz 736 Activation

Comm check with Soyuz 736 in RSA2-S/G2

Disconnecting -153 TV Camera from MRM1 TV System

Setup and Activation of  Equipment for Hatch Closure from MRM1 TV coverage in MPEG2

Monitoring shutter closure on SM windows 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14

Soyuz-MRM1 Hatch Closure.

Closing of transitive hatches -1

Soyuz 736- MRM1 Hatch Leak Check

Hatch Closure () Video Downlink from MRM1 (if necessary)

Deactivation of  Equipment and Closing Applications

Connecting TV Camera -153 to MRM1 TV System

Soyuz 736 ODF Ops; Undocking and Descent Ops

Monitoring Soyuz Undocking, Soyuz 736 Docking Mechanism Photos via DC1 EV Hatch 2 window

Reconfiguring MRM1-SOYUZ PEV to CLOSED position

Completed Task List Activities

Data Prep Return

IPV Tablet Review

MD Print Removal and Stow

51S Pre-pack

ESA EPO MultiTrop

Ground Activities

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

N3 ITCS Transition to dual mode

HRF Rack powerdown

51S Undock support

Standard commanding

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Thursday, 12/14: 51S Landing, Crew off duty

Friday, 12/15: SpaceX-13 Launch, Lighting Effects, MetOx Regen, Earth Imagery from ISS

Saturday, 12/16: Housekeeping, Crew off Duty, HRF Samples, Dragon berth gather

QUICK ISS Status  Environmental Control Group:

Component  Status

Elektron  On

Vozdukh  Manual

[] 1  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1)  Off

[] 2  SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2)  Off

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab  Operate

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3  Standby

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab  Idle

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3  Operate

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA)  Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA)  Reprocess

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab  Full Up

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3  Off
In the past months, wildfires have ravaged both Northern and Southern California. In Northern California alone, one insurer has already received an estimated $1.2 billion in claims. Weve covered California fire relief efforts over on Sprudge Wine, and now coffee is getting in the action. Ukiahs Black Oak Coffee Roasters and Healdsburgs Olam Specialty Coffee importers have created Seedling: A Blend For Recovery, with 100% of the profits going to the victims of the North Bay fires.

Seedling features a mix of a natural processed Ethiopia Guji from Kayon Mountain and a Guatemela from Palo Blanco in Huehuetenango, both of which were donated to Black Oak by Olam. From Black Oaks press release:

With so many lives in our community turned upside-down because of these fires, we wanted to help in any way we could, said Keith Feigin, owner of Black Oak. The recovery process is going to take a long time and cost a lot. Were grateful to play some small role in helping it along by donating all proceeds to the rebuilding efforts. Were also grateful for our partners at Olam for helping us make it happen.

The blend is available for purchase for $14 through Black Oaks web store. More information about Seedling: A Blend For Recovery can be found on Black Oaks blog. If youre still trying to decide on a gift for this holiday season, consider giving Seedling. Blends are always crowd pleasers, $14 is a more than reasonable price, and its for a good cause. Its a win-win-win.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

*top image via Black Oak Coffee Roasters
Weve been proud to publish hundreds of features this year on Sprudge, some groundbreaking, some challenging, and some just, well, fun. But as we push towards the last few weeks of 2017, we want to take a moment and put a series of work back in front of our readers with an eye towards enjoying a nice weekend long read.

Michaele Weissman is a freelance journalist and author whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and on NPR. Her 2008 survey of the American specialty coffee scene, God In A Cup, remains one of the most influential books on coffee ever written. It set the coffee world on fire upon its release and today is a must-read for coffee pros of all ages. Weissmans book helped introduced mainstream America to concepts like Direct Trade and auction lots, and helped grow the myth of the Geisha coffee cultivar as the pinnacle of third waves flavor possibilities. For better or for worse, the book contributed greatly to the myth-making around some of the seminal figures in the early third wave movement. As a text, its not beloved by all, but as a historical document of a moment in time for the third wave coffee movement it is an invaluable primary source.

Starting in February of 2017, Weissman undertook a major new round of coffee writing in the pages of Sprudge. This work specifically focused on the successes, failures, and prevailing challenges of the Direct Trade coffee model in the years following God In A Cup. Across three sprawling entriesbook chapters, reallyWeissman interviewed dozens of coffee producers, importers, and assorted professionals around the world, unpacking the complicated reality of Direct Trade coffee in 2017, with an eye towards where it might be headed next.

Were showing you this work again today because its some of the most essential content published on Sprudge in 2017. Below youll find direct links to each feature, plus some of our favorite passages pulled from each. It was our distinct pleasure to publish this work over the last year and to welcome Michaele Weissman as an original features writer on Sprudge. We hope you enjoy exploring the content below.

Published February 8, 2017.

Direct Trade, at its very core, has no core, says Trish Rothgeb, co-owner and roastmaster of Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters in San Francisco and former director of programs at the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). While Intelligentsia has a set of principles to followGeoff Watts is the best in the business. He really does his homeworkmost companies are pretty cavalier about what constitutes Direct Trade, Rothgeb says.

A prescient observer of the industry (Rothgeb coined the phrase Third Wave, among other achievements), she believes that without foundational documents and the kind of policing mechanisms possessed by certification programs like CQI, Direct Trade more often than not is a marketing strategy wrapped in a cloak of virtue. To wit: the well-respected importer, a person otherwise known for their integrity, who ships their coffees in bags stamped Direct Trade to roasters who may or may not have visited origin. Mostly, Rothgeb says, the term Direct Trade just muddies the water.

To illustrate her point, Rothgeb recalls an online exchange she had earlier in the year with a European roaster who reported with pride that he had just bought his first Direct Coffee. An online chorus of congratulations greeted his announcement.

Rothgeb, who buys Wrecking Balls green coffee (2016 predicted sales: 90,000 pounds) from importers she considers partners, asked the European roaster to define the Direct Trade components of his purchase.

Well, he said, he had visited the farm, and he planned to market the coffee as Direct Trade.

Rothgeb askedwhat was his level of involvement with the farm? Was his contract with the importer or with the grower himself? Moreover, she questioned, if the coffee doesnt live up to expectations when it arrives, who will bear the financial burden?

I wasnt being judge-y, Rothgeb insists. I just wanted to know what differentiated this purchase from any other.

Read more from Is Direct Trade Fair by Michaele Weissman on Sprudge Media Network

Published March 30th, 2017

If you are a grower, why make the expensive effort to develop relationships with specialty buyers and jump through all their hoops? Your coffee might not make the grade. And if it does win the jackpot one year, it may not perform so well the next (this story is sadly common among Cup of Excellence winners). Isnt there a better way?

The question presumes that farmers have choices. Direct Trade is the worst system for buying (or selling) green coffeeexcept for all the others, says Michael Sheridan. Today hes the Director of Sourcing at Intelligentsia, but in a previous role he oversaw Catholic Relief Services path-breaking Borderlands research project, studying the impact of Direct Trade on farmers in Colombia.

Sheridans quote doesnt pull any punchesnothing about this process is easy. Yet despite the uncertainty and added labor associated with Direct Trade, many coffee producers have embraced the challenge. Take Maria Elena de Botto, co-owner of Finca Nombre de Dios in the northwest Alotepec-Metapan region of El Salvador (she wears a second hat as presidente of El Salvadors Alianza de Mujeres en Cafe). Botto has no doubts about this interactive way of selling coffee.

Direct Trade, she believes, is a lot more than a sales modelits a top to bottom reorientation that opened her eyes to coffees potential. It taught me what coffee was and what I could do with it, Botto recalls. If you just hand your cherry over to someone else for wet milling and drying and sellingthats how the C-market operates. If you make the additional effort to wet mill and dry mill the way your buyers want, thats Direct Trade. Without the innovations promoted by Direct Trade coffee farming in my region would not be sustainable, she says.

Read more from Direct Trade In The Shadows by Michaele Weissman on Sprudge Media Network.

Published August 1, 2017.

There are no guarantees that Direct Trade will live up to its promise, but neither in my view is there much choice. Unless farmers lives improveand again, buyers and sellers seem to agree that trading directly is the best hope for thatmillions of coffee smallholders around the world, the ones high up on the mountain producing quality, will abandon their farms, accelerating a dire trend. At some point, specialty as we know itan industry selling an affordable luxury to tens of millions of reasonably affluent people every daywill cease to exist. What will remain is a Rolls Royce industry selling astronomically priced coffees from a handful of farms, (many of them in Panama). Beyond that, there will be industrial grade beans traded on the C-grade market. Armageddon for coffee lovers outside the one percent.

I do not believe market forces will allow this to happen. I suspect specialty will prevail as a product available to an upper-middle demographic while the DT sales model evolves to meet changing market conditions. Some of these changes are already taking place and they are concerning. As the top roasting companies increase in size and power, they may continue to buy coffee direct from farmers, but can it be said that these negotiations take place between equal partners? In other words, can the ethical ideas embedded in the Direct Trade sales model survive the consolidation of the industry?

The answer, I believe, depends on how groups of farmers interested in and able to devote themselves to growing and selling quality coffee respond to consolidation. Maria Botto in El Salvador and Felipe Croce in Brazil both described successful efforts to form vertically integrated farmers associations that own their own mills, possess their own export licenses, and are able to have the heft to effectively represent their own interests. Will this form of independent grower consolidation develop into a full-blown trend?

One can only hope.

Read more from Show Me The Money: Direct Trade Volume 3 by Michaele Weissman on Sprudge Media Network.

Michaele Weissman is a special correspondent to Sprudge Media Network. Weissman is the author of God In A Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee, published in 2008 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and a freelance journalist writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many more. Read more Michaele Weissman on Sprudge.

Jordan Michelman is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Jordan Michelman on Sprudge.
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) has released their industry performance results for the second quarter of the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

The executive summary is as follows:

 In the first six months of Fiscal Year 2017-18 (April 1-September 30, 2017), gross wagering on Ontario races increased by 5.9% relative to the same period the prior year, largely driven by growth in the Thoroughbred handle.

 The volume of betting tickets sold live, at racetracks across Ontario, saw a decline (-3.7%) compared to the previous year, mostly driven by a notable reduction for Thoroughbreds (-5.2%). When normalizing for the number of races, the count of tickets per race shows a relatively flat trend.

 The Ontario horse racing industry continues to experience a horse supply shortage as demonstrated by a reduced number of unique starters (-3.2%) relative to Fiscal Year 2016-17. Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds contributed to the bulk of this unfavourable variance partially offset by a slight increase for Quarter Horses.

The complete report can be found below, or via this link.

More results will be made available by OLG officials as the fiscal year progresses.
Thursday's merger that will combine Ontario Racing and the Ontario Standardbred Alliance into an independent, not-for-profit industry organization made headlines both in and outside horse racing circles.

The announcement, prominently featured on the Standardbred Canada website to reach an international harness racing audience, was also covered both provincially and nationally by mainstream print media. The National Post and the Toronto Sun each devoted space to horse racing and covered the merger.

According to the announcement, the newly-formed entity will "create a more cost-effective and streamlined approach to industry administration and governance, as well as a more collaborative and effective approach to decision-making and strategic planning on behalf of 15 racetracks and racing industry associations across the province."

Hugh Mitchell, Chair of Ontario Racing's Board of Directors, is confident this move will help create a single, unified voice to advocate for horse racing's best interests.

"It is the industrys desire to have the government funding agreement, of approximately $100 million annually, entrusted to Ontario Racing to establish a more independent self-governing industry," Mitchell was quoted as saying in the Toronto Sun.

That $100 million annual funding amount is still yet to be finalized. The new organization "will work collaboratively with the OLG to negotiate the long-term funding agreement, which will then be distributed to Ontario Racing Management (ORM) to allocate under a fair and transparent formula through a business plan approved by the Board of Directors of the new merged entity."
Less than a month ago, Yonkers Raceway announced that Cammie Haughton would serve as the track's director of racing. Haughton dropped a bombshell on Thursday regarding some upcoming changes to the New York half-miler including a decision to remove the track's stretch-drive passing lane.

Haughton was discussing some of the challenges facing Yonkers and changes he plans to implement at the track during an interview with Post Time With Mike and Mike. He mentioned the need to keep tracks from running races simultaneously in the simulcast market, and also giving horseplayers and fans more time to see the horses before the start of a race. More time for post parades, and better post parades so that off-track bettors have a better look.

"These guys [drivers] are going to do as I say, and if they don't like it they can drive somewhere else," said Haughton. "But we have to buckle down and turn things around, and I'm going to do that."

The former presiding judge at Yonkers as well as The Meadowlands went on to reveal a major shift with the decision to remove the track's passing lane.

"With the thanks of Mr. (Tim) Rooney and Mr. (Bob) Galterio, I got rid of the passing lane. There's going to be no more passing lane...we're going back to basics. These guys (drivers) are going to pull, they're not going to sit in anymore and wait for the passing lane to go up through."

Haughton noted the change could be in effect as early as the new year when Yonkers returns from its holiday break on January 7, 2018.

"We're working on that. We sent a letter up to the Gaming Board for permission to get rid of it."

The passing lane was introduced to Canadian harness racing 25 years ago, with Flamboro Downs becoming the first add the feature in April 1992. Since that time, many tracks have added passing lanes with mixed reactions from fans, horsemen and horseplayers.

In September, The Raceway at Western Fair District openly solicited feedback on adding a passing lane to London's half-mile oval that would span half the length of its homestretch. Hoosier Park added a passing lane in 2016 to, in the words of the track, provide a better racing product.

We are committed to making Hoosier Park harness racing one of the most competitive racetracks in the country, said Jim Brown, Centaur Gaming president and COO. This enhancement will not only stand as the longest passing lane in North America, but will be sure to bring even more excitement, amplify the driving strategy involved, and ultimately make for an even greater racing product that our fans are sure to enjoy.

John Campbell, president and CEO of The Hambletonian Society, has gone on the record saying he believes passing lanes should be eliminated at all tracks.

"I made suggestions to people in Pennsylvania and at Yonkers that I thought they should be eliminated," Campbell told harnessracing.com. "Racing has become too predictable at tracks with passing lanes. I just don't see any risk with making this move."
Two names that might not be familiar to Meadowlands regulars will be appearing in the program more and more during the winter months, and Mitchell Cushing and Austin Siegelman are prepared to do what it takes to make it on the sizable Big M stage.

The first of these two youngsters is 19-year-old Cushing, who was actually contacted while making his way from his Albion, Maine home to the Meadowlands Thursday night.



Mitchell Cushing guides CR Fixed Asset to victory at Scarborough Downs Mitchell Cushing guides CR Fixed Asset to victory at Scarborough Downs

I'm on my way there now, said Cushing, who graduated high school in June of 2016. It's about six hours to get there. It'll be my second time driving at the Meadowlands. Last week, I drove one horse.

Six hours in the car for one drive. Why?

For the love of the sport, said Cushing, who has been driving regularly for a year and a half in Maine and Massachusetts. It's always been a childhood dream to drive at the Meadowlands.

It may not be a six-hour trip, but when Pocono Downs races, Siegelman drives four days a week from Pocono to Monticello and back. On days such as Thursday, once Monticello is done, it's 90 minutes one way to the Big M.

Siegelman has been driving full-time for about four years. His father James has horses at Pocono that Austin drives, but with Pocono dark for the winter, the 25-year-old is taking another shot at Big M glory after trying the mile oval a year ago with limited good results.



Gianni and Austin Siegelman victorious at Saratoga Gianni and Austin Siegelman victorious at Saratoga

It's the Meadowlands, said Siegelman. Who doesn't want to drive there?

Siegelman has an alliance with trainer Chris Marino, so he'll get some drives there, as well as for his dad. Other than that, he'll be relying on himself.

I'm not a big phone guy, said Siegelman. So how much work I get will be based on performance and people I know.

It'll be tough for the two youngsters, who both plan to be around until March, and they are keeping expectations muted.

Try to make as much money as possible, said Cushing, whose dad Ron has been a long-time trainer. But that depends on what horses you have. To have people say, 'Did you see this kid, he did a good job'. Then, if a big trainer were to come to Plaindridge this summer, he might consider me. It would be more than enough to be be known and respected.

I don't have a lot of expectations, said Siegelman. Just put in some good efforts. I'd like to win some races. The Meadowlands is the place to be. Everybody watches the Meadowlands.

And now everybody will be watching Cushing and Siegelman.

(Meadowlands)
Judicial Watch Sues FBI for Records About Removal of Former Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok from Mueller Operation

Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172



WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for records about the removal and reassignment of Peter Strzok, a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, from the special counsel's investigative team led by former FBI director Robert Mueller. Strzok also was the FBI's second in command of counterintelligence and chief of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's illicit email server, interviewing Hillary Clinton himself on July 2, 2016.



The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after the FBI failed to respond to an August 17, 2017, FOIA request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (No. 1:17-cv-02682)). Judicial Watch seeks:

All records regarding the assignment of FBI Supervisor Peter Strzok to the special counsel's investigation led by former Director Robert Mueller.



All records related to the reassignment of FBI Supervisor Peter Strzok from the special counsel's investigation to another position within the FBI.



All SF-50 and/or SF-52 employment forms, as well as all related records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the FBI and any other individual or entity.

According to reports (here and here) Strzok was reportedly removed from the Mueller investigative team in August and reassigned to a human resources position after it was discovered that he and another FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, who worked for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and with whom Strzok was carrying on an extramarital affair, "exchanged text messages during the Clinton investigation and campaign season in which they expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton."



Strzok reportedly oversaw the FBI's interviews of former National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn; changed former FBI Director James Comey's language about Hillary Clinton's actions regarding her illicit email server from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless;" played a lead role in the FBI's interview of Clinton and is suspected of being responsible for using the unverified dossier to obtain a FISA warrant in order to spy on President Trump's campaign.



"It is disturbing the FBI has stonewalled our request about the Mr. Strzok demotion for four months," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "One can only conclude the FBI and Justice Department (including Mr. Mueller's operation) wanted to hide the truth about how Strzok's and Page's political biases and misconduct have compromised both the Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations."



Agent Strzok's texts about Hillary Clinton and President Trump are responsive to another Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit, but have not yet been produced by the FBI.



MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-fbi-records-removal-former-deputy-assistant-director-peter-strzok-mueller-operation/


Mira Costa became the first team this season to win a set against Cathedral Catholic, but the Mustangs eventually fell in four sets in the CIF SoCal Regional final Tuesday night.
A liberal group that aims to flip control of the U.S. House of Representatives back to Democrats has added Washingtons 3rd Congressional District to its list of competitive races.

Swing Left, an activist group that helps progressive volunteers find the closest swing district to their ZIP code, announced Thursday that its targeting Southwest Washington Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler in the 2018 midterm elections.

The fourth-term congresswoman has won each of her re-election bids by more than 20 points, but next years race could prove to be her toughest campaign yet.

Swing Left has raised nearly $3.5 million for the eventual primary winners in 70 different swing districts. Democrats would need to flip at least 24 seats to take back the House in 2018. All 435 House seats are up for re-election in 2018.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced it was targeting the 3rd District in February, and a pro-Obamacare group recently cut a digital ad hitting Herrera Beutler for her vote in favor of House Republicans sweeping tax bill last month.

The Cook Political Report, a widely respected handicapper of House races, recently rated the district as only slightly more Republican than Democrat.

Theres obviously a blue wave building in elections across the country, Swing Left Executive Director Ethan Todras-Whitehill told The Daily News in an email.

Todras-Whitehill said Herrera Beutlers recent tax vote was one reason why his group is targeting her district.

During a live telephone town hall Tuesday, Herrera Beutler sought to allay constituents concerns that the tax code rewrite will balloon the deficit and primarily benefit rich people and corporations. She argued that the plan, which slashes taxes on corporations and doubles the standard deduction for individuals, will create jobs and unleash enough economic growth to pay for itself. A final vote on a negotiated House-Senate tax plan could happen as early as Monday.

Whitehill pointed to an estimate that the House bill would result in nearly 29,000 people losing health insurance in the 3rd District, according to an analysis by the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

Whitehill also said Herrera Beutlers Trump score  a measure calculated by the election forecasting website FiveThirtyEight  could also hurt her next November. Herrera Beutler has voted in favor of President Donald Trumps agenda 91.1 percent of the time, according to the site.

However, she also broke with her party on House Republicans attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in May and said she would not vote for Trump after a now-infamous Access Hollywood tape revealed him boasting about sexual assault a month before the presidential election.

In a statement to The Daily News, Herrera Beutler said she welcomes the opportunity to have Southwest Washington voters assess her track record.

As this regions voice, I am focused on getting results and protecting opportunity for people who live here. The people of Southwest Washington can and should review my track record when they mark their ballots next November  the every-two-years performance review comes with the job, she said. I look forward to a good campaign.

Whitehill said that while Swing Left doesnt take sides in primaries, the group likes to see active primary challengers step up.

On the Democratic side, four candidates have announced campaigns so far.

Vancouver businessman David McDevitt is running for the second time after losing to state Rep. Jim Moeller in the August primary last year. Iraq war veteran and prominent Bernie Sanders supporter Dorothy Gasque announced her campaign in June. Small business owner and scientist Peter Harrison, who announced in October, is hoping his tech skills give him an edge. And WSU Vancouver professor Carolyn Long held a formal campaign kickoff event at the end of last month.

Of the four challengers, only McDevitt has reported having more than $10,000 in cash on hand, according to recent FEC filings.
McMenamins: Many local folks are looking forward to the opening of the new $10 million Kalama McMenamins hotel and restaurant in the spring  and we are, too.

Brothers Mike and Brian McMenamin have been transforming properties into brew pubs, music venues, hotels and theater pubs in the Pacific Northwest since about the mid-1970s. The brothers are known for restoring old buildings, like the 1911 historic Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon, but also have been constructing new ones, like the Kalama project.

According to a recent story by TDN reporter Marissa Luck, the Kalama McMenamins, now called the Kalama Harbor Lodge, will have a tropical theme that reflects Kalamas Hawaiian historical connections along with the McMenamin brothers own fascination with Hawaiian culture.

People who have visited Mauis Pioneer Inn may notice similarities between the two sites since the design of the Kalama building was inspired by the Maui building.

The Kalama Harbor Lodge will contain a brewery, a restaurant/pub and bottle shop, and a space for meetings and banquets, Luck wrote. And thats just on the first floor.

A rooftop brew pub offers a view of the Columbia River waterfront; and a log cabin-style brew pub with a cedar shake roof is located at the end of a walking path along the river. The cabin may even have a fireplace. Sounds toasty on a cold or wet night, doesnt it?

And, if youre not ready to go home after an evening meal, how about staying in one of the lodges 40 rooms?

We are certain once the Kalama Harbor Lodge opens, it is going to be a booming place.

Flu and pneumonia: We noticed in TDNs obituary column that two people recently died from complications of pneumonia.

Reading about the deaths reminds us that during the cold and flu season, we must pay attention to our symptoms. What we may think is the flu could turn into viral pneumonia.

As a matter of fact, about one-third of all pneumonia cases in the U.S. are caused by respiratory viruses, most commonly, influenza, according to Dr. Jason Turowski, a pulmonologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.

The virus invades the lungs, causes them to swell and blocks the flow of oxygen. It is most serious for people in high risk groups, including infants, young children, folks with health problems or weakened immune systems, and people more than 65 years old.

Many cases of viral pneumonia clear up within a few weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but people can die from severe cases. In 2014, the CDC ranked pneumonia combined with the flu as the eighth leading cause of death in the United States.

Seasonal flu epidemics occur in the U.S. every year with flu viruses most common during the fall and winter months, notes the CDC. The peak time for contracting the flu is from December through February, though the flu season can last through May.

The early symptoms of pneumonia are similar to flu symptoms and include a cough (with yellow or green mucus), a fever, chills (or shaking), fatigue, sweating, feeling weak or lethargic and blue lips, according to healthline.com.

A person with viral pneumonia could develop additional symptoms including a worsening shortness of breath, a worsening cough, muscle aches and pains, and headaches. Older people who contract pneumonia might experience dizziness, have a lower than normal body temperature and could be confused.

Dont be afraid to see a doctor, especially if you have difficulty breathing, experience chest pain, have a persistent fever of 102 degrees F. or higher, or have a cough that doesnt seem to go away  especially if youre coughing up crud.

And, remember, the flu is contagious. People with the flu virus can infect other people up to seven days after becoming ill and even a day before symptoms develop, according to the CDC. Sick children can pass the virus along for more than seven days after they show symptoms.

If you feel yourself coming down with a bug, please take care.

TDN wild art photos: From time to time, Daily News photographer Bill Wagner takes what we call wild art photos that usually appear either on the front of the A section of the newspaper or the front of the B section of the newspaper.

Bills photos are astounding. Two we particularly enjoyed were in the paper Dec. 9 (on Page A3) and Dec. 13 (on Page B1).

When one of us shared the photo of fallen leaves covered with a layer of frost on our Facebook page, a friends response was His work always takes my breath away.

Yes it does.

The Dec. 13 photo of a bull elk off Highway 30 west of Westport, Ore., shows detail from the colors in its fur to the markings in its ears.

If you havent seen these photos yet, take a look. Although the photos in the print edition are beautiful, the photos online in the papers e-edition or in the photo gallery at the bottom of our websites home page are stunning.

We want to take a moment and thank Bill for providing the newspaper his amazing shots for the past (nearly) 31 years.
WASHINGTON  When historians examine President Trumps tax program, they will surely be struck by a large and momentous contradiction. Although the nation faces endless budget deficits  and although the president purports to speak about the future  his tax program does little or nothing to curb long-term deficits and, arguably, might make them worse.

It is said that the tax gap of the Trump-Republican program  the net amount of the tax cut  is somewhere between zero (the administrations position  the tax cut will pay for itself through stronger economic growth) and $1.5 trillion over a decade (the position of many economists who doubt much of a boost to economic growth).

Wrong, on both counts. A more realistic estimate of the tax gap is somewhere between $7 trillion and $12 trillion, again over a decade.

How do I get these fantastic figures? The answer is that I ignore Trumps program altogether and simply deal with existing deficits, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Its not that I believe that Trumps program will work as promised. I dont. My real point is that, in many ways, its too small to matter.

Even if it works, it wont cure chronic deficits. And neither party is pretending it will. Both find it more convenient to argue over the plans distributional effects  are the rich and well-to-do unfairly favored?  than to close the gaping deficits.

Heres some basic arithmetic that reinforces my point. Although its a bit tricky, stick with me.

Our economy  the annual production of goods and services, or gross domestic product (GDP)  is now approaching $20 trillion. So every 1 percent of GDP is worth about $200 billion. In fiscal 2017, the deficit was 3.5 percent of GDP, or almost $700 billion. Over a decade, and assuming unrealistically that the deficit doesnt rise, taxes would need to increase by $7 trillion in todays dollars to balance the budget.

But what if the deficit does rise? By the late 2030s, the CBO estimates that annual deficits will reach 6 percent of GDP, almost doubling from their present level. The increase mainly reflects the growing number of elderly drawing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to swelling interest payments on the existing debt. To balance the budget would require annual tax increases averaging $1.2 trillion, or $12 trillion over a decade, both in todays dollars.

Either way, the required tax increase would be enormous, ranging from about a fifth of todays tax burden to about a third. If instead Congress tried to balance the budget by cutting spending, the reductions  including defense  would be huge.

Some tentative conclusions emerge from this exercise:

 Plausible rates of economic growth arent fast enough to eliminate massive deficits, though they would help. The required growth to do more than Trump has already proposed is simply too high. The present and estimated-future deficits are so large that they can only be reduced through the politically painful process of raising taxes or cutting spending.

 The presumption of politicians of both parties, despite some loud rhetoric to the contrary, is that large deficits and growing federal debt do not now pose a serious threat to the economy. Its easier to defer major changes  to hope that something will come along to cope with the deficits  rather than wade into the quagmire of substantially higher taxes or lower spending.

 If this optimistic assumption about deficits  call it benign neglect of deficits  turns out to be wrong, the U.S. economy faces a serious jolt somewhere in the future.

Whats clear is that, regardless of the fate of Trumps tax program, its not the be-all and end-all in economic policy that both friend and foe suppose it to be.
War must not be allowed on Korean peninsula: China

Xi made his comments to visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Reuters, Beijing :

War must not be allowed to break out on the Korean peninsula and the issue must be resolved through talks, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of the danger of "sleepwalking" into conflict.

Xi made his comments to visiting South Korean President Moon Jae-in just days after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions.

But the White House said on Wednesday that no negotiations could be held with North Korea until it improved its behaviour. The White House has declined to say whether President Donald Trump, who has taken a tougher rhetorical line toward North Korea, approved Tillerson's overture.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tillerson's offer of direct contacts with North Korea was "a very good signal", while warning that a U.S. strike on the North would have catastrophic consequences.

North Korea tested its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile on Nov. 29, which it said could put all of the United States within range, in defiance of international pressure and U.N. sanctions. While South Korea and China share the goal of getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and stop testing increasingly sophisticated long-range missiles, the two have not seen eye-to-eye on how to achieve this.

Meeting in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, Xi told Moon that the goal of denuclearising the Korean peninsula must be stuck to, and that war and chaos cannot be allowed to happen, state media said.

"The peninsula issue must in the end be resolved via dialogue and consultation," Xi was cited as saying.

China and South Korea have an important shared interest in maintaining peace and stability, and China is willing to work with South Korea to prevent war and promote talks, Xi added.

China would support North and South Korea to improve relations as this was good for easing tension, he said.

Xi's warm tone followed nearly a year of tense relations between the two countries.

China has been furious about the deployment of the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea, saying its powerful radar can see far into China and will do nothing to ease tension with North Korea.

China and South Korea agreed in late October that they would normalise exchanges and move past the dispute over THAAD, which froze trade and business exchanges, and Moon has been keen to put the dispute behind them.

Xi reiterated China's position on THAAD and said he hoped South Korea would continue to "appropriately handle" the issue.

Guterres, speaking to reporters in Tokyo after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said Security Council resolutions on North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes must be fully implemented by Pyongyang and other countries.

"It is very clear that the Security Council resolutions must be fully implemented, first of all by North Korea, but by all other countries whose role is crucial to ... achieve the result we all aim at, which is the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula," Guterres said.

He added that Security Council unity was also vital "to allow for the possibility of diplomatic engagement" that would allow denuclearisation to take place.

"The worst possible thing that could happen is for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances," Guterres said.

He said he expected a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday would deliver a strong expression of unity and the need for diplomacy to resolve the issue.

Japan says now is the time to keep up maximum pressure on North Korea, not start talks on its missile and nuclear programmes.

China and Russia, however, have welcomed Tillerson's overture.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said a strike on North Korea by the United States would have catastrophic consequences and that he hoped to work with Washington eventually to resolve the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Russia does not accept North Korea's nuclear status, Putin told an annual news conference. But he also said that some of Washington's past actions had provoked North Korea into violating a 2005 pact to curb its nuclear programme.




Red win in Nepal presents a Himalayan challenge for India

Nepal communist party supporters participate in a victory rally in Kathmandu

Agencies, New Delhi :

Red Flags celebrate the communist win in Nepal, with the Left Alliance that had campaigned on a call to counter India's dominance set to form the next government, throwing up what is seen as a Himalayan challenge for India. Khadga Prasad Oli, widely expected to be the new Prime Minister in all likelihood of this combine, has made no qualms of his proximity to China.

The Left Alliance bagged 116 seats out of a total 165 under the first-past-the-post system in the parliamentary elections. The ruling centrist Nepali Congress, which was seen to be close to India, ended up with less than two dozen seats.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar welcomed the conduct of parliamentary and provincial elections in the neighbourhood. "We look forward to working with the next democratically elected government in Nepal to advance our close and multifaceted partnership," he said.

Back in Kathmandu too, leaders of the Left alliance have also stressed Left party alliance which is set to form the next government would neither be "anti-India" nor "pro-China".

India's considerable influence on the small Himalayan nation and its politics has been on the wane after it took a hard stance on the new constitution in 2015 that was seen to be unfair to the Madhesis, an ethnic group with close ties to people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

An agitation by Madhesi groups against the constitution was perceived in Kathmandu to have India's tacit support. So when the movement of trucks carrying food and fuel into the landlocked nation reduced to a trickle during protests by Madhesi groups, the Oli-Prachanda government stoked ultra nationalism by alleging that the blockade was a case of a big bully arm-twisting Nepal.

New Delhi denied a blockade was imposed and cited a reduced supply to a security concerns due to the protests. But the Left Alliance's narrative influenced public opinion.

Mr Oli, who was forced to resign last year, had accused India of bringing down his government by forcing Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, to withdraw support to his government through "remote control".

After a short-lived government formed along with the Nepali Congress which was seen to have India's support, Prachanda came back to join hands with Communist Party of Nepal (UML) chairman KP Oli under the Left Alliance.

The alliance backed by China has pledged to renegotiate treaties with India during much of its campaign, and deepen ties with Beijing.

PTI adds: Nepal's Left party alliance which is set to form the next government would neither be "antiIndia" nor "pro-China" and maintain good relations with both the countries, a CPN-UML leader has said.

"Both (India and China) are our neighbours, we respect both neighbours. India is our neighbour. No Nepali will be anti-Indian," said Ishwor Pokhrel, general secretary of the CPN-UML.

He stressed that his party was neither "anti-India" nor "pro-China", with Nepal having many existing trade and transit agreements with New Delhi, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The Left alliance bagged 116 seats out of a total 165 under the first-past-the-post system in the just-concluded parliamentary polls. The governing centrist Nepali Congress has won just 21.

CPN-UML chairman Khadga Prasad, who is known for his pro-China stance, is tipped to become the new prime minister of the country.

Ishwor Pokhrel said the new government would be keen to develop ties with China, which he described as a "friend" who respected Nepalese sovereignty.

"We have to maintain good relations with China. We respect the one-China policy and we are very strictly against anti-Chinese activities," he said, in an apparent reference to Tibetans crossing over to Nepal to meet the Dalai Lama.

Ishwor Pokhrel said that after assuming power, the new government would implement a 15-point joint communique signed by KP Sharma Oli and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in March 2016 that covered transportation, trade and financial cooperation.

The Nepal government will also approve infrastructure projects with China after a majority government is formed in mid-January, including railway projects, motorways and hydroelectric schemes such as the Budhi Gandaki dam.

The Budhi Gandaki dam project was originally planned with state-owned China Gezhouba Group, but it was cancelled by the government on the eve of the elections, citing irregularities.

The procurement process for the dam project will be studied again, but it is not certain if the contract will be given to China Gezhouba, a Chinese construction and engineering company based in Wuhan, Hubei province.

"When Oli will become the prime minister, then we will take [the agreements] very seriously," Ishwor Pokhrel was quoted as saying by the report.

"Nepal is keen to get involved in China's Belt and Road trade and infrastructure initiative with other nations," he added.




Success story of Ctg Metropolitan Hospital

Sarwaruddin,Chittagong Bureau :

Bangladesh now in the high risk of cardiac diseases . It is one of the deadly diseases. At present it turns into an epidemic nature. There is no such impact of cardiac diseases in early 30 years ago.

The severity of this complicated and expensive disease in South East Asia including Bangladesh is in high scale than other parts of the world. The ratio of this disease in Bangladesh is more than the Europe, America and Australia continent . The people of this subcontinent are in the high risk of cardiac complications due to unawareness in taking foods and physical work. The main problems of cardiac disease are - coronary artery disease, heart valve disease and congenital heart disease .

The numbers cardiac patients are gradually increasing day by day including children also.

The huge numbers of cardiac patients are burden of the country. For better treatment of the cardiac patients , a number of low and mid-income family became ruined even after selling their properties for taking treatment abroad. In early ,most of the patients were keen to take treatment in abroad specifically in USA ,UK , Singapore and Bangkok spending huge foreign currency.

It is revealed from Chief Cardiac Surgeon of Chittagram Metropolitan Hospital Limited (CMHL) heart center Dr.Sarwar Kamal in an exclusive interview that from very beginning of 20th century the treatment of cardiac diseases began. Mentionable that an specialist cardiac surgeon of Boston Children Hospital (USA) Dr.Robert Gros cured a 7 yrs old girl after operation of congenital heart disease patients . From that very date , the treatment of cardiac diseases developed gradually. Across the world, first ever Open heart surgery done upon a 18 yrs old girl on June 6, 1953 .Cardiac surgeon of Zeferson Medical college (USA) Dr.John H Gibon first ever conducted the said open heart surgery .

Besides, Dr.Christian Barnard first ever transplanted a human heart in the body of a dental surgeon in South Africa in 1967. The treatment of cardiac patients in our country was unthinkable upto 80 decade rather dependent on foreign country .

First ever in Bangladesh ,GOB and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with joint collaboration established Institute of cardio vascular disease (NICVD)Hospital In Dhaka in 1978. First ever cardiac operation conducted in NICVD on September 18, 1981 .

Japanese cardiac surgeon Dr.Sajji, pioneer cardiac surgeon of Bangladesh Dr.NabiAlam Khan and Prof.SR Khan for the first time conducted this heart surgery. These two cardiac surgeons of Bangladesh first ever successfully completed bypass surgery on October , 1990. From that very period , the treatment of cardiac surgery begins at govt hospitals and the newly established specialized private hospitals. . It is undeniable that following the establishment of some specialized private hospitals in public and private sector at Dhaka and outside Dhaka , the influx of cardiac patients to abroad lessened with some extents recently.

Even that a good number of cardiac patients are going to Singapore, Bangkok and neighbouring India for taking treatment . But these foreign returned patients are being compelled to take medicare facilities like follow up treatment, check up etc at country's specialized hospitals. At present a number of Cardiac Hospitals are running in the country in private and public sector. They are doing a good number of pts in every year. The history of cardiac Treatment in Chittagong no so far off . With the aim of providing cardiac treatment to poor community , very recently CMHL launched full-fledged unit for Cardiac patients and hence the dwellers of Chittagong are now capable to take advantages of cardiac treatment.

While talking with the Chief Cardiac Surgeon of CMHL Heart Center Dr.Sarwar Kamal told that first ever conducted a open heart surgery on Abdul Mannan of Sitakunda upazila of Chittagong on January 28, 2011 in CMHL heart center .Cardiac patients now on rush towards Chittagong sensing the successful operation of heart and cardiovascular . Chittagong Metropolitan Hospital is considering minimum and affordable expenses . Moreover , the cordiality of the working physicians in Hospital is praiseworthy.

Dr.Sarwar Kamal joined this hospital in July, 2014 . Dr.Kamal is affectionate , amiable and patient friendly physician. Dr. Kamal hailed from Chapainawabgonj district who graduated in medical science from Rajshahi Medical College in 1996 and later joined with Bangladesh Health service. In 2001, DrKamal joined NICVD, Dhaka as Asstt. Registrar and later obtained MS(Surgery) in Cardio vascular & thoracic surgery in 2008. Dr.Sarwar Kamal from his very early professional career desires to be a specialized surgeon. In an exclusive interview withDr.SarwarKamal apprised that he started his profession in cardiac surgery through conducting open heart surgery of a 25 yrs old youth at NICVD Hospital in 2007. He conducted a number of open heart surgery at NICVD Hospital .Later Dr Kamal joins as Chief Cardiac Surgeon of Zia Heart Foundation Hospital, Dinajpur in 2010. A number of open heart and bypass surgery were conducted by Dr.Kamal during his tenure in ZHF hospital. After that Dr.Kamal came over Chittagong in 2014 and joined CMHL heart center as chief cardiac surgeon . From very inception in CMHL heart center, he proved himself as a competent Cardiac Surgeon through successful completion of a number of open heart & bypass surgery.
Minister hopes 10 lakh overseas jobs this yr

Chittagong Bureau :

Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam BSc hoped that over 10 lakh Bangladeshi workers would get overseas employment opportunities by the end of this year.

"This year, some 9.64 lakh Bangladeshi workers got employment opportunities abroad so far and the total number is likely to cross 10 lakh at the end of this year (calendar year)," he said. The minister was addressing a roundtable titled 'Migration Diplomacy: Successes, Limitations and Steps' as the chief guest held at Dhaka recently.

Debate for Democracy organized the roundtable moderated by Secretary General of National Debate Federation Mostafizur Rahman Khan.

Debate for Democracy Chairman Hasan Ahmed Chowdhury Kiron presented the key-note paper at the roundtable while former ambassador Humayun Kabir, BMET Director General Selim Reza, Dhaka International University Vice-Chancellor

Dr KM Mohsin, among others, spoke at the roundtable. The Expatriates' Welfare Minister also informed that some 71,433 female workers went to Saudi Arabia in the last year while the country has also agreed to take close male relatives of the female workers alongside taking more female workers, a sources of the Minister in Chittagong added.


Quantum of seized drugs must be determined in an acceptable method

High Court Division :

(Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction)

Abu Bakar Siddiquee J

Mustafa Zaman Islam J

Leon and another. .

Convict-Appellant

vs

State......Respondent

Judgment

January 26th, 2017

Narcotics Control Act (XX of 1990)

Sections 19(1) Table 1(Kha) and 19 Table 4

In a case where any drug is recovered and/or seized during any operation by the law-enforcement agencies, the determination of the quantum of the drug so recovered or seized is imperative. Unless the quantum of the drug is measured and determined by a proper and acceptable method i.e., by weighing with a conventional scale or an electronic scale, the statement with regard to the quantum of drug so seized or recovered would merely be based on an approximation, which is not only improper, but grossly prejudicial to the interest of the person charged with the offence. ..............(26)

Sultana Fouzia Yesmin, Advocate-For the Convict Appellant.

Md Monirujjaman Rubel, DAG with Kazi Bazlur Rashid, AAG with Delwara Begum (Bela), AAG-For the State.

Judgment

Mustafa Zaman Islam J : This criminal appeal is directed against the Judgment and order of conviction and sentence dated 31-3-2010 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 2nd Court, Gazipur in Sessions Case No. 217 of 2004 arising out of Tongi Police Station case No. 21 dated 24-4-2004 corresponding to GR No. 147 of 2004 under Section 19(1) table 1 (Kha) and 19 Table-4 of Narcotics Control Act, and sentencing them to suffer rigorous imprisonment for life and also to pay a fine of Taka 10,000 in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for 6 (six) months more.

2. The facts leading to conviction, in short. are that one Md Monirul Islam as informant lodged an FIR with Tongi Police Station under District Gazipur on 28-3-2004 stating inter alia that upon receiving secret information, the police force led by Sub-Inspector Monirul Islam of DB Gazipur went to the house located at house No. 12/2, Modhumita Road, Tongi. The informant posed as a buyer of heroin and went to flat located at second floor of the aforesaid building where he found 4 (four) persons present in a room including convict-petitioners. The informant entered into a discussion with the four unknown persons with regard to purchase of heroin. At one stage of discussion, the four persons brought out a black coloured hand bag and from inside the said bag, they took out a chocolate coloured heroin packet with a polythene cover. At that time the informant, however, to send a signal to the other members of the said raiding party who were lying in wait outside and upon receiving the said signal, they rushed to the incident place and arrested the said four persons and recovered the packet in question from their possession. On quarry, they admitted that they were dealers of heroin and the same packet contained 1 kg of heroin. The informant party prepared a seizure list in the presence of witnesses. Moreover, the said packet was opened and 0.20 gram of heroin were taken as sample and it was sent to the Chief Chemical examiner. Dhaka for Chemical examination. On the basis of the said report FIR was lodged.

3. The police took up investigation of the case, visited the place of occurrence and prepared the sketch map and index. Upon conclusion of investigation, chargesheet was filed against the four accused persons under Section 19, Table 1 (Kha) of the Madak Drabya Niontron Ain, 1990 (briefly, the Ain). To prove these charges, the prosecution examined 6 (six) witnesses altogether, out of the aforesaid 6 (six) witnesses, Constable Mir Ashraf Ali (PW 1), SI Monirul Islam (PW 2), Babul Mia (PW 3) seizure list witnesses, Md Akter Hossain (PW 4), Mir Raqubal Haque, SI (PW 5) and Shahjahan Ali, Constable (PW 6).

4. During trial, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 2nd Court and Special Tribunal, 3rd Court, Gazipur framed charge against 4 (four) accused persons including convict-appellants under Section 19(1) (kha) and 19( 4) of the Narcotics control act, 1990 which was read over them to which their pleaded not guilty and claimed to be tired.

5. Upon conclusion of recording of evidence, the accused persons including convict appellants facing trial were examined under section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 2nd court, Gazipur found the appellants guilty and convicted and sentenced them in the manner noted at the outset.

6. Being aggrieved, the convict-appellants preferred the instant Criminal appeal before this High Court Division and other two co-convict filed another appeal being No. 3267 of 2010 before this Division and after hearing, this appeal disposed of by the Judgment and order dated 19-5-2011.

7. Ms. Sultana Fouzin Yesmin, the learned Advocate, appears for the convict-appellants Leon and Md Sobur, while Md Monirujjaman Rubel, the Deputy Attorney-General with Mr Kazi Bazlur Rashid, Assistant Attorney-General, appears on behalf of the State.

8. Ms. Sultana Fouzin Yesmin, the learned Advocate for the appellants at the very outset submits that the impugned judgment and order of conviction and sentence is liable to be set aside in view of the discrepancies that appears on the face of the record. Elaborating her submission, she submits that in the FIR, the GD number has been mentioned as 200, but in the chemical examination report, which has been marked as Exhibit 5, the GD number has been mentioned as 204, both the same dates. Ms. Sultana further submits that although about 20 grams of the heroin was taken in a sealed plastic container and sent to the Chemical examiner, the report indicates that the Chemical Examiner received the sample weighing 7.3610 grams. Placing considerable reliance upon these particular aspects of the case, she submits that as the GD number 200 does not correspond to the GD number appearing in the report of the chemical examiner, the said report does not relate to the heroin that was seized from the appellants. Ms. Sultana also submits that the trial court failed to consider that the quantity of heroin in question is ascertained by a report by a chemical examiner the conviction under Section 19(1) of table 1(kha) of Narcotics control Act, 1990 is not sustainable in law and, as such, it is liable to be set aside. She further submits that the Chemical Examiner, who conducted the Chemical Examine was neither examined as witness and therefore, the said report has not been proved in accordance with law.

Lastly, she submits that co-convicts filed another appeal and after hearing the parties by the said impugned Judgment and order allowed the appeal in-part that is conviction is upheld but sentence with modification as such considering the same the appellants may be benefited.

9. Mr Md Moniruzzaman Rubel, the learned Deputy Attorney-General appearing for the state, on the other hand opposes and submits that the Chemical Examiner did not examine in the dock but non examination of the same is not fatal to the prosecution case in view of the provision of Section 510 of the code of Criminal Procedure, He submits that since the quantum of heroin that was sent for Chemical Examination was based upon approximation, it was not fatal to the prosecution case, moreover, when admittedly, the said sample was collected in a sealed container in presence of the Magistrate and subsequently, it was received in the same condition, as is evident from the said report. Lastly, he submits that the instant Judgment and order of conviction does not warrant any interference by this court and therefore, the appeal is liable to be dismissed.

10. For proper disposal of the appeal, it will be profitable to examine the evidence on record.

11. PW 1, Mir Ashraf Ali, a police constable deposed that on 28-3-2004, he accompanied Sl Monirul Islam and went to a house located at Modhumita Road, Tongi. He further deposed that the SI posed as a buyer and entered the house and after 10/15 minutes, he sent a signal and they entered the said house and recovered a bag containing 1 (one) Kg of heroin. He further deposed that four persons were arrested and the heroin was seized in presence of witnesses who signed the seizure list.

12. On recall, PW 1 further stated that SI Monirul Islam seized 1 Kg heroin on 28-3-2004

13. PW2 SI Monirul Islam deposed that on 28-3-2004, being instructed by the OC of BD, Gazipur, he proceeded along with a police force, He further deposed that posing as a buyer of heroin, he went to the second floor of the house and had a discussion with four persons who brought out a chocolate coloured packet from inside a black bag. At that stage, he gave a signal and the other members of his raiding party reached therein and with their help, accused Sattar, Lion, Sabur and Belal were arrested and they sized the packet.

14. PW 3 Babul Mia is a seizure list witness, he deposed that he could not recollect the date of occurrence, but the time was 1-30 pm-2-00 pm, He further deposed that he was sitting at the tea shop when some police personnel came to him in civil dress and told him about the recovery of heroin. He identified the seizure list and his signature as Exhibit-2, 2/2. He further stated that he did not know the accused persons.

15. PW 4 Md Akter Hossain has been declared hostile.

16. PW5 Mir Raqubul Haque S.I deposed that he took up the investigation. visited the place of occurrence prepared the sketch map and index and also recoded the statement of witnesses, He identified the sized goods in Court as Exhibit-Ka.

17. PW 6 Shahzahan Ali, a constable, who was a member of the raiding party corroborated the prosecution witnesses as to the time, place and manner of occurrence.

18. These are all the evidence that is on record.

19. It appear; from the evidence on record that upon receiving secret news from reliable source, the informant along with force, raided a house at Tongi and arrested four persons including the presents appellants and recovered a pocket contain -------------grams, was taken from the said packet in presenceof a Magistrate, 1st class and it was sent in a sealed container to the Chemical Examiner, who opined that the said substance did contain heroin which runs as follows:-

??????????? ????? ?.???? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ?????? ?????? ???? ??????????? ????? ?????? ???? ?????? ???? ??????? ?????? ????? ??????|

mxjgvni AyZ wQjO

20. However, there appears to be some discrepancy with regard to the quantum of heroin that was sent for chemical examination. PW 2 SI Monirul Islam stated that about 20 grams of heroin was sent to the chemical examiner for examination and no coloured mentioned in the same but after examination found white coloured substance as such seized heroin might be different.

21. Although the prosecution examined 6 witnesses the two local witnesses, namely PW 3 and PW4, who were also the seizure list witnesses, did not support the case. Nevertheless, the other four prosecution witnesses, who are police personnel, deposed in a uniform manner as to the time, place and manner of recovery of heroin from the four accused persons.

22. There appears to be some discrepancy with regard to the quantity of heroin that was sent, being 20 grams, and the amount that was received by the Chemical Examiner, being 7.3610 grams. However, the learned DAG submits that the quantum of heroin that was sent for chemical examination was not measured on any scale, but was merely based on approximation. According to the learned DAG, the Chemical Examiner's report stated that the substance was received in a sealed condition in a container and it was found to be heroin. Since the sample, which was sent for chemical examination was found in a sealed condition by the Chemical Examiner, mere discrepancy as to quantity so sent will not confer any benefit to the accused persons.

23. With a view to arriving at a correct decision, we are to mention the unreported decision in the case of Belal @ Belal driver vs The State in Criminal Appeal No. 3267 of 2010 wherein observed that:-

"In the unreported case of Md Fazlu Sheikh vs The State (Criminal Appeal No. 3542 of 2004), to which one of us was party, this particular aspect regarding the quantum of heroin that was recovered was considered in details with reference to the relevant provisions of law.

24. In that case, certain amount of heroin, being approximately 35 grams, was recovered from the home of the appellants when both of them were absent. In that case, it was held:

"Clause 1 (Ka) of the table under Section19(1) of the Ain read as follow:

(?) ???? ???????? ?????? ???????? ?? ????? ???? ?????? ? ???? ??? ???????? ?? ??? ?????????

25. From a plain reading of the aforesaid two provisions, it is apparent that the punishment for an offence under Section 19(1) depends upon the quantum of drug that is recovered or seized in any particular case. In other words, where the quantity exceed 25 grams, it attracts either the capital sentence or a sentence of imprisonment for life. On the other hand, where the quantum in question is less than 25 grams; the punishment varies from a minimum of 2 years to a maximum of 10 years imprisonment.

26. It is therefore obvious that in a case where any drug is recovered and/or seized during any operation by the law-enforcement agencies, the determination of the quantum of the drug so recovered or seized is imperative. Unless the quantum of the said drug is measured and determined by a proper and acceptable method i.e., by weighing with a conventional scale or an electronic scale, the statement with regard to the quantum of drug so seized or recovered would merely be based on an approximation, which is not only improper, but grossly prejudicial to the interest of the person charged with the offence.

(To be continued)

27. On the other hand, in some cases, this can also act to the benefit of the accused person. Although a person may have been in possession of more than 25 grams of drug which would, no doubt, attract the higher sentence, but due to uncertainty about the actual quantity of drug that is seized or recovered, he is entitled to the benefit of doubt and, accordingly, awarded a lesser sentence under Table I (ka).

28. The prescribed punishment under Table 1 (kha) of Section 19(1) of the Ain is death or imprisonment for life. Therefore, an onerous duty is cast upon the law enforcement agencies as well as the investigating agencies to carry out a proper and detailed investigation, giving careful attention to the aspect of "measurement" of the quantum of drugs that is recovered/seized during any operation. Any lapse on their part is likely to occasion miscarriage of justice, either to the prosecution or to the accused.

29. When the drug enforcement team goes out on a combing operation for recovery of drugs, they should be equipped with a weighing scale to measure the exact quantum of drugs that may be recovered during such operation. This is very much important equipment necessary for the drug enforcement agency, just as a weapon, like rifle or revolver, is necessary for any member of the police force.

30. By the way, we would like to say that justice must be done of crime by awarding suitable punishment to the crime doer. We are constrained to observe that criminal justice system is not working in our country as it should. It is necessary to reform investigation process. The investigation hardly have professional orientation, they do not have modern tools. It is pertinent to note that impartial investigation is required to be dispensation of criminal justice. We do not intend to say anything more in this regard since matter is being dealt with separately.

31. In the above discussion, in our view that. the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 2nd Court has rightly held that the prosecution has proved its case against convict appellants beyond reasonable doubt. However, there is sufficient room for doubt about the actual quantum of heroin that was recovered. Admittedly, no scale was used to determine the actual quantum heroin that was seized from the four accused persons. In that view, there remains some uncertainty about the actual quantum of heroin that was recovered from the accused persons resultantly, the benefit of doubt, should be accorded to the appellants.

32. Thus the ends of justice will be met if we have come to conclusion that the case will falls under the mischief of Section 1(ka) of the Table 19(1) of the Narcotics Control Act and maximum punishment of which is up to 10 years. It may be stated that records shows the convict-appellants were arrested on 28-3-2004 and since then they have been languishing in jail for 12 years.

33. In the facts and circumstance of the case, we are inclined to hold that conviction is liable to be altered from Section 19(1), Table 1 (Kha) to section 19(1), Table 1(Ka) of the said Ain. Hence the sentence may be awarded to them be reduced to the extend of 10 years which they have already undergone.

34. In the result, the appeal is dismissed with modification in respect of sentence. Convict appellants namely (I) Leon, son of Nondo Sarak and (2) Md Sabur, son of late Danu Miah be set at liberty forthwith if not wanted in connection with any other case.

Let a copy of this judgment along with LCRs be sent to the concerned court at once.
Independence not a windfall

Abdullah Akber :

The emergence of Bangladesh was not the windfall of the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, nor was it born overnight. It has a long history beginning in March 1940 and ended in December 1971 thanks to the farsighted leadership quality of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, among others.

The historic Lahore Resolution adopted in 1940 incorporated those areas in which the Muslims were numerically in a majority as in the northwestern and the eastern zones of India to constitute 'Independent States' in which the constituent units would be autonomous and sovereign.

The resolution clearly referred to an independent and sovereign State of Bengal in the eastern India. But afterward, the Muslim League leaders from Punjab began conspiracy against the Lahore Resolution and finally in April 1946 at the League's Delhi conference dropped the letter 's' from the word 'States'. In truth, it was the reflection of the West Pakistan Muslim League leaders' colonial frame of mind.

It was dearly deviation from the principles of the Lahore Resolution An 10-member committee by a 7-3 majority took the decision. Abul Hashim, Muslim League representative from Bengal, strongly protested and said, the Muslim majority eastern zone and the Muslim majority northwestern zone cannot constitute one State because they are separated from each other by over 1000 miles.

The same year the Muslim League won 113 seats out of 119 in the Bengal Provincial Legislative election. Krishak Proja Party of A K.Fazlul Huq won six seats only.

In 1946, the Cabinet Mission suggested a federal type of government in India. The Indian provinces were recast into three zones. Zone 1 constituted Hindu majority United Province, Central Province, Bihar, Urissa, Madras and Bombay, Zone 11 included the Muslim majority Punjab, Sind, Beluchistan and North West Frontier Province, while Zone Ill had Bengal and Assam. This proposal also could not be workable.

In view of all these, HS Suhrawardy, submitted a proposal in April 1947 for an independent and sovereign Bengal. Muslim League leader Abul Hashim and Forward Bloc leader Sarat Bose gave all out support to the plan. But the Indian National Congress directly opposed the plan, while the All-India Muslim League leader M.A.Jinnah said, "We have no objection if the Congress agreed." In fact, it was Jinnah's political tricks.

However, Sarat Bose returning from Delhi in a statement blamed Congress for failure of the plan (Ref: Ausham apto Atmajiboni by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). Pakistan came into being in August 1947. But the central government exposed their colonial approach towards East Bengal right from the beginning. M.A Jinnah strongly advocated for Urdu as the State language of Pakistan which the people of East Bengal never expected.

Tamaddun Majlish, a socio-cultural organisation, began to create public opinion in favour of Bengali. The Majlish and the East Pakistan Muslim Students League in a joint meeting declared March 11, 1948 as 'Bhasha Dibosh'. The programme was successful, marking the emergence of a sovereign state in East Bengal.

Pakistan Awami Muslim League was formed in 1949 with Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani as President, Shamsul Haque as Secretary and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as Joint Secretary. This party later under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman guided the nation to independence.

Swadhin BangIa Nucleus Cell was formed in 1962 with Sirajul Alam Khan, Kazi Aref Ahmad and Abdur Razzaq. They believed that the independence of Bangladesh was possible only through armed revolution. The cell's slogan was "Bir Bangali Ostro Dhoro Bangladesh Swadhin koro" (Courageous Bengalis! Take up arms and make Bangladesh independent).

In February 1966, Sheikh Mujib placed his famous Six Points at a round table conference held in Lahore. The political leaders from all over Pakistan assembled there to discuss the latest political development and future plan to restore democratic rule in Pakistan. The Six Points ushered in a new era in the history of Bangladesh. The Movement for full autonomy began. The main features of Six -Points were:

1. Pakistan shall be a federal State according to the minutes of the Lahore Resolution, with Parliamentary form of the government. All elections are to be held on the basis of the adult franchise, with sovereign power in the hands of the Legislature.

2. The central government shall look after the foreign affairs and the defence only, while the regional governments will take care of all other ministries.

3. There shall be two separate but easily exchangeable currencies, or two reserve banks in case of single currency, keeping a provision in the Constitution, banning flight of capital from East Pakistan to West Pakistan.

4. All powers to fix and collect taxes shall be in the hands of the regional governments. The regional governments will deposit a part of the revenues in the federal account. In this context, there shall be a provision in the Constitution, bindings on the regional governments. The deposited amount shall be treated as federal government's assets to meet its expenditures.

5. There shall be two separate foreign currency accounts under the control of the regional governments, which will equally deposit a part in the federal account, as per provision incorporated or to be incorporated in the Constitution. The regional governments will have power to send economic, commerce and trade delegations abroad with power to sign agrrements with any country of the world. "

6. There shall be a militia force equipped with modern and sophisticated arms in East Pakistan.

Sheikh Mujib said, I have placed Six Points in the interest of farmers, workers and exploited classes of the country. The Six Points are Charter of economic freedom only. It is not against the national integrity, but to save the exploited class.

Alarmed by Sheikh Mujib's popularity, the government filed a case called the Agartala Conspiracy case implicating 34 people, including Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Lieutenant Commander Moazzem Hossain of Pakistan Navy. The students community's 11 points movement, the mass uprising on February 24, the killing of Sergeant Zahurul Haque of Pakistan Army in Dhaka Cantonment and Dr Shamsuzzoha, Reader of Rajshahi University in Rajshahi, the proclamation of Martial Law in 1969, the General Election 1970 and the landslide victory of Awami League changed the course of history.

Amid debate whether to take part in the general election under Legal Framework Ordinance (LFO) in December 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman decided to contest and won 167 seats out of 300 in the National Assembly and 288 out of 300 in the Provincial Assembly. President Yahya Khan congratulated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman saying Mr Prime Minister.

But in Pakistan, everything did not work in accordance with the wishes of the people. The civil and the military bureaucrats, the bourgeoisie, the rightwing reactionary, the ultra left and the fanatics rallied round Z.A.Bhutto, Chairman of Pakistan People's Party, which captured 88 seats in the National Assembly. Bhutto threatened of collapsing West Pakistan from Khyber to Karachi if President Yahya Khan remained firm to hold the National Assembly session. President Yahya Khan postponed the National Assembly session scheduled for March 2, 1971 citing security reason.

In this situation, Shiekh Mujibur Rahman called for the nationwide hartal on March 3 and onwards and said that he would address the nation on March 7.

Instantly the people of East Pakistan rose in protest and raised slogans: Songhotir Mathay Lathi Maro, Bangladesh Swadhin koro (Smash the root of solidarity and make Bangladesh an independent country). Shahjahan Siraj, General Secretary of East Pakistan Students League read out the 'Manifesto of Independence' on March 2 on the Dhaka University campus. The following day, the then DUCSU VP ASM Abdur Rab hoisted the flag of Bangladesh at the same venue in presence of thousands of students.

Addressing a mammoth rally on March 7 in 1971 in Dhaka, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called for independence of East Pakistan (henceforth Bangladesh). In truth, the 7th March speech was the guideline of our freedom and henceforth the day should be recognised as the 'Independence Day' or at least the 'Bangladesh Day'.

From this day, Bangladesh was a de facto sovereign and independent country and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the Administrator.

The Army crack down began on the night of March 26, but faced strong resistance from the East Bengal Regiment (EBR), the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) and the East Pakistan Police (EPP). Rajarbagh Police Lines and the EPR headquarters at Peelkhana were the first targets.

Although the Pakistan Government arrested Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from his Dhanmandi residence on the night of March 26, he was present in the heart of every man and woman of this land, and his March 7 speech was the guideline of War for Independence of Bangladesh.

On April 17, the Bangladesh government was formed at Mujibnagar with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as President, Syed Nazrul Islam as Acting President and Tajuddin Ahmad as Prime Minister. The three other members of the council of ministers were Captain Mansur Ali, Khondoker Mushtaque and AHM Qumruzzaman.

The country was also divided into nine sectors under military officers in order to carry on war for independence of Bangladesh. The sector commanders were Major Ziaur Rahman (later President of Bangladesh) and Major Rafiqul Islam of Sector-I, Major Khaled Mosharraf of Sector-2, Major Shafiullah of Sector-3, Major C.R.Dutta of Sector-4, Major Mir Swakat Ali of Secrtor-5, Major AK.M. Nazmul Haque of Sector-6, Major Abu Osman of Sector-7, Major M.A Jalil of Sector-8 and Major Abu Taher of Sector-9.

Besides, Major Ziaur Rahman, Major Khaled Mosharraf and Major Shafiullah had three special brigades. Tangail's Abdul Kader Siddiqui also constituted a guerilla unit to fight.

Sheikh Majibur Rahman was out and out nationalist, as was Dr. Ahmad Soekarno of Indonesia and Dr. San Yat Sen of China. But he transformed the War of Independence into People's war. That was his rare success.
US calls for global 'coalition' to counter Iran

Al Jazeera News :

The US ambassador to the UN has called for an international coalition to counter Iran's influence in the Middle East, while accusing the country of "fanning the flames of conflict" in the region.

Nikki Haley, standing in front of what she said were the remnants of Iranian-made weapons, said the US

has found evidence that Iranian ballistic missiles were transferred to, and used by, the Houthi rebel group in Yemen, a violation of Tehran's international obligations.

"In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region," Haley said during a news conference in a military hangar near Washington, DC on Thursday. The US is going to "build a coalition to really push back against Iran and what they're doing", Haley said, without going into specifics.

She said the recovered pieces of the weapon came from a missile "fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia", a staunch US ally in the region. Haley said markings on the missile proved it was made in Iran.


Five murdered in city, Cox's Bazar

Staff Reporter :

At least five persons, including a tourist and a woman, were reportedly murdered in the capital and Cox's Bazar district since Thursday night.

Cops recovered and sent bodies to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) and Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital for autopsy, Police said.

In Cox's Bazar, a tourist was stabbed to death by some unidentified muggers around 10.30am, said Ranjit Barua, Officer-in-Charge

of Cox's Bazar Sadar Model Police Station.

The deceased was identified as Abu Taher Sagor, 19, son of Md. Shafiullah, hailing from Sonagazi Upazila of Feni, the OC said.

In the Capital, Police recovered the throat-slit body of a woman from her residence in the capital's Tejgaon area in the morning.

The deceased is Milu Milgate Gomes, 65, and resided at Arjotpara of Tejgaon, said Tejgaon Police Station Sub-Inspector (SI) Faruk Ul Alam.

Besides, local people found a dead body on a boat on the bank of the Turag River on Thursday night, said Uttarkhan Police's SI Md Anwar Hossain Khan.

The deceased has been identified as Md Simran, son of Nasir Uddin.

A youth's body was found in a water tank of Janata Bank in Motijheel on Friday afternoon. The victim was identified as Ziaur Rahman, 25, a tank cleaner, said Motijheel OC Omar Faruq.

On the other hand, locals found a torso in an abandoned suitcase on the street near the Kalyanpur Baptist Church in the capital on Friday morning, said Darus Salam Police Station OC Md Selimuzzaman.
Mahathir calls Trump a 'villain' for Jerusalem plan

Kuala Lumpur (Reuters) :

Muslim-majority Malaysia's former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday called U.S. President Donald Trump an "international bully" and a "villain" for his move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Trump last week reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and said the United States would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in the coming years.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest barriers to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and

indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city's eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally. The anger from Trump's decision "will lead to what is called terrorism", the 93-year-old Mahathir told a protest rally in front of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur. "Today we have an international bully. Trump, go find someone your own size. This (Jerusalem plan) will only stir the anger of the Muslims," said Mahathir, the chairman of Malaysia's opposition coalition.
Ministries at loggerheads over two projects

Kazi Zahidul Hasan :

The Ministries of Shipping and Power, Energy and Mineral Resources are at loggerheads over implementation of two development projects in Chittagong.

Earlier, the Shipping Ministry initiated the "Port Development Project" with the objective to strengthen the port logistics capacity of Bangladesh by constructing a deep-sea port at Matarbari area in Chittagong to accelerate port logistics with neighbouring countries.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is financing the project.

Later, the Power, Energy Mineral Resources Ministry moved for installing the country's first deep-sea single mooring point (SMP) with an objective is to ensure unloading of imported crude oil in a more efficient and time-saving manner.

China will build the mooring in Maheshkhali and set up a 220-kilometre double pipeline

to offload crude oil and sent it to depot of the Eastern Refinery directly. The annual capacity of the mooring is nine million tonnes.

Afterward, JICA in a letter to the Shipping Ministry raised an objection to the mooring project, as it falls into the port sector located in a sensitive area and is likely to have significant adverse impact on environment and economy.

"The project will also hinder smooth shipping operation, port development and fishing in the Bay causing enormous economic impact for Bangladesh," read the letter.

The Japanese agency also recommended to the Energy Ministry to take 'no objection' from the Shipping Ministry prior to start of the project.

"Despite JICA's objection the concerned ministry moved forward for implementation of the SMP project resulting in a tussle between the two ministries," a senior Shipping Ministry official told The New Nation on Friday on condition of anonymity. He said his ministry has already sent two letters to the Energy Ministry citing the JICA's concern over the SMP project requesting it to shift the location of mooring project. "But they did not pay heed to us and move forward to their project," he added.

An Energy Ministry official said that they have sought 'no objection' from the Shipping Ministry on several occasions prior to launching of the project.

"But they did not respond to the Energy Ministry forcing us to implement the project," he said.

State-runs Petrobangla is implementing the SMP project.

"It's a highly technical issue. JICA also raise concern over the project. We take the matter seriously," Shipping Minister M Shahjahan Khan told The New Nation yesterday.

He added, "The two ministries would resolve the issue through discussion."


114 world bodies call to save civilians in Rakhine

UNB, Dhaka :

Some 114 renowned global organisations and 32 individualson Thursday underscored the need for prioritising protection of the civilians in Rakhine and moving towards a collective and decisive approach to regional conflict prevention, in line with its priority theme on "peace and stability."

In a joint statement, they also called upon the Myanmar authorities to address the roots of the conflict.

"We, the undersigned civil society organisations,

people's organisations and individuals, affirm our belief in peoples' right to self-identification, and the primacy of dialogue and a politically-negotiated settlement in transforming conflicts," the statement reads. They expressed deep anguish and concern with the latest escalation of violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar, and the attacks against unarmed civilians. "We condemn the targeting of civilians of any ethnicity and religion, by any armed group, for any reason." They said, impunity for abuses against civilians during decades of conflict with ethnic armed organisations has encouraged the Myanmar military to apply the same tactics in Rakhine State.

"There will be no end to the cycles of conflict and displacement in Rakhine State without addressing the main drivers and the roots of this conflict," the statement reads.

The signatories called on theMyanmar military to cease violence against and abuses of unarmed civilians in Rakhine State and the other conflict areas such as northern Shan and Kachin States. They urged the Myanmar government to comply with relevant international human rights and humanitarian law standards and norms, particularly with regards to the protection of civilians in conflict, and protection of children, women and minorities.
114 world bodies call to save civilians in Rakhine

UNB, Dhaka :

Nearly four months into the Rohingya crisis, UNHCR on Friday said it is increasingly worried about the deterioration of the overall protection environment in which Rohingyas are living.

"In this environment, refugees face a multitude of protection risks, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch told reporters at a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

An estimated 650,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar for a hilly area near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, since late August.

At present, a steady but smaller number of Rohingyas continue to cross from Myanmar.

Currently some 100 a day are entering Bangladesh, said the UNHCR. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, will start distributing the first of almost 200,000 items of clothing on Sunday to help recently-arrived Rohingyas in Bangladesh prepare for cooler temperatures in the weeks and months ahead. The distribution will comprise 170,000 warm shawls for adults and 15,000 sweaters for children under two years, worth $1.5 million.

The monsoon season in southern Bangladesh has now ended and temperatures will soon decline; the average low for January is 15 degrees Celsius, Babar Baloch said. While that temperature is moderate compared to many other regions, the lack of adequate clothing and shelter insulation makes refugees vulnerable to even modest declines in temperatures, especially at night. Children, who are 55 per cent of the Rohingya population, are particularly vulnerable. "So are the women and they represent more than half of all refugees in Bangladesh. An estimated ten percent are either disabled, have serious medical conditions or older persons at risk," Babar Baloch said. UNHCR said it has been working to bolster the quality of shelters in the camps by supplying higher quality materials as well as expanding technical support for construction and drainage.

It also distributed more than 40,000 core relief items over the past 30 days alone. A similar number will be provided by the end of the year. The core relief items include: blankets, kitchen sets, solar lights, plastic sheets, mosquito nets and jerry cans. UNHCR is also supporting the diphtheria vaccination campaign by Bangladeshi health authorities for all children under 6, said the Spokesperson. "We are procuring antibiotics to treat 8,000 people and training refugee volunteers to disseminate information on diphtheria, detect symptoms of the disease and direct patients to health facilities," Babar Baloch said.
Myanmar arrests 12 journalists

Desk News :

The recent arrest of two Reuters journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act has raised anxieties about shrinking press freedom in Myanmar.

Local journalist networks and news organizations strongly criticized the arrest as the latest attack on the press and called for the pair's immediate release.

"We journalists absolutely believe that journalists have the right to travel to conflict zones as well as gather information from relevant sources in order to produce accurate reports," a joint statement from 12 journalists networks said.

The pair's arrest is but the latest in a growing list of cases of journalists being taken to court by some of

the country's most powerful institutions, including the military, The Irrawaddy reported on Friday.

A total of 11 journalists were arrested this year under various repressive laws, including the Official Secrets Act and the Unlawful Associations Act, and on defamation charges for gathering information or travelling to conflict areas for their work and for criticizing officials.

The Irrawaddy has compiled a list of the reporters arrested in 2017. Two Reuters journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, were detained on Tuesday night after being invited to meet with police officials on Yangon's outskirts for possessing police reports containing detailed information about the fighting between government troops and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in late August 2017.
Ex-Ctg mayor Mohiuddin Chy passes away

UNB, Chittagong :

Former Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Mayor and city Awami League President ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury passed away at a hospital here early Friday. He was 73.

Mohiuddin Chowdhury breathed his last around 3:00am at Max Hospital where he had been on life support as his condition deteriorated on Thursday night, said Mohiul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel, the elder son of the former mayor and organising

secretary of Awami League. Mohiuddin Chowdhury was taken to the hospital earlier in the evening and later shifted to its Intensive Care Unit (ICU) around 10pm, and put on life support, said his son-in-law Dr Selim Jahangir, also head of the CCC Health Department.

On November 11 last, Mohiuddin Chowdhury was admitted to the ICU of the same hospital as he had been suffering from kidney and heart ailments.

Later, he was shifted to Square Hospitals in Dhaka and then taken to Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore. His Namaz-e-Janaza was held after Asr prayers yesterday at Laldighi Maidan in the city. He was buried at his family graveyard at Chashma Hill in the city's Sholoshahar area.

After the news of his death spread around, hundreds of Awami League leaders and activists and common people thronged the hospital.

Born on December 1, 1944 at Gohira village in Raojan upazila of Chittagong district, Mohiuddin Chowdhury got involved in Chhatra League politics in his college life.

He was elected Mayor of Chittagong City Corporation first in 1994, while for the second time in 2000 and for the third consecutive time in 2005. He was the President of Chittagong City Awami League until his death.

Mohiuddin Chowdhury joined different movements under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman before the country's Liberation War. He was arrested several times by the then Pakistanis rulers.

During the Liberation War, he was sent to jail in Chittagong and tortured by the Pakistani Army. Four months later he fled to India from the jail. After receiving training there, Mohiuddin Chowdhury joined the Liberation War under the Mountain Division of Indo-Bangla joint force.

After the assassination of Bangabandhu, Mohiuddin Chowdhury fled to India again and returned home after a long time as per a party directive. During the anti-Ershad movement, he was arrested as he declared the former military ruler as persona non-grata in Chittagong.

In 2007, the army-backed government arrested Mohiuddin Chowdhury and other politicians in the country in an overnight raid on March 7 and sent him to a remote jail in Bandarban.


Protests held across world against US Jerusalem move

Al Jazeera News :

Thousands of people are protesting in the occupied Palestinian territories and across the world over the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

More than a week after US President Donald Trump announced the decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, anger among Palestinians and their supporters continues to grow. After Friday prayers concluded at the Al Aqsa

mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to demonstrate but were prevented from entering the Old City by barricades put up by Israelis. Marches also took place to the north in Ramallah and in Bethlehem, where protesters faced off with Israeli soldiers.

In Gaza, Palestinians took the territory's border with Israel to protest and were met with live fire and tear gas.

Palestinian officials told Al Jazeera that at least 10 people had been injured through smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds. At least one injured youth had suffered a serious wound to his neck, according to Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, who was reporting from the area. Rallies against Trump's decision also took place in the Indian city of Mumbai, the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett, reporting from occupied East Jersualem, said a call to action by Palestinian groups and a unified response by Muslim countries had helped to keep the protests going.

"There's been a pretty loud and unified response that came from the delegates at the Turkey conference on Tuesday, as well as that the Palestinian factions have called for larger scale protests," he said.

The US announcement attracted strong condemnation from Muslim countries, and the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) declared Jerusalem the capital of Palestine in response at its meeting in Istanbul.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the move. "The truth will win in the end and many countries will certainly recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and also move their embassies," he said in response to the OIC declaration. Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from Bethlehem, said protesters wanted to see "words turned into action". "They're growing impatient...and some of the people you speak to do feel at some point Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a man who has dedicated 20 years of his life to the peace process, might bow to international or US pressure."
The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.
CARBONDALE  Illinois State Sen. Daniel Biss, a Democrat who represents the Ninth District in Illinois, spent Thursday in Southern Illinois campaigning for governor.

I think we can build a state government that works for all of Illinois, Biss told the editorial board of The Southern Illinoisan.

Biss added that no part of the state has been more harmed by the failed policies of the current administration than Southern Illinois. In fact, Biss believes those policies have failed to work for the entire state, from his hometown of Evanston to the southern tip of Illinois.

To get into the race for governor, Biss will first have to defeat six other Democratic candidates in the primary, including J.B. Pritzker and Chris Kennedy. He believes the race is about the future of the Democratic Party, which has lost the presidency and the governors and state legislators across the country.

He believes the question in Illinois and for the party is whether to elect a billionaire with no experience, or a progressive with a record of boldness of policy.

Biss said Illinois is a state of unbelievable prosperity, but also is state with failed school funding and tax systems.

The key question is whos willing to fight all of that  income tax, property tax and school funding, Biss said. If we do it right, it will change the economic system in Illinois.

Biss added that middle income families are hurting in Illinois.

A few people are doing better and better, and the rest are left behind, Biss said.

The cost of higher education, healthcare and retirement continue to get higher and higher, he said.

Biss said many of the people in their 30s in America today are doing worse than their parents were at the same age. Thats the American dream teetering on the edge, he said.

The real problem, according to Biss, is that it is impossible for people to work with dignity and raise their families with dignity.

State leaders need to restructure state finances and create a tax system that works in a modern economy, he said. Illinois has 628 different pension systems. Biss said other than Pennsylvania and Florida, no other state comes close to that number.

Biss used the police and firefighter pensions as an example. They each have separate pension systems in every municipality. Each system has a board that consists of five trustees, one retiree, two current employees and two appointed by the mayor. Each also has a financial consultant, investment consultant and training vendors.

Its an insane system that allows for corruption, Biss said. Ohio put all of its pensions into one system and saved massive amounts of money.

He added that the system creates "silos of protection" for those involved. Biss said Illinios needs a governor who "knows where these bodies are buried" and is willing to take on those battles, and he believes he is that person.

Biss also wants to streamline state government. Illinois has more local governing bodies than any other state in the country with just under 7,000. He said he has fought for municipal consolidation.

He knows it is important to deal with Mike Madigan rather than make him an opponent, but that does not mean doing everything Madigan wants. Biss said he has learned through his years in the state legislature to successfully negotiate with Madigan.

We have been on the opposite side of every major party battle, Biss said.

He believes Madigan has been speaker too long and is too powerful. The first legislation Biss sponsored was to limit the term of the speaker of the house. If elected, he will try to enact term limits for legislative leaders and the governor. He is not in favor of term limits for rank and file legislators.

Biss also favors campaign reform, saying he may be biased because one of his primary opponents has spent $42 million dollars.

This is scary. This is not OK. This is not the way a democracy is run. Are we going to have an election or are we going to have an auction? Biss said.

Biss said the state has a role to play in Cairo. While the state has no jurisdiction over federal dollars, it can help by backing real public investment to put people back to work and ensure the money gets into the hands of the broader public.

He also would favor legalizing recreational marijuana, but added that he does not think it is no big deal. From a public health point of view, the consequences of alcohol abuse are devastating, he said. He said marijuana is much less dangerous, but it has to be regulated and taxed appropriately.

The state is really in trouble. It is in a worse financial condition than any other state government and worse than it has ever been, Biss said. This state is also a prosperous state, with the fifth-largest economy.

While Chicago is doing well, much of the rest of the state is suffering, according to Biss. Fixing the problem does not take a complete transformation, just a change in trajectory.

For more information about the Biss platform, visit www.danielbiss.com.
BENTON  A Texas man has been arrested and charged with aggravated driving under the influence in connection to a crash in April in Franklin County that killed a woman.

Franklin County Sheriff Don Jones said officers traveled to Rains County, Texas, to apprehend Raymond F. Reid, 29, of Emery, Texas. Reid is charged with two counts of aggravated driving under the influence. He was arrested by Franklin County police Dec. 10.

According to the information sheet filed Sept. 18 in Franklin County Court, it is alleged that Reid crashed a vehicle while under the influence of one or many intoxicating substances. According to the information sheet, the crash was the cause of Lauren Reeves death.

Reeves was 24 and lived in Cabot, Arkansas.

Jones said the crash occurred on Interstate 57 and the investigation was originally handled by the Illinois State Police.

According to an ISP news release sent the day of the crash, Reid was driving a semi-trailer northbound on I-57 near mile marker 67 when he crossed the median, striking head-on the Toyota Camry Reeves was driving.

Reid is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Dec. 10 at 1:30 p.m.
CARBONDALE  Southern Illinois University Carbondales impending academic reorganization became the focal point of the SIU Board of Trustees meeting in Carbondale Thursday, despite appearing nowhere on the agenda.

During a fiery public-comment period, several speakers argued against SIUC Chancellor Carlo Montemagnos plan to restructure the university by eliminating its 42 departments and housing programs in newly created schools.

Even at the tail-end of finals week, the board meeting drew a lively crowd of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty, filling the Student Centers Ballroom B to capacity.

Critics raised concerns about the speed of the restructuring  Montemagno hopes to implement the changes July 1, 2018  in addition to the unprecedented nature of the plan and what they called the administrations top-down" approach.

Vice Chair J. Phil Gilbert said he was surprised to learn at Wednesdays work session that studies and reports conducted several years ago had found that SIUC should eliminate redundancies.

Organizational change does not come easy. But in tough times and uncertain times, its necessary for the good of the future of this university, and I think everybody agrees that at least there need to be changes, Gilbert said.

Trustee Marsha Ryan said reorganizing and revitalizing SIUC was what the board hired Montemagno to do.

We asked for a vision and a strategic plan to be developed within six months, as we saw the need for haste in the face of rapid decline, Ryan said.   There was a time, several years ago, when we had the luxury of time, but not the will. Now we have no time and we are required to find the will. Change, as you see, is hard, but change will come, either actively, like the plan, or passively, like the gradual decline and degradation weve been seeing. My personal preference is that we manage that changing quickly, lest it manage us.

Early in the public-comments portion of the meeting, Faculty Association President David Johnson said people must work together to solve the universitys problems.

What I fear is a reckless, hasty, top-down slew of changes that have nothing more than a leap of faith in an untested leader, Johnson said. What I fear is us wasting a year or more fighting about a grandiose, unprecedented, evidence-free restructuring plan that the chancellor himself has admitted wont fix our enrollment problem, instead of coming up with shared solutions that will fix it.

Natasha Zaretsky, an associate professor of history and a member of the Coordinating Committee for Change  a group formed in opposition to the restructuring plan  said the chancellors proposal raises questions about whether the dissolution of the universitys 42 departments will help SIUCs enrollment crisis.

The problem to date is that the chancellor has not been able to answer any of these questions. Hes provided no data, no evidence, no models and no best practices that he can cite to back up his plan, Zaretsky said.

Faculty Senate Chair Kathleen Chwalisz said she was embarrassed by the way some faculty members were responding to the restructuring plan.

There are people who are sort of shaping the conversation, and its a relatively small group of faculty.  I see more negative energy coming out of (the CCC) than I see positive, Chwalisz said.

Lauran Schafer, a representative of Graduate Assistants United, criticized Montemagno for his plan to no longer allow graduate students to serve as instructors of record. She questioned the idea that elimination of departments will solve the universitys enrollment crisis.

It is asinine to say that people are not coming to this university because it has a structure like most universities, Schafer said, adding that SIU Edwardsville has not been plagued by the same enrollment problems.

Vicki Carstens, chair of the linguistics department, said she would not have come to an institution without departments as a graduate student and that she worries that the change will have a negative impact on enrollment.

The chancellor seems confident of this course of action, though, and has asked that we just trust him to know whats best for this campus. Like most academics, I prefer to base my trust on evidence, Carstens said.

Undergraduate Brandon Kyles, a member of the Undergraduate Student Government, said students feel unable to provide input in the restructuring process.

If we are all here, especially during a time of finals, if we are all here, especially during a time when we are ready to go home, obviously we have a stake in this conversation, Kyles said.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Montemagno addressed the repeated claims by faculty and students that they have been shut out of the decision-making process.

I have met with virtually every constituent person there who has spoken and issued that, Montemagno said. The faculty and the students also have provided me numerous input, both to me personally through emails and online. So all their voices are being heard. We have official constituency meetings, and I meet with all of them in those constituency meetings. So we are engaging with them dynamically and in discussion, and so Im actually perplexed why they would feel that way. Obviously I need to redouble my efforts at reaching out to many of the constituents, but we are reaching out to all of them, and they have all had meaningful input into the plan as it evolved.

The chancellor said that his plan was a natural outgrowth of the 2012 and 2013 studies referenced by Trustee Gilbert in the meeting.

There comes a time when you have to stop studying and engage in action, Montemagno said.

Despite all the negative feedback, Montemagno said he was feeling really good about whats going on.

We have probably, Im just guess-timating, but probably 70 percent of the response Ive gotten has been positive, and its only a very, very small number that are negative, and the negative ones are usually not focused on the entire plan. Theyre usually focused on small elements of the plan  but in general theres significant, overwhelming support, from both here and off-campus in particular, he said.

Also at Thursdays meeting, the board approved the appointment of John Shaw as director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, with an annual salary of $160,004 effective January 16, 2018.

Lori Stettler was approved as vice chancellor of student affairs with an annual salary of $178,000, effective December 15. Stettler had served as interim vice chancellor of student affairs since July 2015.
WEST FRANKFORT  Southern Illinoisan reporter Molly Parker and Monica Davey, New York Times Chicago bureau chief, were flanked Thursday in West Frankfort by local community leaders in the final installment of The Times In Person  a forum series held in communities throughout the country.

Parker and Davey were joined by Cindy Buys, an immigration law expert and dean at SIU; Franklin County Sheriff Don Jones; West Frankfort Mayor Tom Jordan and Jim Muir, Franklin County Circuit Clerk.

In her opening remarks, Davey said she was there to get to know the community better  she said the paper wanted to better understand the issues facing readers in the region. She returned to West Frankfort, home to one of the larger issues she covered this year, the deportation of local pillar Juan Carlos Hernandez Pacheco.

After recalling her experience reporting the story, she opened the discussion of Pacheco and immigration to the panel.

Buys pointed out that immigration stops are up in the country and that immigration courts themselves are jammed with cases.

The conversation pivoted to coal and jobs. Muir, who worked 650 feet underground as a coal miner for 20 years, said he thinks coal has a place in the local economy but will never be what it once was. He said he thinks it can rebound to a small extent, but wouldnt go so far as to use the word optimistic when it came to its future.

Jordan agreed.

I think it has a place. I think Southern Illinois will be part of that, he said.

Discussing the regions fiscal strife, Parker described a sense of economic angst in Southern Illinois, a place she described as ground zero when it comes to the impacts of the recently-ended historic state budget impasse.

When asked by Davey about the crime facing Franklin County, Jones said he has two primary obstacles  methamphetamine and mental health  and that both are interrelated. He said while the news focuses a lot on opioid problems  which he said also exist in the county  meth is still a big player.

All aspects of the community have a role, Jones said of trying to combat the problem. We cant do it alone.

Jones said currently there are 114 people in the county jail and all, or nearly all, are in some way related to drugs.

Ive never seen anything like this, he added.

Community comments primarily returned to the themes of jobs and the future of the region.

Olivia Weeks, a local high school student, pointed out that she feels students are not being prepared adequately for a future in higher education. She said she knows personally some students who were not able to pass exams for education or nursing programs  two jobs she pointed out could have value to the local community.

Mary Slider, a teacher at West Frankfort High School, spoke after Weeks, adding that education needs to find ways to change.
Rep. Adam Schiff said Thursday he's concerned Republicans are working to end the Russia investigation.

"I think they view shutting us down as a prerequisite to shutting Bob Mueller down," Schiff said on CNN's "The Situation Room." "And we see some very disturbing signs that that's what they intend to do."

In the interview, Schiff noted several Republicans who were critical of special counsel Robert Mueller during a hearing on Wednesday with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

And when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked the Democrat from California if he feared Republicans were attempting to pave the way to shut down the investigation, Schiff replied: "I do."

"We are scheduled to have witness interviews out of state at a time next week when we'll be voting to keep the government running, when we'll be voting ... potentially, on this tax bill for the wealthy, so we can't leave to do these interviews, and nonetheless even though these witnesses are very important and have been on our witness list for months and months and they haven't been willing to bring them in until now, they're pulling these kind of tactics, which say to me they're trying to bring this to an end," Schiff later added.

CNN previously reported that the House Intelligence Committee has two interviews scheduled for next week in New York.

Schiff serves as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The House Intelligence investigation is just one of several looking at any potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from the 2016 election.
Each year, as battlefield correspondents begin anew to report the War on Christmas, different eyes roll in different directions. Many agnostics, progressives, indifferents, and Christians skeptical of those other Christians, will tend to dismiss it and cast eyes heavenward. But should they? Is it all as easily dismissed as one would like?

If by War on Christmas, one merely thinks of spats over coffee cup designs and what greeting the store clerk uses, it might only be called a minor skirmish. Indeed, in the free market, businesses make decisions for a number of reasons, and they cannot always be accused of hostility to religion. True, it might be there, but corporate action may also be a response to a changing culture.

However, if referring to something much deeper, more insidious  something attacking the heart of what our society believes about truth and existence  then we can certainly speak of a War on Christmas and indeed, a war against God himself. This happens in two ways  one overt, and one more subtle.

First, religious language and the memorials often commemorating it are overtly removed from the public square. Religious monuments, public prayer and other mentions of God are chiseled away and removed from public view. Dont think this is happening and has been happening consistently in our country for years? See Section I of Hostility to Religion on the Family Research Council website (http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF17F51.pdf). Dont think this matters? Well, continue reading.

Not too long ago, when then-leader Nikita Khrushchev wanted the Soviet Union to move past the era of Josef Stalins influence, he renamed buildings to avoid mention of the dictator, removed monuments of him, and changed the names of cities and other places bearing Stalins name. By avoiding public mention and reference to Stalin, Khrushchev could eventually erase him from the culture.

Symbols do matter, and communist and non-communist alike know it. That is why activists in the United States today war against religious monuments, public prayer and other government references to religion.

Second, in the War on Christmas, the notion of truth itself  and objective claims about Christs existence and authority over mankind  are marginalized and dismissed.

That is why activists war against the acceptability of orthodox, historic Christian beliefs  whether on the topic of sexuality or otherwise  being proclaimed in the public square of our nation today. Dont believe this is happening? The last few years have seen scores of conflicts on this issue involving public officials, employees, businesses, non-profit organizations, religious universities and even churches.

One of these conflicts was featured in a case  Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission  that was just argued before the Supreme Court. During arguments, the justices clearly grappled not only with protecting the baker in the case from being forced to create a same-sex wedding cake against his conscience but with how to protect the religious freedom of some of the above-mentioned entities as they confront the requirements of same-sex marriage imposed by the same court just two years ago in Obergefell vs. Hodges.

When religion is opposed during the culture war battles of the day, what is really being opposed is any claim to objective truth. This is why activists advancing same-sex marriage are not merely happy to receive marriage licenses; they must force others, whether public servants, religious schools, family business owners  and eventually pastors and churches  to assist in the effort and violate their religious beliefs in the process. Once truth claims are no longer tolerated in this area, they will no longer be tolerated in other areas  including the story of Christmas itself.

The War on Christmas is real, and it is best understood as a war on objective truth and the authority of God, which has historically anchored our country.

I can be as quick as the next person to say spend more time sharing the Gospel with your neighbor than freaking out over whether the clerk said Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. (Better yet, use that interchange to tactfully start a conversation about the life of Jesus, and share the Good News about Him.) But the truth of the matter is, they both matter  the need to reach out personally and share truth, and the symbols of our culture. Indeed, if the latter are no longer tolerated, neither will the former.

So yes, there is a War on Christmas. Its as real as the person of Christ himself, and he assured us it would come. We should not be surprised that it has arrived.
Left:Guy Joseph, St. Lucias Economic Development Minister and a person of East Indian descent, did not take kindly to what he deemed to be a racial slur against him. (You Tube Photo) Right:Guibion Ferdinand, Opposition Saint Lucia Labour Party Senator, responded to Josephs sentiments but found no reason to apologize. (Photo Credit: St. Lucia Online News)

It might have been a Freudian Slip, but St. Lucias Economic Development Minister - Guy Joseph is not letting Opposition Saint Lucia Labour Party Senator - Guibion Ferdinand slip through the cracks for a recent statement the senator made.





St. Lucia Online News reported that Senator Ferdinand, during an SLP-led protest march over the week, to have said, at the (SLP)-led St. Jude Hospital protest march over the weekend, "Come and discuss the findings of the audit in parliament where we can represent you and we can ask them questions and they will answer the questions. But instead, we just hear about the audit and we hear a coolie man, an Indian saying  I know what is in there, as if he is some engineer and some expert on demolishing and building.





Joseph took immediate umbrage to the racial slur leveled against him saying, he was "appalled that the party has reduced to "name calling and personal attacks, St. Lucia Online reported.





Speaking to the press, Joseph said that Ferdinand went ahead and used "names that send a derogatory message about a certain set of people in this country 





Joseph also pointed to the recent slur as not being ".. the first time the Labour Party has done that. Its as if because Im of an Indian heritage I should not have a say in anything that happens in Saint Lucia. So if I want to go and use the words that they used to describe me to describe them they would tell you, oh, you are disrespectful.





The economic minister, according to St. Lucia Online News, accused the SLP of having double standards.

"So in parliament they want to portray one behaviour  they want to tell you, oh, youre a bad example, but when they are out there when more people are watching them, look at their behaviour. I tell them Im consistent. The difference with me is [that] what you see is what you get. Unlike them who would pretend in one forum to be one thing and out there . And it was appalling to see that that was the level of discussion taking place; that we would reduce ourselves to name calling, he said.





Ferdinand, a former school principal, in responding to Josephs sentiments, noted that that there were a number of other areas where the term is used.





"I can think of even fruits. I mean, should we tell our children that they shouldnt say coco coolie or they shouldnt eat chatine coolie? Some people call it jack fruit  but it is a very delicious fruit, Ferdinand asserted.





He explained that this is an evolving society where perspectives sometimes change.

"If there is going to be a perception that this term is so offensive, I am prepared to suggest that maybe the government should take the lead and begin the discussion on perhaps changing the names of some of the communities  the names of some of the festivals or activities, and even the names of the items and fruits that have that term in it, he stated.





Ferdinand said otherwise, it would appear that there is a convenient complaint regarding the issue. (Source: St. Lucia Online News)
Acting Commissioner of Police Renold Hadaway confirmed that an investigation into a case of disappearing cocaine while in police care is ongoing.

Acting Commissioner of Police Renold Hadaway confirmed to THE VINCENTIAN on Wednesday, that an investigation has been launched into a report of the disappearance of a quantity of cocaine from the exhibit room at the Narcotics base at Arnos Vale.





And the top cop has assured that on completion of the probe, the person or persons who are found culpable will be dealt with in accordance with the law.





In the matter involving Benjamin Harvey and Vincent Dembar, both of Union Island, charged with possession of 9,159 grams of cocaine with intent to supply, and possession of the drug for the purpose of drug trafficking, Station Sergeant Katherine Robinson of the Narcotics Unit testified on Tuesday that on May 26, 2017, she went to the exhibit room, along with Head of the Unit, Assistant Superintendent Foster Scott, Sergeant Williams, Corporal Edwards and Constable Francis, and noticed that the exhibits in the matter was tampered with. She said the exhibits consisted of a crocos bag with two plastic bags, one white and one blue, each containing four packages, but one of the packages in the blue plastic bag was discovered missing.

The exhibits formed part of the evidence in the cocaine matter which was ongoing, up to press time Wednesday.

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Colin Williams had also informed the Court about the missing package before the start of the trial on Monday.





A question of integrity/credibility





Speaking with THE VINCENTIAN on Wednesday, the Acting Commissioner said, "The report of the drugs, unaccounted for, is of serious concern for the Police Force, hence we could not sit back. We had to see how we could deal with the matter, and an investigation had to be launched.





The Acting COP said the report speaks to the integrity and credibility of the Police Force.

"It is very troubling, because we are held in a position of trust, and that position of trust goes to the core of the integrity of the men and women of this noble organization, Hadaway declared.

He revealed that part of the ongoing investigation, entailed the (recent) conduct of polygraph tests, to determine an officers credibility, and as a result of the polygraph findings, several officers from the Narcotics Unit of the Police Force had been transferred.





"Someone has to be responsible, but we cannot say, at this time, who is responsible, thats why there is an investigation, Hadaway explained.





He emphasized, however, that there are very competent and trustworthy officers in the Narcotics Unit, as there are in all the other departments of the Police Force.

The local Coast Guard reportedly intercepted Dembar and Harvey travelling on a speedboat, off the western tip of Bequia on July 3, 2014.




Four Vincentian students are moving ahead with their academic pursuits, with assistance from the Eastern Caribbean Group of Companies Foundation Inc.





LaToya Browne, Tacklan Fergus, Cyrita Harry, and Idanesha McDowald received bursaries at a ceremony staged at the University of the West Indies Open Campus, at their temporary base at Frenches, last week Thursday.

Browne, from the North Leeward village of Coulls Hill, is doing a BSc Youth Development Work programme.

Fergus is completing a BEd in Early Childhood Development and Families Studies. She is from capital Kingstown.





Harry is from the Mesopotamia Valley and is pursuing a BSc in Management Studies (Marketing).

McDowald represents the North Central Windward district of Georgetown and is moving towards a BSc in Accounting.





Phyllis James, Human Resources Manager at ECGC, addressed the gathering. She was deputising for her Chief Executive Officer Osmond Davy, whom she credited for creation of the Foundation.

She referred to the bursaries as "another investment in the human resources of our country, and described the ECGC Foundations intent as one of "creating a legacy.

This is the third batch of students who have benefited from assistance from the ECGC Foundation, since 2015. (WKA)




As one of the senior members in the maintenance department, Kenneth Crozier says that he is proud of the fact that he was a part of the team that has assisted ECGC in becoming what it is today.





Crozier has been around with the company since the inception 40 years ago.

He began his working life at VINLEC and was offered the opportunity to move to the Eastern Caribbean Flour Mills by the then manager of the ECFM Ormiston Ken Boyea.





"When I came on board, I met two Germans, who were instrumental in getting the mill set up, Crozier recalled.

His background included training in machines: "So I was able to fit in whatever.

He worked in the mill for a year and was given the opportunity to become a miller, completing the required training within months.





And when the company expanded into Guyana, he was part of the team to get that mill operational.

Upon his return, he was assigned to Montserrat where he worked on setting up a mill in that country, that is until the volcano forced operations to cease.

Before long, Crozier said that he was promoted to a supervisory position and was put in charge of the technical installation and modification of the mill here in St Vincent.





His responsibilities, among others, is to make routine checks on the operations of the mill in Guyana.

He credits Boyea, however, for his vision, saying that he has left a legacy at the facility.

Looking back, Crozier said that that hard work has paid off.

"Its a good feeling to know that I was a part of everything .its like I own a part of the company, and it feels good to know that you are leaving behind a wealth of knowledge, he said.
It has been almost a week since operations began at Phoenix Kitchen 2, located at Yambou, and the man behind the outfit  Leon Bigger Biggs Samuel has indicated that all is going well so far.





Phoenix Kitchen 2, or Country Kitchen as Samuel has dubbed it, was officially opened last Sunday and, according to the proprietor, was opened to complement his food outlet in Kingstown.





Phoenix Kitchen was opened in June, 2015 and now the business has expanded to offer more local foods and is located at the site that formerly housed Samuels block-making facility.

And now with the opening of Phoenix Kitchen 2, Samuel explained to THE VINCENTIAN that patrons can now expect a wider variety of local foods and juices.





"We believe in bringing more local food to the people, he said.

Local cuisine including Ducana, Dough Boy, (Cattle Head) Souse and the twenty-two fruit juices, will be prepared at the Yambou location for sale/distribution from the Kingstown outlet, Samuel said.

Other foods already available in Kingstown will be offered, albeit in small portions, at the Yambou location, and any expansion will be based on the demand.

Samuel explained that local tour operators usually travel through the Yambou area on their way to the Windward side of the island.





It was anticipated that he would be able to offer a service to visitors who may wish to stop and purchase something local.





Plans are in the making to install restroom facilities as well, Samuel said.

But for now, the focus remains on offering his patrons more local food.

The expanded menu, Samuel said, will be offered initially on weekends, but it was expected that it will be added to the daily menu.





But it was all a matter of "logistics, Samuel said, or once they have figured out the best way to transport these meals into Kingstown. (DD)
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

The British government supports the early completion of the Southern Gas Corridor project, which involves the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, said Baroness Rona Fairhead, UK Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion who is on a visit to Baku.

The baroness, who is also the co-chairman of the Azerbaijani-British intergovernmental commission, made the remarks at a meeting with Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov on December 15.

The sides discussed the energy vector of the relations between the two countries as well as prospects for cooperation not only in the oil and gas sphere, but also in the field of renewable energy.

Shahbazov noted the long-standing leading positions of the oil and gas sector in the Azerbaijans economy and said that reforms are currently under way to diversify the economy and develop the non-oil sector.

The minister highly appreciated the activity of Great Britain as a partner of Azerbaijan and the main investor in its energy sector from the first years of the countrys independence, and noted the model of successful cooperation on the example of BP company.

The implementation of the Shah Deniz-2 project and the signing of a new agreement on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block will ensure the interests of both countries in the long term, Shahbazov said.

Baroness Fairhead, in turn, assured that the British government supports the energy projects of Azerbaijan implemented with the participation of BP as well as the completion of the Southern Gas Corridor project.

The Southern Gas Corridor, worth $41.5 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

Baroness Fairhead has earlier met with President Ilham Aliyev, First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva and signed with Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev a protocol following the second joint meeting of the Azerbaijan-UK intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. In the protocol, the sides agreed to further expand cooperation in economy, trade, investments, industry, tourism, energy, education, culture and other spheres.
















The UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) has announced that it is moving its headquarters from Abu Hail in Dubai, UAE, to a new state-of-the-art building in Al Ruwayyah 2, on Sunday.



The new eco-friendly headquarters has been designed using sustainable building materials and cutting-edge technologies to promote energy efficiency, in line with international environment safety standards and green building requirements, reported state news agency Wam.



Also energy-saving lighting is being used to illuminate the entire building that features photovoltaic (PV) panels. It is linked to the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) grid to save 10 per cent of the building's energy needs, stated the report.



Taif Mohammad Al Amiri, the director of government communication department at MOCCAE, said that some of the key characteristics of the green headquarters building are its modern architectural design, its adherence to best-in-class sustainability and green building standards optimising energy use, ensuring ease of movement across different departments and sections, and reducing the ministry's environmental footprint.



"Designed to ensure efficient use of electricity, water, and air-conditioning through leveraging eco-friendly building material including sun-insulating surfaces, the building seeks to improve the quality of the indoor and outdoor environment and in doing so preserves the health and safety of the environment as part of the ministrys social commitment," added Al Amiri.
Smart Dubai and Majid Al Futtaim, a leading shopping mall and leisure pioneer, have signed an agreement to collaborate in areas that will help to enhance the Emirates data and analytics capabilities.



The agreement has been developed in line with the governments vision to empower, deliver and promote an efficient, seamless, safe and impactful city experience for residents making Dubai the smartest and happiest city on earth.



The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Dr Aisha Bin Bishr, director-general of the Smart Dubai Office and Alain Bejjani, chief executive officer at Majid Al Futtaim  Holding at a signing ceremony held in Dubai.



As part of the MoU, Majid Al Futtaim will collaborate with Smart Dubai in four critical areas: data enrichment, policy, education, and innovative technology. Both organisations will work together to enhance and improve raw data, while finding ways to make data a more valuable asset.



Smart Dubai and Majid Al Futtaim will develop joint education workshops to ensure increased understanding and capabilities and to identify and apply best practices. The MoU will allow both organisations to explore opportunities in emerging technologies such as Blockchain Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. Collaboration will also take place on innovative platforms used to source, collect, analyse and store data.



Dr Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr said: As the government body tasked with spearheading Dubais smart transformation, Smart Dubai has led the efforts to develop an unprecedented smart and connected lifestyle for the citys residents and visitors. With numerous data-driven smart projects and initiatives, we have been able to accumulate a significant digital wealth to upgrade the emirates economic system and transform Dubai into the happiest and smartest city on earth.



This agreement we are signing today with Majid Al Futtaim provides support for the data sector, which constitutes the backbone of the smart city. It allows us to benefit from Majid Al Futtaims expertise in data management and analysis across several sectors, which supports Smart Dubais initiatives and projects to provide a secure and happy life, as well as a bright future, for the Dubai community, Dr Aisha added.



Alain Bejjani, chief executive officer at Majid Al Futtaim  Holding said: The world is changing at a rapid pace and our business is undergoing a digital transformation that ensures we are at the forefront of the change and able to deliver greater value to our customers. This transformation is enabled by an infrastructure of data intelligence, innovative partnerships and world-class talent. With this in mind, we are extremely proud to be the first private sector company to sign an MOU with Smart Dubai to advance the Emirates data and analytics capabilities.



Through this partnership, we will do our part to contribute to the governments vision of making Dubai one of the smartest cities in the world, added Bejjani.



This MoU follows the recent launch of the Majid Al Futtaim Leadership Institutes School of Analytics and Technology, which was created to help the company enhance its advanced analytical capabilities and, in doing so, revolutionise the experiences it offers to customers.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Municipality has signed an agreement with TUV Rheinland, Hong Kong Limited, on recognition of test reports issued by the Renewable Energy and Electromechanical Laboratories of Dubai Central Laboratories (DCL).



"The move will help DCL to issue conformity certificates as per the GCC requirements for quality standards for electrical appliances," remarked Amin Ahmed, the director of DCL.



"The agreement strengthens the wise leadership's directives by extending bridges of cooperation and strengthening relations between government agencies and the private sector at the local and international levels," he stated.



Dubai is a regional trading hub in the region due to its pivotal role as an important trade player in the global trade map.



"It is keen to apply best practices in health and safety to achieve its objectives of promoting a happy and sustainable life and making the emirate the first in the world," observed Ahmed.



He pointed out that the Dubai Municipality was playing a vital role in supporting the private sector through the signing of agreements with local and international certification bodies, which will contribute to facilitating the import and export of electrical equipment to and from the country.



Fares Naouri, CEO of TUV Rheinland, said the agreement was based on the confidence gained by the DCL through its uniqueness at the Arab and international levels in the field of testing the safety and efficiency of electrical appliances, as it had received international recognition accreditation in six fields covering 98 global specifications.
The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, has confirmed that it will share its youth and innovation expertise with millions at the Expo 2020 Dubai.



The countrys participation was confirmed in a letter delivered by Mohammed Dansanta Rimi, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the UAE, to Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of the Expo 2020 Dubai Higher Committee on Monday, on December 11.



Expo 2020 Dubai will be the ideal platform for Nigeria to demonstrate how, through its Economic Recovery Growth Plan 2017-2020, it is working to overcome a recent economic recession to achieve stability, ensure energy sufficiency, guarantee agriculture and food security, encourage foreign direct investment, and build youth capability to take the country into the future, said a statement.



Examples include investing in youth education to fill the skills gap in the economy, developing innovative agricultural practices to achieve self-sufficiency in tomato paste (in 2017), rice (in 2018) and wheat (in 2020), implementing universal healthcare coverage, and granting tax incentives to pioneering industries deemed beneficial for the economic development of the country and employment of its workforce, it said.



Sheikh Ahmed said: People and innovation are at the heart of World Expos, which is why we are delighted to welcome Nigeria as the latest country to formally announce its participation at Expo 2020 Dubai.



Expo 2020 will be the first World Expo to be held in the developing world, and will be for the developing world, so we look forward to working with Nigeria and other confirmed African countries on our journey to 2020, he said.



Through its overall theme, Connecting Minds, Creating the Future, Expo 2020 Dubai will be a platform to foster creativity, innovation and collaboration globally, giving millions of visitors a glimpse into the future, guided by its three pillars: Opportunity, Mobility and Sustainability, said a statement.



Rimi said: Expo 2020 Dubai will be an unmissable opportunity for Nigeria to showcase the hard work we are doing to ensure economic growth and progress for our country in both the short and long term.



We want to show the world how we are working to improve the lives of our youth and people, while opening up our economy and encouraging foreign investment  and Expo will be the ideal platform for us to do so, he said.



World Expos, which date back to the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, have always celebrated the latest in innovation and technology. Expo 2020 Dubai is no different, and through its Expo Live programme it has an allocation of $100 million to back projects that offer creative solutions to pressing challenges that impact peoples lives, or help preserve the world  or both.



Nigeria is already benefitting from Expo Live. During the first two cycles of the flagship Innovation Impact Grant Programme, 45 Expo Live Global Innovators from 30 countries were selected, with two, MOBicure and West Africa Vocational Training (Wave), providing working examples of Expo supporting innovative ideas originating from Nigeria.



MOBicures OMOMI application helps expectant mothers and parents of under-five-year-olds monitor the wellbeing of their children from home, which can be life-saving for families living in remote areas or who cannot afford to attend a medical facility. Since its launch in Benin City in 2015, more than 30,000 parents have used the platform and the funding from Expo Live will help it reach even more families.



Lagos-based startup Wave prepares young people in Nigeria for employment opportunities in the expanding hospitality and retail sectors, training unemployed youth with the skills they require to get their first job and start building a career for a brighter future.



Nigeria and the UAE already share strong bilateral relations, with non-oil trade between the two countries amounting to $1.3 billion in 2016.



More than 150 countries have already confirmed their participation in Expo 2020 Dubai, including the majority of African nations.



Each participating country will have its own pavilion as part of Expo 2020 Dubais one nation, one pavilion policy  making Expo 2020 the first World Expo in history where every country will have its own pavilion.



Expo 2020 Dubai will run for six months from October 20, 2020, to April 10, 2021, and is expected to record 25 million visits, with 70 per cent anticipated to come from outside the UAE.



More than 180 countries are expected to take part, with further national participation announcements expected in the coming months, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Epson, a printing industry major, has announced the new SureColor SC-F9300 dye sublimation textile printer, designed primarily for fast, high-volume printing for clothing, textiles and soft signage, as well as other printed merchandise.



This new flagship model replaces the existing SC-F9200, with an evolution of trusted Epson print technology that provides even better quality and reliability, said a statement from the company.



Brand new Epson Precision Dot technology for dye sublimation including a halftone module, look-up tables and micro-weave help make an instantly noticeable difference to print quality, and make it easy to get quality results straight out of the box, it said.



Meanwhile, Epsons Wide CMYK input profile combines with UltraChrome DS inks to ensure the maximum possible colour gamut, for accurate reproduction of even the most complex designs, it added.



Now offering print speeds of up to 108.6m2/h, the SC-F9300 provides a complete Epson solution, comprising printer, inks, sublimation papers and software, that maximises uptime, with improved take-up and other reliability features to eliminate common problems such as cockling and head strike.



The SureColor SC-F9300 comes with Oeko-Tex Eco Passport certification and has passed Japans AZO test for household products, meaning that clothing and textiles produced on the printer using UltraChrome DS inks are completely safe to wear for adults and children, including babies.



Shihab Zubair, regional sales manager, Epson Middle East, said: Its a challenge to top a product that is already incredibly reliable, very fast and extremely high quality, but with the SC-F9300, thats exactly what weve done.



Its faster, with improved handling of even very thin substrates, and better at avoiding cockling and other common feeding problems, he said.



Our company offers a complete solution  printer, inks, substrates, software and support  so everything is designed to work perfectly together. Combine that with straightforward setup and operation, and its the ideal solution for print companies looking to move into dye sublimation, or those who want to update an earlier model, he added.



The new model will be displayed at Epson's stand in Sign and Graphic Imaging exhibition, DWTC, from January 14 to 16.  TradeArabia News Service
The United Arab Emirates has once again outperformed countries of the Middle East in trade and commerce, a statement quoting a World Trade Organisation report said.

A report published by World Trade Organisation suggests that the country was in the 19th position on the list of leading exporters in world merchandise trade in 2016. With exports valued at $266 billion, UAE accounts for a share of 1.7 per cent in the world exports, it said.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Kuwait follow suit, with exports valued at $175 billion, $143 billion, $66 billion and $46 billion, respectively.

UAEs diverse economy has positioned it as one of the leading exporters of merchandise trade. The performance confirms the countrys position as a leading player in the industry and is a testament of its competitiveness in the market, said Satish Khanna, general manager of Al Fajer Information & Services and organizers International Autumn Trade Fair (IATF) 2017.

The 32nd edition of the International Autumn Trade Fair (IATF) 2017 organised by Al Fajer Information and Services will be held from December 17  19 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC).

With the UAE experiencing positive triggers in trade, we are confident that participants and visitors to IATF will also witness a boost in trade. Additionally, this years trade fair promises to be bigger and better providing exhibitors and visitors an opportunity to accelerate their growth, added Satish Khanna.

Attracting guests and exhibitors from a diverse retail community, IATF this year will witness participation from several international companies, which will offer a wide range of modern products like handicrafts and home decorations, kitchen gadgets, plastic-ware, artificial flowers and plants, fitness equipment, fashion and accessories, health products, among others.

Over the years, the UAEs exports have grown from strength to strength. Being a stable and secured economy with guaranteed returns on trade investments, the country has retained its top spot as the most preferred destination in the Middle East for trade. Through IATF we aim to underpin this position of the country by deepening economic and trade partnerships between countries of the region and the world, said Rupashree Singh, exhibition manager.

With more than 100 shopping malls, the UAE is undoubtedly one of the worlds most lucrative and exciting retail markets. Representing a global hub of unparalleled potential, IATF is an ideal opportunity for exhibitors to showcase their portfolio of products. Last year the fair attracted buyers from 18 countries. This year is expected to bigger than the previous edition, the officials said. - TradeArabia News Service
Sleep therapy, a break from modern technology and intuitive dining are among the upcoming travel trends that will be shaping the luxury boutique hotel experience in 2018, a report has revealed.



Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), in partnership with global trends analysts Trendwatching, has launched a luxury trends report identifying five specific trends from its collection of over 500 independently minded hotels around the world.



Hands-on luxe

While the hyper-competitive Experience Economy is nothing new, it is clear that we havent yet seen the full impact of the Instragram effect. In 2018 travellers will be looking to get their luxury hands dirty by helping to design their own experience. 700,000 Hours wandering hotel, brought to you by the brains behind Dar Ahlam in Morocco, will allow guests to choose its location each year. Guests can also get a true scents of place at Hotel Magna Pars Suites Milano where they can choose the fragrance of their room in this old perfume factory, and at The View Lugano in Switzerland where the smell is not the only choice to make in advance of a stay  the colour of their toilet paper, brand of toiletries and linens, as well as when to have their bag unpacked are all ways guests can customise their experience.



Spiritual stories

The wellness industry has always been entwined with spirituality, and in 2018 the focus will be on those spiritual experiences that enable guests to seek out one-of-a-kind moments to focus their independent minds. From visiting rejuvenating ancient Power Spots at the Sankara Hotel & Spa Yakushima in Japan, to night-time spa treatments under the stars, floating on water or being lapped by the waves, at Spa Village Resort Tembok Bali, the bespoke nature of these immersive experiences goes far deeper than a deep tissue massage.



Novel gazing

A complete digital detox might be too much for some of us, however, the desire to take a holiday from modern technology and nostalgia for times when life seemed simpler has led to a resurgence of literature in small hotels. Providing a taste of the timeless, hotels are paying homage to esteemed writers or classic novels, as well as offering libraries, reading rooms and library butlers. The Betsy South Beach in Miami celebrates its Pulitzer connection with bedtime poems and a Writers Room where guests can interact with local creatives. Le Pavillon des Lettres in Paris offers Literary room service and Kristiania Lech in Austria a Book Butler who creates a bespoke reading list to reflect the guests tastes. Rockliffe Hall in the UK will be opening a Lewis Carroll inspired parkland in 2018 as a nod to his love for the area, and the Owl and the Pussycat Hotel in Sri Lanka crosses the divide by using Instagram to recreate the non-sensical world of Edward Lear.



Night nurses

It is no longer enough to offer a pillow menu and a comfy bed to guarantee a good nights sleep  some brands are now introducing pioneering bed linens that prevent sweating and eliminate bacteria. In 2018 hotels will be competing to guarantee the optimum nights sleep in more traditional, yet original, ways. 137 Pillars Suites Bangkok and 137 Pillars House in Chiang Mai offers Sleep by Design therapy and a Sleepdown service conducted by a dedicated Sleep Curator. Sometimes, however, its worth having an interrupted night, as demonstrated by the Hotel Ranga in Icelands Northern Lights wake up call.



Intuitive dining

While data capture can promise optimum personalisation, in small luxury hotels nothing beats a thorough and instinctive understanding of each guest to get everything just right, just for them. Menus and inflexible dining rituals are disregarded at Dar Ahlam in Morrocco, Ett Hem in Stockholm and Foxhill Manor in the UK, where guests can eat what they want, where they want and when they want, or are conveniently surprised just when they are feeling a little peckish.



In addition to these hotel specific trends, SLH continues to evolve as a business embracing new technology and pioneering new destinations, all to improve the experience of its guests.



What3Words

In 2018, SLH.com and the 2018 SLH Directory will feature geographical references from What3Words for all 500+ hotels. This global addressing system that pinpoints locations to 3x3m squares has now been downloaded to 1 in 4 phones and is used by brands including Mercedes and Land Rover.



Where Next?

The development team at SLH has also been seeking out new and interesting new destinations to offer guests  in 2018 brand new hotels will be added to the portfolio in Comporta, just south of Lisbon in Portugal and touted as the new Ibiza; Cape Fahn, a private island off the coast of Koh Samui in Thailand; and Sailrock Resort, opening next week, the first luxury resort to open on South Caicos in the Caribbean. - TradeArabia News Service


Ahlan Business Class Lounge by Dubai International Hotel has been awarded the Priority Pass Middle East & Africa Airport Lounge of the Year Award.



Now in its 13th year, the awards are based on ratings provided by Priority Pass Members and recognise excellence within the worlds largest independent lounge membership program that includes more than 1,000 airport lounges, in over 500 cities, and is this year celebrating its 25th Anniversary.



The winning lounge, with a capacity of 177 guests ensures that visitors can find a dedicated area that caters to their personal and professional needs. A personalised Meet and Greet service, great food and beverage options, wi-fi connectivity, express spa treatments, child-friendly play area, special kids menus and a business centre all contributed to the lounges win. The lounge was also highly commended in the Best Business Facilities category.



Jan Freida de Leon, manager, Ahlan Business Class Lounge, said: We are extremely honoured to receive such an important award from Priority Pass. We are grateful for the recognition received for the teams hard work. Thank you.



The Dilmun Lounge at Bahrain International was also recognised in this years awards and highly commended in the region.



This years overall winners are:



 Global: Club Kingston at Kingston Norman Manley International

 Europe: Tallinn Airport Business Lounge at Tallinn Lennart Meri

 Africa & Middle East: Ahlan Business Class Lounge at Dubai International

 Asia Pacific: SATS Premier Lounge at Singapore Changi International

 North America: Salon VIP Lounge, Quebec Jean Lesage International



Justin Banon, director of Priority Pass, added: Were seeing major investment in new and existing airports across the Middle East. The region is renowned for its quality carriers and distinctive; luxury lounges so this is a strong endorsement for Ahlan Business Class Lounge in Dubai and Dilmun Lounge in Bahrain. The continued focus on lounges we are seeing from airports, airlines, financial institutions and other organisations worldwide can only be great news for both business and leisure customers, translating to a wider choice of venues offering exceptional service, refreshments and unique facilities to meet different travellers needs.



Priority Pass received over 72,000 ratings from its Members in this years awards using the lounge rating function on the Priority Pass website and app. Its members provide ratings on a wide set of criteria including overall lounge quality, refreshments, staff, business facilities and ambience. - TradeArabia News Service
Casper, Wyoming / February 5, 1930December 11, 2017

George Weber Rummel, age 87, of Casper, Wyoming, passed away December 11, 2017, at his home. George was born in Casper, Wyoming, on February 5, 1930 to George and Daisy Kropp Rummel. He attended elementary and junior high schools in multiple states, due to his Fathers occupation as a bricklayer. His family moved back to Casper so that he could attend Natrona County High School, where he graduated in 1948. He attended the University of Wyoming and was a proud member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He graduated in 1952 with a B.S. degree in Pharmacology as part of the first graduating class of the University Of Wyoming School Of Pharmacy. In 1953, he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War and served at Camp Roberts in Monterey, California. He moved back to Casper and began his career, first working for Kimball Drug and then opening Clinical Arts Pharmacy, which he successfully ran for 30+ years.

He married Anita Benton in October of 1965. They were active members of the community as well as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. George served in many capacities in church, including but not limited to, the Casper Third Ward Bishop and a counselor in the Casper Wyoming Stake Presidency. He was always willing to give his time to others and will always be remembered by the many friends and family whom he served.

George had a quick wit and an optimistic nature. Up until the end, he was always never better. He loved his family, his home, the state of Wyoming, and a good piece of candy or ice cream. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoyed many adventures in the hills and captured it all on his trusty camera. All that knew him will miss his infectious giggle and charitable actions.

George is survived by his wife, Anita Rummel (Casper); his daughters, Sona Rummel (Casper) and Rena Goade (Sandy, UT) and her husband, Casey; and his four grandchildren, Paige, AJ, Emily, and Ethan Snell (Sandy, UT).

A memorial service will take place in the spring of 2018.

At this time, donations in his name to Central Wyoming Hospice or the Casper Humane Society are greatly appreciated.
Holiday festivities include the final day of the citys largest toy drive, an opportunity to lay wreaths at the states only veterans cemetery, making fleece blankets for those in need of warmth and much more, including the holiday symphony concert. Here is a summary, as provided to the Star-Tribune.

The final day of the 20th annual Stuff the Van toy drive is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Walmart east. The goal is to provide toys and gifts for 2,200 infants to teenagers in the Casper area through Casper Housing Authority, Food for Thought, Child Development Center and Boys & Girls Club.

The Casper FFA is having an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast from 7 a.m. to approximately 10 a.m., depending on the crowd, in the NC Commons. It will be $5 for as many pancakes as you can eat. All profits will go to funding the Meals of Hope service project, which will package 50,000 meals to go to the local Casper area. They cannot accomplish this task without help from our community.

Wreaths Across America welcomes the public to help lay 3,000 wreaths at Oregon Trail Veterans Cemetery. Please be there at 9:30 a.m., and the ceremony begins at 10 a.m. Christmas wreaths have been purchased for all 3,000 graves and will be laid following the ceremony.

The Fleece Blanket Project meets from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at First Christian Church, 520 CY Ave. The goal is to make 100 blankets in one day. Stay for an hour or the entire time, whatever time you can contribute will be so appreciated. Donations of fleece are critical as well. Two yards of print and two yards of solid are used for every blanket. All blankets are donated to local people in need of comfort and warmth  and there are many.

Members of the Central Wyoming Model Railroad Association will move operations from the clubhouse on North Center Street to the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center during the month of December. Operating hours at the trails center are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The Casper Downtown Business Association sponsors Santas Workshop at Market Square, 232 E. Second St. Puppies with Santa is 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Photos are $10, with money going to the Casper Humane Society. All children are then welcome free from 1 to 4 p.m.

Learn The Art of the Cheese Plate at noon and again at 4 p.m., at Grant Street Grocery and Market, 815 S. Grant Ave. Cheese expert Christie Malmberg will walk you through the design of a cheese plate. Free to attend.

The Historic Bishop Home, 818 E. Second St., is all dressed for the holidays and open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The home is located between Jefferson and Lincoln. Parking is available behind the home in a lot off Lincoln Street. For additional information, visit www.cadomafoundation.org; www. Facebook/Cadoma foundation; or call 237-2443.

Christmas Ornament Workshop for children at the Nicolaysen Art Museum: 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (while supplies last). Ages 3 and up. Free (members) and $5 (non-members) per child/adult duo. This drop-in activity will make one of kind Christmas ornaments using a variety of art materials. Children might get messy so dress accordingly. Children must be accompanied by an adult. The Museum Shop will also be open for holiday shopping opportunities.

Saturday is the last day to see the collection of nativities at 118 E. Second St., formerly Ayres Jewelry, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The display is sponsored by First Christian Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Natrona County Librarys Family LEGO Club will meet at 1 p.m. Family LEGO Club is a great way to have fun, relax, and spend time together, making this the perfect family activity. The Library will supply a large amount of LEGOs and ideas of what can be created.

An afternoon book discussion, sponsored by the Natrona County Library, will be held at 2 p.m., at Metro Coffee Co. Participants will discuss A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine LEngle. The group is open to teens in grades 7-8, and new members are always welcome. Participants receive a free drink, courtesy of the Friends of the Library.

The public is invited to attend the Unitarian Universalist Community of Casper services and other events at 1040 West 15th Street, just north of the CY Avenue Albertsons. A special Yuletide service, conducted by Athne Machdane, will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. The traditional pagan Yuletide service will include guided meditation, music, dance, and light refreshments.

The Constitution Party of Natrona County invites all from 3:15 to 5 p.m. in the Crawford Room at the Natrona County Library, to join in celebrating and learning about the day the Bill of Rights was ratified, putting it in effect: Dec. 15, 1791. Check us out at wyocp.com/natrona.

First Presbyterian Church (EPC) invites children ages 4-12 to come to the third annual Parents Night Out, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. We want mom and dad to have a full 2-1/2 hours for date night or shopping or just a quiet time at home while the kids are having a blast at First Pres. Activities will include pizza, a movie on our huge new screen, Christmas cookie decorating (and eating), and games. There only will be room for the first 50 children who are registered at firstpc@qwestoffice.net by Wednesday, Dec. 13. First Presbyterian (soon to be called Grace Reformed Church) is located at 804 S. Wolcott in Casper on the south side of City Park.

Christmas Ball at the Elks begins with dinner at 6:30 p.m. and dancing at 8 p.m. Dinner is lobster tail, price to be determined. Dinner includes one trip to the salad bar, potato, vegetable, roll and dessert. There will be a DJ for dancing and listening. Please make reservation by calling 237-2432 or signing up in the bar. Members, significant other and guest accompanied by a member. For more information, call 234-4839.

Seasonal shows at the Casper Planetarium include Season of Light, a holiday show that traces the history of many enduring holiday customs, from Yule logs to luminarias. Recommended for ages 8 and up. Showing at 7 p.m. Black Holes lurk in the universe like cosmic dragons. Recommended for 7th grade and up. Showing at 8 p.m.

Rich Ridenour joins the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra to perform a jolly holiday show with a comedic flair for audience members of all ages at 7:30 p.m., at John F. Welsh Auditorium in Natrona County High School. Featuring Carol of the Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Christmas Time is Here, and Rhapsody in Blue Christmas, this holiday extravaganza is the perfect way to spend a winter night with family and good friends.

Tom Coryell & The Incorrigibles will play at All That Jazz in the Parkway Plaza Hotel from 8 p.m., to midnight. Come enjoy some holiday cheer.
A Cheyenne man pleaded not guilty Thursday in Natrona County District Court to charges alleging he was part of an armed robbery in which three people were tied up in a Casper mobile home.

Tanner K. Davis is facing charges of aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. If convicted on all four counts, he could face up to 100 years in prison.

Davis and three alleged co-conspirators made off with cell phones, sneakers, a Playstation 4 and marijuana pipes, according to court documents. The documents indicate that the men planned the burglary because they thought the occupants of the home sold marijuana.

The alleged victim told police that he and his two friends had been sleeping when two men burst into his bedroom wielding guns and a hatchet. The mans friends, both under 18 and thus unidentified in the court documents, were sleeping in the living room at the time, according to the documents. The man told police that intruders had threatened to kill him and his family if he went to police.

Although the robbery is alleged to have occurred in July 2015, police were not alerted until January 2016, when an informant told police a group had robbed another man at gunpoint, according to court documents.

One of the alleged victims told police he also did not report the burglary because one intruder told him he would kill the victims family if police were contacted, according to the documents.

Konnor Rollison, of Mills, pleaded not guilty earlier this year to four felonies in a related case.
A former Casper Re-Entry Center employee pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges alleging she had sex with an inmate while she worked at the center.

Tosha Sheesley, 24, entered her pleas in Natrona County District Court to three felonies: two counts of second-degree sexual assault and a count of third-degree sexual assault. If convicted of all three charges she could face up to 55 years in prison.

Sheesley spoke only briefly in quiet tones during Fridays five-minute hearing, telling Judge Catherine Wilking that she was able to understand the charges against her before entering her pleas with two words.

Prosecutors allege that Sheesley, a former resident manager at the facility, had sex with an inmate at least three times while employed at the facility, according to court documents. All of the intimate encounters took place away from the center.

The documents also allege that Sheesley brought the inmate to her mothers house and introduced the man as her boyfriend.

Sheesley also admitted to having sex with the man while she worked at the facility, according to the documents. She told investigators that she knew having sex with the inmate was illegal.

Sheesley also told investigators that the sexual contact took place between February and March. Sheesley worked for the re-entry center from Nov. 28, 2016, through March 30, 2017. The inmate was at the facility until March 15, when he was allegedly found with methamphetamine while at the center.

The investigation began when the inmate was arrested in the meth incident. His cell phone was confiscated and messages were found between the man and Sheesley.

Sheesley remained free on bond Friday.

Another former Casper Re-Entry Center employee is facing similar charges that allege she had sex with an inmate while she worked at the facility as a nurse.

Per Wyoming law, it is illegal for an employee of a correctional institution to have sex with any inmate, regardless of age or consent.

The Casper Re-Entry Center is a private company that the Wyoming Department of Corrections contracts with to provide rehabilitation and substance abuse treatment to inmates before they are released from custody.
DURANGO, Colo.  Attorneys representing a man charged with killing his 13-year-old son in southwestern Colorado have asked the court for more time to examine the thousands of documents related to the case.

The status conference in Durango on Thursday was the first court appearance in 96 days for 55-year-old Mark Redwine.

Redwine was indicted earlier this year on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. Redwine is suspected of killing Dylan Redwine in November 2012.

His public defender John Moran told the court they were was still looking through the documents that took the state more than 4 years to compile.

Redwine is scheduled for a second status conference in mid-April. He has denied any involvement in his son's death.
The tiny town of Buford, population one, was once sold at an auction. The final price? The winning bidder took the town for a cool $900,000.
The loss of the Alabama senate seat to a Democrat  never-Trumper I-told-you-sos and DNC reveries notwithstanding  says a lot less about President Trump than it does about the Republican Party leadership. The most important takeaway from Roy Moores loss is the same one from Donald Trumps win:

Articulately and unabashedly defend conservative principles or lose.

Conservative voters want Republican candidates to champion conservative positions and, once elected, to act on those principles.

The GOP leadership, regrettably, has gotten so good at playing it safe that they no longer know how to lead; their entire strategy seems to consist of trying not to lose. How many times have they propped up lackluster and uninspiring candidates as electable because their views wouldnt offend the leftist media (which is going to oppose and mischaracterize conservative policies no matter what)?

We now have a Republican-controlled House and Senate that cant seem to cobble together a single legislative victory, filled though they are with electable people. Why are we surprised? Timid candidates chosen to win congressional seats by not rocking the boat dont change their stripes once they get there.

And this assumes that they do win. Often, they lose because they cant mobilize the base to get out and vote, whereupon they are both castigated by the press as extremist and defeated by the Democrat on the ticket. At which point, the GOP says, Golly, we need someone whos even squishier on the issues.

Lather, rinse, repeat. How often do we have to watch this movie?

Too often. This was the backstory in Alabama.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the RNC backed establishment candidate Luther Strange for Jeff Sessions vacated senate seat, over the more conservative candidate Mo Brooks. Strange was already tainted by the circumstances of his special appointment by the outgoing governor of Alabama, who resigned in a sex and financial scandal  that Strange was investigating as Alabama attorney general at the time. But Strange was viewed as more electable. And a Republican seat in Alabama was always safe, right?

This inscrutable ignoring of the message voters sent the GOP in 2010 and 2014 and 2016 set the stage for someone  anyone  else to enter the primary race. Cue Judge Roy Moore and the predictable disaster on Dec. 12. Its a mark of how frustrated voters are with GOP leadership that so many would stand by Moore even as multiple credible allegations came in about his penchant for dating teenaged girls when he was in his 30s. (And this amidst a national sexual harassment and assault scandal of unprecedented proportions.)

In 2016, Trump proved that a broad cross-section of voters would rally behind someone who could both push back against the media and make a case for conservative principles. Trump  hardly a rock-solid conservative  has done a surprisingly good job emphasizing issues important to conservative and moderate voters: a smaller federal government, lower taxes, pro-business, pro-military, pro-middle class, border enforcement.

In spite of Trumps victory, the GOP  aided and abetted by the #NeverTrump conservative media personalities  distances itself from the president, unable to distinguish the difference between personality  which is Trumps  and policy  which is the voters.

The pundits dont see it that way. National Reviews editors wrote that Steve Bannon and Moores supporters want to tear down the GOP for fun and profit. I cant speak for Steve Bannon, but what voters want is for Republicans to get in there and do something. We gave them the House; we gave them the Senate; we gave them the White House. Trumps incendiary tweets, Ronan Farrows investigative journalism, and the newly empowered #MeToo revolutionaries have exposed and discredited much of the press. For heavens sake  what are they waiting for?

It looks all-too likely that the GOP will yet again learn the wrong lesson from Moores embarrassing defeat and make two catastrophic mistakes.

The first would be to retreat to their familiar electable argument instead of backing a fearless conservative (without a pervy past next time, thank you very much). To do that will all but ensure that even a hysterically leftist Democrat candidate would defeat a bland pabulum Republican, with disillusioned and betrayed conservative voters staying home.

The second mistake is a paralyzed and moribund Congress in 2018. If the GOP doesnt come out swinging and get things done legislatively early next year, theyre setting the stage for primary challenges. Some of these may be breaths of fresh air. But others will be  a la Richard Mourdock, Todd Akin, Christine ODonnell and Roy Moore  truly execrable. Enough of those, and Republicans will have squandered the opportunity of a lifetime to lead the country, and will hand control of Congress to a Democratic Party that is further left than anything weve had so far. The next candidates the DNC throws us will make Barack Obama look like Barry Goldwater.

Dont say you werent warned.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some Dec. 15 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.
The woman who died Tuesday after crashing into an overpass bridge support on Interstate 19 was identified as Lori Brown.

The 59-year-old Rio Rico resident was driving south around noon when her vehicle drifted into the center median, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The Jeep she was driving struck the bridge support at the Duval Mine Road overpass. Brown died at the scene from her injuries. No other vehicles were involved.
Former UA President Ann Weaver Hart was awarded $25,000 in extra pay this week by the Arizona Board of Regents for board-approved goals she met before she announced her resignation in June 2016.

Those goals were developing a communications strategy for the Banner Health-UA partnership and shoring up the role of the UA Honors College.

The money is on top of Harts presidential base pay of $475,000 that she will continue to receive until her contract expires in June 2018.

The board has not yet approved current University of Arizona President Robert Robbins goals, but plans to soon.

Robbins, who took the UA helm in June, was not eligible for any of the extra pay for state university presidents the board approved Wednesday during a meeting in Tempe.

Arizona State Universitys Michael Crow and Northern Arizona Universitys Rita Cheng were also awarded the $25,000 of what the board calls at-risk compensation as incentive for meeting goals tailored to each presidents strategic plan.

Cheng was awarded an additional $180,000 for meeting three-year goals.

In an unusual move, the regents voted 4-3 to decline an additional $15,000 per president, including for Board of Regents President Eileen Klein. The presidents failed to meet goals outlined by the regents enterprise executive committee, said Bill Ridenour, the boards chairman.

The states university presidents were tasked by the executive committee with preparing a quality assurance report, with a focus on general education. In it, they were to define quality in academics, outline the processes used to assure quality and a means of measuring quality in each institution.

We were to get a report and some of the regents did not feel the report was what they requested, Ridenour said.

Harts absence from the process was at least partially to blame, he said, but the major reason for the dissenting vote was that the board felt it was too broken up in terms of how we assess quality.  We wanted everyone to get together to come up with standard measurements, uniform over three universities.

The one- and three-year goals for presidents individually are metric driven for example, reaching a certain number of STEM degrees awarded or a number of returning second-year students.

Executive committee goals, on the other hand, are measured by quality, he said, but we still declined it.

The board does not consider these periodic rewards bonuses, the chairman said.

These goals are really stretch goals. We just dont put in goals we know they can meet. We put in goals hoping to drive certain numbers in the universities, Ridenour said.

The board justifies separating these tasks from salaries because the incentive is meant to help push each presidents strategic plan forward.

They may or may not get these monies based on performance, Ridenour said.

Ridenour acknowledged that meeting these goals does depend on a lot of moving parts throughout the universities and not just work done by the presidents, but said its the presidents overall responsibility to make sure the departments under him are meeting goals.

After Harts presidential contract expires, she will return to the UA as a professor in the college of education, where she will be paid as much as the highest paid faculty member, estimated to be about $130,000 annually, and will take a year-long sabbatical.

Taxpayers are paying the bulk of two UA presidential salaries in the meantime: Robbins contract pays him $988,000 a year in salary and benefits, $200,000 of which comes from a UA Foundation endowment for presidential leadership.
PHOENIX  Sitting state lawmakers are free to run for the congressional seat vacated by Trent Franks without having to quit their current job  at least according to an attorney paid by state lawmakers.

Ken Behringer, general counsel of the Legislative Council, the legal arm of the Legislature, acknowledged that the Arizona Constitution says lawmakers convene each year on the second Monday in January. For 2019, that means Jan. 14.

What makes that significant is Arizona law says elected officials who run for any other office forfeit their current one if its not in the last year of their current term.

The deadline to file for Franks Congressional District 8 seat is Jan. 10.

But Behringer, who was asked to look at the issue by legislative leaders, dismissed the contention that the Jan. 14 start date of the new Legislature means anyone who files for Franks office before then has to resign.

He contends that the second Monday reference in the Arizona Constitution refers only to when lawmakers meet. Behringer said he reads another section of the document to say that the terms actually start the first Monday in January  giving congressional hopefuls enough time to meet the filing deadline to run for Congress without triggering the resign-to-run law.

Ultimately, though, what Behringer thinks does not matter.

Under Arizona law, the only person who can seek to have an elected official declared holding office illegally  whether for resign-to-run violations or anything else  is Attorney General Mark Brnovich. And as of late Thursday, he had yet to weigh in.

Current state Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, is not taking any chances. He already said he will quit Friday, Dec. 15, to run for the open congressional seat.

Fellow state Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, who said she hasnt yet made a formal decision about running for Congress, said if she does make a bid she will announce at that time if she will try to keep her Senate seat for the session. Also yet to decide whether to run for Congress are Sen. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix, Rep. Tony Riveo, R-Peoria, and Rep. Darin Mitchell, R-Goodyear.

The unexpected vacancy follows Franks resignation last Friday after he admitted that he talked with female staffers about becoming a surrogate mother, reportedly offering $5 million for the service.

With congressional seats opening up infrequently, the vacancy has attracted more than a dozen Republicans as well as several Democrats. The special primary election is set for Feb. 27, with the general election on April 24.
The Arizona Court of Appeals says Pima County didnt need to use competitive bidding to lease county-owned land to a balloon spaceflight company as part of an economic development package.

The decision Thursday overturns a Superior Court judges ruling that the $15 million deal in 2016 between Pima County and World View Enterprises violated state law that required competitive bidding to protect public resources.

The Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute sued, saying the deal put taxpayers at risk if World View leaves without fully paying for the space for its headquarters and operations base. The institute said the county violated state law regarding appraisals, auctions and rental rates.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Catherine Woods sided with Goldwater in February and moved to void the lease. But the Appeals Court ruled unanimously that county boards do not have to use a competitive bidding process when issuing leases that fit their economic development guidelines.

To require competitive bidding in such a circumstance would only frustrate that purpose by driving up the price and thereby nullifying the very power the statute grants: the power to spend monies for economic development, Judge Peter Eckerstrom wrote.

The appellate court also said an economic development law allows counties to lease county-owned land at less than market value.

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said it is a clear victory for economic development efforts throughout the state.

The Goldwater Institute was off-base in attacking economic recovery in Pima County. While I can understand their opposition to sweetheart development deals in Maricopa County, they should keep their hands off the real job growth and economic development plans in Pima County, Huckelberry said.

Jim Manley, Goldwaters lead attorney, said the ruling allows governments to negotiate secret backroom deals with private firms.

Competitive bidding helps guard against favoritism, fraud and public waste, and by rejecting the necessity of this process, the court has opened the door to greater government abuse, said Manley.

We plan to appeal this decision to the state Supreme Court and continue the fight against sweetheart deals that put taxpayers on the hook to subsidize private profits.

Manley added that he believes the agreement between World View and Pima County also violates the states gift clause, which prohibits the government from giving or lending taxpayer money to private businesses.
Lea Marquez Petersons formal entry into the Congressional District 2 race leaves an opening  on the right.

Marquez Peterson, the president and CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, fits the mold of former GOP congressman Jim Kolbe or maybe of early Martha McSally before she embraced President Trump. Marquez Peterson is a business Republican, tightly tied to Gov. Doug Ducey.

But lets remember what happened after Kolbe retired. In 2006, the more conservative GOP candidate, Randy Graf, beat the more moderate Steve Huffman in the primary. Then Graf lost handily to Democrat Gabrielle Giffords in the general election, launching her congressional career.

In 2008, a mainstream Republican, former state senator Tim Bee, lost to the new incumbent Giffords. Then in 2010, the flame-throwing conservative Jesse Kelly beat the more mainline Republican Jonathan Paton in the GOP primary. Giffords held off Kelly narrowly in a year swept by Republicans. Paton may well have won that general election had he taken the primary.

So who will play the Jesse Kelly/Randy Graf role this year? It could be Ally Miller. The Pima County supervisor from the northwest side acknowledged to my colleague Joe Ferguson this week that she is considering a run for Congress.

I had previously discounted her as a possible candidate, but as time goes on and I talk with more people, it seems increasingly likely to me that Miller will jump into the race.

Why? Well, Miller has shown political ambition, not that theres anything wrong with that. And she is beloved among her supporters. Finally, she is a full-throated Trump supporter, unlike Marquez Peterson, who declined to support him when we talked earlier this year. If Steve Bannon fights his war on the GOP establishment at the House level, hed likely support someone like Miller.

How would Miller fare in a general election? Of course, it depends on whom the Democrats pick. But my guess is Miller would have limited appeal. She has deep support, but by a narrow band of followers, and she carries a lot of political baggage from the many controversies of her time on the Board of Supervisors. Democrats would be happy to campaign against her.

CD3 Republicans run

A new candidate jumped into the race for the Republican nomination in Congressional District 3 this week. Sergio Arellano said hell seek the chance to take on incumbent Raul Grijalva, who is presumed to be running for re-election.

Arellano, a member of the Continental School District governing board in Green Valley, joins two candidates who have run before: Jaime Vasquez and Edna San Miguel. Vasquez ran for the GOP nomination in 2012 but lost to Gabriela Saucedo Mercer. San Miguel ran in 2016 but dropped out before the primary after too many of her petition signatures were found to be invalid.

Arellano, 34, has become a presence in the Arizona Republican scene over recent years, holding jobs as a Latino outreach director and strategic initiatives director for the Republican National Committee and also working for the state party. He is an Army veteran who plans to use that experience along with his presence and accessibility around the district as arguments in the general election.

The other new candidate is Nick Pierson, 68, a well-known financial adviser for Northwestern Mutual. Pierson has been increasingly involved in community affairs over the years, organizing a South Tucson group called Tus Vecinos en el Barrio and working on the Fox Theatre Foundations board to establish a variety of events.

Republicans traditionally have a hard time against the formidable Grijalva in CD 3, but he may have a bit of rare vulnerability next year thanks to the recent revelation that he settled for $48,000 a hostile-workplace complaint.

Candidates share consultant

If you still think McSally may end up running for re-election to her House seat, consider this: McSally and Marquez Peterson hired the same campaign consulting company, Axiom Strategies, based in Kansas City, Mo., to run their races. The company is not going to work for two candidates running against each other.

I spoke with a partner at the firm, Travis Smith, who served as a consultant to McSally in earlier races. He confirmed that the two candidates have hired the firm and spoke of McSallys announcement of a Senate run as a when, not if, prospect.

As Ive said before in this column, McSallys days running in CD2 are over. Theres no turning back. The only question is, considering Sen. John McCains poor health, which senatorial seat she ends up pursuing.

Bannon vs. Trump

in Arizona?

The possibility that President Trump will endorse McSally for U.S. Senate probably became more likely this week. Thats because Trumps instincts were proved right in Alabama, where he had endorsed incumbent Luther Strange for the GOP nomination while Trumps one-time adviser, Steve Bannon, endorsed Roy Moore.

Moore, of course, ended up losing to Democrat Doug Jones, damaging Bannons brand in the process. Bannon has endorsed Kelli Ward for the GOP nomination for retiring U.S. Sen. Jeff Flakes seat, but the Alabama result raises the question of how much that endorsement is really worth.

CD8 fallout for state

The sudden resignation of Rep. Trent Franks in Congressional District 8 has upended some expected races in Arizona.

State Sen. Steve Montenegro had been challenging the incumbent Republican, Michele Reagan, for her seat as secretary of state. Now he is running in a crowded field for the GOP nomination in CD 8.

That prompted people to ask former state Senate president Steve Pierce if he would challenge Reagan, Pierce told me.

Pierce, who represented the Prescott area, is thinking about it. But he said the GOP needs a better candidate than Reagan.

You could run by just reprinting the newspaper articles where she screwed up, he told me.

State Sen. Katie Hobbs is planning to run for secretary of state on the Democratic side.
New York

Feds: Woman laundered bitcoin to help fund IS

CENTRAL ISLIP  A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Islamic State group.

Prosecutors say 27-year-old Zoobia Shahnaz was charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in Central Islip on Thursday.

Prosecutors say the former lab technician fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online. They say the Brentwood woman then wired more than $150,000 to individuals and shell entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey.

Walmart suspends ties with PBSs Smiley

NEW YORK  Walmart and Hay House book distributor distanced themselves from Tavis Smiley on Thursday after PBS said an investigation found troubling allegations of sexual misconduct by the radio and TV host.

The moves came a day after PBS said it was suspending Smiley following an independent investigation by a law firm. PBS said the firm uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS. His shows page at PBS was scrubbed on Thursday. Smiley has denied any wrongdoing.

South Dakota

Park adds unplanned roundup of buffalo

SIOUX FALLS  A South Dakota state park known for annual buffalo roundups drawing thousands of spectators will perform an unscheduled one in the coming days to determine how a historic wildfire affected the animals.

Officials at Custer State Park located its bison herd by Thursday afternoon, and every animal found so far was alive, said Kobee Stalder, the parks visitor services program manager. The fire has consumed more than 84 square miles in the park and beyond its borders.

Kentucky

Wife of lawmaker who killed self seeks seat

FRANKFORT  The wife of a Kentucky lawmaker who killed himself while facing a sexual assault allegation defended her husband, Dan Johnson, on Thursday and said she will run for his seat because these high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths cant be allowed to win the day.

Rebecca Johnson said, His fight will go on.

California

Two will go to trial over warehouse fire

OAKLAND  Two California men will go to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges in the deaths of 36 partygoers in the worst building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade, a judge ruled Thursday.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner cited testimony describing the Oakland warehouse as a death trap and said Derick Almena and Max Harris had a substantial role in managing it. The ruling came at the end of a dayslong hearing that provided a glimpse at prosecutors case against the pair.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 was presented last Sunday to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. This represents the recognition of the urgent need to rid the world of the force that could terminate meaningful life on our planet.

Yet the general public has not recognized this threat, which is currently as high or higher than during the height of the Cold War. This is likely because the weapons are out of sight and effectively hidden from public view.

However, recent exchanges of threats between North Korea and President Trump have brought the problem to more public view and concern.

This conflict is nearly an unmanageable situation without a nonviolent solution in sight.

It highlights the vulnerability of our planet and how two individuals, acting by themselves without any effective way to prevent their behavior, could destroy it. To paraphrase President Kennedy when briefed on the nuclear weapons arsenal: This is an insane situation when two individuals on opposite sides of the globe could end meaningful existence for everyone else.

President Reagan stated in his inaugural address: We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said, It is my firm belief that the infinite uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.

Thus, the conclusion of thoughtful leaders faced with the ultimate responsibility: That these weapons do not belong in any human hands. The risk is completely unacceptable.

Representatives of many nations met this past July under the auspices of the United Nations. After careful and extensive discussions, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted by 121 nations. It is for this reason that the Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded to ICAN.

The United States (and other nuclear-armed or -dependent nations) opposed the treaty and refused to participate in the process. Regardless, official ratification by 50 nations will make the treaty provisions permanently and legally binding on the signers.

We have many chaotic and dangerous conflicts in the world. Eliminating this extremely dangerous nuclear weapons arsenal will not solve these conflicts. But it will eliminate the extreme risk they pose to our survival.

Please contact Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake and urge that they support the ban treaty, and, if not, ask them why not? Our generation will not be forgiven if we do not act to accomplish this.
I think it is important for everyone to take a look at the actual dossier, which is summarized by the date of each report (see below). There are two salient points deserving your focus:

And, as I noted in my previous piece, we also know that the wife of a senior DOJ official, with ties to the CIA, was working with Fusion GPS on Russian matters related to Trump during this same time frame.

The Clinton campaign and the DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.

Elias and his law firm, Seattle-based Perkins Coie , retained the firm in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS research into Trump was funded by a still unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

Marc Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington, D.C., firm, to conduct the research. Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community.

We already knew, thanks to Washington Post reporting in October that the dossier was commissioned by Clinton attorneys and compiled and prepared by a retired foreign intelligence officer, Christopher Steele:

The latest revelations following the release of the FISA application on Saturday, 21 July 2016, requires an update to a piece I wrote last December on the so-called Steele Dossier devoted to Donald Trump. There now is no doubt that FBI and DOJ officials were collaborating with the Intelligence Community, under the direction of Jim Clapper, in misleading members of Congress and feeding the media about alleged collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and the Russians. At least we now know for certain that the FISA judges were informed that the information came from a source hired by the Democrats to go after Donald Trump. How those judges could acquiesce to such blatant partisan bullshit is grist for another day.

Hillary Clinton's law firm ended the contract with Fusion GPS in October 2016. So who commissioned/paid for the 16th report in the dossier that is dated 13 December? CIA, DNI and FBI were presenting information contained in at least 9 of the reports in the "dossier" (between 20 June and 14 September) to key members of Congress without disclosing that the Clinton Campaign was the actual source of this information.

This is a very important point now that we know that FBI Agent Strzok, who was in regular contact with the CIA and handled counter intelligence operations, was a likely source, along with John Brennan, for the breathless media reports that fed the meme of Russian/Trump collusion.

One of the first articles pushing the Russians "are coming" propaganda was courtesy of the Washington Post's

U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions, intelligence and congressional officials said. . . .

The effort to better understand Russias covert influence operations is being coordinated by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence. . . .

Weve seen an unprecedented intrusion and an attempt to influence or disrupt our political process, said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, speaking about the DNC hack and the WikiLeaks release on the eve of the Democratic convention. The disclosures, which included a number of embarrassing internal emails, forced the resignation of DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials  including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.

The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. After one of those briefings, Senate minority leader Harry Reid wrote FBI Director James Comey, citing reports of meetings between a Trump adviser (a reference to Page) and high ranking sanctioned individuals in Moscow over the summer as evidence of significant and disturbing ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin that needed to be investigated by the bureau.

This is a huge story that most of the press and the American people are, for the time being, ignoring. This is not just a corruption of the political process. It is a shameful and dangerous betrayal of our system of law by intelligence operatives and law enforcement professionals.

Here is comprehensive summary of the dossier for your reading pleasure:

2016/80--20 June 2016 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP'S ACTIVITIES IN RUSSIA AND COMPROMISING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KREMLIN

2016/86--26 July 2015 (sic)-- RUSSIA/CYBER CRIME: A SYNOPSIS OF RUSSIAN STATE SPONSORED AND OTHER CYBER OFFENSIVE (CRIMINAL) OPERATIONS

2016/94--19 July 2016-- RUSSIA: SECRET KREMLIN MEETINGS ATTENDED BY TRUMP ADVISOR, CARTER PAGE IN MOSCOW

2016/95--(UNDATED)-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER INDICATIONS OF EXTENSIVE CONSPIRACY BETWEEN TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN TEAM AND THE KREMLIN

2016/97--30 July 2016-- RUSSIA-US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN CONCERN THAT POLITICAL FALLOUT FROM DNC E-MAIL HACKING AFFAIR SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL

2016/100--5 August 2016-- RUSSIA/USA: GROWING BACKLASH IN KREMLIN TO DNC HACKING AND TRUMP SUPPORT OPERATIONS

2016/101--10 August 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: SENIOR KREMLIN FIGURE OUTLlNES EVOLVING RUSSIAN TACTICS IN PRO-TRUMP, ANTI-CLINTON OPERATION

2016/102--10 August 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REACTION IN TRUMP CAMP TO RECENT NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AND LIKELY RESULTING TACTICS GOING FORWARD

2016/105--22 AUGUST 2016-- RUSSIA/UKRAINE: THE DEMISE OF TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER PAUL MANAFORT

2016/111--14 September 2016-- RUSSIA/ US: KREMLIN FALLOUT FROM MEDIA EXPOSURE OF MOSCOW'S INTERFERENCE IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

2016/112--14 September 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN-ALPHA GROUP COOPERATION

2016/113--14 September 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION- REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE TRUMP'S PRIOR ACTIVITIES IN ST PETERSBURG

2016/130--12 October 2016-- RUSSIA: KREMLIN ASSESSMENT OF TRUMP AND RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

2016/134--18 October 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER DETAILS OF KREMLIN LIAISON WITH TRUMP CAMPAIGN

2016/135--19 October 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF TRUMP LAWYER, COHEN IN CAMPAIGN'S SECRET LIAISON WITH THE KREMLIN

2016/136--19 October 2016--US/RUSSIA: FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE

2016/166--13 December 2016-- US/RUSSIA: FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE

THE DETAILS

2016/80--20 June 2016 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP'S ACTIVITIES IN RUSSIA AND COMPROMISING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KREMLIN

Source A a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure,

Source B a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin,

Source C senior Russian financial official,

Source D a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow,

Source E (unknown),

Source F Female staffer at the Ritz,

Source "8" (sic),

Source G a senior Kremlin official

Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.

So far TRUMP has declined various business deals offered him in Russia in order to further the Kremlin's cultivation of him. However he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals

Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has compromised TRUMP through his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him.

A dossier of compromising material on Hillary CLINTON has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services but no embarrassing conduct. The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman, PESKOV, directly on PUTIN's orders. However it has not as yet been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP.

2016/86--26 July 2015 (sic)-- RUSSIA/CYBER CRIME: A SYNOPSIS OF RUSSIAN STATE SPONSORED AND OTHER CYBER OFFENSIVE (CRIMINAL) OPERATIONS

Source A former senior intelligence officer,

Source B a Russian IT specialist with direct knowledge

Russia has extensive programme of state-sponsored offensive cyber operations . External targets include foreign governments and big corporations, especially banks. FSB leads on cyber within Russian apparatus. Limited success in attacking top foreign targets like G7 governments, security services and !Fis but much more on second tier ones through IT back doors, using corporate and other visitors to Russia

FSB often uses coercion and blackmail to recruit most capable cyber operatives in Russia into its state-sponsored programmes. Problems however for Russian authorities themselves in countering local hackers and cyber criminals, operating outside state control.

2016/94--19 July 2016-- RUSSIA: SECRET KREMLIN MEETINGS ATTENDED BY TRUMP ADVISOR, CARTER PAGE IN MOSCOW

(1) A Russian source close to Rosneft President Igor SECHIN,

(2) An official close to Presidential Administration Head S. IVANOV

TRUMP advisor Carter PAGE holds secret meetings in Moscow with SECHIN and senior Kremlin Internal Affairs official, DIVYEKIN

SECHIN raises issues of future bilateral US-Russia energy co-operation and associated lifting of western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. PAGE non-committal in response

DIVEYKIN discusses release of Russian dossier of 'kompromat' on TRUMP's opponent, Hillary CLINTON, but also hints at Kremlin possession of such material on TRUMP

2016/95--(UNDATED)-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER INDICATIONS OF EXTENSIVE CONSPIRACY BETWEEN TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN TEAM AND THE KREMLIN

Source E an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP

Further evidence of extensive conspiracy between TRUMP's campaign team and Kremlin, sanctioned at highest levels and involving Russian diplomatic staff based in the US

TRUMP associate admits Kremlin behind recent appearance of DNC e mails on WikiLeaks, as means of maintaining plausible deniability

Agreed exchange of information established in both directions . TRUMP's team using moles within DNC and hackers in the US as well as outside in Russia. PUTIN motivated by fear and hatred of Hillary CLINTON.

Russians receiving intel from TRUMP's team on Russian oligarchs and their families in US.

Mechanism for transmitting this intelligence involves "pension" disbursements to Russian emigres living in US as cover, using consular officials in New York, DC and Miami

Suggestion from source close to TRUMP and MANAFORT that Republican campaign team happy to have Russia as media bogeyman to mask more extensive corrupt business ties to China and other emerging countries

2016/97--30 July 2016-- RUSSIA-US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN CONCERN THAT POLITICAL FALLOUT FROM DNC E-MAIL HACKING AFFAIR SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL

SOURCE: (1) A Russian emigre figure close to the Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP's campaign team,

Kremlin concerned that political fallout from DNC e-mail hacking operation is spiralling out of control. Extreme nervousness among TRUMP's associates as result of negative media attention/accusations

Russians meanwhile keen to cool situation and maintain 'plausible deniability' of existing /ongoing pro-TRUMP and anti-CLINTON operations. Therefore unlikely to be any ratcheting up offensive plays in immediate future

Source close to TRUMP campaign however confirms regular exchange with Kremlin has existed for at least 8 years, including intelligence fed back to Russia on oligarchs' activities in US

Russians apparently have promised not to use 'kompromat' they hold on TRUMP as leverage, given high levels of voluntary co-operation forthcoming from his team

2016/100--5 August 2016-- RUSSIA/USA: GROWING BACKLASH IN KREMLIN TO DNC HACKING AND TRUMP SUPPORT OPERATIONS

SOURCE: (1) Two well-placed and established Kremlin sources,

(2) a second source, close to premier Dmitriy MEDVEDEV

Head of PA IVANOV laments Russian intervention in US presidential election and black PR against CLINTON and the DNC. Vows not to supply intelligence to Kremlin PR operatives again. Advocates now sitting tight and denying everything

Presidential spokesman PESKOV the main protagonist in Kremlin campaign to aid TRUMP and damage CLINTON . He is now scared and fears being made scapegoat by leadership for backlash in US. Problem compounded by his botched intervention in recent Turkish crisis

Premier MEDVEDEV's office furious over DNC hacking and associated anti-Russian publicity. Want good relations with US and ability to travel there. Refusing to support or help cover up after PESKOV

Talk now in Kremlin of TRUMP withdrawing from presidential race altogether, but this still largely wishful thinking by more liberal elements in Moscow

2016/101--10 August 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: SENIOR KREMLIN FIGURE OUTLlNES EVOLVING RUSSIAN TACTICS IN PRO-TRUMP, ANTI-CLINTON OPERATION

SOURCES: (1) An official close to Presidential Administration Head S. IVANOV,

(2) a Kremlin official involved in US relations

Head of PA, IVANOV assesses Kremlin intervention in US presidential election and outlines leadership thinking on operational way forward

No new leaks envisaged, as too politically risky, but rather further exploitation of (WikiLeaks) material already disseminated to exacerbate divisions

Educated US youth to be targeted as protest (against CUNTON) and swing vote in attempt to turn them over to TRUMP

Russian leadership, including PUTIN, celebrating perceived success to date in splitting US hawks and elite

Kremlin engaging with severa I high profile US players, including STEIN, PAGE and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn), and funding their recent visits to Moscow

2016/102--10 August 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: REACTION IN TRUMP CAMP TO RECENT NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE AND LIKELY RESULTING TACTICS GOING FORWARD

SOURCES: an ethnic Russian associate of Republican US presidential candidate Donald TRUMP

TRUMP campaign insider reports recent DNC e-maiI leaks were aimed at switching SANDERS (protest) voters away from CLINTON and over to TRUMP

Admits Republican campaign underestimated resulting negative reaction from US liberals, elite and media and forced to change course as result

Need now to turn tables on CLINTONS use of PUTIN as bogeyman in election, although some resentment at Russian president's perceived attempt to undermine USG and system over and above swinging presidential election

2016/105--22 AUGUST 2016-- RUSSIA/UKRAINE: THE DEMISE OF TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER PAUL MANAFORT

SOURCES: (1) a well-placed Russian figure,

(2) an American political figure associated with Donald TRUMP

Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged in western media. Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail

PUTIN and Russian leadership remain worried however and sceptical that YANUKOVYCH has fully covered the traces of these payments to TRUM P's former campaign manager

Close associate of TRUMP explains reasoning behind MANAFORT's recent resignation. Ukraine revelations played part but others wanted MANAFORT out for various reasons, especially LEWANDOWSKI who remains influential

2016/111--14 September 2016-- RUSSIA/ US: KREMLIN FALLOUT FROM MEDIA EXPOSURE OF MOSCOW'S INTERFERENCE IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

SOURCES: (1) a senior member of the Russian Presidential Administration, (2 a senior Russian MFA official)

Kremlin orders senior staff to remain silent in media and private on allegations of Russian interference in US presidential campaign

Senior figure however confirms gist of allegations and reports IVANOV

Sacked as Head of Administration on account of giving PUTIN poor advice on issue. VAINO selected as his replacement partly because he was not involved in pro-TRUMP, anti-CLINTON operation/s

Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e -mails) and considering disseminating it after Duma (legislative elections) in late September. Presidential spokesman PESKOV continues to lead on this

However, equally important is Kremlin objective to shift policy consensus favourably to Russia in US post-OBAMA whoever wins. Both presidential candidates' opposition to TPP and TTIP viewed as a result in this respect

Senior Russian diplomat withdrawn from Washington embassy on account of potential exposure in US presidential election operation/s

2016/112--14 Septembe 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: KREMLIN-ALPHA GROUP COOPERATION

SOURCES: (1) a top level Russian government official

Top level Russian official confirms current closeness of Alpha Group PUTIN relationship. Significant favours continue to be done in both directions and FRIDMAN and AVEN still giving informal advice to PUTIN, especially on the US

Key intermediary in PUTIN-Alpha relationship identified as Oleg GOVORUN, currently Head of a Presidential Administration department but throughout the 1990s, the Alpha executive who delivered illicit cash directly to PUTIN

PUTIN personally unbothered about Alpha's current lack of investment in Russia but under pressure from colleagues over this and able to exploit it as lever over Alpha interlocutors

2016/113--14 September 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION- REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE TRUMP'S PRIOR ACTIVITIES IN ST PETERSBURG

SOURCES: (1) a political/business elite and

(2) someone involved in the local services and tourist industry

Two knowledgeable St Petersburg sources claim Republican candidate TRUMP has paid bribes and engaged in sexual activities there but key witnesses silenced and evidence hard to obtain

Both believe Azeri business associate of TRUMP, Araz AGALAROV will know the details

2016/130--12 October 2016-- RUSSIA: KREMLIN ASSESSMENT OF TRUMP AND RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

SOURCES: A trusted compatriot talking to a Senior Russian Leadership figure and a Foreign Ministry official.

Buyer's remorse sets with Kremlin over TRUMP support operation in US presidential election . Russian leadership disappointed that. leaked e-malis on CLINTON have not had greater impact , campaign

Russians have injected further anti-CLINTON material into the plausibly deniable leaks pipeline, which wlll continue to surface, but best material already in public domain

Putin angry with senior officials who overpromised on Trump and further heads likely to roll as a result. Foreign Minister LAVRON may be next.

TRUMP supported by Kremlin because seen as divisive, antl-establishment candidate who would shake up current lnternational status quo in Russia's favor. Lead on TRUMP operation moving from Foreign Ministry to FSB and then to presidential administration where it now sits.

2016/134--18 October 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FURTHER DETAILS OF KREMLIN LIAISON WITH TRUMP CAMPAIGN

SOURCES: A trusted compatriot talking to friend of Sechin and

(2) talking to a Kremlin insider

Close associate of SECHIN confirms his secret meeting in Moscow with Carter PAGE in July

Substance included offer of large stake in Rosneft in return for lifting sanctions on Russia. PAGE confirms this is TRUMP's intention

SECHIN continued to think TRUMP could win presidency up to 17 October. Now looking to reorientate his engagement with the US

Kremlin insider highlights importance of TRUMP's lawyer, Michael COHEN in covert relationship with Russia. COHEN's wife is of Russian descent and her father a leading property developer in Moscow

2016/135--19 October 2016-- RUSSIA/US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF TRUMP LAWYER, COHEN IN CAMPAIGN'S SECRET LIAISON WITH THE KREMLIN

SOURCES: A trusted compatriot talking to a Kremlin insider

Kremlin insider outlines important role played by TRUMP's lawyer COHEN in secret liaison with Russian leadership

COHEN engaged with Russians in trying to cover up scandal of MANAFORT and exposure of PAGE and meets Kremlin officials secretly in the EU in August in pursuit of this goal

These secret contacts continue but are now farmed out to trusted agents in Kremlin-linked institutes so as to remain "plausibly deniable" for Russian regime

Further confirmation that sacking of IVANOV and appointments of VAINO and KIRIYENKO linked to need to cover up Kremlin's TRUMP support operation

2016/166--13 December 2016-- US/RUSSIA: FURTHER DETAILS OF SECRET DIALOGUE BETWEEN TRUMP CAMPAIGN TEAM, KREMLIN AND ASSOCIATED HACKERS IN PRAGUE

SOURCES: Blacked out/Not Identified

TRUMP's representative COHEN accompanied to Prague in August/September 2016 by 3 colleagues for secret discussions with Kremlin representat ives and associated operators/hackers

Agenda included how to process deniable cash payments to operatives; contingency plans for covering up operations; and action in event of a CLINTON election victory

Some further details of Russian representatives/ operatives involved; Romanian hackers employed; and use of Bulgaria as bolt hole to "lie low

Anti-CLINTON hackers and other operatives paid by both TRUMP team and Kremlin, but with ultimate loyalty to Head of PA, IVANOV and his successor/s
Theresa May has praised the European Union scheme Erasmus+ ahead of talks with EU leaders. The PM also confirmed the UK will continue to take part in the student exchange programme for at least a year after Brexit.

The announcement will be seen as good news by thousands of British students who were unsure whether Britain's exit from the EU might jeopardise their chances of taking a year abroad at European universities.

European students can also study in British universities as part of the scheme. More than 4,000 higher education institutions from 37 countries currently take part in the programme which also helps UK participants to work, volunteer, teach and train abroad.

Although British University exchange relationships with non-Erasmus Universities such as those in America, Australia and China would continue, students would likely find studying abroad more expensive. The Erasmus programme provides funding which subsidises the costs of study.

A lack of exchange opportunities with European Union universities could also be problematic for students studying language degrees.

Three million students had taken part in the programme by 2013 since the programme started in 1987. The most popular destinations for Erasmus programme students are Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

Still no long-term security

Although the Prime Minister's confirmation of the UK's participation until 2020 will bring relief for many current students, the long-term future of the UK's role in the scheme remains unclear.

It is believed the UK's long-term involvement in Erasmus will be discussed during the next stage of Brexit negotiations with EU leaders.

Students will hope that a deal can be reached for the UK similar to that of other non-European Union participant countries like Norway, Iceland and Turkey. A UK deal may be controversial, however, after Switzerland was suspended from the Erasmus programme following the country's 2015 vote in favour of limiting the immigration of EU citizens into the country.

In 2014, the Erasmus programme, which started in 1987, became Erasmus+ and combined a number of different EU education schemes. Erasmus+ has a total budget of 14.7 Billion for use between 2014 and 2020.

Erasmus 'goals' to be achieved by 2020 include exchanging two million higher education students within Erasmus+ programme countries, giving 500,000 young people the chance to volunteer abroad and raising EU higher education attainment from 32% to 40%.

The importance of Erasmus has been referenced by students and UK universities as a reason that a 'no-deal' Brexit would be a disaster. The UK's future relationship with Erasmus will need to be negotiated or it will simply be removed from the programme.
Boy, US President Donald Trump really shouldnt have retweeted those posts from Britain First. His sharing of the extreme right-wing anti-Muslim hate groups video material caused a rift between himself and British Prime Minister Theresa May when she called what he did wrong and he attacked her personally for it, after which his state visit to the UK was thrown into question as both Parliament and the PM herself wanted nothing to do with him.

And then Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, announced that Trump would be visiting the UK early next year, not in any formal capacity, but so that he could open a new American embassy as it moves to an 800 million compound in Battersea.

And now, London is up in arms about it, with one borough of the city holding a council meeting that determined that the US President was not welcome there. So, theyve passed a formal motion to keep him out of there. And now, youre up to speed.

Trump branded a bigot by London council

The council of the London borough of Greenwich passed the motion to declare that President Trump was a bigoted man who would not be welcome in the area, should he visit the UK next year. Trump probably wont be losing any sleep over it, but it should send the right message that the majority of the people of Britain do not agree with the far-right views of Britain First (and that its irresponsible for a sitting US President to tell the world that he does).

The Greenwich council also called on the British government  specifically Theresa May, due to her recent contentions with the US President  to retract its invitation for a state visit to Trump, although experts have said that this would offend not only the President, but all of America. Still, alarm bells have been ringing all around the UK ever since Trump shared some particularly Islamophobic posts by infamous Islamophobe Jayda Fransen, who is the deputy head of the Britain First organisation.

Also in their announcement of the motion passing, the Greenwich council added with sadness that the way Trump acts towards women and ethnic minorities has made them hate him even more, leading to examples of division and hatred within the US, which they dont want carried across the Atlantic Ocean and into our country.

So, in conclusion, the council was calling on the government to abandon plans for any extension of an invitation or any rolling out of the red carpet for Donald Trump. The government likely wont listen to that  its more of a statement against the President than anything else.

Greenwich councillors have a better idea for how to spend Trumps security costs

According to the Greenwich council (and theyre right), the ridiculously high expenditures on security that a state visit by Trump would cost would be far better spent on a different cause. Rather than keeping a bigot safe, theyd rather the money was donated to charities whose aim is to promote peace and understanding, offering the Jo Cox Foundation as an example.

Jo Cox is a Labour Party MP who was murdered a few days before the EU referendum that led to Brexit. She was killed by a right-wing extremist named Thomas Mair who yelled out, Britain first! while he murdered her.

Brendan Cox, the husband of Jo Cox, was among those who condemned Trumps sharing of the Britain First posts. He said simply, Spreading hatred has consequences. Its true. After Trump retweeted the posts, the House of Commons exploded with debate as many MPs were outraged, calling for the state visit to be cancelled. Sadly, it probably wont be. But at least theres one area of the UK that will remain comfortably Trump-free.
Weve all heard the term man flu, and many women accuse men of overreacting, or tease them when they are ill. It turns out that man flu is actually a real thing  either women are tougher than men (which all women know), or  according to a doctor  men actually do suffer worse symptoms when down with a cold or bout of flu. A report by Newsweek actually suggests that men are weaker than women.

Doctor sick of being teased about man flu

Dr. Kyle Sue got tired of being ridiculed and accused of overreacting when suffering from a bout of the flu and, rather tongue-in-cheek, decided to look into the issue of "man flu." Using some previous scientific, or not so scientific, studies, Dr.

Sue came up with a treatise that supports men and puts forward the case that they do suffer worse symptoms than women in terms of colds and flu. He also went on to look into why the variance between men and women might have evolved, leading to the controversial term "man flu."

Canadian doctor says there's evidence the 'man flu' is actually real https://t.co/E58cWWcM1J pic.twitter.com/d0t9ITTNO7  CBC Health News (@CBCHealth) December 12, 2017

Dr. Sue works as a clinical assistant professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in the field of family medicine. In an article published in the British Medical Journal, he said research does tend to point toward men suffering a weaker Immune Response to flu and viral respiratory infections.

Dr. Sue based his findings on the fact that men suffer worse symptoms and that these last longer. He also added that men are more likely to end up in hospital from their "man flu" symptoms and that they are more likely to die from them.

Men might not necessarily be wimps when it comes to coping with the flu  just immunologically disadvantaged. https://t.co/1p2Je8BuRG  Global News Toronto (@globalnewsto) December 12, 2017

Various studies reveal differences between men and women

In the article, Dr.

Sue said he had looked at previous studies and puts forward several pieces of evidence to suggest men do in fact experience worse symptoms than their female counterparts in the case of viral respiratory illnesses. He pointed to mouse studies, which have suggested testosterone could cause a dampening of the immune response to flu, while in the case of females, their sex hormones could actually boost their immune response.

Human studies showed cells taken from pre-menopausal women tend to show varying immune responses to a common cold virus to those taken from men of a similar age. Reportedly in the case of post-menopausal females, no difference was seen between those of men of a similar age.

Dr. Sues study also highlighted that research run in the US showed men as having higher death rates relating to flu than women at the same age. In Hong Kong, studies showed that men were more likely to end up hospitalized than women with the same strain of seasonal flu. However, the study did also slam the idea men tend to crumble after the first sneeze, by saying one study had shown women are more likely to slow down their activities than men when suffering a minor respiratory illness.

Maybe women take better care of themselves? However, Dr. Sues report did also reference a survey run in a popular magazine, which had established men take twice as long to recover than women.

Dr. Sue did admit the "man flu" studies used didnt take into account other aspects, such as how much patients smoked or the fact that men tend to be worse at looking after their health than women. He wrote that one major cause of "man flu" could be the fact that males receive an insufficient provision of healthcare when suffering from the flu. He went on to say more high-quality studies are required to definitively prove a there is a difference in immunity between males and females. He said its either a case that women are actually more resilient, or that they are better able to handle things when they are ill, or whether they do, in fact, have fewer severe symptoms.

Make a comfortable space for 'man flu' sufferers

Dr. Sue concluded by saying everyone should get the benefit of the doubt when ill, rather than being teased. He suggested that possibly more male-friendly spaces should be set up for male patients while suffering from "man flu," with comfortable reclining chairs and huge televisions, so they can recover in comfort and safety.

MAGNIFICENT scientific report concludes man flu is real - and TV is the cure. Ill be on @SkyNews 1.30pm discussing this important recognition that our pain is real >> https://t.co/tKRnPwRPIy  Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) December 12, 2017

Dr. Sue also said he hopes his study will be something for men to point to when criticized for exaggerating their symptoms. So ladies, take pity on your suffering man. If Dr. Sue is right, he is feeling the flu harder than you are.
Stormy the cow has been starring in a Nativity Scene at the Old First Reformed United Church of Christ for around a week. On Thursday morning, Stormy decided enough was enough and she made a daring escape. Philadelphia Police managed to corral the errant bovine, only to see her escape once again. According to a report by CBS News, police have finally taken the cow into custody after catching her in a parking garage in Philadelphias Old City section. Now it remains to be seen whether she will hang around at the church for Christmas.

Stormy the cow escapes the nativity scene

When Stormy the cow first escaped from the live nativity scene, she was found in the southbound lanes on I-95 at around 2 a.m. ET. After officers managed to capture the bovine she was returned to the nativity scene, only to escape once again. At least the Philadelphia Police managed to keep their sense of humor.

You know, you start your day saying "well, being a cop is a tough job, but at least I won't have to catch a cow today." But, it wouldn't you know it? You're wrangling a bovine. Then you say, "Well, at least I'll never have to do that again...." pic.twitter.com/EY5K5FkgVd  Philadelphia Police (@PhillyPolice) December 14, 2017

The cow originally hails from Manatawna Farms in Roxborough but has been posing in the live nativity scene for around a week.

According to Rev. Michael Caine (no relation to the British actor), they are reviewing their surveillance footage in an effort to find out how Stormy managed to escape the gated and locked area. Rev. Caine said they believe someone must have opened the locked area, but they have no idea why.

Cow makes second daring escape

After she was first caught and returned to the nativity scene, Stormy managed to push the fence and escape for the second time and started moving around the Philadelphia streets.

According to Rev. Caine, Stormy went wherever she wanted to at that stage. She was spotted heading down the street toward Market Street. As reported by the Sacramento Bee, police officers eventually corralled the wily cow in an enclosed parking garage and eventually returned her to the nativity scene.

If you're in the area of 4th and Market, beware of traffic delays. A cow is loose. Again. No, we can't believe we're tweeting this either. pic.twitter.com/3FW6iHzQws  Philadelphia Police (@PhillyPolice) December 14, 2017

According to Scott Moser, an agriculture mechanic at a local high school who works with livestock, the place where she was being kept was well-suited to the cows needs.

Moser said Stormy was very comfortable and content in the nativity scene and that she had water and all the hay she could eat, so it wasnt as if Stormy was facing ill-treatment.

They don't teach you how to lasso cows in seminary

Rev. Caine said being a pastor can be a hard job, but hes never had an experience quite like this before and certainly wasnt trained to lasso cattle while in seminary. He stressed that he is more of a city boy than a farmer. He went on to praise the actions of the police officers involved in Stormys capture.

Storming getting led out of garage at 4th and Arch. Not sure she validated. pic.twitter.com/VCCzoGaZdL  Katherine Scott (@KScott6abc) December 14, 2017

Fortunately no injuries were suffered by Stormy the cow or any humans involved in her capture and there was no damage to property along the way.

Now its up to church leaders to decide what to do  whether to send Stormy back to the farm or try and continue with her in the nativity scene. For now, all is peaceful and calm at the Old First Reformed United Church of Christ in Philadelphia.

Watch the fun of the second capture in the video below:
The Lambs, Manhattan's oldest theatrical club located on 3 West 51st Street; has awarded two Israeli students, Oz Shoshan and Maya Avisar the opportunity to study theater in New York City with an American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) scholarship plus a one-year membership at the club. They also got an invitation to perform at the club. They have been students at AMDA for almost a year. The two met the first day of orientation at AMDA. Oz did not know any Israeli students at AMDA. He knew that Maya was also Israeli so he tapped her on the shoulder and introduced himself and said, "Hi" in Hebrew, and the two struck up a friendship.

The rest is history.

Two young aspiring Israeli actors in showbiz

I sat down with the two lucky 20-something Israeli AMDA students, and they seemed very enthusiastic to discuss their experience in Israel and New York with me. They are both excited to be "junior" members of The Lambs.

Maya and Oz came from Israel with no money. They didn't think they would survive the second semester until they received their "lucky break."

"The Lambs is such a great organization, and we hope that more young artists will join with great connection making that is important for young actors," expressed Avisar. "We are pleased to be selected out of the entire school I would say it's out of 600-700 students," Avisar said.

"It was related to the fact that our GPA was very high and we have the biggest potential for success in the industry, and on financial need." "AMDA is one of the best places I've ever been in my life." "They are doing as much as they can to help us stay here." "We're internationals, so the only chance for us to stay and work here is graduating."

It was fate that brought Oz and Maya together.

They consider themselves very fortunate to pursue their drama education and their dreams here in the United States.

"We came here to follow our dream, and I always believed that if you want to do something you need to go big or go home," Maya said. "If you do it, you need to do it right, and the best place to study and perform musical theater is in New York City."

Both students want to remain in the U.S.

because there are more opportunities for careers in the arts rather than in Israel. They are celebrating the holidays (Hannukah) in the U.S. for the first time. They miss their families in Israel but keep in touch with photos, cell phones and using Face-Time.

The Israeli-Hollywood connection

Oz Shoshan has been a dancer in Israel since he was 16-years-old. He remembers dancing in his living room at the tender age of three. His inspiration is always to dance, act and sing. He joined The Bacheva Dance Company. He has a unique 'Hollywood' connection to the film, "Bobbi Jean" which is a documentary about the eccentric dancer. It was a surprise hit at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.

He is friends with both Bobbi and her Israeli boyfriend, Orr who is in the documentary film.

The two were close friends in the same dance company for two years. Oz had a cameo appearance in the upcoming film, "Mr. Gaga" which is another documentary film about the former artistic director's life, Ohad Naharim.They were shooting the film for eight years while Oz was part of the dance company. He has not seen the film, "Bobbi Jean."

"We had our huge 50th Anniversary for Batsheva, so we did this song for a Passover dinner. I was in the first line center, and I got to see my face on the big screen!" Shoshan gushed. "I am excited and honored because it was around the world! I didn't know I got to be in the movie, but I got to see it with my parents!"

"All my life I wanted to be a dancer and was a member of the Batsheva Dance Company but I was on stage, and something was missingthere wasn't the excitement that I felt," Shoshan stated.

"I was standing on the stage in an Israeli theater doing "Hair" The Musical. It was my first musical ever. It was opening night, and I remember, the lights were coming on and the curtain opened and I had felt something that I never felt before and it was something complete of being myself on stage. It happened because I was singing, acting and dancingit had the whole package."

Israel doesn't have quality theatrical schools, so he headed for New York and AMDA. His ambition once he graduates AMDA is to become a successful actor on Broadway and in films.

Congratulations and good luck to these two talented Israeli drama students!
For the last two weeks, Donald Trump has been been taking part in a foreign trip through Asia. As the president gets ready to head back to the United States, many of his critics aren't too thrilled.

Trump heads home

When Donald Trump first announced that he was running for president, most people didn't take his candidacy too seriously. However, after a few months of watching his approval rating increase, the former host of "The Apprentice" became a legitimate candidate for president, which led him to the GOP nomination at the Republican National Convention last summer.

Just a few months later and Trump was able to pull off the historic and shocking upset with a win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on Election Day. Since then, scandal has surrounded Trump, ranging from his reckless behavior on social media, to his controversial policy proposals, to the ongoing investigation into his possible collusion with Russia during the election. With his approval rating dropping below 40 percent and with constant backlash from the media and his critics, Trump left the country nearly two weeks ago to take part in a lengthy stop overseas. The president spent time in Japan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries, meeting with various world leaders in the process.

As seen on his Twitter feed on November 14, Trump decided to announce his return to the U.S. with a video package.

Taking to Twitter on early Tuesday morning, Donald Trump tweeted out his exit from the Philippines. "THANK YOU to the amazing staff and their families of the United States Embassy in the Philippines," Trump wrote, while adding, "Keep up the GREAT WORK!"

The principal takeaway from Trumps big Asia trip: virtually zero progress on any issue that matters to the Americans https://t.co/HjCatvlPkL pic.twitter.com/jGwKPp0IPX  POLITICO (@politico) November 14, 2017

In a follow-up tweet a few hours later.

Donald Trump posted a final send off as his Asia trip comes to a close. "THANK YOU ASIA" Trump tweeted, using the hashtag "USA" while also attaching a video montage of his time on the continent.

THANK YOU to the amazing staff and their families of the United States Embassy in the Philippines. Keep up the GREAT WORK! pic.twitter.com/3ABVXTsJM0  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 14, 2017

Social media backlash

As Donald Trump makes his way back to the United States, with a planned stop at Trump International Hotel Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii, critics of the president took time to give their thoughts in response to the aforementioned tweets.

"Is this a facetious remark? Where is the winning? I only see his 'whining' about fake news all of the time!" one tweet read.

Glad to see you finally made it to Vietnam bone spur and all  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 14, 2017

I'm sure we can set up a GoFundMe and have the funds ready to be wired to your personal account within a few days. Just name your price.  Pe Resists (@4everNeverTrump) November 14, 2017

instead of releasing this video, perhaps you'd like to release your tax returns?  Erika Johanna Lind (@johanna_blonde) November 14, 2017

"Asia won't miss you," another tweet stated, while sarcastically adding, "Glad to see you finally made it to Vietnam bone spur and all." "Yes, thanks to Asia, your traitorous POS a*s was out of the USA for nearly two weeks.

How much to we have to pay you to stay in Asia forever?" a Twitter user rhetorically asked.

How much tax payer dollars are you spending on all this high-production propaganda? Get back to me with a number. Thanks.  Alice Anderson (@AlicePoet) November 14, 2017

Is this a facetious remark? Where is the winning? I only see his whining about fake news all of the time!  Ann-dee (@Picassolady1) November 14, 2017

They ALL played you like the tiddlywink you are. Big crowds and parades and you made yourself look like a fool. There are no more Samurai and the never had anti-missile ability. And that's the tip of the idiotberg you crashed in Asia #PresidentPeePeeTape  Other Barry (@DavidRedstone2) November 14, 2017

"They ALL played you like the tiddlywink you are.

Big crowds and parades and you made yourself look like a fool. There are no more Samurai and the never had anti-missile ability. And that's the tip of the idiotberg you crashed in Asia," an additional tweet noted. "How much tax payer dollars are you spending on all this high-production propaganda? Get back to me with a number. Thanks," yet another tweet stated. The negative reaction to Donald Trump's stop in Asia continued as the president makes his way back home to a clearly divided nation.
After completing his 12-day trip through Asia, Donald Trump returned to the United States and decide to hold a speech at the White House. After talking up his experience overseas, Trump needed to take a quick break and grab a sip of water.

Trump's water break

Over the last two weeks, Donald Trump has been out of the country and taking part in his longest foreign trip to date. Leaving earlier this month, the former host of "The Apprentice" visited multiple countries in Asia, including Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippians, and more. Trump's trip received a predictably mixed reaction, with supporters praising the president, while critics, and the majority of the mainstream media, accusing the commander in chief of being unproductive.

Trump made headlines on more than one occasion, most notably his Twitter rant against Kim Jong-un, while mocking the North Korean leader as "short and fat." Upon arriving back in the states, Trump decided to hold a speech at the White House where he detailed parts of his trip, while giving himself credit for his alleged accomplishments. As reported by CNN on November 15, Trump quickly became the target of a joke after taking an impromptu break to drink some water.

While addressing the media at the White House on Wednesday, Donald Trump spoke about his time in Asia before having to take a break and quench his thirst with a sip of FIJI water. "They don't have water," Trump said while struggling to find his bottle, before adding, "that's OK." "What?" he asked to a person off screen.

Trump then ducked below his podium once again, pulled out a bottle of water, posed for the camera before struggling to get the cap, and eventually taking a sip. As expected, critics of the president were quick to poke fun at him, with some pointing out the hypocrisy due to Trump once mocking Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for doing the same thing during the Republican primary.

Similar,but needs work on his form.Has to be done in one single motion & eyes should never leave the camera. But not bad for his 1st time https://t.co/s49JtyRo3S  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 15, 2017

Twitter responds

Not long after Donald Trump took his water break, those who oppose the president wasted no time firing back.

"Shorter Trump: Im wonderful, no water no water youre the water, America first, I dont know how to drink water, Fiji first," Keith Olbermann tweeted out.

More than a tweet, there's also a video of Trump mocking Rubio's SOTU water moment. pic.twitter.com/dkKyrOIUGO  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2017

This is the day dry mouth became president  Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) November 15, 2017

"This is the day dry mouth became president," CNN's Chris Cillizza tweeted out. "Trump drinks FIJI Water while decrying trade deficits," Bloomberg reporter Steve Dennis added.

What happened to Trump Water?  Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) November 15, 2017

Shorter Trump: Im wonderful, no water no water youre the water, America first, I dont know how to drink water, Fiji first pic.twitter.com/TYYQjHbFd4  Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 15, 2017

"More than a tweet, there's also a video of Trump mocking Rubio's SOTU water moment," MSNBC producer Kyle Griffen wrote, while attaching a video clip of Donald Trump trolling Marco Rubio. In addition, Rubio even tweeted out his response, adding, "Similar,but needs work on his form.Has to be done in one single motion & eyes should never leave the camera. But not bad for his 1st time."
Air travel to New Yorks JFK International Airport from Los Angeles International Airport on December 10 was anything but run-of-the-mill for passengers aboard JetBlues Flight 1224. A disruptive male passenger, who has not been identified, sank his teeth into his travel companions. Thats right. He bit other passengers. The result of his unruly conduct was that the plane was diverted to Las Vegas, where it landed, instead of flying into JFK as scheduled.

Doctors, who were also aboard the flight, tried helping but the passenger attacked them, too, according to TravelMole.

Stunned fellow passengers were enlisted to help subdue the troubled man, the New York Post reported.

The flight departed Los Angeles at 4:49 PM on Sunday and aimed to land at JFK Airport, Matt Bennett, a spokesman for JetBlue airlines stated. At approximately 9 PM, the unnamed male passenger became disruptive, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The unprovoked attack against the other passengers was unprovoked and began suddenly.

Passengers help control attacker until plane lands in Vegas

One of the passengers who assisted in controlling the attacker was identified only as Tom by TravelMole and news agencies. Tom described grabbing and pinning the mans hands behind his back. He, then, held the disruptive passenger to enable flight attendants to put on restraints.

Tom additionally stated that the biting, fighting passenger began shouting and attempted to advance toward the flight attendants. Tom, standing in front of the man as the plane flew over Utah, blocked the passengers ability to move forward. He said that it was difficult keeping him in place, Travel + Leisure Magazine reported.

Cell phone video captured mid-flight incident

Cell phone video footage that was shared on YouTube by KCAL 9 news depicts passengers who assisted in restraining the man, who is wearing the red shirt. He can be seen thrashing and lashing out against nearby passengers, as the Mirror (UK) relayed.

Because of the mid-flight drama, the JetBlue pilots landed at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, shortly after 9 PM.

With the plane and passengers safely on the ground, police escorted the troublesome passenger off of the plane. The Mirror reported that JetBlue verified that the passenger was removed from the aircraft. The airline also stated that the rest of the passengers on Flight 1224 continued with their scheduled flight to New York. There were no further mid-air incidents on the flight.

In-flight passenger incidents decrease while level of violence increases

Between the years of 2006 and 2014, there were over 58,000 incidents involving disruptive passengers cited in a reported by the International Air Transportation Association, Travel + Leisure noted. The report broke the incidents down into four categories, ranging from attacks taking place on the flight deck to passengers who refused to comply with crew mandates and safety procedures.

According to the transportation associations report, the number of incidents has decreased in more recent years.

At the same time that there are fewer skirmishes or problems with passengers, their behavior is more violent than in the past.

The assistant director of the international associations external affairs, which released its findings, is Tim Coleman. He stated that the rise in violent incidents can be attributed to passengers consuming too much alcohol prior to boarding their flights and while en route to their travel destinations, Travel + Leisure reported.

Las Vegas Metropolitan police officers said that there werent any charges filed against the unruly man. While his actions caused the plane to divert and make an emergency landing in Las Vegas, the other passengers did arrive in New York, only it was hours later than they expected.
As he has on other mornings, Donald Trump started his day with a pair of angry posts on social media. Following the shocking defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama, it was only a matter of time before the president decided to elaborate further on his thoughts, but did so before proofreading.

Trump's tweet

Heading into Tuesday night's special Senate election in Alabama, the consensus was that Republican Roy Moore was going to slip by his Democratic opponent in Doug Jones despite the controversy surrounding him. Donald Trump had originally supported Luther Strange in the Republican primary, but Moore, backed by Breitbart's Steve Bannon, was the one who pulled out the victory.

In the weeks leading up the election, the Washington Post ran a bombshell story accusing Moore of sexual harassment and assault with underage girls dating back over 40 years. Moore denied the allegations, causing a dilemma for many Republicans. While the GOP seemed split on how to handle the situation, Trump decided to go in all, going as far as holding a rally in Pensacola, Florida earlier this week, which was just miles from Alabama. The president even recorded robocalls in the state in an attempt to get Moore to Washington. In the aftermath of the defeat, Trump posted a surprisingly civil message to social media on Tuesday night, but changed course with an additional tweet on December 13.

The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017

Taking to Twitter on Wednesday morning, Donald Trump elaborated on his thoughts on the results of the Alabama special election.

"The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election," Trump tweeted out, before adding, "I was right!" In conclusion, Trump wrote, "Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!"

Trump on media error

In a follow-up tweet, Donald Trump continued his war of words with the mainstream media and explained why he was so active on Twitter.

"Wow, more than 90% of Fake News Media coverage of me is negative, with numerous forced retractions of untrue stories," Trump posted. "Hence my use of Social Media, the only way to get the truth out," he explained, before concluding "Much of Mainstream Meadia has become a joke!" While spelling "media" wrong to end his tweet, the president tagged his favorite morning show "Fox & Friends" on Fox News.

Wow, more than 90% of Fake News Media coverage of me is negative, with numerous forced retractions of untrue stories. Hence my use of Social Media, the only way to get the truth out. Much of Mainstream Meadia has become a joke! @foxandfriends  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017

Moving forward

With the Alabama election in the rear-view mirror and his feud with the media continuing, only time will tell what the next step is in the presidency of Donald Trump. Despite Trump claiming to have the support of the majority of the American people, the most recent Pew Research Poll show an approval rating of just 32 percent.
Plan a weekend of wine tasting, golf, spa treatments, caving, boating or hiking at one of these unique getaways in Iowa. Spend a few days relaxing with a view of the Iowa Great Lakes, visit the flea markets, explore the Crystal Lake Cave just south of Dubuque, or play a game of mini-golf with the family. In the summer, attend outdoor concerts, hike along scenic trails with views of the Mississippi River, or simply relax surrounded by calm country views. Driving times from Des Moines to some of the best Iowa destinations are included to help you plan your trip.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Four Mounds Inn - 3 hours from Des Moines  Four Mounds Inn

The Four Mounds Inn in Dubuque is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and offers three different lodging options, all located on the banks of the Mississippi River in a Dubuque Landmark Site that has been preserved since 1808. The Grey House and The White House were both built in the early 20th century, and can be rented by room, or as a unit for a large gathering - with exclusive access to all the rooms and kitchen during your stay. The Marvin Gardens pine cabin was built in 1954, and can sleep up to four people at a time. Each room is equipped with large comfortable beds, and astounding views of the neighboring historic buildings and trails. A delicious hot breakfast is served each morning. Visitors can trek through the Four Mounds Hiking Trails, and explore the various outbuildings and monuments that are located in the park, including the four Native American burial mounds that give the park its name. If you are looking for affordable Iowa destinations, rooms start at $120 per night. Read more

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

2. Brookstone Lodge and Suites - 2 hours 20 min from Des Moines  Brookstone Lodge and Suites

Brookstone Lodge and Suites is located in Algona, Iowa, and features many different rooms to suit every need. Guests can choose from modern style rooms or suites, all of which feature a microwave and refrigerator, coffee maker, ironing board and hair dryer en suite. Travelers will also find a business center located in the building, which includes a guest computer for easy printing and faxing. A complimentary pass to Anytime Fitness is available for those wishing to stay active during their stay. Coin laundry facilities are available on-site for guests convenience. A large continental breakfast is served each morning, and includes hot items like eggs and sausages as well as traditional fare like cereal, yogurt, fresh fruit, pastries, and more. The property is close to Ambrose A. Call National Park, which protects within it a beautiful old-growth forest- perfect for nature-loving travelers. Rooms start at $90 per night (Phone: 515-200-0030).

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

3. Hotel Julien Dubuque - 3 hour  Hotel Julien Dubuque

Hotel Julien Dubuque offers 133 spacious and elegant rooms to guests, with a variety of suites to suit every traveler, including those looking for spa getaways in Iowa. Each room comes equipped with luxury linens, pillow-top mattresses, complimentary Wi-Fi, LCD HDTVs, a walk-in shower, and spa-quality bath products. Hotel Julien Dubuque also offers specialty suites complete with Whirlpool baths, king-sized beds, and oversized rooms that comfortably sleep up to four adults. The Potosa Spa is located on the lower level of the hotel, and their complete menu of services will ease tension and encourage relaxation. Their treatments are inspired by the Native American Medicine Wheel, and include signature services only found at this location. After your spa treatment, dine on American cuisine at Carolines Restaurant, or opt for cocktails and appetizers at the Riverboat Lounge. Located in the heart of downtown, guests can walk to the Mississippi River, or to Asbury Plaza shopping center. Rooms start at $125 per night (Phone: 563-556-4200).



-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

4. Grand Harbor Resort and Waterpark, Dubuque  Grand Harbor Resort and Waterpark



Perfectly located on the Mississippi Waterfront, the Grand Harbor Resort offers easy access to many Dubuque attractions. That said, there is so much to do at the resort that you may never want to leave. For many visitors the Waterpark is the prime attractions, featuring a wide variety of exciting rides, slides and splashes. The indoor waterpark is fun all year round and there are activities for all ages. The guestrooms are spacious and modern offering free Wi-Fi, Coffee Maker, Microwave and Mini-fridge for your convenience. Your dining requirements are taken care of by the Tony Roma Restaurant where you can feast on delicious ribs, steaks, sea foods and more. Grand Harbor Resort and Waterpark, 350 Bell St, Dubuque, IA 52001, 563 690 4000

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways this Weekend with Friends" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways this Weekend with Friends" Back to Top

5. Iowa Weekend Getaway: Mason House Inn - 2 hours 20 min  Mason House Inn



Mason House Inn & Caboose Cottage is a charming bed and breakfast located in historic Bentonsport, Iowa. The hotel was built in 1846 by Mormon craftsmen, and the nine rooms and suites are all decorated in a unique themed style, intentionally void of any technology to encourage guests to relax and embrace the antique theme. Adventurous guests can rent Caboose Cottage, formerly a working RS&P caboose, which now has a kitchen, dining area, and bedrooms that sleep up to 4 people. Most rooms in the house feature handmade quilts, carved bed frames, and other traditional handiwork, in addition to modern comforts like pillow-top mattresses and complimentary Wi-Fi. A country breakfast is served by the proprietor each morning in the 40 foot dining room. Mason House Inn is centrally located between Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, Kansas City, and Minneapolis, and is the perfect distance away for a relaxing weekend retreat. Rooms start at $74 per night (Phone: 800-592-3133).

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways this Weekend" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways this Weekend" Back to Top

6. Iowa Getaways: Kingsley Inn - 2 hours 50 min  Kingsley Inn



With modern comforts and superior service, Kingsley Inn is an integral part of the Fort Madison community. Each room is appointed with luxury and comfort in mind, and while each are decorated in a unique style, all rooms and suites include amenities like HD televisions, deluxe bedding, and generously sized bathtubs. The Kingsley Inn High Tea offers the perfect combination of savory and sweet fare, along with delicate teas, every Saturday by reservation only. Stay & Play packages are available, which include the hotel booking as well as a round at Lake Cooper Golf Club, plus other activities, and dinner at the club restaurant. Although the hotel restaurant is currently closed for remodeling, when they reopen, Atlas Steak and Smokehouse Restaurant will focus on bistro cuisine such as steak, fish, and house-smoked bacon. Fort Madison is a vibrant community, and is also the home of the longest double deck swing-span bridge. Rooms start at $150 per night (Phone: 319-372-8747).

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

7. Romantic Getaways in Iowa: Belmont Hill - 2 hours  Belmont Hill

Belmont Hill Victorian Bed & Breakfast in Cedar Rapids is a stunning 1882 National Register home that has been renovated into a beautiful vintage getaway. The three guest rooms have been updated to include all the modern comforts like central air conditioning, satellite television, high speed Wi-Fi and private baths, while still staying true to the Victorian aesthetic of the original home. Recycled wood elements and historic brick walls make each room cozy and completely unique. The wooded grounds and spacious perennial gardens of the house are the perfect place for a quiet walk. Belmont Hill provides an indulgent breakfast for guests, complete with fresh juices, fruit, and a selection of delicious pastries. The breakfast table is set in traditional style, complete with fine linen, china, crystal, and a roaring fireplace. Its central location in Cedar Rapids is close to many attractions like the Amana Colonies and the Kalona Amish Community (Phone: 319-366-1343).



, From LA -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

8. Romantic Getaways in Iowa: The Blackhawk Hotel - 2 hours  The Blackhawk Hotel

As the oldest operating hotel in Iowa, the Blackhawk Hotel has a longstanding tradition of excellence and customer satisfaction. A large variety of rooms and suites offer something for every price range, however all accommodations come with high speed Wi-Fi, TV and DVD players, and coffee makers. Many suites overlook pre-Civil War era historic Main Street, and come with other luxuries like whirlpools, exposed brick walls, and expansive sitting rooms. Guests can unwind with a cocktail at The Stuffed Olive martini lounge, which is tucked away in a quiet corner of the hotel lobby. Soho Sushi Bar and Deli is a unique restaurant that serves both classic New York deli fare and California sushi plates. The hotel is centrally located in the Cedar Falls downtown area, and is close to the Performing Arts Centre, the Ostler Regent Theatre, and the Cedar Falls trails that are just steps away (Phone: 319-277-1161).



9. Weekend Getaways in Iowa: Okoboji Boulders Inn and Suites - 3 hours 15 minutes  Okoboji Boulders Inn and Suites

Located Milford, Iowa, right next to the Iowa Great Lakes, Okoboji Boulders Inn and Suites provides the perfect atmosphere for any trip, whether it be a fishing excursion, family outing or romantic getaway. Every room comes equipped with amenities like a 32-inch plasma HD TV, rollaway beds, and complimentary high speed Wi-Fi. Spacious suites come with indulgences like whirlpool tubs and luxury bedding. A hot breakfast is served each morning, and guests can cook for themselves at the outdoor grill and fire pit, complete with picnic seating. The Emerald Hill Golf Course is located right next to the hotel, and special package pricing is available for golfers who want to try out this beautiful and challenging course. Enjoy the outdoors at the nearby Horseshoe Bend County Wildlife Preserve, or take in a show at one of the many different indoor and outdoor concert venues around the Iowa Great Lakes region. Rooms start at $103 (Phone: 712-338-4424).

-- "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways for Locals & Tourists - Restaurants, Hotels" -- "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways for Locals & Tourists - Restaurants, Hotels" Back to Top

10. Romantic Getaways in Iowa: Wilder Park - 2 hours  Wilder Park

Close to Allison, Iowa, Wilder Park hosts many different types of wildlife, and has options to suit every camper. Wilder Park has 52 campsites, 24 of which can be booked in advance for a small fee per day. Campsites with electricity and full hook-ups are available, as well as traditional tent camping sites. A shower house, three storm shelters, and a dumping station are all included in the site fees. A mini-golf course is perfect for little ones, while parents can enjoy the full golf course as well as two fishing ponds, baseball diamond, and beach volleyball courts. A summer concert series on the outdoor stage within the park is a fun evening activity for the whole family, to cap off an adventurous day on the hiking trails. Wilder Park boasts 8 miles of paved biking and hiking trails, as well as beautiful prairies teeming with wildflowers. If you are looking for cheap Iowa destinations, tent camping starts at $10 per night (Phone: 319-267-2245).



11. Iowa Vacations: Victoria's Vineyard Bed and Breakfast - 20 minutes  Victoria's Vineyard

Located on the edge of an 80 acre farm and vineyard, Victoria's Vineyard Bed and Breakfast is the perfect getaway for those seeking a night away from the city. Ideally situated on the outskirts of Des Moines, this rustic B&B offers two rooms to its guests: the Master Bedroom with en-suite whirlpool, pillow top mattress and large windows, and the Lower Level Bedroom which features the same comfortable bed and an attached bathroom. The sitting room, as well as the vineyard, pond and hardwood forest on the property, are available for guests to enjoy. The vineyard is the ideal venue for a wedding of up to 500 people. There is a large event area by the pond, complete with a beautiful gazebo, parking, water and electricity. A house-made breakfast is served daily. Boarding for horses is also available. For guests on their way to Aventureland Amusement Park or Prairie Meadows Casino, Victorias Vineyard B&B is situated five minutes from both (Phone: 515-967-1980).

-- "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top or Romantic Getaways

12. Weekend Getaways in Iowa: Iowa House - 40 minutes  Iowa House

Iowa House in Ames is one of the most unique lodgings in the area. The former fraternity house that was renovated in 2008 now boasts 15 unique rooms that can sleep up to 35 guests. Complimentary Wi-Fi, whirlpool tubs, and pillow-top mattresses make rooms cozy and welcoming, and their large variety of rooms and suites make it the perfect choice for families. Iowa House is decorated in a style that mixes past, present, and future, with quilts by Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon quilter Helen Paine adorning the walls. A gourmet country breakfast is served each morning, with tasty treats from local bakeries completing the spread. Visitors to Iowa House will find themselves close to amenities and activities like the Furman Aquatic Centre, and many different golf courses. Its proximity to Iowa State University makes it the ideal choice for parents or visitors to the school. Rooms start at $95 (Phone: 855-292-2474). Things to Do in Iowa



13. Romantic Weekend Getaways in Iowa: Adventureland Inn - 20 minutes  Adventureland Inn

Adventureland Inn and Resort, located in Altoona, Iowa, is the official hotel of Adventureland Park. Their huge variety of rooms and suites, many of which are wheelchair-accessible, make this the perfect choice for any family getaway. A full service campground is also available for tent and RV camping, with access to the water park amenities inside the hotel. The Adventureland Resort boasts three large pools, playful water park features, and two arcades. For adults, the swim-up bar is the perfect place for a cocktail or snack, before relaxing in one of the two hot tubs in one of the covered tropical courtyards. The Parkview Restaurant serves a traditional breakfast, while the Central Park Restaurant and Lounge serves delicious American favorites. A trolley takes guests right to Adventureland Park. Rooms start at $129 which is a cheap weekend getaway option near Des Moines. (Phone: 515-265-7321).



14. Iowa Vacation Spots: Miss Spenser's of Longview Farms  Miss Spenser's of Longview Farms

Miss Spensers of Longview Farms Bed and Breakfast is a unique and luxurious country getaway, nestled in the prairies right outside of Des Moines. Guests can choose between the Room with a View Suite, which boasts a stunning view and 700 feet of luxury including a sunroom nook, kitchenette, and king-sized bed, or the 400 foot Garden Room, with the same amenities as well as a view overlooking the garden. Fireplaces in each suite add to the evenings romantic ambience. A full breakfast is served each morning in Miss Spensers Tearoom, which can also be reserved by guests for the full English afternoon tea experience. Complete with gourmet teas and delicate tea fare, guests will be transported to the rolling English countryside- without ever leaving Iowa! Longview Farm is very close to the walking trails in Hickory Hills Park, where guests can walk while savoring amazing sunset views. Rooms start at $130 (Phone: 641-342-1547).



15. Romantic Cabin Getaways in Iowa: The Cottages at Stoney Creek - 20 minutes  The Cottages at Stoney Creek



The Cottages at Stoney Creek Hotel are ideal for a week-long getaway, offering at least 500 feet of living space, as well as fully stocked kitchens that allow you to cook and eat independently. Although every practicality is taken care of, cottage suites feature luxurious amenities like whirlpool spas, flat screen televisions, stone fireplaces, and oversized bathrooms. Complimentary hot breakfast starts the day off right, and complimentary appetizers and cocktails are served every weekday evening. Guests have access to the fitness centre and sauna 24 hours a day. There is also an indoor/outdoor pool and whirlpool. Located near Adventureland Park, the Blank Park Zoo, and Iowa State Fair Grounds, the Cottages at Stoney Creek are the perfect choice for atmosphere that is both luxurious and comfortable. Rooms start at $88 (Phone: 904-277-0916).

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top or Amazing things to do around me

16. Weekend Getaways in Iowa for Couples: The Inn at Okoboji  The Inn at Okoboji



Located along the beautiful shores of West Lake Okoboji, The Inn at Okoboji offers traditional resort accommodations and full service facilities for every occasion. All rooms include amenities like a mini-fridge, in-room coffee, Wi-Fi, and direct lake access. The family-friendly suites are spacious, and include options like a whirlpool tub, wet bar, and fireplace. The Landmark Cafe serves a full menu, or guests can opt for poolside beverages and appetizers at the Lakeshore Lounge and Grill. Enjoy a swim in either the indoor or outdoor pool, or rent a boat for a day of activity on the lake. Docks for both fishing and swimming are the perfect place to spend an afternoon. The Inn Golf Course is a moderate 1440-yard, 9-hole course where players can work on their accuracy, or spend a day out with the family. Rooms are affordable and start at $139 (Phone: 712-332-2113).



17. Mont Rest Bed and Breakfast, Bellevue  Mont Rest Bed and Breakfast



Famous for offering remarkable views of the beautiful Mississippi River, the Mont Rest B&B is a popular choice for romantic weekend getaways. Recalling a more gracious era, the historic Mont Rest was built in 1893 and still retains many of its original features. The 13 beautiful guestrooms are the last word in charm and elegance, featuring luxuries like whirlpool baths, fireplaces, heated towel rails and beautiful bed linen. Mont Rest offers regular themed dinners including their fun Murder Mystery dinner on most weekends. They also do wine-pairing dinners in summer and couples can book a private romantic dinner in advance should they wish. Mont Rest B&B, 300 Spring Street, Bellevue, IA 52031, 563 872 4220

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

18. Historic Park Inn, Mason City  Historic Park Inn



Famous as the last remaining hotel in the world which was designed and built the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Historic Park Inn is a must-visit destination for all architecture enthusiasts. The inn was built in 1910 and was originally known as the City National Bank and Park Inn. After undergoing a massive renovation in 2011, the Historic Park Inn now operates as a 27-room boutique hotel. Each of the guestrooms has been individually designed to combine some original features with all the modern facilities that todays discerning travel demands. The 1910 lounge is the ideal place to enjoy a cocktail and admire the original 100-year old billiards table. Historic Park Inn, 15 W. State Street, Mason City IA 50401, 641 423 0689



19. Weekend Trips from Iowa: Boulders Inn and Suites  Boulders Inn and Suites



The Boulders Inn and Suites sits right on the Mississippi River in the city of Fort Madison, and mixes historic elegance with modern conveniences. Each room is stylishly appointed with modern furniture and elegant bedding, as well as conveniences like complimentary Wi-Fi and 50-inch HD televisions. An exercise room equipped with television will allow you to keep up to date while working out. Any business needs can be taken care of at the front desk, with convenient complimentary printing, message, and fax services. A complimentary hot breakfast is served each morning. For travelers in town to visit the Lee County Speedway, or Sheaffer Memorial Golf Course, the Boulders Inn and Suites offers special discounts and rates to these nearby activities. Fort Madison also hosts the Tri-State Rodeo each year, and other events like the Festival of Lights and Old Fort Days make this an ideal year-round vacation spot. Rooms start at $134 (Phone: 844-263-4640).

-- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" -- You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways" Back to Top

20. Bridges Bay Resort, Arnolds Park, Lake Okoboji  Jo Panuwat D/stock.adobe.com



Bridges Bay Resort is located on the shore of Lake Okoboji, where it offers visitors a great base from which to explore the area and enjoy a wide range of activities. The resort is ideal for both couples and families; you can choose from traditional hotel-style rooms with balconies, condos with full kitchens, boat cottage rentals and beautiful privately rented luxury condos. The resort has on on-site indoor water park where children of all ages can enjoy splashes, slides and rides all year round. During the warmer months the whole family can enjoy the large outdoor pool with swim-up bar. There are several outfitters offering water sports on the lake. Bridges Bay Resort, 630 Linden Drive, Arnolds Park, IA 51331, 712 332 2202



21. Kings Point Resort, Storm Lake  Kings Point Resort



Scenically nestled on the edge of Storm Lake, Kings Point Resort is an excellent option for a family getaway in Iowa. Visitors will find everything they need for a fun escape right on site including water sports on the lake, an indoor and outdoor water park and a nine-hole golf course (with a mini-golf course) just across the road. You can choose from a selection of accommodation options including beautifully appointed hotel rooms and suites (many of which offer lake views) and their popular lake-view Sun Rise Cottages, which are fully self-catering. The kids will never be bored at Kings Point; regardless of the weather they can have year-round fun in the indoor water park. Kings Point Resort, 1520 E. Lakeshore Drive, Storm Lake, IA 50588, 712 213 4500



22. Grandstay Hotel and Suites, Pella  ercan senkaya/stock.adobe.com Located just minutes from historic downtown Pella, The Grandstay Hotel and Suites at Bos Landon Golf Club, is a centrally-located base from which to enjoy all the activities and attractions of the Pella area. The hotel offers many on-site amenities including a heated indoor swimming pool and a fitness center. The rooms and suites are very comfortably appointed, offering a small fridge and microwave, free Wi-Fi, cable TV and individual temperature control. Some of the suites have whirlpool baths as an extra little luxury. While golfers enjoy a round at the 18-hole championship Bos Landon Golf Club non-golfers can explore downtown Pella. Grandstay Hotel and Suites, 2508 Bos Landon Drive, Pella, IA 50219, 855 455 7829



23. Lakeside Hotel and Casino  Lakeside Hotel and Casino Located right on the shore of West Lake in Osceola, the Lakeside Hotel and Casino is a popular getaway destination for couples and families. The resort has a variety of accommodation options including rooms and suites as well as an on-site RV park where glamping enthusiasts can set up camp. The RV sites are fully serviced and have Wi-Fi access and great views. The hotel has an indoor swimming pool and a fitness room. However, the casino is the main attraction for most visitors, offering 600 slots and video poker machines as well as several table games. You can enjoy a wide variety of musical entertainments and events at their outdoor amphitheater. Lakeside Hotel and Casino, 777 Casino Drive, Osceola, IA 34758, 641 329 3298



24. Hotel Winneshiek, Decorah  Hotel Winneshiek Hotel Winneshiek is an historic landmark property located in the heart of Decorah, offering visitors a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Surrounded by stately architecture and rich heritage, guests are welcomed to a haven of elegance and made to feel like family. The guestrooms and suites are a study in refined elegance featuring queen or king beds and luxury linens, coffee makers, and premium toiletries. After a busy day of exploring all the interesting attractions of Decorah you can return to the Hotel Win Bar to relax over a cocktail, craft beer or glass of wine while you enjoy a sharing platter of flatbreads and other treats. Hotel Winneshiek, 104 E. Water Street, Decorah, IA 52101, 563 382 4164



25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways

More Iowa Destinations

Des Moines, IA

A weekend getaway to Des Moines in Iowa will reward you with a variety of interesting and informative attractions to suit the whole family. A great way to start your exploration of Des Moines is to take advantage of The Capitol Tour, a free tour of the imposing Iowa State Capitol building and its grounds. The building dates back to 1886 and boasts a beautiful dome covered in gold leaf. To see some historic Iowa homesteads, you can visit Salisbury House & Gardens (which houses an art museum, library, and concert venue), and Terrace Hill, the official residence of the Governor of Iowa, which was built for Benjamin Franklin Allen in 1869.

Other interesting attractions include the Des Moines Art Center, which has a diverse collection of big-name artists, the Des Moines Performing Arts, which are based at the Des Moines Civic Center, and The Science Center of Iowa, which includes a planetarium and an IMAX theater. Blank Park Zoo, the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden, the Better Homes and Gardens Test Garden (where visitors can admire 22 display gardens), and the Pappajohn Sculpture Park are just a few of the great outdoor attractions available. When you have worked up an appetite you can head to the Downtown Farmer's Market in the Historic Downtown Court District of Des Moines to sample some amazing local produce.

More Places to Visit: Dubuque, IA

Plan your next Iowa weekend getaway to Dubuque, the oldest city in Iowa, which offers a good selection of attractions to explore. The vibrant Mississippi River Waterfront is a great place to stroll along the river, listen to a concert, visit the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, or board a riverboat for a fun ride with Dubuque River Rides on the Mississippi River.

If you're tired of walking, take a ride on the Fenelon Place Elevator or jump aboard a horse-drawn carriage for a narrated tour of the historical sites in the city offered by Dubuque by Carriage. Some other interesting attractions include the Dubuque Museum of Art, which features both national and regional art collections as well as works by local aspiring artists, and the Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, where you can satisfy your sweet tooth with mouth-watering candies produced by the resident nuns.

Outdoor enthusiasts will be pleased to know that there are some excellent hiking and biking trials in the Mines of Spain State Recreational Area, (which also features a bird and butterfly garden), and there are more options along the 26 mile Heritage Trail, which runs from Dubuque to Dyersville. You can also explore Crystal Lake Cave and take a pleasant stroll around the Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens.

Iowa Destinations: Iowa City

You can look forward to an action-packed weekend getaway in the Iowa City Downtown District, where a wide variety of activities and attractions will keep you occupied just about around the clock. You can visit three interesting museums within just two city blocks, starting with the Old Capitol Museum on the campus of the University of Iowa Pentacrest. Just around the corner you will find The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History, and a short walk away is the University Of Iowa Museum Of Art, which features both permanent and visiting exhibitions.

If you're interested, take some time to appreciate the performing arts at the Riverside Theatre and at the Englert Theatre, and if you are in the mood for dancing you can head to one of several nightclubs, including The Eden Lounge and Nightclub, or Studio 13.

The Ped Mall (aka Pedestrian Mall) is packed with a wide variety of shops, galleries, and boutiques selling just about everything you can imagine, from eclectic artworks to funky clothing and household articles. The mall is also a bustling entertainment venue which stages several festivals throughout the year including the Iowa City Jazz Festival in July, the popular Friday Night Concert Series from May to September, and the Iowa Arts Festival in early June.

Iowa Weekend Destinations: Okoboji

Okoboji is nestled along the shores of Spirit Lake, the largest of Iowa's Great Lakes, in a particularly scenic area and offers a huge variety of family attractions. To get out onto the lake you can rent a boat, canoe, kayak, or paddle board from Okoboji Boat Works or enjoy a narrated steamboat cruise on the Queen II excursion boat. You can choose from many other active water sports including water-skiing, parasailing, and wakeboarding or hike and cycle along more than 20 miles of trails.

Families can spend a few exciting hours at Arnolds Park Amusement Park (which has rides for all ages). If you enjoy mini golf head for Pirate's Cove Adventure Golf or Treasure Village Family Theatre and Mini-Golf. In addition, there are 8 golf courses for serious golfers to enjoy. Okoboji has several interesting and unusual museums to visit, including The Higgins Museum, which documents the history of national banking in the United States, and the Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum where you can relive the era of the steamboat. The Pearson Lakes Art Center showcases a variety of art including a permanent Russian Impressionist collection, and Art on 16th features work by local artists.

Places to Visit in Iowa: Waterloo

The riverside city of Waterloo in Iowa's Cedar Valley offers many diversions to keep weekend visitors happy and engaged. Start by exploring the vibrant Downtown Museum District where you will find a selection of unusual museums, including the John Deere Tractor & Engine Museum, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum, and the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum. To learn all about the origins and development of Waterloo and the Cedar Valley you can visit the Grout Museum of History & Science and the Ice House Museum, while younger visitors will enjoy the Little Red Schoolhouse Museum and the Bluedorn Science Imaginarium.

There are plenty of outdoor activities, and you might want to start with a pleasant stroll through the Cedar Valley Arboretum & Botanical Gardens or a brisk hike or cycle along the Cedar Valley Trails, which link downtown attractions to peaceful wooded green spaces. Hartman Reserve Nature Center also offers good hiking and cycling trails that double as snow-shoeing and cross-country trails in winter. Indulge your passion for the arts at the Hearst Center for the Arts & Sculpture Garden, the UNI Gallery of Art, or the Riverloop Amphitheatre and Arts Mall. Children can have hours of fun at the Lost Island Water Park and Palmer's Family Fun.

You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways " Back to Top



Iowa Destinations: Ames

Ames is home to Iowa State University and has many attractions to offer weekend visitors, including a chance to tour one of the most beautiful campuses in America. At The Ames/ISU Visitor Information Booth on campus you can get maps and brochures and book a campus tour. There are several (free!) campus attractions to visit, starting with the Brunnier Art Museum, the Christian Petersen Art Museum, the Farmhouse Museum, the Art on Campus Collection, and the Elizabeth and Byron Anderson Sculpture Garden.

History buffs can visit the Ames Historical Center or take a walking tour of the Old Town Historic District. Ames has a very vibrant arts scene, which you can enjoy at the Ames Community Theatre (ACTORS, Inc), the Art House on State, and the Iowa State Center, while music lovers can attend a show by the Ames Town & Gown Chamber Music Association or the Central Iowa Symphony Orchestra. North Grand Mall is the place to go for shopping, while Reiman Gardens provides an opportunity to stop and smell the roses in a superb 17-acre botanical garden. When you are ready for some exercise you can visit any of the 35 parks and recreation areas in the city, which offer jogging and cycling trails, fishing, and picnics.

Iowa Day Trips: Davenport

Davenport is located along the banks of the Mississippi River and offers visitors a great variety of both indoor and outdoor attractions to fill your weekend. A logical place to start your tour of Davenport is the Quad Cities Visitor Center, which is located alongside the river in Downtown Davenport, the heart of this bustling city. Once you have collected the necessary maps and info, you will find yourself within walking distance of several prime attractions, including the Figge Art Museum, the Putnam Museum of History and Natural Sciences (which includes an IMAX theatre), and the historic Adler Theatre, which hosts an array of entertainment, including Broadway shows, comedians, and symphony concerts.

Other must-see attractions include the Bereskin Fine Art Gallery and Studio, the Vander Veer Botanical Park (a beautiful leafy oasis with a children's playground), and the Village of East Davenport where historic buildings now house a collection of interesting shops and restaurants. Foodies will find plenty to enjoy, including the Freight House Farmer's Market, the Artisan Grain Distillery, and Chocolate Manor. Sunderbruch Park Trail offers outdoor enthusiasts great paved trails for hiking, jogging, or cycling, and you can also hike, cycle, and camp at West Lake Park.

Cedar Rapids

Straddling both banks of the Cedar River, Cedar Rapids is an upbeat and vibrant destination for your next weekend getaway. This riverside city has some fine museums to visit, and if you are interested in the cultural history of Iowa a good place to start would be the African American Museum of Iowa followed by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

Historians can make their way to the History Center, the Iowa Masonic Lodge and Museum, and the Cedar Rapids Area Genealogy Library, while art lovers should not miss the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. At TCR (Theatre Cedar Rapids) you can watch shows by talented locals, or you could attend an Orchestra Iowa show at the historic Paramount Theatre.

Nature and outdoor enthusiasts have several options in Cedar Creek. You can go hiking or cycling along the Cedar Greenbelt National Recreation Trail or the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, explore Indian Creek Nature Center and Linn County Conservation, or play a round at one of several golf courses in the area. To combine fun and education, families can take the children to Old MacDonalds's Farm (Bever Park's Children's Zoo) and Wickiup Hill Learning Center. Sports enthusiasts can watch amateur baseball, hockey, and indoor football, and for shopping there is the NewBo City Market.

Clear Lake

Clear Lake is a pleasant lake-side town offering visitors good beaches, plenty of water sports and outdoor activities, and a number of interesting museums. There are several beaches to choose from, including Clear Lake City Beach, which has a splash pad and children's playground. If you prefer to swim in a pool the Clear Lake Aquatic Center is suitable for all ages and has a few water slides for extra fun.

To really appreciate Clear Lake you should get out onto the water. There are several public jetties that visitors can use to launch their own boats or you can hire one from Clear Lake Boats. You can even learn to sail at CLYC's Sailing School. If you can tear yourself away from the lake you can stroll through the lovely Central Gardens of Iowa or go hiking in Clear Lake State Park or McIntosh Woods, which also offers a great selection of seasonal winter sports. The Clear Lake Fire Museum and the Iowa Trolley Park Railroad Museum are both popular for families, and the Clear Lake Arts Center offers a variety of workshops and exhibitions. Music lovers usually make a pilgrimage to Three Stars Plaza, the Surf Ballroom, and the Plane Crash Site, all of which pay homage to the legendary Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and JP The Big Bopper Richardson.

Iowa Destinations: Bellevue

Bellevue is situated along the banks of the Mississippi and prides itself on giving visitors a genuine riverside experience. As the name suggests, Bellevue has remarkably scenic views of the river and surrounding countryside, and the majority of attractions revolve around enjoying outdoor pursuits in pristine surroundings. Strolling along the banks of river and watching the tugs and boats go by is one of the most popular and relaxing occupations, but you can also be more energetic and go cycling or jogging along the Bellevue Rivervue Trail.

At Bellevue State Park you can really get back to nature; the park has campsites, many miles of timbered hiking trails, a lovely butterfly garden, and a nature center, and it is known for excellent bird watching. Spruce Creek Park and Pleasant Creek both offer campsites and a boat launch for water sport enthusiasts.

Bellevue has a rich historic background, and there are a number of historic buildings to see on a self-guided walking tour of central Bellevue, including the Jackson Country Courthouse (1845), and the Potter's Mill (1843). There are several restaurants where you can enjoy a meal overlooking the Mississippi, and Bellevue hosts a substantial number of annual festivals, including the Jackson County Pro Rodeo.

You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways " Back to Top



Sioux City

There is never a dull moment in Sioux City, and regardless of whether you are into history, the arts, or the great outdoors, you will find plenty to keep you busy. Families are particularly well catered to in Sioux City - you can start your adventure at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center where kids can have hours of fun at the Discovery Forest Nature Playscape and visit the Raptor House. The LaunchPad Children's Museum offers interactive fun learning, and at the Long Lines Family Rec Center children can learn swimming, golf, and tennis.

There are several interesting museums to explore, starting with the Mid American Museum of Aviation & Transportation, the Sgt. Floyd River Museum & Welcome Center, and the Railroad Museum Sioux City. Once you have learned all about transportation you can visit the Sioux City Art Center (free!), which features permanent collections and a hands-on area for children or watch a show at the Lamb Productions Theatre or the beautifully restored Orpheum Theatre, home to the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra. For a really different movie experience you can make your way to the Promenade Cinema, which features 14 screens, stadium seating, and great sound. Sports fans can watch the Sioux City Musketeers or the Sioux City Bandits in action at the Tyson Events Center.

Iowa Destinations: Pella

Situated in central Iowa, Pella was established by the Dutch in 1847 and still reflects a strong Dutch heritage; it is one of the few places in America where you can see a real Dutch windmill and acres of tulips. Soak up the atmosphere of America's Dutch Treasure as your listen to the Klokkenspel (animated musical clocks) or stroll through the Pella Historical Village/Vermeer Mill, where you can tour the 1850's working Vermeer Mill and explore the adjoining Historical Village.

There is plenty to delight art lovers at the Joan Kuyper Farver Art Gallery and the Mills Gallery at the Lubbers Center for the Visual Arts - Central College. At the Pella Community Arts Center you can experiment with hands-on art, or you can make your way to the Joan Kuyper Farver Auditorium or the Kruidenier Theatre Center to watch a theatrical production. Music lovers can attend the Pella Opera House or take in a recital at the Douwstra Auditorium - Central College.

Hiking, cycling, and jogging enthusiasts can get some exercise on the 14-mile Volksweg Trail, the Eagle Lair Loop, or the Howell Station Prairie Trail. If you love festivals you should plan your visit to coincide with the October Herfst Feest (Harvest Fest) or Tulip Time in May, when Pella celebrates with parades, Dutch costumes, and a lively atmosphere.

Burlington

Burlington has all the necessary attractions to ensure an action-packed weekend break for the whole family. There is plenty to do with children, starting with an indoor water park, go-karts, laser games, and more at Fun City - Hucks Harbor Waterpark, adjacent to the Catfish Bend Casino. The Mediapolis Aquatic Center and the West Burlington City Pool are popular summer attractions, both of which have large pools and water slides, and Ballocity provides year-round fun for younger children.

Educate and entertain the kids at the Burlington Fire Department Museum and the Garrett Phelps House Museum, which incorporates the Medical Memories Museum. For outdoor enthusiasts there are several good recreational areas where you can camp, boat, fish, and hike. Daredevils will enjoy the SkyTrail, an exciting zip-line experience, and the Wildlife Lakes Elk Farm is fun for all ages. At Starr's Cave Nature Center & Preserve you can explore three caves and interactive exhibits.

If you enjoy history you can stroll through the Heritage Hill Historic District and visit the Heritage Center Museum, the Mississippi Valley Veteran's Museum, and the Mediapolis Museum. A visit to the Burlington Capitol Theater and the Art Center of Burlington will add a touch of culture to the weekend, and the Westland Mall is the place to go for shopping, dining, and entertainment.

LeClaire

LeClaire occupies a scenic river-side position on the Mississippi River, offering a variety of historical attractions and outdoor pursuits. LeClaire was established by river pilots in the mid 19th century, and the Cody Road Historic District showcases a collection of historic homes that were all built between 1850 and 1870, reflecting a variety of architectural styles. Although many of the houses are now private homes, a tour of the Historic District is a highlight of any visit to LeClaire. Dawley House (currently the Crane and Pelican Cafe) and McCaffrey House (currently the Grasshoppers Gift Shop and Vintage Vine Wine Cellar) are open to the public.

Other attractions include the Buffalo Bill Museum and Lone Star Steamer Display, and along the popular Libations Lane you can visit the Green Tree Brewery, the Mississippi River Distilling Company, and the Wide River Winery.

Avid photographers and nature lovers can enjoy excellent bird watching at Lock and Dam # 14 where bald eagles and pelicans rule the roost. Twilight River Boat Cruises offer another great opportunity to enjoy enviable bird watching and a nostalgic journey while cruising upriver to Dubuque on a genuine Mississippi River Boat. LeClaire's Historic Downtown offers interesting and eclectic shopping and several dining venues.

Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant is nestled in the midst of post-card pretty farmlands, rolling hills, and babbling streams in southeast Iowa. The city has a proud agricultural heritage and a strong cultural ethos that combine to make it a great weekend getaway destination. You can learn all about Mount Pleasant agricultural history at the Midwest Old Threshers Heritage Museum or visit the Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana, which is a treasure-trove of artifacts celebrating early theatrical productions in America. In nearby Salem you can visit the Lewelling Quaker Museum, which documents the anti-slavery movement.

Mount Pleasant hosts several annual festivals, including the 5 day Midwest Old Threshers Reunion and the Red Flag Horseless Carriage Tour in September, while the Midwest Central Railroad provides special themed train journeys for families and children in October. Nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts can have hours of fun walking, hiking, cycling, or canoeing through the Oakland Mills Park and Nature Center. Both shoppers and history lovers can enjoy strolling through Mount Pleasant Downtown, where many turn-of-the-century buildings are now home to a diverse selection of shops and restaurants, and you can round off your day with a production by the Mount Pleasant Community Theatre Association or the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra, which is based at Iowa Wesleyan College.

From Des Moines, Iowa To Driving Time Dubuque, IA 3 hours Algona, Iowa 2 hours 20 minutes Indianola, Iowa 30 minutes Bentonsport, Iowa 2 hours 20 min Fort Madison, IA 2 hours 50 min Cedar Rapids, Iowa 2 hours Cedar Falls, IA 2 hours Milford, Iowa 3 hours 15 minutes Allison, Iowa 2 hours Altoona, Iowa 20 minutes Ames, IA 40 minutes Johnston, IA 40 minutes Marion, IA 2 hours 10 minutes

You are reading "25 Best Iowa Weekend Getaways " Back to Top


Wild, unspoiled, faraway, mysterious Alaska fires up the imagination and brings out your spirit of adventure. It is now much easier to explore Alaskas magnificent mountains, lodges, fjords, and glaciers and see whales, seals, grizzly bears, and other wild animals than it was even a few years ago. Visit the museums, restaurants and cafes in Juneau and Anchorage and explore Denali, Glacier Bay National Parks. Here are the best things to do in Alaska.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. White Pass & Yukon Route Railway  Courtesy of Rocky Grimes - Fotolia.com

The White Pass and Yukon Route is a Canadian and American narrow gauge railroad that links Skagway in Alaska and Whitehorse in Yukon. It was built in 1900 during the Klondike Gold Rush  the fastest way miners could reach the goldfields. It operated until 1982 and was resurrected in 1988 as a heritage railway. It allows passengers to travel back to the past, riding the rails on a real gold rush train, past waterfalls, glacial rivers, steep gorges, and dense forests that have hardly changed since the time of the gold miners. The train climbs up 3000 feet with passengers aboard parlor cars, both vintage and replicas and with huge windows and observation decks, along the 10-foot-wide train track carved into the mountain. The scenery is breathtaking, and the places the train passes by, such as Dead Horse Gulch or Inspiration Point, fire the imagination and take you all the way up to the headwaters of the legendary Yukon River. 231 2nd, Skagway, AK 99840, Phone: 907-983-2217

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

2. Kroschel Films Wildlife Center  Kroschel Films Wildlife Center

Located about 28 miles from Haines, Alaska, the Kroschel Films Wildlife Center is an amazing place where filmmaker and naturalist Steve Kroschel takes care of abandoned or orphaned wild animals from Alaska or Canada. It is not a zoo, though, and the animals live free and unmolested in their natural environment, providing you with some perfect photo opportunities as you walk along a well-groomed trail for about 600 yards through the magnificent Alaskan wilderness. You will encounter 15 species of animals, including grizzly bears, foxes, wolves, lynx, moose, reindeer, owls and others. Steve combines his filmmaking and animal care with a message about the interconnectedness of all life on Earth and natural healing. Mile 18 Mosquito Lake Road, Haines, AK 99827, Phone: 907-767-5464

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

3. Sealaska Heritage Institute  Sealaska Heritage Institute

Sealaska Heritage Institute is a nonprofit organization and institute in downtown Juneau, originally founded in 1980 to preserve and protect the region's Tlingit Tsimshian, and Haida indigenous cultures. The institute, which moved into its permanent home at the Walter Soboleff Building in 2015, strives to create a place where Native and non-Native Alaskans alike can learn about their heritage through permanent exhibits and special event programming. The museum's permanent cultural exhibit showcases a variety of works by prominent Native artists, including luminaries such as Wayne Price, Robert Davidson, Preston Singletary, and David Boxley. A traditional clan house dubbed as Shuka Hit is also showcased, along with space for rotating art and cultural exhibits. Three major public art exhibits are showcased on the museum's grounds, including a 40-foot panel exhibit by Robert Davidson paying tribute to a Haida supernatural figure known as "Greatest Echo." 105 S Seward St, Juneau, AK 99801, Phone: (907) 463-4844



-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

4. Kodiak Laboratory Aquarium & Touch Tank  Courtesy of Andrea Izzotti - Fotolia.com



The Alaska Fisheries Science Center is home to the Kodiak Laboratory Aquarium & Touch Tank, a 3500-gallon freestanding aquarium and touch tank containing species from the Kodiak Island waterways. Common species in the aquarium and tank include crabs, shrimp, snails, starfish and fish. Children and adults alike will enjoy handling the residents of the touch tank. Tour guides are on hand to provide information about the sea life and answer questions. The science center's conference rooms provide fantastic views of the water and visitors can marvel at the massive, 25,000-square-foot complex that houses the aquarium. Things to Do in Kodiak 301 Research Court, Kodiak, AK 99615, Phone: 907-481-1700

-- You are reading "Fun Things to Do in Alaska this Weekend with Friends" -- You are reading "Fun Things to Do in Alaska this Weekend with Friends" Back to Top

5. Alaska Native Heritage Center  Alaska Native Heritage Center



The Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage is a cultural center, museum and gathering place where visitors can learn about the heritage of eleven of Alaska's major cultures by viewing exhibitions, watching artists demonstrations, songs and dances, and listening to stories. Alaskan Native dancing, Native games demonstrations and mesmerizing storytelling all take place in the Gathering Place. The Hall of Cultures features exhibitions by Alaskan Native artists. Artists sell their art and crafts around the hall. The theatre shows the Heritage Center-produced film, Stories Given, Stories Shared, and many other movies about the different cultures and peoples of Alaska. Even more interesting exhibits await outside the center building there are six life-sized Alaskan Native dwellings scattered in the woods around nearby Lake Tiulana where visitors can see demonstrations of the traditional way of life of different Alaskan peoples. 8800 Heritage Center Dr, Anchorage, AK99504-6100, Phone: 907-330-8000

-- You are reading "What to Do in Alaska this Weekend" -- You are reading "What to Do in Alaska this Weekend" Back to Top

6. The Aurora Ice Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska  The Aurora Ice Museum



Located in the Chena Hot Springs Resort, the Aurora Ice Museum is open year-round. Created with over 1,000 tons of ice and snow, the museum is kept at 25 Fahrenheit (-7 Celsius), so visitors are loaned parkas to tour the museum in comfort. The museum contains a gallery displaying sculptures by world champion ice carvers Steve and Heather Brice, an observation tower, three bedrooms (polar bear, Christmas tree and childrens fort), a Northern Lights room and even an ice outhouse. An ice alter can be rented for onsite special events or weddings, and the museums chandeliers change color to evoke the aurora borealis. 17600 Chena Hot Springs Road, Fairbanks, AK 99712, Phone: 907-451-8104

-- You are reading "Top Romantic Tourist Attractions in Alaska" -- You are reading "Top Romantic Tourist Attractions in Alaska" Back to Top

7. Things to Do in Alaska: Running Reindeer Ranch  Running Reindeer Ranch

Less than half hour from downtown Fairbanks is the Running Reindeer Ranch, where you can learn all you ever wanted to know about these curious animals of the north. The ranch owner and manager Jane, who has lived most of her life in Alaska, will take you on a walk through the beautiful, dense birch forest with the reindeer and engage you in reindeer games, tell you about the forest, the reindeers home, and explain all their adaptations to life in the Arctic. You can watch the reindeer as they run free and happy in their forest world, untrained and often unpredictable, so what kind of adventure you will be having is pretty much up to them. Once the walk is over, Jane will take you to a nice, warm room by a fire, give you cookies and a hot drink and tell you stories about life in the north and, of course, about reindeer. In the summer, she will proudly show you her vegetable garden. Things to Do in Fairbanks Goldstream Rd, Fairbanks, AK 99709, Phone: 907-455-4998



, From LA -- You are reading "What is There to Do with Kids in Alaska" Back to Top

8. Places of Interest in Alaska: Husky Homestead, Alaska  Husky Homestead

If you have ever wondered what it would feel like to stand on a dog sled speeding across 1000 miles of frozen Alaskan tundra, and you are not prepared to enter the next Iditarod race, then a visit to the Husky Homestead is your best alternative. Legendary Jeff King, four times winner of the Iditarod race and hundreds of other races across North America, has opened his home to those curious about the Alaskan lifestyle, including the hardships, challenges and, of course, the huskies. You can hear great stories from Jeff and his staff, many of whom are also famous mushers, you can play with puppies and watch fully-grown majestic animals both at training and at work. Jeffs home is located within Denali National Park and all visitors are brought in by Husky Homestead buses from Denali hotels. PO Box 48,, Denali National Park and Preserve, AK 99755, Phone: 907-683-2904



9. Alaska Things to Do: Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitors Center  Morris Thompson Cultural & Visitors Center

Located on the banks of the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks, the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center is a regional visitor center for Interior Alaska and Fairbanks. The center is an interesting and very successful cooperation between the Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Tanana Chiefs Conference and the Alaska Public Lands Information Center. There is a 9000-square-foot exhibit hall with dioramas and displays featuring rural Alaska seasons and landscapes from the interior. The information center part offers brochures, walking and driving tour schedules, and a vacancy listing, and answers visitor questions and inquiries. There is also a theatre with free films on Alaskas natural and cultural history. 101 Dunkel St, Fairbanks, AK 99701-4806, Phone: 907-459-3700

-- "Best Things to Do in Alaska for Locals & Tourists - Restaurants, Hotels" -- "Best Things to Do in Alaska for Locals & Tourists - Restaurants, Hotels" Back to Top

10. Alaska Tourist Attractions: Alaska Raptor Center  Alaska Raptor Center

Even in remote and sparsely populated places like Alaska, wild animals suffer from human encroachment into their habitats and are increasingly injured or killed. Two Sitka ladies decided that someone had to do something about the injured raptor birds and so they developed the Alaska Raptor Center in 1980. They started in their backyard with one injured bald eagle. Eventually, their action attracted other volunteers and they were able to help more birds, so they first moved to a shed on the campus of Sheldon Jackson College and then, in 1991, to the current 17-acre space on the Indian River. The center provides medical care and treatment to about 200 injured birds each year, mostly bald eagles. The main goal is to rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild. Those birds that are too severely injured and would not be able survive in the wild stay in the centers Raptors-in-Residence facility and are visited by tourists and school kids as part of the educational program on raptor birds and environmental conservation in general. Things to Do in Sitka 1000 Raptor Way, Sitka, AK 99835-9302, Phone: 800-643-9425



11. Things to Do in Alaska: Denali Visitor Center  Courtesy of TODD - Fotolia.com

Before venturing into the magnificent 6,000,000-acre Denali National Park and Preserve, stop by the highly informative Denali Visitor Center, the main parks information and welcoming facility. It includes a restaurant, gift shop and bookstore, bus stop, bag check, and railroad depot. The center is an ideal place for visitors to learn more about what to expect in the park as well as its most interesting features by talking to park rangers, by watching the film "Heartbeats of Denali", and by checking out a small but interesting exhibit area. Many ranger-run activities in the park start at the Denali Visitor Center. Also, most of the trails in the Denali park have an easy access from the center, where you can get the map of all trails. Denali National Park and Preserve, Phone: 907-683-9532

-- "New cool stuff to do in Alaska" -- "New cool stuff to do in Alaska" Back to Top or Romantic Getaways

12. Fun Things to Do in Alaska: Alaska SeaLife Center  Alaska SeaLife Center

Located in Seward, Alaska, on the scenic shores of Resurrection Bay, the Alaska SeaLife Center is Alaskas main public aquarium and its only permanent rehabilitation facility for marine mammals. Since opening in 1998, the center works on preserving the integrity of the marine ecosystems of Alaska using research, conservation, rehabilitation and education. Most funds for the 115,000-square-foot facility came from the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill restitution and its purpose is to remind visitors through interactive activities of the importance of the integrity of Alaska's nature. Through viewing windows, visitors can watch a Stellers sea lion swimming underwater, puffins diving into the waters of a carefully designed habitat, or harbor seals sprawled on rocky beaches. There is a discovery touch tank that engages your senses and the Chiswell Island exhibit, where you can watch what is happening at the Stellers sea lion rookery in Resurrection Bay through a remote camera live video. The center offers self-guided tours as well as special behind-the-scenes tours and animal encounters. 301 Railway Ave, Seward, AK 99664-3801, Phone: 907-224-6300



13. Alaska Activities: Talkeetna Air Taxi  Talkeetna Air Taxi

To see everything that majestic Denali has to offer in its 8,000,000 acres of Alaskan wilderness would take more than a lifetime. The best way to see it all, ancient glaciers, sky-high mountain peaks and mile-high gorges, is from the air or by flightseeing. Talkeetna Air Taxi promises to show you one of the most magnificent mountain landscapes on Earth from the comfort of one of their ten safe and modern planes as well as a helicopter that will not only fly over Denali but will also land on a glacier so that you can experience a world normally known only to mountaineers after a long, hard climb. All their tours are customized and depend on the weather conditions and current visibility. 14212 E 2nd St, Talkeetna, AK 99676, Phone: 907-733-2218



14. Activities Near Me: Bering Sea Crab Fishermen's Tour, Ketchikan, Alaska  Bering Sea Crab Fishermen's Tour

An adventure with the Bering Sea Crab Fishermens Tour aboard the legendary F/V Aleutian Ballad is not quite the hair-raising death-defying battle with the sea you saw in the series Deadliest Catch. You will meet the same crew and board the same boat, but the boat has been made more comfortable with a heated amphitheater and a panoramic upper deck. The boat will take you on a comfortable cruise through the calm, protected waters of the Inside Passage around the bays and islands surrounding Ketchikan until you reach the rich fishing grounds. You will watch the crew haul the catch and place some of the animals in a live tank so that you can see them and take photos before they are released unharmed back into the sea. Have a look around on the trip to the fishing grounds and you might spot some of the rich Alaskan wildlife such as bears, bald eagles and seals. The cruise lasts about three hours. Berth #3 Tender Float, Ketchikan, AK 99901, Phone: 888-239-3816



15. Kenai Fjords Tours  Kenai Fjords Tours



Located about 125 miles south of Anchorage, the small town of Seward is the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. Departing from Seward, Kenai Fjord Tours will take you on a close-up encounter with ancient glaciers, gray and humpback whales, sea lions, orcas, arctic birds, seals and porpoises. You can see Kenai Fjords National Parks calving glaciers and magnificent alpine and cirque glaciers. Learn about the history of the rugged cliffs of Resurrection Bay and travel deep into the park to experience the unspoiled beauty of the Northwest Fjords. You can choose one of their many day tours  the Resurrection Bay Tour, the National Park Tour, the Fox Island Tour with dinner and many others  aboard one of their large 95-foot specially designed vessels that can accommodate up to 150 people in the comfort of heated, enclosed cabins and with a large observation deck. The tours last from three to nine hours. 1304 4th Ave, Seward, AK 99664, Phone: 907-777-2852

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top or Amazing things to do around me

16. Alaska Tourist Attractions: Jewell Gardens  Jewell Gardens



Jewell Gardens is a collection of beautiful, organic vegetable and flower gardens thriving in the Alaskan climate. Located in the gardens at the base of the rock wall is the Garden City Glassworks, an onsite glassworks studio, and glass installations created by Glassworks artists feature throughout the garden. The garden railway runs along 250 feet of track through Skagwee, a miniature replica of Skagway as it was 100 years ago. Visitors can visit the gift shop and enjoy a guided tour, followed by either full tea or luncheon at Poppies Restaurant, which opens for lunch daily from 11 am to 3 pm. The restaurant offers views of the garden and serves food and drink prepared with garden-fresh, organic ingredients. Skagway, AK 99840, Phone: 907-983-2111



17. Sitka National Historic Park  Courtesy of Acker - Fotolia.com



Sitka National Historical Park is a day park run by the National Parks Service. The site uses programming and media to educate the public about the cultural battle that took place between Russian traders and the indigenous Kiks.adi Tlingit people back when Russia was the dominating force in the North Pacific. Totem poles line the parks coastal trail and are part of the visitor centers display, along with other traditional Tlingit objects, such as the hammer that clan leader Katlian used as a weapon in the Battle of 1804. The park also offers the rare opportunity to view an example of Russian colonial architecture in the form of the Russian Bishops House. There is a bookstore with titles on the areas history and traditions and there are ongoing events run by park rangers and scientists. The park houses over 1,000 original glass plate negatives by Elbridge W. Merrill that document the cultural interaction between colonial Russians and the Tlingit. 103 Monastery St., Sitka, AK 99835, Phone: 907-747-0110

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

18. Alaska Railroad  Courtesy of NoraDoa - Fotolia.com



The Alaska Railroad offers a train service to Alaskas most popular destinations, such as Denali National Park, Seward, Talkeetna, and Anchorage. The railroad operates two passenger classes, both with full-service dining and bar service; the GoldStar Service class is available on the Coastal Classic and Denali trains, while all trains features the Adventure class. Meals, soft drinks and two alcoholic beverages are included in the GoldStar Service ticket price. Pre-packaged day and multi-day itineraries are available, with accommodation and activities included in the multi-day packages. Both seniors (65+) and military personnel qualify for discounted pricing. All trains accept credit or debit card payments for onboard purchases. Phone: 800-544-0552



19. Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, Portage, Alaska  Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center



The animals at the AWCC are typically injured or orphaned and have been brought to the center for care. If the animals cannot be released back into the wild or sent to another center after treatment and rehabilitation, they become a permanent fixture at the AWCC. The center holds public feeding sessions several times a day and during the summer, hour-long shuttle bus tours let visitors watch and learn about the different wildlife. Also during the summer, you can, for an additional fee, take a behind-the-scenes tour where a chaperone takes you through the center so that you can see food being prepared and have a one-on-one visit with an animal resident. Mile 79 Seward Highway, Portage, Alaska 99587, Phone: 907-783-2025

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

20. Alaska Attractions: Totem Bight State Historical Park  Courtesy of porbital - Fotolia.com



Totem Bight State Historical Park hosts 15 totem poles and a model indigenous village. Totem poles tell visual stories through symbolic characters carved into the pole, and the totems on display in the park speak of the rich natural resources in Alaska. The villages clan house is typical of those built in the early 1800s, sized for 30 to 50 dwellers with a central fireplace in the one large room. The houses carved posts recount stories, while the front of the house displays a painting which is historically uncommon and signifies abundance. The park teaches young artists totem pole carving and also repairs or creates copies of totem poles left by indigenous people when they moved to find work in the early 20th century. 550 W. 7th Ave, Suite 1260, Anchorage, AK 99501-3557, Phone: 907-269-8400



21. Things to See Near Me: Juneau Whale Watch, Alaska  Menno Schaefer/stock.adobe.com



There is so much to do in Juneau, which is surrounded by lush rainforests and ancient glaciers and has more trails than roads and more wildlife than people. However, nothing can compare to seeing your first humpback whale slowly emerging from the cold depths of the sea with breath-taking majesty. Juneau Whale Watch is an established local company that will make your encounter unforgettable. Their whale watching adventure takes three to five hours and starts on a bus that takes you from downtown Juneau to the Juneau port at Fishermans Bend in Auke Bay Harbor, where you board one of their custom-made whale watching boats. While cruising the bay looking for whales, keep an eye out for bald eagles, sea lions, seals, black bears, and other Alaskan wildlife. You can see the humpback whales and orcas who often hunt in these waters. Once the whale is in sight, the captain will shut down the engine so that whales can approach the boat, as if posing for the photos. You can stand outside or in the heated cabin with a large viewing window. Things to Do in Juneau 76 Egan Dr Suite 300, Juneau, AK 99801, Phone: 907-723-9209



22. Alaska Tourist Attractions: Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum  Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum



Located in the Wedgewood Resort and Bear Lodge in Fairbanks is the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum, an amazing collection of antique cars and historic fashion that showcases how the design of both clothes and cars changed dramatically between the demure Victorian era and the more cheerful Art Deco age. There are more than 80 antique cars, from horseless carriages, electric cars and steamers to speedsters, midget racers, cycle cars and 30s classics. You can see Alaskas first car, an 1898 Hay Motor Vehicle, 1920 Argonne, 1921 Heine-Velox Victoria and 1906 Compound, all kept in excellent shape and still going strong. The museum also features over 100 antique costumes in its clothing exhibit. 212 Wedgewood Dr, Fairbanks, AK 99701, Phone: 907-450-2100

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska" Back to Top

23. Alaska Tourist Attractions: Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park  Courtesy of Zack Frank - Fotolia.com The Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park offers three historical tours led by park rangers. The 30-minute tour of Jeff Smiths Parlor Museum recounts the story of Soapy Smith, the notorious conman and influential Skagaway citizen who was murdered in an 1898 gunfight. The museum also contains Gold Rush period artifacts and local folk art. The tour of the historic district covers four blocks and several of the 20+ buildings managed by the park during the one-hour session. You can also spend 90 minutes learning about the history and wildlife of Dyea, a boomtown during the Gold Rush and current a National Historic Landmark. Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Skagway, AK 99840, Phone: 907-983-9200



24. Alaska Vacation: Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska  Santa Claus House At the Santa Claus House, you can experience Christmas any day of the year. Started by Con and Nellie Miller in 1952, Santa Claus House began as a community trading post where locals could buy supplies, pick up their mail or simply stop in for a few minutes of chit chat and a soda. During the 1970s, the store began to increasingly focus on Christmas items, and today you can find a huge assortment of Christmas gifts, including food, clothing, merchandise, and toys. Take a photo with the 42-foot tall, three-dimensional Santa outside the house or in the photo sleigh, visit the reindeer team, or enjoy some holiday food and drink while browsing. 101 St. Nicholas Dr., North Pole, Alaska 99705, Phone: 907-488-2200



25. University of Alaska Museum of the North  University of Alaska Museum of the North Located on the Fairbanks campus of the University of Alaska, the University of Alaska Museum of the North is a great introduction to vast, mysterious Alaska, including its people, history, art, culture, plants and animals, through a range of galleries with permanent and temporary exhibits. A new wing, added in 2005, is an art exhibit in itself, evoking glaciers, alpine slopes and the legendary Yukon River, and has won many awards. The gallery showcases two thousand years of Alaska art  from old Eskimo carvings to contemporary sculptures and paintings, both Native and non-Native. Exhibits in the Gallery of Alaska represent Alaska's major cultural and ecological regions, with Alaska's biggest gold display, major displays of Native artifacts, and the worlds only fully restored steppe bison mummy from the Ice Age. The exhibit The Place Where You Go to Listen is a fascinating light and sound display that is constantly changing with the current position of the moon and the sun, aurora borealis activity and the frequent earthquakes. Guests are welcome to relax in the common room with a TV and DVD player, puzzles, and areas for reading. There is also a deck with a gorgeous view. The restaurant features East Coast, seafood, and Tex-Mex dishes so there is something for everyone. Breakfast is always included in the stay and later in the day you can enjoy lunch, supper, or appetizers. 1962 Yukon Dr, Fairbanks, AK 99775, Phone: 907-474-7505



25 Best Things to Do in Alaska

More ideas:

Russian Bishop's House

In 1741, Captain Aleksei Chirikov of the Russian Navy landed in Alaska and the period of Russian colonization in Alaska began. After the Battle of 1804, the Russian settlement of Sitka was founded. From 1808 until 1867, when the Tsar sold Alaska to the United States, Sitka served as the Russian colonys capital. The Russian Bishops House was built in 1842 and is a rare example of Russian colonial architecture.

The house served as the administrative center for the Russian Orthodox Church, which had locations across North America, and is a lingering reminder of Alaskas Russian history. A 16-year project by the National Parks Service began in 1973 to make the building look as it did in the early 1850s. The house lets visitors experience life in Sitka during the Russian-American period.

501 Lincoln St, Sitka, AK 99835, Phone: 907-747-0110

You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Alaska " Back to Top


Hampton, Virginia sits on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula on the Atlantic coast at Chesapeake Bay. Hampton is the oldest community in North America - it was settled in 1607 by a party led by Captain Christopher Newport and became a town in 1705. Top attractions in Hampton include Buckroe Beach and Park, Fort Monroe National Monument, the Virginia Air and Space Center, and the Casemate Museum of Fort Monroe.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Buckroe Beach and Park, Hampton, Virginia  Courtesy of sherryvsmith - Fotolia.com

Buckroe Beach and Park offers eight acres of family-friendly land and a lovely nearly mile long stretch of sandy beach on Chesapeake Bay. During the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, there are certified lifeguards on the shore, Saturday night concerts for Groovin' By The Bay, and Tuesday night outdoor movies. The park has ample parking, a playground, a nice path for walking or cycling, restrooms, and rental of kayaks and paddleboats. Restrooms are available. Two picnic pavilions with tables and grills can be reserved for a small fee, and there is a stage for community events. From Memorial Day until Labor Day no dogs are permitted in the park.

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

2. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Fort Monroe National Monument  Courtesy of Zack Frank - Fotolia.com

Fort Monroe has guarded the waters between Hampton Roads and Chesapeake Bay since the earliest fortifications were built in 1609 in the Colony of Virginia. It is the largest stone fort in the United States and a site brimming with history. It served as a Union fort in Confederate Virginia during the American Civil War, and as a safe haven for slaves under the Contraband Act. Today, Fort Monroe is a popular tourist attraction and offers a historical museum, miles of nature trails, excellent fishing off Engineer Wharf, picnic areas, a marina, and miles of beaches, one of which, Outlook Beach, has a lifeguard during the summer months. More Things to Do in Virginia 41 Bernard Road, Fort Monroe, VA 23651, Phone: 757-722-3678

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

3. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Virginia Air and Space Center  Virginia Air and Space Center

The Virginia Air and Space Center has partnered with NASA to house an exciting hands-on science center. Visitors young and old can land on the moon in a lunar simulator, check out the Apollo 12 command module, experience the wonder of the five-story high IMAX theater, and get an up-close look at the sun and its waves in the solarium, which is full of radiant images taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Little ones can put their minds and hands to work at Engineer-It, a playground in which building larger than life buildings is the game of the day. The museum has day camps that teach core sciences, facilities for completing scouting badges, curriculum materials for teachers and homeschooling parents, a cafe, and a gift shop. Guided tours for school children and community groups are available. 600 Settlers Landing Road, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-727-0900



-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

4. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Casemate Museum of Fort Monroe  Casemate Museum of Fort Monroe



The Casemate Museum of Fort Monroe tells the history of this significant fortress built to withstand attacks from the sea. Once the prison that briefly held Confederate President Jefferson Davis after the American Civil War, the museum is a real treasure for those who love military history or old buildings. The museum has excellent artifacts and educational displays, a replica of an officer's two-room family quarters, and a self-guided tour that takes visitors through the museum, out to the moat, and along the defensive walls, which are six to eight feet thick and built to withstand cannon fire. Groups of ten or more people can make reservations for a guided tour of the museum and grounds. 41 Bernard Road, Fort Monroe, VA 23651, Phone: 757-788-3391

-- You are reading "Fun Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia this Weekend with Friends" -- You are reading "Fun Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia this Weekend with Friends" Back to Top

5. Things to Do Near Me: Bluebird Gap Farm, Hampton, Virginia  Bluebird Gap Farm



Bluebird Gap Farm was first used as farmland by an English sea captain in 1622. Now it is a rural educational, family-oriented site with approximately 150 farm animals such as chickens, horses, pigs, cows, and goats. The farm also has more uncommon animals, including peacocks, tortoises, llamas, alpacas, rabbits, and deer. Birds of prey are regular visitors to the park, as are water birds and shore birds. The farm has a picnic pavilion available for full or half-day rental and more picnic tables scattered throughout the property for family use. There are animal feed vending machines and vending machines with snacks and drinks for people. The display barn is filled with farm and home antiques from the past two decades. 60 Pine Chapel Road, Hampton, VA 23666, Phone: 757-825-4750

-- You are reading "What to Do in Hampton, Virginia this Weekend" -- You are reading "What to Do in Hampton, Virginia this Weekend" Back to Top

6. Things to Do Near Me: Hampton History Museum, Hampton, Virginia  Hampton History Museum



The Hampton History Museum chronicles the story of Hampton, the oldest continuously English speaking city in the United States. In chronological fashion, the museum takes visitors through the city's four hundred year history, delving into its African American history, its Native American history, the War of 1812, the American Civil War, and into Hampton's current rebirth as a military and aerospace technology center. The museum has particularly fine collections of old maps and photographs, and there are a great many interesting artifacts from early times, including a nine thousand year old arrowhead. Snacks and drinks are available in the gift shop. 120 Old Hampton Lane, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-727-1610

-- You are reading "Top Romantic Tourist Attractions in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "Top Romantic Tourist Attractions in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

7. Activities Near Me: Sandy Bottom Nature Park, Hampton, Virginia  Courtesy of Pavel Chernobrivets- Fotolia.com

Sandy Bottom Nature Park is a 456-acre property containing a pond, twelve miles of nature trails, and a huge nature interpretative center. The reclaimed land now has wetlands, woodlands, and wildlife such as white-tailed deer, frogs, turtles, Mabee's Salamander, and the endangered canebrake rattlesnake. The trails are well maintained and suitable for both hikers and cyclists. The park has a children's playground, two sets of restrooms, five picnic shelters available for rental, and other picnic tables set in shaded areas around the park. Fishermen can fish off the pier or rent a boat to go after largemouth bass, crappie, catfish, and bluegill. The water is so clear that you can see the fish and the bottom of the lake. It's a great place for family outings, and it has an educational aspect to it that kids and parents can both appreciate. 1255 Big Bethel Road, Hampton, VA 23666, Phone: 757-825-4657



, From LA -- You are reading "What is There to Do with Kids in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

8. Activities Near Me: Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA  Hampton Coliseum

The Hampton Coliseum is a 9,777-seat multi-use entertainment venue, and fan-favorite music performers, comedians, and Cirque de Soleil have all graced its stages. Conventions and trade shows find Hampton Coliseum suits all their needs, and the coliseum hosts three annual festivals: the Hampton Jazz Festival, the Hampton Funk Festival, and the Hampton Roads Soul Music Festival. Throughout the year there are varied performances for the entire family to enjoy: the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circuses, Disney on Ice, monster truck rallies, WWE events, and professional bull riding. The coliseum has a multitude of food and beverage concessions and free parking. 1000 Coliseum Drive, Hampton, VA 23666, Phone: 757-838-4203



9. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Hampton University Museum  Hampton University Museum

Hampton University Museum was established in 1868, the same year the university itself was established. The museum has always strived to provide knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures and traditions. To foster that, they emphasize studies in geography, culture, and history. It is the only museum in the U.S. to have a permanent collection of African American fine art. Its African art collection is widely esteemed and includes several hundred pieces from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They have a variety of other pieces from across the continent. The first collection in the museum was of South Pacific art, and it has been augmented in recent years by pieces from Japan and the Philippines. The most recent collection of the museum is of the history of the university. 11 Frissell Avenue, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-727-5308



10. Activities Near Me: Air Power Park, Hampton, Virginia  Courtesy of Roman Sigaev - Fotolia.com

Air Power Park is dedicated to the vital role of aircraft and rockets in early American space exploration. There are indoor and outdoor exhibits of missiles, rockets, and fighter aircraft, including a Hawker Kestrel, a Phantom, a Voodoo, and a Mercury Capsule. Other exhibits in the museum focus on the different military branches of service, and there is a large collection of Balsa wood aircraft models. Many of the exhibits are linked to the nearby Langley Air Force Base and the NASA Langley Research Center. Children are sure to enjoy the outdoor playground as well as the new Children's Room in the museum. 413 W. Mercury Blvd., Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-726-0650

-- "New cool stuff to do in Hampton, Virginia" -- "New cool stuff to do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top or Romantic Getaways

11. Hampton Carousel, Hampton, Virginia  Courtesy of Hampton Carousel - Fotolia.com

The Hampton Carousel was built in 1920, and it originally sat in the now-defunct Buckroe Beach Amusement Park. Immigrant artisans from Russia, Italy, and Germany hand carved the forty-eight horses from hardwood and lovingly painted them. The original mirrors and oil paintings that adorned the carousel at its beginning are still extant, and the whole carousel has been carefully renovated and touched up. It now sits in its own air-conditioned weather-resistant pavilion in Carousel Park, which is on Hampton's downtown waterfront within walking distance of many fine restaurants and shops. The carousel is open year round, and both adults and children may ride. 602 Settlers Landing Road, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-727-1610



12. What to Do Near Me: St. George Brewing Company, Hampton, Virginia  St. George Brewing Company

The St. George Brewing Company is named for the third century Roman soldier who, in popular mythology, slew a fire-breathing dragon. For that act, he has become the patron saint of England and of chivalry. The beer brewed here proudly uses the Cross of St. George to adorn their labels. The brewery makes twenty-two varieties of ale, bock, and stout, and tours are available. The owner or his son lead the tours, taking visitors through the whole brewing process. Afterwards, visitors can enjoy trying different beers in the tasting room, often in the company of the brew master. On Tuesday and Friday night, the brewery arranges for a food truck to pull up and serve brewery guests tacos and burritos. 204 Challenger Way, Hampton, VA 23666, Phone: 757-865-7781



13. What to Do Near Me: The Woodlands Golf Course, Hampton, VA  The Woodlands Golf Course

Built in 1916, the Woodlands Golf Course is one of the oldest in the United States. A local favorite, The Woodlands is a challenging course with water on eleven of its holes and fifty-two sand bunkers. The greens are bentgrass, while the fairways and rough are Bermuda grass. The Woodlands is an 18-hole, par 69, 5,900-yard course. The clubhouse has an excellent restaurant, The Grille at The Woodlands, which serves breakfast and lunch daily. There is also a pro shop that sells men's and ladies' golf apparel and accessories. Golf clubs and carts are available for rent. The clubhouse also has an 18-seat conference room that it lends out to community groups. 9 Woodland Road, Hampton, VA 23663, Phone: 757-727-1195



14. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Captain Hogg's Charter Fishing  Courtesy of sherryvsmith - Fotolia.com



Visitors who would like to try their hand at Atlantic fishing need look no further than Captain Chandler Hogg, his professional and helpful crew, and his forty-foot custom fishing boat the Smoking Gun. The boat, which carries up to 32 passengers, cruises lower Chesapeake Bay to find the fish; Captain Hogg always knows where to look. Potential catches include cobia, grey trout, striped bass, black drum, red drum, flounder, bluefish, sheepshead, tautog, Spanish mackerel, and spadefish. In order for visitors to spend less time traveling and more time fishing, the Smoking Gun cruises at a speedy 26 knots. Back at the shore, the crew will clean and filet your fish so that all you need to do at home is put it on the grill. 101 S. King Street, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-876-1590

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top or Amazing things to do around me

15. Things to Do Near Me: Fort Wool, Hampton, Virginia  Courtesy of Leonid Andronov - Fotolia.com



Fort Wool is a manmade island fortress in the Hampton harbor named for Major General John Wool, a war hero and commander of Fort Monroe. Fort Monroe is directly across the bay from Fort Wool. Originally, it was meant to serve as another line of defense against enemy attacks on the harbor. It saw action in the American Civil War and was armed in both World Wars. Built in 1826, it was used by President Andrew Jackson as his White House. Broken-hearted and in ill health after the his wife's death, he built himself a hut there, met with advisers, made key policy decisions, and watched the ships in the bay. Later, President John Tyler used Fort Wool for the same reason. The fort is accessible only by boat; it can be visited as part of the Miss Hampton II's harbor cruise or by private vessel.



16. Things to Do Near Me: Gosnold's Hope Park, Hampton, VA  hamptonbmx/Facebook



Gosnold's Hope Park is a 105-acre development in Hampton with a multitude of facilities. There are eight picnic shelters with tables and grills; campsites with electricity, water, a picnic table, charcoal grill, and shower access; and a public boat ramp, restrooms, athletic fields, a fitness trail, and a children's playground. It also has a BMX SuperTrack open for annual membership and licensed by USABMX. It supplies bikes and gear to its members and arranges tournaments on its banked and winding course. 901 E. Little Back River Road, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-850-5116



17. Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia: Grandview Nature Preserve  visithamptonva/Facebook



Grandview Nature Preserve is a quiet, practically unknown spot with 475 acres of salt marsh and tidal creeks and two and a half miles of unspoiled beach on Chesapeake Bay. The sandy shores are great for beachcombers who love shells and sea glass, which it has in plenty. Hikers like the half-mile trail across the tidal marshlands to the pile of rubble that was once a lighthouse before it fell victim to a hurricane in 1956. There is great fishing from the shores of the park; a valid saltwater fishing license is required. Canoeing and hiking programs are offered for those who would like to know more about the woodland birds and other creatures that inhabit the wetlands here. State Park Drive, Hampton, VA 23664, Phone: 757-850-5134

-- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" -- You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia" Back to Top

18. Things to Do Near Me: Little England Chapel, Hampton, VA  HamptonVA/Facebook



The Little England Chapel, built in 1879, is Virginia's only African-American Missionary chapel. Started as a Sunday school, the establishment witnessed an increase in church attendance. Services were first held in an outside arbor, and the growth led to the building of a church to accommodate its more than 500 members. The church had a thriving Sunday school whose children were becoming missionaries, and it was also a community center for social activities. The Little England Chapel was in use until 1989. Now a museum, the building has an exhibit about black settlements in Virginia after the Civil War, handwritten Sunday School lessons, 19th century religious books, and an informative 12-minute video. 4100 Kecoughtan Road, Hampton, VA 23669, Phone: 757-722-4249



19. Things to Do Near Me: Bethel Paintball, Hampton, VA  Bethel Paintball



Bethel Paintball aims to give its guests the most exciting, safest, and most age-appropriate paintball experience. Several different of play are offered: PeeWee Paintball doesn't hurt at all, Low Impact Paintball is only mildly painful, while Traditional Paintball results in a sting for a minute or two after impact. The company offers a diverse menu of paintball games: the most commonly known Capture the Flag, as well as Domination, Freeze Tag, Protect the President, and Terrorist on the Bus. Bethel Paintball specializes in birthday parties for all ages, and for every party a referee is present so that each group remains together and does not get fired on by different parties. 123 Saunders Road, Hampton, VA 23666, Phone: 757-488-2501



25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia

You are reading "25 Best Things to Do in Hampton, Virginia " Back to Top


Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page.

Loading...

Checking your browser before accessing the website.

This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly.

Please wait a few seconds.
HCM CITY  The Australian Government, through its Aus4Vietnam investment  Aus4Skills, on December 14 launched the pilot Logistics Industry Reference Council to promote industry linkages with vocational education and training in partnership with its Vietnamese counterpart.

The council aims to draw on the example of Australias vocational education and training system and adapt it to Viet Nams context with stronger engagement with the business community.

Karen Lanyon, the Australian consul general in HCM City, said: Australia is recognised as the worlds leader in industry-led vocational education.

Australia is happy to share its expertise to help Viet Nam develop a system that would increase its productivity and support its economic growth, she said.

Its system, developed over a number of decades, is underpinned by a national framework of skills standards developed through a process of consultation with industry, and this ensures training standards are of a high quality and meet the workforce development needs of industry, enterprises and individuals, she added.

Nguyen Hong Minh, head of the General Directorate of Vocational Training, said Viet Nams logistics sector is facing a shortage of quality human resources and needs co-operation in training between the Government, universities, businesses and business groups.

In 2017-20 the country needs around 20,000 people a year with skills including English, and the number is expected to surge to 200,000 by 2030.

Only 22 schools out of a total of more than 1,000 universities, vocational schools and logistics training establishments offer logistics training, and they produce 1,500-2,000 graduates a year, he said.

Nguyen Van Lam, deputy director of the city Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the city has a total of 74 large and small ports that handle more than 350,000 tonnes of goods a year.

There are nearly 400,000 people working in the logistics sector in the city, and re-training them in addition to training new workers is necessary, he said.

Therefore, the Aus4Skills project -- which will run until 2020 -- is very important for developing skilled human resources for the logistics sector, he said.

In 2018-20, HCM City plans to focus on developing human resources for this sector by using teachers trained under the Aus4Skills project, he said.

According to World Bank rankings, Viet Nam is 64th out of 160 countries in the world and fourth in ASEAN behind Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in logistics development.

With average growth of 16-20 per cent a year, logistics has been a steadily growing service in Viet Nam in the past few years.  VNS




Vietnam Airlines will offer 1,100 more flights to meet travel demand during the upcoming Tet holiday. Photo thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn

HA NOI  Vietnam Airlines will offer 1,100 more flights to meet travel demand during the upcoming Tet holiday.

The flagship carrier said in its latest press release that it will run additional flights from January 31 to March 2 on the 15 domestic routes with strong air travel demand. More than 220,000 extra seats will be made available, bringing a total seats for the period to nearly 1.5 million.

Earlier this week, the carrier also launched a promotion programme for domestic flights around Tet, the nations largest holiday.

According to the promotion, a return ticket for flights between Ha Noi, Vinh, Hai Phong, Thanh Hoa and HCM City are priced from VN999,000 (US$44).

The return ticket price for flights between a Nang, Hue, Quy Nhon and HCM City is set from VN599,000 while those for flights between Buon Ma Thuot, Pleiku and HCM City are priced from VN399,000.

The sale programme is open from December 11 to December 31, 2017.

The promotion applies to customers booking one-way tickets from February 8, 2018 to February 16, 2018, and return tickets from February 7 to March 2, 2018.  VNS
HA NOI  The Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA) will co-ordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to protect the legitimate rights and interests of local steelmakers who were recently accused of tax evasion by the US Department of Commerce (DOC).

The decision, made by the DOC last week, would involve the imposition of anti-dumping measures and anti-subsidy rates on corrosion-resistant (CORE) and cold-rolled steel from Viet Nam.

In 2016, US steelmakers succeeded in persuading the DOC to impose anti-dumping (AD) and countervail (CV) duties on Chinese steel, which meant cold-rolled steel from China would be subject to 265.79 per cent AD and 256.44 per cent CV duties when exported to the US.

AD and CV duties of 199.46 per cent and 39.05 per cent, respectively, were applied to corrosion-resistant steel from China.

DOC argued that Chinese products are being dumped in third-party countries, such as Viet Nam, to circumvent these duties, leading to last weeks decision.

Although the product was only processed in Viet Nam, the commerce department agreed with the claims of American producers that as much as 90 per cent of the products value originated from China.

Following the case, VSA said it was working with the Department of Trade Defence under the Ministry of Industry and Trade to follow developments relating to the ruling and to take the necessary measures in defense of local steelmakers in accordance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) regulations.

According to the VSA, the process of making corrosion-resistant or cold-rolled steel by Vietnamese businesses is a crucial step in the closed-loop manufacturing of high-quality flat steel bars, with factories in Viet Nam receiving investment to the tune of hundreds of millions of US dollars.

The cold-rolling process generates between 30 and 40 per cent added value to imported hot-rolled coil from China, VSA argues, dismissing the claim by US authorities that the vast majority of the value of Vietnamese steel originates in China.

In addition, VSA said, the US had yet to put a regulation in place regarding the required added value content of exports from Viet Nam, making it difficult for Vietnamese steelmakers affected by the decision to respond.

In a release on its website, DOC said importers and exporters of Vietnamese merchandise that is produced from substrate originating in Viet Nam or a third country have the option of seeking an exemption from cash deposits by certifying that the substrate originated outside of China.

DOC statistics showed that shipments of CORE from Viet Nam to the US increased from US$2 million to $80 million after preliminary duties were imposed on Chinese products in 2015.

Likewise, shipments of cold-rolled steel from Viet Nam to the US increased from $9 million to $215 million after the duties were imposed.

DOC is currently scheduled to announce its final determinations in these inquiries on February 16, 2018.

The case was initiated in September when US steel producers, including ArcelorMittal USA, Nucor Corp, AK Steel Holdings Corp and Steel Corp, filed lawsuits in which they claimed Chinese steel producers shipped products via Viet Nam to evade tariffs.

In November, the European Unions anti-fraud office said it found Chinese steel was shipped through Viet Nam to evade the blocs tariffs.  VNS
HA NOI  BIDV Securities JSC (BSC) intends to go through with a public offering on December 29 under the stock code BSI.

Earlier this month, BSC said it would put up to 10 million common shares on offer at the Hanoi Stock Exchange, starting at VN10,000 (44 US cents) per share.

This put the upcoming public offerings value at about 9 per cent of BSCs charter capital of VN929 billion ($41.3 million), as of the third quarter of this year.

BSC wants to increase its charter capital by VN146 billion ($6.5 million) to more than VN1 trillion ($44.5 million), through the next offering and an additional 4.6 million share issuance on Friday to pay off its 2017 dividend.

At the moment, BSC has more than 92 million common shares on the market and 5,149 treasury shares, at the book price of VN12,134 (54 US cents) per share.

BSC said the maximum purchase for foreign investors was no more than 10 million shares.

The deadline for investors registration is December 27.

As a subsidiary of the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV), up to 88.12 per cent of BSCs charter capital is held by the BIDV, while another 7.86 per cent is owned by Finnish PYN Elite Fund.

By 2017s third quarter, BSCs owners equity has reached VN1.09 trillion ($48.5 million), post-tax income at VN119 billion ($5.3 million) and an earning per share of VN1,330 (5 US cents).

BSC operates in securities brokerage, underwriting, investment advisory, and derivatives trading.

The company 2016s revenue structure included 56.7 per cent from investment activities, 20.9 per cent from brokerage activities, 15.5 per cent from securities investment loans, and the rest from other operations.  VNS
HA NOI  Authorities in the southern province of Kien Giangs Phu Quoc District urged careful consideration to be given to decisions regarding land purchases.

This consideration comes amidst a land price fever heating up in the island district over prospects that it would become a special administrative economic unit.

According to Huynh Quang Hung, deputy chairman of the Phu Quoc Peoples Committee, land prices in Phu Quoc rose by around 80-90 per cent in November.

The land prices were pushed up rapidly due to information that the island district would be developed into a special administrative economic unit with a casino going to be put into operation and a number of investors planning to pump money here.

Buyers were mainly from HCM City and Ha Noi.

Land prices in advantageous locations for the hotel or restaurant business in ong Duong Town were reportedly traded at around VN50 billion (US$2.2 million) for 1,000sq.metres.

In the north of the island, such as Cua Duong, Cua Can, Bai Thom and Ganh Dau communes, land prices were traded at around VN3.5 billion for 1,000sq.metres, while in areas near the airport and beaches, the prices were around VN8-15 billion for 1,000sq.metres.

Le Quang Minh, head of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, was quoted by Lao ong (Labourer) newspaper saying that there were land slots for which ownership was transferred dozens of times in a short period.

This pushed up land prices far beyond the real value, he said.

The district authorities said that buyers should think carefully before making any land purchase decision and should not chase after the land price fever, adding that many areas were included in the planning and might not be granted permits for building hotels or restaurants.

The Peoples Committee also said that it would introduce strict measures to better manage land transactions in the island to stabilise prices, prevent speculation and handle illegal land appropriation.  VNS
HCM CITY  The Danish Week  Sustainable City Solutions hosted by the Danish embassy in Ha Noi and the HCM City University of Architecture began in HCM City on Thursday.

Denmark is among the worlds leading nations in terms of green technology and green growth is an important area in the comprehensive co-operation agreement between the Vietnamese and Danish governments, Charlotte Laursen, the Scandinavian countrys ambassador to Viet Nam, said.

The event seeks to bring together policy makers, climate and urban-planning experts and green technology companies to discuss challenges facing urban areas in the context of climate change, she said.

It would also be a platform for the two sides to share lessons and exchange ideas and measures to build green and sustainable cities, she added.

Nguyen Thanh Nha, director of the citys Department of Planning and Architecture, said the city is deeply committed to sustainable development goals.

His department encourages the use of eco-friendly designs and technologies for construction, he said.

However, the city lacks experience, good practices and certain resources required for green growth and sustainable solutions.

Mogens Nielsen, head of the technical services and environment department of Denmarks Aarhus City, said his city too faces some urban issues similar to HCM Citys such as flooding, saltwater intrusion, land subsidence, and poor quality of surface water.

To tackle these issues, Aarhus focuses on ecological, social and economic sustainability in its master planning, he said.

It always involves the public in urban planning processes, he told Viet Nam News.

For example, if we want to fill a pond in the city or cut trees, we will open a public hearing to tell everyone about the effects and consequences of the tasks. If they are against the proposals, we will not do it.

People are very aware of their surroundings and, after all, the environment belongs to the citizens, and so their opinions should be respected, he said.

Besides, raising public awareness of the issue is important and has to start at a very young age, he said.

As part of the school programme, children are taken to visit water treatment plants. We will explain to them the importance and value of having clean water to drink out of the tap. Not everywhere in the world people can drink tap water.

Legislation is an effective measure to encourage people to follow environment-friendly practices, one of which is reducing the use of cars, he said.

It is very expensive to buy a car in Denmark and it is very expensive to park in the city.

If people spend the same amount of time to travel by car and by bus from home to work, they would choose the cheaper option, he said.

The event, which will run until December 21, also features an exhibition on best Danish sustainable architectural designs and city development projects.  VNS
HA NOI  The latest and most outstanding plays of the Viet Nam National Drama Theatre are being staged locally to celebrate its 65th anniversary.

The special plays include Kieu, an adaptation of The Tale of Kieu by one of Viet Nams greatest poets, Nguyen Du; Hong Lau Mong (The Dream of the Red Chamber), adapted from one of Chinas four great classical novels; the world masterpiece Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare and the war-themed Bao To Truong Son (Truong Son Storms), which takes the setting in the war-torn Truong Son trail.

The theatre received the coveted Labour Order, First Class on December 14.

Since its establishment in 1952, Viet Nam National Drama Theatre has released hundreds of plays, many of which won gold and silver medals in domestic and international competitions and festivals and became classical works of Vietnamese drama. They include Hon Truong Ba, Da Hang Thit (Truong Bas Soul in a Butchers Body), Lau ai Cat (Sand Castle), Tai Bien (Accident), Ngheu So Oc Hen (The Stories of the Clam, Oyster, Snail, Mussel).

The theatre is also home to leading artists in Vietnamese drama, including The Lu, Song Kim, Truc Quynh, Tran Tien and Pham Bang. It also hosts 25 peoples artists and nearly 60 meritorious artists, top artistic titles for living artists granted by the Government.

The Viet Nam National Drama Theatre will create plays on diverse topics, from the adaptations of the world classics to the works that touch the current issues of todays life, like corruption, traffic safety, family issues and education to serve the local and international audience, said Deputy Director of the Viet Nam National Drama Theatre, Pham Anh Tu at the awards ceremony on December 14.

The special plays will be staged at Viet Nam National Drama Theatre until next Friday.  VNS
By Khanh Van

The images of a badly abused and injured 10-year-old boy in Ha Nois Cau Giay District, released early this month, shocked the nation.

Doctors said the boy whod escaped two years of torture, had a fractured skull and four cracked ribs.

The feelings of shock, anguish and anger were magnified when it became known that the serious injuries were inflicted by none other than the boys parents  his father and stepmother.

For years, the father and stepmother beat up the child, kept him locked in their rented apartment, starved him and heaped other abuses. They did not even send him to school, depriving the child of another fundamental right.

They often gave me no food and did not let me go outside to play. I havent had a proper meal for two years and there were many nights I had to sleep on the floor with only a thin blanket, the boy told the media.

The fate of the boy if his plight had not been exposed when it was does not bear imagining.

What should give us grave pause, amidst our despair, is that this is not an isolated case, hence it becomes a very urgent task that we find out why this atrocity happens. The abuse of children by anyone is unacceptable, but when parents do it, it becomes unbearable.

The plight of the boy in Cau Giay District was still fresh in the mind when reports surfaced on Wednesday about another boy, in Ha Nois ong Anh District, being beaten by his own father with electric wires for months, leaving him black and blue all over.

Three years ago, a four-year-old girl in Binh Duong Province sustained brain injuries from her parents beatings. In the most tragic case, an eight-year-boy in Bac Ninh Province died in 2014 after being hit by his father.

Where does such inhumanity stem from? This is a question we have to look at seriously.

The first thing that comes to mind is the mindset that normalizes some violence against children, the spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child outlook that is still quite popular in the country. It seems to be a fair guess that most parents have beaten their children at some time or another, mostly as a disciplining measure, for their own good, of course. And this reasoning also applies to scolding or nagging. It is time that we recognise this as unacceptable abuse that the child does not deserve.

According to research conducted in 2005 by the Population, Family and Children Scientific Institute and Swedish Save the Children, 37 per cent of parents scolded, 29 per cent used corporal punishment, and 20 per cent verbally abused a child if he/she made a mistake.

Several years ago, five children in Thai Binh Province committed suicide and left a note saying that they did not want to live because they were continuously insulted by parents at home and received sarcastic remarks frequently from teachers at schools.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs announced in June that the rate of children suffering violence in their homes ranks the highest, at 63.2 per cent, three times that of schools at 20.1 per cent.

According to Government data, more than 2,000 children in Viet Nam suffer serious abuse that requires special help and interventions every year.

The case of the boy in Cau Giay District highlights another problem that is rising  divorce. There are enough studies that show the impacts of children when their parents get divorced. Many end up suffering physical abuse in addition to the mental trauma they have to endure for no fault of their own.

Le Thi Quy, head of the Institute for Gender and Development, has said that there is nowhere in the world that divorces have such a bad, heart-breaking impact on children as in Viet Nam.

Many people consider their former partners enemies after getting divorced and the weapons they use to hurt others were their own children, she said. In many cases, fathers have vented their anger on their own children, she said. This is not to mention the discrimination that children often suffer at the hands of stepmothers or stepfathers.

Given the constantly increasing divorce rate in Viet Nam over the last two decades of so, child abuse, obvious and subtle, could well become an even more frequent occurrence.

Returning once again to the boy from Cau Giay District, his biological mother claimed she only knew about her sons fate after his abuse was publicised. That a mother has no idea how her son was living for over two years despite living in the same city is difficult to believe. She explained that her ex-husband found many ways to not let her meet her son.

Personally, this is not an acceptable excuse. As the mother of two children, I would not be able to bear not knowing about them for a few hours.

We need to change, as a society. We are a society that values and cherishes children, but we should do much more to protect them. Children who are beaten or excessively controlled at home tend to suffer from greater stress, anxiety and self esteem. Studies have shown that there is a great deal of shame associated with the experience of violence at home.

Besides, violence against children is also believed to sow the seeds of cruelty in them. A high rate of juvenile offenders is often a result of violence at home. According to a survey by the Ministry of Public Security, 50 per cent of children at rehabilitation and reeducation centres have suffered prolonged harsh punishments from parents. Up to 23 per cent of them were beaten by fathers.

It is not a pleasant cliche, but a serious truism that children are our future. As a society, we should adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards any kind of violence against children. Without this, all the legal steps taken against offending parents will not have much impact.

Every child who is abused is likely to suffer lifelong trauma, despite all the love she or he might receive after the abuse stops.

It is simply time to spare the rod forever and ever.  VNS
HCM CITY  The Vietnamese Catholic community has contributed greatly to the countrys economy, education, health, culture and social charity works, priest Tran Xuan Manh, chairman and General Secretary of the Viet Nam Committee for Catholic Solidarity (VCCS), said at a meeting held on December 14 in HCM City.

He said that Vietnamese Catholics were proud of the countrys great achievements in the past years.

Also speaking at the meeting, priest Duong Phu Oanh, vice chairman of VCCS, said the committee would continue to promote the patriotic movement, charitable activities, education, healthcare and socio-economic development programmes.

On behalf of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee, VFF Vice Chairman Ngo Sach Thuc sent his best wishes to Vietnamese Catholics.

Thuc said he highly appreciated the achievements that the committee had gained over the past years and said he believed that the committee would help further the development of the country and unity among all people.

He said the Party and State respected freedom of religion and recognised it as a legitimate need.

He said he highly valued contributions from the Catholic community in the nations development and that he hoped people from all backgrounds and religions in the country would show their solidarity and strive for political stability.

The vice chairman presented the Great National Unity Orders to committee members.

Headquartered in Ha Noi, VCCS, a social organisation and a member of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, operates under Viet Nams constitution and the laws and the pastoral direction of Viet Nam Catholic Bishops Conference.  VNS
HA NOI  General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong lauded the contributions of Vietnamese veterans to national defence and nation-construction progress, urging them to continue to uphold their role in protecting the fruits of the revolution.

He spoke at the sixth National Congress of the Viet Nam War Veterans Association (VWVA) for the 2017-22 period that officially opened in Ha Noi on December 14. The event was also attended by President Tran ai Quang, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan.

The Party chief stressed that as a group of those who withstood the test of revolutions and resistance wars, the VWVA must continue implementing its most important task of protecting the achievements of the revolution, helping to defeat hostile forces schemes and actively participating in building and protecting the Party, the State, people and the socialist system.

General Secretary Trong asked the association to actively join the fight against corruption and wastefulness, as well as in efforts to build an upstanding Party and administration.

The veterans, with their political zeal and experience, should work to educate young generations in traditions and revolutionary heroism, while setting good examples for their families and descendants, he said.

VWVA President Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Van uoc said in his opening speech that in the 2012-17 period, the association gained significant achievements in implementing the resolution of the fifth congress.

The association has seen steady growth in terms of members and performance, uoc said, affirming that it has become a prestigious socio-political organisation and an active member of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front.

Besides political tasks, the association also encouraged its members to engage in economic activities. Veteran-run enterprises and cooperatives have created jobs for 703,000 veterans, their children and beneficiary families.

Heads of the Cambodian and Lao delegations of war veterans spoke highly of the achievements the VWVA has made over the past tenure and expressed their hope that the association will continue thriving, contributing to the friendship, solidarity and co-operation between the VWVA and its Lao and Cambodian counterparts.  VNS
HA NOI  The Viet Nam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei is actively coordinating with officials from Chinas Taiwan to carry out search and rescue activities and provide information on Vietnamese workers trapped in a fire in Taiwan on December 14.

Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam Le Thi Thu Hang made the statement at a regular press conference in Ha Noi in response to reporters queries about the accident, which occurred in the city of Taoyuan.

Hang said that the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei sent officials to the scene and conducted all necessary citizen protection measures.

We hope to receive more detailed information about the names of the victims at the end of this day, she added.

According to preliminary information from Taiwans relevant agencies, as of noon on December 14, two out of the five injured Vietnamese workers were discharged from hospital while six others are still unaccounted for.

The Vietnamese spokesperson also answered reporters queries about the information that the Philippines has exhumed a cadaver that is supposedly the remains of Pham Minh Tuan, captain of ship Royal 16, who was kidnapped in the Philippines on November 11, 2016.

The exhumation was made at the request of the Vietnamese Embassy in the Philippines, she said.

The exhumation was conducted on December 8 in Jolo, the capital of Sulu province, in the Philippines.

The two countries relevant agencies are implementing DNA testing. If the remains are confirmed to be Tuans, Vietnamese authorities will carry out all necessary procedures to bring his body home, Hang said.

Royal 16, with 19 crew members aboard, was carrying cement from Viet Nams northeastern province of Quang Ninh to the Philippines when it was attacked by pirates.

The pirates kept six crew members, including the captain, as hostages and released the remainder.

The Philippine authorities said Royal 16 was attacked by an armed group while sailing 20km off Basilan island, a bastion of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group.

Two crew members, including a wounded person, escaped and were rescued by another boat. The armed group ran away with the hostages.  VNS
At the national platform on Women Business Start-ups: Innovation and Connection, speakers discussed challenges and opportunities as well as policy solutions to boost female entrepreneurship and promote gender equality in the business field. Photo kinhtedothi.vn

HA NOI  While the profile of Vietnamese businesswomen has been raised significantly in recent years with the emergence of leaders in certain sectors, budding women entrepreneurs still have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.

Experts and officials said at a meeting in Ha Noi on Deecember 14 that women still experienced very limited access to credit and technology despite contributing significantly to national growth.

At the national platform on Women Business Start-ups: Innovation and Connection, speakers discussed challenges and opportunities as well as policy solutions to boost female entrepreneurship and promote gender equality in the business field.

The platform was organised by the Viet Nam Womens Union (VWU) and the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation.

Nguyen Van Binh, chairman of the Party Central Committees Commission for Economic Affairs, stressed the importance role women have to play in boosting business start-ups in the country.

Women-led enterprises and households have greatly contributed to economic development, been a significant income source and created millions of jobs, he said.

More and more Vietnamese women entrepreneurs have been ranked among the most powerful women in Asia by prestigious international organisations, Binh said.

But other speakers said women faced major challenges including gender norms, limited access to resources and markets because of insufficient collateral as well as lack of skills and knowledge of corporate governance, finance and marketing.

Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, VWU chairwoman, said The proportion of women-led large enterprises has gradually decreased, accounting for 19.8 per cent, and the number of women-led science and technology businesses is still limited.

In addition, the percentage of female start-ups with more than three people is just 5.5 per cent, compared to 15.7 per cent for men, she said.

While the Government has promulgated numerous incentive policies to support women in business, implementation has been weak and lacked necessary guidance, Ha said.

Delegates agreed that the platform was a good place for line ministries and aspiring female entrepreneurs to exchange knowledge and experiences, especially in terms of difficulties and obstacles in production and business and related policies, mechanisms and transactions with State management agencies from national to local levels.

The platform also marked the official kick-off of the National Women-led Business Start-up Programme, which will be implemented by the VWU between 2017 and 2025.

The programme aims to boost women entrepreneurship and innovation in all 63 provinces and cities in the country.

It will enable the VWU to strengthen its bridging role in supporting start-ups by women and encouraging their development, especially in agriculture and other areas linked to climate change adaptation, the meeting heard.

Success story

One of the businesswomen attending the meeting was Nguyen Thi Ha, who expressed pride and happiness in helping many women earn stable incomes, either from their farms or through regular jobs with consolidated farms.

Ha, who is director of the Thanh Hung Agricultural Service and Integrated Business Co-operative in Thanh Hung Commune, Thach Thanh District in the central province of Thanh Hoa, said they have received active support from local authorities and high commitment from its members to function as an effective economic model.

This has helped Thanh Hung become just one of five communes in the district be recognised as new-style rural commune, she said.

The Thanh Hung co-operative was founded in September 2014. With seed funding from the Viet Nam Womens Union that was invested in high capacity tractors, and contributions from 33 members of whom six are ethnic minority women, the co-operative has taken big strides forward, Ha said.

The co-operative prioritises the timely provision of land preparation services and other inputs including pesticides and rice seedlings to members at favourable prices, she said.

It also offers extension services and annually leases 200ha of land to farmers.

Constant attention by the board of directors to the needs of members was the key factor in the co-operatives success, Ha said.

The co-operative has also created jobs for 15 women by connecting them with other large-scale agricultural farms in the commune.

Thus co-operative members are highly motivated to contribute, she said.

Building on its initial success, the co-operative is now developing the Hy Thiem herbal production area, complying with good agricultural practices (GAP).

Development of the herbal production area is an innovative initiative and expected to bring sustainable economic development for members, Ha said.

Due to all of the aforementioned efforts, co-operative members have stable annual incomes of VN50-70 million (US$2,200-3,100).  VNS
Themed Miracle on Han River to Miracle on Red River, the forum enabled in-depth discussion among experts of both countries of policies to develop human resources.  Photo vtv.vn

HA NOI  Education and investment in human resources (HR) are the driving force for economic development, HR experts and educators from Viet Nam and the Republic of Korea (RoK) agreed at the Global HR Forum held in Ha Noi on December 14.

Themed Miracle on Han River to Miracle on Red River, the forum enabled in-depth discussion among experts of both countries of policies to develop human resources.

Hoang Quang Phong, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that according to International Labour Organisation, 86 per cent of labourers in the countrys textile and footwear sectors are at risk of future unemployment because of technological breakthroughs brought by the Fourth Industrial Revolution that will automate their jobs.

Meanwhile, the demand for jobs in the sectors of electricity, information technology, electronics and mechanics is growing. The system of professional trainings will be comprehensively impacted by this trend, he said.

Jaime Saavedra, senior director for the Education Global Practice of the World Bank, said that automation poses new challenges to governments seeking to equip their citizens with skills for employment.

Automation is expected to significantly disrupt labour markets as many jobs disappear. Yet some other jobs such as teachers, psychologists and nurses cannot easily be automated. Some workers whose jobs cannot be automated, such as hairdressers and surgeons, will find that technology will make their jobs more productive, he said.

In the same way that technology destroys jobs, technology also creates jobs, he said. The ability of workers to compete with automation requires a strong educational system. The challenges for the educational system are now much more complex than what we tend to recognise.

He emphasised three skills that individuals need in order to take advantage of technological progress. They are technical skills, socio-emotional skills and foundational skills, meaning literacy and numeracy.

Jobs that require high socio-emotional skills such as nurses and social workers are growing. We need to teach our children and youth how to navigate interpersonal and socio-emotional challenges effectively, with the ability to overcome obstacles, be reliable, good at teamwork, communication, leadership and self-control. Most important is that they learn how to learn, he said.

Viet Nam has a high level of commitment to investing in general education, he said. Many countries, including Viet Nam, should follow the path of RoK and provide 12 years of high quality education and build a world-class university system like Koreas, he said.

Yoon Dae Hee, former minister of Policy Coordination of RoK, said that RoK regards exports and quality and quantity of human resources as the driving force of its economic development strategy.

From a country which developed light industry in the 1960s with a low-skilled labour force from rural areas, RoK has shifted to a knowledge-based economy that develops human resources for the information technology sector.

He said that the RoK Government will provide training to low-income people and pay attention to both quality and quantity of human resources.

The RoK, specifically the Korea International Cooperation Agency, will continue its non-refundable assistance for Viet Nam for human resource development, he said.

To increase labour productivity, Viet Nam needs to train labourers with relevant skills in each sector and increase the number of people receiving training at universities and vocational schools. In particular, vulnerable groups such as women and low-income people should not miss opportunities, he said.

"Miracle on Han River" refers to the economic development plan of the RoK, based on achievements in technology, education and urbanisation. The plan has transformed RoK from a country heavily devastated by the war in the 1950s into one of the worlds biggest economies.  VNS
HA NOI  In May, Tran Thien An from the southern province of Bac Lieu was sentenced to eight years in prison for raping a 12-year-old he met via the internet.

Living in HCM City, the child, N, met An on social media in October 2016. At the end of the month, An asked N to visit his house in Bac Lieu Province, where the two had sexual intercourse.

Ans crime is one of many cases of wrongdoing and fraud facilitated by social media. With 70 per cent of the population having access to the internet and 53 million people on Facebook, Viet Nam faces many challenges in ensuring people, especially children, are safe on the internet.

In 2013, social media users were enraged by a young mother in central a Nang City, who took advantage of her sons congenital heart defect to fraudulently raise money.

The mother, Nguyen Tran Hoai Tham, posted about her sons condition on her Facebook account and asked for donations from social media users for his surgery. It was reported that only a quarter of the VN200 million (US$8,860) that Tham received was spent on the surgery. She used the remaining amount to buy expensive phones and tablets for herself.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Ha Noi last month, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan said that the rise of false information that elicits hatred and violence and hurts the nations unity has rendered the negative effects of social media undeniable. But ultimately, the actions and claims of wrongdoers are more important than the mediums by which they are delivered, he said.

Social media should be considered a tool, a road used by both travellers and thieves, he said. Their attitude is the heart of all problems.

False, misleading information mostly appears on foreign social media platforms, Minister Tuan added. Because social media can seem distant from concrete reality, social media users think they have the freedom to say anything without taking responsibility for it, he said.

Vietnamese social media users are also threatened by cyber attacks. They are among those with the lowest awareness of cyber risks in the world, said Deputy Prime Minister Vu uc am.

International surveys showed that while 60 per cent of people in other countries are aware of the risks of being attacked by malicious software, only 11 per cent of Vietnamese are, he said.

Raising awareness

Dr inh Thi Thuy Hang, director of the Press Training Centre under the Viet Nam Journalists Association, said that it is necessary to establish regulations on social media use and teach them to children.

For example, Do not use social media to spread gossip and cruel rumours about each other, she said at a conference on communication crises in social media in Ha Noi last month. Schools and families should make stronger efforts to educate young social media users on these matters."

To manage information on social media more effectively, the information ministry recently requested foreign social media companies comply with Viet Nams regulations and remove false information that harms the country.

In particular, it has requested the video sharing website Youtube remove about 5,000 videos with inappropriate content, said Information Minister Truong Minh Tuan.

The ministry will revise its legal documents to ensure stricter measures against cyber fraudulence, he added. It will focus on promoting Vietnamese social media platforms in the coming time, he said.  VNS
CAN THO  The Peoples Court in Mekong Deltas Can Tho City sentenced one foreigner and three Vietnamese to prison for cheating 37 people of some VN5.3 billion (US$235,500) via social network Facebook.

Nigerian Micheal Ikechukwu Leonard, 45, head of the ring, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for appropriating property.

Huynh Ha Binh, 27, Nguyen Tran Quynh Nhi, 26, and Huynh Ha Uyen, 25, from HCM City, received 10-15 years in prison for the same crime, the online newspaper Vietnamplus reported.

The court has ordered them to return the money to the victims.

According to the indictment of the Peoples Procuracy of Can Tho City, in August 2014, Binh became acquainted with Leonard via the Internet. Binh then went to Cambodia, where they lived together as husband and wife. The couple opened clothing stores to sell products imported from Thailand, Indonesia and Viet Nam for sale in Cambodia and Nigeria.

In Cambodia, Micheal and Binh had a friend named Landlord (unknown origin) who joinied a fraud group to cheat people via Facebook.

In March 2015, the couple joined Landlords scam group.

Every day, Micheal sent messages to Vietnamese women, introducing himself as a rich man who had been unlucky in marriage. He used several foreign names and different personal information to cheat the women.

After a period of acquaintance, Micheal told the women he wanted to marry them and promised to give them valuable gifts such as laptops, mobile phones, jewellery, cosmetics and dollars.

Michael and his accomplices took pictures of the gifts and asked the girls to provide their addresses, and phone numbers to receive the gifts through the delivery company.

Binh, Uyen and Nhi used promotional phone numbers to call the victims to inform them of the gifts that were sent from abroad. They asked the victims to pay a fee to receive the gifts.

After the money was transferred, the swindlers ended all contact immediately.

By the end of March 2016, all the accused were arrested in HCM City. Police also seized Vietnamese currency, US dollars, mobile phones and iPads.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Health has asked the public to suspend the use and trade of several baby formula milk and baby food products made by French dairy giant Lactalis following concerns over salmonella contamination.

After receiving information that eight nutritional products of Lactalis were at risk of infection, the Food Safety Department requested the company that imports these products to determine the quantity imported by Viet Nam and recall the products immediately, Pham Viet Nga, the departments deputy head, said.

The import company was also required to report details of the recall to the ministry every day, she said.

Through inspection, the department discovered that eight batches of products susceptible to Salmonella Agona bacteria contamination had been imported into Viet Nam.

Earlier, the International Network of Food Safety Authorities (INFOSAN) warned that some cases of salmonella infection in infants were detected in France.

According to Nga, the department has also notified the customs and State inspection agencies at the border to carry out inspections on these products.

"Besides the at-risk products, we will also check other products to ensure the safety of consumers, Nga told the online newspaper Vietnamplus.

She also advised families who had used these products for a long time to take their children to nearby health facilities for medical checks in case they show signs of severe abdominal pain, diarrhoea and fever.

France has banned the sale and ordered the recall of several baby milk products of Lactalis globally after discovering 20 cases of salmonella infection in infants in France in early December, Reuters reported.

The recall includes products for export, including those sent to mainland China, Taiwan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, Morocco, Lebanon and Sudan, along with Romania, Serbia, Georgia, Greece, Haiti, Colombia and Peru.

Some were also destined for regional markets, including Africa and Asia.  VNS
HA NOI  The biggest national holiday  Tet or the Lunar New Year  will officially begin on February 14 and continue until February 20, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc announced on Friday.

Chairing a Government meeting on the holiday schedule of Government workers, PM Phuc agreed with the previous proposal of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, according to which workers will have seven days off for the upcoming New Year holidays.

The labour law regulates that workers can only take five days off for Tet. However, as two Tet days next year fall on the weekend, which are already off, the labour ministry suggested extending the official holiday by another two days.

Governmental organisations and agencies that do not have a regular weekend policy will adjust their holiday schedule themselves, Phuc said.

Phuc also decided on the holiday schedule for Independence Day during Fridays meeting. Accordingly, people will have two days off  on September 2 and 3.  VNS
NINH BINH  US travel site Insider has named Viet Nams northern province of Ninh Binh as one of the 50 best spots to visit in 2018.

The honour reflects the provinces mesmerising mix of rivers, limestone cliffs and paddy fields

Located 90km to the south of Ha Noi, Ninh Binh is often overlooked by tourists. It is sometimes referred to as Ha Long Bay on land, given the green mountains that rise out of its paddy fields.

Ninh Binh was one of the three locations for the movie Kong: Skull Island, one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of 2017.

Insider suggests visitors try the full experience by gliding along the river that runs between paddy fields in a traditional boat, explore caves in Cuc Phuong National Park, and visit ancient temples and palaces in the area.

The Insiders 2018 list spans Europe and includes some of the worlds biggest cities, such as Buenos Aires, Chicago, London, Mexico, New Orleans and New York. In Asia, it recommends Singapore, Sichuan in mainland China, Indonesias Raja Ampat Islands and Taipei.  VNS
PRESS RELEASE  Some of the oldest jet aircraft in existence will be flying over the flightline at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2018 as the worlds largest fly-in convention brings together a rarely-seen gathering of these early jets. The 66th annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in convention is July 23-29 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The event annually welcomes more than 10,000 airplanes and 500,000 people from 80 nations to celebrate the history and future of flight.

Among the airplanes expected to participate is a rare British Meteor, currently the oldest flying original jet in existence, which will arrive from the United Kingdom. British Venom and Vampire jets will be part of the gathering, as will American designs such as the T-33 Shooting Star and F-86 Sabre, as well as a Soviet-era MiG-17.

Classic jets have been part of the EAA AirVenture warbirds lineup for a number of year, but to include rare British aircraft such as the Meteor, Venom and Vampire makes the 2018 gathering even more special, said Rick Larsen, EAAs vice president of communities and member programs who coordinates AirVenture features and attractions. Many people have never seen some of these jets fly in-person, which is why bringing these airplanes together is another reason EAA AirVenture 2018 is a cant-miss event for aviation fans.

Oshkosh is known as the place where everything that flies is welcome and is appreciated by attendees, so to bring these rare jets to the AirVenture flightline is among the highlights of our odyssey to save, restore, and fly these magnificent airplanes. said Marty Tibbitts, President of the World Heritage Air Museum of Detroit, Michigan, which is bringing the British jets to Oshkosh in 2018. The museums mission is to rescue military jet aircraft from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Other early jet aircraft will be coming from members of the Classic Jet Aircraft Association as well as private owners throughout North America. These enthusiasts are encouraging all owners of vintage jet aircraft to fly to Oshkosh in 2018 to make this reunion one of the largest ones even undertaken.

The opportunity to be a part of the air shows and programming at Oshkosh is one that all classic jet owners should attend, said Zach McNeill, Classic Jet Aircraft Association president. These airplanes have unique histories and so many individual stories. The best place to share them is at Oshkosh, where worldwide aviation fans are eager to hear and appreciate more about these airplanes.

The F-86 and T-33 aircraft communities are also urging their members to bring their aircraft to AirVenture, where they will participate in the daily air shows, displays on the Boeing Plaza main showcase ramp, and up-close presentations as part of the Warbirds in Review program. Complete details, including air show participation, will be released as they are finalized.

Were looking to create a reunion of these legendary jets at Oshkosh that is rarely seen by the public, said Paul Keppeler, who owns and flies both a T-33 and F-86 jet aircraft. There is something about being part of the Oshkosh experience that creates unforgettable moments, and we want as many of these jets as possible to be there this coming summer.
WAVERLY  The Rev. Corey Smith is the new pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church.

The public is welcome to worship with Smith and the congregation on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, at 9:30 a.m. or 4, 7 or 10 p.m.

Smith began ministry in the congregation Dec. 1, following the interim ministry of the Rev. Nancy Larson. She had served the congregation since 2015.

There will be an installation at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 14.

Smith is married with four children. He has served Unity of the Cross Parish of Bremer County and also taught history and writing at Wartburg College.

WATERLOO  Crystal Cathedral of Faith Church, 3040 Hammond Ave., will host the annual Christmas dinner at 2 p.m. Sunday.

At 4 p.m., the Youth Ministry will present their Christmas celebration A King is Born! The Youth Ministry of Resurrection Church will be their guests.

The dinner and service are free and open to the public.

For additional information, call 610-2031. The Rev. Willie Campbell is the pastor.
WATERLOO  In a last-minute strategy shift, the attorney for a Waterloo woman accused of holding up a cellphone store withdrew his clients insanity defense Thursday.

Instead, Public Defender Ted Fisher argued prosecutors didnt prove the robber was armed during the heist at the San Marnan Drive iWireless store on Nov. 25, 2015.

Cheryl C.J. Wanchanic, 43, is charged with first-degree robbery, which denotes the use of a weapon.

Fisher said, at most, his client is guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree robbery, which involves taking property by threats or force while unarmed.

The stores lone employee on duty that night testified earlier in the trial a person dressed head to toe in all black had briefly opened a coat to flash a large knife and then told her an accomplice outside had a gun before looting the register and a safe.

Fisher said none of the stores four security cameras showed a knife.

Where on the video do we see that? Fisher asked during closing arguments on Thursday.

Nobody saw a weapon on the cameras, he said.

He also pointed to statements the worker made to police that the assailant was a man who had a gun or a knife and at one point said it was a machete.

Fisher said the employee was scared and thought the robber had a weapon.

Assistant County Attorney James Katcher said the quality of the video didnt pick up the knife, but he said the footage showed the robber hold her hands to her chest as if opening the coat.

He also noted text messages sent by Wanchanic the following day, after police began talking with the person who had dropped her off at the store before the robbery, show she had asked a neighbor to look after her collection of kitchen knives. Police found the knives in the neighbors apartment, and the store employee identified one of them as the weapon she saw during the robbery.

Katcher said the worker had misspoken when she said the robber had a gun and had corrected herself.

Arguments concluded late Thursday afternoon, and the case was submitted to the jury.

During opening statements Wednesday, the defense said it had planned to argue that Wanchanic suffered from mental illness and had suffered a psychotic break that prevented her from appreciating the nature of her actions.
DES MOINES (AP)  Jurors on Thursday convicted an Iowa woman of murder in the starvation death of her 16-year-old daughter, who weighed only 85 pounds when she died.

The 12-person jury found Nicole Finn, 43, guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and child endangerment in the October 2016 death of adopted daughter Natalie Finn. Jurors began deliberating the case Wednesday.

Nicole Finn will be sentenced Jan. 26, but first-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence in Iowa.

In 18 years of being a prosecutor, this is the worst case Ive
WATERLOO  A probe into a ring that brought methamphetamine to Waterloo, Dubuque and Marshalltown and laundered money back to Mexico has resulted in more than 20 convictions, bringing prison time ranging from 30 years to two years in prison, according to information released Friday.

The operation, dubbed Ice Pirates, culminated in May 2016 with 29 raids in Iowa and Wisconsin that turned up 6 pounds of meth, more than $250,000 in cash and 14 guns. Over the summer and fall of 2017 those arrested have been sentenced to prison on various drug charges.

A Marshalltown resident, 23-year-old Aldo Omar Lopez Martinez, landed the largest sentence with 30 years behind bars, according to the United States Attorneys Office for Iowas Northern District. He was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering following a March trial.

The second-longest sentence went to Michael Vincent Woodbury Bent, 38, of Dubuque, who received 25 years in prison.

Other sentenced include:

Jay Seehase, 38, of Waterloo, 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Adan Sanchez-Chavez, 26, of Marshalltown, 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Jacob Burton, 36, Waterloo, 12 years and 10 months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Michael Corwin, 31, of Marshalltown, 12 years and seven months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Chad Ellis Weyland, 38, Waterloo, 12 years and three months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Isaias Lopez Martinez, 40, of Marshalltown, 12 years and three months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Dennis Sharkey II, 51, of Dubuque, 11 years and eight months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Alfredo Morales, 26, of Des Moines, 10 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Zach Miller, 28, of Waterloo, seven years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Chris Nauman, 31, of Dubuque, seven years and one month in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Deis Ray, 41, of Waterloo, six years and eight months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Kevin Hemmer, 42, of Waterloo, six years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Ashley Marie Dean, 30, of Waterloo, five years and five months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Adam Fullbright, 38, of Dubuque, four years and 10 months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Edward Behrens, 52, of La Crosse, Wis., four years and five months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Roque Rodriguez Arellano, 33, of Marshalltown, four years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Alejandro Hernandez, 39, of Marshalltown, three years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Heather Harris, 38, of Waterloo, three years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

John Husemann, 52, of Dubuque, two years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Susana Martinez Arreola, age 30, of Marshalltown, received a 24-month prison term after pleading to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo man who was shot in the head during a burglary to his home has died, and police are now investigating a homicide.

Cedric Roy Craft died Thursday at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City where he had been since the Monday night shooting at his Courtland Street home. He was 39.

No arrests have been made in his slaying, and Waterloo police are seeking the publics help for information in the case.

According to police, officers were called to a break-in at his home at 121 Courtland at about 7 p.m. Monday, and when they arrived they found Craft with a single gunshot wound to the head. No suspects were at the house, police said. Neighbors reported hearing several gunshots.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Waterloo Police Department at 319-291-4340 ext 7 or Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 855-300-TIPS (8477). Tips may also be left at www.cvcrimestop.com or sent with TipSoft or by texting the word CEDAR plus the information to CRIMES (274637).

Crime Stoppers is offering a $1,500 reward for information.

Craft is the sixth person hit by gunfire in Waterloo in the past two weeks, but the only one to die.

Daeshon Wright, 18, and a 17-year-old male were shot in the 800 block of Beech Street on the morning of Dec. 3; and Juanrez Jefferson, 21, was shot multiple times outside the 100 block of Western Avenue later that night.

On Dec. 5, 25-year-old Devontae Leque Sawyers was shot in the leg during a burglary to a Thompson Avenue apartment; and Trevel Altman-Aron, 19, was shot in the chest at his Columbia Street home Dec. 6.
WATERLOO  A Waterloo resident who was convicted of breaking into a Tama County building has been sentenced to prison for allegedly returning to the United States after being deported.

Judge Linda Reade sentenced Ramiro Abarca-Martinez, 29, a citizen of Mexico, to a year and a half in prison on Tuesday following a plea to charges of illegal reentry in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

Following prison, he will be on supervised release for three years.

According to court records, Abarca was first removed from the country in November 2009 following a felony cocaine conviction in Idaho. He was removed a second time in November 2012.

Abarca returned to the United States in 2014, court records state. In June 2017, he was arrested for first-degree burglary and criminal mischief in Tama County for allegedly entering a building and assaulting a person inside and pouring pop into a vans oil reservoir. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

A grand jury indicted Abarca on the illegal reentry charge in August.
The nations first total solar eclipse since 1979 is still nearly a year away. But communities spread across the United States are preparing to welcome massive crowds and the accompanying publicity and revenue.

While Casper boasts an astrological convention overlapping with the Aug. 21 eclipse and is considered one of the best viewing locations in the world, it is hardly alone. The path of the eclipse stretches from Oregon to South Carolina, and towns along the route are marketing themselves as the best place to watch the celestial event.

With the Oil City anticipating that tens of thousands of potential eclipse tourists will boost sales tax revenue and lift a local economy ailing from the energy bust, one might think Casper would be waging a fierce battle to draw visitors away from eclipse hot spots like northern Oregon and central Tennessee.

Not so, says Wyoming Eclipse Festival director Anna Wilcox.

We are not competing for attendance, Wilcox said.

I feel like that sounds awful, she added later.

But its not, she insists. The problem isnt drawing people to Casper. With local hotels already over 75 percent full during the eclipse  nine hotels are already sold out and others are not yet accepting reservations  Wilcox said her focus is ensuring that visitors who are bound to show up are properly accommodated.

It would be difficult, at this point, to market when 90 percent of our phone calls are, Hey, Im looking for accommodations and I cant find any, Wilcox said.

Some smaller Wyoming towns along the path of the eclipse are actually afraid of attracting visitors because theyre already expecting to be overwhelmed with hordes of visitors that their infrastructure cant accommodate, she said. Casper can take on the massive crowds, but Wilcox said she is trying to make sure the city rises to the occasion.

That includes free shuttles to help keep cars off the road and minimize congestion and a plan by the Casper Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to teach local workers how to best serve tourists next August.

Caspers methodical approach to eclipse festivities stands in contrast to the city of North Platte, Nebraska, roughly 350 miles to the southeast.

Assistant Director of the Lincoln County Visitors Bureau Muriel Clark said her group is going all out to attract visitors to view the eclipse in central Nebraska.

Were all about promoting, Clark said. We really want to capitalize on [this] and make sure that if people do have choices theyre considering Nebraska.

But North Platte is just a quarter the size of Casper, and while hotels are beginning to fill up, Clark acknowledged she may need to work harder to draw visitors.

We fully recognize that maybe Nebraska is not the first state that comes to mind when you think vacation destination, Clark said.

The town was planning to emphasize its ranching and pioneer culture, with a county fair and rodeo being moved to the eclipse weekend, she said.

Clark said North Platte is treating the eclipse primarily as a one-off boon to the local economy. However, Wilcox views eclipse visitors as potential return customers. If they dont have a good experience while visiting Casper for the eclipse, there is little chance that visitors will come back, she said.

Theyll be out and about and get that small glimpse of what we have to offer, Wilcox said. That can potentially turn into tourism.

Taking a similar tack is Oregon SolarFest event coordinator Sandy Forman, who said about half of her energy is going into handling the logistics of accommodating perhaps as many as 150,000 visitors expected in tiny Madras, Oregon, next summer.

Were trying to hit both ends, said Forman, who is also working to promote the town as a destination. But Forman touted the fly-fishing, hiking and resorts near the eclipse festival and wants to make sure visitors know how much the region has to offer in case they want to return.

They are also exploring using shuttles to move visitors around after being warned of the potential for severe gridlock.

We dont know what to expect, Forman said. Nobody does.

With Madras hotels  along with many others along the eclipse route  booked two years in advance, Wilcoxs decision to concentrate on providing a smooth experience for tourists in Casper next August may make sense.

Theyve already decided to come, Wilcox said. Casper is already where [people] want to be.
Mr. Trump continues to exhibit paranoia about American intelligence agencies, wrote the NeverTrump conservative Max Boot in the New York Times a week or so before the president took office.

Consumed by his paranoia about the deep state, Donald Trump has disappeared into the fog of his own conspiracy theories, declared the Times Maureen Dowd.

Paranoia seizes Trumps White House, reported Politico, noting the suspicion that career intelligence operatives are working to undermine the new president.

Actually, they were. Its no mystery why Trump doesnt trust U.S. intelligence agencies, Bloombergs Eli Lake wrote last month. As the old saying goes: Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean theyre not out to get you. Trump understandably believes the intelligence agencies are out to get him.

Of course, leaders in the intelligence community would deny they are out to get the president. But in an extraordinary new interview, one CIA veteran who served in the agency from 1980 to 2013, who briefed presidents on the most sensitive issues of the day and is still a prominent voice in intelligence matters, is at least conceding he can understand why the president feels the way he does.

Michael Morell stayed out of politics when he served as the CIAs number-two official. He was the classic nonpartisan operative who served the office, and not the man. I worked at this nonpolitical agency, bright red line between intelligence and policy, and intelligence and politics, Morell told Politicos Susan Glasser this week.

Until Trump. In August 2016, the retired-but-still-active-in-intelligence-matters Morell decided to abandon decades of nonpartisanship and come out in support of Hillary Clinton. In a New York Times op-ed, he praised Clintons experience and called Trump a danger to the nation, a threat to its foundational values, and an unwitting agent for Russia.

I was so deeply concerned about what a Trump presidency might look like from a national security perspective, and believed that there was such a gap between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump with regard to how well they would protect the country, that I thought it extremely important to come out and say that, Morell told Glasser.

Some of Morells former colleagues in the intelligence community took the same step. Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, blasted Trump as Russias useful fool. Another former top CIA officer, Michael Vickers, pronounced Trump unfit. And the agencys then-director, John Brennan, openly clashed with Trump.

These were all men who came out of the non-political tradition of American intelligence. And all chose, for the first time, to publicly take sides in a presidential campaign.

Of course, its safe to say each assumed Clinton would win. But when Trump prevailed, amazingly enough, he thought the intelligence agencies were against him.

Lets put ourselves in Donald Trumps shoes, Morell said to Glasser. So what does he see? Right? He sees a former director of CIA and a former director of NSA, Mike Hayden ... criticizing him and his policies. Right? And he would rightfully have said, Huh, whats going on with the intelligence guys?

And then he sees a former acting director and deputy director of CIA criticizing him and endorsing his opponent, Morell continued. And then he gets his first intelligence briefing, after becoming the Republican nominee, and within 24 to 48 hours, there are leaks out of that that are critical of him and his then-national security adviser Mike Flynn.

And so, this stuff starts to build, right? And he must have said to himself, What is it with these intelligence guys? Are they political?

The answer to that was simple: Yes, they were political. But the astonishing part of the Morell interview is his admission that at the time he did not stop to consider what was happening from Trumps perspective, even as the leaks continued when Trump took office. He must have thought, Who are these guys? Morell said. Are these guys out to get me? Is this a political organization?

The first time Trump met the FBIs then-director, James Comey, was when the intelligence chiefs chose Comey to tell Trump, then the president-elect, about a collection of salacious and unverified (Comeys words) allegations about Trump, compiled by operatives working for the Clinton campaign, that has since become known as the Trump dossier. That surely got Trump off to a good start with the FBIs intelligence-gathering operation. It was also a clever way for the intel chiefs to push the previously-secret dossier into the public conversation when news leaked that Comey had briefed the president on it.

And on and on it went. Could anyone blame the new president for believing the intelligence agencies were after him?

Trumps fellow New Yorker, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, warned the president against messing with the spy organizations. Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you, Schumer said in January.

Indeed, they did. And now, Michael Morell admits he went after the new president without even considering what that might mean. I think there was a significant downside to those of us who became political, he told Glasser. So, if I could have thought of that, would I have ended up in a different place? I dont know. But its something I didnt think about.
CF public safety

KONNIE RINDELS

EVANSDALE  With the on-going debate in Cedar Falls regarding the use of public safety officers (PSO) and professional firefighters, the same question surfaces for the safety director. What cities have implemented this plan, and which cities have tried and gone back to using the firefighters full-time?

In many interviews he will not give names of cities trying the PSOs. Only time a name was mentioned was the Cedar Rapids airport using POSs full time. When Chief John Bostwick was questioned, he said many cities in California have this combination; no city named, once again.

So the city of Cedar Falls is unable to investigate and talk to city managers/mayors of this combination work force. You must take the word of director Jeff Olson. Curious why naming the cities using this method will not be named? Could it be it is not working as he promises? Could it be the cities tried this and it did not work out as he professes it did? What is the population of the cities that have tried this program? Are they similar to Cedar Falls? What city closest to Cedar Falls is using the PSO program that we may compare to?

Panay incident

PAUL E. PIETSCH

CEDAR FALLS  Dec. 12 marked the 80th anniversary of the Panay incident. USS Panay, a gunboat in our Asiatic fleet, was on patrol on the Yangtze River in China. She was attacked by Japanese aircraft and sunk, and two of the crew lost their lives. Further problems were avoided when the Japanese government apologized and paid reparations.

Admiral Harry Yarnell was commander-in-chief of the Asiatic fleet at the time of the incident. He was born near Independence, Iowa, and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1897.

The last survivor of the crew of the Panay, Fon Huffman, died in 2008. He was born in Truro, Iowa, and enlisted in the Navy at the age of 16. During World War II, he served on destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific areas.

Men confused

KENT GUILD

WATERLOO  In this me too movement, all males need to do some serious soul searching. I have been doing so for the past few weeks. I am close to the same age as Donald Trump. I have been married twice, not three times. I am a member of the lower middle class, not in the top upper class. I am quite the opposite of Donald Trump in many ways. Recently, in my soul searching, I have come to the realization that I have done and said some things that may have offended some females. I apologize. I have also recently met three females that I have not seen in many years. All three initiated a hug with me. With two of them, I was surprised. With the third, I extended my hand to shake her hand. Then she initiated the hug. When we completed the interfaith choir rehearsal, she hugged me a second time. It was similar to a father/daughter hug.

What is appropriate in the future because of the me too movement? Do all men need to wait for the women to initiate a hug? What if the man does not want to be hugged? Im confused.
past daily news Sep 13 (1) Sep 09 (15) Sep 06 (12) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (10) Aug 31 (17) Aug 29 (14) Aug 26 (13) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (12) Aug 19 (21) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (10) Aug 10 (10) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (10) Aug 06 (10) Aug 05 (8) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (14) Jul 29 (1) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (10) Jul 22 (11) Jul 19 (16) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (10) Jul 15 (13) Jul 12 (7) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (11) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (8) Jun 28 (7) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (8) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (9) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (9) Jun 18 (8) Jun 15 (9) Jun 13 (13) Jun 11 (11) Jun 09 (19) Jun 06 (10) Jun 04 (10) Jun 03 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (5) May 30 (5) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (7) May 26 (6) May 25 (4) May 23 (6) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (7) May 19 (9) May 18 (4) May 17 (6) May 16 (5) May 15 (7) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (9) May 10 (3) May 09 (7) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (5) May 05 (8) May 03 (9) May 02 (1) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (8) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (10) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (7) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (8) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (12) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (8) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (1) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (2) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (2) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (1) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (2) Jan 20 (2) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (2) Dec 17 (1) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (2) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (1) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (5) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (10) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (2) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (5) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (9) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (6) Oct 22 (4) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (1) Oct 06 (10) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (1) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (6) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (8) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (5) Aug 31 (8) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (8) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (8) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (8) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (10) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (1) Jul 16 (10) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (7) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (8) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (10) Jun 05 (14) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (6) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (2) May 29 (7) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (4) May 25 (5) May 24 (4) May 23 (5) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (3) May 19 (10) May 18 (6) May 17 (3) May 16 (6) May 15 (2) May 14 (3) May 13 (5) May 11 (1) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (2) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (5) May 03 (5) May 02 (1) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (8) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (14) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (1) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (1) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (1) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (9) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (9) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (13) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (6) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (9) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (9) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (2) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (5) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (12) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (7) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (1) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (10) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (12) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (6) Dec 08 (7) Dec 07 (12) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (13) Dec 04 (6) Dec 02 (8) Dec 01 (8) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (8) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (11) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (14) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (11) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (10) Nov 01 (8) Oct 31 (12) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (13) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (8) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (11) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (10) Oct 12 (11) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (10) Oct 09 (7) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (14) Oct 04 (9) Oct 03 (12) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (9) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (10) Sep 21 (12) Sep 20 (12) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (11) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (8) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (10) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (9) Sep 07 (8) Sep 06 (11) Sep 05 (2) Sep 04 (8) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (9) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (2) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (6) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (7) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (11) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (9) Jul 31 (11) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (11) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (7) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (5) Jul 06 (6) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (3) Jun 30 (8) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (7) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (7) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (9) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (8) May 30 (7) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (3) May 23 (5) May 22 (2) May 21 (3) May 20 (7) May 19 (11) May 18 (1) May 17 (7) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (4) May 11 (11) May 10 (2) May 09 (6) May 08 (6) May 07 (2) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (8) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (13) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (9) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (2) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (9) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (6) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (9) Feb 24 (11) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (6) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (2) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (10) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (2) Feb 05 (9) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (7) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (14) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (10) Jan 18 (11) Jan 17 (9) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (10) Jan 06 (8) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (5) Jan 01 (14) Dec 30 (13) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (5) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (7) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (9) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (17) Dec 09 (8) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (10) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (9) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (15) Nov 24 (7) Nov 23 (15) Nov 22 (9) Nov 21 (6) Nov 20 (11) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (13) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (7) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (13) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (8) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (8) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (15) Oct 26 (10) Oct 25 (10) Oct 24 (13) Oct 23 (9) Oct 21 (8) Oct 20 (13) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (8) Oct 16 (14) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (13) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (15) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (11) Oct 05 (18) Oct 04 (14) Oct 03 (1) Oct 02 (10) Sep 30 (11) Sep 29 (11) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (15) Sep 26 (7) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (17) Sep 20 (20) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (11) Sep 16 (10) Sep 15 (12) Sep 14 (9) Sep 13 (12) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (8) Sep 09 (9) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (13) Sep 06 (15) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (10) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (12) Aug 31 (14) Aug 30 (14) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (8) Aug 27 (9) Aug 26 (12) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (11) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (9) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (8) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (6) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (6) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (15) Jul 15 (14) Jul 14 (5) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (12) Jul 11 (8) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (10) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (10) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (7) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (11) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (14) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (8) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (11) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (16) Jun 03 (8) Jun 02 (12) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (7) May 30 (15) May 28 (7) May 27 (5) May 26 (21) May 25 (14) May 24 (10) May 23 (7) May 22 (8) May 21 (11) May 20 (5) May 19 (4) May 18 (10) May 17 (11) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (7) May 13 (12) May 12 (10) May 11 (7) May 10 (13) May 09 (4) May 08 (7) May 07 (3) May 06 (6) May 05 (9) May 04 (14) May 03 (7) May 02 (10) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (14) Apr 22 (16) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (16) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (8) Apr 10 (12) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (13) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (15) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (15) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (11) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (10) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (12) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (8) Mar 24 (7) Mar 23 (15) Mar 22 (17) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (8) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (19) Mar 15 (13) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (20) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (13) Mar 08 (13) Mar 07 (7) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (16) Mar 02 (16) Mar 01 (13) Feb 29 (8) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (16) Feb 26 (10) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (12) Feb 23 (14) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (12) Feb 18 (12) Feb 17 (11) Feb 16 (8) Feb 15 (9) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (10) Feb 12 (11) Feb 11 (13) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (13) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (19) Jan 31 (21) Jan 29 (11) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (13) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (2) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (13) Jan 21 (11) Jan 20 (9) Jan 19 (13) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (11) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (13) Jan 13 (9) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (5) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (1) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (13) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (11) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (9) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (10) Dec 08 (13) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (8) Dec 04 (11) Dec 03 (12) Dec 02 (16) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (11) Nov 28 (15) Nov 27 (16) Nov 26 (11) Nov 25 (9) Nov 24 (13) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (10) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (10) Nov 13 (14) Nov 12 (8) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (12) Nov 05 (17) Nov 04 (12) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (12) Oct 31 (11) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (10) Oct 28 (18) Oct 27 (16) Oct 26 (11) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (12) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (12) Oct 20 (17) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (15) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (10) Oct 14 (16) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (12) Oct 09 (21) Oct 08 (22) Oct 07 (19) Oct 06 (18) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (17) Oct 03 (13) Oct 02 (14) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (14) Sep 29 (15) Sep 28 (12) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (15) Sep 25 (13) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (10) Sep 22 (12) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (12) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (16) Sep 16 (21) Sep 15 (14) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (10) Sep 11 (16) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (8) Sep 08 (10) Sep 07 (7) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (9) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (10) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (14) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (13) Aug 20 (9) Aug 19 (13) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (12) Aug 11 (9) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (14) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (2) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (6) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (6) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (9) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (13) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (7) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (9) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (7) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (11) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (8) Jun 03 (9) Jun 02 (6) Jun 01 (4) May 30 (7) May 29 (9) May 28 (13) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (2) May 23 (8) May 22 (9) May 21 (7) May 20 (4) May 19 (6) May 18 (7) May 17 (8) May 15 (9) May 14 (5) May 13 (8) May 12 (6) May 11 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (6) May 07 (11) May 06 (7) May 05 (4) May 04 (11) May 03 (5) May 02 (4) May 01 (9) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (9) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (10) Apr 22 (8) Apr 21 (9) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (6) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (2) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (7) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (9) Mar 19 (9) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (9) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (11) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (12) Mar 11 (9) Mar 10 (12) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (11) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (8) Feb 27 (9) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (10) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (7) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (2) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (12) Feb 12 (8) Feb 11 (10) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (12) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (8) Jan 26 (13) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (12) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (10) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (11) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (8) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (9) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (10) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (10) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (9) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (10) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (1) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (9) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (12) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (6) Nov 18 (10) Nov 17 (12) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (12) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (7) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (9) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (14) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (9) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (8) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (11) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (7) Oct 15 (7) Oct 14 (8) Oct 13 (5) Oct 12 (8) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (11) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (8) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (10) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (7) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (8) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (11) Sep 24 (15) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (10) Sep 17 (10) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (7) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (9) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (12) Aug 19 (8) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (8) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (12) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (12) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (8) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (8) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (8) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (9) Jul 13 (10) Jul 11 (9) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (7) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (7) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (15) Jun 26 (10) Jun 25 (9) Jun 24 (16) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (12) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (13) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (14) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (16) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (18) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (8) May 31 (3) May 30 (6) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (8) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (2) May 18 (9) May 17 (1) May 16 (5) May 15 (5) May 14 (7) May 13 (7) May 12 (7) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (5) May 08 (10) May 07 (4) May 06 (13) May 05 (4) May 04 (10) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (9) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (9) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (7) Apr 14 (11) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (9) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (10) Apr 03 (9) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (8) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (7) Mar 21 (14) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (11) Mar 17 (12) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (8) Mar 14 (13) Mar 13 (8) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (8) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (15) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (12) Mar 02 (20) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (11) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (14) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (8) Feb 16 (11) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (2) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (2) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (7) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (1) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 27 (1) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (8) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (1) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (9) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (8) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (12) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (12) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (9) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (11) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (7) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (2) Oct 21 (7) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (7) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (20) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (21) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (34) Oct 04 (24) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (7) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (6) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (2) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (9) Sep 19 (11) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (6) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (11) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (10) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (8) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (7) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (7) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (10) Jul 22 (8) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (7) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (10) Jul 16 (11) Jul 15 (5) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (12) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (12) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (23) Jun 27 (18) Jun 26 (12) Jun 25 (14) Jun 24 (15) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (15) Jun 20 (9) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (11) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (6) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (9) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (8) May 24 (7) May 23 (6) May 22 (9) May 21 (6) May 20 (5) May 19 (6) May 18 (9) May 17 (10) May 16 (11) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (7) May 11 (7) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (11) May 05 (5) May 04 (9) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (8) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (10) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (8) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (11) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (9) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (10) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (2) Mar 10 (1) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (1) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (2) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (5) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (9) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (10) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (8) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (1) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (1) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (8) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (8) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (7) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (1) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (16) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (5) Nov 25 (2) Nov 24 (6) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (15) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (5) Nov 08 (8) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (9) Nov 05 (1) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (8) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (1) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (1) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (10) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (15) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (1) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (8) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (8) Sep 24 (8) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (9) Sep 20 (7) Sep 19 (8) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (7) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (9) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (10) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (15) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (7) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (11) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (15) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (7) Aug 19 (2) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (9) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (7) Aug 07 (9) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (11) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (6) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (8) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (14) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (8) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (14) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (12) Jun 15 (12) Jun 14 (10) Jun 13 (10) Jun 12 (9) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (12) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (12) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (3) May 25 (5) May 24 (9) May 23 (16) May 22 (12) May 21 (11) May 20 (7) May 19 (10) May 18 (8) May 17 (8) May 16 (10) May 15 (8) May 14 (5) May 13 (1) May 12 (6) May 11 (9) May 10 (9) May 09 (10) May 08 (9) May 07 (6) May 06 (5) May 05 (7) May 04 (10) May 03 (7) May 02 (9) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (12) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (9) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (10) Apr 14 (7) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (8) Apr 05 (8) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (11) Mar 30 (12) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (9) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (12) Mar 20 (14) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (12) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (8) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (13) Feb 25 (10) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (10) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (18) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (5) Feb 16 (9) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (8) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (10) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (12) Jan 30 (7) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (7) Jan 27 (12) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (11) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (12) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (11) Jan 16 (9) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (9) Jan 10 (10) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (10) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (10) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (9) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (8) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (1) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (6) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (13) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (7) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (7) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (9) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (7) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (8) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (10) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (10) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (8) Nov 17 (9) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (12) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (8) Nov 06 (10) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (11) Nov 01 (10) Oct 31 (5) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (8) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (11) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (7) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (9) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (9) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (12) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (13) Oct 04 (11) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (14) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (12) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (10) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (8) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (7) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (14) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (11) Sep 14 (13) Sep 13 (11) Sep 12 (9) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (13) Sep 08 (11) Sep 07 (11) Sep 06 (16) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (8) Sep 01 (7) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (12) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (13) Jul 28 (10) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (12) Jul 22 (14) Jul 21 (6) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (12) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (8) Jul 14 (15) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (6) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (9) Jul 06 (15) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (10) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (11) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (11) Jun 24 (9) Jun 23 (10) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (8) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (15) Jun 17 (8) Jun 16 (13) Jun 15 (15) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (6) Jun 12 (15) Jun 11 (7) Jun 10 (7) Jun 09 (18) Jun 08 (20) Jun 07 (17) Jun 06 (9) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (12) Jun 03 (13) Jun 02 (14) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (13) May 30 (8) May 29 (6) May 28 (8) May 27 (17) May 26 (8) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (9) May 22 (4) May 21 (4) May 20 (11) May 19 (14) May 18 (6) May 17 (10) May 16 (4) May 15 (5) May 14 (28) May 12 (9) May 11 (17) May 10 (15) May 09 (12) May 08 (5) May 07 (4) May 06 (10) May 05 (8) May 04 (10) May 03 (5) May 02 (6) May 01 (8) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (12) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (10) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (13) Apr 19 (11) Apr 18 (11) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (11) Apr 14 (17) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (16) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (18) Apr 08 (14) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (21) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (13) Apr 01 (8) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (11) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (12) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (8) Mar 20 (4) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (9) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (14) Mar 11 (13) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (17) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (13) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (14) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (18) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (2) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (13) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (13) Feb 22 (12) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (16) Feb 18 (17) Feb 17 (15) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (15) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (15) Feb 10 (11) Feb 09 (13) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (15) Feb 04 (15) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (14) Feb 01 (15) Jan 31 (11) Jan 30 (9) Jan 29 (19) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (9) Jan 26 (16) Jan 25 (19) Jan 24 (17) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (15) Jan 21 (9) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (12) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (14) Jan 12 (11) Jan 11 (13) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (20) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (14) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (14) Dec 30 (15) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (10) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (11) Dec 24 (9) Dec 23 (9) Dec 22 (15) Dec 21 (12) Dec 20 (11) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (12) Dec 15 (14) Dec 14 (11) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (17) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (12) Dec 07 (16) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (12) Dec 03 (15) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (12) Nov 30 (16) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (13) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (15) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (8) Nov 19 (9) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (9) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (10) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (14) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (13) Nov 01 (9) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (18) Oct 28 (13) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (12) Oct 25 (14) Oct 24 (20) Oct 22 (18) Oct 21 (18) Oct 20 (19) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (18) Oct 15 (8) Oct 14 (11) Oct 13 (9) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (27) Oct 08 (14) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (10) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (9) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (13) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (14) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (14) Sep 22 (20) Sep 21 (11) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (14) Sep 17 (8) Sep 16 (17) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (11) Sep 13 (9) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (14) Sep 09 (12) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (9) Sep 04 (20) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (16) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (13) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (11) Aug 25 (10) Aug 24 (14) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (13) Aug 21 (10) Aug 20 (13) Aug 19 (15) Aug 18 (8) Aug 17 (10) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (11) Aug 13 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (10) Aug 10 (17) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (13) Aug 07 (11) Aug 06 (13) Aug 05 (11) Aug 04 (11) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (10) Jul 30 (21) Jul 29 (14) Jul 28 (13) Jul 27 (16) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (15) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (15) Jul 21 (19) Jul 20 (17) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (26) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (20) Jul 14 (16) Jul 13 (19) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (13) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (16) Jul 05 (9) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (15) Jul 02 (11) Jul 01 (14) Jun 30 (13) Jun 29 (19) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (9) Jun 26 (16) Jun 25 (22) Jun 24 (17) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (15) Jun 21 (14) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (17) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (10) Jun 16 (17) Jun 15 (13) Jun 14 (14) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (13) Jun 11 (15) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (10) Jun 08 (23) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (20) Jun 05 (10) Jun 04 (11) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (21) Jun 01 (14) May 31 (10) May 30 (14) May 29 (8) May 28 (23) May 27 (20) May 26 (16) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (10) May 22 (18) May 21 (14) May 20 (12) May 19 (18) May 18 (14) May 17 (13) May 16 (4) May 15 (7) May 14 (16) May 13 (13) May 12 (8) May 11 (18) May 10 (8) May 09 (7) May 08 (13) May 07 (11) May 06 (15) May 05 (18) May 04 (17) May 03 (7) May 02 (5) May 01 (11) Apr 30 (19) Apr 29 (21) Apr 28 (18) Apr 27 (16) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (20) Apr 22 (23) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (16) Apr 19 (13) Apr 18 (6) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (16) Apr 15 (18) Apr 14 (13) Apr 13 (14) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (14) Apr 08 (12) Apr 07 (18) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (11) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (16) Mar 31 (16) Mar 30 (22) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (19) Mar 26 (31) Mar 25 (25) Mar 24 (26) Mar 23 (27) Mar 22 (22) Mar 21 (22) Mar 20 (13) Mar 19 (21) Mar 18 (20) Mar 17 (24) Mar 16 (18) Mar 15 (9) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (29) Mar 12 (15) Mar 11 (11) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (20) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (21) Mar 05 (22) Mar 04 (19) Mar 03 (9) Mar 02 (20) Mar 01 (11) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (27) Feb 26 (15) Feb 25 (18) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (19) Feb 22 (24) Feb 21 (10) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (25) Feb 18 (16) Feb 17 (19) Feb 16 (23) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (16) Feb 11 (12) Feb 10 (18) Feb 09 (12) Feb 08 (14) Feb 07 (8) Feb 06 (27) Feb 05 (28) Feb 04 (24) Feb 03 (17) Feb 02 (20) Feb 01 (23) Jan 31 (16) Jan 30 (20) Jan 29 (26) Jan 28 (17) Jan 27 (21) Jan 26 (24) Jan 25 (16) Jan 24 (14) Jan 23 (16) Jan 22 (17) Jan 21 (19) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (17) Jan 18 (13) Jan 17 (14) Jan 16 (10) Jan 15 (21) Jan 14 (16) Jan 13 (19) Jan 12 (30) Jan 11 (14) Jan 10 (11) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (23) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (21) Jan 05 (15) Jan 04 (18) Jan 03 (9) Jan 02 (12) Jan 01 (15) Dec 31 (18) Dec 30 (7) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (6) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (28) Dec 23 (12) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (17) Dec 20 (19) Dec 19 (19) Dec 18 (22) Dec 17 (24) Dec 16 (17) Dec 15 (29) Dec 14 (22) Dec 13 (12) Dec 12 (22) Dec 11 (24) Dec 10 (25) Dec 09 (18) Dec 08 (15) Dec 07 (21) Dec 06 (24) Dec 05 (30) Dec 04 (28) Dec 03 (26) Dec 02 (22) Dec 01 (33) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (18) Nov 27 (25) Nov 26 (17) Nov 25 (23) Nov 24 (27) Nov 23 (12) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (15) Nov 20 (23) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (24) Nov 17 (21) Nov 16 (20) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (15) Nov 13 (27) Nov 12 (23) Nov 11 (19) Nov 10 (21) Nov 09 (13) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (16) Nov 06 (32) Nov 05 (24) Nov 04 (20) Nov 03 (29) Nov 02 (12) Nov 01 (15) Oct 31 (20) Oct 30 (22) Oct 29 (27) Oct 28 (20) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (21) Oct 25 (15) Oct 24 (23) Oct 23 (26) Oct 22 (27) Oct 21 (28) Oct 20 (24) Oct 19 (13) Oct 18 (9) Oct 17 (30) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (20) Oct 14 (14) Oct 13 (17) Oct 12 (16) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (19) Oct 09 (22) Oct 08 (16) Oct 07 (18) Oct 06 (23) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (15) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (22) Sep 30 (25) Sep 29 (20) Sep 28 (17) Sep 27 (13) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (15) Sep 24 (24) Sep 23 (23) Sep 22 (18) Sep 21 (20) Sep 20 (11) Sep 19 (24) Sep 18 (25) Sep 17 (25) Sep 16 (19) Sep 15 (21) Sep 14 (15) Sep 13 (10) Sep 12 (23) Sep 11 (23) Sep 10 (25) Sep 09 (25) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (17) Sep 05 (14) Sep 04 (24) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (19) Aug 31 (20) Aug 30 (11) Aug 29 (24) Aug 28 (24) Aug 27 (16) Aug 26 (26) Aug 25 (21) Aug 24 (15) Aug 23 (19) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (25) Aug 20 (27) Aug 19 (19) Aug 18 (24) Aug 17 (14) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (15) Aug 14 (16) Aug 13 (21) Aug 12 (30) Aug 11 (19) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (12) Aug 08 (17) Aug 07 (21) Aug 06 (26) Aug 05 (23) Aug 04 (21) Aug 03 (12) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (19) Jul 31 (21) Jul 30 (25) Jul 29 (29) Jul 28 (23) Jul 27 (17) Jul 26 (11) Jul 25 (21) Jul 24 (14) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (19) Jul 21 (15) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (10) Jul 18 (15) Jul 17 (22) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (21) Jul 14 (20) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (29) Jul 10 (19) Jul 09 (17) Jul 08 (26) Jul 07 (21) Jul 06 (18) Jul 05 (14) Jul 04 (20) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (24) Jul 01 (23) Jun 30 (23) Jun 29 (18) Jun 28 (16) Jun 27 (16) Jun 26 (17) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (32) Jun 23 (29) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (17) Jun 20 (25) Jun 19 (28) Jun 18 (19) Jun 17 (25) Jun 16 (23) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (14) Jun 12 (22) Jun 11 (19) Jun 10 (17) Jun 09 (15) Jun 08 (16) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (29) Jun 05 (27) Jun 04 (24) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (22) Jun 01 (13) May 31 (9) May 30 (26) May 29 (19) May 28 (15) May 27 (15) May 26 (23) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (24) May 22 (13) May 21 (21) May 20 (18) May 19 (16) May 18 (7) May 17 (12) May 16 (25) May 15 (24) May 14 (23) May 13 (19) May 12 (17) May 11 (8) May 10 (6) May 09 (14) May 08 (21) May 07 (26) May 06 (14) May 05 (14) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (24) May 01 (13) Apr 30 (15) Apr 29 (24) Apr 28 (24) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (13) Apr 24 (27) Apr 23 (15) Apr 22 (21) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (17) Apr 19 (8) Apr 18 (20) Apr 17 (27) Apr 16 (27) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (8) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (22) Apr 09 (15) Apr 08 (15) Apr 07 (17) Apr 06 (14) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (19) Mar 31 (25) Mar 30 (13) Mar 29 (9) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (23) Mar 26 (22) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (25) Mar 23 (16) Mar 22 (13) Mar 21 (24) Mar 20 (27) Mar 19 (20) Mar 18 (24) Mar 17 (17) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (20) Mar 13 (28) Mar 12 (30) Mar 11 (20) Mar 10 (21) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (8) Mar 07 (17) Mar 06 (20) Mar 05 (19) Mar 04 (15) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (12) Feb 28 (16) Feb 27 (17) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (23) Feb 24 (15) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (24) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (24) Feb 18 (19) Feb 17 (27) Feb 16 (13) Feb 15 (11) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (13) Feb 12 (13) Feb 11 (21) Feb 10 (16) Feb 09 (15) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (17) Feb 06 (21) Feb 05 (17) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (23) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (8) Jan 31 (17) Jan 30 (22) Jan 29 (23) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (24) Jan 26 (12) Jan 25 (9) Jan 24 (12) Jan 23 (19) Jan 22 (19) Jan 21 (14) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (12) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (20) Jan 16 (14) Jan 15 (23) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (20) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (18) Jan 09 (11) Jan 08 (18) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (12) Jan 05 (12) Jan 04 (11) Jan 03 (10) Jan 02 (9) Jan 01 (9) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (13) Dec 26 (15) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (8) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (14) Dec 19 (17) Dec 18 (14) Dec 17 (14) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (9) Dec 13 (11) Dec 12 (16) Dec 11 (18) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (24) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (19) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (26) Dec 04 (15) Dec 03 (20) Dec 02 (17) Dec 01 (11) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (18) Nov 28 (21) Nov 27 (10) Nov 26 (22) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (18) Nov 21 (9) Nov 20 (17) Nov 19 (16) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (21) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (20) Nov 12 (16) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (15) Nov 06 (18) Nov 05 (19) Nov 04 (16) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (17) Oct 31 (17) Oct 30 (21) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (16) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (16) Oct 24 (18) Oct 23 (14) Oct 22 (17) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (8) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (12) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (19) Oct 14 (15) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (10) Oct 10 (23) Oct 09 (13) Oct 08 (15) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (13) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (16) Oct 03 (17) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (20) Sep 30 (17) Sep 29 (9) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (14) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (19) Sep 24 (13) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (21) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (20) Sep 16 (16) Sep 15 (10) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (18) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (24) Sep 10 (17) Sep 09 (16) Sep 08 (16) Sep 07 (10) Sep 06 (20) Sep 05 (13) Sep 04 (23) Sep 03 (14) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (11) Aug 31 (11) Aug 30 (13) Aug 29 (18) Aug 28 (14) Aug 27 (21) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (10) Aug 23 (17) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (14) Aug 20 (20) Aug 19 (20) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (9) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (12) Aug 14 (14) Aug 13 (19) Aug 12 (14) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (12) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (18) Aug 07 (16) Aug 06 (16) Aug 05 (20) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (12) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (16) Jul 30 (16) Jul 29 (11) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (9) Jul 26 (17) Jul 25 (20) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (11) Jul 22 (18) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (14) Jul 18 (11) Jul 17 (15) Jul 16 (12) Jul 15 (10) Jul 14 (8) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (17) Jul 11 (18) Jul 10 (16) Jul 09 (13) Jul 08 (10) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (8) Jul 05 (16) Jul 04 (14) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (13) Jul 01 (16) Jun 30 (19) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (19) Jun 27 (21) Jun 26 (27) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (23) Jun 23 (12) Jun 22 (9) Jun 21 (18) Jun 20 (15) Jun 19 (24) Jun 18 (21) Jun 17 (13) Jun 16 (9) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (18) Jun 13 (24) Jun 12 (18) Jun 11 (23) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (24) Jun 08 (27) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (25) Jun 05 (30) Jun 04 (23) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (16) Jun 01 (17) May 31 (18) May 30 (19) May 29 (17) May 28 (23) May 27 (15) May 26 (10) May 25 (19) May 24 (16) May 23 (16) May 22 (27) May 21 (20) May 20 (26) May 19 (6) May 18 (8) May 17 (20) May 16 (8) May 15 (18) May 14 (5) May 13 (21) May 12 (9) May 11 (8) May 10 (12) May 09 (18) May 08 (11) May 07 (27) May 06 (12) May 05 (16) May 04 (19) May 03 (14) May 02 (18) May 01 (18) Apr 30 (25) Apr 29 (27) Apr 28 (11) Apr 27 (10) Apr 26 (18) Apr 25 (10) Apr 24 (29) Apr 23 (29) Apr 22 (14) Apr 21 (15) Apr 20 (20) Apr 19 (22) Apr 18 (16) Apr 17 (32) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (21) Apr 13 (15) Apr 12 (13) Apr 11 (14) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (20) Apr 08 (36) Apr 07 (22) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (28) Apr 04 (20) Apr 03 (29) Apr 02 (32) Apr 01 (18) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (15) Mar 28 (22) Mar 27 (24) Mar 26 (17) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (13) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (15) Mar 20 (18) Mar 19 (19) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (10) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (18) Mar 14 (24) Mar 13 (18) Mar 12 (18) Mar 11 (17) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (18) Mar 07 (25) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (16) Mar 04 (22) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (23) Feb 29 (19) Feb 28 (25) Feb 27 (26) Feb 26 (23) Feb 25 (12) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (15) Feb 22 (26) Feb 21 (31) Feb 20 (12) Feb 19 (21) Feb 18 (15) Feb 17 (10) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (19) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (20) Feb 11 (9) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (28) Feb 08 (20) Feb 07 (22) Feb 06 (20) Feb 05 (19) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (16) Feb 02 (28) Feb 01 (37) Jan 31 (27) Jan 30 (31) Jan 29 (18) Jan 28 (14) Jan 27 (10) Jan 26 (18) Jan 25 (26) Jan 24 (34) Jan 23 (21) Jan 22 (21) Jan 21 (18) Jan 20 (18) Jan 19 (18) Jan 18 (26) Jan 17 (24) Jan 16 (23) Jan 15 (30) Jan 14 (20) Jan 13 (18) Jan 12 (24) Jan 11 (11) Jan 10 (23) Jan 09 (22) Jan 08 (17) Jan 07 (17) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (18) Jan 04 (15) Jan 03 (19) Jan 02 (14) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (15) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (7) Dec 26 (10) Dec 25 (16) Dec 24 (13) Dec 23 (16) Dec 22 (11) Dec 21 (26) Dec 20 (28) Dec 19 (14) Dec 18 (25) Dec 17 (23) Dec 16 (19) Dec 15 (22) Dec 14 (38) Dec 13 (26) Dec 12 (25) Dec 11 (27) Dec 10 (31) Dec 09 (15) Dec 08 (30) Dec 07 (31) Dec 06 (27) Dec 05 (38) Dec 04 (25) Dec 03 (27) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (36) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (17) Nov 28 (23) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (16) Nov 25 (14) Nov 24 (18) Nov 23 (21) Nov 22 (21) Nov 21 (24) Nov 20 (20) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (17) Nov 17 (17) Nov 16 (34) Nov 15 (25) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (21) Nov 12 (18) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (12) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (4) Oct 29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1)
Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain.

Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.
A Lucas County Grand Jury has indicted three men who were involved in a shootout with Toledo police officers.

Jayvon Wynne and Richard Morris are both facing two counts of felonious assault and improperly handling firearms in motor vehicle charges. Morris has also been charged with have a weapon under disability.

Both men were injured after they shot at police during a traffic stop and officers returned fire.

Another man, Phillip Overton was also indicted on charges surrounding the case including complicity to commit felonious assault and improperly handling a firearm.

One veteran detective and one veteran detective sergeant fired the return shots. Both officers were unharmed in the shooting that took place about 7:30pm outside the Monroe Carryout, 2829 Monroe Street.

Chief Kral said it is believed the three suspects are gang members but declined to elaborate with details citing the ongoing investigation. He added the suspects were believed to have been involved in multiple shootings over the last 6 months to a year.

The chief sternly warned criminals against gun violence. He promised to move Heaven and Earth to bring criminals to justice adding "don't bring guns onto my streets."

The Grand Jury decided that no further investigation was necessary into the officers' actions.
Dec 15, 2017 | By Tess

Engineers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT) in Aachen, Germany are developing an innovative method for providing 3D printed parts with the load-bearing strength of injection molded components. The project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is called LightFlex.

The LightFlex research initiative came about from a need to develop customized load-bearing parts. Currently, most load-bearing components are still made using injection molding processes, which are capable of combining plastic materials with fiber-reinforced polymers for the necessary strength.

The downside to using injection molding, however, is that parts must be mass manufactured to make up for the high tooling costs, which means that most load bearing components on the market are standardized and thus not always suitable for customized applications.

Additive manufacturing, on the other hand, offers the benefits of making bespoke parts without expensive tooling costs, but is still limited in terms of the strength and durability it can provide for parts. This inevitably limits how the technology can be used to produce load-bearing parts.

With LightFlex, however, the German researchers have proposed an innovative method that could enable the 3D printing of customized load-bearing parts without having to sacrifice strength.

The process essentially consists of 3D printing a customized shape using standard AM technologies, and then reinforcing that shape with a sheet of fiber-reinforced plastic, also known as Organo sheets.

The Organo sheets are cut using Fraunhofer IPTs proprietary PrePro system, which is capable of cutting the exact shape and size necessary for reinforcing the 3D printed part. The PrePro system, the researcher say, helps to minimize waste and leads to significant savings in the carbon fibers produced with high energy expenditure.

(Images: Fraunhofer IPT)

Once the fiber-reinforced plastic is cut to size, it can be joined to the 3D printed structure using a thermoforming process, though the researchers still seem to be investigating the best way to combine the two products.

The Aachen-based scientists continuously collect process data for the two components to be joined during production and aligned with each other. The goal is to return feedback to production on the basis of immediate analyzes. Thus, a digital shadow of the entire process chain can ensure a consistently high quality of the manufactured component, said the researchers in a statement.

With the implementation of the institutes LightFlex system, manufacturers would be able to 3D print small-batch load-bearing parts or even make adjustments and last-minute changes to a parts design during the prototyping stage without having to lose out on its strength capacity.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

Maybe you also like:












Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Byte Power Group and listed Canadian Company Synstream Energy Corp. enters into Heads of Agreement to develop Cryptocurrency and ICO Plan



Heads of Agreement with Synstream Energy Corporation

Brisbane, Dec 15, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Byte Power Group Ltd ( ASX:BPG ) (or the 'Company') is pleased to announce that its subsidiary, Byte Power Pty Ltd ("BPPL"), has entered into a Heads of Agreement with listed Canadian company, Synstream Energy Corp. ("Synstream") to be the ICO advisor to Synstream.



The services will include evaluating potential cryptocurrencies to be based on concepts developed by the parties to the Heads of Agreement and may include natural gas, environmental processing, carbon credit or green credit as the value base for each developed cryptocurrency.



Synstream Energy Corporation CEO Mr David Pinkman said "we are excited about our engagement of Byte Power Pty Ltd to provide these scoping study services to evaluate the creation of cryptocurrencies which will take advantage of the business experience and expertise of the Company and its Board of Directors. We are excited to partner with Byte Power Pty Ltd to explore establishing new cryptocurrencies that will add value to our business".



BPPL is also pleased to advise that the development of the cryptocurrency exchange platform is progressing well. As part of this development BPPL is extending the scope of work requirements for customer interactive functionality. This functionality aims to deliver easy to use interfaces supporting the novice and experienced trader, with a range of information and analytical tools to help optimise the trading experience.



This scope of work will also incorporate additional design elements to the cryptocurrency exchange to ensure the recent Australian regulatory compliance requirements are met and functionality to allow for the pairing of pre-approved cryptocurrencies with an Australian dollar facility.



Additionally, BPPL is extending its capabilities to support the design and technological development of ICO projects with additional cryptocurrency developers. This capability will support growth in new ICO developments and listings on the exchange.



Mr Alvin Phua, Chairman and CEO of Byte Power Group said "the signing of this Heads of Agreement allows Byte Power Pty Ltd to expand its footprint in the cryptocurrency market place and develop cryptocurrency concepts from design through to ICO implementation. There are potentially many synergies that will benefit Byte Power Pty Ltd and Synstream. I look forward to working closely with Synstream to open new business opportunities for both companies and to broaden BPPL's cryptocurrency ecosystem".



Through the recently announced engagement of ABN Newswire BPG will continue to provide periodic updates through professional platforms and finance portals which syndicate important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems that access a significant institutional footprint.





About Byte Power Group Limited





Byte Power Group Limited (ASX:BPG) is a diversified technology solutions group with a particular emphasis on securing Asian business opportunities.

Through Wimobilize, the Group has a new cutting edge technology solution, a proprietary Advance Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Big Data Technology Platform consisting of 31 Advance Analysis Engines, 4 levels of Hybrid Correlation and Al Profiling Algorithms customised for governmental, healthcare, banking, telco and tourism industries. This proprietary Big Data technology platform elevated the AI Predictive Analysis and deep insight intelligence to a new paradigm, applicable to any market segment.

This Wimobilize Big Data technology powered e-commerce ecosystem will provide the next generation innovative trading platform for distributing the Company's Australian wine, organic honey and honeycomb.
As many as 110 Sierra Leone migrants have refused to board a plane to fly them out of Libya where they have been living in inhuman conditions at the time many African countries are repatriating their citizens facing slavery in the North African country.

A group of 170 Sierra Leon migrants according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) voluntarily agreed to be repatriated on Wednesday but only 60 could be found at the time of takeoff.

The rest escapes from Tripoli airport. They have been unaccounted for.

The other 60 arrived in Sierra Leon on Wednesday, reports say.

The incident contrasts with hundreds of Sub-Saharan migrants who have agreed to return to their various countries following a global outrage in the wake of CNN November report footage showing some African migrants being sold at auctions as slaves and as farm laborers as cheap as $400.

Several African countries in collaboration of Libyan authorities and the IOM initiated repatriation programs of their citizens stranded in Libya.

Thousands of migrants coming mostly from Sub Sahara who are seeking to join Europes banks have been clocked in hellish conditions in camps in Libya run by Libyan authorities and militias. The UN condemned Libyan authorities and European countries for the treatment conditions given to the migrants.

The EU has supported Libyan coastguards and militias to stem the tide of migrants trying the risking trip.

180 Sierra Leon migrants returned home in November.
If exit polls are to be believed, BJP will win both Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat assembly elections. A collective of 10 exit polls say that BJP will win 116 of Gujarats 182 seats, one more than they scored in the 2012 polls. The Congress, according to exit polls, will manage to get 65 seats this time in Gujarat, an improvement of four seats since 2012. Himachal Pradesh, currently ruled by the Congress, will be easily won by the BJP with 47 of the hill states 68 seats, according to an aggregate of eight exit polls. The Congress, these exit polls say, will only manage 22. However, the exit polls should always be taken with a pinch of salt as they often get it wrong. Moreover, it took 15 years for BJP to come to power but in three years people are done with them. Slowly, voters are returning back to Congress. Gujarat is one state where it is not very easy for Congress to come to power but the party has dented the moral of BJP and we could see our PM going all lows to make it to power.

Many of the Gujarat voters want Congress to win this years Gujarat Assembly Elections. Gujarat BJPs arrogance should fade away towards real betterment. Gujarat today is not the same state under Narendra Modis reign as Chief Minister. Current crop needs to be thrown out once, so that fresh crop can come in. Under Modi, rest of the ministers did not matter much. Now, since Modi is not here, these people need to realise that but for performance, they are not required. Gujaratis have been enjoying a peaceful period with all basic amenities for quite some time now. They probably have forgotten that it does not happen robotically. They probably have stopped valuing it. And lot of youth do not remember the time before 1995, time since Congress has not been in power. I believe, they need an interruption in such a good state of affairs. And Congress can do it. Congress will prove that they can bolt anything: Congress in Gujarat does not have any good leader and without an able leader, they will not be able to achieve much but still Rahul Gandhi has shown all level of maturity this time. On the other hand, BJP do not have a coherent strategy, be it for business, education, agricultural or any other sector. They are just talking the usual crap, which is going to be some more Jumlas after winning the election.

Gujarat is a power surplus state and most areas receive uninterrupted power supply. Prices are high, but in return you get continuous power supply. Power outage is more like breaking news here. In rural areas, situation might not be as good but it is still better than that in almost all other states. Congress has never been trade and business friendly. However, most Gujaratis are into trading and businesses. These people need to have a first-hand experience as to how Congress can screw that sector. Let them learn what is worst: GST/Demonetisation or Congress! On the other hand, BJP is not people-friendly but they are pro-business establishments.

If at all now BJP retains power, the importance of Patidars will decrease at state level. If Congress comes to power and it will be proved that reservation cannot be granted to Patidars. In that case, Patidars will have nowhere else to go as they would have deserted BJP due to this reason and now even Congress will not be able to do it. Further, Patidars are never a Congresss traditional vote bank. Congress vote bank comprises OBCs, SCs, STs etc. In 1980s, then Congress government successfully implemented KHAM formula. KHAM stands for Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim. You can see that Patidars are not present here. This exclusion was the reason they sided with BJP. Now, even if Congress wins with Patidars support, they will still not desert their traditional vote bank. And these vote banks are inherently conflicting. Many political pundits are citing a number of factors that would go against the BJP, but the fact remains unshaken that the BJP is going to make it to power one more time.

Inspite of having various challenges, earlier too, BJP made it to power in different states, for example the state of Maharashtra also witnessed lakhs of people rallying for Maratha reservation in the recent past. But the ruling party (BJP) emerged victorious in most of the subsequent municipal and local body elections. If Uttar Pradesh voters can cast off their caste while casting the votes, there is no chance Gujarati voters will be caught in the trap. Huge turnout for Congresss rallies  probably the political pundits dont understand the meaning of huge turnout. The response to Rahul Gandhis rallies is impressive but not huge and vibrant enough to intimidate the opposition. Even if we consider this response a huge one, by the logic of pundits, MNS should have won the Maharashtra assembly elections as Raj Thackeray pulls the largest crowd for his rallies. It is the organisational strength that matters at the end of the day. BJP has one karyakarta assigned for every ten voters. GST, Demonetisation, two measures have definitely affected the traditional voters of the BJP but, anyhow there is no chance any government can revoke GST in future. So it is a non-issue. Even if the merchants in Gujarat are expressing their concerns on television programs, they will not vote against Modi. An interesting factor to end with  Gujarat is the BJP bastion. Gujarat BJP workers are well aware that this is the battle of honour of their beloved leader. So there is no need to explicitly mention the zest with which they would have to run a relentless campaign.

All the elections contested by BJP after winning the general election in 2014, BJP had one or other cards like Modi wave in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and they tried the same in Bihar and Delhi elections but it seemed that Modi wave has faded. So, recreation of Modi wave was required to win most important election for BJP to keep Modi magic going and that was election of the largest state of UP. Currency ban was result of the BJP effort to show that Modi is fighting against the black money and this move was fruitful. But GST move is not going the way, BJP wanted and it may cost the party heavily in forthcoming election. Although Gujarat is a strong hold of BJP and defeating them at their home turf is going to be tough for opposition and entry of AAP is going to help BJP by further vote division. So, BJP would win Gujarat election with simple majority.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com)
The Rashtriya Varkari Sena and Hindu Janajagruti Samiti has demanded for the dissolution of Government Committee of Anti-Black Magic Act and alleged that many members of the committee are corrupt, possess criminal background and support Naxals. They have threatened to hold demonstration on December 18, if the government fails to dissolve the committee. According to Shrikant Pisolkar, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, Coordinator for Vidarbha, the erstwhile Congress Government had constituted a Government Committee (PIMC) for creating awareness about Anti Black-Magic Act 2013. Since no inquiries had been made about the background of its office bearers before appointing them, many criminals, members of organisations who are facing charges of corruption remain active in the Committee. He added that Shyam Manav of Akhil Bharatiya Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (ABANiS), who has been held guilty of writing defamatory articles has been appointed as Co-chairman of the Committee; whereas, Avinash Patil, Mukta Dabholkar, Madhav Bagwe and Chhaya Savarkar are the members of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANiS). The Assistant Charity Commissioner, Satara has submitted a report that Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti has indulged in various incidents of funds mismanagement and other financial scams.

Arvind Pansare, spokesperson, Hindu Janjagruti Samiti said, Cases have been filed against Prof Shyam Manav and Mukta Dabhokar for making anti-religious statements. Manav has already served one year imprisonment in 1992. As per Bombay Public Trust Act 1950, a person who has served jail sentence is not eligible to hold any post in trusts and any position held by him also becomes invalid. Narendra Dabholkars MANiS is indulging in corruption activities and they are also involved in financial irregularities. Trust officials are misusing the organisations money for their personal use and they fail to keep financial records of the same. The government should stop offering financial assistance to them.

Dr Hamid Dabholkar, MANiS general secretary said, Those people making allegations against our organisation must provide some evidence about it. Nobody can make baseless allegations against us. They should register a complaint or file litigation in the court.

Prof. Shyam Manav, founder of All India Andha-shraddha Nirmulan Samiti (ANS) said, The government had sanctioned Rs 14 crore but we have not accepted a single rupee. The funds were being spent through social justice department. The Hindu Janjagruti activists have committed three murders viz Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi. They have alleged that we have misused Rs 25 lakhs but the amount has been transferred to fixed deposit account. The allegations made by them about I serving jail sentence is false.

Shrikant Pisolkar, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti Coordinator for Vidarbha said, While claiming to eliminate superstition, MANiS is spreading another scientific superstition. Despite Government ban on accepting foreign donations by the editor, journalists, owners of the newspapers and periodicals in India, but the MANiS is the publisher of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Vartapatra (Periodicals) which collected lakhs of rupees from the foreign countries. It has not submitted any accounts to the Government for last 12-13 years, even after collecting crores of rupees from the people, .

He also added, This organisation which is involved in such and other similar scams claims to be rationalist and progressive. Such corrupt organisation finding place in the Government Committee and holding meetings with the government is a very serious matter. Therefore, the Chief Minister should immediately dissolve the Government Committee by taking serious cognisance of the issues.

H.B.P. Devrao Maharaj Vanave, Joint Secretary of Rashtriya Varkari Sena said, On one hand, the Chief Minister seeks blessings of Shri Vitthal at Pandharpur on the other hand, the government appointed committee member makes objectionable statements about Sant Dnyaneshwar. Shyam Manav and other members of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti should be ousted from the government committee, failing which Varkari sect will hold protest throughout the state.
By John Stone



I always supposed that the concept of agency capture, in which government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control or the Food and Drug Administration are taken over by the culture industries from which they were meant to be independent, was a bad thing. I understood that the usual posture of such bodies was simply to pretend that it was not happening and that there were regulations in place that were actively protecting the public interest (despite appearances). That was until I encountered the website of Dorit Rubenstein Reiss and her unpublished paper (most of her papers appear to be unpublished) The Benefits of Capture. According to Reiss :



Observers of the administrative state warn against capture of administrative agencies and lament its disastrous effects. This article suggests that the term capture, applied to a close relationship between industry and regulator, is not usefulby stigmatizing that relationship, judging it as problematic from the start, it hides its potential benefits. The literature on capture highlights its negative resultslax enforcement of regulation; weak regulations; illicit benefits going to industry. This picture, however, is incomplete and in substantial tension with another current strand of literature which encourages collaboration between industry and regulator. The collaboration literature draws on the fact that industry input into the regulatory process has important benefits for the regulatory state. Industry usually has information no one else has, and has more incentive to give that information to a friendly regulator. Furthermore, working with industry can substantially improve the impact of regulation; voluntary compliance is cheaper and can be more effective than enforced compliance, and industry can help regulators minimize negative unintended consequences. This paper suggests that instead of engaging in name-calling, we should focus on identifying when a close industry-regulator relationship will work in the public interest, and when it is likely to undermine it. That is an empirical question.



Dorit Reiss, associate law professor Hastings campus University of California, first came to my notice the other week commenting on Rabbi Handlers article about vaccination in the Jewish Press. I was fascinated to see how all my comments (and those of other contributors to Age of Autism) seemed to be swiftly removed after I challenged her on certain points. Then I discovered that she had responded in Harvard Law Review to Mary Holland, advocating that parents of unvaccinated children should be made liable for infection. Barely a month ago probably no one in the field of vaccine safety advocacy had ever heard of Dorit Reiss now she seems to be everywhere, and passionate proponent of the vaccine industrial machine in all its guises and rampant institutional ambition.



The bottom line to all this, of course, is where is she coming from, to which there is an answer. Reiss is on the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines , the Scientific Advisory Board of which includes Alan R Hinman, Paul A Offit, Stanley A Plotkin and Deborah L Wexler . The website states that Voices for Vaccines was re-launched in 2013 and is an administrative project of the Task Force for Global Health. The Wiki entry for Task Force reads :



The Task Force for Global Health, is a non profit organization affiliated with Emory University. The organization was co-founded by global health pioneer and former CDC Director, Dr. William Foege and two of his former CDC colleagues, Carol Walters and Bill Watson. It was founded in 1984 as the Task Force for Child Survival. The Task Force was initially tapped to serve as a Secretariat for a consortium of global health organizations: UNICEF, WHO, The Rockefeller Foundation, The United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank. These organizations sought Task Force support for a collaborative effort to improve child wellness and survival strategies. With the Task Force as Secretariat for the network, they resolved to work together to develop and implement a plan for global immunization efforts and measures to promote and maintain healthy children and families.



Over its 28 year history, The Task Force has expanded the role of neutral convener and collaborator to address a broader range of global health challenges. In doing so, the organization changed its name to The Task Force for Global Health in 2009. Today, The Task Force has programs in three critical sectors of global health: Health System Strengthening, Immunization and Vaccines (the Task Force Center for Vaccine Equity), and neglected tropical diseases. In each sector, The Task Force works with partners and communities around the world to provide resources to improve global health for those in need. The organization works in 91 countries, collaborating with organizations such as WHO, as well as partnerships with industry to provide much needed medicines and communities to educate about disease prevention.



The Task Force for Global Health is a nonprofit, public health organization, recognized as a 501(c)(3) corporation. The organization is based in Decatur, Georgia, near our partners at CDC, The Carter Center, CARE, and Emory University Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.
For Chocolata owner Kathy D'Agostino, owning a chocolate shop was written in the stars. The celestial-themed storefront opened on Second Avenue North this past August, but it was fated long before.

D'Agostino's love affair with chocolate began at age 15 when she took a temporary job at a chocolate shop in her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. Ten thousand wrapped chocolate Pharaoh heads later, D'Agostino had herself a long-term gig.

She worked at the chocolatier, learning more than just how to wrap chocolates, for more than four years, but eventually life took her other places. She moved to Birmingham in 1994 to be closer to family, and followed a career path of visual display and interior design up until a few years ago.

"I got a little burnt out on what I was doing," D'Agostino says. "So, I decided to get back into chocolate making. It was kind of a leap of faith but I'm excited."

That leap of faith wasn't without encouragement or guidance, though. The food industry isn't totally foreign to D'Agostino. Her husband, Kyle, owns D'Agostino Sausage Empire, which supplies artisan sausages to many local restaurants. D'Agostino also sought the advice of other business owners who counseled her on coming up with a business plan. But the most unique wisdom she gained was a bit more cosmic. Fascinated by astrology, D'Agostino sought the advice of her astrologist when planning the business.

"He told me that, in India, before people have a child, they make sure the name [they've chosen] is right for the timeframe the child is going to be born in. There are different sounds in Vedic astrology that are important," D'Agostino explains.

"He asked me what I was thinking about for a name, and he looked at the chart and gave me some different sounds. He told me that 'ta' was one that would be nice to use, so that's how I came up with Chocolata."

After choosing the perfect name, D'Agostino's next step was determining whether her end goal was a storefront, or simply a pop-up/custom order kind of shop.

"I was thinking about whether it was pop-ups or if I wanted to try to get into a community space like Pizitz [Food Hall], but I knew my nature, and if I don't have a place to go, I have a hard time focusing," D'Agostino says. "I was so excited about everything that's happening downtown and I thought 'How fun to be a part of that.'"

The ideal location was a small, shotgun store diagonally across the street from Paramount on 20th Street.

"Even though this side of the street is quiet as far as there's not a lot of retailers, I like this area because it's close to 20th Street," D'Agostino says. "The Pizitz has been a huge bonus for me being on this street because I'm right in between a lot of the offices and lofts."

After a 7-month build out on the space--"I was the general contractor on the entire project," D'Agostino laughs--Chocolata held a soft opening during Sidewalk Film Festival, where D'Agostino served chocolate-covered popcorn to passing filmgoers.

D'Agostino's chocolate-making techniques are all self-taught, and she offers a variety of unique and interesting flavor combinations. In the display case, you'll find a rotating variety of truffles, bonbons, caramels, and Chocolata's signature Mystic Eye chocolates filled with seasonal ganaches.

The store's celestial theme is carried throughout each of D'Agostino's chocolates, including the chocolate bars for sale in the store. Popular ones include the classic Night Sky Bar with 71% dark chocolate and a sprinkling of sea salt resembling a starry sky; the Dixie at Dusk, made from a dark milk blend and featuring roasted pecans, brown sugar, rosemary, and smoked sea salt; and the Pepe Rosa, a white chocolate bar with pink peppercorns. Even special edition chocolate bars are given thoughtful names, like the Mikadzuki Matcha Bar with matcha green tea, named because "mikadzuki" means crescent moon in Japanese. All bars are hand-wrapped in gold foil with an outer wrapping of blue or white paper with tiny holes to let the gold show through like little stars.

The top-notch quality of D'Agostino's chocolate is due in part to where it comes from. She uses discs of single-origin chocolate sourced from South America that she melts down to make her owncombinations and recipes.

"I found some suppliers who I think have the best chocolate that I can buy," D'Agostino says. "I'm not bean-to-bar, I purchase from them and use that for my recipes."

This past September, D'Agostino spent several days in Ecuador with one of the companies she purchases from, visiting the cacao plantations, dairy farms, and sugar cane plantations that make the chocolate. She got to observe the entire chocolate-making process.

"I think that's why the product is so good--the whole process is so wholesome," D'Agostino explains. "The farmers love what they do. They've been in the cacao plantations working for generations."

The dairy farm that contributes the milk to the chocolate-making process is a co-op of more than 60 farmers, many of them women, who hand-milk cows every day. They also take the milk directly to the processing plant--on four-wheelers, trucks, or mules.

"It's unbelievable to see these women and men come to the processing plant with this milk," D'Agostino says. "[Everyone involved in the chocolate making-process] is very proud of what they do, and they live this beautiful wholesome life, so I think that taught me why this chocolate is really good--because the people care about it."

D'Agostino's talent in chocolate-making makes up the other half of producing a quality product. Once she gets the chocolate, she melts it, blends it, tempers it, then molds it, or dips it to create her own recipes.

"My favorite things to make are the candy bars--coming up with different flavorings and combos for those," D'Agostino says. "I've always been creative and it's an outlet for me. I love to cook and I know what I like. I'm always trying to think of a chocolate that's a little bit different. I like interesting combos."

In addition to her chocolate bars, D'Agostino's creativity can be seen in the individual chocolates she makes. Flavors have included bergamot & cinnamon; bonbons; white chocolate-dipped rosemary caramels; and dark chocolate bonbons with dried cantaloupe. Pop into the store and you can choose from a bakery case full of individual chocolates that change daily.

D'Agostino says her favorite thing is watching people walk by the storefront and do a double take. "They don't realize we're here. It's funny to see them stop and walk back or peek in the window."

What D'Agostino wanted to accomplish was the feel of a big city or a charming European town where you can wander down the street and stop into the store to say hello or discover something new.

"Anyone can drive down here from anywhere for dinner, but what's going to keep people on the streets walking around is a community," D'Agostino says. "The little chocolate shop, the baker, the wine shop, the butcher--everyone knows each other. I love that feeling of community.

"I'm really excited that there are so many people living down here now--I love meeting them. I feel like they're my neighbors. I already have my regulars."

And sometimes a little chocolate can go a long way in fostering that community.

"You know, when I went to get my business license, the people would ask so monotonously 'What kind of business are you wanting to start?' And the second I would say a chocolate shop, their faces would just light up," D'Agostino says. "They would ask what kind and tell me about their favorite kinds. Chocolate makes people happy."

Now with her business thriving, D'Agostino is working hard to keep up with holiday orders, while creating new ideas, running the storefront, and handling her accounts. Currently, the storefront is open four days a week.

"I'm just trying to take it one day at a time," D'Agostino says. "Other business owners told me not to let outside influences change my focus. They said that what's most important is that the product maintains its quality."

And while quality does remain her focus, D'Agostino's positive outlook on life has seemed to keep the stars aligned for her and her business.

"If you're going to succeed, you have to be an optimist," D'Agostino says. "Just think positively and anything is possible. If you are passionate about your work, you will find a way to make it work."

Details

Chocolata | 1927 2nd Avenue North | chocolatachocolate.com | Hours: Wed. 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Thurs.-Fri. 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. and 6 p.m.-9 p.m., Sat. 12 p.m.-4 p.m.

--Photos by Kelsey Justice

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's December 2017 issue. Subscribe today!
Payne Martin, 6, of Enterprise, Alabama, lights a Hanukkah menorah.

David and Jen Martin of Enterprise were a little bit surprised by their ancestry.com DNA results.

Jen expected she'd be about half-Scottish and half-Irish, with some Native American in there too.

"We'd always heard rumors that we were part Native American," she said. "We always heard we'd come from Ireland."

The results altered her perception of herself. "We're very little Irish," she said. "It was 61 percent Scottish, 22 percent Scandinavian, 3 percent Irish."

She was a little hurt that her husband had more Irish ancestry than she did. "We both ended up being primarily Scottish and Scandinavian," she said.

Then there was this tidbit of information: she had three percent Ashkenazi, or European Jewish, ancestry. Her husband had two percent.

"It's miniscule," she said.

"On my maternal side, my mother's grandmother told her they were of the Jewish faith," Jen said. "On my paternal side, there was a rumor of my third-great grandmother being Jewish."

But she decided to honor that heritage, as tenuous as it was.

"The first thing we did was go buy a menorah," Jen said. "This is our first year putting it to use."

So on Tuesday night, they lit the first candle on the Hanukkah menorah, said a blessing, and celebrated Hanukkah for the first time. It's an eight-day Jewish festival celebrating religious freedom.

Jen home-schools their six-year-old son, Payne, and she wanted him to honor all of his ancestry.

"You have a history that's been lost in our family," Jen said. "We don't want it to be lost again. These are the people we come from. They deserve respect."

They have a Hanukkah display along with a Christmas tree.

"We've always had a Christmas tree," Jen said. "We also have pagan roots. The tree itself comes from that. We grew up in a Christian household. It doesn't mean there aren't other faiths. We want to acknowledge it's not just Christianity; Jewishness is there; paganism is there. We just talk about what they practiced and what they believed. It's all educational."

On Dec. 21, the winter solstice, they will have a meal focused on pagan tradition.

"It's a way to make a child understand everybody's different," she said. "It doesn't mean they're better. It doesn't mean they are worse. It just means they are different. It's a way to not lose our past. It teaches tolerance and understanding. We're all special and we're all good, we're all different."

The Martin family did not have Jewish blessings passed down for generations. Instead, they got their prayers from another source: "The internet," Jen said. "There are copious amounts of information."

She talked to a relative's Jewish wife to make sure their family is doing it right. She is teaching Payne to have reverence and respect for the holiday and the history behind it.

"I don't want to be disrespectful in any form or fashion," Jen said. "I don't want to be wrong."

Payne even gets Hanukkah presents, a tradition on each night of Hanukkah.

"We tell him, 'Yes, you do have Christmas presents coming. But this is a Jewish tradition.' He's enjoying playing with the dreidel. He's enjoying it. He's understanding that this is a cool thing."
Welcome to Whitman, Alabama, the acclaimed AL.com video series created by journalist and filmmaker Jennifer Crandall. We invite you to explore this new installment, and to dive back into our archive at whitmanalabama.com.

I'm always trying to see Alabama from different perspectives.

We've seen it from the air; we've seen it from the road; and, in this video, we see it from the water with Steve Stroupe and Elron Dawson.

One of my project partners Pierre and I met Steve while he was fishing the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River, and we were checking out the Swann Covered Bridge from the riverbank. We started chatting and hit it off. Not long after that, we all agreed to do things we had never done before: Steve would read a stanza from "Song of Myself," and Pierre and I would join him that night for a midnight turtle hunt.

Although we met Steve by chance, we deliberately put ourselves in the path of Elron, the second engineer on the coal barge, the Megan Parker.

We didn't plan much of what we filmed for either shoot, so I'm a bit overwhelmed by so many accidental parallels with the poetry itself.

In Verse 44, Whitman writes about birth and evolution. And when we were turtle hunting with Steve, he caught a baby prehistoric fish -- a gar. Standing in the middle of the river, in almost complete darkness, looking at that fish, felt like being transported way, way back in time.

In this same verse, Whitman writes about recognizing the steps of evolution but embodying the present. In the video, we emerge from the water in the creek and end up on this long, meditative float with Elron, where there's not much to do but be present, watching the water and listening to the poem.

I'm not sure how this keeps happening, but we'll take every happy accident we get.

By Jennifer Crandall, as told to writer Liz Hildreth. See more stories from Whitman Alabama.

If you want to learn more about our midnight fishing adventure, Steve has the experience captured in a great Facebook post called Riverslumming in Blount County, Alabama.
A second teen has been charged with capital murder for his role in the July killing of a Vietnam veteran.

Fernandez Britton Jr., 18, was previously charged with burglary in connection with the case. The upgraded charges were announced Friday by the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit.

Lester Williams, 69, was found dead in his home in the 1600 block of Ty Rogers Jr. Avenue in the early morning hours of July 18. Authorities found Williams when they responded to his home about a possible murder there.

The caller said they heard a disturbance at the home. When authorities arrived on scene, investigators said the front door was kicked in and Williams was found dead in his bed.

Gov. Kay Ivey in August announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to arrests and convictions in the case.

In October, investigators arrested Britton on the second-degree burglary charge and also arrested 18-year-old Cody Williams on the murder charge. Capt. Gary Hood on Friday said they uncovered new evidence and developed enough probably cause to charge Britton with capital murder. He was arrested Thursday and remains in jail held without bond.

Williams also remains jailed on felony murder and burglary charges with bonds totaling $315,000.
The presence of Syrian refugees in Armenias mono-ethnic society has been celebrated in the capital Yerevan through the personal initiative of an art curator and three photographers who have been documenting the migration since the eruption of the war in Syria in 2011.

A documentary photo exhibition that opened on Friday was called Home to Home, to highlight the fact that the 20,000 new arrivals were descendants of Armenians who fled from Turkey to Syria during another war more than 100 years ago.

The idea for the event that will last until mid January came from Anna Kamay, an art curator, who told Al Jazeera that she was fascinated by the positive changes introduced by the refugees in her community.

Kamay said the new arrivals started small businesses  including new restaurants with good service  demonstrated strong work ethic and even brightened up the streets by wearing colourful clothes.

People in Yerevan dress mostly in dark colours  These people brought lots of new colours with them. There are kind of a novelty here, bringing cultural and economic change to the country, she said.

Armenian community was a very strong one in Syria, and if it wasnt for the war, they would never move to Armenia. So it is a very unfortunate circumstances, but at the end, we have what we have, a boost to the local economy, a very precious human capital and also diversity that we really lack in Armenia.

Easy integration

It is not clear whether any of the 20,000 refugees moved on to other countries or returned to Syria, but the initial number put Armenia  with its population of 2.9 million  high up on the list of the countries with the highest per capita ratios of refugees to nationals  six refugees to 1,000 locals.

Their integration was relatively easy as the new arrivals had the same ethnicity, religion and language [with different dialect].

Initially theyre taken a little bit like foreigners  Armenia is mono-ethnic, so people here dont know how to deal with others, said Anush Babajanyan, one of the three photographers featured in the exhibition, along with Piruza Khalapyan and Nazik Armenakyan.

But Syrian Armenians are very communicable, open and lively so a lot of the times they make the right first step and that helps.

The hardest part for the refugees was the lack of economic opportunities, she said.

People dont tend to move to Armenia, they tend to leave due to our economic difficulties, she said.

Some of the Syrian Armenians even settled in Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh, a conflict region that is internationally recognised as part of neighbouring Azerbaijan where cross-border shootouts are common.

They were lured by free rural accommodation provided by the de facto government and the prospect of feeding their families by working the land.

It is interesting because it is not so peaceful there, but a lot of people who moved there say: If I am going to be in a conflict zone, I want to be in a conflict zone that relates to my people. I can relate to this conflict more than the conflict in Syria, said Babajanian.

From Aleppo to Yerevan

The unwanted prospect of involvement in the Syrian conflict made Shant Klzy Muradian, 19 at the time, decide to seek shelter in Armenia as well.

The native of Syrias Aleppo city arrived in Yerevan in 2015 with his brother, leaving behind his parents and grandparents. His mother joined him recently.

It is not very easy here, but I dont see us ever going back home, but maybe in 10, 20 years we will reconsider, he told Al Jazeera.

The 21-year-old is one of the refugees whose life is featured in the exhibition.

Muradian was reluctant to have his photo taken at first, but then he changed his mind.

At the beginning, I was not comfortable with it. But now I am happy I did it because maybe it will help other refugees to get more support when they arrive, he said.

I was lucky. My cousin [who arrived four years earlier than me] helped me to find a job [at a kitchen], but maybe others will not have relatives or friends here [to get them started]. It will be harder, said Muradian.

Kamay said only time would show whether the refugees would stay in Armenia, move on to other countries or go back to Syria, but it was very important for her and the photographers to document this moment when we have 20,000 Syrian Armenians among us.

It is a story of not only migration but also of courage, resilience and willingness to start a new life.

Follow Al Jazeeras Tamila Varshalomidze on Twitter @tamila87v
Dressed in a white t-shirt and raised on another protesters shoulders, a man in Lebanon joins a demonstration in support of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, just two years before Lebanons first civil war in 1958.

In 1970, a brand new hospital in Qatar sits in a lonely spot, no traffic interrupting the road ahead.

A group of boys take a school trip in Kuwait to al-Fintas in 1950, accompanied by smartly dressed teachers.

And two of the Arab worlds most celebrated performers are seen in a movie still, with Egyptian Samia Gamal watching over Syrian Farid el-Atrash as he fixes a car with the pyramids in the near distance.

These are just some of the 15 images on show in this gallery, a taste of Middle Eastern history in its rich tapestry.

As one of the most prominent cultural institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Image Foundation (AIF) has led the way in the collection, preservation and study of photographs from the region.

Established in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1997, AIF has spent 20 years contributing to a greater cultural, political and social understanding of the Middle East.

Today, it holds hundreds of thousands of images from not only its home country but also the likes of Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia, as well as the wider Arab diaspora.

In 1997, the AIF embarked on an ambitious project to collect samples from the work of photographers in the Middle East with the aim of writing the history of a practice that hadnt been told prior to this date, Akram Zaatari, AIF co-founder, told Al Jazeera.

Many in the region didnt then consider photographs worth keeping unless for the emotional ties to the subjects in it, said Zaatari, a Lebanese photographer and filmmaker.

When we started the AIF, we insisted on writing the history of this practice because we wanted to research what photographers daily work was like. We were interested how they worked, what material they used, how they made aesthetic choices and who taught them.

The AIF is today the only register in this part of the world that keeps samples of work from a large slice of photo-practitioners from the 20th century.

Home to a vast array of images, negatives and other photographic material from the mid-19th century to the present day, AIF presents as a modern outfit.

Led by its 30-year-old director, Marc Mouarkech, the organisation has adopted a highly developed approach to its prized possessions.

Individual items, for example, are routinely referred to as objects by AIF staff, not images or photographs, to reflect the dynamic and multi-layered nature of each artefact.

Today, we have 600,000 objects that are divided into 301 collections, Mouarkech told Al Jazeera. We dont consider that we have just one collection, but rather 301 different collections with different morphologies and different specificities.

Despite receiving no public funds, AIF is first and foremost a public institution with an educational and patrimonial role, said Mouarkech.

In April 2018, for instance, the organisation will launch an online platform with the aim of engaging with the public to gather more information about little-known objects.

During the same month, it will re-open its doors to visitors after a period of closure to outsiders.

To mark 20 years of AIF, this is a brief visual celebration of the Arab world as caught on film by some of the regions most prolific photographers.

Reporting by Alasdair Soussi.
Roy Moore, who wants the US to return to the days of slavery, won nearly half of the votes in the Alabama Senate race.

On Wednesday, Republican Judge Roy Moore, who had secured the backing of US President Donald Trump, lost the senate race in the conservative state of Alabama to his Democrat rival Doug Jones. Moore has been accused of rape and molesting a 14-year-old girl, and many believe these accusations cost him the election. But his was still a very narrow defeat, as the Republican candidate got very nearly half the vote.

The defeat of Moore is exciting at least because it shows that a Democrat can actually win an election. But it is also a matter for concern  if not despair  that his defeat only came over allegations of sexual misconduct.

In September, prompted by his support for Donald Trumps claim to make America great again, he was asked the obvious question: When did he think the country had been great?

Moore said, I think it was great at the time when families were united  even though we had slavery  they cared for one another  Our families were strong, our country had a direction.

This is a kind of lunacy. How is it possible to say, families were united when slave owners could sell off a mothers children? When they could separate husbands and wives? What does it mean to say that families were strong, when the infinite gradations of colour among African-Americans were being created by slave owners raping the women whom they owned. Their wives had to tolerate this, because men controlled all the property and money.

If some of the worst candidates in history can be nearly elected, it means that the backward logic and disguised appeal to pre-civil war racism and women as second class citizens without voting or property rights remain powerful and dangerous. by

Back in 2011, Moore said the Amendments to the Constitution should have stopped with the first 10, called the Bill of Rights, and adopted at the same time that the Constitution was initially passed.

Keep in mind that the Constitution implicitly accepted slavery. Southerners  like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison  wanted it both ways, to keep blacks in slavery and yet have additional political power based on the number of slaves that were owned in their states. Their solution, written into the Constitution, was that Representatives  shall be apportioned  according  to the whole Number of free Persons  [and] three fifths of all other Persons. That last being a euphemism for slaves.

Had the US stopped after the first Ten Amendments, slavery would still be constitutional. It was the 13th Amendment that finally abolished it.

The 14th gave citizenship to anyone born or naturalised in the US and the 15th gave all males the right to vote regardless of race, creed, colour, or having been a slave. The 19th gave women the right to vote.

The 17th Amendment took the right to elect senators away from state legislators and gave it to the voters.

The 16th Amendment legalised federal income taxes and the 24th made the poll tax  a device to keep the poor, especially African-Americans from voting  illegal.

In 2006 Moore wrote an op-ed article that said, To support the Constitution of the United States one must uphold an underlying principle of that document, liberty of conscience, which is the right of every person to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, without interference by the government. Then used that as an argument to say that Keith Ellison  who is a Muslim  should not be allowed to serve in congress. This is an inversion of reason and logic that makes Alices Adventures in Wonderland seem like essays in realism.

Roy is most famous for his putting up a massive monument to the 10 Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court building as a statement that it is the basis for the USs legal system. He is not alone in this. The late Justice Antonin Scalia said, Its a symbol of the fact that government comes  derives its authority from God.

Yet if we actually compare the Ten Commandments to the first Ten Amendments, whats striking is that the Constitution is a direct refutation of the ones that arent part of all standard legal systems, the rules against murder, theft, perjury, and adultery.

The First Commandment is Thou shalt put no other God before me. The First Amendment is that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

The second, Thou shalt make no graven image and not take the name of the Lord they God in vain is also opposed by First Amendment which says there shall be no law abridging freedom of speech. The Commandment to honor they father and mother, likewise comes up against the guarantee of free speech.

Thou shalt not covet, would make thoughts into crimes. The Bill of Rights call for adherence to the rules of common law, which require actus reus, an act, for something to be a crime.

In the end, Roy Moore lost the election. But his narrow defeat came only over allegations of sexual misconduct and not because he wants to return to the days of slavery, voting by white males only, and wants to impose a theocratic vision on the US.

Perhaps the tidal wave that put Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of all branches of government, has begun to recede. Perhaps Democrats can figure out how to keep winning elections. But if some of the worst candidates in history can be nearly elected, it means that the backward logic and disguised appeal to pre-civil war racism and women as second class citizens without voting or property rights remain powerful and dangerous.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Trump managed to delude the white poor that their interest lies with the wealthy elite. This is killing US capitalism.

Americas first businessperson in the White House is doing more to destroy the American capitalist system than any previous president.

A strong market economy needs a robust middle class, mechanisms for upward mobility, and clear rule of law to grow and sustain itself over time. US President Donald Trump has little allegiance to any of these.

In the rush to fulfil campaign promises and sate the greed of corporate backers, Trump and his

Republican enablers are re-organising US tax policy in favour of the rich, gutting regulations and higher education, and ignoring long-standing norms and protections against conflicts of interest.

This new-found, but fleeting, Republican power has been made possible by the partys condoning of a resurgent American tribalism known as racism.

What is poorly understood by many conservative Republicans is that unfettered capitalism will eventually destroy itself. Left to its natural trajectory, capitalism tends to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few, and the system implodes on itself because of limited demand from an emaciated middle class and shrinking competition in the marketplace.

Some intervention by the state, in the form of wealth redistribution and regulation, curbs the worst excesses of the system and allows it to be sustained over time.

The GOP tax legislation, likely to arrive on Trumps desk in the coming days, massively cuts taxes for corporations and the wealthiest individuals in the country. While some middle-class households will see tax cuts in the short term, many will see just the opposite. The net effect is an end to progressive taxation in America and increasing wealth concentration at the top of the economic ladder. Over time, this new tax policy will effectively stifle consumer demand in the US.

Racism functions a lot like tribalism in other contexts because it fosters pre-capitalist thinking. by

In the early 20th century, carmaker Henry Ford understood that the US economy worked best when you have a thriving middle-class. In fact, part of his rationale for raising wages was his implicit understanding that the company needed a middle class consumer base that would buy the Model T vehicles that Ford plants were producing.

Unfortunately, such enlightened self-interest is rare. Its not that business people dont understand this, but they want to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, business owners want a prosperous and educated middle class that is neither supported by more robust wages nor redistributive taxation policies.

The result in the US, until recently, has been an oppositional political system with one party, the Democrats, largely supported by workers and labour unions, and the other, Republicans, mostly buttressed by business interests and the wealthy.

The Democratic Party worked for higher wages, redistributive taxation, robust public education, and health and safety regulations, whereas the Republican Party sought a leaner government and limited taxation. As long as the two sides were relatively balanced, a modicum of redistributive taxation, public investment, and regulation curbed the worst excesses of the capitalist system and kept it running smoothly.

Trumps evil genius was to overtly tap into the dark world of racism.

Racism functions a lot like tribalism in other contexts because it fosters pre-capitalist thinking. Rather than voting along class-based lines formed by shared economic interests, both tribalism and racism foster group thinking that cuts across class lines. As such, poor white workers are led to believe that they have more in common with their white capitalist bosses than their fellow workers of colour.

Thanks to racism, capitalist tycoons have been able to bamboozle poor working-class whites into supporting their agenda to jettison the moderating influences of progressive taxation and regulation that actually sustains a market economy over time.

Also in the GOP tax plan are a series of taxes on university education.

These include a new tax on graduate tuition waivers, a key way many post-graduates in the US are able to attend school, as well as plans to scrap tax deductions related to university student loans.These proposals would not only stifle the engine of the US knowledge economy, but they would destroy a key means of upward mobility in the country.

Last but not least, the Trump administrations blatant nepotism and disregard for long-standing precedents on avoiding conflicts of interest signal a retreat from the rule of law, abandonment of meritocracy, and deepening crony capitalism.

Living in a country where the president remains heavily invested in businesses he promotes regularly and has a son-in-law as a key adviser, does not feel like the country I used to know as the US. While the US business sector may always seek to lower costs and maximise profits, it also needs a robust consumer base, a well-educated workforce, and an even-handed state to apply rules and regulations and hold all actors to the same standard.

Although businesses may chafe against the exigencies of the modern welfare state, more enlightened entrepreneurs understand that they have to pay their dues to sustain the system that feeds them.

In contrast, it is the bottom-feeders in the capitalist system that tend to focus on short-term profits and ignore the health of the system in which they are operating. These actors would just as soon as feast on the goose that lays the golden egg because they cant see past the foie gras and imagine a better future for everyone. Sadly, such an actor is now running my country, and he is attempting to unwind history and return us to protocapitalism.

There now appear to be at least three possible futures before us.

The first and the most unbearable is that Trumpism continues to spread and the world further regresses into tribalism, primitive accumulation and environmental decline. The likes of Poland and the Philippines suggest that this is a possibility.

The second is that cooler heads eventually prevail in the US, Trump is forced out, and Republicans are held somewhat accountable for their support of a madman. Under this scenario, the worst policy stumbles of the Trump regime are at least partially unwound, and the US somewhat recovers from this very un-glorious moment.

The third possibility is that the US economy and society is so badly wounded by Trumpism that it never recovers and other nations recognise and avoid such blunders. These countries may move on to be the worlds new global economic powers. Under this scenario, American capitalism will be remembered as an era  an age abruptly ended by a backward president.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Supreme Court rules government must extend deadline linking cards to personal data as debate over privacy rages on.

New Delhi, India  India must extend the deadline linking a national ID card to banking, phone accounts and government services to the end of March 2018, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Fridays developments renewed attention on the ambitious national identity card project, Aadhaar, which the government touts as the largest biometric ID card programme in the world.

The validity of the governments orders  whether or not citizens can be forced to enrol, for instance  will be debated in the top court from January 17.





The launch of Aadhaar combined with several high-profile leaks of citizens data have raised privacy concerns.

In August, the Supreme Court declared that privacy is a fundamental right, a move interpreted as a setback to the governments plans.

The mandatory use of national identity cards and connecting them to accounts and mobile phones is being challenged at the top court.

The government says the project will lead to a social revolution.

Within reach of the country is what might be called the 1 billion-1 billion-1 billion vision, said Arun Jaitley, Indias finance minister, in August. That is 1 billion unique Aadhaar numbers linked to 1 billion bank accounts and 1 billion mobile phones. Once that is done, all of India can become part of the financial and digital mainstream.

Critics have warned that the publics privacy is at risk, claiming Aadhaar cards would link a large amount of data, without clear safeguards for access or use by government or private companies.

They say that Aadhaar would allow authorities to create a full profile of a persons spending habits, phone records, banking records, rail bookings, property ownership and a trove of other information.

You would cease to exist

Karuna Nundy, a Supreme Court lawyer, said Indias poor, often denied access to social welfare schemes unless they can furnish an Aadhaar ID, are particularly vulnerable.

People have starved to death because they were denied food entitlements for lack of Aadhaar, she told Al Jazeera. The Bhopal gas victims, who I represent in the Supreme Court, are being denied compensation without it. On the flip side you have easy identity theft and [the] government handing over citizens data to companies, and without consent.

In Jharkhands Simdega district, an 11-year-old girl died of starvation in October, months after her familys ration card was cancelled because they did not possess an Aadhaar number.

The biggest privacy risk is your entire identity being stolen and you ceasing to exist if your Aadhaar number is deactivated for any reason ... You basically become a nobody by Srinivas Kodali, security researcher

In November, 50-year-old Shakina Ashfaq died in Uttar Pradesh province, with her family alleging it was because the paralysed woman was unable to appear in person at a government ration shop to authenticate her Aadhaar card, Nundy said.

It would be nearly impossible for poor, illiterate citizens to reconstruct their identities. Some may not even know if their identities were stolen in the first place, she added.

Srinivas Kodali, an independent security researcher based in Hyderabad, cited problems in the implementation and design of the project.

The biggest privacy risk is your entire identity being stolen and you ceasing to exist if your Aadhaar number is deactivated for any reason, he said. You would cease to exist for any government department or private service provider. You basically become a nobody.

In February, Kodali reported on an Aadhaar data leak from a government website, which saw the release of Aadhaar ID numbers for more than 500,000 people.

He complained to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the government department responsible for administering the Aadhaar programme, but did not receive a response.

All I received were legal notices [addressed to the portal Centre for Internet and Society which published my report highlighting this breach], he said.

Speak for me, a website launched this week, is asking citizens to register their complaints about being forced to link Aadhaar with phone, banking and other services. The platform allows Indians to write to legislators to argue on their behalf in parliament.

Government denials as leaks continue

By the time of publishing, UIDAI had not responded to Al Jazeeras request for comment.

In November, UDAIs chief executive Ajay Bhushan Pandey claimed that the cards would be invaluable in fighting bank fraud, which he said had resulted in a $3bn loss over one year.

If every bank account was verified with Aadhaar then this would not have been possible, he told a conference, according to reports.

UIDAI has admitted, however, that 210 government websites have mistakenly published several citizens personal data, including their ID numbers, names and addresses.

Aadhaar is a very safe and secure system ... Your biometric data is never shared with anybody else. by Arvind Gupta, former head of PM Modi's IT team

In May, the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society said a central government ministry and a state government may have inadvertently exposed up to 135 million Aadhaar numbers.

The privacy infringement that a law proposes to make must be proportionate to the purpose it seeks to achieve, said a lawyer associated with the Aadhaar case, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Aadhaar, by design, does not have a specific purpose. For any purpose, whether its privacy versus security, privacy versus convenience, there are different trade-offs. But with a general-purpose database like Aadhaar, you cannot make those trade-offs. Therefore you cant even test if a certain state action is proportionate.

Members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) say these fears are unfounded.

Aadhaar is a very safe and secure system, said Arvind Gupta, the former head of Prime Minister Narendra Modis Information Technology team.

It has a double contract architecture for privacy by ensuring that the right people access the data that you would otherwise give on paper; you can now do it electronically. Your biometric data is never shared with anybody else.

Of course people have to make it more safe, more secure. That is an ongoing process.

Deadly violence against activists

The controversy comes amid deadly violence against those seeking to use Indias landmark Right to Information (RTI) Act, passed in 2005.

At least 65 RTI activists have been killed since the act was enforced in 2005, according to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).

At least 159 assaults and 179 cases of harassment and threats have also been registered in the same period by the organisation.

Those targeted included activists trying to expose sour government deals, from illegal sand mining and alleged tampering of electronic voting machines to corruption in local government.

Now, the government appears to be delaying laws that would strengthen the RTI Act and empower whistleblowers, activists have said.

If you look at the Modi governments record, it has been terrible, said Nikhil Dey, an activist.

The Lokpal [Corruption Ombudsman] Bill and the Whistleblowers Protection Act, which I call the RTI 2.0, aims at moving from transparency to accountability. Its been three years of this government and the ombudsman has not yet been appointed.

The Whistleblowers Protection Act is not being effected and the government is trying to put in terribly damaging amendments to this act. In a sense, the government is trying to stop the forward movement in this journey, even legislatively.

One proposed amendment, he said, would see information requests made by people who die before the request is fulfilled being cancelled, with the information never released.

This, actually, would encourage people to be killed [by those seeking to suppress information], said Dey.

Another proposed amendment allows applications to be withdrawn while still in process.

That again opens doors to blackmail and threats, he said.

The governments refusal to release information about policies while seeking greater information from their citizens is worrying, critics say.

So far, the government has refused for example, to share details of decisions regarding Indias major demonetisation decision imposed last year. Queries around appointments to independent watchdogs such as the national auditor, comptroller, and the election commission have also been shot down.
Court rejects appeal of Teodora del Carmen Vasquez, who was convicted of homicide under countrys strict abortion law.

A court in El Salvador has upheld the 30-year prison sentence of a woman who was charged with homicide under the countrys strict abortion law after she says she suffered a stillbirth.

Teodora del Carmen Vasquez was seeking to have her conviction overturned after spending nearly a decade in jail after she says gave birth to her stillborn daughter in 2007.

A court on Thursday, however, rejected her appeal and upheld the sentence.

Carmen Vasquez, who spoke to Al Jazeera earlier this year while awaiting the court date, said she did not know she had delivered her child when the police showed up to her workplace, handcuffed her and took her jail.

I never realised I had my baby, I was waiting for help, I didnt even know I was losing so much blood, she told Al Jazeera.

When police arrived, they told me they had to arrest me because I had killed my baby, this never happened, she said.

The state accused her of aborting her child, while her lawyers and supporters say she delivered the baby stillborn.

Strict abortion law

El Salvador is one of only five countries to criminalise abortion in all circumstances.





Under the law, a woman can be accused of abortion or homicide, even in cases of rape or when the womans health is at risk.

The law also penalises health providers who do not report suspected abortions, which rights groups have said creates an environment in which women who suffer miscarriages early in pregnancy or stillbirths are often reported to police.

A woman can be punished with a sentence of up to eight years for an abortion, and in some cases up to 50 years if a judge determines homicide was committed.

Katia Recinos, one of Carmen Vasquezs lawyers, told Al Jazeera before the court ruling that she was hopeful based on new evidence that her clients case would be overturned.

The lawyer argued that the initial forensic investigation after the incident was incomplete and new evidence found that the baby died before it was born.

But on Thursday, the court concluded that there were no irregularities in the forensic evidence, according to local media.

Outrageous step backward

Human rights groups condemned the courts decision, calling it an outrageous step backward for justice.

{articleGUID}

Teodoras tragic story is a sad illustration of everything that is wrong with the justice system in El Salvador, where human rights seem to be a foreign concept, Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

Instead of punishing Teodora for being a woman, authorities in El Salvador must urgently take a hard look at their outrageous anti-abortion law and take immediate steps to repeal it, she added.

Other groups, including Human Rights Watch, have called on El Salvador to decriminalise abortion, saying the current law poses risks to womens life and health.

Earlier this year, a bill was introduced that would change the law to allow abortion in some circumstances, such as rape or when a womans health is at risk.

The proposed legislation remains in committee.

Last summer, a group of UN experts also urged the country to allow the termination of pregnancy in specific circumstances.

According to El Salvador-based Alliance for Womens Health and Life, there were at least 147 cases between 2000 and 2014 in which a woman was charged under the abortion law.

{articleGUID}

Earlier this year, a 19-year-old rape survivor was sentenced to 30 years in prison after she suffered a stillbirth due to complications during her pregnancy.

Carmen Vasquez is also part of a group known as Las 17 or The 17, which comprises women who were convicted between 1999 and 2011 after losing their babies.

Three of the women have had their convictions overturned after the Citizens Association for the Decriminalization of Abortion  a pro-choice organisation  along with Amnesty International petitioned the Supreme Court to free all 17 of the women.

For Carmen Vasquez, it remains unclear what her next steps will be.

According to local media, her lawyers are still evaluating if there is another legal process they can take.

Additional reporting by Elizabeth Melimopoulos @Liz0210.
News of visit come after Bahraini delegation travelled to Israel, claiming to send message of religious tolerance.

A delegation of Israeli business leaders will travel to Bahrain in January amid a warming of ties between the two countries, according to a media report.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Jerusalem Post that the visit would be a follow-up to this months Bahraini delegation in Israel.

The Bahrainis have approved it. It will be a Wiesenthal Center delegation. The idea is to establish some direct contacts, which are not political, but the idea is to start normal contacts, Cooper told the Jerusalem Post.

His comments were published just days after a Bahraini delegation, This is Bahrain, arrived in Israel with a goal to send a message of religious tolerance and coexistence, according to local media.

The cross-border delegations come at a time of heightened tensions in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

This Bahraini interfaith delegation visited Israel in the spirit of peaceful coexistence. People werent pleased. pic.twitter.com/OOlTqD9upT  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 14, 2017

Earlier this month, Bahrain joined a chorus of international condemnation against US President Donald Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, warning that the move threatens the peace process in the Middle East.

This is Bahrains visit was criticised by social media users, including Bahrainis who said the trip did not represent their feelings.

Bahrain and Israel do not maintain diplomatic relations. Bahraini officials have previously suggested that stronger ties could benefit both countries in confronting their mutual rival, Iran.

Documents released by WikiLeaks in 2011 highlighted Bahrains contacts with Israel at the intelligence/security level and indicated that the Gulf country was willing to move forward in other areas.
US presidents recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has led to protests, violence, condemnation and arrests.

Violence, protests and arrests have followed US President Donald Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Donald Trump made the announcement on December 6 and said the US would begin the process of moving its embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.

The decision broke with decades of US policy on Jerusalem.

The international community has never recognised Israels claim to the entire city.

Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan to divide historical Palestine between Jewish and Arab states, Jerusalem was granted special status and was meant to be placed under international sovereignty and control.

This status was based on the citys religious importance to the three Abrahamic religions; Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Palestinians see East Jerusalem, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, as the capital of their future state. Israel meanwhile insists that the city is its indivisible capital.

Here are five key developments since Trumps announcement:

Protests

A wave of anger spread from the Middle East to the rest of the world in the days following President Trumps announcement. More than a week on, tens of thousands continue to demonstrate. Four Palestinian protesters were killed during protests on Friday.

Solidarity rallies have spread as far as Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Rabat, Chicago and Tokyo.

In the Middle East, protesters took to the streets of Amman, Beirut, the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.

While Friday is a key day for rallies in the Muslim world, protesters have taken to the streets daily in the occupied Palestinian territories, prompting the excessive use of force by Israeli security.

On December 14, they closed Gazas border crossings for goods and pedestrians.

Rockets and deadly air raids

Israel launched a series of air raids, some of which turned deadly, against Palestinian targets in the days following Trumps announcement.

Israeli officials claim these raids were in response to rockets from inside the Gaza Strip.

On December 14, Israel struck a number of Hamas sites, including a naval facility and a military base near the al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.

More than 10 attacks were carried out in total, leading to at least two deaths (see below) and damage to sites and nearby houses, according to a Palestinian security source.

Deaths and injuries

At least eight Palestinians have been killed by Israel since Trumps announcement, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Four demonstrators, including a disabled man in Gaza who lost both his legs in previous Israeli wars on the besieged strip, were fatally shot by Israeli forces on December 15.

On December 8, two Hamas fighters were killed in an Israeli air raid on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The individuals killed were identified as Mahmoud al-Atal, 28 and Mohammed Safadi, 30.

Israeli troops shot and killed two other Palestinians on the same day amid protests on the Israel-Palestine border.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has provided medical assistance to more than 1,933 people across the West Bank and Gaza Strip since Washingtons policy change, according to the group.

Arrests

Israeli security forces have arrested more than 260 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since Trumps declaration, according to a statement made by the Palestinian Prisoners Society on December 13.

Several of those arrested are children, including 16-year-old Fawzi al-Junaidi. An image of the teenager, blindfolded and surrounded by more than 20 Israeli occupation forces, was widely denounced as it was shared on social media earlier this week. He has denied charges of throwing stones.

Muslim leaders denouncement

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called an extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for December 13 following Trumps decision on Jerusalem.

During the meeting in Istanbul, the 57-member group denounced Trumps move as null and void and called on the United Nations to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Muslim leaders warned that Trumps administration will be liable for all the consequences of not retracting from this illegal decision, saying they remain committed to a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.

Founded in 1969, the OIC bills itself as the collective voice of the Muslim world.

Turkeys Hurriyet newspaper reported on Friday that Erdogan will launch initiatives at the United Nations to have Washingtons disgraceful decision annulled.

As a country, we are determined to do our bit on this issue. We will wash the dirty laundry of those who breach international law, Erdogan said in a speech on Friday.

We will work to annul this unlawful decision, first in the Security Council and then in the UN General Assembly if it is vetoed there.

He added that Ankara will encourage other countries to recognise the Palestinian state.

Right now, 137 countries in the world recognise the Palestinian state. God willing, this number will further increase with our efforts, he said.
Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders to feature in Prague meeting likely to face protests as Czech rightwing gains strength.

An earlier version of this story said Janice Atkinson is an independent MEP who was expelled from Britain's populist UKIP party two years ago amid a financing scandal. Atkinson was cleared and one of her assistants later pleaded guilty.

In a sign of growing unity among Europes far-right leaders, Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands are among several controversial figures due to meet in Prague for the start of a two-day conference to discuss their regional ambitions.

Several European parliament members (MEPs) in the Europe of Nations and Freedom coalition, who rode to power in recent years on the back of growing populism and xenophobia, are expected to be met on Saturday at the venue by hundreds of protesters.

The conference has been organised by Czech-Japanese entrepreneur Tomio Okamura, whose anti-Islam Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (SPD) made unprecedented gains in the Czech legislative elections in October with nearly 11 percent of the vote, good enough to become the third largest party in the Chamber of Deputies.

In addition to members of Le Pens National Front and Wilders Party for Freedom, Marcus Pretzell, a German MEP formerly with Alternative for Germany (AfD), is expected to attend the conference along with Janice Atkinson, an independent MEP who was expelled from Britains populist UKIP party two years ago amid her alleged involvement in a financial scandal. Atkinson was later cleared but one of her assistants subsequently pleaded guilty to fraud.

Okamura has had contact with Le Pen for several years. This is not the first time they have met, so they are using the conference to build an internal rightwing in Europe and are building contacts with extremists, said Jan Culik, a lecturer in Czech studies at the University of Glasgow.

With no other discernible policy, Okamura ran his campaign on the slogan No to Islam, no to terrorism and has called for an outright ban of the religion in the Czech Republic.

This weekends conference, at the Top Hotel outside central Prague, remains just as ambiguous, with no clear agenda yet published.

{articleGUID}

The conference comes as Andrej Babis, who took office as prime minister earlier this week, is the midst of trying to gain influence in a parliament where his ANO party currently holds just 78 seats in the 200-seat lower house and does not have enough support among the other eight parties to form a majority.

Babis is the second richest person in the Czech Republic and has continually railed against the EUs refugee quotas, even after the European Commission said this month that it would take his country to court over their refusal to take in asylum seekers.

The [European] Commission can withdraw the charge at any moment. We have to negotiate on this and to offer different models, like guarding the borders or help to other countries. But we dont want any refugees, Babis said in an interview published earlier this month by Czech daily newspaper Pravo.

With little other support to be found, Babis has shown a willingness to work with Okamuras SPD party and the far-left Communists on a quid pro quo basis by giving them committee posts in return for early votes.

Further adding to Okamuras political clout, Czech President Milos Zeman raised eyebrows last week by delivering a speech in front of the SPDs national congress.

He [President Zeman] is deep in the worst moral dirt, Jiri Dienstbier, a former human rights minister, said on Twitter at the time.

Growing influence

For 31-year-old activist Jan Cemper, one of the organisers of Saturdays demonstrations, it is more important than ever that Czechs resist the growing influence of the SPD party, while also showing the world that not all Europeans agree with the increasingly present far-right values.

We want to alert people that in the Czech Republic there is an increasing number of attacks against minorities due to policies executed by the SPD party, Cemper told Al Jazeera.

At the same time, we want to show, that such congresses of xenophobes and populists are not welcome here. We have to try to refute various manipulative claims of populists and show that the EU has not only negatives but many positives.
New technology has helped to lift the burden for those struggling with hearing loss, but more is needed, experts say.

New Delhi  Nearly two decades ago, when Shruti Gupta was diagnosed with congenital hearing loss at the age of one, her life took a dramatic turn.

Her cognitive development, speech retention and ability to respond to loud noises was impaired. Year after year, she visited a specialist to help upgrade and fine-tune her hearing aid. After a decade, she received a cochlear implant and began speech therapy and audiovisual rehabilitation.

Today, after learning from her own journey through disability, Gupta is helping others. The third-year undergraduate technology student has created an app called Jellow Communicator India to help other children who struggle with speech impairment. The app, which has been downloaded by more than 1,800 people so far, uses images and icons to help children improve their communication and speech development.

Today I feel like any other child, Gupta told Al Jazeera, bubbling with infectious energy. After going through the agony of hearing loss myself, I decided that there were so many other children who needed this help.

Guptas partner, Ninaad Digital Technology, last week secured innovation funding through UNICEF for the app, which took 19 months to create under the guidance of professors at the Industrial Design Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Millions affected

An estimated 63 million people suffer from significant hearing loss in India. According to a study by the World Health Organization, five million Indian children were suffering from hearing and speech impairment in 2016.

Shefali Shah, a therapist who treats hearing loss, noted that there are two main types: conductive hearing loss, which affects the passage of sound in the outer and middle ear, and sensorineural hearing loss, which involves the nerves. It is necessary to differentiate between the two types in order to devise the most effective therapy.

Hearing has a huge influence on a childs development of language and contextual understanding, highlighting the importance of early intervention: We hear primarily through our brain, Shah told Al Jazeera.

When Ritu Nakras daughter, Ananya, was diagnosed with profound sensorineural hearing loss in 2004, Nakra began a journey of exploring new therapies and hearing aids, while becoming frustrated by the lack of modern technology and the high costs associated with treatment.

It was a very daunting period of my life, she told Al Jazeera.

Later that same year, Ananya underwent implant surgery, and within six months she was admitted to one of Delhis mainstream schools. Today, at 14, she excels academically, performs classical dance and takes part in extracurricular sports.

Deeply affected by her daughters journey and the difficulties they faced in reaching this point, Nakra left her well-established career in fashion designing in 2005 to become a special educator with the Rehabilitation Council of India, a government body that monitors and regulates services for people with disabilities.

It was important to fight against the ignorance related to hearing loss in India, said Nakra, who today conducts therapy sessions for families suffering from hearing loss.

Although Indias social justice ministry decades ago launched the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped in an effort to help provide jobs for the countrys deaf population, experts cite the need for better data management and universal hearing tests for newborn children. People with hearing loss still suffer from social stigma, a lack of employment opportunities and inadequate rehabilitation processes.

This year, the science and technology ministry launched a low-cost screening device to detect congenital hearing loss, but it remains in the early stages of development.

Particularly in Indias rural villages, there remains an awareness gap about the causes of hearing loss and how to deal with it, experts note.

Hearing loss is not dealt [with] only through having an implant. It involves the necessary collaboration of audiologists, speech language pathologists and ENT [ear, nose and throat] surgeons, Shah said.

Universal screening

When Rebecca Rajukumars four-year-old son, Nahum, underwent surgery for hearing loss, he was almost entirely deaf. During more than a month of recovery, however, he grew comfortable with high-frequency noises, as specialists worked on his cognitive development, brain processing and body language finesse.

Now my son can have a normal life, friends, secrets and everyday little happiness, Rajukumar told Al Jazeera.

In India, different state governments have implemented various measures to help children with hearing loss. In Assam, for example, the Gauhati Medical College is providing funding for implants for newborns, pediatric surgeon Nirmal Bhattacharya told Al Jazeera. In Kerala, the government recently made the universal newborn hearing screening test mandatory.

Though hearing loss is a common affliction globally, experts say there are still deficiencies in awareness and the level of attention paid to this issue.

Early intervention in hearing loss cases is needed right at the time of birth, and better data management services are needed for this process, Shah noted.
Calls grow for scrapping police investigation branch amid accusations of unlawful arrests, torture and even murder.

Susan Emem remembers the time she encountered Nigerias feared Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) one year ago.

She and seven other friends were heading home after a night out in Enugu, in southeast Nigeria.

We were coming from Extreme Lounge, a bar, she said.

They dragged us out of the taxi we were in and said they were going to charge us for being dressed liked prostitutes. They shot into the air several times to scare us and shut us up as we tried to argue.

Susan related the incident in a voice tinged with anger.

My friend, the only man among us, tried to reason with one of the officers but the officer hit him hard with the end of his gun. This was when we realised that things had gone out of hand, she said.

Susan and her friends were flung into the back of a van by four SARS operatives and taken to a police station at New Haven where they were eventually thrown into a cell.

The SARS officers took our phones and personal belongings, Susan recalls.

They said if we did not cooperate theyd kill us and no one would find out.

I needed to pee at some point, so one of the officers took me to a corner and watched me pull my clothes to pee. I felt violated and when I voiced this, he shouted at me, claiming that he had seen worse.

She said the officers demanded for 80,000 naira ($215) for their release initially but later settled for 40,000 ($108).

Forty thousand naira is an enormous amount of money considering a significant percentage of entry-level salaries in Nigeria are between 40,000 to 80,000 naira.

They let us go the following day. We were treated like we were animals, I felt so dehumanised.

Extortion and unlawful arrests

SARS is a branch of the Nigerian police under the criminal investigating department (CID).

The CID is the highest investigating arm of the Nigerian police force.

Many states in Nigeria had a special force tackling violent crimes like kidnapping and armed robbery.

{articleGUID}

SARS developed from these different forces and now has a nationwide decree under Nigerias federal police force to confront violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping and communal clashes.

In a report in 2016 Amnesty International accused SARS officers of regularly detaining young adults unlawfully and extorting money from their families.

The report uncovered detention facilities across the country including Abuja, Enugu and Anambra, where victims are tortured and forced to confess to crimes they did not commit.

The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released a report in August 2017 which found that Nigerias police officers were the most likely of all civil servants to solicit and collect bribes.

Social activism and SARS

Nigerian social media has recently been flooded with stories of indiscriminate arrests, torture and even murder by SARS operatives.

For over a week now, the hashtag #ENDSARS has been trending on social media.

It started on December 1 with a Twitter user who shared tales of woe in the hands of SARS officers.

Thousands of Nigerians, in reply to the thread, began sharing their own similar experiences and called on the federal government to scrap the police unit.

The content of the replies varied from stories of assault and illicit arrests to death threats and videos showing officers shooting at civilians.

{articleGUID}

In response to the SARS uproar on social media, Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said that Nigerians had had enough of the unit and reached the breaking point.

She said it was not enough to have conversations around restructuring SARS.

The #ENDSARS hashtag is rightly gaining the attention of the police and Nigerian government and now officials must do more to end these horrendous abuses of power, Ojigho said.

Amnesty International highlighted such abuses more than a year ago and yet these shocking incidents still continue. Restructuring SARS is not enough, the government must take concrete steps to protect Nigerians.

SARS problem non-existent

The police have dismissed many of the allegations against its officers as non-existent.

SARS is doing well. They are structured to combat violent crimes and are doing well in that regard, Chike Oti, public relations officer at Lagos state police, told Al Jazeera.

The allegations are so much I wonder why people who have suffered such did not make formal complaints. It is not true that the police does not reply to complaints. To the best of my knowledge, we have a feedback mechanism.

Jimoh Moshood, SARS headquarters press relations officer, made a similar statement regarding the uproar around SARS on social media, saying that the hashtag #ENDSARS was generated through misconceptions.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad have been doing very well in fighting violent crimes in the county in recent times and this has resulted in a reduction of violent crimes nationwide, he said in defence of SARS officers.

Displaying body piercings and dreadlocks or owning a flashy car or a smartphone may be considered possible reasons by SARS for suspecting possible criminality.

Haneef, a resident of Ilorin in Kwara, North Central Nigeria, said he got stopped once by SARS officers.

They stopped me around Post Office Roundabout and asked why I was driving a good car, Haneef, who did not want to disclose his full name, told Al Jazeera.

I was with my friend that day and we explained to them that the car belonged to my father but they already concluded that we were into fraud.

They said they did not believe my father could afford the car. They beat up my friend and forced a confession out of him. We also had to part with 50,000 naira ($133) before they let us go.

As a young Nigerian I have never felt at ease with any kind of policeman by Haneef

Judging by the response and body language of the police force, they are clearly still in denial about the scale of this problem.

A lot of Nigerians are not surprised at SARS tepid response to the complaints because the countrys police force usually reacts to public uproar by pretending it does not exist.

Tolu Daniel, a victim of SARS mistreatment, told Al Jazeera he would be scared to call the police if he ever got robbed for fear of being brutalised.

As a young Nigerian,I have never felt at ease with any kind of policeman, he said.

For those at the receiving end of SARS ill-treatment, they wish for the police unit to be restructured and more accommodating towards human rights. They also hope the officers found extorting money and mishandling citizens to be punished according to the law and made accountable for their actions.
Demonstrations against US recognition of Jerusalem turn deadly as Israeli troops open fire in Gaza and West Bank.

The death toll has risen to four as Israeli forces violently crack down on Palestinian protesters in besieged Gaza and the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Local media reported that an 18-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Amin Aqel al-Adam, died after being shot by the Israeli military during Friday protests near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Adam allegedly attempted to attack Israeli forces.

Another Palestinian in the occupied West Bank was killed under similar circumstances hours earlier. Two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip died after being shot by Israeli forces during border protests.

The protests are in response to US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital on December 6.

One of the men killed, 29-year-old Ibrahim Abu Thurayya, had lost his legs in previous Israeli offensives on the blockaded strip.

Palestinians have taken to social media to honour Abu Thurayya.

{articleGUID}

Palestinians are also sharing a video of slain protester Abu Thurayya calling on Palestinians to protest Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, a move that has been widely condemned by world leaders.

Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said a call to action by Palestinian groups and a unified response by Muslim countries had helped keep the protests going.

Theres been a pretty loud and unified response that came from the delegates at the Turkey conference on Tuesday. The Palestinian factions have as well called for larger-scale protests, he said.

{articleGUID}

The recognition is seen as dismantling decades of US policy of working towards a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

Trump said these plans had not produced peace after years of negotiation.

We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past.
Israeli forces kill four Palestinians amid outpouring of anger over US recognition of holy city as Israels capital.

Four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces in the occupied Palestinian territories on Friday.

Two were killed in the Gaza Strip as thousands of people protested on Friday in the occupied Palestinian territories and across the world over the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Another two Palestinians were fatally shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, after an alleged attempts to attack Israeli forces.

More than a week after US President Donald Trumpannounced the decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, anger among Palestinians and their supporters continues to grow.

After Friday prayers concluded at al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to demonstrate but were prevented from entering the Old City by barricades put up by Israelis.

Marches also took place to the north in Ramallah and in Bethlehem, where protesters faced off with Israeli soldiers.

Palestinian officials told Al Jazeera that at least 10 people had been injured through smoke inhalation and bullet wounds.

At least one injured youth had suffered a serious wound to his neck, according to Al Jazeeras Alan Fisher, who was reporting from the area.

Rallies against Trumps decision also took place in the Indian city of Mumbai, the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and the Japanese capital, Tokyo.





Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said a call to action by Palestinian groups and a unified response by Muslim countries had helped keep the protests going.

Theres been a pretty loud and unified response that came from the delegates at the Turkey conference on Tuesday. The Palestinian factions have as well called for larger-scale protests, he said.

The US announcement attracted strong condemnation from Muslim countries, and the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) declared East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine in response at its meeting in Istanbul this week.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has dismissed the move.

The truth will win in the end and many countries will certainly recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and also move their embassies, he said in response to the OIC declaration.

Al Jazeeras Hoda Abdel Hamid, reporting from Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, said protesters wanted to see words turned into action.

Theyre growing impatientand some of the people you speak to do feel at some point Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a man who has dedicated 20 years of his life to the peace process, might bow to international or US pressure.
Independent analyst Ebrahim Fakir discusses what ANCs leadership contest means for the party and for South Africa.

Johannesburg, South Africa  It is being called a battle that will determine the future of South Africa.

This weekend, about 5,000 delegates will descend on Johannesburg to vote for the future leader of the African National Congress (ANC).

The two leading candidates, Cyril Ramaphosa, the partys current deputy president, and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chairperson of the African Union High Commission and President Jacob Zumas ex-wife, are facing off in one of the most contested elections in ANC history.

The winner of the vote will most likely become president when the country takes to the polls in 2019.

A great deal is at stake, as the South African government under Jacob Zuma has been dogged by countless allegations of corruption, leaving the ruling ANC in the midst of its biggest crisis since it was formed in 1912.

Al Jazeera spoke to independent political analyst Ebrahim Fakir about what the conference means for the ANC and for South Africa.

Al Jazeera: Is this election a referendum on Zuma or is it about implementing new policies?

Ebrahim Fakir: No one knows what ANC branch delegates vote for. They vote for any number of things and are [moved] by good policy ideas.

Dont discard [the fact] that ANC delegates who go to vote [may be] subject to bribery or that they are not immune to fear and thuggery; they can be intimidated to vote a particular way.

Though ballots are meant to be secret, there are delegates of their branches [who] have made decisions on how they would like their delegates to vote. But the secrecy means the delegates can vote any way they want.

Al Jazeera: The two leading candidates are Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. What are their visions for the future?

Fakir: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zumas is presenting a programme of radical economic transformation and Cyril Ramaphosas is proposing a New Deal.

Dlamini-Zuma wants a retributive approach to the path forward, which means land expropriation without compensation and other populist policies.

I by Ebrahim

crisis in the ANC. I cant see a way out.]

Ramaphosa talks about the Black Industrialist Programme and strategic inclusion in the economy hinged on all the empowerment policies being [enacted].

The argument is that those policies have not worked together because of a weak state [and] because of [the] manipulation of institutions and processes, inappropriate meddling of treasury and the treasurys inability to stem the tide of corruption.

With the Ramaphosa government, you might have more people prepared to invest, which is what will help in the short-term. In the long-term, how you turn that around and  maintain that confidence is a different question.

Anything that can happen will happen in the short-term and we [will] see what happens from there. What we have is five or six years of instability.

Al Jazeera: The language being used to describe Ramaphosa suggests he is the more credible candidate. Why is this the case? He was Zumas deputy since 2012, after all.

{articleGUID}

Fakir: In part, it is about the [candidates] personalities, but the media has made it that; it shouldnt be.

The personalities have become a proxy for policy. One set is deemed too populist and institutionally unstable [Dlamini-Zuma] and the other [Ramaphosa] are viewed as more prudent.

I havent seen much media attention to their policies. Ramaphosa is simply seen as anti-Zuma and Dlamini-Zuma is seen as his protector.

If it was [really] all about personalities, Ramaphosa would be found as wanting as Dlamini-Zuma, but the contradiction is that she has not been involved with the nefarious deals made recently.

In the deep questions of [state corruption], Ramaphosa was part of [the] cabinet, as well as [former finance minister] Pravin Gordhan and everyone who now says they want to rehabilitate the ANC.

They are all deeply compromised. One way or the other, the ANC has walked itself into a conundrum.

Al Jazeera: So claims that the ANC is in disrepair are not exaggerations?

Fakir: No, they are not exaggerations.

There is a deep crisis in the ANC and it goes to every single level, whether it is [the] policy or ideological outlook of the party or personalities or institutional and organisational [issues], or the policy making machine, [or] whether its about the relationship between the policymakers and the parliamentary caucus and the members of the executive.

The crisis cuts in every way you could think of.

Remember, the ANC has used its majority [in parliament] in crude ways. Even those who have set themselves up as wanting to support and rehabilitate the ANC, are complicit in the way the institutional edifice has broken down.

I think this might be the ANCs last hurrah. They might actually have the right bunch of people win and try to rehabilitate the organisation, but there may [be] such a [pushback] from losers that anyone who wants to govern in any environment would find it hard to do so.

In fact, I think we arent making enough of [the] crisis in the ANC. I cant see a way out.

Al Jazeera: So much has been made of President Zumas role in this crisis, but the rot didnt set in with him alone. Can this conference resuscitate the ANCs founding values?

Fakir: I think its gone too far  and thats an organisational question. And resolving an organisational question is contingent on resolving a policy and identity question.

Thats [why] theres no accord. Policy and identity [have] given rise to the biggest fractures right now, which filter down to the lower-level with character assassinations and [in-fighting].

{articleGUID}

Again, take policy: you have two fundamentally divergent views.

One talks about radical economic transformation and repudiates the 1994 consensus about the transition. [The 1994 consensus is considered as the beginning of democratic government in South Africa, the inception of a rights-based dispensation with positive discrimination to address historical injustices.]

On the other side, we say that we can accept the 1994 consensus, we just need to accelerate the current policies we have.

But that requires a change in the way in which the ANC functions. We have to rehabilitate the ANC and rehabilitate the state through things like enquiring into [state corruption].

So there are two fundamentally opposing ideological visions. How you reconcile this within the same organisation?

Al Jazeera: What are the possible scenarios going forward?

Fakir: If Dlamini-Zuma wins, you have to consider if those on the losing side will accept that and stay in the ANC considering that they have fundamentally opposing visions. If they do, will they work against the government and undermine the ANC?

And if she wins, can the ANC carry the 2019 elections? Some indications are that they wont. they will fall short of a majority and theyll have to form a minority government or cobble a coalition [together] with small parties. If they cant accommodate the losers, the risk of a split is high.

If Ramaphosa wins, and he cannot accommodate the others, theres an equal risk of [a] split. If he does reach out, hell have to compromise with them, which will erode his own legitimacy, and he wont govern with any stability.

In 2019, he might win the election, but he will erode his credibility through compromise and not run through decisions for rehabilitating the ANC or reversing [state corruption]  There [will be] instability.

Even if a candidate like Zweli Mkhize wins, there will be rankle from both sides.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Azad Essa on Twitter: @AzadEssa
The shepherds of Spains Pyrenees have their own language, culture and concerns. They spoke to Al Jazeera about their views on Catalonia and Catalan independence.

The shepherds of Spains Pyrenees have their own language, culture and concerns. They spoke to Al Jazeera about their views on Catalonia and Catalan independence.

The Spanish government has called a snap election in the northwest Catalonia region for December 21.

The vote follows government leaders in Madrid imposing direct rule on the region, which is threatening to break away after a secession referendum.

But 10,000 people living in a remote valley high in the mountains between Catalonia and France do not feel affinity to Catalonia and have little time for the Catalan independence movement.

Al Jazeeras Karl Penhaul reports from the Aran Valley, Spain.
Major General Engelbert Rugeje has been appointed as national commissar, sparking concerns of a militarised campaign.

Harare, Zimbabwe  Zimbabwes newly appointed president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has chosen a former military general as the ruling ZANU-PFs national commissar.

Major General Engelbert Rugeje will play a leading role in organising internal party elections, district affairs and the national election. Political analyst Takura Zhangazha said the move was concerning, as Rugeje was among the top military figures who allegedly backed former President Robert Mugabes campaign of intimidation in the June 2008 presidential runoff that left dozens of opposition supporters dead.

Basically, we have a military man in charge of the partys elections, so in 2018, we can expect a militarised campaign so people will vote for ZANU-PF. It may not be violent, but  people will be scared to go against ZANU-PF because they wont feel safe if they dont vote for them, Zhangazha told Al Jazeera.

Mnangagwa has come under fire from the public for his appointment of several army officials into cabinet posts.

Other key party appointments announced on Friday included Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, who currently serves as environment minister, as the partys first female chairperson. Muchinguri, who said she felt humbled by the appointment, is a strong ally of Mnangagwa.

The president has said he will announce the national vice presidents, who will serve as his ZANU-PF deputies, in the coming days.

Never lower our guard

Addressing delegates at a special extraordinary congress on Friday, Mnangagwa called for the countrys ruling party to protect itself against factional divisions, after tension within ZANU-PF reached its peak last month just before the resignation of longtime leader Mugabe.

We must never lower our guard again. We must defend and protect our party and remain genuine to the founding principles  against people with very little history, Mnangagwa said, referring to the events that led to Mugabes removal in November.

Over 7,000 delegates from across the country attended the congress, which was organised to confirm Mnangagwa as the partys first secretary and its presidential candidate ahead of 2018 elections.

{articleGUID}

Mnangagwa told the crowd the elections would take place on schedule and expressed his hope that the polls would respect the rule of law.

Internal rivalries were heightened within the party last month amid speculation that Mugabe was grooming his wife, Grace, to succeed him.

The situation worsened when Mugabe purged former Zimbabwean liberation fighters from key positions in his government, a move that prompted Mnangagwa, then acting as vice president, to flee the country.

A long-running power struggle between Mnangagwa, 75, and Grace Mugabe ended with her expulsion from the ZANU-PF, which Mugabe led for 40 years.

Mnangagwa was sworn in as Zimbabwes new president on November 24, shortly after Mugabe stepped down.

Lifting sanctions

This week, Mnangagwa said he was eager to build new relations with the international community, as he called for the unconditional lifting of Western sanctions against senior members of ZANU-PF.

Travel bans and asset freezes were placed on top party officials at the height of political violence and state-sanctioned land-grabs of white-owned farms in the early 2000s.

{articleGUID}

While the US maintains sanctions on several ZANU-PF party figures and some government-owned companies, the European Union has kept a travel ban and asset freeze on both former president Mugabe and his wife, Grace.

Mnangagwa said his administration would do its best to ensure Zimbabwe was on the path to free, fair and credible elections in 2018.

Shortly after taking his oath of office, Mnangagwa reversed the seizure of a white-owned commercial farm that was taken over earlier this year.

He has also pledged to compensate thousands of white farmers who were evicted from their farming estates by landless black Zimbabweans as part of a fast-track land-reform programme.

Focus on economy

During the congress, Mnangagwa reiterated his inaugural promise of a new era of racial and tribal tolerance as well as prosperity for ordinary Zimbabweans.

He urged the party to shift from an overtly political agenda to one that would also focus on the economy.

{articleGUID}

We must not be about politics only but economy also, he said.

The best politics emerges from the marketplace where livelihoods are made.

I did not rise to the presidency to be a president of one tribe or to benefit one region; my presidency is about acting on the values of ZANU-PF with a national outlook. I am a president of all people, of all tribes, he added to cheers from the crowd.

Follow Tendai Marima on Twitter and Instagram @i_amten.
The Chinese have a character for "double happiness." The French would benefit from a similar character of "double sadness" for the events of December 2017, when two giants of French culture, dissimilar in every way, died on successive days. This is not the first time this has occurred: Edith Piaf and Jean Cocteau died on successive days in 1963. However, in December 2017, two striking figures died and were honored on successive days, Johnny Hallyday, the champion of French rock, aged 74, by an elaborate tribute at the Madeleine Church in Paris, and the writer and philosopher Jean d'Ormesson, embodiment of the French classical tradition, aged 92, at a less elaborate function at the Cathedral of the Invalides. Curiously, though both men were national treasures, if not as symbolic as the Eiffel Tower or Mont-Saint-Michel, in their own country France, they were essentially unknown abroad.

In a sense, the two men illustrated complementary aspects of French civilization. Both loved life and both were seducers in their different ways. Johnny was a living legend whose music lives on. Jean was a prolific writer and latterly television personality, a graceful charmer with a playful spirit who loved life and communicated this. For Johnny, who appealed to emotion, music, beginning with rock, was his religion. For Jean, language and literature was his rock of reason.

France is a country that admires its intellectuals and writers. Jean d'Ormesson, born in 1925 of an aristocratic and diplomatic family who died in Paris on December 5, was the incarnation of French culture and defender of the French language, a charmer. He held right-wing political views but was not dogmatic and was admired by the left, as his friendships with political opponents such as Francois Mitterand and Nicolas Sarkozy, to whom he was close, showed. He was Catholic but more agnostic than believer.

In his writings and commentaries, he combined elegance with depth, humor with learning. At Jean's funeral service, President Emmanuel Macron, who put a simple pencil on the tomb as Jean wished, eloquently pointed out some of his complexities. If he was an egotist he was also modest and passionate about others. If he had shadows, he was a master of clarity.

Jean was a prominent figure in the French literary world, publishing 40 books, novels, and plays, many of them bestsellers. He was general manager of Le Figaro for a few years, and for many other years a news commentator, and even in his last years a broadcaster and part-time actor on television. He was never as influential a commentator as Raymond Aron, who was more biting and penetrating, and never supported large causes or ideologies, rather addressing more specific issues from a conservative point of view. His prominence was recognized by the publishers of the Pleiades editions, which publishes the complete works of an author, an action which is considered to be a major sign of recognition of that author's significance.

Jean was officially honored, and made an Immortal, appointed in 1973 at age 48 to the Academie Francaise, still a body of undeniable prestige, and one representative of the French esprit. At his death, he was the Dean of the Academie, the longest serving member of it. In 1980, he sponsored Marguerite Yourcenar, whom he called one of the greatest living writers, as a member. She was the first woman to be elected to the AF. So far only eight of the 729 members have been women. Jean in 2009 was also appointed to another high honor, Grand Officer, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, by President Francois Hollande.

Jean may have been an Immortal, but he was a constant presence with his charm and wit, which he exhibited on TV screens, including an acting performance with Charlotte Rampling. He was a prince of letters who never took himself too seriously. His comments on politics and on language typifies classical French moderate conservatism and humane politics.

Jean can be considered a modernist, conscious that the world was changing. Moreover, though it was always changing, it was now changing at a faster pace, and in that changing world, the triumph of science must be reconciled with humanism.

He illustrated that change in at least three ways. The French language that he loved had become less important; it was hard to challenge English as the dominant language in the world. Similarly, Europe was no longer the center of world affairs, nor was France the first country in Europe that had become less important, though it was wrong to talk about decline all the time.

As a result of the weakness of European countries, populism had advanced in some of them. He insisted that culture goes together with a flourishing economy and military power. Yet, though Africa was advancing, Europe must be praised and safeguarded; it had succeeded in forming a single currency and preventing war among its members.

Jean was concerned about the future of democracy. Europe must now be vigilant against populism and its manifestations with Brexit, elections in The Netherlands, in the U.S. with Donald Trump, but above all in his own country. Jean forecast accurately that Marine Le Pen would get 25-30% of the vote in the presidential election but would not win the election. He was fearful she might win in 2022, and posed a cultural as well as a political threat, especially a threat to freedom of the press.

Some of d'Ormesson's assertations are debatable. He thought that the French people had changed. Once they were happy and carefree; now quoting the jocular Jean Cocteau, they had become like Italians in a bad mood. France is moving politically to the right, and the Communist and Socialist parties no longer seem to exist in France. He was critical of the disastrous five years of the Hollande presidency. The danger of terrorism remains, and the problem of migrants is acute.

Nevertheless, writers are still a privileged group in France and have a certain respected voice in society, even if the myth of the great influential writer, like Victor Hugo, or Francois Mauriac, or Andre Gide, is longer applicable to the present.

Jean did participate in the last year of his life in an interesting controversy about language and indeed about society. The present administration under President Macron is urging a gender-neutral version of the French language that the AF, including Jean, thought poses a danger to the purity of French. Historically, the masculine takes precedence over the feminine. A group of women only is referred to in feminine way, but if it includes even only one man, the entire group will be referred to as masculine. Proponents of change call for gender exclusiveness; opponents argue this would be an "aberration" that puts France in "mortal danger."

The controversy continues, and purists and others will disagree, but all should agree that the prolific writings of Jean d' Ormesson should be more widely translated. It would be particularly valuable to have the voice of moderate and sensible conserveatism in English in the United States at the present time.
In their elation over Doug Jones having prevailed in the Alabama Senate race to fill the seat vacated by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the media are now trying to position the election as a referendum on President Trump.

Take a recent New York Times article, for example, which cites 4 Takeaways from Doug Joness Alabama Victory.

Doug Joness win in the reddest of red states, the article suggests, signifies that Alabamas highly educated and high-income voters, while often open to supporting Republicans, are uneasy with the hard-edged politics of President Trump. Simply put, this is meant to suggest that the race was a referendum on President Trumps politics, and specifically, that Moores loss was not a reaction to the claims of sexual misconduct against Roy Moore. After all, the voting results in the suburbs of Alabama mirror the voting pattern of well-heeled suburbanites in Virginia last month -- a comparison which I cannot imagine the articles authors could have typed with a straight face. Comparing the voting impulses of D.C. suburbanites in Virginia to Alabamas suburbanites is about as apples-and-oranges of a comparison as one might get.

But heres the interesting thing. Anyone whos honest knows that the media centerpiece of the Alabama election was the troubling allegations of child molestation and sexual assault against Roy Moore, and the scandal which followed. However, the only other mention of the prominent scandal in the New York Times piece is that that some of Moores allies placed the blame for the loss on [Mitch] McConnell, who withdrew his support after the allegations first emerged that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls sexually or romantically.

Do you notice the sleight-of-hand in the language and messaging here? On the one hand, claims of sexual misconduct were not the reason Moore lost suburbanites, and therefore the election. It was because Trumps hard-edged policies were rebuked. On the other, allegations that Moore had pursued teenage girls sexually or romantically is what Roy Moores defenders are claiming was the real reason he lost. But thats simply not true, the Times now insists.

To prove just how disingenuous this is, lets try a thought experiment. Had Roy Moore won the election, would the media narrative be about how Alabamans had the audacity to vote for a candidate who supports Trumps hard-edged policies? Or would it be about how deeply-red, backward Alabamans had the questionable moral proclivities which allowed them to elect an accused child predator?

You know the answer, and if the media were more honest than opportunistic, they would, too. The media narrative prior to the election was not an effort to suggest that Alabama voters were wrong to agree with Trumps desire to cut taxes, curtail illegal immigration, or repeal and/or replace Obamacare. The loudest cries from the media ramparts were that Roy Moore winning the seat in Alabama would be a travesty because he was a suspected child predator.

Yet interestingly, nowhere in the Times takeaways article is there a reference to the single, many decades-old, but extremely timely allegation of child molestation made by then-14-year-old Leigh Corfman. Nor was there a reference to the single (and similarly old and timely) allegation of sexual assault made by Beverly Young Nelson, whose credibility has been verifiably called into question with her conflicting claims about the yearbook that Moore allegedly signed and inscribed in 1977.

Contrast this to any similar article published prior to the election. Invariably, it was routinely touted that nine accusations were made against Moore, all of which signified that he was a child predator, though the other seven claims were nowhere in the realm of the aforementioned two. The other seven claims ranged from a relationship between a 32-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, for which the girls parents offered consent and that never went beyond a kiss, to a claim by then-18-year-old Gena Richardson, who said she agreed to date Moore, and that he ended the date with an unwanted forceful kiss.

Now that Roy Moore has lost the election and Democrat Doug Jones will be seated, however, the most damning two allegations of child molestation and sexual assault are fading into the background, and inversely, references to the mildest accusations are being amplified. Sexual misconduct and Moores pursuance of teenage girls sexually or romantically dont have the same headline cachet that would have been needed in the past months to have destroyed Roy Moores political future. The former is vague charge, and nowhere near as damning as an allegation of sexual assault or child molestation. And while the latter may be antiquated, it was not then, and is not now, a crime, if said teenage girls are of the legal age of consent.

There is a distinct reason for this dramatic shift in narrative. There is little value in painting the defeated and now-irrelevant Roy Moore as a child predator to destroy his political future, as the media unquestionably and tirelessly worked toward before the election. The Alabama election results have made him toxic. His political future has been destroyed.

There is value, however, in painting Roy Moore and the Alabama Senate race as something other than a peculiar microcosm involving only Roy Moore, in which a spectacularly flawed candidate was ultimately destroyed by a media-driven effort designed to do just that. Theres far more value to be had, today, in tying this loss to President Trump.

But do you know who recognized that Roy Moore might have a difficult time winning the general election against a Democrat in Alabama, long before the allegations of teenager-chasing, sexual misconduct, sexual assault, or child molestation arose? Donald Trump did.

As The Daily Wires Michael Knowles reminds us, on September 22nd, Trump appealed:

I have to say this, and you understand this and just look at the polls. Luther [Strange] will definitely win. Roy has a very good chance of not winning in the general election. Its all about the general Youve got to beat a Democrat. Luther is going to win easily and Roys going to have a hard time winning.

This seems incredibly prescient now. But Trump made an equally smart move by offering congratulations to Doug Jones for the victory, tweeting:

Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win. The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!

Roy Moore is, as of this writing, yet to concede. Yet more evidence as to why he was a uniquely bad candidate. And yes, the seat in Alabama is a loss for Republicans. But lets not pretend that Roy Moores loss signifies anything broader than the peculiar microcosm that it was, and that youll remember for years, if only for the media-driven hysteria around it.

Because, as any fool should plainly see, this election wasnt about Donald Trump.

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.
Arabs who live in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (who are not to be called Palestinians  a misnomer when applied to them) remain unappreciative of giveaways and potential giveaways  beneficial to Arabs and self-destructive to Jews  offered by the State of Israel. Oslo I Accord (1993). Oslo II Accord (1995). Clinton Parameters (2000). Olmert Plan (2008).

Arab lack of appreciation proves that Mr. Kushner wont get anywhere, any more than other intermediaries (e.g., former Sen. Mitchell, former PM Blair) did.

Here is more proof that Mr. Kushner is on a fools errand. On November 2, 2017, the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration was celebrated. Arabs mourned. That simple declaration of support for a national home for the Jewish people, which does not delineate borders and which is silent about Jerusalem, is intolerable to the Arabs.

Non-negotiable Arab position

The monomaniacal aim of Arabs is a Palestine which extends from the river to the sea. The expression erases the State of Israel from the map. Implementation of the expression would erase the Jews in the Land of Israel from the world population.

No peace deal is possible when, as Dennis Prager put it, One side [the Arabs] wants the other side [the Jews] dead.

Jihad

Negotiations between Jews and Arabs will fail, because Arabs are Muslims. They are enlisted men, non-commissioned officers, and officers of the anti-West jihad of Islam. The jihad is fourteen centuries old. The jihad is world-wide.

Antipathy to Jews and detestation of Judaism are strands of the jihad.

The most-recent phases of the never-ending jihad are the Islamic Insurgency (19792001) and the Islamic War Against the West (2001present).

The Islamic Insurgency began in 1979, when Iranian Muslims stormed the United States embassy in Teheran. In 2001, the terrorist attacks by Saudi Arabian Muslims against the United States upgraded the Islamic Insurgency to the Islamic War Against the West.

In this seventeenth year of the war, the West is being thrashed, due to continued importations of Muslims into Western countries, the United States among them. Due to official pap about lone wolves and unknown motives. Due to purblind refusal to monitor mosques and imams. Due to artificial distinctions between mainstream Islam and militant Islam. Islam is Islam.

Lost territory to date, among countries of Western Europe, includes the United Kingdom, France, sand Germany. Still-Christian countries in Eastern Europe, such as Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, are under Soros-financed assaults.

The wider context of potential Jews-Arabs negotiations is the perception of Muslims that, in the twenty-first century, victory in the jihad is achievable. The West is weak, and uncaring about its survival. When victory comes, the State of Israel will fall, for lack of the American guarantee of its survival. Arabs have no incentive to sign a treaty with Jews, which gives them part of what they want, when patient awaiting of victory will give them everything which they want.

Real estate

The premise of the Kushner-Greenblatt-Powell-Friedman diplomatic efforts is that the Land of Israel is just another piece of real estate. That the Land of Israel can be broken by the big powers into two pieces, in the manner of the breaking, by the big powers, of the Republic of Serbia into the rump republic and independent Kosovo.

The Land of Israel is not just another piece of real estate. It is the God-given, irrevocable inheritance of Jews. They are in the Land of Israel of right. The territorial extent of the Land of Israel is as delineated in the Bible. The inheritance and its territorial extent are not negotiable.

If God and the Bible are not the foundation of the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel, then Jews hold the Land of Israel by conquest. Arabs may conquer the Land of Israel, as soon as their military might is sufficient to that task.

Subjects of negotiations

Were Jews and Arabs to sit at the same table, they will be at loggerheads, due to zero-sum territorial circumstances. Either the Jews or the Arabs get Jerusalem, or get Judea and Samaria, or get Gaza, or get the Golan Heights, or get the Shebaa Farms.

The predicate of a successful negotiation is that each side has minor points to give up, to gain major points. However, neither Jews nor Arabs consider Jerusalem, or Judea and Samaria, or Gaza, or the Golan Heights, or the Shebaa Farms, to be minor points.

United States and Canada

Boundary disputes between the United States and the United Kingdom, concerning the boundary between the United States and Canada, were resolved by negotiations and treaties. The International Boundary Commission maintains the boundary.

War-free establishment of the boundary, and its friction-free maintenance, rest on the bedrock of the same language and similar cultures of the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It is otherwise in the Middle East. The languages and cultures of Jews and Arabs are antagonistic. Successful negotiation of a boundary between Jews and Arabs is impossible.

President Trump

On behalf of the United States, President Trump announced recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That benefit to the State of Israel came with two catches. In the announcement:

1. President Trump referenced the United States policy of Middle East peace through a two-state solution. The proviso was that both sides have to want that solution. The essence of that solution is additional territorial losses by the State of Israel.

2. President Trump required that there be no change of the status quo at the Temple Mount. Meaning, the Waqf is in charge of the Temple Mount. Jews may worship only at the Western Wall. They are excluded from the Temple Mount. Muslims may pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque. They have unlimited access to the Temple Mount.

The requirement makes Muslim sovereignty over the Temple Mount permanent. Israeli police will continue their shameless role of dhimmi enforcers of the anti-Jews and anti-Judaism exclusion promulgated by the Waqf.

Saudi Arabia

There is talk about joint efforts of the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to counter Iran.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is a principle which rationalizes the sharing of counter-terrorism intelligence.

Sharing would not erase multiple verses in the Koran which demonize Jews and Judaism. Would not eliminate hostility to Jews and Judaism, taught in Arab elementary-school and secondary-school class rooms. Would not silence advocacy by imams of wholesale slaughtering of Christians and Jews, and placing survivors under the cultural boot and the economic boot of Islam.

Conclusion

Dr. Martin Sherman, executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, hit the nail on the head. He formulated the humanitarian paradigm (his term). Pay the Arabs to move out of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Subsidize new housing, somewhere in the 5,000,000 square miles of Arab territory, for them. They would be freed thereby from the squalid conditions in which they live, and from oppression by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The Jews would get all of the 12,000 square miles of the Land of Israel.

Happy ending.

The writer is a lawyer in Hong Kong. Comments are welcome. Contact the writer on krugerwork@yahoo.com.
His full name is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. They call him AMLO and LO, and his supporters call him Andres. He's been around for 30 years preaching a leftist populist message that does not really sit well with Mexico's upper and middle classes. In other words, he is not as popular in Mexico as the international press leads you to believe.

According to polls, Mr. Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, is in a strong position to win the Mexican presidency.

We say according to polls because the campaigning has just begun.

We don't know how reliable polling is in Mexico.

We do know that there will be more than two candidates running, so a plurality is all you need to win the election. In fact, from Zedillo with 48% in 1994 to Fox 43% in 2000 to Calderon (36%) in 2006 to Pena Nieto (38%) in 2012, the last four presidents won by a plurality.

My point is that Lopez Obrador could win the presidency by getting less than 40% of the vote in a crowded field.

Lopez Obrador would take Mexico to the left, although that may sound easier said than done, especially without a clear mandate. So far, he has been singing a populist tune, as we see in this update from the L.A. Times:

On Tuesday, Lopez Obrador told his supporters that while maintaining a relationship of friendship and cooperation with the U.S. is important, "we will not accept the mistreatment of migrants, or racist, hegemonic or arrogant attitudes." He also pledged to help Mexican farmers and ranchers compete with cheap imports from the U.S., promising subsidies, low-cost fertilizers and set prices for some crops. "In short, we are going to produce the food we consume in Mexico," he said. His nationalist platform has drawn comparisons to President Trump. So has his frequent name-calling of rivals. This week, he made headlines when he tweeted a photo of himself stuffing meat into a taco and a dig at Anaya and Meade. "Besides not visiting villages and hearing from the people, the spoiled rich kids of the power mafia miss out on succulent barbacoa," he wrote. But while Lopez Obrador has gone to lengths to portray himself as a man of the people who will stamp out the corruption of Mexico's ruling elites, some complain that he has given few examples of how he'll fix the problems.

And that's "el problema." Lots of promises, not specifics!

Mexico's "problemas" cannot be fixed by getting angry at Trump or by setting prices on crops.

In fact, I would argue that Mexico should be liberalizing its agriculture sector. Much of the illegal immigration wave to the U.S. is about young men who leave the countryside and come north to work. In other words, Mexico's countryside does not need more meddling from government.

As for NAFTA, Lopez Obrador represents the left that always opposed the agreement. Unfortunately for LO, the NAFTA decision is likely going to be made before the next president takes over.

So is there an LO in Mexico's future? The answer is twofold: yes, there will be once again a Lopez Obrador running for president, but I am pretty confident that he won't win the final prize.

But it's Navidad, and the election is months from now!

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
Scientific American Magazine was at one time an informative and objective publication. But in recent times, it has begun turning into a leftist rag, part of the trend toward politicizing science. Here is the latest example.

In a remarkable article, published online, a professor at Ohio State University has spilled the beans on how you can be brainwashedso as to, as he puts it, "update" your "beliefs." Updating means to agree with his position on such so-called facts as global climate change. You see, if you disagree with him, then you must be a "science denier."

While Professor Tsipursky no doubt believes that his method of gentle persuasion is clever, and far more effective than simply presenting the facts, the technique is quite well known to propagandists, interrogators, and detectives. One begins by feigning sympathy with the object of the brainwashing, discovering his fears, and then using his weaknesses to present legitimate facts  but in a false light, until the science denier finally gives up his emotional beliefs and accepts the propagandist's (oh, so reasonable) point of view.

It is important to understand how these KGB tactics, in concert with political pressure and the threat of lawsuits, are being used against you. If you are a meteorologist, a certified weather scientist, then you are probably already aware that your very livelihood has been threatened, by means of revoking your license, unless you toe the party line concerning climate change socialism. You see, according to the true believers, even a scientist can be a science denier.

Nor is the coercion limited to scientists. Non-scientists can be subjected to ridicule, ostracism, and even lawsuits.

One of the standard tools of socialist liberals is to show you how foolish your beliefs are by showing you how foolish someone else's beliefs are and then equating their actual errors with your factual analysis. The article cited above begins with the assumption that climate change doctrine is indeed science, that there can be no legitimate scientific analysis that contradicts it, and that whoever does so is either ignorant or evil. This closes off the mind of the propagandist to "updating" his own beliefs. There is never going to be a mutual, two-way discussion with him. He will tell you that "the debate is over."

One should understand that the term "science-denier" is not innocuous. It is a slander, by subtle association with the term "Holocaust-denier." In other words, if you use scientific data to contradict the claims of climate socialists, then you are in the same category as Nazi sympathizers. The use of that term, "denier," in the title of Tsipursky's article is accusatory, and it reveals the arrogance and judgmental character of the left that prohibit fair debate.

The fact is that many of us who challenge climate change orthodoxy do not deny science. We do not deny that climate change has been occurring. We do not even deny that human activity has an effect on the climate. We simply challenge the claim that socialism is the solution to the problem.

As an aside, what once began as "global cooling" and then flip-flopped into "global warming" has finally been transformed into the equivocal term "climate change," just to prevent further embarrassment when the data (as they will) contradict the socialists.

Matters would be different if the climate sociologists stated objective facts and then included among their suggested remedies free-market innovation, more individual liberties, and greater respect for opposing opinions. Instead, they advocate for bigger government, more onerous regulation, and threats against those who disagree with them.

As in Tsipursky's article, many socialists kindly suggest that dislocated workers seek careers in so-called "green energy" industries, thus papering over their innate hostility to free markets. Of course, we agree that green energy industries should be allowed to compete in the free market. But socialists despise both competition and the free market. They want green industries to be funded by your tax dollars, to be given artificial advantages over businesses that can compete, even those using clean coal and natural gas. This idea was expressly given voice by Barack Obama, who vowed to bankrupt the coal industry and to make energy bills skyrocket.

One important thing to know about socialists is that they never, ever give up. They are always on the lookout for the next big movement to subvert to their own goals. Climate change is just the latest fad until the next one comes along. The methodology remains the same, whatever the topic. They will proffer the rose while brandishing the cudgel. They are expert practitioners of deception.

Tsipursky's article is aimed at his fellow socialists who masquerade as science-minded do-gooders. For the rest of us, it unconsciously reveals a condescending mindset, one that regards you as unable to deal with unvarnished, actual facts. Your stubbornness can be overcome by their appeals to your fears and anxieties.

Don't take my word for it. Do your own research, and draw your own conclusions. I doubt you'll hear those words sincerely spoken by any climate socialist, because by "your own conclusions," the socialists mean theirs.
Sweden has been importing an enormous number of Muslim immigrants. (Perhaps the Swedes don't like blondes anymore?) The results have been predictable, and catastrophic, especially for the Jewish people who live there.

This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday. For Sweden's 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks[.] [T]hese recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Who are these people? Who lives in Malmo, I wonder?

The protesters called for an intifada and promised "we will shoot the Jews."

Intifada? Who uses words like "intifada"?

A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews "apes and pigs." There were promises of martyrdom.

Promises of martyrdom? Is that a common Christian practice?

Malmo's sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. Jewish schoolteachers have reported hiding their identity. A teacher who wouldn't even share the city where she teaches for fear of her safety told a Swedish news outlet: "I hear students shouting in the hallway about killing Jews." Henryk Grynfeld, a teacher at a high school in a mostly immigrant neighborhood in Malmo, was told by a student: "We're going to kill all Jews." He said other students yell "yahoud," the Arabic word for Jew, at him.

Arabic? Who is speaking Arabic in Sweden?

[A] study from 2013 showed that 51 percent of anti-Semitic incidents in Sweden were attributed to Muslim extremists.

Fifty-one percent! But Muslims are only 5% of the population. That means they are committing hate crimes at a rate ten times their population.

There is, however, tremendous hesitation to speak out against hate crimes committed by members of another minority group in a country that prides itself on welcoming minorities and immigrants. In 2015, Sweden was second only to Germany in the number of Syrian refugees it welcomed. Yet the three men arrested in the Molotov cocktail attack were newly arrived immigrants, two Syrians and a Palestinian. The fear of being accused of intolerance has paralyzed Sweden's leaders from properly addressing deep-seated intolerance. Some of the country's leaders have even used Israel as a convenient boogeyman to explain violence.

This is no longer a discussion about "radical Islam." One can make the case that when one out of ten thousand Islamists perpetuates an attack, that is a radical fringe. But when large numbers of Muslims roam around in gangs and attack people, that's not radical Islam.

That's Islam.

Hatred of Jewish people (and usually Christians as well) is widespread in Islam. It's time we came out and talked about it. Even in Sweden they are starting to:

[T]he problem has grown so dire that it finally forced [Prime Minister] Mr. Lofven to admit in an interview this month: "We will not ignore the fact that many people have come here from the Middle East, where anti-Semitism is a widespread idea, almost part of the ideology."

Now, in our country, we are also having a debate about Muslim immigration.

The American World Jewish Service tweeted:

We continue to stand in solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers, & those affected by the latest EO. #RefugeesWelcome #MuslimBan

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said, "The Trump administration has doubled down on its discriminatory and unjust refugee and immigration ban[.]"

The National Council of Jewish Women said:

President Trump's executive order, "Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States," is devastating to refugees, targets Muslims, and is without justification.

T'ruah, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, said, "The executive order continues to effectively close our borders to Muslims[.]"

High-profile terrorist acts by Muslims are only the most visible part of the problem. For every large-scale bomb or bus or car attack, there are a dozen or a hundred attacks that don't make the headlines. That's why it's disgraceful that Jewish leaders seem blind to what they are advocating.

Christians should be concerned as well. The women who were gang-raped at the train station in Germany were not Jewish. Neither are many of the people who cannot safely walk in "no-go" zones like Malmo.

It's time the world talked more openly about the problem with Islam, and way past time especially for Jewish "leaders" to get their heads out of the sand. Unfortunately, for some of them, their religion is fundamentalist multiculturalism, and they practice it with all the fervor of a death cult.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.
Over 100 congressional women are demanding that President Trump be investigated for sexual abuse for the purpose of either getting him to resign or to moving toward impeachment.

Why aren't they asking for all male members to be investigated with the following questions and more?

Did they ever ogle or stare at any other person thinking she (or he) looked attractive? Did they have permission to ogle?

Did they ever kiss any person without asking specific permission to do so? Did they ask what kind of kiss is allowed?

Did they ever try to cop a feel with any woman? Was there specific approval for that?

Did they ever talk about sex or other persons with anyone in what is now considered an inappropriate manner at any time in their lives? Did that talk disqualify them for political office?

My guess is that most of the men in Congress would have to answer yes to most of those questions, so why aren't the 100 congresswomen asking for hearings on them?

I would ask the congresswomen themselves the following questions:

Did anyone ever ogle or stare at you? Did you try to dress yourself to look attractive, or did you intentionally try to look unattractive so no one would stare at or ogle you? Did you ever feel threatened by the ogling enough to claim sexual abuse? If not, why not?

Did you always give permission before someone kissed you? Did you tell him (or her) specifically what kind of kiss was allowed? If not, did you claim that you were sexually abused? If not, why not?

Did anyone ever try to cop a feel with you? Did he (or she) always ask permission first? Did you ever claim abuse? If not, why not?

Have you ever talked about sex or men or other women in an inappropriate manner? Does that disqualify you to hold office? Have you ever read any of the Fifty Shades of Grey books?

Male and female journalists who are going after Trump every day should be asked the above questions.

Maybe we need laws to outlaw kissing, ogling, flirting, holding hands, and sex, because according to current reporting, all can be considered abuse. (Of course, Bill Clinton would answer all questions with "it depends what the definition of sex is.") Life wouldn't be much fun, and it would be hard to procreate, but if we can just get rid of a president they don't like, that would be OK.

My guess is that most of the 100 women who want to investigate Trump know that almost all the other men in Congress have done something now regarded as harassment and they don't care. They don't like Trump and his agenda, and they will use any excuse to go after him. Facts really don't matter.
Omar Ashmawy, staff director and chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics, has been accused in a lawsuit of physically assaulting and abusing a woman in Pennsylvania. The suit stems from a late-night altercation in a bar in which Ashmawy was seen sexually harassing a bartender. When his sexual advances were rebuffed, Ashmawy became violent and abusive toward the woman.

Ashmawy, who has been investigating sexual harassment allegations against members of Congress, then used his office to influence local officials who were investigating the incident at the bar.

Foreign Policy:

"To be clear, I did not harass anyone that evening, physically or verbally," he wrote in a statement to FP. "To the contrary, I was the victim of a wholly unprovoked assault for which those responsible were investigated, arrested and charged. Any allegation to the contrary is unequivocally false." The lawsuit, previously unreported, stems from Feb. 14, 2015  Valentine's Day. The evening appeared to start off well for Ashmawy: a nearly $400 dinner with his girlfriend at an upscale restaurant in Milford, followed by late-night drinks at a local bar. It ended, however, with him bruised and bloody in the back of a police car.

The lawsuit, filed by one of the men who was involved in the fight, includes witness testimony from eyewitnesses who described Ashmawy's behavior:

According to the complaint, Martucci on the night of Feb. 14, 2015, witnessed "an extremely violent and belligerent" Ashmawy become verbally abusive toward two women at Milford's Dimmick Inn, Dawn Jorgenson  the wife of John Jorgenson, the owner of the bar  and Joey Lynn Smith, a bartender there. Martucci also said he saw Ashmawy physically assaulting Dawn Jorgenson and Christina Floyd, another woman at the bar, a claim echoed in police statements given by the women and reviewed by FP. According to a three-page statement dated March 12, 2015, Dawn Jorgenson said she witnessed Ashmawy "clearly sexually harassing" the bartender throughout the course of the evening and saw his behavior spiral toward physical violence. "You'll give me drinks, but you won't [f---] me," Ashmawy allegedly said to the bartender, according to Dawn Jorgenson's written statement. She said she then saw Ashmawy block the bartender with his body and curse at her, and grab her by the wrists. Dawn Jorgenson said when she tried to intervene, Ashmawy turned against her. "He's holding my wrist so tightly that he falls down to the ground landing to the left of me," she wrote in her statement. She said her husband, John Jorgenson, came over to help and pulled Ashmawy away, taking him outside. In statements given to police, the third woman, Christina Floyd, provided a similar account. "I watched each time Omar would come down and verbally sexually harass the bartender as he ordered drinks," Floyd wrote in her statement, describing an increasingly angry Ashmawy confronting the bartender.

A real charmer, that one.

Ashmawy also sent a letter to the prosecutor in Pennsylvania demanding that those involved in the altercation be prosecuted. He sent the letter on his official House stationery:

An email reviewed by FP from Ashmawy, using his congressional affiliation, to the police chief and officials at the district attorney's office accuses them of not handling the case properly. "As of today it has been over five weeks since I was assaulted. To date, the police department's investigation is not complete and charges have not been filed. I am deeply concerned," he wrote in the email, which is signed with his congressional title and work mail address. Ashmawy cites his injuries, which he said included a facial fracture and a "bruised and bloodied" eye. In the same email, Ashmawy references his own work conducting investigations, and indicates that if charges aren't filed the case might attract high-level attention in the capital.

This is a clear case of Ashmawy trying to intimidate local officials using the power of his office.

So who watches the watchdog? Obviously, Ashmawy is unfit to serve in his current capacity. You can't have someone accused of sexual harassment investigating congressmen accused of the same charge. But the bar incident occurred in 2015, and somehow, Ashmawy's superiors never got wind of what happened that night. He has been investigating several congressmen, including Rep. John Conyers, who was forced to resign after several accusers came forward. Are those investigations now tainted because of his reported behavior?

The accusatory environment in which these charges of sexual assault are being brought demands investigators above reproach. Ashmawy fails that test and should be fired.
Politico has published a long, anonymously sourced piece reporting that House speaker Paul Ryan is planning to leave office after the 2018 midterms. Coming with perfect timing against a similar Huffington Post piece, it has the look of a media hit job. The goal is for the swamp to think Ryan is a lame duck so he can no longer be effective as House speaker.

According to the piece, Ryan wants out to...spend more time with his family. That's a hackneyed reason, all right, and usually reserved for someone who's going out in disgrace. Politico supported it a little by citing Ryan's knowledge that he doesn't come from long-lived stock. Well, maybe. What it forgets is that Ryan is a fitness and vitamin fanatic, a PGX man, so the sappy claim could just as easily be baloney.

After that, it's no longer about family when Politico veers to the real reason Ryan supposedly wants out:

The best part of this scenario, people close to the speaker emphasize: He wouldn't have to share the ballot with Trump again in 2020.

Oh, yawn. Ryan has already shown he can take care of himself. There have been ups and downs, periods of discord with Trump, but by and large, the two work effectively and well together. Ryan comes up with the legislation, and Trump signs it; that's all the two of them ever need to do together anyway. There's no reason Ryan should be worried about Trump, let alone "sharing" anything with him. He is what he is, and Trump is what he is, too. When Ryan gets unhappy about something Trump says or tweets, Ryan makes his feelings known. The two are never tied together electorally.

Here's what the hit is more likely about.

Ryan got the tax reform through the House. He also got the multiple Obamacare repeals through the House (the problem there was the egomaniacs in the Senate). He has major plans to reform entitlements in the coming year  this could include the Chilean Model to make Social Security work for consumers instead of just serve as a slush fund for Congress, as is the case now. He's an achiever. He's effective. He's the Democrats' worst nightmare. If he achieves these, his accomplishments will be historic, because many have tried to scale those mountains and ended up in a puddle of sludge. Ryan, who is a green eyeshades man, is probably the best congressional leader to get these reforms through.

More to the point, Trump wants him to stay. Trump is well known for recognizing talent, and Ryan, by and large, has been a good colleague for Trump. Ryan has been serious about getting most of the Trump agenda through as well as keeping the intelligence investigations going, wherever they lead. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters Thursday that President Trump would be "very unhappy" if Ryan left office, and Ryan assured him that the report is dreck and they could expect to work together for a long time.

What could this hit have been really about? Portraying Ryan as a lame duck, just by these anonymously sourced leaks. Nobody pays attention to lame ducks, and fundraising dries up, as the Politico piece archly notes. Now that Ryan is denying that he is leaving, and couldn't possibly be telling the truth in their minds, Politico and the rest of the leftist press want to keep the speculation percolating. Make him a lame duck without his being lame duck to make the recognizably effective Ryan ineffective. Ryan isn't giving them what they want by saying he is leaving, so anonymously sourced reports will have to do.

The swamp defends its own, don't you know.
Conventional wisdom is that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is asleep at the wheel  from recusing himself unnecessarily from the Trump-Russia collusion investigation to doing nothing about the politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice. He also gave free rein to his deputy A.G., Rod Rosenstein, who is in turn allowing Special Counsel Robert Mueller unlimited time, money, and jurisdiction to investigate President Trump's entire life.

Last summer, Trump expressed disappointment in Sessions, calling him "beleaguered," wondering why Sessions wasn't looking into Hillary Clinton's emails and true election chicanery. Rudy Giuliani was floated as a possible replacement. Was Trump truly upset, or was this a calculated head fake?

In a recent blog posting, American Thinker editor Thomas Lifson, referencing Sundance from Conservative Treehouse, made the case that the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General is where the real action is taking place. Here was an explanation why Rosenstein gave evasive answers in recent congressional testimony and a suggestion that the OIG is laying out a case, slowly and methodically, with selective information release, before bringing the hammer down on the leakers and corruptocrats in the FBI and DOJ.

I want to take this a step farther, perhaps answering the question of where Jeff Sessions is and whether he is asleep, or just playing possum. Perhaps I can explain why he is acting not as a Trumpian pit bull, but instead like Mister Rogers ready for his afternoon nap.

Jeff Sessions is a political appointee, appointed by President Trump. The president, as we all know, is despised by Democrats, many establishment Republicans, and the media. Any actions Trump or Sessions take will be viewed through the lens of obstruction of justice. Firing Mueller or Rosenstein or shutting down the investigation would allow eager Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans to tut-tut over threats to the Constitution and to initiate impeachment proceedings.

Instead, by lying low, the OIG can carefully build a case. The OIG is not a political office, but instead "[a] statutorily created independent entity whose mission is to detect and deter waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct in DOJ programs and personnel." Above politics. Beyond reproach. As much as any government bureaucracy can be.

Jeff Sessions must keep his hands clean of this entire investigation, letting the OIG present its findings and recommendations. If I.G. recommends prosecution, A.G. Sessions can follow the OIG recommendations and unleash the cannons on the swamp creatures. Sure, the media and their Democrat allies will explode with rage, but it will be a politically independent organization making the recommendations, not the Trump administration, whether the president or his A.G.

Despite the left making this entirely political, for Trump to deliver a knockout punch, he has to let Lady Justice swing the axe. He has to keep politics out of his counterpunch.

Will Rod Rosenstein be fired, as some fake news sources suggest? Or is he in on the OIG sting operation? Deliberately staying quiet so events can play out, as Sundance described?

For now, I give A.G. Sessions the benefit of the doubt, that for optical and political reasons, he is lying low. For the OIG investigation to play out as desired, he has little choice. With the OIG report due early next year, this may indeed be the calm before the storm. Thousands of sealed indictments. Members of Congress retiring or not seeing re-election. Trump acting happy and confident, whether in speeches or on Twitter.

Further bolstering my theory is that Democrats are getting nervous. The Mueller circus has made a critical pivot from Trump-Russia collusion to Obama-Clinton-FBI-DOJ collusion. The Daily Caller reports, "Democrats mobilize against Rod Rosenstein as Inspector General investigation zeroes in on FBI." Turn on the light, and the cockroaches scurry.

Trump has been viciously attacked from the day in 2015 when he announced his candidacy. Like Superman, the bullets have bounced off his chest, wounding many of those who attacked him. It's likely that this entire investigation will have the same outcome.

I'm confident that President Trump has this well in hand, early on setting the stage for an upcoming reckoning  what Sundance calls "the big ugly."

And Jeff Sessions, instead of being asleep, may be playing possum, lying in wait, ready to pounce when the moment is right.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS is a Denver-based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Student cleared of rape after police wrongly withheld evidence of his innocence

Spare a few thoughts today for Liam Allan. Accused of the heinous crime of rape, 22-year-old Allan, a student at Greenwich University, protested his innocence. He spent two years on bail, the horror hanging over him. Hed be warned that if found guilty he could expect a ten-year prison sentence.

And, then, when the case came before the judge at Croydon Crown Court, after three days of debate Jerry Hayes, the prosecuting barrister, told the room: I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusableThere could have been a very serious miscarriage of justice, which could have led to a very significant period of imprisonment and life on the sex offenders register. It appears the [police] officer in the case has not reviewed the disk, which is quite appalling.

The disc was a computer disc. On it were copies of 40,000 messages from the alleged victims telephone. Liam Allans lawyers never saw the disc until very late. Police told them there was no need to because the disc contained nothing of importance to the case for defence nor prosecution. But it did. A new prosecution barrister ordered police to hand over any telephone records before the trial began. On the disc were messages revealing that the woman had asked Mr Allan for casual sex. She told friends she enjoyed sex with Allan  she had told police she did not enjoy sex. She discussed her fantasies of being raped.

Julia Smart, part of Allans defence team, only received the details of the womans text messages the night before she was scheduled to cross-examine her. She spend the night reading them.

Mr Allan tells The Times: I cant explain the mental torture of the past two years. I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing. His mother, Lorraine Allan, added: In the current climate, in these sorts of cases, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent. The assumption is there is no smoke without fire.

Ruling Allan innocent of all charges, Judge Peter Gower told one and all: There is something that has gone wrong and it is a matter that the CPS, in my judgment, should be considering at the very highest level,. Otherwise there is a risk not only of this happening again but that the trial process will not detect what has gone wrong and there will be a very serious miscarriage of justice. He [Mr Allan] leaves the courtroom an innocent man without a stain on his character It seems to me to be a recipe for disaster if material is not viewed by a lawyer, he said. Something has gone very, very wrong in the way this case was investigated and brought to court.

Is there an agenda at play?

Paul Sorene

Posted: 15th, December 2017 | In: Broadsheets, News Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
(ANSA) - Brussels, December 15 - Rewriting the Dublin Regulation on migrants registering in country of arrival and relocation remain stumbling blocks to an accord at the European Union summit in Brussels, Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Friday.

"The internal dimension, the Dublin rules, internal borders are a stumbling block," he said. Gentiloni also said "we have not succeeded in overcoming the opposition that persists in the Visegrad countries who refuse the decision to make migrant quotas compulsory". The Italian premier said that from yesterday's meeting "it was very clear" that "openings to consider optional the European rules on the relocation of migrants are not shared by the EU".

The Visegrad Group, also called the Visegrad Four, or V4 is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European states: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Italy's efforts to cope with a migrant emergency have been recognised by its European Union partners, Gentiloni added at the EU summit. "This year's Italian initiative has been appreciated in a very significant way, and it is important that this be so by the leaders of governments of the most various orientations and political families," he said. Gentiloni said "there is unanimous recognition of the steps taken to fight human traffickers".

Italy took action this year to stem a seemingly endless flow of migrants from North Africa.

It struck accords with Libya that have led to the Libyan coast guard stopping migrant boats.

Human rights groups have voiced concern about the allegedly inhuman state of Libyan migrant camps.

Italy has vowed to work with them to improve conditions in the camps, where beatings and rape have been reported.


(ANSA) - Rome, December 15 - A 23-year-old French citizen who had converted to radical Islam was deported Friday after being arrested for petty crime on August 29 near Cuneo. Already flagged by French authorities as a jihad sympathiser, the man mimed shooting the Carabinieri who arrested him. He also threatened to set off an explosive device, citing Allah.

The man was found to have been radicalised during a stint in a jail in his home country, interior ministry sources said.

He frequented members of extremist religious groups during his jail time, they said.

The man was released from jail Thursday and Interior Minister Marco Minniti immediately signed the deportation order for State security reasons.

He was repatriated to France via the border crossing at Ventimiglia.

His deportation brought to 101 the expulsions from Italy in 2017, and to 233 since the start of 2015, of individuals gravitating in religious extremist milieux.

Italy's anti-terror drive has been praised at the international level.

So far the country has managed to avert the kind of terror attacks that have occurred in other European countries.

photo: Interior Minister Marco Minniti (R) with Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti
(ANSA) - Bologna, December 15 - Norbert Feher alias Igor Vaclavic, aka 'Igor The Russian', wanted for two murders committed in Emilia-Romagna in May, was arrested in Spain on Thursday night. The arrest came after a shoot-out in El Ventorillo near Granada in which three people including two members of the Guardia Civil were killed, Bologna police said.

Spanish media said he had shot dead two police and a civilian.

Italian police said they had got wind Feher might be in Spain during the summer.

They said he was travelling between Malaga, Valencia and Madrid, cities in which he had support for his flight frorm justice.

This was based on monitoring one of the fugitive's contacts, as well as his family, investigative sources said.

But the most recent lead had pointed to his taking refuge in Vienna, the sources said.

Other leads pointed to France, they said.

Feher's extradition to Italy will very likely be suspended until he has answered for the three murders he allegedly carried out in Spain, Spanish news agency EFE reported.

El Pais cited Spanish Audiencia Nacional court sources as saying the Serb will appear Sunday before a judge who will notify him of the two murders he is accused of in Italy. Rome has issued a European arrest warrant for Feher. The widow of one of Feher's victims, barman Davide Fabbri's widow Maria Sirica, said "I hope he serves his time...even though this will never be able to cancel my drama". An Italian forensic team identified the man from his fingerprints.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said "thank you to Spanish authorities, to the Carabinieri and our thoughts go out to the victims in Budrio and the victims in Spain".

Premier Paolo Gentiloni sent his condolences to Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy over the three Spanish people killed in the shoot-out with the Serbian killer. He also said his thoughts were with the families of Feher's two Italian victims.

Bologna chief prosecutor Giuseppe Amato told a press conference: "the investigative result is exceptional, in my view".

He said "there was no underestimation, not evn after the first murder".

Feher, a Serbian suspected of killing two people and thought to be armed and dangerous on the run was named as Feher in April, Italian police said after consulting officials in Serbia where he is wanted for robbery and sexual violence.

The 41-year-old Feher, who also goes by the name of Igor Vaclavic, under which he was tried in Ferrara some years ago, is the suspected killer of Davide Fabbri, a 52-year-old who was shot dead during an attempted robbery at his bar at Budrio, near Bologna, on April 1, and of a voluntary environmental ranger who was shot dead near Ferrara a couple of days later.

To escape a manhunt, Italian police said, Feher may have stolen a boat belonging to a farmer that recently went missing in the area of the search.

Special police units, helicopters, drones, sniffer dogs and marksmen were used in the manhunt across the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna.

The suspect was said to be armed with at least two guns and around 40 bullets.

A provincial police agent was also seriously wounded in the shooting on the Mondo Nuova road around 8 km from Portomaggiore near Ferrara.

Police said Feher was foraging fruit, vegetables and eggs as he continued to elude his pursuers.

Carabinieri later managed to track him down in Spain, helped by Interpol and the Guardia Civil.


(ANSA) - Bologna, December 15 - Norbert Feher alias Igor Vaclavic, aka 'Igor The Russian', wanted for two murders committed in Emilia-Romagna in May, was arrested in Spain on Thursday night. The arrest came after a shoot-out in El Ventorillo near Granada in which three people including two members of the Guardia Civil were killed, Bologna police said.

Spanish media said he had shot dead two police and a civilian.

The widow of one of his victims, barman Davide Fabbri's widow Maria Sirica, said "I hope he serves his time...even though this will never be able to cancel my drama". An Italian forensic team identified the man from his fingerprints.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said "thank you to Spanish authorities, to the Carabinieri and our thoughts go out to the victims in Budrio and the victims in Spain".

Premier Paolo Gentiloni sent his condolences to Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy over the three Spanish people killed in the shoot-out with the Serbian killer. He also said his thoughts were with the families of Feher's two Italian victims.

Bologna chief prosecutor Giuseppe Amato told a press conference: "the investigative result is exceptional, in my view".

He said "there was no underestimation, not evn after the first murder".

Feher, a Serbian suspected of killing two people and thought to be armed and dangerous on the run was named as Feher in April, Italian police said after consulting officials in Serbia where he is wanted for robbery and sexual violence.

The 41-year-old Feher, who also goes by the name of Igor Vaclavic, under which he was tried in Ferrara some years ago, is the suspected killer of Davide Fabbri, a 52-year-old who was shot dead during an attempted robbery at his bar at Budrio, near Bologna, on April 1, and of a voluntary environmental ranger who was shot dead near Ferrara a couple of days later.

To escape a manhunt, Italian police said, Feher may have stolen a boat belonging to a farmer that recently went missing in the area of the search.

Special police units, helicopters, drones, sniffer dogs and marksmen were used in the manhunt across the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna.

The suspect was said to be armed with at least two guns and around 40 bullets.

A provincial police agent was also seriously wounded in the shooting on the Mondo Nuova road around 8 km from Portomaggiore near Ferrara.

Police said Feher was foraging fruit, vegetables and eggs as he continued to elude his pursuers.

Carabinieri later managed to track him down in Spain, helped by Interpol and the Guardia Civil.


(ANSA) - Bologna, December 15 - Norbert Feher alias Igor Vaclavic, aka 'Igor The Russian', wanted for two murders committed in Emilia-Romagna in May, was arrested in Spain on Thursday night. The arrest came after a shoot-out in El Ventorillo near Granada in which three people including two members of the Guardia Civil were killed, Bologna police said.

Spanish media said he had shot dead two police and a civilian.

Italian police said they had got wind Feher might be in Spain during the summer.

This was based on monitoring one of the fugitive's contacts, investigative sources said.

But the most recent lead had pointed to his taking refuge in Vienna, the sources said.

The widow of one of Feher's victims, barman Davide Fabbri's widow Maria Sirica, said "I hope he serves his time...even though this will never be able to cancel my drama". An Italian forensic team identified the man from his fingerprints.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said "thank you to Spanish authorities, to the Carabinieri and our thoughts go out to the victims in Budrio and the victims in Spain".

Premier Paolo Gentiloni sent his condolences to Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy over the three Spanish people killed in the shoot-out with the Serbian killer. He also said his thoughts were with the families of Feher's two Italian victims.

Bologna chief prosecutor Giuseppe Amato told a press conference: "the investigative result is exceptional, in my view".

He said "there was no underestimation, not evn after the first murder".

Feher, a Serbian suspected of killing two people and thought to be armed and dangerous on the run was named as Feher in April, Italian police said after consulting officials in Serbia where he is wanted for robbery and sexual violence.

The 41-year-old Feher, who also goes by the name of Igor Vaclavic, under which he was tried in Ferrara some years ago, is the suspected killer of Davide Fabbri, a 52-year-old who was shot dead during an attempted robbery at his bar at Budrio, near Bologna, on April 1, and of a voluntary environmental ranger who was shot dead near Ferrara a couple of days later.

To escape a manhunt, Italian police said, Feher may have stolen a boat belonging to a farmer that recently went missing in the area of the search.

Special police units, helicopters, drones, sniffer dogs and marksmen were used in the manhunt across the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna.

The suspect was said to be armed with at least two guns and around 40 bullets.

A provincial police agent was also seriously wounded in the shooting on the Mondo Nuova road around 8 km from Portomaggiore near Ferrara.

Police said Feher was foraging fruit, vegetables and eggs as he continued to elude his pursuers.

Carabinieri later managed to track him down in Spain, helped by Interpol and the Guardia Civil.


(ANSA) - Bologna, December 15 - Norbert Feher alias Igor Vaclavic, aka 'Igor The Russian', wanted for two murders committed in Emilia-Romagna in May, was arrested in Spain on Thursday night. The arrest came after a shoot-out in El Ventorillo near Granada in which three people including two members of the Guardia Civil were killed, Bologna police said.

Spanish media said he had shot dead two police and a civilian.

The widow of one of his victims, barman Davide Fabbri's widow Maria Sirica, said "I hope he serves his time...even though this will never be able to cancel my drama". An Italian forensic team identified the man from his fingerprints.

Interior Minister Marco Minniti said "thank you to Spanish authorities, to the Carabinieri and our thoughts go out to the victims in Budrio and the victims in Spain".

Bologna chief prosecutor Giuseppe Amato told a press conference: "the investigative result is exceptional, in my view".

He said "there was no underestimation, not evn after the first murder".

Feher, a Serbian suspected of killing two people and thought to be armed and dangerous on the run was named as Feher in April, Italian police said after consulting officials in Serbia where he is wanted for robbery and sexual violence.

The 41-year-old Feher, who also goes by the name of Igor Vaclavic, under which he was tried in Ferrara some years ago, is the suspected killer of Davide Fabbri, a 52-year-old who was shot dead during an attempted robbery at his bar at Budrio, near Bologna, on April 1, and of a voluntary environmental ranger who was shot dead near Ferrara a couple of days later.

To escape a manhunt, Italian police said, Feher may have stolen a boat belonging to a farmer that recently went missing in the area of the search.

Special police units, helicopters, drones, sniffer dogs and marksmen were used in the manhunt across the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara and Ravenna.

The suspect was said to be armed with at least two guns and around 40 bullets.

A provincial police agent was also seriously wounded in the shooting on the Mondo Nuova road around 8 km from Portomaggiore near Ferrara.

Police said Feher was foraging fruit, vegetables and eggs as he continued to elude his pursuers.

Carabinieri later managed to track him down in Spain, helped by Interpol and the Guardia Civil.


(ANSA) - Brussels, December 15 - Italy's efforts to cope with a migrant emergency have been recognised by its European Union partners, Premier Paolo Gentiloni said at an EU summit in Brussels Friday. "This year's Italian initiative has been appreciated in a very significant way, and it is important that this be so by the leaders of governments of the most various orientations and political families," he said. Gentiloni said "there is unanimous recognition of the steps taken to fight human traffickers".

Italy took action this year to stem a seemingly endless flow of migrants from North Africa.

It struck accords with Libya that have led to the Libyan coast guard stopping migrant boats.

Human rights groups have voiced concern about the allegedly inhuman state of Libyan migrant camps.

Italy has vowed to work with them to improve conditions in the camps, where beatings and rape have been reported.


TEL AVIV - A massive demonstration, calculated by local sources at nearly one million people, took place in Gaza on Friday, as violent clashes broke out in the West bank and a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli police in Ramallah after stabbing and wounding an agent. The great rally and the clashes followed the prayers on Friday, sparked by Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Palestinian news agencies Maan and Wafa also report "dozens of injured" in Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, in the village of Kafr, in Hebron, north of Bethlehem but also in Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarem.

In the Gaza Strip the crowd stretched from Rafah, in the south, to Beit Hanoun, in the north, along the Salah Adin road. The demonstration was called by all Palestinian factions gainst US President Donald Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and took place immediately following riday prayers in the mosques. During the demonstration an appeal was made to continue the protest every Friday.

Immediately after the demonstration, protesters moved towards the Israeli West Bank barrier where clashes began with the Israeli Army.

"A massive demonstration on the Temple Mount rejected Trump's decision on Jerusalem," Maan wrote.

The political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on Thursday announced a new Intifada in response to the decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. As a consequence, the Israeli authorities beefed up security in the country in view of possible clashes with Palestinian protesters after Friday prayer.



Speaking to a crowd of 100,000 people in Gaza to mark the 30th anniversary of the Palestinian Islamic organisation Haniyeh called for every Friday to be a Friday of "rage" in order to 'Knock down" the decision "once and for all". Prior to the announcement Israeli sources confirmed that US vice president Mike Pence had postponed his visit to the country until the middle of next week, allegedly because he needed to be in Washington for voting by Congress on a tax bill. Pence was due to travel to Israel this weekend. Further, he will not visit the West Bank where he has been declared "unwanted in Palestine" in the light of Trump's decision. On Thursday Pence will meet with Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu and in the afternoon he will address the Knesset, where Arab-Israeli lawmakers are to boycott his speech. It is possible that Palestinians will step up their protests and clashes with the Israeli army during his visit. Meanwhile, 70 people were reported wounded in clashes on Friday in parts of the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.



The mayor of Nazareth, Ali Salam, has decided to cancel the planned Christmas celebrations with the exception of the Christmas tree lighting and traditional annual march. Crowds gathered in Al-Katiba square in central Gaza on Thursday to mark 30 years of Hamas under a banner reading 'Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine'. "This anniversary is for Jerusalem, resistance, martyrs and prisoners. There is nothing called Israel, so there is no capital called Jerusalem. Trump's declaration is no less dangerous than the Balfour decision," Haniyeh said.



There are three ways to defeat Trump, the leader added.



These are reaching Palestinian unity, gaining strong allies and continuing the Intifada. In the face of repeated rocket attacks from Gaza the Israeli army has said it will not tolerate "anything other than absolute calm" on the border with Gaza. "The only option open to Hamas is to stop the rocket launches," General Ronen Minelis said on military radio.
Crowd of one million stages protest in Gaza For Jerusalem, after Friday prayer, from Rafah to Beit Hanoun

(ANSAmed) - GAZA, DECEMBER 15 - A massive demonstration, calculated by local sources at nearly one million people, took place in Gaza on Friday stretching from Rafah, in the south, to Beit Hanoun, in the north, along the Salah Adin road.



The demonstration was called by all Palestinian factions against US President Donald Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and took place immediately following Friday prayers in the mosques.



During the demonstration an appeal was made to continue the protest every Friday.



Immediately after the demonstration, protesters moved towards the Israeli West Bank barrier where clashes began with the Israeli Army. (ANSAmed).




'Every Friday rage for Jerusalem', Hamas calls for Intifada Israel demand end of rocket launches. Pence postpones visit

(by Massimo Lomonaco) (ANSAmed) TEL AVIV, 15 DECEMBER - The political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, on Thursday announced a new Intifada in response to the decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.



Speaking to a crowd of 100,000 people in Gaza to mark the 30th anniversary of the Palestinian Islamic organisation Haniyeh called for every Friday to be a Friday of "rage" in order to 'Knock down" the decision "once and for all". Prior to the announcement Israeli sources confirmed that US vice president Mike Pence had postponed his visit to the country until the middle of next week, allegedly because he needed to be in Washington for voting by Congress on a tax bill. Pence was due to travel to Israel this weekend. Further, he will not visit the West Bank where he has been declared "unwanted in Palestine" in the light of Trump's decision. On Thursday Pence will meet with Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu and in the afternoon he will address the Knesset, where Arab-Israeli lawmakers are to boycott his speech. It is possible that Palestinians will step up their protests and clashes with the Israeli army during his visit. Meanwhile, 70 people were reported wounded in clashes on Friday in parts of the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.



The mayor of Nazareth, Ali Salam, has decided to cancel the planned Christmas celebrations with the exception of the Christmas tree lighting and traditional annual march. Crowds gathered in Al-Katiba square in central Gaza on Thursday to mark 30 years of Hamas under a banner reading 'Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine'. "This anniversary is for Jerusalem, resistance, martyrs and prisoners. There is nothing called Israel, so there is no capital called Jerusalem. Trump's declaration is no less dangerous than the Balfour decision," Haniyeh said.



There are three ways to defeat Trump, the leader added.



These are reaching Palestinian unity, gaining strong allies and continuing the Intifada. In the face of repeated rocket attacks from Gaza the Israeli army has said it will not tolerate "anything other than absolute calm" on the border with Gaza. "The only option open to Hamas is to stop the rocket launches," General Ronen Minelis said on military radio.



(ANSAmed).




Jerusalem: protest against Trump decision continue in Jordan Thousands of people rally in several cities

(ANSAmed) - AMMAN, DECEMBER 15 - Thousands of Jordanians protested in several cities after Friday noon prayer in condemnation of US decision to move their embassy to Jerusalem as demonstrators burnt the US flag and called for ending the peace treaty with Israel.



In the capital Amman, several thousands marched downtown waving flags of Palestine amid strong security presence. The scene was similar in various parts of the kingdom, as authorities have given the green light for protests. In western Amman, a group of activists continue to stage a non-stop sit-in near the US embassy, turning the location into an anti-American gathering.



The government has brought reinforcements to protect the American and Israeli embassies. (ANSAmed).




Palestinian sources say three killed in clashes Two victims and 130 wounded in Gaza, one dead in West Bank

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 15 - Three Palestinian protesters were killed in clashes Friday with the Israeli Army, according to Palestinian sources.



They said two were killed in Gaza and another in the West Bank.



The Gaza Strip Health Ministry said 130 people were wounded in Gaza, three of whom were seriously injured, according to WAFA Palestinian news agency.(ANSAmed).




TEL AVIV - Police have questioned Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu for the seventh time at his Jerusalem residence in relation to corruption allegations against him, local media report.



The last interrogation dates to November 19 and lasted for four hours. Netanyahu was questioned in relation to allegations that he accepted gifts from supporters in exchange for favours. He must also explain a series of meetings with the publisher of opposition tabloid Yediot Ahronot, allegedly in order to influence the content by reducing the circulation of competitor Israel ha-Yom.
Tunisia's Essebsi says 'no talks on Ben Ali return' 'Has the right, but will face justice', vigilant on terrorism

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, DECEMBER 15 - Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi told France 24 radio, "we won't make it a state affair if Ben Ali tries to return to Tunisia, it's his right, however he will be brought before Tunisian justice".



Essebsi was responding to a question on Saudi Arabia's refusal to extradite former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, and denied the existence of negotiations underway regarding his extradition.



Speaking on French-Tunisian cooperation and the state visit French President Emmanuel Macron will make to Tunisia in February 2018, Essebsi said that bilateral relations with France "have always been good".



On the fight against terrorism in Tunisia and the threats coming from its border with Libya, Essebsi insisted on the fact that the majority of terrorists the come from Libya or elsewhere are Tunisians.



"In 2015 we had three large attacks. Today we are controlling the terrorism situation better, but we are still very vigilant," he said, speaking of the support provided by the United States and Germany on terrorism.



He said Tunisians who have come back from terrorist hotbeds after the defeat of ISIS in Syria, about 800 in all, are under control and in the hands of the justice system.(ANSAmed).




The families of three soldiers, who gave their lives in the service of their country, were each presented with the Elizabeth Cross and Memorial Scroll.
The actress will reportedlly be paid Rs 4-5 crores for a five-minute performance, which comes out to a crore rupees per minute.

Mumbai: After weeks of shooting for international series 'Quantico' in the United States, Priyanka Chopra is heading home.

Having ventured into production now, the actress will obviously have discussions about forthcoming projects and perhaps a film to star in herself, but there seems to be some other grand plans for her in the city.

The actress is all set to perform at a popular awards show to be held in Mumbai on 19 December.

While it is normal for any actress to perform at any event, the moolah being offered to her is what is making headlines.

The actress will be paid Rs 4-5 crores for a five-minute performance, which comes out to a crore rupees per minute, according to a report in Mid-day.

"Priyanka's act will be about five-minute long. Since she is so much in demand, the organisers did not negotiate on the price her team quoted, despite it coming to almost a-crore-a-minute," a source told the tabloid.

Her sabbatical from performing at awards for a while and her growing popularity on international platform in the meanwhile might just be the reason for the record-breaking fee.

"Since Priyanka's last performance was at the Producer's Guild Awards in 2016, the team has planned a routine that will be the highlight of this award season. She will be dancing to a medley of her chartbusters," the source added.

Her performance at the event will definitely be the star attraction at the event, despite acts by other actors like Ranveer Singh, Shahid Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Sidharth Malhotra, Jacqueline Fernandez and Bhumi Pednekar also lined up.
Right-wing activists also set fire to a car of the catholic community and assaulted them outside the police station.

Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth, claimed that he was illegally converted to Christianity on December 10, following which members of the catholic community were booked. (Photo: ANI)

Bhopal: Suspected Bajrang Dal activists were claimed to have beaten up some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday night over alleged conversion of Hindus to Christianity.

Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines police station said a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle, but denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident.

Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for priesthood.

Father M. Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, said that some young men stormed the venue of a pre-Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 pm on Thursday and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After police got information, they came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am. They agreed to visit the police station on Friday morning, Rony said.

"As promised they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not asingle person there had converted to Christianity.

"We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked on Friday for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

Satna superintendent of police Rajesh Hingankar could not be reached for comments despite repeated calls.
Women playing 'garba' on their way to polling stations were also seen on the day of the voting.

A few bridegrooms in Gujarat chose to vote first before heading to the wedding venue. (Representational Image | PTI)

Ahmedabad: As Gujarat voted in the second phase of polling on Thursday, some eye-catching scenes  women playing garba on their way to booths and bridegrooms heading to polling stations before marriage venues - underscored the enthusiasm of the electorate.

From youngsters to elderly, politicians to bureaucrats, people from all sections of the society came out to get inked.

His wedding scheduled for Thursday, Harish Bhavsar, a businessman from Vatva area, was at the cusp of beginning a new life. But it did not stop him from exercising his franchise. Before heading to the wedding venue, he cast his vote.

"I didn't want to miss voting and that's why I ensured I reached here (polling booth) before proceeding for marriage," he said.

Another bridegroom, Satish Patel went to the polling booth in the Ghatlodia assembly segment in Ahmedabad and exercised his franchise before heading to the marriage venue.

Adding colours to the democratic exercise, some women voters were seen playing garba, a popular dance form of Gujarat, on their way to a poll booth in Satellite area in Ahmedabad.

For Ram Krishna Choksi, it was an occasion to assert his democratic right, which the 80-year-old has been doing election after election. Accompanied by his wife Urmila, he came to cast his ballot at a polling booth at a college.

"It is the duty of every citizen to vote," said the octogenarian.

Asked about his expectation from the government to be formed after the polls, he said, "It should be clear in its ideas of welfare of the people. It should ensure that all citizens get access to cheap food, education and healthcare."

Dhaval Thakor, a first-time voter, was happy over his maiden walk to the polling booth and said he wanted the new government to deal with the issues of livelihood and create more job opportunities.

"I work at an electricity shop. I want the next government to ensure there is no dearth of jobs for people like me. I could not continue my studies after failing in the board examination, but I need a job to sustain my life," the 19-year-old said.

Senior bureaucrats, including chief electoral officer BB Swain and chief secretary JN Singh, among others, too lined up with their family members to cast their votes.

Governor OP Kohli also cast his ballot and appealed to the people to step out of their homes and exercise their franchise.

"The success of a democracy depends on voters," Kohli told reporters after emerging from a polling booth in Gandhinagar near Ahmedabad.

Politicians registered as voters in Gujarat, too, came out to get inked.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah were among the top politicians who cast their votes in Ahmedabad.

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, minister Shankar Chaudhary, senior Congress leaders Siddharth Patel and Shaktisinh Gohil were also among political leaders who voted.

The second and final phase of polling covered 93 seats spread over north and central Gujarat. The first phase of voting for the 182-member house, held on December 9, covered 89 seats.
The minister added that the ministry is going to support start ups in the defence sector.

New Delhi: Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that her ministry is undertaking a major review of the role of ordnance factories.

Speaking an event to mark 90 years of the setting up of leading industry body FICCI, Ms Sitharamam said: This may be a proper and suitable occasion to say that I am doing a major review of the ordnance factories, to make sure we understand where they are, what is it that they have to be given, are they going to be in a position to be joint venture partners for people trying to benefit from transfer of technology so OFBs (ordnance factory boards) are also being looked into.

Tracing its origin to British India in 1787, the ordnance factories are the oldest and largest organization in Indias defence industry where 41 factories are divided into five verticalsammunition and explosives; weapons, vehicles and equipment; materials and components; armoured vehicles; and ordnance equipment. The 41 OFs are under the administrative control of the OFB which is under the MoDs department of defence production.

In February, the Prime Ministers Office (PMO), in a stringent tone, had asked OFBs to furnish a report on their achievement from 2013 onwards. In 2013, OFBs could meet the targets on only 39 per cent of the items required by the Armed Forces.

The defence minister also said that her biggest priority is to ensure 100 per cent transparency in defence procurement while speeding up implementation of long-pending acquisition process.

Ms Sitharaman said her government has been encouraging the private sector to produce defence platforms for the armed forces, insisting that the recently-unveiled strategic partnership model is being implemented to support the domestic defence manufacturing.

The biggest compliance issue government is focusing on is to ensure 100 per cent transparency in defence acquisition, she said. The minister added that the ministry is going to support start ups in the defence sector.

The strategic partnership was unveiled nearly four months back under which domestic defence manufacturers can tie up with leading global defence majors to manufacture specific military platforms like fighter jets.
There has been talk of whether or not Sonia Gandhi would formally be made a political chairman emeritus.

Sonia Gandhi will on Saturday formally hand over the reigns of the Congress to son Rahul Gandhi. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: A day before son Rahul Gandhi takes over as the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, who held the party baton for 19 years, hinted that she's close to retiring from politics.

"My role now is to retire," Sonia Gandhi told NDTV.

As the grand old party, Congress, gears up to formally make Rahul as party President on Saturday, there has been talk of whether or not his mother would formally be made a political chairman emeritus.

Sonia told the news channel on Friday that Rahul has been helping her for years now with important decisions for the party.

Rahul has led the Congress campaign in Gujarat against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Exit polls have predicted a clean sweep for the Bharitya Janata Partys (BJP) in Modis home state Gujarat as well as that in Himachal Pradesh. The results of both the polls will be announced on Monday.

With the exit polls predication showing BJPs win, Rahul is likely to begin his partys presidency with two new electoral defeats.

Rahuls elevation in the party as the president will make him the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to lead the Congress.

Modi, in an election speech in Gujarat, had said that Rahul's role as top boss will mark an "Aurangzeb Raj"  a jibe that points to leadership that results in ruin.

On Monday, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, The entire country has lots of expectations from Rahul Gandhi. Much before he was elected, he has shown his mettle. He knows his responsibility."
It was in response to an RTI application, seeking to know the meaning and detailed definition of word shaheed (martyr).

The applicant also asked about legal provisions to ensure restriction on misuse of the word. (In file PTI photo: Jawans give a gun salute to CRPF personnel killed in Maoist ambush.)

New Delhi: There is no term as martyr or shaheed in the Army or the police and instead a soldier or a policeman killed in action is called a battle casualty or operations casualty respectively, the ministries of defence and home have submitted before the Central Information Commission.

The issue surfaced after an RTI applicant approached the Union home ministry seeking to know the meaning and detailed definition of word shaheed (martyr) according to the law and the Constitution.

He also asked about the legal provisions to ensure restriction on its misuse and punishment for violation.

The application was transferred to different officials of the home and defence ministries but when the applicant could not get a satisfactory response, he approached the CIC, the highest appellate body in matters relating to the Right to Information Act.

The respondents from the ministries of defence and the home affairs were present and heard, Information Commissioner Yashovardhan Azad said.

The respondent from the ministry of defence stated that word shaheed or martyr is not used by the MoD. Instead the one used is battle casualty. The respondent from the ministry of home affairs stated that in the MHA the word used is operations casualty, Azad said.

Quoting the submissions, he noted that the decision to declare cases of battle casualty and ops were taken after a report of a court of inquiry in both the matters.

After hearing the respondents and the perusal of the record, the commission finds that the averments made by both the respondents have duly explained the correct usage of the terms and directs the respondents to send a revised reply to the appellant accordingly, he said.
SC paves way for women, married to non-Parsi, to break tradition & be at Tower of Silence.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday paved the way for a Parsi woman married to a Hindu to break the tradition and enter the Tower of Silence whenever the funeral prayers of her aged parents are performed.

The woman had married a Hindu under the Special Marriage Act in 1991 and subsequently she was denied entry into the Parsi temple of fire and was not allowed to participate in other rituals. Under the Parsi law, she was also denied the right to visit the Tower of Silence in the event of her fathers death to perform last rites.

A five judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Kanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan recorded the undertaking of Parsi Anjuman Trust and the Priest in Valsad in Mumbai that it would allow the petitioner Goolrokh M. Gupta and her sister, who are married to Hindu men, to enter fire temple or tower of silence. The court is examining the validity of Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act that follows a jury system to decide matrimonial dispute.

Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium and Percy Ghandy, appearing for the Trust, told the Bench said that there would be no hindrance in women entering the fire temple managed by the Trust, to attend funeral prayer.

Ms Goolrokh moved the top court in an appeal against the Gujarat High Court order that has affirmed the Trusts decision not to let Parsi women enter the tower of silence. Concerned about the advanced age of her parents, both of whom are 84, Goolrokh wanted to enter the tower of silence to perform parents last rite in the event of their death. The Parsi panchayat at Valsad had earlier denied permission to Parsi women married outside the community to attend last rites for deceased in tower of silence.

In a memo submitted in the court today, the Trust said without prejudice to the rights and contentions, it is agreed to permit the petitioner to attend the funeral prayers of her parents performed inside the prayer hall of the Tower of Silence complex at Valsad. The petitioner will also be entitled to attend the four days death ceremonies of her parents insider the Tower of silence. Further in the event of the petitioner being unable to arrange for the Priests to perform the ceremonies, the Trust will arrange for the priests and petitioners children may attend the funeral of their grandparents.
The court issued a 10-point guideline, adding that any inter-faith marriage not adhering to it can be struck down if challenged.

The guidelines came in the wake of the Rajasthan governments plea to the judiciary to clarify the legal status of religion change and inter-faith marriages. (Photo: File/PTI)

Jaipur: In a historic judgment, Rajasthan High Court has made it mandatory to inform district collector about religious conversions. On Friday, division bench Justice Gopal Krishna Vyas and Justice Virendra Kumar Mathur have also issued a 10-point guideline to check what it called forcible conversion of religion, adding that any inter-faith marriage that does not adhere to the directives could be struck down if challenged.

The guidelines came in the wake of the Rajasthan governments plea to the judiciary to clarify the legal status of religion change and inter-faith marriages following the highly-publicised case of a brother challenging his sisters marriage and conversion to Islam.

We are of the opinion that while protecting the fundamental right of freedom under Article 25 of the Constitution of India, some guidelines are necessary to check forcible conversion of religion because religion is a matter of faith and not of logic, a bench of justices Gopal krishna Vyas and Virendra Kumar Mathur said.

The court allowed an adult person/people to convert to a religion of his or her choice with a condition that the individual should satisfy himself/herself about niceties of conversion of religion.

Every citizen has a fundamental right of freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution of India, but at the same time, it is the duty of every citizen to protect the feelings of other religion and not to act contrary to the provisions of Constitution, the bench added.

The court also made it mandatory for those wishing to convert to inform the district collector or sub-divisional magistrate who will, in turn, put up the information on the office notice board the same day.

The court ruling has come in the wake of a case in which a Hindu girl Payal had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim boy. The bench was hearing this matter following a habeas corpus petition filed by the girls brother who had said that she was claiming that she had been brainwashed and was a victim of love jihad. Though, the court had finally allowed the girl to go with her husband since she was an adult, it said that it would continue to hear the matter of religious conversion and inter faith marriage.

On Friday, the bench reiterated its earlier views in the case. We are clarifying that this court is also cautious of the fact that Payal Singhvi and Faiz Modi are adults and this court deem it appropriate to declare that above guidelines shall not affect their rights as two individuals are adults and they are at liberty to live their life as per their choice, the bench said.

The guidelines also make it mandatory for the newly-converted to solemnise the marriage after one week of conversion. The DM will take appropriate action under the law on information of forceful conversion, they said.
IMF's William Murray said demonetisation did cause some temporary disruptions due to cash shortages but the effects are dissipating.

IMF's William Murray said demonetisation did cause some temporary disruptions in economic activity, primarily, private consumption and small businesses due to cash shortages. (Photo: File)

Washington/New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) sees benefits in the medium-term from the demonetisation exercise which India carried out about a year ago.

"We see salutary benefits of demonetisation that took place a year ago. And there are potential benefits going forward," William Murray of the IMF told reporters at the fortnightly IMF news conference.

Murray said the demonetisation did cause some temporary disruptions in economic activity, primarily, private consumption and small businesses due to cash shortages.

"(But) the effects are dissipating," he said in response to a question.

"In the medium term, demonetisation could have possible effects, including through greater formalisation of and the information on economic activities and a more efficient payment system with a greater use of the banking system and digital payments," Murry said.

The IMF is slated to come out with an update of its projections of Indias growth rate along with the rest of the world in January.
'Pol temperatures are high in Maharashtra. I dn't know when polls will be held, but it looks like they'll be held in a year,' Aaditya said.

Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, while addressing a party event in Ahmednagar, said the Sena would come to power on its own in the state. (Photo: PTI)

Ahmednagar (Maharashtra): The Shiv Sena has said it would walk out of the Maharashtra Government within a year, thereby, confirming the imminent end of its years-long alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, while addressing a party event in Ahmednagar, said it would come to power on its own in the state.

"We will leave the government in a year and will come to power on our own. Party workers should start their preparations from now itself," Thackeray said.

"Political temperatures are high in Maharashtra. I don't know when elections will be held, but it looks like they'll be held in a year," he added.

This is not the first time when the Shiv Sena has issued such a remark.

Earlier in September, the Sena hinted towards parting ways with the BJP in the state, citing it didn't want to be blamed for people's suffering due to price hike and other reasons.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also announced acceptance of request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

On the recommendation of the Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests to come to India for medical treatments, says Sushma Swaraj. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday announced granting visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

"There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India," Swaraj tweeted.

She also announced acceptance of request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

"Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too," Swaraj tweeted.

"I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery," she added.

Swaraj has adopted a sympathetic stand on granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals notwithstanding the strained ties between the two countries.
The draft bill proposes a common entrance exam and licentiate exam, which all medical graduates will have to clear to get practicing licences.

There will five elected and 12 ex-officio members in the commission. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: The Cabinet on Friday approved the draft National Medical Commission Bill, 2017, which will replace the tainted apex medical education regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) and ensure greater transparency in the system.

The draft bill provides for the constitution of four autonomous boards entrusted with conducting undergraduate and postgraduate education, assessment and accreditation of medical institutions and registration of practitioners under the National Medical Commission, official sources said.

According to the draft bill, the commission will have government nominated chairman and members, and the board members will be selected by a search committee under the Cabinet Secretary.

There will five elected and 12 ex-officio members in the commission. The draft bill also proposes a common entrance exam and licentiate exam, which all medical graduates will have to clear to get practicing licences, sources further added.

As per the provisions of the draft bill, no permission would be needed to add new seats or to start postgraduate courses.

The deterrence for non-compliance with maintenance of standards is in terms of monetary penalty.

The draft bill is aimed at bringing reforms in the medical education sector, which has been under scrutiny for corruption and unethical practices, official sources said further.

The Union Ministry of health worked with Niti Aayog on MCIs restructuring  at the behest of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which suggested a new commission.
The petitioners argued that Aadhaar Cards could be utilised only for six schemes as approved by the Constitution bench in earlier orders.

Further the court extended the date for the completion of the linkage of Aadhaar and E-KYC process in respect of mobile phone subscribers until March 31 as against February 6, 2018 proposed by the government.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has extended the deadline for Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts and all social welfare schemes of the departments of the Central and state government until 31 March 2018.

Further the court extended the date for the completion of the linkage of Aadhaar and E-KYC process in respect of mobile phone subscribers until March 31 as against February 6, 2018 proposed by the government.

Giving this direction a five judge Constitution Bench comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Kanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan said, as far as Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts is concerned, for existing bank accounts, the last date for the completion of the process is extended to 31 March 2018.

Passing interim orders on a batch of petitions questioning the validity of the Aadhaar law, the Bench said insofar as new bank accounts are concerned, the Bench extended the deadline till March 31, subject to the submission of the details in regard to the filing of an application for an Aadhaar card and the furnishing of the application number to the account opening bank..

The court made it clear that the extension of the last date for Aadhar linkage to 31 March 2018 shall apply, besides the schemes of the departments of the Union government to all state governments in similar terms. In passing these directions the court accepted the submissions of the attorney general K.K. Venugopal in this regard.

Regarding linking of PAN card with Aadhaar, the Bench clarify that in so far as the provisions of Section 139 AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 are concerned, the matter stands governed by the judgment of this Court upholding the provision. While posting the matter for final hearing of the petitions in January, the Bench also said that this arrangement should continue to operate pending the disposal of the proceedings before the Constitution Bench.

The petitioners argued that Aadhaar Cards could be utilised only for six schemes as approved by the Constitution bench in earlier orders.

They wanted the court to direct the Centre to strictly follow these orders. Further they insisted that the Aadhaar card scheme was to be purely voluntary and could not be made mandatory until this Court finally decides the matter.

On the other hand, Mr K K Venugopal, the Attorney General urged that the interim directions were issued by the Constitution Bench in the absence of a legislative framework. After Parliament has enacted the Aadhaar Act, 2016 (which came into force on 12 July 2016) the interim orders would, in his submission, not pose any impediment to enforcing the provisions of the law, duly enacted. Moreover, the reasonableness of each notification would have to be justified by the department concerned.

The Bench said having due regard to the importance of the issues which have been raised in the case, which has led to the judgment of nine Judges of this Court on 24 August 20171, we are of the considered view that the resolution of the issues raised before the Court should proceed at the earliest, after the Court reassembles in January 2018. This will ensure clarity for citizens on the one hand and for the Union and the state governments and the instrumentalities on the other hand. The Bench posted the matters for final hearing on January 17, 2018.
The Opposition members stormed into the well of the House demanding an apology from the Prime Minister over his remarks.

BJP president Amit Shah is welcomed by parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar and health minister J.P. Nadda on his arrival at Parliament House on the opening day of the Winter Session. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: The Winter Session began on a stormy note in Rajya Sabha on Friday with the Opposition repeatedly disrupting proceedings and demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his conspiracy with Pakistan remarks against his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh, Congress members also gave a notice for discussion on the statement of the Prime Minister but it was disallowed by the Chair.

Speaking to reporters, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said, We gave a notice, but the Chairman adjourned the House and did not let us raise the issue. We are disappointed. The chairman should have given us permission. This is a national... international issue.

The Opposition members stormed into the well of the House demanding an apology from the Prime Minister over his remarks. The House had to be adjourned four times before being finally adjourned till Monday.

Mr Azad said that the Prime Minister was aware of the notice but the Prime Minister and the dispensation are arrogant and confrontational. And this is most unfortunate. This attitude does not augur well for democracy. It is an ominous development on the first day itself. CPIs D. Raja said that it was not correct on Mr Modis part to cast aspersions on Dr Singh.

The CPI national secretary said that Mr Modi should have called up his predecessor if he had any information on the conspiracy issue.

He should have done it, but the way he raised the issue in an election campaign... It is highly objectionable. It is not good for democracy, Mr Raja said, asking the government to respect the Opposition.

At an election rally in Gujarat on Sunday, Mr. Modi had suggested that Pakistan was trying to influence the state Assembly polls. He had claimed that some Pakistani officials and Dr Singh met at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyars house over dinner on December 6.

Countering Oppositions aggression on the opening day of the session, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar hit back saying, The Congress should apologise over its leaders meeting Pakistan officials.

Earlier, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the Congress should tell the nation what transpired between its top leaders and Pakistani leaders over dinner at Mr Aiyars house.

Opposition members also protested the disqualification of rebel JD(U) leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar from the House by the Chairman, which was vociferously countered by ruling party MPs.

The disqualification issue was raised soon after the Chairman informed the House about his decision to end the membership of the two former JD(U) members. As the members protested, Mr Naidu said that there cannot be any discussion on the decision of the Chair. There is no discussion on the ruling of the Chairman. Please sit down, he said.

Later in the evening, an unfazed NDA decided to push the governments agenda in Parliament despite the Opposition parties protests. A leader, who attended the NDA meeting, said that the Prime Minister spoke
The Upper House saw three adjournments before the Chair finally called it a day, following continued uproar and slogan-shouting.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Modis remarks at an election rally in Gujarat targeting Singh over a dinner meeting with Pakistani diplomats. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: An angry opposition led by the Congress accused Modi of levelling serious charges against Singh, former vice president Hamid Ansari and diplomats.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed a notice by Congress and other opposition members under rule 267 for suspension of the business of the House to discuss the matter, which led to further noisy scenes.

The Upper House saw three adjournments before the Chair finally called it a day, a little after 3pm following continued uproar and slogan-shouting.

Later in the day, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar said its the Congress that should apologise over its leaders meeting Pakistan officials.

The opposition members also protested the disqualification of former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar of the same party from the House by the Chairman, which was vociferously countered by ruling party MPs.

They raised the issue soon after the Chairman informed the House about his decision to disqualify the two former JD(U) members after giving them due opportunity of hearing.

As the members protested, Naidu said there cannot be any discussion on the decision of the Chair. There is no discussion on the ruling of the chairman. Please sit down.

This is a political issue which you are raising, which you discuss outside the House. I have no problem, he said, adding this is not the manner.... All are standing...Both the sides are standing.. I have not allowed.

As opposition members continued slogan-shouting and trooped into the Well, Naidu said You want to do like this on the first day itself? I dont appreciate the conduct of coming to the Well. ... There is a saying that all is well, not well. Try to understand this.

When the House reassembled at noon for Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Modis remarks at an election rally in Gujarat targeting Singh over a dinner meeting with Pakistani diplomats.

Azad said his party and other opposition leaders have given a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of the listed business to discuss an issue which he termed as serious.

There has been a serious matter which is not only the concern of government but the opposition is equally concerned. One allegation has been levelled on former Prime Minister and former President.

There are charges ... many foreign secretaries, high commissioners and ambassadors... charges have been levelled on them that they are hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan in Gujarat election. The PM on December 10 in Palampur in Gujarat has levelled this allegation. This is not an ordinary allegation...against a former PM, vice president and Army chief, Azad said.

But Naidu disallowed it, saying I have gone into the notice given by Ghulam Nabiji, Naresh Agarwal...I have not allowed it ...pls sit down.

This agitated the members who created further uproar, forcing the Chair to adjourn the House till 2:30pm

When the House met again, Azad raised the issue amid the uproar and the House was adjourned again till 3pm by deputy chairman PJ Kurien.

While Kurien pleaded with members to take up the private members business, Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal raised the issue of the Centres move to set up special courts for cases against MPs and MLAs and questioned the move.

When Kurien said it was a decision of the Supreme Court, Agarwal said he had not criticised the top court but his questions were directed at the government.

Congress leader Anand Sharma also got up and said Agarwal was trying to raise a point of order and asked whether this could be raised only at a particular time.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel asked how the issue being raised was a point or order, which, he said, was related to the business of the House.

Meanwhile, several Congress members were on their feet by this time and started raising slogans demanding an apology from the prime minister for his remarks.

Several Congress members including Oscar Fernandes, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Renuka Chowdhury, Sanjay Singh trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans.

Amid the din, some private members bills including The Educational Innovations Commission Bill 2017 by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and The Prevention of Enforced Disappearance Bill 2017 by V Vijayasai Reddy were introduced.

As the slogan shouting continued, Kurien adjourned the proceedings till 3pm. When the House reassembled, opposition members continued their protests, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House for the day.

Earlier when the House assembled, Chairman Naidu led the House in paying tributes to 10 former members who passed away during the inter-session period. Thereafter, the Prime Minister introduced new ministers to the House.
Modi also asked the members to ensure the presence of ruling alliance members in both the Houses.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar, ministers of state Jitendra Singh and Arjun Ram Meghwal, arrive to address the media, on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament, in New Delhi. (Photo: Pritam Bandyopadhyay)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked the NDA members to strongly push the governments agenda in Parliament and not to get bogged down by the Oppositions protests. Mr Modi also asked the members to ensure the presence of ruling alliance members in both the Houses.

Rajya Sabha witnessed multiple adjournments on the first day of the Winter Session after Congress-led Opposition demanded an apology and explanation from Mr Modi over his criticism of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during Gujarat campaigning.

Parliamentary Affairs minister Ananth Kumar, who briefied the media after the NDA floor leaders meeting, demanded that the Congress apologise for a meeting between its leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Pakistani officials without informing the government.

The Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned till Monday following the oppositions relentless protests. Sources disclosed the Prime Minister referred to Indias progress on several fronts, including its jump in the ease of doing business ratings, and reform measures such as the GST to underline his governments able handling of the economy.

Mr Modi, it was learnt, spoke about the governments legislative agenda for the Winter Session and asked them to work together for pushing it through Parliament. Earlier, BJP parliamentary party executive also met to chart out strategy for the winter session.
Body thrown off a cliff.

New Delhi: Inspired by Bollywood flicks, a Delhi based property dealer murdered his wife in a sensational murder case. He then travelled with the body till Mussoorie, wrapped the body in a bedsheet, placed it in a sack and later threw it from a cliff. In his perfect crime, the realtor then approached the Rani Bagh police to register a missing plaint.

However, his plan tasted dust when his wifes family raised suspicion, following which he was arrested by a special team of police on Friday in Mussoorie. Under the supervision of station house officer (SHO) Praveen Ahlawat, the special team from Rani Bagh, with the help of local police and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), recovered the body of the deceased woman identified as Silky Jain (36).

It all began when the accused realtor Lalit Jain, a resident of Harsh Vihar in Pitampura, murdered his wife in the national capital. Police said that with the help of four other family members  Kamal (brother), his father, sister-in-law, and Kamals brother-in-law Nayan  Lalit travelled to Mussoorie with the body for disposal. Meanwhile, on December 11, he lodged a missing plaint of his wife with the Rani Bagh police station. The cops took up the case.

During the probe, Silkys family raised suspicion about their daughter being murdered and not having gone missing. Taking a clue from the family, police questioned Lalit and wasnt convinced with the missing person theory.

Owing to the pressure, Lalit confessed to the crime and also named his associates. It is said that Lalit had allegedly murdered his wife on December 8.

On Friday morning, the police team headed for Hathipaon in Mussoorie along with local police and ITBP where accused Lalit showed the spot from where the family had rolled down the body of the deceased. The semi-decomposed body, wrapped in a bed-sheet and dumped in a sack, was recovered near the Nag Mandir in Hathipaon. On Friday noon, the body was sent to Dehradun for post mortem.
She managed to escape from the unnamed Kolkata brothel to Nashik, where she held a press meet.

The survivor, a Bangladeshi national, claimed her maternal aunt had brought her to India and sold her off to a brothel owner.

Nashik: Girls trafficked from Bangladesh are allegedly sold to prostitution rings being run in Kolkata, Mumbai and Nashik, claimed a minor survivor rescued by Nashik police.

Acting on what the girl revealed as the traffickers modus operandi, the Nashik police moved quickly to arrest three persons in connection with the racket on Thursday.

The survivor held a press conference in Sinnar detailing her ordeal. She claimed that her maternal aunt and Bangladesh national, Majida Abdul, had brought her to India on the pretext of sightseeing and sold her off to a brothel owner, Madam Mangal

Nandkishor Gangavane alias Nani. According to her statement, Nanis son Vishal Nandkumar Gangavane and alleged pimp, Sonu Narhari Deshmukh started raping her

According to her statement, Nanis son Vishal and alleged pimp Sonu Narhari Deshmukh started raping her and soon pushed her into prostitution. After spending some months in Mumbai, the survivor was sold to a brothel in Kolkata. She managed to escape from the unnamed Kolkata brothel to Nashik, where she held a press meet.

Immediately, the police swung into action and registered cases against six persons under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) 366 (B), 368, 372, 373, 376 (2) (N), 376 (D) and Immoral Traffic Prevention Act Sections 5 and 6. The police arrested alleged pimps Vishal and Sonu, and Nani and Majida Abdul. Three persons, whose names have not been given, are absconding.

Andhshraddha Nirmu-lan Samiti (ANS) senior activist and lawyer, Ranjana Pagar- Gavande, said that she had raised the issue earlier but found no support from officials and locals.

This human trafficking is a blot on humanity and should be erased in national interest, she said. The brothel in Musalgaon MIDC area of Sinnar tehsil has been operational since many years. Locals said that prime accused, Nani, was untouchable owing to her high connections.
The incident took place at around 12.50am in Subhash Nagar 's new mill road when Tripathi was travelling in a rickshaw.

The deceased, Prashant Tripathi, had returned from Uttar Pradesh after performing the last rites of his grandfather there and was headed to Kurla from Bandra when the incident happened. (Representational Image)

Mumbai: A 40-year-old television journalist died in a road accident after his auto rickshaw collided into another one in Kurla on Wednesday night. The deceased, Prashant Tripathi, had returned from Uttar Pradesh after performing the last rites of his grandfather there and was headed to Kurla from Bandra when the incident happened.

The incident took place at around 12.50am in Subhash Nagar 's new mill road when Tripathi was travelling in a rickshaw. The driver Sikandar Momin was riding it towards Kurla when another rickshaw coming from opposite direction MH02-CP-2006 rammed into it.

The police have arrested accused Kasam Mukhtar Shaikh, 26, for rash and negligent driving. The incident left Tripathi and Momin previously injured.

"The rickshaw in which victim was travelling went turtle leading to massive injuries. Tripathi died on the spot and was rushed to nearby hospital where he was declared dead.

Tripathi has worked in several news channels in Mumbai and is survived by his family. The police have informed his family about the incident and they have left from Pratapgarh in UP to reach Mumbai.
Govt could incur high courts wrath by changing cut-off date for rehabilitation.

Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is in a dilemma over whether to go ahead with an amendment to the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) Act, which will shift the current cut-off of 2000 to 2011 for rehabilitating illegal slum dwellers under the slum redevelopment policy and provide homes under the Prime Minister Housing For All scheme. The Cabinet had recently approved the move to bring the amendment during the ongoing session of the Legislature. The legal department has, however, raised serious objections and opposed the amendment, considering a high court order, sources told The Asian Age. The high court had earlier rejected the governments plea to increase the cut-off date, and the court may pull the government up for contempt.

As per the SRA Act, the cut-off date for rehabilitation is 1995 and the high court refused to grant permission to increase it up to January 1, 2001. Now, the chief minister wants to give homes to ineligible hutment dwellers, who have been living in the slums since before January 1, 2011. The law department has expressed its concern over this proposal, which was mooted by the housing department, and opposed it looking at the ratio decidendi (the rationale for the decision) of the high court order. However, in spite of the law departments misgivings, the Cabinet has approved the proposal and the bill will be introduced.

Mr Fadnavis is looking at the 2019 elections and Mumbai BJP President Ashish Shelar welcomed the decision. This will benefit BJP in Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which is the vote bank of Congress, Shiv Sena and other parties. The government has taken this major decision in the absence any scientific study, consultation and legal basis. If court grants a stay or pulls up the government for contempt, the latter might be left red-faced.

The move could also affect redevelopment schemes. If slums built till 2011 are allowed to be rehabilitated, it will add 35 to 40 lakh new houses because of 4 FSI as per policy.

The BMC has approved the Development Plan (DP) of the city and send it to the government for approval. Open spaces and other infrastructure provisions has been made as per todays legal provisions. If the government is amending the law and allowing huge constructions in the city, then it needs to provide additional infrastructure also considering increase in population, sources from the housing department said.
The Opposition walked out of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on the issue of five per cent reservation for the Muslim community on Thursday.

Nagpur: The Opposition walked out of the Maharashtra Legislative Council on the issue of five per cent reservation for the Muslim community on Thursday.

The issue was raised by Congress member of Legislative Council Husnbanu Khalife during the question hour and in reply, the minority welfare minister for state Dilip Kamble said that the government is committed to clearing it. However, Opposition leader Dhananjay Munde alleged that the government is against the states minorities.

When Ms Khalife raised the point of how the erstwhile government of Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had declared it along with the Maratha reservation, Mr Kamble said, That was for the political mileage. We will give this reservation.

When Mr Munde asked when the government would come up with a bill for Muslim reservation, Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde intervened and said,

The BJP has been supportive on the issue of reservation. Backward communities in all religions must get reservation. The government has taken this stand. Still, the Opposition leaders are misguiding the state.

Mr Munde strongly objected to the reply, stating that the government is not firm on the matter. This government is anti-minorities. You (the government) are intentionally avoiding the decision, which has even been cleared by the court, said Mr Munde.

After this outburst, Opposition members walked out from the House in protest of the governments reply.
Aaditya Thackeray was in Ahmednagar to attend a programme at New Arts College where he communicated with students.

Mumbai: Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday said that the Sena would come to power on its own by withdrawing from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government within a year. This has raised eyebrows however as Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had earlier said that a decision about parting ways with the BJP would be taken at an appropriate time.

Speaking at Ahmednagar, Aaditya Thackeray said, The Sena will withdraw from power and get elected single-handedly.

The Sena chief will decide when to withdraw from the alliance. However, all of you will have to come together to support the Sena and bring it to power.

Aaditya Thackeray was in Ahmednagar to attend a programme at New Arts College where he communicated with students. The Sena scion did not spare the BJP on several issues.

Aaditya Thackeray also assured students that their issues would be resolved. Since the beginning of the year, the Sena and BJP have seen many flip-flops over continuing as alliance partners. They broke the alliance in February for the civic body polls, however, remained together at the Centre and in the state. Later, during the annual Dussehra rally of the party in September, Uddhav Thackeray cleared the air about the allies parting ways. He said that the Sena would take a decision at an appropriate time. However, the political atmosphere is such that the Shiv Sena is likely to withdraw support to the Maharashtra government.

Sources in the Shiv Sena said that party leaders would like to contest separate polls as they will not go with BJP in the next Assembly polls. So, a decision about breaking the alliance is likely to be taken at a later stage.
State agriculture minister Pandurang Phundkar tried to defend government saying the it was waiting for the final damage figures from the authorities.

Nagpur: Unsatisfied with the replies from the treasury benches over the compensation amount for cotton farmers, who suffered damages due to attack by pink boll worm, the entire opposition staged a walkout from the state legislative assembly on Friday.

During calling attention motion moved by deputy Leader Vijay Wadettiwar , opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Sunil Kedar, Amar Kale, Yashomati Thakur and others raised the issue in the lower house for not paying compensation to the cotton growers in the state so far in the Karif crop season. State agriculture minister Pandurang Phundkar tried to defend government saying the it was waiting for the final damage figures from the authorities, Opposition expressed its resentment and accused the government over inordinate delay in making announcement, walked out of the House.

Mr Wadettiwar and others stated that Cotton crop in 15 districts spread across, Vidarbha, Marathwada and Khandesh region has suffered heavy damages due to the boll worm. The attacks were detected in November, The BT Cotton seeds were found containing harmful herbicide-tolerant genes as per a report of Central Cotton Research Institute.

Mr Phundkar tried to pacify the opposition. He said that the cotton sowing was done on 42.06 hectares of land and 98 per cent of the produce was under BT cotton area. He assured that necessary compensation would be paid and announcement would be made before the end of ongoing winter session. The state has sought financial assistance from the Centre, he said.
Indira Gandhi had annexed Sikkim, thus eliminating a troublesome buffer with China, in 1975, besides severing Pakistan into two in 1971.

Indias immediate geopolitical environment has degraded as the Narendra Modi government remained distracted by the Gujarat Assembly elections. Diplomacy regained attention somewhat with the overlapping visits of Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, and former US President Barack Obama, who was in India for a lecture. The three notable events impinging on Indian national security interests were the elections in Nepal, Sri Lankas handover of the strategic port of Hambantota to China and a Sino-Maldivian free trade agreement. All three need a closer examination.

In Nepal, the victory of the Left forces was inevitable once an alliance was formed by the two biggest Left parties  the Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist Centre (CPN-MC). The chairman of the former, K.P. Sharma Oli, is all set to lead the government while latters leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, would head the new Nepal Communist Party formed after the merger.

The success of the Left forces is not surprising as the people of Nepal were fatigued after seeing 10 Prime Ministers in as many years and the governments were thus unable to deliver on development or growth. Mr Olis nationalistic credentials amongst the hill voters also helped. The Nepalese electorate also seems to have retained its ire over the Indian blockade and punished those parties like the Nepal Congress which were seen as not having forthrightly opposed the Indian action. Finally, anti-incumbency hovered over current Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Considering Prime Minister Narendra Modis two trips to Nepal and Indias serious concern over the growing influence of China, the victory of the Left alliance is not good for India. A strong Opposition has emerged, however, thereby ensuring that the Constitution is not fiddled with by the ruling combine. It is also possible that the alliance will have functional problems over the distribution of goodies between erstwhile rivals. But South Block should be wary about the perceived pro-China orientation of Mr Oli. China may push with greater vigour its Belt and Road Initiative connectivity project which can bring its penetration closer to the heart of India in the vital Indo-Gangetic plains. This assumes importance as so far India is among a diminishing group of countries which continue to oppose the Chinese infrastructure project. Of late even the United States and Japan, which had earlier joined the Indian refrain, have been airing more positive views. Indian diplomacy will therefore face a critical test as New Delhis competition with Beijing for the affection of the rulers in Kathmandu gets renewed.

Trouble, they say, always comes in bundles. The Chinese intrusion into the Indian periphery became more intense with Sri Lanka handing over the port of Hambantota, at the crucial southern tip of the island, to China on a 99-year lease. Although the Sri Lankans have been at great pains to reiterate that China has been told it shall not be used for military purposes, but going by Chinese conduct in the South China Sea, who is to ensure that China does not, at some future date, alter the terms unilaterally to suit itself. In any case, Sri Lanka can hardly ensure that China will not install dual-use facilities that appear to be for monitoring and controlling maritime traffic when they could equally handily be used for military snooping in the Indian Ocean. In retrospect, Indian policymakers in the past erred in not grabbing the opening when, as is speculated, the Sri Lankans were happy to have India develop the port. On the converse side, it can be argued that it may be more useful to now lease Hambantota airport as the port has drawbacks that even the Chinese may find difficult to overcome to make it a money-spinner.

Finally, the Maldives has been allowed since the time of the UPA government to slowly slide towards authoritarian governance and the crushing of nascent democratic forces. Letting an Indian company GMR be ejected from the control of Male airport was diplomatic pusillanimity when the grounds for doing so were very shallow. Now the government sits on its hands as the Maldives government rushes through its parliament with indecent haste a free trade agreement with China. This really smacks of the kind of helplessness that Mr Modi, when seeking power in the run-up to the 2014 election, had alleged was afflicting his predecessor Manmohan Singh in dealing with neighbours. If even the Maldives can start testing the Indian red lines and get away with it, then Indias neighbourhood policy has well and truly begun to collapse.

Aspiring powers have to function on the basis of a clear vision that theatre and power play are two different processes. They may overlap sometimes, but the former cannot substitute the latter. Come Republic Day 2018, a fresh theatre commences. This time it is the fractious 10 nations of Asean that have been invited to the national party. It is part of the Act East slogan of the Modi government. China having already penetrated deeply into Indias immediate periphery, as argued above about the developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, India cannot overcome that setback by battling for the affection of its more distant neighbours.

It has been rightly said that a great power must not seek to be loved by other nations. It must aim to obtain respect without causing fear, as China does. At the same time the BJP has not invented muscularity in Indian diplomacy. Jawaharlal Nehru helped King Tribhuvan regain his Nepalese throne in 1950. Indira Gandhi had annexed Sikkim, thus eliminating a troublesome buffer with China, in 1975, besides severing Pakistan into two in 1971. The Narendra Modi governments record, despite repeated muscle-flexing, is rather average in handling the nations immediate periphery, where invisible red lines must exist and be enforced.
Neomi Jehangir Rao had recently accompanied Ivanka on her India trip.

In the first year, the Trump administration has eliminated 22 regulations for each new one, which should result in savings of USD 8.1 billion in present value. (Photo: Twitter/ @Neomi_Rao)

Washington: Indian-American Neomi Jehangir Rao Friday emerged as a key figure behind US President Donald Trump's deregulation scheme.

Delivering on his presidential campaign promise, Trump had, early in his presidency, put out an order which said that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.

In the first year, the Trump administration has eliminated 22 regulations for each new one, which should result in savings of USD 8.1 billion in present value.

In recognition of her contribution, Trump handed to Rao a pair of gold scissors which the president used to cut the red tape between two stacks of paper, one representing regulations of today (about 63) and other those of the '60s (shin high)during a programme in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

She assumed her current position as the head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on July 18, 2017.

In an interaction with the White House reporters, Rao said many commentators have suggested there is a link between these reform efforts and economic growth.

"I think one of the advantages of what is happening now is that individuals and businesses aren't fearing the constant perpetuation of new regulatory burdens without any notice or due process," she said.

"From my perspective, a lot of this is linked to individual freedom," she argued, adding when the government is interfering less in people's lives, they have a greater opportunity to pursue their goals.

Rao had recently accompanied Ivanka on her India trip.
Shahnaz sent funds to recipients in Pakistan, China and Turkey, prosecutors said.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, used fraudulent credit cards and loans to accumulate USD 85,000, which she attempted to transfer to the terrorist group ISIS before attempting to go to Syria to join it. (Photo: File/Representational)

New York: A suburban New York hospital technician accused of using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to launder money meant for the terror group ISIS was arrested on charges of money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization and bank fraud, prosecutors said Thursday.

Federal prosecutors in New York's Suffolk County claimed in court papers that Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, used fraudulent credit cards and loans to accumulate USD 85,000, which she attempted to transfer to the terrorist group ISIS before attempting to go to Syria to join it.

Prosecutors said that after travelling to Jordan to work with the Syrian American Medical Society, Shahnaz returned to the United States and applied for six credit cards, which she used to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The resident of the hamlet of Brentwood in Islip on Long Island appeared before a federal judge late on Thursday and was ordered detained, prosecutors said.

Shahnaz' lawyer, Steve Zissou, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

After borrowing about USD 85,000 with fraudulently obtained credit cards and loans and withdrawing another USD 22,000 from bank accounts in her own name, Shahnaz sent funds to recipients in Pakistan, China and Turkey, prosecutors said.

Some of that money came in the form of USD 63,000 in bitcoin and other crypto-currencies purchased with the credit cards, prosecutors said.

Arraignment and detention documents released on Thursday showed that Shahnaz, a US citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said that in July Shahnaz obtained a Pakistani passport and booked a flight to Pakistan with a layover in Istanbul with the intention of going to Syria. She was stopped by law enforcement investigators at John F. Kennedy airport and questioned about her trip and the financial transactions, prosecutors said.

She had USD 9,500 in cash with her, just under the limit of USD 10,000 that a person can take out of the country without declaring it to immigration and customs officials, they said.

Subsequent searches of Shahnaz' electronic devices showed numerous searches for ISIS-related material, including travel checklists.

She faces three charges of money laundering, including money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization, and is also charged with bank fraud. She faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the money laundering charges and up to 30 years for the bank fraud charge.
China lodged an official protest with Canberra last week.

Beijing: China has summoned the Australian ambassador Jan Adams amid a growing row over allegations of Chinese meddling in politics in Australia.

Officials of our ministry had an important dialogue with the Australian ambassador, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Thursday, without specifying when the meeting took place.

The Australian side is very clear with our position on bilateral relations and the relevant issue, Lu told a regular news briefing.

China lodged an official protest with Canberra last week after Australias parliament singled out China as a focus of concern when it proposed laws on foreign interference.

The legislation followed an inquiry ordered by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after media reports that Australias spy agency had warned politicians two years ago about taking donations from two billionaires with links to China.

An Australian senator quit parliament on Tuesday over his relationship with a wealthy political donor associated with the Chinese Communist Party.
Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok on Friday that the talks could take place without preconditions.

The White House has contradicted Tillerson's offer of talks without preconditions, saying North Korea must first take 'sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearisation.'

Bangkok: The US special envoy for North Korea has expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's diplomatic offer of unconditional talks, although the overture has already been contradicted by the White House.

Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok on Friday that the talks could take place without preconditions and would serve Washington's dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear programme.

Yun says it's unclear whether North Korea is willing to talk following a period of accelerated nuclear activity, saying "it's very hard to discern what their intent is without having real dialogue."

The White House has contradicted Tillerson's offer of talks without preconditions, saying North Korea must first take "sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearisation."
Imran Khan freed of graft charge, plea against Sharifs in Paper Mills case rejected.

Islamabad: Pakistans Supreme Court on Friday announced two important decisions  dismissing Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs family and clearing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief in a disqualification reference.

The first good news came for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) as the top court turned down the plea of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to reopen Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against Sharif family.

The decision was read out by Justice Mushir Alam while he was also joined by Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel. Hours later, the SC announced that Imran Khan was qualified for politics but disqualified his partys Secretary General Jehangir Tareen.

In the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case, Justice Qazi Faez Isa remarked that the documents on which NAB wanted to reopen the case was not attached with the petition, adding We are hearing the plea, not a reference.

The lawyer had told the court that there were spaces in Lahore High Court (LHC) decision, therefore, the plea should be considered for justice. The apex court, after hearing the plea, declared it inadmissible as it has got expired.

You have failed to satisfy the court on the reasons for delay in filing the appeal, Justice Mushir Alam said. On November 11, the apex court rejected NAB plea, seeking adjournment of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case till the appointment of the new prosecutor general.

NAB had blamed ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and the LHC judges for delaying Hudaibiya Paper Mills Ltd case appeal and requested the top court to reopen the reference.

On November 13, new bench was formed after Justice Asif Saeed Khosa excused himself from hearing the matter, saying that he was given the case due to offices mistake. He continued, It seems that the office has not read my verdict on Panama Leaks case. I wrote 14 paragraphs over Hudaibiya Papers Mills in the April 20 decision.

The Hudaibiya Paper Mills case is basically about money laundering of Sharif family during 1990s. The case was lodged against Nawaz Sharif, his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Hamza Shahbaz and other members over Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dars confessional statement on April 25, 2000 before magistrate in Lahore.

The reference was afterwards dismissed by LHC referee judge Justice Sardar Shamimon March 11, 2014 in response to a writ petition filed in 2011, stating that Mr Dar was pressurized to record the statement. Later, announcing the verdict on PML-N leader Hanif Abbasis petitions, the Supreme Court dismissed plea to disqualify Imran Khan.

Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said Imran Khan was not liable to declare Niazi Services Ltd in his 2013 nomination papers as he was not a shareholder. Bani Gala is Mr Khans property and he bought the land for his family, the CJP announced.

Hanif Abbasi had filed the petition in November last year, accusing the PTI leaders Imran Khan and Jahangir Tareen of not declaring their assets to the Election Commission of Pakistan and violations of the lncome Tax Ordinance, 1979, and Peoples Act, 1974.
27 leaders are expected to attend the talks during the two-day meeting in Brussels.

Brussels: British Prime Minister Theresa May will ask EU leaders to move Brexit talks to the next stage at a summit starting on Thursday, just hours after a damaging parliamentary defeat threatened to undermine her negotiating position.

The other 27 leaders are expected during the two-day meeting in Brussels to endorse an interim deal on the terms of Britains divorce that May sealed with the EU last week after months of torturous negotiations.

But on the eve of the summit Ms Mays own lawmakers rebelled to demand that the British Parliament have the final say on any Brexit agreement before Britain leaves the European Union on March 29, 2019.

The fresh blow to Ms Mays authority will renew fears in Brussels about her mandate for negotiations on the second phase, which will cover a future EU-UK relationship, including moves towards a trade deal, and a post-Brexit transition period.

EU President Donald Tusk said the second phase of Brexit talks would also be a test for the blocs own unity, as it tries to push through a host of reforms after Britains departure.

I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks, Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

Former Polish premier Tusk added that a lack of unity is very visible on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

European commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with Ms May on Brexit separation issues on December 8, saying Britain had made sufficient progress on its divorce bill, the fate of the Irish border, and protections for EU expats living in Britain.

The deal was a rare moment of triumph for the British Prime Minister, who has been struggling to assert her authority since losing her parliamentary majority in a disastrous snap election in June.

Ms May is expected to tell leaders over dinner on Thursday  she will not be at the summit for the Brexit session on Friday  that the interim deal required give and take by both sides, but a fair outcome has been achieved, a senior British government official said.
The European Union states that they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March.

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May on outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU.(Photo: File)

Brussels: British Prime Minister Theresa May urged European Union (EU) leaders at a summit on Friday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and "festive log with a twist", May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible", a British official said.

May told them she "makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity", adding that a "particular priority" should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was "disappointed" at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was "not making her life easier".

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union is unrealistic.

"I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future," May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesday's vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the bloc's own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit Minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated on Thursday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed."
The Daily Mail, a rightwing newspaper, labelled the rebels 11 self-consumed malcontents.

Brussels/London: : British Prime Minister Theresa Mays government suffered her first major legislative defeat on Wednesday when MPs forced through changes to her Brexit blueprint that ministers said could endanger Britains departure from the European Union.

In a blow to Ms May, already weakened after losing her Conservative Partys majority in a June election, the 650-seat Parliament voted 309 to 305 in favour of an amendment to hand MPs more say over a final exit deal with the EU.

Eleven rebel Tory MPs combined with nearly all Labour, Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrat members to defeat the government with four votes on its main Brexit legislation in the Commons.

Recriminations burst out in the Tory party after the vote, with blame aimed variously at the rebels, ministers and the whips. The Daily Mail, a rightwing newspaper, labelled the rebels 11 self-consumed malcontents.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, called for a ceasefire between the various sides, and said there was a difference between disagreeing and personal attacks.

Ms May sought to brush off the humiliating parliamentary defeat as she arrived at a Brussels summit on Thursday, insisting Brexit was on track as EU leaders prepared to move talks onto the next stage.

The Prime Minister said though she was disappointed that members of her Conservative party had rebelled to demand Parliament has the final say on the separation, she stressed, Were on course to deliver Brexit.
Sharif resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.

The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his family Friday heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family.

The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case.

The decision is a major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharif's confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharif's government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.
by Mathias Hariyadi

The request of an Islamic group was rejected by the Constitutional Court and the request in favor of the marriage between colleagues was accepted. The common practice requires one of the spouses to resign or relocation. Homosexual relationships, judged "illicit" by most of society, not a crime. The approval of human rights activists.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - The Mahkamah Konstitusi (Mk), or the Indonesian Constitutional Court, has rejected the proposal by a conservative group to criminalize extra-marital and homosexual relations. The court, on the other hand, accepts the legal action brought by eight citizens against the rule, contained in labor regulations, which prohibits marriage between colleagues.

In Indonesia, the common practice requires one of the spouses employed in the same building to resign and relocate to another office for the benefit of the company. "This kind of prohibition violates the fundamental human rights enshrined in the Indonesian Constitution of 1945," says MK president Judge Arief Hidayat.

Despite the increasing extremist pressures in the most populous Islamic country in the world, the decision by the Mk, approved with five votes in favor and four against, against the petition presented by the Family Love Alliance that wanted to make extra-marital affairs offense. Twelve members of the Islamic group, signatories of the request, have asked the Court to formulate a new penal code on extra-marital relationships (including homosexual relationships) to speed up the drafting of a law. Motivating the sentence, judge Saldi Irsa states: "The argument that the process of formulating the law takes a long time cannot be a reason for the Constitutional Court to interfere with the authority of the legislators".

Human rights activists express their approval for the MK decision, which ensures and protects the privacy of every citizen, including their sexual orientation. Sex, both homosexual and heterosexual, is illegal in Indonesia only if it involves a minor. However, the homosexual practice is judged "illicit" by most of the population and is a crime in the province of Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, where sharia is in force. For those guilty of this crime, there is a maximum penalty of 100 vergas. This year, two men who had sexual relations were seized by a group of vigilantes who broke into a local hostel. In May, police arrested a group of men who were organizing a party in two hotel rooms in Surabaya (East Java), Indonesia's second largest city. They are accused of violating the anti-pornography law.
Largest protest since 2011, when the police killed 14 demonstrators. The miners have refused to come up to the surface for five consecutive days. The economic giant ArcelorMittal grants 30% of wage increase.

Astana (AsiaNews / Agencies) - More than 600 coal miners in the Karaganda region have refused to climb to the surface for five consecutive days. It is the longest strike in the country after the one supressed in 2011. It started last December 11th. The miners demand a doubling of wages, the possibility of retiring at 50 and better working conditions.

Local news agency Karaganda akimat says the strike ended this morning. The company that owns the coal mines, the economic giant ArcelorMittal Temirtau, has reportedly granted miners a 30% increase, a one-off bonus of the value of wages and today off work.

The strike was the biggest protest organized by workers in Kazakhstan since 2011, when the government violently stifled a demonstration of oil workers. On December 16 and 17 of that year, the Kazakh police opened fire on protesters in the western city of Zhanaozen, killing 14. Strikes and demonstrations are a rare event in the former Soviet republic, accused by human rights activists of suppressing independent trade unions.
by Bernardo Cervellera

Theme studied during symposium jointly organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and by the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development. Tracing the commitment of Churches amid rising hostility towards others, considered as enemies and foreigners. "Migrants" are an important political theme in Germany and in UK Brexit. Testimonies from Latin America and Africa. Asian experiences entrusted to the director of AsiaNews.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - A symposium on "Xenophobia and populism" promoted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and by the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Opening the session on December 13, Card. Peter K.A. Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery, and pastor Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, highlighted the extent of the problems related to migration and multi-ethnic coexistence, the ever increasing hostility towards others considered as enemies and foreigners, the commitment of Churches in this regard, concerned that xenophobia may spread even among Christians.

The aim of the meeting is to prepare the ground for a world conference on the same theme, scheduled from May 21 to 24, 2018.

Among the invited experts, who were given 15 minutes for their intervention, several highlighted the political weight of the "migrant" issue, such as bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm of the Bavarian Lutheran Church. He outlined how among the people of Germany, the reception of refugees - especially Syrians - in 2015 became an opportunity for solidarity, but also an element that caused the electorate to veer to the extreme right. The Rev. Peter Colwell of the United Churches of Great Britain revealed how the Brexit decision was fueled by fear of migrants.

Other interventions, such as Prof. Thomas Scott, of the University of Bath (UK), stressed the urgent need for collaboration between the Churches and governments in addressing the issue of migration, on which many countries and political authorities find themselves unprepared.

Among the guests invited to speak, there have been scholars from Latin America and Africa. The only one invited to talk about Asia was the director of AsiaNews, Fr. Bernardo Cervellera. Below his intervention.

Asia is known as the continent with the most ancient civilizations and religions. But it is also the continent with very young states. They were formed following the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1922); in the aftermath of the Second World War and with the dissolution of the British Empire (1945-1948) and following the fall of the Soviet Union (1990-91). Often derived from multiethnic empires, these young states have had to strengthen their nationalist emphasis to maintain internal cohesion (flag-raising in schools, national anthem sung everywhere, civic education with a nationalist imprint, history narrated as a struggle between national heroes and enemies).

This has led their people to view the old colonial powers, invaders, bearers of another culture or another religion with suspicion and contempt.

Nationalism is still present today in many - perhaps in all - Asian states, indeed it can be said that it is growing. This is due to another factor: globalization and its failure.

In the beginning, globalization preached a total communication throughout the world which was seen as everybodys shared home. This resulted in many Asian countries entering the world of production, trade, exchange, which put them in contact with distant countries and boosted domestic development to a certain extent. The intense economic development of some areas of Asia (the Gulf countries, Japan, the little dragons [South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan] , the Great dragon [China], India) has also generated an unprecedented emigration of manpower. But at a certain point globalization plunged into a crisis. What is happening now, the xenophobia and the populism that we are reflecting on, are the fruit of the crisis of globalization.



This crisis is twofold:

1) globalization fostered the exchange of goods, labor, money, information, all measurable elements, part of a rationalistic and mathematical world. But dialogue and the exchange of cultural, religious and human elements were never facilitated or supported. All of the great cities and metropolises have become a series of ghettos divided according to peoples geographical and cultural origin and if there is a vague idea of equality it is obtained at the price of keeping ones cultural, religious and geographical identity hidden in the private sphere. So people who in the past were spurred on to move by an image of world fraternity, now find themselves poorer and robbed of meaning, used as objects and tools in the production chain, but not recognized as bearers of a greater dignity. A certain Islamist terrorism among the young - especially in Europe and the USA - stems from this disillusionment and is an active and passive cause of xenophobia.

But even the terrorism of ISIS which caused millions of Syrian and Iraqi Christians to flee, along with millions of Muslims, justified its war with the destruction of the world and colonial borders (Sykes - Picot). It is also true to say that these fundamentalist movements were fueled by the struggle for power and influence in the region between the United States and Russia and the religious and economic competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

2) the latest economic crisis, that of 2007 to date, reveals that the sun has set on the idea of a shared wealth. Although global wealth grows every year, dividends are no longer distributed among all levels of society. Rather they remain in the hands of a few and in the service of financial powers, and now migrants and indigenous populations have to compete with each other for jobs, for housing, for a minimum of security. This too is a cause of xenophobia, in which the other, the migrant, is accused of wanting to steal work and welfare from the local population.

For example: since June last year, hundreds of thousands of Burmese  also Rohingya - and Vietnamese have had to leave Thailand because of new, very strict labor laws. This is due to the fact that many Thais have complained and accused migrant workers from neighboring countries of "stealing work" from Thai citizens. Bangkok began attracting workers from neighboring countries and the Mekong delta in the 1980s and 1990s, when its GDP grew by 7% a year. But with the economic crisis and the 2014 coup, which brought the military junta to power, the Thai economy is struggling to restart. In 2014, growth stood at 0.7%, then rose to 2.8% in 2015 and to 3% in 2016.



It is important to point out that nationalism and populism are used as a weapon not just against migrants and refugees, but also against entire nations seen as enemies. In this case, nationalism is still a tool to draw the nation together under political powers - especially when they are not very stable - and to dispel unwelcome economic competition. Such is the case of Chinese nationalism against Korean or Japanese goods, which also leads to cases of violence; or Hindu nationalism in India that would curb foreign investment in the country. Christian communities are often victims of such nationalism, both in China and in India, as they are seen as the outposts of a foreign colonial army.



And speaking of India and China, it is worth pointing out that in these countries there is also a huge internal migration of about 300 million in India and over 200 million in China. These migrant workers suffer the same injustices experienced by immigrants in the Gulf countries, or in Europe: lack of employment contracts, slave-like working hours, no rights, poor wages, insecurity, violence. In China, in the past these migrants were a necessary low-cost labor force, essential for Chinese development; now due to the labor shortage caused by the crisis and the increase in automation, they are seen as a burden. They are now being driven out of the cities, and their dilapidated houses destroyed. In Beijing, tens of thousands of internal migrants were evicted at the end of November, without any prior warning or compensation. Everything is justified by the government as "cleaning the metropolis from low-class population (diduan renkou)".



Faced with these challenges, what can Christians in Asia do, given that they are tiny minorities that are often persecuted and marginalized?

They are committed at different levels:

a) with political power and in society they demand a secular, non-confessional State, which leaves room for every religion and defends religious freedom so that every community can contribute freely to the construction of society. A secular state guarantees that every member of any religion is recognized as a full citizen, with the same rights and duties. This is the track that Christians are following in the Middle East, in Pakistan, in India, etc ... It is important that the State is not seen as a god, but at the service of the citizens, that power not be held by one man or group (see China, Vietnam, Laos and Central Asia);

b) With a certain skepticism about the capacities of States to respond to needs, the Church and local churches are committing themselves to helping populations survive, to the defense of migrants and their reception. There are good experiences in India, with twinning of rich and poor dioceses to help migrants, tribals who arrive in big cities so that they are not trapped by traffickers, but are welcomed as brothers and sisters (see Mumbai and Ranchi). I also find what Metropolitan Ilarion, of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, said in recent days very important, when he spoke about the commitment of Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican Churches for the return of Christian refugees to Syria and Iraq.

c) Educating to coexistence with other cultures and religions, welcoming, dialoguing, learning, assimilating each other values. This was clearly visible in the program proposed by Pope Francis to Christians in Myanmar and Bangladesh and especially to the young people of both nations.
Hi All,

We have received our Australian PR and is planning to move to Australia soon with family of 2+2.Have heard about some financial supports from CentreLink for newly moved PR holders till we gets a job or a steady income.Appreciate if any one can shed some lights on the same and the criterias for applying for the same once we move.



Also would like to get some suggestions on the city which would be having more job opportunities for an IT professional.



Thanks and Regards



Renjith.P.N
If you resign within 2 years of getting your 187 your visa can be cancelled. There are situations where it might not be. I suggest that you consult with Registered Migration Agent first so that know the risks involved.
Photo: Daimler Trucks

Daimler Trucks has begun delivering its Fuso eCanter, which it calls the first all-electric truck in regular production, to fleet customers in Europe, the company announced. The OEM said drivers will be specially trained to operate the electric trucks and each customer is obtaining their vehicles via a 24 month long-term rental from Mercedes-Benz CharterWay, a captive rental and leasing firm.

The first to receive the Class 4 trucks on the continent are global logistics firms Deutsche Post DHL, DB Schenker, Rhenus, and Dachser. However, Daimler noted these firms will be running the eCanters in diverse applications. For example, the six trucks for DHL will be used in two distinct operations. Two eCanters will provide inner-city deliveries of heavy cargo for DHL Freights Berlin branch while DHL Paket will use four trucks to deliver goods to businesses. For this role, the eCanters will replace trucks powered conventional drivetrains. Similarly, DB Schenker will run use its trucks to collect and deliver general cargo in the inner city of Berlin.

By contrast, Rhenus Group will deploy three eCanters to deliver furniture, consumer electronics, and home appliances from a central warehouse to residents of Berlins inner city while Dascher will use two electric trucks to collect goods and to complete last-mile deliveries.

The OEM stated that after years of thorough development and testing, the eCanter is now fully integrated in the conventional Fuso Canter production line. Production of the electric model began back in July in Tramagal, Portugal. All eCanters for the European and U.S. markets will be produced there.

Daimler added that, over the next few years, its Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation subsidiary plans to deliver 500 eCanters of this first production generation to select customers, with large-scale production slated to start in 2019. UPS announced in September that it will be putting three of the medium-duty electric trucks in service in North America for evaluation. And in Japan, convenience-store chain 7-Eleven and Yamato Transport each have committed to operate 25 eCanters.

The eCanter has a range of approximately 62 miles and a load capacity of two to three tons, depending on body and duty cycle, according to Daimler. Its electric powertrain uses six high-voltage lithium-ion battery packs, with 420 volts and 13.8 kWh each, and a permanent-magnet-engine that can produce 180 hp via a single-gear transmission in the rear axle. Daimler said its continuous output allows the truck to accelerate almost like a passenger car and thats available from the first second of driving.

According to Marc Llistosella, CEO of Daimler Trucks Asia, the eCanter is the OEMs answer to the need for a zero-emission, zero-noise truck designed for inner-city distribution. He added that over 90,000 kilometers of testing in everyday operating conditions [makes us] secure that we are handing over a reliable and economical vehicle to our customers. With the eCanter, our customers now operate not only quietly and without locally emitted carbon-dioxide, they also save money on operating costs. This is the future of urban distribution transport.
Photo of The Factory courtesy of Ford.

Ford Motor Co. is setting up its electrification and autonomous vehicle teams in a historic building in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, and will begin operations in early 2018, the company announced.

The teams, including the newly formed Team Edison, will occupy The Factory, a recently refurbished industrial complex with 110 years of history. More than 220 Ford empoyees will work at the location.

Sherif Marakby, Ford's vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification, will lead the work at the Michigan Avenue brick building complex across from the site of now-demolished Tiger Stadium. The 45,000 square feet of space had been home to factories of Chicago Hosiery and the Detroit-Alaska Knitting Mills.

Ford is planning to begin producing its first autonomous vehicle in 2021 as a "hybrid-electric vehicle with self-driving capability," according to the company.

The Corktown location holds special meaning for executive chairman Bill Ford, whose ancestors came to the Dearborn, Mich., area from County Cork, Ireland. Early settlers of the mostly residential Corktown emigrated there following the Great Irish Potato Famine of 1840.
Harold Pierce covers education and health for The Californian. He can be reached at 661-395-7404. Follow him on Twitter @RoldyPierce
LEERDHAM, THE NETHERLANDS  With one side weighing heavily on R.&D. and the other touting operational excellence, the synergies between VSI and Hearthside Food Solutions are quite clear.

For example, as nutrition bar consumers drive the need for flavor innovation, layers are the hottest thing going. In Leerdham, The Netherlands, VSIs Sollich bar lines come equipped with roll-in layering equipment that can easily add a shmear of caramel. The newest line to-date, installed in 2012 when VSI built its third production facility, can make bars with as many as five layers, including caramel, crisped rice or any type of chocolate. It also can enrobe in real chocolate, a huge draw in the European market.

As the bar trend boomed in past years and VSI continued to innovate new formulations, the company found itself out of capacity not once, not twice but three times. From 2002 to 2012, VSI acquired a building for storage space, added onto it with the installation of a third line and built a third facility to accommodate its fourth and fifth lines.

But all this growth often meant placing more emphasis on developing new products and expanding capacity than it did on operational efficiencies.

Enter Hearthside Performance System (HPS).

We dont own any brands, said Dwayne Hughes, senior vice-president of supply chain, Hearthside. All we own is our trust and capabilities. HPS has to do that for us.

It goes back to the co-mans conundrum. A company that sells anothers brands must rely on its process efficiency as the point of differentiation. In other words, Hearthsides fast and flexible model is the bread, and HPS is what butters it.

Hearthside is obviously very experienced in manufacturing, recalled Gerard Janssens, president, VSI. The first time I saw a Hearthside facility in the U.S., I immediately saw how experienced they are in production. I am a production man, and it was obvious how well organized it is. Everything runs smoothly.

Since the acquisition of VSI, Hearthside began construction on VSIs fourth facility  No. 25 for the company overall  located on the same industrial park alley as the first three. It will house two new Sollich makeup lines with room for another. Scheduled to open later this year, this new facility will bring VSIs capacity to around 300 million bars and will soon be fully integrated into the HPS system of continuous improvement.

HPS is the beating heart of Hearthside and its pursuit for world-class status. By the companys own standards, it does not yet consider itself world-class but rather operates on the principle of kaizen, or sustainable continuous improvement. Think of it as a perpetual quest for operational excellence. For example, setting a record for meeting KPIs requires a root cause analyses at Hearthside.

We have a saying, Todays records are tomorrows standards, and thats the process of continuous improvement, Mr. Hughes said.

Despite the fact all Hearthside plants are SQF Level 3 and the company has a 1.4 overall OSHA incident rate, Hearthside identifies world class as a <1.0 OSHA rate.

It takes two things to be a world-class manufacturer, Mr. Hughes said. One is your internal metrics, and the other  and most important  is how your customers view you as a manufacturer.

Every Hearthside plant subscribes to the HPS model. Because of this, HPS dictates that, through a series of best practices and eight guiding principles, any customer could walk into any one of the companys 24 plants and find it operating exactly the same way, whether bars are being produced on one of its Sollich, Tanis, Hosakawa or PTL makeup lines.

For each newly acquired plant, Mr. Hughes develops a specific baseline for KPIs and teaches plant management how to measure them. With established baselines, Mr. Hughes estimated that it takes a plant about three to five years to achieve world-class status.

The top five KPIs  safety, quality, service, cost and culture  are measured and reported on leadership boards in each plant. Reporting is simple: green or red. Green means the plant met its KPI goals in the past 24 hours; red means it did not. In Hearthside facilities, theres no such thing as yellow when measuring KPIs.

Yellow is the grey area, Mr. Hughes said. In that case, yellow eventually becomes acceptable. But the reality is, youre either meeting your goals, or youre not.

This speaks directly to one of the companys eight guiding principles: Satisfaction is the first step toward failure.

When yellow is an option, people tend to say, Im not red, so I wont worry about it, Mr. Hughes said. But if you have equipment thats red, you can do something about it.

Tools such as drumbeat meetings are mandated in each facility for every shift change. While leadership boards track trends a day at a time, drumbeats drill down to the specific happenings on each shift. A drumbeat meeting includes every department, from line workers to maintenance, sanitation and quality. Not only can the staff see what happened on the shift, but they also can understand how their shift plays a part in the KPI results on the leadership board and, if necessary, offer solutions or a root cause analysis.

At VSI, which is considered a mirror site by HPS definition, tools like the drumbeat meetings are already improving operational efficiency.

Its a first-information run for the new shift coming in, Mr. Janssens said. Its a structured way to make sure all the information is transferred from one shift to the next. Drumbeat meetings improve performance because people really know whats going on.

Mr. Janssens highlighted HPS as the key factor in how the Hearthside acquisition has improved VSIs bar production.

We are looking at production in a much different way, he said. Our focus was much more on growing the output through development  more bars, different bars  but with Hearthside, our production is much more streamlined.

As VSI continues the same journey toward world-class manufacturing, Mr. Hughes expects the new facility, scheduled for startup by Q1 2018 to set the tone for the other three.

Well teach them the standards, and theyll have a live example for the other plants to follow, he said.
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.
A UPS driver was arrested for grand theft on Wednesday after being caught on surveillance video stealing an iPhone X that he delivered to a St. Pete Beach home, according to a Pinellas County Sheriffs Office report.

Jason, Mohn, 47, employed by UPS as seasonal driver

UPS terminated Mohn upon notification of arrest

Mohn being held in jail on $2,000 bond

Never thought that somebody would come up by my porch and steal it, said victim Jovita Acute-Parker. Especially, the person that delivered it.

According to the report, Jason Mohn, 47, delivered a package containing the iPhone X to Acute-Parkers home at 5:37 p.m. on Tuesday. On the surveillance video, Mohn can be seen taking care to hide the package on the porch while wearing a UPS vest.

About two hours later, at 7:46 p.m., deputies said video shows Mohn return to the porch, without the UPS vest on, but otherwise wearing the exact same clothes. The video shows Mohn conceal the package under his shirt as he quickly leaves, according to the report.

Acute-Parker said she was in Orlando with her sister at the time and saw the theft live on her surveillance system.

The minute my phone clicked, send me a message that there was motion detected on my porch, she said. We looked at the video and we saw the guy live stealing the package from the porch. So, I called 911 right away.

The victim said it didnt take long to solve the mystery.

I asked my sister, look up the video of the guy that delivered it, said Acute-Parker. She was looking at the video and shes like, Oh my God, its the same guy. Same pants, same shoes, same clothes, same beanie, everything is the same.

Move the slider back and forth from the middle of the image to see the alleged thief at the home at the two different times.

Deputies said the next day, a UPS investigator found the stolen iPhone X at Mohns work area and he was arrested for grand theft. During his first appearance in court on Thursday, Mohn told the judge he started working for UPS last month.

UPS spokesman Glenn Zaccara released a statement in regards to Mohn:

Mr. Mohn was a seasonal driver, not a permanent UPS employee. Upon notification of his arrest, UPS immediately terminated his employment.

Zaccara also stated that UPS drivers have been trusted for more than a century.

The company places the utmost importance on ensuring that all of our employees always conduct themselves with the highest degree of respect for our customers and their property.

Mohn is being held in the Pinellas Jail on a $2,000 bond.

Its just that time of year that theres just too much temptation, said Acute-Parker.

Click on the video in the tweet below to watch the surveillance footage used to charge the suspect in the theft.
Republican Marco Rubio announced Friday that he will support his party's $1.5 trillion tax bill after party leaders made changes to the child tax credit.

Marco Rubio now a yes on GOP tax bill

Florida senator declared Thursday that hed vote against the bill

Rubio wanted expansion on tax credit that low-income Americans can claim for children

On Friday, Republicans raised the amount of credit low-income earners can claim per child on their taxes, from $1,100 to $1,400.

Rubio tweeted that the move was, "a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker.

The Florida senator declared Thursday that hell vote against the $1.5 trillion bill unless House and Senate negotiators expanded the tax credit that low-income Americans can claim for their children.

That put the Republicans razor-thin margin in the Senate closer to the edge. The GOP leaders are straining to muscle the bill through Congress next week, handing President Donald Trump his first major legislative victory by Christmas.

Senate Republicans could still have passed the package without Rubios vote, but they would be cutting it extremely close. An original version was approved 51-49  with Rubios support.

Republican leaders predicted swift passage next week, sending the bill to Trump for his signature.

At the White House, Trump said he was confident that Rubio will get onboard.

Hes really been a great guy and very supportive. I think that Sen. Rubio will be there, said Trump, who belittled Rubio during the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, calling him little Marco.

The tax package would double the per-child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000. The bill originally made a portion of the credit  $1,100  available to families even if they owe no income tax. They would receive the money in the form of a tax refund, which is why its called a refundable tax credit. Rubio wanted to increase this amount.

Given all the other changes they made in the tax code leading into it, I cant in good conscience support it unless we are able to increase the refundable portion of it. And theres ways to do it, and well be very reasonable about it, Rubio said.

During debate on the Senate version of the bill, Rubio proposed a change that would have made the entire $2,000 credit available to families, even if they owe no income tax, but it was soundly defeated. To pay for the expanded credit, he proposed to slightly scale back a steep cut in the corporate income tax rate.

A few days after the earlier Senate vote, Rubio tweeted a link to a news story that said GOP leaders were indeed considering scaling back the corporate tax cut  but not to pay for an expanded child tax credit.

They freaked out when I proposed small reduction in Corporate tax cut to pay for cut for working families. Now this? Rubio tweeted.

The final package slashes the corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The initial Senate and House bills had set it at 20 percent.
Photo provided by Jefferson County Sheriff's Office

A City of Port Arthur employee was found guilty on Thursday of theft by a public servant for stealing metal from the city.

Joseph Soliz, who was Port Arthur's water utilities distribution maintenance supervisor, was sentenced to five years probation, according to his defense attorney, James Makin.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Fifth and eighth grade students in Southeast Texas school districts who fail their math and reading STAAR tests twice will still be able to move to the next grade this year, under a waiver announced by the Texas Education Agency Thursday.

Commissioner Mike Morath announced that districts and charter schools in Harvey-affected counties will have local authority to promote students to the next grade, even if they don't pass state standardized tests the first two times.

Typically, if students in those grades don't pass the first or second time, they are required to take the STAAR test a third time. If they don't pass again, they must repeat the grade, unless the student's teacher, principal and parents unanimously agree to promote them.

Under the waiver announced Thursday, "districts will not be required to administer a third test and will have local discretion on whether that student should advance to the next grade."

Districts can still offer the test the third time, "if they believe it to be in the best interest of students."

Superintendents from Southeast Texas and across the state have asked legislators repeatedly this fall for leniency in the 2017-18 accountability ratings, saying that the time lost and emotional toll of Harvey will affect students' performance on state tests.

The tests will not be postponed, Morath said in Thursday's announcements. Some superintendents asked for the testing dates to be delayed to recover time lost due to the storm, but Morath said a survey of districts found most preferred to keep the tests as scheduled.

Decisions on accountability ratings have not been made, Morath said, but the TEA is requesting a waiver from "certain federal accountability/school improvement requirements to ensure the state has maximum flexibility."

Some coastal superintendents have said that receiving a failing accountability rating for this year would be publicly humiliating districts for a disaster beyond their control, and suggested that they be assigned designations of "not rated" for the 2017-18 year, instead.

State academic accountability ratings take into consideration factors including standardized test scores, growth from year to year and graduation rates.

Port Arthur ISD superintendent Mark Porterie told state legislators that returning to normal after the trauma and damage from Harvey is "absolutely impossible" this year.

Several districts, including PAISD, are still using modified campuses and schedules after some were damaged in the storm.

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/LizTeitz
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

After another Blake Farenthold staffer accused him of vulgar behavior and a toxic work environment, reports indicate the controversial congressman will withdraw his reelection bid.

Farenthold, a Republican who represents Corpus Christi and Victoria, became the subject of national scrutiny after an $84,000 settlement to his former staffer, Lauren Greene, using taxpayer money came to light.

Greene accused the congressman of gender discrimination and alleged Farenthold told her he had "wet dreams" about her.

RELATED: Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold used $84K of federal fund to pay sexual harassment settlement

Farenthold's alleged behavior was further described by two other former staffers, Elizabeth Peace and Michael Rekola.

Rekola's account, published Wednesday by CNN, said Farenthold would bully aides by yelling at them and calling them "f--ktards" whenever they made mistakes.

Rekola also described a crude joke Farenthold allegedly made about Rekola's fiancee.

Farenthold denied he ever made that joke, but did concede he called them "f--ktards." He said the term was used as a joke and not as an insult.

Rekola said the work environment instilled by Farenthold was so bad that he had chronic stomach pains and began vomiting daily.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times cited the Nueces County's GOP chairman's confirmation of news that Farenthold is not running for a fifth term in 2018.

"It's a damn shame," said Mike Bergsma. "He's been an excellent congressman, and I'm sorry this has happened."

The decision comes among tries for the seat from strong primary challengers, who have been backed by notable Texas Republicans like Ron Paul.

Paul endorsed Michael Cloud, a Republican activist from Victoria. U.S. Rep. Roger Williams chose to support Bech Bruun, a Corpus Christi native.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
Currently Reading

Texas teachers recently accused or convicted of inappropriate relations with students
Until recently, Texas lawmakers were not involved in the wave of accountability for sexual harassment that has roiled American politics. That's changed, and the reckoning is overdue.

U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold became the most prominent figure snared in this scandal when he announced this week that he would not seek re-election next year. Farenthold's case is slightly different in that the charges of sexual harassment against him three years by a former staffer were reported at the time. In that recent past, however, that kind of behavior was still tolerated as something men just did. Voters rationalized that at least the politician voted the way they wanted, so they wouldn't get too picky over his personal behavior.

Fortunately, that has changed. It never should have been acceptable, and now more voters believe that it isn't.

What wasn't known about Farenthold's case is that his accuser was paid $84,000 in taxpayer money to resolve her case. That cloak has also been ripped away, as it needed to be. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of dollars has been paid annually to women who said they were sexually harassed by members of Congress. From now on, taxpayers deserve to know how much of their money is being forked over in these settlements - and which members of the House or Senate are being accused.

In the Texas Legislature, two members are also facing new scrutiny for past actions.

Annie's List, a political group that tries to get Democratic women elected in Texas, has even called for the resignations of state senators Borris Miles, D-Houston, and Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, because of the complaints filed against them.

Miles and Uresti, and every lawmaker accused of this crime, should stop hiding. They should either defend their actions or accept appropriate punishment for them - which could be as severe as resignation.

Powerful members of Congress such as Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota and Rep. John Conyers of Michigan have already agreed to quit early because of the complaints filed against them by various women. More of that needs to happen until every sexual harasser in a state or national capital is gone.

-----------------------------------

This is our opinion; what is yours? Email us a letter to the editor at opinions@beaumontenterprise.com Make sure to include your name, mailing address and phone number so we can contact you to verify the letter, but only your name and city of residence will be published. You can also mail letters to The Enterprise, P.O. Box 3071, Beaumont, TX, 77704. The limit on letters is 200 words.
Tribal leader Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma (right), hands over a rifle to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a weapon-surrendering ceremony following the signing of a peace pact for the Chittagong Hill Tracts two months earlier, Feb. 11, 1998.

Two decades after Bangladesh's government signed a peace pact with rebels, residents of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast are fighting land management issues and confronting a heavy military presence, local leaders said.

Jyotirindra Bodhipriya Larma, who signed on behalf of 11 tribal groups living in the southeastern region, issued a warning about what could happen if the pact, signed on Dec. 2, 1997, remained unsettled.

The hills could burn if the peace agreement is not implemented, Larma, who is popularly known as Shantu Larma,told reporters recently.

Before the political agreement, the region witnessed bloodshed beginning in the early 1970s, when Larma led an armed group, Shanti Bahini, in fighting against Bangladesh security forces.

The conflict began when the political representatives of the native residents protested the governments policy of recognizing only the Bengali culture and language and designating all Bangladeshi citizens as Bengalis.

Abul Hasnat Abdullah, who served as chief whip in parliament, signed the peace deal on behalf of the government while Larma represented the tribal population. The agreement recognized Chittagong Hill Tracts as a tribal-dominated area.

The way the land ownership disputes were supposed to be settled were not done, Larma said without elaborating. The cultural and educational rights of the people in the Hill Tracts were not recognized in line with the peace deal.

The government is not recognizing that the tribal people are the original inhabitants, he said.

Bir Bahadur Ushwe Sing, the state minister for the Chittagong Hill Tracts, challenged Larmas statement.

He has been issuing such threats repeatedly. His allegations are baseless, Sing told BenarNews.

Larma, who serves as chief of the political party Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity (PCJSS), issued the warning earlier this month, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina claimed her government had taken steps to honor the pact.

The government has been working hard for full implementation of the peace deal, Hasina told a video conference with hill people marking the anniversary.

Forty-eight of the 72 sections of the agreement have been implemented, she said.

Hasina said her government had taken steps to fully implement nine more sections and partially implement the remaining 15 sections.

Government claim challenged

PCJSS spokesman Mongal Chakma challenged government claims of bringing peace to the region.

In 1979 and 1980, Bengali settlers were brought into the hills and they were settled on the land of the hill people. One of our main demands is the return of the land to the hill people. But the government is not taking necessary practical measures in this regard, he told BenarNews.

He said the government formed a commission, headed by a retired judge, to settle the land disputes in the region. It failed to consult the Chittagong Hill Tracts regional council before enacting a law to settle disputes between hill people and Bengali settlers.

The law contained many mistakes, he said, adding the government amended it 16 years later.

The commission has no manpower, no funds to even hold meetings. So, how can this commission function, Chakma asked.

But Sing said the government extended the tenure of the commission chairman on settling the land disputes.

The commission will get necessary funds, he said.

Department handover

The government was also required to hand over authority of 33 departments to three hill district councils, Chakma said.

Sixteen departments were handed over, he said. Actually, the government, not the Chittagong Hill district councils was ruling in the Hill Tracts.

Sing said the action was a positive reflection on the government.

If we were not cordial, why did we hand over 16 government departments? This government signed the peace deal, and we are sincere about its full implementation, he said.

Three districts

Chittagong Hill Tracts is made up of three hill districts  Bandarban, Khagrachhari and Rangamati  in the southeastern region bordering India and Myanmar. About 1.6 million people live in the districts, including those belonging to 11 tribal groups. Bengalis make up 50 percent of the population, according to the last government census in 2011.

In 1972, tribal people led by Larmas brother, M.N. Larma, demanded autonomy for the region. But Hasinas father, Bangladeshs founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, rejected the demand, asking them instead to become Bengalis.

In March 1973, M.N. Larma formed Shanti Bahini and fought against the Bangladesh security forces and the Bengali settlers in the three hill districts. He was killed in India in 1983.

After the assassination of Mujibar Rahman in 1975, military ruler Gen. Ziaur Rahman in 1979 authorized the military to carry out operations in the hill districts.

Rahman also moved thousands of poor Bengalis into the districts as thousands of tribal people fled to India. The infiltration of the Bengalis angered the hill people as the government started leasing tracts to them, declaring the land as state property.

The regions ethnic groups united under the PCJSS and Shanti Bahini as armed conflicts blanketed the region.

The Awami League government, which assumed power in June 1996 under Hasina for the first time since her fathers assassination, aimed to bring an end to the bloodshed, leading to the 1997 peace deal.

Under the peace deal, the three districts were to form councils whose members are selected by popular vote, but no elections have taken place.

Jewel Chakma, president of the PCJSS student front, told BenarNews that land disputes were one of the main areas of contention.

But the government has not done anything in this regard, he said.

Chakma said the peace deal did not allow the government to lease any land without the permission of the Chittagong Hill Tracts regional council. But the government has leased more than 90,000 acres to different non-government organizations without input from the council.

The hill people were not consulted, said Chakma, adding the lessees had been setting up resorts, hotels and restaurants.

Abu Taher, a college teacher in Bandarban, had mixed feelings about the pact.

Look, I support implementation of the peace deal. But I think the government must look after the interests of both the hill people and the Bengalis living here, he told BenarNews.

If the government did not lease land, how would we get roads? Without roads, tourists would not come, foreign investment would not come, he said. A treaty is better than no treaty.
Rohingya from Myanmar disembark from boats as they continue their journey to refugee camps in Bangladesh, Oct. 2, 2017.

Updated at 5:50 p.m. ET on 2017-12-15

Bangladeshi police raided a house and arrested six people including a suspected human trafficker and two Rohingya as they were getting ready to travel by boat to Malaysia via Thailand, officials said Friday.

Mainuddin Khan, officer-in-charge of Teknaf police station, said the six men were arrested Thursday when police raided a home near Teknaf, a coastal town in southeastern Cox's Bazar district. The men were preparing to sail to Malaysia across the Bay of Bengal.

We received a tip that a group of human traffickers have become active again to lure the Rohingya to take them to Malaysia by sea route, Khan told BenarNews. We raided the house of the local middleman  and arrested five potential victims of human trafficking. Two of the five people were Rohingya.

Police presented the six to a local court, which promptly ordered the detention of the alleged trafficker. The court also ordered the release of the five would-be passengers, including two Rohingya youths and three Bangladeshis, officials said.

While Thailand is closer to Bangladesh, Malaysia is a Muslim-majority nation of 32 million residents that is likely to see more boat people, officials said.

At least 100,000 Rohingya are detained in Malaysian immigration centers and the country has registered more than 59,000 of the refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Two years ago, the discovery of graves of Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants in the jungle along the Thai-Malaysia border led to Thailand mounting a naval blockade against smugglers boats carrying undocumented people from Myanmar and Bangladesh to its shores.

That in turn, caused a regional migration crisis in which close to 3,000 ethnic Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals eventually came ashore in neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia.

Since Aug. 25 this year, as many as 655,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh to escape what the United States and the U.N. have described as ethnic cleansing by Myanmars security forces.

Last month, Myanmar and Bangladesh officials said they had moved one step closer to the possible repatriation of the Rohingya refugees who began the massive exodus after Myanmars army launched a crackdown following attacks by the militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army against security forces.
Rohingya refugees scuffle as they wait to receive relief aid at the Kutupalong camp in Coxs Bazar, Bangladesh, Nov. 28, 2017.

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed during the first month of a crackdown in Myanmar this year, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Thursday in a report based on surveys of refugees who fled to Bangladesh and that marks the highest death toll given to date.

The number of people who died in Myanmars Rakhine state from being shot, burned inside their homes, beaten and other grisly causes between Aug. 25 and Sept. 24 (see table) includes 730 children under age 5, according to MSF.

The combined number of Rohingya who died of violent or non-violent causes during that period was at least 9,000, but the overall death toll could be as high as nearly 14,000 people, the Geneva-headquartered international NGO said.

We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh. What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured, Sidney Wong, MSFs medical director, said in a statement.

The findings from the surveys in southeastern Bangladesh are the clearest indication yet of widespread violence that began in Rakhine on Aug. 25 and show the Rohingya were targeted when the Myanmar military, police and local militia launched a crackdown in the state in late August, MSF said.

The peak in deaths coincides with the launch of the latest clearance operations by Myanmar security forces in the last week of August, MSF reported.

The crackdown, which followed raids against Myanmar police and security posts by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents on Aug. 25, pushed 655,000 members of the Rohingya Muslim minority to seek shelter in neighboring Bangladesh during the following months, according to the latest estimates published by the U.N. on Thursday.

Currently people are still fleeing from Myanmar to Bangladesh and those who do manage to cross the border still report being subject to violence in recent weeks, Wong said. With very few independent aid groups able to access Maungdaw district in Rakhine, we fear for the fate of Rohingya people who are still there.

The MSF report also pointed to victims being killed following sexual violence against them. Rape victims accounted for 2.6 percent of those killed.

Noor Hasina, a Rohingya refugee living in the Ukhia camp in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar district, said her family had died in this manner.

Myanmar soldiers killed my husband in front of my eyes. They took away my two young sisters who never returned. So far as I know, Myanmar soldiers raped and killed them, she told BenarNews.

Source: Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Likely underestimation

Both the United Nations and United States have branded the scale of violence in Rakhine as ethnic cleansing. Last week, the U.N.s human rights chief, Seid Raad Al Hussein told a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting that elements of genocide might be present.

Myanmar government officials have strongly denied the allegations and blamed ARSA rebels for the violence.

The numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation as we have not surveyed all refugee settlements in Bangladesh and because the surveys dont account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar, Wong said. We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes, while they were set alight.

The figure of 6,700 people who were killed through violence represents the most conservative estimate, MSF said.

During that one-month period, the mortality rate among Rohingya soared to eight deaths per 10,000 people.

For its report, MSF carried out six surveys in November at refugee camps and settlements in southeastern Bangladesh, during which the NGO interviewed 2,434 Rohinga households.

Myanmar reacts

As reported by MSF, the death toll from violence in Rakhine contrasts sharply with figures given by Myanmar officials who in early September put the death toll from the violence there in the low hundreds. At that time, only two weeks into the crackdown, a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, put the toll at around 1,000 or more dead.

We dont know what source MSFs numbers are based on, Win Myat Aye, Myanmars social welfare minister, told the Myanmar Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews, on Thursday.

It is OK if military or police security officials who have been taking care of the problems in Rakhine State stated such numbers, or if the relevant administrative officials or relevant state government gave them. We cant make any comment on that number, because MSF is only an I[nternational]NGO, the minister added.

Myanmars elected civilian government has not been forthcoming with information about Rakhine, nor has it allowed independent monitors to access the state.

Jesmin Papri and Abdur Rahman in Dhaka contributed to this report.


Activists in New Delhi protest against the Muslim divorce practice of triple talaq, May 10, 2017.

The Indian government on Friday approved draft legislation banning and criminalizing a controversial practice of unilateral divorce among Muslims, an official said.

The government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), cleared the draft of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 on the first day of the parliaments winter session.

The bill makes the practice of instant triple talaq, which allows a Muslim man to part from his wife by uttering or writing the word divorce three times, a non-bailable criminal offense carrying a prison term of three years, Law Ministry spokesman N.N. Kaul told BenarNews.

It has been cleared by the government today, he confirmed, adding that the bill will adjudicate cases of triple talaq across all Indian states except the disputed Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir.

According to the proposed legislation, which will become a law only after it clears by both houses of the parliament, a victim of triple talaq can seek custody of her minor children as well as maintenance from her husband.

The draft was framed by a group of BJP ministers appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Supreme Court ruled in August that instant triple talaq was unconstitutional and illegal.

Despite the landmark verdict, several instances of the practice were reported from different parts of the country, prompting the government to come up with the bill, a government source told BenarNews.

Activists support bill

Muslim womens rights activists, who had been pushing for tougher laws to deal with the practice, hailed the governments draft legislation.

It is a welcome move that was long overdue. Although the Supreme Court had termed triple talaq illegal months ago, it was not a substitute for a law, Noorjehan Safia Niaz of the Mumbai-based Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan told BenarNews.

We had initially made a draft for the law which was circulated among all parliamentarians. But we dont know if our suggestions have been included in the governments draft. We have yet to see it, Niaz said.

Shaista Ambar, president of the Uttar Pradesh-based All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, said she was thankful to the government for preparing the bill within six months of the court ruling.

Though we havent seen the draft, we know that most of our suggestions, such as quantum of punishment, maintenance and custody of children, have been incorporated, she told BenarNews.

While citing the Quran, Ambar said in Islam divorce can be pronounced only after a couple has undergone counseling for three months and all efforts to reconcile have failed.

But a lot of Muslim men have misused this, and have divorced their wives by uttering the word divorce in a letter, email and even on Whatsapp, leaving the woman and their children to fend for themselves, she added.

All Islamic nations have banned this practice because Islam does not approve of it. Why should women and children suffer because a man suddenly decided to leave his wife, Ambar said.

Influential Muslim groups including All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, which had opposed the ban on triple talaq, could not be reached for comment.

But Mohammad Wali Rahmani, AIMPLBs general secretary, previously told BenarNews: triple talaq is part of our religion, and freedom to practice our respective religions is a fundamental right of every India citizen, according to the constitution.
In a split vote, the Constitutional Court in Jakarta rules against a petition to ban extramarital and gay sex, Dec. 14, 2017.

By a five to four vote, Indonesias Constitutional Court (MK) on Thursday rejected a petition to outlaw extramarital and gay sex, in what is being hailed as a triumph by the LGBT minority in the country with the worlds largest Muslim population.

The MK ruled against the 2016 petition by the Family Love Alliance (AILA) to alter some articles in the criminal code. The alliance of conservative academics and activists said members sought to prevent Indonesia from being swamped by immoral behavior.

AILA urged the court to expand the existing law by forbidding married people from having sex with anyone but their spouses and barring all sex between unmarried people.

The group also asked the court to expand the current law that makes it illegal to have sex with a minor to also forbid gay sex.

Rejecting the whole petition of the petitioners, MK Chief Justice Arief Hidayat, who voted with the minority, announced on Thursday.

Judge Saldi Isra, who voted with the majority, said the court does not have the authority to amend the law by expanding its definition. The judiciarys main function is to rule on the constitutionality of a law.

He said granting AILAs petition would give the government power to interfere in what should be a domestic matter.

Building an argument of organizing social order by threatening members of society with punishment, moreover with the criminal law, is to say that social order is only possible by implementing a threat, Saldi said, calling that argument baseless.

Judge Wahiduddin Adams said in his dissenting opinion that alteration of the law is needed to be in harmony with the countrys values.

All misconduct done by an individual, especially adultery, is always considered to have a negative impact communally because the individual is not an alienated person who is free from all structural ties of his or her society, Adams said.

Activists raise concern over intolerance

Rights activists welcomed the ruling, but expressed surprise as they fear rising intolerance in Indonesia. The decision comes just a few months after police conducted raids against gay groups.

In May, police took 141 men into custody after raiding what they described as a gay striptease performance at a fitness club in North Jakarta.

That same month, two men who were found in bed together were publicly caned in Aceh province after being arrested in March. Except in the province of Aceh, where Sharia law is in force, gay sex is not illegal in Indonesia.

Naila Rizki, an activist with the National Commission of Women, said she was pleased by the decision, but regretted the courts suggestion that petitioners channel their request to the legislature (DPR).

Especially given the argument rejecting the petition is that the state should not intervene too much into the privacy of its citizens, Naila said.

Dede Oetomo, an LGBT activist, said AILAs petition will trigger the action of intolerance.

AILA member Euis Sunarti speaks with reporters after the Constitutional Court ruled against her groups petition, Dec. 14, 2017. [Arie Firdaus/BenarNews]

AILA still fighting

Meanwhile, AILA member Euis Sunarti, a professor at Bogor Agricultural University, said her group was not pleased.

Of course I am sad, because we had big expectations. But todays decision was five judges against four, Euis told reporters after the ruling.

We respect all the MK judges, especially those four who have dissenting opinions, their words make me cry.

Euis said she and her group will take their petition to lawmakers as the legislature discusses revising the countrys criminal code.

We are still fighting, Euis said.
Soldiers stand guard in front of a major shopping area in downtown in Kuala Lumpur after receiving intelligence information that extremists may be plotting terror attacks in the capital, Feb. 22, 2016.

Southeast Asian diplomats cited the Rohingya exodus and a recent battle in the southern Philippines in urging the United Nations to adopt a resolution introduced by Malaysia to fight extremism through moderation and peaceful dialogue.

Officials said 135 nations had accepted the moderation resolution, but the United States and Israel were the only countries that voted against it last week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. There were no abstentions.

The resolution, submitted by Malaysian envoy Mohd Shahrul Ikram Yaakob for adoption by the General Assembly, encourages worldwide dialogue and tolerance to fight intensifying violent extremism around the globe.

It calls upon U.N. members to support the Global Movement of Moderates initiative as a common platform to amplify the voices of moderation over those of violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism.

The United Nations said Washington had cast a no vote because the resolution failed to distinguish between the words extremism and violent extremism.

While the United States universally rejected the latter, (it) expressed concern that nations or individuals might construe the resolutions language to curtail freedoms of expression or belief, the U.N. said in a statement, which did not shed light on Israels vote.

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Najib Razak welcomed the resolutions adoption as a step in efforts to stop radicalism from spreading in the majority-Muslim country of 32 million people.

Another historic success for #Negaraku, Najib said on Twitter this week, referring to Negaraku (My Country), Malaysias national anthem.

Najib has staunchly advocated what he called wasatiyyah, or moderation, in his multicultural nation that supports a diversity of faiths.

Last month, while launching a website and two publications owned by the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation in Putrajaya, south of Kuala Lumpur, Najib said that moderation rejected all forms of evil, such as extremism.

During the past few years, his government has warned of an emerging domestic threat from militancy, particularly from the violent extremist group known as Islamic State (IS).

Since 2013, Malaysian authorities have arrested at least 349 people suspected of links to IS and other militant groups. The country says it has foiled nine IS-linked terror plots, but IS claimed responsibility last year for a grenade attack that injured eight people at a nightclub near Kuala Lumpur.

We do not have to look far to realize the crucial importance of practicing moderation, Najib said. When we see what happened in Marawi City recently, we see the deadly effects of extremism.

Marawi fighting



In late October, the Philippine military declared an end to a five-month battle with pro-IS groups that had seized parts of the southern city, after bombing Marawi heavily. The fighting killed more than 1,200 people, flattened the once-scenic city and displaced its 200,000 residents. More than 970 militants died, the military said.

Teodoro Locsin, Jr., the Philippine ambassador to the U.N., told his fellow diplomats that the moderation resolution reflected Manilas road map to attain peace with Muslim rebels in the south.

He said a peace caravan involving religious leaders aboard a bus was traveling across the country, so officials could gather insights on creating avenues for dialogue and peace.

The caravan, which left the northern Philippines in late September, will end in Iligan City, about 38 km (24 miles) from Marawi.

In a conflict misidentified as religious, it was important for all faiths to clarify what was religion and what was bloody ambition, what was prayer and what was rapine disguised as piety, Locsin said.

Diplomats rally for resolution

During the resolutions adoption on Dec. 8, Siti Arnyfariza Md Jaini, Bruneis U.N. ambassador, said the rising threat of terrorism and violent extremism across the globe was a grim reminder of the need for sustained efforts to combat those phenomena.

We must not allow the seeds of intolerance, hatred and extremism to take root, she said.

Indonesias U.N. representative, Dian Triansyah Djani, said military measures alone would not be sufficient to combat or eliminate violent extremism.

It was critical to cultivate peace and stability, he emphasized, noting Indonesias various national initiatives, including interfaith dialogue.

Indonesia, the worlds largest Muslim-majority nation with 262 million people, is also dealing with a threat from militant groups like IS. The country was trying to eliminate the links between extremism and poverty through the creation of jobs and a reduction of inequality, the Indonesian ambassador said.

Myanmars U.N. ambassador, Hau Do Suan, mentioned attacks against security forces by the militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in Rakhine State that spawned a massive exodus of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh this year.

He rejected extremism as harmful to any diverse and tolerant society.

An estimated 655,000 Rohingya fled Myanmars Rakhine state and crossed into Bangladesh during a military crackdown that began after deadly attacks on police outposts by Muslim militants on Aug. 25.

The U.N., the U.S. and rights groups have accused Myanmars military of committing atrocities against the Rohingya Muslims in what officials described as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar officials have denied the allegations.

Towards a more harmonious world community

The Malaysian envoy to the U.N., Mohd Shahrul Ikram, said Malaysia had presented the resolution to urge the United Nations to declare 2019 as The International Year of Moderation.

The obstacles that prevent a culture of peace from taking root are many, but they are not insurmountable and moderation be seen as the bedrock of international relations in the global world where peace remained elusive, he told BenarNews.

Recent faith-related issues that bordered on intolerance have spurred controversy in Malaysia.

In September this year, the owner of a Muslim-only laundromat in Malaysias Johor state dropped his policy excluding people of other faiths, when the local Sultan ordered him to apologize and be inclusive.

A board in front of the mans shop had proclaimed that it was Muslim-friendly.

This launderette only serves Muslim customers due to issues of purity. Any inconveniences are deeply regrettable. Please leave your shoes before entering, the sign said.

In September, Malaysian police cancelled a beer festival following objections from Muslim leaders, who claimed the event would encourage immorality and lead to criminal acts.

Nasharudin Mat Isa, chairman and CEO of the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation (GMMF), the Malaysian group that lobbied the government to push for the U.N. resolution, said its adoption underscored the foundations goal of inculcating global peaceful co-existence.

The message of moderation as propagated by Malaysia can be the answer and counter-narratives to the development of violent-extremism and terrorism through moderation, which will help create a more harmonious world community, he said in an interview last month.
Troops march as an Air Force C-130 transport plane carrying Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Eduardo Ano and other officials sits on the tarmac at the Philippine-claimed Thitu island (Pag-asa) in the South China Sea, April 21, 2017.

Senior defense and military officials from the Philippines and China held closed door talks in Manila on Friday to boost cooperation amid new reports that Beijing has persisted with its buildup in the disputed South China Sea despite earlier pledges of restraint.

The Philippine delegation was led by Defense Undersecretary for Policy Ricardo David, while Jiang Guoping, the vice chief at Chinas Central Military Commission, represented Beijing during the Annual Defense Security Talks (ADST).

The talks emphasized the importance of the South China Sea for the regions economic growth and development, the Philippine defense department said in a statement.

ADST has been held since 2004 with Manila and Beijing alternately serving as host. It has been limited since 2013 after the Philippines filed and eventually won a case related to territorial claims in the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

China has rejected the ruling as flawed even as the international community has applauded the decision.

Since then, the frosty bilateral relations thawed a bit when President Rodrigo Duterte moved to appease Beijing.

The high-level talks provided both sides the opportunity to exchange views on the current regional security situation and flesh out concrete plans to cooperate in addressing security concerns mutually faced by the Philippines and China, the statement said.

The talks also emphasized the importance of the South China Sea for the regions economic growth and development, it said.

Officials from both sides expressed support for the peaceful settlement of disputes through lawful, non-coercive, and transparent means.

The Philippine side in particular expressed optimism that the adoption of the Framework for the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea in August 2017 brought them closer to the long-sought conclusion of a binding and meaningful agreement, the statement said.

Philippine defense and Chinese embassy officials could not be reached for comment after the talks.

Think tank report

The statement came a day after the United States-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiatives released a report that said China has continued with its militarization of its islands in the South China Sea as the international spotlight has shifted. New satellite imagery released by the think tanks showed China has built structures that could be used as permanent facilities for military purposes.

Beijing, according to the report, has remained committed to moving into the next phase of its activities to include the building of infrastructure necessary for a fully functioning naval bases on larger outposts. China allegedly include high frequency radars, storage facilities that could hold weapons and missile shelters.

The non-stop buildup apparently occurred as Beijing engaged the Philippines and the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in talks aimed at easing tensions, it said. Apart from China and the Philippines, portions of the potentially rich sea region is claimed by ASEAN countries Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam and Taiwan.

The report came just weeks after President Rodrigo Duterte hosted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Manila shortly after the Philippines hosted the annual ASEAN summit where the chairmans statement reaffirmed the need for peaceful resolution of disputes in the region.
Joseph Yun, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea policy, speaks to reporters in Bangkok, Dec. 15, 2017.

Southeast Asian nations have responded positively to Washingtons calls for pressing North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program, a State Department official in charge of U.S. policy toward Pyongyang said Friday.

Thailand and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have demonstrated substantial change in their dealings with Pyongyang, Joseph Yun, the American special representative on North Korea, said after holding meetings with senior Thai government officials in Bangkok.

We had good discussions on all things DPRK and, especially of course, how we see the issues concerning de-nuclearization, Yun told reporters in the Thai capital, using the abbreviation for North Korea.

At recent international meetings, including the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) summit in Vietnam and the East Asia summit and other meetings this year in the Philippines, ASEAN countries had shown very strong support for regional stability and peace, Yun said.

Participants loudly demanded that North Korea abandon its program of developing and testing nuclear weapons, the diplomat said.

So, I would say, yes, the countries in the region are committed to upholding the requirements of the U.N. Security Council resolutions and, at the highest levels, they support the goal of a de-nuclearized North Korea, Yun said on the final day of a two-day trip to Thailand.

The U.S. State Department, in pursuing a policy this year of so-called Maximum Pressure and Engagement toward North Korea, has lobbied countries in the region to downgrade ties with North Korea. All 10 ASEAN members maintain relations with North Korea, and Pyongyang is also a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

In the wake of an escalation of North Korean missile tests, the United States in August urged ASEAN leaders meeting in Manila to expel Pyongyang from ARF, but the regional bloc backed away from taking concrete steps.

However, both the Philippines and Malaysia downgraded bilateral ties with North Korea. In September, the Philippine government announced it had cut trade relations with Pyongyang in compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

And ties between Kuala Lumpur were shaken this year after the killing on Malaysian soil of the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which Malaysia, South Korea and the United States blamed on the government in Pyongyang.

There is no trade

In Thailands case, the kingdom had substantially reduced trade with North Korea  by as much as 95 percent  Yun said, noting that Thailand was the country that originally invited North Korea to join the ARF grouping, when it held the ASEAN chair back in the 1990s.

According to the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, trade with North Korea stood at U.S. $1.6 million during the first three quarters of 2017, marking a 94-percent drop from the same period last year.

Its expected that by late 2017 there will be no export or import of goods between Thailand and North Korea, Pimchanok Vonkorpon, head of the Thai Commerce Ministrys Trade Policy and Strategy Office, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Yun declined to confirm whether he and Thai officials talked about North Korean companies using Bangkok as a Southeast Asian hub. But for the United States, there were no remaining areas of concern regarding Thailands bilateral relations with the communist regime, he said.

Yun said he came to Bangkok with no agenda, and added it was purely, by coincidence that he was in the country while informal, backchannel diplomatic talks between low-level U.S. representatives and North Korean officials were taking place in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.

On Thursday, Yun met with Gen. Wanlop Rugsanoah, secretary-general of Thailands National Security Council, among other officials.

According to the NSC chief, Yun pressed the Thais to downgrade ties with Pyongyang.

The U.S. asked Thailand to put more pressure on North Korea, put more trade and diplomatic pressure, Wanlop told AFP.

On Tuesday, the eve of Yuns arrival in Bangkok, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha denied that his country engaged in trade and commerce with the hermit kingdom.

Thailand guarantees ... that we have abided by the United Nations resolutions, the Thai junta chief told reporters, according to Reuters.



There have been reports about North Korean boats in our waters ... I prohibited them a long time ago, he said. There is no trade ... there is no commerce.
For Immediate Release, December 15, 2017 Contact: Jenny Loda, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 844-7136, jloda@biologicaldiversity.org

Paul Ruprecht, Western Watersheds Project, (208) 421-4637, paul@westernwatersheds.org Legal Action Aims to Protect Endangered California Frogs' Mountain Habitat WASHINGTON Three conservation groups today intervened on the side of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a lawsuit challenging the designation of protected critical habitat for the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, the northern population of the mountain yellow-legged frog and the Yosemite toad in Californias Sierra Nevada mountains. The lawsuit challenging the habitat protections was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, an extreme private-property-rights group, on behalf of the California Cattlemens Association and others. Were joining this fight to stop Pacific Legal Foundation and the Trump administration from robbing these precious amphibians of protections they desperately need, said Jenny Loda, a biologist and attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity working to protect rare amphibians and reptiles. These frogs and the Yosemite toad have disappeared from most of the Sierra lakes and streams where they once lived. Protecting some of their most important habitat gives them a fighting chance at recovery. The rule that was challenged designates approximately 1.8 million acres of critical habitat across 16 counties in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that the Fish and Wildlife Service determined were essential to the conservation and recovery of these three imperiled amphibians. The overwhelming majority of the critical habitat is on federal public lands. Studies show that species with critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without it. Sierra Nevada and mountain yellow-legged frogs have declined by about 90 percent throughout the mountain range due to habitat destruction and degradation, disease, predation by nonnative trout, pesticides and climate change. More than half of the Yosemite toads populations are now gone, including in Yosemite National Park, where they were first discovered and given their name. Yosemite toads are threatened primarily by livestock grazing, climate change and pesticides. Damage from livestock grazing in fragile, high-elevation habitat is a major reason these amphibians are imperiled to begin with, said Paul Ruprecht, an attorney at Western Watersheds Project. It's critical to defend against the livestock industry's direct attack on their habitat. The groups intervening in the lawsuit include the Center for Biological Diversity, Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center and Western Watersheds Project. Background

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned to protect mountain yellow-legged frogs in the Sierra Nevada under the Endangered Species Act in 2000. A recent taxonomic split of the species separated the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Rana sierrae) and the northern population of the mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa). Both yellow-legged frog species were protected as endangered in 2014. The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Rivers Council petitioned to protect the Yosemite toad (Anaxyrus canorus) in 2000. The toad was protected as a threatened species in 2014. The critical habitat designation challenged by livestock industry groups includes habitat in 16 California counties: Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Fresno, Inyo, Lassen, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sierra, Tulare and Tuolumne. For more information about the Centers campaign to stop the amphibian and reptile extinction crisis, please visit http://BiologicalDiversity.org/herps.
Toyota loves FCB Africa: The 57 year-strong brand relationship

Toyota formally announced earlier today that it is continuing its "exceptionally good, regularly measured" relationship with "the best of the best", FCB Africa. Brett Morris, FCB Africa Group CEO and group CCO shares their perspective of the love story that's endured over five decades and counting.

Brett Morris, FCB Africa Group CEO and group CCO. More a review than the typical account pitch, Morris explains they were benchmarked against the best of the industry as part of the iconic SA brands business-wide process and still came out tops. Toyota South Africa, FCB Africa 'renew vows' Issued by Nahana Communications Group 15 Dec 2017 Then known as Lindsay Smithers, FCB Africa first helped launch the first Toyota vehicle in South Africa, the Toyopet Stout, back in 1961. Six of the best: FCB's Toyota craft Morris shares his favourite current FCB-Toyota work below: Here, Morris explains what each party brings to the relationship as well as how that business pitch process keeps the relationship steering smoothly Talk us through the Toyota business pitch process. Talk us through the Toyota business pitch process.

The relationship with Toyota has never been a marriage of convenience. It is continually reviewed based on the credentials of the agency and the delivery on the account. This process was no different and we were determined, more than ever, to show Toyota that they are with one of the best agencies. This is a partnership that we strive to earn every single day.

What does it mean to FCB to have retained the Toyota account? What does it mean to FCB to have retained the Toyota account?

It means everything to us. We pride ourselves on our relationships with our clients, whatever the length so you can imagine what a relationship of 57 years means!

Explain your relationship with the brand. Explain your relationship with the brand.

This is an incredibly important relationship and our most enduring one. Many of us have been lucky enough to work on this brand for decades, myself included. It is one of South Africas most iconic brands and the story of FCB is deeply entwined with the story of Toyota. It is fair to say that its part of the DNA of the agency.

Sounds like a mutually beneficial relationship to me. Click through to the FCB Africa press office or their Twitter feed for the latest updates.
#StartupStory: TMI Media

TMI Media was founded by Quinton Jones and Peter Brooke-Sumner, director of TMI (The Media Image), in October 2016 as a joint venture with a fully integrated digital offering, specially focused on data and analytics.

Antoinette Labuschagne, Quinton Jones, Lerato Molele, Jenny Barenbrug and Phumi Masango. In the agencys first year of operation, it has won  among other impressive accounts, some international  the above-the-line media business of Woolworths, and has received numerous awards, most recently being named Independent Media Agency of the Year at the Financial Mail AdFocus Awards last month. #FMADFOCUS2017: ALL THE WINNERS! 22 Nov 2017 I interviewed Jones to find out what this recognition means to such a young yet advanced business Congratulations on winning Independent Media Agency of the Year at the Financial Mail AdFocus Awards! What does this recognition mean to you and the agency, and particularly in its first year of operation? Congratulations on winning Independent Media Agency of the Year at the Financial Mail AdFocus Awards! What does this recognition mean to you and the agency, and particularly in its first year of operation?

Winning AdFocus was the pinnacle of an amazing year. In truth, we didnt expect to win as we are a new agency and many of our achievements were excluded as they were out of the measurement period. This was particularly special as we did it together as a small team. Agencies wait years to win these awards, and sometimes they lose when theyve had amazing achievements. We know how rare these occasions are. Its great to be recognised for the work weve done and the progress weve made. Not forgetting the judges who had the courage to award it to a very new agency. #FMAdFocus2017: Innovation and consistency rewarded By Danette Breitenbach 23 Nov 2017 Why did you start TMI Media as an extension of TMI, but as a standalone business? Firstly, how TMI Media solves a problem/fulfils a need with its integrated media offering, and secondly, why you set it up in this way. Why did you start TMI Media as an extension of TMI, but as a standalone business? Firstly, how TMI Media solves a problem/fulfils a need with its integrated media offering, and secondly, why you set it up in this way.

TMI (The Media Image) was founded in 2008 by Pete Brooke-Sumner as a purely digital business and is owned by himself and his business partner Lauren Foster. Along with TMI Media weve now structured a joint venture where we work together in a completely integrated fashion. Weve created a mega integrated agency solution. Considering we now have a 35 strong digital specialists team matched with a solid media strategy team, this was an easy decision. One office. One team. One solution. Many agencies talk integration, they talk specialisation, but they are not really doing it. We are doing it and its working well. TMI and Quinton Jones launch new venture Issued by TMI Collective 29 Nov 2016 Explain the agencys approach and focus on data and analytics. What is its competitive advantage/core differentiators? Explain the agencys approach and focus on data and analytics. What is its competitive advantage/core differentiators?

This is a very important part. Many media agencies bolt on a few digital people and claim digital competency. TMI started as a very strong performance digital business serving clients in the UK, US and SA. It's built with solid roots in digital, servicing large blue-chip clients  this makes a significant difference and gives us a very strong base to work from, and provides composite solutions for our clients.

Digital has added an absolutely crazy level of innovation to media. It has brought access to data, and the ability to bring the cost of marketing down through intelligence. Strategic thinking, data-driven decisions and tangible results are what the digital space brings above-the-line. The sheer versatility of the medium ensures that clients are receiving the right exposure, at the right time, and most importantly, by the right people. Additionally, as someone who has spent many years in creative agencies, I appreciate the power when creative and media work together. We dont just want to be buying space. Media needs to work much harder, whether its delivering data or through a clever engagement.

Another key advantage is seniority of people and focused attention on clients. It sounds expected, but many bigger network agencies are lethargic, theyre complacent and they are suffering from the inability to hire enough quality talent to service their very horizontal businesses. Margins and global fees put a strain on their business, thinning out the ability to service properly. We are not supporting a global group structure or paying global management fees. All the fees our clients pay stay in the country.

Quinton Jones, Lauren Foster and Pete Brooke-Sumner.

What are some of the barriers TMI Media has had to overcome in its first year of business? What are some of the barriers TMI Media has had to overcome in its first year of business?

There are so many. This business didnt exist over a year ago. Setting up a media agency is certainly not for the faint-hearted. The biggest barrier is that your competition from day one is going to be bigger global players that are established, have the infrastructure and millions of Rs and $s behind them. You often have to beat them to win business, especially business scale. Its also important to build advantage and relative parity as quickly as possible. Thats why the digital partnership and our reliance on OMG for a buying and network are critical. It really is a slow build that takes shape and gains momentum as you go.

Self-belief is also incredibly important, especially in the beginning when the temptation to find an easier way to earn a living is very high. Most importantly, its about people in the media business. I respect the team and value their contribution. You can be the biggest network in the world but the client experience is often measured by the main point of daily contact. It all comes down to people who actually work on the business and deal with the clients daily. People that do the work. People that innovate. People who want to make a difference.

What was your most notable learning of 2017? What was your most notable learning of 2017?

I think the biggest learning for us as a team has been to accept that sometimes we wont win and that its okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. Personally, I have a tendency to operate at 100 miles an hour, often dealing with things as I go. Its hard for me to change my ways, but hey it works. Im learning to focus on a few things that are more important. The learning curve has been a very steep one, but very rewarding.

What were your proudest achievements this year? What were your proudest achievements this year?

Although weve won business and awards and done some really great work, the achievement that makes me happiest is finding and working with a great team of people that are as passionate about the business as I am.

According to an article in the Financial Mail, the agency has built media billings of over R150m in under a year. According to an article in the Financial Mail, the agency has built media billings of over R150m in under a year.

Weve built up a strong annualised billing through a range of clients that have joined us in the last year. The fact is media is a small margin business. I always say, we bill in rands and make our money in cents. To be honest we are not measuring the business on billing. It has no bearing on the work an agency does or their capability, or even the fee that they earn. I will always choose being the best over being the biggest. Size in this industry can be misleading. I absolutely believe there is a space for locally-owned media agencies. People who own media businesses have a stronger commitment to clients as they truly invest in the success or failure of client relationships. If you have the right people and offering, and you work hard, you will always be competitive.

Comment on the convergence of traditional and digital marketing, how things are changing in the space, and how TMI Media disrupting it. Comment on the convergence of traditional and digital marketing, how things are changing in the space, and how TMI Media disrupting it.

Convergence has happened. You cannot see digital as a separate stream anymore. Its about solutions that more often than not are led or supported by digital. When you are able to integrate media properly, you create something special. Quite often the best solutions come from media people who understand digital and can combine it with other channels seamlessly. We still have agencies that are either good digital agencies, who dabble in media or the reverse. Long term it is becoming important that agencies are able to provide the complete solution. Clients dont want to manage complicated partnerships with multiple suppliers. There is just so much grey area between the two in terms of fees, scope and delivery. We offer one point of contact and one team doing full-service media and comms.

What does the future of media look like to you? What does the future of media look like to you?

Its the most exciting time to be in media. If youre not excited, leave immediately, youre in the wrong industry. Possibly the biggest thing thats affecting the future is how we access content. Content has always been there  our ability to access is changing and shaping the opportunities that brands have to communicate. We still have media channels which are vertical silos, but it doesnt really work like that anymore. Phones can now do almost anything and everything in the world. TVs are almost there the industry isnt segmented vertically but horizontally. Theres no reason why Facebook cant launch television or radio, or why DStv and Vodacom cant launch a video channel.

Digital has broken barriers. Insurance is no longer just sold by only insurers. You can be your own broker or advisor. Banking doesnt need banks. Almost anyone can sell anything if they are smart enough. Everything is tracked, everything gives feedback. People just arent consuming the same channel or content at the same time anymore. The flexibility and the accessibility offered by the mobile phone and the internet have ensured that media journeys have become very individualised.

The target market is now sifting, sorting, accepting and rejecting as they decide what content theyd like to consume. Each moving through their day on their own media consumption journey with complete power. Much like an explosion or the big bang  the number of connecting points driven by the IoT (Internet of Things) is going to leave us with an ever-expanding number of connection points. There will be more connections with more messaging opportunities talking to consumers more often.

Whats next? What are your focus areas for 2018?





Although we have very ambitious plans for the future. The three most important things at the moment are  happy staff, happy clients and doing really great work that we are proud of.
John Brown Media South Africa has won the gold award for Best Print Magazine Editorial (B2B) at The Content Council's international Pearl Awards ceremony in New York with. The magazine, produced for Old Mutual Corporate, also walked away with silver in the Best Print Magazine Design (b2b) category and was selected as one of the judges' three favourites

John Brown Media South Africas 'Supper Sorted' campaign for Pick n Pay scooped gold in the Best Use of Email category for the second consecutive year.

Fresh Living magazine, also produced for Pick n Pay, received the silver award for Best Print Magazine Editorial (B2C), and a bronze in the Retail Print category at the prestigious ceremony held on 7 December at Hearst Tower, New York City.

Over and above a demand for excellence in content and design, The Pearl Awards judges require proven ROI, thus demonstrating that our work for clients leads not just to customer engagement but also to commercial success. We are enormously proud to have received three international awards and to be acknowledged by our peers on a global scale, said Justine Drake, content director for John Brown Media SA.

Gugu-Lisa Zwane, marketing executive at Old Mutual Corporate, had the following to say about the win: Old Mutual Corporate is thrilled by the award and recognition from such a prestigious organisation as The Content Council. Awards like these are always won when agency and client truly become a team with a common goal and purpose. John Brown Medias Cape Town team embraced the vision we had for MiNDSPACE and delivered something which exceeded our expectations, while always keeping the customer at the heart of the message, above all else.

The prestigious Pearl Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and effectiveness in content marketing strategies and campaigns from across the world. Experts judged entries on overall effectiveness, creativity and editorial excellence.

This years winners were picked from 83 companies, representing nearly 170 brands from 19 different countries, making The Pearl Awards a truly global competition.

Each year, we celebrate and honour excellence in content marketing across a wide variety of industry sectors and media platforms. This years entries were exceptional and represent the best in content marketing from around the globe, says Jacqueline Loch, Chair of The Content Council. With marketers now spending nearly 30% of their annual marketing budgets on content marketing, content is a key part of every marketing and media strategy.

Having started in 2004, the Pearl Awards is the longest running, most coveted content marketing awards programme in the US.

For more information about The Content Council and the Pearl Awards, visit http://thecontentcouncil.org/Pearl-Awards. Follow The Content Council on Twitter: @ContentCouncil and any Pearl Awards happenings with #PearlAwardsNY2017

ABOUT JOHN BROWN MEDIA

John Brown Media South Africa is part of a leading global content marketing agency with clients such as Pick n Pay, Old Mutual, Life Healthcare, FNB Premier, BMW, MINI, Discovery and Total in South Africa; and Waitrose, John Lewis, RBS, Hannafords and Stokmann abroad. Their track record in helping their clients maximise customer engagement across several platforms is evident in both the diversity and longevity of their client portfolio. John Brown has nine offices around the world in Cape Town, Johannesburg, London, Hong Kong, Madrid, Boston, Helsinki, Dubai and Singapore. John Brown is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network Group.

www.johnbrownmedia.co.za

ABOUT THE CONTENT COUNCIL

The Content Council is the premier, non-profit organisation representing content marketers globally as the definitive resource for content marketing insights and thought leadership; it is focused on promoting the growth and vitality of this dynamic marketing discipline. The council is also an excellent resource for connecting brand marketers with the best content agency to meet their specific needs. Through creativity and strategy, its members build content programs that deliver results. For more information, please visit: www.thecontentcouncil.org




As the CEO of food manufacturer Mediterranean Delicacies, Costas Vayanos's role sees him visiting Europe three times a year to sample the gastronomic delights on offer from the different countries of the region.

Europe is inspiring from a food perspective  so many cultures and food traditions in a relatively small geographical area. You cross a border from one country to the next, or one region to the next, and the food offering changes, says Vayanos.

I personally love the Mediterranean countries and the foods they offer, so I tend to travel in that part of Europe most often, both for vacations so I can enjoy good food, and for professional reasons.

By "professional reasons" he means looking for new concepts and trends in Europe that can be translated into the South African market through the MediDeli brand, known for its dips and specialized deli products.

We sometimes have to re-engineer products to suit the South African taste, but more often its dictated by the raw materials available in South Africa versus in Europe, explains Vayanos. He adds that that South Africans are well travelled and recognise good international foods, meaning that Mediterranean Delicacies seldom has to change MediDeli creations significantly to suit the South African market.

Penchant for the south

With a particular passion for the southern Mediterranean countries, the CEO can be found most often in Spain, Italy, France and Greece.

Southern Mediterranean food is fresh, its outdoor, its flavoursome. I love Greek and Middle Eastern food for its simplicity and spicy recipes  a simple meal at a Greek taverna on the Greek islands is hard to beat. No fancy dining needed. Simple decor. but great flavour and variety, using fresh ingredients from the area, states Vayanos. And freshly baked bread, he adds. Theres nothing better than village baked bread.

And as for his particular favourite places, Vayanos says: My most memorable experience gets repeated every time I visit Greece  a visit to a Greek taverna for pita bread, souvlaki, chips, Greek salad (tomato, cucumber and feta) and fresh xorta (or boiled greens) served with olive oil and lemon. A very simple meal enjoyed with family and friends  never disappoints!

"Spain, on the other hand, offers great seafood and tapas  my favourites for casual eating options. Then its on to Italy  pasta, pizza; need I say more?
According to an intensive research study into the hearts and minds of ordinary South Africans conducted by Ask Afrika and Infusion Knowledge Hub on the behest of the Centre for Communication and Reputation Management at the University of Pretoria, South Africans are more unified than we realise. The research showed that although our dreams of a rainbow utopia have faded to a more realistic pallor, South Africans are a resilient nation who remain proudly South African (84%) with an infallible sense of optimism for a bright future for all races.

Fight against state capture and Xenophobia

The study which represents the views of 37-million adult South Africans showed that 46% of citizens describe themselves as South African before classifying themselves by race, culture or language groupings, while 61% are confident that we will have a happy future for all races in South Africa. Interestingly, 56% say they are confident of a happy future for all immigrants and South Africans to work side by side and 54% are confident of a happy future for all immigrants in South Africa. 72% of the respondents claim that they will fight against state capture and Xenophobia, while 76% will fight against corruption and racism.

To ensure that the views of all South Africans were represented in the study a rigorous sample group was drawn to include 80% of South Africans from the lowest income groups and 20% in higher income brackets.

Forty-five-minute face-to-face interviews were conducted with the respective respondents and the questionnaire was drawn up in English and translated into five of the official languages  SeSotho, isiXhosa, Afrikaans, Setswana/Sepedi and isiZulu, although the questionnaire was administered in the remaining official languages where necessary.

Get up, stand up, speak up for your rights

The research, which aimed in part to get to grips with perceptions of protest (including voting) and its impacts encouragingly exposes some positives in that South Africans are slowly becoming more unified and are driven by a collective dissatisfaction with the perceived infighting, state capture and corruption at government and leadership level.

Altogether 77% of citizens feel that the country is going in a negative direction and although this inevitably leads to a sense of futility, South Africans are conscious of the power of their vote, with 90% saying corruption would affect the way people vote.

From the grassroots levels up, citizens are gradually starting to take back their own future. In the process, a new narrative for the countrys population is being formed said Ask Afrika CEO Andrea Gevers. The 2019 elections should prove an important call to action, providing a means for citizens to voice their sentiments through the ballot.

The data and results remain to be the voice of the citizens and is aimed to be used as a catalyst for positive change in South Africa.

The qualitative and quantitative data is available in open source format through the Centre for Communication and Reputation Management (CCRM Up). For enquiries please contact Prof Ronel Rensburg, Tel: +27 12 4203395; az.ca.pu@grubsner.lenor.
It is estimated that 8-million tonnes of plastic waste finds its way into the ocean each year, and it is notoriously difficult to remove. The impacts are increasingly apparent: great rafts of plastic are congregating in ocean gyres, blame games have broken out between neighbouring countries, and marine species face poisoning from the associated toxins.

There may even be direct risks for humans, especially the 400-million or so poor people who depend critically on fish for their food. As yet fisheries are more threatened by over-exploitation and climate change, but we are now finding plastics in our marine ecosystems and even in food like mussels and oysters.

Timely  but not binding

Given the urgency of the problem, a more decisive global leadership is needed and so the UNs announcement is certainly timely. Its resolution on marine litter and microplastics is the first genuine global attempt to tackle the problem. It aims to eliminate marine litter in the long term, urging countries to take action by 2025, to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds and encourages them to prioritise policies that avoid marine litter and micro plastics entering the marine environment. Among other promising points, an international working group will be set up to seek legally binding options to tackle marine litter, and it is encouraging to see that almost 40 countries have signed up to the voluntary #CleanSeas campaign since its launch in February 2017.

The elephant in the room here is the lack of any binding targets. Under pressure from key players like the US, China and India, UNEP has backed off putting in targets or binding commitments, although it was reported that the US was at least engaged in the discussions. It is worth noting that China is the biggest emitter of plastic marine litter and, along with the US and India, has a very large plastic manufacturing sector.

Alarming parallels

There are alarming parallels with the past two decades of attempts to tackle climate change. Evidence that greenhouse gases emitted by human activities were causing more energy to be trapped in our atmosphere has been increasingly clear since the mid 1990s, but vested interests combined with the need for equitable treatment of developing countries means that progress has been painfully slow  so slow that it will now be much harder to stay within the 2C limit that scientists view as potentially manageable for future generations. Even now, while the evidence is clear and the impacts are painfully apparent round the world, the US has backed out of the 2015 Paris agreement.

But we are capable of better. In the 1970s and 80s we faced another major environmental threat. Pollutants used in refrigerants (chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs for short) were damaging the ozone layer, which acts as a protective screen from the worst of the suns ultraviolet rays. Alarm bells were ringing as skin cancers increased, and scientists predicted a catastrophe within decades.

The ozone hole peaked in 2006 and has since been brought under control (gif: NASA)

That time, despite the now-familiar lobbying and stalling by industry, who argued that the science was uncertain and that more evidence was needed, the world got together. The Montreal Protocol was agreed in 1987 and since then the harmful chemicals have been phased out or managed more effectively. We have seen the ozone layer recovering towards pre-1980s levels and, in a positive unintended consequence, the phasing out of chemicals that are also potent greenhouse gases.

We humans have a mixed track record. The recovering ozone layer shows that we can, if we have the will and the leadership, get to grips with even the most wicked of environmental problems and turn things round. But, as our attempts to deal with climate change have shown, progress can be slow and getting everyone working together remains fraught with difficulty.

We should not forget that plastics have revolutionised our lives  I am typing this on a plastic keyboard, for instance, while wearing a plastic fibre fleece, and looking through plastic lenses in my glasses. Any change will be tough and could have economic consequences.

But however important plastic seems to our lives, we depend even more on the health of the oceans for our well-being and for that of the planet. Right now attempts to get the world together to deal with plastic waste and ocean pollution are at a crossroads; at least its good news we have made it this far.
An ongoing joint operation between the Hawks' and the Road Traffic Management Corporation's National Traffic Anti-Corruption Unit has netted a further 12 traffic officers in the Tzaneen area.

The latest arrests bring the number to 17 of traffic officials behind bars.

The operation - code-named CODE 14 and SIYABANGENA - were initiated in April this year and kicked off in the province this week.

On Tuesday, three traffic examiners aged 46, 49 and 55 respectively and three runners were arrested for allegedly soliciting bribes from potential applicants for learners and driving licences at the Nkowankowa testing centre, the Hawks said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, a further 12 were arrested for the various corruption activities.

Two other traffic officials who ran away on Tuesday handed themselves over to the investigating team on Wednesday.

The suspects are expected to appear at the Ritavi Magistrate Court facing charges related to the contravention of the Road Traffic Act 93 of 1996 and the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004.

Meanwhile, a traffic officer who conducts highway patrol on the N12 was arrested at the Potchefstroom provincial offices for alleged corruption.

Zahid Bhayat, 40, was arrested by the Hawks Serious Corruption Investigations unit for allegedly soliciting bribes from motorists on the N12 between Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom.

The Hawks said they will continue to fight the scourge of corruption.
The exercise will see more Mango flights scheduled and the number of SAA's domestic flights reduced. An industry expert said this may result in some inconvenience to SAA passengers who have, for instance, booked business-class seats, which are not available on Mango.

SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said passengers would be "assisted" and presented with options in such an event. The preferred option would be to accept an economy-class seat on Mango, but if that proved unacceptable, they would be offered an alternative SAA flight.

"Ticket refunds would be a possibility"

"Business-class passengers tend to fly in the morning, while others usually take later flights," he said. "But if that is not acceptable, ticket refunds would be a possibility." He said a seamless booking change was expected.

The announcement was made on Thursday, though the changes would have been reflected on SAA and Mango distribution systems from 12 December 2017. Tlali did not provide details about this, saying only that it had to do with internal arrangements.

Tlali said the rationalisation programme was "part of the progressive implementation of its turnaround plan. These initiatives form part of the five-year turnaround plan to return the business to commercial sustainability in the shortest time possible".

Both SAA and Mango currently offer 200 return flights a week between Johannesburg and Durban and 278 return flights a week between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Revised schedule takes effect in January 2018

The revised schedule takes effect on 15 January 2018. Once fully implemented, Mango will operate 132 return flights on the Johannesburg-Durban route and 116 return flights on the Johannesburg-Cape Town route per week. SAA will operate 68 return flights between Johannesburg and Durban, and 162 return flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town.

SAA CEO Vuyani Jarana said the carrier had reviewed its offerings in line with performance, demand and market conditions. "We are satisfied that the changes we introduce will be of mutual benefit to our customers and to the SAA Group. A commercially strong SAA Group offers customers improved efficiencies and schedule integrity."

Mango's acting CEO Nic Vlok said the changes were a group effort and demonstrated its commitment to strengthen the group commercially. "Mango remains committed to service excellence and our brand values of innovation, operational efficiency and excellence in customer service."
Tesla boss Elon Musk had always promised to create an electric truck. The rest of the industry has been working on greener solutions for years with options ranging from Euro 6 diesel engines to hybrids, gas and even electric.

Photo: Business Insider

However, Musk does not hang around and recently unveiled the Tesla Semi, a full-electric truck.

As with any Tesla model, it was revealed with some rather impressive claims, albeit ones which so far are untested. The company says that without a trailer the Tesla Semi can achieve 0-96km/h in just five seconds, a statistic not usually top of mind in the industry, unless it is a racing truck.

No shifting or clutching

Most notably it is said to be able to climb 5% gradients at a steady 100km/h, a significant improvement over most diesel trucks. It also requires no shifting or clutching for smooth acceleration and deceleration, and its regenerative braking recovers 98% of kinetic energy to the battery, giving it a basically infinite brake life, says Tesla.

The cabin is designed specifically around the driver, featuring unobstructed stairs for easier entry and exit, full standing room and a centered driver position for optimal visibility, although there are no passenger seats, at least not in the concept.

Two touchscreen displays provide access to navigation, blind spot monitoring, and electronic data logging. Built-in connectivity integrates directly with a fleet's management system to support routing, scheduling, and remote monitoring.

Megacghargers

Megachargers, a new highspeed DC charging solution that Tesla says it is developing, will add about 643km in 30 minutes and can be installed at origin or destination points and along routes, enabling recharging during loading, unloading and driver breaks, says the company.

This part is impressive enough to see companies such as DHL placing early orders with a deposit of $20,000 per truck to test the vehicle in urban delivery environments. However, research in Europe by Aurora Energy Research claims that the power required to meet Tesla's claims for the Megacharger will be about 1,600kW. That is the equivalent to powering 3,0004,000 average homes, for just one 30-minute charge.

The architecture of the all-electric truck is designed to have a higher safety standard than any other heavy-duty truck on the market, says Tesla, with a reinforced battery that shields the truck from impact and gives it a low centre of gravity. Its windshield is made of impact resistant glass. Jackknifing is prevented due to the Semi's onboard sensors that detect instability and react with positive or negative torque to each wheel while independently actuating all brakes.

The surround cameras aid object detection and minimise blind spots, automatically alerting the driver to safety hazards and obstacles. With enhanced autopilot, the Tesla Semi features automatic emergency braking, automatic lane keeping, lane departure warning and event recording. It can also travel in a platooning convoy, where one or several trucks will be able to autonomously follow a lead Semi.

It is unclear whether the technology will allow it to follow other makes of truck as part of the international platooning trials that have been taking place.

Far fewer moving parts than a diesel truck

With far fewer moving parts than a diesel truck - no engine, transmission, after-treatment system or differentials to upkeep - Tesla understandably says that its Semi will require significantly less maintenance. Its battery is similar in composition to the batteries of Tesla energy products and is designed to support charging cycles for more than 1.6-million kilometres, while its motors are derived from the motors used in the Model 3 car.

Tesla says production will start in 2019 with prices starting from $150,000 for the entry-level truck with a claimed range of 482km. The company says the steep price will be offset by savings of more than $200,000 over 1.6-million kilometres based on fuel savings alone. That remains to be seen and for now, we watch to see how the rest of the truck industry responds.

Will it arrive in SA? Well, Musk did promise that Tesla Motors would launch in SA in 2018, initially with the Model 3 sedan, but in spite of repeated requests from Motor News, none of the Tesla executives we have spoken to has been willing to comment on plans for SA.

Source: Business Day
To many 'Design Indaba' is simply founder Ravi Naidoo, but there's a huge team behind the scenes. Meet Neo Maditla, Design Indaba's new editor-in-chief. With her hard-news background and passion for purpose-led design, she's the tough cookie looking to make the Design Indaba website as popular as its annual Festival...

Maditla is relishing her new role as Design Indaba editor-in-chief.

Theres a calm buzz about Maditla: Shes soft-spoken but sure of herself, carefully picking her words, greeting everyone who crosses her path and asking as many questions as she answers.

Thats par for the course for someone in the media, but unsurprising as in the past month alone, Maditla has travelled to the Netherlands as part of Design Indabas partnership with Dutch Design Week, is on the Rise Art Prize panel for Africa and the Middle East, and recently got back from a content-gathering trip to Tanzania and Rwanda  quite the coup with just six months on the job. But her career is extensive across broadcast, print and online media.

Asked about her career highlights so far  over hake and chips and mint tea for her flu at Marias  she said it was hard to pick just one. Marias is the perfect spot for people-watching, something Neo says enjoys doing.

Not a fan of selfies, Maditla says friends call her a lurker, as shed rather take photos of the flowers and the food or get another angle of the vase that one of herself.

 A post shared by neo maditla (@_maditla) on Oct 27, 2017 at 10:13am PDT

Maditla adds that you can even identify a place by an object. She adds that she loves people-watching as people are so free in the outdoors and it feels so good to disappear from the ever-watchful level of disturbance like on social media.

Shes enjoying rediscovering Cape Town and explains how she made the bold move of going freelance from her role as a reporter at the Cape Argus, also shifting geographical location from Cape Town to Joburg to further push her boundaries and be closer to her family in Mabopane, North of Pretoria.

The short Joburg stint allowed her to explore other aspects of writing like scriptwriting on the Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola (LNN), which garnered an Emmy nomination. Of that accolade, Maditla says she and the LNN writing team truly felt affirmed. As a journalist, you think thats all you can do, so its a confidence booster when you try something different and it works out.

Out and about in Cape Town.

Shes also vocal about the need for better mentorship of young people. After LNN she mentored young content producers at Livity Africas online youth platform LivemagSA.

Shes seen first-hand just how little support is offered on entering employment and some of the problems newbies encounter actually have nothing to do with talent but just about getting that Converse-sneakered foot into the industry.

Behind the scenes with team Design Indaba

One of the most fulfilling parts of her role as a mentor was actually using her media contacts to help talented young writers to get a foot in the door while also helping to diversify the writing pools from which publishers can pick young talent.

Explaining how she landed the plum role, Maditla says there was an opening for online editor, then she received an email from Design Indaba and the rest is history.

That was around May, and the biggest learning curve, since accepting the job, has been shifting from a mindset of always mentoring people to one of working in a dynamic team as equals.

Design Indaba editor-in-chief Neo Maditla, in the role since June this year, with content producer Lindsay Samson on a recent trip to Kigali. Design Indaba deputy editor, Jamie Matroos; content producer, Lindsay Samson; and social media manager, Jehan Latief.

That said, Maditla points out that people know the Design Indaba festival and conference as design and creativity leadership, not necessarily the website. Part of her job is to help grow the website to stand tall against the best in the world.

Maditla says that part of her work is actually getting the audience  that may not be into design  to understand that design is about more than just a beautiful object. The Design Indaba website is a place where one finds projects and people who are using their creativity to change the world for the better.

How she and the team have been trying to do that is through storytelling and looking at the people behind these beautiful objects as well as what drives them. The different aspects of design all hold betterment of people in mind.

Good design takes something that was a blind spot, something you deal with every day and makes it better.

On location, at Dutch Design Week. On location, at Dutch Design Week.

Maditla loves working with this team where shes no longer the old one. Theyre feisty and ambitious and just want to do things, which Maditla says is so cool, and she feeds off of their energy. They want to figure things out and make things better, which is why she is part of the rare bunch that looks forward to going to work.

Her recent trip to the Netherlands for Antenna, which formed part of Dutch Design Week, was an example of how her passion for storytelling, design and youth mentorship tied together. For the first few months, the team curated projects from universities, which were whittled down to a top 20 with amazing projects. After all their Skype chats she says she felt like she knew them even before they got to meet on the other side of the world.

The current design space: New people, new things

Maditla was excited to see many inventing new sections of design that didnt exist before, like drone costume design. She shares that its important to go beyond making beautiful things but to also leave the world a little better than how you found it.

Maditla shares:

Everywhere I go, there are so many young people doing incredible new things. When we Google someone and nothing comes up, thats what sparks our excitement. Its actually a new challenge in the office  if you do a Google Search and nothing comes up on that person, youre onto something!

Maditla says the team aims to integrate more of the website into the festival which involves doing a lot of pre-festival content to help the audience get to know next years speakers like Lebo Mashile, Sunu Gonera and Morag Myerscough.

A lot of people see Design Indaba as the festival itself, a four-day physical event held annually. Her challenge is to connect that the other 362 days of the year and get people excited about creativity all year around through good content.

Social medias a crucial aspect of digital success, and Maditla says just a few weeks ago, their social media following grew by about the same amount in a month as it usually does during the festival time. This means that the small tweaks that she and the team have been making to the content are starting to bear fruit. Even the angles they take are worlds apart  sure, its beautiful, but how is it making a difference? There are so many design publications out there, so what differentiates Design Indabas website? Maditla says as much as possible, they write about the people designing the things and how those objects are creating a better world through creativity.

Sourcing stories from social media

Sharing a sneak preview of what we can expect from the Design Indaba Festival 2018, Maditla says this will be her first time experiencing it away from the journalistic beat, which she is really excited about.

She still feels the rush of the scoop but certainly doesnt miss the breaking news calls in the middle of the night. I cant help but agree with her that newspapers are a toxic space of competition.

Design Indaba is nothing like a news room where the idea is churn churn churn though. They want deeper storytelling whether on video or quirky interviews. She says she is also building a team, mentoring a few interns, and hopefully helping them to find their own voices as writers or content producers.

Architecture meets art, while emotion meets innovation in the work of @studio_swine, who will be joining us at Design Indaba Conference 2018 // Their recent project New Spring explores the fragility of the seasons. The experiential installation was created using unusual materials, like recycled aluminium. Read more about the duo on designindaba.com // Production: #studioswine; Director: Juriaan Booij; DOP: Edgar Dubrovskiy; Editor: Jamie O'Donnell // #designindaba Conference will be taking place between 21 - 23 Feb 2018 and Early Bird tickets are still available; link in our bio. // #newspring #cos #creativity #sustainabledesign #film #art
Despite a sobering picture of South Africa's competitiveness, showing performance in the 2017-2018 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index to have slipped 14 positions from the 2016-2017 results, there are some bright spots - notably on the innovation front.

While the country ranked 61st out of 137 economies assessed in the annual survey - with corruption, crime and theft, government instability, tax rates and inefficient government bureaucracy topping the list of the most problematic reasons for doing business, South Africa, was ranked 39th amongst participating economies, for innovation.

Images supplied. Images supplied.

Lending further weight to the countrys innovation credentials the 2017 global Innovation Index, released in October, ranked South Africa number one in innovation on the African continent.

According to Accenture, on average, South African companies are putting aside 45% of their annual revenue for innovation developments although actual spending is cautious and conservative at 36% with many companies not spending their allocated budgets on innovation due to economic uncertainties.

One company with a focus on innovation that is setting it apart is Pernod Ricard South Africa, the French-based distributor of leading spirits brands including Jameson, Chivas Regal and Absolut that has operated in South Africa for over 20 years and is now number 2 in the market.

Pernod Ricard has an innovation strategy that is bearing fruit: innovation contributes to half of all organic growth within the Group.

Hard-fought market

Consumers are becoming more and more demanding, always on the lookout for innovations in an increasingly hard-fought market. Weve established an entire ecosystem dedicated to innovation, and were managing our portfolio to ensure that innovations offering the greatest potential for growth receive top priority.

Image supplied. Image supplied.

While companies in South Africa score high at the strategy stage, which entails creating the plans and vision set to innovate, they score lower on all other aspects, from ideation, to absorption, to execution and, finally, achieving the desired benefits.

Why is this the case? Companies have to be proactive and disruptive in their approach to innovation  requiring flexibility, openness to ideas, willingness to collaborate, and a degree of risk taking.

Image supplied. Image supplied.

Innovation is a process through which ideas become successful products. Pernod Ricard has had notable success with Jameson Caskmates, a traditional Jameson Irish Whiskey finished in craft beer barrels. Caskmates has the triple-distilled smoothness of Jameson with a once-stouted, truly unique finish.

Collaboration and experiential marketing

Curious consumer palates are increasingly looking for interesting alternatives and innovative ways to enjoy spirits will be fuelled by trends in mixing, to create novel cocktails and long drinks.

Innovation is not just about product development. Business models and organisational processes also need to be looked at through the lens of innovation.

Image supplied. Image supplied.

Historically, Pernod Ricards growth was through the acquisition of big brands, but increasingly, opportunities are being sought out to collaborate with small craft operators. In a new partnership model that sees Pernod Ricard attaining a majority stake in entrepreneurial businesses like Monkey 47 gin, the founders of boutique brands retain control as custodians of their brands in exchange for the global platform that Pernod Ricard is able to offer.

Innovative ways of reaching consumers through CRM and experiential marketing must offer a connection point, create content and talk-ability and, importantly, allow the consumer to play a part.

Internally, a more integrated approach to business planning, involving all creative agencies in a collaborative exercise has yielded enormous value in recent years.

Improved innovation has potential to create economic growth and jobs and address the challenges of this country and the African continent, but it appears also to be the new normal for companies wanting to survive in an era of disruptive innovation.
#Newsmaker: Mandy Leontakianakis guides Havas into 2018

Havas recently appointed Mandy Leontakianakis as chief strategy officer to lead from Havas Johannesburg and across the group in Southern Africa, including Havas Boondoggle in Cape Town.

Mandy Leontakianakis Lynn Madeley, CEO of Havas Southern Africa, says, We are delighted to have Mandy on board. Strategy is an integral part of our business especially today where brands and businesses are nervous about the future. We wanted someone who embraces data, digital and creative; someone who would help our clients navigate their way through a challenging and changing world. Mandy has the experience and the smarts that we need to help our clients be successful today, so they can be successful tomorrow. Havas is a great agency with a vision I am excited by, adds Leontakianakis. The industry faces many challenges around defining agency relevance, and I believe there is great openness and dynamism at Havas, an agency who questions themselves rigorously and holds themselves to a contemporary standard for client-centricity. Here, she explains her transition from copywriting to strategy and her learnings along the way Comment on your new role, what it entails. Comment on your new role, what it entails.

I head up strategy within our group and contribute to the strategic direction of our clients brands and the agency itself.

What do you bring to the agency and how do you plan to grow it? What do you bring to the agency and how do you plan to grow it?

In interviewing, it was clear to me that there would be a fit from an ideals perspective with Havas. The agency is not afraid of asking itself tough questions; neither am I. We connected over a shared belief that there is a pressing need to evolve in order to retain the integrity and the purpose of a communications agency in its purest form. I bring that same ideal, a commitment to stripping away whats unnecessary or noisy, a commitment to arriving at ownables for us and for our clients that amount to something useful. More than just agreeing on whats wrong with the traditional agency model, we agree on the potential to turn things around, and we believe that the industry is ready for it.

What's at the top of your to-do list? What's at the top of your to-do list?

We are highly motivated to find break-through techniques for the delivery of textured local insights that disrupt archetypes and set our clients work apart from the proliferate cliches.

What do you love most about your career? What do you love most about your career?

I love the exposure to multiple verticals, the need to be contemporary in my general socio-economic and cultural knowledge, and the opportunity to strip away clutter and arrive at truths.

I thrive on the frequent exposure to brilliant people, being challenged to refine my work and feeling connected to the movement of the continent through the growth of its businesses.

Comment on your transition from copywriting to strategy. Why strategy? Comment on your transition from copywriting to strategy. Why strategy?

I studied a BA with a double major in English language and literature. Copywriting was an obvious entry into the world of work, though I became really concerned with the reasons why I put forward campaign ideas. My emphasis on the rationale grew until I was prompted into a strategy by my boss at the time. I will always be grateful for that particular steer and his belief in me.

What has been your most noteworthy learning in the space? What has been your most noteworthy learning in the space?

No matter how much we evolve from a channel and sophistication perspective, human truths remain the points of connection between brands and people. Losing sight of that means becoming a peddler of the channel.

What was true from a methodology perspective in the crafting of brand narratives 20 years ago, is true today: empathy will never lose relevance.

The number of channel and intervention options open to us today holds both dizzying potential and risk: from a clutter and intrusion perspective, it has never been more important to imagine the moment-by-moment experience of the person we aim to talk to. This extends to the actual development of product and services. Trust between a client and an agency should extend to push-back around superfluous messages and off-centre 'innovations'. There is so much we dont need to say, and so many products and services ideas destined to fail because theyre orientated in KPIs rather than customer need.

A ruthlessness around product and message benefit could also help eliminate some of the nonsense-fatigue many of us experience both working in the industry and consuming advertising. There is such potential in the radical act of telling the truth as often as possible and seeking to connect in genuinely helpful and appropriate moments in the users experience.

What industry trends do you predict for 2018? What industry trends do you predict for 2018?

Without citizenship behaviour that is thoughtful and sensitive, I predict an erosion of brand love and profitability for any complacent business entity. And I cant say I am anything other than relieved that as social consciousness evolves, so do the demands we place on our commercial enterprises to contribute in meaningful ways.

I wouldnt call this a trend though as the CSI requirement is not new, but there is an increasing depth in the idea of the integrated corporate report. CSI has transcended a tick box and is increasingly woven into the fabric of an organisations identity as sustainable social impact investment.

We have social media as a great leveller to thank for the dispersion and momentum gains for social awareness.

Agencies are also having to get real: the bloated structure and culture of the 80s and 90s, trading on impressions rather than delivery doesnt wash anymore.

Brands, including agency brands, that survive on the continent will be those who incorporate the leading edges of social awareness into their insights and creative work. There is a call to integrity and purpose across the board.

What are you currently reading/watching/listening to for work? What are you currently reading/watching/listening to for work?

I dont read or listen to things for work specifically  I believe I need to cultivate my own sense of inspiration and humanity. Im reading Ram Das Be Love Now, recently read the Steve Jobs autobiography and also The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. I am also fairly obsessed with film and music.

Tell us something about yourself not generally known. Tell us something about yourself not generally known.



My Instagram feed is made up almost exclusively of traditional American and Japanese tattoo artists.

More about Mandy Leontakianakis

Leontakianakis began her career in advertising in 2002 as a copywriter and moved onto strategy in 2008. Over the years, she has worked with agency brands such as Mortimer Harvey, Joe Public, Aqua Online, Idea Engineers and TBWA to mention a few. Outside of agencies, she has also worked with research giants Millward Brown and Consumer Psychology Lab.

She brings with her a wealth of experience across a number of some of South Africas biggest brands in FMCG, financial services and the automotive sector.

Leontakianakis is an alumnus of the University of Cape Town and has associations with Oxford University in the UK and Deerfield Academy in the USA.
Sundowners. A word synonymous with summer holidays, cold cocktails, sand between your toes and salt on your skin.

Luane Lavery, brand communication manager for kulula.com suggests the following venues and tipples this holiday season, including some old favourites and some new hotspots.

Cape Town

Shimmy Beach Club, near the V&A Waterfront has a pool, a restaurant, a faux beach and a superb view of Table Bay.

Try its Kinky Afro made up of cream liqueur, brandy, gourmet chocolate, caramel syrup, peanut butter and fresh cream. Its a milkshake for grown-ups. Like most joints offering sundowners, Shimmy Beach Club offers alcohol-free ones, like its Safe Sex on the Beach which includes cranberry juice, grapefruit juice, peach nectar and a maraschino cherry.

Summers are made better at @shimmybeach!  Our gorgeous #ShimmyStyleMag covergirl @miekevisser23 soaking up the sunshine on our pool deck . #shimmysummer #summercalling #capetownsummer #loveshimmy #summertime A post shared by Shimmy Beach Club (@shimmybeach) on Dec 7, 2017 at 12:37am PST

If you fancy something a little different to the usual sundowners with umbrellas, rum and fresh fruit and nudge-nudge-wink-wink names, try the Craft Beer and Canape Experience at the Leopard Bar at the 12 Apostles Hotel. The hosts have combined the popularity of craft beer with that of food-pairings which include five good, locally-produced brews that are matched with canapes, with a focus on local produce.

Ons Huisie in Blouberg sounds like a beach cottage owned by a farmer from Ficksburg, but its long been a favourite with locals and visitors for its wines and its views over Table Bay toward Robben Island. If you happen to be visiting with kids and pets, both are welcome, and there is a secure play area.

Durban

There are several places that will serve you a good drink at the Oyster Box Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks, including the Lighthouse Bar, named for the red-and-white landmark it overlooks. It has imposing views of the Indian Ocean and surrounding beaches. Lavery suggests trying the Umhlanga Schling  made with cane-sugar and cane-spirit.

Moyo at uShaka Marine World has an enviable position on South Beach, a good selection of cocktails, like the African Sunset (Spiced Gold rum and peach schnapps muddled with fresh strawberries, mixed berry puree and fresh limes, served tall, capped with crushed ice and finished with a fresh orange float) and a proudly South African wine list. In line with the Moyo franchise, the fare is African-inspired and includes platters to share.

Summer is here! #moyococktails Photo credit : @isabelvanschalkwyk A post shared by Hello Africa (@moyosa) on Dec 7, 2017 at 6:21am PST

A little further afield, Bel Punto in Umdloti Beach serves a variety of cocktails and has a good wine list. If you choose to stay for a meal, the emphasis is firmly on seafood and Mediterranean flavours.

Port Elizabeth

A landmark of the Pollock Beach area, the Something Good Roadhouse has had a reboot while retaining its surfer-hangout identity. Its the sort of place you can go to straight from the beach with your family, with Sailors Lemonade (Double Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum with homemade lemonade) for the grown-ups and lemon meringue milkshake for the youngsters. Its menu includes wraps, burgers, pizzas and waffles, and it overlooks the citys excellent Blue Flag beaches.

The abu Bar & Lounge at the Radisson Blu Hotel eschews the beachfront-bohemian vibe from something more sophisticated and mature, with live jazz and a good wine list that includes Champagne and Cap Classique.

Richmond Hill is a hothouse of urban renewal and fashionable dining in the city, and Soho on Stanley is at the centre of that, with skilled mixologists. Try the burnt mango caipirinha.

Aperol Spritz... Refreshing drink on a gorgeous winter arvie #sohoonstanley #stanleystreet #aperolspritz A post shared by Fushin Stanley Street (@fushinsushi) on Jun 14, 2017 at 5:57am PDT

The White Tiger Bar + Cafe on the Humewood Promenade is mostly a restaurant by day and a nightclub after dark, where the emphasis shifts from tapas to beautiful young things gyrating to house music and classic vinyls. Cocktails include the Cosmopolitan with vodka, cranberry juice and triple sec, and Long Island Iced Teas.

Lastly, says Lavery, remember that if you cant drink alcohol, or choose not to, most outlets do virgin or booze-free cocktails. Bear in mind too that drinking on the beach is illegal.
The challenge of the sharing economy and competition from short-term rental services via the internet is on the agenda of most hotel industry conferences these days.

Lulu dans ma rue pop-up concierge service. Photo: Lulu

Airbnb is a classic example of an online business which brings together homeowners and renters. Its clear the sharing economy is not going to disappear, so hoteliers should be looking at ways of participating in this new reality. The question is how?

Lets look at some of the opportunities out there. According to PwC research, revenue from peer-to-peer accommodation services is forecast to post compound annual growth of 31 per cent between 2013 and 2025 so the potential growth is attractive.

Looking at Paris

Paris is one of the leading cities for tech firms looking to match up the owners of private apartments and rooms with tourists or business travellers. In November, there were 55,723 listings on Airbnb, 85.7% of which were entire houses or apartments. According to insideairbnb.com, a site which tracks Airbnb data, the number of listings is 25.56% higher than last February, when there were 41,476 listings. Based on 616,403 guest reviews, the portal states that an occupancy of 92 nights per year per apartment translates into a 25.2% occupancy rate with an average price per night of 102 euros.

As for hotel rooms, Paris is estimated to have some 78,605, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee). In 2015, the hotel occupancy rate in Paris was running at 79.4% (Paris intra muros). This means that, running at this level of occupancy, hoteliers experienced full occupancy for at least 100 days during the year. Even in a difficult year like 2016, the hotel occupancy rate in Paris ranged from 62.9 to 77%, depending on the hotel category, (Inextenso).

Opportunities for hoteliers

The opportunities for hoteliers to expand in Paris though are limited due to the high cost of real estate in the city. Based on the above data, however, there are clearly opportunities for hoteliers looking to tap the potential of the sharing economy. So here are some areas where, in my opinion, hoteliers could see value.

Opportunity #1: Expand your hotel room stock at marginal cost

Hoteliers could offer home owners variable or fixed-term leases for renting out their apartments on the short-term rental market or take a commission each time they introduce guests to home owners looking to rent out their apartments.

Opportunity #2: Manage short-term rentals for local home owners

Until now, individuals trying to make money from renting out their apartments or rooms have not been able to do so in a professional manner. Thats because they often only advertise their properties on one or two websites. Most short-term rental sites do not offer home owners either revenue management technology, which would adjust prices according to market demand, nor sales staff who would market their apartments to local businesses. On the other hand, hoteliers do have this local knowledge, as well as the computer and staffing capacity needed for revenue and sales management to offer such services.

Opportunity #3: Offer home owners professional services

Short-term rental guests need services. At the very minimum, they require check-in and check-out services, and expect the rented property to be clean on their arrival.

Hoteliers run room cleaning services every day, as well as check-in and check-out services. So why not offer these services to short-term renters? By way of comparison, a third-party contractor would charge home owners between 80 and 180 euros per check in for this service.

In addition, theres the issue of maintenance. If repairs are required, guests expect to have the problem solved quickly and efficiently. Just as many home owners will want to avoid the hassle of checking guests in and out, very few of them are qualified technicians capable of fixing leaks or electrical problems. As a Parisian myself, I personally know how expensive and time-consuming it can be to call out a qualified plumber or electrician.

Hoteliers deal with such problems daily. Some hotels have in-house technicians; others are at least able to call out external contractors at short notice.

Opportunity #4: Enlarge your customer base

The cost of acquiring new customers is high. For hoteliers, theres an opportunity to attract new customers at no extra cost. For example, you could offer breakfast, spa and concierge services, in addition to hotel rooms for the next stay  whether it be a family enjoying a vacation or one of the parents returning to the city on business.

Opportunity #5: Bring services to your local community

Ive mentioned potential opportunities for hoteliers to provide services for home owners renting out their properties, but theres also an opportunity for hoteliers to provide concierge services to the local community. Demand is already growing for such services, with concierge shops now emerging in Paris arrondissements or districts. For example, concierge shops have sprung up in Le Marais, providing a range of services to local residents, as well as to those looking to rent out their apartments. I have met some of them myself: one was an electrician, which has expanded its business to include check-in and cleaning services. Another company, Lulu Dans Ma Rue, managed to convince city officials to allow them to set up a kiosk in front of the Metro so it could promote its new concierge service for everyone.

Hotels offer all these services and more, but by and large local residents are not aware of them. Perhaps the time is right for hoteliers to grab some of these opportunities.
Recently commissioned research by UberEats into the rapidly increasing trend of people taking and posting pictures of their food on social media proved that 90% of people aged 18-34 care deeply about taking high-quality food photos. However, only 50% of them feel confident enough to post their pics. This presented UberEats SA with the opportunity to educate people on what constitutes and how to take a good food photograph.

 Helena Lopes - Pexels

The technology gurus chose a select handful of media and bloggers and brought them to an evening filled with food and fine wine. Some experts were then introduced to show how best to portray what they were about to consume in its most flattering light and from its best angle  all for the purpose of optimal social media likes.

Together with UberEats in South Africa, Gabriella Esposito, a Cape Town-based chef, food photographer and stylist, and Claire Allen, a celebrity chef and well-known face on the Cape Town foodie scene, hosted the group of 30 media and bloggers on Thursday, 30 November 2017. The evenings aim was not only to enjoy each others company and titillate taste buds with great food and wine, but also to impart wisdom on getting the best foodie pic using lighting, angles, and even props. The duo showed guests that no fancy photographic equipment is needed just their smart phones built-in camera, and maybe some editing apps.

Claires food provided visually inspirational content for Gabi to use when communicating her tips and tricks for taking that perfect shot. She also gave her insider tips on the best meals ordered from UberEats.

1. The brighter, the better

Gabriellas number one tip was on lighting, with the brighter, the better being the golden rule when it comes to food. Too many meals can look unidentifiable when badly lit, so lots of lighting is needed to pick out the ingredients, colours and textures.

2. The best vantage point

Tip number two was to find the best vantage point  when in doubt, get high were her exact words. This is to ensure that the image doesnt look cut off, or like a simple snap. Ideally, the entire dish should be shown and the photographer should get some distance to capture steam or show the light playing flatteringly on the food. No flat or dark meals were snapped on this night!

3. Avoid being a flasher

Gabi strictly advised that tip three is to avoid being a flasher. She said: Where possible, rely on natural light as opposed to artificial and overly bright overhead lighting. If thats not possible, theres nothing wrong with taking a handheld light with you to ensure you never let your followers down with a badly lit composition.

4. Post-production

Finally, tip number four on post-production (and yes, there is such a thing when using your smartphone), Gabi revealed that there are a number of free apps available on Android or iOS for editing pictures which dont require a degree to use them. Sharpen the image, crop it if needs be and brighten the colours. Its not cheating if youre just enhancing an already perfect dish!

When you go out and use these tips to take your top foodie pics, be sure to include #FeastYourEyes or #ShareYourEATS. You might even encourage more people to shoot and share gorgeous foodie images, the more the better!
Motion Icon's escalator step branding offers unlimited creative visual opportunities for brands looking to a new advertising channel that delivers ROI and hyper proximity communication.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty ImagesFormer Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has scheduled a brief series of U.S. shows that will take place in various cities throughout the Northeast. The trek kicks off March 3 in Red Bank, New Jersey, and is mapped out through a March 10 concert in Kingston, New York.

Byrne suggests in a post on his Twitter feed that the shows will be quite the spectacle.

"We'll be doing some new songs, & many others that will, I assume, be familiar," David writes. "I'm excited. This is the most ambitious show I've done since the shows that were filmed for [the 1984 Talking Heads concert film] Stop Making Sense, so fingers crossed."

Byrne is also slated to perform at a handful of international festivals next year: Lollapalooza Chile in Santiago on March 16; Lollapalooza Argentina in Buenos Aires on March 18; the INmusic Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, on June 25; and the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark, on July 6.

Meanwhile, a Reddit forum called r/indieheads recently reported that it had come upon an Amazon listing -- which has since been removed -- accepting pre-orders for a new Byrne album titled American Utopia with a March 9, 2018, release date. David's most recent studio album was 2012's Love This Giant, a collaboration with St. Vincent.

Here are all of Byrne's confirmed U.S. tour dates:

3/3 -- Red Bank, NJ, Count Basie Theatre

3/4 -- Wilkes-Barre, PA, F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Art

3/6 -- Buffalo, NY, Center for the Arts

3/7 -- Hershey, PA, Hershey Theatre

3/9 -- Waterbury, CT, Palace Theater

3/10 -- Kingston, NY, Ulster Performing Arts Center

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The chief executive of Airbus is to step down in 2019 as the aircraft-maker shakes up management amid multiple corruption investigations.

Tom Enders, who will have been at the helm of Airbus and defence firm EADS for 14 years, will not seek another term when his current tenure expires, the company said.

He has been a key figure as Airbus jockeyed with US rival Boeing over the past decade to be the worlds top-selling plane maker.

The 59-year-old said Airbus needs "fresh minds for the 2020s".

He said he would use the remainder of his time to ensure a smooth transition and strengthen the companys ethics and compliance programmes.

Also leaving is the chief operating officer and president of the commercial aircraft division, Fabrice Bregier, who will step down next February.

He will be succeeded by Guillaume Faury, currently chief executive of Airbus Helicopters.

Mr Enders described Mr Faury as part of "the next generation of leaders", which could suggest he is being groomed to eventually take over as boss of the overall Airbus Group.

The announcement came weeks after Airbus announced it is replacing its combative, long-serving sales chief, John Leahy.

He is being replaced by an outside executive, from Rolls Royce.

The big challenge for incoming Airbus management will be legal investigations.

Authorities in Britain and France are investigating alleged fraud and bribery related to Airbus use of outside consultants in commercial plane sales.

Airbus has warned that the investigations could lead to "significant penalties" and promised to stop working with middlemen.

Meanwhile, Austria is investigating suspected fraud in the governments purchase of Airbus combat aircraft.

Its a bumpy time for Airbus, which recently saw a major deal with Gulf carrier Emirates for A380 superjumbos fall apart at the last minute at the Dubai Air Show.

The airline handed the contract to Boeing instead.

Shares were little changed today, as management changes were expected.

Airbus had revenue of 67 billion last year and employs 134,000 staff worldwide.

AP
DEMAND is soaring for skilled, experienced people in life science, pharma, medical devices, IT, data analytics, cloud computing, as well as accountancy and across financial services, writes Joe Dermody.

CareerWise Recruitment has seen a rise in demand in the 15-20% range across these sectors. To further add to the picture of a resurgent Irish economy, CareerWise itself has grown by around 10% annually for each of the past three years.

The company this year added Mayo to its list of existing offices in Cork, Shannon, Galway and Dublin. Primarily a regional agency, CareerWise is hugely optimistic about the year ahead.

I believe we will see similar levels of growth next year, said Ken Murphy, director, CareerWise. We are seeing a lot of optimism among our clients. We have a very strong client base with multinationals, where we have seen a significant level of investment and expansion, both among our Munster clients and those on those in Galway and Mayo.

People will be aware of the recent and ongoing expansions at Janssen, Mylan, Eli Lily, Alexion and West Pharma. MSD are developing new vaccines. The med devices sector is booming, with companies like Stryker, Depuy and Boston Scientific in constant recruitment mode.

Norwegian dairy firm Tine and Dairygold are working together to produce Jarlsberg cheese at a new plant on a greenfield site at Mogeely in East Cork. IT skills such as Java developers are hugely sought after. Pramerica is enjoying huge growth in Donegal, while Dairymaster in Causeway, Co Kerry, has grown into a global leader in its advanced agri-tech field.

Meanwhile, on the west coast, growth and expansion are near constant for Baxter, Vention Medical and KCI Manufacturing. As a result, while servicing this demand, CareerWise is also thriving.

Our own head count is up 20%, which is linked to dealing with 21% more active jobs relative to this time last year, said Ken Murphy. Ireland has been at full employment in certain technical roles and engineering services for the past three years, which is giving people the confidence to move jobs.

We also need more people to come back to Ireland. Were seeing big shortages of experienced civil, structural and mechanical engineers. People with experience in areas like validation, automation and commissioning are like gold dust. The same for people in electronics, power test engineers. In fact, theres demand across the board for engineers.

Kens own background is in electrical engineering. He worked in the US before returning to Ireland in 1989 to work with companies such as Apple Computer, Cabletron, FMC Automotive, Moog, General Semiconductor and Technicolor. He is a specialist in quality management, purchasing, logistics and supply chain management.

He and his CareerWise colleagues are casting a global net to find the right people to fill key vacancies. While praising Irish authorities for the efficiencies of Irelands work visa system, hed like to see greater urgency in improving the personal tax environment for critical skills, those roles which are crucial to bringing in and sustaining large volumes of high quality roles, along similar lines to tax schemes in Belgium and The Netherlands.

We need to make Ireland more attractive to these critical hires in key research and development and executive roles, he said. We need to be more creative in how we look at personal taxes for these key roles. The Dutch five-year tax model for critical senior managers is working well for these key people.

These highly skilled people wont move here unless we make it more attractive for them. After five years, theyll then either choose to stay or at least pass on their skills before they move on. Were talking with some clients who want to hire these highly skilled people, and others who want to move some highly skilled roles to here from Silicon Valley.

When you attract these people, they tend to bring entire departments with them, not just themselves. The reality is that these people have to be coaxed to come here. The first thing they do is look at our personal tax environment, but they say that coming here just doesnt make sense to them. Very often they decide to go somewhere else where they pay less tax. We need to be more creative and think outside the box for these critical hires.

Mr Murphy would also like to see some movement on long overdue road networks like the M20 (Cork-Limerick), M28 (Ringaskiddy) and planned further development of the Dunkettle interchange.

Some big international companies are watching these infrastructural developments, which have a significant impact on the decisions they make in terms of expanding and relocating their activities.

If you build it they will come, said Ken Murphy. The commitment of national and local authorities to building the necessary infrastructure is very important to business decisions. Thats partly what brought me back from the USA to work with Apple at the end of the 1980s.

In terms of challenges for the Irish economy, Ken Murphy cites Brexit impacts and likely changes to the US corporation tax environment. However, in terms of recruitment, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

I dont see the developments coming from Brexit and the US taxes causing huge waves for employment in Ireland, he said. In fact, I dont see any huge negative clouds on the immediate horizon. The real challenge were facing right now is finding people with the right skills.

There is big demand for people in accountancy, for people with data analytics and cloud computing skills. Theres huge demand across all categories of engineering, in life sciences, bio sciences and medical devices. These are the areas in which we specialise, so theyre the areas Im most familiar with.

Were seeing a 15-19% increase in the rates being paid to contractors, which is making it more attractive in terms of bringing highly skilled people into the country. We are seeing that companies are more willing to go the extra mile for the right people.

Salaries for key technical roles are already higher here than in most of the UK, bar London. Employers here are thinking more creatively in terms of recruitment. Most are willing to pay toward the relocation costs for key roles. We are being more creative in our global searches; our clients are also more creative in how they are thinking about recruitment.

www.careerwise.ie
To create a pipeline of new talent, recruit the right candidates and develop future team leads, Fastnet  The Talent Group has launched a unique Grow Your Own Talent Programme to produce graduates.

As an innovative end-to-end talent and recruitment consultancy, the Fastnet Graduate Programme sees graduates embarking upon a two-year training courses, developed to grow talent for the companys team over the short and long term.

The programme incorporates a six-month on-boarding plan, covering all aspects of the Fastnet business, including: creative use of social media, facilitation of client recruitment processes, HR consultancy training, client and candidate partnering, relationship management and ultimately sourcing talent and executive search.

All of the candidates spend Year 1 in the Talent Acquisition division focused on Quality & Laboratory and Year 2 on Engineering.

Given the growth in demand for talent that we are seeing, we are leading by example and implementing our own talent acquisition strategy through our grow your own talent programme, said Dave Barry, director of Fastnets innovative new Talent and Transformation division.

Ensuring that employees are hired, managed, developed, engaged and retained in the best possible ways will have positive knock-on impacts for every aspect of the business including performance, productivity and ultimately, profitability. We have established the Talent & Transformation division to partner with companies so that they can perform better and are more successful in the future.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, current chair of CIPD Ireland, Southern Region and a graduate of University College Cork in HR, Economics & French.

Having previously helped companies like Eli Lilly and Trend Micro to attract and retain key resources, he now leads the division designed to exclusively service the role of talent management within multinational and indigenous companies. The division was created not just as a response to counter the growing challenge faced by companies to attract, but also to retain, the services of valued employees.

The main inspiration for this is the clients that Fastnet has been partnering with over a considerable period of time, but what is particularly innovative about it is mirroring the approach in SMEs and the recruitment talent space  something I havent heard of being done here before.

With offices in Dublin and Cork, Fastnet  The Talent Group is already a leading recruitment provider, and whose new division is reflective of its strategic focus and consultative approach.

Over recent years, the company has grown exponentially, and we are certainly back in the war for talent, so to speak, and often in sectors where the available pool of such talent is quite small, he said.

Bringing in and growing our own talent to meet the needs of clients just made sense time-wise to formalise it through our Graduate Programme, he added.

Over the last number of weeks, Fastnet has welcomed two graduates to the Grow your Own programme, with Ryan Malone joining the Fastnet team from DIT, where he graduated with a BSc in Chemical Sciences with Medicinal Chemistry. He is now specialising in recruiting Quality and Laboratory professionals for clients in the Pharma, Biopharma, Medical Device and the Food Agri sectors.

Sanathan Govender, a graduate of UCC and WIT with a Masters in Work and Organisational Psychology. joined the Engineering Talent acquisition team this month.

Over the course of a number of talent workshops that Ryan attended, he has already found suitable candidates for Fastnet clients  a represented a tangible outcome of the programme already being seen. Sanathan has only joined very recently, but will hopefully contribute in a similar fashion. There are plans for similar additions like them in 2018.

Fastnet has experienced significant growth over the last number of years and continues to expand its teams across the Cork and Dublin footprint.

One of the biggest challenges facing the industry is the skills shortage, and retention of employees has become key to growth. The challenge for employers is to optimise talent management outcomes in how they attract, manage, develop and engage their people. The companys re-branding in 2016 from Fastnet Recruitment to Fastnet  The Talent Group came about from trends during the downturn, where, even though there wasnt that much recruiting going on, clients were keen to tap into more end to end talent management more than just acquisition. Now, with the economy clearly back, it is not just about attracting, but about retaining.

This is where initiatives like the Talent & Transformation division and the Grow Your Own Graduate Talent Programme emerged from  designed for a longer term perspective other than just recruitment, but accompanying our clients on the whole journey.
Update 5.14pm: Ryanair has told pilot unions it cannot meet their representatives before planned strikes in Ireland and Portugal on Wednesday, according to RTE.

It is reported that representatives for pilots accused the airline of "playing chicken" and the strikes will not be called off unless there is a meeting.

Ryanair said the union promised to call off the strike if Ryanair conceded recognition. The airline released the following statement:

The Impact union promised to call off the strike if Ryanair conceded recognition. Theyve gotten our offer of recognition in writing and were happy to meet them next week, which itself is the first act in recognising IALPA.

The UK and Italian unions have already agreed to meetings with Ryanair and have called off the threatened strike in Italy.

The sensible course of action is for IALPA to meet with Ryanair next Wednesday, but call off the unnecessary threats of disruption to the Christmas flights of thousands of customers.

Update 3.20pm: Ryanair has announced it will recognise pilot unions in six European countries - including Ireland - as it tries to avoid disruption over Christmas.

The airline is now calling for threatened industrial action on Wednesday to be called off.

The Irish Airline Pilots Association said it has received a letter from Ryanair and is now looking for a meeting between management and the union.

Ryanair's chief people officer Eddie Wilson said it's long-standing policy of not recognising workers' groups is changing now.

"We have had a number of threatened strikes across a number of countries in Europe and to protect our passenger's travel plans over the Christmas period we've decided to make that decision now. We're decisive in it," he said.



Update 2pm: The IMPACT trade union, which represents pilots, has said it has contacted Ryanair this afternoon.

The union said it was looking for a meeting between management and the union to clarify issues and make progress.

IMPACT said it was available to meet with Ryanair today or over the weekend for talks but it should emerge later today if pilots will call off their Christmas strike over negotiation rights.

Update 11.54am: Recognition of pilot unions 'an evolution of business model' - Ryanair CEO

Planned Christmas strikes by Ryanair pilots could be called off after the airline said it would officially recognise unions.

The Irish Airline Pilots Association says it's considering correspondence from Ryanair after its dramatic U-turn this morning.

Pilots at Cork, Shannon and Dublin Airports were planning to walk off the job next Wednesday in a row over negotiating rights.

Speaking to the BBC, Ryanair CEO Peter Bellew says the move is an "evolution of the business model"

"We see the value right across our network of aviation professionals. They have requested this form of collectve bargaining and we have agreed to it because we feel the time is right.

"It is an evolution of the business model effectively."

Update - 8.17am: Ryanair set to recognise pilot unions for first time in order to avoid Christmas strikes

Ryanair has agreed to recognise pilot unions to avoid widespread customer disruptions over Christmas period.

The airline has called for the planned strike action to halt and it has written to the pilot unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal to invite them to talks to recognise the unions.

Ryanair said they will recognise them "as long as they establish Committees of Ryanair pilots to deal with Ryanair issues, as Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines in Ireland or elsewhere".

Ryanairs Michael OLeary said: "Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week.

"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so, and we have written today to these unions inviting them to talks to recognise them and calling on them to cancel the threatened industrial action planned for Christmas week.

"Recognising unions will be a significant change for Ryanair, but we have delivered radical change before, most recently when we launched Ryanair Labs and our highly successful Always Getting Better customer improvement programme in 2013.

"Putting the needs of our customers first, and avoiding disruption to their Christmas flights, is the reason why we will now deal with our pilots through recognised national union structures and we hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the New Year."

6.28am: Ryanair may draft in European crews to cover strike by Irish pilots

It has been reported Ryanair may hire planes and draft in European crews to staff flights impacted by next week's strike.

Pilots based in Cork, Dublin and Shannon plan to walk off the job next Wednesday in the row over collective bargaining rights.

The airline will be giving passengers just two days notice, when it publishes a list of affected flights on Monday.

The Irish Times reports Ryanair's back-up plans to cover routes may include using captains-in-training.
By Ann O'Loughlin

A dispute between two companies linked to two well-known developers over the ownership of sections of Dublin's south docks waterfront district has opened before the Commercial Court.

The proceedings relate to a row between Balark Investments part of the Marlet Group led by Mr Pat Crean, which is behind a planned 100m commercial and residential development on the site against Chambury Investment Company which is connected to Mr Johnny Ronan.

Balark claims its project is being delayed by the contention by Chambury its interest in part of the land at Lime Street and Sir John Rogerson's Quay, overlooking the River Liffey and the Samuel Beckett Bridge, is worth 20m.

However, Balark says, the Circuit Court has already ruled that Chambury's interest in the disputed land is just 60,000 and that is all Balark has to pay to acquire the sections of land at the centre of the dispute.

Chambury appealed the Circuit Court's decision.

Both the appeal and separate proceedings brought by Balark, where it seeks a declaration from the court that it is entitled to demolish the buildings on the disputed lands commenced before Mr Justice Robert Haughton at the Commercial Court today.

In its proceedings Balark wants the Court to determine its entitlement to acquire that fee simple interest in the affected lands.

Chambury opposes the claim and argue that Balark is not entitled to acquire the fee simple.

When the matter was admitted to the Commercial Court list earlier this year Balark said in a sworn statement that Chambury has sought to frustrate the development by using its freehold interest in certain lots of the site as a form of ransom strip in an attempt to force Balark to pay what Balark says is a completely inflated sum for that interest.

It is also claimed that Mr Ronan had bought the freehold interest in the affected lots in June 2015. However, in September 2015, Mr Ronan's lawyers said he was no longer the owner.

Title records show Mr Ronan transferred the freehold interest to Chambury in October 2015.

Subsequently, Chambury brought proceedings alleging breaches of covenant under the leases for these lots by Balark and served forfeiture notices on Balark.

In June 2016 the High Court rejected Chambury's case.

Balark then sought about acquiring the fee simple interest which resulted in a Circuit Court ruling in July 2017 setting the value of Chambury's interest at 60,000.

The hearing continues on Tuesday, but is not expected to conclude before Christmas.
By Ann O'Loughlin

A local authority has brought a High Court action against a Travelller family which it says is trespassing on a site earmarked for new social housing units.

Clare County Council seeks an injunction against Bernard and Helen McDonagh compelling them to vacate a site at Ashline, Kilrush Road, in Ennis where they have been living since November 24 last.

The Court heard the site had formally been used as Traveller accommodation, but had been vacant in recent years following a suspected arson attack.

The site had contain several houses, some of which had been badly damaged by fire.

The Council is taking the action because there are plans to build 40 social housing units on the site. It says the site is a health and safety hazard for the McDonagh family.

At the High Court today, Ms Justice Caroline Costello granted the Council permission to serve short notice of the proceedings on the McDonagh family.

The case will come back before the court next week.

Seeking the order Patrica Hill Bl for the Council said the site had not been used following the fires. It had been sealed off and concrete bollards were erected around it.

At around 3am on the morning of November 24 last, heavy machinery and a forklift were used to remove the barriers, which allowed access to the site.

There are now two caravans and horses on the site, counsel said.

The council has "serious health and safety concerns" about the site, counsel said.

There are plans to build 40 social housing units on the site, and construction work is due to start next Spring, counsel added.

Counsel said the local authority engaged in talks with the McDonaghs in an effort to resolve the problem.

It made offers of alternative accommodation to the couple and their children, including an offer a private rented four bedroom house in Ennis.

Counsel said the offers had been refused, and the local authority had no option other than to bring court proceedings.
By David Raleigh

Update 8.03pm: Relatives of a pensioner found dead in her Limerick home Friday, were said to be distressed and shocked after gardai confirmed they were treating her death as suspicious.

Gardai sealed off Rose Hanrahan's home at New Road, Thomondgate, and officers removed the 78-year old's car from outside her home to a garda lock-up where it will be forensically examined.

The popular widow was described by shocked neighbours as a pure angel.

Friends said she had lived alone for the past five years following the death of her husband Mike, a former member of Limerick Civic Trust, which is responsible for conserving and preserving historic local landmarks.

Ms Hanrahan's body was discovered by a relative in the front hall of her home, at New Road, Thomondgate, around 1.30pm.

Garda sources fear she may have died violently, however they would not officially comment on speculation that signs of a break-in were discovered at the townhouse bungalow.

Officers attached to the Garda Technical Bureau were travelling from Dublin to Limerick to begin a detailed forensic examination of the interior and exterior of the deceaseds home.

A post mortem to be carried out Saturday, by the Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis, will determine the course of the garda investigation into the widows death, gardai said.

Dr Curtis was expected to carry out a preliminary examination of Ms Hanrahans body at the scene, prior to conducting a full post mortem to take place at University Hospital Limerick.

Shocked by the grim news, local Fianna Fail TD Willie ODea, a friend of Ms Hanrahan, said: She was a living saint.

Rose and Mick were very personal friends of mine. Rose was an absolute lady. I walked down to the house tonight and everybody I met there was stunned.

Herself and Mick had family. She was very gentle and very welcoming. She would make me tea when I called in. Mick was a tremendous fisherman, he added.

John Costelloe, a local Sinn Fein councillor and operating a nearby antiques shop, also paid tribute.

I'm in shock. I knew Rose for around 30 years. She was a real lady; she would help out anybody. Everyone is numb, he said.

She was always so polite; she drove a small car. She had no children and she lived alone. She has one sister I believe.

She was a very private lady but she was very approachable too. She had the cosiest house in the neighbourhood and everything inside it was pristine.

Mr Costelloe added: I sold her a teapot about 15 years ago, and she still has it. She used to always say to me how much she loved it. She was a real homely person.

All the neighbours are in tears. It's so unfair. My thoughts and prayers are with her family, he said.

Sinn Fein TD, Maurice Quinlivan, who also lives locally, said he had spoken to some of the deceased womans relatives: They are in great distress and shock.

Superintendent Derek Smart, who is leading the investigation, appealed for anyone with information which may help gardai in their enquiries, to contact them in confidence.

The senior officer confirmed gardai were treating the incident as a suspicious death.

He appealed to "anyone (who) knows anything or heard anything between (Thursday) night and (Friday) afternoon to contact investigating gardai.

A post mortem will be carried out by the State Pathologist and the results of this will determine the course of the Garda investigation, Supt Smart added.

Gardai we're also actively seeking any cctv footage from nearby homes and businesses, as part of their investigation.

Earlier: Gardai have appealed for information after the body of an elderly woman was discovered in suspicious circumstances in Limerick city today.

The body of the woman, who is aged in her late 70s, was discovered by a relative, in her home, at New Road Thomondgate, around 1.30pm.

Gardai have sealed off the house, and said they were not releasing the deceaseds name, as they were still trying to contact all of the womans family members.

Superintendent Derek Smart, Henry Street Garda Station, confirmed that gardai were investigating the suspicious death of a woman in Thomondgate.

Appealing for information, Supt Smart said: If anyone knows anything or heard anything in the area between last night and this afternoon they should contact gardai.

Superintendent Smart confirmed the services of the State Pathologist have been requested.

A post mortem will be carried out by the State Pathologist and the results of this will determine the course of the Garda investigation, he said.

Superintendent Smart said officers attached to the Garda Technical Bureau, based on Dublin, were also traveling to the scene to carry out a forensic examination of the deceaseds home.

Gardai are conducting house-to-house inquires in the area, and harvesting cctv footage from neighbouring homes and businesses, as part of their investigations.
By Ann O'Loughlin

University Hospital Galway has apologised in the High Court to the family of a six-year-old girl who died three days after she was brought to the hospital suffering from low blood sugar.

Little Aibha Conroy who had peviously been in the Galway hospital and diagnosed with hypoglycaemia, but was not referred on for specialist care, was again admitted on December 11, 2011 with low blood sugar.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross was told Aibha from Gowla, Connemara, Galway had a cardiac arrest in A&E, was ventilated, intubated and transferred to Temple Street Childrens' Hospital, but her life support was disconnected after three days and she passed away on December 14, 2011.

The apology was read out in the High Court today as part of the settlement of an action by Aibha's parents and younger sister against the HSE over her death.

The hospital said it deeply regretted and apologised to Kathleen and John Conroy and their family "for the failure to refer Aibha to Crumlin Childrens hospital for investigations" following her admission in August 2011.

Kathleen, Sorcha and John, parents and sister of the late, Aibha Conroy outside the Four Courts today. Pic: Collins

"University Hospital Galway together with its clinical and nursing staff wish to extend their sincere and heartfelt sympathy to the Conroy family on the death of their daughter Aibha," the apology by the hospital general manager Chris Kane said.

It added: "The hospital acknowledges and greatly regrets the huge trauma and suffering of the Conroy family resulting from the death of Aibha."

The details of the settlement are confidential.

Solicitor Damien Tansey speaking on behalf of the the Conroy family said they were delighted the legal battle was over but are absolutely distraught at the loss of Aibha.

He said it was a term of the settlement the HSE would appoint a consultant endocrinologist to University Hospital, Galway in order to ensure what happened to Aibha would not happen again

The Conroy's entire mission, he said was to ensure the same thing did not happen to another family.

"Losing a daughter at six and a half years was an enormous tragedy and the Conroys were concerned primarily the necessary expertise would be hired in to University Hosptial, Gawlay so when another kid like Aibha presented with hypoglycaemia the necessary expertise was there," he added.

Earlier, Declan Buckley SC for the HSE also told the court a consultant paediatric endocrinologist has now been appointed to the the Galway Hosptial and will take up a position there in June 2018.

Aibha's parents Kathleen and John Conroy and her youngers sister Sorcha Conroy of Gowla , Cashel, Connemara, Co Galway, had sued the HSE over the death of Aibha on December 14, 2011.

The Conroy's counsel Des O'Neill SC, instructed by Damien Tansey Solicitors, said Aibha had presented at the Galway hospital on three occasions in 2011 and in August a diagnosis of hypoglycaemaia had been made, but he said she was not referred on for expert analysis and there was no endocrinologist in Galway at the time.

On December 11, 2011, Aibha was brought to the hospital with low blood sugar and was given dextrose treatment. She had a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated and transferred to Dublin where she died three days later.

It was claimed had Aibha been properly investigated in her previous visits to the hosptial, her underlying condition would have been identified and appropriate treatment instituted by September 2011.

It was further claimed there was a failure to carry out thorough investigations in August 2011 and Aibha was allegedly managed in a sub-standard fashion and there was a failure to refer her to a paediatric endocrinologist in August 2011.

In court today Mr Justice Kevin Cross was told the family wanted the entire statutory amount of 25,300 to be paid to Aibha's sister, Sorcha.

Approving the settlement Mr Justice Cross said the family had been "very sensible and noble" in relation to the case and he offered his sympathies on the death of Aibha.

He noted the apology and the corrective action taken by the hospital in appointing an endocrinologist and he hoped the family would take some comfort from that.
A jury tasked with deciding whether a 19-year-old who stabbed his best friend to death is guilty of murder or manslaughter will return to the Central Criminal Court on Monday.

Nineteen-year-old Graham McEvoy of Captain's Road in Crumlin has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Paul "Paulie" Curran (23) at Seagull House on Crumlin Road in Dublin on July 16, 2016.

His plea was not accepted by the State and he is on trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The murder trial has heard that 23-year-old Paul Curran was stabbed up to six times on the stairwell of the Seagull House Flat Complex in Crumlin in July 2016.

Mr Curran stumbled into a flat and was taken to St James Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

The court heard the cause of death was a stab wound to the left chest while the other stab wounds were contributory factors.

During interviews with gardai Mr McEvoy said he met Mr Curran to sell him half an ounce of cocaine but when he asked for the money Mr Curran pulled a knife and tried to slash him. His barrister Barry White SC said the teenager was acting in self-defence and should be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder.

McEvoy admits manslaughter but denies murder.

Following a five day trial, the jury began considering its verdict yesterday.

This afternoon, the jurors asked for the State Pathologists evidence to be read to them again.

They also asked for the definition of murder and manslaughter to be explained.

The Judge told the jurors they could deliver a majority verdict but they still had not reached a decision after around six hours of deliberations.

They have now retired for the weekend and will resume their deliberations on Monday.
Just 19 TDs attended a debate on child homelessness in the Dail this morning.

Only 13 were present at the beginning of the debate.

Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy was one of the three FG members to attend, while Fianna Fail had six and Sinn Fein three.

Labours Jan OSullivan was her partys sole representative.

Two People Before Profit TDs, Richard Boyd Barrett and Gino Kenny, along with Solidarity TD Mick Barry, Green Party TD Catherine Martin and Independents4Change TD Joan Collins were also in the chamber.

During the debate Sinn Fein TD Imelda Munster became emotional as she accused the minister of inflicting misery.

Relating the story of a young homeless man she and her daughter had passed on OConnell Street last week Ms Munster became emotional as he recalled what her daughter told her after she returned form giving him some change.

"When my daughter came back, she said: Mam, he was crying. He was crying because he was so cold, so miserable, so alone and he felt that nobody gave a damn about him, Minister. So I want you over Christmas to think about those children and every single person waiting to be housed in this State."

Speaking during the debate Housing Minister, Eoghan Murphy, insisted every rough sleeper would have a bed this Christmas but said beds should be available over the year not just at Christmas.

We know that new homes are the answer and that new homes are being built but we will not be able to solve the crisis until they are built. That will take more time.

Until those houses are built, we will treat every family and child with the utmost of care until we can get them into new homes - forever homes, as people call them. That is our ambition and what the Government is working to achieve.

Reacting to the fact that only 19 TDs attended the debate the chief executive of Inner City Helping Homeless (ICHH), Anthony Flynn, said the figure was both frustrating and extremely alarming.

"The fact that 19 members of the Dail arrived to discuss the most serious issue in Irish society today, child homelessness, is an indictment on the government.

"299 children have become homeless since the current minister took over from his predecessor Simon Coveney in June. This is unacceptable and shows a clear lack of political will to solve the crisis. Child homelessness has grown by 20% under the current government and has increased 287% in the last three years. We need to address this crisis head on."
A man and woman have appeared in court charged with possessing a wedge hammer during the course of an aggravated burglary in Dublin.

A man in his 60s was forced to withdraw money from his bank account following a raid at his home in Terenure in the early hours of Wednesday.

Carlos Lawrence, 26, from Rosary Road, Marylands, Dublin 8 and Catherine Dempsey, 25, from Michael Mallin House, Vicar Street, Dublin 8 were arrested later that day.

They appeared before Judge Brian OShea at Dublin District Court this morning charged with burglary at Wainsfort Manor Grove, Terenure, Dublin 6 while in possession of wedge hammer on December 13.

Detective Sergeant Jason Miley told the court that Carlos Lawrence was charged at 1.28am after which he made no reply to the charge after caution. He told the court he was objecting to bail.

Defence solicitor Clare Barry told the court her client was not applying for bail at this stage.

Det. Sergeant Miley said a file is being prepared and "further charges are being sought", the Garda said.

Mr Lawrence did not address the court during his hearing and was remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court next Friday. Legal aid was granted.

Co-defendant Catherine Dempsey also made no reply when she was charged at 1.44am today, Det. Garda John Walsh told the court. He also said he would be objecting to bail in her case.

Her solicitor Richard Young confirmed she was seeking bail and Judge OShea ordered that the case would resume at 2pm. Legal aid was granted to her after the judge was told she was a lone parent on social welfare.

Neither defendant has indicated how they will plead.
By David Raleigh

A man had miraculous escape after he was discovered this morning half-submerged in "swampy water", and pinned between a van and a tree.

The man was freed by heroic firefighters from Limerick and Clare who raced to the scene near Broadford, after receiving a 999 alert shortly after 9am.

The injured man, said to be aged in his 20s, was rushed by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick with serious leg injuries.

According to witnesses the man had been attempting to warn others about icy road conditions when the man and a van collided with one another.

The man was sent through a ditch in the impact, and ended up pinned between the van and a tree in dike water.

Its a miracle he wasnt killed outright, said a reliable source at the scene.

Another source said: He is lucky to be alive. His legs were pinned to the tree in deep enough water in a ditch. He was lying on his back in the water but his head was above the water, they added.

The driver of the van was treated by shock but was not injured.

Sources said a local authority gritter machine was salting the road, but had yet to reach particular stretch of road where the pedestrian and van collided.

It got stuck in the traffic at the scene. Its must have been only about 100 yards away, said a reliable source.

A spokesman for Clare County Council confirmed the road was being gritted at the time of the collision.

They said the gritter had been nearing the end of its route.

We were gritting at the time. We have a system called Ice Tracker which notifies the (gritter) drivers if the road temperature hits two degrees and they are dispatched to those routes, the spokesperson explained.

Five units from Limerick City and County Fire Service, and Killaloe Fire Station attended the scene.

Firefighters used airbags and winching equipment to pull the van away from the injured pedestrian, who was rushed by ambulance to hospital.

His condition is not believed to be life threatening, however he is understood to have sustained serious leg injuries, sources said.

The driver of the van, who was described as being fairly shook up, had assisted the injured man at the scene until emergency services arrived, sources said.

Two ambulances and an advanced paramedic vehicle also attended the scene.

Gardai have closed the road until further notice.
The North's police chief has delivered a stark message to the British Government on stalled proposals to deal with the legacy of the Troubles - "stop prevaricating and get on with it".

George Hamilton said he was growing increasingly frustrated that three years on from a political deal on a series of mechanisms to address unresolved conflict cases, the plan is not "one further inch forward".

He said if local parties were unable to overcome the impasse blocking implementation of the Stormont House Agreement, then London needed to step up and deliver.

Mr Hamilton said the delays were exacerbating the hurt of victims and leaving police to "soak up" issues that should be dealt with through the new mechanisms.

The PSNI's top officer said this was taking a heavy toll on his service, both in terms of costs and public confidence.

The chief constable said he felt in an "impossible" situation.

"Three years has come and gone and they are actually not one further inch forward, they are still waiting to finalise the deal and to do consultations and all the rest of it - I've been getting told that for three years now," he told PA.

"The whole thing is borne out of a sense of 'can you just get on with this please'.

"And actually if Sinn Fein and the DUP and the political parties here can't get to a consensus to drive it forward in a devolved space, then London need to just get on with it."

He added: "It's almost as if in the absence of politicians doing anything about this, letting it trundle along, the police are having to soak all this up both financially and in terms of public confidence.

"And I suppose I am really saying to them, 'how high a price are you willing to pay?'.

"Because it is policing that is actually paying that cost at the moment in terms of public confidence and also the financial aspect of it."

The Stormont House proposals, including a new independent investigatory unit, a truth recovery body and an oral archive, are on ice due to a small number of outstanding disputes.

Amid the political impasse on setting up the new structures, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire has proposed conducting a consultation exercise to establish the wider public's view - but that has yet to materialise.

Mr Hamilton said he had the utmost sympathy for all relatives bereaved in the Troubles.

"For three years now it's been 'wait and see, we're trying, we're nudging, we're close to agreement' - well, actually, all the time of this prevarication the people who are being most disadvantaged is, first of all, the families, who aren't getting the answers," he said.

"Their frustrations and their grief and their hurt is being exacerbated and the cost of all of that negative feeling is being borne by the police, both in financial terms, but more importantly in terms of confidence of those elements of the community who have that frustration, that grief and that anger."

Mr Hamilton's robust remarks came after he wrote an open letter to elected representatives stressing the need for progress.

The police chief was prompted to write the letter after facing intense criticism from families bereaved by the Ulster Volunteer Force's notorious Glenanne gang.

They had urged him not to appeal against a High Court decision that had compelled the PSNI to complete a thematic investigation into the murderous activities of a gang that counted rogue members of the security forces among its members.

Confirming his intent to appeal, Mr Hamilton said the Glenanne case highlighted his difficulties - noting that he was being told he was legally obliged to conduct a probe yet was also being warned his service was not independent enough to do so.
By Ann O'Loughlin

Ryanair Pilot Group (RPG) interim council member, Ted Murphy, has denied in the High Court an email circulated by the group inferred the airline's managers were selling their shares in advance of a profit warning.

Captain Murphy, who is a former president of the Irish Airline Pilots Association, also denied the email sent to 2,289 pilots was defamatory and said it was not the RPG's intention to harm anyone.

He was on his second day of cross-examination in Ryanair's ongoing case against him and two other RPG council members, Evert Van Zwol and John Goss.

They deny defamation over the September 2013 email "pilot update: what the markets are saying about Ryanair".

Ryanair said it falsely inferred the company misled the market and knowingly facilitated insider dealing, among other things.

Put to him by Thomas Hogan SC for Ryanair that nobody else had been suggesting before the update that there was a sell-off of shares by managers during the summer ahead of a profit warning, Captain Murphy said that was not what the update was saying and not how he interpreted it.

He did not accept the update was false and misleading. He said the RPG members "never intended to do what you are accusing us of".

He accepted, as had his co-defendants, there was one error about a date in the update in relation to the share sale: late rather than mid-June, 2013.

It did not register with him or his co-defendants that this was incorrect until this case started. Had it been pointed out from the beginning by Ryanair, they would have made a correction in relation to the date, he said.

Counsel said it beggared belief that the date was not discussed before the case started. Captain Murphy said: "I am sorry it beggars belief but we did not".

He disagreed the email list of 2,289 pilots was a "hotchpotch list of contact emails and nothing more".

It was a list of Ryanair pilots and they checked it with the best accuracy they could, he said.

Evert Van Zwol and John Goss were recalled on Friday to be further cross-examined in relation to an email found during the course of the trial by RPG consultant Martin Duffy in which a reference was made to directors selling off shares in advance of bad market news.

Captain Van Zwol disagreed with Martin Hayden SC, for Ryanair, that this email showed the concept of managers selling off shares in advance of bad news had been discussed by the RPG group during pre-update communications.

He said if anyone had done so it would have raised his own internal warning because he had been careful to say in communications that there should be no link between share sales and bad market news.

Captain Goss rejected Mr Hayden's suggestion he did not care about having the right date in the update and all the RPG wanted to do was to say was management were selling shares ahead of bad news.

"That is completely untrue and I reject it completely".

Evidence in the case has ended.

Speeches and Mr Justice Bernard Barton's charge to the jury will take place next week.
Update 3.32pm: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has warned that Britain will face "losses" when it exits the European Union as an historic deal was agreed for Brexit, writes Political Correspondant Juno McEnroe in Brussels.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels today agreed guidelines for phase II of Britain's exit, including a special clause which prevents Britain backsliding on a deal for a frictionless border in the North.

Britain will have two years to exit the European Union, but this period could be extended.

Under the guidelines, it will have to comply with all EU laws during that period and talks on a new trade deal with the bloc will only begin in earnest in March, it was confirmed.

Mr Varadkar, speaking to reporters after the summit, made it clear that Britain will suffer "losses" as he put it. Britain could also not expect to have the benefits of a status quo relationship in trading down the line but still leave the EU, he added.

But earlier he also admitted there are diverse views among member states on the future relationship and trading arrangements that the union could have with Britain.

While Ireland wants this to remain the same as much as possible, Mr Varadkar admitted it was difficult to see how that "circle could be squared", if Britain wanted the North to keep its existing EU relationship on trade and borders but it also wanted to leave the union.

Mr Varadkar also confirmed that special protections for the North, including a promise of no hard border, would be "stitched into" the final withdrawal deal for Britain.

Each parliament, including the Dail, will vote on the final deal. This could be a "challenge", said Mr Varadkar, as there were diverse views on Brexit among member states.

Under the guidelines agreed in Brussels today, Britain cannot renege on its promise to allow the North retain its existing open border and alignments with the South as well as with mainland Britain.

The deal says:

"It [the EU] underlines that negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible."

Update 3.05pm: The Taoiseach has said there is great unity between the 27 EU member states on Brexit.

Leo Varadkar thanked his fellow heads of state for their support at the Council Summit in Brussels at which they decided to move into phase two of talks.

It comes after they decided that sufficient progress had been made in the first phase, including on the Irish border.

Mr Varadkar said that unity will continue during the second phase.

"Notwithstanding the fact that the United Kingdom is a major economic power, a major military power - because we're a member state we got enormous support and solidarity from all of the other European countries and European institutions," he said.

"Many of the people around the table made the point that the reason why the European Union got a good outcome in the talks so far is because of European unity - and we now need to maintain that European unity.

Earlier: Taoiseach: A lot of thinking needs to be done about EU and UK's post-Brexit relationship

Leo Varadkar has warned that a lot of thinking remains over the shape of a post-Brexit relationship between the UK and the EU.

The Taoiseach said opinions on what future relations should look like are diverse and that not everyone agrees with Ireland's desire for little change.

Mr Varadkar was speaking in Brussels as he joined the other 27 EU leaders for day two of the European Summit, where they are expected to formally agree to start the next phase of Brexit negotiations.

"We will be talking about the transition period and the relationship that will exist between the EU and the UK," Mr Varadkar told reporters.

"I think a lot of thinking needs to be done about that. There does seem to be quite diverse opinions as to what that should look like.

"From the Irish point of view, we would like it to look as much like the current relationship as possible but that wouldn't necessarily be the view of everyone," he added.

The Taoiseach said he and UK Prime Minister Theresa May had a brief conversation at the margins of a meeting on Thursday night about trade talks and the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive.

"We agreed we would talk in New Year, both about another attempt to get the Northern Ireland Executive up and running and Phase 2 talks.

"I expressed my wish that we should proceed quickly to start talking about issues around trade in particular and she agreed with that," he added.
Gardai have seized around 370,000 worth of drugs in a raid on a house in Dublin yesterday.

Officers from the Tallaght Drugs unit searched a house and a car at Russell Green in Tallaght and found around 363,300 worth of heroin.
Following the release of the bands fourth number one album Freedom Child, The Script announced that they will play Cork Live at the Marquee in June.

Today, due to demand, an extra date Live at the Marquee has been added and tickets for this extra date on 26 June, go on sale this Monday 18 Dec at 9 am.
A British police officer for the British royal family posed online as a 17-year-old girl "for kicks" and viewed more than 1,000 indecent pictures, a court heard.

Pc Adam Cox, 31, was working in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection when he created an alter ego called Emily to exchange explicit sex chat with other men online.

When his home was raided in June last year, his computers were seized and found to contain the chat logs and internet searches for "pre-teens".

Following his arrest, he said: "Im not hoarding images. I have never meant to hurt anyone. Im not a collector. Ive not got a secret stash."

But investigators retrieved 1,691 indecent and extreme images, with one featuring an infant and others showing children as young as seven.

There were 645 of the most serious category A pictures, 201 category B, 449 category C and 396 extreme pornographic images of bestiality with dogs and horses.

Last month, Cox, pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of indecent images.

He denied encouraging three men to attempt to get indecent images from "Emily" and the charges were ordered to lie on file.

Prosecutor Charles Falk said: "This may very well be an abuse of trust because he is a police officer.

"His role is security for embassies, parliament and the royal family."

Mitigating, Nick Yeo said Cox had expressed "intense remorse" and faced losing his job as a result of the case.

He said: "He is a man who finds it extremely difficult to articulate his motivation and one can quite understand that because the context is extremely unusual conduct, one might think."

Judge Mark Dennis QC said Cox had pretended to be a teenage girl "for kicks", adding it was "troubling" that he had yet to come to terms with what it was all about.

The defendant appeared at the Old Bailey to be sentenced alongside Harry Gibbs, 32, of Stevenage, Andrew Monk, 39, of Kettering, and Ajai Shridhar, 46, of Ealing, west London.

The three men, who had engaged in online chat with Emily, had admitted attempting to possess indecent images of children.

Over two months in the spring of 2016, Monk pestered Emily for pictures, particularly of ones wearing high heeled shoes. He posed sexually explicit questions such as asking: "Are you a moaner or a screamer?"

Shridhar asked Emily for pictures to "cheer" him up as he chatted with her on Skype in February and March last year. He appeared keen to see her underwear and told her: "Naughty of me to ask but have you got any pics where you have to wear your school uniform?"

Gibbs chat logs with Emily went on between July and September 2015. Even though he knew she was under 18, he tried to set her up on the "Chaturbate" - chat and masturbate - website, the court heard. He told her she had "real model quality" and advised her that sex was "always big business".

Cox will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order.

He was suspended from duty on 2 August 2016, following his arrest.

The Mets Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) will conduct a misconduct review once criminal proceedings are complete.

Judge Dennis adjourned sentencing of Cox and Shridhar until next Friday morning.

He handed Monk a 12-month community order, saying: "Over two months you were engaged in online chat with a co-defendant who you now know as Adam Cox but who pretended to be a 17-year-old female.

"Over that two month period as discussions went on you were making repeated requests to see images of the person you were speaking with who you thought was called Emily.

"In total you received five category C images and one category B of her, she being a teenager now sadly deceased from abroad, but images that Mr Cox had obtained online to carry out his fantasy of speaking to people such as yourself pretending he was a 17-year-old female in online chat."

Supply teacher Gibbs was also given a 12-month community order. The judge told him: "Fantasy or otherwise, it is of great concern to the court as to the risks you may pose for others."

The girl whose images Cox passed off as Emily is understood to be a Canadian woman who committed suicide at the age of 21.
Update 3.15pm: Theresa May has declared she is "well on the road" to delivering Brexit after leaders of the 27 remaining member states agreed to allow negotiations to proceed to their second phase.

The British Prime Minister made clear she wanted talks on post-Brexit trade relations with the EU to begin "straight away", as the UK continues with its goal of negotiating a deal which can be signed immediately after the official date of departure on March 29 2019.

Her target was described as "realistic" but "dramatically difficult" to achieve by the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.

Ms May was boosted by the terms of a statement agreed by the EU27 at the European Council summit in Brussels, which left the door open for "exploratory contacts" early in the New Year to allow Brussels to gain greater "clarity" on the UK's ambitions.

Speaking in her constituency, Ms May said that the move to the second phase of talks represented "an important step on the road to delivering the smooth and orderly Brexit that people voted for in June of last year".

She said Britain would be "beginning the talks about our future relationship straight away", adding: "There is still more to do but we are well on the road to delivering a Brexit that will make Britain strong, prosperous and secure."

With UK Cabinet ministers due to discuss their preferred "end state" relationship with Europe for the first time next Tuesday, the pressure is mounting on Ms May to deliver a detailed statement on her aims which the EU will regard as an adequate basis to enter swiftly into substantive talks.

Asked at a Brussels press conference whether Ms May's goal of concluding negotiations by March 2019 was achievable, Mr Tusk said: "It is still realistic and of course dramatically difficult. For sure, the second phase will be more demanding, more challenging than the first phase."

Mr Juncker said he was "convinced" a legally binding Withdrawal Agreement will be signed by October, to allow time for ratification by the European Parliament and MPs in Westminster.

The Commission will consult member-states on their priorities in a series of seminars early next year, he said, adding: "I think the real negotiations on the second phase will start in March next year. I cannot say when these negotiations will be concluded."

Mr Tusk's call for "unity" among the EU27 - whose trade interests in relation to the UK vary dramatically - was echoed by German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron at a joint press conference.

From left, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Chief Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel at an EU summit in Brussels today. Pic: AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijingaert

Mrs Merkel said the upcoming talks would be "an even tougher piece of negotiation than we have had up to now".

But she added: "The good news is that all 27 member states so far... have stood together, and I am very optimistic that we will continue to go forward in quite the same spirit."

Mr Macron said: "We managed to keep the unity of the 27, the integrity of the single market, compliant with our rules. In the future we will do what it takes to do the same."

The momentous decision to declare that "sufficient progress" was achieved in the first phase of negotiations, which dealt with the divorce issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's 39 billion exit bill, was made by the EU27 in the PM's absence in a meeting lasting less than half an hour at the European Council summit in Brussels.

Mrs May left the two-day summit early after winning applause from the other leaders as she assured them on Thursday evening of her determination to see Brexit through despite this week's defeat in the House of Commons.

She now faces the prospect of a second setback next week, with backbench Tories preparing to rebel again to prevent her enshrining the March 2019 Brexit date in law.

Emmanuel Macron

Update 12.36pm: British Prime Minister Theresa May has welcomed the European Council's agreement to give the green light for Brexit talks to move on to their second phase, dealing with the transition to a new relationship after the UK's withdrawal.

Thank you to Presidents @JunckerEU and @donaldtusk. Today is an important step on the road to delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit and forging our deep and special future partnership. https://t.co/PSaATiA17n  Theresa May (@theresa_may) December 15, 2017

The EU position set out in the guidelines makes clear that any transition period agreed by Brussels "must be in the interest of the Union, clearly defined and precisely limited in time".

Under the proposals, the UK will be required to follow the EU rulebook in its entirety - including laws adopted during the transition period - while playing no part in the decision-making processes of the European institutions.

And the guidelines make clear that Britain will be expected to observe the single market's "four freedoms" of movement of goods, services, people and capital during the period, expected to begin on March 29 2019.

During the transition, the guidelines state, "all existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures will ... apply, including the competence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

"As the United Kingdom will continue to participate in the Customs Union and the Single Market (with all four freedoms) during the transition, it will have to continue to comply with EU trade policy, to apply EU customs tariff and collect EU customs duties, and to ensure all EU checks are being performed on the border vis-a-vis other third countries."

We will deliver on the will of the British people and get the best Brexit deal for our country - securing the greatest possible access to European markets, boosting free trade with countries across the world, and delivering control over our borders, laws and money. pic.twitter.com/Gzrpaf4sYz  Theresa May (@theresa_may) December 15, 2017

The four-page guidelines pour cold water on Brexiteers' hopes of a swift movement to detailed negotiations on a free trade agreement with the EU.

They confirm that agreement on a future trade relationship can only be finalised once the UK has formally left the EU.

And they state that the EU is currently ready only to engage in "preliminary and preparatory discussions with the aim of identifying an overall understanding of the framework for the future relationship" after additional guidelines have been adopted at a future summit in March.

In a key passage hinting at the obstacles which lie ahead of a trade deal, the document notes that the UK has expressed its desire to leave the single market and customs union, and that the EU will therefore have to "calibrate" its approach on trade and economic co-operation to "ensure a balance of rights and obligations, preserve a level playing field, avoid upsetting existing relations with other third countries, and ... preserve the integrity and proper functioning of the Single Market".

The European Council confirmed its readiness to maintain co-operation with the post-Brexit UK in the fight against terrorism and international crime, as well as security, defence and foreign policy.

Theresa May with Jean-Claude Juncker earlier this year

Earlier: European leaders have given the go-ahead for Brexit talks to move on to their second phase, dealing with the transition to a new relationship after the UK's withdrawal.

The momentous decision was announced by European Council president Donald Tusk after discussions lasting less than half an hour in Brussels.

British Prime Minister Theresa May was not present because she left the two-day summit early after assuring leaders of the remaining 27 EU nations yesterday evening of her determination to see Brexit through despite this week's defeat in the House of Commons.

EU leaders agree to move on to the second phase of #Brexit talks. Congratulations PM @theresa_may  Charles Michel (@eucopresident) December 15, 2017

The EU27 agreed that last Friday's deal between Mrs May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker amounted to "sufficient progress" to move negotiations on to their second phase.

That deal, covering the divorce issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's 39 billion exit bill, will now be transformed into a legally binding form to be signed by October ahead of ratification by the European Parliament, Westminster and national assemblies around the EU.

Britain will remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and be required to permit freedom of movement during a transition period expected to last two years after Brexit, under guidelines released by the European Council.

Meanwhile, negotiations can now start on the terms of a transition period, expected to last about two years after the official date of Brexit on March 29 2019.

But the long-awaited talks on a trade deal are expected to progress on a slower timetable, with the EU not expected to come up with its guidelines for the negotiations until March at the earliest.

EU leaders were putting pressure on Mrs May to spell out precisely what the UK wants on trade, with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying: "I think the first really big step is for the UK to say pretty clearly what it wants, in clear terms.

"I think that if this happens within the next few weeks, we can start in earnest and by March we will have a very clear European position."

Today's decision was considered little more than a formality after Mr Juncker and chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said they believed "sufficient progress" had been made, and the European Parliament overwhelmingly endorsed that verdict in a vote on Wednesday.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen welcomed the development, saying: "Now ready to move to phase two. Hope for close future relations with UK after Brexit."

Donald Tusk

European leaders are set to give their approval for Brexit talks to move on to their next phase, after receiving assurances from Theresa May that she will continue to drive the process forward despite defeat in the House of Commons.

But European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned that the second phase, dealing with the transition to a post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU, would be "considerably harder than the first - and the first was very hard".

Mrs May will not be present as the green light for transition talks is finally given at the European Council summit, having left Brussels early after telling fellow leaders over dinner on Thursday that she wanted to approach the remaining stages of EU withdrawal with ambition, creativity and perseverance.

Leaders of the remaining 27 member states applauded Mrs May's brief address, in what Mr Juncker described as a recognition of the "big effort" she has made to deliver a successful process.

Leaving the dinner after midnight, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the British Prime Minister had made a good case for them to declare today that talks on the divorce issues of the Irish border, citizens' rights and the UK's 39 billion exit bill had made "sufficient progress" to move on to the second phase.

But she added: "There remains much work to do and time is pressing."

With Mr Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier having already declared that last week's divorce deal amounted to "sufficient progress", and the European Parliament overwhelmingly backing this verdict on Wednesday, the decision on Brexit is little more than a formality expected to be approved in short order by the EU27.

But the moment will not be an unalloyed triumph for Mrs May, with no immediate move expected to trade talks on the kind of accelerated timetable Downing Street would prefer.

The text likely to be rubber-stamped promises only work towards a "framework" for a trade deal, with a wait until March before guidelines for the way ahead are produced.

And the document leaves no doubt that a formal free trade agreement cannot be signed until after the UK has left.

First priorities will be to translate last week's agreement into a legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement and to work out the terms for a transition period of around two years.

It was clear that the two sides remain far apart on the question of how much progress can be made on trade by the date of Brexit on March 29 2019, with UK officials continuing to talk about having an agreement ready to sign the day after departure, while Brussels expects much of the detailed work to be done during transition.

Mr Juncker said: "The process is that we have to formalise the Withdrawal Agreement.

"This will be put before the European Parliament and then we will start negotiations on future relations as soon as possible.

"It is a difficult process."

The Commission president said he was "sad" that the UK was leaving the EU, but asked whether he believed it possible they might change their minds and stay, he said: "That depends on the British Parliament and the British people.

"It is not up to us to decide what the British people want."

EU leaders said it was time for Britain to offer more clarity on the kind of trade deal it is seeking, with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying: "I think the first really big step is for the UK to say pretty clearly what it wants, in clear terms.

"I think that if this happens within the next few weeks, we can start in earnest and by March we will have a very clear European position."

Senior ministers are due to have their first discussion of the "end state" relationship with the EU in a Cabinet meeting next Tuesday which threatens to expose deep divisions between differing visions of the UK's future.

Meanwhile, Mrs May is facing a further challenge to her authority next week when British MPs vote on a Government amendment to enshrine the Brexit date of March 29 2019 in law.

Amid predictions of a second defeat, a senior British Government source denied that Mrs May was preparing to dump the provision.

The official also said that "no politician should face intimidation" after rebel ringleader Dominic Grieve reported receiving death threats amid calls from hardline Brexiteers for the deselection of the 11 Tories who joined Wednesday's successful revolt over the right for MPs to have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal.

Mr Juncker said Mrs May's message on Thursday was received in a "polite and friendly" fashion by fellow leaders, while Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern described her comments as "very constructive", adding: "Everybody appreciated her personal effort and engagement."

Asked whether EU leaders believed Mrs May remained in a strong enough position to deliver on Brexit, Mr Kern replied: "Absolutely."
Update 12pm: Two more children have died from their injuries after a train sliced open a school bus in France, bringing the death toll to six.

Authorities in the Pyrenees-Orientales region announced the new deaths a day after the horrific crash at a crossing close to the Spanish border.

French media said the dead were two 11-year-old girls.

Four other children, aged 12 or 13, died on Thursday in the collision, while 16 others and the bus driver were injured.

Philippe Vignes, the Pyrenees-Orientales chief, told BFM television that several children and the bus driver remained in serious condition today.

AP

Update 10.55am: All four children killed when a train hit a school bus at a crossing in France have been identified and their families informed.

Seven children and the bus driver remain in a serious condition after the crash close to the Spanish border, Philippe Vignes, head of the local authority in Pyrenees-Orientales, told BFM television.

Twelve other people suffered less serious injuries.

The bus was carrying around 20 students aged 11 to 15 from the Christian Bourquin school in the village of Millas, near Perpignan in southern France.

Those killed were all 12 or 13. Investigators said they were working to determine the cause of the crash.

Mr Vignes said he could not say whether the railway barriers meant to stop vehicles from driving onto the tracks when a train is coming were open or closed.

"There are contradictory rumours," he said. "We need to be very careful."

Mr Vignes said overnight that investigators would look into reports that batteries in the automatic gate system had recently been stolen.

SNCF official Gaelle Le Fauche said the train was carrying 25 people, including passengers and crew.

She said all of them had been accounted for and are being offered psychological care.

She added that the train normally travels at 80kph (50mph) at that location.

The Christian Bourquin school opened today to offer psychological help to children and their families.

AP
Update 6pm: The Vatican has said the devastating report by Australia's Royal Commission into institutional sex abuse is "thorough" and deserves to be "studied seriously".

In its first comments on the inquiry released on Friday, the Vatican said it was committed to helping Australian victims of paedophile priests find healing and justice.

The Royal Commission recommended the Catholic Church lift its demand of clerical celibacy and that priests be prosecuted for failing to report abuse they learn of in the confessional.

The Vatican did not comment on those recommendations.

Church officials have previously rejected any link between celibacy and abuse, and reaffirmed the sanctity of the confessional.

The investigation, which covered abuse in state and religious institutions, concluded there were "catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades".

AP

Update 7am: An Australian inquiry into child abuse has recommended the Catholic Church lift its demand of celibacy from clergy and clarify the extent that the seal of the confession conceals evidence of child abuse.

Australia's Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation.

Australia's longest-running royal commission - which is the country' highest form of inquiry - has been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The report heard the testimonies of more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse. Of those who were abused in religious institution, 62% were Catholics.

"We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades," the report said.

Recommendations include that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request that the Vatican consider introducing voluntary celibacy for clergy.

The bishops' body should also request clarity on whether information received in the confessional that a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy and whether absolution of a perpetrator should be withdrawn until the perpetrator confesses to police.

Catholic clerics who testified to the royal commission gave varying opinions about what if anything a priest could divulge about what was said in a confessional about child abuse.

The commission's recommendations, which with interim reports total 409, include making failure to report child abuse a criminal offence. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged.

Pope Francis's former finance minister, Cardinal George Pell, testified in a video link from the Vatican in 2016 about his time as a priest and bishop in Australia. Pell this year became the most senior Catholic official to face sex offence charges.

Pell has vowed to fight the charges of sexual assault offences.

The commission found that the church's responses to complaints and concerns about clerics in Australia were "remarkably and disturbingly similar".

President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said the commission "would have significant impact on the way the Catholic Church and others operate in Australia".

He said the bishops would put to the Vatican the recommendations on celibacy and the confession.

"The seal of the confessional, or the relationship with God that's carried through the priest and with the person, is inviolable. It can't be broken," he told reporters.

He apologised for the church failing children in the past.

Catholicism is the largest denomination in majority-Christian Australia.

AP
A woman in the UK repeatedly gave her son anti-psychotic drugs and poison in a desperate bid to avoid being forced to travel to Syria by her jihadi husband, a court heard.

The 27-year-old mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deliberately gave the medication to the boy to make him unwell over a period of six weeks between August and October 2015.

On several occasions, while he was treated in hospital, she contaminated intravenous tubes used to administer antibiotics with an unknown noxious substance, believed to have been faeces or sink cleaner.

The woman, from London, claimed she was seeking to keep the young boy in hospital as she believed he would be safer there, Kingston Crown Court was told.

She was jailed for four years and six months on Friday after previously pleading guilty to eight charges, including administering a noxious substance to endanger life.

Defending, Kate O'Raghallaigh said the woman decided to deliberately make her son poorly after he spent time in hospital for an unrelated illness.

She said the woman was in "total panic" and under pressure to take her son to join the Caliphate in Syria from her now-former husband.

"That is how the idea came to life," Ms O'Raghallaigh told the court.

"Because it coincided with that period of pressure and panic ... she began to realise that if she made him ill, the hospital would have to take him in.

"As long as he was admitted, so she thought, he was safe, perverse as that thought process."

The boy, who was admitted to hospital on multiple occasions between August 23 and October 29, suffered severe neurological symptoms and bacterial infections, and at one point fell into a coma.

The bacteria in his blood is also found in the bowel and in hospital sinks and drains, tests revealed.

He has since recovered and has shown no long-term damage as a result of his illness.

The woman admitted one count of endangering life by administering olanzapine and four lesser counts of administering the anti-psychotic drug at earlier hearings.

She also pleaded guilty to three counts of administering an unknown noxious substance using a cannula while the boy was in hospital.

The woman was caught when hospital staff noticed the boy's condition would improve during the day and worsen again in the evening when his mother was present.

His unexplained illness stopped when 24-hour nursing was introduced.

Sentencing, Judge Peter Lodder QC said: "This was repeated behaviour. It was not isolated.

"You knew that your son would have to undergo painful invasive procedures and on October 29, what you gave your son was a potentially lethal dose."

He acknowledged that the woman had decided to pursue the "extreme course of action" to avoid what she perceived as the "greater harm" of travelling to Syria.

But he said she could have raised her concerns with hospital staff, instead choosing to persist with making her son ill.

Judge Lodder said: "What you were inflicting on that young child threatened the very life you claim you were seeking to protect and that must have become apparent to you."

The woman's husband went to Syria from the UK in April 2015.
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...
latest news

October 31, 2022

Buddy TV

In November, there are hundreds of new and returning TV showsit can be overwhelming to try and choose what to watch. That's why we've selected some of the best options...
Campus News

Welch and Ludwigs lasting lesson: See the world

Some of Jeannette Ludwig and Claude Welch's photographs were exhibited this semester in the Silverman Library. The entire Welch-Ludwig Collection is available online in the UB Digital Collections. Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

By MARCENE ROBINSON

If someone sees a photo and wants to go there, then our job is fulfilled. 

Claude Welch and Jeannette Ludwig have no plans to stop teaching, despite both retiring from the classroom.

What has changed is that theyve discovered a new method of instruction: photography.

Through the new Welch-Ludwig Collection, images assembled throughout more than 50 years of travel across the globe, the couple aims to inspire future generations of students to embark on journeys of their own.

I see this collection as a legacy that plants a seed, a lure to get people out into the world. If someone sees a photo and wants to go there, then our job is fulfilled, says Ludwig, associate professor emerita in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

The collection, held in the UB Libraries Digital Collections, contains thousands of photos from their personal and academic trips around the world. Their images capture nearly two dozen nations in sub-Saharan Africa, and the breadth of Western Europe and Asia.

However, Welch, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science and self-designated photographer, does not consider himself a traveler. Welch, a pioneer in the study of human rights, particularly in Africa, collected many of the images while conducting research.

Rather than an assortment of vacation photos, the images taken over the course of decades instead serve as a record of the varied effects of urbanization and political change.

The pictures show the shift in the dominant external influences away from colonial powers toward us, China and multinational corporations, Welch says. Our first picture taken in Africa dates from 1963. The last time we were in China was 1988; however that country is changing at an exceptional rate. The collection is designed to help people understand these kinds of transformations.

Adds Ludwig: It would be interesting to see whats happening in China now. Its like going home but everything is a little bit different since the last time you went there. The places change, attitudes change, and way of doing things change.
With Christmas fast approaching, building sites rush to complete projects before the holiday period, as employees take time off to be with loved ones. This rush however, means that preparing your site for the Christmas period can often be an afterthought.

However, its likely to be the longest period that a building site is left unattended. Here, workwear brand Scruffs share their top tips on how you can keep your site safe this Christmas.

Lock your site

1 million worth of equipment is stolen from building sites every week in the UK; and Christmas is a prime time for opportunists to strike, with sites left empty.

Before you close for the holidays, help to keep your site as safe as possible by checking that both your alarm and CCTV are working properly  and set them. You should also make sure that your fence is secure, and most importantly: lock your site with heavy duty locks when you leave.

A secure site is less likely to be burgled, for the simple fact that many thieves are opportunists, and will only strike if the moment is right.

Its also worth clearly displaying an emergency contact number on your fencing so that should anything happen, someone can quickly be notified.

Hide machinery

Opportunists strike if theres something worth stealing; and machinery and power tools found on building sites can be hugely tempting, as theyre very expensive.

Before you leave for the Christmas period, you should remove hand tools, machinery and vehicles from your site.

If it isnt possible to remove all equipment, then ensure you stow it away in a secure storage facility, such as a shipping container. For vehicles left on-site, make sure one employee takes the keys home with them, so trespassers cant drive off in them.

Switch off electricity

The average yearly electricity bill of an industrial company is high, at 7,346. When sites are shut down over Christmas, theres no need to leave electricity running, as it will just push your bills higher.

If none of your employees are working this Christmas, then turn your electricity off. Realistically, machinery and other power tools dont need to be on standby, and the lights dont need to be left on. All theyre doing is costing you extra money.

Clear trip hazards

The last thing you want to happen in the new year is to return to work on the building site, fall over and injure yourself.

During 2016/17, there were over 5,000 injuries in the construction industry, with 41% of non-fatal injuries caused by trips or slips.

Help to reduce this figure by minimising the risk of potential trip hazards before you close for the Christmas period.

Clearly signpost uneven surfaces, remove trailing cables out of the way of walkways, and use cable guards where required. You should also check that your lighting is as bright as it could be, as dim lighting can mask hazards, and increase the likelihood of falls.

Remove Flammable Objects

One of the many dangers faced by construction sites is the risk of a fire, mainly due to the amount of dry timber found.

Before you shut for the holidays, remove any flammable objects: ensure skips are empty, paper is recycled and there no wooden pallets lying around  all of which could help to start and spread a fire.

Christmas is a time to be enjoyed with loved ones, but its also likely to be the longest period of time your building site is left empty. These five tips wont take long to implement, but they will help to give you peace of mind that your site is as safe as it can possibly be over Christmas.
Dedicating an entire year of Comic Cons across four major cities to a single comic book character and mythos might seem strange. Yet, when it comes to Archie Andrews, the heartthrob of Riverdale, there are decades worth of reasons. As enters into a licensing deal with Archie Comics, which will involve exclusive India editions of Archie titles and narratives, the 1990s kid in any of these four cities  Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad  will tell you exactly how this has added a special layer of charm to the annual comic-lovers fest.

One of the most popular foreign titles on the comic book stands for the last two decades of the preceding century, Archie had long been our first definition of contraband, our window to teenage romance and pastel-coloured dreams of a good-life. Above all, Archie was a distinct marker of a typically nineties anxiety  the anxiety of stepping out into the wider world.

This, however, is not all Archie was. Created in 1941, by publisher John L Goldwater, writer Vic Bloom and artist Bob Montana, Archie Andrews has always been a character of adaptable tissues. The characters immense popularity in Australia, India and parts of Japan is indicative of its iconic nature  a most simplistic template of narratives and characters that can absorb and reflect cultural aspirations and anxieties alike, across time and space. Archies friends, his family, the bullies and the jocks, the divas, the geeks  life in Riverdale has mostly mirrored the highly malleable phantom of the American Dream. And therein lies the paradox.

Many comics scholars and fans alike would point out that Archies long survival was ensured in the first place by its essential adherence to the Comics Code of the 1950s. Established in 1954, by the Comics Magazine Association of America, the Comics Code Authority (CCA) formulated this Code to allow the comic publishers to self-regulate the content of their comic books in the United States. The Code lasted until the early 21st century and had been a response to a series of US Senate hearings and psychiatrist Fredric Werthams book, Seduction of the Innocent, which alleged that comic books were a major corrupting influence on the American youth. In fact, with their targeted attack on crime, horror and sexy content, members of the CCA, led by Archie creator Goldwater, made sure that certain comic book titles, like Crime SuspenStories, The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt by EC Comics, would find it difficult to make their way to the newspaper stand.

On the other hand, Goldwaters Archie was carefully edited for sexual innuendos and suggestive plot lines. Therefore, for most of 1950s, 60s and 70s, Archies status as the good comic book would help it dominate the non-superhero comics segment. As several comic critics point out, Archies synonymy with an austere White-dominated middle-class American Dream was in fact carefully cultivated and marketed by the Goldwater influenced CCA itself. However, when it hit Indias news stand in the mid-1980s, the forever-teen Peter Pan of suburbia would face an entirely new and unmitigated terrain of comic book frenzy.

In many ways, the last decade of the 20th century also marked a pubescent coming-of-age for the Indian nation itself, as we shook off the cobwebs of a Soviet-leaning socio-economic mindset, encountered the demons of communal violence and terrorism, stumbled upon the exploding world of gender categories and sexual preferences, and shook hands with the economic, cultural and political phenomenon that was the rise of America. For the Indian comic book fan, after three decades of divine superheroes fighting pitched battles for an ancient golden-age India, the focus had suddenly shifted towards a brattish longing for the good life, fun and adventure. For an entire generation of urban educated Indian young men, this would become the visualisation of the American Dream  good-looking girls, swanky cars, picturesque neighbourhoods and burgers. Therefore, if New York and Chicago were its urban core, Riverdale was the sub-urban periphery rounding off the image of a global metropolis.

The sprawling lawns, tree-lined lanes and neat cottages in the world of Archie Andrews fit right into our first imageinations of the Silicon Valley, which by early 2000s would become the destination for Indian science and management graduates. This is how Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn really grew up. They left Mississippi, and landed in Riverdale, where they did not have to worry about Jims or Injun Joes any more. And the fact that they brought their bright sweaters, guitars and beach-ball to our third-world news stands, we believed, was an invitation enough for us to journey to their America.

However, Archie was hardly ever the good comics in India. At best, it was always on the fence between two utopias. Archies choice between Betty and Veronica, in fact, is perhaps the best allegory of the very middle-class anxiety the comic book evoked: a choice between a middle-class domestic stability, and an equally middle-class ambition for an upper-class adventurism and glamour. And this ready correlatability of its template-like plot was also one of the reasons why several Bollywood directors would go on to register ringing hits adopting the Archie formula of the rich girl, girl-next-door and boy-next-door triangle, complete with Jughead-like comic sidekicks, and Moose-inspired bullies. Remember Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar? Or, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai?

Archies readership has changed however. And so has Archie, of course. In the early days of the comic book, the lead characters could be heard on an NBC radio show called Archie Andrews. By the 1970s they had appeared in a string of popular animated TV serials, led by The Archie Show (1968), Archies TV Funnies (1971) and The US of Archie (1974), culminating into the immensely popular Archies Weird Mysteries (1999 to present). By the early 2000s, Archie was clawing desperately for its old popularity, a task almost impossible in a post-9/11 world. It wasnt difficult to identify the cheeky scepticism of its new reader base in Weird Mysteries where the near-perfect picture of Riverdale was underlined by repeatedly invoking and ultimately allaying the fear of lurking shadows, albeit with a casual playfulness.

By 2017, however, the readers near complete disbelief in the pastel-coloured Dream is urgent and palpable enough to receive a darker, ink-stained live-action adaptation of the Archie mythos in Riverdale. This increasingly popular TV series on the CW channel in the US is no longer interested in playfully nodding at hidden monsters. Instead, similar to Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips very popular graphic novel, Criminal: The Last of the Innocent, it delves straight in and reveals the darkness behind the suburban utopia  teenage angst, secrets, deceits, drug abuse, jealousy and murder.

The disillusionment with the Dream does not necessarily translate into a disinterest in Archie. The journey goes on, as it weaves in the pastels with the ink. The nostalgia remains, as does the ever-present hope to break out of the now self-contained fan bases into a wider, more diverse readership. The Delhi Comic Con, on from December 15 to 17 at the NSIC Grounds, Okhla, bears testimony to the same.

Debarghya Sanyal is pursuing a PhD in Comics and Graphic Novels from the University of Oregon, US
Last week, Kolkata-based Emami announced it was acquiring a 30 per cent stake in Helios Lifestyle, which owns online male grooming brand The Man Company. It was the second transaction in this segment this year, after Mumbai-based Marico in March picked up a 45 per cent stake in Zed Lifestyle, owner of Beardo, a brand sold online and in salons.
(India) Ltd will enter into pacts with aluminum and steel majors in Odisha for supply of natural gas from December 2019.

The gas major will sign term sheets with including Steel Authority of India Ltd (Rourkela), Tata Steel (Kalinganagar), Vedanta (Jharsuguda), Jindal Stainless Ltd (JSL), Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Indian Metal and Ferro Alloys (IMFA).

The memorandum of understanding (MoUs) with the would be signed on the occasion of the laying of foundation stone for new Dhamra-Angul 36 inch main line and Bhubaneswar-Cuttack-Paradip 12 inch spur line on December 17 by Dharmendra Pradhan, Union minister of petroleum & natural gas and skill development & entrepreneurship.

"Our marketing team has identified 11 industries for the supply of natural gas. We will sign the MoUs on the occasion. Together, 1.2 million standard cubic meters a day (mmscmd) gas will be supplied to these industries", said Ashutosh Karnatak, director (projects), (India) Ltd.

This will enable the switch to cleaner, safer, convenient, economical and happy fuel, he added.

Dhamra-Angul 36 inch main line is part of the 2655-km Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra Natural Gas Pipeline (JHBDL) popularly known as the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga.

In Odisha, the natural gas pipeline will be constructed at an estimated investment of Rs 4000 crore and will have a length of the 769-km covering 13 districts.

On December 16, Pradhan will inaugurate two CNG stations in Bhubaneswar. Over the coming years, 25 CNG stations will be commissioned in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to supply CNG to vehicles.

Initially, the natural gas will reach Bhubaneswar through special containers called at cascades which be transported by road from Vijayawada. Later, natural gas will be supplied from the pipeline.

"In Bhubaneswar the creation of network for supply of gas will see an investment of Rs 500 crore", Karnatak added.
Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app.

Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006.

Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more.

Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them.

26 years of website archives.
The boards of three central public sector undertakings (CPSEs) have approved the proposal to form a joint venture (JV) company. National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Mineral Exploration Corporation Ltd (MECL) and Hindustan Copper Ltd (HCL) would forge the JV firm.
Reliance Communications (RCom) and China Development Bank (CDB) on Friday approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai for an adjournment of the latters insolvency petition till next month, amid talks they have begun negotiations for an out-of-court settlement.
India Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane's father allegedly mowed down a 67-year-old woman in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district following which he was booked by the police.

The incident took place around noon yesterday on the highway in Kagal when Madhukarrao Rahane (54) was driving with his family to their hometown in the coastal Konkan region from Mumbai, a senior police official said on Friday.

The deceased was identified as Ashabai Dadasaheb Kamble (67).

Kamble, a resident of Savitrinagar in Ichalkaranji, got confused while crossing the road and stopped in between after which the car hit her, said Senior Police Inspector of Kagal Police Station Audumbar Patil.

The woman was taken to a nearby hospital but she died during treatment at around 7 pm, he said.

Madhukarrao Rahane has been booked on charges of causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others, causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others and causing death by negligence, he said.

According to the officer, Madhukarrao Rahane was summoned to the police station and as the offence is bailable he was served a notice under CrPC 41/1 to remain present in the court with his lawyer.

"Rahane is cooperating in the investigation," he added.

is currently accompanying the Indian team playing an ODI series against Sri Lanka.
Ah, the holidays. Its the perfect time to buy something significant for a special person  you know, show them you care. And its the perfect time to freak out about how, exactly, to do it.
The Supreme Court of India has fixed December 31 as the deadline for publication of the draft of the updated Register of Citizens (NRC).
The Karnataka government on Friday decided not to permit Bollywood actress Sunny Leone's New Year Eve show here and elsewhere in the state following protests from Kannada outfits.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedike and some other organisations have been opposing the proposed event on December 31 alleging that the invitation to Sunny Leone will be an "assault" on the city's culture.

For the past one week, the KRV members have been agitating in the city, taking out rallies and burning effigies of Sunny Leone.

"I have instructed (authorities) not to allow such events. Don't bring her (Leone) here. People are opposed to the event. Let them (organisers) organise events related to Kannada culture and literature, which is our heritage," Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy told PTI.

KRV office-bearer Harish welcomed the government decision.

"It is a victory for us. Government has cancelled the programme. Had it happened here, we would have brought activists from 20 districts to Bengaluru and held a mega protest here.

The protesters were urging her not to participate in the scheduled event. They have threatened that if she attended the event, then the party workers would commit suicide.

Jayadev Prasad, Secretary of KARAVE said: "We don't have any objections if she (Sunny) attends the programme with a saree as per Indian culture. If she attends the event, with a half dress or in any other ways we will commit suicide at the event."

"We have already purchased 70 tickets for the event. If she dances half-naked, we will protest more and then commit suicide to save our culture," added Prasad.

There have been similar protests against Sunny Leone, owing to her past as a former adult star, prior to joining Bollywood.
The Head Master and two teachers of a government high school in Tumakuru district have been suspended for allegedly serving to students on a trip when they asked for water to quench their thirst, officials said.
The wedding of and in Italy earlier this week has launched an unlikely celebrity  a Haridwar-based spiritual guru called Maharaj Anant Baba whose pictures with the couple have since gone viral on social media.
Recent incidents of expensive healthcare and medical negligence have brought the focus back on poor healthcare facilities in the country. In one case a family was handed over a huge bill while in the other an infant was wrongly declared dead. Do these incidents point to the shortcomings of our healthcare system and policy making? Will it help to discipline private healthcare providers through punitive action like cancelling their licences? The writer takes a look at the policy challenges and how the situation can be changed.

Two recent events in Delhi have highlighted the poor state of private healthcare in India. A family which lost a child to dengue was handed a bill of over 18 lakhs-a humongous sum even by the standards of upper middle class India. And another family had to suffer the ignominy of receiving a child in a plastic bag only to discover that the infant was still alive. Much handwringing has followed on social media with the governments moving with alacrity to secure their populist bases.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. They do not reflect the view/s of Business Standard.
The Cabinet on Friday cleared a Rs 2,600-crore proposal to boost job creation in the leather industry, lowered the merchant discount rate (MDR) on transactions up to Rs 2,000 through debit cards, BHIM UPI or Aadhaar-enabled payment systems to promote digital transactions, and approved a series of Bills, including one amending the Specific Relief Act to smoothen enforcement of contracts.
To promote manufacturing in India of solar photovoltaic cells and modules, the ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) has drafted a set of proposals for financial and other support. Direct financial support of Rs 11,000 crore is proposed.
In an effort to boost digital payments in India, the government has decided to bear the merchant discount rate (MDR) charges for transactions up to Rs 2,000 made through debit cards, BHIM-UPI or Aadhaar Pay for two years. The decision will be effective from January 1, when the Reserve Bank of Indias (RBIs) revised guidelines on the MDR come into force. The MDR is the rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services. It is expressed as a percentage of the transaction amount.
The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) is likely to get a new financing model, with microfinance institutions (MFIs) brought in to encourage savings among consumers for refilling their cooking gas cylinders.
The defence ministry has issued a secret Request for Information (RFI) to global torpedo firms, for supplying over 100 heavyweight torpedoes for the Indian Navys Scorpene submarines, the first of which  INS Kalvari  was commissioned on Thursday.
The Yogi Adityanath government would present its first supplementary budget in the Uttar Pradesh legislature on Monday seeking additional funds for the proposed flagship and infrastructure projects in the state.
His grueling campaign in Gujarat over, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be heading to Meghalaya and Mizoram on Saturday. He will inaugurate infrastructure projects and also open a Bharatiya Janata Party office in Meghalaya. The two states are scheduled for assembly polls in the next 12-months.
As the Election Commission (EC) released the figures for voter turnout in the second phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections, it shows a tad improvement over the initial estimates, standing at 70.26 per cent. This is the second best turnout in Gujarat's poll history.
Prime Minister Narendra Modis ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will sweep an election in his home state of Gujarat, surveys showed on Thursday, shaking off the most serious challenge yet from a combined opposition.
Cabinet approves Agreement with UNESCO on establishment of International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography in Hyderabad

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the establishment of International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography, as a Category-2 Centre (C2C) of UNESCO, in Hyderabad.The purpose of this Agreement is to establish a training centre towards development of capacity for the countries on the Indian Ocean Rim (IOR), African countries bordering the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, small island countries under the framework of UNESCO. The operational oceanography is an activity of conducting systematic oceanographic studies towards providing information services to various sectors viz. fisherman, disaster management, shipping, ports, coastal states, navy, coast guard, environment, offshore industries for conducting their day-to- day operations.The Centre will provide assistance in areas of capacity building and training, knowledge sharing and exchange of information, and hence could represent a valuable resource for UNESCO and its Intergovernmental Oceanography Commission (IOC) by enhancing the impact and visibility of UNESCO's action.The establishment of UNESCO Category-2 Centre will provide an opportunity for India to emerge as a leading country in the Indian Ocean. This will also help India to forge cooperation and improve engagement among the counties of the Indian Ocean, including South Asian and African states bordering the Indian Ocean. The establishment of the centre would respond to the worldwide increasing need to build technical and management capacity to address marine and coastal sustainability issues and prepare the region for and react efficiently to marine natural hazards. The Centre could contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal-14 (SDG 14) related to building marine scientific research capacity in geographical area of the Centre responsibility which will also fulfill the commitments to support Small Island Developing States, Least Developed Countries.This C2C is intended to improve skill of students and other participants which will increase the employment opportunities within and outside India.

The establishment of C2C is also expected to increase ancillary development leading to employment generation in India. The centre is currently operational with the state-of-the-art facilities available at Indian Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad. So far, over 681 scientists including 576 from India and 105 from 34 other countries have been trained at this centre in various aspects of operational oceanography. The other infrastructure facilities like building and training hostel are being established. It is also envisaged to invite world class (acuities and trainees from around the world and work out a curriculum for long duration courses (of 3-9 months).
After a decade of development, often through buying or benchmarking foreign technology and know-how, Chinese automakers are looking with greater ambition at selling their cars in major Western markets.

Improvements in car design, technology and marketing at firms including Geely, GAC Motor and Great Wall Motor have brought them a bigger share in their home market, the world's largest, and give them a better chance of survival in competitive markets in Europe and the United States.

Once distant dreams of staking a claim in Western strongholds may now be edging nearer.

"We have in the Western world an outrageous arrogance. We think we're ahead. It's going to change," says Alain Visser, Senior Vice President of Lynk & Co, a new brand set up by Geely.

"China is passing you at a speed that in our arrogance we don't even see," Visser told Reuters earlier this month.

Hangzhou-based Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and Lotus and makes London black cabs, has its sights set on selling cars in Europe in 2019 and the United States a year later. The Lynk & Co brand, set up in Sweden with Volvo, will spearhead its attack.

Geely plans only to sell 'green' cars - conventional hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric models - in those markets, and would primarily sell through directly-owned stores and online rather than through traditional dealer franchises. It could also offer cars for rent via a subscription model similar to Netflix and Spotify.

GAC Motor, whose parent Guangzhou Automobile Group partners Honda Motor, Toyota Motor and Fiat Chrysler in China, may beat Geely to the US market, eyeing entry by end-2019. But unlike Lynk & Co, GAC is more likely to sell through a traditional distribution network of franchised retail stores there.

It's taken Chinese automakers years to get this far, and, to be sure, there will be significant road bumps.

"A key obstacle in markets like the United States is a consumer bias against Chinese-made goods," said Jeff Cai, a Beijing-based senior director at JD Power & Associates. "Our research found most US consumers think China is a third-world country that builds low-quality products."

There's also the thorny issue of China's trade surplus with the United States - an imbalance high on US President Donald Trump's radar. Cars shipped in from China would likely increase that surplus.

SELLING DIRECT, ONLINE

Geely's Lynk & Co aims to open its own flagship store in Berlin in the second half of 2019, and a similar outlet in San Francisco in 2020.

In some US states, which don't allow direct selling, Lynk & Co plans a subscription-based sales model, renting cars to consumers on contracts as short as a month. Those deals will include insurance, warranty and other benefits.

Visser says Lynk wants to test this unconventional retail model because it reckons around a quarter of revenue is lost through the traditional distribution business in dealer margins and discounting. He expects to recoup more than half those 'losses' by selling direct.

Some of those savings will be passed on to customers by selling Lynk & Co cars at a more affordable price, Visser said, adding Lynk & Co aims to sell 250,000 vehicles a year across Europe and the United States - though he gave no firm timescale for that.

In the United States, selling direct could put Lynk & Co on a collision course with the politically powerful National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), the lobby group for franchise dealer operators.

While Visser says NADA has "unbelievable power", he believes dealers will eventually come around to Lynk & Co's retail model as it would likely be franchise dealers who get to service Lynk & Co cars, carrying out repairs and regular maintenance - and that's where dealers make most money.

NO TRUMPCHI FOR US

For its part, GAC Motor is looking at the possibility of building out its overseas presence from the US northeast, two people close to the company said.

That region, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and New York, is seen as being more open to foreign cars and to the sport-utility vehicles (SUV) that GAC Motor plans to sell, they said.

The company said it has not yet decided a US entry point, but would more likely opt to build a sales network with franchise dealers or join an existing dealer group.

GAC Motor - which says it has developed rather than acquired its technologies - said it was conducting market research to determine the brand's positioning and identify products for its U.S. business.

Its first US offering is likely to be an SUV sold in China as the Trumpchi GS8. Given the political sensitivities, the model will be renamed for the US market.

"We respect culture in the US and understand there's no precedence to use the current president's name as a brand name," the company said through a spokeswoman.
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presented what she called "undeniable" evidence today that a ballistic missile fired by Huthi rebels in Yemen at Saudi Arabia last month was Iranian-made, a charge Tehran immediately denied.

Haley accused Tehran of a "blatant violation" of UN Security Council obligations designed to rein in its missile activity, further stepping up the rhetoric towards Iran which Washington accuses of going against the spirit of a historic nuclear accord.

Standing in a warehouse at a Washington military base in front of recovered pieces of two missiles, Haley said Iranian fingerprints were all over the weapons, one of which she said was fired at Riyadh's airport on November 4.

"It was made in Iran then sent to Huthi militants in Yemen," Haley said.

"From there it was fired at a civilian airport with the potential to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in Saudi Arabia."



She charged that the 2015 nuclear deal to curb Iran's nuclear program had "done nothing to moderate the regime's conduct in other areas," and accused Tehran of "fanning the flames" of regional conflict.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman at Iran's mission to the United Nations, said Tehran "categorically" rejects the US claims.

"This purportedly evidence, put on public display today, is as much fabricated as the one presented on some other occasions earlier," he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted on Twitter a photo of Haley juxtaposed with a well-known image of former secretary of state Colin Powell appearing before the Security Council, where he provided intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war that was later found to be false.

"When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat...," Zarif wrote.

The Iranian mission said the accusations leveled by Haley were intended to divert attention from the devastating war in Yemen being led by Saudi Arabia, a key US ally.

A confidential report to the council says UN officials had examined debris from missiles fired at Saudi Arabia which pointed to a "common origin" but there was no firm conclusion as to whether they came from an Iranian supplier.

Haley said the missiles were Iranian Qiam-class short- range ballistic rockets and pointed to valves that she said proved their origin. The Qiam-1 is based on a modified Scud design.

Haley also showed other pieces of military materiel she said were provided by Iran, and after her announcement officials showed journalists pieces of an anti-tank missile, an explosive boat, drones and other gear.

"The evidence is undeniable. The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers all over it," Haley said.

"These are Iranian-made, these are Iranian-sent and these are Iranian-given, in violation of the Security Council," she said.

Haley has called on the UN Security Council to take a tougher stance toward Iran, accusing Tehran of making illegal arms deals in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.

Asked about Haley's claims that the evidence that Iran had supplied the missile was irrefutable, Sweden's UN Ambassador Olof Skoog said "she may be in possession of evidence that I have not seen. The information that I have up to now is less clear."



Haley did not discuss the timeline of when Iran is supposed to have provided the weapons, or whether this may have happened before the nuclear deal was signed.

The report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, obtained by AFP, said officials were still analyzing the information.

A separate team of UN experts who inspected the missile fragments during a visit to Riyadh last month found a possible link to an Iranian manufacturer, the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, which is on the UN sanctions blacklist.

The experts, who report to the sanctions committee, found a component marked by a logo similar to that of the banned group, which is a subsidiary of the Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization.

In his report, Guterres said officials had seen the logo but that they were still analyzing the information.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AFP that Iran's apparent willingness to risk transferring missiles to the Huthis indicates that the Yemeni theater "may not be as peripheral to Tehran as previously assumed."



"Bleeding Saudi Arabia of money and men is a clear goal for Iran as it continues its war in Yemen," he said in an email.

Aside from leading a military campaign in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has deployed expensive Patriot missiles at home to guard against incoming rockets.

Recent Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations they violate the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

"Today's revelations proved yet again that Iran's dangerous presence in the Middle East is only growing despite their attempts to deceive the world," Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in a statement.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen imposed a blockade of Yemen's air and sea ports and borders after the missile was fired at Riyadh, citing concerns that weapons were being smuggled into Yemen.
British Prime Minister Theresa May urged EU leaders at a summit on Thursday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and "festive log with a twist", May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible", a British official said.

May told them she "makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity", adding that a "particular priority" should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was "disappointed" at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."



Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was "not making her life easier".

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing on a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union are unrealistic.

"I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future," May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesday's vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the bloc's own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland



Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated yesterday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed.
A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Islamic State group, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year-old Pakistani-born resident of Brentwood, was being held without bail on Thursday following her arraignment on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The former lab technician worked in Manhattan and had no known criminal history, according to prosecutors who said that beginning in March she fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

"She then made several wire transactions to individuals and opaque entities in Pakistan, China, and Turkey, which were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements and conceal the identity, source, and destination of the illicitly-obtained monies," court documents said.

"These transactions were motivated to benefit ISIS, which the defendant ultimately sought to join in Syria," the documents said.

During this period, prosecutors said Shahnaz accessed numerous Islamic State propaganda websites and message boards. In January 2016, she travelled to Jordan to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F Kennedy Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan.

Her flight included a layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria, prosecutors said.

Her lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.

"... what she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose," Zissou said outside the courthouse.
Bitcoin blasted to another all-time high of almost $18,000 on the Bitstamp exchange on Friday, up 9 per cent on the day, as warnings grew over the risks of investing in the highly volatile and speculative instrument.

The cryptocurrency's staggering recent price rises -- more than 1,700 per cent since the start of the year -- have driven worries that the market is a bubble that could burst in spectacular fashion.

Bitcoin has climbed almost 80 per cent so far in December alone, putting it on track for its best month in percentage terms since December 2013.

On Friday it reached as high as $17,900 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange.

While bitcoin has added another fifth to its value since Monday, trading has been slightly calmer than the wild price swings the market has seen in recent weeks, with volatility lower since the launch of bitcoin futures from Cboe Global on Sunday.

Market-watchers said bitcoin's price was being lifted by the launch of rival CME Group's bitcoin futures contracts on Sunday.

"The hope (is) that futures signal the unlocking of institutional money into the digital arena and (that there will be) a rapid demand increase and ratification of the technology and its principles," said Charles Hayter, founder of industry website Cryptocompare.

But outside of the crypto market, worries continue to grow about the amount of money piling into the space.

A study by Anglia Ruskin University, Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University released on Friday said bitcoin could pose a threat to the financial stability of traditional currencies and .

"Our evidence finds that the price of Bitcoin has been artificially inflated by speculative investment, putting it in a bubble," said Larisa Yarovaya, one of the report's authors and a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

"Although bitcoin is not regulated by governments, it could still have a knock-on effect on traditional due to the interconnectedness of cryptocurrency markets with other financial assets."

Others, however, say bitcoin's total market size -- around $300 billion -- mean the impact of any future price collapse would not be large enough to have a knock-on effect on financial stability.

The BBC reported late on Thursday that the head of Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, Andrew Bailey, had warned that bitcoin buyers should be prepared for the possibility that they could "lose all their money".

Outages on some of the world's biggest exchanges this week, which left millions of investors unable to access their funds during periods when trading volumes are high, have also fuelled concerns about the fragility of the market's infrastructure.
At least 14 security personnel were killed in an attack by militants belonging to the Afghanistan's insurgent group, Taliban in Helmand province.

Tolo News quoted Helmand Governor Hayatullah Hayat as saying that the security force members were on an operation in a remote area of the province to arrest drug smugglers when they were attacked by the militant group on Thursday.

Security forces had not coordinated with the security institutions prior to the mission, he added.

Taliban is yet to comment on the incident.

Further details are awaited.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Veteran actor Anupam Kher expressed his happiness for being nominated in The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards for his recent film 'The Big Sick.'

The 62-year-old actor has been nominated for the category 'Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture' at the SAG Awards 2017.

The 'Bend It Like Beckham' star took to his Twitter handle and posted a picture, captioning, "Happiness is being nominated by your own peers. Thank you @SAGawards for this joy and a proud moment. Congratulations team @TheBigSickMovie and #HollyHunter for your nomination. See you all in LA. ????"

The movie has been nominated for the 'Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture' category at the Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG Awards) 2017.

Other movies that have been nominated in the same category are 'Get Out,' 'Lady Bird,' 'Mudbound' and 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.'

The movie, which is directed by Michael Showalter, is about the real life story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani, who not just features in the lead role but has also penned the film's screenplay with wife Emily Gordon.

It also features Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano and Adeel Akhtar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hollywood actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino have spoken out after Sir Peter Jackson said the Weinstein brothers made an effort to blacklist both the actresses from starring in the 'Lord of the Rings' franchise in the 90s.

In an interview with a leading New Zealand website, Jackson noted that Weinstein brothers orchestrated a smear campaign that led to him blacklisting her and fellow actress Mira Sorvino.

Since Peter's interview was published both Ashley and Mira have taken to social media to share their thoughts on his allegations.

Sorvino said she was "heartsick" after seeing the claims.

She took to Twitter to express her views on the allegations, Sorvino wrote, "Just seeing this after I awoke, I burst out crying. There it is, confirmation that Harvey Weinstein derailed my career, something I suspected but was unsure. Thank you Peter Jackson for being honest. I'm just heartsick."

Meanwhile, Judd responded on Twitter by writing, "I remember this well."

Judd and Sorvino have both publicly claimed Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed them, and they both missed out on roles in Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' films because of what the brothers had said about them.

They were among the first to publically come forward with allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein back in October.

According to Page Six, Sorvino has previously said she suspected the movie mogul smeared her good name after she rejected his sexual advances in 1995, "chasing her around" a hotel room in 1995 then inviting himself to her apartment a few weeks later.

In the interview, Jackson said he had "no direct experience or knowledge of the sexual allegations" against Weinstein, he had decided earlier to never collaborate with him again. He recalled Weinstein and his brother, Bob, being difficult to work with.

Meanwhile, Weinstein denied the allegation, through a spokesperson and said, "They were executive producers of the film, they had no input into the casting whatsoever.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bangladesh's Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque has thanked India for its tremendous support that was extended by its people and government during the country's war of Independence in 1971.

India and Bangladesh celebrate Vijay Diwas, also known as Victory day, which is commemorated every year to mark both the countries' military victory over Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 that eventually led to the liberation of Bangladesh on December 16.

"India provided shelter, training and arms. We got all logistic support from India," Dhaka Tribune quoted Haque as saying during an event at the National Museum on Friday.

Emphasising that India remains a good friend of Bangladesh, Haque said that both the sides are working to further strengthen the friendly ties.

According to the Dhaka Tribune, meanwhile, an Indian delegation, comprising of 27 war veterans and four serving officers, accompanied by their companions participated in the Victory Day celebrations in Dhaka and shared their anecdotes.

Through the visit, the veterans of Liberation War of Bangladesh once again united in Dhaka and as well as in Kolkata respectively to celebrate the Victory Day and shared their stories to bring to life a saga of glory, sacrifice and the spirit with which the people of both countries had stood by side by side during the difficult times.

In order to keep alive the spirit of War of Liberation of 1971, an arrangement of reciprocal visits by freedom fighters and war veterans was institutionalised in 2005.

The veterans will attend the ceremonial events and meet freedom fighters during separate receptions hosted by the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs, War Course Foundation of Bangladesh, Dhaka Club, and the High Commission of India.

The delegation which is being led by Lt Gen (retd) Jai Bhagwan Singh Yadava, who participated in the 1965 war against Pakistan and the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, will also pay homage to Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, and also visit some of the battle sites of the Liberation War.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Enforcement Directorate on Friday seized properties in the form of immovable assets worth Rs 48.87 crore from Ahmedabad-based company in connection with the Panama Papers case.

The agency seized the properties of M/s Sintex Industries Limited under section 37A of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999.

The names of Amit Patel and Rahul Patel had figured in the Panama Papers case with respect to their stakes/interests in M/s Amarange Inc., BVI following which the ED initiated probe.

During an investigation, it was revealed that during the period May 2007 to July 2009, M/s Sintex Industries Limited had remitted EURO 73.05 Million to M/s Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands (WOS), having one of its director as Amit Patel, as overseas direct investment.

Further, M/s Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands, had created a Wholly Owned Subsidiary namely Amarange Inc. which was incorporated in BVI having Amit Patel and Rahul Patel as its Directors.

Further, the aforesaid funds remitted as overseas direct investment by M/s Sintex Industries Ltd., were utilised by M/s Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands for acquiring a property in Singapore for an amount of SGD 7.9 Million in the name of M/s Amarange Inc. BVI.

In 2009 itself, M/s Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands attempted to sell M/s Amarange Inc., BVI to M/s Hanca Investment Ltd., BVI for the amount of USD 8.20 Million.

For the said purpose M/s Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands had received USD 3 Million but due to default in payment of the balance amount of USD 5.20 Million by M/s Hanca Investment Ltd., BVI, M/s Sintex Holding BV forfeited the amount of USD 3 Million and the share sale was annulled and Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands remained the beneficial owner of Amarange Inc., BVI.

Further, during 2017 the said property in Singapore has been sold for the amount of SGD 62,50,000 and consequently, Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands dissolved Amarange Inc, BVI on 08.08.2017, having engaged in no business or activity except for the purchase and sale of Singapore property.

Further, both these transactions of USD 3 million and SGD 62,50,000 were shown as income for M/s Sintex Holdings BV, Netherlands and never brought back to India.

Therefore, Sintex Industries Limited, Ahmedabad by doing the above act, contravened the provisions of section 4 of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and that a total amount of USD 3 Million and SGD 62,50,000 (equivalent to Rs. 48,87,22,500/-) is still being held outside India as a result of the said transfers.

Section 37A of FEMA, 1999 stipulates that if certain foreign exchange, foreign security or immovable property is held outside India in violation of FEMA, 1999 then value equivalent can be seized within India.

Accordingly, equivalent asset i.e. land admeasuring 109542 sq mt and 1830 sq mt amounting to Rs 48,87,22,500/- of M/s Sintex Industries Ltd, Ahmedabad in the form of Immovable assets are seized under section 37A of FEMA, 1999.

Further investigation is still under progress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A few farmers from Madhya Pradesh on Friday posed as roosters to protest over not getting the appropriate price for their produce at a wholesale market here.

The farmers said they have been here for the past four days with their produce, but have not been getting appropriate price for the same.

"The way students are punished in school for their mistakes, we are punishing ourselves for being a farmer. We are posing as a rooster to seek apology from the government," said a farmer from Jharbira village.

"We also want that out produce get right value in the market," the farmer added.

Earlier in June, five farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur when they were on the warpath protesting for better crop prices and loan waiver.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Google X is ready to set up its Development Centre in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, which will be its first development centre outside the United State of America.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Government of Andhra Pradesh and Google X in San Francisco, USA in this regard.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Minister of IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh Nara Lokesh and CEO of Google X Astro Teller.

Google X will bring its breakthrough Free Space Optical Communication Technology (FSOC) to implement in Andhra Pradesh Fibergrid Project in 13 districts through 2000 FSOC links.

Google X is known for developing Waymo (driverless car), Google glass, Project Loon (internet through balloons) and other latest technologies.

"With Google X coming to AP, the state will see revolution in communication," said Nara Lokesh.

He added that the AP Government is committed to bring high speed internet and broadband connections to about 12 million households and 1,30,000 enterprises (government and private) by March 2019.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Friday said Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, in his remark on the alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has tried to convey that if the Devendra Fadnavis-led government was not doing any work in the interest of Maharashtra, then it was of no use.

"Things Aaditya Thackeray has said, have also been highlighted by Uddhav Thackeray earlier. There is no doubt that relations between the two parties are not fine. If in the interest of state and nation, the government is not doing any work then it is of no use. This is what Aaditya Thackeray has tried to conveyed," the Shiv Sena leader told ANI.

Earlier on Thursday, the Yuva Sena chief criticised the government and said it would walk out of the Maharashtra Government within a year.

"We will leave the government in a year and will come to power on our own. Party workers should start their preparations from now itself," Thackeray said while addressing a party event in Ahmednagar.

"Political temperatures are high in Maharashtra. I don't know when elections will be held, but it looks like they'll be held in a year," he added.

This is not the first time when the Shiv Sena has issued such remark.

Earlier in September, the Sena hinted towards parting ways with the BJP in the state, citing it did not want to be blamed for people's suffering due to price hike and other reasons.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Japan has announced imposing fresh sanctions against North Korea to take pressure on the country a notch higher to halt its nuclear weapons and missile development.

Japan's Foreign Ministry has made an announcement that it is freezing the assets of 19 companies in a bid to discourage the development of North Korea's missile programme, reported Fox News.

Businesses on the blacklist include banks, coal and minerals traders, and transport firms.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson doubled down on these sanctions in a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on Thursday, the report said.

The unilateral move displays Japan's commitment to sanctions ahead of a UN Security Council meeting in New York on Friday to discuss the North Korea situation, a ministry official said.

The UN Security Council meeting on Friday is aimed at finding peaceful ways to pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court on Friday asked Selvi, the daughter of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M. Karunanidhi, to undergo trial in 2007 land grabbing and cheating case.

The apex court issued the directive, after allowing an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government challenging Selvi's discharge.

The Madras High Court, in the last hearing, discharged her from the case.

The matter pertains to alleged grabbing of a piece of land in state's Kancheepuram district by Karunanidhi's daughter.

The case was initially taken up in Poonamalee Court, but was transferred to the high court on the petition of the Selvi's counsel.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After taking the world by storm with the announcement of her engagement with Prince Harry, actress Meghan Markle is now taking over the world of fashion with her impeccable dressing sense.

According to E! Online, a global fashion search platform Lyst, has released its 2017 The Year in Fashion roundup and Meghan scored the number 4 spot in the Influencers category.

She landed one spot ahead of Kate Middleton on the fashion influencer list as the Duchess of Cambridge came in at number 5.

The site said, "Meghan proved her royal style credentials this year, wearing heritage British brands Barbour, Hunter and Burberry. She also spiked searches for lesser known labels Misha Nonoo and Finlay and Co."

Meanwhile, for the Duchess of Cambridge Lyst noted that she "continues to spark global demand for her looks- this year caused dresses by Erdem, LK Bennett, Roland Mouret and Dolce and Gabbana to sell out in seconds."

Rihanna has landed the number 1 spot on the list, with Selena Gomez coming in second and Bella Hadid in third.

It should be noted that Harry and Meghan are set to tie the knot in May 2018 at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan got a huge relief from the Supreme Court of Pakistan after a petition seeking his disqualification from the Parliament was rejected by the top court.

However, the apex court disqualified PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen for life under article 62 (1) (f) of the constitution for not disclosing his off-shore company in nomination papers.

A three-member SC bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar, announced the much-awaited verdicts, The Express Tribune reported.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Hanif Abbasi had filed two petitions seeking disqualification of Khan and Tareen from Parliament over their alleged non-declaration of assets and ownership of offshore companies in nomination papers.

While delivering the verdict, the apex court also said it was the responsibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan to scrutinise PTI's foreign funding issue.

The top court further said Khan was not required to disclose accounts of his off-shore company as he was neither director nor shareholder of the firm.

Last month, Khan had said that he would quit politics if the Supreme Court disqualified him from Parliament.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As Parliament winter session begins today, the Muslim Women's (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 related to triple talaq and legislation on granting Constitutional status to the Backward Class Commission are among the important bills that will be tabled for discussion and passage.

Around 41 items of Government Business (40 Bills and 1 Financial Item) have been identified and will be taken up in both the houses of Parliament, which includes - The Central Goods & Services Tax (Compensation to States)Bill 2017, the High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Condition of Services) Amendment Bill, 2017.

Following is the list of issues that will be taken up in Parliament -

I- Bills for Introduction, Consideration and Passing

1. The Central Goods and Services Tax(Compensation to States)Bill, 2017;

2. The Indian Forest (Amendment) Bill, 2017

3. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code(Amendment) Bill, 2017

4. The Consumer Protection Bill, 2017

5. The 'Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes and Protection of Interest of Depositors' Interest Bill, 2017

6. The Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill, 2017

7. The Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2017

8. The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017

9. The Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2017

10. The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017

11. The Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions Third (Amendment) Bill, 2017

12. The Council for Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill 2017

II- Bills for Consideration and Passing

(A) Bills pending in Lok Sabha

1. The Repealing and Amending Bill, 2017;

2. The Repealing and Amending (Second) Bill, 2017;

3. The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Bill, 2017;

4. The Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property (Amendment) Bill, 2017;

5. The Central Road Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2017;

6. The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Amendment Bill, 2017;

7. The Right of Children Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017;

8. The Sports University Bill, 2017;

9. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016;

10. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016;

11. The Merchant Shipping Bill, 2016;

12. The Major Port Authorities Bill, 2016;

13. The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016;

14. The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, 2017; and

15. The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty Third Amendment) Bill, 2017as returned by Rajya Sabha with amendment.

(B) Bills pending in Rajya Sabha

1. The Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013;

2. The Whistle Blowers Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015 as passed by Lok Sabha;

3. The Factories (Amendment) Bill, 2016 as passed by Lok Sabha;

4. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017 as passed by Lok Sabha;

5. The Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy(IIPE) Bill, 2017 as passed by Lok Sabha;

6. The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016 as passed by Lok Sabha;

7. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Amendment) Bill, 2017 as passed by Lok Sabha;

8. The Indian Institute of Management Bill 2017 as passed by Lok Sabha;

9. The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment)Bill, 2017 as passed by LokSabha; and

10. The National Commission for Backward Classes (Repeal) Bill, 2017as passed by Lok Sabha

III- Financial Business

1. Second Batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants (including Railways) for 2017-18

The Cabinet meeting will take place at 1 pm, while the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) meeting will take place at 4 pm in Parliament on Friday.

The session, which is set to commence more than a month after its schedule, will end on January 5, 2018.

This session of the Parliament will have 14 sittings.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hollywood director Sir Peter Jackson has finally broken his silence on Harvey Weinstein and has come up with some really hard-hitting facts.

According to E! Online, the 56-year-old filmmaker opened up about his working relationship with Weinstein and claimed that he and his brother Bob banned him from casting Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.

In a recent interview with a leading New Zealand website, Jackson shared that Weinstein told him that Judd and Sorvino were ''a nightmare to work with''.

He said, "I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998. At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling us - but in hindsight, I realise that this was very likely the Miramax smear campaign in full swing. I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented women - and as a direct result their names were removed from our casting list."

Instead, the 'King Kong' helmer noted that it was the Weinstein brothers that were most difficult to work with.

"My experience, when Miramax controlled the 'Lord of the Rings', was of Weinstein and his brother behaving like second-rate Mafia bullies. They weren't the type of guys I wanted to work with - so I haven't. Although his name had to be on the Lord of the Rings credits for contractual reasons, he was not involved in the movies we ended up making," explained Jackson.

Both Ashley and Mira have recently come forward as two of more than 80 women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, and Peter now believes his decision to bar the pair from working on the popular movies was part of a "smear campaign".

He also claimed that Weinstein threatened to remove him as director of 'Lord of the Rings' if he didn't turn the proposed two-part film into one which forced Jackson to search elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Weinstein has said that he remembered it differently.

The disgraced mogul denied all of Jackson's allegations in a lengthy statement sent to media outlets, saying that both women were considered for other Weinstein projects.

The statement read, "Mr. Weinstein has nothing but the utmost respect for Peter Jackson. However, as Mr. Jackson will probably remember, because Disney would not finance the Lord of the Rings, Miramax lost the project and all casting was done by New Line."

The representative also said that there were no indications that Judd or Sorvino had any issues with Weinstein until he read about their allegations in the media.

He also added that Sorvino called Weinstein earlier this year to ask if her husband could join the cast of his Seal team TV project 'Six'.

The statement concluded, "As recently as this year, Mira Sorvino called Mr. Weinstein and asked if her husband could be part of the SEAL television series [Six] he was producing, and Mr. Weinstein cast him; when Christopher Backus received a better offer, Mr. Weinstein allowed him to amicably break his contact to peruse the opportunity."

Weinstein's career in Hollywood was destroyed after reports came forward accusing him of intimidating, sexually harassing and abusing women for decades.

In the fallout, the once-acclaimed producer has been ousted from his own production company, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle will tie the knot on May 19 at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle in England.

The Kensington Palace? posted a picture of the happy royal couple, captioning it as, "His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms. Meghan Markle will marry on 19th May 2018".

It further read, "Today's announcement follows earlier confirmation of the month of the wedding and its location at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle".

In November, Prince Harry aka His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and the 'Suits' actress announced their engagement.

The couple met last year, and their relationship was confirmed by the Kensington Palace in November after months of speculation.

The couple's 16-month whirlwind romance blossomed when they met through mutual friends in London and the pair has been almost inseparable in recent months, with Markle said to have virtually moved into Harry's home at the Kensington Palace.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The members of pro-Kannada group, Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene (KARAVE) staged a demonstration, protesting against actor Sunny Leone taking part in a party event

Sunny is expected to participate in a New Year party event at Manyatha Tech Park on December 31 night.

The protesters are urging her not to participate in the scheduled event. They have threatened that if she attended the event, then the party workers would commit suicide.

Jayadev Prasad, Secretary of KARAVE said: "We don't have any objections, if she (Sunny) attends the programme with a saree as per Indian culture. If she attends the event, with a half dress or in any other ways we will commit suicide at the event."

"We have already purchased 70 tickets for the event. If she dances half-naked, we will protest more and then commit suicide to save our culture," added Prasad.

There have been similar protests against Sunny Leone, owing to her past as a former adult star, prior to joining Bollywood.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In recent times, standards of corporate governance and responsibility have been questioned, so much so, that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) appointed a panel in October this year to examine existing norms and concluded that a major overhaul is required.

Among the suggestions made was the need for limiting chairmanship of companies to only non-executive directors and appointing at least one woman as an independent director. The panel also suggested increasing the minimum board strength to six members and expanding the number of board meetings to five in a year.

The suggestions assume significance in the backdrop of alleged corporate governance-related issues at Tata Group and Infosys and Ranbaxy. This month, SEBI again flagged the need for improvement in the corporate governance framework, and for more research to be done, particularly in the area of board evaluation. It has said contours of board evaluation need to be clearly spelt out to ensure better corporate governance.

Take the example of pharmaceutical major, Ranbaxy Labs, which once had a wonderful reputation. It was a company that was profitable, pioneering in some of its research and had acquired a well-healed reputation over decades. It manufactured generic drugs and all manner of life-saving medicines indigenously, and claimed that it was curing AIDS in Africa.

Ranbaxy was the backbone of the Indian pharmaceutical sector and very deserving of admiration while profiting from the sales of medicines at affordable rates. It was company India and its citizens were told to be proud of.

In Ranbaxy's case, however, poet Geoffrey Chaucer's famous and oft-repeated saying - "All good things must come to an end" - comes to mind. In business circles, it was a sad day when former promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh decided to sell Ranbaxy to Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo in 2008. Daiichi Sankyo did their due diligence such as inspecting the books, talking to managers; touring plants, and came to the conclusion that it was worthy buying the gem that was Ranbaxy.

After all, it was the first foreign company to successfully sell generic medicines in the United States. When Ranbaxy was sold, it could be said that those familiar and accustomed to the brand in India mourned. Too many, it was a "precious jewel" given away for something as crass as money.

Daiichi Sankyo paid USD 4.6 billion to acquire a two-thirds share of Ranbaxy in 2008. They must have thought they'd got an exceptionally good deal.Six years later, however, the Japanese firm was glad and relieved to sell what remained of Ranbaxy to one of its competitors, for USD 3.2 billion. The company had lost half its value in six years.

According to a report appearing in the Economic Times last month, the Japanese firm is locked in a bitter legal battle to recover an arbitration award of Rs.3, 500 crores from the Singhs for allegedly concealing information regarding wrongdoings at Ranbaxy when they sold a majority stake in the firm to Daiichi in 2008.

What is now surfacing and very much in the public domain is that it was not all hunky-dory at Ranbaxy. Media has reported that there have been complaints of unsanitised rooms and unclean toilets in some of the plants of the pharmaceutical major. Also, there have been disclosures of pills being compressed or having oil spots, and of refrigerators not being kept at predetermined low temperatures.

It is also a well-known fact that Ranbaxy had to plead guilty to felony charges in the United States because some of its medicines were found to be 'adulterated'. The company ended up paying USD 500 million as a fine.

One by one, Ranbaxy's plants were declared unsafe. Eventually, none of the four could still export its generic version of its cholesterol-reducing drug Lipitor, taken by millions of Americans in the United States. Millions of Lipitor tablets were recalled from chemists across America when glass particles were discovered in them.

Ranbaxy was also allegedly accused falsifying its test records. Batch after batch of its generics was shown as genuine in the test documents-all of which were invented. Regulators in South Africa soon realized that the AIDS drugs from Ranbaxy were little better than placebos. Test data of various batches turned out to be identical and even photocopied. In Brazil, for example, of the 163 medicines that it was selling, Ranbaxy had reportedly tested only eight.

Recently, erstwhile Ranbaxy promoters, Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, were in the news again for the wrong reasons. A seven-year old girl, admitted to Fortis Hospital, Gurugram, died on November 21 of Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS). It was then alleged the Fortis Hospital charged Rs 16 lakh for treatment spread over 15-days. The hospital denied the allegation and further rejected suggestions that it had offered a bribe to the dead girl's father, as was claimed by him.

The father claimed last week that Fortis offered Rs 35,37,889 to stop his social media campaign and any legal action against them. A Fortis statement said the hospital offered a refund for out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the family, in good faith.

A committee formed by the Haryana Government, however, said this week that the hospital had committed an act of criminal negligence and was guilty of several alleged irregularities, including refusal of appropriate ambulance service to the patient, not following leave against medical advice (LAMA) protocol, and overcharging. A spokesperson of the Singh brothers' holding company -RHC Holding - has denied any wrong doing, and also denied violating any court orders.

Regulators need to ensure promoters of large corporations don't play with human lives. Official websites should be set up where complaints can be lodged and action taken against such perpetrators whereever they exist.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 10 Houthis were killed in airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition in western Yemen's Al-Hudeidah province.

The Anadolu Agency quoted local sources as saying that the airstrikes were conducted against Houthi sites by the coalition forces in Al-Hudeidah's Hays district.

At least five civilians were also killed in Mawzi district in southwestern Taiz province in a separate airstrike by the forces.

Last week, former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed in the capital Sanaa after days of intense fighting between Houthi rebels and his loyalist forces.

According to a statement read out on Houthi TV, Yemen's interior ministry announced the "killing" of "Saleh and his supporters".

"This is after he and his men blocked the roads and killed civilians in a clear collaboration with the enemy countries of the coalition," it added.

Before killing Saleh, Houthi rebels reportedly blew up his residence in Yemen.

Also, the Iranian embassy in Yemen was set ablaze after a mortar shell struck amid the rebel fighting.

Both Saleh forces and the Houthi rebels are battling to capture the capital city. The loyalists of Saleh last week had proposed for the talks with the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis to end the three-year conflict in Yemen.

The fighting has claimed more than 10,000 lives since then. The United Nations has described the Yemen conflict as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court on Friday extended the deadline for the linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phones to March 31, 2018.

An apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, also comprising of Justices A. K. Sikri, A.M. Khanwilkar, Dr. D. Y. Chandrachud, Ashok Bhushan, passed this interim order after accepting the Centre's suggestions on a batch of petitions related to the issue.

The government had earlier set a deadline of December 31 for Aadhaar-linking.

The interim order will be in effect till the Supreme Court decides whether linking of Aadhaar violates the constitutional right to privacy, or not. Final hearing on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar linking is set to begin on January 17.

The main petitioner in the case is 91-year-old Justice (Retired) K.S. Puttaswamy.

Attorney General of India K. K. Venugopal told the Supreme Court that "the Union government has extended the deadline for Aadhaar linkage with all schemes of its ministries/departments until 31 March 2018. As far as Aadhaar linkage with bank accounts is concerned, for existing bank accounts, the last date for the completion of the process may be extended to 31 March 2018."

The court accepted the Centre's suggestion and ordered accordingly.

For new bank accounts, Venugopal suggested the court that "in so far as new bank accounts are concerned, while the last date for completing the process of Aadhaar linking may be extended until 31 March 2018, persons desirous to open new accounts shall produce proof to the bank of an application having been submitted for obtaining an Aadhaar card together with the application number which shall be supplied to the account opening bank".

In this regard, the court ordered: "Subject to the submission of the details in regard to the filing of an application for an Aadhaar card and the furnishing of the application number to the account opening bank, we likewise extend the last date for the completion of the process of Aadhaar linking of new bank accounts to 31 March 2018".

On the issue of linking mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar, the Attorney General of India told the court that "as regards Aadhaar-based E-KYC for mobile phone subscribers, consistent with the extension of the deadline to 31 March 2018 in other cases, this Court may consider passing appropriate orders."

The court agreed and passed the order that "we extend the date for the completion of the E-KYC process in respect of mobile phone subscribers until 31 March 2018".

The bench also said, "Consistent with the above directions, we also direct that the extension of the last date for Aadhar linkage to 31 March 2018 shall apply, besides the schemes of the Ministries/Departments of the Union government to all state governments in similar terms. As a consequence of the extension of the deadline to 31 March 2018, it is ordered accordingly."

The court also clarified that "in so far as the provisions of Section 139 AA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 are concerned, the matter stands governed by the judgment of this Court in Binoy Visman v Union of India."

Section 139AA of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 as introduced by the Finance Act, 2017 provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar / Enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form, for filing of return of income and for making an application for allotment of Permanent Account Number with effect from 1st July, 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed activist Teesta Setalvad's petition seeking to defreeze her bank accounts in Gulbarg Society fund embezzlement case.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was hearing the matter.

Teesta, her husband and the two NGOs - Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace - approached the apex court challenging the October 7, 2015, verdict of the Gujarat High Court, which had rejected their pleas for defreezing their personal bank accounts.

Earlier in July, the apex court rejected an appeal from Setalvad for relief from charges of corruption and misappropriation of funds in this issue.

The court had asked Setalvad to face trial in the case registered against her and her husband and said the chargesheet had already been filed in the case.

Earlier on July 5, the top court reserved its order on her plea regarding defreezing of her bank account and the NGOs.

Then, a division bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Misra and comprising Justice A M Khanwilkar, was hearing the arguments.

The Gujarat government told the top court that Setalvad had allegedly spent the NGO money meant for secular education for her personal purpose, including liquor consumption.

Setalvad rejected the allegation and told the court that the state government was harassing her and wanted to paralyse her activities.

She told the apex court, "Only Rs 7,850 were spent on liquor over seven years and the expenditure was approved by the Ford Foundation which donated money. Is it a crime?"

One of the residents of Gulbarg Society had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that the money was raised to make a museum at Gulbarg Society in the memory of those killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

The High Court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point.

In their plea before the apex court, the petitioners have alleged that their accounts were "illegally freezed" without following the due process of law.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States President Donald Trump hailed the graduates of the FBI National Academy, though just an hour after criticising the principal agency.

Trump, in a speech during the ceremony, praised the local law enforcement and FBI agents.

"With me as your the president, America's police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House - more loyal than anyone else can be," Trump said.

Since dismissing FBI director James Comey, for his alleged collusion with Russia, the president has publically derided the FBI's reputation, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller seeks to determine whether campaign advisors for Trump colluded with the Russian government.

The FBI director earlier contradicted Trump's claim that his agency was in "tatters", defending the bureau's reputation as "quite good".

Director Christopher Wray spoke out at a House Judiciary Committee hearing just days after Trump launched a Twitter tirade against his agency. Trump had tweeted the FBI's reputation was at its "worst in history" after years of leadership by former director James Comey.

Mueller, who served as FBI director during the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations, has so far secured multiple indictments and guilty pleas as part of his investigation.

Meanwhile, Trump congratulated the FBI Academy's graduates, reiterated his tough-on-crime stance and ramped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

"We believe criminals who kill police officers should get the death penalty," Mr Trump said.

He also mocked the visa lottery system, describing the system as if it was a lottery draw on television.

Earlier this month, the anti-Russia probe reached Trump's inner circle, with ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's admission that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with a senior-level Russian official.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the arrest of two journalists in Myanmar, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that their arrest indicated that press freedom is shrinking in Southeast Asian country and the international community must do all it can to get them released.

Guterres, who spoke to press in Tokyo on Thursday, drew the plight of the two arrested Reuters journalists "in relation to the dramatic violations of human rights that occurred in the country, and led to 600,000 people being forced to flee," reported CNN.

In connection with the arrest of journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been working on stories about the conflict in the restive Rakhine State, the UN chief said, "It is clearly a concern in relation to the erosion of press freedom in the country."

The news agency confirmed that the duo was working on stories about the Rohingya minority in western Rakhine state, when they were arrested on Tuesday.

"And probably the reason why these journalists were arrested is because they were reporting on what they have seen in relation to this massive human tragedy," Guterres added.

The two reporters were arrested under the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum 14-year jail sentence, the report said.

Both journalists are Myanmar citizens.

Guterres said that the international community should do everything possible to secure the journalists' release and freedom of the press in Myanmar.

Earlier, on December 5, the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein condemned the brutal attacks at and decades-long discrimination against the Rohingyas, citing they could contain "elements of genocide".

At least 6,700 Rohingyas were killed between August and September after violence broke out in Myanmar's northern restive Rakhine state, according to the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

More than 6,20,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh since the Myanmar security forces launched an operation in the Rakhine state in response to the alleged attacks by militants on August 25 against 30 police posts and a regimental headquarters.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The hearing on LIC agent Anand Chauhan's bail plea in connection with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case has been adjourned for December 19 by the Patiala House Court.

Also, the arguments on the charges levied on Chauhan would be heard on January 18, 2018.

Chauhan, an accused chargesheeted in the money laundering case, was granted interim bail by a special court from November 25 to December 5. The court granted relief to him for attending a wedding of his niece.

Advocate Tarannum Cheema, who moved the plea on behalf of Chauhan, had sought the relief for her client for 15 days.

Chauhan was earlier arrested in July last year in Chandigarh by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), under the provisions of the PMLA, for not cooperating with the agency.

The ED in September last year, filed a chargesheet against Chauhan in the money laundering case, also involving Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and others.

He was instrumental in investing Rs 5 crore in LIC polices in the name of the Singh, including his wife and children.

Under the PMLA, which is a criminal law, the ED is empowered to conduct investigations to trace assets derived out of the proceeds of crime, to provisionally attach and confiscate the same, and to arrest and prosecute the offenders, found to be involved in money laundering.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The winter session of Parliament began on a stormy note in Rajya Sabha on Friday and was adjourned till 2

Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad said it was a serious allegation which needed to be proved, otherwise the prime minister should issue an apology.

"A big issue that is not just but international need to be discussed. Issue is the allegations made by Prime Minister Modi against former prime minister Manmohan Singh, former vice-president Hamid Ansari, former army chief and others of conspiring with Pakistan for Gujarat assembly election," Azad told media after the adjournment.

The house also witnessed stormy scenes over rebel Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar's disqualification issue and slogan "Taanashahi Nahin Chalegi" (Dictatorship will not be accepted) was raised during the proceedings.

On December 4, Yadav and Anwar were disqualified from the Rajya Sabha on the grounds that they had attended events of opposition parties defying their party's directives.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Modi introduced the newly inducted cabinet ministers in Rajya Sabha.

After the uproar, the upper house was adjourned till 2:30 pm.

The winter session, which began on Friday, will see 14 sittings until its concluding day on January 5, 2018.

Legislations on triple talaq and granting constitutional status to the Backward Class Commission are among the important bills, which will be tabled during this session.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
From CARE

Allahabad Bank announced that CARE has assigned CARE A+; Negative ratings to Bank's further proposed BASEL-III compliant Additional Tier I perpetual bonds aggregating Rs 1300 crore.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sales decline 94.21% to Rs 0.28 crore

Net profit of Bombay Oxygen Corporation declined 27.59% to Rs 1.89 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 2.61 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Sales declined 94.21% to Rs 0.28 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 4.84 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.0.284.84-235.71-12.812.733.572.252.871.892.61

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
HDFC Bank announced that its board will meet on 20 December 2017 to consider a proposal for raising of funds by issue of equity shares/ depository receipts and other securities including through qualified institutions placement (QIP)/ American depository receipts (ADRs) / preferential allotment or such other methods or combinations as may be decided, as well as a preferential issue to Housing Development Finance Corporation (the promoter). The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Union Bank of India announced that the offer of qualified institutions placement (QIP) was oversubscribed. The bank has issued 12.93 crore shares at Rs 154.65 each, aggregating to Rs 2000 crore. The shares were allotted on 14 December 2017. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Vedanta said it proposes to offer rated, secured, redeemable, non-cumulative, non-convertible debentures aggregating to Rs 500 crore. In this regard, the company is holding a meeting of its duly constituted committee of the board on 19 December 2017. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), India's leading SUV manufacturer, announced that it plans to increase prices of its passenger and commercial vehicles by up to 3%. This will be effective 1 January 2018. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Gulf Oil Lubricants India said that the commercial production for manufacturing of lubricants oil commenced yesterday, 14 December 2017 at the company's newly set-up Plant at Chennai (Ennore). The installed manufacturing capacity of new plant is 50,000 KL per annum. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Shares of Shalby will debut on the bourses today, 15 December 2017 after its recently concluded initial public offer (IPO). The IPO of Shalby received bids for 4.08 crore shares, data on NSE showed. The IPO was subscribed 2.82 times. The price band of the IPO was Rs 245 to Rs 248 per share. The IPO opened for subscription on 5 December 2017 and closed on 7 December 2017.

Lovable Lingerie reported 23.63% fall in net profit to Rs 3.20 crore on 10.49% fall in total income to Rs 48.13 crore in Q2 September 2017 over Q2 September 2016. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
HDFC Bank rose 2.49% to Rs 1,883 at 09:25 IST on BSE after the bank announced that its board will meet on 20 December 2017 to consider a proposal for raising of funds through various modes.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 316.47 points or 0.95% at 33,563.17.

On the BSE, 28,000 shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 1.63 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 1,887.15 in intraday trade today, 15 December 2017, a record high. The stock hit a low of Rs 1,850 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 1,165 on 15 December 2016.

The large-cap bank has equity capital of Rs 517.61 crore. Face value per share is Rs 2.

HDFC Bank announced that a board meeting will be held on 20 December 2017 to consider a proposal for raising of funds by issue of equity shares/ depository receipts and other securities including through Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP)/ American Depository Receipts (ADRs) program, preferential allotment or such other methods or combinations as may be decided, as well as a preferential issue to Housing Development Finance Corporation (the Promoter).

HDFC Bank's net profit rose 20.1% to Rs 4151.03 crore on 16.6% growth in total income to Rs 23276.18 crore in Q2 September 2017 over Q2 September 2016.

HDFC Bank is one of the leading private sector banks in India. As on 30 September 2017, the bank had a network of 4,729 branches and 12,259 ATMs.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A delegation of the Moroccan Government, led by Mr. Abdelkader Amara, its Minister for Equipment, Transport, Logistics and Water called on Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation in New Delhi today.

The two sides discussed matters relating to India-Morocco bilateral cooperation in road transport, water resources and the marine sector. The two countries also signed and exchanged the following MoUs /Agreements

(i) MoU on cooperation in the field of Water Resources;

(ii) Agreement to establish cooperation between Indian Maritime University (IMU) and Higher Institute of Maritime Studies (ISEM) of Morocco;

(iii) Framework Agreement for Cooperation in Training between the National Ports Agency (NPA) of Morocco and the Indian Maritime University (IMU); and

(iv) Cooperation Framework Agreement between the Institute of Training in Engines and Road Maintenance of Morocco (IFEER) and Indian Academy of Highway Engineers (IAHE).

Speaking on the occasion Shri Gadkari said that he looked forward to utilizing the immense scope for cooperation between the two countries in the road transport, water resources and marine sectors.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) of the country has finalized procurement of a quantity of 113 crore litres of ethanol for 2017-18 (December-November) sugar season (SS). The quantity of 113 crore litre for 2017-18 season is higher than the best ever ethanol supply of 113 crore litre made in 2015-16 (Dec-Nov) SS and around 66 crore litre lifted by OMCs for the programme in 2016-17 (Dec-Nov) SS.

According to Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the sugar companies and ethanol manufacturers have submitted bids for supply of a total quantity of 155 crore litres by November 10, 2017, the closing date for submission of bids and the OMCs have finalized just 113 crore litres for supply during 2017-18 season.

Considering past practice of OMCs floating second round of tender for additional quantities, recent pro- active steps taken by GoI & OMCs in ethanol procurement as well as non acceptance of 42 crore litres as offered by manufacturers (sugar companies and ethanol manufacturers) and a total of 313 crore litres is required for 10% blending across the country, the quantity for ethanol supply finalized for 2017-18 season may go up significantly going forward.

Of the 75.9 crore litres offered by UP based sugar companies and ethanol manufacturers, the procurement quantum was fixed at 44.3 crore litres and in case of Maharashtra based manufacturers the procurement quantum finalized was 40.3 crore litres as against an offer of 50.4 crore litres. So in case of second round of tender for additional supplies the manufacturers based out of these two states will be major gainers.

According to ISMA at an ex-distillery procurement price of Rs. 40.85 per litre and procurement of the finalized quantity of 113 crore litres, the revenue realization during 2017-18 by the sugar industry/ethanol suppliers would be over Rs 4500 crore. This, in turn, will significantly help the sugar industry in making payments of cane price to the farmers.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Held on 13 December 2017

The Board of Emami Infrastructure at its meeting held on 13 December 2017 has decided that the shifting of registered office of the Company to Acropolis, 13th Floor, 1858/1, Rajdanga Main Road, Kasba, Kolkata - 700 107 will be effective from 01 February 2018.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sales decline 24.73% to Rs 8.37 crore

Net profit of Phoenix International declined 31.71% to Rs 0.28 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 0.41 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016. Sales declined 24.73% to Rs 8.37 crore in the quarter ended September 2017 as against Rs 11.12 crore during the previous quarter ended September 2016.8.3711.1236.3214.300.590.720.430.570.280.41

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi will formally dedicate the 60 MW Tuirial Hydro Electric Power Project (HEPP) to the Nation. The Prime Minister will also launch 'MyDoNER App' and will distribute cheques to the Start-up Entrepreneurs Aizawl tomorrow, on 16th December, 2017.

The Tuirial HEPP has been constructed as a Central Sector Project and implemented by North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO), under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power, Government of India.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) cleared the Project for implementation in July 1998 with commissioning scheduled in July 2006. After completion of about 30% of the project activities, the works were totally suspended w.e.f. June 2004 due to local agitation. With sustained efforts by NEEPCO and with active support of Ministry of Power and Ministry of DoNER, Government of India and Government of Mizoram, the stalled works of the project were resumed in January 2011.

The Project being remotely located, encountered various hindrances ranging from inadequate communication infrastructure to the project site, massive failure of the Power House slopes due to poor soil condition, lack of availability of skilled manpower etc.

These factors resulted in comparatively longer gestation period for the project. However, with all efforts from the agencies concerned, the project works were completed successfully, leading to commissioning of Unit-I on 25-08-2017 and Unit-II on 28-11-2017.

The project has been implemented by NEEPCO by engaging M/S Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd for supply and erection of power generating equipment, M/S Patel Engineering Ltd for execution of major civil works and M/S Sew-PES-Tuirial consortium for Hydro-Mechanical works. The Project has been built at a cost of Rs.1302 crore.

The Project is the biggest power project located in the State of Mizoram and will feed the entire energy to be generated to the home State, which will facilitate all-round development of the State and achieving Government of India's ambitious and flagship Mission '24x7 Affordable Clean Power for All'.

The State's current demand of electricity is only 87 MW and this is being met by State's mini power projects and availability of its share of power from central sector projects. With the additional 60 MW of electricity from the project, the State of Mizoram will now be the third power-surplus State in North East India after Sikkim and Tripura. Apart from attaining self-sufficiency in electric power, the project will fetch other spin-off benefits to the State of Mizoram like employment generation, navigation, water supply, pisciculture and wild life conservation, tourism etc.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vedanta gained 4.23% to Rs 296.70 at 10:15 IST on BSE after the company said that duly constituted committee of the board of directors will meet on 19 December 2017 to consider proposal to offer non-convertible debentures.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 14 December 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 316.31 points or 0.95% at 33,563.01.

On the BSE, 2.27 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 7.2 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 297.70 and a low of Rs 289.15 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 346.80 on 3 November 2017. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 205 on 27 December 2016.

The stock fell 8% over the past one month till 14 December 2017, underperforming the Sensex's 0.93% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, dropping 10.94% as against Sensex's 3.12% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one year, gaining 20.69% as against Sensex's 24.97% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 371.72 crore. Face value per share is Re 1.

Vedanta said that duly constituted committee of the board of directors will meet on 19 December 2017 to consider proposal to offer rated, secured, redeemable, non-cumulative, non-convertible debentures aggregating to Rs 500 crore.

The issuance is pursuant to the approval of the shareholders passed vide special resolution at the 52nd annual general meeting of the company held on 14 July 2017 and the board of directors' resolution passed at its meeting held on 29 July 2015.

Vedanta's consolidated net profit rose 19.7% to Rs 2986 crore on 36.1% growth in net sales to Rs 21590 crore in Q2 September 2017 over Q2 September 2016.

Vedanta is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc - lead - silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
S&P Global Ratings

Most rated banks and insurance companies around the globe will experience only moderate changes in their creditworthiness and performance in 2018, in S&P Global Ratings' opinion. We expect continuing global economic growth, stable financial conditions in most regions, and the still cautious stance of the major central banks to remain supporting factors.

That said, we also see increasing downside risks to financial stability, perhaps belying the sanguine signals that markets are currently sending. Considerable monetary stimulus over a protracted period appears to have driven a sharp rise in asset prices and numbed market volatility even in the face of geopolitical uncertainty, and a potential reduction in the size of central banks' balance sheets.

On the upside, if the global economy grows at or beyond the 3.7% pace S&P Global's economists currently expect, the odds of considerable instability would certainly diminish.

Beyond the global macroeconomic story, we believe that common drivers of a regulatory, political, and monetary nature will lead to divergence in the credit outlook regionally, and between the various financial services sectors. To understand how these factors may influence ratings, we surveyed S&P analysts around the world who follow hundreds of financial institutions (banks and nonbank financial institutions) and insurance companies, asking whether they think the credit quality of the companies they rate will improve or weaken in 2018. We show the overall results below and delve into each region later in the article.

For financial institutions globally, slightly more than one-third of analysts expected the credit quality of the companies they monitor to be mostly stable. Of the remainder, the majority of analysts were evenly split between expecting some of the companies to weaken and some to improve, while only a few expected the credit quality of most of their companies to either improve or weaken. Analysts covering banks in Latin America were the most pessimistic, while those covering banks in Western Europe were the most optimistic.

About 60% of insurance analysts expected little change in the creditworthiness of the companies they followed, while almost 25% expected some companies to weaken, and the remainder expected some to improve. Analysts covering insurance companies in emerging markets were more pessimistic.

In Asia Pacific region we expect that a moderately negative rating outlook bias will persist during 2018.

What are the key risks in 2018? Property is a key risk in China, Hong Kong, Australia, and New Zealand. Other market risks, including likely tighter monetary policy in the U.S., potentially volatile foreign currency and commodity markets, and a possibly sharp correction in asset prices, could worsen financial institutions' credit quality, particularly if associated with a pullback in market liquidity.

We see high or increasing debt as a key risk factor. Banks in Australia, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are grappling with rising household debt, while leverage in China's nonfinancial corporate sector is high. Meanwhile, the outlook for asset quality is mixed. Our base case is that nonperforming loans should remain relatively low in some jurisdictions (including Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan) but will remain much higher in some others, notably India.

Recent capital infusions by the Government of India, however, will improve the balance sheet quality of Indian public sector banks.

The transition to resolution frameworks that imply a lower likelihood of government support--such as recently occurred in Hong Kongor potentially weaker sovereign credit quality could also put pressure on our ratings on banks.

Finally, we are wary of the potential destabilizing impact of low-probability but high-impact risk scenarios, such as a significant adverse market or political event. The emergence of a significant negative event could have a significantly more negative impact on bank ratings compared with our current base case outlook.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Moroccan anti-terror court has sentenced four persons to between one and three years in prison over terror-related charges.

One defendant was sentenced to three years in prison for "forming a gang as part of a collective project to seriously undermine public order", Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

Another was sentenced to two years, while the rest two were given one year for terror-related crimes, including "praising terrorist attack".

In 2015, Morocco adopted a new bill, posing stricter charges on praising terrorism.

The law stipulates two to six years of prison for "praising acts that constitute terrorism offences" as well as "propaganda, praising, or promoting a terrorist or a terrorist group, gang, or entity".

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
What happens when reality mingles with mythology? Well, here is a young protagonist who discovers himself trapped in the days of Mahabharata. Then a story of dark secrets, shocking revelations and a special bond between two women. Next come two thrillers that will take you inside the deep, dark and secretive lives of people and their quest for truth.

The IANS bookshelf this week offers an assorted range of write-ups. Read on.

1) Book: Lost in Time; Author: Namita Gokhale; Publisher: Penguin; Pages: 119; Price: Rs 250

The protagonist, Chintamani Dev Gupta, heading to a birding camp near the Sat Tal lake, is inexplicably transported to the days of the Mahabharata. Trapped in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mother Hidimba.

But the gentle giant, a master of illusions and mind-boggling rakshasa technology, weilds his strength just as expertly as he imparts the age-old secrets of the forest and the elemental forces. And in his enlightening company, Chintamani finds himself in the thick of the most enduring Indian epic.

Author Namita Gokhale's book offers a tender look at a remarkable friendship as well as the abiding riddles of time. This visual treat of a book sheds light on the firstborn son of the Pandavas -- one who finds rare mention in the yellowing pages of legends.

2) Book: Stuck Like Lint; Author: Shefali Tripathi Mehta; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 155; Price: Rs 295

The story revolves around the bond between two women -- protagonist Trisha and Debika. When Trisha, an author, disappears suddenly, complaining of a writer's block, Debika, her editor for years, is left distressed as theirs was not just a writer-editor association.

As Debika braces herself to read the stories written by Trisha that got her awards, she finds a shocking revelation -- a dark secret that will unravel itself in the most mysterious ways. The book is a nuanced novella with a twist in the tale, a story about women who live complex lives within commonplace existences, each of them devising their own escape from the realities and challenges of love, marriage and motherhood to follow one's heart's desire, in the most unexpected ways.

3) Book: Pines; Author: Blake Crouch; Publisher: Thomas and Mercer; Pages: 309; Price: Rs 399

Wayward Pines, Idaho, is quintessential small-town America. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives there in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in hospital, Burke has no ID or cellphone. Why can't he make contact with his family in the outside world? Why doesn't anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what's the purpose of the electrified fences encircling the town?

As the days pass, Burke's investigation into his colleagues' disappearance turns up more questions than answers. Each step towards the truth takes him further from the world he knows, until he must face the horrifying possibility that he may never leave Wayward Pines alive.

4) Book: My Sister's Grave; Author: Robert Dugoni; Publisher: Thomas and Mercer; Pages: 410; Price: Rs 399

For the past 20 years, Tracy Crosswhite has been living questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah's disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn't believe that Edmund House -- a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah's murder -- is the guilty party.

Crosswhite becomes a homicide detective with the Seattle Police Department. When Sarah's remains are finally discovered near their home-town in the northern Cascade mountains of Washington State, Crosswhite is determined to get the answers she's been seeking. As she searches for the real killer, she unearths dark, long-kept secrets that will forever change her relationship with her past.

--IANS

som/vm/ky/sac

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Women activists on Friday sought support of all political parties in converting the triple talaq Bill into law in Parliament, even as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) termed the Bill a "direct interference in religious matters".

The women activists said the Bill to ban triple talaq -- oral divorce by Muslim men -- should be converted into law in Parliament's Winter Session so that its victims can get justice.

The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, to make the practice of triple talaq an offence.

The AIMPLB said it is against 'Shariat' and asked the Centre to consult the Muslim organisation before making any such law, after the Bill was approved by the Cabinet.

Activist Zakir Soman claimed the board and the Muslim community are not taking proper care of triple talaq victims, and such women should get justice from the law.

"If the community and the board were doing enough, why would triple talaq victims be approaching women's organisations?" asked Soman.

"We will not give up our constitutional and legal entitlements. We are all citizens of a democracy and living in the 21st century. We are entitled, educated, and empowered, and want justice as per the law of the land...," the activist said.

According to Soman, they have written to Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury for support in ensuring the passage of Bill in Parliament.

"It is not a matter of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress or any other political party. It is the responsibility of all political parties and their representatives and all women in this country," she said.

Opposing the proposed law, AIMPLB member Maulana Khalid Rashid said: "As far as the divorced women's rehabilitation is concerned, the Muslim community is already doing it. So, we consider the Bill as a direct interference in the religious matters of our community. It is an attack on our religious freedom..."

"Women are not being tortured in the name of triple talaq. Muslim women have said they do not want changes in the community's personal laws, including on triple talaq. If certain people are misusing such laws it doesn't mean you will completely end it. It is part of our 'Shariat'. The government should at least have consulted Muslim organisations before making any such law."

Woman activist Hina Zaheer said: "According to the Quran, there is no provision for instant talaq... So, it should not be a matter of prestige for the board. Since the board failed to resolve the issue, a lot of politics has been done on it."

According to the draft Bill sent out to the states earlier this month, it was proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence, attracting three years in jail.

The draft law was prepared in the backdrop of the August verdict of the Supreme Court that struck down the practice of "instant" divorce as illegal.

--IANS

rak/tsb/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Reliance Anil Ambani group has filed a Rs 5,000-crore ($ 780 million) defamation suit here against Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, accusing him of making "false, defamatory and libellous statements".

The suit has been filed in the Gujarat High Court.

According to company sources, the Congress leader "made false, defamatory and libellous statements against the group. We have filed a Rs 5,000-crore suit for damages against him for making these false and defamatory statements".

Singhvi had, on November 30, attacked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, contending that he was "fooling" people by saying the government had not waived loans of big defaulters.

Alleging that the government had written off Rs 1.88 lakh crore debt of wilful defaulters, he had said: "We all know that top 50 corporates owe Rs 8.35 lakh crore to banks and out of those, three top Gujarat-based companies -- Reliance (Anil Ambani Group), Adani and Essar -- owe Rs 3 lakh crore."

He had charged that the Finance Minister, instead of declaring these liabilities as NPAs, was "trying to help the defaulter with further defence contracts like the Rafale deal".

A Reliance Defence statement had earlier clarified the joint venture between Reliance Aerostructure Ltd and Dassault Aviation was a bilateral agreement between two private companies -- and had nothing to do with the government.

The statement had added: "Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd will be only one of the key players in the discharge of offset obligations. Over 500 large, medium and small Indian companies will benefit from the offsets which are nothing but an export obligation for goods and services from India. Offsets referred to are spread over a period of nearly 10 years."

--IANS

sac/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In what is considered the biggest haul since 2006 in the state, police in Maharashtra's Nashik arrested three men and seized a large cache of arms from a vehicle near a toll plaza on the Agra-Mumbai highway early on Friday, an officer said.

The seizure, effected near the Chandwad Toll Plaza, included at least two dozen rifles, 19 guns, including two foreign-made revolvers, and more than 4,100 live cartridges, said an officer from Nashik Rural Police Control.

Superintendent of Police, Nashik Rural, Sanjay Darade said as per initial investigations, the arms appear to be stolen from a weapons dealer in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district this week.

"Presently, we do no suspect a terror angle, but we investigating from all angles and don't rule out any possiblities," Darade told IANS.

An investigating officer earlier said that late on Thursday night, the vehicle's driver had filled diesel before flashing a gun at the petrol station attendant and fleeing without paying.

The petrol pump staff alerted police which swung into action by placing road blocks at strategic locations on the highway and finally managed to stop the jeep near Chandwad.

A thorough search revealed the arms cache from specially-created compartments inside the vehicle.

Though the arms are suspected to be stolen, Darade said it is yet unclear where they were destined for delivery or disposal, the motives and who are the other people behind the operation.

The Chandwad police have arrested three persons: Nagesh Bansode, 23, a resident of Nashik, Badri Badshal alias Sumit, 27 and Salman Amanullah Khan, 20, both hailing from Sewri in south Mumbai.

Top police officials from the region have joined the Nashik police investigations into the arms haul, the biggest since the arms seizure from Chandaud near Aurangabad in May 2006.

At that time, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad had seized 43 kgs RDX, 50 hand grenades, 16 AK-47 army assault rifles and 3,000 live bullets from a vehicle.

Later, the investigations were taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the trial in the case continues before the designated courts.

--IANS

qn/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In what was termed the biggest haul in the state since 2006, police in Maharashtra's Nashik arrested three men and seized a large cache of arms from a vehicle near a toll plaza on the Agra-Mumbai highway early on Friday, an officer said.

The seizure was effected near the Chandwad Toll Plaza and included at least two dozen rifles, 19 guns, including two foreign-made revolvers, and more than 4,100 live cartridges, said an officer from Nashik Rural Police Control.

He said that late on Thursday night, the vehicle's driver had filled diesel before flashing a gun at the petrol station attendant and fleeing without paying.

Police was alerted and they placed road blocks at strategic locations on the highway, finally managing to stop the vehicle near Chandwad.

A thorough search revealed the arms cache from specially-created compartments inside the vehicle.

According to preliminary investigations, the arms may have been smuggled from some factory in Uttar Pradesh, but its destination, the motive and people behind the operation was not known.

The Chandwad police have arrested three persons: Nagesh Bansode, 23, a resident of Nashik, Badri Badshal alias Sumit, 27 and Salman Amanullah Khan, 20, both from Sewri in south Mumbai.

Top police officials from Nashik and other cities have joined the investigations into the arms haul, the biggest since the arms seizure from Chandaud near Aurangabad in May 2006.

At that time, the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad had seized 43 kgs RDX, 50 hand grenades, 16 AK-47 army assault rifles and 3,000 live bullets from a vehicle.

Later, the investigations were taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the trial in the case continues before the designated courts.

--IANS

qn/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Friday met differently-abled children from Asha school of Delhi Cantonment, and stressed that society should be more sensitive and accepting towards such children.

A total of 108 students, 22 teachers and 19 non-teaching staff from the school visited the Army chief's residence, and interacted with him and Army Wives Welfare Association President Madhulika Rawat.

Rawat complimented the Principal and the staff of the school for their dedication and said: "The society should be more sensitive and accepting towards the differently-abled children."

A special Dog Show was organised for the children using trained military dogs and various games were also conducted.

The Asha School at the Delhi Cantonment was established in 1991 to provide education, care and rehabilitation to the differently-abled children of defence personnel and civilians.

The Indian Army runs 38 such welfare schools across the country. The Army also runs the Vishwas Employment Assistance Centre for skill training of the differently-abled.

--IANS

ao/him/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Leaders of the Catholic church in Australia on Friday dismissed calls from a landmark inquiry into child sexual abuse that the Vatican should make celibacy for priests voluntary and end the secrecy of confession.

Earlier on Friday, Australia's Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse delivered its 21-volume report to the government containing 400 recommendations and with 2,500 witness accounts along with more than 8,000 harrowing stories from survivors, reports the Guardian.

The report, which was released after five years of work, found the inadequacy of canon law contributed to the failure of the Catholic church to protect children and report or punish perpetrators within church institutions.

The commission urged the Australian Catholic bishops conference to ask the Vatican to reform canon law by removing provisions that "prevent, hinder or discourage compliance with mandatory reporting laws by bishops or religious superiors".

It also said the conference should urge the Vatican to rethink its celibacy rules.

The commission found that while celibacy for clergy was not a direct cause of abuse, it elevated the risk when compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious figures had privileged access to children.

But the archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, responded by saying the seal of the confessional was "inviolable" and "can't be broken".

He said if someone confessed to abusing children, he would encourage them to admit to their crimes outside the confessional so that it could be reported to police, the Guardian reported.

Almost 2,500 survivors told the commission about sexual abuse in an institution managed by the Catholic church, representing 61.8 per cent of all survivors who reported sexual abuse in a religious institution.

The final report added 189 recommendations to 220 that had already been made public, the BBC reported.

"Tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused in many Australian institutions. We will never know the true number.

"Whatever the number, it is a national tragedy, perpetrated over generations within many of our most trusted institutions... It is not a case of a few 'rotten apples'. Society's major institutions have seriously failed," it added.

Religious ministers and school teachers were the most commonly reported perpetrators and the greatest number of alleged perpetrators and abused children were in Catholic institutions, the report said.

The royal commission, Australia's highest form of public inquiry, had been contacted by more than 15,000 people, including relatives and friends of abuse victims.

More than 8,000 victims told their stories, many for the first time, in private sessions with commissioners.

The inquiry also received more than 1,300 written accounts, and held 57 public hearings across the nation.

--IANS

ksk/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China's island province of Hainan has unveiled a satellite launch plan to assist remote sensing coverage over the South China Sea, authorities said on Friday.

The Sanyan Institute of Remote Sensing said the mission would start in 2019, when it would launch three optical satellites, reports Xinhua news agency.

It will also add another three optical satellites, two hyperspectral satellites and two SAR satellites to complete the Satellite Constellation Programme by 2021, for conducting round-the-clock remote-sensing over the tropical sea area.

Yang Tianliang, director of the institute, said that the network was calculated to broadly cover the area between 30 degrees north and south of the equator.

Yang said the programme would provide scientific support for China's initiative of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and emergency response efforts at sea.

--IANS

ksk/sac

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State-run power equipment manufacturer Bhel announced on Friday that it has won a Rs 7,300 crore order for setting up a supercritical thermal power project (TPP) in Tamil Nadu.

According to a company release here, the order for setting up the 2x660 MW Udangudi TPP has been placed on the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp (TANGEDCO), a state government enterprise.

Four other orders have been won by Bhel from TANGEDCO in the last 3 years, all through international competitive bidding, it said.

The three earlier orders were for the 2x660 MW Ennore Special Economic Zone, 1x800 MW North Chennai Supercritical TPP Stage-III and the 2x800 MW Uppur TPP.A

The Udangudi greenfield project will be executed by Bhel on an Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) basis. The scope of work involves design, engineering, manufacture, supply, erection, commissioning and civil works for the entire plant including sea water intake and outfall systems.

The key equipment for the project will be manufactured at Bhel's plants across the country, including Trichy, Haridwar, Bhopal, Thirumayam and Bengaluru.

The company's Southern Region will be responsible for the civil works, erection and commissioning of the equipment, the statement added.

--IANS

bc/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP on Friday ruled out Prime Minister Narendra Modi's apology over the issue of the attack on his predecessor Manmohan Singh during the Gujarat election campaign even as Modi asked the party MPs and NDA allies to aggressively counter any opposition onslaught on the government during the winter session of Parliament.

After a meeting of BJP and NDA leaders attended by the Prime Minister, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said, "The question of PM's apology does not arise. In fact, they should apologise for meeting with Pakistani leaders. We are ready to answer every issue raised by the opposition."

The Prime Minister also observed that the bill on triple talaq, cleared by the union cabinet, is revolutionary and should be publicised on a large scale.

Kumar's remarks came in the wake of the Congress stalling the first day of the winter session of parliament in the Rajya Sabha and forcing its adjournment repeatedly while raking up the issue of Modi accusing Singh and others of conspiring with Pakistan to defeat the BJP in the Gujarat elections.

"This is not an ordinary allegation. Questions have been raised over the integrity of a former Prime Minister, former Vice President and several retired diplomats," Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said as he demanded a discussion on the issue.

Modi had claimed that during a meeting at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's house, the guests including Manmohan Singh, discussed the Gujarat polls with Pakistan's High Commissioner to India and former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.

As the Congress indicated that it is going to be aggressive on the issue in the coming days in parliament, the Prime Minister asked the BJP and its allies to counter the opposition's onslaught aggressively.

"Whoever makes baseless allegations on treasury benches... no need to remain seated peacefully...counter them aggressively," a source quoted the Prime Minister as saying in a meeting of NDA leaders at Parliament House here.

According to sources the Prime Minister also urged the NDA allies to support the Bills listed for passage in the session, saying, "These Bills are associated with common men's interest."

The NDA meeting was preceded by a meeting of the BJP parliamentary party executive committee which discussed the strategy to counter the opposition.

Sources said the Prime Minister asked the senior leaders to ensure 100 per cent attendance of the members for the entire session.

In the monsoon session, the Modi government faced embarrassment in the Rajya Sabha as many BJP MPs were missing when a crucial bill seeking to grant constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes came up for amendment. The government is keen to get the bill passed.

BJP President Amit Shah, who made his debut in the Rajya Sabha, was welcomed by the BJP leaders.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and senior ministers and leaders are members of the committee.

After Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, the BJP formed the first-of-its kind Parliamentary Party Executive Committee.

--IANS

bns/vsc/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi Police, along with its bomb disposal and dog squads, on Friday launched a swift search operation after receiving a bomb threat call in the upscale Khan Market area.

The Police Control Room received the call around 7 a.m saying that "a bomb has been planted in Khan Market".

The K9 team along with the bomb disposal squad and officers were still searching the area around 1 p.m.

Security in the market and its surrounding areas has been beefed up, Deputy Commissioner of Police B.K Singh said.

"The call originated from outside the New Delhi district. We are verifying the facts," Singh said.

"All required steps as per standard bomb threat drill is underway. However, there is no need for any panic. Nothing suspicious has been found yet," the DCP said.

"The call might be hoax. We are investigating the location of the caller and are trying to track him down," Singh said.
British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said that 2018 will mark the year British and Japanese military forces work even more closely together.

His comments on Thursday came after Williamson and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met their Japanese counterparts at Greenwich Naval College to strengthen security and defence cooperation between the two countries, Xinhua reported.

Britain and Japan both agreed a three-year Defence cooperation plan, with a communique after Thursday's meeting saying: "It demonstrates the UK's dedication to working with Japan as a long term security partner, including activity across air, land and sea in the Asia Pacific region."

As a signal of the closer ties, Britain will next year send 45 army personnel to train with Japanese soldiers, the first time British troops will exercise on Japanese soil.

With plans already agreed, Britain will send two Royal Navy warships to visit Japan in 2018. And the Royal Air Force also plans future joint working with the Japanese Self-Defense Air Force.

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Britain is the most polluted country in Europe and its Swindon town, which has a sizeable population of Goan expats, is also "highly polluted", Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Friday.

He was speaking during a discussion in the assembly on a private members' resolution moved by former Congress Chief Minister Ravi Naik, seeking action against those responsible for coal pollution emanating from excessive coal handling at Mormugao, the state's only major port.

"Lots of Goans stay in UK Swindon. It is a highly polluted town with high PM (particulate matter) 2.5," said Parrikar, who had earlier this week had warned NRIs and expats against advising him about Goa-related affairs, especially related to the coal pollution controversy.

The Chief Minister also termed UK highly polluted, with pollution levels four times that of India.

Parrikar said that he was against pollution, but added that those who wanted coal banned from Goa, should themselves work at reducing their carbon footprint.

"Those who are against coal and are green, they should reduce use of cars... they should go by cycle," he said.

Parrikar also said, that there were attempts being made through media reports, to defame Goa as a tourism destination, especially because the state's inbound tourist traffic had quadrupled.

"(Media) reports are used to declare everywhere that Goa is no more a good tourist destination," he said.

Parrikar also said that all the permissions for starting coal handling facilities at the Goa Port, were granted when the Congress government was in power at the Centre, including the permission given to the Adani group for coal handling.

"This is as you call BJP's person. He has got all orders during your time," Parrikar told the opposition party.

The Chief Minister said, that no expansion of the existing coal handling facilities would be allowed henceforth and only coal which is consumed by local industries would be allowed to be transported within the state.

The issue of coal pollution erupted in Goa, after the Mormugao Port Trust had sought permission from the Union Environment and Forests Ministry for redevelopment and expansion of four berths at the port. Three companies operate coal handling berths at the port namely Adani Group, JSW steel and Vedanta.

Coal imported into Goa is expected to be utilised by steel manufacturing units in the neighbouring Karnataka, through a road and rail network, which is also under expansion. A large chunk of Goa's more than 180-odd village panchayats over the last few weeks, have passed unanimous resolutions to disallow coal transportation, while the Congress has also upped its ante against the proposed coal imports.

--IANS

maya/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Underlining the plight of children blinded due to pellet gun injuries in Jammu and Kashmir, state's Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said Kashmiris need to be reached out to and that "bulldozing" them will not resolve the crisis.

Mufti, who is in Goa to attend the "India Ideas Conclave" that got underway on Friday, said Jammu and Kashmir could serve as the country's gateway to Central Asia and that India should tap the state's strategic potential.

"Some days back, I called these pellet victims and it was really heartbreaking when I saw some of them have lost both eyes. Now 14-year-old, who were just 13 last year, what do they know? How does he know why I am pelting a stone? It's in the rush of things (that they indulged in stone-pelting). And I saw both their eyes are gone," Mufti said.

"I wanted to give them some kind of rehabilitation. Though I tried to help them financially, but you can't rehabilitate a 14-year-old child, you can just try to give them some education. You can't give him a job at this age," she said, adding that it was the duty of the country to ensure that the residents of her state were alleviated from the present situation.

She said there was a need for those responsible to reach out to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir and that "bulldozing" them would just not help resolve the issues.

"People have to mould them, reach out to them. It doesn't happen by bulldozing them," Mufti said.

The Chief Minister also said that India should tap the potential which the northern state presents in terms of strategic geographic importance.

"Jammu Kashmir has the potential to become a gateway to Central Asia. Why can't our country take advantage of that? Kashmir is our's is what Parliament has already said, but we still have Aksai Chin which is with China. It is still there," she said.

She said the government's decision to appoint an interlocutor to speak to stakeholders in the region was a positive sign.

"I feel with these things, there is already a political process. The government of India has nominated a representative who has set the ball rolling..." she added.

--IANS

maya/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A bill to replace the (MCI) with a national medical commission was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday, Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

"The MCI will be replaced, and a National Medical Commission bill has been brought. This is to correct the whole medical ecosystem," he said.

The MCI is a statutory body for establishing uniform and high standards of medical education in India. The bill seeks to replace the MCI with a new Commission.

According to government sources, the National Medical Commission Bill envisages a four-tier structure for the regulation of medical education, with a 20-member National Medical Commission at the top.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq among Muslims and providing for a three-year jail term was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday, which the government said was aimed at protecting the dignity and security of women in the community.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 got the cabinet nod at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had spoken about the issue even during the campaign of the just-ended Gujarat Assembly elections.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad refused to give details of the Bill at a media briefing on the ground that Parliament was in session. He merely said many state governments, to whom the draft of the bill was sent, had supported the Bill.

According to the draft Bill sent out to states earlier this month, it was proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence that would attract a jail term of three years. The draft law was prepared in the backdrop of the August 22 verdict of the Supreme Court striking down the practice of "instant" triple talaq as illegal.

However, it is understood that the Bill provides for a three-year imprisonment and fine to a Muslim man if he resorts to the practice of instant divorce, which a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had held as "unconstitutional and arbitrary". The court had also held that triple talaq was not integral to Islam.

The Bill, while making instant divorce a cognisable and non-bailable offence, also seeks to give the affected women right to seek maintenance. It is expected to be introduced during the Winter Session of Parliament that commenced on Friday.

Declining to go into the details of the measure, Prasad said it was designed to shield the helpless victims of triple talaq and to give them dignity and security.

"Cabinet has taken historic decisions today which will have a long term impact in the growth of the country... because Parliament session is on, I cannot give details of the Bill," he said.

"We approved The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, which is to protect victims of Triple Talaq," he added.

The Cabinet clearance was criticised by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board as a direct attack on the religious freedom of the Muslim community, while women activists sought collective support of political parties in converting the Bill into law.

Opposing the bill, AIMPLB member Maulana Khalid Rashid said: "As far as the compensation for the rehabilitation of the women is concerned, they are already being given by the Muslim community. So, the triple talaq bill, we consider as a direct interference in the religious matters of the largest community. It is an attack on religious freedom..."

"Women are not being tortured in the name of triple talaq. Muslim women have said they do not want change in the personal law including the law of triple talaq. If certain people are misusing certain laws it doesn't mean that you will completely finish that law. It is part of our 'sharia'. The government should at least have consulted Muslim organisations before making any such law," he said.

Activist Zakir Soman said the Muslim Personal Law Board and the Muslim community are not taking proper care of triple talaq victims, and such women should be given justice as per law.

"If the community and the Personal Law Board was doing enough why would be the women (triple talaq victims) be coming to women's organisation?," asked Soman.

"The community is indulging in argument but that doesn't mean we will give up our constitutional and legal entitlement. We are all citizens in a democracy and living in the 21st century. We are entitled, educated and empowered, and we want justice as per the law of the land...So, this kind of Personal Law Board argument for any kind of reform is not accepted," the activist said.

According to Soman, they have written letters to Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury for their collective support in converting the triple talaq Bill into when it is tabled in the Winter Session of Parliament for discussion.

"Through the letter, we requested the leaders to come together in order to solve the issue. It is not the matter of BJP, Congress or any other political parties. It is the responsibility of political parties, its representatives and all the women of this country," she said.

Another women activist Hina Zaheer said: "According to the Quran, there is no provision for instant talaq... So, it should not be the matter of ego for the Muslim Personal Law Board. The board should have solved it by themselves. They haven't solved it, that is why lot of politics is being done over the issue."

--IANS

ao-vsc/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday approved the establishment of an International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography in Hyderabad by Unesco.

"The establishment of Unesco Category-2 centre will provide an opportunity for India to emerge as a leading country in the Indian Ocean. This will also help India to forge cooperation and improve engagement among the counties of the Indian Ocean, including South Asian and African states bordering the Indian Ocean," an official release said.

Operational oceanography is an activity of conducting systematic oceanographic studies for providing information services to various sectors such as fishermen, disaster management, shipping, ports, coastal states, navy, coast guard, environment and offshore industries for their day-to-day operations.

The government will provide assistance in areas of capacity building and training, knowledge-sharing and exchange of information.

The centre aims to respond to the worldwide increasing need to build technical and management capacity to address marine and coastal sustainability issues and prepare the region for and react efficiently to marine natural hazards, the release said.

The centre could contribute to achieving Sustainable Development Goal-14 (SDG 14) related to building marine scientific research capacity apart from generating employment opportunities within and outside India.

--IANS

mak/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There is a sheer elegance in the six yard piece of cloth. And an exhibition brings up a wide range of Jamdani sarees woven in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, South India and Bangladesh.

Titled "Jamdani: Tradition and Technique - An Introduction to the Historical Textile" the exhibiktion which will continue till December 17 is being organised by the Delhi Crafts Council at Bikaner House in the national capital. This exhibition is both a showcase as well as a celebration of this intricate art of weaving that once draped royalty and has once again found favourwithdiscerning textile lovers.

Jamdani is a term normally used for the technique of loom-embroidery wherein discontinuous extra or supplementary weft yarn is woven into the warp threads as per the desired pattern while weaving progresses.

Historically the preferred choice Jamdani was the finest cotton cloth, known as muslin or mulmul, produced by a laborious process of hand spinning and weaving of a special kind of cotton. Patterns were created by the use of thinner and thicker yarns, generally used in contrasting monotones of white on white.

The exhibition will showcase vintage and contemporary pieces of Jamdani sarees from museums and private collections. There will also be a sale of contemporary Jamdani textiles at the exhibition by weavers from around India.

"Jamdanihas been an integral part of India's ancient textile legacy and like many other textiles has faced its share of challenges in modern times. The Jamdani exhibition is an initiative by Delhi Crafts Council to celebrate as well as bring to the forefront this ethereal weaving technique. By honouring these talented Jamdani artisans and showcasing their extraordinary creations we hope to educate people about the skill involved in weaving Jamdani", said a representative of Delhi Craft Council.

--IANS

som/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China will host a symposium for Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates in Beijing from December 21 to 22, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said on Friday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Foreign Affairs Adviser Nabil Shaath and Deputy Speaker of Israeli Parliament Hilik Bar will lead delegations at the symposium, Lu was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet the participants, Lu said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a new four-point proposal on the Palestine issue during his meeting with Abbas in July.

Xi affirmed China's support for a two-state solution to the Palestine issue and for the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The symposium aims to offer a communication platform for peace advocates from both Palestine and Israel and provide new ideas to promote the peace process, Lu said.

--IANS

soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Chinese university has reportedly banned Christmas celebrations on its campus to protect its students from the influence of western culture about which many, it thinks, are "blindly excited".

The varsity in Shenyang in China's northeast province Liaoning has issued a notice to its students, asking them not to organise any Western religious festivals, such as Christmas, on the campus.

The diktat by the Communist Youth League of Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, the youth division of the Communist Party of China, said the move is intended to help the younger generation "build cultural confidence".

According to the Global Times, the notice issued on Monday said that the students' union, student associations and youth league branches will be banned from holding any activities centred on Western religious holidays.

The League reasoned that some youth are "blindly excited about western holidays", especially Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and there is a need to "resist the corrosion by Western religious culture".

This is not the first time in China that an educational institute has forbidden Christmas celebrations.

There is a prevalent view in China that western or, for that matter, any foreign culture may corrode the ancient Chinese culture.

--IANS

gsh/soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Clashes broke out on Friday between Palestinians and Israeli forces in several West Bank locations during protests over US President Donald Trump's decision of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The violence occurred after scores of Palestinians performed Friday prayers at the Israeli military checkpoint of Qalandia, north of the West Bank between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

The Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint threw teargas bombs and opened fire at the worshippers in an attempt to disperse them after prayers, Xinhua news agency reported.

Similar clashes were also reported in several locations including Ramallah, Hebron, Qalqilia and Bethlehem.

Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli security forces in Bethlehem as hundreds demonstrated outside the Al-Aqsa mosque, CNN reported.

Metal security barriers were erected around the Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, a flashpoint for protests, and extra police officers were deployed to control crowds.

In Gaza, hundreds marched after the prayers on the Salah Al-Dein highway, which goes from the northern borders of the Gaza Strip towards the southern borders with Egypt.

Islamic Hamas movement leaders in Gaza called on supporters to head towards the bordering area and confront the Israeli soldiers stationed there.

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said at one of the mosques in Gaza that "our hands are extended to reconciliation but without making any compromise on our interests or our religion".

Another Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya called for besieging the US' embassies all over the world. "We call on the free people in the world to besiege the US' embassies, until Trump revokes his decision," he said.

Al-Hayya added that the "revolution" both in and outside Palestine will continue.

Protests were held in Jordan also.

Tensions have been escalating in Gaza and the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinians since Washington's Jerusalem announcement last week.

Six Palestinians were killed and more than 2,000 injured in the wave of tension that swept the Palestinian territories after the US announcement.
The government has increased customs duty on various items including mobile phones, a finance ministry notification said here -- a move that will hurt the Cupertino-based giant Apple the most.

The notification issued by the Department of Revenue under the Finance Ministry that came late on Thursday said customs duty will go up from 10 per cent to 15 per cent for mobile handsets.

Pankaj Mohindroo, Founder and National President of the Indian Cellular Association, told IANS: "Indian mobile phone industry is marching towards global competitiveness. It does not seek long-term protection. Short term disability mitigation is however necessary. The recent spurt in imports esp feature phones (after PMP 1/7/2017 notifications) is responsible for this duty increase."

"We will see a revival in feature phone manufacturing to pre-July 2017 levels soon. Calls to increase duty to 40 per cent bound rates are however unwarranted. I am sure that Government of India will do a careful impact analysis after this hike and take a suitable call around budget time," he added.

According to industry experts, smartphone players which are import-dependent like Apple and Lenovo will bear the maximum brunt of this decision.

"Apple will be hit the most as the company imports nearly 88 per cent of its devices into the country. It will either have to increase the price or start assembling more in the country," Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, Mobile Devices and Ecosystems, Counterpoint Research, told IANS.

Currently, Apple is assembling iPhone SE model at its Bengaluru facility with Wistron Corporation, its Taiwanese manufacturing partner.

"Domestic and some China-based manufacturers will not be affected as most of them are assembly a lot in the country, including South Korean giant Samsung. They just need to speed up their assembly lines," Pathak added.

Apple is also seeking tax relief and other incentives from the government to begin assembling more handsets in the country.

"Assembling in India becomes critical since this will give savings to Apple which can partly be used to bring down prices and part of it can be used for expanding distribution, channel margins, retail marketing spends and ensure placement in smaller towns and cities where the consumer is highly aspirational and strives for a premium brand like Apple," Navkendar Singh, Senior Research Manager at IDC India, had told IANS earlier.

The notification further said customs duty on television and microwave ovens has increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. Even customs duty on video recording equipment and television cameras has gone up from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.

--IANS

ag-na/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday asked bureaucrats in the state not to fear the five Cs -- Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), court, Central Vigilance Commission, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and Central Information Commission (CIC) -- if they are taking decisions in the public interest.

"My government will always stand with full force behind all decisions taken in public interest," Khattar told senior bureaucrats of the state who attended the opening session of the three-day "Chintan Shivir" of the Haryana government, which started at the Timber Trail resort near Parwanoo in adjoining Himachal Pradesh.

The meet has been organised under the aegis of the Haryana Administrative Reforms Department for cabinet ministers, officers of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Forest Service (IFS) and heads of departments.

Exhorting the bureaucrats to work honestly and dedicatedly while taking decisions in the public interest, Khattar said: "Usually, these five Cs cause fear among the IAS officers and come in the way of discharge of their duties, but I assure you that I would always stand by you in the decisions you take in public interest."

He urged the officers to rise above considerations of caste and region and assist the government in framing such policies so that aspirations of the people could be met.

"An administrative officer should use his power in public interest," Khattar, who became Chief Minister in October 2014 without holding any administrative office prior to that or having any governance experience, said.

"Officers should not take this Chintan Shivir as a part of training. Instead, they should take it as a brainstorming session aimed at framing polices in public interest," he said.

Having completed three years in office, Khattar has been accused by the opposition Congress and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leaders of having no control over his ministers, bureaucrats and officers due to lack of experience and control.

Leader of Opposition Kiran Chaudhary said the Khattar government had no control over the bureaucrats and officers who were running the state the way they wanted.

--IANS

js/nir/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Key Indian equity indices -- the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty50 -- provisionally closed on a higher note on the back of lingering effects of the exit polls which predicted a BJP win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections.

"It was all about investors getting excited with exit polls results, Sensex was up over 350 points after exit polls predicted a BJP victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh," Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, told IANS.

According to market observers, the key indices extended gains for the second consecutive session with healthy buying in metals, consumer durables and auto stocks.

The wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 81.15 points or 0.79 per cent to provisionally close (at 3.30 p.m.) at 10,333.25 points.

The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 33,456.02 points, closed at 33,462.97 points -- up 216.27 points or 0.65 per cent -- from its previous close.

The Sensex touched a high of 33,621.96 points and a low of 33,405.82 points during the intra-day trade so far.

However, the BSE market breadth was bearish -- 1,572 declines and 1,049 advances.

Mahindra and Mahindra, Coal India, Dr. Reddy's Lab, HDFC Bank and Tata Steel were the top gainers on the BSE market breadth.

On Thursday, short covering, along with positive hopes of the ruling BJP's win in the crucial two-phased Gujarat assembly elections, erased the day's entire losses and lifted the indices to close in the green.

The NSE Nifty50 edged higher by 59.15 points or 0.58 per cent to close at 10,252.10 points, while the BSE Sensex closed at 33,246.70 points -- up 193.66 points or 0.59 per cent.

--IANS

ppg/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Finland has given its new international gender equality prize to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Announcing the prize in Brussels on Thursday, Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila described Merkel as a defender of human dignity and human rights. Sipila praised Merkel's commitment to women and girls globally, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Equality is a core value for Finland, which is celebrating 100 years of independence," Sipila said. He noted that Finland was the first nation in the world to grant women full political rights in 1906.

"Through this prize, we want to strengthen appreciation for gender equality in other countries around the world too," Sipila said.

"Chancellor Merkel has become one of the world's most influential people and is an example to many women and girls," Sipila noted.

The Finnish prize committee said in an announcement that Merkel has brought gender equality to the agenda of world leaders at summit meetings. She has worked to improve the rights and opportunities of women especially in developing countries.

"In Germany, her aim is to achieve genuine equality in society between men and women, which means for instance making it easier to reconcile work and family life," the committee said.

The prize sum is 150,000 euros. The recipient will decide the cause it would be spent on. The cause chosen by Merkel will be announced in Tampere, Finland at a high-level seminar on gender equality in early 2018.

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A firefighter was killed while trying to contain the biggest wildfire that has scorched more than 98,000 hectares in Southern California.

Ken Pimlott, chief of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection of California, said in a statement on Thursday that the firefighter from the San Diego unit, whose identity remains unknown, reports Efe news.

This marks the second victim killed by the powerful and still active wildfire named Thomas after a 70-year-old woman in Ventura died in a car accident while trying to escape the flames.

According to the latest data released, the Thomas fire has razed over 98,000 hectares and firefighters have only been able to contain 30 per cent of it so far.

About 1,000 buildings have been destroyed in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties by the blaze, which was fanned by the intensity of the Santa Ana winds.

Around 8,000 emergency service officers are currently fighting the flames.

The National Weather Service has maintained a "red flag" alert in the affected area due to high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds, which may cause the fire to spread.

The Thomas fire, which forced the evacuation of over 100,000 people, is one of the five largest wildfires in the history of California.

California was already hit by a huge wildfire in October, which blazed through several counties in northern California, taking the lives of 44 people, as well as devastating nearly 8,900 homes and much of the renowned wine regions of Napa and Sonoma, according to Cal Fire.

According to estimates, the Thomas fire could cost more than $48 million in damage for Southern California.

President Donald Trump had declared a state of emergency for California on December 6, allowing for the sending of federal aid.

--IANS

ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the Haryana government on Friday began its three-day 'Chintan Shivir' (brainstorming summit) at a resort in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh even as the opposition termed the move a gimmick.

The meeting is being attended by the Chief Minister, ministers and senior functionaries in the government and select senior officers.

Khattar took a bus along with cabinet colleagues and senior officers to the Timber Trail resort, about five km from Haryana's border town of Kalka.

"Apart from reviewing three-year tenure of the present state (BJP) government, targets to be achieved during the next two years would also finalised after consultation with the ministers and the officers during the Chintan Shivir," Khattar told the media before leaving for the meeting.

"The Vision 2030 prepared by the state government would also be discussed."

Chiding the Congress and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), who have criticised the holding of the meeting, Khattar said: "The opposition has nothing to review as no progress was made during their tenure.

"They were just concerned for their own development and of their families.

"It was decided to organise the Chintan Shivir at an isolated and peaceful place so that the issues of public interest could be discussed without any disturbance. Instead of going separately, we decided to go to Parwanoo by bus as this would also help in instilling a sense of team," Khattar said.

Referring to exit polls which predicted a clean sweep for the BJP in both the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, he said: "People of the country have full faith in welfare policies of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and as a result of this, BJP has formed government in maximum states in the country."

He said even before the polls it was visible that people are fed up with the ideology of the Congress and have made up their minds in favour of the BJP.

--IANS

js/him/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Friday, in an interim order, refused to stay former JD-U President Sharad Yadav's disqualification from the Rajya Sabha or allow him to attend the Winter Session of Parliament.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru however allowed him to draw allowances and perquisites including government bungalow for now.

Sharad Yadav, who has challenged his disqualification from the Rajya Sabha and also sought interim relief to attend the session, said that he was not given any chance to defend his case by the authorities before passing the order against him.

The court also asked Rajya Sabha Chairman and Janata Dal-United leader in the house Ram Chandra Prasad Singh to file their responses on Yadav's plea and posted the matter for March 1, 2018.

On December 4, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is also Rajya Sabha Chairman, disqualified rebel JD-U leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari as members of the upper house of Parliament.

The JD-U, led by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar which was declared the "real" JD-U by the Election Commission in November, had sought their disqualification on the grounds that they had attended a rally of opposition parties in Patna in violation of its direction.

Naidu had agreed with the JD-U's contention that the two senior leaders had "voluntarily given up" their membership by defying their party's directives.

Yadav and Ansari and a section of the JD-U fell out with Nitish Kumar after the latter broke away from the "Mahagathbandhan" (Grand Alliance) with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress to re-align with the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier in 2017.

Sharad Yadav was elected to the House in 2016 and his term was scheduled to end in 2022 and Ansari's term was to expire in 2018.

--IANS

gt/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Indian engineer in Singapore has been jailed for three weeks for molesting a woman last year.

Prabu Natarajan, 33, admitted to rubbing his thigh against the 23-year-old, a part-time tutor, several times along Choa Chu Kang Loop on November 21 last year, the Strait Times reported on Friday.

The court on Thursday heard that Natarajan molested the woman in a bus while he was seated with her.

They got down at the same bus stop and he followed her into the lift at Block 290 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3 and rubbed her arm up and down.

Natarajan was also fined 2,500 Singapore dollars for house trespass in 2012 in Choa Chu Kang Street 52.

He had inserted his hand into the flat through an open window with intent to annoy a then 23-year-old who was sleeping, the daily reported.

Seeking at least three weeks' jail for the outrage of modesty, Deputy Public Prosecutor Chee Ee Ling said the offence occurred on public transport, the touch was a prolonged and persistent rub and the victim was trapped by Natarajan at the window seat while he persisted in molesting her.

This charge and a public nuisance offence were considered in the Indian man's sentencing.

Natarajan could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment for molestation.

--IANS

soni/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Offering a package of incentives including exemption of income tax and import duty, Ethiopia on Friday sought investment from West Bengal in sectors like infrastructure and small engineering.

"Ethiopia has joined the group of nations that are fast moving in economic development. My country is the fastest growing in the world and has registered a double-digit annual growth for the last 14 years. It has now become the largest economy in the sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Nigeria, and one of the largest recipients of FDI in Africa," Minister Counsellor (Business), at the Ethiopian Embassy, Molalign Asfaw said at the inaugural session of MSME Conclave 2017 organised by CII here.

Describing Ethiopia as a country of "unlimited opportunitiesa, Asfaw offered a package of incentives, "including exemption of income tax, import duty, export tax incentives and a one-stop shop service at the Investment Commission".

"I invite you all to explore these opportunities and invest in my country," he said, laying stress on sectors like infrastructure, sm all engineering, Information Technology and healthcare.

"The country is entitled to duty-free and quota-free access to US market under African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a United States Trade Act, and preferential access to EU and many developed countries," he said.

"Ethiopia offers inexpensive and trainable labour force and the low est power/ energy cost in the world. The country is potentially one of the largest domestic markets in Africa with 100 million consumers whose purchasing power is growing," Asfaw said.

According to him, not only has Ethiopia adopted investor-friendly policies, it is also peaceful and secure, with the private sector playing a pivotal role in the nation's economic activities.

--IANS

ssp/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jharkhand's main opposition party, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), burnt an effigy of Chief Minister Raghubar Das in the Assembly premises over his "unparliamentary" remark on the last day of the winter session.

The JMM legislators, led by Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Hemant Soren, burnt the effigy at the VVIP gate of the state assembly.

Earlier in the day, Das, while replying to allegations of JMM legislators in the house, allegedly used one unparliamentary word.

Defending his government's move to implement the Domicile Policy, which enables any person living in the state for the last 30 years to enjoy benefits as a permanent resident, Das said: "Why are you (the JMM) feeling unhappy because 95 per cent of youth in the state have got government jobs.

"Aap logo ko kyon mirchi lag rahi hai? Aapka jhanda dhone wala nahi milega (Why are you feeling jealous? You will not get anybody to support your cause)," he said.

The JMM members boycotted the proceedings. The Question Hour was washed away as the opposition members raised several issues and did not allow the Speaker to proceed.

--IANS

ns/him/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Sayeed Tasaduq Mufti, brother of Jammu and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, on Friday resigned as coordinator of CM's grievance cell.

Tasaduq Mufti had given up his career as a Bollywood cinematographer and came back to the state after his father, Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed died on January 7, 2016, and was appointed as coordinator of CM's grievance cell to address day-to-day problems of the people brought to his notice.

He is also the ruling Peoples Democratic Party's candidate for the Anantnag Lok Sabha bypoll, which has not been held yet due to the challenging security situation in districts of Anantnag, Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama.

Informed sources said that decks have been cleared for Tasaduq Mufti's nomination to the upper house of the state's bicameral legislature.

The seat fell vacant after sitting legislative counsellor Vikramaditya Singh resigned from both the house and the PDP following differences with the party leadership over issues concerning the Jammu region.

Sources also said once he becomes a legislator, he would be inducted into the state cabinet and allotted the important Tourism portfolio that is presently held by the Chief Minister.

--IANS

sq/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq was detained here on Friday after he broke house arrest restrictions to join a separatist-called protest rally to Anantnag.

As Mirwaiz Umer came out of his Nigeen residence on the city outskirts, police deployed outside prevented him from moving out and again put him under house arrest.

The Hurriyat leader had earlier announced on his Twitter page his plan to visit Anantnag.

Separatists have called a protest rally to Anantnag on Friday to show solidarity with town residents.

Authorities have imposed restrictions in Anantnag and six police station areas in Srinagar city to foil the rally.

--IANS

sq/tsb/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 170,000 Filipino drivers and passengers were affected by global ride-sharing app Uber's massive data breach last year, authorities said on Friday.

Philippines National Privacy Commission (NPC) Chairman Raymund Liboro said Uber Philippines informed that the exposure of the affected data subjects was limited to their registered name, e-mail address and phone number, reports Xinhua news agency.

The commission has summoned Uber officials "to appear before the commission to further explain their data processing operations, particularly the organisational, technical and physical security measures Uber Philippines is implementing to protect Filipino drivers and riders", Liboro said.

He said the NPC is "paying particular attention to the steps taken to ensure that in the future, data breaches of this magnitude will not be concealed from regulators and from affected data subjects."

Liboro warned that concealment of data breaches that involve sensitive personal information or data is a criminal offence.

Last month, Uber Philippines informed the NPC that Filipino Uber users were indeed among those exposed in the massive breach last year that affected 57 million Uber clients around the world.

In a letter to the NPC, Uber Philippines confirmed that personal information of Filipinos was exposed in the data breach that attacked Uber's "third party cloud-based storage accounts" in October 2016.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has admitted that sensitive information had been illegally downloaded, including names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of 57 million Uber users around the world, and the names and license numbers of 600,000 drivers in the US.

Uber has around 66,000 active vehicles/drivers in the Philippines.

--IANS

ksk/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Oxford Dictionaries has declared "Youthquake" as 2017's Word of the Year, reflecting what it calls a "political awakening" among millennial voters, the media reports on Friday.

It was first coined in the 1960s by Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, who used it to describe sudden changes in fashion, music, and attitudes, reports the BBC.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines youthquake as the "series of radical political and cultural upheavals occurring among students and young people in the 1960s".

Oxford Dictionaries said late Thursday that its use had seen a recent resurgence, to describe young people driving political change.

Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said it was "not an obvious choice".

But he said Youthquake's use in everyday speech had increased five-fold during 2017.

"In the UK, where it rose to prominence as a descriptor of the impact of the country's young people on its general election, calls it out as a word on the move," he said.

Grathwohl said youthquake's use in Britain peaked during the June general election, after polls delivered a better-than-expected result for the Labour party.

Oxford Dictionaries said the word sounded a note of hope after what it described as a "difficult and divisive year".

The word of the year is a word, or expression, that Oxford Dictionaries deems has "attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date" and is drawn from newspapers, books, blogs and transcripts of spoken English, the BBC reported.

Last year's word, "post-truth", was chosen after the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.
The second day of the Uttar Pradesh assembly's winter session was marred by disruptions and walkouts by opposition lawmakers who demanded a rollback of the power tariff hike effected by the Yogi Adityanath government late last month.

Legislators of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress staged a sit-in while MLAs of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) walked out.

There were heated exchanges between the opposition and treasury benches over the power tariff hike, after which Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit adjourned the house till Monday.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the opposition for what he called unruly behaviour and accused the SP of creating a ruckus to hide the misdeeds of the previous government.

Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chowdhary denied the charge and said that till the hike in power tariffs was not rolled back, they will not allow the assembly to function.

"This government has rendered a body blow to the people, especially farmers through the steep hike in power rates," he said.

The Legislative Council too witnessed pandemonium on the same issue and the opposition members stormed into the well of the upper house as soon as the proceedings began.

The council was also adjourned till Monday after the opposition refused to budge from their demands.

Earlier, at an all-party meet, opposition party leaders had assured the assembly Speaker of cooperation in the smooth running of the house.

The winter session of both the 17th Vidhan Sabha and the Legislative Council began here on Thursday, which were later adjourned for the day after disruptions by opposition benches.

The assembly session will end on December 22.

--IANS

md/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday urged the people of India to emulate the 'tehzeeb' (culture) of Lucknow and said that if this happens, half the problems faced by the country will end.

Speaking as the chief guest at the 7th Convocation Ceremony of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar University in the state capital, Kovind recalled his long-standing association with the land of the Nawabs.

He recounted that between 2002-2003, he was a member of the management of this university and said it was a matter of great personal joy for him that two auditoriums in the university campus had been named after Ambedkar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

President Kovind also praised the 13-year-old Sushma Verma, who is pursuing her Ph.D from the university and Neetu Sharma, who won the Swami Vivekananda Child Fellowship and said the two girls had left an indelible imprint on his mind.

Wishing the medal winners and degree holders a fruitful career and further, the President said they should be thankful to their parents, teachers and family, without whom these achievements were not possible.

A total of 192 medals were given away to meritorious students, of which 70 were given to boys while girls won 122 medals.

Earlier the President was welcomed at the Amausi Airport by Governor Ram Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and senior officials. He drove straight to the Risaldar Park to pay his homage to Bhikshu Pragyanand, one of the seven Buddhist monks who initiated Ambedkar into Buddhism. He died late last month.

--IANS

md/nir/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who hinted at a political plunge sometime back will be meeting his fans between December 26 to 31 for a photo session, as per the actor's fans association.

The actor's fan club has sought police protection the event to be held at the Raghavendra Kalyana Mandapam here. This will be his second meeting with his fans this year.

Members of the fan club will get an opportunity to take a photograph with their matinee idol.

In November, Rajinikanth had told reporters that there was no hurry for him to enter politics.

In May, while addressing a large gathering of his fans, Rajinikanth said he will choose the path of politics if "God willing".

"God decides what we have to do in life at every phase. Right now, he wants me to be an actor and I'm fulfilling my responsibility. If God willing, I will enter politics tomorrow.

"If I enter, I will be very truthful and will not entertain people who are in this to make money. I won't work with such people," he had said.

--IANS

vj/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After its crackdown on multiple drug peddlers in the city, Kolkata Police arrested two more drug dealers and seized charas (hashish) worth Rs 60,000 from them, an officer said on Friday.

"Two notorious drug dealers Ranajit Dey (60) and Ansar Ahamed (45) were arrested from north Kolkata's Narkeldanga area on Thursday," Joint Commissioner of Kolkata Police (crime), Vishal Garg said.

"The duo were found in possession of charas weighing 233 grams and 348 respectively. The total seized substance has a market value of nearly Rs 60,000," he said.

Police said, both the arrested drug dealers are residents of Kolkata.

"Both the accused were charged under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The two were produced at the Alipore court on Friday where they have been remanded to police custody till December 21," the officer added.

In a recent drug racket haul, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested five persons in the city, including a DJ and an events manager, in the last one week and seized hashish, LSD strips and drugged candies from them.

--IANS

mgr/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, who arrived here on Friday, will hold meetings with Sangh members and activists from across the seven northeastern states to strengthen the party in the region with an eye on the upcoming assembly elections, party sources said.

Political circles termed the RSS chief's five-day visit to Left-ruled Tripura as "significant", coming ahead of the polls scheduled early next year.

RSS spokesperson Manoranjan Pradhan said that Bhagwat, during his stay in Tripura, would meet Sangh functionaries, members and activists from the seven northeastern states and address a public rally here on Sunday.

"He would review the organisational programmes and works of the Sangh and give advice to further strengthen it in the northeastern region," Pradhan said.

He said that RSS organisers in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura would be present at the 'Barshik Samiksha Baithak' (annual review meeting) and discuss how the organisation can be further strengthened.

The ruling CPI-M criticised the visit, saying the RSS and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) always played a divisive role.

"In view of the assembly elections, with the visit of Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS would intensify its divisive activities in Tripura," CPI-M Tripura state secretary Bijan Dhar told the media.

The RSS leaders here have denied the CPI-M's charges.

The BJP and RSS have been working intensely in Left ruled Tripura to make a determined effort to form government in the state by voting out the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) led Left Front.

Assembly elections to the three northeastern states -- Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura -- with 60 seats each - are expected to be held simultaneously in February.

--IANS

sc/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Moscow court on Friday found Russia's former Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev guilty of bribery.

Ulyukayev is the first minister to stand trial in Russia's recent history. He was arrested in 2016, accused of trying to extort $2 million from state oil firm Rosneft to green light its purchase of another oil firm, the BBC reported.

The accusation was made by Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, who is also one of President Vladimir Putin's closest aides. Sechin was asked to testify but did not turn up.

Ulyukayev had denied the charges and alleged that he was framed.

The verdict read out by judge Larisa Semyonova said said Ulyukayev had "made use of his position in order to demand from Rosneft chief Sechin a bribe, in exchange for giving approval" for the purchase of state-owned Bashneft.

"At the same time he told Sechin he would in future obstruct the company's activities if it rebuffed him," the verdict said.

Oleg Feoktistov, a former secret service officer who worked for Sechin, testified that the bribery took place on the sidelines of a Brics forum in India. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the Brics group.

"Using two fingers he indicated the sum he wanted to receive, which was equivalent to two million dollars," Feoktistov said, citing what Sechin had told him.

If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine seven times the bribe's amount, Tass news agency reported.

In November 2016, Putin dismissed Ulyukayev from his high-ranking post citing loss of trust. The ex-minister has been under house arrest ever since then.

--IANS

soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea by social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand for unfreezing of their bank accounts put under restrictions by Gujarat Police on the charge of misuse of donations.

The donations were allegedly collected in the name of Gulberg Cooperative Housing Society, which was targeted by rioting mobs during the 2002 riots in the state after a fire in the Sabarmati Express at the Godhra railway station burnt alive 59 karsevaks arriving from Ayodhya.

Dismissing the plea, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said an investigation in the matter was in progress and both have to explain their positions to the Investigating Officer.

Two NGOs -- Citizens for Justice and Peace, and Sabrang Trust -- had also moved the apex court to seek unfreezing of their accounts. The two NGOs are headed by Setalvad and Javed Anand.

The couple had challenged the October 2015 Gujarat High Court order that declined their plea for unfreezing of the accounts.

The accounts were seized following a complaint that they had misutilised huge funds collected with an avowed objective of helping victims of Gulberg Society by projecting their plight in the wake of the 2002 post-Godhra Gujarat riots.

"Indisputably, investigation is still in progress. The appellants (Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and their two NGOs) will have to explain their position to the investigating agency and after investigation is complete, the matter can proceed further depending on the material gathered during the investigation," said Justice Khanwilkar while pronouncing the judgment.

"The suspicion entertained by the investigating agency as to how the appellants appropriated huge funds, which in fact were meant to be disbursed to the unfortunate victims of the 2002 riots will have to be explained by the appellants," the apex court said.

The court said once the investigation was completed and police report was submitted to the court concerned, it would be open to Teesta and Javed Anand to apply for unfreezing of the bank accounts.

"It will be open to the court concerned to consider that request in accordance with law after hearing the investigating agency, including to impose conditions as may be warranted in the facts of the case."

The apex court said this while addressing a common question raised in the four appeals on the sweep, purport and applicability of Section 102 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, which empowers police to seize certain property.

The court clarified that upon the completion of investigation, if the Investigating Officer is satisfied with the explanation offered by the appellants and is of the opinion that the continuance of seizure of the bank accounts or any one of them is not necessary, he will be well advised to issue instructions on that behalf.

In our opinion, the court said, such a course would meet the ends of justice.

--IANS

pk/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences in Solan town of Himachal Pradesh has filed 101 patents and is listed among the top generators of patents in the region, a university official said on Friday.

"The government of India has listed our university as the sixth top Indian applicant of patents from all Indian universities and institutes in its annual report for 2015-16," Shoolini University Vice Chancellor P.K. Khosla told reporters in Chandigarh.

He said the patent cell of the university had also been awarded jointly by Himachal Pradesh's State Council for Science, Technology and Environment and the government of India's Department of Science and Technology in 2016.

This cell is working in collaboration with the Himachal Pradesh Patent Information Centre, he said.

"Scientists at Shoolini University are focusing on cutting-edge areas of research such as drug development, diagnostics and therapeutics, water and effluent treatment, industrial enzymes and phytomedicines to harness Himalayan biodiversity," Khosla added.

--IANS

vg/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) on Friday urged all opposition leaders, including Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi, to extend their support for the proposed Muslim family law.

In a letter to Gandhi and other major Opposition parties, the BMMA founders - Zakia Soman and Noorjehan Niaz - said that although the Supreme Court has struck down 'Triple Talaq' in its judgement last August, other issues like 'nikah halala', polygamy, age of marriage, custody of children, etc, remain unaddressed.

The BMMA has been actively raising these issues to end the legal discrimination and demanding justice and equality in family matters which are orthodox, patriarchical and male-dominated, they said.

The males have stonewalled all attempts towards reforms in the Muslim Personal Law and Muslim women have been denied their Quranic rights as as well as their rights as equal Indian citizens.

"Among all Muslim countries in the world, such as Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and even Bangladesh and Pakistan in our neighbourhood have codified personal laws governing marriage and family matters. But Indian Muslim women have been denied protection of law," said Soman and Niaz.

They pointed out a 2015 research study where 92.1 percent of all Muslim women sought a total ban on oral/unilateral divorce and 91.7 percent opposed polygamy, while 83.3 percent felt that codification of Muslim family law would help Muslim women get justice.

In its grassroots work in different parts of India, the BMMA has found that just as Hindus, Christians and Parsis have their own personal laws and Muslims must also have a similar personal law ensuring equality and dignity to their womenfolk.

The two activists said that this can be achieved either through amendments to the Shariat Application Act, 1937 and Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, or by enacting a completely new Muslim Personal Law with the desired reforms.

The BMMA has already prepared a draft on this based on Quranic tenets concerning age of marriage, mehr, talaq, polygamy, maintenance, custody of children, etc, which in consonance with the Constitution.

The draft suggests that the minimum marriage age for girls and boys be 18 and 21 respectively, consent of both sides without force or fraud for marriage, minimum 'mehr' to be equivalent to one full annual income of the groom to be paid at the time of solemnising 'nikaah'.

Besides, the BMMA draft says talaq'should precede a mandatory arbitration over a 90-day period and polygamy should be declared as illegal, while 'halala' and 'muta marriage' should be made punishable offences.

On children, it seeks that both the mother and father be declared as natural guardians of the child, and custody of children be based on the best interests and decision of the child.

Similarly in property matters, the Quranic shares to be applied while making will or clearing debts for ensuring justice to the women.

--IANS

qn/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation, talking about how to resolve the situation in North Korea, the White House has said.

Russia said Trump initiated the phone call to thank Putin for his favourable assessment of his work, USA Today reported.

The two sides sent out only bare-bones summaries of the afternoon phone call, but the White House version of the call noted that Trump "thanked Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance" earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day, at his annual freewheeling press conference, Putin remarked on the booming US stock market -- a regular Trump talking point -- and said it was a sign that investors "trust in what President Trump has been doing in this field".

Speaking about his assessment of Trump's first year in office, Putin in Moscow said that he found "some major achievements in the White House".

In response to Putin's remarks, Trump thanked the Russian leader "for acknowledging America's strong economic performance".

The two presidents "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea," Efe quoted the White House statement as saying on Thursday.

Putin at the presser also said he wanted to normalise relations with Washington, and stressed that there were many issues on which both the countries could join forces, including the fight against international terrorism.

When asked about the personal relationship with his US counterpart, Putin assured that they have been in contact.

--IANS

in/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kamala Harris, first Indian-American to serve in the US Senate, has joined a growing group of Democratic senators calling for President Donald Trump to step down amid resurfaced allegations of sexual misconduct.

"I think he should resign in the best interest of the country," the California Democrat told Politico in an interview on Thursday.

Harris joined six other Democratic senators -- Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Mazie Hirono and Ron Wyden -- who called for Trump to resign.

The former California Attorney General's remarks came as Trump faced renewed scrutiny over past accusations of sexual misconduct. At least 16 women have accused him of inappropriate behaviour.

Earlier this week, three of the 16 women renewed their allegations publicly as they detailed their accounts of being groped, fondled and forcibly kissed by Trump before he was elected the US President. They urged Congress to investigate their stories.

Trump inflamed his critics again this week when he said in a tweet that Senator Gillibrand used to "come to my office 'begging' for campaign contributions" and that she "would do anything for them".

Harris, a potential presidential contender in 2020, said Trump's tweet "was completely inappropriate on every level".

"First of all, we know he's not going to resign," Harris said. "So let's just be clear about that. But if he were going to make a decision that was in the best interest of the country, I think he should. He should seriously consider it."

Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of sexual misconduct, taking to Twitter to deride what he called "false accusations and fabricated stories".

Harris said she believed Trump's accusers and said that there should be an inquiry into the veracity of their claims.

--IANS

soni/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The highest-ranking military officials of Turkey, Iraq and the US have discussed issues about counter-terrorism and regional security at a trilateral meeting in Ankara, the Turkish Armed Force (TSK) said.

Joseph Votel, US Central Command Commander, Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of US Forces in Europe, and Iraqi Chief of General Staff Osman Ghanimi were present at the meeting on Thursday hosted by Turkey's Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar, the TSK said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

The officials discussed the general security situation in the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq, and measures needed to fight terror organizations, said the statement, without giving further details.

According to local Hurriyet Daily News, the meeting is believed to have focused on efforts to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State and other extremist groups in both Syria and Iraq.

On December 9, the Iraqi government declared full liberation of Iraq from the Islamic State (IS) militants, saying Iraqi forces have recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Abu Dhabi, Dec 15 (IANS/WAM) The United Arab Emirates has called on the global community to more forcefully address the threat posed by Iran after a UN report this week on violations of Security Council resolutions and evidence presented by the US of Tehran's arming of Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said on Thursday that the UN Secretary General's recent report on UNSC Resolution 2231 strongly confirmed what the UAE and its allies had long known -- that Iran was continuing its "expansionist and destabilising behaviour in the region, and was fuelling the conflict in Yemen".

It further said that the evidence presented by the US "left no doubt about Iran's flagrant disregard for its UN obligations and its role in the proliferation and trafficking of weapons in the region", according to the Ministry statement.

From missiles to drones to explosive boats, illegal Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis and other proxies are stoking the fires of sectarian violence endangering civilians, the Ministry said.

"The UAE and its military coalition partners have witnessed the devastating impact of these illegal arms shipments on Yemen."

The Ministry said "the UAE stands ready to work with its allies to take actions that will ensure Iran's compliance with relevant UN resolutions".

--IANS/WAM

soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has said the eighth round of the Intra-Syrian peace talks ended in Geneva without any "real negotiations".

The UN official is expected to leave Geneva to consult in New York with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on further steps, where he will also meet with the UN Security Council next week.

He told a press conference on Thursday after announcing the end of the new round of the UN-led Geneva peace talks on Syria that the last two weeks of talks had not yielded the intended results despite great efforts, which he described as a "missed golden opportunity", Xinhua news agency reported.

"Though a lot of efforts by my whole team have been made, day and night, with all sorts of creative formulas, we only have bilateral discussions with both parties, we did not have real negotiations," de Mistura said.

The UN envoy said that both the government side and the opposition group had accused each other of setting preconditions, but there had been none in Geneva before the talks proceeded.

"I really hoped the diplomacy, not only ours, will help the government and the opposition to actually do what is expected and what was expected," he emphasized.

He said during the last two weeks, he had seven meetings with the government and 11 with the opposition.

"The opposition in particular engaged with us on all four baskets -- governance, constitutional process, elections and countering terrorism. They also gave me some concrete ideas on the so called 12 essential principles. The government engaged with me only on terrorism," he said.

"We did not see the government looking to have a dialogue in this round, I have to say, regrettably, I did see the opposition trying to," said the UN envoy, adding that "there is no alternative but to have the legitimacy of the UN".

He said as well as reporting back to the UN Security Council in New York, he would also seek advice from special ambassadors of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council who he has been consulting.

"I will probably need to come up with new ideas, parameters, about how to move the talks forward, particularly on constitution and elections," de Mistura said.

"We are not going to give up at the moment," he said when "the Syrian people believe there should be some process without precondition," he told the reporters, stressing that there is clearly a desperate need for "a real political process".

Saying that the two weeks were not wasted, the UN official told reporters that during this round of talks he had the opportunity of hearing many Syrian voices, from the civil society, the Syrian Women Advisory Board, and Syrian refugees.

Earlier in the day after the meeting with de Mistura, the head of the Syrian government delegation to the Syrian peace talks Bashar al-Ja'afari said his team would not talk to the opposition delegation due to a statement it released before the current talks began, known as "the Riyadh communique".

After a meeting with de Mistura in Geneva, al-Ja'afari told reporters that Syria did not want the talks to fail, but the opposition had come with "a precondition" it set in November at a conference known as "Riyadh 2".

The new round of UN-led Syrian peace talks started on November 28 and was originally scheduled to be held until December 15. The major obstacle for any expected breakthrough was described by the UN as a lack of trust.

In parallel with the UN-backed Geneva process, a new round of the Russia-led international negotiations on the settlement of the Syrian conflict is scheduled for December 21-22 in the Kazakh capital of Astana.

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The co-chairs of the Security Council reform process have been holding informal consultations with various countries and have reported that they found "openness to dialogue", an official said.

Brenden Varma, the spokesperson for General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak, said this on Thursday.

The next meeting for the reform process known as the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN) is scheduled for January 29 and 30, he added.

IGN co-chairs, Kaha Imnadze of Georgia and Lana Nusseibeh of the United Arab Emirates, have written to Lajcak that they will be circulating around the middle of January the topics for discussion at the meeting, Varma said.

They reported in the letter that "member States are approaching the process constructively - not only making compelling cases for their positions, but also expressing openness to dialogue and exchange of creative ideas", he added.

The co-chairs wrote that they would be holding several more IGN meetings after getting inputs from the first session.

India, which seeks a permanent seat in the reformed Security Council, is heavily invested in the reform process.

Lajcak rebooted the reform process in November, saying, "The time for trying is up; now is the time for action," and appointing Imnadze and Nusseibeh as IGN co-chairs.

The negotiation process has been stalled for more than a decade with the 193 members of the UN unable to even agree on a negotiating document that would set the agenda and be the starting point for real negotiations on reforms.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

al/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US House Speaker Paul Ryan has dismissed swirling media reports that he is going to retire from the Congress.

Asked at the end of his weekly press conference on Thursday whether he was leaving Congress "soon", Ryan said: "I'm not, no", Xinhua news agency reported.

Earlier on Thursday, Politico published a lengthy report saying that Ryan, a 47-year-old Republican from the US state of Wisconsin, told confidants that he would retire after the 2018 midterm election.

Earlier this week, the Huffington Post published a news report titled "When will Paul Ryan step down?", kicking the rumors of Ryan's possible quit into high gear.

According to s The Hill news daily report, a number of Republican lawmakers said last month that Ryan could pass tax reform and quickly quit Congress, choosing to go out on top with a victory rather than waiting to be forced out like his predecessor, Speaker John Boehner.

The US House and Senate are expected to pass a final version of their massive tax-cuts bill next week, with President Donald Trump planning to sign it into law by Christmas Day.

Ryan was first elected to the House in 1998, and went on to serve as chairman of the Ways and Means and Budget committees as well as Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate in 2012.

In October of 2015, he was elected as speaker of the US House of Representatives following Boehner's retirement.

--IANS

pgh/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jammu and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said she was nostalgic about the time when she would bunk college as a youngster and watched films in Srinagar.

She said that youngsters living in Srinagar today do not know about the joys of watching films in cinema halls, because of bans by militants on cinema halls in the troubled state.

"I have grown up bunking my classes and going to cinema halls. I would love to do it anytime. I feel Jammu and students are deprived of something so joyful. We would bunk our class in college and go and see a movie somewhere," she recalled while speaking at India Ideas Conclave.

"They (youngsters in J&K) can't do it. They don't know what is it sitting having pop corn in a cinema hall and watching a movie there. I would love to do that. But I cannot say for now," she said.

--IANS

maya/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
If the Gujarat election were a Hollywood movie the fight would go down as a contest between Rambo and Mr Zabardast. Now that all exit polls give the BJP a heads up to comfortably form a government for the sixth time, it is clear that Narendra Modi, like the Vietnam vet Sylvester Stallone, skilled in aspects of survival, weaponry, hand-to-hand combat and guerrilla warfare, has vanquished Rahul Gandhi, the Congresss new head who promised a zabardast (overwhelming) result. From his persistent fuelling of pan-Hindu nationalism to pandering to narrow Gujarati chauvinism, Rambo rides again, using fair means and foul and often foul  to gain the battleground. His last act of swashbuckling braggadocio also involved a seaplane ride to a temple visit.
The government is ready to discuss all the issues, including those to be raised by the Opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said here on Thursday, adding that he would request all the MPs to work "full time" to dispose of the business.

"The government is ready to discuss and debate any issue. Several issues would be raised by the opposition and the government would obviously give its response," he said when asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi's allegations against his predecessor Manmohan Singh and others vis-a-vis their meeting with Pakistani diplomats would disrupt the Houses.

"It is also the opposition's responsibility to run Parliament. The Prime Minister has sought opposition's cooperation for smooth functioning of Parliament," he said.

Ananth Kumar said 25 Bills are listed in the Lok Sabha and 39 Bills are pending in the Rajya Sabha which would be taken up and disposed of "according to priority".

The most important business would be the Supplementary Demands for Grants, which is the first one after the implementation of GST; the 123rd Constitutional Amendment for setting up of Commission for Backward Classes as a constitutional body; and the Bill against triple talaaq, he said.





Besides, the government would also bring Bills to turn three Ordinances into Acts, which include the GST compensation to states and Amendments to the Indian Forest Act and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

However, a belligerent opposition is ready to corner the government on Modi's allegations against Manmohan Singh, former Vice-President Hamid Ansari and others, as also the disqualification from Rajya Sabha of veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari.

"The Prime Minister has levelled very serious allegations against a former Prime Minister, former Vice-President, former Army chief and a few retired diplomats that they were conspiring along with Pakistan. The government must tell the Parliament as to what kind of conspiracy it was," senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad told media persons after the all-party meeting.

"If the allegations are true, the government must take action. If they are false, then those levelling such wild allegations must be punished. Why does BJP rake up Pakistan in every election? It is them who go uninvited and make friends with them," Azad, the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, added.





Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge wondered as to how the government would do justice to 25 Bills in just 14 days.

"Besides, a Parliament session is not meant to just transact the government business. There are several other important matters of public concern which need to be discussed apart from the opposition's issues," he said.

The opposition refused to buy the government's argument that winter sessions have been delayed or truncated in the past too, saying the government "deliberately" delayed and shortened the session as the "entire Cabinet including the Prime Minister was busy campaigning in Gujarat".





However, Ananth Kumar said that he would request the Members of Parliament to work "full time" to make the most of the 14-day session.

"Parliament's productivity has increased over the last few years. We expect this session too would be very smooth and productive. I request all the MPs to work full time," he said to the point of cramming 25 bills in 14 days.

Those present at the all-party meet included Prime Minister Modi (who joined towards the end), Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and his deputies Vijay Goel and Arjun Meghwal.

The others included Azad, Anand Sharma, Kharge and Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress, Farooq Abdullah of the Conference, D. Raja of the Communist Party of India, Derek O'Brien of the Trinamool Congress, Naresh Agarwal of the Samajwadi Party and Tariq Anwar of the Nationalist Congress Party.
All hail Rahul of Houses Nehru and Gandhi, First of His Name, King of the Congress, Trueborn Heir to Indias Iron Throne. If Indian were a Game of Thrones episode, thats how loyalists might have greeted the elevation of to lead the Congress Party on Monday. Mr. Gandhi ran unopposed to succeed his mother, Sonia Gandhi, as party president.

The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has stayed close to or at the summit of Indian for nearly 100 years. But for the 47-year-old Mr. Gandhithe son, grandson and great-grandson of prime ministersthe path to power appears increasingly steep.

Over the past seven years, battered by a series of electoral defeats, Mr. Gandhi has plunged in the public imagination from prime minister-in-waiting to shaky underdog. Each defeat amplifies questions about his inherited privilege, warmed-over policy agenda and lack of political skills.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his well-oiled Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Gandhi faces a foe both popular and ruthless. As the 2019 general election approaches, Congress must grapple with arguably its greatest challenge since Indian independence seven decades ago. The big question about the party is no longer will it reclaim power? but will it survive? Mr. Modi makes no secret of his ambition to wipe Congress off Indias map permanently.





ALSO READ: PM Modi facing crisis of credibility, says Rahul Gandhi

After college in Florida and a masters degree from the University of Cambridge, Mr. Gandhi worked as a consultant with business guru Michael Porters Monitor Group. When he entered in 2004, he was widely expected to ascend to the prime ministership one day.

That year Mr. Gandhis mother, Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, led the Congress Party to a come-from-behind victory over the BJP. For prime minister she handpicked Manmohan Singh, a respected technocrat with all the charisma of a doorknob. Many in the Congress rank and file viewed Mr. Singh as simply a seat warmer for the heir apparent.

Events havent followed that script. Since 2010, starting with a rout in the northern state of Bihar, the Nehru-Gandhi scion has fronted a series of spectacular election defeats leavened only by the occasional win.

Three years ago, beset by corruption scandals and doubts about Mr. Gandhis leadership, Congress managed to capture only 44 of 543 directly elected seats in Parliament, less than half its previous low. As Congress crashed, Mr. Modi led the BJP to Indias first single-party parliamentary majority in 30 years.





ALSO READ: Shock awaits BJP in Gujarat, they are scared: Rahul Gandhi

In addition to the government, the BJP and its allies now rule states that house two-thirds of Indias population and nearly 60% of its economic output. States run by Congress and its allies account for only 8% of Indias population and 12% of its economy. In March this year, the BJP won a crushing four-fifths majority in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state.

To recover such a vast amount of political acreage, Mr. Gandhi will need to overcome three big challenges.

For starters, he must convince sceptics that the idea of dynastic rule in India is not an anachronism. As education levels rise, many voters appear to have grown disenchanted with Indias anomalous position among major democracies. They can see that in the U.S., for instance, the surname Bush or Clinton may give you a leg up in politics, but it hardly guarantees a term in the Oval Office.

Mr. Gandhi also has to contend with the possibility that voters have outgrown his partys traditional platform: left-of-centre policies that favour redistribution over growth, and a brand of secularism that has long relied on support from orthodox Islamic clerics. Three years ago, Mr. Modi won by promising economic development and appealing to majority Hindu sentiment.





ALSO READ: Modiji has helped me the most, how can I hate him, asks Rahul Gandhi

Finally, Mr. Gandhi has to prove that he takes politics seriously. His habit of disappearing frequently on unexplained foreign jaunts has created the image of a dilettante. Thanks to his less-than-soaring oratory and gaffe-prone manner with the media, many people have come to view Mr. Gandhi as a sort of Indian Dan Quayle, more a punch line than a potential prime minister.

Of course, nobody can rule out a Congress comeback. Thanks to decades of single-party rule, India is littered with airports, universities and government programs named after the Nehru-Gandhis. Lets just say Mr. Gandhi will never struggle for name recognition. And even at its lowest ebb in 2014 Congress attracted almost one-fifth of the vote.

Moreover, by pursuing rash economic policies like demonetisationlast years sudden scrapping of nearly 90% of Indias currency notes by valueMr. Modi has lost some of his sheen as a messiah of development. His appointment of Yogi Adityanath, a rabid Muslim-baiter, as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh stokes fears that the prime minister is less interested in economic reform than in identity politics.

On Monday, state election results will come in from Gujarat, Mr. Modis home state. If Mr. Gandhi pulls off an upset victory, his flagging brand will receive a much-needed boost. But should he suffer yet another drubbing, his once strong claim to Delhis Iron Throne will fade even further.

Source: The Wall Street Journal
The highlights of the first day of the winter session of Parliament, where neither of the two Houses could transact any business, were Congress President announcing her retirement and the debut of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah in the Rajya Sabha.
The first day of the was marked by Opposition protests and adjournments in the Rajya Sabha, while the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after obituary references. The story of the day, however, was Congress President stating that she was set to retire. Congress President-elect will officially take over the reins of the on Saturday.
Three people were killed when the slab of a building they were repairing collapsed this afternoon in south Mumbai's Zaveri Bazar area, police said.

Officials said that four persons were trapped in the debris after the slab collapsed and brought down with it the common passage of the first, second, third and the fourth floors of the building.

"Three workers who were brought out from the debris were declared dead by hospital authorities. One person is still missing," Dyaneshwar Chavan, Deputy Police Commissioner of Zone 2 told PTI this evening.

A search and rescue operation for another worker is on, said an official from the disaster management cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The incident happened at around 2.30 pm in Sam Seth Street in the area, officials said.

Fire brigade officials said the labourers were working on the first and fourth floor. The building was undergoing repair when the collapse occurred, they said.

Fire Brigade chief PS Rahangdale said that narrow lanes and congestion was hampering the work of fire brigade personnel at the site.

Zaveri Bazar is the centre of the city's bullion market and sees heavy traffic and pedestrian footfalls every day.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded today in clashes with Israeli forces as tens of thousands demonstrated against Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

President Donald Trump's December 6 announcement that he would break with decades of US policy and move the embassy to Jerusalem has stirred global condemnation, as well as demonstrations across Arab and Muslim countries.

Yesterday, three men were killed in clashes between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinians.

Two died along the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry said, after the Hamas Islamist group that rules the enclave had called for another "day of rage".

A third Palestinian was killed in clashes north of Jerusalem after being shot dead in the chest by the Israeli army, the ministry said.

The fourth stabbed an Israeli border police officer near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, before being shot, police said.

The assailant, who later died of his wounds, wore what appeared to be a suicide vest, though it was unclear if it was operational.

The violence comes days before US Vice President Mike Pence is due to visit Israel, though he will no longer see Palestinian officials after they cancelled meetings in protest at the embassy move.

"We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, that's fine," a senior White House official said yesterday. "We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to re-engage."



Pence is expected to try to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward after he lands in Jerusalem on Wednesday, US administration officials have said.

"Obviously the last couple of weeks in the region have been a reaction to the Jerusalem decision," said a second senior administration official.

Protests erupted across the West Bank after Friday weekly prayers, often a catalyst for clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

In Gaza, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and a few thousand clashed with Israeli forces along different parts of the border.

The Palestinian health ministry said 164 people were injured in Gaza, with five in serious condition, and more than 100 were hospitalised in the West Bank.

Israel's army said around 2,500 people were involved in "riots" in the West Bank and about 3,500 in Gaza.

Yesterday's deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed in violence or air strikes since Trump's Jerusalem move.

Four men were killed in Gaza last week, two in protests. Two Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.

In Jordan, thousands of people also demonstrated on Friday in the latest round of protests called by the Muslim Brotherhood, burning Israeli and American flags.

The diplomatic fallout continued, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling Trump's decision a "bomb" thrown at the entire Middle East.

He called Israel a "terror state" and said: "Trying to make Jerusalem capital of a terror state is not a situation that can be accepted by Muslims."



The status of Jerusalem is one of the most controversial issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel seized control of the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Middle East war and sees the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. The Palestinians view the east as the capital of their future state.

For decades global powers have avoided taking an opinion, keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.

Trump declared, however, that he would move the embassy and has recognised the city as Israel's capital.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will not meet Pence next week and has warned that Washington no longer had a role to play in the peace process.

A poll conducted after Trump's announcement by the respected Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 45 per cent of Palestinians supported a violent popular uprising, up from 35 per cent three months previously.

Khalil Shikaki, the centre's director, said the "only possible explanation" for the increase was Trump's decision.

He said, however, the effectiveness of the Israeli forces and the Palestinian security forces' ongoing cooperation with them had ensured the protests in the West Bank remained relatively minor.

While angered by Trump's declaration, Abbas has not instructed his party Fatah or security forces to cut ties with Israel.

"Hamas is too weak in the West Bank to carry out any serious attacks (and) Fatah does not want to engage in violence," Shikaki said.

"This is not likely to change any time soon."



In Gaza, hermetically sealed off by Israel and Egypt, at least 12 rockets or mortar rounds have been fired from the territory since Trump's announcement, with Israel hitting at least 10 sites in response.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said today.

The fishermen were arrested yesterday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesman for Pakistan's Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said.

"The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail," Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400.

The spokesman said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistan's Maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

"Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters," Chaudhary said.

He said the PMSA had on November 10 arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on November 12 four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters.

He said on November 16 also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

Poor fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

In October the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture.

A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gujarat recorded an average 68.41 per cent polling in the two-phase Assembly elections, the Election Commission (EC) said today.

According to the final figures released by the poll panel, the voter turnout in the second phase of balloting yesterday for 93 seats of north and central Gujarat stood at 69.99 per cent. Initial estimate at the end of the poll was 68.70 per cent.

In the first phase of polls held last Saturday for 89 seats in Saurasthra, Kutch and South Gujarat, 66.75 per cent of eligible electors had cast their votes.

The total voter turnout this time has seen a dip of 2.91 per cent compared to the 2012 polls when 71.32 per cent polling was registered.

Of the 4.35 crore registered voters, 2.97 crore exercised their franchise in the elections held on December 9 and 14.

Votes will be counted on Monday.

The EC data released today said tribal-dominated Narmada district witnessed the highest voter turnout of 79.15 per cent, while Devbhumi-Dwarka of Saurashtra region recorded the lowest at 59.39 per cent.

Districts which saw high turnout are - Tapi (78.56 per cent), Banaskantha (75.15) and Sabarkantha (74.97). The districts which saw low turnout are - Amreli (61.29), Bhavnagar (61.56) and Porbandar (61.86).

Of the total 33 districts, 15 recorded over 70 per cent polling, while 17 others clocked between 60 and 70 per cent. Only Devbhumi Dwarka district registered polling below 60 per cent.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A sessions court here today ordered officials to admit a mentally challenged person, accused of causing the death of a man in 2015, to the Government Institute of Mental Health in Chennai.

Principal District and Sessions Judge A Kayalvizhi also ordered the family of A Balamurugan to pay a fine of Rs 10,100 which would be paid to the kin of the deceased.

Balamurugan was staying near Erwadi Durgah in the district, where large number of mentally challenged persons are brought by their families with the belief that they would get cured.

He allegedly hit Abdul Nazer, a mentally-challenged person from Kerala, with an object in a sudden fit of anger. Nazer died in a hospital later without responding to treatment.

Erwadi police registered a case against Balamurugan.

Taking into account that he was mentally challenged, the Judge directed the officials to move him to the Chennai hospital.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Aiming to double farmers' income by 2022, the Union Agriculture Ministry today launched a grand challenge for technology startups to find solutions for 12 problems, including burning of crop residue, in farm sector.

The ministry will hand-hold and help startups in finding technological solutions that should be affordable and implementable, Agriculture Secretary S K Pattanayak said while launching this grand challenge.

Agri-tech start-ups have been asked to find simplified soil testing methods; assaying and grading solution; development of e-marketplace; price forecasting during sowing; last mile information dissemination; yield estimation; sorting and grading of produce; adulteration testing; customer hiring centres; crop residue disposal; prevent pre- and post-harvest losses and enhancing agricultural productivity.

"We are increasingly looking to science and technology for finding solutions in the farm sector. The Agriculture Grand challenge is a unique opportunity for agri-tech start- ups to solve some key challenges which are being faced by in the agriculture sector in India," he said.

Stating that India is self-sufficient in foodgrain production, the secretary said that the ministry's focus has now shifted from food security to nutritional security.

The government has also set a target to double income of farmers by 2022, he added.

"We have great hopes on you (start-ups)," he said, adding that funding would not be a constraint.

Two solutions, at idea stage and ready-market stage, for each problem statement will be shortlisted under the programme.

The idea stage start-ups will get incubation support to go from idea to prototype while the ready market solutions will become part of a market access programme, aimed at easy adoption of their innovation.

Invest India, Villgro, Qualcomm India and ICRISAT are strategic partners for this event.

This is the first time the ministry has taken up such an innovative approach towards crowd sourcing solutions and promoting the start up ecosystem at the same time.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Noida-based AHA Taxis, a cab aggregator for outstation trips, today said it is planning to raise Series A Funding between Rs 20 crore and Rs 30 crore.

Last month, the cab aggregator had raised an undisclosedpre-series A funding led by lead angels and its investors ah! Ventures, AHA Taxis Co-Founder Arayan Kumar Sharma told PTI here.

Sharma said company plans to invest proceeds in technology and expansion of services to Karnataka and other southern states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

"We want to invest the proceeds to build technologies relating to automation and artificial intelligence. This, I believe, will scale up our business down South in states like Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu," he said.

In the next round of funding, the company intend to expand in Kerala, he said.

The company wants to make an official launch of itscab services in Karnataka by December end, Sharma said.

He said the company offers one-way fare for hiring taxis for outstation trips, whereas the trade norm used to be to charge the return fare.

To a query, Sharma said the company believes in profit-making business model rather than the American model oftraction and volumes model.

He said the company is providing outstation taxis service in more than 4000 destinations across India.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police today seized a huge cache of arms, which included 25 rifles, from a vehicle on the Mumbai- Agra national highway near Nashik and arrested three persons, in one of the biggest seizure of this kind in Maharashtra.

The firearms were allegedly stolen from a gun shop in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh, Sanjay Darade, Superintendent of Police, Nashik (rural), told PTI.

The police have formed at least eight teams to investigate the sensitive matter and to know why the three men were heading towards Mumbai.

"We are trying to find out their intention," Darade said.

The three men have been identified as Salman Amanulla Khan (19), Badari Juman Badshah (27), residents of Sewri in Mumbai, and Nagesh Bansode (23), a resident of Nashik.

Describing the events leading to the arrests, Darade said the police intercepted the vehicle early today at Chandwad toll booth and seized 25 rifles, 19 revolvers and more than 4,000 live cartridges after the owner of a nearby petrol pump alerted them.

The owner told the police that the three men got petrol filled in the vehicle at gunpoint before fleeing, the official said.

"As soon as the police were alerted, a security cordon was put on Mumbai-Agra highway and the vehicle was intercepted at Chandwad toll booth," he said.

"During interrogation, it came to light that the firearms and the ammunition had been stoled from a gunshop in Banda district in Uttar Pradesh. The arms and ammunition were being transported to Mumbai from Malegaon in Nashik district," Darade said.

All the accused were produced before a local court, which sent them into police custody till December 28.

When contacted, an official of the Uttar Pradesh Police department said a case of robbery was registered at the Banda police station yesterday in connection with the robbery at Punjab Armoury (Sardar Gun House).

"The robbers had broken the locks of the shop with gas cutter. The group thrashed a guard and tied his hands and legs. They also gagged him with an adhesive tape before looting the arms and ammunition," the official said.

The robbery was caught by a CCTV camera, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A solar system with as many planets as our own has been discovered with the help of NASA's Kepler space telescope and artificial intelligence, the US space agency said.

"Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star," NASA said in a statement yesterday.

However, none of the planets are expected to be hospitable to life.

The eight-planet system -- the largest known outside of ours -- orbits a star called Kepler 90 some 2,545 light-years away.

"The Kepler-90 star system is like a mini version of our solar system," said Andrew Vanderburg, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin.

"You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer."



The newly identified planet, Kepler-90i, is a rocky planet like Earth, but orbits its star once every 14.4 days, meaning a full year there is the same as two weeks on Earth.

"Kepler-90i is not a place I'd like to go visit, though," said Vanderburg.

"Its surface is likely far too hot."



NASA calculated its average temperature at about 426 degree Celsius -- as hot as Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.

Scientists found it by using machine learning from Google.

The process involved teaching a computer to scan a trove of 35,000 possible planetary signals collected from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope for search for signs of planetary transits.

Transits are the dimming of light when planets pass in front of a star.

The Kepler Space Telescope launched in 2009, and has scanned some 150,000 stars.

Astronomers have already confirmed the existence of some 2,500 far-away worlds using Kepler data.

"I became interested in applying neural networks to astronomy when I learned that the Kepler mission had collected so much data that it was impossible for scientists to examine it all manually," said Christopher Shallue, a senior software engineer with Google's research team.

"Instead scientists selected the strongest signals, which are the most likely to be actual planets, to receive the most attention."



Shallue likened this process to "looking for a needle in a haystack."



"Machine learning really shines when there is too much data for humans to examine for themselves."



More planets are expected to be found, because researchers plan to apply their neural network to Kepler's full set of more than 150,000 stars.

"There is a lot of unexplored real estate in the Kepler 90 system," said Vanderburg.

"It would almost be surprising to me if there weren't any more planets in around that star."



One day, artificial intelligence might even be used to search specifically for more Earth-like planets, which have proven difficult to pin down.

"For the first time since our solar system planets were discovered thousands of years ago, we know for sure that the solar system is not the sole record holder for the most planets, and we have just scratched the surface," Vanderburg added.

"Maybe there are systems out there with so many planets that they make our eight-planet solar system seem ordinary."



The findings are published in The Astronomical Journal.
The Supreme Court today said that claims of those citizens, whose names do not figure in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam to be published by December 31, would be scrutinised and included in the subsequent list, if found genuine.

The top court made it clear that publication of draft NRC was not the "end of the process" and claims and objections of aggrieved parties could be filed and would be verified in accordance with law.

"We reiterate the aforesaid observation meaning thereby that the claims/cases of the left out applicants whose names are not included in the draft NRC to be published on or before December 31, 2017 will be scrutinised and thereafter, if found eligible, would be included in the subsequent draft NRC," a bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and R F Nariman said.

The bench gave the liberty to Assam to give wide publicity or coverage to its direction so as to ally all fears and apprehensions that may exist.

The apex court had on November 30 said that on the expiry of midnight of December 31, the draft NRC pertaining to 2.38 crore claims, would be published. The NRC is being prepared to identify illegal migrants in Assam.

The court had observed this while rejecting the Centre's plea seeking extension of time for publication of the draft NRC.

The NRC of 1951 is being updated for Assam in accordance with the tripartite agreement between the state and central governments and the All Assam Students Union (AASU), which was arrived at in 2005 to implement the 1985 Assam Accord.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Assam government today offered to provide Rs 100 crore for expansion of air connectivity in the state under the centrally-sponsored scheme UDAN.

This was announced by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at a meeting held here with captains of aviation industry, a state government official said.

The state government has proposed to provide Rs 100 crore as viability gap funding towards extension of regional air connectivity scheme UDAN for international air connectivity from Guwahati, the official said.

Sonowal said with six operational airports - in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Lilabari, Silchar and Tezpur - and a number of other airfields which can be developed, the state has the basic ingredients to become the next connectivity hub.

He said Assam now offers great opportunities for the aviation industry and the Guwahati airport is one of the busiest airports with tremendous increase in flights in last one year.

"The industry should also look at providing seamless connectivity between airports in the Northeast and other destinations in India, neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and ASEAN countries," he said.

The UDAN "Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik" scheme is aimed at making flying affordable to the common man even in small towns.

The scheme ensures affordability, connectivity, growth and development. It would provide a win-win situation for all stakeholders citizens would get the benefit of affordability, connectivity and more jobs.

Those who participated the meeting included representatives from Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Air Vistara, Air India and Fly Dubai.

Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey, who attended the meeting, thanked the Assam government for taking the initiative for expansion of regional connectivity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Eminent Bengali poet Joy Goswami will be given the 31st Moortidevi Award for the year 2017, a selection board meeting announced here today.

The committee, headed by poet and scholar Satya Vrat Shastri, unanimously decided to confer the award upon Goswami for his poetry collection titled 'Du Dondo Phowara Matro'.

It is the first time the award will be given to a Bengali poet.

'Du Dondo Phowara Matro' is an autobiographical account of the poet's life featuring his close ones including a pet cat.

The work also echoes secret trysts, chance loves and more of the fantastical quotidian which makes up the poet's consciousness.

Born on 10 November 1954, Goswami is considered one of the most powerful poets in the post-Jibanananda Das era of Bengali poetry lending his voice against violence, war and genocide through his poetry.

Having published over fifty titles, including a novel in verse and several collections of critical essays, the poet has received many awards including Kendriya and Bangla Sahitya Akademi Awards, Ananda Purashkar, and the first Tata Literature Live Poet Laureate Award.

'Pagali tomara sange', 'Ghumiyechho, Jhaupata?', and 'Christmas O Sheeter Sonnetguchchho' are some of his important works in Bengali language.

The annual award is presented for a contemplative and perceptive work which expresses, underlines and illuminates human values written in any Indian languages or English.

The award consists of a Saraswati Statue, a Citation Plaque and cash award of Rupees 4 lac.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today asked the media to get Kashmiris closer to the rest of India rather than adding "fuel to the fire".

She was speaking at the three-day-long "India Ideas Conclave 2017" organised by the India Foundation here.

She said the media kept abusing and accusing separatists but at the same time kept getting them on television giving them TV time to spew venom.

"I dont know why do they do it. Is it because of TRPs? Media should help us to get Kashmir out of the present situation and not add fuel to the fire," she said.

She said that some sections of the media pick up the "most rotten" person from the state who speaks against the country.

"They pick up a guy who is not known to anyone, no Kashmiri knows him. They put him on television and then they get someone to combat him. They give him that kind of space on television," she said.

"And these two are fighting and Kashmiris and other countrymen watch them. The other countrymen feel that this Kashmiri is talking bad about the country so Kashmiris are bad. And the Kashmiris feel that other fellow is accusing Kashmir," she said.

"Media should play a role in bringing Kashmiris and the rest of the country closer to each other. They should pick up people who talk nice things about the country," she added.

She said that Kashmiriyat is reflected in the acts of the people of Kashmir. "You can get the proof of Kashmiriyat in the acts of people who rushed to help Amarnath yatris (when they were attacked)," she said.

"That time large number of people went to hospital to donate blood. Last year when there was an accident, people took passengers to their houses. This is what Kashmiris are basically," she said.

The three-day conclave was inaugurated in presence of former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Union minister of state for external Affairs M J Akbar, Minister of State from the United Arab Emirates Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh and Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 37-year-old BSES labour supervisor was arrested for allegedly stealing cable worth Rs 10 lakh from a metro site in Jamia Nagar, the police said today.

On December 5, BSES contractor Karan Sharma approached the police with a complaint about theft of a wooden drum containing 492 metres of cable weighing 4,400 kg from an underconstruction Jamia Milia University metro station site, they added.

During investigation, the police analysed the CCTV footages from the site. In one of the CCTV footages, a hydra crane and a tempo were seen passing in front of Holy Family hospital in the night.

The police team traced the crane and the owner revealed that it was hired by a BSES employee for lifting the heavy cable wire roll, said Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast).

Yesterday, the police nabbed one Ashwani Kumar alias Bablu, a BSES contractual labour supervisor in connection with the theft, said the officer.

He tried to sell the stolen cable to three-four junk dealers in Okhla and Badarpur but since it was government property they all refused to buy it, he added.

The accused was looking for some junk dealers outside Delhi to dispose off the cable wire. He dumped the cable roll behind Batra hospital in the jungle area and the stolen wire was recovered.

Earlier, he used to work as a cab driver and was working as a BSES contractor from last one year.

He was arrested in 2006 also in connection with a murder-cum-robbery case in Gurgaon and remained in Bhondsi Jail till 2010.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Cabinet today approved signing of an agreement between India and Colombia in the field of agriculture and fisheries.

"The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Colombia in the field of agriculture and fisheries," an official statement said.

Under the MoU, a joint-working group (JWG) will be constituted to prepare/finalise the work plan for the next two years.

The MoU will be initially valid for five years and would be automatically extended for a subsequent period of five years unless either party expresses its desire to terminate it.

The co-operation would be in the areas of innovative agricultural practices/approaches, new agricultural mechanisations and successful models of agricultural marketing.

The two countries would also co-operate to develop projects in association with agricultural companies for production of seeds, among others.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police today seized 25 rifles, 19 revolvers and over 4,000 live cartridges from a vehicle on the Mumbai-Agra National Highway and arrested three persons in this connection.

Acting on a tip-off, police intercepted the car in the early hours today at the Chandwad toll-booth, about 70 kms from here, Nashik Rural Superintendent of Police Sanjay Darade told PTI.

"25 rifles, 19 revolvers and 4,140 live cartridges were seized from the vehicle," Darade said.

Those arrested have been identified as Salman Khan and Badari Juman Badshah, both residents of Shivadi in Mumbai and Nagesh Bansode, resident of Nashik, another police official said.

According to Darade, the three accused, who were coming from Malegoan in the district, visited a petrol pump on the way and got petrol filled at gun-point, following which the pump's owner alerted the police.

"It is a sensitive case and we are probing from where the fire arms were brought," the SP said.

A case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered, police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Calcutta High Court would sit tomorrow, a Saturday, to hear old criminal appeals as desired by the Chief Justice of India to clear pending cases.

A division bench comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Rajarshi Bharadwaj would take up 17 such appeals in old criminal cases filed in 2010 or before.

While one of these appeals was filed in 2005, another was filed in 2007 and five others in 2008, according to a list released by the high court administration.

Two of the appeals to be heard tomorrow by the high court, which functions from Monday to Friday, were filed in 2009 and the rest were filed in 2010.

Chief Justice of India Justice Dipak Mishra had in September written to the chief justices of all high courts expressing desire that the high courts constitute special benches to hear old criminal appeals, in which legal aid has been provided, on Saturdays to reduce the huge pendency.

There were 2,23,261 cases pending before the Calcutta High Court as on October 31 this year, of which 39,643 are criminal appeals, according to its website.

Calcutta High Court Bar Association secretary Amol Mukhopadhyay, however, opposed the move to hold hearings on Saturdays, saying the members of the bar want that vacancies in the judiciary be filled up first.

"There are only 33 judges at the high court against a sanctioned strength of 72 judges. We want these vacancies to be filled up and then we are willing to work on Saturdays," he said.

He said a resolution has been passed at a general body meeting of the bar association stating that its members would not participate in the hearings tomorrow or on any other Saturday until their demand for filling up the vacancies in judiciary is met.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the government has decided to recapitalise public sector banks (PSBs) to enhance credit growth and job creation.

The government has decided to infuse Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital in PSBs in the next two years through budgetary provisions of Rs 18,139 crore, Rs 1,35,000 crore through re-capitalisation bonds, and the balance through raising of capital by banks from the market, Jaitley said.

This will help strengthen the banks, which are the key pillars of the economy, he said in his opening remarks during the 7th pre-Budget consultation meeting here with representatives of banks and financial institutions.

He said capital adequacy of the banks will help in credit growth and job creation, among others.

After the meeting, Axis Bank Managing Director Shikha Sharma said bankers discussed tax treatment for reduction in debt.

"If a buyer is going to take a haircut of the debt, the debt is going to be written off the balance sheet. Just as it is allowed under Sick Industrial Companies Act, the tax break should be allowed on that," she said.

Yes Bank Managing Director Rana Kapoor made a case for permitting bank financing for domestic merger and acquisitions of weak companies with good underlying assets to accelerate NPA resolution, with adequate regulatory safeguards.

"Current RBI guidelines...preclude such financing, except in infra sector. Given their significant social and economic value, capital market exposure must also be precluded," Kapoor said.

According to a Finance Ministry statement, various suggestions were given by the representatives of banks and financial institutions. They said TDS limit for bank interest should be raised from the current Rs 10,000 especially for senior citizens and pensioners, and premium up to Rs 1 lakh on life insurance policies be exempted from income tax.

The limit of Rs 10,000 was last set in the year 1997.

It was also suggested to have a Credit Guarantee Fund to encourage investment in the agriculture sector.

Other suggestions included encouraging affordable housing and giving tax benefits to rental properties. It was also suggested to extend the date of masala bond TDS, which expires in June 2018.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The CBI has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh to anyone who shares credible information leading to the arrest of those involved in the rape-and-murder of a teenage girl in Kotkhai in Himachal Pradesh in July.

The Himachal Pradesh Police had arrested six suspects in the case, one of whom died in its custody.

The rest five were not under the agency's suspicion after their lie-detector tests apparently showed that they were not lying about their non-involvement in the case, sources claimed.

The sources, however, said no clean chit has been given to anyone till the agency gets conclusive evidence.

The CBI registered two cases on the direction of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in July this year to probe the rape-and-murder of the 16-year-old girl and the second related to the custodial death of an accused, Suraj Singh, arrested by the Himachal Pradesh Police.

The CBI spokesperson said the reward of Rs 10 lakh will be given to anyone from general public for providing credible information resulting in the arrest of real culprits in the case.

"The information can be given to the CBI over mobile numbers +919650394782 (Deputy SP, SC-I, CBI); 8219885920, 8219893590 (local numbers of Himachal Pradesh office); Landline numbers 011-24368637, 24368640 (SP, SC-I, CBI, Lodhi Road, New Delhi-), Mobile -9870530011 and email spscu2del@cbi.gov.in. The name and details of the informant will be kept secret," CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.

A special investigation team (SIT) of the Himachal Pradesh Police had arrested Ashish Chauhan alias Ashu (29), a resident of Sharaal village in Mahasu area of Kotkhai; Rajender Singh alias Raju (32), a driver; Subash Singh Bisht (42) and Deepak alias Deepu (29), both residents of Pauri Garwal; Suraj Singh (29) and Lok Jung alias Chotu (19), both hailing from Nepal.

Suraj Singh had died under mysterious circumstances while in custody.

On August 29, the CBI arrested then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Z H Zaidi, who was heading the SIT, then Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of Theog Manoj Joshi, the then Station House Officer of Kotkhai, one Assistant Sub-Inspector, three head constables and one constable in the custodial death case.

On November 16, the agency arrested then Superintendent of Police (SP) of Shimla D W Negi.

The Class X student had gone missing on July 4 and her naked body was recovered from Haliala forests in Kotkhai on July 6.

The rape case created outrage in the state which went to the assembly polls last month.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Union government today approved a bill, providing a three-year extension to a law that protects slums and some other unauthorised constructions in Delhi from punitive action till formulation of policies for their orderly arrangements.

A government official said that the introduction of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Amendment Bill, 2017, in Parliament was approved in the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The passage of the bill in Parliament will extend the 2011 Act for three years from Jan. 1, 2018 to Dec. 31, 2020.

The Act protects slums and jhuggi-jhopri clusters from punitive action till formulation of policies for their orderly arrangements. It provides protection in respect of encroachment or unauthorised development as on January 1, 2006.

Unauthorised colonies, village areas (including urban villages) and their extensions that existed on March 31, 2002 and where construction took place until June 1, 2014, and all other areas in Delhi as on February 8, 2007, are covered under the Act, the official said.

The extension of the Act beyond December 31, 2017, was necessitated because the norms and policy guidelines to deal with the problem of encroachment and unauthorised development are yet to be finalised by the Delhi government, the DDA, municipal corporations and other concerned bodies, he said.

"They are in the process of taking steps to conduct surveys, simplification of procedures, formulation of redevelopment plan, and finalisation of policies, and the process is likely to take some more time," he addded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today said that a sustained cessation of threatening behaviour from North Korea is essential for any peace talks with Pyongyang.

The US will not allow the nuclear-armed North Korean regime to hold the world hostage, he said.

"A sustained cessation of North Korea's threatening behaviour must occur before talks can begin. Apart from that step, there are no preconditions for talks, nor will we accept pre-conditions from North Korea or others," Tillerson said in his address to the Security Council on North Korea.

"We will continue to hold North Korea accountable for its reckless and threatening behavior today and in the future. We ask every nation here to join us in exerting sovereignty to protect all of our people," Tillerson said.

As such he asked all member State to fully implement all existing UN Security Council Resolutions.

"For those nations who have not done so, or who have been slow to enforce Security Council resolutions, your hesitation calls into question whether your vote is a commitment to words only, but not actions," he said.

Tillerson said after its ICBM launch on November 29, the North Korean government claimed that it now possessed the capability to strike any location in the continental US.

"North Korea's growing capabilities reflect a direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world. We do not regard this claim as an empty threat," he said.

"The North Korean regime's continuing unlawful missile launches and testing activities signal its contempt for the United States, its neighbours in Asia, and all members of the United Nations," Tillerson said in his address to the Security Council meeting, which was chaired by his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono.

Japan holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council for the month of December.

Earlier US President Donald Trump said that while China is helping the US on North Korea, Russia is not.

Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a day earlier on North Korea.

"The primary point was to talk about North Korea, because we would love to have his help on North Korea. China's helping. Russia's not helping. We'd like to have Russia's help. Very important," Trump said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Air Commodore V K Garg today took over the Command of 5 Base Repair Depot at Air Force Station (AFS), Sulur here.

He took over the charge from Air Commodore G S P N Chowdary at an impressive Ceremonial Parade at the parade ground comprising all Air Warriors of the Depot.

Prior to his new assignment here, Garg held the post of Command Engineering Officer at Headquarters Central Air Command, Allahabad, an official release said.

Garg had also served at Air Head Quarters and various premier bases of the Indian Air Force and held key portfolios, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today said children in schools should be taught in their respective mother tongues in order to make them aware of the importance of the language.

Speaking at the inaugural function of World Telugu Conference-2017 (WTC) which began here today, the Vice President also lauded the Telugu literary works of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, a native of Telangana.

"There is a need to emphasise on Telugu language from childhood itself. Children should be taught about the beauty of Telugu language. There is nothing wrong in learning other languages. But we should not forget to use our mother tongue also," Naidu said.

He said there are ample evidence to prove that Telugu is an ancient language as inscriptions dating back to 2 AD were found in the South Indian language.

Naidu added that television, media and cinema also played an important role in preserving the language.

Showering praise on Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for making Telugu compulsory up to class 12, Naidu said government business should also be conducted in the native language.

Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao said Telugu is the second-most spoken language in India after Hindi.

He also urged the Telangana chief minister to take necessary steps to make sure the language is preserved in other states where the Telugu-speaking diaspora is located.

Telangana and Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasinhan, who spoke in Telugu, said these kind of conferences would help protect the language.

Chief Minister Rao said his government is committed to the development of the language.

The five-day WTC will conclude on December 19 and President Ram Nath Kovind is expected to attend it on that day.

As many as 8,000 delegates, including some from 42 foreign countries, are participating in seminars and literary meetings as part of the WTC.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China is planning to launch satellites from its southern Hainan province to assist round- the-clock remote sensing coverage over the as Beijing seeks to cement its hold on the disputed area.

The Sanya Institute of Remote Sensing said it would launch three optical satellites next year.

It will add another three optical satellites, two hyperspectral satellites and two Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites to complete the Satellite Constellation Programme by 2021, for conducting round-the-clock remote-sensing over the tropical sea area, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Yang Tianliang, director of the institute, said the network was calculated to broadly cover the area between 30 degrees north and south of the equator.

Yang said the programme would provide scientific support for China's initiative of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and emergency response efforts at sea.

China claims sovereignty on almost of the . The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Bureni and Taiwan have counter claims.

China has already firmed up its hold over the area by building military installations in the reclaimed islands.

Meanwhile, reacting to a report by a US think tank which released satellite images showing deployment of radar and other high tech equipment for military use in the islands and reefs of the South China Sea, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media here that it was "normal" for China to build installations in an area over which it has sovereignty.

"If China is conducting any construction, peaceful activities or deploying defence facilities it is normal because it within our sovereignty," Lu told the media.

"Some individuals are making a fuss about this to hype it up. This clearly points to some ulterior motives," he said, adding that the situation in the is becoming normal.

With the concerted efforts of China and regional countries, the situation has steadily stabilised and the countries outside the region should respect efforts and "stop hyping up relevant issue", he said.

China is involved in maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas. It claims almost all of the South China Sea and has also laid claims on the Senkaku islands under the control of Japan in the East China Sea, believed to harbour vast natural resources below their seabed.

The US has been periodically deploying its naval ships and fighter planes in the South China Sea to assert freedom of navigation in the disputed areas.
President Serzh Sargsyan has presented his vision regarding the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

December 15, 2017, 09:16 Armenian President presents vision of NK conflict settlement

STEPANAKERT, DECEMBER 15, ARTSAKHPRESS:In an interview with ARMENIA TV, the president stressed that there must be calm in the line of contact. Causalities must be ruled out.

This manhunt which exists today must be ruled out. It will create certain atmosphere and mutual trust. Where does mutual trust come from? Mutual trust comes when you begin implementing the agreements which you achieved recently. If you fail to implement the agreements once, the worm of distrust begins to gnaw. One after one and this is how an atmosphere of distrust appears. This must be eliminated, so that after this the negotiations continue in a calm atmosphere, he said.

The president mentioned that at this moment negotiations over specific points of settlement are not proceeding, however he mentioned that this is natural  taking into account the developments of the past two years. During the last two years we had meetings in Vienna, St. Petersburg, weve had agreements, and now one can say the process is proceeding in two directions. The first direction is that the tension must be eased, investigative mechanisms must be created, which will bring to a certain atmosphere of mutual trust, and after which it will be possible to go deeper over the provisions of the document. Ive said this once, and I will repeat it again  it is impossible to negotiate with one hand and shoot with the other. Negotiations dont like gunfire. And it is impossible to achieve agreement in this kind of conditions. Gunfire always disturb, human losses are always painful and bring a nervous atmosphere in the negotiations process. Each word, each provision must be weighed in a calm atmosphere, in order to be able to reach agreement, the Armenian President said.

The president also mentioned that Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov did not present any conceptual or new proposal regarding the NK conflict settlement during his latest regional visit. According to the president, the Armenian-Russian relations agenda is so rich that solely the NK issue is not discussed during the visits of high level officials.

In terms of Karabakh, I say again, Lavrov said everything at the press conference. The Russian FM is convinced that this conflict is possible to be settled within the OSCE Minsk Group and the proposed principles are the ones which enable to solve the conflict, he said.
A Chinese man has been sentenced to one year in jail by a court in the Inner Mongolia for destroying a portrait of the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan and inciting hatred.

The man, identified by his surname Luo, had shared a video of him stomping on a portrait of the Mongol warlord in May on a popular video-sharing platform Kuaishou.

He was charged with inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination and disturbing social stability by the prosecutors in Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia, after a video of him stomping the picture of the founder of Mongol empire went viral, a media report said today.

He pleaded guilty and said he would not appeal when appearing at Ejin Horo People's Court in Inner Mongolia on last Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The video was shot in a Mongolian yurt (tent) in Yinchuan, capital of north western China's Ningxia province, and went viral on social media in the following days, it said.

Police in Inner Mongolia said that they had received complaints from residents and deemed the video had caused disruption to society.

Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan remains a revered figure among many ethnic Mongols.

He had united the warring Mongol tribes before establishing an empire by conquering large areas of China and central Asia.

His conquests also laid the foundation for China's Yuan dynasty (12711368) founded by his grandson Kublai Khan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Chinese man has been sentenced to one year in prison for destroying a portrait of Genghis Khan by a court in the country's Inner Mongolia region, sparking online debate on the use of laws to punish acts of "ethnic hatred".

In a video that he shared online this May, the man surnamed Luo stood inside a yurt and stomped on a picture of legendary conqueror Genghis Khan, a public security bureau in the northern region announced on Wednesday.

Luo was convicted this week of "inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination" and apologised before the local court for "harming public sentiment".

Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan remains a revered figure among many ethnic Mongols.

Ordos city authorities said several members of the public had reported the viral video to the police.

While Luo was condemned on social media for the video, some commenters on the Twitter-like Weibo platform also questioned the severity of his prison sentence.

"Chinese law is too elastic, it's not standardised," one user said.

Another accused the authorities of ruling by "Mongol Empire Law".

Some Weibo posts commenting on the sentence were subsequently removed, along with both the statement from the Ordos public security bureau and a post from the city's party committee about the conviction.

Chinese authorities routinely censor politically sensitive material online.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Coast Guard conducted a free medical camp today to mark its 41st raising day, for which week-long celebrations will be held including a motorcycle rally along the fishing belts of West Bengal and Odisha.

A team of doctors from the Coast Guard (North East region), including a lady gynaecologist for women populace, provided free medical treatment and medicines during the camp at Beonta Kanthalberia Village in Rajarhat of North 24 Parganas district, a Coast Guard spokesman said here.

More than 500 villagers took advantage of the medical camp, where Coast Guard (NE region) commander Inspector General Kuldip Singh Sheoran was the chief guest.

The Coast Guard conducts such medical camps and community interaction programmes frequently in the fishing hamlets, but the event in a village miles away from the coasts was part of the forces appeal to the youth of the state to take up a career in the Indian Coast Guard, the spokesman said.

Coast Guard will conduct a joint motorcycle rally along the fishing belt of West Bengal and Odisha soon, where free medical camps will also be held in the fishing villages enroute.

A newly commissioned vessel of the Coast Guard will be docked at Kolkata Port to showcase the state-of-the-art technology used in the indigenously-built ship named ICGS Sujay for public viewing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has said there are concrete evidences to prove that Iran is violating UN Security Council resolutions on weapons proliferation.

"The fight against Iranian aggression is the world's fight. The United States is acting today in the spirit of transparency and international cooperation that is necessary to defeat this threat," she said yesterday, standing in front of a charred ballistic missile the size of a car during a press conference at Joint Base AnacostiaBolling here.

"In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation, gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region," she added.

Haley held the conference to what she said "unveil clear evidence" of Iran's violations of UN Security Council resolutions and highlight recent findings communicated in the UN Secretary-General's Resolution 2231 Implementation Report.

"Behind me is an example of one of these attacks. These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The missile's intended target was the civilian airport in Riyadh, through which tens of thousands of passengers travel each day. I repeat: This missile was used to attack an international civilian airport in a G-20 country," she told reporters.

"Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London, or Berlin. That's what we're talking about here. That's what Iran is actively supporting. What is most revealing about this missile is what's not here. This is a short-range ballistic missile. It is missing the large stabiliser fins that are typically present on these kinds of missiles," she said.

The Iranian Qiam missile is the only known short-range ballistic missile in the world that lacks such stabiliser fins and includes nine valves that you will see running along the length of the missile. "Those valves are essentially Iranian missile fingerprints," Haley said.

The highest-ranking Indian-American in the Trump administration said the US welcomes UN Secretary-General's Resolution 2231 Implementation Report, as should every nation concerned about Iranian expansion.

Most telling, the report makes a convincing case that Iran is illegally providing the Houthi militants in Yemen with dangerous weapons, she said.

The report provides devastating evidence of missiles, conventional arms and explosive boats of Iranian origin used by the rebels in Yemen - all of which violate UN resolutions, she added.

The US and its partners went to great lengths to support the UN investigations into Iranian violations by declassifying evidence so that the world could better be informed of the extent of Iran's "malign activities", the diplomat said.

Haley told reporters that the warehouse also had material from an anti-tank guided missile which have a range of over two miles and can destroy tanks and even buildings.

"You will see material from an unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a kamikaze drone, that can take out radar sites. You will see material from a SHARK-33 explosive boat. These are boats with a warhead inside them that explodes on impact. They can blow six feet wide holes in the hulls of ships," she said.

"All of these weapons include parts made in Iran, some by Iran's government-run defence industry. All are proof that Iran is defying the international community. And not just one time. This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behaviour in which Iran sows conflict and extremism in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions," she said.

At the UN headquarters in New York, the British Ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft said they are extremely concerned about Iran's role in this region.

"We have seen those reports, we are following up very carefully with the United Nations. It is important that the Security Council does our job, which is to assess the reports about Iran's behaviour and then takes appropriate action," he told reporters in response to a question.

Senator Marco Rubio commended the administration for declassifying information and materials related to Iran's "malign" activities.

"As the United States weighs the future of the flawed Iran nuclear deal, the US and our allies must do more to stop the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime's growing support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and other militant groups in the Middle East," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The winter session of Rajya Sabha began on a stormy note today with the opposition demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "conspiracy with Pakistan" remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, creating uproar and repeatedly disrupting proceedings.

An angry opposition led by the Congress accused Modi of levelling "serious charges" against Singh, former Vice President Hamid Ansari and diplomats.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed a notice by Congress and other opposition members under rule 267 for suspension of the business of the House to discuss the matter, which led to further noisy scenes.

The Upper House saw three adjournments before the Chair finally called it a day, a little after 3 PM following continued uproar and slogan-shouting.

The opposition members also protested the disqualification of former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar of the same party from the House by the Chairman, which was vociferously countered by ruling party MPs.

They raised the issue soon after the Chairman informed the House about his decision to disqualify the two former JD(U) members after giving them due opportunity of hearing.

As the members protested, Naidu said there cannot be any discussion on the decision of the Chair. "There is no discussion on the ruling of the chairman. Please sit down."



"This is a political issue which you are raising, which you discuss outside the House. I have no problem," he said, adding "this is not the manner.... All are standing...Both the sides are standing.. I have not allowed."



As opposition members continued slogan-shouting and trooped into the Well, Naidu said "You want to do like this on the first day itself? I don't appreciate the conduct of coming to the Well. ... There is a saying that all is well, not well. Try to understand this."



When the House reassembled at noon for Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Modi's remarks at an election rally in Gujarat targeting Singh over a dinner meeting with Pakistani diplomats.

Azad said his party and other opposition leaders have given a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of the listed business to discuss an issue which he termed as "serious".

"There has been a serious matter which is not only the concern of government but the opposition is equally concerned. One allegation has been levelled on former Prime Minister and former President.

"There are charges ... many foreign secretaries, high commissioners and ambassadors... charges have been levelled on them that they are hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan in Gujarat election. The PM on December 10 in Palampur in Gujarat has levelled this allegation. This is not an ordinary allegation...against a former PM, vice president and Army chief," Azad said.

But Naidu disallowed it, saying "I have gone into the notice given by Ghulam Nabiji, Naresh Agarwal...I have not allowed it ...pls sit down."



This agitated the members who created further uproar, forcing the Chair to adjourn the House till 2:30 PM.

When the House met again, Azad raised the issue amid the uproar and the House was adjourned again till 3 PM by deputy chairman P J Kurien.

While Kurien pleaded with members to take up the private members' business, Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal raised the issue of the Centre's move to set up special courts for cases against MPs and MLAs and questioned the move.

When Kurien said it was a decision of the Supreme Court, Agarwal said he had not criticised the top court but his questions were directed at the government.

Congress leader Anand Sharma also got up and said Agarwal was trying to raise a point of order and asked whether this could be raised "only at a particular time".

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel asked how the issue being raised was a point or order, which, he said, was related to the business of the House.

Meanwhile, several Congress members were on their feet by this time and started raising slogans demanding an apology from the prime minister for his remarks.

Several Congress members including Oscar Fernandes, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Renuka Chowdhury, Sanjay Singh trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans.

Amid the din, some private members' bills including 'The Educational Innovations Commission Bill 2017' by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and 'The Prevention of Enforced Disappearance Bill 2017' by V Vijayasai Reddy were introduced.

As the slogan shouting continued, Kurien adjourned the proceedings till 3 pm. When the House reassembled, opposition members continued their protests, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House for the day.

Earlier when the House assembled, Chairman Naidu led the House in paying tributes to ten former members who passed away during the inter-session period. Thereafter, the Prime Minister introduced new ministers to the House.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today asked the AAP government to consider providing minimum wages to poor persons suffering from AIDS.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said that people afflicted with the disease need to take care of their families.

It also asked the Delhi government to consider enhancing the financial assistance being provided to them.

The court was hearing a PIL initiated by it after receiving a letter from a person, suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), seeking enhancement of the Rs 1,000 pension he received to Rs 3,000.

It issued notice to the Delhi government, the National Aids Control Organization (NACO) and the Delhi State Aids Control Society (DSACS) and sought their response on the issue.

The court later listed the matter for further hearing on January 9, 2018.

It also appointed advocate Ajay Verma as amicus curiae to assist the bench as well as the person who sent the letter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Consumer electronics and appliance makers today welcomed government's decision to hike import duty on electronics items like smartphones and television, saying the move will boost domestic manufacturing industry and give a push to the Make in India initiative.

The government today hiked import duty on smartphones, television sets, microwave, LED lamps and some other electronic items in a bid to protect domestic manufacturers.

Customs duty on television sets has been doubled to 20 per cent as also on LED lamps.

"This is a significant step as it will boost the domestic manufacturing industry and give a fillip to the government's Make in India initiative," Videocon Chief Manufacturing Officer Abhijit Kotnis said.

He further said this will also encourage foreign consumer durables companies to manufacture products in India rather than importing them.

The tax on import of microwave ovens too has been doubled to 20 per cent, the Finance Ministry said in a notification.

CEAMA President Manish Sharma said: "We have been pushing the government to increase the basic customs duty for CBUs imported into the country which in turn will benefit the overall domestic ACE industry."



Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) is an all India industry body in the consumer electronics and durables sector.

Customs duty on video recording equipment as well as TV cameras has been increased to 15 per cent from current 10 per cent. Imported smartphones will cost more with customs duty on them being increased to 15 per cent from nil now.

Sharma, who is also the President and CEO of Panasonic India and South Asia said: "Further to this significant development, local manufacturing will grow, giving the much- needed impetus to the government's Make-in-India vision."



Godrej Appliances Business Head and EVP Kamal Nandi: "This will benefit and promote domestic manufacturing of microwave ovens, supporting government's initiative of Make In India."



Import duty on set top boxes has been doubled to 20 per cent. Also, customs duty on lamps and lighting fittings including search lights and chandeliers has been doubled to 20 per cent while the same on electricity meters increased from 10 per cent to 15 per cent, the notification said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR), popularly known as the toy train, resumed its full operations today, chugging its way to the Queen of the Hills from the New Jalpaiguri station, after 188 days of service suspension due to Gorkhaland agitation.

The toy train covered the entire route, spanning 90 kilometre, today but there were barely any passengers, the traffic in-charge of DHR, SK Ghosh, said.

He hoped that in the coming days, the service will pick up pace and make up for the losses it incurred during the Gorkha unrest.

"People are still skeptical about visiting the hill town. Only a few passengers had boarded the train today. I hope the crisis will be over in a few days and the service will make up for the losses it incurred in the past few months," he said.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had called for an indefinite shutdown in the hills in June, demanding a separate state. The bandh that lasted for 104 days was lifted after home minister Rajnath Singh made an appeal to the Bimal-Gurung-led party to end the agitation.

A part of the hill track, between Siliguri and Darjeeling, was made operational on October 15 but the trains could not run the full distance back then as landslides triggered by heavy showers had blocked the route, New Jalpaiguri station manager Tapan Saha said.

The 'toy train' service, which earned UNESCO World Heritage tag in 1999, has always been a big attraction for tourists visiting this eastern hill town.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today held that activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband owe an explanation to Gujarat Police for alleged misappropriation of "huge funds" received by their NGOs for the victims of the 2002 riots.

The apex court, which dismissed their pleas challenging the Gujarat High Court order rejecting defreezing of their personal bank accounts, said the investigations against them and their NGOs -- Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace -- were still in progress and there were allegation of non-cooperation by them in the probe which strengthens suspicion against them.

It said police was in possession of materials pointing out circumstances which create "suspicion of the commission" of offences of cheating, breach of trust, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The freezing of nine bank accounts by Ahmedabad Police had come soon after its crime branch started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society, which was affected by riots, into a museum.

While dismissing their appeals against the October 7, 2015 verdict of the high court, a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar, said "the suspicion entertained by the investigating agency as to how the appellants (Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand) appropriated huge funds, which in fact were meant to be disbursed to the unfortunate victims of 2002 riots will have to be explained by the appellants."



"Indisputably, the investigation is still in progress. The appellants will have to explain their position to the investigating agency and after investigation is complete, the matter can proceed further depending on the material gathered during investigation," the bench said.

During the hearing, Gujarat government had alleged that the activist couple had siphoned the money collected in the name of victims for "personal use" like wining and dining and the activist had claimed that the action against them was "completely mala fide".

The state government had alleged that they had spent the money received in the name of victims in "liquor, movies, food, personal items and Blackberry phones".

The activist couple had countered the charges and said money spent does not belong to the government and there was no complainant who had said he or she has been cheated.

While rejecting their pleas, the top court observed that the police had seized the accounts in compliance with section 102 (power of police officer to seize certain property) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

"Suffice it to observe that as the investigating officer was in possession of materials pointing out circumstances which create suspicion of the commission of an offence, in particular, the one under investigation and he having exercised powers under Section 102 (Power of police officer to seize certain property) of the CrPC which he could, in law, therefore, legitimately seize the bank accounts of appellants after following the procedure prescribed in sub-Section (2) and sub-Section (3) of the same provision.

The top court, however, allowed Setalvad and her husband to approach the court for de-freezing of their bank accounts once the investigation was complete.

"Once the investigation is complete and police report is submitted to the concerned court, it would be open to the appellants to apply for de-freezing of the bank accounts and persuade the concerned Court that the said bank accounts are no more necessary for the purpose of investigation."



It will be open to the court concerned to consider that request in accordance with law after hearing the investigating agency, including to impose conditions as may be warranted in the fact situation of the case, the bench said in its 42-page verdict.

All nine bank accounts of the activist and her husband were seized 10 days after an FIR was lodged against them by Gujarat Police on January 4, 2014.

The court noted prosecution's submission that substantial discrepancies have been noticed from the bank accounts.

"Keeping these principles in mind and the material on record, it is noticed that the prosecution has alleged that the two trusts are run by the private appellants and other accused. They were actively involved in collecting huge funds as donation in the name of providing legal assistance to the 2002 Gujarat riot victims.

"Such donations received by the two trusts had never reached the victims, the members of the Gulberg Society in respect of which grievance has been made in the subject FIR. Further, substantial discrepancies have been noticed from the bank accounts, copies of audited account statements and balance sheet. The final account did not tally with the accounts, as submitted," it said.

The court noted that they provided incorrect information and there was also a case of non-disclosure and suppression of material facts which create suspicion of the commission of offence under investigation.

It further noted that in the proceedings filed before different courts, it was alleged that incorrect plea has been taken by the appellants, suggestive of the fact that their accounts were not compliant and duly scrutinised by competent authority.

The bench, however, clarified that at an appropriate stage or upon completion of the probe, if the investigating officer is satisfied with the explanation of appellants and is of the opinion that continuance of the seizure of the stated bank accounts or any one of them is not necessary, he will be well advised to issue instruction in that behalf.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the pleas of activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband and her two NGOs challenging the Gujarat High Court order rejecting their pleas for de-freezing of their personal bank accounts.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the pleas are dismissed.

Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their two NGOs -- Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace -- had challenged the October 7, 2015 verdict of the high court in the alleged misappropriation of funds received by their NGOs for Gujarat riot victims of 2002.

The apex court had reserved its verdict on July 5 this year.

Earlier the top court had questioned the source of money in the bank accounts of Setalvad and others which were frozen by the Ahmedabad Police in 2015 after the allegations of misappropriation had surfaced.

One of the residents of Gulberg society, Firoz Khan Pathan, had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at Gulberg Society in the memory of 69 people killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

The freezing of the accounts by Ahmedabad Police had come soon after its crime branch had started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society into a museum.

The high court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point in the alleged case of Gulbarg society fund embezzlement.

In the embezzlement case lodged by the Gujarat Police, the couple had challenged the cancellation of bail in the apex court, while in the alleged FCRA violation case, CBI has challenged the anticipatory bail granted to them by the Bombay High Court. Both matters are pending before the apex court.
"Star Wars" fans were taken aback by the appearance of Luke Skywalker, the main character of the beloved original trilogy, in the ravenously awaited follow-up to "The Force Awakens" in 2015.

Despite many mentions of him in the film, he appeared moments before the credits rolled, and even then only gave an apprehensive stare instead of uttering a word. Some viewers felt tricked, since Luke's actor, Mark Hamill, still got second billing in the film. Fans cried that after a couple years of speculation on Luke's status since "Return of the Jedi"  He's evil! He's mostly robotic now! He tried to kick start another generation of Jedi but it failed! He's the father of new character Rey (Daisy Ridley)!  that ignited the moment a new trilogy of films was announced, we were given only minimal answers and a staring contest between Hamill and Ridley.

However, (mostly) holding back Luke until the sequel, "The Last Jedi," out this Friday, was actually a brilliant move by Disney and Lucasfilm, despite complaints of tomfoolery. Years of speculation about what the once-spry, bright-eyed Jedi has been up to after all this time has reached a fever pitch, and the hype around the character and actor has arguably never been higher.

Be honest, who among us would say Luke was their favorite of the three human protagonists of the original films? For years, many would likely point to Han Solo, the modern pop culture rogue a fair chunk of modern characters in culture are modeled after, or Leia, the determined, intelligent rebel fighter with a face you likely saw on a few women's march signs earlier this year. This power couple have dominated pop culture for decades with a perfect mixture of confidence and vulnerability that spawned legions of imitators in pop culture. In a franchise where could you make a compelling argument for a number of characters being the most memorable or leaving the biggest cultural impact, the sandy-haired moisture farmer from Tattoine tends to get somewhat lost in the shuffle among fans.

Despite following his journey the most out of every character, Luke doesn't blaze as brightly in audience's memories, though he's present for iconic moment after iconic moment, including arguably the most spot lightened moment in the original trilogy, the "No Luke, I am your father," scene. Despite that, you don't often see Luke's hairstyle (purposefully) imitated or hear film or TV actors describing their dashing, scene-stealing character as a "Luke Skywalker-type" in interviews.

This is because Luke plays the role of the "everyman," the character audiences are meant to see themselves in, like Peter Parker. If Luke seems a tad bland at times, it's because we're meant to see ourselves in his shoes as he goes on his journey.

He gets a little whiny at times, needs guidance and doesn't always know what to do  just like a "regular" person might if they were thrust into such extraordinary circumstances. Luke is just enough of an emotional blank slate to let people identify with him, despite his piloting skills, Force abilities and secret cybernetic enforcer dad. It's the emotional level that counts. This also means, however, that the more cool and confident heroes like Han and Leia are more who audience members want to be. Think of when the first "The Lord of the Rings" film came out, and characters such as Gandalf or Aragorn received more attention from audiences than Frodo. While we may identify with the everyman, it's the confident heroes that truly grab our attention.

Many of the most famous scenes in the trilogy feature Han and Leia taking action into their own hands  Han's cantina scene with Greedo, Leia choking Jabba the Hutt, the scene where Leia saves both Luke and Han, various scenes of Han's daring actions in the Millennium Falcon, etc. Comparatively, Luke is largely shown as a student eager to learn from either Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda in the first two films, as opposed to taking his own path. He's the character that grows throughout the films, so there are many scenes of Luke of being unsure of himself. Audiences seemed to gravitate towards the characters that were outwardly confidently, even when they needed to be rescued.

Despite the franchise containing a smorgasbord of memorable lines, only a handful  like some of the exchange in the aforementioned scene with Darth Vader and "Jabba, this is your last chance. Free us or die!"  are uttered by Luke. A bulk of the soundbites known by people who haven't even seen "Star Wars"  "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're our only hope," "Use the Force, Luke," "These are not the droids you're looking for," "I find your lack of faith disturbing," "Do. Or do not. There is no try," etc., aren't actually said by the main character of the story.

Unlike with Luke, "The Force Awakens" gave audiences a fairly clear picture of Han and Leia's goings-on after "Return"'s big Ewok extravaganza on Endor: They had a disaffected, isolated son named Ben (Adam Driver) who decided to follow in grandpappy Darth Vader's footsteps as Kylo Ren, their relationship didn't work out, and it's implied that a smuggler and (charming) lowlife like Han wasn't a fantastic dad. We spend a decent amount of time with both characters, and Han turns out to be the movie's Obi-Wan, right down to getting killed by a black-clad villain they have a personal connection to.

While fans got healthy doses of Han and Leia, hardly any time was spent on Luke, fueling rampant fan theories about his psyche in the wake of a few decades and apparently becoming a recluse. This has allowed for more focus on a character that was previously overlooked in favor of flashier personalities, cooler designs, or both. Rumors and theories about Luke have been percolating for years, with (at least some) answers appearing to finally be revealed with "Last Jedi."

Plus, it is obvious from Luke's shaggy, robed appearance, stiff jaw and weary eyes, that he has seen some stuff that has taken its toll. That says a lot, considering this is a guy who faced a lightning-slinging dictator, destroyed a giant slug mafia boss' criminal empire, lost his right hand and every parental figure he ever had, lost said hand to his secretly-alive cyborg dad and became a freedom fighter/intergalactic terrorist, all in his teens-to-mid-20s.

The brief glimpse of Luke in "Awakens" teases our everyman becoming a jaded hermit, his positive outlook eroded by time  just as audience members may feel more cynical about the real world world now than when they watched the original films. The idea of seeing our idealistic protagonist becoming more complex and more morally gray is interesting, as is the mystery of how exactly that happened. This is exacerbated by the relatively small amount of Luke we have received in trailers for "The Last Jedi," with only a handful of lines and some scenes with Rey. We don't know much about what exactly Luke will do in the film, but his line "I've seen this raw strength only once before. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now," indicates he sees the same unfettered power in Rey that he did in Kylo. The decision to hold the character back for the second film, when the stakes are a little clearer and we've gotten to know our other main characters a little more, allows the stakes to be raised even higher when arguably the most critical character in the original films appears.

This is a perfect time for not just the character, but for the actor. Hamill's Wookie-free live action output consists largely of under-the-radar projects; arguably his biggest roles were as a version of himself in 2001's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and a cameo in 2014's "Kingsmen: The Secret Service." The real treasure is his hundreds of voice acting credits, with the crown jewel probably being his turn as the villain Joker in various "Batman" projects, starting with the critically acclaimed "Batman: The Animated Series."

Hamill's Crown Prince of Crime alternates between hilarious and menacing, often within the same sentence. For many people, that version is the definitive interpretation of the iconic character, famed big-screen incarnations be damned. If someone knows even one of Hamill's non-"Star Wars" parts, it is likely that role. "Batman: The Animated Series" turned 25 earlier this year, and streaming services like Amazon have given the already beloved series new legs, and has further cemented Hamill as a skilled performer capable of far more than just his famed Jedi warrior.

From the character we learn everything about in the original "Star Wars" films  his backstory, motivation, personality  to a character who is a mystery after 40 years, the lack of information on Skywalker has heightened his mystique in the new films. New wrinkles  both literally and figuratively  have made a once underrated character more of a draw. With the hype around the character and focus on Hamill at a new peak, it is a good time to be Luke Skywalker.
The Supreme Court today rejected pleas of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband against freezing of their bank accounts in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds received by their NGOs for the 2002 Gujarat riot victims.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar said the pleas are dismissed.

Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their two NGOs -- Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace -- had challenged the October 7, 2015 verdict of the Gujarat High Court rejecting their pleas of defreezing of their personal bank accounts.

While reserving the verdict on July 5, the top court had questioned the source of money in the bank accounts of Setalvad and others which were frozen by the Ahmedabad Police in 2015 after allegations of misappropriation surfaced.

The Gujarat government had alleged that the activist couple had siphoned the money collected in the name of victims for "personal use" like wining and dining and the activist had claimed that the action against them was "completely malafide".

The state govt had alleged that they had spent the money received in the name of victims in "liquor, movies, food, personal items and Blackberry phones".

The activist couple had countered the charges and said the money spent does not belong to the government and there was no complainant who had said he or she has been cheated.

One of the residents of Gulberg society, Firoz Khan Pathan, had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at Gulberg Society in the memory of 69 people killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

The freezing of the accounts by Ahmedabad Police had come soon after its crime branch had started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society into a museum.

The high court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point in the alleged case of Gulbarg society fund embezzlement.

Besides the fund embezzlement case against the couple, the Gujarat police had also lodged another case of FCRA violation against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two of the four death row convicts in the December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder case today moved the Supreme Court for review of its verdict upholding the capital punishment awarded to them.

The review petition by convicts Vinay Sharma and Pawan Kumar Gupta came after the apex court on December 12 completed the hearing on the review plea filed by another death row convict Mukesh.

A 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out naked. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The review plea, filed through advocate A P Singh for two of the convicts, claimed that death penalty was a premeditated and "cold blooded killing" of a human being by the state in the name of justice.

It said the investigation in the matter was not only flawed but also unreliable as many facts of the investigation pertain to recording of the dying declaration of the victim.

The apex court had on December 12 allowed the counsel to file review petition for another convict Akshay Singh and listed the matter for hearing on January 22.

The apex court had on May 5 upheld the death penalty to the four convicts - Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31), saying the "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of the crime could create a "tsunami of shock" to destroy a civilised society.

Another accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, while a convicted juvenile has come out of the reformation home after serving a three- year term.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
People with disablility have a right to get higher and not making adequate provisions to facilitate their proper would amount to "discrimination", the Supreme Court said today.

Ir directed the government institutions of higher and other such institutions, which were receiving aid from the government, to comply with the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

The Act provides for reservation of not less than five per cent seats for persons with benchmark disabilities.

A bench of justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said that appropriate consequential action under the provisions of the Act would be initiated against the defaulting educational institutions.

It asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to constitute a committee to consider the feasibility of having guidelines for accessibility of students with disabilities in universities and colleges.

It said the committee would undertake a detailed study to make provisions in respect of accessibility and facilities of teaching for disabled persons and would also suggest the modalities for implementing those suggestions, their funding and monitoring.

"The expert committee may also consider feasibility of constituting an in-house body in each educational institution (of teachers, staff, students and parents) for taking care of day-to-day needs of differently abled persons as well as for implementation of the schemes that would be devised by the expert committee," the bench said, adding that the exercise be completed by June 30 next year.

It said that an action taken report in this regard be placed before it in July 2018.

The court's verdict came on a plea which had raised three key issues, including the non-implementation of reservation of seats in educational institutions as provided in the Act and provision for proper access to orthopaedically disabled persons so allow them to freely move in educational institutions.

The bench noted that a provision under the 2016 Act provided that persons with benchmark disabilities shall be given an upper age relaxation of five years for admission in institutions of higher education.

"Accordingly, we direct that all those institutions which are covered by the obligations provided under Section 32 of the Disabilities Act, 2016 shall comply with the provisions of Section 32 while making admission of students in educational courses of higher education each year," it said.

The court said such educational institutions shall submit a list of number of disabled persons admitted in each course every year to the chief commissioner or state commissioner.

It said it raised the critical issue of creating a level- playing field where all the citizens have equality of fair opportunities to enable them to realise their full potential and experience well-being.

"To ensure the level-playing field, it is not only essential to give necessary education to the persons suffering from the disability, it is also imperative to see that such education is imparted to them in a fruitful manner," it said.

"Not making adequate provisions to facilitate proper education to such persons, therefore, would amount to discrimination," it said.

The bench said that such requirement was to ensure that a student with disability, after proper education, would be able to lead an independent, economically self-sufficient and fully participatory life.

Regarding the law colleges, the court said intimation about number of admission given to disabled students be sent to the Bar Council of India (BCI).

"Other educational institutions will notify the compliance, each year, to the UGC. It will be within the discretion of the BCI and/or UGC to carry out inspections of such educational institutions to verify as to whether the provisions are complied with or not," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Disruptions marred the first day of the Winter Session of the Rajya Sabha today as a determined opposition stalled proceedings protesting the disqualification of former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and another MP of the same party and certain recent remarks of the Prime Minister.

The House was first adjourned for about 20 minutes till noon and again till 2.30 PM after it reassembled, with members of the Congress and Samajwadi Party trooping into the Well and raising slogans opposing the disqualification of Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari.

When the House reassembled after the first adjournment at noon, the Congress members also protested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, after Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue.

Earlier when the House assembled, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu led the House in paying tributes to ten former members who passed away during the inter-session period.

Thereafter, the Prime Minister introduced new ministers to the House, following which Zero Hour mentions were taken up.

At that point, Naresh Agarwal (SP) raised a point of order regarding disqualification of the two former JD(U) members of the House.

However, the Chairman did not agree with him saying there is no "point .. in your point of order". He also said the matter was cannot be discussed as it was a decision of the Chair.

Joining the issue, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi said the opposition was not challenging the decision taken by the Chair and wanted to say something more, but Naidu repeated that it was not a matter of discussion.

Referring to a political rally of the earlier 'Maha Gathbandhan' between JD(U) and Lalu Prasad-led RJD, Azad said votes during the Bihar assembly elections were sought in the name of the grand alliance by projecting Nitish Kumar as the Chief Minister.

The senior Congress member said it was Nitish Kumar who had left the alliance in Bihar and in fact the JD(U) members in the House should resign. "Membership of JD(U) members should be cancelled," Azad stressed.

Several opposition members including from Congress, SP and the Left parties were seen on their feet. Anand Sharma (Congress) tried to say something but could not be heard.

When Naidu asked A Navaneetha Krishnan (AIADMK) to go ahead with his Zero Hour mention regarding cyclone in Tamil Nadu, Congress and SP members trooped into the Well raising slogans.

Naidu asked them to return to their seats but they continued raising slogans.

"You want to do like this on the first day...All in Well not well...," he said and adjourned the House till noon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A new diving training facility named after veteran Naval diver Chiman Singh, a hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak war, was inaugurated at the Southern Naval Command (SNC) here today.

The modern facility, located at the Diving School in the command, was declared open jointly by SNC Chief of Staff Rear Admiral RJ Nadkarni and Singh, a retired Petty Officer Clearance Diver, a Navy release said.

Singh was awarded the country's second highest gallantry award the Maha Vir Chakra for his courageous actions in rescuing several of his colleagues during the 1971 Indo-Pak war.

This is the highest gallantry award ever received by a Naval person in the country.

As anyoung diver in the rank of Leading Seaman then, Singh, deployed off the Bangladesh coast, had displayed unparallelled gallantry despite being severely injured.

He was eventually taken prisoner-of-war and released on culmination of the conflict, the release said.

Singh was recognised by the Bangladesh government in 2013 for his actions during the War of Liberation and honoured with the Friends of Bangladesh Liberation award.

The Chiman Singh Block Diving facility here houses state-of-the art re-compression chamber complex, a laboratory as well as modern stores and will make training comparable with the best in the world.

Speaking on the occasion, Rear Admiral Nadkarni extolled the bravery of Singh and exhorted everyone to take motivation from such brave acts.

He said it was only apt that the new diving facility was dedicated to a brave diver and expressed confidence that this would inspire many generations of young naval personnel to bring honour to themselves, the service and the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two people were killed and three injured today in two stabbing incidents in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, authorities said.

Police said in a tweet that one suspect had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the incidents. They released no details on the suspect or the victims.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was not a terror attack, echoing comments from the police.

"It is terrible what happened there. People were killed and others were injured," Rutte said at an EU summit in Brussels.

The incidents happened in a residential neighborhood in the north of Maastricht, a city 215 kilometers south of the capital, Amsterdam, and close to the Netherlands' borders with Belgium and Germany.

Police said a man was stabbed to death during a fight around 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) and a suspect fled the scene. Ten minutes later a woman was fatally stabbed and two men injured about a kilometer (about a half mile) away from the first incident. A third wounded person was later found at a local mosque.

Police said the investigations are continuing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today granted bail to M Natarajan, husband of jailed AIADMK leader V K Sasikala, and his nephew in a duty evasion case connected to the import of a luxury car from the UK and asked them to deposit Rs 25 lakh each in its Registry.

The order was passed by a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra.

The bench asked the two to approach the trial court which would decide their bail conditions.

The Madras High Court had on November 17 upheld a trial court order sentencing Natarajan, along with three others-- his nephew V Bhaskaran, Yogesh Balakrishnan and Sujaritha Sundararajan in the 23-year-old duty evasion case.

They were convicted for conspiracy, forgery, cheating and tax evasion and sentenced to two years in jail in the case by a CBI court in 2010.

A special leave petition was moved before the bench, which also comprised justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, challenging the high court order.

The high court had said that there was ample evidence placed before the court by the prosecution to show that these accused were involved in cheating the government by producing forged documents.

The case relates to the import of a Toyota Lexus car in 1994. Natarajan declared it as a used vehicle and thereby allegedly evaded tax to the tune of Rs 1.06 crore.

The high court had said that the car with an engine capacity of 3000 cc which is not in compliance with the residence transfer provision was imported with fabricated documents.

The court had observed that the provision clearly restricts the import of car above 1600 cc by Indian nationals or foreign nationals of Indian origin coming to India for permanent settlement, unless the said importer has stayed abroad continuously for a period of at least two years and had used the car at least for one year before the date of import.

The CBI and the Enforcement Directorate had registered separate cases against Natarajan and the three others after it was found that the documents presented by them were fabricated.

According to the CBI, Natarajan, along with the three others, had substituted the original sale invoice with a photocopy of an invoice fabricated by changing the vehicle's manufacturing date to July 1993.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
EU leaders formally agreed today to open crucial talks on a future relationship with Britain but warned they would be even tougher than the first torturous phase of negotiations.

A day after applauding British Prime Minister Theresa May at a summit in Brussels for the progress made so far, her 27 counterparts endorsed an interim deal on the terms of Britain's divorce from the European Union.

But although discussions will begin in January on a post- Brexit transition period of around two years, they stressed that actual talks on future trade ties would not start until March as they need more clarity on what Britain wants after it leaves the bloc.

"EU leaders agree to move on to the second phase of Brexit talks. Congratulations PM @theresa_may," EU President Donald Tusk tweeted.

As he arrived for the meeting today, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker -- who sealed the deal with May on December 8 after tense all-night talks -- said the British premier had made "big efforts".

But he warned the next stage "would be much harder than the first phase, and the first phase was very hard".

Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum in June 2016 and is due to end its four decade membership on March 29, 2019.

After months of difficult talks, May and Juncker agreed a deal on the key divorce issues of Britain's exit bill, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights.

At a meeting without the British premier today, the other EU leaders formally agreed there had been "sufficient progress" in the first phase and that the second phase could begin.

May had last night addressed her counterparts over dinner and was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible" with "ambition and creativity", a British official said.

Leaders said there had been polite applause for May, who came to the summit hours after a humiliating parliamentary defeat over her Brexit plans.

As she left on last evening, May said "we've had very good discussions. I'm looking forward to the discussions coming out of tomorrow (Friday) on the future trade relationship and security relationship".

After the dinner, German Chancellor Merkel said May had made "good offers" but added that "there remain many issues to be solved and we don't have much time".

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said May was "a tough leader in the interest of Britain."



Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said she was a "formidable political operator" but that it was "crucial" she sets out Britain's wish list for long-term ties.

The EU has warned it could take years after Britain leaves to formally sign a trade deal, rejecting claims by British Brexit minister David Davis that it could happen immediately afterwards.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition out of the bloc, during which their relationship would largely stay the same.

A trade deal will be a tougher period, with options including following the model of a recent EU-Canada trade deal, or Norway's membership of the European Economic Area.

But questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable and that Britain would only pay its exit bill if it got a trade deal.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has said there will be a "separate track" in the second phase of negotiations that remains dedicated to the Irish question.

"Even a primary school student will realise there is a problem to solve with the Irish border," said Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A lawyer representing former Kerala transport minister Thomas Chandy, facing allegation of land encroachment, has written a letter to the Supreme Court requesting shifting of his matter from a bench having a particular judge.

The letter dated December 13 was written by an advocate on record K R Sasiprabhu to secretary general of Supreme Court saying that senior advocate Vivek Tankha, who appears for Chandy, "on account of personal reasons does not appear before the bench in which Justice A M Sapre is a part of".

The case was initially listed for hearing today before a bench of justices R K Agrawal and A M Sapre but was later shifted to a three-judge comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud.

"The petitioner will lose the service of able lawyer who is well versed in the facts and laws involved in the case," the letter said while referring to Tankha who represented Chandy even in the Kerala High Court.

"In the circumstances, I will be praying for listing of the matter before another bench immediately after the winter vacations. This letter may kindly be circulated among the judges, at my risk to avoid inconvenience to their lordships," the letter further said.

However, when the matter was taken up for hearing by a three-judge bench, Justice A M Khanwilkar recused from the case and the court directed for listing it before an appropriate bench.

Chandy had moved the apex court challenging the November 14 order of the Kerala High Court dismissing his petition against the report of Alappuzha district collector on alleged encroachments by a company in which he has stake.

The high court had held that that a minister cannot file a petition against his own government, which had ordered the district collector to look into the matter and submit a report.

There was a violation of the collective cabinet responsibility by the minister, the high court had held.

Following the remarks made by high court, Chandy was forced to resign, the reason which also found mention in the letter written to the secretary general of Supreme Court.

"The petitioner herein was till recently a cabinet minister in the government of Kerala but was constrained to resign on account of certain observations made by the high court of Kerala in the impugned judgement, while dismissing the writ petition filed by him challenging the order passed by the district collector without hearing his version," the letter said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today asked the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government to expeditiously complete proceedings to declare a businesswoman proclaimed offender and attach her properties in India.

Ritika Awasty, a promoter of Bush Foods Overseas Pvt Ltd, is facing criminal trial in Uttar Pradesh on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust but is evading arrest after she was allowed to go to London.

A bench of justices Arun Mishra and M M Shantanagoudar said that since her bail has been cancelled by the court after she failed to return to India from United Kingdom, the proceedings to declare her proclaimed offender should be completed expeditiously.

The bench said that the proceedings shall also be initiated for attaching the properties in her name or in her husband's name.

The court also deprecated the counsel for the woman for saying that Awasty is getting threats from lenders that she will be molested or raped when she lands at Delhi airport.

"Don't make such statements in court. These types of statements are not appreciated in court. Be responsible or we will refer you to the Bar Council of India. Since when lawyers are becoming spokesperson of their client," the bench said.

At the outset, Attorney General K K Venugopal said that necessary steps are being undertaken for her extradition from London.

The bench then asked Additional Advocate General Aishwarya Bhati of Uttar Pradesh as to whether her husband has been declared proclaimed offender or not.

Bhati replied that the woman's husband has already been declared proclaimed offender and necessary steps are being taken expeditiously to also declare her proclaimed offender in the case lodged against her.

The bench then asked as to what is the status of her properties in the state.

Bhati said that efforts are also being taken to attach the businesswoman's properties in the state.

The bench said that process should be completed expeditiously and posted the matter for further hearing on last week of January.

Earlier, this week on December 12, the apex court had pulled up the Centre for "not even bothering about" its orders on extradition matters and questioned the government's will in getting persons evading law back from foreign countries.

Awasty was allowed by the apex court to travel to London to see her husband and daughter on January 2016 after giving an undertaking that she will return by March 31, 2016.

However, the time was later extended till May 31, 2016, but she did not return from London which compelled the apex court to forfeit her security of Rs 86 lakh, cancellation of bail and initiation of contempt proceedings.

Awasty had challenged the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash the FIR lodged against her but was granted bail and allowed to travel abroad by the apex court on an undertaking for looking after her husband and daughter in London.

The court had also revoked her passport after she failed to return to India by May 31, 2016.

On September 12, this year, the Centre and Uttar Pradesh had told that they have agreed that State shall initiate procedure relating to extradition and they are agreeing that Uttar Pradesh will take effect steps within three weeks.

The court directed the Centre to take appropriate steps within two weeks thereafter for extradition with the Crown Prosecution Services and sought details of her properties in India.

Earlier, the top court had asked Awasty to furnish her current address in the UK and the state had assured the court of appropriate steps for extradition of the woman will be taken.

The apex court had also asked the Centre to submit the income tax returns of Awasty and of her husband.

On August 29, 2016, the apex court had said that it is "prima facie satisfied" that Awasty has "committed contempt of this court by breaching the directions issued by the court, as also, violating the undertaking given to this court".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
American Action Network, a Republican-aligned group that has spent millions urging GOP members of Congress to support tax reform legislation, will continue its effort with a round of robocalls beginning Friday.

The calls will be placed to voters in 29 congressional districts, including four in New York. The New York districts are represented by U.S. Reps. Claudia Tenney (NY-22), Tom Reed (NY-23), John Katko (NY-24) and Chris Collins (NY-27).

The four New Yorkers voted for the House tax bill in mid-November.

Corry Bliss, executive director of the American Action Network, said the tax plan will lower rates for small businesses and provide an average tax cut of $1,200 for families.

"Congress is on the verge of delivering historic tax reform to help American families," he said.

The robocall campaign begins as House and Senate leaders are negotiating a final $1.5 trillion tax plan. The conference committee met this week and some details about the final agreement have been released.

The GOP conferees have agreed to lower the top individual tax rate to 37 percent and a corporate tax cut from 35 to 21 percent. The plan would also eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax and partially maintain the state and local tax deduction.

But some Republicans have already voiced concerns about the final bill. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, has said he won't support the bill unless it increases the child tax credit.

Republicans hope to release the final bill Friday. Votes could happen as early as next week. If the House and Senate approve the measure next week, President Donald Trump will sign it before Christmas.
India's exports rose 30.55 per cent to USD 26.19 billion in November, reversing the decline witnessed in October, helped by robust growth in shipments of gems and jewellery and engineering goods.

Exports had witnessed a decline of 1.12 per cent to USD 23 billion in October this year, retreating from a six-month high growth rate in September.

On year-on-year basis, the country's outward shipments in November 2016 stood at USD 20.06 billion.

Imports too grew 19.61 per cent to USD 40 billion in November from USD 33.46 billion in the same month last year, the Commerce Ministry data released today showed.

The trade deficit widened to USD 13.82 billion as against USD 13.39 billion in November 2016.

Meanwhile, gold imports dropped by 25.96 per cent to USD 3.26 billion last month.

Oil imports and non-oil imports in November grew 39.14 per cent and 14.57 per cent to USD 9.55 billion and USD 30.47 billion respectively.

Cumulative exports during April-November 2017-18 increased by 12.01 per cent to USD 196.48 billion, while imports grew 21.85 per cent to USD 296.45 billion, leaving a trade deficit of nearly USD 100 billion.

In November, gems and jewellery, drugs and pharmaceuticals, organic and inorganic chemicals and engineering exports grew by 32.69 per cent, 13.39 per cent, 54.28 per cent and 43.76 per cent, respectively.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The country's foreign exchange reserves declined by USD 1.044 billion to USD 400.897 billion in the week to December 8 due to a steep fall in foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank said today.

In the previous week, the reserves had increased by USD 1.2 billion to USD 401.942 billion.

The foreign currency reserves, a major component of the overall reserves, declined by USD 1.028 billion to USD 376.428 billion, according to the RBI data.

Expressed in the US dollar terms, foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of the non-US currencies such as the euro, the pound and the yen held in the reserves.

However, the gold reserves remained unchanged at USD 20.703 billion, unlike in the last reporting week when it had risen by a tad.

The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund fell by USD 5.3 million to USD 1.497 billion.

The country's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund also declined by USD 11 million to USD 2.269 billion, the Reserve Bank of India said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four persons are feared trapped in the debris after the slab of a building collapsed in the Zaveri Bazar area of south Mumbai today afternoon, a fire brigade official said.

The official said that the slab of the five-storeyed building collapsed and brought down with it the common passage of the first, second, third and fourth floors of the building.

The incident happened at around 2:30pm in Sam Street in the area, officials said.

The building was undergoing repair when the collapse occurred, said officials.

PS Rahangdale, chief of the Mumbai Fire Brigade said, "Ten labourers were working on the 4th floor out of which three are missing. Six labourers were working on 1st floor and one among them is missing. A search operation is underway for them."



He said that narrow lanes and congestion was hampering the work of fire brigade personnel at the site.

Zaveri Bazar is the centre of the city's bullion market and sees heavy traffic and pedestrian footfalls every day.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The death toll from a crash between a school bus and a train in southern France rose to six today as two 11-year-old girls succumbed to their injuries, a police source said.

Four teenagers had died yesterday in the accident at a level crossing in the village of Millas near the city of Perpignan. Eighteen others were injured, including 14 children.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd today said that an arbitration tribunal has rejected GAIL's claim of Rs 357 crore against the company for supply of domestic natural gas.

In a filing to the BSE, Deepak Fertilisers informed that GAIL had claimed Rs 357 crore in respect of supply of domestic natural gas for the period July 2006 to May 2014, "alleging usage for manufacture of product other than urea".

"The final award in this arbitration proceedings is received now and the entire claim of 357 crore by Gail is rejected for wants of merit, besides being time barred," the filing said.

Deepak Fertilisers said that as per two contracts entered into 20016 and 2010 between the two companies, the purchase of gas was contractually and clearly intended, supplied and utilised for industrial applications.

The fertiliser firm said that the Department of Fertilisers had the full knowledge that as per the industrial license, utilisation of gas since the company's inception was for its integrated NPK fertiliser complex.

"The company was never engaged in the manufacture of urea despite which the dispute was referred to arbitration. Accepting the company's stand, the arbitration tribunal had earlier rejected the claim under 2006 contract amounting to Rs 244 crore," Deepak Fertilisers said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Goa Legislative Assembly today congratulated Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi for being elected as the president of the party.

The motion which was moved by Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar was passed unanimously.

"Despite being a leader of such high stature, he always works like a common worker of the party," Kavlekar said congratulating Gandhi.

State chief minister Manohar Parrikar too joined to support the private member motion.

In his short speech, Parrikar said, "I call it an event though it completes the cycle of dynasty once more."



Congress legislator Luizinho Faleiro said that it is a matter of pride for all Indians and specially Goans that Gandhi has become party president.

"Goans and the Gandhi-Nehru family shares one of the closest bonds," he said.

Faleiro recalled that it was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who sent the Indian Army to liberate Goa from Portuguese rule.

Other legislators also spoke on the motion which was passed unanimously.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil today informed the Legislative Council here that the government was coming out with a scheme where students from the Maratha community will get a grant for hostel expenses.

Each student will get Rs 10,000 per year towards hostel rent in cities and Rs 8,000 in the rural areas, Patil said.

Patil was replying to a question by Sharad Ranpise on the government's earlier announcement of allocating Rs 5 crore for girls/boys hostel for the community in every district.

"We have requested Maratha organisations to suggest land in their respective districts for the construction of hostels," the minister said.

However, if such hostel is not available, individual grant would be given to Maratha students who rent a room in private hostels, he said.

The grant will be Rs 10,000 per year in cities and Rs 8,000 per year in rural areas, he said.

The government has also approved three new schemes for providing loans to the Maratha youth through the Annasaheb Patil Arthik Maagas Vikas Mahamandal, he said.

Maratha community had taken to the streets last year demanding reservations in jobs and .

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Doctors of private hospitals in Haryana today observed a day-long strike to protest the state government's decision to introduce a new legislation they fear would "wipe out" small and medium medical establishments.

The strike hit healthcare services in many parts of the state. Doctors across the state this morning voiced their opposition to the government's decision to introduce the Central Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act.

The Haryana chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) had called the 'token' strike.

IMA state president A P Setia said the association was forced to oppose the state government's decision "as the Act once implemented would wipe out small and medium medical establishments".

"The Central Act 2010 is not appropriate as per the socio-economic realities of the population of Haryana. Its implementation shall be the last nail in the coffin of already acute shortage of qualified doctors. Most of the small and medium sized nursing homes shall be forced by the Haryana government to down their shutters," Setiaclaimed.

He saidif the legislation has to be implemented then the amended Haryana Clinical Establishment Act 2014 and amended Rules 2015 as approved on September 12, 2017 should be further negotiated to keep single and couple doctors' clinics and small-scale nursing homes out of the ambit of the legislation.

He regretted the inconvenience caused to patients due the strike, but said the IMA was fighting for the interests of the doctors.

On December 7, Health Minister Anil Vij said that the Haryana government would soon implement the new legislation to check overcharging by private hospitals in the state.

"In the name of treatment, many private hospitals in the state are overcharging patients due to which the common man has to undergo mental as well as physical agony. The Clinical Establishment Act would play an important role in checking this," Vij had said in an official release here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Bombay High Court came down heavily on the Maharashtra government today for failing to comply with its directions about providing better facilities to prisoners lodged in its jails.

The high court, in March this year, had passed a slew of directions asking the government to set up an experts committee headed by a retired high court judge to conduct a scientific study on setting up a model prison with necessary infrastructure and steps to reduce overcrowding.

The bench had directed the committee to submit its report and recommendations within six months.

The directions were passed on a public interest litigation on the issue of conditions in prisons.

When the matter came up for hearing today, a division bench of justices A S Oka and M S Sonak observed that the government had not complied with any of the directions.

"Only a committee has been formed... other than this nothing has been done. This amounts to contempt of our order. Why should we not initiate action against concerned officers? The state chief secretary himself is aware of our order," the court said.

The bench directed the government to file an affidavit explaining why it failed to comply with the order, and adjourned the hearing to January.

In its March order, the HC had asked the government to take immediate steps to identify places in Mumbai and Pune to construct additional jails so that overcrowding at the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai and the Yerwada prison in Pune is reduced.

The court had also said that adequate provisions should to be made to set up a well-equipped hospital inside prisons.

"In fact, the prison hospitals in central prisons should have all the modern amenities and availability of specialised doctors so that prisoners are not required to be admitted to public or private hospitals," the court had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As the #MeToo movement grows and more men and women report sexual misconduct allegations, a pair of Republican state senators want to strengthen New York's sexual harassment laws.

A bill proposed by state Sens. Elaine Phillips and Catharine Young would prohibit courts from accepting secret settlements for sexual harassment and prevent employers from using forced arbitration clauses to address complaints.

The legislation would grant independent contractors the right to file complaints against their employers. And the definition of sexual harassment would be adopted into state law.

Young, an Olean Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the bill seeks to protect victims and punish those who abuse or harass employees.

"While harassment can take many forms, from innuendo to outright assault, it cannot and must not be tolerated, at any level," she said. "As a society and a state, we need to step forward to protect people from the discrimination and degradation of sexual harassment and abuse."

Phillips, a Long Island Republican, and Young released details of the bill in the aftermath of several high-profile sexual misconduct allegations. The most notable cases involve men in prominent positions, including President Donald Trump, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, television host Matt Lauer and some members of Congress. At least three House and Senate members have announced their resignation due to the revelations.

New York state government hasn't been immune from the problem. Sam Hoyt, a former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been accused of sexually assaulting and harassing a former state employee. Outgoing Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, a Republican, was sanctioned after being accused of sexual harassment.

Phillips and Young acknowledged the individuals, mostly women, who have told their stories. Phillips said the movement has been "inspiring."

"There is no place in our government, or society as a whole, for sexual assault or harassment," she said.

One provision in the the proposal released by Phillips and Young mirrors legislation introduced at the federal level. Two New Yorkers, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, support a bill that has bipartisan support in the House and Senate to end forced arbitration for sexual harassment complaints.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has been leading a push to reform how sexual harassment cases are handled in Congress. Legislation she supports would overhaul the reporting process and prevent taxpayer funds from being used to pay settlements.

Strengthening the state's sexual harassment laws will be a priority during the upcoming 2018 legislative session. Cuomo has already signaled that he will release his own proposal when he delivers the State of the State address in early January.
The Kerala High Court today granted bail to a prominent criminal lawyer C P Udayabhanu who was remanded in judicial custody after his arrest in a murder case of a real estate dealer in Thrissur district.

Earlier, the high court had granted interim bail to Udayabhanu to attend the funeral of his relative.

Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan also granted bail to two other accused in the case-Chakkara Johnny and Ranjith.

Granting the bail, the court directed them to surrender their passports, not to enter Thrissur district and appear before the investigating officer on Mondays and Saturdays.

The court also directed them not to influence the witnesses in the case.

Udayabhanu, who was arrested on November 1, is the seventh accused in the killing of real estate dealer V A Rajeev at Chalakudy.

In his bail plea, the lawyer had submitted that he was made an accused on the basis of false allegations.

He submitted that charges levelled against him were not sufficient to constitute the offence punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.

Rajeev was found dead in a deserted building at Chalakudy in Thrissur district in October.

The prosecution had claimed that Udayabhanu had links with the 46-year-old real estate dealer and the persons arrested in connection with his killing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today said it will ask the CBI to probe how the famous 108-foot Hanuman statue came to be built on public land in the busy Karol Bagh area of the city and take action against the officials of the DDA and municipal corporation who allowed it to happen.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said that while it cannot go after individual unauthorised buildings, builders, or the "hapless people" who are buying them, "the time has come" to ensure that the authorities comply with the laws.

"We propose to send it (the case) to the CBI," the court said and asked the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the municipal corporation of the area to give the names of its officials who have been posted in the area since 1995, when construction of the huge statue had started.

The court said the list of names given by the corporation was "incomplete" and "unacceptable" and directed it to give a complete list by December 19, the next date of hearing. A similar direction was issued to the DDA as well.

The corporation in its affidavit has said it has taken action to remove some of the encroachments around the statue and commercial activity outside the temple has been stopped.

The court, however, said the civic body has withheld vital information about when the road and pavement adjacent to the statue came under its control.

Meanwhile, the Delhi police told the bench that it was interrogating the trustees running the temple and was also looking into its source of funding.

The agency said the temple has an account, containing Rs 11 lakh, in a UCO Bank branch at Model Basti area here along with a fixed deposit of Rs 40 lakh.

It said that these cannot be the only funds of the trust whose sole source of earning is the temple which has been running from 1978. However, the statue was completely built in 2002, it told the court.

Police, represented by Delhi government additional standing counsel Satyakam, said that the general manager of the UCO Bank was asking for 30-60 days to provide information about who all deposited cheques in the trust's account.

The bench, thereafter, directed the GM of the bank to provide the information sought by the police at the earliest and not later than two weeks.

The DDA and the corporation told the court that neither the temple nor the trust was paying any property tax to them.

The court had ordered a police probe after a committee appointed by it in May this year to look into illegal constructions all over Delhi had pointed to encroachments of up to 1,170 square yards on DDA land which forms part of the Southern Ridge.

It had also said that apart from the Hanuman statue, there was unauthorised construction of multiple small and big buildings of up to four floors including a residential complex there.

The bench had then directed the authorities to take action against the unauthorised construction on public land and ensure that all encroachments on the Southern Ridge are removed immediately and the Ridge is secured in terms of the orders of the Supreme Court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Allahabad High Court today issued a notice to union minister Anupriya Patel in connection with dispute over premiership of her party Apna Dal and fixed January 15 as the next date of hearing.

A bench of Justices D K Upadhyay and Rajesh Singh Chauhan passed the order on a writ petition filed by Anupriya's mother, Krishna Patel who claimed to be the president of the party.

In the petition, Krishna has challenged an order of the Election Commission, which had asked Anupriya and Krishna to resolve their dispute.

In the petition, Krishna has pleaded that since the Apna Dal was not a recognised political outfit, the EC had no right to intervene in its affairs.

After considering the plea, the Lucknow bench of the high court issued notice to Anupriya, who is Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and fixed January 15 as the next date of hearing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madras High Court has issued guidelines to check harassment by police during investigation, saying it would not turn a blind eye to such conduct.

Justice M S Ramesh said the power of an investigating officer to probe was unfettered only as long as such power was legitimately exercised within the framework of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Hearing a plea yesterday by A N Lalman Lal and four others alleging police harassment under the guise of inquiry, the judge said normally the court would not interfere with the probe by a police officer by exercising its inherent powers under CrPC.

Nevertheless, when brought to its notice, it would also not turn a blind eye to instances of harassment by police under the guise of investigation, Justice Ramesh said.

Allowing the petition, the judge issued guidelines to be followed by investigating officers to curb harassment during such probes.

According to the guidelines, the investigation officer is mandated to issue a written summons under CrPC section 160 specifying date and time to appear for inquiry.

Also, the officer is to record the minutes of the inquiry in the station diary and refrain from harassing persons called upon for inquiry.

"Though the CrPC empowers magistrate to be a guardian in all the stages of the police investigation, there is no power envisaging him to interfere with the actual investigation or the mode of investigation," the judge said.

It is in this background that numerous petitions of harassment were before this court seeking directions to police to refrain from harassing them, the judge said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madras High Court has directed the state government to explore the possibility of extending the scope of reservation in higher education and public employment for persons from the forward community based on their economic status.

The court made the observation on a plea moved by 14 students from the forward community (FC).

The petition sought a direction to declare transfer of MBBS seats in government medical colleges meant for open category to BC and MBC categories as illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

When the plea came up yesterday, Justice Kirubakaran said: "The poor, in the so-called forward communities, have been neglected, so far and no one could speak about them fearing protest voices in the name of social justice."



Social justice should be extended to every section of the society, the judge said.

"The necessity of having reservation for economic and social empowerment of those sections of the society, (BC, MBC, SC & ST) which have been hitherto neglected and oppressed is a must," justice Kirubakaran said.

At the same time, the judge said, talking about reservation or extending help to the deserving poor in forward communities should not be viewed or considered an opposition to the reservation enjoyed by other sections of the society.

"Further, this court is aware that in all the communities, there are poor people and they should be encouraged to develop educationally, economically and socially," the judge said.

The court directed the state government to provide details as to how many communities remain as FC in the state, how many falls under Backward Class (BC), Most Backward Class (MBC), Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC&ST).

It also wanted the government to verify whether reservation benefits have reached the said communities from 1950 onwards.

The court directed the government to inform as to whether it is possible to make reservation for the people belonging to the FC based on their economic status.

Referring to fake community certificates for the purpose of getting reservation benefits, the court wanted to know what steps government was taking to prevent issue of such certificates.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The responsibility for safeguarding heritage extends between nations and cultures, and any intentional destruction that aims to erase a cultural identity is a "breach of fundamental human rights", the Delhi Declaration passed by the ICOMOS said today.

The five-day 19th General Assembly of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), hosted for the first time in India, culminated in New Delhi today, at the end of which the declaration was passed by the global heritage body.

"This declaration reflects a commitment by the ICOMOS to heritage and democracy as key ingredients in a people-based approach to sustainable development. Heritage is a fundamental right and responsibility of all.

"It is a starting point for a meaningful and equitable future that secures and celebrates diversity, social engagement, equality and justice for all cultures," reads the opening words of the declaration.

The assembly, that began on December 11, convened 890 heritage experts from 80 countries around the world.

"The responsibility for safeguarding heritage extends between nations and cultures. Intentional destruction which aims to erase cultural identity is a breach of fundamental human rights," the section 'Ensure continuity of living heritage' of the declaration reads.

ICOMOS is a prestigious global non-government organisation dedicated to promoting the application of theory, methodology, and scientific techniques to the conservation of the architectural and archaeological heritage world over.

It is also an advisory body to the UNESCO for cultural heritage, in particular for implementation of the World Heritage Convention.

Union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, at the valedictory session of the assembly, said the government will support ICOMOS in fulfilling its objective of making heritage "people-centric", rather than just focusing on monuments and sites.

He also said that sustainability is a human rights the society must strive for.

The text of the declaration was read out by a few ICOMOS members. "Engaging and training the new generation in the understanding and protection of the inherited values of our living and shared heritage sustains the plural legacies of the past," it said.

At the assembly, conservator Saleh Lamei from Egypt was awarded the Gazzola Prize, the highest honour given by ICOMOS.

The prize was established in 1979 in memory of Piero Gazzola, an ICOMOS founder and one of the greatest defenders of conservation and restoration of historic monuments and sites.

"The prize is awarded every three years at the General Assembly of ICOMOS to an individual or a group of people who have worked together and contributed with distinction to the aims and objectives of ICOMOS," according to ICOMOS website.

During the assembly, one of the vice presidents of ICOMOS Toshiyuki Kono (Japan) was elected its president.

He will succeed Gustavo Araoz from the US, said Rohit Jigyasu, president of ICOMOS India, who was elected as one of the vice presidents.

"I will continue to hold ICOMOS India president position, besides my new responsibility," he said, adding, "It was proud moment for Delhi to host the assembly, making it to be hosted for the third time in Asia, besides China and Sri Lanka".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Housing prices increased in 36 cities during April-June 2017 out of 50 major cities with Vizag recording the maximum annual appreciation of nearly 16 per cent while Delhi saw 8.1 per cent rise, according to NHB.

The National Housing Bank (NHB) Housing Price Index (HPIs) tracks the movement in prices of residential properties on a quarterly basis, taking FY 2012-13 as the base year.

"HPI recorded an overall increase in 36 cities, decrease in 13 cities and no change in 1 city on Y-o-Y basis," NHB said in a statement.

All the eight Tier-1 cities witnessed a rise in indices on Y-o-Y basis with Delhi witnessing a 8.1 per cent rise followed by Chennai (7.4 per cent) and Pune (6 per cent).

Of the 36 cities showing increasing trend, NHB said that the significant rise was witnessed in Vizag (15.7 per cent), Kochi (12.8 per cent), Faridabad (11.7 per cent), Surat (11.2 per cent), Howrah (10.2 per cent), Raipur (9.6 per cent) and Nagpur (9.4 per cent).

Marginal rise in index was witnessed in Noida (0.9 per cent), Ludhiana (1.4 per cent) and Vasai-Virar (1.6 per cent), while index remained stable in Greater Noida.

Among the 13 cities witnessing a fall in index, Bhiwadi (-10.6 per cent), Coimbatore (-6.6 per cent), Chandigarh (-5.9 per cent) and Ranchi (-5.9 per cent) observed significant decline, the statement said.

Meanwhile, NHB's Housing Price Index (HPI) at market prices for under-construction properties increased in 25 cities, decrease in 17 cities and no change in 5 cities on Y- O-Y basis, at the end of the quarter April-June, 2017.

Of the 25 cities showing increase in index, significant rise was witnessed in Lucknow (7.8%), Indore (7.5%), Bhubaneswar (7.5%), Guwahati (7.4%), Chandigarh (6.6%), Raipur (6.6%) and Surat (5%).

Marginal increase in index was witnessed in 4 cities viz, Bhiwadi (0.9%), Howrah (0.8%), Navi Mumbai (0.8%) and Bidhan Nagar (0.7%).

Index remained stable in 5 cities namely Ghaziabad, Kalyan Dombivali, Mira Bhayander, Pune and Vasai Virar.

Among 17 cities witnessing a fall in prices, Chennai (-9 per cent), New Town Kolkata (-4.8 per cent), Patna (-4.5 per cent), Kanpur (-4.2 per cent) and Kolkata (-4.1 per cent) observed significant decline.

Marginal decrease in index was witnessed in Bhopal (-0.9 per cent), Thane (-0.8 per cent) and Nashik (-0.8 per cent).

The revamped NHB RESIDEX captures two housing price indices -- HPI @Assessment Prices for 50 cities and HPI@ Market Prices for under construction properties for 47 cities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today posed searching questions to the Delhi government on the issue of rampant unauthorised constructions in the national capital and asked whether it was prepared to stop them.

A bench of justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta said the Delhi government should reply to its queries in 'yes' or 'no' on the issue.

"Are you (government) interested in stopping unauthorised constructions? Is the Delhi government prepared to stop illegal constructions in Delhi or not? We are asking you a simple question. Answer in yes or no," the bench told the counsel appearing for the government.

Responding to the court's queries, the counsel said "yes" and told the bench that the city government would file an affidavit in this regard.

The court directed the government to file an affidavit indicating the exact plan to stop unauthorised constructions. The bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 15 next year.

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation had yesterday told the apex court that it was taking action against illegal constructions in its area from time to time.

The court had earlier said the rule of law over sanction to construct buildings has "completely broken down" and expressed concern over rampant illegal constructions here.

It had decided to restore powers of the 2006 Monitoring Committee, which was relieved in 2012, to identify and seal unauthorised premises and construction in the city.

The Monitoring Committee, comprising K J Rao, former advisor to the election commissioner, Bhure Lal, chairman of the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) and Major General (Retd) Som Jhingan, was set up in March 24, 2006, by the apex court to oversee implementation of the law relating to sealing of offending premises.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh signed off the first Military Literature Festival (MLF) here saying authors and veterans from other nations, including Pakistan, should be invited to participate in it.

Addressing a small gathering here last evening, the chief minister said it would be interesting, for instance, to have the 1965 war veterans from India and Pakistan come face-to- face and share their experiences.

Singh had invited the team behind the first-of-its-kind festival for dinner as a token of appreciation, an official release said today, adding that each member was presented with a memento.

Amarinder said the event proved to be an exciting platform to promote understanding and awareness, especially among the youth, about India's defence forces.

The chief minister hoped the festival would imbibe in the youth a spirit of nationalism, and encourage them to join the defence forces.

Thanking Amarinder for his support and participation in the event, Lt Gen. TS Shergill (retd), senior adviser to the CM, said the Military Literature Festival Society had been set up as a permanent body and would continue to initiate activities promoting the exchange of ideas and experiences in this field.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The neighbourly relations between Bangladesh and India have reached their peak now and are better than before, a Bangladesh minister said today.

This view was expressed by Bangladesh Health Minister Muhammad Nasim who was here to address a programme on the eve of the Victory Day which commemorates the liberation of Bangladesh.

He also expressed his gratitude to India for supporting his nation during the 1971 Liberation War.

"We want to further develop this friendly and cordial relation for the interest of both the countries," Nasim told reporters at the Akhaura checkpost here.

A cultural team of Bangladesh has arrived here to perform tomorrow.

"India gave shelter and food to our people and provided military assistance during the Liberation War. Indian soldiers also laid down their lives to make our country free which we can never forget," he said.

The minister said the two countries could resolve many of their difficult issues through negotiations.

"When issues such as the land boundary problem could be solved through negotiation, we hope all other issues can be resolved through negotiation," he added.

The minister said Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were sincerely working towards economic cooperation between the two countries and work was in progress in the areas of communication, transit and rail connectivity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his support Friday for a congressional resolution to undo the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules.

Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has the authority to overrule decisions by federal agencies, including the FCC. Democrats in Congress are planning to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to reverse the FCC's ruling after it is published in the Federal Register.

FCC commissioners voted along party lines Thursday to repeal the 2015 rules, which sought to prevent internet service providers from blocking or slowing access to websites or charging to view email, videos or other content.

The rules established by the Obama-era FCC considered the internet as a public utility. But Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the FCC, doesn't believe that's the correct approach.

"The digital world bears no resemblance to a water pipe or an electric line or a sewer," he said at the FCC meeting Thursday.

Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the FCC's action. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, an upstate New York Republican, urged her colleagues in Congress to codify net neutrality rules into law.

During a visit Friday to WeWork's headquarters in New York City, Schumer warned of what may happen if net neutrality isn't preserved.

"With the disastrous repeal of net neutrality rules, the internet may start to resemble a toll road, with the highest bidders cruising along private 'fast lanes' while the rest of us inch along a single, traffic-choked public lane; and we could be forced to purchase internet packages much like cable packages, paying more for popular sites," he said.

The resolution supported by Schumer, D-N.Y., has several cosponsors in the Senate, including U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Gillibrand, D-N.Y., called the FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules "a shameful decision."

"This is an attack on free speech, it's a disturbing example of the corrupt relationship between corporations and the government, and I urge all of my colleagues to join this resolution and overturn this vote by the FCC," she said.

The resolution will be a bicameral effort. U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, will introduce the resolution in the House of Representatives. But it won't pass either house without Republican support.

Republicans control the House and Senate. While Republicans have been supportive of net neutrality or similar policies in the past, none have signed on as cosponsors of the resolution.

Schumer is hopeful the resolution will be approved by Congress.

"We must keep the internet free and open to everyone: from the students writing their theses to the consumers purchasing their holiday gifts to the grandparents talking to their family over Skype all the way to the startup company operating out of its founder's basement," he said. "The resolution I am announcing today would press 'control, alt, delete' on the FCC's recent vote and restore net neutrality once again."
India is Afghanistan's "most reliable regional partner", the Pentagon told the US Congress today as it welcomed additional economic, medical, and civic support from New Delhi to the war-torn country.

"India is Afghanistan's most reliable regional partner and the largest contributor of development assistance in the region," said the Pentagon in its report to the Congress titled 'Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan'.

This assistance includes civil development projects such as the Afghanistan-India Friendship Dam and the Afghan parliament building, the report said.

India provides significant training opportunities for Afghan officers and enlisted personnel and has frequently offered to increase its burden sharing for Afghanistan, it said, adding that approximately 130 Afghans travel to India each year to attend various military and commissioning programmes.

India has also donated limited security assistance, most notably four Mi-35 aircraft, the Pentagon said.

"The new South Asia policy highlighted our relationship with India and called on India to provide more assistance to the international efforts in Afghanistan. The United States welcomes additional Indian economic, medical, and civic support to Afghanistan," the Pentagon said in its report.

This is the first report of the Pentagon to Congress after President Donald Trump announced his new Afghan and South Asia policy in August.

"Our purpose in Afghanistan remains the same: to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven from which terrorist groups can plan and execute attacks on the United States, or our allies and citizens abroad. To accomplish this, we continue to support our Afghan partners and train, advise, and assist its military and government institutions," it said.

Under the new strategy, the US will continue to support the Afghan government and security forces in the fight against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - Khorasan (ISIS-K), and other insurgents and terrorists, to strengthen the Afghan government and prevent reestablishment of terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan.

"A major change from our previous strategy is the shift from a time-based approach to a conditions-based one. This shift underscores the US commitment to the continued development of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF), provided that our Afghan partners satisfy their obligations," the Pentagon said.

The new strategy does not mean a return to US-led combat operations, instead, the key to success lies in improving ANDSF capabilities and allow them to lead in the fight against the Taliban, it clarified.

"We will continue to work by, with, and through the ANDSF to help them defeat their enemies and to ultimately arrive at a political settlement in Afghanistan," said the Pentagon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian-American Neomi Jehangir Rao today emerged as a key figure behind US President Donald Trump's deregulation scheme.

Delivering on his presidential campaign promise, Trump had, early in his presidency, put out an order which said that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.

In the first year, the Trump administration has eliminated 22 regulations for each new one, which should result in savings of USD 8.1 billion in present value.

In recognition of her contribution, Trump handed to Rao a pair of gold scissors which the president used to cut the red tape between two stacks of paper, one representing regulations of today (about 63) and other those of the '60s (shin high) during a programme in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

She assumed her current position as the head of the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on July 18, 2017.

In an interaction with the White House reporters, Rao said many commentators have suggested there is a link between these reform efforts and economic growth.

"I think one of the advantages of what is happening now is that individuals and businesses aren't fearing the constant perpetuation of new regulatory burdens without any notice or due process," she said.

"From my perspective, a lot of this is linked to individual freedom," she argued, adding when the government is interfering less in people's lives, they have a greater opportunity to pursue their goals.

Rao had recently accompanied Ivanka on her India trip.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 33-year old Indian engineer in Singapore has been sent to prison for three weeks for molesting a woman last year.

Prabu Natarajan admitted to rubbing his thigh against a 23-year-old woman, who works as a part-time tutor, several times along Choa Chu Kang Loop last year, local daily 'The Straits Times' reported today.

According to the daily, Prabu and the part-time tutor boarded the same bus at 5:45 pm on November 21 last year.

He molested her when he was seated to her right. They alighted at the same bus stop as he lived in the estate.

He followed her into the lift at Apartment Block 290, Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, and rubbed her arm up and down.

Natarajan was also fined SGD 2,500 by the court for a house trespass committed five years ago, on July 4, 2012.

He had inserted his hand into the apartment through an open window with the intention to annoy a then 23-year-old woman who was sleeping.

When she woke up, he fled, according to the Singapore daily.

The public prosecutor sought three weeks' jail for the outrage of modesty, as, the public prosecutor said, the offence occurred on public transport; the touch was a prolonged and persistent rub; and the victim was trapped by Prabu at the window seat while he persisted in molesting her, the newspaper said.

This charge, together with a public nuisance charge, was considered during his sentencing, the newspaper said.

Prabu could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment for molestation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An activist says an Indonesian court has sentenced eight men involved in running a gay club and sauna to two years in prison.

They were among more than 140 men detained after a raid in May on what police said was a sex party at the Atlantis spa in Jakarta.

Most were released as homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but 10 men were charged under anti-pornography laws.

Imam Shofwan from Pantau Foundation, which has been monitoring the trial, says the sentencing occurred yesterday. A North Jakarta District Court spokesman did not answer calls today.

Those sentenced included a director and several employees including strippers, a gym trainer, a receptionist and a security guard.

Shofwan says verdicts for two defendants who allegedly performed oral sex were adjourned until next week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was brought to Apollo Hospital in a 'breathless state' on September 22 last year and those she approved were beside her during her treatment there, a top hospital official said today.

The AIADMK supremo spent 75 days in the hospital before breathing her last on December 5 last year.

"She (Jayalalithaa) was brought to the hospital in a breathless state, was given adequate treatment and recovered from it,"Apollo Hospitals Vice-Chairperson Preetha Reddy told a private Tamil channel in New Delhi in reply to a question.

"Unfortunately, you know the outcome at the end was not what everybody was looking for. And that is the hand of fate which I don't think anyone can do anything about it",she said.

To another query on the controversy raked up by some persons on the circumstances leading to her death, Reddy said the hospital treated her with best clinicians from New Delhi as well as from abroad.

"See, I think the hospital has done it's best. We have the best clinicians from (New) Delhi, from AIIMS, from abroad within this system", she said.

"There is an enquiry and I think that is the best thing that has been done. Let them go through the data.... I think all the mysteries will then be solved", she said.

It may be recalled that the one man inquiry commission, headed by retired Justice A Arumughasamy, appointed by the Tamil Nadu government to probe the circumstances leading to Jayalalithaa's death, has already commenced the enquiry.

Asked who was beside Jayalalithaa when she was treated, Reddy said people who were required and approved by her (Jayalalithaa) were by her bedside during treatment.

"So were all the doctors from all over the world, qualified nurses technicians and physiotherapists from Singapore (who could be made available)."



To a query on whether Jayalalithaa was aware of her fingerprint being taken, Reddy said "I can't answer that question because I was not by her bedside".

It has been alleged that Jayalalithaa's fingerprint was affixed on the papers authorising the candidature of AIADMK candidates for the then bypolls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A state-level Kabaddi player from Haryana today surrendered in a court here in connection with a dowry harassment case against him.

Acting Chief Judicial Magistrate Piyush Siddhartha released Abhishek Deshwal on interim bail after he furnished bail bond of two sureties of Rs 25,000 up to January 9, 2018.

Deshwal, who is from Haryana, is married in Pinna village in Muzaffarnagar district.

A dowry harassment case is filed against him here.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Raising apprehensions that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be tampered with, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today demanded that ballot papers be used during the upcoming assembly polls in the state.

The chief minister also ruled out any impact of Gujaratpoll results on Karnataka, saying the issues in the state were different.

Siddaramaiah said he had spoken to some experts and there were chances that the EVMs could be tampered with.

"They (BJP) have the power. The Election Commission is under them. Though it is an independent constitutional body, they (central government) appoint the chief election commissioner," he said to a query about allegations of EVM tampering.

Speaking to reporters at Raichur in north Karnataka, he said, "What we are saying is go to the old (ballot paper) system, what is the difficulty?"



Apprehension about possible EVM tampering through bluetooth technology was raised by the opposition Congress duringthe recent assembly elections in Gujarat, which the ElectionCommission had termed "baseless".

Similar doubts about the credibility of EVMs were raised during recently concluded civic polls in Uttar Pradesh and assembly elections earlier this year.

Pointing out that the demand for the old system was raisedduring the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls by political leaders there, Siddaramaiah said, "Go to the ballot paper. What is the problem with it?"



Several countries have gone back from EVM to ballot papers, he said and demanded that ballot papers be used during the assembly polls in the state, due early next year.

"We will both meet and write to the Election Commission on this. We demand that elections in Karnataka be conducted using ballot papers," he added.

On possible impact of Gujaratpoll results on Karnataka, he said, "Results of any state will not have any impact on the results of another state....issues there are different from our state. So there is no relation to one another. So it cannot be said."



Asked about the exit polls predicting a win for the BJP in Gujaratand Himachal Pradesh, Siddaramaiah said the counting is yet tohappen, adding, "this are just exit polls."



"There are various instances where exit polls have gone wrong. Let's see what happens on December 18," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Karnataka High Court on Friday struck down the 2014 amendment rules that mandated pictorial health warnings to cover 85 per cent of tobacco product packaging space, holding that they violated Constitutional norms.

However, the court made it clear that the 40 per cent pictorial health warning rule, which existed prior to the amendment rules, would remain in force.

A division bench comprising Justices B S Patil and B V Nagarathna passed the order on a batch of petitions filed by various tobacco manufacturing companies and others from across the country, challenging the 85 per cent pictorial warning rule notified by the Union Health Ministry.

The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Amendment Rules, 2014 (COTPA) came into effect from April 1 last year.

In May last year, the Supreme Court had transferred all petitions against the 85 per cent rule filed in various high courts to the Karnataka High Court and asked it to hear and dispose of them.

Passing its orders, the high court bench held that the Union Health Ministry does not have any jurisdictional power to make such rules.

The court said even if the health ministry enjoyed power to make such rules, they violated constitutional norms as it was an "unreasonable restriction" on the right to do business.

From the perspective of tobacco growers, such a rule violated the Right To Equality under Article 14 of the Constitution because there was no connection between the images and the warnings, the bench observed.

The petitioners, the Tobacco Institute of India and others, had challenged enforcement of the COTPA which required printing of pictorial health warnings covering 85 per cent of tobacco product packages.

The petitioners argued the rules were impractical and would boost smuggling of imported cigarettes.

The tobacco industry had said there was no evidence to show smoking causes the diseases depicted in the "extremely gruesome and unreasonable" pictures.

The bench observed that the rules cannot be made to scare people but to issue notifications.

The industry also said the global average size for graphic health warnings (GHWs) was only about 30 per cent of the principal display area.

Moreover, the top three cigarette consuming countries-- the US, China and Japan which together account for 51 per cent of global cigarette consumption--have only text based warnings and not adopted GHWs.
Telecom regulator TRAI today strongly defended its stance on net neutrality, asserting that keeping the internet open and free is the "right way" forward for India.

The comments come in the backdrop of US regulator yesterday rolling back net neutrality regulations adopted by the Obama administration.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed the order by a three-to-two vote, scrapping the rules that were targeted at treating all internet services equally.

According to reports, it felt that rolling back the net neutrality rules would restore the internet to light touch regulation.

TRAI, on the other hand, has proposed restricting service providers from entering into agreements which lead to discriminatory treatment of content on the internet.

TRAI, late last month, gave its recommendations to the Telecom Department, which will take the final call.

"We will certainly stick to our stance. Every country is a sovereign country and every country is free to determine what its stance on net neutrality is," TRAI Chairman R S Sharma said on the sidelines of an open house discussion on another issue.

Sharma said TRAI was of the view that net neutrality is the "right way" for India.

"I will not like to comment on what the US has done. But in Indian context, this is the right way....because a lot is riding on the internet and therefore it is important that it is kept as an open platform," Sharma said.

To drive home the point, Sharma cited the example of a toll road where the toll operator cannot dictate which destination or route a consumer should take ultimately.

"His concern is only to charge toll from me. And thereafter I am free to go anywhere I want to go. Similarly, net neutrality says you charge for the data and thereafter on the internet what I visit, what site I access, is my choice," he said.

Net neutrality is "all about consumer choice", he said, adding it ensures that every site or innovator gets same amount of access.

"That is broad principal and I think it's a naturally correct principal," he added.

TRAI, he said, would also come out with guidelines to clamp down on pesky calls by January 15.

The telecom regulator today held an open house discussion with stakeholders on the issue of 'Unsolicited Commercial Communication'.

"We will take 20-25 days, till January 15, to bring the guidelines. We have got a lot of responses, especially from technology companies. If technology is used, we will be able to control the problem to a large extent," Sharma said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Days after the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) nabbed drug peddlers from the city, the Kolkata Police has arrested two more drug dealers and seized from them nearly 600 grams of charas.

Two drug dealers Ranajit Dey (60) and Ansar Ahamed alias Mintu (45) were arrested by a team of sleuths from Kolkata Police's Narcotic Cell late last night from a pub in southern part of the city when they were trying to stuck a deal with a prospective buyer, a senior officer today said.

Around 233 grams of charas was recovered from Dey, a resident of Baranagar, while another 348 grams of the same drug was seized from Ahamed, a local from Narkeldanga, he said.

"We had a tip-off from our sources and we conducted a raid. The purchaser managed to flee. We are trying to find out who all are engaged in the racket," the officer said adding that the entire seized psychotropic substance has a market approximate value of Rs 60,000.

When produced at a city court, the duo were remanded to police custody till December 21.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Gov. Andrew Cuomo aims to continue a competition that has awarded $200 million to 20 communities for downtown improvement projects.

In his 2018 State of the State agenda, Cuomo is asking for another $100 million to support the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The governor, with the state Legislature's backing, established the program in 2015 to boost downtown areas.

The competition awards $10 million to one winner in each of the state's 10 economic development regions. Cortland and Oswego are past winners of the contest in central New York.

"This new round of funding will provide these New York downtowns the opportunity to establish walkable, bikeable streets, meet the needs of the 21st century workforce and support the growth that will be felt across the entire region," Cuomo said in a statement.

The winners of the competition are selected by the regional councils. The panels weigh several criteria, including whether the communities are capable of supporting a year-round downtown and demonstrated job growth in or near the downtown area.

If a community wins the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, local officials will be required to develop a strategic plan outlining how to invest the state funding. The will work with consultants and state officials to draft the plan.

There were 107 applicants for the second round of the initiative. Cortland beat out four other central New York municipalities, including Auburn, for the region's $10 million prize.

Auburn has competed in the first two rounds of the contest, but hasn't won.

Other winners in the second round include the city of Batavia in the Finger Lakes region, the city of Rome in the Mohawk Valley, Watertown in the North Country and Watkins Glen in the Southern Tier.

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who chairs the regional economic development councils, said the program "has given new life" to downtowns across the state.

"From Elmira to Plattsburgh, and from Jamaica, Queens to Watertown, I have walked the streets of many of these cities and talked with local officials," she said. "By empowering our local communities to capitalize on their downtown spaces, we are giving our cities the seeds they need to flourish."

Cuomo will deliver the 2018 State of State address Jan. 3 in Albany. He has been unveiling some of his proposals in advance of the annual presentation.

Earlier this week, he proposed a state law prohibiting individuals convicted of domestic violence offenses from possessing guns. He also pledged to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure Hudson River dredging is completed.
Sixteen fishermen from this coastal town, arrested by Sri Lankan Navy in October, were released by the island nation today.

A court in Jaffna ordered their release from prison, according to information received by Rameswaram Fishermen's Association leader P Sesuraja.

He said that Sri Lankan naval personnel would hand over the fishermen to the Indian Coast Guard at the International Maritime Boundary Line tomorrow.

More than 130 Tamil Nadu fishermen, arrested on various occasions, are still languishing in different prisons in Sri Lanka, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today asked Vishal Yadav, serving life term in the Nitish Katara murder case, to bring before it the proposed buyer of his property after he sought a three-month parole to carry out the transaction to arrange funds for his family.

Delhi police's Additional Standing Counsel Rajesh Mahajan opposed the convict's plea on the grounds that there is a threat to the life of the victim's mother Neelam Katara and also to the lone witness in the case.

Taking note of this, the court said that it would like to hear Neelam Katara and also witness Ajay Katara.

Justice Najmi Waziri sought appearance of the buyer of Vishal Yadav's property after he sought parole to sell it to arrange funds for his family and for his daughter's education.

The judge observed that as far as the convict's grounds of parole to arrange money for family is concerned, he can be allowed to go in custody for that purpose, but before that the buyer has to come to the court.

The court has fixed the matter for January 15 next year.

Senior advocate Puneet Mittal, appearing for Vishal, said his client was in custody and could not challenge the December 2014 order of the high court by which his appeal was dismissed in the murder case.

He sought a three-month parole to engage a lawyer and make other arrangements to exercise his legal and constitutional rights.

He has claimed there was no one else to look after his daughter, studying in class 10, for her education and that he has to dispose of his property in Ghaziabad's Vaishali to arrange funds for her studies and his litigation.

"Vishal also wished to meet his grandmother who was in an advanced stage of life," the plea said.

On August 29, the Supreme Court had dismissed his plea seeking review of its verdict sending him to prison for 25 years.

The apex court had also awarded a 25-year jail term to his cousin Vikas Yadav and 20 years in prison for third convict Sukhdev Pehalwan in the case.

The top court had earlier dismissed the appeals against their conviction in the case of kidnapping of Katara from a marriage party on the intervening night of February 16-17, 2002 before killing him for his alleged affair with Bharti Yadav, the sister of Vikas Yadav.

Bharti is the daughter of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav who is in jail in connection with a murder case.

Katara was murdered as Vishal and Vikas Yadav did not approve of the victim's affair with Bharti because they belonged to different castes, the lower court had said in its verdict.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The proceedings of the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session were adjourned today after the House paid tributes to three sitting and seven former members who died during the inter-session period.

The House would now meet on Monday.

As soon as the House assembled, newly-elected Congress member from Gurdaspur Sunil Kumar Jakhar was administered the oath, which he took in Punjabi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted Jakhar with a handshake when the former greeted him with folded hands after taking oath.

The Gurdaspur bypoll was necessitated following the demise of BJP member and cine star Vinod Khanna.

After the oath of the new member, Modi introduced new ministers to the House. These included Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who were elevated as Cabinet ministers in the September 3 rejig of the council of ministers.

The new faces are ministers of state (independent charge) R K Singh, Hardeep Puri, K J Alphonse and ministers of state Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Ananth Hegde, Gajendra Shekhawat and Satyapal Singh.

Making obituary references, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan informed members that three sitting Lok Sabha MPs -- Sultan Ahmed (TMC), Chand Nath (BJP) and Tasleem Uddin (RJD) had passed away recently.

Seven other former members -- Vikram Mahajan, Ram Singh, R Keishing, P C Barman, Dhanraj Singh, Amal Datta and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi also died during the inter-session period.

The House was also introduced to the new Secretary General, Snehlata Shrivastava, who took over on December 1. A former IAS officer, she is the first woman Secretary General of the Lok Sabha.

Before the proceedings began, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met leaders of various parties.

When the Prime Minister entered the House, he greeted the members from the opposition benches with a 'namaste' and bowing his head.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Maharashtra government will set up a special police unit to tackle crimes against women and children in every district of the state, it told the Legislative Council here today.

Neelam Gorhe, Vidya Chavan, Husnabanu Khalife and Smita Wagh raised the issue of rise in incidence of crimes against women though a calling attention motion in the Upper House of legislature today.

They highlighted incidents of eve-teasing at schools and colleges, increase in number of assaults on women on trains and at public places, and demanded a tough policy to ensure women's safety.

In reply to the discussion, Minister of State for Home Deepak Kesarkar said, "The government has approved formation of a special police unit in all the 36 districts. This unit will be headed by a deputy superintendent of police (Economic Offences Wing), and consist of a police inspector, assistant police inspector, a sub-inspector, two havaldars, two police naiks and eight police constables.

These special units will probe, exclusively, crimes against women and children, and work towards improving the rate of convictions in these cases, the minister said.

"A special seven-member committee, consisting of women IPS officers and members of both Houses of legislature would be formed to look into effective implementation of women-related programmes of the government," he said.

The state home department has approached the Railway Board and demanded additional 850 security guards to ensure safety of women on trains, Kesarkar said.

A special complaint box will be put up in schools and colleges for girls. Police will act on complaints received in the box.

Also, as demanded by several legislators, mobile CCTV vans will be stationed near schools and colleges, he said.

In rural areas, police patils would be directed to inform concerned police stations about any eve-teasing incident in the area, said the minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An alleged member of 'Thak Thak' gang was arrested last night after an encounter in which a miscreant and a constable received bullet injuries, police claimed today.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) H N Singh said that last night Sudhir Kumar of village Makanpur alighted from his car near Vaishali metro station when two bike-borne men broke open the windowpane and took away his bag containing cash, laptop and some documents.

"Kumar immediately informed the police about the number of the bike on which the duo fled. A police team which was checking vehicles near a mall signalled the bike to stop but its riders sped away," Singh said.

The police team chased them. Finding themselves encircled, they opened fire, the SSP said.

"In retaliation the police party also fired upon them. One of the assailants sustained a bullet shot injury in his leg while a constable too sustained injury in his left bicep. The injured accused has been identified as Venkatesh (30) from Chennai," Singh added.

He claimed that the accused confessed that he was a member of the 'Thak Thak' that stole valuables from vehicles. His accomplice managed to escape from the place of encounter, the SSP said adding that a manhunt has been lodged to nab him. He will also be nabbed soon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A park, commemorating Indian soldiers and Bangladeshi freedom fighters who lost their lives during the 1971 Liberation war, would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar here tomorrow.

The massive park has been built at Chottakhola, a border village, about 130 km from Agartala.

The foundation stone for the 20.20 hectare park, which encompasses seven hillocks and a lake near the Trishna wild life sanctuary, was laid by the then Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni in November 2010.

Two statues of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and former Prime Minister of India, India Gandhi, were put up in the park which was earlier a base for 'Mukti Joddhas' (Bangladeshi freedom fighters) from where they launched operations against the Pakistani army in Noakhali, Feni and parts of Comilla district of Bangladesh.

A 57 feet tower was constructed at the park from where parts of Noakhali and Feni districts in neighbouring Bangladesh are visible.

"A museum, which is under constructions at the park, would display arms and ammunition used in the war, old photographs and newspaper clippings," local MLA, Sudhan Das told reporters.

PWD Minister Badal Choudhury said the Tripura government built the park at a cost of Rs 7 crore with contributions from different government departments.

We have a shared history with Banfladesh and we have lingual and cultural affinity. It is a milestone of our friendship with Bangladesh. So, we have named it Bangladesh-Bharat Moitree Udyaan (Bangladesh-India friendship park), Chowdhury, who hails from South Tripura district, told reporters.

He hoped that the park will become a new address for tourists both from within India as well as Bangladesh.

During the Liberation War, I joined the Mukti Joddhas after a short training and fought against the Pakistani army in the Comilla sector, former deputy speaker and a prominent leader of the ruling CPI(M) Subol Rudra recalled.

Former Congress minister and now BJP leader, Jawhar Saha said, I was also a member of the Mukti Fauj. When the Indian army was combating the Pakistani army, our duty was to attack the Rajakars or the collaborators of the Pakistani army,"



State PWD Minister, Badal Chowdhury, Forest Minister Naresh Jamatiya, Drinking Water Supply Minister Ratan Bhowmick, Lok Sabha MPs Jitendra Chowdhury and Shankar Prasad Datta and local MLA, Sudhan are among other dignitaries would attend the inaugural ceremony.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi state consumer panel has asked Mexico-based airline Aeromexico to pay over Rs 5 lakh to an Indian citizen for mishandling his bag on a trip to Miami in the US.

The Delhi State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said the deficiency of service on the part of the airline stands established.

"We are satisfied that there has been deficiency on the part of opposite party-2 (Aeromexico Airlines) in misplacing of the bag as they have not properly handled the movement of the bag on its receipt from opposition party-I (British Airways) at Miami," a bench comprising judicial member O P Gupta and member Anil Srivastava said.

It further said, "There is nothing on record to controvert this assertion. The opposite party (Aeromexico Airlines) having been found to be deficient in service is liable to pay the compensation."



The consumer panel asked the airline to refund the amount spent by Delhi-resident Chander Mohan Lall during his journey, along with the compensation of Rs 5 lakh.

According to the complaint, Lall had boarded the British Airways flight on November 5, 2011 from New Delhi to Miami for attending an international conference there.

It was alleged in the complaint that he had to board the Aeromexico Airlines from Cancun in Mexico for transit to Miami but the bag was lost in between and failed to reach him on his arrival there.

The bag which contained his laptop, materials for the purpose of attending the high profile conference, his driving certificate, clothes, etc. went missing and Lall claimed that his whole travel was a flop.

The British Airways denied any negligence or deficiency in its service, saying its staffers had handed over the bag to the Aeromexico Airlines staff properly.

The Aeromexico Airlines objected to the allegations, saying the consumer commission in India cannot issue any direction to it since it has no office here.

The state panel dismissed this contention and said that the tickets were purchased through an agency in New Delhi and it was sufficient to establish the place where the cause of action arose.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court today stayed the proceedings in the Congress MLA Makhanlal Jatav murder case at a court in Bhind.

State minister Lal Singh Arya is one of the accused in the case and the Bhind court had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against him.

Justice Ved Prakash Sharma of the high court today stayed the proceedings in the Bhind court.

The CBI had challenged, before the high court, an Indore CBI court's order to transfer the case to a special court in Bhind on the basis of jurisdiction.

Jatav, Congress MLA from Gohad, was shot dead by unidentified assailants during the general elections on April 13, 2009.

The case was transferred to the CBI in 2009, but in the meantime, Bhind district police had filed a charge sheet in the matter in the local court.

The special CBI court in Indore held that the case should be tried before the Bhind court as the charge sheet had been filed there.

The CBI challenged it before the high court.

During the hearing in the high court, the state government requested the high court to first decide the issue of jurisdiction, whether the trial would take place in Bhind or Indore. The HC today stayed the proceedings in the Bhind court.

On December 5, judge Yogesh Gupta of the Bhind special court had issued an NBW against Arya, directing the police to execute the order by December 19, the next hearing, as he did not appear before the court despite several bailable warrants.

Last month, Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court had turned down Arya's anticipatory bail plea.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Ajay Singh today sought Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's resignation, alleging that he was shielding his cabinet colleague Lal Singh Arya who has been named in the murder case and is on the run.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Suspected Bajrang Dal activists were claimed to have beaten up some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh last night over alleged conversion of Hindus to Christianity.

Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines police station said a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle, but denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident. Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for priesthood.

Father M. Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, told PTI that some young men stormed the venue of a pre- Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 last night and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After police got information, they came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am. They agreed to visit the police station today morning, Rony said.

"As promised they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not a single person there had converted to Christianity. "We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked today for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

Satna superintendent of police Rajesh Hingankar could not be reached for comments despite repeated calls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ruling NDA today decided to take a tough stand against the Opposition in Parliament after the Congress and other parties stalled the Rajya Sabha demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks against former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

At a meeting of top NDA leaders here, Modi asked the ruling alliance to strongly push the government's legislative agenda in the Winter Session of Parliament, sources said.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that instead of attacking the prime minister, the Congress should apologise for the meeting held between its leaders, including Manmohan Singh, and Pakistani officials without informing the government.

His remarks indicating a counter-offensive by the NDA in Parliament came after the Rajya Sabha was adjourned till Monday following the opposition's protests over Modi's remarks at a Gujarat election rally in which the prime minister had accused Singh of colluding with Pakistan to influence the state polls.

"Rather than demanding apology from Prime Minister, they (opposition) should apologise for what they have done.... Without informing the government their leaders met Pakistani officials," Kumar said.

NDA sources said Modi referred to India's progress on a host of issues, including its jump in the ease of doing business ratings and reform measures like the GST, to underline his government's "able" handling of economy.

A leader, who attended the meeting, said the prime minister also pointed out the government's legislative agenda for the Winter Session and asked them to work together for pushing it in Parliament.

The Prime Minister cited various important legislations listed in the session including a bill to to grant the constitutional status to National Commission on Backward Classes (NCBC) and muslim women protection of rights on marriage bill, and asked the leaders to ensure their passage in the session.

Modi also asked them to ensure presence of ruling alliance members in both the Houses.

Earlier speaking in the BJP's parliamentary party executive meeting also, the prime minister stressed on maximum attendance of the MPs in both the houses, BJP MP Sharad Tripathi, who was present in the meeting, said.

Modi also emphasised that people should be made aware of the rates of the consumer goods which have come down following the reduction in GST rates, Tripathi added.

The prime minister also spoke about the law enacted by his government that raised the maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks.

He noted that Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, had praised the progressive law in her comments during her visit to India and said that even many developed countries do not have such a legislation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AUBURN  Auburn's South Street property owners filled Memorial City Hall's council chambers to express their opposition to a proposed change to the city's zoning code and how it would impact the historic district during Thursday night's Auburn City Council meeting.

The proposed change would eliminate the current C-4 specialized commercial district and replace it with a new downtown district. The proposed downtown district extends into the historic district from Lincoln Street to Fitch Avenue on the west and Hamilton Avenue to the east.

Residents said they do not support the proposal because combining the C-4 district with the downtown district would allow more permitted uses within the historic district, including commercial businesses such as night clubs, dry cleaners or hotels.

"You're throwing out everything the historic district stands for," South Street resident Christopher Mack said. "This proposal would devastate the historic district, devastate the home and property values we've worked so hard to create and commit ourselves to."

Case Avenue property owner Karen Walter said she opposes changing the zoning designations in the Technology Park Boulevard area of the city. The proposed zoning code designates much of the area north of Case Avenue as general industry, which would permit businesses such as junkyards, agricultural processing plants and both light and heavy industry less than 600 feet from a neighborhood. That area is currently zoned as I-1, which only allows light industry.

"We've had several significant industries there," Walter said. "Never a complaint from the residents. We would like to continue that designation."

After hearing all residents' concerns and discussing potential options with city planning staff, council members decided to keep both sections as they are under the current code.

The portion of South Street from Lincoln Street to Chedell Place and Elizabeth Street will continue to have a C-4 zoning designation while the rest of the historic street to the south will continue to be residential districts, both single and multi-family. The area around Technology Park Boulevard will continued to be zoned as I-1.

City council will vote to adopt the proposed zoning code on Dec. 21.
Unfazed over the opposition parties' protests causing adjournment of the Rajya Sabha today, the NDA made it clear that it would take on them over their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who asked the ruling alliance to strongly push the government's agenda in Parliament.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar demanded that the Congress apologise for a meeting between its leaders, including former prime minister Manmohan Singh, and Pakistani officials without informing the government.

The Rajya Sabha proceedings were adjourned till Monday following the opposition's relentless protests.

NDA sources said Modi referred to India's progress on several fronts, including its jump in the ease of doing business ratings, and reform measures such as the GST to underline his government's "able" handling of the economy.

A leader, who attended the meeting, said the prime minister spoke about the government's legislative agenda for the Winter Session and asked them to work together for pushing it through Parliament.

Modi also asked them to ensure the presence of ruling alliance members in both the Houses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today refused to grant an interim stay on the disqualification of former JD(U) president Sharad Yadav as a Rajya Sabha member but allowed him to draw his salary, allowances, perks and retain the bungalow.

It also restrained him from attending the Winter Session of Parliament, which started today. The session is scheduled to go on till January 5.

"The order (of the Rajya Sabha chairman) cannot be stayed at this stage," Justice Vibhu Bakhru said and made it clear that the interim directions would be there till the disposal of Yadav's main petition.

However, the judge allowed Yadav to draw his salary, allowances, perks and retain the bungalow allotted to him as a member of Parliament.

The court also issued notice to the Rajya Sabha chairman besides Ram Chandra Prasad Singh, who is leader of the JD(U) in the Upper House, on Yadav's plea challenging December 4 order of the chairman disqualifying him as an MP.

It asked the the RS chairman and Singh to file their counter affidavits in three weeks and fixed the main petition for hearing on March 1 next year.

The interim order came on Yadav's plea challenging his disqualification on several grounds, including that he was not given any chance to present his viewpoint by the Rajya Sabha chairman before passing an order against him and his colleague and MP, Ali Anwar on December 4.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, sought an interim stay of the order of Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to enable him to attend the Parliament session.

"If the order is not stayed during the pendency of the proceedings then he would suffer an irreparable loss, in as much as he would be deprived of participating in the proceedings of the House and will not be able to get himself elected for the remainder of his term," Sibal argued.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, appearing for the Rajya Sabha chairman, opposed the grant of any interim relief to Yadav.

The ASG said if Yadav was permitted to participate in the Winter Session of Parliament, it would amount to his reinstatement.

Sibal contended that the top court had in the past permitted a legislator in every similar matter to participate in a session, but the person was not entitled to vote.

He argued that criticising Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's action of joining the BJP would not amount to voluntarily giving up the party's membership and contended that no evidence was led to show how Yadav had given up his party membership.

Singh, the JD(U) leader in the Upper House, had sought their disqualification on the ground that they had attended a rally of opposition parties in Patna in violation of its directives.

Yadav had joined hands with the opposition after the JD (U) president and Bihar chief minister dumped the alliance with the RJD and the Congress in Bihar and tied up with the BJP in July this year.

Yadav was elected to the Rajya Sabha last year and his term was scheduled to end in July 2022. Anwar's term was to expire early next year. Both were disqualified under the Anti- Defection Act.

The plea filed through advocate Nizam Pasha said that the order has disqualified Yadav n an "extremely casual and callous way".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury said today that it was not easy for party members to accept that Sonia Gandhi was going to quit politics, amid speculations that the outgoing party president would retire from public life.

Asked what role she would assume after her son Rahul Gandhi takes over the reins of the party tomorrow, Sonia Gandhi told reporters in the Parliament complex, "My role is to retire."



Responding to Sonia Gandhi's comment, Chowdhury said she would like to believe that their party leader would always be there to steer the grand old party in the right direction.

"(She) may say. It is part of her nature, her personality where she has never aspired for a post or clung to power...she talks what she believes is right and stands by her conviction. There is no doubt about her commitment," Chowdhury said outside Parliament.

"For those of us who are around, it is not that we can accept easily... Ideas she has stood by will always be relevant and our commitment as workers to strengthen the party will remain," she said.

DMK leader T K S Elangovan said that it was "her personal decision" to quit political life. "We cannot influence. Because if she is retiring on health grounds, what can we do?" he asked.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, however, dismissed the speculation that Sonia Gandhi has retired from public life.

"Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos.

"Sonia Gandhi has retired as president of Indian National Congress and not from . Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," Surjewala said on Twitter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Opposition leaders today protested the rejection of their notice in the Rajya Sabha demanding an explanation and apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "conspiracy with Pakistan" remark involving his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The leaders termed the comment "unfortunate" and told reporters outside the House it was "disappointing" that Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu did not allow a discussion on the notice.

They also objected to the "illegal disqualification" of rebel Janata Dal (United) leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari.

In place of Yadav and Ansari, Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar should be disqualified for breaking away from the grand alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, they said.

"We gave a notice, but the chairman adjourned the House and did not let us raise the issue. We are disappointed. The chairman should have given us permission. This is a national... international issue," Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.

At an election rally in Gujarat on Sunday, Modi had suggested that Pakistan was trying to influence the state assembly polls.

He had claimed that some Pakistani officials and Manmohan Singh met at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's house over dinner on December 6.

Azad said the prime minister should come to the Rajya Sabha and explain his remarks to its members.

His party colleague Anand Sharma, Naresh Agarwal of the SP and D Raja of the CPI said the people concerned should be punished if the allegations levelled by Modi were true.

"But if it is false, if he levelled such a big allegation to polarise the people in view of the Gujarat polls, then he should apologise not only to the House but also to the people of the country," Azad said.

Raja said it was "not correct" on Modi's part to cast aspersions on Singh.

The CPI national secretary said Modi should have called up his predecessor if he had any information on the "conspiracy" issue.

"He should have done it, but the way he raised the issue in an election campaign... It is highly objectionable. It is not good for democracy," Raja said, asking the government to respect the Opposition.

Sharma said it was "undemocratic" that the Opposition's voice was being "muzzled".

He said the prime minister was "aware" of the notice and could have "used the opportunity to clarify his remarks, express regret and apologise".

"But the prime minister and the dispensation are arrogant and confrontational. And this is most unfortunate. This attitude does not augur well for democracy. It is an ominous development on the first day itself," Sharma said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Art of living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar today said that an out-of-court settlement would be the best solution to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute in Ayodhya and that he would talk to all stakeholders in this regard.

What one can achieve through friendship can never be done through conflicts, the spiritual leader told reporters here on the sidelines of a programme organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

"I am talking to all people (stakeholders) Both the communities must come together. An out-of-court settlement is the best solution to this problem," he said.

Sri Sri also said that he had been receiving "positive response" on the matter from several quarters since his visit to Ayodhya last month.

Ravi Shankar had spent a day in Ayodhya last month after meeting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

The spiritual leader, however, refused to comment on an accusation by the Congress that he was a government agent.

"I will not comment on this but I will like to say that whatever I do, I do it on my own," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As many as 4,007 new publications were registered in 2016-17, recording a growth of 3.58 per cent over the previous year, the government said today.

With this addition, the total number of registered publication has reached 1,14,820 as on March 31, 2017, said an official release, quoting a report, 'Press in India 2016-17', prepared by the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI).

The total number of publications comprised 16,993 in newspaper category (daily, tri-bi-weekly) and 97,827 periodicals.

Uttar Pradesh, with 17,736 publications, topped the list of states with registered publications, followed by Maharashtra (15,673).

The largest number of publications registered in any language was Hindi (46,587), followed by English (14,365).

"Press in India 2016-17" was presented by Principal Director General Ganeshan to Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Zubin Irani here.

Speaking on the occasion, Irani said the publication was an important document to map the progress of the Indian newspaper industry in the last one year and gave a comprehensive analysis of the contours of the growth for the industry specially the growth amongst regional language publications.

Besides emphasising the need for releasing the report digitally, she said that data on publications in regional language should be analysed, for its growth and dispersal.

The largest circulated newspaper was the Kolkata edition of the Bengali daily 'Ananda Bazar Patrika' with a claimed circulation of 11,16,428, followed by Delhi edition of 'The Times of India' (9,56,054 circulation), as per the release.

The largest circulated Hindi Daily was Jalandhar edition of "Punjab Kesari".

The largest circulated multi-edition daily was "Dainik Bhaskar" with 46 editions (47,36,785 circulation), followed by "The Times of India" with 33 editions (42,68,703 circulation).

The largest circulated periodical was "The Sunday Times of India", weekly edition, Delhi.

The largest circulated periodical in Malayalam was "Vanitha", fortnightly edition, Kottayam, as per the release.

As many as 38 publications were shut during 2016-17.

The total 'claimed' circulation of publications stood at 48,80,89,490 in 2016-17 -- Hindi publications 23,89,75,773; English publications 5,65,77,000; and Urdu publications 3,24,27,005.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a major set back to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked the civic body to recover Rs 127.21 crore from contractors who supplied water meters.

It asked the BMC, controlled by the Shiv Sena, to recover this amount in six months.

"If the contractors fail to repay the amount, a legal case should be filed against them," the PAC stated in its recommendations.

The PAC observed that water meters worth Rs 785 crore were purchased for equitable distributions.

It stated that the BMC had purchased 1,27,775 water meters of which only 87,000 meters were deployed as per the plan.

When exit conference was held with the BMC officials, 46,918 meters were yet to be deployed, it observed.

The PAC also pointed out that the auditor report of the BMC had issued strictures over the water meters not being deployed. The meters had now become very old and thus could not be used anymore, the report stated.

"Of the 13 officers who were supposed to be responsible for this mess, seven have been retired and one has been promoted. It is a very serious matter. Had the BMC acted promptly, the officials would not have retired so easily," PAC stated.

The PAC also asked the officials to complete the investigation within three months, the report said.

The PAC comprises of MLAs from all the political parties with an MLA from the opposition as chairman of the committee.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his family today heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family.

The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case.

Today's decision is major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharif's confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharif's government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to the country's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his death anniversary today, saying every Indian is indebted to him for his monumental service to the nation.

Patel, who was also the first deputy prime minister of India, died on December 15 1950, three years after Independence, at the age of 75.

"We remember the great Sardar Patel on his Punya Tithi. Every Indian is indebted to Sardar Patel for his monumental service to our nation," Modi tweeted.

Known as the "Iron Man" of India, Patel was instrumental in uniting the country through merger of small princely states.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A police vehicle today rammed a two-wheeler, killing two people near here, with some reports claiming the SUV was part of the Tamil Nadu Governor's convoy, a charge denied by both police and the Raj Bhavan.

The 33-year old rider and the boy (10) were thrown off their motorcycle when the SUV hit the two-wheeler on the East Coast Road (ECR) off Pudukalpakkam near Mamallapuram in neighbouring Kancheepuram District, police said.

The two were rushed to a hospital where doctors declared them brought dead, they said.

An elderly woman was injured and has been hospitalised.

Some audiovisual media reports claimed the vehicle was part of the convoy of Governor Banwarilal Purohit who was returning to Chennai from Cuddalore.

However, when contacted, a top police official denied it.

"It (the police vehicle) was not part of the governor's convoy. This was a separate vehicle returning after completing duty," Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police Santosh Hadimani told PTI.

A Raj Bhavan release said the reports about a vehicle in his convoy being involved in the accident were "factually and totally incorrect".

"The Governors convoy started from Cuddalore at 2:15 pm and reached Raj Bhavan, Chennai, at 4:20 pm. There was no occurrence of any mishap or accident in the movement of the convoy from Cuddalore to Chennai," it said.

The release said the Superintendent of Police, Kancheepuram, informed Raj Bhavan that a vehicle, used as advance pilot, met with an accident after leaving the cavalcade at Kancheepuram district limits, and after travelling 10 km while returning to its base.

"It is clear that the vehicle, which met with an accident, was entirely on its own and was not part of the convoy of the Honble Governor," the release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AUBURN  Once when Bill Cowmey was volunteering for the Cayuga/Seneca Community Action Agency Christmas Elf program, a woman who was once struggling financially came by to donate toys.

Cowmey said the woman had a garbage bag of toys to give away. He asked her to go into the building where the donations were happening so volunteers could write down her name. She said she simply wanted to help out anonymously.

"She said, 'A couple years ago I needed some help and I got some toys from down here and I want to repay it,' and I always remembered that," Cowmey said.

The giving has continued within the 30-year-old program as volunteers distributed toys at a Currier Plastics garage Thursday. The program helps families with children up to 18. The families, which must be referred to by a social service agency, write down the toys they're hoping to get. Volunteers then try to get those goods through either donations or through donated funds.

A total of 676 boxes of toys were set up for the event. People could also get items such as bows, wrapping paper and a $25 gift card to Wegmans.

Diane Currier and Carolyn Moore, both veteran volunteers, said those who help out for the event are often in good spirits, despite lifting large boxes of goods, while they are helping those in need. Moore said she loves helping the families

"When you're able to hand them a package and they're so grateful," Moore said. "It's the best feeling in the world."

Mike McCole, a program volunteer for years and the board of education president for the Auburn Enlarged City School District, said the toy distribution day is one of his favorite times of the year. McCole smiled the entire time he talked about helping children through the program. When a child comes in with a parent to get the gifts, he said, volunteers try to give them a teddy bear or other kind of toy.

"Anything to do to put a smile on a kid's face is time well spent," McCole said.

Sheila Jordan, who was retrieving toys for three children at home, said she's glad the program assists lower-income families. She said her husband Jeffrey Jordan stays home to watch the children while she works, so it can be difficult to make end's meet.

"Bills don't stop just because of Christmas," Sheila Jordan said.
A Russian court on Friday sentenced former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev to eight years in a penal colony for taking a $2-million bribe from an ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Ulyukayev is the highest-ranking official arrested in Putin's 17 years in power.

The Moscow court ruled he must also pay a fine of 130 million roubles ($2.2 million) for taking for taking the bribe from Igor Sechin, head of the state oil giant Rosneft, in a sting operation.

Judge Larisa Semyonova said the eight years would be served in a "harsh regime" colony in a sentence which was slightly below the 10 years demanded by prosecutors.

Ulyukayev said the sentence was "unjust" and vowed to appeal.

Before the ruling he made an effort to appear upbeat with reporters, saying he was expecting a fair hearing and gesturing only to a briefcase of documents when asked if he had brought any belongings with him.

Earlier he said a long sentence in a harsh-regime colony, most of which are in remote locations and offer prisoners little contact with families, would effectively be a death sentence.

Ulyukayev, who became economic development minister in 2013, was arrested at Rosneft's headquarters last year after being handed a bag containing USD 2 million by Sechin, who had asked security forces to set up a sting.

Sechin told investigators that Ulyukayev had demanded the bribe in return for backing a controversial deal in which Rosneft acquired a stake in Bashneft, another state-run oil group.

Ulyukayev had originally opposed the sale of the stake to Rosneft but later endorsed it after Putin said it would help fill state coffers.

Ulyukayev denied the charge, saying that he believed the bag contained expensive wines that Sechin had promised him to celebrate the deal.

The prosecution did not provide any proof that Ulyukayev opened the bag of marked notes and therefore knew he was receiving a bribe.

Sechin has failed to attend court hearings despite being summoned as a witness.

Ulyukayev has lost a striking amount of weight while under house arrest and has calmly read books by Chekhov and Kafka, as well as Plato's Apology of Socrates, during the trial.

In his closing speech last week, he asked forgiveness from Russians for ignoring the injustices of the country's political system while in power and focusing on building his network and advancing his career.

"When everything is good, you shamefully turn away from people's grief. Forgive me for that, people," Ulyukayev told the court, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
For the second consecutive day, the Question Hour was derailed in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly amid strident criticism by the opposition Samajwadi Party of the recent power tariff hike in the state.

As soon as the House met for the day, Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary raised the issue and wanted an immediate roll back, saying the hike had burdened every section of society.

Chaudhary was soon supported by other opposition members leading to a din in the House.

Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit urged the agitated members to allow him to take up the day's listed business first and raise their issues during Zero Hour.

They, however, did not relent and started raising slogans and soon trooped into the well of the House.

The Speaker urged them to take their seats, but his request went unheeded.

Chaudhary wanted the Chair to take up the matter first as the decision had hit the common people badly.

Dixit then adjourned the House for 15 minutes, but it was extended by another 15 minutes and then till Zero Hour.

In the din, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna was heard taunting the opposition SP, saying the UP electorate had rejected them in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 2017 Assembly elections and now in the civic body polls.

"They have nothing constructive to do but to raise non- issues in the House," he said, provoking SP benches.

Power Minister Shrikant Sharma, however, justified the hike and dubbed the SP members as "anti-development, anti- people".

"During the SP regime, there used to be no electricity supply," he said.

The Winter session of the UP Legislature got off to stormy start yesterday with the opposition disrupting proceedings on power tariff and law and order issues, leading to adjournment of both the Assembly and the Council for the day.

The UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) recently hiked power tariff.

While the average hike for domestic consumers is 12 per cent, for urban domestic electricity consumers it has been raised by 9 per cent. For metered rural domestic consumers, the tariff has been hiked to Rs 3 per unit for first 100 units and Rs 4.50 per unit beyond that.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala Tourism Department today organised a review meeting on its newly announced Tourism Policy here to find out the tourism industry's comments and opinion about it.

The new policy was approved by the state cabinet recently after the proposals were discussed among the industry players in the state tourism space.

With the policy in place, the meeting offered another opportunity to the industry segment to put forward their views on the proposals which include a rejig of the activities, an official statement said here.

The policy aims at aiding the Kerala tourism sector leap ahead, Minister for Tourism, Kadakampally Surendran, who presided over the meeting, said.

"What the tourism policy looks forward to is a comprehensive revamp, so that the tourism potential offered by Kerala is utilised fully," he said.

The minister said Kerala Tourism is a globally well-known brand and contributes around 10 per cent of the states revenues as per estimates.

"Kerala Tourism aims at promoting adventure tourism in the state. We also acknowledge the fact that the Kochi-Muziris Biennale also offers huge tourism potential. An Entrepreneurial Fund is in the anvil," the minister said, listing the proposals put forward by the policy.

Adherence to a green protocol, 'Responsible Tourism' initiatives would take the state's tourism sector a long way ahead while ensuring travellers' safety in the most effective manner, he said.

Kerala Tourism would also look for a brand ambassador, the minister added.

Speaking at the meeting, Tourism Secretary Rani George said the policy envisions 100 per cent increase in international tourist arrivals and 50 per cent increase in domestic tourist arrivals by 2020.

Tourism Director P Balakiran made a presentation on the policy and initiatives being planned.

The tourism policy review meeting was also attended by Jaffer Malik, Additional Director, Kerala Tourism and various industry players, the statement added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Demonetisation caused some temporary disruptions in India's economic activity due to cash shortages, but the effects are dissipating, the IMF has said.

"We see salutary benefits from the demonetisation that took place a year ago. And there are potential benefits going forward," William Murray, Deputy Spokesman, IMF Communications Department, told reporters.

Murray said the demonetisation did cause some temporary disruptions in economic activity, primarily, private consumption and small businesses due to cash shortages.

"(But) the effects are dissipating," he said in response to a question.

"In the medium term, demonetisation could have possible effects, including through greater formalisation of and the information on economic activities and a more efficient payment system with a greater use of the banking system and digital payments," Murry said.

The Indian government on November 8 last year decided to scrap of all Rs 500 and 1,000 banknotes in an efforts to curb black money and corruption.

The IMF is slated to come out with an update of its projections of Indias growth rate along with the rest of the world in January.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court today deprecated a lawyer for saying that her client, a fugitive businesswoman residing in London, is getting threats from lenders that she will be molested and raped on arrival in India.

The top court asked the woman's counsel to "behave responsibly" or it will refer her to Bar Council of India for appropriate action.

A bench of justices Arun Mishra and M M Shantanagoudar said that such arguments cannot be allowed in the Supreme Court and lawyers need to make their arguments responsibly.

The court was hearing a case of businesswoman Ritika Awasty, a promoter of Bush Foods Overseas Pvt Ltd, who is facing criminal trial in Uttar Pradesh on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust but is evading arrest after she was allowed to go to London by the top court last year to see her husband and daughter.

"Be responsible madam. What is happening here. This is Supreme Court which means Supreme Court. These type of arguments cannot be allowed here.

"Since when lawyers are becoming spokesperson of their clients. You have to behave responsibly or we will refer you to Bar Council of India," the bench warned the counsel for businesswoman.

The counsel then apologised to the court and said that she had received the affidavit from her client only in the morning and was only stating the facts.

The apex court then directed the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government to expeditiously complete the proceedings to declare the businesswoman proclaimed offender.

It even directed attaching of the properties in the name of Awasty and her husband in India.

Earlier, this week on December 12, the apex court had pulled up the Centre for "not even bothering about" its orders on extradition matters and questioned the government's will in getting persons evading law back from foreign countries.

Awasty was allowed by the apex court to travel to London to see her husband and daughter on January 2016 after giving an undertaking that she will return by March 31, 2016.

However, the time was later extended till May 31, 2016, but she did not return from London which compelled the apex court to forfeit her security of Rs 86 lakh, cancellation of her bail and initiation of contempt proceedings.

Awasty had challenged the Allahabad High Court order refusing to quash FIR lodged against her but was granted bail and allowed to travel abroad by the apex court.

The court had also revoked her passport after she failed to return to India by May 31, 2016.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The on Friday extended till March 31 the deadline for mandatory linking of with various services and welfare schemes of all ministries and departments of the Centre, states and union territories.

A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in an interim order, considered the statement of the Centre that it was willing to extend the deadline for linking the national biometric identifier with all services and welfare schemes.

The bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, said, "We accept the statement of the Attorney General of India and order accordingly, and hence, the deadline for linkage with all schemes of ministries and departments is extended till March 31 next year."



The top court agreed with the submission of Attorney General K K Venugopal that as far as linking with existing was concerned, the process can be completed by March 31.

About the new bank accounts, it said the last date for completing the process of Aadhaar linking may be also extended and people desirous of opening new accounts will have to produce proof to the bank that he or she has applied for the card.

Taking note of the Centre's submission with regard to linking of Aadhaar with mobile services, the court modified its earlier order and said the deadline of February 6 next year for this purpose also stood extended.

"We also direct that the extension of the last date for Aadhar linkage to 31 March 2018 shall apply, besides the schemes of the Ministries/Departments of the Union government to all state governments in similar terms," Justice Chandrachud, who wrote the unanimous interim order, said.

The order said the earlier apex court verdict, upholding the validity of an Income Tax Act provision making Aadhaar mandatory for allotment of PAN cards and filing of tax returns, will remain in force.

The court also made clear that the interim direction on extension of deadline "shall continue to operate pending disposal of the proceedings before the Constitution Bench" and fixed the clutch of petitions, challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself, for final hearing on 17 January, next year.

"We are of the considered view that the resolution of the issues raised before the court should proceed at the earliest, after the court reassembles in January 2018. This will ensure clarity for citizens on the one hand and for the Union and the state governments and the instrumentalities on the other hand," the bench said.

The bench was hearing pleas by several people, including former High Court judge Justice K S Puttaswamy, seeking an interim stay on mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various schemes.

Earlier, the Centre has expressed willingness to extend deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar for various services.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar have claimed it violated privacy rights.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

They have also objected to CBSE's alleged move to make Aadhaar mandatory for students appearing for examinations, a contention denied by the Centre.
The Supreme Court on Friday referred 349 fixed dose combination (FDC) medicines, including well- known brands like Corex cough syrup, Vicks Action 500 extra and several anti-diabetes drugs to the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) for re-examining.

The apex court set aside the order of the Delhi High Court which had quashed the Centre's decision to ban these drugs on the ground that requisite procedure prescribed in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, were not followed.

A bench of justices R F Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that the 349 FDCs were banned pursuant to the Kokate Committee report, by notifications of the central government under Section 26A of the Drugs Act.

"In order that an analysis be made in greater depth, we, therefore, feel that these cases should go to the DTAB and/or a sub-committee formed by the DTAB for the purpose of having a relook into these cases," it said.

It said that DTAB or its sub-committee appointed for this purpose will hear the drug manufacturers and would also hear submissions from NGO All India Drugs Action Network.

The top court said that DTAB/sub-committee will deliberate on the parameters set out in section 26A (power to prohibit manufacture of drugs and cosmetics in public interest) of the Drugs Act like first and foremost in each case, it must satisfy itself that the use of the FDC in question is likely to involve any risk to human beings or animals.

Secondly, it said FDCs do not have the therapeutic value claimed or purported to be claimed for them and whether such FDCs contain ingredients and in such quantity for which there is no therapeutic justification.

It said that the DTAB/sub-committee must also apply its mind as to whether it is then necessary or expedient, in the larger public interest, to regulate, restrict or prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of such FDCs.

The bench said that the board or committee must clearly indicate in its report as to why, according to it, any one of the three factors are attracted and post such satisfaction, that in the larger public interest, it is necessary or expedient to regulate, restrict, or prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of such FDCs.

The top court said that the DTAB/Sub-Committee must also indicate in its report as to why, in case it prohibits a particular FDC, restriction or regulation is not sufficient to control the manufacture and use of the FDC.

"We request the DTAB/Sub-Committee to be set up for this purpose to afford the necessary hearing to all concerned, and thereafter submit a consolidated report, insofar as these FDCs are concerned, to the central government within a period of six months from the date on which this judgment is received by the DTAB," it said.

It indicated that "the central government, thereafter, must have due regard to the report of the DTAB and to any other relevant information, and ultimately apply its mind to the parameters contained in Section 26A of the Drugs Act and, accordingly, either maintain the notifications already issued, or modify/substitute them or withdraw them".

The bench said it is not going into the issue of whether section 26A is legislative in nature and therefore excludes natural justice and was only concerned with the verdict of single judge of Delhi High Court which was being set aside.

The Delhi High Court had on December 1, 2016, allowed the petitions of various pharma and healthcare majors, like Pfizer, Glenmark, Procter and Gamble and Cipla, challenging the government's March 10 notification banning the FDCs, saying the decision was taken by the Centre without following procedure prescribed in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Some of the well-known medicines on which the ban on sale was lifted by Delhi High Court include Pfizer's Corex cough syrup, Glaxo's Piriton expectorant and Crocin Cold, P&G's Vicks Action 500 extra, Reckitt's D'Cold, Piramal's Saridon, Glenmark's Ascoril and Alex cough syrups, Abbott's Phensedyl cough syrup and Alembic's Glycodin cough syrup.

The bench said that insofar as the drugs that were banned and which were manufactured before September 21, 1988, it set aside the central government notifications banning them as these cases were never meant to be referred to the Kokate Committee.

It, however, said that "it will be open for the central government, if it so chooses, de novo, to carry out an inquiry as to whether such drugs should be the subject matter of a notification under Section 26A of the Drugs Act".

The bench said that the view taken by the Karnataka and Madras High Court on a similar issue was a correct one by which it was held that consultation with the DTAB is not mandatory before exercise of power under Section 26A.
A section of Air India employees has proposed that their representatives should be made part of the airline's management amid the government moving ahead with the strategic disinvestment of the carrier, a source said.

The proposal was made by one of the employees' unions by way of written submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture during a meeting on December 11.

Besides, one of the unions has proposed that the government should consider employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) at the disinvestment-bound carrier.

"The union proposed giving employees the option to run the company by including employee representatives in its management and to consider ESOP (Employee Stock Option Plan) as well," the source said.

The committee, headed by Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien, had convened the meeting to hear the representatives of Air India employees' unions as well as officials of various Air India subsidiaries on the proposed divestment.

As many as 14 Air India unions had attended this meeting besides officials of various subsidiaries, including Air India Express.

The union, the source said, strongly opposed disinvestment or privatisation of Air India and its subsidiaries.

Significantly, all Air India unions are opposing the government's disinvestment move.

According to the source, unions also suggested that they should be made part of the ongoing disinvestment process, which would make it more transparent.

In June, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) gave its in-principle nod for the strategic disinvestment of Air India.

The government is working on the modalities for the stake sale. The carrier, which has a debt burden of more than Rs 50,000 crore, managed to eke out operational profit for the first time in a decade in 2015-16.

Sharp differences of opinion among ruling and opposition members over the move had emerged during the meeting, in which BJP Lok Sabha MP Shatrughan Sinha is believed to have opposed the decision to privatise the national carrier.

Besides, stating that stakeholders were not consulted before deciding on Air India stake sale, the unions had flagged concerns about job security, retirement benefits and pending dues in case of privatisation, sources had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Underlining the role of Allahabad in the Independence movement, President Ram Nath Kovind today said that places like 'Anand Bhavan', the residence of Jawaharlal Nehru and the birth place of Indira Gandhi, were the centre of several activities related to the freedom struggle.

Speaking at the convocation of the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology here, Kovind said the supreme sacrifice made by revolutionary Chandra Shekhar Azad has turned this city into a pilgrimage site.

He said that on several occasions, the activities of the national movement for freedom were guided from Anand Bhavan or Swaraj Bhavan, the ancestral home of Gandhi family founded by Motilal Nehru.

While writers and poets like Prem Chand, Surya Kant Tripathi 'Nirala', Sumitra Nandan Pant, Mahadevi Verma, 'Firaq' Gorakhpuri, Harivansh Rai 'Bachchan' were expressing themselves in literature here, scientists like Meghnath Saha, K Banerjee, Neel Ratan Dhar, Harish Chandra, Gorakh Prasad and S K Joshi were enlightening the people with their knowledge, he said.

"Leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Acharya Narendra Dev, Ram Manohar Lohia, Chandra Shekhar and Vishwanath Pratap Singh have enriched the political thought of the country," he said.

Speaking on the occasion, the President expressed happiness at the fact that since 2007 the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology has the status of an "Institute of National Importance".

He noted that talented students from this institution are contributing immensely in the country and abroad. The MNNIT, he said, should now set itself the goal of figuring in the global rankings of best technology institutions, a statement from the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

The President added that education is the foundation of our country, it said.

He said that in all the convocation ceremonies that he has attended, first as the governor of Bihar and then as the president, he saw girls outperforming boys. "I feel, when daughters march ahead, the nation marches ahead."



True education, apart from providing technical skills, makes people aware of their responsibilities towards society by building an ethical character, it said, adding that this is the real contribution of education to the nation.

Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya were also present at the occasion.

Maurya said that Allahabad has "all the institutions, except an IIT". "We hope, soon there will be an IIT here," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An evening of Kathak and Sufi music composed around Sindhi art and culture will be held here tomorrow.

Organised by Sindhi Academy, Department of Art, Culture and Languages, Government of Delhi, "Sajan Saan Rooh Rihaniyoon", which means two lovers' souls are talking to each other, will be held at the Kamani Auditorium.

Manish Sisodia, Delhi deputy chief minister, said that the Delhi government hopes to develop and present quality Sindhi programmes.

"Sindhi art and culture is a valuable part of Delhi's culture. Programmes like this are a great way of bringing forth the best of Sindhi tradition to a new audience. With a talented new Sindhi Academy committee in place, the Delhi government hopes to present and develop quality Sindhi programmes," he said.

The musical evening will feature an amalgamation of Kathak and Sufi music with six choreographic presentations like 'Leela Chanesar', 'Shumar', 'Naale Alakh', 'Raqs', 'Kiyan Rijhaya', and 'Tarana'.

The first performance of the evening will be by the disciples of Padmashree awardee Rani Karnaa.

With 'Leela Chanesar', the evening will move on to tell an iconic Sindhi tale of Leela and Chanesar, king and queen of an anciet city of Sindh.

Three abstract elements-- numbers, musical notes and mystic Aum-- will come together in the third performance, 'Shumar'.

With 'Raqs', the audience will get to experience the quintessential multiplicity of Kathak as a dance form.

The evening will conclude with 'Tarana', a traditional intraform of Kathak and Hindustani classical music. It is a dance composition in the medium and fast tempos, the vocal accompaniment here is based on mnemonic syllables.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Democrats are running for the Cayuga County Legislature's chair position, with one reaching out to the Republican minority for support.

Legislators Benjamin Vitale and Patrick Mahunik, who represent Districts 3 and 12 respectively, are seeking the chairman seat with current Chairman Keith Batman announcing that he will not consider a third year.

Vitale has received the majority of Democrats' support, gathering five of eight votes so far. Mahunik said he has two other Democrats' support, as well as the support of Republican legislators.

Minority Leader Paul Pinckney confirmed to The Citizen Friday that most if not all Republicans plan to back Mahunik, though he said that's always subject to change when the final vote comes through.

"We had a couple of people that said they'd be interested (in chair) if we had enough votes," Pinckney said. "All of our votes, we would still need some Democratic support. I don't think anybody is going to cross over to support a Republican when we're in the minority, so we looked at all angles, and at this point in time, we would move ahead with Pat and work in bipartisanship and get some things accomplished."

The 15-member Legislature will be comprised of seven Republicans and eight Democrats in 2018.

Batman said he's backing Vitale. Following the previous county Administrator Suzanne Sinclair's resignation in early 2017, Batman, Vitale, Majority Leader Aileen McNabb-Coleman and Cayuga County Treasurer Jim Orman became the interim administrators as a management team.

Batman said that experience Vitale has will be invaluable for new county administrator J. Justin Woods, who starts full-time with the county on Dec. 18.

Mahunik said he's running because he's not agreed with some of the ethics behind how the body has operated in his approximate decade of service. For example, he said, every year whoever is running for chair offers committee chair positions in return for support. That's something he said he will not do.

"I just think it's unethical, and I put my name out there," he said. "If I get beat on the floor, that's fine with me, but at least it's not by five people in a room," he added of the Democratic caucus.

According to local law, the chair position is a full-time job and earns a $30,000 salary. Batman said he's concerned that Mahunik will not have the time to devote to the post, considering Mahunik is the principal of Dryden High School.

Mahunik said he would not run if he didn't think he could do the job.

"I have a great crew around me, and if I need to step away, I can," he said. "I think we have a great administrator that doesn't need to be micromanaged at this point."

Mahunik pointed out that Vitale, too, has a full-time job. Vitale is the executive director of the Central New York Regional Market Authority. Vitale said his day job has very flexible hours, adding that he'd just worked at 3 a.m. on Friday. He added that his staff always helps him out, and he's considering retiring or semi-retiring.

"I've been part of the operations for almost a year or so, and it might be handy for the new administrator to be able to take a few steps and ask a couple of questions," he said. "I'm not looking to get my fingers in the day-to-day operations. I know the difference between policy and day-to-day stuff, but I do think it requires the time, and I understand how much that is, and I have that ability. I'm going to at least give the legislators that option."

In an interview with The Citizen on Wednesday, Batman cautioned that whoever takes on the role will have a lot to tackle. He highlighted the body's consideration of redistricting, increasing legislators' salaries, upgrades to Emerson Park, and resuming communication with the Cayuga Nation, among many other things.

"It's very important that the chair have a physical presence in the county office building," he said. "'Out of sight, out of mind' is cliche, but unfortunately it's very true. ... I guess if I had one piece of advice, don't come in every day. That communicates that you're too involved, too operational. Two or three days a week, absolutely, so people see you and talk to you, and particularly, the administrator can pop in."

The Legislature's reorganization meeting will take place 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 4. A chair is picked by a weighted majority vote, and if one is not chosen by Feb. 1, Cayuga County Clerk Sue Dwyer, a Republican, will be tasked with appointing one for the remainder of the year.
Jammu and Kashmir State Skill Development Mission has established career counselling and placement cells in Jammu and Srinagar capital cities, an official spokesman said today.

The cells will help in providing a platform to the youth to discover their potential and explore avenues pertaining to studies and career within and outside India, the spokesman said.

Aspirants can apply online for registration at www.jkssdm.org, and based on the fulfilment of the fixed criteria, candidates will be invited for counselling sessions at the centres. The JKSSDM has appointed nodal officers who will be overseeing the activities of the centres.

For enquiry and scheduling an appointment with the counsellors, aspirants can contact 9018103786 and 7006321018, he said.

The counsellors will assist the candidates by providing them with various career options. This practice will ensure that applicants make informed decisions while they select a course or opt for job based on their interest and aptitude.

Peer G N Suhail, mission director of the JKSSDM, said that career counselling and placement cell will guide students who want to pursue higher in local, national and international colleges and universities.

"We will also provide guidance about scholarships and the prescribed criteria such as TOEFL, IELTS, GRE etc. that is required for admission," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
There has been a shortfall of Rs 36,000 crore in projected revenues in the first four months post Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra said today.

While the projected collection at 14 per cent growth was Rs 1,72,000 crore, the actual figure realised had been Rs 1,36,000 crore, resulting in a deficit of Rs 36,000 crore for the first four months till November, Mitra, who is also a GST Council member, told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

GST was rolled out from July 1, this year.

He said the compensation amount, in case of revenue loss of the states after GST was Rs 55,000 crore. This amount semed inadequate in the collection figures as it did not gain traction.

According to Mitra, the main reason for the deficit was the inability of a vast section of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to register themselves on the GSTN portal.

"Due to this, many of them had gone back to the manual mode", he said.

In this regard, Mitra said he had urged the Centre to raise the compensation amount.

Meanwhile, Mitra informed that Shalimar Works of the state government had formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with a Bangladeshi ship building firm to manufacture ships here.

The Centre has accorded all the clearances for the SPV, he said.

Moreover, a city-based agro processing firm -- IFB Agro -- has expressed desire to set up a phyto-sanitary compliance unit at Haldia for a shrimp processing plant, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi-led air strikes have killed 28 Huthi rebels around Yemen's west coast, medics and security sources close to the insurgents said today, as government forces reported deadly clashes in the south.

The security sources said air strikes yesterday and today hit five towns controlled by the Huthis around 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Hodeida.

Medical sources said 28 Huthis were killed and 17 wounded in the attacks.

Yemeni government forces retook Beihan district in Shabwa province from the Huthis, their last stronghold in the oil- rich southern province, a senior officer said today.

The capture of Beihan came during clashes that killed 14 rebels and nine pro-government troops, the officer said.

There has been no let-up in the air campaign against the rebels that a Saudi-led coalition has been waging since March 2015.

The air strikes have intensified since the December 4 killing of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh at the hands of the Huthis after his alliance with the rebels collapsed.

At the same time, forces of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have stepped up attacks on the rebels and last week retook the Red Sea town of Khokha from the Huthis.

The security sources said new clashes broke out today as government forces tried to push towards Hodeida.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it was "bracing for further displacement and a spike in humanitarian needs as hostilities intensify in frontline areas on Yemen's west coast".

Hodeida is the main conduit for UN-supervised deliveries of food and medicine, but the port is controlled by the Huthis and remains closed, forcing the UN to divert aid supplies to other areas.

"To date we have deployed emergency relief items for 2,000 families in Hodeida, and a further 2,000 aid kits are on their way along with 2,000 emergency shelter kits," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"As the port of Hodeida remains closed an additional 43 containers with emergency, shelter and household aid, including plastic tarpaulins and blankets for more than 20,000 families, had to be diverted to Aden," it added.

More than 2,000 people have died of cholera in Yemen this year, adding to the 8,600 killed in the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and rebels since 2015.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Saudi-led air strikes have killed 28 Huthi rebels south of the port of Hodeida on Yemen's west coast, medics and security sources close to the insurgents said today.

The reports came as the UN refugee agency UNHCR warned of a new displacement of civilians in the area.

The security sources said the air strikes yesterday and today hit five towns controlled by the Huthis around 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Hodeida.

Medical sources said 28 Huthis were killed and 17 others wounded in the strikes.

There has been no let-up in the air campaign against the rebels that a Saudi-led coalition has been waging since March 2015.

The air strikes have intensified since the December 4 killing of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh at the hands of the Huthis after his alliance with the rebels collapsed.

At the same time forces of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have stepped up attacks on the rebels and last week retook the Red Sea town of Khokha from the Huthis.

The security sources said new clashes broke out today as government forces tried to push towards Hodeida.

UNHCR said it was "bracing for further displacement and a spike in humanitarian needs as hostilities intensify in frontline areas on Yemen's west coast".

Hodeida is the main conduit for UN-supervised deliveries of food and medicine but the rebel-held port is controlled by the Huthis and remains closed, forcing the UN to divert aid supplies to other areas.

"To date we have deployed emergency relief items for 2,000 families in Hodeida, and a further 2,000 aid kits are on their way along with 2,000 emergency shelter kits," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"As the port of Hodeida remains closed an additional 43 containers with emergency, shelter and household aid, including plastic tarpaulins and blankets for more than 20,000 families, had to be diverted to Aden," it added.

More than 2,000 people have died of cholera in Yemen this year, adding to the 8,600 killed in the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and rebels since 2015.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi today appealed to BJP workers to make people aware of beneficial programmes for dalits and backward classes of the NDA government at the Centre as well in Bihar.

The senior BJP leader asked workers to spread awareness about pro-poor schemes of both Centre and the state government while addressing party's state-level office-bearers on the inaugural day of a four-day training camp here, headquarter of Rohtas district.

"The Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the BJP-JD(U) government in Bihar are fully devoted to the poor, the weaker sections of the society, the Dalits the OBCs, the EBCs. Schemes of the central and the state governments are largely centred around villages and the poor", Modi said.

"BJP workers in the state ought to fan out across villages and tell the people about these pro-poor schemes and our motto of Sabka Sath and Sabka Vikas", he said.

In a veiled dig at Lalu Prasad's RJD, Modi said "the lantern is a thing of the past in Bihar. Every village of the state will be electrified by December 31 this year. When we came to power in 2005, electricity cables had reached only 20 per cent of the villages and even these hardly received any electricity supply".

"Separate feeders for the agriculture are being set up under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana. These will enable the farmers to use electricity in place of diesel which will bring down their cost of production and automatically result in a rise in their incomes", the Deputy CM said.

"We are also committed to equipping every household with toilet, providing power and gas connection to the poor, pucca (concrete) houses, wheat at the rate of Rs two per kg and rice at the rate of Rs three per kg", he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Director General, Accounts and Treasuries, Altaf Hassan Mirza today met senior officials, industry representatives and other stakeholders to discuss the switchover from the existing Treasury system to the modern Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) mechanism in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mirza held an interactive session with the stakeholders to discuss the preparation for the transition, an official spokesman said.

The DG apprised the participants about the benefits of the new system and how it will streamline the whole process of government payments.

He said the new system, besides being user-friendly, will root out corruption and make it easier to see real-time progress of all developmental projects and payments thereof.

He said the Ministry of Finance is proposing to bring radical reforms in the payments system of the state by switching over to the PAO system.

Riyaz Hussain, CAO, Jammu said PAO is a client-oriented, integrated application that aims at achieving operational efficiency across streams of public financial management system.

He said after implementation of the program, all amounts will get directly credited to beneficiary accounts, and will nurture transparency and establish a technically sound accounting management system in the state.

The meeting was attended by Director Accounts and Treasury K K Gupta, heads of various departments, chief engineers, representative of industry chambers, traders associations, contractors and other stakeholders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tassaduq Hussain Mufti today resigned as coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister's Grievance Cell amid reports that he set to join the Mehbooba Mufti government as a minister.

Tassaduq Mufti has submitted his resignation to Chief Secretary B B Vyas, an official spokesman said today. He was appointed coordinator, J&K CM's Grievance Cell, in May this year.

Decks are being cleared for the inclusion of Tassaduq Mufti, brother of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, in her ministry and getting him nominated to the legislative council, sources said.

According to PDP sources, 45-year-old Tassaduq Mufti is expected to get the tourism portfolio.

A cinematographer by profession, Tassaduq Mufti holds a Masters degree in Fine Arts from the American Center. He is also the the brain behind a five-minute short-film on the state's tourism department.

Tassaduq Mufti is expected to be nominated to the legislative council for a seat that fell vacant after the resignation of Vikramaditya Singh, the grandson of the last Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh, sources said adding that all formalities to nominate him to the council had been completed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) today took cognisance of a report about a teacher couple's sacking by a private school on their wedding day and asked the principal to appear before it on Monday.

Justice Bilal Nazki, chairperson of the commission took serious note of a item and directed the director, school of the state and principal of the Muslim Educational Institute, Pampore, to file a report on Monday, a SHRC spokesperson said.

"Besides, principal of the institute is directed to be present in person on the said date (Monday)," he added.

Tariq Bhat and Sumaya Bashir, residents of Tral town in Pulwama, were employed at Pampore Muslim Educational Institute for the past several years.

They alleged their services were abruptly terminated by the school management on November 30, the day they got married.

While the principal did not respond to calls for a comment on the sacking, chairman of the school Bashir Masoodi said the duo were relieved from their services as they were in a "romantic relationship" before getting married.

"They were having a romance and it is not good for the 2,000 students of the school and 200 staff members working there. This can adversely affect the students," Masoodi said.

The couple, however, claimed that they had an arranged marriage.

"Ours was an arranged marriage. We got engaged a few months ago and the entire school management knew about it as Sumaya hosted a party for the staff members soon after the engagement ceremony," Bhat said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A third Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire today, the health ministry in Ramallah said, after a man was shot dead in clashes northeast of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian ministry said Bassel Ibrahim, 24, was shot dead by Israeli forces in Anata, a town between the West Bank and Jerusalem, in protests against Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Earlier, two Palestinians died in clashes along the Gaza border, with seven killed in total since Trump's shock announcement last week.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three more women, including a high school friend of his daughter, have come forward to accuse veteran Hollywood star Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment.

In an account published by Variety, Cori Thomas said she was a minor when Hoffman exposed himself to her.

Thomas said she spent a Sunday afternoon with Hoffman and his daughter in 1980 when she was a 16-year-old student at the elite United Nations International School in New York, Variety reported.

She has alleged that she was left alone in Hoffman's hotel room after dinner as she waited for her mother to collect her. Thomas said the actor disappeared into the bathroom before coming back and "standing there naked."



She said Hoffman took his time in picking up the towel from the floor and then asked her to massage his feet, which she did.

Thomas said she was "saved" by her mother arriving downstairs. "I was humiliated. I was so mortified, I never said anything."



Melissa Kester said she was a recent college graduate when Hoffman allegedly sexually assaulted her while recording audio for the film "Ishtar".

Kester said she "sat in the bathroom crying. I thought, 'Oh my God.' I felt like I'd been raped. There was no warning."



A third woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Hoffman assaulted her in the back of a station wagon and manipulated her into a subsequent sexual encounter that left her traumatised, the trade magazine reported.

She said she was an extra when Hoffman offered to give her a ride home after a wrap party.

The new claims by the three women take the number of women who have accused the 80-year-old Oscar winner of sexual harassment to six.

Hoffman's lawyer has denied the claims, calling them "defamatory falsehoods".

The actor had offered an apology to the first woman, who interned on the set of his 1985 TV film "Death of a Salesman."



In a statement, he said the behaviour was "not reflective of who I am."



But he has not commented on the other accusations.

British comedian John Oliver recently grilled Hoffman on stage at a panel discussion where he angrily defended himself.

The expose on Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's three decades of sexual abuse has opened a floodgate in Hollywood, media and politics ending the career of many powerful men.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading.

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari today attacked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over a host of issues and questioned his government over school and public transport facilities in the city.

Tiwari claimed that private schools were sending notices to parents of school children asking them to pay Rs 10,000 to 40,000.

"I have got copies of notices from parents associations that clearly say that the Delhi government's Directorate of (DoE) has in a letter, dated October 17, allowed the schools to raise and realise increased fee from the parents," he said in a press conference.

The government should immediately withdraw the DoE letter that is enabling private schools to charge increased fee, he said.

Delhi today needs 10,000 buses and the courts too have been "forced" to intervene and direct the Kejriwal government to immediately buy buses, he said.

"The government has kept mum on the issue," he alleged.

Tiwari also claimed a large number of deaths of destitute in the city in the winter season this year and added that he would raise the issue in Parliament.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit today interacted with the general public and held discussions with officials here even as the DMK and the VCK staged demonstrations against the exercise.

This comes weeks after his meeting with officials in Coimbatore and Tirunelveli came in for criticism from the DMK and others who claimed it amounted to interference in the state's rights.

Purohit today visited a neighbourhood near here and interacted with the residents who listed their grievances and submitted petitions.

The governor had to take another route to visit the neighbourhood in view of the protests by DMK and VCK.

During his meeting with local residents, Purohit stressed the importance of toilets in households, outlining the features of Swachch Bharat campaign.

He also undertook a cleanliness drive by sweeping the road in which local officials participated.

The local residents apprised Purohit of their problems during his visit and sought sites for permanent dwelling units.

Cuddalore district collector Prashant M Wadnere accompanied the governor and briefed him about what the people said.

Purohit later held discussions with officials at the guesthouse and received petitions from the public there.

Opposing the governor meeting the public and receiving petitions, the DMK and the VCK cadres staged protests in which scores of party workers participated.

DMK's Cuddalore strongman and former minister MRK Panneerselvam, leading the protest, said Purohit's act went against the spirit of autonomy of states.

He said Tamil Nadu had always fought for states' autonomy.

"Manilathil Suyatchi and Madhiyil Kootatchi," is a several decades old slogan of the DMK which means "Autonomy in state and federalism at the Centre."



Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President Su Thirunavukkarasar alleged that the "governor is acting as if this is governor's (President's rule when governor acts as the de facto head of the executive) rule."



Speaking to reporters at Madurai, he asked if governors in the BJP-ruled states were visiting districts and holding discussions with officials in the absence of ministers or the chief minister.

Purohit has already visited some districts including Coimbatore and Kanyakumari.

A political row erupted last month when he began the exercise. Though ruling AIADMK did not see anything wrong in the governor's action, DMK and other opposition parties claimed it amounted to interference in the state's rights.

The governor's office denied the charges and said the purpose of Purohit's meeting in Coimbatore was to seek a first-hand information about various welfare and development schemes and programmes and their implementation.

It dismissed as a "figment of imagination" the opposition charge that Purohit was acting at the behest of the Central government and said he would continue such meetings in future.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Delhi University Lecturer S A R Geelani today strongly criticised the proposed law on triple talaq describing it as "politically motivated".

To a question on Kashmir issues, Geelani said, "Neither India nor Pakistan, but the people of Kashmir valley should have the right to decide their own fate."



Speaking at a people's convention on various human rights here, Geelani, who was arrested on sedition charge in early 2016 in Delhi, said that people should be persuaded first for their acceptance of any law before its legislation.

"Even if the legislation against triple talaq is passed in the Parliament, its implementation will be very tough without its acceptance by the Muslim society," he said.

Stating that there are different schools in Islam, Geelani said "you need to pursue people on new legislation first before bringing it to Parliament for legislation."



"Such a legislation is politically motivated and the government must have something in its mind," Geelani observed going against the Centre's nod to a draft law against triple talaq to make it a criminal offence.

The Delhi Police had arrested Geelani in connection with the sedition charges slapped on him for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India in the national capital in early 2016.

At the Press Club event on February 10, 2016, in which Geelani was present on the dais along with three other speakers, a group allegedly had shouted slogans hailing Afzal Guru.

Speaking on the occasion, Geelani also condemned capital punishment raising questions on its use.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone today, the White House said.

"President Trump spoke with Putin earlier today and a read out will be sent later tonight," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

No other details were immediately available.

The phone call between the two leaders came after Putin's annual press conference in which he praised Trump.

Citing the markets and consumer confidence, Putin said Trump had "some quite serious achievements" to his credit in the short time that he has been the president of the United States.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump today thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone for "acknowledging America's strong economic performance", the White House said.

The phone call between the two leaders came after Putins annual press conference in which he praised Trump.

"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference," the White House said in a readout of the call.

During the phone call, the two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the "very dangerous" situation in North Korea, the White House said.

Citing the markets and consumer confidence, Putin said Trump had "some quite serious achievements" to his credit in the short time that he has been the president of the United States.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of United Nations human rights experts says Sri Lanka has yet to respect individual rights, with people kept in custody for excessive periods pending investigations, and reliance on confessions that are often extracted under torture or duress.

A three-member delegation of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded a 10-day visit to the island nation today.

They told reporters that individuals are being deprived of their rights in a range of facilities such as police stations, prisons, open work camps, centers for juveniles, mental health institutions and rehabilitation camps for former combatants and drug addicts.

They said detainees in general do not enjoy basic guarantees of due process such as immediate access to legal counsel.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UN today harshly criticised the mass-hanging of 38 men at a prison in southern Iraq this week, urging Baghdad to immediately halt all executions.

Iraq yesterday hanged 38 jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences at a prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah, according to provincial authorities.

It was the largest number of executions in Iraq on a single day since September 25, when 42 people were put to death in the same prison.

"We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution on Thursday," United Nations human rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.

The hangings, she warned, "once again raises huge concerns about the use of the death penalty in the country".

The UN had determined that all of the 38 executed prisoners were men and had been convicted for terrorism- related crimes, but could say nothing more about their identities, she said.

A prison source however told AFP that they were all Iraqis, but that one also held Swedish nationality.

The executions came after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi today declared victory against the Islamic State group after a three-year campaign by government forces backed by a US-led coalition to retake territory seized by the jihadists.

The UN and rights watchdog Amnesty International have repeatedly voiced concerns about the use of the death penalty in Iraq, which ranks among the world's top executioners, after China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"Given the flaws of the Iraqi justice system, it appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases," Throssell warned.

"This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life," she said.

The UN has learned of 106 executions in Iraq so far this year, including the mass-hangings in September.

"We once again urge the Iraqi authorities to halt all executions, establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty and carry out an urgent and comprehensive review of the criminal justice system," Throssell said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The decision by US President Donald Trump to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel is a "bomb" thrown at the entire Middle East, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today.

Erdogan, who has sought to steer often disunited Muslim nations into a coordinated response on the issue, said Muslims would never accept the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The US step is a "new bomb thrown into the lap of the Middle East," Erdogan said in an address marking the opening of a new metro line in Istanbul.

Reaffirming his past accusations that Israel is a "terror state" because of its treatment of the Palestinians, Erdogan added: "Trying to make Jerusalem capital of a terror state is not a situation that can be accepted by Muslims."



On Wednesday, Erdogan chaired a summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) where leaders declared East Jerusalem - which most countries consider to be under Israeli occupation - to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

They also urged the world to follow suit and recognise East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

But the participants did not agree any concrete measures or sanctions, with the OIC riven by divisions including those between Shiite Iran and the Gulf's Sunni kingpin Saudi Arabia.

Both Riyadh and its top regional ally the United Arab Emirates sent lower-level officials rather than leaders to the summit, in a possible snub for Ankara.

Erdogan did not touch on this but urged Muslims to take stronger action or risk the consequences.

"The Jerusalem decision is a harbinger of new operations targeting the Islamic world," he said.

"If Muslims fail to show the necessary reaction on this issue within the law, believe me there will be more to come."



In earlier comments, Erdogan had said Turkey was launching initiatives aimed at forcing an annulment of the American decision at the United Nations.

"No country in the world is above international law," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court today granted bail to a woman director of two Dubai-based firms, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case arising out of the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper scam.

Justice A K Pathak enlarged on bail Shivani Rajiv Saxena, saying that she has been in custody for five months and a supplementary prosecution complaint (charge sheet) has already been filed against her and the trial was likely to take time.

Saxena, a director of Dubai-based M/s UHY Saxena and M/s Matrix Holdings, was arrested by the Enforcement Direcotrate (ED) on July 16 and remanded in judicial custody.

The court asked her to furnish a personal bond of Rs one lakh and two sureties of the like amount and directed her not to leave India without prior permission of the trial court.

"Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, the woman is admitted to bail," the court said.

The court imposed several bail conditions on her including that she should forthwith deposit her passport with the trial court and give her mobile number and address in India to the investigating officer of the case.

It noted that the offences alleged against her under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) were punishable for a maximum sentence of seven years.

Saxena, 53, got the relief in her second attempt as the court had in September dismissed her earlier bail plea. She was also denied the relief by the trial court.

Senior advocate Geeta Luthra, appearing for Saxena, argued that the woman has not been chargesheeted by the CBI in the main case of predicate offence but only the ED has chargesheeted her under the PMLA.

She contended that the accused in the predicate offence as well as in the co-accused in the money laundering case have already been granted bail. Saxena had also cooperated in the investigation in the case, she said.

Central Government Standing Counsel Ripudaman Bhardwaj, appearing for the ED, opposed the bail plea contending that she was actively involved in laundering the proceeds of crime and in kickbacks in the AgustaWestland scam.

He argued that the offence is serious in nature and sufficient material has been collected showing her involvement in the crime and if released on bail, there are chances of her eviding the process of the law as she is a Dubai resident.

Saxena was nabbed by the ED from Chennai. She and the companies have been chargesheeted by the ED under various sections of the PMLA.

Saxena and her husband Rajiv Saxena are residents of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. The charge sheet contains her name and that of her husband, who is also a director in the two firms.

Rajiv Saxena has been evading ED summons and not joining the probe, the ED had alleged. The agency has so far not arrayed him as an accused.

The ED has alleged that the two Dubai-based firms and Shivani Saxena were the ones through whom "the proceeds of crime have been routed and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares among others".

It has claimed that its probe found that AgustaWestland, United Kingdom, had "paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks" through two Tunisia-based firms.

The ED, in this case, had also arrested Delhi-based businessman Gautam Khaitan who is currently out on bail.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanica's British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A World Bank inspection panel, which had recommended a probe into the charges of forcible land pooling and others, against the Andhra Pradesh government for the construction of capital in Amaravati, has now sought six months time to decide if a probe is required or not.

The AP government is expecting USD 300 million loan from the World Bank for Amaravati Sustainable Capital City Development Project.

In September this year, the panel had visited Amaravati to look into the complaints it received from some farmers, who alleged that they were forced to part their land, and also claimed harm from a land pooling scheme (LPS) being implemented to assemble the land required for the city, as well as from other project activities.

The "requesters" (farmers and other stake holders) claim harm related to their livelihoods, environment and food security.

On September 27, 2017, the panel submitted its report and recommendation to the World Bank Board of Executive Directors. It recommended "an investigation into the alleged issues of harm and related potential non-compliance with bank policies, especially relating to involuntary resettlement".

On November 27 this year, the bank management submitted to the panel an addendum offering clarifications, an update on project preparation and additional actions to "complement and clarify" the actions presented in its July 21, 2017 response in order to fully address the requesters' concerns.

The management indicated the addendum was based on the recent field missions and discussions with the panel.

"Based on the addendum and the proposed actions, the panel deferred its recommendation for up to six months as to whether an investigation is warranted. The board on December 12, approved the panel decision to defer its recommendation and to report back to the board in the next six months," the World Bank said yesterday in its project update.

Officials of Andhra Pradesh Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA), the implementing agency of the capital, were not immediately available for comments.

The total financing for the project is USD 715 million, of which the World Bank lending is proposed to be USD 300 million through an IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development )investment project financing loan.

The AP government is providing USD 215 million for the project, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is considering co-financing the project by providing USD 200 million.

The state government has so far pooled over 33,000 acres from farmers for construction of the new capital under different categories of agreements.

The Bank's financing is planned to be used within the 217 sq km area designated for the development of Amaravati Capital City in Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh. The Bank will help finance infrastructure spread across 26 revenue villages.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The West Bengal government is planning to upgrade facilities at all ESI hospitals in the state in two phases, a senior official of the health department said today.

In the first phase, five hospitals in Maniktala, Budge Budge, Asansol, Serampore and Uluberia, will be modernised with adequate facilities for critical patients.

"We will set up intensive care units (ICUs) and sick newborn care units (SNCUs) at these ESI hospitals," the official told PTI, adding that the decision was made after a survey was conducted at these establishments.

West Bengal, at present, has 14 ESI hospitals in Kamarhati, Sealdah, Serampore, Belur, Baltikuri, Uluberia, Kalyani, Gourhati, Budge Budge, Maniktala, Asansol, Bandel, Durgapur and Thakurpukur.

The one in Manicktala, which is a referral hospital, has around 500 beds while all other hospitals collectively have around 3000 beds.

The ESI, Sealdah, houses oncology and pain management units while the one in Belur in Howrah district is exclusively meant for treating tuberculosis (TB) patients.

"The sole idea is to reach out to people who mostly depend on these ESI hospitals," the senior government official said.

Employees' State Insurance (ESI) is a self-financing social security and health insurance scheme for employees of the organized sector.

Workers registered under the scheme are entitled to medical treatment for themselves and their dependents, unemployment cash benefit in certain contingencies and maternity benefits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Maharashtra government today informed the Bombay High Court that it will constitute a special Disaster Management Authority for Mumbai and its suburbs by January next year.

The government also told the HC that it will come up with a crisis management plan to assess prevalence of water scarcity and to deal with water crises and drought situations across the state.

The submissions came while a bench of justices AS Oka and MS Sonak was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by Sanjay Lakhe Patil seeking information on measures taken by the state for drought mitigation, especially in areas like Marathwada and Vidarbha.

During the previous hearings in the case, it had come to light that the state did not have a separate crisis management plan to deal with water scarcity across the state.

It was also revealed that there was no separate disaster management authority for Mumbai and its suburbs even though the same was mandated by statutory laws.

While the component of drought has been integrated into the State Disaster Management Plan, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Authority has been given the ad hoc charge of disaster management body, the state had informed the court.

The court, however, had expressed its dissatisfaction at the above submissions and directed the state's counsel advocate Abhinandan Vagyani to take instructions and make a categorical statement on whether or not the state government intended to constitute a separate disaster management Authority for the city and its suburbs.

In compliance with the court's directions, the state today said it will constitute the Authority and also come up with a crisis management plan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US will take "unilateral steps in areas of divergence" with Pakistan in its fight against terrorism, the Pentagon on Friday told Congress and insisted that there must be "fundamental change" in the way Islamabad deals with terrorist safe havens on its territory.

In its first report on Afghanistan to Congress after President Donald Trump announced his new Afghan and South Asia strategy, the Pentagon said it will be a part of a whole-of-government, regional strategy to isolate the Taliban from "sources of external support" and to mitigate any malign influence from outside actors.

"Our military-to-military relationship with Pakistan remains critical to the success of our mutual interests in the region," said the semiannual report titled 'Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan' that covers events during the period from June 1 to November 30 this year.

"To move forward, we must see fundamental changes in the way Pakistan deals with terrorist safe-havens in its territory," the report said.

"To induce that change, we will work across the US government, using a range of tools to expand our cooperation with Pakistan in areas where our interests converge and to take unilateral steps in areas of divergence," it said.

The Af-Pak border region remains a sanctuary for various groups, including al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISIS-K, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, it said.

"Sanctuary on the Pakistani side and presence on the Afghan side remain security challenges for both countries and pose a threat to regional security and stability," the department of defence said.

Although Pakistani military operations have disrupted some militant sanctuaries, certain extremist groups - such as the Taliban and the Haqqani Network - retain freedom of movement in Pakistan, it said.

"The United States continues to convey to all levels of Pakistani leadership the importance of taking action against all terrorist and extremist groups," the Pentagon said.

Increased collaboration between Afghanistan and Pakistan is critical to maintaining pressure on militant and terrorist groups and for meeting the enduring security requirements on both sides of the shared border, it said.

"The trust deficit resulting from Pakistan's support of and inaction against Afghan-oriented extremists, and Pakistan's concerns about terrorist attacks launched from Afghanistan, hampers the bilateral military collaboration required to achieve enduring security," the Pentagon said.

According to the report, the hard-won gains in Afghanistan remain fragile but are worth defending.

Under the new strategy, US diplomatic, military, and economic resources are aligned in support of a negotiated settlement to this long-running war.

"We have recommitted to helping the Afghan government and people navigate through these challenges with a new approach that leverages additional support from allies, partners, and regional actors," it said.

"Our commitment is enduring but not unlimited, our support is not a blank check. As long as the Afghan government continues to show real progress and make real reforms, we will continue to support them as our strategic partners in the fight against terrorism," the report said.

"The Taliban cannot win on the battlefield. They must know that their only path to peace and political legitimacy is through a negotiated settlement with the Afghan government," it asserted.
By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's state steel company will start producing automotive steel in a $1 billion partnership with ArcelorMittal in three years, a top government official said, helping cut imports of high-grade steel as the country revs up car manufacturing.

Steel Authority of India Ltd has approved entering into a "non-binding" agreement of terms on the joint venture with the world's biggest maker of the alloy, the state steelmaker said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming a report from Dec. 7 on the impending approval. (http://bit.ly/2BqSrNB)

SAIL said a definitive agreement with ArcelorMittal would be "finalised in due course subject to financial viability", but Steel Secretary Aruna Sharma told on Friday the joint venture would start production in three years.

Sharma, the top civil servant in the steel ministry, which controls SAIL through the government's 75 percent stake in the steelmaker, did not elaborate on the time or other details.

SAIL spokesman M.C. Agrawal said the company and ArcelorMittal have cleared the first stage in the process of signing a formal agreement on the automotive steel venture, but that it was too early to talk about any production deadline.

An ArcelorMittal spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

SAIL and ArcelorMittal signed a preliminary understanding in 2015 to jointly produce 1.2 million tonnes of automotive steel a year, but disagreements over commercial terms have delayed the venture that would give the Luxembourg-based company a foothold in the world's fastest growing steel market.

ArcelorMittal has also been looking for other way into the Indian steel market, planning to bid for debt-ridden firms such as Bhushan Steel, Essar Steel and Bhushan Power and Steel, reported in September.

India is banking on the SAIL partnership with ArcelorMittal to cut imports of high-grade auto steel, which mostly comes from Japan and South Korea. India is a major automobile producer and exporter, and the country is stepping up manufacturing under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" campaign.

Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor and Tata Motors are among the top-selling carmakers in the country. India is forecast to be the world's third-largest car market by 2020, up from fifth-largest now.

For money-losing SAIL, the deal would help it rise up the value chain and compete more effectively with private rivals such as JSW Steel and Tata Steel, both of which already make auto-grade steel.

Billionaire Sajjan Jindal's steel-to-power JSW Group has built enough capacity to make 2.3 million tonnes a year of auto-grade steel with technology from Japan's JFE Holdings, and plans to diversify into electric car manufacturing using its own steel.

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Tom Hogue)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's stalled projects with South Korea will resume as ties between the two nations thaw, South Korea's presidential office spokesman on Friday quoted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as saying.

Many South Korean businesses will benefit from better ties, and many Chinese are expected to visit South Korea during the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Yoon Young-chan told reporters in text messages, citing the Chinese premier.

"We are aware that some Korean companies are struggling but the investment environment has not worsened and if China-South Korea relations improve, South Korean companies will have many benefits," Li said, according to Yoon.

The comments were made as South Korea's President Moon visited China this week.

Ties had chilled for nearly a year as Beijing was upset over the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), in South Korea, as a protective step in the crisis over the weapons programmes of North Korea.

China fears THAAD's powerful radar could look deep into its territory, threatening its own security, and says its deployment will do nothing to help ease tension with the North.

Li alluded to the troubled ties when speaking to Moon in front of reporters, saying both sides looked forward to the warmth of spring.

"We should say, springtime is expected," Li added. "We also all want China and South Korea relations to more forward in a stable and healthy manner."

South Korea has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the February winter Olympics, hoping they will serve as a turning point for peace on the Korean peninsula.

(Reporting by Jane Chung and Cynthia Kim; Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) - China's stalled projects with South Korea will resume as ties between the two nations thaw, South Korea's presidential office spokesman on Friday quoted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang as saying.

Many South Korean businesses will benefit from better ties, and many Chinese are expected to visit South Korea during the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Yoon Young-chan told reporters in text messages, citing the Chinese premier.

"We are aware that some Korean companies are struggling but the investment environment has not worsened and if China-South Korea relations improve, South Korean companies will have many benefits," Li said, according to Yoon.

The comments were made as South Korea's President Moon Jae-in visited China this week.

Ties had chilled for nearly a year as Beijing was upset over the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system, Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), in South Korea, as a protective step in the crisis over the weapons programmes of North Korea.

China fears THAAD's powerful radar could look deep into its territory, threatening its own security, and says its deployment will do nothing to help ease tension with the North.

China and South Korea agreed in October to normalise exchanges and move past the dispute, which froze trade and business exchanges.

Li alluded to the troubled ties when speaking to Moon in front of reporters, saying both sides looked forward to the warmth of spring.

"We should say, springtime is expected," Li added. "We also all want China and South Korea relations to move forward in a stable and healthy manner."

Relations were in a "crucial period" where the spat over THAAD might end, China's official Xinhua agency said in a commentary, adding that exiting the low point depended on whether South Korea "keeps its word and acts resolutely".

By freezing political relations and thwarting trade cooperation, THAAD had posed "the greatest threat to diplomatic relations in 25 years", it said.

South Korea has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the February winter Olympics, hoping they will serve as a turning point for peace on the Korean peninsula.

(Reporting by Jane Chung and Cynthia Kim; Additional reporting by Christine Kim in SEOUL and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Huw Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - Bankers may be given a cribsheet to help the industry push for close ties with the European Union following Brexit, according to a document drawn up for the organisation that promotes Britain as a financial centre.

The document, reviewed by Reuters, points to growing concerns at the TheCityUK lobby group that its core messages on Brexit - that Britain must secure a transition deal and mutual market access with the EU or risk losing thousand of jobs - are getting muddied in the press and parliament.

However, the proposal has also drawn fire from within the financial services sector that it could be seen as an attempt to stamp out alternative opinions.

It could set a "dangerous precedent" by "crushing any kind of opposing view," Helena Morrissey, head of personal investing at Legal & General Investment Management and a prominent figure in London's City financial district, told .

The document, drafted for a key TheCityUK working group on Brexit issues, refers to mounting concerns among members about the "prominence of ideas and proposals" that could undermine the financial sector's "key messages and asks" on Brexit.

There is an "opportunity to challenge ideas" that do not represent the mainstream industry view in private meetings. "A private document for TheCityUK members could be compiled, listing key ideas and themes that might have to be rebutted in such meetings," the document said.

Such a cribsheet could be used when speaking with lawmakers and journalists that have no specialism in finance, it said.

Bankers have warned that London's future as a top financial centre and tax source depends on maintaining close relations with the EU after Brexit. However, the UK government is indicating it may seek a trade deal similar to the one between Canada and the EU, which leaves out financial services.

A person familiar with TheCityUK document said it was partly aimed at Barney Reynolds, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling.

In his "The Art of the No Deal" paper, Reynolds said a mutual recognition of rules between Britain and the EU was the best solution, but that there were alternatives that banks could consider if there is no deal.

Reynolds, who sits on TheCityUK's advisory board, said he was not aware of what prompted the document. "As a regulatory lawyer I'm focussed on helping clients understand what the law currently says and what is legally possible," he told .

CRITICAL TIME

TheCityUK wants a clear message on Brexit at a critical time for banks as the government starts talks on future EU trading relations, a financial industry official said.

"A lot of what Barney argues for is to say no deal is not such a bad outcome. It's so kind of opposite. TheCityUK's concern is that this dilutes the pragmatic message they are trying to get across," the official said.

In a statement, TheCityUK said it was "focused on ensuring the core Brexit priorities of the industry are widely understood and communicated - those being urgent transition, mutual market access based on mutual recognition and regulatory cooperation and mutual access to talent."

"Both the Chancellor (UK finance minister) and David Davis (Brexit minister) have acknowledged the importance of these priorities," it added.

Reynolds has said that by drawing on existing international laws and rights, the UK financial services sector could function successfully with minimal adjustments if there is no trade deal with the EU.

"It's law, you can rely on it. It's used in Asia and the United States," he told a meeting of think tank Politeia this month attended by prominent lawmakers who support Brexit.

"Those who move operations will lose money, and customers will pay more. This is a fixable situation."

Clare Woodman, chief operating officer at Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities, has said Reynolds' ideas have not been backed by EU authorities and were not practical with Brexit just over a year away.

(Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Mark Potter)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Michael Nienaber

BERLIN (Reuters) - The frustration of Roberto Azevedo was evident when, as director general of the World Trade Organization, he summed up the results of a three-day ministerial conference in Buenos Aires in the past week. There were simply none.

The delegates of more than 160 countries from around the globe failed to reach any new agreements in the face of stinging U.S. criticism of the WTO and vetoes from other countries. At the end, they were not even able to agree on a joint communique.

And a further blow could strike in the coming week when Republican U.S. lawmakers aim to pass sweeping changes to the tax code which may introduce protectionist measures critics say are at odds with WTO rules.

"In retrospect, 2017 could mark the beginning of the end of the rules-based free trade order and the system unravelling," said Andre Sapir, senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. He called it a "big worry".

U.S. President Donald Trump, propelled to power by his election promise to put "America First" and protect U.S. workers against what he views as unfair trade practices from China and others, has weakened the WTO as a forum to settle disputes.

In the past months, Washington has blocked the appointment of several WTO appeals judges, a move which could paralyse the body's dispute settlement system for years to come.

"The new U.S. administration does not want to work within multilateral frameworks. It wants bilateral deals," Sapir said.

As a critic, he says, "This would lead to a system in which the stronger ones outplay the smaller ones, it would be the law of the jungle."

This apparent change of course in Washington is puzzling for free trade advocates who argue that the United States for decades supported and benefitted from multilateral decision-making and rules-based arbitration enshrined in the WTO statutes.

THREAT TO GROWTH

For them, Trump's protectionist rhetoric is a threat to global growth and prosperity since tariffs and other trade barriers such as import restrictions, registration formalities or state aid for domestic suppliers push up costs for everyone.

The slow dismantling of the international trade order could also hurt mid-term export prospects for European countries and Germany in particular at a time when the euro zone economy is benefitting from a surge in demand for its manufactured goods.

A rebound in exports is one of the key drivers of Germany's economic upswing as they still account for more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product. The United States is Germany's most important single export destination after the bloc of European Union countries.

But the combat lines have also become blurry.

In a sign that other countries share Trump's concerns about Chinese trade practices, the European Union and Japan joined Washington in the past week in vowing to combat market-distorting policies that fuel excess industrial capacity, including subsidies for state-owned enterprises and technology transfer requirements.

Following the fruitless WTO meeting, the U.S. tax overhaul could now be another nail in the coffin of free trade. The European Union and the finance ministers of Europe's five biggest economies have sounded an alarm over elements of the plan.

In a letter sent to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said that the inclusion of "certain less conventional" tax provisions would contravene WTO rules and violate double taxation treaties.

In a separate letter, the European Commission warned Mnuchin the planned overhaul contained elements that risk seriously hampering trade and investment flows between the world's two biggest economic blocs.

Some of the provisions would discriminate against foreign business in the United States, the Commission said, while the Federation of German Industries (BDI) - the biggest lobby group for manufacturers in Europe's largest economy - was more blunt.

"Clearly protectionist," it said of some proposed excise taxes.

What actually emerges from Washington remains unclear, but even if U.S. lawmakers decide to delete some of the disputed measures in their final bill, Trump is still wedded to a unilateral approach to trade that does not require consultations with Congress.

So far, he has not fulfilled campaign threats such as withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or imposing steep import tariffs on imported goods such as German and Japanese cars manufactured abroad.

But Trump has ordered the U.S. Commerce Department to conduct an investigation into whether steel imports threaten U.S. national security and whether broad import restrictions should be imposed.

European allies have warned Trump that such a move could trigger a global trade war since trading partners could retaliate and impose trade barriers on certain U.S. goods that they label as a threat to their national security.

Chad P. Bown, senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Trump's approach may not end up targeting China, but will hit partners such as Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea - most of which have little to do with the concerns the U.S. has with China.

In a research note entitled "Trump Is A New Kind of Protectionist - He Operates in Stealth Mode", Bown warned that Trump's version of protectionism could result in higher costs for U.S. industries that use steel and aluminium.

But for Trump the drive is a matter of "America First" whether the international trade order established after World War Two gets in the way or not.

(Reporting by Michael Nienaber; additional reporting by Gernot Heller and Tom Koerkemeier in Berlin and by David Morgan and Susan Cornwell in Washington Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- It seems deterministic that new energy vehicle (NEV) subsidy will phase out, but recently the rumor goes that in 2018, the subsidy will be reduced faster than originally planned and the rules may be modified. One of the changes may be that NEV with a range of no more than 150km shall never receive subsidies.

A person in charge of a local power battery company told the media, The subsidy policy will have obvious changes and be more favorable to NEVs with high energy density. Only those NEVs with high energy density can be qualified to get subsidy. Since LFP battery cannot reach the target of high energy density, it is possible for the whole industry to shift to ternary batteries.

If the above speculation turns out to be true, it will be a big blow for those small-size NEV producers. And also the change may speed the elimination of those which aims at subsidies and credits, but have little technology. All those consequences may reshape the business modes of NEV manufactures and battery providers.

An expert from the Chinese Automotive Technology Research Centre said that related departments are considering introducing supporting tax policies. For example, buyers of NEVs can receive a certain income tax deduction.
It may have taken some time--a little over two decades at that, but now it seems to be happening. After trying to initially kill the desi brands it bought over from the Chauhans of Parle back in 1993, American beverages major Coca Cola is finally giving Thums Up and Maaza their due. Earlier this week, the firm launched a new variant of the mango drink--Maaza Gold, a thicker, smoother and more premium variant of India's largest selling fruit drink brand. It followed the introduction for the first time ever of a variant of its other desi bestselling fizzy drink Thums Up last month. Coca Cola says it expects both Thums UP and Maaza to become billion-dollar brands by 2020 and 2023 respectively. If they do that, they would be the first homegrown brands to achieve such a scale.

In the case of Maaza, the addition of a variant isn't a first. In 2005 Coca Cola had introduced an orange and pineapple versions of the drink but they had a short life-span due to a tepid response from the market. In contrast, the company has persisted gloriously with its other global fruit brand Minute Maid even though it also did not initially find favour with consumers in India. While Maaza is getting an additional variant only now, Minute Maid, despite being a much smaller brand already has over 10 versions in the market.

It is an even more glaring story with Thums Up. When Coca Cola had acquired the brand in 1993, Thums Up was by far the largest selling beverage in the market with a 36 percent share. But it competed with Coca Cola's own mother brand Coke directly and for the next few years the company tried to replace one with the other. With limited success. In this confusion, its arch-rival PepsiCo gained in the bargain in the mid-90s.

A course correction happened soon after--Thums UP was propped up and brand ambassadors were roped in-- but Coca Cola has never really been able to shed its perception of step-motherly treatment to the desi brands it had acquired. Thums UP's eventual ceding of ground to stablemate Sprite as the largest selling beverage in India a few years back adds to that perception.

The quick burial given to some of the other brands that were acquired from Parle along with Thums UP and Maaza, like Gold Spot (it competed with Fanta) and Citra (competitor to Sprite) and the relative lack of push to Limca are often quoted as evidence. The company has forever denied such conjectures but is never open to share the money spent on campaigns or the distribution spread given to the desi brands versus its core global brands.

"It is an open secret that Coca-Cola tried hard to kill the local brands it owned. It managed to do so with a few but Thums UP and Maaza are resilient brands and eventually, they had to concede that these wouldn't just die," says Arvind Singhal, chairman and managing director at consulting firm Technopak. "It is not so much of desi versus videshi. It is simply that the multi-national firms have their own legacy and their own brands to promote."

So why this sudden change of heart?

For one, unlike in the past Coca Cola today is chasing growth in India that has eluded it in recent times. Over the last 3 years, it has suffered a 2 percentage point decline in market share in the industry-from 35.5 percent in 2014 to 33.5 percent in 2016. The main concern is the gradual but definite shift in consumer preference away from fizzy drinks to healthier beverages.

Coca Cola retains its hold in the carbonates segment but unfortunately, the segment itself is lagging overall industry growth. It grew at a relatively modest 3.9 percent between 2011 and 2016, whereas the overall soft drink market grew by 9.7 percent during the same period. In the last 3 years alone, the share of carbonated beverages in the Rs 60,000 crore soft drink market in India has come down from 51 percent in 2014 down to 46 percent last year. Adding a new stronger flavored variant to the Thums Up is expected to bring some zing back into this category.

With the Maaza Gold in tow, it is part of a strategy that sees Coca Cola expand and try and further strengthen its presence in segments it is already well entrenched while foraying into newer territories to tap the changing preference of the market. It is readying RimZim, a mixed spiced soda drink which was another product it had acquired from Parle, for a national launch. Similarly, a new sub-brand of its packaged water nameplate--Kinley Flavors is also being launched that will offer ethnic flavored sparkling water to the market.

It is a response to increasing competition from strong local firms like Dabur and Parle Bisleri and a host of upstarts like Hector Beverages, Xalta, and Fresca. Despite its leadership position, it is also a tacit acceptance that somewhere Coca Cola India has missed the pulse of the market. On some occasions, the company itself has admitted as much. "We have leader brands. Sprite, Maaza, Thumps Up, in particular, in their categories have tremendous equity. Our job now is to leverage those brands to help grow the industry,"said John Murphy, President, Asia Pacific in an address to investorsin USlast month. "The triangle in the middle. The bottom half of the pyramid in India, almost 300 million people, we have tried so many times in my time in the Coca-Cola system to crack the code there and we haven't done it. But we've got a team of pretty smart people who want to have the legacy to be the first to do so." The realization, albeit late, that Thums UP, Maaza, Limca and RimZim--quintessentially Indian brands, have a role to play in cracking that code in India, is welcome. The old-timers can now say " We told you so".
The Supreme Court today extended the deadline for Aadhaar linking with all government-sponsored welfare schemes and services to March 31, 2018. The court verdict came days after the government expressed its willingness to extend the date for mandatory linking of unique identify number to avail the benefit of state-run services.

The government had earlier set a deadline of December 31 for linking Aadhaar with several financial services and welfare schemes. The apex court will commence the final hearing on the petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself from January 17, 2018.

While the top court is yet to decide the fate of Aadhaar, here's a recap of how we got here:

2012: A former High Court judge, K S Puttaswamy, files a petition contending that Aadhaar violates fundamental rights of equality and privacy. Before long, several more petitioners-including activists Aruna Roy, Bezwada Wilson and Nikhil Dey-move court so the apex court decided to link all the 20-plus Aadhaar-related petitions to this case. Apart from privacy, the petitioners objected to Aadhaar on grounds ranging from exclusion and denial of benefits to national security on account of indiscriminate enrolment of illegal immigrants.



2013: In September 2013, the Supreme Court makes it clear that the consent of an individual is indispensable for Aadhaar. Pointing at the shortcomings of the Aadhaar scheme, a Supreme Court bench passes an interim order that the UID number cannot be made mandatory for gas connections, vehicle registration, scholarships, marriage registration, salaries and provident fund. Backing the mandatory clause, the UIDAI had claimed that PSU oil companies detected around 45,000 duplicate connections on the basis of Aadhaar numbers, and blocking these would save the exchequer around Rs 23 crore annually.

The court also says the Aadhaar cards should not be issued to illegal immigrants as it would legitimise their stay in the country. In another hearing the following month, the apex court dismisses the Centre's plea to reconsider its earlier verdict and makes it clear that no further revision pleas will be entertained.



March 2014: The Supreme Court directs the Centre to immediately withdraw any instructions making Aadhaar mandatory. The Centre's stand that it had already enrolled 53 crore citizens till September 30, 2013 after spending Rs 3,494 crore, a huge amount that should not not go down the drain, failed to sway the bench. "I have received a lot of letters which say that Aadhaar card is mandatory despite court orders. We had already passed orders saying no one should suffer for not having Aadhaar card. How can you insist on Aadhaar card?" the bench questioned.

The Court also directs the UIDAI not to share biometric or other personal information with any agency without the permission of the cardholder. "60 crore residents have enrolled themselves for Aadhaar card by providing their demographic and biometric information for civilian application only and sharing the data [without the consent of the resident] would endanger the fundamental rights of the citizens," says the bench.

Ironically, this order did not come during the hearing of PILs challenging Aadhaar's constitutional validity but in a related case where UIDAI challenged an order of the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court directing the sharing of Aadhaar data with the CBI for solving a rape case.



July 2015: A Bench of Justices J. Chelameswar, S.A. Bobde and C. Nagappan, while hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme as a violation of privacy, clarifies that demands made by officials for Aadhaar card is in clear violation of the Supreme Court's interim order of September 23, 2013. The Centre had argued that Constitution makers did not intend to make right to privacy a fundamental right, adding that the right to privacy is not absolute-it is subject to restrictions in public interest-and hence, the petitions (under article 32) should be dismissed.



August 2015: The three-judge bench restrains the government from expanding Aadhaar beyond public distribution systems (PDS) for food grains and cooking fuel. It holds that "balance of interest" is better served if Aadhaar is made neither mandatory nor a condition for accessing benefits one is already entitled to. It also refers the question of right to privacy as a fundamental right to a constitution bench, adding that this interim order will be in vogue till such time.



October 2015: The Supreme Court extends the voluntary use of Aadhaar card to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), all types of pensions schemes, employee provident fund and the Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana. The five-judge constitution bench says the purely voluntary status quo will continue till the court takes a final decision on whether Aadhaar scheme is an invasion into the right to privacy.



April 2016: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh moves court challenging the passage of Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 as a Money Bill in the previous month, calling it "malafide and brazen". And as the government started issuing fresh notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for several more schemes under the new Act, several more petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging them.



Feb 2017: The Supreme Court agrees to hear Jairam Ramesh's challenge in detail even as the government claims that the judiciary had no jurisdiction to encroach on legislative procedure in Parliament, where the Speaker was the final authority. "If the Speaker says blue is green, we will tell her that blue is blue and not green," Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar countered.

Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, representing the government, also questioned Ramesh's locus standi in filing the writ petition, saying no fundamental right of the petitioner had been violated. "The time has come to relook Article 21. Every petition is coming straight to the Supreme Court now," he added. The court is yet to rule on the matter.



March 2017: Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar orally observed that the government has the rights to enforce Aadhaar for non-welfare plans and schemes, such as mobile phones, issuing PAN Card and filing income tax for businesses. However, no official verdict was announced.



April 2017: A bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan hears senior advocate Shyam Divan's submission that the newly-inserted Section 139AA in the Income Tax Act, which mandates the linking of Aadhaar with PAN, is a "Faustian bargain". Centre counters that taking fingerprints and iris impressions for Aadhaar is not an invasion of a citizen's body. "The concept of absolute right over one's body was a myth and there were various laws which put restrictions on such a right," said Mukul Rohatgi. He also justifies the government's stand of making Aadhaar mandatory by saying that "We found a number of PAN cards being used to divert funds to shell companies. To prevent it, the only option is to make Aadhaar card mandatory".



May 2017: SC agrees to hear a petition filed by a group of people, including and Magsaysay winner and the former chairperson of National Commission for Protecting Child Rights Shanta Sinha, against 17 government notifications allegedly making Aadhaar mandatory to access welfare schemes and benefits after June 30, 2017.



June 2017: The apex court upholds Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. The Supreme Court says that the new provision that makes Aadhaar mandatory for income tax assessees is not in violation of the fundamental right to equality, or the fundamental right to practice one's profession or trade. During another hearing this month, addressing the petition filed by Shanta Sinha and others, the SC says that there will be no freeze on the government notification making Aadhaar mandatory for social benefit schemes, including mid-day meals.

According to the petition, Aadhaar was an "insecure, unreliable, unnecessary and inappropriate technology project, which is being foisted with coercion on the most vulnerable section of Indians and is threatening their constitutional and legal rights and entitlements every day". In response, the Centre had said that no genuine person will be denied of any benefits because of lack of Aadhaar, adding that Rs. 49,650 crore had been saved in two years under the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme, which was earlier being siphoned off through fake identities.

"No order can be passed just on the basis of apprehension. The Centre has also extended the date from 30 June to 30 September and there is no urgency," the court said. Thus the status quo continued, and the government continued to drag newer schemes under the Aadhaar umbrella.



July 2017: A five-judge constitution bench proclaims that a nine-judge bench should first decide the question whether privacy is a fundamental right. In two previous judgements, the Supreme Court had pronounced that privacy was not a fundamental or 'guaranteed' right. "To overcome these two precedents, a numerically superior Bench of nine judges is required," explained a report by The Hindu.



August 2017: The nine-judge bench rules that right to privacy is "intrinsic to life and liberty" and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution. A few days after this historic judgement, the apex court says that it will hear petitions on Aadhaar-related matters in November, since the government had extended the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar linkages to December 31.



October 2017: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee enters the arena. The West Bengal government petitions the Supreme Court against the Centre's push to make Aadhaar cards mandatory. The SC hauls up the state government for filing a plea challenging the Parliament's mandate in the first place. "We know it is a matter that needs consideration but you satisfy us how state can challenge it," it says, adding that the chief minister was free to file the petition in an individual capacity.

Later that month, a day after the RBI stated that linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar has been made mandatory under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, a new petition is filed in the SC challenging the directive. According to petition filed by activist Kalyani Menon Sen, the government's rule on linking Aadhaar violates the fundamental right to privacy and equates citizens, including the elderly, women and students, with money launderers.

The court also issues notice to the Centre on a separate plea challenging the linking of mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar.

The government, meanwhile, denies allegations of misuse of Aadhaar and files a 100-page affidavit to justify linking the unique ID to social welfare schemes. It also tells the court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar has been extended till March 31, 2018, for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enroll for it.



Nov 2017: Early in the month, in an attempt to protect consumers from harassment, a bench comprising Justices A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan says "We make it clear that in the messages sent by banks and telecom service providers, the date of December 31, 2017 and February 6, 2018, shall also be indicated as the last date of linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile numbers."

Yesterday, the five-judge constitution bench heard pleas seeking an interim stay on the Centre's decision directing mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various government schemes and welfare measures. Instead of making it mandatory for six schemes, as ordered by the court, the government had extended it to 139, said the petitioners.

AG Venugopal, in his turn, said that all the deadlines can be extended to March 31 (right now, the various deadlines differ on the last dates), and the case can be heard when the court resumes after the winter break. The court has previously fixed January 10 to start the final hearing on petitions contesting the validity of the Aadhaar law.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Britain's Vodafone to initiate a second arbitration process under an India-UK investment agreement over a long-running Rs 11,000 crore tax dispute with the union government.

A bench of Justices AK Sikriand Ashok Bhushan, however, said the second tribunal will not start proceedings in the matter till the Delhi High Court decides on the issue by January 10.

The apex court order came on the Centre's plea challenging the October 26 high court order by which allowed the Vodafone Group representatives to go ahead with the process of appointing a presiding arbitrator in its second arbitration.

However, in an interim order the high court restrained the group or its subsidiaries from going ahead with arbitration under the India-UK Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA) as the company had initiated similar proceedings on the same issue under the India-Netherlands BIPA.

Vodafone had in 2014 initiated arbitration proceedings under the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA) in connection with the tax demand raised against it and the proceedings in it is still going on.

In the second arbitration started this year, Vodafone had initiated the process under the India-United Kingdom BIPA in connection with the tax demand.

The union government had claimed that laws passed by Parliament do not fall within the ambit of any international treaty. It had also claimed that arbitration proceedings under the two BIPAs was an abuse of the process of law.

Vodafone, the world's second largest mobile operator, entered India in 2007 by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa's wireless assets. It is contesting a tax bill of more than Rs 11,000 crore relating to that acquisition.

Vodafone, whose local unit is India's second-largest mobile carrier, has repeatedly said it was not liable to pay any tax over the Hutchison acquisition.

Vodafone India is in the process of merging its operations with smaller rival Idea Cellular to potentially create the biggest Indian telecom carrier. The UK company has been making a loss on its Indian operations due to the fierce price war unleashed by new entrant Reliance Jio and sees the merger with Idea Cellular as the only way to survive in the local market.

Earlier this year, Indian tax authorities issued a penalty order to a unit of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd for not paying taxes on the 2007 transaction.

The original tax demand has ballooned to over Rs 22,000 crore as Income Tax Department has slapped penalties and interest on the delayed payments.
The beleaguered Jaiprakash Associates Limited (JAL) finally gets a breather from the Supreme Court. The December 31 deadline to deposit Rs 125 crore for safeguarding the interests of hassled home buyers-the second tranche due as per the apex court's diktat-has been pushed back to January 25 next year. The company had asked for the deadline to be pushed back by two months but the benevolence of the bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra along with Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud did not extend quite that far. The court has now posted the matter for further hearing on February 1 next year.

To remind you, the Supreme Court had passed an interim order in September 2017 directing JAL to deposit Rs 2,000 crores with the court registry in relation to the insolvency proceedings pending against its subsidiary, Jaypee Infratech Limited. Back then the top court had made it clear that the "only indulgence" that would be extended to the real estate company was the option of depositing the above amount in instalments. The court had accepted a demand draft of Rs 275 crore from JAL in November and the second tranche-amounting to Rs 150 crore-was due yesterday and has been duly deposited. The payment schedule for the remaining Rs 1,450 crore-not including the third instalment of Rs 125 crore now due in January-is reportedly yet to be announced.

The top court has also restrained JAL's 13 directors-five promoters and eight independent directors-from alienating their personal properties as well as that of their immediate family members, which implies freezing of their assets. It had also warned them that any violation of its directive would hold them liable for criminal prosecution and contempt action. The JAL directors had filed affidavits giving details of their personal assets and they are now required to appear again in court on January 10.

Meanwhile, Jaypee Infratech, has been asked to hand over the records to the interim resolution professional to draft a resolution plan indicating protection of interests of over 32,000 hassled home buyers and creditors. Back in September, in response to a petition by a homeowner, the Supreme Court had stayed insolvency proceedings against the company. Around 32,000 home buyers had been left in the lurch after the Allahabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted IDBI's plea for initiating insolvency proceedings against Jaypee Infratech for defaulting on a Rs 526-crore loan.
The HDFC Bank stock hit a fresh 52-week high on Friday in a bullish market sparked by BJP win in exit polls for Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

At 12:07 pm, the stock was trading 2.12 percent or 38.95 points higher at 1,876 level on the BSE.

The bank is among the top three Sensex gainers today.

Earlier, the stock hit a 52-week high of 1,887 level on the BSE. The stock opened at 1,850 level and hit an intra-day low of 1850.

The stock closed 1.95 percent or 35 points higher at 1,873 level on the BSE.

The rise in stock comes ahead of the bank's board meeting on December 20 to consider a proposal for raising funds. According to reports, the bank is likely to raise around Rs 20,000 crore by issue of shares, depository receipts, Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP) route, American Depository Receipts (ADRs) program, preferential allotment and combination of such instruments as decided in the meeting.

The bank stock is up 56.5% since the beginning of this year. On an yearly basis, the stock rose 60 percent.

The private sector lender is the top player in terms of market capitalisation (Rs 4.86 trillion) on the Bank Nifty and BSE Bankex.

Meanwhile, the Sensex and Nifty were trading 283 points and 74 points higher, respectively on exit polls predicting a BJP win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections.
When Jeri Williams took over as Phoenix police chief last year, she made it a point to address the tension between law enforcement and the community.

She noted the conflicting relationship between some people of color and some members of law enforcement and the high-profile incidents that had resulted in unrest and violence across the country.

Arizona had seen its share of backlash, including a series of street demonstrations and city council protests  although less violent compared to other parts of the country.

The community and the police should be one cohesive group of people who want peace and safety, Williams wrote in a column.

Like many departments across the state, Phoenix has made efforts to repair those rifts in a variety of ways, including trying to hire more diverse officers, reaching out to youth, establishing task forces, hosting community outreach events and providing more police training.

Arizona departments have grappled with hiring enough officers to fulfill the needs of their depleted forces. Many have emphasized the need to add more people of color and women to their ranks as theyve tried to fill hundreds of vacant positions statewide.

While 44 percent of Arizonans are non-white, non-whites are underrepresented among officers in nearly every Arizona police department represented in a 2013 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, according to a Cronkite News analysis of the data, the latest available.

But departments face an ongoing battle trying to overcome the negativity around law enforcement, Department of Public Safety Director Frank Milstead said at a news conference in April.

Now that we need people, everybody hates us, Phoenix Officer Lisa Fisher said at a recent recruiting event. And nobody wants to do a job where youre, you know, going to be spit at and kicked and hit and potentially stalked at your house and things like that. But thats all the more reason we need good people to come out and do this.

Repairing relationships will take time and effort, officials said.

Law enforcement agencies across the country have truly significant problems in their communities, said Kevin Robinson, a retired assistant chief with the Phoenix department. I think if you dig deep, youll find out they didnt bother to establish a relationship with those communities. And a lack of doing that will spell nothing but problems for you when something bad happens.

Recruitment and hiring

Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone, who voters elected in November to replace former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, said he wants to repair the broken trust between his office and the Hispanic community.

Community leaders have long accused Arpaio of targeting immigrants and promoting discriminatory policing practices.

Penzone said part of changing the departments image involves hiring more diverse employees.

Its not just deputies or detention officers, he said. Theres a career for everyone  whether you want to work as a dispatcher or whether you want to work in some form of administration, theres plenty of opportunity. But this organization has to reflect the community we serve.

We have dedicated a team solely to outreach, he added. And its not just the Latino community, its to all communities that are, you know, minorities or unique in some capacity.

He said his office recently hired a human resources director who develops everyday methods to recruit in different areas, including at community colleges where recruiters can reach more diverse communities. Minority students in Arizona schools became the majority more than a decade ago, and those numbers continue to grow, according to research by the Arizona Minority Student Progress Report.

In the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office alone, there were more than 300 job openings in October, Milstead said then. The Sheriffs Office has more than 700 sworn officers, a force that is about 77 percent white, 18 percent Latino, 3 percent black and less than 2 percent Native American and Asian combined, according to data provided to Cronkite News.

Recruiters for Phoenix police also have held numerous career fairs  some of them in predominantly minority areas  to attract diverse candidates.

For example, the department held an information session at a Baptist church in South Phoenix, according to an article on azcentral.com. That ZIP code has a population thats about 71 percent Hispanic, 12 percent black and 13 percent white, according to U.S. Census information.

At a recent career fair at the Phoenix Convention Center, Isiah Brown, an African-American man, said recruitment officers had encouraged him to consider a law enforcement career.

If you have the right type of people behind the badge with the right type of personalities, showing people the right type of respect and then also upholding the law, I think thats really important, he said.

The department also has put up recruitment billboards in minority neighborhoods, advertised for jobs in Spanish-language publications and spread the word on social media channels with diverse audiences.

Phoenix has nearly 3,000 sworn positions, and its trying to fill 400 by the end of the year. Native American, black, Latino and Asian officers account for about 26 percent of Phoenixs sworn police force, according to data provided to Cronkite News.

Some departments even travel out-of-state to find more minority recruits. A Department of Public Safety recruiter said he had planned to travel to areas in South Carolina that have higher populations of African-Americans to seek potential recruits.

Other departments also employ more subtle ways to attract minorities. For example, the city of Maricopa made it part of its strategic recruiting plan to feature photos of women and minorities on its jobs page. The plan also includes conducting an annual review of its recruiting efforts and how it compares to the citys demographics.

However, some experts say increasing diversity is only the first step.

Just bringing in new people who are a different gender, different race, different ethnicity, can have some effects on how policing is done, but it isnt going to wholesale change the nature of the business, said Michael S. Scott, who runs the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing based out of Arizona State University.

Scott has worked at police departments in Wisconsin, Florida and New York.

Diversity is the answer to one question. Its not the answer to all questions, Scott said. What contribution does diversity have to fairer, more effective policing, to reductions in crime, reductions in disorders? Its probably helpful, but it isnt sufficient in and of itself.

Recruiters also said that sometimes the quality of an applicant is more important: They hire based on the strength of the applicant, regardless of ethnic or cultural background.

Youth efforts

Millennials are now the largest living generation in the U.S., according to the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center. And as baby boomers retire from the police force, departments have increased their efforts to attract younger officers.

Because millennials are much more diverse than previous generations, department officials hope they can help shrink the racial divide. They often recruit at community colleges and sometimes high schools.

Arizona officials also have cultivated new kinds of partnerships. For example, the Franklin Police and Fire High School near downtown Phoenix opened its doors in 2007.

The school provides a pathway for teens who want to pursue careers in law enforcement or EMT/firefighting. It partners with the citys police and fire departments for internships and training.

According to an American Community Survey estimate, from 2011 to 2015, roughly 40 percent of the youth in Arizona, ages 15 to 19, were Hispanic. At Franklin High School, the student body is composed of 90 percent Hispanic students, according to the school district.

Students can take courses such as forensics, law enforcement and firefighting and Spanish for public safety.

Nationwide, departments also have emphasized improving youth-police relations by hosting town halls put together by organizations such as Council for a Strong America.

Thats important because national studies indicate younger residents tend to have lower opinions of law enforcement. A recent nationwide Gallup survey showed confidence in police was lowest among 18 to 34-year-olds compared to other age groups.

Police also offer the statewide police Explorers program to connect with young adults from 14 to 21 years old. The groups participate in community cleanups, first-aid training and crowd control.

Approachability

Officer Daniel McCloud, an officer and recruiter for the Phoenix Police, said his department has reached out to minority groups by attending community events such as gay pride parades and church functions.

Were just reaching out the communities, McCloud said. Instead of waiting for them to come to us, we go to where they are.

Police also are trying to make themselves more approachable through small changes, such as riding bikes instead of driving cars.

Lets face it, our uniform is sometimes unapproachable to some people, Phoenix Lt. Wayne Dillon said. The car can be a little bit intimidating. But if were on a bicycle, and were just riding around as a group, sometimes the community members feel like they can just go up to us, and even more so kids.

Police departments also have utilized community liaison programs, where residents who feel uneasy around police can use a mediator to contact them.

In Winslow, Chief Dan Brown stepped into his new position shortly after an officer fatally shot a Native American woman in 2016. The event led to tensions between the police force and some members of the community.

Eventually, residents stopped bringing complaints and issues to the police.

Brown eventually looked to neighboring Flagstaff, where officials launched a community liaison committee to act as a buffer between the community and the police department.

Brown decided to create a similar program in Winslow.

Its not an oversight committee, you know, telling us how to do our jobs. Its a transparency thing, if you will, so they work with us, Brown told The Tribune News.

Representatives from the Navajo Nation and NAACP will help create the committee, which Brown hopes to finalize by June 2018.

Many police departments statewide count on programs such as GAIN, Getting Arizona Involved in Neighborhoods, to connect with communities.

Dillon said GAIN came to Arizona more than 20 years ago. Its an annual event that occurs at different times in different cities across the state, allowing communities to connect with their local law enforcement. The focus is on increasing community involvement in Neighborhood Watch programs.

For law enforcement, it means an opportunity to foster positive relationships.

Over the last 23 years of my career, Ive seen a huge increase in not just community involvement from a direct standpoint of calling the police and so forth, but also in our community action, Dillon said.

Dillon said community action involves contacting local police on quality of life issues such as blight, graffiti and transient problems.

Another popular social engagement strategy is hosting Coffee with a Cop events, which allow community members to ask questions, raise concerns or clarify confusion. These events also aim to build a relationship between the officers patrolling the area and the residents they serve.

Coffee with a Cop keeps a map on its website that shows upcoming events.

Training

Police training is one way to address issues such as excessive use of force or increasing awareness of other cultures.

The Rev. Jarrett Maupin, a high-profile civil rights activist, has been at the heart of many grassroots movements across the Valley. He has organized marches against police brutality and advocates for racial justice.

There are new concepts about how you talk to and engage minority communities, especially the youth and undocumented people, Maupin said.

Maupin said Phoenix has made progress to address certain issues, following a 12-point plan shared by the Black Lives Matter movement during a 2016 protest, according to an article in The Phoenix New Times. The protest ended when former Phoenix Police Chief Joe Yahner signed the document.

We have a mental health review board and increased resources for people who are in a mental health crisis, Maupin said.

The mental health review board is one of 12 boards that constitute the Phoenix police chiefs advisory board.

Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher also formed an initiative in 2015 that makes recommendations to help the department build trust. Some of the recommendations include conducting a community survey, adding more body cameras and providing cultural competency training for officers.
One of Flagstaff's best loved holiday traditions returns Sunday with the Coconino Estates luminaria and live nativity.

On Dec. 17, beginning at 5 p.m., visitors can walk or drive through the neighborhood and enjoy the holiday decorations, including driveways lined with glowing luminaria, Christmas lights, live music from the Flagstaff Community Band, hot chocolate, caroling, and a live nativity scene.

Drivers should enter on Bonito in front of Marshall Elementary School and follow the path along until the end, exit on Meade. Plan to turn off your headlights and go 5 mph so everyone can see everything. The best way to experience the luminaria is on foot. Park at the schools parking lots and walk the route. To join a guided walk, bundle up, bring a flashlight and meet at 6 p.m. at the school's parking lot.

A run and fun to celebrate the sun

Short days got you down? Celebrate the start of the sun's path back to longer days with the Winter Solstice Run Dec. 21. at Buffalo Park. Northern Arizona Trail Runners Association celebrates 5 years since surviving the Mayan Apocalypse with a short 5K beginning at 5 p.m. Sunset is 5:18 p.m. Visit natra.org/runs for more information.
Flagstaff Pulliam Airport will begin services to and from Dallas Fort Worth on American Airlines beginning June 7, 2018.

The flight will be a non-stop flight and will only operate on Saturdays; it will operate as a test for American Airlines to determine if Flagstaffs market can support the additional destinations. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning December 16, 2017, city of Flagstaff spokeswoman Jessica Drum said in a press release.

The flight will utilize American Airlines 70-seat plane, which includes a first-class section.

The flight will depart from Dallas at 11 a.m. and arrive in Flagstaff at 11:30 a.m. due to the time difference between Arizona and Texas over the summer. It will then depart Flagstaff at 12:45 p.m. Arizona time and arrive in Dallas at 5:15 p.m. Central time.

Earlier this month, the city announced that a flight to Los Angeles would be added to the airport beginning in May.

The City of Flagstaff is very excited to bring a third flight option to our community, said Heidi Hansen, Flagstaff's Economic Vitality director. The addition of an east-bound flight will only increase the options for our flying patrons and we look forward to seeing this as a successful flight option.
CAMEROUN :: Cameroon: Wrong Trial for the Wrong Secret Bad Guy

As with the Dr Nganangs kidnapping by the Cameroonians secret services and his upcoming trial is important to note that the wrong person is being put on trial. The right persons to be put on trial are the one directing the civil war against the English-speaking Cameroonians and not juvenile and oversimplified narratives where Dr. Nganang become the bad guy made to be responsible for the unrest in north and south west Cameroon while the president gets to go on vacation.

This points to the hysterical trivialization of the culture of political crime in Cameroon. A funny country like that of Paul Biya, where even so-called journalists of the independent press openly support the kidnapping and sequestration of a writer, academic, and activist by Biyas "Tonton macoutes." Hence, Great men can have feet of clay and still be great men, particularly, a dictator who think he is the law unto himself.

However, these might be no more than episodes from the grotesque soap opera, the Cameroonians government is known for, had it not had significant consequences for the country. Hubris is the midwife of nemesis and the government by arresting Pr. Nganang might have inadvertently opened up the gates of hell for the regime since Pr. Nganang is not cut from the same cloth as the robotic goons who did not bother to think about what they were doing as usual.

Hence, partisan politics does strange things to human minds. We now witness folks proffering and justifying without any reserve the death threats that are now hanging over Pr. Nganang, alleging in particular, the so-called insulting remarks that the now unfortunate Dr. Nganang would have made on social networks against the bloody dictator. While Dr. Nganangs life hangs in the balance, it is inconsistent with the idea of the president being authorized to kill and massacre at will his potential competitors, his critics, and the recalcitrant English-speaking civilian populations...

The same jokers swear hand on heart that "Cameroon is a peaceful democracy", which deserves to be respected in the concert of civilized nations.

One more, the Biyas regime are using the courts and the media in attempts to settle political conflicts. In doing so, the regime evades accountability while refusing to recognize the victims of the regime and their rights for due process for its aggressive authoritarian and reactionary politics to reinforce the status quo and the reproduction of social domination of one-party state in Cameroon.

The CL2P has many times condemned the governments uses of outrage laws and trumped up corruption charges to rob ordinary Cameroonians of their rights. Outrage and corruption charges are contradictory laws in a deep precarious context of repression and widespread wrongdoings. In so doing, to single some bad apples does not serve the end of justice but serve as bread and circuses. As a matter of fact, the usage of these laws is to stifle dissents and shape ordinary Cameroonians into conformity. Hence, Karin Deutsch Karlekar at advocacy group PEN America said: Detaining an important independent voice like Patrice Nganang, who has used his writing to investigate the consequences of violence, is indicative of a movement by the government to silence all political criticism and dismantle the right to free expression.

The regime of Yaoundes Legal Despotism must be put on trial because the country needs a major shift in legal practices and norms. This major shift is important to redefine ordinary Cameroonians relationship with the state and ordinary Cameroonians relationships with each others.

Indeed, the Nganang trial is the ultimate mark of an infinite judicial stupidity.

Too bad that many Cameroonians only realize so late the instrumentalization of judicial institutions by the dictatorship of Paul Biya. Having not wanted to pay attention to all the other Kafkaesque lawsuits that punctuate the political cleansing in this country for more than two decades, ordinary Cameroonians are now coming to the full realization, thanks to Patrice Nganang, how the "Taliban" of the Yaounde regime can literally instruct all the most grotesque accusations against all those whom they consider (often wrongly) as "dangers" for their great helmsman.

They compete with an infinite stupidity doubled by cruelty...

When future generations will open the judicial archives of Cameroon after the reign of Paul Biya, they will reproach us all how we were able to let these gentlemen humiliate in this way the great and beautiful country that is Cameroon, we wear so high in our esteem.

Strongly that all this ends!
| BY Ricki Green |

What makes Harbin Beer so smooth? The Chinese brewery reveals its secrets in its latest campaign, Cloud Catcher which it has teamed up with BBH Shanghai, A New Life FIlms, and Fin Design + Effects to create. In the ambitious campaign, the film features a complex CG sequence featuring a polar bear and chimp as unlikely pilots.

Directed by Josh Frizzell, the film begins with three friends in a bar marvelling at Harbin white beers unique taste. The bartender reveals that its because of the clouds in the beer. As the trio lean in to examine the liquid, the CG sequence kicks in, transporting us to a landscape of snow-topped mountains. Here, we see a fantastical world where two cuddly companions, a chimp and a polar bear, pilot an aircraft that capture clouds for Harbin  perhaps the secret to the beers light and creamy texture.

After collaborating with BBH Shanghai on previous Harbin campaigns, Fin Design + Effects exercised its expertise in character animation to bring the vision to life.

In order to meet the technical demands of Cloud Catcher, Fin harnessed its unique pipeline and the capabilities of both its Shanghai and Sydney offices. Spanning two months, the highly skilled artists at Fin completed the entirety of the post production on the spot  right through from live action clean-up and enhancements, to building the entire CG world. The team in Sydney completed CG and compositing, while the Shanghai-based team handled the final online on the live action segments.

Executive Producer, Billy Becket, comments: This is the most complex visual effects work weve created for Harbin to date, so it was an exciting challenge for us. As always, it was a pleasure working with Josh. His respect for the post production process and his understanding of how important it is to consider the post early on, was key to the success of a huge CG job like this.

CG Supervisor Robert Grbevski said, Josh had a clear vision to make the animation look as real as possible, so we put a lot of care to make sure we didnt over-animate. Theres always more scrutiny on the details when the characters arent bouncing around the frame, so we really refined the style to make it believable. One challenge we rose to was striking the perfect balance between making the animals look realistic but also giving them characterful expressions.
| BY Ricki Green |

This years White Ribbon Day helped end the hesitation around intervening in acts of violence against women, engaging three times more Australians than ever before with its STOP Kit designed to help people see the signs, seek support and stop the cycle of abuse within their community.

Australia fundraising agency March One was briefed to refresh the current White Ribbon Day creative. After consulting with White Ribbon Ambassadors, contacts across policy and frontline services and the community, they discovered that while awareness of the issue was strong, Australians didnt know what to do with the information.

Says Ben Coverdale, creative director and owner of March One:Australians wanted to make a difference in the fight to end violence against women so we designed an information kit called the STOP Kit to give them the tools to do something about it. In many ways, we were reacting to the tidal wave of support for womens rights following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

The STOP kit outlines ways to spot the signs of violence, offer support and create change to derail the cycle of offending. We were able to develop a tool to improve on what the White Ribbon team were already doing well, and add value, rather than going down the expensive route of starting again. Effectively, we were giving Australians something they were asking for  the tools to help. Its that simple.

The STOP kit, an acronym for See, Talk, Offer support and Prevent, was designed as a brochure, wallet card and digital download. Under each of the key pillars, action steps were provided to help Australians recognise and deal with the emotionally charged circumstances that surround domestic violence.

Says Cloverdale: Importantly, the STOP Kit provides Australians with the numbers and locations where they can access professional assistance and support.

The campaign also asked Aussies to make an oath to stand up against violence towards women in an effort to engage and create a community of support for victims of abuse.

Managing director and owner of March One, Greg Bechly, says they deployed social media campaigns in support of the White Ribbon Day and STOP kit that included Facebook advertising, cross-promotion across Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, along with an eastern states radio campaign and a digital advertising campaign across News Corp assets, all aimed at increasing the oath commitments and facilitation of STOP kit downloads.

Says Bechly: The campaign resulted in three times more Australians visiting the website, over 50% more Australian being reached on Facebook with a 93% engagement growth, a reach uplift of 240% on the twitter channel and over 5,700 Australians taking the oath. The numbers speak for themselves, and importantly, the campaign gave critical meaning and genuine life-changing advice to those wanting to make difference.
| BY Lynchy |

Singtel and BBH Singapore have taken a humorous approach with a new iPhone 8 and iPhone X campaign, which summons the voice of reason to demonstrate how the devices will work better with Singtels flexible data plans.

In three 30-second TVCs, the mysterious voice speaks directly to the characters, exposing their awkward innermost thoughts and worries for everyone to hear.

The stories revolve around scenarios in the life of a family and take place in a park, kopitiam and Singtel shop. With the help of the voice, the characters arrive at a A-ha! moment when they realise the advantages of purchasing the new iPhones with Singtels plans  in particular its unlimited data plan, MobileShare plan and annual handset upgrades with Singtel Circle.
Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper.
Director Jon White, SC, said it had been "an issue of scheduling as much as resources" that could be avoided if the lower court stopped block listing hearings during Supreme Court trial blitzes - a move Canberra's top magistrate said would not be feasible and could cause delays.
"They've prepared for supporting the school into the new year with the view that if we don't get that funding we'll still be able to function as a school," he said.
Recently I listened to John McCain read his essay for the radio series This I Believe. During his days as a schoolboy he learned, If we stuck to those standards of integrity and honor, then we could be proud of ourselves. Honor and integrity have been primary for McCain ever since then.

In light of all this, I feel confused by McCain's voting for the tax bill, knowing, as he must have known, that so many predictions based on objective facts have said that this tax law would benefit those who are rich at the expense of the rest of us who are not rich.

Unless the senator separates in his mind justice from honor and integrity  I doubt that he does  then by voting for an unjust law he has acted dishonorably. We in Arizona have entrusted our well-being to John McCain as our senator. By unjustly taking from the poor to give to the rich, he has betrayed our trust by increasing the financial insecurity and hardship of so many of our people.

Honorable? I don't think so. McCain stands at the end of an honorable career, and perhaps in the twilight of an honorable life. If John McCain votes for the last, reconciled version of the tax bill, he will leave as part of his legacy this dishonorable act. I will grieve for him as a fellow human, and for us as his fellow humans. I wish him well.

ERIC KOLVIG

Flagstaff
Please Donate

In order to maintain this blog I have to pay for its upkeep including a hosting company, support services, virus and other malicious hackers.

If you appreciate what I write please make a donation.

Racist PayPal Tries to Close Down My Blog

As you can see from this article PayPal have removed my blog.

I would therefore ask people to make any future donations to the following:

Name of Account: Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre

Account No: 04094107

Sort Code: 09-01-50

Reference: Web donations
The Beatrice Public Library is celebrating Christmas through the decades with its "Sixteen Decades of Seasonal Delights" display.

The display packs in the holiday cheer with toys, decorations and other fun items from Christmases past. It will be shown until Sunday at the library.

The display's collection is a mixture of librarian Laureen Riedesels personal collection and artifacts on loan from Gage County residents.

In the back corner, the display begins with a case from the first three decades of Beatrice's history that is filled with magazines, dolls and catalogs from the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s. Theres also a spindly tree from the era on display as well.

There are lots of bisque dolls through the decades from the late 19th century to the early 20th. Most of them have porcelain heads and limbs that were made in Germany, with hand-made clothing.

Through the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, dolls are still big, but printed paper dolls started making an appearance, along with sparkly, glittering miniature Christmas trees.

Teddy bears, sackcloth dolls and plastic Santas fill the 1950s booth thats topped with a blue aluminum Christmas tree, which is dwarfed by the silvery tree from the 1960s.

That is the one I probably identify the most with, childrens librarian Joanne Neemann said. Just the childhood nostalgia of my great aunt's Christmas tree.

The tree was purchased at Klumpps Hardware store in Beatrice and, at one point, it rotated and played music. It was supposed to just be a display item, but in 1961, Frank Retchless liked it so much, he made an offer.

The 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even the early 2000s were well represented by the glossy, annual J.C. Penney catalog, brimming with toys and home goods.

As the turn of the millennium approached, holiday ornaments took on a decidedly more digital form, with Hallmark-branded computer and dot matrix printer ornaments on display next to elves and snowmen.

The display is free to visit and is in the first door to the right as you enter the Beatrice Public Library. The exhibit is open through this Sunday, and on Saturday at 2:30 p.m., the library will be hosting a free screening of Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas.
Dear Doctor: My Type A husband, who naturally falls asleep for about 25 minutes on weekend afternoons, complains that he's wasting time when he does so. How do I explain to him the benefits of napping?

Dear Reader: Millions of people throughout the world take a daily nap. In many cultures, the afternoon sleep break is built right into everyday life. Businesses close shop and everyone heads home for lunch and a bit of shut-eye.

Here in the goal-oriented United States, though, napping carries a bit of stigma. It sounds as though your husband has internalized that feeling, which is too bad because you're correct -- a daytime nap is often a good thing.

Studies show that napping does more than just reduce fatigue. It can elevate your mood, improve productivity and make it easier for you to learn and retain new information.

However -- and this is where things get a bit tricky -- not all naps are equally beneficial. It turns out that what time you nap and how long that nap lasts make a difference.

A nap as brief as 10 minutes and up to 30 minutes can leave you feeling energized. Sleep much longer than half an hour, and chances increase that you'll wake in a mental fog. The reason for all this is that sleep is quite complex. Not only are there several different stages of sleep, they occur in distinct cycles.

When you first drift off, you move from light sleep, from which you can awaken easily, into stages of ever-deeper sleep. Your brain waves and even your brain chemistry change. It becomes progressively more difficult to awaken. People in the stage known as "deep sleep" show no muscle or eye movement.

The other stage of sleep is known as REM sleep, which is short for "rapid eye movement." This is the cycle during which you dream, and in which the brain registers significant electrical and chemical activity. Fall short on REM sleep, and it's quite possible you'll wind up feeling cranky or irritable.

Which leads us back to the question of optimal napping.

First -- what time to close your eyes. Sleep experts agree that mid-afternoon is optimal. Your body clock is naturally primed for a break, and it's far enough away from bedtime so as to not interfere with your night sleep.

Next, the reason why a brief nap feels best.

It takes about 90 minutes for your body (and brain) to go through a complete sleep cycle. Sleep too little, and you've barely grazed the surface of light sleep. Sleep too long, and you're swimming up from the groggy depths of deep sleep. Aim for 20 to 30 minutes, which puts you into the earliest stages of REM sleep and lets you wake up easily, feeling refreshed.

For the best naps, choose a location that's dark and quiet. Lying down results in better sleep than sitting or reclining. Setting an alarm will let you relax into your nap and assures that you'll wake up before deep sleep takes hold.

When you wake up, take a moment to stretch and take a few deep breaths, and enjoy. A good nap is one of life's great pleasures.
With many people saying that the new-generation CLS looks a lot better in person than it does in pictures, heres our chance to see more of the car in its natural environment.



This CLS 450 version was spotted near Stuttgart and thanks to walkoART, we get to see it next to multiple other Mercedes-Benz models, including a CLA Shooting Brake, which is actually taller than the new CLS.

In 450 4MATIC guise, the new CLS utilizes a 367 PS (362 HP) and 500 Nm (369 lb-ft) 3.0-liter petrol engine, and is priced from 70,906 ($83,445) in Germany.

It will do 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.8 seconds and has a combined fuel consumption of 7.5 liters/100 km, which comes down to about 31.3 mpg US, or 37.6 mpg UK.

If we were to give the 2019 CLS the benefit of the doubt, we should be willing to get really up close and personal with it before we draw any final conclusions regarding its styling  particularly at the rear. Otherwise, this short clip does very little in helping it look more appealing than it did at the LA Auto Show earlier this month.

VIDEO
Mitsubishi recently became the latest member of the RenaultNissan Alliance and that means big changes are on the horizon.



Mitsubishi Motors North American product manager, Melvyn Bautista, confirmed as much as he told Wards Auto The next-generation Outlander will be kind of the first ideas of implementing and using common platforms and sharing technologies. While the model is still a couple of years away, changes could be coming even sooner as Bautista says Nissan and Mitsubishi are discussing adding common components to updated models instead of waiting for a full redesign.

The discussions are apparently at an early stage but Bautista said Were still trying to see  what we can fit in and how can we do it and does it make sense? This suggests the first changes could be relatively minor as future Mitsubishi models may begin to adopt components and technologies which can be easily transferred to existing vehicles.

Besides talking about the RenaultNissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Bautista revealed the next-generation Outlander Sport will shrink in size to help distance itself from the new Eclipse Cross. Its too early to talk specifics but Bautista said the model would likely be about the same size as the Nissan Kicks. While that seems to suggest the next-generation model could be based on the same platform that underpins the Kicks, thats not official at this point.

Photo Gallery
The foreign minister of Hungary met with Teslas executives during a tour in Silicon Valley, promising them tax breaks and other incentives usually offered to car makers, as the EV manufacturer is searching where to build its European Gigafactory.



Our purpose with todays visit was to place Hungary on the map  as a country, which puts great emphasis on the car sector, Peter Szijjarto was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Szijjarto said that Tesla responded very positively to Hungarys incentives, as well as the countrys corporate tax rate, which sits at 9 percent and is the lowest in the European Union.

The minister said that Tesla will have two Supercharging stations ready in Hungary by the end of the year, with the local government planning to install more than 3,000 electric charging points by 2019.

Hungarys car sector employs over 100,000 people and accounts for about a third of the countrys industrial output. Audi is currently one of Hungarys biggest exporters and revenue earners, thanks to its Gyor engine plant which is said to be the worlds largest, supplying more than 30 VW Group sites.

Other major car makers in Hungary include Daimler, PSA Groups Opel and Suzuki. South Korean SK Innovation also said last month that it would invest more than $770 million to build an EV battery plant in Hungary in order to meet the increasing demand from European car makers.

PHOTO GALLERY
Lamborghini has celebrated the Asian premiere of the Urus by unveiling the super SUV in Singapore, one week after the vehicles global premiere in Italy.



The event was hosted by the ArtScience Museum in Marina Bay Sands and given the regions love for Lamborghini, its no surprise that enthusiasts and fans turned up to the event in force.

In fact, no less than 122 Lamborghinis took to the streets of Singapore on December 10 to celebrate the launch of the Urus, setting a new Asian record for the largest number of Lamborghinis driven in a convoy.

Lamborghini believes the Urus will double the brands annual sales and Asia is being targeted as one of the SUVs most important markets. In China, prices start at 3,130,000 CNY (roughly $473,000 USD).

Sitting at the heart of the Urus is a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 engine delivering a satisfying 641 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. This allows for a 0-62 mph (100 km/h) time of 3.6 seconds, and a top speed of 190 mph (305 km/h). Beyond its straight-line performance, the Urus promises to also be exceptionally potent at a racetrack with the Italian marque targeting a new Nurburgring lap record for an SUV.

PHOTO GALLERY
WBs animation division had lacked creative leadership since its president Chris deFaria departed last January to become president of Dreamworks Feature Animation Group.

In her new role, Abbate will be responsible for the overall strategy and creative direction of the WAG group, while Leahy will oversee all aspects of production and operations. They will work with Valenti, as well as with writers, producers, and directors to ensure WAGs vision and creative strategy are met.

Abbate, in particular, brings a wealth of experience to the role. She has produced two of the best studio features of the contemporary era  Brad Birds The Iron Giant and Wes Andersons Fantastic Mr. Fox, and also produced Tim Burtons Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie. Her other roles include co-producing the animation for Space Jam and executive producing The Lego Movie.

Leahy was most recently vice president of theatrical animation at WB, where he oversaw production of Storks, The Lego Batman Movie, and The Lego Ninjago Movie. Prior to that, he worked at Dreamworks for 12 years, where his roles included being associate producer on Penguins of Madagascar and a production manager on Turbo.

The next Warner Animation Group release is Smallfoot (September 28, 2018), followed by The Lego Movie Sequel (February 8, 2019) and Scoob (May 15, 2020).
Much has been written and talked about re-site C dam. How did the dam come about to be started without consulting the utility demand?

When we had the last Liberal election win, about 56% or so of the 100% voters, turned up at the poles, but Christy Clark won a majority in the house with 22% of the 100% of the votes that could have been cast. With this majority, she could do what she pleased, she could bypass the utility assessment, dictate that we need and must have site C dam without anyone being able to say, hold it, we should discuss this and evaluate the need. Even if you were a Liberal in the house, you would vote for with her or worry about the next election chances of you being allowed to run again and fulfill your government pension. Christy cannot sign your election papers. So, what is the answer?

Other members of the house may not have wanted the dam or wanted the proper investigation of need before proceeding. With her  22% majority she did just what she wanted. The whole project was to give her a legacy for us to remember her by and think of how great she was as a premier.

I hope our voters can now see why this first past the post is not a good system. With proportional representation there would have been no dictator majority with just 22% of available votes. The dam would have been discussed, priced, find the need or not and then the whole house would be allowed to make the call to build or not to build. This dam will be built on the say so of one person, the dictator. If voters of BC hire 88 MLA's to work in the house on behalf of our province, should they not all work and make the decisions or should the dictator make all the calls?

We should not blame the present government for the mess that was left for our children to pay off, it will be difficult enough to make the money just to run the daily affairs. Please think PR for our next election, a change away from a dictatorship could be in the best interest of our grand children.

Jorgen Hansen


The best gifts cant be bought in a store. The American Red Cross urges eligible donors to give more life by donating blood this December.

Alison Wissen knows the power of blood donations. She received 22 units of blood products after experiencing complications during childbirth.

I truly owe my life to blood donors, she said. Even the skilled hands of my surgeons could not have saved me without the blood."

Because of blood and platelet donors, Wissen will be able to celebrate the holidays with her husband and three children.

In December, donations decline but the needs of patients remain steady. During the holiday season, set aside an hour to give the most important gift  give blood and give more life. To encourage donations, all those who come to give blood or platelets from Dec. 21, 2017 through Jan. 7, 2018, will receive a long-sleeved Red Cross t-shirt, while supplies last.

Make an appointment to give blood by downloading the free Red Cross blood donor app, visiting redcrossblood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).

Upcoming blood donation opportunities

Cass County

Louisville

Dec. 29, 2017 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Louisville Senior Center, located at 423 Elm St.

_______________

Gage County

Beatrice

Dec. 28, 2017 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Holiday Inn, located at 4005 N. Sixth St.

Dec. 29, 2017 from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Beatrice YMCA, located at 1801 Scott St.

_______________

Jefferson County

Plymouth

Dec. 18, 2017 from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Plymouth Community Center, located at 307 East Main St.

_______________

Lancaster County

Lincoln

Dec. 19, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the American Red Cross Capital City chapter building, located at 220 Oakcreek Drive.

Dec. 19, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Wilderness Ridge, located at 1800 Wilderness Woods Place.

Dec. 21, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Bess Dodson Walt Branch Library, located at 6701 S. 14th St.

Dec. 21, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Victor E. Anderson Branch Library, located at 3635 Touzalin Ave.

Dec. 22, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Charles H. Gere Branch Library, located at 2400 S. 56th St.

Dec. 22, 2017 from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Gageway Mall, located at 6100 O St.

Dec. 22, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Channel 8 KLKN TV office, located at 3240 S. 10th St.

Dec. 26, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the American Red Cross Capital City chapter building, located at 220 Oakcreek Drive.

Dec. 29, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Chick-fil-A at SouthPointe Pavilions, located at 6810 S. 27th St.

_______________

Otoe County

Nebraska City

Dec. 22, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Arbor Day Foundation, located at 2700 Sylvan Road.

Syracuse

Dec. 20, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Community Memorial Hospital, located at 1579 Midland Ave.

Talmage

Dec. 27, 2017 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Talmage Community Building on Main Street.

_______________

Pawnee County

Pawnee City

Dec. 21, 2017 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Methodist Church, located at 849 F St.

_______________

Richardson County

Humboldt

Dec. 20, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the fairgrounds 4-H building, locate at 1034 Fourth St.

_______________

Saline County

Crete

Dec. 19, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the VFW Club, located at 130 W. 13th St.

How to donate blood

Simply download the American Red Cross blood donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) to make an appointment or for more information. All blood types are needed to ensure a reliable supply for patients. A blood donor card, a drivers license, or two other forms of identification are required at check-in. Individuals who are 17 years of age in most states (or 16, with parental consent where allowed by state law), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate blood. High school students and other donors 18 years of age and younger also have to meet certain height and weight requirements.

Blood and platelet donors can save time at their next donation by using RapidPass to complete their pre-donation reading and health history questionnaire online, on the day of their donation, from a computer or mobile device. To get started and learn more, visit redcrossblood.org/RapidPass and follow the instructions on the site.
Photo: University of Calgary Elias Pharaon, 85, of Vernon has undergone non invasive brain surgery.

An elderly Vernon man's life has changed dramatically following a revolutionary new form of brain surgery that is non invasive.

Elias Pharaon, 85, was so crippled with tremors that he couldn't write his name or feed himself. That has all changed, since he volunteered for the procedure which was performed by a team of University of Calgary physicians and researchers with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute.

The team used magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MrgFUS), a new technology that allows surgeons to access the brain without cutting the skin, or drilling into the skull.

We are able to see the brain with real-time imaging and target a beam of high intensity ultrasound to the region responsible for tremor, said Zelma Kiss, neurosurgeon and professor at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM). The patient is awake the whole time and the results are immediate.

Pharaon had the treatment at Calgary's Foothills Medical Centre.

I couldnt believe the tremor in my right hand was gone. I didnt feel anything during the procedure, Pharaon said. I was so happy. Its changed my life, I feel like I can go out in public again.

Essential tremor is the most common type of movement disorder; usually treated with medication, according to a press release.

For some, like Pharaon, the medication doesnt work and the tremors become so severe people can no longer dress or feed themselves.

This is the beginning of a much larger research platform, said Bruce Pike, professor at CSM. The idea of neurosurgery in an awake patient without breaking the skin is revolutionary. This technology may provide a new tool to study different treatment options for devastating brain diseases such as Parkinsons disease, dementia, epilepsy and brain tumours.

The research study is being done in collaboration with Alberta Health Services and with funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation and private donors, including from the Rob McAlpine Legacy Initiative and the Cumming Medical Research Fund.

At this point, only patients with severe medication resistant essential tremor are being treated.
Photo: Contributed One of many large cedars that has fallen into BX Creek.

A Vernon area resident is wondering if, and when, the North Okanagan Regional District is going to deal with dangerous trees along the BX Creek trail.

The woman, who did not want to be identified, walks the trail regularly, but is concerned by erosion along the creek bed that she believes has created a dangerous situation.

"Someone's going to get killed," she predicted.

I called the (North Okanagan Regional District) for a tree assessment of the cedars that have fallen or are at high risk of falling in the back walking trail area of the BX Ranch Park. Many of the big cedars have roots exposed and have already fallen in the forest along BX Creek. It's almost a daily occurrence and getting more dangerous by the week.

Officials with the regional district tend to agree there is a problem.

During a meeting of local politicians in October, NORD's chief executive officer David Sewell admitted with flooding this year, there are quite a number of dangerous trees.

He also said a tree assessment was necessary but that the fix, to cut down the trees, would be expensive.

The resident referred to the area along the creek as a dead zone that is getting worse every day."

"Tree assessments are an ongoing function of the RDNO every yea," said Mike Fox, with the regional district. "These assessments will focus on the areas where people normally inhabit or frequently go. RDNO staff have been out to most of the trails and natural spaces in the fall and will base the budget around the condition of the trees we have seen at this time and also add in a buffer as it is hard to say what the weather will provide this year. We saw last year that it is hard to predict the weather or what damage it will do to the RDNO's trails and natural spaces."
Photo: Contributed

The B.C. government has rejected the deeply controversial KGHM Ajax mine in Kamloops.

The company proposed to build a 1,700-hectare open-pit copper and gold mine about 10 kilometres southwest of the city on the traditional territories of area First Nations.

The environmental assessment office found that taken as a whole, the potential, and in many cases significant, adverse effects of the Ajax project outweighed the potential benefits.

A government news release cites 53 residual and cumulative adverse effects to environmental, economic, social, heritage and health values in the area. Additionally, significant adverse effects to indigenous land usage was noted.

Given these conclusions and the close proximity of Ajax to the City of Kamloops, particularly the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, including an elementary school, the ministers concluded the adverse effects would not likely be mitigated to an acceptable level and would therefore present an unacceptable risk, the news release continues.

The mine was met with fierce opposition from many local residents, including formally by the municipality itself.
Star Wars fans, the time has come...

The latest instalment in the Star Wars saga, 'The Last Jedi', hits theatres tonight, and expectations for film are pretty high.
Photo: Enowkin Centre

Pentictons Enowkin Centre received $20,000 in support of their multi-year project to engage local youth and restore rare and endangered habitats.

The TELUS Thompson Okanagan Community Board members presented the cheque this week, which also supports the recovery of local species at risk and the redevelopment of Indigenous foods.

The project aims to engage at least 1,500 community members to help with propagation and planting of at least 20,000 native plants on Penticton Indian Band territory.

We as sqilxw (humans) have been provided for by these families and we need to protect them, as it is our responsibility in this day and age to do what we can to protect all things with roots and to pass on this kind to knowledge to our own nieces and nephews, said Richard Armstrong, traditional ecological knowledge keeper from Enowkin Centre. So that maybe they can know and feel the need to protect what is fast disappearing in our territory.

A large focus of the project is to provide employment, volunteer and educational opportunities for Syilx youth aged 6 to 18.

Project participants will receive basic training in both western scientific and Syilx traditional.
Photo: Contributed

You have less than one week left to participate in the Castanet and the Downtown Penticton Association 24 Days of Christmas contest.

Until Dec. 20, you can visit one of 16 downtown locations for an entry into a sweepstakes for $425 to downtown stores.

Stores included are SmartShoppers, the Bumwrap, Grant King Mens Wear, Peaches Lingerie, Sirius Science and Nature, Red Bag, Pentagon, So Sweet, Cues, Nest, Tiger Alley, Mi Amor, Clancys Liquor, Urbana Clothing, Ginger XO and Beadz.

No purchase is required. Ballots will be located near the till or front door.
Photo: Contributed NexusBC and the Vernon RCMP have teamed up to make Christmas a little more merry for some local seniors.

Vernon North Okanagan RCMP are Making Spirits Bright this Yule Tide season.

The Vernon North Okanagan RCMP are looking to make the spirits of local seniors brighter this holiday season, by donating to the Making Spirits Bright campaign run by Nexus BC Senior Services. RCMP and municipal staff contributed to the program by sponsoring five Vernon seniors who were identified by Nexus BC, said Const. Kelly Brett.

The Making Spirits Bright Campaign was created in 2006 to spread some joy to seniors living in poverty and isolation.

Vernons Nexus BC branch posts personal stories and Christmas wish lists of local seniors that may experience loneliness during the holiday season. Community members can then read the stories and chose a senior who they wish to pledge.

The majority of what seniors have been wishing for are basic things such as gift cards for groceries, winter jackets and warm articles of clothing, including shoes, said Alison Campeau of the Nexus BC Community Resource Centre. We have started to give the seniors their gifts this week and it has been so heartwarming to see their reactions.

Each senior will receive two large gift bags from the RCMP that included wish list items as well as basic food and necessities.

The Vernon RCMP give to a variety of charities each Christmas.

The Nexus BC Community Resource Centre sees more than 20 different seniors through their doors each day during the holiday and non-holiday season.

There are many other campaigns run by Nexus BC that residents can become involved in.

More information on these campaigns can be found online or by calling 250-545-0585.
Photo: Castanet Staff

Heavily armed police officers swarmed Pentictons Cherry Lane Mall on Thursday evening for a false report of a firearm.

Police were called to the mall around 5:15 p.m. after being contacted by an employee of the mall, who received an anonymous call stating a person had produced a gun in another area of the mall.

The call came in on a business land line with no other details, but the employee immediately informed police.

Members immediately attended the area to investigate the circumstances surrounding the complaint to ensure the safety of the employees and public inside and out of the area, Cpl. Ted Manchulenko said.

Firearms complaints are treated seriously and several officers were dispatched, he added.

Attending police quickly determined the area was safe and there was no threat to the public.

Police continue to investigate the origin of the call.
High-Tech Grunderfonds (HTGF) and 5 Business Angels are investing together just under 1 million euros in node.energy GmbH. The company develops software to optimize energy costs for companies with on-site power generation. The funding will be used to further develop the software and to finance the market launch in Germany.

Over a million small power plants went online in Germany in the last 10 years. At first, the electricity from these plants was simply fed into the public grid and paid for with a subsidized tariff. In the meantime, however, it became profitable to establish so-called microgrids and use the energy directly on site. In this way, energy costs can be saved and the strained electricity networks can be relieved.

However, the implementation of the optimal microgrid concept is complicated and time-consuming up to now. In Germany alone, industrial consumers with existing small power plants are losing savings of well over EUR 100 million per year  and this number is rising quickly emphasizes Matthias Karger, co-founder and managing director of node.energy. He adds even energy consultants and service providers currently have to calculate project per project manually.

With node.energys software application opti.node, all steps for the commercial planning and management of microgrids are automated for the first time. The offer aims at energy managers of commercial real estate with on-site electricity generation. Co-founder and CTO Lars Manuel Rinn explains: In addition to industrial companies, hospitals, business parks and large hotels benefit from the use of opti.node. The software automatically determines the most cost-effective utilisation for the locally generated electricity and provides all the necessary tools for the implementation and continuous management of the microgrid.

In the current seed-round the young company from Frankfurt received a total of 775,000 euros in growth capital. The capital will to be used to grow the team, for further development of the software platform and to boost market entry in Germany. Dr. Ulrich Schmitt, Investment Manager at High-Tech Grunderfonds explains: In a decentralised energy world, it is becoming increasingly important to manage local electricity supply and demand efficiently. The technology developed by node.energy is the first integrated software-based solution to address this need. We were particularly impressed by the excellent market knowledge and implementation strength of the founders and are pleased to support the team in tapping this fast-growing market.

In addition to High-Tech Grunderfonds as lead investor, five experienced investors from the FrankfurtRhineMain Business Angels e.V. also participate in the financing round. The fact that node.energy was able to convince both, our business angels and the HTGF shows the quality of the start-ups in the Frankfurt area. In this case, a practice-oriented innovation and an experienced founding team build a perfect match. We are particularly pleased that this is a product for better and more efficient energy use, as we are devoting increased attention to this sector comments Dr. Burkhard Bonsels, board member of Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain e. V., who is also participating in the financing round personally.
IBM announced the first clients to tap into its IBM Q early-access commercial quantum computing systems to explore practical applications important to business and science. They include: JPMorgan Chase, Daimler AG, Samsung, JSR Corporation, Barclays, Hitachi Metals, Honda, Nagase, Keio University, Oak Ridge National Lab, Oxford University and University of Melbourne.

These 12 initial organizations join the newly formed IBM Q Network, a collaboration of leading Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions and national research labs working directly with IBM to advance quantum computing. The IBM Q Network will also foster a growing quantum computing ecosystem based on IBM's open source quantum software and developer tools.

The IBM Q Network provides organizations with quantum expertise and resources, and cloud-based access to the most advanced and scalable universal quantum computing systems available, starting with a 20 qubit IBM Q system. IBM also recently built and measured the first working 50 qubit prototype processor. IBM anticipates that access to this prototype will be offered to IBM Q Network participants in the next generation IBM Q system.

"IBM sees the next few years as the dawn of the commercial quantum era  a formative period when quantum computing technology and its early use cases develop rapidly. The IBM Q Network will serve as a vehicle to make quantum computing more accessible to businesses and organizations through access to the most advanced IBM Q systems and quantum ecosystem," said Dario Gil, vice president of AI and IBM Q, IBM Research. "Working closely with our clients, together we can begin to explore the ways big and small quantum computing can address previously unsolvable problems applicable to industries such as financial services, automotive or chemistry. There will be a shared focus on discovering areas of quantum advantage that may lead to commercial, intellectual and societal benefit in the future."

IBM Q Network Explores Practical Quantum Applications for Industry

Organizations will work directly with IBM scientists, engineers and consultants to pioneer quantum computing for specific industries and have direct cloud-based access to IBM Q systems. Each of the IBM Q Network Partners below will explore a broad set of potential applications of quantum computing in their industry that could provide a quantum advantage  demonstrations of real-world problems that may be solved faster or more efficiently with a quantum computer than with a classical computer.

JPMorgan Chase will be the premier global financial services partner with IBM, focusing on use cases for quantum computing applicable to the financial industry including trading strategies, portfolio optimization, asset pricing and risk analysis.

will be the premier global financial services partner with IBM, focusing on use cases for quantum computing applicable to the financial industry including trading strategies, portfolio optimization, asset pricing and risk analysis. Daimler AG will work with IBM to advance the potential use cases of quantum computing for the automotive and transportation industry. Some areas of research include finding and developing new materials for automotive application through quantum chemistry, complex optimization problems such as for manufacturing processes or vehicle routing for fleet logistics or autonomous/self-driving cars, and the intersection of quantum and machine learning to enhance the capabilities of artificial intelligence.

will work with IBM to advance the potential use cases of quantum computing for the automotive and transportation industry. Some areas of research include finding and developing new materials for automotive application through quantum chemistry, complex optimization problems such as for manufacturing processes or vehicle routing for fleet logistics or autonomous/self-driving cars, and the intersection of quantum and machine learning to enhance the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Samsung , working closely with IBM, will explore a variety of use cases where quantum computing may impact the future of the semiconductor and electronics industry.

, working closely with IBM, will explore a variety of use cases where quantum computing may impact the future of the semiconductor and electronics industry. JSR Corporation, a leading chemical and materials company, will explore how quantum computing can improve materials for electronics, environmental and energy applications.

"As a leader in financial services technology, JPMorgan Chase is excited to collaborate with IBM Research in exploring how quantum computing may impact the industry," said Lori Beer, CIO, JPMorgan Chase. "Joining the IBM Q Network allows us to bring our technologists alongside IBM's researchers and leverage cutting-edge quantum systems to learn about how we may be able to apply these technologies in the future."

"The intelligently connected car of the future requires computing capabilities not available today," says Ola Kallenius, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG responsible for Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. "We believe that quantum computing could be a crucial element in creating sustainable and highly efficient mobility."

"Samsung is excited to work with IBM to explore how quantum computing may impact semiconductor, display and IT industries," said Seongjun Park, Ph.D, Vice President at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. "By joining the IBM Q Network and having access to quantum systems and world-class expertise, we hope to take part in unveiling the unexplored potential of quantum computing and pave a road forward for future commercial applications."

"JSR is excited to join the IBM Q Network to explore how quantum computing may impact the materials industry and address chemical challenges that are beyond the reach of today's classical computing," said Nobu Koshiba, President of JSR Corporation. "Working with IBM, JSR scientists will focus on computational chemistry and pave a road forward for potential commercial applications."

Also, IBM Q Network Members Barclays, Hitachi Metals, Honda and Nagase will build their knowledge of general approaches to quantum computing and begin to investigate potential use cases for their industries of finance, materials, automotive and chemistry respectively.

IBM Q Network Establishes Global Hubs for Quantum Research, Education and Broader Industrial Collaboration

IBM will establish regional hubs across four continents to increase access to quantum systems and advance research, which are critical for accelerated learning, skills development and implementation of quantum computing. These IBM Q Network Hubs will broadly enable their industry and research collaborators to have online use of IBM Q systems and engage in joint development work to explore quantum computing. The planned locations for the hubs are at IBM Research, Keio University in Japan, Oak Ridge National Lab in the United States, Oxford University in the United Kingdom and the University of Melbourne in Australia.

"Keio University is excited and truly honored to be selected as the only IBM Q hub in Japan," said Prof. Kohei Itoh, the Dean of Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University. "We are looking forward to performing state-of-the-art quantum computing research using IBM Q and guiding member companies of the hub to develop mission-oriented quantum software that will help their businesses."

"Providing access to real quantum computing hardware is fundamental to accelerating the development of applications and programs important to UT-Battelle, LLC., the managing and operating contractor at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)," said Jeff Nichols, Associate Laboratory Director, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "Establishing ORNL as a hub of the IBM Q Network would again demonstrate that UT-Battelle is at the forefront of innovation, enabled by the world's most advanced computational systems, and will continue to drive transformational advancements in science and research."

"I am delighted with this new collaboration with IBM. Working with one of the world's leading information technology companies to develop new applications for a quantum computer will enhance Oxford's and the UK's capability in quantum technology, by providing a unique resource for the Oxford-led Networked Quantum Information Technologies Hub," said Prof. Ian Walmsley, Hooke Professor of Experimental Physics, Director of the Networked Quantum Information Technologies (NQIT) Hub and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Oxford University. "NQIT's emulator program will work with IBM to convene scientists, engineers and industrial researchers and developers across a wider range of fields, from simulating new molecules to enhancing artificial intelligence to show how quantum computers can dramatically transform their ideas and businesses."

"We are excited to work with IBM to explore how quantum computing could benefit Australian industry and education and address new computational challenges," said Professor Jim McCluskey, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Melbourne. "By becoming an IBM Q Network hub and having access to advanced quantum systems, it will allow our scientists to develop knowledge for quantum solutions applicable to industry problems in Mining, Energy and Finance."

IBM Fosters Growing Quantum Ecosystem

Through the publically available IBM Q Experience, over 60,000 users have run more than 1.7M quantum experiments and generated over 35 third-party research publications using the world's first series of quantum computers available openly on the web. The IBM Q Experience enables registered users to connect to IBM's quantum processors via the IBM Cloud, to run algorithms and experiments, work with the individual quantum bits, and explore tutorials and simulations around what might be possible with quantum computing. Developers also have access to IBM's open quantum software development kit, QISKit, to create and run quantum computing programs.

Enabling high quality academic research is one of the core principles of the IBM Q Experience, and now registered academic users can leverage the IBM Q Experience for a deeper research collaboration. Professors and researchers will find customized tools designed to accelerate and differentiate their work including preferred queue access to IBM's quantum processors, the ability to link and tag their research to the IBM Q Experience, and channels to request new features and functionalities. Users have registered from over 1500 universities, 300 high schools, and 300 private institutions worldwide, many of whom are accessing the IBM Q Experience as part of their formal education.

The IBM Q Experience will also play a significant role in an initiative IBM is undertaking with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. IBM will support MIT in producing a leading edge, comprehensive curriculum for executives, engineers, scientists and researchers to understand and leverage the upcoming quantum computing revolution. The first courses are anticipated to go online in the first half of 2018 via the edX platform. The curriculum will include a set of MIT created massive open online courses (MOOCs) that will be offered both for free and for a fee to learners who desire an MIT issued certificate of completion. The curriculum will also include a comprehensive professional development curriculum (MIT ProX courses). These latter courses will include online labs on quantum computing, which will utilize the public IBM Q Experiencequantum computers.

In addition to supporting the quantum curriculum, IBM has started working with MIT to explore the intersection of quantum computing and machine learning as part of the recently launched MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. Together, IBM and MIT scientists are investigating the "Physics of AI", which involves new research into AI hardware materials, devices and architectures. Focus areas include using AI to help characterize and improve quantum devices, and researching the use of quantum computing to optimize and speed up machine-learning algorithms and other AI applications.

IBM Research is announcing a series of prizes for professors, lecturers and students who use the IBM Q Experience and QISKit in the classroom or for their research. Awards will be made available for developing open source course materials for a lecture series; building Jupyter Notebook tutorials with QISKit; contributing specific code modules to the open source QISKit SDK and to students who publish a scientific paper that makes use of QISKit.

IBM Introduces IBM Q Consulting

IBM is also introducing IBM Q Consulting, which brings together consultants, scientists and industry experts to help clients envision new business value through the application of quantum computing technology, and provide clients with customized roadmaps to help them become quantum ready. With access to cutting-edge mathematics and engineering, IBM's quantum consultants and developers are applying their expertise to complex business problems. IBM Q Consulting is focusing initially in logistics and modeling use cases in industries such as mining, banking, life sciences and electronics. Clients can engage IBM Q Consulting immediately.
Adam Frisch still trails Lauren Boebert but makes gains

The election is hovering within the threshold for an automatic recount. Here's the latest in the Colorado race between Adam Frisch and Lauren Boebert.
Our weekly round up of other news affecting foreign investors throughout Asia:

Myanmars New Companies Law

On December 6, 2017, Myanmars President U Htin Kyaw approved the new Myanmar Companies Act, 2017, replacing the countrys century-old Companies Act of 1914. The new law seeks to modernize corporate governance in Myanmar in line with international best practices.

The Disabilities Act in India: What Employers Need to Know

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 along with the Rules (for implementation) have recently been enacted by the federal government. The new law protects disabled persons in India from various forms of discrimination, ensures their access to equal employment opportunities, and enhances their societal participation.

Russia, China Agree to Coordinate OBOR with EAEU

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has said on a visit to Moscow last week that China is ready to step up efforts to link the China-initiated Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) when meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

China, United Kingdom Planning RMB 10 Billion OBOR Development Fund

China and the UK are planning a RMB 10 billion joint investment fund, according to sources at Bloomberg. Details of the equity split have not yet been decided, however the fund is apparently set to focus on areas such as infrastructure, agriculture and hi-tech industries.

Vietnams Central Highlands Region: Strategic Investment Opportunities

The Central Highlands have long been a strategic economic, political location in the history of Vietnam. Sharing borders with Laos and Cambodia, this region is one of the most important location for the economic development of Vietnam in the next few years.



About Us Our Briefing updates are written by and provided by the various regional offices of Dezan Shira & Associates throughout Asia. To obtain a complimentary subscription to Asia Briefing please click here. To contact Dezan Shira & Associates concerning foreign investment and assistance in Asia, please email us at asia@dezshira.com

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure

Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.

An Introduction to Doing Business in ASEAN 2017

Doing Business in ASEAN introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment and taxation. We also include the latest development news in our Important Updates section for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017

Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Hong Kong 2017

Doing Business in China 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in China. Compiled by the professionals at Dezan Shira & Associates in January 2017, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Chinese market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to keep up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in India. As such, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Indian market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to stay up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017 provides readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Singapore and outlines the citys role as a trading hub within ASEAN. The guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, and social insurance in the city-state.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2017 will provide readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Vietnam. Compiled by Dezan Shira & Associates, a specialist foreign direct investment practice, this guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, payroll, and social insurance in this dynamic country.
You are here: China





President Xi Jinping has urged the People's Liberation Army to restructure and enhance its combat capability.

Chinese President Xi Jinping (R, front), also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, meets with senior officers of the 71st Group Army of the People's Liberation Army in Xuzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Dec. 13, 2017. Xi inspected the 71st Group Army of the People's Liberation Army in Xuzhou on Dec. 13. (Xinhua/Li Gang)





Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, was speaking during an inspection on Wednesday of the 71st Group Army of the PLA.

Xi told officers that they should grasp the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and incorporate those principles into military practice.

The Army was urged to strengthen Party organizations at all levels and ensure servicemen and servicewomen follow the command of the CPC Central Committee and Central Military Command.

Xi also stressed political discipline and rules in the military, efforts to fight corruption and improving work styles.

He instructed the Army to enhance its capability to win wars, implement restructuring plans and improve Army management and combat mobility.

"The Army should innovate its training theories and methods, conduct more combat drills and build up soldiers' morale," he said, urging commanding officers to take responsibility and demonstrate leadership.

During the inspection, Xi first visited a company in which hero soldier Wang Jie served in the 1960s. He gave his life to save 12 others.

He visited the company's room of honor, where Wang's photos and diaries are displayed. He then talked with soldiers of the squad named after Wang.

At the end of his visit, Xi took a photo with all the soldiers and officers of the company.

Xi also visited the headquarters of the 71st Group Army, where he met with senior officers and delivered a speech.
A prisoner with a reprieved death penalty sentence who was abducted 30 years ago, found his birth mother with the help of prison officers on December 12, 2017, in Longyan, Fujian Province, Beijing News reported.

A doctor tells the prisoner the DNA results on December 12, 2017. [Photo provided by Fujian Bureau of Prisons]





On November 28, prison officers at Longyan Prison received a letter from a prisoner, who had been sentenced to death with a two-year suspension. The prisoner said that in his dreams he kept remembering being abducted as a child and that he missed his birth parents and wanted to see them while he was still alive.

Haunted by his dreams, the prisoner was not progressing in his rehabilitation. The prison designated officer Chen Linlin to begin early investigations, but he failed to find any clues as to what happened all those years ago.

The official WeChat account of China's Ministry of Justice published an article calling for concerted efforts from the whole of society to find the prisoner's family. This action was followed by web portals fjsf.gov.cn and fjjyj.gov.cn.

Two days later, after over 200 tips had been received, a breakfast vendor called the Fujian Bureau of Prisons, suggesting that the prisoner might be her long-lost brother. The bureau and Longyan Prison immediately started DNA identification by testing blood samples from the prisoner and the vendor's mother on December 1.

A matching result proved that the prisoner was the woman's child, and he was allowed to meet his family at the prison on December 14.
 Flash

The European Parliament and the European Council on Thursday reached a provisional agreement on accounting of emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).



According to an official news release, this would help implement the European Union's (EU) 2030 climate objectives which form part of the EU's policy to drive Europe's transition to a modern and clean economy.

The regulation on land use, land use change and forestry will incorporate greenhouse gas emissions and removals related to agricultural land and forestry into the EU's climate framework from 2021, said the release.

This provisional agreement must be formally approved by the Parliament and Council of Ministers. Following the approval, it will be published in the EU's Official Journal and enters into effect 20 days later, according to the release.

Land use and forestry include the use of soils, trees, plants, biomass and timber, which emits greenhouse gases but also serves to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

According to official figures, the EU forests absorb the equivalent of nearly 10 percent of the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions each year.

The proposal for LULUCF was presented by the European Commission on July 20, 2016 as part of the "Driving Europe's transition to a low-carbon economy" package, while the EU 2030 climate and energy framework was adopted at the October 2014 European Council, with the aim of reducing the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.




China said it has lodged serious representations to the United States after US President Donald Trump signed a law laying the groundwork for possible naval visits between Taiwan and the United States.

The one-China policy constitutes the political foundation of China-US relations, and China is firmly opposed to any official exchanges, military contact and arms sales between Taiwan and the US, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Trump signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2018 fiscal year. It contains provisions about studying the feasibility of mutual visits between Taiwan and the US and "normalizing" the transfer of defense equipment and services to the island.
Three-man crew returns from space station

China Daily | Updated: 2017-12-15 08:06

DZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan - Two astronauts, from the US and Italy, and a Russian cosmonaut on Thursday landed in Kazakhstan after almost five months on the International Space Station, footage from the Russian space agency showed.

Randy Bresnik of the United States, Paolo Nespoli of Italy and Sergey Ryazanskiy of Russia landed on the Kazakh steppe at 2:37 pm local time in a Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft.

Over 139 days in space the three "have supported hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard humanity's only microgravity laboratory," NASA said.

Bresnik took part in several spacewalks to fix a robotic arm that latches onto incoming spaceships packed with supplies, while all three men were involved in a live video chat with Pope Francis from the space station.

On Sunday, Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos and Norishige Kanai of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will blast off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome to replace the returning astronauts and cosmonaut.

The space travelers will join three other crew members currently on the ISS.

In October Russia's space agency said a manned Soyuz rocket had suffered a partial loss of pressure as it returned to Earth from the ISS in April.

The incident did not put the lives of the crew in danger, Roscosmos said.

NASA stopped its own manned launches to the ISS in 2011 but recently moved to increase its crew complement aboard the ISS as the Russians cut theirs in a cost-saving measure announced last year.

The ISS laboratory, a rare example of US and Russian international cooperation, has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 km/h since 1998.

Afp - Reuters

(China Daily 12/15/2017 page12)
Last week, President Trump announced that the United States would be moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. While many Middle Eastern Christians have been critical of this decision, some American evangelical leaders have praised the move.

I think a lot of evangelicals support Israel for a sense of justice, said Gerald McDermott, the author of Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land. They see Israel as a light of freedom and democracy in a Middle East that is filled with the darkness of tyranny.

McDermott, who has traveled to Israel more than a dozen times, acknowledged that the move can make things complicated for Palestinian Christians.

Theyre rightly afraid that anything the United States does will be used again them by their Muslim cousins, said McDermott. Theyre often considered subversives because theyre Christians, the United States is considered a Christian country, and anything the United States does that the Palestinian leadership doesnt like must be supported by Palestinian Christians.

McDermott joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss whether Christians should care about the location of the American embassy, the divide between Middle Eastern and American Christians over Jerusalems recognition as Israels capital, and where biblical prophecy fits into this discussion.

What is Quick to Listen? Read more

Subscribe to Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts

Follow the podcast on Twitter

Follow our hosts on Twitter: Morgan Lee and Mark Galli

Follow our guest on Twitter: Gerald R. McDermott

Subscribe to Marks newsletter: The Galli Report

Quick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee, Richard Clark, and Cray Allred
Our sense of control is a reality because we are accountable for our choices. Scripture calls us to behave righteously, speak truthfully, and forgive lavishly. We are to be wise planners and prudent managers.

But it is also an illusion. Far too often, our sense of personal power becomes inflated, and we presume control that we simply do not possess.

Steve Jobs is an apt example. To develop breakthrough products, he created what biographer Walter Isaacson calls a distortion reality field. Just as Star Trek aliens created their own new world through sheer mental force, writes Isaacson, in Jobss presence reality was malleable.

This grand sense of self caught up with Jobs when, at the age of 48, he was diagnosed with a pancreatic tumor. Rather than follow his doctors advice and pursue immediate surgery, he visited a psychic and purged himself of what he called negative energy. As Isaacson observes: This was the dark side of his reality distortion fieldhis assumption that he could will things to be as he wanted.

Tragically, Steve Jobs waited nine months to follow his doctors advice. But by then it was too late.

The Shattered Illusion

I, too, was a leader who loved control. And I, too, was laid low by an out-of-the-blue diagnosis. My cancer involved a failing immune system, similar to what you see in AIDS patients. Without a risky bone marrow transplant, I would die of a common cold within 18 months. Given the thread-the-needle nature of such a procedure, my odds of regaining decent health were 20 percent. My odds of surviving were 50 percent.

Post-transplant, as I lingered on the edge of death, my white cell count plunged to zero. Depleted by massive doses of chemo and full-body radiation, I lost 20 pounds and took 50 pills a day. I lookedand feltbarely alive.

During the year of isolation that followed, I had ample time to reassess my sense of personal power. The harsh reality was evident: I had no control over contracting cancer, no control over finding a matching stem cell donor and no control dictating how my body would react to copious quantities of poison.

As I now look back, I am chagrined by my lifelong practice of supposing far more influence over circumstances and events than I actually possessed. Rather than being captain of a large boat in a small lake, I was more akin to the skipper of a small raft in the Pacific Ocean.

Control Overreach

Such presumptuousness is harshly critiqued by the apostle James: Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lords will, we will live and do this or that (4:1315).

From Jamess perspective, control overreach represents the height of human arrogance. Like Adam, Eve, and the builders of the Tower of Babel, we overstep our bounds when we claim too much authority. John Calvin calls this attitude a crazy boldness that usurps more to self than is permitted.

William Ernest Henley echoes this false self-confidence in his famed poem, Invictus: I am master of my fate. I am captain of my soul. This is dangerous business. Distortion reality fields eventually bite back. Recall the farmer in Jesus parable who tore down existing barns to build bigger ones, proudly declaring to be set up for many years. His arrogance led Jesus to label him a fool (Luke 12:1621).

A simple scan of the news ought to convince us that many things lie beyond our choices. Consider the South Sudanese farmer who just a few years ago was celebrating the independence of a new nation. Today, he is struggling in a Kenyan refugee camp. Or observe the Syrian public-school teacher whose peaceful existence and fulfilling vocation have been ripped apart by a brutal civil war.

Less dramatically, and more locally, we do well to reflect upon economies that dip, children who go astray, cars that malfunction, spouses who misbehave, jobs that are discontinued, politicians who act unpredictably and bosses who get ornery. All are outside our control.

Hope for Control Freaks

Thankfully, there is an antidote for control overreach. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages us not to worry about our lives (Matt. 6:2534). In doing so, he is not telling us to abandon all sense of personal agency. We are indeed responsible for our choices. Rather, he is trying to liberate us from anxiety about matters beyond our influence.

Jesus declares that just as our heavenly Father provides for birds, so he will do for us. While they must perform their duties (e.g., make nests and feed their young), they are dependent upon a caring Creator for so much more.

Like the birds, our posture is to be one of reliance and trust. We are not to fret about circumstance beyond our power. Worry derives from the Middle English word for to strangle. Jesus wants to spare us from life-sapping anxiety.

As my sense of personal control has appropriately diminished over the past two years, my confidence in him has increased inversely. His provision is prodigal. He is thoroughly trustworthy, sovereign, and good. While I confess to not always understanding his ways, I lean into his strong arms. This frees me from the slavery of being (to echo Henley) master of my fate and captain of my soul.

For those of us who struggle with the illusion of control, this is great news. While taking responsibility for our God-given duties, we need not fret over matters outside our control. Releasing our anxieties to him, we live with confidence and joy.

Alec Hill is president emeritus of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He was diagnosed with myelodysplasia syndrome in April 2015.
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.
American evangelicals rediscovered their brethren in the Middle East in recent years. The promise of the Arab Spring, followed by the threat of ISIS. Beheadings and other martyrdoms, followed by forgiveness.

Many decided we must become better friends, and work harder for the persecuted churchs flourishing in the land of its birth.

However, President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is putting that new friendship to the test, as Middle East Christian leaders have almost unanimously rallied against the decision.

Trumps decision would increase hatred, conflict, violence and suffering, said the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem in a statement in advance of his anticipated announcement.

The Coptic Orthodox Church warned of dangerous consequences. The head of Egypts Protestant community said it was against justice and not helpful.

But the strongest testimony may have come from Jordan, where the national evangelical council pleaded against uncalculated risks that may well expose Christians in this region to uncontrollable dangers.

Despite these dire cries, many conservative US evangelicals rejoiced in Trumps announcement. Support for Israel is a longstanding mark of much of the community.

Evangelicals in the US dont spend enough time thinking about Arab Christians, said Joel Rosenberg, a dual US-Israeli citizen who last month led a friendship-seeking delegation of evangelical leaders to Egypt and Jordan. Many were members of Trumps unofficial faith advisory team.

People who love Jesus havent been talking to each other. But we should.

But talking with Arab Christians didnt change the US talking points.

America is finally putting American interests and the interests of our key allies first, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. Policy is coming into alignment with biblical truth: Jerusalem is the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state.

Mario Bramnick of the Latino Coalition for Israel applauded. God gave the land of Israel with Jerusalem as its undivided capital to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And for Jim Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego, It is quite possible [this] is the single most important announcement regarding Israel by a US president since Harry Truman recognized Israel as a state.

But the reaction from Palestinian evangelical leaders was visceral.

Local Christians are sacrificed on the altar of imperial politics, said Mitri Raheb, an evangelical Lutheran pastor and president of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem. He was outraged particularly by Vice President Mike Pences remarks.

His God and our God seem to have nothing in common, he said. He worships a warrior, not the crucified one.

Yohanna Katanacho, academic dean of Nazareth Evangelical College, was less angry but still dismayed.

We are confused. What do we have to do to please their evangelical God? he asked. Should we abandon our homes, our culture, and our history? Should we betray our nation?

They see us as enemies of Israel, and therefore as enemies of God.

Bob Roberts, senior pastor of Northwood Church in Texas, was in Bethlehem with Christian leaders the day reactionary riots began.

[Palestinian Christians] felt very alone and abandoned, he said, noting his own mixed feelings about the announcement. American evangelicals celebrated while totally ignorant as to how the Palestinians felt.

The arrogance and insensitivity of Western believers was inexcusable to me.

Rosenberg recently formed the Alliance for the Peace of Jerusalem with 25 US evangelical leaders, but on final status issues he has not taken a strong stand. He is sympathetic to all arguments on timing.

Wanting to matchmake between Christian Zionists and Arab evangelicals, his Middle East trip aimed to encourage conversation.

Its never been easy, and I suspect it wont get easier, he said. I know there are things that pain them, and I dont want to bring them pain.

But if you have a friend who implores you to do something, and you listen, what if it doesnt change your perspective? Are you no longer friends?

Rosenberg rejects the either-or dichotomy expressed by many, and acknowledges that end-times theology too often divides believers.

He agrees with the warnings that Trumps decision might increase tensions, and is especially worried about Jordan. Even so, he hopes that in Gods mercy it might jumpstart a path to peace.

And while he knows that members of the delegation were impacted by their experience, deeply held beliefson both sidesdo not change overnight.

Im playing the long game, he said. As wonderful as those meetings were, it was only a month ago. The Christian leaders I brought began to see new perspectives, but I dont want to overstate what it has accomplished so far.

I have to absorb the disappointments when my friends dont see eye to eye.

One disappointment is that Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros cancelled a coming meeting with Pence. Scheduled for later this month, the patriarch followed the lead of Egypts top Muslim leader.

Sources now say Pences trip to Israel is postponed (due to US tax reform efforts), with the Christian mayor of Bethlehem also rejecting his visit. Billed initially as an effort to support the Christians of the Middle East, many of them are keeping their distance.

Rosenberg respectfully prays these leaders would reconsider, and speak directly and candidly of their frustration to the vice president. After all, he says, it is an opportunity to engage the highest levels of American governmentand Pence is a fellow Christian, who cares.

But in the US, Rosenberg also is beginning to see some fruit from the delegation visit.

In a strongly pro-Israel op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats sympathized with the Arab side.

We must also recognize our calling to have compassion on all people in the region, including the Palestinians, he wrote.

Jesus love extends to all, and so must ours.

Everyone can listen better, believes Johnnie Moore, chairman of Trumps faith advisory board. Also a member of Rosenbergs delegation to Egypt, he travels the world to engage local Christians (and Muslims) as a personal calling.

He promised a top Palestinian negotiator he would visit Ramallah, and recently visited Israel with a delegation of Bahraini religious leaders, helping the Muslim nation send a message of peace.

But within a relationship of friendship, one must also speak truth.

Arab Christians need to ask themselves the degree to which their opinions are impacted by a low-grade anti-Semitism, he said.

These days represent a moment of truth for the Palestinians. They cannot leave the negotiating table every time something happens that they do not like.

Despite the sound bites, Moore believes, Trumps decision is not anti-Palestinian. But the reality of the Middle East makes believers unable to say so.

Some Arab Christians who might desire a middle ground do not feel they can moderate their position at all, Moore said, because of the subtle but oppressive atmosphere in their societies.

But in Jordan, reactions were prompted by Trumps US evangelical support.

Evangelicals in the West make statements, said Imad Shehadeh, president of Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary, but evangelicals in the East pay the price.

A Palestinian born in Jordan, Shehadeh said US evangelical statements in support of Trumps Jerusalem decision should have been worded more carefully.

But equally, though the Jordan Evangelical Council statement came as a great relief to the community, it could have had a different emphasis, he said. Local Muslim-Christian relations are generally positive, and it may have overstated the immediate danger.

There is wisdom in siding with countrymen, Shehadeh said, and the older generation is keen to do so, especially in public statements.

The younger generation of pastors tends to be more nuanced, having been trained in his seminary. But most people just want to stay silent, lamenting any disruption to a calm status quo.

Coming to Jordan as a guest of the king, Rosenberg requested his friend Shehadeh organize a meeting of 40 select evangelical leaders to engage with his delegation. Though it was a very positive meeting, it made some Jordanians nervous.

Any political message of solidarity must add the Christian message of grace, said Shehadeh. And without wisdom and care in both the Western and Eastern context, grace is easily lost.

Be true to your beliefs, he said. Just say it differently so you dont lose the other side.

So, what next?

Christian Zionist leaders are a hopeless case; the evangelicals in the pew can still be saved, said Raheb. I suggest that they come and see firsthand their fellow sisters and brothers in Christ suffering under Israeli occupation. This will give them a fresh insight into the Bible.

Katanacho was also inviting, but differently.

I disagree with many of my evangelical brothers and sisters, especially with their view on Jerusalem, he said. But they are my family. I will continue to seek ways to engage them.

A relational blessing seeks to empower the other for Gods glory, even if it means suffering.

Katanacho was honest that US evangelicals have contributed to this suffering. But grace demands he start with his own sins and lack of love.

Love charges static people, provoking them to build new bridges, he said, emphasizing empathy over consensus.

From there, true love pursues justice to build a virtuous community.

And for Rosenberg, the community of American and Arab evangelicals must humbly dialogue.

God has a purpose for modern Israel, he believes, and he knows many Arab Christians do not agree. But personal relationships do not demand you become an advocate for everything your friend believes inno matter how important the issue.

We as Christians have to figure out how to do this conversation right, Rosenberg said.

If we cant do it as sons and daughters of the King of Kings, how can we expect the president of the United States, or anyone else, to do it better?
|

Image: Getty Images

President Donald Trumps biggest religious freedom policy promise to evangelicalsrepealing the Johnson Amendmentwill no longer take place via Republican tax reform.

A Democratic senator announced Thursday night that the repeal included in the House version of the tax bill, which would allow churches and other nonprofits to endorse candidates without losing their tax-exempt status, was removed during the reconciliation process with the Senate version, which did not include a repeal.

According to Senator Ron Wyden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, the Johnson Amendment repeal was blocked by the Senate parliamentarian. Because of a requirement called the Byrd Rule, reconciliation billswhich are passed through a simple Senate majoritycannot contain extraneous provisions that dont primarily deal with fiscal policy, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump made political speech by churches a major part of his president platform, and since taking office has repeatedly brought up his pledge to totally destroy the 1954 tax code provision named for Lyndon B. Johnson. Trump saw the Johnson Amendment as a restriction on religious groups free speech rights, since it prevents any nonprofit from opposing or endorsing a political candidatetherefore keeping political contributions from becoming tax-deductible.

Democrats have opposed the measure, and Wyden said he was pleased they prevented the repeal and would continue to fight all attempts to eliminate this critical provision.

Republican Senator James Lankford, a Southern Baptist and religious liberty advocate, criticized the move to block the measure.

The federal government and the IRS should never have the ability, through our tax code, to limit free speech; this tax reform bill was an appropriate place to address this historic tax problem, the Oklahoma senator said in a statement to The Hill.

Nonprofits are allowed to lobby Congress or their local elected officials, but the ambiguity of the current tax code keeps nonprofits in constant fear that they might have crossed a line that no other organization has to consider.

The President assured evangelicals that the Johnson Amendment was dead in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in February and the National Day of Prayer in May, when he unveiled an executive order addressing free speech and religious liberty.

This financial threat against the faith community is over, Trump said. Youre now in a position to say what you want to say.  No one should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors.

While campaigning, he had characterized the Johnson Amendment appeal as his greatest contribution to the faith. My greatest contribution to Christianityand other religionsis to allow you, when you talk religious liberty, to go and speak openly, and if you like somebody or want somebody to represent you, you should have the right to do it, he said.

Some of Trumps top evangelical backers, including Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, championed the change as a way to keep the government from controlling what pastors could say from their own pulpits. (Pastors are already free to endorse candidates outside of their official role at a religious nonprofit.)

The amendments main critic, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), is confident it would not withstand judicial scrutiny, and has ironically tried to make the IRS punish pastors in order to prove it. Their effort gained an unexpected ally in the Commission on Accountability and Policy for Religious Organizations, a congressional advisory panel led by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center has been surprised how many Americans want religion back in politicsincluding religious nones.

But overall, most evangelical leadersand most people in the pewsdid not want to see pastors endorsing politicians. Among the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 90 percent of its board of directors, including the leaders of major denominations and ministries, said they opposed pulpit endorsements in a survey conducted earlier this year.

A LifeWay Research survey conducted during the 2016 campaign found that 73 percent of Americans with evangelical beliefs said pastors should abstain from endorsing candidates, and about 65 percent said churches overall should abstain.

Americans already argue about politics enough outside the church, said LifeWay executive director Scott McConnell. They dont want pastors bringing those arguments into worship.

Yet fewer than half of Americansand just 33 percent of evangelicalswant churches to be punished if they do endorse candidates.

John Inazu, a professor at Washington University School of Law, told CT earlier this year, When it comes to challenges to religious liberty, the Johnson Amendment is just about the least important issue I can think of.

Though the Johnson Amendment has been in place for decades, the Internal Revenue Service very rarely uses it against churcheseven when pastors blatantly violate the rule. ADF rallies more than a thousand pastors a year to bring political speech into their sermons on its annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

The Washington Postreported this week that opponents to the repeal were concerned about rich donors using religious institutions and nonprofits as a channel to quietly funnel money to political candidates. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the government would miss out on $2 million due to write-offs for such donations.

Johnnie Moore, cochairman of Trump's evangelical advisory group, thinks concerns over dark money flooding into churches are misguided.

This is actually not about money at all. Those who oppose the Johnson Amendment primarily do so not because they want to endorse candidates. They oppose it because they view this as a violation of freedom of speech, he said. Pastors can choose not to be political at all or otherwise, and people will go to whatever church they choose.

Moore said that while the IRS rarely if ever enforced the Johnson Amendment, the provision was still used to threaten conservative groups. I cant tell you how many times Liberty University was threatened during my 13 years there because of this amendment, he said. Every time we had a Republican candidate speak on campus, we would receive tax-exemption threats on the basis of itdespite the fact that we never endorsed a candidate institutionally and had always invited the other side though they almost never accepted our invitations.

Pastors ought to be able to speak openly and freely without fear or intimidation, he said. In America, we believe in free speech and we foster a marketplace of ideas, and the pulpits of Americaliberal or conservativeshould not be any less free than the street corners.

In 2008, Indiana pastor Ron Johnson Jr. explained for CT why he participated in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, while editor in chief Mark Galli editorialized why pastors are tempted to make such endorsements.

Editors note: This blog has been updated to clarify that relevant surveys have focused on the issue of pastors endorsing politicians, and not specifically on the Johnson Amendment itself.
Three Continents in 60 Days: The Luis Palau Association Completes Two-Month-Long Global Initiative as Andrew Palau Returns from China



PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 15, 2017 /



This final 2017 campaign wrapped up an intense 60-day season of ministry for Palau across three continents, including festival outreaches in Africa, South America, and Asia.



"It's been an immense blessing to experience so many different cultures in such a short amount of time," Andrew Palau says. "The beauty of the Church is the diversity and uniqueness of expressions coupled with the unwavering source of Truth that runs through each community of believers. It was wonderful to see the creativity of God in so many ways these past two months and it's been a tremendous honor for us."



The last weekend of October brought 65,000 people together in the nation of Cote d'Ivoire (West Africa) for the Love Cote d'Ivoire Festival which was held in the nation's capital city of Yamoussoukro. The festival was preceded by a week of outreach events throughout the city where Palau shared the Good News with thousands of school children, prisoners, and local businessmen and women. Friends from the Palau Association's Next Generation Alliance served the city of San Pedro in a parallel festival in the week following.



Two weeks later in November, Palau headed up two festivals in the cities of La Matanza and Las Malvinas, Argentina, where 47,500 people gathered for multiple evangelistic events, once again reaching all levels of society. During the week of events, Palau met with several political leaders throughout the region, including Veronica Magario, mayor of La Matanza, who welcomed him as an honored visitor to the city, and Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires. These two festivals marked the 6th and 7th festivals for Palau in Argentina in the last two years.



One short week after returning from Latin America, Palau and his team headed once again to China for his yearly Christmas outreach to the nation. Events in Beijing and Huai'an City brought more than 8,000 people together where Palau shared the Good News of Jesus and distributed the book What is Christmas?. Following in his father's footsteps, Palau made it a point to meet with regional and national government leaders, sharing his love for China and passion for preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ openly. These meetings included China's State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and the China Christian Council (CCC). This visit saw particularly encouraging confirmation in relationships with many church and government leaders Palau and his team have continued to foster and develop through the years.



Going forward, the Luis Palau Association will be launching a massive, 3-year initiative called 2020: Blessing the Nations, which aims to expand ministry efforts on all levels.



For more information about 2020: Blessing the Nations or other aspects of the Palau Association, visit



Share Tweet Contact: Chelsea Miller, Luis Palau Association , 503-614-1500PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 15, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Evangelist Andrew Palau just returned from Beijing and Huai'an City, China, serving local churches to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the region through special Christmas events. Working directly with local churches and approval from authorities, Palau was met with great openness and joy as he shared the clear message of hope through Jesus Christ with thousands of individuals and distributed 9,000 copies of his Gospel-centered book What is Christmas?.This final 2017 campaign wrapped up an intense 60-day season of ministry for Palau across three continents, including festival outreaches in Africa, South America, and Asia."It's been an immense blessing to experience so many different cultures in such a short amount of time," Andrew Palau says. "The beauty of the Church is the diversity and uniqueness of expressions coupled with the unwavering source of Truth that runs through each community of believers. It was wonderful to see the creativity of God in so many ways these past two months and it's been a tremendous honor for us."The last weekend of October brought 65,000 people together in the nation of Cote d'Ivoire (West Africa) for the Love Cote d'Ivoire Festival which was held in the nation's capital city of Yamoussoukro. The festival was preceded by a week of outreach events throughout the city where Palau shared the Good News with thousands of school children, prisoners, and local businessmen and women. Friends from the Palau Association's Next Generation Alliance served the city of San Pedro in a parallel festival in the week following.Two weeks later in November, Palau headed up two festivals in the cities of La Matanza and Las Malvinas, Argentina, where 47,500 people gathered for multiple evangelistic events, once again reaching all levels of society. During the week of events, Palau met with several political leaders throughout the region, including Veronica Magario, mayor of La Matanza, who welcomed him as an honored visitor to the city, and Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, mayor of Buenos Aires. These two festivals marked the 6th and 7th festivals for Palau in Argentina in the last two years.One short week after returning from Latin America, Palau and his team headed once again to China for his yearly Christmas outreach to the nation. Events in Beijing and Huai'an City brought more than 8,000 people together where Palau shared the Good News of Jesus and distributed the book What is Christmas?. Following in his father's footsteps, Palau made it a point to meet with regional and national government leaders, sharing his love for China and passion for preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ openly. These meetings included China's State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and the China Christian Council (CCC). This visit saw particularly encouraging confirmation in relationships with many church and government leaders Palau and his team have continued to foster and develop through the years.Going forward, the Luis Palau Association will be launching a massive, 3-year initiative called 2020: Blessing the Nations, which aims to expand ministry efforts on all levels.For more information about 2020: Blessing the Nations or other aspects of the Palau Association, visit www.palau.org or email info@palau.org
home World Sudanese court upholds eviction of pastors as government steps up campaign to take over church properties

A Sudanese court has turned down an appeal of two pastors who were evicted from their church-owned homes in August as part of what is believed to be a government campaign to take over church property.

According to Morning Star News, Rev. Yahia Abdelrahim Nalu, who serves as a moderator with Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC), and Rev. Sidiq Abdalla, a SPEC pastor, were left homeless after the police raided their homes on Aug. 15.

The church leaders appealed the eviction, but on Dec. 3, their plea was rejected by Judge Adam Tahir Haj Adam, who ruled that Muslim businessman Hisham Hamad Al-Neel should take over their homes. "All appeals presented are rejected, and implantation of court order should continue," the court order reportedly stated.

The SPEC leaders have presented another appeal to the high court, which is expected to hand down a ruling before the end of the year.

A source who requested anonymity has claimed that Al-Neel is behind nearly all cases that have been filed to obtain SPEC properties in Khartoum and Khartoum Bahri (Khartoum North). "Almost all the cases were opened by Hisham," the source said.

Morning Star News noted that 60 other church leaders are facing charges in various courts over their refusal to turn over church property to Al-Neel.

The judge had ruled against the two pastors even though the eviction order pointed to another house, No. 567, rather than the house where the pastors had been residing, which was No. 772, a source has claimed. The properties were indicated in the eviction order, but it does not name the occupants to be evicted.

The Sudanese government has intensified its crackdown against Christians following the secession of South Sudan in July 2011.

In 2013, The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Endowments announced that it will no longer grant licenses for the construction of new churches in Sudan, citing a decrease in the South Sudanese population.

Sudan has been designated by the U.S. State Department as a Country of Particular Concern since 1999 due to its treatment of Christians and other human rights violations.

Last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan urged the Sudanese government to stop the demolitions of churches and other places of worship. He stated that Sudan's future relations with the U.S. will be determined by how Khartoum promotes freedom of expression and other human rights.

"As we move forward in our relationship, the United States will not ignore violations of human rights, including the right to religious freedom," Sullivan said at the time.

Sudanese officials have maintained that the government already promotes human rights in the country and said that disputes regarding property registrations could be the reason for the demolition of churches.

"Sudan also enjoys religious freedom, which is exemplified with several churches existing adjacent to mosques," the foreign ministry said earlier this year.
BISMARCK, N.D. - The Dallas-based developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and a Florida-based environmental publication are arguing in court over whether something billed as a social movement can be sued.

Energy Transfer Partners in August filed a lawsuit against Earth First, Greenpeace and BankTrack, alleging they disseminated false and misleading information about the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to Illinois; interfered with construction; and damaged the company's reputation and finances through illegal acts. The company's lawsuit, filed in federal court in North Dakota, seeks damages that could approach $1 billion.

Greenpeace and BankTrack have called the lawsuit meritless and asked that it be thrown out. ETP lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland to declare that Earth First also has been served with the lawsuit, via Earth First Journal.

The Journal has a post office box in Lake Worth, Fla. Its website bills the publication as a forum for discussion within the Earth First movement.

Journal attorney Pamela Spees argues in court documents that the two "are not one and the same." She describes Earth First as a "broad-based social movement" with no formal membership or leadership structure.

The Journal "is a legal entity, unlike the ... philosophy," said Spees, an attorney with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. She also wrote that ETP has no evidence to support its contention that the Journal is Earth First's "sister organization."

ETP attorneys note that the Journal publishes Earth First's manual, "instructing members on how to engage in precisely the type of conduct at issue in this action."

Earth First "should not be permitted to hide behind its purported lack of a formal organizational structure and membership to evade service and avoid responding to the claims against it," company attorneys write.

Attorneys for the other two defendants, Greenpeace and BankTrack, maintain that the lawsuit is an attack on free speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union and five other human rights, justice and philanthropic groups this week filed court documents backing the defendants and urging the case be dismissed.

"Under ETP's theories, ordinary political speech that runs counter to a corporation's business interests could expose the speaker to enormous, unwarranted liability," attorneys for the groups wrote.

ETP has told the Associated Press that it has an obligation to its shareholders, partners and stakeholders to pursue claims against the environmental groups.
"Are you having a good time?!" asked co-headliner and Toronto native Tory Lanez during his performance last night at Revention Music Center, where global streaming music service Spotify hosted their Houston edition of RapCaviar Live for a sold-out crowd of about 3,000 fans. A thunderous applause was the response after Lanez crowd surfed his way across most of the arena floor.

The night was a celebration of Houston through its profound influence of rap and hip-hop music.

According to host and performer Bun B of the legendary UGK rap group, the concert was initially going to be free of charge. It was later settled that the proceeds of the very accessible $5 entry fee would be donated to continue the hurricane relief efforts still ongoing in the city.

A couple of young Houston rappers served as the opening acts, each bringing their own flair and excitement to the stage. First up was the menacing and lyrically gifted Maxo Kream, who brandished his outfit of Supreme gear while DJ/Producer Trakksounds supplied the beats. Dice SoHo and Trill Sammy followed, each with energetic and well-received tracks. Legendary producer Mike Dean served as Dice's backing DJ, which is fitting since the rapper was recently signed to Dean's M.W.A. record label.

BRING SOME EARPLUGS: Explore Houston's favorite live music venues

YBN Namir followed the H-Town opening set. The 17-year-old Birmingham, Alabama rapper hit the crowd with his popular track "Rubbin Off The Paint".

Of course no Houston rap show would be complete without the crowd favorite DJ Mr. Rogers, who was a perfect transition between the opening acts and the headliners. His fellow Relief Gang boss Trae Tha Truth also hit the stage with a mix of his classics as well as a couple of new tracks.

Bun B came back to the stage to perform a short set, and then introduced a few of his special guests. The first was Briargate's Buddie Roe, fresh off his win at the Houston Rap Battle lyricist competition. Cal-Wayne followed with some hard-hitting flows, and then the OG freestyle king E.S.G. finished the set.

HISTORY LESSON: 47 years ago this week the ZZ Top story began in Beaumont

The night ended in exciting fashion, with Tory Lanez pumping his blend of R&B and Hip-Hop with his characteristic brand of extreme crowd interaction, walking on top of the audience and crowd surfing from the stage to the edge of the crowd and back.

Now Playing: Gaga explains that her love for helping others and activism goes far beyond a pop star. Video: MarieClaire

The main attraction was Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane, who strolled to the stage with a shiny platinum grilled smile and a swagger that was both endearing and perpetually cool. He opened with the track "Both" from his album The Return of East Atlanta Santa, which was released almost exactly one year ago to the day. He peppered his set with classics like "Lemonade" as well as new hits. It was exactly the type of set this audience waited all night to enjoy.

RapCaviar is a weekly updated playlist on Spotify. With over 8 million followers, it is one of the most popular on the global music service. This show was one of six RapCaviar Live concerts, with the other shows happening in Atlanta, Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Tea + Victory Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Tea + Victory Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Tea + Victory Show More Show Less 5 of 5









Construction is underway for what is being billed as Houston's first board game cafe, set to open early 2018 at 2030 E. TC Jester.

Tea + Victory will be stocked with more than 500 board games and staffers called Game Guides, game experts who will help customers select games and provide game tips and instruction. The cafe intends to be "a welcoming, warm space where everyone will feel relaxed and at home" for gamers of all ages.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

San Antonio coffee drinkers are lamenting the loss of another local shop after Aspen's Brew announced their doors will be closed after next week.

Aspen's Brew has been pouring specialty coffees and doling out sandwiches at their 11255 Huebner Road location since 2006. On Dec. 23, nearly 13 years later, the family owned and operated shop will close.

Business owners were not immediately available to return requests for comment, but a Facebook post on their official page detailed the news.

RELATED: PRESS Coffee closes early amid disputes over rent, alleged threats, chickens

Aspen's Brew cited a 40-percent rent spike imposed by their landlords, Whitestone REIT, for their decision. Attempts to reach the Houston-based real estate company in an effort to confirm the claims were unsuccessful.

"Aspen's Brew has been more than just a coffee shop to many of our customers and employees," the coffee shop's post reads. "It has been a place to meet up with friends, study, laugh, work and relax."

Regular customers reacted to the news in the comments section beneath the post.

"This makes me incredibly sad. I have loved all of the time sitting in the chairs in front of the shoppe," one person wrote. "I seriously am unsure I will ever find a place I love as much. Thank you Aspens Brew Coffee for being open for us!

Another said she looked forward to dropping into Aspen's Brew whenever she was visiting from Iowa. Others noted the loss of Aspen's Brew comes on the heels of PRESS Coffee's closing.

That small business, which previously operated at 606 W. French Place, suddenly  and dramatically  closed in October.

Aspen's Brew invited their customers to visit within the next week to help them "go out with a bang."

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The Facebook page of a Houston woman's store was taken down unexpectedly roughly three months after an anti-Nazi coat she made resulted in hateful threats and insults aimed at her.

The Facebook page for Judy Masliyah's clothing store, My Flaming Heart, was removed by the social media giant this week without any warning or detailed explanation.

"A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed," the company said in a message to Masliyah on Wednesday.

SAD: Houston woman's anti-Nazi coat results in online threats from fascists

Masliyah and her page captured some attention in September when she posted a photo of a coat she had made using an anti-Nazi print. The garment was inspired by the deadly protests on Aug. 11 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Masliyah suspects that fascists may still be targeting her page over the coat. She also wondered if a photo she posted of one of her recent designs might have forced Facebook's action.

Now Playing: FOX 5's Cori Coffin reports. Video: Fox5DC

The short sleeve button-down shirt features an illustrated pattern that includes a topless woman.

Masliyah has messaged Facebook to get more information about her page, which was a big part of her business.

"I have like 3,000 followers, it's pretty major. It's right before Christmas and I'm trying to advertise a sale," Masliyah told Chron.com Friday morning. "It's huge, it's me, it's my presence."

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.


Following at least 11 accusations of sexual misconduct against Russell Simmons - seven of which allegedly happened in New York City - the New York Police Department's special victims unit has opened an investigation of the embattled music mogul.

A person at the NYPD who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that detectives are in the initial stages of reaching out to women who have alleged that Simmons assaulted them in New York.

Sherri Hines, who went by the name Sheri Sher when she was in the all-female hip-hop group Mercedes Ladies, told The Times on Thursday that she was contacted by the NYPD earlier in the day. She says Simmons raped her in his New York office around 1983.

Simmons did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. He has previously denied the claims of all the women accusing him of misconduct. On Instagram on Thursday he vowed to fight back against the allegations.

"Today, I begin to properly defend myself. I will prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges," he wrote, adding a .NotMe hashtag to his post.

On Nov. 19, The Times published an account from Keri Claussen Khalighi in which the former model said that in 1991, Simmons coerced her to perform oral sex and penetrated her anally against her will in his New York City apartment. A few days later, on Nov. 30, screenwriter Jenny Lumet wrote in the Hollywood Reporter that Simmons had also sexually violated her in 1991 at his New York home.

Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, denied both claims. On Dec. 13, The Times published another investigation in which five women accused Simmons of sexual misconduct; two of those alleged incidents, including an alleged rape, occurred in New York.

That same day, the New York Times reported the accounts of four additional women who said Simmons had behaved inappropriately with them; three of the claims alleged rape that took place in New York.

In response to this week's new allegations, Simmons said he has "never had a sexual encounter that was not consensual or lawful. Ever."

"We were made aware of the alleged crime through the media, and we anticipate there will be more who come forward," the NYPD source said. "We're in the process of setting up interviews and if any victims want to come forward, they should contact us."

Over the last two months, police departments in New York, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills have launched investigations into high-profile show business figures accused of sexual misconduct, most notably disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein.

New York police are also investigating Weinstein, who has been accused of misbehavior ranging from harassment to rape by more than 50 women. The disgraced executive is also being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department, including the claim of an Italian model-actress that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in an L.A. hotel room in 2013.

The Beverly Hills Police Department, meanwhile, is investigating filmmaker James Toback, who has been accused by more than 300 women of sexual misconduct. The investigation is one of 12 that have been launched by the Beverly Hills police focusing on sexual assault in Hollywood.

Hines, one of Simmons' accusers, said an NYPD detective called her on Thursday, saying he was "representing the women that Mr. Simmons may have violated." The two set up an interview for next week, Hines said.

"I'm appalled that Russell is sitting there calling these women liars and calling me a liar," Hines said. "I'm not trying to bash him, but you did what you did, and what you did in the dark comes to light."

---

2017 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194):

-----

Topics: t000002458,t000027866,t000027865,t000027879,t000210820,g000065556,g000362661,g000066164,g000065558,g000220524
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Baton Rouge police arrested six women and a man on Tuesday after conducting a prostitution sting through backpage.com, local media reports.

All six women were charged with prostitution except for Kenisha Harris, 27, who was charged with resisting an officer, battery of a police officer and pandering, according to WAFB.

Police said Haris (seen second from top left) resisted arrest, kicked a deputy and told authorities "fu** you bit***s."

The man, 26-year-old Dmarcus Brown, was charged with pandering, or the act of promoting prostitution.

POLICE: Irving man forced 15-year-old runaway into prostitution and 'branded' her

Now Playing: Brown, now 29, was a 16-year-old victim of sex trafficking in Tennessee in 2004 when she fatally shot Johnny Mitchell Allen, a 43-year-old real estate agent who solicited sex from her. Video: People

One of the arrested, 19-year-old Tameka Bess (third from top left), hailed from Victoria, Texas.

Authorities arrested the group after meeting them at Baton Rouge hotel, where all the women offered sexual services to undercover agents, The Advocate reports.

The prostitution sting was conducted the Louisiana State Police Speical Victim's Unit and East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

The arrested persons, from left to right are, Leah Lee, 22; Kenisha Harris, 27; Tameka Bess, 19; Jahnai Wilson, 21; Brittany Allen, 25; Alyssa Champagne, 19, and Dmarcus Brown, 26.

Above: See which Houston hotels have seen the most prostitution busts.

Fernando Ramirez is a reporter for Chron.com and the Houston Chronicle. You can read more of his stories here and follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93.
The Galveston City Council has unanimously approved the selection of Vernon Hale, a deputy chief of police with the Dallas Police Department, as the island city's next police chief.

Hale, 47, who has served in the Dallas Police Department since 1992, will start his new job on Jan. 2. He will succeed Police Chief Rick Boyle, who announced his retirement in February.

Council members and city officials were effusive in their praise for Hale, a devotee of community policing.

"I feel like he will be a great addition to the Galveston Police Department," said City Manager Brian Maxwell. "He has big shoes to fill with Chief Boyle retiring, but I think we might end up with the best police chief we've ever had here."

The council's approval of Hale's hiring follows a lengthy search that included as many as 46 candidates. Hale was selected over two other finalists, retired Houston Police Department Executive Assistant Chief George Buenik and Galveston City Marshal Michael Gray.

"We went through a pretty long, arduous interview process. We ended up with three very, very capable finalists, it was very difficult to make this decision," Maxwell acknowledged.

Maxwell said Hale made a strong impression in his interviews.

"It really felt like after you talk to Mr. Hale for about five minutes, you feel like you've known him his whole life," Maxwell said.

Council members cited Hale's deep commitment to community policing, juvenile outreach and his knowledge of pension reforms, which Hale said was a "bad word" -- a wry reference to his involvement in the Dallas Police Department's hard-fought pension fixes.

Hale will soon leave his post as deputy chief of police of the Southeast Patrol Division. Hale led the police department's narcotics division from 2014 to 2016, and now serves as commander of the Dallas Underwater Recovery Team. He is also an adjunct professor at several universities in the Dallas area.

Dressed sharply in a charcoal gray suit, Hale said he would embark on a months-long "listening tour" around Galveston. A motorcycle enthusiast, Hale has frequented Galveston's motorcycle rally and jokingly asked for some sponsors for a Mardi Gras float.

Hale discussed his commitment to community policing, a strategy that focuses on engagement and building ties with the community to help prevent crime.

"Any chief that can tell you they can arrest their way out of crime is an idiot, I don't know what else to tell you," Hale said. "The jails won't hold enough people. It's not going to rehabilitate people and they're gonna come back at some point. The community is our eyes and ears, we will never be everywhere, we will never have enough cops to be everywhere and so you have to have the community engagement piece where the people tell us who the real criminals are."

Hale added that the listening sessions would extend to his own department. He said he would work hard to recruit and retain officers and keep morale high.

"The one thing I know I'll do is give [the officers] a person who loves them, cares about them and to give them a work environment that, even if they have the opportunity to do something bigger, that they're gonna look me in the eye and make a tough decision because I'm gonna make it hard for them to leave."

Hale will be paid $130,000 a year, plus $2,500 year in residency pay if he chooses to live on the island.
Health care companies and banks drove U.S. stocks lower Thursday, pulling major indexes below their recent highs.

The afternoon slide, which erased gains from earlier in the day, came after news that some Republican senators' support for the GOP's proposed tax overhaul bill was faltering.

Small-company stocks, which would be among the biggest beneficiaries of the bill's reduction of corporate income tax rates, declined more than the rest of the market.

"The market is focused almost completely on the corporate tax reduction," said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. "And there are still concerns that some of the key Republican senators are wavering."

The losses outweighed gains among retailers, which got a boost from a government report showing that retail sales jumped in November.

Despite the declines, the indexes are all on track to finish the week with a gain.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said Thursday he will vote against the proposed tax bill unless negotiators expand its child tax credit. The bill would increase the child tax credit to $2,000 from $1,000, but the Florida lawmaker wants more.

House and Senate leaders agreed on the bill in principle on Wednesday but were still finalizing the legislation, which they plan to unveil Friday and then move through the Senate next week.

"With all eyes being on tax reform and getting really, really close to having it passed, now it comes down to the votes," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments.
Longtime Klein resident Susan Huff is making sure to give back to Klein ISD students by using what she calls the "3 T's." The three T's stand for a top, toy, and toiletries. The goal of the project is to provide students with an items such as a jacket or sweatshirt, a toy for their age and gender, and toiletries such as toothbrushes or hairbrushes.

The project is now in its fifth year. Including this year's numbers, more than 2,500 students have benefitted from the 3 T's project.

"Some of these children live in homes that maybe get hand-me downs from older brother and sisters. So, to get a new shirt and Spiderman toothbrush, it's kind of cool for them," Huff said. "We have heard great stories from this (project). It's nice to know that we are able to assist them in a small way, and that they can get excited about that little bag. It's just wonderful; it's fabulous."

Huff, who has lived in the Klein community for 30 years, and has two daughters whom are Klein Oak graduates, created the 3 T's project while serving others as part of a Girl Scout troop. She has been involved with the Girls Scouts for 25 years.

"It started as a little Girl Scouts project, and it has grown into something larger," Huff said. "It is nice that we can do it, but it's sad that there are so many."

In Huff's first year, she worked with a counselor at Mittelstadt Elementary. The counselor informed Huff that that the school had students who were in need of assistance during the holidays.

Due to the success of the project's first year, Huff was approached about continuing the project.

Huff built a blue barn building on piece of property at her home that houses the project. Her husband, and family assemble the products into bags. Some community members drop off bags, but Huff goes through to make sure the bags are consistent with all of the others.

With the assistance of the Girl Scout community, friends and colleagues, Huff is now able to provide 3 T's bags for 21 of the 30 Klein ISD elementary schools. Huff works with counselors individually at schools across the district to gain knowledge on what students are in need of a bag.

Every year Huff has seen an increase in the need for the gift bags. Last year the 3 T's project made 486 bags. This year the project assembled 565 bags to distribute throughout elementary schools in the district.

Roth Elementary has participated in the 3 T's project for four years now. In most cases, students are selected by teachers recognizing the need and informing a counselor. This year 15 students will be receiving bags from Roth Elementary.

"The bags bring a smile to the student's faces. It not only includes essential items, but they are also getting something fun with a new toy, and this one toy could be all they receive this Christmas," Lindsay Harrison said, Roth Elementary counselor. "The families are very thankful for the support during the holidays. I see the positive impact the bags have on the students, and I am very thankful that the community steps into support our school."

A new school is on the roster to receive 3 T's bags. Lemm Elementary, which was devastated by Hurricane Harvey and has to be housed at Klein Cain High School, has placed orders for bags for some of their students.

"Lemm Elementary students were devastated by Harvey, and their school was totally inhabitable," Huff said. "That school has never really needed the bags, but now with Harvey I am supplying bags for some of those students."

Huff holds the project dear to her heart, and she hoped to keep the 3 T's project going for as long as possible. This year's bags will be delivered to various elementary schools in Klein ISD on Dec. 18.

"I want to continue this as long as I can," Huff said. "As long as the need is there it will be there."
The deadline for tossing the political hat in the ring for March primaries has come and gone and now that the dust has settled, some interesting races are shaping up.

The oddest and possibly the most interesting race is at the top of the county ticket with County Judge Jay Knight drawing two opponents - his predecessors.

As of late Thursday night, no one in county politics could remember if two former county judges had ever challenged a current county judge from the same party in Texas politics, so a historical race could be shaping up. It would also be the first time in recent memory that all three judicial candidates would be forced to run on their record in office.

Former Democratic County Judge Phil Fitzgerald, who is now running as a Republican, has announced his intent to run and so has Knight's most recent opponent filed an application, former Republican County Judge Craig McNair. No formal announcement has been made by the McNair camp to date. He was the former county judge until Knight unseated him in a runoff in May of 2014 by a narrow margin of 35 votes.

How the split will fall between the three remains to be seen.

"I don't know what to think of that one," said Republican Party Chair Ryan Daniel.

"Liberty County voters will vet this one out and produce a winning candidate," he said.

DEMOCRATS

Only four Democrats signed up to run for office in the March primary.

Ronnie Davis of Raywood filed to run unopposed for Justice of the Peace in Pct. 2. Fred Lemond of Liberty is the only candidate for Texas House District 18 for the Democrats and will face the winner of the Republican Primary, either sitting State Rep. Ernest Bailes of Shepherd or his primary opponent Emily Kebodeaux Cook of Liberty. Joe Robertson, Jr., is the single Democratic candidate for Liberty County clerk and Monique McDuffie-Brooks for Justice of the Peace, Pct. 6 in Cleveland. Both will have Republican opponents in the fall election.

REPUBLICANS

In races on the court, Republican Pct. 2 Commissioner Greg Arthur will face newcomer Kenny Brand in the Republican primary. No Democrats signed up to oppose Arthur and so the winner of the primary will automatically win the seat. Pct. 4 Commissioner Leon Wilson will run unopposed.

Also, unopposed in the election is Justice of the Peace, Pct. 1 Stephen Hebert of Liberty; Justice of the Peace, Pct. 3 Cody Parrish of Liberty; and Justice of the Peace, Pct. 6 Ralph Fuller of Cleveland. Fuller will face an opponent in the fall.

Contested races on the bench include Justice of the Peace, Pct. 4 Larry Wilburn (incumbent) and David Ripkowski, both of Dayton, and Tim Magee and incumbent Wade Brown (both of Cleveland) will battle it out for Justice of the Peace, Pct. 5. If reelected, this will be Brown's third term in office.

Judge Tommy Chambers, Liberty County Court at Law, will run unopposed as will 75th District Judge Mark Morefield.

Liberty County Clerk Paulette Williams is retiring and vacating her position. Two Republicans - Lee Haidusek Chambers and Doyelle Turner - will vie for her seat in the March primary.

In the District Clerk's office, incumbent Donna G. Brown will face off against former Democrat County Clerk Delia Sellers. Sellers is running this time as a Republican.

Liberty County Treasurer Kim Harris and County Surveyor John C. "Johnny" Moorman are both running unopposed.

Daniel will return as Republican County Chairman.

In the Republican Primary, there are no contested precinct chair races and those names will not appear on the ballot.

Here's that list of chairmen who, in effect, have already been elected: Pct. #2 Roy Lee, Pct. #3 Klint Bush, Pct. #5 Leon Blackwelder, Pct. #9 Ann Kebodeaux, Pct. #10 Ashley McDaniel, Pct. 12 Linda Odom, Pct. #17 Brian Smith, Pct. #19 Courtney Daniel, Pct. #21 Kristina Perry, Pct. #22 Wesley Thomas, Pct. #26 Ray Ansley, Pct. #27 Billie Williams, and Pct. #29 Jeff LeBlanc.

Additionally, since the 253rd District Court is in both Liberty and Chambers counties, candidates file in Austin. The following filed at the Republican Party of Texas Headquarters in Austin.

STATE FILINGS

In the 253rd District Judge's race, incumbent Chap Cain will face Mark Beausoleil. Beausoleil lost his last race for county attorney to Matthew Poston in 2014.

On the state level, State Senator Robert Nichols (TX-3) is being challenged by Democrat Shirley Layton of Lufkin in the fall election.

U. S. Representative Brian Babin of Woodville, incumbent, has no challengers in the March primary, but will face the winner of the Democratic primary between Dayna Steele of Houston and Jon Powell of Seabrook.

Daniel said he wouldn't predict any of the races, but that the Republican Party would be hosting meet and greet opportunities for the public to get to know the candidates.

ELECTION DATES

The first day to apply for a ballot by mail using Application for a Ballot by Mail (ABBM) or Federal Postcard Application (FPCA) is Monday, Jan. 1, 2018. The first day to file does not move because of New Year's Day holiday. An "Annual ABBM" or FPCA for a January or February 2018 election may be filed earlier, but not earlier than the 60th day before the date of the January or February election.

The last day to register to vote in the March Primary is Monday, Feb. 5, 2018. The first day of early voting begins on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018.

The last day to apply for a ballot by mail (received, not postmarked) is Friday, Feb. 23, 2018 and the last day of early voting is Friday, March 2, 2018.

The deadline for ballot by mail to be received is Tuesday, March 6, 2018, at 7 p.m. (unless overseas deadline applies).

Election day is Tuesday, March 6, 2018, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Submitted Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Submitted Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Splendora Air Force JROTC cadets brought a little Christmas cheer to the residents of Pine Shadow Retreat Assisted Living Facility in Porter on Dec. 14.

The cadets got together and purchased gifts from the residents' wish lists. The AFJROTC Booster Club moms helped by preparing food and serving the residents.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Parents snapped photos of their children, smiling and wide-eyed in astonishment as Santa and Mrs. Claus walked through the front doors at Candlewood Suites in Kingwood on Tuesday, Dec. 12.

The hotel lobby was full of families who have been guests of Candlewood Suites since Hurricane Harvey took their homes. The hotel hosted the Christmas event, and children decorated cookies and received a gift from Santa.

"We've got between 45 and 50 Harvey victim families still staying here and a lot of them have kids," said Amit Bhakta, general manager of Candlewood Suites. "We have about 30 to 40 kids right now. Because of that, we thought this event would be a great idea."

Santa and Mrs. Claus - Phil Adams and his wife, Sandy - were among those who felt the effects of Hurricane Harvey. The family lived in Porter and was in the middle of a move when the hurricane struck. As a result, Sandy Adams said, they lost their belongings.

In a post on the "Flooding Kingwood with Kindness" Facebook page, she wrote, "Santa visits homes (in) Kingwood, Humble, Atascocita and Porter areas. Booking for week of Dec. 18 through (Christmas) eve. All you need to do is give him a donation at the visit, Harvey was naughty and totaled his sleigh."

Santa Phil, who worked as a mall Santa in previous years, took on another job this year after Harvey. He and Sandy Adams decided to take a different approach to Santa this holiday season.

"We felt this year - well, any year - it's not about the money," Sandy Adams said. "We didn't really want to do the mall thing. What we've also done in past years is have a Santa box outside for children's letters and we'd go visit homes to deliver gifts based on their letters. This year, we figured since we can't give too many gifts, we can at least donate our time."

Santa Phil and Mrs. Claus have been volunteering their time making appearances at different venues around the Lake Houston area. They've made their way to various area organizations and businesses, spreading the holiday cheer and restoring their own in the process.

"We weren't in the Christmas spirit; we didn't even put up our tree," Sandy Adams said. "This is putting us into the Christmas spirit that we didn't have before - seeing the kids smile, looking at their faces, listening to the moms, collecting letters."

From the week of Dec. 18 through Dec. 24, the couple will also start making home visits to anyone in Kingwood, Atascocita, Humble and Porter areas who wants to book them.

There is no specified charge for their service.

"It's all by donation only," Sandy Adams said. "If they want us to come to their home, it's just whatever the Lord puts on their heart to give us."

Families who wish to book Santa Phil and Mrs. Claus for a home visit can private message Sandy Adams through her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/sandy.adams.927.

Adams was moved by the trend she noticed in Christmas wishes this year.

"So many people wished for other people - whether for parents to have happiness, or for their kids to have something - but it wasn't about them," Adams said. "It was just a new home or new clothes. It's wasn't about toys or gifts."

Sandy Adams hopes handing out toys to children like those staying at the Candlewood Suites in Kingwood will serve as a reminder that Santa still knows where they are and has not forgotten them.

"Harvey may have taken away their homes and items, but we're going to give them a little bit of magic back this year," Sandy Adams said.

The couple plan on continuing this volunteering donation-based approach to Santa in years to come. However, theirs was not the only new tradition that may have begun this holiday season.

Tuesday night was the first time Candlewood Suites in Kingwood has hosted a Santa event.

Hotel staff were put in charge of coordinating the celebration after they said a series of events just fell into place.

The week prior, a Tennessee resident who wished to remain anonymous and his wife stayed at the hotel for a couple of days.

"I guess the couple of nights he was here, he kind of mingled with some of the guests and found out we had a lot of our guests staying here that lost their homes during Harvey," Bhakta said. "Then he talked to the front desk a little bit and he found out we had a lot of kids staying here that lost homes."

On the morning the couple checked out of their room, they left and returned a couple of hours later with presents for every child staying at the hotel who lost their home.

"He came back with at least $1,000 worth of presents. All of those presents are from him," Bhakta said, pointing to a pile of individually wrapped presents labeled with the names of the specific child they were meant for.

Candlewood Suites was put in touch with Santa Phil, who got to present each child with their gift at the event.

Now, Bhakta said, Candlewood Suites in Kingwood may start hosting a Santa event annually.

"Anything we can do to put a smile on people's faces and just be happy, that's what it's all about," Bhakta said.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Mike Snyder Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Mike Snyder Show More Show Less 5 of 5









The Conroe City Council approved the annexations of eight tracts Thursday night despite opposition from some residents of targeted areas and from Mayor Toby Powell.

On identical 3-2 votes, the council approved the "direct" annexations of four parcels -- three effective on Dec. 31, and one on Jan. 2. By the same margin, it added four additional tracts to the city's three-year annexation plan, starting a process that will involve public hearings and additional review before a final vote on bringing the properties into the city.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A Spring man, who was free on bail, was wrongfully detained in a Harris County courtroom Friday by federal immigration agents who mistook him for an undocumented gang member they were seeking, his lawyer said.

David Ochoa, 24, was handcuffed and put in leg shackles when he arrived at court, according to his lawyer, Neal Davis. He said an arrest was attempted by a team of agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

"This is like the gestapo," Davis said. "Our client is a U.S. citizen. He was born here."

READ ALSO: Houston woman poses as ICE agent, receives prison sentence

Now Playing: Latest Local And State News Video: Houston Chronicle

ICE press officials who were contacted have not provided comment on the incident.

According Ochoa's lawyers, ICE agents said the Spring Branch man had been deported twice and was a known gang member. Ochoa maintained that he was born in Spring and graduated from Spring Woods High School in Spring Branch.

"They didn't even show me a warrant," Ochoa said. He is free on $100,000 after being accused of being an accomplice in a murder case earlier this year. He does not have any prior arrests in Harris County.

READ ALSO: 18 Texas sheriffs are now approved to partner with ICE

Ochoa's lawyers said two ICE agents came to the courtroom of state District Judge Hazel Jones and took Ochoa into custody, handcuffing him and putting him the jury box. They showed his lawyers a photo that looked vaguely like Ochoa and said he would soon be charged with a felony of re-entering the U.S.

However, Davis said, they had not compared the fingerprints in the past cases to the fingerprint card in Ochoa's case.

"They had not done their homework, it was a rush to the judgment," Davis said. "If they had done their job, they would have vetted it with the fingerprint cards from the jail."

The lawyer asked to see an arrest warrant, which the agents apparently did not have. They said they were taking Ochoa to an ICE detainment center to fingerprint him. If the fingerprints, were the same, they said, he would be charged with re-entering the U.S. a felony.

Davis, who believed his client, protested to Judge Jones.

The judge asked if there was a way to check Ochoa's identity before taking him into custody and the agents produced scanners, about the size of a cell phone, and checked his fingerprints.

"They had the wrong guy," David said. "He was effectively under arrest for a crime he didn't commit and for a crime that ICE could have easily determined that he didn't commit."

Davis, and his co-counsel Jed Silverman, said Ochoa spent more than hour in handcuffs and the agents never produced a warrant.

"It's about due process. And that should be protected, of all places, in a courtroom," Davis said. "This is something you would expect from a dictatorship, not the U.S. Government."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A man caught shoplifting in a northwest Houston Walmart Wednesday turned out to be a triple murder suspect wanted in both Mississippi and Tennessee, the Harris County Sheriff's Office announced Thursday.

Antoine Adams, 28, had escaped from jail in Marshall County, Miss., on November 5 and had been a fugitive from justice in three counties before police apprehended him at the Walmart on the 3400 block of FM 1960 Wednesday.

Loss prevention officers at the Walmart on the 3400 block of FM 1960 detained two men Wednesday, accused of shoplifting, then called in Harris County sheriff's deputies.

According to HCSO, both men did not have identification, so deputies pulled out a mobile fingerprinting device.

When Adams's name popped up, deputies saw he was listed on the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's Top 10 Most Wanted fugitives.

Adams is wanted for two murders in Memphis, Tenn., and another in Marshall County, Miss. He's also wanted for possessing drugs in a school zone in Fayette County, Tenn.

Harris County sheriff's deputies took both Adams and the other man into custody Wednesday.

Adams is being held on charges of possession of between 4 and 400 grams of meth, court records show. His friend, Freddie Reimonenq, is being charged with giving police a false identity and with trespassing.

Adams is awaiting extradition back to Mississippi.

According to Harris County court records, this is the second time this year that Harris County authorities have had to give him back to Marshall County.

In August, Adams was being held in the Houston Police Department jail for unknown reasons when a Harris County judge signed off on releasing him for extradition to Marshall County August 6.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A Texas prison teacher tearfully called on Gov. Greg Abbott to charge the inmate she says raped her at an understaffed lock-up north of Huntsville.

Nicole Truelove plans to file a lawsuit against the state over the Nov. 13 sex assault inside a Ferguson Unit classroom with no working cameras and no guards in sight, she said at a Thursday press conference in Houston.

RATIO WOES: Texas death row plot triggers call for more guards

"This never should have happened; it could have been easily avoided," her attorney David Lindsay said. "And if changes aren't made by the Department of Criminal Justice, this will happen again."

Now Playing: The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, Particularity in the South. Nick Cardona has the story Video: Brandpoint

The 2,400-inmate unit in unincorporated Madison County has a 25 percent vacancy rate for guards, according to TDCJ data.

"Whoever made the decision to understaff that unit, they should be held accountable," Lindsay said.

The department said it is conducting an internal review and has transferred the prisoner to another facility. The 25-year-old has a history of drug and burglary convictions.

"While correctional settings present unique challenges, the department is committed to providing a safe work environment for all employees," TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark said.

Truelove had only been on the job a few days when she spotted an inmate masturbating in class. After repeated warnings, she wrote him up.

But when class let out, the four-time felon stayed back, hiding behind the door.

SEX ASSAULT: Inmate files complaint against Waller County Jail

The officers assigned to the area were nowhere in sight when the violent prisoner allegedly grabbed Truelove by the hair and slammed her against the door before assaulting her and threatening her children.

The new teacher reported the attack immediately and went to the hospital for a rape kit, she said Thursday.

"Yet there has not been one charge filed," she said. "Mr. Abbott, when will these charges be filed?"

Lindsay and co-counsel Randall Kallinen blamed unit security shortfalls for the attack. There were no cameras inside the classroom, and the lack of windows in the solid door made it a possible hiding place.

"Allowing violent felons to masturbate in front female employees creates one of the most hostile working atmospheres I have ever heard of," Kallinen said. "Combined with known blind spots and lack of guards it is the most irresponsible behavior imaginable."

Cheri Siegelin, president of the Huntsville-based Texas Correctional Employees union, said there are staffing policies in place to ensure adequate supervision.

"Can there be a correctional officer stationed in every classroom or next to every teacher's desk? In a perfect world that would be nice, but the answer here is no," she said.



"It's no secret that staffing is low and these inmates are not dumb or blind to it - they will use it to their advantage in any way possible."

Inmate-on-staff violence has risen slightly in recent years, TDCJ data shows.

By the end of September, Texas prisons had seen 67 serious staff assaults in 2017. Last year, the total reported major assaults on staff numbered more than 100 for the first time in at least 10 years.

Former union chief Lance Lowry pointed to the latest incident as evidence of the staffing shortages he warned about repeatedly in recent months, including during the hurricane and in the aftermath of a failed death row confession plot that forced the state to push back one killer's execution date.

"It doesn't surprise me that an incident of a sexual assault occurred against staff," he said. "Staff are sexually violated just about every day as far as inmates exposing themselves."

In addition to the high vacancy numbers, Lowry cited a 40 percent turnover rate as a troubling contributor to the problem.

"That leaves a massive amount of inexperience on that unit," he said. "This isn't the first employee to be sexually assaulted."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Houston transit officials moved forward Thursday with a proposal to use a slice of a downtown bus depot for a homeless shelter, leaving much of the contentious debate for city council members.

Residents and business owners close to the proposed site along McKee and Buffalo Bayou vehemently opposed the plan in comments to the Metropolitan Transit Authority board. Many said they only learned about it in the past few days. They also cited crime and property value concerns, along with the sense that Metro was rushing ahead.

Board chairwoman Carrin Patman, pushed for the approval Thursday citing the need to proceed in deference to the city. Patman said transit officials have the same safety questions, and feel they are addressed.

SHELTER SPACE: Houston proposes Metro site for 'low-barrier' homeless shelter

If we had a concern that it wasnt going to be safe for our staffers to be in proximity to this location, we would not move forward, she said.

Citing the opposition of the local residents, Metro board member Jim Robinson opposed the plan, as did Lisa Castaneda. Patman and board members Lex Frieden, Sanjay Ramabhadran and Christof Spieler approved the proposal.

The proposed low-barrier shelter, which will require City Council approval, would use 5,000 square feet of the bus depot, beneath one of eight covered areas, to house people. The citys general plan, although they have not announced specific details, would cordon off the encampment, provide 24-hour security and act as a gathering spot for social services to transition those homeless interested in permanent housing toward opportunities.

Metro would spend $100,000 to fence the area and make other changes so it could continue to use the rest of the site to store buses.

FUTURE OF TRANSIT: Metro drawing up long-term regional plan

Officials noted Metros role was merely as a landholder, stressing the city would operate and maintain the space. City elected officials, ultimately, would finalize the plans.

Board members avoided debating the merits of the project.

Fundamentally it feels to me this board is not the appropriate solution for homeless challenges, Spieler said. I think it is important for these concerns to be heard and the appropriate venue is city council.

Spieler stressed he was agreeable to using the spot as a temporary shelter, but opposed turning over the space permanently because of Metros own needs and his skepticism that the location is a valid long-term shelter site.

Metros approval stipulates the agreement is for a six-month pilot program.

Simply passing this today gets the process moving, Patman said.
Many Texans will have to forgo the fireworks this December when celebrating New Year's Eve.

Ninety-seven of Texas' 254 counties have an outdoor burn ban, the latest tally by the Texas A&M Forest Service shows. Burn bans restrict or prohibit outdoor fires, often including fireworks, when drought conditions are present.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

It was nearly killing them, but the Wright family of Dayton had a secret. They couldn't share it or risk violating a contract and costing themselves thousands of dollars. But the cat is out of the bag and not only does all of Liberty County know, but the nation now knows that the Wright family of Dayton scored big on Monday night when their Christmas spirit earned them ABC's The Great Christmas Light Fight champion trophy for their spectacular Christmas display.

The family known around the community as the 'Christmas Family' for their labor of love each year manifest in their front yard were overwhelmed with the news.

"It's a neat thing to do," said Paul Wright otherwise known as Mr. Christmas, nicknamed by his family and friends.

SO CUTE: Dogs vs. Elf on the Shelf makes for hilarious photos

More Information WANT TO GO? --Began Thanksgiving night and ends January 1. --The address is 8605 FM 1960 between Dayton and Huffman --Park across the street or down CR 612 to safely see the display --The light display is free to the public See More Collapse

He said he becomes a 12-year-old every year around late August and the first of September.

"My thanks for the hard work and this award," he said, "is the people who come through with smiles and thank you for our efforts."

This year, that was no easy task and it may have been the reason it pushed the Wright display over the top for the national award.

Every year, the show accepts applications from larger-than-life Christmas displays around the country and pits them against each other in a friendly competition. They select celebrity judges to visit those displays, judge them, and offer the winners a beautiful trophy and cash prize.

In their episode, the Wrights competed against the Robinson family from Red Cross, NC, the Sussin family from Saugerties, NY, and the Albrecht family of Glenwood, Utah.

Judging their show was television personality and model Carter Oosterhouse, host of Carter Can, Million Dollar Rooms and other shows.

Last year, Paul hinted to the Dayton News that they were in negotiations with ABC's The Great Christmas Light Fight, but neither had committed to the other and it was a big step the family would give more thought to before applying.

By January, Wright had committed to the show.

"We were approved almost immediately by the Light Fight show executives and then we had to get approved through ABC as well," he said as best as he understood it.

The application process was arduous.

"It was like buying a house we had so many pages in the contract," he said.

For months they waited, and it wasn't until July when they received official confirmation that they were 100 percent going to be on the show.

"My wife received a text or phone call," he said, "and she came into our shop at Advanced Restoration and Collision in Huffman and told me we had been approved and then she got on the phone and called all of the kids to tell them," he said excited.

There was a celebration at the Wright home that night.

The biggest requirement - keep it a secret. Wright said it was tough, but they understood that it wouldn't be much of a surprise if they spilled the beans.

The show is taped in October and the Wrights felt they needed the full 75-90 days to get ready, so work began in earnest in the relenting heat of August.

With the hot sun beating down mercilessly as they began their annual Christmas gig, the family said they would have to work smarter, not harder.

As the sun was going down, the roof of the house would cool, giving Patty and James opportunity to work feverishly to get the grid of lights on the house. Each bulb checked individually to make sure it was working and fit the color scheme that would eventually be a part of a light show to dazzle. That same process followed for all 150,000-plus lights throughout the display.

"We started with the archways and things we didn't have to mow around," he said.

Grass was a problem because it was still growing season and they had to consider that.

"We could weed-eat after that, but it takes between 89 hours to do," he said. Very tedious.

Each of the blow molds, some dating back to the 1960s, are fragile and could be easily damaged by the high-speed weed eater.

Once the display was finished, Wright said they only had to weed eat the entire acre a few times.

"Thankfully, we've had cool weather and it has almost stopped, except for the weeds," he said.

Next up were the 20-foot trees, light curtains on the house, and the displays on the end of the house.

They were feeling fairly confident by late August until they learned they would face the wrath of Hurricane Harvey.

While the storm winds were a mere 50-60 mph at the height of the storm, it still wreaked havoc on their hard work.

"The wind got some of it because it was relentless for four days," Paul said.

The driving rain loosened the earth so much that the anchors to the arches loosened and fell.

Saturday morning after the Friday night pounding, the rain slowed and both Paul and Patty were out in the driveway in ankle deep water trying to get the arches back up.

"We drove some stakes in the ground and that helped them stay up throughout the flood. We had to get some concrete to set on the base of the [Christmas] trees because they started floating," he said incredulously.

That was Friday, but Saturday and Sunday would bring devastating news.

James and Cynthia Wright (Paul's son and daughter-in-law) lived approximately 7 miles away from his dad's home.

"We were prepared to ride it [the storm] out in hopes that everything would be alright," James said.

"I was more worried about losing power than anything," he said.

They never lost power, but they lost so much more.

"I woke up in the middle of the night [Saturday], and it was already in the car even though we had parked our cars up closer to the roads, which were higher," his wife Cynthia said.

She woke her husband up and his thought was to at least get the car out. They would take the car up to his parents, a few minutes away, and then come back.

That was at 4 a.m. They left their child with a friend that was staying with them and he drove his truck and she drove her car, but the drive turned into more than an hour when the rising water caused an impasse at almost every turn.

"It was nerve-wracking because we didn't expect anything like that," seven-months pregnant Cynthia said.

Instead of returning to his parents, which seemed futile at that point, they parked the car on a nearby road that seemed to be in a good place from flooding and returned home to get what they could out of the house and leave.

"The water was already at about five inches from getting inside my truck when we pulled in," he said, "and I told her we only had about 15 minutes to get our son and my friend who had been staying with us and get out of the house," he said desperately.

By the time the four of them had escaped the house, Cynthia was wading out in water up to her pregnant stomach. It was frightening.

Cynthia's parents, who lived by, were also in trouble and had water coming in through the vents in the house. They had between four and five feet of water in the house.

The eight years they had spent building their lives was gone in a matter of hours. Everything.

James and Cynthia along with their son Aleister, their friend and her parents and their friend were now living with Paul and Patty - a total of 11 in the same house.

They weren't used to having so many at the house, but they've made due, Paul said.

Derrick, Paul's other son, and his wife, Kelley, said after the water went down, assessment began.

"We first had to see what was down and what was damaged, then we formulated a plan to get everything back up and working," he said. They would not be denied.

The ABC network was very helpful.

"We couldn't have worked with better people," Paul said. "They gave us an extra two weeks to finish things up. They were very understanding."

On Oct. 19, a scout group from the network arrived to begin working with the family before filming.

"They introduced themselves and told us what to expect to get us ready for the big event," Patty said.

One week later, Oct. 27, there were people everywhere.

"There must have been 30 people out here," the family said.

The third night, they said, was the longest night with the reveal night occurring.

"The wind was blowing, and it was actually cold that night, so we really did need winter clothes," Paul said. They usually require them to wear Christmas attire.

About a week after they had left Dayton and the taping was finished, they received a phone call telling them that some of the footage with the family was no good and they were going to have them do a retake.

"They told us to be dressed and ready and they would drop by to shoot the footage," Paul said.

The family dutifully did as they requested and after they arrived, they asked Paul to come outside because there was a problem with the display.

"I went outside and thought there might be a fire or something," he laughed.

"Then Carter was outside," he said to his surprise.

"We thought it was too soon for them to be back," Patty said.

But they asked all the family to come outside and that's when Oosterhouse gave them the good news that they had won not only the trophy, but a prize of $50,000.

The family said they haven't even sat down to discuss how the money will be spent.

"I can assure you though, the trophy will be around a lot longer than the $50,000 will," the family chuckled.

They didn't know what set them above the competition and earned them the win, but believe it could have been the DIY projects and that Texas' size sleigh and reindeer built and designed by Derrick and Kelley.

"We're grateful," he said.

Until that check comes in, every night until Christmas, the family spends time taking turns outside at the display greeting folks who come from out of town to those in the community to see the display.

His light bill?

"Around $250 for the month," he said.

Paul said he and his family were going to have a special Christmas this year, and not just because of the prize money, but the satisfaction of being able to share their spirit with the community and now, the nation.
Those in the local Jewish community, as well as people of other faiths, celebrated Hanukkah-the celebration of light and religious freedom-on Thursday night, marking the event by lighting a giant menorah at Market Street in The Woodlands.

Chabad of The Woodlands has presented a Grand Chanukah Celebration and Menorah Lighting on Market Street for the past seven years.

Rabbi Mendel Blecher and his wife, Leah, led the organization of the event. The couple have been married for 10 years and have three children, all of whom were in attendance.

Before the start of the festival, Leah could be seen hustling back and forth across Central Park at Market Street directing the set up of booths and explaining to volunteers their roles for the night. During the event, she worked the booth where free, and colorful, balloons were given to children.

"We're celebrating our unity," she said of Hanukkah and the festivities. "We're celebrating our freedom of religion, and we're happy to be here and spread the lights of the candles which shine into the world through good deeds and our good actions that we do."

Throughout the park, there were tables for children's activities, latkes-also known as a potato pancake-and doughnuts. There was even a Chanukah boutique.

Volunteers Susan Goldsmith and Janesa Welch worked the ticket booth where festival attendees purchased tickets to be used for food and activities.

"Hanukkah is an amazing holiday and we have a lot of fun. So it's about raising money for Chabad but also teaching people about Hanukkah," Goldsmith said.

Welch added that the celebration was "to let the community celebrate Hanukkah and to show Hanukkah to the public because a lot of people don't know about it."

After an hour of visiting and merriment, the crowd gathered around the stage for the lighting of the menorah.

Rabbi Blecher spoke about the reason for Hanukkah and how everyone should be a light in the world.

"The holiday of Hanukkah is all about light. Every night, we light an additional candle until all eight lights are burning. But we started with just one. Just one solitary, small flame heralds the joy of this holiday," Blecher said. "Why one? What can one candle do? It seems insignificant, but it's not. All it takes is one candle in a very large and intimidating dark room and it is now able to be navigated without bumping into obstacles. Darkness vanishes automatically in the presence of light. There is no need to fight it."

Blecher said society needs to light just one candle, a candle that sheds the light of truth in a warm and pleasant way.

"Each one of us must be a candle. We must light up our homes, our families and our community with goodness and kindness. With our faith and our eternal traditions," he continued. "With Torah learning and the daily observance of mitzvot so that our children will shine as brightly as they can. And all it takes is one decision, followed by one action and the first light of your heart's menorah is lit."

At the conclusion of the speech, Blecher welcomed Gordy Bunch, chairman of The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, who was selected as the honoree to light the central shamash candle, or candle of service, to the stage.

Before the lighting, Bunch spoke on behalf of the township in support of the Jewish community.

"It's an honor to be here again with you, celebrating the lighting of the menorah tonight," Bunch said. "(I'm) excited about the commitment that we have to the diversity in this community. And we welcome all of our Jewish residents and our Jewish neighbors here and to Market Street tonight. It is incredible to see the turn out continue to grow year over year, and you are always welcome in our community, and I'm happy to be a part of this evening's ceremony."

Following the lighting of the shamash candle, Blecher then lit the other four. As the flames licked at the night air, Blecher recognized Dr. David Gottlieb, who sat on stage, as "a modern day Maccabee" for helping Holocaust survivors get around the British blockade of Palestine and Israel and then helping them reach their homeland of Israel.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, children in attendance were invited to come on stage for a group photograph. Blecher thanked everyone for coming out and encouraged them to stay and celebrate, wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah.

- Patricia Dillon is a features reporter for The Woodlands Villager. Contact her by phone at 713-362-4433 or on Twitter: @Dillon_Villager.
All people tell stories. Whether it's a story about the past, a story to soothe a frightened child at bedtime, or a story about fictional characters, everyone is a storyteller. Some people, like No. 1 "New York Times" bestselling author Paula Hawkins, make a living out of storytelling.

Hawkins was recently in The Woodlands to talk about her writing and also pass on some advice to attendees at The John Cooper School.

For the last 13 years, The John Cooper School has hosted an annual Signature Author Series featuring names such as Nicholas Sparks, Barbara Bush, Gillian Flynn, author of "Gone Girl," and Cheryl Strayed, author of "Wild." During the event, authors give a keynote speech following a luncheon and later autograph books. On Dec. 8, at this year's event, there were 675 attendees to listen to Hawkins speak.

Co-chairs Susan DeMarco and Christie Swanbeck gave opening remarks and welcomed 22 visiting authors with backgrounds varying from fiction, children's and non-fiction genres. The two women also thanked the many sponsors and announced that the Montgomery County Memorial Library System and the Barbara Bush Branch Library are this year's beneficiaries of event proceeds.

Following the welcome address, Michael Maher, head of The John Cooper School, introduced Hawkins.

Maher told the crowd Hawkins started out as a freelance writer in London and a financial journalist for "The Times." She then decided to try her hand at being a novelist, Maher added. Hawkins wrote four romantic fiction novels that met with only limited success, and she decided to take a last chance at writing fiction on a story with a darker tone.

After writing for a year, Hawkins sent her suspense thriller to a London publisher for review before she had even completed the story. That thriller became "The Girl on the Train," Maher said, which has sold 18 million copies worldwide, been published in more than 40 languages and was adapted into a motion picture in 2016.

Hawkins was born and raised in Zimbabwe until the age of 17, when she moved with her parents to London. She attended Oxford University and studied economics, politics and philosophy. In 2015, "The Girl on the Train" earned Hawkins the Goodreads Award for Best Selling Thriller and she won the same award this year for her newest novel, "Into the Water."

"Today, I want to talk about telling stories," Hawkins said. "This is, of course, what I do for a living. It's what I've done my whole life, as a job and as a hobby. I've been telling stories since I was a child."

Telling stories was also the euphemism that her mother would use when Hawkins was little to ask if she was lying, Hawkins added, garnering a few chuckles throughout the audience. Making up strange and shocking tales was her favorite hobby as a young girl.

When she grew up and became a writer, Hawkins was interested in not only telling a story but also telling the truth. She wanted to create a factual, attention grabbing story with her writings as a freelancer and a financial columnist.

"My day to day was to tell the reader a story. It was to grab them with an introduction and to hold their attention until the end of the story - and that's not an easy thing to do when you're writing about the technicalities of a pension plan," she said. "I was never completely satisfied by the stories I was telling as a journalist and it wasn't so much that the subject matter was on the dry side. It was rather that I felt restricted by the need constantly to report facts. I found myself wanting to tell stories unbound by everyday realities. And if I knew that I was going to lie, I wanted to do so honestly."

Thus, in order to lie honestly, where the reader knew that the story wasn't real, Hawkins said she switched to fiction.

After providing some background, Hawkins began to speak about the complexities of truth and storytelling. She also discussed her new novel, "Into the Water." The characters in the book are trying to find meaning within the events of their lives. What Hawkins discovered during the writing process was that the reality of what happened to the characters and the stories they created were not necessarily the same thing.

"The sense that these characters make of their lives didn't need to have anything to do with the reality of what happened to them. What I discovered was that the truth was not the most important thing," she said.

There are several mysteries within the novel, and the main action centers on the relationship between two estranged sisters. One of the sisters is found and questions about how she died, whether or not she was murdered or if it was a suicide, begin to form. Other characters must also reconcile memories and come to terms with the death of someone.

"My characters find answers," Hawkins said. "They construct narratives which make sense to them and which allow them to find purpose in their lives. But what they do not find, in every case, is the truth."

Hawkins says she doesn't condone the behaviors of her characters-making up stories to force the world to make sense. But she said it does reflect real life. People often embellish or rearrange the order of events in their lives when piecing together memories of the past. When that happens, people construct history and oftentimes stray from the truth. Sometimes it's because the truth isn't very interesting, and other times it can be because the truth hurts too much. Hawkins did offer some conciliatory words for those who make up stories-we're not alone.

"Our storytelling is normal," she said. "It's human."

- Patricia Dillon is a features reporter for The Woodlands Villager. Contact her at her office 713-362-4433 or on Twitter: @Dillon_Villager.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Houston ISD trustees on Thursday approved a $126-million plan to demolish and rebuild four aging elementary schools that were flooded during Hurricane Harvey, a proposal that will keep students out of their home campuses until at least 2020.

Trustees voted 8-0 in favor of the district administration's plan for Braeburn, Kolter, Mitchell and Scar-borough elementary schools. The campuses will be rebuilt on their current properties, which will be elevated to stave off future flooding.

The district becomes the first in Greater Houston to approve knocking down school buildings inundated by floodwaters. Administrators in Humble, Katy and Sheldon ISDs, which have campuses that remain closed due to flooding, have opted to repair their inundated facilities rather than starting from scratch.

Now Playing: The Texans surprised the Kingwood High School Varsity Football Team with 300 pairs of cleats and 100 footballs on Tuesday. Video: SLivingTime

All four Houston ISD campuses set for demolition were built between 1956 and 1966, when local building codes didn't require higher elevations inside floodplains. Three of the four campuses are inside the 100-year floodplain. District leaders have said they prefer to rebuild the older schools rather than trying to re-pair them.

"If we didn't rebuild this time, we were just going to have to find the money to build a new school another time," said Trustee Jose Leal, whose district includes Mitchell Elementary School.

Students at the four schools will continue to attend classes at temporary facilities throughout the reconstruction, which is scheduled to last until January 2020. About 2,870 children attended the four campuses last school year.

District officials have said it's "pretty definitive" that Mitchell and Scarborough elementary schools will remain at their current temporary campuses. Administrators are considering whether to move students from Braeburn and Kolter elementary school students  who are currently traveling 11 and four miles, respectively  to another temporary campus.

"We want to reassure our communities that this is an investment in the community, (that) there will be schools that are better than what they were before, and that these schools are being built for generations to come," Houston ISD Superintendent Richard Carranza said.

Trustees authorized spending $70 million in Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone funds  which are revenues generated by increases in local tax collections  and $56 million in "rainy day" reserve funds. The district has already spent about $80 million on Harvey-related costs. Prior to the hurricane, the projected to have well over $200 million in "rainy day" funds at the end of fiscal 2017-18.

Each new campus is estimated to cost up to $30 million. A $6 million construction contingency is included in the price tag.

Three other Houston ISD campuses that remain closed  Hilliard and Robinson elementary schools and Liberty High School  won't be demolished under the plan.

The seven still-shuttered schools received a boost Thursday when the oil giant Aramco Services announced a $4.7 million gift to the Houston ISD Foundation specifically for the campuses. The money will provide technology, tutoring and other resources for displaced students.

"One of our key pillars for our social responsibility is education," said Basil Abulhamayel, president and CEO of Aramco Services. "We saw, obviously, people displaced from their homes and we saw kids displaced from school and that fell directly into one of the pillars that we like to always support to make sure people are getting a good education."
A man is behind bars after he threatened to kill a woman and led deputy constables on a high-speed chase on the Katy Freeway, the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office said.

Deputy constables were watching the woman's home after the man reportedly threatened to kill her earlier this week.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A Freeport chemical worker was sentenced Friday to six months in federal prison for lying to federal agents about a massive and unauthorized red snapper catch last March.

Jamal Marshall who only had a license for recreational fishing, pleaded guilty on Aug. 24 of lying to federal agents about hundreds of fish he'd brought in.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner sentenced Marshall, 36, to six months in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. He will be subject to electronic monitoring for the first six months after his release. Marshall and another man involved in the illegal fish harvest jointly owe $9,487 in restitution to the Texas Parks and Wildlife foundation.

Marshall, whose father and grandfather were avid fishermen, asked the judge to allow him to fish with his young children while on supervised release.

The judge revoked his license during that time period.

Marshall is free on bond and agreed to voluntarily surrender to prison.

"He just got out there and got to catching fish and got addicted," Marshall's defense lawyer Rodney Moton, said after the hearing.

Moton told the judge his client, who has a day job at Dow Chemical, admitted it was wrong to haul out nearly 1900 pounds of snapper from the Gulf.

"He is a lifelong resident of the state and recognizes his mistakes have caused problems for himself, his family and the overall fishing and hunting community."

Marshall had 488 red snapper and 154 vermilion snapper on board the vessel when stopped by officials, a gross violation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) catch limits. The fish had a market value of $30,000.

But Marshall also admitted he had sold $35,000 worth of fish to Houston-area restaurants.

Another defendant, Jacob Brown, 35, of Lake Jackson was sentenced on Nov. 29 to three years of supervised release for lying about the same fishing trip.

NOAA has set strict limits for recreational fisherman since the population of red snapper, the most popular reef fish in the Gulf of Mexico, over concerns the species had become depleted from over-fishing.

During open season for the prized fish, a recreational anglers can harvest up to 10 vermilion and up to two red snapper per trip in federal waters.

But according to his plea agreement, in February and March of 2016, Marshall paid Brown $200 per trip on two occasions to help catch fish which Marshall sold to restaurants in Houston.

Brown, Marshall and a third man only licensed to fish recreationally and was not named in court documents, headed out into federal waters again on Mar. 26, 2016. On their trip back to shore, their vessel was stopped in the Inter-Coastal Waterway near Freeport by a U.S. Coast Guard boat conducting a routine water safety inspection.

The Coast Guard personnel asked them the purpose of their trip. The men said they'd been fishing. The officials asked what was in the five big coolers. The men said it was just ice and drinks. The officers asked them to follow them to shore so they could complete their inspection.

At the marina in Surfside, the officials opened the coolers and two built-in storage compartments and found them packed with red-colored fish.

Law enforcement from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and NOAA arrived and took an inventory. Brown and the others admitted they caught the fish, but in a written statement they said they planned to donate them to a church fish fry for Easter Sunday and did not intend to sell them.

According to the plea, the rogue commercial fisherman also lied that they had never illegally caught fish and sold them to local restaurants.

Gabrielle Banks covers federal court for the Houston Chronicle. Send her tips at gabrielle.banks@chron.com and follow her on Twitter.
A Texas man convicted of decapitating his wife and keeping her head in a freezer has been sentenced to 52 years in prison.

According to McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna's Facebook page, Davie Dauzat plead guilty to murder on Friday as part of a plea deal. The Bellmead man was charged with first degree murder after Natasha Dauzat was found decapitated. Bellmead is about 5 miles north of Waco.
An Aransas Pass police officer is out of a job after striking up a relationship with an adult high school student, according to the department's chief.

School district officials reported the potentially improper relationship they discovered between the Aransas Pass High School student and the school resource officer, Robert Brake.
A Louisiana man may spend the rest of his life in prison after he confessed to stabbing and killing his girlfriend's convicted molester and stuffing his body into a 55-gallon barrel.

The Advocate reports Jace Crehan, 23, was found guilty of second degree murder Thursday for the July 4, 2015 slaying of Robert Noce Jr., 47. The newspaper reports Crehan broke into Noce's trailer before dawn and attacked him in his sleep. Crehan awaits his Jan. 18 sentencing and faces life in prison.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A 43-year-old Portland man was arrested Monday after stabbing a stranger with scissors because - he claimed - Taylor Swift told him to do it.

Brent Shannon Thicksten was charged with first degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, and menace stemming from the incident near Northwest 3rd Avenue and Burnside.

Andrew Rice was walking down the street when Thicksten was "acting weird" and started chasing him with scissors, according to the arrest record filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

BAD IDEA: Intoxicated Texas mom lets 7-year-old son behind the wheel, crashes car

Thicksten ended up making contact with Rice, leaving a 2 inch laceration on his back.

Now Playing: Taylor Swift is sitting on top of the world with a record-breaking album, an upcoming tour and a blissful relationship with boyfriend Joe Alwyn, but it took some stumbles for her to get there Video: People

"Officer McKay then spoke with the defendant who said that he tried to stab Mr. Rice because ' my wife told me to kill him,'" the arrest record said. "He said that his wife was Taylor Swift and that he was trying to save everyone. When asked where his wife was right now, he replied 'we are one.'"

Thicksten is scheduled in court for an indictment Dec. 19, FOX 12 reported.

Multnomah County confirmed that Thicksten is not married to Swift or anyone else.

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.


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.
We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message.
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio - Front Street in Cuyahoga Falls is shaping up for its 2018 re-opening, while small business owners prepare their stores for a re-energized downtown.

The main street through the city's oldest business is opening to two-way traffic after 40 years as a pedestrian mall that never flourished, like many such malls across the U.S. Akron-based H.R. Gray has led the $10 million Downtown Transformation Project, with Hammontree & Associates of North Canton managing project design, surveying and landscape architecture.

Although no official date is set for the street opening, it's expected to take place by February, said Planning Director Fred Guerra, which isn't far off the Jan. 1 date projected last March.

So far, Front Street has been paved and reconfigured to allow for bicycles and pedestrian sitting areas, new curbs are in place and way-finding signage is posted. Parking garages have been renovated, and benches, street lighting and waste cans installed. Parking spaces still need painted but landscaping and brick-work are complete. Fountains will soon be constructed.

Parts of Front and Second streets have already been transformed to two-way, although Front Street through downtown remains closed while construction is ongoing.

To help draw businesses to downtown, an historic district has been identified from Stow Avenue to Chestnut Boulevard, while the area between Stow Ave. and the pavilion near Broad Boulevard is eligible for the national register of historic places.

Keith Saffles was recently awarded Ohio Historic Preservation Credits to leverage private redevelopment of the Wayne Agency Building at 2146-2162 on Front Street. Saffles is restoring four retail units in the building to their original decor, with decorative tin ceilings and oak floors.

"We'll have all new storefronts but we'll keep the old and give it some love," Saffles said.

By January, the Yum Yum Sweet Shop will open there, which Saffles owns with his mother, Sandy. The two will close their shop in Peninsula, where the village's restrictions kept them from offering services they wanted to provide, such as packaging candy on site.

"We were looking for a spot for the candy store and we wanted to be in the Falls so we're pretty excited," he said. "Here we'll be able to do everything we wanted and be more creative with what we have to offer."

By that he means installing a large cotton candy machine in the center of the store that can make 10-12 different flavors of the spun-sugar treat.

With more than 3,000 products, the store will stock many varieties of retro candies as well as modern treats, such as 50 flavors of Jelly Belly candy. Soda pop will be available in the bottle, including Akron's own NORKA brand soda. Yum Yum also will offer candy by the pound, chocolates and saltwater taffy.

"I'm always on the hunt for more retro stuff," Sandy Saffles said. "My goal is to make memories for the little kids like I had when I was young, and to bring back memories for the old people."

Keith Saffles was awarded Ohio Historic Preservation Credits to redevelop the Wayne Agency Building on Front Street. Saffles is restoring four retail units to their original decor, which will house Yum Yum Sweet Shop, Pav's Creamery, Good Co. Salon and a fourth business.

Restoring the building to its original look and feel dovetails well with the vibe Sandy envisions for the candy shop.

"It's going to be like walking back in time; it's going to bring back memories" she said. "I want people to be happy when they come into my store and happy when they leave. Cuyahoga Falls is going to love what they get. "

Next to the candy store will be Pav's Creamery, which has a 50-year history of making custard, ice cream and frozen yogurt in the Akron area.

"Mom's been calling this the sweetest corner in Cuyahoga Falls," Keith Saffles said.

Good Co. Salon is also planned to open there, which will be 29-year-old Emily Anderson's first brick and mortar establishment. A Falls native, Anderson has been a beautician for a decade and wanted her own upscale salon in her hometown.

"I'm giving this my all," she said. "It's my dream and I'm going for it."

A fourth tenant has yet to be selected but Saffles hopes to draw a complementary business, such as a specialty toy store.

Earlier this year Crave Cantina, serving Latin-style food, opened its doors at 2097 Front Street.

To market the revitalized business district, the city of Cuyahoga Falls is working with the Heritage Ohio Main Street Program. The program works to help communities revitalize historic or traditional commercial areas through historic preservation.

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.

Save

Save
LAGRANGE TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- Nearly 100 turkeys, ducks and chickens were found dead Tuesday in a private barn in Lorain County, authorities said.

Humane officers from the Friendship Animal Protective League rescued nearly 100 more birds found in the barn on Webster Road in LaGrange Township.

The birds either froze or starved to death, APL executive director Greg Willey said Friday in a phone interview.

"It was a terrible situation," Willey said.

No charges have been filed in the case, but the investigation is ongoing, Willey said.

A Webster Road resident called the APL on Tuesday morning after finding two frozen turkeys on his neighbor's property. Humane officers went to the house shortly after 9:30 a.m. and discovered the birds, Willey said.

No one was at the home when humane officers searched the barn. The Lorain County Sheriff's Office was notified to assist in the search.

Ten birds were in extremely poor condition when humane officers found them, Willey said. Six of those birds died while they were being taken to the APL.

Four more birds were taken to the West Park Animal Hospital for treatment. One bird died en route to the animal hospital and the other three birds were euthanized there, Willey said.

A homeowner was not present during the search, but arrived later and attributed the birds' death to a disease affecting the chickens, Willey said. Veterinarians believe the birds died due to neglect, Willey said.

Humane officers did not find food or water in the stalls where the birds lived. Wind was also coming into the barn through an unfinished wall, Willey said.

"It was disturbing," he said. "My staff collected all of the living animals, which was difficult to do. Some of them were just barely alive."

The APL is coordinating with farm animals rescues in the state to get the birds into sanctuaries. They also are connecting with locals who may want to care for them.

The birds are being kept in a converted dog room with straw beds, pellets, water and food, Willey said.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland State University has received a $1 million gift from Weston Inc. to create the Weston Ideation Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory designed to encourage creative thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Located within the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Monte Ahuja College of Business, the lab will help students explore entrepreneurship through coursework, workshops, a speaker series and additional learning opportunities, the university said in a news release.

Aspiring entrepreneurs will receive help in gaining access to business mentors, prototyping services, legal and patent advice and business plan development.

"Cleveland has a rich history of innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit," James Asher, CEO of Weston Inc., a privately held industrial property developers, said in the release. "Cleveland State University is the ideal location to establish a space where entrepreneurs can learn, ideate, launch and grow because of its location and philosophy of experiential learning."

CSU President Ronald Berkman said the lab will "foster entrepreneurial ambitions and fuse fields like computer science, design, engineering and business to develop new products and services."

The lab will augment the range of programs in the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, including an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship curriculum featuring internship opportunities, the Startup Vikes business development competition and the Small Business Development Center, which provides business-planning support and market analysis for new startups.

"Faculty, business mentors, startup counselors and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence will help students develop customer-centered, market-relevant ideas, as well as provide connections to the broader Cleveland startup ecosystem," Sanjay Putrevu, dean of the Monte Ahuja College of Business, said in the release.
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- Two lanes on Interstate 480 West were closed Thursday night because of a crash, officials said.

The Ohio Department of Transportation said an accident at 10:36 p.m. closed the two left lanes of the highway.

Details about the crash were limited. It's unknown if anyone was hurt.

The photo above is a still-image from an ODOT camera on I-480 at Transportation Boulevard.

Valley View police said they were assisting in traffic control at the crash site. Authorities with Independence police were unable to be reached late Thursday night.

WEWS Channel 5 reported a vehicle drove off an embankment at the Valley View Bridge. A second accident occurred while police were investigating the first crash, WEWS reports.

This story is developing and if information becomes available cleveland.com will provide an update.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland man is accused of shooting a 16-year-old boy during a Wednesday incident that investigators described as a gang dispute, a police report said.

Michael Boggs, 18, is charged with felonious assault in the Wednesday shooting in the city's Brooklyn Centre neighborhood, according to a police report and court records. Boggs is not in custody but a warrant was issued Thursday for his arrest.

The 16-year-old boy was shot in the stomach just after 4:30 p.m. on West 33rd Street near Archwood Avenue, police said. Investigators have not provided an update on the boy's condition.

The boy and four suspected gang members went to a park to fight members of another gang, according to a police report.

They were standing near their car when another car pulled up. A passenger in that car -- later identified as Boggs -- shot the boy, the report says.

The boy's companions drove him to MetroHealth and dropped him off before they sped away, the report says.

MetroHealth police officers followed the car and stopped it on West 25th Street near the ramp to Interstate 71. Officers searched the car and found a gun in a passenger's purse, the report says.

The passenger and her boyfriend each claimed ownership of the gun. Nayla Santos, 18, and Jonathan Brooks, 19, were each arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, according to the police report and court records.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Friday's crime and courts comments section.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cleveland man is charged with aggravated murder in a fatal shooting that happened outside a bar.

Jewan Kyle, 29, is accused of gunning down Cedric Carter in the Nov. 29 shooting outside the Union Club on St. Clair Avenue at East 25th Street, according to court records.

He is not in custody but a warrant was issued Wednesday for his arrest, records say.

Kyle and Carter argued about 2 a.m. in the bar. The argument spilled outside, and Kyle pulled out a gun and shot the 31-year-old man in the head, records say.

Kyle ran away before police officers arrived and found Carter dead in the street, records say.

Kyle's criminal history includes six convictions for drug trafficking between 2007 and 2014. He also has convictions for attempted escape, fleeing from police and possessing a gun as a felon, records show.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
WASHINGTON - A very little piece of Cleveland will visit the International Space Station on Friday when a rocket packed with some 4,800 pounds of crew supplies and research materials is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral.

Cargo aboard the Space X Dragon resupply mission will include NASA Glenn Research Center experiments on colloids that are 1/100th the diameter of human hair.

The experiments will use a special Space Station microscope to determine how three-dimensional particles within fluids interact when there's no gravity, says William V. Meyer, a NASA Glenn scientist.

On Earth, gravity makes those substances sink to the ground and form two-dimensional sediments, says Meyer. In space, they form three-dimensional structures that Meyer says could be used to build microscopic-sized machines for purposes as diverse as manufacturing and medicine.

Meyer expects scientists will use information gained from the upcoming experiments to improve additive manufacturing and three-dimensional printing in space and on Earth.

More than 4,800 pounds of #science is heading to @Space_Station. From fiber optics to solar irradiance, watch how this @ISS_Research is seeking to offer benefits back on Earth and expand space exploration. https://t.co/tZmjouHMAm pic.twitter.com/HiRLvJuDEL  ISS Research (@ISS_Research) December 12, 2017

One set of experiments will be done in conjunction with Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, which hopes to use the knowledge it gains to improve stabilizers that keep products like shampoo and detergents from separating. In a scientific paper, the company said it hopes information from the experiments will help it boost product quality and shelf-life, and reduce production and transportation costs.

The company said that understanding the substances' structure and dynamics will help it develop multi-billion dollar product lines "and initiatives which improve the lives of 4.8 billion people on Earth per day from products originating from Procter & Gamble alone."

"We are very excited to be part of this project with NASA and the other investigators," says a letter from Procter & Gamble scientist Matthew L. Lynch.

NASA Glenn is doing another set of experiments with a group of New York University researchers including renowned physicist Paul Chaikin to examine how "superball" particles that are halfway between cubes and spheres pack together to form crystals.

On Earth, where there's gravity, the crystals form two-dimensional arrays that look like checkerboards. In space, they hope to see them develop three-dimensionally into something that looks more like a Rubik's cube.

"We're using tiny little particles that are 200 times smaller than the width of a human hair and we try to make them smart, we try to control their interaction," NYU's Stefano Sacanna says in a NASA video about the research. "And by doing so, we can sort of force them to form larger structures, new materials."

Meyer says future NASA manned missions to Mars and other planets will benefit from the knowledge gained through the upcoming experiments. He says three-dimensional printers will be able to use the information to make everything from replacement mechanical parts to ceramic kneecaps that can be used as replacement body parts.

"Whatever you're building, you don't carry ships full of parts, you carry particles and 3D printers and you make what you need," says Meyer.
ELYRIA, Ohio -- A North Ridgeville physical therapist was stripped of his license and sentenced to one year of probation for inappropriately touching one of his clients.

Carl Erway, 45, pleaded guilty to to sexual imposition in the case, Lorain County Common Pleas Court officials said. Lorain County prosecutors dropped a charge of gross sexual imposition in exchange for his guilty plea.

Judge Christopher Cook also suspended a 60-day jail sentence and ordered Erway to register as a Tier I sex offender, court officials said.

A 31-year-old woman called the Sheffield Village Police Department to report that Erway inappropriately touched her during a Feb. 13 session at NovaCare Rehabilitation on Waterford Drive near Detroit Road, according to a police report.

The woman attended seven sessions with Erway from Jan. 24 to Feb. 13. During the final session, he reached under her shirt while she was face-down on the procedure table, put his hand on her bare breast and began to rub it, the report says.

Erway grabbed the woman's hips and pulled her closer to him, the report says. Erway then rubbed his crotch against the woman's hand, the report says.

Erway also rubbed the woman's inner thighs and used his hands to spread her legs apart, the report says.

The woman did not speak to Erway during the incident, she told police. She went to work when the session ended, and called the police department the next day.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
NAPOLEON, Ohio -- A police officer has been taken into custody after being accused of possessing child pornography, reports say.

Federal authorities arrested Nicholas Evanoff, 33, on Wednesday following a long investigation, WTVG Channel 13 reports. He is charged with one count of possession of child pornography.

He reportedly possessed child pornography between September and November of this year.

Napoleon Police Chief David Mack tells WTVG that Evanoff was fired on Wednesday.

Napoleon city manager Joel Mazur tells the Defiance Crescent the city was aware that Evanoff was under investigation since Nov. 9 but were given no details. Mazur said once Evanoff was arrested, he was immediately fired.

"This is not representative of our community, and it puts our officers in a very unfortunate situation," Mazur tells the Crescent. "Nationally, it's a difficult time for law enforcement, then something like this comes up and it makes it even harder for them to do their jobs."

Mack said the department is cooperating with federal investigators.

According to the Crescent, Evanoff had been with the Napoleon Police Department for seven years.

He is being held in the Lucas County Jail and is scheduled to appear today in federal court.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
MIDDLETOWN, Ohio -- Police say a 31-year-old mother of nine was left to die after overdosing on heroin, reportedly abandoned by two males who were with her.

Now Middletown officers are going out of their way to help the woman's children, who range in age from 1 to 14 years old, WKRC Channel 12 reports.

Police say two men went to the house of Jimeta Sanders on Wednesday. The men, described as friends of the woman, took her money after she OD'd, then told her kids they were leaving to buy some soda.

The father of the children, Andre Sanders, was at work and was not home.

"I'm in shock and disbelief. You never think that it's going to happen to you until it actually happens," Andre tells WKRC. "My wife loved all of her kids. She was a proud mother and she had a heart of gold. She would literally give you the shirt off her back."

Police are still searching for the two suspects, believed to be a father and son.

Meanwhile, the incident has had an impact on the department and community.

"They don't have much, but nine kids at Christmas time, to lose their mother like that is just horrible," Middletown police Chief Rodney Muterspaw tells WLWT Channel 5.

The department used its Facebook page to ask for help from the public, seeking donations for the father and his kids.

"It has disturbed us so much that it's time for us to make a difference," the post says. "Their father is a hard worker, he has tried to make ends meet but it's a vicious cycle."

The department reports the response has been overwhelming as donations of cash and food, toys and clothing pour in from across the nation. The police chief also made a $200 donation, WCPO Channel 9 reports. A detective bought the family a Christmas tree, and an unidentified woman donated $9,000.

Muterspaw posted a video on Facebook, shown below, thanking people for helping the family.

Chiefs message regarding the community support today and incident last night on Yankee Road. Posted by Middletown Division of Police on Thursday, December 14, 2017

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments section.
We have covered Crystallexs attempt to enforce its $1.2 billion judgment against Venezuela a bunch here on Credit Slips (for example, here , here , here , here , and here ). In late November, the parties reached a settlement, shortly before a December 5 hearing in Crystallex's lawsuit seeking to attach assets belonging to PDVSA. The hearing was to address Crystallex's argument that PDVSA is the government's alter ego, and PDVSAs cross motion to dismiss. A ruling in Crystallexs favor would have let it look to PDVSAs assets to satisfy its judgment against the government. As noted in the Financial Times , a pro-Crystallex ruling might also have had broader implications, potentially letting holders of defaulted Venezuelan sovereign bonds ... seek to seize PDVSA assets, potentially including those of Citgo.

[Update: Here is the unsealed letter describing the settlement between Crystallex and Venezuela. As expected, it reveals nothing of note, simply explaining that the settlement's terms require confidentiality and redacting portions discussing the settlement itself. Also, note that the first paragraph of the original post (below) has been edited for clarity.]

The settlement is a bit mysterious. Documents related to it were filed under seal, both in Crystallexs bankruptcy case in Canada and its lawsuit in Delaware federal court. Crystallexs debtor-in-possession financier is entitled to much of the settlement proceeds.from Ernst and Youngthe court-appointed monitordescribing the settlements virtues. If you have x-ray vision, you can review the settlement terms at par. 26; if not, youll just see redacted text. As reported, Crystallex will receive something close to the face value of its judgment, but paid over time. As Bloomberg notes (tongue firmly in cheek, I suspect): The payment delays put in question how Crystallex will get paid. The benefit to the government is equally questionable. For now, the settlement defers the hearing on Crystallexs alter ego claims, which has been continued until Dec. 21. But its not like the government and PDVSA get long-term peace. Even if the settlement moots Crystallexs alter ego claims, any creditor can replicate its litigation strategy. So the government gets only a temporary hiatus, and why should that justify such a generous settlement (at least in nominal value)?

Anyway, the Latin American Herald Tribune (owned and published by Russ Dallen, who also runs investment bank Caracas Capital) asked the federal judge in Delaware to unseal documents related to the settlement, and the judge agreed. Well, sort of. A little bit. In principle. The parties had jointly filed a sealed letter describing the settlement. The judge has instructed them to re-file by the end of the day today, making only redactions consistent with the governing law and the Court's rules. But I would be surprised if the new filing dispels confusion about the settlement. The public has a general right of access to judicial proceedings (whether framed as a common law right or as a first amendment right), but parties are nevertheless allowed to file documents under seal when there is a compelling reason to do so. As an initial matter, I would expect the document filed today to contain significant redactions, leaving much about the settlement unclear. And while the judge can order further disclosure, theres no guarantee that this will happen.

I will update this post once a copy of the letter appears on the court's docket, and well see if the mystery clears up. For now, however, Im skeptical that whatever document gets filed today will provide much clarity.
Cashing In With Cloud

SADA Systems has come a long way from its roots as a family-owned solution provider organization. Today, the Los Angeles-based cloud-focused managed service provider is as a Google Cloud Premier Partner, a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Provider, and a Facebook Workplace Service Partner.

At The Channel Company's NexGen 2017 Conference and Technology Expo, SADA Systems' CEO Tony Safoian shared how his company is investing millions in cloud, where partners should place their bets, and how aspiring cloud partners can get in with the world's largest cloud providers.

Here's what Safioan had to say.
Access to timely and precise weather information is critical for smallholder farmers to make informed decisions and improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change, such as droughts, high temperatures, floods and a rise in pests and diseases. This was a key message at the recent review of an on-going project to scale up climate-smart agricultural solutions to smallholder farmers in three countries in southern Arica region.

Through the project, CTA is working with national partners to promote a bundle of climate solutions, using a multi-layered approach to mitigate the impacts of climate change under its two-year southern Africa flagship project. The approach not only involves ICT-enabled weather information services but also the use of stress-tolerant seeds, innovative index-based insurance (in which payouts are issued according to a weather index) and providing livelihood options for farmers through the introduction of livestock farming alongside crop cultivation. The Promoting Climate-Resilient Agri-food Solutions in Southern Africa regional project will benefit 140,000 farmers in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with the potential to expand this reach to 200,000 farmers within 3 years.

Public-private partnership

In Zimbabwe, the project supports a partnership between the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) and Econet Wireless, a telecommunications services provider. Under the partnership, a bundle of services is provided to farmers via their mobile phones as part of the EcoFarmer package, which includes microinsurance to cover farmers inputs and crops against damage due to poor weather, as well as localised, daily satellite-based weather information and farming tips. The EcoFarmer combo costs US$1 a month and, in addition to the services already mentioned, it is an integrated package that also includes funeral insurance cover, ZFU membership, input discounts  including for drought-tolerant seed varieties  and market information.

When we started, the combo ordinarily included weather index insurance, but then it also had agronomic tips for those farming crops and livestock, says Prince Kuipa, senior ZFU economist. He explains that With the current project we added real-time weather information for farmers, as well as the promotion of drought-tolerant maize varieties and livestock diversification.

Changing Mindsets

The promotion of the EcoFarmer combo in Zimbabwe has been carried out at the district level through trained agents, who explain the benefits of purchasing the product to farmers. The training of agriculture extension workers under the government Agricultural Extension Department (Agritex) has also been pivotal to rolling out the EcoFarmer combo as they help farmers to interpret the SMS messages received under the bundle service.

Farmers now think differently when they see or hold a mobile phone, Kuipa said. While a mobile phone is a communication tool, it has become a knowledge sharing tool for the farmers, where they receive weather information and agronomic tips.

Expanding networks

CTA senior programme coordinator and leader of the project, Dr Oluyede Ajayi says the power of ICTs must be harnessed to promote climate-smart agriculture on the back of the growing use of mobile telephones in Africa. According to the mobile industry association, GSMA 2017 Report, 1.1 million jobs were directly supported by the mobile ecosystem in 2017 globally, and this figure is expected to rise to 1.3 million by 2020.

There are new opportunities to promote climate-smart solutions to farmers with satellite data and remote sensing offering better quality and more accurate rainfall estimates. In addition to new investment in automated weather stations, there are also new opportunities as a result of multiple mobile networks, the growing rate of internet connectivity and the availability of cheaper cell phones, said Ajayi.

Scaling up the work of the ZFU-Econet partnership is the next step, as Kuipa states, This is a launch pad. We will use the lessons learnt from this project to scale it out to other districts in the country.
NORWALK  The Norwalk Branch of the NAACP, in partnership with the city of Norwalk Human Relations Commission, announced on Friday the launch of the Norwalk Minority Women Business Enterprise Certification Program.

Although Norwalk has many thriving businesses owned by women and minorities, many are not registered as Minority/Woman Business Enterprises with the State of Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, Mayor Harry Rilling said in a statement released by his office. By registering with the state, these businesses will be added to a public list that is used by local and state government as well as private companies seeking to hire MWBE organizations.

Registered businesses will qualify for projects that require a percentage of contracts to go toward minority-owned businesses such as the new mall currently under construction in Norwalk.

We believe that this MWBE registration drive will give a boost to our local businesses and stimulate our local economy, Rilling said. Norwalk has several large construction projects in process and even more in various states of planning, so we want as much of the capital going into those projects to benefit our local businesses as possible.

Rilling noted that businesses in a wide range of fields can register as MWBE organizations including those in consulting and other professional fields.

Many of our small minority owned businesses are not aware of the opportunities that come with registration or have trouble with all the red tape, we hope to spread the word and help folks with the registration process, Brenda Penn-Williams, president of the Norwalk Branch of the NAACP, said.

The NAACP has selected Rushmore Consulting to organize and implement a registration drive.

The the mall developers have been pointing out that although they are required to award 10 percent of their construction projects to MWBE organizations, there are relatively few Norwalk MWBEs in the construction fields registered with the state, Adam Bovilsky, Norwalks director of human relations and fair rent, said. We are very pleased to support the MWBE registration project and to work with the NAACP to the benefit of local minority-owned and woman-owned businesses.

For more information, visit the Norwalk MWBE Certification Program website at www.norwalkmwbecertification.com.
Every so often, we scour the site for cool recipes from our community that we then test, photograph, and feature. This rich, stick-to-your-ribs comfort meal comes from member TiggyBee, and is exactly what you're craving right now.

Sometimes you need something that's not a lemony salad, not a grain bowl, not a greens-filled soup, however good and balanced those things might be. Instead, you need a serving of pure comfort. That's exactly what community member TiggyBee gives us in her spaetzle recipe, which calls for the homemade Austrian/German dumplings to be crisped in brown butter and combined with sweet, roasted shallots, sauteed mushrooms, and nutty gruyere. As TiggyBee write: this dish "rank[s] right up there in the comfort food category." And, after testing, we have to say she is 100% correct.

Good news: getting this spaetzle on your table this weekend is not as tricky as you might think. First, you'll whip up a quick, eggy dumpling batter and let it rest for an hour in the fridge. Most spaetzle recipes call for a rest to let the flour fully hydrate, but I found that a much shorter rest10 to 15 minutesat room temperature worked as well.

While the batter rests, you'll brown some shallots in butter (yes, this is a theme of the dish) until caramelized and then bake them in the oven until soft and sweet.

Once the spaetzle batter is almost rested, put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Here's the trickiest part of the recipe (though really, you'll get the hang of it quickly): Working in small batches, pour ladlefuls of the spaetzle batter into a colander (or, if you have one, a spaetzle maker) placed over the boiling water. Use the back of the ladle to push the batter through straight into the pot, creating tiny, squiggly dumplings. These cook up quicklythe recipe says 5 to 6 minutes, or whenever the spaetzle float to the top of the pot. Mine finished after only 2 minutes.

Once they're ready, use a slotted spoon to transfer your spaetzle to an ice bath for a rapid cool. After you've cooked all your dumplings, drain and set aside, tossing with a glug or two of olive oil to prevent sticking.

That is a straight-up pan of comfort right there. Photo by Mark Weinberg

After finishing the spaetzle, the rest of the dish is a snap to throw together. (You can even prep the dumplings and shallots ahead of time and cook everything just before serving.) Saute the mushrooms in more butter (yep), adding some minced thyme or rosemary if you feel so inclined. Set them aside and melt your final pat of butter in the pan, cooking it until toasty and brown. Toss in the spaetzle and cook until crisp and golden, then add the mushrooms, shallots, and the zest of a lemon for a bit of sparkle. (At this point, feel free to add hearty greens like kale or chard.) Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Once the whole thing is warm and toasty, top with a flurry of grated gruyere and some parsley. Pair it with a lemony green salad, a glass of wine, and a fire, and you've got winter comfort on lock.

Tip: Don't skimp on the butter when browning the spaetzle, or else they'll stick to the pan. This is not a light dish, peoplego all in.

Browned Crispy Spaetzle with Caramelized Shallots and Mushrooms

By TiggyBee

For the spaetzle batter:



3 cups all purpose flour

6 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt



12 shallots

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons sugar



1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced (any type works)

A handful of chopped parsley

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Grated gruyere, to top

View Full Recipe

What's your ultimate winter comfort food? Or are you one of those "salad all the time" people? Share below!
TRUMBULL  After being denied most of its funding requests by the Board of Finance Thursday night, the Board of Education heads to Town Council to ask for $1.2 million for its current school year budget.

Requests for special education, health care costs, after-school programs, building repairs and SAT prep funding from a contingency fund were voted down by the Board of Finance. Only one item, $90,000 for legal settlements associated with special education, was approved.

We know its going to be a tough year, Board of Education Chairman Loretta Chory said after the vote. We know that the state of Connecticut has had a big impact on our budget. It has certainly not made it any easier.

Chory said the school board will review this years budget before going before Town Council.

We have to be prepared for that for second semester, Chory said of the possibility of Town Council also denying them the funds. Because it could certainly impact staffing.

During the budget discussions last spring, the school district asked for $102.7 million for the 2017-18 school year. When the state was facing a budget shortfall earlier this year and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed cuts in aid to municipalities, town departments were asked to make cuts to their budgets to pool money for a contingency fund. The school boards budget was approved at $98.9 million, about the same as the 2016-17 budget. The total town budget is about $170 million.

In August, the school board requested $1.4 million of the money that went to the contingency fund to prevent staff layoffs, and Board of Finance voted to give them the funds, putting the school boards budget at $100.3 million.

At the time, Board of Finance Chairman Elaine Hammers told the school board not to count on more money from the contingency fund.

But the school board returned to the finance committee Thursday to ask for more money.

This is not a bottomless pit and I just keep hearing them come back, Hammers said before the vote. You came back, we gave you $1.4 (million) because we didnt want to lay off teachers and its constantly coming back. You heard me say it in August ... Live within what we gave you because we gave you more than everybody else.

Hammers grew frustrated before the vote when Trumbull Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Gary Cialfi explained the request for $50,250 for unexpected facility repairs, including replacing a hot water supply pump at Trumbull High School that set the district back around $31,000.

It boggles my mind that in a $100 million budget, we dont have $50,000 to repair things? The buildings, surprise surprise, theyre not new ... you dont think things are going to break? she said.

When Cialfi requested $20,000 for SAT prep, Hammers pointed out that the chief financial officer at Greens Farms Academy, a private K-12 school, told her that students at the school were advised to use Khan Academy, an free online educational website, for SAT prep.

Im not sure why Trumbull students cant walk in the library, log into Khan Academy, which is absolutely free, and take an SAT prep class, Hammers said.

Cialfi said that while Trumbull High School had been using Khan Academy for two years, the online prep was very different from an SAT prep class.

Im not sure Greens Farms students are restricted to just that opportunity, Cialfi said.

Trumbull High School is offering some SAT prep through its continuing education program, but the request for the $20,000 is to reinstate an SAT prep program the school previously had, he said.

The $611,000 the school board requested for this years special education expenses was deadlocked 3-3 and failed. The $300,000 requested to cover underestimated increase in health care costs failed 2-4, the $116,000 requested for after school program costs and the $50,250 requested for facility repairs failed unanimously, and the $20,000 requested for SAT prep failed 1-6.

Budget discussions for the 2018-19 school year are in the works.

The school district has asked for $105 million, a 5 percent increase from the current $100.3 million budget, which includes more staff and technology and transportation updates.

If the school district had received the requested $1.2 million back from the contingency fund for the current budget, the 2018-2019 school year budget would be a 3.77 percent increase, the budget document shows.
BRIDGEPORT - A New Britain man is facing six years in prison after he pleaded guilty Friday to attacking a Trumbull homeowner and biting off the victims thumb.

Jonathan Harris, 24, pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin to first-degree assault on an elderly person and first-degree burglary.

The judge told him he would consider sentencing Harris, who was on probation on assault and drug charges at the time of this crime, to a six-year prison term followed by probation in exchange for the guilty plea when Harris is sentenced Feb 9.

States Attorney John Smriga told the judge he spoke to the victim who is still puzzled and troubled by the fact that his thumb was bit off by Harris and believes the defendant must have been on some drug at the time.

Shortly before 11 p.m. on Aug. 5, Trumbull police officers were dispatched to Daniels Farm Road for a man lying shirtless in the street. As officers were heading to that location, police said they got a call of an assault on Daniels Farm Road.

Police said the elderly homeowner recounted that he had been awakened by a loud banging on his back door. When he opened the door Harris forced his way inside and got into a struggle with the homeowner, police said.

During the struggle police said Harris bit the homeowners right thumb off. He then fled the home.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

NEWTOWN  In a night meant to remember the senseless loss of 26 high-spirited children and devoted educators, all speakers at ceremonies held Thursday could talk about was the love they see living in the town left behind.

Nowhere was that indomitable spirit clearer than in the features of a boy who lost his sister in the Sandy Hook shooting five years ago.

Walker Previdi, whose sister Caroline was one of the 20 first-graders slain at Sandy Hook School in 2012, approached the lectern during a remembrance Mass Thursday night at St. Rose of Lima Church and faced a sanctuary filled with hundreds of townspeople and Connecticuts top dignitaries.

His task was to read not one but two passages from the Bible  including a tongue-twister from Romans about the sufferings of the present being nothing compared to the glory promised by faith.

It wasnt until after Bishop Frank Caggiano celebrated the Mass and VIPs, including the governor and the states senators shared encouraging reflections, that the young man became animated with happiness and gratitude.

His change of expression was because his own pastor, Monsignor Robert Weiss, had a message just for him.

Somewhere in heaven right now there is a little girl who is happier than everybody else because she saw her brother get up in front of everybody and read, Weiss said. The crowd then burst into a loud and sustained applause  the first of the night  to the delight of Walker and his parents, who were sitting in a front pew.

The connection between the lost and the living was a theme that continued at a separate and well-attended interfaith service Thursday evening at Trinity Episcopal Church.

A lot of people here have not lost anyone, said Jane Bojnowski, a Trinity parishioner of more than 30 years. Its just kind of in our soul in Newtown.

Clergy members from several churches and other religions spoke of the strength of community and the beauty in life, even when it is struck by tragedy.

Were five years into a journey whose destination is still uncertain, said the Rev. Matt Crebbin, who gave the opening address. Cards and candy canes were out front, he added, gifts that were just left, even five years later.

At St. Rose Church, where 26 white orchids surrounded a small statue of a sitting child angel in front of the altar, Caggiano spoke of the necessity of loving while carrying the wounds of the world.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy all thanked the families of Newtown for their strength in the face of loss.

These children had a fire of purity and a passion that we see in so many of your faces still burning today, Murphy said. It is burning in a way that is changing lives.

rryser@newstimes.com 203-731-3342
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

BRIDGEPORT  The states attorney overseeing an investigation into the police-involved shooting death of Jayson Negron says she expects to make an announcement in the near future concerning her findings.

Last week, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim requested that Waterbury States Attorney Maureen Platt release video and other information regarding the shooting death of 15-year-old Negron, who was killed in May.

Ganim said Thursday that some people have claimed there is video of the shooting, and that he hopes the States Attorneys Office can confirm or deny this and possibly release footage.

But Platt said that wont be happening.

Since this is still a pending investigation, no material will be released at this time, Platt said in an email Friday morning.

But she said shes wrapping up her review of the Connecticut State Police investigation.

My work on this matter is almost completed, so I expect to make an announcement within the near future, Platt said in the email. It was unclear whether the announcement would include the release of her full report.

Negron was shot by Bridgeport Police Officer James Boulay on May 9. State police said Negron drove a stolen vehicle the wrong way down a one-way street when he struck an officer. Bridgeport police said Boulay fired into the car, fatally wounding Negron and injuring 21-year-old passenger Julian Fyffe.

Following protocol for an officer-involved shooting, state police took over the lead on the investigation. Platt is tasked with overseeing the state police investigation into the shooting.
STRATFORD  Mayor Laura R. Hoydick, Rabbi Joe Stock and the Mishkan Israel Day Camp will lead a public menorah lighting ceremony in celebration of Hanukkah on Tuesday, Dec. 19, beginning at 6 p.m.

The menorah lighting ceremony will commemorate the final day of Hanukkah. Rabbi Stock will lead the ceremony, which will take place on Town Hall grounds, 2725 Main St. All members of the public are invited to participate.
NEWTOWN - The towns Congressional delegation made statements, shared reflections and spoke out in Washington about the 5th remembrance of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.

The comments from Newtowns federal lawmakers come five years since the worst crime in Connecticut history on Dec. 14, 2012, when a 20-year-old man killed his mother, shot his way into a locked Sandy Hook School, and murdered 20 first-graders and six educators, and then shot himself.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthals statement:

Today marks the fifth anniversary of one of the darkest moments in our nations history. I stand in awe of the families who, through unimaginable grief and pain, have shown unparalleled courage and resilience. We must never forget the innocent lives lost that day, and we must never abandon their cause.

Shame on Congress for allowing yet another year to pass without action. Shame on Congress for allowing this tragic anniversary to be followed by so many morein Sutherland Springs, in Las Vegas, in Orlando, in Charleston, and in our communities each and every day. Each day that passes marked by inaction, Congress turns its back on the will of the American public--complicit as 90 more lives are lost to the scourge of gun violence.

Today and every day, we must honor with action. I will not give up this fight.

Excerpts from U.S. Sen. Chris Murphys reflection:

Newtown will never be the same. And having been there to witness the days events firsthand, I know I will never be the same. My life changed that day. I now wake up every day knowing that my political career will be a failure if I do not change the laws of this nation to meaningfully reduce the chances that something like that will ever happen again.

But tonight, as I gather with family and community members in Newtown to remember the beauty that was extinguished from the earth five years ago today, I will not wallow in what has not been accomplished.

Instead, I will remember the two simple words whispered to me by one Sandy Hook mom earlier this year. As I readied to leave my office one evening, the front desk rang me to say that one of the Sandy Hook parents had dropped by unannounced. Of course, send her in, I said. She walked into my office, and without saying a word, draped her arms around me in a giant, warm bear hug.

Keep going, she said quietly to me. She wiped a few tears back, took a few steps backwards, and continued, Thats all I wanted to say. Then she left, unable to muster the energy to say anything more.

Newtown isnt the same. Im not the same. And I doubt youre the same.

But five years later, we keep going. And we celebrate the miracles that continue to implausibly blossom all around us.

U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Estys excerpted remarks Wednesday night on the House floor:

Twenty schoolchildren and six educators - twenty six- and seven-year-olds - were ripped from the community of Newtown. I remember that day. I was a newly-elected member of Congress, learning about what it means to serve in this august body, when I started to receive e-mails and text messages telling me that something terrible happened at home. And by noon, I learned the worst: that children had been killed.

I threw my things in the car and drove from Boston. I called my mother, I called my minister, and I prayed for wisdom, guidance, and the courage to face the families. I arrived to find families being notified that the children they had put on the bus that morning - children who were thinking of Hanukkah, of the start of Christmas, and of the newly-fallen snow on the ground - those children would never come home.

Its sad. Its sad and its inexcusable that as I stand here five years later, the peoples House still has not taken action.
NORWALK  A holiday get-together among co-workers Thursday night ended with an Ansonia man being charged with disorderly conduct.

At around 5:42 police were dispatched to a Washington Street bar on a report of a fight. The alleged victim told police that one of his co-workers was drunk and had attacked him.

Police say that the alleged victim pointed out the co-worker, who was vomiting and appeared to be highly intoxicated. The victim told police he did not want to press charges against his co-worker, who police say was drawing a crowd with a screaming rant in the road.

The man was transported to Norwalk Hospital, due to his apparent level of intoxication, police said.

At around 11:30 p.m., police were called back to Norwalk Hospital Emergency Department on a report of a disturbance.

Police say that the man, identified as Anthony Minchello, 29, of Ansonia, was engaged in disruptive behavior.

Minchello was warned by police multiple times that if he continued the behavior he would be arrested.

According to police, the behavior continued, and he was placed in handcuffs and charged with disorderly conduct.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

FAIRFIELD  Trademark Fairfield, the first mixed used building constructed under the transit-oriented overlay on Commerce Drive, has its first commercial tenant.

The Town Plan and Zoning Commission Tuesday unanimously approved a compliance application for Barbacoa Smoke House.

I, for one, am very happy to see theyve landed a tenant for the anchor spot in this building, right on the corner, Chairman Matthew Wagner said. Its really great to see.

The restaurant will take up a gross area of 4,159 square feet, with 1,783 square feet of that reserved for patron area. The plans also include 150 feet for outdoor, seasonal dining.

Planning Director James Wendt said plans currently call for just beer and wine, although they are permitted to have full service, should they so choose.

Wendt said the restaurant needed to secure a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals to reduce the required parking spaces. Although there are 187 spaces on the property, they fell short by 28 spaces, he said. The ZBA approved the variance in October because ownership group owns two adjacent properties, and will allow staff to park there, if needed.

The restaurant described itself in the ZBA application as smoked barbeque with a Mexican overture. its website tells patrons it provides always fresh food with a pinch of cheeky fun.

Patrons choose from dry rubbed steak, chicken, pork or fish, and whether they want it low and slow smoked or freshly grilled. They then top their meal with the BBQ sauce to their liking, whether hot and spicy or sweet.

The restaurant will also offer several ways to place an order  at the restaurants kiosk, or in advance online, for either dining in or take out.

An opening date for the restaurant has yet to be announced. The restaurant owner could not be reached for comment.

More Information Online barbacoasmokehouse.com See More Collapse

The residential portion of the Trademark building is 50 percent leased. The building includes just over 100 luxury apartments with available units ranging in monthly rates from about $1,950 for a 560-foot studio to $3,400 for a two-bedroom.

The new Trademark Fairfield held a formal ribbon cutting in late September at 665 Commerce Drive adjacent to the headquarters of Bigelow Tea.

Trademark Fairfield was co-developed by Abbey Road Advisors, Skala Partners and ELV Associates.
If you have become numbed to President Donald Trumps constant attacks on the media, if you have lost interest in which networks he currently considers to be fake news, if you have grown tired of hearing him call journalists enemies of the people  well, thats unfortunate, because plenty of others are still paying attention.

Around the world, dictators and would-be authoritarians have picked up his attitude and his terminology. From Syria to Venezuela to Burma, authoritarians now dismiss legitimate criticism as fake news.

The Libyan government has denounced a CNN report on human trafficking as fake news: If the U.S. president disdains the network, why should anybody else listen to them?

The president of the Philippines invents stories about his political enemies from whole cloth, just like the president of the United States.

And, with Trump at his side, Rodrigo Duterte recently dismissed a gaggle of reporters as spies.

Now the Polish government has been emboldened to take a step in the same direction.

On Monday, the national media council slapped an extraordinary fine on TVN24, the largest and most important private television channel in the country.

Declaring that the channel had been promoting illegal activities and encouraging behavior that threatens security, the council demanded 1.5 million zlotys ($420,000).

In a very brief statement, the council related the charge to the channels coverage of anti-government demonstrations a year ago.

No details were provided. But the message was perfectly clear: Private media should be very, very careful about broadcasting any opposition to the government.

If the message was clear, the nuances were interesting.

For TVN24 is owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, an American company, which is in turn owned by the Discovery Communications.

Their investment in the TVN group of channels is the largest U.S. investment in Poland, worth well over $1 billion.

Rumors of government pressure on the company have been swirling for months, and this is the second time the company has been fined.

In July, the government demanded an unexpected $30 million in curiously calculated back taxes.

The Polish government may be hoping that Discovery gets cold feet, and sells the channel to one of its friends.

It may also be counting on the U.S. government to stay out.

After all, the American president doesnt like independent television reporters either.

The Polish authorities may have also been sending a message. For the decision was taken on the very day that the ruling party swapped its dour, angry prime minister, Beata Szydlo, for a slicker, smoother replacement, Mateusz Morawiecki.

If anyone needed it, the TVN24 fine was proof that the change is superficial. Morawiecki may speak English better than his predecessor, but pressure on the courts, on journalists, on the civil service and the army will continue.

It all makes for an odd conundrum for a U.S. government whose own messages to Europe in general, and to Poland in particular, have been far less clear.

Does the Trump administration back the Polish government in its attack on a television station because it also hates fake news? Or does the Trump administration back an American company which is being threatened abroad?

Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post columnist.
Im not surprised that Mahmoud Abbas, who in mid-January will begin the fourteenth year of his four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority, wants the United Nations to replace America as a mediator in his war against Israel.

After all, hes clearly upset that the United States, unlike most of the rest of the world, seems to be recovering from Jerusalem Derangement Syndrome, the malady whose primary symptom is the inability to accept the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of the modern, democratic state of Israel.

In contrast, the United Nations is a body which libeled the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, equating it with racism, and voted that Israels sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, not to mention the holiest site in the world for the Jewish people, the Temple Mount, amounted to illegal occupation.

No wonder Abbas, who for all practical purposes has refused to negotiate with Israel since 2008, prefers the UN to an honest broker.

Alan Stein

Netanya, Israel and Natick, Massachusetts

The writer, a longtime Connecticut resident, is President Emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut, Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting.
Large, high-intensity wildfires are an inevitable and natural part of life in California. The destruction of our communities is not. But many of the political leaders we elect and planning agencies we depend upon to create safe communities have failed us. They have allowed developers to build in harms way, and left firefighters holding the bag.

The fires raging in Los Angeles County and Ventura are an urgent signal that we need to start asking the hard questions  about the true cost of expanding the local tax base with new residences in high fire hazard zones. We need to stop having the same conversation over and over again, a conversation laced with non-sequiturs and focused on outdated, ineffective solutions. The devastating loss of life, the destruction of so many family homes, and the dangers faced by those who protect us demand nothing less.

Some blame the current rash of wildfires on dead trees in forests  even if those fires are nowhere near a forest, or dead trees. (Members of Congress seem to have bought this explanation and theyre now pushing a bill sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) that would encourage more logging in the West.)

Some blame climate change, claiming, for example, that rising temperatures are responsible for the devastating Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa in October  despite the fact that a bigger and just as fierce fire burned much of the same area in 1964. (Climate change is making our fire seasons worse, but it isnt responsible for every big fire.)

Yet others blame firefighters for creating dense stands of chaparral in fire suppression efforts  when thats the only way chaparral naturally grows, dense and impenetrable.

The standard procedure to reduce wildfire risk is to clear habitat. We have spent millions of dollars doing this for nearly a century. Nevertheless, our homes keep burning.

Thats because while vegetation management such as fuel breaks and prescribed burns can help during non-extreme fire events, they do little to suppress extreme events. But if anyone questions vegetation management in the backcountry, the typical response is that the projects will work as designed for 90th percentile weather conditions. Thats absurd. Imagine if we designed buildings to withstand only 95th percentile earthquake movements, or what you would feel as a result of a magnitude 2.5. We need to protect communities from fires that actually do the damage.

How do we do this? As University of Colorado geographer Gregory Simon has observed, since we are choosing to spread cities farther and farther out into wildland areas, we need to recognize that fire disasters arent natural, theyre social. And they require social solutions.

Planning agencies need to push back against pro-development forces in government, whose willingness to build in known fire corridors borders on criminal neglect. Local leaders need to restrict development in such areas.

In the smaller picture, local governments need to impose strict fire codes in new communities throughout California, require older communities to retrofit their properties, and enforce proper defensible space regulations. That means 100 feet of thinned vegetation, not bare ground. Hundreds of feet of bare ground make a home the target for wind-driven embers.

Such policies would cost significantly less than the $9.4 billion wildfire-related claims submitted statewide as of Friday.

We also need to examine the best practices of other fire-prone regions. Communities in Australia often install external, under-eave/rooftop sprinklers, which have proven quite effective in protecting structures during wildfires. (Australians understand that wet homes do not ignite.) Such systems should be standard in all new developments in high fire hazard zones. It is likely they would have protected many of the homes consumed in Venturas Thomas fire this week.

Agencies like Cal Fire need to begin addressing the question, How do we protect lives and property? rather than How can we stop a wildfire? Right now, Cal Fire is focused on the latter. A focus on the former would mean at least noting land-use problems in planning documents. It would mean spending as much time and money on helping people retrofit homes as on vegetation treatments. Some communities have taken advantage of FEMA pre-disaster grants to replace flammable roofing and install ember-resistant vents. Such long-term solutions, unlike fuel breaks, do not require costly maintenance.

Trees, shrubs, grasses or homes will all provide the necessary fuel for a wildfire. Its part of Californias story. As we do with earthquakes and floods, our goal should be to reduce the damage when wildfires arrive, not pretend we can prevent them from happening at all. That mindset starts at the planning department, not the fire station.

Richard Halsey is the director of the California Chaparral Institute. he wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.
Matt Damon lashed out at Harvey Weinstein saying he 'wouldn't want him married to anyone close' in addressing the sex scandal in an ABC News interview. DailyMailTV has the details, plus updates on Matt Lauer's accuser and Mario Batali's future at The Chew.

Rob Lowe and Ellen DeGeneres pay tribute to California firefighters as they join residents in returning to their homes.

DailyMailTV loves sharing beauty secrets and today Dr. Phil is inviting us into his dressing room for a peek at the youth serum his wife Robin is excited to share. Details about her holiday gift pack trio: RobinMcGrawRevelation.com.

Mick Jagger's youngest son, Deveraux, just celebrated his first birthday and, like Mick's other seven kids, this toddler bears a striking resemblance to the Rolling Stones front man. Take a look.

And as Meghan Markle and Prince Harry set their May 19 wedding date, a pair of lookalikes planning their own wedding was spotted in Iowa! Meet the couple that's blowing up on social media for their amazing royal resemblance.
Christmas is the time where families come together and celebrate but unfortunately not everyone is lucky enough to do so.

One such girl is seven-year-old Aroha White, who last year spent Christmas on the children's cancer ward at a Perth hospital.

Although this year she will be able to spend the special day with her family she has taken on the task of making Christmas stockings for other sick children who will be spending it in hospital.

'She's been going to school a couple of days a week and once she walks through the door it's the first thing she wants to do, so she's been chipping away at it slowly,' Aroha's mum, Emma White, 30, told Daily Mail Australia.

Aroha White, seven, is making 65 stockings for children on her ward spending Christmas in hospital (pictured)

Aroha started the project when she was in an isolation ward in October.

'She was only diagnosed October last year and she was in inpatient, and we spent most of the time in hospital,' Emma said.

'She has lost some friends along the way and has really been struggling emotionally, she also has to deal with the years and years of treatment it will take for the leukemia because she won't finish until 2019.'

Aroha's parents gave her the opportunity when she was in isolation to work towards a project and gave her suggestions such as Disneyland and Harry Potter World.

Aroha started the project when she was on an isolation ward October this year

'She said without hesitation "I want to make sure everyone has a stocking at Christmas and nobody gets left behind and that mummies and daddies are not forgotten and brothers and sisters too" and that's where her journey really started,' Emma explained.

'Out of who we had around last Christmas, not everyone is with us this Christmas, and losing her friends Summer and Kai, for Arohha, has been huge.

'It's not fair that she has to grasp these concepts at just seven. She's losing her friends so a big part of this is just keeping her spirit alive,' her mum said.

''She said without hesitation "I want to make sure everyone has a stocking at Christmas and nobody gets left behind,' Emma said

Last year Aroha had to spend Christmas in hospital which meant she missed out on spending it with her two sisters (pictured)

Aroha was diagnosed with Acute Lympho-Blastic Leukaemia which started with her being very unwell.

'Aroha had been very ill with asthma and the common cold, she started to get fractures and in the lead up to me taking her to the hospital we saw numerous GP's, the local ED and in the lead up she went yellow and I knew her liver wasn't working.

'Being a nurse I checked her liver and her spleen and they were enlarged and I knew it was sinister and it was something more complex.

'An hour later she had her bloods taken, an hour after that we were told she had leukemia, they said "she'll need bone marrow and we're lucky we've got her here, if it had been any longer she might not have made it".

'We were lucky, it's a hard thing to diagnose.'

Aroha was diagnosed with Acute Lympho-Blastic Leukaemia after she became very unwell

'Being a nurse I checked her liver and her spleen and they were enlarged and I knew it was sinister and it was something more complex,' Emma explained

Unfortunately Aroha has suffered other complications due to the leukaemia.

'She has diabetes due to the treatment and both her vision and hearing has been impacted,' Emma told FEMAIL.

'She's gotten into the swing of things, she knows the ward intrinsically, but she won't walk away with the innocence of the child she was.

'That kid though, you mention the stockings she lights up, if I say to her "go do one more outline of a stocking" she will go off quietly and do it, it's helped with the grieving process.'

Emma told FEMAIL that making the stockings has helped Aroha with the grieving process as she has lost friends along the way

Before this Aroha had never touched a sewing machine before and now she has made 62 stockings, with three more on the way.

She learnt to sew on the floors of her ward, her parents would sneak in the sewing machine at night so she could chip away at it.

The White family is also strict on whats going in on the stockings, for the safety of the children they all have to be brand new.

Young kids will be receiving items such as pencils, Lego, playdoh, mini board games and dolls, and teenagers will receive items like headphones and iTunes gift cards.

Each stocking will have the same items for each age group and Aroha wants to make sure parents and siblings don't feel left out, so they will be given their own as well.

The White family is also strict on whats going in on the stockings, for the safety of the children they all have to be brand new

Aroha, who has been very ill over the past year, is helping bring joy to other sick kids

'She loves to acknowledge parents and knows how hard they work and she is also always offering her bed to other people if they need it.

'These kids don't look upon themselves as unwell, they are kind and compassionate.

'On Christmas Eve Aroha will be going around and delivering stockings and when she delivers them they will be empty and in the morning they will be magically filled.'

That's when they started the GoFundMe account, to make sure they had everything ready to go.

'The response has been phenomenal and now it's just stockings we've been able to cover,' Emma said.

'We've spoken to Aroha, she's a little power house that girl, she wants to send a special card to families who have lost her babies and ultimately that extra money will be used to support children emotionally, a couple of years time we will be setting up an initiative for emotional support which is what is severely lacking.'

Aroha will this year spend Christmas with her family after being stuck in hospital last year

Aroha is the oldest of three girls and last year wasn't able to spend her youngest sisters first Christmas with her.

Her family were going to close off the GoFundMe page once it hit it's goal, but after the death of another child on the ward they decided to keep it open.

'We where going to stop donations. But in light of the events this week, Aroha in her grief, wanted to make sure families that won't have a little one home on earth, to hang stockings and open presents are also included,' the update on the page reads.

'She has a plan - to send thru [sic] a Christmas care package to our families that have angels this Christmas.'
Thrifty parents have found a way to produce their own version of one of this year's must-have Christmas toys for less than half the price, after the real thing was branded a 'waste of money'.

The UK's current best-selling toy range is L.O.L. Surprise!, including the Big Surprise ball - a large plastic casing that opens to reveal a collectible doll and 49 other separate gifts to unwrap, including some encased within bath bombs.

However, a Facebook post by Ciara Umar, from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham went viral last month when she shared an underwhelming image of some small plastic dolls and a handful of miniature accessories.

Since then, members of the 600,000-strong Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK group on Facebook have been experimenting with making their own take on the balls using papier mache and filling them with presents.

A thread about the DIY balls has since received 2,000 comments after thrifty blogger Holly Smith, who runs the group, urged people to share pictures of their efforts.

Parents have been sharing their efforts at creating alternatives to the L.O.L. Surprise! Big Surprise ball on a budget. Pictured: A homemade version created by Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK member, Kerrie Dunn

The real L.O.L. Suprise: The 59.99 products contains a collectible doll and 49 other separate gifts to unwrap, including some encased within bath bombs

Parents advise filling the ball up with cheap and cheerful gifts that shouldn't cost more than 20 to buy, such as this version made by Farrah Rehman

As well as Christmas themes, members have created other designs to appeal to their children, including Kinder Surprise, while others have gone as far as to recreate the LOL Surprise logo.

'I am so proud of how creative and helpful our followers can be,' Holly said. This another example how they can quickly find money saving alternatives and actually improve on the original idea,' she said.

L.O.L. Surprise! came under fire from parents after Ciara Umar shared her experience on Facebook, saying she was 'mortified' when she saw the contents.

'Don't get me wrong, she was over the moon opening them and had five baths with the bath bombs, but then just went back to her iPad,' she said. 'The novelty wore off within 15 minutes.

Parents have been sharing their creative efforts with the Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK Facebook group, such as these Kinder Surprise versions made by Ainsley Dibb

'She got what was in the picture then there was five more surprises in the bath bombs. It's an absolute waste of money, it's not even a full ball either, it's only half a ball as the back is flat.'

The LOL Surprise comes in different sizes and ranges in price from 5.99 to the 59.99 for the 'Big Surprise'.

More than half a million of the smaller LOL toys have been sold in the UK since it was launched in March and it is now the nation's best-selling toy.

The limited edition Big Surprise has proved so popular that some retailers have set a limit of one ball per customer.

A Facebook post by Ciara Umar, from Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham went viral last month when she shared her disappointment with the contents of the L.O.L. Surprise ball

However many who read Mrs Umar's post explained they would no longer be buying one for their child's Christmas.

Christine Ruddy said: 'That's disgraceful, what a disappointment...won't be getting one now.'

Kelly Sawyer added: 'I'll tell my friend, her little girl is obsessed to have one. That's terrible, and I thought the Hatchimal was a rip-off.'

But not everyone feels the same and others have commented on Ciara's post to say they'd be happy to spend the money to bring a smile to their children's faces.

DIY versions of the L.O.L. Surprise. Cheryl McCulloch created this Spiderman surprise ball (left) while Emma Thomas opted for a Pokemon design (right)

Leah Racheal made a very impressive effort when she created a unicorn ball, inspired by the original L.O.L. Surprise ball

Nicola Mack said: 'Oh I know they are totally not worth the money. Olivia has her heart set on this, it's all she's asked for, I'd have a really unhappy little girl on Christmas morning if Santa doesn't bring this.

'It really is a lot of money for what you get, but I would pay this just to see the smile on her face.'

A brand spokesperson said: 'LOL Surprise is currently the best selling toy in the UK and a number of other countries. Prices range from 5.99 for the LOL Tots to 59.99 for the Big Surprise.

'The LOL Big Surprise contains 50 exclusive surprises that can't be found in other LOL products which individually are valued higher than the total RRP.'
With her long blonde hair and bright smile, Bo Jonsson was the spitting image of her mother Ulrika as she joined her on an appearance this week.

The lookalike mother and daughter paid a surprise visit to the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children to cheer up patients and raise awareness of the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) Christmas Appeal.

It is a charity close to the family's heart as 17-year-old Bo was born with a congenital heart defect and continues to be treated for the condition today.

Caring: Ulrika Jonsson and her daughter Bo, 17, met Luke Lloyds during the hospital visit

Raising awareness: The mother and daughter with four-year-old Riley Stredwick in hospital

Sensitive: Ulrika said she understood how the families felt as Bo was born with a heart defect

With her long blonde locks and bright smile, the teenager was the spitting image of her TV star mother.

They both showed their kind nature as they spent time on the paediatric cardiac ward to hear the stories of young heart patients and to meet some of the BHF's leading researchers to find out how their work is saving lives.

Ulrika, 50, a mother of four, told how she was once in the same position as the mothers spending time with their children on the ward.

In 2000 Bo was born with a heart condition known as double inlet left ventricle, which meant she had only one working pumping chamber in her heart.

Vital work: Ulrika and Bo with mother Kayley and her four-month-old daughter Isla Hughes

Gentle: Four-year-old Riley Stredwick is receiving vital treatment on the cardiac ward

Ulrika was told that in order to keep Bo alive she would need a series of three operations, the first at just six days old. Now 17, Bo still takes medication daily and still has to be monitored.

'Bo is a healthy and active teenager now, but I still remember being given that devastating diagnosis that she had a heart condition and would need surgery just days after she was born,' Ulrika said.

Ulrika also met with Professor Giovanni Biglino, a biomedical engineer who focuses largely on congenital heart disease.

Important work: Ulrika, pictured with Bo and Luke Lloyds, praised the care of hospital staff

Festive cheer: Ulrika and Bo with staff on the paediatric cardiac ward in Bristol Royal Hospital for Children

One of his projects is creating 3D models of children's hearts to help parents understand their child's condition and to aid surgeons.

Each year, around 4,000 babies like Bo, are diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in the UK  that's 12 babies every day with many more diagnoses later in life. Sadly around 400 of those children die each year before they reach school age.

Ulrika continued: 'It was so inspiring to meet the little fighters on the ward and their families, and to hear about the fantastic research the BHF is undertaking. Their work could truly transform the lives of thousands of children, including Bo.

'Congenital heart disease doesn't discriminate  it can affect any child. That's why I'm supporting the BHF's Christmas Appeal to help the charity fund more research into congenital heart disease.'

Left to right, Sara Reynolds, BHF funded Dr Giovanni Biglino,Ulrika Jonsson, Bo Jonsson, Karen Sheehan and Sheena Vernon

The BHF aims to raise over half a million pounds towards pioneering research into congenital heart disease.

Amanda Bringans, Director of Fundraising at the BHF added: 'Sadly, many tiny hearts will be struggling this Christmas. That's why we urgently need everyone's support so that we can find new ways to improve survival rates and the lives of children living with a heart condition.

'We are delighted that Ulrika has chosen to support our Christmas Appeal after her daughter's own battle with congenital heart disease, and the money raised will mean we can continue to fund the vital research needed to help keep tiny hearts beating.'

Visit christmas.bhf.org.uk for more information.
A college student has inspired people to share the blunt  and sometimes strange  email exchanges they've had with their professors after his hilarious correspondence with his instructor went viral.

Kade Walker, a 19-year-old sophomore at South Dakota State University, took to Twitter earlier this month to share an email he received from his political science professor David Wiltse regarding his final.

'Is it still okay for me to take my final tomorrow at 12? Let me know,' Kate wrote to his professor, who emailed back: 'whatever.'

Famous: Kade Walker, a 19-year-old sophomore at South Dakota State University, tweeted an email he received from his professor David Wiltse this month and the post went viral

Blunt: 'Is it still okay for me to take my final tomorrow at 12? Let me know,' Kate wrote to his professor, who emailed back: 'whatever'

Kade shared the email to make fun of the warnings people give high schoolers about what college is really like, when in actually it tends to be the opposite.

'High school: College is no joke, your instructors are very serious and you always have to be professional and respectful,' he tweeted before sharing his professor's email very brief email.

David took the tweet in stride, and responded with a message of his own, tweeting: 'tfw your words go viral, and your punk student doesnt cite his source.'

He admits it: David noted that he tends to 'short and terse' in the emails he sends, particularly when he is conversing with a student he knows as well as Kade

Give credit where credit's due: David responded to his student's tweet with a hilarious message of his own

'Sure': Kaylen, another former student of David's, joined the thread, to share her email exchange with him from 2015

While Kade's original tweet has been liked more than 187,000 times, people went wild over David's response, which has scored more than double that.

'Id no idea he tweeted it, until it started trending,' David told BuzzFeed News of his email response.

'I'm pretty short and terse in the emails that I send, particularly to people that know me, like Kade does,' he explained, noting that he warns his students that they will be getting short replies because he gets hundreds of emails a day.

After Kade's tweet went viral, Kaylen, another former student of David's, joined the thread, to share her email exchange with him from 2015.

Concise: A Twitter user named Caitlin shared the lengthy email she sent her professor about leaving class 15 minutes early. His response? 'OK'

'The "seniors don't have to take the final thing" is true, right?' she asked, and he wrote back: 'Sure.'

'The suspense when I decided not to show up for my last @DaveWiltse exam,' she tweeted.

Other students proved that David isn't the only one cutting corners when it comes to their email responses.

A Twitter user named Caitlin responded to Kade's tweet by sharing the lengthy email she sent her professor about leaving class 15 minutes early. His response? 'OK.'

Laughing it off: A Twitter user named Melania revealed she was able to joke with her professor about spelling endergonic wrong

Keeping it brief: A student looking to confirm her conference time got a two word response from her professor

'Are there real slim shady?' Brianne Kelly posted this bizarre email she received from her professor

Looking for her: Gracie Fitzsimmons recalled how she skipped class and her professor emailed her: 'Where are thou?'

Rachel Sellinger warned her professor she wouldn't be in class because she got food poisoning, and he just wrote back: 'Gross.'

A Twitter user named Sydney explained to her instructor that she went to double check her time for her conference and noticed her name wasn't on the schedule that was posted.

When she asked if they were still on for 10:10 a.m. the next day, her professor kept it brief and replied: 'Yes. Strange.'

And Gracie Fitzsimmons recalled how she skipped class and her professor emailed her: 'Where are thou?'
Please, stop sobbing into that tea towel. Crawl out from under the bed. Put on a happy face, girlfriend. Smile, it might never happen. Too late, it already has!

According to reports of a large NHS survey, women are more miserable than men for almost every moment of their lives. They are only happier after the age of 85, and psychiatrists say this may be because so many are widowed by then.

Should we deduce from this that the single thing that makes women unhappy is men? Or that once we get to 85 and beyond we are strapped into the front seat of the doolally roller-coaster, so high on St Johns Wort supplements and remedial gin that we just dont give a damn about anything any more, whee-hee.

According to reports of a large NHS survey, women are more miserable than men for almost every moment of their lives. They are only happier after the age of 85, and psychiatrists say this may be because so many are widowed by then

Normally I dont write about surveys, even NHS ones. Thats because they can mean anything, be interpreted in myriad ways and are often politically motivated. Also, too much depends on the question asked rather than the answer given.

Indeed, in a recent survey, 88 per cent of people said that 75 per cent of surveys are 99 per cent utter bunkum.

Yet these findings are worrisome because they ignite all my concerns about conflating those who suffer from occasional down-in-the-dumpery with those who suffer from serious mental illness, to the detriment of the latter.

Along with my suspicions that too many people are being encouraged unnecessarily to believe they are mentally ill, and then absolve themselves of personal responsibility by imagining they are the helpless victims of emotions and moods beyond their control.

Today, a tenth of all adults in England are on antidepressants, while in Scotland, 17 per cent of the adult population were prescribed antidepressants in the past year, with nearly twice as many female patients as male.

(Apparently, men are just as miserable as women but not so good about giving voice to their negative feelings. A lot of wives would beg to differ about that, but lets move on.)

Should we deduce from this that the single thing that makes women unhappy is men? Or that once we get to 85 and beyond we are strapped into the front seat of the doolally roller-coaster, so high on St Johns Wort supplements and remedial gin that we just dont give a damn about anything any more, whee-hee

Participants in this survey, the results of which made it onto the front page of several newspapers, were asked to rate their general levels of happiness, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance and self-confidence. To be honest, some days my score would have been fine, while on other days it would barely be three blips above wretched. It would provide a snapshot of my life, not a definitive statement.

Yet anyone with a score of four on a 12-point scale was deemed to have a probable mental health condition. Yeah, emphasis on that probable.

In the meantime, Prince William, Prince Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge continue with their high-profile mental health campaign to encourage people to seek help and discuss their issues.

Kate even said she would not hesitate to encourage her children to get therapy, should they need it. William and Harry have spoken about their own problems, as each struggled to cope with the death of their mother at a young age.

Normally I dont write about surveys, even NHS ones. Thats because they can mean anything, be interpreted in myriad ways and are often politically motivated. Also, too much depends on the question asked rather than the answer given. Indeed, in a recent survey, 88 per cent of people said that 75 per cent of surveys are 99 per cent utter bunkum

There is no doubt they went through a terrible time but they did not suffer mental illness  they were bereaved.

This is something most of us encounter at some point. For life is not a perfect Disneyrama of cupcakes and laughter. It can be a dark place where you have to make space for the shadows and learn how to cope with death and disappointment.

This is not an illness, it is part of the human condition.

I can remember feeling incredibly lost and unhappy in my mid-20s, just swept away by desolation for reasons that now escape me. Then I read somewhere that if you got up every morning pretending to be happy, then, eventually, you would be happy. And I did and it worked.

Yet these findings are worrisome because they ignite all my concerns about conflating those who suffer from occasional down-in-the-dumpery with those who suffer from serious mental illness, to the detriment of the latter

Now, I would be given pills and endless therapy  even though there was nothing really wrong with me. Im not telling you this to say how simply marvellous and brave I am, or how everyone on antidepressants is a charlatan. Far from it.

Its more that I feel there is a mood in the air which makes mental illness a fashionable thing to have, alongside designer trainers and the latest must-have perfume. And the lightly troubled are being encouraged to believe they are full-blown mental patients who must constantly examine every negative feeling.

Valuable mental health resources are being gobbled up by the merely despondent at the expense of the clinically depressed, with happy pills dished out like Smarties.

Meanwhile, the royals and others should note that talk-talk-talking endlessly through your problems is not a panacea. People can get hooked on their own misery, instead of the healthier option of letting go and moving on.

You know, there are times when a little peace and quiet on earth doesnt go amiss.

Bad drama and man teeth. Yes, I loved it!

Bancroft! Despite all its flaws, I found myself oddly drawn to ITVs mad mini-series, shown over four nights this week.

Thats because nothing says Christmas more that a psycho she-cop who murdered two people, fire-bombed a young mother and her baby on a witness protection programme and is in cahoots with the local gang leader.

Bancroft! Despite all its flaws, I found myself oddly drawn to ITVs mad mini-series, shown over four nights this week

Sarah Parish  one of my favourite actresses  was Det Supt Elizabeth Bancroft. It is testament to her superior thesp skills that she managed to shine despite a startling appearance involving an alarming new set of teeth.

I adore Meghan Markle. For the moment. Ohh, I adore Meghan Markle. However, I have noticed with regret that some of my friends, especially those who are mothers with marriageable adult sons, cannot stand her. Shes a fake on the make! they cry. What a piece of work! Such cynicism. No, I wont let them spoil my royal fairytale and am still firmly on Team Sparkle. For the moment. Advertisement

My theory? She told her Bancroft dentist she wanted dainty; he thought she said donkey and the rest is orthodontic history. Also, whoever did her lip injections? They deserve to be behind bars.

Miss Parish also had to play a version of Bancroft who was younger by 27 years, which the make-up department appeared to achieve by coating her in liquid plastic. It was insane.

Yet a not very good plot was saved by a lot of very good actors, somehow managing to keep the melodrama just the right side of demented.

Is Bancroft mad and bad? Id still love to see her again. Just please, please bring in Sgt Hastings and Line Of Dutys AC 10 police corruption department. Theyll sort out that wee lassie once and for all.

Keep your posh headphone, Santa George

HO, HO, HO. Christmas wouldnt be Christmas without a little bit of fantasy. Mine used to involve George Clooney hearthside in a suit of scarlet flannel trimmed with swansdown, holding out the Jan Naughty Or Nice Annual Return sheet with a twinkle in his eye and a bottle of champagne in his hand.

But we have all moved on. Especially him, I think its fair to say.

'Tis the season of the grotty wonderland Another Christmas, another winter wonderland that turns out to be nothing more than a few shivering curs in a bald field. This year it was Winterfest in Londons Crystal Palace Park, so bad it was closed permanently after its opening weekend. Revellers trudged through the cold to find a slush-covered, non-icy ice rink, a sea of mud, a no-show Santa in a no-grotto situation, a crummy burger van selling sulphurous slabs of indeterminable meat and wooden shed shops with an offer on single mittens. One mother complained her children were freezing  but to be fair, you cant blame the Christmas cowboys for that. Grim wonderlands have become as much of an annual tradition as Christmas itself. And somehow, almost as enjoyable! Do you think its the same people every year, keeping one step ahead of the law and the posse of furious mums? When is the (bad) penny going to drop? Advertisement

And since hearing that George is a real-life Santa who once surprised 14 of his best friends by giving each of them a wheelie bag stuffed with a million dollars in cash (tax paid), I have had to recalibrate my feelings about the Hollywood star. George said the money was for his chums standing by him through the hard times, which I thought was a lovely gesture at first. But was it really?

Instead of presenting the cash at a big dinner, would it have been better to have a quiet word in an individual ear, then slip the money into their bank account?

Did it really have to be so public, such look-at-me generosity, served up in such small denomination banknotes to ensure that it looked enormous?

I cant help thinking it was really more about control than anything else. This was compounded by George then giving out noise-cancelling headphones to fellow passengers when he was flying with wife Amal and their baby twins.

Readers, I do think that if I had paid 11,000 for a first-class British Airways ticket one way from LA to London, and the Clooneys, complete with their two bawling tots, swept into the cabin, it would take more than noise-cancelling headphones to drown out my own screams.

Babies in first class? I love ol cash-rich, generous, crumple-eyed, not-so-secret Santa George. But hes gone too far this time.
Planning a holiday for next year? You might want to consider going local.

New data from Skyscanner, the all-in-one travel search app, has revealed a 14 per cent year-on-year increase in domestic bookings, with Whitsunday Coast Airport (also known as Proserpine) and Ballina recording a 36 per cent and 29 per cent increase in bookings this year.

The app revealed the travel trends in Australia over the past 12 months, as well as the five emerging hotspots for 2018.

So where should we be booking flights to?

New data from Skyscanner , the all-in-one travel search app, has revealed a 14 per cent year-on-year increase in domestic bookings, with Hobart coming in first place (Tasmania pictured)

Brisbanites were the biggest contributor to the popularity of the Whitsunday Coast, making approximately a third of 2017 bookings (pictured: Whitehaven Beach)

The top five emerging favourites for next year include Hobart, the Sunshine Coast, Whitsunday Coast, Ballina and Newcastle.

Top five emerging hotspots for 2018 1. Hobart 2. Sunshine Coast 3. Whitsunday Coast 4. Ballina 5. Newcastle Advertisement

While the top domestic favourites remain the same, coastal favourites Whitsunday Coast Airport (Proserpine) and Ballina both jumped three spots in the overall ranking of top domestic destinations, recording strong year-on-year growth.

Brisbanites were the biggest contributor to the popularity of the Whitsunday Coast, making approximately a third of 2017 bookings.

Ballina, on the other hand was favoured by Sydneysiders and Melbournians.

While it's easy to see the appeal of the Whitsundays, with their white sand beaches and crystal clear water, the appeal for Ballina is also perhaps in part because it offers easy access to Byron Bay  an Aussie favourite due to its appeal as a wedding destination and its renowned festival scene, including Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay Bluesfest and Falls Festival.

Bali was the top international city Aussies visited in 2017 (pictured) - this was up by four per cent from last year

The travel app crunched the numbers (pictured) to reveal these as the most popular international cities across the world

Ho Chi Minh City observed the biggest year-on-year increase in flight bookings, up 23 per cent from 2016 (pictured)

When it comes to international favourites among Australians, Skyscanner found that 12 Asian cities were included in the top 20, with Ho Chi Minh City observing the biggest year-on-year increase in flight bookings, up 23 per cent from 2016.

The Vietnamese city jumped eight places to number 13 in ranking, surfacing as the new Asian hot spot to explore.

Other destinations that saw an increase in bookings included Singapore (which increased by 17 per cent) and Tokyo (up 16 per cent), suggesting that Australians are favouring destinations that are closer to home over longer-haul destinations in Europe and the Americas.

The top three international cities were Bali, London (pictured) and Auckland

Travel to Phuket in Thailand also rose by 9 per cent, while Bangkok dropped by 3 per cent.

The top three international cities were Bali, London and Auckland.

Rounding out the top 20 were Dublin, Paris and Manchester.

For more information from Skyscanner, please click here.
A mum who spray tans her 12-year-old to get her pageant ready has hit back at claims that beauty contests sexualise youngsters  saying they're no different to dance competitions.

Tracie Nightingale, 49, from Rhyl, North Wales says she 'wouldn't like to think' how much she's splurged on entering her daughter Destini into the glitzy shows, admitting they can cost 350 a time - and she has entered around 14, meaning her spend is around the 5,000 mark.

Before the schoolgirl takes to the stage, her mum will coat her in foundation, highlighter, bronzer and pink lipstick, finishing the look off with false lashes and fake tan. She also spray tans her with a booth she's set up at home, which cost her 40.

But not everyone agrees with Tracie's hobby, with other mums slamming the stay-at-home-other and her fellow pageant parents for sexualising their children.

'Some people don't understand them. There's this idea that you're parading your children in front of a load of people, but that's not true at all,' she said. 'They're no different to dance shows  they're up there on stage makeup too.

Tracie Nightingale, 49, from Rhyl, North Wales has entered her daughter Destini, pictured at a London contest in December, in around 14 pageants, costing 350 a time

Destini in a custom-made Wonder Woman outfit, which comes with a cape. Her mother says she pays up to 150 for outfits to be specially made

'And it's not like Destini wears this every day. It's just for the two minutes she's performing for. Plus, there's very high security. The only people watching are from the pageant community  they can't just wonder in off the street.'

Single mum Tracie told of how Destini has always been an outgoing youngster.

She continued: 'She came out showbizzy. She was such a flamboyant kid, she'd sing away to people on the bus.'

Then, when she was around five, Destini began to participate in local fairs as a carnival queen, riding around on a float dressed as a princess.

Destini in a Christmas-themed outfit. The youngster has always been outgoing and loves taking part in pageants

Single mother Tracie has set up a tanning booth in her kitchen to make prepping for pageants easier

At the time, the family lived in Stockport, Greater Manchester, where they stayed for the next five years, Destini becoming a known face on the carnival circuit.

'She absolutely loved it. It really matched her outgoing personality,' said Tracie, who is also mum to Callum, 27, Marcus, 25, and Jake, 21.

'Destini is very competitive and always pushes herself to give 100 per cent. No matter what it is she's doing, she wants to do it well.'

The mother-of-four brushes off any suggestions that pageants sexualise children

When the schoolgirl turned 10, the family moved to Rhyl  where they stumbled across a local pageant.

Already a huge fan of the glitz and glamour, Destini begged her mum to let her take part.

Tracie agreed and a few weeks later, her daughter won her first ever crown.

'Carnivals are all about elegance, whereas the pageants are more fun, and you can inject your personality a little more, which I think Destini likes,' said Tracie.

Since then, the pair have toured the country while Destini competes in beauty contests.

Before each one, Tracie spends roughly an hour perfecting her daughter's makeup, even applying a 130 hairpiece, which she says is easier than making the youngster sit still for hours whilst she styles her real locks.

Destini in her Kylie Minogue inspired outfit. Her mother said that competing in pageants wearing make-up is no different to taking part in dance contests

'She'll have the full works  foundation, highlighter, lipstick, lashes and nails. I started wearing makeup myself at 12, so I'm pretty open-minded about that sort of thing,' she said,

'She doesn't wear it any other time, either.'

In pageant world, Tracie said you had to be original to wow the judges  which contestants often do through bespoke looks worn in the outfit of choice round.

Most of the pieces are specially made, though she also buys some second-hand off other mums.

'Depending on what you're after, the cost can be limitless,' said Tracie. 'The most I'd personally pay to have an outfit made is 150. Most recently, I got an 80 bikini for Destini to wear to a pageant in London.

Tracie told of how Destini has always been an outgoing child, saying, 'she came out showbizzy'

Destini posing with some of her pageants wins (left). The youngster before a Birmingham pageant earlier this year (right)

'It's all down to preference, though. There's some outfits I've seen that I wouldn't put my child in myself, but it's the choice of the individual parent.'

In the past, Destini has donned everything from a Vegas showgirl costume to the iconic white hooded jumpsuit Kylie Minogue wore in the video for Can't Get You Out of My Head.

She even performed a routine based around Kylie Jenner's lipstick range, which she and her mum cooked up together.

'I made her this huge 3D pair of lips as a prop,' recalled Tracie.

Destini on stage at a pageant in London. She makes up all of her routines with her mother

Destini wearing a sparkly outfit in December 2017. Tracie has defended entering her 12-year-old in beauty pageants

'We make up all the routines together. I don't know how the other mums dream up some of theirs  they're just amazing.

'We practice together in the kitchen. I've even bought coloured disco lights to set the scene so Destini can feel like she really is up on stage.

'She's such a quick learner. She's never had a dance lesson but picks things up so quickly. She has a photographic memory  she sees something once and just remembers it.'

Now, Tracie hopes sharing her experiences will help people see that there's more to pageants than the glitz and glamour.

Destini has only been doing pageants around 18 months, but already has a number of crowns to her name

Destini in a custom-made outfit based on Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head video

Tracie said that Destini has always been competitive and loves to win

She added: 'She's a confident child anyway, but on stage, she just comes into her own. She's such a professional.

'There's far more to pageants than looks. They raise loads of money for charities, and teach the kids about helping others. One we did recently donated all the proceeds to a local foodbank.

'All I'm there to do is support Destini. She can stop any time she likes. But as long as she's safe, and still happy doing them, then so am I.'
She's rumoured to be the secret matchmaker who introduced Meghan Markle to Prince Harry, thus setting the wheels in motion for a much-anticipated royal wedding in 2018.

So it's no wonder fashion designer Misha Nonoo was wearing an enigmatic smile as she was spotted taking a stroll in New York with her dog.

The 31-year-old was chic in all-black for the outing as she strolled with her dog, a cavapoo called Margaret Thatcher.

Misha paired her black coat and polo neck with a pair of ankle boots and looked glowing and fresh faced, with minimal make-up.

Despite keen interest in her role in making the upcoming wedding of they year a possibility, Misha has remained tight-lipped since Harry and Meghan's engagement was announced earlier this month.

Rumoured royal matchmaker Misha Nonoo, 31, was spotted taking a stroll in New York with her dog Margaret Thatcher

Something to smile about? Misha looked chich in an all-black outfit and kept her make-up fresh and natural

Speaking last year Harry revealed that he and Markle met on 'two back to back dates,' in July 2016.

Those meetings are thought to have taken place at the very end of July, at a private members club in London and shortly after Markle had watched her friend Serena Williams play at Wimbledon.

Speaking about being set up with the fifth in line to the throne, Markle admitted to knowing very little about Harry before they met. She said: 'The only thing I asked her when she wanted to set us up was, "was he nice?"

'If he wasn't kind it didn't seem it would make much sense.'

Harry and Meghan announced their engagement earlier this month and will marry at Windsor Castle in May 2018

Nonoo knows Harry through her ex-husband, Alexander Gilkes, 37, a man with substantial ties to royalty.

He knows both Prince William and Harry from their school days at their shared alma mater, Eton.

Princess Eugenie - whom he knows simply as 'Euge' - worked briefly as a consultant at his New York based online art auction site, Paddle8.

Gilkes was among the close friends invited to William's marriage to Kate Middleton in April 2011. The royal couple was also invited to Gilkes's marriage to Nonoo in August 2012, but was unable to attend the three-day extravaganza in Venice.

Mehan and Misha pictured at the 12th annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards in New York bonded when they were introduced at an event in Miami

Nonoo met Markle at an event in Miami some two years ago and has said that they 'bonded instantly.'

Speaking to Vanity Fair about Markle, Nonoo said: 'Her greatest strength is her compassion for others. Much of the work she does is unseen by others.'

Born in Bahrain to an Iraqi father and English mother, the pretty blond was raised in London and schooled in Paris. She now lives in New York.

Her aunt, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, was the first female Bahraini ambassador to the United States.

On holiday in Madrid with Markus Anderson - consultant for the Soho House Group - who was initially touted as the one who introduced the royal couple

For her own part she has found considerable success with her womens wear lines.

In 2013 Forbes included her on its '30 under 30' list of influential young people and her clothes are worn by celebrities such as Minka Kelly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Amanda Seyfried and, of course, Markle.

In a revealing nod to her friend, Markle chose to wear a shirt that Nonoo designed for her first official appearance with Harry at the Invictus Games in Toronto last year.

No coincidence, perhaps, that the design in question is called, the 'Husband Shirt.'
A popular mummy blogger has shared an image of herself hours after giving birth - naked aside from an 'adult nappy', to show the reality of her postpartum body.

The Unmumsy Mum, aka writer Sarah Turner, from Exeter, Devon, who frequently documents family life with her young sons, Jude and Henry, has recently given birth to her third child, Wilf and also shared an image of herself cuddling her newborn.

'Looking back through pics of Wilfs birth and these two are hands down my faves, for very different reasons,' she explained on Facebook.

'I realised its less flesh than it would be if I shared my bikini body and represents the postpartum reality so well - I was absolutely euphoric at this point, despite walking like John Wayne and wearing an adult nappy. I cannot tell you how much we were laughing by this stage either.'

Sarah's very candid Facebook post, which has received nearly 1,000 comments, has won praise from other mothers who said they could identify with her 'jelly belly'.

The Unmumsy Mum, aka writer Sarah Turner, from Exeter, Devon shared this post-birth snap with her 600,000 Facebook followers, saying it was one of her favourites from when her son Wilf was born

The mother-of-three said that she felt euphoric and wanted to share her postpartum reality with others

Sarah, who has just given birth to her third child Wilf, is known for her down-to-earth posts about motherhood

One commenter said that the pictures showed a 'very true likeness of post birth'.

She added: 'It makes me realise what a fab job we have just done and what we manage to go through to bring these beautiful babies into the world. It's not glamorous but it's just amazing.

Another mother Pregnancy is glamorised so much and yet the postpartum body is never even mentioned.

'I remember going to have my first shower in the hospital and thinking "what the hell has happened to my body?".'

Mothers praised Sarah for showing off the reality of a postpartum body

Sarah is known for her down-to-earth attitude to motherhood and previously won praise for sharing a candid photo showing cellulite on her upper thighs in a pair of denim shorts ahead of a family holiday to Tenerife.

Turner, who describes herself as a 'big fan of honesty' wrote: 'It's awfully kind of you all to tell me I have lovely legs in my holiday snaps (thank you!) but please remember that social media offers a selectively (usually favourably) edited version of reality.

'This is the panicked 'my legs in shorts' shot that I sent my pals the day we left. I've just put a filter on it but I don't think even Valencia can make this Instaperfect.'

She added: 'Not that I care, particularly, I'm just saying that a different angle tells a very different story. And of course this did NOT stop me wearing shorts.'
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will get married at Windsor Castle on May 19 2018, it was revealed today, with the eyes of the world upon them.

And the current hottest couple on the planet aren't the first high-profile pair to select this spring date for their nuptials - with bona fide members of Hollywood royalty celebrating their anniversary on the very same date.

Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker and her thespian husband Matthew Broderick married on May 19, 1997, and A-lister turned entrepreneur Jessica Alba and her husband Cash Warren said 'I do' on the same day 11 years later.

Scroll down for more famous couples who will share an anniversary with Prince Harry and his future wife...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will marry on May 19 at Windsor Castle next year

SARAH JESSICA PARKER AND MATTHEW BRODERICK

Sex and The City star Sarah Jessica Parker married Matthew Broderick in 1997 and they now have three children together

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick tied the knot in 1997, and marked their 20th wedding anniversary in May this year.

The couple have a son James Wilkie, 15, and twin daughters born via surrogate, Marion and Tabita, eight.

In a tip that would no doubt strike a chord with the much talked about Meghan and Harry, SJP, 52, has previously revealed that in her view the secret to a successful marriage is privacy.

She told the Daily Telegraph: 'Well, my secret is that I don't talk about it. I don't talk about my marriage.'

JESSICA ALBA AND CASH WARREN

Jessica Alba and Cash Warren married in 2008 and have two daughters together. They are now expecting their first son

Actress Jessica Alba married film producer Cash Warren in 2008 after they met on the set of Fantastic Four.

Almost a decade on the couple are still happily married and raising two daughters, Honor, nine, and Haven, six. Jessica is now pregnant with the couple's first son.

Cash, 38, recently opened up about his love for his wife of nearly ten years, calling her a 'hot mom'.

He said: 'I'm always impressed by how hot she is! I think she still looks really hot and she's like a hot mom. I think that always impresses me when I wake up next to her.'

MARK ZUCKERBERG AND PRISCILLA CHAN

Mark Zuckerberg married his college sweetheart Priscilla Chan in 2012 and they have two daughters together

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tied the knot with long-term girlfriend Pricilla Chan back in 2012.

The billionaire, 33, met his future wife, 32, while he was still a student at a party at Harvard University.

Their wedding was a rather more low key affair than the royal wedding is likely to be, as they invited just 100 guests - and even disguised it as a graduation party for Priscilla to throw people off the scent.

The couple now have two daughters, Max, two, and August, four months.

ERIC CLAPTON AND PATTIE BOYD

Rockstar Eric Clapton married 1960s IT-girl Pattie Boyd in 1979, but they sadly divorced ten years later

Rockstar Eric Clapton married model Pattie Boyd in 1979 after a five year relationship.

Pattie inspired several of Clapton's most famous songs, including Layla, which was released with his band Derek and the Dominos.

Unfortunately this May 19 marriage wasn't meant to be - the pair divorced in 1989 after a decade together.
Meghan Markle has quit her acting career to focus on official duties with Harry, but it looks as if there's another royal acting star on the rise.

Prince Achileas of Greece has landed his first acting role, playing a small part in the US soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful alongside former Neighbours star Ashleigh Brewer.

His mother Marie-Chantal and father Pavlos, the crown prince and princess of Greece both proudly shared the news on social media, by posting a snap of the teenager with Ashleigh and fellow co-star Rena Sofer.

The royal played intern Simon in the episode who pretends to propose to Ashleigh's character Ivy with a ring designed by Quinn - played by Rena.

It's not clear whether the prince will have an ongoing role in the long-running series, which first hit screens in 1987, but fans certainly seemed impressed, describing the royal as 'cute' and 'so handsome'.

Prince Achileas of Greece, 17, has made his acting debut in the US soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful alongside Rena Sofer (left) and former Neighbours star Ashleigh Brewer (right)

The youngster has already amassed 26,000 followers on Instagram, despite living his life largely out of the limelight

Achileas has an Instagram following of 26,000 where he likes to share moody black and white snaps showing him hanging out with friends and shooting in the British countryside with his family.

And he's certainly amassed a legion of adoring female fans commenting on his pictures with a particular appreciation for his chiselled jaw in one photo.

'All girls here need to back off Achi is mine. Don't look at his jawline, he's my boyfriend,' one warned the others.

He's also been flooded with requests from fans who want him to take them to prom and homecoming.

This broody snap sent fans into a frenzy as they swooned over the prince's chiselled jawline

Country life: The teenager enjoys shooting in the British countryside with his family

Achileas with his father Pavlos of Greece. He's the third child of the Crown Prince and his wife Marie-Chantal

However it's likely that they will be left disappointed as it seems the young royal is off the market.

He recently shared a snap of himself enjoying dinner with a blonde companion, simply captioned: 'girlfriend'.

Prince Achileas-Andreas is the third of Princess Marie-Chantal and Prince Pavlos' five children and was born in New York where his parents were then based, but they relocated to London in 2004 for their children's education.

It seems the teenager may be off the market as he recently posted this 'girlfriend' snap

Achileas was born in the New York but moved to London with his parents in

The youngster has largely grown up out of the limelight, and is believed to be still studying.

But if he does decide to pursue a career in showbiz, he won't be the only one in the family.

His aunt Princess Theodora has played secretary Alison Montgomery in The Bold and the Beautiful since 2011.

And his older sister Maria-Olympia, who is studying photography in New York, is also pursuing a career as a model and has posed for the likes of Tatler, Teen Vogue and W.

Achileas (front) with (left to right) his sister Maria-Olympia, and brothers Constantine, Odysseas and Aristidis
Wedding bells are ringing for former president George H. W. Bush's granddaughter Ashley Bush, and their family couldn't be more excited.

Indeed, the 28-year-old's sister, FEED founder Lauren, couldn't wait to celebrate the news of her sibling's engagement to fiance Julian LeFevre, happily sharing an Instagram photo of Ashley showing off her unique diamond ring while posing with her future husband.

'Pure happiness for my sister Ash and her soon-to-be hubby Jules!' she captioned the image on Friday. 'You two are amazing together and bring each other and the world so much joy! Congrats!'

Happy couple: Lauren Bush Lauren celebrated her sister Ashley Bush's engagement to Julian LeFevre by sharing this photo on her Instagram page on Friday

Excited for them: Lauren, 33, gushed that Ashley and Julian are 'amazing together' while congratulating them

Family ties: Ashley and Lauren are the granddaughters of former president George H. W. Bush; they are pictured with him and their cousins as children

The couple got engaged in Iceland earlier this week, and the heartwarming photo sees Ashley and Julian bundled up in black jackets while they flash open-mouth smiles for the camera.

Ashley's stunning engagement ring features two large diamonds that are stacked on top of each other and flanked with a smaller diamond on each side.

The unique arrangement of diamonds is a far cry from the classic, round solitaire diamond engagement ring her brother-in-law David Lauren presented Lauren when he proposed to her in 2010.

The Bush sisters are grandchildren to President George H.W. Bush and the daughter's of President George W. Bush's brother Neil, and it is an exciting time for both of them.

In addition to Ashley's engagement, Lauren is expecting her second child with 46-year-old David, who is the vice chairman and chief innovation officer at Ralph Lauren, his designer father's eponymous company.

Sisterly love: Lauren and 28-year-old Ashley are as close and can be, and they spent some time together in Ojai, California, last month

Different styles: While Ashley's unique ring features two large diamonds that are stacked on top of each other, Lauren's husband, David Lauren, gave her a classic round solitaire in 2010

Speaking with Page Six, their mother, Sharon Bush, gushed about the family's upcoming celebrations while sharing intimate details about Ashley's engagement.

Sharon was hosting an event at the White House Historical Association, a nonprofit founded by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 to preserve the history and decor of the White House, when her youngest daughter called her to share the news.

'Laurens second child with David is due in May, and Ashley called me on Monday night to say that Jules proposed while they were on a trip to Iceland, as they were visiting the famous hot springs, the Blue Lagoon,' Sharon said.

'She said it was so romantic. Jules had planned the trip as a surprise and had just told Ashley to bring warm clothes. We are all so happy and excited for them both.'

Sharon also shared a photo of the happy couple on Instagram in celebration of their engagement.

Surprise! The sisters' mother, Sharon Bush (center), revealed that Julian proposed to Ashley in Iceland on Monday while they were visiting the Blue Lagoon hot springs

Proud mom: Sharon also took to Instagram to share a photo of the happy couple in celebration of the news

'Love you both very much!' The mom gushed that Julian and Ashley have found 'true love'

Bursting with excitement: Sharon also posted this stunning photograph of Julian jumping in the air right after he popped the question

'Congratulations to this most adorable and loving couple!' she wrote. 'They work together, travel together and still get along. True love! So happy for you ! Love you both very much! #truelove #engagementring'

Later in the week she posted a photo of Julian jumping in the air in Iceland after he popped the question.

'My future son-in-law, Jules, In Iceland. Taken after his engagement proposal to my baby girl, Ashley #lovehim,' she captioned the image.

Ashley recently graduated from the University of Southern California's film school, and Julian is also an aspiring filmmaker who worked as a cameraman on her 2017 short film 'Bad Girl.'

Although their engagement ring styles may be a bit different, both Lauren and Ashley had very romantic proposals.

Look of love: Julian and Ashley are both aspiring filmmakers, and they're pictured in Santa Monica the night before her graduation from the University of Southern California's film school

American royalty: Lauren and her husband David, 46, said 'I do' at his father Ralph Lauren's Double RL Ranch in Ridgway, Colorado, in 2011

Baby on board: Lauren shared this Thanksgiving photo of her son James to reveal she and David are expecting their second child together

Lauren met her husband at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit in 2004 and the two have celebrated the anniversary of their first meeting at the May event every year since.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is such a special place for the couple that when it came time to propose to his lady love in 2010, he chose that very spot.

David suggested that they meet at the Met to look at some new pictures before attending a dinner nearby, but when Lauren arrived at the venue she was surprised that no one else was there but David  and the art work he wanted her to see was a series of photographs from their seven years together.

'I created our own exhibition of our life together,' David told Vogue in 2011. 'And I got down on my knee and proposed. Then we went outside and took a carriage ride with a clarinetist and a saxophonist following us.'

Instead of saying 'I do' in their home city of New York, the couple wed at the Lauren family's 17,000-acre Double RL Ranch in Ridgway, Colorado, over Labor Day weekend in 2011.

Growing family: Lauren, who is due to give birth in May, couldn't resist rubbing her growing baby bump while posing for photos at a board meeting on Thursday night

Motherly glow: Lauren donned a cozy cream sweater and trousers for the meeting

'Tis the season: The couple is pictured with their now-two-year-old son James, her mother, and her sister last year during the holidays. They will be spending Christmas in Woodstock this year

After six years of marriage, David and Lauren have a two-year-old son named James, and another baby on the way.

Just two days after James celebrated his second birthday on November 21, Lauren took to Instagram to announce that she's expecting once again.

'Feeling extra gratitude for this little boy and to be adding another cub to our tribe next May!' she wrote on Thanksgiving, captioning a picture of James playing near a tree on her father-in-law Ralph Lauren's Double RL Ranch in Colorado.

'We plan on just taking it easy and spending some good old fashion quality time together,' Lauren recently told Daily Mail Online of her family's holiday plans. 'And perhaps some cookie decorating at some point!'

That also may mean a trip north, as Sharon told Page Six that the Bush clan will be heading to Woodstock, New York, 'because the kids want a white Christmas.'

To ring in the new year, they will then fly south for some fun in the sun at the Lauren family's villa in Jamaica.
Anyone who thought the Jews wouldn't eventually get in on the ugly holiday sweater trend is meshuggeneh (that's 'crazy' in Yiddish, for the uninitiated).

As ugly Christmas sweaters with funny catchphrases, bedazzling, and glued-on tinsel have become December party staples, Americans celebrating the Festival of Lights have been popularizing their own take on the tradition, turning up in ugly Chanukah sweaters that are just as festive  and often just as ridiculous.

Social media users have been sharing their funny Chanukah sweaters on Twitter and Instagram for the past month, but they've really been kicking up their game since the holiday began on Tuesday night.

There are, of course, a few differences: The color scheme skews blue and gold rather than red and green, and there are more menorahs and dreidels than snowflakes and mistletoe. They also tend to go better with Manischewitz and jelly doughnuts than eggnog and gingerbread.

Here, FEMAIL has rounded up some of the funniest sweaters on social media this year  and a few more that are still available to buy.

Scroll down for video

It's a miracle! Jews have their own versions of ugly holiday sweaters to celebrate this season

Tweeting their tucheses off: Many have been showing theirs off on social media

Look who's joining in! Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau donned one this year (along with Members of Parliament Julie Dabrusin, Michael Levitt, and Marco Mendicino)

The gift that keeps on giving: Tonight is the fourth night of Chanukah, giving Jews through Tuesday to wear these this year

Wink wink: This woman's Faux Real brand 'Chai maintenance' sweater was actually pulled from Nordstrom in 2015 in response to backlash  but it's still available from other retailers

Well glitzy DOES have Yiddish roots! Some are simple, while others have embellishments like sequins

Santa, bubbe! A popular version uses the words 'Gelt Digger' a play on 'gold digger' using the word gelt, which means money (and also describes the chocolate coins kids play dreidel with)

Let's get lit! Drinking is actually a big part of Jewish traditions, and kosher wine is often consumed on holidays

Sounds almost right... Sweaters wishing people a 'Happy Lllamakah' are especially popular (though it may sound familiar, the name for the religious head-covering is 'yarmukle')

Eight crazy nights: A few especially festive shirts even light up, though they don't seem to be customization depending on the night of the holiday

We like these a latke! The man who posted this Star Wars sweater said it was especially for Chanukah, while this woman said she was happy to celebrate her heritage

So much funukah! These two women really got into the spirit with matching cardigans

Not too shabby! While some of the jokes feature jokes, others are just designed to look super unstylish and cheesy

Is that kosher? This woman proudly showed off her Jewish showmen sweater

Spin me right round: On the holiday, children play dreidel, a game which a special top is spun and players collect gelt

Know the story: Chanukah celebrates the biblical miracle of a tiny bit of oil (one night's worth) burning for eight nights to light the rededicated Holy Temple in Jerusalem

But wait, there's more! Several retailers still have options for sale, like these Light it Up and Happy Llamakah by American Rag at Macy's

Now I ain't sayin' she a gelt digger... These Gelt Digger and Happy Hanukcat sweaters are on sale from $65 to $39

Some have puns, like Let's Get Shamashed (a play a 'smashed' and the 'shamash,' the center candle of the menorah) and Oy to the World
Jared Kushner's parents were spotted at their son's house today, in what appeared to be the lead-up to a family weekend getaway.

Charles and Seryl Kushner, both 63, were all smiles as they arrived to the house Jared and Ivanka Trump share in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Neither Jared nor Ivanka appeared to be home, with Jared having left for work earlier in the day.

Visit: Jared Kushner's parents, including his mother Seryl Kushner (pictured), 63, were spotted at their son's house today, in what appeared to be the lead-up to a weekend getaway

Welcome: Charles Kushner (pictured), 63, and his wife were let in by Secret Service agent

The pair stepped out of a grey car and were greeted by a Secret Service agent, who was photographed shaking Charles' hand and letting he and Seryl into the family home.

A little later, suitcases, along with toys and wine, were being loaded into the car. One suitcase, black with a while polka dot pattern on it, was labeled with Arabella's name on it, suggesting that the family, including Ivanka and Jared's six-year-old daughter, were getting ready for a weekend trip together.

The getaway might also involve her younger brothers Joseph, four, and Theodore, one.

Back in 2005, Charles pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering in a case prosecuted by the New Jersey governor (and former Trump transition team head) Chris Christie.

Charles received a two-year prison sentence and walked free in 2006 at the close of the case, which also involved Charles hiring a prostitute to frame his own brother-in-law.

Jared, 36, wasn't seen during his parents' visit but was pictured leaving the home around 7:30 this morning, clad in his usual dark suit and tie.

Ivanka, meanwhile, was last seen yesterday morning, when she headed out to work bundled up in a black coat.

Keeping warm: Seryl bundled up in a coat to fend off the chilly Washington, D.C. weather

Friendly: Charles was all smiles as he shook the Secret Service agent's hand upon arrival

Make yourself at home: The pair stepped inside Ivanka and Jared's house after pulling up in a grey vehicle

Going somewhere? Later on, a man was seen loading suitcases, toys and wine in the car

Family trip? One suitcase, black with a while polka dot pattern on it, was labeled with Arabella's name on it

The first daughter, 36, was spotted leaving her house in the upscale neighborhood of Kalorama around 8 am, on her way to work.

She kept warm in her below-the-knee Max Mara coat, tied around her waist with a belt and opening into a large collar.

The former model paired her coat with black wide-legged slacks, which covered the top of her matching Tory Burch boots but stopped just high enough to reveal the shoes' quirky heels with a graphic design.

Ivanka finished off her outfit with a small black purse, and even the notebook she carried in the same hand matched the rest of her all-black outfit.

She wore her light blonde hair parted in the middle and in a classic blowout.

The first daughter was clearly keen to showcase her chic look, later sharing an image of herself posing in front of the East Wing before heading into a meeting at the treasury.

'Walking into a meeting at [the] Treasury... Beautiful view of the East Wing!' she captioned the snap, which she posted to her Instagram Story and Snapchat.

Perhaps her cheerful disposition had something to do with Roy Moore's defeat in the Alabama Senate race on Tuesday. Ivanka had previously bashed the Republican, telling the AP of the accusations that Moore had pursued girls as young as 14: 'There is 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.'

Previously: Jared, 36, wasn't seen during his parents' visit but was pictured leaving the home around 7:30 this morning, clad in his usual dark suit and tie

Greeting the day: Ivanka, meanwhile, was last seen yesterday morning, when she headed out to work bundled up in a black coat

Jared, her husband and fellow White House adviser, left the house separately yesterday morning, a little earlier than his wife. He was seen heading out around 7:30 am, and unlike Ivanka, opted to go coat-free.

Jared stuck to his classics by wearing a dark suit, paired with a white shirt and a grey tie, and he smiled widely at the camera while he made his way to his parked Secret Service vehicle.

On Tuesday evening, Ivanka and Jared stepped out together, both facing the nearly freezing temperatures sans coat.

The pair headed out on the first night of Hanukkah shortly after Jared came back from work.

Ivanka was sporting a navy cold-shoulder dress featuring a flirty ruffled hem, paired with a pair of black, over-the-knee boots and the same black handbag she wore today.

Ivanka wore her long blonde hair loose around her shoulders, and it blew in the wind as she and Jared walked down the stairs of their home.

The White House senior adviser topped off her edgy look with a pair of dangling earrings featuring black, white, and navy beads.

Meanwhile, Jared went with his go-to slate gray suit, which he paired with a navy tie that matched his wife's dress.

Although he is a person of interest in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, Jared didn't seem to have a care in the world as he flashed a bright smile at the cameras waiting outside his door when he arrived home after work on Tuesday evening.

Night on the town: Ivanka and her husband Jared were photographed leaving their Washington, D.C. home on Tuesday, the first night of Hanukkah

Stylish: The first daughter donned a navy dress with shoulder cutouts and a pair of over-the-knee boots

Family ties! Before heading out with her husband for the evening, Ivanka shared a sweet snap of the couple celebrating the Jewish holiday at home with their three children

All together: Jared held their one-year-old son Theodore, while Arabella and Joseph stood in front of their mother

Shortly after he returned home, he stepped out again with Ivanka while their children were presumably tucked in bed. However, it's unclear where the couple was heading off to.

The family's menorah could be seen from outside their home, and they also hung a Star of David ornament on their window.

Earlier in the day, various packages were delivered to their home, and some of them were presumably holiday presents.

Before she left the house, Ivanka took to Instagram to share photos of her family the the Hanukkah reception that was held at the White House last week.

The Thursday event occurred one day after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, sparking protests and chaos in the Middle East.

'Tonight, as we light the menorah, Jared, Arabella, Joseph, Theodore and I wish everyone celebrating a Happy Hanukkah!' she captioned the series of images.

She then posted a sweet family portrait, showing herself and Jared posing proudly with their three children in front of the menorah at home, with Ivanka cradling her youngest son Theo while Jared has his arms around Joseph and Arabella.

Ivanka converted to Judaism when she married Jared, and they are raising their children as Orthodox Jews.

The pictures see Ivanka, Jared, and their three children on stage with her father and stepmother during the ceremony, and Arabella and Joseph lit the first candle on the menorah while the crowd sang Ma'oz Tzur.
Georgina Chapmans fashion label, Marchesa, will be returning to New York Fashion Week, just four months after news broke of the sexual assault and harassment allegations against her estranged husband, Harvey Weinstein.

Shorty after the first allegations against him emerged in October, the 41-year-old English fashion designer announced that she had left the disgraced movie mogul, who funded her company and reportedly bullied A-list actresses into wearing her designs on the red carpet.

Although Chapman has remained in hiding since the scandal, Page Six reports that Marchesa, the fashion brand she co-founded with Keren Craig, will present its fall 2018 collection in February per usual.

Back to work: Georgina Chapman's Marchesa fashion line will be returning to fashion week following the allegations of sexual misconduct against her husband, Harvey Weinstein

The comeback: Marchesa's presentation is scheduled for February 14, the last day of New York Fashion Week. Models are pictured on the runway during the brand's spring 2018 show

Final? The brand's last public presentation, showcasing its bridal collection, took place on October 5, the same day that the New York Times piece about Weinstein was published

The presentation is slated to take place ahead of the Marc Jacobs show on February 14 at 4 p.m. on the last day of New York Fashion Week.

Marchesa's last official fashion show took pace during New York's Bridal Week on October 5  the same day that the New York Times published its damning expose on Weinstein that led to the termination of his company.

The brand was scheduled to unveil its spring/summer 2018 collection during a preview just one week later; however, a Marchesa spokesperson emailed invitees to postpone, writing: 'The Marchesa Spring / Summer 2018 collection preview is being postponed to a later date.

'We will be in touch once a new date has been determined.'

The event, however, was never rescheduled.

Earlier this week, Chapman's close friend Alyssa Milano spoke about how the designer was doing in the wake of the scandal during her appearance on Megyn Kelly Today.

But before answering Kelly's question about how Chapman was faring, Milano made a point of signalling her friendship with Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein's accusers.

Before the storm: Chapman, 41, has been in hiding since the Weinstein scandal broke in October. She is pictured on the runway in September with her business partner Keren Craig

Start of it all: Chapman and Craig, pictured at their October bridal presentation, on the day the assault news broke, co-founded Marchesa in 2004, the same year she had met Weinstein

When the host remarked that she and Chapman were friends, Milano agreed.

'I am,' she said. 'I am also very good friends with Rose McGowan, my co-star on Charmed for five years.'

Milano then went on to say that Chapman was doing 'very well' and focusing on her children, India Pearl and Dashiell.

'Georgina is doing very well. She's an amazing mother, she's an amazing woman and I think her priority right now is focusing on how to raise those two children to the best of her capacity given the situation,' Milano said.

'She goes through very dark times, she's very sad,' she added. 'This is not easy for her. But I have no doubt that not only will she come out on the other side of it but she deserves to, she is a good woman.'

Rocky start: Weinstein funded the label and reportedly bullied A-list actresses into wearing Marchesa on the red carpet. Chapman is pictured at the Marchesa spring 2015 bridal show

Weighing-in: Chapman's close friend Alyssa Milano spoke about how she was doing in the wake of the scandal during her appearance on Megyn Kelly Today earlier this week

Opinion: Milano said Chapman was having 'very dark times' and 'deserves' to recover from the scandal. They are pictured together in 2014

After the interview aired, McGowan, 44, took to Twitter to lash out at her former co-star for her enduring friendship with Weinstein's wife.

'You make me want to vomit. You actually gave me a body flashback. Well done, fake one,' she wrote.

McGowan, who took a settlement from Weinstein after alleging that he raped her in 1997, does not adopt the same sympathetic view of the mogul's wife as her co-star.

She claims Chapman was complicit in her husband's alleged bullying of Hollywood stars who say he forced them to wear her Marchesa designs on the red carpet.

Marchesa was founded in 2004, the same year she and Weinstein met. The label was funded by the multi-millionaire movie mogul and enjoyed instant success, thanks to a handful of actresses who boosted its profile by wearing some of its earliest gowns to premieres and events.

Take that: Rose McGowan lashed out at her Charmed co-star on Thursday for her kind words towards Chapman

Using her platform: McGowan carried on her crusade against Chapman by taking aim at her fashion label Marchesa

Damning allegations: McGowan claims Weinstein raped her in 1997. At the time, she accepted a settlement from him but spoke out in October. She is pictured with the mogul in 2007

McGowan harkened back to this seemingly overnight success on Twitter as she blasted Chapman this week.

She retweeted the following remarks from another user: 'I'm saying Georgina Chapman's company was 100% funded by Weinstein money. No one knew who she was in the fashion world before she married him.

'I'm saying Weinstein bullied abused women to wear his wife's clothing line. She knew who and what she married and why.'

In October, Felicity Huffman confirmed that Weinstein threatened to pull publicity funding for her 2005 film Transamerica if she didn't wear his wife's gowns on the red carpet.

Amid mounting allegations of Weinstein's sexual harassment and sexual assault, The Hollywood Reporter reported that he threatened to sabotage the careers of A-list stars, including Huffman's, if they didn't wear Marchesa.

Out with it: Felicity Huffman confirmed reports that Harvey Weinstein threatened to stop financial support of her 2005 film Transamerica if she didn't wear Marchesa were 'true'

Keeping in line: The now-54-year-old obliged his demands by wearing Marchesa to numerous red carpet events, including her film's 2005 screening (L) and the 2006 Golden Globes (R)

Happy: Felicity has been married to fellow actor William H. Macy for 20 years. The pair, who are pictured at this year's Emmy Awards, celebrated their anniversary in September

'Yeah, it's true,' Huffman, who has been married to fellow actor William H. Macy for 20 years, told TooFab at the Eva Longoria Foundation Gala in Los Angeles.

The actress obliged Weinstein's demands by wearing a flowing white Marchesa gown for her high-profile appearance at the Golden Globes where she was nominated for both her film and her role on Desperate Housewives.

Huffman, who took home a Golden Globe for Transamerica, also wore a black, strapless Marchesa gown to the New York screening of the film that year.

Chapman launched Marchesa with her partner Keren Craig in 2004, and even before the scandal over rape and sexual harassment allegations broke, she faced the accusations that the label was only successful thanks to her husband's Hollywood connections.

'He was the mastermind behind Marchesa  orchestrating deals and using his influence in terms of the celebrity connections for her on behalf of the brand,' one Los Angeles publicist told The Hollywood Reporter.

The win: Huffman is pictured holding her Golden Globe for her role Transamerica at The Weinstein Company and Glamour magazine's 2006 after party

Awards season: The actress also struck a pose with the media mogul at his company's 2006 pre-Oscars party

Ruthless: It has been reported that Weinstein threatened to sabotage the careers of A-list stars, including Huffman's, if they didn't wear Marchesa on the red carpet

The publicist noted that Weinstein and Chapman had an understanding that 'they both benefited from the relationship,' adding that 'she certainly knew about his bad behavior.'

Another publicist recalled that Sienna Miller was told Harvey 'would be very upset if she didn't wear Marchesa' when invited to sit at Harvey's table at the Golden Globes in 2007 after starring in the Weinstein-produced Factory Girl.

London-born Chapman met her husband at a party in Manhattan in 2004, following the break down of his first marriage, the same year she set up her fashion brand.

The label was just in its infancy when it got the most incredible big break courtesy of Renee Zellweger wearing a Marchesa dress to the London premiere of Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason.

At the time, having won an Oscar for Cold Mountain, she was perhaps the biggest film star in the world and could have had her pick of any designer dress.

Obliging: Sienna Miller was reportedly forced to wear Marchesa to the 2007 Golden Globes or risk upsetting Weinstein, whose company had produced her film Factory Girl

Big name: Renee Zellweger gave the young brand an incredible boost in its first year when she wore a Marchesa dress to the premiere of her Weinstein-produced Bridget Jones film in 2004

But it's no surprise that Weinstein's influence was at play, given that Bridget Jones was produced by his company Miramax and he received a thank you in her Oscar acceptance speech earlier that year.

The movie mogul himself admitted to pushing his wife's burgeoning label in an interview with Vogue in 2013, saying: 'Maybe I helped, but just very, very little, with Renee Zellweger.'

Over the past 13 years, stars who have appeared in Weinstein-produced films and worn Marchesa on the red carpet include Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry and Cate Blanchett.

As the allegations against Weinstein mounted, people have taken to social media to call for a boycott of Marcehsa, and fashion insiders say that nobody will want to wear the brand again as it's been tainted by the scandal.

An unnamed stylist told Us Weekly that their company has forbidden employees from dressing their clients in Marchesa for the time being.

Weinstein, pictured with his wife, admitted to helping his wife's label take off by ensuring Renee Zellwegger's championing of the brand on the red carpet

Famous faces; Sandra Bullock wore a gold Marchesa dress for the Oscars in 2010 (L). Jennifer Lopez wore the brand to the Oscars Vanity Fair Party in 2007 (R)

Her choice? Nicole Kidman wears a Marchesa dress at the 69th annual Directors Guild of America Awards

As well as putting his own money into Marchesa, Weinstein persuaded friends such as Giuseppe Cipriani to invest in the company, meaning the brand may suffer if he wants to cut off associations with the shamed mogul.

The day after news broke that Weinstein bullied actresses into wearing her designs, Chapman broke her six-day silence when she announced she was leaving the film mogul, whom she married in 2007 and has two young children with.

'My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions. I have chosen to leave my husband,' Chapman said in her statement to People.

'Caring for my young children is my first priority and I ask the media for privacy at this time.'

Together, Chapman and Weinstein have a seven-year-old daughter, India Pearl, and a four-year-old son, Dashiell. Weinstein also has three daughters, Lily, Emma, and Ruth, with his ex-wife, Eve Chilton Weinstein.
Savour your favourite tipple now as you may not be drinking alcohol within a generation, according to a top scientist.

Professor David Nutt, a former government drugs adviser of Imperial College London, says synthetic booze called alcosynth will replace real alcohol in just 10 or 20 years.

The man-made liquor will have the same intoxicating effect on us but won't harm our health, it's said.

He also believes that cigarettes and tobacco will be entirely replaced by e-cigarettes.

About 57 per cent of adults said they had drunk alcohol in the past week, according to latest research by the NHS

Prof Nutt told International Business Times UK: 'In another 10 or 20 years, Western societies won't drink alcohol except on rare occasions.

'Alcosynth will become the preferred drink, in the same way that I can see  almost within a decade now in the Western world  tobacco and cigarettes will disappear as they're replaced by electronic cigarettes.'

The NHS says 23.5 million adults drink alcohol every week in the UK, with about 6,800 alcohol-related deaths in the UK every year, according to latest figures.

Long-term alcohol abuse can lead to heart disease, strokes, liver and bowel cancer, liver disease and pancreatitis.

There were 339 thousand estimated admissions related to alcohol consumption in 2015/16, the latest figures that the NHS has published

Alcosynth is said to give you all the pleasurable side effects of alcohol, such as social lubrication, without damaging our bodies.

However you can never get as drunk by drinking the synthetic alternative as you can with real booze as there is a limit to drunkenness. After a drinker reaches the limit, the effect plateaus.

Prof Nutt added: 'It could well change culture.

'If there's less intoxication then there will be less violence on the street, less vomiting and less unpleasantness in our city centres.'

Prof Nutt and his venture Alcarelle are currently bidding for 7 million of investment to bring low-calorie, hangover-free and synthetic alcohol to British, US, EU or Canadian markets.
Cases of the winter vomiting bug rocketed by nearly 70 per cent last week, according to NHS figures.

The number of patients in hospital suffering from norovirus rose to 1,336 from 790 the previous week.

The highly infectious illness can also cause a fever, headaches, painful stomach cramps and aches and pains.

Symptoms for the Sydney strain  named after the Australian city where it first appeared in 2012  last a couple of days.

The amount of hospital patients suffering from norovirus rocketed by 70% last week to 1,336 from 790 the previous week

Public Health England also reported two flu-related deaths, bringing the total to six so far this winter.

Experts said the spike in norovirus cases was adding to pressures on beds, with average bed occupancy levels now at 94.6 per cent  far above the recommended 85 per cent.

Dr Nick Scriven, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, warned that hospitals were imploding. He said: All we can see is pressure, pressure and more pressure  the system is on a knife-edge. Some hospitals are already cancelling planned surgery and that is something patients will face increasingly over the winter months.

The demands of winter illnesses also led to more delays for ambulances waiting at hospitals for patients to be admitted. There were 11,900 held up for more than 30 minutes last week, up from 10,200 the previous week. Of these, 2,340 were delays of an hour or more, up from 1,840.

Public Health England also reported two flu-related deaths, bringing the total to six so far this winter

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: Last weeks cold snap demonstrated the crisis facing our NHS this winter and Government inaction will only make the challenge that much harder. Patients will be deeply concerned that despite the heroic efforts of our brilliant NHS staff, there was a shocking 27 per cent increase in the number of patients stuck for over an hour in the back of an ambulance in just one week.

Patients expect ministers to urgently get a grip.

Janet Davies, head of the Royal College of Nursing, said: The Government shouldnt shrug todays figures off as yet more statistics. Behind every one is a person waiting too long, often in pain and discomfort and at their lowest ebb.

Although norovirus is a huge burden for the Health Service, the latest figures are down 12 per cent on the average for the past five years.

An NHS England spokesman said: A&E four-hour performance in November is better than the same time last year, despite an extra 85,000 more patients being successfully treated in under four hours.

There has also been progress on reducing delayed transfers of care, with more than 1,000 beds freed up compared with last winter.
Furious campaigners have blasted the Government's 'weak' decision to recommend a ban on scandal-hit vaginal mesh implants for one procedure.

Health officials announced the controversial surgery should only be banned for prolapse - when organs fall out of place, and not incontinence.

Outraged victims warn this leaves the door open for thousands of other women to suffer life-changing complications from the 'barbaric' devices.

Nice, which advises the NHS, announced this morning that mesh, made of brittle plastic, should 'only be used in the context of research' for prolapse.

But Sling The Mesh, backed by nearly 5,000 women, claim they have ignored the repeated calls to ban the surgery for incontinence.

Both are common problems for women after childbirth.

Kath Sansom, founder of Sling The Mesh, told MailOnline: 'The guidance does not go far enough. It's ludicrous that patients haven't been listened to on this.

The move comes amid mounting pressure for the complete ban of vaginal mesh implants, which have left thousands of women on the brink of suicide.

It also comes after the death of a prominent vaginal mesh campaigner who died from sepsis, reportedly triggered by her controversial implant.

Christina Brajcic, 42, from Ontario, Canada, passed away in November following a four-year battle with persistent infections - as a result of her mesh.

The move comes after the death of a prominent vaginal mesh campaigner, Christina Brjacic, who died from sepsis, reportedly triggered by her controversial implant

WHAT ARE VAGINAL MESH IMPLANTS? Vaginal mesh implants are devices used by surgeons to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence in women. Usually made from synthetic polypropylene, a type of plastic, the implants are intended to repair damaged or weakened tissue in the vagina wall. Other fabrics include polyester, human tissue and absorbable synthetic materials. Some women report severe and constant abdominal and vaginal pain after the surgery. In some, the pain is so severe they are unable to have sex. Infections, bleeding and even organ erosion has also been reported. Advertisement

Ms Sansom added: 'Our Government ministers are not listening. It's time for them to stop burying their heads in the sand and suspend its use.'

She wants a retrospective audit to determine 'the true scale of the disaster' and work out how many women have been fitted with the 'barbaric' implants.

Sling The Mesh has almost quadrupled in members in recent months. Nearly 5,000 people, mostly sufferers, now support the cause to ban vaginal mesh.

It is believed that of the women in the group who have been given vaginal mesh, three quarters were fitted with the device to treat their incontinence.

Vaginal mesh has been subject of various legal proceedings across the world, with figures suggesting more than 100,000 are suing manufacturers of the devices.

Tiresome fights by campaigners, backed by MailOnline, has since led to Australian health officials making a similar move for prolapse operations.

Watchdogs in the country banned the use of vaginal mesh implants for prolapse earlier this month after a review found 'the benefits do not outweigh the risks'.

The Nice verdict comes after the Government released its three-year investigation into the mesh scandal last September. It rejected calls for a ban at the time.

Vaginal mesh implants (pictured) have left women wheelchair bound and unable to have sex

The drugs rationing body issued draft guidance in November that recommended the 'gold standard' implants should not be routinely offered for treating organ prolapse.

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF MESH Different types of mesh implants include: Mini-sling: This implant is embedded with a metallic inserter. It sits close to the mid-section of a woman's urethra. The use of an inserter is thought to lower the risk of cutting during the procedure.

This implant is embedded with a metallic inserter. It sits close to the mid-section of a woman's urethra. The use of an inserter is thought to lower the risk of cutting during the procedure. TVT sling : Such a sling is held in place by the patient's body. It is inserted with a plastic tape by cutting the vagina and making two incisions in the abdomen. The mesh sits beneath the urethra.

: Such a sling is held in place by the patient's body. It is inserted with a plastic tape by cutting the vagina and making two incisions in the abdomen. The mesh sits beneath the urethra. TVTO sling : Inserted through the groin and sits under the urethra. This sling was intended to prevent bladder perforation.

: Inserted through the groin and sits under the urethra. This sling was intended to prevent bladder perforation. TOT sling : Involves forming a 'hammock' of fibrous tissue in the urethra. Surgeons often claim this form of implant gives them the most control during implantation.

: Involves forming a 'hammock' of fibrous tissue in the urethra. Surgeons often claim this form of implant gives them the most control during implantation. Ventral mesh rectopexy : Releases the rectum from the back of the vagina or bladder. A mesh is then fitted to the back of the rectum to prevent prolapse. Advertisement

It also follows the landmark news from New Zealand that all forms of pelvic mesh would be banned - becoming the first major country to do so.

Officials in the country announced earlier this week that they would remove the controversial implants from supply and limit the use of surgical mesh products.

The scandal came to light in April, when the NHS tried to dodge media attention over the implants that left hundreds of women in agony.

Senior doctors immediately called for a public inquiry into the controversial mesh, with some saying the scandal could be akin to thalidomide.

At the time, 800 women were suing the NHS and device manufacturers. However, it is unsure how many women are now looking to take action in Britain.

Mesh, introduced 20 years ago and dubbed 'gold-standard', was promoted as a quick, cheap alternative to complex surgery for incontinence and prolapse.

Because it did not require specialist training to implant, victims of the procedure have since begged for tougher regulations to conduct such surgery.

Vaginal mesh has been considered a high-risk device for nearly a decade in the US, with bodies accepting up to 40 per cent of women may experience injury.

Some studies, published in an array of scientific journals, have shown that pain, erosion and perforation from the surgery can strike up to 75 per cent of women.

'I'VE BEEN ON THE BRINK OF SUICIDE. MY KIDS KEPT ME GOING' Janette Nelson, 43, was on the brink of suicide after suffering agonising pain from a vaginal mesh implant she had fitted A mother-of-three has revealed she was on the brink of suicide after suffering agonising pain from a vaginal mesh implant she had fitted. Janette Nelson, 43, from Newtownards, Northern Ireland, said the only think that kept her going was her children, but she still battles guilt every day as she depends on them to help her wash, dress and even catheterise after the procedure left her unable to control her bladder. The former hairdresser also blames her implant for the breakdown of her relationship as her boyfriend left her when the pain was too severe for her to have sex. Unable to work, her career has also been destroyed. 'My children lost their mummy' Ms Nelson had the most common type of mesh, known as TVT, fitted in March 2012 in an attempt to cure her urinary stress incontinence. She said: 'Immediately once my tape was fitted I woke up with excruciating pain in my groin; its indescribable.' Just one week later, Ms Nelson wet herself while out with her children and now relies on her eldest daughter to help her catheterise every day. Due to the excruciating pain of the mesh, Ms Nelson has been forced to rely on her mother and sister to help her raise her children. She said: 'My children lost their mummy. I've been on the brink of suicide. 'My kids kept me going. I was useless as a mum but I'm still their mum. It's all been about me for the past few years.' Ms Nelson, 43, pictured with her daughters Bryanne (bottom), 17, and Zofie, 12 'My boyfriend left me because of it' As well as affecting her as a parent, Ms Nelson also blames the implant for the loss of her love life and career. She said: 'I had a boyfriend when this started but the sex was excruciating, neither of us could cope with it. My boyfriend left me because of it. 'I used to work as a hairdresser; always on my feet, always very confident, but now I can hardly walk and I can't control my bladder so I can't work. It's really knocked my confidence.' Advertisement

The alarming evidence prompted officials in three US states to suspend the practice and saw them call for an urgent review into its safety.

Scottish officials asked for it to be suspended in Scotland in 2014 pending a similar review, but hundreds of women are still believed to be having the surgery.

More than 10,000 women a year are fitted with mesh. But only 4,800 have suffered lacerations and nerve damage from the mesh breaking into tiny fragments.

However, campaigners stress these are just the tip of the iceberg and that actually there are thousands more - but they have been kept silent.

Leading mesh manufacturer Johnson & Johnson was forced to pay out $57 million in September to a woman fitted with the implant.

Ella Ebaugh, 51, from Philadelphia, was awarded the eight-figure sum after a jury found the company to be negligent and its product defective.
An Indian man who survived being shot in the face had the bullet removed by talented surgeons - who pulled it out through his nostril.

Tanveer Ahmed Ansari, 23, was shot in the face earlier this month when he was the victim of a robbery, but incredibly it didn't kill him.

He was blinded in his left eye and the 3cm-long bullet became lodged, but various doctors refused to treat him due to the risks of the operation.

Surgeons in Mumbai eventually agreed to remove the bullet - and were able to pull it out without making a single incision.

Pictures given exclusively to MailOnline show Mr Ansari's unsightly wound and the gruesome procedure at JJ Hospital in full-flow.

Tanveer Ahmed Ansari, 23, was shot in the face earlier this month when he was the victim of a robbery, but incredibly it didn't kill him. He was left blind

Surgeons in Mumbai eventually agreed to remove the bullet - and were able to pull it out without making a single incision

X-ray scans also reveal exactly where the bullet became stuck in the man's face - which allowed surgeons to consider their options for removing it.

What was the surgery?

They eventually decided on going ahead with a modified endoscopy, where surgical instruments are attached to an inspection tube that goes into the body.

Such procedures are already used to remove gallstones, bladder stones, small tumours, fibroids and even to repair bleeding stomach ulcers.

Mr Ansari, from Gorakhpur, India, remains in the hospital, where he was admitted on Tuesday, but he is expected to make a full recovery in the coming days.

No incisions made

Dr Shrinivas Chavan, head of the hospital's ear, noise and throat department, said: 'The operation was conducted without a single incision on the patient's face.

Pictures given exclusively to MailOnline show Mr Ansari's unsightly wound and the gruesome procedure at JJ Hospital in full-flow

He was blinded in his left eye and the 3cm-long bullet became lodged, but various doctors refused to treat him due to the risks of the operation

X-ray scans also reveal exactly where the bullet became stuck in the man's face - which allowed surgeons to consider their options for removing it

'When Mr Ansari approached us, he had no vision in his left eye, and suffered from severe bleeding in his eye.

'In the case of a bullet injury, surgery should be performed immediately.

'However, in this case, there was a delay due to which chemicals in the bullet had started damaging his eye.

WHAT IS A MODIFIED ENDOSCOPY? An endoscopy is a procedure where the inside of your body is examined using an instrument called an endoscope. An endoscope is a long, thin, flexible tube that has a light source and camera at one end. Images of the inside of your body are relayed to a television screen. Endoscopes can be inserted into the body through a natural opening, such as the mouth and down the throat, or through the bottom. They can be used to investigate unusual symptoms and help perform certain types of surgery. It can cause patients some discomfort. They can be attached with surgical instruments so that they can be used to carry out certain types of surgery. Source: NHS Choices Advertisement

'Though initially an open surgery was decided, considering his young age we did an endoscopy procedure so that no scar was left on his face due to open surgery.'

Though it is too early to say if the patient will regain vision in his left eye, Mr Ansari is doing fine in terms of his health, added Dr Chavan.

Mr Ansari, who was admitted to JJ Hospital on Monday, isn't the only patient to have had doctors pull out an object through his nose.

However, it is unsure if there is another case of a bullet being extracted from a man's eye through the bizarre procedure in medical literature.

Other strange cases

His case follows that of an 11-year-old boy who was rushed to hospital when two magnets he shoved up separate nostrils were drawn together.

The anonymous child, from Cyprus, was unable to remove the magnets himself after they snapped together in the bone and cartilage that separates the two nostrils.

Quick-thinking doctors were able to assist him - by using magnets of their own to gently guide the ones lodged in the boy's nose out.

And MailOnline has previously reported on stomach-churning footage which showed a man having a five-foot long tapeworm removed from his nose.

Doctors, believed to have been from Australia, used tweezers to extract the parasite, according to reports last December.

They eventually decided on going ahead with a modified endoscopy, where surgical instruments are attached to an inspection tube that goes into the body

Mr Ansari, from Gorakhpur, India, remains in the hospital, where he was admitted on Tuesday, but he is expected to make a full recovery in the coming days
A leading gynaecologist has accused a British professor of groping her breasts at a medical conference with his 'octopus' hands.

Dr Jen Gunter claims she suffered unwanted sexual advances from Dr Khalid Khan in a hotel bar following the event at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago.

She said she was initially 'excited' to meet Dr Khan, who is professor of Women's Health and Clinical Epidemiology at Barts and the London School of Medicine, when she was invited to speak at the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS).

However, Dr Gunter said her ordeal began one night after dinner at the hotel bar when they started chatting and had ordered a drink. Writing in her blog, she claims Dr Khan then touched her breasts without permission.

She wrote: 'Dr Khans arm went over my shoulder in that all too familiar manner and before I could process what was happening his hand was on my breast.'

The Canadian said that she told the doctor, who is also the Editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG), to stop but he didn't listen, and she had to resort to yelling and physically pushing him away more than once before he got the idea that my body was not his to fondle'.

She revealed in her latest post that the alleged abuse happened in 2014 and she has now been inspired to speak out by 'the brave women in Hollywood' who recently revealed the barrage of sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of media mogul Harvey Weinstein and others.

Dr Khan told MailOnline he denies the allegation made by Dr Gunter. He said: 'I deny this allegation and I am keen to clear my name. I will be co-operating with any investigations. In the mean time I have stepped aside from my editorial position at BJOG.'

A spokesperson from Queen Mary University of London where Dr Khan works added: 'We have been made aware of the allegation and will be investigating the matter.'

Dr Jen Gunter claims she suffered unwanted advances from Dr Khalid Khan

Dr Khan is the editor of The British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG)

PROESSOR'S KHAN'S DATING ADVICE Professor Khalid Khan led research by the Queen Mary University London in 2015 that investigated how men and women could get the most out of online dating. Writing in the journal Evidence Based Medicine, he advised online daters to be honest and positive about themselves, using humour to 'give the edge' in seeking a partner. According to Professor Khan, 'men prefer physical fitness in women gained via yoga, aerobics and gym, not via rugby and bodybuilding. Meanwhile, 'women prefer bravery, courage and a willingness to take risks rather than kindness and altruism in their partners.' Professor Khan is also associate editor of the journal Evidence-Based Medicine and has published over 200 peer reviewed journal articles. His book on evidence-based medicine won the British Medical Association's medical book competition Advertisement

Dr Gunter, based in San Francisco, is nicknamed 'Twitters resident gynecologist' and regularly appears in the media discussing trends such as women cleaning their vaginas with cucumbers and Vicks' Vaporub.

She explained to Mail Online that she was also impelled to go public about his alleged behaviour because she was told by a friend that he had been called to a restaurant to remove Professor Khan  who is the editor of a prominent medical journal  because of his behaviour towards her at the dinner.

'I told him to stop'

Explaining her reaction after she was allegedly groped by Dr Khan, Dr Gunter wrote: 'I had one of those what-the-f***-just-happened moments and instead of punching him in the face I did what most women do, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

'Surely the editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology did not just grope my breast. Surely I imagined it.'

She said that she moved his hand and they continued to chat as she 'pretended he hadnt groped me'.

She continued on her blog: 'Then he started that octopus body crawl that so many women know only too well. He was nuzzling my neck and his disgusting hot breath was in my ear.

'He was groping my breasts, running his hands up and down my back, and putting his arm around my waist pulling me against his body. Each time I moved one hand or arm another seemed to take his place.

'I told him to stop. I removed his hands more forcefully each time.'

Dr Gunter said a friend of hers, who she calls Dr Smith, had not directly witnessed the alleged harassment but had heard her yell.

She wrote: Dr Smith told me that 'he had been called to a restaurant by a colleague to remove Dr Khan because of Dr Khans behavior towards a female doctor at the dinner.

'Dr Smith had brought Dr. Khan back to the hotel hoping he would be embarrassed and head up to his room, but as they walked into the hotel Dr Khan headed to the bar.'

She revealed in her latest blog post that the alleged abuse happened in 2014

Inspired by the #MeToo movement

Dr Gunter claims she asked a man who she had seen at the conference for help and he 'just looked away'.

She said she then 'had to resort to yelling and physically pushing Dr Khan away more than once before he got the idea that my body was not his to fondle'.

She also speaks of her guilt at not warning a group of women about her experience who she said Dr Khan stumbled over to.

Professor Khan is a professor of Women's Health and Clinical Epidemiology at Barts and the London School of Medicine

Dr Gunter wrote: 'We women are trained from birth to make these exceptions for men.' She also questions whether rebutting men's advances had ever harmed her career.

'I have never been groped like that at a medical conference, although I have heard that other women have suffered that way,' she wrote. 'I have also heard worse.

'Until 2014 my no was always accepted, although now I wonder if my career was affected by turning down these men who always held more power than I did?'

She explained that she was moved to go public about her alleged abuse by the Harvey Weinstein scandal as well the sexual harassment claims that have rocked Parliament.

She wrote: 'Ive been encouraged to come forward by watching the brave women in Hollywood tell their stories of unwanted sexual advances and assaults as well as the courageous women who have recounted what happened to them at the hands of politicians.

'I know these stories circulated for years and after hearing of recent issues I realize there is also a whisper network for women in medicine.

She added: 'By the way, if you ask why I didnt go to the police you can put yourself firmly in the how poorly society treats women who speak out camp.
A 43-year-old mother-of-five has naturally conceived quadruplets in a surprise pregnancy just months after losing her home during Hurricane Harvey.

Ruth Mochire had to undergo a blood test in November after she and her husband Joshua returned from a one-month trip in their native Kenya.

The blood test, to check her health before returning to work at a refinery, revealed four fetuses in their third trimester.

Doctors revealed Ruth's due date is January 15, meaning that within a month she and Joshua will have nine children.

Ruth and Joshua are currently living in two temporary apartments in Baytown, Texas, with their kids - Victor, Jacky, Mephis, Sylvia, and Enoch, aged between 10 and 20 years old - after the August hurricane flooded their home and destroyed all their possessions.

Now, their church has launched a GoFundMe page to raise money to support their soon-to-be enormous family.

Ruth Mochire, from Baytown, Texas, had a blood test in November after she and her husband Joshua (pictured) returned from a one-month trip in their native Kenya. It revealed four fetuses

Speaking to KHOU, Ruth admitted she and Joshua were not planning on having any other children, and they were shocked by the blood test result.

'My foreman comes and tells me like 'Ruth you can't go back, it shows that you are pregnant. And I was like, to be pregnant at this age, it's so odd to be over 40 years of age and be pregnant and mid-40's is like impossible.'

She said it is stigmatized in Kenya to have a baby past 40, but she is coming to terms with it.

Instead, she faces much more pressing problems, like supporting a family of 11.

'We have stuff everywhere in the house because we were trying as much as possible to move what we could save out,' she said.

Fearing for the babies' development, doctors have suggested they may consider a c-section as early as next week.

Ruth told the channel she will go into Texas Children's Hospital in Houston on December 21 for testing. The babies will remain in intensive care for one month before they can come home.

'How do you go in, they take the babies out and then you leave the babies in the hospital and then you go home and come back, see them and then go home?' Ruth said.

'I know I can get through it, it's just going to be hard to think about it.'

The rate of quadruplet births in the US is less than 24 per 100,000, according to the CDC. However, those figures do not discriminate between natural conceptions and in-vitro fertilization. They also do not discriminate between age of the mother.

As a result, there is little concrete information out there to quantify the odds of Ruth's pregnancy.

'All I can say is the odds are incredibly low,' Dr Christine Greves, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Orlando Health, told Daily Mail Online.

There are numerous challenges that now face Ruth and her medical team, Dr Greves explained.

'Women who are 43 have a higher risk of complications, they may get a positive pregnancy test, but whether they reach full term is another thing,' she said. 'So I would be evaluating the babies from early on.

'Then you also have the fact that multiples - whether it's twins, triplets or quadruplets - have significantly higher risk factors for the mother, from preeclampsia [stroke during pregnancy] to diabetes... so many things you need to watch out for.'

Dr Greves said there is no textbook approach to monitoring or scheduling a multiple birth, even with such unique factors as this one, since an early-scheduled c-section can carry its own complications.

Sometimes the babies have had a lopsided growth development, since some of the babies took more of the food supply than others, meaning they need to come out earlier. Sometimes everything goes smoothly and it is beneficial for the babies to keep growing inside their mother closer to term.

'You just need to follow what you see in their scans,' she said.

Ultimately, one of the most important factors when it comes to multiple births is psychologically preparing a family to expand rapidly.

'I like to find out what their support system is going to be like, and whether they have a history of depression or mental illness. If they do, I will get mental health professionals involved,' she said.

'Then I prepare them to be open minded. You have to be ready to ask for help, and know who you can rely on, because you will suddenly have four babies that depend on you. Take one day at a time.'
As babies born with Zika reach the toddler stage, they are continuing to show significant physical and developmental delays, according to the CDC's latest report.

The virus caused birth defects, including microcephaly - a condition causing abnormally small and misshapen heads - for the babies of some of the pregnant women bitten by infected mosquitoes.

The CDC has followed a group of 19 of those children, who are now approaching two years old.

The challenging road ahead of the Zika babies becomes more clear as they grow and continue to struggle considerably with motor skills, seizures, sleeping, hearing and vision problems, and signs of intellectual impairment, the CDC reported Thursday.

A CDC report on 19 nearly two-year-old children born with Zika-related microcephaly like twins Heloisa (left) and Heloa (right) Barbosa of Brazil, struggle to sit up, eat, breath or sleep, and often suffer from seizures, suggesting that they will need lifelong care

After Zika broke out in French Polynesia, it made its way to Brazil in 2014, running rampant and quickly spreading to other countries in the Caribbean, Latin America, South America and to parts of the US.

Once thought to be a mild, relatively harmless viral infection, scientists eventually linked clusters of children born with microcephaly, among other birth defects, with regions affected by the virus.

Global health agencies have had difficulty nailing down an exact number of babies born with the condition or other Zika-related birth defects.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 51 babies were born with Zika birth defects, 43 of which had microcephaly.

The disorder is extremely rare, affecting only between two and 12 babies per every 10,000 born in the US.

It can be caused by genetic mutations, malnutrition, exposures to infections or harmful substances, and interruptions to the flow of blood to the baby's brain while it is in the womb.

Any of these may lead, in rare cases, to underdevelopment of the baby's brain, which can also be fatal.

'Children severely affected by Zika virus are falling far behind age-appropriate developmental milestones, and their challenges are becoming more evident as they age,' said Dr Brenda Fitzgerald, director of the CDC.

Out of the 19 children surveilled by the CDC, nearly all (15) had severe motor function problems, many of them unable to sit on their own.

Many of the children also had debilitatingly poor vision and hearing, and did not respond to stimuli like the sound of a rattle.

More than half of the babies had had seizures and are likely to have lifelong seizure disorders.

Difficulties eating, sleeping and breathing were also common, leading to hospitalizations for eight of the children. Most of these were for pneumonia or bronchitis.

There is no known cure or treatment for microcephaly.

'As children born affected by Zika virus grow up, they will need specialized care from many types of healthcare providers and caregivers, said Dr Georgina Peacock, director of CDCs Division of Human Development and Disability.

The virus is now well-contained, with very few cases in Brazil, which is hardest hit, and none to speak of in the US. Travel warnings are no longer effect in Florida but the CDC still cautions pregnant women and their partners to take great care in travelling to the Caribbean.

The findings of the latest report underscore that 'its important that we use these findings to start planning now for their long-term care and stay vigilant in Zika prevention efforts in the United States and around the world,' Dr Peacock said.
People who suffer from depression can rapidly diminish suicidal thoughts by taking the illegal party drug ketamine, according to a new study.

Researchers found that the horse tranquilizer was more effective at improving overall mood and fatigue than a commonly-used sedative to treat depression.

Ketamine's tranquilizing effects were found to decrease the amount of suicidal thoughts within hours of administration, unlike any other antidepressant currently on the market.

This study adds to the swell of research that illegal party drugs such as MDMA and magic mushrooms can be used to reduce suicide rates that have steadily increased in the US for more than a decade.

The horse tranquilizer turned party drug ketamine has been found to rapidly diminish suicidal thoughts in patients with depression, according to researchers at Columbia University

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide rates in the US increased by 26.5 percent between 1999 and 2015.

Twenty-five million Americans suffer from depression and suicide is currently the 10th leading cause of death.

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in New York examined 80 adults with depression who have clinically significant suicidal thoughts. Fifty-four percent of those participants were already taking antidepressant medication.

Most antidepressant trials have excluded patients with suicidal thoughts and behavior which has limited the data of effectiveness on this specific group of people who suffer from depression.

The participants in this study received either a low-dose infusion of ketamine or the sedative midazolam.

The results published in the American Journal of Psychiatry revealed that the ketamine group had a significant decrease in the amount of suicidal thoughts within 24 hours.

Improvements in depression and suicidal thoughts persisted for up to six weeks.

Participants also saw an increase in overall mood, fatigue and depression.

MAGIC MUSHROOMS TO TREAT DEPRESSION Magic mushrooms significantly improve symptoms of distress and depression in cancer patients, a clinical trial concluded in last year. The psychedelic drug is a banned substance classed in the same category as heroin and LSD by both American and British law enforcement agencies. But research at NYU Langone Medical Center has shown controlled use of the drug (officially called 'psilocybin') brought relief from distress to 80 per cent of their 29 patients. Unlike previous studies, the participants experienced no serious negative effects, such as hospitalization or more serious mental health conditions. The landmark study was endorsed by 11 different editorials from leading experts in psychiatry, addiction and palliative care. Advertisement

When the drug enters the body, it provides a relaxing or hallucinogenic effects - similar to that of LSD.

This group tested significantly higher than those who were injected with midazolam.

'There is a critical window in which depressed patients who are suicidal need rapid relief to prevent self-harm,' said Dr Michael Grunebaum, research psychiatrist who led the study. 'Currently available antidepressants can be effective in reducing suicidal thoughts in patients with depression, but they can take weeks to have an effect.'

No rapid relief treatment for suicidal thoughts currently exists.

Side effects of ketamine included feeling spacey and an increase in blood pressure during the infusion.

Those effects were mild to moderate and typically went away within minutes to hours after the receiving the drug.

Though previous studies have found popular party drugs to treat depression, the clinical trials have administered carefully controlled dosages meant to have calming effects.

Dr Grunebaum said: 'Additional research to evaluate ketamine's antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects may pave the way for the development of new antidepressant medications that are faster acting and have the potential to help individuals who do not respond to currently available treatments.'
The California Department of Health warned that people need to keep their cell phones several feet away from them to reduce radiation exposure and health risks.

California released guidance for reducing exposure to cell phone radiation on Thursday, amid mounting evidence that cell phone use may be linked to cancer, attention, mental health and reproductive health issues.

Cell phones transmit information using low frequency radio signals, which may expose us to unhealthy radiation, especially when streaming or downloading large files.

Research has not been able to prove definitively that cell phone radiation is dangerous, but there have been enough studies linking the two to warrant caution, especially for children, according to the health department press release.

New guidance from the California Department of Health warns that cell phones should be kept several feet away from the body when not in use to avoid risks of cancer and infertility

Courtesy: KRCR

The statewide notice comes after several cities, including Berkeley and San Francisco, issued local warnings that their citizens should make some distance between their phones and their bodies.

The radiofrequency (RF) energy cell phones use to transmit information are at the bottom of the radiation totem poll, but research suggests that our frequent, close-range exposure to cell phones may be enough to endanger us.

'Keeping a phone directly on the body has never been a good idea,' says Dr Devra Davis of the Environmental Health Trust.

In fact, cell phone makers themselves seem to agree. Apple, for example, includes an 'RF exposure' notice in the iPhone's settings.

The notice explains that the iPhone's RF emissions were tested at 5 mm - about the thickness of a fine point pen - from the body, and fall within the US standards of safety.

But it also includes advice for reducing exposure - not unlike California's new guidance - by using speakerphone or hands free accessories.

'Most people are not aware that there is a clear warning to keep the phone off the body embedded in the phone,' says Dr Davis.

This is particularly worrisome because most parents aren't aware of these warnings are are not managing their children's exposure to phones.

The California guidance notes that RF may more easily penetrate the brain matter of children than that of adults. The exposure may also be more damaging and have more lasting effects on the developing brain.

Studies have shown evidence that cell phone exposure may cause tumors in the brain or ears, where the body is frequently in contact with the device.

Though research on RF's effects on children specifically is fairly scarce, many psychologists have already warned that cell phone use may be linked to poorer attention, mental health and sleep for adolescents.

Less than a week ago, France banned cell phones from primary and middle schools. Though the ban's goal was primarily related to mental health, it has drawn praise from experts worried about radiation exposure.

The country has also been at the forefront of research on the physical health effects of cell phone exposure.

FACT BOX TITLE Use your cell phone on speakerphone or use a headset to avoid close contact with your ears and head. Headsets also release a small amount of RF, so only wear them when you're on a call. Use text messages instead of talking on the phone when possible. Do not carry your cell phone in your pocket, bar or on your belt. Keep it in a bag, backpack or briefcase. Sleep with your phone several feet from the bed, not in the bed or on a nearby nightstand. Keep your phone off or on airplane mode when it is not in use. Radiation and RF-blocking clothing, devices and accessories may not be effective. Advertisement

'The French have tested the phones the way they are used' - touching the body - 'and RF exposure exceeds the French standards by four more times, and apply that to the US standards, and it's even much more than that - about seven times [the recommended levels],' says Dr Davis.

Other research has shown strong links between RF and male sperm counts and sperm quality.

Studies in multiple countries 'have show that men who keep phone in their pockets the longest have lowest sperm count, with most damage,' says Dr Davis.

'Many people keep their phones in their pockets for hours a day, esp in the summer with thinner exposures will be far greater,' she adds.

Contemporary cell phone signals use 'the weakest signals, but strength of the signals is not issue when comes to biological effect.' It's not the power, its the irregular nature of signal.'

The California guidelines address this by explaining that the most dangerous exposures happen when there are surges of RF energy. This happens when, essentially, the technology has to work harder to transmit information.

The state warns against close contact when phones have two or fewer bars of signal, when you're in a moving car, or if you are trying to receive or send large quantities of data by streaming or downloading media.

Californians, the release advises, should use headsets, sleep with their phones away from them (not under pillows or on nightstands) and carry them in a bag, instead of in a pocket, bra or belt holster.

'The advice is welcome, and long overdue,' says Dr Davis.

California has a tradition of protecting public health, and we think this has been a long time coming,' she adds.
Miss Iraq's family have been forced to flee the country after the beauty queen posed for a selfie with Miss Israel last month, prompting fury in Baghdad.

The picture shows Iraq's Sarah Idan and Israel's Adar Gandelsman, representing their countries at the Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas in the US.

Their selfie appeared on Idan's Instagram page with references to promoting 'peace and love' - but it soon sparked a social media backlash.

There was so much anger towards the image in Iraq that Idan's family was forced to flee the country in fear, Gandelsman told Israeli TV.

A picture of Iraq's Sarah Idan (right) and Israel's Adar Gandelsman (left), representing their countries at the Miss Universe pageant in Las Vegas in the US

She said that 'people made threats against her and her family that if she didnt return home and take down the photos, they would remove her (Miss Iraq) title, that they would kill her.'

'Out of fear, they left Iraq at least until the situation calms down,' she added, according to the Times of Israel.

Idan, who now lives in the US, had decided to post the picture to show that 'it's possible to live together', Gandelsman said.

More than 3,600 'likes' greeted their picture, but it also triggered an avalanche of comments, some positive and others negative in a country that does not recognise Israel, with which it is still technically at war.

In a response in Arabic, 27-year-old Idan said Gandelsman told her 'she hopes that one day there will be peace between the two religions (Judaism and Islam) and that her children will not have to do military service'.

'She asked for a photo and I agreed, saying that I too hoped for peace and wanted to help pass on the message,' added Idan, who said she had served with both the US and Iraqi armies.

'This picture doesn't mean I support the Israeli government or its polices towards Arab countries. I apologise to everyone who saw it as an insult to the Palestinian cause - this was not its purpose.'

One online response, from Isra al-Jabri, read: 'Your peace with Israel, which has burned the Arab world for its own interests, does not honour us...'

The picture posted on Instagram by Iraq's Sarah Idan with Adar Gandelsman of Israel

'I respect pacifist Jews who oppose the state of Israel, but we don't want their peace built on the ruins of our country,' Jabri added.

However, Samah al-Meshhadani believed that Miss Iraq had 'made good use of this story'.

'Maybe she will succeed in improving our relations with Israel so we become friends, who knows?'

Idan, a Muslim, was born and raised in Baghdad. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, she worked with the American military from 2008.

She later moved to the United States and got a degree in Los Angeles.

Gandelsman, 19, also posted a picture with Idan on her own Instagram account.

'This is Miss Iraq and she's amazing,' the Israeli wrote.

In 2014, her country's Miss Universe contestant provoked uproar by posing with her counterpart from Lebanon, another Arab country with which the Jewish state is still technically at war.
The man accused of driving into a crowd of counter-protesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville will be charged with first degree murder, it was decided Thursday.

Prosecutors announced at the start of a preliminary hearing for James Alex Fields Thursday that they were seeking to upgrade his second degree murder charge.

The decision came after a court hearing in which they presented surveillance video and other evidence against him.

Fields faces charges in the August 12 collision in Charlottesville that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and dozens injured.

The judge agreed to change his charges and ruled there is probable cause for all charges against Fields, including nine lesser felony counts, to proceed.

His case will now be presented to a grand jury for an indictment.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

James AlexFields now faces first degree murder charges in the August 12 collision in Charlottesville that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and dozens injured

The decision came after a court hearing in which they presented surveillance video and other evidence against him

The 20-year-old, who was described by a former teacher as having a keen interest in Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, drove his speeding car into a group of counter-protesters the day of the 'Unite the Right' rally that drew hundreds of white nationalists from around the country to the small Virginia college town, according to authorities.

The attack came after the rally in this Virginia college town had descended into chaos - with violent brawling between attendees and counter-demonstrators - and authorities had forced the crowd to disband.

Surveillance footage from a Virginia State Police helicopter, played by prosecutors in court on Thursday, captured the moment of impact by the car and the cursing of the startled troopers on board.

The video then showed the car as it reversed, drove away and eventually pulled over.

The helicopter had been monitoring the violence, and prosecutors questioned Charlottesville Police Detective Steven Young about the video as it played.

The 20-year-old drove his speeding car into a group of counter-protesters the day of the 'Unite the Right' rally that drew hundreds of white nationalists from around the country to the small Virginia college town, according to authorities. He is pictured before the accident on August 12

Surveillance footage from a Virginia State Police helicopter, played by prosecutors in court on Thursday, captured the moment of impact by the car and the cursing of the startled troopers on board

Young explained that in the moments after the crash Fields said he was sorry and asked if people were OK. When the young man was told someone died, Young said he appeared shocked and started sobbing. Pictured is Susan Bro, the mother of Heyer, who was killed in the attack that day

Another surveillance video from a nearby restaurant showed the car head slowly in what Young testified was the direction of the counter-protesters, who were not in view of the camera.

The car reversed before speeding forward into the frame again.

After that footage, a man in the crowded courtroom shouted an expletive and cried out, 'Take me out.'

He and others left the courtroom.

Fields, from Maumee, Ohio, sat quietly in a striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed during the hearing.

His attorney Denise Lunsford did not present evidence or make any arguments at the hearing, although she did cross-examine the detective.

Just hours before the attack Fields was pictured holding a shield bearing the emblem of Vanguard America - one of the hate groups that took part in the rally - though the group has denied any association with him.

His former teacher, Derek Weimer, has said Fields was fascinated in high school with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by officials at his Union, Kentucky, school for 'deeply held, radical' convictions on race.

During her cross-examination of Young, Lunsford asked if searches of Fields' computer, phone or social media revealed any evidence that he was part of Vanguard America or any other white nationalist group.

Detective Young said, 'No.'

Jason Kessler, right, waits to enter the Charlottesville Circuit Court building ahead of the preliminary hearing for James Fields on Thursday, December 14. He was the main organizer of the Unite the Right rally and to watch Thursday's hearing

Fields would have faced between five to 40 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction But now that he faces first-degree murder charges he could be looking at a penalty of 20 years to life in prison. Pictured above police officers block the front of the Charlottesville Circuit Court building ahead of the preliminary hearing for James Fields on Thursday

The attack came after the rally in this Virginia college town had descended into chaos - with violent brawling between attendees and counter-demonstrators - and authorities had forced the crowd to disband

There were 36 victims identified in the car attack, Young said, including Heyer. That number is much higher than officials have previously given. Some of the victims have significant injuries and are now confined to wheelchairs, Detective Young said. Pictured is the horrible scene after the crash

Young also told the court he was one of the first officers to respond to the scene where Fields pulled over. No weapons were found in the car, he said.

Lunsford asked the detective what Fields said as he was being detained.

Young explained that in the moments after the crash Fields said he was sorry and asked if people were OK. When the young man was told someone died, Young said he appeared shocked and started sobbing.

There were 36 victims identified in the car attack, Young said, including Heyer. That number is much higher than officials have previously given.

Some of the victims have significant injuries and are now confined to wheelchairs, Young said.

Fields would have faced between five to 40 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction But now that he faces first-degree murder charges he could be looking at a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.

Charlottesville General District Court Judge Robert Downer Jr. also presided over preliminary hearings Thursday for three other defendants.

Three men, Richard Preston, who is accused of firing a gun, and Jacob Goodwin and Alex Ramos, who are accused in an attack on a man in a parking garage that was captured in photos and video that went viral, are also charged in cases related to the August rally.

The judge certified the charges against all three men, and all of their cases will now head to a grand jury.

Jason Kessler, the main organizer of the Unite the Right rally, was in court to watch the proceedings.

When he arrived Thursday, a small crowd of angry protesters outside the courthouse chanted, 'Blood on your hands.'
California, flush with cash from an expanding economy, would eventually spend $1 billion a year to provide health care to immigrants living in the state illegally under a proposal.

The proposal, announced on Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers, would eliminate legal residency requirements in California's Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, as the state has already done for young people up to age 19.

It's part of $4.3 billion in new spending proposed by Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who leads the budget committee.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, presents the Assembly's budget proposal in his office at the state Capitol in Sacramento, California on Wednesday

Assembly Democrats also want to expand a tax credit for the working poor, boost preschool and child care, and increase college scholarships to reduce reliance on student loans.

They also would commit $3.2 billion more than required to state budget reserves.

The proposal marks the Assembly's opening volley in six months of budget negotiations with the Senate and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who has been reluctant to commit to new ongoing spending on social services.

California has significantly reduced its rate of uninsured people since former President Barack Obama's health care law took effect, but about seven percent of residents still lack coverage.

The proposal, announced on Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers, would eliminate legal residency requirements in California's Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, as the state has already done for young people up to age 19

Many are people living in the country illegally, who are ineligible for U.S.-funded health care assistance.

While federal funds cover at least half - and as much 95 percent - of the cost for citizens and legal U.S. residents on Medi-Cal, the state would have to pick up the cost on its own for people living here illegally.

Expanding access to health care has been a contentious issue for California lawmakers, who targeted last year by protests from liberal activists who want the Legislature to provide state-funded coverage to everyone, regardless of immigration status.

A measure promoting that principle was sidelined when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said it lacked specifics, including a plan for the $400 billion it would cost.

The Assembly's latest proposal is narrower, only extending the state Medicaid program to all low-income adults.

Brown, who is often more conservative in his own revenue forecast, will release his budget proposal next month.

H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Department of Finance, said Brown wants to boost state reserves and avoid committing to unsustainable spending.

'We want to be able to provide as much budgetary protection as we can to protect or insulate the state from the potential effects of a downturn in the state's fiscal fortunes,' Palmer said.

Ting, the head of the Assembly budget committee, said lawmakers were exploring ways to restructure the state tax code if Congress approves a proposed U.S. tax overhaul.

California leaders have warned that the measure could harm taxpayers by restricting a federal deduction for state and local taxes, which is especially lucrative in high-tax states like California.

'I'm very concerned that this tax cut is a tax increase for middle-class and working-class Californians,' Ting said. 'So we are looking at ways that we can help mitigate that.'
A pair of US warplanes intercepted two Russia jets over a part of Syria they were not supposed to be operating in, according to the Pentagon.

At one point during Wednesday's incident, the American F-22 Raptor stealth fighters deployed chaff and flares to convince the Russian Su-25s to leave the area, and one US pilot had to 'aggressively maneuver' to avoid a midair collision.

The Russian fighters had flown into airspace controlled by the US-led coalition that is fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, crossing onto the east side of the Euphrates River near Albu Kamal.

The encounter lasted approximately 40 minutes before the Russian jets flew to the west side of the Euphrates

They 'were promptly intercepted by two F-22A Raptors providing air cover for partner ground forces conducting operations to defeat ISIS,' a spokesman said.

'The F-22s conducted multiple maneuvers to persuade the Su-25s to depart our deconflicted airspace, including the release of chaff and flares in close proximity to the Russian aircraft and placing multiple calls on the emergency channel to convey to the Russian pilots that they needed to depart the area,' he added.

The incident lasted approximately 40 minutes before the Russian aircraft flew to the west side of the river.

During and following the encounter, coalition leaders contacted Russian officers on a special hotline to try to calm the situation and avert a 'strategic miscalculation'.

The incident lasted approximately 40 minutes before the Russian aircraft flew to the west side of the river, according to the Pentagon

The Pentagon said that in early November the US verbally agreed with Moscow that the Russians would keep west of the Euphrates and the coalition would stay east.

'Since agreeing to this deconfliction arrangement, the Russians have flown into our airspace on the east side of the river six to eight times per day, or approximately 10 percent of the Russian and Syrian flights,' the Pentagon said.

'It's become increasingly tough for our pilots to discern whether Russian pilots' actions are deliberate or if these are just honest mistakes.'

Albu Kamal was IS's last urban stronghold in Syria until the army retook it last month.
Audrey Hepburn's will has been revealed for the first time in her son's battle against her children's charity over the Hollywood star's name and likeness.

Sean Hepburn Ferrer, 57, sued the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund in October for infringing trademark and other rights belonging to him and Luca Dotti, his half-brother.

Court documents obtained by DailyMail.com show Ferrer has hit back at the charity's attempt to have the suit dismissed and has provided excerpts of his mother's will in which both sons were named as principal heirs to her estate and intellectual property after she died in 1993.

The extraordinary will, seen for the first time on DailyMail.com, reveals the Breakfast at Tiffany's star left her most precious jewels to her closest family and friends including the daughter of film actor Yul Brynner.

Hepburn died of cancer when she was 63 years old and had been in a long-term relationship with Dutch actor Robert Wolders at the time of her death. She left Wolders two silver candlesticks which were worth about 500 CHF (Swiss Francs) at the time.

Sean Hepburn Ferrer (left) 57, sued the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund in October for infringing trademark and other rights belonging to him and Luca Dotti (right) his half-brother. Pictured at the Timeless Audrey Exhibition in 2009

The Breakfast at Tiffany's star died in 1993 after a battle with cancer, leaving her two sons with her estate as well as the rights to her intellectual property

Hepburn's will names her two sons Sean Ferrer and Luca Dotti as the primary heirs of her estate

The actress also left close friend and famed French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy two Russian icons - worth about 20,000 CHF - and left Yul Brynner's wife Doris, Bulgari emeralds, sapphires brooch, and earrings, valued at 10,500 CHF.

Brynner's daughter Victoria received 1,500 CHF worth in Tiffany Schlumberger small flower, diamonds, and platinum brooches.

Hepburn's will also lists Givenchy as an executor of her estate.

The actress owned three properties in Saanen, Lully, and her most notable home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, known as the La Paisible. The home was later sold in 2000 for an undisclosed amount.

In addition to her estate, the Hollywood icon left her son Sean, Bulgari gold and diamonds earrings - a gift she received from his father, Mel Ferrer, on his birth, worth about 6,000 CHF.

She also left 4,000 CHF Bulgari pearls and diamonds earrings to son Luca.

The brothers also inherited, 'the film rights and royalties pursuant to Mrs Hepburn's film contracts as well as her name and likeness rights and any other similar rights,' according to the will.

Ferrer and Dotti founded the children's charity in their mother's name the year she died and agreed to jointly own and manage Hepburn's registered trademarks and moniker.

The will also stated that Luca Dotti 'acknowledges that he had appointed Sean Ferrer as his attorney-in-fact on July 6, 1993 and he confirms that Sean Ferrer is still authorized to act on his behalf.'

The charity, however, became beset with legal troubles in recent years after Ferrer stepped down as chairman in 2012.

Hepburn's will reveals she also left her close friend and famed French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy two Russian icons. Above the two are seen at a gala dinner in Paris

The Hollywood actress who had been in a long-term relationship with Dutch actor Robert Wolders (left), left her lover two silver candlesticks. She also left Yul Brynner's (right) daughter Victoria, Tiffany Schlumberger brooches

Above is a stock photo of two Russian icons Hepburn left Givenchy, which were said to be worth about 20,000 CHF (Swiss Francs) at the time of her death. She also left 1,500 CHF Tiffany diamond brooch to Victoria Brynner (stock photo right)

Ferrer states he resigned after becoming 'disillusioned' with the fund but he and Dotti continued to approve of certain uses of Hepburn's likeness on a project-by-project basis.

Problems arose a year later when Ferrer ended the charity's license which allowed them to use Hepburn's name. He has since claimed it has continued to use his mother's intellectual property for years without permission.

'However, in or around March 2013, I sent a written notice of termination to the Fund making clear that (1) the license to use the Hepburn IP that I had previously extended to the Fund had been terminated, and (2) the Fund did not have an indefinite and limitless global license to make free use of the Hepburn IP as it sees fit, without restriction,' court papers read.

The Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund in turn slammed Ferrer's suit, arguing that 'necessary parties' were missing from the action calling the plaintiff an 'ill-defined, "amorphous" partnership' between the brothers, according to court papers.

Dotti, Hepburn's son with second husband Andrea Dotti, is not named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, but Ferrer states his brother has authorized him to act on his behalf.

'While I have since resigned from the position of Dotti's attorney-in-fact, nothing has negated the power authorized in the later part of the foregoing quotation  my power to act on Dotti's behalf in dealing with Audrey Hepburn-related IP (intellectual property) rights,' court papers read.

Ferrer added that 'The Fund has submitted no evidence demonstrating that Dotti ever withdrew my right to act on Dottis behalf' and any amendment would have been submitted in writing.

Ferrer's lawsuit, first filed in October, came eight months after the charity sued him for 'intentional interference with contractual relationships.'

The company claimed he had become increasingly 'hostile' to its use of Hepburn's intellectual property (IP) that interfered with their fundraising.

According to the new court documents, Ferrer states he resigned after becoming 'disillusioned with the direction that the Fund had taken. Specifically, other persons at the Fund were seemingly intent on using its efforts and revenues primarily to pay for their own salaries and overhead, rather than for distribution to childrens charities.'

Ferrer had also accused the fund of 'improperly' retaining possession of his property, such as legal and financial records, contracts, samples of merchandise bearing Audrey Hepburn's name, image and trademarks, scripts, and other documents.

According to the lawsuit, the charity also owes Ferrer money that it is yet to pay back.
'Sheer incompetence' by police meant that texts about an alleged rape victim's fantasies of violent and casual sex were kept secret and an innocent student was put on trial after two years on bail, a prosecutor revealed today.

Barrister Jerry Hayes claims the detective in charge told him sexual messages sent by the woman to Liam Allan and her friends were 'too personal' to share.

But in fact they 'blew the case out of the window' and police had failed to even look at them because of 'sheer incompetence', he said.

The CPS is also being asked to explain why it did not demand full disclosure of evidence including phone records before the trial started.

The texts revealed the woman asked Mr Allan for casual sex and fantasised about rough and violent intercourse and even being raped despite telling police she didn't like being intimate with men.

Judge Peter Gower stopped the trial at Croydon Crown Court yesterday and describing the moment the suspect found out Mr Hayes said: Obviously he was happy but this has been hanging over his head for years. He could have had his life totally trashed. That was awfully wrong'.

Mr Allan said he had been betrayed by the system and his mother Lorraine sobbed as she said her son had been treated as 'guilty until you can prove you are innocent', adding: 'I knew the truth'.

Today Scotland Yard launched an 'urgent assessment' of its handling of Mr Allan's case but there are calls for an independent investigation.

Scroll down for video

A relieved Liam Allan, 22, is hugged by his tearful mother Lorraine on the steps of Croydon Crown Court surrounded by supporters yesterday after two years on bail for rape after police sat on evidence that proved he was innocent

Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was stopped yesterday - prosecutor Jerry Hayes said 'incompetent' police didn't share the evidence that proved his evidence

Police have been blamed for the student's ordeal by Mr Hayes but it is common for the CPS to also demand full disclosure of evidence including phone records before any trial.

Police refuse to say if they have suspended 'incompetent' rape detective and team The Met has today refused to say if the detective shamed by the CPS' prosecutor is still at work today. Jerry Hayes said the officer in charge of the case failed in his 'duty' to properly review evidence and hand it to the CPS. But a Met spokesman said they would not 'speculate' on whether the lead officer or his team were working. The force would not comment on whether they will re-interview the woman at the centre of the case, although their statement referred to her as 'the victim'. Scotland Yard launched an 'urgent assessment' after a rape prosecution collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence which undermined the case against Liam Allan. Police are understood to have looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence but it was not until the prosecution was close to trial that Met officers disclosed messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the case against him. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'We are aware of this case being dismissed from court and are carrying out an urgent assessment to establish the circumstances which led to this action being taken. 'We are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and keeping in close contact with the victim whilst this process takes place.' In 2013 it emerged that up to a third of all rape allegations made to the Met in some boroughs were never recorded as crimes in 2012. In the same year then Scotland Yard chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has apologised to victims of rapes who were pressured by police into withdrawing their allegations in 2008 and 2009. Advertisement

Chief prosecutor Alison Saunders has made a high profile push to bring more sex attack cases to court and asked her lawyers to trawl through a man's relationship history to boost conviction.

The number of rapes reported to police has gone from around 13,000 in 2002 to 45,000 last year but in 2014 it emerged a quarter of sex offences - including rape - were never recorded as crimes.

The prosecutor and former Tory MP said he and the CPS had no idea a disc of the woman's messages even existed until the trial started.

He said as soon as the defence got them they realised the texts 'blew the case out of the window' and he asked the judge at Croydon Crown Court to throw the case out last night.

Revealing how the case unraveled Mr Hayes told the BBC: 'I spoke to the officer in charge and he said [the texts] are clearly not disclosable and I said "Why not" and he replied "you know it's very personal matters".'

The prosecutor said this was 'wrong' and he wasn't 'happy' and insisted that he, the CPS and the defence get them.

He said: 'The defence quickly saw the information blew the prosecution out of the water. If they had not been seen this boy faced 12 years in prison and on the sex offenders' register for life with little chance of appeal. This was a massive massive miscarriage of justice, which thank heavens was avoided'.

And slamming Scotland Yard he said: 'I don't think they had looked at it [the texts]. It's just sheer incompetence I'm afraid. Police don't always understand it is their duty to review it'.

Mr Hayes went to the judge Peter Gower to say he would no longer offer any evidence and Mr Allan was found not guilty of six counts of rape and six counts of sexual assault.

Describing the moment he told the rape suspect he said: 'He was happy obviously but this had been hanging over him for years and his life totally trashed. What happened was completely wrong'.

He also said last night: 'I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable'.

He added: 'The trouble is everyone is under pressure. This is a criminal justice system which is not just creaking, it's about to croak'.

Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was stopped yesterday.

The judge has called for an inquiry after the trial of a student accused of rape collapsed after police failed to reveal she sent him messages asking for casual sex and revealing her own violent sexual fantasies.

Mr Allan's mother Lorraine (pictured together) burst into tears as she said her son's case was 'guilty until you can prove you are innocent'

Officers failed to hand over evidence proving his innocence and the Crown's prosecutor apologised to Mr Allan last night.

Evidence missed included a computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages - including ones sent to Mr Allan by the woman pestering him for sex.

The woman had told police she didn't enjoy sex and the lead detective has been accused of failing to review her texts.

If found guilty, the 22-year-old was told he would be jailed for at least ten years.

Liam Allan's life has been 'trashed' and he faced 12 years in prison had the texts not been released

After the trial collapsed Mr Allan, a criminology student, told The Times: 'I can't explain the mental torture of the past two years. I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing  the system I want to work in.'

His mother Lorraine Allan, 46, told the paper: 'In the current climate, in these sorts of cases, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent.'

Prosecuting barrister Jerry Hayes said: 'I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable'.

Last night the judge called for an inquiry at the 'very highest level' of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and a review of disclosure of evidence by the Metropolitan Police.

Scotland Yard said today it is carrying out an 'urgent assessment' after the rape prosecution collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence which undermined the case.

Judge Peter Gower found him not guilty and set him free saying: 'There is something that has gone wrong and it is a matter that the CPS, in my judgment, should be considering at the very highest level.

'Otherwise there is a risk not only of this happening again but that the trial process will not detect what has gone wrong and there will be a very serious miscarriage of justice. He [Mr Allan] leaves the courtroom an innocent man without a stain on his character'.

He advised of 'serious miscarriages of justice' when he heard that documents were not always sent to defence lawyers in order to keep costs at a minimum.

Mr Allan, a criminology undergraduate at Greenwich University, was accused of six counts of rape and six sexual assaults against a woman who claimed she did not enjoy sex.

The young man, however, claimed the sexual intercourse had been consensual.

He said the woman involved had acted maliciously because he was starting university and would not see her again.

Prosecutor Jerry Hayes apologised to the student and said there had been a 'terrible failure' after Judge Peter Gower found him not guilty and set him free

The judge at Croydon Crown Court threw out the case when it emerged the evidence had not bee

CPS boss 'inflated rape conviction figures and doesn't understand how a trial works' Britain's top prosecutor Alison Saunders was recently accused of inflating rape conviction figures and having little idea of how rape trials work. Ms Saunders has repeatedly come under fire over the CPS handling of sex allegations because innocent men have had their lives destroyed on the basis of spurious claims later rejected in court. In August this year she said that men accused of rape will have more of their relationship history put under the microscope during trials in a bid to increase convictions rates. Britain's top prosecutor told lawyers to focus on a man's behaviour in the run up to the alleged sex attack rather than just the immediate moments before. But in October she was blasted by a watchdog for claiming the number of rape convictions is more than double the real figure. She was warned that the hugely inflated figures in a report on violence against women were 'misleading'. And was told in a letter from the UK Statistics Authority that the true number of people convicted of rape last year was under 1,400. This is less than half the 3,000 she alleged in the report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) earlier that month. The huge gap is because the CPS includes crimes that were originally investigated as rapes but later downgraded to less serious offences. Advertisement

Mr Allan's lawyers were denied access to the woman's telephone records after police insisted there was nothing of interest for the defence or prosecution.

Meanwhile, when Jerry Hayes took over the case on the day before the trial started - he demanded police hand over the phone records.

A computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages were taken from the handset, revealing that the woman had continuously pestered the undergraduate for 'casual sex'.

She also told her friends that she enjoyed sex with him and even spoke about her fantasies of having violent sex and being raped by him.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'We are aware of this case being dismissed from court and are carrying out an urgent assessment to establish the circumstances which led to this action being taken.

'We are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and keeping in close contact with the victim whilst this process takes place.'

A spokesman for the CPS said: 'A charge can only be brought if a prosecutor is satisfied that both stages of the Full Code test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors are met, that is, that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is required in the public interest.

'All prosecutions are kept under continuous review and prosecutors are required to take account of any change in circumstances as the case develops.

'In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

'Therefore we offered no evidence in the case against Liam Allan at a hearing on December 14 2017.

'We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.'
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe at a VE service at Westminster Abbey, London, with is wife Marion

The controversial former head of Scotland Yard was yesterday forced to reveal details of his Alpine holiday home and lucrative new advisory roles.

Crossbench peer Lord Hogan-Howe  who has yet to vote or speak in the House of Lords  enjoys an apartment in an upmarket region of Switzerland popular with wealthy expats.

He has also taken on two paid roles less than a year after collecting his 5.8 million pension pot. He is a consultant on risk management with Towergate Insurance and is advising HSBC on financial crime risk reduction.

The details will enrage critics of the former top officer, whose tenure was marred by controversies including the failed VIP sex abuse inquiry.

Former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who is suing the Met after being falsely accused of child sex abuse, branded Lord Hogan-Howes rewards as extraordinary.

And one ex-colleague said the roles could be awkward, adding: Despite everything, it seems he is determined to remain in the public eye.

Lord Hogan-Howe, 60, was ordered to declare details of his income, properties and commitments after accepting a peerage. Yesterday, the Parliamentary website revealed the keen skier and horse rider owns a holiday apartment in the southern Valais region.

Valais is home to some of the worlds most exclusive ski resorts, including Verbier and Crans-Montana. It appeals to visitors all year round, with hikers and mountain bikers enjoying the slopes once the snow has gone.

The peer also took on paid roles with Towergate Insurance and banking giant HSBC. Last year Lord Hogan-Howe was criticised for saying victims of fraud should no longer be reimbursed by their banks.

Towergate issued an apology last July after the Financial Conduct Authority imposed a fine in relation to a former directors mishandling of an estimated 12 million. The company came close to collapse two years ago and was last year fined 2.6 million for mishandling client funds.

Lord Hogan-Howe left his 270,000 Met post in February. Experts calculate that his gold-plated taxpayer-funded final salary pension pot was worth at least 5.8million. His pension will depend on any lump sum he withdrew on retirement.

Lord Hogan-Howe was widely criticised for presiding over the disastrous 2.5 million inquiry into a fictitious VIP paedophile ring. He was also the driving force behind the Yards bungled 20 million Operation Elveden inquiry into alleged payments to public officials by journalists.

Crossbench peer Lord Hogan-Howe  who has yet to vote or speak in the House of Lords  enjoys an apartment in the upmarket Valais region of Switzerland (pictured) popular with wealthy expats

Mr Proctor, who was wrongly accused of rape and murder by a fantasist known only as Nick, said: It is extraordinary that someone who got so many things wrong in his professional life is rewarded in this way.

Earlier this week war hero Field Marshal Lord Bramall, 93, who has been paid 100,000 compensation after also being investigated over false child-sex claims, criticised Lord Hogan-Howe.

He said: They say they might prosecute Nick, but the ones who should be prosecuted are the police who led the inquiry.

Lord Hogan-Howe shows no sign of fading from public life.

He appeared on BBC Question Time last month, spoke at Oxford University and undertook a paid speaking appointment for the Business Continuity Institute.

He was seen by some as a potential outside candidate to head the Irish Garda, with a flurry of bets made on him taking the role in September.

The peer remains under investigation by the London Mayors Office for Policing and Crime over comments he made during the VIP sex ring scandal.

He is accused of misrepresenting the origins of the phrase credible and true, used by the senior investigating officer about the most outlandish allegations.

Lord Hogan-Howe could not be reached for comment.

c.greenwood@dailymail.co.uk
A Liberal MP has performed a sensational backflip on a motion against radical extremism after introducing the issue herself.

Gabrielle Upton promised to 'disarm' dangerous extremists and hate preachers following the murder of NSW Police accountant Curtis Cheng, saying the Australian way of life is under threat.

'We cannot allow violent race hate speech to fan flames of division and tear our community apart,' she said in 2015.

However, the Environment, Local Government, and Minister for Heritage stunned her 'bewildered' constituents in a cabinet meeting a fortnight ago, slamming the laws she introduced, the Daily Telegraph reported.

A Liberal MP has performed a sensational backflip on a motion against radical extremism after introducing the issue herself

Gabrielle Upton promised to 'disarm' dangerous extremists and hate preachers following the murder of Curtis Cheng (pictured left), saying the Australian way of life is under threat

Radicalised 15-year-old Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar shot dead Mr Cheng in 2015

Upton was vehement in ensuring attacks similar to the shooting at the Parramatta police station would not happen again, saying Australia had an obligation to be 'vigilant to and guarding against the spread of racial vilification.'

Attorney-General Mark Speakman attempted to introduce the issue in a meeting in early December, but was rebuffed by Upton who said it was not the time to be discussing such a topic.

Upton instead wanted to discuss the NSW government's decision to approve a $2 billion demolish-rebuild for ANZ and Allianz Stadiums, ignoring the issue she so strongly fought for two years ago.

Upton instead wanted to discuss the NSW government's decision to approve a $2 billion demolish-rebuild for ANZ and Allianz Stadiums, ignoring the issue she so strongly fought for two years ago

Several ministers were shocked by the backflip, saying cabinet members were 'confused' by her change of heart.

'Speakman was a bit bewildered. He was confused as to how people have confused free speech with racial vilification,' a Cabinet minister told the Daily Telegraph.

The attempts to change the Anti-Discrimination Act were also objected to by Dominic Perrottet and other ministers, based on it impeding on free speech, and successfully had the agenda thrown out.
Anti-Brexit Tory Anna Soubry (whose constituents in working class Nottinghamshire voted firmly to leave the EU) sat on her own in the Chamber yesterday. The nearest MP was about ten yards away. It was as though the poor woman had ebola.

Miss Soubry did not seem to mind. She rather likes being unpopular. But the sterile zone around her accentuated the suspicion that after Wednesday nights rebellion, life will never be quite the same on the Tory benches. The near right corner of the Chamber, where the Europhiles nest, may have to be shaded a different colour by cartographers to designate its uncertain status. Perhaps the key will say territory loyal to Brussels or in league with Corbynistas.

Anti-Brexit Tory Anna Soubry (whose constituents in working class Nottinghamshire voted firmly to leave the EU) sat on her own in the Chamber yesterday. The nearest MP was about ten yards away. It was as though the poor woman had ebola.

Early in yesterdays proceedings (Questions to the Department for Exiting the EU), Miss Soubry rose to her hind legs.

Was the voice a little more contralto than normal? Almost as deep as Lee Marvin in Paint Your Wagon. It must have been an exhausting night.

Speaking of those who voted against the Government, the heroine of the metropolitan Remainer elite averred that nobody on these benches took any pleasure in the rebellion.

Certain of the other Tory MPs in the Chamber plainly thought that remark was as over-ripe as a black banana. Someone muttered the word champagne. Miss Soubry, greatly affronted, froze.

Fun-loving Miss Soubry had vanished by this point but it would surely have been an issue on which she and Brexiteer Sir Edward could have found common ground.

Nobody, she said, eyes blazing, drank champagne. Nobody drank champagne. Not on these benches. Lets just nail that one. This was said with the disgust of a woman who prides herself on knowing her sauvignon verts from her Gewurztraminers.

A few moments later she thought about making a point of order, then stomped down to the Speakers Chair, had a long discussion, then left the Chamber, her hair greatly askew. An odd cameo. I start to worry about her.

On the Government bench, Brexit Secretary David Davis was on iffy form, too. Barry Sheerman (Lab, Huddersfield) thought the Secretary of State was not quite as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as normal. Had he been a dog you might certainly have said his ears were pinned back. And gosh, he was hard to hear.

At one point the Speaker urged him to speak more clearly, adding that although he knew Mr Davis was suffering still from a cold, he hoped he was not mumbling deliberately. Mr Davis: Good Lord, what a terrible thought! In other words, yes, I might be.

Owen Paterson (Con, N Shropshire) expressed the hope that Theresa May would succeed in persuading the EU to agree to a free-trade deal without tariffs. Miss Soubry had not yet left the Chamber at this point and laughed at Mr Paterson, Id say with contempt.

Early in yesterdays proceedings (Questions to the Department for Exiting the EU), Miss Soubry rose to her hind legs.

Sir Keir Starmer, Labours spokesman, referred to Wednesdays nights vote as humiliating, an accident and a debacle (pronounced in best Peter Cook fashion as day-bark-ul). It frequently surprises me that Sir Keir is so uninventive with words. There is a strange lack of imagination in him.

Can he really have been a top lawyer or does the modern law press all the flair out of them? Mr Davis was more philosophical, languidly saying the Government was still thinking how best to respond to the vote.

He took the result seriously but he stressed that we would still be leaving the EU, as demanded by 17.4 million voters.

Only a couple of pro-Remain MPs felt emboldened to demand a second referendum.

Sir Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough) was more interested in wine  the 42,000 bottles held in the EUs cellars, along with 13 billion of artwork. How much of that vino and art belongs to Britain? Sir Edward thirstily hoped we would take back control of our share of the hooch and not leave it for Mr Juncker to enjoy.

Fun-loving Miss Soubry had vanished by this point but it would surely have been an issue on which she and Brexiteer Sir Edward could have found common ground.
Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, admitted to slapping his first wife in a 1998 interview, which was unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday.

'Did I slap my wife 20 years ago? Yes,' Carper said. 'Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? No,' the longtime First State politician told Delaware reporter Celia Cohen, who included the admission in her book 'Only in Delaware,' which is sold on the state's official website.

Carper was initially outed for the transgression against his now ex-wife Diane, a former Miss Delaware he had married in 1978, by the New York Post in 1982, as he was running for his first Congressional term.

Scroll down for video

Sen. Tom Carper (left), a Delaware Democrat, admitted to a reporter in 1998 that he had slapped his first wife over the course of their custody dispute

Back then, he said the accusation from the tabloid was 'without basis in fact' and pledged to sue the newspaper for libel.

Post reporters had gotten their hands on a 1981 taped deposition recorded as part of a custody battle between the couple over their two children.

The newspaper wrote that during the custody battle, Carper allegedly hit his wife 'so hard he gave her a black eye.'

The Post's story also said the children told the News Journal 'that they were slapped around and bruised by Carper for doing such things as leaving the family dog on the bed.'

At the time, Carper's campaign told the New York City paper that its report was 'totally false.'

The warring couple eventually settled out of course and so the taped deposition was never submitted as an official court record, making it easier for Carper to deny the claims.

A year later, as the allegations were made public, the former couple put on a united front.

'Let me state, unequivocally, that I would never allow my children or myself to be abused,' she told the News Journal in 1982. 'The very notion that anyone would imply such a thing for political gain or any other reason is appalling.'

Carper was actually aided by the publicity, able to attack his Republican opponent Tom Evans by suggesting he had placed the story in the Post, labeling it a 'vicious' effort to 'smear' him and his wife, the Washington Free Beacon pointed out.

In her book, Cohen noted how the abuse allegations had come up twice during Carper's political career, rearing their head again when he was running for re-election as the state's governor in 1996.

Carper went on to serve as a U.S. senator for the state starting in 2001.

'Although public opinion [during the election] swayed Carper's way, the incident was perhaps the lowest in his public life,' Cohen said in her book. 'He would not speak of the allegations, even when they were repackaged and resurfaced 14 years later while he was running for a second term as governor.'

Two years later, however, he told the reporter what he had done.

'In an interview in 1998 for this writing, however, he dealt with them straightforwardly,' Cohen said.

Diane Carper passed away in 2013.

The senator married his current wife, Martha, in 1985 and the couple have two children together.

The second Mrs. Carper was forced to put out a statement saying, 'I love my husband and he loves me,' the Free Beacon noted, after reports that there were marital issues.

The Washington Free Beacon's report comes at a watershed moment for members of Congress as four lawmakers have resigned in the past week for various misdeeds against women.

Carper's Senate office did not respond to a request for comment from the publication.
Accused Bourke St driver Dimitrious Gargasoulas has pleaded not guilty to murdering six people and trying to kill another 28 pedestrians.

Gargasoulas, 27, on Friday pleaded not guilty via video link at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to 39 offences, including six counts of murder and 28 counts of attempted murder, over the Bourke St rampage on January 20.

He is accused of driving through the Melbourne CBD, deliberately striking pedestrians around Bourke and Queen streets before police shot and wounded him.

Gargasoulas also waived his right to a pre-trial committal hearing, so his case will go straight to the Victorian Supreme Court.

Gargasoulas, 27, on Friday pleaded not guilty via video link at the Melbourne Magistrates Court to 39 offences, including six counts of murder and 28 counts of attempted murder

He is accused of driving through the Melbourne CBD, deliberately striking pedestrians around Bourke and Queen streets before police shot and wounded him

Victorian Supreme Court Justice Lasry criticised the justice authorities for withholding Gargasoulas' medical records, which would have helped determine whether or not he's fit to stand trial.

'I can't believe that in a case like this, that the Department of Justice is taking that type of attitude,' he said in November. 'It's ridiculous.'

Justice Lasry has previously said he was concerned Gargasoulas' case would take too long to reach the trial stage.

'What I was concerned was going to happen, has happened,' he said on Monday.

Justice Lasry criticised the justice authorities for withholding Gargasoulas' medical records, which would have helped determine whether or not he's fit to stand trial

Six people were killed and dozens were injured in the alleged rampage in January

He also said any questions about Gargasoulas' fitness to plead or mental impairment needed to be settled in the Supreme Court as soon as possible.

'The sooner this matter is brought into this court, the better, surely,' the judge said.

Justice Lasry has urged the Department of Justice to work with Gargasoulas' legal team.

'It seems to me ... they are holding up the process,' he said.

The judge has urged the department to 'get on with it'.

Director of Public Prosecutions, John Champion SC, said he sent Gargasoulas' defence team a 6500-page brief of evidence, which included 900 witnesses.
Police are hunting for a man who chased a 12-year-old girl down a street in Coffs Harbour as she walked her dog on Wednesday night.

The man, who was wearing a big black cap and yellow reflective sunglasses at the time, allegedly approached the girl on Polwarth Drive at about 7.45pm.

She ignored him but he continued to follow her down the suburban street, repeatedly trying to get her attention and spark up a conversation.

The young girl managed to get away from him at an intersection and raced home to tell her parents, who immediately reported the incident to police.

Police are hunting for a man who chased a 12-year-old girl down a street in Coffs Harbour as she walked her dog (computer-generated image pictured)

Police from Coffs Clarence Local Area Command have released a digital image of a man they wish to speak to.

The man is described as being a Caucasian in his 20s with tanned skin, a fit build and a 'high pitched scratchy voice'.

He was wearing a red singlet shirt, black shorts and black shoes at the time of the alleged child approach incident.

Anyone with information is urged to come forward.
Knife crime among children has rocketed to an eight-year high amid police concerns about an epidemic of blade violence in England and Wales.

Courts dealt with 4,439 knife possession cases involving 10 to 17-year-olds in the year to September  the highest number since 2009. That was an increase of 16 per cent on last year when 3,811 youngsters were punished.

Knives and other sharp weapons have killed at least 35 children and young people so far this year.

Only last month 18-year-old apprentice carpenter Jason Isaacs was stabbed to death near his home in Northolt, north-west London. Three teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Murdered teenager Jason Isaacs was stabbed to death near his home in Northolt, north-west London, last month

The spate of attacks has prompted calls for greater use of police stop and search tactics, a crackdown on social media websites that promote gang violence and a halt to cuts to neighbourhood police officers.

Senior officers have warned that youths are carrying blades for status and protection while campaigners have said youngsters are increasingly desensitised to the realities and dangers of knife crime.

Official figures published yesterday revealed courts dealt with a total of 20,498 knife possession cases in the past year - equivalent to one every 25 minutes. The tally is the highest since 2011.

Some 43 per cent of adult offenders were jailed, while 12 per cent of 10 to 17-year-olds were detained.

Meanwhile, thousands of knife offenders have avoided prison for a repeat offence despite the Government introducing a two strikes and youre out rule.

Statistics, published by the Ministry of Justice, revealed 1,595 of 4,129 adults with at least one previous knife conviction  45 per cent  were spared immediate custody, meaning they were freed to pose a risk to the public.

Adults caught with a blade for the second time are meant to be jailed for at least six months under laws rolled out in 2015.

Experts have blamed a decision made in 2015 by then Home Secretary Theresa May to curb the excessive and inappropriate use of stop and search.

Adults caught with a blade for the second time are meant to be jailed for at least six months under laws rolled out in 2015

It was thought that the searches bred resentment because of disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities. A record low 303,845 checks were made in 2016-17 compared to 904,089 stops in 2013-14.

Campaigners have also said websites such as YouTube - owned by Google - should do more to pull down videos promoting violence and knife crime.

Alex Mayes, of the charity Victim Support, said: Knife crime wrecks lives  often, the lives of young people and their families  and this rise is clearly cause for concern.

We welcome the governments measures to clamp down on knife crime and we would urge criminal justice agencies to do all that they can to tackle this and ensure the safety and wellbeing of victims.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: This is a deeply disturbing increase for a serious and dangerous crime putting young people at huge risk. Police have been warning that they are over stretched, but much more needs to be done on prevention.

Earlier this year the Government unveiled plans for a package of measures following a surge in violent offences recorded by police.

The proposals include a drive to tighten the regime covering online sales of knives following concerns that age-verification checks can be sidestepped.

Where a knife is sold on the internet, it will be an offence to deliver the item to a private residential address. The buyer would have to collect the knife in person at a location where their age can be checked.

The average custodial sentence for knife possession was 7.7 months, almost four months more than the typical term in 2008.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab said: We are catching and prosecuting more of those who carry a knife or a blade. Those convicted are more likely to go to prison, and for longer than at any point in the last 10 years.

Our message is clear: If you carry a knife, expect to end up in jail.
A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Islamic State group, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year-old Pakistani-born resident of Brentwood, was being held without bail following her Thursday arraignment on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The former lab technician worked in Manhattan and had no known criminal history, according to prosecutors who said that beginning in March she fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

According to prosecutors, Zoobia Shahnaz fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online

'She then made several wire transactions to individuals and opaque entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey, which were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements and conceal the identity, source and destination of the illicitly-obtained monies,' court documents said.

'These transactions were motivated to benefit ISIS, which the defendant ultimately sought to join in Syria,' the documents said.

During this period, prosecutors said Shahnaz accessed numerous Islamic State propaganda websites and message boards. In January 2016, she traveled to Jordan to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan

Her flight included a layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria, prosecutors said.

Her lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.

'... what she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose,' Zissou said outside the courthouse.
An Illinois couple's small dog was lucky to survive a vicious coyote attack in his own backyard, just north of Chicago early Wednesday morning.

Vicky Dinges had let her cairn terrier named Boozer outside their home in Northfield for less than a minute when the coyote attacked, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Boozer got away with a bloody eye, a deep gash in his head and other injuries, but both he and his owners were pretty shaken up over the whole ordeal.

Vicky Dinges had let her cairn terrier named Boozer outside their home in Northfield for less than a minute before it was attacked by a coyote in Northfield, Chicago on Wednesday

Boozer the terrier got away with a bloody eye, a deep gash in his head and other injuries

The terrier didn't seem to notice the coyote quickly approaching at first, as he sniffed at the snow-covered ground; The coyote also appeared startled to see the terrier

"He was shaking, I was shaking," Dinges said. "It could have been so much worse.

The Dinges family's outdoor surveillance camera captured the attack, which lasted for less than 30 seconds.

The terrier didn't seem to notice the coyote quickly approaching at first, as he sniffed at the snow-covered ground.

The coyote appeared startled to see the terrier, as it jerked away twice before going in for the attack on the house pet.

Once the coyote had its jaws sunk into the head of the terrier, it dragged him across the lawn and flipped his body from side to side.

In the span of seconds, the coyote had the terrier pinned down near a wooden fence bordering the Dinges' backyard.

Once the coyote had its jaws sunk into the head of the terrier, it dragged him across the lawn and flipped his body from side to side

That was when Vicky Dinges ran out of the house, apparently screaming, toward the two animals.

The coyote took off in the opposite direction and Boozer jumped up right away, running back to where his owner had come out of the house.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources website says that coyotes "are not likely to cause problems," despite common misconceptions to the contrary.

In the span of seconds, the coyote had the terrier pinned down near a wooden fence bordering the Dinges' backyard

While individual coyotes may sometimes kill or injure domestic pets, young livestock, or poultry, these incidents are typically preventable by removing resources that might attract coyotes.

Northfield police Chief William Lustig warns Illinois residents to never leave pet or human food in containers outside, to always store trash in tightly sealed containers, and to refrain from feeding birds, as the feed can attract other wildlife that coyotes prey upon.

"Some coyotes become accustomed to human activity and may approach close to buildings, people, or pets," the Illinois Department of Natural Resources site adds.

"Cats and small dogs should be observed closely and placed in fenced areas (yards, kennels) when coyotes are known to be present."

As Vicky Dinges ran out of the house, apparently screaming, the coyote took off in the opposite direction and Boozer jumped up right away, running back to his home

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources website says that coyotes "are not likely to cause problems," despite common misconceptions to the contrary

After watching the video, Chris Anchor, chief wildlife biologist of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, described the incident to the Chicago Tribune as a defensive attack.

"If the coyote had wanted to kill that small dog, the dog would have been dead within seconds," he said.

The coyote was likely defending its territory during its reproductive season, Anchor said.

Lustig told the Tribune that while the police department does not provide coyote trapping services, it is working closely with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to monitor the situation.

Boozer was treated and given staples for his injuries, and was back at home resting Wednesday afternoon, said Barnaby Dinges, Vickys husband.

"I think hes going to be fine," Barnaby Dinges said.

Boozer went into his crate on his own after he got home, but still appeared shaken, Barnaby Dinges said.

The brave pooch has been part of the Dinges family for 14 years.
Ex-Bishop of Chichester George Bell (above, in 1954) was smeared as a child abuser on inadequate evidence, a report has found

The Church of England smeared one of its greatest heroes as a child abuser on inadequate and unconvincing evidence, an independent report has found.

The review, led by Lord Carlile of Berriew, found an inquiry into Bishop George Bell was too quick to accept the allegations of the complainant 'without serious investigation or inquiry'.

Claims made by a woman known only as 'Carol' of abuse by Bishop Bell when she was aged between five and eight in the 1950s saw the Church issue an apology and pay 15,000 in compensation.

But the inquiry was widely criticised for failing to investigate the victim's claims or seek witnesses who had known or worked for Bishop Bell during his tenure as Bishop of Chichester between 1929 and 1958. Bishop Bell passed away a few months after his retirement that year.

The inquiry led to the cancellation of a planned statue in Canterbury Cathedral celebrating the bishop's work helping to rescue Jewish children transported out of Germany during the Second World War.

Bishop Bell's name was also removed from a room at the University of Chichester, while a building in the town was also renamed.

The review was led by Lord Carlile of Berriew, who emphasised that it was to investigate the Church's handling of the case and establish best practice for handling future complaints

Lambeth Palace commissioned a review of the original investigation following criticism from Bishop Bell's supporters that not enough was done to substantiate the complainant's allegations, and after no other alleged victims came forward despite a helpline being set up.

Lord Carlile emphasised that the review was not to establish the truth of Carol's claims, but only to investigate the Church's handling of the case and establish best practice for handling future complaints.

'I have concluded that the Church of England failed to institute or follow a procedure which respected the rights of both sides,' he wrote.

The inquiry into Bishop Bell (pictured in 1954) was said to have been too quick to accept the claims 'without serious investigation'

'The Church, understandably concerned not to repeat the mistakes of the past when it had been too slow to recognise that abuse had been perpetrated by clergy and to recognise the pain and damage caused to victims, has in effect oversteered in this case. In other words, there was a rush to judgement.'

He added the Church had 'failed to engage in a process which would also give proper consideration to the rights of the Bishop' and that 'such rights should not be treated as having been extinguished on death'.

He said that by implicitly accepting a complainant's allegations as true without fully investigating, the Church risked a flood of allegations from 'unscrupulous' complainants who viewed it as 'a source of easy money'.

Following the review's publication, Bishop Peter Hancock, the Church of England's lead safeguarding bishop, said: 'At the heart of this case was a judgment, on the balance of probabilities, as to whether, in the event that her claim for compensation reached trial, a court would have concluded that Carol was abused by Bishop Bell.

'The Church decided to compensate Carol, to apologise and to be open about the case.'

The inquiry led to the cancellation of a planned statue in Canterbury Cathedral (above) in Kent celebrating the bishop's work helping to rescue Jewish children during the Second World War

He added: 'It is clear from the report, however, that our processes were deficient in a number of respects, in particular the process for seeking to establish what may have happened. For that we apologise.

'Lessons can and have been learnt about how we could have managed the process better.'

Key recommendations and findings of review Findings Church of England 'failed to institute or follow a procedure which respected the rights of both sides'

Church 'oversteered in this case' and 'there was a rush to judgment'

By accepting a complainant's allegations as true without fully investigating, the Church risks a flood of allegations from 'unscrupulous' complainants who view it as 'a source of easy money'

Investigation should have sought out contemporary witnesses Recommendations Trained legal professional should be involved in future investigations into child sexual abuse by the clergy

Advocate should be assigned to the clergyman as well as complainant

Any settlement reached without admission of liability should include a confidentiality provision for the alleged abuser (this point is contested by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby) Advertisement

The review found the Church acted in good faith and that it was right to acknowledge cases of sexual abuse committed by the clergy.

But it added: 'That does not mean that the reputations of the dead are without value.'

It recommended that during future inquiries: 'In addition to someone advocating for the complainant, someone assigned to it to represent the interests of the accused person and his or her descendants.'

Carol, now in her 70s, alleged that Bishop Bell would take her into his study and sit her on his lap to read to her before touching her intimately and inciting her to touch his genitals.

She said he would tell her 'This is our little secret. It is God's wish', and that he was giving her 'God's love ... you are special'.

She also claimed he would say 'Suffer little children to come unto me' while abusing her.

Carol had told someone that Bishop Bell was 'interfering' with her at the time but had been accused of 'telling fibs'.

She did not make a complaint to the church until 1995, 37 years after her alleged abuser's death, but at the time was told to seek counselling.

The complainant did not pursue the allegation again until 2012 after several high-profile cases of historical sexual abuse by church figures had broken in Australia and the US, as well as the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The Church did not start investigating her claims until the following year.

The woman alleged that Bishop Bell (pictured in 1954) would take her into his study and sit her on his lap to read to her

Lord Carlile criticised the Church for failing to act promptly in 1995, but noted there had been 'significant changes in procedure' in the last two decades.

He also noted that, despite the widespread publicity around the case, no complainant other than Carol has come forward.

Lord Carlile also spoke to a woman named only as 'Pauline' who had been the adoptive daughter of the Bell family's housekeeper and had lived within the palace itself, but was never interviewed by the original investigation.

She described Bishop Bell as 'schorlarly and dignified' and that he was 'always kind to her'.

Lord Carlile wrote: 'It is at least very possible, and in my view likely, that Pauline's recollection broadly is correct. I tested her account, and found it compelling.

'This does not necessarily negate what Carol has said - and it is not my role to choose between them. Nevertheless, had the Core Group been aware of this evidence, they might well have approached their task differently.

'I consider that an inquiry into the facts by somebody with criminal investigative experience could well have found her, especially after a call for evidence.'

Lord Carlile recommended that in future all investigations into posthumous allegations of sexual abuse by the clergy should include someone with legal experience.

The complainant had told someone that Bishop Bell (pictured in 1943) was 'interfering' with her at the time but had been accused of 'telling fibs'

He wrote: '(This experience) must include practical and up-to-date knowledge of criminal law and procedure as it pertains to the investigation and determination of allegations of sexual assault.

'Whilst the standard of proof for civil claims is the balance of probabilities, where the allegations are of serious criminal offences a full understanding and estimation of the criminal process is an essential piece of information for a case.'

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said the Bishop was 'one of the great Anglican heroes of the 20th century'

He also recommended that when a case is settled without an admission of liability, 'the settlement generally should be with a confidentiality provision'.

But Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he disagreed with the recommendation of confidentiality.

He said in a statement: 'Bishop George Bell is one of the great Anglican heroes of the 20th century. The decision to publish his name was taken with immense reluctance, and all involved recognised the deep tragedy involved.

'However we have to differ from Lord Carlile's point that 'whereas in this case the settlement is without admission of liability, the settlement generally should be with a confidentiality provision'.

'The C of E is committed to transparency and therefore we would take a different approach.'

He continued: 'The complaint about Bishop Bell does not diminish the importance of his great achievement. We realise that a significant cloud is left over his name.

'Let us therefore remember his defence of Jewish victims of persecution, his moral stand against indiscriminate bombing, his personal risks in the cause of supporting the anti-Hitler resistance, and his long service in the Diocese of Chichester.

'No human being is entirely good or bad. Bishop Bell was in many ways a hero. He is also accused of great wickedness.

'Good acts do not diminish evil ones, nor do evil ones make it right to forget the good. Whatever is thought about the accusations, the whole person and whole life should be kept in mind.'
US attorneys in Utah prosecuting a multimillion-dollar opioid drug-ring are moving quickly to sell seized bitcoin that's exploded in value to about $8.5 million since the alleged ringleader's arrest one year ago.

The bitcoin cache was worth less than $500,000 when Aaron Shamo, 27, was arrested in Nov. 2016 on drug charges, but the value of the digital currency has since skyrocketed.

The US Attorney's Office for Utah cites the digital currency's volatility in court documents pressing for the sale.

This undated photo provided by the Weber County Sheriff's Office shows Aaron Shamo, 27, who was arrested at his home in Cottonwood Heights, Utah and had what has now become nearly $8.5 million in bitcoin seized from his alleged opioid operations

Bitcoin was created in 2009 as a digital, anonymous alternative to traditional currency, and has always been prone to swings in value, but the market for the crypto-currency hasn't seen anything quite like this explosion before.

Many attribute Bitcoin's record rise in value to a user debate over how to scale to the masses, that led to a split (or "fork") and the creation of a new version of the digital money, called Bitcoin Cash, in August.

Coin Desk describes Bitcoin as:

[] a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. No one controls it. Bitcoins arent printed, like dollars or euros  theyre produced by people, and increasingly businesses, running computers all around the world, using software that solves mathematical problems.

As of 9.35 pm Eastern on Thursday, one bitcoin was worth a record high of just over $17,300 USD, according to Coin Desk.

For federal prosecutors in Utah, sales of seized assets like cars are routine, but Bitcoin is new territory, spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said Thursday.

The proceeds of the sale of the bitcoin seized in connection with Shamo's alleged drug ring will be held until the case is resolved, and then decisions will be made about where the money goes, Rydalch said.

Seized asset sale proceeds usually goes to the agency that investigated, like the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Defense attorney Greg Skordas is not contesting the sale of his client's bitcoin.

While late adopters aren't necessarily sure about the classification of Bitcoin - debate rages over whether the virtual money is an asset or a currency - that hasn't stopped officials in the US and elsewhere from cashing in on the digital hauls seized from cybercriminals.

Bitcoin was created in 2009 as a digital, anonymous alternative to traditional currency, and has always been prone to swings in value, but the markethasn't seen anything like this before

In 2014 the US Marshals Service announced the auction of nearly 30,000 bitcoins seized from notorious dark web drug marketplace Silk Road. Other seizures have since netted the American government millions of dollars in a series of sales.

Other governments - from Australia to South Korea - have set up similar auctions over the years.

Shamo is accused of selling pills containing the powerful opioid fentanyl on the dark web - an area of the internet often used for illegal activity - to thousands of people all over the US, at one point raking in $2.8 million in less than a year. It's also alleged he passed the pills off as oxycodone, according to the Deseret News.

The 500,000-pill bust ranked among the largest of its kind in the country, and authorities also found $1 million in cash stuffed into trash bags.

Shamo has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges, including possession of fentanyl with intent to distribute, aiding and abetting the importation of a controlled substance, money laundering, and use of the U.S. mail in a drug trafficking offense
Dementia patients and their families are being failed by a futile target system in hospitals, the countrys top experts have warned.

Up to 40 per cent of patients who have symptoms of dementia are being missed by doctors and nurses during routine assessments.

Research by Cambridge University and the University of East Anglia also found that many patients who are flagged up as potentially having dementia are never sent on for further tests.

The findings were presented at a key dementia summit in Central London this week aimed at improving the countrys poor diagnosis rates.

Up to 40 per cent of patients who have symptoms of dementia are being missed by doctors and nurses during routine assessments

Up to a million adults in the UK are thought to have dementia but as many as one third have never been given a formal diagnosis.

Without this diagnosis, they are being denied treatment to halt the progression of the illness and alleviate symptoms as well as vital care and support.

To try to improve detection rates, the Government introduced a target system for hospitals in 2013 which stated offer memory tests to patients over 75.

The rules  which are still in place today  state that doctors and nurses must ask patients over 75 who have been in hospital for three days whether they have felt forgetful.

If they reply yes, patients must undergo a memory test which asks them who the Prime Minister is, todays date, and whether they can draw the time on a clock face.

Patients who perform badly in this test are flagged up as potentially having dementia and staff are meant to inform their GP, so they can be referred for further tests.

But Dr Chris Fox, from the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of East Anglia, said it was all a pointless exercise.

To try to improve detection rates, the Government introduced a target system for hospitals in 2013 which stated offer memory tests to patients over 75

His research followed 154 patients over 75 at who had undergone these memory assessments at 11 NHS hospitals.

This found that 61 patients were not flagged up by hospital staff as potentially having dementia - even though they scored very badly when researchers did their own tests.

Dr Fox said the assessments were flawed and not able to accurately predict dementia.

He also pointed out that many of the doctors and nurses asking the questions had not been trained and that different tests were used by different hospitals.

There are problems with these tests.

Its not actually an accurate, psychometric, valid system to assess patients.

The requirement is a pointless exercise.

It wasnt ever properly validated, staff werent properly trained, the next steps werent thought through. Every hospital has a different test.

Theres futility, a lack of proper assessment, its not properly designed in a scientific way, its not tested to check it doesnt harm patients.

Staff just want to tick the box to say Ive done that and I dont need to do it again.

One wonders what happened to those people,

A second study by the University of Cambridge found that only a quarter of patients identified by staff has possibly having dementia were referred for further assessments by their GP.

Of the 28 patients identified as potentially having dementia in hospitals in Cambridge and Stevenage, only seven were sent to a memory clinic were the illness can be formally diagnosed.

Dr Jane Fleming, the lead author, the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at Cambridge University said: We were hearing quite consistently from patients and their relatives that there had been very little follow-up by GPs and very few new investigations or services as a result.

The findings were presented at the Dementia Diagnosis in Primary and Secondary Care summit held at the Royal College of GPs headquarters on Tuesday and attended by over 100 academics and doctors.

Dr George Savva, from the school of health sciences at the University of East Anglia said it was hugely important to improve dementia diagnosis rates.

There is an issue of unmet care needs where people are going through a huge burden  patients, carers and families  who could benefit. Early inventions can help people and improve quality of life if they are made available at the point people need them.
Thunderstorms will bring some relief to Sydneysiders this weekend as a second scorching heatwave hits Australia's south-east.

Storms predicted for Friday and Saturday afternoon are expected to temporarily break the intense humidity that rose above 80 per cent ahead of the weekend.

But the stifling weather will take a turn for the worse on Saturday morning as a sweltering air mass makes its way from Western Australia to NSW and Victoria, causing temperatures to climb once again.

Scroll down for video

Thunderstorms will bring some relief to Sydneysiders this weekend as a second scorching heatwave hits Australia's south-east

Storms predicted for Friday and Saturday afternoon are expected to temporarily break the intense humidity that rose above 80 per cent ahead of the weekend

But the stifling weather will take a turn for the worse on Saturday morning as a sweltering air mass makes its way from Western Australia to NSW and Victoria, causing temperatures to climb once again

'Saturday morning will definitely feel muggier than today as the temperature is expected to reach 35 degrees in the west,' Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Rob Taggart told The Daily Telegraph.

'Luckily though, hotter air is helpful for thunderstorms so we are very likely to see storms pushing east from the Blue Mountains in the afternoon which will bring some relief.'

'The western suburbs are likely to see more of the Saturday thunderstorms as they are coming in from the outer west, but the CBD and eastern suburbs should still see some relief,' he said.

Temperatures in Sydney's city will reach 26C on Friday before soaring to 29C on Saturday.

In the city's west, temperatures are expected to reach at least 36C.

Temperatures will cool down on Sunday and Monday before increasing to 33C and 35C on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

Temperatures in Sydney's city will reach 26C on Friday before soaring to 29C on Saturday

In the city's west, temperatures are expected to reach at least 36C (pictures is the Bondi Icebergs)

Temperatures will cool down on Sunday and Monday before increasing to 33C and 35C on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively

An initial heatwave sent temperatures soaring above 40C in Sydney on Thursday, triggering bushfire alerts

Central Australia will reach between 44C and 46C and temperatures in northern South Australia are anticipated to hit 47.

An initial heatwave sent temperatures soaring above 40C in Sydney on Thursday, triggering bushfire alerts.

Parts of western Sydney hit a high of 43C, while the eastern suburbs were spared courtesy of a sea breeze.

There was a severe fire danger rating in place for the greater Sydney region.

'The northern inland parts of the state will remain very hot over the coming seven days with temperatures in the high 30s or even the 40s most of the time,' Mr Tagger said.

'The north-west and the central-west [will be] particularly affected with temperatures increasing up into the mid-40s next week and Tuesday in particular looks to be the hottest for western districts.'

On Thursday, Sydney's city reached 35C, with the warmer than normal temperatures due to hot air sitting over inland New South Wales

Parts of western Sydney hit a high of 43C on Thursday, while the eastern suburbs will be mainly spared courtesy of a sea breeze (pictured is a beachgoer at Bondi)

Beachgoers at Bondi made the most of the sweltering summer weather on Thursday afternoon

As the weather warmed up people took to Bondi to show off their swimsuits and tattoos

Temperatures in Sydney skyrocketed this week, sending people rushing to Bondi Beach

Temperatures in Melbourne will increase from 26C on Saturday to 36C.

Brisbane will sit around the low-30s throughout the weekend and beginning of the week.

The ACT will reach 28 on Friday before soaring to 34C on Monday and 36C on Tuesday.

Temperatures in Adelaide will sizzle at 38C on Sunday and 40C on Monday before falling drastically to 27C the following day.

Tasmania will remain in the low to mid-20s.

The Northern Territory has a predicted temperature of 34C all week.

Say Bondi! Sydney's most famous beach was packed on Thursday with people escaping the heat

While temperatures in Sydney's west cracked 40, those on the beaches enjoyed the sun

Parts of western Sydney are forecast to hit a high of 43C on Thursday

The heat brought beachgoers to Bondi where they took advantage of the sunny weather

The high temperatures are causing dry conditions in Western Australia, NSW and Queensland

Heatwaves can increase the risk of dangerous bushfires particularly if they are combined with dry air, strong winds or thunderstorms.

Heatwaves are the most deadly natural hazard in Australia, and have caused more deaths than tropical cyclones, bushfires or floods.

Severe heatwaves are likely to cause discomfort and stress in vulnerable people such as the elderly and those with medical conditions.

People are advised to drink plenty of water, stay cool, avoid unnecessary exercise and time in the sun and to have a plan of action in case they feel unwell.
Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at Christ Church college

Oxford students have branded an eminent professor bigoted after he suggested feelings of guilt around British colonialism may have gone too far.

Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at Christ Church college, said society should take a more balanced view of the Empire rather than simply remembering it with shame.

He acknowledged atrocities had occurred under colonial rule, but said it had also provided law and order in other countries that many citizens had valued.

The comments were made in an opinion piece for a newspaper, titled Dont feel guilty about our colonial history.

Yesterday, student campaigners at Oxford called the article racist and claimed it whitewashed the British Empire.

Common Ground, a student-run race rights group, wrote an open letter condemning the article and claiming it seeks to justify colonialism. It also said Professor Biggar should not be allowed to run his new academic project, called Ethics and Empire, which the students said filled them with horror.

However, Oxford University last night stood by the professor, saying he was entirely suitable and an internationally-recognised authority on the ethics of empire. It said it supported academic freedom of speech, which must not be allowed to be curtailed in the face of protesters.

Professor Biggar has been at Oxford for a decade and is also a canon of Christ Church Cathedral. He is the director of Oxfords McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life.

His article, in The Times newspaper, said apologising for empire is now compulsory but shame can stop us tackling the worlds problems.

Yesterday, student campaigners at Oxford called the article racist and claimed it whitewashed the British Empire. Above, Christ Church, Oxford

It pointed out that Britons may become too afraid to intervene in human rights abuses abroad if they saw all past foreign policy as inherently bad.

He said: If on the other hand we recognise that the history of the British Empire was morally mixed, just like that of any nation state, then pride can temper shame.

Pride at the Royal Navys century-long suppression of the Atlantic slave trade, for example, will not be entirely obscured by shame at the slaughter of innocents at Amritsar in 1919.

And while we might well be moved to think with care about how to intervene abroad successfully, we wont simply abandon the world to its own devices.

The students said: The inaccuracy displayed by Biggar, as well as a conspicuous lack of rigour, must not go unchallenged. He implies colonised societies had no political order prior to colonisation, invoking a racist, hackneyed, and fictional trope about the nature of pre-colonial societies  [he] seeks to justify a post-colonial agenda of interference that destabilises developing nations.

They said of Ethics and Empire: We believe Nigel Biggar has shown himself to be an inauspicious and inappropriate leader for this project Is this what is needed at the University of Oxford  a project led by someone pushing to moderate our post-imperial guilt?

They called on the university to answer what input students of colour had in the project and who was funding it.

The proud announcement of this project, following on the heels of Biggars bigoted article, reflects a university that has shown itself to be singularly incapable of reckoning with its colonial past  and singularly incapable of taking responsibility for how that past continues to shape its present and its future, they said.

If the University of Oxford, our university, wanted to reckon properly with that past  and its impact on the present and future  it would not stand idly by in the face of Biggars commendation of imperialists and apologies for colonialism.

An Oxford spokesman said: We absolutely support academic freedom of speech. The history of empire is a complex topic and it is important that universities consider our global history from a variety of perspectives.

This is a valid, evidence-led academic project and Professor Biggar, who is an internationally-recognised authority on the ethics of empire, is an entirely suitable person to lead it.

It comes following the failure of a campaign at Oxford to tear down a statue of Cecil Rhodes because of his life as an imperialist. Students at other universities have tried to no-platform academics on their campuses because they disliked their views.
A plot by diehard Tory Remainers to water down Brexit backfired yesterday as the European Union warned Britain would have a harder exit if MPs vote down a deal.

Eleven rebels backed an amendment on Wednesday that gives Parliament the power to send the Prime Minister back to the negotiating table if the Commons rejects the final agreement.

Some MPs believe this would give them the chance to order the Government to return to Brussels to seek a softer Brexit, with  for example  continued membership of the single market and customs union. But at a summit yesterday, EU leaders said there would be no prospect of reopening talks if that happens, meaning the country would simply leave the bloc without a deal.

Theresa May shrugged off the rebels victory yesterday, saying she was still on course to deliver Brexit as she arrived for the European Council meeting in Brussels. She said: I am disappointed with the amendment but actually the EU Withdrawal Bill is making good progress through the House of Commons.

Theresa May shrugged off the rebels victory yesterday, saying she was still on course to deliver Brexit as she arrived for the European Council meeting in Brussels

Just look at the passage of the EU Withdrawal Bill so far  weve actually had 36 votes on the bill and we have won 35 of those with an average majority of 22. So the bill is making good progress, were on course to deliver on Brexit, were on course to deliver on the vote of the British people.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Brexit was unstoppable.

He added: Its going to go on and we will get it done in a very successful and a very timely way. In my view it [the Commons vote on the rebel amendment] wont for one second stop the Brexit process.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Brexit was unstoppable

'Of course its right that Parliament should have a vote on the final deal.

'That was always going to be the case. I dont think last nights vote really changes those facts.

I cant believe for the life of me that Parliament will actually vote to stop or reverse the Brexit process or frustrate the will of the British people.

'Thats just not going to happen.

EU leaders lined up to praise Mrs May, as they rejected the significance of the rebel amendment and prepared to give the green light to moving on to trade talks at a meeting this morning.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte: She has a formidable stature here and last week Friday showed all of us that we should not underestimate Theresa May, shes a formidable politician.

Asked if she can deliver on her promises, he replied: Yes, I do think so because I believe in UK society.

Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said it would not be possible for the PM to negotiate another Brexit deal should it be rejected by Parliament.

He said: To think that Theresa May will negotiate something, we will negotiate something and then again Theresa May will go back to Westminster is not good for the position of the negotiations.

This [negotiation] should be based on trust. I think Westminster should trust that Theresa May will do the best for the UK.

'Westminster shouldnt, even before we start negotiations, to have in their heads that they dont trust the Prime Minister.

'Im sure shes going to do a good job.

European Council President Donald Tusk arrives for an EU summit at the Europa building in Brussels

Over dinner last night, Mrs May told EU leaders she was personally committed to ensuring the UK continues as a close friend and ally after our withdrawal. She said: I make no secret of wanting to move on to the next phase of negotiations and to approaching it with ambition and creativity.

I believe this is in the best interests of the UK and the European Union. A particular priority should be agreement on the implementation period so that we can bring greater certainty to businesses in the UK and across the 27.

Mrs Mays address was greeted with applause by her fellow EU leaders.

EU leaders are expected to agree this morning that trade talks should begin in March, but Mrs May argued they should start as soon as possible.

She added: While many will say that the last few months show how difficult these future negotiations will be, the UK and the EU have demonstrated what can be achieved with commitment and perseverance on both sides.

Mrs May also announced the UK would remain in the EU university student exchange programme, Erasmus, until at least the end of 2020.

European Council president Donald Tusk yesterday warned EU countries that they would face unprecedented pressure in the next round of talks and that splits could emerge.

He described Brexit as one of the blocs most difficult challenges as he said the first phase of Brexit talks would formally end tomorrow.

The real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks, he added.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission (left), Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council (centre) and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel during family photo of EU head of states summit on defense, migration and Brexit in Brussels, Belgium

A senior EU source added: We need unity. It [the next phase] will be tedious and difficult. If not, this is going to end up in a mess.

'And neither the EU or UK will be able to benefit.

Meanwhile, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar took aim at Leave voters as he claimed he was trying to fix the problem they created.

He said: I would hope that some of the people who supported Brexit and campaigned for that would realise  or at least acknowledge  that theyre the ones who created this problem.

'Im one of the people who is trying to resolve it.
Welcome Dr. Nolawit Tesfaye Billings Clinic welcomes Dr. Nolawit Tesfaye. She enjoys caring for patients with a broad variety of endocrine conditions, with a special interest in diabetes, osteoporosis and calcium disorders. Dr. Tesfaye will be working with the team of physicians and staff in the Diabetes and Endocrinology building on North 30th Street. She enjoys spending time with her husband, a Montanan, along with their three young sons; she also enjoys traveling, writing, and cooking. Medical School: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota Internship: Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Fellowship: Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota For more information visit billingsclinic.com/doctors or call the registered nurses at HealthLine at (406) 255-8400 or 1-800-252-1246
Britain's world-leading finance industries bring in a 57 billion trade surplus and far outrank any other European nation, a new report shows.

The study from TheCityUK lobby group reveals this is bigger than the combined surpluses of our closest rivals, the US and Switzerland.

It shows Britain has 6 trillion of banking assets  the highest figure in Europe  is the top foreign exchange centre on the planet, and has the biggest insurance industry.

The figures come amid growing evidence that Britain will not lose tens of thousands of banking jobs due to Brexit, despite what was claimed during the Project Fear campaign before the referendum.

Britain's world-leading finance industries bring in a 57 billion trade surplus and far outrank any other European nation, a new report shows

Individual banks also campaigned hard to stay in the European Union, with Jamie Dimon (left), boss of Wall Street titan J P Morgan saying 4,000 of his 16,000 UK workers faced the sack

Anjalika Bardalai, chief economist at TheCityUK, said: The UKs place in the global financial system is unparalleled.

Londons only real rival as a full-spectrum, truly global centre is New York.

The study also shows that Britains investment companies are looking after a record 8.2 trillion of savers cash and that its internationally renowned bullion markets trade 19.5 million ounces of gold a day worth 18.1 billion. British law is the basis of contracts on every continent and the countrys legal professions are the second-largest with revenues of up to 476 billion.

A separate report by law firm Baker McKenzie found that the value of foreign firms floated on the London Stock Exchange surged to a five-year high of 6 billion in 2017. And analysis by the Financial Times newspaper shows that banks have drastically scaled back their threats to shift jobs out of London after Brexit.

Goldman Sachs, whose foundation's president Dina Powell is pictured here, which has 6,000 people in the City, has never made a public announcement of numbers but estimates suggest it will shift 500 abroad

Before the referendum campaign, City lobbyists claimed that 75,000 staff could be relocated or sacked if Leave won.

Individual banks also campaigned hard to stay in the European Union, with Jamie Dimon, boss of Wall Street titan J P Morgan saying 4,000 of his 16,000 UK workers faced the sack.

But the latest estimates suggest that fewer than 4,600 jobs will move abroad across the whole industry.

It is a blow for Londons rivals such as Paris and Frankfurt, which have been desperately trying to steal lucrative business from the City. Eurosceptic Tory MP John Redwood said: This is great news but not unexpected.

We were told we would lose thousands of jobs if we didnt join the euro too, and the opposite happened. Its just another example of the Project Fear campaign getting it wrong. Earlier this year, Deutsche Bank executive Sylvie Matherat said 4,000 of its 9,000 London workers might be shifted abroad.

But the new study suggests only 350 will go by April 2019. At J P Morgan, the true figure is expected to be around 700 rather than 4,000.

Goldman Sachs, which has 6,000 people in the City, has never made a public announcement of numbers but estimates suggest it will shift 500 abroad.

The Financial Times  long bitterly opposed to Brexit because it could make life more difficult for big business to rake in profits  has become more moderate in the past few days.

Earlier this week a columnist praised the calm and friendly tone of talks and said the UK and EU seem to share an aspiration to re-establish an amicable, working relationship.

And yesterday, the newspaper warned that the far-Right was gaining strength on the Continent due to increasing anger over immigration and Brussels rules.

Nativist ideas are continuing to infiltrate mainstream politics throughout Europe, it said.
Jeremy Corbyn was heckled and called a liar as he tried to persuade Jewish activists his party had zero tolerance of anti-Semitism.

The Labour leader was accused of hating Jewish people as he delivered a speech to the Jewish Labour Movements Chanukah party.

He turned up at the event after claims he was not doing enough to clamp down on anti-Semitism in Labour. The issue dominated this years party conference, with one fringe event hearing calls for the JLM to be expelled from Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn was heckled and called a liar as he tried to persuade Jewish activists his party had zero tolerance of anti-Semitism. The Labour leader was accused of hating Jewish people as he delivered a speech to the Jewish Labour Movements Chanukah party

At the party, Mr Corbyn told JLM members: Im here because I want the party to be strong in all areas, I want the Jewish Labour Movement to be absolutely part of and involved with the party at all levels.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, a female heckler responded with the words: But you hate us. Later she shouted, Corbyn, youre a liar, before she was removed.

Earlier this week it emerged that Mr Corbyn and other Labour MPs helped launch an organisation headed by an activist who has said that Israel has no right to exist.

Ali Milani, who has also branded Jewish people stingy, hosted the party leader, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and MP Dawn Butler in Parliament on Monday night for the launch of the Labour Muslim Network.

Mr Milani has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and colonialism and war-mongering. Speaking at Wednesday nights party, which was held at Labours headquarters in central London, Mr Corbyn said: The issues of racism in our society are serious.

The issues of anti-Semitism are very, very serious indeed.

Thats why I asked Shami Chakrabarti to undertake an investigation and a report.

He turned up at the event after claims he was not doing enough to clamp down on anti-Semitism in Labour. The issue dominated this years party conference, with one fringe event hearing calls for the JLM to be expelled from Labour

Its why we have achieved by very broad consensus a rule change in the party which has gone through, and why we have an investigative process for any claims of anti-Semitism against anyone in the party. There is zero tolerance of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and that is how it must remain.

A male heckler then said: What about Ken? He was referring to Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor who was suspended from Labour after saying Hitler had supported Zionism. A year on, he has still not been expelled.

Mr Corbyn also said: We have to call out people who use racist language or anti-Semitic language or any other kind of intolerance within our party.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, a female heckler responded with the words: But you hate us. Later she shouted, Corbyn, youre a liar, before she was removed

Because fascism arose in Europe we had the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy in history against any one people.

The lesson from that has to be you dont compromise with fascism, you dont compromise with racism, you dont compromise with the far-Right.

Jeremy Newmark, chairman of the JLM, said the organisation had been pilloried and attacked as traitors both from Labour members and people from the Jewish community because the relationship between our community and party is broken.
Theresa May is likely to be forced to drop a bid to enshrine the Brexit date in law after Tory rebels warned of a second defeat in a week

Theresa May is likely to be forced to drop a bid to enshrine the Brexit date in law after Tory rebels warned of a second defeat in a week.

Despite grassroots anger over their conduct, the emboldened rebels told the Prime Minister to back down or face another damaging Parliamentary showdown.

Downing Street had been reluctant to concede over fixing the date as March 29, 2019.

Mrs May had said she would not tolerate dissent on the issue.

But senior Tories admitted she was likely to be forced to withdraw the amendment, due to be voted on next week, particularly if Chief Whip Julian Smith tells her she faces certain defeat.

Last night, the 11 MPs faced deselection calls over the decision to join with Labour to force through demands for Parliament to have a veto over the EU deal.

David Hayes, Tory councillor in the Loughborough constituency of former education secretary Nicky Morgan, accused her of trying to reverse Brexit, adding: We need to get on with Brexit and stop all this. This weakens Britains position in the negotiating stakes. This is not really about having a parliamentary vote in 2019  they are trying to reverse Brexit.

Richard Haddock, Tory councillor in Sarah Wollastons Totnes constituency, said: Im concerned about the 11 MPs playing games. Who elected Sarah Wollaston? Forty-four per cent of her electorate comes from Brixham and that was one of the highest counts for Leave  88 per cent voted out 

These MPs are stirring things up  They are all helping Labour greatly  I dont think Sarah Wollaston is listening to anybody.

Tory MEP David Campbell-Bannerman branded the rebels a disgrace and claimed several local Tory associations had started to discuss deselection.

He said: They are showing a shabby disrespect for democracy and the largest vote we have had in British history  They stood on a manifesto to have a smooth Brexit so theres no principle  It is purely about trying to frustrate Brexit, which is shameful.

Senior Tories admitted she was likely to be forced to withdraw the amendment, due to be voted on next week, particularly if Chief Whip Julian Smith (pictured) tells her she faces certain defeat

The rebels were Mrs Morgan, Dr Wollaston, ex-ministers Dominic Grieve, Kenneth Clarke, Anna Soubry, Stephen Hammond, Bob Neill, Jonathan Djanogly and Sir Oliver Heald, and backbenchers Heidi Allen and Antoinette Sandbach.

Mr Grieve, former attorney general, said he had received death threats after rebelling. .

Miss Sandbach was confronted by an LBC Radio listener accusing her of betraying democracy. The caller, giving his name as Richard, said: We wanted a clean break from Europe, not this messy situation.

The MP, whose Eddisbury constituents voted 52 per cent Leave, said she had been clear with them that she would demand a meaningful vote on the deal as her price for backing Brexit. She said she was concerned with bringing powers back to Parliament rather than the hands of the Government.

Mr Clarke insisted the vote was nothing to do with stopping Brexit. But ex-minister Andrew Murrison said it was everything to do with frustrating the referendum.

Some Tories blamed Government whips, saying they offered concessions to the rebels too late. But a spokesman for Mrs May insisted she retained full confidence in her chief whip.

THE Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday called for a truce in the political war over Brexit to match one that happened during the First World War.

We find Christmas 1914 there was a ceasefire, the Most Rev Justin Welby told the BBCs Today. It would be very good to have a ceasefire from insult.

But the Rev Jules Gomes, of Douglas, Isle of Man, said the remarks were hypocrisy in the highest because his own church regularly trades vitriolic insults in the General Synod.
A man branded 'disgusting' after telling a dance teacher to lose weight before he would date her is now claiming his account was hacked by his friends.

Michael Blanchard messaged Samantha, 23, on dating app Bumble telling her he was a 10 out of 10 but described her as a 'five or six'.

The graduate from the British School of Osteopathy in London then sent her a photograph of another woman and said she should aspire to look like her.

His behaviour left the London teacher upset but prompted outrage with hundreds describing him as 'vile' and 'disgusting'.

Tonight Mr Blanchard said the messages were 'funny' and at worst 'insulting' and he blamed his friends for sending the messages while allegedly 'highly intoxicated'.

Pictured: Michael Blanchard branded himself a '10 out of 10' while calling Samantha, 23, a 'five or a six'

Mr Blanchard has insisted he did not send the messages but claimed it was a friend

But Mr Blanchard's story hasn't washed with everyone, with some on social media now branding him a 'liar'.

One Facebook user wrote: 'Anybody else think this is just blame transferring??'

With another posting: 'What a liar. If this is true then get new friends.'

Speaking to The Tab, Mr Blanchard said: 'They were mostly funny and harmless but in this case it was extremely rude, belittling and insulting.

'I had no control over those messages that were sent through my account and had I seen what was written, would absolutely have stopped them from being sent.

'That being said, it was an irresponsible position to put myself into and what we were doing was completely stupid and has resulted in a really sweet girl being disrespected by dumb actions.'

Dance teacher Samantha Drain was devastated when she received the upsetting message from the man named Michael

Michael told the 23-year-old he thought she was a 'five or six out of 10' while he was a 'ten out of ten'

His behaviour left the London teacher upset and prompted outrage with hundreds describing him as 'vile' and 'disgusting'

During the exchange Mr Blanchard said Miss Drain seemed the 'desperate waiting type' and he would only consider having sex with her if she improved her physique.

Miss Drain, who is newly single, said the exchange had knocked her already fragile confidence.

She had received the message at a Christmas party which 'ruined' her night.

Mr Blanchard posted a picture of another woman and wrote: 'Hey Sam, I can call you Sam right???

'So you see the girl in the pic? That's what you could look like if you put a tiny bit of effort out in the gym, thank me later.

'So when you look even the tiniest bit like her I'll consider meeting up with you but at the moment it's no way hosay, anyways sorry, YES of course I can make it [sic].'

Mr Blanchard said Miss Drain seemed the 'desperate waiting type' during the exchange

Miss Drain responded in shock: 'I'm sorry but how f*****g dare you.'

But Mr Blanchard then followed her reply with several spelling and grammatical errors, saying: 'How f*****g dare I?

'Well SAM! I'll tell you how... So I'm not gunna lie I'm a 10/10 and your clearly a 5 at a push 6 so with my advice I could push you to a 7 which would make me want to smash your back doors in. But at the moment it's a no, sorry babe but mike pumper has to move on!

'When your looking tip top I'll let you know, you look like the desperate waiting type so I'll hold you to that, Thanks, Love Mike [sic].'

The inappropriate messages knocked Miss Drain's confidence and she admits she doesn't know if she will continue to use the app

Miss Drain, who posted the screenshots on social media, said: 'I have only recently become single and I am not the most confident person. It takes a lot for me to get the courage to just say hello to someone.

'It is just really upsetting for anyone to be spoken to like that.

'I let him add me on Facebook and he started following me on Instagram, which is how he saw all my photos. We did have conversations about meeting up but I still didn't know him well enough. We all have our own insecurities and he was just throwing them in face.'

Miss Drain reported Mr Blanchard to Bumble and has blocked him on all social media.
A woman may have lived with her husband's decomposing corpse in the hallway of their home for as long as eight weeks.

The 58-year-old woman from Greenfields in Western Australia is believed to have mental health problems, and had not accepted her partner's death.

Police found the body of the 56-year-old man on Wednesday, and he is understood to have had serious health issues.

Scroll down for video

A woman may have lived with her husband's decomposing corpse in the hallway of their home for as long as eight weeks (pictured is the home where the body was found)

The woman was taken to the Peel Health Campus and found to be in poor condition, WA Today reported.

Police believe neighbours were contacted once the wife had accepted the reality of her husband's death.

A worried neighbour then called officers to the home on Murdoch Drive in Mandurah, according to The West Australian.

It is unknown how the man died but detectives declared the property a crime scene and were spotted removing evidence from the home.

The 58-year-old woman from Greenfields in Western Australia is believed to have mental health problems, and had not accepted her partner's death (pictured are police at the scene)

Police protection was then removed from the house and put a bio-hazard warning in place.

Recent hot weather has made it difficult for a forensic pathologist who examined the man's body to pin-point how long he had been deceased.

His death is not being considered as suspicious, but the woman has been questioned about why she did not call the authorities earlier.

An autopsy will be performed.
A man has firebombed the front of the Port Lincoln police station in a frightening attack caught on video.

The entrance of the Liverpool Street station was engulfed in flames shortly before 9pm on Thursday.

Police arrested a 19-year-old man who was seen walking away from the fire, through clouds of thick smoke.

Scroll down for video

A man has firebombed the front of the Port Lincoln police station in a frightening attack caught on video

South Australia Police said the man allegedly poured petrol on the footpath near the front doors of the station before setting fire to the petrol.

Port Lincoln man Jason Toshach recorded the frightening incident on his mobile phone.

Mr Toshach said he started recording when the man started behaving erratically.

'I was on my phone and wondered what the guy was doing,' he told Adelaide Now.

'He danced around making a scene as he poured the, what I assume was petrol.

'He lit it, gave a finger to the camera and walked off. he only walked a few feet then stood with his hands behind his back. Then they took him away.'

The entrance of the Liverpool Street station was engulfed in flames (left and right) shortly before 9pm on Thursday

Fire crews extinguished the blaze before it spread to the police station building.

The 19-year-old man was detained and arrested at the scene.

He was charged with property damage.

The teenager was refused bail to appear in the Port Lincoln Magistrates Court on Friday.

No one was injured in the attack.

Police arrested a 19-year-old man moments after the entrance was engulfed in flames
A bride's dream wedding day turned into a nightmare after she accidentally poisoned herself with her bouquet.

Christine Jo Miller thought it would be romantic to pick her own wild flowers the night before her special day.

The 23-year-old spotted some pretty, delicate white flowers growing on her family's 29-acre property outside of Lincoln, Nebraska.

But unbeknownst to Miller, her beautiful bouquet was actually full of snow-on-the-mountains - which can cause a very serious allergic reaction similar to poison ivy.

Christine Jo Miller's wedding day turned into a nightmare after she accidentally poisoned herself with her bouquet

The 23-year-old spotted some pretty, delicate white flowers growing on her family's 29-acre property outside of Lincoln, Nebraska.

She returned home that evening and went to bed, ready for her big day.

But when Miller woke in the morning, and washed her face with her hands still covered sap from the snow-on-the-mountains, her face broke out in an angry rash while her eyes were so swollen she could barely see.

'I was the scariest-looking person at my wedding,' she told Inside Edition.

Miller attempted to go to her local hospital but found the emergency room was closed.

Miller posted a picture of herself in hospital in her wedding dress on September 2 after accidentally poisoning herself with her bouquet

Desperate not to miss her own wedding day, she had decided to brave the pain and the rash, and walk down the aisle with husband-to-be Jon, 24 (pictured with her on their wedding day)

So, desperate not to miss her own wedding day, she decided to brave the pain and the rash, and walk down the aisle with husband-to-be Jon, 24.

'She was struggling to keep her eyes open, they were constantly watering and she just looked miserable,' he said.

After struggling through the ceremony - with Miller barely able to read her own vows, the newlyweds were forced to miss their own reception to rush the bride to hospital.

'I thought I was dying at that point,' she recalled.

And after a rather bumpy start to marriage, Miller said the events of their wedding day, in September, only brought them closer together

The couple have been dating for around five years before they got married in September

Doctors gave Miller a steroid injection to bring down the allergic reaction.

And while she was still in pain, and covered in a rash, Miller decided she couldn't miss her own reception.

'I had a rash still on my neck so I wanted to get my dress off because I wanted to be comfortable and so he ran into target and got me a shirt that said 'Bride' on it and pajama pants and that's what I wore into our reception,' she said.

Miller said she spent most of the evening lying under a table where she could ice her face and cry.

Thankfully, a week later, the swelling had disappeared and their wedding photographer arranged a surprise mini reception to finally take some wedding photos.

And after a rather bumpy start to marriage, Miller said the events of their wedding day, in September, only brought them closer together.
The celibacy of Catholic priests is partially to blame for the sexual abuse of thousands of children in Australia, a five-year inquiry has found.

Australian institutions 'seriously failed' children in their care, according to the inquiry, which was ordered after a decade of pressure to investigate widespread allegations across the country.

It also recommended that celibacy among Catholic priests should be voluntary to help curb abuse.

The government ordered the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2012.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan and the Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove at the signing ceremony and the release of the Final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at Government House in Canberra

The commission was contacted by more than 15,000 survivors who detailed claims of child abuse involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools, often dating back decades.

It heard horrific stories during often confronting and emotionally exhausting public and private hearings.

In total, more than 4,000 institutions were accused of abuse, with many of them Catholic-managed facilities.

'Tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused in many Australian institutions. We will never know the true number,' the final report said.

'Whatever the number, it is a national tragedy, perpetrated over generations within many of our most trusted institutions.'

It said abuse occurred in almost every place where children resided or attended for educational, recreational, sporting, religious or cultural activities.

And it was not a case of a few 'rotten apples'.

'Some institutions have had multiple abusers who sexually abused multiple children,' it said.

'Societys major institutions have seriously failed. In many cases those failings have been exacerbated by a manifestly inadequate response to the abused person.

'The problems have been so widespread, and the nature of the abuse so heinous, that it is difficult to comprehend.'

More than 2,500 referrals have been made to police, with 230 prosecutions under way.

The 17-volume report included recommendations for a shake-up of centuries of religious tradition, calling for Catholic ministers to be required to report abuse confided to them during confession.

Two protesters hold placards outside the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on March 1, 2016

It also urged the Catholic Church to make celibacy voluntary for its clergy, saying the existing requirement contributed to child abuse.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart apologised for the church's 'shameful' past, but said it was up to the Vatican to decide on any changes.

He insisted the seal of the confessional 'can't be broken', but said if someone confessed he was an abuser he would refuse them absolution until they went to the authorities.

Asked about voluntary celibacy, he said it was a 'difficult thing'.

'But I certainly would see the bishops pass on that recommendation to the Holy See, and they would then decide,' said Hart, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Among other recommendations was the creation of a National Office for Child Safety and a helpline to report abuse.

During its hearings, the commission heard that seven percent of Catholic priests were accused of abuse in Australia between 1950 and 2010, but the allegations were never investigated, with children ignored and even punished when they came forward.

There were more than 1,800 alleged perpetrators, with the average age of the victims at the time 10 for girls and 11 for boys. The St John of God Brothers religious order was the worst in terms of allegations, with over 40 percent of members accused.

The inquiry embroiled Australia's most senior Catholic cleric George Pell, now the Vatican's finance chief, who was questioned over his dealings with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s.

Pell is currently accused of multiple historical sexual offences, with a committal hearing in March due to decide if there is enough evidence from the prosecution for the case against him to go to trial.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull paid tribute to the courage of survivors who gave evidence.

'The Royal Commission has validated the stories of survivors, has enabled survivors to be heard, and importantly, to be believed. For too long, crimes against our nation's children were covered up, or ignored,' he said.
The policeman who shot and killed Australian woman Justine Damond may escape punishment over the July shooting.

Mike Freeman, the prosecutor handling the case, told an activist group in Minneapolis he did not have enough evidence to lay charges.

Officer Mohamed Noor has been refusing to cooperate with investigators, and Hennepin County Attorney Freeman is yet to charge him over the incident.

Scroll down for video

The policeman who shot and killed Australian woman Justine Damond (pictured) may escape punishment over the July shooting

Mike Freeman, the prosecutor handling the case, told an activist group in Minneapolis he did not have enough evidence to lay charges against Mohamed Noor (pictured)

A video of Mr Freeman speaking to activists from a group called Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar at an event on Wednesday was posted on Facebook.

When asked why Noor has not been charged, Mr Freeman made a series of statements about the case, but it is unclear if he knew he was being filmed.

'I've got to have the evidence, and I don't have it yet,' said Mr Freeman.

'Let me just say it's not my fault. So if it isn't my fault, who didn't do their job? Investigators. They don't work for me. They haven't done their job.'

'Fair question,' Mr Freeman said repeatedly when challenged by activists, who said they did not understand why Noor was not facing court.

'I have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the moment he shot the gun he feared for his life, and he used force because he thought he was going to be killed,' he said.

Officer Mohamed Noor has been refusing to cooperate with investigators, and Hennepin County Attorney Freeman is yet to charge him over the incident (pictured is Ms Damond)

'But he won't answer my questions.  I can't talk to her because she's gone, and the other cop just gave us s***.

'So guess what, I've gotta figure out angles of the shot, gun residues, reckless use of force experts

'But if you look at this, here's a nice lady who hears something bad outside, she calls the cops, they don't come, she calls again, they drive up in her alley, and she comes out in her jammies and she's killed by a cop.

'Sounds easy doesn't it? Can I prove that the cop shot her? I could have done that the first day.

Mr Freeman went on to say he was bound by legal procedure and had to prosecute the case in the proper manner.

A video of Mr Freeman (left, right) speaking to activists from a group called Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar at an event on Wednesday was posted on Facebook

'Would you like me to charge your friend just because I think maybe he did it, and let a jury decide?' Freeman said on the videotape. 'I'm ruining his life by doing [that].'

He finished by saying: 'Trust me, nobody wants it done more than me. That's the big present I want under the Christmas tree.'

Mr Freeman's reasonable doubt comments caused confusion, as he appeared to be using an argument the defence team would take - that Officer Noor feared for his life.

The lawyer for the Damond family said his clients were 'deeply distressed and unhappy' about Mr Freeman's comments, The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

'We expected a quality investigation that would be fair, complete and accurate, and apparently that hasn't happened,' he said.

Officer Noor's lawyer Thomas Plunkett also expressed concerns about the prosecutor's statements, calling the death a tragedy, but not a crime.

'No lawyer wants their client placed under a Christmas tree as a present to a vocal segment of the community,' he said.

'Investigators gather evidence, they don't create it. That is their job. I am concerned by any supplemental investigation  especially if it is directly overseen and influenced by the county attorney.'

Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar was formed after the November 2015 death of Jamar Clark, who was shot and killed by police during a struggle.

Group organiser and union member Sam Sanchez told Daily Mail Australia local official lack accountability for the deaths of Ms Damond and many others.

'We as community members and Union members in the public and private sector are not happy,' he said.

Ms Damond, 40, from Sydney's northern beaches, was shot as she stood outside the officer's patrol car in her pyjamas just before midnight.

She had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault near her home and had come outside to speak to the police.

Officer Noor was in the front passenger seat and shot across his partner and out the driver's side window, hitting Ms Damond in the stomach.
A Sydney man who stabbed his niece to death and dumped her body in a blowhole has been jailed for at least 34-and-a-half years.

Derek Barrett, 29, previously pleaded guilty to murdering Chinese university student Mengmei Leng, whose naked body was found floating in the blowhole at Snapper Point on the NSW Central Coast in April 2016.

'This was a despicable crime of extreme brutality and great wickedness,' Justice Helen Wilson said at the NSW Supreme Court on Friday when sentencing Barrett to 46 years in jail with a non-parole period of 34 years and six months.

Derek Barrett (pictured) was sentenced to 46 years in jail with a non-parole period of 34 years and six months on Friday for the 'brutal' murder of his niece Mengmei Leng

Barrett previously pleaded guilty to murdering Chinese university student Mengmei Leng, whose naked body was found floating face down inside the blowhole.

The former IT worker also pleaded guilty to another 21 offences including 19 counts of filming Ms Leng for sexual gratification when she was bound and gagged before her death.

Ms Leng, 25, had lived with Barrett, her aunt and her cousin in the southwest Sydney suburb of Campsie since arriving in Australia to study, five years before her murder.

At the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday Barrett claimed he was drug affected when he killed Ms Leng and can only remember having an argument with her then seeing blood in the sink.

Barrett later dumped Ms Leng's body in a blowhole before going to Campsie police station the following day with his wife (pictured) to report his niece missing

Ms Leng, 25, (pictured) was stabbed to death and dumped on NSW Central Coast in April 2016

'You have no idea how it frustrates me every day trying to think of how this came about and why I went down this path,' he said.

Alongside his wife, Barrett reported his niece missing at Campsie police station a day after the violent murder, the publication reported.

The 29-year-old, who told the Supreme Court he was sexually attracted to his Chinese niece, pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Leng in April 2016 in NSW.

The university student's naked body was later found wrapped in a plastic sheet and floating face down inside the blowhole on the New South Wales Central Coast.

Ms Leng (pictured) was gagged and bound by Barrett in early morning when her aunt was away

'I betrayed my own family and hers for my actions,' Barrett said at the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday during his sentencing hearing.

'I disgust myself.'

Barrett admitted he was sexually attracted to Ms Leng.

'She was a pretty girl,' he said.

Barrett gagged and bound Ms Leng to her bed in the early hours of April 22 while his wife away, agreed facts said.

He then took 19 photos of her naked body.

Barrett (left) pleaded guilty to killing his niece (right) because he was sexually attracted to her

At some point over the next two days, Barrett stabbed Ms Leng multiple times, inflicting a fatal stab wound to the throat.

He then took seven photos of the area before driving to his parents' house nearby and later returning to Sydney.

Barrett told the court he only has flashes of memory from that weekend - an argument, his face reflected in the mirror and seeing blood in the sink.

He said he'd been on an ice binge before killing Ms Leng, which affected his memory.

He admitted initially lying to police because he 'couldn't figure out what exactly happened until a little later.'

'With the memory gaps I basically filled them in with lies,' he said.
Have you ever thought about a career in Real Estate? If so, contact Shonna Ruble at 406-655-0005 for more information! 3222 40th Street West This quality 4 bedroom home, at the base of the rims, boasts 3 fireplaces, 3 3/4 baths, hardwood floors Pella Windows & Italian tile welcome you to this amazing open floor plan home. Large gourmet kitchen w/ two ovens, 6 burner gas grill, and warming drawer, steam shower and jetted tub... Its all HERE! Trex Decks w/ views of the Rims in front and back. Featured in YVW magazine in the March/April issue 2008. ML#278919 Offered at $349,900 Tom Clymer 406-672-6461 Shonna Ruble CEO/Team Leader 406-655-0005 1611 Birch Street Aldo Rowe 406-671-5798 Amber Yochum 406-672-1838 Barbara Hawkins 406-672-6151 Chris Rowan 406-672-6160 Dan Boyle 406-671-5798 Janice Gill 406-672-8091 Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Frosty Erben 406-855-8900 Frosty Erben 406-855-8900 Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Quincy Sanchez 702-496-2090 Sara Geffre Sheldon Douglas Taya Keith 406-670-6700 406-860-0699 406-670-0575 Tom Clymer 406-672-6461 Nick Mauceri 509-989-8800 Twinkle Rowan 406-672-8262 Offered at $559,000 531 Clark Ave AMAZING PROPERTY located just 10 mins to Billings downtown. 40 acre horse property (or cows) offering an outdoor arena with roundpen, 36x48 4 stall barn, hay barn, 30x35 insulated/heated shop. 17,000 gallon heated, outdoor pool, hot tub and magnificent open views views views. The luxurious home is 5392 sq. ft., offering 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, vaulted ceilings, attached garage and so much more..... Beautifully taken care of home in the historical downtown district, next to hospitals, parks and schools. This home has been wonderfully remodeled. All new windows, maintenance free steel siding, hardwood floors, brand newly finished basement, all new concrete around home, updated plumbing, new water heater. Gorgeous big back yard & everything stays including the BBQ & hammock!! Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Offered at $825,000 Offered at $224,900 119 Lewis Ave 2412 sq ft. Immaculate home! Brand new kitchen with stainless appliances. Built in 2002. Master bedroom suite. 2 fireplaces. Vaulted ceilings. Fabulous, very private rear yard with covered deck & landscaped with a water feature, and located on a quiet cul-de -sac. Beautiful home! 2785 sq ft. This home is located in the historical downtown district, close to the hospitals, amazing parks and schools and has been remodeled keeping the charm and characteristics of yesteryear! Offering 5 bedrooms on 2 levels, original hardwood floors, gas fireplace, original built in cabinets, sun room, covered front porch and lovely back yard with a deck. Also features a large 2 car garage with ample parking for the RV/boat! Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Jeanette Busony 406-672-7033 Offered at $289,900 www.kellerwilliamsbillings.com Keith Hart 406-671-6160 2619 Tulane Dr Fantastic Home and just 3 yrs young! Custom built with a magnificent master bedroom/bathroom and closet fit for a King and Queen. 2nd bedroom also has its own bathroom. Main level is spacious and warm and boasts a wonderful kitchen with granite counters, gas cooktop with built in wall faucet, a walk in pantry, stainless appliances and tons of cabinet space. Walk out back to your patio for entertaining, complete with a built in bar/fridge and hot tub. Home comes with a state of the art security system. 799 Aquarius Lanae Duryee 406-690-6200 Offered at $209,000 Triple wide modular on concrete foundation. A gorgeous must seehome. Hobby/ranch farm. 3.1 miles from Lockwood school. Oversized 3 car garage/shop. 24x36 barn. Hay shed, feed shed, fenced & cross fenced for animals. 4 strand wire fence. Some vaulted ceilings and lots of ceiling fans. 3 sided fireplace between the livingroom and the dining room. Also an office with French doors. ML#271138 Offered at $350,000 Kari Karlin 406-861-2050 1226 Cottonwood Blvd #4 Frosty Erben 406-855-8900 2675 Sage Mountain Rd Haley Morrison 406-697-0404 Tom Clymer 406-672-6461 Large townhouse located on a low traffic street. Clean, neat and spacious living in a quiet neighborhood with minimal yard work and snow removal. Vaulted ceiling in living room and kitchen. All kitchen appliances stay. Basic living needs on the main floor with a patio off the living room. It has a full basement with a large family room, a 3rd bedroom and an additional room for office space, storage or a possible 4th non-egress bedroom It also has a 3rd bathroom and a wet bar only partially completed. ML#277117 Offered at $200,000 Frosty Erben 406-855-8900 Offered at $525,000 A joy to show. The sellers have invested in new hard board siding, new shingles, all new windows, a wood stove that warms the whole house and enhanced the landscaping. The garage is double oversize. Note that it is on public water and sewer. It is certainly small town living at its best. ML#280711 3600 Gold Buckle Circle Chad Moran 406-794-3695 212 Emerald Hills Dr Sit on your Trex deck and breath in the pine trees surrounding your spacious 7 bedroom, nearly 9 acre paradise or take a dip in your pool. Commune with nature and visiting deer, turkey and other wildlife. Montana at its best! Lots of room to breath and outdoor sports abound! Great paved road too! ML#280542 Offered at $219,900 593 ACRES! 124 S Santa Fe Dr. Beautiful one owner Ranch style home in Central Heights with over sized 2 car garage. Newer roof (2016), siding (2015), and HVAC (2014). Original hardwood floors in great condition. 4th bedroom/ office downstairs (non-egress). Underground sprinklers run on well. Owner will work with buyers who make offer. Open house January 7th 1pm-3pm MLS#277582 Offered at $190,000 Quincy Sanchez 406-545-4007 3744 Ford Road This West Emerald Hills jewel is exactly what you are looking for. This rare large parcel of land, totaling 593 private and very scenic acres, nestled between rimrocks, pines and gentle rolling hills is located only 10 minutes from downtown Billings, Montana. Improvements include a recently remodeled 2-bedroom home, barn, boxcar, grain bin, corals and arena. A strong producing well, windmill and a seasonal ground-spring are located on the property. The land is diverse in natural beauty and potential with scattered timber, rimrocks, hay fields, rolling hills and wide open meadows. It is fenced and cross fenced into 3 large pastures. This property has abundant wildlife i.e. deer, turkeys, and upland game birds. There is also great potential for residential development. See the video: https://youtu.be/AIozZid3Kww ML#277193 Offered at $1,484,550 Frosty Erben 406-855-8900
Protesters have crashed the prime minister's Bennelong by-election press conference in northern Sydney, forcing the event to be cut short.

A handful of young protesters arrived at the site of the media conference in Sydney's Epping in a rental minibus on Friday, before confronting Malcolm Turnbull and liberal candidate John Alexander over cuts to education.

However, a woman trying to bring attention to the cause may have been left red-faced, after waving her placard at Mr Turnbull upside down.

Protesters have crashed the Prime Minister's Bennelong by-election press conference in northern Sydney, forcing the event to be cut short, with one woman trying to bring attention to school cuts holding her sign upside down (pictured)

A handful of young protesters arrived at the Epping location in a rental minibus on Friday, before confronting Malcolm Turnbull and liberal candidate John Alexander

Fine-print on the bottom of the placards said they were authorised by the Labor Party.

It comes as Mr Turnbull admitted the crucial by-election would not simply be a test for the two candidates, but also of his own leadership.

'In any by-election there is a contest between the two candidates and there is also a contest between the two parties they represent,' he said.

'People will be casting a judgement on the government which I lead, of course.'

Mr Turnbull accepted a by-election loss would bring his opposite number closer to pinching his job, and would rob the government of its absolute majority.

'Confidence in my leadership is a matter for the Liberal party room, and ultimately, of course, on the floor of the house,' he said.

It comes as Mr Turnbull admitted the crucial by-election would not simply be a test for the two candidates (pictured with Liberal MP John Alexander), but also of his own leadership

The by-election, set to take place on Saturday, was set in motion after Mr Alexander (left) was forced to quit and run again because he had British citizenship, withe former NSW premier Kristina Keneally (right) running against him

The campaign between the two sides is largely neck and neck, with the result potentially resulting in the government losing a majority in the House of Representatives

The by-election, set to take place on Saturday, became set in motion after Mr Alexander was forced to quit and run again because he had British citizenship.

He is up against former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, who was asked earlier in the day to justify why a man dressed as a chicken had confronted her Liberal opponent on Thursday, holding Labor campaign material.

'I'm not sure why John Alexander chose to debate a chicken,' Ms Keneally told reporters, but would not be drawn on whether she authorised the stunt.

The campaign between the two is largely neck and neck, with the result potentially resulting in the government losing a majority in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, Mr Alexander started the day denying he breached parliamentary rules by not declaring rental income from a NSW property.

He claimed the allegations were 'strategically targeted' the day before Saturday's crucial vote, with Mr Turnbull standing by Mr Alexander and saying he 'strictly complied' with the Clerk of the House's advice.
Stephanie Smith, 43, had three properties raided by the San Bernardino Police Wednesday

A mother from an upscale California neighborhood is being questioned by authorities for a pot growing operation that included over 24,000 plants.

San Bernardino police raided properties belonging to alleged drug queen-pin, Stephanie Smith, 43, Wednesday, after detectives investigated a tip about pot being grown in an empty warehouse.

When they raided the property they realized they were dealing with a multi-building operation, with the main warehouse likened to a 'weed fortress.' Cops believe the marijuana growing operation was netting millions of dollars-a-month in profit.

Investigators first turned their sights on the illegal grow operation about two months ago after receiving complaints from neighbors.

They became increasingly interested in the property when the main building, an 'empty' warehouse, had an electric bill that was about $67,000 per month.

They found the once-abandoned warehouse had been outfitted with a 12-foot metal rolling fence, 'fortified doors,' a large concrete wall around the parking lot and surveillance cameras.

Stephanie Smith is accused of operating a massive marijuana growing operation

The Pacific Palisades mother's pot operation (pictured), police say, netted millions in profits each month

Inside the four-story warehouse, police found thousands of plants stacked next to one another under heat lamps on wood tables and an advanced irrigation system.

'In my 26 years, it was the biggest grow that I've ever seen,' San Bernardino police Lt. Mike Madden said. 'There were all different rooms for different processes and hydration, filtration and ventilation. It was pretty extensive.'

Police and federal investigators raided three properties owned by Smith of Pacific Palisades, and seized 18,000 pounds of marijuana in total.

Eight people who were working in the warehouse in downtown San Bernardino were detained by police, but no charges have been filed in the case, Madden said.

Investigators are still trying to determine where the marijuana was being sold, Madden said.

Police were investigating the 43-year-old mother and owner of the properties, but she was not arrested or charged with a crime.

The massive pot operation was ended after police raided Smith's properties

Weed fortress: The warehouse that the growing operation was being run out of had fortified doors, large fences and surveillance cameras

California voters have approved the legalization of marijuana, but growers must receive licenses and permits from local governments and the state. Recreational pot sales start in California on Jan. 1, joining the long-running medical cannabis industry.

'Marijuana has been legalized, but there are stringent requirements,' Madden said. 'It's not that you just get to set up shop where you want to set up.'

A red 'Unsafe' sign has since been placed on the building.

Smith was reportedly questioned Tuesday, but was not arrested.

If charges are filed, she faces a misdemeanor, jail time and a fine at the state level.
The abuse royal commission has recommended a national memorial for child sex abuse survivors and a national strategy to prevent future abuse, including appointing a federal minister for children's issues.

The $500 million, five-year royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse handed over its final 17-volume report on Friday, having heard harrowing evidence from thousands of survivors in numerous church, sporting, government and community organisations.

'There is no simple explanation for why child sexual abuse has occurred in a multitude of institutions,' the final report says.

'However, we have identified a number of ways in which institutions may, inadvertently or otherwise, enable or create opportunities for abuse.'

Among the recommendations made in the entire volume directed to the Catholic Church was that voluntary celibacy should be considered and much of the church management structure should be reviewed and made transparent.

The abuse royal commission has recommended a national memorial for child sex abuse survivors and a national strategy to prevent future abuse, including appointing a federal minister for children's issues

Demented Peter Searson molested children, tortured animals in front of them and stole tens of thousands of dollars from a church

The recommendations include creating a ministerial portfolio with responsibility for children's policy issues, and establishing a National Framework for Child Safety to provide a response to the implementation of the Child Safe Standards.

It wants the federal government to oversee the development and implementation of a national strategy to prevent child sexual abuse.

Federal and state government have been asked to respond to the commission's 189 recommendations within six months.

'Australian society must never go back to a state of denial about the nature, cause and impact of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.'

Former prime minister Julia Gillard has described as historic the handing down of the final report from the child abuse royal commission.

Five years ago, Ms Gillard set up the inquiry which on Friday wrapped up its work with a 17 volume report.

'On this historic day, my personal thanks go to the royal commissioners and all who supported their work. Our nation is indebted to you and to the survivors who fought so hard for justice and a safer future for our children,' she tweeted.

Gerald Ridsdale committed sexual offences against 65 children over a year 27 span and is currently serving a 33-year jail sentence

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher promised the multi-volume final report would not 'sit on a shelf'.

He said the report, which asserted elements of the church's structure and theology may have contributed to abuse, ushered in a period of 'very serious self-examination'.

'We have to look very carefully and take very seriously what the commission has found in terms of more systemic issues in our culture, hierarchy, practices and beliefs as Catholics,' he said.

While the comments seem to leave open the door to fundamental changes to the church, Archbishop Fisher said changing mandatory reporting of abuse that comes to light through confession was 'a distraction'.

'While we are yet to study what the commission has had to say about that, I think everyone understands that this Catholic and orthodox practice of confession is always confidential,' he said.

'Any proposal to stop the practice of confession in Australia would be a real hurt to all Catholics and Orthodox Christians.'

Ronald Mulkearns oversaw the worst period of paedophilia within the Catholic Church in Ballarat, covering up and destroying evidence of sexual abuse. He died in April last year

'I didn't do enough,' Mulkearns told a royal commission

However, the Catholic Church is unlikely to change its universal laws.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said the bishops will take the royal commission's recommendations seriously and present them to the Holy See.

But he said the seal of the confession cannot be broken, even if priests face the prospect of criminal charges for failing to report child sexual abuse.

'My sacred charge is to respect the seal of the confessional,' he told reporters on Friday.

'I revere the law of the land and I trust it but this is a sacred spiritual charge before God which I must honour, and I have to try and do what I can do with both.'

Archbishop Hart said he did not expect canon law would be changed regarding the sacredness of the confessional.

'I don't expect that it will be changed but we are committed to doing whatever we possibly can because this has to be a top priority - no more child sexual abuse anywhere in the world.'

The commission says tens of thousands of children were allegedly abused in more than 4000 institutions, but the true number would never be known.

It heard from more than 1300 witnesses in public hearings and was contacted by more than 15,000 survivors or their relatives.

Many survivors thanked the commission for finally allowing their stories to be heard. The commission has recommended that these stories and victims should not be forgotten.

It has also recommended that institutions that have honours or dedications to known abusers remove them, and governments should strip them of any honours.

The Turnbull government has pledged $52.1 million to support abuse victims' access to redress from a national scheme.
Former President, civilian, and now... Santa?

Barack Obama took on a new title on Thursday, as he stopped by the Boys & Girls Club in Washington, DC to spread Christmas cheer.

'44' donned a leather jack and Santa hat to play 'Kris Kringle' as he visited with approximately 50 middle school students at the Jelleff Club on Benning Road in Northeast Washington, the Washington Post reported.

Scroll down for video

Barack Obama took on a new title on Thursday, as he stopped by the Boys & Girls Club in Washington, DC wearing a Santa hat to spread Christmas cheer

The man who has often said 'civilian' is the most important title in a society grinned from ear to ear in an image he shared on social media from his visit.

'There's no better time than the holiday season to reach out and give back to our communities,' Obama wrote with the tweeted photo.

'Great to hear from young people at the Boys & Girls Club in DC today.'

'There's no better time than the holiday season to reach out and give back to our communities,' Obama wrote with the tweeted photo.

The children were there to partake in after-school activities at their local branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington.

Obama shook hands with the adults as he went about passing out the gifts he brought for the youngsters.

He carried a big, bright green bag adorned with a packages design and large, purple ribbon.

Obama shook hands with the adults as he went about passing out the gifts he brought for the youngsters, carrying a bright green bag full of items

He stayed and chatted with the middle school children for about half an hour.

Since leaving the White House in January, he and former first lady Michelle Obama have made four other unannounced visits to DC schools and community centers.

The Obamas have decided to remain living in Washington, DC while their youngest daughter, Sasha, finishes high school.
Roy Moore was seen Thursday night in Alabama leaving his office just hours after he was told by the White House to concede the US Senate election to Democratic rival Doug Jones.

The controversial Republican judge was seen with with his wife walking out of his Foundation for Moral Law office in downtown Montgomery on Thursday.

On Tuesday, Moore lost the special election for the US Senate seat to Jones - a result that is considered a shocking upset given that Alabama is a ruby red state.

A Democrat had not won major office in Alabama in 31 years.

Earlier on Thursday, Moore was bluntly told by the White House to give up his claim he could still win the election.

Roy Moore was seen Thursday night in Alabama leaving his office just hours after he was told by the White House to concede the US Senate election to Democratic rival Doug Jones

The controversial Republican judge was seen with with his wife walking out of his Foundation for Moral Law office in downtown Montgomery on Thursday

He had earlier refused to answer DailyMail.com's questions on Thursday as he was caught walking outside his office.

At the White House Thursday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president's actions prove that he believes the race is done.

'I think the President's position is pretty clear, in his outreach to Doug Jones directly, he called and they spoke yesterday,' Huckabee Sanders said.

When a reporter followed up and asked if the president thought Moore had lost 'fair and square,' the press secretary agreed.

'I think the numbers reflect that, and I think the President's outreach shows that,' Huckabee Sanders said.



Scroll down for video

DailyMail.com found Moore outside his Foundation for Moral Law office in Montgomery, Alabama on Thursday and he refused to answer questions about the race. At the White House Sarah Huckabee Sanders said his concession speech 'should already have taken place'

Republican Roy Moore (right) was accompanied by an aide and said 'we're not talking' when asked if he planned to concede to Democrat Doug Jones, who bested him by more than 20,000 on Tuesday night

'It's in the  we put out a statement,' Roy Moore told DailyMail.com when asked if he still planned to pursue a recount against Doug Jones

Republican Roy Moore's (left) loss Tuesday night allowed a Democrat, Doug Jones, to become a senator for the state for the first time in 31 years

Moore materialized on YouTube Wednesday night, putting out a message to supporters saying he would stay in the race until all the mail-in ballots were counted

At another point in the briefing, Huckabee Sanders suggested that Moore's concession speech 'should have already taken place.'

Moore was seen exclusively for the first time Moore has been seen out in public since election night, when he was bested by Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama's special Senate election by more than 20,000 votes and refused to throw in the towel.

'We're not talking,' he said, when asked if he planned to concede. 'It's in the  we put out a statement, ' he answered when asked if he still planned to pursue a recount.

The statement was a nearly five-minute-long message that Moore posted to YouTube Wednesday night saying, 'And the battle rages on.'

'Today we no longer recognize the universal truth that God is the author of our life and liberty, abortion, sodomy and materialism have taken the place of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,' Moore warned.

The candidate, whose campaign was upset by accusations that he preyed on teenage girls, quoted Bible verses from the book of Ephesians and a speech from President Lincoln, and stated that he was staying in the race because the 'heart and soul of our country is at stake.'

Moore hadn't been heard from since he left the stage of his Montgomery, Alabama election night party telling the crowd that 'when the vote is this close it is not over,' and advising them to 'go home and sleep on it.' He also said he would look to God.

After that Moore went dark.

Moore appeared briefly at his election night fete and told supporters that he wasn't conceding

Moore told supporters and reporters at his election night party that 'when the vote is this close it is not over,' instructing those gathered in the Montgomery, Alabama venue to, 'go home and sleep on it'

Moore walks off stage with his wife Kayla (second right) after telling his supporters he would not concede defeat till all the votes were in and possibly demand a recount

Three emails to Moore's spokeswoman went unreturned through Wednesday and a campaign official DailyMail.com reached by phone said he didn't know Moore's plans.

A source in Alabama's secretary of state's office told DailyMail.com that beyond an initial conversation staffers had with both teams, prompted by media interest, Moore's campaign hadn't been back in touch about a recount Wednesday.

Moore had floated Tuesday night that he would wait until the mail-in ballots, which include many military members, were counted to see if the closeness of the race would trigger an automatic, state-paid-for, recount.

He repeated that plan Wednesday night.

'In this race we have not received the final count to include military and provision ballots,' he said. 'This has been a very close race and we are waiting for certification by the secretary of state.'

In his YouTube message, however, he didn't speak of a recount.

He did, however, outline a number of things that bothered him, in a red meat message to his right-wing base.

We have stopped prayer in schools,' he said. 'We have murdered over 60 million of our unborn children.'

'We've redefined marriage and destroyed the basis of family, which is the building block of our country. Our borders are not secure. Our economy is faltering under an enormous national debt. And we have a huge drug problem,' he went on.

'We've even gone to recognize the man to claim to be a woman and vise versa,' he continued. 'We have allowed judges and justices to rule over our constitution and we have become slaves to our tyranny. Immortality sweeps over our land.'

He also spent a brief moment suggesting the multiple allegation against him, of sexual assault and harassment, were really just distractions keeping peoples eyes away from the ball.

'Even our political process has been affected by baseless and false allegations, which have become more relevant than the true issues, which effect our country,' he said.

As Moore keeps his campaign plodding along, the political world has already moved on.

At a press conference Wednesday, Jones told reporters he'd been phone by Trump, who supported Moore in the final stretch, and was invited to the White House by the president once he got to Washington.

Sen. Luther Strange, who's currently in the Alabama Senate seat, had talked to Jones too, about planning for their transition.

Huckabee Sanders also suggested Wednesday there had been not contact between Trump and Moore, telling DailyMail.com she was 'not aware' of any phone call.

Even Alabama's secretary of state, a self-proclaimed Moore supporter, told CNN Wednesday morning that ''Judge Moore is not the victor in this campaign.'

'I know a lot of people would say it's not over until it's over, but the margin of victory for Doug Jones at this particular time looks like a very difficult amount of votes to overcome as the remaining votes that are out there to be counted next week begin to be considered at the local level,' Secretary of State John Merrill said.

Recount decisions can't be made until the vote is certified later in the month, but Moore would need to get within .5 per cent of Jones for the state to pay for it.

Right now the Democrat is 1.5 per cent ahead.

Moore was shockingly beaten by Democrat Doug Jones (pictured) who's the first Democrat to be elected in Alabama to the Senate in 31 years

Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill said on CNN Wednesday morning that 'Judge Moore is not the victor in this campaign,' and expressed doubt that an automatic recount would be triggered looking at the election's current vote totals

And even if Moore tried to pursue a recount that his campaign would pay for it might be mired in legal trouble.

Writing for his Election Law Blog, Rick Hasen pointed out that the two sections of the law that allows candidates to pursue what Merrill called an 'on-demand recount' don't mention the U.S. Senate as an office where the statute applies.

Under one section of the law those that can pursue a recount include candidates for 'Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor, Treasurer, Attorney General, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, Public Service Commissioner, senator or representative in the Legislature, justices of the Supreme Court, judges of the courts of appeals, judge of the circuit court or district court, or any office which is filled by the vote of a single county, or to the office of constable.'

The other section of the law mentions, 'any person declared to be elected to the office of senator or representative in the Legislature, judge of the circuit court or district court, any office which is filled by the vote of a single county, or constable.'

'Moore is not those,' Hasen noted.

ROY MOORE'S YOUTUBE MESSAGE TO SUPPORTERS Good evening, tomorrow my wife and I will celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary. I want to thank her and all my family for standing with me through this long and arduous campaign and of course I want to thank all of you who stood with me in this very important battle for the future of our country. We are indeed in a struggle for to preserve our republic, our civilization and our religion and to set free a suffering humanity. And the battle rages on. In this race we have not received the final count to include military and provision ballots. This has been a very close race and we are waiting for certification by the secretary of state. This particular race was watched not only by the people of this state but by the entire nation and many around the world. Why? Because I believe the heart and soul of our country is at stake. Like most Americans I'm concerned about the future of our country, both financially and morally. After the election of Donald Trump a little over a year ago I saw a window of hope and an opportunity that we could return to our founding principles and the Constitution of the United States, which has governed us for over 200 years. Our forefathers recognized in Declaration of Independence that all men and women are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That American dream has today been tainted by corrupt politics and a government that has become out of control and out of touch with the people. Many of those do not are the vision of those who built this country Today we no longer recognize the universal truth that God is the author of our life and liberty, abortion, sodomy and materialism have taken the place of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our own hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own." We have stopped prayer in schools. We have murdered over 60 million of our unborn children. We've redefined marriage and destroyed the basis of family, which is the building block of our country. Our borders are not secure. Our economy is faltering under an enormous national debt. And we have a huge drug problem. We've even gone to recognize the man to claim to be a woman and vise versa. We have allowed judges and justices to rule over our constitution and we have become slaves to our tyranny. Immortality sweeps over our land. Even our political process has been affected by baseless and false allegations, which have become more relevant than the true issues, which effect our country. This election was tainted by over 50 million dollars by outside groups that want to retain power in their own corrupt ideology. No longer is this about Republican or Democrat control, it's truly been said there's not a dime's worth of difference between them. It's about a Washington establishment that will not listen to the cries of its citizenry. Together we must stand against those who would take from us our country. In the word of the holy scriptures, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." The sacrifices of brave men and women throughout our history cry out to us, the living, to be dedicated to the unfinished work to which many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice. Let us here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Thank you, Merry Christmas and may God bless you. Advertisement




An Alabama sharecropper drove dozens of black voters to the booth in Alabama on Tuesday to help defeat Roy Moore.

Perman Hardy spent ten hours ferrying voters, who may not otherwise have been able to travel from their homes, to the polls, Alabama.com reports.

And it may have just paid off this year, after Democrat Doug Jones narrowly edged out Republican, and accused teen molester Roy Moore, in the traditionally Republican stronghold.

Perman Hardy spent ten hours ferrying voters, who may not otherwise have been able to travel from their homes, to the polls (pictured)

Black voters played a pivotal role in Jones' upset win. Exit polls showed that 29 per cent of the Alabama electorate were black voters, a higher turn out than voted in the Barack Obama elections in the state. Polls found that 96 per cent of those black votes backed Jones, while the figure rose as high as 98 per cent in the black women vote.

Hardy is something of an iconic figure in her home county of Lowndes where she's dedicated the past 25 years of her life to ensuring everyone turns up to vote for every election in Alabama.

The 59-year-old, who grew up picking cotton, and still works as a sharecropper working on a white man's land, personally drove more than 50 people to the polls to vote on Tuesday, including sisters Almedia and Pamela Rush who she picked up from their mobile home, and drove to church to vote.

'I feel it's important because of Roy Moore. I don't like his policies; I don't like the things he be talking about,' Almedia told Alabama.com reporter Connor Sheets. 'I always vote. One vote makes a whole lot of difference.'

Hardy had to use a little gentle persuasion to encourage other would-be voters to go to the polling station.

Her efforts may have just paid off this year, after Democrat Doug Jones (pictured winning) narrowly edged out his Republican rival

Accused teen molester Roy Moore, lost out on the traditionally Republican seat

And she's not someone who is easy to say no to.

Susan Mae Holcombe, 79, was worried that she wasn't dressed properly to visit Collirene's Old Bethel Baptist Church to vote.

But Hardy convinced her it was 'crucial' for black voters to have their voices heard, promising to drive Holcombe to the station, and return her home within ten minutes.

In the run up to the election, Hardy was busy visiting farms around the county, encouraging those who couldn't travel on Tuesday to sign up there and then as an absentee voter.

She also helped students studying out of state to register as an absentee voter, using a portable scanner she has hooked up to her car's cigarette lighter socket, so she can submit the forms on their behalf.

'My goal is to make sure everyone votes. That's always been my goal. This is what I do every election,' she said on Tuesday.

Black voters played a pivotal role in Jones' upset win. Exit polls showed that 29 per cent of the Alabama electorate were black voters, a higher turn out than voted in the Barack Obama elections in the state

Voters file in to vote after standing in a long line that leads out the doors of the Beulah Baptist Church polling station in Montgomery

Hardy, who has traced her family back to slaves held on the Rudolph Bottom plantation around five miles from her home, and worked in the cotton fields after school as a child, hoped Tuesday's vote will be a turning point for the county.

'We're in an epidemic poverty county so it's so important for us to vote today,' she told AL.com. 'I took some people today who've never cast a ballot before.'

Following the grueling, ten-hour day driving voters to and from the polls, many would be exhausted.

But Hardy brushed off any praise.

'Don't ask me how I do it, don't ask me how. It's just what I do,' she said. 'Everyone's got a purpose and God made me a person who goes out and serves the public and serves the community.'

A GoFundMe account has since been set up for Hardy to buy her a new phone and computer tablet to help her complete her work. The page has already raised $8,000.
The sister of former prime minister Tony Abbott has officially filed to marry her long-term partner a week after Australia's legalising of same-sex marriage.

Christine Forster announced Friday she and partner Virginia Edwards have lodged their Notice of Intent to Marry. The two had been engaged for four years.

'It's official! @surryhillsgal and I have lodged our Notice of Intent to Marry #Excited #LoveIsLove #MarriageEquality' she posted.

Christine Forster announced Friday she and partner Virginia Edwards lodged their Notice of Intent to Marry. The two had been engaged for four years

Abbott was one of the staunchest public figures opposing legalising same-sex marriage, despite he and his sister's 'great relationship'

Abbott was one of the staunchest public figures opposing legalising same-sex marriage, despite he and his sister's 'great relationship'.

'It wasn't long after the result, maybe 30 minutes, It was a good conversation,' Ms Forster told news.com.au after the bill was passed into law on December 7.

'We've spoke and he congratulated me and he was very magnanimous. He acknowledged that this has been a great result for the Yes team.

'Tony and I have a great relationship as brother and sister that transcends our political differences.'

Forster was critical of her brother throughout the process, calling him out on Twitter for his stance.

'A plebiscite was your idea @TonyAbbottMHR. As a legislator if you thought protections were needed why haven't you put them in place?' she wrote.

Forster said it would mean 'everything' to get married on Australian soil and Ms Edwards said their plans were well underway

'We've spoke and he congratulated me and he was very magnanimous. He acknowledged that this has been a great result for the Yes team'

Forster was one of thousands of gay marriage supporters in Sydney's Prince Alfred Park on November 14 to celebrate victory in the national postal survey.

She said it would mean 'everything' to get married on Australian soil and Edwards said their plans were well underway.

'We've booked a date, we've booked our venue, we've got our rings, we've got our beautiful designer and we're doing it on the 2nd of Feb,' Ms Edwards told AAP.

More than 60 per cent of Australians voted in favour of changing the Marriage Act, a result equality campaigners have described as 'resounding'.

Ms Forster, a Sydney councillor, said legalising gay marriage would change Australia for their children's generation.

'Assuming this legislation gets passed quickly, as it should, kids of that age can know they have the same opportunities, the same future, the same rights, the same equality under the law that everybody else does,' Ms Forster said.
A man has been charged after allegedly poisoning ten of his workmates by serving them a cake laced with amphetamines.

The 58-year-old Rodney man was arrested after police investigating the incident executed a search warrant north of Auckland, New Zealand.

He was charged with poisoning, cultivation of cannabis, possession of utensils and unlawful possession of firearms.

A man has been charged after allegedly poisoning ten of his workmates by serving them a cake laced with amphetamines (pictured is a stock image)

Waitemata Police Detective Inspector Richard Corbidge said ambulance staff notified police after 10 people consumed the cake at a Christmas party.

'At approximately 11am on the 13th 10 patients at a workplace in Glenfield had eaten a cake which allegedly contained amphetamines,' he told The New Zealand Herald.

'Eight of the patients were taken to hospital but have all since recovered.'

The man was arrested after an investigation by Waitemata CIB and general duties officers.

He is due to face North Shore District Court on January 18.
A New York woman has claimed a low-temperature tissue treatment went awry and left her body drastically damaged.

Cherie Glassman, 50, is now suing Equinox and Nordic Cryotherapy, claiming severe injuries from frostbite, The Post reported on Thursday.

The session that allegedly resulted in "severe and permanent burns to her body and limbs require skin grafts, the lawsuit filed in Manhattan says, took place at Glassman's hometown gym in Armonk.

Cherie Glassman, 50, has filed a lawsuit against Equinox and Nordic Cryotherapy, claiming a low-temperature tissue treatment went awry, severely and permanently burning her body

Whole body cryotherapy "uses nitrogen vapors to lower your skin surface temperature to trick your body into a survival mode," according to a video on the Nordic Cryotherapy website.

The skin is supposed to react to 2-3 minutes of exposure to temperatures at around negative-250-degrees Fahrenheit (about negative-157-degress Celsius) by sending signals to the brain that may help with a variety of tissue issues.

The benefits are supposed to include stimulating regeneration of cells, reducing of inflammation, easing of pain and mood enhancement.

This New York woman has claimed a low-temperature tissue treatment went awry and left her body drastically damaged, requiring skin grafts

Shes still trying to recover": The Westchester mom now claims she has permanent scarring to the arms and torso, her attorney Ben Rubinowitz said

Glassman was invited to the Armonk Equinox, where she has been a regular member, to try cryotherapy from a mobile treatment center ran by Nordic Cryotherapy in June, her attorney, Ben Rubinowitz, told The Post.

Theyre putting people in this chamber, which is supposed to help them as far as recovery and health benefits; it did the exact opposite, Rubinowitz said.

The skin cant tolerate that type of freezing. She was complaining and they ignored her complaints," he said. "It was just so poorly run."

The Westchester mom now claims she has permanent scarring to the arms and torso, Rubinowitz said, adding: Shes still trying to recover.

Glassman was invited to the Armonk Equinox, shown here, where she has been a regular member, to try cryotherapy from a mobile treatment center ran by Nordic Cryotherapy in June

Several celebrities have endorsed cyrotherapy treatments, including Shaquille ONeal and LeBron James, but the treatments remain controversial.

A 24-year-old Nevada woman named Chelsea Ake died two years ago after being stuck in a cryotherapy chamber for "at least 10 hours," as reported by NBC's Channel 3 Las Vegas.

Investigators ruled Ake's death as due to "operator error."

Representatives for Equinox and Nordic Cryotherapy did not immediately provide a comment on this matter.
A teenager has been left blind in one eye after he was injured in a metal works class.

Perth teen Brody Hatt, 15, was using a metal file on steel when it flicked up and hit him in the eye, shattering his lense and cornea at school two weeks ago.

'His whole eye was black, there was an actual hole,' his devastated mother Samantha Hatt told Nine News.

Scroll down for video

Perth teen Brody Hatt, 15, was using a metal file on steel when it flicked up and hit him in the eye, shattering his lense and cornea, at school two weeks ago

After the accident happened, teachers drove Brody to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance.

'I don't know what they were thinking,' Ms Hatt said.

The 15-year-old underwent emergency eye surgery and was told he might permanently lose his eyesight in one eye.

Brody was not wearing protective glasses at the time of the incident because, under the school's safety policy, they were not required.

The 15-year-old underwent emergency eye surgery and was told he might permanently lose his eyesight in his eye

Brody was not wearing protective glasses in the class because they were not required

The incident has raised serious questions about the school's safety procedures.

While his mother said she didn't want to name and shame the school, she did want to hold it to account.

The school principal told Nine News they would review their policies following the incident.

'We have strict safety procedures in place We will be rigorously reviewing those procedures over the Christmas break and, if advised, will be implementing any adjustments,' it said.
The Billings Police Department has announced recipients for its annual officer awards.

Ryan Kramer was named officer of the year. He has been with the BPD since 2014. In 2017, Kramer made 278 arrests, 49 of which were felonies and 42 were for drugs. He also recovered 18 stolen vehicles and wrote 14 search warrants.

His humble and quiet demeanor belies the fact he is one of the departments most productive patrol officers, Lt. Neil Lawrence wrote in a press release.

Detective Sergeant Brandon Wooley was named supervisor of the year. Wooley has been with the BPD 10 years and is currently assigned to the City/County Special Investigative Unit, a multi-jurisdictional drug task force. The CCSIU made 249 arrests and seized roughly 98 pounds of meth, 350 pounds of marijuana and 163 firearms this year, under Wooley's supervision. CCSIU has also seized more than $750,000 in assets used for criminal activity. Wooley is also a SWAT team leader, and has served on SWAT for seven years.

Quartermaster Mark Balter earned the Employee of the Year award. Balter orders equipment for officers, inventories supplies and works to keep costs down by finding vendors with lower prices, Lawrence said.

Officer Seth Foster was nominated for the Billings Optimist Club's Respect for Law Community Award. Foster developed a rapport with a disadvantaged youth he met while responding to a call this year, eventually helping to secure a scholarship for the youth to attend summer camp.

The American Legion National Law Enforcement Award was given to Jeremiah Adams, an officer in his fourth year with the BPD. In addition to patrol duties, Adams works with Probation and Parole to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and rehabilitation. Adams also works with outside agencies to conduct active shooter drills.

The BPD is giving five officers Lifesaving Awards. The officers will also be nominated for similar awards with the Montana Association of Chiefs of Police. They are:

George Zorzakis, who responded to a suicide call where the subject had poured gasoline on himself and held a lighter. Zorzakis stayed close to the man's car and was able to persuade the man to exit the car without hurting himself.

Officers Philip Tanis, Michael Freeman, and Lane Diercks, who responded to an overdose call and performed chest compressions on a man, reviving him. This took place before emergency medical responders arrived.

Officer Hunter Cook, who responded to a stabbing at a bar and used a tourniquet to slow the victims bleeding.
An off-duty Sydney police sergeant who was found guilty of using her rank and authority to avoid being randomly breath tested by a junior colleague has been jailed in a Sydney court.

Sarah Louise Johnston, 50, drove away from the RBT site without having been tested after a short conversation with the rookie officer at North Sydney on January 8, 2016.

She wept in the dock on Friday as Judge Christopher Hoy sentenced her to 16 months in jail with a non-parole period of 12 months.

Off-duty Sydney police sergeant Sarah Louise Johnston, 50, who was found guilty of using her rank to avoid being randomly breath tested has been jailed for 16 months in a Sydney court

'I consider the offender's conduct was disgraceful,' he said at the Downing Centre District Court.

The trial heard Johnston drank at least one schooner of beer while celebrating the new year with colleagues from North Sydney Police Station at two nearby pubs.

She was driving home to the Central Coast when she was pulled over at a random breath testing site on the Pacific Highway at Crows Nest.

Two junior officers conducting the RBTs - Constable Cameron Brooks and Constable Tugcan Sackesen - immediately recognised her.

Johnston (pictured) wept in the dock on Friday as Judge Christopher Hoy sentenced her to 16 months in jail with a non-parole period of 12 months.

She was driving home to the Central Coast when she was pulled over at a random breath testing site on the Pacific Highway at Crows Nest (stock image)

Const Sackesen gave evidence at the trial that Johnston first pulled her car up alongside Const Brooks but rolled forward towards him before Const Brooks could breath test her.

'Hi sergeant, you've just been stopped for a random breath test,' Const Sackesen told her.

He said she replied: 'You're not going to breath test me are you?'

'Yes sergeant I am,' he said.

She allegedly said: 'No because that would be a conflict of interest.'

'Imagine if I blew over, which I won't, because I'm not.'

The Downing Centre District Court (pictured) trial before Judge Chris Hoy heard Johnston drank at least one schooner of beer while celebrating the new year with colleagues

He said she told him it would put him in an 'awkward situation'.

On Friday Judge Hoy said the experienced and well regarded supervisor set a 'disgraceful example' that night.

He said she 'brought shame upon herself... and to all honest members of the police force'.

'This is misconduct the community would expect honest and upstanding members of the police force... to abhor, resist and report,' he said.

Judge Hoy commended the two junior officers for courageously reporting her misconduct.

Johnston will be eligible for release in December 2018.
Sir Peter Jackson has spoken out about his experiences with Harvey Weinstein, expressing his dismay for the disgraced movie mogul.

The New Zealand filmmaker says Weinstein prevented actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino from appearing in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Jackson had been in negotiations to produce the fantasy movies with Weinstein's film studio Miramax, before going on to make a trilogy with New Line Cinema instead.

Sir Peter Jackson (left) has spoken out about his experiences with Harvey Weinstein (right)

The renowned director expressed his dismay for the disgraced movie mogul after negative experiences while making plans for the Lord of The Rings films

Jackson stated he had expressed interest in casting Judd and Sorvino, both of whom later claimed Weinstein sexually harassed them.

'I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998,' Jackson said.

He said they had no reason to doubt the validity of their requests, but realises in hindsight it was highly likely a 'smear campaign in full swing'.

Jackson now suspects he was fed incorrect information about the two outstanding actresses but, at the time, it was enough to prevent him casting them.

Judd has since responded to the reports and confirmed she recalls being blacklisted by Jackson.

'I remember this well,' the actress wrote on Twitter, linking to the article.

The esteemed movie-maker said that Weinstein and his brother Bob were very difficult to work for.

The New Zealand filmmaker says Weinstein prevented actresses Ashley Judd (left) and Mira Sorvino (right) from appearing in the Lord of the Rings trilogy

He says Weinstein (pictured) prevented actresses Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino from appearing in the Lord of the Rings blockbuster

Jackson (pictured) says he had no reason to doubt the validity of their requests but now suspects now in hindsight it was highly likely a 'smear campaign in full swing'

'My experience, when Miramax controlled the Lord of the Rings, was of Weinstein and his brother behaving like second-rate Mafia bullies. They weren't the type of guys I wanted to work with - so I haven't,' Jackson told Stuff.

Weinstein had attempted to remove Jackson from the LoTR adaption, if Weinstein's demands weren't met.

The Hollywood heavyweight wanted to make the film into one, whereas Jackson preferred the idea of two.

Jackson and his wife Fran were told they had four weeks to find another studio to take on the two films before, after being rejected by nearly every major studio, New Line took over and proposed the idea to make three.

More than 80 women have come forward to accuse Weinstein (pictured) of sexual assault and harrassment

'Although his name had to be on the Lord of the Rings credits for contractual reasons, he was not involved in the movies we ended up making,' Jackson said.

He said making movies is far more enjoyable when you work with nice people.

More than 80 women have now come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault including Mila Kunis, Gwyneth Paltrow and recently Selma Hayek.
Police are hunting for witnesses after a dramatic ram-raid at a shopping centre that resulted in an entire ATM machine being stolen.

About 5am on Sunday, a silver Toyota Landcruiser smashed through the doors at Casey Market Town near Canberra.

A number of hooded people exited the vehicle and stole the ATM.

Scroll down for video

Police are hunting for witnesses after a dramatic ram-raid at a shopping centre that resulted in an entire ATM machine being stolen

About 5am on Sunday, a silver Toyota Landcruiser smashed through the doors at Casey Market Town near Canberra

Dramatic CCTV footage captured at the scene shows how the theft unfolded.

The SUV was also caught running a red light the night before on Saturday.

Police said they later found the vehicle burnt out as well as the ATM which had been emptied of the cash, according to the Canberra Times.

Detectives are investigating the incident.

Police are asking people who may have dashcam footage of the car or information related to the incident to come forward.

People are being asked to call police on 131 444 with any information, or to contact Crime Stoppers.

Dramatic CCTV footage captured at the scene shows how the theft unfolded
Christmas is coming! At least that's what a holiday light display is supposed to announce. Mission accomplished?

These phallically decorated palm trees in a small town in Italy have burst onto social media, garnering lots of attention for the obvious.

The photo of Christmas lights on palm trees in Civitanova Marche has gone viral and the town's people are excited for their new found fame.

'Absolutely hilarious! Always good to celebrate the town council's sparkly erections at the annual Winter Festival  it's worth the council tax alone!' a town local said, according to IBTimes.

If you can't have a real white Christmas... These trees provide an extra burst of holiday cheer

The image went viral after being picked up by the Twitter account You Had One Job

The image was picked up by the Twitter account 'You Had One Job' and was posted with the caption 'Why you don't put Christmas lights on palm trees.'

The lights, which cover the entire palm tree base, with a wider, bulbous section at the top- are made that much more inappropriate as the lights are strewn out on the leaves in spurts.

Another presumably Italian person added to the Twitter thread: 'We are proud of our Italian trash.'

Many people were guessing if the inappropriately decorated palm trees were in the United States.

Many hazard guesses that the display was in Florida, while others thought Arizona perhaps.

The town officials are taking the good natured ribbing in stride however, and hope the display brings more people to the town to see their version of a white Christmas, and pump up the economy.

Another Twitter user suggested 'I don't think that's what's meant by a happy ending to the year.'
Qantas have announced plans to launch their first-ever direct flights from Melbourne to San Francisco.

The new route - operated by the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner - will be on sale from early 2018 with flights expected to start by the end of next year.

Qantas say they are meeting consumer demand for the two Californian cities, and that the Dreamliner will fly to Los Angeles some days of the week and San Francisco on others.

Qantas revealed 787 Dreamliner (pictured) plans to fly direct from Melbourne to San Francisco

Victorians will be able to fly to San Francisco (pictured) by the end of next year

'A significant number of our Melbourne passengers flying to Los Angeles already connect on to San Francisco,' said Qantas International CEO Alison Webster.

'We also see strong demand from San Francisco, both from a tourism perspective and because of the business links between Melbourne and Silicon Valley,' she added.

The first 787-operated Melbourne-LAX flight, QF95, departed Melbourne at 14:25 on Friday.

The Dreamliner has 236 seats across three cabins including the acclaimed Business Suite - nicknamed 'mini First Class' by some frequent flyers.

Qantas made the announcement as it unveiled the name of its latest Dreamliner - 'Waltzing Matilda'.

Often called Australia's unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda was one of the 45,000 suggestions received from the public to name the airline's new fleet of eight Dreamliners.

'Banjo Paterson is said to have written Waltzing Matilda while working on a cattle station in the outback Queensland town of Winton, which was also the birth place of Qantas 25 years later,' Ms Webster said.

Ms Webster was joined by the Victorian Minister for Tourism and Major Events, John Eren, at Qantas' engineering base in Melbourne to mark the naming and announce the new route.

Earlier this year Qantas revealed all eight Dreamliner names; Great Southern Land, Waltzing Matilda, Great Barrier Reef, Skippy, Boomerang, Quokka, Uluru and Dreamtime.
He claimed he served 25 years, but he served less than a decade and never saw combat

A Brooklyn Army vet, Papotia Reginald Wright, is accused of being a fraud after boasting a resume that was too impressive to be true.

Wright, who claimed he was a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient, used his faux clout to get into galas and was even granted field access to the Giants.

According to military documents obtained through a FOIA request by Guardians of the Green Beret, he lied about everything from his rank to his time served.

Brooklyn Army vet, Papotia Reginald Wright (left and right), is accused of faking being a Green Beret, as well as being a Purple Heart recipient

For one, Wright never served in the Special Forces, never saw combat, and never rose above the rank of 'specialist.'

Wright was mostly a driver during his time in the military and spent his time in Alaska, Egypt, Georgia and Texas.

He claimed his illustrious military career spanned 25 years, however according to the documents as reported by the New York Post, he served between 1982 and 1990.

Wright would wear a fake Green Berets uniform with a Special Forces patch and Purple Heart medal to various functions.

He started an organization to help veterans in Brooklyn in 2016, and called it the 8th Special Forces Regiment New York Honor Guard.

In his bio on the group's site, which has since been removed, it read:

'In August of 1982, [Command Sergeant Major] Wright was ordered to Fort Bragg, N.C., where he became a member of the U.S. Military Special Operations Command for over 25 years.

'CSM Wright circumnavigated the world while performing his duties when it pertained to defending America and her citizens for his actions.'

Wright was found out after the Guardians of the Green Beret, a group made up up of current and former Special Forces, began investigating him after they received a tip.

It is a federal crime, under the Stolen Valor Act, to lie about military heroics for monetary gain and other benefits.

'It bothers us. Stolen valor is an epidemic. We cannot keep up with the cases sent to us,' one member of the group said.

'Wearing fake stuff  wearing a Ranger tab, Special Forces tab, those things are hard to earn. Wearing a Purple Heartthat stuff's unforgivable there.'

Wright (right) was accused of using his faux clout to get onto the field at a Giants game

Jeff Johnson, 37, who served over 11 years in the Army, worked at Wright's organization.

'It wasn't confirmed to me until three or four days ago when I got a call from one of the members of the unit who was heartbroken,' he told The Post.

'For a while I just started chuckling. It was like this uncomfortable chuckle. That's when I realized I was played for a friggin' fool.'

'He said he was living off half a kidney,' Johnson said. 'He's an amazing storyteller because he will get into details.'

Wright gave Johnson a Special Forces patch.

'I did feel odd wearing it,' he said. 'There's a sacred aura to it.'

He would also refer to Johnson as 'colonel' in public, but he was a major. Johnson now realized he was being used as part of the ruse.

Johnson attended a gala with Wright for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which was attended by Meghan McCain and retired General David Petraeus.

'When I look back on it I realize why he needed me there  to make it look legit,' Johnson said.
A Sydney businessman accused of sex offences was part of a Game of Thrones-type world where adults explored the boundaries of their sexuality and achieved pleasure through pain, a court has heard.

Liam Gordon Murphy, 42, has faced a pre-committal hearing at Downing Centre Local Court as he fights allegations he sexually assaulted two women he met via online fetish forum Fetlife.

His lawyer Charles Waterstreet on Friday said the disputed incidents in 2015 occurred in the context of a Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) world.

Liam Gordon Murphy, 42 (pictured) is accused of sexually assaulting two women

Mr Waterstreet said the law applied but in an atmosphere where there was a 'pantomime of pleasure and pain'.

'Your Honour is dealing with an area where society is upside down and in the context of a FetLife, BDSM world not unlike a Game of Thrones, so that the rules of society are not in operation but are governed by those agreements among members,' he said.

'We're dealing with players, men and women, who are seeking to explore the boundaries of their sexuality in this Game of Thrones atmosphere where pain is the doorway to sexual pleasure.'

Mr Waterstreet said evidence indicated the relationship between Murphy and the first alleged victim included requests by her 'to be really scared, to be really punished'.

She told Murphy he didn't rape her in text messages before she went to police and Mr Waterstreet wants to question her about those exchanges during the committal hearing in 2018, he said.

Court heard the 42-year-old was part of an online world where adults explored the boundaries of their sexuality and achieved pleasure through pain (picture from Game of Thrones)

Mr Murphy's (pictured) lawyer told the court they were dealing with 'an area where society is upside down and in the context of a FetLife, BDSM world not unlike a Game of Thrones'

He also wants to ask about her relationship with another man, and whether he hypnotised her some time before she made a statement about Murphy to police.

Murphy, who his lawyer said was 'the most popular man on Fetlife', was charged in 2016 with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation to the first woman.

He was further charged this year with sexual intercourse without consent after a second woman made a complaint.

Mr Waterstreet said he wanted to cross-examine the second alleged victim at the committal hearing about whether she was in a master-slave relationship with another man when she went to police.

Magistrate Christopher Halburd is yet to decide who will give evidence at the March 2018 committal hearing, and on what issues.

He granted a bail variation to Murphy so he can travel interstate as part of a business he has started.

Mr Waterstreet said Murphy lost his well-paid job at a well-known company and has been unable to work as an employee.
Greyhounds are 'no more or less likely to cause any harm' than any other breed

Under law, all greyhounds in Victoria must be leashed and muzzled in public

RSPCA wants laws requiring pet greyhounds to be muzzled to be repealed

RSPCA Victoria have called for the government to ban legislation requiring greyhounds to be muzzled public.

The animal welfare group have said a decision on the matter is 'close', and want pet greyhounds to be without muzzles in public.

'We think the muzzle should come off,' Dr Liz Walker for RSPCA Victoria told 3AW's Neil Mitchell.

RSPCA Victoria have called for the government to ban legislation requiring greyhounds to be muzzled in public

Under the Domestic Animals Act 1994, all greyhounds in Victoria must be leashed and muzzled when outside the premises of their owner

'There's no data to show that greyhounds are any more or less likely to cause any harm.'

Under the Domestic Animals Act 1994, all greyhounds in Victoria must be leashed and muzzled when outside the premises of their owner.

'I think Australia and Ireland are the only countries where pet greyhounds have to wear them,' Dr Walker said.

Pet greyhounds must also be leashed and muzzled in council designated off leash exercise areas.

'There's no data to show that greyhounds are any more or less likely to cause any harm,' Dr Liz Walker for RSPCA Victoria said

Earlier this year, the ACT repealed laws requiring pet greyhounds to be muzzled

While Dr Walker believes pet owners should keep their greyhounds on a leash when in public spaces, she said they do not need to be muzzled.

'At this point in time leaving them on the lead is the smart thing to do,' Dr Walker said.

'A lot of greyhounds need homes, they're such a beautiful gentle breed but we know muzzled greyhounds will stay in RSPCA shelters for 40 days.

'If they are without muzzles, they will be out in 12 days.'

Earlier this year, the ACT repealed laws requiring pet greyhounds to be muzzled.
A daring hiker risked his life by climbing to the edge of an active volcano in Bali to capture footage of the monstrous eruption in real-time.

Bali local Ikomang Giri trekked to the mouth of Mount Agung as it was spewing thick volcanic ash and stood dangerously close as he filmed the one-in-a-lifetime spectacle.

The extraordinary clip, taken on Wednesday, shows towering plumes of smoke slowly erupting from the Indonesian volcano while the hiker boldly films in awe.

Scroll down for video

Bali local Ikomang Giri trekked to the mouth of Mount Agung as it was spewing thick volcanic ash and stood dangerously close as he filmed the one-in-a-lifetime spectacle

The man appears to be standing right above the heart of Mount Agung as the volcanic lava threatens to explode from its fiery depths.

Balinese officials have condemned the man's perilous hiking trip into the red zone, local media reports.

'Very dangerous because it can suddenly erupt,' a spokesperson for the National Disaster Management Agency said.

Mr Giri's footage attracted a flood of comments and has been viewed over 800,000 times since he shared it to Facebook.

The man appears to be standing right above the heart of Mount Agung as the volcanic lava threatens to explode from its fiery depths

Balinese officials have condemned the man's perilous hiking trip into the red zone, local media reports

Mount Agung (pictured) rumbled back to life in September and has been slowly spewing out thick volcanic ash

Many commenters berated the man in Indonesian for flirting with danger, while others expressed amazement.

'Be careful... don't be too reckless,' one man wrote.

Dark clouds of ash have been seeping out of the volcano for weeks on end, wreaking chaos on the Indonesian holiday island.

Mount Agung rumbled back to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby.

Dark clouds of ash have been seeping out of the volcano for weeks on end, making for spectacular views on the Indonesian holiday island

Mount Agung rumbled back to life in September, forcing the evacuation of 140,000 people living nearby

Mount Agung's crater is now more than one-third full, which means a violent eruption remains likely

More than 40,000 local residents have been evacuated from the danger sector surrounding Mount Agung, forced to live in temporary shelters until the rising magma either subsides or, more perilously, blows.

Flights in and out of Bali have regularly been interrupted and cancelled, both due to the smoke and potential explosion.

Mount Agung's crater is now more than one-third full, which means a violent eruption remains likely.
ISIS has promised to 'burn' Berlin in online propaganda that also shows an armed jihadist outside Washington National Cathedral in the US.

Chilling posters show a militant in army fatigues and a machine gun with the Washington DC cathedral engulfed in flames.

Despite choosing a landmark in the US capital, a message on the poster says: 'Wait for us. We meet at Christmas in New York... soon.'

A second shows a masked extremist with an assault rifle standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with revellers in the background along with the message: 'Berlin will burn'.

Chilling ISIS posters show a militant in army fatigues and a machine gun with the Washington National Cathedral engulfed in flames in the background

A second shows a masked extremist with an assault rifle standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin with revellers in the background along with the message: 'Berlin will burn'

A third features a picture of a fanatic inside a church walking towards a man dressed as Father Christmas. A message on this poster says: 'Soon on your holidays. Soon, very soon.'

The posters are the latest in a series of online threats against the US and Europe to emerge in recent weeks.

Yesterday, fanatics threatened to attack the US with 'showers of bullets and explosive vehicles' in online posters showing New York's Police Commissioner James O'Neill as a prisoner.

Chilling mocked-up images show the official kneeling before a masked jihadist in Manhattan along with a message 'signed with blood' to 'The Nation of Cross'.

A third features a picture of a fanatic inside a church walking towards a man dressed as Father Christmas. A message on this poster say: 'Soon on your holidays. Soon, very soon'

The online ISIS propaganda warns: 'We will do more ops in your land, until the final hour and we will burn you with the flames of war which you started in Iraq , Yemen, Libya, Syria and Afghan. Just you wait. We are waiting too.'

Another image shows a jihadist with his boot on Donald Trump's head along with the words: 'Wait for us. The vanguards of the conquerors are coming to you with showers of bullets and fires of the explosive vehicles.'

The online images emerged after a taxi driver attempted to detonate a pipe bomb a the Port Authority Bus Station subway station in New York.

This took place just days after Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, sparking violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
A man faces six felonies stemming from a drug arrest three years ago during which he arranged to sell an undercover agent five pounds of marijuana, charges allege.

Jake Wayne Kissell, born in December 1993, made his initial appearance in Yellowstone County Justice Court on Thursday. He faces five counts of criminal drug distribution and a single count of drug distribution by accountability, all felonies. Justice of the Peace David Carter released him on his own recognizance.

Kissell sold marijuana to an undercover agent from the Division of Criminal Investigation on five occasions in April and May of 2014, according to charges. Agents arrested Kissell during the sixth arranged buy.

The quantities of pot increased from one sale to the next, charges state. Kissell sold the agent a pound of pot on May 21, 2014, and two weeks later arranged to sell him five pounds.
This is the moment a British special effects team broke the world record for most explosives detonated in one scene - and it'll blow you away, literally.

The epic Finnish war film Unknown Soldier set the Guinness World Record for the biggest boom in cinema history by letting off a whopping 64.72kg of high explosives.

British special effects expert Duncan Capp and his crew simulated an artillery bombardment on a Russian bunker, with 11 ground explosions and 15 tree explosions.

The blasts were equivalent to 70.54 kg of TNT-equivalent.

TNT equivalent is a method of expressing energy - typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion, and it is the official measurement used by the Guinness World Records.

It was almost double the amount of explosives used in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre.

Duncan, 38, the owner of IFX International Special Effects, based in Maidenhead, Berkshire, who has worked on Stephen Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Troy, Band Of Brothers and Batman Begins, admitted he was surprised to break the record.

British special effects expert Duncan Capp, 38, and his crew IFX International Special Effects simulated an artillery bombardment on a Russian bunker, with 11 ground explosions and 15 tree explosions

The epic Finnish war film Unknown Soldier set the Guinness World Record for the biggest explosion in cinema history by letting off a whopping 64.72kg of high explosives

He said: 'We filmed on a Finnish army base.

'In total we used around 350kg of high explosives on this film, sometimes producing over 30 explosions a day on tanks, trucks, boats, bridges and much more.

'In big studio films usually you are in densely populated area, so you can't use as much high explosives.

'On this, we were on a military base so we could destroy trees and had the freedom to use as much explosives as we needed.'

The special effects team performed a dangerous six-hour operation setting up the dynamite prior to shooting.

Duncan said: 'In total we used around 350kg of high explosives on this film, sometimes producing over 30 explosions a day on tanks, trucks, boats, bridges and much more'. Above, Duncan calls in the explosives

All in, the crew detonated 26 explosives during the scene which broke the record. Although they let off nearly 65kg of high explosives, the blasts were equivalent to 70.54 kg of TNT-equivalent. TNT equivalent is a method of expressing energy - typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion, and it is the official measurement used by the Guinness World Records

During the shot, which used eight cameras, the team blasted pine and birch trees to pieces.

The crew watched exercise videos of Finnish army artillery shell detonations to gain an idea of the impact of the explosives.

While filming, the noise from the blasts was 'earth shaking', according to Duncan, who was standing 60 metres away from the explosions during filming.

He added: 'It is massive - your body shakes.

They were shooting 'Tuntematon Sotilas' (Unknown Soldier) in Vekaranjarvi, Finland on a Finnish army base so they had the freedom to use more explosives

'We had shockwaves from the blasts.

'When we are setting this stuff up, we are not playing around.

'It's 64 kilos of dynamite. Any one stick would obliterate you.

'I have been doing this for 20 years, but if you are not nervous there is something wrong with you.'

Unknown Soldier is the story of a Finnish infantry unit's tour of duty during the 1941-1944 Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union.

Duncan, above, is based in Maidenhead, Berkshire and he has worked on Stephen Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Troy, Band Of Brothers and Batman Begins, admitted he was surprised to break the record

It has become the most watched film in Finland in 50 years despite being released just seven weeks ago.

Thousands of Finnish extras were used during the making of the 7 million euro movie.

More than 60,000 Finns were killed or went missing during the bitter conflict with the Soviet Union.

During bitter fighting, the Finns battled against overwhelming might of Joseph Stalin's Soviet forces, inflicting massive casualties on the Russians.

The film has become the most watched film in Finland in 50 years despite being released just seven weeks ago. Thousands of Finnish extras were used during the making of the 7 million euro movie. More than 60,000 Finns were killed or went missing during the bitter conflict with the Soviet Union

A spokesperson for Guinness World Records said: 'The most high explosives detonated in a single film take is 70.54 kg of TNT equivalent and was achieved by Duncan Capp of IFX International Special Effects in Vekaranjarvi, Finland, on June 29 2016.

'The film that the take is included in is called 'Tuntematon Sotilas' (The Unknown Soldier).'

Duncan says the Guinness World Record award now has pride of place in his office.
Convicted drug mule Cassie Sainsbury could soon walk down the aisle in a jailhouse wedding after it emerged the prison inmate intends to marry her fiance while still behind bars.

The 22-year-old was sentenced to six years prison for trying to smuggle 5.8kgs of cocaine concealed in headphones out of the country and has been languishing in her Colombian jail cell since April.

Her fiance, Scott Broadbridge, has visited Sainsbury in Bogota a grand total of twice, but it appears the pair are still together despite the prison walls which separate them.

The 22-year-old (pictured right with her fiance) was sentenced to six years prison for trying to smuggle 5.8kgs of cocaine concealed in headphones out of the country and has been languishing in her Colombian jail cell since April

Sainsbury (pictured) has been in her Colombian jail cell since April and was sentenced to six years prison

According to reports in the Herald Sun, Sainsbury and Broadbridge will wed in a jailhouse ceremony at El Buen Pastor next year.

However the star-crossed lovers will likely need to wait a few years to celebrate their union with a proper honeymoon.

In the months following her arrest, Sainsbury has transformed from a reluctant inmate into a model prisoner.

The Adelaide bride-to-be now speaks fluent Spanish after initially complaining about a difficult language barrier and has even been teaching the prison guards English, the publication reports.

In the months following her arrest, Sainsbury (pictured) has transformed from a reluctant inmate into a model prisoner

The Adelaide bride-to-be now speaks fluent Spanish after initially complaining about a difficult language barrier and has even been teaching the prison guards English, the publication reports

When Sainsbury (pictured) was still facing two decades behind bars, Mr Broadbridge was unwavering in his devotion to his jailbird fiancee

She even served as a translator when a group of Chinese officials toured the notorious women's prison.

Sainsbury also plans to study law by correspondence as she serves the remainder of the prison term.

When Sainsbury was still facing two decades behind bars, Mr Broadbridge was unwavering in his devotion to his jailbird fiancee.

'I'll wait. She would do the same for me,' he said in a 60 Minutes interview.

'I am willing to be there through to the end, and I've told her that. That's how I feel.'

Sainsbury also plans to study law by correspondence as she serves the remainder of the prison term

According to reports in the Herald Sun, Sainsbury and Broadbridge will wed in a jailhouse ceremony at El Buen Pastor (pictured) next year

With time already served, plus her work in jail, Sainsbury could be released in as little as three years.

Despite the shorter sentence, it is understood she could also spend two years living in Colombia on parole after leaving the prison.

Sainsbury was also ordered by the judge to pay a nearly $130,000 fine.
Quick-witted Christmas shoppers briefly hit the jackpot yesterday when luxury Italian handbags went on sale for just a few pounds on the Harrods website.

The store sold out of Aspinal of London handbags last night after what appears to have been an online error, as some of the high-quality items were listed for as little as 2.13.

Shoppers were quick to pounce on the dramatic price cuts at the renowned London department store, as a Marylebone tote bag which would normally have cost them 950 went on sale for just 8.08.

But Harrods today said in a statement that it had contacted the customers personally to say that the orders would not be dispatched.

Shoppers were quick to pounce on the dramatic price cuts at the renowned London department store after what appears to have been an online error

Your legal rights If you've paid for something in a shop, they can't ask for more money if the price was wrong

But if you haven't paid yet they can ask for the full price

If you've paid too much, try and find some evidence, for instance a picture of the incorrect price tag

When shopping online your rights depend on whether you have a 'contract'

Sometimes you will have one as soon as you pay for an item

But a company's terms and conditions may say that a contract is not created until the item is actually delivered Source: Citizens Advice Advertisement

High-end leather saddle bags and black patent Portobello bags were also on offer for less than 5, according to the Evening Standard.

One shopper told the paper: 'I couldn't believe my eyes and luck when I saw the handbags.'

A spokesperson for Harrods told MailOnline: 'Due to a supplier computer pricing error, a number of Aspinal products were displayed for a short period of time on our website at the incorrect price.

'We took immediate action to rectify this pricing error and the issue was resolved quickly. Harrods has personally contacted any affected customers to inform them of the error and that orders would not be dispatched.

'We apologise for any inconvenience caused.'

Harrods today said in a statement that it had contacted the customers personally to say that the orders would not be dispatched

The store sold out of Aspinal of London handbags as some of the high-quality items were listed for as little as 2.13

Some of the cheap bags were still listed on the Harrods website this morning but had sold out after Thursday's sudden clamour.

Aspinal of London describes the Marylebone tote bag on its website as 'an arm candy favourite' and a 'luxuriously chic and sophisticated' product.

Citizens Advice says that your rights as a consumer when shopping online depend on the terms and conditions of the company you are dealing with.

Harrods' terms and conditions say that they may not be able to accept an order if 'there has been a pricing or product description error on the website'.
The head of the United Nations has warned that the world is 'sleepwalking into war' over North Korea that could have 'very dramatic consequences'.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres also called for diplomatic efforts to banish nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula in a speech yesterday.

Speaking while on a visit to Japan, Secretary-General Guterres explained: 'The worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances.'

The UN Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions over the past year against North Korea over its increasingly powerful missile and nuclear tests.

Speaking alongside Guterres (left), Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (right) echoed the call to 'fully implement United Nations Security Council resolutions' and hold 'meaningful dialogue toward denuclearisation'

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington was ready to talk to Pyongyang 'without preconditions', interpreted by many as a shift in the US position. Pictured: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un atop Mount Paektu

Guterres stressed: 'Dialogue must have an objective and the objective for us is to achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to do it in a peaceful manner.' Pictured: The launch of the Hwasong-14 ICBM in July, the first rocket of its kind to come out of North Korea

Guterres said those sanctions need to be implemented 'by North Korea first of all, but also fully implemented by all the other countries whose role is crucial'.

He urged 'diplomatic engagement that allows for...denuclearisation (of the Korean peninsula) to take place in a peaceful way'.

'It is important for all parties to understand the urgency of finding a solution,' he told reporters at a later briefing.

Speaking alongside Guterres, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe echoed the call to 'fully implement United Nations Security Council resolutions' and hold 'meaningful dialogue toward denuclearisation'.

The secretary-general's trip comes after Jeffrey Feltman, the UN's political affairs chief, visited North Korea earlier this month.

Feltman said he had been told in Pyongyang that North Korea wants to avoid war and said he 'fervently' hoped the 'door to a negotiated solution will now be opened wide'.

The secretary-general's trip comes after Jeffrey Feltman, the UN's political affairs chief, visited North Korea earlier this month. Pictured: President Donald Trump, whose war of words with North Korea has been growing in intensity

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington was ready to talk to Pyongyang 'without preconditions', interpreted by many as a shift in the US position.

Washington's top diplomat told the Atlantic Council policy forum that North Korea is welcome to talk about anything at a first meeting - even the weather.

However, the White House and Tillerson's own department later stressed that the US position on North Korea 'had not changed'.

'The secretary was not creating a new policy, our policy remains exactly the same as it was,' State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Wednesday.

Asked about Tillerson's comments, Guterres said he would 'not like to comment on expressions that sometimes might not translate exactly the thinking' of the administration.

US warplanes, including B-1B heavy bombers (pictured) carried out joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea earlier in the year in a move many warned could stoke tensions

Speaking while on a visit to Japan, Secretary-General Guterres explained: 'The worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances'

'Dialogue must have an objective and the objective for us is to achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and to do it in a peaceful manner,' stressed the UN chief.

Asked if he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he said: 'Meetings only make sense if there is a purpose to those meetings. I am ready to go anywhere at any time when it is useful but I'm not aiming...just to be in the cameras of the television.'

'We are available, but we can only mediate when both parties accept our mediation.'
Brexiteers today warned Brussels demands for a transition deal would leave Britain 'de facto in the EU' as Theresa May hailed agreement on her divorce deal.

All 27 remaining EU leaders signed off on Britain having made 'sufficient progress' on how to leave the bloc today in a major milestone on the road to Brexit.

The decision means the release of new negotiating guidelines that finally unlock talks on trade between the UK and EU after Brexit.

But the European demands controversially insist Britain must match all EU rules for the duration of a transition deal - meaning continued free movement, no signing of trade deals with other countries and keeping European court rulings.

In an apparent concession, EU sources told reporters in Brussels the UK would be allowed to negotiate trade deals with other countries during a transition - something currently banned under under EU laws - but not sign or implement them.

In the biggest setback for Britain, the document says full-blown UK-EU trade talks will not begin until at least March. Mrs May has seized on an admission 'exploratory' talks can begin immediately.

Brexit supporters praised Mrs May for getting the talks to the new phase but senior Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg told MailOnline the 'hard-nosed' EU demands went far beyond an implementation period and were effectively continued membership.

Theresa May (pictured in Maidenhead today) hailed the agreement as an 'important step' on the road to a 'smooth and orderly Brexit'

At a press conference in Brussels today (pictured), Donald Tusk signalled a tough new round to the Brexit negotiations

Mr Tusk (centre with Estonian PM Juri Ratas left and Commission President Jean-Claude Junker right) offered a lifeline to Theresa May at a press conference, admitted 'exploratory contacts' on a future trade deal can begin immediately

Following the announcement, Mrs Merkel (right today with French President Emmanuel Macron) told a press conference : 'We have made quite significant progress.'

Mr Rees-Mogg said: 'As usual the EU has set out a hard nosed negotiating stance, we must be equally robust.

'If the acquis, the ECJ and free movement remain we would not be in an implementation period but would still be de facto in the EU.'

Sir Bill Cash, a Tory MP and leading Brexiteer, told Mail Online: 'I think we have made a huge breakthrough by moving to phase two.

'Frankly there are a number of matters which will be resolve in due course by negotiation, but the important principle is that fact that we have now moved past phase one.'

Sir Bill said 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed' but added: 'I think it was a substantial breakthrough and it means that Brexit is anchored.'

WHAT NEXT FOR THE BREXIT TALKS? What happened at the summit today? Theresa May left Brussels last night after pressing the case to move on to trade talks. In her absence, other EU leaders rubber stamped the decision at a meeting this morning. EU Council President Donald Tusk then announced new negotiating guidelines for the EU's negotiator, Michel Barnier. These instruct him to strike a transition deal before launching long-term trade talks. What does the EU want in the transition period? The new negotiating guidelines suggest the EU want a complete 'standstill' transition that keeps Britain inside all EU laws for a fixed period, expected to be two years and running until March 2021. This means freedom of movement will continue to apply, Britain will not be allowed to sign new trade deals and European Court rulings will still be enforced. What does Britain want? Theresa May has set out her own vision for a two year transition in which most EU rules continue to apply. She wanted full-blown trade talks to run in parallel with transition talks from January but looks set to be disappointed. Brexiteers will be furious if it is confirmed Britain is not allowed to strike trade deals during the transition period and accept new EU rules. Advertisement

Asked about the EU negotiating guidelines, which say that the transition deal must be thrashed out before talks can move on to our future trading relationship, he said: 'I think we will have to work out the transition deal.'

Philip Davies, the Brexit-backing Tory MP for Shipley, told MailOnline: 'My view has always been that the whole point of Article 50 was that was the transition period.

'We seem now to have a double transition period, which I am not in favour of to be perfectly honest, but obviously the Prime Minister has a different view.

'I don't think anybody when they were voting last year thought we were going to have a transition period.'

Peter Lilley, the Tory former minister, told Sky News that a free trade deal could be easily struck if the EU wanted one  but said the bloc will want to punish Britain for leaving by offering a bad deal.

He said: 'This will be the first trade agreement between two countries, two parties, which already have free trade.

'It is therefore in principle much easier and much quicker than any previous trade agreement that has been negotiated.'

Ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage was furious at developments.

He tweeted: 'If the trade talks don't start until March then why did Theresa May leave Downing Street so early last Friday?

'We've been taken for mugs, no wonder the EU leaders applauded her last night.'

Mrs May, who returned to Britain last night after meeting EU leaders on the first day of the summit, said the agreement was an 'important step'.

She said: 'I'm pleased it has been agreed that we should make rapid progress on an implementation period which will give certainty to businesses and individuals.

'There is still more to do but we are well on the road to delivering a Brexit that will make Britain prosperous strong and secure.'

EU Council President Donald Tusk today revealed EU leaders have finally agreed sufficient progress has been made on divorce issues to launch trade talks

Mrs May replied, declaring the moment an 'important step on the road to delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit and forging our deep and special future partnership'

Speaking from her Maidenhead constituency, Mrs May added: 'What people voted for last year was for us to leave the European Union and we will leave the EU on the 29 March 2019.

WHAT IS IN THE DIVORCE DEAL THAT'S BEEN AGREED? Citizens' rights The 3million EU citizens in the UK and the 1million UK citizens living in the EU can stay for their 'lifetime', the Brexit phase one deal document has revealed. EU citizens in Britain and Northern Ireland will continue to have access to free healthcare and the benefits system after the UK cuts its ties with Brussels. EU citizens with family outside the UK will also be able to bring them to the UK after Brexit. Irish border Theresa May has guaranteed that there will be no hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland when Britain leaves the EU. The PM also promised no border in the Irish Sea. But the document does reveal that if Britain left the EU with 'no deal' the UK 'will maintain full alignment' with the EU on matters that 'support North-South cooperation'. This mean the 140 areas where North and South work together, such as energy, will continue. Brexit bill The text suggests Britain has agreed to pay the EU between 35billion and 40billion as part of the divorce package. The document does not reveal the price but sets out how it will be calculated and confirms it will be be paid in euros. The document says: 'The UK will contribute its share of the financing of the budgetary commitments outstanding at 31 December 2020'. Britain will get around 12 installments of 300m euros back from the European Investment Bank from 2020. The money will fall due over a number of years rather than all at once, and could be higher depending on the length of any transition period. Despite Philip Hammond insisting this week that the UK should pay whether or not there is a trade deal, the document makes clear the cash is contingent on a final agreement being reached. Advertisement

'We will be delivering the Brexit people voted for.'

Asked about Brussels demand to agree a transition deal before future trade talks, the PM said talks on the future relationship would begin 'straight away'.

Mrs May insisted trade negotiations with the rest of the world would also get underway.

Speaking at a press conference to mark the end of the summit, Mr Tusk said the new phase of talks would not have happened without both the unity of the EU27 and the 'constructive' efforts of Mrs May.

Mr Tusk said it was 'dramatically difficult' but possible to finalise a full agreement in time for exit day on March 29, 2019.

He added: 'It is now time for internal EU preparations and explorative contact with the UK to get more clarity.

'On that basis we should have guidelines and start negotiations next year. I trust that the unity on the EU side will continue.'

He added: 'It's for sure that the second phase will be more demanding, more challenging than the first.'

In a clear sign substantive trade talks are still months away, Mr Juncker told the press conference: 'I think the real negotiations on the second phase [of Brexit] will start in March next year.

'I cannot say when these negotiations will be concluded.'

Mrs Merkel told a separate press conference called alongside the French President that there had been 'quite significant progress'.

On phase two she added: 'That's an even tougher piece of negotiation than we have had until now.'

She added: 'The good news is that the 27 states have so far put in tremendous efforts and stood together and I'm very optimistic we will continue to go forward in quite the same spirit.'

At the same event, French President Emmanuel Macron also stressed the unity of the 27 EU member states.

He said: 'We managed to keep the unity of the 27 and the integrity of the single market and compliance with our rules, and in future we will do what it takes to do the same.'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared almost jubilant at the latest round of talks in Brussels today (pictured), carried out without Theresa May

EU negotiator Michel Barnier (left today) will now be given new negotiating guidelines for the next phase of talks

The remaining EU leaders gathered for a breakfast meeting on the eurozone today (pictured) before they formally decided that 'sufficient progress' has been made on the Brexit divorce

As the next phase begins, EU leaders are demanding Britain spells out exactly what it wants from the talks - despite Mrs May's Cabinet have never agreed a position on the final deal it wants.

It was claimed today a Cabinet discussion planned for Tuesday on the final deal has been postponed until the new year. No 10 insisted the meeting would go ahead as planned but refused to comment on whether any decisions would be made.

As well as thanking Mr Tusk, Mrs May tweeted this afternoon: 'We will deliver on the will of the British people and get the best Brexit deal for our country - securing the greatest possible access to European markets, boosting free trade with countries across the world, and delivering control over our borders, laws and money.'

Her Brexit Secretary David Davis added: 'Today is a good day for Brexit and an important step for Britain.

'Thanks to hard work and determination, we have reached an important milestone and have achieved sufficient progress.

'There is still lots of work to come but we are ready for the next stage.'

In a tweet announcing the decision, Mr Tusk declared: 'EU leaders agree to move on to the second phase of Brexit talks.

'Congratulations PM Theresa May.'

Mrs May this afternoon vowed to 'deliver on the will of the British people' and said she would get the 'best Brexit deal for our country'

Brexit Secretary David Davis said this morning's decision was a 'good day for Brexit and an important step for Britain'

Ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage was furious at developments and claimed Britain was 'being taken for mugs' by Brussels

BREXIT TIMELINE: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT EU leaders have given the green light for the second stage of the Brexit negotiations to begin, what happens next? December 19 - The Cabinet will discuss what sort of long-term relationship they want Britain to have with the EU after it has withdrawn from the bloc. December 20 - Ministers face the prospect of a second Commons rebellion on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill over writing the Brexit date into law. 2018 Winter/spring - Negotiations on the transition to future EU/UK relations, along with 'exploratory talks' on a possible free trade agreement. March 22-23 - European Council summit in Brussels. An opportunity to assess what kind of trade deal can be expected. May - English local government elections will provide the Prime Minister Theresa May with her first widespread electoral test since the disastrous snap election of June 8 2017. October - A final treaty on withdrawal and transition should be ready by this point in order to allow time for ratification before the end of the two-year Article 50 deadline. 2019 Winter/spring - Ratification process involving as many as 38 national and regional parliaments, with any of them effectively holding a veto. Brexit Secretary David Davis has promised that Parliament will have to approve any deal in a Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill, although this will be on a 'take it or leave it' basis. MPs will consider the legislation before MEPs in the European Parliament carry out the final vote on any agreement. March 29 - Two years after the invocation of Article 50, the UK ceases to be a member of the EU and is no longer subject to its treaties, whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached. 2020 December 31 - Britain ceases payments into the EU budget. 2021 - If a two-year 'implementation period' is agreed, Britain will finally move to its new relationship with the EU in the spring of 2021, ceasing to observe EU rules and regulations. 2027 - Expected end of the European Court of Justice's role in the oversight of the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. Advertisement

Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable renewed calls for a referendum on the final deal.

'Now comes the hard part,' he said.

'The outcome of these talks will affect jobs, living standards and prices for years to come.

'Yet with just over a year to go, the Cabinet still can't even agree on what they want the final deal to look like.

'The people must have a say on the terms of any deal, including the option of an exit from Brexit.'

Arriving back at the summit today, Mr Juncker warned there were no easy solutions to the talks.

Asked if there would be trade talks, he said: 'I have extraordinary faith in the British Prime Minister.

'She has agreed with me and Mr Barnier that the withdrawal agreement will first be formalized and will be voted on and then we will see.

'The second phase will be significantly harder than the first and the first was very difficult.'

He added: 'It is a difficult process and I'm still sad that our British friends are leaving the European Union.'

Returning to the summit this morning, Irish premier Leo Varadkar said Mrs May had received a warm reception, telling reporters 'some people offered some good luck, merry Christmas remarks and there was a light round of applause after that'.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said Mrs May was a 'very tough lady'.

After last night's dinner, which ended at 1am after the leaders dined on Thursday on roasted langoustines followed by a main course of capon and a dessert of festive log 'with a twist', German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the divorce deal.

'Theresa May has made good offers that imply that the 27 will see sufficient progress tomorrow. But there remain many issues to be solved and we don't have much time,' Merkel said.

As she left Brussels last night, Mrs May told reporters 'we've had very good discussions.

'I'm looking forward to discussions on the future trade relationship and security relationship.'

A British official said May was 'clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible' when she spoke to the other leaders, telling them she wanted to approach the next phase with 'ambition and creativity'.

Today's meeting included (from left) Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, Chief Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel

Arriving back at the summit today, Mr Juncker warned there were no easy solutions to the talks.

Sources told the Sun today that British ministers would not now meet to discuss what they would ask for in the the trade talks.

One minister said: 'It is delay on delay, and fudge on fudge. No 10 is going to have to get off the fence on this soon, and they know it'.

Another Cabinet source added: 'The big question everyone is asking is, whose side is the PM on? So far, she hasn't given anything away.'

Downing Street insisted today the 'position has not changed' and Cabinet ministers would still discuss Brexit.

The text rubber-stamped by the EU27 promises only work towards a 'framework' for a trade deal, with a wait until March before guidelines for the way ahead are produced.

The document leaves no doubt that a formal free trade agreement cannot be signed until after the UK has left.

First priorities will be to translate last week's agreement on the 'divorce' issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's 39 billion exit bill into a legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement and to work out the terms for a transition period of around two years.

It was clear that the two sides remain far apart on the question of how much progress can be made on trade by the date of Brexit on March 29 2019, with UK officials continuing to talk about having an agreement ready to sign the day after departure, while Brussels expects much of the detailed work to be done during transition.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (pictured today at the EU summit) has said Ireland will be in lockstep with the EU during the negotiations

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was among the leaders taking part in a round table meeting regarding Article 50 at an EU summit in Brussels today

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar yesterday signalled full flown trade talks would not begin until at least March.

He said he expects the next three months of talks to be devoted to the transition deal, adding: 'And once we have that done, we can then talk about the new trading relationship.'

Mrs May's intervention at last night's dinner comes came after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the setback would not 'for one second' stop the Brexit process being completed in a 'very successful and very timely way'.

'I can't believe for the life of me that Parliament will actually vote to stop or reverse the Brexit process or frustrate the will of the British people,' said Mr Johnson at a press conference in London. 'That's just not going to happen.'

Wednesday night's Commons defeat, on an amendment requiring MPs to be given a 'meaningful' vote on the final Brexit deal, was a serious reverse for the PM just days after she finally secured a breakthrough agreement on a divorce deal covering citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's 39 billion financial settlement.

But other EU leaders played down suggestions it had undermined Mrs May's authority in Brussels, with Dutch PM Mark Rutte saying she still possessed 'formidable stature here'.

But Luxembourg's PM Xavier Bettel said it would 'make life more complicated' for her by imposing further constraints on the time she has available to secure a deal.

Arriving back at the summit today (pictured), Mr Juncker warned there were no easy solutions to the forthcoming talks on trade
US President Donald Trump's 'hard-line' stance on North Korea will force the dictatorship to make compromises next year, a South Korean think tank has predicted.

Because Trump has reacted with such fury to the Stalinist state's missile and nuclear tests, North Korea may have to concede ground over fears the US will 'execute a military strike'.

Anxieties about US power could combine with a crippled economy and the loss of China and Russia as allies to force the belligerent autocracy to cool down its nuclear programme.

Anxieties about US power could combine with a crippled economy and the loss of China and Russia as allies to force the belligerent autocracy to cool down its nuclear programme. Pictured: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un attending the 8th Conference of Munitions Industry in Pyongyang on Tuesday

US President Donald Trump's 'hard-line' stance on North Korea will force the dictatorship to make compromises next year, a South Korean think tank has predicted. Pictured: The Hwasong-14 ICBM, launched in July

Because Trump has reacted with such fury to the Stalinist state's missile and nuclear tests, North Korea may have to concede ground over fears the US will 'execute a military strike'

'[In 2017], North Korea hasn't been diplomatically compromising at all,' the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

'But the year 2018 will be different.'

The institute predicted that it will probably be at the end of 2018 when North Korean makes 'inevitable concessions with the international community'.

Despite the hermetic state declaring itself a nuclear power in its propaganda, Asan said that - in reality - it would only be considered as such by the world if it built at least 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It would also have to demonstrate a test of an airborne nuclear ICBM and then launch a missile from a submarine near the US.

Asan added: 'But there's little room for North Korea to conduct bigger provocations.

'If North Korea does the tests, the US would strongly protest and may even execute a military option. That may leave North Korea [with the only option of making] concessions.'

The think tank predicted that North Korea would be most likely to hold talks during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, which are being held in South Korea in February.

But if talks with the US fail, the authoritarian state could 'try to make a breakthrough by improving relations with South Korea', Asan noted.

The institute predicted that it will probably be at the end of 2018 when North Korean makes 'inevitable concessions with the international community'. Pictured: Kim Jong-un laughs after an artillery drill

The think tank predicted that North Korea would be most likely to hold talks during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, which are being held in South Korea in February

But no matter what, the country will find completing its nuclear programme very difficult given its dire economic position. Pictured: A series of Hwasong missiles launched during a drill

Despite the hermetic state declaring itself a nuclear power in its propaganda, Asan said that - in reality - it would only be considered as such by the world if it built at least 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles

That could well be the case if Trump continues his 'hard-line stance', it added.

But either way, the country will find completing its nuclear programme very difficult given its dire economic position.

On top of that, the think tank said, its allies Russia and China could give up on their troublesome friend over fears it may pose a threat to them as well as to their geopolitical rivals.
James Comey(pictured on May 3) downgraded the claim it was 'reasonable likely' that 'hostile actors' accessed Secretary Clinton's emails to later say this was only 'possible'

James Comey's draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation was edited several times before his public announcement to water down the FBI's findings and remove any implication she was guilty of a crime.

A letter sent to the bureau by Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, shows multiple edits to the May 2016 draft.

This includes downgrading the claim it was 'reasonable likely' that 'hostile actors' accessed Secretary Clinton's emails to later say this was only 'possible'.

Comey initially wrote that the FBI believed that Clinton and her aides were 'grossly negligent' in their handling of classified information, language also contained in the relevant criminal statute.

But the text was edited to say they were simply 'extremely careless' in their use of a personal email server, a phrase Comey adopted for his July 5 public announcement that the FBI would not be recommending charges.

Comey's ultimate statement also omitted language asserting that the 'sheer volume' of information classified as secret at the time it was shared made it reasonable to believe that the former secretary of state and her aides were grossly negligent.

Parts of a letter written by Sen. Ron Johnson to FBI director Christopher Wray are photographed in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017

In addition, while Comey initially said it was 'reasonably likely' that 'hostile actors' had gained access to Clinton's email server, the text was edited to say that such an intrusion was 'possible.'

The original version noted that the FBI had worked with partners in the intelligence community to determine whether the server had been compromised.

While it was unclear what significance this had, it was omitted from Comey's final text.

Though the FBI had not yet interviewed Clinton, then the Democratic candidate for president, at the time the statement was drafted, FBI officials had already determined that criminal charges were probably not warranted and had begun thinking about how to present that conclusion to the public.

At the time the statement was drafted, FBI officials had already determined that criminal charges were probably not warranted against Clinton(pictured on December 11)

Comey on May 2 circulated a proposed draft statement to other senior FBI officials laying out the basis for the eventual decision against recommending charges for Clinton and her aides.

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he had obtained from the FBI a copy of Comey's original draft with proposed line-by-line edits from other FBI officials.

It is not clear from the document which official suggested what changes, though many were incorporated into Comey's July 5 announcement.

In a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, Johnson said edits to Comey's original remarks 'appear to change the tone and substance.'

He asked the FBI to identify the officials who had proposed the changes.

The letter comes amid the disclosure of politically charged text messages sent by one of the agents on the case, Peter Strzok, in 2015 and 2016.

Strzok, who was in the room as Clinton was interviewed, was later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's team to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

He was removed from that team last summer following the discovery of negative text messages about Donald Trump.

Senator Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee,(seen on December 12) raised concern about the multiple edits

Last week, FBI director Chris Ray dramatically raised the possibility of Clinton being charged with mis-handling classified material despite being cleared by his predecessor.

Chris Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI Inspector General was looking into whether 'improper political considerations' led to Clinton not being prosecuted, a decision made by Comey who was later fired by President Donald Trump.

Chris Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that the FBI Inspector General was looking into whether 'improper political considerations' led to Clinton not being prosecuted. Pictured: The Capitol Building

'If he were to conclude that thats what happened, then I think at that point were in a situation where we have to assess what else might need to be done to un-ring that bell if you will,' Wray told members of Congress.

The possibility of a re-consideration of the Clinton probe would be a bombshell which could only be built on a damning verdict on James Comey and those around him.

Wray spoke to counter strident attacks on his agency from the president who appointed him, and told the committee: 'There is no finer institution, and no finer people, than the men and women who work there and are its very beating heart.'

Wray provided his first public defense of the nation's premier law enforcement agency since a weekend of Twitter attacks by Trump, who called the FBI a biased institution whose reputation is 'in Tatters - worst in History!' and urged Wray to 'clean house.'

The outburst from the president followed a guilty plea from his former national security adviser for lying to the FBI and the revelations about Strzok.
The woman whose mother shamed her online by posting pictures of her messy bedroom sparking a wave of outraged comments has said she is 'extremely p***** off'.

Fed up with her daughter's untidiness, Amy's mother shared photos of the 24-year-old's chaotic bedroom on Facebook - which show piles of clothes on the floor and strewn across her bed.

'How would you feel if you built this room for your daughter and she treated it like this?,' her mother asked. 'She's 24 by the way.'

Now, Amy, from Victoria, has spoken out to defend herself, saying her room is not usually as messy.

'I'm extremely p***ed off,' Amy told Daily Mail Australia on Friday.

The daughter whose sloppy bedroom was shamed online by her mother (pictured) has spoken out

The Victorian mother shared photos of 24-year-old Amy's messy bedroom (pictured) which show clothes strewn across the room

Amy, who has assistant dog Wally to help with her mental health, (pictured together) told Daily Mail Australia she had been feeling down so had been doing less around the house

Amy (pictured in her room when it's cleaner) said she was 'p***ed off' at her mother for shaming her

'The past few weeks I have been down so I do the bare minimum of what she asks.

'That's the worst it's been in months.'

The hairdresser and dog trainer said her bedroom is separate from the rest of the northern Victorian house where she says she pays weekly rent and does house work.

Amy, who has an assistant dog to help with her mental health, said she started cleaning and doing the washing but her mum 'didn't see'.

Having had a messy room since she was a child, Amy said her room wasn't any different to normal, just slightly messier.

The volunteer said her room was usually cleaner (pictured) than what it was in the photos her mother shared online

'The clothes live on the floor ... usually the little couch is full of clean clothes and I never make my bed,' Amy told Daily Mail Australia

Amy said she started cleaning and doing the washing but her mum 'didn't see' (pictured)

'I was going to clean after I volunteered and if she waited four hours I would have started it,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Living in the specially built room, Amy said she was able to live more independently with her dog Wally but still have family support close by.

The 24-year-old said she cleans the main house to 'show room' standards but when it comes to her bedroom, Amy said she does the washing once a week.

'The clothes live on the floor ... usually the little couch is full of clean clothes and I never make my bed,' she said.

The young hairdresser said her mother always complained about her room and wanted to show her that other people agreed.

The young hairdresser said her mother always complained about her untidy room (pictured)

'She told me to read the comments and have a good look at myself,' Amy said.

'Some people are correct and reasonable.

'I don't mind if [mum] wants to do a house inspection once a month ... it's my room not in the main house.'

Social media users came down hard on the young woman, describing her as 'filthy' and encouraging the mother to 'kick her out' or start charging rent.

One person commented saying it was 'unacceptable'.

'She has an inhaler on her bed so obviously suffers with asthma yet the dust and debris in that room would be making her asthma so much worst. The dust mites in those filthy sheets would be hell on her lungs. Is there a dog living among that mess?,' they wrote.

Another suggested an old fashioned heart-to-heart could be the answer.

'I don't mind if [mum] wants to do a house inspection once a month ... it's my room not in the main house,' Amy said

The frustrated mother took to Facebook to vent about her daughter's messy room (pictured)

'She should be so super appreciative that you've built her this space on your property. Maybe talk to her and see what's going on. She's 24. I was married with children keeping a spotless house at 24.'

Another agreed that a softer approach might be most effective: 'Does she pay rent? If she does than really she can live anyway she likes as long as it's not hazardous. I get what your saying, it would upset me too.'

Someone else thought tough love was the way to go, writing: 'If she's 24, kick her out if she has a place to stay or not, she'll be fine, but she'll learn a lesson, there's no such thing as kids/teens/young adults these days learning an easy lesson, they learn the hard way or not at all.'
Jeremy Corbyn has won a peace prize named after a former IRA leader for his work on promoting nuclear disarmament.

The 68-year-old Labour leader picked up the Sean MacBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau in Geneva, Switzerland.

He was commended for lobbying to cut military spending and for his work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Stop the War Campaign.

(From left) International Peace Bureau co-presidents Lisa Clark and Reiner Braun; Jeremy Corbyn, with the Sean MacBride Peace Prize; International Trade Union Confederation general secretary Sharan Burrow; UNI Global Union general secretary Philip Jennings; and Geneva Green Party city councillor Jean Rossiaud

The prize is named after Mr MacBride, who joined the IRA aged 13 and fought with them, after his father was executed following the Easter Rising of 1916.

The son of revolutionary patriot Maud Gonne, known as 'the Joan of Arc of Ireland', Mr MacBride was imprisoned three times by the British between 1918 and 1930.

When civil war broke out between IRA factions over the 1921 peace treaty, he fought with the IRA's militant antipartitionists, forerunners of the Provisional IRA.

He had become known as an able guerrilla fighter, and was in a gunfight with British soldiers on Pearse Street in Dublin while guarding a battalion meeting that year.

Mr MacBride was also notable for his involvement in launching attacks on Royal Irish Constabulary barracks in Avoca and Rathdrum in County Wicklow aged just 17.

Mr Corbyn picked up the Sean MacBride Peace Prize from the IPB in Geneva, Switzerland

He was arrested and charged with killing Free State Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins in 1927, but later released after it was proved he was out of the country at the time.

He later became the Minister for External Affairs for Ireland and was a founding member of Amnesty International. He also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974.

Dave Webb, vice-chair of the IPB board, told the i newspaper of Mr Corbyn: 'He didn't go back on his stance, like some politicians have in the past.

'He was elected and stuck to his position about being not prepared to push the nuclear button. That was a significant act for a politician on his level.

'It's easy to speak your mind as an activist. When you're a political leader it's much more difficult - but he had the courage to say what he meant and felt.'

Mr Corbyn shared the IPB prize last month with the All Okinawa Council Against Henoko New Base, which has campaigned against a military air base in Japan.

Profile: Former IRA leader Sean MacBride Sean MacBride was born in 1904 in Paris before moving to Ireland after his father was executed following the 1916 Easter Rising. Soon after he joined the IRA aged 13 and was imprisoned several times for his activities with the group - but became its chief of staff by the age of 24. In 1937 he broke with the IRA and qualified in law, defending defended IRA prisoners who had been condemned to death. He began his political career in 1946 by founding the Clann na Poblachta party, and was later the Minister for External Affairs for Ireland. He was also vice president of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, and was responsible for Ireland not joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). Mr MacBride retired from politics in 1961 and was a founding member of Amnesty International and a president of the International Peace Bureau. He had several appointments for the United Nations and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974. Mr MacBride died in Dublin in 1988. Advertisement

A third recipient of the award - given to groups or individuals for their work in peace, disarmament and human rights - with Left-wing academic Noam Chomsky.

Interviewed by the IPB co-president Reiner Braun, Mr Corbyn was asked about the most important next steps towards a nuclear free world.

He said: 'I would say the priorities are ban treaty, non-proliferation treaty, Korea and protecting the Iran Agreement on non-development of nuclear weapons.

'That was a great achievement by a lot of people, who put in a lot of patient work on it.

Later on he added: 'We cannot call it a world of peace when there are 60 million who are refugees, there are millions of people, possibly a quarter of the world's population, living in a level of insecurity in the sense of their living and their homes and their food.

'A world of peace is one that invests in all of its people and doesn't turn a blind eye to the obscenities of grotesque levels of wealth by the wealthiest minority.'

His award citation said the prize was 'for his sustained and powerful political work for disarmament and peace'.

It added: 'As a member of parliament in the UK he has, for 34 years continually taken that work for justice, peace and disarmament to the political arena both in and outside of Parliament.

'He has ceaselessly stood by the principles, which he has held for so long, to ensure true security and well-being for all  for his constituents, for the citizens of the UK and for the people of the world.'
A friend of Meghan Markle has caused an online panic on a niche but fiercely debated subject: the number of unread emails in her inbox.

While some of us stress at the sight of a few hundred unread messages, Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra has outdone almost everyone with 257,623 emails sitting ignored or forgotten on her phone.

The Indian star, 35, was revealed as an email hoarder by American actor Alan Powell, who posted on Instagram with a picture of Chopra's smartphone, according to The Times.

He wrote: 'Guys... guys... don't ever email @priyankachopra... she apparently NEVER reads it! This is the record... I defy anyone to beat it.'

The Indian star, 35, was revealed as an email hoarder by American actor Alan Powell, who posted on Instagram with a picture of Chopra's smartphone

While social media users responded with screenshots of some of their own oversized inboxes, none could match the number of doomed messages on Chopra's phone.

One user called Sandeep Singh achieved a distinction with more than 20,000 emails in each of three separate email accounts.

Former Miss World Chopra first met the soon-to-be royal at a party in Toronto, Canada, where Meghan was filming Suits.

The friendship between Priyanka Chopra and Meghan Markle has led to speculation that Chopra could be a bridesmaid at her friend's wedding

The pair have often shared pictures of each other on social media, for instance enjoying 'girl talk' by a poolside or drinking wine on a New York City rooftop.

When Meghan's engagement was announced the Baywatch star sent her congratulations on Instagram, saying: 'I'm so happy for you Meg! You deserve the best always... keep smiling that infectious smile.'

She also came to Meghan's defence in September, saying that an article about her in another publication had focused too much on Prince Harry rather than on her friend's own accomplishments.

Meghan and former Miss World Priyanka Chopra have often shared pictures of each other on social media after meeting in Toronto

The friendship has led to speculation that Chopra will be one of Meghan's bridesmaids when she marries Prince Harry in the spring.

Lifestyle guides often tout the so-called 'inbox zero' as a life goal, saying that de-cluttering your inbox will give you fewer things to deal with and make you feel less stressed.

Psychology author Ron Friedman said: 'The reason it can feel overwhelming to find lots of emails in your work inbox is that each message represents another demand on your time and another decision you have to make.

'Even deciphering a generic announcement about the office coffee maker requires effort, which leaves less energy for work that matters.'
The man on trial for the kidnap of British model Chole Ayling was secretly recorded telling his mother to destroy emails and messages that could link him to the crime, Mail Online can reveal.

Lukasz Herba also instructed his mother to tell his brother Michal to dispose of a car that had been used in the alleged kidnapping.

The damming telephone call was recorded from the Italian high security prison where the 30-year-old was held after his arrest in Milan.

It will be used at his trial in the Italian city where he is facing up to 25 years in jail over the drugging and kidnapping of the glamour model last July.

Herba is accused of holding Ayling hostage for six days and demanding a ransom of 264,000 or he would sell her on the dark web as a sex slave in the Middle East.

He has claimed the kidnapping was a 'publicity stunt' to boost Ayling's fledgling modeling career and she was a willing participant.

But that claim has been rejected by the court as a credible defence with judges also ruling that Ayling will not have to give evidence and face her alleged kidnapper across a courtroom.

Lukasz Herba, on trial for the kidnap of British model Chole Ayling (pictured), was secretly recorded telling his mother to destroy emails and messages that could link him to the crime, Mail Online can reveal

Herba (above) also told his mother to ask his brother Michal to dispose of a car that had been used in the alleged kidnapping. The damning telephone call was recorded from the Italian high security prison where the 30-year-old was held after his arrest in Milan

Herba is accused of holding Ayling hostage for six days and demanding a ransom of 264,000 or he would sell her on the dark web as a sex slave in the Middle East

He has claimed the kidnapping was a 'publicity stunt' to boost Ayling's fledgling modeling career and she was a willing participant. Pictured: Ayling in London

His claim has been rejected by the court as a credible defence with judges also ruling that Ayling will not have to give evidence and face her alleged kidnapper across a courtroom

Legal documents seen by Mail Online reveal 13 days after his arrest Herba telephoned his mother Lucyna from the top security prison where he was being held.

The call was recorded by prison bosses, as is standard practice at the Opera prison in Milan.

In the call, Herba tells his mother how to access his encrypted email account and gives her the password 'Twat Twat 1' to gain entry.

After telling her to delete a number of emails he instructs her to make sure they are permanently removed by emptying the trash basket on the computer.

In the same call to his mother in the Polish city of Szczecin he tells her she should call his older brother Michal and instruct him to 'get rid of' a car that they had allegedly used in the kidnapping.

Polish police seized the computer and it has been forensically examined by police in Italy to try and retrieve the erased messages.

A transcript of the telephone call was used as part of the extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrate's Court in September.

Italian prosecutors successfully applied for Michal to be sent back to Milan from the UK to stand trial alongside his brother.

Prosecutors say Herba lured Ayling to Milan with the promise of a modelling job. When she arrived at a supposed photographic studio she was drugged and zipped into a canvas holdall and taken to a remote farmhouse.

Katia Kolakowska, Herba's lawyer, told Mail Online that her client insists Ayling was party to the kidnap plot and will produce messages exchanged with Ayling that backs up his story

The lawyer said Herba will claim they first met at a club in London in 2015 and two years later in Paris where the plan for the kidnap, which took place in July, was hatched

Lawyers for Michal, 36, appealed the decision to the High Court in London and a decision on extradition is not expected until early next year.

A legal source told Mail Online the prison telephone call will be a key piece of evidence at Herba's trial, which starts in February when witnesses will be called to give evidence.

More than 50 people, including Ayling's former agent Phil Green, will be called but not the model herself.

Green made the booking for Ayling to travel to Milan where she thought she was taking part in a photo shoot.

Prosecutors say she was drugged and bundled into the boot of a car and taken to a remote farmhouse near Turin where she was held for six days.

Doubts about Ayling's story surfaced after she revealed Herba took her shopping and she also shared a bed with him but did not have sex.

Two judges overseeing the trial in Milan questioned Ayling and believed her story that she had nothing to do with the kidnapping and was not part of any stunt to boost her career.

But legal documents seen by Mail Online reveal 13 days after his arrest Herba telephoned his mother Lucyna from the top security prison where he was being held to try and cover his tracks

In the call Herba told his mother how to access his encrypted email account and gives her the password 'Twat Twat 1' to gain entry

After telling her to delete a number of emails he instructs her to make sure they are permanently removed by emptying the trash basket on the computer, the papers say

In the same call Herba tells his mother she should call his older brother Michal (both pictured above) and instruct him to 'get rid of' a car that they had allegedly used in the kidnapping. Michal is fighting extradition from the UK to stand trial alongside his brother

The lawyer representing Herba told Mail Online he still maintains that Ayling was party to the kidnap plot.

Katia Kolakowska told Mail Online that Herba will produce messages exchanged with Ayling that backs up his story.

She also said he will claim they first met at a club in London in 2015 and two years later in Paris where the plan for the kidnap was hatched.

'He says when they first met she was very poor and pregnant and did not have much of a profile in modeling,' she told Mail Online at her offices in Milan.

'He maintains that he has messages between them that shows she wanted to be famous.

Miss Kolakowska admitted that Herba lied to police after his arrest when he claimed he was suffering from cancer and Romanians had given him money to rent the building in Turin.

She also said he maintains that he did not drug Ayling with the horse tranquiliser Ketamine but that she self injected the drug.

A medical test taken soon after her release showed traces of the drug in her system.

'He says that she used the Ketamin on herself and injected it into her hand,' said Miss Kolakowska.

Prosecutors claim that Ayling was lured to Milan on the promise of a modelling contract and held hostage (above). She was released after six days when Herba took her to the British consulate in Milan

Ayling was allegedly drugged during her ordeal but Herba's lawyer claims the model injected herself with the horse tranquiliser Ketamine

The lawyer also says Herba was given a very poor interpreter so his explanation of events appeared confused

The lawyer also said a poor interpreter during his police interviews also meant that his explanation of events appears confused and at odds with what took place.

Miss Kolakowska said she was disappointed the court ruled that Ayling would not have to return to Milan to give evidence.

'I would like to have asked her about going shopping with Herba for shoes and toothpaste and even having and ice cream,' she said.

'That does not sound like a normal kidnapping. Also Herba took her to the British embassy and waited around where he was arrested. There are certain aspects of this case that are unbelievable.

'He released her so how is this a kidnapping in the normal sense.'

Miss Kolakowska said as well as the computer in Poland police also seized a laptop from Herba's home in Birmingham and another he had with him in Italy.

The trial, which resumes on February 7, is likely to last several weeks.

Prosecutors say Herba lured Ayling to Milan with the promise of a modeling job.

When she arrived at a supposed photographic studio she was drugged and zipped into a canvas holdall and taken to a remote farmhouse.

She was released after six days when Herba took her to the British consulate in Milan. He was arrested on the spot and made no attempt to flee.

Miss Kolakowska said she is disappointed the court ruled that Ayling would not have to return to Milan to give evidence: 'I would like to have asked her about going shopping with Herba for shoes and toothpaste and even having and ice cream'

Herba's trial, which resumes on February 7th, is likely to last several weeks. Ayling is writing a book about her ordeal and two weeks ago returned to Milan to film an interview for Australian TV

Herba's brother Michal is accused of being complicit with the kidnapping.

He will give evidence via a video link from the UK prison where he is being held if the extradition request has not been granted.

Ayling is writing a book about her ordeal and two weeks ago returned to Milan to film an interview for Australian TV.

She is currently in Miami but her Milan lawyer Francesco Pesce told Mail Online she was being kept informed of all developments.

He said: 'I have sent her a message to tell her what has taken place.'
Three people are in custody in Victoria after police raided eight homes in a week-long drug bust operation.

Two men and a woman have been arrested and a large number of plants were seized as police targeted crop houses.

Detectives from the Melton Crime Investigation Unit seized a total of 837 cannabis plants and a firearm.

Victoria Police arrested three people following a week long drug raid, seizing over 800 cannabis plants (pictured: one man charged with drug offences)

Investigators part of Operation Neckties remove several cannabis plants from houses across five suburbs

Detectives from the Melton Crime Investigation Unit seized a total of 837 cannabis plants and a firearm

Search warrants were executed at eight homes in the Brookfield, Melton West, Rockbank, Caroline Springs and Burnside Heights areas throughout the week.

A 53-year-old woman was arrested at a Melton West house on Wednesday, charged with cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis, possessing cannabis, trafficking cannabis and theft.

She was remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on March 8.

Investigators arrested a 26-year-old man at his Caroline Springs home on Thursday.

Two men and a woman have been arrested and a large number of plants were seized as police targeted crop houses

Police escort a man charged with possessing and cultivating cannabis during the week long raids in Victoria

Search warrants were executed at eight homes in the Brookfield, Melton West, Rockbank, Caroline Springs and Burnside Heights areas throughout the week

He was also charged with cultivating, possessing and trafficking cannabis and theft.

The 26-year-old was bailed and will appear at Sunshine Magistrates Court on March 19.

A 31-year-old man was arrested at a Burnside Heights home on Friday morning, after detectives seized a small number of plants.

The man was bailed and will appear at Sunshine Magistrates Court on the March 23, charged with cultivating and possessing cannabis and theft.

Operation Neckties is ongoing and Victoria Police believe more arrests are likely.
A Beverly Hills anesthesiologist has pleaded not guilty to murder after he allegedly injected himself with a sedative and then gave a plastic surgery patient a fatal dose of pain medication.

Stephen Kyosung Kim, 53, is accused of administering a lethal dose of the narcotic Demerol to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mark Greenspan while he was undergoing surgery at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills.

The Los Angeles County district attorneys office says the accused allegedly had given the patient medicine in the recovery room.

Stephen Kyosung Kim, 53, is accused of administering a lethal dose of the narcotic Demerol to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mark Greenspan (left and right) while he was undergoing surgery at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills

While 71-year-old Greenspan was in a recovery room, Kim allegedly gave him a lethal dose of Demerol.

Prosecutors say soon after, Greenspan went into cardiac arrest and died and defendant is accused of injecting himself with drugs during the procedure.

Kim was arrested Wednesday by the Beverly Hills Police Department and taken to Los Angeles County jail, court records show, before being released after he posted a $1 million bail.

Stephen Kyosung Kim was working at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills.

The doctor is expected to be arraigned at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles,

Kim pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder at his arraignment Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

He faces 25 years to life in a state prison if convicted.

In 2015 Dr. Hsiu-Ying Lisa Tseng was convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the overdose of three of her patients in Los Angeles.
Boris Johnson has downed a can of peach juice from an area of Japan that suffered a triple nuclear meltdown in a bid to show its produce is safe.

The foreign secretary was handed the Fukushima fruit drink by Japanese foreign affairs minister Taro Kono, who brought it with him on his visit to London.

A nuclear plant in the prefecture suffered a huge meltdown after an earthquake in 2011, causing a release of radioactive material that led to over 50 countries banning imports of food from the area.

The foreign secretary was handed the Fukushima fruit drink by Japanese foreign affair minister Taro Kono, who brought it with him on his visit to London. Pictured: He downs the can

A nuclear plant in the prefecture suffered a huge meltdown after an earthquake in 2011, causing a release of radioactive material that led to over 50 countries banning imports of food from the area. Pictured: Boris with Kono at the Foreign Office in London yesterday

But Boris didn't seem to mind as he delightedly gulped down a small can of peach juice, captured on video and published to Twitter by Kono yesterday.

Smirking after swigging the drink, Boris mutters: 'Very good... Mmmh.'

He then takes a good look at the can before going for gulp number two.

Again the juice meets his approval, with the foreign secretary declaring: 'Yum! I need it.'

He then takes a final swig and utters yet another 'Mmmmh' before putting the can down, presumably empty.

Kono explained in his tweet: 'British FM Boris Johnson drinking peach juice from Fukushima, showing the products from Fukushima are safe.'

Kono explained in his tweet: 'British FM Boris Johnson drinking peach juice from Fukushima, showing the products from Fukushima are safe.' Pictured: Boris finishing off the juice

Many countries - including the US and China - still have restrictions on Fukushima produce in place following the disaster

Pictured: Police in protective clothing walk amid the debris near the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima back in 2011

Many countries - including the US and China - still have restrictions on Fukushima produce in place following the disaster.

But as part of efforts to persuade the world that the area's goods are perfectly safe, many Japanese politicians have munched on its food and gulped down its drinks.

In 2011, however, MP Yasuhiro Sonoda rather fluffed the PR exercise by visibly shaking as he drank water collected from the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima.
An Irish teacher is fighting for her life in Dubai after a blood clot caused her to faint in her classroom.

Aisling Brady, 26, from Trim, Ireland, was rushed to a hospital where she suffered several seizures, cardiac arrests and a stroke.

Doctors discovered that Ms Brady had suffered a pulmonary embolism and that a blood clot travelling through her heart to her lungs had caused her acute illness.

Fighting for her life: Teacher Aisling Brady, 26, pictured with her boyfriend, fainted and was rushed to hospital where she suffered several seizures, cardiac arrests and a stroke

Ms Brady had been working as a physics and maths teacher in the UAE for a year when disaster struck on November 27.

She hit her head fainting and it is estimated that she was unconscious for three minutes.

Ms Brady herself thought she had fainted due to stress but an ambulance was called and she was rushed to hospital.

In the ambulance, Ms Brady suffered three seizures during the 15 minutes journey to hospital.

Upon arrival, she had a cardiac arrest which lasted three to four minutes, followed by two more which also required several minutes of resuscitation. Ms Brady then had a stroke.

Battle: Ms Brady's family, pictured on their GoFundMe page, are trying to raise money to pay for an AirAmbulance to take her back to Ireland

'This has caused serious damage to the brain and, combined with the total of twelve minutes of hypoxia, really left her cardio-vascular system and brain very, very weak,' her boyfriend Kristian Mansfield writes on the GoFundMe page set up to raise money to transport Ms Brady back to Ireland.

'Just over two weeks ago we were given no hope. If the ambulance was a minute later, we wouldn't be here,' Mr Mansfield writes.

'We are praying that soon we can leave the acute phase, which currently totals sixteen days.

'This will hopefully be within the coming weeks and it is from here Aisling will be fully focused on the small steps to her recovery, as family, friends, acquaintances and strangers, we must think of the long term so Aisling can focus on the here and now to get better.'

Mr Mansfield and Ms Brady's parents hope to raise the funds to transport her home in an AirAmbulance and then provide rehabilitation for her to re-learn motor skills and speech.
Dr. Louis Hebert (above) passed away in 2015, and left $846,648.46 to each of his three children - Lorette Taylor, Marie-Louise Marlow and Louis Paul Herbert

TD Canada Trust has finally released the $846,000 inheritance it owes a family after refusing to pay because UPS lost the bank draft.

'We understand that we've reached a resolution with our customer,' Cheryl Ficker, a spokeswoman for the bank told CBC News.

'It's clear to us we didn't get this right along the way and that there was more we could have done to come to a resolution faster.'

After the death of Dr Louis Herbert in 2015, his children Lorette Taylor, Marie-Louise Marlow and Louis Paul Herbert were the benefactors to each receive the nearly six-figure amount.

Back in February, Lorette went to her nearby TD Canada Trust bank and obtained a bank draft, which is similar to a certified check, but the money is taken from a customer's account immediately and held by the bank until the draft is cashed.

Lorette obtained this form of payment after she claims the bank told her it was the safest way to send the large sum of money.

Lorette obtained a bank draft to send to her brother, Louis Paul Herbert (above) via UPS. But the package with the $846,648.46 draft check never made it to him

She was assured alongside her husband, John, that the money could be replaced if the draft was lost.

'I was told there were procedures to deal with that,' John told CBC.

He said if the draft was lost, bank officials said they would just, 'fill out some documentation and a new draft would be issued.'

Lorette and her husband sent the money via UPS from her lawyer in Georgetown, Ontario - which is about 270 miles away from her brother.

UPS tracked the package to a parcel distribution center located north of Toronto, but after that they have no other information on it (file)

Once the draft was sent, Herbert traveled to his nearby local UPS store near Cornwall, Ontario expecting to pick up the package but it never arrived.

'I'm waiting at the UPS store, around 3pm because that's when they said the guys came in, nothing shows up,' Herbert told CBC News.

'I came back in the evening. Nothing shows up and I'm wondering, "What's happened to my inheritance?"'

UPS tracked the package to a parcel distribution center located north of Toronto, but after that they had no other information on it.

'While UPS' service is excellent in our industry, we are unfortunately not perfect. Occasionally, the loss of a package does occur,' spokeswoman Nirali Raval told CBC, declining to answer specific questions.

'Our records indicate that our team followed UPS protocol and an exhaustive search for this package was completed by our Operations and Security teams. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate the package.'

UPS refunded Lorette the $32 it cost to mail the parcel and sent her an apology letter.

'That's nice of them to say, but it doesn't solve my problems,' Herbert said.

On Thursday, Lorette confirmed the issue had finally been resolved and that the new bank draft was now with the family's lawyer.

'It looks like the matter will be settled,' she said.
Scientists have been left mystified after the body of a creature resembling a dinosaur was discovered with flesh still on its bones.

The partially-preserved corpse was discovered by an electrician cleaning out a sub-station that had been left untouched for 35 years in Jaspur, a small city in Uttarakhand, India.

It resembles a small dinosaur, but since flightless dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years, scientists have struggled to identify it.

The creature has now been sent for analysis, including carbon dating, which will reveal its age.

Scroll down for video

Scientists have been left mystified after the body of a creature resembling a dinosaur was discovered with flesh still on its bones in India

Dr Parag Madhukar Dhakate, a Conservator with the Indian Forest Service, said that the creature would remain an enigma until scientific analysis had been completed.

He said: 'It looks like a dinosaur, but we can't say anything until all the tests are done.'

Aaryan Kumar, who is pursuing a PhD in Paleontology from Delhi University, told local media that it was impossible for a dinosaur skeleton to be so well preserved after so long.

He said: 'Non-avian dinosaurs have been extinct for the past 65 million years but it does resemble theropods, a suborder of dinosaurs which included bipedal carnivores.

'But a dinosaur skeleton could not have been found in such a well-preserved condition after millions of years without it being in a fossilized state.

'The only even slightly possible way is it was chemically preserved to store it in a museum. But if that was the case, how did it end up here?'

The corpse was found at a sub-station that had been left untouched for 35 years in Jaspur, a small city in Uttarakhand, India. It resembles a small dinosaur, but since flightless dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years, scientists have struggled to identify it. Pictured above: A dakotaraptor as it might have appeared 66 million years ago

The Deinonychus, the Coelophysis and the Dromaeosaurus are among the dinos that resemble the shape of the 28cm-long creature.

They're all types of theropods, a suborder of dinosaurs that ranges in size from the mighty T Rex to the tiny Anchiornis.

Dr Dhakate said the specimen had now been sent to Dr Bahadur Kotlia, a paleontologist at Kumaun University, for historical analysis.

One initial suggestion is that it could be a genetically distorted animal foetus from within the goat family, but for now the mystery remains unsolved.
A rare blood disease that left a British backpacker needing chemotherapy may have been caused by a spider, her father has revealed.

Scarlet Goodrich from Teignmouth, Devon, was working on a fruit farm in Victoria, Australia, when she contracted a bacterial infection that caused brain swelling.

The 22-year-old required emergency surgery to battle the illness, which doctors previously believed was caused by a stray kitten's scratch.

Scarlet Goodrich was left in critical condition after she contracted an infection while backpacking in Australia

But her father, Greg Pannell, has revealed a bite from a deadly spider could instead be behind her critical illness days after the sickness caused vital organs to begin shutting down.

Mr Pannell, 43, said he wished to trade places with his daughter the moment he heard she was ill and flew from Devon to Melbourne to be by her side.

'While there has been speculation about a stray cat, it was also mentioned to me that a few months ago Scarlet was bitten by a spider,' he said.

'They are not certain what kind of spider it was, but I immediately relayed it to the hospital. They said they were looking at that aspect also.

The 22-year-old's organs began to shut down leaving her in need of emergency surgery while she was on holiday

'It was extremely distressing to see your child in a condition like that. I burst into tears when I got the call.

'I was just wishing I could trade places with her, I would do in a heartbeat. Her welfare is obviously my main concern, I came here as soon as it was possible.'

Mr Pannell added he is delighted at his daughter's recovery after she woke up in time for Christmas.

'To see her progress this week has been relieving,' he said. 'Shes able to talk and has some movement back and I can see each day.'

Ms Goodrich had been working in Australia for the past 15 months for an agency that arranges work including fruit picking.

Her father dropped her at the airport last year when she was setting off on her holiday.

Ms Goodrich's father revealed that a deadly spider's bite could have been behind her near-fatal infection

But tragedy struck late in November when she was rushed to hospital with crippling back pain and her condition spiralled.

Last Sunday the swelling caused her vital functions to shut down before she underwent emergency surgery.

But she has since taken steps to recovery and despite being rattled by the ordeal, Ms Goodrich is now able to talk.

Yesterday, her uncle Christian Goodrich, from Gloucester, revealed the 22-year-old had woken up.

'Shes got a load road ahead of her, it could be months before she makes it out of hospital,' he said.

'Over the past week things have been more positive. Shes been quite distressed, but she is more coherent, and she very much has kept her sense of humour.

'The swelling was particularly bad last week. The scans on her vitals went downhill and she was taken into the operating theatre. It was a very scary time.

'Its still very serious and there are lots of tests yet to come back. She has a long road ahead of her.'
The .40 caliber Glock was found by a member of the public in 1998 and reported to Compton Police Department, who booked it in on May 30, 1998. Pictured: Tupac in 1993

The handgun used to shoot dead Tupac Shakur was found by a member of the public in a backyard 19 years ago but appears to have gone missing amid fears it could spark gang violence, according to a new documentary.

The .40 caliber Glock was found in 1998 and handed to Compton Police Department on May 30, 1998, before being transferred to LA County Sheriff's Department two years later when they took over local law enforcement.

A detective investigating the murder of Notorious BIG in 2006 recognised the address where the.40 caliber Glock was found as the home of a Crip gang member, and ballistic tests revealed it was the same weapon used to kill Tupac.

But the firearm was never transferred to police in Las Vegas, where Tupac's murder was still unsolved, because federal prosecutors feared it might alert potential conspirators.

The producers of 'Who Killed Tupac?', by A&E, speculated that prosecutors were concerned about gang violence breaking out given that the weapon was linked to the Crips, TMZ reported.

The documentary makers received mixed messages from Los Angeles Police, with some officers saying the gun never reached them and others stating they were unsure.

It comes after another documentary, Snapped: Notorious Set, claimed the legendary rapper knew his assassin - but his murder remained a mystery because police didn't care to investigate.

Tupac was gunned down on September 7, 1996, while driving through Las Vegas. Numerous people - including Notorious BIG - were implicated in the death.

But the identity of Tupac's killer has remained a mystery - because the cops didn't care to look any further, the documentary claimed.

The two-hour documentary, aired in September, included interviews with those who were at the rapper's bedside as he lay dying - and indicated who his killer was.

Tupac, who lost a finger in the shooting, is said in the documentary to have nodded after being asked if he knew who opened up on him with a .40-caliber Glock.

But his killer was never caught nor tried for the murder, because of police inaction, his associates say.

Tupac was gunned down on September 7, 1996, while driving through Las Vegas. Numerous people - including Notorious BIG - were implicated in the death

Chief among the suspects is Notorious BIG, a former friend of Tupac's who became involved in a high-profile feud after they fell out.

In 1995, Tupac claimed that Biggie knew of a planned robbery that had resulted in Tupac being shot and losing valuable jewelry.

The two-hour documentary, aired in September, included interviews with those who were at the rapper's bedside as he lay dying - and indicated who his killer was

Tupac then signed to the West Coast's Death Row records, which was run by feared Compton boss Suge Knight and was in direct competition with Biggie's own Bad Boy records, based in Manhattan.

And three months before his death, Tupac released the track 'Hit 'Em Up,' in which he claimed to have slept with Biggie's then-estranged wife.

But Biggie, who was himself gunned down in a drive-by shooting the following year, denied shooting Tupac, and claimed he was recording tracks when the hit took place - though those claims have been questioned since.

Another possible suspect, identified in a 2002 LA Times investigation, was Orlando Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips gang.

It claimed that Shakur, Knight and several of their entourage had beaten up Anderson the same day as the shooting.

That attack was revenge for Anderson and other members of the Southside crips for robbing a Death Row Records employee earlier in the year.

Las Vegas cops discounted the beating from their investigation, failed to follow up on claims by one of Tupac's friends that he witnessed the shooting, and didn't chase up a witness who may have seen the culprit's car, the LA Times reported.

Anderson, who denied the claims, was killed in a gang shooting in 1998.

But of course, other rumors persisted - including Knight's claim that the hit may have been intended for him in a Death Row Records coup.

Chief among the suspects is Notorious BIG, a former friend of Tupac's who became involved in a high-profile feud after they fell out

Tupac himself reportedly refused to tell the cop who found him after the shooting who his killer was, simply saying 'f**K you.'

His killer may never be known, but some believe the truth is known to police - they just hated the rapper so much they'll never reveal it.

In 2014, EDI Mean, who collaborated with the rapper said: 'I'm absolutely positive they know what happened. This is America. We found Bin Laden.'

The final episode of "Who Killed Tupac?" will appear on Tuesday.
Advertisement

A suspected drink-driver span off the road and smashed through railings - leaving his pricey Mercedes wedged in a basement.

The man, who has since been arrested, crashed into a luxury apartment block around 5am near Hyde Park, central London.

Luckily, the driver was not injured - despite his car being a write-off.

The suspected drink-driver got himself into quite a predicament after getting his car wedged into a basement near Hyde Park

The Metropolitan Police, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade all attended the scene at Lancaster Terrace

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Police were called at 05:17hrs on Friday, 15 December, to a car in collision with a building in Lancaster Terrace, W2.

'Officers, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade attended. The driver of the car did not require hospital treatment.

'He was arrested on suspicion of drink-drive offences. He has been taken into custody at a south west London police station.'

The car - a Mercedes-Benz C220 diesel convertible - can reach speeds of 144mph, and costs up to 50,000.

Apartments in Fountain House, the luxury serviced block that the car was crashed into, can sell for as much as 2million.

Alexander Bergman, a tourist staying in a basement flat within Fountain House, told the Evening Standard: 'We feel very lucky, thats my bedroom window he came through.

'We didnt notice how close it was until we pulled back the curtain and saw this car. We only arrived in London yesterday.. what a welcome.'

A receptionist at the block said the crash caused no structural damage to the building.

The A402 Lancaster Terrace at the junction of Bayswater Road was closed for several hours after the collision this morning but has now reopened.

The man was arrested on suspicion of drink-drive offences, and was taken into custody at a south west London police station

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: 'The driver of the car did not require hospital treatment'
Greg Doyon, the Great Falls city manager who was the unanimous choice to become Billings' city administrator, withdrew from consideration Friday.

Doyon and a Billings City Council subcommittee had been hung up on salary and other considerations.

In an email to the council and the councils hired negotiator, W.D. Higginbotham of the Mercer Group, Doyon noted his understanding that there are other capable candidates who are ready to accept the job.

Doyons email to the mayor and council via Higginbotham arrived during Friday mornings subcommittee meeting.

In that email, Doyon said his decision to withdraw was about more than just the compensation package. Its also about observing how elected officials who he/she will work for, recruits and retains its leadership. While the Council made a unanimous decision to offer me the job, I have not seen that support translate into an employment agreement appropriate for the position.

As such, Doyon wrote, I respectfully decline the employment offer. I am disappointed that we could not reach mutually agreeable terms for a full Council vote.

Councilman Shaun Brown called Doyons decision and the negotiating process disappointing. Subcommittee Chairman Larry Brewster said hes not sure how the council will proceed beginning Monday, the final council meeting of 2017. Three new council members  Frank Ewalt, Denise Joy and Penny Ronning, along with Mayor-Elect Bill Cole  will be seated Jan. 2, 2018.

We probably shouldnt go straight to Plan B, Brewster said. Well probably reopen the process with the new council.

After Fridays meeting, Brewster said Doyon probably had higher expectations than the council was willing to meet. Im sure that (the subcommittees) salary offer had an effect. I think he expected to be paid based on the market, but Billings is notorious for ignoring the market.

Mayor Tom Hanel said "I think we're all disappointed, but I don't think salary was the only factor. I think it was a surprise to the subcommittee that he came back with the (salary) request that he did."

Friday's development "is no reflection on Mr. Doyon, who would have done a very fine job," Hanel added. "But we've got to look out for the community."

Consideration and approval of the new city administrators contract has been on Mondays agenda since it was published Dec. 11. Council members said Friday they hope to discuss the next steps in a city administrator search during Monday's business meeting.

The three other finalists for the position were Ron Alles, the Helena city manager; Dave Fraser, former city manager of Boulder City, Nevada; and Kevin Smith, general manager of the Truckee Tahoe Airport District. It was unclear Friday how the council will proceed with the selection process.

Brewster said it might be prudent to reopen the search process, although at an expedited pace.

We know where we are at on pay now, he said. Lets see what the interest is and get input from the new council members on what they are looking for in a new manager.

The councils subcommittee did not budge from its $155,000 salary offer to Doyon, its unanimous selection Dec. 1 to replace Tina Volek, who retired after 13 years on Sept. 30. Thats $15,000 less than Doyon was seeking and $10,000 less than the counter-offer he made to the subcommittee Thursday.

The two parties were also divided on annual raises. The subcommittee offered Doyon 0-6 percent annual merit raises. He sought to be included in cost-of-living raises as well.
The death toll from a crash between a school bus and a train in southern France rose to six today after two 11-year-old girls succumbed to their injuries.

Four teenagers had died on Thursday in the accident at a level crossing in the village of Millas near the city of Perpignan. Eighteen others were injured, including 14 children.

A TER commuter train travelling at around 50mph ploughed into the bus, causing carnage among the party from a high school in nearby Millas. Photos from the scene showed the train derailed and the bus cut in half.

Scroll down for video.

The death toll from a crash between a school bus and a train in southern France rose to six today after two 11-year-old girls succumbed to their injuries

Four teenagers had died on Thursday in the accident at a level crossing in the village of Millas near the city of Perpignan. Eighteen others were injured, including 14 children

A TER commuter train travelling at around 50mph ploughed into the bus, causing carnage among the party from a high school in nearby Millas

The horrific accident happened close to the city of Perpignan when the vehicle 'was caught between barriers' shortly after 4pm

'The bus was very badly hit,' the public prosecutor in Perpignan, Jean-Jacques Fagny, said.

All of those seriously injured or killed were all travelling in the bus and of those who suffered minor injuries, three were train passengers, police sources said.

France Bleu regional radio reported that the train ploughed into the rear of the bus.

Pictures posted on French media showed the bus had been severed in two.

Around 70 emergency workers, backed by four helicopters, were deployed as part of the rescue effort and the crash site was cordoned off to the media.

The smashed remains of the truck near the crash site in Millas, some 530 miles from Paris, where at least six children have died

The horrific accident happened close to the city of Perpignan, when the vehicle 'was caught between barriers'. Emergency services, pictured, are now dealing with the incident

The local L'Independant paper cited one of the rail passengers, named only as Barbara, as saying the impact 'was very powerful and we thought the train was going to derail'.

The reason for the collision was unclear and local politician Robert Olive described the scene as a 'vision of horror'.

The national railway operator SNCF said that 'according to witnesses, the level crossing was working as normal' but that an investigation would be carried out to confirm the cause.

But a French Transport Department spokesman confirmed that there had been 'regular complaints' about the crossing.

Families of the children rushed to the scene to try to get news of their loves ones, a reporter at the scene witnessed.

Firefighters and police work at the site of an accident in Millas, near Perpignan, southern France, on December 14, 2017, after a train crashed into a school bus at a level crossing

An emergency services vehicle which reads 'accident' is parked on the side of a road with a signpost for Millas

The bus, which was carrying around 20 students from a local secondary school, was struck by the train in Millas about 11 miles of the city of Perpignan, close to the Spanish border

President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: 'All my thoughts for the victims of this terrible accident involving a school bus, as well as their families. The state is fully mobilised to help them.'

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe flew to Millas by helicopter from a meeting in the south-central city of Cahors.

Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne and the head of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, were also on their way to the accident site.

'It's a terrible event,' Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said, expressing 'profound sadness'.

The security department for the Pyrenees area, where the collision took place, said the accident involved a train travelling west from Perpignan to the town of Villefranche de Conflent.

Video images showed a long line of ambulance and emergency service vehicles near the crossing where the collision occurred

A video grab showing an emergency services vehicle driving along the road towards the crash site

The accident is the third involving several fatalities on French railways in the past four years.

In 2015, a high-speed TGV train being tested on a stretch of the line between Paris and the eastern city of Strasbourg derailed after hitting a bridge at 243 kilometres-per-hour, killing 11 people onboard.

In 2013, seven people were killed when a commuter train slammed into a station south of Paris. A signalling defect was blamed for that crash.
Leading Tory rebel Nicky Morgan was last night taken to task for 'humiliating' Theresa May after she joined with Labour MPs to inflict a defeat on the Brexit Bill.

The former minister was accused of talking 'twaddle' and being disloyal as she scrambled to defend her decision to follow Labour through the division lobbies.

She received the grilling as she clashed with pro-Brexit journalist Isabel Oakeshott live on the BBC's Question Time last night.

The journalist accused her of being disloyal and undermining the PM on the eve of a crucial EU summit in Brussels.

And she was heckled by furious Brexiteers in the audience who shouted 'rubbish' as she tried to defend her decision.

The former minister was among 11 Tories who flouted party bosses and voted through an amendment which forces the PM to give MPs a 'meaningful vote' on the deal.

Question Time panelist Isabel Oakeshott (pictured left) grilled Tory rebel Nicky Morgan (pictured right) over why she flouted her party whip to inflict the defeat on the Brexit Bill

Nicky Morgan was booed and accused of trying to 'subvert the will of the British people' by angry Brexiteers in the audience as she appeared on BBC Question Time last night

Audience member James Powers began the grilling when he asked: When will some politicians stop trying to subvert the will of the British people on Brexit?

Mrs Morgan, an arch Remainer, scrambled to defend her decision by insisting the rebellion was not about stopping Brexit but 'the question is how we leave the European Union'.

But the MP for Loughborough was taken apart by her fellow panelist Ms Oakshott who launched a furious attack on her decision.

She turned to the MP and said Im sorry Nicky I think this is sanctimonious twaddle' - prompting howls of agreement form the audience.

Ms Oakshott said: We have heard a lot from you about putting country before party, I think this is all about you actually because you dont believe in Brexit do you?

Ultimately you say that you have accepted that it is going to happen but I dont think you believe in it and I think.

When Mrs Morgan said it is wrong for MPs to be subjected to a loyalty test, the journalist continued: Im really happy you have brought us on to the question of loyalty because I wonder how you, as a Conservative MP, felt as you trotted through the lobbies with Labour MPs..

Audience member James Powers (pictured) grilled Nicky Morgan on voting against the Government, asking: When will some politicians stop trying to subvert the will of the British people on Brexit?

The journalist added: 'You have humiliated the Prime Minister you have undermined her negotiating position and you are not standing up for what the people of this country voted for.

Meanwhile, an audience member slammed elite politicians and accused Mrs Morgan of carrying out a treacherous act in voting against the Government.

And he also tore into Labour for trying to keep Britain in the single market despite the historic vote for Brexit.

The man, who was not named, said Mrs Morgan has stabbed us in the back and said the British public are sovereign, adding: I know you think we are think(but) we know what we voted.

The row came as Mrs May travelled back home to Britain after addressing the leaders of EU countries at a crucial summit in Brussels.

She urged them to move Brexit negotiations on to trade - receiving a round of applause from her fellow leaders.

The summit is today expected to rubber stamp the Prime Minister's draft agreement as 'sufficient progress' on the terms of the UK's departure from the bloc - allowing the start of trade talks.

But Mrs May will face an immediate new row about the sequencing of talks as Brussels will insist on agreeing a transition deal before full-blown trade talks.
Austria's incoming chancellor has said he will reject the European Union's compulsory migrant quota when he takes charge of the country next week.

Sebastian Kurz, 31, has joined leaders from Eastern and Central Europe in pushing back against the scheme, which was designed to help Italy and Greece deal with hundreds of thousands of new arrivals.

EU president Donald Tusk has also spoken out against the quotas, but Germany - the bloc's most influential country - has backed it.

Tusk called the troubled scheme 'ineffective' and 'highly divisive' in a letter to EU leaders before a summit in Brussels that entered its second day Friday.

Sebastian Kurz (pictured), 31, has joined leaders from Eastern and Central Europe in pushing back against the scheme, which was designed to help Italy and Greece deal with hundreds of thousands of new arrivals

EU president Donald Tusk (pictured) has also spoken out against the quotas, but Germany - the bloc's most influential country - has backed it

Eastern European states including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - which have refused to take part - agree with Tusk.

'Tusk is right when he says that mandatory migrant quotas in the EU haven't worked,' said Kurz, 31, who is expected to replace centre-left chancellor Christian Kern next week.

'I will work towards changing this erroneous refugee policy,' Kurz, currently foreign minister, told the Austria Press Agency, calling for a 'system change'.

He said it was 'positive that Tusk and other European states are pressing first and foremost for decent border protection and spending more EU funds on this'.

The quota scheme to share 160,000 migrants around the bloc, agreed by a majority of EU leaders in 2015, is to help frontline states Greece and Italy. So far only some 32,000 have been relocated.

The EU has since stalled on formulating plans for a permanent mechanism for future crises.

The quota scheme to share 160,000 migrants around the bloc, agreed by a majority of EU leaders in 2015, is to help frontline states Greece and Italy. So far only some 32,000 have been relocated. Pictured: Migrants on the Croatia-Slovenia border in 2015

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos called Tusk's remarks 'unacceptable' and 'anti-European'. They also drew stinging criticism from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Talks among EU leaders in Brussels that ran into the early hours of Friday failed to narrow the gap between eastern and western bloc members on the issue.

The stubborn divide contrasted however with broad agreement to continue shoring up Europe's external borders through cooperation deals with third countries like Turkey and Libya.

Kurz moved his party to the right to come first in elections in Austria in October. Local media expect him to unveil a coalition deal with the populist far-right tomorrow.
The German schoolgirl who followed her jihadi lover to Iraq and joined ISIS before being captured in Mosul this year has been reunited with her mother.

Linda Wenzel, from the town of Pulsnitz in Saxony, joined the Islamist terror group at the age of 15.

She was said to have worked for a female-only brigade that whipped women if they were not wearing the right clothes.

Linda forged her mum's signature last year to buy a ticket to Istanbul, before moving into ISIS territory.

Scroll down for video

Linda Wenzel, from the town of Pulsnitz in Saxony, joined the Islamist terror group at the age of 15. Pictured: The schoolgirl hugs her mother

Linda forged her mum's permission signature last year to allow her to buy a ticket to Istanbul, before moving into ISIS territory. Pictured: Linda and her sister Miriam embrace

During their reunion, Katharina gave her daughter a small cuddly toy with a red Christmas hat to remind her of better times in Germany

She had fallen in love with a Muslim man she met online who persuaded her to join him and answer ISIS's call of jihad. She was captured in July in Mosul when it was liberated by Iraqi soldiers

In her first meeting with her mother since she fled Europe for the Middle East, however, she said she had 'ruined [her] life' with her 'stupid idea' of joining ISIS.

Now in a Baghdad jail, the schoolgirl faces years in jail or even execution by the Iraqi state.

Her 48-year-old mother Katharina Wenzel has flown to the Iraqi capital - together with her other daughter Miriam - to visit Linda, who is now 17.

Yesterday, German public TV channel 'Das Erste' broadcast a shocking video showing the moment Linda saw her mother for the first time after more than a year of separation.

The filthy, dazed and wounded girl was seen being dragged out of a onetime ISIS stronghold as troops surrounded her

According to sources inside German intelligence and security services citing Iraqi sources, the former ISIS schoolgirl is unrepentant. Pictured: Linda in detention after her capture

The moment of the reunion appeared uncomfortable and hesitant, however, as mother and daughter stared at each other uncertainly for over five seconds before finally embracing.

But Linda, wearing a headscarf and dark-coloured Islamic kaftan robe, was seen with a big smile on her face when she saw her mother.

She told her mum: 'I do not know, how I came up with the stupid idea to go to the Islamic State. I have ruined my life.'

The German schoolgirl claims she never fought for ISIS.

She said that after the death of her jihadist husband, a Chechen fighter from Austria named Abu Usama al-Shishani, she was housed in various women's quarters and would hardly ever have come out of the house.

During their reunion, Katharina gave her daughter a small cuddly toy with a red Christmas hat to remind her of better times in Germany.

Linda fell in love with a Muslim man she met online who persuaded her to join him in Iraq and answer ISIS's call of jihad. She was captured in July in Mosul when it was liberated by Iraqi soldiers.

Next month, Linda will face trial in Baghdad, with Iraqi authorities so far refusing to extradite her to Germany. Pictured: Mum Katharina in tears

The filthy, dazed and wounded girl was seen being dragged out of a onetime ISIS stronghold by triumphant troops.

Next month, Linda will face trial in Baghdad, with Iraqi authorities so far refusing to extradite her to Germany.

According to sources inside German intelligence citing Iraqi sources, the former ISIS schoolgirl is unrepentant.

Another problem, according to sources inside Germany's security apparatus, is that there is no extradition agreement between Iraq and Germany.

The moment of the reunion at a police station looked uncomfortable and hesitant, however, as mother and daughter stared at each other uncertainly for over five seconds before finally embracing

Linda was reportedly active in a special brigade that had to check the attire of women on the streets of the caliphate. Pictured: Her capture in Mosul

German prosecutors of the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe are also investigating Linda and three other women on suspicion of being ISIS members. Pictured: Linda's mother, Katharina

In September, Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi said that Linda might face the death penalty as he explained that the Iraqi judiciary is deciding which charges will be levied against her.

Al-Abadi said: 'You know teenagers under certain laws, they are accountable for their actions, especially if the act is a criminal activity when it amounts to killing innocent people.'

In September, Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi said that Linda might face the death penalty as he explained that the Iraqi judiciary is deciding which charges will be levied against her

The Iraqi PM also said that it remained to be seen whether prosecutors would demand the death penalty in court as this would depend on the final charges.

The clear threat of a trial in Baghdad and a potentially lengthy prison sentence or even capital punishment has Linda's dad worried.

Reiner said: 'I want so much that my Linda comes home again healthy. I will always be there for her.

'I fear for her. The authorities absolutely have to bring her to Germany so that she can get a fair trial.'

Linda was reportedly active in a special brigade that had to check the attire of women on the streets of the caliphate.

Women who would not abide by the strict clothing rules, which included a ban on make-up and a demanded a full-face veil, were whipped by the brigade.

German prosecutors of the federal prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe are also investigating Linda and three other women on suspicion of being ISIS members.

If she were put on trial in Germany, she might only be convicted of 10 years in prison for membership of a terrorist group.
A British samurai sword expert killed himself with his own weapon following the ritualistic suicide tradition of ancient Japanese warriors.

Divorcee Alun Jones fell on his samurai sword in an act of 'hara-kiri' and bled to death on the floor of his bedroom in Newport, South Wales.

The 51-year-old began collecting the blades after spending many years working in Japan.

Alun Jones committed suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach in a ritualistic suicide associated with Japanese samurais

He was found dead in June this year by his mother Margaret lying on top of the sword with his arms above his head.

He had been staying with her on one of his regular holidays back home to Britain from Japan where he worked in a shop selling the weapons.

An inquest into his death heard Mr Jones was 'not his usual self' on his trip back home to Gwent.

The divorcee sent his weapons off to an expert in London before fatally stabbing himself in the stomach

His sister Marianne Caulfield told the inquest: 'For many years he had lived abroad and when he came home he would go out visiting friends.

'But this time he had lost weight and spent most of his time in his bedroom.

'He had a collection of samurai swords and had developed an interest in the samurai tradition.'

A few hours before he was found dead he was seen by a neighbour asleep on a sofa with an open book of family photos next to him.

Det Con Rhys Williams told the inquest that Mr Jones had fallen forward on a mattress on the bedroom floor with the sword protruding from his body after stabbing himself in the stomach.

He said: 'Mr Jones had a passion for samurai swords.'

Jones was seen sleeping on a sofa next to a family photo album shortly before he committed suicide in Newport

He had sent them to a specialist in London for work to be done on them and had received them back shortly before killing himself.

The inquest heard that Mr Jones had died from lacerations to the heart and liver.

Senior coroner David Bowen said: 'He had a collection of samurai swords which he sent to a specialist in London and had been returned days before he was found dead.

'He was found with the samurai sword underneath his body and I am satisfied it was self-inflicted.

'In Japan the samurai tradition is called hara-kiri. In this country, it is suicide.'

Family of the samurai sword expert said he was behaving out of character and had lost weight when he returned home from working in Japan
A university student in China attacked her schoolmates on campus with a fruit knife today, according to reports.

The woman yelled at passersby and chased after them while holding the weapon, according to a video on Chinese social media which is said to be filmed at the scene.

She was tackled by university staff and has been detained by the police. One female student was injured.

The student points the knife towards passersby (circled) before starting to chase them in a university in China. The incident reportedly took place today in Xi'an, a provincial capital

The incident took place in the morning local time at the Xi'an Eurasia University, a private university in the provincial capital of Shaanxi in north-west China.

The university has around 22,000 students and specialises in economy, arts and literature, according to its website.

The attacking student, unidentified, ran after a number of passersby before being brought under control by a few male staff.

The attacker was brought under control (left) by several male staff at the university who removed the weapon (right) from her hand. She has been detained by the police

Xi'an Eurasia University (pictured) has around 22,000 students and is located in Shaanxi

A spokesperson from Xi'an Eurasia University told a reporter from The Paper that the attacker is a current student.

The spokesperson said the police are still looking into her motives.

One student, said to be female, sustained cuts on the chin during the incident. She was taken to the hospital and received stitches. She is said to have returned to the campus.

The attacker has been detained. Police officers from the Yanhuan Middle Road police station in Xi'an are investigating the case.
Teacher David Fenwick, 44, performed a sex act on a 16-year-old pupil in his car

A teacher who performed a sex act on a 16-year-old pupil in his car and said he wanted to run away with her has been banned from the classroom for life.

David Fenwick, 44, sent the teenager inappropriate pictures referring to his sexual attraction to her and first tried to kiss her at a school prom.

He continued to see her after she left school and would send her Snapchat messages and drawings, and take her out in his car to perform sex acts.

The teacher at Oxclose Community Academy in Washington, Tyne and Wear, was said to have sent her numerous messages including a video of him miming the song I Will Always Love You, and let her nibble his ear for a photo.

He also sent her a crude stick man drawing and thought bubble containing the pupil's name and the words 'Good night. Thinking about you xxx'.

The pupil revealed the relationship to a teacher at the school more than two years later in October 2015 at a careers event hosted by the school.

A panel at the National College of Teaching concluded Fenwick, who has school age children himself, 'used his professional position as a teacher to influence or exploit Pupil A to encourage her to enter an inappropriate relationship with him'.

Fenwick was a teacher at Oxclose Community Academy (above) in Washington, Tyne and Wear

Fenwick, who taught lessons to the pupil during her time at the school, was described as 'very friendly' by other students but was said to 'frequently breach the boundaries of the usual pupil teacher relationship', the panel heard.

Another student confirmed that Fenwick would make inappropriate remarks and sexual innuendos but pupils found him 'fun' and that he was just 'being silly'.

The student, identified as Pupil A, said Mr Fenwick tried to 'come on' to her at prom in June 2013. As the room emptied, he leaned into her and gave her a kiss on the lips.

A photograph was also presented to the panel of Fenwick kissing another student, known as Pupil B, on the cheek, while Pupil A poses next to him in a pout.

In another photo with the pair, the panel saw Fenwick snapped standing next to Pupil A and pointing at Pupil A's breasts. Pupil B said Fenwick was often flirty with Pupil A.

It was claimed he would often say 'silly things'. She also recalled Fenwick had pointed at Pupil A at a prom and made an inappropriate comment.

The panel heard Fenwick would take both girls out in his car together, but also Pupil A on her own. She would send Snapchats to her friend of the pair in the car.

The pupil also said she and the teacher would perform sex acts on each other and 'touch each other under their clothes'.

She stated she would go out with Fenwick as many as four times a week after she left school from July to December 2013.

Despite Fenwick's denials, it was accepted he told Pupil A he wanted to 'run away' with them both in person and text messages.

He said the only thing stopping him was his family. The bewildered student told the panel she was 'scared' and 'believed he meant it'.

Fenwick sent Snapchat messages (file picture) to the teenager, known only as Pupil A

It was also claimed that he sent her numerous Snapchats and text messages including a video of him miming 'I Will Always Love You.

Photocopies of some of the pictures he sent to her were also presented to the panel, including a naked picture and a lewd message on a bottle. There was also the crude stick man drawing.

The pupil said she knew the immature images were 'not right' and that 'he should have know better'.

The panel concluded the images were 'indecent and inappropriate' to be sent to someone who was 16 at the time.

It was also proven Fenwick drove Pupil A around a city in October 2013 for about an hour without telling her where they were going. He stopped the car outside a hotel but she refused his offer of a nightcap.

Fenwick is said to have ended the relationship in December 2013 with Pupil A saying she felt 'distressed' as her teacher had led her to believe he loved her.

The panel heard Fenwick had been approached informally up to four times during his 14 years at the school for not maintaining professional boundaries with students.

Chairman Michael Lesser said: 'In all the circumstances it is more likely than not that the purpose of Mr Fenwick's words and actions were sexually motivated.

'It was clear to the panel that Mr Fenwick abused his position of trust as a teacher, he targeted a vulnerable pupil who was aged 16 at the time.

'His inappropriate conduct towards Pupil A started whilst she was still a pupil of the school and culminated in his kissing her at the prom.

'This misconduct continued as Mr Fenwick sent a high level of images and messages, to Pupil A from July 2013 onwards, and immediately after Pupil A had left the school.

'Many of these images were indecent. He encouraged Pupil A to engage in an inappropriate relationship by persuading her that he had romantic feelings for her and led Pupil A to believe that he would leave his partner for her.

'In the panel's view, Mr Fenwick demonstrated a blatant disregard for his duty of safeguarding and protecting Pupil A's well-being.'

The panel said Fenwick had a 'deep seated attitude' and had targeted the pupil with a sexual motivation.

Fenwick, who qualified as a teacher in 1996, was dismissed from the school in February 2016 after a probe. He has now been banned indefinitely from the profession.
Nancy Kissel, dubbed the 'milkshake murderer' for one of Hong Kong's most notorious homicides, was back in court Friday to challenge her life sentence for drugging her banker husband and bludgeoning him to death.

Kissel, now aged 53, lost an appeal in 2014 against a conviction for serving Robert Kissel - a senior executive at Merrill Lynch - a sedative-laced strawberry milkshake before clubbing him to death with a lead ornament in their luxury home in Hong Kong in 2003.

She is currently serving a life sentence at Hong Kong's high-security Tai Lam Centre for Women.

American murderess: Nancy Kissel, 53, dubbed the 'milkshake murderer', arrives at Hong Kong's High Court on Friday for a judicial review hearing after challenging her life sentence

Notorious case: Kissel (pictured left in 2005) was convicted during her 2011 retrial of serving husband Robert (right) a drug-laced strawberry milkshake and clubbing him to death with a lead statuette

Sporting bobbed hair and glasses, Kissel took copious notes throughout the judicial review hearing into her case at Hong Kong's High Court on Friday.

The woman's defense lawyers challenged a decision last year by the government's Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board, which they said refused an application for conditional release or to recommend a determinate sentence.

The board makes suggestions to Hong Kong's chief executive about inmates it deems suitable to be released before the end of an imposed jail term.

Kissel's attorney Edward Fitzgerald argued that the mother-of-three was entitled to know what length of time the board would deem 'sufficient' before considering releasing her from detention early.

It was 'cruel' to repeatedly allow a prisoner to go in front of the board without knowing where they stood, said Fitzgerald, pointing out that a life sentence does not always mean life behind bars.

The hearing followed a writ filed by Kissel's legal team last year which said the review board had 'wrongly' refused to shorten her sentence.

Kissel, seen above in 2005, claimed she had endured physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her Merrill Lynch banker husband, with whom she had three children

Robert Kissel, a senior executive at Merrill Lynch, had moved his family to Hong Kong in 1998

Undated photo of Nancy and Robert Kissel pictured as a seemingly happy married couple

'Given... the applicant's demonstration of remorse and repentance, the respondent acted unreasonably,' the writ said, referring to the board.

In a jailhouse interview in November 2014, Kissel said she had no regrets over her husband's death.

I cant spend my time explaining the unexplainable,' she told Bloomberg. 'I cant undo something I never understood.'

The review judges said they would hand down a decision at a later date.

The Michigan-born Kissel was first convicted of murder and handed a life sentence in 2005.

Hong Kong's top court overturned the conviction in February 2010, citing legal errors, and ordered a fresh hearing. But she was convicted again in 2011 and then lost the final appeal in 2014.

At her 2011 retrial, Kissel sobbed as she told the jury she had endured physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband Robert.

She maintained she acted in self-defense and offered to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Kissel's attorney Edward Fitzgerald argued that the mother-of-three (pictured in 2010) was entitled to know what length of time would be deemed 'sufficient' before considering an early release

Prosecutors accused Kissel of rolling up her husband's body in a carpet and covering his head with plastic after after striking him with an eight-pound metal statuette in their luxury ocean view home at the hillside Parkview apartment complex, where they had lived with their children since 1998.

She left the body in the bedroom for days before hiring workmen to carry it to a storeroom, they said.

Prosecutors also argued that Kissel stood to gain up to $18million from the death of her wealthy husband, saying she planned to run away with a television repairman with whom she admitted having an affair in the US.

The couples children  a son and two daughters  were sent to live with their paternal aunt near Seattle after the murder.

Kissel said in the 2014 interview that she has hardly seen them since then.
Merchandise shops based in royal palaces have been selling cheap memorabilia to commemorate the engagement of Prince William and American actress Meghan Markle.

In Sandringham, visitors can, if they wish, purchase a mug featuring the couple looking at each other for 6.99.

The exact same image appears on a keyring, which is available for 3.99 while a gold-plated spoon will cost 4.99.

Royal followers and fans of American TV show Suits can purchase some high-quality merchandise featuring a photograph of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle looking at each other

The same photograph, in which they are both smiling, has made it onto other memorabilia

Inside the Sandringham gift shop, there are several options available to fans of the royals

Other items include a 7.99 book. Avid readers who are both afraid of losing their place in the tome and fearful of folding the corner of the page can be assuaged by a 2.99 bookmark.

Those who wish to write down the contents of the book to assist their knowledge of the couple can use a 3.99 and recite their insights to their friends and relations over the Christmas table.

The gifts are available at the Kensington Palace shop as well as Sandringham, where the couple are expected to spend Christmas with Prince Harry's grandmother, the Queen.

Ingrid Seward of Majesty Magazine said: 'It's tacky but clever. They are cashing in but the way they see it everyone else is doing it.'

Sandingham, which is owned by the Queen will benefit from the sale of merchandise at that locations while Historic Royal Palaces will reap the profits from Kensington Palace's gift shop.

More goods are expected to be sold at Windsor Castle.
Ten years into his 15-year sentence, Luke Lloyd had no desire to leave prison.

Im doing great in prison, he said, recalling his thoughts three years ago. He had friends and a job he liked building furniture. I had it made.

Lloyd was locked up for raping a 5-year-old girl. He was originally charged with sexual intercourse without consent, but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of sexual assault.

He got accustomed to prison, and when he was up for parole he figured hed be better off behind bars, finishing out his sentence. Hed only leave prison when he had to, and not before.

In prison, he at least had a sure place to live. Outside prison, finding dependable housing, especially for sex offenders like Lloyd, is a constant struggle. Landlords are leery, and many won't rent to convicts. And with jobs scarce for ex-cons, many can't put together the rent money plus deposit needed to get into an apartment. Many wind up living in week-to-week hotels, homeless shelters, or their cars.

That's more than just a problem for them. Without stable housing, numerous studies show that ex-cons are more likely to reoffend, and that's a problem for communities.

Soon Lloyd heard about a place in Billings, Adullam House, that takes in sex offenders like him. Instead of getting out on his own and looking for a place to live, hed be guaranteed a bed. That couldnt be underestimated.

So he decided he wanted in. The house program director agreed, and the parole board signed off on the placement.

Lloyd left prison in April 2014, and has since stayed sober, gotten a full-time job as a manager at a fast food restaurant, and moved into his own house, which he sublets from the Adullam House. He credits the program with his post-prison stability.

Ken Cottrell, the Adullam program director, says communities benefit from having a designated place like theirs for sex offenders to live, calling the house a safety valve for the community.

Chris Evans, deputy chief for probation and parole in the Billings region, echoed that thought.

Theyre going to be in the community, he said, of sex offenders. Theyre not going to be locked down forever, for the most part.

Adullam House

The Adullam House opened on Billings' South Side in early 2012  one of the first in a wave of sober living houses to open in Billings.

There are now a handful of such homes in the city, often with live-in managers who earn no salary for their work. They might stay in the house rent-free and work an outside job to make a living, treating the residents of the house as family and adhering to the idea that a well-connected community of ex-addicts with shared struggles is the best path to sobriety.

Adullams model is similar, operating on a shoestring budget without grants or public funds. People stay for as many months as they need, with the idea of eventually moving out on their own and living independently.

Due to a shortage of offender-friendly housing in a city that receives its fair share of parolees, the sober living programs expand when possible  leasing out new houses that fill up quickly.

But in a few ways, Adullam is different.

While the house caters to people with violent or sexual criminal history, the folks running the house have no such past. Instead its managed by a live-in married couple who, in middle age, saw it as their God-given mission to share a roof with murderers and rapists, treat them as family, and resort to personal savings to keep the financially struggling program afloat.

Cottrell, Adullams program director, has never been to prison, but hes no stranger to adversity. Growing up in Cleveland, he lost several family members at a young age, lived on the streets, and became addicted to drugs  meth, crack, heroin, whatever, he said. He has since become sober and deeply religious.

Ken and his wife, Jody, moved to Billings in 2001, when Jody was transferred from Seattle for her work at a shoe company. Adullam leases out various houses, including one for women.

Adullam serves a key demographic  sex offenders  who have the hardest time finding stable housing. Prerelease centers are reluctant to take them. Many sober living houses wont, due to geographic restrictions on where sex offenders can live. The Montana Rescue Mission takes only lower-level offenders on a case-by-case basis at the mens shelter and has a blanket ban on them  and on violent offenders  at the womens shelter.

Adullams numbers show relative success: While 57 percent of offenders statewide made no return to a correctional program within three years of release from prison, 66 percent of Adullams men and women have done so. That number includes residents who stayed at Adullum for only a few days, after other housing plans fell through.

Money is a constant challenge for the organization. House residents pay $350 a month in rent, but no one gets turned away if they cant pay. When the nonprofit comes up short on money for monthly bills, program members pray for help.

In calendar year 2017, the program would have been roughly $9,000 in debt if not for a cash infusion in July of roughly $20,000. That was money Cottrell took out of his retirement account, draining it and paying a tax penalty in the process.

The program can house 27 men at a time, with space for five additional men through sublease arrangements. Seven women live at the Butterfly House, a similar program for women that started two years ago.

The shock of re-entry

Most house rules are basic: No overnight guests. No drugs or alcohol. Abide by a 10 p.m. curfew, or give notice if youll be out later.

But the house is full of men whove been behind bars for decades, and some structure and authority is necessary.

For instance, once when the Cottrells left for a rare weekend away, someone living in the house broke into the petty cash kept in the house office and stole $1,000. The money was never recovered.

We are working with a population that you get burned a lot, Cottrell said. Thats just the way it is. Its difficult.

Emotional and social support is a big focus of the program. Cottrell said you cant teach those skills  you can only warn people about the shock of getting out.

For example, a man who worked his way up the food chain in prison, had the top maintenance job and enjoyed status behind bars landed a dishwashing job upon release and now his boss is half his age.

Or a man sits down at a restaurant and sees, at the next table over, a woman the age of his ex-wife, or a man the age of his son, and he is struck with the sudden realization hes lost decades of his life.

Its not unusual for a man to be in a back room on his third or fourth day and cry and ask to go back to prison," Cottrell said.

A neighbors support

Plenty of neighbors are unaware of the Adullam house, but most who know of it expressed support.

Toni Banister, who has lived next door to the main Adullam house for three years, supports the program and has grown to trust the men who live there.

Some of the residents offered to help her unload furniture when she moved in. Another made sure to warn her about a recent break-in at a house across the street. And she once gave a spare key to one of the men so he could let in a cable company worker scheduled to arrive while Banister was at work.

Asked if shed ever had misgivings about living next door to a house full of violent and sexual offenders, she was firm.

No, never, she said. Not at all. Im glad that there are places like this for people like that.
John McCain, 81, was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in the summer and is currently 'resting' at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington

John McCain wants to return to work as 'soon as possible' as he continues undergoing treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer, according to a friend.

The Arizona senator, 81, was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in the summer and is currently 'resting' at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington after suffering the normal side-effects of the therapy.

The treatment is thought to be having a positive effect on the symptoms of the underlying cancer.

Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, told ABC News: 'He's receiving treatment for the side effects of the therapy.

'I feel pretty good about the way the treatment is affecting his underlying cancer. But the treatment has a downside.

'I'm very confident he'll come back and continue to participate for a long time to come.'

In September, the Republican senator spoke candidly about the grim diagnosis following a routine doctor's appointment.

McCain said he was leaving the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix after a routine checkup when he got an urgent call from his doctor.

The treatment is thought to be having a positive effect on the symptoms of the underlying cancer, according to a friend of the senator, pictured

'You've got to come back,' he recalled the doctor saying.

'Hey, today is Friday. I'll just come in on Monday.' McCain replied.

But the doctor persisted, telling him: 'No, you have to come now. It's very serious.' The doctors had discovered a blood clot above McCain's left eye. 'They thought it was serious enough that they had to act immediately,' he said.

Before the operation to remove the clot, the doctors mentioned glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.

But McCain said that the doctors hedged, trying to downplay concerns until tests confirmed the diagnosis.

'Tell it to me straight... I said, 'I can take it. Just tell me.' And - and then they were more forthcoming,' McCain said.

Lab tests confirmed the diagnosis days later.

Part of the Walter Reed Medical Center, which cares for recovering soldiers, pictured on March 15, 2007

'They said that the prognosis is very, very serious. Some say 3 per cent, some say 14 per cent. You know, it's - it's a very poor prognosis,' recalled McCain.

The cancer that McCain is suffering from is the same type of cancer that took the life of his former Senate colleague Edward M. Kennedy in 2009.

He told CBS' 60 Minutes that he thinks about Kennedy a lot. McCain said Kennedy continued to work despite the diagnosis and 'never gave up because he loved the engagement'.

McCain said he has 'feelings sometimes of fear of what happens,' but counters that with gratitude for having lived 'had a great life'.
John Blake left his neighbour Sean Stark bleeding to death outside his home in Lochgelly, Fife, eight years ago

A violent knife criminal who murdered a young dad in Scotland is fighting for his life after he himself was stabbed in a prison attack.

John Blake, 30, who left his neighbour to bleed to death outside his home in Lochgelly, Fife, is in a serious condition after his lung was punctured in the attack.

Blake killed Sean Stark eight years ago after the father-of-two had tried to break up a fight and stop another neighbour being beaten up.

The killer was assaulted in Glenochil prison in Clackmannanshire in what Scottish police are describing as an attempted murder, according to the Daily Record.

A prison source said: 'Blake was stabbed in his cell on Sunday. He's in a bad way. He's got a punctured lung.

'It's ironic he's fighting for his life after being stabbed considering he is in prison for stabbing an innocent man to death.

'Someone clearly wants Blake dead.'

The killer had only been out of prison for six weeks when he slaughtered Mr Stark in 2009.

The 25-year-old Mr Stark had been living in Lochgelly with his childhood sweetheart Melanie Stewart and their daughters, aged one and three.

Sean Stark was killed as he tried to stop another neighbour beating up, only for Blake to turn on him and stab him six times

He was described in court as a 'loyal and lovable family man'.

He was trying to protect another neighbour when Blake turned on him with a knife and struck him with six fatal blows to the lung and heart.

Father-of-one Blake, who had previous convictions for assault, received a life sentence for murder and was told he would serve at least 17 years in prison.

Police confirmed they were investigating an attempted murder at HMP Glenochil after a 30-year-old man had sustained serious injuries.

He is being treated at Forth Valley Royal Hospital where his condition is reported to be stable.
Shocking footage has emerged showing Sainsbury's workers dragging an alleged shoplifter by his feet as concerned shoppers tried to intervene.

The incident occurred in the Sainsbury's Streatham Common store, in south London, and was caught on camera by shopper Lucy Callaghan.

Miss Callaghan claimed the man was forced to the ground and had his arm twisted behind his back.

He was then allegedly dragged 100 metres across the shop floor by his feet to the staff area entrance.

Police were called and Sainsbury's today told MailOnline they 'would not tolerate threatening behaviour in our stores.'

Disturbing footage showed Sainsbury's staff dragging the alleged shoplifter by his feet

In the clip the unidentified man can be seen lying on the ground, surrounded by Sainsbury's staff workers.

Recording the footage, Miss Callaghan was told by a worker it was 'none of your business' where they were taking the man.

She replied saying: 'Where are you taking him then? Off the shop floor so you can beat him? Is that where you're going? So where are you taking him then?'

Ignoring her, staff dragged the man through the door and into the staff area.

The 40-year-old said she couldn't believe how heavy-handed the staff were and described the incident on Tuesday evening as 'surreal'.

The man was seen being dragged into the staff area of the store at the end of the video footage

Uploading the video to Facebook Miss Callaghan wrote: 'Sainsbury's I'd like to know what training your staff receive at your Streatham Common branch, when dealing with alleged shoplifters?

'A vulnerable person was dragged BY THEIR FEET through the store by multiple staff and was heard screaming out the back of the store. Make no mistake that customer was assaulted by Sainsbury's staff and there are many witnesses.'

Speaking today, she added: 'By the time I'd finished purchasing my shopping the two staff were desperately trying to get the man on the floor.

'They were twisting his arms up behind his back and then slammed him to the floor.

'It wasn't professionally done, as you would expect from security personnel.

'He was then dragged from near the front doors, down the aisles towards the rear of the store, by his feet...I think it was a rough distance of approximately 100 metres.

'His back was exposed and red. My immediate feeling was one of shock and disbelief, you wouldn't treat an animal like that, never mind a fellow human being.

'It isn't my default reaction to reach for my phone and start recording, but it was such gratuitous violence it felt surreal and I didn't think anyone would believe it without proof.

'The incident had drawn several onlookers and I noticed a few staff members laughing, which I found insensitive and unprofessional.'

Responding to the footage today, a spokesman for Sainsbury's told MailOnline: 'We can confirm police were called to an incident at our Streatham Common store. We will not tolerate threatening behaviour in our stores.

'The safety of our customers and colleagues is our priority. We're supporting the police with their investigation.'
The Saint Nicholas for hire (pictured) was driving to a school when he was pulled over by traffic cops

A man dressed as Santa Claus has been stopped by police in Austria because his fake beard violated the country's ban on burqas.

The Saint Nicholas impersonator was driving to a school when he was pulled over by traffic cops.

An Austrian officer told him his traditional Father Christmas attire was in breach of a ban on 'facial coverings'.

Hans M, 35, had to take off his flowing white beard and red frock after being stopped.

The policeman asked him: 'Don't you know the ban on wearing face covers?'

The Kris Kringle-for-hire, from the Austrian capital of Vienna, had his car searched for 15 minutes by the policeman.

Hans, who donates his modest earnings from his appearances to a local care home, even had to show the officer his spare pair of glasses.

He explained: 'I said I had to go to my next appearance fast, but was told I should not be rude.'

Hans got in touch with the lawyer Erich Gemeiner (pictured), who described the behavior of the policeman as a 'arrogant chicanery'

Before Hans was eventually allowed to drive off, the officer told him: 'You will hear from us'.

Hans, whose full name cannot be revealed under strict Austrian privacy laws, feared he was going to get a fine.

So he got in touch with the lawyer Erich Gemeiner, who described the behaviour of the policeman as 'arrogant chicanery'.

The Austrian burka ban, which came into effect at the start of October, means anyone covering their face in public could face a 150 euro (135) fine.

In the first two weeks after the ban came into effect, Viennese cops dealt with 30 offenders, although only four of them were wearing a burka or niqab.

Viennese Police have defended the policeman's decision to pull over Father Christmas.

A spokesman said: 'In terms of traffic safety, vehicle controls are a part of it. That applies for Nicholases, too.'

Saint Nicholas, the special children's saint, is honoured throughout Austria with his own feast day, which is recognised each year.

The American Santa Claus and the British Father Christmas derive in part from the character of Saint Nicholas.
Millionaire plumber and Tory donor Charlie Mullins claims he has been barred from the party's exclusive black and white ball after he called for Theresa May to quit.

The founder of Pimlico Plumbers accused the Tories of acting like they are in the 'school playground' after he was allegedly blacklisted from the soiree.

And he has threatened to pull his cash from the party and 'spend my money elsewhere' after the snub.

Mr Mullins has donated tens of thousands of pounds to the Tories and was close with David Cameron and George Osborne, who he said had him in 'every four or five months'.

But he ruffled feathers among the Tory top brass earlier this year after he urged Mrs May to 'chuck the towel in' at the height of a botched plot against her in October.

Charlie Mullins, pictured at a Tory event with David Cameron, has accused the Tories of banning him form their black and white ball after he called for Theresa May to quit

Charlie Mullins, pictured at a Tory event with Boris Johnson, warned the PM he might stop funding the party over the snub

Mr Mullins said he had offered to buy a 15,000 table for ten at next year's black and white ball but was told by Tory HQ this week that he could not go.

He branded the decision to ban him 'school playground stuff - you said this about me, so you're not allowed now. It's stupid.'

He told The Times that in future he might decide to pull his cash and fund other political causes like a campaign for a second EU referendum.

He said: 'She's the Prime Minister,' he said. 'Maybe I'll spend my money elsewhere if they're going to be like that.'

The ball is usually held in a luxury London hotel and the top brass of the Conservative Party mix with wealthy donors and supporters.

Tickets usually go for more than 1,000 while guests bid for expensive auction lots - including a weekend on a superyacht and a shoe shopping session with fashion-loving Mrs May.

Mr Mullins is a regular on the Tory party scene and has been pictured rubbing shoulders at the event with Conservative ministers.

Despite allegedly being banned from the event, Mr Mullins insists that many Tory MPs agree with him that Mrs May has to go.

He said: 'If she went round sacking everyone who disagrees with her, she'd lose half the government.'

Charlie Mullins (pictured left) ruffled feathers among the Tory top brass earlier this year after he urged Theresa May May (pictured right in Brussels yesterday) to 'chuck the towel in' at the height of a botched plot against her in October

And he accused the Prime Minister of failing to court business properly and warned that the Tories risk losing donors unless they change tack.

He said: 'What the Conservative Party needs to remember is that businesses like mine are the backbone of the country,' he said.

'She isn't business-oriented. I haven't been to Downing Street since she's been in power. George and Dave had me in every four or five months.

'I've heard nothing from her. And talking to other business people, she hasn't even had them along.'

Mr Mullins is a vocal critic of the government's approach to Brexit and helped to bankroll Gina Miller's Article 50 High Court battle.

Asked if he would donate to the party in future, Mr Mullins said: 'She's not going to be around much longer so it wouldn't really matter, would it?

'She's been saying that Brexit means Brexit. I'm telling you now that Brexit means exit for Theresa May.'

Mail Online has contacted the Conservative Party for comment.
German tourist Alina Kuroczi (pictured) plunged 262ft down a cliff to her death after she climbed a barrier to go to the toilet in Bali

A young German tourist plunged 262ft down a cliff to her death after she climbed a barrier to go to the toilet during a night out at a Bali beach resort.

Alina Kuroczik, 23, had been partying with friends at Suluban Beach in the South Kuta district of the Indonesian paradise island, when she left at 1am and walked up to the cliff top.

Police said Alina chatted for 20 minutes with her boyfriend Gabriel Junqueira, 21, but needed the toilet and climbed over a barrier.

When she stood back up, the holidaymaker stumbled and slipped backwards, falling some 262ft to her death, officers say.

Gabriel alerted lifeguards before police arrived at around 1.40am and spent two hours recovering the body, which was found with a number of broken bones and wounds at the bottom of the cliff face.

South Kuta Police Chief Nengah Patrem said: 'Due to the conditions around the dark, the victim did not realise that she was urinating on the edge of the cliff, and when she got up, slipped and fell to the bottom of the cliff.'

Alina had been staying at the Pecatu Guest House when she went to the party with a number of friends.

When she walked to the edge of the cliff, her boyfriend became worried when she did not return.

Alina Kuroczik (left with a friend), 23, had been partying with friends on the Indonesian paradise island, when she left at 1am and walked up to the cliff top

The tragedy happened at the Suluban Beach area (pictured) in the South Kuta district of Bali

Rescue services arrived but access to the idyllic beachfront, normally popular with surfers, was difficult. They then climbed down the front of the cliff.

Ketut Gede Ardana, from the National SAR Agency said: 'The victim's body was immediately rushed to the RSUP Sanglah Denpasar hospital.

'We deployed seven personnel using two units of rescue trail and one unit of evacuation vehicle and equipped with mountainering equipment, the body was brought directly to RSUD Sanglah Denpasar using evacuation vehicle.'
A man has been charged with leaving women's underwear in a forest for what he claimed was an experiment.

William V. Winnie has been charged with obscenity, disorderly conduct and littering after he was arrested earlier this month in Pratt's Wayne Woods near the village of Wayne, Illinois

The 67-year-old said he left the underwear, some of it in plastic bags, along the Illinois Prairie Path in a DuPage County forest preserve as part of an experiment, the Chicago Tribune reported.

William V. Winnie has been charged with obscenity, disorderly conduct and littering after being arrested at 6am

Police say they were first alerted in October by people who had spotted the underwear, some of which was accompanied by pornographic photos, near a bridge along the path in the preserve.

Officers from the forest preserve police then set up remote cameras to monitor the path in a bid to find the perpetrator.

Images of a cyclist stopping at points where the clothing had been found were recorded.

Winnie was stopped at 6am on December 2 while riding his bicycle when he stopped at the bridge and picked up a plastic bag containing women's underwear.

Police were first alerted when members of the public kept finding underwear and so set up cameras to catch the perpetrator

Winnie was arrested on his bicycle at 6am. He said he planted the garments to see what happened to them

He told officers he had left the clothing there about a week earlier.

A police report said Winnie told them he would routinely find underwear hanging from the trees along the Prairie Path.

He would take the underwear home, place in the plastic bags and then leave them at the bridge.

'He described his actions as an experiment and said he wanted to see where it would go,' the report said, adding that Winnie reported leaving 15 to 20 pairs over the previous year.

Winnie said he did not know anything about the photos found with some of the clothing.

He does not have any criminal records in DuPage County and was released on bond to appear in court on January 8.
Advertisement

A Vietnam War pilot has told how he ejected from his stricken jet over the jungle but returned to base to continue flying in a new book detailing the experiences of airmen during the conflict.

Victor Vizcarra remembered seeing his F-105 Thunderchief pass under him and then crash into a mountain as he sailed down to the tree-line on his parachute.

The pilot's descent was broken by the sudden impact of the upper canopy, which knocked the air out of him and left him hanging by his right ankle.

'I was surprised at the abruptness and sudden stop as I hit the trees and crashed through some of the branches. It knocked the wind out of me and I ended hung upside-down,' he wrote in Thud Pilot.

Photographs in the book include the ashen-faced author being helped away from a helicopter shortly after ejecting, while others show various other American pilots posing with their severely damaged aircraft.

Others show a huge Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in action and some of the surface to air missiles that the air force had to face during combat.

Victor Vizcarra remembered seeing his F-105 Thunderchief pass under him and then crash into a mountain as he sailed down to the tree-line on his parachute. He is pictured here being guided away from a helicopter after he was rescued from the spot where he landed in the jungle

The pilot's descent was broken by the sudden impact of the upper canopy, which knocked the air out of him and left him hanging by his right ankle. American pilots over Vietnam faced the continual danger of being shot down by camouflaged anti-aircraft guns fired by the North Vietnamese

Thud Pilot contains images of other pilots who served during the conflict, including this one of Major Bill McClelland next to his plane after it was riddled by bullets from an 85-mm gun. The Vietnam War is still remembered as one of the most controversial conflicts in U.S. history

An airman inspects the shrapnel-riddled rear of his aircraft after returning from a mission during the Vietnam War, in one of the images in Thud Pilot, by Victor Vizcarra. The conflict took a heavy toll on American airmen, who were targeted by anti-aircraft guns and lighter weapons fired from deep within the jungle

There was no clear front in Vietnam, as US soldiers battled the guerrilla tactics of the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong in the nations villages and jungles. The NVA had built an extensive underground network of tunnels and other facilities and were able to easily blend in within the civilian population. This gave American pilots (like this one pictured inspecting his damaged aircraft) a key role in the conflict

Victor Vizcarra(pictured with a comrade at an airfield in Thailand in 1984 with an F-14 Tomcat, the same plan used in Top Gun) was commissioned in 1960, completed pilot training in 1961, and was assigned to F-100s before transitioning to the F-105. While serving in Japan, he deployed three times to Southeast Asia and flew fifty-nine combat missions in the F-105D

The author's future wife in cockpit of F-102 at Edwards AFB Air Show, May 1958, near the Mojave Desert, U.S.A. An estimated 58,000 US soldiers were killed in the Vietnam War, while 2million civilians across North and South Vietnam died. The year 1969 marked the deadliest of the war

Members of 80th Squadron complain to their commanding officer, Colonel Bell, about being kept in the warzone when they should be on their Christmas holidays. One of the airmen points to a sign reading, 'Despairum Notum(despair not) - Happy Holidays', while the others pull faces at the camera

This image, taken in 1964, at Korat Airbase in Thailand, shows the living conditions near the landing strip from where American airmen launched numerous bombing raids against the Viet Cong. In 1973, a peace agreement in Paris between the US, North and South Vietnam ended direct US military involvement in the war

Wayne Ensminger, from the 80th TFS Deployment, is pictured taking a wash at a U.S. airbase in 1964. American pilots faced continual danger from North Vietnam's stock of anti-aircraft guns, like the one pictured on the right in an undated image from the book

On April 30, 1975, the final Americans remaining in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Siagon fell in images seared into the national psyche of desperate US citizens and South Vietnamese clamoring onto the final air transports out of the city. Pictured: A shell hole through the tail of Colonel Broughton's Thud

An American bomber painted with graffiti flying over Vietnam in October 1966, around mid-way through the devastating conflict. Remnants of AIM-9 Sidewinder were found in the tail section of the aircraft ont he right, indicating it had been hit by friendly fire

Portion of 80th TFS First Deployment. Standing left to right: Bob Reichart, John Atkinson, Giles Gainer, Andy Olman, Larry Wilson, Gary Banks and Del Smith. Kneeling left to right: Phil Coll (ops officer), John Anderson (squadron commander), Art Mearns, and the author
Prince Harry returned to his old stomping ground of Sandhurst military academy today when he stepping in for the Queen to present honours.

Harry, who graduated from the institution 11 years ago, represented his grandmother at the historic Sovereign's Parade, handing out awards to four of the top officer cadets passing out.

The appearance came on the same day that it was announced his wedding to Meghan Markle would take place on May 19.

Harry shared some personal memories of his own passing out, joking that his thoughts had been focused on the chilly weather rather than his achievement in becoming an officer.

Prince Harry returned to Sandhurst military academy to hand out awards to cadet officers

As part of the visit, Harry inspected troops on the parade ground at the Sovereign's Day Parade

He undertook the duties on the same day as the date of his wedding was publicly announced

Addressing the new recruits on the bright but bitterly cold December day, he said: 'It is not the first time that I have been a part of this parade but it is certainly my first one facing in this direction - and with facial hair!

'A little over 11 years ago, I was stood where you are today. Although I confess, I don't remember any deep thoughts of duty, responsibility and leadership at that point.

'My head was filled with much more immediate concerns: numb feet, the buckle of my braces digging into my collarbone, a burning in my arm from the weight of the rifle; and above all, desperate attempts to remember what the next words of command were, to avoid drawing the attention from the Academy sergeant major one last time!'

The Band of the Scots Guards played music including Adele's Rolling In The Deep, as the soldiers marched in front of Harry.

The Prince represented his grandmother, The Queen, at the event as younger royals take on more duties from the monarch

He inspected the officers at the The Sovereign's Parade, which is held at the end of each term

He presented a number of honours at the military academy, including the Sword of Honour

Harry told the recruits about his own memories of when he took part in the parade

He joked that he was pleased that this time he had taken to the parade ground with facial hair

He presented the Sword of Honour to Senior Under Officer Charles Rex, from Dorset, and the Queen's Medal to Officer Cadet George Harrison from Wiltshire.

The International Award was presented to Officer Cadet Mingdong Tang from China, and the International Sword to Officer Cadet Milosh Trendevski from Macedonia.

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course.

The military awards presented by Prince Harry included the Sword of Honour, Overseas Sword, and the Queen's Medal

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course

The International Award was presented to Officer Cadet Mingdong Tang from China

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course

More than 200 commissioning officers were on the parade ground in Camberley, Surrey, for the visit of Harry, who left the Army in 2015.

Harry presented the Sword of Honour, Overseas Sword, Queen's Medal and International Award.

The prince was inspected by his grandmother the Queen during his own commissioning in April 2006, and was pictured grinning as she smiled at him.

The visit would had brought back memories of his own appearance at the parade in 2006

He was inspected by his grandmother, The Queen, and his father, The Prince of Wales, in 2006

Harry said he remembered his 'numb feet, his braces digging into his collarbone and the weight of his rifle'

Sandhurst, where the Army's officers are trained, has hosted many famous graduates including the Sultan of Brunei, Sir Winston Churchill, fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, James Bond author Ian Fleming and actor David Niven, as well as members of the royal family, including the Duke of Cambridge.

Harry has previously described his decade-long Army career as 'epic', saying that while it had started as a boyhood dream of his it eventually became a way for him to 'escape the limelight'.

During his 10 years in the military Harry went on two tours of duty to Afghanistan and qualified as an Apache aircraft commander.

Soldiers march onto the parade ground at Sandhurst ahead of the Sovereign's Parade

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course

Kensington Palace announced today that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding is to take place on Saturday May 19.

The pair, whose engagement was confirmed last month, are tying the knot at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

American actress Ms Markle is set to appear at church with the Windsors at Sandringham on Christmas Day.
A Romanian nurse has been banned from working in Britain after he used a pen and a drinking straw to try and relieve a patients constipation.

Traian Dumitrescu, 32, was sacked from a care home after he inserted the objects into the dementia patients backside as part of a bizarre procedure at a care home in Powys, Wales.

A misconduct panel heard the man screamed out in pain and was told by Dumitrescu everything was 'OK'.

Dumitrescu was struck off from the care home (pictured) after inserting the object up a dementia patient's backside

He was dismissed from Crosfield House Care Home after stunned colleagues reported him to bosses.

Dumitrescu was handed a one-year conditions of practice order in December 2015, allowing him to continue working in the UK if he completed extra training.

On that occasion, a disciplinary panel was satisfied that he demonstrated 'some insight' and 'accepted his behaviour was wrong'.

But last week a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in London hearing was told he had refused to complete the training after returning to his home in Romania.

The panel concluded he was a risk to the public and no longer fit to practice and imposed a striking-off order to 'maintain public confidence in the profession'.

Panel chair Paul Powici said: 'There is nothing to indicate that Mr Dumitrescu has developed insight into, nor taken steps to remedy, his misconduct.

'The panel noted that it had been made clear to Mr Dumitrescu by the previous panel that his registration was at risk should he fail to engage with the review process, comply with the conditions of practice order and demonstrate remediation and insight regarding his misconduct.

'The panel also considered Mr Dumitrescu has not demonstrated any recent commitment to return to the nursing profession.'

Dumitrescu was first handed a 12-month conditions of practice order by the NMC in December 2014 after he admitted using the objects on an elderly resident with dementia.

A Personal Development Plan was devised for the nurse to address 'deficiencies' in the management of constipation, gaining consent to treatment and dementia care.

At a review in December 2015, he was handed a one-year suspension after the panel heard he had not complied with the conditions of practice order.

A year later a new conditions of practice order was imposed as Dumitrescu had expressed a desire to return to nursing.

The conditions included undertaking training and producing a piece of reflective writing on the need to treat patients with dignity and respect.

But at the latest review meeting, the panel said there was 'no new information' as Dumitrescu had again failed to meet the conditions.

The striking-off order will come into effect on January 13 next year.
Dublin's latest tram line has been accused of causing traffic chaos since it opened last week, and now it has been found that a part of the journey is speedier on foot.

The Luas Cross City tram line has taken four years to complete, costing some 368million (324million), and runs for 3.7miles through Dublin's city centre.

An investigation by the Irish Sun found that a nine-minute journey through central Dublin took just over seven-and-a-half minutes to walk.

Costly chaos: The 324million Luas Cross City tram line through central Dublin opened last week after four years of construction

Both reporters started off at the Luas Cross City tram stop by St Stephen's Green, and were timed on their journey to O'Connell Street.

The reporter who took the tram got to O'Connell Street in nine minutes and eight seconds, while the man who took a brisk walk made it in seven minutes and 46 seconds.

The new tram line has already come under harsh critique, despite only being open for less than a week.

Taking to the street: A test of the route from St. Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street found that it was quicker to walk than to take the tram

The cross-city trams have been accused of causing traffic jams and blocking cyclists, buses and cars, which in turn has made commuters' life hell.

Many residents have taken to social media to air their grievances, with some accusing the local government of wasting money.

'How can Dublin City Council & Luas justify 10 mins of red light for major artery into Dublin city centre?,' one person posted on Twitter.

Anger: Frustrated Dublin commuters have taken to Twitter to air their grievances regarding the traffic chaos caused by the new tram line

A DUBLIN HISTORY IN TRAMS The Irish capital's first non-horse tram line came into service in 1872. At its peak it the tracks ran for some 37miles, through the city centre and out to South Dublin suburbs. After car and bus travel became more popular, the city decided to abandon the trams and dig up most of the tracks. The last Dublin tram ran on July 9 1949. After decades of tram-free streets, a 1994 local government report suggested that a new tram system be built and two lines were approved in 1998. The Red Line and Green Line opened in 2004 and has now been joined by the Cross City Line as of December. Advertisement

Twitter user Sinead Larkin wrote: 'For years Dublin got by just fine without the #luascrosscity Now we have something which is crippling the city. Shambolic waste of money'

Damien Lodge posted: '#luascrosscity @Luas week 1 and never seen such late arrivals and packed trams #getyouracttogether'

Naoise Roantree added: '@Luas thanks to #luascrosscity we now have 15 minute waits for trams on the green line at peak times.'

Images posted on social media show buses and cyclists waiting while trams blocked roads in central Dublin, however the AA said traffic chaos was likely to disappear once the public got used to it.

'We believe any issues today were down to road users adapting to the new layouts,' a spokesperson for AA Roadwatch told Independent.ie.

'Overall we believe the new cross city Luas will be very beneficial to commuters in Dublin.'
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will marry on May 19 at Windsor Castle's famous St George's chapel, it was revealed today.

The couple have chosen to ignore royal tradition and walk down the aisle on a Saturday so more people in the UK and across the globe can watch on TV or even come to Berkshire on their wedding day.

A royal aide told MailOnline today: 'They remain hugely grateful for the messages of support they have received from people all over the world'.

But football fans are bemused because they will wed on FA Cup Final day even though Harry's best man Prince William is FA President and usually presents its famous trophy to the winners at Wembley.

It could also lead to a TV coverage clash of the first major royal wedding since 2011 and the biggest football match of the year in Britain.

The date also means Harry and his fiancee will not to marry on either the early May or late May bank holidays as wished for by some working Britons.

And May 19 ensures that the wedding will not overshadow the birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's third child in April and allow Kate the time to recover.

Scroll down for video

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will marry on Saturday, May 19 at Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace has revealed today

The Suits star, 36, will be baptised and confirmed before she marries Harry (pictured today at Sandhurst) at St George's chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle on a Saturday

Kensington Palace confirmed the date - which clashes with the FA Cup Final

They want at intimate church service at St George's where Prince Edward married bride Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999 (pictured)

Harry and Meghan's wedding: What we know so far Most of the details for Harry and Meghan's bid day have been confirmed Date: May 19, 2018 Venue: St George's Chapel, Windsor Who will marry them?Archbishop of Canterbury is said to have agreed Best man: Prince William is the strong favourite Bridesmaids: Meghan hasn't revealed the list but it could include Star Wars actress Janina Gavankar, ex-Made in Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh, tennis champion Serena Williams, fashion designer Misha Nonoo and former Miss World Priyanka Chopra. The Duchess of Cambridge is a less likely choice. What will it cost? At William and Kate's wedding planners put the cost of a cake or cakes to feed guests at up to 50,000  or as little as 10,000 for a 'modest' version. There are rumours they may choose a banana cake The Duchess of Cambridge's dress was said to have cost up to 250,000 while flowers for Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace were said to have been between 200,000 to 500,000. Who will foot the bill? The Queen has said she and the rest of the royal family will pay for the traditional wedding costs like the ceremony, flowers, music and the reception - but security is likely to be paid for by the taxpayer. Security at Prince William and Kate's wedded was as much as 20m, which dwarfed the 7.4m price of security at the G20 protests in London in 2009. As a more direct comparison, the 1981 wedding between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer was estimated to have cost 4m - which equates to around 12m today. Advertisement

Royal sources insisted last night the events would not overlap, which suggests the wedding could take place in the morning, with the Cup Final in the late afternoon.

A royal aide said the couple opted for a weekend wedding because they wanted as many members of the public to be involved as possible, whether by watching it on television or attending in person at Windsor.

The Mail understands Harry and Meghan were keen to avoid the possibility of having to declare a bank holiday and wanted the wedding to seem more informal.

Most couples get married on a Saturday and it wasnt as if they had to worry about another couple already having snagged the date, said a source.

Last night the Mail revealed the Archbishop of Canterbury will marry Prince Harry and divorcee Meghan, in another sign of changing royal and religious mores.

In a radio interview yesterday Justin Welby declined to say whether he would officiate at the service, saying only that it was 'up to them'.

But the Mail understands that he has, in fact, already agreed to marry the couple in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in May.

The Suits star, 36, will be baptised and confirmed before the ceremony at St George's chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

May 19 is an inauspicious day for one former royal because it was when Anne Boleyn was beheaded on the orders of Henry VIII at the Tower of London in 1536.

Royal weddings usually take place on a weekday. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wed on a Friday and the Queen on a Thursday.

Kate's sister Pippa married on May 20 thsi year.

The wedding falls on the day of the 2018 FA Cup Final.

As President of the Football Association, Harry's older brother the Duke of Cambridge usually attends the high-profile match and presents the trophy.

But this year, William, who is tipped to be Harry's best man, looks likely to be otherwise engaged with wedding duties.

Commenting on the fixture clash, an FA spokesman said: 'Saturday May 19 promises to be a wonderful day with such a special royal occasion being followed by English football's showpiece event, the Emirates FA Cup Final.

'With millions coming together to watch both events at home and around the world, it will be a day to celebrate.'

St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, which has been chosen as the venue for the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Harry and Meghan's engagement was announced by the Prince of Wales on November 27, with Harry saying he was 'thrilled' to be marrying the Suits star  admitting he knew she was 'the one' from 'the first day we met'.

In the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace last month, Meghan showed the world her engagement ring designed by Harry himself - containing two diamonds from Princess Diana's own personal collection set in a gold band.

The prince proposed in early November after getting permission from the Queen and Meghan's parents. They had been engaged for almost a month before announcing the news.

Royal protocol dictated that fifth in line to the throne Harry had to ask his grandmother the Queen for permission to marry and she agreed in the month where she celebrated her own 70th wedding anniversary.

Harry revealed a year ago he had fallen for the actress after a four to six month secret relationship.

Harry says he knew Meghan was 'the one' from 'the first day we met' and proposed while roasting a chicken

Meghan will be spending her first Christmas with the royals just weeks after her engagement to Prince Harry was announced (pictured together on their first public engagement in Nottingham)

May 19: A mixed day for royal Henrys over the centuries May 19 is the day in 1536 when Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, was executed on Tower Green and an adultery charge. It marked the end of Henry's second marriage - although he would have four more marriages. On May 19 in 1051 Ann of Kiev married Henry I of France in Reims and became the first Russian queen of France. When she arrived in Normandy she wrote home to say it was a barbaric country whose citizens were illiterate. There were a number of other notable events on May 19. In 1588 The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon before being defeated in the Channel. In 1898 William Ewart Gladstone, four times Liberal prime minister, died at Hawarden Castle in North Wales aged 88. And in 1935 T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, died six days after a motorcycle accident in Dorset. Sir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate from 1972, died aged 77, in 1984. Advertisement

The prince and his American fiancee, who divorced her first husband in 2013, will move into Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace next door to his brother William and sister-in-law Kate.

The wedding will come about a month after the due date of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's third child.

Harry also asked Meghan's parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland, who divorced when their daughter was six, for her hand in marriage before popping the question.

Meghan Markle made history this week after the Queen took the unprecedented step of inviting her to spend Christmas at Sandringham before she marries Prince Harry.

The star, 36, will spend the festive period at Her Majesty's private estate in Norfolk even though Kate Middleton was only asked after she walked down the aisle with Prince William in 2011.

The Queen's invitation to the US-born actress is further evidence of the royal family's warm welcome for her ahead of the couple's May wedding at Windsor Castle.

Meghan, who will take British citizenship and get baptised by the Church of England before the wedding, will also attend the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham.

She and Harry, 33, who are now living together in a two-bed cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace, will also take part in the traditional walk to mass by the entire royal family.

Confirming the news today a Kensington Palace spokesman said: 'You can expect to see The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Ms Markle at Sandringham on Christmas Day.'

The Prince of Wales toured the Ramsbury Estate in Marlborough where he met local children on the day his youngest son's wedding date was announced

How this stunning 15th century gothic chapel will be a grand but intimate setting for the royal wedding St George's is often at the heart of royal events, with the Windsors gathering there each year for Easter services Harry and Meghan have chosen a more intimate setting to marry rather than the vast Westminster Abbey or St Paul's Cathedral. The stunning 15th century gothic St George's Chapel is set in the Lower Ward of the Queen's beloved Windsor Castle. Steeped in history, it offers Prince Harry and Meghan Markle a slightly more intimate venue for their nuptials, but one that is still appropriately grand for a royal wedding. It usually holds around 800 guests compared with the 2,000 capacity of Westminster Abbey where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wed in 2011. Prince Edward and Sophie leave St Georges's Chapel in 1999 With the Queen now 91 and the Duke of Edinburgh 96, the choice will be especially convenient for Harry's ageing grandparents, who spend a great deal of time at home in the castle. Located within the castle's grounds and surrounded by the Horseshoe Cloisters and the Henry VIII gate, the venue will also provide the royal family with a certain amount of privacy on the day of the wedding. Harry was also christened in the chapel in December 1984 when he was three months old, which, according to Church of England rules, means he can also marry there. The prince and Miss Markle's reception could be held in the castle's 180ft (55m) long St George's Hall, traditionally used for glittering state banquets. The vast hall had to be restored following the devastating fire at the castle in 1992. The chapel, with its intricately carved stonework, magnificent fan vaulted ceiling and beautiful stained glass windows, has seen many royal weddings and funerals. The last royal wedding was for Harry's cousin, Peter Phillips - son of the Princess Royal - who married Canadian Autumn Kelly in 2008. Harry's father, the Prince of Wales, and stepmother, the Duchess of Cornwall, had their televised religious blessing there in 2005, after their civil ceremony down the road in Windsor's Town Hall. In 1999, Harry's uncle, the Earl of Wessex, married Sophie Rhys-Jones, now the Countess of Wessex, at St George's. Royal newlyweds and their families traditionally pose for photographs afterwards on the vast west steps, as Harry and his new bride are certain to do. It has been the setting for many historic funerals including the Queen Mother's private committal service following her Westminster Abbey funeral in 2002, and in the same year, Princess Margaret's small, private funeral. The funeral of the Queen's father, King George VI, took place at St George's in 1952. Like Westminster Abbey, the chapel is known as a Royal Peculiar, with the Dean of Windsor responsible only to the sovereign. The church - a place of worship for the Queen and her family - is often at the heart of royal events, with the Windsors gathering there each year for Easter services, and in the past for occasions such as the service to mark the Duke of Edinburgh's 90th birthday. Within the chapel are the tombs of 10 sovereigns - as well as George VI, the remains of Edward IV, Henry VI, Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, the beheaded Charles I, George III, George IV, William IV, Edward VII and George V also rest there. Construction of the chapel was started in 1475 by Edward IV, and completed under Henry VIII in 1528. It is the Chapel of the Order of the Garter, the senior order of chivalry in England, established in 1348 by Edward III. Each year in June, royals who are Knights and Ladies of the Garter process in carriages from the state apartments down the hill to the chapel for the traditional Order of the Garter ceremony. They dress in their Garter robes - heavy blue velvet capes and black velvet hats with elaborate white ostrich plumes. On each side of the choir are the 15th century beautifully carved stalls of the Knights and Ladies of the Garter. Advertisement

'What guy agrees to marry on FA Cup final day?': Harry and Meghan's royal wedding is already upsetting the commoners... as Twitter users bemoan its clash with another crucial match

Football fans reacted with incredulity today after the royal wedding was revealed to have been booked for the same day as the FA Cup final.

The marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will take place on Saturday, May 19, 2018 at St George's Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle in Berkshire.

But exactly six months ago today, the 2017/18 FA Cup final was announced for the same day about 18 miles away at Wembley Stadium in North West London.

CALLS TO EXTEND PUB OPENING HOURS FOR ROYAL CELEBRATION Ms Simmonds said: 'A Royal wedding is a great national celebration, and a ownderful opportunity for us all to get together in the pub,' she said The chairman of the British Beer & Pubs Association has called for extended hours for pubs on Friday May 18 and Saturday May 19. Celebrating Kensington Palace's confirmation of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding date on May 19th, Brigid Simmonds told the Home Office how the wedding could boost pubs up and down the country. Ms Simmonds said: 'A Royal wedding is a great national celebration, and a wonderful opportunity for us all to get together in the pub,' she said. 'I know this would be warmly welcomed by pubgoers and the pub trade. It would put pubs at the heart of the celebrations, something which has been a great success for previous major Royal events. 'I hope the Government will embrace this idea.' Advertisement

The start time for the wedding nor the football match has yet been announced, but last season's final in May between Arsenal and Chelsea began at 5.30pm.

As President of the Football Association, Harry's older brother the Duke of Cambridge usually attends the high-profile match and presents the trophy.

But this year, William, who is tipped to be Harry's best man, looks likely to be otherwise engaged with wedding duties.

Football supports and other Twitter users spoke of their amazement at the two events clashing  with some suggesting it will keep the police on their toes.

Sophia Cannon tweeted: 'Royal Wedding on May 19 2018. Saturday, no Bank Holiday! It's also the date of the FA Cup Final. The pub TV wars are going to interesting.'

Another added: 'FA Cup final day... royal wedding day... transport, police.. yeah, they haven't thought that one through have they.'

A third said: 'Woah, woah, woah, the royal wedding and FA Cup date clash. Someone needs to sort this out before they book a venue or anything. Someone DM Harry.'

Royal weddings usually take place on a weekday. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wed on a Friday and the Queen on a Thursday,

Attention! Prince Harry steps in for the Queen at Sandhurst to inspect the recruits at Sandhurst as his wedding date is revealed

Prince Harry returned to his old stomping ground of Sandhurst military academy today when he stepping in for the Queen to present honours.

Harry, who graduated from the institution 11 years ago, represented his grandmother at the historic Sovereign's Parade, handing out awards to four of the top officer cadets passing out.

The appearance came on the same day that it was announced his wedding to Meghan Markle would take place on May 19.

Harry shared some personal memories of his own passing out, joking that his thoughts had been focused on the chilly weather rather than his achievement in becoming an officer.

Prince Harry returned to Sandhurst military academy to hand out awards to cadet officers

As part of the visit, Harry inspected troops on the parade ground at the Sovereign's Day Parade

He undertook the duties on the same day as the date of his wedding was publicly announced

Addressing the new recruits on the bright but bitterly cold December day, he said: 'It is not the first time that I have been a part of this parade but it is certainly my first one facing in this direction - and with facial hair!

'A little over 11 years ago, I was stood where you are today. Although I confess, I don't remember any deep thoughts of duty, responsibility and leadership at that point.

'My head was filled with much more immediate concerns: numb feet, the buckle of my braces digging into my collarbone, a burning in my arm from the weight of the rifle; and above all, desperate attempts to remember what the next words of command were, to avoid drawing the attention from the Academy sergeant major one last time!'

The Band of the Scots Guards played music including Adele's Rolling In The Deep, as the soldiers marched in front of Harry.

The Prince represented his grandmother, The Queen, at the event as younger royals take on more duties from the monarch

He inspected the officers at the The Sovereign's Parade, which is held at the end of each term

He presented a number of honours at the military academy, including the Sword of Honour

Harry told the recruits about his own memories of when he took part in the parade

He joked that he was pleased that this time he had taken to the parade ground with facial hair

He presented the Sword of Honour to Senior Under Officer Charles Rex, from Dorset, and the Queen's Medal to Officer Cadet George Harrison from Wiltshire.

The International Award was presented to Officer Cadet Mingdong Tang from China, and the International Sword to Officer Cadet Milosh Trendevski from Macedonia.

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course.

More than 200 commissioning officers were on the parade ground in Camberley, Surrey, for the visit of Harry, who left the Army in 2015.

The visit would had brought back memories of his own appearance at the parade in 2006

He was inspected by his grandmother, The Queen, and his father, The Prince of Wales, in 2006

Harry said he remembered his 'numb feet, his braces digging into his collarbone and the weight of his rifle'

Harry presented the Sword of Honour, Overseas Sword, Queen's Medal and International Award.

The prince was inspected by his grandmother the Queen during his own commissioning in April 2006, and was pictured grinning as she smiled at him.

Sandhurst, where the Army's officers are trained, has hosted many famous graduates including the Sultan of Brunei, Sir Winston Churchill, fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, James Bond author Ian Fleming and actor David Niven, as well as members of the royal family, including the Duke of Cambridge.

Harry has previously described his decade-long Army career as 'epic', saying that while it had started as a boyhood dream of his it eventually became a way for him to 'escape the limelight'.

During his 10 years in the military Harry went on two tours of duty to Afghanistan and qualified as an Apache aircraft commander.

Soldiers march onto the parade ground at Sandhurst ahead of the Sovereign's Parade

The Sovereign's Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course

Harry and Meghan souvenirs to go on sale five months before the big day as shops cash in on Royal Wedding

By Claire Duffin

Harry and Meghan souvenirs have gone on sale in the gift shop on the Queens Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Bookmarks, notebooks, mugs, gold-plated spoons and even fridge magnets featuring the couple are available.

They are all decorated with an official engagement photograph as well as the Union and US flags to mark Miss Markles American citizenship. The mugs are the most expensive item at 6.99, with the fridge magnets the cheapest at 1.99.

Ingrid Seward, of Majesty Magazine, said: Its tacky but clever. They are cashing in.

A Sandringham spokesman said many royal occasions, both recent and historic, have been commemorated by the production of items, including Kate and Williams engagement.
The adoptive mother of a teenage girl who starved to death and weighed just 85lbs when she died has been found guilty of her murder.

Nicole Finn was convicted in court in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday of murdering her adoptive daughter Nathalie.

Nathalie was found languishing on a linoleum floor of their cat-filled home wearing an adult diaper in October 2016. She died in hospital several days later from a heart attack brought on by severe emaciation.

Nicole, 43, and her husband Joseph were both arrested on child cruelty charges at the time and the other teenagers they had adopted were removed from their care.

Nicole Finn, 43, was convicted of first degree murder on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa

The pair were living separately at the time of Nathalie's death but had adopted her together years earlier.

Nathalie Finn died in October 2016 weighing just 85lbs

On Thursday, Nicole was convicted of first degree murder, kidnapping and child endangerment.

She will be sentenced in January but is likely to be imprisoned for life, the mandatory minimum in Iowa.

After the verdict was returned, Assistant Polk County Attorney Bret Lucas said: 'In 18 years of being a prosecutor, this is the worst case I've ever seen.'

Her lawyers attempted to argue that she was detached from reality.

Joseph was not living in the home when Nathalie died. He has been charged with child neglect, child endangerment and kidnapping and is due to appear in court in January.

He has pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Nicole was more concerned with the animals in the home than she was for the three adoptive teenagers.

They were among five children living at the home and were kept in horrific conditions.

During her trial, prosecutors said Nicole, Nathalie's adoptive mother, cared more about her pets than she did her adoptive children

Nathalie, one of three adopted children living in the home, was made to wear an adult diaper and was kept in a room with no furniture. She and the other adopted children were so starved they sometimes begged neighbors for morsels of food

Before she was convicted on Thursday (above), Nicole's lawyers attempted to argue that she was detached from reality

Finn boarded up some of windows inside the family's home in West Des Moines to stop Nathalie and the other teenagers from going looking for food

Nicole and her husband boarded up windows to stop them going looking for food after they were caught begging neighbors for morsels to eat.

Natalie had been lying in her own waste for 'some time' when police found her in October, according to a police search warrant which was unsealed on Tuesday.

Her siblings were also underweight and had bedsores, according to police.

There was no furniture in their bedroom or in the bedrooms of her other adopted siblings and the house was overrun by cats and kittens whose feces were scattered everywhere.

'Many animals roamed freely, including well over a dozen kittens and cats,' according to an arrest affidavit.

Blankets which were 'heavily soaked' in what was believed to be urine covered the floor of the room Natalie shared with two of her siblings.

'There were numerous kennels with dogs scattered inside the residence.'

Nicole and her husband Joseph were estranged when Nathalie died. He was charged with child endangerment and kidnaping and will stand trial next month

One health worker was fired as a result of Nathalie's (pictured) death

Authorities visited the home in August, just two months before Nathalie's death, but were told the teenager was refusing to eat.

They had been called in after Nathalie's school reporter concerns about her welfare.

Instead of removing her from the home, they allowed her and the other teenagers to carry on living there.

One health worker was fired as a result of Nathalie's death but they have never been identified.

At the time of her death, Senator Matt McCoy said the situation was 'preventable'.

'What happened to not only Natalie but her siblings was preventable.

'It's a horrific situation and I feel heartbroken for Natalie and her siblings who were, in essence, sealed in that room and left to die,' he said.
Authorities in Michigan are working with Montana police to determine whether the remains of three children found in a shed in Missoula belong to three brothers who went missing in 2010.

Workers cleaning out a rental home in Missoula on September 27, after the previous tenants were evicted, discovered a box of bones in an outdoor shed.

On Wednesday, police in Montana said they had identified the remains as belonging to three children, one between the ages of two and four, one between five and eight and the eldest between six and 10.

The discovery caused shockwaves 1,500 miles away in Morenci, Michigan, where three brothers went missing seven years ago.

Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton were nine, seven and five years old at the time of their disappearance, matching the ages of the remains found.

Scroll down for video

Police are investigating whether the bones of three children found in Missoula, Montana are the three Skelton brothers who went missing in 2010. Andrew (center), Alexander (right) and Tanner (left) where nine, seven, and five years old in November 2010 when their father failed to return them to their mother after Thanksgiving

Tanya Zuvers, the boys' mother, posted this message on Facebook on Thursday after learning about the possible break in the case

The boys' mother is pictured above in November 2011, a year after their disappearance

Authorities cautioned against raising hopes too soon, since there's nothing as of yet that connects the bones to the three brothers other than the age range.

But Montana and Michigan authorities are now working together to conduct further forensic testing on the remains, to try and match them to the brothers.

'Nothing we've been able to connect them too yet, however, we are working with the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children, and other missing person databases to see if that's a possibility,' Sgt. Travis Welsh told MTN News.

'The thing is, there are missing children all over the world. And the thing is, we don't know that this particular case is isolated to the city of Missoula. We don't know where the bones came from, and if they were transported from one area to another, and ended up here,' he added.

The Michigan State Police said in a statement: 'Further forensic testing has been requested by police in Montana that may provide more answers. Until this testing is completed and additional investigation by law enforcement in Montana occurs, it cannot be determined if these remains belong to the missing Skelton brothers.'

The remains were found in a box inside this small outdoor shed attached to a rental home in Missoula, Montana

Cleaners were cleaning out the property on September 27, after the former residents had been evicted

Anthropologists from the University of Montana helped analyze the bones, and determined that they belonged to three children in the same age range as the missing Skeltons

The boys' mother, Tanya Zuvers, says she still hopes that her sons are alive but she knows that realistically they are probably dead.

On Thursday, she took to Facebook and appeared hopeful for some closure in the case.

'This information has just been presented to our family within the last several hours,' Zuvers wrote. 'We are processing it and hopeful that we will have answers soon. We are thankful for all your thoughts and prayers.'

The three boys went missing after Zuvers let them spend Thanksgiving with their father, John Skelton, in November 2010.

The boys' father John Skelton was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison after pleading no contest to unlawful imprisonment. He's pictured on the left in December 2010 and on the right in March 2011

Volunteers are pictured above searching for the boys in a field outside Pioneer, Ohio on December 1, 2010

She reported them missing the next day when her ex failed to return the kids.

At first, Skelton said the children had been with friends. But he later changed his story and said that he had given them to an underground organization to protect them from their mother.

In 1998, Zuvers pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual conduct after she was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy and her ex claimed that she had started to prey on her own children.

Zuvers denied the claim.

Cellphone data showed that on the morning of Thanksgiving, he drove down into Ohio and then returned home.

Last year, the authorities released pictures showing what the boys would look like six years older. From left to right - Andrew, Alexander and Parker

At one point, he said that he gave the kids to an Amish group, and there are many Amish communities in Ohio.

But the boys were never found.

The Morenci police chief has previously said that he believes the father killed the boys, but he was never charged with that crime.

Eventually Skelton was charged with unlawful imprisonment and parental kidnapping.

Missoula Police Sgt. Travis Welsh says they haven't been able to connect the bones to the three brothers yet, but they will be doing additional forensics analyses

The latter charge was later dropped and in September 2011, Skelton pleaded no contest to unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

He still refuses to say what organization he allegedly handed the kids over to. Authorities said they are not sure whether he has been informed of the latest lead in the case.

Montana authorities said there is a person of interest they want to speak to, but stressed that that person of interest is not a suspect.

According to a court filing, there was a complaint about a man who had 'illegally occupied the backyard of the property last year'.

The man camped in the backyard and had access to the garage and shed.

A city residential housing code compliance officer said that she felt the man had a 'surveillance camera set up to alert him to the presence' of visitors.

It's unclear when that man vacated the property, and what his relation to the former renters of the apartment was.
An angry mum bludgeoned her 12-year-old daughter to death with a meat cleaver because she didn't want to go to school.

Kateryna Dobrodiy, 12, had gone into the kitchen at her family home in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine, where she asked her mum Olena if she could stay at home.

When she refused, unhappy Kateryna, who complained of being tired, kept asking until the 35-year-old anaesthetist flew into a rage, grabbed the cleaver and slammed it into the girl's head.

Kateryna Dobrodiy (left), 12, had gone into the kitchen at her family home in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine, where she asked her mum Olena (right) if she could stay at home

As the girl lay dead on the floor in her own blood, the mum dressed her in her school clothes, stuffed her in the boot of her car and then drove her to a remote part of the city outskirts where she dumped the body.

She then returned to clean up the blood before calling the cops later in the evening to report her daughter missing.

After a five-day search involving local volunteers as well as Kateryna's mum, the body was found.

When she refused, unhappy Kateryna, who complained of being tired, kept asking until the 35-year-old anaesthetist flew into a rage, grabbed the cleaver and slammed it into the girl's head

As the girl lay dead on the floor in her own blood, the mum dressed her in her school clothes, stuffed her in the boot of her car and then drove her to a remote part of the city outskirts where she dumped the body

After a five-day search involving local volunteers as well as Kateryna's mum, the body was found

CCTV footage showed the mum's car had been in the area and a forensic examination of the vehicle found traces of the girl's blood.

Ukrainian police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin told local media: 'The girl was found dead at a distance of 3.1 miles from her home.

'Based on evidence, the girl's mother was detained on suspicion of the murder.'

It was revealed that Mrs Dobrodiy, who worked as an anesthetist in a local oncology hospital, has a history of mental illness and had undergone psychiatric treatment from time to time.

Kateryna's horrified grandmother said: 'I don't understand it. The day before, Kateryna asked her mother if she could stay at home and her mother was OK with it.' Pictured: The search party

It was revealed that Mrs Dobrodiy, who worked as an anesthetist in a local oncology hospital, has a history of mental illness and had undergone psychiatric treatment from time to time. Pictured: The search for her body

Kateryna's horrified grandmother said: 'I don't understand it.

'The day before, Kateryna asked her mother if she could stay at home and her mother was OK with it.'

The woman now faces life in jail.
An Oklahoma judge on Friday sentenced a man to death for beheading a co-worker in 2014 at a food processing plant.

Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley accepted a jury's recommendation of the death penalty over life in prison without parole for Alton Nolen, 33.

Jurors earlier this year convicted him of decapitating 54-year-old Colleen Hufford when he attacked her and others at the Vaughan Foods plant.

Alton Nolen is escorted from a courtroom following his formal sentencing in Norman, Oklahoma. Nolen was sentenced to death for beheading Colleen Hufford, as well assaulting several other coworkers in 2014

Colleen Hufford (left) was the victim in the Moore, Oklahoma beheading case that took place at Vaughan Foods food processing plant

Kelli Beranek, the daughter of murder victim Colleen Hufford, talks with the media following the sentencing of Alton Nolen in Norman, Oklahoma

Nolen had just been suspended from his job at the Vaughan Foods plant when he walked inside the company's administrative office and attacked his co-workers.

During the trial, prosecutors played recordings of Nolen confessing to the stabbings while he was hospitalized following the attack.

In the recordings, Nolen says he doesn't 'regret it at all' and that 'oppressors don't need to be here.'

Investigators said Nolen had just been suspended from his job at the Vaughan Foods plant when he walked inside the company's administrative office and attacked his co-workers.

His attorneys argued that he is mentally ill and that he believed he was doing the right thing because of his delusional misinterpretations of the Quran.

Traci Johnson, one of the co-workers attacked by Alton Nolen, talks with the media following his formal sentencing in Norman, Oklahoma

Investigators said Nolen had just been suspended from his job at the plant when he walked inside the company's administrative office and attacked Hufford (right) and another co-worker

But prosecutors said Nolen knew right from wrong before he attacked Hufford.

Nolen had repeatedly tried to plead guilty and asked to be executed, but Walkley declined to accept his plea.

'This was a decisive act not driven by a mental illness. I submit to you, he would do it again in a heartbeat,' Cleveland County Assistant District Attorney, Susan Caswell, said in the shocking court statement.

One of Nolen's attorneys had questioned whether his client was mentally competent to enter a guilty plea.

Cleveland County Assistant District Attorney, Susan Caswell, said in a court statement: 'This was a decisive act not driven by a mental illness. I submit to you, he would do it again in a heartbeat'

Nolen had repeatedly tried to plead guilty and asked to be executed, but Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley declined to accept his plea.

One of Nolen's attorneys had questioned whether his client was mentally competent to enter a guilty plea.

At a 2016 hearing, Nolen told the judge that he would only accept a death sentence, not life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.

The judge repeatedly reminded Nolen that if he pleaded guilty and waived his right to a jury trial, the decision to sentence him would be up to a judge, not him.
A homeless man broke into a nativity scene and booted baby Jesus out of his crib so he had somewhere warm to sleep.

The rough sleeper bedded down in a manger next to large plastic models of Mary and Joseph.

The unidentified man, who had 'no crib for a bed,' spent the night sleeping in the middle of the biblical scene in the city of Guadalajara, in the western Mexican state of Jalisco.

The picture shows the man having sleeping where Jesus should be in the nativity scene

Hilarious photographs show him lying on a bed of hay, where a doll of the baby Jesus is usually found, his head sticking out from beneath a woolly blanket.

The man spent hours lying in the recently construction nativity scene in Plaza de la Liberacion, which translates as 'the plaza of freedom'.

Hundreds of people walked past without noticing him slumbering away in the middle of the festive scene.

Eventually a curious passerby lifted a blanket covering the crib, expecting to see baby Jesus lying inside.

Police were called to the nativity scene and politely asked the homeless man to move on

But instead of Christ the Saviour, they discovered a fully grown man, getting some shut eye.

The police were then called to the nativity scene and politely asked if the homeless man would leave the manger.

They offered to put him up for the evening in a nearby hostel, assuring him that it would be more comfortable.

During winter, temperatures plummet in Guadalajara so the authorities are currently offering a scheme to transfer homeless people to shelters.

Here they will be guaranteed hot food to eat and a warm place to spend the night.
A shocking video captured the moment a four-year-old boy survived being hit by an oncoming car as he rode his bicycle in a quiet residential street.

Security cameras captured the moment Declan Lin was struck by a Volkswagen on Salvado Road, in Stirling, Perth, on Thursday.

The little boy was being watched by his grandfather, but jetted off down the road as the elderly man stopped to help Declan's little sister.

The footage shows the little boy in a neighbour's driveway, before darting in front of the car.

Four-year-old Declan Lin was struck by a car in Perth on Thursday but escaped with a crack in his pelvis and a bump on his head

With no time to stop, the car hits the four-year-old, who is flung off his bike and into the air.

Miraculously, Declan escaped serious injury but did sustain a crack in his pelvis and a bump on his head.

The little boy is currently in a wheelchair as his body is too sore to walk, but he will not have any long term issues from the accident.

The four-year-old's mother, Yuki Zheng, told 7 News she ran out to see her son lying in the street.

Security cameras captured the moment Declan Lin was struck by a Volkswagen on Salvado Road, in Stirling

With no time to stop, the car hits the four-year-old, who is flung off his bike and into the air

'I couldn't stop crying because I was so worried,' she said.

'If he was a little bit slower or the car was a little bit faster then... I can't imagine the result.'

Police have since reported the female driver of the car was not speeding, and the woman stopped to help after hitting Declan.

Ms Zheng also issued a warning to parents to keep an eye on their children during the school holidays.

'Accidents can happen at any time,' Ms Zheng said.
Justin Rey, 35, has been ordered to undergo a 90-day mental treatment by a Kansas judge. The father-of-two was discovered by police to be living in a U-Haul storage space with his two children and the remains of his dead wife

A homeless father-of-two who told police he dismembered his wife in a Missouri hotel room in front of their two children and then slept in a Kansas storage unit with her remains and their two children is headed to a mental hospital for treatment.

A Johnson County, Kansas judge on Thursday found Justin Rey not competent to stand trial and ordered the treatment.

The 35-year-old has been ordered to undergo a 90-day stay at Larned State Hospital, Fox4KC reports.

Justin is charged in Kansas and Missouri with child endangerment. He's also charged with abandonment of a corpse in Missouri. He isn't charged in the killing of his wife, 32-year-old Jessica Monteiro Rey.

He had been jailed on $1million bond in Kansas on the child endangerment charges.

Investigators say Justin took photographs of himself with his wife's body before dismembering her in a Kansas City, Missouri hotel room and taking her remains to the U-Haul storage unit in Lenexa, Kansas.

He was living with their two children: a toddler and the newborn, inside the storage unit when they were found by police, authorities say.

Scroll down for video

Justin has told police that his wife, 32-year-old Jessica Monteiro Rey, died during childbirth and committed suicide. He said that he dismembered her body and kept her remains in a cooler and a tote bag

Body parts that would not fit in either the cooler or the tote bag were flushed down the toilet or boiled

Her remains were discovered inside a cooler and a tote bag on October 24.

What body parts wouldn't fit in the tote and cooler were flushed down the toilet or boiled.

Officers had been called to check on the welfare of their two small children staying in the unit because it was emitting a foul odor.

Justin has alternately said she died during childbirth and that she killed herself.

He also said the baby was delivered in a hotel bathtub and that after his wife gave birth, he used a plastic fastener and a shoe string to secure their baby's umbilical chord.

Justin told police that his wife committed suicide, shortly after giving birth to their newborn child on October 20 at this hotel where they had been staying for about a month

He admitted to dismembering his wife after she died. He checked out of the hotel on October 23, and spent the night at this storage facility

Justin told police he spent two days with the dead body of Jessica Rey before dismembering it in front of their two children.

He's also charged in the death of a California man, Sean Ty Ferel, whose body hasn't been found.

The Palm Springs, California, man disappeared in May 2016 after vacationing with Justin. Three months later, Justin crashed Ferel's vehicle in Los Angeles.

Ferel's body hasn't been found, but his blood was in the trunk, and his belongings were found in an Arizona storage unit that Justin had rented.
President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday 'acknowledging America's strong economic performance,' the White House said.

'The two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea' according to Trump's office.

The two presidents spoke by phone following Putin's annual press conference in Moscow.

Putin said Thursday the U.S. is only hurting itself with investigations of alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, and the Kremlin leader vowed he won't allow the radical opposition at home to challenge the status quo as he seeks re-election.

President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday about election-meddling

Putin gave his annual press conference in Moscow and said the U.S. is hurting itself with investigations of election meddling

At his annual news conference, Putin also mocked his most visible critic, Alexei Navalny, saying that those like the opposition leader want to drive Russia into chaos ahead of the March 18 presidential election.

Brimming with self-confidence during the nearly four-hour session, Putin reaffirmed his denial of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

'All of it was invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy,' Putin said in remarks that mirrored Trump's arguments.

'I'm puzzled by that. People who do it are inflicting damage to the country's domestic political situation, incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him.'

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Trump last month lashed out at those agencies' former heads, calling them 'political hacks' and arguing there were plenty of reasons to be suspicious of their findings.

Putin said Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, whose contacts with Trump's campaign are part of the probes by Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller, was only performing his routine duties.

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a journalist's question during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia on Thursday

'All of it was invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy,' the Russian leader said of concerns in the U.S.

'It's a universally accepted practice when diplomatic envoys and even government officials meet candidates and their teams to discuss some issues, prospects for development, trying to get an idea what they will do if they come to power and how to respond to that,' Putin said.

'What is extraordinary about it and why should it trigger some sort of spy mania?'

Putin also praised Trump's successes, saying that global markets have demonstrated investors' confidence in his economic course.

'We can objectively see quite serious achievements even during his short time in office,' Putin said.

The Russian leader said he and Trump had spoken on a first-name basis on the sidelines of two international summits this year, and he voiced hope that Trump eventually would be able to fulfill his campaign promises to improve ties with Russia.

'I hope that he would gradually have opportunities to establish contacts with Russia,' he added.

Putin emphasized the countries need to cooperate on tackling global challenges and that Russia is ready for 'constructive' cooperation on tackling the North Korean standoff.

Putin has warned the U.S. not to use force against North Korea, adding that the consequences will be 'catastrophic.'

He emphasized that Russia opposes Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, but added the U.S. had 'provoked' the North into developing its nuclear and missile programs.

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is barred from challenging Putin in the March 18 presidential vote due to an embezzlement conviction

Putin said questions about pre-election meetings between Trump personnel and Russians shouldn't 'trigger some sort of spy mania'

Putin said Moscow was encouraged by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's statement about readiness for talks with Pyongyang, hailing it as a 'realistic' approach.

He pointed out, however, that the U.S. sanctions against Russia have put Moscow on a par with Iran and North Korea. He said it looks 'weird' in view of the fact that Washington expects Moscow's cooperation in tackling the North Korean crisis.

'It's beyond reason,' he said.

The Russian leader also voiced concern about the U.S. considering a pullout from key nuclear arms control pacts.

He insisted that Russia has observed the 1987 INF Treaty banning intermediate range missiles and charged that the U.S. claims of alleged Russian violations are part of a 'propaganda' campaign to pave the way for the U.S. withdrawal.

He also blamed the U.S. for violating the pact, a claim that Washington has denied.

Putin also said that Russia wants to keep the 2010 New Start Treaty, which limited the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads for each country.

The treaty is set to expire in 2021, but the parties could agree to extend it.

Putin noted that some in the U.S. want to do away with the treaty and warned that 'it would be very bad for international stability and security.'

He emphasized that Russia will 'ensure its security without entering an arms race,' noting that Moscow's military spending next year will amount to some $47 billion, compared with the Pentagon's budget of about $700 billion.

Putin speaks during his annual news conference in Moscow

Russian TV celebrity Ksenia Sobchak, who announced her own presidential bid last week, gestures while speaking to the media in Moscow on Dec. 14

Putin, who announced his bid for re-election last week, said he would run as a self-nominated candidate, keeping his distance from the main Kremlin party, United Russia, which has many members dogged by accusations of corruption.

A victory to another six-year term would put him on track to become the nation's longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Answering a question from 36-year-old celebrity TV host Ksenia Sobchak, who wants to challenge him in the election, Putin said he doesn't fear competition but emphasized that the government would thwart any attempts by radicals to destabilize Russia.

Sticking to his habit of not mentioning Navalny by name, Putin likened him to Mikheil Saakashvili, a former president of Georgia who has turned into a Ukrainian opposition leader. Saakashvili has defied the Ukrainian government with a series of recent anti-corruption protests.

Putin said his government wouldn't let 'people like Saakashvili' plunge Russia into the kind of instability that is now wracking Ukraine.

An embezzlement conviction that Navalny says is politically motivated bars him from running for president against Putin.

Navalny tweeted that Putin's statement 'confirmed that not letting me run is a deliberate political move.'

Most of the questions came from journalists from far-flung Russian provinces pushing various local projects, effectively serving as envoys for their regions.

Putin sought to burnish his image as a father of the nation who cares for the people's needs, alternating benign statements with his dry and sometimes harsh humor.

He backed his talk about the need for a strong military with a joke about a boy who swaps his father's navy dagger for a watch.

The youth is told by his father: 'It's a good watch. When bandits will come to us and kill your mother and rape your older sister, you will come out and say: 'Good evening, it's 12:30 in Moscow.''
Fresh updates on the hunt for the inexplicably missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 indicate the plane may have been ditched in an ocean grave after the pilot flew it to the end.

Australian authorities failed to locate the jet following several years of combing the sea for debris and finally called off the futile search in January.

But the families of lost passengers were thrown a lifeline in October when US-based company Ocean Infinity offered to takeover the search for free - and now investigators claim the pilot likely flew the aircraft to the end and ditched it.

Australian authorities failed to locate the jet following several years of combing the sea for debris and finally called off the futile search in January

Pictured is a large piece of aircraft debris discovered on the island of Pemba, off the coast of Tanzania, in June

According to reports in The Australian, lead air crash investigator Captain John Cox believes evidence from the recovered wing flaps suggests the doomed plane was dumped intentionally.

'Based on that analysis I think it is likely, possibly highly likely, that there was an attempt to ditch the airplane,' Captain Cox said.

Ocean Infinity stepped in to take over the $200 million search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 for free amid claims experts pinpointed the crash site.

The company struck a 'no find no fee' deal with the Malaysian Government and will receive $90 million only if it locates the wreckage.

According to reports in The Australian , lead air crash investigator Captain John Cox believes evidence from the recovered wing flaps suggests the doomed plane was dumped intentionally (Pictured is debris found on Saint-Andre beach)

Ocean Infinity stepped in to take over the $200 million search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane MH370 for free amid claims experts pinpointed the crash site (Stock image)

New analysis of satellite images taken two weeks after MH370 disappeared identified three locations where the wreckage of the jet could be (pictured)

The publication reports that the search will resume under Ocean Infinity's lead in a matter of weeks.

MH370 disappeared without a trace during a scheduled flight to Kuala Lumpar from Beijing on March 8, 2014, along with 12 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations.

The multinational search for the missing aircraft cost Australian, Malaysian and Chinese taxpayers $200 million but after three years officials are still no closer to learning what truly happened on that flight.

The images were initially discounted as outside the plane's likely path over the Indian Ocean, but brought back into the frame after a review of data

Pictured is an overview map of where the four images were taken, just outside of the initial search areas, which are shown shaded in

Ocean Infinity intends to send a vessel with advanced sonar scanning technology to a smaller, 25,000sqm space where authorities believe contains vital clues for finding the debris.

Captain Cox's suggestion of a ditched aircraft does not support the popular theories that the plane was destroyed in a 'death dive' or a 'ghost flight'.

Some 20 pieces of debris suspected or confirmed to be from the missing MH370 flight have washed ashore on coastlines throughout the Indian Ocean.
Theresa Jean Bice, 39, faces four felony counts, including for burglary, and for possession of drug-related objects, methamphetamine and tools for committing a crime. Her son, 4, was found in her car

A woman from Georgia has been arrested and charged with leaving her four-year-old son in a car alongside meth and drug equipment while she broke into a house.

Theresa Jean Bice, 39, faces four felony counts, including for burglary, and for possession of drug-related objects, methamphetamine and tools for committing a crime, officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Authorities said officers found her son asleep near several bags of meth, a digital scale, and glass smoking paraphernalia.

Child neglect charges are likely to be added by the District Attorneys Office when the case is fully reviewed.

In a high school year book photo Bice's good looks shine through. Bice was arrested as she climbed out of a rear window. Her four-year-old son, right, had been left in the car throughout

Officials were unsure how long Bice was in the house, but found a basket of DVDs and childrens toys inside.

Bice was caught by a deputy as she was leaving the house in Cumming, Georgia, through a back window.

She was arrested for shoplifting in April and put on probation at the time of last week's arrest, authorities told the Forsyth County News.
Jerome McCormack pictured outside Salisbury Magistrates' Court today where he pleaded not guilty to common assault

A primary school headmaster has appeared in court accused of assaulting a teaching assistant by spraying her in the face with a fire extinguisher.

Jerome McCormack is alleged to have injured teaching assistant Patricia Thompson during a safety demonstration at a Catholic school in Amesbury, Wiltshire.

McCormack, 46, is accused of hitting his colleague with foam from the fire extinguisher while giving the demonstration in the school playground.

Ms Thompson required medical attention after the foam hit her in the face at Christ the King school on May 25.

The headteacher, who lives in Seend, Melksham, appeared at Salisbury Magistrates Court for the first time today to deny a charge of common assault.

Irishman McCormack, wearing a grey three-piece suit, spoke only to confirm his name and address before pleading not guilty.

He will next appear at Salisbury Magistrates' Court on January 26 for another plea hearing, before his two-day trial at Chippenham Magistrates' Court beginning on March 8. He was given unconditional bail.

As of December 1 Ms Thompson had not returned to work.

McCormack, 46, is accused of hitting his colleague with foam from the fire extinguisher while giving a demonstration in the school playground
Philip Hammond has landed in Beijing where he is hoping to secure 1billion of new trade as British businesses swoop to cash in on new rules allowing full foreign ownership of Chinese firms.

The Chancellor today hailed the 'many opportunities' to boost ties between the two two countries as he landed for a trade mission.

He travelled to the country with Bank of England governor Mark Carney and business leaders to drum up extra trade for the UK.

British officials hailed the 'golden era' of blossoming relations between the two countries as the delegation landed to hold the high-level talks.

Mr Hammond met with China's top economic official Premier Li Keqiang at the famous Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.

The Chancellor said: 'The UK is one of the world's largest and most dynamic economies.

Philip Hammond met with China's top economic official Premier Li Keqiang at the famous Great Hall of the People in central Beijing where they talked trade

'We are committed to working with our partners to build a truly global Britain, and our relationship with China is strong, growing, and delivering benefits for both countries.

'As we move to a new phase in cooperation between our two great countries, we will be establishing an even deeper trade and investment relationship, helping British businesses and entrepreneurs to seize the opportunities now in front of us as we build an economy fit for the future.'

The trade mission comes after Beijing announced it would open up its markets and allow 100 per cent foreign ownership of Chinese firms.

International trade secretary Liam Fox also hailed the booming trade links between Britain and China while business secretary Greg Clarke hailed the work done on green technology between the two countries.

Li Keqiang said there is 'steady and sound growth' of Chinese-British relations recent years and predicted it will continue to boom.

The Chancellor, pictured meeting Premier Li Keqiangin Beijing, is hoping to drum up 1billion of trade with China during his visit

Philip Hammond has continued his predecessor George Osborne's bud to strengthen ties with China and take advantage of he new trade opportunities arising from the further opening up of Chinese markets

Trade between Britain and China reached a staggering 36.8billion ($49.1 billion) last year, according to Chinese trading data.

And Britain and China plan to broker another 1billion worth of trade deals during Mr Hammond's trip.

The Chancellor has taken along some leading British bankers on his trip including executives from banks Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered and the engineering firm Arup.

Former chancellor George Osborne made several trips to China in his bid to drum up closer ties and trade between the two countries.

Theresa May got off to a rockier start with Beijing after she abruptly launched a review of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project in which China is an investor along with French utility EDF after becoming PM.

She later allowed the development to go ahead but China's government criticised the delay.

Mrs May and Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed their desire for closer ties during a meeting in July at the gathering of leaders of Group of 20 major developed and emerging economies in Hamburg, Germany.
A convicted child sex offender who was caught wearing a Santa Claus costume at a holiday party in Illinois last year will not receive any jail time.

Taylor Blaul, 33, pleaded guilty in October to being a child sex offender at a holiday event and received two years of probation.

Blaul had previously pleaded guilty in 2015 to aggravated criminal sexual abuse after authorities said he abused a young boy on four occasions, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Taylor Blaul, 33, pleaded guilty in October to being a child sex offender at a holiday event and received two years of probation. He was dressed as Santa Claus. Pictured left is the newest mug shot

In December 2016, Blaul was working as a paid volunteer at the Animal House Shelter in Huntley, Illinois when he was reported to police for dressing as Santa Claus at the shelter's holiday party.

The other man who typically plays Santa could not make it to the party, so Blaul was asked to step in.

He said in court that he was 'caught off guard' and 'uncomfortable' and therefore felt obliged to accept.

Illinois state law specifically prohibits sex offenders from dressing up as Santa Claus and from attending holiday parties where children are present.

In December 2016, Blaul was working as a paid volunteer at the Animal House Shelter in Huntley, Illinois when he was reported to police for dressing as Santa Claus at the shelter's holiday party

A high school classmate of Blaul's recognized him at the party and reported him to police.

She testified that he had a young boy sitting on his lap, which Blaul denies.

'He knew well and good dressing up as Santa was against the law with his status,' Assistant State's Attorney Victor Escarcida said in court. Escarcida asked that Blaul be sentenced to three years in prison.

Blaul was given two years of probation, along with paying the court a fine and receiving mandatory medical treatment, according to the Miami Herald.

He was sentenced to four months of jail in 2015 along with three years of probation.

The original probationary period would have expired in 2018, but now will last until December 12, 2019.
Advertisement

Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, 29, was taken to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City after being shot by troops but was later pronounced dead

Israeli troops shot dead a wheelchair-bound man with no legs in Gaza today as three other Palestinians were killed during protests, medical officials said.

Another 150 were hurt as protests over US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital enter their second week.

Disabled Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, 29, was taken to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City after being shot by troops but was later pronounced dead.

Abu Thurayeh, who had previously lost both his legs, was shot along the border east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian enclave, the Palestinian health ministry said.

It came shortly after another man nearby was killed in similar circumstances, they added.

Local media reported that Thurayeh lost his legs during the 2014 Gaza war with Israel, but this has not yet been confirmed.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the two Palestinians in Gaza City were killed from gunshots to the head.

The man in the wheelchair had taken part in several border skirmishes recently, images on social media show him carrying a Palestinian flag

Most of the casualties today were on the Gaza Strip border, where thousands of Palestinians gathered to hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers beyond the fortified fence.

In the occupied West Bank, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood along with adjacent East Jerusalem, medics said one protester was killed and five wounded by Israeli gunfire.

One was a man who Israeli police troopers said was shot after he stabbed and moderately wounded a member of their unit.

Reuters witnesses said the Palestinian had a knife and wore what looked like a bomb belt. A Palestinian medic said the belt was fake and pictures showed it still attached to him as he was loaded into an ambulance.

Another Palestinian also died from wounds sustained in clashes near Jerusalem, the health ministry said.

Today's deaths increase the number of Palestinians killed since Trump's declaration to eight.

Palestinians - and the wider Arab and Muslim world - were incensed at Trump's December 6 announcement, which reversed decades of US policy reticence on Jerusalem, a city where both Israel and the Palestinians want sovereignty.

Abu Thurayeh, who had previously lost both his legs, was shot along the border east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian enclave, the Palestinian health ministry said, shortly after another man was killed in similar circumstances

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the two Palestinians in Gaza City were killed from gunshots to the head, including the man with no legs (pictured)

Pictured: Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, 29, can be seen moving through smoke-filled grassland during clashes in Gaza City, Palestine today

Palestinians carry the body of 29-year-old Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh into al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City

Reuters witnesses said the Palestinian had a knife and wore what looked like a bomb belt. A Palestinian medic said the belt was fake. Pictured: The wheelchair-bound man's body

Wheelchair-bound Palestinian demonstrator Ibraheem Abu Thuraya, who according to medics was killed later on Friday during clashes with Israeli troops, is pushed during a protest against President Trump's Jerusalem declaration

Pictured: The wheelchair-bound man can be seen among other protesters in Gaza today as Palestinians continue to demonstrate against the decision by US president Donald Trump to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists, which want to see Israel destroyed, called last week for a new Palestinian uprising, but any such mass-mobilisation has yet to be seen in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

There have been almost nightly Gazan rocket launches into Israel, so far without casualties. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hamas facilities, one of which killed two gunmen.

The Israeli military said that about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated near the Gaza border fence today.

'During the violent riots IDF (Israel Defence Force) soldiers fired selectively towards main instigators,' the military said in a statement.

It said that about 2,500 Palestinians took part in riots in the West Bank, rolling flaming tyres and throwing firebombs and rocks at soldiers and border police, who responded.

The Israeli military said that about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated near the Gaza border fence today. Pictured: Protesters hide behind a rock during demonstrations

There have been almost nightly Gazan rocket launches into Israel, so far without casualties. Israel has responded with air strikes on Hamas facilities, one of which killed two gunmen

Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists, which want to see Israel destroyed, called last week for a new Palestinian uprising, but any such mass-mobilisation has yet to be seen in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. Pictured: A Palestinian protester uses a sling shot to throw stones towards Israeli security forces during clashes with Israeli forces in Gaza

Earlier today, a Palestinian wearing what is believed to have been a suicide belt was shot and later died of his injuries after stabbing an Israeli soldier in the shoulder during clashes in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry named the man as 29-year-old Mohammed Aqal, who was shot a second time after an Israeli officer noticed he was wearing 'what appeared to be a suicide belt', according to the The Times of Israel.

The man attacked troops near a military checkpoint in Ramallah amid riots over Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel.

Dramatic video shows the moment he was shot three times as he retreated on a roundabout before collapsing to the ground.

Soldiers can be seen advancing towards him as he lies on the ground - before backing off when they see the device strapped around his waist. It remains unclear as to whether it was operational. Witnesses said he was carrying a small knife.

Dramatic pictures capture the moment Israeli troops opened fire on a Palestinian after he knifed one of the soldiers in the shoulder

The man attacked troops near a military checkpoint in Ramallah amid riots over Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as being the capital of Israel. Pictures show him retreating as Israeli soldiers opened fire

Video shows the moment he was shot three times by Israeli troops as he retreated on a roundabout before collapsing to the ground

A Palestinian man clutches his stomach after he was shot by Israeli soldiers after he stabbed one of them at a check point this morning on the outskirts of Ramallah

Pictures of the man receiving treatment showed him wearing what appeared to be a suicide vest. However, Israeli police have not commented on whether it was operational

In Ramallah, police said the assailant stabbed an officer who was 'lightly injured in the shoulder,' but they did not respond to questions over a possible suicide vest. No independent confirmation could be obtained.

The assailant, identified by a medical source as being from Hebron in the southern West Bank, was taken to hospital by Palestinian medics.

The Palestinian man starts to fall after being shot by soldiers moments after he went on a stabbing attack at the check point

Police said the assailant stabbed an officer who was 'lightly injured in the shoulder,' but they did not respond to questions over a possible suicide vest. No independent confirmation could be obtained. A Palestinian medic

Palestinian medics carry the attacker who was wearing what was reported as an explosive belt. He is said to be in a critical condition in hospital

The assailant, identified by a medical source as being from Hebron in the southern West Bank, was taken to hospital by Palestinian medics. He was in critical condition, the source said

A Palestinian demonstrator uses a sling to hurl stones towards Israeli troops during clashes at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

Israeli soldiers were involved in clashes in Ramallah on the West Bank today. It is the tenth day of clashes in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza following Donald Trump's speech

Palestinians burnt tyres as they staged demonstrations in in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza this afternoon

Tear gas canisters are fired by Israeli troops towards Palestinian demonstrators during clashes at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump

Palestinian men clash with IDF in Ramallah, West Bank. Today is the tenth day of clashes in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza following Donald Trump's annoucement

Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Arab forces in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed it in a move not recognised internationaly. Palestinians hope that part of the city will be the capital of a future independent state and Palestinian leaders say Trump's move is a serious blow to an already moribund peace process.

US Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to visit Israel, as well as Egypt, next week

Flash point: An Israeli army vehicle drives down the street after a molotov cocktail was thrown during clashes at the main entrance of the West bank city of Hebron

Israeli borderguards take aim as Palestinian protestors gather near the West Bank checkpoint of Qalandia, on the outskirts of Ramallah

Israeli security forces detain a man in Jerusalem's Old City. Thousands of Palestinians protested again in Jerusalem against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as the capital of Israel

An Israeli soldier shouts as he aims his gun towards protesters during clashes with Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank city of Hebron today

The Israeli military said that about 2,500 Palestinian took part in riots in the West Bank, rolling flaming tyres and throwing firebombs and rocks at soldiers and border police

Security is stepped up in Jerusalem as military patrols the streets while Muslims return from Friday prayers

Israeli forces were on high alert in the Old City of Jerusalem as Muslims returned from Friday prayers.

Heavily-armed soldiers patrolled the streets as worshipers made their way home from prayer.

It comes after four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded Friday in clashes with Israeli forces as tens of thousands demonstrated against Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. President Donald Trump's December 6 announcement that he would break with decades of US policy and move the embassy to Jerusalem has stirred global condemnation, as well as demonstrations across Arab and Muslim countries.

Earlier today three men were killed in clashes between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinians.

Two died along the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry said, after the Hamas Islamist group that rules the enclave had called for another "day of rage".

A third Palestinian was killed in clashes north of Jerusalem after being shot dead in the chest by the Israeli army, the ministry said.

The fourth stabbed an Israeli border police officer near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, before being shot, police said.

An Israeli border police guards from a Muslim cemetery as Palestinians arrive for Muslim Friday prayers in the Old City of Jerusalem

Two worshipers arrive for Friday prayers in the Old City of Jerusalem. Israeli forces were on high alert for protests by Palestinians against US president Donald Trump
Leading Tory councillor Douglas Hellier Laing hit his wife around the head with a wooden mallet three times before calling 999

A leading Tory councillor on a local authority in Devon who drunkenly attacked his wife with a mallet in a 'moment of madness' has been jailed for three years.

Douglas Hellier Laing, 67, hit his wife around the head with the wooden mallet three times before telephoning police at their 700,000 home in Chudleigh, Devon.

Exeter Crown Court heard the defendant and his wife Susan Laing, 59, were divorcing and lived separate lives but remained living in the same house - with Susan upstairs, and Hellier Laing downstairs.

Mrs Laing had been out with friends on the evening of October 29 this year and when she returned home was suddenly attacked by ex-soldier Hellier Laing, who had been drinking Tia Maria and Polish brandy.

Rachel Drake, prosecuting, said: 'Mrs Laing told the police he had hit her three times. She fell and was trying to kick him to try and get away.

'She recalls that he was not displaying any emotion.'

Mrs Laing escaped and ran to a neighbour's home, telling them: 'He hit me and he told me he was waiting for me.'

Hellier Laing had hidden the wooden mallet within a plastic Co Op bag after grabbing it from next to the door.

One neighbour then went to Mrs Laing's home and saw the defendant, who told him: 'I was so angry. I hit her. I have not done myself no favours there.'

Hellier Laing had already phoned 999, telling the operator: 'It was a weapon, a wooden mallet. I'll explain later when they come.'

Susan Laing, 59, said in a victim statement: 'I still suffer from flashbacks and I still see his expressionless face as he hit me'. Hellier Laing had been drinking Tia Maria and Polish brandy

He was arrested for attempted murder and told detectives it was a 'moment of madness' and described his drunkenness as a seven out of ten.

'He said he lost it and the mallet was in a cardboard box by the door,' Miss Drake said.

'He blamed the incident on the amount of alcohol he had drunk.'

Hellier Laing was the executive member for economy, skills and tourism at Teignbridge District Council until resigning from the local authority after his guilty plea.

The councillor, who was suspended from the Conservative Party, had admitted at an earlier hearing to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

He had denied attempted murder and the charge was not proceeded with by the prosecution.

In a victim impact statement, Mrs Laing said the attack had left her with 'physical, emotional and mental damage'.

'I still suffer from flashbacks and I still see his expressionless face as he hit me,' she said.

The attack took place at their shared 700,000 home in Chudleigh, Devon. They were divorcing and lived separate lives but remained in the same house

'The one place you are supposed to feel safe is in your own home.'

Martin Salloway, defending, said Hellier Laing had been 'dedicated to public service', serving both his country and his local community.

'It was, as he said in the police interviews, a moment of madness. It is a moment of madness that will remain with him for the rest of his life,' he said.

'It is a very sad case because instead of starting his old age with his family and friends and his community, which are very important to him, he is going to be starting it in prison.'

Passing sentence, Judge Graham Cottle imposed an indefinite restraining order banning the defendant from directly contacting his wife.

'It is not really clear why you did what you did on that day in question,' he said.

'You had certainly been drinking spirits and liqueurs and you had put yourself at number seven on a scale of one to ten of drunkenness.

'I would have thought drinking must have had something to do with the way you reacted and had you been sober you would have reacted in a different way.'

The judge said he took into account the testimonials written on Hellier Laing's behalf and the 'distinction' with which he had served his country and community when passing sentence.
A woman miraculously survived being shot in the head by her husband, clinging to life in their basement for six days before she was rescued.

Cheri Langill was found in the basement of her home in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday by a police officer who was called to check on her by a concerned friend.

She was still hiding after being shot in the head by her husband, Karl, six days earlier on December 7 in a domestic dispute.

After shooting his wife, Karl killed himself in the garage.

Cheri Langill, 67, survived being shot in the head by her husband Karl, 68, and spent six days hiding in the basement of their home before she was found by police

After shooting his wife in the head, Karl killed himself in their garage. Cheri did not know he was dead when she was found on Wednesday, six days after being shot

Afraid her husband might be upstairs, Cheri stayed in the basement for six days. Unbeknownst to his wife Karl committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage

Video courtesy WOWT

He died of carbon monoxide poisoning, leading investigators to believe he gassed himself.

Investigators were surprised that Cheri wasn't overcome by the carbon monoxide in the home.

Cheri was unaware that he was dead when she was found.

She told police she decided to stay in the basement because she was afraid he would attack her again if she went upstairs.

She also had a broken ankle but does not remember how it was injured.

The woman did not have a phone to call 911 with but she had food and water which sustained her.

The extent of her injuries are not clear but she was able to speak to police when she was found and she has since been interviewed in hospital.

Karl, 68, used a .22 pistol to shoot her, according to police.

The couple had been married for decades, have children and grandchildren.

One police officer who has spoken to her since she was taken to hospital marveled at her survival.

'Considering she got shot in the head. I think shes in pretty decent shape,' Sarpy County Chief Deputy Sheriff Greg London told Omaha.com.

Police paid a welfare check to the Nebraska home. Police then heard Cheri's screams
A man convicted of shooting at police officers outside a Pennsylvania Walmart in 2015 arrived in court for his sentencing on Thursday with a disturbing jailhouse tattoo on his forearm featuring tombstones bearing the names of his would-be victims.

Scott Sargent, 33, was found guilty in October of nearly two dozen charges stemming from the October 2015 shootout in Wilkes-Barre, including attempted murder of a police officer, aggravated assault and reckless endangering.

A judge on Thursday ordered that the sentences on most of the charges be served consecutively, meaning the Shenandoah man faces a minimum of 179 years in prison to a maximum of 358 years.

Scroll down for video

Guilty: Scott Sargent, 33, was sentenced to 179 years to 358 years in prison for opening fire outside a crowded Walmart in Pennsylvania in 2015. Pictured: Sargent arrives in court in handcuffs for his sentencing on Thursday

'Disgraceful': While in jail, Sargent had someone ink this tattoo, which depicts a skull hovering over five tombstones bearing the names of his would-be victims

A close-up look at Sargent's macabre body art depicting a graveyard

Sargent is pictured above during an earlier court hearing, before he had his arm inked

At his trial this fall, Sargent testified that he didnt see any officers on October 17, 2015, and was firing warning shots

Luzerne County prosecutors say police exchanged fire with Sargent in the crowded Wilkes-Barre township parking lot near Walmart, wounding him.

During Thursdays sentencing hearing at the Luzerne County Courthouse, which was attended by the survivors of the shoot-out and their loved ones, prosecutor Jarrett Ferentino drew the court's attention to the defendant's macabre body art, which was inked on his left arm sometime after his conviction, reported WNEP 16.

'We learned that he received a tattoo with five tombstones with the names of his victims that survived his attack, with a skeleton skull over the tombstones,' Ferentino said, noting that in his 15 years as a prosecutor, he has never seen anything like that.

'I thought the tattoo was deplorable. I think it's disrespectful but it speaks volumes of who he is and what his intentions were that day.'

Ferentino added that the image etched into the gunmans skin will serve a daily reminder of his failure.

He failed to put them [the officers] in their graves I want him to be reminded every single day those individuals are why hes spending every day in jail, the prosecutor said.

Wilkes-Barre Township Police Officer Brian Bouton, who was nearly killed when one of the bullets fired by Sargent struck the headrest in his vehicle, echoed Ferentinos sentiments concerning the defendants tattoo, which he labelled a disgrace.

Police are seen working at the scene of the shootout outside a Walmrt in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsilvania, on October 17, 2015

No one was killed during the incident, but one of the bullets fired by Sargent narrowly missed a police officer

The rest of his life he has to look at our names on his arm and remind him that he's incarcerated and doesn't have the freedom and that he failed his mission, Bouton said.

Police officer Alan Gribble, who shot Sargent in the abdomen during the incident, called his tattoo 'pathetic' and said that when he first heard of it, he thought it was a joke, reported The Citizens' Voice.

Never forget: A prosecutor said the disrespectful tattoo on Sargent's forearm will serve a daily reminder of his failure

When asked if he wished to speak in court, Sargent shook his head and kept mum, never issuing an apology for his actions.

His defense attorney asked the judge to take Sargents history of addiction and mental health issues into account when deciding on a sentence.

Joseph Yeager said that his client was an orphan, and that the passing of his mother a short time before the Walmart shooting was the straw that broke the camels back, according to a Wilkes-Barre Times Leader report.

Sargent was given credit for 790 days served in jail since his arrest. He will spend the rest of his days behind bars.

At his trial this fall, Sargent testified that he didnt see any officers on October 17, 2015, and was firing warning shots, believing he was being followed.

Defense attorney Melissa Sulima argued in her closing argument that there was no evidence that her client was trying to kill officers.

She suggested that her client was trying to protect his girlfriend and, while acknowledging that his actions were reckless and irrational, said he wasnt actually trying to harm anyone. Sulima also pointed out that he didnt shoot anyone, even officer Gribble, with whom he came face-to-face with before that officer shot him with a shotgun.

Damaged: His defense attorney asked the judge to take Sargents history of addiction and mental health issues into account

Ferentino, however, cited shots flying past the officers head and other shots that hit police vehicles being used to shield other officers as proof that Sargent was trying to kill them.

He didnt shoot Officer Gribble because Officer Gribble was quicker on the draw. Thats it, Ferentino said. You dont get points for missing, and you dont get points for being slow on the draw.
Donald Trump said Friday that he's not ready 'yet' to talk about a possible presidential pardon for former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

And he told reporters that Alabama Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore should admit he lost Tuesday's election.

Flynn pleaded guilty last month to a charge of lying to the FBI about his pre-Inauguration contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

Donald Trump said Friday that he's not ready 'yet' to talk about a possible presidential pardon for former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn

Flynn pleaded guilty last month to a charge of lying to the FBI about his pre-Inauguration contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

'I don't want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn yet. We'll see what happens,' the president said as he left the White House for a speech to FBI agents in Virginia.

'When you look at whats going on with the FBI and the Justice Department, people are very, very angry,' he added.

Trump also threw a jab at the Justice Department for clearing Hillary Clinton in the case of her mishandling of classified information on a private email server.

That declaration came in the context of a question about whether his campaign colluded with Russia to tilt the 2016 election in his favor.

'They found tremendous things on the other side,' he said. 'When you look at the Hillary Clinton investigation, it was  I've been saying for a long time  that was a rigged system, folks. That was a rigged system.

'When you look at what they did with respect to the Hillary Clinton investigation, it was rigged. And there's never been anything like it in this country that we've ever found before. It's very, very sad. Very, very sad.'

Trump said Moore should throw in the towel instead of contesting his loss in a recount: 'I think he should. He tried'

Trump also said Moore should throw in the towel instead of contesting his loss in a recount.

'I think he should. He tried,' he said.

'I want to support  always I want to support the person running. We need the seat.'

But Moore, he said, should admit he lost and move on.

'As Roy Moore, yeah, it's certainly  I would certainly say he should.

The embattled former judge was knocked off his perch by Democrat Doug Jones in a stunning upset.

Alabama is a deep-red state that hadn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in a generation.
Plans are underway for Montana ranchers to ship $70 million worth of beef to China next year as part of a $300 million business deal including a $100 million investment in a Montana packing plant.

Leaders in Montana Stockgrowers Association, which brokered the agreement with e-commerce giant JD.com, presented the terms of the deal to members Thursday at the organizations annual meeting in Billings.

JD.com is the world's third-largest internet retailer behind Amazon and Google.

We have no reason to doubt that this is a four-wheel deal, and I can tell you Im excited about it, said Fred Wacker, whose Cross Four Ranch is deeply involved in making the agreement work. The thing that excites me most is I think we have a very good buyer who has lots of money, and we have a product we have to sell. How great would it be for Montana, in my opinion, if 10 percent of our feeder cattle were fed here in Montana and that beef was exported? That fixes our feeder calf and our yearling business here in Montana.

Right now Montana feeder cattle might put $1,000 a head, gross value, in a ranchers pocket. That animal then goes out of state to be fattened up before being sold again, at least one more time, before slaughter. The gross value of the animal might be $2,000 at final sale, Wacker said. Keeping that animal in state puts more of the money in Montanas economy.

The memorandum of agreement with JD.com stemmed from talks between the the Stockgrowers and U.S. Sen. Steve Daines about getting Montana-sourced beef into China. The conversation started in April, Wacker said, and culminated in a face-to-face meeting with China commerce officials North of Bozeman in September.

Not long after that meeting arranged by Daines, Wacker and MSGA Executive Vice President Errol Rice were in China signing a memorandum of agreement with JD.com.

Under the agreement announced in November, Montana ranchers will supply $200 million worth of Montana-sourced beef to JD.com beginning in January 2018 and continuing through 2020. At a minimum, JD is expected to buy 80,000 to 90,000 cattle, Wacker said. Chinese investors will place additional $100 million in Montana feedlots and a packing plant.

The agreement is expected to increase 2018 Montana beef exports by almost 40 percent, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. The agreement is nonbinding, but Wacker said specifics for 2018 sales are to be mapped out next month. Plans are to increase cattle sales each year for three years.

This is new territory for the Montana Stockgrowers, Rice said. The states largest livestock organization has never before negotiated terms for a Montana cattle sale. The group will be relying on its members to deliver cattle for the agreement, which should the easily accomplished. Roughly a million Montana cattle are sold each year.

Stockgrowers President Bryan Mussard said he envisions both MSGA members and nonmembers supplying cattle to the sale, with a per-head charge from nonmembers to support MSGA's development of markets for Montana beef.

JD.com wants cattle that have source and age verification. They need to have an EID tag in their ear and a brand that says what ranch they were born and raised on. They also can't have had any implants or hormones. In return, ranchers who deliver cattle for the agreement will be assured the highest market price on the day their cattle are sold.

The location of the packing plant hasnt been decided, but Wacker said he has heard from people in Butte, and in Yellowstone, Rosebud and Dawson counties who are interested in the establishing the packing plant in those communities. A committee will decide where to locate the packing plant, Wacker said, but he said he likes the idea of locating the packing plant in a community along the lower Yellowstone River. The plant would likely employ 150 people.

Rancher Jim Peterson, of Buffalo, asked if there was a way the Stockgrowers could work with a packing plant Alberta livestock company plans to build near Great Falls. Dubbed the Madison Food Park, the Cascade County packing plant is estimated to create 3,000 jobs. Developer Friesen Foods has said the plant will process cattle, pigs and chickens. In addition, plans call for a milk processing operation and a distillery.

Wacker said he supported Friesen Foods plans, but that MSGA would be moving ahead with a processing plant to serve the partner/buyer, plus other groups interested in Montana-sourced beef raised to the high standards of JD.com.

The Stockgrowers said they didnt see their operation in competition with Friesen Foods, which was more likely to face competition from meat packers in Canada.
A 15-year-old was giving food to the homeless hours before he was stabbed to death, police have revealed.

Jacob Abraham was found with multiple stab wounds by his brother Isaac, 19, in his home town of Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire on Thursday December 7.

Officers have now released CCTV of the teenage boxer buying bread in Iceland on the High Street in the town.

He then went home to help his mother prepare sandwiches before they went to their church in Edmonton and handed out the food to the homeless.

Jacob was tragically killed just hours later. A 14-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of his murder. He has been released while inquiries continue.

Officers have released CCTV of the teenage boxer buying bread in Iceland on the High Street in Waltham Cross hours before he was stabbed to death

After distributing food to the homeless Jacob was later found stabbed to death by his brother

Jacob Abraham (pictured) was stabbed to death hours after distributing food to the homeless

Jacob and his mother arrived back in Waltham Cross just before 20:30 where the teenager received a number of phone calls and went out.

Later his older brother Isaac, 19, went out to look for him when he didn't come back.

After scouring the estate where they live, Isaac found Jacob fatally stabbed in a service road, which runs behind their home.

Paramedics fought to save him but Jacob was pronounced dead at 22.15 - ten days before he was due to celebrate his 16th birthday.

Officers from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit have now launched a murder investigation

The youngster lived with his mother, a younger sister, his brother Isaac and an older brother, who is 26.

The spot where he was found by his older brother was just 200 yards from his family's home.

Detective Chief Inspector Jerome Kent, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said: 'This poignant footage shows Jacob running an errand for his mother before they both committed an act of kindness in giving sandwiches to the homeless.

'Just hours later, Jacob had been murdered.

'This is an especially upsetting case due to Jacob's young age, and my officers are doing all they can to establish who is responsible for his murder.

The spot where Jacob was found by Isaac last Thursday is just 200 yards from his family's home

'We have gathered witness accounts, are looking at hours of CCTV footage and our enquiries are continuing but again I appeal to the community to come forward and tell us what they have seen, and what they know.

'We are especially keen to speak to any young people who may have been in the area of Hurst Drive between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on December 7, and also any residents who witnessed a group of teenagers in the area, or running from the scene.

'Did you hear any conversations that may be helpful to our investigation?

'I strongly believe the clues to why Jacob has been murdered lies within the community of Waltham Cross, and I urge those who have information and have not yet spoken to us to please come forward.

'Help us give Jacob's family the answers they deserve.'
Courtney White, whose gang carried out moped robberies in London, has been convicted of possessing a gun after claiming eczema may have left his DNA at the scene

The ringleader of a gang of moped robbers is finally facing jail after a jury rejected his claims his DNA was only at the crime scene because of his eczema.

Courtney White, 22, headed a band of raiders who repeatedly attacked Three Mobile shops, armed with hammers, knives and a gun in a 1million crime spree.

But he claimed his bad eczema means he sheds his skin wherever he goes that was why his DNA was found at crime scenes.

White twice used his poor skin condition as a defence while on trial for moped-enabled crimes and was cleared each time.

He was accused of stealing a Rolex from a man as he tried to park his Ferrari in north London in August last year.

White used his eczema problem as a defence to explain his DNA being found at the scene and he was cleared.

He was also forensically linked to a balaclava found on Tottenham Marshes after a moped raid at a pawnbrokers on Wood Green High Road on 15 January 2015.

White's gang smashed their way into mobile phone stores before making off on mopeds

White claimed he had borrowed the hat for go-karting and paintball and was again cleared of involvement in the robbery.

But White now faces jail next week with nine other moped raiders after a jury rejected the defence a third time and he was convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary.

Members of his gang threatened to shoot security guards in the head if they got in their way.

They left two police officers with cuts after a violent struggle during another raid at a Wood Green store.

Police recovered a loaded 9mm handgun, said to have been during the robbery spree, in the back of a green Peugeot 206 on December 2 last year, three days after the gang's final raid.

Whites DNA was found on the barrel of the ejection chamber, prompting Judge Michael Simon to remark: That is not the best place for your DNA to be found.

Police released this image of the variety of weapons and tools the gang used during the raids

In a defence statement White said he did not know how his DNA was found on the gun but added he suffers from eczema.

He was finally convicted of possession of a prohibited firearm after a short trial at Wood Green Crown Court.

White has previous convictions for possessing knives and residential burglaries dating back to 2009, when he was 14.

He was sentenced to 12 months in young offenders institution in 2013 for robbing a gold chain from a 76-year-old womans neck in 2013.

White was handed a suspended jail sentence in November 2015 for handling jewellery stolen during the vicious mugging of a 61-year-old woman in north London.

White, of Tottenham, north London, denied but was convicted of possession of a prohibited firearm.
A Liverpool fan who campaigns for victims of the Hillsborough disaster has made an urgent appeal for help in finding his missing granddaughter.

Elliana Shand has been at the centre of private family court litigation and is thought to have been abducted by her schizophrenic mother Jessica Richards, 26, in breach of a judge's order.

Estate agent Sean Doyle, 51, who comes from Liverpool but now lives with wife Eileen, 52, in the Wembley area of London, on Friday begged people to think if they might have seen Elliana or her mother.

An urgent appeal has been launched to find Elliana Shand, right, who has been taken by her mother Jessica Richards, left, who suffers from schizophrenia

Sean Doyle, pictured left with his wife Eileen, right, and grand daughter Elliana, centre, has appealed for assistance in finding the youngster who has been abducted by her mother

'Please think if you have seen them,' said Mr Doyle, whose son Craig, 29, of Southend, Essex, is Elliana's father.

'They both need to be found as a matter of urgency.

'We know Jessica loves Elliana to bits.

'But Jessica is schizophrenic and Elliana is only three.

'Have you seen them? Have you seen them in a play area, in a McDonald's, in a shop?

'They must be somewhere. Someone must have seen them.

'They both need help.

'Please, please help us find them. And if you see them please call the police straight away.

'We are so worried.'

A judge who is overseeing Elliana's case at hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London had appealed for help finding the youngster and her mother, in November.

Mr Justice Hayden said he was 'very concerned indeed' for Elliana's safety.

On Friday he gave Mr Doyle permission to make more media appeals for help and to release a photograph of Elliana's mother.

Elliana had been living with her mother, who is separated from her father.

They vanished during the summer after social services staff at Barking and Dagenham Council raised concern about Elliana's welfare.

Judge Hayden previous said: 'In optimum circumstances, the mother's capacity to meet her daughter's needs was barely satisfactory.

'But, it is abundantly clear that under stress, perhaps not taking her anti-psychotic medicine, perhaps in the grip of auditory commands which are hallucinatory, she poses, despite her love for her daughter, a very real risk to her safety.'

The court previously heard Elliana had been previously been taken on a 'farewell trip' to Jamaica by her maternal grandmother Sharon Shand, also known as Richards.

She told the High Court she handed over her grand daughter to her daughter following her return to the UK.
The widow of the Kentucky lawmaker who killed himself after he was accused of sexual assault has hit out again at the character of the reporter who brought the accusations to light.

The Kentucky Center for Investigation Reporting published a story on Monday detailing claims that Republican state representative Dan Johnson sexually assaulted 17-year-old Maranda Richmond in his basement on January 1, 2013.

Two days later, Johnson, who is best known for a racist comment likening Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys, shot and killed himself near a bridge in a secluded area outside Mount Washington called River Bottoms.

Speaking on the Today Show on Friday morning, his widow Rebecca Johnson said that her husband of 30 years was the victim of biased reporting.

'I am confident if that little greasy reporter had not done what he did, my husband would be alive right now,' Rebecca said.

Speaking on the Today Show on Friday morning, his widow Rebecca Johnson said that her husband of 30 years was the victim of biased reporting and that it lead to his death

On Monday the Kentucky Center for Investigation Reporting published a story detailing allegations that Kentucky state representative Dan Johnson sexually assaulted 17-year-old Maranda Richmond in his basement on January 1, 2013

I am confident if that little greasy reporter had not done what he did my husband would be alive right now. Widow of Kentucky lawmaker who committed suicide after sexual assault allegations speaks out pic.twitter.com/GDkMeqqjTP  TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 15, 2017

Scandal: Kentucky State Rep. Republican Dan Johnson (left), addresses the public from his church on Tuesday regarding allegations made by Maranda Richmond (right) claiming that he sexually assaulted her in 2013, when she was 17 years old

The 57-year-old, who was often called 'pope,' vehemently denied the allegations against him during a press conference on Tuesday.

'This allegation concerning this lady, this young girl has absolutely no merit,' he told reporters.

The 57-year-old vehemently denied the allegations against him during a press conference on Tuesday. 'This allegation concerning this lady, this young girl has absolutely no merit,' he told reporters

'These are unfounded accusations totally. I don't want to blast this girl; I have a lot of compassion for her. I'm very sorrowful that she's in this dark place in her life.'

The chair of the state's Republican party, though, called for Johnson's resignation, and called the KCIR report 'extensively sourced.'

Richmond said the married lawmaker groped her and stuck his tongue in her mouth, then put his hand down her pants and slipped it inside her vagina.

She said she begged him to stop, but Johnson kept telling her she would like it.

Eventually, he left and she slipped away early that morning before he woke up.

Richmond went to the police. Records show investigators with the Louisville Metro Police Department recorded a phone call between Johnson and Richmond's father, Clifford, in which Johnson said he 'couldn't imagine doing that to Maranda.'

Police documents obtained by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting show a detective closed the case because Richmond would not cooperate. Richmond denied this, saying she never once wanted to stop the investigation.

The article, titled 'The Pope's Long Con', also detailed how Johnson exaggerated and lied about his resume. He claimed that he was involved in heroic activities on September 11, 2001, and that he served as a White House chaplain.

He was also indicted in the attempted arson of his car and was the suspect in the arson of his church, the report noted.

But on Tuesday Johnson said he would not resign and that the allegations against him were 'totally false' and part of a nationwide strategy of defeating conservative Republicans.

He referenced Republican Alabama US Senate candidate Roy Moore, who faces accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women.Moore lost the election for the seat left open by Jeff Sessions on Tuesday.

Officials with the KCIR said in a statement Friday that they were 'deeply sad' about Moore's suicide, and that they were just attempting to 'hold public officials accountable for their actions.'

'As part of our process we reached out to Representative Johnson numerous times over the course of the seven-month investigation,' Louisville Public Media President Michael Skoler said.

'He declined requests to talk about our findings.'

But speaking on the Today Show, the grieving widow called that reaction 'bulls***.'

'I'm going to be nice, but that's bulls***,' Rebecca said.

'These guys do not represent our values, so how could they even be fair?'

She then again slammed the molestation accusation, echoing her husband's comment that the allegations are 'unfounded.'

Rebecca then choked up when bringing up her family's future without her husband.

'My children will not have their father, my grandchildren are not going to have their grandfather,' she said through tears.

Richmond claims that she had fallen asleep on the couch in Johnson's basement after attending his family's New Year's Eve party when the alleged molestation took place. Officials with KCIR said the report came after a seven-month investigation during which they reached out to Johnson for comment

Police investigated Richmond's claims in 2013, but eventually dropped the investigation without charging Johnson. Detectives said that she stopped cooperating with the case

But speaking on the Today Show, the grieving widow called the newspaper's reaction to her husband's death 'bulls***.' 'I'm going to be nice, but that's bulls***,' Rebecca said. 'These guys do not represent our values, so how could they even be fair?'

In a statement on Thursday, the day after Dan Johnson's suicide, Rebecca Johnson said she has been fighting behind her husband for 30 years and 'his fight will go on'. They are pictured together left early in their marriage

This isn't the first time she has spoken out in the few days since her husband's death.

On Thursday she announced she will run for his seat in the Kentucky legislature, saying he was pushed to suicide by 'high-tech lynching mobs.'

She told the Associated Press that 'Dan is gone, but the story of his life is far form over.

'These high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths can't be allowed to win the day.'

Earlier Thursday, a sheriff said an ominous Facebook post that Dan Johnson made at about 5pm Wednesday night is part of what prompted his family to report him missing.

In the post, he asked for people to take care of his wife and wrote that post-traumatic stress disorder 'is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer. It has won this life, BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.'

He also wrote: 'The accusations from NPR are false GOD and only GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be. AMERICA will not survive this type of judge and jury fake news.

'Conservatives take a stand. I LOVE GOD and I LOVE MY WIFE, who is the best WIFE in the world, My Love Forever !

'My Mom and Dad my FAMILY and all five of my kids and Nine grandchildren two in tummies and many more to come each of you or a total gift from GOD stay strong, REBECCA needs YOU.

The post appears to have been removed.

Bullitt County Coroner Dave Billings said Johnson died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Police recovered a .40-caliber pistol next to Johnson's body.

Johnson was elected to the state legislature in 2016, part of a wave of Republican victories that gave the GOP control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time in nearly 100 years.

Prior to his death, Johnson posted this frightening message to his Facebook account, which is what prompted his family to report him missing

Johnson, pictured with his wife of 30 years, Rebecca. Both of the Johnsons have denied Richmond's claims and called them 'fake news'

Johnson, pictured with President Donald Trump in an undated photo, was a pastor who went by the nickname 'Pope'. He was elected to the state legislature in 2016, part of a wave of Republican victories that gave the GOP control of the Kentucky House of Representatives for the first time in nearly 100 years

Johnson's church is known for its 'gun choir,' which features Johnson (believed to be pictured with sons) and others holding guns while singing Amazing Grace

He won his election despite Republican leaders urging him to drop out of the race after local media reported on some of his Facebook posts comparing Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys.

The pastor of Heart of Fire church in Louisville, Johnson sponsored a number of bills having to do with religious liberty and teaching the Bible in public schools.

But he mostly stayed out of the spotlight until the investigative story broke.

In the Kentucky statehouse scandal, former Republican Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover resigned his leadership position after acknowledging he secretly settled a sexual harassment claim with a member of his staff.

Three other lawmakers were involved in the settlement, and all lost their committee chairmanships.

'I am very sad over the passing of Rep. Dan Johnson. Over the past few weeks in some of the darkest days of my life, he reached out to me, encouraged me, and prayed for me,' Hoover tweeted.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin tweeted that 'my heart breaks for his family tonight.'

'These are heavy days in Frankfort and in America,' Bevin said in the post. 'May God indeed shed his grace on us all. ... We sure need it.'
One of the two Trump campaign aides charged in Robert Mueller's Russia probe is stepping up his legal fight to clear his name with friends holding a fundraiser for him next week - in a calculated gesture of Republican defiance at the special counsel.

Rick Gates is having a pre-Christmas fundraiser held to help pay for lawyers to fight federal charges brought against him by Mueller.

The event is being held next Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia, with a goal of raising $250,000 for the 'Defending American Rights Legal Fund' which will benefit the political consultant.

The fund also aims to help other Americans who find themselves facing charges from Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign, according to a GOP source.

The move comes amid mounting questions among Republicans over the integrity of the Mueller probe, after the revelation that one of its most senior FBI agents exchanged anti-Trump texts with his lover, a Department of Justice official.

Fundraiser: Rick Gates remains under house arrest and was last seen on Monday at federal court in Washington. Now friends plan to raise $250,000 towards his legal expenses after he was charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller

Also accused: Gates was the right-hand man of Paul Manafort and worked for the Trump campaign when Manafort, a veteran lobbyist, was its chair

Gates, 45, is a long-time business associate and protege of Paul Manafort, the man who ran Trump's presidential campaign for several months in 2016 and is also charged by Mueller.

Manafort, 68, was fired shortly after the Republican National Convention amid questions about his business dealings in Ukraine but Gates stayed on and was more recently working to help close the financial books of Trump's inaugural committee. Gates was in turn removed following questions about his involvement with Manafort.

In October, the two men pleaded not guilty to a 12-count indictment by a federal grand jury, telling a judge that they planned to fight the Justice Department in court.

The business partners face charges including conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine's former pro-Russian government for behavior occurring as far back as 2012. The court documents make no mention of contact with Russians during the presidential campaign.

The government alleges that at least $75 million was moved by Manafort to offshore accounts without declaring the income to the government. From there, Manafort allegedly withdrew $18 million to fund a lavish lifestyle, and Gates is accused of pulling out another $3 million.

Gates is currently under house arrest on a $5 million bond and wearing an ankle bracelet monitor at his home in Richmond, Virginia.

It is not yet clear if he will be able to attend the fundraiser next week but a court decision is due in the coming days, an insider told DailyMail.com.

Earlier this month, Manafort reached an $11.65million bail agreement with the special counsel, allowing him to be released from house arrest and electronic monitoring.

GOP lobbyist Jack Burkman, who is hosting Gates' fundraiser, said he expects a crowd of around 150 DC movers and shakers to attend including members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, fellow lobbyists, lawyers and defense contractors.

Burkman told DailyMail.com: 'I can't get into names but I have a strong sense of support for Rick and Paul throughout Republican Washington, the Trump circles and throughout DC generally. I even know Democratic friends and liberals who feel [Mueller's investigation] is abusive.'

Burkman said he believed that both Gates and Manafort were innocent of the charges but could not get into the details of defense strategy. 'I think Mueller has trumped up a lot of nonsense. He has spent millions of dollars and has to justify his existence so he empaneled the grand jury and now he's looking for any charges he can but he is hurting innocent people.'

He added: 'I think the facts will speak for themselves. It's very simple  I don't think Rick Gates has done what Mueller is alleging. I think Mueller is desperate  and his strategy is to charge people, force them to spend money they don't have and try to pressure them into some kind of plea. He did that with Michael Flynn by attacking Flynn's son. He terrorized Flynn's family.

'I've had deep feelings against special counsel Bob Mueller for some time because I believe he has unfairly charged both Rick Gates and Paul Manafort. I think he's abused his authority in every way a special counsel can. It started off with an investigation into the president and now he's going off into very tangential areas, looking for the smallest of things.

'I think he's just abusing these two poor men and we want to help. Paul Manafort has a lot of wealth, he doesn't need any fundraiser but Rick Gates has four kids, the poor man is suffering. He is a wonderful man and he is being abused by this terrible devil Bob Mueller.'

The charges against Gates and Manafort stem from Mueller's investigation into the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia undertook a campaign of hacking and misinformation to tilt the election in Trump's favor and potential collusion by Trump associates.

Questions: The revelation that Lisa Burrow and Peter Strzok exchanged thousands of texts riddled with anti-Trump rhetoric has rattled the Mueller probe. He was seconded to it after playing a key role in the FBI investigation which cleared Hillary Clinton

No collusion: Trump repeated his denial Friday that he had in any way colluded with Russia. He also highlighted questions over the FBI's integrity, saying its reputation was in 'tatters'

The possible sentences, if found guilty, would be stiff: up to 80 years in prison for Manafort and 70 years for Gates, plus millions of dollars in fines. More typical federal sentencing for the crimes charged would be 10 to 12.5 years for Gates and 12.5 to 15 for Manafort. Trump insisted via Twitter shortly after the indictments that there was 'NO COLLUSION' and Manafort's lawyer later said that the president 'was correct'.

'There is no evidence that Mr Manafort or the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government,' Kevin Downing said.

The move to throw Manafort overboard came after reports that Manafort pocketed at least $12 million in undisclosed payments from Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former Ukrainian president.

Manafort and his firm, which Gates helped run, spent years as Yanukovych's political consultants.

The Justice Department's indictment charges that Manafort and Gates 'generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their Ukraine work'.

'In order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered the money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts,' it continues.

Mueller's probe focused on wire transfers Manafort made from Ukraine to private accounts and whether he paid taxes on that income.

Kevin Downing, Manafort's lawyer, was formerly a prosecutor in the Justice Department's criminal tax division.

In July the FBI in July executed a surprise search warrant with guns drawn at Manafort's home in Alexandria, Virginia, seizing financial and tax documents.

The Russia investigation has cast a shadow over President Trump's nine-month-old presidency and widened the partisan rift between Republicans and Democrats.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the election to try to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda via social media to discredit her.

Mueller is also investigating whether Trump campaign officials colluded with those Russian efforts.

Trump has denied the allegations of collusion with the Russians and called the probe 'a witch hunt.' The Kremlin also has denied the allegations.
A prison teacher has claimed she was raped by an inmate who allegedly hid behind a door in her classroom then attacked her when there were no guards around to intervene.

Nicole Truelove, 45, identified herself on Thursday in a bid to bring her alleged attacker, who is 25, to justice. The man has been in prison since 2012 on a burglary and habitation charge.

He has not had charges brought against him for the rape despite her repeated complaints to authorities.

Truelove, a mother-of-four, says he attacked her in retaliation because she told him off for touching himself in class at the Ferguson Unit in Huntsville, Texas, in mid-November.

Truelove, who previously taught in high schools, had only been working in prisons for two months.

Nicole Truelove, 45, claims the inmate raped her after hiding in her prison classroom last month

She now plans to sue the prison system, claiming she was unprotected by guards who should have protected her.

To her outrage, no charges have been brought against him.

The Texas Department of Justice told DailyMail.com that a criminal investigation was still ongoing and that it would be 'improper' to discuss the case while the probe is ongoing.

In mid-November, Truelove was teaching the class of 28 male inmates in the educational unit at the prison.

During the class, she says she saw him touching himself and she reprimanded him.

After verbally disciplining him, she wrote a citation to later give to guards.

Once the class had finished, the inmates were allowed out by a 'trustee inmate' - a prisoner who has been deemed responsible enough because of good behavior to take an authoritative position.

She says there were no guards on the floor that she was working on.

After the inmates had been let out of the classroom, she went back inside and sat at her desk.

That is when she claims he appeared from behind the door and attacked her.

'I sat at my desk and reached out to pull my door closed, [x] was hiding behind my door.

'He then began sexually assaulting me, at the same time he threatened myself and my children,' she said at a press conference.

After the attack, the man allegedly walked out of the room leaving Truelove to crumple on the floor in shock.

She called for help and another teacher who was working nearby rushed in.

Truelove was taken to hospital and underwent a rape kit but the results of that test have not yet been returned because of a backlog, her attorney told DailyMail.com.

She immediately reported the incident to prison staff and the inmate was transferred to another unit but no charges were brought.

Truelove said the attack happened at the Ferguson Unit in Huntsville, Texas

Truelove spoke out this week to try to bring the man to justice. To her horror, no charges have been brought against him

Frustrated, she decided to speak out this week by announcing her claims at a press conference in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Houston where she plans to file a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections.

'Today I will stand up for change in the prison education departments for the teachers that feel led to educate inmates in hopes of giving them a chance at a new life upon their release,' she said.

Her attorney David Lindsay told DailyMail.com that the pair planned to file action against the Department of Justice imminently.

He said the alleged attack was preventable and that the guards were not where they were supposed to be.

None of the guards were close enough to protect her David Lindsay, Truelove's attorney

'This is something that could have been avoided so easily by following basic precautions.

'The educational unit has two floors and there are six to eight classrooms per floor.

'The guards assigned were not in the hallway or in the classroom area where this occurred, they may have even been outside.

'None of them were close enough to protect her.'

Another class of the same size that was made up entirely of male inmates was released at the same time as Truelove's, he added.

Lindsay described this as a dangerous breach of protocol which presents an opportunity for inmates to overrun the outnumbered teachers.

As the nearly 60 men were being let out of their class, the only staff there was Truelove and one other female teacher.

'She still has friends who teach in this unit,' Lindsay added, explaining that his client was concerned for the safety of other prison teachers across the country.

When questioned, the Department of Justice refused to confirm what measures had been taken to inform staff at the man's new prison - the Allred Unit - of the investigation into Truelove's claims.

'There is an ongoing criminal case being conducted by the TDCJ Office of Inspector General, and it would be improper to discuss specifics of the case.

'The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is also conducting an internal review which will take a comprehensive look at the events surrounding the incident. The review is ongoing,' a spokesman said.

They confirmed Truelove's earlier statement that three guards had been 'assigned' to the educational unit, adding: 'The staffing plan was followed.'

They made no mention of the alleged rape but said: 'Offender sexual misbehavior such as masturbation is not tolerated.

'If the staff is made aware of inappropriate activity in a classroom or anywhere else, the department will take immediate action.'
The headmaster of a school in India has been arrested after a girl fell ill while doing 500 sit-ups as punishment for not completing her homework.

The girl, who is 13, was sent to hospital after feeling pain during the punishment.

Police said they arrested the principal of the school yesterday after they were told by parents that eight children had been forced to do the sit-ups at the private Shri Bhavashwari Sandesh Vidyalay school in the village of Chandgad, Maharashtra.

The girl, who is 13, was sent to hospital after falling ill during the punishment. Pictured: A stock image of young schoolchildren in India

A senior official told NDTV: 'We arrested Ashwini Devan, the principal, yesterday under IPC sections 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 337 (act endangering life or personal safety of another person) and 506 (criminal intimidation).'

He was later released on bail.

The complaint was filed against Devan on December 10 after the incident, which occurred on November 24.

Devan has now been put on compulsory leave by the school.

According to the Times of India, the girl who fell ill had struggled with the sit-ups.

A police officer said she 'could complete only 300,' adding: 'Later in the day, she complained of pain in her right leg, which was shaking continuously. She was then hospitalised'.

The Times also reported that the girl's father works at the school - but was reluctant to call out the principal's actions in case he suffered retribution.

The girl remains under observation in hospital, a doctor said.

Dr Ramanand added: 'She is still experiencing tremors in her leg. Her parameters, however, are normal, suggesting no damage to any body part or the nervous system. The tremors may be a manifestation of mental trauma.'
The deputy leader of far-right group Britain First has been released on bail after appearing in court in Belfast for the second day running following comments about Islam on a social media.

Jayda Fransen - who was thrust into the international spotlight when Donald Trump tweeted videos she previously posted online - was charged with threatening behaviour over alleged remarks made this week beside a peace wall in Northern Ireland.

The comments were posted on social media on Wednesday and are understood have have been filmed in the staunchly unionist Shankill area of west Belfast.

The video post was critical of Islam and warned of a coming 'civil war' in the UK.

Jayda Frasen left court today after she was charged over a rant at a peace wall in Belfast. She was arrested after leaving court over another alleged offence in the city in August. As she left court with Britain First leader Paul Golding today, a man wore a Donald Trump mask behind her

Fransen, who gained notoriety when Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim videos she posted online, posed for pictures with a man in a Donald Trump mask after leaving court

Fransen was bailed after a short hearing before a district judge in Belfast Magistrates' Court today, although police objected to her release.

Fransen, from Anerley in south east London, was arrested at the same court on Thursday, having appeared on a charge related to other remarks she made at a Northern Ireland Against Terrorism rally in the city in August.

Britain First leader Paul Golding, 35, was also arrested at court on Thursday as he accompanied Fransen.

He was later charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour during a speech he made at the same Belfast rally in August.

Golding was bailed to appear in the same court next month and Fransen will also appear before that court again next month.

Fransen winked and raised her fist skyward in the dock after bail was granted. Around a dozen supporters clapped and cheered in the public gallery.

Fransen had arrived in Belfast to appear in court, and made a video by a peace wall this week

This is a segment of the video Fransen appeared in online on Wednesday. She went on to make claims about Islam and warned of 'civil war' in Britain

A police officer had objected to bail, claiming Fransen would commit similar offences to the one she is charged with if released.

He said Fransen had made comments urging people to 'rise up and take action now' against the 'Islamic ideology'.

He raised concerns further similar comments could lead to attacks on Muslims.

Judge Fiona Bagnall said she acknowledged his concerns but said she would apply bail conditions to mitigate that risk.

Fransen has been prevented from going within 500 metres of any demonstration or procession in Northern Ireland - the same condition applied when she appeared on the August charge on Thursday.

'We'll see if bail terms work,' the judge told the court.

'If they don't work, she'll be brought back to court and she will be in custody.'

Fransen now faces two separate court cases over 'threatening or abusive words or behaviour'

Outside court, Fransen accused the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) of 'political policing'.

'This is political policing which is not what we stand for - we stand for democracy and free speech and this is a blatant attempt to prevent free speech,' she said.

'I am expressing an opinion which I am entitled to do - men have fought, bled and died for that right and everything I have stated specifically about the Islamic ideology I can back up with facts straight from the Islamic scripture.

'This is a clear campaign to silence us and I assure you it won't work.'

Golding flanked Fransen outside court.

He said the judge's decision to grant her bail had thwarted police efforts to crack down on his group.

'This is big blow to the police plan to stifle Britain First from getting a foothold in Northern Ireland,' he said.

Fransen raised a clenched fist and said 'no surrender' before leaving in a waiting car.
A woman miraculously survived being shot in the head by her husband, clinging to life in their basement for six days before she was rescued.

Cheri Langill was found in the basement of her home in Omaha, Nebraska, on the Wednesday by a police officer who was called to check on her by a concerned friend.

She was still hiding after being shot in the head by her husband, Karl, six days earlier on December 7 in a domestic dispute.

After shooting his wife, Karl killed himself in the garage.

Cheri Langill, 67, survived being shot in the head by her husband Karl, 68, and spent six days hiding in the basement of their home before she was found by police

He died of carbon monoxide poisoning, leading investigators to believe he gassed himself.

Cheri was unaware that he was dead when she was found.

She told police she decided to stay in the basement because she was afraid he would attack her again if she went upstairs.

She also had a broken ankle but does not remember how it was injured.

The woman did not have a phone to call 911 with but she had food and water which sustained her.

After shooting his wife in the head, Karl killed himself in their garage. Cheri did not know he was dead when she was found on Wednesday, six days after being shot

Cheri was found in the basement. A concerned friend who hadn't heard from her for days called 911

The extent of her injuries are not clear but she was able to speak to police when she was found and she has since been interviewed in hospital.

Karl, 68, used a .22 pistol to shoot her, according to police.

The couple had been married for decades, have children and grandchildren.

One police officer who spoke to her since she was taken to hospital marveled at her survival.

'Considering she got shot in the head. I think shes in pretty decent shape,' Sarpy County Chief Deputy Sheriff Greg London told Omaha.com.
This is the dramatic moment police shot a man at an Dutch airport after he threatened people with a knife.

Footage shows four armed officers running through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport towards a Starbucks Coffee outlet as shots are fired.

One of the military policemen takes up a position behind a pillar as he moves in on the suspect.

The building was evacuated after the police shooting and separate footage shows medics rushing out of the building with a stretcher.

'The suspect in the incident is a 29-year-old man from The Hague,' police said in a tweet. 'The man is known to the police in connection with previous violent incidents.'

Police patrol Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after a man wielding a knife was shot by military police

According to sources, these images show the knifeman being wheeled out of the airport on a stretcher after he was shot

This is the dramatic moment police shot the man after he threatened people

The terminal was evacuated after the police shooting and separate footage shows medics rushing out of the building with a stretcher (pictured)

Separate footage also showed medics wheeling someone out of the terminal on a stretcher

Police were seen swarming towards a Starbucks coffee outlet before shots were fired. Pictures show how the scene of the shooting has been cordoned off

The circumstances surrounding the shooting are not yet clear and police have not revealed whether the incident was terror related. There were no reports of other injuries.

'The man threatened with a knife and the military police shot him,' spokesman Stan Verberkt said. 'He was injured and has been taken into custody.'

No details of his condition were released. There were no reports of other injuries.

Schiphol Plaza, which houses shops, bars and restaurants, was evacuated but not the parts of the airport behind the check-in area and security checks, airport spokeswoman Roos van der Ven said.

In a tweet, the Marechaussee police service says the 'situation is safe' and the suspect has been detained and removed from the scene.

Schiphol Plaza, which houses shops, bars and restaurants, was evacuated but not the parts of the airport behind the check-in area and security checks, airport spokeswoman Roos van der Ven said. Police are pictured patrolling an area outside Starbucks where the drama unfolded

Police were seen sprinting through the terminal as gunshots were fired in the terminal today

Emergency crews descended on the scene after the knifeman was shot by Dutch police

The man was arrested after being shot by police marksmen at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was evacuated this afternoon after police shot a man who was threatening people with a knife. Social media pictures show police in the terminal

The circumstances surrounding the shooting are not yet clear and police have not revealed whether the incident was terror related

An airport spokeswoman says the airport's main plaza was and remains evacuated after military police shot the man with a knife.

It was not immediately clear what effect the security situation was having on flight departures and arrivals.

Schiphol airport is one of Europe's top five busiest air hubs, handling a record 63.6 million passengers in 2016, up from 58 million in 2015.

Opened in 1916 as a military airport, Schiphol became the country's primary airport in 1949, lying just about nine kilometres (five miles) southwest of the Dutch capital, Amsterdam.

It serves as the second main hub for Air France-KLM, and also hosts many budget airlines such as Transavia and EasyJet.

It comes with Europe still on high alert after a wave of terror attacks across the continent over the last two years.

But the Netherlands has so far been spared from the slew of atrocities which have rocked its closest neighbours.

However, amid a number of scares in recent months, and reports that people linked to some of the attacks may have crossed briefly into the country, concerned top Dutch security and intelligence officials have been keeping a wary eye on events.
MANDAN, N.D.  A blind, potbellied pig found abandoned will get a second chance at life at an animal rescue near Mandan.

Alison Smith, owner of Kitty City animal rescue, took in Wanda the pig, who was found deserted at a residence in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

A volunteer with Kitty City made the more than 500-mile trek this past weekend to pick up Wanda and take her to Mandan to be nursed back to health.

"Shes in semi-rough shape," Smith said Monday.

Wanda doesn't have eyes, which Smith said are believed to have been punctured. She has overgrown hooves and severe infections in both eye sockets.

Wanda was found at a residence on the edge of Albert Lea, according to Lt. Darren Hanson of the Albert Lea Police Department. The person who had been living there had vacated the residence.

The new property owner discovered Wanda holed up in a small pen and turned her over to the Freeborn County Humane Society. Hanson said no charges will be filed against the person previously staying at the residence.

Christa DeBoer, director of the Freeborn County Humane Society, said she had been called out to the property about two months ago because the living conditions there were inhabitable. In addition to swine, there were also horses, cats, dogs and a raccoon.

About two weeks ago, DeBoer and other shelter staff rescued Wanda  found in a small fenced-in chicken coop  and brought her back to the shelter. She was in rough shape, not eating or drinking. DeBoer said she attributed it to stress, but neither she nor her staff had experience with pigs.

"We just thought we took this poor, old blind thing out of a place shes always known," she said.

Smith, who has sheltered pigs in the past, said she learned about Wanda after the Freeborn County Humane Society posted on Facebook asking for animal rescues to help.

"It just tugged at me right away and it was just like, 'I need to just do something,'" Smith said. "I said I would help, but the issue was getting her here."

On Saturday morning, a Kitty City volunteer drove and picked up Wanda from the shelter and they arrived back in Mandan later that night.

Wanda was taken to a veterinarian on Monday and given antibiotics for her infections. Smith said it's not clear how old Wanda is, but she weighs about 150 to 200 lbs.

Smith said her biggest concern is having surgery performed to remove what's left of Wanda's eyes and have them sewn shut.

"She's doing well," said Smith, adding that Wanda is staying warm under a heat lamp and burying herself in straw. She's been munching on vegetables, such as lettuce and cucumbers, to stay hydrated.

Smith said she has experience with other blind animals at her animal rescues, Kitty City and Triple H Miniature Horse Rescue, including horses, cats and dogs. Her work primarily focuses on animals with physical disabilities and behavioral issues.

Weve taken in so many blind animals, and their quality of life is just as every bit of good as a sighted animal," she said. "(Wanda is) getting better, not worse."
Christian Einfeldt, 56, was one of two swimmers who was bitten by a sea lion in San Francisco's Aquatic Park within 24 hours on Thursday and Friday

Officials have shut down a popular swimming beach in San Francisco after two swimmers were attacked by a sea lion in less than 25 hours.

The first attack happened on Thursday afternoon, when 56-year-old Christian Einfeldt was swimming to the mouth of the San Francisco Aquatic Park.

He told KGO from the hospital that a male sea lion started to stalk him and he grew concerned.

He started splashing the sea lion with water but it would not go away. When he started yelling at the sea lion, it attacked - biting his arm.

Einfeldt then used his other hand to push the sea lion away, and it left. But at that point, Einfeldt knew he couldn't swim back to shore with his heavily bleeding arm.

Luckily a boat was nearby and helped pull him to safety and took him to shore.

Scroll down for video

This is the sea lion believed to be behind the attacks. It didn't surface as KPIX cameramen were filming it on Friday

'I was relatively calm because I wasn't dead,' he said.

Once back on dry land, members of the San Francisco Police Department's Marine Unit applied a tourniquet to the wound and then took him to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. He was in serious condition at one point but is expected to recover.

He spoke to KGO between surgeries on Thursday.

But less than 24 hours later, another swimmer was bitten by what is believed to be the same sea lion.

A second man was bitten in the Aquatic Park (pictured above) on Friday morning. He is 60 and has not been identified

Officials have banned swimming at the park until the situation can be addressed

A 60-year-old man, who has not been identified, was bitten on the arm in the same location Friday morning around 8am.

Since the second attack, officials in San Francisco decided to shut down swimming at the beach until at least Monday, so they could assess the situation.

Two attacks in such a small time frame is bizarre since such incidents are rare to begin with.

'Ive only been part of the unit for two years now and I havent had a single sea lion or wildlife attack like this,' Officer Matthew Reiter, of the marine unit, said.

Dr. Claire Simeone, Conservation Medicine Veterinarian for the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, said that sometimes sea lions attack if they are 'sick or injured'.

'They may be showing a behavior or protecting an area, and sometimes the behavior seems more random,' she said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that California sea lions are 'unpredictable and can become aggressive quickly'.

'They have sharp teeth and may bite, particularly if cornered, harassed, sick, or if protecting their young. Sea lions can be playful, however they can also be territorial and dangerous especially during the mating seasons,' the agency says.

Despite his brush with death, Einfeldt said it won't stop him from swimming.

'I'm going to be swimming in waist-deep water,' he said. 'This is their kingdom, I don't want to roll the dice a second time.'
Reverend Harry L. Thomas, 74, of Medford, New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including aggravated sexual assault

A pastor who co-founded what claims to be the largest Christian music festival in the country has been charged with multiple sexual assaults on children allegedly spanning over a decade.

Reverend Harry L. Thomas, 74, of Medford, New Jersey pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges including aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Thomas, a married father-of-three with six grandchildren, had been the pastor at Come Alive Church in Medford since 1983.

He als co-founded the Creation Festival, an annual Christian music event held in both Pennsylvania and Washington state.

In statements, the church and festival both said that Thomas had been suspended indefinitely, and that 'the allegations are unrelated to his roles in these ministries'.

Prosecutors say that the alleged sexual assaults took place between 1999 and 2015.

Thomas had been the founding pastor at Come Alive Church (pictured) in Medford since 1983

Prosecutors say Thomas sexually assaulted four kids and urge any other victims to speak out

Other details of the charges remain scant, with prosecutors declining to say anything about where the alleged assaults took place or offer details about the victims, in order to protect their identities.

At a hearing on Tuesday, Burlington County Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly called the situation 'complicated,' according to NJ.com.

The judge said of the case that 'there's relationships involved,' and 'not just one alleged victim, but a multitude of four' alleging crimes that carry 'serious criminal charges.'

Thomas appeared in court using a walker on Tuesday, and has been under guard at a medical facility where he is receiving care since his arrest.

Thomas got his start in Christian ministries in the 1970s, with a Christian rock radio show called the Come Alive show.

In 1971, Thomas had 'a vision of reaching young people for Christ,' according to a biography on his church website, which has since been removed.

'He was driving through New York City when he felt impressed of the Lord to pull over and pray. As he prayed the Lord showed Harry a vision of thousands of young people on a hillside praising the Lord,' the biography reads.

Thomas co-founded the Creation Festival, a massive Christian music fest on both coasts

His 'Jesus rock' radio ministry eventually grew into the Come Alive Church in Medford and the Creation Festival.

Claiming to be the largest Christian rock festival in the nation, Creation Festival holds two four-day events each summer, in Mount Union, Pennsylvania and Kennewick, Washington.

Combined attendance at the events is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000 a year.

Festival and church leaders said they were cooperating fully with investigators.

'It is with deep regret and saddened hearts that the boards of Come Alive International and Creation Festivals have indefinitely suspended Pastor Harry Thomas from all leadership positions with the church, festival and all associated ministries,' festival organizers said in a statement.

Creation Festival holds two four-day events each summer, in Mount Union, Pennsylvania and Kennewick, Washington. The east coast version of the festival is seen in 2007

'While the allegations are unrelated to his roles in these ministries, leadership is actively cooperating with the authorities and has determined this to be the proper course of action at this time until there can be a full investigation. It is requested that all pray for the parties involved,' the statement said.

The charges against Thomas are one count of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, three counts of second-degree sexual assault and four counts of second-degree endangering the welfare of children.

Thomas is next due in court on December 19. He is currently being held without bail.

Prosecutors believe there may be unidentified victims in the case, and have asked anyone with information to come forward.

Anyone who may have information relevant to the case is urged to call the Burlington county Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit at 609-265-5879.
Britain's first hi-tech 'relay' device used to steal cars in under 60 seconds without keys has been seized by police.

The gadget, which looks like a TV set top box, receives signals from a key fob which are then bounced to the car enabling thieves to open the doors.

The signals can travel through buildings, meaning thieves can open cars without needing to break into properties to steal keys.

The 'relay' gadget, which looks like a TV set top box, receives signals from a key fob which is then bounced to the car enabling thieves to open the doors

Last month CCTV captured for the first time on film the device being used by thieves to steal a Mercedes in front of a house in Solihull, West Midlands.

In the footage, one of the men waved a box, which then received a signal from the key inside the home and transmitted it to a second box held next to the car.

The car's systems were then tricked into thinking the key was present and it unlocked. Shockingly, the entire theft took less than 60 seconds to execute.

West Midlands Police have now seized a similar relay device following a car chase in Birmingham city centre.

The signals from the box can travel through buildings, meaning thieves can open cars without needing to break into properties to steal keys

West Midlands Police seized the relay device following a car chase in Birmingham city centre

Police Constable Mitch Darby became suspicious of a Peugeot being driven on Landor Street at around 4.15am on November 2.

The car was found by officers abandoned, and they discovered a driving licence and ID belonging to Martynas Auga (pictured) inside

When he tried to pull it over the car accelerated away so PC Darby pursued it before being forced to abandon the chase when the car sped the wrong way down a one-way street towards four lanes of oncoming traffic.

Just 20 seconds later the car was found by officers abandoned on the wrong side of the road. Police found a driving licence and ID belonging to Martynas Auga inside.

Officers also found relay equipment in a rucksack, along with two sets of number plates, two mobile phones and a bag of tools.

When officers later tested the devices, they were able to drive away cars without the use of keys.

Auga, 32, of no fixed address, handed himself into police a few days later but refused to answer questions on whether he was involved in the keyless theft of cars.

On Monday he was jailed for 18 months after admitting going equipped to steal, dangerous driving, driving without a licence and failing to stop.

In the footage, one of the men waved a box, which then received a signal from the key inside the home and transmitted it to a second box held next to the car

He was also banned from driving for 18 months. Police say there is no evidence linking the device to the theft in Solihull which took place at 9pm on September 25.

PC Darby said: 'This is certainly the first relay device recovered in the Midlands and I'm not aware of any others recovered nationally.

'The recovery of this equipment should prevent further thefts of cars taking place and goes to show that we are on top of car thieves and will stay one step ahead of them as they adapt to new technology.'

Mark Silvester, from the force's crime reduction team, added: 'To protect against this type of theft, owners can use an additional tested and Thatcham-approved steering lock to cover the entire steering wheel.'
They pulled the horse to safety and it was checked out by a vet and uninjured

A deputy was pulled into the water by the horse but was unharmed

Soon joined by firefighters, they used ropes, shovels, and a skid loader to free it

Deputies in Macomb County, Michigan were called to save a horse that had fallen into a frozen lake

An amazing video shows firefighters and deputies joining together to save a horse that had fallen into a frozen lake in Michigan.

Macomb County deputies were called by an owner of the animal at about 9.30am on Wednesday to save the horse.

The deputies first try and use ropes to pull out the horse, only to discover the animal cannot get its legs above the ice.

A video shows firefighters and deputies joining together to save a horse that had fallen into a frozen lake in Michigan

A deputy got too close to the horse and also fell in the water. He was uninjured

He quickly scrambles out to the chagrin of the still-trapped animal

One of the officers gets too close to the thin ice trying to clip an additional rope on the horse, and is then pulled into the freezing water.

He quickly scrambles out to the chagrin of the still-trapped animal.

'What were you saying about going in the water?' one of the deputies jokes.

'It's cold,' the man responds.

The deputies first try and use ropes to pull out the horse, only to discover the animal cannot get its legs above the ice

Firefighters join the rescue effort and use shovels to break up the ice around the horse

As firefighters reverse the skid loader, the horse is able to get its legs above the ice and pull its body out of the water

The rescue effort is soon joined by firefighters who bring shovels and a skid loader.

They use the shovels to break up the ice to try and give the equine a bit more room to maneuver.

As firefighters reverse the skid loader, the horse is able to get its legs above the ice and pull its body out of the water.

According to the sheriff's office, the horse was checked by veterinarians and is expected to be okay.

The deputy was also unharmed, just a little cold.
A student who was adopted at three months found his birth brother after taking a DNA test - and realised he had been at college with him studying the same major for three years.

Kieron Graham, 20, lives just 15 minutes away from 29-year-old Vincent Ghant, his brother on his mother's side of the family, who is also majoring in Political Science at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia.

He also met his younger maternal brother, Christian, 17, and is due to meet his paternal brother, 24, after tracking him down on Facebook, as well as both parents.

Kieron Graham, 20, lives just 15 minutes away from 29-year-old Vincent Ghant, his paternal brother. He also met his other paternal brother, Christian. They are pictured together left to right

Kieron described meeting his maternal brothers and paternal brother (top and bottom) on Twitter to a thrilled audience

The student relayed the whole amazing quest of finding his relatives on Twitter, thrilling thousands of followers.

The story began on Tuesday when Kieron received the results from an Ancestry DNA test his adoptive mother had given him for Christmas, which brought up Vincent's name.

The test involves taking a saliva swab, which is then analysed and matched with other people on the database, allowing people to find their biological relatives.

Incredibly, Vincent had also done an Ancestry DNA test a year ago after he was given it as a present.

Kieron messaged Vincent on Facebook, who checked through the details and found everything matched up, so they arranged to meet at a Tiny Bubble tea salon in town.

He told MailOnline: 'I asked Vincent if he remembered me and he said he did, and had been trying to find me all this time.

Kieron contacted Vincent,(left) and his paternal brother,(right) who he asked not to be named, on Facebook

'We study the same major and have a class at the same time on the same campus, so we must have seen each other but not realised with were brothers for all this time.

'I've never looked like anyone else so it was amazing to look into his face and see me. We've lived in the same state our entire lives.

'I met his wife, Emily, and a little niece I never even knew existed. She's called Malia and is nearly two years old.'

Kieron also met his other paternal brother, Christian, who is still at school.

'My little brother said he broke down crying when everything matched out, he said.

'I went over to Vincent's house yesterday and we both drove together with my two-year-old niece to drop Christian up from school.

Kieron is pictured with his niece, Malia and maternal brother, Vincent

'I heard him call Vincent's name and he was standing there and we just gave each other a huge hug. It was pretty surreal to meet a brother I didn't know existed.'

Kieron was put up for adoption when his mother, a full-time nurse, found she was struggling to look after him.

He grew up with a brother and two sisters, who were also adopted, but feels 'no animosity' towards his mother, who he plans to meet on Sunday.

'I'm very excited, I've thought about this moment since I was old enough to realise I was adopted,' he said.

'I've always thought of what she might be like and what I might say to her. I hold no animosity to her for putting me up for adoption.

'I'm probably just going to start crying and just give me a big hug and ask her how her life has been.'

After meeting his two maternal brothers, Kieron pieced together the information he had about the brother on his father's side to work out his identity.

He knew his paternal brother's first name, and his father's surname, from the adoption agency who had introduced him to his adopted mother.

Kieron searched both names on Facebook and found his paternal brother, who is aged 24.

He is excited to meet both his paternal brother but asked MailOnline not to name him as he has not asked his permission.

Pictured is Kieron's mother, (who is on the left holding an umbrella) and Christian, who is on the right playing tennis

Kieron shared the incredible experience of meeting his family on Twitter. He says his birth family have always wondered what he was up to and tried to locate him.

'On Tuesday, I met his wife, mother in law and my freaking beautiful niece I never knew existed. What an amazing night, he wrote.

'Then I found my dad's side of the family and my brother on his side. He was also ecstatic that I found him. Life is truly amazing.

'Thank you to everyone wishing me all these happy things. Ive waited my entire life for this moment and its amazing to see that its touched so many people.'
A man found abandoned as a baby outside an Oxford Circus department store during the war finally has some answers - but fears he will go to his grave without knowing why his parents left him.

Robin King, now 74, was dumped in 1943 and only found out he was adopted when he was 13.

He had been digging through what he thought was his biological parents' belongings when he found his adoption papers in a holdall.

Traumatised by what he had discovered, the teenage Mr King fled to a friend's house before the pair of them cycled from London to Southend, where they spent three days sleeping in a tent before the police picked them up.

Robin King, now 73 and pictured here with his daughter Lorraine, was found abandoned as a baby outside an Oxford Circus department store during the war

Mr King, pictured here with daughters Lorraine and Michaela, only found out he was adopted when he was 13

Mr King (left, as a child) grew up in poverty-stricken Woolwich, south London having been adopted by Fred and Elsie King (right) just after World War Two had finished

'My friend's mum had to pay for us to come back on the train,' Mr King told the BBC.

The subject of his adoption was never brought up and he feared raising it in case it caused a confrontation.

Mr King grew up in poverty-stricken Woolwich, south London, having been adopted by Fred and Elsie King just after World War Two had finished.

Leaving school with few qualifications, he endured a tough time but in his 20s got married and started a family, raising his two daughters in Peterborough.

He worked as a town planner and later as an architect and praised his daughters as the only two people he shared a biological bond with.

It was only years later when he applied for a passport he found out he had been left at the Peter Robinson store in London.

A passport official delivered the hammerblow news - and Mr King realised why his first name was Robin and his second name was Peter.

But it was not until 1996 when Mr King, by now in his 50s, decided to delve deeper into his origins.

Daughter Michaela went to the London Metropolitan Archive to collect his full adoption records and he discovered he was abandoned on October 20 1943 - while Hitler's Luftwaffe was still pounding the capital with bombs.

The file revealed he had been adopted by the Kings when he was already four-and-a-half years old - and they had thanked the adoption board for giving them such a 'good little boy'.

Mr King spent most of his life not knowing who his biological parents were - but in a remarkable story he tracked them down to the other side of the Atlantic

Mr King's parents were revealed as Canadian airman Douglas Jones and his wife Agnes, who had met in Glasgow before settling in Douglas' native Canada

Remarkably, Mr King was able to track down and meet Trevor Hill, one of the men who discovered him wrapped in a blanket in wartime London

But, crucially, there was no clue as to why his biological parents had left him on the street.

Over the next 20 years Mr King's daughter Lorraine continued the search, getting in touch with every expert she could think of - but the replies were all the same; without the parents' names, it was an impossible task.

Finally there was a breakthrough when they got in touch with a genealogy expert - who found a DNA match.

A woman named Maria from New York was a 1% match in DNA with Mr King, and through that a family tree was put together and painstakingly analysed.

After years of hardwork, they found a lady named Agnes, who had been born in Scotland but died in Canada.

Lorraine managed to get in touch with Agnes' son, Grant, who agreed to a DNA test.

Finally, following decades of dashed hopes and closed doors, Mr King had some answers.

Mr King discovered he had three siblings - Karen (pictured), born 14 years after Robin, Grant and another daughter, Peggy

The BBC building were Robin was left abandoned was bombed during the war

He and Grant were brothers.

Grant told Robin his parents were Canadian airman Douglas Jones and his wife Agnes, who had met in Glasgow before settling in Douglas' native Canada.

They had three other children Karen, born 14 years after Robin, Grant and another daughter, Peggy.

Lorraine broke the news to her father face-to-face, but overcome with emotion, he had to leave the room.

Mr King discovered his parents had been married before he was conceived - raising further questions over why he was abandoned.

The vital question will likely never be answered - Douglas died in 1975 while Agnes passed away in 2014.

Mr King admits he would have loved to have met his biological parents.

Mr King and daughter Michaela went to the London Metropolitan Archive to collect his full adoption records and he discovered he was abandoned on October 20 1943

Mr King and daughter Lorraine met with Trevor Hill, who was there on the night Mr King was found abandoned as a baby

Among the revelations that emerged once his birth mother was discovered was the fact he had spent his life celebrating his birthday on the wrong day - he was born on October 10, not the 6.

And he managed to meet one of the men who found him.

Part of Peter Robinson's department store was taken over by the BBC in 1941 - and a junior programme engineer named Trevor Hill worked there.

Now 91, he recalled how a baby was left wrapped in a blanket and placed in a box near to the front entrance.

BBC staff thought the child's mother may have had her house bombed and had no choice but to abandon her baby.

Mr King and Mr Hill have since met and they plan on exchanging Christmas cards this year.

One theory as to why Mr King was abandoned is that it was common at the time for one couple to hand their baby over to another and according to the BBC, in September 1945, the Evening Despatch newspaper quoted a medical officer who said: 'More than once children have been handed from parent to adopting parent following a casual meeting in a queue or in an employment exchange.'

But Mr King will never know for sure.

He said: 'It's astounding to see what Lorraine did through trial and error. But there are certain things I will never know about my past.'
A woman has been escorted out of Starbucks by police after angrily objecting to two customers speaking in their native language of Korean.

The incident happened in branch of the coffee chain in Walnut Creek, California when the woman overheard a community college tutor speaking to a student.

In a video taken by the student, the woman says 'I hate it' and adds 'everybody here speaks English.

In the video the woman begins to rant about Koreans saying 'I hate it' when she hears people not speaking English

The unidentified woman said that 'everybody here speaks English' when she heard Korean being spoken

When she realized she was being filmed, the woman tried to cover her face with her papers

Staff asked the woman to leave but she refused and eventually the police had to be called to escort her out

As she is confronted and asked to leave by a staff member, she says 'if you can sit and be quiet, that's fine' but then adds 'I don't want to hear your language'.

Sean Lee told KRON4 he tutoring a community college student, Annie, when all of a suddenly the women began remonstrating with them.

'We might need to brainstorm this way and write the essay that way,' in Korean, the woman spoke out.

'Out of nowhere, we didn't provoke her. We were just minding our own business. This lady just suddenly says, 'Don't you dare say that again.''

Sean Lee, one of the people whose speaking of Korean she objected to, says he was 'surprised' by her comments

Lee said the incident is 'not something I would ever imagine happening to me or anyone I know'

Lee said at first, they didn't realize the woman was talking to them because she was a complete stranger to them but then Annie pulled out her phone and began filming.

After seeing that she was being filmed the woman tried to hide her face behind her binder.

Two Starbucks baristas then politely asked her to leave but when she refused they called the police.

The woman didn't say much more until police arrived, but then again berated Annie as officers finally got the woman to leave.

'This was actually my very first time interacting with someone like this, and that's why I was even more surprised,' Lee said.

'I mean, I see videos like this online, you know, I see it on the news, but it's not something I would ever imagine happening to me or anyone I know.'
A student who was wrongly charged with rape and 'dragged through hell' for two years due to a police blunder has said 'an apology doesn't cut it slightly at all - it's something I will never be able to forgive or forget.'

Liam Allan's trial was 'blown out the window' yesterday after lawyers discovered his alleged victim texted him suggesting she wanted to have more sex after the alleged attack.

The texts held by police should have been made available to both the defence and the prosecution almost two years ago but were not due to 'sheer incompetence.'

Mr Allan's lawyer said he should never have been charged and was needlessly put through two years of turmoil.

Found innocent at last: Discussing his horrendous ordeal, Mr Allan told BBC News this evening: 'It kind of flips your whole life upside down.'

Discussing his horrendous ordeal which could have seen him jailed for 12 years, Mr Allan told BBC News: 'An apology doesn't feel like enough.

'The length of time I have faced, and the person has remained anonymous.

'I am everywhere [in the news] and I have been dragged through hell for the last two years. An apology doesn't cut it slightly at all.

Mr Allan said he felt 'pure fear' when he learned he had been accused of rape but said he would never be able to understand why the accusations were made.

He said: 'There was no possible real gain from it other than destroying somebody else's life... It's something I will never be able to forgive or forget.'

He added: 'It kind of flips your whole life upside down. Everything you build up for yourself can be torn away.

Student Liam Allan 22, was on bail for almost two years before his trial ceased yesterday

Discussing his horrendous ordeal, Mr Allan told BBC News: 'An apology doesn't feel like enough'

'You realise how much you have to lose. But you also do start losing things as the process gets longer.

'It's made me realise that something needs to change. There are things that go on behind closed doors that you can't even imagine and that a lot of people are probably going through the same sort of thing.'

Talking about the moment his trial was ended, he said: 'I was relieved, not just for me but for everyone who has been with me every step of the way and everyone this has impacted on.

'It's just been a huge, huge relief. You just want to get your life back. You don't realise you have lost part of your life until you have it completely dumped.

'I'll be honest, I did start to have panic attacks a couple of weeks before the trial - where it is internal - you have to have your own reaction and that's it. Panic attacks are an internal reaction but it's to be expected.

'You can't go through this and be expected to not panic or not fear and remain strong throng through the whole thing.

'You could be the strongest person in the world and it'll bring you to your knees.'

Mr Allan also revealed he was arrested infront of his mother and held for six hours before being able to tell her why.

Asked why he thought the police were coming to his door to arrest him in January 2016, he said: ' I had three different theories. Because I was just starting my course, I thought it may have been routine or it might have been I had been somewhere as a witness. There was no way I could guess it might have been related to this.'

A relieved Liam Allan, 22, is hugged by his tearful mother Lorraine on the steps of Croydon Crown Court surrounded by supporters yesterday after two years on bail for rape after police sat on evidence that proved he was innocent

Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was stopped yesterday - prosecutor Jerry Hayes said 'incompetent' police didn't share the evidence that proved his evidence

He said when he heard the allegations: 'I couldn't speak I couldn't move.'

'Sheer incompetence' by police meant that texts about his alleged victim's fantasies of violent and casual sex were kept secret, a prosecutor revealed today.

Barrister Jerry Hayes claims the detective in charge told him sexual messages sent by the woman to Liam Allan and her friends were 'too personal' to share.

But in fact they 'blew the case out of the window' and police had failed to even look at them because of 'sheer incompetence', he said.

The CPS is also being asked to explain why it did not demand full disclosure of evidence including phone records before the trial started.

The texts revealed the woman asked Mr Allan for casual sex and fantasised about rough and violent intercourse and even being raped despite telling police she didn't like being intimate with men.

Judge Peter Gower stopped the trial at Croydon Crown Court yesterday and describing the moment the suspect found out Mr Hayes said: 'Obviously he was happy but this has been hanging over his head for years. He could have had his life totally trashed. That was awfully wrong'.

Mr Allan said he had been 'betrayed by the system' and his mother Lorraine sobbed as she said her son had been treated as 'guilty until you can prove you are innocent', adding: 'I knew the truth'.

Today Scotland Yard launched an 'urgent assessment' of its handling of Mr Allan's case but there are calls for an independent investigation.

Police have been blamed for the student's ordeal by Mr Hayes but it is common for the CPS to also demand full disclosure of evidence including phone records before any trial.

Police refuse to say if they have suspended 'incompetent' rape detective and team The Met has today refused to say if the detective shamed by the CPS' prosecutor is still at work today. Jerry Hayes said the officer in charge of the case failed in his 'duty' to properly review evidence and hand it to the CPS. But a Met spokesman said they would not 'speculate' on whether the lead officer or his team were working. The force would not comment on whether they will re-interview the woman at the centre of the case, although their statement referred to her as 'the victim'. Scotland Yard launched an 'urgent assessment' after a rape prosecution collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence which undermined the case against Liam Allan. Police are understood to have looked at thousands of phone messages when reviewing evidence but it was not until the prosecution was close to trial that Met officers disclosed messages between the complainant and her friends which cast doubt on the case against him. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'We are aware of this case being dismissed from court and are carrying out an urgent assessment to establish the circumstances which led to this action being taken. 'We are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and keeping in close contact with the victim whilst this process takes place.' In 2013 it emerged that up to a third of all rape allegations made to the Met in some boroughs were never recorded as crimes in 2012. In the same year then Scotland Yard chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has apologised to victims of rapes who were pressured by police into withdrawing their allegations in 2008 and 2009. Advertisement

Chief prosecutor Alison Saunders has made a high profile push to bring more sex attack cases to court and asked her lawyers to trawl through a man's relationship history to boost conviction.

The number of rapes reported to police has gone from around 13,000 in 2002 to 45,000 last year but in 2014 it emerged a quarter of sex offences - including rape - were never recorded as crimes.

The prosecutor and former Tory MP said he and the CPS had no idea a disc of the woman's messages even existed until the trial started.

He said as soon as the defence got them they realised the texts 'blew the case out of the window' and he asked the judge at Croydon Crown Court to throw the case out last night.

Revealing how the case unraveled Mr Hayes told the BBC: 'I spoke to the officer in charge and he said [the texts] are clearly not disclosable and I said 'Why not' and he replied 'you know it's very personal matters'.'

The prosecutor said this was 'wrong' and he wasn't 'happy' and insisted that he, the CPS and the defence get them.

He said: 'The defence quickly saw the information blew the prosecution out of the water. If they had not been seen this boy faced 12 years in prison and on the sex offenders' register for life with little chance of appeal. This was a massive massive miscarriage of justice, which thank heavens was avoided'.

And slamming Scotland Yard he said: 'I don't think they had looked at it [the texts]. It's just sheer incompetence I'm afraid. Police don't always understand it is their duty to review it'.

Mr Hayes went to the judge Peter Gower to say he would no longer offer any evidence and Mr Allan was found not guilty of six counts of rape and six counts of sexual assault.

Describing the moment he told the rape suspect he said: 'He was happy obviously but this had been hanging over him for years and his life totally trashed. What happened was completely wrong'.

He also said last night: 'I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable'.

He added: 'The trouble is everyone is under pressure. This is a criminal justice system which is not just creaking, it's about to croak'.

Liam Allan, 22, was on bail for almost two years and spent three days at Croydon Crown Court in the dock before his trial was stopped yesterday.

The judge has called for an inquiry after the trial of a student accused of rape collapsed after police failed to reveal she sent him messages asking for casual sex and revealing her own violent sexual fantasies.

Mr Allan's mother Lorraine (pictured together) burst into tears as she said her son's case was 'guilty until you can prove you are innocent'

Officers failed to hand over evidence proving his innocence and the Crown's prosecutor apologised to Mr Allan last night.

Evidence missed included a computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages - including ones sent to Mr Allan by the woman pestering him for sex.

The woman had told police she didn't enjoy sex and the lead detective has been accused of failing to review her texts.

If found guilty, the 22-year-old was told he would be jailed for at least ten years.

Liam Allan's life has been 'trashed' and he faced 12 years in prison had the texts not been released

After the trial collapsed Mr Allan, a criminology student, told The Times: 'I can't explain the mental torture of the past two years. I feel betrayed by the system which I had believed would do the right thing  the system I want to work in.'

His mother Lorraine Allan, 46, told the paper: 'In the current climate, in these sorts of cases, you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent.'

Prosecuting barrister Jerry Hayes said: 'I would like to apologise to Liam Allan. There was a terrible failure in disclosure which was inexcusable'.

Last night the judge called for an inquiry at the 'very highest level' of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and a review of disclosure of evidence by the Metropolitan Police.

Scotland Yard said today it is carrying out an 'urgent assessment' after the rape prosecution collapsed due to the late disclosure of evidence which undermined the case.

Judge Peter Gower found him not guilty and set him free saying: 'There is something that has gone wrong and it is a matter that the CPS, in my judgment, should be considering at the very highest level.

'Otherwise there is a risk not only of this happening again but that the trial process will not detect what has gone wrong and there will be a very serious miscarriage of justice. He [Mr Allan] leaves the courtroom an innocent man without a stain on his character'.

He advised of 'serious miscarriages of justice' when he heard that documents were not always sent to defence lawyers in order to keep costs at a minimum.

Mr Allan, a criminology undergraduate at Greenwich University, was accused of six counts of rape and six sexual assaults against a woman who claimed she did not enjoy sex.

The young man, however, claimed the sexual intercourse had been consensual.

He said the woman involved had acted maliciously because he was starting university and would not see her again.

Prosecutor Jerry Hayes apologised to the student and said there had been a 'terrible failure' after Judge Peter Gower found him not guilty and set him free

The judge at Croydon Crown Court threw out the case after the texts were discovered yesterday

CPS boss 'inflated rape conviction figures and doesn't understand how a trial works' Britain's top prosecutor Alison Saunders was recently accused of inflating rape conviction figures and having little idea of how rape trials work. Ms Saunders has repeatedly come under fire over the CPS handling of sex allegations because innocent men have had their lives destroyed on the basis of spurious claims later rejected in court. In August this year she said that men accused of rape will have more of their relationship history put under the microscope during trials in a bid to increase convictions rates. Britain's top prosecutor told lawyers to focus on a man's behaviour in the run up to the alleged sex attack rather than just the immediate moments before. But in October she was blasted by a watchdog for claiming the number of rape convictions is more than double the real figure. She was warned that the hugely inflated figures in a report on violence against women were 'misleading'. And was told in a letter from the UK Statistics Authority that the true number of people convicted of rape last year was under 1,400. This is less than half the 3,000 she alleged in the report by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) earlier that month. The huge gap is because the CPS includes crimes that were originally investigated as rapes but later downgraded to less serious offences. Advertisement

Mr Allan's lawyers were denied access to the woman's telephone records after police insisted there was nothing of interest for the defence or prosecution.

Meanwhile, when Jerry Hayes took over the case on the day before the trial started - he demanded police hand over the phone records.

A computer disk containing copies of 40,000 messages were taken from the handset, revealing that the woman had continuously pestered the undergraduate for 'casual sex'.

She also told her friends that she enjoyed sex with him and even spoke about her fantasies of having violent sex and being raped by him.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: 'We are aware of this case being dismissed from court and are carrying out an urgent assessment to establish the circumstances which led to this action being taken.

'We are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service and keeping in close contact with the victim whilst this process takes place.'

A spokesman for the CPS said: 'A charge can only be brought if a prosecutor is satisfied that both stages of the Full Code test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors are met, that is, that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is required in the public interest.

'All prosecutions are kept under continuous review and prosecutors are required to take account of any change in circumstances as the case develops.

'In November 2017, the police provided more material in the case of Liam Allan. Upon a review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

'Therefore we offered no evidence in the case against Liam Allan at a hearing on December 14 2017.

'We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.'
The husband of a Florida woman who was shot and killed in her home by a male intruder wearing a ski mask just hours after posting about her incredible life transformation on Facebook has been arrested for the murder.

Euri Jenkins was arrested on Thursday by Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies assigned to the US Marshals service, according to The Sun Sentinel.

But the 31-year-old widower of Makeva Jenkins remains that he is innocent.

He has been charged with first degree murder in the slaying of his 33-year-old wife.

Makeva was gunned down with a single bullet to the head just yards from her children around 2am at her home in Lake Worth, Florida on June 29 by a masked man when she opened the door to him that night, according to police.

Scroll down for video

The husband of a Florida woman who was shot and killed in her home by a male intruder wearing a ski mask just hours after posting about her incredible life transformation on Facebook has been arrested for the murder

Euri Jenkins was arrested on Thursday by Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies assigned to the US Marshals service, according to The Sun Sentinel

But the 31-year-old widower of Makeva Jenkins remains that he is innocent. He has been charged with first degree murder in the slaying of his 33-year-old wife

Her death came just two hours after she uploaded this post to Facebook, celebrating her journey from homelessness to earning six figures

Courtesy: WPTV

She died in the hospital later that day.

Her death came after she penned a Facebook post detailing her journey from homelessness to earning multiple six figure sums in just two years.

After founding The Prime Enterprise group, which is dedicated to helping small business owners, she wrote in the final post that she was 'in awe of how far,' her life has come.

Her family was initially worried that the post lead to her death.

'We overcame being homeless in 2013/2014 to reaching my six figure mark in 2015 to now making multi six figures,' she wrote.

'No matter what the road looked like, I followed my heart and stuck with it growing my business.'

At the time she was shot at least two of her three children were in the adjoining room - but they were not hurt. There were also two other adults being held at gunpoint with Makeva, but only she was shot.

Police said the suspect fled in the family's white Dodge Charger. It was later found abandoned a mile away and police thought Makeva had been the victim of a home invasion murder.

In September authorities charged 20-year-old Joevan Joseph (right) with first-degree murder in her death. He has remained in jail and without bail since September 2. Police haven't released any motive in the killings, and haven't said how Joseph or Jenkins are connected, or how they are connected to Makeva's murder

At the time she was shot at least two of her children were in the adjoining room - but they were not hurt. There were also two other adults being held at gunpoint with Makeva, but only she was shot

Distraught relatives updated Jenkin's Facebook page a day later confirming her death, and asking for prayers

In August her family held a press conference and desperately begged anyone with information to come forward.

Euri Jenkins did not attend the conference.

'We have no idea about her husband or where he is or what's going on with that,' her grandmother Gloria Herald told reporters.

The original post was accompanied by this old conversation in whichMakeva discussed taking a financial course that would transform her life

In September authorities charged 20-year-old Joevan Joseph with first-degree murder in her death. He has remained in jail and without bail since September 2.

Police haven't released any motive in the killings, and haven't said how Joseph or Jenkins are connected, or how they are connected to Makeva's murder.

According to the Sun Sentinel, Joseph was a customer at Euri's barber shop.

Euri and Makeva were married in 2011.

Makeva's death came just after she uploaded a post about how she is proud of herself and her success over the past few years.

The post was accompanied by a photo of an old conversation she had with a friend about financial management courses being offered for $99.

She said: 'This lady reached out to me about my business plans. We've been Facebook friends for years but the last time we spoke was 8/2011.

'In this message I was inquiring about Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University offered through her church. I couldn't even afford $99 at that time.

'No matter what the road looked like, I followed my heart and stuck with it growing my business.

'I'm saying this to say, anyone can do it. It takes determination and consistency.'

A second Facebook post on Ms Jenkins page, uploaded by a loved one later the next afternoon read: 'Regretfully, the news reports are true.

'The family of Makeva Jenkins asks that their privacy be respected at this most trying time. All of your love, condolences, and well wishes are appreciated. Please keep the family in your prayers.'
At least one person has died after a powerful earthquake struck Indonesia  sparking fears of a tsunami.

Authorities issued a warning for large waves along parts of Java's coastline after the quake struck earlier this evening.

People fled in panic from buildings along coastal areas and Indonesian television showed heavy traffic on roads as people left coastal areas.

National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a 62-year-old man was confirmed dead in the Ciamis region of western Java.

People fled in panic from buildings along coastal areas and Indonesian television showed heavy traffic on roads as people left coastal areas

Authorities issued a warning for large wages along parts of Java's coastline after the quake struck earlier this evening

Patients are evacuated outside a hospital following an earthquake in Banyumas, Central Java, Indonesia

The official also said there were reports of more deaths and of injuries in the same region.

And there are further reports that buildings had collapsed in the city of Tasikmalaya in western Java and in several western Java districts.

'Houses and other buildings are damaged in many areas,' he said in a statement.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5 and was about 56 miles deep and located just inland.

The earthquake rocked Indonesia's main island of Java tonight, the US Geological Survey said, shaking buildings in the capital Jakarta

Nugroho said strong tremors were felt for about 20 seconds in the capital of Jakarta and in cities and villages.

Indonesia's MetroTV said a general hospital in the central Java town of Banyumas was damaged and patients were evacuated.

The country sits on the 'Pacific Ring of Fire' and has frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
A Wolf Point man with extensive felony convictions, who has swallowed cocaine to avoid officers finding it, will spend nearly eight years in federal prison for using others to buy him firearms.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters in Billings on Friday followed the prosecutions recommendation and sentenced Carlos Demetrius Maynard, 46, to seven years and 10 months in prison.

Calling Maynard a lifelong criminal, Watters said his crimes were an extreme danger to the community and that a long sentence was needed because Maynard had shown no desire to comply with the law.

Watters said the guns Maynard had others buy for him were not sporting firearms that Montanans use for hunting. Rather, she continued, Maynard, who was suspected of drug dealing, acquired them for protection.

And, with his seven prior felony convictions, Watters said, there was absolutely no reasonable conclusion that he didnt know he was banned from having firearms.

Maynard pleaded guilty in August to an indictment charging him with two counts of aiding and abetting in false statements during a firearms transaction and to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. There was no plea agreement.

Maynard apologized.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Dake said Maynard twice had two different women buy him firearms in July 2016 at two sporting goods stores in Sidney.

The first purchase was for an Anderson Manufacturing, model AM-15, 5.56 caliber semi-automatic pistol at Lundemo Firearms and Sports. The second purchase was for a Century Arms International, model RAS47, 7.62 x 39 mm caliber semi-automatic rifle at High Caliber Sports.

Dake recommended the 94-month sentence saying Maynard was an experienced criminal who not only broke the law by possessing firearms but also had two others violate the law on his behalf.

Maynards criminal history includes convictions starting at about age 19 for drugs, hit and run, theft and fraud. Maynard also admitted to swallowing several bindles of cocaine during a traffic stop when he was 29, Dake said. He also swallowed drugs again 10 years later during a routine traffic stop, he said.

Maynard was known by law enforcement to be involved in drug activity, Dake said. A confidential source told law enforcement that Maynard was involved in bringing large amounts of meth and marijuana onto the Fort Peck Reservation for distribution and regularly carried a pistol hidden in baggy pants, he said.

Maynard was not charged with drug offenses.

Assistant Federal Defender David Merchant recommended a three-year sentence, saying that was the national average for someone convicted of aiding and abetting false statements. The firearms were not at Maynards residence, he said.
Anouska Coleman, 37, called 999 in March 2015 stating a seven-month-old girl she was looking after had become unresponsive

A registered childminder found guilty of seriously assaulting two baby girls in her care has been jailed for 16 years.

Anouska Coleman, 37, called 999 in March 2015 stating a seven-month-old girl she was looking after had become unresponsive.

The baby was taken by ambulance to Great Ormond Street Hospital and diagnosed with a bleed on the brain.

Medical examinations revealed the injury was most probably as a result of a trauma, which would have occurred shortly before the ambulance was called.

The exact cause of the baby's injuries remains uncertain but is likely to have involved an impact or impact with shaking.

Detectives from the Met's Child Abuse Investigation Team later reviewed a previous case where a nine-month-old girl suffered a leg fracture in October 2014 while in Coleman's care.

The original investigation concluded that there was insufficient evidence to pursue a prosecution but the case review resulted in Coleman being charged with a second count of grievous bodily harm.

Coleman, of Romford, north east London, was convicted of two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent following an earlier trial at Basildon Crown Court.

She was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the Metropolitan Police said.

Detective Chief Inspector Keith Paterson said: 'The parents of these two baby girls put their trust in Coleman to look after them and she abused that trust in the most awful way.

'The lives of the girls and their families have been hugely impacted and the girls will carry the scars of the injuries they have sustained at Coleman's hands through the rest of their lives.

Coleman, of Romford, north east London, was convicted of two counts of grievous bodily harm with intent following an earlier trial at Basildon Crown Court

'We may never really know how or why Coleman injured these defenceless babies, but ultimately she caused their injuries and must now face the consequences of her actions.

'I only hope that today's sentence can give a small measure of comfort to the families knowing that Coleman has been brought to justice for her terrible actions.'

Coleman was sentenced to seven years in prison for assaulting the nine-month-old girl, and to nine years in prison to run consecutively for assaulting the seven-month-old girl.

The Metropolitan Police said the force had fully co-operated with a Serious Case Review process and findings will be published on Monday.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy sent a message to the White House about the qualifications of some of President Trump's judicial nominees by grilling a court pick about basic courtroom skills as well as more obscure areas of law.

'Have any of you not tried a case to verdict in a courtroom?' Kennedy asked a panel of nominees to serve in lifetime appointments at federal courts.

When Matthew Spencer Petersen answered in the negative, Kennedy drilled down on his background.

'Have you ever tried a jury trial?'

'I have not,' Petersen, nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia responded.

Scroll down for video

Sen. John Kenned calmly and deliberately grilled a Trump judicial nominee on his familiarity and experience with courtroom procedure

'Civil?' Kennedy asked, in his low-key drawl.

Petersen hadn't done that either.

'Criminal?' Kennedy asked. 'No, Petersen said.'

The Republican's grilling of Petersen was so brutal that Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, tweeted it out.

'Hoo-boy,' Whitehouse wrote.

The humiliation came just two days after the White House said it was pulling back from two other nominations, after Republican Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley spoke to the administration about them.

Petersen was at a loss to answer some of Sen. Kennedy's questions

Kennedy first asked whether Petersen had ever tried a case (he hadn't)

THIS WASN'T ON THE LSAT: Then he moved onto legal terms such as the 'Daubert standard' and 'motion in limine'

The nominations 'will not be moving forward' in the U.S. Senate, the White House said.

One of those nominees, Brett Talley, was reported by online magazine Slate as having posted online sympathetic comments about the early history of the Ku Klux Klan

He also failed to disclose that his wife works in the White House Counsel's office, which overseas judicial nominations, where she reports to White House Counsel Don McGahn.

The other, Jeff Mateer, to a federal judgeship in Texas, ran into trouble over speeches he made in 2015. In one, he referred to transgender children as being part of 'Satan's plans.'

The brutal testimony went viral after Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island tweeted it

As he learned of Petersen's lack of court experience, Sen. Kennedy, who practiced law in Baton rouge before entering politics, did not let up.

'As a trial judge, you're obviously going to have witnesses. Can you tell me what the Daubert standard is?' he asked, in reference to expert witness testimony, the Huffington Post reported.

'Sen. Kennedy, I don't have that readily at my disposal but I would be happy to take a closer look at that. That is not something I've had to contend with,' he responded.

Kennedy then asked him: 'Do you know what a motion in limine is?'

Petersen, who served as an associate at a prominent law firm out of law school before joining the Federal Elections Commission, responded: Yes.. I haven't, I'm, again, my background is not in litigation as when I was replying to Chairman Grassley,I haven't had to um, again, do a deep dive,' he said.

'A "motion in limine"  that's just a basic, that's the meat and potatoes of what a trial judge does,' Dane Ciolino, a Loyola University in New Orleans law professor told the Baton Rouge Advocate, regarding a way to exclude evidence from proceedings. 'That's like a surgeon not knowing what a scalpel is, it's that basic.'

Though at a loss to answer the questions, Petersen doesn't have fluff on his resume. Like the senator who skewered him, he attended the University of Virginia school of law.

He served as counsel to the Senate Rules committee and chaired the Federal Elections Commission.
Andrea Ramsey was asked by the Kansas City Star about a lawsuit regarding accusations of sexually harassing and retaliating against a male subordinate, Gary Funkhouser, who said he rejected her sexual advances in 2005

A female Democrat running for Congress in Kansas is dropping out of the race after allegations of sexual assault stemming from a 2005 lawsuit resurfaced during a recent interview.

Mother-of-two Andrea Ramsey was asked by the Kansas City Star about a lawsuit regarding accusations of sexually harassing and retaliating against a male subordinate, Gary Funkhouser, who said he rejected her sexual advances in 2005.

Court Documents show that Funkhouser and LabOne, a company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources, agreed to dismiss the case after mediation in 2006, according to the Star.

Ramsey, from Leawood, Kansas, was one of a number of Democrats planning to challenge Republican Representative Kevin Yoder in the 2018 race in Kansas' Third District.

The 56-year-old had received an endorsement from the left-wing women's group Emily's List, which has raised more than $500,000 for female candidates supporting abortion rights across the country.

But now Ramsey's campaign says she will announce that she is dropping out on Friday.

Court Documents show that Funkhouser and LabOne, a company where Ramsey was executive vice president of human resources, agreed to dismiss the case after mediation in 2006, according to the Star

The mother-of-two was accused of firing Funkhouser because he refused to have sex with her. Now, 12 years later, Ramsey's campaign says she will announce that she is dropping out on Friday. She is pictured with Tim Kaine and her husband

'In its rush to claim the high ground in our rolling national conversation about harassment, the Democratic Party has implemented a zero tolerance standard' Ramsey said in a statement posted to her campaign's Facebook page Friday.

'For me, that means a vindictive, terminated employee's false allegations are enough for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in a statement that all members and candidates have to be held to the highest standard, according to the paper. Emily's List also said they support Ramsey's decision to drop out of the race

'We are in a national moment where rough justice stands in place of careful analysis, nuance and due process.'

The DCCC hasn't endorsed a candidate in the race yet, and said in a statement that all members and candidates have to be held to the highest standard, according to the paper.

'If anyone is guilty of sexual harassment or sexual assault, that person should not hold public office,' committee spokeswoman Meredith Kelly told the Star. Emily's List also said they support Ramsey's decision to drop out of the race.

Ramsey was not a party in the 2005 lawsuit or settlement, but is referred to throughout court papers by her maiden name Andrea Thomas.

She denied the allegations to the Star in multiple interviews, and has said the lawsuit is only resurfacing for political reasons. Ramsey also denied the allegations in her statement, posted to her Facebook page.

'Twelve years ago, I eliminated an employees position. That man decided to bring a lawsuit against the company (not against me),' she wrote.

'He named me in the allegations, claiming I fired him because he refused to have sex with me. That is a lie.

'The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated the allegations and decided not to pursue the complaint; the man later decided to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit. Because I wasnt a named party, I didnt have any opportunity to participate in its resolution.'

Ramsey emphasized that she's not aware of any settlements made in the case, but said that if she'd been one of the named parties she would have opposed a settlement.

'Had those allegations, those false allegations, been brought against me directly, I would have fought to exonerate my name. I never wouldve settled,' Ramsey wrote in Friday's.

'I would have sued the disgruntled, vindictive employee for defamation.'

Ramsey was not a party in the 2005 lawsuit or settlement, but is referred to throughout court papers by her maiden name Andrea Thomas. She denied the allegations to the Star in multiple interviews, and has said the lawsuit is only resurfacing for political reasons. Ramsey also denied the allegations in her statement, posted to her Facebook page

Ramsey (pictured with her husband) emphasized that she's not aware of any settlements made in the case, but said that if she'd been one of the named parties she would have opposed a settlement

Superiors aren't named as defendants in federal sexual harassment or discrimination lawsuits because under Title VII they are not considered employers.

Title VII is the law that protects employees from discrimination, harassment or retaliation based on race, color, gender or nationality.

The allegations were outlined in a lawsuit filed by Funkhouser against LabOne, and in a complaint to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the Star.

In the EOCC Complaint Funkhouser said Ramsey subjected him to 'unwelcome and inappropriate sexual comments and innuendos.' He said the inappropriate behavior started in September 2004 when he was working as a human resources manager at LabOne.

He also alleges that in March 2005 Ramsey made sexual advances towards him while they were on a business trip.

Funkhouser claims that when he wouldn't have sex with her, she started treating him differently.

'In the office she completely ignored me and avoided having any contact with me,' he alleges in the lawsuit.

He said she even went so far as to move him from his office and into a cubicle far away from her office.

Funkhouser said that before he rejected her he got outstanding performance reviews, but that things changed after the March incident.

'After I rejected her, she told me how she was hearing bad things about my performance and on June 13, 2005, terminated my employment,' he alleges.

The EEOC closed its file on Funkhouser's charges in October 2005 and noted that the investigation couldn't determine whether any statutes had been violated, according to the Star.

But the document did inform Funkhouser that he had a right to sue the company, which he did in federal court.

LabOne denied those allegations and said the employee's firing was 'non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory.'

In a recent interview Ramsey told the Star she fired Funkhouser because of his management skills.

'It became clear to me that he wasn't managing his subordinates adequately,' she explained.

'He didn't have open lines of communication with his subordinates and furthermore there was this additional layer of management.'

She also told the paper that she doesn't remember the business trip, noting that it was 12 years ago.

The federal lawsuit against LabOne was till pending in April 2006 when Ramsey retired from the company. She said she retired because she didn't want to work for such a big company and wanted to spend more time with her children.

In July 2006 LabOne and Funkhouser dismissed the case without the possibility of bringing it up again, instead reaching a settlement.
A father has accidentally killed his two-year-old son while backing out of the family driveway.

Luke Rodriguez, age 2, was rushed by helicopter to Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas on Thursday, but was declared dead at 12.17pm shortly after arriving in the ER.

The father was identified as Alan Rodriguez in a fundraising page for the family established by his employer, aircraft technology firm GDC Technics.

Shortly before 11am on Thursday, police say Alan was backing out of his driveway in Saginaw, a northern suburb of Fort Worth, when Luke walked behind his vehicle.

Luke Rodriguez, age 2, was killed in a tragic accident on Thursday in Saginaw, Texas

Luke walked behind his father's vehicle as it was pulling out of the family driveway (pictured)

A medevac crew (left and right) rushed the toddler to a children's hospital in Fort Worth, but he was declared dead at 12.17pm shortly after arriving

Unaware that the toddler had wandered onto the drive, Alan struck the child while backing out.

An ambulance rushed the child to a nearby clearing for a medevac flight, which occurred at about 11.40am, according to NBC DFW.

The helicopter transported Luke roughly 10 miles to the children's hospital in Fort Worth, where he was declared dead.

Police are investigating the tragedy but said they do not anticipate criminal charges.

Luke had just celebrated his second birthday on Sunday, records show.
PC Adam Cox, 31, created an alter ego called Emily Whitehouse, where he then exchanged explicit messages with other men online

A police officer is facing jail after he was found to have posed online as a 17-year-old girl and possessed more than 1,000 indecent images.

PC Adam Cox, 31, was working in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection when he created an alter ego by the name of Emily Whitehouse, where he then exchanged explicit messages with other men online.

When he was asked to send sexually explicit photographs, Cox found images online of a Canadian woman named Alicia Fuller who had killed herself aged 21 which he then claimed was 'Emily'.

Cox's home was raided and police found chat logs and internet searches for 'pre-teens' on his computer.

He told police: 'I'm not hoarding images. I have never meant to hurt anyone. I'm not a collector. I've not got a secret stash.'

Yet police found 1,691 indecent and extreme images, including one featuring an infant and others showing children as young as seven.

Cox, from Windsor, pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of indecent images - 645 of the most serious category A pictures, 201 category B, 449 category C, and 396 extreme pornographic images of bestiality.

He has denied encouraging three men to attempt to illicit indecent images from 'Emily' and the charges were ordered to lie on file.

Prosecutor Charles Falk said: 'This may very well be an abuse of trust because he is a police officer.

'His role is security for embassies, parliament and the royal family.'

The court heard how Cox had expressed 'intense remorse' and faced losing his job due to the case.

He said: 'He is a man who finds it extremely difficult to articulate his motivation and one can quite understand that because the context is extremely unusual conduct, one might think.'

Cox was in the Old Bailey alongside Harry Gibbs, 32, of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, Andrew Monk, 39, of Kettering, Northamptonshire, and Ajai Shridhar, 46, of Ealing, west London.

All three men admitted to talking to 'Emily' and attempting to possess indecent images of children.

Monk had pestered 'Emily' for images, particularly ones involving high heels, and sent her sexually explicit questions such as 'Are you a moaner or a screamer?'

He was given a 12-month community order by Judge Dennis, who said: 'Over two months you were engaged in online chat with a co-defendant who you now know as Adam Cox but who pretended to be a 17-year-old female.

'Over that two-month period as discussions went on you were making repeated requests to see images of the person you were speaking with who you thought was called Emily.

'In total you received five category C images and one category B of her, she being a teenager now sadly deceased from abroad, but images that Mr Cox had obtained online to carry out his fantasy of speaking to people such as yourself pretending he was a 17-year-old female in online chat.'

Cox used pictures of a dead Canadian woman called Alicia Fuller and passed them off as pictures of 'Emily Whitehouse'

Gibbs, a supply teacher, talked to 'Emily' between July and September 2015, and even though she was under 18, he tried to coax her into logging onto 'Chaturbate' - a chat and masturbate website.

He told her she had 'real model quality' and sex was 'always big business'.

Gibbs was given a 12-month order and told by a judge: 'Fantasy or otherwise, it is of great concern to the court as to the risks you may pose for others.'

Shridhar asked 'Emily' for photos to 'cheer' him up as he chatted with her on Skype in February and March last year.

He appeared keen to see her underwear and told her: 'Naughty of me to ask, but have you got any pics where you have to wear your school uniform?'

Cox has been made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and will be sentenced next Friday with Shridhar.

He was suspended from duty on August 2 2016 following his arrest by Hertfordshire Constabulary.

The Met's Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) will conduct a misconduct review once criminal proceedings are complete.
A french baguette might not be most people's first choice of weapon to protect the realm.

But a Star Wars mad nine-year-old has managed to convince supermarket giant Asda to rename their crusty baguettes 'Bredi Master'.

George Heath, from Sale in Manchester was delighted when his letter to the store prompted a change in name.

The force is definitely with him! George Heath, 9, convinced supermarket giant Asda to change the name of their baguettes to 'Bredi Master'

George was given the chance to visit the store for the great unveiling of the newly branded french baguettes

He sent them a message reading: 'Dear Asda,

'My Mum says I am not allowed to play Star Wars with your bread, but I think that they look like a lightsaber.

'So I like to be a jedi when I go shopping with my Mum.

'Love George.'

George was given the treat of visiting the store and the bakers that make his preferred light sabers, and said: 'I don't like shopping, but when my mum goes to Asda I always go with her so we can pick up one of the baguettes and I can be like Rey or Luke Skywalker.

'I can't wait to go to Asda again': George wrote a letter to the store explaining that he loves to use the baguettes as lightsabers

George's mum Jane Heath said it was a fantastic surprise to discover that his letter had made such a difference

'I was excited to meet Asda's baker who makes the bread and now the baguettes are called Bredi Master I can't wait to go to Asda again.'

Surprisingly, Asda bosses said it's not uncommon to find customers unable to resist a carb-loaded fight when they pass the baguette section.

George's mum, Jane Heath, said it was a shock to find out the store would be making the change: 'When Asda got in touch following George's letter, I couldn't believe it!

'He always makes me laugh when we go into store as he heads straight for the baguettes and the Star Wars moves come out.

'We had so much fun being invited to see the newly labelled Bredi Master, and we hope that customers have as much fun buying them as me and George do.'
Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Bob Corker said Friday that they will support their party's $1.5 trillion tax bill.

That gives a major boost to the prospects that GOP leaders will be able to push their prized measure through Congress next week.

But the final draft won't include a measure that President Donald Trump had promised to evangelical voters  a repeal of a law forbidding churches from endorsing candidates and engaging in other explicit politicking.

The 1954 Johnson Amendment also keeps churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship from raising money for politicians unless they want to give up their federal tax-exempt status.

Trump pledged at the National Prayer Breakfast in February to 'totally destroy' the law.

Tennessee Republican Senator Bob Corker surprised Washington on Friday by abandoning his opposition to the GOP's $1.5 trillion tax reform bill

Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio became a 'yes' vote when lawmakers sweetened the pot for working families who claim a child tax credit

The tax plan passed by the House of Representatives included a repeal, but the Senate's version did not. As lawmakers met to hammer out the differences, Democrats prevailed in stripping it out of the final compromise.

Rubio, a Florida lawmaker, had said he would oppose the evolving tax legislation unless his colleagues made tax credits more generous for low-income families with children.

On Friday, Republicans said the final legislation would do just that.

The tax package will increase the tax credit overall from $1,000 per child to $2,000.

Lawmakers said Friday that the bill would let low-earners using the credit get up to $1,400 in IRS refunds if they owe little or no taxes. That's up from $1,100 in the earlier version.

Rubio tweeted that the change is 'a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker.'

'But there is still much more to do in the months and years to come,' he added, crediting Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Tim Scott of South Carolina  and first daughter Ivanka Trump  for laying the groundwork.

Corker, a Tennessean, had stood alone for weeks as the tax bill's only Republican opposition, citing a pledge that he would not support a plan that raised federal budget deficits.

But on Friday he stunned Washington by changing his position, and called the White House to tell Trump personally.

'This bill is far from perfect, and left to my own accord, we would have reached bipartisan consensus on legislation that avoided any chance of adding to the deficit and far less would have been done on the individual side with items that do not generate economic growth,' Corker said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has promised Americans a 'tax cut for Christmas' but the final bill won't roll back the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits churches from endorsing or fundraising for political candidates

Trump has promised evangelical Christian leaders that he will spike the Johnson Amendment during his presidency

'But after great thought and consideration, I believe that this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make U.S. businesses domestically more productive and internationally more competitive is one we should not miss.'

The Republicans' razor-thin margin for driving their sweeping tax package through the Senate was thrown into jeopardy Thursday with Rubio's apparent defection.

The Senate turmoil came on the same day that a key faction of House Republicans came out in favor of the bill, boosting its chances. Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus predicted that the vast majority of their members would support the package.

On Wednesday, House and Senate Republican leaders forged an agreement in principle on the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's tax laws in more than 30 years. The package would give generous tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest tax cuts to low- and middle-income families.

Confident Republican leaders predicted swift passage next week, sending the bill to Trump for his signature.

At the White House, Trump said he was confident that Rubio will get on board.

'He's really been a great guy and very supportive. I think that Senator Rubio will be there,' said Trump, who belittled Rubio during the Republican presidential primaries, calling him 'little Marco.'

Rubio said on Twitter that enlarging the child tax credit was 'a solid step' toward 'pro-growth and pro-worker' policies

During debate on the Senate version of the bill, Rubio offered an amendment that would have made the entire $2,000 credit available to families, even if they owe no income tax, but it was soundly defeated. To pay for the expanded credit, Rubio proposed to slightly scale back a steep cut in the corporate income tax rate.

A few days after the earlier Senate vote, Rubio tweeted a link to a news story that said GOP leaders were indeed considering scaling back the corporate tax cut  but not to pay for an expanded child tax credit.

'They freaked out when I proposed small reduction in Corporate tax cut to pay for cut for working families. Now this?' Rubio tweeted.

The final package slashes the corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The initial Senate and House bills had set it at 20 percent.

Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, said Senate negotiators got the best deal they could on the overall child tax credit. House GOP negotiators were proposing a $1,600 tax credit.

'We won everything in the child tax credit,' Portman said. When asked if it could be changed further to appease Rubio, Portman said, 'We've already won. I mean, we should celebrate our victory.'

Rubio's opposition comes at a bad time for Senate Republicans, with two of them missing votes this week because of illness.

John McCain of Arizona, who is 81, is at a Washington military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and 80-year-old Thad Cochran of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.

The tax legislation would cut the top tax rate for the wealthiest earners  Trump among them  from 39.6 per cent to 37 per cent.

The package would nearly double the standard deduction, to $24,000 for married couples. But it would scale back the deduction for state and local taxes, allowing families to deduct only up to a total of $10,000 in property and income taxes. The deduction is especially important to residents of high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California.

Business owners who report business income on their personal tax returns would be able to deduct 20 percent of that income.

The agreement also calls for repealing the mandate under the 'Obamacare' health law that requires most Americans to get health insurance, a step toward the ultimate GOP goal of unraveling the law.

The business tax cuts would be permanent, but reductions for individuals would expire in 2026  saving money to comply with Senate budget rules. In all, the bill would cut taxes by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, adding billions to the nation's mounting debt.

The tax package is polling badly among the public, but Republicans say that will turn around after Americans see the benefits.

'The results are going to be what sells this bill, not the confusion before it passes,' said Speaker Paul Ryan.
A mother has been arrested and charged with child abuse after child services found her six-year-old son weighing just 13 pounds.

Andrea Caldwell, from Memphis, Tennessee, was arrested on December 8 when an employee with the DCS conducted a routine visit to the boy and discovered he was severely underweight and neglected.

The 32-year-old has been charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect.

Her son was born with severe developmental disabilities that require a GI and feeding tube, according to WMC Action News 5. It's not clear what the specific developmental disabilities are.

Andrea Caldwell, from Memphis, Tennessee, was arrested on December 8 when an employee with the DCS conducted a routine visit to her six-year-old son and discovered he weighed 13 pounds and neglected (pictured left in her mugshot and right in a Facebook photo)

The Department of Child Services have been searching for the boy since May 2017 and finally found him staying with his family in a Welcome Inn hotel, pictured. He had missed 13 doctors appointments, which were required because he was born with severe developmental disabilities

Authorities told the news channel that the DCS has been searching for the boy, whose name hasn't been released, since May 2017.

They finally found him staying in Welcome Inn hotel on Summer Avenue near I-40 with his mother, younger brother and several other family members.

They have all been living there for the past few months.

Caldwell told the employee that she was feeding her son with Similac baby formula (STOCK IMAGE), which authorities have said wasn't enough food

The DCS employee said the boy was severely malnourished and had bruises on his body, matted hair, bed sores and smelled of urine.The employee also said that his GI and feeding tubes were dirty, clogged and appeared to be broken.

Caldwell told the employee that she was feeding her son with Similac baby formula, which authorities have said wasn't enough food and didn't meet his nutritional needs for his age.

They also said that Caldwell didn't use the free nutritional materials that were provided to her by social services, but didn't emphasize on why that may be.

Once the boy was brought to the hospital doctors realized he was only weighing 13 pounds - down from 40 pounds when he last visited in March 2017. The normal weight for a six-year-old boy is roughly 50 pounds.

The hospital and DCS records showed that Caldwell has missed nearly a year of medical appointments for the boy. Documents show she has cancelled or been a no-show at 13 appointments since April 2017.

But Caldwell's family members say the charges of child abuse are ridiculous.

'I just don't understand why this is happening,' her sister Angela Caldwell told WCA Action News 5.

'She's took very good care of him since he was born.'

Her family said that the charges against the mother are 'harsh', and said they took the child to Le Bonheur Children's hospital (pictured), where doctors told them that the boy was healthy and nothing was wrong

The family said that doctors at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital told them the boy was healthy and nothing was wrong when they took him in because they noticed he'd started to lose weight.

'We had him at La Bonheur in November saying he could not keep his food and stuff and they just told us to keep doing what we were doing,' grandmother June Caldwell told the outlet.

They said that the allegations are 'harsh,' but did admit that she missed a few appointments after the family lost their car.

'I know she's missed a few, but I don't think it was 13,' Angela told the news station.

The family also said they didn't know DCS has been searching for the boy since May.

DCS said it can often be difficult finding children if they aren't in school or daycare, and that they found the boy last Friday and immediately called for an ambulance.
A middle school teacher from Ohio has been charged with repeatedly having sex with a 14-year-old student on school property earlier this year.

Jessica Langford, 32, appeared in court on November 21 and pleaded not guilty to three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of sexual battery.

Langford, a married mother-of-one from Centerville, had taught math at Miamisburg Middle School for nine years, until she resigned her position in late May after allegations of sexual misconduct had come to light.

Charged: Jessica Langford (left and right), a former math teacher from Ohio, pleaded not guilty last month to three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of sexual battery

Quit: Langford had taught math at Miamisburg Middle School for nine years, until her resignation in May 2017

According to court documents cited by the Dayton Daily News, Langford is accused of twice performing oral sex on the teenage boy, twice receiving oral sex from him, and twice having sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old.

The suspected sexual contact between the teacher and student took place on May 23 inside the middle school, according to the documents.

Following her indictment last month, Langford was released on her own recognizance.

Video courtesy WDTN

Langford and her husband have been married for seven years, and a social media post on a relative's Facebook page (pictured right) suggests that the couple have a child

The 32-year-old suspect is currently free, having been released on her own recognizance

'This teacher violated her position of trust and authority by engaging in a relationship and abusing a minor student,' Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr told Fox 45 Now.

Langford and her husband have been married for seven years, and a social media post on a relative's Facebook page suggests that the couple have a four-year-old daughter together.
Jason Melo smirked in court Friday as he was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and forcing her walk the public street naked while he berated her and videotaped the incident.

The 26-year-old was found guilty by a New York State Supreme Court jury of the top charge he faced, coercion in the first degree, as well as assault in the third degree, menacing in the second degree, endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated harassment in the second degree.

In January 2016 he forced his girlfriend to walk down a Harlem street in the cold, naked - while he recorded.

He later uploaded it online as her punishment for messaging other men.

'Jason Melo assaulted his former girlfriend, then forced her to walk naked, in the middle of winter, down a public street while their two-month-old baby was left unattended upstairs,' District Attorney Cyrus Vance said.

'To further degrade her, he recorded the ordeal, then had the audacity to brag about his actions, sharing the video with multiple friends and even attempting to profit from it.

Jason Melo, 26, was convicted of coercion in the first degree, assault in the third degree and other charges after he abused and tortured his ex-girlfriend in January 2016 for speaking to other men

Melo was found guilty of the crimes Friday by a jury in New York State Supreme Court

Melo smirked and covered his face in court as he was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend and forcing her walk the public street naked while he berated her and videotaped the incident

The abusive Melo posed for photographers as he awaiting his trial Friday in New York City

'This defendant has never demonstrated an ounce of remorse for his disgusting and violent conduct. I thank the survivor in this case for her incredible bravery in coming forward and testifying against her former domestic partner at trial. Thankfully, because of her courage, he is being held accountable.'

On Monday, the 24-year-old victim burst into tears on the stand as jurors watched the footage in shock.

'He grabbed my neck, and forced it really hard. I was losing breath,' the woman testified.

The woman, whose name has been withheld said Melo, 'tortured' her for two hours before he pushed her out into the cold and pulled out his cell phone out for the extreme incident.

'He was saying many things, like I'm a whore, I could kill you right now, I'm capable of anything,' the woman told the court.

The woman, whose name has been withheld said Melo, 'tortured' her for two hours before he pushed her out into the cold and pulled out his cell phone to record her

The ordeal lasted for several hours as Melo threatened to kill her after finding explicit texts from other men on her cell phone.

Melo also allegedly swung a heavy stone Buddha statue at her, as if he intended to bash her head in, while their two-month old daughter lay on the bed, just feet away.

In the footage which was posted to Instagram and LiveLeak, Melo could be seen following the partner, wrapped in a bath towel, down the block while he spewed profanities at her in Spanish.

In the two-minute clip which was seen by jurors on Monday, Melo was seen pulling the towel away forcing her to stand between two parked cars in an attempt to cover her modesty.

Melo ordered her: 'Take off your towel! Co-operate b***h. Show what you are, so pretty and so great. She's a tart. Let's go. Let's go. Say hi to the camera and say why you're doing this.

Melo pictured listening to testimony from his ex-girlfriend in court. He allegedly tried to profit off his twisted fame by trying to sell merchandise with quotes from the degrading footage

The woman, who is initially wearing a towel, is then stripped and made to walk around in the street while trying desperately to cover herself with the dust jacket from a motorcycle (right)

'Take off your towel and pay the price for the shame I feel after telling you how pretty you were and that I wanted to start a family with you, but it the meantime you were talking to seven other men.'

The woman retorts: 'But not to have sex with them.'

He then rips the towel from her, leaving her completely naked in the street, apart from a pair of boots. As she tried to hide between parked cars, he continued to hurl insults at her.

'Pay the price for your shame!' he bellowed at her. 'You're going to pay the price for being a whore. Since you're a whore, you're going to pay like a whore.

'There, on the trash, exactly,' he sneered as she stopped by some trashcans. 'Pose with your trash.'

Melo has been charged with coercion, assault, aggravated harassment, menacing, criminal obstruction of breathing and endangering the welfare of a child

Prosecutors said Melo sent the footage to various contacts on her phone and that it was posted online and went viral

The woman eventually wrapped herself in a motorcycle cover while Melo continued to film.

She was left with bruising, swelling and pain after the violence, which she called police to inform of the following day.

Adding insult to injury, Melo later tried to sell merchandise based on the video, including t-shirts and hats bearing his quotes.

One flat-billed cap bore the phrase, 'Let's go, participa,' which Melo says in the video.

At the time of his arrest, Melo defended his actions by saying: 'I didn't hit her or anything. Even the detectives are here with me and some of them congratulated me because they see how happy she is and I didn't pull her hair or anything.

'Some of the other prisoners are also on my side and they say some of them would have done worse things.'

Meanwhile, the woman he beat has revealed that she was terrified of Melo.

She told Univision: 'He started threatening me, he threatened to slash my face.'

She said that since the incident occurred, she began hiding out in her apartment, afraid, while she takes care of her newborn daughter.
Crews are beginning to get a handle on the Legion Lake Fire that has burned more than 84 square miles.

The wildfire is now 50 percent contained and has burned 53,875 acres, Legion Lake Fire Information said in a news release Thursday. That containment is up from 10 percent Wednesday night.

The cause of the fire has been confirmed as a fallen power line in the area of Wilson's Corner, one mile northeast of Legion Lake in Custer State Park. The fire started around 7:30 a.m. Monday morning.

Snow in the area of the fire Wednesday night helped slow down the blaze, according to fire officials. Even with the snow, they warned that conditions are still dry within the fire perimeter.

On Thursday, crews mopped up and held lines north of Fusion Canyon, where the highest fire activity remains.

The Legion Lake Fire is the third-largest wildfire in modern Black Hills history. The largest, the Jasper Fire, burned more than 80,000 acres in 2000.

All evacuation orders for residents who live in areas threatened by the fire have been lifted, but Custer State Park remains closed. Mail delivery in Fairburn resumed after being suspended on Wednesday, and the Red Cross Shelter at Hermosa School has closed.

During a South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks meeting Thursday, secretary Kelly Hepler said no structures have been touched by the blaze and light snow might be on the way Saturday to help crews.

Hepler said the fire burned through a major part of the buffalo range inside the park. He said the park staff don't want to be in competition with the private landowners who have also lost hay, and the park staff need to determine how to address the situation in a way favorable for landowners.

GF&P Commission Chairman Barry Jensen of White River said its important for the commission to give the department an opportunity to assess what has occurred.

In a news release on Thursday, Custer State Park Superintendent Matt Snyder urged people to donate hay to area landowners and thanked those who have offered to help the park.

"We have neighbors and private landowners who have been impacted by this fire," he said. "At this time, we are looking to give them assistance."

Those wishing to donate hay are asked to email Farm Rescue at info@farmrescue.org or call 701-252-2017.

Photos: Large wildfire burning in South Dakota's Black Hills
Raymond Leuser, 48, was ordered held without bond on Thursday in Chicago

A police sergeant has been arrested for allegedly shooting his 22-year-old son for stealing vodka and replacing it with water.

Raymond Leuser, a 48-year-old sergeant with the Indian Head Park Police, was ordered held without bail on Thursday in the shooting in his home in Chicago's Clearing neighborhood.

Prosecutors say that on Monday, Leuser called in sick from his job in suburban Indian Head Park, where he has served on the police force for 20 years.

Later Monday, Leuser was seen on surveillance video picking up pizza, popcorn and Smirnoff vodka, according to prosecutors.

That night, say prosecutors, Leuser's son swiped three shots of the vodka and poured water into the bottle to replace the missing booze, thinking his father would be none the wiser.

Leuser (right in a family snap) called in sick from work on Monday and picked up a bottle of Smirnoff vodka (seen left in stock photo), pizza and popcorn

The shooting occurred in Leuser's home on this block in Clearing, a Chicago neighborhood near Midway Airport popular with civil servants

Around 2.30am on Tuesday, the son was in the basement of Leuser's home in Clearing, a neighborhood near Midway Airport popular with civil servants.

As the son went upstairs to investigate he heard a 'guttural yell', Assistant States Attorney Erin Antonietti said at a hearing reported by the Chicago Tribune.

The father fired multiple shots, hitting his son in both shoulders, the stomach and thigh, prosecutors said.

Leuser called 911 to report that a shooting had occurred, but then hung up as the operator tried to gather more information.

Police say Leuser shot his son four times

He surrendered with his hands up when officers arrived and told them 'he's in the basement', police say.

The son was rushed to the hospital in critical condition but survived, and police say he told investigators that his father had shot him four times.

Police found two .45 caliber guns in the house, one empty and one loaded.

Leuser is a Marine Corps veteran who is unmarried with one other child, his lawyer said.

His defense attorney has suggested that the shooting was in self defense, noting that Leuser had a black eye and scratches.

But prosecutors have dismissed that idea, saying police found no sign of a struggle at the house.

At Thursday's hearing, Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. ordered Leuser held without bail on charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery, calling the prosecutor's story 'disturbing'.

Leuser is next due in court on December 28.
A mother repeatedly gave her son anti-psychotic drugs and poison in a desperate bid to avoid being forced to travel to Syria by her jihadi husband, a court heard.

The 27-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deliberately gave the medication to the boy to make him unwell over a period of six weeks between August and October 2015.

On several occasions, while he was treated in hospital, she contaminated intravenous tubes used to administer antibiotics with an unknown noxious substance, believed to have been faeces or sink cleaner.

The woman, from London, claimed she was seeking to keep the young boy in hospital as she believed he would be safer there, Kingston Crown Court was told.

The woman, from London, claimed she was seeking to keep the young boy in hospital as she believed he would be safer there, Kingston Crown Court (pictured) was told

She was jailed for four years and six months on Friday after previously pleading guilty to eight charges, including administering a noxious substance to endanger life.

Defending, Kate O'Raghallaigh said the woman decided to deliberately make her son poorly after he spent time in hospital for an unrelated illness.

She said the woman was in 'total panic' and under pressure to take her son to join the Caliphate in Syria from her now-former husband.

'That is how the idea came to life,' Ms O'Raghallaigh told the court.

'Because it coincided with that period of pressure and panic ... she began to realise that if she made him ill, the hospital would have to take him in.

'As long as he was admitted, so she thought, he was safe, perverse as that thought process.'

Defending, Kate O'Raghallaigh said the woman was in 'total panic' and under pressure to take her son to join the Caliphate in Syria from her now-former husband. Pictured: A fanatic waves the ISIS flag on top of a captured Syrian government fighter jet

The boy, who was admitted to hospital on multiple occasions between August 23 and October 29, suffered severe neurological symptoms and bacterial infections, and at one point fell into a coma.

The bacteria in his blood is also found in the bowel and in hospital sinks and drains, tests revealed.

He has since recovered and has shown no long-term damage as a result of his illness.

The judge acknowledged that the woman had decided to pursue the 'extreme course of action' to avoid what she perceived as the 'greater harm' of travelling to Syria. Pictured: An ISIS fanatic in Raqqa in 2014

The woman admitted one count of endangering life by administering olanzapine and four lesser counts of administering the anti-psychotic drug at earlier hearings.

She also pleaded guilty to three counts of administering an unknown noxious substance using a cannula while the boy was in hospital.

The woman was caught when hospital staff noticed the boy's condition would improve during the day and worsen again in the evening when his mother was present.

His unexplained illness stopped when 24-hour nursing was introduced.

Sentencing, Judge Peter Lodder QC said: 'This was repeated behaviour. It was not isolated.

'You knew that your son would have to undergo painful invasive procedures and on October 29, what you gave your son was a potentially lethal dose.'

He acknowledged that the woman had decided to pursue the 'extreme course of action' to avoid what she perceived as the 'greater harm' of travelling to Syria.

But he said she could have raised her concerns with hospital staff, instead choosing to persist with making her son ill.

Judge Lodder said: 'What you were inflicting on that young child threatened the very life you claim you were seeking to protect and that must have become apparent to you.'
Forget a designer dog-breed. This wealthy animal-lover is eager to show off his family of pet tigers that he drives around in his Rolls Royce Phantom.

The Instagram video shows the tigers owner, Michael Zaretsky, sitting in the driver seat of his luxury car at his home in Russia.

A tiger then climbs through the car's window, over Zaretsky and into the backseat.

The back seat door is then opened allowing two smaller tigers into the car before the driver casually pulls off appearing to take his big cats for a spin.

According to his Youtube channel Zaretsky rescues, treats and looks after abandoned predators.

He is said to have been training animals for 17 years such as lions and tigers.

The tiger approaches the vehicle and then prepares to climb in the driver's window, over the owner and into the back seat
A man from Washington state has been charged with sexually assaulting his 12-year-old stepdaughter from the time she was just eight years old and forcing her to have incestuous sex with her older half-brother.

Police in the City of Black Diamond arrested the 38-year-old stepfather on December 8, a day after the alleged victim confided in a friend at her middle school that she had been subjected to prolonged sexual abuse at home.

When school officials interviewed the girl, the 12-year-old revealed that she felt suicidal after suffering years of sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather and half-brother, who is now aged 17.

Sickening charges: A 38-year-old man from Black Diamond, Washington, has been charged with raping his 12-year-old stepdaughter from the time she was eight years old, and forcing his teenage son to have sex with his half-sister

The 38-year-old suspected child rapist has been charged with first-degree child rape, second-degree child rape and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, as SeattlePI.com first reported.

His son was taken into protective custody. During a taped interview with investigators, the 17-year-old boy reportedly confessed that he had been having sex with his half-sister 'for a long time,' and that at times the father would join them.

The 38-year-old man lived in Black Diamond with his son and stepdaughter. According to the girl, the abuse started in the summer of 2013, when she was eight years old, and continued for the next four years.

The middle-schooler told police her latest sexual encounter with her stepfather took place in October.

The alleged victim said one time her stepdad took her to a pharmacy to bay a 'morning after' pill to prevent a pregnancy after his condom broke

The child also told investigators that on one occasion, her stepdad drove her to a Walgreens pharmacy in Covington to purchase a 'morning after' pill to prevent a pregnancy after his condom broke during intercourse.

The girl also said that during her sexual encounters with her stepbrother, her stepdad would take photographs and record the abuse on video.
A few days ago, a haunting photograph of a missing child was put up on Scotland Yards website.

It showed a short-haired boy with hazel eyes who had arrived alone in Britain last July without any proof of who he is or how he got here.

When he was discovered wandering the streets in South London, he said his name was Huang Ngoc Vo, that he was 14 years old, and from Vietnam. He was given a home with foster parents nearby.

And there the matter might have rested, with the migrant child receiving the best help Britain could offer.

A police officer surveys a huge cannabis farm that was discovered in a disused nuclear bunker in Wiltshire earlier this year

From left: Quang Dang Le, 16, Ha Van Le, 16, and Ha Van Nguyen, 16

But in October, telling his foster family he was visiting the local library in Bexley, the boy vanished into thin air.

The police, whove asked the public to help trace him, say he had run away from his foster parents home on two previous occasions, only to be rescued from an address ten miles away in Peckham, South London.

This time they went there, but could not find him. Hed completely disappeared.

Sadly, Huangs story is becoming disturbingly familiar  and offers a glimpse into a growing child slave trade in Britain.

According to the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, there are 1.7 million to 3.6 million active cannabis users in the UK, consuming between 620 and 1,400 tonnes each year with an estimated market value of between 2.9 billion and 8.6 billion

From left: Tran Tam, 17, Linh Nguyen, 17, Huyen Thanh Thi Nguyen, 16

Only last week, the Mail reported how 13 Vietnamese children vanished after arriving in Britain in the back of a lorry.

The ten boys and three girls (pictured) disappeared one by one after being put into care by social workers.

Aged between 14 and 18, they got into Britain illicitly between June and September, and were housed in Northampton and Corby before running away.

Now, the police  who issued a set of pictures, including one of a boy crying  are desperately trying to find them.

Since 2015, 150 Vietnamese migrant children have disappeared from care or foster homes here, never to be seen again.

Most of the cannabis available in the UK was once imported illegally, but by 2010 most marijuana was home-grown

From left: Trong Nguyen, 16, Khoa Anh Yu, 17, and Khoa Anh Yu, 14

Nearly 90 more have gone missing and were only found after police searches, according to local authority figures published in October.

They are the victims of unscrupulous trafficking gangs who smuggle them from Vietnam into the UK for enormous sums, before forcing them to repay their debts by working in the secretive cannabis-growing industry, or prostitution, two-bit restaurants and nail bars found on most High Streets.

The children are terrified of what the trafficking gangs might do to their families back in Vietnam if their huge travel debts go unpaid.

For that reason, many rescued and taken into care escape and run back to the gangs  who brought them here with the sole intention of transforming them into child slaves to repay the money.

The industry in this country is largely reliant on Vietnamese child migrants who work night and day in properties turned into cannabis factories

From left: Ho Sy Hoang, 16, Lihn Van Nguyen, 15, Tung Anh Le, 18, Quang Trong Nguyen, 17

All this may seem unbelievable in modern, civilised Britain, but it is a scandal driven by the booming cannabis trade.

According to the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, there are 1.7 million to 3.6 million active cannabis users in the UK, consuming between 620 and 1,400 tonnes each year with an estimated market value of between 2.9 billion and 8.6 billion.

Most of the cannabis available in the UK was once imported illegally, but by 2010 most marijuana was home-grown.

Now, criminals are harvesting so much of the stuff that they are exporting it.

The industry in this country is largely reliant on Vietnamese child migrants who work night and day in properties turned into cannabis factories.

Children have been found in all sorts of places being used to grow cannabis: a redbrick terrace house on a Liverpool suburban road, a rented two-storey home in Plymouth with marijuana plants from cellar to attic, and even a 40-room former underground nuclear bunker in Wiltshire.

Now the Mail has traced how these unfortunate children come to Britain.

And it is often after waiting in shadowy holding camps on the northern French coast, one of which is aptly nicknamed Vietnam City.

Hidden in woodland, on the site of an old coalmine 60 miles from Calais, Vietnam City houses up to 100 Vietnamese migrants, a number of them children, at any one time.

The camp is on the edge of the town of Angres. One person who has seen it with her own eyes is Mimi Vu, a director of the anti-trafficking charity Pacific Links Foundation, who has visited twice in the past year.

In a report last month she said: Everyone in the camp planned on working in nail salons in the UK, even though none had prior experience or training as nail technicians.

'They live [in France] temporarily  between a week and two months  until they are able to get onto a lorry to the UK.

Traffickers force youngster to repay their debts by working in the secretive cannabis-growing industry, or prostitution, two-bit restaurants and nail bars found on most High Streets

Few expected to be put to work in cannabis farms, and did not believe the warning from the charity that thats where they would end up  or even worse.

Sadly, Vietnam City is not the only migrant holding camp in northern France.

They are dotted up and down the coast near lorry parks, where traffickers wait until night to push hapless youngsters into vehicles  with or without the connivance of the driver  to reach the UK.

Two that I have visited  at Teteghem and Grand Synthe, both near Dunkirk  have since been closed by the authorities to try to halt trafficking.

But when I went inside them in the past two years, they were full of Vietnamese who said everyone had paid a trafficking gang to get to that point, and were prepared to pay 3,000 more each to get to Britain.

Children have been found in all sorts of places being used to grow cannabis - even a 40-room former underground nuclear bunker in Wiltshire (pictured)

A police officers inspects harvested cannabis at a disused nuclear bunker in Wiltshire that was being used as a cannabis factory

Most migrants, whether old or young, in the French holding camps have fled rural poverty in their own country, according to the French charity Terre dAsile (or Land of Asylum).

The average wage for Vietnamese agricultural labourers is 88 a month, yet some have sold everything to pay traffickers up to 33,000 to get first to France, and then be smuggled across the Channel into the UK.

The traffickers promise children work in Europe.

Their parents re-mortgage or sell land off to pay for the journey, according to a member of the anti-trafficking agency Ecpat UK.

She added: They arrive  in debt with interest accruing on top. Traffickers tell children if they try to escape them, they will hurt them, or their family in Vietnam. It is a real threat because the gangs know where the families are.

And here in Britain, the childrens problems get even worse as they become caught in a struggle between the council care system and the police on one side  and the gangs who want them in their clutches to set them to work as slaves on the other.

Thats why police forces from all over Britain launch appeals every week to find missing Vietnamese children.

Indeed, the NSPCC has said that a fifth of those referred to its child-trafficking advice centre are Vietnamese.

Police estimate the bulk of British cannabis is grown by young Vietnamese who have been smuggled here

Last month Shropshire Council was left with a 1million bill for looking after ten highly vulnerable Vietnamese children aged between 13 and 16 who ended up in the county after travelling to the UK in the back of a lorry.

In November, police in Preston issued an appeal for five missing Vietnamese children.

Officers said they were growing increasingly concerned for the welfare of the boys, who they believed entered the country illegally.

In the summer, Rochdale Council was in charge of 12 youngsters who had been in its care for just two days before they vanished.

Ecpat UK has released figures which show that 96 per cent of the identified victims forced into cannabis cultivation in 2012, for example, were Vietnamese, and 81 per cent of those were children

They had been found at a motorway service station during an immigration search. Social workers didnt have time to check their ages.

Meanwhile, back in March three teenagers, Tuan Van Nguyen, thought to be 14, Dung Dinh and Cong Van Nguyen, both believed to be 17, were reported missing in the Shrewsbury area.

Some of these Vietnamese youngsters disappear for years before they are found by police. Many are not so lucky, and vanish off the radar for ever. The reason is simple.

In recent years criminal gangs have moved away from growing the drug in large buildings, such as out-of-town warehouses, to rented suburban houses

Police estimate the bulk of British cannabis is grown by young Vietnamese who have been smuggled here. More children are trafficked into the UK from Vietnam than any other part of the world.

Ecpat UK has released figures which show that 96 per cent of the identified victims forced into cannabis cultivation in 2012, for example, were Vietnamese, and 81 per cent of those were children.

Worrying numbers, for sure, but then police say 20 new cannabis farms and factories are discovered every day, many of which use enslaved Vietnamese migrant children brought here by traffickers.

In recent years criminal gangs have moved away from growing the drug in large buildings, such as out-of-town warehouses, to rented suburban houses.

This allows them to spread the risk of detection and potential loss of income. If one farm  defined as anywhere with 25 plants or more  is raided by police, then others in the same network can continue their work.

Last year, for example, police raided a former Barclays Bank in Grimsby and a recently vacated GP surgery in Harlow: both had been found operating as cannabis farms tended by Vietnamese.

In January, landord Helen Jenkins got a tremendous shock when the police called to say they had raided a two-bedroom house she owned in Plymouth to discover a cannabis farm. They had found a Vietnamese boy there, with injuries to his face, who said he was 13.

Helen had let her property to a delightful woman for three years who then  without her knowledge  sub-let it.

By the time Helen got there, police had removed the plants, leaving 400 pots full of soil.

The freezer was full of food, suggesting that the boy had been left with supplies to keep him going on his own for some time.

With so much money to be made, there is a never-ending criminal demand for frightened and indebted child workers to cultivate the drug

The gang running the farm had nailed up the back gate, so no one could get in or out, said Helen, adding: The house was wrecked. It was filthy, there was soil everywhere.

'There was a huge hole in the ceiling with big ventilation ducts coming down. There was foil all over the walls, loads of ultraviolet lamps and the doors had disappeared or were wrecked.

And so it goes on.

Philippa Southwell is a London lawyer who helps the young slave workers and stops them being prosecuted for immigration offences.

She said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Once they arrive in Britain, the youngsters are kept prisoners by their traffickers and forced to tend cannabis to pay off their debt.

'Its very dangerous. The electricity has been tapped from the mains, there are live wires everywhere. The windows are almost always nailed shut so they cant leave.

With so much money to be made, there is a never-ending criminal demand for frightened and indebted child workers to cultivate the drug.

One Vietnamese boy was discovered alone and placed with foster parents after being trafficked into the UK.

He then went missing, but not before he left a note apologising to his fosterers for upsetting them. They are threatening my sister back home, I have to go, he wrote.

The traffickers are rarely caught but this month there was an exception.

A Romanian who hid five Vietnamese teenagers inside a two-man tent he put up in the back of a car was jailed for four years after pleading guilty at Canterbury Crown Court to assisting unlawful immigration.

Claudiu Pricope, 29, hoped to fool border guards at the UK checkpoint near Calais as he tried to enter the Channel Tunnel to Britain with his human cargo.

The car was searched and the teenagers, two boys and three girls, were found crouching in unbearably hot conditions and handed over to French police.

Yet the truth is they are unlikely to give up on trying to get to Britain.

There are plenty of other greedy traffickers in Vietnam and over the Channel who will peddle them lies about a new life of milk and honey working in the UK.

In reality they are, of course, destined only for a terrifying existence of slavery in a country where it was supposed to have been stamped out centuries ago.
Advertisement

A stunning visualisation of Greenland without its ice cover has been revealed, and it could help experts understand how this huge expanse might respond to climate change.

Made from decades of survey data, researchers have found if all the ice on Greenland melted it would raise sea levels by 24 feet (7.4 metres).

The visualisation shows the shape of the bedrock and surrounding seafloor, revealing how glaciers draining from the Greenland Ice Sheet will contribute to future sea-level rise.

Scroll down for video

The visualisation (pictured), created using a mixture of radio echo-sounding, shows the shape of the bedrock and surrounding seafloor, revealing how glaciers draining from the Greenland Ice Sheet will contribute to future sea-level rise. The highest peaks are coloured in red while the lowest-lying land is coloured green. Sea-level is coloured in blue

GREENLAND ICE LOSS Made from decades of survey data, researchers have found if all the ice on Greenland melted it would raise sea levels by 24 feet (7.4 metres). Researchers found Greenland is currently losing around 260 million tonnes of ice to the ocean each year. Looking at the hidden landscape, researchers are now confident ice streams on top of the valley systems were cut by rivers that flowed across Greenland before there was an ice sheet. Melt-water continues to flow beneath the glaciers, lubricating flow. The data required to compile the map was collected from many sources  from satellite, airborne and ground-based radar and seabed mapping from research ships. Advertisement

Produced by researchers at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), University of Bristol and University of California at Irvine (UCI), the printed map is unveiled this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans.

'Greenland Basal Topography BedMachine v3' is the new 1:3,500,000 scale map created from data collected by over 30 institutions', said BAS cartographer Dr Peter Fretwell, who was involved in producing the map.

'This new compilation of the 3D landscape beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet provides the first seamless transition between the landmass and its adjoining seabed, and this gives scientists a bird's eye view of the fringes of Greenland which are experiencing the most changes', he said.

The visualisation, created with the help of radar that is able to penetrate through clouds and ice, shows the highest peaks in red and the lowest-lying land coloured in green. Sea-level is coloured in blue.

Researchers found Greenland is currently losing around 260 million tonnes of ice to the ocean each year, writes BBC.

Looking at the hidden landscape, researchers are now confident ice streams on top of the valley systems were cut by rivers that flowed across Greenland before there was an ice sheet.

Melt-water continues to flow beneath the glaciers, lubricating flow.

'What's also surprising is that there is more ice and the bed is deeper in some places than previous maps suggest, so this means the total contribution from the ice sheet to global sea level rise would be 7.42 metres [24 feet] if it were to melt completely, slightly higher than previously calculated', said Dr Fretwell.

The data required to compile the map was collected from many sources  from satellite, airborne and ground-based radar and seabed mapping from research ships.

It reveals that many glaciers that drain the Greenland ice sheet are thicker than previously estimated and up to 330 feet (100 metres) in places.

Produced by researchers at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), University of Bristol and University of California at Irvine (UCI), the printed map is unveiled this week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans

The visualisation shows the shape of the bedrock and surrounding seafloor, revealing how glaciers draining from the Greenland Ice Sheet will contribute to future sea-level rise. The highest peaks are coloured red

'It also shows they have complex fjord geometries that will control how they react to changes from the effects of warmer ocean currents', said glaciologist Dr Jonathan Bamber at University of Bristol who had a project to develop the printed map and data set.

'This map will improve our understanding of the ice-ocean interactions and how the ice sheet will evolve in a changing climate.'

Andreas Ahlstrm and colleagues from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland used measurements of meltwater runoff and glacial lake outbursts (where a body of water contained by a glacier overflows).

They collected this data at a catchment during a 40-year period of the ice sheet's life.

The catchment measured discharge from over 4,000 square miles (6,500 square kilometers) of the ice sheet, including several ice caps, that feed into lake Tasersiaq in Southwest Greenland.

The authors found an abrupt 80 per cent increase in runoff occurring between 1976 to 2002 and 2003 to 2014.

The meltwater river draining Lake Tasersiaq - water is opaque due to glacial sediments. The authors found an abrupt 80 per cent increase in runoff occurring between 1976 to 2002 and 2003 to 2014

Icebergs from the Greenland ice sheet near Ilulissat, West Greenland. Looking at the hidden landscape, researchers are now confident ice streams on top of the valley systems were cut by rivers that flowed before there was an ice sheet

The catchment measured discharge from over 4,000 square miles (6,500 square kilometers) of the ice sheet, including several ice caps, that feed into lake Tasersiaq (pictured)

With further analysis, they correlated this increase in water loss to changes in atmosphere circulation  such as increased north-south and south-north wind flows, frequent periods of stagnant weather, and a wavy jet stream.

These are all patterns connected to global warming.

Some of the deep fjords have tall ridges that stop warm bottom-water coming in.

'What we're starting to understand is that adjacent marine-terminating glaciers that are experiencing the same changes in forcing - in other words, the same changes in the ocean - can respond in very different ways, depending on the geometry of the fjord in which they lie', Dr Bamber told BBC News.

'So, the better we can constrain these geometries, the better we will be able to model the interaction between the ice sheet and the ocean. At AGU, there are lots of sessions on this interaction. It's kind of the big thing at the moment'.

Meltwater lake on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. Researchers correlated this increase in water loss to changes in atmosphere circulation  such as increased wind flows, frequent periods of stagnant weather, and a wavy jet stream

The meltwater river draining Lake Tasersiaq. They collected this data at from this catchment during a 40-year period of the ice sheet's life
They were first described in the writings of Hippocrates 2,500 years ago, and now scientists have discovered evidence of parasitic worms in ancient Greece.

Scientists analysed faeces from prehistoric burials on the Greek island of Kea and discovered eggs from two species of parasitic worm dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.

This new archaeological evidence identifies beyond doubt some of the species of parasites that infected people in the region.

Scroll down for video

Scientists analysed faeces from prehistoric burials on the Greek island of Kea and discovered eggs from two species of parasitic worm dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. Pictured left is the whipworm, and right the roundworm

WHO WAS HIPPOCRATES? Hippocrates was born in 460 BC on the Greek island of Cos. The Greek physician lived during Greeces Classical period and is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine. About 60 medical writings have survived that bear his name  although most of these were not written by him. He has been revered for his ethical standards in medical practice, mainly for the Hippocratic Oath  which is still practised by doctors today. Advertisement

Researchers from the University of Cambridge used microscopes to study soil formed from decomposed faeces from the surface of pelvic bones of skeletons buried in the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Roman periods.

They discovered eggs from two species of parasitic worm  whipworm and roundworm - in the soil.

The parasites were first described by Hippocrates  a medical practitioner from the Greek island of Cos, who lived in the 5th and 4th centuries BC.

Along with his students, Hippocrates described many diseases in his medical texts.

Until now, historians had to rely on Hippocrates' written descriptions of intestinal worms to guess which parasites they may have been.

The faeces was collected during an excavation of the Bronze Age site of Ayia Irini on the island of Kea in the early 1970s

KEY FINDINGS Researchers used microscopes to study soil formed from decomposed faeces from the surface of pelvic bones of skeletons buried in the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Roman periods. They discovered eggs from two species of parasitic worm  whipworm and roundworm - in the soil. The parasites were first described by Hippocrates 2,500 years ago. In the Hippocratic Corpus  a collection of 60 texts written by Hippocrates  symptoms associated with infection by these parasites include vomiting up worms, diarrhoea, fevers and shivers, heartburn, weakness, and swelling of the abdomen. Treatments suggested by Hippocrates included medicines such as the crushed root of the wild herb seseli mixed with water and honey taken as a drink. Advertisement

But this new archaeological evidence identifies beyond doubt some of the species of parasites that infected people in the region.

Dr Piers Mitchell, lead author of the study, said: 'The Helmins strongyle worm in the ancient Greek texts is likely to have referred to roundworm, as found at Kea.

'The Ascaris worm described in the ancient medical texts may well have referred to two parasites, pinworm and whipworm, with the latter being found at Kea.

'Until now we only had estimates from historians as to what kinds of parasites were described in the ancient Greek medical texts.

'Our research confirms some aspects of what the historians thought, but also adds new information that the historians did not expect, such as that whipworm was present.'

In the Hippocratic Corpus  a collection of 60 texts written by Hippocrates  symptoms associated with infection by these parasites include vomiting up worms, diarrhoea, fevers and shivers, heartburn, weakness, and swelling of the abdomen.

Hippocrates was born in 460 BC on the Greek island of Cos. The Greek physician lived during Greeces Classical period and is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine

Treatments suggested by Hippocrates included medicines such as the crushed root of the wild herb seseli mixed with water and honey taken as a drink.

Dr Evilena Anastasiou, one of the authors of the study, said: 'Finding the eggs of intestinal parasites as early as the Neolithic period in Greece is a key advance in our field.

'This provides the earliest evidence for parasitic worms in ancient Greece.'
More than 120 clips of newly declassified nuclear tests have been posted to YouTube to immortalise the historic footage online.

A weapons physicist is meticulously scanning films of devastating detonations captured by United States military researchers between 1945 and 1962.

As well as saving the footage before the film it is stored on deteriorates, nuclear scientists are using the scanned footage to improve weapons simulations.

US NUCLEAR TESTS Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted more than 1,054 nuclear arms tests. Two hundred and ten of these blasts were atmospheric nuclear tests over remote sites in New Mexico, Nevada, and both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. With several cameras to capture each detonation, the tests yielded roughly 10,000 recordings which have since been left to be slowly decay in high-security vaults. Dr Gregg Spriggs and his team at Lawrence Livermore have spent five years restoring 6,500 videos in an attempt to preserve the test footage. Advertisement

The US military hasn't conducted a nuclear test since 1992, now preferring to use computer simulations to calculate the impact of newly developed weapons.

'It's been 25 years since the last nuclear test, and computer simulations have become our virtual test ground - but those simulations are only as good as the data they're based on,' said lead researcher Dr Gregg Spriggs, a weapons physicist at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California.

'Accurate data is what enables us to ensure the stockpile remains safe, secure and effective without having to return to testing.'

Data collected using the decades-old footage has shown that original estimates about the yield of the explosions was 20 to 30 per cent off.

It has allowed researchers to get a more accurate measure of each fireball's growth, and better determine the tests' yields, to improve modern simulations.

Dr Spriggs and his Lawrence Livermore team posted 62 newly declassified atmospheric nuclear test videos to YouTube this week.

Clips include footage of nuclear test 'Nutmeg', detonated on a barge in the Pacific Ocean as part of Operation Hardtrack in May 1958.

More than 120 clips of newly declassified nuclear tests have been posted to YouTube to immortalise the historic footage online. Pictured is a clip of a nuclear test codenamed 'Nutmeg', detonated as part of Operation Hardtrack in May 1958

A weapons physicist is meticulously scanning films of devastating detonations captured by United States military researchers between 1945 and 1962. Pictured is a still of the 'Turk' nuclear test, detonated as part of Operation Teapot in March 1955

A video of the US military's 'Turk' test also features, which was detonated in the Nevada desert as part of Operation Teapot in March 1955.

Clips of tests from Operations Harlem, Bighorn and Dominic, all detonated on US soil the 1960's, were also uploaded by the team.

Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted more than 1,054 nuclear arms tests.

Two hundred and ten of these blasts were 'atmospheric' nuclear tests over remote sites in New Mexico, Nevada, and both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

As well as saving the footage before the film it is stored on deteriorates, scientists are using the scanned files, such as this still from a clip of the March 1955 Turk nuclear test, to improve weapons simulations

With several cameras to capture each detonation, the tests yielded roughly 10,000 recordings which have since been left to be slowly decay in high-security vaults.

The Lawrence Livermore researchers have spent five years restoring 6,500 videos in an attempt to preserve nuclear test footage.

'We've received a lot of demand for these videos and the public has a right to see this footage,' Dr Spriggs said.

Pictured is a nuclear test codenamed 'Tesla' that was detonated by US military researchers in March 1955. The US military hasn't conducted a nuclear test since 1992, now preferring to use computer simulations to calculate the impact of newly developed weapons

RESCUING THE FILMS In the post-nuclear-testing-era, these data are critical in ensuring the effectiveness and safety of today's nuclear stockpile. Decades ago, analysts manually went through the footage using a tool called a kodagraph to enlarge the image on a single frame, shine it onto a grid, and measure the fireball and shockwave. Now, with the help of modern technology and software experts, the team has developed tools to automate many of the processes, including determining the frame rate of each camera. But, the new effort has revealed major discrepancies in the numbers, indicating that many of the original analyses are wrong. Some figures were off by 20 or 30 per cent. The new effort has allowed researchers to get a more accurate measure of the fireball growth, and better determine the test's yield. This could help to ensure we 'never have to use a nuclear weapon ever again,' Dr Spriggs said, as long as the stockpile continues to be a deterrent. Advertisement

'Not only are we preserving history, but we're getting much more consistent answers with our calculations.'

The latest batch is the second the team have posted online after the first was uploaded in March, taking the total number of videos to 125.

They have scanned 4,200 films so far, and 750 have been declassified, with the remaining set to be published as they are scanned and approved for public release.

Many of the film canisters retrieved by the team have sat unopened for decades.

'You can smell vinegar when you open the cans, which is one of the by-products of the decomposition process of these films,' Dr Spriggs said in an interview in March.

'We know that these films are on the brink of decomposing to the point where they'll become useless.

'The data that we're collecting now must be preserved in a digital form because no matter how well you treat the films, no matter how well you preserve or store them, they will decompose.'

Decades ago, analysts manually went through the footage using a tool called a kodagraph to enlarge the image on a single frame, shine it onto a grid, and measure the fireball and shockwave.

Between 1945 and 1962, the US conducted more than 1,054 nuclear arms tests. Two hundred and ten of these blasts were 'atmospheric' nuclear tests over remote sites in New Mexico, Nevada, and both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Pictured is the March 1955 Turk detonation

Now, with the help of modern technology and software experts, the team has developed tools to automate many of the processes, including determining the frame rate of each camera.

The new effort has revealed major discrepancies in the numbers collected by 20th century scientists, indicating that many of the original analyses are wrong.

'When you go to validate your computer codes, you want to use the best data possible,' Dr Spriggs said.

Now, with the help of modern technology and software experts, the team has developed tools to automate many of the processes, including determining the frame rate of each camera

The team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has been working to track down and declassify the films for the last five years. Doing so will allow them not only to preserve important historical materials, but to reanalyse the data for more accurate figures

'We were finding that some of these answers were off by 20, maybe 30 per cent.

'That's a big number for doing code validation. One of the payoffs of this project is that we're now getting very consistent answers.

'We've also discovered new things about these detonations that have never been seen before.

'New correlations are now being used by the nuclear forensics community, for example.'

So far, they've scanned about 4,200 recordings  and the effort has revealed that much of the original published data on the tests are wrong. The team estimates it will take another two years to complete the scanning, and even longer to go through and declassify all the data
AI brain chips are set to 'evolve' humanity into a 'community of zombies', a prominent neuroscientist has claimed.

Those implanting AI into their mind risk merging with machines to the point that humans and androids are indistinguishable from one another, the expert said.

It was recently revealed that a tech company backed by billionaire Elon Musk is developing a 'brain-computer interface' that could give people super intelligence and allow them to communicate telepathically.

Scroll down for video

Dr Mikhail Lebedev, a senior neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham claims AI brain chips are set to 'evolve' humanity into a 'community of zombies' (stock image)

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

But brain implants could mean that machines start to take on or imitate human consciousness, Dr Mikhail Lebedev, a senior neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, told Cnet.

The researcher warned that technology firms will falsely market the devices as a 'panacea' - a remedy for all difficulties.

'It is even possible that "humanity" will evolve into a community of zombies,' he said.

'Luckily this is not a problem as of yet.'

If humans begin to take on the qualities of machines, the line between the two will blur, he added.

Implanting a microchip into your brain may sound like the plot from a science fiction blockbuster, but some claim this technology could be a reality within 15 years.

The chips will allow people to buy and delete memories, and will soon be as popular as smartphones, according to Bryan Johnson, an expert working on such a device.

Speaking at Web Summit in Lisbon last month, Mr Johnson, who is the founder of Kernel, a start-up developing brain microchips, said that unlocking the potential of the mind is the 'single greatest thing' humanity can achieve.

'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,' he said.

'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?'

Mr Johnson added that this new technology a 'necessity' for the future of humanity.

Those implanting microcomputers into their mind risk merging with machines to the point that humans androids are indistinguishable from one another, an expert has claimed (stock image)

'I consider myself to be cognitively impaired because I am limited by my biases, by my blind spots,' he said.

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.

It was recently revealed that a tech company backed by billionaire Elon Musk (file photo) is developing a 'brain-computer interface' that could give people super intelligence and allow them to communicate telepathically

'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.'
Temperatures in the Arctic have been rising so fast in recent decades they have confused a computer designed to measure them.

Scientists monitoring a site in Alaska have found that an algorithm at the weather station, which has been recording temperatures for nearly 100 years, deleted all of its data from 2017, and even some from 2016.

In what the experts are now calling an 'ironic exclamation point' to rapid climate change, the algorithm flagged the abnormal temperatures observed at the station, as it assumed they were too high to be accurate.

Scroll down for video

When scientists set out at the beginning of December to review the previous month's climate data, they noticed something 'odd': everything from Utqiagvik, Alaska was missing. The data from 2017 and some of 2016 had been flagged as artificial. File photo of Barrow (Utqiagvik)

WHAT HAPPENED? The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses automated computers to gather temperature data. Experts pre-installed an algorithm to automatically remove any false data caused by external factors such as faulty equipment. The programme is designed to automatically keep the average temperature information as accurate as possible. The extreme increase in temperature was so large that it triggered the data to be deleted. Data from all of 2017 and some of 2016 was removed. The team from NOAA is now working to recover the deleted information and include the lost data in its records. Advertisement

The missing data comes from Utqiagvik (previously known as Barrow), the northernmost point in the United States.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published a report earlier this month describing the unusual results.

In the blog post, Deke Arndt, Chief of NOAAs Climate Monitoring Branch, says climate change in the region has 'outrun' one of their measurement tools.

The data at Utqiagvik is gathered automatically by NOAA computers, using algorithms to detect any false results caused by broken equipment or changes to the sensors that could affect the reading.

These algorithms make sure wrong information doesn't get to the central database and alter the average temperature recordings.

The algorithm was activated and removed the data, but not because of a broken sensor.

Instead, it was set off by the incredible temperature increase, say experts at NOAA.

In what experts are calling an 'ironic exclamation point' to rapid climate change, the scientists found that the abnormal average temperatures observed at the weather station were disqualified by its algorithm, as it assumed they were artificial. Annual temps shown above

As Arndt explains, 'the average temperature observed at the weather station at Utqiagvik has now changed so rapidly that it triggered an algorithm designed to detect artificial changes in a station's instrumentation or environment and disqualified itself from the NCEI Alaskan temperature analysis.'

This caused the region to appear 'a little cooler than it really was.'

The team from NOAA is now working to recover the deleted information and include the lost data in its records.

In the last year, the site has experienced rapid temperature changes, causing scientists monitoring the area to even marvel at 'how insanely warm' the station had been.

From October-December, the experts say the effects were especially extreme.

During October to December, temperatures in Utqiagvik have increased by over 4 degrees Celsius since 1979. The Arctic is increasing at twice the rate of the rest of the world (stock)

Utqiagvik (previously known as Barrow) is the most northerly city in the US. The weather station there has been recording data for nearly 100 years and the recent extreme temperature rise triggered an algorithm to delete the data

According to Arndt, '21st century October at Utqiagvik is a whopping 7.8F warmer than late 20th century October.'

Experts believe the Arctic is increasing at twice the rate of the rest of the the world.

This has caused a significant loss to the amount of sea-ice in the area, which is crucial in maintaining a stable temperature.

The more water there is relative to ice in the Arctic ocean, the more the temperature will increase.

This leads to a vicious cycle which has caused the extreme rise in temperature.

From October-December, the experts say the effects were especially extreme in Utqiagvik. According to Arndt, '21st century October at Utqiagvik is a whopping 7.8F warmer than late 20th century October.' These changes can be seen in the graph above

The dramatic increases in global temperatures are not only resulting in a loss of sea-ice, but also having a direct impact on the animals in the area.

Just last week, footage emerged of a gaunt, emaciated polar bear, struggling to survive without the ice it needs to hunt.

Loss of ice due to climate change is known to directly affect the ability of polar bears to feed and survive, as they rely on platforms of ice to reach their prey of ringed and bearded seals.

Baffin Island in Canada, where the footage was captured, has been particularly hard hit by the warming climate, experts say.
Breakfast included 11 boxes of donuts and pastries; lunch, eight boxes of large pizzas. On the same long table were fresh fruits, cookies, crackers, pudding cups, cereal bars, herbal teas and energy drinks.

These were among the food and drinks available to 69-year-old Bill Thompson on Wednesday as he waited at the Hermosa Schools old gym for news about the Legion Lake Fire. Thompson left his house in Fairburn, a Custer County community of about 85, around 1 a.m. Wednesday after emergency personnel asked him to evacuate because of the fire threat.

The wildfire on Custer State Park, which began burning Monday, grew almost tenfold Tuesday night to 35,000 acres due to high winds.

Thompson, a Marine veteran, lived only 3 to 4 miles away from the fire. When I stepped out of my house  I could see a lot of light, like dancing light, he said, describing how the flames moved in the wind. Thompson and his son left with two vehicles filled with valuables, including his mothers death certificate and his archery equipment.

The American Red Cross opened the Hermosa School evacuation center around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, less than two hours after Custer County Emergency Management told the nonprofit group it was going to start evacuating residents that night. The school, located about 20 miles from the fire zone, is the Red Crosss pre-arranged evacuation center in Custer County.

Six evacuees spent the night at the shelter, including 12-year-old Ruby Streeter, another Fairburn resident.

Before her family arrived at the old school gym in the wee hours of Wednesday, Rubys dad Steve Streeter moved their animals to a friends property. They included goats, a horse, chickens, cats and two geckos.

Ruby, a seventh grader at Hermosa School, said she made sure to grab her sketch pads and colored pencils.

Some evacuees stayed with friends and family members, the Red Cross said. But others who lived within the fire zone refused to leave, which officials said was a normal occurrence during natural disasters.

This typically happens  People dont want to leave their homes, said Richard Smith, executive director of the American Red Cross for Central & Western South Dakota. Authorities, he said, cannot force these residents to go.

Smith advised people who are preparing to evacuate to pack the following essentials: medication, mementos such as photographs, as well as important documents like their birth certificate, social security card and passport.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Custer County Emergency Management director Mike Carter said he didnt have complete figures yet on the total number of people who needed to be evacuated from the fire zone or those who refused to do so. He said no residential structures had been lost in the fire.

The Hermosa School shelter can accommodate up to 100 people, and there are enough supplies to meet present needs, said Ray Sorensen, disaster program manager at the Red Cross for Central & Western South Dakota. Community members also volunteered to help at the shelter.

The Red Cross said it welcomes cash donations, but that due to the communitys generosity, it already has enough food and clothing for the wildfire.

Look at all this food, Streeter pointed at the meals and snacks, some of which had been donated by businesses. There was clearly more than enough for her and the gyms temporary residents.
Advertisement

An incredible map made as early as 1570 has provided an insight into the early interactions between the indigenous people of Mexico and the newly arrived Spanish.

The map, which is one of fewer than 100 to survive from this time, shows the landholdings and ancestry of a family living in Mexico more than five centuries ago.

The map covers an area between Mexico City and Puebla, home to a family identified as 'de Leon' who descended from a major political leader known as Lord-11 Quetzalecatzin.

This fascinating manuscript is one of the most important indigenous documents from the Americas to be made available in the last few years, an expert says.

Scroll down for video

The incredible map (pictured) made as early as 1570 provides insight into the early interactions between the indigenous people of Mexico and the newly arrived Spanish

WHAT DOES THE MANUSCRIPT SHOW? The map, which is one of fewer than 100 to survive from this time, shows the landholdings and ancestry of a family living in ancient Mexico. The map covers an area between Mexico City and Puebla where a family identified as 'de Leon' who descended from a major political leader known as Lord-11 Quetzalecatzin. The document dates to between 1570 to 1595 and would have been made by an indigenous painter and scribe. The bold colours come from natural dyes, such as Maya blue made from indigo plant leaves and clay, and carmine, made from insects that live in cactus. The map shows the fusion of two cultures and although it is made using Aztec hieroglyphics it also has some Spanish place names and churches. Advertisement

The Mesoamerican manuscript is known as the Codex Quetzalecatzin, according to John Hessler, curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology of the Early Americas at the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress acquired the precious manuscript from a private collector in France and they have now displayed it digitally - making it available for the public for the first time in more than 100 years.

'As is typical for an Aztec, or Nahuatl, codex of this early date, it relates the extent of land ownership and properties of a family line known as de Leon, most of the members of which are depicted on the manuscript', wrote Mr Hessler in a blog.

'With Nahuatl stylised graphics and hieroglyphs, it illustrates the familys genealogy and their descent from Lord-11 Quetzalecatzin, who in 1480, was the major political leader of the region. It is from him the Codex derives one of its many names', he said.

The document dates to between 1570 to 1595 and would have been made by an indigenous painter and scribe.

The bold colours come from natural dyes, such as Maya blue made from indigo plant leaves and clay, and carmine, made from insects that live in cactus, writes National Geographic.

Traditionally such maps would show a community's territory, with their place name at the centre.

The map shows the fusion of two cultures and although it is made using Aztec hieroglyphics it also has some Spanish place names and churches.

'Particular features that point to indigenous authorship include pre-Hispanic illustrative conventions, such as the symbols for rivers, roads and pathways, and of course hieroglyphic writing', wrote Mr Hessler.

The map, fewer than 100 to survive from this time, shows the landholdings and ancestry of a family living in Mexico more than five centuries ago. The map covers an area between Mexico City and Puebla, home to a family identified as 'de Leon'

The Library of Congress acquired the precious manuscript from a private collector in France and they have now displayed it digitally - making it available for the public for the first time in more than 100 years

The map covers an area between Mexico City and Puebla. The map shows the fusion of two cultures and although it is made using Aztec hieroglyphics it also has some Spanish place names and churches

'The glosses on the manuscript, which utilise the Latin alphabet, are clues to its colonial-era composition, as are the names of some of the indigenous leaders such as don Alonso and don Matheo.

'Naming conventions such as these provide evidence that at least some indigenous elites were granted the Spanish title of nobility (don) and had been baptised with Christian names.'

Such an artefact gives important clues to how different cultures adapted and became used to each other's presence.

'The Codex Quetzalecatzin, because of its extreme rarity, and because of its relevance to the early history of European contact with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, is an important addition to the early American treasures at the Library of Congress', Mr Hessler wrote.

'To get a sense of the manuscripts rarity, it should noted that only around 450 Mesoamerican pictorial manuscripts survive to the present day, and less than 100 pre-date 1600.'

The bold colours come from natural dies, such as Maya blue (pictured) made from indigo plant leaves and clay, and carmine, made from insects that live in cactus. Such an artefact gives important clues to how different cultures adapted and became used to each other's presence
Strange footage has captured the moment conspiracy theorists say an alien mothership shot a laser beam at the International Space Station.

The footage shows what appears to be a pattern of bright lights hovering above the Nasa run base.

Moments later, a red beam of light seems to pulse from the object toward the habitat, occupied by astronauts from five space agencies.

Scroll down for video

Strange footage has captured the moment conspiracy theorists say an alien mothership shot a laser beam at the International Space Station. The clip, which had amassed around 25,000 views, was posted to YouTube by UFO hunter Streetcap1

POSSIBLE EXPLANATION While it is not always possible to determine exactly what these objects are during the brief period they appear in the stream, there are a number possible explanations for these types of sightings. In the past, a Nasa spokesperson has explained, 'Reflections from station windows, the spacecraft structure itself or lights from Earth commonly appear as artefacts in photos and videos from the orbiting laboratory.' Advertisement

The footage, which had amassed around 25,000 views at the time of publication, was posted to YouTube by UFO hunter Streetcap1.

Speaking in the clip, he said: 'Look at the red light coming from them and going to the space station. It's pretty strange.

'Maybe it's a lens flare, I don't know what's causing it.

'In the previous shots hours ago there was no evidence of it at all.

'It could be lens flare, but I can't see what was causing it.

'Its shape was what was most interesting to me.'

The ISS, which orbits 200 miles (320km) above the Earth, did not appear to be affected by the impact of the 'laser'.

The object said to fire the weapon appears to resemble other alleged alien craft spotted near the ISS.

Many of these have been debunked as lens flares or reflections of the ISS itself.

The footage sparked a debate among viewers of the clip.

User Cindy WH-Witter said: 'I've wondered many times if the ISS has been contacted and/or visited, docked, by a 'visitor.'

'What was that red beam? All of the astronauts on the ISS have info we can only imagine about.

'That beam could be anything from information or even teleportation.

'That beam is real, the only definite we have!'

The footage shows what appears to be a pattern of bright lights hovering above the Nasa run base. Moments later, a red beam of light seems to pulse from the object toward the habitat, occupied by astronauts from five space agencies

Captain Jay added: 'The color red is able to store data at the highest level and possibly what you caught was a communication transfer of data or a probing beam to collect data.'

Not everyone was convinced an extra terrestrial explanation was in order.

Erika Demiral said: 'Is it possible its a reflection of electrical panel inside the ISS?'

James Mcintyre added: 'So much BS why is it that every video of so called UFOs is either too Blurry out of focus show me a video in HD not that I'm gonna hold my Breath.'

This not the first time that a UFO has been seen near the space station.

A mysterious object was spotted entering Earth's atmosphere by one of the crew of the International Space Station back in November.

Despite assurances from the space agency that it is just a meteor, conspiracy theorists remain convinced that it is evidence of extra terrestrials.

Nasa has once again been accused of covering up the existence of alien life, after an astronaut captured footage of a UFO. The mysterious object (circled) was spotted entering Earth's atmosphere by one of the crew of the International Space Station

SECURETEAM 10 CONTROVERSY SectureTeam10 is one of the most viewed YouTube channels, with over 785,000 people subscribing to its conspiracy videos. But the channel has come under fire, as Lions Ground, a rival channel, claims that it has been intentionally fooling its viewers. According to Lions Ground, SecureTeam10 has been raking in an estimated 600 ($745) a day by posting fake videos that 'outsmart UFO believers.' Advertisement

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli shot the clip, which shows a fiery ball of light racing towards the Earth's atmosphere.

The ISS crew member believes that the object could be space debris, but both the space agency and alien enthusiasts have rejected this explanation.

Tyler Glockner, who runs alien hunting YouTube Channel SecureTeam10, believes it is more proof of a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens.

Nasa has previously been accused of covering up an alien sighting after a video surfaced showing six UFOs passing the ISS live-stream, seconds before the feed was cut and replaced with images from a camera showing the inside of a briefing room.

Although the footage of the most recent sighting came from Nasa, conspiracy theorists are suspicious over how quickly they released it to the media.

Speaking in a video uploaded to the SecureTeam10 channel, Mr Glockner said: 'I don't think it's a meteorite at all.

'What many people may not realise is that this video is a timelapse.

'You're seeing the earth spinning at a high rate of speed and we see this flash of light coming from space.

'It does look to be moving at 85mph (136 km/ph).

'But when you account how fast the earth would have actually been moving, had this not been sped up, it would have been moving much, much slower.

'Speeds that are slower than even the slowest meterorites.

'Why did they do this? Why were they so adamant about publishing this when when they've never jumped on a story so fast?'

Mr Glockner also says that the round ball is coming in at too steep an angle to be a meteorite.

In the video, he compares the object to another meteorite that fell to Earth during the 2011 Perseid meteor shower.

In this clip, the characteristic tail of a meteor that is missing from the ISS object can clearly be made out.

Mr Glockner added: 'If you compare this to what they are calling a meteor in this new footage, at no time does this so called meteor look like anything that was captured back in 2011 - it just doesn't.

'It's a short, stubby object that looks nothing like the other meteor here.

Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli shot the clip, which shows a fiery ball of light racing towards the Earth's atmosphere

Tyler Glockner, who runs alien hunting YouTube Channel SecureTeam10, believes it is more proof of a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens

Mr Glockner says that the round ball is coming in at too steep an angle and too slowly to be a meteorite

Nasa has previously been accused of covering up an alien sighting after a video surfaced showing six UFOs passing the ISS (pictured) live-stream shortly before it was cut

'We can see this discharge, the energy coming from here vanish.'

Not everyone agreed with the paranormal explanation on offer.

Speaking to MailOnline Nigel Watson, author of the UFO Investigations Manual, said: 'Nasa can't win when it comes to dealing with UFOs.

'In this instance, SecureTeam10 are complaining that the agency rushed to release the footage and has only put forward a meteor as the explanation.

'I'd rather believe Nasa than SecureTeam10 any day.

'Even if it was debris, it doesn't turn it into a extraterrestrial scoutship filled with tentacled aliens on a mission to invade our planet, which is what SecureTeam10 imagines every time they see a blob of light filmed by Nasa cameras.'
Facebook has struck back against scientific researchers and tech industry insiders who have criticized the world's biggest social media network and its competitors for transforming how people behave and express emotion.

Facebook, in a corporate blog post, said that social media can be good for people's well-being if they use the technology in a way that is active, such as messaging with friends, rather than passive, such as scrolling through a feed of other people's posts.

It said 'our research and other academic literature suggests that its about how you use social media that matters when it comes to your well-being.'

Scroll down for video

Facebook said that social media can be good for people's well-being if they use the technology in a way that is active, such as messaging with friends, rather than using it passively.

HOW YOU SHOULD BE USING FACEBOOK Facebook says actively interacting with people  especially sharing messages, posts and comments with close friends and reminiscing about past interactions  is linked to improvements in well-being. 'This ability to connect with relatives, classmates, and colleagues is what drew many of us to Facebook in the first place, and its no surprise that staying in touch with these friends and loved ones brings us joy and strengthens our sense of community,' its reseachers says. Advertisement

In its blog post, Facebook acknowledged what it called 'compelling research' on the negative effects of social media and cited two such academic studies.

The company said, though, that those studies are 'not the whole story.'

It went on to cite other studies suggesting that the dangers of social media may be exaggerated, and that it has potential benefits if used correctly.

'We employ social psychologists, social scientists and sociologists, and we collaborate with top scholars to better understand well-being and work to make Facebook a place that contributes in a positive way,' said the blog post, written by Facebook Research Director David Ginsberg and Research Scientist Moira Burke.

'According to the research, it really comes down to how you use the technology.

'For example, on social media, you can passively scroll through posts, much like watching TV, or actively interact with friends - messaging and commenting on each others posts.

'Just like in person, interacting with people you care about can be beneficial, while simply watching others from the sidelines may make you feel worse.'

A former Facebook executive has spoken out against the social network he helped to create, saying it is 'ripping society apart'. The comments were made by Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth

CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA Chamath Palihapitiya left Facebook to start up his own venture capital business. He has since invested in a number of firms, including last year a team of ex-Googlers called Groq. They are hoping to build a 'next-generation chip,' taking on some of the world's biggest firms, including Intel and Google. Groq hopes that this revolutionary chip 'can empower companies like Facebook and Amazon, Tesla, the government to do things with machine learning and computers that nobody could do before,' according to Mr Palihapitiya. The key to creating the chip is to squeeze heavy and highly sophisticated computation into less silicon  something which Google's TPU is one step ahead of its competition with. Advertisement

It was the second time this week that Facebook had published such a rebuttal, signaling a new willingness to defend a business model that translates users' attention into advertising revenue.

On Tuesday, the company released a statement saying that former executive Chamath Palihapitiya, who at a conference publicly blamed Facebook for 'destroying how society works,' had been gone for six years and was unfamiliar with the company's recent efforts to improve.

Palihapitiya on Thursday revised his view, writing in a Facebook post that the service 'is a force for good in the world.'

Online services such as Facebook and its Instagram unit, Twitter Inc, Snap Inc's Snapchat and Alphabet Inc's YouTube are under attack for their seemingly addictive nature and perceived promotion of anti-social behaviors.

A study in March by U.S. researchers found that using such services at least two hours daily was correlated with reporting feelings of social isolation.

A nonprofit organization called Time Well Spent, led by a former Google design ethicist, is pressuring tech companies to move away from products that try to hook people's attention.

A Facebook representative declined to comment beyond the blog post.

Facebook is spending $1 million on research into the relationship among technology, youth development and well-being, the blog post said.
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered the ancient, intact graves of four children, all thought to be under the age of 10.

The child burials were found during excavations at Gebel el-Silsila, which was once a quarry site during the Thutmosid period, from roughly 1493 BCE to 1401.

Inside some of graves, the researchers also found a number of artifacts, including amulets, bracelets, and pottery.

But, one grave in particular stands out from the rest, with evidence that the child was buried without any care.

In one grave, they discovered the body of a child aged 6-9 years old (pictured), buried with several burial goods. The archaeologists found 10 ceramic items, including beer jars, wine vessels, plates, and bowls, bronze bracelets, and a bronze razor

WHAT THEY FOUND The first grave contains the body of a toddler, aged just 2-3 years old. In the second and third graves, they found a child age 6-9 years old, and 5-8 years old, both buried with an assortment of goods. This includes beer jars, wine vessels, plates, and bowls, bronze bracelets, and a bronze razor, according to the Luxor Times. They also found jewelry, including scarabs and amulets. At the fourth burial site, the team found a very different scenario. A child, also estimated to be about 5-8 years old, had been buried without any obvious care.' It was covered in quarry spoil, and showed signs of sickness and injury. Advertisement

At the site, the archaeologists also unearthed chamber-tombs designed for adults.

Researchers with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Swedens Lund University announced the discovery this week, revealing remarkable new insight on the burial practices during the 18th Dynasty.

While parts of the coffins remained preserved over the years, much of the material was destroyed by floods, insects, and other natural forces.

According to Dr. Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, one of the burials contains the remains of a child aged just 2-3 years old at the time of death.

The toddler was found surrounded by rocks, with bits of the linen wrappings and organic material from the wooden coffin still remaining.

Most, however, had been eaten away by termites.

The burials were found during excavations at Gebel el-Silsila. Inside some of graves, The researchers also found a number of artifacts, including amulets, bracelets, and pottery

One of the burials contains the remains of a child aged just 2-3 years old (pictured) at the time of death. The toddler was found surrounded by rocks, with bits of the linen wrappings and organic material from the wooden coffin still remaining

In the second grave, they discovered the body of a child aged 6-9 years old, buried with several burial goods.

The archaeologists found 10 ceramic items, including beer jars, wine vessels, plates, and bowls, bronze bracelets, and a bronze razor, according to the Luxor Times.

The child was also buried with jewelry  four scarabs attached to the left wrist, and an amulet, likely displaced from its original spot by beetles.

The third grave, in which a child aged 5-8 years old was buried, they found similar burial offerings.

One grave in particular (pictured) stands out from the rest, with evidence that the child was buried without any care. The experts noted what could be several signs of sickness, though the exact cause of death is unknown. The child also showed more signs of injury

The grave of the fourth child was covered in quarry spoil, and appeared to have no immediate relation to the others, as shown above

According to the archaeologists, the body was wrapped in linen and laid on reed matting, alongside three scarabs  including one that contained a royal name from the dynasty  and a pottery item.

At the fourth burial site, the team found a very different scenario.

A child, also estimated to be about 5-8 years old, had been buried without any obvious care, according to the Luxor Times.

The grave was covered in quarry spoil, and appeared to have no immediate relation to the others.

Researchers with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Swedens Lund University announced the discovery this week, revealing remarkable new insight on the burial practices of the 18th Dynasty. They found scarabs, such as the one above

One of the bodies was buried with artifacts including a bronze razor, pictured left. And, one of the scarabs contained a royal name from the dynasty (right)

While parts of the coffins remained preserved over the years, much of the material was destroyed over the years by floods, insects, and other natural factors. In the case of the buried toddler, for example, much of the linens and coffin had been eaten away by termites

And, the experts noted what could be several signs of sickness, though the exact cause of death is unknown.

The child also showed more signs of injury, according to Live Science.

The researchers plan to conduct further studies on the burials to find out more about the bodies buried at the site, including additional insight on their health and overall well-being  and what may have led to their deaths.
The sex lives of spiders are arguably among the most bizarre  and gruesome  mating practices in the animal kingdom.

Sex, for male spiders, can be a matter of life or death, as some females are known to cannibalize their partners in the midst of the act.

But, scientists have discovered that male spiders have developed their own abhorrent ways to improve their chances at survival.

A study on redback spiders has revealed that males often seek out females that are still young and immature, as they may not yet have learned how to eat their partner.

Scroll down for video

Sex, for male spiders, can be a matter of life or death, as some females are known to cannibalize their partners in the midst of the act. But, scientists have discovered that male spiders have developed their own abhorrent ways to improve their chances at survival

THE STRANGE SEX OF REDBACK SPIDERS Redbacks are among the spider species in which females are known to devour their mate. In some cases, the males even give them a hand, by doing summersaults to position their abdomen right near the females mouth. And, females will continue mating even while they eat a male. Researchers have found that some males in the species will mate with younger females in effort to avoid being cannibalized. This behaviour may even work to the benefit of both partners. The researchers revealed that females who had mated when they were immature did not signal for another mate in the future. It also allowed them to avoid any mating delays, which can affect their offspring and even lead to shorter life. Advertisement

Redbacks are a species of venomous widow spider.

Previous research has found that some males in the species will mate with younger females in effort to avoid being cannibalized  but, scientists remained unsure how this tactic affected the females.

In the new study, they examined the behaviour to determine if it was a form of coercion, which is known to be costly to females, as male will invest little effort in courtship and even injure their partner.

But, to the researchers surprise, they found the behaviour may work to the benefit of both males and females.

Theres no evidence to suggest this behaviour is costly to females in terms of survivorship and reproductive output, said Luciana Baruffaldi, director of the Andrade Lab and lead author of the research.

The early mating may be good for female redback spiders because in nature theyre at risk of not finding a mate at all.

The research revealed that females who had mated when they were immature did not signal for another mate in the future.

It also allowed them to avoid any mating delays, which can affect their potential offspring and even lead to a shorter life, as they produce eggs that have a higher demand on their resources.

Redbacks are among the spider species in which females are known to devour their mate.

A study on redback spiders has revealed that males often seek out females that are still young and immature, as they may not yet have learned how to eat their partner. To the researchers surprise, they found the behaviour may work to the benefit of both males and females

In some cases, the males even give them a hand, by doing summersaults to position their abdomen right near the females mouth.

And, females will continue mating even while they eat a male.

While the behaviour may sound strange, the researchers say it may have reproductive benefits.

When you study evolutionary ecology theres a temptation to ascribe human characteristics or judgements on the behaviour being observed, said co-author Maydianne Andrade.

The researchers revealed that females who had mated when they were immature did not signal for another mate in the future. Redbacks are a species of venomous widow spiders

What were seeing could have more than one evolutionary implication, and even if it looks abhorrent to us, the evolutionary consequence can be positive for the animal engaging in that behaviour.

Thats the evolutionary currency  whats playing out over time is the number of gene copies left behind in offspring, Andrade explained.

If theres a behaviour that increases how many gene copies are left, this means more offspring showing the same traits as their parents, and thats the behaviour we expect to see.
Advertisement

Colleges are often derided for their snowflake students.

But, rather ironically, fallen leaves have become a reason to celebrate one U.S. university - after a member of staff turned them into art installations.

Joanna Hedrick, a counselor at Sacramento State University, has become an internet sensation in recent weeks thanks to her seasonal creations which grace the institution's grounds.

Art attack: Joanna Hedrick, a counselor at Sacramento State University, can be seen finishing off a new design on campus

Stunning: This popular image depicts rays of the sun which radiate from the trunk of a gingko tree

The mother-of-two, who's also recently completed a philosophy degree, has been making the gingko leaf installations since 2013, when she wanted to make an interesting backdrop for family photos.

Inspired by British artist Andy Goldsworthy OBE, who's well-known for his land art visions, she soon began raking the campus foliage into a series of aesthetic arrangements.

Visually impressive for their painstaking arrangement and attention to detail, they instantly delighted students and academic peers alike.

As her images illustrate, some of the designs take the form of spirals and circles, while others morph into intricate mazes and honeycomb. Each one takes roughly three hours to complete.

Currently, the artistic counsellor only manages six installations per year, but - after posting images of her work online - the demand has grown.

Wow-factor: Ms Hedrick is inspired by British artist Andy Goldsworthy OBE, who's well-known for his land art visions

Seeing the beauty in nature: Although the finished product is never preserved, they are always immortalised on camera

Before and after! These images detail how the fallen leaves become a swirling art piece over a three-hour process

Her Instagram account has now amassed more than 680 followers and its content has gone somewhat viral.

'[My art] is about taking something thats already beautiful and making something uniquesomething you dont just pass by,' Hedrick told Sactown Magazine.

One recent post saw her create an interpretation of the sun, complete with powerful rays, while another spelled out an acronym for one college campus: CSUS.

To celebrate Thanksgiving, last month, she shared a snap of the famous interlocking yin/yang symbol. She captioned it: 'Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. A little reminder to keep balance in your life.'

Sweet: One of her most recent designs was a honeycomb hive, which was almost perfectly symmetrical

Spelling it out: The top image shows a maze, while the others say CSUS: acronyms of her college campus

Surprise: Visually impressive for their painstaking arrangement and careful detail, they appear on campus without warning
Advertisement

European technology hit new heights today when the world's steepest funicular line opened in Switzerland.

The futuristic-looking Stoos Bahn tram, which is considered a modern-day design triumph, was officially launched on Friday afternoon by Swiss President Doris Leuthard.

The 52 million-Swiss franc ($52.6 million) project is accessible to the public from Sunday, running from Schywz to the mountain village of Stoos, which lies 1,300 metres above sea level in central Switzerland.

In action: The futuristic-looking Stoos Bahn tram, which is considered a modern-day design triumph, was officially launched on Friday afternoon by Swiss President Doris Leuthard

Officially open: The Stoos Bahn operates from Sunday between Schywz to the mountain village of Stoos, central Switzerland

Resembling a white-knuckle ride at Alton Towers, the barrel-shaped carriages adjust their floors so passengers can stand upright even as they climb towards the Alpine plateau at inclines of 110 per cent.

Impressively, the train will climb 743 metres over a span of 1,738 metres - and at speeds of 10 metres per second.

The train's arrival has smashed the previous world record for the steepest funicular train, which was formerly held by The Gelmerbahn at Bern, also in Switzerland. That boasted a gradient of 106 per cent.

Meanwhile, England's nearest rival to the title is the East Cliff Lift in Hastings, with a slop gradient of 78 per cent.

Hold on tight! The train will climb 743 metres over a span of 1,738 metres - and at speeds of 10 metres per second

Large-scale: The train's arrival has smashed the previous world record for the steepest funicular train, which was formerly held by The Gelmerbahn at Bern, also in Switzerland

Futuristic: The barrel-shaped carriages adjust their floors so that passengers can stand upright as they make the incline

In with the new: The new system replaces an older, dilapidated line which first began ferrying holiday-makers in 1933

The line's arrival comes more than four years after the project began construction in 2013.

'After 14 years of planning and building, everyone is very proud of this train,' said Ivan Steiner, spokesman for the railway.

It replaces an older, dilapidated rail system which first began ferrying holiday-makers in 1933, but has now been surpassed by the abilities of modern technology.

Only accessible via the tram facility, Stoos is a family-friendly holiday destination located high above Lake Lucerne.

'This small, car-free resort is an attractive place for all kinds of sporting activities or just relaxing away from the noise of traffic and hustle and bustle,' the official tourism website for Switzerland states.

Worth waiting for: The tram's arrival comes five years since construction on the project first began
Advertisement

A luxury villa in the south of France would not be complete without its very own swimming pool.

And this Airbnb property on the Cote d'Azur comes with a 91 foot plunge pool that looks like an aquarium.

The stunning house in the small town of Bandol is called the Villa on the Rocks and was designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti, who also helped to create the Mucem Museum in Marseilles.

It boasts five bedrooms and three bathrooms with an amazing view of both the sea and the nearby vineyards.

But its standout feature is the 91 foot pool that can't be viewed from both inside and outside the property, thanks to extra thick, aquarium-style windows.

The villa can be rented for just over 500 per night and can sleep up to 10 people.

The amazing 91-foot aquarium-style swimming pool at the Villa on the Rocks in the south of France, which is on Airbnb

The plunge pool is 91 feet long and can be viewed from both inside and outside the property thanks to extra thick glass

The pool is one of the property's stand out features. The villa is located in the small town of Bandol on the Cote d'Azur

One night in the villa on Airbnb costs over 500 but it can sleep up to 10 people in its five bedrooms and three bathrooms

The glass front of the villa means that it has panoramic views all around of the nearby coastline and they surrounding vineyards

The villa has an all in one kitchen and dining area that also looks out on to the stunning surrounding views of the Cote d'Azur

One of the villa's unusual bedrooms, which sleeps up to 10 people. The villa can be rented for just over 500 per night

The villa also has three bathrooms, including this free-standing bath and sink in the middle of one of the bedrooms
She's the Brisbane born actress taking Hollywood by storm.

And Lucy Fry turned heads on the red carpet at the premiere of Bright on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old looked chic in a white ruffle gown that featured a delicate black web pattern by designer Toni Maticevski.

All glammed up! Lucy Fry has turned heads on the red carpet of the premiere of Bright, the Netflix series she stars in

With the bodice of the dress showcasing her slender figure, the long train added a touch of flare to the entire look.

She teamed the look a pair of silver pumps and accessorised with a sparkly collar necklace and a matching bracelet.

Her makeup was kept simple with bold feathered brows, contoured and blushed cheeks, kohl rimmed eyes, lashings of mascara and a nude pink lip.

Elegant: The 25-year-old looked chic in a white ruffle gown that featured a delicate black web pattern by designer Toni Maticevski

Chic: Her makeup was kept simple with bold feathered brows, contoured and blushed cheeks, kohl rimmed eyes, lashings of mascara and a nude pink lip

She also posed for a photo with the film's lead Will Smith who looked dapper in a tailored suit.

Also looking smart was her friend and fellow Australian actor Daniel Webber, who attended the event alongside her.

He wore a navy tailored suit and white shirt, with a pair of black leather dress shoes.

Dapper: She also posed for a photo with the film's lead Will Smith who looked dapper in a tailored suit

Red carpet: Also looking smart was her friend and fellow Australian actor Daniel Webber, who attended the event alongside her

She was all smiles next to her co-star Noomi Rapace whose gold dress and matching jacket caught everyone's attention.

Bright is a fantasy, crime set in an alternative universe that sees a human police officer forced to work with an Orc (a fantasy creature) to find a weapon everyone is prepared to kill for.

Lucy will kick off 2018 in the female driven thriller film Highway, alongside Baby Driver actress Eiza Gonzalez.
She's the TV presenter who balances her healthy lifestyle with a busy TV presenting career.

And Georgia Love has taken to Instagram to show fans she was getting a blood related treatment in Melbourne, on Friday.

The 27-year-old shared a selfie of looking to be a mix of sad and brave with a needle in her arm, from the Holmesglen Private Hospital.

Scroll down for video

'I will now answer only to Iron Woman!' Georgia Love has taken to Instagram to show fans she was getting a blood related treatment in Melbourne

She captioned her post: 'Fri-yay!'

In the following video post, Georgia shows the needle in her arm with a tube of filled with dark red blood flowing through it.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Georgia's management for comment.

Getting through it: In the following post, Georgia shows the needle in her arm with a tube of filled with dark red blood flowing through it

This comes after she and boyfriend Lee Elliot have once again hinted that marriage is on the cards.

Uploading a flashback photo of Georgia at a wine tasting during their recent Italian holiday, Lee captioned the post: 'Heres to the next 50 or 60 years with you.'

Back in August, the couple hinted at an impending engagement in another Instagram post.

One fan was quick to suggest marriage for the lovebirds, commenting underneath the photo: 'What a perfect place to put a ring on it.'

Are they finally getting MARRIED? Georgia Love and Lee Elliott hint they are engaged again after sparking rumours on romantic holiday

Loved up! Uploading a flashback photo of Georgia at a wine tasting during their recent Italian holiday, Lee captioned the post: 'Heres to the next 50 or 60 years with you'

The post came shortly before Lee took to Instagram again, this time gushing over Georgia, as the pair celebrated their one-year anniversary.

A photo of the couple during last year's grand finale episode of The Bachelorette, was captioned: '1 year ago today you stood across from me with that infectious smile of yours.

'And those eyes I get lost in each and every time I look into them and told me what I had been longing to hear you say...that you had fallen so madly in love with me!

In the past Lee has hinted at impending marriage plans claiming he's been 'shopping for the ring. '
Fifty-three years after John Olsen was exposed to poisons during his military service, Congress and President Trump have removed the obstacle that has kept the Billings veteran from receiving disability benefits.

A measure written and championed by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, was included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act that Trump signed Tuesday. Along with the $700 billion annual military budget, the 2,247-page law directs the Department of Defense to provide the Veterans Administration otherwise classified information on certain veterans who apply for disability benefits.

The legislation was written specifically to address Olsens situation, but it will help thousands of other veterans whose health problems are related to military service in secret operations. Olsen was exposed repeatedly to potential biological weapons and hazardous chemicals aboard a tugboat while serving in the U.S. Navy. He applied for disability benefits 17 years ago, but the VA cannot verify his toxic exposure with DOD because the records are classified.

The provision authored by Tester and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, allows DOD to release information to the VA for the purpose of determining the veterans eligibility for disability benefits  so long as the release doesnt jeopardize national security.

Project SHAD

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 in Project SHAD.

The sailors were ordered not to talk about Project SHAD and DOD didnt acknowledge its existence till 2000. As recently as last year, DOD denied that any veterans health problems are related to SHAD.

This is a momentous day for John Olsen and all veterans who deserve accountability, Tester said in a news release. Mr. Olsen and I have worked for years to get the records of his service declassified, and he will now be able to use his military records to apply for VA health care and benefits that he has fought so long for.

Testers office called Olsen Tuesday shortly after Trump signed the 2018 NDAA into law.

Finally! Its taken a long time, but Im happy that weve reached this point, Olsen said. I appreciate Jon Testers work to get my records declassified. Weve finally gotten to the point we should have gotten to 50 years ago. There are a lot of people that will be excited to hear about this.

Olsen participated in Project SHAD (Shipboard Hazard and Defense) for several months in 1963-64. The project involved a series of tests to gauge the vulnerability of naval vessels and personnel to chemical and biological attacks. Olsen has had cancer four times, along with other life-threatening health problems.

Although U.S. law now makes Olsens crucial service information available to determine his eligibility, he doesnt yet have disability benefits. We expect that Tester will stay on the case until this Montana veteran receives the compensation he deserves.

Outrageous delay

The delay in providing benefits to Project SHAD veterans is outrageous. Americans who fought for our country shouldnt have to fight bureaucracy to get the benefits they have earned.

When Congress and presidents send U.S. troops into harms way they indebt our nation to these heroes. Veterans benefits should be what veterans need, not what tightwads on Capitol Hill feel like paying. Veterans benefits should be mandatory  not discretionary, not rationed, not delayed.
She gained a new husband, a new stepdaughter AND a new tradition this year.

Meredith Salenger raved about her very first Christmas tree with husband Patton Oswalt and eight-year-old Alice on Wednesday night.

The 47-year-old shared several sweet snaps of her new family decorating their home for the holidays.

'Something I've never done!' Meredith Salenger celebrated her very first Christmas tree with new husband Patton Oswalt and eight-year-old stepdaughter Alice on Wednesday night

'My first ever very own Christmas Tree!' she wrote 'Fun night in: trimming the tree and sending Christmas cards! Also something Ive never done! #family.

The pics and video clips show the trio posing and dancing around the tree, each wearing a golden paper crown won from Christmas crackers.

Meredith, who is Jewish, claimed the family were going to celebrate a hybrid holiday with Hanukkah.

Cute: The 47-year-old shared several sweet snaps of her new family decorating their home for the holidays

First! 'My first ever very own Christmas Tree!' she wrote 'Fun night in: trimming the tree and sending Christmas cards! Also something Ive never done! #family

'Happy Family! And tonight... Chanukah Party!' she captioned one pic, adding the hashtag complaint: #thereisnomenorahemoji'

Patton and Meredith tied the knot just last month  with Alice serving as flower girl.

The couple first announced their happy engagement news in July, 14 months after the sudden tragic death of Patton's wife of eight years and Alice's mother, Michelle McNamara.

Mix it up: Meredith, who is Jewish, claimed the family were going to celebrate a hybrid holiday with Hanukkah

Sweet: The pics and video clips show the trio posing and dancing around the tree, each wearing a golden paper crown won from Christmas crackers

Michelle died in her sleep in April 2016 from an undiagnosed heart condition combined with prescription medication.

When Patton and Meredith first went public with their romance in June, they faced some criticism on social media, with some questioning how Patton could move on so quickly.

King Of Queens star called critics 'bitter grub worms' and said he decided to ignore them after announcing their engagement.
He's the lauded Australian A-lister who is currently promoting his latest film The Greatest Showman.

And Hugh Jackman bid Mexico a fond farewell on Thursday with a hearty 'muchas gracias' as he jetted out of the country.

The Wolverine star took to his Instagram to share a short video message to his Mexican fans from what looked to be a swanky private jet.

Heartfelt: Hugh Jackman bid Mexico a fond farewell on Thursday with a hearty 'muchas gracias' as he jetted out of the country after promoting his latest film The greatest Showman

With city lights twinkling from Hugh's window, the dapper actor graciously thanked his Mexican fans while offering a heartfelt yuletide greeting.

'Mexico, muchas gracias,' Hugh began.

'We've had a great time here - I love coming to Mexico. I hope you enjoyed the movie. Merry, merry Christmas.'

As to be expected, the video was liked by more than 300,000 fans with many chiming in with such gushing sentiments as: 'Excellent like always Hugh...gracias por visitar [thanks for visiting] Mexico.'

Feliz Navidad: 'Mexico, muchas gracias,' Hugh said. 'We've had a great time here - I love coming to Mexico. I hope you enjoyed the movie. Merry, merry Christmas.'

Gratitude: Hugh captioned the video with a succinct but equally gracious: 'Buenos noches Mexico!' Hugh is pictured with a throng of adoring fans in Mexico

Hugh captioned the video with a succinct but equally gracious: 'Buenos noches Mexico!'

While hot on the promotional trail for The Greatest Showman, Hugh will have plenty of time to relax when he returns to Australia on December 20 to celebrate Christmas.

However, during an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last week, Hugh admitted that an Australian Christmas can be a less-than-chilled affair.

Coming home: While hot on the promotional trail for The Greatest Showman, Hugh will have plenty of time to relax when he returns to Australia on December 20 to celebrate Christmas. hugh is pictured with wife Deborra-Lee Furness

'I'm English, so we persevere with all the English traditions which is like here - we have hot turkey, hot ham, gravy, baked potatoes - cooking is literally 110 degrees,'Hugh divulged.

He went on to paint a vivid and possibly uninviting picture of a Down Under Christmas with: 'the paper hats designating, sweat, drunk, arguing. It's messy. Come, please. everyone come.

Hugh went on to explain that his house is quite the hive of activity come December 25.

'We swim in the morning and we have 30 [people] for lunch,' Hugh said. 'I'm from a big family but Deb's family does it on steroids - literally 30 for lunch and then 100 for dinner,' he divulged.
Angelina Jolie looked incredibly stylish as she stepped out in New York on Thursday.

The Hollywood star wore a long plush black coat over a full-length black dress with towering black heels.

Angelina, 42, was in a great mood and greeted fans gathered to catch a glimpse of her with a big smile.

Scroll down for video

Winter style: A radiant Angelina Jolie looked incredibly stylish as she stepped out in New York on Thursday in a plush black coat and long dress

Angie wore her shoulder-length brunette hair in loose waves and added a touch of mascara and some glossy red lip color.

She carried a black handbag with a long chain and went bare-legged in her stilettos despite the chilly evening air.

It's been a good week for the mother-of-six who received two Golden Globe nominations for films she produced.

Lovely: Angie, 42, wore her shoulder-length brunette hair in loose waves and added a touch of mascara and some glossy red lip color

Walking tall: The Hollywood star's went bare-legged in the ankle-length dress dress and added a pair of pointed toe black stiletto heels

Stylish and elegant: She carried a black handbag with a long chain to complete her ensemble

Generous: Angie took the time to sign autographs for fans

Angelina received nods from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for First They Killed My Father, which she also directed, in the Best Motion Picture  Foreign Language category, and for The Breadwinner in the Best Motion Picture  Animated category.

First They Killed My Father is about the atrocities in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and stars Sareum Srey Moch and Phoeung Kompheak.

Her movie The Breadwinner is about a young girl who lives under Taliban rule in Afghanistan who cuts off her hair to go to work so she can support her family.

Babe in black: While she's no doubt pleased with the kudos her films received this week, she also took time out of her schedule to concentrate on her activism

Passionate: The Oscar-winner stopped in at the Light After Darkness: Memory, Resilience and Renewal in Cambodia discussion at the Asia Society on Thursday

Interesting subject: Opting to keep her velvet coat on for the event, Angelina took a seat on stage to participate in the roundtable, which was set to discuss the role of art in recalling historical events

In good company: She was joined by Cambodian film-director Rithy Panh, Executive Director of Cambodian Living Arts Phloeun Prim, and author of the memoir and screenplay Loung Ung

While she's no doubt pleased with the kudos her films received this week, she also took time out of her schedule to concentrate on her activism.

The Oscar-winner stopped in at the Light After Darkness: Memory, Resilience and Renewal in Cambodia discussion at the Asia Society on Thursday.

Opting to keep her velvet coat on for the event, Angelina took a seat on stage to participate in the roundtable, which was set to discuss the role of art in recalling historical events.

She was joined by Cambodian film-director Rithy Panh, Executive Director of Cambodian Living Arts Phloeun Prim, and author of the memoir and screenplay Loung Ung.

The conversation was moderated by President of the Ford Foundation Darren Walker

Nods: It's been a good week for Angelina who received two Golden Globe nominations for films she produced - First They Killed My Father, which she also directed, and The Breadwinner

Brood: The actress is in the bIg Apple with her kids and was seen earlier on Thursday out and about with sons Pax, 14, and Knox, nine, and daughters, Vivienne, nine, and Shiloh, 11

Joining the actress in the Big Apple are her children with ex-husband Brad Pitt.,

She was seen earlier in the day on Thursday running errands with sons Pax, 14, and Knox, nine, along with daughters Vivienne, nine, and Shiloh, 11.

Not on the outing were son Maddox, 16, and daughter Zahara, 12.

Angelina and Brad split in September 2016, two years after tying the knot. They had been together since 2005.
She's the Australian model who's known for pushing the boundaries and regularly 'freeing the nipple' on social media.

And Catherine McNeil happily flaunted her bountiful bosoms in a selection of risque videos with fellow Aussie Jordan Barrett on Thursday.

In clips uploaded to Jordan's Instagram Stories, the 28-year-old bared her chest and ample assets by posing topless.

Scroll down for video

Bosom buddies! Model Catherine McNeil flaunts her bare breasts in TOPLESS video with Jordan Barrett as she puffs on a cigarette in biker-chic leather jacket

Baring it all! The Brisbane-born beauty was seen alongside Jordan in what appeared to be an office, as she unzipped a leather jacket to reveal her breasts

The Brisbane-born beauty was seen alongside Jordan in what appeared to be an office, as she unzipped a leather jacket to reveal her breasts.

Jordan lay down as Catherine danced with her exposed boobs VERY close to his face, as he wrote: 'Hard work.'

She then posed behind him as the puffed on unhealthy cigarettes in a boomerang-style clip.

Racy! She then posed behind him as the puffed on unhealthy cigarettes in a boomerang-style clip

Catching up: They later sat outside together and continued to smoke and drink from coffee cups

Ladies' man! Jordan, who is known as the Australian 'bad boy' of fashion, has previously been linked to models Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, Sofia Richie and Lara Stone, and has also been spotted getting cosy with Alana in the past

They later sat outside together, where artist Alana OHerlihy joined them.

Meanwhile, Catherine has come along way in the modelling world since winning Girlfriend magazine's model search in 2003 at just 14 years of age.

Vogue Paris previously declared her as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.

Last year she was forced to put her modelling work on hold after undergoing a hip operation, but returned with a bang months later with a topless cover shoot for Vogue Italia.

Stunner! Meanwhile, Catherine has come along way in the modelling world since winning Girlfriend magazine's model search in 2003 at just 14 years of age

Jordan also shared racy images of Alana topless to his 686k followers.

Jordan, who is known as the Australian 'bad boy' of fashion, has previously been linked to models Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, Sofia Richie and Lara Stone, and has also been spotted getting cosy with Alana in the past.

Clips showed the artist resting her left breast and nipple on a table as she seductively posed in a leather jacket.
On Wednesday, she was seen shopping on Rodeo Drive with boyfriend Scott Disick.

And the day after their high-end excursion, Sofia Richie headed to a jewelry store in Calabasas.

The 19-year-old paid tribute to her birth decade in a '90s-inspired ensemble.

Scroll down for video

Doing some shopping: Sofia Richie, 19, headed to a jewelry store in Calabasas on Thursday

Sofia looked cozy in a large, cream sweater tied at the front.

The daughter of Lionel Richie added a pair of loose-fitting, light wash jeans to her look.

The teen's ensemble was complete with high heel ankle boots, a structured bag, shades and multiple items of jewelry.

Warm: The teen looked cozy in a large, cream sweater tied at the front

Tribute to the '90s! The daughter of Lionel Richie added a pair of loose-fitting, light wash jeans to her look

Where's Scott? Sofia was joined by a body guard for her outing

Simple color structure: Sofia's look was complete with high heel ankle boots, a structured bag, shades and multiple items of jewelry

Sofia is currently dating father-of-three, Scott Disick, who is 15 years older than she.

Rumors of a romance between the two began circulating in May.

By September, the two were full-on dating.

Her boyfriend: Sofia is currently dating father-of-three, Scott Disick. On Thursday, the couple were seen shopping on Rodeo Drive

Prior to their romance, Scott was in a long-term, on-off relationship with Kourtney Kardashian,

The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star is the mother of their children; Mason, seven, Penelope, five, and Reign, two.

She, like Scott, is also dating someone much younger.

The 38-year-old is currently in a relationship with Algerian model Younes Bendjima, 24.
She's been an ambassador for Myer for five years.

But on Friday, Jodi Anasta announced she was stepping down from working with the brand.

Uploading a message to her Instagram account, the 32-year began: 'Sometimes the magic to life is changing direction.'

'It's time for the next adventure': Neighbours star Jodi Anasta steps down from Myer after five years with the brand

'After 5 amazing years with my Myer family, it's time for the next adventure,' she continued.

'Thank you for the fabulous memories from the early morning shoots, to the glamour of spring racing (and everything in between!) Its been a blast! Here's to an exciting future...'

Myer released the following statement regarding Jodi's departure.

'We thank Jodi Anasta for the role she has played as a Myer Ambassador,' the said.

'She has always displayed incredible professionalism and commitment to her role and we hope she will continue to be part of the Myer family moving forward.

Uploading a message to her Instagram account, the 32-year began: 'Sometimes the magic to life is changing direction'

Meanwhile, Jodi has had a busy year with shooting commitments for Neighbours.

The bruntette beauty, who plays the character Elly Conway, joined the soap last year, months after her split from former NRL star Braith Anasta, 35.

The actress, who travels for work every week between Sydney and Melbourne, previously spoke about juggling her TV gig with being a mother to their daughter Aleeia, three.

'I use the time (on the plane) to get through my scripts then, when I am with Aleeia, it's all about her and spending time together,' she told The Daily Telegraph.

'A mother's guilt is always there. But I feel like I am also setting a good example for Aleeia, showing her women can have a successful career and be a mother.

Mother: Jodi shares a daughter called Aleeia with her ex-husband Braith

She added: 'I love what I do and being able to work on a show like Neighbours is an incredible opportunity. That they (the producers) were able to restructure the schedule so that I could be with Aleeia and still be part of the show is incredible. It shows what strong family values they have.

Previously, Jodi told Daily Mail Australia her toddler is growing into 'a good mixture' of both her parents and has become very talkative lately.

'I'm just obsessed with her,' she stated. 'You can take her everywhere and we have conversations. It's like hanging out with my best friend.'

Moving on: Jodi separated from her ex-NRL star husband Braith (L) in December after three years of marriage

Elsewhere, Jodi spoke about playing naughty teacher Elly on Eleven soap Neighbours.

Her character made a steamy debut in July, stripping down to her lingerie to seduce Travis Burns' character.

'My character is so much fun,' Jodi said, enthusiastically. 'She's sassy, she's spicy, she's very full on.

'And she's kind of brought me to life a little bit more because I have a lot of fun at work. I'm really blessed to have a character like that.'

The ex-Home And Away star added: 'She's quite different to me, so it can be a struggle to (get in character) sometimes.

'But at the end of the day, I'm trained to be an actress and when I read the script, I get excited about her.

'I can have a lot of fun with it because I'm not being me,' she concluded.
He is enmeshed in a custody battle with his estranged wife Melissa Meeks.

And on Thursday, 'Hot Felon' Jeremy Meeks, 33, was photographed running errands in Los Angeles with his 26-year-old heiress girlfriend Chloe Green.

Teardrop-tattooed Jeremy showed off his chiseled arms in a royal purple T-shirt as he carried along some shopping from Sally Beauty Supply.

Scroll down for video

On the go: On Thursday, 'Hot Felon' Jeremy Meeks, 33, was photographed running errands in Los Angeles with his 26-year-old heiress girlfriend Chloe Green

The former prisoner turned model pulled on a pair of white trousers, complementing the ensemble with a white-accented pair of purple sneakers.

Jeremy accessorized with multiple necklaces dangling over his top.

Meanwhile, Chloe - the child of billionaire Topshop mogul Philip Green - had slipped into skintight black trousers.

Envelope in hand, she had flung on a denim jacket with a multicolored floral motif over the shoulders and shielded her eyes with sunglasses.

Simply stylish: Teardrop-tattooed Jeremy showed off his chiseled arms in a royal purple T-shirt as he carried along some shopping from Sally Beauty Supply

TMZ reported on July 11 that Jeremy had filed for separation from Melissa Meeks, his wife of eight years.

Melissa supported him through his prison sentence and has a seven-year-old son called Jeremy Jr. by him.

Photos emerged in June of Jeremy and Chloe Green locking lips on a yacht off the Turkish coast - much to the heartbreak of his wife.

Chloe posted an Instagram photo of herself and Jeremy captioned: 'Just the beginning...We appreciate all the love and the hate,' before making her account private, and Jeremy then deleted photos on his Instagram that'd featured Melissa.

DailyMail.com ran pictures early in July of his return to his Manteca, California house, where cigarette-gripping Melissa appeared to argue with him from the porch.

Stepping out: The former prisoner turned model had pulled on a pair of white trousers, complementing the ensemble with a white-accented pair of purple sneakers

Melissa soon told The Mail On Sunday that she intended to divorce Jeremy, and she tore into Made In Chelsea starlet Chloe for her part in the marriage's rupture.

'What sort of woman would do something like this to another woman? My marriage wasnt perfect but I thought it could be saved, until this happened,' Melissa fumed.

'Of course Im angry at her. What she did is unforgivable. And Im angry at him too. What they did destroyed my entire world,' said the nurse, who's five years Jeremy's senior and who's got another son from a previous relationship.

Did either of them think about the children and how this will affect them? Theyre the innocent victims in this,' Melissa noted, adding for good measure: 'And so am I.'

A touch of glitz: Jeremy accessorized with multiple necklaces dangling over his top

On October 5, TMZ reported Jeremy had finally filed for divorce, with an eye to joint custody of his only biological child.

By October 30, TMZ reported that Melissa alleged in court documents that Jeremy Jr's father saw him 'maybe 2 days a month. She was gunning for sole custody.

Insisting that Jeremy 'basically lives as a playboy with a rich girlfriend,' her documents proclaimed that his 'success went to his head and he left us.'

Melissa reasoned in the documents that 'I am not yet sure of his income, but I am sure it is more than mine' - on which subject, she also asked for spousal support and child support, without specifying an amount at the time.

Meanwhile, Chloe - the offspring of billionaire Topshop mogul Philip Green - had hoisted herself into skintight black trousers, flinging on a denim jacket

Last month, another TMZ report revealed that Jeremy had, in court documents of his own, refused to pay spousal support because she was the breadwinner at the time of their marriage and, he claimed, her income had remained the same since then.

He conceded he was not averse to giving child support, but per a post by TMZ this month, Melissa has claimed he is no longer forking over money for his son's care.

A potential settlement is apparently in the works, according to TMZ.

A fashion statement: Her fly was apparently partly open

After a string of far less renowned mugshots, Jeremy began his latest criminal justice system imbroglio back in 2014, resulting in the mugshot that made him a star.

The Stockton Police Department had embarked on a gang sweep that June, bringing Jeremy in for five weapons offenses and two gang membership offenses.

He was finally sentenced in February of 2015 on one of the gun charges, and was released from prison last March, remaining under house arrest until last July.
He vowed to 'take good care' of himself, after he fell down the stairs and fainted due to low blood pressure in October.

But Simon Cowell had a hard time relaxing during his annual Barbados getaway, as he was mobbed by hordes of starstruck fans on the beach on Thursday.

The X Factor boss, 58, looked a tad hassled as he struggled to take a selfie with a group of sunbathers, before finding himself caught in an amusing cross-handshake situation with girlfriend Lauren Silverman and an eager tourist.

Scroll down for video

But first, let me take a selfie: Simon Cowell had a hard time relaxing during his annual Barbados getaway, as he was mobbed by hordes of starstruck fans on the beach on Thursday

The music mogul wore a look of confusion as he grappled with a reveller's phone, trying to get the entire beaming group in the snap for a selfie.

He later escaped to the beach bar for a moment of peace with Lauren - but found himself surrounded yet again by excitable fans.

Laughing off the situation, he wagged a finger of mock-dismay at one woman while her friend leaned in to take a close-up photo of him on his iPad.

Simon then flashed obliging grins for yet another selfie, sandwiched between a beaming couple.

Someone give him a hand: The X Factor boss, 58, found himself caught in an amusing cross-handshake situation with girlfriend Lauren Silverman and an eager tourist

Snap-happy: Simon then flashed obliging grins for yet another selfie, sandwiched between a beaming couple

Do you take dollars? Simon looked a tad harrassed as he brandished money with one hand while chatting to fans

Main man: Simon proceeded to snap a number of selfies with adoring fans

The boss, who injured his head after falling down the stairs in October, admitted he had fainted due to low blood pressure.

He vowed to start 'taking good care of himself' from now on, for the sake of his son Eric, three.

Simon admitted the horrific fall had reminded him he was not 'invincible', and that he has a 'responsibility' to take control of his health as a father.

A moment of peace: He and long-term partner Lauren eventually managed to find solace when they went for a cooling dip in the sea

Ready to snorkel? The couple donned life vests as they left Simon's estate with their three-year-old son Eric

Feeling peckish? The toddler tucked into a bag of sweets as he hit the beach

Puppy love: He beamed as he sat on some steps alongside Simon's beloved dogs Squiddly and Diddly

Guiding hand: Lauren placed a loving arm around Eric as they made their way down to the water

Speaking about the incident later, he admitted: 'Sometimes we get a reminder that we're not invincible and this was certainly mine.'

'It was a huge shock. They think I fainted because I had low blood pressure and so I have got to really take good care of myself to sort that out. After all I am a dad and have more responsibility than ever.'

Explaining how the fall had happened, he added: 'I'd gone to get some hot milk because I felt ropey. On the way back upstairs, I just remember feeling really dizzy.'

'Next thing I know someone was putting a neck brace on me and I had a terrible headache, which must have been from me hitting the stairs.'

Beachside chic: The brunette beauty shielded her eyes from the sun with a black baseball cap

Ready to rumble: Simon seemed ready to hit the surf, having strapped into a red life vest

Casual look: Eric looked adorable in a car print T-shirt and grey shorts teamed with a navy cap

Having a whale of a time: The trio appeared to be in great spirits as they left their complex

Meanwhile the Syco owner, 58, showed off his own trim figure in blue board shorts - having overhauled his health and fitness last month.

Adding his trademark mirrored Aviator shades, the X Factor judge was casually cool as he soaked up the sunshine with Lauren, in his beloved holiday hot spot.

And Lauren appeared to be completely relaxed on Thursday, as she enjoyed a walk on the beach in the sun-soaked holiday hotspot.

The brunette beauty, 40, displayed her enviably svelte figure in a plunging green swimsuit as she strolled along the sand with her long-term partner Simon.

Beach babe: Lauren appeared to be completely relaxed on Thursday, as she enjoyed a walk on the beach in the sunshine

Leading lady: The brunette beauty, 40, displayed her enviably svelte figure in a plunging green swimsuit as she strolled along the sand with her long-term partner Simon

Mother-of-two Lauren commanded attention with her enviable figure in the green one-piece, which tightly hugged her frame all the way down.

Pulling into halterneck straps, the swimsuit then dipped into a deep plunge at the chest, to give a glimpse of her ample cleavage underneath.

Rising high at her hip, the swimwear then left most of her long and slender legs on show as she enjoyed a walk along the coast.

Making them green with envy: Mother-of-two Lauren commanded attention with her enviable figure in the green one-piece, which tightly hugged her frame all the way down

Busty: Pulling into halterneck straps, the swimsuit then dipped into a deep plunge at the chest, to give a glimpse of her ample cleavage

Leggy lady: Rising high at her hip, the swimwear then left most of her long and slender legs on show as she enjoyed a walk along the coast

Relaxed: Sweeping her hair into a loose ponytail and adding only dark sunglasses to her face, Lauren proved to be completely relaxed as she spent quality time with her partner Simon

Low-key: Adding his trademark mirrored Aviator shades, the X Factor judge was casually cool as he soaked up the sunshine with Lauren

Playful: The pair later laughed together as they fooled around on the beach

Besotted: The pair have been dating since 2013, and welcomed their son Eric on Valentine's Day the following year

Sweeping her hair into a loose ponytail and adding only dark sunglasses to her face, Lauren proved to be completely relaxed as she spent quality time with her long-term partner Simon.

Refreshing: Clearly enjoying their day by the sea, the pair later stopped at a nearby beach bar

Perfect match: The pair appeared engrossed in conversation as they cooled off in the Caribbean heat

Refreshing: Simon and Lauren tucked into a fizzy drink at the bar

Delicious: Simon took a large swig of his Fanta orange - having reportedly given up alcohol following his health scare last month

While his parents enjoyed some alone time, little Eric instead enjoyed a swim in the sea with his nanny.

Taking him in her arms, she took the adorable son of the music mogul into the waves for a dip, her blonde locks tied back from her face, shades covering her eyes.

Eric seemed to have very much taken to the water as he showed off impressive swimming strokes for his age.

The Cowells have made the 4,000 mile trip to Barbados for the last few years to ring in Christmas and the New Year as a family.

Stunning: Lauren's envy-inducing figure certainly turned heads on the beach

Chic: Lauren later added a stylish white fedora as they headed back to meet their son Eric

Seas the day! While his parents enjoyed some alone time, little Eric instead enjoyed a swim in the sea with his nanny

Cooling off: He soon replaced the hat with a pair of goggles, and before long was enjoying a paddle in the sea with his black and white swimsuit-clad nanny

Simon looked healthy and happy as he stepped out with Lauren and their adorable son for their first family trip to the beach on Monday.

The media boss has owned a property on the picturesque Eastern Caribbean island for a number of years, and often joins his family a few days later for the winter festivities.

In 2013, it was revealed Simon had been in a relationship with his then-best friend Andrew Silverman's wife Lauren, after pictures emerged of them kissing on a yacht.

The pair then welcomed their son - a half-sibling for Lauren's eldest son Adam, 11, from her previous marriage - in February 2014, and named him after Simon's late father, who died in 1999.

Having a ball: Meanwhile their son Eric, three, enjoyed a dip in the sea with his nanny

Strolling along: The cute tot, three, was enjoying a day without his mum and dad as he walked along, covered up from the sun in shorts, a T-shirt and a baseball cap

Out for a walk: He's currently enjoying his family's annual Christmas time trip to the sunny climes of Barbados

While he is now closer than ever with his little boy, Simon confessed last year that he had struggled to form a bond with the tot after he first arrived.

Yet, Simon later admitted to the Daily Star that the pair were now closer than ever - with Eric even confiding in him about his seemingly hectic love life.

The producer joked to the paper: 'I think he has my charm with the ladies. I asked him the other day how many girlfriends he's got and I think he's got five currently, so he's doing OK.'

In October, Simon was forced to miss the opening X Factor show after he fell down a flight of stairs during the night and fainted, injuring his head.

Companions: Eric looked to be having a fabulous time as he strolled on the sandy shores of the tropical isle alongside his nanny
Earlier this week, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards took to Twitter to reveal her childhood home had burnt down in the devastating California wildfires.

And speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Australia on Friday, the 48-year-old opened up about just how heartbreaking the loss felt.

Kyle admitted she was 'shocked' about her former home - which she lived in from two to 18-years-old - going up in flames, describing the event as 'very sad'.

'It was strange to me how sad I felt': RHOBH's Kyle Richards (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia she is devastated over the loss of her childhood home which fell victim to the California fires

'It's very, very sad,' the reality TV star explained. 'It was strange to me how sad I felt.'

Kyle acknowledged that despite the loss, she was more fortunate than the many people who have lost their properties and livelihoods in the fires that have razed parts of the US state.

She added: 'Obviously, it's more sad for people who live there currently. Some people have completely lost everything. It's very sad.'

'It's very, very sad,' Kyle said she was heartbroken about her former home going up in flames (pictured: stock image of the California fires)

Like many Californian residents faced with the possibility of coming face to face with the wildfires, Kyle admitted the whole situation was extremely frightening.

'It's actually been very, very scary. Even though my current home that I'm living in was not in the line of fire. I felt scared,' the ageless beauty explained.

Kyle added it was the uncertainty that was a huge factor that added to the feelings of terror.

'Like is it coming your way? Where would we go? Which direction? How do we get out? We didn't know which way it was gonna go,' she said.

'It's actually been very, very scary': The reality TV star added she's been terrified as the California blazes devastated the US state

'So many memories': Earlier this week, Kyle took to Twitter to express her sadness

The American actress, who stars in hayu's Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, expressed her dismay about her property loss several days ago.

'Im so sad to hear that my childhood home that I grew up in and my parents built , burned down,' she wrote on Twitter.

'I lived there from two or three-years-old until I was 18. So many memories.'

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills premieres on hayu from 20th December, same day as the US.
Tziporah Malkah, previously known as Kate Fisher, arrived at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday morning after being charged with driving offences.

The former fiancee of billionaire James Packer is accused of driving while intoxicated in the affluent suburb of Toorak on January 3.

It's the 44-year-old's second appearance at the court, after she described Victorian police as 'bullies' outside the premises last Wednesday.

Another date in court: Tziporah Malkah returned to Melbourne Magistrates Court over driving offences on Friday morning

Accompanied by her lawyer, Tziporah opted for a smart, monochrome ensemble as she arrived at the court on Friday.

The brunette donned a simple black frock teamed with stockings and sensible black flats.

Despite the warm summer temperatures, the star covered up in a long, dark coat and shielded her eyes with a pair of large sunglasses.

Dressed up: For Friday's appearance, Tziporah dressed in an smart, monochrome ensemble as made her way to the court

Fueling up: Tziporah was seen sipping from a can of full-strength Coca-Cola as she made her way inside

Perhaps fueling up to face the magistrate, Tziporah was seen sipping from a can of full-strength Coca-Cola as she made her way in to the venue.

It has been alleged the personality refused a breath test, drove carelessly, reversed in an unsafe manner, and stopped on a nature strip.

However, last week the star indicated that she may contest some or all of the seven charges for which she stands accused.

'Extremely unhappy': During last week's appearance, the court was told Tziporah was 'extremely unhappy' with the way police acted on the night of the allegations.

During that appearance, the court was told she was 'extremely unhappy' with the way police acted on the night of the allegations.

'Vic Pol are bullies,' she told reporters as she left, without providing details of what happened.

Once a darling of Australia's social scene, Tziporah moved to Los Angeles in the wake of her split from Packer in 1998.

Claims: Last week, the star told reporters that 'Vic Pol are bullies' as she left Melbourne Magistrates Court (Pictured: Tziporah during Friday's appearance)

Back in the pubic eye: Tziporah has returned to prominence, appearing in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! earlier this year.

After being swindled by a partner, and estranged from her politician mother Pru Goward, the star found herself living in a Melbourne women's homeless shelter.

She has since returned to public life, appearing in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! earlier this year.
She just recently took part in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

And Kelly Gale showed exactly why she was chosen to star in the world famous runway show, flaunting her incredible figure on Thursday.

In the image, the brunette beauty flaunted her taut tummy and trim pins in a leopard print bikini.

Abs-solutely incredible! Victoria's Secret model Kelly Gale shows off her taut tummy in a barely-there leopard print bikini

The model's hair was coiffed in beach waves, with light curls cascading down her face.

The images come less than a month since the Kelly made her debut in this year's Victoria Secret Fashion Show in Shanghai.

The brunette beauty recently hit out at critics in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, saying she was told she was 'too fat,' for the industry.

'I hear these things constantly, I'm too skinny, too fat, too tall, too short,' the Sweden-born star said.

'[But] I am confident in my own skin. There are people in the industry who will tell me I'm too skinny or too fat and that is fine, I won't work with them and I'm fine with that,' she added.

New heights: The leggy model starred in the Victoria's Secret fashion show in Shanghai last month

Sultry stunner: The model walked with the runway with fellow Victoria's Secret Angels, including Adriana Lima, Candice Swanepoel and Alessandra Ambrosio

The multi-talented model recently visited Sydney with her blonde beau Johannes Jarl, with the pair not shy about their passionate PDAs.

The catwalk stunner and Johannes frolicked on the Bondi Beach together, locking lips and playing frisbee.

The Gothenburg-raised beauty has an Australian father and an Indian mother.

In the past, the 22-year-old has been involved in advertising campaigns for high-fashion names including Chanel, Tom Ford and Christopher Kane, while also appearing in Vogue Italia and Elle magazine.
Rating:

George Blake was  and remains  that nasty piece of work who spied for the Soviet Union and betrayed 40 Western agents before being sent to prison for 42 years in 1961.

Five years later, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs with the help of former inmate Sean Bourke.

This should be a cracking tale of power shifts in a friendship (or was it a love affair?). Im afraid it proves a great deal less exciting than that

Simon Grays Cell Mates tells how Bourke helped Blake flee to Russia, then how Blake lured Bourke to Moscow, where he had his passport seized.

This should be a cracking tale of power shifts in a friendship (or was it a love affair?). Im afraid it proves a great deal less exciting than that.

The two-and-a-half hours (with interval) pass slowly enough to make one sympathise with young Bourke and his rising sense of entrapment.

This is the play from which Stephen Fry infamously fled when it opened in the West End in 1995. Stephen, dear heart, I dont blame you.

Edward Halls Hampstead revival has a boxy staging, all low ceilings and over-fussy sets. How dated it feels.

Edward Halls Hampstead revival has a boxy staging, all low ceilings and over-fussy sets. How dated it feels

Geoffrey Streatfeild adopts a cleverly strangulated accent for half-Dutch, half-Egyptian Blake, but is this really a figure who could inspire respect from his fellow jailbirds?

He seems too effete and slow off the mark.

The real Sean Bourke is said to have been unruly, overweight, provocative. Emmet Byrne conveys none of those things, making the Irishman a dim bore.

Philip Bird and Danny Lee Wynter help with minor roles. Mr Wynter has comic talents, but they are wrongly applied when he gurns it up as a KGB man. Where is the sense of danger? For that matter, where is the anger at what the evil Blake did?
Advertisement

Todd Fisher honored his late sister Carrie on Thursday at an historic Los Angeles theater.

The 59-year-old actor was joined by Star Wars characters Darth Vader, R2-D2 and C-3PO for a ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Carrie who played Princess Leia in the enduring franchise was remembered during an opening ceremony that drew fans dressed in Star Wars costumes.

Late sister: Todd Fisher honored his late sister Carrie on Thursday during a ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood

The force is strong with them! Hordes of excited fans showed up to the first screenings in Hollywood

A large plaque commemorating the actress was unveiled and it read: 'Dedicated to Carrie by the TCL Chinese Theatre, her Star Wars home since 1977 ''We love you Carrie''.'

Todd also cut cake for fans just hours before the latest installment Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened at the Hollywood theater.

Star Wars creator George Lucas, 73, previously recalled dining across the street from then-Mann's Chinese Theater when the film came out in 1977 and marveling as lines stretched down the block.

Carrie died aged 60 on December 27 in Los Angeles after finishing her filming for Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Meet and greet: R2-D2 and C-3PO made an appearance, greeting eager fans outside the famous theater

Film home: The commemorative plaque was dedicated to Carrie who starred as Princess Leia in the franchise

Younger brother: Todd is the younger brother of Carrie who died in December 2016 aged 60

Missed: Todd has previously spoken about how much he still misses his little sister

Fan favorites: Star Wars characters including Darth Vader, C-3PO and R2-D2 were at the event

Famous theater: Star Wars creator George Lucas once recalled realizing Star Wars would be a hit when he watched lines outside the Chinese Theatre when it opened in 1977

Ribbon cutting: Todd cut off a ribbon and unveiled the plaque

Star Wars star Mark Hamill, 66, said he was still coping with her death.

'It's so hard for me to think of her in the past tense because she is so alive in my mind,' The Daily Telegraph reports Mark as saying.

'She's irreplaceable and we all loved her and it was impossible not to have fun when you were around Carrie.'

Famous family: Todd and Carrie were the children of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

Cake cutting: The event also featured cake for fans that Todd cut

Famous droid: R2-D2 was among the Star Wars characters at the event

Say hi R2! One costumed fans got friendly with the most lovable droid in the far away galaxy

Dark lord: Darth Vader also made his presence felt

Guardians at the gate: A troop of costumed actors posed next to the Carrie Fisher tribute posted at the entrance

Carrie died after suffering cardiac arrest and the next day her mother Debbie Reynolds suffered a stroke at Todd's home while the family was in the middle of planning Carrie's funeral.

Reynolds was rushed to hospital, but died later that afternoon at the age of 84.

Carrie's daughter and Debbie's granddaughter Billie Lourd, 25, will reprise her role as Kaydel Ko Connix in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Smile! Movie goers snapped photos of the two famous droids while waiting in line for the film

Now that's a high five! C-3PO greeted one fan to the extreme delight of the crowd gathered behind the guard rail

Almost as good as the real thing: Cosplayers dressed up as their favorite characters for the big event

Immortalized: Todd clutched a figurine of the legendary princess

Fair swwap: Kylo traded his saber for a bugle

Force choke! Two cosplayers played a dangerous game as they summoned the power of the force

Is that the Cantina theme? Brass players for the Salvation Army performed outside the venue as a member of the dark side watched over them

Meanwhile Fisher's final turn in the eagerly awaited penultimate chapter in the Skywalker saga is getting rave reviews.

Critics are declaring the eighth episode as the best in the series since The Empire Strikes Back, which has long been regarded as one of the greatest sequels of all time.

The film sees Leia's General Organa and the rest of the Resistance being hunted by her son Ben AKA Kylo Ren and the sinister First Order.

Cement prints: Star Wars cast impressions from August 1977 were at the famous theater
She's the model and former Bachelorette star who has hit the headlines for her recent engagement to lesbian lover, Maegan Luxa.

But on Friday, Alex Nation shared a very bizarre sponsored post to her Instagram account featuring her pet dog while simultaneously advertising period pain medicine.

Pictured nuzzling into her dog's nose, the 26-year-old was seen holding a packet of Ponstan.

Has her career gone to the dogs? The Bachelor's Alex Nation's sponsorship deals appear to be going through a rough period literally

'Don't let 'that time of the month' keep you in doors in your trackie dacks and granny undies,' she captioned the post.

'Ponstan allows me to take our fur baby for a walk in the sunshine,' she continued.

'Head to Priceline now and check out the awesome promotion Ponstan is running!' the ex girlfriend of Richie Strahan exclaimed.

Feeling clucky? The snap comes days after a Woman's Day report claimed the couple visited an IVF clinic with the hopes of taking things to the next level

Alex's modelling career appears to have taken a back burner of late and seems to be eclipsed by her relationship with fiance Maegan.

Recently Woman's Day claimed Alex and Maegan visited an IVF clinic with the hopes of taking things to the next level.

Their reported interested in having a baby came after Alex's son Elijah, six, began 'nagging' his mother for a sibling.

'The girls have sought advice from an IVF clinic in East Melbourne,' an alleged 'friend' of the couple's told the magazine

'The girls have sought advice from an IVF clinic in East Melbourne,' an alleged 'friend' of the couple's told the magazine.

'They fell in love all over again during their trip to Bali and talk got serious,' they added.

The lovebirds confirmed their romance during a getaway to Bali a few months back and announced their engagement earlier this month.

Family ties: The 26-year-old's son from a previous relationship, Elijah, six, has reportedly been 'nagging' his mother for a sibling

On the day Australia celebrated a majority 'Yes' vote in the country's marriage equality postal survey, Alex shared a photo of the pair holding each other.

'Everywhere around the country, voices of the oppressed rang true. They were not silenced and love prevailed,' she gushed in the image's caption.

Previously in a high-profile relationship with Richie Strahan, whom she met on The Bachelor in 2016, Alex met Maegan, 31, playing for the same AFL Women's team.
He was just awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

But it seems Dwayne Johnson has considerably loftier goals in mind, as he told Variety on Thursday.

It turns out the 45-year-old Jumanji star is looking to possibly run for President of the United States in 2024, though realizes his Hollywood career could get in the way.

Presidential material? Dwayne Johnson, 45, is looking to possibly run for President of the United States in 2024

'I couldnt do both,' he admitted before explaining that 'realistically, as we go into 2018, when you look at my slate as were developing and shooting into 2019 and 2020, the slate goes deep into 2021, so it feels like the realistic consideration would be 2024.'

Of course Johnson first made his name as The Rock, a wrestler participating in the WWE professional wrestling league.

The idea to pursue politics originally came from a 2016 Washington post article which stated that he could win if he ran for president.

'It was never something that I trumpeted and beat my chest and ever said publicly, This is what Im going to do, but as that story picked up, Americans picked it up and there was this sentiment of, Were not joking, and we would really love the idea if you would run,' he remembered.

Mapping out a strategy: 'Realistically, as we go into 2018, when you look at my slate as were developing and shooting into 2019 and 2020, the slate goes deep into 2021, so it feels like the realistic consideration would be 2024,' said the Jumanji actor

When fans did start encouraging him to run, he immediately started thinking about if they were correct in their assessment of him being able to win.

'I knew I had to listen to the people and really, really think about it,' he said, before describing the level of careful thought he's putting into the idea.

'Im well aware politics is not the business Im in, so the best thing I can do is continuing to listen and learn as much as I can,' revealing his famous modesty.

Johnson, who is currently registered as an Independent, also discussed how the current administration isn't living up to his expectations.

Future head of state? Of course Johnson first made his name as The Rock, a wrestler participating in the WWE professional wrestling league

'I continue to be hopeful that our leaders exhibit poise, perspective and the ability to bring our country together during these tough times  which I dont feel our presidency is currently doing  so thats where Im at.'

He then went on to define perhaps the most important trait a leader should possess, saying 'I care deeply about our country, and I care deeply about our people  especially now. Decency matters and being a decent human being matters, and character matters, and leadership matters.'

In addition to his burgeoning film career, Johnson also has a growing family to tend to.

While he already has daughters Simone, 16 and Jasmine, aged two, he recently announced that him and his partner Lauren Hashian were expecting another little girl.
She has been enjoying a vacation in Miami.

But on Thursday, it was back to reality for Emma Roberts.

The 26-year-old actress was spotted at LAX, clad in a colorful, plaid jumpsuit by LHD.

Back to reality: Emma Roberts, 26, returned to LAX on Thursday following a vacation in Miami

The Scream Queens added a pair of black Yuul Yie heels to her ensemble.

Emma accessorized with a silver necklace, shades and a black, straw hat.

The daughter of Eric Roberts wore her chin-length, blonde hair down and straight.

Standing out: The actress was spotted at LAX, clad in a colorful, plaid jumpsuit by LHD

Items that made her outfit: Emma accessorized with a silver necklace, shades and a black, straw hat

On Wednesday, Emma was seen relaxing on Miami Beach.

Prior to her fun-in-the-sun vacation, the Who We Are Now actress headed up north to Canada for the Woolrich store opening.

The talented star surely enjoyed her relaxing vacation, which comes ahead of a busy 2018.

Fun in the sun! Emma was seen on Miami Beach on Wednesday

Next year, Emma will appear in four films.

The New York native will star in Little Italy, Billionaire Boys Club and In a Relationship, all of which are in post production.

Emma can also be seen in Paradise Hills, a film which is currently in its beginning stage.
She's the ex-fiancee of billionaire James Packer who claimed, this week, that she was living on a paltry $100 per week.

And Tziporah Malkah's current situation is a far cry from the 1990s when she was Australia's 'It girl.'

Tziporah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, first burst onto the spotlight as a fresh-faced 13-year-old after winning the Dolly Covergirl of the Year competition.

Fall: After it was revealed on Friday she was living on an $200 per fortnight pension, Tziporah Malkah's current situation is a far cry from the 1990s when she was Australia's 'It girl'

The 1990s saw her hit her modelling straps, becoming one of Australia's most bankable faces adorning such high profile covers as Elle, GQ, and Vogue Australia - for whom she shot four covers.

Tziporah achieved national acclaim in 1994 when she appeared alongside fellow model Elle Macpherson, Portia de Rossi, Hugh Grant and Sam Neil in Sirens.

The film, based on the life of Australian artist Norman Lindsay, generated a modicum of controversy upon release, due to the depictions of female nudity.

Early talent: Tziporah, formerly known as Kate Fischer, first burst onto the spotlight as a fresh-faced 13-year-old as the winner of the Dolly Covergirl of the Year competition

Tziporah made headlines in 1996 when she became engaged to billionaire media mogul James Packer.

However, that union was not to last, with the pair calling off the engagement in 1998 after five years together.

Appearing on the Kyle and Jackie O show in 2016, Tziporah admitted that, after the break-up, she threw half a million dollars worth of jewellery into the ocean that James had gifted her.

In demand; The 1990s saw her hit her modelling straps, becoming one of Australia's most bankable faces - adorning such high profile covers as Elle , GQ, and Vogue Australia - for whom she shot four covers

Breakout role: Tziporah achieved national acclaim in 1994 when she appeared alongside fellow model Elle Macpherson (c), Portia de Rossi (l), Hugh Grant and Sam Neil

Star turn: The film, based on the life of Australian artist Norman Lindsay, generated a modicum of controversy upon release, due to the depictions of female nudity

'I thought, 'They come from the earth and back to the earth shall they go,' so I chucked them all in the ocean. It was a powerful moment but now Im like, 'Oh crap,' she said.

It was also reported at the time by the Daily Telegraph, that James also gave Tziporah a $2.7 million Bondi apartment and 'some hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending money.'

Speaking to Woman's Day in 2016, Tziporah admitted that she sometimes regrets her decision to leave Australia after her relationship with James ended.

It couple: Tziporah made headlines in 1996 when she became engaged to billionaire media mogul James Packer. However, that union was not to last with the pair calling off the engagement in 1998, after five years together

High flying: It was also reported at the time by the Daily Telegraph , that James also gave Tziporah a $2.7 million Bondi apartment (pictured) and 'some hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending money'

'Sometimes I think I should have stayed in Australia and battled it out a bit,' she admitted. 'Buy I was devastated and I felt like he had all the cards.'

After splitting with James, Tzipporah was also romantically linked with actor Ben Mendelssohn and Nova radio star Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald.

She then moved from Australia to Beverley Hills where she converted to Judaism, changing her name to Tziporah Malkah Bat Israel.

Out it goes: Appearing on the Kyle and Jackie O show in 2016, Tziporah admitted that, after the break-up, she threw half a million dollars worth of jewellery into the ocean that James had gifted her

She revealed to The Project earlier this year she became engaged to a businessman who, she later discovered had a wife and child in Israel, finding herself homeless upon returning to Australia in 2010.

'I didn't know anything about homelessness so I thought I had to sleep under a bush so I Googled "Homelessness Melbourne,' she said.

After keeping out of the spotlight, Tziporah made a return to the spotlight this year as a contestant on the hit Channel Ten reality show I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! losing out to former Australian idol star Casey Donovan.

Across the pond: She then moved from Australia to Beverley Hills where she converted to Judasim, changing her name to Tziporah Malkah Bat Israel

Tziporah appeared in Melbourne Magistrate's Court on Friday, where she pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Toorak on January 3.

She was find $1500 and banned from driving for 27 months.

During proceedings, it was revealed by her solicitor Michael Kuzilny that Tziporah was 'very financially disadvantaged' and had been ripped off in a $2 million real estate scam some years ago.

He added that she was currently living on a pension of $200 per fortnight.

Shock: She revealed to The Project earlier this year she became engaged to a businessman who, she later discovered had a wife and child in Israel, finding herself homeless upon returning to Australia in 2010
Since ending his relationship with Alex Nation, Richie Strahan has let his sandy locks grow out.

And after a 10-hour flight from Japan to Australia, the former Bachelor star showed off his messy man bun on Friday.

Landing in Sydney bright and early, The Bachelor star touched down on his own.

Scroll down for video

My, has he changed! Richie Strahan flaunts his new messy man bun as he strolls through Sydney airport after his trip to Japan

Wearing headphones, he kept a low profile, wearing sunglasses, a trench coat, jeans and a white shirt.

Wheeling a suitcase alongside him, he also toted a backpack.

The hunky reality star gave a slight smile to the cameras as he walked through the arrivals lounge.

Need a hairbrush? After a 10-hour flight from Japan to Australia, the former Bachelor star showed off his messy man bun on Friday

Trip of a life time: Earlier in the week, the Rope Access Technician was whisked away to the Land Of The Rising Sun as part of Toyota's Hybrid Experience Trip

Earlier in the week, the Rope Access Technician was whisked away to the Land Of The Rising Sun as part of Toyota's Hybrid Experience Trip

Also enjoying the trip was influencers and bloggers such as former AFL star Adam Goodes, Tanja Gacic, Tyson Mayr and Jennifer Nini.

Richie's trip came as he recently broke his silence about splitting with Alex Nation for the first time to New Idea.

Keeping a low-profile: Wearing headphones, he kept a low profile, wearing sunglasses, a trench coat, jeans and a white shirt

Heading home: He gave a slight smile to the cameras as he walked through the arrivals lounge

He told the publication he had sacrificed a lot for their failed relationship.

'The months leading up to it (the break-up) were the most difficult, crazy and confusing time I've been put through. Having something dissolve the way it did was heartbreaking,' he said.

'I guess the brightest spark can fizzle fast. We made some bad choices back in June and our relationship really struggled to recover for months after that,' he added.

Speaking out: Richie recently broke his silence about splitting with Alex Nation for the first time to New Idea

Walking away: 'The months leading up to it (the break-up) were the most difficult, crazy and confusing time I've been put through. Having something dissolve the way it did was heartbreaking,' he said

The Bachelor star also revealed that was open to falling in love again and does not regret going on the show.

Meanwhile, Alex has moved on with her fellow AFL player girlfriend Maegan Luxa, and the lovebirds revealed their engagement one week ago.
A Kiwi movie fan got more than he bargained for on Tuesday after he called a phone number on a billboard.

Seeing the digits on a billboard promoting The Disaster Artist, New Zealand-native Steve Newall called it - only for the film's star James Franco to answer.

Not only that, the actor was in the midst of a live interview with Conan O'Brien on his late night talk show.

Scroll down for video

'What are you guys up to?': A New Zealand fan got more than he bargained for this week when The Disaster Artist star James Franco (left) hilariously answers his call during a live interview on Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show

In the humorous segment, James answered the call using the voice of his character Tommy Wiseau.

'Hello? Hello? This is Tommy Wiseau,' James said as Conan and the show's guest listened in.

The actor continued: 'This is Tommy Wiseau, who's this?'

'Hey this is Steve, I'm just having lunch in Auckland, New Zealand': the Kiwi man responded casually to James Franco's questions

'Hey this is Steve, I'm just having lunch in Auckland, New Zealand,' the Kiwi man responded with a thick accent.

Casually, he questioned: 'What are you guys up to?"

In character, James replied he was on Conan's show - only to be met with confusion at the other end of the line.

'Conan the Barbarian?' Steve asked as Conan acted offended by the response.

Guessing again, Steve then questioned if James was referring to 'Conan Washington'.

Hello? Hello? This is Tommy Wiseau,' the actor answered the call in character and Conan, his guests and the audience listened in

In character: James portrays Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist (pictured right with brother and co-star Dave Franco)

Steve, who is the editor of New Zealand publication Flicks, later explained he'd been calling the number since spotting the Hollywood billboard emblazoned with the digits.

'I'd been trying to get through to Franco/Wiseau for weeks... I'd pretty much given up, and then in the middle of an Important Work Lunch I went to play my fellow diners the answerphone message, but something was different. Franco had picked up.' he wrote.

'And of all the times to get through to him It was right at this moment.'
He is known for multiple blockbuster hits such as; The Dark Night, American Pyscho, and American Hustle.

And Christian Bale is now starring in the new independent movie Hostiles- which held it's premiere at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday.

The 43-year-old actor was joined by his beautiful wife Sibi Blazic, who matched her husband in an all-black ensemble while on the red carpet.

Back in black: Christian Bale is now starring in the new independent movie Hostiles- which held it's premiere at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday

Sibi sported an elegant lace long-sleeve midi dress which she paired with simple pointed-toe black heels.

Christian's wife held tightly onto her studded black clutch, while finishing her look with curled hair and glam make-up.

The Batman star kept his red carpet ensemble simple by wearing an all black tuxedo.

Christian recently had to shave his head and gain 40 pounds for his role as former Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie biopic Backseat.

The couple: The 43-year-old actor was joined by his beautiful wife Sibi Blazic, who matched her husband in an all-black ensemble while on the red carpet

Elegant: Sibi sported an elegant lace long-sleeve midi dress which she paired with simple pointed-toe black heels

Of course his willingness to change his appearance for roles has made Christian the successful actor he is today.

The Machinist actor had to lose70 lbs. for his role as Trevor Reznik and then rapidly gain 100 lbs. to play Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.

Bale also lost weight for his role as Dickie Eklund in The Fighter and then add 50 lbs. to play in the Oscar-nominated movie American Hustle.

For the role: Christian recently had to shave his head and gain 40 pounds for his role as former Vice President Dick Cheney in the movie biopic Backseat

Thighs the limit: Also at the premiere was German actress Q'orianka Kilcher, who looked stunning in a thigh-high slit black dress

Also at the premiere was German actress Q'orianka Kilcher, who looked stunning in a thigh-high slit black dress.

Kilcher was not the only Native American actor to attend the premiere, also in attendance was Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. and Lynette Two Bulls.

Whiteman looked great as he sported a traditional Native American headdress that featured feathers and colorful ribbon.

Lynette also wore an array of color as she donned a rainbow striped skirt teamed with a velvet black top.

Stealing the spotlight: Kilcher was not the only Native American actor to attend the premiere, also in attendance was Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr. and Lynette Two Bulls

On the red carpet: Whiteman looked great as he sported a traditional Native American headdress that featured feathers and colorful ribbon

Cheryl Hines and Jesse Plemons attended the Hostiles premiere as well.

The Curb Your Enthusiasm star showed off her impeccable figure in a form-fitting long-sleeve black dress, which she casually teamed with over-the-knee boots.

Cheryl wore her blonde tresses straight down by her shoulders, while finishing off her look with a glossy nude pout.

Jesse Plemons arrived on the red carpet in a gray suit and dark-brown oxfords.

The actor arrived solo, amid US Weekly report that he is having a baby with fiance Kirsten Dunst.

All-black: The Curb Your Enthusiasm star showed off her impeccable figure in a form-fitting long-sleeve black dress, which she casually teamed with over-the-knee boots

Night out: Cheryl Hines and Jesse Plemons attended the Hostiles premiere as well

Suited up: Jesse Plemons arrived on the red carpet in a gray suit and dark-brown oxfords

Also at the Hostiles premiere was good friends Byron Allen, Carolyn Folks, and Jon Lovitz.

The new independent film takes place in the late 1800s, and follows a legendary Army captain who reluctantly agrees to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory.

The film is released in theaters December 22, which enters Bale in the race for the Oscars.

At the premiere: Also at the Hostiles premiere was good friends Byron Allen and Carolyn Folk
Did you know that plants are just like us? We are born and immediately need someone to take care of us until we can take care of ourselves. Plants are basically the same way.

Seeds are planted then need to germinate until certain needs are met: water, correct temperature or warmth and a good location, which means good soil and moisture.

Early on, the seedling relies on food stored in the seed itself. Then, when it is large enough for leaves to break through the soil surface, it can begin making its own food through photosynthesis.

What is photosynthesis? Thats when plants convert light energy from the sun into chemical energy that can be stored and later released to fuel the organisms growth. Its very magical stuff when you think about it.

Still, there are a few interesting other facts about plants that you might not know. For example, did you know that peanuts are actually a bean and that a pineapple is a berry? Did you also know that one bushel of corn can sweeten more than 400 cans of soda pop?

Here are a few more interesting plant facts:

 A notch in a tree will remain at the same distance from the ground even as the tree grows. Plus, 84 percent of a raw apple and 96 percent of a raw cucumber are made up of water.

 The bright orange color of carrots tells us that they are an excellent source of vitamin A, which is essential for good eyesight, especially at night. But did you also know that vitamin A helps your body fight infection and keeps your skin and hair healthy?

 Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings and relieves the itching of athletes foot, while avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.

 The oldest living plant in existence is the bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, which is said to be 4,600 years old. The California redwood and giant sequoia are the tallest and largest living organisms in the world.

 A more interesting fact about plants is that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis sativa (better known to us as marijuana) on their plantations.

Like plants, we need help after we are born, until we can grow and take care of ourselves. But animals are not necessarily like that.

If you are a rancher, you know that a calf that was born yesterday can be running around at full speed in a very playful manner today. Meanwhile, we humans (and plants) take several months or a year  at least  just to prop ourselves up on two feet without some kind of assistance.

You may not know who St. Basil is, but he was a theologian who was born into a wealthy family in Greece in about 330.

In 357, he traveled to Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia to study monasticism and distribute his fortunes to the poor. Eventually, he became known for his care of the poor and underprivileged.

I bring him up because, when it comes to plants and life in general, he summed it all up nicely when he said: A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

Thats not a bad blueprint for life.
Dancing With The Stars pro Kym Johnson shared her first baby bump selfie on Thursday.

The Australian dancer and her husband Robert Herjavec confirmed Tuesday that they are expecting twins.

Kym, 41, posted to Instagram a photo she took in her bathroom mirror showing her facing the camera wearing only black underwear.

'I've popped quite a bit more now': Kym Johnson shared her first baby bump selfie on Thursday. It turns out it's a throwback snap to when she was 18 weeks pregnant with her twins

In her caption, she pointed out that it's actually a throwback snap to her 'first baby bump pic at 18 weeks', adding: 'I've popped quite a bit more now.'

And photos of her taken last weekend show that her bump has indeed progressed.

Kym was seen heading to a spa session in Beverly Hills on Saturday wearing a clingy black dress that revealed her blossoming belly.

On Tuesday, she and her Shark Tank star husband told People that there are having two babies,

'We waited so long that we decided to double up!' the excited couple told the magazine. 'We are very grateful for the blessing of twins.'

Two babies on board: Kym, 41, showed off her bigger bump in a clingy black dress as she attended a spa session in Beverly Hills on Saturday

Doubling up: Kym and her Shark Tank star husband Robert Herjavec confirmed to People Tuesday that they are having two bundles of joy

Kym broke the news of her pregnancy by posting her sonogram to Instagram.

The image until now had been thought to show just one baby.

The couple met and fell in love while partnering each other on the ABC reality competition in 2015 and tied the knot in 2016.

Robert, 55, already has three children from his first marriage.

Aww! The Australian dancer, who wed Robert in 2016, broke the news of her pregnancy by posting her sonogram to Instagram on Monday

Kym soared to stardom after first appearing on DWTS in 2006 as a pro dancer before eventually turning into a judge.

She has also appeared on the Australian version of Dancing With The Stars.

Robert is currently an investor alongside Mark Cuban, Kevin O'Leary, Daymond John, Lori Greiner, and Barbara Corcoran on Shark Tank.

Kym and Robert tied the knot in Los Angeles in July 2016 and, speaking of life as a newlywed, the dancer gushed to Us last year: 'Its been amazing.'

'Its been the most incredible summer of my life,' she added.
She's currently spending some time on the Gold Coast, soaking up the sunshine with her one-year-old daughter Layla Rose.

But it seems as though the heat became unbearable for TV presenter Laura Csortan, who took refuge inside during a particularly balmy Thursday afternoon.

The 41-year-old beauty showcased her flawless skin in an Instagram video, captioning the story: 'Gold Coast why so hot? It's boiling here.'

Simply stunning! Laura Csortan, 41, flaunts her age-defying appearance in selfie during Gold Coast holiday with daughter Layla

Despite the exorbitant temperatures Laura wasn't breaking a sweat, instead wearing a stunning black kohl eye shadow look, with nude lips and a light dusting of bronzer.

Her bronde hair swept away from her face and with pursed lips, the mother-of-one didn't look impressed by the summer weather, but did look impressive in her leopard print dress.

It showed just a hint of cleavage, teasing at the model's undoubtedly faultless figure.

Taking some time off! On Saturday she spent some much-needed down time with her daughter, taking her for a day at the beach

On Saturday she spent some much-needed down time with her daughter, taking her for a day at the beach.

The 41-year-old sizzled in a tiny black bikini as she doted on Layla while they played in the sand.

'Educating her on the fine art of beach hangs,' the stunning former Miss Australia captioned the seaside photo.

Water babies: Laura Csortan continued to display her bond with daughter Layla Rose on Saturday, sharing a snap from their day at the beach

Her followers immediately took to the comments section to heap praise on the mother and daughter duo.

'You both are amazing and beautiful and Laura you look more beautiful everyday,' gushed one supporter.

'Super sweet!' Another added.

Praised: 'You both are amazing and beautiful and Laura you look more beautiful everyday,' gushed one supporter

Meanwhile in July Laura was forced to hit back at hurtful rumours she was ever in a romantic relationship with celebrity accountant Anthony Bell, nor was he Layla's father as incorrectly speculated, on Instagram.

'Anthony is one of my closest friends and we are not (nor have we ever been) in a coupled relationship,' she explained.

'Layla's father is presently living overseas and does not wish to be dragged through the media. Nor is it anyone's business,' she added.
They have been married since 2014 and share two beautiful sons.

And Jeff Goldblum and his wife Emilie Livingston showed how in sync they are as a couple as they donned strikingly similar outfits to jet out for LAX on Thursday.

The 65-year-old actor and his Olympic gymnast spouse, 34, caught the eye in dark shirts and black skinny jeans as they headed off for the solo trip without their two boys Charlie Ocean, two and River Joe, eight months.

Scroll below for video

On the move: Jeff Goldblum and his wife Emilie Livingston showed how in sync they are as a couple as they donned strikingly similar outfits to jet out for LAX on Thursday

Going strong: The 65-year-old actor and his Olympic gymnast spouse, 34, caught the eye in dark shirts and black skinny jeans as they headed off for the solo trip without their two boys Charlie Ocean, two and River Joe, eight months

The veteran entertainer wore a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck shirt, black jeans and dark-rimmed eyeglasses with black boots as he pulled a silver carry-on suitcase.

Emilie, a Canadian rhythmic gymnast, wore a navy blue coat over a black top with black Calvin Klein pants tucked into black boots.

The gifted athlete, who participated in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia when she was just 17 - wore brown glasses with a navy blue beret covering her hair, which was styled into a braided ponytail.

She had a black purse over her shoulder and carried a black carry-on suitcase.

Happy together:The veteran entertainer wore a black leather jacket over a black turtleneck shirt, black jeans and dark-rimmed eyeglasses with black boots as he pulled a silver carry-on suitcase

Flexible:Emilie, a Canadian rhythmic gymnast, wore a navy blue coat over a black top with black Calvin Klein pants tucked into black boots

Jeff showed off how down-to-earth he is earlier this month in the small Washington state town of Sequim, where he was in town to film an upcoming period piece called The Mountain.

On December 5 Jeff enjoyed a two-hour dinner at a local eatery called Blondie's Plate with the film's director Rick Alverson and co-star Tye Sheridan, according to the Sequim Gazette.

Bartender Darren Stephens said that the actor was gregarious when he praised films such as The Fly and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.

The bartender said Goldblum 'loved that someone still talks about his old sci-fi movies.'

Busy: Earlier this month Jeff spent time in Washington state, where he filmed a period piece called The Mountain

Enduring: Jeff has been a staple of the cinema for more than 40 years, first appearing in the Charles Bronson action film Death Wish in 1974, according to iMDb

Emilie and the 6ft4 star, who played the Grandmaster in movies this year such as Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, have two young sons: Charlie Ocean, two, and River, eight months.

The Independence Day actor is in his third marriage with Emilie, who he tied the knot with in November of 2014 at the West Hollywood celebrity haunt, the Chateau Marmont.

The Big Chill star was previously married to actress Geena Davis from 1987 to 1990 and Patricia Gaul from 1980 until 1986.

Smash hit: Jeff appears in the blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, which has taken in $835 million internationally over the past six weeks
They've been married for ten years and share two children.

And Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster still looked besotted as they attended the Chain Of Hope Carol at St Marylebone Parish Church in London on Thursday.

The legendary rocker, 72, beamed as his wife, 46, put on a glamorous display for the pre-Christmas service.

Scroll down for video

Feeling festive! Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster attended the Chain Of Hope Carol at St Marylebone Parish Church in London on Thursday

Showing off her enviable curves, Penny slipped into a plunging red silk dress and accessorised with a pearl drop choker.

She teamed the frock with a pair of strappy red pumps, and layered up in a plush faux fur coat as she posed alongside her dapper rocker husband.

He put on a quirky display in a checked waistcoat and white shirt ensemble, injecting a playful touch with leopard print loafers as they attended the festive service.

Star factor! The legendary rocker, 72, beamed as his wife, 46, put on a glamorous display for the pre-Christmas service

Rod previously praised Penny for bringing his eight children from five relationships together.

Giving a ITV's Lorraine an honest interview, he said: 'She literally did bring the family together.

'I've got eight children and I think I am appreciating it more now in old age than I ever did before. I really cherish those moments.'

At the tender age of 18 Rod fathered his first child Sarah Streeter (now 55) with art student Susannah Boffey, and she was raised by adoptive parents.

He then went on to marry Alana Hamtilton, now 71, and the duo became parents to Kimberley and Rod Stewart, now 37 and 36 respectively.

Following their separation the musician welcomed daughter Ruby, now 29, with model ex-girlfriend Kelly Emberg, now 57.

His second marriage was to Australian model Rachel Hunter, 47, from 1990 to 2006, with whom he shares son Liam, 24, and daughter Renee, 22.

He then went onto marry current wife Penny Lancaster, with whom he shares Alastair, 11, and Aiden, six.
Fans were left aghast when Katya Jones and Joe McFadden pulled off one of Strictly Come Dancing's most complex moves to date on Saturday night's show.

And far from only fans being wowed, Good Morning Britain hosts Kate Garraway and Richard Arnold were equally amazed - so much so that they tried to recreate the pose on Friday's show however it resulted in the pretty host crashing to the floor.

The 50-year-old attempted the move shortly after former Strictly star Judge Rinder also clambered around on top of Richard, 48, however her move was wholly less successful as she clattered to the floor in shock fashion.

Scroll down for video

Shock: Good Morning Britain hosts Kate Garraway and Richard Arnold tried to recreate Katya Jones and Joe McFadden's shock Saturday night pose on Friday's show however it resulted in the pretty host crashing to the floor

Katya and Joe finished the semi-final in joint second place on the leaderboard with an impressive 70 out of 80 score, following two tense dances per couple.

But Katya stunned audiences and judges alike on Saturday when she balanced Joe's entire weight in an incredible move. She was seen effortlessly sinking into the ground backwards, as she cantilevered Joe to his feet, winning a standing ovation.

In light of the wild reaction over the move, the GMB crew were trying their luck at pulling off the moves yet things ended in disaster for Kate who tumbled to the floor in dramatic fashion while the rest of the crew were left in hysterics.

The group found the move so hilarious that aides rushed to set to help reapply her make-up as she found the move so hilarious that she was weeping with laughter.

Wow! Fans were left aghast when Katya Jones and Joe McFadden pulled off one of Strictly Come Dancing's most complex moves to date on Saturday night's show.

Wah! The 50-year-old attempted the move shortly after former Strictly star Judge Rinder also clambered around on top of Richard, 48, however her move was wholly less successful as she clattered to the floor in shock fashion

Kate told viewers: 'Can I just apologise to everybody including Richard for that appalling performance? I thought I knew Richard Arnold really well.

'Now, I know him really well. I think what Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker should do is the core challenge.'

Trying to explain how the gaffe occurred, she said: 'I'm very short, I think that was the problem. His legs weren't in the right position. I could feel myself slipping, that's why I was screaming. Anyway, moving on.'

Be careful! Judge Rinder was pulling off the move successfully as they jumped on top of one another

'Appalling!' Kate told viewers: 'Can I just apologise to everybody including Richard for that appalling performance? I thought I knew Richard Arnold really well

On Saturday, during their second dance, Joe and Katya returned to the dance floor with a punchy Argentine Tango to Human by Rag n Bone Man.

The incredible performance saw the dynamic duo put on an emotive display, winning over the audience and judges with their performance.

And in a move that bagged them scores of three nines and an eight, Katya was seen hoisting Joe slowly to his feet as she squatted in heels, sinking slowly into the ground backwards as she held him up by his legs.

What a move! The professional dancer was seen effortlessly sinking into the ground backwards, as she cantilevered Joe to his feet, winning a standing ovation

Second time lucky! For their second dance, Joe and Katya returned to the dance floor with a punchy Argentine Tango to Human by Rag n Bone Man

Surely boasting thigh and stomach muscles of steel, the duo's move won them a standing ovation from the crowd and judges.

'I've never seen anything like that', Tess exclaimed of the incredible dance, before the duo scored 35.

Earlier in the night Joe and Katya kicked off the show with the American Smooth to Have You Met Miss Jones? By Robbie Williams.

Wait for it! The incredible performance saw the dynamic duo put on an emotive display, winning over the audience and judges with their performance

Bagging the points! In a move that bagged them scores of three nines and an eight, Katya was seen hoisting Joe slowly to his feet as she squatted in heels, sinking slowly into the ground backwards as she held him up by his legs

Incredible! For their second dance, Joe and Katya returned to the dance floor with a punchy Argentine Tango to Human by Rag n Bone Man, getting a standing ovation

The couple put on a smooth appearance during their first of two dances of the night, whopping with joy as they completed the dance.

'We have four women and one man, what a way to kick of the show,' Shirley Ballas exclaimed, as she joined Bruno Tonioli, Craig Revel Horwood and Darcey Bussell on the judge's panel.

The duo scored 35 out of 40, being given a score of nine by three of the judges, landing them joint second on the leaderboard with Debbie McGee and Giovanni Pernice.

'I've never seen anything like that', Tess exclaimed of the incredible dance, before the duo scored 35

Hot stuff! Earlier Joe and Katya kicked off the show with the American Smooth to Have You Met Miss Jones? By Robbie Williams and the Argentine Tango to Human by Rag n Bone Man
She was spotted at Heathrow Airport on Thursday as she arrived in the capital for a festive holiday with her boyfriend Chris Zylka.

And just hours after her arrival, Paris Hilton slipped into a scarlet lace minidress as she headed to a house party in West London with her handsome beau.

The 36-year-old socialite oozed confidence in the sultry ensemble which showcased her long and slender legs.

Scroll down for video

Leggy: Paris Hilton sported a glamorous appearance as she headed to a house party in West London with her beau Chris Zylka on Thursday

The Hilton heiress showed off her sun-kissed tan in the striking ensemble, which featured a Victorian-inspired neckline.

Her svelte waist was nipped in by a ruffle waistband before the dress billowed out into an A-line skirt.

She added a boost to her 5ft 6ins stature with pointed black lace stilettos and accessorized with diamond drop earrings.

Glamorous: Slipping into a scarlet lace minidress, the 36-year-old socialite oozed confidence as she flaunted her lithe limbs

Paris added a touch of opulence to her ensemble with a black furry jacket, which she slung over her bag as she headed into the venue.

The Simple Life star styled her long blonde tresses in loose curls and finished off the look with a dramatic smoky eye and bright pink lip.

The blonde beauty looked loved-up with her hunky 32-year-old boyfriend, holding his hand on the way to the party.

Chris also dressed up for the occasion, looking dapper in a tailored black suit and deep blue shirt.

Say cheese! Paris Hilton enjoyed photo shoot with her boyfriend Chris Zylka in a traditional passport machine at London's Heathrow Airport

Earlier in the day, the happy couple posed in a classic photo booth at Heathrow Airport - before they made their way through the terminal with copious amounts of luggage, ahead of the festive season.

The perfume entrepreneur looked typically chic in a red mini dress, which left her toned pins on show.

Keeping warm in the cold weather however she layered a cosy navy coat on top, and accessorized with racy thigh-high boots and a trendy baker boy cap.

Ahead of her departure The Simple Life star beamed in front of a Christmas tree at LAX airport in an Instagram snap, which she captioned: 'Bye LA! Happy Holidays! Taking off to #London!'

She and Chris only went public with their relationship in February, but Paris has already said the Leftovers star is 'the one'.

She told E! News: 'I've never been surer of anything in my life. He's so incredible in every way. We've actually been friends for a really long time, like the past six years.

'We just now started being serious in the past few months and it's really just changed my life in so many ways and brought so much happiness to my life.'
He splits his time between Sydney and Melbourne to spend time with his son Ethan.

And Kris Smith has opened up about co-parenting his seven-year-old son with ex Dannii Minogue, describing it as 'not very conventional'.

Speaking to Yahoo Be, the hunky male model revealed he plans to introduce new girlfriend Sarah Boulazeris to his son Ethan this Christmas.

'Its not very conventional': Kris Smith opens up on co-parenting with ex Dannii Minogue as he reveals plan to introduce new GF Sarah Boulazeris to his son Ethan this Christmas

Kris, who dated Dannii for five years before splitting in 2012, said the former couple equally split time with Ethan for big holidays.

With Dannii celebrating Christmas last year with Ethan, it was Kris' turn to celebrate the festive season with their son.

Speaking to Yahoo, Kris said he and Dannii weren't alone in having to split time with their son.

Co parents: Kris, who dated Dannii for five years before splitting in 2012, said the former couple equally split time with Ethan for big holidays

'Sadly its very, very popular nowadays': Speaking to Yahoo, Kris said he and Dannii weren't alone in having to split time with their son

'Look its not very conventional,' the Myer ambassador said. 'But sadly its very, very popular nowadays.'

Kris has plenty to look forward to this Christmas, using the holiday as an opportunity to introduce Ethan to his new lady love Sarah.

'Were really enjoying each others company and time. Shes a very special person in my life and this year I get to spend Christmas with her and Ethan,' he gushed.

Happy holidays! Kris has plenty to look forward to this Christmas, using the holiday as an opportunity to introduce Ethan to his new lady love Sarah

Kris debuted his new romance with Sarah at the races in November after secretly dating for five months.

Speaking to The Morning Show this week, Kris revealed that he would love to have more children.

'I'd love more kids! Especially around this time of year,' he revealed.

'You see the excitement [on their faces]. I'm speaking with Ethan, talking about the letters he's writing for Santa Claus [and] what he wants, it's just great.'
They welcomed their first child together - his eighth in total - a year ago, before shocking fans when he reportedly had a fling in October.

And despite the intricacies of Mick Jagger's love life, he appears as loved-up as ever with his ballerina girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 31, as they were seen for the first time since the news at the Montage Hotel Laguna Beach in California last week.

The 74-year-old Rolling Stones rocker was reportedly romancing Noor Alfallah, a 22-year-old film producer, while his band were touring in Paris, France, for their No Filter tour just two months ago - yet he remains in a relationship with Melanie.

Scroll down for video

The happy couple: Despite the intricacies of Mick Jagger's love life, he appears as loved-up as ever with his ballerina girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 31, as they were seen for the first time since the news at the Montage Hotel Laguna Beach in California last week.

Cutting low-key figures, the couple drank in the idyllic views while standing close with Melanie sporting a crew-neck black T-shirt and loose-fitting trousers.

She wore her brunette tresses in a centre parting and tied in a low ponytail at the nape of her neck to best show off her stunning features.

Mick meanwhile was also rocking a loose-fitting charcoal coloured top while also wearing his trademark shaggy locks loose around her shoulders.

In October news first arose when the The Sun reported he enjoyed a number of dates with Noor Alfallah while the group were in Paris, France, for their No Filter tour earlier this month.

On the up: The 74-year-old Rolling Stones rocker was reportedly romancing Noor Alfallah, a 22-year-old film producer, while his band were touring in Paris, France, for their No Filter tour just two months ago

Fling? In October news first arose when the The Sun reported he enjoyed a number of dates with Noor Alfallah (pictured) while the group were in Paris, France, for their No Filter tour earlier this month

Legendary charm: Meanwhile, a source told The Sun: 'Mick still has his legendary charm but even the band were surprised someone as young and beautiful as Noor came to Paris to see him

MailOnline has since been told that Mick is still with ballerina Melanie, 31, with whom he shares one-year-old Deveraux.

Meanwhile, a source told The Sun: 'Mick still has his legendary charm but even the band were surprised someone as young and beautiful as Noor came to Paris to see him.

'They are both single and seemed to have a lot of fun together, so everyone just let them get on with it. Mick is showing absolutely no sign of slowing down. He certainly had a smile on his face and famous twinkle in his eye.

The happy couple: Cutting low-key figures, the couple drank in the idyllic views while standing close with Melanie sporting a crew-neck black T-shirt and loose-fitting trousers

Adding: 'Noor is very confident and well educated so she fitted in well at all the upmarket places they went together.'

Mick is said to have first hooked up with the US-born socialite in a private flat in the suburbs of Paris two weeks ago, with a chauffeur taking the brunette beauty back to her hotel the following day.

They enjoyed similar evenings a few days later, as well as three more dates, including dinner at the Caviar Kaspia with the Stones' backing crew and a private meal at La Stresa.

Noor was also in attendance when the band played the city's U Arena. And the day after the gig, the Satisfaction rocker was seen arriving at his new squeeze's hotel.

The pair are believed to have met through a mutual friend, producer Brett Ratner.
She is carving her own career in the spotlight as she follows in the starry footsteps of her movie star parents Clint Eastwood and Frances Fisher.

But Francesca proved confident in her own sense of style for her dinner date with a pal at Craig's restaurant in West Hollywood on Thursday.

The 24-year-old actress flaunted her sensational figure in skintight trousers, teamed with a biker jacket as she stepped out head-to-toe in leather.

Scroll down for video

What a look: Clint Eastwood's daughter Francesca flaunted her sensational figure in skintight trousers as she went head-to-toe in leather for dinner date in Hollywood on Thursday

Francesca scraped her brunette tresses off her face into a messy bun, with a few wisps falling from the loose grasp, as she put the focus on her striking model face.

Adding to her height, the socialite made a dramatic exit in sky-scraper high stiletto suede boots.

The beauty was in high spirits as she posed up a storm for waiting photographers, crossing her arms and standing with poise outside the venue.

She's gorgeous: Francesca scraped her brunette tresses off her face into a messy bun, with a few wisps falling from the loose grasp

Putting her fashion foot forward: Adding to her height, the socialite made a dramatic exit in sky-scraper high stiletto suede boots

The Twin Peaks beauty has had a busy year as she got involved in six titles across film and television.

Despite breaking up in 1995, exes Clint and Frances put aside their differences when they supported their daughter at the Los Angeles premiere of her thriller M.F.A.

The film tells the story of a sexual assault victim driven to get revenge on the men who have wronged her.

Francesca previously discussed how 'hungry' she was to take on the role where she goes on a transformation and a journey with the character.

Biker vibes: The famous offspring pulled off an edgy look with her leather jacket featuring decorative studs and zips to catch the eye

Great time: She cosied up to her pal who flashed a glimpse of her skin in a semi-sheer blouse as she stepped out in sky-scraper heels

Stunning: The rising star put the focus on her striking model face, highlighting her features with deftly touches of make-up

Of the role, she told The Hollywood Reporter of the role: 'I was hungry for going on a journey with a character and playing a character that gets to go through a transformation. The script was flawless.'

Francesca also played movie roles in Cardinal X, The Vault and short film Rebel in Rising as well as securing parts in television series Twin Peaks and Fargo.

Next year the rising star has her next film A Violent Separation in the pipeline.



Time off! The Twin Peaks beauty enjoyed an evening with her friend after a busy year as she got involved in six titles across film and television
One is an acclaimed British actor, famed for playing Prince Philip in The Crown and Doctor Who, while the other is a reality queen known for her bountiful curves and drama-filled family.

And although on paper, their lives couldn't be more different, Matt Smith has revealed an unlikely affection for Kim Kardashian.

Speaking to Andy Cohen as he promoted series two of The Crown alongside co-star Claire Foy on Watch What Happens Live in New York City, the 35-year-old star gushed about the curvaceous star and labelled her 'amazing'.

Scroll down for video

Affection: The Crown's Matt Smith revealed an affection for Kim Kardashian when he and his co-star made an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen

Reality queen: Speaking to Andy Cohen as he promoted series two of The Crown, the 35-year-old star gushed about curvaceous Kim Kardashian and labelled her 'amazing'

The admission came after a viewer asked the on-screen 'royal couple' who they are most like in America's 'Royal Family'- The Kardashians.

As Claire, 33, pulled a shocked expression, Andy said, 'I don't know that the Kardashians are America's Royal Family,' Matt jokingly responded, 'They're the best you've got,' before Claire spat back: 'Don't say that.'

A smiling Matt then said: 'I love Kim Kardashian. I think she's sort of amazing,' before laughing and pointing at a stony-faced Claire, saying 'look at that face' with Andy noting: 'She begs to differ.'

Royal: A viewer asked the on-screen couple who they are most like in America's 'Royal Family'- The Kardashians. A smiling Matt then said, 'I love Kim Kardashian. I think she's amazing'

Unimpressed: Matt then laughed and pointed at a stony-faced Claire, saying, 'Look at that face,' with Andy noting: 'She begs to differ'

Tea for three: The British screen stars sipped tea as they chatted away with host Andy Cohen

Series two of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning show, which premiered on Friday, is the last series where Claire and Matt will play Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Series three of The Crown will see Olivia Colman take on the role of the monarch during the 1950s and '60s. It has not yet been announced who will play Prince Philip.

As an intrigued Andy asked the pair when Princess Diana would appear in the hit show it led to some confusion between the pair with Matt appearing to reveal a spoiler for series four.

He said: 'Does Diana appear in the next season or the one after,' to which Matt replied: 'The one after.'

Having a laugh: The shared many laughs with the popular host during their stint on his show

Suited and booted: Matt cut a dapper figure in a navy striped suit during their TV interview

Composed: In between the bouts of laughter, Claire, 33, was seen quietly composing herself

Winning acclaim: The pair have won acclaim for their respective roles in their Netflix show

Face it: Brunette beauty Claire looked on at her co-star in amusement as he covered his face

A shocked Claire then said: 'Shhhhh, as a quizzical Matt said 'What?!', she then responded 'I don't know!'

Matt then hurriedly said: 'I don't know, maybe it's next season.'

When asked who they would like to play Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in The Crown, Matt was quick to suggest Selena Gomez for the plum role.

'You love Selena Gomez!' Claire said. 'We love that theyre getting married. Its amazing. Shes an actress so thats great.'

Future plans: When asked who they would like to play Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in The Crown, Matt was quick to suggest Selena Gomez for the plum role

Chic: Claire looked chic in a black trouser suit, opting to go without a top under her blazer

Promotional trail: The stars have been on the promotional trail for their show's latest season

Unflattering portrait: The second season of The Crown, which was released on December 8, paints an unflattering portrait of Prince Philip as an adulterer

One for the road: The trio playfully raised their teacups as they posed together for a group shot

Drag: During their visit to the show, Claire and Matt met drag queens as Queen Elizabeth II

Strike a pose: The pair gamely posed for shots with the impersonators after the broadcast

Matt playfully responded: 'Well, shes not anymore. Her lifes over.'

The second season of The Crown, which was released on December 8, paints an unflattering portrait of Prince Philip as an adulterer.

Scenes show the Duke of Edinburgh being tempted by a flirtatious Jackie Kennedy during her visit to Buckingham Palace in 1961.

Meanwhile, the Queen's suspicions of infidelity are aroused after she finds a picture of a ballet dancer in his bag - believed to represent Pat Kirkwood, the real-life dancer he was once linked to.

The Netflix show also suggests he was romantically involved with women on a 1956-7 tour of Commonwealth countries without his wife, aboard the HMY Britannia.

Royal pairing: Series two of the Emmy and Golden Globe winning show, which premiered last Friday, is the last series where Claire and Matt will play Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

Spoiler? As an intrigued Andy asked the pair when Princess Diana would appear in the hit show it led to some confusion between the pair. Matt replied 'the one after' as Claire hushed him

Out now: The critically acclaimed show has been a hit on both sides of the pond




Atlantic RecordsEd Sheeran has made good on a promise to BBC Radio 1 to make something, "more for my dad's generation" -- a duet of "Perfect," partially in Italian, with opera superstar Andrea Bocelli.

"Perfect Symphony," which Ed described "just a little present for Christmas," can now be unwrapped by fans.

Ed hopes the classed-up "Perfect" will ensure that he'll achieve the honor of scoring the U.K. "Christmas number one," which is a big deal across The Pond.

Previously, Ed released a duet version of "Perfect" with Beyonce, which topped the Billboard Hot 100.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Anger and disgust over the ongoing exploitation of African refugees and migrants in Libya has extended into Bismarck, where community members have organized a prayer vigil to be held Saturday.

A recent CNN report shows smugglers auctioning off a dozen men into slavery outside the Libyan capital, Tripoli. A grainy video appears to show one man being sold for $400.

"Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big strong man, he'll dig, said an auctioneer in the CNN video. "What am I bid, what am I bid?"

Paul Zondo, a Liberian immigrant who has lived in Bismarck for about a year, is organizing the vigil, along with the Bismarck United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bismarck-Mandan, Invisible Innocence and other community members.

Zondo said he saw photographs and videos circulating online and on social media of African people being sold and trafficked, but dismissed claims that they were true.

"This is something that, theres just no way," said Zondo, who also had heard from friends and family about the selling of detained refugees and migrants in Libya.

Zondo said his friend in Bismarck told him he knows African men who went to Libya to try to cross to Europe by sea, but they were detained and "terrible things" were done to them. His friend asked what they could do here in Bismarck, to which Zondo decided they could organize an event to bring awareness to this issue.

Wherever there is suppression of people, whether in Libya, South America or in North Korea, free people need to stand up and speak and condemn it," he said.

United Church of Christ Rev. Gretchen Deeg said she got a call from Zondo about organizing an event in part to show support for African immigrants in Bismarck who may be directly and indirectly affected by what's happening in Libya.

"Being so far away from your family and friends and the land that you knew can be very difficult, especially when so much suffering is going on, Deeg said. "(The goal of the vigil is) to let our local neighbors know that we are here for them."

The interfaith community vigil will include prayer and raise awareness about human trafficking and slave auctions in Libya and around the world, Deeg said.

"It is just horrifying that human beings can do this to human beings and continue to do so in 2017, Deeg said. "As one person pointed out in a planning meeting (for the vigil), right now its Libya in the news, but in a couple weeks it will probably be another place; (people) are suffering all over the world."

Thousands of migrants, many from West African countries, go to Libya in attempts to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. The chairman of the African Union Commission said last month there were an estimated 400,000 to 700,000 African migrants in dozens of detention camps across Libya, often in squalid conditions.

Late last month, the leaders of Libya, France, Germany, Chad and Niger and four other countries agreed to evacuate migrants who are stuck in these camps, according to The Washington Post.

The prayer vigil will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at Bismarck United Church of Christ, 1200 E. Highland Acres Road.
It is the most hotly-anticipated film of the year, has won critical acclaim and is tipped to score the highest opening weekend of the year

And the lure of the Dark Side and explosive lightsaber fights aside, Star Wars fans eagerly counting down the hours until they watch The Last Jedi have an extra surprise in store at the end of the film.

At the end of the first set of credits Episode VIII features a touching tribute to late Princess Leia actress Carrie Fisher, who died aged 60 on December 27 last year.

Scroll down for video

Forever Princess Leia: Star Wars: The Last Jedi features a touching tribute to late Princess Leia actress Carrie Fisher, who died aged 60 on December 27 last year

Meaning: As buzz around The Last Jedi reaches fever pitch, fans and critics lucky enough to have taken in the space saga at advance screenings have spotted secret messages and hidden meanings in many of the film's dramatic scenes

It reads: 'In loving memory of our princess, Carrie Fisher.'

As buzz around The Last Jedi reaches fever pitch, fans and critics lucky enough to have taken in the space saga at advance screenings have spotted secret messages and hidden meanings in many of the film's dramatic scenes.

500 Days of Summer star Joseph Gordon Levitt, who has a voiceover role in the film is listed in the credits as a character named 'Slowen-Lo' in a nod to the Beastie Boys song Slow and Low.

This is the latest in a series of Beastie Boys inspired characters which also includes Ello Atsy (Hello Nasty) and Illco Munico (Ill Communication). The star is known to be a huge fan of the American hip-hop group.

Hidden: 500 Days of Summer star Joseph Gordon Levitt, who has a voiceover role in the film is listed in the credits as a character named 'Slowen-Lo' in a nod to the Beastie Boys song Slow and Low

Acclaimed: This is the latest in a series of Beastie Boys inspired characters which also includes Ello Atsy (Hello Nasty) and Illco Munico (Ill Communication). The star is known to be a huge fan of the American hip-hop group

Rogue One director Gareth Edwards also joins the list of star cameos, as he appears in the trenches of Crait.

Justin Theroux also appears as a master codebreaker in a scene involving Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran).

There are also two homages to the original trilogy. Luke hands a set of gold dice to Leia, the same set that Han Solo had dangling from the ceiling of his Millennium Falcon in A New Hope.

And on Luke's metal hand, cut off by his evil father Darth Vader during their duel in Cloud City, there is a mark from where a blaster bolt hit him in Return of The Jedi.

Cameo: Justin Theroux also appears as a master codebreaker in a scene involving Finn (John Boyega) and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) above

Tribute: There are also two homages to the original trilogy. Luke hands a set of gold dice to Leia, the same set that Han Solo had dangling from the ceiling of his Millennium Falcon in A New Hope

Homage: On Luke's metal hand, cut off by his evil father Darth Vader during their duel in Cloud City, there is a mark from where a blaster bolt hit him in Return of The Jedi

The Last Jedi, which is out on December 15, picks up with the Resistance fighting Supreme Leader Snokes First Order which is trying to take over the galaxy.

The film's release comes two years after The Force Awakens.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) tries to convince Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to join the Resistance and bring hope to the rebels against Snoke's villainous rule.

The star-studded ensemble cast, including Ridley, John Boyega, Lupita Nyong'o, Adam Driver, Andy Serkis and Hamill.
It's the Australian department store which relies on an array of high profile talent to promote its products.

But Myer is shaking up its roster of stars, revealing on Saturday that it has axed Lauren Phillips as well as Jodi Anasta.

The retail giant confirmed the culling to The Daily Telegraph, revealing Kris Smith and Rachael Finch had survived to walk another runway.

The Myer cull: Newlywed Lauren Phillips gets the chop alongside Jodi Anasta while Kris Smith and Rachael Finch survive to walk another runway

Postcards presenter Lauren had been an ambassador for Myer for more than seven years.

The popular Channel Nine personality last week married her longtime partner Lachlan Spark in a lavish Mornington Peninsula wedding.

Myer confirmed to News Corp that while Lauren had been dropped, brand stalwarts Rachael and Kris would be staying on.

'We thank both Lauren Phillips and Jodi Anasta for the role they have played as Myer ambassadors,' a spokesperson told the publication.

Newlywed: The popular Channel Nine personality last week married her longtime partner Lachlan Spark in a lavish Mornington Peninsula wedding

Signed a new contract: Myer confirmed to News Corp that while Lauren had been dropped, brand stalwarts Rachael and Kris would be staying on

Earlier on Friday, Jodi announced she was stepping down from working with the brand.

Uploading a message to her Instagram account, the 32-year began: 'Sometimes the magic to life is changing direction.'

'After 5 amazing years with my Myer family, it's time for the next adventure,' she continued.

'Thank you for the fabulous memories from the early morning shoots, to the glamour of spring racing (and everything in between!) Its been a blast! Here's to an exciting future...'

Myer released the following statement regarding Jodi's departure.

'We thank both Lauren Phillips and Jodi Anasta for the role they have played as Myer ambassadors': The brand released a statement confirming the news

'It's time for the next adventure': Neighbours star Jodi Anasta steps down from Myer after five years with the brand

'We thank Jodi Anasta for the role she has played as a Myer Ambassador,' the said.

'She has always displayed incredible professionalism and commitment to her role and we hope she will continue to be part of the Myer family moving forward.

Meanwhile, Jodi has had a busy year with shooting commitments for Neighbours.

The bruntette beauty, who plays the character Elly Conway, joined the soap last year, months after her split from former NRL star Braith Anasta, 35.
He is said to be spending Christmas with his wife Joanne Mas after he was spotted moving back into their marital home last week.

And Danny Dyer looked dapper in a smart grey coat and skinny indigo jeans as he stopped off at a petrol station on Thursday.

The EastEnders star's solo outing comes days after he was seen returning the keys to his flat to an estate agent before moving back in to his former house - the biggest hint yet that he has reconciled with his wife.

Scroll down for video

Looking smart: Danny Dyer looked dapper in a smart grey coat and skinny indigo jeans as he stopped off at a petrol station on Thursday, days after he moved back into his marital home

The tailored coat showcased the actor's physique, which he complemented with a light grey zip-up cardigan, layered over a pale purple t-shirt.

He completed the look with brown suede shoes.

The 40-year-old failed to raise a smile as he stocked up on food.

Danny - who is best known for playing Mick Carter on the BBC soap - could not contain his beaming smile as he left the estate agency last week, ahead of his move back home to Essex.

Back on track: Things between Danny Dyer and Joanne Mas appeared stronger than ever on Tuesday - as the actor was seen moving back into their marital home last week

Strong: It was recently claimed the pair (above) had reconciled, and were planning to move back in together for Christmas

Back on track: Things between Danny Dyer and Joanne Mas appeared stronger than ever on Tuesday - as the actor (above) was seen moving back into their marital home

Homeward bound: The 40-year-old was seen grinning from ear to ear as he returned to the keys to his flat to an estate agent in London, and began to transfer his belongings back to Essex

Beaming: Danny, who is best known for playing Mick Carter on EastEnders, was seen returning the keys to his flat to an estate agent - in the biggest hint yet that the pair had reconciled

Delighted: The actor could not contain his beaming smile as he left the establishment, ahead of his move back home to Essex

Comfortable: He stepped out in a casual white T-shirt and jeans, layered beneath a smart grey coat

Festive: Danny was clearly keen to move back in with his wife for the Christmas period, as he gave in his notice despite his tenancy not running out until January 2018

Success: He returned home grinning from ear to ear after a successful morning at the estate agent

Danny was clearly keen to move back in with his wife for the Christmas period, as he gave in his notice despite his tenancy not running out January 2018.

After a successful morning at the estate agents, a large white transit van was then seen arriving at his flat, in order to load up his possessions.

Despite the heavy snow pouring, the removal team packed a large TV, a desk and a number of items of furniture into the back with ease.

The team then headed back to the Dyer family home, where Joanne currently lives with their daughter Dani, in Essex.

Let's go: A large white transit van was then seen arriving at his flat, in order to load up his possessions

On with the task at hand: Despite the heavy snow pouring, the removal team got to work

Essentials: Bizarrely one of the first items loaded into the van was a space hopper, as Danny packed up shop to move back to Essex

Busy: The team loaded a number of large items of furniture into the van

Heavy: They loaded a large desk in at one point

Teamwork: Many of Danny's furnishings took two people to load in, as the heavy snow poured down

The exciting move comes amid claims the pair have reconciled, and were planning to spend Christmas together.

Insiders claimed Danny was keen to leave his pad in London and felt ready to 'behave himself', in order to make things work with Joanne.

A source told the Daily Star: 'They thought that they couldn't live with each other, but they can't live without each other either.

His personal touches: Other belongings included a number of kitchen chairs

Not bothered: The team appeared to work up a sweat during the job - as they loaded things onto the van in just T-shirts, despite the snowy weather

Exciting: The move comes amid reports things were going 'really well' between Danny and Jo - with the actor ready to 'behave himself' and return to their family home

'Danny got a flat because it was close to the EastEnders studio and he wanted to focus on his work.

'Danny has been given the boot once and he knows that if he doesn't behave himself then Joanne won't hesitate to give him the heave-ho again.'

Meanwhile another source told The Sun things were going 'really well' between them, with the actor planning a belated birthday celebration for his wife Jo.

Entertainment factor: A large Panasonic TV was also seen packed into the van

Reunion: A source said ahead of the removal van's sighting: 'They thought that they couldn't live with each other, but they can't live without each other either'

Comeback: Danny had moved into his own flat earlier this year, following initial reports the pair were on the rocks

The pair tied the knot in September 2016, and share three children - Dani, Sunnie and Arty.

However it was reported their marriage was on the rocks over the summer, after he was spotted seemingly moving into his own home.

Danny had a prolonged absence from EastEnders over the summer due to private issues that involve alleged bouts of anger on-set and an alleged affair with former Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding.

Busy: Meanwhile Danny was seen shoveling snow on his drive way as the team got to work

Cold: He layered up in a thick jacket and added large gloves to his hands as he carried out the task

Helping hand: He cleared the way for the removal men transferring his belongings back into his Essex home

Strong: Danny has appeared better than ever in recent weeks - after a prolonged absence from EastEnders due to private issues that involve alleged bouts of anger on set

Hard times: The revelation of his reported fling with Sarah Harding came just days after it emerged he was living in a hotel after Joanne 'sent him packing'

The reported fling was said to have happened after they worked together on the 2012 film Run for Your Wife.

The revelation came just days after it emerged he was living in a hotel after Joanne 'sent him packing'.

Yet, there was light at the end of the tunnel last month when the Daily Mirror reported that Danny had made significant headway in his attempts to save his troubled marriage, with Joanne agreeing to take him back  on one condition.

A source said: 'Danny is still living in the new flat but relations with Jo have improved a lot. They both came together for their daughter Dani's 21st birthday and had a great time. They are working things out.

'But Jo has given Danny a list of conditions and one is that while they patch things up, she won't do his washing.'
Kings Cross' once vibrant party scene may never return to its former glory.

But for one night only, Jerry Maguire star Cuba Gooding Jr played Santa, reportedly spotted 'crashing multiple Christmas parties' across Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Sydney's Kings Cross Hotel was paid a visit by Santa Gooding Jr.

Scroll down for video

Christmas miracle: For one night only, Jerry Maguire star Cuba Gooding Jr played Santa, reportedly spotted 'crashing multiple Christmas parties' across Sydney's Eastern Suburbs

And it turns out an image shared on one of the bar staff's Instagram accounts corroborates those claims.

Captioned, 'Special visitor at work tonight! #sayitjerry #showmethemoney @kxhotel,' Cuba was seen posing alongside four very happy workers.

Throughout the afternoon and into the night, several more pleasantly surprised locals took to Instagram to share evidence of the time a film icon crashed their party.

One particularly happy snap from a Bondi bar showed Cuba and his total stranger-turned-best-mate smiling like they'd known each other for years.

No naughty list! Despite being placed on the government's lockout laws 'naughty list,' Kings Cross Hotel was paid a visit by Santa Gooding Jr (this picture shared by thrilled bar staff)

'Show me the money!!! All the times you made me laugh it's only right I returned the favor @cubagoodingjr.' the punter wrote in the caption.

As if the picture didn't say enough, someone wrote in the comments: 'NO F**KING WAY LOOK HOW HAPPY HE LOOKS TO SEE YOU !!!'

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Cuba explained: '[I'm] walking all around the city going into different places and taking pictures with people on the beach.'

Here is is again! Throughout the afternoon and into the night, several more pleasantly surprised locals took to Instagram to share evidence of the time a film icon crashed their party

'It was great fun': 'I went to a restaurant that has an outside table and I just sat and chilled for four hours and so many people were coming up, it was great, it was fun'

'I went to a restaurant that has an outside table and I just sat and chilled for four hours and so many people were coming up, it was great, it was fun.'

Cuba was flown to Sydney by Optus, who nabbed a rare promotional deal with the elusive talent.

Money isn't a factor object when it comes down to which of the infinite offers he agrees to he told the publication, it's all about what feels right.

'So when Optus came to me and said "were excited about it and your excitement is what we want," that was different,' he explained.

Show me... the right gig! Cuba was flown to Sydney by Optus, who nabbed a rare promotional deal with the elusive talent, but the movie star explaining money wasn't the reason for accepting the gig, but rather the network giving him artistic freedom
She recently wrapped shooting on her new film, Flarsky, with Seth Rogen in Canada.

And Charlize Theron took a well-deserved break as went shopping with her mother Gerda and daughter August in Larchmont Village, Los Angeles, on Thursday.

The Oscar-winning actress, 42, looked stylish in a black, boho-inspired ensemble as she carried several bags, as well as her two-year-old little girl.

Girls' day out: Charlize Theron took a well-deserved break as went shopping with her mother Gerda and daughter August in Larchmont Village, Los Angeles, on Thursday

The Mad Max star wore a long black feather print skirt with a black top, paired with black suede ankle boots.

Charlize covered her eyes against the bright Californian sunshine with a pair of shades, and wore her blonde locks pulled back from her face.

The Monster actress carried a black shoulder bag as well as her shopping.

But it was little princess August who really stole the show, wearing a cute ballet outfit, including a sparkly gold top, tutu and pink shoes.

Mommy and me: The Oscar-winning actress, 42, looked stylish in a black, boho-inspired ensemble as she carried several bags, as well as her two-year-old little girl

Boho babe: The Mad Max star wore a long black feather print skirt with a black top, paired with black suede ankle boots

The Arrested Development star made sure her daughter was safely strapped in her car seat before loading in her heavy shopping and driving off.

Charlize's sunny shopping trip was a far cry from the chilly climes of Montreal, Canada, where she was filming her new movie, Flarsky, alongside co-star Seth Rogen, 35, earlier this month.

In the comedy, Seth plays a political journalist attempting to strike up a romance with his former babysitter - played by Charlize - who is now a powerful figure in government.

Flarsky, directed by Jonathan Levine, also stars O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Tristan D. Lalla and is scheduled for release in the US on February 8, 2019.

Scene-stealer: It was little princess August who really stole the show, wearing a cute ballet outfit, including a sparkly gold top, tutu and pink shoes

Safety first: The Arrested Development star made sure her daughter was safely strapped in her car seat before loading in her heavy shopping and driving off

The actress adopted both son Jackson, five, and daughter August when they were babies, and has said becoming a mother in her late 30s was a 'really great' experience.

Speaking to W magazine about parenting, Charlize said: 'I do know that choosing to be a mom in my late 30s has been really great for me. It's given me perspective.'

She added in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in April: 'My kids definitely help me be less anxious.

Rewarding job: The actress adopted both Jackson and August when they were babies, and has said becoming a mother in her late 30s was a 'really great' experience

'I'm a single mom, and I have an incredible village that helps me raise these two beautiful kids.'

Charlize also said seeing the bond her two children have is a 'really beautiful' thing.

She said: 'I'm an only child, so I didnt grow up with siblings and so I had no idea the beauty that siblings have with each other.

'Like it really is one of the most incredible things I've ever witnessed. To see how much they love each other and to see how much theyre excited to see each other.

'They're so in love with each other, it's really beautiful.'
Their adventure began 10 years ago when they filmed the first Iron Man movie together.

And to mark the anniversary Gwyneth Paltrow, 45 and Robert Downey Jr.,52, posed for a cute selfie from set as they embark on the fourth installment of the Avengers franchise together.

The black and white image sees Gwyneth, who plays Pepper Potts getting a kiss from Robert, who plays Tony Stark (Iron Man).

Scroll down for video

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. cuddled up for a selfie on set of the fourth Avengers movie on Friday

In the caption the Goop founder wrote: 'Ten years of #pepperony' combining the names of their two characters.

Gwyneth shared more snaps from set earlier this week including a selfie showing her with long strawberry blonde wig while getting into character as Stark's personal assistant.

'Waiting to go on set': the mother-of-two captioned the short selfie clip of her with her hair an makeup done.

In a second story she posted to her page Gwyneth got a foot massage from a therapist she claimed to have stolen from co-star Robert Downey Jr.

In the clip she asks the doctor: 'Is my chi stagnated?' to which the man responds 'your chi is very good, you are healthy'

Wigging out: Gwyneth was back in character as Pepper Potts for Avengers 4 on Tuesday as she shared clips to Instagram from on set

'Am I healthier than Robert?' the actress cheekily inquired but cut the video before his reply could be heard.

Eagle-eyed fans noticed that Gwyneth was wearing a motion-capture suit as she had her feet rubbed.

The sight prompted rumors online about the future of Pepper Potts, with fans asking why Stark's assistant, who is normally based in an office, would need the visual effects.

Last month Chris Hemsworth, as Thor and Downey Jr (Iron man) were photographed on the set in Atlanta, Georgia as well as Tom Hiddleston in character as Loki.

'Waiting to go on set': The Goop founder captioned the short selfie clip of her with her hair an makeup done

Relaxed: In a second story she posted to her page Gwyneth got a foot massage from a therapist she claimed to have stolen from co-star Robert Downey Jr.

The untitled Avengers film will be released on May 3, 2019.

The sighting came days after Downey Jr confirmed he was a part of Avengers 4 with an Instagram photo; reprising his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

The snap showed Stark's much smaller and more padded director's chair in front of three others labelled Scott Lang, Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers.

Robert, 52, captioned the cryptic photo: 'New flick, new short chair,' explaining the reason for the different chair in the hashtag #lumbarsupport along with #marvel.

Marvel fans will know that the three names on the chairs are the alter egos of Ant Man, played by Paul Rudd; Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson; and Captain America, played by Chris Evans.

Filming on the superhero epic began back in August. The moment was marked by directing brothers Joe and Anthony Russo with an equally cryptic photo of a gloved hand, captioned: 'Beginning the end.'

Meanwhile Gwyneth is reportedly engaged to boyfriend of three years Brad Falchuck.

The actress is a busy mom to two, having finalised her divorce from ex Chris Martin in 2014 after over ten years of marriage.

'Infinity Trinity': The actress is pictured with Downey Jr and Favreau aka Happy Hogan in August
He's managed to avoid appearing in the family's famed Christmas card since he started dating Kim Kardashian back in 2012.

But the reality star, 37, appears to have finally cajoled Kanye West, 40, into featuring on the 2017 edition, with a glimpse of the rapper making his debut on day 15 of the daily sneak peeks on Friday.

The Touch The Sky hitmaker's arm featured in one of the shots posted four days ago, and this time around his torso and chin could be seen as he posted with wife Kim and their adorable son Saint, two.

Day 15: Kim Kardashian, 37, was joined by rapper husband Kanye West, 40, and their son Saint, two, in the latest installment from the Kardashian family Christmas card

Kourtney, 38, the eldest Kardashian daughter captioned the familial image: 'DAY 15' followed with '25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS'.

Kim was dressed in a tight white tank top and light blue distressed denim jeans as she showed off her platinum blonde hair in the gorgeous image.

Saint looked adorable as he posed alongside his mom and dad in front of a bright white background.

This year marks the first time the reality TV star family have teased the image on a day-by-day basis.

Family! On Thursday, Kim took to social media to share a picture from the photo shoot featuring sister Kourtney's two little boys Mason, seven, and Reign, three

On Thursday, Kim took to social media to share a picture from the photo shoot featuring her sister and Kourtney's two little boys.

'DAY 14- Happiest of birthdays to my two nephews! I love you so much Mason & Reign,' Kim captioned the photo.

In the photo, the mother-of-three played around with her gleeful son Reign as Mason presented a wrapped gift.

The Kardashians have been celebrating the holidays with a festive photo for every day in December.

In Day 13's photo, Reign crawled on the floor in adorable overalls as his family stood behind him.

Up close! In Day 13's photo, Reign crawled on the floor in adorable overalls as his family stood behind him - with 'pregnant' Aunt Khloe, 33, making her debut

The image shared for Day 11 featured Kim and Kanye locked at the hips wearing matching blue jeans and white T-shirts - marking the rapper's official debut.

While Kim and Kanye will be welcoming baby number three soon via surrogate, sister Kylie Jenner, 20, is rumored to be expecting a baby with her boyfriend Travis Scott, 25, and Khloe, 33, is reportedly pregnant with boyfriend Tristan Thompson's child.

Kourtney raises Mason, eight, Penelope, five, and Reign, three - with former boyfriend Scott Disick, 34.

While Scott has been canoodling with teen model girlfriend Sofia Richie, 19, Kourtney has moved on with Algerian model Younes Bendjima, 24.

Kim previously said of this year's Kardashian Christmas card: 'This years card is shot really casually. Were kind of doing a jeans-and-T-shirts vibe. Really cute. All the kids are so hard to put together.'
Advertisement

Victoria's Secret beauty Candice Swanepoel revealed that she was pregnant with her second child on Instagram Friday.

And the very same day the model managed to put on a sizzling display while parading her tiny baby bump at the beach in Brazil.

The mother-of-one - who welcomed son Anaca just over a year ago - showed off a small baby belly as she indulged in some beach time on the volcanic archipelago of Fernando De Noronha.

Starting to show! Candice Swanepoel showed off her tiny baby belly while enjoying fun in the sun on the beach in Brazil on Friday just hours after announcing she was pregnant with her second child

Stunning: Despite being pregnant the model looked in incredible shape as she galavanted on the beach

The 29-year-old South African-born model cooled off in the ocean sporting a skimpy animal print bikini.

Later on in the day the stunner took to Instagram to share a photo of herself cradling her stomach as she announced she was pregnant with a second child as she wrote: 'Christmas came early... #2'

Candice's sexy two-piece featured tie-detail on the sides and she accessorized with an ankle bracelet and a dainty gold necklace and earrings.

Baby bump: She put her tiny baby belly on display on the outing

Stunning: She still looked to be in incredible shape for being pregnant

Taking a dip: The 29-year-old South African-born model cooled off in the ocean sporting a skimpy animal print bikini

Model physique: Candice returned to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this year after taking a break in 2016 to welcome her first child

'Christmas came early... #2': Later on in the day the stunner took to Instagram to share a photo of herself cradling her stomach as she announced she was pregnant with a second child

Putting on quite a show as she took a dip in the ocean, the Vogue beauty made sure to adjust her briefs to avoid a wardrobe malfunction.

She flaunted her long bronze limbs as she hopped out of the water and walked back up the beach to dry off.

Back on dry land, Candice soaked up some rays alongside her fiance Hermann Nicoli and another pal.

Sensational: The mother-of-one - who welcomed son Anaca just over a year ago - showed off her svelte physique as she indulged in some beach time on the island of Fernando De Noronha

Beach babe: Candice's sexy two-piece featured tie-detail on the sides ans she accessorized with an ankle bracelet and a dainty necklace

She made sure to shade her face with a large floppy straw hat and stylish sunglasses and applied sunscreen before eventually heading for the shade of a beach umbrella.

Hermann is a Brazilian male model who Candice met in Paris when she was just 17. The longtime couple announced their engagement in 2015.

Last month Candice revealed her delight at opening this year's Victoria's Secret show in Shanghai, China.

She sat out the 2016 lingerie extravaganza for the first time since she became one of the brand's Angels in 2010 because she'd given birth to her son just weeks before.

Soaking up the sun: Candice pulled her blonde locks up into a bun and made sure to slap on some lotion in the Brazilian sunshine

Shady lady: When the heat became too much the model reclined under a beach umbrella

Cheeky! The star shimmied out of some patterned shorts when she got to the beach

Speaking shortly before the show at the Mercedes Benz Arena, she told Vogue.com: 'I'm opening this year so which [in itself] is a big 'I'm back' moment so I'm looking forward to that.'

Candice - who wore two red ensembles in the show, including one teamed with wings which looked like flames - admitted it was 'very different' watching her pals on the runway from her home last year, rather than being backstage.

She said: 'I watched the show from my couch in Brazil which was a very different experience.

'I definitely missed it, so of course I'm excited to be back.'

And the South African model had a great time exploring Shanghai with her family, as well as hanging out and catching up with her model friends.

Winter sun: Back on dry land Candice soaked up some rays alongside her longtime beau Hermann Nicoli and another pal

Still going strong: Hermann is a Brazilian male model who Candice met in Paris when she was just 17. The longtime couple announced their engagement in 2015

Protecting her skin: Candice made sure to shade her face with a large floppy straw hat and stylish sunglasses

She said: 'I love being anywhere that has a strong culture and it's really fun for us to explore and learn a lot about the Chinese while being a guest in their country.

'The way the fans are is different from other places-they're always so polite and welcoming.

'The whole thing has been great. We got to laugh and hang out in the midst of a lot of nerves and excitement it's nice to just enjoy the moment.'

South African beauty: Candice - who was discovered by a model scout at aged 15 - came in 8th on the Forbes top-earning models in 2016
She's been hard at work shooting the fourth Avengers movie alongside co-star Robert Downey Jr.

But Gwyneth Paltrow took a break from filming to put in an appearance at a Goop pop-up store in Miami, Florida, on Friday.

The Academy Award-winning actress, 45, looked stunning in a one-shoulder little black dress as she met fans at the book signing event in the city's Design District.

Scroll down for video

Classically chic: Gwyneth Paltrow took a break from filming the fourth Avengers movie to put in an appearance at a Goop pop-up store in Miami, Florida, on Friday

The Shakespeare In Love star teamed her elegant outfit with pair of black strappy sandals, and covered up with a grey wool shawl as she left the event.

Gwyneth wore her long blonde hair poker straight and opted for minimal make-up.

The mother-of-two attempted to keep a low profile as she entered the store, keeping her head down and sticking close to her bodyguard.

Inside the event, the actress looked happy and relaxed as she chatted to members of staff and fans.

Daring: The stunner dared to impress in strap shoes

Incognito: The Academy Award-winning actress, 45, looked stunning in a one-shoulder little black dress as she met fans at the book signing event in the city's Design District

Endless summer: The Shakespeare In Love star teamed her elegant outfit with pair of black strappy sandals

Chatterbox: Inside the event, the actress looked happy and relaxed as she chatted to members of staff and fans

Earlier on Friday, the star posted a cute selfie to social media to celebrate her ten year anniversary of working with Robert Downey Jr., 52, on Marvel superhero films.

The black and white image saw Gwyneth, who plays Pepper Potts, getting a kiss from Robert, who plays Tony Stark (Iron Man).

Gwyneth captioned the post 'Ten years of #pepperony', combining the names of their two characters.

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently confirmed there will be 20 more films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Low-key: Gwyneth wore her long blonde hair poker straight and opted for minimal make-up

Wrapped up: Gwyneth covered up with a grey wool shawl as she left the event

Homeward bound: The mother-of-two attempted to keep a low profile as she left the store, keeping her head down and sticking close to her bodyguard

In an interview with Vanity Fair, he said: 'Marvel is 22 movies in and we've got another 20 movies on the docket that are completely different from anything that's come before - intentionally.

'Avengers 4 will bring things you've never seen in superhero films: a finale.'

When it comes to her personal life, Gwyneth recently got engaged to Glee co-creator Brad Falchuk, 45, after quietly dating for more than three years.

The actress maintains a close relationship with her ex-husband Chris Martin, 40, who she was married to from 2003 until 2014.

The former couple raise two children, daughter Apple, 13, and son Moses, 11, together.

Work buddies: Earlier on Friday, the star posted a cute selfie to social media to celebrate her ten year anniversary of working with Robert Downey Jr., 52, on Marvel superhero films

Legs for days: Her gorgeous gams were on full display

Flawless: Her flawless skin tone was on center stage as her hair was parted in the center

Sign of the times: She looked estatic to be signing books
She's the Australian model who stunned at November's Victoria's secret Fashion Show in Shanghai, China.

And Victoria Lee, once again, flaunted her leggy frame on Saturday when she jetted out of Sydney on Saturday to visit family in her home town of Narrandera in the New South Wales Riverina region.

The 27-year-old David Jones ambassador looked svelte in a pair of distressed jean shorts with a frayed hem.

Coming home: Model Victoria Lee flaunted her leggy frame on Saturday when she jetted out of Sydney to visit family in her home town of Narrandera in the New South Wales Riverina region

The shorts, which finished at the thigh, showcased Victoria's slender and well-toned legs to good effect.

She matched her shorts with a simple white tank top, a black cardigan with the sleeves pushed up and a pair of white trainers.

Accessorising with just a black leather belt that cinched her already svelte waist, Victoria chose to go fresh-faced for her flight.

Good genes: The 27-year-old stunner looked svelte in a pair of distressed jean shorts with a frayed hem

Svelte: The shorts, which finished at the thigh flaunted Victoria's slender and well-toned legs to good effect

Sporting an 'effortlessly windswept' look, Victoria let her brunette locks fall freely over her shoulders.

It appeared that Victoria planned to spend some quality time with family over Christmas with the model toting two large black suitcases and a smaller third bag through the domestic terminal.

She recently revealed that she wanted to follow in the footsteps of fellow models such as Cara Delevingne and try her hand at acting.

Casual: She matched her shorts with a simple white tank top, a black cardigan with the sleeves pushed up and a pair of white trainers

Free: Sporting an 'effortlessly windswept' look, Victoria let her brunette locks fall freely over her shoulders

Victoria told BW Magazine that she had auditioned for a number of roles in 2017, and saw herself playing a villain.

'Generally I'm a pretty down-to-earth person, so to play the baddie or villain - to play with these parts of your personality - is really fun,' she told the publication.

Victoria added that it didn't matter if the work was on the catwalk or on screen - so long as her work was up to her high standards.

'I'm ready for anything,' Victoria said excitedly. 'I just want to do the best that I possibly can.'
Australia's self-declared "agile and innovative" prime minister has hand-picked a new word for 2018 - delivery.

Malcolm Turnbull was keen to talk up his government's achievements on jobs and economic growth when he phoned into Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday morning.

With so much going well, what on earth was going wrong, veteran broadcaster Neil Mitchell asked.

Support for the Turnbull government is lower than a year ago across all opinion polls.

"Well, Neil, you're the master salesman, so you tell me," the prime minister shot back.

"You are one of the most persuasive salesmen in Australia ... so you tell me, how can we sell it better?"

Mr Turnbull said time will tell if his government's popularity improved.

"The election will be held in the middle of 2019 and that is when people will cast their judgment," he said.

"In the meantime, my job is to deliver economic growth, and we have delivered the longest run of monthly jobs growth since 1994."

The prime minister, who has turned a Saturday by-election in Bennelong into a referendum on Bill Shorten, accepted it was also a test of his own leadership.

"In any by-election there is a contest between the two candidates and there is also a contest between the two parties they represent," he said.

"People will be casting a judgment on the government which I lead, of course."

Mr Turnbull accepted a by-election loss would bring his opposite number closer to pinching his job, and would rob the government of its absolute majority.

"Confidence in my leadership is a matter for the Liberal party room, and ultimately, of course, on the floor of the house," he said.

"This is why there's so much at stake."

The prime minister brushed off suggestions he was arrogant, after his Monday night appearance on the ABC's panel program Q&A was widely panned.

"I enjoyed my appearance on Q&A, I thought it was very well received," he said.

"The worst thing I can do is start to become, as you're inviting me to be, obsessed with myself. I'm focused on my job, which is looking after other people, and delivering economic growth and jobs."

The prime minister picked "innovation" as his word for 2017.

"The (word for) next year is 'delivery', and it is putting more money into the pockets of hardworking Australian families and businesses," he said.
Billionaire Gina Rinehart has pledged $500,000 to help the Royal Flying Doctor Service, describing its service as a "lifeline to the bush".

The funds will be provided by the S Kidman & Co pastoral company which is owned by Australian Outback Beef, a joint venture between Ms Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting and the Chinese company Shanghai CRED Real Estate Company.

"The Royal Flying Doctor Service has provided a lifeline to the bush communities for almost 90 years," Ms Rinehart said in a statement on Friday.

"It's remarkable to think that in South and Central Australia alone, the RFDS airlifts 25 patients every day."

RFDS central operations boss Loretta Reynolds says the extra financial support will help the organisation's investment plans.

"Central Operations will invest $50 million in capital over the next five years for the replacement of existing aircraft in our fleet, as well as the introduction next year of South Australia's first purpose-built aero-medical jet," she said.
TRAVEL ISSUES FROM 2017 AND HOW THEY'VE SHAPED THE INDUSTRY:

As thousands gathered to witness the annual lighting of the Christmas tree in New York City's Rockefeller Centre in November, some will hardly have been feeling celebratory. With President Donald Trump's anti-foreigner rhetoric and immigration policies finally biting inbound tourism to the US, many relying on the city's $US60 billion ($A84 billion) tourist industry are worried for the future.

The Trump slump is a reality across the US (there was a four per cent decline in overseas arrivals in the first six months of the year), and while it's a hardline approach that has left many dismayed, it's a fact that tourists are being made to feel less welcome the world over.

In 2017, we learned that Venice is planning to divert cruise liners, Barcelona has cracked down on apartment rentals and Iceland is considering a tourism tax to limit sightseers' access to popular hotspots.

"This is a wake-up call," Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, said in November. While we can't halt growth in tourism, which accounts for one in 10 jobs worldwide, he added, we need to grow the industry sustainably and change the way we travel.

New York's tourism arm NYC & Co is responding to the current climate with new campaign True York City, which aims to not only make foreigners feel welcome, but to also control where tourists go - pulling them away from traditional attractions and ushering them into local neighbourhoods and businesses.

It's a strategy being adopted by tourism boards and tour operators worldwide.

Intrepid Travel's Not Hot travel list suggests travellers swap overburdened Croatia for Cyprus's coastline and castles, busy Rome and Florence for Calabria's and Sicily's dramatic cliff-side villages and seafood, and Iceland for Finland, where in winter visitors can enjoy snow-dusted forests and witness indigenous Sami people and perhaps some of Santa's reindeer.

In December, a heart-warming reaction to over-tourism rounded out the year. The tiny Western Pacific island of Palau now asks its more than 160,000 annual visitors to take a conservation pledge on arrival to help protect its environment and culture.

In the interest of protecting overburdened attractions and communities and in bringing the sense of adventure back to travel, here are some great places to check out in 2018.

VINTAGE EUROPEAN RESORTS

Following this year's terrorist attacks in Barcelona, Paris, Stockholm, London and Manchester, Europeans are finding comfort in the resorts of yesteryear. Winners have been the Spanish Canary Islands off northwestern Africa, the Portuguese island of Madeira, and Malta, off the south coast of Sicily, which is offering new food and nightlife options to capture millennials. Malta's capital Valletta will also be European Capital of Culture for 2018.

NATURAL DISASTER ZONES

The usual natural disasters swept through 2017. In September, Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma devastated parts of the Caribbean and Florida Keys, just weeks after Harvey battered beach towns along the Texas coast. They're all places that would welcome the tourist dollar in 2018.

EMERGING WINE REGIONS

Tuscany and Bordeaux may be famous for their wine but they are busy places. Some of Europe's lesser-known regions may offer a more captivating travel experience. Georgia boasts one of the oldest wine regions in the world, with the cultivation of grapes dating back 8000 years. It was also one of the first countries to adopt Christianity and as a result, this former Soviet republic boasts some magnificent Orthodox churches in unexpected locations dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries.

If you're keen to visit a big-name wine region, consider California's Napa Valley, whose wildfires killed 43 people and destroyed 10 wineries when they swept through in October. Thankfully most of the 2017 harvest was already complete, but wineries will certainly be praying for visitor numbers in 2018.

COLOMBIA AND CHILE

The pope visited Colombia in 2017, the first papal visit to this Andean nation in 30 years. It highlighted a vibrant country with a colourful culture that is now relatively safe to explore now the decades-long civil war has come to an end.

Further south, Chile will mark 200 years of independence in 2018. With the bleak and beautiful Patagonia in its south, the soaring Andes to its east and the Atacama salt flats to its north, this country may just be the most Instagrammable place on earth - and that's before you visit its edgy capital Santiago, which is literally plastered with street art. Lonely Planet named Chile the top country to visit in 2018, and with new direct flights from Melbourne to Santiago, it's never been easier to get there.

THE MIDDLE EAST

The Middle East is more popular than ever, thanks in part to the 2016 openings of the world's largest indoor theme park in Dubai, IMG World of Adventure, and the $US3 billion Dubai Parks and Resorts. In November, the Louvre Abu Dhabi opened its doors. The year's most spectacular new museum was a decade in the making and is the first universal museum in the Arab world, with hopes it can build cultural bridges across the region.

SOUTH KOREA AND CHINA

Keen to tap into the insatiable travel appetite of its country folk, China's domestic tourism sector has boosted its infrastructure and installed the largest high-speed rail network on earth. The Forbidden City in Beijing has been recently upgraded, while Shanghai offers the world's highest observation deck, the gargantuan Shanghai Tower. The city's Shanghai Disney Resort has just welcomed more than 10 million visitors in its first year of opening.

Neighbouring South Korea will host the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in February, while a new high-speed rail link can whisk you across the country to its futuristic capital, Seoul, which in 2017 saw the exciting addition of Seoullo, an old flyover that has been turned into an elevated public park with cafes, bars and libraries.

EDGY EUROPEAN CITIES

If you're keen to sample Europe's new hipster spots, then forget the cities crawling with tourists. Leave London for Birmingham or Manchester; go Scandi-cool in Stockholm's Sodermalm, Copenhagen's Norrebro and Oslo's Grunerlokka. Or leave Western Europe and head east, past Prague and Vienna and onto Riga and Warsaw, which are bubbling with creativity and innovation. Vintage fashion, vinyl records and vegan cafes abound.

MARRAKECH, MOROCCO

The Musee Yves Saint Laurent opened this year in Marrakech, throwing a golden light on a city basking in colour, from its fruit trees to the spice piles found in the doorways of the city's tightly-packed Medina, which dates back to the 11th century.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard has described as historic the handing down of the final report from the child abuse royal commission.

Five years ago, Ms Gillard set up the inquiry which on Friday wrapped up its work with a 17 volume report.

"On this historic day, my personal thanks go to the royal commissioners and all who supported their work. Our nation is indebted to you and to the survivors who fought so hard for justice and a safer future for our children," she tweeted.
Not only are Newcastle bullish about their hopes of retaining local junior Brock Lamb for 2018, they want to lock him up beyond next year.

Lamb's future has been the source of speculation following the arrival of Mitchell Pearce which threatens to push the talented young playmaker out of Nathan Brown's top 17.

Manly were rumoured to be hunting his signature for 2018 however the NRL's salary cap investigation threatens to scupper any hope of them adding to their roster.

Lamb, 20, is off contract at the end of 2018 and Knights CEO Philip Gardner said the club was not only confident he would wear the red, blue and white next year, they would be in a position to re-sign him.

"He's with us for 2018 and we hope he's with us longer," Gardner told AAP.

"He's a very important part of where we're at. Brock is a local junior. He was with me announcing a trial game up there in Maitland because he's a Maitland junior. He's a champion young man with a lot of ability."

Pearce and Connor Watson are expected to form Brown's scrumbase partnership next year and should Lamb's game time be limited, he could search for other opportunities before the June 30 transfer deadline.

Lamb seemingly came of age in the final two months of the 2017 season, spearheading the Knights to upset wins over St George Illawarra, Warriors and Parramatta.

Gardner made an impassioned pitch for Lamb to remain, predicting he would play plenty of first-grade.

"If I was advising him, I'd be saying 'Brock wait for the 29th of June to make any decision'. Because he could be playing a lot of first grade between now and then," Gardner said.

"He's got a long career ahead of him and it's going to be a big competition for his signature in 2019. We'll be one of those clubs competing for it.

"His attitude about playing with Mitch is first-class. He's not dropped his head, he's putting in, he's proving he's a quality person and a quality player.

"We want the best for Brock and he'll be with us in 2018. We need him."
SOME KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE CHILD ABUSE ROYAL COMMISSION:

- Australia-wide laws requiring all adults to report known or suspected child abuse in religious and other institutions.

- Failure to report should be a criminal offence.

- The laws will cover clergy who fail to report abuse admissions made during religious confession.

- The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should ask the Holy See to consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy.

- A new national office for child safety, within the department of prime minister and cabinet.

- Office to evolve into a stand-alone statutory authority within 18 months.

- A new federal minister responsible for mitigating risks of abuse, and working with states and territories to keep children safe.

- A new national framework for child safety by 2020.

- A new national website and helpline to report child abuse, education for children and parents, including in pre-schools, and help for adults who believe they're at risk of becoming abusers.
Malcolm Turnbull has paid tribute to the courage of abuse survivors and their families who told their stories to the royal commission and all Australians to read its final report.

Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove received the document from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at Government House in Canberra on Friday.

The 17-volume report of the $500 million commission contains a total of 409 recommendations. A number of prosecutions resulting from the evidence are already underway.

Mr Turnbull encouraged all Australians to read it.

"I want to thank and honour the courage of the survivors and their families who've told, often for the first time, the dreadful stories of abuse that they received from people who actually owed them love and protection," he said in Sydney.

"What that commission has done has exposed a national tragedy."

The royal commission had changed Australia for the better, Labor leader Bill Shorten said.

"We must never again allow the abuse of children to be covered up," Mr Shorten said.

"Our task now is to bring about change so that every Australian child can enjoy a safe childhood, free from abuse. The recommendations from the royal commission cannot be ignored."

Earlier, the prime minister indicated his government might be willing to soften its stance on banning survivors convicted of criminal offences from accessing compensation for institutional child sexual abuse.

Mr Turnbull said blocking access to convicted criminals was government policy, but he understood the argument that many had ended up in jail because of the abuse they had suffered.

"But equally, you can understand how many people would be uncomfortable with and opposed to people who have committed serious offences being provided compensation by government," he told 3AW radio.

The prime minister left the door open to revisiting the ban as the commonwealth finalises a national redress scheme.

"We are endeavouring to ensure the redress scheme is accepted across the country by states and institutions, we're confident it will be, and obviously we want to get bipartisan support," he said.

A parliamentary inquiry into the scheme's draft legislation is due to report on March 13.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard, who instigated the inquiry, said it was an historic day.

"On this historic day, my personal thanks go to the royal commissioners and all who supported their work. Our nation is indebted to you and to the survivors who fought so hard for justice and a safer future for our children," she tweeted.

Opposition families spokeswoman Jenny Macklin, who helped establish the commission with then-prime minister Gillard in 2014, said it was now up to the coalition government to step up.

"The most important thing will be for the federal government to demonstrate the leadership that so many people who've been sexually abused in institutions are looking for," she said.

Ms Macklin also urged all the states and territories, as well as the institutions responsible, to be a part of the redress scheme.
Dog welfare advocates are celebrating after law reforms to ban the practice of puppy farming passed Victorian parliament.

The number of dogs that breeders are allowed to keep will be limited after a bill, championed by welfare group Oscar's Law, passed on Friday in a tight upper house vote.

"It's the end of the days where we see literally hundreds of dogs lined up in sheds, pumping out puppies for the pet market," Oscar's Law founder Debra Tranter told reporters in Melbourne.
A Sydney man claims he has no memory of fatally stabbing his niece and dumping her body in a blowhole 100km away.

Derek Barrett, 29, previously pleaded guilty to murdering Chinese university student Mengmei Leng, whose naked body was found floating face down inside the blowhole at Snapper Point on the NSW Central Coast in April 2016.

The former IT worker also pleaded guilty to another 21 offences including 19 counts of filming Ms Leng for sexual gratification when she was bound and gagged before her death.

Ms Leng, 25, had lived with Barrett, her aunt and her cousin in the southwest Sydney suburb of Campsie since arriving in Australia to study, five years before her murder.

At the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday Barrett claimed he was drug affected when he killed Ms Leng and can only remember having an argument with her then seeing blood in the sink.

"You have no idea how it frustrates me every day trying to think of how this came about and why I went down this path," he said.

Barrett is due to be sentenced on Friday.
A Sydney man who stabbed his niece to death and dumped her body in a blowhole has been jailed for at least 34-and-a-half years.

Derek Barrett, 29, previously pleaded guilty to murdering Chinese university student Mengmei Leng, whose naked body was found floating in the blowhole at Snapper Point on the NSW Central Coast in April 2016.

"This was a despicable crime of extreme brutality and great wickedness," Justice Helen Wilson said at the NSW Supreme Court on Friday when sentencing Barrett to 46 years in jail with a non-parole period of 34 years and six months.
North Dakotas industrial hemp industry saw extensive growth in 2017 but an over supplied hemp seed market could impact North Dakotas acres in the coming year.

The research program, run by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture, licensed 35 farmers to grow a total of 3,000 acres last year. The year prior the program had five growers with a total of 70 acres accepted into the program.

And Friday about 70 people, a group made up of previous and perspective growers, attended a meeting at the state Capitol to learn about production in the state.

These are the people that are really serious about producing or processing, Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring said.

Because of its botanical relationship to marijuana, hemp only can be legally grown through the departments pilot program or by universities, provisions made possible by the 2014 Farm Bill.

Goehring doesnt want to discourage growers but does aim to ensure there is enough demand from processors to support the number of acres planted in the state.

Ill continue to expand the number of acres permitted if producers have the opportunity to sell product, he said earlier this year. If Im going to permit 20,000 acres, Im going to check with processors to make sure theyre able to handle it.

As $2.58 per bushel corn is causing financial hurt to farmers, Goehring doesnt want to put hemp farmers in a similar position. Hemp is complicated further by the logistics of storing the harvested seed, which falls under the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrations schedule 1 controlled substance category, while waiting for supply to go down and price to go up.

Goehring said he has been working on a market analysis with processors in the state, of which there are now two  Healthy Oilseeds in Carrington and, as of a couple weeks ago, Anchor Ingredients near Fargo. He expects to have a better idea about allowable acres in late January.

Applications for planting industiral hemp in the state can be filed at www.nd.gov/ndda/plant-industries/industrial-hemp. The deadline for proposal documents is 5 p.m. Dec. 29. Emailed or faxed submissions will not be accepted. For more information contact Rachel Seifert-Spilde at 701-328-4128 or rseifert@nd.gov.
Jayden Nikorima is facing a fight to save his NRL career after copping a 12-match suspension for a second drugs breach.

An NRL spokesman said the 21-year-old playmaker had been suspended and must sit out the first 12 rounds of season 2018 if he wants to play again.

News Corp reported that Nikorima had been sacked by the Sydney Roosters from the final year of his contract.

The former Brisbane under-20s players made just seven appearances for the Roosters, all of them in 2016.

He started last year as their first-choice five-eighth and played in their World Club Series win over St Helens but was soon dropped to reserve grade.

Nikorima, the brother of New Zealand and Broncos half Kodi, was reportedly shopped around to rival clubs but failed to attract much interest.

His suspension will bring down his price even further.
Swimmers are being urged to be careful on the water this festive season after last summer's horror record when 17 people drowned in the nine days after Christmas.

NSW experienced its highest number of drownings in nearly a decade with 41 people losing their lives on the state's waterways last summer, according to a Royal Life Saving report.

Launching the "Be Water Safe, Not Sorry" campaign on Friday Emergency Services Minister Troy Grant urged the community to take care.

"Last summer's news headlines were marred with water accidents and I call on everyone to act responsibly and remain vigilant," he said in a statement.

"Everyone can do their part to ensure families aren't devastated by the loss of a loved one as a result of drowning."

Seventy-eight per cent of those who lost their lives last summer were men, with males aged between 25 and 34 years the most at risk.

The vast majority of those who drowned were not international or interstate visitors with 70 per cent of victims drowning within 100 kilometres of where they lived.
Australia has agreed to improved oversight of immigration detention centres, prisons, juvenile justice centres and psychiatric facilities under a deal signed with the United Nations.

The Turnbull government on Friday ratified an optional international convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

Australia pledged to sign the protocol as it competed for a seat on the UN's Human Rights Council. Its three-year term will begin next year.

"Ratification is not the end, but the beginning of an ongoing discussion about oversight and monitoring," Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Attorney-General George Brandis said in a statement.

"Ratifying OPCAT demonstrates Australia's unwavering commitment to international scrutiny and accountability," the pair said, adding they would work with the states and territories to fulfil the obligations.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has welcomed the development, saying places of detention are often hidden, allowing abuse to go unnoticed.

But the Human Rights Law Centre said Australia must accept scrutiny of its offshore facilities on Manus Island and Nauru.

"The whole purpose of this treaty is to prevent abuse through transparency," legal advocacy director David Webb said.

"It defeats that purpose if our government can just decide to keep its deepest darkest sites of misery and suffering deliberately shielded from scrutiny."
A head-on crash in Sydney has claimed a second life weeks after a two-year-old girl died as a result of the smash.

Nine family members - three adults and six children ranging from nine months to 16 years old - were travelling in a Toyota HiAce minibus from Griffith to Sydney in late November when it collided with a commercial van at Kemps Creek.

Two-year-old Anelina Nauer died in hospital a short time later.

A 59-year-old male front-seat passenger, initially transferred to Liverpool Hospital in a critical condition, did not recover from his injuries and died on Monday, NSW Police said on Friday.

The Griffith family was heading to Sydney at the time of the crash where some were due to fly to Samoa to celebrate Christmas.

The 20-year-old disqualified learner driver of the HiAce was initially charged with 11 offences including dangerous driving occasioning death, driving with a child not restrained and driving while disqualified.

She'll now face a further charge of dangerous driving occasioning death.

The 20-year-old is due to appear at Liverpool Local Court on December 20.

Tributes have poured in from relatives in the wake of the deaths.

"I'm honestly lost for words (I) never thought I would see this day coming," a woman believed to be the man's daughter wrote on Facebook.

"God called you home way too soon and way too sudden. I'm forever loving you dad and baby Anelina."
Sydneysider Wendy Tuck has helped set a piece of Clipper Round the World yacht race history with line honours in the leg which has finished in her home city.

Tuck's boat Sanya Serenity Coast completed the 2500 nautical mile race from Fremantle to Sydney on Friday morning, taking just over 12-and-a-half days.

She had less than 17 minutes to spare over Visit Seattle, the boat with the race's other female skipper, Nikki Henderson of England.

Originally from western Sydney, Tuck described winning the race into her home city as unbelievable and "pretty cool".

It marked the first time in Clipper history that female skippers had finished first and second in a leg.

"It's amazing," said Tuck whose boat entered the leg fourth out of the 11 competitors.

Henderson, who at 24, is the youngest skipper in Clipper race history, has stressed the significance of the historic one-two stretched beyond the event.

"I think it's fantastic for the industry, not just Clipper," Henderson told AAP.

"More and more women are getting into the sport and it's a good example to set for everyone else, so I'm happy to do that."

Tuck's boat also finished first across the line in the opening Clipper race leg, but was officially placed second after redress was granted to another yacht.

"This is ours now and no one can take it away - we've got it and we own it," said Tuck, whose multi-national crew included several other Australians.

The next Clipper leg will be the Sydney to Hobart race, in which Tuck has good form.

She is one of just 17 women to have done the race 10 times.

Tuck took line honours among the Clipper fleet contesting the 2015 Sydney-Hobart and she also won the Jane Tate Memorial Trophy for being the first female skipper across the line in Australia's greatest offshore event.

The Clipper race, which is contested by crews of amateur sailors with a professional skipper on each boat, is in its 11th edition and won't finish until mid-2018.

Australia is on the schedule for a third time, with a race from Hobart to the Whitsundays completing local competition.
WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT THE FINAL REPORT OF THE CHILD SEX ABUSE ROYAL COMMISSION:

"It's now time for state governments to act." - Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart

"We will engage with the final report released today to improve our systems, protocols and procedures." - Anglican Church of Australia Archbishop Philip Freier.

"We want to thank and recognise the courageous survivors of child sexual abuse and their families who gave evidence and told harrowing stories to the royal commission." - Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

"Our task now is to bring about change so that every Australian child can enjoy a safe childhood, free from abuse. The recommendations from the royal commission cannot be ignored." - Opposition Leader Bill Shorten

"The lasting legacy of this commission must be to protect the rights of children and place their safety at the heart of decision making." - Australian Human Rights Commission.

"The Salvation Army looks to the leadership of Australia's governments to create the National Redress Scheme recommended by the Royal Commission." - Salvation Army's Neil Venables

"The report will inform and improve our work with some of the most vulnerable people living in Australia." - Uniting Care Australia

"What now needs to be made clear by the church leadership is that they take these recommendations and findings seriously and that they are willing to act swiftly in implementing the findings." - Truth Justice Healing Council

"We have to look very carefully and take very seriously what the commission has found in terms of more systemic issues in our culture, hierarchy, practices and beliefs as Catholics." - Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher

"We must make sure that the Catholic Church in Australia ... is a place of uncompromising safety and security for children, young people, and indeed everyone who engages with us." - Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costello

"The debate around redress schemes is important but we must not lose focus on protecting current and future generations of children." - WA Commissioner for Children and Young People Colin Pettit

"We welcome the Commission's recommendation today to establish and fund a legal advice and referral service for victims and survivors of abuse." - Maurice Blackburn lawyers
Scammers are using puppies to defraud West Australian dog lovers with one victim $22,500 out of pocket, according to consumer protection.

A 200 per cent increase in puppy scam inquiries in the three months to November comes as reported scams rose from two to 12 in the last year.

WA Consumer Protection commissioner David Hillyard said the scammers would ask for up-front payments for a pup, usually after sending a photo, followed by requests for funds to pay shipping and insurance costs.

"In the end, no puppy is supplied and the payment is virtually impossible to trace," Mr Hillyard said.

The largest reported individual loss for September to November was $22,500 for a pomsky (pomeranian cross husky) pup, but scams have also been using bulldogs, huskies and cavoodles.

Consumers are being warned to avoid responding to online adverts, trading websites and social media.

Mr Hillyard encouraged prospective dog owners to consider buying from local, registered dog breeders.

"Consumers should check whether the sellers have a legitimate physical address, a landline and an Australian Business Number (ABN) plus look for online reviews," Mr Hillyard said.

The RSPCA recommends visiting a welfare or rescue group for a variety of dogs seeking good homes.
A fourth man has been charged as part of an ongoing investigation into organised crime just two days after three people were arrested during a dramatic police operation in Sydney's Centennial Park.

Dressed in orange hi-vis vests, Kigi Kamuta, 39, Aukuso Junior Paulo, 34, and Royce Royal Hura, 27, were in two cars when police stopped them just before midday on Wednesday in the popular park.

The trio appearing in court on Thursday charged with unlawfully possessing a Smith & Wesson pistol, a Beretta pistol and ammunition as well as dealing with the proceeds of crime - namely $650,000 in cash - and participating in a criminal group.

Detectives from Strikeforce Mangowa then arrested a fourth man in Chatswood about 11am on Friday.

The Castle Cove man, 28, was charged with possessing an unauthorised pistol, having ammunition without a licence, knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime and two counts of possessing identification information to commit an indictable offence.

He was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday.

A NSW magistrate has said the "curious" behaviour of the three men arrested in Centennial Park had the hallmarks of a convoy of cash being transported with firearms for protection.
* PERMISSION TO MARRY

Unlike most couples who want to marry, things are trickier when you're a royal. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle needed official permission from his granny, the Queen, who reportedly obliged after having tea with the couple in October. The Royal Marriages Act 1772 originally required all royal descendants of George II to obtain the monarch's permission to marry, but the law was amended in 2011 so only the first six royals in line to the throne need permission. Harry and Meghan will also require a special wedding license from the Archbishop of Canterbury if they want to marry in a church because of her divorce from American film and TV producer Trevor Engelson. And as a foreign national, Markle will need a fiancee settlement visa and a marriage visa.

* THE QUESTION OF A ROYAL MARRYING A DIVORCEE

In the past, a royal marrying a divorcee was frowned upon. The Queen's sister, Princess Margaret, ended her relationship with her divorced beau Group Captain Peter Townsend in 1955 after being told if they married she would have to give up her rights of succession. Their uncle King Edward VIII famously abdicated in 1936 to marry American socialite and divorcee Wallis Simpson. But times have changed. The Queen allowed Prince Charles to marry divorcee Camilla Parker Bowles in a civil ceremony in 2005. Markle's marriage to Mr Engelson ended two years after the pair tied the knot in 2011. Westminster Abbey officials have indicated her divorce won't be an issue if she weds Prince Harry in a church.

* RELIGION AND ROYALTY

While Prince Harry is firmly ensconced as a member of Church of England thanks to his royal lineage, mystery surrounds the religious background of his fiancee. Markle attended the Immaculate Heart High School, a private Catholic school for girls in Los Angeles, but she reportedly wasn't raised a Catholic. It's not known if her mother Doria Ragland, who is African-American, follows a particular religion, while her father has been described as being Episcopalian. Some reports have speculated whether Markle is Jewish, based on claims that at her first wedding she and her husband took part in the Hora (a traditional chair dance). Under the Act of Settlement 1701, royals in the direct line of succession were banned from marrying Catholics unless they gave up their right to the throne. Changes introduced in 2015 overturned that rule.

* LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Historically, the most traditional site for royal weddings has been the Chapel Royal at St James Palace, where five monarchs including Queen Victoria tied the knot. London's Westminster Abbey was the hot favourite for Harry to marry Markle, with the prince following in the footsteps of his brother Prince William who married Kate Middleton there in 2011. The Abbey has hosted five royal weddings since 1919, including the Queen's. But ultimately Harry and Markle settled on St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle for their Ma7 19, 2018 wedding.

* FUTURE TITLES

Most women who marry royal male successors take on their husband's titles, in the same way Lady Diana Spencer became Diana, Princess of Wales upon marrying the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles' second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, however, adopted the title Duchess of Cornwall out of respect for Diana. Technically, Markle will be a princess when she marries Harry. But he may receive a peerage from the Queen when he marries, just as Prince William received the hereditary title Duke of Cambridge, with his wife Kate becoming the Duchess of Cambridge. The newlyweds are tipped to become the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The title Duke of Sussex has only been used once before by Prince Augustus in the early 1800s. Other dukedom titles currently not in use are Clarence and Buckingham. However Clarence is considered unlikely because the previous Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor, was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders.

* WEDDING DAY TRADITIONS

Bouquet - Myrtle has been in the bouquet of every royal bride since Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840

Ring - A tradition started by the Queen Mother when she married the future King George VI in 1923 was for royal wedding bands to be made from Welsh gold

Outfits - Harry is expected to don his military uniform, as per tradition for royal grooms

Cake - While fruit cake is a staple at royal weddings, Prince William also had a chocolate cake

Buckingham Palace balcony kiss - A much-loved tradition begun by Prince Charles and Princess Diana after their 1981 wedding.
Rebuilding Together Greater BisMan Area has earmarked a recent $3,000 grant to a project it will undertake in April, according Lisa Evanger, the nonprofit's administrative assistant.

"We applied for this grant to sponsor one of our homes we will be repairing on Rebuilding Day 2018," said Evanger of the organization's efforts to help low-income homeowners maintain their independence by assisting with home repairs and updates they cannot afford.

The nonprofit was one of five area organizations to be awarded a grant from the BisMan Community Foundation. The $32,160 in funds was awarded Dec. 11.

The grant amounts and four other successful recipients included:

 $13,660 to the Dakota Childrens Advocacy Center for the purchase of medical exam kits for sexually abused children, as well as forensic interviewing equipment and a security system.

 $10,000 to the Great Plains Food Bank to assist in their fundraising for the creation of a Bismarck-Mandan Regional Service Center. The mission of the Food Bank is to end hunger through community partnerships.

 $3,500 to Tracys Sanctuary House to update and refinish the floors in their facility, which provides free, temporary sanctuary for out-of-town families during a life-threatening medical crisis.

 $2,000 to the Village Family Service Center for its Angel Fund, which provides free decision-making counseling and assistance in life planning for young women who find themselves unintentionally pregnant.

Established in 2011 as a permanently endowed fund to support nonprofit organizations, governmental projects and programs in the Bismarck, Mandan and surrounding area, the BisMan Community Foundation has awarded 24 grants since its inception, totaling more than $141,000.

This fund will support Bismarck-Mandan nonprofit organizations in perpetuity, said Gina Hruby, chair of the BisMan Community Foundation Advisory Committee.

For more information, go to www.bismancommunityfoundation.org.
Queensland police Deputy Commissioner Brett Pointing will officially depart the service next year but has taken leave and has stepped down after 40 years in the job.

Mr Pointing plans to seek work outside the police but is still considered a possible frontrunner to replace Commissioner Ian Stewart, who is speculated to be planning to step down in 2018 despite being reappointed for another three years.

Queensland's Police Union president Ian Leavers earlier this year said he had been told the commissioner intends to step down some time after the Commonwealth Games.

Mr Pointing, the former head of the task force that targeted bikies, is the third deputy commissioner to leave the Queensland Police Service since the start of 2016.

Last month Peter Martin quit the force to become the state's corrective services commissioner and Ross Barnett shifted roles to investigate corruption in racing as the Racing Integrity Commissioner.
A pair of giant, prehistoric winged reptiles will take flight in a traffic-stopping Melbourne spectacle.

The life-sized pteranodons, handcrafted in the 1970s, will take a 7km trip on Saturday morning aboard an open-trailer truck from a storage facility at Coburg to Carlton's Melbourne Museum.

Pteranodons flew above the earth about 85 million years ago, over what is now North America, during the Cretaceous period, but they aren't technically dinosaurs.

The replica reptiles will be installed as part of the museum's Inside Out exhibition, opening on December 23.
Michael Caton's character from iconic Australian film The Castle is no stranger to fighting unwanted development and now the actor is throwing his support behind a slice of Melbourne heritage.

The popular screen star is just one of many big names who are making noise in protest of redevelopment plans for the site of Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market.

Caton, a Sydneysider who fought to save the Bondi Pavilion, is flying down especially for the event and will be joined by fellow actor Sigrid Thorton and Father Bob Maguire for a rally event on Saturday.

The Victorian government is planning a $250 million, five-year renewal project for the site, due to start in March, but the state's heritage authority first needs to give a green light.

Friends of Queen Victoria Market spokeswoman Mary-Lou Howie said people are sick of losing heritage.

"Melburnians are angry - the tipping point was the demolition of the Corkman Irish pub."

Thousands of signatures have been collected in opposition to the market makeover.

Under the proposal, the market's original purpose will be undermined and structural, cultural and indigenous heritage compromised, the group said.

But the government believes the plan, which includes a 125-metre tower and will create 2500 construction jobs, strikes the right balance between rejuvenation and tradition.

As part of the all-star rally, impressionist Gerry Connolly, dressed as Queen Elizabeth II, is set to make a grand entrance aboard a 1948 Jaguar to God Save the Queen, ahead of a performance by indigenous musician Dan Sultan.

The Queen Victoria Market has traded continuously since 1878 and attracts almost 10 million visitors a year.
Derek Barrett has begun serving an almost 35-year jail term for brutally murdering his niece, whose naked body was found floating in the blowhole at Snapper Point on the NSW Central Coast.

The former IT worker, 29, pleaded guilty and admitted filming Mengmei Leng, his wife's niece, for his sexual gratification.

"This was a despicable crime of extreme brutality and great wickedness," Justice Helen Wilson said on Friday in the NSW Supreme Court when sentencing Barrett to 46 years in jail with a non-parole period of 34.5 years.

"It was a depraved and sadistic act committed by a man in a position of trust to Ms Leng and in a place that should have been one of safety and refuge for her."

Ms Leng, 25, had lived with Barrett, her aunt and her cousin in the southwest Sydney suburb of Campsie since arriving in Australia in 2011 to study.

When his wife was out of town on April 22 last year, Barrett gagged and bound Ms Leng to her bed. He then took 19 photos of her naked body.

Justice Wilson said Ms Leng must have been in great pain and fear as she lay "humiliatingly exposed". In one photo the student "appears terrified", she said.

At some point over the next two days, Barrett stabbed Ms Leng at least 30 times, inflicting a fatal stab wound to her throat.

On the morning of April 24, 2016, he drove her body, wrapped in plastic, to Snapper Point and dumped it over a cliff into the blowhole.

The judge rejected Barrett's claim he didn't remember the murder because he'd taken the drug ice and synthetic marijuana.

Barrett has refused to reveal a motive for the attack but Justice Wilson said he most likely murdered Ms Leng for "sexual pleasure".
The child abuse royal commission wants Australia's governments, churches, charities and other institutions that work with children held publicly accountable for how they respond to its comprehensive reforms.

The $500 million, five-year inquiry has finished its work by outlining widespread changes designed to prevent children being sexually abused and improve the responses of institutions after decades of failures.

The six commissioners said many measures have already been implemented to better protect children and respond to the needs of survivors.

"Although, inevitably, the royal commission has looked at past events, it is important that the momentum for change initiated by the royal commission's work is not lost and that lasting changes to protect children are implemented." they said in the inquiry's final report.

The commission said its ongoing impact will depend on the implementation of its 409 recommendations, which is a matter for governments, institutions and the broader community.

"In particular, without the commitment of governments to the implementation of our recommendations, the full benefit of the considerable investment made in the royal commission will not be realised."

It will be months before governments and the major institutions respond in full to the 17-volume final report, although many major reforms have been outlined previously.

The commission said some of its recommendations can be implemented without delay, particularly in bringing in child safety standards.

"There is no need for institutions to wait until state and territory governments legislate to require all institutions that engage in child-related work to meet these standards," it said.

"For example, institutions that do not already have a policy and procedure that sets out how they respond to complaints of child sexual abuse should be able to establish these relatively quickly."

The commission said monitoring and reporting on progress in implementing its recommendations is vital and will help ensure governments and institutions are accountable to the public.

The commission wants the federal government to oversee the development and implementation of a national strategy to prevent future abuse, including a federal minister for children's issues, and a new framework for child safety.

It wants a National Office of Child Safety set up in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to lead the national framework, and for it to be turned into a lasting statutory body within 18 months.

Governments would have to provide annual reports on their implementation of the commission's recommendations.

Major institutions and the peak bodies of institutions involved in child-related work would also have to provide annual reports to the National Office of Child Safety.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said a task force beginning in January will consider the recommendations and co-ordinate action on them.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's one-seat majority in the lower house hangs in the balance as voters head to the polls in the Bennelong by-election.

The final week of the campaign has been filled with stunts and dirty tricks from both sides as polls for the critical election indicate the major parties are neck and neck.

Both candidates have been joined by a star-studded entourage from federal and state politics during the month-long campaign.

The ALP has sought to redefine the poll as a referendum on Mr Turnbull's leadership, while the Liberals have continually reminded voters of Kristina Keneally's past life as the premier who in 2011 led Labor to the biggest election defeat in NSW history.

A loss in Bennelong on Saturday would leave the government with 75 seats, meaning Mr Turnbull would no longer have a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

A Galaxy poll, published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday night, forecast a close result, putting Mr Alexander's primary vote at 40 per cent, two percentage points ahead of the former NSW premier, Ms Keneally.
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill is heading for the state's Riverland to talk to locals about his government's planned royal commission into allegations of widespread water theft from the Murray-Darling Basin.

The inquiry is set to begin next year and follows an independent basin authority review which found NSW and Queensland were failing to make sure irrigators complied with water rules.

It will have wide-ranging coercive powers to investigate breaches of the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement and will look at at whether any legislative or policy changes to the agreement contradict its purpose, to return water to the basin system and ensure its health.

Mr Weatherill will be in Loxton on Saturday to discuss details of the investigation with local irrigators and other interested parties.

The opposition has backed the royal commission but says the premier is playing politics by snubbing its offer of bipartisan support.

Opposition trade spokesman and Riverland MP Tim Whetstone said the Liberals were being locked out of the process.

"The day after Jay Weatherill announced his government's intention to establish a royal commission (Opposition Leader) Steven Marshall wrote to the premier reiterating the state Liberals' support and asking to be involved in the process," Mr Whetstone said.

"Jay Weatherill hasn't even responded to this offer of bipartisan support beyond a simple acknowledgement from his office that he's received the correspondence."
A search is continuing for a man missing in waters off Hall Bay on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

An aluminum boat with two men and two boys on board overturned on Friday night in an area between Coffin Bay and Elliston, police say.

One of the men and the two boys managed to swim to shore, but a man in his 50s is still missing.

Local fisherman, State Emergency Service volunteers and police searched into the early hours of Saturday morning and will continue their efforts with the help of the police water operations unit and a police helicopter.
Signs reading "Justice for Justine" lie on a park table during a demonstration in Minneapolis in July 2017, following the death of Justine Damond

A US prosecutor in Minnesota has criticized the investigation into the police shooting of an unarmed Australian woman, saying he does not have enough evidence to file charges.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said investigators looking into the death of Justine Damond in Minneapolis in July "haven't done their job," and he still lacks sufficient evidence to prosecutor officer Mohamed Noor.

He made the unguarded comments at a holiday party Wednesday evening when approached by a group that videotaped the interaction and posted it on Facebook. The video drew attention from local media on Thursday.

"I've got to have the evidence, and I don't have it yet," Freeman said. "Let me just say it's not my fault. So if it isn't my fault, who didn't do their job? Investigators. They don't work for me. They haven't done their job."

Noor and partner Matthew Harrity were responding to Damond's emergency call about a possible rape near her home in the middle of the night, when the 40-year-old approached their police cruiser in her pajamas. Noor shot and killed Damond from the passenger seat of the car.

Harrity told investigators there was a startling loud noise just prior to the shooting, and his attorney left open the possibility that the officers may have feared an ambush.

Freeman said Noor has been uncooperative, refusing to speak with investigators, and that his partner did not provide useful evidence.

"So, guess what? I've got to figure out angles of the shot, gun residues, reckless use of force experts," Freeman continued.

"I have to follow the law," he said, adding he needed "sufficient admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt."

Damond's shooting prompted an international outcry, as she was an Australian national who had moved to the US to marry her fiancee.

Widespread protests and criticism led to the resignation of Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau.
San Diego-based Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson died fighting the Thomas Fire in California, the fourth-largest blaze in the state's history

A firefighter was killed in one of the largest blazes in California's history, officials said Thursday, as emergency services spent another day struggling to contain infernos across the tinder-dry state.

San Diego-based Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson died fighting the Thomas Fire in Ventura County, according to Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott, who gave no further details on the incident.

"I am very saddened to report that a firefighter fatality has occurred on the Thomas incident. Please join me in keeping our fallen firefighter and his loved ones in your prayers," he tweeted.

The Thomas Fire has blackened almost 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) since it broke out ten days ago, Cal Fire said, making it the fourth-largest blaze in the state's history.

Thousands have had to evacuate and almost 1,000 buildings have been razed, most of them single-family houses, while another 18,000 are still seen as under threat.

The only other victim so far is a 70-year-old woman who was in an accident as she fled in her car, and the blaze was considered 30 percent contained by Thursday, according to Cal Fire.

California's most devastating blaze remains the 2003's Cedar Fire, which scorched 270,000 acres and destroyed almost 3,000 buildings.

This year is the worst on record for wildfire devastation, with more than 40 deaths and around 9,000 structures destroyed, following fires that ravaged the Napa and Sonoma wine region in the fall.

California governor Jerry Brown told AFP on Tuesday wildfires ravaging his state should serve as a warning for other parts of the world threatened by climate change.

"The important fact is that these fires are going to become a very frequent occurrence, that's what the science is telling us," he said at the One Planet Summit in Paris, two years to the day after 195 nations signed an agreement to rein in global warming.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to succeed him, replacing his top diplomat ahead of a potential high-stakes sitdown between the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Tillerson's departure follows months of tension between him and Trump. Gina Haspel, the current CIA deputy director, stands to take over the agency, Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he respected Tillerson's "intellect" and said he "got along well with Rex."

"I think Rex will be much happier now," Trump said.

Tillerson did not speak to Trump and is unaware of the reason behind his firing, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Steve Goldstein said.

Trump "thought it was the right time for the transition with the upcoming North Korea talks and various trade negotiations," a senior administration official said, adding that Trump asked Tillerson to step aside on Friday. A senior White House official later clarified that chief of staff John Kelly told Tillerson that he would be replaced, but did not specify the timing.

Goldstein said Tillerson was notified of the official termination in Trump's tweet Tuesday morning and, in a statement, said Tillerson had "every intention of remaining." Hours after the statement was released, Goldstein himself was fired.

Asked how Tillerson learned of his dismissal, Trump said Tuesday that "Rex and I have been talking about this a long time." He specifically mentioned the Iran nuclear deal as an example of disagreement.

"We were not really thinking the same," Trump said. "With Mike Pompeo, we have a similar thought process."

Trump eyed Pompeo for months

Trump has wanted Pompeo as his secretary of state for months now, and the White House began planning for him to take the job last fall, sources told CNN. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he and Pompeo are "on the same wavelength" and "the relationship has always been very good and that is what I need."

Trump's anger at Tillerson after it leaked last year that his secretary of state called him "a moron" never subsided, and many in the White House saw their differences as irreconcilable.

Tillerson had few, if any, allies in the West Wing. Though Kelly was initially on his side when he took over, he eventually grew weary of defending him -- especially after the "moron" remark, which Kelly saw as insubordination on Tillerson's part.

Sources close to the President say it was clear Tillerson didn't support Trump. They say Tillerson wanted to handle foreign policy his own way, without the President. Trump didn't feel that Tillerson backed him, a source told CNN.

Trump and his top aides have spent recent days attempting to quell talk of a White House in chaos, with the President tweeting earlier this month that there was "no Chaos, only great Energy" in the White House. But five top Trump administration officials -- ranging from communications professionals to Tillerson -- have resigned or been fired in the last two weeks.

High-stakes moment

Tillerson's departure comes just as the Trump administration embarks on its most difficult and ambitious foreign policy goal to date -- engaging the nuclear armed North Korean regime. Trump is set to meet Kim by the end of May.

Tillerson had spearheaded the maximum pressure campaign that the administration credits with bringing the North Koreans to the negotiating table, bringing the issue up in every country meeting he had, no matter how seemingly unrelated.

Two people familiar with the matter say the North Korea issue was the single biggest factor in the ousting of Tillerson. Trump told aides that differences over how and when to hold talks with Kim only underscored what he's felt for months, which is that Tillerson is just on a different wavelength.

Another source close to the White House said Trump "wanted a strong team ready for North Korea. That's why he moved the chess pieces."

Trump discussed not having talked about the North Korea decision with Tillerson Tuesday morning while departing the White House.

On a recent flight back from Africa, Tillerson spoke with reporters off camera, and seemed almost to lobby for his ability to continue the job.

"I have a lot of confidence in my ability to create the conditions for successful negotiations between two very disparate parties," Tillerson said, adding that he and others were working to prepare Trump to deal with Kim. "But I'm not the only guy working on this. Others are working on this as well. We have an obligation to prepare the President for that meeting and I think there is some ground work we can do ahead of that that will help with that preparation."

Rocky tenure

It was a rocky tenure for Tillerson. Since his swearing in on February 1, 2017, Tillerson had to contend with a President who publicly undercut him as well as tension with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who effectively ran a shadow State Department on Middle East issues. There was also competition from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and a litany of complaints from diplomats, State Department staff and others in Washington that he was running a deeply dysfunctional agency.

Tillerson's cost cutting has lead to the agency's senior tiers "being depleted at a dizzying speed," and "a decapitation of its leadership ranks," Amb. Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a union for US foreign service personnel, wrote in her group's publication.

"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," Stephenson wrote.

Tillerson aggressively pushed back against such criticisms in a November 28 appearance, portraying it as an insult to State Department staff. "I'm offended on their behalf when people say somehow we don't have a State Department that functions," Tillerson said. "I can tell you it's functioning very well from my perspective."

But a steady drip of negative news, and reports of Tillerson's alleged resentment over Ivanka Trump leading a delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India in November, continued to undermine Tillerson.

His ouster was preceded by a painfully public airing of his troubles with the President, heightened when Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committe, faulted Trump for his tendency to "publicly castrate" the secretary of state. That exchange forced Tillerson, when asked about the comment by CNN's Jake Tapper, to declare, "I checked. I'm fully intact."

By that point, in mid-October, an administration official was telling CNN that Tillerson was on thin ice, even as the President was publicly declaring he had confidence in his top diplomat.

The castration episode followed an extraordinary October 4 public statement in which Tillerson stressed his commitment to his job as secretary of state, but didn't definitively deny an NBC report that he had called Trump a "moron."

That report also detailed Tillerson's "fury" about the ways Trump has undermined him publicly on several foreign policy initiatives and his thoughts about resigning.

Calling the story "erroneous" during his remarks, Tillerson pointed the finger at "some who try to sow dissension" to undermine the President's agenda and said he has been asked "repeatedly" if he's going to step down.

"For some reason, it continues to be misreported," Tillerson complained. "There's never been a consideration in my mind."

The incident cost Tillerson the support of Kelly, a top White House official told CNN.

Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who was once Tillerson's fiercest defender in the West Wing, stopped defending him privately, fed up with the moron remark because he saw it as insubordination. As one official described it, he had grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible.

Even as Tillerson lost support in the White House, some lawmakers expressed concern about the prospect of his departure. Many saw Tillerson, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security adviser H. R. McMaster, as a serious defender of US national security interests, as opposed to more ideological or inexperienced voices in the White House.

Difficult situation for Tillerson

As Tillerson exits the national stage, he's seen by some as a man who tackled a job he hadn't sought with the diligence and dedication prized by another organization he led, the Boy Scouts of America. Many point to the fact that he was in a situation that made it very difficult to succeed.

Tillerson started the job diverging with Trump on any number of issues, from trade, climate change, Russian interference in the 2016 election and Iran policy. And he encountered headwinds from the President who publicly contradicted or undermined his policies on using diplomacy to defuse tensions with North Korea, and on resolving a dispute between Gulf allies and a host of other issues.

Others have dismissed Tillerson's tenure, saying his business experience hadn't translated into government leadership and pointing to the downsized and demoralized State Department he leaves behind, with many senior diplomatic positions still unfilled.

Critics from both parties said his proposed cuts of up to 30% were damaging US interests, with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declaring in November that the state of the agency was a "national security emergency."

Foreign envoys also voiced concerns about Tillerson's State Department. In October, one Washington-based envoy described how ambassadors were finding ways to either bypass the State Department or develop work-arounds, because there were no senior officials in place to speak to or because the usual channels within State no longer worked.

"Technically, the State Department has vanished, has disappeared," the envoy said. "It's totally dysfunctional."

This story is breaking and will be updated.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny, Elise Labott, Jim Acosta, Kevin Liptak, Boris Sanchez and Michelle Kosinski contributed to this report.
Trump and Putin have lavished praise on each other in the past, with commentators describing their cozy relationship as a "bromance."

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump discussed the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program in a phone call Thursday, in which the US president took the unusual step of thanking his Russian counterpart for praising America's economy.

The two heads of state discussed "the situation in several crisis zones, with a focus on solving the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula," the Kremlin said in a statement, without elaborating.

The White House said the two "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea."

But Trump's thanks to Putin took top billing in the US statement.

"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference," it said.

Earlier in the day, Putin told his press conference: "Look at how the markets are reacting, they are growing. This shows confidence in the American economy. With all due respect to (Trump's) opponents, these are objective facts."

The pair have lavished praise on each other in the past, with commentators describing their cozy relationship as a "bromance."

Special counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow to tilt the White House race in his favor.

Washington this week said it was ready to talk to North Korea -- which has launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles in recent months -- "without preconditions."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that while the Trump administration was still determined to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, it was willing to "have the first meeting without preconditions."

Putin, in his annual press conference with hundreds of journalists in Moscow, welcomed the United States' "awareness of reality" in the crisis.

However, he called on all sides to "stop aggravating the situation" and said Moscow did not recognize North Korea's status as a nuclear power.
War crimes judges will rule how much Thomas Lubanga must pay in compensation to the boys and girls he abducted to fight in his Union of Congolese Patriots

International war crimes judges will hand down on Friday landmark reparations to former child soldiers conscripted into a Congolese militia about 15 years ago, who were left brutalised and stigmatised by their horrific experiences.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was found guilty in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was jailed for 14 years, and has been transferred to a prison in the DR Congo to serve the rest of his sentence.

The judges also ruled that Lubanga was personally liable for the compensation due his victims, who at the time of the crimes in 2002-2003 were all under 15, with some as young as 11.

But the question of how to calculate the value of a lost childhood, which descended into a fog of violence, bloodshed and chaos, is one that has bedevilled the courts.

With the passage of time, many of the victims are now in their 30s and have children of their own.

- Lost childhoods -

"How do you calculate a lost youth? What it is worth? A million, half a million, five thousand euros, a thousand euros?" lawyer Luc Walleyn asked the tribunal in The Hague during hearings in 2016.

Many of the girls forced into the militia's ranks became sex slaves and returned home with babies.

The nongovernmental organisation Child Soldiers International, which works to stop children being used in conflicts, said girls they had interviewed in DR Congo recounted "indescribable hardships, loneliness and terror -- including daily threats of death".

Many rehabilitation projects have focused on helping victims to become independent financially, by learning to sew or raise cattle. But they have not always proved the most efficient.

Being able to finish their schooling was "the most ardent wish of the girls, and the most powerful factor in promoting their social acceptance", the group said in a court submission.

"The main issue for these girls were the stigmatisation and rejection when they came back home," Sandra Olsson, project manager for Child Soldiers International, told AFP.

"The first thing wasn't the fact that they needed to learn how to sew, to earn a living. The main thing was that neighbours, family, old friends would not talk to them."

A public apology by Lubanga, who has never admitted any responsibility, would go a long way towards their reintegration.

An apology would "mean the perpetrators take on the blame", Olsson said, highlighting the "huge guilt carried by the girls for what they had been forced to do."

- Scapegoat? -

The judges will also decide Friday on the number of victims entitled to reparations.

Estimates vary, but some say up to 3,000 children may have been recruited into Lubanga's militia.

But Lubanga's lawyer, Jean-Marie Biju-Duval, argues that his client should not pay anything.

He says that it would be difficult to identify victims and that any payouts risked reviving tensions in Ituri, which has been "overwhelmed by the phenomenon of child soldiers".

Lubanga risked becoming "a scapegoat" for all child soldiers, Biju-Duval said.

The Trust Fund for Victims, which administers the ICC reparations, has proposed a three-year plan and set aside one million euros ($1.2 million) for projects aimed at "reconciling the victims with their families and affected communities".

Lubanga's is the third reparations case to be decided at the ICC. In March, judges awarded $250 each to 297 victims of another Congolese warlord, Germain Katanga.

And in August, the court ruled that a Malian jihadist had caused 2.7 million euros in damage when he destroyed several shrines in Timbuktu in 2012.

But Liesbeth Zegveld, a legal expert who directs the War Reparations Centre at the University of Amsterdam, questioned how effective collective reparations could be.

"If you look at the applicants, almost all of them are after individual reparations," she told AFP.

"At the end of the day, that's what is going to empower them. They can decide for themselves about their lives, rather than being dependent on some decision-maker far away."
President Emmerson Mnangagwa received a statue of a crocodile -- his nickname -- after planting a tree at the party conference

Zimbabwe's new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, drew a firm line under the 37-year reign of Robert Mugabe in a keynote speech to the ruling ZANU-PF party on Friday.

Mnangagwa took office last month after Mugabe was forced to quit when the military took power and ZANU-PF lawmakers launched impeachment proceedings against their veteran leader.

Until recently, the new president was one of Mugabe's closest allies, and critics say he is another authoritarian hardliner.

But Mnangagwa used his much-awaited speech to an extraordinary congress of the ZANU-PF to declare the party had been defiled, and was now on a "new trajectory".

"The party ideology, rules and regulations were being desecrated daily," Mnangagwa, 75, said at the one-day gathering in Harare.

"Clearly this was no longer the ZANU-PF you and I pledged loyalty to. We must never lower our guard again," he said.

Mugabe's final years in power were marked by a bitter inter-party succession battle between Mnangagwa, who was covertly backed by the military, and supporters of Mugabe's wife Grace.

Mnangagwa has appointed military officials to key government positions and pledged to revive the shattered economy by boosting farm production and luring foreign investment.

"Party work must not be in the old mould. Now we must be about politics and economics," he said, wearing a jacket decorated in party colours and images of himself.

"We must embrace each other and other nations. This congress must define a new trajectory for the party."

- 'Free and fair elections' -

The conference also confirmed Mnangagwa as the party's presidential candidate in next year's general elections and named a military major-general, Engelbert Rugeje, to the secretary-level post of political commissar.

Takavafira Zhou, a political scientist at Masvingo State University, said the appointment of a general to an influential party position was worrying and could pose a threat to the credibility of next year's general elections.

"It confirms our fear that ZANU-PF is being further militarised and this has a negative bearing on the forthcoming elections," Zhou told AFP.

"We are likely to see the army playing a big part in the election in support of ZANU-PF. They will not give power to anyone except their preferred candidate. This will militate against the holding of free and fair elections," he said.

But Mnangagwa vowed that the vote will be "credible, free and fair. There is no need for violence."

David Coltart, a lawyer and opposition politician, said the meeting was "to consolidate President Mnangagwa's position within the party and to ensure that (Grace's supporters) are put firmly in their place."

"Many people see this administration as a thin veneer over a military junta, and the question is whether the veneer is going to get thinner," he added.

- Forgiven, but not forgotten -

Mnangagwa has been keen to avoid any public sign of friction within Zimbabwe's ruling elite, and he paid tribute both to Mugabe, 93, and the army chief who forced him out.

"I would like to salute the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces General Constantino Chiwenga for standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow Zimbabweans," Mnangagwa said.

He also paid homage to "party comrade Robert Mugabe, who steered the ship of our party and its government."

Zimbabwe's former president Robert Mugabe walks out of a lift at the Gleneagles Hospital in Singapore on Friday

Mugabe was photographed by AFP walking out of a lift at a hospital in Singapore on Friday, the first time he has been seen since his resignation on November 21.

The former president was undergoing a routine medical check-up, government spokesman George Charamba told AFP.

Mugabe, who had ruled Zimbabwe from its independence from Britain in 1980, is in increasingly frail health and has reportedly battled prostate cancer.

Many Zimbabweans took to the streets to celebrate the end of Mugabe's long rule, but many have also expressed fears that Mnangagwa could oversee a repressive regime of his own.

Mnangagwa, who is widely referred to as the Crocodile for his ruthlessness, also appeared to reach out to Grace Mugabe's younger supporters, who were known as the G40 (Generation-40) group.

He declared that the "era of factionalism is behind us. We cannot be hostages of past grievances. Let bygones be bygones".

"However those we have forgiven should not think we have forgotten," Mnangagwa warned in his closing address.
Dogged by allegations of corruption and cronyism, Jacob Zuma is about to lose the leadership of South Africa's ruling ANC party, but he will remain president until 2019

The African National Congress was lauded for its moral authority in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, but many veterans of that era are deeply disillusioned by the party's actions today.

As delegates prepare to elect a new leader to succeed Jacob Zuma, the ANC faces falling public support, a reputation for corruption and the threat of a damaging split between rival factions.

The celebrated activists who stood alongside ANC leader Nelson Mandela in the struggle against white-minority rule say the party bears little semblance to its storied glory days, given its current reputation for putting personal interests above national needs.

"I am not proud of being an ANC member that is led by this lot. I am proud of the history of the ANC," Frank Chikane, a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid fight, told AFP.

Chikane, a priest who grew up in Soweto, led protests through the 1970s and 1980s, and was regularly detained by the state -- as well as being targeted in an assassination attempt when police poisoned his clothes.

"What is happening out there now is not the ANC," he said. "In the past we thought the enemy was outside, now the enemy is inside."

He urged party members to "stop the rot" when they gather to elect a leader and other senior officials at a five-day conference starting Saturday.

- The Zuma legacy -

This file photo taken on December 9, 2017 shows candidate for South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party leadership Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma speaking on her campaign

Much of the criticism of the current ANC focuses on Zuma, who is seen as backing his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him as party chief.

Her main rival is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, with the vote result expected on Sunday or early next week.

Zuma, who has ruled South Africa since 2009, will remain as the country's president ahead of the 2019 general election.

He has been engulfed by multiple graft scandals, including being found guilty in 2016 of violating the constitution after he resisted paying back public money used to lavishly upgrade his private residence.

The ANC has consistently shrugged off calls to act against Zuma and its lawmakers have voted down several motions of no confidence against him.

"The leadership of the last decade has ridden roughshod over the ANC constitution," Trevor Manuel, another ANC stalwart, said in a stinging speech last month.

"We need an ANC that will recognise that it has lost its way," added Manuel, who campaigned against apartheid governments before becoming Mandela's respected finance minister.

"Right now, it appears too self-serving to be interested in the future of South Africa and the needs of its people," he said.

Some analysts say the party risks a formal split between the Zuma and anti-Zuma camps before the 2019 election.

In local polls last year, its vote fell to 54 percent, its lowest ever, while it lost control of three key cities to the opposition Democratic Alliance, including the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg.

- Stalwarts speak out -

Cyril Ramaphosa is seeking the ANC leadership

In 2016, some veterans -- including Denis Goldberg, one of Mandela's closest allies dating back to the 1960s -- founded the "For the sake of our future" group to try to influence their party.

In an open letter ahead of the conference it said the "leadership of the ANC is paralysed and unable to deal with ill-discipline, incompetence and corruption that point directly to the highest office in the land".

Zuma himself is a so-called "stalwart" -- he was imprisoned with Mandela on Robben Island for 10 years.

But Sipho Pityana, a former activist who became a wealthy mining businessman, told AFP it was a "disgrace" that the ANC had failed to remove the president from power.

"The image of Zuma has become the image of the ANC," Pityana said.

"The ANC needs to accept that it is morally bankrupt and corrupt to the core, and reversing the damage is going to take years."

Dlamini-Zuma's critics say she would be a proxy for her husband and would protect him from prosecution over graft charges, as well as deepen the corruption that has marred his rule.

The great anti-apartheid hero archbishop Desmond Tutu was never a member of the ANC -- but in 2011 he launched an emotional attack on the party which helped to end white-minority rule.

"Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government," he said.

"You, President Zuma and your government, do not represent me. I am warning you... one day we will pray for the defeat of the ANC."
Russell Simmons has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct made against him

Police in New York are investigating allegations made by several women who have accused hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons of rape and sexual abuse, a spokesman told AFP Thursday.

"The NYPD has received information regarding allegations involving Russell Simmons in the NYC area and our detectives are in the process of reviewing that information," Sergeant Brendan Ryan said.

On Wednesday, The New York Times published the accounts of three women who all say they were raped by the 60-year-old hip-hop legend, an influential figure who co-founded Def Jam Recordings.

The 60-year-old hip-hop legend denied the rape accusations -- which date back to 1988 -- and voiced support for the growing movement of women speaking out against abusive men. He has also denied two other accusations which emerged in November.

Jenny Lumet -- daughter of director Sidney Lumet -- alleged that Simmons raped her in 1991, while former model Claussen Khalighi said he sexually assaulted her during the same year.

Despite protesting his innocence, Simmons stepped down from his business empire at the end of November.

Simmons and fellow producer Rick Rubin helped bring hip-hop to wide US audiences in the 1980s when they founded Def Jam, a label that signed major acts such as the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and later Public Enemy.
African migrants stand under the sun at a shelter in the town of Bani Walid, on the edge of the desert southeast of the Libyan capital Tripoli

For migrants who escape torture and starvation at the hands of people traffickers, a "Safe House" in an oasis town offers a rare commodity in Libya: shelter and medical care.

Bani Walid, on the edge of the desert 170 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of the capital Tripoli, is a transit point on the way to the coast and perilous boat journeys across the Mediterranean to Europe.

With the old green flags of Moamer Kadhafi's regime fluttering in the wind, time appears to have stood still in what was one of its last bastions before he was toppled and slain in the 2011 revolution.

The basic housing consists of rooms made of concrete bricks built around a central courtyard in the industrial zone of Bani Walid, a town outside the control of Libya's UN-backed government in Tripoli.

Amara, a 30-year-old from Mali, is one of the lucky ones.

"There were three of us... ," he said, hesitating to hold back the tears before telling of how the other two died of starvation in one of the jails run by trafficking gangs extorting money from desperate migrants.

"We told them we had no money to pay, so they only gave us food one day out of two," said the Malian with a gaunt face behind a full beard.

Seated on a breeze-block, Amara was unable to stand up on legs that bore the scars of eight months of being locked up and tortured.

One of his guards, having given up hope of any ransom being paid and taking pity on Amara, decided to let him go before he ended up the same way as his two companions.

According to a local official, Bani Walid numbers around 20 illegal detention centres or gathering points of migrants.

- 'They beat me morning and night' -

A 28-year-old Nigerian, named Lucky Monday, received treatment from the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which makes weekly visits to the shelter appropriately named Safe House.

African migrants prepare food at the Safe House in the town of Bani Walid, on the edge of the desert southeast of the Libyan capital Tripoli

"I was planning to go to Europe so that I can live a better life, but unfortunately in this country... they can take your life at any moment," he said.

Lucky was kidnapped by a militia who demanded $2,000 to let him go.

"They beat me and destroyed my hand. They beat me morning and night," said the Nigerian with his hand in plaster, whose ordeal lasted three months.

He finally came up with the money after asking his family back home to sell a small plot of land he owned and transferring the funds.

Behind him was a fellow resident with tuberculosis who was spitting blood into a plastic bottle.

"Rasta, that man needs to be isolated, away from the others, until a doctor comes to examine him," said Salah Ghummaidh of a local activists group that runs the refuge housing around 400 migrants.

Rasta Moraba, a 32-year-old from the Ivory Coast, is a founder of the Safe House.

Having arrived in Libya two years ago to work, Rasta came across many migrants robbed of their possessions and left without shelter in the wild by kidnappers.

"I decided I had to do something... and I started to organise things here," with help from local residents, said Rasta.

"I've seen a lot of things here. I've seen people die. They come here very sick" from torture and abuse.

- Cemetery in lunar landscape -

Apart from running the Safe House, the "Association for Peace in Bani Walid" has set aside a two-hectare (five-acre) plot for a cemetery to bury migrants' corpses.

Between 30 and 40 are found in the area every month, said its chairman, Hatem Atawaijir.

"Most have died of hunger, but some of them carry signs of torture," he said.

The cemetery is set in a lunar landscape, an arid plot dotted with black volcanic rocks at the end of a stony track some 15 kilometres out of Bani Walid.

Diggers have carved out one-metre-wide (one-yard-wide) trenches, ready for the next anonymous victims to add to the 400 already buried.

On a visit to the grim scene, Atawaijir could not control his anger over what he termed the indifference of Libyan authorities and the international community.

"Their only concern is to prevent migrants reaching their side of the Mediterranean!" he fumed.
despite his accolades, Taiwanese 3D film director Charlie Chu calls himself a 'foolish director who is half-blind and half-deaf'

From the migration of purple butterflies to the crafting of bamboo steam baskets, Taiwan's leading 3D film director has spent a decade painstakingly capturing the island's beauty.

After a life-threatening tumour left him partially deaf and blind in one eye in 2002, Charlie Chu moved away from making television series and music videos, instead seeking to focus on life's precious details.

His new 3D movie "Formosa 3D", out later this month, is a stunning montage of Taiwan's nature and varied landscapes, as well as portraying traditional trades at risk of dying out.

It comprises footage Chu had collated and archived over a period of 10 years.

Scenes of Taiwan's misty mountains, the famous 101 skyscraper in the capital Taipei, and rich coral life underwater off the island's east coast all made the cut in the documentary.

It also heavily features dozens of artisans making everyday items such as feather dusters, noodles, and handwoven straw sandals.

Much of "Formosa 3D" is dedicated to shots of artisans quietly working at their their crafts and narration is scant.

"I don't make any critique or pass any judgment, I only hope people will watch the film and agree that Taiwan is beautiful," Chu told AFP.

Scenes of Taiwan's misty mountains, the famous 101 skyscraper in the capital Taipei, and rich coral life all made the cut in the documentary

It is a labour of love for the 50-year-old, who said surviving a brain tumour made him realise life is short and led him to experiment with a new medium.

"No one else was working with it at the time. As a filmmaker, I had all this freedom to imagine and lead the pack," he said.

He is credited as a pioneer in stereoscopic filmmaking, directing Taiwan's first 3D feature in 2010, "Clownfish" -- a heartwarming love story between a bullied boy and a blind girl.

Chu went on to direct the first 3D concert film by a Chinese-language artist for famous Taiwanese rock band Mayday.

In 2013, he was awarded the international jury prize at the US-based International 3D Society awards for his documentary "3D Taiwan", which follows a Singaporean woman touring the island.

- 'Crazy person' -

But despite all his accolades, Chu calls himself a "foolish director who is half-blind and half-deaf".

He recounts how his team spent three years trying to capture the purple crow butterflies portrayed in the new movie -- they can only be seen for a few months each winter in an aboriginal village in southern Taiwan.

The crew struggled with unsynchronised cameras and heavy equipment that had to be lugged on a four-hour hike along a riverbed.

Chu says he is encouraged by how the medium expands children's ambitions and raises their awareness of the environment

"Who would spend three years doing that? Only a crazy person," Chu told AFP at his studio in Taipei.

"We were waiting for the sun to come up. Once the first rays hit, tens of thousands of butterflies filled the skies," he recalled.

"After we wrapped up the shoot, all the men were hugging and crying," he said.

Since 2014 Chu has also toured Taiwan with a van installed with two 3D televisions, setting up his mobile theatre in schools in remote and underprivileged areas.

He says he is encouraged by how the medium expands children's ambitions and raises their awareness of the environment.

"It enables them to see the world, sparking their dreams and imaginations," said Chu.

He plans to take the van for another spin with "Formosa 3D" next year.

"Even if I filmed Taiwan over three to five lifetimes of 100 years each, I still wouldn't be able to capture everything," Chu said.

"A lot of people overlook the most precious things even if they are right next to them."
Around 4,000 employees will be able to receive part of their salary via Bitcoin

A Japanese company will start paying part of its employees' salaries in Bitcoin, as it aims to get better understanding of the virtual currency, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

GMO Internet, which operates a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising and internet infrastructure, will start paying up to 100,000 yen ($890) monthly by Bitcoin to its employees in Japan from February next year.

"Employees can receive salaries by Bitcoin if they want to," company spokeswoman Harumi Ishii told AFP.

"We hope to improve our own literacy of virtual currency by actually using it," she said.

The offer will be open to around 4,000 employees of the GMO group in Japan, she said.

The company started a Bitcoin trading and exchange business in May.

And next month, it will join the so-called "Bitcoin mining" business -- gaining the right to receive new Bitcoins as a reward for helping keep the network secure by approving transactions.

World Bitcoin prices have surged globally this year, soaring from less than $1,000 in January to $17,000 this week.
South Korean President Moon Jae-In (L) is on a four-day state visit to China, hosted by President Xi Jinping

China sidestepped blame Friday for the beating of a South Korean photojournalist by Chinese security, an incident that has marred a visit by the South Korean president to mend frayed ties with Beijing.

The incident has sparked outrage in South Korea, with the opposition calling on Moon to cancel the rest of his four-day state visit, his first in China since taking office in May.

A photographer was thrown to the floor and kicked, reportedly suffering fractured facial bones and ruptured vessels in an eye, as Chinese security personnel stopped South Korean photographers following Moon's delegation at a trade show on Thursday.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang expressed "concern" that someone had been hurt and said an investigation was ongoing.

Officials from both countries have discussed the issue and "we hope we can get the facts straight as soon as possible," he said.

But, he added: "This event was organised by the South Korean side, the journalists involved were invited by the South Korean side, and the security guards were also recruited and hired by the Korean side."

The South Korean organisers should have "found an equilibrium" between the journalists' desire for more time with and proximity to the president, and the guards' "professional requirements... (to) sufficiently guarantee the safety and dignity of the people they protect," he said.

They should have "from the very beginning made clear what rights the media have" as well as "how much leeway and space to manoeuver" the guards had to deal with emergencies, he added.

- 'Warmth of springtime' -

Relations between Beijing and Seoul soured after South Korea allowed the United States to install the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system to guard against threats from North Korea.

China considers THAAD a threat to its own security, and has imposed economic measures against South Korean companies in a move seen as retaliation.

Moon and President Xi Jinping both indicated their willingness to reset relations when they held talks on Thursday -- a message that was repeated in the South Korean leader's meeting on Friday with Premier Li Keqiang.

Moon said he hoped that "the recovery and development of China and South Korean relations can happen as quickly as the frequency of our meetings", noting that he had met Li for the first time just a month before.

Li also heralded the thaw, saying "both sides are looking forward to the warmth of the springtime."

But South Korean newspapers reported that Moon had his first three meals in China without any Chinese officials on hand, with an earlier lunch with Li unilaterally scrapped.

He was greeted by an assistant minister when he landed, while Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was welcomed last year by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

- 'Mistreatment' and 'lynching' -

While Moon courted Chinese leaders, South Korean media, opposition parties and internet users voiced outrage over the reporter's beating, many saying the incident epitomised the Asian giant's attitude towards its smaller neighbour.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party urged Moon to return home immediately, saying the violence was a "terror attack against the whole of South Korea".

"Mistreatment of President Moon and lynching of a Korean journalist - This is the Chinese Dream", the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest-circulation daily, headlined its editorial, referring to Xi's promise of prosperity and influence.

Chosun said the perceived diplomatic slight and the violence against a member of Moon's presidential press corps were "not accidental" and were driven by "China's arrogant and violent nature" and "Seoul's subservient attitude".

The English-language Korea Times called it "an appalling use of force by Chinese security".

"We are dumbfounded and enraged at such violence against visitors.... We are outraged by the rude welcome", it said.

Internet users also reacted angrily.

"China trampled upon Korea and the whole Korean people," one said in a posting.
FARGO  Supporters of North Dakotas yet-to-be implemented medical marijuana law warned that voters will get a chance to negate restrictions imposed by legislators through a proposal to legalize recreational pot use.

The warning, mixed with multiple expressions of frustration over delays in rolling out the program, came in a hearing Thursday, Dec. 14, to take public testimony on proposed administrative rules for the law, passed in November 2016 by almost 64 percent of voters.

People are upset, people are mad, said Ralph Reynolds of Fargo. They feel they have been given something that isnt wanted.

Reynolds was one of several people testifying who said the response to the states delays and cumbersome restrictions will be to pass recreational marijuana use at the ballot box, and predicted widespread support for that avenue.

I guarantee its going to happen in November next year, Reynolds said. He added that he has a legal medical marijuana card issued by California, and thought it was legal to use medical marijuana in North Dakota because it has been legalized, but said he was nonetheless charged with possession.

This is way better than any pharmaceutical painkiller, Reynolds said, adding that what he regards as North Dakotas official hostility to the law is really upsetting.

Chad Peterson, a Cass County commissioner, called upon state officials to make funds available to local governments, which must shoulder zoning and law enforcement responsibilities under the medical marijuana law.

Most of the costs are going to be borne by local government, he said. That is a reality. Peterson also called for strict monitoring of medical marijuana, noting that the drug remains illegal under federal law.

Sen. David Clemens, R-West Fargo, said lawmakers had to extensively amend the initiated measure to decriminalize medical marijuana use and to make it comply with federal guidelines, so it would not create law enforcement problems.

Theres a lot of work that goes into getting all these rules in place, he said. Clemens said law enforcement officials have said publicly that they believe the widespread availability of medical marijuana  now legal in 30 states and the District of Columbia  has resulted in more pot turning up on the streets.

Im not saying pot does not have a benefit for medical use, Clemens said, but called for strict enforcement to prevent abuses.

Michael Olsen of Fargo said he has been battling multiple sclerosis for 29 years, and is eager to take medical marijuana for his pain. He expressed disappointment in not detecting a sense of urgency from North Dakota officials to make it available.

I take opiates for my MS, and if I could switch tomorrow, I would, Olsen said.

John Shea, whose family runs a nursery and landscaping business in Grand Forks, and is interested in becoming a medical marijuana growing center, said medical marijuana will help curb the opioid epidemic.

I firmly and strongly believe that medical marijuana will make a difference in many peoples lives, he said. He asked officials to lift the restriction that growing centers be limited to no more than 1,000 plants.

Ray Morgan of Fargo, who was one of the leading proponents of the medical marijuana law, scolded state officials for the slow rollout and for imposing needless and costly requirements, including very high fees for businesses that will be designated to grow and dispense medical marijuana.

He urged state officials to allow growers to produce more than 1,000 plants, the limit, which he said will drive up costs so far that medical marijuana will be financially out of reach for many.

Whats going to happen, and you can mark my words on this  this is going to be an abject failure, Morgan said. The cost is going to be prohibitive to patients.

In an interview after the hearing, Morgan said it will be difficult for designated growers and dispensaries to recoup high fees imposed by legislators. A two-year license for an authorized growing center will cost $110,000, in addition to a $5,000 application fee. The two-year fee for dispensaries will be $90,000.

Officials estimate the population of qualified North Dakota patients, who must be diagnosed with one or more of 14 qualifying diseases or conditions under the law, ranges from 4,000 to 5,000.

You just dont have the population base to become cost-effective, Morgan said in the interview.

Jamie Edwards, a LaMoure County farmer who grows industrial hemp, said he is interested in becoming a medical marijuana grower, but complained that the application fee is steep.

If Im not chose for that, Im not sure where it went, he said, referring to the $5,000. He suggested a $500 paperwork fee, with the balance toward $5,000 payable by growers who are chosen.

After the hearing, in an informal question-and-answer session, Jason Wahl, the interim director of the medical marijuana program, said the earliest medical marijuana could be available would be late next year.

That is because of the timeline spelled out in North Dakotas administrative rules process, as well as the time it takes to set up the program. Most states take between 18 and 24 months, and some more than three years, to establish programs, Wahl said.

Thats over two years, Morgan said, referring to the span between voter approval and implementation. That timeline doesnt include the time it will take to implement local zoning approval, he added. Its ridiculous.

In testimony, Lee Barnett of West Fargo said voters will hold elected officials accountable. Voters knew what they were voting for when they overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana, he said.

Maybe we didnt know who we were voting for, Barnett added. Maybe its time we look at who we vote in and what we get.
The worst bouts of violence have subsided but Rohingya continue to flee, the UN says

Disease, hunger and misery stalk the Rohingya living in Bangladesh's refugee camps but despite the grinding hardship, few are willing to consider the alternative -- returning home under a deal struck with Myanmar.

The arrangement signed by Myanmar and Bangladesh in November to start repatriating refugees within two months is viewed with deep suspicion and dread by Rohingya still traumatised by the violent expulsion from their homeland.

"They make deals, but they won't follow them," said Rohingya refugee Mohammad Syed, who estimated his age at 33.

"When we go back, they will torture and kill us again."

Their fear is not misplaced.

Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that at least 6,700 Rohingya were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in August.

The worst bouts of violence have subsided but Rohingya continue to flee, the UN says.

Nearly 650,000 of the Muslim minority have fled across the border into Cox's Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh since the army campaign began.

The UN rights chief said in December the catalogue of abuses -- including indiscriminate killings, mass rape and the razing of hundreds of Rohingya villages -- contained "elements of genocide".

Myanmar has consistently denied committing atrocities in Rakhine, saying the crackdown was a proportionate response to the Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25, killing around a dozen officials.

But rights groups say the conditions are not in place to ensure safe, voluntary and dignified returns, and Rohingya sense danger lurking behind Myanmar's assurances.

"It's a trap. They have given such assurances before, and still made our lives hell," said Rohingya woman Dolu, who goes by one name, in a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar.

"I would rather live here. We get food and shelter here, and we can pray freely. We are allowed to live."

- Fear of return -

The Rohingya have reason to be wary.

The persecuted minority has been the target of past pogroms in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which does not recognise the group as a genuine ethnicity and has stripped them of citizenship.

Many have no homes left after their villages were torched.

Those still living in Rakhine, Myanmar's poorest state, face heavy restrictions on work, travel and access to basic services.

Nearly 650,000 of the Muslim minority have fled across the border into Cox's Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh since the army campaign began

More than 100,000 Rohingya displaced by a 2012 outbreak of violence have been trapped in squalid camps in central Rakhine ever since.

Aid groups have warned Myanmar they would boycott any new camps for Rohingya returnees, saying refugees must be allowed to settle in their own homes and not forced into ghetto-like conditions.

"They have to recognise us as citizens of the country. They have to give us proper Rohingya identity cards. Only then we will go back," said 25-year-old Rohingya man Aziz Khan at Kutupalong, a gigantic camp in Cox's Bazar.

"Otherwise we would rather die here in Bangladesh."

Bangladesh has been praised for opening its borders as waves of Rohingya civilians fled army reprisals and Buddhist mobs.

But the government has always maintained that the refugees would one day return, tussling for months with Myanmar over the terms of repatriation deal.

Before the latest surge, Bangladesh was already hosting hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who fled previous waves of persecution.

Rights groups say the conditions are not in place to ensure safe, voluntary and dignified returns

This crisis has put enormous pressure on ordinary Bangladeshis living in Cox's Bazar, where the refugee population has grown four-fold since August.

"It is good news, goodbye to them. It is time they go back to where they belong," said Ehsaan Hossain, a shopkeeper at Cox's Bazar where prices for basic goods has skyrocketed.

Others complained about the headache of frequent identity checks and roadside patrols since the Rohingya influx began.

But rickshaw driver Mohammad Ali worried his income -- which had doubled since the flood of refugees -- would slump if the Rohingya suddenly left en masse.

"In a way, I will miss them if they leave," the 30-year-old told AFP.
US Secretary of State Tillerson has driven the global diplomatic effort to stifle the North's economy

The top US envoy for North Korea said Friday that "real dialogue" is needed to gauge what Pyongyang wants from its accelerated drive towards nuclear weapons statehood.

Joseph Yun's comments came after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson created a stir by appearing to open a door to direct talks with the North without preconditions -- a major policy shift that the White House swiftly rowed back on.

"It's very hard to discern what their intent is without, as I said, having a real dialogue," Yun, the US Special Representative on North Korea policy, said of the reclusive regime.

"We are open to dialogue. And we hope they will agree to have a dialogue," he told reporters in Bangkok.

It is necessary to exercise both "direct diplomacy as well as sanctions" to rein in the pariah state's nuclear programme, he added.

Yun is in Bangkok as part of a December 11-15 trip that also included a stop in Japan, as Washington seeks to shore up regional support for its "maximum pressure" campaign in response to Pyongyang's increasingly powerful nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Tillerson has driven the global diplomatic effort to stifle the North's economy through a series of UN sanctions.

But the top diplomat appeared to soften his stance earlier this week, saying Washington was ready to negotiate with the North without preconditions, following a "period of calm".

When asked whether Pyongyang would need to meet any specific or even minimum prerequisites before a dialogue could begin, Yun said:

"My boss's statement... addresses that. I think we have to start, and he mentioned we are open to dialogue, and let's see how they respond."

China -- the North's sole ally and economic lifeline -- and Russia responded positively to Tillerson's remarks, even after the White House appeared to undermine his proposal by saying US President Donald Trump's "views on North Korea have not changed".

During his first year in office Trump has repeatedly lobbed threats at North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, using fiery rhetoric that clashes with Tillerson's diplomatic approach.

In October the American president dismissed his Secretary of State's push for talks with the North.

He tweeted that Tillerson was "wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man" -- his favoured epithet for Kim.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses hundreds of right-wing activists who gathered in Tel Aviv on August 9, 2017 in a show of support for him against persistent corruption allegations

Fraud squad detectives questioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Jerusalem residence on Friday, the seventh time in a nearly year-long corruption probe, police said.

"Police questioned the PM today for a number of hours as part of an ongoing investigation," a brief police statement said.

Public radio said an investigation into suspicions Netanyahu received luxury gifts from wealthy supporters, including Israeli businessman and Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian tycoon James Packer, was nearing completion.

"This is likely to be his last interrogation" on the gifts case, it said.

"After that the police intend to wrap up the case within a short time."

The Maariv newspaper reported that detectives believed they had sufficient evidence to pass the file to the state prosecutor.

"The police are still deliberating whether to attribute to Netanyahu the offence of bribe-taking or receiving benefits," Maariv said.

The prime minister was first questioned on January 2.

Investigations are expected to continue in a second case in which police suspect that Netanyahu sought a secret pact for favourable coverage with the publisher of the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

The alleged scheme, not believed to have been finalised, would have seen Netanyahu receive favourable coverage in return for helping curb Yediot's competitor, the pro-Netanyahu freesheet Israel Hayom.

Netanyahu has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and says he has been the target of a smear campaign by political opponents.
Cheng Wai-shing, Rizzy Pennelli and Chan Yiu-shing were sentenced to up to three years and 10 months in prison in Hong Kong for possessing and conspiring to make explosives

Three men were jailed in Hong Kong Friday for possessing and conspiring to make explosives ahead of a contentious 2015 vote on political reform.

The trio, who were found guilty last month, were sentenced to up to three years and 10 months in prison as the judge said they had embarked on "a very dangerous path".

They were detained at a time of heightened political tension in Hong Kong in 2015, following the failure of mass "Umbrella Movement" rallies to win democratic reform for the semi-autonomous city.

"Although no end product was produced and recovered, the ingredients and know-how were there," judge Kevin Zervos told the court Friday, referring to the explosives plot.

The sentencing must reflect the "gravity and seriousness of the criminality disclosed," he added.

A High Court jury had found Rizzy Pennelli, 24, guilty of one count of conspiracy to make explosives and two counts of possessing explosives.

He was sentenced to three years and 10 months Friday.

Cheng Wai-shing, 31, was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to make explosives and one count of possessing explosives, with Chan Yiu-shing, 36, guilty of one count of possessing explosives.

They were sentenced to two years 10 months, and two years two months, respectively.

Prosecutors during the trial said the group had tried to make explosives at an abandoned television studio in the northeastern district of Sai Kung.

Police had seen flashes and smoke coming out of the building and had discovered acid, hydrogen peroxide and acetone during a raid, prosecutors said.

The trio were arrested in June 2015 as legislators prepared to vote on a Beijing-backed reform bill on how the city should choose its next leader.

The legislation, which stipulated that candidates must be vetted by a committee loyal to Beijing, was eventually voted down by pro-democracy lawmakers.

The court heard during the trial how the defendants had joined an anti-government group which had discussed causing "chaos" around the legislative vote.

Local media previously reported that the group advocated independence for Hong Kong.

Calls for self-determination or even a full split from China grew out of the Umbrella Movement's failure to win concessions through largely peaceful protests.

Zervos said in sentencing that he could find no reason for the defendants to possess explosive substances "other than for some untoward purpose".
An international court held Congolese former warlord Thomas Lubanga liable for $10 million in damages for people recruited as child soldiers

International judges on Friday awarded $10 million (8.5 million euros) in damages to child soldiers recruited into the ranks of a brutal Congolese militia by former warlord Thomas Lubanga.

The judges at the International Criminal Court set "the sum of reparations for which Mr Lubanga is liable as the total sum of $10 million," presiding judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut said.

The court formally acknowledged 425 victims, setting the amount of harm they suffered at an average of $8,000 each, for a total of $3.4 million.

But the judges stressed that "hundreds or even thousands of additional victims" suffered at the hands of Lubanga's militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It therefore allocated another $6.6 million in compensation to help more victims once they have been identified.

Lubanga, 56, was found guilty in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region between 2002 and 2003.

He was jailed for 14 years, and has been transferred to a prison in the DR Congo to serve the rest of his sentence.

The reparations are a collective award, and will go towards paying for projects to help the victims rebuild their lives and re-integrate back into society.

The projects will be administered by the independent Trust Fund for Victims, and may include medical and psychological help, schooling and vocational training.
Two policemen walk by the Yangon court where the owners of a tailor shop were sentenced for the horrific abuse of two young domestic workers

The owners of a Myanmar tailor shop were sentenced to more than a decade in prison on Friday for the horrific abuse of two young domestic workers, a case that gripped the nation and fixed a spotlight on its dismal record on child labour.

The court heard how San Kay Khine and Thazin, now 18 and 17 respectively, were regularly beaten, cut with knives and deprived of sleep and food by their employers in the Yangon tailor shop.

Judges sentenced the store's owner Tin Thu Zar, 58, and her daughter Su Mon Latt, 28, to 16 years behind bars for human trafficking, child abuse and causing grievous bodily harm.

The daughter's husband was also handed 13 years while her brother was sentenced to nine years for the same charges.

Two further defendants were acquitted in a trial that lasted over a year.

"The judge told us we can apply for appeal at the Yangon regional court and we will do that after discussing with the defendants' families," defense lawyer Kyaw Win told AFP.

The case dominated headlines after the two girls' plight was exposed by a local journalist, who alerted Myanmar's national rights commission which helped free them after years of abuse.

San Kay Khine had her fingers broken by her bosses, leaving her with deformed hands.

The other, Thazin, described her ordeal to AFP in September 2016 before the trial began.

"I have a scar from where an iron was stamped on my leg and a scar on my head as well," she said.

"This was a wound from a knife, because my cooking was not OK," she added, showing a mark on her nose.

The pair are among tens of thousands of children from poor, rural areas lured by the promise of work as domestic helpers to Myanmar's growing pool of urban, middle-class households.

Rights groups say they are at high risk of abuse but the issue remains under-researched in a country where the judicial system often favours the wealthy.

A family friend brought San Kay Khine and Thazin to Yangon, promising to find them good jobs.

Once the girls' parents learned of the abuse, they said they repeatedly told the police but no action was taken and several attempts to rescue them ended in failure.

Myanmar is rated as the world's third worst country for child labour, behind Somalia and North Korea, according to the 2017 index by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

An estimated 10 percent of children -- more than 1.2 million -- are in the work force according to a 2015 ILO survey, with over half working in hazardous environments.

Children can often be seen touting goods around Yangon's streets, working in roadside cafes and teahouses or helping bar owners late into the night.

Thousands more make up an invisible workforce behind closed doors, where they are especially vulnerable to exploitation.
Wounded Tanzanian peacekeepers are being treated at a UN-run hospital in Goma

The UN's chief peacekeeper was in eastern DR Congo on Friday to visit those wounded in last week's deadly ambush that killed 14, the worst attack on a peacekeeping mission in 24 years.

A week after the bloodshed, Jean-Pierre Lacroix was in Goma where he visited around 30 of those injured in the December 7 attack in North Kivu province which targeted a base of the UN's MONUSCO force.

The UN said the ambush, which sparked a prolonged gun battle in which 53 peacekeepers were wounded, was carried out by suspected ADF rebels, a shadowy group dominated by hardline Ugandan Muslims that is one of several armed groups active in the North Kivu region.

All the UN victims, both the dead and the wounded, were from Tanzania, and five Congolese soldiers were also killed.

"I have just come from Tanzania where I was able to see that the whole country is behind you," Lacroix told the wounded at a MONUSCO-run hospital in Goma, North Kivu's capital.

DR Congo

On Thursday, Lacroix was in Dar es Salaam to pay homage to the 14 victims killed in the attack on the base in Semuliki, which is located in a very dangerous area.

During the visit, several peacekeepers spoke about the night of the ambush, telling him there were hundreds of attackers.

"There were a large number of attackers, around 300. They were dressed in civilian clothing although some were wearing Congolese army gear," said two of the men who were lying in neighbouring beds.

The attackers were heavily armed and had RPG rocket-launchers, they said.

- 'They've failed' -

"If they wanted to force us to leave so they can carry on doing what they do, well they've failed. The base will live on," said one UN soldier, alluding to the traffic in minerals which has fuelled the emergence of armed groups in North Kivu.

The attack was the bloodiest against MONUSCO, the UN force that was deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999, and the worst against a UN force since the death of 24 Pakistani peacekeepers in Somalia in June 1993.

DR Congo's huge eastern region has long been wracked by violence, but fighting between government soldiers and militia groups, as well as inter-ethnic clashes, has increased significantly this year.

North Kivu province, which borders Uganda and Rwanda, has seen a particular uptick in killings and kidnappings between rival ethnic groups.

Since October 2014, the hardline ADF -- or Allied Democratic Forces -- has been accused by Kinshasa and the UN of killing more than 700 people in the Beni region, where last week's attack also took place.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi recently declared victory against the Islamic State group after a three-year campaign

The UN on Friday harshly criticised the mass-hanging of 38 men at a prison in southern Iraq this week, urging Baghdad to immediately halt all executions.

Iraq on Thursday hanged 38 jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences at a prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah, according to provincial authorities.

It was the largest number of executions in Iraq on a single day since September 25, when 42 people were put to death in the same prison.

"We are deeply shocked and appalled at the mass execution on Thursday," United Nations human rights office spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva.

The hangings, she warned, "once again raises huge concerns about the use of the death penalty in the country".

The UN had determined that all of the 38 executed prisoners were men and had been convicted for terrorism-related crimes, but could say nothing more about their identities, she said.

A prison source however told AFP that they were all Iraqis, but that one also held Swedish nationality.

The executions came after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday declared victory against the Islamic State group after a three-year campaign by government forces backed by a US-led coalition to retake territory seized by the jihadists.

The UN and rights watchdog Amnesty International have repeatedly voiced concerns about the use of the death penalty in Iraq, which ranks among the world's top executioners, after China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"Given the flaws of the Iraqi justice system, it appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed in these 38 cases," Throssell warned.

"This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations of the right to life," she said.

The UN has learned of 106 executions in Iraq so far this year, including the mass-hangings in September.

"We once again urge the Iraqi authorities to halt all executions, establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty and carry out an urgent and comprehensive review of the criminal justice system," Throssell said.
Supicha Tanyakan, the sister of Pakapong Tanyakan, a first year cadet in the Thai army, carries his photo during a cremation ceremony in Chonburi on December 10, 2017

Thailand's military on Friday cleared itself of responsibility for the murky death of an 18-year-old cadet following its probe into a case that has become a lightning rod for anger over abuse of young recruits in the kingdom's barracks.

After questioning doctors, teachers and cadets from the army training school where Pakapong Tanyakan died in late October, the army stuck to its initial explanation that the first-year student died of heart failure.

That account had been called into question by Pakapong's family, whose suspicions of foul play were deepened after they ordered a second secret autopsy and found their son's brain, heart, bladder and stomach were missing.

The military said removing the organs for further inspection was standard procedure, but the grim discovery sparked public outcry and accusations of a cover-up by a military dogged by allegations of beatings and other abuse against young recruits.

"According to testimonies and CCTV footage, there is no evidence that he was punished or beaten," Air Force Marshal Chawarat Marungruang, head of the investigation committee, told reporters in Bangkok.

He admitted that the day before his death, Pakapong had been ordered to do a series of exercises as punishment for not saying thank you to a superior.

Pakapong fell over during the incident and required medical attention -- but the "two minutes" of physical exertion were not enough to cause his death, said Chawarat.

He noted that Pakapong had also accidentally fallen down the stairs a week earlier, an incident captured by the academy's surveillance cameras.

Pakapong's relatives say the 18-year-old repeatedly described physical abuse during his time at the school -- including a hazing exercise that led him to faint in August.

His sister Supicha Tanyakan told AFP the family was disappointed by the outcome of the army's investigation but not surprised.

"We don't accept the results," she said, adding that the family was still waiting on the findings of another autopsy.

Thailand's military, which has run the country since a 2014 coup, drafts some 100,000 men into the armed forces annually.

At least three fatalities of conscripts have been reported this year.
North Dakota attorney general Drew Wrigley says doctors who perform abortions should be able to disclose the patients personal health information as part of their defense to avoid prosecution. North Dakotas abortion ban, which is currently on hold because of a lawsuit, makes the procedure illegal except in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is in danger. Doctors would have to prove those exceptions in court in order to be cleared of a Class C felony. The attorney general said he couldnt find any cases that address the scenario and it would not violate the privacy rule.
A member of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Moblisation units) carries a portrait of Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during victory celebrations in the southern city of Basra on December 10, 2017

Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday opposed calls to disband a controversial paramilitary force which was instrumental in defeating the Islamic State group in the country.

Iraq is "always in desperate need of heroic men who have backed up the army and federal police and who fought alongside them on different fronts", said Abdel Mahdi al-Karabalai, the ayatollah's representative.

"We need to continue to benefit from this important source of energy, within the constitution and judicial framework," he said in a sermon at weekly prayers in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of the capital.

Karabalai stressed that the Hashed al-Shaabi's arms belonged to the state and its mission was to defend national security.

The force was established in 2014 after Sistani urged Iraqi citizens to take up arms against IS jihadists who had swept aside government forces and seized control of much of northern Iraq.

But the Hashed, a Shiite-dominated alliance, remains deeply divisive and has been accused of a string of abuses.

Known in English as the Popular Mobilisation Units, the various forces within the Hashed can field a total of between 60,000 and 140,000 fighters.

Iraq's parliament has classed it as a state force operating within the constitution.

Calls have been growing from the West for the Hashed to disband, with French President Emmanuel Macron proposing "a gradual demilitarisation" of the group and for all militias in Iraq to be "dismantled".

But Hashed spokesman Ahmad al-Assadi, who is also a member of parliament, told AFP on Friday that Sistani had stood up for the units to be retained as part of Iraq's security system.

The Hashed suffered 7,637 dead and 21,300 wounded in the three-year war to drive out IS, according to a top Hashed commander, Qais Khazali.
Israeli security forces detain a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem's Old City

Four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded Friday in clashes with Israeli forces as tens of thousands demonstrated against Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

President Donald Trump's December 6 announcement that he would break with decades of US policy and move the embassy to Jerusalem has stirred global condemnation, as well as demonstrations across Arab and Muslim countries.

On Friday three men were killed in clashes between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinians.

Two died along the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry said, after the Hamas Islamist group that rules the enclave had called for another "day of rage".

A third Palestinian was killed in clashes north of Jerusalem after being shot dead in the chest by the Israeli army, the ministry said.

The fourth stabbed an Israeli border police officer near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, before being shot, police said.

The assailant, who later died of his wounds, wore what appeared to be a suicide vest, though it was unclear if it was operational.

Israeli security forces scuffle with Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem's Old City on December 15, 2017

The violence comes days before US Vice President Mike Pence is due to visit Israel, though he will no longer see Palestinian officials after they cancelled meetings in protest at the embassy move.

"We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, that's fine," a senior White House official said Friday. "We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to re-engage."

Pence is expected to try to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward after he lands in Jerusalem on Wednesday, US administration officials have said.

"Obviously the last couple of weeks in the region have been a reaction to the Jerusalem decision," said a second senior administration official.

Protests erupted across the West Bank after Friday weekly prayers, often a catalyst for clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

- 'Bomb' thrown at Mideast -

In Gaza, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and a few thousand clashed with Israeli forces along different parts of the border.

The Palestinian health ministry said 164 people were injured in Gaza, with five in serious condition, and more than 100 were hospitalised in the West Bank.

Israel's army said around 2,500 people were involved in "riots" in the West Bank and about 3,500 in Gaza.

A protester waves a Palestinian flag amid tear gas during clashes with Israeli security forces near the Huwara checkpoint south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on December 15, 2017

Friday's deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed in violence or air strikes since Trump's Jerusalem move.

Four men were killed in Gaza last week, two in protests. Two Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.

In Jordan, thousands of people also demonstrated on Friday in the latest round of protests called by the Muslim Brotherhood, burning Israeli and American flags.

The diplomatic fallout continued, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling Trump's decision a "bomb" thrown at the entire Middle East.

He called Israel a "terror state" and said: "Trying to make Jerusalem capital of a terror state is not a situation that can be accepted by Muslims."

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most controversial issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel seized control of the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Middle East war and sees the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. The Palestinians view the east as the capital of their future state.

- Support for uprising -

For decades global powers have avoided taking an opinion, keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.

Trump declared, however, that he would move the embassy and has recognised the city as Israel's capital.

Israeli security forces scuffle with Palestinian protestors outside Jerusalem's Old City on December 15, 2017

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will not meet Pence next week and has warned that Washington no longer had a role to play in the peace process.

A poll conducted after Trump's announcement by the respected Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 45 percent of Palestinians supported a violent popular uprising, up from 35 percent three months previously.

Khalil Shikaki, the centre's director, said the "only possible explanation" for the increase was Trump's decision.

He said, however, the effectiveness of the Israeli forces and the Palestinian security forces' ongoing cooperation with them had ensured the protests in the West Bank remained relatively minor.

While angered by Trump's declaration, Abbas has not instructed his party Fatah or security forces to cut ties with Israel.

"Hamas is too weak in the West Bank to carry out any serious attacks (and) Fatah does not want to engage in violence," Shikaki said.

"This is not likely to change any time soon."

In Gaza, hermetically sealed off by Israel and Egypt, at least 12 rockets or mortar rounds have been fired from the territory since Trump's announcement, with Israel hitting at least 10 sites in response.
US President Donald Trump says he does not want to talk about a possible pardon for his former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- yet

US President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at the FBI inquiry into possible collusion between Moscow and his campaign, and refused to rule out pardoning former aide Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russia.

Trump said it was too early to discuss any pardon for his ex-national security advisor -- which would prompt a political firestorm.

So far, the FBI's sprawling probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election has ensnared at least four members of his campaign inner circle.

"I don't want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet," Trump said before leaving the White House to give remarks at a graduation ceremony at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's academy in Quantico, Virginia.

"I can say this -- when you look at what's gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry," he said.

"When everybody -- not me, when everybody -- the level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad."

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his intelligence and cyber services to help turn the election in Trump's favor.

Amid mounting evidence of campaign contacts with Russian operatives, Trump repeated his denial Friday.

"There is absolutely no collusion. I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it. That was a Democrat hoax. It was an excuse for losing the election," he said.

Trump also blasted as "disgraceful" recently released text messages exchanged by an FBI agent and a lawyer involved in the probe who were critical of the president.

The agent, Peter Strzok, has been removed from the investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director.
Jonathan Saunders -- shown with (L-R) model Karlie Kloss, Diane von Furstenberg and actress Kate Bosworth at the 2017 DVF Awards in April -- is leaving Von Furstenberg's namesake label

Scottish fashion designer Jonathan Saunders has resigned as chief creative officer at Diane von Furstenberg after little more than 18 months at the iconic New York label, the company announced Friday.

Neither Saunders nor the label offered reasons for his departure, which follows reports that Von Furstenberg plans to sell a stake in her company, which shot to global fame in the 1970s with the creation of the wrap dress.

Saunders, who became famous in London for his eponymous womenswear label, joined DVF in May 2016 and had been responsible for all product categories, store design, website design, a new corporate brand identity, marketing and advertising campaigns.

"I am grateful for Diane's support and for the opportunity of guiding this iconic brand. I am so proud of everything we have accomplished," he said in a statement.

"I am so thankful for Jonathan's beautiful work and the effort and dedication he has put into DVF," said Von Furstenberg. "He will leave an important and lasting heritage."

Saunders launched his womenswear label in 2003 to critical acclaim in London but resigned in 2015 and shuttered the company, citing "personal reasons."

He has worked with a slew of fashion masters, including under Alexander McQueen, and consulted for Christian Lacroix at Pucci, Phoebe Philo at Chloe and Paul Smith.

Saunders also collaborated with high street retailers including Target and Topshop.

His last collection for DVF was pre-fall 2018, which was unveiled last week.
Nigerian soldiers stand guard next to civilians who fled the fighting in Bama, northeast Nigeria and the surrounding areas at a makeshift camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Maiduguri on March 25, 2015

A Nigerian military court on Friday sentenced a soldier to death for killing five civilians rescued from Boko Haram.

The soldier, Lance Corporal John Godwin, was convicted by the General Court Martial in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State for killing the civilians in Yamteke town.

"The civilians were earlier rescued by troops of the soldier's battalion and were taken for investigation at the time the soldier shot and killed five of them," army spokesman Kinsley Mfon Samuel said in a statement.

He said other soldiers were also handed jail sentences for offences ranging from manslaughter to illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

"Sergeant Innocent Ototo was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter after torturing and killing a 13-year-old boy who he said stole his phone," he said, adding that the incident happened at Zamanbari area of Maiduguri.

He said Lance Corporal Benjamin Osage and Private Sunday Onwe were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment each for manslaughter and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

The offences ran against the Nigerian Army's Rules of Engagement as well as the Geneva Conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.

The army did not say exactly when the offences were committed.

In June a soldier was sentenced to death for killing a Boko Haram suspect.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused Nigeria's military of a catalogue of abuses against civilians in the conflict with Boko Haram, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing.

Thousands of people have been rounded up and held for long periods without charge on suspicion of links to the Islamist militants, whose insurgency has killed at least 20,000 since 2009.

Nigeria's civilian and Islamic courts retain capital punishment but the sentences are rarely carried out.
The new G5 Sahel force pools troops from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in an area of desert the size of Europe where extremist groups have been thriving

Saudi Arabia's hefty donation to a new anti-terror force in west Africa's Sahel region is a conspicuous attempt by Riyadh to show it is serious about fighting extremism, analysts say.

The new G5 Sahel force pools troops from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in an area of desert the size of Europe where extremist groups have been thriving.

Money had been a major obstacle to getting it off the ground, meaning Riyadh's pledge of 100 million euros ($118 million) is a relief for former colonial power France, which has spearheaded the project.

But Saudi-watchers say getting involved also serves twin purposes for Riyadh: countering accusations that it finances extremism, and consolidating influence in a region where it has invested for years.

"Fighting terrorism and extremism with zero tolerance is our priority," Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir told Le Monde newspaper on Thursday.

The United Arab Emirates, also keen to demonstrate its commitment to fighting extremism, has offered an additional 30 million euros to the fledgling force.

The cash brings total funding over the initial 250 million euros needed to get the force up and running following last month's maiden mission in the volatile border zone between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The Saudi contribution is "very important", according to a source close to the talks where the donations were announced Wednesday following a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

"The Saudis have always been suspected of financing terrorism. We've said to them, 'Take part in some kind of multilateral cooperation, and that suspicion will be lifted,'" the source said.

Riyadh has long faced accusations that it exports a radical form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, by funding Koranic schools, mosques and charity groups around the world.

But Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seeking to rein in the influence of religious ultra-conservatives in the kingdom, which has been hit by multiple attacks blamed on extremists.

- Growing French ties -

Prince Mohammed -- widely known by his nickname "MBS" -- has presented himself as a champion of moderate Islam as he seeks to modernise Saudi Arabia.

Last month he launched a military coalition of 40 Muslim countries, vowing to "pursue terrorists until they are wiped from the face of the earth".

And Riyadh was already a member of the US-led anti-jihadist coalition fighting in Iraq and Syria.

"Saudi Arabia has an interest both in combating violent jihadi movements and in being seen to do so," said Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow at British think-tank Chatham House.

"This isn't entirely new under MBS," she added.

"Saudi leaders have been aware of the risks of transnational violent Islamist movements for a long time -- especially since 9/11 and since Al Qaeda started to attack Saudi Arabia in 2003."

Diplomatic interests are at play too in yielding to French pressure to join the project, Kinninmont said.

"France's ties with the Gulf have been growing for years and as the UK prepares to leave the EU, France is likely to become the new best friend of the Gulf states within the EU," she said.

Florent Geel, Africa director at the International Federation for Human Rights, said the Saudis, like Qatar, "have been investing a lot in the Sahel for 10 to 15 years -- in mosques, in social projects."

He asserted this was a form of "Wahhabist expansionism to counter Sufism", the mystic form of Islam widespread in the Sahel, saying the Saudis had "financed a form of radicalisation".

Nicolas Desgrais, a researcher at the University of Kent in England who specialises in military cooperation in the Sahel, said Riyadh had been cultivating influence in Burkina Faso for years.

"In Burkina, the Saudis have been involved for many years via associations, free clinics, Koranic schools -- to the point of replacing public policy," he said.

Burkinabe authorities have been trying to crack down on Saudi influence of late, he added -- but the kingdom's new involvement in the Sahel force may provide fresh opportunities to increase its clout.

"This financial contribution from Riyadh to the G5 Sahel force could perhaps reopen doors that were closing," he said.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said North Korea must "earn its way back to the table"

North Korea must "earn its way back" to the negotiating table, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday, backing away from an earlier offer of unconditional talks to end the stand-off with Pyongyang.

Tillerson told the UN Security Council that a "sustained cessation of North Korea's threatening behavior must occur before talks can begin," apparently after coming under pressure from President Donald Trump's White House to toughen his stance.

Earlier this week at a policy forum in Washington, Tillerson had underlined that the United States was seeking a diplomatic opening for negotiations with North Korea on ending its nuclear program and, for the first time, offered "talks with no preconditions."

The White House had responded to Tillerson's remarks by insisting there had been no change in US policy, triggering a new round of reports of a rift between Trump and his chief diplomat.

At the United Nations, Tillerson took a tough line.

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," he said. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved."

"We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open."

Tillerson repeated that "we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea."

"The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution," he said.

According to a prepared version of his remarks, Tillerson had planned to repeat his offer of talks without preconditions, but the line was dropped from his speech.

Asked about the change, Tillerson told reporters afterwards that the United States would not make any concessions of its own to secure talks, but that lines of communication would remain open if North Korea wanted to come forward.

The North Koreans "know where the door is. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk," he said.

- Peace-loving state -

North Korea's UN ambassador Ja Song-Nam made a rare appearance at the council meeting chaired by Japan, which announced new targeted sanctions on Chinese entities, among others.

Ja took a swipe at the United States which he said was "terrified by the incredible might of our republic" and reaffirmed Pyongyang's view that nuclear weapons were needed for self-defense.

North Korea is "a responsible nuclear power and a peace-loving state" that will strive to safeguard world peace, he said, making no mention of the US call for a pause in missile and nuclear tests.

Singling out China, Pyongyang's sole ally, and Russia, Tillerson urged Beijing and Moscow to go beyond the current tough UN sanctions resolutions and impose unilateral measures.

North Korea's ambassador to the UN Ja Song-Nam addresses the UN Security Council

"Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russia's dedication as a partner for peace," he said.

Tillerson also dismissed concerns that UN sanctions are having an impact on North Korea's humanitarian crisis, saying Pyongyang "hypocritically spends billions" on military programs "while its own people suffer great poverty."

The United States has called on China to cut off oil supplies to North Korea, a move that would deal a crippling blow to its economy.

In Washington, Trump criticized Russia for doing too little to pressure Pyongyang.

"China is helping. Russia is not helping. We would like to have Russia's help," said Trump, who discussed the crisis by phone with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

Russia's Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia shot back, saying North Korean workers were in Russia as part of a bilateral agreement "which guarantees their rights" -- and not subjected to slave-like conditions.

Addressing Tillerson directly, the Russian ambassador said: "We very much hope that the US will be able to help resolve the crisis on the Korean peninsula."

China's envoy expressed concern about a hardening of positions, saying the current crisis "hardly makes one optimistic".

"The hope for peace is not totally obliterated," said Chinese Deputy Ambassador Wu Haitao. There is "a possibility for negotiation and the option of use of force is unacceptable."

- Avoiding catastrophe -

Pyongyang has carried out its sixth nuclear test and conducted a series of missile launches including its first tests of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) this year.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (R) attends a UN Security Council meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono (L)

Addressing the council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged diplomatic engagement to avoid a "level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences."

The UN's political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, returned at the weekend from talks in Pyongyang -- the first visit to the North by a high-ranking UN official since 2011.

While Feltman received no firm commitment on talks from North Korea, he said the visit was "just the beginning" of his push for "talks about talks."

Since late 2016, the Security Council has slapped three rounds of sanctions aimed at choking off revenue to Pyongyang's weapons program, which the United Nations has described as the most dangerous security issue in the world today.

China and Russia argue that sanctions alone will not compel North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to change course and want to step up diplomatic efforts to achieve a solution.
A US woman allegedly used Bitcoin, whose logo is shown here, to send money to the Islamic State group

US prosecutors have charged a New York woman with using Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies to send funds to the Islamic State group.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, was arrested at her Long Island home on Thursday for sending over $150,000 through shell accounts in China, Pakistan and Turkey to benefit IS extremists.

Much of the money came from bank loans and credit cards, the Justice Department said. With that, she bought $62,000 worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which can offer owners anonymity in transfers and payments.

After making the transfers, Shahnaz tried to travel to Syria, prosecutors alleged.

She booked a flight to Pakistan that included a layover in Istanbul, which they called "a common point of entry for individuals travelling from Western countries to join ISIS in Syria."

Shahnaz was charged with five counts of bank fraud and money laundering, but not for supporting a designated terrorist organization, the usual charge for people helping or planning to help the Islamic State.
Senegalese press say air traffic controllers are aggrieved over working conditions in the new Blaise Diagne International Airport, especially the commute

Flights to and from Dakar's brand-new airport were cancelled on Friday after air traffic controllers went on strike just eight days after it opened.

Controllers announced they would strike for 24 hours from 0001 GMT Friday, Blaise Diagne International Airport's operators, LAS, said in a statement.

The company "deplores the consequences of this movement, which strongly impacts the image of Senegal, as well as the service provided to passengers and airlines", it said.

The air traffic controllers' association, Asecna, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Macky Sall had inaugurated the airport on December 7 in the presence of fellow heads of state from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia. He was due to return to the country on Friday evening after a trip abroad.

The Senegalese press say air traffic controllers are aggrieved over working conditions, especially the problem of getting to the airport which is much farther from the capital than the previous one.

The airport is located in Diass, 47 kilometres (29 miles) southeast of Dakar. Its predecessor, Leopold Sedar Senghor international airport, now a military airport, is in Dakar's suburbs.
A court sketch from earlier in his trial shows Eshetu Alemu, found guilty of war crimes during the reign of former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam while top administrator in the country's northwest

A Dutch-Ethiopian man was sentenced to life in jail on Friday after Dutch judges found him guilty of war crimes committed during Ethiopia's bloody purges in the late 1970s, a period known as the "Red Terror".

Eshetu Alemu, 63, was "guilty of war crimes and treated his fellow citizens in a cold and calculating manner... including robbing them of their right to life," presiding judge Mariette Renckens told the court in The Hague.

The tribunal "sentences him to life in prison, because this is the only appropriate measure of punishment that can be given," the judge said.

Alemu, who had been sentenced to death in Ethiopia in absentia, has been in jail in The Netherlands for the last two years awaiting trial.

But neither he nor his lawyers were in court to hear the verdict, a situation Renckens condemned as "deplorable."

Families of victims loudly applauded as the judges left the bench, shouting "Finally justice has been done, thank you!"

- Brutal reprisals -

Prosecutors said Alemu, a long-time Dutch resident, was a henchman for former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in the late 1970s, conducting a reign of terror in the African country's northwestern Gojjam province where he was the top administrator.

Mengistu, a senior military commander ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1977 following the toppling of Emperor Haile Selassi in 1974, and carried out a series of brutal reprisals against the political opposition of the revolutionary regime.

A total of 321 victims were named in four war crimes charges, which included "arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment of civilians and fighters who laid down their arms," Dutch prosecutors said.

Witnesses during the trial spoke of so-called "dark cells", where political opponents of Mengistu's Marxist-Leninist junta called the Derg were locked up for days in close confinement without trial or seeing daylight and faced constant torture.

Visitors look at pictures of victims of Mengistu's rule at the Red Terror Martyrs' Museum in Addis Ababa, inaugurated in 2010

Prosecutors said citizens were often forced to attend "exposure meetings" where opposition members were pressured to confess and finger others who opposed Mengistu's regime.

"The accused played a leading role at these exposure meetings -- without him these they would not have taken place," judge Renckens agreed.

One witness, Worku Damena Yifru, testified how, as a 16-year-old prisoner, he saw a mass grave being dug inside a jail at the city of Debre Marcos in Gojjam.

He was later told that Alemu watched as his soldiers strangled some 80 prisoners, and then dumped their bodies in the grave.

"Alemu gave the order for 'revolutionary measures' to be taken against numerous victims," Renckens said.

"The court is of the opinion that 'revolutionary measures' can only mean killing people," the judge said.

Although there was not enough proof that Alemu was physically present at the time of the church murders, "his role as the command giver was so important that the deaths would not have taken place without his involvement," the judge said.

- 'No remorse' -

Although he admitted being a member of the Derg, Alemu denied the charges.

Speaking at a hearing last month, Alemu said he would "apologise on my knees to all the victims and through them to all the people of Ethiopia."

He refused to accept personal responsibility however, saying: "I do not recognise the role that has been assigned to me."

Renckens said Alemu "failed to show any remorse and in actual fact still today" sees the political opposition as the guilty party.

Prosecutors and victims at the hearing hailed the verdict.

"We are exceptionally happy with today's verdict... it's been an emotional case," Jirko Patist, spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor's office, told AFP.

"Today was a big day," said Negus Temesgen, who survived being jailed as a teenager by the Derg.

"I do remember all those young people who had lost their lives in prison," he said.

It is not yet known whether Alemu will appeal.

jhe/jkb/cw
Europe has faced its worst migration crisis since World War II, with people fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Africa

European leaders will find it "very hard" to reach a compromise in talks on a new policy for admitting refugees by a June deadline, EU President Donald Tusk said at a summit Friday.

Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker nonetheless tried to defuse a row that had even divided them when they opened talks with the bloc's 28 leaders on Thursday.

"Mandatory quotas remain a contentious issue although its temperature has decreased substantially," Tusk told a press conference ending the last European Union summit of 2017.

"Will a compromise be possible? It appears very hard," the former Polish premier said.

During two hours of debate Thursday night, the leaders of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia all stood firm against refugee quotas, participants said.

Eastern states have been opposed ever since other EU states adopted by majority the quotas in 2015 as a form of solidarity with frontline states Greece and Italy.

Under the plan, asylum seekers are relocated to other members of the bloc in a temporary exception to the so-called Dublin rules, which requires countries where they first land to process them.

"The discussion was fierce because the differences of opinion are still wide," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said when the dinner talks ended early Friday.

"There's no solution on how to find a consensus on the quotas," Rutte added.

The stubborn divide contrasts with broad agreement among the leaders to contribute to shoring up Europe's external borders through cooperation deals with third countries like Turkey and Libya.

Backed by the leaders of France and other countries, German Chancellor Angela said member states cannot be "selective" when it comes to solidarity.

"Here we still have a lot of work to do. The points of view did not change. But there is a clear task to continue working until June next year," Merkel said.

- 'Shameful' -

However, Merkel's 2015 decision to open the doors to one million asylum seekers infuriated a number of European leaders, particularly Hungary's Viktor Orban.

It was seen as drawing even more migrants to Europe, which was facing its worst such crisis since World War II, with people fleeing wars and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

EU President Donald Tusk has said it will be very hard for EU leaders to agree a new policy on refugees before a June deadline for guidelines

The EU has since stalled on plans for a permanent mechanism for future crises amid the opposition from the eastern countries -- three of which are already facing EU legal action over their refusal to admit any refugees.

Before the summit started, the four eastern leaders offered a financial contribution of 35 million euros ($30 million) to bolster external borders.

However, Rutte, backed by many leaders, said member states cannot use the EU as a place to shop for what they want and ignore what they don't.

"What Orban is doing is shameful," Rutte exclaimed.

Orban has led eastern opposition to refugees and migrants, saying the region will not be able to integrate them and it will face a security threat, particularly from Muslims.

But EU officials said countries have a "window" to try to bridge the gap over burden sharing with the easing of the migrant crisis.

- Arrivals down -

Italy and Greece have seen sharp declines in arrivals as a result of EU financial and other cooperation with Libya and Turkey, but they fear future crises.

The June deadline for asylum reform will also come as the summer weather brings an upsurge in Mediterranean boat crossings.

In the final press conference, Juncker sought to defuse the row when he said he had known Tusk "for centuries" and he was certainly not anti-European.

Tusk sparked the row when he appeared to support the eastern countries, saying in a pre-summit letter that a mandatory quota scheme for relocating refugees from frontline states was "ineffective" and "highly divisive".

Juncker's European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, which first pushed the quota system, shot back that the scheme was effective.

It said 32,000 people relocated under the plan, or 90 percent of those eligible. The scheme was originally meant to relocate 160,000 refugees.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos was even harsher, calling Tusk's stance "unacceptable" and "anti-European".

Juncker said: "Avramopoulos is a good commissioner and this was really a misunderstanding."

With divisions on asylum reform still high, Rutte said member states will probably have no choice but to adopt rules by majority rather than by consensus.
The Watergate complex photographed in April 1974

The lock of a door forced open in 1972, setting off the Watergate political scandal that transfixed the nation and eventually brought down a sitting US president, has been sold at auction for $62,500.

"The discovery of this tampered lock and the subsequent arrest of the five burglars set off a chain of events that would eventually lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon," said the Nate Sanders auction house in its announcement of the sale late Thursday.

The humble lock was for the door to the Democratic Party headquarters in Washington's famed Watergate building complex.

The brass mechanism weighing about four pounds (1.8 kilograms) has been preserved for nearly half a century by the building's caretaker after a locksmith replaced it following the break-in.

The lock, mounted on a wooden panel, was sold with two letters certifying its authenticity.

The break-in at the Democratic Party office took place in the early hours of June 17, 1972. A sprawling investigation by two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, revealed a plot to bug the party's Watergate headquarters and the Nixon administration's attempts to cover it up.

Nixon was forced to leave his White House perch in August 1974 over the scandal, the only US president in history to resign.
During one incident in November, an F-22 intercepted a Russian plane and was ready to fire, US officials say

The Pentagon is voicing growing alarm that the risky flying of Russian pilots in Syria could lead to a mishap -- or even the nightmare scenario of a US jet shooting down a Russian warplane.

Defense officials this week highlighted several recent close calls with Russian planes, including one Wednesday, when a pair of US F-22s intercepted two Russian jets over a part of Syria in which the Pentagon says they are not meant to be operating.

The uptick in incidents comes as remaining operations by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria have shrunk down to an area of only about 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) around Albu Kamal in eastern Syria, by the Iraq border.

Coalition forces are giving air support to local Kurd and Syrian Arab partner troops on the ground as they root out remaining IS fighters east of the Euphrates River. Under a verbal agreement, the Russians, who support President Bashar al-Assad, are supposed to stay to the west.

Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, an Air Force spokesman in the Middle East, outlined a string of instances where Russian fighter jets flew east of the Euphrates without notifying the coalition.

On November 15, two US A-10 Warthog ground-attack planes nearly collided head on with a Russian Su-24 Fencer that passed within only 300 feet (90 meters) of the American planes -- a mere whisker in aviation terms.

Map showing the defeats of the Islamic State group in cities and towns of Syria and Iraq

One A-10 pilot had to "aggressively execute a defensive maneuver to avoid a midair collision," Pickart said in an email to AFP.

Then on November 17, two F-22s intercepted an armed Russian Su-24 that flew over coalition and partner forces three times and failed to respond to radio call.

"The F-22s intercepted this pilot and were in a position to fire," Pickart said.

"Luckily our pilots showed restraint, but given the actions of the Su-24 aircraft could have reasonably been interpreted as threatening to US forces, our pilots would have been well within our rights to engage."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said it was not clear if the incidents were a mistake due to inexperience, or the product of boisterous young pilots "dangerously feeling their oats."

"I don't expect perfection, but I don't expect dangerous maneuvers either and so we'll sort this out," Mattis told Pentagon reporters Friday.

"Right now, I cannot tell you if it's sloppy airmanship, rambunctious pilots or people who are trying to do something that is very unwise."

- 'Greatest concern' -

Since Moscow entered the Syria war in late 2015, Russia and the United States have been using a special "deconfliction" hotline to communicate about operations occurring in similar locations. Officials use the line constantly.

A shootdown of a Russian jet, or a midair collision, could suddenly and dramatically shift the stakes in the knotted Syria conflict and open the door to a retaliatory measures by the Russians.

"The coalition's greatest concern is that we could shoot down a Russian aircraft because its actions are seen as a threat to our air or ground forces," Pickart said.

A Russian Su-24 Fencer nearly collided with two US A-10s, US officials say

"We are not here to fight the Russians and Syrians -- our focus remains on defeating ISIS. That said, if anyone threatens coalition or friendly partner forces in the air or on the ground, we will defend them."

At one point during Wednesday's incident, the US F-22 Raptor stealth fighters deployed chaff and flares to convince the Russian Su-25s to leave the area, and one US pilot had to aggressively maneuver to avoid a midair collision, Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said.

During and following the encounter, coalition leaders contacted Russian officers on a special hotline to try to calm the situation and avert a "strategic miscalculation," Pahon said.

More than 340,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the Syrian war, and millions have been displaced.
Residents gather outside their apartment blocks in Jakarta following a strong magnitude-6.5 earthquake

A strong 6.5-magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia's main island of Java late Friday, leaving at least one person dead and rattling nerves in the capital Jakarta.

There was no immediate indication of a tsunami, but authorities said they had issued a warning following the tremor, which struck a coastal region some 300 kilometres (190 miles) from the capital.

National disaster mitigation agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said a 62-year-old had died in the Ciamis region in West Java after becoming trapped in a collapsed house.

At least five other people were reported injured across the island as authorities continued to assess the damage from the quake, which hit just before midnight local time (1700 GMT).

The 6.5-magnitude tremor was measured at a depth of 91 kilometres (56 miles) and struck less than a kilometre (mile) east-southeast of the coastal town of Cipatujah, the US Geological Survey said.

The earthquake was felt across the island.

Jakarta resident Web Warouw was on the 18th floor of a building in the capital when the quake struck.

"Suddenly, we felt dizzy, but constantly... We then realized it was a quake and immediately ran downstairs," the 50-year-old told AFP.

People in the coastal city of Cilacap evacuated as a precaution fearing a tsunami.

Homes were also reported damaged in the city of Tasikmalaya, some 50 kilometres from the epicentre.

Indonesia experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", where tectonic plates collide.

An earthquake struck the country's western Aceh province in December 2016, killing more than 100 people, injuring many more and leaving tens of thousands homeless.
Air traffic at Israel's main international airport in Tel Aviv will be suspended between 0600 GMT and 1000 GMT

Israel's powerful Histadrut trade union said Ben Gurion airport will shut for four hours Sunday as part of a nationwide strike over plans by pharmaceutical giant Teva to shed employees.

Air traffic at the country's main international airport in Tel Aviv will be suspended between 0600 GMT and 1000 GMT, said Histadrut, which has called for a "solidarity" strike as well at ports, banks, ministries and other sectors.

Histadrut head Avi Nissenkorn said 1,750 employees will be made redundant by Teva as part of plans to slash 14,000 jobs globally over two years.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world's largest producer of generic drugs, said on Thursday its reductions would be across-the-board and in all its locations.

The cuts would amount to more than a quarter of Teva's global workforce of over 55,000.

Teva has been saddled with debt after its $40-billion acquisition of the generics arm of rival Allergan was completed last year.

The acquisition has been accompanied by low prices for generics, particularly in the United States, a major market.

Nissenkorn, who has met with Teva management, has said that 1,250 employees in Israel will be sacked in 2018 and 500 the following year.

According to Histadrut, Teva has received $6.2 billion in tax reductions since 2006.
Israeli security forces are seen clashing with Palestinian protestors in Jerusalem's Old City, as thousands of Palestinians protested against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as the capital of Israel

The White House is to renew efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, officials said Friday, despite outrage over President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Senior administration officials said efforts to push the process forward will be rekindled as soon as next week, in the hope that anger at Trump's move will subside.

Trump on December 6 announced a break with decades of American policy, effectively ignoring Palestinian claims on the Holy City.

The decision has sparked almost universal diplomatic condemnation and deadly protests in the Palestinian territories.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas -- 82 years old and facing the prospect of entering the history books as the leader who "lost Jerusalem" -- took the dramatic move of cancelling a planned meeting with Vice President Mike Pence.

The vice president is due to arrive in Jerusalem on Wednesday, although he is not slated to meet Palestinian leaders.

"We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, that's fine," said one senior administration official.

Palestinians walk on a poster of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence during a West Bank demonstration in protest of the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital

The White House hopes that Pence's visit can begin to draw a line under the issue.

"Obviously the last couple of weeks in the region have been a reaction to the Jerusalem decision," said a second senior administration official. "We've seen a lot of the emotion that has been displayed on that."

"This trip is kind of part of the ending of that chapter and the beginning of the next chapter... We still continue to be focused on a peace process and how we ultimately bring that situation to a conclusion."

The vice president will be joined in Israel by Trump's chief peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt, who has not met his Palestinian interlocutors since December 6.

"We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to reengage," said the first official.

- Gasoline on the flames -

But hopes for a quick resumption of peace talks may prove optimistic. On Friday alone, four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded in violence with Israeli forces across the Palestinian territories.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the move as a "bomb" thrown at the entire Middle East.

Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian protester in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

And US administration officials risked pouring gasoline on the flames Friday, stating that the Western Wall -- in largely Palestinian east Jerusalem -- would almost certainly be part of Israel under any deal.

"We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not be part of Israel," said the first official. "But as the president said, the specific boundaries of sovereignty of Israel are going to be part of the final status agreement."

"We cannot imagine Israel would sign a peace agreement that didn't include the Western Wall."

That stance could open the door to other parts of east Jerusalem falling under Palestinian control, but is likely to be seen as a further sign of pro-Israeli bias in Washington.

Trump's move has called into question whether the US can serve as a fair arbiter, a role it has played for much of the last half century.

The administration is betting that closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia open the path to peace.

"The hope in the Trump administration is that the Saudis will use their financial resources to persuade the Palestinians to agree to make peace with Israel on terms Israel will accept," said Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Trump came to office claiming he could make "the ultimate deal," but that effort now risks being derailed by his own actions.

"We aren't setting any kind of deadlines or timeframes. There's one thing I'm sure of in this job, is that any deadline we set, we will blow past," said a US official.
December 15, 2017: wheelchair-bound Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh waves a Palestinian flag amid smoke from flaming tyres during a protest on the Gaza-Israel border

Since Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh lost his legs in an Israeli attack a decade ago, he and his wheelchair have been a regular feature at protests along Gaza's border with Israel.

On Friday, he became one of four Palestinians to be killed in a day of protest against a US decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Pictures of Abu Thurayeh at protests along the border were being circulated widely among Palestinians Friday after it was confirmed he had been shot dead during clashes.

The unmarried 29-year-old had lived at home with his parents and had been without regular work since the 2008 incident in which he lost his legs.

That happened during an Israeli incursion east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza in April 2008.

Israel and Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas have fought three wars since then.

"He was injured in 2008 by an Israeli helicopter that targeted him after he brought down the Israeli flag and raised the Palestinian flag along the border," his brother Samir told AFP after his death was confirmed on Friday.

"It did not stop him from demonstrating for Jerusalem. He went alone every day to the border."

AFP photographers have seen him at multiple demonstrations in recent years.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians protested in Gaza on Friday over US President Donald Trump's controversial decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem and recognise the city as Israel's capital.

Palestinians consider at least part of the city, which is under full Israeli control, as the capital of their future state and have been infuriated by the decision.

In video footage recorded early on Friday, Abu Thurayeh could be seen carrying the Palestinian flag and waving the victory sign at Israeli soldiers across the border.

"I want to go there," he says, referring to the other side of the border, as a number of young men surrounding him wave Palestinian flags and others throw stones towards the troops.

- 'Extremely violent riots' -

It is incredibly difficult for Palestinians from Gaza to get Israeli permits to visit Jerusalem.

"This land is our land, we will not give up. America has to withdraw its decision," Abu Thurayeh said in another video posted on social media.

A few hours before his death, despite having no legs he climbed an electricity pole to raise the Palestinian flag, eyewitnesses and journalists present said.

What happened after that remains unclear.

Several thousand Palestinians along the Gaza border threw stones at Israeli soldiers, with clashes lasting for several hours.

Two men were killed, including Abu Thurayeh.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza claimed he was shot in the head by a sniper.

The Israeli army declined to comment specifically on the incident on Friday evening, saying only that there were "extremely violent riots" throughout the day.

"Soldiers fired selectively towards main instigators," an army spokeswoman said.

Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza for a decade, claiming that this is necessary to isolate the territory's Islamist Hamas rulers.

Critics say it amounts to collective punishment for the strip's two million residents, who suffer from electricity shortages and pollution.
Ruben Kihuen is facing allegations of sexual harassment from two women, prompting a House Ethics Committee investigation

The US House Ethics Committee announced Friday it had opened an investigation into a Democratic representative accused of sexually harassing two women, while a female congressional candidate who was accused of harassment dropped out of a race.

The committee said in a statement it was aware of "public allegations" against Ruben Kihuen, a 37-year-old representative from Nevada, who was only elected last year.

The first woman to come forward with allegations, published by BuzzFeed, said Kihuen made repeated sexual advances and touched her thigh twice without consent while she was working on his campaign team in 2016.

Another woman -- a Nevada lobbyist -- also said she was subjected to Kihuen's repeated advances when he was a member of the local assembly.

Kihuen has denied the allegations, and has so far refused to resign -- despite House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging him to do so.

On Friday, Andrea Ramsey, who was running for Congress in Kansas's Third District, announced that she was dropping out of the race after the Democratic party decided not to support her campaign over harassment allegations.

Ramsey wrote in a post on Facebook that after eliminating a man's position 12 years earlier, he sued the company and falsely claimed that he was fired "because he refused to have sex with me."

She said that the suit was later dropped, but that the allegations were enough for the "Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign."

Two Democratic members of Congress have so far this year resigned or announced their intention to do so following accusations of sexual misconduct: Michigan Representative John Coyers and Minnesota Senator Al Franken.

The House Ethics Committee is also carrying out other investigations into two Republican politicians: Texas Congressman Blake Farenthold, accused of sexual harassment, and Trent Franks, who asked a female staff member to act as a surrogate for him and his wife. Franks resigned last week.
US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis listens as President Donald Trump speaks at a recent cabinet meeting

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday he does not see the need for a stepped-up military posture against Iran, the day after a top diplomat said evidence shows Tehran is supporting Huthi rebels in Yemen.

US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday presented missile fragments and other military gear that she said came from Iran and had been used against US ally Saudi Arabia.

When asked if he thought such evidence warranted an emboldened or expanded military response from the US, Mattis said: "Not militarily, no."

"It's the reason Ambassador Haley was there and not one of our generals," he told Pentagon reporters.

"This is a diplomatically-led effort to expose to the world what Iran is up to."

Mattis lambasted Iran for its support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, "despite the murder of his own people on the industrial scale," and of its support for Lebanese group Hezbollah.

What Iran is "doing right now is illegal, is contributing to the deaths of innocent people," Mattis said.

"To expose what they are doing is healthy for the international community for their awareness of what's going on there."

Haley on Wednesday said a missile fired on November 4 from Yemen toward Riyadh airport had been made in Iran.
WELDON, N.C. (AP) - Authorities say a North Carolina man has been arrested in the shooting death of a toddler.

Weldon Police Chief James Avens told a news conference that 22-year-old Malcolm Artis of Halifax was arrested Thursday in Lithia Springs, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. Avens said Artis is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Police said the house Jaxson Clay was in was hit by multiple bullets during the drive-by shooting about 8:15 p.m. Dec. 7. The child's mother, father, sibling and a great-grandparent were in the home and escaped injury, but Jaxson was pronounced dead at a hospital two weeks before his second birthday.

Avens said Artis will be extradited back to Halifax County. The chief didn't discuss a motive for the shooting.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Two people were killed and three injured Thursday night in two stabbing incidents in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, authorities said.

Police said in a tweet that one suspect had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the incidents. They released no details on the suspect or the victims.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was not a terror attack, echoing comments from the police.

"It is terrible what happened there. People were killed and others were injured," Rutte said at an EU summit in Brussels.

The incidents happened in a residential neighborhood in the north of Maastricht, a city 215 kilometers (133 miles) south of the capital, Amsterdam, and close to the Netherlands' borders with Belgium and Germany.

Police said a man was stabbed to death during a fight around 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) and a suspect fled the scene. Ten minutes later a woman was fatally stabbed and two men injured about a kilometer (about a half mile) away from the first incident. A third wounded person was later found at a local mosque.

Police said the investigations are continuing.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A draft statement former FBI Director James Comey prepared in anticipation of concluding the Hillary Clinton email case without criminal charges was heavily edited to change the "tone and substance" of the remarks, a Republican senator said Thursday.

Some of the edits proposed to the May 2016 draft, obtained by The Associated Press, appear to soften the gravity of the bureau's findings.

Comey, for instance, initially wrote that the FBI believed that Clinton and her aides were "grossly negligent" in their handling of classified information, language also contained in the relevant criminal statute.

Parts of a letter written by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., to FBI director Christopher Wray are photographed in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. Johnson says edits to a draft FBI statement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation appear to have watered down the significance of the bureau's findings. Johnson said he had obtained from the FBI a draft statement that then-Director James Comey produced in May 2016 in anticipation of closing out the Clinton email case. The document shows line-by-line edits. Though the FBI had not yet interviewed Clinton about her use of a private email server, officials had already determined that criminal charges were probably not warranted. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

But the text was edited to say they were simply "extremely careless" in their use of a personal email server, a phrase Comey adopted for his July 5 public announcement that the FBI would not be recommending charges.

Comey's ultimate statement also omitted language asserting that the "sheer volume" of information classified as secret at the time it was shared made it reasonable to believe that the former secretary of state and her aides were grossly negligent.

In addition, while Comey initially said it was "reasonably likely" that "hostile actors" had gained access to Clinton's email server, the text was edited to say that such an intrusion was "possible."

The original version noted that the FBI had worked with partners in the intelligence community to determine whether the server had been compromised. While it was unclear what significance this had, it was omitted from Comey's final text.

Though the FBI had not yet interviewed Clinton, then the Democratic candidate for president, at the time the statement was drafted, FBI officials had already determined that criminal charges were probably not warranted and had begun thinking about how to present that conclusion to the public.

Comey on May 2 circulated a proposed draft statement to other senior FBI officials laying out the basis for the eventual decision against recommending charges for Clinton and her aides.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he had obtained from the FBI a copy of Comey's original draft with proposed line-by-line edits from other FBI officials. It's not clear from the document which official suggested what changes, though many were incorporated into Comey's July 5 announcement.

In a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, Johnson said edits to Comey's original remarks "appear to change the tone and substance." He asked the FBI to identify the officials who had proposed the changes.

The letter comes amid the disclosure of politically charged text messages sent by one of the agents on the case, Peter Strzok, in 2015 and 2016. Strzok, who was in the room as Clinton was interviewed, was later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's team to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

He was removed from that team last summer following the discovery of negative text messages about Donald Trump.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Some former patients of a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor expressed anger that he avoided jail time Thursday for lying about using his own sperm to impregnate as many as dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous.

Dr. Donald Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. No other charges were filed against the 79-year-old Clint because Indiana law doesn't specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm.

Cline was charged after lying to investigators, and he faced up to three years in prison on each count. The charges stemmed from two confirmed cases of paternity, but children of women treated by Cline said DNA tests show he is likely the biological father of as many as 20 of them.

FILE - In this March 29, 2007 file photo, Dr. Donald Cline, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertilty specialist, speaks at a new conference in Indianapolis. Cline, a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor accused of inseminating patients with his own sperm is set to plead guilty to charges that he lied to investigators Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017.. Cline is scheduled to appear in a Marion County court (Kelly Wilkinson,/The Indianapolis Star via AP)

Matt White and his mother, Liz White, said Cline deserved far greater punishment. He said DNA tests showed that Cline was his biological father even though Cline told his mother decades ago that he used anonymous sperm donations.

"There's dozens of us," said Matt White, who is 35. "There's all of our mothers. He violated women's reproductive rights for close to a decade. ... There's no remorse, he knew what he was doing."

Some of the now-adult children of Cline's former patients filed a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's Office in 2014, after they became suspicious while scouring online records to find biological relatives. Paternity tests performed the Marion County prosecutor's office determined Cline was likely the biological father of at least two of his patients' children, according to court records.

Cline, who retired in 2009, initially denied the allegations when he wrote to investigators, saying the women who filed the complaints were trying to slander him. On Thursday, he acknowledged that he had lied.

"Out of fear I acted alone and foolishly lied," he said during the hearing with a sometimes shaky voice.

But he mentioned only the two women who first filed complaints. He also didn't discuss his decision to use his own sperm in the 1970s and 1980s.

Court documents allege that Cline told six adults who believed they were his biological children that he had donated his own sperm about 50 times because he was trying to help his patients and didn't have access to fresh sperm.

Cline had told his patients they were receiving sperm from medical or dental residents or medical students, and that no single donor's sperm was used more than three times, according to court records.

The doctor walked out of the courtroom Thursday without speaking to reporters.

"His only remorse was being caught," said Julie Harmon, 35, who said she believed her mother's husband was her biological father until DNA tests linked her to numerous half-siblings fathered by Cline. "He has no remorse over the act at all."

Government DNA tests have only been done on the two women who filed the initial state complaints. However, Matt White said private DNA tests have identified 23 people as Cline's biological children with mothers who were his patients. More people were still considering whether to undergo such tests, he said.

Cline's former patients and suspected children filled many of the roughly 50 courtroom seats on Thursday. After the hearing, some said Cline should have received jail time.

Liz White said she had hoped Cline would at least be put on ankle-bracelet monitoring because of pain she's felt since finding out he deceived her.

"I feel like I've carried a bracelet for well over a year, as well as my son," she said. "The fact is our pain was not acknowledged."
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that he has opened a misconduct inquiry into a judge accused of inappropriate sexual conduct and comments by six women.

Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas issued the order based on allegations against Judge Alex Kozinski in a Dec. 8 Washington Post article.

The women were clerks and others at the largest federal appeals court in the country. Kozinski is a prominent judge, serving as chief judge of the 9th Circuit from 2007 to 2014.

He is known for his irreverent opinions and his clerks often win prestigious clerkships at the Supreme Court.

Heidi Bond, who clerked for the Pasadena, California-based judge from 2006 to 2007, recalled three instances in which she said the judge asked her to look at images of naked people.

Kozinski told the Los Angeles Times he did not recall showing pornographic images to others. A message left for Kozinski with the 9th Circuit seeking comment Thursday was not immediately returned.

A spokesman for the court, David Madden, also confirmed "that one or more of Judge Kozinski's current law clerks has resigned" but declined to elaborate.

The inquiry will be conducted by a different U.S. circuit court.
TOKYO (AP) - Japan froze the assets of 19 companies on Friday to step up pressure on North Korea to return Japanese citizens that it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s and to halt its nuclear weapons and missile development.

The companies, which have already been sanctioned by the United States, deal in finance, coal and minerals, transport including shipping and the sending of North Korean workers overseas.

A Foreign Ministry official said the unilateral move shows Japan's commitment to sanctions ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York later Friday to discuss the North Korea situation.

Tomas Quintana, center, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea greet the families of Japanese abducted to North Korea during a meeting Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, in Tokyo. Japan froze the assets of 19 companies on Friday to step up pressure on North Korea to return Japanese citizens that it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s and to halt its nuclear weapons and missile development. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Japan has now frozen the assets of 103 companies and organizations and 108 individuals under either its own sanctions or Security Council resolutions. Of those, 56 groups and 62 individuals were unilateral.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan will continue to put pressure on North Korea to seek a resolution to both the abductee and nuclear and missile issues.

North Korean agents abducted Japanese citizens to train spies to pass as Japanese.

Later Friday, the United Nations' independent investigator on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, met with the families of abducted Japanese citizens.

Quintana arrived in Tokyo on Thursday to discuss the issue with Japanese officials after a visit earlier this week to South Korea, where he investigated North Korean allegations that Seoul abducted 12 North Korean women from China.

Japan's abduction issues minister, Katsunobu Kato, asked Quintana for his support, saying there is little time left for the aging families of the victims.

Japan says North Korea snatched at least 17 people in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea has acknowledged abducting 13 and allowed five of them to visit Japan in 2002. All five stayed instead of returning to North Korea. The North says the other eight have died, without providing convincing proof, and their families have not given up hope.

Many of the families are getting old and are desperately seeking outside help to bring their loved ones home. This week, Nobuko Masumoto, whose daughter Rumiko was abducted with her boyfriend from Japan's southern coast in 1978, died at the age of 90.

U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with families of abductees in November during a visit to Japan raised their hope for more public awareness and international support.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu contributed to this report.

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Find her work at https://www.apnews.com/search/mari%20yamaguchi

Tomas Quintana, standing, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea speaks to the families of Japanese abducted to North Korea during a meeting Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, in Tokyo. Japan has announced it is freezing the assets of 19 companies to step up pressure on North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons and missile development. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. (AP) - Police officers in Connecticut shot three carjacking suspects Thursday night, killing one, authorities said.

New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell said officers tried to stop a vehicle that they believe was involved in a series of armed carjackings in the city and surrounding areas over at least the past two weeks.

"The most recent incidents in New Britain were on Monday of this week which included shots being fired at one victim, and in a second incident on Monday, a victim being pistol-whipped," Wardwell said.

As officers tried to stop the vehicle and take the suspects into custody, more than one New Britain officer fired their weapon, according to police.

"Three individuals in the vehicle were hit by gunfire," Wardwell said.

"I heard tons of shots. Seven, eight, 10 of them. Went to the back door. Saw the cops running. They made it up the hill. Next thing I know, they had tape out and here we are," Dawn Markunas, of New Britain, told WFSB-TV.

One of the suspects died, and the other two were expected to recover. The officers were not hurt.

Police said there was at least one firearm in the vehicle.

Wardwell said Connecticut State Police would be handling the investigation.
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A New Hampshire judge has put off a decision on whether to dismiss a lawsuit accusing a Vermont man of killing his millionaire grandfather and possibly his mother to collect an inheritance.

Nathan Carman has been called a suspect in the 2013 shooting death of 87-year-old real estate developer John Chakalos in Connecticut. No one has been arrested. He also has been questioned about the day his boat sank last year near Rhode Island with his mother onboard. She's presumed dead.

Carman has denied any involvement in either case.

FILE - This Sept. 27, 2016 file photo shows Nathan Carman arriving in a small boat at the US Coast Guard station in Boston. A New Hampshire judge is scheduled on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, to hear arguments to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Carman of killing his millionaire grandfather and possibly his mother to collect an inheritance. No one has been arrested. Carman has denied any involvement in either case. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

His mother's three sisters sued in New Hampshire in July. Carman wants the lawsuit dismissed, saying his grandfather wasn't a resident of New Hampshire at the time of his death.

Judge David King on Friday said he take the dismissal request under advisement.
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Paul Ryan is denying reports that he plans to leave Congress after the Republicans' treasured tax bill is approved.

Politico and The Huffington Post published stories speculating that Ryan would make this two-year Congress his last or even resign after lawmakers approve the $1.5 trillion tax bill, which could happen next week. Ryan took the job hesitantly in 2015 after John Boehner, R-Ohio, abruptly stepped aside as speaker under pressure from party conservatives, who remain a formidable and rebellious force.

"I'm not, no," said Ryan, R-Wis., when a reporter asked him Thursday if he'd be quitting shortly.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., meets with reporters to answer questions on the tax bill and sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. Ryan says Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold has "made the right decision" to retire at the end of his term amid allegations of sexual harassment. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump called Ryan and said he'd be unhappy if Ryan left Congress. "The speaker assured the president that those were not accurate reports and that they look forward to working together for a long time to come," Sanders said.

Even so, several GOP operatives said privately that there have long been whispers that the 19-year House veteran wouldn't keep the post for a long time and a departure wouldn't be surprising. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

Ryan, his party's 2012 vice presidential candidate, was initially reluctant to take the speaker's post. It calls for long hours meeting with colleagues to line up votes or address other problems, and frequent fundraising trips for the party. Now 47, Ryan has three young children and initially said he was uninterested in being speaker, calling it a job for empty-nesters.

Ryan pushed a repeal of President Barack Obama's health care law through the House in May after encountering resistance from both ends of the GOP's political spectrum, only to see the effort run aground in the GOP-led Senate. Though Congress seems on the verge of passing the tax bill - the GOP's first major legislative accomplishment this year - he faces negotiations with Democrats over spending and immigration likely to produce compromises that conservatives will angrily oppose.

During last year's presidential campaign, he refused to campaign with Trump after the candidate was heard on a leaked 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape describing lewd behavior with women. He's criticized several remarks Trump has made as president, including his blaming of both sides for a riot at a demonstration by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer. The two men's relationship has run hot and cold.

Ryan's hold on the speakership could end in 2019, regardless of whether he wants to keep the job.

Democrats will need to gain 24 seats in next November's midterm elections to capture House control. Trump's staggering unpopularity and recent Democratic victories have raised that party's hopes of grabbing a House majority.

Ryan has given reporters an extensive preview of next year's GOP agenda, promising action on restraining the growth of government benefit programs.

But Tuesday's Senate election in Alabama, in which Democrat Doug Jones scored an upset, will bring the GOP's margin of control in that chamber to 51-49, making any action on cutting the budget a longshot.

___

Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) - After weeks of quarrels, qualms and then eleventh-hour horse-trading, Republicans revealed the details of their huge national tax rewrite late Friday - along with announcements of support that all but guarantee approval to give President Donald Trump the Christmas legislative triumph he's been aching for.

The legislation would slash tax rates for big business and lower levies on the richest Americans in a massive $1.5 trillion bill that the GOP plans to muscle through Congress next week before its year-end break. Benefits for most other taxpayers would be smaller.

"This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening," House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told rank-and-file members in a conference call. "Most critics out there didn't think it could happen. ... And now we're on the doorstep of something truly historic."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, is pursued by reporters in the Capitol after signing the conference committee report to advance the GOP tax bill, in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

According to the 1,097-page bill released late Friday, today's 35 percent rate on corporations would fall to 21 percent, the crown jewel of the measure for many Republicans. Trump and GOP leaders had set 20 percent as their goal, but added a point to free money for other tax cuts that won over wavering lawmakers in final talks.

The legislation represents the first major legislative achievement for the GOP after nearly a full year in control of Congress and the White House. It's the widest-ranging reshaping of the tax code in three decades and is expected to add to the nation's $20 trillion debt. The tax cuts are projected to add $1.46 trillion over a decade.

The bill would repeal an important part of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act - the requirement that all Americans have health insurance or face a penalty - as the GOP looks to unravel a law it failed to repeal and replace this past summer.

Only on Friday did Republicans cement the needed support for the overhaul, securing endorsements from wavering senators.

Marco Rubio of Florida relented in his high-profile opposition after negotiators expanded the tax credit that parents can claim for their children. He said he would vote for the measure next week.

Rubio had been holding out for a bigger child credit for low-income families. After he got it, he tweeted that the change was "a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker."

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the only Republican to vote against the Senate version earlier this month, made the surprise announcement that he would back the legislation. Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly warned that the nation's growing debt is the most serious threat to national security.

"I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make," Corker said.

The White House said Trump "looks forward to fulfilling the promise he made to the American people to give them a tax cut by the end of the year."

The bill embodies a longstanding Republican philosophy that a substantial tax break for businesses will trigger economic growth and job creation for Americans in a trickle-down economy.

Skeptical Democrats are likely to oppose the legislation unanimously.

"Under this bill, the working class, middle class and upper middle class get skewered while the rich and wealthy corporations make out like bandits," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "It is just the opposite of what America needs, and Republicans will rue the day they pass this."

The bill would drop today's 39.6 percent top rate on individuals to 37 percent. The standard deduction - used by around two-thirds of households - would be nearly doubled, to $24,000 for married couples.

The $1,000-per-child tax deduction would grow to $2,000, with up to $1,400 available in IRS refunds for families who owe little or no taxes. Parents would have to provide children's Social Security numbers to receive the child tax credit, a measure intended to deny the credit to people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Those who itemize would lose some deductions. The deduction that millions use in connection with state and local income, property and sales taxes would be capped at $10,000. That's especially important to residents of high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California. Deductions for medical expenses that lawmakers once considered eliminating would be retained.

The bill would allow homeowners to deduct interest only on the first $750,000 of a new mortgage, down from the current limit of $1 million.

People who inherit fortunes would get a big break. The bill would double the exemption, meaning the estate tax would apply only to the portion of an estate over $22 million for married couples.

Members of a House-Senate conference committee signed the final version of the legislation Friday, sending it to the two chambers for final passage next week. They have been working to blend the different versions passed by the two houses.

Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, including two ailing senators who have missed votes this past week.

John McCain of Arizona, who is 81, is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and 80-year-old Thad Cochran of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, on the progress of an agreement on a sweeping overhaul of the nation's tax laws. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2017, file photo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rubio will vote for his party's $1.5 trillion tax bill. That gives a major boost to the prospects that GOP leaders will be able to push their prized measure through Congress next week. The Florida lawmaker had said he'd oppose the legislation unless his colleagues made the per child tax credit more generous for low-income families. On Dec. 15, Republicans said the final legislation would do just that. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, talks to reporters in the Capitol as House Republicans prepare to advance the GOP tax bill, in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, leaves his office in the Capitol as House Republicans prepare to advance the GOP tax bill, in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, for a trip to Quantico, Va., to attend the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
BERLIN (AP) - Prosecutors say two Austrians and a German have been killed in a crash of a small plane in southwestern Germany.

The Cessna 510 crashed late Thursday in a wooded area near the city of Ravensburg. The plane had taken off in Frankfurt and was heading to Friedrichshafen, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the crash site.

Konstanz chief prosecutor Wolfgang Angster said Friday that two of the dead were the plane's Austrian pilots, a 45-year-old from the Voralberg region and a 49-year-old from Vienna. Also killed was a 79-year-old German passenger living in the Lake Constance region.

Rescue workers stand at the site where a plane crashed in Sieberatsreute near Ravensburg, southern Germany, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. Police said that three people were on board the Cessna aircraft. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Emergency responders were able to recover the bodies despite heavy snowfall but the investigation into the cause of the accident had to be put on hold due to adverse weather.

Emergency workers gather near the site where a plane crashed in Sieberatsreute near Ravensburg, southern Germany, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. Police said that three people were aboard the Cessna aircraft. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)/dpa via AP)
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police are questioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again as part of an investigation into two corruption allegations surrounding the long-ruling Israeli leader.

An Associated Press cameraman filmed police entering Netanyahu's residence Friday. Media reported it was the seventh round of questioning.

One probe reportedly concerns allegations Netanyahu improperly received lavish gifts from Hollywood and business figures.

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 11, 2017 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a media conference with European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini at the EU Council building in Brussels. With the prime minister facing a slew of corruption allegations, the peace process at a standstill and the government moving to stifle critics, it is no secret that Israel is a deeply divided nation. But a new survey released Tuesday shows just how divided the country has become. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

Another is over secret talks with the publisher of a major Israeli newspaper in which Netanyahu allegedly requested positive coverage in exchange for reining in a free pro-Netanyahu daily.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing and dismissed the accusations as a witch hunt orchestrated by a hostile media.

The scandals have yet to threaten Netanyahu's rule but have affected his public approval ratings.
LONDON (AP) - Budget carrier Ryanair said Friday it is reversing its longstanding refusal to recognize pilots' unions in a bid to avert strikes in several European countries over the busy Christmas season.

Chief Executive Michael O'Leary said the airline wants to ease customers' concerns "that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week."

"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognized union process, then we are prepared to do so," he said.

FILE- In this Tuesday July 21, 2009 file photo, Ryanair planes parked at Stansted Airport in England. Budget carrier Ryanair is reversing its longstanding refusal to recognize pilots' unions in a bid to avert strikes over the busy Christmas season. Chief executive Michael O'Leary said on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, the airline wants to ease customers' concerns "that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week." (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Ryanair pilots in Ireland and Germany both voted to take industrial action over the holiday season in disputes over pay and conditions. Italian and Portuguese pilot unions also threatened strikes in the coming days.

Ryanair said its officer applied to pilots' bodies in those countries, as well as Britain and Spain. The airliner, which insisted earlier this week it would not deal with the unions, said its new offer was conditional on unions in the six countries setting up special committees to deal with issues related to the airline.

Ryanair pilots in Italy suspended a strike planned for Friday afternoon after the company's announcement.

The airline had come under intense criticism in Italy for a letter to employees threatening action against anyone who strikes.

The Fit-Cisl union threatened legal action in response, saying Ryanair's letter violated the Italian constitution, while the government asked the company for clarification of its intentions.

Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda said on private TV La7 that Ryanair's move to recognize unions was not a concession: "It's the minimum, and not enough."

A spokesman for the Irish pilots' union, IMPACT, said it had received Ryanair's letter and was considering its contents.
LONDON (AP) - Oxford Dictionaries recognized the power of the millennial generation Friday with its 2017 word of the year : youthquake.

Oxford lexicographers say there was a fivefold increase in use of the term between 2016 and 2017.

It is defined as "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people."

FILE - In this March 14, 2007 file photo, a man reads a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford Dictionaries is recognizing the power of the millennial generation with its 2017 word of the year: youthquake. Oxford lexicographers say there was a fivefold increase in use of the term between 2016 and 2017. It is defined as "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people." (Ian Nicholson/PA via AP, File)

The word, coined almost 50 years ago by then-Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, has been used to describe phenomena including surging youth support for Britain's Labour Party and the election of 30-something leaders in France and New Zealand.

Each year, Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that reflects the annual mood.

Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl said youthquake has "yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the U.K. calls it out as a word on the move."

Runners-up included broflake - a man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his views- and kompromat, a Russian term for compromising information collected for political leverage.

Oxford Dictionaries consultant Susie Dent said many of the year's standout words "speak to fractured times of mistrust and frustration."

"In 'youthquake' we find some hope in the power to change things, and had a little bit of linguistic fun along the way," she said. "It feels like the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year."

Last year's word of the year was "post-truth."
BERLIN (AP) - Germany is pouring money into the creation of electronic surveillance systems along Tunisia's eastern border, designed to prevent extremists and migrants from slipping across into the country from neighboring Libya, a government spokesman said Friday.

Tunisia stepped up security measures along the 300-mile frontier in 2015 following attacks by Islamic extremists believed to have received training in Libya. But European governments have also been seeking ways to halt the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean from Africa in recent years, including by funding border security measures in key countries.

A spokesman for Germany's defense ministry, Michael Henjes, said that Berlin has earmarked 18 million euros ($21.3 million) in financial support to install permanent radar systems along the Tunisian border.

The project is being managed by the U.S. government's Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Germany has already provided mobile observation equipment worth 16 million euros to Tunisia last year.

Henjes said the funds, which come from Germany's defense budget, are intended to help Tunisia "help itself."

Opposition lawmakers accused the German government of trying to turn Tunisia into a front line in the fight against migration and subsidizing Europe's arms and surveillance industry.

Left party lawmaker Andrej Hunko cited promotional material from Airbus hailing its surveillance equipment as a means of tackling the "wave of illegal immigrants" coming to Europe. Airbus' military sensor business has since been bought by U.S. investment firm KKR and now operates under the name Hensoldt.
BRUSSELS (AP) - Luxembourg is appealing a European Union decision that it has to claw back some 250 million euros ($300 million) in back taxes from Amazon.

The EU decision in October was another attempt to tighten the screws on multinationals it says are avoiding taxes through sweetheart deals with individual EU states.

The Luxembourg government announced Friday that its appeal "seeks to obtain legal certainty, and does not put into question Luxembourg's strong commitment to tax transparency and the fight against harmful tax practices."

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. European union leaders meet Friday to launch Brexit talks into a new phase and to discuss the euro and banking union. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys)

The EU has taken aim at such past deals, which member states had used to lure foreign companies in search of a place to establish their EU headquarters. The practice led to EU states competing with each other and multinationals playing them off against one another.
PARIS (AP) - Airbus said Friday that its CEO, Tom Enders, will step down in 2019, as the European airplane maker shakes up management amid multiple corruption investigations.

The company said Enders, who will have been at the helm of Airbus and defense firm EADS for 14 years, won't seek another term when his current term expires.

Enders has been a key figure as Airbus has jockeyed with U.S. rival Boeing over the past decade to be the world's top-selling plane maker.

FILE - In this Feb. 27, 2015 file photo, Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders speaks to journalists during the Airbus Group press conference on the 2014 annual results in Munich, southern Germany. European airplane maker Airbus said Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 chief executive Tom Enders will step down in April 2019. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson, File)

The 59-year-old was quoted Friday as saying Airbus needs "fresh minds for the 2020s" and that he would use the remainder of his time to ensure a smooth transition and to strengthen the company's ethics and compliance programs.

The governments of France and Germany, which have stakes in Airbus and used to have seats on its board, are paying close attention to the management changes and the legal probes.

"We obviously need to keep an eye on our strategic interests and (Airbus) governance, which must be exemplary," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Brussels on Friday.

Speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron insisted that their governments won't "interfere politically to return to a role in the daily management of the company" - but said he wants the Airbus board to provide clarifications in the coming weeks about the executive shakeup.

Also leaving is the chief operating officer and president of the commercial aircraft division, Fabrice Bregier, who will step down next February.

He will be succeeded by Guillaume Faury, currently CEO of Airbus Helicopters. Enders described Faury as part of "the next generation of leaders," which could suggest he is being groomed to eventually take over as CEO of the overall Airbus Group.

The announcement came weeks after Airbus announced it is replacing its combative, long-serving sales chief, John Leahy. He's being replaced by an outside executive, from Rolls Royce.

The big challenge for incoming Airbus management will be legal investigations.

Authorities in Britain and France are investigating alleged fraud and bribery related to Airbus' use of outside consultants in commercial plane sales. Airbus has warned that the investigations could lead to "significant penalties" and promised to stop working with middlemen.

Meanwhile, Austria is investigating suspected fraud in the government's purchase of Airbus combat aircraft.

It's a bumpy time for Airbus, which recently saw a major deal with Gulf carrier Emirates for A380 superjumbos fall apart at the last minute at the Dubai Air Show. The airline handed the contract to Boeing instead.

Shares were little changed Friday, as management changes were expected.

Airbus had revenues of 67 billion euros ($79 billion) last year and employs 134,000 staff worldwide.
BEIJING (AP) - Britain's finance minister told the Chinese premier there are "many opportunities" for closer commercial ties as he started a visit Friday aimed at developing trade as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the European Union.

British leaders are looking to China for trade and investment as they try to fashion a new global role and offset reduced access to the European common market. Chinese officials believe a post-Brexit Britain needs China more than ever but its companies are uneasy about the future of a market they see as one of Europe's most welcoming.

Philip Hammond was in Beijing for an annual "economic dialogue" that has taken on added significance this year. He was accompanied by an unusually large delegation of businesspeople and British economic officials for such an event.

China's Premier Li Keqiang, right, meets Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. (Fred Dufour/Pool Photo via AP)

Premier Li Keqiang, China's top economic official, expressed confidence in "steady and sound growth" of Chinese-British relations regardless of what happens between London and the EU.

"We see many opportunities to build on our strong relationship," said Hammond in the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the symbolic seat of China's government.

Both governments have declared themselves to be in a "Golden Era" of relations. They say they want closer cooperation in finance, clean energy, nuclear power and other fields.

Britain needs to diversify its trade "and China is regarded as a potential replacement for the EU in this regard," said Wang Zhanpeng, director of the British Studies Center at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

China had hoped Britain would be a partner inside the EU, helping to resist pressure in the bloc to restrict imports, said Wang. But he said the uncertainty of Brexit might hurt Britain's image as a stable and welcoming market.

"If the impact of Brexit lasts for a long time, it may bring about negative effects on China's investment and acquisitions in the country," said Wang.

Total two-way British-Chinese trade in goods last year was $49.1 billion, according to Chinese trade data. Britain ran a deficit of $24.4 billion.

Hammond's delegation includes Gov. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange and Britain's secretaries of international trade and business and energy. They are accompanied by executives from banks Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered, engineering firm Arup and British law firms.

The sides plan to conclude agreements on more than 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) of trade and investment deals during the event, according to Hammond's statement. It gave no details.

Beijing announced in November it will allow 100 percent foreign ownership of Chinese banks, securities firms and insurers for the first time - a move that could be boon to Britain's financial industries.

Business groups said, however, it might be too late for foreign institutions to get more than a sliver of a market dominated by China's state-owned banks. They said potential investors need to details before they can know whether that will be commercially attractive.

This weekend, the two governments also plan to discuss expanding cooperation in industrial strategy, according to Hammond. The business and energy secretary, Greg Clark, said they would discuss cooperation in renewable energy.

Britain also wants to talk about a possible role in Beijing's "Belt and Road Initiative," an ambitious project aimed at expanding trade across Asia to Europe by building railways and other infrastructure.

British Prime Minister Theresa May got off to a rocky start with Beijing after taking office in 2016 when she abruptly launched a review of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power project in which China is an investor along with French utility EDF.

May's government later allowed the development to go ahead but China's government criticized the delay.

May and Chinese President Xi Jinping affirmed their desire for closer ties during a meeting in July at the gathering of leaders of Group of 20 major developed and emerging economies in Hamburg, Germany.

___

AP researcher Yu Bing contributed.

China's Premier Li Keqiang, right, speaks Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. (Fred Dufour/Pool Photo via AP)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A court in the Netherlands convicted a 63-year-old man Friday of committing war crimes under a brutal Marxist regime in Ethiopia in the 1970s and sentenced him to life imprisonment, a ruling that one victim hailed as delivering justice to survivors.

Eshetu Alemu was not present in The Hague District Court as he was convicted of ordering the murder of 75 political opponents and the arbitrary detention in cruel and degrading conditions of more than 300. He was also found guilty of failing to prevent the torture of six people.

Some experts say 150,000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed in a nationwide purge by the Dergue regime of former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, though no one knows for sure how many suspected opponents were killed. Human Rights Watch has described the 1977-78 Red Terror campaign as "one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa."

The court ruled that Alemu was the highest representative of the Dergue regime in Gojam province and, as such, was responsible for eliminating opposition.

"It was in this context that he had a large group of mainly teenagers arrested, tortured and killed on the pretext of their affiliation with the EPRP, the main opposition movement in Gojam at the time," a court statement said.

In an emotional speech during his trial, Alemu accepted blame for crimes by the Dergue but told judges he did not personally commit them.

But the court ruled that he was responsible and said the crimes were "so serious that only a life sentence" is the fitting punishment.

Negus Gebeyehu, who said he was imprisoned as a 15-year-old, told the court on Friday: "Justice has been done for Ethiopia."

Alemu was tried in a Dutch court because he moved to the Netherlands in the early 1990s and was granted Dutch citizenship in 1998.

Mengistu now lives in exile in Zimbabwe. He was convicted in absentia by an Ethiopian court in 2006 of genocide and later sentenced to death.
SAO PAULO (AP) - Brazilian President Michel Temer has been released from the hospital where he underwent surgery for a narrowing of his urethra earlier this week.

Sao Paulo's Sirio-Libanes Hospital said in a statement the president was released Friday morning to "return to his normal activities" following a successful surgery.

Temer postponed a trip to visit Southeast Asia due to the procedure, but doctors have said he will be all right to travel after Jan. 20.

In October, Temer had surgery to reduce an enlarged prostate that had caused a urinary obstruction, and in November, the 77-year-old underwent an angioplasty procedure to implant stents in three coronary arteries.
By a 6-2 vote at its Thursday meeting, the North Dakota Peace Officer Standards and Training Board found that a fired Fargo cop did not violate conduct related to lying.

Fifteen-year Fargo Police Officer David Boelke and his attorney, Mark Friese, appeared before the nine-member board, as did Fargo Police Sgt. Jared Crane.

Crane testified about his investigation into Boelke, stemming from a missed court appearance, that alleged Boelke lied about physically responding to three calls for service from December 2016 to February 2017. Fargo Police Chief Dave Todd fired Boelke in August.

Testimony and questions largely related to the GPS reliability of Boelke's squad car. Crane said he has 100 percent confidence in the department's GPS accuracy relating to the disputed calls.

"I basically looked at every aspect of this that I could over the course of four months, and every bit of evidence I could find corroborated what these complainants told me," he said.

Boelke disputed Crane's evidence and said he's provided witnesses and completed a polygraph in the matter.

"I didn't lie," he said

Board member Lt. Dan Haugen motioned that Boelke did not violate the peace officer code of conduct's subsection related to lying.

"I'm not 100 percent confident in that (GPS) to prove that he lied three times," Haugen said. Board member and Bowman Mayor Lyn James seconded his motion.

Eddy County Sheriff Paul Lies recused himself from the vote. He is a retired Fargo police detective.

The board's vote found no reason to take any action against Boelke.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's visit to the FBI (all times local):

8:50 p.m.

President Donald Trump has unleashed a blistering attack on the FBI's leadership.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, about efforts to reduce violent crime. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

He is denouncing the bureau for its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, calling it "really disgraceful."

Trump says "you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it."

The president's broadside appears to reflect his anger over revelations that senior FBI officials exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Clinton text messages while working on last year's Clinton probe and during special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 election.

Trump laced into the bureau as he was departing for its training academy in Virginia, where he lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program for law enforcement leaders from around the country.

__

3:45 p.m.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is distancing himself from President Donald Trump's criticism of the FBI. Sessions says he does not share the view that the FBI "is not functioning at a high level all over the country."

Sessions, speaking Friday at a news conference about the Justice Department's crime-fighting efforts, said the FBI is "fulfilling a fabulously important role working to fight against violent crime." But he stopped short of saying whether he agrees with Trump that the reputation of the agency is "in tatters."

Trump again blasted FBI leadership Friday even as he praised state and local officers.

Sessions says it's noteworthy that Trump expressed support for law enforcement in a speech at the FBI's National Academy. The program is for law enforcement leaders from around the country, not FBI agents.

___

11:20 a.m.

President Donald Trump is calling for the death penalty for anyone convicted of killing a police officer.

Trump, while speaking at the FBI National Academy in Virginia on Friday, pledged to support law enforcement officers and condemned those who attack them.

During the presidential campaign, Trump pledged to sign an executive order as president that would demand capital punishment for cop killers.

He has yet to do so.

The president was warmly received by the crowd of local law enforcement officers who cheered his calls for a crackdown on gangs and an end to chain migration.

The president painted a dark picture of a nation under siege by crime, at one moment wondering aloud "What the hell is going on in Chicago?"

The crowd laughed.

___

10:40 a.m.

President Donald Trump is addressing a graduating class of law enforcement officers at the FBI National Academy.

Trump on Friday praised the academy, a 10-week professional course of study for U.S. and international law enforcement officers.

Trump, a frequent FBI critic, promised that as president he will be "more loyal than anyone else could be" to the police.

He honored the graduates for completing the rigorous training, saying the "elite training will help save lives."

FBI Director Christopher Wray says Trump is the first president to address a graduating class at the FBI training center in Quantico, Virginia since Richard Nixon.

__

9:50 a.m.

President Donald Trump says "it's a shame what's happened" with the FBI, calling its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation "really disgraceful."

Speaking to reporters as he departs for a speech at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Va., Trump promises that "we're going to rebuild the FBI."

Trump alluded to newly revealed edits to former FBI Director James Comey's 2016 statement on the Clinton probe: "It is very sad when you look at those documents, how they've done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of really angry people who are seeing it."

Trump reiterated that "there was no collusion" between his campaign and the Russian government, adding the recent revelations prove his claim that the Clinton investigation was "rigged."

___

7:53 a.m.

The White House says newly-revealed FBI records show there is "extreme bias" against President Donald Trump among senior leadership at the FBI.

Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley tells Fox News Channel that edits to former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Hillary Clinton's private email server and text messages from a top agent critical of Trump are "deeply troubling."

"There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time," Gidley charges, as special counsel Robert Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBI's rank-and-file the Justice Department.

Trump is scheduled to attend an FBI National Academy graduation service later Friday.

President Donald Trump speaks during the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, in Quantico, Va. "The President of the United States has your back 100 percent," Trump told graduates, saying law enforcement officers need to be supported. "I will fight for you and I will never, ever, let you down." (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) - The Latest on sentencing of an Oklahoma man convicted of decapitating a co-worker in 2014 (all times local):

10:10 a.m.

An Oklahoma judge has sentenced a man to death for beheading a co-worker at a food processing plant.

The Cleveland County judge on Friday accepted a jury's recommendation of the death penalty over life in prison without parole for 33-year-old Alton Nolen. Jurors earlier this year convicted him of decapitating 54-year-old Colleen Hufford in 2014.

Investigators said Nolen had just been suspended from his job at the Vaughan Foods plant when he walked inside the company's administrative office and attacked his co-workers.

His attorneys argued that he is mentally ill and that he believed he was doing the right thing because of his delusional misinterpretations of the Quran.

___

7:25 a.m.

An Oklahoma judge is to decide whether to sentence to death a man convicted of decapitating a co-worker in 2014.

Jurors earlier this year recommended the death sentence for 33-year-old Alton Nolen after convicting him in the beheading death of 54-year-old Colleen Hufford at a food processing plant. A judge will decide Friday whether to follow that recommendation or sentence him instead to life in prison without parole.

Investigators said Nolen had just been suspended from his job at the Vaughan Foods plant when he walked inside the company's administrative office and attacked his co-workers.

His attorneys argued that he is mentally ill and that he believed he was doing the right thing because of his delusional misinterpretations of the Quran.
A police department decided to play the role of Santa by delivering a rescue puppy to a Maine woman looking for help with her Christmas gift.

The Bangor Police Department's Facebook page has 250,000 likes for its mere 33,000 citizens, and frequently gets requests for help. In this case, it was for a 'Christmas miracle'.

'Chris needs her rescue Border Collie puppy transported from Virginia to Maine. She does not have the ability to drive to Virginia right now, needs to get the puppy to Maine, and it's her Christmas present,' a post on the page read.

Two police officers are bringing a rescue puppy named Tessa from Virginia to Maine

Officers Danny Place (right) and Jordan Perry (left) are traveling to Washington DC as part of the convoy for Wreaths Across America and will bring Tessa home

'I have told all of you that Mainers don't mind asking for a favor,' Lieutenant Tim Cotton wrote on the page.

'We borrow things, ask for rides, stop into people's homes exactly at the dinner hour, and we usually carry jumper-cables to help start other people's cars in the winter.

'It's real, and there are plenty of places left in America which are exactly like this'.

Luckily for the Waldoboro woman, two officers were traveling to Washington DC as part of the convoy for Wreaths Across America. The organization lays wreaths on the graves of veterans during the holidays.

The woman told the department she adopted a 14-week-old rescue border collie puppy in Virginia, but she couldn't bring the dog back to Maine before Christmas

Lieutenant Cotton gave the two officers a call and they quickly agreed to pick up Tessa

The woman told the department she adopted a 14-week-old rescue border collie puppy in Virginia, but she couldn't bring the dog back to Maine before the holiday.

Lieutenant Cotton gave the two officers a call, who were currently traveling through New Jersey.

The officers quickly agreed, saying they don't mind picking up an extra passenger on their way back from Arlington National Cemetery. The wreaths arrive Saturday.

The puppy, named Tessa, will join Officers Danny Place and Jordan Perry on Saturday, after the men complete their task. She'll travel 673 miles with the pair to her owner.

Tessa will arrive at her new home in time for Christmas.
MANCHACA, Texas (AP) - In a story Dec. 15 about Texas' medical marijuana program, The Associated Press misidentified a National Conference of State Legislatures program director. Her name is Karmen Hanson, not Kristen Hanson.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Cautious Texas among last states to OK medical marijuana

While California is about to make recreational pot legal, Texas is tiptoeing into marijuana with a restrictive medical cannabis program that critics say is doomed to fail

By PAUL J. WEBER and CLAUDIA LAUER

Associated Press

MANCHACA, Texas (AP) - When California rings in the new year with the sale of recreational pot for the first time, Texas will be tiptoeing into its own marijuana milestone: a medical cannabis program so restrictive that doubts swirl over who will even use it.

Texas is the last big state to allow some form of medical marijuana, albeit an oil extract so low in the psychoactive component, THC, that it couldn't get a person high. Though it might seem that Texas policymakers have softened their attitude toward the drug, bringing them more in line with the U.S. population as a whole, they have not. A joint could still land you in jail in Texas, and the state's embrace of medical marijuana comes with a heavy dose of caution.

Among the concerns are the license fees to grow marijuana in Texas - which are the highest in the U.S., at nearly $500,000 - and that the program is rolling out with just eight participating doctors in a state of 27 million people. And, like other states, access is limited to a small pool of patients who have been diagnosed with intractable epilepsy and tried at least two other treatments first.

"It's heartbreaking. Being able to say, 'Yes, you can get it,' but reading over the whole law there is still some things we have to jump over," said Cristina Ollervidez, 31, who lives near the Texas-Mexico border and is three hours from the closest participating doctor. Her 7-year-old daughter, Lailah, has a type of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and is in a wheelchair.

Her daughter isn't listed as having intractable epilepsy but still has days when she gets several seizures.

"Seeing Texas put limitations, I do get that part," Ollervidez said. "But I don't think they did their exact research."

The frustration over access is similar in other states that have also passed restrictive medical marijuana laws. One Georgia legislator goes so far as to have low-dose cannabis oil shipped to his office from Colorado as a workaround to his own bill, which allows people to possess marijuana but doesn't give them a legal way to obtain it.

Texas is similar to more than a dozen states that restrict access to a low-THC cannabis oil. However, Texas - which is 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) wide - licensed just three dispensaries, none of which are in the western half of the state or in fast-growing cities along the border with Mexico. And the Republican who won over skeptical conservatives to pass her law in 2015 is noncommittal about expanding the program.

That leaves Morris Denton, who runs the Compassionate Cultivation dispensary near Austin, looking far down the road.

"If you're willing to take a long-term view and you're willing to suffer a few scars along the way, that success will come," Denton said. "The lessons themselves represent a barrier to entry for others who may come in. But I think it's hard to pinpoint how, where and when to start a legal medical cannabis industry."

Texas has also placed tighter control on marijuana growers. The licensing fee is 80 times more than originally recommended. The Texas Department of Public Safety once proposed a fee as high as $1.3 million to help offset the costs of state troopers patrolling the dispensaries, although that recommendation was later dropped.

Growers are required to have surveillance video of every square foot of their facility and to preserve recordings for two years, which is longer than some police dashcam footage must be retained in Texas. They also aren't allowed to bring in a third-party to test the quality of their product.

The driver behind the Texas law is Republican Stephanie Klick, a Christian conservative who strongly opposes the recreational use of drugs and who didn't support expanding her law this spring. She said it took her 18 months to round up enough votes in the Legislature and convince skeptics that patients weren't going to abuse the cannabis oil.

"There was one sheriff that thought these kids were going to be juvenile delinquents and end up in his jail. And these are really sick kids," Klick said, noting that lawmakers will consider expansion only after they've seen the results of the current framework.

Only four states - Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska and Idaho - have no form of medical marijuana on the books. Seventeen others, including Texas, allow only low-THC medical cannabis, according to research from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Karmen Hanson, a program director for NCSL, said Texas is unusual for requiring that a doctor "prescribe" the cannabis oil instead of using the word "referral" like most states. The distinction is blamed for dissuading more Texas doctors from signing up, because under federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule 1 drug with no medical use and therefore can't be prescribed.

Dr. Paul Van Ness, a neurologist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is one of the few doctors who have registered with state to participate in the program. He said he supports the restrictive nature of the Texas program, though he concedes the downside is limited access.

He said he already has patients smoking marijuana, some of whom have been arrested because of it.

"They didn't belong in jail, but that's what happens in Texas," Van Ness said. "So if they can do it legally, that's a lot safer."

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pauljweber

Follow Claudia Lauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/claudialauer

___

Sign up for the AP's weekly newsletter showcasing our best reporting from the Midwest and Texas: http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv
PERRYVILLE, Mo. (AP) - A dog who was the subject of a two-year court battle and a faked death is back with his adopted family in Missouri.

KSDK-TV reports that Jamie Patterson and her seven kids adopted Mack the boxer-mastiff mix from Rough Road Rescue in Perryville in 2015.

It turned out that Mack was quite the escape artist. The last time he wandered off, Rough Road Rescue director Steve Svehla found him and decided to keep him, accusing Patterson of neglect.

A two-year court battle ensued. The courts sided with Patterson.

But instead of handing over Max, Svehla gave Patterson a box of ashes, saying the dog died.

He eventually fessed up to the lie, and gave up the dog.

Svehla is charged with theft for failing to turn over Mack immediately after the case ended.

___

Information from: KSDK-TV, http://www.ksdk.com
WASHINGTON (AP) - America's top diplomat stepped back Friday from his offer of unconditional talks with North Korea, telling world powers the nuclear-armed nation must earn the right to negotiate with the United States.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's declaration before the U.N. Security Council marked a stunning reversal after he proposed discussions with Pyongyang without preconditions earlier this week. That overture was almost immediately rebutted by White House officials.

Still, Tillerson had planned to reiterate his call at a special U.N. ministerial meeting on North Korea at the council Friday morning. His prepared remarks suggested only that North Korea would have to undertake a sustained halt in its threatening behavior before talks could begin. But Tillerson changed the script.

Mark Field British Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, left, listens as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a high level Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," Tillerson told the foreign ministers. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved. We will in the meantime keep our channels of communication open."

The debate over offering North Korea unconditional talks reflects the differences within the Trump administration as it runs out of time to prevent North Korea from perfecting a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the U.S. mainland. President Donald Trump has vowed to prevent such capability, with military action if necessary.

So far, U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea and diplomatic isolation haven't compelled Kim Jong Un's government to stop its nuclear and missile tests, or to seek negotiations.

Asked Friday if he supported unconditional talks, Trump did not answer directly.

"Well, we're going to see what happens with North Korea. We have a lot of support. There are a lot of nations that agree with us - almost everybody," Trump told reporters. He credited China - which accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea's external trade - with helping on pressuring North Korea, while Russia was not.

"We'd like to have Russia's help - very important," said Trump. He raised it in a Thursday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the issue of starting talks with North Korea, Tillerson's tone was significantly different from three days earlier.

On Tuesday, Tillerson said at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington that "we are ready to have the first meeting without preconditions." He had also called it "unrealistic" to expect North Korea to enter talks ready to relinquish a weapons of mass destruction program it invested so much in developing, although that remained the ultimate goal.

The White House quickly distanced itself from Tillerson's remarks. On Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesperson said North Korea must not only first refrain from provocations but take "sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearization" for talks to happen. The spokesperson, who was not authorized to be quoted by name and requested anonymity, said that given North Korea's most recent missile test, now was not the time for talks.

Tillerson and Trump have appeared to clash before on North Korea, amid questions about the former ExxonMobil executive's future as top diplomat. In October, Trump said Tillerson was "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with the North. Trump's tweet followed Tillerson's talk about Washington maintaining back-channel communications with Pyongyang.

Asked Friday if he and Trump were on the same page, Tillerson denied they were at odds: "The president's policy on North Korea is quite clear and there's no daylight at all between the president's policy and the pursuit of that policy."

He said U.S. communication channels with North Korea remain open and the North knows that.

"They know where the door is. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk," he told reporters.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, did not mention the possibility of talks with the U.S. in his very rare appearance before the Security Council on Friday. He said its possession of nuclear weapons was self-defense against "U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail."

Tillerson called on China and Russia to go beyond U.N.-mandated economic sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. He said North Korean laborers were toiling in "slave-like conditions" in Russia for wages used to fund nuclear weapons, while China was still allowing crude oil to flow into North Korean refineries.

Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said North Korean workers in Russia were guaranteed their rights, and he questioned U.S. commitment to a peaceful resolution of the crisis. China's deputy U.N. ambassador, Wu Haitao, called for early resumption of dialogue, saying "the parties concerned should move towards each other" instead of directing blame.

North Korea has conducted more than 20 ballistic missile tests during 2017 and its most powerful nuclear explosion to date. Its more recent missile test in late November fired a projectile that experts say could carry a nuclear warhead to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

Tillerson said the North's growing capabilities were a "direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world. We do not regard this claim as an empty threat."

He said the U.S. does not want war, but "will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression." He said "our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution."

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono before a high level Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, greets South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun before the start of a high level Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono, left, meets American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson before a high level Security Council meeting on North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Ja Song Nam, bottom, and South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun, top right, listen as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, second from right, speaks during a high level Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
BRISTOL, Conn. (AP) - A former ESPN personality is accusing the network of trying to silence her and other women who assert they were subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.

Adrienne Lawrence made the accusation in a tweet Friday after ESPN published a friendly text message exchange between her and an anchor she had accused of misconduct.

Lawrence, who served a fellowship at ESPN, filed a complaint this summer with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

FILE - This Sept. 16, 2013, file photo shows the ESPN logo prior to an NFL football game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, in Cincinnati. A former ESPN personality is accusing the network of trying to silence her and other women who assert they were subjected to a sexually hostile work environment. Adrienne Lawrence made the accusation in a tweet Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, after ESPN published a friendly text message exchange between her and an anchor she had accused of misconduct.(AP Photo/David Kohl, File)

She alleges, among other things, that she was not offered a permanent job at ESPN after complaining that anchor John Buccigross had sent her unsolicited shirtless photos and used inappropriate nicknames for her.

Those accusations and others were detailed Thursday by the Boston Globe. Buccigross said in a statement to the newspaper that he considered her a friend and was sorry if he offended her.

The network says it investigated Lawrence's complaints and found them without merit.

The Globe says Lawrence asked the Connecticut commission to withdraw her complaint so she could pursue a lawsuit instead. No lawsuits have been filed in the case.
A maker of lithium batteries is promising to provide an economic jolt to the Appalachian region, announcing plans Friday to relocate from California to Kentucky and build a factory employing hundreds of workers in an area reeling from the coal industry's decline.

EnerBlu Inc. announced it will invest $372 million and create 875 full-time jobs in eastern Kentucky with the production facility in Pikeville. The company also will move its headquarters from Riverside, California, bringing another $40 million investment and 110 administrative, research-and-development and executive jobs to Lexington, Kentucky's second-largest city.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority has given preliminary approval for incentives worth up to $30 million over 15 years for EnerBlu's facilities.

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers were among state and regional leaders who gathered in Pikeville to cheer EnerBlu's announcement. The governor predicted the company's arrival would transform a region where coal jobs have disappeared.

"We are not going to live down to the stereoptypes people have of us," the governor said. "We're going to dispel those, and we're going to rise above them and blow people's minds."

Rogers, who represents eastern Kentucky, called the announcement a "big step" toward "evolving the economy of a whole region."

It shows other businesses that eastern Kentucky "is a good place to be," the Republican congressman said. "This is where we've got a lot of workers needing work that are ... capable, ready to go," he said.

Rogers also expressed hopes that people who left their homes in search of jobs will come back.

"We've got a labor pool that extends far beyond the boundaries of eastern Kentucky, dying to come home," he said. "And this will give them a chance to do just that."

The company pointed to the availability of workers, low power costs and Kentucky's location within a day's drive of 65 percent of the nation's population as factors in its choice.

"You cannot imagine how thrilling it is to play a part in helping revitalize a region and put coal miners back to work through retraining and good jobs," said Michael Weber, executive chairman at EnerBlu. "It is tremendously gratifying to be more than just a company that sells products, but to also make an impact on people's lives."

The Pikeville plant will manufacture rechargeable lithium titanate batteries that power transit buses, commercial trucks, military vehicles and other equipment. Construction is scheduled to start in mid-2018, with the opening in 2020. The new headquarters office is expected to open early next year.

Also in eastern Kentucky, Braidy Industries announced plans in April to build a $1.3 billion aluminum plant in Greenup County that would create 550 full time jobs. Kentucky taxpayers own 20 percent of the company after the state legislature approved a last-minute request from Bevin, without knowing how the money would be spent.

___

Associated Press Writer Adam Beam in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday the U.S. plans to impose sanctions on at least one person responsible for the crackdown on Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, a significant U.S. policy shift after years of rolling back economic restrictions on the Southeast Asian nation.

Tillerson did not say who would be hit by the sanctions and when, but as early as next week the Trump administration is expected to announce designations under a U.S. law that allows targeted sanctions on foreign individuals for human rights violations and corruption. Such designations lead to seizure of U.S. assets and exclusion from the U.S. financial system.

Starting in 2012, Washington progressively eased broad economic and political sanctions to reward Myanmar's shift toward democracy after decades of direct military rule. While re-imposition of sweeping restrictions on trade and investment is not in the cards, the U.S. threatened last month to punish officials from the military or other security forces responsible for the crackdown that has prompted 630,000 refugees to escape to neighboring Bangladesh.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks to reporters after a high level Security Council meeting on the situation in North Korea, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017, at United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The U.S. has called the violence "ethnic cleansing." Myanmar denies it, saying its "clearance operations" that triggered the exodus did not target civilians. It says security forces were responding to attacks by Rohingya militants on security forces in August.

Tillerson told reporters at the United Nations in New York the U.S. is continuing to assess what happened.

"We want Myanmar's democracy to succeed," Tillerson said. "This particular crisis is a real test of whether they are going to be able to affect a successful journey to democracy."

He said the U.S. has already identified one individual responsible for the crackdown and is examining other possible individuals for targeted sanctions.

Tillerson also stressed the importance of a free press. He called for the immediate release or information about two Reuters news agency journalists arrested this week for possessing "important secret papers" obtained from two policemen who had worked in Rakhine state - the region the Rohingya have fled from.

Myanmar said Wednesday the journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the policemen will be charged under the country's colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries penalties of up to 14 years in prison.

The Rohingya have long faced persecution in Myanmar, which regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.
TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey judge rejected fears by private beach operators that the state's seizure of part of their sand for a storm protection project will also enable the state to seize their businesses.

In two cases decided Friday, Superior Court Judge Marlene Lynch Ford sided with the state Department of Environmental Protection, which is using eminent domain condemnation proceedings to acquire land for a protective sand dune project along most of the state's 127-mile coast.

New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie began the dune program months after Superstorm Sandy pummeled the coast in 2012. In nearly every case to make it to court, a judge has upheld the state's right to proceed with the work.

This Dec. 4, 2017 photo shows seagulls flying around a beachgoer on Risden's Beach in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J. The owners of the privately owned beach fear that New Jersey's effort to build protective sand dunes there would allow the state to seize their business. The state denies any such intention. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

The judge appeared sympathetic to claims by the privately owned Risden's Beach that giving the state an easement to do the work would also enable it to seize the company's business at any time.

But she noted that the state has indicated it has no intention of seizing the beach unless its owners no longer offer public access.

The judge also sided with the state against a private entity that runs Bay Head's public beaches, which raised the same issues.

Risden's owns its beach in Point Pleasant Beach, but has operated it as a commercial beach, open to the public in return for beach badge fees, for 70 years. The company's lawyer, John Buonocore, said Risden's does not object to the construction of the protective dunes, but vehemently objects to giving the state the right to operate a public beach there, which he said would seize and ruin the company's valuable, privately run business.

"This is a taking of someone's livelihood when there's no need for it," he said. "What we don't want to is to work for you as your employee or slave."

The judge expressed concern with the state claiming the right to usurp a privately owned, thriving business. But she also noted that there is ample language in state court filings indicating that New Jersey has no plans to do so, at least anytime soon.

Brian Keatts, an attorney for the DEP, said the only situation under which the state would use its right to operate a public beach is if Risden's one day decided to place its sands off-limits to the public. Despite the company's offer to execute a deed restriction making the beach open to the public forever, the state insists on language giving it the right to operate a beach because such a move may one day be needed if public access is withdrawn by its private owners.

The judge also sided with the state in two other cases Friday in which a beachfront condominium association and a private oceanfront homeowner raised the same objection to the state's seizing the right to operate a public beach on their land.

___

Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC
I have been blessed to meet some incredible people in my life, but one of the most amazing was a spin class instructor in Paducah, Ky., who became a close friend.

Julia is the most thankful and gracious person I have ever known.

I knew Julia (and husband Mark) for two or three years before I put two and two together and realized they are the parents of a young lady who had been shot at one of Americas first random high school shootings, two years prior to Columbine. Dec. 1 marked the 20th anniversary.

As students gathered around the school's flagpole for prayer one morning a fellow student pulled out a stolen pistol and began firing, killing three and injuring five more.

Mark and Julias daughter was severely injured and it was that experience that Julia says caused her to choose thankfulness and to express it with gratitude.

Paducah is a small town where everyone knows their neighbors and Mark and Julia knew the shooter's parents, who were active and engaged in the school and the community.

On about the third day of their daughter's recovery, and having never left her side at the hospital, Julia said she took a call from a friend who told her that the shooter's parents would like to come to the hospital and express their sorrow and grief for what their son had done.

She said her first instinct was to say no way, absolutely not.

But she said she would talk to her husband and let them know.

So Mark and Julia discussed it with their daughter and together came to the agonizing conclusion that to get beyond it, they must face their conflicted feelings.

Julia said that as soon as the boy's parents saw them, they burst into tears and expressed deep sorrow for what their son had done and the pain he had caused so many families.

Julia said she had no doubt their sorrow and pain was genuine and she, Mark and their daughter knew that as Christians, they had no choice but to forgive, but moreover, they wanted to forgive these hurting and grieving parents.

Julia said, I decided in that moment that I could not be thankful (for her daughters survival and healing) if I could not forgive.

Everyone who knows Julia, loves Julia, because everyone she meets is greeted with a smile, a hug and an infectious sense of thankfulness.

So yes, Dec. 1 reminded me of an anniversary; an anniversary that a young man intended for evil but God used for good.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) - Thousands of supporters of opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla blocked highways with flaming barricades Friday to protest Honduras' disputed presidential election, in which incumbent Juan Orlando Hernandez holds a slim lead according to official results.

Demonstrators spread oil, diesel and nails on the roads to impede passage by police and military vehicles and threw rocks at security forces, who responded with salvos of tear gas.

Police and soldiers repeatedly cleared the barricades only for them to re-emerge. Protesters are demanding that the Supreme Electoral Tribunal declare Nasralla, who has alleged electoral fraud, the winner nearly three weeks after the vote amid a count marred by delays and irregularities.

A soldier and a driver abandon their burning vehicle set on fire by protesters who ensue throwing rocks, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Friday Dec.15, 2017. Protests in support of Honduran presidential opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla continued throughout the country Friday as Nasralla demanded a full recount, refused to recognize the results and called for a nationwide protests. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)

"We will be here until we achieve our aims," said former President Manuel Zelaya, ousted in a 2009 coup, who leads Nasralla's party and led one of the protests on a highway outside the capital, Tegucigalpa. "We will be like this until we defeat the spurious regime of Juan Orlando Hernandez and its shameless fraud in the Nov. 26 election."

Hernandez, who won 43 percent of the vote to Nasralla's 41.4 percent according to the count, has repeatedly called for calm and patience as the electoral tribunal does its work.

The court has finished a recount of ballot boxes that presented irregularities but has still not declared a winner. It has 30 days from the contest to do so.

The Jesuit-run Radio Progreso said in an editorial that Honduras "continues to be enveloped in uncertainty because there have still been no official data offered about who was the winner."

It urged citizens "to support a transparent, impartial, timely and peaceful determination" to resolve the crisis.

Honduras' National Human Rights Commission said 16 people have died in protests since the election, including two police officers, and 1,675 people have been arrested.

Friday's protests centered on the capital and various parts of a main Caribbean coastal highway.

People in El Carrizal, to the east of Tegucigalpa, blocked roads with boulders and burning tires, threw fire bombs at an army vehicle and chanted, "The dictatorship will fall."

In San Pedro Sula, the country's second largest city, protesters burned a milk delivery truck and unknown looters sacked a small market.

In the evening, hundreds protested outside the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa.

In a statement, Nasralla said the protests "represent a show of support and a call to attention for Hernandez to act according to reason and admit his defeat in the elections."

Electoral tribunal president David Matamoros has insisted that the election and vote count were carried out with transparency.

The political crisis has resulted in the closure of many businesses and daily economic losses estimated at about $50 million.

Armando Urtecho, executive director of the Private Business Council, said some 4,000 jobs have been lost because of the chaos and many businesses are not hiring because of slow sales during the holiday season.

"The people are not buying for fear of what may happen," Urtecho said.

Police attempt to take control of a road blocked by a burning barricade erected by protesters, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Friday, Dec.15, 2017. Protests in support of Honduran presidential opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla continued throughout the country Friday as Nasralla demanded a full recount, refused to recognize the results and called for a nationwide protests. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)

Protesters dump a load of trash to serve as road block, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Protests in support of Honduran presidential opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla continued throughout the country Friday as Nasralla demanded a full recount, refused to recognize the results and called for a nationwide protests. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)

Rocks are scattered on a road, placed there by protesters, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Protests in support of Honduran presidential opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla continued throughout the country Friday as Nasralla demanded a full recount, refused to recognize the results and called for a nationwide protests. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio)
CINCINNATI (AP) - A man accused of shooting and injuring two co-workers at a McDonald's restaurant in suburban Cincinnati has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges.

Twenty-year-old Zachary Allart pleaded not guilty Friday in Hamilton County Municipal Court. Bond was set at $4 million.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office says Allart shot Denise Higgins and Jayla Frost late Wednesday night at a McDonald's in Anderson Township.

Higgins is the restaurant's manager. The sheriff's office says Frost is Allart's ex-girlfriend. Both were hospitalized in critical condition.

The sheriff's office says Allart put a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself before deputies persuaded him to put the gun down.

Court records don't list an attorney for the Cincinnati man.

Anderson Township is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) east of downtown Cincinnati.
WASHINGTON (AP) - North Korea's latest missile test, which U.S. experts say indicated an increasing technological sophistication, did not demonstrate an imminent threat of nuclear attack on the United States, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.

"No, not yet," Mattis said when a reporter asked whether the Nov. 29 test indicated a full capability to strike the U.S.

"It has not yet shown to be a capable threat against us right now," Mattis added. His remark suggested he believes the Trump administration has additional time to pursue diplomacy before resorting to military options for eliminating the North's nuclear arsenal.

"We're still doing the forensic analysis," he added, apparently referring to intelligence agencies' study of imagery of the flight of the missile and its payload, which presumably included a mock warhead. The Trump administration has not publicly disclosed what it knows about what happened to the missile's re-entry vehicle, which detaches from the missile body during flight and is designed to protect warheads from heat creating by re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

Shortly after the November test, Mattis said the missile flew higher than any previous North Korean test, and that it represented a continued effort to build a missile capable of threatening the U.S. Since then, Mattis has said little about it publicly, and the administration has sent mixed messages about its willingness to begin talks with North Korea.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - In a Dec. 14 story about former Kentucky lawmaker Dan Johnson, the Associated Press incorrectly reported that the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting wrote that Maranda Richmond went to police two years ago about being sexually assaulted in 2012 and that it found no evidence that Johnson was in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.

The center said Richmond reported the alleged assault in 2013 and that it found no evidence that Johnson played the role he claimed to have played on September 11.

A corrected version of the story is below:

A Kentucky lawmaker's biography reads like an award-winning memoir: He was a peacekeeper at the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, a White House chaplain to three presidents, a 9/11 first responder who gave last rites to hundreds of people at Ground Zero.

But Republican Dan Johnson's carefully crafted history crumbled this week following an extensively reported story from the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting that tore down his claims and portrayed him as a con man whose deceptions propped up his ministry of a church of outcasts in Louisville and hid a sinister secret: a sexual assault allegation from a 17-year-old girl.

Johnson denied it all, declaring his innocence from the pulpit of the church where he was the self-appointed "pope." But by Wednesday night, he was dead, his body found on the side of a road in a secluded area with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

His death jolted Republican leaders, who were already struggling with a sexual harassment scandal that toppled the state's first GOP House speaker in nearly 100 years plus three other Republican committee chairmen. Most in the party had already turned their back on Johnson, calling for his resignation following the sexual assault allegation and his history of posting racist photos on Facebook that depicted President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys.

By Thursday, many were offering messages of sympathy while acknowledging Johnson's complex life.

"He was passionate about others, I saw it often yet he needed help himself," GOP state Rep. Jim DuPlessis, who sat beside Johnson on the House floor, posted on Twitter.

Johnson's wife, Rebecca Johnson, said her husband was the victim of a "high-tech lynching" and announced she would run to replace him in the Legislature.

Elected in 2016, he was part of a wave of Republican victories that gave the GOP a majority in the Kentucky House for the first time in nearly 100 years. But before that, he was the pastor of Heart of Fire Church in Louisville, which prided itself on welcoming "real people."

"It was a biker church, so there was lots of leather jackets, lots of long hair and people that if you ran into them on the street, you might have a different first impression," said David Adams, a political operative who worked with Johnson on his campaign.

On the church's website, Johnson claimed to have healed sick people during a visit to South America in 1991, including the incredible story of raising a woman from the dead. The miracles are detailed in a letter from David Fischer, pastor of a church in California. Fischer told the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting he did not witness those events and could not point the agency to anyone who had.

On his financial disclosure forms, he lists his only source of income as workers compensation from the state of New York. He says this is from injuries he sustained while working as a chaplain immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City. But the investigative reporting center, following seven months of detailed reporting, could find no evidence that Johnson played the role he claimed to have played that day.

In a Facebook message posted hours before his death, Johnson hinted that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder relating to what he witnessed in New York, details that he shared with his friends through the years, including Republican state Sen. Dan Seum.

"He struggled with that. I know he did. The fact it was so horrific that he was involved in praying over these people," Seum said. "I believed him. I had no reason not to."

The sexual assault allegation came from Maranda Richmond, a former member of Johnson's church. Richmond told the reporting center she was spending the night at Johnson's house on New Year's Eve 2012 when she awoke several hours after midnight to find Johnson standing over her. She said he stuck his tongue in her mouth and put his hands down her pants and into her vagina. She said she begged him to stop and eventually he did.

The Associated Press does not generally identify victims who report sexual assault, but is doing so because Richmond has gone public with her story.

Richmond's public comments match what she told police in 2013, according to police documents obtained by the reporting center. The police then investigated the matter, including a secretly recorded phone call between Johnson and Richmond's father. But a detective later closed the case, saying Richmond refused to cooperate. Richmond denied that.

As a result of the center's reporting, the Louisville Metro Police Department re-opened its investigation.

Johnson held a news conference Tuesday at his church, forcefully denying the allegations with his wife by his side. He said he would not resign, calling the accusations part of a strategy to attack conservative Republicans nationwide. He saved his criticism for the media, saying he did not "want to blast this girl. I have compassion for her. I'm very sorrowful she is in this dark place in her life."

At the end of the news conference, a reporter asked if he had ever raised anyone from the dead. Johnson stopped, turned to face the reporter and said: "God has," before walking out of the pulpit for the final time.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - As sexual assault and harassment allegations sweep through statehouses around the country, no place has been impacted quite like Kentucky: A state forced to confront its past salacious behavior in the midst of an historic transition to Republican rule.

Kentucky's GOP House Speaker resigned his leadership position after acknowledging he secretly settled a sexual harassment claim with a woman in his office. Three other Republican lawmakers lost their committee chairmanships for being part of the same settlement. And a freshman Republican lawmaker who was part of that new political order killed himself Wednesday after facing allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl in his basement.

It's not just Republicans. In July, a recording surfaced detailing how Julian Carroll, a Democratic state senator and former governor, had propositioned a young man for sex and, according to the man, groped him. Carroll denied the allegations and police didn't file any charges.

FILE - In this Jan. 3, 2017 file photo, Jeff Hoover looks up to the cheers from the gallery following his swearing in Frankfort, Ky. Hoover, the former House Speaker, denied sexual harassment but said he did send inappropriate but consensual text messages. It's unclear what the other three Republican lawmakers involved in the settlement are accused of doing. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)

Three years ago, taxpayers paid $400,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against three Democratic lawmakers.

Despite the turmoil, just one lawmaker has resigned: Democrat John Arnold stepped down in 2013 when he was accused of inappropriately touching female employees. His lawyer later said he was in the early stages of dementia. Everyone else has stayed, preventing the dark cloud of scandal from dissipating and exposing a rift between Republican Gov. Matt Bevin and GOP leaders.

Some, including Bevin, have called for resignations while others have urged caution until investigations can be completed.

"We have some of the biggest issues ever facing our state from a financial standpoint and this takes our focus away from the job we're needing to do," said Republican state Rep. Jim DuPlessis.

DuPlessis used to sit by Republican lawmaker Dan Johnson, who killed himself following accusations he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl.

Other statehouses have been rocked by scandal. In California, two Democratic lawmakers have resigned and another is facing pressure to amid allegations of repeated misconduct. Their names came to light after nearly 150 women who work in or around the Legislature wrote an open letter in mid-October outlining pervasive sexual harassment in the Capitol and a culture that protects it.

In Ohio, Republican state Rep. Wesley Goodman resigned after acknowledging "inappropriate behavior" with a person in his office.

Republican state Rep. Phil Moffett of Kentucky said the allegations will spur change in the legislature.

"There isn't a single person in the private sector that does not know that they cannot have an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate," he said. "They know that will be their last day on the job when they do that."

House Republicans hired a law firm to investigate the allegations against the House Speaker, but the report was inconclusive. Lawmakers met with investigators but did not provide a copy of the settlement.

Acting House Speaker David Osborne asked the Legislative Ethics Committee to use its subpoena power to get a copy of the settlement and find out if any part of it was paid for with money from political donors or lobbyists.

And Osborne has put together a committee of lawmakers to come up with a formal system for reporting and investigating workplace complaints.

Jeff Hoover, the former House Speaker, denied sexual harassment but said he did send inappropriate but consensual text messages. It's unclear what the other three Republican lawmakers involved in the settlement are accused of doing.

The scandals in Kentucky are compounded by a budget crisis, with economists projecting a $156 million dollar deficit by June of next year and a public pension system that is at least $44 billion short of the money needed to pay retirement benefits over the next 30 years.

"What we all thought was going to be a really difficult legislative session has just become even more challenging," said Les Fugate, a veteran lobbyist. "We didn't think that was possible."

___

Associated Press reporter Kathleen Ronayne contributed reporting from Sacramento, California.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican authorities say four dead bodies have been discovered with their hands tied in the troubled southern state of Guerrero. A fifth person was hospitalized in grave condition.

Guerrero security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said Friday in a statement that the victims were dumped along a dirt road near the city of Chilapa, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of the state capital of Chilpancingo.

The dead included three men and a woman. The other victim was male.

Chilapa is in a region where opium poppy and other drug plantations are common and has long been the site of drug gang killings. Last month about 100 schools near the city were closed due to gang threats.

Guerrero has been among Mexico's most violent states in recent years amid gang turf battles.
Youthquake has been named as Oxford Dictionaries word of the year following in the footsteps of omnishambles, post-truth and selfie to have been awarded the accolade.

The word  defined as a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people saw a fivefold increase in usage between 2016 and 2017 in part due to the general election and the reported increasing mobilisation of young voters.

The word itself is nearly 50 years old  having been coined by then Vogue editor Diana Vreeland to describe how youth culture was changing fashion and music  but has seen a resurrection in a more political context over the past 12 months.

Youthquake has been named as word of the year (PA Archive)

Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries, said: Youthquake may not seem like the most obvious choice for Word of the Year, and its true that its yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the UK calls it out as a word on the move.

We chose youthquake based on its evidence and linguistic interest. But most importantly for me, at a time when our language is reflecting our deepening unrest and exhausted nerves, it is a rare political word that sounds a hopeful note.

Sometimes you pick a word as the Word of the Year because you recognise that it has arrived, but other times you pick one that is knocking at the door and you want to help usher it in.

This past year calls for a word we can all rally behind.

Fact of the Week: average Tory party member is 57; average Labour member is 53 https://t.co/boMcKzy4Gy #youthquake  John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) October 8, 2017

Youthquake was chosen from a shortlist that included broflake, a man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his more conventional or conservative views, and newsjacking, defined as taking advantage of current events to promote a brand.

Also on the shortlist was milkshake duck, a person or thing that initially inspires delight on social media but is soon revealed to have a distasteful or repugnant past and white fragility, defined as discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice.

The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist  pixelatedboat aka mr tweets (@pixelatedboat) June 12, 2016

Susie Dent, consultant to Oxford Dictionaries, said: Theres not a lot of sunshine in the standout words this year.

Words like Antifa and kompromat speak to fractured times of mistrust and frustration.

In youthquake we find some hope in the power to change things, and had a little bit of linguistic fun along the way. It feels like the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year.

This Friday the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is announced. 2016 was post-truth, 2015 was . So what you got for 2017? Covfefe? Collusion? #MeToo?  Hay Festival (@hayfestival) December 11, 2017

Other recent words of the year have included chav in 2004, followed by sudoku a year later and simples from 2009  with the face with tears of joy emoji winning in 2015.
There are likely to be more scenes of wild celebration in the Cheltenham winners enclosure if Splash Of Ginge can achieve a notable double in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup.

Owner John Neild and the rest of the self-proclaimed Ginge Army were dancing in the rain at Prestbury Park last month after the Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained nine-year-old ploughed through the mud to spring a 25-1 surprise in the BetVictor Gold Cup.

Exotic Dancer was the last horse to win both major prizes in the same season 11 years ago, and Neild believes his pride and joy can repeat the feat.

A must-watch: The 'Splash of Ginge army' celebrate their BetVictor Gold Cup win and dedicate it to Ryan Hatch pic.twitter.com/hd8jo38Xbn  ITV Racing (@itvracing) November 18, 2017

Neild said: Were always optimistic, but if the ground is soft or worse I really think hes got a great chance.

People have called him a lot of names, saying hes in and out and things like that. He can spring a surprise, but if the opportunity is there hell make the most of it.

In a drunken state I had 1,000 on at 1000-1 for him to win the National, so it would be incredible to get him there.

Splash Of Ginge takes control of the BetVictor Gold Cup at Cheltenham (Julian Herbert/PA)

Paul Nicholls saddled the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup winner for a record fourth time when Frodon prevailed 12 months ago and is triple-handed with Clan Des Obeaux, Le Prezien and Romain De Senam.

Nicholls said: He (Clan Des Obeaux) is a five-year-old with 11st 12lb, which is not easy, but he has improved for a wind operation and running in small fields the last twice has helped his confidence.

Romain De Senam does not want it too soft, but that track has not been watered so it will be different ground to the last meeting. Le Prezien is in good form and we just need him to jump better.

Clan Des Obeaux heads an 11-strong field for the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup @CheltenhamRaces on Saturday pic.twitter.com/q8gfTzJdux  PA Racing (@PAracing) December 14, 2017

David Pipe is full of hope Starchitect can go one place better after he finished a neck second to Splash Of Ginge in the BetVictor Gold Cup.

Pipe said: He ran a cracker last time  it was probably the best race of his life  but it was frustrating at the time.

He has been put up 4lb and I think that is fair enough. He deserves to get his head in front in a good one.

David Pipe has high hopes Starchitect can reverse Cheltenham form with Splash Of Ginge (Mike Egerton/PA)

Ballyalton has suffered his fair share of injury problems, but trainer Ian Williams reports his charge to have had a good preparation.

The Alvechurch-based handler said: Weve had as good a run as we could have hoped for since his last run and we are very happy with him.

Were looking forward to the race and wed be happy if the ground isnt quite as desperate as it was for the last meeting.

Ballyalton runs in the colours of golfer Lee Westwoods father, John

Nicky Richards feels Guitar Pete did not have the opportunity to show his true colours a month ago.

The Greystoke-based trainer said: He got badly hampered at the first and basically that was the end of the story.

He is a tough little horse and should run a good race, provided he gets that bit of luck you need in these big handicaps.

Nicky Richards is expecting a big run from Guitar Pete in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup (Brian Lawless/PA)

Kings Odyssey is a leading contender for Evan Williams after he blew away the cobwebs when third over an inadequate trip at Carlisle last month.

The Welsh trainer told At The Races: His best form is around Cheltenham, but we havent seen it for a bit.

Id like heavy ground. All his best form is on very soft ground and the softer the better for him.
Prince Harry returned to Sandhurst to inspect the newest batch of officer recruits, more than a decade after his own graduation from the prestigious military academy.

Harry, who represented the Queen at the historic Sovereigns Parade, recalled personal memories of his passing out as he addressed the latest commissioning officers.

Prince Harry is today representing Her Majesty The Queen as the Reviewing Officer at the Sovereigns Parade. The Sovereigns Parade marks the passing out from Sandhurst of Officer Cadets who have competed the Commissioning Course. pic.twitter.com/5v6ZFSApz9  The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) December 15, 2017

On that occasion in April 2006 the prince was inspected by his grandmother the Queen and was pictured grinning as she smiled at him.

Speaking to the 201 commissioning officers at the parade ground in Camberley, Surrey, on Friday, he joked that his mind then had been focussed on the challenges of the military parade rather than his achievement in becoming an officer.

Prince Harry arrives at the Royal Military Academy. (Steve Parsons/PA)

He said: It is not the first time that I have been a part of this parade but it is certainly my first one facing in this direction  and with facial hair!

A little over 11 years ago, I was stood where you are today. Although I confess, I dont remember any deep thoughts of duty, responsibility and leadership at that point.

My head was filled with much more immediate concerns: numb feet, the buckle of my braces digging into my collarbone, a burning in my arm from the weight of the rifle; and above all, desperate attempts to remember what the next words of command were, to avoid drawing the attention from the Academy sergeant major one last time!

(Steve Parsons/PA)

The Band of the Scots Guards played various tunes, including Adeles Rolling In The Deep, as the soldiers marched in front of the prince on the bright but bitterly cold December day.

The event came as it was revealed that the newly-engaged royals wedding to Meghan Markle will take place on May 19 next year.

(Steve Parsons/PA)

Following the traditional inspection, Harry presented the Sword of Honour to Senior Under Officer Charles Rex, from Dorset, and the Queens Medal to Officer Cadet George Harrison from Wiltshire.

The International Award was presented to Officer Cadet Mingdong Tang from China, and the International Sword to Officer Cadet Milosh Trendevski from Macedonia.

Senior Under Officer Rex said it had been amazing to have Harry, who left the army in 2015, present him with the top award.

(Steve Parsons/PA)

The 23-year-old, who will now join The Rifles, said: I cant really describe it. To get the Sword of Honour and to have Prince Harry here today is amazing. He knows what it is like to be here at Sandhurst.

Harry appeared impressed by a painting of himself and other members of the royal family at his own passing out, which hangs just inside the entrance of the Old College building.

Smiling at the work by artist Sergei Pavlenko which features the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall and Duke of Cambridge, Harry spoke with John Archibald, who has been hall porter at the academy for 19 years.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Archibald said: He said its the first time hes seen it hanging on the wall here. He said he liked it and asked is it well respected? And I said it is.

HRH was commissioned as an Army officer in April 2006. The Queen, accompanied by The Duke of Edinburgh, took the salute at the Sovereigns Parade at Sandhurst. The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall and The Duke of Cambridge also attended the Parade. pic.twitter.com/m5ozneIWnr  The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) December 15, 2017

Earlier, Harry attended the commissioning service at the Royal Memorial Chapel.

The Sovereigns Parade takes place at the end of each term for those who have completed the intensive, year-long Commissioning Course.

Sandhurst, where the Armys officers are trained, has hosted many famous graduates including the Sultan of Brunei, Sir Winston Churchill, fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, James Bond author Ian Fleming and actor David Niven, as well as members of the royal family, including the Duke of Cambridge.

Harry has previously described his decade-long Army career as epic, saying that while it had started as a boyhood dream of his it eventually became a way for him to escape the limelight.

During his 10 years in the military Harry went on two tours of duty to Afghanistan and qualified as an Apache aircraft commander.
A British car designed to reach 1,000mph will be tested for the first time on its South African dry bed race track in October next year, it has been disclosed.

Bloodhound SSC will be tested at Hakskeen Pan, Northern Cape with the team behind the supersonic car aiming for the 500mph milestone.

In October, Bloodhound, which is driven by ex-RAF fighter pilot Andy Green, reached 200mph during trials at Cornwall Airport in Newquay.

(PA Graphics)

The car is a combination of a fighter jet, a Formula One car and a spaceship and is fitted with an EJ200 jet engine, sourced from a Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

The team said the trials would test Bloodhounds performance and handling during one of its most vulnerable phases - the point between 400mph and 500mph.

The stability of the car transitions from being governed by the interaction of the wheels with the desert surface to being controlled by the its aerodynamics.

The grip from the wheels will fall off faster than the aerodynamic forces build up, so this is likely to be the point where the car is at its least stable.

The team, which is based in Bristol, said hundreds of gigabytes of data would be gathered by more than 500 sensors built into Bloodhound during testing.

The car will run for the first time with its solid 900mm wide, 95kg aluminium wheels, specially designed for the desert surface.

They are designed to spin at up to 10,200rpm - more than four times faster than the wheels on an F1 car at top speed.

Driver Andy Green. (Nick Ansell/PA)

The 12-mile desert race track has been prepared by 317 members of the local Mier community, who have moved 16,000 tonnes of rock from 22 million square metres of dry lakebed.

The car will attempt to break the land speed record in South Africa in 2019.

Mr Green, who was the driver of the Thrust SSC team as it set the current record of 763mph in 1997, said: Bloodhound 500 is a key milestone on the route to setting a 1,000mph record.

Building on everything we learned in Newquay this October, well learn a tremendous amount by going fast on the desert the car was designed to run on.
E-Zine

In this weeks Computer Weekly, we look at how the hospitality sector is turning to technology to rebuild after it was devastated by the pandemic. Googles cloud business is growing but remains well behind the market leaders  what does its future look like? And we look at the benefits of AIOps for storage. Read the issue now. Continue Reading
WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress reached a deal this week on a final version of their debt-financed legislation to cut taxes for businesses and wealthy Americans, with House and Senate votes expected early next week. Republicans control both chambers but have only a 52-to-48 Senate majority, meaning they can lose no more than two votes and still pass their tax bill, which Democrats oppose. The following are the Republican lawmakers to watch: MARCO RUBIO The Florida senator and former presidential contender said on Thursday he will vote against the tax plan if its proposed refundable amount for the child tax credit is not increased. Rubio told reporters that tax negotiators have made many changes to the legislation, including lowering the top rate paid by wealthy individuals. "My concern is that if you found the money to lower the top rate ... you can't find a little bit to at least somewhat increase the refundable portion of it?" Rubio asked. MIKE LEE The Utah senator also is unhappy with the legislation's child tax credit approach and "undecided" on whether he will vote for the measure if there are no changes, his spokesman has told Reuters. Lee and Rubio are in negotiations aimed at making more of the tax credit refundable so more low-income families can benefit from it, his office said on Thursday. SUSAN COLLINS The Maine moderate has said she cannot say whether she will be supportive "until I see the bill." Republican leaders persuaded Collins' to support the Senate's version of the bill earlier this month by promising to take up two healthcare provisions before the end of the year that would help mitigate her concerns about repealing Obamacare's "individual mandate." Republican tax writers also included amendments offered by Collins to woo her support. One preserves the deductibility of property-tax payments at a cap of $10,000. The final bill goes further by preserving the same deduction for state and local income-tax payments. BOB CORKER Corker, a deficit hawk from Tennessee, stalled momentum on the Senate tax bill earlier this month, then ended up voting against it due to its expansion of the federal deficit. Nonpartisan government estimates have shown the Republican tax bill will expand the deficit by about $1.5 trillion in a decade, or $1 trillion after accounting for economic growth. Corker has said this week of the compromise bill: "My deficit concerns have not been alleviated." JEFF FLAKE The Arizona conservative voted for the Senate tax bill earlier this month after announcing he had succeeded in eliminating an $85 billion expensing "budget gimmick." Flake also got a commitment from Senate leaders and the Trump administration to work on permanent protections for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Flake has not yet said whether he will support the compromise bill and was not specific about his hesitation in brief hallway remarks to reporters this week. JOHN MCCAIN The Arizona senator, war hero and former presidential nominee voted for the Senate bill but his office said this week he is undergoing treatment for side effects of cancer therapy at a military hospital outside Washington. McCain, 81, missed non-tax votes this week. His office said he "looks forward to returning to work as soon as possible." THAD COCHRAN The Mississippi senator, who also voted for the Senate bill, was absent from Capitol Hill for nearly a month earlier this year and has missed votes in recent weeks. Cochran's office said the 80-year-old senator is in Washington and expects to vote for tax legislation next week. MIKE PENCE Vice President Mike Pence has delayed a planned trip to the Middle East in case his vote is needed to break a tie on the final tax bill. Pence has played the role of dealmaker during Senate negotiations, assuring both Collins and Flake their concerns about the legislation would be addressed. RON JOHNSON Johnson endorsed the Senate bill after getting a 23 percent tax deduction for pass-through business income. The Wisconsin senator has said he is encouraged by the compromise bill, which has a 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through business income, and a lower top individual rate of 37 percent. (Reporting by Amanda Becker, Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Amanda Becker; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Bill Trott)
By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Two nephews of Venezuela's first lady were sentenced to 18 years in prison on Thursday following their convictions in New York on U.S. drug trafficking charges.

U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty sentenced the two men, Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas, 32, and Efrain Antonio Campo Flores, 31, at a hearing in federal court in Manhattan. The two are cousins, both nephews of Cilia Flores, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife.

Lawyers for both defendants had asked for a shorter sentence of 10 years, while prosecutors had sought 30. Crotty said 30 years would be excessive, noting that Flores de Freitas and Campo Flores had no previous criminal history.

"What moves me is that Mr. Campo Flores and Mr. Flores de Freitas were perhaps not the most astute drug dealers who ever existed," he said. "They were in over their heads."

Both cousins spoke briefly before being sentenced.

"I know that I have made very serious mistakes in this case," Campo Flores said, going on to apologize to his wife and children.

"I've always been a good person," Flores de Freitas said. "Even in jail I tried to help those who were in a worse psychological situation than I find myself in." He asked that the judge allow him to return to Venezuela soon to be near his son.

Lawyers for the two men had no immediate comments after the sentencing.

Flores de Freitas and Campo Flores were arrested in Haiti in November 2015 in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation. Prosecutors said in a court filing they tried to make $20 million through drug trafficking to help keep their family in power.

Campo Flores and Flores de Freitas were convicted in November 2016 by a jury of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.

Lawyers for the two men said in a court filing earlier this year that prosecutors had proven only "bungling discussions of a drug plot that could never actually have been executed."

Days after the conviction, Maduro blasted the case in a speech as an instance of "U.S. imperialism." Maduro has frequently cast U.S. accusations of drug trafficking as a pretext for meddling in Venezuela and trying to topple him.

Under Maduro, oil-producing Venezuela has fallen into an economic and political crisis in which more than 120 people have died in four months of protests. The United States announced new sanctions against Maduros government in July.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy)
By Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The use of giant rats to sniff out the potentially deadly disease tuberculosis (TB) in Tanzania is set to nearly double by the end of the year due to successful detection rates, a charity who trains them said on Thursday.

African Giant Pouched Rats, which are taught to detect TB using their olfactory abilities, have been so successful at the task that they will now service nearly 60 clinics countrywide, up from 29.

The rats, which can measure up to three feet (0.9 m) and can spot TB in samples of human mucus, were introduced in Tanzania in 2007 by Belgian charity APOPO as an alternative to more costly and slower traditional chemical testing.

"APOPO is very encouraged about the support and trust in our diagnostic service," Lena Fiebig, the non-profit's head of TB, said in a statement.

Tuberculosis, which is curable and preventable, is one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), killing 1.7 million people in 2016.

In Tanzania, some 287 in 100,000 people are thought to be TB-infected, putting the country among 30 nations that the WHO views as TB hotspots due to the disease's high incidence.

Yet, lack of money or awareness often means people in the east African nation fail to get screened.

Under the rat program's growing footprint, mucus samples are dispatched by motorbike from across the country to laboratories, including one in the capital Dar es Salaam that employs 10 rats. Seventeen more clinics will be located in Dar es Salaam.

APOPO said trained rats take 20 minutes to screen 100 samples - compared to four days for a lab technician - with almost 100 percent accuracy although the rodents cannot distinguish between normal and drug-resistant strains.

The rats, nicknamed 'HeroRATs', undergo a training process that begins when they are four weeks old and involves receiving banana rewards for good behavior.

APOPO's rats are also at work fighting tuberculosis in Mozambique and Ethiopia with APOPO one of various organizations fighting to meeting the global plan to end TB by 2030.

The rats are also deployed to detect explosives in minefields from Cambodia to Colombia. (Reporting by Sebastien Malo @sebastienmalo, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith; 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)
LIMA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski has lost support of senior cabinet officials after it emerged he had business links to scandal-plagued Brazilian company Odebrecht, two government sources said on Thursday, amid opposition calls for him to resign.

Cabinet members were shocked to learn on Wednesday about payments Odebrecht said it had made to a company controlled by Kuczynski, who had repeatedly denied having any ties to the construction firm, the sources said. Key ministers and lawmakers within Kuczynski's party want him to step down, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Kuczynski has denied any improper earnings and offered to explain the matter to Congress. (Reporting by Mitra Taj; Editing by Daniel Flynn and James Dalgleish)
Dec 14 (Reuters) - A suburban New York hospital technician accused of using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to launder money meant for the militant group Islamic State was arrested on charges of money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization and bank fraud, prosecutors said Thursday.

Federal prosecutors in New York's Suffolk County claimed in court papers that Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, used fraudulent credit cards and loans to accumulate $85,000, which she attempted to transfer to the radical group Islamic State before attempting to go to Syria to join it.

Prosecutors said that after traveling to Jordan to work with the Syrian American Medical Society, Shahnaz returned to the United States and applied for six credit cards, which she used to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The resident of the hamlet of Brentwood in Islip on Long Island appeared before a federal judge late on Thursday and was ordered detained, prosecutors said.

Shahnaz' lawyer, Steve Zissou, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

After borrowing about $85,000 with fraudulently obtained credit cards and loans and withdrawing another $22,000 from bank accounts in her own name, Shahnaz sent funds to recipients in Pakistan, China and Turkey, prosecutors said.

Some of that money came in the form of $63,000 in bitcoin and other crypto-currencies purchased with the credit cards, prosecutors said.

Arraignment and detention documents released on Thursday showed that Shahnaz, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said that in July Shahnaz obtained a Pakistani passport and booked a flight to Pakistan with a layover in Istanbul with the intention of going to Syria. She was stopped by law enforcement investigators at John F. Kennedy airport and questioned about her trip and the financial transactions, prosecutors said.

She had $9,500 in cash with her, just under the limit of $10,000 that a person can take out of the country without declaring it to immigration and customs officials, they said.

Subsequent searches of Shahnaz' electronic devices showed numerous searches for Islamic State-related material, including travel checklists.

She faces three charges of money laundering, including money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization, and is also charged with bank fraud. She faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the money laundering charges and up to 30 years for the bank fraud charge. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
By Daniel Wiessner

Dec 14 (Reuters) - A U.S. labor board on Thursday overturned an Obama-era ruling that had made it easier for unions and workers to hold companies accountable for practices of contractors and franchisees, a decision welcomed by business groups that could affect a major case against McDonald's Corp .

The 3-2 decision by the National Labor Relations Board reversed the standard it had set in a 2015 case involving Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. It reinstated a previous test that says companies are "joint employers" only when they exercise direct control over workers.

President Donald Trump appointed two Republicans to the five-member NLRB earlier this year, giving his party a 3-2 majority for the first time in a decade. Trump's appointees, who joined the board in August and September, are widely expected to revisit a series of recent NLRB decisions that business groups say unfairly favored unions. Thursday's decision marked the third time this week the board overruled an Obama era decision.

Use of franchising or contract labor allows many companies to avoid the costs and responsibilities of directly employing workers. But a company found to be a joint employer can be required to bargain with unions and may be held liable for labor law violations by contractors, staffing agencies or franchisees.

Prior to the 2015 ruling in Browning-Ferris, companies were found to be joint employers of workers hired by another business if they had "direct and immediate" control over working conditions.

In the Browning-Ferris decision, the NLRB said joint employment could also exist when companies have only "indirect or unexercised control" over workers.

On Thursday, the board said the Democratic majority in Browning-Ferris overstepped its authority by altering the legal definitions of employment.

The two Democrats on the board dissented, saying the Browning-Ferris decision was legally sound and the majority failed to provide any "real-world examples or even remotely plausible hypotheticals" that show how the standard harmed businesses.

In a separate case, the NLRB has filed complaints against McDonald's claiming it was the joint employer of franchise workers across the country. A trial began over 2-1/2 years ago, but Thursday's decision could derail the bulk of the case.

The McDonald's case had been seen as an important test of how Browning-Ferris, which did not mention franchisors, would apply to those companies.

"At the very least, this significantly narrows the issues and it should be very comforting to McDonalds and the franchise community," said Michael Lotito, a partner at labor law firm Littler Mendelson who represents employers.

A lawyer representing McDonald's in the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but two restaurant trade groups hailed the ruling. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation and other trade groups also applauded the decision, which came in a case involving two construction companies based in Iowa and Illinois.

The board said the companies were joint employers of several workers who were unlawfully fired for going on strike.

The International Franchise Association and National Restaurant Association, which represent McDonald's and other fast-food restaurant operators, have been especially vocal critics of the Browning-Ferris standard, arguing it could doom the franchising industry.

The restaurant association said in a statement that Thursday's decision "restores years of established law and brings back clarity for restaurants and small businesses across the country." (Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Leslie Adler and David Gregorio)
Dec 15 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

CURRENT ACCOUNT

Romania's current account deficit rose to 5.3 billion euros ($6.27 billion) in the first ten months compared with a shortfall of 2.8 billion euros in the same period of last year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

DEBT TENDERS

Romania's finance ministry rejected all bids at tenders for one-year treasury bills and March 2022 bonds on Thursday, central bank data showed.

CRIMINAL CODE

A fresh row over judicial changes in Romania broke out on Thursday with prosecutors and the political opposition warning that proposed amendments to the criminal code would weaken the fight against corruption and other crimes.

CEE MARKETS

Warsaw stocks were driven higher by bank shares on Thursday after Poland's third-largest lender, Bank Zachodni WBK, signed a deal to buy Deutsche Bank's Polish assets.

PRIVATE PENSIONS

The assets of private pension funds in Romania, grouped under a second and third pillar scheme, are estimated to top 10 billion euros by the end of 2018, the private pension funds association said.

For the long-term Romanian diary, click on

For emerging markets economic events, click on

For an index of all diaries, click on

For other related news, double click on: --------------------------------------------------------------- Romanian equities RO-E E.Europe equities .CEE Romanian money RO-M Romanian debt RO-D Eastern Europe EEU All emerging markets EMRG Hot stocks HOT Stock markets STX Market debt news DBT Forex news FRX For real-time index quotes, double click on: Bucharest BETI Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX ---------------------------------------------------------------
By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen encouraged the United States and European Union on Friday to freeze the assets of Cambodian leaders abroad in response to his government's crackdown on the opposition and civil society.

Hun Sen, the strongman who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, has taken a strident anti-Western line ahead of a 2018 election and has dismissed donor criticism of the dissolution of the main opposition party.

The United States and European Union have suspended funding for next year's election and Washington has put visa curbs on some Cambodian leaders. There is no current proposal for asset freezes by either the United States or European Union, but some lawmakers have floated the idea.

"I encourage the European Union and United States to freeze the wealth of Cambodian leaders abroad," Hun Sen told a group of athletes in Phnom Penh, the capital.

Hun Sen said he has no money abroad and any actions by the EU and the U.S. would not hurt him.

The U.S. embassy made no comment. EU Ambassador George Edgar said on Friday there had been no decision on further measures by the bloc.

The Supreme Court dissolved the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) last month at the request of the government, on the grounds it was plotting to seize power.

Hun Sen accused Kem Sokha, the leader of the CNRP of a U.S.-backed anti-government plot. The opposition leader and the United States denied that.

China, Cambodia's largest aid donor, has leant its support to Hun Sen, saying it respects Cambodia's right to defend its national security. (Reporting by Prak Chan; Editing by Clarence FernandezThul)
LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), publisher of Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, has handed Xceligent, its struggling United States property information business, over to liquidators, it said on Friday.

Last month DMGT launched a strategic review of Xceligent.

"Following completion of the strategic review, the Board of Xceligent, Inc. has decided to file for Chapter 7 liquidation," DMGT said.

Full responsibility for all current litigation involving Xceligent will be assumed by a Chapter 7 trustee.

DMGT said financial guidance issued for full-year 2018 on Nov. 30 remains unchanged.

It said the adjusted operating margin of DMGT's B2B portfolio of businesses was still expected to be in the mid-teens, including Xceligent's closure costs. Further exceptional cash costs relating to Xceligent were not anticipated. (Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)
By Raushan Nurshayeva

ASTANA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Squeezed out of its traditional markets in Central Asia by Russia's record grain crop, Kazakhstan has cut its grain export target while aiming to increase sales to China, Deputy Agriculture Minister Nurzhan Altayev told Reuters.

The former Soviet republic has cut grain export forecast for its 2017/18 marketing season to 8 million tonnes from 9 million tonnes, Altayev said. In the previous season, Kazakhstan exported 8.3 million tonnes of grain.

Russia harvested a record 139.8 million tonnes of grain before drying and cleaning this year.

"Russia has an all-time high crop and they are essentially entering all the markets where we used to sell," Altayev said.

So far this season, which runs from June to July, Kazakhstan has exported 3.9 million tonnes of grain, up from 3.6 million tonnes in the same period last season.

"Our grain usually went to Central Asian and Caspian markets, and they (Russia) are trying to do the same. Therefore, competition is very serious."

Some relief, he said, would come from higher sales to China. In January-September, Kazakhstan shipped 242,000 tonnes of grain to China, compared with 300,000 in the whole of 2016.

DIVERSIFICATION

"I think this (Chinese) market will only grow," Altayev said.

In order to retain a foothold in the traditional markets of neighbouring countries, Altayev said, the ministry would propose expanding grain terminals on the borders.

But a longer-term solution would be diversification, he said. Wheat makes up almost 70 percent of Kazakhstan's grain crop.

"We should not rely just on wheat which has low value added and for which we have big, serious competitors nearby. We need to explore other niches," Altayev said.

Kazakh barley exports to Iran, for example have jumped after the latter stopped importing wheat, and the price of barley has matched that of wheat, he said. Barley makes up 15 percent of Kazakhstan's grain mix.

Altayev said the ministry saw next year's grain harvest at 22-23 million tonnes compared with this year's roughly 22 million tonnes.

DEBT

Events such as lower-than-expected crops or seasons of overproduction such as the current one have left large Kazakh farms saddled with debt they are struggling to repay.

Altayev said the country's three largest grain companies - Kazexportastyk, Ivolga and Alibi - owed banks a combined $1.5 billion.

"This is a serious issue, but it can be resolved," he said, adding that the government was working with the companies on "roadmaps" for repayments.

"In theory, one could just up and bankrupt them all at once, but when we see there is a chance to gradually rehabilitate these companies, I think we should do that," Altayev said. (Writing by Olzhas Auyezov, editing by David Evans)
DAKAR, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Air traffic controllers in Senegal shut down the capital Dakar's newly inaugurated airport on Friday, claiming they were striking to protect travellers after they received inadequate training before the facility opened this month.

The government says the new $680 million airport, which opened on Dec. 7, will help make Senegal a transport hub in West Africa and boost the country's tourism sector.

But Mame Alioune Sene, the president of the union representing the airport's air traffic controllers, said his members had called a 24-hour strike "for people's security".

"Senegal spent a lot of money on this new airport but we haven't been trained for the installations at the control tower," Sene told Reuters.

The union is also demanding increased stipends for employees' transport to the airport, which lies some 45 km (28 miles) outside the city centre, Sene said.

He said the strike would be extended if the workers' terms are not met. An airport source confirmed that all flights had been grounded since midnight.

The airport is Senegal's busiest and the strike is likely to affect scheduled flights by international carriers, including Air France and Ethiopian Airlines.

A spokesman for the airport was not immediately available for comment.

Senegal, a fish and peanut exporter, is looking to take advantage of its reputation for political stability to expand tourism to its extensive Atlantic coastline.

Last year, the country launched a new national carrier, Air Senegal, which ordered two new Airbus A330 jets last month. (Reporting By Diadie Ba; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Joe Bavier and William Maclean)
By Steve Scherer and Aidan Lewis

ROME/TRIPOLI, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Italy wants Libya's coastguard to take responsibility within three years for intercepting migrants across about a tenth of the Mediterranean even as Libyan crews struggle to patrol their own coast and are accused of making deadly mistakes at sea.

Six years after the revolution that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is split between rival governments in the east and west while ports and beaches are largely in the hands of armed groups.

Migrant smuggling has flourished, with more than 600,000 making the perilous journey across the central Mediterranean in four years. Migrants transiting through Libya often endure appalling conditions, including rape, torture and forced labour.

The Italian plan, outlined in a slide presentation seen by Reuters, shows that Italy and the European Union are focusing on rebuilding Libya's navy and coastguard so they can stop boats. But aid groups say the Libyans are poorly trained and accuse them of mishandling a rescue last month in which some 50 people are thought to have died.

The Libyans return all migrants, including refugees, to Libya even though the situation on the ground there is far from resolved. Italy has been coordinating rescues off the Libyan coast since 2013.

The 30 slides show spending of 44 million euros ($52 million) to expand Libya's capacity by 2020, equipping the coastguard and enabling it to establish its own rescue coordination centre as well as a vast maritime search-and-rescue region. It also foresees a pilot project for monitoring Libya's southern border. The project draws on European Union and Italian funds, and needs EU approval.

The plan was presented by the Italian coastguard at a conference hosted by the EU's anti-trafficking mission, Sophia, in Rome last month. Representatives from the EU, non-governmental groups and various Mediterranean navies and coastguards attended the closed-door presentation, said a source who was present.

Libya's coastguard has already been pushing further into international waters, often firing warning shots or speeding close to charity boats. Over the summer, three charities abandoned rescue operations in part because of fears of the increasing Libyan sea presence.

Arrivals to Italy have fallen by two-thirds since July from the same period last year after officials working for the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli, Italy's partner, persuaded human smugglers in the city of Sabratha to stop boats leaving.

The Libyan coastguard also increased the rate of its interceptions, turning back about 20,000 this year, though it still only stops a portion of the boats.

The crisis remains a major issue in Italy. State shelters for asylum seekers are nearly full, and with elections looming politicians across the spectrum insist the flows from North Africa be stopped, which the new scheme is likely to address.

"UNPROFESSIONAL RESCUE"

Italy's coastguard did not reply to a request for comment. The prime minister's office referred questions to the interior ministry, which is spearheading the effort to fight people smuggling in Libya and also had no comment.

"Each nation has the right to declare its own search-and-rescue zone, and to carry out search-and-rescue operations," a Defence Ministry spokesman said, citing international law.

Ayoub Qassem, a Libyan coastguard spokesman, said he did not have details of the plan, but both sides recognised the need to cooperate in tackling irregular migration.

"Recently the Italian side has been eager to cooperate with Libya because it's more effective than working without Libya -- that's natural," he said.

Italy has supplied Libya with four refurbished vessels so far, and six more have been promised, while the EU has trained about 220 Libyan coastguards.

But rights groups and aid workers say partnering with Libya's "unprofessional" coastguard risks exposing migrants to drowning during rescues or to further rights abuses if sent back to detention centres inside Libya.

"From the testimony we hear from the migrants, we know that people intercepted at sea have then re-entered the circle of violence and imprisonment and abuse that they were fleeing," said Nicola Stalla, search-and-rescue chief for SOS Mediterranee, one of the charities still operating off Libya.

Activists also point to incidents such as one on Nov. 6, when crew members of the German humanitarian ship Sea Watch 3 witnessed a Libyan naval vessel draw alongside an inflatable migrant boat.

When people fell into the water, Sea Watch used small rubber speedboats to pull people from the water while the Libyans looked on. Some migrants who climbed on board the Libyan vessel were whipped with ropes, and the Libyan boat sped off with a man still dangling in the water, according to videos shot by Sea Watch and crew member Gennaro Giudetti, who pulled the body of a lifeless 2 1/2-year-old Nigerian boy named Great from the water.

"They watched us and shot videos. They even threw potatoes at us. That's not how you save lives," said Giudetti.

BROKEN SPEEDBOATS

Libya's naval coastguard accused Sea Watch of obstructing the rescue and trying to lure away migrants who had already boarded their ship. Some migrants jumped into the water to try to reach Sea Watch rescuers.

The Libyans said their smaller speedboats, which are mounted on larger patrol vessels and are the safest to use for rescues, were broken.

"We have only one or two of these boats and they do not work, so how we can put them into the water?" Qassem, the coastguard spokesman, told Reuters.

The expansion of Libyan patrols has led to confusion and competition over who should take the lead during rescues. Some charity ships say they have been directed to hold off rescues to allow the Libyans to arrive, putting migrants at risk.

Libya's search-and-rescue region extends 90 miles from shore in some places, and 200 miles in others, Qassem said.

This summer the Libyans notified the International Maritime Organization about plans to take over a large search and rescue region, but withdrew the notification this month, saying it would resubmit a new one soon, an IMO spokeswoman said.

It would be the first time Libya has set up a search-and-rescue region, she said.

The Italian plan proposes helping Libya formally declare such a zone. It would also provide for training, maintenance, new cars, ambulances and buses, communications equipment and clothing. "Full operation capability" is seen by the end of 2020.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; editing by Giles Elgood)
BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The Belgian trial of one of the suspects behind the 2015 Islamist attacks in Paris has been postponed, a Brussels court said.

French national Salah Abdeslam fled to Belgium after the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, hiding from police for months before being detained. Days after his arrest Brussels was hit by another deadly militant attack.

He is standing trial in Belgium over his involvement in a shootout with police in the days leading up to his arrest.

Abdeslam, initially set to stand trial on Monday, has appointed a new lawyer who had asked for more time to prepare his case.

The court will set a new date for his trial on Monday. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel)
MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russia and Egypt have signed an agreement on cooperation on civil aviation security in a first step to resuming regular Russian flights to Cairo, the transport ministry said on Friday.

The agreement should allow flights to Cairo to resume in February 2018, the ministry quoted Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov as saying.

Moscow halted civilian air traffic to Egypt in 2015 after militants detonated a bomb on a Russian Metrojet flight leaving the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing 224 people on board. (Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
SAO PAULO, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Equities in Chile posted solid gains on Friday, as prices for key export copper ticked up on solid Chinese industrial data and the country gears up for a tight presidential election over the weekend. Sunday's election pits conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera, favored by investors, against center-left Senator Alejandro Guillier. Pinera, who once had a strong lead, disappointed in a first round vote in November, sending Chile's blue-chip IPSA index tumbling almost 10 percent by Dec. 7, before it pared losses in recent days. Though the margin is expected to be razor-thin, some analysts are still giving a slight edge to Pinera, as he benefits from a more disciplined political coalition than Guillier, who has been working to win the support of the hard-left Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition. "How supporters of the leftist Broad Front vote in the run-off remains the critical factor, and predicting how such a new and heterogeneous group will vote is difficult," wrote Nicholas Watson, senior vice president of political risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence. "That said, Pinera is likely to retain a slight edge." A rise in copper prices on Friday helped push Chile's IPSA up 0.6 percent by midday, after China, a key importer of the metal, beat analysts' estimates for November industrial production. Equities in neighboring Argentina were also performing well on Friday, led by energy stocks, such as Pampa Energia SA which jumped 2 percent by early afternoon. Analysts at consultancy Balanz Capital said expectations of changes in the composition of the benchmark Merval index, which climbed 0.68 percent, were causing some one-time movements. Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1525 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % Latest change change MSCI Emerging Markets 1117,74 -0,31 30,03 MSCI LatAm 2717,97 0,44 15,62 Brazil Bovespa 72939,95 0,71 21,11 Mexico S&P/BVM IPC 48051,12 -0,36 5,28 Chile IPSA 5149,98 0,6 24,05 Chile IGPA 25827,90 0,57 24,57 Argentina MerVal 27324,80 0,68 61,51 Colombia IGBC 11026,72 -0,62 8,87 Venezuela IBC 1311,26 3,62 -95,86 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3,3146 0,64 -1,97 Mexico peso 19,1535 0,02 8,30 Chile peso 639 -0,14 4,96 Colombia peso 2998,53 -0,22 0,10 Peru sol 3,259 -0,52 4,76 Argentina peso (interbank) 17,5800 -0,74 -9,70 Argentina peso (parallel) 18 -0,22 -6,56 (Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Frances Kerry)
TEGUCIGALPA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Honduran security forces fired tear gas on Friday at opposition protesters who had blocked major roads, and demanded a full recount of last month's contentious election that pitched the Central American nation into crisis.

Supporters of the center-left Opposition Alliance Against the Dictatorship, led by TV star Salvador Nasralla, set fire to tires across the country, blocking major thoroughfares in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and the second city of San Pedro Sula.

Police and soldiers responded with tear gas to rock-throwing protesters who set fire to a vehicle for carrying soldiers in Tegucigalpa. In San Pedro Sula, security forces sought to move protesters who blocked a road leading to the key Puerto Cortes port, which exports manufacturing and agricultural goods.

Honduras has been roiled by political instability in the wake of the Nov. 26 vote, which remains unresolved. Nasralla trails conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez by 1.6 percentage points according to the official count, which has been questioned by the two main opposition parties and a wide swathe of the diplomatic corps.

Honduras' electoral tribunal said on Sunday that a partial recount of votes showed broadly the same result as previously, maintaining Hernandez's lead. It has until Dec. 26 to declare a winner.

Last week, Honduras' two main opposition parties presented formal requests to annul the results of the election.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations on Friday ignored a U.S. call for a cessation of weapons testing to allow for talks with Pyongyang on its nuclear program and said his country would not pose a threat to any state, as long as its interests were not infringed upon.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tillerson earlier told a meeting of the U.N Security Council on Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs that a "sustained cessation of North Korea's threatening behavior" was needed before talks could occur between Washington and Pyongyang.

North Korea's U.N. ambassador, Ja Song Nam, made no mention of Tillerson's call in his speech to the session, which he called "a desperate measure plotted by the U.S. being terrified by the incredible might of our Republic that has successfully achieved the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force." (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
By Anastasia Moloney

BOGOTA, Dec 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than seven women are killed on average every day in Mexico, with numbers surging in recent years amidst the country's brutal drug wars, a report by the Mexican government and United Nations said.

A third of more than 50,000 murders of women in the past three decades have occurred in the last six years, said a report by Mexico's interior ministry, the National Institute for Women and U.N. Women.

More women have become victims of drug wars - caught up in turf wars between drug cartels and an army-led offensive against drug gangs launched in 2006 by then-president Felipe Calderon.

Rising numbers of women murdered outside the home, often gunned down in streets, parks and near places of work, is in part "related to the increase in the activities of organized crime," said the report published on Wednesday.

The overall number of women killed in Mexico rose to 2,746 in 2016 up from 1,089 in 2007.

Femicides, defined in the report as killings of women by their intimate partners, is carried out by "the most cruel means", included stabbing, strangulation and suffocation.

"A constant of these murders is the brutality and impunity that accompany them," the report said.

".. there hasn't been success in changing the cultural patterns that devalue women and consider them disposable, allowing for a social permissiveness in the face of violence and its ultimate expression: femicide," the report said.

Mexico and 16 other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have introduced new laws in recent years that make femicide - the killing of a woman by a man because of her gender - a specific crime with tougher sentences.

But few crimes against women in Mexico are punished because of poor criminal investigations and sexist social attitudes that view women as inferior to men, the report said. (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by 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)
The story of Kanchana who went to Saudi because she was poor

A mother who left for Saudi from her home in Galewela in search of a good source of income has returned to the country not only empty handed but with many injuries sustained after been beaten by her employers during her three months service as house-maid in Damam, Saudi Arabia.

After her arrival at home from abroad on Saturday (18)her husband Saman Kumara Bandara was preparing to take her to hospital when we visited them.

W.D. Kanchana Kumari (33), a mother of the then four-year-old child left for Saudi on September 5, 2016 through a job agency in Kurunegala on faked documents prepared by the agency for her.



In Saudi she had been employed in domestic service in Damam. For this period she had not been paid a salary but given basic food and scant clothing, harassed and beaten.

She was still suffering from pain from cuts and bruises that were the result of the assaults she underwent while in Saudi Arabia. Still there were severe wounds on her legs and back and she is unable to walk; only limped.

She was able to return when her husband and relations made complaints about the harassment she was facing in Saudi.

Finally one day, her employer had dumped her at the airport wearing only in piece of black cloth. She had not been paid for her services either. However she had received a skirt and blouse to wear from a Sri Lankan woman at the airport.



Her husband Saman Kumara said she was so weak physically and was suffering mentally and that she needed immediate relief.

W.M. Muthumenika her mother- in- law said the pretty looking daughter who left for Saudi happily was fortunate to have been able to return home.

Kanchana disclosed the painful happening she experienced in Saudi, the country through which she expected solutions to the burning economical problems of her family.

I had the chance to go to Saudi Arabia through a Job Agency in Kurunegala with the assistance of an uncle. Then my daughter was only four years old. However this hurdle was overcome as the agency provided me with faked documents for a payment

of Rs.25,000.



In Saudi I worked two months without any problems. But they started when I asked for my wages after two months. The mistress of the house was very cruel. When angry she would hit me with anything in sight She crushed my nails and fingers and often beat me on my head with iron spoons; there are some injuries on my head even today. Once they hit me on my face and I nearly lost my sight because of it. Often I was left to stay hungry and thirsty. Whenever I ask for food they pushed me to the ground and trampled my abdomen. I was often beaten by both the master and the mistress of the house. There had been another Sri Lankan woman working in this house before me and nobody knows what had happened to her.



When I wanted to phone home they get my mothers number and threaten me with a knife to tell them I was treated well and living happily. I could not tell them the real situation I was in. Later I was not allowed to talk to my mother; instead the madam began to speak to my mother directly as my mother had some knowledge of their language. However my mother had sensed something bad was happening to me and had informed the job agency and arranged to bring me back to Sri Lanka through the Foreign Employment Bureau and

the Embassy.



She said the employer had paid for her air ticket but that she was not paid her wages.

They removed my clothes and gave me a black cloak and dumped me at the airport even without a pair of slippers. Kanchana said.

Two Sri Lankan women had given her a skirt and a blouse and slippers to wear. When asked about this incident the head of Uni-Lanka Job Agency in Kurunegala, Mohamed Nawaz said he was unable to tell anything without perusing the relevant documents.
Unlocking the nexus between life microcosm and cosmic macrocosm

The predictive component of Astrology presupposes the existence of a non-physical entity as part and parcel of a human being which acts as the carrier of his Karmic potential and this entity survives the decomposition of the physical body to pass on to his next birth.



Experiment on mind to mind communication



Many researchers in the US and elsewhere have already found by the use of modern experimental methods and meta-analytical techniques a great deal of evidence pointing to the existence of a para-sensory faculty capable of functioning outside the physical body. For example, in a recent experiment  generally referred to as the Pascual Leones experiment on telepathy  brain to brain or mind to mind communication- a person in India had made a telepathic contact with an individual in France.



Astral body



Meanwhile, scientists through research conducted by the use of modern methods and equipment have gathered much evidence pointing to the existence of a non-physical entity called Astral Body which is capable of functioning independent of both body and mind. At the moment the available data to support the concepts of telepathy and Astral Body may fall short of scientific standards of proof. But one can safely assume that the day is not far away when these two concepts are to be found to be scientific truths or realities.



Astral body, a clue to the existence of the carrier of karmic force?



The scientific evidence in support of the existence of Astral Body may perhaps provide a plausible scientific explanation for the stream of consciousness or the soul or whatever you may call it that serves as the vehicle for the Karmic force to travel from birth to birth. This will hopefully pave the path to unlocking the nexus between the life microcosm and the cosmic macrocosm.



Great scientists have hailed Astrology



Some skeptics may dismiss Astrology as hocus-pocus or hotchpotch. However, great scientists have looked on this discipline with much respect.



Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine is cited as having said: A physician without the knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy



It is on record that the great scientist Isaac Newton had a great regard for Astrology and in fact, his interest in Cosmology was inspired by Astrology.



By the way, Newtons tomb in Londons Westminster Abbey is adorned with the Zodiacal signs in Astrology.



Carl Guslav Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist who founded the analytical school of Psychology widely looked on as a pioneer in the field of Alchemy too has endorsed Astrology in very strong terms.



Limitations of sciences



The main criticism against Astrology is that it cannot forecast things with any degree of accuracy. There are also disciplines which are acknowledged as sciences which nevertheless cannot forecast things accurately. Volcanology and Meteorology can be cited as examples.



One may ask, What is the use of Volcanology if it cannot forecast accurately as to when a given volcano is going to erupt? or What is the use of Meteorology if it cannot forecast a radical change in weather accurately?



Professor of Earth Sciences at Oxford University David Pyle says: Like in medicine, volcanologists can get a clear sense of a state of volcano only by using observations from many other examples around the world. But if we dont have the prior history of the volcano  our capacity to work out what is going on is always limited.



Meanwhile, NOAAs National Weather Service scientist Charles McGill says that the weather forecasting is still an inexact science. He adds: Tiniest changes in the atmosphere can produce radical changes in weather



Eminent Astrologers in India say that Astrology like Meteorology can in certain instances predict only the trend and possibilities, not exactly when and what is going to happen. There is a rational explanation for this: although the Karmic plan is predetermined, man can exercise his free will to alter its course. Just as a slightest atmospheric disturbance could bring about a radical change in the weather pattern, a slight change caused to ones Karmic potential by ones action or volition could lead to a major change in the Would-Be-Karmic manifestation.
The American coal industry is facing serious challenges. In states like West Virginia, the effects have been particularly painful, causing many communities to struggle under a projected 23% decline in related jobs and leading vast numbers of residents to leave the state altogether.

This is the story of Bluefield, a West Virginia coal-mining town facing decades-long economic decline, with the population of the surrounding county dwindling from 100,000 in the 1980s to less than 20,000 today.

Thankfully, for the churches and businesses of Bluefield, this doesnt mark the end of the story.

In a new video from Made to Flourish, Pastor Travis Lowe shares their story, explaining how an initial community meeting among church members and business leaders led to a formal network that now seeks to reinvigorate the economic climate of the city, beginning with empowering, enriching, and connecting its human capital.

Anything can be automated. Thats the future of our country, Lowe explains. But were the picture ofwhat happens on the other side. What weve done in Bluefield, what were seeing here is a return to humanity, a return to image-bearers. Machines arent image bearers. People are. And as we return to that, its a beautiful thing.

According to Lowe, an Acton contributor who has shared his story in the past, the local church played a critical role in facilitating the process, offering a strong foundation and spiritual launch pad for people from diverse backgrounds to come together and work toward economic transformation:

I believe that a lot of the biggest issues in Bluefield had to do with poverty, had to do with drug addiction, had to do with broken homes, and all of those are direct results of the economy. So if we want to be the church and to speak into poverty and to speak into broken homes and to speak into drug addiction, then I think we have to address the economy. I think that were a great place, because we have people of all different social structures, people that would maybe throughout the week not cross each others paths, people that work in lots of different fields. Thats really what we needed: people with different eyes, looking at these businesses and seeing places they could operate. This is what we were able to bring to the table.

The network now hosts monthly gatherings with over 50 business owners, leading to strategic brainstorming for the community and a unique cross-section of industry collaboration and personal discipleship. The group has also secured a building to launch their own FabLab, a platform from MIT that seeks to equip entrepreneurs and inventors and train workers in new skills and technologies.

Theres a lesson here for a nation that faces increasing pressures from automation.

Rather than responding to their disappointments and displacement by giving up or leaving the community altogether, Bluefield is taking a different path: planting new seeds and new partnerships.

Rather than looking to coercive, protectionist measures to insulate their community from outside pressures, theyre turning to freedom and the future: adapting their skills and developing their resources to create new value in new ways on behalf of their community and the nation.

When it comes to living on mission amid economic disruption, the people of Bluefield arent dwelling on fear, but are paving a path that recognizes their role as image-bearers  reorienting their hearts and hands toward work that serves and sustains.

Image: Eastern Regional Coal Archive, Craft Memorial Library, Bluefield (Public Domain)
Donald Trump

Poets as diverse as William Blake and Yehuda Amichai have sung the praises of the heavenly Jerusalem, a land without strife or rancour, war or bitterness, envy, acquisitiveness or hatred. Until last week and President Donald Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels de facto capital, Israel, Fatah, Hamas and their common interlocutor, the US, had the historic opportunity to take a giant step towards making the present day Jerusalem acquire, at least in some of its aspects, the earthly prototype of the heavenly Jerusalem. Some of us have long hoped to see whether the work over decades of many imams, rabbis, ministers and priests could bear fruit. The secular politicians may be the ones doing the negotiations and ordering the compromises but it is the teachers of the three great deistic religions who have been charged from above to exert their mandate to teach compassion, goodness, tolerance and brotherhood, and make a non-aligned Jerusalem the centre that brings the three Abrahamic religions into an embrace.

These traits of virtue, as common to them all as is their God, is being tested in the hottest of fires. Have their peoples imbibed the true message of their faith? The question for this Christmas month is can enough of them stand up against the new alliance of Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

Benjamin Netanyahu



Over decades Israel has rebuffed American demands for a total freeze on Israels colonisation of occupied Palestinian land by allowing both the size of the settlements and the numbers living there to expand by the month. In 2009 Benjamin Netanyahu, in an earlier term as prime minister, even went a step further - announcing that Israel had decided to evict Palestinian families in Arab East Jerusalem to allow Jewish families to take over. Now, in a symbolic move, Trump has ordered the US embassy to be transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move that anti-Zionist Israelis see as a collusion with Netanyahus hard line, anti-Palestinian policies.

President Bill Clinton was profoundly wrong after the Camp David meeting broke up towards the end of his term in office in berating Arafat publicly for not compromising on Jerusalem. He seemed not to understand Yasser Arafats observation: The Arab leader has not been born who will give up Jerusalem. Clinton looked at the enormous compromises the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, had already made and assumed this was a very fair deal. It was, indeed, but it wasnt enough.

"The secular politicians may be the ones doing the negotiations and ordering the compromises but it is the teachers of the three great deistic religions who have been charged from above to exert their mandate to teach compassion, goodness, tolerance and brotherhood, and make a non-aligned Jerusalem the centre that brings the three Abrahamic religions into an embrace"



There is no question that at the time of the ending of the British mandate Jerusalem belonged to the Palestinians. They lost West Jerusalem in their ill-judged war with Israel in 1948. Only in 1967 during the Six Day War did Israel capture and annex East Jerusalem and its Old City. (But it did allow Islamic authorities to continue to exercise control over the two ancient mosques and the great stone plaza atop the Temple Mount.) At one time the U.S. itself recognised there would be no peace until this occupation was reversed, hence its vote for UN Resolution 242 in 1967 that called on Israel to withdraw from territories occupied. Thus it is a matter of international justice that at the very least the Arab parts of East Jerusalem be returned to Palestine, as long as Jews have free, untrammelled, access, to their sacred site, the Western Wall which sits at the foot of Temple Mount. (Imagine, by comparison, the wrath of the German people if Berlin were still occupied by the Allies.)

Nevertheless, Jewish identity is now so bound up with the idea of Jerusalem (a fuzzy concept if ever there was one, since present day Jerusalem is four times the size of the one that existed in 1948) that to prise Israel loose by a process of capitulation is going to be a very uphill task.



Once again, despite (and because of) the moving of the American embassy, we have to begin to think seriously about the idea of internationalising part of East Jerusalem. For the present the long-time suggestion of a UN Security Council-ruled fiefdom only extends to the Temple Mount, but once that principle is accepted the possibilities of geographical extension to include some of the neighbourhoods around shouldnt be so difficult to swallow. There can be two stages, a couple of years apart.

With his audacious and damning move Trump has raised the stakes over Jerusalem. Most of the big powers, the Islamic world and the Pope have criticised him. That is not enough. If the rest of the world is not prepared to resist Netanyahu and drive through the internationalising of the city he will have proved once again that Israel always turns out on top. For that not to happen we need the faith of the founders of the

Abrahamic religions.

Note: For 17 years Power was a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International

Herald Tribune, now the

New York Times.

(Phone no: +46 706510879)
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has drawn attention of the general public for implementation of its Clean Note Policy and regulation on the willfully mutilation, alteration or defacement of Sri Lanka currency notes.



The Clean Note Policy has been introduced by CBSL aiming at maintaining the quality standards of the currency notes and thereby helping to distinguish between genuine notes and counterfeits. It is also expected through this policy to enhance image of the country and promote the efficiency of processing currency notes. Willfully mutilation, alteration or defacement of Sri Lanka currency notes is an offence under the Monetary Law Act No. 58 of 1949, and is punishable by imprisonment or fine or both.





Under the Regulation E of the Monetary Law Act, no claim in respect of the willfully mutilated or altered notes shall be entertained and such notes shall be retained by CBSL. The holder of these currency notes will have to suffer the loss of face value of such notes.



Moreover, CBSL has to increase its note printing to replace such willfully mutilated, altered or defaced currency notes requiring it to incur large amount of public funds which otherwise could have been spent for more meaningful purposes.



CBSL, therefore, has no obligation to entertain claims in respect of deliberately mutilated, altered or defaced currency notes.



Accordingly, CBSL advised and requested the general public to refrain from practice of mutilation, alteration or defacement of Sri Lanka currency notes and to exchange such currency notes available on their hand with the nearest branch of Licensed Commercial Banks on or before 31.12.2017.



However, CBSL wishes to inform the general public that currency notes that are not willfully mutilated, altered or defaced but damaged due to normal wear and tear during circulation can continue to be exchanged at CBSL and Licensed Commercial Banks as is the current practice.



The CBSL also wishes to invite the general public to assist to preserve the value and integrity of the countrys legal tender by adhering to the Clean Note Policy.
The Sri Lankan government will be organising facilities for Ceylon Tea to be sold at auctions held in China, according to one of the Cabinet decisions taken this week.

For the promotion of Sri Lankan tea in the Peoples Republic of China, it was decided to prepare a proper programme in this regard and to enter into an agreement for holding tea auctions in China, a Cabinet spokesperson said. Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake had made the proposal due to the increasing consumption of black tea in China.



China absorbed just US $ 32 million of Ceylon Tea in 2016, which was just 2.5 percent of Sri Lankas total tea exports during last year. It was a fall from US $ 34 million worth of tea exported to China in 2015, which was the highest ever.
Other countries should reconsider joining the Ottawa Treaty to ban landmines following Sri Lankas accession to the treaty on Wednesday, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

HRW Arms Director Steve Goose on Thursday said Sri Lankas accession should spur other nations that havent joined the landmine treaty to take another look at why they want to be associated with such an obsolete, abhorrent weapon.

This should spur other countries that havent joined the treaty to review their position and address any obstacles to joining it, he said.

Sri Lanka deposited its instrument of accession to the treaty with the United Nations in New York, becoming the 163rd country to join.

The Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans antipersonnel landmines, and requires destruction of stockpiles, clearance of mined areas, and assistance to victims of the weapons.

The HRW said Sri Lanka participated as an observer in the fast-track diplomatic Ottawa Process, which led to the adoption of the Mine Ban Treaty in September 1997, but said it could not sign due to its ongoing conflict with the LTTE.

Since then Sri Lank expressed its support for the humanitarian objectives of the Mine Ban Treaty and voted in favor of every annual UN General Assembly resolution on it. In December 2015, Sri Lanka announced that it was seriously considering joining the Treaty as a matter of priority following a paradigm shift in policy after the election of a new government in January 2015, it said.

According to the HRW, the Sri Lankan army has acknowledged using antipersonnel mines in the past while the LTTE produced and used them extensively during the armed conflict.

After deliberating for almost two decades, Sri Lanka ultimately decided to get on the right side of history by relinquishing antipersonnel mines. With every country that joins the treaty, the norm against these weapons only gets stronger, Mr. Goose said.

Non-signatories of Ottawa Treaty

Thirty-three UN countries including the US, China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Egypt, Israel, Iran and Russia have not yet signed the Ottawa Treaty. Marshall Islands has signed the Treaty but not yet ratified it.
Dyslexia is a common cause that creates learning difficulties. This condition in turn causes problems with reading, writing and spelling. Having a child with dyslexia can be an additional hurdle in parenthood. Speaking to the Health Capsule, Dr. Jithangi Wanigasinghe, Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Colombo and Consultant Paediatric Neurologist, Lady Ridgeway Hospital explained what dyslexia is and how it can be identified. Furthermore, she explained that the main features of the disorder are having difficulties in spelling and reading. Dr. Wanigasinghe added that when there is early detection dyslexia can be managed and parents and teachers should work closely. Parents and teachers must work together to create mechanisms to clear the childs path for learning. Raising a child with dyslexia is a journey. As parents move through this phase they will gain lifelong experience and knowledge regarding the challenges their children face. They will learn how to help their children succeed at school and in life.



What is Dyslexia?



Explaining as to what dyslexia is, Dr. Wanigasinghe said,  This is a problem related to reading fluently, spelling and learning a second language, in spite of reasonable intelligence.



She further explained how common it is. There are no studies in Sri Lanka estimating the burden created by the disease. Studies from other countries reveal that this condition is quite common. It is the commonest cause for learning difficulties. There are different presentations varying from mild to severe with regard to this problem. There are many famous persons who suffered from dyslexia, yet they excelled in their fields,said Dr. Wanigasinghe.



Speaking of the defect she said,  The main defect is related to difficulty in the use and processing of linguistic and symbolic codes, alphabetic letters representing speech sounds or numeric representing numbers or quantities.



This is not due to a structural defect, but rather due to a problem of functional areas related to language processing, particularly in the left hemisphere in the left pareito-temporal functional system, she explained.



How to identify a person



Dr. Wanigasinghe went on to explain the common features that are related to reading difficulties.  They have an overall difficulty in learning how to connect letters with a sound. They will have difficulty in recognizing a word - this is characterized by omissions, substitutions, reversal of letters, sounds, syllables or words.

Furthermore the individual will have decoding difficulties, deficits in interpreting left and right, will require extra time and effort for processing language, have severe spelling difficulties, memory deficits, have poor coordination (hand eye), difficulty in remembering dates, numbers and lists, explained the doctor.



The doctor further explained that family history is identified as a risk factor as well as many others postulated associations.



Diagnosis and management



Speaking of the diagnosis Dr. Wanigasinghe explained that most often the diagnosis is delayed. If a child is having difficulty in reading, he or she should be assessed for dyslexia. However, there is no standard lab test or imaging modality that can diagnose dyslexia, she explained.

She further explained that there is no medical treatment for dyslexia, but it can be managed with early recognition and appropriate interventions. The management of the condition includes evaluation and working out individualized teaching-learning strategies for the child with help of teacher. Teachers can help by allocating more time for reading and spelling and giving explicit simple instructions. The parents themselves can play a big role in helping their children, she said.



Advice



You should address the problem early, talk to your teachers and then to a paediatrician and educate yourself about the problem. The parent needs input from a teacher trained to use teaching methods and tools for children with dyslexia. she advised. Furthermore, Dr. Wanigasinghe said,  Parents should work with teachers to identify specific areas of weakness and strengths in your child and understand the underlying causes of their childs difficulty. The child may need to have an Individualised Education Programme (IEP) worked out for the child .



Misconceptions



There are misconceptions people have of dyslexia. The misconceptions include; dyslexia only affects people who speak English, writing letters and words backwards are symptoms of dyslexia, reading disabilities are caused by visual perception problems, children will outgrow dyslexia if you give them time and more boys than girls have dyslexia, explained the doctor.
DFCC Bank embarked on far-reaching tree planting sustainability measures during the current year which have been commended by Reforest Sri Lanka, with whom the Bank collaborated to plant endemic and native species of trees. A non-profit society committed to protect and extend the forest cover in Sri Lanka, Reforest Sri Lanka has specifically mentioned the extensive commitment of funds and volunteers that DFCC Bank has committed to this cause. This project was conducted as part of the commemorative staff tree-planting campaign launched this year to reforest key areas across the island, whilst giving back to society at large. In this campaign, a tree is planted to celebrate each and every staff members birthday for which they receive a personalized invitation to attend the tree-planting campaign with their families. An e-tree-dedication certificate providing the link to the exact location on Google maps where the tree was planted is sent to them. All staff members are also invited to attend these campaigns and are encouraged to participate with their families.

As at date 11 tree planting campaigns were held under this initiative in 2017 in places such as Aranayake, Kaduwela, Jaffna, Duplication Road, Thalawila, Athurugiriya, Kahathuduwa, Beddagana, Bellanwila and Batticaloa. A total of 7,355 trees were planted during the year, out of which approximately 1,700 trees were planted to commemorate staff birthdays. Most of these campaigns were carried out with Reforest Sri Lanka.

Trees planted in these campaigns included, Mee, Kumbuk, Karanda, Gammalu, Kos/Jackfruit, Veera, Ehala, Rath Handun, Sudu Handun, Hora, Ranawara, Atamba, Wara, Olinda and many other endemic and native species. The trees will help to improve soil quality in the areas and minimize soil erosion, whilst returning much-needed oxygen to the environment.

Lakshman Silva, CEO of DFCC Bank commented, DFCC Bank has demonstrated its corporate stewardship through various sustainable actions and this tree planting initiative is yet another way for us to make a tangible difference to society and the environment. Planting over 7000 trees would not have been possible without the support of Reforest Sri Lanka and the management and staff of DFCC Bank, who participated wholeheartedly in this project. By involving families of staff members in this initiative, we are shaping a strong consciousness of the need to green our nation, which I hope they will carry forward. We plan to expand this initiative by planting additional trees at locations where reforestation is a priority. We are also gratified by the fact that apart from our tree planting efforts, Reforest Sri Lanka has also acknowledged DFCCs support for major solar powered initiatives in the country. DFCC Bank has emerged as a pioneer financier in all renewable energy projects undertaken by the private sector in Sri Lanka.
Amid speculations of closure and employees writing to Chairman Ajith Dias that they did not have confidence in him as well as the top management of the ailing national carrier SriLankan Airlines, a leading Malaysian company has come forward with an investment proposal to revive the national airlines, Daily Mirror learns.

The significance of the investment proposal of Super Group Holdings Pvt. Ltd. of Malaysia is its consent to reactivate the now defunct regional airline of the country, Mihin Air.

An authoritative source told Daily Mirror on condition of anonymity that Super Group Holdings had suggested to run SriLankan as a low-cost carrier with available resources within the airline and is keen on substantial investment. The proposal had already been forwarded for review to the Economic Committee chaired by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The proposals also include operating SriLankan Airlines as an international as well as regional low-cost carrier and Mihin Lanka as a regional and domestic carrier utilising the entire network now in use. All domestic airports such as Ratmalana, Palali in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Koggala and Anuradhapura will be refurbished and upgraded under the proposed programme in addition to international airports of Bandaranaike and Mattala International Airports. It is quite possible that Mihin Lanka will be re-branded and used as a low-cost carrier to cater to the South Asian region and the Indian Sub Continent in a concept of City-to-City project, he said.

The certificate already issued to Mihin Lanka by the International Civil Airlines Organisation (ICAO) will be used for the new project.

The investors are glad that the Cabinet has decided to absorb the debts of Mihin Air (on November 5, 2017) and that is why they have consented to restore Mihin Lanka that had been facing liquidation while ceasing operations in October.

Super Group Holdings is a multi-national company involved in tourism, hotel management and airlines based in Kuala Lumpur.

The source added that however, the discussions are continuing with several other investors and airlines to run SriLankan Airlines as a Public Private Partnership (PPP). (Sandun A. Jayasekera)
When traced the routes of the tourism industry, it could be found that it was mostly the residents of European countries who had the passion to travel the world. The industry has supposedly evolved in European countries where national and international tourism originated by travelling from one place to another. The people at the time had travelled short distances before moving on to see the sights in neighbouring destinations. There were and there still are a thousand reasons to travel the world. The purpose of travelling is for leisure, to embark on new business ventures, in search of education opportunities or greener pastures, to visit the loved ones or sometimes for religious purposes. After 1950s, people residing outside European nations were encouraged to travel the world with the development of air transportation. This widened world travel and tourism activities. Tourism related businesses started flourishing and today has become the worlds largest and fastest growing service industry.



It is noteworthy that Sri Lanka is one of the South Asian countries that has been reviewed by the World Tourism Council. Tourism in Sri Lanka has created its own brand. The creation of niche tourism products like eco-tourism, ayurvedic tourism, adventure tourism, cultural tourism, wildlife tourism and nature tourism widen the net of this service sector. Inbound tourism is booming and the country is going all out to lure more foreign tourists. Contrary to perceptions across the world that tourism in Sri Lanka is still confined to traditions, the country is opening up with trendy tour packages and at affordable air travel deals to inbound visitors from every segment.



The industry provides cultural, medical and business services. It is expected that the sectors contribution to the national gross domestic product will soar in the upcoming years. The local tourism sector has been flourishing in recent years with the improved and enhanced connectivity to and from the country. Better accommodation facilities at tourist destinations have contributed to augment the number of foreign tourist arrivals. The policies, rules and regulations implemented by the government have also been instrumental in providing the much-needed boost to the industry. Sri Lanka is able to offer a plethora of tourism options due to its rich bio-diversity. The country boasts of natural resources like sandy beaches, mountains, rivers and rainforests.



However, for the booming industry to further contribute to the national economy, focus should be paid on increasing the average spent on per tourist in addition to boosting the arrivals. Sri Lanka tourism is the third large export earner in the country after remittances, textiles and garments. Hence, we have an opportunity to attract more tourists. To achieve this target, we have to identify our strategic potentials to vie with our main competitors, especially those in South Asia. The sluggish progress made by the tourism industry due to poor planning, mismanagement and limited diversity in tourism markets and products, contributes to a lack of value adding opportunities and limiting per capita visitor expenditure.

As a tourist destination, Sri Lanka can compete with other destinations partly because of its unique natural and cultural resources. Therefore, if the tourism industry were to make a significant contribution to the national economy, Sri Lanka has to focus on promoting new sustainable tourism markets. We need a fresh approach to promote sustainable tourism market segments such as eco-tourism, community-based tourism and green tourism, as they could minimise adverse impacts.



The basement of the tourism industry, mass tourism, has itself become a massive threat to the country. In a bid to recover damaged environments, most of the countries including Sri Lanka have lately turned to sustainable tourism concepts.

Sri Lankas sustainable tourism strategies however may bring significant socio-economic benefits to host communities such as job opportunities, cultural identity, preservation of cultural sites, expansion of educational opportunities, development of infrastructure facilities and so forth. Therefore, it could be surmised that sustainable tourism is by far the best concept in new tourism market products.

It fulfils a countrys foreign exchange need, conserves its culture, environment and economy and encourages safe travelling. Sri Lanka claims a competitive edge due to its rich culture, climate and the lifestyle and hospitality of its people. It is however necessary to set up legislation for the government, tour operators, developers, travel agents, workers, host communities and tourists themselves.
The representatives of Sri Lankas gem industry Wednesday met with President Maithripala Sirisena at the Presidential Secretariat to discuss the problems they face in their work and seek redress.



The President held a lengthy discussion with the gem miners and gem businessmen who presented the various difficulties they have encountered during the course of their work at the gem mines.



The representatives made statements to the President about the inconvenience caused due to the inspection of the licensed mines and arrests of mine workers by unauthorized personnel not belonging the National Gem and Jewellery Authority.



The President the relevant authorities to conduct inspections on mines only with the authorized personnel of the National Gem & Jewellery Authority.

The President instructed the officials to carry out such inspections in a manner that would not impede the activities of those who are engaged in the mining activities legally.



The mining industry representatives pointed out the problems arising due to the law that mining can be only carried out between 6.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. They said the water draining of the mines should be done around 2.00 a.m. and the mine needs to be serviced and maintained day and night to prevent the collapse of mines.



Following their reasoning, the President instructed relevant authorities to remove the law regarding the hours of operation.



The President, after being briefed on the issues regarding the issuance of mining licenses, instructed the authorities to implement a formal system to issue licenses efficiently and to obtain approval of the Agrarian Services Department and other relevant institutions within a week.



Focusing his attention on the request made by the miners to consider the new taxes imposed in the next years budget on gem exporters, the President said a decision would be taken in the next Cabinet meeting.



Discussions were also held on the mechanism for granting licenses to the mechanically identified mining sites.



To limit the use of back hoes for excavating mines, the President instructed the Gem and Jewellery Authority to control the use of the machines only to sites identified by the authority and to monitor their use.



The representatives also informed the President that no steps have been taken yet on a set of proposals submitted to the President by them.



The President instructed the Secretary to the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment to submit a report within the next two weeks on the proposals which have can be considered and those that cannot be implemented.



Expressing his views, President Sirisena said that the responsibility of the gem industry is to ensure that special attention is focused on environmental conservation.

Pointing out that one of the reasons for the floods that affected several districts is the mining and the lack of conservation of the environment, the President said that illegal mining has also contributed to the rapid spread of dengue in the respective districts.



The President also noted that the Government has taken many steps to ensure the progress of all gem industry players and appreciated the services they rendered to the country to earn foreign exchange.



The industry representatives expressed ideas and suggestions on what steps should be taken in order to uplift the gem industry.



Ministers WDJ Seneviratne, Thalatha Athukorala, Secretary to the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment Anura Dissanayake, National Gem and Jewellery Authority chairman DMDOK Dissanayake and the Gem and Jewellery industry representatives participated in the discussion.
Integrated Road Investment Programme implemented in six Provinces

About 3108 km of rural access roads to be improved

Safe drinking water to entire population by 2020

Govts contribution to total programme is US$ 106 mn

Sri Lankan government has entered into three loan agreements worth of US $ 270 million with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the implementation of two projects Integrated Road Investment Programme and Jaffna Kilinochchi Water Supply Project.



A loan of US $ 150 million was obtained for the investments required for the fourth tranche of the Integrated Road Investment Programme and two loans worth of US $ 120 million were obtained as additional financing for the investment required for the ongoing Jaffna Kilinochchi Water Supply Project.



The Integrated Road Investment Programme is being implemented in six Provinces; i.e. Southern, Central, Sabaragamuwa, North Western, North Central Provinces and Kalutara district in Western Province under the financial assistance of ADB since 2014 with the aim of building up better connectivity between rural communities and socio economic centers. About 3108 km of rural access roads and about 248 km of national roads will be improved and maintained under this programme. In addition, the programme is focused on enhancing the capacity of road agencies on road asset management, project management and contract administration. The total investment cost of the overall programme is US$ 906 million of which US$ 800 million will be provided by ADB under Multi-tranche Financing Facility (MFF) through six tranches.



The governments contribution for the total programme is US$ 106 million. The government has already obtained loan assistance of US$ 407 million from ADB under the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tranches.



The total investment cost of the proposed tranche 4 is US$ 168 million. The Government will contribute US$ 18 million and the balance US$ 150 million will be obtained from ADB.



Meanwhile, safe drinking water is an essential prerequisite for better health and socio economic development in a country.





The focus of the government to provide safe drinking water to the entire population of the country by 2020 of which 60 percent would be pipe borne water.

Accordingly, the overall impact of the Jaffna Killinochchi Water Supply Project is to improve health and human development in urban areas of Jaffna Peninsula.

Improvement of headwork at the Iranamadu water tank, implement of water supply infrastructure and services in the Jaffna Peninsula and strengthening of water resources management system are the main components of this project. Additional financing of the Jaffna-Kilinochchi Water Supply Project will support restructuring of the current project by financing the cost overrun under the current project and supporting the additional activities of the desalination plant and related works under the component of improvement of water supply infrastructure and services in the Jaffna Peninsula and additional activates of the water resource management system component.



The total investment cost of the Jaffna-Killinochchi Water Supply Project - Additional Financing will be US$ 153 million. The government will contribute US$ 33 million and the balance portion of US$ 120 million will be provided in two loans by ADB.
By D.B.S.Jeyaraj

India gained freedom from Britain at midnight on August 15th 1947. At the time of Indian independence there was a separatist movement in South India spearheaded by the Dravidar Kazhagham (DK) or Dravidian Association led by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker popularly known as Periyar(Great Person).

As stated in an earlier article the DK demand was for a separate state in South India comprising areas where the Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tulu were pre-dominantly spoken. The envisaged state was called Dravida Nadu(Dravidian State).

Although the agitation for a Dravida Nadu had been conducted intermittently from 1940 onwards the chances of Britain partitioning South India too and creating a Dravidastan/Dravida Nadu on the lines of the proposed Pakistan were extremely remote. India was on the verge of Independence from the British in 1946/47 but Dravida Nadu was not on the agenda.



As political stakes were raised and India/Pakistan partition became inevitable the question of Dravida Nadu was totally eclipsed.

Periyaar himself had contributed to this situation in 1941 by suspending all agitation for Dravida Nadu so as to not hinder British war efforts. It was off the political radar for many years during world war two. In retrospect this was a blunder as no effective campaign had been mounted for Dravida Nadu.

If Periyaar had expected the British to hand over Dravida Nadu on a platter as reward for his cooperation during the war the rationalist patriarch was sadly mistaken.

Periyaar had also relied on Muhammad Ali Jinnah and thought that the Muslim League leader would extend support for Dravidstan like Pakistan as promised at the decisive stage. But Jinna found it politically practical to espouse the case for a theocratic state of Pakistan on the basis of a Hindu-Islam divide rather than cloud his case with the caste and ethnicity based demand for Dravidastan.

"IMalayalam speakers wanted the Kanniyakumari District bordering the new Kerala; Telugu speakers wanted Madras city and the Thiruthani area. Kannada speakers wanted Hosur in the Dharmapuri District of Tamil Nadu. Sivagnanam spearheaded political resistance to these moves."



The greatest weakness of the Dravida Nadu demand lay in the inability of its proponents to gather support among the non-Tamil Dravidian people inhabiting the envisaged state. Though Tamils were the single-largest ethnicity in the old Madras presidency the non-Tamils taken together were the majority. Support for Dravida Nadu was virtually nil among those non-Tamils. Besides the majority of Tamils too were against a Dravida state at that juncture and treated it as a joke then. Freedom from the British was the dominant line of thought among most Tamils in India at that time. Thus Dravida Nadu was a non-starter at the dawn of Independence. Periyaar found himself let down by the British and betrayed by Jinna, discarded by non Tamil Dravidians and rejected by the bulk of Tamils.

In his anger at this turn of events, Periyaar took up an extremely hardline against Independence and urged Tamils to declare Freedom day on August 15th 1947 as a day of mourning. He said that independence was only a change of masters for Dravidians. But his deputy C.N. Annadurai known as Anna(elder brother) sharply differed in this. Annadurai took up the position that the Dravidians had been oppressed by both, the British and Aryan/ Brahmins. Now one set of oppressors were departing. This by itself was most welcome. So Dravidians should rejoice at independence from the British and launch a struggle for secession from India thereafter was Annadurais position.



EVR Per iyar and CN Annadurai

These contrary perspectives led to further tension between both factions. The divergent views were articulated by both factions in the media controlled by both groups. Post-Independence saw both groups engaged in an undeclared power struggle within the DK. There were however more deep-seated reasons for the differences between EVR Periyaar and CN Annadurai.

Firstly Periyaar was a virtual autocrat. He ran the party like a dictator having been appointed life time president. Most of the property and finances belonging to the party were under his personal control. Periyaar being a rich man in his own right had also spent a lot of his own funds for the party. So there was a very thin line demarcating personal and party-owned property.

Within the party there was very little true democracy. Those whom Periyaar selected were automatically elected to posts without contest. It was a virtual appointment. There was practically no inner party discussion or debate on important decisions. What Periyaar decided and announced was party policy.

Annadurai on the other hand was of a more liberal democratic disposition. His vision was of a full-fledged democratic party with well established procedures for inner-party polls. He was also for a consultative, consensual approach within party folds in policy formulation and implementation.



Annadurai had outgrown Periyaar and had to break free of autocratic shackles.

Secondly Periyaar and Annadurai had diametrically opposite views on the future of the Dravidian Movement. Periyaar was firmly against any kind of participation in democratic elections. He derided participatory democracy in an Aryan-Brahmin-North Indian dominated India as a sham. He wanted the DK to remain aloof of electoral politics and concentrate instead on social reform and eradication of caste oppression. Periyaar also feared that entering hurly-burly politics would corrupt the idealist purity of the party. He felt that the partys ideology would be diluted in the long run to garner more votes and that the DK may compromise its policies for electoral success.

Annadurai however had opposite views. He opined that the party could realise its ideals and objectives through participatory democracy also rather than rely alone on agitational tactics and confrontational demonstrations as propounded by Periyaar.

Annadurai felt that it was better to capture the structures of power and engineer social reform from inside rather than try to bring about reform by influencing or pressurising from outside.



The politically astute Annadurai realised that with the passage of time, political power through democratic elections would pass into the hands of the non-Brahmins as they vastly outnumbered the Brahmins who were a microscopic minority in numbers. Annadurais thoughts on this issue were well expressed by his disciple Muttuvel Karunanidhi who succeeded Anna as chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Karunanidhi a famous script writer for films once wrote the following dialogue for a Tamil movie. Arohara endra makkal kural Aandavanai ettinaal pothaathu. Arasaangathai etta vaendum (It is not enough for the voice of the people chanting Harohara to reach God. It must reach the Government)



Medium was the Message

Thirdly Periyaar was to some extent old-fashioned and conservative in his attitude towards the arts, literature and cinema. He despised films and had the uttermost contempt for those in cinema and drama except perhaps M.R. Radha the famous actor, who was politically on the same wavelength as Periyaar and articulated his policies through film and stage.

But Annadurai recognized the vast potential for mass-communication and the electoral revolution it could bring about if adroitly exploited or handled. Long before Marshall Mcluhan , Annadurai subscribed to the dictum that the medium was the message. Annadurai had once referred to famous cine idol MG Ramachandran (MGR) in this way. Avar Vaakkukku pathulatcham. Avar mugathukku muppathu latcham (Ten lakhs (one million) for what he says; thirty lakhs (three million) for his face.

What Annadurai was driving at was the vote-getting capacity of MGR. His attractive countenance would gain more votes than his speech.



Annadurai himself was involved in cinema and had written story, screenplay and dialogue for many films. He was also a playwright and stage actor. So too was Karunanidhi. There were other Dravidian stalwarts who wrote story and dialogue for films like AVP Aasaithamby, CB Sittarasu, Naanchil Manoharan, Rama Arangannal, Kannadasan and Murasoli Maaran. There were also actors like NS Krishnan, KR Ramaswamy, TV Narayanaswamy, SS Rajendran, Sivaji Ganesan and MGR. Under these circumstances Annadurai felt that Periyaars harsh attitude towards cinema and drama would hamper his plans of utilising them for politicisation and political mobilisation. Periyaar was a constraint in this respect.

Annadurai also differed with Periyaar over the questions of substance and style. Periyaar believed in substance alone and that the message should be told simply in a straightforward manner. Annadurai however relied on form more than content in delivering his message. While Periyaar wrote and spoke in a dry, terse direct manner, Annadurai had evolved an attractive, flowery, alliterative style (Adukku mozhi) in oratory and writing.Against this backdrop it was apparent that Annadurai was biding his time to break away from the DMK and form his own party. Tension was increasing between both factions. Annadurai himself waited patiently for the right reason and opportune moment to break away. That moment soon arrived. The reason for the split was covertly political and overtly personal.

"The Tiruppathy area in Andhra Pradesh, The Kolar area of Karnataka and Devikulam-Peermedhu areas of Kerala were all claimed by Sivagnanam as being integral to the Tamil state of Madras."



Periyaar lost his wife Naahammai in 1933. Being sick and old he required someone to nurse him. There was an ardent DK supporter in Vellore called Kanagasabhai. He had a daughter called Kaanthimathy. She was an ardent follower of Periyaars ideals and highly politicised. Kaanthimathy changed her name to arasiyalmani (political gem) and refused to marry spurning the institution of marriage. When her father Kanagasabhai passed away suddenly Kaanthimathy/Arasiyalmani was bereft of support. Periyaar then brought her to his residence. The young woman became a nurse and maid to the veteran leader. Periyaar himself called her Mani or Maniyamma (mother mani) Gradually she began running the lonely, childless widowers household and even attended to the tight-fisted Periyaars personal and party financial accounts. She had studied up to grade ten. Slowly party faithfuls got used to her as a permanent fixture and began addressing her as Maniyammai (Mani Madam).



Paradoxically Periyaars chief political rival was also his close personal friend. This was Congress leader C. Rajagopalachari known as Rajaji who was then the Governor-General of India. Rajaji visited Thiruvannaamalai in Madras state on May 14th 1949. Periyaar accompanied by Maniyammai paid a sudden visit and had a discussion for 75 minutes with the Brahmin Governor-General. When news broke about the private discussion, DK party members were aghast. The DK membership had been brainwashed into hating Brahmins. Rajaji was more or less a Brahmin symbol. Now their leader had had a clandestine discussion with him. The rank and file was in a state of revolt.



Rising Tide Of Discontent

Annadurai gauged the rising tide of discontent against Periyaar. He decided to give voice to this resentment openly. Shortly thereafter a conference on Muthamizh (Triple Thamizh) was held in Coimbatore. Annadurai and Periyaar were both speakers. It was then that Annadurai challenged Periyaar openly by asking him bluntly on stage Why did you meet Rajaji? What did you discuss with him? The people demand disclosure. Periyaar exploded on stage Thats my personal matter. It is not to be aired in public.

This duel percolated downwards to the rank and file. Periyaar himself wrote in his newspaper Viduthalai (Liberation) that he had met with Rajaji to discuss a trustworthy heir to his wealth and political legacy. This revelation added more fuel to the raging controversy.



Then came another shock

Periyaar announced that he was going to marry Maniyammai. He felt that she was a trustworthy heir and would manage party affairs well after he was gone. The law did not permit him to adopt a woman as heir. So he would register his marriage with her thus enabling her to be his legal heir. Notice of intended marriage was given on June 18th 1949. Periyaar was nearing seventy. Maniyammai was thirty-one. The Dravidian movement was ripped asunder. How could their leader marry a woman less than half his age? Moreover a rumour spread that she was a Brahmin (Incorrect). It was also speculated that Rajaji had advised Periyaar to follow this course. While the DK became the laughing stock of Tamils the party itself split vertically. Only a formal break had to be accomplished. Annadurai realised his time had come and struck. He met with his supporters and drafted an open letter to his leader.



In that missive , Annadurai issued an ultimatum. Periyaar marrying Maniammai was an insult to the party. He should refrain from going through with his plan. Otherwise party members would be compelled to criticise his action and oppose it. Periyaar remained adamant. On July 9th 1949 EV Ramaswamy married Maniyammai at a marriage registrars office in Thiyagarayanagar, Madras (Now Chennai).The next day Viduthalai newspaper announced that Maniyammai would henceforth be known as EVR Maniyammai. There followed a war of words but Periyaar remained unfazed. He felt that things would normalise after some party members let off steam. Some Loyalists remained faithful to Periyaar defending and justifying his conduct.



Annadurai was waiting for September. The 15th was his fortieth birthday. The 17th was Periyaars 70th birthday. While Periyaar loyalists conducted Birthday celebrations for the newly-wed septuagenarian, Annadurai in his capacity as DK general-secretary summoned an executive committee meeting on the same day.

Twenty-three of the forty-six ex-co members attended. Annadurai stated unambiguously that he had no intention of gaining control of the party. Instead he and his followers will go out with sorrow and form a new party he said. Annadurai had been waiting long for this chance. Now he was going out claiming moral high ground. An organizing committee for the party in formation was appointed. Events moved at a hectic pace. The new organizing committee met at a house in Pavalakkaaran street, Chennai and drafted the party constitution. The party was to be the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) or Dravidian Progressive Association. Annadurai was elected organizing secretary.



Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham

On the next day (Sep 19th) the newly formed Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham held its first public meeting at Robinsons park in Chennai. Annadurai said that there will not be a Party president post as the only Thalaiver (leader) he had ever known and will ever acknowledge was Periyaar himself.Until Periyaar himself came and occupied the presidents chair the party would not have a President. He also revealed that the policies and ideals of the DMK would be the same as that of the DK. Thikavum Thimukavum Irattai Kuzhal Thuppakki (The DK and DMK are double-barrels of a gun) he announced. Annadurai said that the party was formed with kanneer thuligal meaning tear drops.

How the Dravida Nadu for Dravidians demand suffered a massive setback due to State re-organization.

No longer was it possible to demand a Dravidian state for all the Dravidian linguistic nationalities



Thereafter Periyaar used to refer derisively to the DMK as tear drops. When all these political convulsions were on within the Dravidian movement the key demand of a separate Dravida Nadu state had been put on the backburner.The Dravidian movement had been unable to cope with the reality of Indian independence and plan out political strategy due to intra-party conflict and dissension. Now the crisis was over and a new configuration had emerged, There were two political parties espousing secessionism within newly independent India. The stage was being set for a long , intense struggle for a break-away separate state from the Indian Union. The Dravida Nadu for Dravidians slogan changed to Thamizh Naadu for Thamizhians.The coming years was to see Tamil secessionism rise to considerable heights and then rapidly fall into decline in Independent India.



After the tryst with destiny on August 15th 1947 Independent India embarked on its historic journey. In what was then the Southern state of Madras the double-barreled Dravidian movement comprising the Dravida Kazhagham (DK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) commenced its own march towards the goal of Dravida Naadu.

Initially both the DK and DMK focused more on social reform rather than political emancipation from New Delhi. Both remained steadfastly opposed to Hindi imposition, North Indian domination and Brahmin supremacy. As time progressed it became apparent that an unplanned division of labour was emerging. The DK spurned participatory democracy and relied more and more on extra-Parliamentary agitational politics. The DK priority was the re-structuring of society through socio-cultural reform.



The DMK also espoused these goals but the emphasis was more on reform through political means. The DMK leader CN Annadurai known popularly as Anna (elder brother) was veering around to the view that the DMK policies could be implemented from the inside by capturing state power rather than agit-prop from outside.

Though the DK and DMK were of the view that a Dravidian state was most desirable there were practical difficulties. Chief among them was the fact that the majority of Tamils in the state were not enamoured of secession. Another problem of equal dimension was the total apathy and even antipathy of the other non-Tamil Dravidian ethnicities towards the Dravida Nadu ideal.

While the DK and DMK strove together to keep the flames of Dravida Nadu demand flickering new developments in Free India began changing the political landscape.



Cry For a New Telugu Speaking State

Tamils were the single largest ethnic group in the Madras state of that time. But the Telugu speaking people were a close second. They were not very happy to play second fiddle to Tamils within Madras state. The cry for a new Telugu Speaking state being carved out of Madras state was raised. There were also Telugu speaking people in the princely state of Hyderabad ruled by the Nizam.

The Hyderabad Nizam had resisted being absorbed into the Indian union and Iron man Sardar Vallabhai Patel had to send in the armed forces to annex it. With this annexation the numerical strength of Telugu people in the Indian union increased. Telugu people in the Telengana regions of the erstwhile Hyderabad princely state along with those in the northern Telugu districts of Madras state made up a population numerically larger than the Tamils themselves.

"India gained freedom from Britain at midnight on August 15th 1947. At the time of Indian independence there was a separatist movement in South India spearheaded by the Dravidar Kazhagham (DK) or Dravidian Association led by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker popularly known as Periyar(Great Person)."

So, Telugu nationalism grew. The demand was for a greater Telugu State comprising both segments. The new state within the Indian union was to be called Andhra Pradesh. Telugu nationalists began agitating for Andhra Pradesh and also wanted the Madras city to be the new capital. Madras namadhe (madras is ours) was the Telugu cry.

The demand for Madras by Telugu nationalists was resented by Tamils of Madras state. The commonality of Dravidian affinity was shattered by the Telugu-Tamil rivalry.

The Telugu demand for Andhra Pradesh increased momentum when a Telugu political leader Potti Sree Ramulu went on a fast unto death and died after 66 days. The Indian government of Jawarhalal Nehru gave in to the demand and created the new state of Andhra Pradesh in 1953. It consisted of 16 Telugu-majority districts in the north of Madras state. Initially the Telengana regions of Hyderabad were not included in the new Andhra Pradesh State. Madras city too remained within the old Madras state.



Jawarhalal Nehru being an enlightened leader saw that linguistic nationalism within Indian borders could tear the fabric apart unless it was contained through appropriate adjustments. He decided to re-structure Indian states on a linguistic basis. Nehru appointed the States Reorganization Commission in December 1953 under Justice Fazal Ali to recommend how states should be formed on linguistic lines. The Home minister Govind Ballabh Pant oversaw the commissions functions. The Fazal Ali commission submitted a report in 1955 with recommendations. On the basis of that report, Nehru got the States Reorganization Act of 1956 passed. It came into effect from Nov 1st 1956.



Myth of a United Dravidian State

Madras state out of which the new Andhra Pradesh had been carved out in 1953 suffered further truncation as a result of state re-organization. The Malayalam speaking Malabar districts were absorbed into the new Kerala state. The Tulu speaking regions were incorporated within Kerala (Kasargod)and the newly re-demarcated Mysore state (Dakshina Kannada and Udupi) Mysore state was renamed Karnataka later just as Madras state was renamed Tamil Nadu (Tamil Country) . Andhra Pradesh formed in 1953 was further enhanced with the incorporation of Telugu speaking regions including Hyderabad.(In 2014 these regions were formed into the new Telengana State).With the re-organization and creation of states the residual Madras state was now preponderantly Tamil-speaking but territorially reduced.

In a single, decisive move the territorial basis for a Dravida Nadu had been undermined. With the Telugu, Malayalee and Kannada ethnicities having states of their own the demand for the erstwhile Madras state becoming an independent Dravida Nadu had lost its validity and power. Furthermore cracks and fissures within the Dravidian communities were clearly visible. There was much conflict among the states-in-formation over the borders. Each demanded greater real estate. This bickering further exposed the myth of a united Dravidian state.

The Madras state was now predominantly Tamil and therefore more susceptible to Tamil or ultra-Tamil nationalism

When asked What constitutes Dravida Nadu now? by the press, Periyaar replied bluntly Whatever that remains of the old Madras State is the new Dravida Nadu now



This inter-state strife caused much unease among the ruling Congress as well as the Dravidian parties. The Congress stood for an all-embracing Pan-Indian identity and this fighting for territory on the basis of linguistic states was frowned upon. The Dravidian movements espousing a greater Dravidian homeland were embarrassed by this intra-Dravidian competition.

It was left to a veteran Congress stalwart and freedom fighter Mylapore Ponnuswamy Sivagnanam to take up the cause of Tamils. Ma. Po. Si as Sivagnanam was known started a movement to protect the territory of Madras state. He was expelled from the Congress for his parochial politics. Sivagnanam formed the Thamizharasu Kazhagham (Tamil State Association).



Malayalam speakers wanted the Kanniyakumari District bordering the new Kerala; Telugu speakers wanted Madras city and the Thiruthani area.

Kannada speakers wanted Hosur in the Dharmapuri District of Tamil Nadu. Sivagnanam spearheaded political resistance to these moves. At the same time he led the agitation for some other border areas to be merged with Madras State.

The Tiruppathy area in Andhra Pradesh, The Kolar area of Karnataka and Devikulam-Peermedhu areas of Kerala were all claimed by Sivagnanam as being integral to the Tamil state of Madras.



Ellaik Kaavalar(Guardian of the Borders)

Maposi did not succeed in getting the territory he asked for but the movement claimed success in protecting the Kanniyakumari District, Madras city, Thiruthani and Hosur.

Sivagnanam upstaged the Congress and Dravidian parties in preserving the territory of the Tamils in Madras state. He was dubbed Ellaik Kaavalar (Guardian of the borders).

The Dravida Nadu for Dravidians demand suffered a massive setback due to State re-organization. No longer was it possible to demand a Dravidian state for all the Dravidian linguistic nationalities.



On the other hand the Madras state was now predominantly Tamil and therefore more susceptible to Tamil or ultra-Tamil nationalism. The plain speaking Periyaar was the first to acknowledge the changed situation. When asked What constitutes Dravida Nadu now? by the press, Periyaar replied bluntly Whatever that remains of the old Madras State is the new Dravida Nadu now.

D.B.S.Jeyaraj can be reached at dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com
Oops....! We couldn't find that...

404 error

Unfortunately the page you were looking for could not be found. It may be temporarily unavailable, moved or no longer exist.

Check the URL you entered for any mistakes and try again. Alternatively, search for whatever is missing or take a look around the rest of our site.
GULFPORT, Mississippi -- An Ocean Springs man was sentenced to eight years in federal prison Thursday for possession of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. sentenced 26-year-old Brett Michael Sekinger of Ocean Springs to the eight years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution to a victim.

An investigation by the FBI's Child Exploitation Task Force began in January 2015 through which a user was identified via an internet protocol address associated with activity linked to a child pornography "bulletin board."

Through the bulletin board, an online community of individuals were able to regularly send and receive child pornography via a website that operated on an anonymous online network. The website was accessibly only to the users inside the network who had the necessary software and who created a user name and password to access the site.

A federal search warrant was executed on Feb. 5, 2016, on a residence in Ocean Springs. The search uncovered computers and other electronic components belonging to Sekinger containing both still and video images of minors -- including minors who were not yet 12 years of age -- engaging in sexually explicit activity.

Sekinger had faced a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and five years to life of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the Jackson division of the FBI's Child Exploitation Task Force, which is comprised of agents from the FBI, Mississippi Attorney General's Office, and officers from the Prentiss County Sheriff's Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea C. Jones prosecuted the case.
New Delhi: The all-powerful GST Council will meet on Saturday to discuss early implementation of e-way bill as well as ways to plug tax evasion.

Headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, the meeting will be held via video conferencing and deliberate on cementing gaps in the system as well as curbing evasion, sources said.

The meeting assumes importance as there has been Rs 12,000 crore revenue decline in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in October over the preceding month and tax evasion is considered one of the reasons for this, they said.

This would be the 24th meeting of the Council. The last meeting was held in Guwahati in November where taxes on 178 items were slashed.

In an earlier meeting, the Council had decided that e-way bill - an electronic document generated on the GST Network portal - would be introduced in a staggered manner from January 1 and subsequently nation-wide from April 1.

However, the need to review the rollout timeline stems from revenue shortfall registered last month. The GST revenue for October stood at Rs 83,346 crore, the lowest compared to the first three months since the implementation of GST from July 1.

It was significantly down from the September figure of Rs 95,131 crore. Jaitley had said on Thursday that the Council has prepared schedule with regard to e-way bill to check evasion.

"I think Council has already taken decision with regard to time schedule, with regard to e-way bill itself. That will help in enhancing collection," he had said.

Besides, sources said, invoice matching is also something that the Council will deliberate on tomorrow. An e-way bill is required for movement of goods worth more than Rs 50,000.

When goods are transported for less than 10 km within the state, the supplier or the transporter need not furnish details on the portal.
Mumbai: Virat and Anushka chose Tuscany, Italy for their wedding. So it doesnt come as a surprise if the couple chose Rome as their honeymoon destination.

And now Anushka just gave us a glimpse of her honeymoon with Virat Kohli.

Anushka Sharma shared a picture on Instagram with an 'aww-inducing' caption, "

In heaven, literally "

In heaven, literally  A post shared by AnushkaSharma1588 (@anushkasharma) on Dec 15, 2017 at 12:25am PST

Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli got married on December 11. Sharing the pictures of their wedding, Anushka and Virat both wrote in their captions:  Today we have promised each other to be bound in love forever. We are truly blessed to share the news with you. This beautiful day will be made more special with the love and support of our family of fans & well wishers. Thank you for being such an important part of our journey.

Post the marriage ceremony, Mrs. and Mr. Kohli, along with their families, checked out of Borgo Finocchieto at 3 pm on December 12.

The couple will have a reception in Delhi and Mumbai on December 21 and 26 respectively.

The newlywed couple will be shifting to their new residence in Worli, Mumbai in December once they return from Delhi.
Mumbai: 2017 might have had mindless hits in 'Judwaa 2' and 'Golmaal Again,' but it has also seen content-driven films gaining momentum and garnering critical acclaim. Here are ten of the films, that managed to catch the audience's fancy.

Shubh Mangal Savdhan:

'Shubh Mangal Savdhan,' which had been R. Prasanna's remake of his Tamil film 'Kalyana Samayal Saadham,' had surprised audiences with its simplistic take on a tabooed sexual condition, without resorting to sleeze. Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar's believable acts were as effective as their performances in 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha'.

Lipstick Under My Burkha:

Mired in controversy for the longest time, 'Lipstick Under My Burkha' was the unabashed celebration of feminist glory that we desperately needed. Helmed by Alankrita Shrivastava, the film starred a terrific ensemble in Konkona Sen Sharma, Ratna Pathak, Aahana Kumra, Plabita Borthakur among others.

Tumhari Sulu:

Vidya Balan might have had flops in 'Kahaani: Durga Rani Singh' and 'Begum Jaan,' but the actress bounced back with Suresh Triveni's 'Tumhari Sulu,' big time. Playing an affable housewife, who serendipitously ends up being a night time radio jockey, Vidya charmed her way into people's hearts, with one of her career best portrayals.

Qarib Qarib Singlle:

Qarib Qarib Singlle, Malayalam actress Parvathy's foray into Bollywood was celebrated for being one of the most realistic Bollywood romances in recent times. With her crackling chemistry with Irrfan Khan, who himself had one of the best written romantic roles in recent memory being adequately exploited, the film was bound to be greeted with open arms.

Newton:

If 2017 were to be called a solitary actor's year, it would have to be Rajkummar Rao's. With as many as six diametrically different films releasing, his 'Newton' was among the most talked about film's of the year. Shedding light on India's questionable electoral procedures, the film couldn't have released at a more opportune juncture. The Amit V. Masurkar directorial, was also India's official entry to the Oscars this year. Though it didn't make the cut eventually, the film has nothing to lose heart over.

Mukti Bhawan:

'Mukti Bhawan' has to be among the most grossly underappreciated films of the year. The unanimously acclaimed tale on the complexities of life, was as much an allegorical epiphany of life as it was a euphemism for death. With Adil Hussain to lead the cast, the film drives home a point without trying too hard.

Kadvi Hawa:

'Kadvi Hawa' was in no way a pleasant watch, but the issues raised were once that needed to be told. Sanjay Mishra, who's delivered many an acclaimed performance throughout his career, has probably yet to come in a turn as deeply disturbing as this one. Playing a blind man in a drought-ridden land, Sanjay forced the audience to empathise with his plight. He had able company in Ranvir Shorey.

A Death in the Gunj:

Arguably the best film of the year, 'A Death in the Gunj' was a stunningly poetic study of a human's psychological descent into self-destruction. Konkona Sen Sharma's debut directorial didn't star her but had all the right actors in the right roles. With a career defining performance by protagonist Vikrant Massey, the film was unlike anything the industry had seen.

Trapped:

Vikramaditya Motwane's stirring thriller released a year too late, but with a Hitchcockian treatment and a nerve-wreckingly brutal performance by Rajkummar Rao, the film delved into a genre of survivalism that had been hitherto unexplored in the industry. Trapped could very well be the thriller that ages well, to be counted among the best thrillers the country has seen yet.

Anaarkali of Aarah:

'Anaarkali of Aarah,' one of the most striking Bollywood movies of the year with a female protagonist, gave Swara Bhaskar the best role of her career and the actress did not disappoint. With an able antagonist in Sanjay Mishra, her moving portrayal of a wronged erotic dancer won her accolades galore.
At the lobby of a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram, Rayhana was chatting with the girl holding her hands, laughing and hugging, inviting her to France, as if she had known her for ages. Once she settles down for a quick chat, she holds your hand and magically, you feel at home. That warm easiness with which she bonds with women reflects throughout her movie At My Age, I Still Hide to Smoke, which was screened to packed houses during all the three screenings at the IFFK. We are all women. Speaking woman-to-woman is easy, she says in bits of English. Wherever she screened the film, she has been greeted  with hugs and tears at many places and with death threats and abuses in many other places. But no threat or abuse will stand in her way of telling stories. In Algeria, her homeland, and later, in France, where she took asylum as a 35-year-old, she has faced threats from Islamists. Once, in Paris, she was doused in petrol by extremists and it was a narrow escape from an immolation bid. That was when her play was staged. It was the same At My Age, I Still Hide to Smoke. I staged it for seven years. The play was in French; the actors  the nine women  kept on changing after they faced attacks and threats, she recalls.

Rayhanas growth has been full of fights. She started off as a waitress, then became a theatre actor and after that, an author, a playwright and finally, a screenwriter and a filmmaker. It wasnt an easy journey, but shed make it sound cool. After I married Ben, I had time to write and make a play and a film, because he fed me well, she laughs. Her colleagues  Azzedin Medjoubi from theatre and Ali Tenkhi from films, were killed, the former in front of her. Her brother was assassinated in France by Islamists, apparently for homosexuality.

A scene from At My Age, I Still Hide to Smoke.

The film, her directorial debut at the age of 55, made in Arabic, set in a hammam (Turkish bath), has a group of women celebrating freedom  to speak, to walk naked, to express their dreams and political, personal and feminist views  protecting a pregnant teen from religious fundamentalists and misogynistic men. As the women take bath, get body massages and smoke together, there are confrontations, blasphemous criticisms against religion, fun moments, talks about dreams, oppression, sex, rape, politics and references to the past of each one of them. The film is about the world of women everywhere. Everywhere I screened the film, women told me this is their story, their life. Thats what I too wanted to tell the world. Men just announce talaq, talaq, talaq; its easy. After I made movies, I am being called a bitch, whore..., Rayhana adds.

The movie was banned in Algeria and all Arabic Muslim countries. The exteriors were shot in Algeria, but the hammam was set in Greece. No Algerian actress was cast, because all of them rejected. All the actors were from Greece. The lead, played by Hiam Abbas, is a Palestinian. Apart from her, Biyouna (star in Tunisia and Algeria) and Nadia Kaci, all the other women are debutants. The actors, who appear as the extremists in the climax, are all Greek actors. Only in Tunisia was her movie welcomed. The situation is different there after the Jasmine Revolution. The rise of feminists has brought about gender equality in Tunisia and my film was praised a lot when screened there, she says.

In Kerala, people loved At My Age, I Still Hide to Smoke, but Reyhana says one-third of the film was lost in translation. The English subtitles were badly done; theres a lot more you havent heard. I would like to screen it with proper subtitles in English and if possible, in other Indian languages, she says. Rayhana says she has no qualms even if she doesnt get an award at IFFK. I have the audience award; the responses were so great. I make movies for the audience and this is the biggest award. However, the film later went on to win the audience poll award at the IFFK that concluded on Friday.




While the news in December 2017 is all about Disney buying over 21st Century Fox, this does not impact the 20th Century Fox World Theme Park Malaysia opening in any way. Construction is still ongoing, and the big question is when the nee Genting theme park will open?









According to visitors who have recently been there, construction is around 60% and far from ready. The main image above is from Rookie Drone , In previous press releases earlier this year, the group has stated that the new 20th Century Fox World Theme Park in Malaysia will open somewhere in early 2018.According to visitors who have recently been there, construction is around 60% and far from ready. The main image above is fromwho beautifully captured Genting Highlands from a drone photograph.





Update 2020: The 20th Century Fox Theme Park project has been cancelled by the client.

Update 2021: The new place will be called : The new place will be called Genting SkyWorld Theme Park and opening in Q2 or Q3 of 2021.





20th Century Fox World Theme Park Malaysia Opening





With this comes a lot of speculation on the actual opening date of the new 20th Century Fox World theme park here in Malaysia. There has been no official press statements done in a very long time by the developers and owners.





The last big hype was stated by mainstream news portals and papers in Malaysia, where it was mentioned that the official opening in 2017 was pushed to early 2018.



Many were hoping that the new theme park would open before or during the 2018 Chinese New Year period.





One of the watchdogs that have been keeping updates through their forums is ThemeParx who has been posting the latest photos from people who recently visited Genting Highlands.



However, even they do not have any solid answers on the opening.





A photo of the 20th Century Fox World theme park construction taken in October 2017 by Danny Yap

When is the 20th Century Fox World Theme Park Malaysia Opening?





Since there has been no official announcement made, I am also joining the speculation race that it will be late in 2018 or perhaps even in early 2019.





Judging from the construction seen in recent photos for December 2017, the site looks like it is only 60% completed.



There is still a lot of work needed to be done, which looks like it will not be ready for the early 2018 opening.





The overall construction is massive, as you can see from the main photo above. Those visiting Genting Highlands using the new Awana Skyway gondola cable car will have the opportunity to see the ongoing construction. This can be seen just before reaching the end.





One news portal ran a statement by the Genting Berhad Group which quoted;

Resorts World Genting casino resort  also known as Genting Highlands  is currently undergoing an extensive revamp.The project  dubbed the Genting Integrated Tourism Plan (GITP)  was launched in December 2013. It is a multi-phase initiative described as a 10-year, MYR10-billion (US$2.45-billion) master plan. The Malaysian property has already opened several new facilities and attractions. There will also be progressive openings for new mall and for new casino areas.

Genting Malaysia said last month it was looking forward to the roll out of a 20th Century Fox World Theme Park at Resorts World Genting, as well as to the opening of a new indoor theme park in 2018, as part of the GITP.

Disney Bought 21st Century Fox in December 2017





The hottest business news in December 2017 is that the Disney Group has bought 21st Century Fox for a whopping USD 52.4 billion.



This, however, does not directly affect the 20th Century Fox Theme Parks, and no, it is not going to be renamed to Disney Malaysia Theme Park.





You should also know that some Malaysian bloggers may toy around with this idea to get people to click on their links.



Some bloggers even go to the extent of copying or re-writing articles that I cover on tourism news, which is quite sad.





Construction of Ice Age World at Genting. (Photo by unknown Instagram user)



As mentioned, there is no official statement being released, and everything now is just plain speculation.



One contributor stated that the 20th Century Fox World Theme Park will only open its doors to the public once 80%-90% is confirmed completed.





The most common question being asked by general consumers is when is the Genting new theme park opening ? Seems like no one can answer this question for now until Genting Berhad makes an official announcement.









For the lifestyle travellers, you should also take note that Southeast Asia's top club As for the developers and owners, it is a smart move that they have not made any official announcement previously as it would have been hot in the food and bad publicity. Especially if they kept on postponing the opening.For the lifestyle travellers, you should also take note that Southeast Asia's top club Zouk was opening in Genting Highlands at the Sky Avenue Mall in 2018. This will be the highest club in Malaysia at 6000 feet above sea level.





Conclusion

For those planning to visit the new Genting theme park, you will most likely arrive in KL city before continuing your Genting journey.



There are many options for accommodations in the city, and for For those planning to visit the new Genting theme park, you will most likely arrive in KL city before continuing your Genting journey.There are many options for accommodations in the city, and for budget accommodations in Kuala Lumpur , there are plenty to choose from.




In another incident, the officials intercepted two passengers landed from Abu Dhabi and Jeddah and recovered gold concealed in their underclothes. Representational image

KOCHI: Customs sleuths at Kochi international airport have seized gold worth Rs 30 lakh in four separate incidents in the past two days. The officials subjected two persons landed in the airport from Dubai and Jeddah, respectively, for personal frisking leading to the recovery of 680 gm of gold concealed in their underclothes. The contraband is estimated to be worth Rs 18.36 lakh. The two belonged to Kozhikode.

In another incident, the officials intercepted two passengers landed from Abu Dhabi and Jeddah and recovered gold concealed in their underclothes. The contraband was worth Rs 11.7 lakh. According to customs commissioner Sumit Kumar, customs officials in the airport keeping are keeping a tight vigil in the wake of the spurt in the attempts to smuggle the yellow metal. We are also subjecting suspicious passengers arriving from vulnerable spots to stringent checks, he added.
BENGALURU: Journalist Sunil Heggaravalli has approached the court requesting that bail should not be granted to Ravi Belagere, editor of Hai Bangalore Kannada weekly tabloid, who has been accused of giving supari to kill him.

Heggaravalli filed a petition before the 65th Sessions Court on Friday, under Section 301 of the CrPC.

Heggaravalli told Deccan Chronicle, I have approached the court opposing granting bail to Belagere. Under Section 301 of the CrPC, my advocate Harish Kumar will assist the public prosecutor in Saturdays trial. He will argue against granting bail to Belagere based on some points. One is that the threat for my life will be high if the accused is granted bail. Another is that there are already 15-20 warrants against Belagere. Also, we will request the court to cancel his interim bail and not grant him regular bail even on health grounds, as he can avail treatment being in judicial custody.

He further alleged that the report on Belageres health submitted by his lawyers to the court was very old. They have submitted health reports of 2013-14. If his health was really bad, why did the doctors at Victoria Hospital not admit him? All these facts will be presented before the court, he added. The hearing of the Belageres bail petition would come up before the court on Saturday afternoon. If the court denies him bail, Belagere, who is currently at Jayadeva Hospital for treatment, would be shifted to jail after the treatment ends.
The municipal department has informed the government that the existing provisions in the Municipal Act do not have the required provisions to levy penalties. (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: The TS government has decided to impose a fine on violators who break the solid waste management (SWM) rules in the urban local bodies. The government is planning to give powers to the municipal commissioners to impose the fines. TS is also planning to impose user charges for collecting the solid waste. SWM rules mandate every state to have a SWM policy. The government has asked the municipal administration and the urban development department to finalise the draft by incorporating provisions for user charges and penalising the violators.

The municipal department has informed the government that the existing provisions in the Municipal Act do not have the required provisions to levy penalties. Thus, the state has decided to confer powers on the municipal commissioners for imposing fines for littering and open defecation. The government also wants to hold bulk generators responsible for segregation, storage and user charges. It has directed GHMC and other urban local bodies to identify the bulk generators who generate more than 100 kg waste per day.
Superintendent of police P. Srinivas speaks on a cellphone at Husnabad where clashes broke out between Adivasi and Lambada groups. (Photo: DC)

HASNAPUR (ADILABAD): Police lobbed tear gas shells to separate Adivasi and Lambada groups that attacked each other on Friday following the desecration of a statue of Adivasi hero Kumaram Bheem on Thursday night.

Adivasis in large numbers staged pro-test rallies at Bethalguda in Narnoor mandal where unidentified persons desecrated the statue of the Adivasi icon by garlanding it with slippers on Thursday night.

The Adivasis, mainly youth, were proceeding towards Utnoor where they intended to stage a protest in front of the office of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency regarding the issue.

Lambada youth carrying lathis obstructed the Adivasis vehicles at Hasnapur village, beat up some of the Adivasis and ran away.

The Adivasis retaliated by attacking Lambada shops and smashed vehicles parked in front of houses in Hasnapur. Residents stayed inside their homes to escape the violence.

There was a large deployment of police at Hasnapur to contain the violence. Superin-tendent of police M. Srinivas monitored the situation and appealed to the Adivasis to stop the attacks. Police lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the Adivasi crowd. Some of the Adivasis, including women, were rendered unconscious by the gas. Adivasis asked the SP why the police had not stopped the Lambada youth from attacking them.

The police prevailed and the violence abated. Mr Srinivas assured the crowd that he would arrest the Lambadas who had attacked the Adivasis.

A second attack was launched by Adivasi community members against shops and houses owned by Lam-badas at Utnoor crossroads. They attacked the TRS leader Ramesh Rathods Sevalal Maharaj Hospital in the town and torched vehicles parked in front of the hospital. Police again had to resort to tear gas to disperse the violent mob.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Monday granted respite to TRS MLA Dr Chennamaneni Ramesh by keeping in abeyance an order issued by the Union home ministry cancelling his Indian citizenship.

Justice Challa Kodandaram was hearing the petition of Dr Ramesh who stated that cancelling his citizenship was in violation of the Indian Citizenship Act and Article 14 of the Constitution.

Dr Ramesh said that though he was granted citizenship by Germany in 1993, he spent most of his time in his native Karimnagar district to serve the people as his parents, who are freedom fighters, had done. The Centre granted him Indian citizenship in 2007 based on the recommendation of the superintendent of police and considering his service to the people.

He told the court that the home ministry had passed the orders without considering his application made before the inquiry panel.

He said that under the Citizenship Act, any aggrieved party may apply to the government within 30 days from the date of his certificate granting Indian citizenship.

He said that though the complainant, Mr Adi Srinivas, who contested against him in the last election, was not an aggrieved party, he was allowed to participate in the proceedings before the inquiry committee. While disposing of the petition, the court directed the home ministry to adjudicate the petition and pass orders in six weeks.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was addressing the 90th Annual General Meeting of the FICCI in New Delhi when she made the announcement of the rescue of 700 fishermen. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

New Delhi: Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday confirmed that Indian Navy, Indian Air Force and Indian Coast Guard have successfully rescued 700 fishermen including five Sri Lankan nationals affected by cyclone Ockhi.

Addressing the 90th Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi, Sitharaman said, "The search and rescue operation by Indian Navy, Indian Air Force & Indian Coast Guard has rescued 700 fishermen (including five Sri Lankan nationals) as of 5 pm today".

Meanwhile, a family from Kanyakumari expressed their distress over the missing of five male members after the Cyclone Ockhi. The kin said, "We don't know how we will earn our livelihood now, all the men of our family who were the breadwinners have been missing since the cyclone."

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also called upon all political parties, institutions and the public to donate generously to the special fund.

The severe cyclone has left a trail of destruction in India, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

In India, the cyclone struck the coasts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat killing more than 64 people and displacing over hundreds.
Bengaluru: The BMRCL labour union has claimed that women employees face harassment at the work place and the organisation does not have a proper grievance redressal mechanism.

BMRCL labour union Vice-President Suryanarayan Murthy said, Some supervisors show little consideration towards women train operators, station controllers, who are newly-married, pregnant or have children. Despite their requests the management harasses pregnant women by making them perform duties at a different stations each day, often far away from their homes.

A namesake creche has been established at the Byappanahalli metro station for workers, with no supervision, nurses, beds, and other facilities for toddlers. They are calling a random room, a creche. Why would anyone leave their child there? Murthy questioned.

He also claimed that there are instances of sexual harassment, but the women employees are too scared to report to their superiors, as they feel no action will be taken, and there is no grievance redressal cell.

The Karnataka High Court in 2014 ordered formation of a monitoring committee to address grievances concerning workers of Metro, and ensure proper implementation of labour laws.

Shankar, Executive Director of Operations and Maintenance Wing, said, We do not have a full fledged grievance cell, but we have a committee that will discuss and address the issues of employees if they come up. So far we have not received complaints about creche facility at Bayyappanahalli. It is completely managed by women.

As for pregnant women, it is not possible to allot a set of people to each of the 40 stations. It keeps changing. Moreover, metro functions even on weekends, so employees are need to be present on those days too. There are no problems at present, everything is taken care of, he assured.

However, Murthy threatened to escalate the concerns of the employees with the Human Rights Commission if they are not addressed at the earliest by the BMRCL management.
A few bridegrooms in Gujarat chose to vote first before heading to the wedding venue. (Representational Image | PTI)

Ahmedabad: As Gujarat voted in the second phase of polling on Thursday, some eye-catching scenes  women playing garba on their way to booths and bridegrooms heading to polling stations before marriage venues - underscored the enthusiasm of the electorate.

From youngsters to elderly, politicians to bureaucrats, people from all sections of the society came out to get inked.

His wedding scheduled for Thursday, Harish Bhavsar, a businessman from Vatva area, was at the cusp of beginning a new life. But it did not stop him from exercising his franchise. Before heading to the wedding venue, he cast his vote.

"I didn't want to miss voting and that's why I ensured I reached here (polling booth) before proceeding for marriage," he said.

Another bridegroom, Satish Patel went to the polling booth in the Ghatlodia assembly segment in Ahmedabad and exercised his franchise before heading to the marriage venue.

Adding colours to the democratic exercise, some women voters were seen playing garba, a popular dance form of Gujarat, on their way to a poll booth in Satellite area in Ahmedabad.

For Ram Krishna Choksi, it was an occasion to assert his democratic right, which the 80-year-old has been doing election after election. Accompanied by his wife Urmila, he came to cast his ballot at a polling booth at a college.

"It is the duty of every citizen to vote," said the octogenarian.

Asked about his expectation from the government to be formed after the polls, he said, "It should be clear in its ideas of welfare of the people. It should ensure that all citizens get access to cheap food, education and healthcare."

Dhaval Thakor, a first-time voter, was happy over his maiden walk to the polling booth and said he wanted the new government to deal with the issues of livelihood and create more job opportunities.

"I work at an electricity shop. I want the next government to ensure there is no dearth of jobs for people like me. I could not continue my studies after failing in the board examination, but I need a job to sustain my life," the 19-year-old said.

Senior bureaucrats, including chief electoral officer BB Swain and chief secretary JN Singh, among others, too lined up with their family members to cast their votes.

Governor OP Kohli also cast his ballot and appealed to the people to step out of their homes and exercise their franchise.

"The success of a democracy depends on voters," Kohli told reporters after emerging from a polling booth in Gandhinagar near Ahmedabad.

Politicians registered as voters in Gujarat, too, came out to get inked.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah were among the top politicians who cast their votes in Ahmedabad.

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, minister Shankar Chaudhary, senior Congress leaders Siddharth Patel and Shaktisinh Gohil were also among political leaders who voted.

The second and final phase of polling covered 93 seats spread over north and central Gujarat. The first phase of voting for the 182-member house, held on December 9, covered 89 seats.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also ruled out any impact of Gujarat poll results on Karnataka, saying the issues in the state were different. (Photo: DC)

Bengaluru: Raising apprehensions that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be tampered with, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday demanded that ballot papers be used during the upcoming assembly polls in the state.

The chief minister also ruled out any impact of Gujarat poll results on Karnataka, saying the issues in the state were different.

Siddaramaiah said he had spoken to some experts and there were chances that the EVMs could be tampered with.

"They (BJP) have the power. The Election Commission is under them. Though it is an independent constitutional body, they (central government) appoint the chief election commissioner," he said to a query about allegations of EVM tampering.

Speaking to reporters at Raichur in north Karnataka, he said, "What we are saying is go to the old (ballot paper) system, what is the difficulty?"

Apprehension about possible EVM tampering through bluetooth technology was raised by the opposition Congress during the recent assembly elections in Gujarat, which the Election Commission had termed "baseless".

Similar doubts about the credibility of EVMs were raised during recently concluded civic polls in Uttar Pradesh and assembly elections earlier this year.

Pointing out that the demand for the old system was raised during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls by political leaders there, Siddaramaiah said, "Go to the ballot paper. What is the problem with it?"

Several countries have gone back from EVM to ballot papers, he said and demanded that ballot papers be used during the assembly polls in the state, due early next year.

"We will both meet and write to the Election Commission on this. We demand that elections in Karnataka be conducted using ballot papers," he added.

On possible impact of Gujarat poll results on Karnataka, he said, "Results of any state will not have any impact on the results of another state....issues there are different from our state. So there is no relation to one another. So it cannot be said."

Asked about the exit polls predicting a win for the BJP in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, Siddaramaiah said the counting is yet to happen, adding, "this are just exit polls."

"There are various instances where exit polls have gone wrong. Let's see what happens on December 18," he said.
M Venkaiah Naidu took over as the Vice President of India in August. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu brought minor changes in the conduct of the Rajya Sabha on the first day on Friday after taking over as its Chairman, asking ministers and members not to use colonial terms while laying

papers on the table.

Presiding over the Upper House proceedings on the opening day of the winter session of Parliament, Naidu said no one should use the word "I beg to" while laying papers on the table.

"Just say I raise to lay on the table" the listed papers, he said. "No need to beg... this is independent India," he said.

He made the observation after the ministers called to lay the listed papers on the table, began their sentences by saying "I beg to lay on the table the papers listed against my name in today's revised list of business."

Naidu was however quick to clarify that this was only a suggestion and not an order.

This was not only the change that Naidu brought in on the first day as the presiding officer of the House. He also stood up while reading out obituary references.

His predecessors Hamid Ansari and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat used to read the obituary references while being seated. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan too stands while reading out obituary references.

Naidu took over as the Vice President of India in August. Vice President is also the presiding officer of the Rajya Sabha.
These Are the Fashion Designers You Googled the Most This Year

INSTAGRAM.COM/RSBELHASASo long Ivanka, hello Gucci.

Google's annual Year in Search report is always a great opportunity to acknowledge all the weird, miraculous, and frightening stuff that transpired over the past twelve monthsand the fact that we still don't really know how to spell "beautiful" or use scissors. This year's most Googled fashion designers and brandsthe ones that had the highest spike in traffic over a sustained periodare not entirely surprising when you think about the year's biggest news stories. While last year's listwas dominated by the Olsen twins, the Kardashian family, and Ivanka Trump, this year's list is almost entirely populated by hardcore fashion brands. 2017 was the year that logomania made a return and luxury brands embraced streetwear in all its millennial-loved glory. So, yeah, here we are: with a most-Googled-designers list that features a handful of names we actually care about. Wild!

From Ugg-boot collaborations to Instagram runway castings, these three Italian heavyweights all managed to make beautiful, high-end clothes and jump onto what all the cool kids were doing this year. To say these brands didn't benefit at least a little bit from Gucci's world domination would be wrong. Still, they also did their own thing with confidence. Dolce & Gabbana beat out Moschino and Valentino possibly because of its entanglement with various political issues this year.

Read more at:plus size bridesmaid dresses uk | taupe bridesmaid dresses
The winter session of RS began on a stormy note on Friday with the opposition demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'conspiracy with Pakistan' remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, creating uproar and repeatedly disrupting proceedings. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: The winter session of Rajya Sabha began on a stormy note on Friday with the opposition demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his conspiracy with Pakistan remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, creating uproar and repeatedly disrupting proceedings.

An angry opposition led by the Congress accused Modi of levelling serious charges against Singh, former vice president Hamid Ansari and diplomats.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed a notice by Congress and other opposition members under rule 267 for suspension of the business of the House to discuss the matter, which led to further noisy scenes.

The Upper House saw three adjournments before the Chair finally called it a day, a little after 3pm following continued uproar and slogan-shouting.

Later in the day, parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar said its the Congress that should apologise over its leaders meeting Pakistan officials.

The opposition members also protested the disqualification of former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar of the same party from the House by the Chairman, which was vociferously countered by ruling party MPs.

They raised the issue soon after the Chairman informed the House about his decision to disqualify the two former JD(U) members after giving them due opportunity of hearing.

As the members protested, Naidu said there cannot be any discussion on the decision of the Chair. There is no discussion on the ruling of the chairman. Please sit down.

This is a political issue which you are raising, which you discuss outside the House. I have no problem, he said, adding this is not the manner.... All are standing...Both the sides are standing.. I have not allowed.

As opposition members continued slogan-shouting and trooped into the Well, Naidu said You want to do like this on the first day itself? I dont appreciate the conduct of coming to the Well. ... There is a saying that all is well, not well. Try to understand this.

When the House reassembled at noon for Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Modis remarks at an election rally in Gujarat targeting Singh over a dinner meeting with Pakistani diplomats.

Azad said his party and other opposition leaders have given a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of the listed business to discuss an issue which he termed as serious.

There has been a serious matter which is not only the concern of government but the opposition is equally concerned. One allegation has been levelled on former Prime Minister and former President.

There are charges ... many foreign secretaries, high commissioners and ambassadors... charges have been levelled on them that they are hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan in Gujarat election. The PM on December 10 in Palampur in Gujarat has levelled this allegation. This is not an ordinary allegation...against a former PM, vice president and Army chief, Azad said.

But Naidu disallowed it, saying I have gone into the notice given by Ghulam Nabiji, Naresh Agarwal...I have not allowed it ...pls sit down.

This agitated the members who created further uproar, forcing the Chair to adjourn the House till 2:30pm

When the House met again, Azad raised the issue amid the uproar and the House was adjourned again till 3pm by deputy chairman PJ Kurien.

While Kurien pleaded with members to take up the private members business, Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal raised the issue of the Centres move to set up special courts for cases against MPs and MLAs and questioned the move.

When Kurien said it was a decision of the Supreme Court, Agarwal said he had not criticised the top court but his questions were directed at the government.

Congress leader Anand Sharma also got up and said Agarwal was trying to raise a point of order and asked whether this could be raised only at a particular time.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel asked how the issue being raised was a point or order, which, he said, was related to the business of the House.

Meanwhile, several Congress members were on their feet by this time and started raising slogans demanding an apology from the prime minister for his remarks.

Several Congress members including Oscar Fernandes, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Renuka Chowdhury, Sanjay Singh trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans.

Amid the din, some private members bills including The Educational Innovations Commission Bill 2017 by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and The Prevention of Enforced Disappearance Bill 2017 by V Vijayasai Reddy were introduced.

As the slogan shouting continued, Kurien adjourned the proceedings till 3pm. When the House reassembled, opposition members continued their protests, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House for the day.

Earlier when the House assembled, Chairman Naidu led the House in paying tributes to 10 former members who passed away during the inter-session period. Thereafter, the Prime Minister introduced new ministers to the House.
Pradyuman was found in a pool of blood with his throat slit inside Ryan International School in Gurgaon on September 8. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The juvenile accused in the Pradyuman murder case was denied bail by Juvenile Justice Board on Friday.

According to reports, the board took cognisance of the psychological report of the accused. The report emphasised that the juvenile was well aware of the consequences of the crime.

The Class XI student, who is accused of murdering seven-year-old Pradyuman, was produced before the JJB again on Wednesday and remanded to another 14 days in judicial custody.

He will be lodged in an observation home in Faridabad during this period and produced before the JJB on December 20, when the court will give its verdict whether he will be tried as a juvenile or an adult.

The cold-blooded murder case of Pradyuman took a new dimension after the CBI trashed the probe by the Gurgaon police and gave a clean chit to bus conductor Ashok Kumar, who was arrested with the charges of murder and sexual assault in connection with the case, and arrested the juvenile.

Pradyuman was found in a pool of blood with his throat slit inside Ryan International School in Gurgaon on September 8.
Sonia Gandhi, who became Congress president in 1998, steered the 132-year-old party for 19 years. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi has retired as Congress president and not from politics, party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala on Friday said, dismissing speculation that she has quit public life.

He said Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to Rahul Gandhi but her wisdom will continue to be the guiding light for the party.

Asked what role she will assume after Rahul Gandhi takes over the reins of the party, Sonia Gandhi told media persons in the Parliament complex: "My role is to retire."

Surjewala tweeted: "Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos."

"Sonia Gandhi has retired as president of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," he said in another tweet.

Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos.



Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light.  Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 15, 2017

Sonia Gandhi, who became Congress president in 1998, steered the 132-year-old party for 19 years.

Rahul Gandhi is set to receive a formal certificate of being elected the Congress president unopposed from the party's central election authority at a function at the AICC headquarters on Saturday.
On the recommendation of the Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests to come to India for medical treatments, says Sushma Swaraj. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday announced granting visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

"There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India," Swaraj tweeted.

She also announced acceptance of request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

"Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too," Swaraj tweeted.

"I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery," she added.

Swaraj has adopted a sympathetic stand on granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals notwithstanding the strained ties between the two countries.
All the suspects were arrested and sent to remand on Thursday. (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Thirteen persons, including businessmen from the Old City and two students, who were participating in a mujra dance party at a farmhouse in Shamshabad, were arrested by the Cyberabad police on Thursday. The police rescued three women, who were forced to dance semi-naked. The police has warned farmhouse owners against conducting rave parties on the eve of New Year.

The arrested were identified as Mohammad Rahman, Mohammad Abdul Parvez, Mohammad Mukramuddin, Syed Burhan, Syed Naser Pasha, Mohammad Zubairuddin, Sohail Shah Khan, Mohammad Kareemuddin, Mohammad Shahbaz Ali, Mohammad Imran, Syed Asghar Ahmed, Salman and Aslam.

According to the police, the suspects hail from Vattepally and Jahanuma in the Falaknuma area. Wednesday being Parvezs birthday, he had planned a party on Tuesday night at a farmhouse owned by his friends uncle in Shamshabad.

Parvez contacted Rehman and asked him to arrange for girls to dance during the party. Three girls from the city were roped in. While the party was going on, the participants forced the women to dance half-naked. However, when the girls resisted, the men harassed them physically and molested them, said Mr Ashok Kumar Goud, ACP, Shamshabad.

The girls managed to escape from the farmhouse and boarded an auto rickshaw home. But the suspects followed the vehicle, intercepted it and assaulted the driver. An official from the Pahadishareef police station noticed them and came to the rescue of the auto driver and the women. All the suspects were arrested and sent to remand on Thursday.
The bill proposes three-year jail with no scope for bail for practising "triple talaq". (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Union cabinet on Friday cleared the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, to make the practice of "instant" triple talaq an offence.

The controversial Islamic practice allows men to leave their wives immediately by stating "talaq" (divorce) three times.

Instant triple talaq, or Talaq-e-biddat involves Muslim men divorcing their wives by mentioning the word talaq (divorce) three times in one go, sometimes over email, WhatsApp messages or letters.

The proposed bill hands out a three-year jail sentence as well as fine, and states that the offence will be cognisable and non-bailable.

Titled the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, the proposed law also gives a victim of Talaq-e-Biddat a right to seek maintenance from her husband before a magistrates court. She will also be entitled to her childrens custody, the draft law says.

In November, the Centre had said it was ready with a new bill to ban "triple talaq" and would be presented by the government lawmakers when they meet for the next session of Parliament, which commenced on Friday.

In August, the Supreme Court had struck down the custom as arbitrary and unconstitutional in a verdict that was hailed as a watershed moment for gender justice in India.

The verdict vindicates the stand of the government, which had said "triple talaq" violates fundamental rights of women.

The Supreme Court verdict was delivered by a panel of five judges from different major faiths -- Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism. Arguments concluded in May.

According to the proposed law, a victim of instant divorce can seek the custody of her minor children as well as maintenance from her husband by approaching a magistrate after registering a complaint with police.

Under the law, triple talaq in any form - spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS or WhatsApp - would be banned.

According to the draft bill sent out to states earlier proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence that would attract a jail term of three years.

The draft law was sent to states for their views on December 1 and they were asked to reply by December 10.

Assam, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have written back to say that they support the draft legislation.

The draft law was prepared by an inter-ministerial group headed by home minister Rajnath Singh. The other members include External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and his junior in the ministry PP Chaudhary.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a non-governmental body that lobbies for the application of Islamic civil laws and opposes any ban on triple talaq, also welcomed the verdict, saying it accords protection to Muslim personal laws.
Bengaluru: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President Dr G Parameshwar will be undertaking a tour of the Assembly segments where the party had lost in 2013.

According to information available, he would be launching his tour in Mulbagal in Kolar district after performing puja to Lord Hanuman on December 21. On December 22, he would be visiting Kolar and Malur to address party workers. After a gap of seven days, he would restarting his tour again on December 29 and will hold conventions in Chinthamani and Devanahall.

Dr Parameshwar would be accompnied by KPCC Campaign Committee Chairman and Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar, KPCC working Presidents Dinesh Gundu Rao and S.R. Patil and Congress Floor leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge. The second phase of the tour is expected to be held during the first or second week of January, 2018.

According to sources, the decision to tour Assembly seats where the party lost, was taken by AICC General Secretary and In-Charge of Karnataka K.C. Venugopal in consultation with the Congress high command.

While Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is already on a tour of 120 Assembly segements which the Congress had won in the previous polls laying foundation stones for new projects and inaugurating those which have bene completed, Dr Parameshwar has been entrusted with the task of restructuring the party in constituencies where the party was defeated. There would be no tour during February in view of the budget session of the State Legislature.

In March, both Mr Siddaramaiah and Dr Parameshwar would visit all 30 districts along with all state leaders including Mr Mallikarjun Kharge in the run-up to the Assembly polls.

"There is no differences of opinion between Mr Siddaramaiah and Dr Parameshwar, both of them are working as a team to ensure that the Congress retains power in Karnataka," said a party source.
Justice M. Seetharama Murti was dealing with a petition by nine victims belonging to tribal community seeking a direction to the AP government.

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the AP government to convey to it by December 20 what steps it was taking to appoint a special public prosecutor and an assistant prosecutor in the Vakapalli gang rape case.

Justice M. Seetharama Murti was dealing with a petition by nine victims belonging to tribal community seeking a direction to the AP government to appoint the prosecutors to conduct trial pending against 13 policemen before the 11th additional district sessions judge cum special court under the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Visakhapatnam.

Ms Vasudha Nagaraj, counsel for the petitioners, told the court that 11 tribal women of Vakapalli village in G Madugula mandal were allegedly gang-raped by 21 personnel of Greyhounds, the elite anti-naxal force of AP, on August 20, 2007.

She submitted that of the 21 accused, eight names had been taken off from the case based on the order of the Hyderabad High Court granted in 2012.

She said court that 13 accused had approached the Supreme Court seeking the quashing of the case, but the apex court dismissed their plea in September this year and directed the trial court to complete the trial within six months.

Counsel contended that the SC, ST (POA) Act empowered the government to appoint an exclusive special public prosecutor and assistant prosecutor as desired by the victims to prosecute the accused.

Justice Murti sought the response from the AP counsel who sought time to get instructions. While directing the government to file a report explaining the action taken on the representation of the victims, the judge said in view of the apex court order to complete the trial in six months, each day is crucial.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao interacts with guests at the start of the World Telugu Conference in Hyderabad on Friday. (Photo: DC)

Hyderabad: He owes his current stature and success to his teachers in school and college days, said Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao in his own words at the start of the World Telugu Conference in the city on Friday.

Seeing the Telugu language spark in him, Mr Rao said his teachers encouraged him to gain even higher proficiency in the language without charging him anything extra. Travelling back in time to his early life, Mr Rao recalled the invaluable role of his gurus Mrityunjay Sharma and Mudigonda Veerabhadraiah from Siddipet in shaping his future.

Telangana governments prestigious five-day World Telugu Conference kicked off to a glittering start at LB Stadium on Friday evening.

The inaugural programme was attended by Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu besides CM Chandrashekar Rao, Telangana Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, Maharashtra Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao, ministers, legislators, Telugu poets and writers, Telugu delegates from various states and abroad, among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Rao called upon the teacher fraternity in the state to rededicate itself to protecting and promoting the Telugu language. Teachers role is very crucial because they can bring a change in the entire society through their work, he said, stressing on the governments serious intent of promoting Telugu language in the coming days.

The Chief Minister said that every childs mother is their first teacher as she tries to make the newborn familiar with his/her family, teach them good habits and what they should do and what not from early childhood.

KCR recited poems and lines from works of noted Telugu poets of the past with ease, inviting a huge applause from the crowd at LB Stadium.

He even sang lines from Galli Chinnadi Garibolla Katha Peddadi written by poet Goreti Venkanna and made a mention of hugely popular Jaya Jayahe Telangana and Vanamma Vanamma Okasari Vachipovamma songs of poets Andhesri and Jayaraj.

Mr Rao heaped praise on works of Telugu poets right from Bommera Pothana to most recent Dr C. Narayana Reddy. He said they conveyed life lessons and experiences through very simple, easy to understand language, striking a chord with everyone.

Mr Rao said his government tried to recognise acclaimed poets and writers from Telangana and instituted awards after Kaloji Narayana Rao and Dasarathi. He vowed to take steps to recognise the works of various Telangana literary greats which had not been getting the attention they needed.

The Chief Minister thanked Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu for appreciating his efforts to promote Telugu language on various platforms in the last few months.

Maharashtra Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao called upon parents to ensure their kids learn their mother tongue perfectly until six years of age, as was stressed by UNESCO. He said he was very impressed at the big scale the government was holding the Telugu conference.

Telangana Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan said that conference was a good opportunity to share knowledge of the past, history of the region and its achievements with the current generation. He wanted Telugu language promotion to keep pace with the present internet age.

Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said that Hindu and Muslim communities co-existed for several centuries. Telugu language was much respected during the Quli Qutubshah regime.

Teachers, language buffs and students turned up in large numbers for the inaugural programme. Authorities had arranged special buses to help them reach the city without difficulty. A spectacular fireworks show was held at the end of the inaugural programme.
Hyderabad: Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu warned on Friday that the Telugu language, culture, and traditions may soon vanish if urgent steps are not taken to conserve them.

Addressing the inaugural function of the World Telugu Conference at LB Stadium here, he said he appreciated the efforts of Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to hold the WTC in such a grand manner and applauded his recent decision to make Telugu compulsory for all students till Class XII.

He said quotas must be given in government jobs for Telugus, and officials and staff working in government departments must know Telugu.

Knowledge of Telugu should be linked with education and job opportunities to ensure its survival, he said.

If such measures are not taken, Telugu will vanish. If any language vanishes, it will have adverse impact on its culture and traditions also, which too will fade away. If roots are affected, even a giant tree will collapse. We have to strengthen Telugu from the roots for the language to prosper in future, he said amidst thunderous applause from those on the dais and thousands of participants on the sprawling grounds.

Mother tongue is like our eyes: Venkaiah

Mr Naidu assured the audience that he would pursue quotas in government jobs for regional languages with all Public Service Commissions.

Forgetting the mother tongue amounts to forgetting the mother. I lost my mother in my childhood. I have been treating my mother tongue as my mother since then. I always say that those who forget their mother, language and country, are not human beings. Now I want to add that those who forget their schools and teachers are also not human beings, he declared.

He said that Telugu is the most widely spoken language after English and Hindi, but it is losing ground faster.

People are keen to learn English saying that it will help them to come up in life. But I disagree with this argument. KCR, Chandrababu and I have not studied in convent schools. We studied in Telugu schools. Yet we could come up in life. Mother tongue is like eyes and other languages are like spectacles. If we have eyes, we can use spectacles. If we have no eyes, there is no use of spectacles, Mr Naidu said.
Georgia and Utah, as well as hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, have some work to do on their plans to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, according letters published this week by the U.S. Department of Education. Each turned in its ESSA plan back in September. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team are just beginning to respond to state plans. (Maryland is the only other state that submitted this fall to receive feedback.)

Heres a quick look at some of the issues the department sited in each plan. Click on the state name to read the full letter from the feds.

Georgia has proposed looking at whether schools are able to close achievement gaps as part of its academic achievement indicator. The department says that gap-closing cant be used there, although it can figure in elsewhere in the states accountability system.

The Peach State has listed nine indicators of school quality or student success, but it hasnt sufficiently explained how they would be measured, or how they will differentiate among schools, the department says.

Georgia needs to do a better job of explaining how much weight it is giving to different accountability indicators. ESSA says academic factors, like test scores, need to count for more than school quality indicators, like school climate. Its not clear Georgia met that requirement, the feds say.

The state needs to provide more information to show that its plans for identifying low-performing schools and schools where certain groups of students are struggling meet ESSAs requirements. And it needs to explain how it will ensure poor students get their fair share of effective teachers, the department says.

The department isnt sure Georgia is following ESSAs rules for making sure at least 95 percent of students participate in standardized testing.

The department says Utah needs to spell out its long-term goals for math and reading, and for English-language learners to attain proficiency.

The feds want Utah to make it clear whether it is using the ACT or some other assessment as its test for high school students.

Utah is allowing its local districts to come up with their own factors to measure school quality or student success. If those factors are used in state accountability determinations, the department is worried not every school will be held accountable for the same indicators.



It is unclear whether graduation rates, English-language proficiency, and test scores make up at least half of a schools overall rating in Utahs system, as required by ESSA, the department says.

Puerto Rico needs to better explain how it is identifying so-called targeted support schools that might be doing well overall, but where particular groups of students are struggling, the department says.

Puerto Rico needs to better spell out how it will make sure poor kids get their fair share of effective teachers, according to the feds.

Puerto Rico is using teacher attendance as its indicator of school quality and student success but needs to better explain how that will be measured, the department says.

The department isnt sure Puerto Rico is following ESSAs rules for making sure at least 95 percent of students participate in standardized testing.

Do states have to revise their plans based on the federal feedback? Thats unclear. States that submitted their plans this spring got the federal seal of approval even if they didnt change things the department asked them to change . For instance, Tennessee still has so-called super subgroups, which combine different groups of students for accountability purposes, even though the feds have said thats a no-no. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., an ESSA architect and the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, has expressed big concerns about this .

Whats more, the department initially released extensive feedback letters for every state. Then it decided to change the review process midway, in favor of calling states and expressing concerns. That happened after big pushback from states and Republicans in Congress that DeVos team was asking for more from states than the law required.

Where do state ESSA plans stand? Sixteen states and the District of Columbia submitted their ESSA plans this fall. So far, all but one of those states has been approved. (The exception is Colorado, which asked for more time to improve its plan.) Another 34 states submitted their plans earlier this fall. So far, Maryland is the only other state to receive feedback.

Keep track of state ESSA plans here .

Photo: Swikar Patel for Education Week.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Rajya Sabha on Friday. This Winter Session of Parliament will have 14 sittings, seven less than last year. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hoped the Winter Session this year will be fruitful for the people of the country and the Opposition will participate in the debate and discussion with a positive approach.

Generally winter starts with Diwali. But due to global warming winter has not come in full force. But winter session has started now and I hope that country would be benefited from fruitful 2017-2018 Winter Session in Parliament. I hope for positive and innovative arguments, Modi said.

I have faith and all-party meeting yesterday (Thursday) shared same idea that this Parliament session should be held with positive approach to move the country forward. I also hope that country will be benefited and democracy will be strengthened from the session, he said.

The Winter Session, which commenced more than a month after its supposed schedule, will end on January 5, 2018.

This Winter Session of Parliament will have 14 sittings, seven less than last year.

The session is expected to be rocky as the Congress is likely to raise the Modis statement against former prime minister Manmohan Singh. Modi, at an election rally in Gujarat, had accused Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar of hatching a conspiracy to influence the Gujarat elections. The allegations were made a couple of days after the Congress leaders met Pakistani officials at Aiyars house.

The Congress had insisted that Modi apologise for spreading falsehoods and canards against his predecessor Singh and the opposition party is likely to raise bring up the demand again in Parliament.

The Opposition is also expected to corner the BJP-led NDA government over the delay in the Winter Session allegedly in the wake of Gujarat Assembly elections.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar had, on Thursday, said that the government was willing to debate all issues raised by the Opposition and added that the latter should also help it in conducting its business, including passage of key bills.

The Government seek to pass 25 pending bills and table 14 new ones, including a bill to criminalise the practice of triple talaq among Muslim community.

The NDA will again introduce Constitutional Amendment Bill 123, with an aim to provide constitutional rights to the National Backward Classes Commission (NCBC). The Opposition had stalled the bill in the Rajya Sabha in the Monsoon Session.

(With inputs from agencies)
Chennai: Tamil superstar Rajinikanth is likely to meet his fans in the last week of December, fuelling intense speculation whether this would be a prelude for his speculated grand political entry.

The actor, who had declared a war cry asking his fans to be ready for the battle in May earlier this year, had a fortnight back said there was no urgency in taking a plunge into politics and that he would not rush into things. However, every now and then his self-proclaimed PRO Tamilaruvi Manian attempts to get into headlines of newspapers by saying that Rajinikanths entry into politics was a foregone conclusion and the question was only on when he would take the plunge.

Sources said the Rajinikanth Fans Association is gearing up for the mega event to be held at the Raghavendra Kalyana Mandapam in Kodambakkam, a prime property owned by the actor himself, from December 26 to December 31.

Thalaivar plans to meet his fans for a photo session for six days from December 26 and we are preparing ourselves for the event, a source said, adding that necessary police permission for the programmee has already been applied for.

The fans meeting comes seven months after the legendary actor exhorted his fans to prepare for war, comments interpreted by many analysts here as his clearest hint ever about his political entry. However, Rajinikanth went into silent mode after his brother and co-star Kamal Haasan began giving hints about his political entry.

In 1996, Rajinikanth had publicly criticised the then AIADMK government led by J Jayalalithaa on the law and order front, and had backed the then DMK-TMC combine, which swept the polls.
I have always looked at the concept of insurance as a clever con game, at least in India. Like the veterans always say, nobody actually wins inside a casino, except the casino! The same argument holds for insurance companies. If a citizen does manage to squeeze some money out of these con companies, consider it a major feat. The problem is simple: very few of us read the fine print when we sign on the dotted line. But why then do we sign? Because we are essentially insecure people, and are conditioned to believe it is important to protect ourselves. Just in case! For the longest time, I refused to fall into the insurance trap. Recently, I quietly succumbed. And in my state of panic, I made sure all the children were properly insured as well. This cover has done one thing, though. I sleep better at night. I tell myself, if I do drop dead, or the potholes of Mumbai claim another victim, at least some piddly amount of money can be claimed by my family. Ahhhhaaaa  now comes the fun part. If I get knocked down by a speeding motorcyclist, while I am gingerly negotiating potholes, my folks will be entitled to a grand sum of Rs 5.5 lakhs as compensation, going by what the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal has just awarded to Fatima Khans husband and their four children. This is a remarkable award on many levels. When Fatima, a 35-year-old housewife, was killed in an accident, the tribunal took a house helps salary as a benchmark to determine the award. In other words, Fatimas worth was calculated on the basis of the housework she undertook in her own home. Washing dishes, sweeping, doing the clothes, cooking and other assorted services generally provided by full-time maids, who, the tribunal decided, earn Rs 4,500 a month, for the listed chores. Unlisted chores were not taken into consideration, I suppose. So the late Fatimas life was effectively reduced to the household duties she voluntarily performed. Duties that would otherwise have been handled by house help. The mother-as-maid is not new. But this makes it official.

Interestingly, the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal 2017 has stated that even if the husband is not financially dependent on his wife, his dependence is on the household work she provides. And that entitles him to compensation. This can be viewed in positive, progressive terms, or with a heavy dose of cynicism. The Supreme Court in 2015 had clarified that it was hard to monetise the hard work required to look after the family on a full-time basis. A homemakers contribution was described as invaluable. Frankly, it can never be accurately computed. What is notional income? How can anybody even start to calculate it? Flavia Agnes, lawyer, argues that a working woman, who is considered as a contributing/earning member of the household, gets adequate compensation. But when it comes to full-time homemakers, there is a discriminatory attitude. The Supreme Court in 2012 also pointed out that often the precious time spent by homemakers can be as easily invested in education or paid work. But isnt. How does one tackle these tricky issues? I see myself as a full-time homemaker. I have always worked from my dining table. My primary responsibilities have been towards raising my family. Writing ferociously is the bonus! Writing is therapy. Passion. Technically, do I qualify as a homemaker who writes on the side? Or a full-time writer, who looks after the household on the side? I guess I will have to be killed by a motorcyclist like Ajinkya Khupte to find the answer.

While I am glad that Mohammed Khans patience didnt run out since the time he moved the tribunal in 2012 (he had sought a compensation of Rs 6 lakhs back then), Fatimas brother-in-law being an eyewitness to the horrific accident, strengthened her husbands claim. But to arrive at a fair formula is not just daunting, but virtually impossible. The Delhi high court in 2012 tried, by suggesting if the victim is a graduate, then you can calculate a package based on minimum salary for a graduate, with other factors thrown in (age, lack of children). This may be a practical way to put a price tag on a womans worth, but I find it demeaning, mechanical and insensitive. Society glibly describes a homemakers contribution as invaluable. Thats a cop out. Who decides how invaluable? Here I am, looking back at 45 years of consistent work, albeit from my dining table, and wondering how valuable or invaluable that makes my life? For Mohammed Khan, `5.5 lakhs is better than nothing. But `6 lakhs in 2012 cannot be compared to `5.5 lakhs in 2017. The four kids are older. Their needs and expenses may have doubled. But at least, this is a beginning  a small one, but still. Fatima cannot be replaced in the lives of the Khan family. The motorcycle owner, Ajinkya Khupte, and the Oriental Insurance Company should consider themselves really lucky to get away paying such a pittance. As for me, I have drawn up a long laundry list of all my domestic duties over the past decades. Be warned: if anything happens to me, the insurance company will have to pay through its snotty nose!
Companys focus for the speaker is to be a bridge between its SmartThings ecosystem and other Samsung appliances such as smart refrigerators and Galaxy smartphones.

After launching its own virtual voice assistant Bixby, Samsung might soon be dipping its hat in the smart speaker ring. According to a report from Bloomberg, the smart speaker will see the light of day in the first quarter of 2018, aiming to build its own ecosystem.

The name of the smart speaker is under the curtain, but reports suggest that it would cost around $200. Companys focus for the speaker is to be a bridge between its SmartThings ecosystem and other Samsung appliances such as smart refrigerators and Galaxy smartphones.

Back in August, DJ Koh, president of Samsung's mobile division, confirmed that the company is working on a smart speaker, but didnt reveal any details regarding the device other than its set to launch soon.

BK Yoon, co-CEO and head of Samsung's consumer electronics business, said Samsung has joined forces with audio giant Harman for making the speaker.

The report also suggests, the speaker will be launched in multiple markets and the device is said to still require improvement on performing voice-based searches.

With the advent of its own smart speaker, Samsung will enter the much crowded smart speaker market. Apple also unveiled its HomePod, going against the likes of Google Home, Amazon Echo and Harman Kardon Invoke.

The Bloomberg report also confirms the existence of a touchscreen Google Home which could be launched in early 2018. It was spotted under the codename Quartz buried in Google codes.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
While Samsung is yet to spill the beans regarding its upcoming flagship, we still have a rough idea of how the smartphone is shaping up based on the rumours and half baked reports.

Several months have passed by since Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S8, but it still ranks the top amongst the most aesthetically pleasing smartphones. Now the rumours surrounding its successor are pouring in at an alarming rate.

While Samsung is yet to spill the beans regarding its upcoming flagship, we still have a rough idea of how the smartphone is shaping up based on the rumours and half baked reports. So based on these solutions, here is a roundup of everything we know so far about the Galaxy S9:

Launch date

Like every year, Samsung was expected to showcase the Galaxy S9 at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. But turns out, Samsung has reportedly told The Korea Herald, it is unlikely that no one (partners) outside the Samsungs labs will get a sneak peek of whats cooking inside until the time is right. This also indicates that the company might not showcase the device at CES 2018.

Specifications

As for the specifications, the smartphone is rumoured to boast Qualcomms Snapdragon 845 chipset manufactured using the 10nm manufacturing process. The Galaxy S9 will have 4GB of RAM whereas the S9 + will sport 6GB of RAM.

The S9 will retain the design of the S8 but have completely new innards. It will retain the 5.8-inch Infinity Display panels from the present S8 lineup. However, it will have a completely new processor, new set of cameras and other new features.

There were reports that the device will sport a truly bezel-less display achieving up to 90 per cent of screen-to-body ratio. But a report from Dutch website GalaxyClub claims otherwise. The report says Samsung will use the same 18.5:9 display ratio as the Galaxy S8. However, the company would increase the screen-to-body ratio in a different manner, and the one that makes more sense.

Optics wise, the smartphone is expected to borrow the dual camera setup from the Galaxy Note 8, but will be placed vertically.

According to a report by KGI Securities, the company may finally incorporate a fingerprint sensor underneath the display. According to LetsGoDigital, Samsung had earlier filled in a new patent application for an in display fingerprint scanner to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) back in April and the company received confirmation this month.

The patent suggests that the Galaxy S9 might have up to 12 pressure points on the whole screen for the fingerprint. So the new technology will read your fingerprint from almost anywhere on the display.

Pricing

Based on the pricing of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, which is Rs 57,900 and Rs 64,900 respectively, the upcoming flagship could start from Rs 60,000, while the Plus variant can go up to Rs 70,000.

A KGI Security report also claims that Samsung would switch to switch from Synaptics to Egis for the supply of fingerprint sensors. This would increase the overall price of the smartphone by at 4-5 times, meaning the final product can hold a heftier price tag.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The group strongly condemned the atrocities and brutal military action by the Pakistan Army against Bengalis in East Pakistan during the 1971 civil war. (Photo: AP/Representational)

Washington: Pakistan must tender an unconditional apology to Bangladesh for the "genocide" committed by its troops during the 1971 war, a group claiming to speak for refugees has demanded.

In a memorandum submitted to the Pakistani Embassy, the World Muhajir Congress (WMC) also demanded that the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh be repatriated to Pakistan with dignity and honour.

The memorandum was submitted on Wednesday, the 45th Anniversary of the 'Fall of Dhaka' -- when Bangladesh emerged as a new country.

Muhajir is an Arabic-origin term used in Pakistan to describe Muslim immigrants, of multi-ethnic origin, and their descendants, who migrated from India after the Partition.

The group strongly condemned the atrocities and brutal military action by the Pakistan Army against Bengalis in East Pakistan during the 1971 civil war.

"It is very sad that till today none of the subsequent governments or institutions in Pakistan have accepted the reasons or responsibility for events in the former East

Pakistan as well as for humiliating defeat in December 1971 that resulted in Pakistan losing its half territory and majority population," it said.

The WMC said it demands that the Pakistani government and authorities not only tender an unconditional apology to Bangladesh government and acknowledgement of the genocide committed in 1971 but also make Hamoodur Rahman Commission report public besides holding accountable and punishing those responsible for the "war crimes" committed in the then East Pakistan.
Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, used fraudulent credit cards and loans to accumulate USD 85,000, which she attempted to transfer to the terrorist group ISIS before attempting to go to Syria to join it. (Photo: File/Representational)

New York: A suburban New York hospital technician accused of using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to launder money meant for the terror group ISIS was arrested on charges of money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization and bank fraud, prosecutors said Thursday.

Federal prosecutors in New York's Suffolk County claimed in court papers that Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, used fraudulent credit cards and loans to accumulate USD 85,000, which she attempted to transfer to the terrorist group ISIS before attempting to go to Syria to join it.

Prosecutors said that after travelling to Jordan to work with the Syrian American Medical Society, Shahnaz returned to the United States and applied for six credit cards, which she used to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The resident of the hamlet of Brentwood in Islip on Long Island appeared before a federal judge late on Thursday and was ordered detained, prosecutors said.

Shahnaz' lawyer, Steve Zissou, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

After borrowing about USD 85,000 with fraudulently obtained credit cards and loans and withdrawing another USD 22,000 from bank accounts in her own name, Shahnaz sent funds to recipients in Pakistan, China and Turkey, prosecutors said.

Some of that money came in the form of USD 63,000 in bitcoin and other crypto-currencies purchased with the credit cards, prosecutors said.

Arraignment and detention documents released on Thursday showed that Shahnaz, a US citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said that in July Shahnaz obtained a Pakistani passport and booked a flight to Pakistan with a layover in Istanbul with the intention of going to Syria. She was stopped by law enforcement investigators at John F. Kennedy airport and questioned about her trip and the financial transactions, prosecutors said.

She had USD 9,500 in cash with her, just under the limit of USD 10,000 that a person can take out of the country without declaring it to immigration and customs officials, they said.

Subsequent searches of Shahnaz' electronic devices showed numerous searches for ISIS-related material, including travel checklists.

She faces three charges of money laundering, including money laundering in support of a foreign terrorist organization, and is also charged with bank fraud. She faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the money laundering charges and up to 30 years for the bank fraud charge.
Most were released as homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but 10 men were charged under anti-pornography laws. (Photo: AP/Representational)

Jakarta: An activist says an Indonesian court has sentenced eight men involved in running a gay club and sauna to two years in prison.

They were among more than 140 men detained after a raid in May on what police said was a sex party at the Atlantis spa in Jakarta.

Most were released as homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but 10 men were charged under anti-pornography laws.

Imam Shofwan from Pantau Foundation, which has been monitoring the trial, says the sentencing occurred Thursday.

A North Jakarta District Court spokesman did not answer calls Friday.

Those sentenced included a director and several employees including strippers, a gym trainer, a receptionist and a security guard.

Shofwan says verdicts for two defendants who allegedly performed oral sex were adjourned until next week.
Opposition parties and internet users joined in, saying the incident epitomised the Asian giant's attitude towards its smaller neighbour. (Photo: AFP/ Representational)

Seoul: South Korean news media on Friday expressed anger and outrage after Chinese security guards beat and severely injured a South Korean photojournalist covering President Moon Jae-In's visit to Beijing.

Opposition parties and internet users joined in, saying the incident epitomised the Asian giant's attitude towards its smaller neighbour.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party urged Moon to call off his four-day state visit and return home immediately, saying the violence was a "terror attack against the whole of South Korea".

The photographer was thrown to the floor and kicked, reportedly suffering fractured facial bones and ruptured vessels in an eye, as Chinese security personnel stopped South Korean photographers following Moon's delegation at a trade show.

"Mistreatment of President Moon and lynching of a Korean journalist - This is the Chinese Dream", the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest-circulation daily, headlined its editorial, referring to President Xi Jinping's promise of prosperity and influence.

Chosun and other newspapers noted Moon had his first three meals in China without any Chinese officials on hand, with a lunch with Premier Li Keqiang unilaterally scrapped.

He was greeted by an assistant minister when he landed, while Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was welcomed in 2016 by Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Chosun said the perceived diplomatic slight and the violence against a member of Moon's presidential press corps were "not accidental" and were driven by "China's arrogant and violent nature" and "Seoul's subservient attitude".

"This rudeness China exhibited toward the South Korean presidential entourage is the very nature of the Chinese Dream," it added.

The English-language Korea Times called it "an appalling use of force by Chinese security".

"We are dumbfounded and enraged at such violence against visitors... We are outraged by the rude welcome", it said.

Internet users also reacted angrily. "China trampled upon Korea and the whole Korean people," one said in a posting.

But others said many Korean photojournalists are overly eager to get the best possible images and often cross cordons, sparking trouble with security guards.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Thursday that while the trade show had been organised by the South Korean side, "if someone is hurt, of course we are concerned about that".
The White House has contradicted Tillerson's offer of talks without preconditions, saying North Korea must first take 'sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearisation.'

Bangkok: The US special envoy for North Korea has expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's diplomatic offer of unconditional talks, although the overture has already been contradicted by the White House.

Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok on Friday that the talks could take place without preconditions and would serve Washington's dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear programme.

Yun says it's unclear whether North Korea is willing to talk following a period of accelerated nuclear activity, saying "it's very hard to discern what their intent is without having real dialogue."

The White House has contradicted Tillerson's offer of talks without preconditions, saying North Korea must first take "sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearisation."
The Every Student Succeeds Act gave states a chance to put a much bigger focus on career readiness when it comes to rating schools, fixing those that are low-performers, spending federal funds, and setting goals. So did states take advantage of the flexibility?

They didto a point, according to a new analysis from Advance CT E, which advocates for workforce education. Nearly every state had some sort of strategy to grow career readiness in their plans.

The biggest lever was accountability plans. Thirty-five states will hold high schools accountable for some sort of career-focused measure. And another eight are hoping to incorporate those measures down the line. One standout: New Hampshire, which has proposed holding schools accountable for the percentage of high school kids who have met specific benchmarks on two of the following measures: dual enrollment, SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, industry-recognized credentials, career pathway completion, or ACT career readiness.

More than half of states set some sort of vision for college and career readiness. And 13 connected those visions to their long-term goals for student achievement. One standout: South Carolina, which outlined life, academic, and careers skills it wants its graduates to have. The state wants 90 percent of students to graduate with those skills by 2035. The state also wants to cut down annually on the percentage of students who need remediation to take college-level courses, by 5 percent per year.

Thirty-six states said theyd like to support career readiness through Title IV, a flexible part of ESSA. But only 15 had a state-level activity in mind. For instance, Mississippi will use the funds to support access to dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, and early-college high schools.

Seven states said they would use their Title II money to help support professional development related to career readiness. One standout: Indiana, which is using Title II money to hike up the number of educators certified for dual enrollment.

Two states will use a portion of their Title I money to support things like Advanced Placement courses, International Baccalaureate courses, and career and technical education.

It is a positive sign that nearly every state either included or plans to include some measure of career readiness in their accountability system, according to the report. But it went on to say that most states did not fully leverage ESSAs flexibility to improve their readiness systems. For instance, very few states pegged their ESSA goals to their career-readiness aspirations.

The report notes that the Trump administrations changes to the process for crafting ESSA plans may have contributed to this lack of specificity.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Jayda Fransen dismissed as 'nonsense' accusations that she used words which were 'threatening, abusive or insulting' when criticising Islam at a party rally in Belfast.(Photo: Twitter/ @JaydaBF)

London: Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen, who hit the headlines after Donald Trump retweeted anti-Muslim videos posted on her page, appeared in court in Belfast on Thursday accused of inciting hatred.

Fransen, 31, dismissed as "nonsense" accusations that she used words which were "threatening, abusive or insulting" when criticising Islam at a party rally in Belfast in August.

VIDEO: Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death! pic.twitter.com/XxtlxNNSiP  Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017

After pleading not guilty, the court granted her bail but banned her from going within 500 metres of any demonstration or parade in Northern Ireland as part of the terms.

Read: Trump retweets far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant videos

But Fransen was then re-arrested over another incident that occurred on Wednesday at a peace wall in the city, where she apparently recorded a video speaking about "civil war" in Britain.

"Detectives investigating an incident at a peace wall in Belfast on Wednesday 14th December have arrested a 31-year-old woman in the Belfast area today," said a police spokesman.

Paul Golding, leader of the fringe far-right party, was also arrested over the August rally after coming to support her at the hearing.

"Detectives investigating speeches made at the Northern Ireland Against Terrorism Rally on Sunday 6th August this year have arrested a 35-year-old man today in the Belfast area," the police spokesman said.

Fransen posted a video on Twitter immediately after the hearing, calling the charges "some nonsense".

"Basically, I criticised Islam and they want to send me to prison for two years," she said, adding it would likely be her last video for a while as she has been banned from using social media as part of her bail terms.

"This is turning into an absolute police state and it needs to stop," the far-right politician added.

Trump's retweets in November, of the small group with no political representation, known for its aggressively anti-Muslim stance, drew condemnation in the United States and in Britain where there were renewed calls for the US president's planned state visit to be cancelled.
'Hamas must not be offered free gifts, and I will convene a meeting on Sunday, in order to find a concrete and legal solution to keep putting pressure on Hamas, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: AP)

Jerusalem: Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Friday that it was illegal not to return the bodies of dead Palestinian assailants to their families unless an exchange was agreed.

Current legislation does not allow refusal to return the bodies, the court said, following a motion filed by families of nine Palestinians.

However, the Jewish state's highest court granted the government six months to pass a law allowing it to keep hold of the corpses; otherwise the bodies would have to be handed over.

The government announced in 2016 that it would not return the bodies unless the Palestinians agreed to an exchange for the remains of two Israeli soldiers believed to have been killed in a 2014 war in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated in November that Israel would use the bodies of Palestinian militants killed in a Gaza tunnel explosion as part of a deal to receive those of two Israeli soldiers.

On Friday, Netanyahu described the court's ruling as "very problematic".

"Hamas must not be offered free gifts, and I will convene a meeting on Sunday... in order to find a concrete and legal solution to keep putting pressure on Hamas," he said on his official Facebook page.
In October the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture. (Photo: File/Representational)

Karachi: Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said Friday.

The fishermen were arrested Thursday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesman for Pakistan's Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said.

"The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail," Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters.

With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400.

The spokesman said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistan's Maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

"Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters," Chaudhary said.

He said the PMSA had on November 10 arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on November 12 four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters.

He said on November 16 also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

Poor fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

In October the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture.

A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.
CPEC is the crown jewel of China's One Belt One Road endeavour, which has routinely impeded by frequent terrorist activities. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: During a weekly meeting, Pakistans Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Muhammad Faisal denied reports that Beijing had halted payments for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects worth USD 50 billion.

Earlier, National Assembly Secretariat Ahsan Iqbal had informed CPEC parliamentary committee that work on these projects would only restart after Beijing issues 'new guidelines.'

Muhammad Faisal denied the claims saying that payments were executed in a specific manner.

Al-Haj Gul Khan Afridi, had told Dawn newspaper that funding had not been stonewalled but that China had raised 'technical objections' to three National Highways Authority (NHA) road projects.

Read: China stops CPEC project funding over graft charges, Pak 'stunned': report

Afridis claims had been rubbished by a senior NHA official who said, It is not true that China raised objections to the projects because these had already been approved at the 6th Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) meeting held last year

The three were related to the road network and were allegedly halted following reports of corruption. The decision can reportedly impact road projects worth Rs 1 trillion.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Umar had said, the members were informed that Beijing was reassessing the projects under its "financial review".

CPEC is the crown jewel of China's One Belt One Road endeavour, which has routinely impeded by frequent terrorist activities. India has opposed the project as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The prestigious project was launched during President Xi Jinpings Pakistan visit in 2015.

Originally, part of Pakistans domestic development programmes, CPEC now envisions investment in several projects across the country that are worth around USD 50 billion.
The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his family Friday heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family.

The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case.

The decision is a major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharif's confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharif's government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea by activist Teesta Setalvad and others for defreezing nine bank accounts of her, husband Javed Anand and two NGOs run by her. It, however, said she can seek relief on completion of investigation into a 2014 FIR pertaining to misappropriation of funds.



"Indisputably, the investigation is still in progress. The suspicion entertained by the investigating agency as to how the appellants appropriated huge funds, which in fact were meant to be disbursed to the victims of 2002 riots, will have to be explained by them," a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice K M Khanwilkar said.

Nine bank accounts of Teesta, Anand and their two NGOs - Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace - were frozen by the Crime Branch of Ahmedabad Police on January 21, 2014 during a probe into allegations of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulberg Society - where 69 people were killed during the post-Godhra riots - into a 2002 riots museum.

The petitioners contended no donor has made a complaint on it while the police, on a representation by the members of Gulberg Co-Operative Housing Society, froze the accounts, without issuing any notice.

"There is nothing in Section 102 of the Criminal Procedure Code which mandates giving prior notice to the account holder before seizure of bank account," the court said. With regard to explanations on discrepancies pointed out by the police, the court said these could be a matter of defence by them during the trial.

The Gujarat High Court had in October, 2015 dismissed their pleas for defreezing the bank accounts, and upheld the lower court order which observed that the accused had not cooperated with the investigation.
December 15, 2017: The day Star Wars returns to the big screen (if Disney has its way, expect one every year, though). The Last Jedi is a title that transcended the concept of mere hype across the world ever since its reveal. After what transpired in The Force Awakens, it was natural that one would be curious to see what becomes of the Resistance forces as the First Order bore down upon them, clinching away at them ever so slowly; and with the added benefit of being directed by Rian Johnson.



Naturally, expectations were set high, both for the movie and for any screen and theatre that would dare tackle it. Unfortunately, today, a theatre failed to hold itself to the task.



I'd gone to PVR's newest and shiniest screen, the P[XL], a homegrown equivalent of IMAX, considering the screen, audio and seating used in it. I'd been longing to see what a film in that format would look like (I sort of make it a point to go to any new big-screen theatre when they open at least once so as to gauge its worth for future films). After a long, literally sleepless night, I headed out to the PVR in Orion Mall for the film nearly everyone had been waiting for.



Upon reaching, I felt nothing amiss. Everything seemed to work as it should be, ushers bustling about, cleaning out the auditorium, the manager and his subordinates coordinating to ensure everything was on point. However, as the time of the movie came closer, I felt uneasy. The theatre door was still not open to viewers, and some workers were moving from there to what appeared to be a control room, talking in a worried tone. Asking them confirmed my fears: the screening would be delayed. No biggie, that happens from time to time. However, 10, 20 minutes later when we were finally allowed inside, another person (probably the deputy manager) came in and asked us to move to a different screen, saying that some technical issues were preventing them from playing the film.



This is where the booing began. People (including myself) demanded refunds, justified so for the screen they moved us to was something an average Joe in Bengaluru would pay no more than 120-150 for. There were some ramblings about refunding the difference amount after the movie, but it didn't feel like they meant it 100% honestly, because once people started talking about refunds and expressed their dislike at the lack of preparation, the manager, who had come to assess the situation, bailed and was never to be seen thereafter. An attempt to contact the manager was met with resistance from the customer support employee, who insisted that their department cannot give out contact details of individual theatres or their local managers, despite repeated attempts to glean information from them.



Incensed and incredibly disappointed as I was over the turn of events, especially considering it was at a PVR, I, like many of my co-watchers, demanded and got a full refund and I went my merry way.



I expect to watch The Last Jedi in an IMAX, probably Inox's this time, hopefully before the week is over. The internet is a dangerous place as far as Star Wars spoilers are concerned, and it would be best to clear out this minefield before it blows up in my face and ruins the experience worse than it already has. Naturally, I have decided not to go to Orion Mall's PVR ever again, regardless of any circumstances.
The proceedings of the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session were adjourned today after the House paid tributes to three sitting and seven former members who died during the inter-session period.



The House would now meet on Monday.

As soon as the House assembled, newly-elected Congress member from Gurdaspur Sunil Kumar Jakhar was administered the oath, which he took in Punjabi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted Jakhar with a handshake when the former greeted him with folded hands after taking oath.

The Gurdaspur bypoll was necessitated following the demise of BJP member and cine star Vinod Khanna.

After the oath of the new member, Modi introduced new ministers to the House. These included Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who were elevated as Cabinet ministers in the September 3 rejig of the council of ministers.

The new faces are ministers of state (independent charge) R K Singh, Hardeep Puri, K J Alphonse and ministers of state Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Ananth Hegde, Gajendra Shekhawat and Satyapal Singh.

Making obituary references, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan informed members that three sitting Lok Sabha MPs -- Sultan Ahmed (TMC), Chand Nath (BJP) and Tasleem Uddin (RJD) had passed away recently.

Seven other former members -- Vikram Mahajan, Ram Singh, R Keishing, P C Barman, Dhanraj Singh, Amal Datta and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi also died during the inter-session period.

The House was also introduced to the new Secretary General, Snehlata Shrivastava, who took over on December 1. A former IAS officer, she is the first woman Secretary General of the Lok Sabha.

Before the proceedings began, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met leaders of various parties.

When the Prime Minister entered the House, he greeted the members from the opposition benches with a 'namaste' and bowing his head.
The Federal Communications Commission voted today to dismantle a policy designed to protect net neutrality, in a dramatic shift that has roiled the public and carries uncertain implications for schools.

The measure will reverse a two-year-old FCC policy that was meant to prevent internet service providers from unfairly blocking or throttling the flow of content over the internet.

Critics fear the new policy will open the door for internet service providers to create fast and slow lanes in a way that reduces online options for consumers, including K-12 districts, which rely heavily on relatively unrestricted access to web-based lessons, videos, games, curricula, and other materials.

The order proposed by the commissions Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, was expected to pass, given that his political party holds a majority on the panel.

It was approved on a 3-2 margin along partisan lines. Pai and fellow Republicans Michael ORielly and Brendan Carr voted for it, while Democrats Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel were opposed.

Pai has predicted that broadband companies will eventually invest in networks in ways that will benefit internet communities. He bemoaned what he said were exaggerated apocalyptic fears about the shift in policy.

The time has come for action, the FCC chairman said before the vote. The time has come for the internet, once again, to be driven by engineers, entrepreneurs, and consumers, rather than lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats.

It is time for us to bring faster, better, and cheaper internet access to all Americans, Pai said. The sky is not falling, consumers will remain protected and the internet will continue to thrive.

Power to Internet Providers?

But Rosenworcel said that broadband providers would get extraordinary new powers as a result of the FCCs decision.

Internet service providers claim they will not block or slow the movement of online content, she said, but they have the technical ability and business incentive to discriminate and manipulate your internet traffic, and now this agency gives them the legal green light to go ahead and do so.

In a sign of the highly charged atmosphere surrounding the vote, the hearing was briefly halted and the FCCs chamber cleared during Pais remarks, a decision he said was based on the advice of security.

K-12 educators and ed-tech advocates have at least two overriding worries about the impact of the new FCC policy.

The first is that school districts will see their access to academic online resources blocked or throttled , if internet service providers are given new liberty to channel content into fast and slow lanes.

The second fear is that entrepreneurs and startup education companies that rely on relatively fast delivery of content to schools could lose out to deep-pocketed vendors that can afford to pay internet service providers more for faster, higher-quality access.

Net neutrality is the principle that internet content should be treated equally by internet service providers, so that the industry is not allowed to block or throttle content, or deliver material from different sites at faster or slower speeds based on which content providers are paying more.

Most FCC policy debates barely register in the public consciousness outside of Washington.

But the debate over net neutrality has roared with unusual ferocity across the country, engaging not only industry and consumer-advocacy groups but a vast swath of the public, as well as TV personalities and celebrities, many of them opposing Pais plan.

Critics of the FCC proposal have launched broad campaigns and enlisted tech companies like Facebook, Reddit, and Amazon, in opposing what they see as efforts to weaken net neutrality.

Policy Turnabout

The Restoring Internet Freedom Order  released Nov. 23 now reverses a policy approved by the FCCs then-Democratic majority two years ago.

The 2015 policy, championed by former FCC Chairman and Obama appointee Tom Wheeler, subjected internet service providers to regulation through Title II of the Communications Act and section 706 of the Telecommunications Act. That order forbade providers from blocking or throttling content, and from engaging in paid prioritization, or assigning content to fast lanes based on monetary arrangements.

Pai, who was named FCC chairman by President Trump, has depicted the 2015 order as over-regulation, arguing that it has dampened internet service providers interest in making investments in technology and producing innovations that benefit online consumers.

His plan would strip away much of the 2015 regulatory policy. It classifies broadband internet as an information service, rather than a Title II telecommunications service. Pai believes the new approach is lighter-touch policy that strips away the utility-style regulation of Wheelers earlier order.

The new order also seeks to prevent individual states and local jurisdictions from setting their own internet policies that are inconsistent with the FCCs order.

The plan will require internet service providers to publicly disclose accurate information regarding their network management practices, performance, and commercial terms of service. The FCC says this will require those companies to disclose blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.

The FCC will be charged with ensuring that internet service providers are publicly describing their practices. Another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, will have the power to penalize companies that are not living up to their public promises to consumers.

Pai contends that those transparency requirements will discourage providers from engaging in bad behavior that would hurt consumers, including school districts.

There is little or no evidence that providers do anything but provide their customers with access to all legal content, the FCC said in a recent statement to Education Week. Its good business and what consumers, including schools, want.

Business Incentives

FCC Commissioner ORielly echoed that argument in remarks during Thursdays hearing.

The legend of a cable company trying to break the internet makes scary bedtime stories...but it is not reality, ORielly said. So for those of you out there that are fearful what tomorrow will bring, please take a deep breath. This decision will not break the internet.

Internet service providers that attempt to block or throttle content would face a PR nightmare, ORielly added. Its simply not worth the reputational cost and the potential loss of business.

Other supporters of the new policy see additional protections for internet users. FCC Commissioner Carr, for instance, argued at Thursdays hearing that federal antitrust law will prevent internet service providers from reaching unfair agreements that end up blocking or discriminating against internet traffic. In addition, he said, state attorneys general will be able to enforce consumer protection laws against providers engaging in unscrupulous practices.

But some school officials have been skeptical, telling Education Week that they worry that internet service providers will simply publicly disclose practices that have the effect of restricting K-12 districts access to online content. Because those companies have met the FCCs new legal requirements for transparency, district officials would have no choice but to accept them, the thinking goes.

Supporters of Pais plan have also argued that internet service providers have a market incentive to treat consumers fairly: if they dont, consumers will switch carriers.

But many of the nations K-12 communities have limited internet options.

A survey released by the Consortium for School Networking this year found that 43 percent of school officials said their districts have only one available internet provider. A majority of those districts are in rural areas.

Christopher Harris, the director of the school library system for a regional education services agency in western New York, said the libraries he works for are currently able to handpick internet content from an array of sourcesbig online publishers and small ones, online databases, and providers of video streaming services.

If any of those sources are stymied in delivering content to schools as a result of the FCC policy, it would have a cascading effect that will hurt districts and libraries, he said.

What does this change mean for small publishers? said Harris, who works for the Genesee Valley Educational Partnership , which represents 22 mostly rural school districts. Are they going to have to pay more [to internet companies]? Are we going to have to pay more?

Harris also speculated that the unimpeded delivery of content will depend not just on the internet service providers in his region, but also the companies serving the individual publishers, in different parts of the country.

Were going to trust these companies to act in good faith? he asked.

Many K-12 teachers ask students to not only complete assignments that require online access, but also to conduct independent research that broadens their knowledge base. Cindy Perouty, a science teacher at Century High School in Sykesville, Md., regularly makes those requests of students, and she worries that the FCC policy could undermine that work.

Many K-12 science curricula weave printed resources with digital content, and if an ISP slowed the online flow of information, students would lose out, she said.

We dont know where this is all leading, Perouty said of the new FCC policy. To me, the internet should be like a library, a utility that everyone has access to. It shouldnt be controlled by a monopoly determining what you have access to, and what you dont.

The Consortium for School Networking, which represents K-12 technology officials, said there are legitimate reasons for schools to be uneasy, because of the weakening of the guardrails that protect net neutrality.

School systems will now face a bleak reality: reduced choices, higher prices and fewer innovative tools, Keith Krueger, the groups executive director, said in a statement. We hoped the FCC leadership would have carefully considered the implications for teaching and learning before making such a drastic move.

The debate over net neutrality is not likely to end with Thursdays vote. Many advocates expect that the new order will be challenged in court, as previous FCC actions on internet policy have been.

And its possible that Congress could attempt to approve a law that sets policy governing net neutrality. Many federal lawmakers, most of them Democrats, had urged the FCC to delay its vote on Pais policy, or voiced opposition to it.

But it remains unclear if a Congress beset by partisan rancor could coalesce around an internet policy.

Action on Capitol Hill, ORielly said, is the only way we can bring finality to this issue.

This post has been updated.

Photo: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai arrives for an FCC meeting to vote on net neutrality. --Jacquelyn Martin/AP

See also:
Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said today.



The fishermen were arrested yesterday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesman for Pakistan's Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said.

"The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail," Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400.

The spokesman said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistan's Maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

"Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters," Chaudhary said.

He said the PMSA had on November 10 arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on November 12 four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters.

He said on November 16 also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

Poor fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

In October the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture.

A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.
The Congress party on Friday announced the retirement of Sonia Gandhi as party president.



The announcement by party chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala came hours after 71-year-old Sonia told reporters in Parliament that she would retire.

"My role is now to retire," she said sparking off speculation of her retirement from politics.

"Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics," Surjewala said asking the media not to "rely on innuendos".

The announcement comes a day before her son, Rahul Gandhi, succeeds her as party president.

"Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," Surjewala said.

The Congress had on Monday named 47-year-old Rahul as President-elect and the transition of power from the mother to the son is scheduled for Saturday. Rahul will the sixth member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to lead the Congress.

On Tuesday, Deccan Herald had reported that Sonia would continue to lead the Congress party in Parliament and as chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance.

Sonia has been the longest-serving president of the Congress, having been appointed to the post in 1998 when the country was ruled by political stalwarts such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.

Congress had been reduced to having governments in three states, but Sonia's perseverance over the years brought the party to power at the Centre in 2004 and gradually strengthened its position across the country.

Sonia's retirement talk on Friday also raised questions on whether she would contest the next Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, a seat held by her mother-in-law and late prime minister Indira Gandhi.

On Saturday, the Central Election Authority is scheduled to ceremonially handover the certificate of election to Rahul and Sonia is expected to deliver a farewell speech on the occasion.
Rajya Sabha began the Winter Session on a stormy note with the Opposition forcing adjournments over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attack on his predecessor Manmohan Singh during Gujarat campaign and the disqualification of two JD(U) MLAs.



The morning session saw Opposition MPs rushing into the Well of the House twice forcing adjournment till 2.30 pm even as Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said he did not appreciate the members' conduct.

Soon after the customary obituary references and Naidu mentioning the disqualification of Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar on charges of voluntarily leaving the party, Opposition MPs were on their feet with Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal first raising the issue. Naidu did not allow any discussion, saying none can challenge the Chair's ruling.

Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad then joined the issue saying it was Nitish Kumar and his supporters who should have been disqualified as they went against the party decision to align with Congress and RJD.

"I was there in the meeting representing my party where in a rally we sought votes for the Grand Alliance. It is for Nitish and others to be disqualified and not Sharad Yadav or Ali Anwar," Azad said as JD(U) Parliamentary Party leader R C P Singh objected to it. Opposition MPs rushed into the Well as Naidu first adjourned the House.

When the House re-assembled at noon, Azad was on his feet mentioning his notice for suspending the business of House over Modi's allegation against Singh, former vice president Hamid Ansari and others during the poll campaign.

Even as Naidu disallowed the notice, Azad said he was raising an issue which both the government and the opposition found "very important".

"The Prime Minister during the poll campaign levelled allegations against the former prime Minister, former vice president, foreign secretaries, high commissioners and ambassadors that they conspired with Pakistan to influence Gujarat polls. This is not an usual allegation," he said.

As Naidu said the issue should not be taken forward as he has disallowed the subject, Opposition MPs once again rushed to the Well forcing the second adjournment in the morning session.








Hyatt hotels in India has announced the appointment of Sunjae Sharma as Vice President of Operations for India. Sharma will lead Hyatt's India operations and will be responsible for executing the company's operational and growth strategy in his new role. He will assume his new position at Hyatt's Gurgaon headquarters effective December 15, 2017, and will report to Peter Fulton, Group President, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Southwest Asia for Hyatt, a release said.

Commenting on the appointment, Peter Fulton said, "Sunjae has been an integral part of Hyatt's 34-year journey in India. His leadership skills, business acumen, industry foresight, and strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders speak volumes about his professional capabilities. He has been with Hyatt for over a decade, and we believe that with his operational skills and vision he is the ideal choice to lead Hyatt's quest to be the most preferred hotel brand in India."

"I am looking forward to this role in these exciting times for Hyatt globally and in India," said Sharma.

Prior to being appointed vice president of operations for India, Sharma was the Area Vice President for South & West India and General Manager of Grand Hyatt Mumbai, where he oversaw the strategic and financial performance of 16 hotels.

He started his Hyatt career with the Grand Hyatt in Delhi as Director Food & Beverage in 2001; later moving on to Hyatt Regency Kolkata as Director of Operations, the company release added.
Raising apprehensions that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) could be tampered with, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah today demanded that ballot papers be used during the upcoming assembly polls in the state.



The chief minister also ruled out any impact of Gujarat poll results on Karnataka, saying the issues in the state were different. Siddaramaiah said he had spoken to some experts and there were chances that the EVMs could be tampered with.

"They (BJP) have the power. The Election Commission is under them. Though it is an independent constitutional body, they (central government) appoint the chief election commissioner," he said to a query about allegations of EVM tampering.

Speaking to reporters at Raichur in north Karnataka, he said, "What we are saying is go to the old (ballot paper) system, what is the difficulty?"

Apprehension about possible EVM tampering through Bluetooth technology was raised by the opposition Congress during the recent assembly elections in Gujarat, which the Election Commission had termed "baseless".

Similar doubts about the credibility of EVMs were raised during recently concluded civic polls in Uttar Pradesh and assembly elections earlier this year.

Pointing out that the demand for the old system was raised during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls by political leaders there, Siddaramaiah said, "Go to the ballot paper. What is the problem with it?"

Several countries have gone back from EVM to ballot papers, he said and demanded that ballot papers be used during the assembly polls in the state, due early next year.

"We will both meet and write to the Election Commission on this. We demand that elections in Karnataka be conducted using ballot papers," he added.

On possible impact of Gujarat poll results on Karnataka, he said, "Results of any state will not have any impact on the results of another state....issues there are different from our state. So there is no relation to one another. So it cannot be said."

Asked about the exit polls predicting a win for the BJP in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, Siddaramaiah said the counting is yet to happen, adding, "this are just exit polls."

"There are various instances where exit polls have gone wrong. Let's see what happens on December 18," he said.
BJP president Amit Shah made his debut in Rajya Sabha on Friday.



Shah, who was elected to Rajya Sabha in August, entered the House just minutes before the proceedings began amid cheering by BJP members.

The ruling party MPs stood up to welcome Shah. Some of them thumped the desks while others clapped their hands.

He occupied seat No 24, which was earlier assigned to M Venkaiah Naidu, who rose to become the Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman. Shah has been allocated the aisle seat right next to the two-seat block where Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sit.

Shah initially sifted through parliamentary papers as the proceedings started and he was later seen writing something on his notepad.

There were changes in seats of some other members. JD(U) members have moved nearer to the treasury benches since Nitish Kumar broke ranks with Lalu Prasad's RJD and joined the National Democratic Alliance.
San Francisco-based Google X will be setting up its first offshore development centre in Visakhapatnam, the upcoming IT capital of Andhra Pradesh.



State Information Technology Minister Nara Lokesh who is touring the US seeking investments from companies inked a MoU with Google X on Friday to set up an advanced research centre on the port city of Vizag.

X, an American semi-secret research-and-development facility was founded by Google in January 2010 as Google X and operates as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc that started with the development of Google's self-driving car. The MoU also helps AP to use X's FSOC (free space optical communication) links to bring high-speed Internet to about 12 million households by March 2019.

According to a state government's press release, X will initially supply the state with 2,000 FSOC links. X engineers and experts on site in Andhra Pradesh will work together with APFSL (AP State FiberNet Ltd) personnel in identifying suitable sites for deployment of the FSOC links. APSFL was created to set up and manage the ambitious transformative information highway of the state AP State FiberNet grid which is expected to bring high quality and affordable digital services to every household, government offices and private agencies. The grid is expected to connect approximately 53 million people.

APFSL, a part of BharatNet initiative has 52% of ring and 48% of linear connectivity and covers 85% of households in the state. Increasing network reliability and connecting isolated and difficult terrain, forest areas, river crossings, railway crossings and the remotest reaches of the state with broadband connections will become easier with the new initiative.

"We are committed to bring high-speed internet and broadband connections to about 12 million households and 1,30000 enterprises (public and private) by March 2019. We are thrilled as APSFL and X is joining forces," Lokesh said.

Astro Teller, 'Captain of Moonshots' at X said: "The partnership with AP State FiberNet on this promising innovation would help overcome some of the longstanding challenges of getting high-speed Internet to hard to reach areas".
The New York City school district is putting $8 million toward initiatives meant to combat bullying.



The money will be used for a host of projects, including the creation of a portal that will allow families to report incidents of bullying, discrimination, intimidation or harassment online, and requiring schools to develop systems to make it easier to address bullying and for bullied students to transfer to another school.

The initiatives, announced by Chancellor Carmen Farina earlier this fall, came about a month after a student fatally stabbed another student at a Bronx school.

The 18-year-old student who was charged in the stabbing at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation said that he had been bullied by classmates . And The New York Times reported in October that another student, now 12, attempted suicide in February after enduring bullying at the same school. The department told The Times that the schools principal had been removed.

The education departments anti-bullying initiatives include:



A complaint portal that will allow families to report incidents of bullying, intimidation, and harassment online. Families would be notified of the outcome of the investigation within 10 school days. The portal wont be up until 2019.

$1 million in funding for the creation of student-led support groups such as Gender and Sexuality Alliance and Respect for All.



Requirements for schools to create individual action plans to deal with instances where there are several substantiated claims of bullying against a student. Students who have been victims of one or more incidents of bullying or harassment will be able to request a transfer to another school.



Targeted support for 300 schools with high rates of bullying.

Community workshops and mental health and first-aid training for staff, students, and families on reducing and preventing bullying. Other workshops will also address restorative practices, cyber-bullying, and religious tolerance.

Anti-bias and anti-bullying training for all school staff. All school staff members will be trained in January to identify bullying, provide support for victims, and create supportive environments for students, the department said.

Bullying, harassment, and discrimination have no place in our schools and these reforms, including strengthened training for staff and families, a new family-facing reporting portal, and expanded mental health services, will deliver critical resources to prevent and address bullying in schools, Farina said in a statement announcing the initiatives. We must work together to ensure that all school communities, particularly parents, are engaged as partners in this ongoing work.

The new initiatives were announced the same day the department reported suspension data for the 2016-17 school year. According to the education department, the total number of out-of-school suspensions declined by 6.4 percent. School-related arrests also decreased by 8 percent, according to the department.

The department has been relying more on restorative practices at schools in recent years. And the department touted a reduction in crime in schools as it has expanded school climate and mental health initiatives.

But Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter group whose supporters are frequent critics of Mayor Bill de Blasio education policies, said at the time that the city needed to do more to address school safety than the measures it announced. In the past, the group has challenged the citys statistics on school discipline and crime. Its also sued the education department on behalf of 23 parents, alleging that their children have suffered abuse and harassment in the citys schools.

Its long past time the city took steps to change what is a fundamentally broken system to address school bullying; this is what parents demanded more than eighteen months ago when they filed a class-action lawsuit and called for specific actions that the city is announcing today, including safety transfers and the bullying complaint portal, the groups CEO, Jeremiah Kittredge, said in a statement. However, in order to truly keep children safe, the city needs to commit to the full set of reforms that parents have demanded through litigation, including a comprehensive and accountable system to comply with state and federal bullying laws.
Suspected Bajrang Dal workers were claimed to have beaten up some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh last night over alleged conversion of Hindus to Christianity.



Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines police station said a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle, but denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident. Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for priesthood.

Father M. Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, told PTI that some young men stormed the venue of a pre- Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 last night and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After police got information, they came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am. They agreed to visit the police station today morning, Rony said.

"As promised they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not a single person there had converted to Christianity. "We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked today for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

Satna superintendent of police Rajesh Hingankar could not be reached for comments despite repeated calls.
A class IX student, who was forcibly married to his widowed sister-in-law in Gaya district, committed suicide two hours after the wedding.

The victim, Mahadev Das, was studying in a government high school and was not comfortable with his family's decision to marry him off to 25-year-old widow Ruby Devi.

Ruby's husband Santosh, Mahadev's elder brother, died due to electrocution. Ruby has two children.

After Santosh's death, Ruby's parents wanted her to return home but her father-in-law insisted that she stay back with her in-law's.

After some time, Ruby's mother and her father-in-law asked her to marry her Mahadev, who was 10 years younger.

Though Mahadev resisted the proposal, saying he wanted to study, he was forced to marry.

"The wedding rituals took place at the village temple where we exchanged garlands. In the evening I slept but suddenly woke up due to a commotion. I was told that Mahadev has committed suicide by hanging himself with a towel," said Ruby.

The police have registered an FIR against nine people who attended the wedding.

"We have also charged them with inciting the boy to commit suicide," said a police officer.
Madhya Pradesh High Court judge Justice S K Gangele, who is facing charges of sexually harassing a woman judge, got a clean chit from a Rajya Sabha-appointed panel.



The report of the Judges Inquiry Committee, which was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, dismissed charges of sexual harassment, victimisation of the woman judge and misuse of position using the lower judiciary to victimise her, saying none of it was proved.

The panel was set up in April 2015 with Supreme Court judge Justice R Bhanumathi, Justice Manjula Chellur and jurist K K Venugopal by the then chairman of the Rajya Sabha Hamid Ansari after admitting a motion supported by 58 members to impeach Justice Gangele.

The motion had listed three grounds for his removal: "sexual harassment" of the woman judge, "victimisation" of the judge "for not submitting to his illegal and immoral demands", including, but not limited to, transferring her from Gwalior to Sidhi, and "misusing" his position as the administrative judge of the MP high court to use the subordinate judiciary to victimise the judge.

The woman judge had resigned from service and held Justice Gangele responsible for her ordeal.

On charges of sexual harassment, the report said, the four instances cited by the complainant, that included asking her to dance to an item member, were "not proved beyond reasonable doubt".

The panel did not find any basis in the charge that Justice Gangele misused his position to use the lower judiciary to harass the complainant.

On the transfer issue, the report said, "The transfer committee committed an irregularity on solely relying on the recommendation of district judge Kamal Singh Thakur and without making any verification or enquiring on the same, was justified in transferring her mid-session."
Vijay Diwas will be celebrated at the War Mmemorial in Kadri Park on December 16 at 9 am to commemorate India's victory in the Indo-Pak war of 1971. The celebrations have been planned by DK District Ex-Servicemen's Association in association with Lions Club, Nitte Education Trust and Shri Shasthavu Bhoothanatheshwara Temple Trust.



District Ex-Servicemen's Association president Vikram Dutta recalled that during the Indo-Pak war, Pakistan Armed Forces, police and civilians numbering about 93,000, under the Command of Pakistani Lt Gen Mak Niazi, surrendered to Lt Gen J S Arora of the Indian Army at Ramna Race Course at Dhaka, the capital of erstwhile East Pakistan on December 16, 1971 after a short war of 13 days.

This historic event paved the way to the formation of the independent country of Bangladesh and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman became the founder prime minister of Bangladesh.

Stating that wreaths/flowers will be offered at the War Memorial at Kadri Hills (opposite Kadri police station) at 9 am on December 16, he said ex-servicemen, police personnel, as well as members of the public, would take part in the programme and pay respect to those soldiers who fought for the country and laid down their lives in the line of duty.

Association secretary S M Airan, Treasurer Col Balakrishna, Col N S Bhandary and Member Bhadrayya were present.
At least 38 policemen and several others were injured after a mob went on a rampage in Udaipur against the arrest of Shambulal Raigar, who had brutally murdered a labourer from West Bengal recently.



Prohibitory orders were clamped in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts and around 150 people were arrested.

Mobile internet services have been suspended.

The injured policemen include an additional SP, two deputy SPs and three inspectors.

Several policemen who suffered severe injuries on their head are critical.

Inspector General of Police (Udaipur range) Anand Srivastava said, "The police have formed a team to check online hate messages in the two districts. The cyber cell is keeping an eye and we will not let hate crime spread."

On Thursday, Updesh Rana Thakur, a member of Vishwa Sanatan Sangh, was supposed to take out a rally in support of Raiger but was arrested by the police.

After Section 144 was imposed in Udaipur district, several Hindu organisations came out onto the streets and protested in support of Raigar.

The police had to baton charge them to bring the situation under control.

Earlier this month, Raigar had hacked to death a 45-year-old daily wager from West Bengal, Mohammad Afrajul, set his body on fire and got his 13-year-old nephew to record the incident.

In the video, he is heard ranting against "love jihad".

Two days ago, the police froze Sita's, Raigar's wife, bank account after about Rs 3 lakh poured into it.

Messages were circulated through social media groups with the account number and IFSC code asking people to help Raigar bear legal expenses.
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group has filed a Rs 5,000-crore defamation suit against Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi in the Gujarat High Court, sources close to the Group said.



The suit, which was filed against Singhvi for allegedly making "false and defamatory statements", is likely to come up for hearing on Monday.

The group spokesperson was not immediately available for comments.

A Reliance group spokesperson had on November 30 stated that: "Abhishek Singhvi has made false, defamatory and libellous statements against the group. We will be filing a Rs 5,000-crore suit for damages against Singhvi for making these false and defamatory statements."

That day, Singhvi had said that "top 50 corporates owe Rs 8.35 lakh crore to banks and out of those, three top Gujarat- based companies -- Reliance (Anil Ambani Group), Adani and Essar -- owe Rs 3 lakh crore."

"One of them had last month publicly declared that they are shutting their telecom business with a liability of Rs 45,000 crore due to banks," he said in an apparent reference to Reliance Communications shutting down 2G business.
Editors Note: It could be argued that no one relies on the skills of global competence more than diplomats. The history of their work can deeply engage students and bring global competence to life in a unique way, says Maureen McNicholl, Program Director of Education Outreach, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training .

Diplomacy is the art of conducting international relations, forming alliances, and exercising tact and skill in dealing with people of varied backgrounds to advance a nations interests and security. The success of U.S. foreign policy, peace, and security depends largely on the skill and experience of diplomats, and the same is true for countries around the world. Diplomatic oral histories are ideally suited to the global studies or world history classroom.

Using Oral History as a Primary Source

Primary sources are the raw materials of history. They differ from secondary sources created by researchers and writers lacking firsthand experience. Examining primary sources fosters your students historical empathy and helps them consider the complexity of the past. Students analyze primary sources and employ critical thinking and analysis when considering individual bias and perspective. They help students develop their global competence by considering multiple perspectives and comparing competing narratives. Primary sources help answer the essential questions of how historians learn about the past and how the past informs our understanding of the present.

Simply put, oral histories make your classroom content come alive and makes history memorable for your students. Primary source oral histories provide a social and cultural context that enriches your curriculum in a way that textbooks never will. Even historical records and documents often lack the everyday experiences of people, how they felt about a particular topic, why they made certain decisions, and how historical events impacted their personal lives. These frontline diplomats explain both what they thought at the time and what they now understand in the light of further experience and reflection. Oral histories enable students to see how they can be agents of change by learning about the impact U.S. diplomats made in unique circumstances.

Why study the work of diplomats in your classroom?

First, diplomats (known in the U.S. as Foreign Service officers) are front-seat witnesses to many world history events, serving our nation 24/7 around the globe in often dangerous or unhealthy situations, or working with highly complex societies where knowledge of the local language and culture is essential for success. The work of our diplomats is largely unsung, often occurring behind closed doors or in far-flung locations inaccessible to the general public. Reading their oral histories is a way to illuminate the world of American diplomacy. It engages students in history through storytelling.

Foreign Service officers work on a broad range of important issues that relate directly to curricula, such as environmental issues, climate change, counterterrorism, womens rights, conflict resolution, human trafficking, and the need to preserve cultural and intellectual property. Diplomats promote business to create new and better paying jobs, and they help foreign countries protect basic human rights like freedom of speech, religion, and fair judicial systems.

Foreign Service officers are often the first on the scene during natural disasters around the world, and save people who get lost or sick or who have been victims of crimes. To do their jobs well, diplomats become experts in the languages, politics, economics, history, culture, and traditions of the country to which they are assigned. Diplomats work with a fascinating range of people, from artists and musicians, to journalists and scientists. They conduct high-level discussions with foreign leaders, analyze political and economic developments, write speeches for their ambassadors, and connect with foreign citizens through social media. Above all, they are masters at communicating across cultures.

Resources for Oral Histories from Diplomats

One great resource for educators looking to share oral histories with their students is the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST). ADSTs collection of primary source oral histories exceeds 2,000 interviews and podcasts, gathered over the last three decades from diplomats who have represented the United States since World War II. They provide a context for many locations and the events that shaped todays world from the point of view of those who often worked quietly, behind the scenes, to help develop U.S. security and prosperity.

Included in these oral histories are two series that focus on specific aspects of diplomatic history: Moments in Diplomatic History and Fascinating Figures. Moments in Diplomatic History highlights events such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and Mexican Immigration Talks. Fascinating Figures focus on individuals who have influenced diplomatic history, including Betty Allan, a female code-breaker during World War II; and the Velvet Hammer, Secretary of State James Baker III. A third series, Country Readers, contains the experiences of many diplomats and provides an overview of U.S. relations with individual countries.

In sum, primary source diplomatic oral histories provide your students with a rare, front-seat glimpse into our nations role in many of the most significant international events over the last seven decades. These unique stories help students understand individual and institutional agency in response to historical conditions. Finally, using oral histories provides opportunities for your students to analyze the authenticity and credibility of sources and develop perspectives of time and place, all part of developing skills in global competence.

Connect with ADST and the Center for Global Education on Twitter.

Image created on Pablo .
The Defence Ministry will provide a level playing field to startup companies if they want to bid for military projects in the future, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured young entrepreneurs.



Startups currently face a handicap while bidding for military tenders that come with pre-qualification criteria in terms of revenue, size of the company and with a clean track records for several years.

"All these handicaps are being removed to facilitate participation of startup companies in defence tenders. The bids will treat them equally. They will not be disqualified because they are small," Nirmala said at a FICCI conference here on Thursday.

India's first full-time woman defence minister, who took charge in September, said the defence acquisition council would clear all backlog relating to various procurements by December 31. She also said the ministry identified eight projects to be funded under the Technology Development Fund.

Nirmala said she was carrying out a major review of the 39 ordnance factories not only to make them more productive but also to reduce India's import dependence on arms and ammunition.

With 14% of global arms import, India occupies the pole position among importers of arms and weapons. Also, the share of import is raising steadily, according to a February 2016 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

In 2011a15 India's imports were three times greater than either of its regional rivals - China and Pakistan. The major reason for high imports was Indian industry's failure to produce competitive indigenously designed weapons, the report said.

The defence ministry was tasked with identifying industrial corridors near an ordnance factory in order to create multiple military industrial zones involving private companies and public sector units.
The late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was brought to Apollo Hospital in a 'breathless state' on September 22 last year and those she approved were beside her during her treatment there, a top hospital official said today.



The AIADMK supremo spent 75 days in the hospital before breathing her last on December 5 last year.



"She (Jayalalithaa) was brought to the hospital in a breathless state, was given adequate treatment and recovered from it,"Apollo Hospitals Vice-Chairperson Preetha Reddy told a private Tamil channel in New Delhi in reply to a question.



"Unfortunately, you know the outcome at the end was not what everybody was looking for. And that is the hand of fate which I don't think anyone can do anything about it",she said. To another query on the controversy raked up by some persons on the circumstances leading to her death, Reddy said the hospital treated her with best clinicians from New Delhi as well as from abroad. "See, I think the hospital has done it's best. We have the best clinicians from (New) Delhi, from AIIMS, from abroad within this system", she said.



"There is an enquiry and I think that is the best thing that has been done. Let them go through the data.... I think all the mysteries will then be solved", she said. It may be recalled that the one man inquiry commission, headed by retired Justice A Arumughasamy, appointed by the Tamil Nadu government to probe the circumstances leading to Jayalalithaa's death, has already commenced the enquiry. Asked who was beside Jayalalithaa when she was treated, Reddy said people who were required and approved by her (Jayalalithaa) were by her bedside during treatment. "So were all the doctors from all over the world, qualified nurses technicians and physiotherapists from Singapore (who could be made available)."

To a query on whether Jayalalithaa was aware of her fingerprint being taken, Reddy said "I can't answer that question because I was not by her bedside". It has been alleged that Jayalalithaa's fingerprint was affixed on the papers authorising the candidature of AIADMK candidates for the then bypolls.
The Centre is examining a request for restoration works on the Jama Masjid as cracks have appeared in its domes, pillars and arches over the years.



Officials from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) are studying what needs to be done to maintain the structural integrity of the 361-year-old mosque, one of the largest in India and visited by hundreds of worshippers and tourists every day.

Senior officials held a meeting to discuss the matter on Friday, a day after a team from the Delhi circle office visited the site to assess the extent of the damage.

A team from the Delhi Disaster Management Authority also inspected the site.

"Our team has inspected the site. We will take necessary action on the basis of the report and recommendations," an ASI official told DH.

The inspections came after the condition of the iconic mosque was highlighted by a section of the media recently.

The Shahi Imam of the Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, told media persons that he had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the ASI last year, seeking help for "the urgent repair of the structure."

"I specifically told both the PM's office and the ASIathat lack of maintenance was resulting in permanent damage. In particular, the main prayer chamber and three domes require instant restoration," a newspaper quoted him as saying.

While the Jama Masjid is not an ASI-protected monument, the responsibility of its regular maintenance, management and protection lies with the Delhi Waqf Board which cited a paucity of funds for not initiating restoration work.

The Ministry of Culture, however, has some provisions for earmarking funds for the Jama Masjid.

"Once the final assessment of the damage is done, steps will be taken for restoration work," sources in the ASI said.

Custodians of the Jama Masjid say water seepage has caused damage to the walls, domes and minarets of the mosque.

The central dome of the main prayer hall is the worst affected. Water has peeled off the plaster and layers of sandstone from the walls, making them weaker.

Several wall joints and minarets have developed cracks which allow rainwater to seep in and erode the structure, they added.
The Juvenile Justice Board today rejected the bail plea of a teenager accused of killing seven-year-old Pradhuman Thakur on the premises of Ryan International School here.



The board, however, reserved its decision till December 20 on whether the accused should be tried as an adult or as a juvenile.

The board had earlier set up a committee comprising a psychologist from PGI Rohtak seeking an expert opinion in the matter. The panel submitted its report in two envelops which were opened inside the court room today.

Lawyer of Pradhuman's father, Sushil Tekriwal, said the report was based on behavioural, sociological and psychological aspects of the juvenile.

"We have seen the report and given our submission," he said.

According to Tekriwal, the report said the accused should be treated as an adult and it suggested that he was an abnormal child with a hyper-aggressive streak to his personality.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) contended that the probe was underway and they were still interrogating the accused.

An intense argument took place among the CBI counsel, Thakur's lawyer and the defence lawyer for three hours but eventually the board rejected the juvenile's plea for bail on basis of the reports.

The Juvenile Justice Board noted that the accused was mature enough to recognise the consequences of his actions.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday pitched for ballot papers to replace electronic voting machines (EVM) in the 2018 Assembly polls, expressing concern that the machines were prone to tampering.

"We will write to the Election Commission and even meet the officials there insisting on ballot papers," Siddaramaiah told reporters. "I have spoken to some experts about the EVMs. There is scope for tampering. What is the problem in going back to the old system of ballot papers?" he asked.

This is the first time Siddaramaiah, who will lead the Congress party in the 2018 elections, has publicly commented on the ongoing debate on the EVMs. Taking on the BJP-led Centre, he said, "They have power. The Election Commission is in their hands, although it is supposed to be an independent Constitutional body. They can appoint whoever they want as the Chief Election Commissioner," he said, pointing out that the US and Germany had switched back to ballot papers after trying EVMs.

The ruling Congress, however, seems to have been caught off-guard by Siddaramaiah's remarks. AICC spokesperson Dinesh Gundu Rao said returning to the ballot paper was a decision the party had to take at the national level. "We will discuss and decide this at the AICC," he said, when asked if Siddaramaiah's stand was that of the party's. "Concerns of EVM misuse have been raised in our party and it is being discussed seriously. Any machine can be hacked and be erroneous. We will definitely take a strong stand on this," he maintained. Rao is also the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working president.

KPCC president G Parameshwara has, on several occasions, warned of EVM misuse in the Gujarat elections.
As work on metro cuts into the only main road connecting Whitefield, residents are seeing suburban trains as a way out and said traffic and pollution will be a major poll planks in the upcoming elections.



Members of Whitefield Rising, a group of active residents, met senior railway officials in the Bengaluru division seeking suburban trains. They submitted a memorandum to the divisional railway manager along with a copy of previous ones given over the last four years.

"There are no trains from 6 pm to 10 pm, the time when they are actually needed. We also need immediate relief as metro construction work has choked roads and increased air pollution. We can't wait for assurances anymore," Anjali Saini of Whitefield Rising told DH.



Railways has been citing lack of automatic signalling (IBS) as the reason for its inability to add more services.

"The project was approved by the state government in August 2016, but yet to be completed. Whitefield has 5 lakh registered voters who are frustrated because of the hardship faced during their daily commute. We hope the railway minister will take this up seriously," she said.

The memorandum lists halt at Goods Loading Terminal at Whitefield as another demand of high priority. Ramesh Gowda, a software engineer, said thousands of people working in tech parks at ITPL and Kadugodi will benefit from this.

"Even the existing services are unreliable. Yesterday (Thursday), the 10.30 am suburban train was cancelled at the last minute, forcing hundreds of us to take a bus," he said.

Shankar Sahoo, who stays near Brookefield, said the cascading effect of the metro work will be visible even in the non-peak hours.

"We had no lean-hours in Whitefield. But ever since the metro work started, one has to travel risking his safety and health. Vehicles take diversions and even small lanes are choked. Some residents are afraid of coming out," he said.

SWR chief public relations officer E Vijaya said they were considering the introduction of additional trains and a decision would be taken soon. "Yesterday, the train had to be cancelled at short notice because of the engine problem," she added.

Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited has set 2021 as a target for completing the 15.5 km metro line between Byappanahalli and Whitefield. Civil works are expected to be completed within the next two years.
The Bangalore Development Authority plans to set up an integrated townships in order to ease traffic on city's main and arterial roads.



In the provisional revised master plan 2031, the BDA has specified guidelines to set up townships according to which integrated townships can come up only in areas where minimum width of the access road is 24 metres.

The authority has specified that the township area should be at least 25 hectares from the approach road which is of the width of 24 metres.

The 2015 master plan had set a limit of 50 metres, which has now been reduced.

According to a BDA official, there are many big apartment complexes (with and without facilities) and gated communities that have narrow roads. However, with the revised master plan, the width of the road will have to be maintained.

This was also one of the suggestions citizens made during the BDA's public consultation meetings held in May and June.

Talks are on with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike officials to request those applying for the integrated projects to follow the rule even though the master plan is yet to get government's approval, the official said.

"We are contemplating on this as we have learnt about the rush from builders and realtors seeking clarity on the issue. The builders are also queuing up to seek approval for new projects before the implementation of the master plan. To ensure proper planning and anomalies are corrected, it would be better if the plan is implemented as early as possible," the official said.

The integrated townships project, in its present form, aims to promote the development of economic activities along with residential and other supporting requirements for enhanced quality of life by facilitating development.

DH News Service
Three women were killed on the spot in a serial accident involving a tipper truck, an autorickshaw and a car on Magadi Road near Tavarekere in Ramanagaram district on Friday afternoon. Two persons were injured in the incident.



The deceased have been identified as Pushpa Chethan (21), Jyothi (29) and Channamma (45), natives of Kottigepalya near Kengeri, the police said. They were on their way to visit a temple in Huliyurdurga in Tumakuru district.

According to the police, the speeding truck first collided with the auto and later rammed into the car. The three women passengers in the car were killed on the spot, they said. Pushpa's husband Chethan, who was driving the car, and auto driver Vasanth escaped with minor injuries, they said.

The truck, loaded with quary waste, was coming towards Bengaluru from Magadi. At Honaganahatti, Vasanth tried to overtake the car and failed to notice the speeding truck coming in the opposite direction, resulting in the collision, the police said.

Villagers informed the Tavarekere police, and helped in retrieving the bodies. The bodies were shifted to the Sri Rajarajeshwari Medical College Hospital for postmortem. The injured persons were treated at a nearby hospital.

The Tavarekere police have registered a case and seized the three vehicles. They have also retrieved CCTV footage of the accident that was recorded from a nearby shop.
New Year's Eve celebrations in the city will be safe, police assured the High Court on Friday.



In an affidavit submitted to the court, city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar said about 10,000 personnel would be on duty on December 31.

Earlier in the day, the court suggested a ban on New Year's Eve celebrations on MG Road and Brigade Road if the government was unable to maintain law and order.

A division bench comprising acting chief justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar was hearing a petition seeking a ban on the sale of alcohol on December 31 and January 1. The petitioner fears untoward incidents during the celebrations.

All officers of the Bengaluru police (civil and traffic) will be on duty from 4 pm on December 31 till the early hours of January 1, 2018, Suneel Kumar's affidavit told the court.

Meetings will also be held with merchant associations and clubs to coordinate security arrangements, police said.

According to the affidavit, 715 CCTV cameras are functional in the city. An additional 200 will be installed in areas where huge numbers are expected to gather.
The two longtime Del Mar employees fired for alleged financial wrongdoings have fired back with wrongful termination claims against the city, one seeking $5 million in damages and the other an unspecified amount.

Pat Vergne  the citys beloved chief lifeguard and director of Community Services  and Liza Rogers, a staffer in his department, were terminated three months ago after a fiercely disputed four-month investigation unearthed a range of practices that allegedly cost the city more than $200,000 between 2015 and 2017.

Vergnes claim for damages, filed Dec. 5 by one of the countrys foremost litigation attorneys  Walter Lack of the Los Angeles firm Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack  depicts Vergnes suspension in April and the ensuing investigation as a fraudulent campaign designed from the outset to discredit Vergne and justify his eventual termination.

Rogers claim, filed Nov. 30 by San Diego attorney Kenneth C. Hoyt, says her termination violated various workplace protections  including those for whistleblowers and women  and seeks damages for loss of career and retirement benefits in excess of the maximum allowed in San Diego Superior Court.

The filings trigger a 45-day response period before lawsuits can be filed.

The dispute dates back to late March, when two city lifeguards filed internal  and still-undisclosed  complaints against Vergne and Rogers. After suspending them both, the city hired an outside investigator whose four-month investigation included 20 interviews and pored through thousands of records.

Roughly $150,000 of the $200,000 came from waiving fees to rent the Powerhouse Community Center. The rest was attributed to alleged erroneous overtime claims and charges to a city credit card that Rogers submitted and Vergne approved. The city says they also allowed a part-time employee to bill the city as an independent contractor for more than $20,000 in Powerhouse upkeep.

Vergnes claim disputes the allegations, saying that the citys announcement of the investigations findings falsely accused him of conduct tantamount to theft and taxpayer fraud. Meanwhile, the city council, when it unanimously agreed to the merits of the investigation, colluded in a civil conspiracy, according to the claim.

The City, the Mayor, and the City Council knew that Mr. Vergne had simply been following previously-established protocols and procedures that the City itself had been approving for years, but chose to use these claimed violations as pretext to terminate and discredit Mr. Vergne, the claim reads.

After firing Vergne on Aug. 23, the city handed over its findings to the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, which confirmed this week that its investigation is ongoing.

Throughout the spring and summer, infuriated residents repeatedly called for Vergnes reinstatement and blasted the city council for supporting the investigation, which many saw as a long-held personal vendetta by City Manager Scott Huth  a claim Huth denied but Vergne maintains.

For years preceding his termination, Mr. Vergne was continually harassed and exposed to a hostile work environment by Mr. Huth, the claim reads.

At the time, Huth told this newspaper that some of the investigations findings came from Vergnes six-hour interview with the investigator  a fact that Vergnes lawyers have included in his claim.The City fraudulently induced Mr. Vergnes cooperation with that investigation by promising his statements to investigators would be private and not used against him in any subsequent criminal proceedings, the claim reads.

In her claim, Rogers says her rights under the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments were violated. The claim names Huth, the investigator, the two lifeguards who filed the initial complaints and two other city officials as the responsible individuals. Also on that list: Pat Vergne.

Vergnes claim does not name Rogers.
Save my User ID and Password

Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site.

Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site.
Subscriber content preview

PORT ORCHARD (AP)  Washington state regulators have fined Cooke Aquaculture $8,000 for water quality violations at its farmed salmon operations off Bainbridge Island.

The violations are unrelated to the company's Cypress Island net pens, which collapsed in August and released tens of thousands of non-native Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound. The state is currently investigating that collapse.





. . .
Sexual harassment lawyer's advice is Don't be a jerk'

Tom Spiggle says the growing fear among some men that sexual harassment laws are being enforced too stringently is misplaced.



By TOM SPIGGLE

Spiggle Law Firm

The tidal wave of men in Hollywood, Congress and the media losing their jobs after allegations of sexual harassment has spurred many men in much less lofty positions to worry about their own pasts.

Across the country, mid-level managers are racking their brains, rereading their old emails and checking their text message histories to see if they crossed a line.

As an attorney who has handled a number of sexual harassment cases on behalf of the victims, I'd like to say to these men: You can relax, probably.

The allegations made against such figures as Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, Today Show anchor Matt Lauer and Congressman John Conyers were not your kind of garden-variety misfired joke or inapt comment.

They included, at best, serious abuses of power ranging up to allegations of criminal assault or rape. You are not going to end up in court because you were too enthusiastic when praising the dress the intern wore to the office holiday party.

That's not to say those remarks are appropriate or that you shouldn't think hard about how you treat the women in your office.

It's just that the growing fear among some men that sexual harassment laws are being enforced too stringently is misplaced. (One recent AP story featured a man who worried that he can't even feel safe saying Good morning' anymore. As a lawyer, I'm here to tell you, you can say that still.)

In fact, violations of the law on sexual harassment remain as difficult to prove legally as ever. A hostile work environment claim must involve behavior that is either severe  making your intern watch porn with you, for instance, or pervasive  giving your office intern an overly enthusiastic assessment of her wardrobe multiple times a day, every day.

Second, you are not someone in the public eye (I'm guessing). The allegations against these men were not only clearly illegal, they were very public. In that sense, the legal claims against these men was less a factor in their firings than the public storm created by the allegations forcing companies to act quickly. Companies don't face the same pressures when considering allegations involving your average middle manager.

So, most men need not stay up at night worrying about their job security simply because they work alongside women. However, it is true that companies  as they should be  will be on high alert for sexual harassment claims for at least as long as the fickle media spotlight stays on them. This means that complaints that previously might have been ignored by HR departments, will be moved to the top of the pile.

And a woman need not have a winning claim against you to justify your boss from giving you the axe. Still, women are not gleeful about filing harassment claims, even if they have reason to believe they will be listened to now. The process is painful for all involved. So don't expect your aggrieved intern to run to HR because you commented on her new shoes.

The bottom line: Don't be a jerk, and you'll be fine. If you've been sort of a jerk, you'll probably still be fine, but you might want to start making amends and update your resume, just in case.

And if you know your behavior crossed a line  if you constantly commented on women's appearances, watched porn in the office, asked your female coworkers about their sex lives and told them about yours, kissed women who did not want to be kissed, groped them, rubbed up against them, exposed yourself to them, propositioned them, gave them sex toys as gifts, punished them for resisting your advances or sexually assaulted them  well, you might want to look into getting a lawyer.

And I'll see you in court, where I'll be representing the other side.

Tom Spiggle is author of the book You're Pregnant? You're Fired: Protecting Mothers, Fathers, and Other Caregivers in the Workplace. He is founder of Spiggle Law Firm, which has offices in Arlington, Va., Washington, D.C., and Nashville.




Subscriber content preview

BOISE, Idaho (AP)  Idaho officials have reached a tentative agreement approving a utility company's $216.5 million in relicensing expenses for a three-dam hydroelectric project on the Snake River on the Idaho-Oregon border.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday said it's taking public comments through Jan. 5 on the proposed agreement with Boise-based Idaho Power involving the Hells Canyon Complex.





. . .
Subscriber content preview

(AP)  MSC Seaside was named best new ship of the year in the annual awards handed out by Cruise Critic, the cruise website.

The ship was just launched off the coast of Trieste, Italy, and is heading to Miami for a Dec. 21 christening before starting sailings to the Caribbean. It features an interactive aquapark, an open-air promenade and beach-like condos.





. . .
UN's Guterres slams arrest of 2 Reuters scribes in Myanmar

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned the arrest of two journalists in Myanmar, saying that their arrest is symptomatic of eroding freedoms in the Southeast Asian country.

Speaking to the press in Tokyo on Thursday, the UN Secretary-General framed the plight of the two detained men "in relation to the dramatic violations of human rights that occurred in the country, and led to 600,000 people being forced to flee".

Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were working on stories about the Rohingya minority in western Rakhine state, when they were arrested Tuesday, the news agency has confirmed.

"Probably the reason why these journalists were arrested is because they were reporting on what they have seen in relation to this massive human tragedy," said the UN Secretary-General.

The Southeast Asian Press Alliance, representing twelve journalists groups, also condemned the arrests, saying in a statement, ''We viewed their arrest as an act that will bring down the dignity of the democratic government because they have been arrested under the Burma Official Secrets Act, which has been enacted by the colonial-era British in 1923 with the aim to oppress the Myanmar people.''

"We are deeply concerned over possible violation of their citizens' rights since we have learned about the journalists not being allowed to contact their family members after their arrest," the statement said.

The Rohingya, who are a stateless Muslim minority, have allegedly been the target of a sustained campaign of aggression by the Myanmar army, forcing some 650,000 to flee across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh since August this year. India has not been as welcoming to the refugees as its poorer neighbour.

In September the UN human rights chief characterised the actions of the Myanmar military in Rakhine as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

The two reporters were arrested under the Official Secrets Act, a colonial-era law which carries a maximum 14-year jail sentence. Police officers who they were meeting were also arrested, according to Reuters.

By Thursday evening (local time), the agency reported that the Myanmar government had not formally contacted its representatives, and that the two men's whereabouts were unknown. Both journalists are Myanmar citizens. According to a Reuters report, Kyaw is a native of Rakhine state.

Guterres called the arrests an indicator of the "erosion of press freedom" in the country.

"I think it is important that the international community does everything possible to allow not only for the journalists to be released - freedom of the press is very important - but also to allow for those reasons that might justify or might have justified the reason or the reasons of the arrest to disappear," he said, referring to the wider crackdown on Rohingya.

Addressing the Rohingya issue directly, the UN chief called on Myanmar's government to ensure that "humanitarian aid to be effectively delivered ... violence to be effectively contained ... reconciliation to be promoted and ... the right of return of this community to be fully respected and implemented."

The arrests came just ahead of the release of the results of a survey by medical aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) which showed that a minimum of 6,700 Rohingya, including 730 children, were shot dead or killed through other violence between August 25 and September 24. The report also claims that at least 2,700 others died from disease and malnutrition.

The aid agency's death toll far surpasses estimates from Myanmar's government, which has put the figure in the hundreds.

"We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh," Sidney Wong, MSF's medical director, said in a statement.

"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured."
In 2015 under President Barak Obama, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formalised net neutrality into law, blocking internet service providers (ISPs) from being able to receive payments for prioritising content. But on Thursday, the FCC, under Donald Trump-appointed chairman Ajit Pai, made a U-turn and abolished net neutrality (See: US sweeps aside net neutrality, allows telcos to erect paywalls). So what does this mean for internet users? Fortune magazine gives us a critical look. If legal challenges do not reverse the FCC decision, ISPs will be able to create a fast lane and sell ''paid prioritization''. The word ''prioritization'' here is misleading, as ISPs will not provide faster internet access. The content of providers who pay fees to ISPs will be delivered at normal speed. But the content of those who do not pay will be slowed down. In essence, the FCC has given ISPs the legal power to blackmail any content provider that does not pay them with the threat of a slowdown in service delivery. The FCC clearly has put the ISPs profits above the benefits of consumers and of the overwhelming majority of businesses, according to Fortune. So, what could the Internet of tomorrow look like? Take Google and Bing, who are rival search engines. AT&T could offer to put each one in the fast lane (that is, not to slow them down) if they pay a fee. Both companies know that consumers may not wait for their search results before switching to the other engine, and therefore both companies would pay AT&T. AT&T could collect these new fees without making its service any faster than it already was. Imagine what would have happened if we did not have net neutrality in 2000, before Google's initial public offering (IPO), when Internet search was dominated by Yahoo, Fortune further asks. Yahoo would have paid for prioritisation, a price Google at the time could not afford. If that happened, we would have been stuck with Yahoo's low-quality search much longer than we had to be. As this makes clear, killing net neutrality will make ISPs rich but kill innovation - and even potentially slow down the growth of the US economy, which is partially driven by the success of its major tech companies. Where news dissemination through the internet is concerned, without net neutrality, AT&T could threaten to place The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times in the slow lane unless they paid a fee. If the Journal paid but the Times did not, it would be a massive advantage for the Journal. Many readers would not know why the Times content was delayed and would likely blame the newspaper's staff. This would be a disaster for the news media. With the FCC's vote, the internet as we know it is over, says Fortune. Now ISPs might serve us faster content from financially robust companies that are able to pay arbitrary fees. Content and apps from new, small, and innovative companies or non-profits could be slow and unusable; news access will be distorted; and consumers' choices will be diminished. The FCC is forcing consumers and businesses to pay a huge price in order to boost the profits of telecommunications and cable companies.








Man found dead after standoff with deputies

TALLAHASSEE (AP)  Authorities say a man was found dead from an apparent suicide following a four-hour standoff with Florida deputies.

The Tallahassee Democrat reports that the Leon County Sheriff's Office SWAT team surrounded the home Wednesday afternoon.

Officials say deputies had responded to the home that morning to serve an arrest warrant for a probation violation. Following attempts to contact and negotiate with the man, SWAT members used a series of flash bangs and entered the home.

Authorities say the man was dead from what appeared to be a self-inflicted wound. Deputies didn't immediately release the man's name.
The Houston/Henry County District Attorneys Office donated $10,500 to the Henry County Sheriffs Office for the purchase of a multi-trained K-9.

We are very excited to assist the Henry County Sheriffs Office with this worthwhile addition to the department, said Houston/Henry County District Attorney Pat Jones.

The K-9 will serve as a narcotic detection canine and bite and tracking canine for the sheriffs office.

I want to thank our District Attorney Pat Jones for assisting our office with this matter, said Henry County Sheriff Will Maddox. Our current K-9 deputy is using his personal K-9. With these funds we will be able to purchase a new K-9 for our other K-9 deputy. Having an additional K-9 is very beneficial to our department. We utilize our K-9 regularly.

According to Maddox, the office performs several searches in school parking lots and in school lockers as a way to help enforce the sheriffs office zero-drug tolerance.

Deputy Brad Burkhalter will be the K-9 officer. Burkhalter will travel to Texas with several members of the Dothan Police Department to determine which K-9 is best for the office.

Once the K-9 is chosen, the K-9 and the handler will spend three days getting used to each other, said Henry County Chief Deputy Michael Neiswanger. Following that period, both the K-9 and the deputy will participate in a nine-week K-9 and Handler Training Course at the Dothan Police Department.

The canine purchased will be a German shepherd and Belgian Malinois. The dog can also be used to assist other law enforcement agencies if requested.
A Geneva County jury found a Webb man guilty of reckless murder in the 2016 death of a Slocomb woman

Justin Tyler Walding, 30, was found guilty in the vehicular death of Cindy Knight, 44, of Slocomb.

According to the investigation report, Walding was traveling at an excessive speed going around a curve on U.S. Hwy. 52 in Geneva County, said Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Capt. Tracy Nelson.

The reports also states Walding was under the influence of narcotics when his vehicle which was traveling on the wrong side of the road struck Knight's truck head-on, Nelson said. Knight was pronounced dead on the scene and Walding was transported to a local hospital for treatment of his injuries.

Walding is currently in the Geneva County Jail. A sentence hearing has been set for Jan. 10 at 9 a.m.

Walding faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison, said Geneva County District Attorney Kirke Adams, adding that Walding had a previous conviction which made the sentence minimum 15 years.

A civil lawsuit brought by Knights estate is currently awaiting trial.
Next week the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency will do more than enforce the law.

Troopers across the state will visit sick children in the hospital who are unable to celebrate Christmas with their family and friends. During the visit each child will receive a Trooper Bear.

This is something we all look forward to every year, said ALEA Capt. Tracy Nelson. This project is something we all enjoy. To give a child who is sick something to smile about, well, its priceless.

For more than 25 years troopers have passed out a little bit of joy during the holiday season.

Nelson stated the Trooper Bear would not be possible if it were not for the dedication of the Alabama Troopers Association.

Members of the association work hard to collect donations which help make this program a success, Nelson said. Not only do we hand out the bears to children in the hospital during Christmas, we also carry the bears in our vehicle to help comfort children during a traumatic situation. When a child is involved in an accident, they get scared and confused. A majority of the time they are worried if their parents are hurt. The bear gives the child something to focus on instead of being scared.

ALEA will make contact with all Wiregrass Hospitals beginning next week to get an estimate of how many bears are needed.

The hospitals staff does a fine job in trying to get the children released before Christmas Day, Nelson said. However, in some situations a child just cant be released, and that is when we step in and help spread the Christmas spirit.
ARDEE Water Treatment Plant is operating at full production levels since 10am yesterday and the main reservoir located at Sliabh Breagh is refilling slowly, according to Irish Water.

Most areas in Ardee had normal water supply restored from yesterday afternoon with the exception of those areas served by the Blakestown reservoir in Blakestown, Kilpatrick, Cluide, Rathgory, Mullameelan, Mulladrillen, Stabannan, Dromin and surrounding areas.

The water supply was expected to be restored to these areas later in the evening. Currently, limited supply is been pumped to Blakestown Reservoir.

To supplement this, two tankers brought water to the reservoir and this continued throughout the night until the water level refilled.

It was expected that water supply levels would return to normal overnight. Irish Water was also back feeding water to Ardee from Collon to increase the level of available water for customers.

Bottled water was available at St Nicholas Church Carpark Stabannon from 4.30pm to 8.00pm yesterday evening.

Irish Water acknowledges there may be isolated areas within the supply footprint that are the last to return. This is primarily due to the configuration of the network and water pressure variations in the area.

"We apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused as a result of the outage and thank them for their patience will we work to restore a water supply to all customers, said an Irish Water spokesperson.

Customers can contact the Irish Water customer care helpline 24/7 on 1850 278 278 or visit www.water.ie or on Twitter @IWCare for updates or with any queries.
OVER half a million euros worth of Shop Local Gift Vouchers have been sold this Christmas, according to Dundalk Chamber President Michael Gaynor.

Dundalk Chamber started the Shop Local Gift Vouchers initiative over two years ago and they have been an "unmitigated success".

"There was a huge effort put in by the Chamber to help local retail and this voucher scheme has given local retailers a welcome boost," said Michael.

"This means that over 1.2 million worth of vouchers have been sold since their launch two years ago."

Michael thanked the business community of Dundalk for getting behind this scheme and buying the vouchers for their staff this Christmas.

"These sales would not have happened if it has not been for the good will of the business community who see the value in keeping money in the locality. Stopping the flow of money from the town has been our priority, he said.

Michael also thanked members of the public who bought the vouchers and kept it local this Christmas.

"This initiative was set up to help keep money, and protect local jobs within the local economy. The Chamber plan is to grow sales even more in 2018!

Paddy Malone Dundalk Chamber PRO said: The vouchers give the gift of choice as they can be spent in toy shops, restaurants, hair salons, gift stores, gyms, beautician, clothes shops, and much more.

"You will be amazed with the selection of businesses now redeeming them which includes over 280 shops all around Dundalk and surrounding areas.

The vouchers now come in a 5 denomination as well as 10, 20 and 50s. They are an ideal gift all year round for birthdays, weddings, communions, confirmations, competitions, retirements and staff rewards.

"The beauty of these vouchers is that they do not expire and the shops get the full amount back. They do not lose value over time, he said.

Members of the public can buy the vouchers in Grants on Dublin St, McCuskers on Earl St, Central News on Clanbrassil St, Centra in Blackrock, Flanagan's Mace, Sheelan's in Riverstown, Finnegan's in Louth Village and Victory's Centra in Dunleer.

The can also be purchased online via www.dundalk.ie/vouchers. There is no charge for delivery. The vouchers can also be purchased directly from the Dundalk Chamber of Commerce Office by calling Brenda on 042 9336343 or email accounts@dundalk.ie.

To check out the full list of outlets who are redeeming the Shop Local Gift Vouchers visit http://shoplocal.dundalk.ie
National Pen will create 250 new roles over the next five years as part of expansion plans.

The news comes as the personalised marketing merchandise company celebrates its 30th anniversary in Dundalk.

National Pen currently employs 1,000 people, both and part and full time.

The new jobs announcement has is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

National Pens CEO Peter Kelly said: It is with great pride that we celebrate our 30 years anniversary in Dundalk. Over the past 10 years the company has grown significantly to now over 1000 employees.

A year ago in December 2016 National Pen joined the Cimpress family which extends our opportunities for further investment. It continues to be an exciting time for all involved.

Dundalk has proven a great location that has allowed us to grow to the extent we have. Next year we will be taking a second premises in Dundalk to accommodate our growth over the coming years.

Minister for Business, Enterprise & Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD welcomed the announcement of new jobs for Dundalk: I welcome the additional 250 jobs which will provide a further boost to the local economy. Your ongoing innovation will ensure your continued growth in the years ahead.

In 1987 National Pen established its International Headquarters in Dundalk. It was made up of a manufacturing plant which personalises promotional products, and a contact centre which supports corporate functions including Finance, HR, Recruitment, IT, E-commerce and other support functions.
Shake off the pre-Christmas stress this Saturday with JuiceBox Comedys Xmas show in the Spirit Store, featuring local comedy stars TPM.

The towns answer to the Rubberbandits, TPM are Hendy brothers Charles, 24, and 22-year-old Andrew. The hip-hop comedy duo, whose witty, raw material is inspired by the grimness of life on social welfare and depression, went viral in 2015 with their YouTube hit Boys on the Dole. Their follow up tunes Cash in the Claw and Eat that Curry were just as popular.

The local lads, who went to the Grammar School in Dundalk, have gone on to perform at Irish festivals including Electric Picnic and Sea Sessions and even brought their relatable lyrics and funky beats to the Underground Piano Bar in Glastonbury.

Andrew told the Dundalk Democrat: Weve been gigging around the country all this year, but cant wait to be back on stage in the town this weekend. Its our second last gig of the year  the last one is Stephens Night in McManuss, which we did last year too. The reaction from the crowd in Dundalk is class.





In the New Year, were taking a break from gigs to record our first album. All going to plan that should be out in the Spring or Summer of next year.

The night will also feature Limerick lad Danny Ryan (Show Me the Funny 2016 winner & Irish Comedian of the Year 2017 runner-up), who will bring his subtle mix of the surreal with the mundane to the Spirit Store stage.

Also in the mix this Saturday is RTE New Comedy Award winner Sean Nolan, along with Andrew Gilmore (Vicar Street) along with local acts Danny O'Hanlon, Katherine O'Hanlon and Brian O'Toole with Aidan Shields as MC.



Doors open at 8pm and tickets are 10 from the bar, spiritstore .ie or McAteers The Food House on Clanbrassil Street.
THE following is the transcript of a respite care services topical debate which took place in the Dail following a request from Louth TDs Fergus O'Dowd and Declan Breathnach.

The debate took place in the Dail on Tuesday, December 12 between 5.40pm and 6.30pm during Topical Issues.

Deputy Fergus O'Dowd: "I thank the Ceann Comhairle and other Members of the House for facilitating this debate. It is hugely important that carers are recognised and supported. It is a fact that there has been a crisis in respite services in County Louth.

"I welcome the interest shown by all my colleagues in Leinster House both in the Dail and Seanad in resolving this issue. I acknowledge the intent and commitment of the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, in respect of dealing with this issue not just in County Louth, but around the country.

"It is shameful that families have been left in this appalling situation for too long. When one sees how people like Jacinta and May in Dundalk and others - I am just using first names - look after their families and care for them and their total commitment, one sees how all their lives are devoted to their family members.

"They look after them at home but when they need urgent care and respite, it is not available in County Louth. I know a recent edition of "Prime Time" identified what we need to do. I welcome the Minister of State's commitment to solving this problem and that he came to Drumcar to see an issue there in a school for children with disabilities.

"It is very important that, as our economy improves, the funding, services and support are put in behind those who care most and who have the least amount of help. I know that in CHO8, in which the HSE operates in our area, over 100 people are waiting for respite care, which is a huge number. It is unacceptable. We have gone through a very difficult period economically.

"Now that our economy is restored, the funding must be found and I hope the Minister of State has good news for us today. I will hand over to my good friend and colleague, Deputy Breathnach."

Deputy Declan Breathnach: "Yet again, we are here highlighting the plight of the families in Louth looking for respite care for their loved ones. When I came into this House, I gave a commitment that I would champion the cause of people with disabilities collaboratively with my colleagues in the Dail and Seanad. We have continued to highlight that issue to the Minister of State.

"Like Deputy O'Dowd, I thank the Minister of State for his interest in trying to solve the problem not just in Louth, but across the country.

"In respect of Louth, it took the "Prime Time" programme entitled "Carers in Crisis" for many of us to realise the difficulty faced by these families due to the lack of respite care, which is clearly not just a crisis in Louth, but across the country. These families have been left alone to cope.

"Despite all the parliamentary questions we have put and all the opportunities to raise the matter under the Order of Business or Questions on Promised Legislation, this is the second, if not the third, Topical Issue on this matter.

"A resolution can be found. We have put a series of proposals to the Minister of State over a period of time and I am sure Department officials have looked at them.

"Praxis Care has recently purchased a property in Dundalk and the Talbot Group has an ideal property in Balbriggan. I am sure that with the Minister of State's help and encouragement, a resolution can, hopefully, be found in my constituency.

"The figures in County Louth have always been skewed because of the St. John of God operation in Drumcar and the funding it receives, which covers a lot of people across the country.

"I would welcome a statement from the Minister of State that these facilities, which are badly needed in Louth, will be provided urgently.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Finian McGrath): "I thank Deputies Breathnach and O'Dowd for lobbying me for many months on this important issue.

"I also thank the Deputies for giving me the opportunity to outline the position regarding the provision of respite services in County Louth.

"Let me make it clear at the outset that the Government's ongoing priority is the safeguarding of vulnerable people in the care of the health service.

"We are committed to providing services and supports for people with disabilities that will empower them to live independent lives.

"In recent months, I have spoken to many people with disabilities and their families and carers. The same point has been raised again and again on the absolutely urgent need for increased respite care throughout the country.

"I accept it as a valid argument and that is why I appeared on "Prime Time" last week to face the music and deal with the issue.

"I have made it very clear to my colleagues in government and after much discussion, my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, and I have secured an additional 10 million for the HSE, specifically to enhance respite care in the disability sector. We agreed that extra 10 million at Cabinet.

"Many people with disabilities are being cared for by very elderly parents who are finding it very hard to cope. Other carers simply do not have the hours in the day to look after other members of their families and, just as importantly, their own health and well-being.

"The full details of the services to be provided with the additional 10 million will be contained in the HSEs detailed operational plan.

"I have made it clear that this money must be ring-fenced for respite services within the disability sector and that it must be targeted at those who are most in need.

"I am pleased to inform the House that 8 million will be provided for nine new dedicated houses for respite in each community health area, plus an additional three houses in the greater Dublin area to respond to the very high demand for respite in this area.

"These additional 12 respite houses will provide approximately 19,000 respite nights yearly to the people living in those areas. In addition, a further 2 million extra funding will be used for innovative respite solutions, such as home sharing and extended day services, to provide assistance where people need it most.

"I will be keeping a very close eye on how this additional funding is put to work and I will be requiring the HSE to give the utmost priority to putting these new facilities and services in place without delay.

"I accept that the provision of respite services has come under additional pressure in the past number of years. More children and adults are now seeking access to respite and the changing needs of people with a disability are also having an impact, as they, along with the rest of the population, live longer lives.

"A Programme for a Partnership Government recognises the need for respite services to be developed further and I am fully committed to ensuring this happens.

"In the context of respite services in County Louth, discussions are ongoing at CHO area 8 level regarding the emerging need for additional respite services and the options to be developed to meet these needs.

"The HSE continues to work with agencies to explore various ways of responding to this need in line with the budget available. The additional funding I have announced today will include the development of respite services in CHO area 8, including County Louth.

"The officials in CHO area 8 are familiar with the TaIbot Bower House proposal for respite services. Scoping out the most efficient way of commissioning respite services with this new money will be an immediate priority for the HSE to ensure services are brought on stream without delay.

"The Deputies will appreciate that any proposals can only be considered within the funding available to the HSE and must adhere to a rigorous procurement process.

"I warmly welcome the extra 10 million for respite services because it is urgently required."

Deputy Declan Breathnach: "I welcome the Minister of State's announcement. It will be music to the ears of the many families and disability groups who have encouraged us to harass and harry the Minister of State over the past number of months.

"I had no doubt of the Minister of State's concern to have this matter resolved. I welcome his commitment to the allocation of 10 million and his commitment to make sure one of these facilities will be based in Louth.

"Further to that, it is most important that with the age profile of families and the growing numbers who will need these services that we continue to enhance them in the years to come.

"With that in mind, the issue of the funding of the St John of God in Drumcar, which came to almost 32 million, needs to be examined in terms of whether we are getting value for money in delivering those services. I will speak on that matter later. I thank and commend the Minister of State for bringing some respite to a very difficult situation in Louth."

Deputy Fergus O'Dowd: "I agree absolutely with the Minister of State and my colleague opposite that this is really good news for everybody who needs respite care.

"It is a start but it is not the final answer. It is a way of finding a reasonable solution. There is nothing reasonable about people who are on their own who cannot cope.

"There is nothing reasonable about a person bringing a family member to a house in the middle of the night, only to be refused entry and having to go to an acute hospital instead to take up an acute bed with a security person outside the door and all sorts of other issues.

"It is an unacceptable situation. This will definitely help to resolve it. There is no doubt about that and I welcome it. I welcome the commitment to ongoing discussions and the Talbot Bower House proposal, which I visited.

"It is a very fine place. This is an issue on which all political parties stood together. Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein and the Labour Party stood together to push for something and we got it. It is a positive result for a community that needs 100% support."

Deputy Finian McGrath: "I thank Deputies Declan Breathnach and Fergus O'Dowd for repeatedly raising this issue. I am very much aware of the importance of access to planned respite which ensures that people with disabilities receive opportunities to socialise separately.

"It facilitates families having a break from caring because it is very difficult. Respite services may vary according to the excess needs of the individuals and their carer.

"The model of respite is changing and although some require overnight respite, others prefer to benefit from day respite. The number of overnight respite places has been reducing as persons with disabilities seek alternative models such as day respite or extended day care.

"We will also look at those areas. For example, 42,552 day respite services were provided in 2017. Personally, and throughout my political career, I have always advocated for the rights of people with disabilities.

"I understand and acknowledge the value and importance of respite care for people with disabilities and their families. I hope this funding will enable people to get a well-deserved break and to maintain their own health and well-being.

"As I said earlier, I will keep a very close eye on how the additional funding is put to work. I will require the HSE to give the utmost priority to putting these new facilities and services in place without delay because it is a very important part of our disability services.

"We put 1.763 billion into the social care plan in 2017 and we have to ensure it goes to people with disabilities and their families and carers.

"That is where our priority should be. The 2017 plan deals with 5,720 people with a disability who avail of day-based respite services.

"We have another 2,500 who avail of respite services, such as holiday respite or occasional respite and we also have other respite services.

"We have 128 new emergency residential places, which is a priority issue for me. I thank my colleagues for their support. We will fight on and develop the services but above all the services will operate in the interests of the person with the disability."
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

A political analyst Pedzisai Ruhanya has said the adviser to president Emmerson Mnangagwa, Christopher Mutsvangwa was a very bad adviser to the top politician after his remarks that Zimbabwe must be given a break about Gukurahundi.Mutsvangwa recently said Zimbabwe must be given a break about the talk of Gukurahundi as it was not helpful to talk about it."Christopher Mutsvangwa is dead wrong on Gukurahundi. If that is the advice he is giving President Mnangagwa then its poisonous. The killing of over 20 000 people in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces should be a key deliverable for this government on the transitional justice front," Ruhanya said."This matter cannot be swept under the carpet. Mutsvangwa is misguided. I argue that economic reforms while walking on dead bodies should be rejected. Economic liberalization without democratization and respect for human rights is undesirable and should be contested."
News / National

by Staff reporter

Zimbabwe will seek re-engagement with other countries, especially the West, on an equal footing as the new dispensation ratchets up trade and economic diplomacy, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday.Addressing ambassadors accredited to Zimbabwe in the capital, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Major General Dr Sibusiso Moyo (Retired) said Government would seek new frontiers of cooperation beyond friendly countries in Eastern Europe, South Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean.He said Government would not allow a situation where it was dictated to."I have already begun serious and focused dialogue with key constituent countries of the West amongst them, our erstwhile coloniser, the United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany and others with the objective of normalising our relations," said Dr Moyo."We seek an honest, respectful and forthright dialogue that will let go the past and explore and pursue mutually beneficial economic opportunities. We must respect one another and not lecture one another."Dr Moyo hailed countries like China, Russia, India, Iran, Cuba, Malaysia, Pakistan and Brazil that always stood by Zimbabwe in the face of vilification by its detractors."We greatly value the strong bonds of friendship and the political and economic support we have continued to receive from our dependable allies, who have stood resolutely with us during our greatest times of need," he said."We shall endeavour to deepen and consolidate these vital relations."Dr Moyo said the new Government was determined to make the country an attractive destination of foreign direct investment through a deliberate economic bias in implementation of its foreign policy."The economic diplomacy we seek to pursue will ride on the success and accomplishments of the past, re-alignments in other areas and a complete departure from frustrations and failures of the past," he said.Dr Moyo said he intended to facilitate economic development and industrial revival, while milestones achieved in the agricultural sector should be consolidated."Command Agriculture will achieve the unlocking of the tremendous wealth that lies in our soil," he said.Dr Moyo reiterated that the Government would continue to partner foreign investors in the win-win exploitation of the country's mineral wealth. "We believe the recent adjustments to the indigenisation and economic empowerment law levels the field and removes any lingering impediments from the past," he said. "Only in the diamond and platinum sectors will 51/49 percent rule apply."On the manufacturing sector, Dr Moyo said urgent refurbishment and re-capitalisation was needed and invited foreign investors to grab the opportunity to do business in the country.Tourism and services sectors were also open to foreign investment, he said."All these economic activities should, as a must, create jobs, jobs and more jobs for our people, so that they share and enjoy the fruits of the country's economy and prosper," he said."No longer will we be satisfied with being a country of potential, that potential must be urgently exploited to improve the welfare of our people at the soonest."Dr Moyo allayed fears on property rights, saying President Emmerson Mnangagwa had already assured the international community that his Government would respect such rights for ease of doing business."We value your participation in the country's economy and as the President has reassured you, we shall ensure the sanctity and security of your investment and shall honour to the letter all agreements we enter into with you, including BIPPAS," he said."The right of property shall be respected. We look forward to your invaluable support for our debt clearance plan and in particular the 2015 Lima process. We are confident that with your goodwill, we can revive the process."Dr Moyo urged the diplomats to work together with Zimbabwe to build and not to destroy friendships and relations.He said he was ready to embark on a diplomatic offensive for bilateral engagements with other countries any time soon. "For burning bilateral issues specific to your countries and national interests, I am available for urgent meetings," he said. "I am envisaging a diplomatic in-loco tour of all our geo-political regions."Dr Moyo requested the diplomats to begin making the requisite preparations with their capitals, in liaison with his officials.He apprised the ambassadors that the 2018 harmonised elections were around the corner and urged them not to become "referees and players" in the plebiscite.Dr Moyo implored the ambassadors to remain steadfast in their roles of impartial observers, as pronounced by President Mnangagwa during his inauguration."Some international observers may be invited at the discretion of the Government of the day," he said. "As with the previous elections, the Government has always guaranteed a peaceful environment, before, during and after elections."Dr Moyo said Zimbabwe adopted zero tolerance to violence as it approaches the 2018 elections.
News / National

by Staff reporter

People in Mutoko are reportedly crying for devolution of power because they are hardly benefiting from the central government.Mutoko Rural District Council feels cheated by companies mining black granite in the district, as they are paying a pittance to the local authority, a senior council official has said. In an interview yesterday, the rural council's chief executive officer, Peter Sigauke, said the companies were paying $1 per tonne to the local authority."We are receiving only $1 per tonne and we feel we are being cheated and this has ruined our relationship with the miners. Our relationship with the companies mining the black granite in our district can be described as tricky," he said."It's a cat and mouse relationship, and we have since gathered that there is no faithfulness in their operations because they do not reveal their actual production output to us."Sigauke said the situation had been worsened by the inaction of the Dimension Stone Producers Association, a group made up of representatives of the companies exploiting the black granite."A few years ago, the Dimension Stone Producers' Association was lively and we would channel our grievances through them," he said. "The association is no longer functional and if we have issues with the quarry operators, we are forced to deal with individuals and that is not effective."In 2015, Mutoko RDC dragged some of the companies involved in the quarry stone business to court in order to force them to pay, but was later advised to drop the lawsuits and engage by then Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo.The council sued the Natural Stone Exporting Company, Ilford Services and Zimbabwe International Quarries demanding development levies for 2009 at a fixed rate $1 000 per unit, together with interest accrued during the same period.The companies exporting black granite are racking in huge sums of money, yet they remit little to the local authority. About 98 percent of black granite extracted from Mutoko is exported to European markets and earns the exporters millions in foreign currency
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Political commentator Pedzisayi Ruhanya has warned the opposition to shift gear and find ways of contesting for power.The remarks come at a time when MDC Alliance members visited the United States in what is believed they had gone to advise the western powers to maintain sanctions in Zimbabwe.Ruhanya said the opposition MDC Alliance at the US congressional Committee failed dismally to frame the contemporary Zimbabwe question following the fall of Zimbabwe's most hated, arrogant and useless traditional leader; Robert Mugabe and his hereditary family dynasty."They had substantive issues but frame, articulation, context and moment was missed by a huge margin. Reference to SANCTIONS was disastrous. The opposition need to shift gear and find ways of contesting for power without celebrating measures that alienate them from ordinary people and that inadvertently give oxygen to an undemocratic system," he said."You don't get power because people are suffering. You can win because you provide hope for happiness and prosperity."
Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5)
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Mthwakazi Liberation Front has described special adviser to President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a Gukurahundists who is not repenatnt at all."It did not come as a surprise to us as MLF to hear Christopher Mutsvanga uttering such a reckless and poisonous statement about the Gukurahundi closure. All that people and world need to know is, who is Christopher Mutsvangwa and who is he speaking in his defence," said MLF."As MLF, we have it on record that Christopher Mutsvangwa is that evil man who ripped open the womb of a Tsholotsho woman with a bayonet in February 1983 and went on to lead the gang rape of a woman in Plumtree in full view of her children and husband they had tied on a tree."He said the party said Mutsvangwa is a shameless, notorious serial killer and rapist whose past thugery life is going to haunt him until he is thrown into his grave."We have it on record that Mutsvangwa finds himself as the advisor to Mnangagwa because he has nothing special to offer but simply because as the partners in the Gukurahundi crimes, he is next to him so they can as one fight off any attempts to expose their ills. What Christopher lacks to understand is that, ' ihloka liyakhohlwa kodwa isihlahla soze safa sakhohlwa'. We cannot forget about the killing of our loved ones in cold blood especially when we still cross paths with them," said the party."We pray that God spare them more years in life until they witness the liberation of Mthwakazi State. That is when Christopher will take to the dock and tell the world how much is costs to kill a Mthwakazi people and further ascertain the world the permanent closure of the killing have indeed been met. It is not long before we get to you Chris."
News / Press Release

by Iphithule T Maphosa

ZAPU notes with great concern of a report in Newsday-Southern Eye of 15 December 2017 by one Elphacy Dube masquerading as a ZAPU secretary general for Harare province, making unfounded pronouncements concerning the support of Simon Khaya Moyo to the rise to the presidium (vice president) within a faction of Zanu Pf, that is in control of the party (Zanu Pf). The pronouncements insinuates that Dr Dumiso Dabengwa the president of ZAPU is in support of Simon Khaya Moyo to rise to the presidium of the fractured Zanu Pf as it goes to its special congress this weekend.We dismiss this blatant display of malice contents by elements bent on tarnishing ZAPU, the brand, reputation and the name of its President Cde Dr Dumiso Dabengwa. Moreover, ZAPU wants to state it clear to fellow Zimbabweans, Africa and the global village as a whole, that there is no ZAPU in Zanu PF and those claiming to be of ZAPU origins in Zanu Pf are purely representing their stomachs and families.Furthermore, the Unity Accord between Zanu and ZAPU of 1987 ceased to exist when ZAPU pulled out of it through its constitutionally constituted convention and congress in 2009 and 2010 respectively.Simon K Moyo and his President ED Mnangagwa have since disowned the Unity Accord. Hence they have no business associating ZAPU with themselves. Therefore we are urging fellow citizens of our beloved country Zimbabwe, that the legitimate ZAPU which is led by Dr Dabengwa is the only institution that has got the right to speak and act on behalf of the mother party, also deriving legitimacy to speak and to act on any other issues associated with ZAPU, such as ZPRA/ZAPU properties that were confiscated by Zanu in the early 1980s, Gukurahundi and the subsequent 1987 Unity Accord visa vis the national healing of the 1980s genocide massacres.We further reiterate that ZAPU has no member called Elphacy Dube in its books and his pronouncements are clearly and deliberately a plot to put the brand of the party into disrepute.We hear that Dube is related to the biggest looter of all time, Obert Mpofu. Hence his dubious and fraudulent character. Moreso, ZAPU does not have the position of secretary general in all of its structures at provincial level. It must be on record that ZAPU has no business and interfering with what happens in other political parties, hence we will never allow its name to be disrespected and clandestinely dragged in the mud of kindergarten self imposed spokespersons who drive their self seeking illicit agendas at the expense of ZAPU.In conclusion, we would like to state it clear that ZAPU remains a peoples driven party, that will not participate in the current politics of self serving-enrichment by political flip floppers of the night, whose only political capital is bootlicking characterized by the recently witnessed somersaulting that happened when the politicians of the night switched loyalty and support in hours following Operation Restore Legacy.Iphithule T MaphosaNational SpokespersonZimbabwe African Peoples Union.
News / Press Release

by Khulani David Ndhlovu, NPP National youth spokesperson

Revolutionary greetings dear comrades. In revolution there is pasi(down) with so and so. The enemies of the revolution are those in power who abuse power. They use the workers and peasants as their door mates if not stepping stones. Those are the enemies of the revolution who deserve the to be brought down.The case in point is the unhonourable Oppah Muchinguri's hate speeach on Dr Joice Mujuru. Joice Mujuru has nothing to do with the rote in Zanu Pf coupled with the liquidation of the economy and the constitution. To talk bad about a comrade instead of addressing the issues facing the economy is ideological aberation. Only destitutes of common sense whose heads are sparsely furnished with intelectual goods find pleasure in that. They are ideologically bankrupt.Zimbabwe is facing economic decline and liquidation of the constitution. I would have expected to hear how these issues would be addressed than pasi naMujuru childish rhetoric. Political toddlers find pleasure in such rhetoric.What is wrong with Oppah Muchinguri? I thought since she has been a very active politician for the past 3 decades, she has mastered the simple ABCs of the modern political economy. I thought she was a seasoned politician.Her uncircumcised pronouncements prove beyond doubt that she is an old fashioned political climber. She is an erratic in the modern political terrain. A big embarrasment who has a lot to learn and unlearn. True indeed, old wine will always be appealing to those with old and tired taste buds.What is fashionable about a woman attacking another woman? Is Grace Mugabe back in politics in the person of Oppah Muchinguri? Or she inherited the demons from Grace Mugabe? Its time for Zimbabwean political terrain to be gamatoxed of these old weeds who cant think beyond pasi naningi.What happenned to gender sensitivity? It is very disturbing for a woman of Oppah's calibre to degenerate into diminishing a fellow female comrade. Feminism knows no political affiliation and ethnic extruction, it cuts across these divides.The more enemies of change like Oppah continue demonising Cde Joice Mujuru, the more they are making her popular. That is free marketing of the Mujuru brand. NPP is wholly behind Mujuru in good and bad times. We dont need validation of her leadership from political climbers. We therefore say pamberi na Cde Joice Mujuru, pasi ne liquidation of the constitution and the economy.Vistory is certain, allutta continua.NPP National youth spokesperson Khulani David Ndhlovu
Opinion / Columnist

Now we know what the Mugabes and G40 gangsters have known since 14 November 2017. That it was actually a coup. This is despite the many assurances that it was not a coup.The first hint was when President Mnangagwa reneged on an inclusive transitional arrrangement. We are now aware that there were such tapping up of key opposition figures to join the new government. The new Minister of Information, Chris Mutsvanga, did most of the bidding. Volte face! Now Mutsvanga has changed tune. Not just Mutsvanga but the whole Mnangagwa team. They would have us believe that they never entertained such thoughts. The truth is that they did hold thoughts to run an inclusive government while there was uncertainty about the future without Mugabe. The opposition were cajoled into turning out in their masses to denounce a Mugabe presidency and the then imminent dynasty. They can not deny making such overtures to the opposition.As soon as this period of uncertainty was resolved, the reincarnated Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, was quick off the mark to announce the events as a zanu only process. We are now made to believe that all those people in the streets were zanu supporters. Nothing can be further from the truth than this. We all know that the majority of those who marched were ordinary peace loving Zimbabweans hopeful for a future democratic and prosperous dispensation. Most of those were anti zanu and not necessary pro Mnangagwa/ Chiwenga. The opposition had been duped into supporting a false move which had consequently reinvigorated the oppressive zanu system of governance.To those who still doubt this was indeed a coup, the proof of the pudding came in the form of new cabinet appointments. In true Mnangagwa style, he dropped the ball by appointing the generals into the cabinet including the diminutive and previously likeable Gen Sibusiso Moyo. Worse still the cabinet included other criminals who had been surrounding the Mugabes but who, for some reason, esacaped the rounding up by the new regime. Obert Mpofu is one such good example. If the objective was not to round all criminals surrounding the former president, then this was indeed a coup. It is a coup if the term criminal refers to the unpopular G40 cabal only.Further proof that this was a coup, is shown by the presence of the army in the streets of Zimbabwe today. The army stubbornly refuses to shuffle back to the barracks. The order has not yet been given for them to do so yet. It is unlikely that this order will be given soon. Zimbabwe is now a military state. We have seen a spate of human rights abuses by the army including beating up unarmed women in the street. Such arrogance and indiscipline smacks of a coup. If we are not careful, we will find ourselves in deeper trouble where rule of law does not exist.SADDC, AU, UN, UK and USA where are you when we need you. We have been captured by the junta. It is now clear that this was a coup.Sibusisiwe Tshuma is a Human Rights activist cum political activist, writing in her personal capacityContactable at ntsikanes@yahoo.com
Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix spoke of marraige during the finale episode of Vanderpump Rules season five. However, despite Sandoval's apparent desire to wed, the pair isn't quite ready to walk down the aisle  and they may never be.

During a new interview, Sandoval spoke to Los Angeles Confidential about the start of his relationship with Madix, revealing that they first became romantic during a trip to Napa Valley.

"We had such a good time, and we just got so much closer after that trip. So we looked at that moment as the first one where we really were like, 'Yes, we want this to be a thing. We want to be together,'" he explained.

Sandoval and Madix, who both work as bartenders at SUR Restaurant, began dating after filming the second season of Vanderpump Rules. As fans of the series may recall, Sandoval was newly single after splitting from Kristen Doute after accusing her of cheating. While Doute later admitted to sleeping with Sandoval's co-star and friend, Jax Taylor, she insisted she was not unfaithful to Sandoval during their relationship and accused him of cheating on her.

While Sandoval and Doute's relationship was plagued by drama, he and Madix seem much healthier. Still, when it comes to talks of marriage, Sandoval said he is a bit scared to put a label on the love he shares with Madix.

"I think, even with marriage, the labels will add a lot of pressure because you start using phrases such as 'until death do us part,' or forever,' 'until the end of time,' 'as long as I live,' and its a grim way of looking at a relationship versus just taking it as a day at a time," he explained.

As for Madix, she's said for years that she doesn't have the desire to get married, nor does she plan on welcoming any children. As fans may recall, the reality star spoke to Lisa Vanderpump about the issue during the fourth season of the show.

To see more of Tom Sandoval, Ariana Madix, and their co-stars, including Stassi Schroeder, Jax Taylor, Scheana Marie, Tom Schwartz, Katie Maloney, Lisa Vanderpump, James Kennedy, and Lala Kent, tune into new episodes of Vanderpump Rules season six on Monday nights at 9 p.m. on Bravo TV.
Honestie, an 11-year-old resident of Grand Rapids, Michigan was confronted by police officers who held her at gunpoint as she exited her house to go to the store.

The incident caused much controversy in the community, pushing the pre-teen's family to file a complaint with the Grand Rapids Police Department. The department launched an internal investigation on the police officers who manhandled the pre-teen and even threw her in the back of their car.

How The Incident Unfolded

The altercation happened on Wednesday, December 13, when police were looking for Honestie's aunt who was suspected of stabbing a relative at a nearby location. When the police didn't find her aunt, they detained Honestie, her mother, and another unidentified woman. In a news report from Eyewitness News, Honestie's mother shared that law enforcement told her daughter to come down their porch with her hands up.

"The whole time they are telling her to come down, I'm telling them, 'She's 11 years old. That's my daughter. Don't cuff her,'" Honestie's mother Whitney Hodges said."It made me feel scared and it made me feel like I did something wrong," the pre-teen told news reporters. "I'm afraid to open or go near my back door because of what happened."

Police Chief David Rahinsky said watching the police body-camera footage of Honestie being treated by his employees in such a way was "disturbing." He also shared changes need to be made to how police officers perform arrest procedures, especially on children.

Police Statements

The police officers released a statement saying they handcuffed Honestie and her mother because they didn't know if they were suspects in the stabbing case. They also mentioned that the women were not armed. "The 11-year-old was handcuffed for a total of 2 minutes while she was brought back into the alley and patted down to make sure that she did not have anything dangerous on her," Grand Rapids Police Department spokeswoman Cathy Williams said.

The police department released a clip of the body-camera footage and Honestie is seen screaming as police officers pointed a gun at her and her mother.

It is reported that the officers involved were not placed on administrative leave. They are still working their normal schedules.

Watch Honestie's interview about the traumatizing event, below.
Two years after being murdered, Queens Rapper Chinx, may finally get justice.

According to NY Daily News, two suspects have reportedly been charged in connection to the drive-by shooting that occurred in May 2015.

Lionel Pickens, formerly known as Chinx was sitting inside his silver Porsche on Queens Blvd. in Briarwood when one occupant pulled up and opened fire.

Antar Alziadi, a member of French Montana's Cokeboy Music Crew was riding in the passenger seat and was struck by a bullet when the incident occurred. In an interview with Fox 5, Alziadi states, that he believes Chinx shielded him and may have saved his life.

The two suspects that have been charged are 32-year-old Quincy Homere and 26-year-old Jahmar Hill. Both suspects were serving time in jail on unrelated charges when they were arrested for the 2015 murder.

Homere and Hill have been charged with murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Homere covered his face as cops hauled him in, while photographers asked questions along the way. However, there has been no word on the motive or how police linked the two to the case.

At the time of Pickens' murder, Hill was out on bail in connection to a robbery in Queens in July 2014. Hill, of Valley Stream, pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2017.

Homere, of Long Island, was arrested at Brooklyn MDC and charged with second-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

If convicted for the murder of Chinx, both suspects will face up to 25 years in prison.

"Another example of mindless gun violence plaguing our country, a young, up-and coming musician had his life and career cut short," Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, said in a statement.

Chinx was best known as a member of French Montana's Coke Boys. In 2013, Chinx and Montana released the first single from Chinx's EP entitled, "Feelings."

Earlier this year, the Montana paid tribute to the recording artist in an Instagram post. He captioned the photo saying, "Always look at this when I'm down and need motivation to keep pushing. #FOREVERCHINX"

The reported suspects come as great news, as the rapper would've celebrated his birthday on December 4th.

Pickens wife, Janelli Caceres, took to Facebook to share her thoughts on the arrest. "GOD is good and he hears our prayers," Janelli said.

Caceres and Pickens have one son together, Vince Pickens.
Are Jamie Foxx and Katie Holmes really together? It seems as though, since the two were spotted, once again, in public.

The two rang in Foxx's 50th birthday on Wednesday, Dec. 13 in Los Angeles. Months after they were seen taking a stroll on the beach, hand in hand, the couple was seen arriving at Paramount Pictures together.

"They mixed and mingled with other guests and spent little time alone," a source said.

Upon their arrival, Foxx celebrated his birthday at the Highlight Room in Hollywood with close friends and daughters Corrine Fox and Annalise Bishop.

Foxx and Bishop presented their dad with a custom birthday cake that featured a throwback pictures of Foxx on the top and the caption, "Happy 25x2."

One of Foxx's close friends and co-stars, Garcelle Beauvais took to Instagram to wish the actor a Happy Birthday. Beauvais posted a picture of the two, with the caption, "#happybirthday we love J. #friendsforlife"

Foxx also took to Instagram to thank his family, friends and fans for all of the special birthday wishes.

In August 2013, Rumors swirled when Foxx and Holmes were spotted arm in arm at the 4th Annual Apollo In The Hampton Benefit. The couple has always denied rumors, but fans of the two have finally received their confirmation.

When asked directly about her love life, Holmes refuses to answer. "That's not something I want to answer," Holmes told MORE Magazine.

Claudia Jordan, a former Real Housewives of Atlanta star, who is friends with Foxx made claims that Foxx was currently dating Holmes.

"I love that he seems very happy," Jordan said in a podcast. When asked about the couple again, Jordan said, she "misspoke."

In September, the private duo was seen taking a romantic stroll on the beach in Malibu, California. Recently, the two were seen at the opening of Prive Revaux store. Foxx was one of the many celebrities involved in the eyewear brand. The couple arrived separately, but it was obvious that Holmes was there to support her beau.

On Wednesday night, Foxx and Holmes were both camera shy as paparazzi caught them on their way out of the celebration. How long will these two keep their romance a secret?

Sources say, Holmes has made it clear that she wants to go public, but it's Foxx that rather keep things a secret.
It's hard to believe, but the Royals are just like us. They're regular human beings with feelings and emotions, only they have a higher sense of duty bestowed upon them. The world was devastated by the divorce of Princess Diana and Prince Charles since the two had a "fairytale" wedding and seemingly perfect life.

When the reasoning behind the divorce made headlines, mainly Charles' alleged affair with Camilla, it was labeled a "scandal" and considered taboo in the eyes of the church, England, and the world. But many have forgotten, that there was another scandal that shook up the royal family decades ago but ironically is the reason why we have her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

The Crown

The hit Netflix series, The Crown, focuses on the reign of Queen Elizabeth in the early stages. The Queen ascended to the throne after her father's tragic death while she and her husband, Phillip, were in Kenya. One subject that series has touched on is the fact that her father, King George, reluctantly became king. The reason why he was reluctant, was because he wasn't supposed to rule.

His elder brother, Edward, was King when he gave up his crown to marry "the love of his life," American actress, Wallis Simpson. While there have been many scandals in the royal family throughout the years, this directly alternated the royal family line.

Because of Edward's decisions to abdicate the thrown and also because he had no heirs, his brother was forced to take on the title and move his family to Buckingham Palace.

While this might seem like a dream come true, many have claimed that because of Edward's choice Queen Elizabeth's father, King George, died at an early age. Ironically enough had this not happen, and Edward didn't give up his crown and married someone else and had heirs, Elizabeth might not have become Queen.

When Edward took the throne, at the time, Elizabeth was third-in-line, for the thrown. If Edward produced any children, his first child would've succeeded him.

While the royal family seems to have cast Edward out after his decision, it does seem noteworthy that if he didn't abdicate his duties then we wouldn't have seen the marriage between Diana and Charles, Prince Harry's wild adventure or his engagement to lovely Meghan Markle.
Next to the nominees, fashion is a very important part of awards season. But this year, is set to be an unforgettable year.

According to People, major actresses including presenters and nominees are gearing up to wear all black to the 2018 Golden Globes.

Celebrities such as, Emma Stone, Meryl Streep and Jessica Chastin are planning on wearing all black as a symbolic form of protest against harassment in Hollywood. It's safe to say, Harvey Weinstein is definitely one of the inspirations behind the color scheme. The producer was accused of sexual misconduct by several women in such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Cara Delevigne and most recently Salma Hayek.

Since the spark of the #MeToo hashtag on social media, women who have suffered from similar experiences have shone a light on mistreatment not only in Hollywood, but everywhere.

The decision to make the awards an "All Black Affair" follows the announcement that all presenters at the 2018 Screen Actors Guild Awards will be female.

This isn't the first time that Hollywood is getting to support a cause. In 2017, several celebs supported the American Civil Liberties Union and wore blue pins in front of the camera.

In a recent CAA meeting about gender equality in the industry, there was talk of a new protocol for the red carpet.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, founder and CEO of The Representation Project, thinks her campaign urging red carpet reporters to #AskHerMore is more relevant now than ever.

#AskHerMore is about treating women as full human beings rather than objects.

"I hope the red-carpet interviewers ask about the power the media has to make a difference in the world," Newsom said.

Sources also suggest that it was originally a small group that had planned to wear the shade. But as word got out actresses have decided to get on board and make a statement.

"We should not focus solely on these women's appearances. We need a balance," Newsom continued.

Everyone will be patiently waiting to see if female celebs will make the awards an "All Black Affair." Although, this is a great statement it's unfortunate for stylists that have pulled dresses and arranged fittings. Back to the drawing board!
More sexual misconduct allegations against Dustin Hoffman has come to light.

In a new report, three women have accused the two-time Academy Award winner of sexual harassment. One of the accusers claimed that the actor exposed himself to her when she was a minor.

Taking Advantage

Cori Thomas was friends with Hoffman's daughter, Karina, when she was 16. In a story she recounted to Variety, the accuser said that the actor brought her to his hotel room while she waited for her parents to come pick her up after spending the day with the actor and his daughter.

"I was just sitting there waiting for my parents," Thomas stated. "He came out of the bathroom with a towel at first wrapped around him, which he dropped. He was standing there naked."

When he eventually put on a robe, he sat on the bed beside her and asked to massage his feet. Not knowing what to do, she complied.

Hoffman also allegedly asked her if she wants to see him naked and made other suggestive comments.

Another accuser, Melissa Kester, was fresh out of college when she met the The Graduate star. While working on the movie Ishtar, she claims that the actor stuck his finger down her pants.

"He put his fingers inside me," she recalled. Kester, who was with a few others, including her boyfriend at the time, tried not to react. As soon as she was able to pull away, she ran to the bathroom, crying. Hoffman just laughed after the encounter.

A third accuser who refused to be named shared that the actor assaulted her inside a moving vehicle. After the wrap party for Ishtar, she and Hoffman got into the back of a station wagon.

"There are people inches from us," she revealed. "And he just took his hand and stuck his fingers right up inside of me."

She also said that she had subsequent consensual sexual encounters with the actor.

A First Of Many

Last month, Anna Graham Hunter accused the 80-year-old of sexual harassment. She was 17 years old at the time of the incident and was working as an intern on the set of Death of a Salesman in 1985.

She recounted to The Hollywood Reporter that he was openly flirtatious. He asked her to give her a foot massage and even grabbed her butt. He also made sexually suggestive comments in her presence.

Actress Kathryn Rossetter, who starred with Hoffman in Death of a Salesman, revealed that she was repeatedly assaulted. She said that her co-star groped her breasts and touched the inside of her thighs while filming.
Meghan Markle recently attended her first royal Christmas party that was organized by Prince Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Markle just returned to London after a short trip to Los Angeles last week.

Prince Harry was also in attendance at the annual celebration. Queen Elizabeth II's cousins and son, Prince Andrew, were also present at the event.

The annual royal staff Christmas party was held at the Waterloo Chamber, St. George's Hall and the Grand Reception Room.

"The Christmas party is always held there. They'll hold the wedding reception there, too. It is a well-proven system and arrangement," said a former staff.

Meghan Markle's Surprise Attendance

Meanwhile, one of the party guests, Rebecca English, said that they didn't have any idea that Markle will be going to the party. After all, the Suits alum was just in Los Angeles with her mom, Doria Ragland, last week.

English said that everyone that had the chance to meet Markle was surprised at how beautiful, confident, and elegant she looked. She introduced herself with a smile on her face, and Prince Harry was very proud of his fiancee.

Meghan Markle Celebrates Christmas With Royal Family

Markle's attendance at the annual royal staff Christmas party came just one day after it was also announced that she will also be spending the holidays with Prince Harry and his entire family.

The former Deal or No Deal star will be the first unmarried partner to be on the royal family's guest list. Prince William's wife, Kate Middleton, was only invited to the family's Christmas parties after she married the Duke of Cambridge in 2011.

"These things happen, times move on. Harry certainly gets a lot more leeway than most have done," said the former royal staff.

On Christmas Day, Prince Harry, Markle, Prince William, and Middleton will be at Queen Elizabeth II's hometown, Sandringham.

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry's Week-Long Vacation

Following their holiday celebrations, Markle and Prince Harry are expected to go on a week-long vacation. There are rumors suggesting that the two will head to Australia for their much needed break.

"They plan to go on vacation together for more than a week. Expect them to come back tanned, refreshed and ready to take on a very busy 2018," said a source.

After they return to London, Markle and Prince Harry will start preparing for their May 2018 nuptials, which will be held at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.
The Kensington Palace tweeted the date that everyone has been waiting for on Friday morning, Dec. 15.

Official Wedding Day Is Confirmed

It is now official that Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle will wed on May 19, 2018. The two will tie the knot at the St. George's Chapel at the Windsor Castle.

Hopefully, the wedding won't interfere with the birth of Prince William and Kate Middleton's third child who is expected to arrive in April 2018. No matter, if the soon-to-be prince or princess decides to wait a while after his or her due date, 2018 will surely be a memorable year for the Royal family.

It was late November when Markle and Harry announced their engagement only after a year of dating. Prince William and Duchess Kate Middleton also released a statement after the official announcement of the engagement was made public.

"It has been wonderful getting to know Meghan and to see how happy she and Harry are together," Prince William and Duchess Kate said.

Meghan Markle To Spend Christmas With The Royal Family

The couple will reside in Nottingham Cottage as they plan their wedding. But first, they will celebrate Christmas with the Queen and the rest of the royal family.

A few days ago, the Suits star would be spending Christmas with her future in-laws, which is totally a break in tradition for the royal family. Markle will join the Queen at her Sandringham estate in Norfolk about 110 miles north of London. On Christmas Eve, the group will exchange gifts and then head to St. Mary Magdalene Church on Christmas Day.

"The family together have been a solid support and my grandparents as well have been wonderful throughout this process," Prince Harry stated.

Spending the holidays together isn't the only tradition that the couple will break. There have been speculations that the two may not opt for the traditional rich fruit cake.

The couple may go for banana cake since they both love its taste. If their plan pushes through, Markle and Harry will be the first one among the royals to have a cake made from the fruit.

What Will Meghan Wear?

What fans are dying to know is what will Markle wear for her big day. Designers such as Oscar de la Renta, Emilia Wickstead, Erdem, Caroline Castigliano and Calvin Klein have all been linked to the soon-to-be bride.

"Delphine Manivet and Christos Costarellos are faves of mine for their uniqueness and beauty," Markle said.
True Drake fans know the 31-year-old actor turned rapper has no specific type when he comes to the women he's attracted to.

The women of his dreams can be BBW models, comediennes, strippers, famous (or not), older (or younger), it doesn't matter because Drake does not discriminate.

Drake's Crush

The (current) apple of his eye is Angelina Jolie. The newly divorcee was seen tagged in a recent photo of Drake. The black and white picture showed Drake looking, longingly into the gaze of the camera.

With the caption "Stood Me Up," Drake alludes to Jolie not attending a date she probably knew nothing about.

As Complex News reports, this is not the first time Drake tried to "shoot his shot" or fuel dating rumors via the social media platform known as Instagram.

Drake Being Drake

Last year, many thought Drake was dating Jennifer Lopez after the Canadian native posted several photos of them spending alone time together. He also posted a picture of Sarah Silverman with a diamond ring emoji in tow.

Not to mention, Drake has professed his love for superstar Rihanna too many times to count and had a steamy fling with the now-married champion athlete Serena Williams.

Here are some hilarious reactions to Drake trying to get with the Salt actress:

Why you stand Drake up Angelina Jolie? pic.twitter.com/DaDubrcA3h  Drake Lyrics. (@Draketext) December 14, 2017

Drake got good taste in women, I hope he pull Angelina  21 Bovvy(@iSn0ww) December 14, 2017

this dude drake gotta chill with Angelina, ive been calling it since 2014  patrongarcon (@KopeIAm) December 15, 2017

If my dawg Drake really tried to shoot his shot with Angelina Jolie ima hit this shorty in the DM fuck it lmaoooo I knew Drake was really me wow  Isaiah Mercer (@VICIOUSzayzay94) December 14, 2017

As we've previously reported about the philanthropist's divorce from Brad Pitt:

"Jolie regrets portraying Pitt as the villain in their failed marriage after the announcement of their divorce, the actress still has no interest in giving him another chance in order to save their marriage. Meanwhile, some source claimed that Pitt felt disappointed when the "Maleficent" actress made him out to be an abusive father to the point that he was even subjected to an investigation because of this allegation.After Jolie filed for divorce, several reports indicted Pitt as the key reason for the separation. Some issues regarding his infidelity also came out which was not proven in the end."
Opinion / Columnist

FOR the first time in more than two years - the longest stretch since the late 1950s - a coup d'etat rocked a country in Africa. Late on the evening of November 14, the Zimbabwe military seized control of the capital, Harare, and placed former president Robert Mugabe under house arrest.The coup was vehemently denied as such by its perpetrators, but the military's doublespeak could not alter the reality: after 37 ruinous years in power, Zimbabwe's liberator-turned-dictator faced an ignominious exit at the hands of his comrades.Surprisingly, the coup also confounded the African Union (AU) and threatened to damage one of its major policy successes since its founding in 2002 - zero tolerance for unconstitutional changes of government out of the barrel of a gun. Why, in contravention of its anti-coup dictum, did the AU accept the coup in Zimbabwe? What implications will this have for ending politics by force in Africa?For decades, coups - in which a faction within government uses its partial control of the state apparatus to (forcibly) remove the ruler from power - wrought havoc in countries across Africa, undermining democracy, fomenting instability and civil war and impeding economic growth.Between 1950 and 2010, 169 coup attempts took place in Africa, of which 51,5% were successful. For most of this period, the continent's coup epidemic was exacerbated by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)'s capital city rule, whereby whoever controlled the capital, no matter how he/she came to power, was recognised as the sovereign representative by other states.As events played out in Zimbabwe, the AU faced a conundrum: condemn the coup and the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF)'s de facto seizure of power, but be seen (once again) to be shielding Mugabe from his political reckoning; or accept the ZDF's military intervention to absolve Zimbabwe - and the AU - of Mugabe's dictatorial reign, though at the risk of legitimating the use of force in politics.African regional organisations and their member states only began to shed their indifference to forcible seizures of power and to rethink the capital city rule around 1996-1997, after coups in Burundi and Sierra Leone toppled elected governments and destabilised conflict management efforts.This resulted in the landmark Lome Declaration by the OAU in 2000, in which African states collectively denounced coups as grave threats to peace and democracy on the continent.The founding of the AU in 2002 consummated the renunciation of the capital city rule.The AU's Constitutive Act included a provision to decertify governments that come "to power through unconstitutional means". The AU empowered its Peace and Security Council (PSC) - the key enforcement organ of the regional organisation - to use sanctions and suspensions to police unconstitutional changes of government.Over the last 15 years, the AU has suspended no fewer than 11 member states when groups within violated its anti-coup rule. Moreover, the PSC has been quick to sanction such transgressions, usually acting within 24 to 48 hours of a coup.Despite these gains, there are significant loopholes in the AU's anti-coup regime. For one, anti-incumbent forces can still use coups to unseat rulers; it is just less viable for coup perpetrators to accede the throne and gain sovereign recognition. Two, the AU has been much weaker in holding incumbents to account for undermining constitutionalism than their rivals who try to seize power via coups d'etat. This imbalance is not due to a lack of rules, but a lack of will.The AU, in the 2007 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, empowered the PSC to police incumbent "infringements on the principles of democratic change of government" (Article 23, Section 4) as it would coups (Article 23, Section 1). Yet, not once has the AU invoked Section 4 - despite innumerable incidences of incumbents transgressing principles of democratic change of government.The contradictions plaguing the AU's regime of constitutionalism were laid bare in Zimbabwe over the last fortnight when a power struggle within the ruling party exploded into a pitched battle for control of the executive.The ZDF, responding to the dismissal of one of its key allies, then vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, direct threats to its commander General Constantino Chiwenga and fears of losing even more power and influence if Mugabe's wife, Grace, succeeded the 93-year-old president, launched "Operation Restore Legacy" to eliminate its rival faction and assume de facto power.After years of turning a blind eye to Mugabe's subversion of democracy, the AU was staring at a situation in which a coup had the potential to usher in a political transition in Zimbabwe that was popularly supported domestically and in the region.Moreover, quite shrewdly, the ZDF avoided crossing the AU's red line of seizing executive power - instead deferring to formal, constitutional procedures for the removal and replacement of Mugabe as president.A sounder approach would have been for the AU's PSC to condemn the de facto coup - as it would a de jure coup - and threaten to suspend Zimbabwe from the AU until the military released Mugabe from house arrest, handed over power to a transitional post-Mugabe government, and returned to the barracks.In stark contrast to the PSC's immediate and forceful rejection of nearly every other coup since the AU was founded in 2002, the AU tacitly supported the forcible removal of Mugabe from power - a position that the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), which the AU was happy to defer to in managing the crisis, also held. To justify its inaction, the AU ultimately declared the ZDF intervention did not constitute a coup d'etat, after at first suggesting the opposite.The AU, in alignment with Sadc, got it wrong and missed a valuable opportunity to strengthen and expand its anti-coup regime to include both de jure and de facto coups.In narrowly focusing on the removal of the sitting head of state as the defining feature of a coup rather than the unconstitutional use of force to coerce elected leaders to relinquish power, it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens to undermine the strong gains the region has made to move beyond politics by the gun.Such a policy response would have delivered a similar outcome as what transpired - ridding Zimbabwe and the AU of the Mugabe problem - while strengthening, rather than weakening, the region's anti-coup norm. Instead, the AU endorsed a factional coup by the Zimbabwe military and its former vice-president that now sees the coup perpetrators in key positions in the post-Mugabe government in direct contravention of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.There is another important lesson for the AU from the Zimbabwe case. It would not have faced the unpalatable choice of greenlighting the forcible removal of a sitting head of state if it committed to building a more balanced regime of constitutionalism, in which incumbent subversions of democracy are addressed as vigilantly as coups by anti-incumbent forces.Through the violation of term limits, the emasculation of free and fair elections and the persecution of their opponents, rulers are eviscerating the institutions that are essential to building a new political equilibrium in which the use of force is not needed to hold incumbents accountable.Only by fixing the loopholes that currently plague the AU's regime of constitutionalism - rejecting de facto and de jure coups and ending the double standards that let incumbents, but not their rivals, off the hook for undercutting democracy - will the region finally escape politics by force.Roessler is associate professor of government at the College of William and Mary in the United States.
In May 2017, the Malayalam film industry witnessed an unprecedented development: a section of its women creative workers joined together to form the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), to address gender issues in the industry. They have presented a set of demands to the state administration, which include the formation of anti-harassment cells during film production, increased representation of women on movie sets, equal remuneration, and a safe working environment throughout the film-making process for female artists and technicians. The Government of Kerala has responded by constituting a committee under K Hema, a retired judge of the high court, to investigate the working conditions of women in the Malayalam film industry (Deccan Chronicle 2017).

What circumstances led to the birth of a collective exclusively for women in an industry that prides itself on having numerous associations and trade unions that represent every activity within its value chain? Why should this new entrantcurrently an informal group of concerned women film workersbe marked out as distinctive in the already dense associational geography of the mighty South Indian film business? To answer these questions, one must delve into the recent history of the Malayalam cinema industry.
This paper illustrates how power relations in a society dominated by an able-bodied majority provide structural sanctions for the oppression and exclusion of the disabled. It critically evaluates the approaches developed by Kalpana Kannabiran and Martha Nussbaum to liberate the disabled, arguing that their basic premises are located within the able-bodied power paradigm. A fresh starting point for academicians and disability rights activists calls for a relocation of disability rights jurisprudence within the broader scheme of the power relations operating in a society. The elimination of the subject of power, the other, through a model of self-reflection, and the creation of an expansive notion of the self is essential in constructing a theoretical foundation for equal citizenship.
European leaders are about to approve a hard-won Brexit deal with the United Kingdom, thus opening the door to trade talks. But as British Prime Minister Theresa May is taking what was supposed to be a victory lap, she was thrown before a new hurdle and political embarrassment that underscores the extent to which she is being squeezed by different factions in her own party. As she was arriving at the two-day summit in Brussels, she said she was disappointed that her cabinet lost the vote on an amendment to the EU divorce bill but said it was still in a good shape.

We are on course to deliver Brexit. We are on course to deliver on the vote of the British people, Mrs. May said, referring to the 2016 Brexit referendum. Over dinner with EU leaders, Mrs. May said that while many considered the last few months as a sign of how hard the future talks would be, she believes that the progress both sides have made demonstrates what can be done with commitment and perseverance. Her remarks were greeted with applause from the other EU leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted that the EU leaders made clear that Theresa May made good offers that can allow for the trade talks to move ahead. But there are still many outstanding issues. Well talk about it tomorrow, she added.

However, as the UK political reality complicates the already difficult matters before the looming trade talks, there are growing concerns that lawmakers wont be speaking with one voice. As soon as she negotiates something, she has to go to the Parliament to get approval. This just makes it more complicated for the UK government, said Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. He said the EU wouldnt renegotiate the Brexit deal if the British Parliament rejects it. An EU official also noted that it was not good for the bloc to negotiate with a weak leader. I dont think its good that the prime minister who is negotiating with us is losing votes in the Parliament, the official said. Its never good. We need a strong negotiator on the other side.
I explained the story behind this enigmatic tombstone a couple years back.

I had never heard the name "Chris Plante" before Robert Feder tweeted news Thursday that the D.C.-based personality is replacing Bob Sirott and Marianne Murciano on WLS radio.The latest example of huge and distant media companiesin this case, Georgia-based Cumulus Media, owners of WLS and 445 other radio stationsdeciding that what is easiest and cheapest to offer is also best for listeners everywhere. One size fits all.That said, I like to keep an open mind. Off to The Chris Plante web site. There, the first thing I read was his most-recent tweet: "What do you think was the REAL lie of the year? Perhaps 'Russia, Russia, Russia'?"Ah, the Trumpian Fallacy in rampant splendor. Take a truth you don't likelike Bob Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign's alleged-for-now collusion with Russiainsist based on nothing that it's a lie. Then hold your breath and see how many buy it.Quite a few. Particularly in places like Georgia.In Chicago, not so much.Feeding lies to the deluded has been a growth industry, with Fox News and Breitbart growing in size, power and profitability as a whole segment of America seals itself off into an echo chamber of self-deception and hysterical faux victimhood.Chicago is not immuneyou should see my email. But at the risk of provincial pride, we do still value independence. The Sun-Times is run by a former alderman and a group of union heads. The Trib, for all its historical aspersions toward internationality, is run by a local tech whiz.Our radio gems stand out for their uniquenessWBEZ, WFMT, WBBMnot because they're funnels for whatever sour pap they're fire hosing from the coasts.
Opinion / Columnist

Ahead of an emotional and historic visit to Ghana in 2009, Barrack Obama criticised the theatrical blame game African leaders employ all the time to disclaim their failings and debunked the extensively disseminated myth that the West and not Zanu-PF is responsible for the economic tribulations that afflict Zimbabwe.Obama said: "I think part of what's hampered advancement in Africa is that for many years we've made excuses about corruption or poor governance, that this was somehow the consequence of neo-colonialism, or the West has been oppressive, or racism - I'm not a big - I'm not a believer in excuses."Whenever a ruling party in Africa faces tough electoral accountability for its economic and political failures, undue responsibility is swiftly heaped on the US and EU nations.While the evidence to substantiate allegations of electoral interference and secret participations in African affairs is characteristically scant - African leaders always tag themselves faultless for a rash of reckless policies, wasteful expenditures and high-levels of corruption.Obama alluded to this African skulduggery when he added: "And yet the fact is we're in 2009. The West and the United States has not been responsible for what's happened to Zimbabwe's economy over the last 15 or 20 years."It hasn't been responsible for some of the disastrous policies that we've seen elsewhere in Africa. And I think that it's very important for African leadership to take responsibility and be held accountable."Olusegun Obasanjo expressed comparable thoughts in May at the launch of the book Making Africa Work in Durban. He said, "We have heard enough talk. We have had enough of the blame game. Yes, the colonial powers did not do it right - but we have been independent now for almost 60 years. What have we done? The fault lies with our leaders."In Zimbabwe the so-called economic sanctions did not stop former First Lady Grace Mugabe from acquiring super extravagant properties. And Doha-based news channel Al-Jazeera has described President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a successful businessman. Interestingly, how did a 37-year long civil servant become a wealthy businessman, anyway?This is just it: how has the West advanced unethical conduct by state officials? Take your pick from an appalling collection of local catastrophes that have emptied the Zimbabwean treasury over the years and decipher this: how did the West instigate the War Victims Compensation Fund debacle, the ZINARA scandal, the NRZ crisis, the Chiadzwa diamond scandal, the Harare Airport scandal and the Ziscosteel scandal?You can blame the West for the devastating electoral woes all you want. But how did the West prevent Zimbabwe from conducting free and fair elections in the past?Did the West sanction electoral violence in 2000 and 2002? Did the West fail to provide Zimbabwe with a credible voter's rolls in 2008 and 2013?Did the West halt the privatisation of Zimpapers and ZBC? Did the West enact dubious laws such as AIPPA and POSA?Before we overthink the causes behind the deplorable situation we find ourselves in, we must deal with the blame game. A few weeks ago Mnangagwa and the self-styled Team Lacoste were the local villains on the run.But after the November 14 coup Zanu-PF shifted all the blame for the never-ending economic and social challenges on the so-called G-40 faction. Yet before that military invention happened it was all the fault of the MDC, white commercial farmers, ZUM and ZAPU in that order.All hope is not lost though: we can look to West Africa for electoral inspiration. Ghana has shown that holding trustworthy elections and actively supporting a functional democracy go hand in hand with economic growth in a post-independent African nation.And we can refer to flawless representations of African dictatorships to appreciate what an undemocratic state looks like. Equatorial Guinea, DR Congo, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Burundi, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic have after celebrating military coups all failed to establish viable states.Although democracy is not a prerequisite for economic development: China is the only state that has managed to develop a modern, market-oriented economy without political openness.Elsewhere - in places such as North Korea, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and DR Congo - a lack of democratic liberties has facilitated state-level corruption and debilitating poverty.With a sycophantic state media and repressive security sector in place, corrupt and totalitarian representatives find it easy to obfuscate the incapacitating actuality of state thuggery.North Korea is ranked 174 out of 176 countries on the Transparency International Corruption Index for 2016. Venezuela is ranked 164. DR Congo, on 156, is just above Zimbabwe on 154.But that is not all.As things stand, the despotic Nicholas Maduro has evolved to become a tougher and grimier opponent than opposition parties in Venezuela reckoned a few years ago.So has Joseph Kabila in DR Congo.And with time: so will Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe.People must demand substantial reforms and free and fair elections.Only the people can free themselves from the crushing weight of the African blame game.Twitter: @tafimhaka / Facebook: @Tafiranyika
pnrenjith said: Hi

I am a new AUS PR holder planning to move to AUS in Jan-18.I am moving with family of 2 adults + 2 kids.Have heard from some sources that there are some financial supports from Centrelink for newly moved PR holders until they gets a steady income/job.Appreciate if any of you could shed some lights on the same and the criteria for availing such initial supports.



Thanks and Regards



Renjith Click to expand...

You may be eligible to claim Family Tax Benefit Part A of around $150 per fortnight, as well as Part B which might be between about $120 to at most $480 a fortnight (for two children). The amount will vary according to the children's age and your income.You may also be eligible for Child Care Benefit (paid directly to the Child Care service) and Child Care Rebate (payable to the Child Care service or to you) if you put your children into daycare.See "Families with children", here:You won't normally be eligible for any other payments until you have been an Australian Resident for 104 weeks:Go to Centrelink and see what they can do for you.
A lot of French people think we Brits in the UK wear bowler hats and drink tea all day. Now the illness has spread to Brits themselves. Pork pies for breakfast, quelle horreur.



I have to say that breakfast does seem to bring out the most horrible combinations of food. My ex wife's family rejoiced in "bucks fizz" for family breakfasts. This, for those of you who don't know, is a cocktail of champagne and orange juice. I rather like both, but not in the same glass please.



Similarly, the British army has a penchant for hot sweet tea and rum for early starts on a winter's day. Again, I'll gladly accept both in separate mugs when the occasion demands it, but like buck fizz each component competely ruins the other.



As for pork pies for breakfast near Blackpool. - I'm not surprised, you find some very strange things north of Potter's Bar.



Ba! Humbug!



Scroogily yours.....DejW
WASHINGTON  Democrats in Congress are growing increasingly pessimistic that an agreement to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation can be reached this year.

Laredo Democrat Henry Cuellar says it might take a miracle to get a deal done before lawmakers go home for the holidays.

But immigration advocates hold out hope an agreement can be achieved in the Senate, which yet could force action in the House before likely adjournment next week. Bipartisan negotiations among senators were under way Thursday.

The nearly 800,000 so-called Dreamers in jeopardy since the Trump administration canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program have pressed for resolving matters this month.

President Donald Trump gave Congress until early March to write legislation restoring protections, a date GOP leaders in Congress see as affording sufficient time for a solution.

But advocates note that an average of 122 DACA recipients lose protections daily because their applications for renewal werent received by Oct. 5, the deadline the administration prescribed, resulting in a loss of protections when work permits expire. And waiting until 2018 could bring more problems because of election year pressures, they say.

You have an unfolding crisis in which young American kids are losing jobs and being exposed to deportation, and Republican leadership is saying we can kick the can down the road, said Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, an immigrant advocacy group.

In the House, Speaker Paul Ryan appears to have gained the upper hand largely due to unusual unity in his Republican caucus.

That unity showed last week when 221 Republicans voted for a two-week extension to avoid a shutdown  more than the 218 needed  showing Democrats they would be unable to forge a DACA fix by withholding their votes.

Another big vote to keep the government funded is scheduled next week, perhaps extending the DACA deadline until early next year. But the potential of a sufficient number of members withholding their votes and risking blame for causing a shutdown appears to have diminished.

Were trying to put as much leverage on Republicans as we can, but they are saying early next year. I was hoping we could do it by the end of the year and maybe a miracle will happen, but I dont see it right now, said Cuellar, a moderate in his party.

I hate to put it so cold, but do you shut down the government for 800,000 people at the expense of 320 million Americans? Thats really what youre looking at, he said.

San Antonio Democrat Joaquin Castro said the best chance to help the young undocumented immigrants is yet this year amid the urgency of must-pass spending bills.

Once the Congress gets beyond that, it will become harder to leverage support for DACA into successful legislation, he said.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-San Antonio, said in a statement that he won't support spending legislation next week absent a DACA fix.

Republican leadership wants to use the successes of our Dreamers as a bargaining chip for President Trumps anti-immigrant Christmas wish list  building an unnecessary border wall, separating immigrant families, targeting sanctuary cities, and more, Doggett said.

San Antonio Republican Will Hurd faces growing pressure to buck GOP leadership. His North San Antonio office was the target of a protest on Thursday organized by the Texas State Teachers Association.

The associations says about 2,000 Dreamers are teachers in Texas.

At a time when Texas has a teacher shortage and a majority of Texas students are Hispanic, these teachers have a special ability to connect with their students and show them the importance of education, TSTA President Noel Candelaria said.

Sharry likewise took aim at Hurd.

If Hurd and other moderates stand up and tell Paul Ryan that theyre not going to vote for a (continuing resolution) unless it includes a DACA fix, it would pass, Sharry said. Will Hurd is in perfect position to help craft the deal. But nice statements are not going to do it. Whats needed is a firm backbone.

Hurd, who represents a predominately Hispanic district, was appointed by Ryan to a working group assigned to come up with a negotiated solution.

He recently joined 33 other Republicans in a letter to Ryan urging action by years end. He didnt respond Thursday to request for comment.

Congress thus far has been immune to protests by so-called Dreamers and their advocates on Capitol Hill that have grown in size and frequency.

On Tuesday, a group called United We Dream erected a jumbotron screen on the National Mall, in the view of Ryans west-facing office. Their DreamActTron is running videos of stories about young undocumented immigrants.

Nor has Congress responded to pleas by industry leaders, the latest Thursday from the unlikely duo of Apple CEO Tim Cook and Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch.

Co-writing an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Cook and Koch challenged Congress to show the courage to embrace diversity and to do what is right. We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington, and we know that people of good faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy. If ever there were an occasion to come together to help people improve their lives, this is it.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who over the years has told stories about Dreamers challenges, presented a detailed look at the life of Carla Martinez of San Antonio, whos among more than 120,000 DACA recipients in Texas.

Martinez, 24, who was born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, excelled in school soon after arriving in Pflugerville at age 8. Alongside poster-size photos of Martinez, Durbin told colleagues how shed been an honor student in high school and graduated last spring with a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio without benefit of Pell Grants or other assistance that is unavailable to DACA recipients.

She often had to choose between food and buying books, Durbin said.

In an interview, Martinez, an engineer-in-training at the M&S Engineering New Braunfels branch, said she plans on getting an MBA and hopes one day to establish a scholarship program to help others.

Im greatly disappointed to hear this, she said when told of Congresss lack of progress. As time goes by, I get closer to losing my career, my job and my income.

blambrecht@express-news.net
Brooke Army Medical Centers top commander on Thursday warned the City Council that a plan under consideration by a local hospital to create a new trauma center would threaten the Army's emergency medical mission.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Johnson told the council that Methodist Healthcare has considered adding a trauma center, an action that likely would reduce the number of people treated at BAMCs emergency room.

Adding additional trauma centers to San Antonio presents a direct threat to medical readiness and the quality of care at BAMC and could hurt its poorest patients, Johnson told the council.

Johnson said he learned that if Methodist went ahead with the project, Baptist Health System would be forced to build its own trauma center.

A Baptist spokeswoman, Patti Tanner, couldnt confirm that. She and a Methodist spokeswoman said their hospital systems had made no decision on the matter.

The council unanimously approved a resolution supporting BAMCs mission, with Mayor Ron Nirenberg and other members making clear they opposed any expansion of trauma facilities by Methodist or Baptist.

The mayor said the threat to trauma care at BAMC could put its medical training mission in San Antonio at risk in a future base-closure round.

A senior University Health System executive also addressed the council and backed up Johnsons arguments.

BAMC and University Hospital have the only Level 1 trauma centers in San Antonio and serve a 22-county region in Southwest Texas that has a population of more than 2.2 million people.

Both treat all patients without regard to ability to pay, and need a minimum patient volume to maintain their certifications, Johnson said.

Methodist had considered adding a Level 2 trauma center, a scaled-down version without an education and research capacity, which can choose which patients are seen, Johnson said.

Methodist spokeswoman Palmira Arellano said the hospital was just doing our due diligence and researching community needs.

She also said the unfortunate increase in natural disasters and tragic events that have occurred recently in the United States have caused many communities across the country to research the proper structure of trauma levels within their regions.

Arellano added, As the largest health system in the region that has a proven record of quality care, it is our obligation to perform a community health needs assessment and help provide resources to meet those needs. This includes the assessment and research of appropriate trauma levels in the San Antonio region.

Asked about Johnsons comments, Baptist issued a statement acknowledging BAMCs vital role in providing expert care for the most critically injured in our community and expressing support for its military mission.

I think how I would describe the risk is our ability, as the (Defense Departments) only Level I trauma center, it is the jewel for where trauma training can take place, Johnson said in a later interview. There is no other place in the (Defense Department) that can do it. So, if we were to lose the ability to train trauma, and sustain medical skills inside of trauma, our providers, our health professionals, would no longer be able to, on Day 1, be able to meet our nation's (military) needs in a deployed setting. That's the essence of the risk.

The BAMC emergency room logs 80,000 visits a year  four of five of them civilians. If competition brings a reduction of patients at BAMCs ER, it would force a Military Health System review that could end with a relocation of some of its missions, Johnson said.

With fewer patients to treat, proficiency could decrease, creating the risk that trauma teams would be less prepared to save lives on the battlefield.

We believe that the way we are currently postured, we don't have six months to train up in order to project health professionals around the world, Johnson said. We have to do that on Day 1, as we did with hurricane relief, and as we continue to do with full-spectrum operations in settings across the oceans.

Johnson cited a study published last summer in the Annuals of Surgery that found a 1 percent drop in the volume of patients at a trauma center led to a two-fold increase in mortality rates.

A reduction in trauma patients is likely if more trauma centers were to open here, he said, noting that when two new facilities like the one Methodist has discussed creating in San Antonio went on line in Austin, a Level 1 trauma center there saw its volume fall by 45 percent.

Dr. Bryan Alsip, executive vice president and chief medical officer at University Health System, said that as often as people praise the military in San Antonio, the time was at hand for those around the city to show their unwavering support for it in a more tangible way.

We are appropriately known as Military City, U.S.A., but fundamentally we are Military Medical City, U.S.A., which means that threats to the readiness of Brooke Army Medical Centers trauma mission puts the entire future of our militarys commitment to San Antonio in serious jeopardy, he told the council.

We should not underestimate this warning, he continued. If our community cannot provide the commitment necessary to defend BAMCs ability to maintain their mission readiness, our nations leaders will not hesitate to find another location that will be happy to welcome our military medical infrastructure.

Nirenberg said Johnson first brought the problem to his attention last summer and likened it to the suburban growth that interferes with Air Force, Army and Navy training missions at the citys three major installations and Camp Bullis in Northwest Bexar County.

Beyond the resolution, which offered the councils support for protecting BAMCs mission through preserving the necessary critical trauma patient volume needed for quality civilian care and military readiness, it wasnt clear how  or if  the city could stop Methodist or Baptist if they moved forward.

Councilman John Courage wanted to add language saying the city wouldnt consider or support zoning concessions or incentives for building new trauma centers in San Antonio. City Attorney Andy Segovia warned against the amendment, which wasnt adopted, saying zoning decisions have to be based on specific issues.

Nirenberg said the intent of the resolution was to state a core value.

By treating a large number of complex trauma cases from the civilian community whose injuries replicate wartime injuries, BAMC trains hundreds of military health professionals to go to war, he said. Its not a stretch to say that protecting BAMC is a matter of national security. We will not take it for granted. We will protect it for our community, and the nations servicemen and women.

Councilman Clayton Perry, a chairman on the areas Military Transformation Task Force, said losing BAMC would hurt the citys chances of gaining new military missions in a future closure round, adding: It would cause a devastating setback to the militarys economic impact on the San Antonio region, which the Texas comptroller estimates to be $49 billion annually.

The 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission dramatically expanded BAMC footprint in the Alamo City. The BAMC expansion at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston cost $724 million for an eight-story tower with rooftop helipad for trauma cases, a partial hospital renovation and 5,000-car garage.

The closure round also created a $750 million Medical Education & Training Campus, a complex of instructional, dormitory and support facility buildings for the instruction of Air Force, Army and Navy combat medics.

sigc@express-news.net
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

San Antonios 16th annual Catholic and Jewish Hanukkah celebration at San Fernando Cathedral Hall was marked by a Catholic girls choir singing in Hebrew and Catholic and Jewish duos, several of them teens, lighting menorah candles together.

Several clergy said it was symbolic of the bond of interfaith leaders in San Antonio whove long worked to build bridges. But the warm moments were punctuated this year by keynote speaker Rabbi A. James Rudin, who delivered a sobering message about the ability of new generations of Catholics and Jews to sustain those bridges.

Rudin, senior interreligious adviser for the American Jewish Committee, turned to a 1950 film to describe whats ahead for Catholic and Jewish leaders everywhere.

Fasten your seatbelts, he said, quoting Bette Davis in All About Eve. Its going to be a bumpy night.

Rudin pointed to demographic and geographic challenges as populations continue to shift. Catholics and Jews also will face technological changes that will shift power from religious centers in Europe and North America to other parts of the globe.

But first, Rudin, a prolific writer and widely acknowledged authority on interreligious relations, celebrated the advances made since 1965, when Vatican II reforms dramatically altered Catholic language, thought and attitudes toward Jews and Judaism.

Rudin noted the great achievements in respect and understanding that overcame Catholic anti-Semitism and made allies of people once viewed as enemies and strangers. He also acknowledged the growing time distance of these landmark changes from new generations of faith leaders.

The irreversible forces of demography, geography and technology will challenge the advances in interreligious dialogue.

Once upon a time, Europe and North America were the centers of Jewish and Catholic education and centers of religious life and theological thought, he said. Technology will affect those institutions and bases of power, he said, just as Jewish and Catholic populations decline there.

Among Catholics, for example, the real growth is happening in Central and South America, Africa and Asia. Its an irreversible trend, he said, adding that already, 1 in 5 priests are from Asia or Africa. Catholics in Africa, Asia and Central and South America dont have a history of Catholic-Jewish dialogue, he said.

Jewish population shifts will present similar challenges. Today, the largest Jewish community in the world is not in North America, or Europe or Africa, he said. Its in Southwest Asia.

My question for you is, will we be successful in transferring the gains to the next generation?

Senior Rabbi Mara Nathan of Temple Beth-El was listening. People cant be complacent, she said. We cant just leave (the work) to the more senior members.

Octavio Viramontes, a member of Congregation Agudas Achim, said hes not convinced that such forces are irreversible. He sees growth in Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities committed to large families. He said 40 people converted to Judaism at his synagogue.

The hopes of many at this years event were reflected in Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Sillers Hanukkah prayer.

Help us, oh Lord, as Christians and Jews, to rejoice in our heritage together, he said. Help us to learn from each other, to trust one another and to support one another in love, fellowship and peace. May the blessing of Shalom be our blessing.

eayala@express-news.net | @ElaineAyala
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Former San Antonio Independent School District trustee Olga Hernandez is scheduled to testify in her own defense Monday at her federal bribery trial.

Prosecutors on Friday rested their case after the lead investigator, FBI special agent Darren Holmes, tangled with Hernandezs lawyer over when gifts among friends become bribes.

Holmes testified that Operation Wicked Trust, the agencys public corruption case, had started in 2008 against Joshua Cerna, who was on the Harlandale ISD board.

Over time it expanded to where the evidence led us, Holmes said. Acting on a tip, agents found a local insurance brokerage firm, Mullen Pension & Benefits Group, had been conspiring with William Haff, a consultant for school districts, to rig insurance bids at SAISD and other school districts, Holmes said.

The Mullen Group employed Cerna, who used his contacts to bring in business, particularly at SAISD, which became the firms largest account. Its co-owner, Sam Mullen, and Cerna conspired with Haff to get inside information, and cultivated Hernandez to become the firms top ally on the school board, Holmes said.

She accepted gifts including casino vacations, jewelry, meals and campaign contributions from Mullen and Cerna, in exchange for advocating and voting for the board to approve insurance contracts that would earn commissions for the Mullen Group.

The Mullen Group had 20 accounts, but SAISD represented 80 percent of their commission revenue, so it was important to keep its relationship with Mrs. Hernandez, Holmes testified.

Hernandez served on the school board for 11 years after a 30-year secretarial career in SAISD. She resigned from the board after her Feb. 15 indictment on charges of conspiracy to commit honest service wire fraud and conspiracy to solicit and accept bribes.

Her defense lawyers began presenting character witnesses Friday who described Hernandez as above reproach. Her husband, Frank, disputed some the allegations made this week in testimony by Haff, Cerna and Mullen, saying the Mullen Group never paid for the Hernandezs airfare or hotels anywhere.

Her integrity has always been impeccable, testified Charles R. Munoz, principal of Edison High School.

Hernandezs lead lawyer, William T. Reid IV, while questioning Holmes, argued that Hernandez accepted gifts and trips from the Mullen Group because she and her husband became friends with Mullen and his then-wife. Reid also argued that she met with the Mullen Group because she wanted information on how to protect employees from rising insurance costs.

Reids questioning of Holmes became a debate over whether gifts can be legally accepted without being considered bribes.

Would you agree all politicians wine and dine? Reid asked. If they cant meet with their constituents, they cant do their jobs, correct?

Yes, Holmes replied. I agree.

On its face, accepting such gifts from someone who is truly your friend isnt a federal crime, Reid suggested. Not unless its in exchange for an official act, Holmes replied.

Reid also argued that Hernandez never injected herself into the process by which the district developed requests for proposals for insurance, and did not vote against recommendations by school staff in insurance contracts.

Holmes disagreed. He noted testimony by Haff, Cerna and Mullen, who have pleaded guilty in the case and said they met for meals with Hernandez ahead of school board meetings to discuss insurance bids Haff had leaked or crafted with input from the Mullen Group.

Holmes also noted testimony in which Hernandez was alleged to have voted to override a district benefit committee and risk managers recommendation for a proposal for the 2012-2013 school year that would have excluded commissions, though they were to be paid by the insurance company that got the contract. And, Holmes added, in 2013, Hernandez, at the request of the Mullen Group, voted for an extension of that contract that included language passing on the commission costs to the district.

According to the FBI, Mullen, Haff and Cerna also worked together to steer insurance contracts in the Edgewood and South San Antonio independent school districts and the now-defunct Bexar Metropolitan Water District. The FBI said Mullen bribed Haff more than $83,000 to help win contracts.

gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedland
WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, facing mounting allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior, acknowledged Thursday that hed allowed his office to become decidedly unprofessional and that he will not seek re-election in 2018.

The announcement, made in a video statement on his campaigns Facebook page, adds him to a growing list of business leaders, politicians and celebrities laid low by accusations of unseemly behavior or mistreatment of women.

Amid a growing onslaught of revelations involving at least three former staffers  one of them a man  Farentholds exit was greeted with growing acceptance by Republican leaders.

There are news stories that are very disconcerting. Unacceptable behavior has been alleged in those stories, said House Speaker Paul Ryan, who spoke to Farenthold several times Wednesday. I think hes made the right decision that hes going to be leaving Congress, and that reflects some of the conversations we had.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called the staffers accusations shocking and unacceptable. But Farenthold, both apologetic and defiant, brushed off demands from Democrats in Texas and Washington that he resign immediately rather than retire at the end of his current term.

Democratic activist Matt Angle, who heads the Lone Star Project, suggested Farenthold follow the example of Democrats like Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who recently announced his resignation amid harassment claims from a half-dozen women.

Allegations of sexual misconduct have led to the resignations of three members of Congress in the past week  Franken, Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, and GOP Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona.

Another Texas Republican, Joe Barton, announced hell retire at the end of his term after revelations of a nude picture he had sent to a woman with whom he had had an extramarital affair.

But until Farentholds decision to retire, few Republicans had called for him to quit.

The only sign of his weakening support came Wednesday, when Texas U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, an Austin Republican, announced his support for one of Farentholds 2018 primary challengers, Texas Water Development Board Chairman Bech Bruun.

Six other Republicans and four Democrats have filed to challenge Farenthold for re-election.

Angle contrasted the Democrats to the Republicans embrace of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was accused of pursuing sexual relationships with teenage girls, and President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual misbehavior by more than a dozen women.

Democratic leaders stepped up to do the right thing and called for investigation and resignation, Angle said. So far, in every significant instance, Texas Republican leaders have ducked, dodged and denied their responsibility to enforce basic decency from within their ranks.

Farentholds decision to retire came as the House Ethics Committee reopened an investigation into the claims of a former press secretary, Lauren Greene, who settled a federal lawsuit against the congressman in 2015.

Though the settlement was made public at the time, Farenthold only recently acknowledged it involved an $84,000 taxpayer-funded payment, which he has agreed to repay.

Since then, at least two other former staffers have spoken publicly about inappropriate behavior on the part of the congressman and others in his office.

The latest accuser, Michael Rekola, told his story Wednesday night to CNN, describing the congressman as verbally abusive, lewd, and sexually demeaning.

Rekolas account followed that of Elizabeth Peace, another former press aide, who said Farenthold allowed an atmosphere of verbal abuse, sexualized banter, and gender discrimination to continue long after Greene left the office in 2014.

While denying any wrongdoing in Greenes case, Farenthold on Thursday acknowledged there had been problems in his office, which he attributed to his inexperience when he first was elected in a tea party wave in 2010.

Id never served in public office before, Farenthold said. I had no idea how to run a congressional office. And as a result, I allowed a workplace culture to take root in my office that was too permissive and decidedly unprofessional.

It was a culture, Farenthold continued, of destructive gossip, offhand comments, off-color jokes, and behavior that in general was less than professional.

He also said he allowed the personal stress of the job to manifest itself in angry outbursts and, too often, a failure to treat people with the respect that they deserved.

That was wrong, Farenthold added. Clearly thats not how I was raised and its not who I am, and for that situation, I am profoundly sorry.

Farentholds admission in many ways echoed his accusers accounts of the general tone in his office, though not the details.

Rekola, who was Farentholds communications director in 2015, told CNN the congressman regularly berated aides as (expletive)tards and made sexually graphic jokes.

One particularly embarrassing exchange, Rekola said, came in 2015 when he was getting married.

He said Farenthold made an off-color reference about oral sex. He also said the congressman joked about whether Rekolas bride would wear white at their wedding  an apparent reference to whether they had premarital sex.

Rekola said the stress of the bullying and innuendo caused him to seek medical and psychological treatment.

Rekolas account of Farentholds comment about oral sex was backed up by Peace, who said she heard that and many other inappropriate utterances from Farenthold.

Both Rekola and Peace said they have talked to the Ethics Committee.

In a statement to CNN on Wednesday, Farenthold denied making comments to Rekola about oral sex or the color of his brides wedding dress. But he acknowledged that he regularly referred to aides as (expletive)tards, though only in jest, not in anger.

In hindsight, Farenthold said to CNN, I admit it wasnt appropriate.

While Farenthold expressed regrets about the atmosphere in his office, he vehemently denied the allegations brought forward in 2014 by Greene, who claimed that the congressman had wet dreams and sexual fantasies about her.

She also claimed she was belittled by Farentholds chief of staff, Bob Haueter, who still works in the office. When she complained, Greene said, she was fired in retaliation, a move that prompted her to file suit.

As a result, she said she has been blackballed in Congress and has had trouble finding work.

In a response to Greenes suit, Farenthold said she was fired for poor performance. Two sources close to the situation, speaking anonymously, said Greene was accused of missing work and giving dishonest accounts of her absence.

Her attorney, Les Alderman, dismissed those accounts.

Defendants say a lot of things to try and defend their actions, he said. If he stayed in office, Mr. Farenthold would have ample opportunity to assert those defenses.

Despite Farentholds announcement, past precedent would be for the Ethics Committee to continue its investigation as long as he remains in office.

Farenthold, 56, has claimed vindication in the results of an investigation by the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, which looked into Greenes allegations and unanimously concluded in 2015 that there was no substantial reason to believe he did anything wrong.

Despite the offices recommendation that Greenes case be dismissed, the House Ethics Committee never closed the matter. Last week, amid a growing uproar about sexual harassment in Congress, the committee said it would take another look.

Farenthold also received some support this week from 11 other former and current female staff members and associates who signed a letter stating the congressman has always treated us fairly and with dignity and respect.

In the wake of the Ethics Committees decision to reopen the case, Farenthold acknowledged this week that he and his entire staff underwent sexual harassment training in 2016 in response to complaints from Peace and another unnamed staffer.

In recent days he has faced growing calls to resign or step down, including from his hometown newspaper in Corpus Christi. Farenthold said it has become clear that his re-election campaign would get bogged down in a quest for personal vindication, which he said would be a distraction from the issues.
AUSTIN  The federal government will give Texas $136 million to ensure 450,000 low-income kids keep their health-care coverage through February under the Childrens Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP.

The dollar figure is much higher than the $90 million Texas officials requested to keep CHIP going past January, when the states existing funds dry up.

While the temporary extension means the state wont have to notify children this month that their benefits are ending, parents are anxiously awaiting a long-term fix from Congress.

I am baffled how they can make moms suffer through the holidays with the unknowing of what is going to happen to their childrens insurance, said Dakota Flores, a San Antonio single mother whose two kids rely on the decades-old program.

CHIP has been in limbo since September, when Congress failed to reauthorize the program that covers doctors visits, prescriptions and other medical needs for roughly 9 million children nationwide.

Though CHIP typically has bipartisan support, lawmakers have disagreed how to fund it this year.

But on Friday, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican, said a vote is imminent. Congress will pass a long-term CHIP bill next week, he wrote on Twitter.

In the meantime, Texas is getting more than enough federal funds to carry CHIP through February, Health and Human Services Commissioner Charles Smith said in a letter Friday to state leaders.

Given this assurance, we do not intend to initiate steps to terminate CHIP this month, Smith wrote. I am confident that the state will receive sufficient federal funding to continue the program through February 2018.

CHIP is targeted at children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but still fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty limit  roughly $50,000 a year for a family of four.

It covers roughly 100,000 children in counties hardest hit by Hurricane Harvey, while more than 27,000 in Bexar County get the government-subsidized insurance, according to state figures.

House Speaker Joe Straus said children should never have been put in a position where they might lose care.

The written assurances from the administration will provide some short-term certainty for the program, and thats important, Straus, R-San Antonio, said in a written statement. But the need for Congress to act quickly has not diminished, and I hope Congress will reauthorize the program soon in order to provide the longer-term certainty that working families in Texas need.

Texas is one of 16 states expecting to drain its current CHIP funds by the end of January, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

At Straus request, the HHSC and legislative budget office have developed contingency plans to keep CHIP funded for a couple months should delays in Congress persist, Straus said Wednesday. He didnt give details, but the Dallas Morning News recently reported the state was considering an accounting trick that could funnel more money into CHIP.

It's not a forever fix, but it could buy some more time in case Washington needs it, and we have all seen them need it, Straus said.

Abbotts office did not respond to requests for comment. Straus said Wednesday he didnt know what Gov. Greg Abbot or Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have done on CHIP.

I think the governor has written a letter maybe to the Congressional delegation, I'm not aware of where the lieutenant governor is, he said. But my office has been proactive.

Flores is flying to Washington D.C. next week with her children to testify before members of Congress, she said. The three-day trip is covered by an advocacy group, which connected with Flores on Facebook. Meanwhile, she hasnt heard anything from the state or the members of Congress she has called to lobby, she said.

I want them to understand how important this is to all the kids, she said. I dont think tax reform is a priority, childrens insurance should be.

Allie Morris is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer | amorris@express-news.net | @MorrisReports
Opinion / Letters

Editor,Zesa's intention to hike tariff is not fair to us poor electric consumers. The parastatal is infested by mismanagement coupled with corruption. We have read about these shenanigans.Surely, these corrupt dealings done by high up.. poly-ticks are contributing in sucking Zesa dry. Now Zesa wants to burn us the poor as if we are the cause of the Power shortage. No, ZESA! Uproot the corruption in your armpits! Everybody must pay the bills irrespective of what station one holds in life.Again, high salaried bosses with their thirteenth cheque also contribute in milking zesa of its thin oxygen. This Zesa cow is drowning, gasping on its last breath.So, Big bosses, stop milking it ! Be considerate. Or you understand only when people start toyi- toying?Zesa should prioritize solar energy system. I know they know but they hold the chameleon's legs so they can keep on looting. Be that as it may, I believe Rwanda does not have much of high educated people compared to Zimbabwe, yet they are doing well in technology, particularly on solar energy which they provide to the rural poor communities.How are they succeeding? The answer is because they nip corruption at the bud. Is that a tall order at ZESA?
I cannot believe whats happened over a simple case of a wedding cake! Seriously, find another bakery!

This homosexual couple was not oppressed; they were offended! They are trying to force their fellow American to do something he doesnt want to do, and they are willing to destroy the very fabric of this country to achieve that goal.

Being oppressed means laws exist that limit ones freedom. Being offended means someone hurt your feelings. Get it? Stop confusing the two. Get yourself a dictionary.

Cathy Garcia

Legacy of sacrifice

I was born in 1940, and had an uncle and two cousins who served in World War II.

I was hoping your paper would have mentioned Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, but to no avail. Lest we forget what this war was about, genocide is still occurring in the world. This is part of our history, which is slowly being forgotten.

I had a brother who served in Vietnam and studied Chinese. He was sent to Okinawa, where he spent his three years in the Navy. (When my daughter was stationed with the Air Force, she showed me where my brother spent those years. It is a block house with no windows and one door.) When he arrived back in the U.S., he didnt get off the ship before changing clothes so he wouldnt be spit on or physically attacked. As one of the Vietnam vets stated, They werent mad at us, they were mad at the war.

Thank you for just hearing me.

Anne Turner

Try real issues

It would be nice if Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council paid as much attention to the real problems here as they do to climate change. You know, things like crime, potholes, missing street signs, and attracting new business and jobs. Things that affect the average person. Not climate change, which the average person is not really worried about.

But what can one expect from a very liberal mayor and his cronies in City Hall? A mayor and City Council more concerned about removing statues and changing locations of the Christmas tree, even though residents want the tree exactly where it has been for years.

Sabine Maytum, Universal City

Irresponsible bill

Re: "Trump signs bill that boosts GI pay, front page Dec. 13:

It is irresponsible to pass a massive, deficit increasing tax cut at the same time as a huge increase in defense spending. We've seen this twice before, and we can't afford to do it again. After Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did it, our debt increased significantly. Yes, the GIs deserve more, and yes, our military is depleted after years of deployment after deployment. But it is irresponsible to pass revenue-negative tax cuts at the same time. For the sake of future generations, we should all be begging our legislators to vote AGAINST approving the final tax bill.

Thomas N. Lee
Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee already have restrictions in place

By Diego Flammini

News Reporter

Farms.com

Farmers in another U.S. state will be limited in their use of a popular soybean weed management tool.

Minnesota is the latest state to announce dicamba restrictions. North Dakota, Missouri, and Tennessee have already announced restrictions, while Arkansas has implemented a temporary ban on dicamba sales.

Beginning next year, Minnesota farmers will be prohibited from applying dicamba after June 20. They also cant use dicamba if the temperature or forecasted high for the day is above 85 F.

These restrictions are intended to prevent potential drift damage to other crops.

More than 250 complaints about dicamba drift have come in from 49 counties in the state, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture says.

And about 265,000 acres of farmland in the state have been impacted by dicamba drift, according to the University of Minnesota.

Producers need dicamba as part of their weed management toolboxes, but they need to use their tools responsibly, according to Michael Petefish, president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.

We need dicamba, he said in a statement on Tuesday. We also need these new restrictions. Producers need to have the ability to adapt this product to their operations, and these additional guidelines will allow users to do just that in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

But dicamba manufacturers dont believe Minnesotas restrictions will help farmers.

Theres no scientific reason to have a cut-off date or a temperature limit. There is no testing that supports it, Scott Partridge, vice president of global strategy with Monsanto, told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

It could be frustrating for farmers who find weed pressure in their fields after the June 20 cut-off, he added.

Dicamba rules in other states
Fifteen trade and industry associations from across the world have urged the World Trade Organisation (WTO) member nations to safeguard the WTO system, support the least developed countries (LDCs) and fight hunger, take into account the new trade environment and adopt an ambitious work programme on issues of crucial importance for businesses.In times of significant challenges for the world trading system and rising protectionism, companies worldwide are waiting impatiently for governments to show leadership and allow WTO to deliver, the associations said in a press release.

Fifteen trade and industry associations from across the world have urged the World Trade Organisation (WTO) member nations to safeguard the WTO system, support the least developed countries (LDCs) and fight hunger, take into account the new trade environment and adopt an ambitious work programme on issues of crucial importance for businesses.#

The associations include the American Apparel and Footwear Association, Footwear Retailers and Distributors of America, EuroCommerce, European Services Forum, Foreign Trade Association, Korea International Trade Association, Japan Services Network, National Retail Federation and Retail Council of Canada.The associations urged governments across the world to support the proper functioning of the WTO system to preserve a rules-based trading system and back LDCs by concluding talks on agriculture, taking a more ambitious approach to fisheries subsidies and fighting hunger.Though the services sector has been growing and is a dominant part of the economy in many countries, the WTO has made little progress on disciplines related to that since the Uruguay Round, the press release said.The associations feel new forms of global trade should be better reflected in WTO trade rules. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
American Merchant, Inc., a subsidiary of Merchant House International Ltd, a Hong Kong-based designer and manufacturer of home textiles, seasonal decor products and leather shoes, will invest $19.9 million to establish its first US manufacturing operation in Bristol, Virginia state governor Terry McAuliffe recently announced. The project will create 405 jobs.Virginia competed with Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Rhode Island and South Carolina for the project, according to a press release from the governors office.

American Merchant, Inc., a subsidiary of Merchant House International Ltd, a Hong Kong-based designer and manufacturer of home textiles, seasonal decor products and leather shoes, will invest $19.9 million to establish its first US manufacturing operation in Bristol, Virginia state governor Terry McAuliffe recently announced. The project will create 405 jobs#

American Merchant, Inc. will manufacture embroidered hand and bath towels in the new plant.Merchant House International, which sells its products in the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and China, is bringing textiles back to America due to plentiful cotton supplies, cleaner and more sustainable energy, and lower tax rates than China, the release said.The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the city of Bristol to secure the project for Virginia. Governor McAuliffe approved a $300,000 grant from the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund to assist the city with the project. The Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission approved $590,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Indias cotton output in the 2017-18 season is likely to increase by 9 per cent to 377 lakh bales (of 170 kg each) despite lower production in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, as per estimates by the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB). The northern region output is expected to rise by 28 per cent to 59 lakh bales on the back of a bumper crop in Rajasthan and Punjab.Though the output in the southern region is slated to go up, it may come under revision due to the pest attack in Telangana and Tamil Nadu, Indian business dailies quoted textile commissioner Kavita Gupta as saying. Gupta headed the first CAB meeting for the current season recently.

India's cotton output in the 2017-18 season is likely to increase by 9 per cent to 377 lakh bales (of 170 kg each) despite lower production in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, as per estimates by the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB). The northern region output is expected to rise by 28 per cent to 59 lakh bales on the back of a bumper crop in Rajasthan and Punjab.#

The estimate of 377 lakh bales is higher than 345 lakh bales produced in the 2016-17 marketing year, but almost 6 per cent lower than previous industry estimates for a record 400 lakh bales.The cotton acreage has increased by 19 per cent to 122 lakh hectares from 108 lakh hectares last season. With a lower import estimate of 17 lb compared to 31 lb earlier and an opening stock of 48 lb compared to 36 lb earlier, the overall supply is put at 442 lb.On the demand side, mill consumption is estimated to be higher at 288 lb compared to 263 lb earlier. Consumption by the small-scale and non-textile industry may increase respectively to 27 lb and 19 lb from 26 lb and 17 lb last year.Exports may increase to 67 lb from 58 lb last year as Pakistan is likely to import from India, Gupta said.Maharashtra suffered the worst pest attack, especially in Yavatmal and Jalgaon. Other states affected were Karnataka, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh.The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) has procured 3.5 lb of cotton worth Rs 688 crore at a minimum support price of Rs 4,320 per quintal. CCIs intervention from now on will be limited though as prices are expected to stabilise above the MSP, she added. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Opinion / Letters

Dear Mrs Mugabe,The agony you are now going through is just unimaginable, you are pained right in your heart, your soil, your bones and your very self. You wish dozen times that what you did should not have happen: how you wish those stage-managed interfaces did not take place in the first instance. I do not want to imagine your loss and pain on my own skin by any stretch of imagination because it is most unbearably painful. If I sit down and conjure your state of mind today at this moment, it compels me to write you this letter to give you some comfort; emotional comfort. It does not matter how big you have sinned to men/women and God, at the end of the day you are a Zimbabwean, a Zimbabwean mother, a daughter of this land called Zimbabwe.The people out there are aggrieved about your behaviour towards other people in general: the very poor people who needed your assistance and guidance as the First Lady. You failed as a mother to understand and comprehend how a poor Zimbabwean mother feels despite the fact that you are a mother yourself. This is not the time to split you, judge you, insult you; we all know what you did, what you said all those are not new to Zimbabwe; home and abroad. What you did to Zimbabwean people, remember that anyone else in your position could have done it. It is very easy to do what you did to the Zimbabwean population if one had the leverage of power that you had by virtue of your marriage to President Robert Mugabe.Mrs. Mugabe: When your mind sinks into regrets, burst into crying uncontrollably, regrets of what you have done and said, please remember that you are a victim yourself. You are equally a victim just like those families you ruthlessly removed from Manzoe farm because you wanted animals to dwell in that farm to attract tourists. Please remember this Mrs. Grace Mugabe that you are a classical example of an abused woman. We visibly see your abuse because you are in the limelight and we are not. Your abuse is all visible to all who can see and are able to determine what abuse on women means what it is all about. Abuse on women is sometimes not noticeable at all, but what they know and notice is how you kicked and screamed at people whom you thought were an obstacle to your assuming power from your husband: Robert Mugabe. One among many is how you treated Mrs. Joyce Mujuru: your fellow woman.In your national rallies that were stage-managed by men in your social circle, most of the time these rallies were very insulting, sometimes very boastful, most of the times children were force-matched to those gatherings and interfaces were you uttered words that are unprintable: you exposed the school-children and robed their innocence. Children, school children should never be exposed to a language such as "bonde." As a mother yourself, you should have known this that children must be respected all the time. No political scoring, purging and insults should be done in their presence.You were sometimes insensitive to tribal make-up of our great nation. Going to Mathebeleland and assume that all understood Shona was not only disrespectful but rude too. Somehow you failed to appreciate the reasons why the people of Mathebeleland relocated to South Africa looking for those jobs that were not available in Zimbabwe. Now to call men in Mathebeleland "lazy" and they just come to make babies and return to South Africa: they just buy bicycles and blankets: those were scatter-shots that were wholly insulting to the "other" tribe, knowing that there are serious ethnic tensions in Zimbabwe. Such accusations should have been avoided as they exacerbate un-necessary ethnic conflicts.What is most disturbing is that we have always heard of UBUNTU and thought that our African-ness: Ubuntu has support structures that will look after their own in such situations like yours. Where was your sister, your brother, your aunties; all those people that support families so that you do not go astray as you did? Those support structures that did not come to your assistance and advice as such, failed you in every respect. Somebody in the family should have taken you by the side and told you that: your position as First Lady does not allow you to use those unprintable words to denigrate other people: be it Dr. Joyce Mujuru or Emmerson Mnangagwa or George Charamba, just to mention those few who are also in the limelight, was not the best way forward to assume power.Firstly we see victimhood in you when you got married to then President of Zimbabwe: Robert Gabriel Mugabe when you were still nursing your divorce with your first husband. The President took advantage of your youthfulness and beauty. He wanted to have children because his mother yearned for grandchildren from Robert before she died. You are the woman who was supposed to fulfil that wish. Innocently you did fulfil the old woman's wish. Senior Mrs Bona Mugabe happily died because you had given her three grandchildren with your second husband: Robert Mugabe.We see victimhood in you when you were used by men, MEN in the party- G40 who were power-hungry themselves but were not able to get the presidency; they used you to do that job for them. Firstly you purged Mrs. Mujuru out of her Vice Presidency t pave way for Mnangagwa. That you successfully did with absolute cruelty. That capacity and crude language-use did not come from you at all, you were fed to say what you said by the men around you and your husband. It was painful to see such open abuse on a woman by another woman: we "from the aside" were able to see through where that courage you had came from.Your dangling of diamond ring and rings in your hands gave pain to all those abject poor people who are suffering because of your husband's mismanagement of government spending and excessive looting of the state treasury. Your unending shopping sprees show an excessive desire to be unique from the rest of us. That one million dollar diamond ring was not necessary to spend on in a country where young pregnant women a denied to give birth in hospitals because they did not pay hospital fees. You had become removed from the very people you purported to be the mother of. You do not have any idea how dilapidated our country clinics and schools are out there. Our roads cause accidents daily; we are losing lives daily because of the run-down road infrastructure. We had perfect roads before your husband took over power in 1980. Because of the looting culture dating back in the early independence, there was ground-breaking infrastructure development that took place since 1980.The looting of farms is another flake on your body and soul. There are millions of people who are landless in their own country, but you and your husband have 12 farms looted from the White Zimbabweans, citizens of Zimbabwe. You cannot possibly own Mazoe Dam. You tried to loot it too, claimed it was yours and nobody is supposed to use it. Mazoe Dam belongs to the nation and is supposed to benefit all catchment settlements within that radius and not you alone. When the settlers in Manzoe Farm were removed, they were just dropped like animals by the way side. There was no resettlement program to replace their livelihoods. It is without doubt that lives were lost in this exercise. Those victims: women, men and children prayed and cried to God for their loss of livelihoods, dear Mrs. Mugabe and it was a question of time, their prayers got answered. This pain and humiliation you are going through comes from those humble cries: "For he is a just God" But still I consider you a complete victim of circumstances.What we see today is injustices against a woman by Lacoste and G40 equally: you the victim Mrs. Mugabe. The blame is put paid on you most, than your husband, the former President. I say this because all the blame is rubbed on you and not your husband, not Jonathan Moyo who used to feed you with all those larger than life utterances; not Kasukuwere, and not your Mzukuru: Patrick Zhuwao. The nation's anger is put-paid on your body and soul to suffer it. Ever since your husband lost power, it appears as if he has been exonerated from all the crimes and genocidal intentions since early independence till he was pushed away from power by a coup. d'etat. Of late MDC-T even suggested your husband should be honoured for good service as President for 37 years. All those crimes against humanity your husband committed have been forgotten, but nobody has forgotten your sins, serious mistakes, sometimes of criminal intentions. This to me is travesty of justice if the woman is made to suffer the crimes she committed more than men.The very people who used to hero-worship, kneel before you, called you Dr. Amai, or Munhu wese kuna Amai not even four weeks ago, have gone live on social media denouncing you calling you a Whore, "Hure". When you hear those insults and altercations about you and your previous behaviour: when people who paid reverence and absolute to you not even four weeks ago, they now call you all sorts of names: among those insults are that you are a prostitute, a whore and so forth it goes on. It is certainly not that you are a prostitute, a whore; it is only that the word "whore" is the strongest term they can use to illustrate their detest for you as a person.For goodness sake: who calls Jonathan Moyo a "Hure", who calls Saviour Kasukuwere a "Hure." Who calls Patrick Zhuwao a "Hure". That insult curiously applies to you because you are a woman. This is how women are insulted: "Whores" if women crossed their demarcation lines of men's bar measurement of morality. These are the very men who put you in serious trouble. Emotionally these men who were near you carry fewer burdens than you: you are the one who insulted Mnangagwa, it is not said or asked who fed Mrs. Mugabe those purging utterances to destroy Lacoste and Mnangagwa in those stage-managed rallies and youth interfaces. Evidently some of your utterances were fed in you to say what you said. The paint brush remains in you more than the G40 group, you were just fronted to do the dirty work for them and they remained at the background. You are now facing the music alone in Zimbabwe.I am desperately trying to reach out to you out there and humbly advise what could assist you to come to terms with your very painful loss of Presidency and humiliating situation you find yourself in. Give back what does not belong to you? "Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give back those farms and remain with one. Give back looted diamond revenues to the owners of the land, surrender that looted money to the country's treasury. Write a letter to the nation and apologize to the nation that you did and said was out of realms of good practice. Give that "PHD" doctorate degree back, you know it was not your sweat, somebody wrote the theses for you. When you have done that you will have done your part so don't wait for the nation to forgive you: Few women/men are capable of forgiveness is such like your situation at the present moment.Knowing that man/woman is not capable of forgiveness: in a clear blue night: when the moon and stars are beautifully shining on you face: ask for forgiveness to the entire universe: to the moon, to the stars, to the empty space in the universe. The magic behind this is that you will get your peace you now need most. This will assist you to come to terms with your pain, loss and humiliation. The universe will forgive you irrevocably. You will find peace in your mind and body. Your husband is old and can go to his creator anytime now. You will remain alone and your children and grandchildren to face the inevitable. Do not ask for forgiveness to the universe: moon and the stars a thousand times, in so doing you will be saying even the universe cannot forgive me hence your continuous asking for forgiveness.You are young; you are a mother of still very juvenile boys who are used to life of drugs, alcohol and sex: boys who still need guidance from you as their mother. You need that peace of mind to be able to face life without the husband: and life can be very long. There is some woman in USA who was about to face capital punishment: she said the something that still lingers in my mind to this day: she said human beings do not forgive but she knew that by talking to God; only God forgave her the sin she had committed to get capital punishment and she was sure she was forgiven by God before she was executed.Mrs Mugabe it will be asking too much to get in touch with Ntombi-Langa Charity organisation that hopes to assist women in emotional distress, I am lesser mortal and have no privilege to speak to you personally. This letter I hope will get you and hope it may help:
Lenzing Group, a supplier of global textile and nonwovens industry with high-quality, botanic cellulose fibres, has announced in its meeting on December 13, 2017, that the Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG has decided to reappoint Stefan Doboczky as chief executive officer. The new contract will begin on June 1, 2018, and runs until the end of 2022.Hanno Bastlein, chairman of the supervisory board of Lenzing AG said, In recent years, Stefan Doboczky and his colleagues on the management board have been able to make excellent use of the favourable market conditions on the basis of the previous restructuring in order to transform an Austrian company with foreign investments into a truly global player with strong Austrian roots. This has created the basis for consistently pursuing the growth strategy we have embarked on with the entire team, even under difficult conditions, and thus securing the long-term future of the Lenzing Group. We are very pleased that Stefan Doboczky will continue to dedicate himself to these tasks over the next five years.

Lenzing Group, a supplier of global textile and nonwovens industry with high-quality, botanic cellulose fibres, has announced in its meeting on December 13, 2017, that the Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG has decided to reappoint Stefan Doboczky as chief executive officer. The new contract will begin on June 1, 2018, and runs until the end of 2022.#

In addition to Stefan Doboczky, the Management Board of Lenzing AG consists of chief commercial officer Robert van de Kerkhof, chief financial officer Thomas Obendrauf, and chief technology officer Heiko Arnold. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
HONG KONG, December 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Focuses on AI, Machine Learning and Automation

A.S. Watson, world's largest international health and beauty retailer, has selected UST Global, a leading digital technology services company, as one of its technology partners for new age digital solutions for the company. The key technology focus areas would be AI (Artificial Intelligence), Machine Learning and Automation.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/540539/UST_Global_Logo.jpg )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/619767/UST_Global_ASW_Tech_Partner.jpg )



A.S. Watson Group, through digital transformation is looking to build on their solid retail foundation to fuel further growth through a smarter and more efficient organization.

Malina Ngai, Group Chief Operating Officer of A.S. Watson, explained why the company introduces the partnership approach. "We believe every technology partner whom we have chosen to work with is more than just a vendor. Traditional client-vendor relationship is short-term, lack of transparency and continuity. The Partnership Programme is designed to transform the short term contractual relationship to a longer term strategic relationship to create a win-win for both parties. The appointment of our first batch of worldwide Tech Partners shows our determination to accelerate our digital transformation, enabling A.S. Watson Group to build on our solid retail foundation to fuel further growth through a smarter and more efficient organisation. Our purpose of putting customer first and putting a smile on their faces continues. We recognize that our customers are changing rapidly and technology has become an ever more critical ingredient to deliver our purpose," he said.

Alexander Varghese, Chief Administrative Officer, UST Global, said "At UST Global, we are the forefront of innovation and are focused on bringing cutting-edge technologies for our large global customers. We are excited to work with A.S. Watson and thank them for having us onboard."

Gilroy Mathew, Head - APAC, UST Global, said, "Working with A.S. Watson will truly reinforce our position in the APAC region and in Hong Kong as a geo. We are determined to solve business problems of our customers, and look forward to transforming A.S. Watson's business to a next level with innovations around AI, Machine Learning and Automation."

Pablo Tachil, Director - Digital, UST Global, said, "We have the privilege of being a part of the digital transformation journey at A.S. Watson, including ongoing cutting-edge initiatives using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the core of the solutions being jointly developed."

About A.S. Watson Group

Established in Hong Kong in 1841, A.S. Watson Group is the world's largest international health and beauty retailer with over 13,700 stores in 24 markets. Each year, over three billion customers and members shop with its 13 retail brands, both in stores and online. For the fiscal year 2016, A.S. Watson Group recorded revenue of HKD 151.5 billion. We have over 130,000 employees worldwide.

A.S. Watson Group is also a member of the world-renowned multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, which has five core businesses - ports and related services, retail, infrastructure, energy and telecommunications in over 50 countries.

About UST Global

UST Globalis a leading digital technology company that provides advanced computing and digital services to large private and public enterprises around the world. Our innovative technology services and pioneering social programs make us unique. UST Global is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California and operates in 25 countries. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies in banking and financial services, healthcare, insurance, retail, high technology, manufacturing, shipping, and telecom. UST Global believes in building long-lasting, strategic business relationships through agile and client-centric global engagement models that combines local experts & resources with cost, scale, and quality advantages of global operations.

For more information, please visit: http://www.ust-global.com

UST Global Media Contact:

Divya Singh

divya.singh@ust-global.com

+91-8552944004
MILAN, December 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ItalianCreationGroup, a Milan-based company which owns various Italian luxury brands, is rapidly expanding its operations across Asia, with 12 store openings along the Silk Road over the next year alone.

ItalianCreationGroup's Co-Founder and CEO, Stefano Core, says the aim of the company's new retail strategy is to expand its global presence, especially in the fast-growing Asian market.

"We are opening stores from Iran to China, following the paths of the ancient Silk Road trading routes that connected the West with the East, bringing the finest in Italian craftsmanship from the West to the discerning luxury markets in the East."

Over the past few days, ItalianCreationGroup opened new stores in Mumbai, India and Hong Kong. Tokyo is scheduled next week and in 2018 stores will open in Shanghai, Foshan and Shenzen in China, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Manila, The Philippines; Jakarta, Indonesia; Ahmedabad, India and Teheran, Iran.

"Italy is known for its excellence in luxury products and we must promote them abroad," Core said. "We believe in a new Italian renaissance."

ItalianCreationGroup has become the go-to group for high-end Italian design, targeting customers who appreciate the distinctive personality and artisanal know-how associated with the 'Made in Italy' style.

To that end, it has acquired the brands that best represent Italian quality, creativity and innovation in the world of home design, while continuing to strengthen its competitiveness across international markets.

Considered a new force in Italian luxury lifestyle and design, over the past few years ItalianCreationGroup acquired some of the greatest names in Italian furniture, including legendary Driade and FontanaArte as well as boutique bathroom design firm Toscoquattro and luxury, eco-friendly kitchen maker Valcucine.

"We have brought together some of Italy's most prestigious design firms under one roof for the first time ever and are proud to now embark on a massive expansion drive across Asia, developing our distribution capacity and cementing our brand identity," Core said. "This will allow us to offer our complete range of Italian high-end products to the world."

Earlier this year, ItalianCreationGroup opened flagship stores in New York and London.

http://valcucine.com



PR & COMMUNICATION

ItalianCreationGroup

Sonia Guareschi

Tel. +39 02 4512504

Email: sonia.guareschi@italiancreationgroup.com
DENSO CORPORATION Sadayoshi Yokoyama, Toshiko Watanabe Phone: 81-566-25-5594 Fax: 81-566-25-4509 sadayoshi_yokoyama@denso.co.jp toshiko_watanabe@denso.co.jp

KARIYA, JAPAN, Dec 15, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - DENSO, one of the world's largest automotive technology, systems and components suppliers, has acquired Holland, Mich.-based InfiniteKey, Inc., along with several key patents and R&D resources. The acquisition provides foundational pieces to developing phone-as-a-key technology and increases DENSO's lead in developing and deploying smartphone-based automotive access, a critical component of the company's strategy to create a future with frictionless mobility. This type of technology will become increasingly important for automakers, as ridesharing and driverless services progress beyond the need for keys."When we consider the future of mobility, the customer experience is always at the forefront of our design. Eliminating the need for physical keys will create a headache-free experience for car owners, and ridesharing and driverless services users," said Bill Foy, senior vice president of Engineering, DENSO International America. "This acquisition brings us one step closer to making this experience a reality and advancing vehicle access technologies."InfiniteKey has developed advanced techniques for microlocating smartphones relative to vehicles using standard Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). This technology allows automakers to rely on phones as passive keys, in the same way they rely upon dedicated passive key fobs today. Unlike key fobs, however, phones as passive key systems enable a broad range of mobility services, such as ridesharing and driverless services."This acquisition demonstrates DENSO's aggressive approach to supporting startups and technologies we view as significantly valuable for the future of the transportation industry," said Tony Cannestra, director of Corporate Ventures, DENSO International America. "Whether it's through direct investment or acquisition, DENSO will find a way to support and partner with companies to help transform mobility."Kevin Virta, CEO of InfiniteKey, expressed his team's enthusiasm for joining forces with DENSO. "Becoming part of DENSO, with its global reach and world-class engineering, means our phone-as-a-key technology can reach the broadest possible penetration in the automotive market," said Virta. "We are looking forward to making significant contributions to DENSO's efforts to lead the way in automotive technologies of the future."InfiniteKey has been acquired by DENSO International America, DENSO's North American regional headquarters, and is now a satellite office. DENSO completed its transaction of InfiniteKey in October 2017. Terms were not disclosed.About DensoDENSO Corporation, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions and employs nearly 140,000 people. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, totaled US$39.8 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 9 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. For more information, go to www.globaldenso.com, or visit our media website at www.densomediacenter.com.Source: DensoContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
London stocks were set nudge lower at the open on Friday following downbeat sessions in the US and Asia, as investors worry about the passage of the US tax bill. The FTSE 100 was expected to open down three points at 7,445. CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said the focus appears to be shifting to the possibility that the highly anticipated tax plan currently being drafted in the US may be on the point of starting to unravel. On Thursday, Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio said he would not ...

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.
SAN JOSE, Calif. and LONDON, 2017-12-15 09:05 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Syed Zaeem "Z" Hosain, a founder and the Chief Technical Officer at Aeris, was named the new chairman of the IoT M2M Council (IMC) by the trade association's Board of Governors at their annual meeting, held in November in Boston. With more than 25,000 members worldwide, covering 24 different vertical-market sectors, the IMC is the largest and fastest-growing trade organization serving the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. Hosain has been with Aeris - a technology leader in IoT - since 1996, when the company was founded, and has more than 38 years of experience in the semiconductor, telecommunications and computer industries. He has held leadership positions for several industry associations and technical standards bodies, and is the author of the IoT eBook, "The Definitive Guide: The Internet of Things for Business." "By reaching out to buyers of IoT technology on such a large scale, the IMC can provide solutions providers with a natural platform to promote their products and services, and also learn about enterprise users and OEMs that are deploying the technology. For example, we have data that show a plurality of them self-identify as 'operations' - not 'IT' or 'R&D' - and now we're digging deeper, and tracking if there are movements in these categories," said Hosain. To cultivate interaction between buyers and sellers in the IoT sector, the IMC has recently introduced a number of new programs, including a software widget survey-tool that tests a user's readiness for IoT deployments and a template request for proposal (RFP) program for its members that are interested in sourcing IoT software platforms. The group has also been named as the exclusive organizer of the CES new area dedicated to IoT infrastructure - more than 6,500 square feet of exhibition space already has been booked for the January 2018 event to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. "This is the first time CES will host a dedicated IoT area of this kind, and it's a major achievement for the IMC. Our IMC mission is about bringing buyers and sellers together, and CES attracts tens of thousands of OEMs from markets that are crucial to the IoT," said Hosain. CLICK TO TWEET: Aeris (@AerisCTO) Syed Zaeem Hosain elected chair of @iotm2mcouncil. M2M IoT AerisIoT @AerisM2M http://www.aeris.com/news/ Digital Asset -- [Photo] Syed Zaeem Hosain Supporting Resources -- Read about IMC. -- Read about Syed Zaeem Hosain. -- Read about Aeris. -- Read and subscribe to Aeris Blog and Neo Blog. -- Read Aeris news releases. -- Read about the Internet of Things FAQ. -- For more information about Aeris' news and activities, follow the company via Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. About IoT M2M Council (IMC) The London-based IMC is the largest and fastest-growing trade group dedicated to the global IoT/M2M sector - with over 25,000 members joining since February of 2014. Board Member-Companies include Aeris, Arrow, Avnet, Digi International, HPE, Ingenu, Inmarsat, Intel, KORE, Laird Corp., ORBCOMM, MultiTech, PTC, Re-Teck, Semtech, SIGFOX, Telit, U-Blox, Verizon, and Vodafone. For more information, visit www.iotm2mcouncil.org. About Aeris Aeris is a global technology partner with a proven history of helping companies unlock the value of IoT. For more than a decade, we've powered critical projects for some of the most demanding customers of IoT services. Aeris strives to fundamentally improve businesses by dramatically reducing costs, accelerating time-to-market, and enabling new revenue streams. Built from the ground up for IoT and road tested at scale, Aeris IoT Services are based on the broadest technology stack in the industry, spanning connectivity up to vertical solutions. As veterans of the industry, we know that implementing an IoT solution can be complex, and we pride ourselves on making it simpler. For more information, contact: Kevin Petschow Aeris +1.312.985.9182 Kevin.Petschow@aeris.net A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cb8ebad3-a295-4c9b-a692-ea3bf c636d72


Jacob J Lew



HKTDC Communications & Public Affairs Department Billy Ng Tel: +852 2584 4393 Email: billy.km.ng@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, Dec 15, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Organised by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), the 11th Asian Financial Forum (AFF) will be held on 15-16 January 2018 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). Under the theme "Steering Growth and Pioneering Innovation: Asia and Beyond," policymakers as well as financial and business leaders will examine topical issues in global and regional economies. Innovation and technology will be a prioritised component of the forum with dedicated discussions on Fintech, innovations in banking, big data, digital economy, artificial intelligence and robotics."After a decade of development, this year's event marks a new era for the Asia Financial Forum," said Diana Cesar, Chairperson, AFF Steering Committee; Group General Manager and CEO, Hong Kong, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. "Apart from economic and financial topics, we are adding more forward-looking elements from a wider perspective. We believe technology and innovation are very important to business and finance, so we have decided to introduce these elements. We aim to make this signature event a centre of insights and ideas, inspiring business leaders to propel societal advancement."- Jacob Lew touches on hot topics in US economyFormer US Treasury Secretary Jacob J Lew will be the keynote luncheon speaker on the first day of AFF. Mr Lew previously served as White House Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget. During his term as Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Lew secured US Congressional support to raise the US debt ceiling, averting a US Federal Government shutdown, and kept the federal deficit under control.Mr Lew will share his insights on the global and US economic outlook, touching on the issues he handled during his term as Treasury chief, including the debt ceiling, trade sanctions, regulatory policy as well as tax policy reforms. Mr Lew will also take part in a separate dialogue session.- Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in financial and business sectorArtificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are among the hottest technology issues as they are increasingly adopted across industries, including in finance and banking. On the second day of AFF, keynote luncheon speaker Daniela Rus, Director, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), and Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of MIT will address the latest advancements in AI and robotics by examining how these applications will impact the financial and business sectors. Focusing on bringing cheap and easily produced robots into daily life, Professor Rus' research interests in distributed robotics and mobile computing are essential for the finance and banking sectors to integrate advanced technologies into their business development.- Top Fintech Influencer on stageTechnology is revolutionising the financial industry as a result of Fintech and other innovations. On the second day of AFF, banking innovation consultant and global Fintech opinion leader, JP Nicols, who is Managing Director of FinTech Forge and Chairman of NextMoney.org, will speak on how companies from the financial and business sectors can leverage innovation and technology to succeed in the evolving global markets. FinTech Forge helps financial institutions develop innovative capabilities either internally or through partnerships with Fintech companies. Widely regarded as an influential thought-leader in technology and finance, Mr Nicols has shared his insights on financial innovation through blogs and various media outlets.- Topical issues to be addressedInfluential policymakers and business leaders will also examine topics ranging from the global economic outlook, China opportunities, to policy directions. Heavyweight speakers include Inga Beale, CEO, Lloyd's; Fang Fenglei, founder and Chairman of Hopu Investment Management Co; Fu Yuning, Chairman, China Resources Group; Stuart T Gulliver, Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc; Hu Huaibang, Chairman, China Development Bank Corporation; Jin Liqun, President, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF); Takehiko Nakao, President, Asian Development Bank; and Neil Shen, Founding and Managing Partner, Sequoia China.Sponsored by the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council, the Breakfast Panel on 16 January will be held under the theme "Hong Kong Connects: Mainland China and Beyond: Stock, Bond, Mutual Recognition and more...." Moderated by Benjamin Hung, Regional CEO, Greater China & North Asia; CEO, Retail Banking, Standard Chartered Bank, the panel will also include Norman Chan, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Charles Li, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd and Dr Zhu Min, President, National Institute of Finance Research of Tsinghua University and Former IMF Deputy Managing Director. On the same day, a workshop, co-organised by the HKTDC and the International Financial Corporation, will offer a glimpse of how Asia's youth are reshaping the economic landscape, focusing in particular on creating a financial ecosystem for future entrepreneurs that will lead to sustainable economic growth.- Inspiring new ideas, support start-upsTo address the growing role of technology in the new global economy, a series of "InnoTalks" will examine how issues such as Fintech, innovations in banking, digitalisation under the Belt and Road Initiative, artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as big data, digital identity and RegTech will reshape the industry and economic development.The AFF Deal Flow Matchmaking Session, co-organised by the HKTDC and the Hong Kong Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, will feature pre-arranged deal-sourcing and matchmaking meetings for project owners and investors. Project presentations will showcase the latest development of specific sectors and projects. The new InnoVenture Salon will provide an ideal platform to connect start-up companies with potential investors and partners. It will include a Startup Showcase, Investors Meetup, start-up project presentations and Mentor Hours, where experienced investors and experts will provide practical tips on setting up, pitching, fund-raising as well as scaling and selling to China and Asian markets. Participating mentors include Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Beyond Ventures, Cocoon Ignite Ventures, Hong Kong X-Tech Startup, Mindworks Ventures, Nest Ventures, VC Growth Partners and Vectr Ventures.Photo download: http://bit.ly/2yrM8npEvent website: www.asianfinancialforum.comProgramme: http://www.hktdc.com/ncs/aff2018/en/s/programme.htmlSpeakers: http://www.hktdc.com/ncs/aff2018/en/s/speaker2018.htmlMembers of the media interested in interviewing the speakers can fill out the form (http://bit.ly/2AqqGkk) and email it to billy.km.ng@hktdc.org by 4 January 2018.Media Registration:Media representatives wishing to cover the event may register on-site with their business cards and/or media identification.About 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.
The chairman of housebuilder Persimmon, Nicholas Wrigley, is planning to retire following a dispute over an incentive scheme for executive pay. He will stay on as chairman to allow an orderly process while the board seeks a successor. Meanwhile, senior independent director and chairman of the Remuneration Committee, Jonathan Davie, resigned from the board on Thursday. Back in 2012, the company put in place a long-term incentive plan. It said on Friday that the introduction of the LTIP has been ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / December 15, 2017 / Within the month of November 2017, NetScientific portfolio companies had a series of announcements reflecting the increased adoption of their products. ProAxsis announced increased sales of its research kits and guided to over 1m in sales in 2018. Wanda's partner Health Resource Solutions announced that it would be expanding the deployment of the app to all of its applicable patients. Finally, Vortex announced the first commercial sale of its VTX-1 liquid biopsy platform.

We have increased our valuation of NetScientific to 62.1m or 90p per share, from 57.3m or 83p per share. We have increased the value of ProAxsis and Wanda, offset by a reduction in Vortex, based on the commercial updates. Otherwise, our valuation remains unchanged. The companies still require additional financing (recorded as a 16m shortfall) and NetScientific has announced ongoing financing efforts for Glycotest, PDS, Vortex and ProAxsis, which are expected to close in 2018.

Click here to view the full report.

All reports published by Edison are available to download free of charge from its website

www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com

About Edison: Edison is an investment research and advisory company, with offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and AsiaPac. The heart of Edison is our world-renowned equity research platform and deep multi-sector expertise. At Edison Investment Research, our research is widely read by international investors, advisers and stakeholders. Edison Advisors leverages our core research platform to provide differentiated services including investor relations and strategic consulting.

Edison is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Edison is not an adviser or broker-dealer and does not provide investment advice. Edison's reports are not solicitations to buy or sell any securities.

For more information please contact Edison:

Maxim Jacobs, +1 646 653 7027

Nathaniel Calloway, +1 646 653 7036

Healthcare@edisongroup.com

Learn more at www.edisongroup.com and connect with Edison on:

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/edison-investment-research

Twitter www.twitter.com/Edison_Inv_Res

YouTube www.youtube.com/edisonitv

SOURCE: Edison




- T. S. Eliot

Thoughts After Lambeth

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."
To: PR Newswire

LEI:213800T2PJTPVF1UGW53

From: Capital Gearing Trust P.l.c.

Date: 15 December 2017

Capital Gearing Trust P.l.c.

Publication of Circular

Since its approval at the annual general meeting in 2015, Capital Gearing Trust P.l.c. (the "Company") has successfully operated a discount and premium control policy. In order to meet the continuing demand for the Company's ordinary shares resulting from the operation of this policy, the Board is proposing to seek the renewal of its shareholder authorities to issue further ordinary shares on a non pre-emptive basis. Accordingly, the Company has today published a circular convening a general meeting to be held at 3.00 p.m. on 10 January 2018 at the offices of Dickson Minto W.S., 16 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DF (the "General Meeting").

At the General Meeting, two resolutions will be put to shareholders. An ordinary resolution, to give the Board authority to allot up to 1,078,573 ordinary shares which represents approximately 20 per cent. of the Company's current issued share capital as at 14 December 2017 (the last practicable date prior to the date of the notice convening the General Meeting) and a special resolution, to give the Board authority to disapply rights of pre-emption in respect of the issue of such shares.

The Board will only issue new shares at a premium to net asset value, to meet demand from investors and when the Board believes it is in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders to do so. The Company intends, following the General Meeting, to issue a prospectus as required under the Prospectus Rules in connection with the issue of further new ordinary shares.

The circular will shortly be available for inspection on the National Storage Mechanism which is located at http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/nsm.do.

All enquiries:

Steven Cowie

Company Secretary

Tel: 0131 538 6604

Email: company.secretary@capitalgearingtrust.com
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / December 15, 2017 / Kutcho Copper Corp. (formerly, Desert Star Resources Ltd.) (TSX-V: DSR) (the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion of the acquisition (the "Acquisition") of the Kutcho high grade copper-zinc-silver-gold project ("Kutcho"), as well as the closing of a C$20 million subordinated secured convertible term debt loan (the "Term Debt Loan") and a US$65 million Early Deposit Precious Metals Purchase Agreement (the "PMPA") with Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (TSX: WPM) (NYSE: WPM) ("Wheaton"), and the subsequent release of escrowed funds and conversion of subscription receipts under its C$14.7 million private placement (the "Private Placement"), that was announced on December 8, 2017.

In connection with the closing of the Acquisition, the Company has changed its name to Kutcho Copper Corp. Trading in the shares of the Company will remain halted until all TSX Venture Exchange filings have been completed, at which time the Company's common shares will commence trading under the symbol "KC".

"The completion of the acquisition of Kutcho and over C$100 million financing package represents a transformational step forward for the company" stated Vince Sorace, President & CEO of Kutcho Copper Corp. "The Kutcho project is a highly prospective advanced-stage project with significant near-term upside potential in both project optimization and resource expansion. With the acquisition complete, we look forward to aggressively advancing Kutcho towards a Feasibility Study and to working closely with First Nations, local communities and all levels of Government to move the project towards production."

Kutcho Project Acquisition

The Company acquired 100% of Kutcho from Capstone Mining Corp. (TSX: CS) ("Capstone") for total consideration of C$28.8 million in cash plus the issuance of 4,646,892 common shares of the Company (the "Purchase Price").

The Company has previously filed an independent technical report entitled "Prefeasibility Study Technical Report on the Kutcho Project, British Columbia" (the "Technical Report") dated July 31, 2017, a copy of which can be found on the Company's profile at www.SEDAR.com.

Release of Escrowed Private Placement Proceeds and Conversion of Subscription Receipts

Immediately prior to the completion of the Acquisition, the escrowed proceeds from the Company's C$14.7 million private placement of subscription receipts ("Subscription Receipts") were released following satisfaction or waiver of the escrow release conditions. A portion of the net proceeds (after payment of agents' commissions) was used to pay the cash portion of the Purchase Price under the Acquisition. In connection with private placement the Company issued 22,574,307 units ("Units"). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company ("Placement Share") and one-half of one common share purchase warrant ("Placement Warrant") with each Placement Warrant entitling the holder to acquire an additional common share of the Company at C$1.00 per share for a period of 36 months.

Capstone acquired 3,076,923 Subscription Receipts as part of the Private Placement and has been issued 3,076,923 Placement Shares and 1,538,461 Placement Warrants following conversion of Subscription Receipts into Units. Combined with the shares issued to Capstone as consideration for the Acquisition, Capstone will own 7,723,815 shares in the Company, representing approximately 16.5% of the current issued and outstanding shares on a non-diluted basis. Wheaton acquired 6,153,846 Subscription Receipts as part of the Private Placement and has been issued 6,153,846 Placement Shares and 3,076,923 Placement Warrants following conversion of Subscription Receipts into Units. The 6,153,846 Placement Shares acquired by Wheaton represent 13.1% of the common shares of the Company currently issued and outstanding, on a non-diluted basis. Assuming the exercise of all Placement Warrants received by Wheaton in connection therewith, Wheaton would hold, in aggregate, approximately 18.5% of the common shares of the Company currently issued and outstanding on such partially diluted basis. Prior to all the transactions contemplated hereby, Wheaton did not hold any securities of the Company.

In connection with the conversion of the Subscription Receipts into underlying shares and warrants, the Company paid a cash commission of 6% and issued a total of 346,853 broker warrants ("Broker Warrants") to a syndicate of agents including Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd., BMO Capital Markets, Haywood Securities Inc. and PI Financial Corporation (the "Agents"). Each Broker Warrant is exercisable for one common share of the Company for a 24 month term at an exercise price of C$0.65 per common share. In addition, the Company paid aggregate finders fees of $261,888.85 and issued an aggregate of 160,235 Broker Warrants to certain arm's length finders.

The Broker Warrants and an aggregate of 75,500 Units are subject to a hold period of four months and one day. The balance of the shares and warrants issued under the private placement will be free from hold periods under applicable Canadian securities laws.

Term Debt Loan with Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.

Also immediately prior to the completion of the Acquisition, the Company closed the C$20 million seven-year Term Debt Loan with Wheaton previously announced on October 31, 2017. The principal terms of the Term Debt Loan are as set out below.

Principal Amount C$20,000,000 (the "Principal Amount") Convertibility Lender may convert all or any portion of the Principal Amount into common shares of the Company on any date prior to and including the maturity date. Interest Rate 10.00% per annum. Interest Payments Payments will be made in cash semi-annually with the Company having the right to defer the first three payments until 24 months after the Effective Date. If the holder elects to convert the principal amount, any unpaid accrued interest owing, may be converted into common shares at the applicable market price at the time of conversion. Conversion Price C$0.8125 Term 84 months. Early Redemption Repayment may be made in full on or after 24 months from the Effective Date with the payment of applicable pre-payment cash penalties: 25% of the outstanding amount if pre-paid on or after 24 months until 36 months;

20% of the outstanding amount if pre-paid on or after 36 months until 60 months; and

15% of the outstanding amount if pre-paid on or after 60 months until maturity. Security Interest All assets of the Company relating to Kutcho, subject to being subordinated only to Wheaton's precious metals stream under the PMPA.

As a result of its investment under the Private Placement and the Term Debt Loan, and after giving effect to the conversion of the Subscription Receipts, the exercise of all Placement Warrants received by Wheaton in connection therewith and assuming the conversion of the entire Principal Amount of the Term Debt Loan to common shares (with no portion consisting of converted interest), Wheaton would hold, in aggregate, approximately 45.4% of the common shares of the Company currently issued and outstanding on such partially diluted basis (approximately 36.1% on a fully diluted basis). The Tern Debt Loan and the Placement Shares and Placement Warrants issued to Wheaton are presently being held only for investment purposes. Wheaton may from time to time in the future increase or decrease its ownership, control or direction over Placement Shares or any other securities of the Company, through market transactions, private agreements or otherwise. Wheaton intends to file an early warning report (the "Early Warning Report") pursuant to applicable securities laws in connection with the transactions contemplated hereby. A copy of the Early Warning Report to which this press release relates can be obtained from Wheaton, at 1-844-288-9878 or info@wheatonpm.com or on the SEDAR profile of the Company at www.sedar.com.

Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. will receive an advisory fee in relation to the Term Debt Loan, a portion of which is to be paid through the issuance of 769,230 common shares of the Company, which are subject to a hold period of four months.

Precious Metals Purchase Agreement ("PMPA") with Wheaton Precious Metals Corp.

Also immediately prior to the completion of the Acquisition, the Company entered into a definitive PMPA with Wheaton in respect to Kutcho. The principal terms of the PMPA are described in the Company's press release on August 10, 2017 whereby Wheaton will pay Desert Star upfront cash payments totaling US$65 million for 100% of the silver and gold production from Kutcho until 5.6 million ounces of silver and 51,000 ounces of gold have been delivered, at which point the stream will decrease to 66.67% of the silver and gold production for the life of the mine. Wheaton will make an ongoing cash payment equal to 20% of the applicable spot price of silver and gold for each ounce delivered under the agreement.

Desert Star is entitled to receive US$7 million on an early deposit basis to fund Feasibility Study expenditures at Kutcho. The balance of the US$65 million is payable in installments during construction of Kutcho. Wheaton would make an additional payment of up to US$20 million should the processing throughput at Kutcho be increased to 4,500 tpd or more within 5 years of attaining commercial production.

New Director

The Company is also pleased to announce that, in connection with the closing of the Acquisition, Brad Mercer, Senior Vice President Exploration of Capstone has been appointed to its board of directors.

Post Transaction Capital Structure

The resulting share structure post-transaction is 46,938,310 issued and outstanding shares, 17,739,932 share purchase warrants and 4,393,375 stock options. In addition, up to 24,615,385 shares may be issued in connection with the $20 million Term Debt Loan at C$0.8125 per share.

Advisors

Fort Capital Partners acted as the Company's financial advisor in connection with the Acquisition and Capital Markets Strategy. Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. acted as financial advisor and lead agent with regard to any acquisition financing.

Vince Sorace

President and CEO, Kutcho Copper Corp. For further information regarding Desert Star, please email info@kutcho.com or visit our website at www.kutcho.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

[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.

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements with respect to the acquisition of the Kutcho Project, private placement and related financing arrangements with Wheaton Precious Metals, estimated mineral resources and mineral reserves, the timing and amount of estimated production, costs of production, capital expenditures, commodity price assumptions, the Company's ability to successfully obtain all regulatory approvals and permits to commence and conduct mining operations, environmental risks and title challenges. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes, "intends," "estimates," "projects," "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may, "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results or realities may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such material risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to negotiate a final binding transaction agreements, obtain all requisite approvals for the acquisition of the Kutcho Project, private placement and related financing arrangements with Wheaton Precious Metals, including approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company's ability to raise sufficient capital to fund its obligations under the proposed acquisition of the Kutcho Project or under its property agreements going forward, to maintain its mineral tenures and concessions in good standing, to explore and develop the Kutcho Project or its other projects, to repay its debt and for general working capital purposes; changes in economic conditions or financial markets; the inherent hazards associates with mineral exploration, and mining operations, future prices of copper and other metals, changes in general economic conditions, accuracy of mineral resource and reserve estimates, the ability of the Company to obtain the necessary permits and consents required to explore, drill and develop the Kutcho Project and if obtained, to obtain such permits and consents in a timely fashion relative to the Company's plans and business objectives for the projects; the general ability of the Company to monetize its mineral resources; and changes in environmental and other laws or regulations that could have an impact on the Company's operations, compliance with environmental laws and regulations, aboriginal title claims and rights to consultation and accommodation, dependence on key management personnel and general competition in the mining industry. Forward-looking statements are based on the reasonable beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

United States Advisory

The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), have been offered and sold outside the United States to eligible investors pursuant to Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act, and may not be offered, sold, or resold in the United States or to, or for the account of or benefit of, a U.S. Person (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the United States Securities Act) unless the securities are registered under the U.S. Securities Act, or an exemption from the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act is available. Hedging transactions involving the securities must not be conducted unless in accordance with the U.S. Securities Act. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of securities in the state in the United States in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.]

SOURCE: Desert Star Resources Ltd.






MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - US President Donald Trump, who is accused of colliding with Russia in the presidential election campaign, has expressed gratitude to his Russian counterpart for 'acknowledging America's strong economic performance.'



Remarks by President Vladimir Putin in his annual press conference Thursday reflected a rare show of sympathy and support to the Trump administration.



Alleged Russian interference in the US election 'has been invented, made up by people who are in opposition to President Trump,' he told reporters in the lengthy media conference.



Contacts between the Trump campaign team and Russian officials in the run-up to last year's election were normal, according to Putin. Putin also noted that he calls Trump by his first name when they talk and that Trump calls him Vladimir.



He also praised Trump for 'some quite serious achievements' he made in a short period of time since becoming President. 'Look at the markets, how they've risen. That shows investors' confidence in the American economy. It shows they believe in what President Trump is doing in this area.'



He said the US opposition was not treating those who elected the billionaire-turned-politician with respect.



A White House statement issued after the news conference said Trump spoke with Putin Thursday. 'President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference'.



'The two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea', the statement added.



The mutually recognizing gesture from leaders of the two major powers comes at a time US Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to Trump's campaign has cast a shadow over bilateral relations.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de


CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. dollar weakened against its major counterparts in early European deals on Friday, as investors fret over the passage of the U.S. tax reform bill in Senate, after two Republican Senators raised opposition to the tax bill.



Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Mike Lee sought for changes to child tax credits to vote for the bill, putting the Republican plan to pass the legislation by next week in trouble.



Rubio said that he would not back the Republican tax reform bill unless the bill's proposed refundability to taxpayers of the child tax credit is increased.



With Republicans holding tight margins of 52-48 seats in the Senate, opposition from Rubio triggered doubts over the smooth passage of the bill in the Senate.



The tensions came a day after House and Senate Republican leaders reached a deal on final tax legislation on Wednesday.



Reversing from an early 2-day high of 1.1765 against the euro, the greenback dropped to 1.1799. If the greenback extends decline, 1.185 is likely seen as its next support level.



Figures from Eurostat showed that the Eurozone trade surplus declined to a three-month low in October as exports dropped amid an increase in imports.



The trade surplus fell to a seasonally adjusted EUR 19 billion in October from EUR 24.5 billion in September. This was the lowest since July. The surplus was forecast to decline to EUR 24.3 billion.



The greenback edged down to 0.9873 against the franc, compared to 0.9890 hit late New York Thursday. Continuation of the greenback's downtrend may see it challenging support the 0.97 level.



The greenback weakened to a 9-day low of 112.03 against the yen, from Thursday's closing value of 112.38. The next possible support for the greenback is seen around the 111.00 region.



Quarterly Tankan survey from the Bank of Japan showed that confidence among Japanese large manufacturers increased for the fifth straight quarter to an 11-year high at the end of 2017, as strong exports and rising corporate profits underpin activity.



The large manufacturers' sentiment index rose to 25 from 22 a quarter ago. This was the highest score since the end of 2006.



The greenback dropped to a 5-week low of 0.7694 against the aussie and near 2-week low of 0.7034 against the kiwi, compared to Thursday's closing values of 0.7665 and 0.6983, respectively. On the downside, 0.78 and 0.72 are likely seen as the next support levels for the greenback against the aussie and the kiwi, respectively.



The greenback that closed yesterday's trading at 1.2794 against the loonie edged down to 1.2739. The greenback is seen finding support around the 1.26 mark.



On the flip side, the greenback rose to 1.3412 against the pound, after having fallen to 1.3447 at 9:15 pm ET. Further uptrend may take the greenback to a resistance around the 1.33 area.



Looking ahead, Canada existing home sales for November and manufacturing sales for October as well as U.S. industrial production for November are set for release in the New York session.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Noble Energy Inc. (NBL) said that that it has signed a definitive agreement with CNX Resources Corp. (CNX) to divest Noble Energy's 50 percent interest in CONE Gathering LLC for cash consideration of $305 million. CONE Gathering owns the general partner of CONE Midstream Partners LP (CNNX) . Noble Energy is retaining its 21.7 million common limited partner units and plans to maximize value through the divestment of the units over the next few years. The agreement between Noble Energy and CNX also settles any and all claims between the two parties. Closing of the transaction is anticipated in early 2018, subject to customary terms and conditions. In association with this transaction, Noble Energy has terminated its prior agreement to divest its entire Marcellus midstream holdings to Wheeling Creek Midstream, LLC, a portfolio company of Quantum Energy Partners. 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.
SAINT-LAURENT, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 12/15/17 -- IntelGenx Corp. (TSX VENTURE: IGX)(OTCQX: IGXT) (the "Company" or "IntelGenx") is pleased to announce that Health Canada has cleared the clinical trial application for its Montelukast VersaFilm intended for the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease ("AD"). The phase 2a proof of concept ("POC") clinical study will start screening AD patients in Q1 2018.

This randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled Phase 2a POC study will enroll approximately 70 subjects with mild to moderate AD across eight Canadian research sites. The primary study objectives will be to evaluate the safety, feasibility, tolerability, and efficacy of Montelukast buccal film following daily dosing for 26 weeks.

"There are limited treatments available for AD and, of those that are approved, none are disease modifying," said Dr. Horst G. Zerbe, President and CEO of IntelGenx. "A recent paper published in the journal, Immunity & Aging, noted that Montelukast has been shown to rejuvenate aged brains in an animal model and suggested that this leukotriene receptor antagonist may have a similar effect in humans. We are very excited to commence this trial and evaluate the potential of Montelukast as a much-needed treatment for AD patients."

IntelGenx is working to repurpose Montelukast as a therapeutic to treat neurodegenerative diseases by re-formulating the drug into an oral film-based product. Montelukast has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1997 for the treatment of asthma and seasonal allergic rhinitis. IntelGenx' proprietary VersaFilm technology is especially suited for special needs patient populations, and the Montelukast VersaFilm product therefore offers many distinct advantages over tablets for AD patients, including the avoidance and minimization of first-pass-effects, ease of administration, improved API bioavailability, lower dosing and toxicity, better acceptability and improved compliance.

In a recent Phase I study, IntelGenx demonstrated that an oral film formulation of Montelukast is safe and tolerable in healthy subjects, reduces the first-pass-effect and has a 52% higher bioavailability compared to the regular Montelukast tablet, demonstrating a clear advantage of delivering Montelukast via film. IntelGenx' oral film also crossed the blood-brain barrier, an essential feature for treating degenerative brain diseases.

About Montelukast VersaFilm:

Montelukast is a leukotriene receptor antagonist used for the maintenance treatment of asthma and to relieve symptoms of seasonal allergies. Montelukast is a CysLT1antagonist; it blocks the action of leukotriene D4 (and secondary ligands LTC4 and LTE4) on the cysteinyl leukotriene receptor CysLT1 in the lungs and bronchial tubes by binding to it. This reduces the bronchoconstriction otherwise caused by the leukotriene and results in less inflammation. IntelGenx' Montelukast buccal film offers a distinct dosage form that improves bioavailability and removes the need for water intake. The latest formulation successfully demonstrated enhanced bioavailability as compared with the brand tablet in a pilot study.

About IntelGenx:

Established in 2003, IntelGenx is a leading oral drug delivery company primarily focused on the development and manufacturing of innovative pharmaceutical oral films based on its proprietary VersaFilm technology platform.

IntelGenx' highly skilled team provides comprehensive pharmaceuticals services to pharmaceutical partners, including R&D, analytical method development, clinical monitoring, IP and regulatory services. IntelGenx' state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, established for the VersaFilm technology platform, supports lab-scale to pilot and commercial-scale production, offering full service capabilities to its clients. More information about the company can be found at www.intelgenx.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This document may contain forward-looking information about IntelGenx' operating results and business prospects that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Statements that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about IntelGenx' plans, objectives, expectations, strategies, intentions or other characterizations of future events or circumstances and are generally identified by the words "may," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "could," "would," and similar expressions. All forward looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Because these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, IntelGenx' actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in IntelGenx' annual report on Form 10-K, filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and available at www.sec.gov, and also filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and www.sedar.com. IntelGenx assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Each of the TSX Venture Exchange and OTCQX has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

Source: IntelGenx Technologies Corp.

Contacts:

Stephen Kilmer

Investor Relations

(514) 331-7440 ext 232

stephen@intelgenx.com



Andre Godin, CPA, CA

Executive Vice-President and CFO

(514) 331-7440 ext 203

andre@intelgenx.com




Guido Carlo Alleva, Founder and Senior Partner at law firm Alleva & Associati, triumphed at 7thannual edition of Le Fonti Awards celebrated on 20October. This year the Gala Ceremony CEO Summit was held at the London Stock Exchange, a prestigious location situated in The City of London.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005315/en/

Guido Carlo Alleva, Founder and Senior Partner at law firm Alleva Associati, triumphed at 7thannual edition of Le Fonti Awards celebrated on 20 October. (Photo: Business Wire)

Lawyer Alleva has been awarded Lawyer of the Year in White Collar Crime in Italy with the following official motivation:For his deep and complete understanding of corporate and financial crimes, especially in the banking sector. As well as for having assisted one of the major rating agencies against the charge of market manipulation, obtaining acquittal of all defendants; lawyer Alleva is nowadays a strong point of reference in Italy, in this field". The selection procedure has been conducted by the Scientific Committee of Le Fonti as well as by a team of financial, legal, and economic journalists from over 120 countries throughout the world. Guido Carlo Alleva has been indicated as one of the most influential Italian lawyers by a judging panel of journalists, members of the editorial staff.

This year's CEO Summit was inspired on issues such as job, economy and smart working and how they are influenced by the fourth Industrial Revolution: renews experts graced on the stage for the round table The Digital Revolution and how Ceos should adapt to tech disruptors that preceded the Awards ceremony.

"The legal systems continue to be based on their own principles and they reserve the right to say what is a crime and what is not: this creates problems in cross border situations, for instance with financial activities based in London and working on the global market with Italian, American and Chinese sides. For us lawyers there is the duty to try to be also cultural mediators" declared lawyer Alleva regarding the globalization of business and economy.

Le Fonti Awards are held each year recognizing industry leaders in the fields of law, banking and finance, business and economics, sustainability and insurance. The roadshow event takes place in the most influential and strategic financial centers such as Hong Kong, Dubai, London, Singapore, Milan and New York.

Watch here the video interview with Guido Carlo Alleva

http://www.lefonti.tv/guido-carlo-alleva-awarded-lawyer-of-the-year-in-white-collar-crime-88.html

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005315/en/

Contacts:

Alleva Associati

Guido Carlo Alleva

lawoffice@allevalaw.com


The joint offering will simplify testing and mobile experience for global mobile networks

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced a partnership with Headspin, a San Francisco-based powerful, easy-to-use mobile experience platform, to offer next-generation mobility quality engineering and testing solutions on global mobile networks.

Wipro Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Wipro Limited that is focused on investing in early- to mid-stage startups, made an investment in Headspin in October 2017.

This partnership will leverage Headspin's network of 22,000 mobile devices deployed in carrier networks across 150 locations and Wipro's industry leading quality assurance capabilities to bring significant value to customers by validating their mobile applications, devices and networks under real life conditions. The joint offering will enable continuous monitoring of applications, identification of performance bottlenecks and rectification of inefficient content delivery to ensure a seamless application experience for end users, across geographies.

"In today's world, mobile is a critical channel for doing business and hence, the reliability and performance of mobile devices and applications are key to enabling a superior customer experience. This partnership will augment Wipro's mobility-related quality engineering and testing services capabilities," said Hiral Chandrana, Senior Vice President, Business Application Services, Wipro Limited.

"We are excited to partner with Wipro, a global leader in IT and consulting services, and offer our next-generation mobile experience platform (MEP) to Wipro's customer base. We are confident that our partnership with Wipro will help accelerate the adoption of our innovative solution by some of the largest enterprises in the world. In addition, Wipro's investment in Headspin will give an impetus to our ongoing efforts in the mobile quality engineering space," said Manish Lachwani, CEO Co-founder of Headspin.

About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 160,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future.

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005360/en/

Contacts:

Wipro Limited

Shraboni Banerjee

Shraboni.banerjee@wipro.com
LONDON, December 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

New Deezer SongCatcher Tool Brings Music Closer to the Fans

Today Deezer, the world's most diverse, dynamic and personal music streaming service, has launched its own song recognition feature SongCatcher, offering a greater choice for consumers who want to find out the names of particular songs or artists when listening to music.

This innovative feature, powered by ACRCloud, has been in the works for many months and is already available in BETA to a subsection of Deezer's user base. Designed so that music fans can identify forgotten songs or discover unknown tracks on their mobile, users simply hold up their phone and let the search function do the work for them.

Deezer SongCatcher delivers:

Quick identification and sourcing of unknown tracks within the Deezer app through the use of the search function that directs users to "identify sound"

Newly identified tracks that can be added directly to your favorites and/or playlist

The ability to play all saved and favorite tracks from SongCatcher

"Deezer SongCatcher is something that our product team has been working on for some time as we recognize that there is clear demand from music fans to find out the name of an unknown track or artist when they are listening to music. The BETA has proven very positive and so we are excited to be able to officially communicate the launch of Deezer SongCatcher to all music fans around the world," said Alexander Holland, Chief Product and Content Officer.

Deezer SongCatcher will be rolled out over the coming months and will be open to Premium+ subscribers. Rolling out initially on Android users, it will be coming to iOS next year.

About Deezer

Deezer connects 12 million active users around the world to more than 44 million tracks. Available in 185 countries worldwide, Deezer gives instant access to the most diverse global music streaming catalogue on any device. Deezer is the only music streaming service with Flow, the unique mix of all your old favourites and new recommendations in one ever-changing stream. Based on an intuitive, proprietary algorithm and created by people who love music, it's the only place to hear all your music back-to-back with fresh discoveries tailored to you. Deezer is available on your favorite device, including smartphone, tablet, PC, laptop, home sound system, connected car or smart TV.

Making music happen since 2007, Deezer is a privately held company, headquartered in Paris with offices in London, Berlin, Miami and around the world. Deezer is available as a free download for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows devices or on the web at deezer.com. For the latest news on Deezer go to http://www.Deezer.com/company/press
Great Customer Service Breeds Brand Loyalty

IDC and LogMeIn conducted a study and learned what gained brand loyalty: level of customer service. The study, Support Services as a Competitive Differentiator, found 67 percent of consumers felt customer satisfaction reigned over price. However, 30 percent of companies believe reducing support costs is more vital than customer satisfaction. Does this balance out somewhere down the line in the study? Here are some more conclusions made after surveying 1,400 respondents from an array of industries, company sizes, titles, and locations.

We live in a digital world; ecommerce is mainstream, as eight out of 10 Americans are shopping online. That means that employers not only need the best in-store support, but must employ top-notch contact center agents to handle and resolve any issues that may arise. Support is key, as 89 percent of survey participants felt an agent they could positively communicate with was the most important part of the support encounter. Sadly, 24 percent claim their problem was never resolved by the agent and 33 percent said support took too long to achieve resolution.

Todays digital disruption signals the need for a fresh support strategy. Service teams are being called upon to fulfill a greater purpose and are in a prime position to create success stories that can lead to better brand awareness, improve sales conversions, and ultimately, repeat business, said Jennifer Cooke, Research Director, IDC.

Poor customer service affects agents jobs and how productive workers can be, as focus easily and quickly gets shifted. If a consumer is not receiving proper support, whether it is from a live agent or online, 52 percent of respondents say it becomes a hindrance to their ability to perform effectively. Additionally, 45 percent claim they are pulled away from their specific jobs in order to assist other agents. With productivity down, customer retention drops and so does the need for contact center agents.

There is hope, as 75 percent of companies have employed remote support solutions with 85 percent of consumers saying they found resolution quickly and efficiently. Customer service inextricably linked with the overall success of a company, said Dave Campbell, Vice President, Customer Engagement and Support at LogMeIn.

How high do you put customer service in the value chain?Edited by Erik Linask
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - December 15, 2017) - Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. (TSXV: AGH) (Canadian Silver Hunter" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that positive results have been released from a borehole geophysics program on the Keeley-Frontier property, by First Cobalt Corp. An electromagnetic program successfully identified a geophysical signature associated with vein-style mineralization intersected in recent drilling as well as an off-hole anomaly, providing a new exploration tool for the Cobalt camp.

Highlights:

In-hole and off-hole electromagnetic-anomalous responses corresponding to veining have been encountered at the Woods vein extension and near the Keeley mine.

Off-hole anomalous results will be targeted for follow-up in the winter drill program.

Final data interpretation is nearly complete and results are being incorporated into the planning for January, 2018, drilling.

Three areas were targeted for surveying: the area known as the Woods vein extension, the Frontier No. 1 vein and an area near the Keeley mine. The Woods vein extension area was previously believed to be barren but, based on new mapping and drilling, may be the extension of the Woods-Watson vein system that accounted for over 80 per cent of the historic production in the Cobalt South region of the Cobalt camp.

Results of the program were positive, with both in-hole and off-hole electromagnetic anomalous responses encountered.

Five holes were surveyed near the Keeley mine and three at the Woods vein extension, to the north of the Frontier mine. Three holes with known cobalt veining provided an in-hole EM response consistent with drill core logging and assay results, confirming the ability of EM to detect a geophysical signature for cobalt veins.

More significantly, surveying in one hole near the Keeley mine detected an off-hole response, indicating a potential extension of the veining recorded in the hole. Two holes drilled along the Frontier No. 1 vein were also surveyed to detect off-hole anomalies, but did not encounter any EM responses.

Next Steps

EM surveying has not been used extensively in the Cobalt camp despite cobalt and silver minerals being excellent conductors. The pulse EM method which is being used is well suited for this setting.

Ground-based EM system testing will commence shortly to determine if the cobalt veins encountered by drilling can be detected from surface. An expanded ground EM survey over the Woods extension area is also being considered. If the results from the borehole program can be replicated from surface, EM surveys could have a camp-wide application as a prospecting and drill-hole-targeting tool.

The off-hole anomaly detected near Keeley will be targeted during the winter drilling program starting in January.

Crone Geophysics, based in Mississauga, Ont., has been contracted to conduct the surveys. Crone Geophysics develops high-quality instruments and has provided leading-edge surveying and consulting since 1962.

Qualified and Competent Person Statement

Dr. Frank Santaguida, PGeo, is the qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release. Dr. Santaguida is employed on a full-time basis as vice-president, exploration, for First Cobalt. He has sufficient experience that is relevant to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a competent person as defined in the JORC Code.

About Canadian Silver Hunter Inc.

Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. is a Canadian exploration company focused on the exploration of silver-cobalt deposits on its 100% owned flagship Keeley Frontier Project. For more information please visit the Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. website at www.canadiansilverhunter.ca.

Shareholders of Canadian Silver Hunter Inc. are reminded to view the filings of First Cobalt Corp. on www.sedar.com for further information regarding the activity of First Cobalt Corp. with respect to the Keeley Frontier project.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: 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. We seek safe Harbor.

Canadian Silver Hunter Inc.

Jeffrey Hunter

President & CEO

(416) 707 4230

info@cshi.ca

www.canadiansilverhunter.ca
Ripple News UpdateAs XRP prices continue to shoot for the moon, investors are finally getting curious about Ripple's long-term vision and how it differs from Bitcoin.Google searches for XRP, for example, shot through the roof earlier in the week. This surge of interest gives Ripple (the company) a unique opportunity to educate the public on its overall mission.Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse wasted no time in leveraging this opportunity. He held a Q&A yesterday, in which he answered some of investors' most pressing questions..

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.
Respin, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nektan, has reached an agreement with Seven Feathers Casino Resort in Oregon. The AIM-traded company said as part of the deal, the 'Evolve' in-venue platform would be integrated to SUZOHAPP's 'Interactive Pro Table', allowing guests to enjoy video slots, bingo and poker games, as well as free-to-play content at the bars and restaurants of the resort. Rapid Games, the brand name for Respin, is the creator of the first and only approved Class II and III ...

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.
WEST CHESTER, OH -- (Marketwired) -- 12/15/17 -- AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) said today that members of the United Auto Workers (UAW), Local 600, have ratified a three-year, seven-month agreement covering about 1,180 hourly production and maintenance employees at the company's Dearborn (MI) Works. AK Steel said that UAW officials notified the company that the contract was ratified in voting that concluded yesterday. The agreement will be in effect until July 31, 2021.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement with our hourly employees at Dearborn Works," said Roger K. Newport, Chief Executive Officer of AK Steel. "This contract positions us well to meet the future needs of our company and our customers, as we continue to drive our sales of value-added and innovative products including our NEXMET family of high strength steels for our automotive customers."

Dearborn Works produces a wide range of hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steel, including hot dip galvanized products and advanced high strength steels for the automotive and other markets. Dearborn Works' state-of-the-art hot dip galvanizing line upgrade, which was completed in late 2016, includes technology that allows AK Steel to produce coated and cold rolled next generation advanced high strength steels on the same line.

AK Steel

AK Steel is a leading producer of flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products, primarily for the automotive, infrastructure and manufacturing, electrical power generation and distribution markets. Through its subsidiaries, the company also provides customer solutions with carbon and stainless steel tubing products, die design and tooling, and hot and cold stamping. Headquartered in West Chester, Ohio (Greater Cincinnati), the company employs approximately 9,400 men and women at manufacturing operations across seven states (Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia), as well as Canada and Mexico. Additional information about AK Steel is available at www.aksteel.com.

Contacts:

Media

Lisa H. Jester

Corporate Manager

Communications and Public Relations

(513) 425-2510



Investors

Douglas O. Mitterholzer

General Manager

Investor Relations

(513) 425-5215




Regulatory News:

The SoLocal Group's (Paris:LOCAL)Board of Directors, held today, took note of the resignation of Monica Menghini and decided, on the proposal of the Appointment Committee, to co-opt Marie-Christine Levet as Director. Her mandate, which must be ratified by the next Extraordinary General Meeting of 9 March 2018, is effective today until the General Meeting called in 2020 to approve the financial statements for the 2019 financial year.

The Board of Directors has expressed to Monica Menghini who is leaving her position to carry out an international project her heartfelt thanks for her contribution to the work carried out since 2016.

With the appointment of Marie-Christine Levet, a pioneer of the Internet in France, SoLocal Group's Board of Directors demonstrates the desire to accelerate SoLocal Group's digital development.

Graduated from HEC in 1988 and from INSEAD in 1994, Marie-Christine Levet managed several major brands of the French Internet. In 1997, she founded Lycos. Then, from 2001 to 2007, she ran Club-Internet, a provider of Internet access, which she sold to Neuf Telecom SFR. In 2008, she became General Manager of the Tests Group, a hi-tech information group, as well as Internet activities of the NextRadioTV group. With her entrepreneurial experience, Marie-Christine turned to venture capital in 2010 to bring her experience to young entrepreneurs. She participated in the creation of Jaina Capital, one of the first investment funds specializing in early stage financing in France, where she invested in companies like made.com, yes.car, devialet, La ruche qui dit oui.

In October 2017, Marie-Christine Levet creates Educapital, the leading European private equity fund dedicated to the Education, Training and Digital Transition sectors.

She is also board member of Iliad, Econocom, Maisons du Monde and AFP, and was formerly a Director of the Google Fund for Media Innovation (FINP) from 2013 to 2016.

Following this appointment, the composition of the SoLocal Group's Board of Directors is as follows:

Pierre Danon, Chairman of the Board of Directors

David Amar, Chairman of the Strategic Committee

Jacques-Henri David

Sandrine Dufour, Chairman of the Audit Committee

Delphine Grison

Marie-Christine Levet

Alexandre Loussert

Arnaud Marion

Joelle Obadia, Member representing employees

Sophie Sursock

Philippe de Verdalle, Chairman of the Appointment and Remuneration Committee

About SoLocal Group

SoLocal Group, European leader in local online communication, reveals local know-how, and boosts local revenues of businesses. The Internet activities of the Group are structured around two business lines: Local Search and Marketing Digital. With Local Search, the Group offers Internet services and solutions to clients which enable them to enhance their visibility and develop their local contacts. Thanks to its expertise, SoLocal Group earned the trust of some 490,000 clients of those services and over 2.4 billions of visits via its 3 flagship brands (PagesJaunes, Mappy and Ooreka) but also through its partnerships. With Marketing Digital, SoLocal Group creates and provides the best local and customised content about professionals. With over 4,400 employees, including a new orders force of 1,900 local communication advisors specialised in five verticals (Home, Services, Retail, Health Public, BtoB) and Internationally (France, Spain, Austria, United Kingdom), the Group generated in 2016 revenues of 812 millions euros, of which 80% on Internet and ranks amongst the first European players in terms of Internet advertising revenues. SoLocal Group is listed on Euronext Paris (LOCAL). More information may be obtained at www.solocalgroup.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005605/en/

Contacts:

SoLocal Group

Press

Delphine Penalva, +33 (0)1 46 23 35 31

dpenalva@solocal.com

or

Edwige Druon, +33 (0)1 46 23 37 56

edruon@solocal.com

or

Alexandra Kunysz, +33 (0)1 46 23 47 45

akunysz@solocal.com

or

Investors

Emmanuelle Vinel, +33 (0)1 46 99 41 80

evinel@solocal.com

or

Sebastien Nony, +33 (0) 1 46 23 49 03

snony@solocal.com


Republican Senator Lindsey Graham puts the odds of the Trump administration ordering an attack on North Korea if it performs another nuclear test at 70%. According to the Senator, the US government won't allow Pyongyang to acquire the capability of reaching the US mainland with a nuclear missile. "If the North Koreans conduct an additional test of a nuclear bomb - their seventh - "I would say 70 percent [chance of using the military option]." The issue of North Korea popped up during a round of ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Regulatory News:

This press release may not be published, forwarded or distributed, directly or indirectly, in the United States of America, Australia, Canada or Japan

This press release does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States of America or any other jurisdiction. The ORNANEs (and the underlying shares) may not be offered or sold in the United States of America unless they are registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended or exempt from registration. Pierre Vacances does not intend to register the offer in whole or in part or to make a public offer of its securities in the United States of America.

Pierre et Vacances (Paris:VAC) (the "Company" or "Pierre et Vacances") announces the results of the Centralized Repurchase Procedure (procedure de desinteressement) of the holders of outstanding net share settled bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares (ORNANE) due October 1st, 2019 (the "2019 ORNANEs") opened from December 8th, 2017 (inclusive) to December 14th, 2017 (inclusive).

Concurrently with the launch, on November 30th, 2017, of the issuance (the "Issuance") of net share settled bonds convertible into new shares and/or exchangeable for existing shares maturing on April 1st, 2023 (the "ORNANEs"), Pierre et Vacances solicited, via BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank and Natixis, indications from certain holders of 2019 ORNANEs of their interest in selling such 2019 ORNANEs to the Company as part of a reverse bookbuilding process (the "Repurchase Offer

As the number of 2019 ORNANEs collected via the Repurchase Offer represented more than 20% of the aggregate number of 2019 ORNANEs initially issued, the Company launched, in order to ensure that all the 2019 ORNANEs holders are treated equally, an off-market repurchase offer centralized by BNP Paribas Securities Services pursuant to which the Company repurchased the 2019 ORNANEs from all holders requesting such repurchase during the 5-trading day period between December 8th, 2017 (inclusive) and December 14th, 2017 (inclusive), at the same price determined following the Repurchase Offer, i.e. 46.53 per 2019 ORNANE (the "Centralized Repurchase Procedure

The Centralized Repurchase Procedure ended on December 14th, 2017 and enabled the Company to repurchase 168,170 2019 ORNANEs, representing approximately 5% of the total number of the 2019 ORNANEs initially issued, at a unit price of 46.53, representing a total amount of 7,824,950.10.

As a result, the number of outstanding 2019 ORNANEs is 33,831, representing 1% of the total number of the 2019 ORNANEs initially issued.

The settlement of the 2019 ORNANEs repurchase price by the Company in the context of the Centralized Repurchase Procedure will occur on December 18th, 2017.

The repurchased 2019 ORNANEs will be cancelled at the latest on December 18th, 2017 in accordance with their terms and conditions and the applicable law.

As the number of 2019 ORNANEs that remain outstanding following the settlements of the Repurchase Offer and of the Centralized Repurchase Procedure is lower than 15% of the number of 2019 ORNANEs initially issued, the Company intends to proceed with the early redemption of all outstanding 2019 ORNANEs, in accordance with their terms and conditions. In this respect, a notice will be published on the Company's website at least 40 trading days before the effective date of early redemption.

BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank and Natixis acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Bookrunners for the Issuance and the Repurchase Offer and CM-CIC Market Solutions acted as Co-Lead Manager (together, the "Managers

BNP Paribas Securities Services acted as centralizing agent for the Centralized Repurchase Procedure.

This press release does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for or to sell the ORNANEs and the Issuance is not an offer to the public in any jurisdiction, including France.

About the Pierre Vacances-Center Parcs group

Leader in holidays in Europe, the Pierre Vacances-Center Parcs group has been developing and managing innovative and environmentally-friendly holiday and leisure concepts for 50 years in seaside, mountain and countryside destinations as well as in city centres.

Its business model is based on two complementary activities: real estate and tourism.

With its well-known brands Pierre Vacances, Center Parcs, Sunparks, Aparthotels Adagio, maeva.com, Villages Nature Paris the Group operates almost 280 locations and resorts in Europe.

Thanks to the talent of its 12 200 employees, the Pierre Vacances-Center Parcs group achieved a revenue of 1,506.3 million and welcomed c.8 million customers in 2016/2017.

www.groupepvcp.com - @GroupePVCP

No communication and no information in respect of the offering by the issuer of the ORNANEs may be distributed to the public in any jurisdiction where a registration or approval is required. No steps have been or will be taken in any jurisdiction where such steps would be required. The offering or subscription of the ORNANEs may be subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. The issuer and BNP Paribas Security Services take no responsibility for any violation of any such restrictions by any person.

This announcement is an advertisement and not a prospectus within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive (as defined below).

This announcement does not and shall not, in any circumstances constitutes a public offering nor an invitation to the public in connection with any offer in any jurisdiction other than France.

European Economic Area

This announcement is only addressed to and directed, in member states of the European Economic Area which have implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a "Relevant Member State"), at persons who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive and pursuant to the relevant implementing rules and regulations adopted by each relevant member state ("Qualified Investors"). Such person who initially acquires any ORNANEs or to whom any offer of the ORNANEs may be made will be deemed to have represented, acknowledged and agreed that it is a qualified investor as defined above.

With respect to each Relevant Member State, no action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make a public offering of ORNANEs in that Relevant Member State other than to any legal entity which is a Qualified Investor, excluding any offer made to natural persons.

For the purposes of this provision, the expression (i) "an offer of ORNANEs to the public" in relation to any ORNANEs in any Relevant Member State means the communication in any form and by any means of sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the ORNANEs to be offered so as to enable an investor to decide to purchase or subscribe the ORNANEs, as the same may be varied in that member state by any measure implementing the Prospectus Directive in that member state, (ii) the expression Prospectus Directive means Directive 2003/71/EC (and amendments thereto, including the 2010 Prospectus Directive Amending Directive, to the extent implemented in the Relevant Member State), and includes any relevant implementing measure in the Relevant Member State and (iii) the expression "2010 Prospectus Directive Amending Directive" means Directive 2010/73/EU.

This selling restriction is in addition to any other selling restrictions applicable in the Relevant Member States having implemented the Prospectus Directive.

You further represent and agree that, with effect from and including the relevant implementation date, you are not making any public offering of the securities in a Relevant Member State in reliance on the exemption set out in Article 3.2(b) of the Prospectus Directive.

In the case of any ORNANEs being offered to you as a financial intermediary as that term is used in Article 3(2) of the Prospectus Directive, you will also be deemed to have represented and agreed that the ORNANEs acquired by you in the offering have not been acquired on behalf of persons in the European Economic Area other than Qualified Investors or persons in the United-Kingdom and other member states (where equivalent legislation exists) for whom you have authority to make decisions on a wholly discretionary basis, nor have the ORNANEs been acquired with a view to their offer or resale in the European Economic Area where this would result in a requirement for publication by the issuer, the Managers or any other manager of a prospectus pursuant to Article 3 of the Prospectus Directive, or in which the prior consent of the Managers has been obtained to such offer or resale.

Prohibition of sales to European Economic Area Retail Investors - the ORNANEs are not and are not intended to be offered, sold or otherwise made available to and, with effect from such date, should not be offered, sold or otherwise made available to any Retail Investor in the European Economic Area. For the purpose of this paragraph, a "Retail Investor" means any person(s) who is (are): (i) a retail client as defined in point (11) of Article 4(1) of Directive 2014/65/EU ("MIFID II"); (ii) a customer within the meaning of Directive 2002/92/EC ("IMD"), where that customer would not qualify as a professional client as defined in point (10) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or (iii) not a Qualified Investor as defined in the Prospectus Directive. Consequently no key information document required, from January 1st 2018, by Regulation (EU) no 1286/2014 (the "PRIIPS Regulation") for offering or selling the ORNANEs or otherwise making them available to Retail Investors in the European Economic Area has been and will be prepared and therefore offering or selling the ORNANEs or otherwise making them available to any Retail Investor in the European Economic Area may be unlawful under the PRIIPS Regulation.

United Kingdom

This announcement is only being distributed to and is only directed at persons in the United Kingdom who are (i) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (financial promotion) Order 2005 (as amended) or (ii) persons falling within Article 49(2) (a) to (d) (high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc.) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (financial promotion) Order 2005 (as amended) and (iii) other persons to whom it can be legally communicated (all such persons together being referred to as ("Relevant Persons"). The ORNANEs and the shares to be delivered upon conversion or exchange of the ORNANEs (the "Subject Securities") are directed only at Relevant Persons and no invitation, offer or agreements to subscribe, purchase or otherwise acquire the Subject Securities may be proposed or made other than to Relevant Persons. Any person who is not a Relevant Person should not rely on this announcement or any of its contents.

This announcement is not a prospectus and has not been approved by the Financial Conduct Authority or any other United Kingdom regulatory authority for the purposes of section 85 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

United States of America

This announcement may not be published, distributed or transferred, directly or indirectly, in the United States (including its territories and dependencies, any state of the United States and the District of Columbia). This announcement does not constitute or form a part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States. The ORNANEs and the shares to be issued or granted upon conversion or exchange of the ORNANEs have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or with any securities regulatory authority of any state or other jurisdiction in the United States, and may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, in the United States, except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. The ORNANEs will be offered or sold only outside of the United States in offshore transactions in accordance with regulation s of the Securities Act. The issuer does not intend to register any portion of the proposed offering in the United States or to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States.

Canada, Australia, Japan

The ORNANEs have not been offered or sold and may not be offered, sold or purchased in Canada, Australia or Japan.

The distribution of this announcement in some countries may constitute a breach of applicable law.

This announcement does not constitute an invitation to sell ORNANEs 2019 in any country where or to any person to which such invitation is restricted by applicable laws or regulations. The repurchase procedure of ORNANEs 2019 through a reverse bookbuilding procedure and the centralized repurchase procedure are not and will not be opened, directly or indirectly, to U.S. holders (as defined under Rule 800(h) of the Securities Act) under any form and by any means. Persons in such jurisdictions into which this announcement is released, published or distributed must inform themselves about and comply with such laws or regulations.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005649/en/

Contacts:

Pierre et Vacances

Investor Relations and Strategic Operations

Emeline Laute +33 (0) 1 58 21 54 76

info.fin@groupepvcp.com

or

Press Relations

Valerie Lauthier, +33 (0) 1 58 21 54 61

valerie.lauthier@groupepvcp.com
The global processed snacks market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 3% during the period 2017-2021, according to a new market research study by Technavio.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005341/en/

Technavio has published a new market research report on the global processed snacks market 2017-2021 under their food and beverage library. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The report categorizes the global processed snacks market by product that includes sweet snacks and savory snacks. The report also determines the geographic breakdown of the market in terms of detailed analysis and impact, which includes key geographies such as APAC, the Americas, and EMEA.

This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing

Buy 1 Technavio report and get the second for 50% off. Buy 2 Technavio reports and get the third for free

Market driver: evolving taste preferences

Taste preferences of consumers in the processed snacks market are constantly evolving. Consumers, particularly the youth, are eager to experiment with different products. Manufacturers strive to meet the evolved preferences of consumers through brand extensions, product innovations, and the introduction of new brands. Continuous product development and innovation are important for sustenance in the market. Millennials are an expanding consumer segment for processed snacks, especially in Europe and the Americas.

According to Manjunath Reddy, a lead analyst at Technavio for food research, "There is an increased preference for unique styles, ethnic products, and artisanal flavors in the global processed snacks market. Processed snacks manufacturers are increasingly focused on culture-specific flavor preferences. International brands customize their offerings to be in line with ethnic tastes."

Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report

Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Market trend: technological innovations

Manufacturers of processed snacks are investing in efficient processing equipment to provide consumers with high-quality food products. Florigo Industry launched a potato chip fryer with the patented Opti-Flow technology on October 27, 2016. This technology removes 99% of cyclone dead spots. This technology ensures that potato chips are free of excess oil. Therefore, potato chip manufacturers can lower the level of acrylamides and reduce the number of rejects, which further enhances both product quality and yield.

Market challenge: fluctuations in raw-material costs

The widening gap between product demand and supply in the global processed snacks market in the recent years has increased raw-material costs significantly. An increase in the price of raw materials such as potatoes, corn, and nuts increase the manufacturing costs and decreases the profit margins of vendors. Increased raw-material prices influence manufacturers to experiment with cheaper substitutes. The high prices also lead to increased power to raw-material suppliers in the market. Thus, fluctuations in raw-material prices negatively impact the vendors in the global processed snacks market.

Is your business on track for a successful future? Learn how Technavio can help

Technavio helps businesses anticipate changes in their marketplace, make proactive adjustments, and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

Vendors in the market

Aviko

Calbee

General Mills

Hormel Foods

Intersnack Group

Kellogg Company

Lamb Weston

McCain Foods

PepsiCo

Tyson Foods

The global processed snacks market is subject to rapid changes in terms of consumer demands both at regional and international levels. It is also affected by changes in demographic trends. Economic developments, improvements in living standards, increase in per-capita household incomes, and altered spending patterns across the globe are factors that benefit the manufacturers of the global processed snacks market during the forecast period.

Get a sample copy of the global processed snacks market report free of cost

Access Technavio's continuously growing food research library and find expert analysis on hundreds of markets.

About Technavio

Technaviois a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005341/en/

Contacts:

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

www.technavio.com


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After ending the previous session roughly flat, treasuries saw modest weakness during the trading day on Friday.



Bond prices climbed well off their worst levels in afternoon trading but still closed in negative territory. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, inched up by nearly a basis point to 2.355 percent.



The weakness among treasuries came as traders expressed optimism about the Republican tax reform plan despite some concerns among GOP Senators.



Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., indicated he plans to support a revised bill after changes were made to the child tax credit.



A House-Senate conference committee seeking to negotiate differences in the bills passed by the two chambers is expected to release their combined legislation this afternoon.



On the U.S. economic front, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report showing growth in New York manufacturing activity slowed by more than anticipated in the month of December.



The New York Fed said its general business conditions index dropped to 18.0 in December from 19.4 in November, although a positive reading still indicates growth in regional manufacturing activity. The index had been expected to dip to 18.6.



Meanwhile, a separate report released by the Federal Reserve showed a smaller than expected increase in industrial production in the month of November.



The Fed said industrial production edged up by 0.2 percent in November after jumping by an upwardly revised 1.2 percent in October.



Economists had expected production to climb by 0.3 percent compared to the 0.9 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.



Economic data may attract attention next week, with traders likely to keep an eye on reports on new and existing home sales, housing starts, durable goods orders and personal income and spending.



Activity in Washington may also impact trading, as Republican lawmakers are hoping to vote on their tax reform bill next week.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
Great Wolf Resorts Deploys Interactions IVA

Great Wolf Resorts is deploying Interactions Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) solution to assist with guest pre-arrival. The goal for North Americas largest group of indoor water park resorts is to enhance efficiency and productivity, thus creating the ultimate in customer experience delivery. IVA will also cut costs of having a physical check-in staff with Great Wolfs speedy North American expansion.

Great Wolf is a family resort destination featuring a huge indoor water park with slides and water attractions, keeping families in the forefront of all it does. It needed a practical solution when managing the high rate of customer calls, reservation requests and questions as it saw its brand rapidly expand. Most importantly, the solution had to encompass personalization for every family looking to experience the indoor water parks. Fortunately, Interactions IVA was able to offer this.

We wanted to create a very guest-focused, high-touch system for families planning a visit Great Wolf Lodge, said Scott Wilson, Chief Commercial Officer, Great Wolf Resorts. Guests call our contact center with a variety of questions about Great Wolf Lodge, ranging from water park hours to hotel amenities. Interactions IVA technology allows us to address the most common guest questions through an automated system, giving our reservations team the ability to spend more time interacting with guests to create the perfect Great Wolf Lodge getaway for their family.

Interactions IVA meshes artificial intelligence with human understanding for the utmost in custom interactions between the company and its guests, who are able to complete tasks like altering reservations or planning a new visit through IVA in the same effective way that would otherwise require human agents. By using this system from Interactions, money is saved by not having to employ additional agents to handle these services. Employees can stay focused on welcoming guests and giving them the best experience possible.

What stood out about Interactions IVA was its impact on both customers and employees, said Pamela Petz, Director of the Customer Contact Center, Great Wolf Resorts. During peak times, customers will have access to self-service capabilities, and wont get stuck on hold to ask a simple question. At the same time, call center agents arent burdened with minor tasks, and can refocus their attention to more complex interactions.
BALTIMORE, 2017-12-15 21:31 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Algeco/Scotsman Holding S.a r.l. (together with its subsidiaries, the "Algeco Group") today announced the successful closing of the acquisition by the Algeco Group's subsidiary, Target Logistics Management, LLC ("Target Logistics"), of Iron Horse Ranch from funds managed by TDR Capital LLP ("TDR"). The acquisition solidifies Target Logistics' position as the single largest provider of turnkey workforce housing in the U.S., including a network of eight lodges and 2,119 beds in the Permian Basin. With the acquisition, Target Logistics' Permian Basin lodge network now includes Texas lodges in Pecos, Mentone, San Angelo and two in Odessa, along with two lodges in Carlsbad and Lovington, New Mexico. Additionally, Target Logistics adds Eagle Ford lodges in Cameron and Yorktown, Texas. Diarmuid Cummins, CEO Algeco Scotsman: "Today we announce the completion of the second of two strategic acquisitions which we flagged earlier in the year as important steps forward for the Algeco Group. This transaction materially enhances our leading position in the Permian Basin and expands our presence in the Eagle Ford Basin." Brad Archer, CEO Target Logistics: "We are proud to officially welcome Iron Horse Ranch to our team as part of our continued effort to build on our extensive network of turnkey workforce lodges in the United States. Iron Horse Ranch not only complements our existing footprint in the Permian Basin, but also shares our commitment to helping customers realize their full potential by providing a safe and comfortable environment away from the job site." Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws of certain applicable jurisdictions, which reflect the Algeco Group's expectations regarding its future operational and financial performance. By their nature, the forward-looking events described in this press release may not be accurate or occur at all. In particular, we may not be able to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition of Iron Horse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which the statements were made. Although any forward-looking statements contained in this press release reflect management's current beliefs based upon information currently available to management and upon assumptions which management believes to be reasonable, actual results may differ materially from those stated in or implied by these forward-looking statements. A number of factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation, and specifically decline any obligation, to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. About Algeco Scotsman Algeco Scotsman is the leading global business services provider focused on modular space, secure portable storage solutions, and remote workforce accommodation management. Headquartered in Baltimore, Algeco Scotsman has operations in 24 countries with a modular fleet of approximately 245,000 units and 11,400 remote accommodations rooms. The company operates as Target Logistics in North America, Algeco in Europe, Elliott in the United Kingdom, Ausco in Australia, Portacom in New Zealand, and Algeco Chengdong in China. About Target Logistics Target Logistics, an Algeco Scotsman company, is one of the largest providers of turnkey housing solutions in North America. It operates globally in some of the most remote environments, supporting oil, gas and mining with workforce housing, mobile crew camps and extended-stay hotels; government departments and organizations with temporary lodging and refugee integration; and capital projects. Target Logistics was named by Inc. magazine in 2012 and 2013 as one of "America's Fastest Growing Private Companies." Visit www.TargetLogistics.net or call (800) 832-4242. About Iron Horse Ranch Iron Horse Ranch is an industry leader in workforce housing for the Oil, Gas and Construction industries. Iron Horse Ranch specializes in turn-key remote camp installation, operation, project management and land acquisition. Iron Horse Ranch has one of the highest standards in workforce and temporary housing, winning awards for Service, Quality and Operational Excellence. Iron Horse Ranch operates 6 workforce lodging facilities in North America with over 1000 beds. For more information on Iron Horse Ranch, please visit http://www.ironhorseranch.com. Investor Relations Contact: Scott Shaughnessy Vice President, Finance Algeco Scotsman 410-933-5921 Scott.Shaughnessy@as.willscot.com
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) today announces that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's ordinary shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Trading Venue: London Stock Exchange Date of purchase: 15 December 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 30,886 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 1,048 pence 13.96 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 1,038 pence 13.82 USD Average price paid per Share: 1,047.40 pence 13.95 USD

Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Date of purchase: 15 December 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 61,150 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 14.00 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 13.87 USD Average price paid per Share: 13.93 USD

PSH intends to cancel these Shares. The net asset value per Share related to this Share buyback is USD 17.69 GBP 13.28 which was calculated as of 12 December 2017. After giving effect to the above Share buyback, PSH has outstanding 235,268,717 Shares. The prices per share in USD were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the 1 special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) has not been affected.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005794/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Maitland

James Devas, +44 20 7379 5151

Media-pershingsquareholdings1@maitland.co.uk
ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- (Marketwired) -- 12/15/17 -- Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this press release.

Almas Jiwani addressed the law students at the Human Rights Symposium organized by Istanbul University Faculty of Law and International Law Student Association (ILSA), held today at Istanbul University.

Prominent leaders, the Constitutional Court, the Ministry of Immigration administration, academics from different universities, official institutions such as International Refugee Rights Association and Law students gathered at this symposium held at Istanbul University's prestigious Rectorate Building.

Topics included human rights, the current status of refugees and legal dimensions to the actions of UNHCR broadly. Almas Jiwani delivered a speech on the importance of education for refugees and human rights at the Human Rights Symposium to celebrate International Human Rights Day along with the anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"Ms. Almas Jiwani has always been an invaluable asset for our respective University. She was invited to address at our special project - Crime and Punishment Film Festival in 2012 & 2013 with the motto 'Justice for All.' She is a very well-known figure in the field of gender equality and empowerment of women and we have been privileged to host her again as our guest speaker for the Human Rights Symposium today," said Dr. Adem Sozuer, former Dean of Istanbul University Faculty of Law Professor.

ILSA Istanbul honoured Almas Jiwani with an official certificate of a special tree planted in her name to acknowledge her tireless commitments to equality and human rights. This will be managed by the TEMA Foundation (the Turkish Foundation Combating Soil Emission, for Reforestation and the protection of Natural Habitat) founded by Hayrettin Karaca, recipient of the United Nations Environment Award.

"It is extremely important for people to consistently be reminded that without education, a refugee will not be able to realize other fundamental human rights. We must also continuously strive to break down barriers in the hopes of achieving a society where women will be equals worldwide. Thank you to Professor Sozuer and University of Istanbul faculty of law for holding a symposium where gender inequality and refugees can have a proper voice. We should all remember that there is still much work to do in making equality a reality on an international scale," said Almas Jiwani, CEO & President of the Almas Jiwani Foundation.

History of Istanbul University

Istanbul University was founded as an institution of higher education named the Darulfunun (House of Multiple Sciences) on 23 July 1846, but the Medrese (Islamic theological school) which was founded immediately after Mehmed II conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 is regarded as the precursor to the Darulfunun which evolved into Istanbul University in 1933. Education in a number of sciences and fields (such as medicine, mathematics, astronomy, cartography, geography, history, philosophy, religion, literature, philology, law, etc.) became available, and, until the 19th century, they were instrumental in educating the ruling cadres of the Ottoman society.

International Law Student Association

The International Law Students Association (ILSA), the first ILSA community in Turkey, is a non-profit association of students and lawyers who are dedicated to the promotion of international law. ILSA provides students with opportunities to study, research, and network in the international legal arena. This symposium aims to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

About Almas Jiwani Foundation

The vision of the Almas Jiwani Foundation is to empower women, girls and marginalized communities through focused projects that directly address disparities in equality, education, entrepreneurship and energy rights. The Foundation aims to bridge inequalities through innovative projects designed to incubate and deliver sustainable and gender conscious solutions for communities in need. By leveraging our unparalleled network of partners and stakeholders in global issues, the Almas Jiwani Foundation provides the forum for discourse, engagement and action on the world's most pressing challenges.

To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: www.marketwire.com/library/20171215-almasjiwani1215px800.jpg.

Contacts:

Almas Jiwani Foundation

Jason Dupuis

(519) 890-1328

jason@jasondupuis.ca

info@almasjiwanifoundation.org

www.almasjiwanifoundation.org



Tayfun Yildiz

Istanbul University Faculty of Law

International Law Student Association

+90 531 698 24 91

ilsaistanbuluni@gmail.com

www.ilsaistanbul.com




FollowAnalytics, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of mobile marketing automation solutions, raised $11m in Series B financing.

Backers included Orange Digital Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Zetta Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Cathay Innovation, La Maison and Salesforce Ventures.

The company, which has raised $27m since its creation, intends to launch a new product, slated for end 2017, create twenty new jobs and expand geographically to the East Coast of the US and Europe (UK, Spain, Italy and Belgium) simultaneously.

Created in 2013 by Samir Addamine, Chairman, FollowAnalytics leverages machine learning to provide mobile marketing automation solutions for business customers marketing teams to increase engagement and retention rates for their mobile apps by creating personalized customer journeys.

The companys solutions are used by brands like Michelin, Wells Fargo, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Allianz and BNP Paribas.

and Paris.

FollowAnalytics also has offices in NYC, Montreal and Paris.

FinSMEs

14/12/2017
Ganni, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based contemporary fashion brand, received a strategic investment from L Catterton.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to expand its reach.

Founded in in 2000 and led by husband-and-wife team including creative director Ditte Reffstrup and CEO Nicolaj Reffstrup, and Ganni is an advanced contemporary fashion brand offering differentiated womens ready-to-wear clothing.

Ganni has established an international presence through its owned stores and more than 400 premium retailers in 20 countries including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK, Germany and the US.

FinSMEs

14/12/2017
Nuvve Corporation, a San Diego, CA-based company focused on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) solutions, completed its Series A financing of undisclosed amount.

The round was led by two strategic investors, EDF Renewable Energy (EDF RE) and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), with additional participation from a private equity fund.

The company intends to use the funds to acquire full rights to the V2G intellectual property to accelerate the commercialization of its NUVVEgivesTM solutions.

Led by Gregory Poilasne, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer, Willett Kempton, PhD, Nuvve offers a commercially available V2G solution enabling select electric vehicles to store and resell energy to the electric grid. The NUVVEgives aggregation technology is a cloud connected application that ensures each vehicle has sufficient charge for its next trip before calculating how much remaining capacity is available to sell to the grid.

FinSMEs

15/12/2017
Ahmedabad: The Anil Ambani-led Reliance group has filed a Rs 5,000-crore ($780 million) defamation suit here against Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi, accusing him of making "false, defamatory and libellous statements".

The suit has been filed in the Gujarat High Court.

According to company sources, the Congress leader "made false, defamatory and libellous statements against the group. We have filed a Rs 5,000-crore suit for damages against him for making these false and defamatory statements".

Singhvi had, on November 30, attacked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, contending that he was "fooling" people by saying the government had not waived loans of big defaulters.

Alleging that the government had written off Rs 1.88 lakh crore debt of wilful defaulters, he had said: "We all know that top 50 corporates owe Rs 8.35 lakh crore to banks and out of those, three top Gujarat-based companies -- Reliance (Anil Ambani Group), Adani and Essar -- owe Rs 3 lakh crore."

He had charged that the Finance Minister, instead of declaring these liabilities as NPAs, was "trying to help the defaulter with further defence contracts like the Rafale deal".

A Reliance Defence statement had earlier clarified the joint venture between Reliance Aerostructure Ltd and Dassault Aviation was a bilateral agreement between two private companies -- and had nothing to do with the government.

The statement had added: "Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd will be only one of the key players in the discharge of offset obligations. Over 500 large, medium and small Indian companies will benefit from the offsets which are nothing but an export obligation for goods and services from India. Offsets referred to are spread over a period of nearly 10 years."
Aakash K did the graveyard shift answering queries of US customers for a call centre. The job paid him well enough to be able to pay off his EMIs and live in Mumbai. When the company decided to go in for automation, Aakash found the strength of employees had reduced to a great extent. He was one of those who had lost their jobs.

Though Aakash lost his job to automation that is taking over jobs done by humans, another 'threat' (depending on one's perspective) gathering steam for some time now is that of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A number of surveys and studies by consultancies and firms show that AI will make mundane and repetitive jobs redundant. However, is that a big threat to all? Not really, if one is willing to adapt in this rapidly changing scenario.

Scope of AI

AI is intelligence displayed by a machine versus that by a human being. It is basically a machine mimicking a cognitive function that human beings associate themselves with such as learning and problem solving.

For instance, in 2016, ICICI Bank deployed Software Robotics in over 200 business processes across various functions to perform 10 lakh transactions daily. The bank found that software robots reduced the response time to customers by up to 60 percent and increased accuracy to 100 percent thereby sharply improving the banks productivity and efficiency. It has also enabled the banks employees to focus more on value-added and customer-related functions. Since then, it has been scaled to over 500 software robots undertaking 15 lakh transactions daily.

"Unfortunately, most calamitous warnings of job losses confuse AI with automation that overshadows the greatest AI benefit  AI augmentation  a combination of human and artificial intelligence, where both complement each other, said Svetlana Sicular, research vice president at Gartner.

The scope of AI is immense and it can give people more time to think creatively and to pursue their roles in an organisation in an innovative manner when repetitive jobs are taken over by machines. As AI improve's the productivity of many jobs, eliminating millions of middle and low-level positions, it also create millions of more new positions of highly skilled, management and even entry-level and low-skilled variety.

But is the picture so rosy? A Nasscom report stated that over 260 million are likely to lose jobs to automation by 2020, if they are not skilled in emerging tech skills.

Who is at threat

Anyone who is not willing to adapt or is not skilled to take on the quick-paced technology landscape will have to drop off the race. Kris Lakshmikanth, chairman and managing director, The Head Hunters India, Bengaluru, and visiting faculty, Institute of Management, Ranchi, says the requirements of the IT industry, for instance, have changed over the years. The industry is no longer job-focused as it was earlier but is more tech-oriented.

Earlier, the overseas clients of the tech majors in India would be appraised by the headcount of people working on a project. The payment would be made accordingly, he says. That has since changed with clients only interested in the project and not the number of people working on it. So tech graduates can be easily replaced with MCAs (Masters of Computer Applications), too, an HR policy many tech giants adopt to economise on large payout to tech graduates.

Lakshmikanth says that around 50 percent of current IT workforce who lack new age skills are likely to become irrelevant in the next four years.

Importance of AI

If India has to grow exponentially, job growth is imminent, say experts. At every stage with the introduction of AI, repetitive jobs have been relieved of its workforce but the technology has also led to growth and demand for other jobs such as data scientists, analysts, for instance. The only difference is that speed of revolution is high now unlike the three decades it took to progress from mainframe to client servers, while to progress to Cloud, it took only two decades, said Sanchit Vir Gogia, Chief Analyst and Founder, Greyhound Research. Since the pace of innovation is high, the pace of reskilling has to be at a continuous high, he said.

The number of jobs affected by AI will vary by industry; through 2019, healthcare, the public sector and education will see continuously growing job demand while manufacturing will be hit the hardest, according to a study by Gartner. Starting in 2020, AI-related job creation will cross into positive territory, reaching two million net-new jobs in 2025. In 2021, AI augmentation will generate $2.9 trillion in business value and recover 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity, the study said.

No cause for worry

Though 2020 is the year being mentioned when AI will completely change the job landscape, it will take at least two decades for it to completely change the job scenario, says Dr Sanjeev Kumar, co-founder of Bangalore-based startup Liv.ai. It is not that less people will be engaged in the work force. There will be a need to employ more technology specialists like data scientists, for instance, he said.

Ebrahim Mookhtiar, founder of Skilldom, the company that launched Assisted Learning Intelligence platform (iCOG) said, "the learner today is a social learner and wants information at her finger tips. Companies use artificial intelligence to bring the just-in-time learning for an individual as per their ability to learn. Just like your personalized coach who knows what you need and where you are at that point," he said.

Considering Indias population, to integrate AI fully across job sectors and eliminate routine mundane jobs will not be easy. It is compounded by the fact that internet penetration and connectivity is still an issue in the country.

There are three big components to Artificial Intelligence -- machine learning, data analytics and IoT (Internet of Things) devices. All these functions cannot be done by one single resource, pointed out Pradipto Chakrabarty, Regional Director, CompTIA India. There is a requirement for developers who can make software development programs, data analysts to analyse the data and then IoT  where the software and data integrates to connect to the physical device. This is where the knowledge of networking and devices will be required. The fourth most important aspect is when there is mass percolation of IoT, there will be a requirement of cyber security and cloud computing specialists, Chakrabarty said. In all of these domains, a high level of creativity is required.

Artificial Intelligence can be a boon for women, especially those who have taken a software job instead of hardware as many were restricted by cultural and familial compulsions. Currently, the numbers are skewed against women in the IT sector -- there is one woman engineer for three men engineers, leading to the fact that the Indian technology industry has just 26 percent women in engineering roles. The overall representation of women in the engineering workforce of IT firms is just 34 percent, according to a survey on The Gender Gap in the Tech Industry in India in India by Belong whose findings were released in October 2017. This reinforces the assumption that science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs attract less women on account of the workload, the survey added. But with AI not requiring physical presence of personnel to support devices, perhaps more women will be keen to enter the workforce, Chakraborty hoped.

The fear of AI will be most in those who resist learning anything new either out of fear or arrogance. "Any technology that is new is welcomed by the younger generation. The ones who complain about AI taking away jobs are those who either don't know fully well the technology and its scope and thus fear it will make them jobless. Then are those who do not want to learn out of arrogance - the know-it-alls. These two kinds are bound to fall off the job market," said Gogia of Greyhound Research.
New Delhi: The Government on Friday hiked import duty on smartphones, television sets, microwave, LED lamps and some other electronic items in a bid to protect domestic manufacturers.

Imported smartphones will cost more with customs duty on them being increased to 15 percent from nil now, the Finance Ministry said in a notification.

The move will impact telecom companies that were sourcing cheap smartphones to offer bundled services to customers in a bid to capture market.

Customs duty on television sets has been doubled to 20 percent. LED lamps would now be charged with a 20 percent import duty, the notification issued yesterday night said.

The tax on import of microwave ovens too has been doubled to 20 percent, the notification said. Customs duty on video recording equipment as well as TV cameras has been increased to 15 percent from current 10 percent.

Import duty on set top boxes has been doubled to 20 percent.

Also, customs duty on lamps and lighting fittings including searchlights and chandeliers has been doubled to 20 percent while the same on electricity meters has been increased from 10 percent to 15 percent, the notification said.
The Union Cabinet on Friday decided to waive Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card, BHIM, UPI, AePS transactions. The new no fee structure is for transactions up to and including a value of Rs 2,000 which will be borne by the government for a period of two years with effect from 1 January, 2018. The government will reimburse the waived MDR amount to the banks, Union IT Ministr Ravi Shankar Prasad informed. Prasad was briefing the media about the important decision the Union Cabinet made at its meeting on Friday.

An MDR is a rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services.

"As a result of this approval, for all transactions less than Rs 2,000 in value, the consumer and the merchant will not suffer any additional burden in the form of MDR thereby leading to greater adoption of digital payment modes for such transactions," a government statement said. According to the government release since such transactions account for sizeable percentage of transaction volume, it will help to move towards a less cash economy.

It is estimated that the MDR to be reimbursed to the banks in respect of transactions less than Rs 2,000 in value would be Rs 1,050 crore in FY 2018-19 and Rs 1,462 crore in FY 2019-20, the statement further revealed. At present, majority of digital transaction takes place in the small category which is in the the range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000. In terms of money, these small category transactions amount to 15-20 percent of total transaction in terms of value. "In terms of volume, they constitute 65 percent of total transaction," Prasad explained.

The monetary value of digital transactions during April-September 2017 was worth Rs 2.18 lakh crores, says Prasad while noting how the volume of digital transactions is growing at a fast pace. This amount is estimated to be Rs 4.37 lakh crores for the whole of the current financial year, he added.

So far, there have been Rs 2,18,700 crore worth of transactions done through debit cards in country. For making ease of doing business more attractive for businesses, the government has changed Specific Relief Act, 1953 substantially, Prasad told the mediapersons. "We want to make ease of doing business modern and change them as per the need," Prasad added.

The government had earlier indicated it will hold consultations with the Reserve Bank of India to work out a mechanism to bring down merchant discount rates (MDR) that have gone up to 0.90 percent recently from 0.25 per cent of transaction value, a finance ministry official said.

Cabinet decides that Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card/BHIM UPI/ AePS transactions up to and including a value of Rs. 2000 will be borne by the Government for a period of two years with effect from 1st January, 2018 by reimbursing the same to the banks pic.twitter.com/U7xBiMwNnv  Frank Noronha (@DG_PIB) December 15, 2017

The government while backing its fresh move on MDR charges said when payment is made at a merchant point of sale, MDR is payable by the merchant to the bank. Citing this, many people make cash payments inspite of having debit cards. Similarly, MDR is charged on payments made to merchants through BHIM UPI platform and AePS.

According to a senior finance ministry official, the hike in charges would impact Digital India movement and there is a need to look into the issue. "Most merchants will be discouraged to use POS machines, especially small merchants who do not get input tax credit in GST. This will discourage them from using POS machines," the official had said.

There are nearly 27-28 crore transactions per month on Point of Sale (POS) machines with an average size of Rs 1,500. Last year after demonetisation, the RBI as a special measure had capped the MDR at 0.25 percent of the transaction value for transactions of up to Rs 1,000 and 0.5 percent for those above Rs 1,000 and up to Rs 2,000.

The new norms announced by the central bank a week ago put the MDR charges at 0.40 percent if the transaction involves physical infrastructure such as a swipe machine for small merchants with a turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh during the previous financial year.

(With inputs from PTI)
At a recent event organized by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI), Prime Minister Narendra Modi made nothing less than a political speech targeting the Congress-led UPA regime. The speech appeared more like a continuation of the Gujarat political battle call, rather than a routine address at an industry gathering. Among the major charges Modi raised against the UPA-regime was the build-up of the big NPA mess. Alleging that banks were under pressure to give loans to select industrialists during the UPA-regime, Modi called it a bigger scam than those linked to the Commonwealth Games, 2G telecom spectrum allocation and coal block allocation scams.

Modi is right here. When it comes to the bank NPA mess, the Congress party is indeed on a weak ground. The UPA-regime will have to take much of the blame for the kind of bad loan addition in state-run banks that happened during UPA-I and II when the government banks completely forgot about prudent lending to worthy borrowers and found themselves vulnerable to the infamous corporate-political nexus. One of the two major reasons for the banking sector NPA crisis is the large-scale involvement of corporate-political nexus during the UPA-years (the other, of course, is the economic downturn that caught bankers off-guard after the boom years).

In 2010, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), busted a corporate loan racket (read a Mint report here ). In the Kingfisher-Vijay Mallya case too, where bankers are still waiting for the repayment of Rs 9,000 crore from the grounded airline, there were allegations of political involvement in aiding the private airline stay afloat.

There are countless examples at various levels, where political-corporate nexus worked in full swing during the UPA-years to put pressure on state-run banks to extend loans to unworthy borrowers. In this context, the Congress's attack on the Modi government for favouring few large corporations-this is one of its key points in the Gujarat election as well -- and the current NPA problem lacks credibility given the fact that the mess was created during its term.

The corporate loan book of Indian banks grew to Rs 26.6 lakh crore in 2014 from Rs 4.27 lakh crore in 2004-05. From 2014 to 2017, the portfolio almost remained stagnant at Rs 26.8 lakh crore. This basically means that loan growth to industries was almost nil during Modi-governments years. The NPAs of banks was at Rs 2.61 lakh crore when Modi took over but jumped to Rs 8.4 lakh crore at the end of September 2017. This was after the bad loan clean-up by the RBI began in 2015 and banks were forced to bring out hidden NPAs that caused a sudden spike in the NPA figures.

On the other hand, the Modi government has made notable progress in addressing the bank NPA problem by legislating the insolvency act and giving more tooth to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The government has also worked out a smart recapitalisation plan (Rs 2.11 lakh crore) to fill the huge funding gaps of government banks. Results are beginning to show although it is too early to say that this alone will address the ills of the sector. In the long-term, privatising most of these banks will be the only solution (retaining a few large ones under government control) to avoid a repeat of the current banking sector crisis.

In fact, the Modi government too woke up late to address the banking problem. In the initial years, it didnt pay much attention to the capital needs of the state-run banks or kick off radical reforms to address the systemic problems in the sector. The RBI began action on the NPA problem in 2015 when it spelt out stricter rules to banks on early recognition of assets and punitive provisioning rules for the lenders who do not go for swift resolution of problematic assets.

As mentioned earlier, the Congress party is on a weak ground when it comes to the issue of build-up of bank NPAs. However, the Congress party is no longer in power, but the Modi government is. Sometime back Modi had called Indira Gandhis bank nationalisation a big drama that never benefitted the poor. If that is the case, as this writer argued before, there is no reason why Modi cant undo that drama.

In the case of NPAs also, nothing prevents Modi -- who holds the most powerful constitutional office, from initiating a thorough probe to dig out the dirt from all past suspicious corporate bank loan deals and put the guilty behind bars. Undoubtedly, along with political offices, bankers too were involved in this mess either by accepting bribes from the beneficiaries or out of fear for powerful politicians. Except in a very few cases, no banker has been arrested for flouting norms to give loans and made answerable for past actions. If Modi thinks bank NPA is a bigger scam, here again, this is his big chance to bring the schemers and scamsters behind the bars.
Kolkata: There has been a shortfall of Rs 36,000 crore in projected revenues in the first four months post Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation, West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra said on Friday.

While the projected collection at 14 percent growth was Rs 1,72,000 crore, the actual figure realised had been Rs 1,36,000 crore, resulting in a deficit of Rs 36,000 crore for the first four months till November, Mitra, who is also a GST Council member, told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

GST was rolled out from 1 July, this year.

He said the compensation amount, in case of revenue loss of the states after GST was Rs 55,000 crore. This amount semed inadequate in the collection figures as it did not gain traction.

According to Mitra, the main reason for the deficit was the inability of a vast section of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to register themselves on the GSTN portal.

"Due to this, many of them had gone back to the manual mode", he said.

In this regard, Mitra said he had urged the Centre to raise the compensation amount.

Meanwhile, Mitra informed that Shalimar Works of the state government had formed a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with a Bangladeshi ship building firm to manufacture ships here.

The Centre has accorded all the clearances for the SPV, he said.

Moreover, a city-based agro processing firm -- IFB Agro -- has expressed desire to set up a phyto-sanitary compliance unit at Haldia for a shrimp processing plant, he said.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its interim order for Friday on a batch of pleas seeking a stay on the government's decision of mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various welfare schemes, as the Centre extended the deadline up to 31 March next year.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said the final hearing on the petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself would commence from 17 January next year.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, representing the Centre, said the government was willing to extend the deadline up to 31 March next year for mandatory linking of the national biometric identifier to avail the benefit of various services and welfare measures.

Venugopal, however, told the bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, that the Aadhaar should be allowed to remain mandatory for opening of new bank accounts.

The government had on Wednesday issued a notification to extend till 31 March, the deadline for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) for bank accounts and certain financial transactions. However, there is no word on extending the 6 February, 2018 deadline for linking mobile SIM cards with Aadhaar.

On the issue of linking of Aadhaar card with mobile services, the Attorney General said that the deadline of 6 February next year was fixed in pursuance of an apex court direction and the constitution bench may consider extending this deadline also.

On 27 November, the apex court had said it may consider setting up a constitution bench to hear the pleas challenging the Centre's move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for availing various services and benefits of welfare schemes.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights.

The Centre had on 25 October told the top court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive benefits of government schemes has been extended till 31 March, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enrol for it.

The Attorney General had told the court that no coercive action would be taken against those who do not have the Aadhaar card but are willing to enrol for. He had said such people would not be denied the benefits of social welfare schemes till 31 March.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

They have also objected to the CBSE's alleged move to make Aadhaar card mandatory for students appearing for examinations, a contention denied by the Centre.
So finally, the only gain from the 11th ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was that neither the trade regime nor the Doha Round was formally buried at Buenos Aires. The ministerial ended without a declaration being adopted. This is only the second time this has happened in World Trade Organisation (WTO) history  the last was at the Seattle ministerial in 1999, and that too was because of irreconcilable differences.

The Doha Round is dead in all but name. It went into coma soon after it was born in 2001 and, despite some small bits of progress now and then, it has not moved very much in the past 16 years. As for the WTO itself, notwithstanding all the post-ministerial platitudes about work continuing, its relevance has come into question once again.

If the lack of a declaration at Seattle did not mean the end of the WTO in 1999, why should it raise doubts about its relevance in 2017?

Because, in 1999 and for close to a decade after, the United States was still invested in the WTO. It is not any more. The disinterest that started during the Obama Administration is now, under the Trump Administration, open hostility. Its obdurate stand on the draft ministerial declaration (reaffirming the centrality of the WTO and the continuation of the Doha Round, the aggressive opening remarks of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and his departure from the ministerial a day before it was to end drives this home. And there is no getting away from one fact: It is not possible to negotiate global trading rules without the active involvement of the United States, which still wields enormous clout in the global economy.

That member countries agreed to continue working on a host of issues means little. Director General Roberto Azevedo said in his closing speech: People want to get back to work and make further progress to meet the new deadline. But even here, mindsets will need to change if we are to advance (emphasis added). Moments earlier, he called for the need for some real soul searching and, in terms of progress, he said we have gained a greater understanding of each other's positions and concerns. But thats a bit like running in the same place.

Coming specifically to India, commerce minister Suresh Prabhu returns with little in terms of concrete gains. There has been no permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding and no movement on a special safeguard mechanism in agriculture as well as reduction of agricultural subsidies by developed countries. Work on these will continue. But he will be in a position to say that he did not allow any negative outcome for India. Politically, that is important. Sometimes a no deal is better than a raw deal.

Was Prabhu too strident in demanding a permanent solution to the public stockholding for food security problem? Especially since, before he left, he sounded realistic on the issue, saying the peace clause was, in effect, a permanent one and it suited India just fine. Indeed, the existing peace clause works for India. It, in effect, says that public stockholdings of food up to 10 percent of the value of production of specific items is allowed (the 10 per cent ceiling is for each item, and not overall for all agricultural production). Anything above this can invite challenge by other countries. Indias public stockholdings are way, way below this limit  5 percent in the case of rice and zero per cent in the case of wheat. The only catch is that the peace clause applies only to items that were part of public stockholding at the time of the Bali ministerial.

Now, there is no denying that the way the food security programme is implemented in India does not benefit either the farmer or the below poverty line consumer hugely. There is a compelling case for a complete overhaul, especially through cash transfers, regardless of WTO obligations (cash transfers will, incidentally, be WTO compliant). But, would remaining content with the peace clause in perpetuity and not insisting on a permanent solution that improves on it have got India gains in other areas of interest? Initial reports from Buenos Aires indicate that the developed countries were not willing to make big concessions on issues like a special safeguard mechanism and a substantial reduction in their agricultural subsidies or even on fisheries subsidies.

Could India have used the permanent solution bargaining chip to keep e-commerce and other new, non-trade, issues like investment facilitation out of the negotiating agenda? A gain that is only a stalling operation may not have earned Prabhu or this government any brownie points back home. It would have been seen as frittering away of one of the few bargaining chips India had. And that would have been terrible optics for this government, already facing flak on agricultural distress and food security as well as growing unemployment. Even if these problems had not been there, no commerce minister could have come back with little to show for throwing away a trump card.

For someone following the ministerial from India, it is not clear how effective Team India was. Was it seen as obstructionist, as the negotiating teams under Murasoli Maran, Arun Jaitley and Kamal Nath had? Or did the fact that the ministerial concluded without a declaration mean that the developed countries just gave India and the developing world a big ignore? And did Team India just make the best of a bad situation?

As far as domestic politics goes, it would make sense for Prabhu to play the hero who stood firm to protect the countrys interests and who positioned India as the voice of the developing nations. As Jaitley once told journalists who had covered the Hong Kong ministerial in 2005, returning as a villain from an international stage ensures a heros welcome on the domestic stage.

But after having done all that, he and this government should get realistic and start (a) working on domestic reforms to make Indian exports more competitive and, (b) working on bilateral and regional trade agreements. Forget the WTO; it is not going to yield very much.
Mumbai: The Tata Group and the US corporate giant GE have signed an agreement to manufacture components for CFM International's LEAP engines in the country, which will also serve the American company's global supply chain. The two companies also announced their intention to jointly pursue military engine and aircraft system opportunities in the country. The joint venture will be executed by the Tata Group aerospace arm, Tata Advanced Systems and GE Aviation.

Under the strategic partnership, GE Aviation and Tata Advanced Systems, will join forces to manufacture, assemble, integrate and test aircraft components.

A new centre of excellence will be established to help develop a robust ecosystem for aircraft engine manufacturing and build-related capabilities, the company said.

GE military engines have a strong history in the country and it currently provides the jet engines and marine gas turbines for many military applications including the Air Force's light combat aircraft, Tejas MK1, the Navys P-8i aircraft, and P-17 Shivalik class frigates.

Several military programmes under development that include the Tejas MK2, P-17A & P-71 ships, and the AH-64 attack helicopters will be powered by GE engines.

Tata Advanced Systems provides solutions for aerospace, defence and homeland security. It has also become a significant player in the global aerospace market, becoming the premier manufacturing partner for global original equipment manufacturers like Boeing.

The LEAP engine, a product of CFM International, is a 50:50 joint company of GE and Safran Aircraft Engines. It has over 26 customers who operate more than 140 aircraft. The LEAP engine is the world's leading jet engine known for its technological superiority, efficient fuel consumption, performance for powering single-aisle commercial jets, the Tata Group said in a statement.

The company said the agreement was signed on 29 November in the US. "The Tata group is a leader in the Indian defence and aerospace sector, and we look forward to working together to meet the growing demand for LEAP engines. Our collaboration in building innovative technologies will support the Make in India programme of the Indian government," said John L Flannery, chairman and chief executive of GE.

Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran said the group looks forward to working with GE to build more expertise and strengthen the country's defense manufacturing capabilities.

"Our partnership with GE will help drive synergies in defense manufacturing and focus on innovation to support our armed forces," Chandrasekaran said.
Sometimes a predictable story is just what you need as a cinema geek, because if executed well enough the experience becomes a passably fun stress free time at the movies. The new animated film Ferdinand hits the sweet spot between the comforting and the predictable  its ultimately the film to watch if you dont get tickets to the Star Wars movie which is also out in theaters today.

The film is directed by Carlos Saldanha who has made the Ice Age movies and Rio. The formula of Ferdinand is precisely as found in those films  an outcast non human who is generally likable finds himself in a strange situation where he has to redeem himself and earn the respect of everyone.

Its in fact the standard issue plot strategy for most animated movies nowadays  where the protagonist is born in a world which has certain kind of rules, but he believes in doing just the opposite.

In the film we have Ferdinand (voiced by John Cena) who is a Spanish fighting bull but has no desire to fight in the ring because he prefers chilling on the hill, smelling flowers and cracking jokes with his buddies. You can guess where this is going and how kind of conflict he faces within the film, and how he manages to overcome opposing voices and eventually wins everyones hearts.

If you think about it this is also the story of Ratatouille, where the protagonist doesnt want to be a rat and steal food, but cook food. The message that Ferdinand delivers is also the same as that Pixar film and many other animation movies that are meant for children to be entertained by but also learn a life lesson.

But even in the face of obviousness Ferdinand sort of works mainly because its plain and simple fun. Cenas casting was an inspired choice considering hes very much like the protagonist  a huge dude with a soft heart. It works as a running gag of sorts  something like an extension of his role in the hilarious Trainwreck.

Hes the lovable, kind hearted archetype, but Cenas voice work is so good its fun to watch. The skirmish that Ferdinand is faced with is also rather entertaining  hes pulled away from his green pastures and forced to fight a legendary matador to the death in a bull ring. The supporting characters, who try to help Ferdinand escape are hysterical  particularly Lupe (voice by Kate McKinnon) who is a calming goat.

The film moves very fast, zipping from one set piece to another, making sure no kid watching loses interest. But that sometimes works against the film because we dont learn about the characters well enough to care about them. That is of course a problem that adults would have and the target audience of the film - children would simply sit back and giggle over the string of goofy things that occur in the film.

Keep your expectations low and youll find yourselves enjoying this one.
Hollywood actor George Clooney certainly knows how to make someone feel like a million bucks, quite literally.

Clooney's good friend and business partner Rande Gerber made a stunning revelation recently on MSNBCs Headliners show. He claimed the actor once gave 14 of his closest friends a $1 million as a gift in 2013.

Theres a group of guys we call The Boys, Gerber revealed. George had called me and The Boys and said, Hey, mark September 27 2013, on your calendar. Everyones going to come to my house for dinner.

Once everyone reached Clooneys house, he presented each of The Boys a black bag. It almost seemed like a scene from Oceans Eleven.

When the group opened their suitcases they were stunned. All of them received $1 million broken down into $20 bills. Clooney also assured that hed paid taxes on all the gifts, and Gerber admitted his friends were simply in shock.

One [friend] was working at a bar in Texas at the airport, trying just to support his family, Gerber said, adding, Rides a bicycle to work every day. I mean, these are guys that took care of George and now hes giving it all back.

Gerber says later he tried all his best to return the money to Clooney, but the actor refused to take it.

Gerber revealed he finally gave his gift to charity. And the universe found a perfect way to give something back to Clooney a year later. Exactly one year later on September 27, 2014 Clooney married Amal Alamuddin. Gerber says, Thats good karma right there.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui has so far, essayed an array of roles in his acting career, mostly acing all of them. The actor is now reportedly going to take up another challenging role. A DNA reports states that Siddiqui has been roped in to play Bal Thackeray in a biopic about the Shiv Sena founder.

Siddiqui, who was last seen in Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, has already started working on his character. The report suggests that the first look of the film will be revealed on 21 December at a high-profile event in Mumbai. Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan will reportedly be present at the do too. How convincing Siddiqui will be as the controversial politician remains a matter of speculation for now.

There is no official confirmation about the project but the story has been written by Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut, who refused to divulge any details about the film to the press. He has been working on the project for over four years now and was inspired by films such as Gandhi and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. He wants the film to be a mainstream but relevant outing as there "is so much in his (Thackeray's) life that lends itself to the big screen".
When George Lucas created the original Star Wars trilogy in 1977, the world was a very different place.

It had just witnessed the massive cinematic universe which Lucas had created, full of Jedi, Sith, lightsabers, space cowboys, elaborate spaceship battles, and one of the most iconic and complex antagonists cinema has ever seen: Darth Vader.

Science fiction would never be the same again.

It is perhaps because of this rich legacy of the original Star Wars trilogy that we often tend to ignore the highly simplistic characters and overall plot of Star Wars movies behind all the sexy and exciting special effects and action.

This is especially true of the movies which followed the original trilogy. In fact, many die-hard Star Wars fans also like to pretend that the prequel trilogy of the 90s and early 2000s never existed. Even The Force Awakens could not escape this bad habit.

The biggest problem with the Star Wars franchise had been that it refused to evolve, being stuck with the same character archetypes and childish central themes which were popular in the pop culture of the 70s and 80s.

In fact, even Lucas has admitted that Star Wars has always been for children and was intended to be enjoyed by 12-year-olds.

What makes Rian Johnsons Star Wars: The Last Jedi truly remarkable is that the film took the brave risk of breaking away from the stale tradition of sticking to the same old formula of making a Star Wars movie, and finally offered us something more mature.

Despite the fact that not all issues were addressed and Star Wars still has a lot of growing up to do, The Last Jedi has finally given us a film also meant for people older than 12.

Depiction of alien races

The biggest flaw in Star Wars movies, which even The Last Jedi did not address, has been the clownish depiction of alien races in the films.

In its brilliant analysis of Rick and Morty, Wisecrack explains that most science fiction is convinced that humanity, is, metaphorically, the centre of the universe. Whether were battling the empire, or trying to get all the aliens to just be friends, humanity  or, things that look like humanity  take centre stage.

And the Star Wars franchise, despite being set in the vast cosmos which is supposed to be full of complex alien life form, is obsessed with human beings.

With the prominent exception of Master Yoda, almost all the other major characters in the franchise are human beings. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Sidious, Padme Amidala, Qui-Gon Jinn, Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron, Lando Calrissian, Boba Fett, Mace Windu, Rose Tico, Count Dooku, and General Hux are all human characters. Even characters like Darth Maul and Emperor Snoke have human-like features.

Chewbacca, one of the prominent alien characters in the franchise, is nearly always reduced to Han Solos sidekick.

And Star Wars ideas of something as advanced as artificial intelligence are either droids like R2-D2, BB-8, and C-3PO, who are nothing but pets or servants to their human masters, or stereotypical evil villains like General Grievous (could the name get any more gimmicky?).

The other aliens like the buffoon Jar Jar Binks, Jabba the Hutt, or porgs (seen in The Last Jedi) are meant to do nothing apart from either providing silly comic relief or showcasing grand special effects.

Star Wars has always treated alien characters like some animals in zoo cages which the viewers are supposed to marvel at and be amazed at their quirky physical appearance or funny way of talking.

This issue, apart from having undertones of racial discrimination, also makes the alien characters appear more like lifeless objects. Even video games like Mass Effect 2  which dont have the kind of time and resources available to cinema  have created alien characters who are more complex and interesting.

Predictable plot and characters

Journalist Bill Borrows, in a 2015 article in The Telegraph, described this problem perfectly when he wrote: Heres the pitch for Star Wars, the original film, on one side of a stamp: Good vs Bad. In space. And [spoiler alert!] good winsbut does it? No wonder two studios turned it down.

Take away all the grand stunts and visual effects and thats exactly what most Star Wars films boil down to. After all, the franchise was created in an era when portraying grey characters in mainstream pop culture was not as common as it is now. The Jedi are good. The Sith are bad. Period.

Such clear black-and-white distinction of characters is the reason why the good guys like Luke Skywalker (in the first three films), Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rey, etc are such boring boy scouts and obsessed with doing the right thing. And the bad guys like Darth Sidious, Emperor Snoke, and Count Dooku are mindlessly evil villains with the same old boring desire for domination.

The exception here, of course, is the main reason why the original trilogy has such a special place in cinema: Darth Vader. There is a reason why Darth Vader is often considered to be more popular than Luke Skywalker among Star Wars fans. Vader was the only character in the original trilogy who saved it from becoming it a completely predictable story with the I am your father plot twist.

But perhaps the biggest evidence that Star Wars has been living in the 70s and 80s for a long time now is that it has not only been unable to create a villain as good as Vader but is still unsuccessfully trying to milk the characters legacy as much as possible. After all, the entire prequel trilogy revolved around how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader.

Star Wars is still pining for Darth Vader. And Kylo Ren is the rebound.

If the black mask and attire were not enough to convince you that Ren was Star Wars attempt at creating Darth Vader II, you should consider the fact that Ren wears his Vader-like mask without any specific reason.

Darth Vader in the original trilogy wore his mask and armour because he needed the mobile life support system built in them after his near-fatal duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ren, on the other hand, has no such reason. It, thus, makes him look like some Vader fanboy.

And as if the similarity was not obvious enough, the father-son plot twist is also applied to Ren in The Force Awakens. When a movie starts using a plot twist with a new character who is clearly copied from an older character who had gone through a similar plot twist, any viewer will see it coming.

The Force Awakens suffers from other such obvious parallels. Rey is the new poor protagonist trying to survive on a desert planet, like Luke. Poe is the new charming and street-smart space cowboy with an attitude and a penchant for witty comebacks, like Han Solo. The First Order is the new Galactic Empire. We are not even told how the First Order attained power after the Skywalkers so convincingly defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi.

Speaking of lazy storytelling (which, sadly, is becoming increasingly common in mainstream cinema these days), when Rey and Finn are trying to escape the First Order on Jakku, Rey tells Finn that the Millenium Falcon is garbage which hasnt flown in years.

And then suddenly, Rey is not only able to fly the spaceship but also fly it with such exceptional skill that they are able to escape two modern TIE fighters of the First Order.

How does Rey  a poor scavenger struggling to survive  suddenly develop skills to manoeuvre a garbage ship which hasnt flown in years with such finesse that shes able to outsmart two experienced First Order pilots in modern TIE fighters? Who cares, right? Look! Bright lightsabers, funny aliens! Yippee!

The significance of The Last Jedi

The good news, though, is that The Last Jedi adds much-needed depth to the characters and plot.

The main reason why The Last Jedi is a delightful deviation from the past is undoubtedly Mark Hamills portrayal of Luke Skywalker, which is his best performance as Skywalker ever.

Director Rian Johnson has depicted Luke in such a mature way that the character not only changes the way the viewers will look at Jedi and Sith but also adds rich backstory and context to Kylo Ren. All the best scenes in The Last Jedi have Luke Skywalker in them.

The Last Jedi also treats its villain Ren with a pleasantly surprising amount of sensitivity. Even though his motivations are still not entirely convincing, Ren appears as a more refined and relatable character now.

The protagonist Rey also has to make some tough choices, which put her boy scout image to test. Daisy Ridley, thus, uses these opportunities to show us how talented an actor she is.

It is both exciting and a bit sad to see the late Carrie Fisher deliver a powerful performance as Leia, whose character returns to the qualities which had initially shown her to be a fierce, determined leader. One of the most intriguing performances also comes from Laura Dern, who plays Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo. The decisions taken by her in the movie shed new and unexpected light on Poe Dameron.

Even the lightsaber fight scenes are much more elaborate and better choreographed than the other Star Wars movies.

The best part about The Last Jedi is just when you start thinking that it is yet another typical Star Wars film with the same predictable content, it will surprise you.

It offers genuinely creative twists with a climax and ending so moving that it will remind you of an iconic scene from A New Hope.

Star Wars still has a long way to go. But with The Last Jedi, the franchise has shown that it is willing to grow into something more and thus, regaining its greatness.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BERNARD DAVID DIXON, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-12036 Decided: December 13, 2017

Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, WILSON, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges.

After Bernard Dixon pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank robbery and one count of bank robbery he was convicted and sentenced to 146 months imprisonment. He now challenges that sentence as substantively unreasonable.

In September 2016 Dixon and Joy Braxton robbed a bank together. The pair fled and were captured by police a few blocks away from the bank. They were arrested and indicted for conspiring to commit bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  371, and for the substantive charge of bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  2113(a). They both pleaded guilty.

Based on earlier convictions of assault with a deadly weapon and possession with intent to sell cocaine, Dixon qualified as a career offender, and his offense level was increased to 32. U.S.S.G.  4B1.1(a), (b)(3). Braxton also qualified as a career offender based on past convictions for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and felony battery, so her offense level was also increased to 32. Id. Both defendants received a 3 level reduction for their acceptance of responsibility and cooperation with authorities, U.S.S.G.  3E1.1, giving each a total offense level of 29. As career offenders, Dixon and Braxton's criminal history category was increased from III to VI, giving them an identical guidelines range of 151 to 188 months imprisonment.

The district court held separate sentencing hearings for Dixon and Braxton. At both hearings, the district court stated that it considered the suggested guidelines range, filings by counsel, and all of the  3553 factors before imposing Dixon and Braxton's sentences. And for both of them the court explained that it would vary from the guidelines because their classification as career offenders under U.S.S.G.  4B1.1 overrepresented their criminal histories.

For Dixon, the district court determined that his advisory guideline range slightly over-represents his criminal culpability, although not by much. For that reason, the court granted him a variance of five months from the low end of his advisory guidelines range and sentenced him to 146 months imprisonment.

For Braxton, the district court explained that her serious history of mental illness has driven most of her contacts with the criminal justice system. So much so that her designation as a career offender did not realistically reflect her criminal history (which largely consisted of prostitution, drug possession, shoplifting, and disorderly conduct charges). Braxton's Presentence Investigation Report also showed a long and well-documented history of hospitalizations and medications beginning in childhood to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. As a result, the district court disregarded Braxton's classification as a career offender and varied downward to sentence her to 45 months imprisonment.

Dixon contends that his sentence is substantively unreasonable because he was not sentenced similarly to Braxton, his codefendant. He argues that the district court was required by 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(6) to avoid an unwarranted disparity between his and Braxton's sentence, and he claims that the district court should have given him a greater variance to bring his sentence more in line with hers.

We review the reasonableness of a sentence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1237 (11th Cir. 2009). And we will vacate a sentence only if we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the  3553(a) factors by imposing a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case. United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1190 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). The fact that we might have imposed a different sentence doesn't warrant reversal. Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1238. The burden falls on the party challenging the sentence to prove it was unreasonable. United States v. Cavallo, 790 F.3d 1202, 1236 (11th Cir. 2015). Here, that's Dixon.

When imposing a sentence, a district court must weigh the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(6). But that's not all it considers. It must also weigh, among other factors, the nature and circumstances of the offense and the defendant's history and characteristics. Id.  3553(a)(1). Although the sentencing court must consider all of the  3553(a) factors in imposing a sentence, it may attach greater weight to one or more of them over the others. Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1237.

Dixon has not shown that he and Braxton were similarly situated at sentencing. A well-founded claim of disparity  assumes that apples are being compared to apples. United States v. Docampo, 573 F.3d 1091, 1101 (11th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). But a disparity in sentences between codefendants in a single case is generally not an appropriate basis for relief on appeal. Cavallo, 790 F.3d at 1237. It isn't here. According to their PSRs, Dixon and Braxton both had prior convictions of battery and assault with a deadly weapon. But Dixon also had prior convictions for burglary, robbery by force, and robbery with a firearm or deadly weapon. Dixon's longer and more violent criminal history, coupled with Braxton's documented struggle with mental illness, distinguishes the two for sentencing purposes. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(6) (stating the district court must consider avoiding disparities among defendants with similar records ) (emphasis added). No unwarranted disparity can exist when defendants are not similarly situated. See Docampo, 573 F.3d at 1102.

The district court acted within its discretion to grant both Dixon and Braxton a variance from their guidelines range and to tailor it to reflect their individual history and characteristics under  3553(a)(1). See Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1238 (noting district courts are given considerable discretion in deciding whether the  3553(a) factors justify a variance and the extent that one is appropriate) (citation and quotation marks omitted). The record shows that the district court considered Dixon's role in the crime and his individual criminal history and characteristics  along with the other  3553(a) factors  in deciding how much to vary from the applicable guidelines range. By correctly calculating and considering the appropriate guidelines range, the district court necessarily gave significant weight and consideration to the need to avoid unwarranted disparities. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 54, 128 S. Ct. 586, 599 (2007).

We are not persuaded that Dixon's sentence, which is below his guidelines range, is unreasonable simply because the district court determined that a lower sentence was appropriate for Braxton. Braxton's sentence was based on her less severe criminal record and her personal characteristics, including her documented struggle with mental illness. Those are factors that the district court is entitled to consider under  3553(a). See United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312, 1324 (11th Cir. 2008) (holding that, a defendant's criminal history fits squarely into the history and characteristics factor of  3553(a)(1) and could properly be considered by the court); see also United States v. McBride, 511 F.3d 1293, 1298 (11th Cir. 2007) (affirming a downward variance from the guidelines range of 151 to 188 months in prison to 84 months in prison based on district court's finding that defendant's personal history of abuse and abandonment warranted consideration under  3553(a)).

[E]very case is a unique study in the human failings that sometimes mitigate, [and] sometimes magnify, the crime and the punishment to ensue. Shaw, 560 F.3d at 123738 (alterations and quotation marks omitted). Here, the district court simply determined that Braxton's individual circumstances and history mitigated her crime more than Dixon's did his. See United States v. Croteau, 819 F.3d 1293, 1309 (11th Cir. 2016) (noting the district court's considerable discretion in deciding the extent of a  variance). Whatever sentence we might have imposed, we are not left with a definite and firm conviction that Dixon's 146 month sentence is outside the range of reasonable sentences as dictated by the facts of this case. See Irey, 612 F.3d at 1190.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. Braxton's conspiracy to commit bank robbery charge was dismissed in exchange for her guilty plea.

. Although the transcript of Braxton's hearing was not made part of the record on appeal, we may take judicial notice of the records of the district court. United States v. Rey, 811 F.2d 1453, 1457 n.5 (11th Cir. 1987).

. Although the district court used the term depart to justify Braxton's sentence, it is properly considered a variance. United States v. Irizarry, 458 F.3d 1208, 1211 (11th Cir. 2006) (holding that a district court which utilizes a properly calculated guidelines range and then considers the adequacy of that range in light of the  3553(a) factors constitutes a variance and not a departure, despite the specific terminology employed), aff'd, 553 U.S. 708, 128 S. Ct. 2198 (2008).

PER CURIAM:
New Delhi: Two of the four death row convicts in the 16 December, 2012 gangrape and murder case on Friday moved the Supreme Court for review of its verdict upholding the capital punishment awarded to them.

The review petition by convicts Vinay Sharma and Pawan Kumar Gupta came after the apex court on 12 December completed the hearing on the review plea filed by another death row convict Mukesh.

A 23-year-old paramedic student was gang-raped on the intervening night of 16 December, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out naked. She succumbed to her injuries on 29 December, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The review plea, filed through advocate AP Singh for two of the convicts, claimed that death penalty was a premeditated and "cold-blooded killing" of a human being by the state in the name of justice.

It said the investigation into the matter was not only flawed but also unreliable as many facts of the investigation pertaining to recording of the dying declaration of the victim.

The apex court had on 12 December allowed the counsel to file review petition for another convict Akshay Singh and listed the matter for hearing on 22 January.

The apex court had on 5 May upheld the death penalty to the four convicts - Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31), saying the "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of the crime could create a "tsunami of shock" to destroy a civilised society.

Another accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, while a convicted juvenile has come out of the reformation home after serving a three-year term.
Months after Allahabad High Court acquitted Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, giving them benefit of doubt, in the murder of their daughter Aarushi and servant Hemraj, the latter's wife has moved Supreme Court against the acquittal.

Khumkala Banjade, the widow of Hemraj told Firstpost that she was not surprised but rather saddened that the court let the Talwars walk free and cancelled their life sentence for lack of material evidence. While she believes Rajesh to be guilty of the double murder, she is unsure whether or not Nupur also had a role to play.

Hemraj's family has been planning to move the apex court for quite some time now. They were waiting for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to file an appeal. They said they will approach the Supreme Court, if the CBI failed to file an appeal against the acquittal.

"We will first wait for CBI to file the appeal before Supreme Court against Allahabad High Court order, if they fail to do so, then we have the right to challenge this. It's also about the image of India's most prestigious investigative agency," Naresh Kumar Yadav, lawyer of Hemraj's family, had told India Today.

"It is a fight for poor people. Hemraj's family never wanted the Talwars to go scot-free. We will continue the fight," he told Deccan Chronicle.

Samir Singh, the employer of Hemraj's son-in-law, has been helping the family with the legal battle. He said they want to "put things behind them". While talking to The Quint, he said "Hemrajs son Pranjal was about the same age as Aarushi when the incident happened. The family never got to see Hemraj's body; the Ekta Samaj conducted the cremation. Hemrajs family did not get the closure they need."

While talking to NDTV, Singh said that since the family cannot afford legal charges, he has talked to some people to representing the case in the apex court pro-bono.

A bench of Justice BK Narayana and Justice AK Mishra overruled the trial court judgment in the twin murder case of Aarushi and Hemraj and acquitted the Talwar couple, saying no conviction can stand on the basis of mere suspicion. The judges said that the CBI failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Talwars are guilty. "The chain of evidence they have showcased is inconclusive," the court said.

Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found dead at the Talwars' Noida residence in May 2008. The needle of suspicion had initially pointed at 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing, but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said that claims of those citizens, whose names do not figure in the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam to be published by 31 December, would be scrutinised and included in the subsequent list if found genuine.

The top court made it clear that publication of draft NRC was not the "end of the process" and claims and objections of aggrieved parties could be filed and would be verified in accordance with law.

"We reiterate the aforesaid observation meaning thereby that the claims/cases of the left out applicants whose names are not included in the draft NRC to be published on or before 31 December, 2017 will be scrutinised and thereafter, if found eligible, would be included in the subsequent draft NRC," a bench comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and RF Nariman said.

The bench gave the liberty to Assam to give wide publicity or coverage to its direction so as to ally all fears and apprehensions that may exist.

The apex court had on 30 November said that on the expiry of midnight of 31 December, the draft NRC pertaining to 2.38 crore claims, would be published. The NRC is being prepared to identify illegal migrants in Assam.

The court had observed this while rejecting the Centre's plea seeking an extension of time for publication of the draft NRC.

The NRC of 1951 is being updated for Assam in accordance with the tripartite agreement between the state and central governments and the All Assam Students Union (AASU), which was arrived at in 2005 to implement the 1985 Assam Accord.
Kolkata: Bangladesh wants Myanmar to take back the Rohingya refugees and it expects India to move a resolution in the United Nations for the same, Bangladesh minister Mosharraf Hossain said on Friday.

It is not sustainable for a poor country like Bangladesh to carry on feeding the huge number of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar for a very long time, he said.

"We would like India to move a resolution in the United Nations to call on Myanmar to take back the Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh as we cannot keep them lifelong with our limited resources," the Bangladesh minister for Housing and Public Works said.

Hossain said it was due to humanitarian reasons that Bangladesh decided to give shelter to the Rohingya refugees.

"Had we pushed them back, they would have been killed," he said.

An estimated 6,20,000 Rohingya have entered Bangladesh following an army crackdown on rebels in Myanmar.

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the first month of a crackdown that started in August in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, according to an estimate released by Doctors Without Borders.

An international humanitarian NGO, Doctors Without Borders is best known for its work in war-torn regions and developing countries affected by endemic diseases.

Asked about terrorist outfits using Bangladesh soil for nefarious activities, the minister said, "We have a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism."

Bangladesh acts very strongly against any terrorist act on its soil, he said.

The minister is leading a 72-member delegation from his country to celebrate India's victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war and the subsequent liberation of Bangladesh on 16 December.

A Mukti Joddha (freedom fighter), Hossain actively participated in the Liberation War for his country and had blown up a crucial bridge during the 1971 conflict, affecting supplies to the Pakistan Army in the eastern theatre, a defence official said.
Greater Noida: The inspector general of police (IGP), Meerut Division, has announced a reward of Rs

50,000 each for information on those involved in the killing of a BJP functionary and two others.

Former village head and local BJP leader Shiv Kumar Yadav, his body guard and his driver were shot dead in the Bisrakh area on 16 November.

Three people Arun Yadav, shooter Naresh and Dharamdutt Sharma have already been arrested in the case. The reward has been announced for information on Sunder Bhati's brother Sahdev and his nephew Anil Bhati, and shooters Amar, Pradeep and Sheru, who are at large, the police said.

Sundar Bhati's gang operates in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

The police and Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF) have launched a manhunt to arrest them.

Investigations have revealed Anil Bhati had provided the shooters and planned the attack on the BJP leader, the police said.
The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, to make the practice of 'instant' triple talaq a criminal offence. The bill follows the recent Supreme Court verdict banning the practice of instant divorce.

Speaking to the press after the first day of the Winter Session concluded, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that draft bill seeks to make the practice of talaaq-e-bidat (or triple talaq) a cognisable and non-bailable offence that would attract a jail term of up to three years

The Centre had in November said that it would be ready with a new bill to ban triple talaq when they meet for the next session of Parliament, which started on Friday. The government had earlier argued that triple talaq 'violates the fundamental rights of Muslim women'.

The government is expecting that the approved bill will be passed during the ongoing winter session of the Parliament.

According to a report in The Times of India, the draft bill, was earlier sent out to states for deliberation.

Assam, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand have written back to say that they support the draft legislation, according to the report.

According to News18, the bill not only criminalises instant triple talaq but also talks about compensation for the women and their children.

The apex court by a majority verdict in August had ruled that triple talaq is "void", "illegal" and "unconstitutional". The 3:2 verdict had held that the triple talaq is against the basic tenets of Quran.
Thiruvananthapuram: The Latin Church diocese in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday expressed dissatisfaction over the Kerala government's handling of Cyclone Ockhi and its aftermath and said it will move the High Court over 350 missing fishermen.

"There seems to be callousness on the Kerala government's part. It's government responsibility to find out the missing men, but it has been more than two weeks now. We have no option but to seek legal recourse," diocese Vicar General Eugene Pereira told the media in Thiruvananthapuram.

He said the church leaders will file a habeas corpus petition in the High Court regarding the missing fishermen.

On the other hand, Public Works Department Minister G Sudhakaran on Friday said there was no point in blaming the state government for not acting on the weather warnings and sought to put the blame on the Centre.

"The central government is the culprit in this calamity since it failed to intimate the Kerala government properly about the impending disaster. The Centre and weather agencies should have directly called up the chief minister to inform him of the cyclone," Sudhakaran said.

After cyclone Ockhi struck the southern districts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu on 30 November, the diocese said, 70 bodies were recovered from the sea. It also said that 242 fishermen from Thiruvananthapuram and 119 from Kochi area remain untraced.

The diocese said there was no proper follow-up action after the weather warnings of 28 November.

The diocese led by Archbishop M Susaipakiam has held two meetings with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and has been demanding quick relief and rehabilitation of the affected villagers and to trace the missing fisherfolk.

Authorities are continuing with searches. State Revenue Department officials said 51 bodies were recovered in a week from the sea. In the past two days, 16 bodies were recovered off the Kozhikode coast.

As many as 18 bodies in Kozhikode, nine in Thiruvananthapuram, eight in Ernakulam, three each at Kollam and Malapurram, and one in Thrissur are yet to be identified.

So far, nine bodies have been handed over to relatives after DNA testing.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the AAP government to consider providing minimum wages to poor persons suffering from AIDS.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said that people afflicted with the disease need to take care of their families.

It also asked the Delhi government to consider enhancing the financial assistance being provided to them.

The court was hearing a PIL initiated by it after receiving a letter from a person, suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), seeking enhancement of the Rs 1,000 pension he received to Rs 3,000.

It issued a notice to the Delhi government, the National Aids Control Organization (NACO) and the Delhi State Aids Control Society (DSACS) and sought their response on the issue.

The court later listed the matter for further hearing on 9 January, 2018. It also appointed advocate Ajay Verma as amicus curiae to assist the bench as well as the person who sent the letter.
New Delhi: India expects Sri Lanka to be mindful of its "security concerns and sensitivities", the external affairs ministry said on Thursday while reacting to the Sri Lankan government handing over the Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease last week.

Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also made it clear that India's relation with Sri Lanka "stand on its own and is not dependent on our relations with any third country."

He said India was confident of the strength of enduring ties with Sri Lanka which were deep-rooted and multidimensional.

"We continue to take up with Sri Lanka issues related to the security concerns in the region and expect that our Sri Lankan friends will keep in mind our security concerns and sensitivities," he said.

Two Chinese firms  Hambantota International Port Group (HIPG) and Hambantota International Port Services (HIPS) managed by the China Merchants Port Holdings Company (CMPort)  and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority will own the port and the investment zone around it.

The port, overlooking the Indian Ocean, is expected to play a key role in China's Belt and Road initiative, which will link ports and roads between China and Europe.

In order to allay India's security concerns over the Chinese Navy's presence in Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe had earlier ruled out the possibility of the strategic port being used as a "military base" by any foreign country.

Answering another query regarding reports of Maldives signing a free trade agreement with China, he said India expects that as a close and friendly neighbour, Maldives will be sensitive to its concerns in keeping with its 'India First' policy.

Kumar also said that India attaches the highest importance to its relations with Maldives.

Noting that India has seen reports about the Maldives-China agreement and the reports have also alluded to the manner in which the FTA was passed by the Majlis, he said it will not be appropriate for him to comment on the contents.

He also said India was committed to supporting democracy, development and stability in Maldives.

On the visit of Maldives' president to China, he said, "We feel that as long as the development of bilateral relations between the two countries contribute to the peace and stability in the region, I think we should welcome that."
Neil Terrance Haslam, a self-proclaimed whistle-blower and black-money informer, is seen as a BJP stooge by many within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). But whoever he is perceived to be, the recent notice issued by the Income Tax Department to AAP for allegedly accepting donations through the hawala route has brought him back into the limelight. For he has been the one harping about the AAP-shell company nexus for the last three years in the media.

In February 2015, Haslam alleged that AAP had accepted money through questionable means. Last year, he claimed that more than Rs 16 crore received by the party as donations had not been declared.

When Kapil Mishra, a former minister in the AAP-led Delhi government, alleged that AAP had links with hawala operators in May this year, Haslam was seen standing beside him. In fact, it was Haslam who had claimed earlier that AAP had received four cheques amounting Rs 50 lakhs each from four shell companies.

Haslam also alleged that four AAP MLAs were directly connected with these hawala companies. He spoke to Firstpost after the I-T notice was served to AAP for the alleged tax evasion, amounting to Rs 30 crore. Edited excerpts follow:

You claimed that AAP received donations from shell companies. But the party deflected the allegation, stating that more than 80 percent of donations received by BJP and more than 70 percent by Congress were from unknown sources. In such a situation, how do you justify going after a single party when it is seen as a relatively small fish?

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in one of its reports had mentioned that BJP and Congress had 'unknown sources' of income. The ADR defines such unknown sources as those that contribute money through cash donations received through 'sale of coupons', 'relief fund', 'miscellaneous income', 'voluntary contributions', 'contribution from meetings/morchas' etc.

The details of donors of such voluntary contributions are not available in the public domain as each of these payments is below Rs 20,000 and hence political parties are not required to declare the names of donors of these sums as per the rules and regulation of the Election Commission. There is no denying the fact these 'unknown sources' are seen as a hole in the process of electoral reforms. But AAP was formed to clean up the system. Why is it now finding role models in parties which it had been slamming?

As a whistleblower, even I would like to inquire into the donation sources of other parties. If AAP has information about other parties receiving funds from dubious sources then it should put it up in the public domain to enable an investigation. Instead of doing that, the AAP conjures a conspiracy theory whenever the integrity of its own leaders is in question. The party should know that it cannot get away with its conspiracy theories every time. The I-T department has a strong case against it this time around.

Mayank Gandhi, who parted ways with AAP, said that he observed financial mismanagement during the heydays of the party. Did you observe any such anomaly during the early days of AAP?

I wouldn't like to comment on what Mayank had observed, however, he is not the only one to observe such acts of financial mismanagement in AAP. But I think he should have brought this up at that point in time.

From the very initial days of AAP, we observed anomalies such as different donations against the same receipt number. The party also did not mention a number of donations in its report to the Election Commission in 2012-13. It soon corrected the report. At that time, we took them to be clerical mistakes as the amounts of the donations were also very small.

Were these anomalies due to carelessness or accommodating corruption? Manish Sisodiya in a press conference had claimed that the discrepancies were just mistakes made while putting the data on the website.

Arvind Kejriwal was warned by his own folk not to take the four cheques of 50 lakhs each since they were issued by dubious companies. But he said that he didnt care. He declared the donations on AAP's website just to test the waters. He waited for four months to see whether anyone raised an issue.

Since no one pointed the issue at that point in time, he got the cheques cleared. The website showed 5 April, 2014, around 12:00 AM as the clearing date, but actually, the cheques were cleared in June or July. Was it not a well thought out move to accept donations from shell companies? How can they now claim that it was only a clerical mistake? Who will believe them?

It is a common reaction on the part of the AAP to play innocent when exposed. When Kejriwal was asked about these payments he, at first, said that he had no information as to where the money came from. He also said that he will conduct an investigation.

I brought forth evidence that four AAP MLAs were involved with these companies. What action has he taken against these MLAs? Rather the party now has removed the donation list from the website. Kejriwal is now claiming that the I-T department is harassing his donors. He should know that the I-T department does not follow AAP's website but bank accounts. His actions prove that he is accommodative of corruption.

How does dubious funding affect governance?

Anything dubious is unhealthy not just for the government but for the free functioning of the democratic system. When you compromise with black money, the corrupt elements tend to dictate your terms. This has a direct and adverse impact on governance. I have shown that a number of AAP MLAs are linked to the dubious companies which donated money to AAP. There is every possibility that these MLAs got party nominations on the condition of these donations. How can one trust that such representatives will deliver good governance?

You are often called a BJP stooge by many in the AAP

Being called a BJP stooge is nothing new to me. Meeting government officials, the finance minister, the Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman or even the prime minister doesn't make anyone a stooge. Moreover, levelling allegation against me does not change the fact that AAP stands nowhere near what it was created for.

You claim to be a whistle-blower. But why are your enquires only limited to AAP?

My vote, my voice, my love, my money, my time went in support of the Aam Aadmi Party. I left my job as an IT professional to work as a volunteer for AAP after Kejriwal resigned from the post of chief minister after remaining in power for 49 days. My family and I toiled by the day and through the night to campaign for the party. Though I am no longer with AAP, I take it as my duty to clean its backyard before pointing fingers at others. I am also enquiring about the dubious transactions of other parties. I hope to come up with the data on corruption related to other parties as well.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. YOBANI LOPEZ-GUZMAN, AKA Yobani Guzman, AKA Yobani Lopez, Petitioner, v. JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS III, Attorney General, Respondent. No. 15-73864 Decided: December 14, 2017

Before: RAWLINSON and BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and MENDOZA,** District Judge.

MEMORANDUM*

Yobani Lopez-Guzman, a Honduran citizen, petitions for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) denial of withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C.  1252. We review questions of law de novo, Retuta v. Holder, 591 F.3d 1181, 1184 (9th Cir. 2010), and denial of withholding of removal and CAT relief for substantial evidence, Shrestha v. Holder, 590 F.3d 1034, 1039 (9th Cir. 2010). We deny the petition.

1. Lopez-Guzman is not entitled to withholding of removal. While he contends that he will be persecuted because of his tattoos depicting Catholic imagery, there is no evidence that his faith would be a reason any group in Honduras would potentially harm him. See Barajas-Romero v. Lynch, 846 F.3d 351, 358 (9th Cir. 2017). Rather, it is evident from Lopez-Guzman's arguments and testimony before the Immigration Judge that he believes he will face persecution in Honduras because the gangs, the police, and potential employers will perceive his tattoos as gang tattoos. He also fears reprisal for refusing to join one of these gangs. However, we have previously rejected identical arguments. E.g., Barrios v. Holder, 581 F.3d 849, 854 (9th Cir. 2009) (We recently have held  that resistance to gang membership is not a protected ground.); Arteaga v. Mukasey, 511 F.3d 940, 945 (9th Cir. 2007) (Boiled down, [petitioner's] argument rests ultimately on his claim that his tattoos mark him for potential persecution in El Salvador, but  [t]attooed gang member falls outside the Ninth Circuit's definition of social group.).

Moreover, Lopez-Guzman did not experience past persecution during the more than three years he lived in Honduras after his prior removals from this country. According to his own testimony, the Honduran police detained him only a handful of times for short durations in order to investigate whether he was a gang member and never harmed or threatened him. See Arteaga, 511 F.3d at 945 (concluding that being detained by the Salvadorian police for up to 72 hours on suspicion of being a gang member alone does not amount to persecution). Additionally, a single instance of not being hired for a job because he was perceived as a gang member due to his tattoos does not amount to economic persecution. See, e.g., Nagoulko v. I.N.S., 333 F.3d 1012, 1016 (9th Cir. 2003) (holding that the petitioner being fired from her job as a kindergarten teacher because of her religious beliefs, while discriminatory, is not the type of economic deprivation that rises to the level of persecution). Finally, the incidents involving Lopez-Guzman's uncles and cousin do not demonstrate past persecution because he acknowledges that these family members were targeted for failing to pay the gangs extortion money. Zetino v. Holder, 622 F.3d 1007, 1016 (9th Cir. 2010) (An alien's desire to be free from harassment by criminals motivated by theft or random violence by gang members bears no nexus to a protected ground.).

Lopez-Guzman has also failed to demonstrate a likelihood of future persecution. Rather, he testified that his hometown in Honduras is relatively devoid of gang violence. 8 C.F.R.  208.16(b)(2) (An applicant who has not suffered past persecution  cannot demonstrate that his or her life or freedom would be threatened if  the applicant could avoid a future threat to his or her life or freedom by relocating to another part of the proposed country of removal ). Accordingly, substantial evidence supports denial of Lopez-Guzman's claim for withholding of removal.

2. Lopez-Guzman has similarly failed to establish that it is more likely than not that he  would be tortured if removed to Honduras. 8 C.F.R.  208.16(c)(2). He has provided no evidence that the police or any other government agent would torture him. See 8 C.F.R.  208.18(a)(1). And even if we were to assume that Lopez-Guzman would be tortured by Honduran gangs, he has provided no evidence that the government would acquiesce to this harm. See Villegas v. Mukasey, 523 F.3d 984, 989 (9th Cir. 2008).

The petition for review is DENIED.

FOOTNOTES

. The Immigration Judge and BIA applied the one central reason standard applicable to asylum claims. After these decisions were issued, however, we held in Barajas-Romero that the a reason standard applied in withholding-of-removal claims is a less demanding standard than one central reason.  846 F.3d at 360. But because the BIA found that Lopez-Guzman failed to establish the requisite nexus between any harm he could potentially encounter and his faith or membership in a particular social group, there is no reason to remand this case.
The Maldives government, in a move that may irk India, suspended three members of a local body for meeting Indian Ambassador Akhilesh Mishra. This comes soon after Male signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China and Beijing's maritime trade plan.

While New Delhi has not issued a formal statement, sources told The Indian Express that the Indian diplomats in Male have reached out to the authorities there to understand the rationale behind the decision. "We are in touch with the government authorities on this issue," a source told the newspaper.

The Indian Express further reported that the Local Government Authority (LGA) issued a circular on 11 December stating that since all foreign policy powers are vested in the presidency, any meetings between councillors and foreign diplomats could only take place after the home ministry's clearance.

Maldives' move triggered criticism from a number of foreign ambassadors to the country. British High Commissioner to Maldives James Dauris called it an "unfortunate step".

Since I met elected island representatives on Thinadhoo earlier today, all local councillors have been instructed that they may only meet diplomats and NGOs with prior permission. The latest unfortunate step in #Maldives, Im sorry to say. pic.twitter.com/McW5sQQAJR  James Dauris (@JamesDauris) December 11, 2017

Retweeting Dauris' tweet, US ambassador to Maldives Atul Keshap called it a "further restriction on democracy and transparency" in the country.

A further restriction on democracy and transparency in #Maldives: it appears that local elected officials can no longer meet diplomats and civil society NGOs without central government permission. Why? https://t.co/OwktUf4nPj  Atul Keshap (@USAmbKeshap) December 12, 2017

Meanwhile, Maldives' growing closeness to China has rung alarm bells in India, prompting it to ask Male to be sensitive to New Delhi's concerns.

Growing China-Maldives bonhomie

The Maldives has signed 12 agreements with China, including a pact to jointly promote the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, The Times of India reported. The agreements with the Maldives is part of Beijing's continuing efforts to persuade South Asian countries to adopt the OBOR programme, and hand over infrastructure construction projects to Chinese companies, the report added.

The Maldives has also reportedly allowed three Chinese warships to dock in Male.

Breaking its silence on the issue, India on Thursday said it expected the Indian Ocean archipelago nation to be sensitive to New Delhi's concerns, according to IANS.

Stating that India attached the highest importance to its relations with the Maldives, external affairs ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that the two countries "have strong historical and civilisational linkages and also at the people-to-people level".

"We are also committed to supporting democracy, development and stability in the Maldives," Kumar said in his weekly media briefing.

"It is our expectation that as a close and friendly neighbour, Maldives will be sensitive to our concerns in keeping with its India-first policy," he added.

India has also been apprehensive about reports that Beijing could establish a military base in the Maldives. However, both China and Male have refuted these reports and said New Delhi's fears were groundless, The Hindu reported.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has avoided visiting the Maldives until now. PTI reported that the Maldives voiced its "hurt" at Modi not visiting it during his trip to the region.

"We had extensive discussions with Indian side for a possible visit by Modi but we were told that the environment was not conducive for his visit," said Fathimath Inaya, deputy minister in Maldivian foreign ministry. "We are hurt that the prime minister could not visit this time."

India, as The Times of India points out, has been concerned about the developments in the Maldives since the ouster of former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed in 2012, as the islands have been roiled by internal power plays and the growing shadow of China's presence in the Indian Ocean Region.

Since Nasheed's ouster, India's influence has waned in Male because as Nasheed told The Times of India, "Aside from China, President Abdulla Yameen doesn't have a friend left in the world."

With inputs from agencies
Agartala: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, who arrived in Agartala on Friday, will hold meetings with Sangh members and activists from across the seven northeastern states to strengthen the party in the region with an eye on the upcoming assembly elections, party sources said.

Political circles termed the RSS chief's five-day visit to Left-ruled Tripura as "significant", coming ahead of the polls scheduled early next year.

RSS spokesperson Manoranjan Pradhan said that Bhagwat, during his stay in Tripura, would meet Sangh functionaries, members and activists from the seven northeastern states and address a public rally here on Sunday.

"He would review the organisational programmes and works of the Sangh and give advice to further strengthen it in the northeastern region", Pradhan said.

He said that RSS organisers in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura would be present at the 'Barshik Samiksha Baithak' (annual review meeting) and discuss how the organisation can be further strengthened.

The ruling CPM criticised the visit, saying the RSS and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) always played a divisive role.

"In view of the Assembly elections, with the visit of Mohan Bhagwat, the RSS would intensify its divisive activities in Tripura," CPM Tripura state secretary Bijan Dhar told the media.

The RSS leaders here have denied the CPM charges.

The BJP and RSS have been working intensely in Left ruled Tripura to make a determined effort to form government in the state by voting out the Left Front.

Assembly elections to the three northeastern states  Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura  with 60 seats each  are expected to be held simultaneously in February.
Shillong: Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday accused the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of creating confusion over the implementation of Aadhaar not only in Meghalaya but across the country.

"In one letter the Centre says that Aadhaar is not compulsory, but in correspondence from different central ministries they insist on Aadhaar number of the beneficiaries for centrally-sponsored schemes," he told the assembly during the question hour.

"Conflicting directives are coming. Therefore, all are confused. I am equally confused," Sangma said reiterating that he would not enrol for Aadhaar.

Stating in the assembly that enrolment for the bio-metric scheme was not compulsory in the state, the chief minister, however, said the state government could not completely stop Aadhaar enrolment since students pursuing their career outside Meghalaya and those availing scholarships needed it.

"If Aadhaar is not issued to such students, they will not be eligible for various entrance examinations," he said.

Sangma said that the central government should consider not making Aadhaar mandatory in the northeastern region, which was peculiar with its issues of illegal immigrants and porous border, and the National Population Register (NPR) had also not been updated yet.

"Without it (NPR), how will we know that Aadhaar exercise does not go beyond Indian citizens? Therefore, Aadhaar should not be made mandatory in Meghalaya, otherwise it would lead to complication for a state that is dealing with the issue of illegal immigration," he said.

Sangma said he had also spoken with his Assam counterpart on Aadhaar.

The chief minister said he would ask chief secretary Y Tshering to convene a meeting with the banking officials to seek clarity on the banks circulars "forcing" people to link their bank accounts with Aadhaar number.

He said 4,63,058 people had been assigned Aadhaar numbers in Meghalaya.
Protests in University of Kerala against Vice-Chancellor PK Radhakrishnan took a violent turn on Friday when members of Students Federation of India (SFI) clashed with the police, said a media report.

#BREAKING -- SFI students took out a protest march towards the Kerala university seeking removal of University Vice-Chancellor. But the march turned violent and there were clashes between SFI workers and police. pic.twitter.com/9aHvGRnYYd  News18 (@CNNnews18) December 15, 2017

According to News18, SFI students took out a protest march towards the Kerala university seeking removal of the vice-chancellor. The report added that when the protesters tried to break down barricades set up by police at university entrance, police had to resort to lathi charge and water cannons.

The situation was later brought under control by the police.

On 7 December, during the meeting of the Kerala University Syndicate, SFI activists had barged into the university headquarters and staged protests alleging irregularities in the recruitment to faculty positions at the university, The New Indian Express had reported.

According to a section of the Syndicate members, certain discrepancies in the appointment for the post of assistant professor in February, the report added.

According to The Hindu, the vice-chancellor was gheraoed inside the Syndicate room during the meeting by members demanding an inquiry into allegations of nepotism in the appointment of a faculty member in the Department of Education.

The report added that the vice-chancellor had conceded to set up a four-member Syndicate subcommittee to probe the allegations of nepotism.

The vice-chancellor, according to Deccan Chronicle, on 2 December had intervened to rectify the ''anomalies'' in the appointment of teaching staff in the university departments when complaints that reservation was being sabotaged were raised.
The Supreme Court in an interim order on Friday extended the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various services from 31 December to 31 March, 2018. These services include various government schemes, as well as mobile phones and bank accounts.

A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, in an interim order, also modified its earlier order with regard to linking of Aadhaar with mobile services and said the deadline of 6 February, 2018 for this purpose also stood extended till 31 March.

The interim order would be subject to the final outcome of the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act on the grounds of it violating the fundamental right to privacy.

The bench, which also comprised Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, said that for opening new bank accounts, an applicant will not be required to provide Aadhaar number to the bank. However, the applicant will have to show the proof to the bank that they have applied for the Aadhaar number, Justice Chandrachud, who wrote the unanimous interim order, said.

The apex court said the Constitution Bench would commence final hearing from 17 January on the petition challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself.

On Thursday, Attorney-General KK Venugopal had submitted before the top court that the deadline of mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various services and welfare schemes can also be extended upto 31 March. 2018. For the petitioners a battery of Senior Advocates, including Gopal Subramanium, Meenakshi Arora, KV Viswanathan, Arvind Datar, KTS Tulsi, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya as well as Advocate Prashant Bhushan had argued against Aadhaar, according to Bar & Bench.

Soon after news broke of the deadline extension, lawyer Prasanna S pointed out that the order failed to look at the inherent lawlessness by the state which had mandated Aadhaar for bank accounts despite the court's own earlier orders disallowing Aadhaar's use for anything other than voluntary use for six schemes.

...the union govt never having applied to the Court to modify its earlier orders. An interim order without good reasons for condoning such apparent lawlessness of the state is to say the least, disappointing.  Prasanna S (@prasanna_s) December 15, 2017

LiveLaw reported that the judgment in Binoy Viswam versus Union of India will continue to prevail as far as the requirement of Aadhaar for PAN under the Income Tax Act is concerned.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights. Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

Hindustan Times had earlier reported that critics and activists have said that Aadhaar is an infringement of privacy as it links enough data to create a full profile of a persons spending habits, their friends, property they own and a trove of other information. There have also been concerns over data breaches.

With inputs from agencies
The Supreme Court on Thursday gave the go ahead to constitute twelve fast track special courts to try offences against MPs and MLAs. These courts will be set up and are to be made functional by March 2018.

The idea behind these courts is to ensure the speedy disposal of approximately around 1571 cases that are presently pending against sitting members of Parliament/Legislative Assemblies in India. Once a member is convicted of an offence, they are automatically disqualified under the Representation of the People Act, 1950.

While fast track courts are a welcome step to solve the problem of having legislators with pending criminal cases against them, they may not be an adequate long-term solution. The primary problem being that the cases that the legislators are charged with are offences that range from rioting to rape. Criminal trials in India happen across a variety of courts. Some trials are conducted before a magistrate and some are conducted before a Sessions Court. In some cases, the prosecution is done by the State and in some cases, the case is moved by a private complainant.

A criminal trial is complex. It involves local investigation and examining witnesses. Which is why the general principle is that trials are conducted at the place where the offence is said to have occurred. The idea of special courts, twelve for cases that have happened all over India, while it may sound good on paper, may just cause further delays than there are already.

First off, there will have to be a large-scale collection of data from courts all across the country to identify which are these cases against the legislators. Then, these cases have to be sorted according to the offences that the legislators have been charged with. Each of these trials will currently be at different stages. One legislator may have more than one case and each of those cases may be at different stages. One could be at pre-trial and one could be in the middle of evidence. Some of them may have concluded arguments and could be pending judgment.

Now that the special courts have come in, most of the arguments will have to be reheard before a new judge. Evidence may have to be recorded again in some cases. Records will have to be moved and witnesses will have to be brought from various parts of the country to come and give testimony before these special courts. This is not to mention the fact that local police officials in the areas in question will now have to take time off work to travel frequently to these special courts and assist with prosecution there.

If cases had to be disposed off in a speedy manner, a better method may have been a direction to have the trials conducted in a day-to-day manner and a direction against the transfer of judges in these cases till trials are concluded. The high courts could also have been directed to ensure adequate case management so that trials may be conducted in succession in case one legislator has more than one case against them.

But let's not jump the gun here. Even the Supreme Court has observed the government's scheme is something that is a tentative measure. Let us wait and watch how it develops as more information is collected by March 2018. Ideally, the government should connect the special courts to the National Judicial Data Grid, so the public may watch the rates of disposal and observe the effectiveness of the scheme.
Reuters

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Britains Vodafone to initiate a second arbitration process under an India-UK investment pact over a long-running $2 billion-plus tax dispute with New Delhi.

A two-judge panel of the top court said a second arbitration tribunal may be set up and its proceedings can begin after a regional court formally lifts a stay order on the move. The Delhi High Court is expected to rule on the case in January.

Vodafone has already initiated an arbitration process over the matter under Indias investment pact with the Netherlands. Vodafone, the worlds second-largest mobile operator, entered India in 2007 by acquiring Hutchison Whampoas wireless assets. It is contesting a tax bill of more than $2 billion relating to that acquisition.

Indias Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that Vodafone was not liable to pay any tax over the transaction. But the federal government changed laws, allowing it to make retroactive tax claims on completed deals, a move that drew criticism from business groups.

Vodafone, whose local unit is Indias second-largest mobile carrier, has repeatedly said it was not liable to pay any tax over the Hutchison acquisition. Vodafone India is in the process of merging its operations with smaller rival Idea Cellular to potentially create the biggest Indian telecom carrier.

Earlier this year, Indian tax authorities issued a penalty order to a unit of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd for not paying taxes on the 2007 transaction.
There seems to be a contradiction in Aadhaar-social welfare schemes linkage with respect to the Supreme Courts orders. In March this year, the Supreme Court had said (read a report here) that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for availing social welfare schemes. The apex court then said "obtaining the 12-digit Unique Identification Number, which requires the holder to part with his personal bio-metric data, and using it to avail himself of government subsidy was a voluntary exercise", The Hindu reported.

But on Friday, while issuing an interim order on Aadhaar linking with various schemes, the apex court said it is extending the deadline for linking Aadhaar with all schemes, including welfare schemes run by the Centre and states. It is not clear whether the SC now wants to add welfare schemes to the Aadhaar-mandatory list. This only adds to the confusion on the status of social welfare schemes. According to this Hindu report, the order extended the deadline for Aadhaar linking to avail 139 services and subsidies under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act to 31 March 2018.

#Aadhaar Case: SC clarifies deadline for social welfare schemes extended not only for Central Government but also for scheme run by State Governments  News18 (@CNNnews18) December 15, 2017

But Anshul Prakash, partner at the law firm, Khaitan & Co, said this is a wait and watch situation.

"SC has not given any specific finding on the linkage of the Union and state government welfare schemes with Aadhaar. One cannot take it as an indication that is compulsory to have Aadhaar linked to all such welfare schemes for now. The contention of Attorney General was that such linkage is facilitated by legislative support and any ministry issuing such order for linkage needs to provide reasons for such requirement," Prakash said.

"Considering the fact that the SC will be giving this matter a final hearing on 17 January 2018, the interim order has extended the deadline for all linkage requirements to 31 March 2018 without getting into the merits of the question of welfare schemes linkage. It is a wait and watch situation - one has to see how the SC would weigh the welfare perspective against the government argument of legislative backing for such linkage requirement," he said.

To be sure, this is only an interim order. But, the fact that the SC, after specifically iterating about the voluntary status of Aadhaar on social welfare schemes earlier, has now clubbed all welfare schemes with the 31 March deadline, is puzzling. It is okay to insist for linking of Aadhaar number with non-welfare schemes such as linking of bank accounts and PAN but if welfare schemes are brought into the Aadhaar ambit, the government will have to make sure no one is declined his rightful benefit for want of Aadhaar.

Already, the SC has acknowledged the right to privacy as a fundamental right, which assures the citizens thay have a right to seek protection of their personal data. As this writer pointed out in an earlier column, Aadhaar had raised privacy concerns even during the UPA days. In fact, going by the Aadhaar Act, even the Unique Identification Authority of India cannot share the personal information available under Aadhaar records with any agency unless there is an order from a district judge. On issues of national security, only a joint secretary level officer can authorise access of personal data, that too after getting an order from the central government. But, that's in theory. There have been reports of Aadhaar data leakage. This is what raised widespread concerns.

If the final hearing goes against the Aadhaar scheme on account of privacy concerns, the government will have to likely rework the laws accordingly. There is no second thought on the fact that is a revolutionary tool India has devised and is fundamental to the Director Benefit Transfer (DBT) programme conceptualised and executed by two successive governments. Certainly, it has helped to plug subsidy leakages to a great extent.

But, the moot point here is that while Aadhaar is an enabler to identify the rightful beneficiaries, not having it cannot be the reason for someone in a village for not getting access to what is guaranteed to him or her by the state. Thats why the lack of clarity in the Supreme Courts interim order is puzzling.
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday announced granting visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

"There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India," Swaraj tweeted.

She also announced accepting request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

"Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too," Swaraj tweeted.

"I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery," she added.

Swaraj has adopted a sympathetic stand on granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals notwithstanding the strained ties between the two countries.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Friday took cognisance of a news report about a teacher couple's sacking by a private school on their wedding day and asked the principal to appear before it on Monday.

Justice Bilal Nazki, chairperson of the commission took serious note of a news item and directed the director, school education of the state and principal of the Muslim Educational Institute, Pampore, to file a report on Monday, a SHRC spokesperson said.

"Besides, principal of the institute is directed to be present in person on the said date (Monday)," he added. Tariq Bhat and Sumaya Bashir, residents of Tral town in Pulwama, were employed at Pampore Muslim Educational Institute for the past several years.

They alleged their services were abruptly terminated by the school management on 30 November, the day they got married.

While the principal did not respond to calls for a comment on the sacking, chairman of the school Bashir Masoodi said the duo were relieved from their services as they were in a "romantic relationship" before getting married. "They were having a romance and it is not good for the 2,000 students of the school and 200 staff members working there. This can adversely affect the students," Masoodi said.

The couple, however, claimed that they had an arranged marriage.

"Ours was an arranged marriage. We got engaged a few months ago and the entire school management knew about it as Sumaya hosted a party for the staff members soon after the engagement ceremony," Bhat said.
This Blog is a digital journal for two cute pooches, Casey (A White Color Shih Tzu Dog Mix) & Peanut (A Brown Dachshund Dog Mix) who are both two complete opposites who have nothing in common except this blog and same owners.
IANS

Telangana is keen to have a partnership with Israel in cybersecurity and emulate its world-class robust architecture, a senior official said on Thursday. The state government also sought Israel's help to do an audit of its cybersecurity policy, its approach, the capabilities of the private sector and start-ups.

Addressing a cybersecurity conference here, Telangana's Principal Secretary, Information Technology Jayesh Ranjan said a quick diagnosis would help to know if Telangana has reached anywhere close to Israel and also what needs to be done to attain global standards.

He said he was impressed with Israeli National Information Security Agency's success in creating a formidable cybersecurity framework. Mentioning that Telangana has signed an MoU with The Hague Security Delta and they identified opportunities of collaboration, Ranjan said the state would like to have similar partnership with Israel.

He said Telangana was the first state to come out with a dedicated policy for cybersecurity and was putting in place the cybersecurity architecture. The first piece of the architecture will be launched this month or next month with the setting up Security Operation Centre (SOC), which will be housed at the State Data Centre and will focus on protecting critical infrastructure of the government.

Shai Moses, Consul for Trade and Economic Affairs at Israeli Consulate General in Bengaluru, said India, like Israel, can create abundant talent pool required to achieve global standards in cybersecurity.

"Israel sees great potential for business partnerships with Indian companies and we welcome the IT players to explore collaboration opportunities with Israel companies," he said.

Konfidas CEO Ram Levi made a presentation on Israel's journey to emerge a global leader in cybersecurity systems. Top experts in information security, data security and IT infrastructure are taking part the two-day conference, being organised by Kenes Exhibitions.
The Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Board (UPBEB) has released the results for UP Teachers' Eligibility Test (UPTET) on Friday. Students can check their results on the official website of the board at upbasiceduboard.gov.in. The official page of the board is running slow and students are advised to refresh the page if it fails to load.

Steps to check the result:

Visit the official website of the board at upbasiceduboard.gov.in. Click on UPTET 2017 results link displayed on the home page. Enter your registration number and other details as prompted

Students are advised to save the result document as PDF or take a printout for further reference.

As per media reports, UPTET is now mandatory for candidates seeking teaching jobs at primary and upper primary level government schools, according to The Indian Express. The contractual teachers employed in the state were eligible to appear for the UPTET to claim eligibility for the permanent post of teachers in primary schools. Nearly 68,000 candidates are expected to get recruitment after the exams, the report added.

According to CNN-News 18, approximately 9.76 lakh candidates had appeared for UPTET 2017. The exam was conducted across the state on 15 October. The Uttar Pradesh Exam Regulatory Authority had released the final answer keys in the first week of November.

TET is an entrance examination for teachers and is mandatory for getting teaching jobs in government schools from classes 1 to 8, reported India Today. Paper 1 is for teachers who opt for classes 1 to 5 while Paper 2 is for those who opt for classes 6 to 8, the report added.
Nagpur: Opposition Congress and NCP on Thursday targeted the BJP-led Maharashtra government for giving 230 acres of land to Patanjali Ayurved Limited for a food park in the non-SEZ area of MIHAN at a `throw away price', alleging a loss of Rs 209 crore to the exchequer.

Sanjay Dutt of Congress, through a calling-attention motion in the state Legislative Council, asked how could the government give 230 acres of land at a concessional rate to yoga guru Ramdev, founder of Patanjali group. Concessions are given for social causes, small scale industry and schemes for backward classes, however CEO of Patanjali is the "eighth richest businessman" in the country, Dutt alleged.

It shows that this government is for rich people, the Congress MLC said, alleging that the grant of land to Patanjali caused a loss of Rs 209 crore to the government. The land which was worth Rs 268 crore was given for around Rs 58 crore, Dutt alleged, seeking to know the rationale for this concession.

Parliamentary affairs minister Girish Bapat objected to Dutt calling Ramdev as only "baba". General administration department minister Madan Yerawar, in reply to Dutt, said this piece of land at the multi-modal international hub airport (MIHAN) project was reserved for a food park, and a global tender had been issued for it.

"Tenders were issued three times as there were only two bidders in the first two rounds," the minister said, adding that in the third round, Patanjali was the only bidder.

The whole procedure was transparent, Yerawar claimed. Congress and NCP members also sought to know how much money the government spent on construction of an approach road for the land.

Following a ruckus over the issue, the House was adjourned for 30 minutes.
Hours after the Supreme Court dismissed the Congress party's request to direct the Election Commission to tally at least 25 percent of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT) with the EVM votes, senior party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi slammed the election body and said that the party will file another more detailed petition in the top court.

He said that the Election Commission had itself pointed out the need to verify the results of EVMs with VVPAT. By rejecting the need now, the Election Commission has rendered the entire process "illusory", "useless" and "non-effective," he added.

He further said that Congress' petition has been withdrawn after the Supreme Court's direction but they have the freedom to file another detailed petition which will include other issues also. In its order, the apex court had allowed a fresh petition related to EVMs and VVPATs, he added.

Singhvi reminded the reporters that there are only two countries in the world, including India, who use EVMs. He said that the Congress party will continue to fight for free and fair elections, which form the foundation of a free and democratic country.

He also reiterated the Congress' demand that at least 25 percent of VVPATs votes should be cross-verified with EVM votes on Monday, the day votes for Gujarat Assembly will be counted.

The apex court on Friday refused to intervene in counting of votes for Gujarat Assembly election and told Congress that it can file a "proper plea" seeking reforms in the polling process.

The Gujarat Congress plea had come after it raised concerns over allegations of EVM tampering but the Election Commission had rejected the charges. According to several reports, there were complaints of Bluetooth devices being connected to EVMs. Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had complained that three EVMs were seen connected to Bluetooth devices and he sent the complaint to the ECI along with screenshots backing his complaint.

The Election Commission, however, had termed such apprehensions baseless.

The device which the complainant's mobile phone detected after putting on Bluetooth was not an EVM but a mobile phone, carried by a polling agent, the commission said.

The BJP also maintained that the allegations by Congress showed they were in "search for an excuse" as it knew that it would bite dust in the election.

Click here for detailed coverage of Gujarat Assembly Election 2017
The first day of the Winter Session of Parliament was marred by protests by Opposition demanding an explanation and apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his "conspiracy with Pakistan" remark involving his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The protests and the uproar that followed led to quick adjournments of the Rajya Sabha. While it saw an adjournment for 20 minutes till noon in the beginning after Opposition uproar over disqualification of rebel JD(U) leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari, the second one was over the prime minister's remarks.

After a third adjournment amid the chaos by Opposition, Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien adjourned the Upper House till 18 December.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha was adjourned on Friday after tributes were paid to late Trinamool Congress MP Sultan Ahmed, BJP MP Chand Nath and RJD MP Mohammed Taslimuddin. The Lower House will reconvene at 11 am on 18 December.

Before the adjournment, newly-elected Congress member from Gurdaspur Sunil Kumar Jakhar was administered the oath and Modi greeted him with folded hands. The prime minister also introduced new ministers to the House, including Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman.

Before the proceedings began, Modi said he hoped the Winter Session of Parliament will be a productive one with constructive debates and innovative suggestions that will help resolve the country's problems.

Opposition creates ruckus in Rajya Sabha

Opposition leaders on Friday protested the rejection of their notice in the Rajya Sabha demanding an explanation and apology from Modi over his "conspiracy with Pakistan" remark involving his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The leaders termed the comment "unfortunate" and told reporters outside the House that it was "disappointing" that Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu did not allow a discussion on the notice.

They also objected to the "illegal disqualification" of rebel Janata Dal (United) leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari.

In place of Yadav and Ansari, Bihar chief minister and JD(U) president Nitish Kumar should be disqualified for breaking away from the grand alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress, they said.

"We gave a notice, but the chairman adjourned the House and did not let us raise the issue. We are disappointed. The chairman should have given us permission. This is a national... international issue," Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters.

Gave notice that today's business be suspended & a big issue that is not just national but international, be discussed. Issue is the allegations made by PM against former PM, former VP, Former Army Chief & others of conspiring with Pak for #GujaratElection: GN Azad #RajyaSabha pic.twitter.com/GEqdsn7mJx  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

At an election rally in Gujarat on Sunday, Modi had suggested that Pakistan was trying to influence the state Assembly polls.

He had claimed that some Pakistani officials and Manmohan Singh met at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's house over dinner on 6 December.

Azad said the prime minister should come to the Rajya Sabha and explain his remarks to its members.

His party colleague Anand Sharma, Naresh Agarwal of the Samajwadi Party and D Raja of the CPI said the people concerned should be punished if the allegations levelled by Modi were true. "But if it is false, if he levelled such a big allegation to polarise the people in view of the Gujarat polls, then he should apologise not only to the House but also to the people of the country," Azad said.

Raja said it was "not correct" on Modi's part to cast aspersions on Singh.

The CPI national secretary said Modi should have called up his predecessor if he had any information on the "conspiracy" issue.

"He should have done it, but the way he raised the issue in an election campaign... It is highly objectionable. It is not good for democracy," Raja said, asking the government to respect the Opposition.

Sharma said it was "undemocratic" that the Opposition's voice was being "muzzled".

He said the prime minister was "aware" of the notice and could have "used the opportunity to clarify his remarks, express regret and apologise".

"But the prime minister and the dispensation are arrogant and confrontational. And this is most unfortunate. This attitude does not augur well for democracy. It is an ominous development on the first day itself," Sharma said.

Amit Shah makes Rajya Sabha debut

BJP president Amit Shah made his Parliamentary debut, occupying a front row seat in the Rajya Sabha on the opening day of the winter session. Shah, who was elected to the Upper House of Parliament in August, walked in just minutes before the proceedings began.

Members of the treasury benches, including several ministers, stood up to welcome him. Some thumped desks and others clapped as a smiling Shah greeted them with folded hands.

He then went straight to his assigned seat in the front row.

Shah has been allocated the aisle seat right next to the two-seat block were Leader of the House and finance minister Arun Jaitley and Modi sit.

When Shah walked in, ministers including telecom minister Manoj Sinha, human resource and development minister Prakash Javedekar and information and broadcasting minister Smriti Irani thumped and clapped to welcome him.

After he was seated, some members walked up to him to greet him.

The seat allotted to Shah was previously occupied by M Venkaiah Naidu, who after being elected vice-president in August is now the Chairman of Rajya Sabha.

'We are a free nation': Venkaiah Naidu to ministers

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu brought minor changes in the conduct of the Rajya Sabha on the first day after taking over as its Chairman, asking ministers and members not to use colonial terms while laying papers on the table.

Presiding over the Upper House proceedings on the opening day of the winter session of Parliament, Naidu said no one should use the word "I beg to" while laying papers on the table.

"Just say I raise to lay on the table" the listed papers, he said. "No need to beg... this is independent India." He made the observation after the ministers called to lay the listed papers on the table, began their sentences by saying "I beg to lay on the table the papers listed against my name in today's revised list of business."

Naidu was however quick to clarify that this was only a suggestion and not an order.

Crucial Winter Session

According to PRS Legislative, a New Delhi-based think tank, on agenda are some 40 bills focussing on areas such as overseas citizenship, consumer protection, rights of compensation for Mulsim divorced women, education, surrogacy, bankruptcy, corruption, and labour and transgender rights among others.

Of these, 25 bills are for consideration and passing, 14 Bills are listed for introduction, consideration, and passing, while one bill is listed for withdrawal, according to PRS.

The Winter Session will see some 19 amendment bills as part of the agenda. Some of these amendment bills such as the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013  makes prior sanction necessary to in order to investigate officials  and the Whistle Blowers Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2015  specifies grounds under which disclosures related to corruption may not be made  may attract a lot of flak from the anti-corruption brigade. Both the bills, have also been criticised for their half-hearted attempts to curb corruption.

With inputs from agencies
As the dust settles and pundits come out with their poll predictions, a strong sense of deja vu pervades discussions on the latest installment of India's perennial election season. There's always a danger in theorising on exit poll results but until Monday we must work with the broad trends that seven surveys with separate sets of data have provided us.

Applying appropriate disclaimers, it seems as if BJP will return to power for the sixth consecutive time in Gujarat. The party is also slated to wrest power from Congress in Himachal Pradesh in a landslide victory.

However, it is in Gujarat that we must concentrate. Unlike Himachal, the party was battling several factors at once. An anti-incumbency impulse generated over two decades, lack of employment, an agrarian crisis over MSP, a fracturing of social coalition, pushback against major economic reforms and a resurgent Congress under the leadership of its new boss.

The caste cleavages formed around Patidar anger and Dalit resentment made it difficult for the BJP to consolidate Hindu votes around a majoritarian cause and with Rahul Gandhi abjuring faux-secularism in favour of a temple-hopping, janeu-dhaari hard Hindutva stance, the factor of polarisation was taken out of the equation.

Under the circumstances, if the exit polls are proved correct, BJP's results would be no less than a stunning achievement. The surveys suggest that the ruling party won't be able to attain Amit Shah's ambitious target of 150 seats  and some pollsters even detect a slight dip compared to 115 in 2012  but the larger message that goes across must be in equal parts morale boosting for the BJP and demoralising for the Opposition.

A quick glance at exit poll figures also show that Rahul's energetic campaign and rainbow coalition of subalterns and upper-caste have failed to catapult Congress to power, though its seat tally may witness a marginal upward revision.

India TodayAxis poll predicts that BJP's tally may slip anywhere between 99-113 seats while Congress, which won 61 seats in 2012, may bag between 68 and 84 seats. Sahara Samay-CNX gives BJP slightly more seats between 110-120, and Congress between 65-75. Timesnow-VMR foretells a 109-seat tally for BJP and 70 for Congress. Republic-Jan ki Baat predicts that BJP will maintain in 2012 tally of 115 seats while Today's Chanakya gives the most favourable result to BJP at 135 seats. In the 182-seat Assembly, the halfway mark rests at 92 seats.

A month ago, ABP-CSDS had predicted a photo-finish between the two parties, now forecasts a clear majority of 117 seats for BJP  suggesting that Narendra Modi's determined campaigning has made all the difference.

Exit polls are by nature conservative. Right from data collection, collation to interpreting the data through complex algorithms and arriving at vote share and seat tally figures, psephologists prefer to err on the side of caution. It is possible, therefore, that the margins predicted by the exit polls are in reality wider.

Which brings us to the question that had emerged right after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Why did the media fail miserably in gauging public mood in one the biggest wave elections in recent times?

During the entire length of the campaign, we have seen the gradual solidification of a narrative that Gujarat will be Modi's toughest test. We have been told that BJP is facing a fierce backlash from the Patidars and its social experiments have come unstuck. The traders are angry at "Gabbar Singh Tax" (GST), 'vikas has gone crazy', Dalits are angry, the farmers are angrier, while the youth are joining Hardik Patel's rallies in droves.

We have been led to believe that BJP is on course for a stunning upset because people are disillusioned with the 'Gujarat model', and sensing this impending danger the BJP has "dumped" all discussions of 'vikas' and trying to polarise the electorate instead.

We have also been told that Gujarat's development hasnt been equitable and Rahul's "surprisingly effective campaign" has put BJP on the mat. Despite propagating failed re-distributive policies of the 1980s era, attacking the 'Gujarat vision' and reinforcing the caste politics of yore, Rahul was once again projected as the 'great liberal hope' and commentators readily bought into their own myth-making.

Zee Reporter to RaGa: Gujarat ke liye apka vision kya hoga? RaGa in his sheer brilliance: pic.twitter.com/92Qh7V9xJ5  Menace (@Sacrilegious77) December 13, 2017

It isn't surprising to note, therefore, that exit polls predict a reality that is totally different from the one inhabited by the commentariat. Part of the problem lies in the fact that mainstream media feels an unwritten compulsion to portray every election as a "close contest" for reasons that are less ideological and more utilitarian. So Rahul Gandhi must be painted as the 'David' that will finally slay the 'Goliath'. The dynast's 'ascension' to the president's post of his 'family party' contributed in adding to the hype. Often, the reasons behind a successful campaign and an unsuccessful one lie not in catchy campaign slogans or temple visits but mundane, unsexy and diligent background work, organizational strength and on-ground performance. These factors usually go under the radar because in the era of TV-driven infotainment, keeping juicy speech excerpts of netas on loop and searching for non-existent symbolisms make for far greater drama than scouring the ground and talking to members of booth committees, local committees and other such grassroot workers. Tracing the building blocks of an election machinery and comparing the organizational structures of rival parties may get the media closer to truth but wheres the fun in that? It's far easier to interpret Modi's Pakistan jibe or Mani Shankar Aiyar's 'neech' comment as inflection points. A sober analysis would have pointed out the media's blind spots. For instance, the likely silent role played by the women voters  who account for roughly 48 per cent of the electorate  has remained underreported and unheralded.

#ReportersProject - PM Modi has given me gas cylinder. Now cooking has become easy for me: Jyotsna Bhoye, Housemaker| @maryashakil #BattleForGujarat pic.twitter.com/DaPoQK6rZ1  News18 (@CNNnews18) December 5, 2017

The benefits of 'Ujjawala' scheme that entitles poor households to free gas cylinders, liberates the women from the tyranny of smoke and demands less of their time in cooking process have not been properly understood.

Quoting a survey undertaken by financial consulting firm MicroSave in 12 districts of UP, Hindu Business Line reported that "cooking on gas stoves helped (women) save at least 1-2 hours daily" and the women utilized this time "chatting with their neighbours, resting, or even doing other household work."

Also, the intricate organisational structure of the BJP that uses grassroot connect to remain in close touch with the electorate all through the year, stresses on poll-day mobilistion or uses diverse tools such as Amul Cooperative network for outreach has more to do with BJP's electoral success than any chance remark or a temple visit.

A recent piece on Firstpost details how BJP breaks down "the electorates composition to a minuscule level" and appoints a 'pramukh' to connect with voters, "irrespective of their pronounced political proclivity, and persuade them to vote for the BJP." Modi, for instance, had held countless booth-level meetings to mobilize voters till he served as the chief minister of Gujarat.

Also, as this Hindustan Times article argues, post witnessing BJP's intricate poll machinery: "Panna pramukhs (who usually aren't active party members but sympathizers with close connect with 47-48 people) would be in touch with their booth committees. Depending on the size of the booth, the party has a 13, 18, or 25 member committee for each of the 243 booths  with a minimum of three, four or five women representatives respectively. These booth committees then constitute a Shakti Kendra. These units coordinate across a larger area, report to the campaign office, and play a monitoring role. They also have social media in charge of each Shakti Kendra."

These networks help BJP in expanding outreach, keep it grounded and receptive to responses. The Congress simply lacks such an organizational strength, relying more on a franchise-type model. A thorough understanding of these factors might tell us why BJP keeps on winning. But it may also rob the elections of drama.
The Supreme Court has dismissed the Congress party's plea seeking its intervention in the counting of votes for Gujarat Assembly election. Congress, raising doubts over the veracity of EVMs, had asked for an apex court order directing the Election Commission to tally at least 25 percent of the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPAT) with the EVM votes.

The court, however, refusing to intervene, told the party that it can file a "proper plea" seeking reforms in the polling process. Congress leaders and senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi were arguing the case for their party in the top court.

The top court had dismissed a similar plea earlier in November too.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra refused pass any order on a writ petition challenging the discretionary power of a returning officer, who is entitled to refuse counting of the paper trail from VVPAT machines. The apex court said no "advance ruling" can be given in the matter and in case of any dispute over the result of the poll, the challenge can be made by way of a poll petition.

The Gujarat Congress plea had come after it raised concerns over allegations of EVM tampering but the Election Commission had rejected the charges. According to several reports, there were complaints of Bluetooth devices being connected to EVMs. Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had complained that three EVMs were seen connected to Bluetooth devices and he sent the complaint to the ECI along with screenshots backing his complaint.

The party had earlier too demanded that the counting process in the Gujarat Assembly election should be overseen by a retired Supreme Court judge. Latching on to the reports of EVMs malfunctioning in the Uttar Pradesh civic polls, the party had said that only an independent review of EVMs can ensure fair conduct of elections in Gujarat, adding that the use of VVPAT would not be enough to ensure free and fair poll if the EVMs were "rigged".

Responding to the allegations, the Election Commission had said that an inquiry found that the apprehension about possible EVM tampering through Bluetooth technology, raised by Congress, was baseless.

The device which the complainant's mobile phone detected after putting on Bluetooth was not an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) but a mobile phone, carried by a polling agent, the commission said.

"A polling agent named Manoj Singrakhiya was carrying the mobile phone. He was in the close vicinity of the phone of the complainant...The complainant might have thought that 'EC' in ECO stands for Election Commission," Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) BB Swain said.

A senior poll panel official also told PTI that the attachment of a second line of verification through VVPATs to the EVM has "left no rooms for doubts" since voters can physically verify who they vote for.

"With the introduction of VVPAT, nothing is left to doubt because the printed paper slip is like a ballot paper slip," Kumar said.

The BJP also maintained that the allegations by Congress showed they were in "search for an excuse" as it knew that it would bite the dust in the election.

Meanwhile, the talks about EVM tampering also had several voters, especially from the Muslim community. According to PTI, EVM  described as the "devil" by one worried voter  was the hot topic of discussion among the people.

With the circulation of messages on social media sites about EVMs being tampered with, many in the border district of Chhota Udaipur feared their votes might be transferred to other candidates.

Our vote is the only power we have and if somebody changes it, what are we left with in a democracy? asked 57-year-old Sayed Mala, a small-time construction contractor.

Educated sections of the people, with access to social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook, were more worried about EVMs than the others. "I know who I will vote for. But I am not assured if it will be counted in his favour. But with a ballot paper, my vote cant be changed, said Kalol college student Sultan Hussain.

Another constituent said he was not convinced about the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), a process to verify that the vote cast had gone to the candidate concerned. Farooq Sayeed from Timla village in Chhota Udaipur compared EVMs with the devil. "There are so many videos of EVMs being tampered with on social media. My vote can be changed," he said.

The worries about the machines were not largely shared by Hindu voters. Narendra Sinh Bari, a 38-year-old man who runs a mobile shop, said any method could trigger doubts. "We should trust the machines," he said.

With inputs from PTI
As voting for the second phase of the Gujarat election ended Thursday, a slew of exit polls unanimously predicted a comfortable BJP victory over the Congress. Seven out of eight exit polls showed the BJP getting well over 100 seats in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, way over the 92 seat majority mark.

If these predictions hold true, the BJP would have fallen short of Amit Shah's famous pledge that the BJP would win 150 seats in the Gujarat Assembly, but enough to easily retain control of the state. The Congress meanwhile, would have made some inroads into Gujarat, but not nearly as much as they would have hoped. The BJP currently holds 120 seats and the Congress 43 seats in the Gujarat Assembly.

According to the Times Now-VMR exit poll, the BJP was predicted to nab 113 seats in the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly, while the Congress was predicted to win 66 seats. The ABP-CSDS exit poll predicted the BJP nabbing 117 seats and the Congress 64 seats. According to The Republic-CVoter exit poll, the BJP was predicted to win 115 seats and the Congress 74 seats. The Sahara Samay-CNX exit poll predicted that the BJP would win between 110-120 seats and the Congress 65-75 seats.

The India Today-MYAXIS exit poll predicted that the BJP would get between 99-113 seats and the Congress would fetch between 68-82 seats. The TV9 exit poll predicted that the BJP would win 108 seats and the Congress would win 74 seats. The NewsNation-BARC exit poll predicted BJP nabbing between 109 and the Congress getting between 70 seats. According to Today's Chankya exit poll, the BJP is predicted to win 135 seats and the Congress 47 seats. According to CNN-News 18, Todays Chanakya was the only pollster to get the 2014 projection correct.

Overall picture from Gujarat Exit Polls results

Gujarat Exit Poll BJP Congress Times Now 113 66 Republic TV 115 65 Sahara 110-120 65-75 TV-9 108 74 India Today 99-113 68-82 ABP 117 64 NewsNation 109 70 Todays Chankaya 135 47

According to the CVoter exit poll, the BJP lost some of the Patidar votes as compared to 2012: 10 percent of Leuva Patidar and 12 percent of Karwa Patidar vote. However, the BJP seemed to have offset these losses by making gains elsewhere. The party increased its vote share with Ahir by 9.9 percent compared to 2012, Rabari by 7.7 percent and Kadariya 8.3 percent. The BJP also improved their vote share with ST Koli community by 9.3 percent as compared to 2012.

The Congress made gains with both Leuva Patidar and Karwa Patidar, gaining 16.5 and 18.9 percent with these groups respectively as compared to 2012 election, according to the CVoter exit poll. The Congress also gained with Patel Kshatriya by 10 percent, but lost 5.4 percent Ahir and ST Bhil community by 8.2 percent compared to the 2012 election.

In the first phase in Gujarat, voting was held on 9 December for the 89 seats of 19 districts of Saurashtra and South Gujarat region, with a total of 977 candidates in the fray. The second phase of voting, conducted on 14 December, saw 851 candidates in the fray for 93 Assembly seats. According to the Election Commission, phase two saw 68.70 percent turnout, which was lower than the turnout in 2012. Counting for the Gujarat polls, along with that of Himachal Pradesh, will be held on 18 December.

A look at how accurate have exit polls been in the past

Exit poll surveys in the past have exhibited mixed accuracy in predicting election results. In the five states that went for Assembly polls last year, the exit poll surveys by most agencies were largely accurate about Assam (BJP), Kerala (Left Democratic Front), Puducherry and West Bengal (Trinamool). However, Tamil Nadu proved to be a hard nut to crack for most agencies as they completely failed to predict the outcome.

Almost all of them had predicted that the DMK-Congress alliance will win the election, however, Jayalalithaa's AIADMK swept the polls in a historic win.

In Uttar Pradesh, while no polling agency was able to successfully gauge the BJPs seat-count, almost all of them predicted that it would be the single largest party. So it was.

How it works

The surveys conducted by several agencies predict which party is leading the elections on the basis of interviews conducted right after voters cast their ballots. However, these predictions are conducted on a relatively small sample size as compared to the entire electorate, and their accuracy is not a guarantee.

Critics say the projections of these surveys can be influenced by the choice, wording and timing of the questions, and by the nature of the sample drawn. Nonetheless, media houses along with other agencies employ utmost carefulness to get the surveys as close to the actual results as possible.

A fractious build up

On Wednesday, acting on a complaint by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Election Commission issued a notice to Rahul Gandhi for violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) by giving an interview to TV channels even after the campaign for Gujarat polls had formally ended. The Election Commission said, "Explain why action should not be taken against you for violating provisions of MCC, failing which the commission will decide the matter without any further reference to you." Rahul is supposed to file his reply before 5 pm on 18 December.

Earlier in the day, the Gujarat BJP unit's legal cell wrote to Election Commission alleging that Rahul's interview given to a few regional channels was in violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The Election Commission norms place a bar on calling for votes after the end of the campaigning phase. The saffron party, which complained against the Congress for the second time, also pointed out that the MCC was already in place at the time the interview was aired, News 18 reported.

Meanwhile, the Congress party rebuffed the allegations of MCC violation and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "panicked attempts" to "threaten people in the name of Election Commission."

"The BJP is blatantly using Election Commission of India as a tool for its political gains, which demeans the independent institution," Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said at a hurriedly convened press conference. The party also said that the BJP was making an issue out of non-issues as a distraction tactic.

Surjewala also accused BJP of "threatening journalist" out of its "Rahul Gandhi phobia." Surjewala said that Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani was trying to suppress local media for reporting on the Congress party. He said that the news channels which aired the Rahul interview were "receiving angry phone calls" fro the Prime Minister's Office.

"When Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi gave interviews to a few Gujarati news channels, BJP in the name of Election Commission, threatened to jail the journalists of those channels for broadcasting it. We condemn this arrogant behaviour of BJP," Surjewala said.

On Monday, former prime minister Manmohan Singh hit out at Narendra Modi and said he was spreading "falsehoods" to score political points. Singh issued the statement after it was reported that he met a Pakistani envoy at the residence of Mani Shankar Aiyar. Singh, in his statement, denied that any discussion about the Gujarat election took place at the meeting, said that Modi was losing ground in Gujarat and his fear of the imminent loss was evident.

At a rally on Sunday, Modi alleged that the "three-hour secret meeting" was attended by Pakistan's high commissioner, its former foreign minister,and former vice-president Hamid Ansari, The Times of India reported. According to the report, Modi further charged that the Congress and certain entities in Pakistan may be working together to prevent the BJP from winning the Gujarat election.

The report also quoted Jaitley as saying detractors only had to follow media reports to understand how well the current dispensation had fared in the matter where Modi's history of responding to terror attacks was concerned.

On Sunday, Modi also attacked the Congress over Mani Shankar Aiyar's 'neech' comment and his reported recent meeting with Pakistani officials, alleging that Pakistan was interfering in Gujarat Assembly elections. Modi, who was speaking at a rally in Palanpur in Banaskantha, sought an explanation from the Congress over its top party men who met leaders from the neighbouring country.

Click here for detailed coverage of Gujarat Assembly Election 2017
Ahmedabad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rhetoric linking Pakistan to the Congress notwithstanding, there was a lot less communal polarisation on the ground in this Gujarat election than in earlier iterations. Despite the best efforts of Modi and the BJP, neither Hindutva nor vikas could become mainstream campaign issues for voters this time. Multiple factors led to this election being different.

Firstly, Modi's elevation from chief minister to prime minister has taken Gujarats political discourse beyond the 2002 communal violence. As long as Modi was chief minister, the Opposition Congress and the media used to keep 2002 as the central prism through which to look at him. Modi himself worked hard to change his image from one linked to riots to one of a man who created a new model of development. But with cases over riots and alleged fake encounters keeping Modi's Hindutva image alive, election discourse centred around Hindutva.

Modi remains the most popular person in Gujarat, but hes no longer the polarising figure of yore. He is instead a prime minister facing great expectations.

2017 is not 2002

The political discourse on the ground was occupied with other issues. If the 2002 election was about the riots, 2007 about vikas and 2012 about making Modi prime minister, the 2017 election agenda was not set by Modi or the BJP. Even if the BJP wins comfortably, it lost the election narrative to the Patidar agitation, agrarian distress, GST troubles and so on. Caste may not be as salient here as in many other states, but this election was more about caste than Hindu consolidation.

With the economy hitting a bad patch, farmers complained of low prices for their produce and traders just about adjusting to the GST shock, the BJP was unable to make a strong pitch for vikas either. Regardless, urban Gujarati voters and many even in villages still credit Modi and the BJP as having turned the state around in two decades. Just that, at the level of political discourse on the ground, the BJP was unable to make it a talking point among voters.

The Patidar agitation particularly hit Hindutva discourse hard as it showed a fault line in the 'Hindu consolidation' project. Led by Hardik Patel, Patidars damaged Hindutva by making Patidars and reservations a bigger talking point than Hindutva. When asked who was winning the election, many voters said they expected the BJP to win but that the Patidar factor had brought the Congress into a close contest.

The disenchantment of at least a section of Patidar youths with the BJP has hit the Hindutva discourse for another reason. Patels are at the cutting edge of Hindutva politics in Gujarat. If the loss of Patel support for the BJP becomes a long-term phenomenon in Gujarat, the project of Hindu consolidation could be long-term as well.

The other pole of polarisation

The Congress played its part well to prevent Hindu-Muslim polarisation. The party gave five tickets to Muslims, as opposed to six last time, but has shied away from making noise about Muslim voters or issues. Rahul Gandhis temple visits helped counter the image of the Congress as an anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim party. Congress sources say the party declined to make Rahul visit dargahs.

Key to this was keeping Ahmed Patel contained in Delhi. His influence on ticket distribution and the partys over-all strategy has also declined, while Rahul led from the front. This made the 2017 election less about Narendra Modi versus 'Ahmed Mian' and more about Rahul coming into his own.

The BJP tried its best to revive Ahmeds sagging career in Gujarat; a false poster of Ahmed with Rahul proclaiming the former would be chief minister should the Congress win Gujarat mysteriously sprung up days before the first phase of polling. It also helped that the liberal intelligentsia and the NGO-Left from Delhi and Ahmedabad had causes other than Juhapura to worry about, such as helping Jignesh Mevani alienate Hindu voters in his constituency.

Silent Hindutva

This is not to say that Gujarat became secular overnight. The fear that Muslims would get empowered with a Congress victory still prevents many from voting for the Congress. While Rahul's temple visits silenced some of this discourse, it would have been fully neutralised if the Congress had a chief ministerial candidate.

Hindu identity remains a big factor, especially for urban voters, but this election showed Hindutva has diminishing returns unless it is accompanied by vikas.

This is what explains Modi's rather extreme comments linking the Congress with Pakistan, referring to Rahul's succession as "Aurangzeb raj" and naming nondescript Congress politicians from Kashmir to bring Muslims into the discourse.

Post-facto reading

The final truth of an election is the winner. If the BJP does poorly, the failure of the Hindutva trick will be widely hailed, and it will be incorrectly said by Left-liberal commentators that secularism has won. Its not secularism, its the sidestepping of Hindutva with other issues. If the BJP comfortably wins this election, as is likely, it will be said that the prime ministers Pakistan/Muslims discourse saved the day. The truth of the ground, however, is that voters were not talking about this. They were talking about Patidars, vikas, GST, economy, irrigation, education and so on.

If the BJP wins, it could be because of OBC consolidation, its tribal outreach, Modis personal popularity, the fact that a fellow Gujarati is prime minister and cant be let down, or because the BJP has a ground machinery far more powerful than the Congress.

It wont be because of Hindu-Muslim polarisation.

Click here for detailed coverage of Gujarat Assembly Election 2017
Jammu: Ahead of the Winter Session of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday asked the Opposition to put aside political differences and work together to ensure an efficient session.

"Looking forward to a productive winter session of the state Assembly starting on January 2nd, 2018", she said in a tweet.

The chief minister said, "We all must put our political differences aside and work together to ensure an efficient session".

"Governor NN Vohra, in exercise of the powers conferred upon him under sub-section (1) of Section 53 of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, has summoned the State Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council to meet at Jammu on Tuesday, the 2 January 2018, at 11.00 hours", a Raj Bhawan spokesman had said.

However, the duration of the session is yet to be decided.

"We have not yet decided the period of the session. The decision will be taken by the government", Speaker of Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, Kavinder Gupta said.
Mumbai: The BJP claimed victory in six out of 10 municipal councils/nagar panchayats in Maharashtra and also got the maximum number of councillors elected.

"As per the results declared for the seven municipal councils/nagar panchayats today, the BJP has won the chairperson's post at five places  Aurangabad, Nanded, Kolhapur, Dhule and Gondia," Maharashtra BJP unit president Raosaheb Danve said in a statement.

He said that out of the 123 councillors in the fray in the seven municipal councils/nagar panchayats that went to polls, BJP won 50 posts.

Danve further claimed that in the results of three municipal councils declared on Monday, the BJP won the chairperson's post in Trimbakeshwar.

In these three municipal councils, there were 55 seats up for grabs, out of which the BJP won 25. "Therefore, as per the results for the first two phases, the BJP has won six out of ten municipal councils and 75 posts of councillors," he said.

Danve credited the BJP's victory to development work. "People have once again voted for development work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. The Fadnavis-led government has started disbursing the loan waiver amount that had been declared for farmers," Danve added.

The last phase of the polls will be held on 17 December.
There may be a fresh twist to the politics of Maharashtra, with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) making fresh overtures towards each other.

As reported by The Times of India on Friday, MNS chief Raj Thackeray will be "interviewing" NCP's Sharad Pawar in Pune on 3 January, and the duo is expected to talk about the politics of the state, caste-based issues, farmer suicides, etc. Given that both Pawar and Thackeray have been critical of the BJP-led state government, they are also expected to launch an offensive against Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' administration.

The getting together of Pawar and Thackeray would worry Fadnavis, especially since his ally Shiv Sena is also threatening to walk out of the alliance. The BJP, weakened in the Legislative Assembly without the support of Sena, isn't likely to appreciate any possible mutual admiration between NCP and MNS.

Meanwhile, the MNS cadre too is said to be "baffled" about the new-found affection between Pawar and Thackeray. The Times of India report recalled that Pawar had ticked Thackeray off by publicly stating that "those who rise at noon" can't make good politicians. But the fact that they are willing to share the dais today means a possible political realignment in Maharashtra may be on the cards.

"This (Pawar's criticism of Thackeray) was back in 2006. Eleven years later, Pawar saheb is willing to share space with Raj saheb for a public interview. Surely, Pawar saheb has something up his sleeve," a senior NCP functionary was quoted as saying in the report.

The NCP was in an alliance with the Congress in Maharashtra, which they ruled for three successive terms. Two days ago, the two said their alliance is still strong and they would look forward to contesting the 2019 Lok Sabha elections together.

"We (Congress and NCP) will fight the 2019 elections as an alliance and will come to power. A change is already happening in Gujarat and will soon spread to the rest of the country," former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan was quoted as saying by The Economic Times.

With the MNS and NCP also sharing warm vibes with each other, a three-party alliance cannot be ruled out in Maharashtra, with Congress, NCP and MNS joining hands to battle the saffron government, which is already heading for a split with Sena planning to walk out.

Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray's son and the party's youth face Aditya Thackeray was quoted by the media as saying earlier this week that it will walk out of the Fadnavis government. "The Sena will quit power in one year and come back to power on its own strength. (Sena president) Uddhav will decide the time when the party will quit power," Aditya said. "Once that is done (the decision on quitting power is taken), all of you have to work together to bring about a change," the Sena scion said.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hoped the Winter Session of Parliament will be a productive one with constructive debates and innovative suggestions that will help resolve the country's problems.

The government is expected to table 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including a bill providing Muslim women the right to seek maintenance in case of triple talaq, during the session which begins on Friday.

"The Winter Session of Parliament is starting and I am confident that it will be a productive session. I hope there is good debate, constructive debate and we come up with innovative solutions to our nation's problems," he told reporters in New Delhi.

The prime minister said at Thursday's all-party meeting, leaders of the political parties were clear that there is a need to take the country forward and this session should be used positively to achieve that.

"I hope this Parliament session contributes to the nation's growth," he said.

Click here to follow LIVE updates on Winter Session of Parliament
Nagpur: Opposition members on Thursday staged a walk-out from the Maharashtra Legislative Council to protest the BJP-led government's failure to issue an ordinance to give five percent reservations to Muslims.

Sanjay Dutt (Congress), Leader of Opposition Dhananjay Munde (NCP) and others raised the issue.

Minority Affairs Minister Vinod Tawde (BJP) said that a five percent reservation for Muslims in jobs and education had been introduced through an ordinance on July 9, 2014.

However, the Bombay High Court stayed it partially in November 2014, and the ordinance later lapased. The issue is still pending before the high court which is hearing petitions against the quota.

"Hence necessary steps will be taken as per the high court's order," Tawde said.

The reply didn't satisfy the opposition benches. Munde and other opposition members asked why the government did not introduce a new ordinance.

Tawde said reservations can not be granted on the basis of religion, but members of minority communities who fall in BC or OBC category get the benefit of quotas for these categories.

There were heated exchanges in the House between the treasury and opposition benches over the issue, and opposition MLCs staged a walk-out.

Later, chairman Ram Raje Nimbalkar asked the government to hold a meeting on the issue and seek the opinion of the Advocate General.
Day one of the Winter Session of Parliament started in a stormy manner on Friday, with the Opposition forcing two quick adjournments in Rajya Sabha. As Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu began the session in the Upper House, Opposition parties created a ruckus over former JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav's expulsion from the House and demanded a clarification from the Chair. Naidu told Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad that the Chair's decisions were not up for scrutiny by members of the House.

The House was first adjourned for 20 minutes till noon and again till 2.30 pm, after which it reassembled, with members of the Congress and Samajwadi Party storming the Well and raising slogans opposing the disqualification of Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari.

When the House reassembled after the first adjournment at noon, Congress members protested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

Earlier, Naidu led the House in paying tributes to ten former members who passed away during the inter-session period. Thereafter, Modi introduced new ministers to the House, following which Zero Hour mentions were taken up.

At that point, Naresh Agarwal of Samajwadi Party raised a point of order regarding disqualification of two former JD(U) members. However, Naidu did not agree with him, saying there is no "point .. in your point of order". He also said the matter was cannot be discussed as it was a decision of the Chair.

Joining the issue, Azad said the Opposition was not challenging the decision taken by the Chair and wanted to say something more, but Naidu repeated that it was not a matter of discussion. Referring to a political rally of the now defunct 'Mahagathbandhan' between JD(U), Congress and Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD, Azad said votes during the Bihar Assembly elections were sought in the name of the grand alliance by projecting Nitish Kumar as the chief minister.

The senior Congress member said it was Nitish who had left the alliance in Bihar, and the JD(U) members in the House should accordingly resign. "Membership of JD(U) members should be cancelled," Azad stressed.

Several Opposition members from Congress, SP and the Left parties were seen on their feet. Anand Sharma of the Congress tried to say something but could not be heard.

When Naidu asked A Navaneetha Krishnan of AIADMK to go ahead with his 'Zero Hour' mention regarding cyclone in Tamil Nadu, Congress and SP members trooped into the Well raising slogans. Naidu asked them to return to their seats but they continued raising slogans. "You want to do like this on the first day...All in Well not well...," he said, and adjourned the House till noon.

Don't say 'beg', Naidu tells MPs

Naidu also brought about minor changes to the conduct of the Rajya Sabha on the first day after taking over as its chairman, asking ministers and members not to use colonial terms while laying papers on the table. No one should use the word "I beg to" while laying papers on the table, he said. "Just say 'I raise to lay on the table' the listed papers," he said. "No need to beg... this is independent India."

He made the observation after ministers who were called to lay the listed papers on the table, began their sentences by saying, "I beg to lay on the table the papers listed against my name in today's revised list of business."

Naidu was however quick to clarify that this was only a suggestion and not an order.

This was not only the change that Naidu introduced: He also stood up while reading out obituary references; his predecessors Hamid Ansari and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat used to read the obituary references while being seated.

Lok Sabha adjourned

The proceedings of the Lok Sabha, meanwhile, were adjourned after the House paid tributes to three sitting and seven former members who died during the inter-session period. The House will now meet on Monday.

As soon as the House assembled, newly-elected Congress member from Gurdaspur Sunil Kumar Jakhar was administered the oath, which he took in Punjabi.

Modi greeted Jakhar with a handshake when the former greeted him with folded hands after taking oath. The Gurdaspur bypoll was necessitated following the demise of BJP member and cine star Vinod Khanna. After the oath of the new member, Modi introduced new ministers to the House. These included Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who were elevated as Cabinet ministers in the 3 September rejig of the council of ministers.

The new faces are ministers of state (independent charge) RK Singh, Hardeep Puri, KJ Alphonse and ministers of state Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Ananth Hegde, Gajendra Shekhawat and Satyapal Singh.

Making obituary references, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan informed members that three sitting Lok Sabha MPs  Sultan Ahmed (TMC), Chand Nath (BJP) and Tasleem Uddin (RJD)  had passed away recently. Seven other former members  Vikram Mahajan, Ram Singh, R Keishing, P C Barman, Dhanraj Singh, Amal Datta and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi  also died during the inter-session period.

The House was also introduced to the new secretary general, Snehlata Shrivastava, who took over on 1 December. A former IAS officer, she is the first woman secretary general of the Lok Sabha. Before proceedings began, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met leaders of various parties.

When Modi entered the House, he greeted members from the Opposition benches with a "namaste" by bowing his head.

Hope for productive Winter Session: Modi

Modi said he hoped the Winter Session of Parliament will be a productive one with constructive debates and innovative suggestions that will help resolve the country's problems.

The government is expected to table 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including a bill providing Muslim women the right to seek maintenance in case of triple talaq.

"The Winter Session of Parliament is starting and I am confident that it will be a productive session. I hope there is good debate, constructive debate and we come up with innovative solutions to our nation's problems," he said.

At Thursday's all-party meeting, the prime minister said that leaders of all political parties were clear that there is a need to take the country forward and this session should be used positively to achieve that.

"I hope this Parliament session contributes to the nation's growth. There will be proper utilisation of the time of Parliament which will be beneficial to the country," he said.

Modi said there will be several significant government businesses which will have far reaching impact for the country.

The prime minister hoped Parliament will function "positively" which will be beneficial to the country, strengthen democracy and help in fulfilling hopes and aspirations of common people.

With inputs from agencies

Click here for Live updates on Winter Session of Parliament
tech2 News Staff

Samsung has announced, on 14 December, the unveiling of the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen, Notebook 9 (2018) laptops for the global audience. Both the devices will have the 8th-Gen Intel Core i7 processor alongside Windows 10 operating system.

The Notebook 9 has been announced in three new variants with different screen sizes ranging from 13.3 inches to 15 inches. All the variants of the Notebook 9 feature a Full HD RealViewTouch display and a 6.2 mm bezel around the screen. The Samsung laptops weigh around 1- 1.29 kg with a thickness of 15.4 mm, which the company claims make the Notebook 9 the thinnest in its category.

The Notebook 9 features an always-on mode thanks to its 75 Wh Hexacell battery and also supports fast charging. The devices have an internal storage of 1 TB SSD and up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. In addition to this, the Notebook 9 13-inch variant features 1x USB-C, 2x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI, SD card slot and a 3.5 mm jack as connectivity options. Each one of these ports are present in both the 15-inch Notebook 9 variants with the addition of Thunderbolt 3 on the USB-C port. The 15-inch variant also has the option of NVIDIA GeForce MX150 (GDDR5 2GB) graphics as well.

The Samsung Notebook 9 Pen is a 2-in-1 PC and is built with a magnesium-aluminium alloy called as Metal12, which the company claims is very durable and super light. The 360-degree hinges attached to the Notebook 9 Pen gives the user flexibility of turning the device into a tablet as well. The Notebook 9 Pen comes with the refined S Pen giving users the ability to doodle, sketch, paint, etc, at will. Air commands automatically launch on the removal of the S-pen from its holder. The S-Pen can also now recognise up to 4,096 levels of pressure with its 0.7 mm tip, says Samsung.

The Notebook 9 Pen has the same display as the Notebook 9 (2018) 13-inch variant and it weighs 1 kg. The device has an inbuilt storage of up to 512 GB SSD and 16 GB of DDR4 RAM with inbuilt Intel HD Graphics. The ports are the same as that of the Notebook 9 13-inch ie. 1x USB-C, 2x USB 3.0, 1x HDMI, SD card slot and 3.5 mm jack alongside a 39 Wh battery instead of 75Wh. All the laptops have an inbuilt fingerprint sensor, backlit keyboard and a precision Touchpad.

The Samsung Notebook 9 Pen and Notebook 9 (2018) will roll out in select countries starting from Korea in December 2017, and the US in the first quarter of 2018. Both the devices will be displayed at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. No pricing details are out as of yet.
IANS

Samsung Electronics Co is likely to lose ground in the smartphone segment in 2018 due to the rise of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, an industry tracker said on Thursday.

Strategy Analytics said the company is expected to post a market share of 19.2 percent in the global smartphone industry in 2018 by shipping 315 million units, down from 20.5 percent estimated for this year, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The weaker outlook comes as rival Apple Inc is expected to expand its presence in the high-end segment, while Chinese companies are quickly making inroads to the industry with budget devices, experts said.

"While the iOS-powered smartphones do not have competitors, Samsung will face tougher challenges in the Android segment," said Park Nam-gyoo, a professor of business at Seoul National University.

It will mark the first time that Samsung will post a decline in smartphone shipments on-year, excluding 2016, when the company suspended the production of Galaxy Note 7 over safety issues.

Samsung Electronics did not comment on the outlook. Apple, on the other hand, is expected to take up 14.3 percent of the market in 2018 by shipping 234 million units, up from 14 percent posted this year.

China-based Huawei Technologies Co and OPPO Electronics Corp are also set to expand their shares to account for 10 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively, next year, the data also showed.

Industry watchers said Samsung Electronics must prepare to cope with the rise of Chinese smartphone makers, as they are also starting to set their eyes on the premium segment as well.
PTI

Telecom regulator TRAI has strongly defended its stance on net neutrality, asserting that keeping the internet open and free is the "right way" forward for India.

The comments come in the backdrop of US regulator rolling back net neutrality regulations adopted by the Obama administration on 14 December.

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed the order by a three-to-two vote, scrapping the rules that were targeted at treating all internet services equally.

According to reports, it felt that rolling back the net neutrality rules would restore the internet to light touch regulation.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on the other hand, has proposed restricting service providers from entering into agreements which lead to discriminatory treatment of content on the internet.

TRAI, late last month, gave its recommendations to the Telecom Department, which will take the final call.

"We will certainly stick to our stance. Every country is a sovereign country and every country is free to determine what its stance on net neutrality is," TRAI Chairman RS Sharma said on the sidelines of an open house discussion on another issue.

Sharma said TRAI was of the view that net neutrality is the "right way" for India.

"I will not like to comment on what the US has done. But in Indian context, this is the right way....because a lot is riding on the internet and therefore it is important that it is kept as an open platform," Sharma said.

To drive home the point, Sharma cited the example of a toll road where the toll operator cannot dictate which destination or route a consumer should take ultimately.

"His concern is only to charge toll from me. And thereafter, I am free to go anywhere I want to go. Similarly, net neutrality says you charge for the data and thereafter on the internet what I visit, what site I access, is my choice," he said.

Net neutrality is "all about consumer choice", he said, adding it ensures that every site or innovator gets same amount of access.

"That is broad principal and I think it's a naturally correct principal," he added.

TRAI, he said, would also come out with guidelines to clamp down on pesky calls by 15 January.

The telecom regulator held an open house discussion with stakeholders on the issue of 'Unsolicited Commercial Communication'.

Opening remarks by Mr RS Sharma, Chairman @TRAI at the Open House Discussion on Unsolicited Commercial Communication at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi #UCC pic.twitter.com/O7Ra5yjVwd  TRAI (@TRAI) December 15, 2017

"We will take 20-25 days, till 15 January, to bring the guidelines. We have got a lot of responses, especially from technology companies. If technology is used, we will be able to control the problem to a large extent," Sharma said.
A former branch bank in Hixson has sold for $1.7 million.

The sale was to Cgp Lakesite Tb Llc from Tacala Tennessee Corp.

The branch was formerly used by First Tennessee Bank.
Brussels: British prime minister Theresa May urged EU leaders at a summit on Friday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and "festive log with a twist", May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible", a British official said.

May told them she "makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity", adding that a "particular priority" should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was "disappointed" at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg prime minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was "not making her life easier".

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

German chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union is unrealistic.

"I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future," May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesday's vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the bloc's own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London - at Dublin's request - that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated yesterday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed."
Washington: US president Donald Trump thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone on for acknowledging America's strong economic performance", the White House said.

The phone call between the two leaders came after Putins annual press conference in which he praised Trump.

"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference," the White House said in a readout of the call.

During the phone call, the two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the "very dangerous" situation in North Korea, the White House said.

Citing the markets and consumer confidence, Putin said Trump had "some quite serious achievements" to his credit in the short time that he has been the president of the US.
According to intelligence reports, The Telegraph report added, Pyong-so and Won-hong had been targeted by a rare inspection of the army's politburo following suspicions of an "impure attitude" towards the regime. The JoongAng Ilbo quoted a "source" that the duo had allegedly been receiving kickbacks in exchange for promotions.

North Korea's bloody history

Kim has not shied away from removing or punishing even favoured leaders who could become powerful enough to threaten his grip on power, Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership at 38 North, a project of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies in Washington, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong So could not have continued in the capacity that he was operating in, without it coming back to bite him," he said.

The punishment represents the first time Hwang has faced any major blow to his standing, said Lee Sang-keun, a North Korea leadership expert at Ewha Womans Universitys Institute of Unification Studies.

Hwang had a reputation of playing a respectful and careful role around the notoriously unpredictable Kim. Photos released by state media often showed him covering his mouth as he politely laughed with the supreme leader.

The punishment may not reflect any specific mistakes on Pyong-so's part but could be part of a wider effort by Kim to ensure that the ruling party retains its control over the military, Lee said.

The moves are part of a sweeping ideological scrutiny of the political unit of the military for the first time in 20 years, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker on South Korea's parliamentary intelligence committee.

They could also be an effort to prevent a repeat of a major purge in 2013, Madden added. Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong-un's uncle, who was then the second most powerful man in the secretive State, was executed during that purge after a special military tribunal found him guilty of treason.

Preemptively putting Pyong-so in his place now meant he's being prevented from becoming so powerful that he could only be dealt with in a similar way, Madden said. "What (Kim Jong-un) is doing can be described as clipping wings," he added.

With inputs from Reuters
Washington: India is Afghanistan's "most reliable regional partner", the Pentagon told the US Congress on Friday as it welcomed additional economic, medical, and civic support from New Delhi to the war-torn country.

"India is Afghanistan's most reliable regional partner and the largest contributor of development assistance in the region," said the Pentagon in its report to the Congress titled 'Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan'.

This assistance includes civil development projects such as the Afghanistan-India Friendship Dam and the Afghan parliament building, the report said.

India provides significant training opportunities for Afghan officers and enlisted personnel and has frequently offered to increase its burden sharing for Afghanistan, it said, adding that approximately 130 Afghans travel to India each year to attend various military and commissioning programmes.

India has also donated limited security assistance, most notably four Mi-35 aircraft, the Pentagon said.

"The new South Asia policy highlighted our relationship with India and called on India to provide more assistance to the international efforts in Afghanistan. The United States welcomes additional Indian economic, medical, and civic support to Afghanistan," the Pentagon said in its report.

This is the first report of the Pentagon to Congress after president Donald Trump announced his new Afghan and South Asia policy in August.

"Our purpose in Afghanistan remains the same: to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe haven from which terrorist groups can plan and execute attacks on the United States, or our allies and citizens abroad. To accomplish this, we continue to support our Afghan partners and train, advise, and assist its military and government institutions," it said.

Under the new strategy, the US will continue to support the Afghan government and security forces in the fight against the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria -Khorasan (ISIS-K), and other insurgents and terrorists, to strengthen the Afghan government and prevent re-establishment of terrorist safe havens in Afghanistan.

"A major change from our previous strategy is the shift from a time-based approach to a conditions-based one. This shift underscores the US commitment to the continued development of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF), provided that our Afghan partners satisfy their obligations," the Pentagon said.

The new strategy does not mean a return to US-led combat operations, instead, the key to success lies in improving ANDSF capabilities and allow them to lead in the fight against the Taliban, it clarified.

"We will continue to work by, with, and through the ANDSF to help them defeat their enemies and to ultimately arrive at a political settlement in Afghanistan," said the Pentagon.
Nasiriyah, Iraq: Iraq hanged 38 jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences on Thursday in the southern city of Nasiriyah, provincial authorities said.

It was the largest number of executions in Iraq on a single day since 25 September when 42 people were put to death in the same prison.

"The prison administration executed on Thursday in the presence of Justice Minister Haidar al-Zameli, in Nasiriyah prison, 38 death row prisoners belonging to Al-Qaeda or Daesh (Islamic State) accused of terrorist activities," said Dakhel Kazem, a senior official in the provincial council.

They were all Iraqis but one also had Swedish citizenship, a prison source said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday declared victory against Islamic State after a three-year campaign by government forces backed by a US-led coalition to retake territory seized by the jihadists.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International has voiced repeated concerns about the use of the death penalty in Iraq, which it ranks as one of the world's top executioners behind China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"Individuals who carry out deadly attacks against the civilian population should face justice, but carrying out executions is not the answer," Amnesty's Middle East Research Director Lynn Maalouf said Thursday.

"By carrying out yet another mass execution, the second in the span of three months, the Iraqi authorities have once again displayed a blatant disregard for human life and dignity."

In a report released on 5 December, Human Rights Watch criticised both Iraq's central government and the autonomous Kurdish authorities over mass trials of suspected Islamic State jihadists.

'Justice is failing'

HRW said the authorities "appear to be prosecuting all Islamic State suspects in their custody under counter-terrorism laws, primarily for Islamic State membership, and not focusing on specific actions or crimes that may have been committed".

The New York-based group identified 7,374 cases of suspects charged under this law since 2014, and put at 20,000 the total number of people imprisoned for suspected Islamic State membership.

It expressed concerns that the broad prosecution of those affiliated with Islamic State "in any way, no matter how minimal, could impede future community reconciliation and reintegration".

"Iraqi justice is failing to distinguish between the culpability of doctors who protected lives under Islamic State rule and those responsible for crimes against humanity," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.

HRW said it regretted what it called the inconsistent application of a 2016 law granting amnesty to suspects who can show they joined Islamic State or any extremist group against their will and have not committed a crime.

"Execution of fighters who surrender or are hors de combat is a war crime," HRW added.

Islamic State swept across a third of Iraq in 2014 and seized several major cities including Mosul, the country's second biggest, before a fightback launched in 2015.
Cairo: Islamic State threatened attacks on US soil in retaliation for the Trump administrations decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, one of the groups social media accounts reported on Thursday without giving any details.

In a message on one of its accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service titled Wait for us and ISIS in Manhattan, the group said it would carry out operations and showed images of New Yorks Times Square and what appeared to be an explosive bomb belt and detonator.

We will do more ops in your land, until the final hour and we will burn you with the flames of war which you started in Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria and Afghan. Just you wait, it said.

The recognition of your dog Trump (sic) Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will make us recognise explosives as the capital of your country.

Washington triggered widespread anger and protests across the Arab world with its decision on Jerusalem. The disputed city is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and is home to Islams third holiest site. It has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.

Islamic State was driven out of its Iraqi and Syrian capitals this year and squeezed into a shrinking pocket of desert straddling the border between the two countries.

The forces fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare there. Militants including people claiming allegiance to Islamic State have carried out scores of deadly attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the United States over the past two years.
Karachi: Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani

authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said on Friday.

The fishermen were arrested on Thursday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesman for Pakistan's Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said.

"The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail," Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400.

The spokesman said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistan's Maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

"Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters," Chaudhary said.

He said the PMSA had on 10 November arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on 12 November four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters. He said on 16 November also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

Poor fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

In October the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture.

A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.
Seoul: South Korean news media on Friday expressed anger and outrage after Chinese security guards beat and severely injured a South Korean photojournalist covering President Moon Jae-in's visit to Beijing.

Opposition parties and internet users joined in, saying the incident epitomised the Asian giant's attitude towards its smaller neighbour.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party urged Moon to call off his four-day state visit and return home immediately, saying the violence was a "terror attack against the whole of South Korea".

The photographer was thrown to the floor and kicked, reportedly suffering fractured facial bones and ruptured vessels in an eye, as Chinese security personnel stopped South Korean photographers following Moon's delegation at a trade show.

"Mistreatment of President Moon and lynching of a Korean journalist  This is the Chinese dream", the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest-circulation daily, headlined its editorial, referring to President Xi Jinpings promise of prosperity and influence.

Chosun and other newspapers noted Moon had his first three meals in China without any Chinese officials on hand, with a lunch with Premier Li Keqiang unilaterally scrapped.

He was greeted by an assistant minister when he landed, while Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was welcomed last year by Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Chosun said the perceived diplomatic slight and the violence against a member of Moons presidential press corps were "not accidental" and were driven by "China's arrogant and violent nature" and "Seoul's subservient attitude".

"This rudeness China exhibited toward the South Korean presidential entourage is the very nature of the Chinese Dream, it added.

The English-language Korea Times called it "an appalling use of force by Chinese security".

"We are dumbfounded and enraged at such violence against visitors... We are outraged by the rude welcome", it said.

Internet users also reacted angrily.

"China trampled upon Korea and the whole Korean people," one said in a posting.

But others said many Korean photojournalists are overly eager to get the best possible images and often cross cordons, sparking trouble with security guards.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Thursday that while the trade show had been organised by the South Korean side, "if someone is hurt, of course we are concerned about that".
United Nations: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will hold a ministerial-level meeting on Friday on the "threats and challenges" posed by North Korea to international peace and security.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and the United States secretary of state Rex Tillerson are expected to be present at the meeting to be chaired by Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono, with the presence of a North Korean representative, reports Xinhua news agency.

Japan, the rotating chair of the UNSC in December, has circulated a note, suggesting Security Council members could focus on nuclear and missile development programs as well as other weapons of mass destruction.

Members have also been asked to consider ways to maximise pressure on Pyongyang, including through full implementation of relevant Council resolutions and additional sanctions measures "in response to further provocations".
Washington: US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presented what she called "undeniable" evidence Thursday that a ballistic missile fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen at Saudi Arabia last month was Iranian-made, a charge Tehran immediately denied.

Haley accused Tehran of a "blatant violation" of UN Security Council obligations designed to rein in its missile activity, further stepping up the rhetoric towards Iran which Washington accuses of going against the spirit of a historic nuclear accord.

Standing in a warehouse at a Washington military base in front of recovered pieces of two missiles, Haley said Iranian fingerprints were all over the weapons, one of which she said was fired at Riyadh's airport on 4 November.

"It was made in Iran then sent to Houthi militants in Yemen," Haley said.

"From there it was fired at a civilian airport with the potential to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in Saudi Arabia."

She charged that the 2015 nuclear deal to curb Iran's nuclear program had "done nothing to moderate the regime's conduct in other areas," and accused Tehran of "fanning the flames" of regional conflict.

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted on Twitter a photo of Haley juxtaposed with a well-known image of former secretary of state Colin Powell appearing before the Security Council, where he provided intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war that was later found to be false.

"When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat...," Zarif wrote.

The Iranian mission said the accusations leveled by Haley were intended to divert attention from the devastating war in Yemen being led by Saudi Arabia, a key US ally.

Tougher stance

A confidential report to the council says UN officials had examined debris from missiles fired at Saudi Arabia which pointed to a "common origin" but there was no firm conclusion as to whether they came from an Iranian supplier.

Haley said the missiles were Iranian Qiam-class short-range ballistic rockets and pointed to valves that she said proved their origin. The Qiam-1 is based on a modified Scud design.

Haley showed other pieces of military material she said were provided by Iran, and after her announcement officials showed journalists pieces of an anti-tank missile, an explosive boat, drones and other gear.

"The evidence is undeniable. The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers all over it," Haley said.

Haley has called on the Security Council to take a tougher stance toward Iran, accusing Tehran of making illegal arms deals in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.

Asked about Haley's claims that the evidence that Iran had supplied the missile was irrefutable, Sweden's UN Ambassador Olof Skoog said "she may be in possession of evidence that I have not seen. The information that I have up to now is less clear."

Haley did not discuss the timeline of when Iran is supposed to have provided the weapons, or whether this may have happened before the nuclear deal was signed.

In a statement, the Saudi embassy in Washington welcomed Haley's remarks and "US condemnation of Iran's hostile activities that support and arm terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Houthi terrorist militias."

'Bleeding Saudi Arabia of money'

However, the report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, obtained by AFP, said officials were still analyzing the information.

A separate team of UN experts who inspected the missile fragments during a visit to Riyadh last month found a possible link to an Iranian manufacturer, the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, which is on the UN sanctions blacklist.

The experts, who report to the sanctions committee, found a component marked by a logo similar to that of the banned group, which is a subsidiary of the Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AFP that Iran's apparent willingness to risk transferring missiles to the Houthis indicates the Yemeni conflict "may not be as peripheral to Tehran as previously assumed."

"Bleeding Saudi Arabia of money and men is a clear goal for Iran as it continues its war in Yemen," he said in an email.

Aside from leading a military campaign in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has deployed expensive Patriot missiles at home to guard against incoming rockets.

Recent Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations they violate the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

"Today's revelations proved yet again that Iran's dangerous presence in the Middle East is only growing despite their attempts to deceive the world," Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen imposed a blockade of Yemen's air and sea ports and borders after the missile was fired at Riyadh, citing concerns that weapons were being smuggled into Yemen.
The Chattanooga Area Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers, ASSE donated 100 bicycle helmets to the Salvation Army of Greater Chattanooga for their annual Angel Tree campaign. Helmets were distributed between the Chattanooga and Cleveland locations to ensure kids receiving bicycles on Christmas morning are able to enjoy their bicycle safely.

According to helmets.org, helmet use has been estimated to reduce the odds of head injury by 50 percent, and the odds of head, face, or neck injury by 33 percent. Further they state, "Almost three-quarters of fatal crashes (74 percent) involved a head injury. Nearly all bicyclists who died (97 percent) were not wearing a helmet. Helmet use among those bicyclists with serious injuries was low (13 percent), but it was even lower among bicyclists killed (3 percent)."

Many of the board members for the ASSE participate individually in the Salvation Army's campaign and understand the difficult decision individuals must make when sponsoring Angels on a limited budget. Too often a bicycle is purchased without a helmet as to fulfill more wishlist items chosen by the Angel.
Washington: President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday "acknowledging America's strong economic performance," the White House said.

The two presidents spoke by phone following Putin's annual press conference in Moscow.

Trump and Putin also discussed ways to work together to address North Korea's nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

During his remarks in Moscow, Putin accused those investigating potential collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 presidential campaign of damaging the US political situation, "incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him."

Putin also warned the US against using force against North Korea. Trump has repeatedly said that all options remain on the table.
College students in the Innovation and Social Media class at Lee University were given the opportunity to collaborate with the Bradley County Health Council on a collaboration to support the health and wellness of the citizens of Bradley County.

Dr. Luis C. Almeida, the professor who taught the Innovation and Social Media course at Lee, curated his class around their partnership with the Bradley County Health Council.

"This was an amazing opportunity for our students to work in a real world social media campaign, where they had the chance to display their talents, said Dr. Almeida. When we empower students to make decisions according to their talents with insightful supervision, wonderful things can happen.

The class was developed in a way that gave the students hands-on opportunity to apply what they learned in the classroom and receive a better understanding of the analytics involved when working with a social media platform in the real world.

The specific campaign these students worked on was the Bradley Cleveland (BC) Champions  A Healthier Tennessee Community. The objective of the BC Champions is to increase awareness in the community about the importance of personal health. Lee students helped the BC Champions Facebook page by increasing Facebook followers by 180 percent as well as quadrupling reach and engagement to the public, according to Dr. Almeida.

The initiative provides a vehicle for agencies and non-profits to collaborate toward creating a healthy community, said Justin Thomas, University of Tennessee extension agent in Bradley County.

Lees students worked closely with the Bradley County Health Council every day on the initiative and analyzed its social media presence. Dr. Almeida shared that feedback about the campaign from the Bradley County community was extremely positive.

Two students from Dr. Almeidas class presented the results of the campaign to the Healthier Tennessee Board last month in the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce. According to Dr. Almeida, the Healthier Tennessee Board was very impressed with the classs campaign results and presentation.

I think this initiative is an excellent way for the public to get educated on health and for parents to educate their kids on health, said Julia Minucci, a Lee senior involved in the campaigns production.

At Lees recent Homecoming, the students set up a booth where they actively promoted the BC Champions Facebook page. The Lee community helped with the success of this project by liking and sharing the pages posts.

Working with the Bradley County Health Council has been a tremendous experience, said Preston Steger, a junior at Lee also involved in the campaigns production. This work has taught me about teamwork, leadership, and creative thinking.

For more information about the Innovation and Social Media class, contact Dr. Almeida at lalmeida@leeuniversity.edu.






The judgment has come; FCC has officially voted against Net neutrality despite the strong opposition from people of the USA, Congress, and others. The agency has officially terminated 2015s open internet order and net neutrality regulations that were established.

The Restoring Internet Freedom, order which passed technically removes FCC as a regulator, instead, FTC now has the role. The votes count which as expected was 3-2 with Chairman Ajit Pai and Republican Commissioners Brendan Carr and Michael ORielly voting in favor of the order, and Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel voting against.

Both Clyburn and Rosenworcel have made opined their concerns and also said that they will soon publish more statements that lay out the problems with the order which might give an idea as to how it may be legally challenged once it takes effect. With FCC voting against the net neutrality which prohibited internet providers from charging more for higher-quality service or certain content will have no effect immediately but will come into play in the next coming weeks.

Several technology firms and public interest groups have started their fight against the order and also the trade group that represents big tech firms such as Google and Facebook said it is also considering legal action.

Commenting on the new order, Ajit Pai, Chairman FCC said:

Many words have been spoken during this debate but the time has come for action. It is time for the Internet once again to be driven by engineers and entrepreneurs and consumers, rather than lawyers and accountants and bureaucrats. It is time for us to act to bring faster, better, and cheaper Internet access to all Americans. It is time for us to return to the bipartisan regulatory framework under which the Internet flourished prior to 2015. It is time for us to restore Internet freedom.

Clyburn, Office of Commissioner FCC in a statement said:

I dissent, because I am among the millions outraged. Outraged, because the FCC pulls its own teeth, abdicating responsibility to protect the nations broadband consumers. Some may ask why are we witnessing such an unprecedented groundswell of public support, for keeping the 2015 net neutrality protections in place? Because the public can plainly see, that a soon-to-be-toothless FCC, is handing the keys to the Internet  the Internet, one of the most remarkable, empowering, enabling inventions of our lifetime  over to a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations. And if past is prologue, those very same broadband internet service providers, that the majority says you should trust to do right by you, will put profits and shareholder returns above, what is best for you.

Source
Samsung is all set to enter the bandwagon of smart speakers as the company is aiming to introduce an in-house smart speaker in the first half of 2018 according to a latest report from Bloomberg. The device is said to have a strong focus on audio quality and the management of connected home appliances.

The smart speaker will run on Bixby and will sync with TVs, Galaxy smartphones, and other Samsung devices. The Samsung smartphone speaker much like the Apples AirPod will work with other companys ecosystem products including SmartThings that Samsung brought in 2014. If reports from sources are to be believed, the smart speaker will be available in multiple markets at a price point around $200.

The prototype of the Samsung smart speaker is in testing currently and is in size between Amazons latest Echo and the HomePod. Though the speaker will come in multiple colors, the testing unit was in Matte black color. Unlike Amazon Echo show, the Samsung-made speaker will lack a screen but will light up on top for limited visual feedback.

Like Apple, Samsung is also slow in entering the smart speaker market, lets hope they are not too late. The pricing and release plans are not yet fixed and might change anytime. Hope we can hear about the smart speaker in CES or MWC 2018.

Source




At the December Membership Coffee four Ambassadors were recognized for going above and beyond throughout the year to volunteer their time and talents in helping with various programs at the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce. The 2017 Platinum Ambassador honorees are as follows: Lauren Blackwell, Advantage Resourcing; Evelyn Chadwick, Coffee News; Gail Gray, retired; and Melinda McIntire, McIntire & Associates. Gail Gray was also applauded for her years of dedicated volunteer service and her upcoming retirement from the Chamber Ambassadors."The Ambassador program is a unique opportunity for involvement in the Chamber of Commerce. This program allows Chamber members to connect with the Chamber and its members on a deeper level, volunteering time to attend ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings and assist with Chamber Coffees."If you are interested in getting more involved and in promoting your business in a unique way, become a Chamber Ambassador.Contact Aaron Weatherford, membership director at (423) 472-6587 for details," officials said.
The head of one of Britains leading financial regulators put a warning out to bitcoin buyers late Thursday, saying the cryptocurrency is a very volatile commodity, and those who chose to invest should be prepared to lose all their money.

Andrew Bailey, head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told the BBCs Newsnight, that despite the rally in recent weeks, bitcoin is not a secure investment and is similar to gambling, adding that neither central banks nor the government has backed it yet.

"It's not a currency, it's actually not regulated in its bitcoin. It's a very volatile commodity in terms of its pricing. If you look at what has happened this year, I would caution people," Bailey told BBC, adding that if you want to invest in bitcoin be prepared to lose your money  that would be my serious warning.

On Friday, bitcoin soared to another all-time high of almost 18,000 on the Bitstamp exchange, up 9%, despite Baileys warnings. Since the start of the year, the cryptocurrencys price rose more than 1,700%.

Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen also weighed in on bitcoin earlier this week at her final meeting as the U.S. central bank leader. Yellen told reporters that bitcoin is a highly speculative asset and it plays a very small role in the payments system.

"It is not a stable store of value, and it doesn't constitute legal tender, Yellen said at the Wednesday press conference.

Bailey said that relatively little was known about what drives the price of bitcoin, adding that another red flag is the fact the bitcoin buyers and sellers are anonymous, something that has caused concerns that it could be used to launder money.

"You can't go somewhere and look up the record of who owns bitcoin," Bailey said. "If I thought there was evidence of people saying 'you know what? I'm going to put my pension into bitcoin' - I would be very concerned but we don't see that at the moment."

However, Bailey said that if parliament decides to go change its view on the currency, he will happily provide the evidence [they] have and will support the decision they want to take.
Congressional Republicans' final tax legislation proposes cutting taxes as expected for businesses, the wealthy and some middle-class Americans, according to a summary seen by Reuters on Friday, with decisive votes expected next week in a critical moment for the party and President Donald Trump.

Prospects for approval of the biggest U.S. tax overhaul since 1986 were improving, with two formerly wavering Republican senators pledging support: Marco Rubio and Bob Corker.

But three Republican senators, enough to defeat the measure, were still uncommitted: Susan Collins, Jeff Flake and Mike Lee. With Democrats solidly opposed, Republicans can afford to lose only two votes from within their ranks and still win passage in a chamber that Trump's party controls by a slim 52-48 margin.

The bill would cut the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, according to the summary. Corporate tax lobbyists have been seeking such a dramatic cut for many years.

It would also create a 20-percent business income tax deduction for owners of "pass-through" businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships; allow for immediate write-off by corporations of new equipment costs; and eliminate the corporate alternative minimum tax, according to the summary.

Since they swept to power in Washington in January, Trump and the Republicans have not managed to pass any major legislation and have lost closely watched elections in Alabama and Virginia, while Trump's public approval ratings are at historically low levels.

Ramming the sweeping tax package through Congress would represent their first significant legislative achievement and fulfill promises about a tax overhaul that Trump made to voters last year on the way to his unexpected capture of the White House.

Trump wants a bill on his desk before the Dec. 25 Christmas holiday so he can sign it into law and finish 2017 with at least one big win in Congress before the 2018 mid-term election campaigns, when Republicans will have to defend their Senate and House of Representatives majorities.

Democrats have called the Republican tax legislation a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy that would drive up the federal deficit.

The Republican bill would maintain the existing seven individual and family income tax brackets with rates of 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent. That top rate, for the highest-earning Americans, would be cut from today's 39.6 percent.

Stock markets have been rallying for months in anticipation of sharply lower tax rates for corporations, wealthy financiers and business owners, all of which the bill would deliver.

Wall Street's three major stock indexes closed at record highs on Friday, driven by corporate tax rates looked like it would win enough support from lawmakers to pass.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> rose 0.58 percent to 24,651.74, the S&P 500 <.SPX> gained 0.90 percent to 2,675.81 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> rose 1.17 percent, to 6,936.58.

(Additional reporting by Makini Brice and David Morgan; Sinead Carew in New York.; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh)
Denver authorities shut down 26 legal marijuana businesses Thursday and arrested 12 people suspected of illegal distribution of pot after a yearlong criminal investigation.

Potential charges relate to marijuana sales exceeding limits set in state law, police said. Colorado allows people 21 and older to possess an ounce or less of marijuana under a measure approved by voters in 2012.

The city department that regulates marijuana businesses issued the order to close the businesses based on the police investigation, spokesman Dan Rowland said. It marked the first time the city has issued an open-ended suspension to any legal marijuana business since sales began in 2014, he said.

Colorado has made a concerted effort to avoid a federal crackdown on its marijuana experiment, including police and government enforcement against illegal marijuana grows or sales.

Gov. John Hickenlooper highlighted those efforts in an August letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who requested information on marijuana legalization. Sessions has been a longtime opponent of state legalization and has suggested the federal government should crack down.

Special Agent Randy Ladd, a spokesman for the Denver division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said the agency wasn't involved. Denver police didn't name any federal agencies as partners in the investigation.

The city's order shuttered 26 retail stores and other marijuana growing facilities operating under the name Sweet Leaf. But the police investigation focused on eight locations licensed by the company, and officers searched those addresses Thursday.

Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said he couldn't provide more detail on the case because of the ongoing investigation. The department didn't name the people arrested.

Matthew Aiken, Christian Johnson and Anthony Suaro, three co-owners listed on the city's order, didn't immediately respond to email messages seeking comment. Company officials told Marijuana Business Magazine in April that they had 350 employees and $60 million in revenue.

Rowland said the businesses can't sell or produce any pot products while the order is in place. The city plans to hold a public hearing within 30 days.

"This is a way for us to put a hold on things so we can figure out what's going on," he said.

Under Colorado law, marijuana businesses must get separate licenses for various purposes, even if they operate out of the same building. For example, a retail store licensed to sell recreational pot also needs a medical marijuana retail license to sell products designated for medical use.

"One thing I always say about legalization is it didn't end law enforcement," said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver marijuana policy law professor. "If you're going to have a system that works, people not complying with regulations need to be shut down."

In Washington state, which also legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, no legal, regulated pot businesses have faced police raids. Some have, however, had their licenses suspended or revoked for failing to follow industry rules.

Sweet Leaf's website lists one store in Oregon and 10 stores in Colorado. An employee who answered the phone at the Oregon store Thursday said they were open.

Mark Pettinger, spokesman for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which regulates recreational marijuana, said Colorado investigators have not contacted the agency but that it's following developments there.

___

Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed to this report.
Will Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) build the next-generation Fusion sedan in China?

That possibility was raised by a surprising report on Wednesday. Ford responded with a carefully parsed Ford denial that didn't quite deny that something drastic is in the works for the upcoming all-new Fusion.

Here's what we know, and what Ford might actually have in mind.

What we know about Ford's plans for making the next Fusion

Before we get into the details, a note to avoid confusion: The midsize sedan that Americans know as the Ford Fusion actually has two names. In many markets outside of North America, including Europe and China, it's known as the Ford Mondeo. The Fusion and Mondeo have small differences, but from Ford's perspective, they're the same product.

Right now, Fusions sold in North America are made in Ford's factory in Hermosillo, Mexico. Mondeo sedans for the European market are made at Ford's facility in Valencia, Spain. Ford also builds and sells the Mondeo in China.

Got it? Now for the report: Ford has told suppliers that it's planning to shift production of the Fusion and Mondeo sedans out of Mexico and Spain and move it to China when the next-generation Fusion and Mondeo are launched in late 2020. That's according to a Reuters report that cites three unnamed sources.

Doesn't that mean Ford will export the Fusion and Mondeo from China to North America and Europe? It sure sounds that way, and that's how Reuters initially reported the story. But it updated the article to step back from that conclusion after Ford's PR folks pushed back on the initial report with this statement:

So, what's going on, here? Let's look a little deeper.

Why Ford might do something like this -- and why it might not

Here's something else we know: Fusion and Mondeo sales are down big this year. Through November, U.S. sales of the Fusion are down 22%, and Mondeo sales in Europe are down 21%. Those declines are consistent with an industrywide trend that has been unfolding for several years now: More buyers are choosing crossover SUVs over traditional sedans.

Automakers (not just Ford) are responding to that trend by boosting investment in crossover models and reducing investments in sedans. General Motors (NYSE: GM) has said that the next-generation versions of its compact Chevrolet Cruze and midsize Chevrolet Malibu sedans will reuse the vehicles' current architectures, making their revamps much less expensive than the traditional all-new models. And Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE: FCAU) has completely discontinued production of its compact Dodge Dart and midsize Chrysler 200 sedans, revamping the cars' assembly lines to build SUVs and trucks instead.

Likewise, Ford has made some sedan-related cost-cutting moves of its own. It's reducing the number of possible order combinations on models like the Fusion and compact Focus in order to reduce manufacturing costs. It has confirmed that the next-generation Focus will be built in China and exported from there to North America, and signs suggest it is discontinuing the subcompact Fiesta altogether in the United States. (Ford launched an all-new Fiesta in Europe earlier this year; the Fiesta is Ford's best-selling vehicle in Europe, but the new little hatchback doesn't seem to be headed here.)

Given all of that, it would make a lot of sense for Ford to centralize global production of the Fusion and Mondeo on one big assembly line, and for Ford to put that line in a factory where its costs are lower. But it's unlikely to be Mexico, given that the Trump administration may tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement. That could greatly complicate the now-common practice of building vehicles in Mexico for the U.S. market (and not just for Ford).

There's a good reason, other than Ford's denial, to think that Ford won't choose China for that big factory. The Ford factory in China that would be likely to build the Fusion and Mondeo is owned by a 50-50 joint venture between Ford and Chinese automaker Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. ("Changan Auto"). If Ford built all of its Fusions and Mondeos at that factory, it would have to split the revenue 50-50 with Changan Auto.

Ford is apparently willing to do that with the lower-margin Focus. But I don't see it happening with the more profitable Fusion and Mondeo.

Here's what might really be going on, here

Taking Ford's statement at its word, there seem to be only two possible conclusions: Either Ford is planning to drop the Fusion from its U.S. lineup entirely, or it's planning to build Fusions for North America (and Mondeos for Europe) somewhere other than China, Mexico, or Spain.

Where might that be? Here's one more thing we know: Ford has two underutilized factories in India, and it has said in the past that it might use those plants to make products for export. At the current rate of sales, Ford would need something like 300,000 total Fusions and Mondeos a year to supply North America and Europe; that would require expanding one of the plants somewhat, but it's not at all an unreasonable number.

Is it possible that Ford's real plan is to produce the next-generation Fusion and Mondeo for North America and Europe in India, rather than China? Stay tuned.

10 stocks we like better than FordWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Ford wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of December 4, 2017

John Rosevear owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
In recent years, there's been a shift in the way companies focus on their employees' health. Though subsidized insurance has long been the standard, these days, employers are going above and beyond by sponsoring wellness programs as part of their workplace benefits. These offerings include everything from free gym memberships to in-office massages and aromatherapy.

But just as employees need to focus on their physical well-being, so too do they need to tend to their financial well-being. And thankfully, a growing number of companies are finally catching on to that need.

In a recent Aon Hewitt report, nearly 60% of employers say they're likely to start focusing on the financial well-being of their workers in a manner that extends past basic retirement planning. Furthermore, 60% of employers feel that financial wellness has become all the more imperative over the past two years, and nearly half of companies are presently developing their own financial wellness tools and strategies.

If your company doesn't have a financial wellness program in place, you may want to rally some colleagues and bring it up at the next available opportunity. It could be the one benefit you never knew you were missing.

Why workers need financial wellness programs

It's no secret that countless workers rely on their employers to get their long-term financial planning in order. An estimated 79% of Americans, for example, have access to company-sponsored 401(k) plans, with the majority of those employers offering matching dollars to boot.

But a true financial wellness program goes well beyond retirement. Rather, it's meant to help workers navigate all aspects of their finances, from establishing emergency savings to buying insurance to determining how much of a mortgage to take on. Some companies go as far as to offer debt counseling and management. And many are also coming to address the one nagging expense that continues to haunt countless Americans: student loans.

Of course, financial wellness programs benefit workers and companies alike -- the more employees learn to get a handle on their finances, the better positioned they'll be to focus on their jobs, rather than see financial worries keep them distracted. The majority of U.S. adults today suffer from financial anxiety, and according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, 43% of employees spend three or more hours per week stressing over financial matters. The result? Productivity, not surprisingly, falls by the wayside, and when that happens, everyone loses out.

And thus the push for programs that support employees and work to alleviate much of the aforementioned anxiety so many fall victim to. In fact, a good 57% of employers feel that by increasing their financial wellness offerings, they'll decrease the amount of time workers spend dealing with financial issues on the job.

But the primary motivator behind employers deciding to support financial wellness stems from the fact that they feel it's simply the right thing to do -- a sentiment expressed by 84% of companies who are creating or expanding such a program this year. Interestingly, however, only 36% of employees are actively asking for financial wellness support, so if your company isn't providing it, it's time to speak up. You have little to lose, and a whole lot of peace of mind to gain.

The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Airbus said Friday that its CEO, Tom Enders, will step down in 2019, as the European airplane maker shakes up management amid multiple corruption investigations.

The company said Enders, who will have been at the helm of Airbus and defense firm EADS for 14 years, won't seek another term when his current term expires.

Enders has been a key figure as Airbus has jockeyed with U.S. rival Boeing over the past decade to be the world's top-selling plane maker.

The 59-year-old was quoted Friday as saying Airbus needs "fresh minds for the 2020s" and that he would use the remainder of his time to ensure a smooth transition and to strengthen the company's ethics and compliance programs.

The governments of France and Germany, which have stakes in Airbus and used to have seats on its board, are paying close attention to the management changes and the legal probes.

"We obviously need to keep an eye on our strategic interests and (Airbus) governance, which must be exemplary," French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Brussels on Friday.

Speaking alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron insisted that their governments won't "interfere politically to return to a role in the daily management of the company"  but said he wants the Airbus board to provide clarifications in the coming weeks about the executive shakeup.

Also leaving is the chief operating officer and president of the commercial aircraft division, Fabrice Bregier, who will step down next February.

He will be succeeded by Guillaume Faury, currently CEO of Airbus Helicopters. Enders described Faury as part of "the next generation of leaders," which could suggest he is being groomed to eventually take over as CEO of the overall Airbus Group.

The announcement came weeks after Airbus announced it is replacing its combative, long-serving sales chief, John Leahy. He's being replaced by an outside executive, from Rolls Royce.

The big challenge for incoming Airbus management will be legal investigations.

Authorities in Britain and France are investigating alleged fraud and bribery related to Airbus' use of outside consultants in commercial plane sales. Airbus has warned that the investigations could lead to "significant penalties" and promised to stop working with middlemen.

Meanwhile, Austria is investigating suspected fraud in the government's purchase of Airbus combat aircraft.

It's a bumpy time for Airbus, which recently saw a major deal with Gulf carrier Emirates for A380 superjumbos fall apart at the last minute at the Dubai Air Show. The airline handed the contract to Boeing instead.

Shares were little changed Friday, as management changes were expected.

Airbus had revenues of 67 billion euros ($79 billion) last year and employs 134,000 staff worldwide.
Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily on Friday:

Oracle Corp., down $1.89 to $48.30

Analysts were disappointed with results from the software maker's cloud business and its forecasts.

Adobe Systems Inc., up $2.51 to $177.51

The software company surpassed Wall Street's forecasts in its latest quarter.

Costco Wholesale Corp., up $6.20 to $192.73

The wholesale club company had a better quarter than analysts expected.

CSX Corp., down $4.38 to $52.93

The railroad operator said CEO Hunter Harrison is on leave because of health problems.

Hess Corp., up 98 cents to $43.40

Reuters said activist investment firm Elliott Management plans to push for changes at the oil and gas company.

Discovery Communications Inc., up $1 to $21.04

Company director John Malone disclosed that he had bought more stock in the cable channel operator.

Snyder's-Lance Inc., up $2.37 to $46.79

CNBC reported that the snack food company has had talks with Campbell Soup and another company about a possible sale.

Jabil Circuit Inc., up 42 cents to $27.87

The electronics manufacturer posted a bigger profit and better revenue than analysts had anticipated.
The Tennessee Board of Regents reaffirmed its confidence in the quality of its colleges on Thursday, approving a warranty guaranteeing that future graduates of technical training programs demonstrate skills identified in their curriculums and providing tuition-free retraining for those who dont.

The new warranty provides one-time retraining free of charge to graduates of technical programs who are unable to perform one or more of the skills and competencies identified for their programs. The warranty is valid for one year from the date of graduation.



The Board of Regents unanimously approved the warranty as a new policy at its quarterly meeting Thursday, held at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin. The warranty goes into effect with students who enter the applicable programs starting in Fall 2018.



The warranty is applicable to graduates of the college systems technical programs which offer an Associate of Applied Science degree, diploma or technical certificate of credit. Full details of the warranty are in the new policy.



The Board of Regents governs the College System of Tennessee  the 13 community colleges and 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology across the state.



The retraining will occur at the college where the graduate earned the credential, at the colleges expense. The policy gives the chancellor discretion to approve retraining at another campus.



We have great confidence in the quality of our programs, Chancellor Flora W. Tydings said, and we have an obligation to our students and their employers to make sure that our graduates have the skills that our technical programs say they should have. If within one yearof graduation, an employer determines that a graduate of one of our technical graduate does not have the skills that we say we have trained, the college will provide retraining in the specific skill set, free of tuition.



Eligible graduates will be awarded a warranty card when they receive their degree, diploma or technical certificate. A warranty redemption form, or claim, will be posted on the TBR website and made available to employers. The employer and graduate will jointly file the form.



Ms. Tydings also said the program will allow the college system to identify training programs in need of improvement. The systems central office will maintain a database of all warranty claims and act to improve programs with graduates in need of retraining.



This is exciting and we look forward to hearing more about the warranty when it goes into effect, Board Vice Chair Emily J. Reynolds said.



The warranty is simple: it basically says to our graduates that we stand behind you. And it lets business and industry know that we stand behind our graduates and that they can trust our graduates work, said Dr. Carol Puryear, TBRs vice chancellor for economic and community development.



In other action, the board:



Approved search criteria for the next presidents of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology at Murfreesboro and Newbern. TCAT-Newbern President Donna Hastings plans to retire Dec. 31 and TCAT-Murfreesboro President Lynn Kreider plans to retire March 1 . The board also approved resolutions of appreciation for both presidents, as well as for Nashville State President George Van Allen, who is retiring Dec. 31 . A search for the next Nashville State president is already underway. Tydings announced during the board meeting that Dr. Kimberly McCormick, TBR vice chancellor for external affairs and a former provost at Chattanooga State Community College, will serve as interim president at Nashville State.

Reviewed the systems five major legislative priorities for the 2018 session of the Tennessee General Assembly, which convenes in January. Those priorities are: support for the public higher education operating, construction and equipment funding proposal of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission; extension of the TBR systems existence under the Tennessee Governmental Entity Review Law; expansion of dual enrollment opportunities for high school students taking college courses; safety and security of the systems students, and expansion of college access for Tennessee high school graduates.

Reviewed the systems financial statements and approval of revised budgets for the 2017-18 school year.

Received an update on implementation of the FOCUS (Focus on College and University Success) Act, and approved revisions to TBR bylaws necessitated by the FOCUS Act.

Approved minor revisions and updates to the college systems 10-year strategic plan for 2015-25.

Approved a request by Chattanooga State Community College to name its health science center the Erlanger Health Science Center, in recognition of the schools longstanding partnership with Erlanger Health System and its hospitals in the Chattanooga area.
Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 2022 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. FAQ - New Privacy Policy
Dr. David Samadi on Thursday described the difficult journey ahead for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as he battles brain cancer.

Sen. McCain has been admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to address the side effects from his brain cancer treatment.

Glioblastoma is a very, very aggressive brain cancer, and despite dimensional breakthrough, unfortunately we havent had anything coming down the pipeline for the last three decades, he told FOX Business Liz MacDonald on Risk & Reward.

Dr. Samadi said patients who have had glioblastoma on average have a median life expectancy of 12 to 14 months, but discussed how different kinds of radiation and immunotherapy treatments can help.

Some of the radiations are very focused and concentrating on bits of cancers that are left behind. Immunotherapy is coming down the pipeline, meaning that we would take the cells from the patients, we are reengineering them and putting them back into the system to fight some of the cancer cells. We still have a long way to go to see people live more than one year, he said.

Last month, McCain suffered from an Achilles tendon tear, which required him to wear a walking boot.

However, despite the good that chemotherapy can do to treat cancer, Dr. Samadi discussed how it can also weaken the body as well.

Its a very difficult process because chemotherapy not only is going to concentrate on the cancer, but it also eats up all the good cells in your body, so you become very fatigued, you have nausea, he has some tendinitis, he said.

GOP lawmakers are expected to vote on what may be the Trump administrations first legislative win in reforming the tax code.

However, if McCain missed the vote due to his medical treatment, it could put Republicans at a disadvantage trying to pass tax reform.

Regardless, Dr. Samadi believes that McCain needs to take care of himself before the cancer gets the best of him.

[McCain] is a very strong 81-year-old man. He doesnt take a rest. He follows his schedule. So hes the type of man that he needs to rest, he needs to eat well, he needs to take care himself before the cancer over takes the whole system, he said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden helped comfort the senators daughter, Meghan McCain, after she began crying while discussing her fathers fight with brain cancer on ABCs The View.

That emotional reaction that Joe Biden did was extremely important. An example of a real support group that we see in cancer treatment, Samadi said.
hirty years ago, Buick went big. The General Motors division long known for stylish, upscale sedans and coupes decided to build a muscle car that would challenge the Corvette. The sheer nerve. Sure, Pontiac had a long-standing intra-GM rivalry with Chevrolet, but Buick had never tried to upstage the performance credibility of its sister division. The GNX, the result of a skunkworks project by a handful of engineers and marketing guys, was more than a way to send Buicks highly successful, rear-wheel-drive G-body out with a bang. It also provided bragging rights for a brand that generally cared more about velour than velocity, and it was a massive challenge to Corvette.

The GNX wasnt Buicks first effort to change its image. With the Regal, Buick enjoyed great success in NASCAR in the early 1980s. Seizing upon that momentum, Lloyd Reuss, then the top man at Buick, hoped to remake the brands geriatric image. The 1982 Regal Grand National was his first salvo, even if it was just a trim and styling package with a mildly reworked suspension. Turbochargers came next, however, and as more powerful variants appeared over the next several years, the Grand National stood in direct contrast to what Buick represented. Not that enthusiasts complained. The appeal of the Grand National was undeniable.

MORE CLASSIC CAR STORIES FROM HAGERTY

With rear-drive G-body production ceasing in 1987and the Grand National with ita small group of Buick engineers, designers and marketers had one last car up their sleeves: the GNX. As the baddest American car of the 1980s celebrates its 30th anniversary, we brought together the men who created it and let them tell the tale.

DAVE SHARPE, BUICK CHIEF ENGINEER: When the decision was made to drop the rear-drive Regal and go front-drive, I said, The Grand National has been a neat vehicle. Why dont we do something really special as a farewell? I told the guys in our Specialty Car Group that I wanted a car that would be faster than the Corvette 060 and in the quarter-mile.

MIKE DOBLE, BUICK ADVANCED CONCEPTS MANAGER: My boss, Tim Logsdon, pulled me into Daves office and said, We want to build a Grand National to end all Grand Nationals. Our objective was to build the quickest-ever GM production sedan, a limited-production Grand National that auto writers would never forget and car collectors would want to own.

SHARPE: There werent any written rules, but this kind of vehicle wasnt considered appropriate for Buick. The project started under Donald Hackworth, who succeeded Reuss as general manager and who loved the idea. But when Ed Mertz came back to Buick as general manager, he had been given an agenda to make Buick the luxury car just below Cadillac. To say that Ed was lukewarm to the GNX would be putting it mildly. [Marketing manager] Darwin Clark, my partner in crime, was supporting me all the way, but it was borderline with [general sales manager] Bob Coletta. [Comptroller] Dick Payne was absolutely beside himself that we were doing it, but we just kept going. Otherwise, the plug would have been pulled.

ED MERTZ, BUICK GENERAL MANAGER: There was some consternation about how the GNX would fit into our Essence of BuickPremium American Motorcar brand image and Substantial, Distinctive, Powerful and Mature product description. But we decided that it at least fit Powerful.

SHARPE: We had to do much more than just put a bunch more power into it, which would have been a disaster. The regular production engine group was too busy, but a group of gearheads in the powertrain group was willing to work on their own time. They looked at the V-6 engine and asked, What do we have to do to make this thing do what we want? It would not have happened had it not been for Mike Doble, who led our small development group.

DON RUNKLE, CHIEF ENGINEER OF ENGINES AND BUICK ASSISTANT CHIEF ENGINEER: In mid-1982, we brought the old 3.8-liter pushrod engine into the modern era. As a 90-degree V-6, it had some unbalance, so we split the crankshaft to even the firing frequency and added a balance shaft to smooth it out. We also added Bosch port fuel injection, distributorless ignition, cast aluminum rocker covers and digital EGR, so it became a very modern engine. And when we turbocharged it, put it in the Regal and made the Grand National, my message to my engine group was: We have to beat the Corvette. We didn't have the same peak horsepower, but in shorter races, we were unbeatable.

SHARPE: We contracted ASC/McLaren to work alongside our folks. They had a joint venture that was perfect for this project, because McLaren knew the V-6 very well, and ASC had capability beyond what I knew. They worked on the rear suspension design and body modifications, die work, and a lot more. I remember the first meeting we had with ASCs Heinz Prechter and the McLaren engineers. We laid out what we wanted to do, and they lit up, because they loved projects like that.

We installed much larger wheels and tires to deliver that kind of power, so they had to modify the bodywork front and rear. McLaren said we would never get what we wanted from the engine without a [lighter] ceramic turbine. The size of the GN turbo was fine for that car, but we would not get the acceleration we wanted because of spin-up time. It doesnt take a lot of weight reduction on the turbine to make a lot of difference in spin-up. We didnt change the size of the turbo, but we added an intercooler to cool the hot compressed air before it entered the engine.

DOBLE: When we had a dragstrip test at Milford [Proving Ground], we had Ed come out to approve the prototype to make sure he was on board. Before we took it to Bill Hogland, who was running BOC [Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac] at the time, we wanted Mertz to throw some holy water on it.

We also had a fun development drive out west. We took off from Phoenix in three Grand Nationals and the two prototype GNXs. We were pushing hard going north toward the Grand Canyon, full-out all the way up through Nevada, where some local cops escorted us at high speeds. We spent the night in Vegas, then headed across to Santa Maria, California, and stopped at Death Valley. The difference in handling between the Grand National and the GNX was night-and-day.

We decided to go to a dirt-track race. I was up in the stands, and suddenly the announcer said, Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special event tonight. Buick Motor Division from General Motors has brought one of their prototypes. And here came a GNX out on the dirt track. It was going sideways and throwing mud all over, for two or three laps. It was one of the guys from ASC. I was livid. I left the stands and called a meeting in my hotel room as soon as we got back. I was ready to have people thrown off the program. They said, Wait a minute. We had fun and it was a great image for Buick. I objected because of liability.

DARWIN CLARK, BUICK MARKETING MANAGER: There was so much demand for it. [Autoweek editor] Dutch Mandel kept calling, wanting to know how we were going to distribute the cars. I told him, Well tell our dealers before we tell the media. He put a blurb in Autoweek that he had talked to me, that I was responsible for distribution of those cars (which was stretching it a bit), and that apparently even Darwin Clark doesnt know how theyre going to do it. We got letters from all over the world from people who wanted one. I called Dutch and thanked him and said, When we decide how were going to do this, I will call you. And I did.

DOBLE: The original production number was just 200. Then we decided to build 500 because of the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500.

CLARK: Well more than our top 500 dealers wanted one. They competed to be in our Select 60, our top 60 dealerships in the country, but only 47 met the performance criteria for Select 60 in 1986. Mertz promised each of those 47 an extra GNX. Dave Sharpe and I asked, How are we going to come up with 47 more? But ASC/McLaren was able to build them.

DOBLE: Mertz told me to make 547 cars, because these other 47 dealers deserved a second one. And all this press was coming out before those cars were even built. We were getting far more press on the GNX in that short period of time than we probably got three years running on every other Buick product. Except for the two prototypes, all of the GNXs went to dealers. Because they were all sold before the first car was done, there were no press cars, so we used the prototypes for press rides. Im not sure what happened to those.

LARRY GUSTIN, BUICK PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER: I called everyoneCar and Driver, Motor Trend, Road & Track, Automobile, Hot Rod, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Autoweekand lined them up for a day apiece. We had one prototype GNX for driving and the other for photography, and I brought a writer in every day to take photos and spend the day driving it, mostly out on curvy desert roads near our Mesa, Arizona, Proving Ground.

DOBLE: One guy showed up with a Callaway Corvette and a Chevrolet representative. He said, Let's see how hot your GNX is. And we beat them on every run, straight-line acceleration and quarter-mile. But given another 300 feet, the Callawaywith a twin-turbo V-8 vs. our single-turbo V-6would have won. The GNX was very quick but not long-winded. I think it did a hell of a lot of good for Buick. The people who bought them could afford them at $10,000 over the sticker price of the Grand National, and some sold for $80,000 to $90,000.

SHARPE: The objective was not profit but strictly to make a big splash. And it did, way beyond expectations. I had media, dealers, owners and others call to talk about it all the time. I still get calls, letters and emails about that car.

Thirty years later, the GNX has lost none of its mojo. Values have soared accordingly in the last three years, as buyers happily spend on the car seemingly named for the generationGen Xit dominated. And while the greatest Buick of the 80s failed to make Car and Drivers 10Best Cars list for 1987, that is perhaps its only failing. In his June 1987 road test, John Lamm at Road & Track approached the rare car with a notably prescient take: Say you manage to snag one of the GNXs for your own. What could you do with it? Some might consider locking it away because in this era of too many same-same cars, there are precious few that will be the serious special interest cars of the future. This is one of them.

Or, he continued, You could go looking for Corvettes to embarrass.
Five woman came forward Thursday accusing Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment, with two of them saying they were underage at the time, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety reported.

These are the latest in a series of accusations leveled at the Oscar-winning actor since November. Representatives for Hoffman did not immediately respond to Fox News request for comment. Hoffmans attorney Mark A. Neubauer called the accusations against the actor defamatory falsehoods in a letter to Variety's owner, Pensky Media Corp.

The first woman to step forward in Thursday's reports, Cori Thomas, told Variety that in 1980, when she was 16, she spent a day in New York with Hoffman and his daughter, a friend of hers.

Thomas unexpectedly ended up alone with Hoffman in his hotel room, she claimed, while waiting for her parents to pick her up, Variety said.

While waiting, Hoffman, who had seemingly gone to take a shower, allegedly reappeared in only a towel, which he reportedly dropped in front of the teen, completely exposing himself, according to Variety.

It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man, she told Variety. I was mortified. I didnt know what to do. And he milked it. He milked the fact that he was naked. He stood there. He took his time.

THIRD DUSTIN HOFFMAN ACCUSER SAYS ACTOR SEXUALLY ASSAULTED HER IN 1983

Thomas claimed that after putting his robe back on, Hoffman asked her to massage his feet and said, Im naked. Do you want to see?

Her parents reportedly arrived shortly afterwards and Thomas left. The story was corroborated by a family member, who told Variety that theyd learned of the encounter seven years later.

The second accuser, Melissa Kester, said her boyfriend at the time of the alleged incident was working on the music for Hoffmans 1987 film Ishtar in Los Angeles, Variety reported.

During a recording session Kester said she attended, Hoffman reportedly was struggling and asked her to come into the booth with him.

Kester, who was there with her boyfriend and another engineer, told Variety she obliged and when she went inside, Hoffman allegedly grabbed her in a kind of flirtatious way.

I felt awkward, she told Variety. Its a little weird. Hes hugging me while hes singing. But ha ha ha, its all a joke. My boyfriend is right there.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL HARASSING THEN-17-YEAR-OLD GIRL

Kester claimed that Hoffman then stuck his fingers down my pants. The others outside the room reportedly couldnt see what was happening, but Kester told Variety that she made an effort not to react so her boyfriend wouldnt notice.

Then I just ran out of there, and I sat in the bathroom crying, Kester told the outlet. I thought, Oh my God. I felt like Id been raped. There was no warning. I didnt know he would do that.

Kester said she never told her boyfriend what happened, but she did tell a friend, who reportedly confirmed the allegation to the outlet.

A third woman, whose name was not revealed by Variety, said she met Hoffman during production of Ishtar in New York, the outlet said.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN ACCUSED OF SEXUAL HARRASSMENT BY SECOND WOMAN

The woman, then 22 years old, reportedly had a small role in the movie and met the actor on set. On the final day of shooting, she told Variety that Hoffman invited her to the studio and encouraged her to stay for the wrap party.

Hoffman, she told the outlet, had a driver with a station wagon outside and offered to take her, and others, home. She said the pair lay in the back of the crowded car and Hoffman allegedly put his hand up her skirt, Variety reported.

There are people inches from us, she said. And he just took his hand and stuck his fingers right up inside of me. I didnt know what to do. Hes smiling at me. I was frozen. I was outside of my body.

At the end of the ride, Hoffman reportedly gave her $20 and wanted her to meet him at his apartment, she claimed. After driving around in a cab, unsure what to do, the woman said she went to his building, where the pair allegedly had sex, Variety reported.

The woman told the outlet that she believed the alleged incident in the car with Hoffman was not consensual, but said I dont know when asked if the intercourse they reportedly had was.

A fourth accuser, who went only by Pauline, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter and detailed her alleged encounter with Hoffman. She told the outlet she met him in 1973 when she was 15 and worked at a clothing store in New York.

Pauline recounted that Hoffman would often come by the store and once invited her to a premiere of his movie Alfredo, Alfredo, to which she brought her twin sister, The Reporter said.

But the alleged harassment reportedly occurred when she visited Hoffman's apartment after they went to see a movie. He reportedly invited her over under the pretense of seeing the puppy he said he bought for his daughter.

When they arrived, Pauline told the outlet that she didn't see a dog and it didn't seem like anyone was home. After rejecting Hoffman's next request to see his daughter's room, Pauline claimed he said, Do you want to see something else? before exposing his genitals and masturbating in front of her, The Reporter said.

I'd never even seen a naked man before, Pauline said. I had never seen anything like it. I didn't know what to say, what to do.

'I'll be finished soon,' he said, Pauline claimed. I didn't even know what to say.

Pauline told the outlet she went home after and didn't immediately tell anyone what happened to her.

The Hollywood Reporter included a fifth woman, writing that it would call her by an alias, Carolyn. She said she'd met Hoffman in 1975 when she was 21, working as a tour guide in Washington, D.C.

She told the outlet that Hoffman's assistant invited her, on his behalf, to his hotel that night. But when she got there, he reportedly knew more about her than she'd shared with him.

It was as if he had researched me, she said.

When the woman said she wanted to leave, Hoffman allegedly blocked the door and said, Go home? You don't think you're getting out of here without having sex, do you?" The Reporter said.

Hoffman reportedly offered her a choice of two sexual acts, to which she said she chose oral sex. Afterward, she claimed he gave her $20 for the ride home and she left.
The New York Police Department is reviewing allegations of rape and sexual assault against Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, an NYPD spokeswoman confirmed to Fox News late Thursday.

"The NYPD has received information regarding allegations involving Russell Simmons in the New York City area and our detectives are in the process of reviewing that information," the spokeswoman said.

On Wednesday, The New York Times published a story in which three woman accused Simmons of raping them. The allegations stem from the 1980s and 1990s. On the same day, the Los Angeles Times published claims by five different women who accused Simmons of sexual misconduct. Two of the woman quoted in that story alleged that Simmons raped them.

Simmons denied the allegations Wednesday and again on Thursday, writing on Instagram that "I will prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges."

Simmons posted his words under a photo that read #NotMe, explaining that he isn't trying to going against the anti-harassment movement #MeToo, where millions have shared their stories about being sexually harassed and assaulted.

"My intention is not to diminish the #MeToo movement in any way, but instead hold my accusers accountable," he wrote. "Again, this is not a movement against or even in conjunction with #MeToo. It's just a statement about my innocence."

Late Thursday, fashion publicist and TV personality Kelly Cutrone told the New York Post that Simmons tried to rape her after they left a party together in 1991.

"He pushed me into his apartment and then he threw me down on the floor and literally tried to  take my clothes off of me," Cutrone told us, "And I started kicking him really, really hard, screaming, telling him to get the f--- off of me. And that I would have him killed if he ever f---ing laid a hand on me."

Cutrone said Simmons' "#NotMe" statement amounted to "a call to every man who wants the right to abuse women to continue."

Last month, model Keri Claussen Khalighi said Simmons coerced her to perform a sex act and later penetrated her without her consent in 1991. Simmons said the sex with Klalighi was consensual. Days later, screenwriter Jenny Lumet said Simmons had sex with her more than two decades ago despite her repeated demands that he stop. Following Lumet's claims, HBO said it would edit out any link to Simmons in its "All Def Comedy" show.

Simmons founded Def Jam Recordings with mega-producer Rick Rubin in 1984. It made stars of such hip-hop artists as LL Cool J, Slick Rick, The Beastie Boys and Public Enemy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The stars love to shine online  but sometimes they should think twice before opening up in front of millions.

There were several celebrities that endured major backlash in 2017 thanks to their over-sharing. Here are the ones that had us talking throughout the year:

Chelsea Handler

Less than two weeks after Chelsea Handler announced she would take a break from Hollywood to focus on political activism, the 42-year-old comedian mistakenly referred to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher as a woman in late October. "So, Republican rep. Dana Rohrabacher from California is was (sic) the original person who received info from Russia, because she works w/ them," Handler tweeted. Twitter users were quick to point out that Rohrabacher is a man. The 70-year-old has served in an elected office in California since 1989. He was previously a speech writer for President Ronald Reagan.

PHOTOS: CHELSEA HANDLER'S MOST NSFW MOMENTS

Bow Wow

Back in May, a sly passenger photographed Bow Wow on a commercial flight after he told fans on Instagram he was heading off to New York City on a luxurious private jet. It didnt take long for people to roast the 30-year-old rapper and reality TV star. And to make matters worse, fans quickly realized that the photo Bow Wow posted was actually a stock image used by a Florida transportation service.



Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian stunned fans in August when she shared photos of her Jackie Kennedy-inspired photo shoot with daughter North West for Interview Magazines September issue, but not everyone was in love with her look. Some Twitter users claimed the 37-year-old reality stars skin was purposely darkened to match her daughter's complexion, while others were more outraged Kardashian was attempting to compare herself to the late first lady.

PHOTOS: KIM GOES TOPLESS FOR THIS REASON

Gigi Hadid

Gigi Hadid was reportedly banned from China after being booked to walk the runway for the Victorias Secret Fashion Show in Shanghai. The news came after the 22-year-old model appeared in an Instagram video back in February where she held up a biscuit shaped like a Buddha and imitated the religious figure by squinting her eyes. The clip, which was posted by her sister, fellow model Bella Hadid, was later deleted after Chinese social media users called her racist.

GIGI HADID LOSES SHOE MID-FASHION SHOW

Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jenner launched a vintage T-shirt collection with sister Kendall Jenner in June, but she pulled images from her website after the siblings faced social media backlash over the designs. The Kendall + Kylie One of One tops, which retailed for $125, feature images of rappers including Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., and album artwork from Pink Floyd, Metallica and more. On top of the artists images, the shirts were superimposed with pictures of the Jenners faces, their Instagram posts and the brands KK logo. People expressed criticism of the latest fashion launch on Twitter and Instagram, complaining about a number of issues, primarily the shirts high price point, their faux vintage styling and the use of musicians' artwork.



Rob Kardashian

Rob Kardashian didnt hesitate to air out his dirty laundry in July when he accused his ex, model Blac Chyna, of cheating in a series of graphic and expletive-fueled posts on Twitter and Instagram. The 30-year-old claimed she is an unfit mother for their daughter, 1-year-old Dream.

You will never see Dream again unless you stop the alcohol and drugs and cocaine and X and E, he wrote. When was the last time you realized your daughter [has] been with me instead of that crazy house that you bring men in and out[?] I never been this disrespected in my life by a woman. A woman I just paid 16K rent and Ferrari I just bought and lambo and 400K in jewelry. Damn.

Kardashian also posted a screenshot of a text thats allegedly a conversation between himself and one of the men Chyna [has] been f-----g in the bed that we lay in with our baby under the roof that I pay for. He also insisted the mystery man asked Kardashian for money or he was going to expose Chyna.



Rihanna

Rihanna left fans scratching their heads in August after she posted an image in her carnival get-up at the Crop Over festival in Barbados. However, the 29-year-old was spotted with an extra thumb thanks to a glaring Photoshop error.



Kris Jenner

Kris Jenner took to Instagram in June to flaunt her svelte shape, which she credited to a tea cleanse. Social media users were quick to point out a noticeable dent in the wooden bench behind the 62-year-old momager, implying she used Photoshop for a slimmer look. Another user even noticed her underarm appeared blurry against the mirror  another possible sign of a major photo edit.


The attorney for the woman whose accusation of inappropriate sexual behavior prompted NBC to swiftly fire Today star host Matt Lauer said Friday his young client is terrified and living in constant fear of being tracked down.

He criticized NBC executives for not doing enough to protect her confidentiality.

My client is terrified, and she does live in constant fear that people are going to track her down and figure out who she is, and she feels badly for the many other women who are suspected of being her and who are also being hounded and harassed, attorney Ari Wilkenfeld said during an interview on Today with NBCs own reporter, Stephanie Gosk.

There is a hunt underway to figure out who she is and I think thats going to have a chilling effect on other women who might want to come forward and tell their stories, he said.

Lauer's lucrative career at "Today" came to an ignominious end last month after the woman lodged a complaint with NBC's human resources department. She accused Lauer of sexual misconduct that started at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. According to The New York Times, the woman alleged that her relationship with Lauer, who is married, continued for a time after they returned to New York.

The woman made her complaint to NBC and asked for confidentiality, but Wilkenfeld accused the company of failing to live up to the agreement.

NBC has a duty to maintain confidentiality  that means to maintain secrecy over her name and to hold to themselves the details of their story, and they have not done a good job of doing that, Wilkenfeld told Gosk, who, according to Variety, has been investigating Lauers scandal for the network.

They know exactly what theyve done and they need to stop, Wilkenfeld said, referring to NBC.

NBC denies the charge, Gosk reported.

The network has protected the employees anonymity all along and will continue to do so, NBC said in a statement read on air.

Calls to NBC Friday from Fox News were not returned.

Wilkenfelds remarks put new pressure on NBC News chairman Andy Lack and his embattled deputy, Noah Oppenheim, who are fighting widespread skepticism within NBC.

Both claim they had no idea about Lauers pervy behavior before Wilkenfelds client made her complaint last month.

Lack and Oppenheim are scrambling to put new sexual harassment policies in place at NBC News, even as they resist bringing in an outside investigator to look into who knew what about Lauers behavior and who may have been covering up for him or enabling him. Both executives have longtime close ties to Lauer.

The Wilkenfeld interview came a day yet another accusation emerged against Lauer, who was NBCs biggest star. A former NBC News production assistant revealed to Variety that she had a month-long sexual relationship with Lauer in the summer of 2000, when Lauer was newly married to Dutch model Annette Roque, who remains his wife.

Addie Collins Zinone told Variety that Lauer initiated sex with her in his Rockefeller Center dressing room and later in a bathroom in Los Angeles during the Democratic National Convention. Zinone said her sex tryst with Lauer was consensual, but that she "ultimately felt like a victim because of the power dynamic."

She told Variety that she believed Lauer was being protected at the time by higher-ups and had people enabling him." She said that he couldnt have gotten away with what he did without others above him making these situations go away  manipulating, strategizing, whatever it is they did to wield their power against the powerless.

Lauers boss at the time was Lack, who was in his first tour of duty as president of NBC News.

Lauer has also been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in his office sometime the following year, 2001, when Lack was still in charge. Lauers accuser, who was a Today producer at the time, told The New York Times that Lauer had summoned her to his office for sex and then assaulted her after locking the door with a secret button hidden under his desk.

She told the paper the anchor bent her over a chair and vigorously had sex with her before she passed out.

She said she woke up on the floor of Lauers office with her pants down and Lauer had an assistant take her to a nurse, according to the paper.

Lauer issued a statement after his firing in which he apologized and said, in part, There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions."

Lack was NBC News' boss until June 2001, when he was promoted to president and chief operating officer of NBC.

Lacks close ties to Lauer stem from their many years together at NBC. He appointed Lauer co-host of the Today show in 1997 and is such good friends with Lauer that the two have reportedly vacationed together. But after Lauers firing last month, Lack has insisted through a spokesperson that he had no idea Lauer was behaving inappropriately.

So far, Lack has resisted pressure to name an outside team of lawyers to investigate what NBC brass knew or should have known about Lauers alleged sexual misconduct.

Lack is keeping the review under his control. He told NBC staffers last week that NBC News lawyers and human resources executives would handle the matter.

Lack and Oppenheim are also facing questions about why NBC sat on the notorious Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump last year  and why NBC this fall spiked celebrity scion Ronan Farrows expose on Harvey Weinstein.

Both explosive exclusives were eventually given to other publications when NBC declined to broadcast them. Since the Lauer revelations became public, NBC execs have fended off increasing accusations that they resisted exposing other celebrities accused of sexual misconduct because of what Vanity Fair called a glass house problem.

Numerous ethics and journalism experts have told Fox News in the last two weeks that NBC needs to bring in an independent, outside investigator to answer all these questions and to apply scrutiny to Lack and Oppenheim themselves.

"It's hard to see how an internal investigation that reports to senior executives would be viewed as complete and transparent when the conduct, or lack of conduct, of senior executives, such as Andrew Lack, necessarily should be an issue, Cornell University law professor and Legal Insurrection founder William Jacobson told Fox News this week.

PBS has taken a more transparent approach when allegations of sexual misconduct against television host Tavis Smiley surfaced this week. Variety reported that PBS hired an outside law firm to investigate. On Wednesday, PBS suspended distribution of Smiley's late-night talk show. Smiley has denied accusations that he acted inappropriately.

Similarly, Fox News brought in outside counsel to investigate sexual harassment allegations against some of its executives and hosts. The Metropolitan Opera has also brought in an outside attorney to investigate accusations of sexual misconduct against its longtime star conductor, James Levine, who has denied all the allegations.

Lauer's reps did not return calls and emails from Fox News requesting comment on Zinone's claims.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will marry on May 19, 2018, Kensington Palace announced Friday.

The couple's nuptials will take place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth II "granted permission" for the couples wedding to take place there.

Windsor Castle, west of London, is one of Queen Elizabeth II's main residences. The 15th-century chapel is as historic but more intimate than Westminster Abbey, where Harry's older brother William married Kate Middleton in 2011.

The couple announced their engagement on Nov. 27. Harry proposed with a ring he designed which included two diamonds from the late Princess Dianas jewelry collection. The main stone was sourced from Botswana.

In their first interview after announcing their engagement last month, Markle, 36, said they were having an ordinary night and trying to roast chicken when Harry got down on one knee.

"It was just an amazing surprise," Markle told the BBC. "It was so sweet and natural and very romantic, he got on one knee."

Harry, 33, added, "She didn't even let me finish."

They detailed their romance, from being set up on a blind date by a mutual friend in July 2016, to camping in Botswana that led to the proposal earlier this month. Harry said he fell in love with the actress so incredibly quickly and felt like the stars were aligned.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
When Italian film star Sophia Loren arrived to America, she easily managed to impress two men: Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant.

The trio appeared in 1957s action drama The Pride and the Passion, which would lead to a real-life affair off-screen between co-stars Loren and Grant.

Frank Sinatra was very friendly. They became friends and treated her well on the set, Cindy De La Hoz, Senior Editor of Running Press, told Fox News. And Cary Grant fell head over heels in love.

Loren, now 83, is the subject of a new coffee table book written by the film historian in partnership with Turner Classic Movies, titled Sophia Loren: Movie Star Italian Style.

The network provided Lorens son, Italian film director Edoardo Ponti, a copy of the book, which received his blessing. Loren herself has seen it.

While the book investigates Lorens film career, which has span over six decades, it also explores what really occurred behind the scenes while creating some of her most iconic movies.

De La Hoz, who conducted extensive research with the help of the American Film Institute and the Academys own library dedicated to cinematic history, claimed Grant, recognized as one of Hollywoods most beloved and dashing leading men, was instantly enchanted by Lorens beauty. However, their initial meeting was plagued with problems.

Loren admitted to the affair, which she insisted was unconsummated, in 2014.

Sophias great rival in Italy was Gina Lollobrigida, said De La Hoz. So when he introduced himself, he called her Ms. Lolloren. He basically muddled their names as a joke. But she didnt get it. So they had a bit of an awkward start. But they became friends and that led to a more romantic involvement.

"[However], she was [already] romantically involved with [Italian film producer] Carlo Ponti, but their situation was very, very complicated. Divorce was illegal in Italy at that time and he was already married She was very frustrated at the time. So she fell into this romance with Cary Grant.

Still, Lorens heart belonged to Ponti, who was more than 20 years her senior. By 1958, the actress reportedly put an end to her romance with Grant.

Cary was really still very much in love with her, claimed De La Hoz. So he was really heartbroken. But she just needed to put an end to it. And it was especially painful because they were then working on a film together called Houseboat... It was really kind of heartbreaking, although Cary Grant ended up being gracious in the end and understood. But before, he was still reeling in from the loss of that relationship. He wanted to marry her. He actually asked her two-three times."

Loren wasnt swayed by Grants promise of a future together. She first met Ponti around 1950 when she arrive to Rome from war-torn Pozzuoli to pursue an acting career with her mothers approval. Ponti, a judge at a local beauty pageant, spotted the then-19-year-old in the audience and sent her a note, suggesting she should participate.

That ultimately led to a lasting relationship. It was Ponti who also recommended Loren to American director Stanley Kramer for The Pride and the Passion, leading to a Hollywood crossover.

The couple would wed in 1966 after Ponti's divorce from his first wife in 1957 and later welcome two sons. The marriage lasted until Pontis death at age 94 in 2007.

They kept a sense of ease and relaxation in their relationship, rather than putting a microscope to it and overthinking things, overanalyzing things, said De La Hoz about their lasting marriage.

Lorens fearless to be herself in front of the camera also left Ponti, and many others, smitten.

She ate whatever she wanted, said De La Hoz. She wrote a couple of cookbooks herself. She very much loves food, loves her pasta. She never wanted to be stick thin Sophia had a very sensuous look. No matter what you put her in, she looked fantastic. She had such body positivity.

Rumors have long existed Loren allegedly has never gone under the knife. And according to De La Hozs research, Loren fought the system over the years to maintain her natural features.

Early on, she was told by cinematographers when she would go to screen tests they thought her features were impossible, she explained. That everything was in excess. Her eye were too large and her nose was too large and her mouth was too large.

"They just picked apart her face at the time and thought it was difficult to light, so they suggested for her to have plastic surgery. She said absolutely not. She said over the years she hated going to screen tests.

Loren didn't seem fazed by the criticism she endured in Hollywood. Growing up in poverty kept her motivated to succeed in pursuing her dream as an actress.

She was a fatherless child, said De La Hoz. Her birth father would not marry her mother He allowed [Sophia] to use his last name, but everyone in town knew she was illegitimate. She was made fun of for that. And growing up, she saw war all around her house. She had very, very little food.

"When air raids would strike the town, she and her family would run for over and had to go in hiding There was disease, rodents Because they had such scarcity of food, she was very, very thin. Thats how she gained her nickname in school, Toothpick.

Loren would find success in Hollywood on her own terms. Throughout her career, she remained devoted to her husband and children, all while taking on various roles. In 2015, Loren told the Associated Press the word retirement wasnt in her vocabulary.

De La Hoz said Lorens unique approach to fame has kept fans loyal to the seemingly approachable sex symbol.

She was such a much more down to earth star who was tied to her family than a lot of other American stars, she said. She also lacks the vanity of some of those American glamorous stars. Shes not afraid to age in films. To play dowdy characters and not be in glamorous clothes Shes never gone into hiding, like some stars in the past who were known for their beauty and just shrunk from the cameras. Shes out there.
A Hurricane Harvey survivor who lost her home in the devastating floodwaters was shocked to learn that she is expecting naturally conceived quadruplets. Ruth Gichana and her husband, Joshua, already have five children and have been living in two separate apartments since losing their Texas home, KHOU.com reported.

Gichana, 43, reportedly learned about the pregnancy through a blood test after returning from a month-long trip to her native Kenya. She works in a refinery and her company requires the test in order for her to return to work.

My foreman comes and tells me like, Ruth you cant go back, it shows that you are pregnant, she told KHOU.com. And I was like, to be pregnant, at this age, its so odd to be over 40 years of age and be pregnant and mid-40s is like impossible.

MOM CLAIMS HATCHIMALS BATH BOMB GAVE DAUGHTER CHEMICAL BURNS

A subsequent trip to the hospital confirmed the pregnancy, with Gichana scheduled to be admitted to Texas Childrens Hospital in Houston on Thursday. The babies, who were given an initial due date of Jan. 15, will undergo additional testing to ensure they are healthy enough for delivery, and then will remain in the NICU for about a month, KHOU.com reported.

A member of the Gichanas church has organized a GoFundMe page to help cover the unexpected costs of four newborns, and has raised $1,060 of the $10,000 goal.

Since processing their initial shock, Gichana said she is ready to welcome her babies.

With God, its possible and I believe when God gives you something and allows you to get in a certain situation, he already prepares a way, she told KHOU.com. If you cling on to him, you will get out successful.
Chattanooga States Dinner of Firsts 2017 had net proceeds for the event totaling more than $70,000, with $50,000 earmarked for the inaugural Tom Edd Wilson First in the Family Endowed Scholarship and $20,000 to the annual First in the Family Scholarship.



This sixth annual dinner event honored local community leader and philanthropist Patsy Hazlewood, with Reggie Piercy serving as event chair. Those roasting Patsy included Grady Williams, Dr. Phyllis Miller, Jim Kennedy, her son Ben Hazlewood, County Mayor Jim Coppinger and Nina Coppinger. Jed Mescon served as the master of ceremonies. First in the Family Scholar Ashlee Kovalik provided a special message for the audience.



The evening began with an opening toast by co-hosts and event sponsors Greg Vital, president and CEO of Independent HealthCare Properties & Morning Pointe, and Jeff Jackson, market president of First Tennessee. In addition to being top sponsors for the event, First Tennessee Bank and Morning Pointe also provided funding to establish an endowed First in the Family Scholarship in memory of Tom Edd Wilson.



"It is with deep appreciation that Chattanooga State recognizes the 43 corporate and individual sponsors, the many individuals who reserved seats, and all those who made donations to the Tom Edd Wilson First in the Family Endowed Scholarship for their support. Additional gratitude is extended to media sponsors WTCI-TV and Brewer Media Group and to Chattanooga Funeral Home, Crematory & Florist for providing the striking floral decorations for the evening.



"This event would not have been possible without support from a talented and hardworking group of volunteers that included Saundra Adams, Sandra Brewer, Nicole Brown, Stefanie Crowe, Julie Davis, Harry Fields, Duffy Franck, Linda Hisey, Bobby Lusk, Marcus McKamey, Diane Parks, Sarrie Pasch, Kim Pendergrass, Scott Rix, Albert Secor, Zebedee Williams, Kathi Grant Willis and Tammy Zumbrun," officials said.



For more information on First in the Family Scholarships or other giving opportunities, call 423-697-3359.
A Kentucky woman's brutally honest selfie and Facebook post while undergoing treatment for skin cancer drew the type of social media attention and news coverage usually reserved for celebrity health disclosures, a new study suggests.

The riveting photo  which showed then 27-year-old Tawny Willoughby's raw, scab-ridden face along with her message that "this is what skin-cancer treatment can look like"  not only drew eyeballs and ten of thousands of shares of her post, but also triggered near record-setting levels of online searches about skin cancer and its prevention, according to the study.

Willoughby, who works as a nurse, began the April 25, 2015, post by saying, "If anyone needs a little motivation to not lay in the tanning bed and sun here ya go!"

By May 11, Willoughby's post had reached 50,000 shares, according to the findings. That same day, her selfie caught the eye of one news outlet that covered her story.

SEASONAL FLU KILLS MORE GLOBALLY THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT, STUDY FINDS

From there, the media attention started to snowball: Between May 12 and May 14, there were 161 news reports of the story, including TV, magazines and online media coverage, according to the study.

The findings were published today (Dec. 11) in the journal Preventive Medicine.

Tawny's message was likely impactful because it was authentic, said senior study author John Ayers, a public health researcher at San Diego State University.

The public may get tired of hearing the same old health messages coming from experts, Ayers told Live Science. But in the age of social media, people don't have to guess what skin cancer can do to your face, they can see it in a selfie, he said.

Seeing the effects can also stimulate curiosity, the findings showed: In the study, the researchers evaluated various metrics, such as the number of comments and shares of Willoughby's original post, along with news coverage and Google searches related to skin cancer for one month after her selfie and story appeared on Facebook (the post initially received 50 comments).

Impacting public health

The news reports that stemmed from Willoughby's post provided more details about how the Kentucky nurse had regularly used tanning beds as a teenager, and was first diagnosed with skin cancer at 21, the study said. By age 27, Willoughby had been diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma five times and squamous cell carcinoma once, according to news reports.(Since the time she first posted her selfie, Willoughby changed her last name and now posts on Facebook as Tawny Dzierzek.)

When the researchers looked at how interest in skin cancer was affected by the news coverage of the selfie, they found that Google searches of the terms "skin" and "cancer" were up to 162 percent higher than expected search volumes on May 13 and 14, the two days when news coverage of the story had reached its peak. (Search volume was compared to expected search volumes based on historical trends of this time period.)

MIAMI DAY CARE CLOSES AFTER 2 SUSPECTED MENINGITIS DEATHS

The analysis also revealed that Google searches for "skin-cancer prevention," as well as for "tan" and "tanning" showed even higher increases around this same period, compared to expected volumes. In fact, the study estimated that from May 13 to 18, there were as many as 229,000 searches for the term "skin cancer," with several days nearing record high levels.

The study authors noted that one of the limitations of the study is that it only looked at Google searches, which capture most online queries, but not all of them, Another drawback is that researchers were not able to investigate who conducted searches or which sites they visited as a result.

Despite these limitations, before this study, no one had ever considered that a single ordinary person could impact population health, Ayers said.

Events like Tawny's selfie are undoubtedly happening now, both inside and outside of health topics like cancer, Ayers said. If public-health leaders could spend more time listening to and engaging in social-media or news media conversations, their educational messages may become more impactful, he said.

Over time, this may yield important public-health benefits, the study authors wrote. These messages could have such positive effects as raising awareness of health issues, helping to prevent them and even saving lives.

Big media data surveillance is one way to listen to what health topics and stories are engaging people and generating queries online, Ayers said. "It gets the public back into public health," he said.

Originally published on Live Science.
College students know that the year-end hustle is real, and one Missouri woman didnt skip a beat as she completed final exams from her hospital bed while in labor.

On Dec. 12, Nayzia Thomas shared a photo on Twitter of herself in the study zone, focusing on her laptop and a textbook, despite the fact that she was propped up in a hospital bed, in a gown, about to welcome her child into the world.

MOM STYLES TODDLERS PINK HAIR, SPARKS INTERNET FRENZY

Better yet, the hardworking Johnson County Community College Kansas City student said though the dissociative identity project for her majors final wasnt yet due until later that week, she was determined to complete the assignment on time and avoid an incomplete grade.

It wasnt due until the end of the week  finals week is Dec. 11 to tomorrow  but my goal was to try to have everything done before, Thomas told Yahoo Lifestyle. [I thought] before all this gets crazy let me hurry up and finish this final.

With over 103,000 likes, 20,000 retweets and 250 supportive messages soon rolling in on Thomas' post, the Twitterverse had nothing but laudatory messages for the new mom.

NUTRITIONIST BLASTS WOMENS MAG, EDITS COVER WITH HEALTHY MESSAGES

Mad respect! my wife had our baby in between semesters and Ive never seen strength like that woman has displayed. You and my wife are the embodiment of strength, determination, and perseverance. Congrats! one user wrote This is what Im tryna see on my TL. A young upcoming mother working for her degree no matter what. Now thats a bad b, another chimed in.

Others, meanwhile, loved Thomas poise, from her sleek locks to her strength of mind.

Okay but can we appreciate the hair though? Its one thing to be pregnant, its another to be pregnant during finals. But to pregnant during finals and still slaayyyyyyy your hair.....I'm amazed, one admirer said, while another joked that seeing the photo made her feel like an underachiever.

She had a WHOLE BABY YO. While Im sitting over here struggling to keep this 3.0 with no job, child, friends, or bf to distract me, they said.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Thomas later shared another photo, announcing the birth of her new baby boy, Anthony Johnson, detailing that while she went into shock after delivery, her and her son are now healthy and well. She also passed the semester with flying colors with a 3.5 GPA.

School is so important to me, Thomas told Yahoo, adding that she stayed in classes until she was 39 weeks pregnant because her college degree is so important to her.

I didnt want [the pregnancy] to be in the way. Thats what people expect. Youre a teen mom, youre a young mother, she said. Thats why my mom took that picture. It shows [I] follow through.
The Democratic Party I see today is very different from the one I knew and worked for in my younger years. Instead of seeking support from the center of the political spectrum it has moved ever leftward, embracing positions that leave millions of Americans feeling left out.

The centrist policies that made Bill Clinton a two-term president are far different from the radical leftist policies of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who calls himself a Democratic Socialist rather than a Democrat. Even President Clintons wife, Hillary, embraced positions considerably to the left of her husband when she defeated Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination last year and went on to lose the election to Donald Trump.

I was active part of the Democratic Party apparatus during the first decade of this century and though much of President Obamas time in office. I worked at the Democratic National Committees Political Department in Washington, served as a national official in the High School Democrats and College Democrats, worked on the Obama campaigns National Youth Committee, and did consulting work for Democratic candidates.

During the early years of the Obama administration I saw firsthand how the optimism and audacious hope that brought President Obama to office soon began to turn to resentful hatred of conservatives and worsened as time went on.

Nowadays this new visceral hostility has led many on the left to paint even the most mundane policy action by Republicans as racist or killing people. This was a standard liberal talking point during the fight over Republican efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare and in the current fight over the GOP tax bill  Armageddon, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called it.

This hostility explains how we went from the party of Bill Clinton, which won states and districts deep in Middle America, to Hillary Clinton dismissing half the country as deplorables two decades later. Hillary Clinton contributed to the seemingly unbridgeable and historic political divide we now see in our country.

I believe the origin of the turn towards hatred of conservatives and hyperbolic rage was in the 2009 to 2010 ObamaCare legislative process and the subsequent 2010 midterm election sweep by Tea Party Republicans.

When President Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, the attitude in the country was one of excitement and hope. While many Democrats still harbored extremely distasteful attitudes towards President George W. Bush, the Obama administration that entered office nonetheless made serious attempts at unity and bipartisanship.

After all, four of President Obamas initial top appointees in 2009 were Republicans  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Army Secretary John McHugh and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley.

President Obama also appointed Republicans to ambassadorships and other key policy positions in the administration, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Many in his administration tried to carry out President Obamas pledge at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 when he said there is not a liberal America and a conservative America  there is the United States of America.

On the right, a deep opposition was brewing. The Tea Party formed in early 2009 during the fight over the economic stimulus bill that ultimately passed and soon transitioned to rallying against the ObamaCare bill at town halls across the country.

Democrats were shocked when the people they were seeking to benefit began protesting their policy ideas. Rather than exploring free-market proposals from conservatives, Democrats pressed on and passed ObamaCare. They hoped for a vote of confidence in the 2010 elections from a thankful American people.

A wave came, but it was in the opposite direction as Republicans achieved a historic sweep of Congress. Democrats lost over 63 seats in the House, the largest House swing since 1948.

My Democratic colleagues and associates at the time were flabbergasted. The very people they believed they had been trying to help turned against them in droves.

I believe that was when the modern hard left began to take shape. Some Democrats saw all their efforts at cooperation during the early Obama administration years as futile and completely rejected, leading them to believe that Republicans could not be reasoned with, would not compromise and were in some cases ill-intentioned.

As the years went on, the Obama administration itself took a more hard-left turn as well. There was far less outreach to Republicans in Congress, as well as a dramatic drop in cross-party Republican appointments.

President Obamas rhetoric turned from humorous playfulness with conservative America to often outright open disdain. Away from Washington, the attitudes of many of those on the left turned even more resentful.

Today we see the manifestation of those attitudes now in full bloom. Few Democrats now have any more interest in bipartisanship, instead preaching to the choir in fundraising emails or on MSNBC about how Republican actions are evil and cruel.

Many establishment Democrats still hope for the return of a time when our discourse and process was less polarized. Nonetheless, a new breed of Democratic activists that is rising in the party has no such inclination. For them, destroying conservatives is almost as worthwhile a goal as promoting their progressive causes.

There is no easy solution to our countrys current dysfunctional polarization and lack of political unity, which Defense Secretary James Mattis has described as the problem that worries him most.

But for the sake of our country, Democratic and Republican partisans need to realize that they can be adversaries without engaging in total war, and try to reach compromises that will benefit the American people and move our country forward. As each party moves farther from the center on the political spectrum, working together becomes more difficult. America suffers as a result.
Holly McKays Life after ISIS: Christians say they can't go home without international protection is both a heart-rending story about the destruction of ancient Christian communities and a plea for help from the international community. It is also a stark warning of things to come.

Since there are many layers here, it will be useful to unpack them, one by one.

Lets begin with an obvious, often-unstated issue: Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia are caught in the crossfire of geopolitical battles they neither started nor have the resources to end. Writing in 1892, the British diplomat Lord George Curzon referred to the countries of the Middle East as the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominion of the world. Unless there is an international, regional and local commitment to provide meaningful defense and internal security services, these communities cannot be rebuilt.

Next, we are witnessing genocide in real time. According to Article II of the Genocide Convention of 1948, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; [and] (c) subjecting the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The Islamic State and those who supported its efforts undoubtedly killed, maimed, raped and trafficked in women and children. They devastated entire communities and created conditions of life that were unquestionably intended to cause the physical destruction of Christian and other religious minority communities.

The question for us is whether time and neglect will complete the job that ISIS began.

There are many individuals, churches and religious communities around the world eager to lend human, financial and material resources to the resettlement and rebuilding effort. They cannot do so without knowing that their volunteers will be safe, and that their investments in the future of the Christian communities of the region are secure.

Without security, the genocide is complete.

The last  and perhaps the most difficult  issue embedded in this story is wishful thinking. It starts with the title: Life After ISIS. Can we honestly say that the organized criminals who called themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham [Syria] (ISIS or Daesh) have been defeated? It depends on how one views the problem.

American news coverage (and hence, political discourse) views the situation in the Middle East through a Cold War lens. We learn that the Islamic Republic of Iran, with terrorist proxies and militias like Hezbollah, is waging war against Sunni Muslims. In this narrative, the Syrians, Russians, Iranians and Iraqi Shiite militias are on one side, and the Americans, Iraqi Sunnis, Kurds and Saudis are on the other. In this narrative, Christians, Jews and others are hostages and collateral damage. Not targets.

If, however, we connect the dots, we will see that ISIS is but one part of a worldwide network of Salafi-jihadi organizations, of which Al Qaeda is the largest. The network operates in the United States, Western Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Russia, Kashmir, the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, Somalia, Mali and elsewhere. The network includes Iraqs Ansar al-Islam and ISIS; Nigerias Boko Haram, Somalias Al Shabab, Indonesias Islamic Defenders Front and the Taliban in Afghanistan. All of these groups are committed to the destruction of Christians, Shia Muslims, Jews and other religious minority communities, no matter where they are found.

If the behavior of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and Boko Haram in Nigeria tells us anything, it is that religious minorities will have no place in the global caliphate that they seek to establish.

Back in the days before smoke and gas detectors, caged canaries served as miners early-warning systems. If the canaries died, the miners knew that toxic gases were building and it was time to get moving.

Todays canaries in the coal mine are the thousands of Christians, Shia Muslims, Yezidis, Shabaks and other religious minorities slaughtered by the Salafi-jihadi fighters of Al Qaeda, ISIS and their affiliates. Their deaths and the destruction of their communities are not isolated occurrences. This is genocide. It is also an unmistakable warning that the toxic ideology driving the recruitment, radicalization and training of thousands of young jihadis to murder in name of God is far more widespread than most Americans appreciate.

Is there any doubt that the Christians, Shia Muslims and religious minorities of Lebanon and Jordan  and the millions of refugees holed up there  are next? That Israel is in their crosshairs? Or that the holy places of Saudi Arabia are the ultimate prize?

Like Sherlock Holmes, who noticed that the dog at the scene of the crime did not bark in the night, we should notice just how little discussion there is in the media about the Salifi-jihadi ideology that drives extremists to murder any religious believer who refuses to convert or submit.

In sum, the murdered innocents of the Middle East, Europe, the United States, Africa and South Asia are not only collateral damage in an ongoing game of geopolitical chess. They are the canaries in the coal mine. We either get together and put a stop to this madness, and, together, confront the menace we face  or we die.
Is there any way Alabamas Democratic Sen.-elect Doug Jones can keep the seat he won Tuesday if he faces a strong Republican when he is up for re-election in 2020?

Yes. And heres how.

Jones won a close race against Roy Moore, a weak opponent dragged down by allegations of past sexual misconduct with teenage girls and a disregard for the Constitution that got him tossed off the state Supreme Court twice.

In any future election, a better GOP opponent will hammer Jones as a pro-choice politician in a state with many evangelical voters and some of the most restrictive laws on abortion in the nation.

Republicans will also label Jones as a Hillary Clinton supporter. President Trump beat Clinton in Alabama by 29 points.

And in a state with racially polarized politics, Jones is a white man who won largely on the strength of high voter turnout among black voters.

So how does Jones play these cards to put himself in position to win a bid for re-election in three years?

My advice is simple: reach for the stars shining down on Alabama.

Speak to the best of Alabama as a state ready to open its doors to more global businesses like the Mercedes-Benz plant outside Birmingham and to federal agencies like the NASA facility in Huntsville.

Speak to the best of Alabama as a state ready to improve all its schools and universities. That will allow the states business community and political leaders to brag about their workforce and attract 21st century jobs that require well-trained workers.

By speaking about a better future, Jones can acknowledge that Alabama is burdened across the globe by a bad reputation from its past  a history of upholding white supremacy and racial segregation based on Ku Klux Klan violence.

In addition, Jones can heal wounds by speaking honestly about past political leaders who controlled the states poor white people by telling them they had no common destiny with the states poor black people.

Jones has the credentials to speak up about that bitter past. He prosecuted the racists responsible for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that killed four black girls.

Jones has a surprising partner in his effort to bring new pride to the state. Sen. Richard Shelby, the states Republican senator, broke from party loyalty when in the last days of the special election he said he could not vote for Moore.

The state of Alabama deserves better, Shelby said, before explaining that he cast his vote for a write-in candidate.

The 83-year-old Shelby is loved in Alabama and he is in no political jeopardy for standing against Moore. Alabamas business community and the states leading newspapers joined Shelby in making it clear that a vote for Moore was a vote to give up on a better future in the state.

Jones can join those Alabama leaders, mostly Republicans, by becoming a new Southern Democrat who takes pride in all of Alabamas people, across political and racial lines.

And Jones can speak of the futility of Moores hostility to gays, immigrants and Jews. He can point out there is so much for Alabama to gain by making it clear that talented people, entrepreneurs, and creative people of all kinds will be welcomed and their families will love Sweet Home Alabama.

In the Senate, Jones will find he is in the strongest negotiating position of any freshman senator in recent memory.

Before Tuesdays election, Republicans held a 52-48 seat majority in the Senate. Once Jones is sworn in, that margin will become even narrower, 51-49.

Among the Republican ranks are moderate senators like Maines Susan Collins, Alaskas Lisa Murkowski and Arizonas John McCain and Jeff Flake. All of them have demonstrated a willingness to buck their own party and vote with the Democrats on major bills.

This math is why Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., immediately called for the vote on the GOP tax cut package to be postponed until after Jones is sworn in. And thats why Republicans will never allow that to happen.

Both Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will be courting Jones to persuade him to vote their way.

McConnell hopes that Jones will follow in the tradition of red state Democratic Senators like West Virginias Joe Manchin, North Dakotas Heidi Heitkamp and former Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu These Democrats made a point of crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans on key issues to win over enough conservative voters in their states to ensure their re-elections.

Recall that Manchin, Heitkamp and Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana defected from Schumer to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

But Jones future will be determined in Alabama.

Alabama has a long, tragic and recent history of voter suppression against African-Americans. In a case brought by Alabamas Shelby County, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the pre-clearance provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and allowed states with a history of racist voter suppression like Alabama to move forward with tough voter identification laws.

These laws disproportionately impact poor black voters, who are less likely to have government-issued identification.

Back in 2015, Alabama announced plans to close 31 state offices that issue government IDs in heavily black Democratic-leaning counties. Hillary Clinton called the move a blast from the Jim Crow past.

I have to think Jones would be rewarded electorally by black and lots of white voters in Alabama if he becomes the unifying figure who stands up for voting rights in Congress.

On so many issues, Jones is the man of the hour. He is in position to make history by rising above politics to speak with love for Alabama.
For both Jews and Christians, this season of Hanukkah and Christmas is a time to celebrate and marvel at miracles. And though Hanukkah and Christmas are very different holidays, it is also a time for us to consider the many things our Bible-based faiths have in common.

I often surprise people when I tell them that the organization I head  the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews  is the largest charity in the State of Israel today. People are surprised as well to learn that the vast majority of the $140 million in donations we expect to get this year will come from evangelical Christians.

Questions I typically get:

Why do evangelical Christians give sacrificially so that Jews can make aliyah and return to live in their Promised Land?

Why do evangelical Christians give to support the poor, the elderly, victims of terrorism and Holocaust survivors living in poverty in Israel?

And why do Jews give generously to support the same type of assistance to help persecuted Christians in the predominantly Muslim nations of the Middle East?

For Christians and Jews, it is the Bible that brings solace, inner strength, and spiritual fulfillment during times of joy, security, and prosperity  as well as during periods of wandering, suffering, and adversity.

The answer to all these questions is that there is an unshakable bond between Christians and Jews, growing out of our shared reverence for the Bible. In addition, both our faiths have deep roots in the Land of Israel. And Christianity began as an offshoot of Judaism. Like Jesus, the earliest Christians were Jews.

Orthodox Jews like myself believe that the Jewish Bible, or Tanach, is the actual embodiment of Gods word. The Bible gives us insight into God and his will for mankind. This is why the study of the Bible is so important in Orthodox Judaism.

We believe that the Bible is eternally authoritative. Even though it was given at particular times in history, it is valid for all time and circumstances. And, not only is it eternal; the word of God is complete. Everything can be derived from it.

As Psalm 19:8 says: The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

For Jews, the study of the Bible is the supreme mitzvah, or good deed. Not only does it teach us how God wants us to live, but the study of Gods word also brings us closer to God himself.

Daily, we pray the following prayer: With an eternal love hast Thou loved Thy people, the house of Israel; Torah, commandments, good deeds, and laws hast Thou imparted to us. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up, we will ponder Thy vows and rejoice in the words of Thy Torah and commandments. For they are our lives and the length of our days, and upon them we will meditate day and night.

Study of the Bible is our loftiest spiritual pursuit. It orders our daily lives and gives us the focus and inspiration we need each day. From the dear friendships that I have with many Bible-believing Christians, I know that the daily study of the written Scriptures and their application to everyday life is as important to them as it is to us.

It is this commitment to the truth and authority of Scripture that leads evangelicals to take seriously Gods promise that he will bless those who bless the Jewish people. Its this commitment that causes evangelical Christians to recognize the Jewishness of Jesus, and to understand that they were grafted into the promises first given to the Jewish people.

And its this commitment that causes evangelicals to be grateful for the measures taken by the Jewish people to preserve and pass down the Scriptures  even in the face of suffering and persecution.

For Christians and Jews, it is the Bible that brings solace, inner strength, and spiritual fulfillment during times of joy, security, and prosperity  as well as during periods of wandering, suffering, and adversity.

The Bible guides our collective path, shapes our character, and links us with the Almighty. In this way, it can truly be said that the Bible is our source of both life and solidarity.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has officially unveiled a new ID program he says is designed to welcome the undocumented community and people on the sidelines into the city.

If you want somebody whos undocumented to feel comfortable to be able to drive their child to school and all the benefits, they have to be part of the city.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on the new Chicago IDs

If you want somebody whos undocumented to feel comfortable to be able to drive their child to school and all the benefits, they have to be part of the city, Emanuel said.

The name municipal ID was initially floated for the program, but Emanuel revealed that Chicagos city IDs would actually be called City Keys.

He said City Keys were designed to give a person who doesnt have an ID or a drivers license essentially the same benefits as those who do. When somebody says, 'Can I see your drivers license?' -- what that unlocks and what that smooths out and all the speed bumps that literally get eliminated because you have a drivers license, Emanuel said.

The mayor says the IDs will also provide benefits including discounts at cultural centers, on public transit and for veterans and senior citizens at locations across the city. Chicagoans will be able to link their public transit and library card to the ID and potentially even open bank accounts with it.

Critics of the program say it might be a way for undocumented workers or people illegally in the U.S. to obtain a valid ID.

Is this going to be a way for people get fake identification? I think there's a strong chance for that happening.  Chicago Alderman Nick Sposato

Is this going to be a way for people get fake identification? I think there's a strong chance for that happening, Chicago Alderman Nick Sposato told Fox News this past summer.

Chicagos city clerk, Anna Valencia, says that there will be a strong four-point application process that a person must navigate in order to get an ID, and that the cards come with hidden security features. The city says it is preparing to release the types of documentation it will accept from an applicant to prove identity.

"I cant go into all the details of what is the security features because we want to keep that private so no one duplicates these, but we feel very confident in our security features for the card, Valencia said.

The city says the IDs will help those who currently struggle to get one  like the homeless or those re-entering the city after being imprisoned.

"You need an ID for a job. You need an ID to get an apartment. You just need an ID for everything, Gilbert Villegas, who chairs the City Councils Latino Caucus, told Fox News this summer.

The mayor also pointed out that certain undocumented people, like Francis Velez, might only stay in a bad living situation or abusive relationship because they can't get the ID they need to move out.

"With me, I was only running around with a police report saying who I was, said Velez, who says she had trouble leaving an abusive relationship without a drivers license. Now, with this ID, people can go get them and be better off not going back to the abuser.

Benefits notwithstanding, critics including some city aldermen think the program might be a ploy for Emanuel to pick up Latino votes as he potentially revs up another mayoral campaign.

I think it's all about votes. I mean, I think they're just trying to please a certain demographic in the city to say, Hey we're for you, we support you,' and I think that's what it's about, Sposato said.

The IDs will be available in March, and applicants can choose their gender on the ID. The city says the first 100,000 IDs will be free. After that, the IDs will cost $5 for minors and $10 for applicants 18 to 64.

The mayor budgeted $1 million this year for the program and will budget another $1 million next year. City aldermen who voted against the ID program figure it might cost up to three times the budget.
The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Thursday it had requested FBI records related to the demotion of Peter Strzok from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian activities during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Strzok, a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, was reassigned to the bureau's human resources division over the summer after Mueller was informed of anti-Trump text messages sent between Strzok and Lisa Page, a fellow FBI official as well as Strzok's paramour.

The messages, approximately 375 of which were obtained by Fox News late Tuesday, included messages from Strzok to Page referring to Trump as "a f---ing idiot" and saying "Hillary [Clinton] should win" the election by "100,000,000-0."

The lawsuit also seeks information about how Strzok was assigned to Mueller's investigation in the first place.

COMEY EDITS REVEALED: REMARKS ON CLINTON PROBE WERE WATERED DOWN, DOCUMENTS SHOW

"It is disturbing the FBI has stonewalled our request about the Mr. Strzok [sic] demotion for four months," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "One can only conclude the FBI and Justice Department (including Mr. Muellers operation) wanted to hide the truth about how Strzoks and Pages political biases and misconduct have compromised both the Clinton email and Russia collusion investigations."

Strzok participated in the FBI's fateful interview with Clinton on July 2, 2016  just days before then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was declining to recommend prosecution of Mrs. Clinton in connection with her use of a private email server.

Strzok also changed Comeys early draft language in his statement about Clintons actions from "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless."

The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General is reviewing Strzok's role in the Clinton investigation, as well as other politically sensitive cases. The probe is expected to be completed early next year.
A federal judicial council will launch an internal investigation into a prominent judge accused of sexual misconduct on the job.

Judge Alex Kozinski, a member of the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was the subject of a Washington Post article last week in which six women accused him of engaging in in appropriate behavior and making inappropriate comments.

Among the allegations, the Post reported one of the judges former law clerks claimed Kozinski asked her to look at pornographic images.

APPEALS COURT JUDGE ACCUSED OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Sidney Thomas announced Thursday he had asked another circuit court to conduct the judicial misconduct inquiry.

"I request that the Chief Justice of the United States transfer this complaint to the judicial council of another circuit for review and disposition, said Thomas in the order. "Any new complaints that may be filed relating to this matter are included in this request for transfer."

A spokesman for the 9th Circuit also confirmed that at least one of Kozinskis current law clerks had resigned, but offered no further details, citing confidentiality and privacy policies.

The Romanian-born Kozinski, 67, was named to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan in 1985 and served as the chief judge on the Ninth Circuit between 2007 and 2014. He had long been mentioned as a possible nominee for the Supreme Court and was known for his engaging legal opinions and personal essays, as well as his colorful personality on and off the bench.
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone Thursday, reportedly discussing a range of issues.

Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference, The White House said in a statement.

The two also spoke about working together to resolve the intensifying situation with North Korea.

The Russian Embassy of the U.S. confirmed the White Houses version of the call in a Twitter post and included a variety of emojis.

President Putin and @POTUS Trump discussed [phone emoji] topical issues of bilateral relations, as well as the situation in crisis points with an emphasis on the settlement of the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula. [Russian flag] [American flag] agreed to continue contacts.

The phone call came the same day Putin said that talk of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia have been made up by Trumps opponents to delegitimize Trumps time in office.

Fox News' Wes Barrett contributed to this report.
Sequoyah High School students Cheyenne Laws and Hallie Ragsdale are getting a taste of what college is like while still enrolled in high school. The high school seniors are enrolled in the electrical maintenance program at Cleveland State Community Colleges Monroe County Center.



I dont know if they realized completely what they were getting into being high school students enrolling in a college level technical program, stated Instructor Chris Jones. While the courses have been challenging, I think they have done very well. I dont think they realized how far they had come in such a short time until the LEAP Day event when they were asked to demonstrate some of the things that they had learned in the program. I think they were all surprised when some of their fellow students from Sequoyah that are interested in the program came up to them and started asking questions, and they were able to answer them. It was a eureka moment for them, almost like, 'Wowlook at how much weve learned in about 50 days!'"



Mr. Jones is referring to the recent LEAP Day event during the Monroe County Center Advisory Council Meeting. Representatives from CSCC highlighted the work that is being done to eliminate the skills gap in East Tennessee as a result of the Labor Education Alignment Program (LEAP) 2.0 grant funds that CSCC was awarded last year.

CSCC and Pellissippi State received a LEAP 2.0 Grant in the amount of approximately $1M, with CSCC receiving almost half of that. CSCC purchased $300,000 in equipment for training programs at the Monroe County Center. Participants at LEAP Day were able to go on a student-guided tour of the newly equipped classrooms and see current students demonstrate the skills they have learned thus far. Ms. Ragsdale and Ms. Laws were two of the students who were asked to demonstrate their skills.



I felt much more confident after it was all said and done, stated Ms. Ragsdale. It was not as stressful as I thought it was going to be because I was used to presenting in front of my fellow students in my class.



The girls are currently enrolled in DC Circuits, Technical Calculations and Manufacturing Processes, and because of their positive experience in the program, plan on enrolling for the spring semester, as well.



This class has been a very fun experience, stated Ms. Laws. I love all of the hands-on work, and Mr. Jones is a really good teacher, and he really takes his time with youI cant wait to see what we learn next semester!



The girls said they enjoy many things about the electrical maintenance program at CSCCthe hands-on experiences, the small class setting, the one on one attention from the instructor, the material and the real world experiences the instructor shares.



Ms. Ragsdale said, My favorite thing about CSCC is the people that helped me get to the point where I am todayPat Bryant, Patty Weaver and Chris Jones. I send my gratitude to those people; they have impacted my life more than they will ever know.

Mr. Jones said of his students, Hallie is an organized student with a great work ethic; she would do very well in this line of work if she decided to stay with it, and Im very proud of Cheyenne. She just refuses to quit in the face of adversity.



We are so excited to offer this opportunity to our students in Monroe County, stated Patty Weaver, assistant vice president for Workforce and Economic Development. This isnt just a mans field to go into anymore, as these two young women have learned. Its a great career field for them, as well. This has truly opened up a whole new world to them.



These high school students will have the opportunity to continue classes in the spring semester, completing a one-year Electrical Maintenance Certificate during the course of their senior year. The program also offers these students the opportunity to apply for internships available at area industries during their second semester. If students choose to continue on at CSCC, all classes will apply to an associate of applied science degree in electromechanical maintenance. Other high school students are invited to start technical classes at the colleges Monroe County Center located in the Tellico West Industrial Park in the spring semester. New students starting the courses in January will have the opportunity to take additional classes in the summer semester to finish out their certificate as well.



Ms. Weaver stated, We hope that high school juniors will take advantage of this program and consider enrolling in afternoon classes during their upcoming senior year.

The college plans to offer both electromechanical and mechatronics classes in 2018-2019. For more information, contact Pat Bryant at 423-884-2338, or email advanced_technologies@clevelandstatecc.edu.








Legal powerhouse Lisa Bloom tried to line up big paydays for women who were willing to accuse President Trump of sexual misconduct during the final months of last years election, according to an explosive report.

The Hill reported Friday that Bloom worked with campaign donors and tabloid media outlets to arrange compensation for the alleged victims and a commission for herself, offering to sell their stories. In one case, Bloom reportedly arranged for a donor to pay off one Trump accusers mortgage and attempted to score a six-figure payment for another woman. The former ultimately declined to come forward after being offered $750,000, the clients told The Hill.

I consider myself lucky to have had Lisa Bloom by my side after my old lawsuit resurfaced."  Jill Harth, accused President Trump of groping her

The Hill cited contract documents, emails and text messages it obtained -- including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that referred to pro-Hillary Clinton political action committees.

Bloom, who is the daughter of famous attorney Gloria Allred and, like her mother, specializes in representing women in sexual harassment cases, worked for four women who were considering accusing Trump. Two went public, and two declined.

Bloom did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News.

In a statement to The Hill, Bloom acknowledged trying to get her clients paid, but said the payments were to help the women stay safe, and in some cases relocate.

Donors reached out to my firm directly to help some of the women I represented, Bloom said.

Bloom, who has also represented accused sexual harasser Harvey Weinstein, in addition to women who've accusing Bill Cosby and Bill OReilly, acknowledged her standard terms require clients to pay her commissions, which may be as high as 33 percent if she sells their stories to media outlets.

Bloom told The Hill she had no contact with Clinton or her campaign.

The Hill spoke to makeup artist Jill Harth, who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Trump in 1997, accusing him of pushing her up against a wall at his Mar-a-Lago estate and groping her. Although she withdrew the suit, nearly 20 years later, the litigation resurfaced during the presidential campaign and Harth was thrust into the spotlight. She asked Bloom to represent her after Trump denied her accusations.

I consider myself lucky to have had Lisa Bloom by my side after my old lawsuit resurfaced. She advised me with great competence and compassion, Harth told The Hill.

Bloom arranged payment from the licensing of some photos Harth had to the news media, and then helped set up a GoFundMe.com account to raise money for Harth, The Hill reported.

Jill put herself out there, facing off with Donald Trump, Blooms husband wrote in a fund-raising appeal, according to The Hill. Lets show her some love

The effort raised a little over $2,300, according to The Hill.

Bloom also reportedly arranged for a Clinton donor to help Harth pay off the mortgage on her Queens apartment. The amount was less than $30,000, according to a source directly familiar with Harths situation. Public records show Harths mortgage was recorded as extinguished on Dec. 19, 2016, public records show.

Trump denies assaulting or harassing women, although an Access Hollywood tape surfaced during the campaign in which he boasted he could grab women by their privates and get away with it. Trump dismissed the comments as locker room talk.

Click for more at The Hill
A former congressional aide Friday accused Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., of sexually harassing her and claimed she was fired and blackballed from further work on Capitol Hill when she refused his advances.

Reese Everson, a former Congressional Black Caucus Fellow, alleged that Scott touched her leg and body without permission and promised to advance her career if she let him flirt with her.

Everson discussed her allegations on an episode of Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" last month, but did not identify Scott as the lawmaker who allegedly harassed her.

'I WAS BLACKBALLED': CONGRESSIONAL STAFFER RECOUNTS ALLEGED SEXUAL HARASSMENT BY LAWMAKER

"[He said], 'So Reese, are you gonna be a good girl?'" Everson told Ingraham at the time. Everson later said Scott asked her "if you're gonna be a good girl, what is the point of you being here?"

Scott issued a statement denying Everson's claims and accusing her of being "backed by a Republican operative known for dabbling in outlandish conspiracy theories." The statement included a link to a Daily Beast article about Jack Burkman, a Republican lobbyist who has offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

"I have never sexually harassed anyone in my 25 years of service in the United States Congress, or in my 40 years of public service, or at any other time," Scott added. "... I am confident that this false allegation will be seen for what it is when the facts are adequately reviewed."

Scott, 70, has represented Virginia's 3rd congressional district since 1993. The district includes most of the state capital, Richmond, along with majority African-American precincts in the cities of Norfolk, Hampton and Newport News.
The House Ethics Committee confirmed Friday it has opened an investigation into Nevada Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen over sexual misconduct allegations.

The ethics panel said it was aware of public allegations that Rep. Ruben Kihuen may have engaged in sexual harassment.

A former campaign aide claims the freshman congressman asked her on multiple dates and requested sex despite repeated rejections during his 2016 campaign.

Earlier this week, a second woman came forward alleging that Kihuen made inappropriate sexual advances toward her. She claimed he asked her to sit on his lap and sent dozens of suggestive Facebook messages and hundreds of text messages.

The woman, a lobbyist who has not been identified, told The Nevada Independent that Kihuen touched her thighs or buttocks three separate times without her consent when he was a state senator.

She said he sent her a shirtless photo and asked her to sit on his lap.

Kihuen, once a rising star of the Democratic Party, allegedly texted her to ask, What color are your panties?

When she didnt respond, he allegedly wrote: Makes me sad. My day cant go on without knowing.

I think he just thought he was playing around, which, I dont think he realized the position he probably put people in."  Lobbyist commenting on Ruben Kihuen

The lobbyist told the Nevada paper she didnt think Kihuen considers his actions wrong.

I think he just thought he was playing around, which, I dont think he realized the position he probably put people in, she said.

For his part, Kihuen said he intended to fully cooperate with the ethics panel.

I welcome an opportunity to clear my name, he added in a one-page statement.

Democrats remain divided on how to handle the situation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, who heads the Democrats campaign arm, have called on Kihuen to resign.

In Congress, no one should face sexual harassment in order to work in an office or in a campaign, Pelosi said in a statement. The young womans documented account is convincing, and I commend her for the courage it took to come forward.

Pelosi made the statement after BuzzFeed first published the allegations of unwanted sexual advances made by Kihuens then-campaign finance director.

While Pelosi was quick to call for Kihuens resignation, others in the party, like Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have taken a wait-and-see stance.

Kihuen is the latest lawmaker on Capitol Hill whose political future could be in jeopardy following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold announced Thursday he would not seek re-election after he was accused of calling staffers "f---tards" and sexually demeaning them and their spouses.

Former staffers accused Farenthold of routinely commenting on the size of womens breasts and making jokes about being on redhead patrol because he was attracted to women with red hair.

His former communications director, Michael Rekola also told CNN that in July 2015, he was leaving the office so he could get married when Farenthold told him he'd better have your fiancee blow you before she walks down the aisle -- it will be the last time.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., announced his intention to resign earlier this month after a flurry of resignation calls by members of his own party. With eight women accusing Franken of inappropriate behavior, 36 Democratic lawmakers demanded he step down.

And Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress, recently retired following allegations he sexually harassed multiple women.
In Washington, politics is personal. And lately its been getting intensely personal.

Kind of like when you were in high school.

Omarosa's departure from the White House was always going to attract an unusual degree of attentionsince she was not exactly a major policymakerbecause Donald Trump had fired her on "The Apprentice." But yesterday it became about a feud.

While Omarosa Manigault insists she resigned, White House correspondent April Ryan reported that she was fired in a nasty confrontationand was escorted off White House grounds.

Omarosa denied that on "Good Morning America," blaming the report on "one individual who has a personal vendetta against me"meaning Ryan.

Ryan, a CNN contributor who also works for American Urban Radio Networks, pushed back on the air, saying she was a beat reporter doing her job. "Thats what a White House correspondent does: listens to sources inside the White House and outside of the White House," she said on CNN.

The Secret Service took the unusual step of denying any role in removing Omarosa from the White House. But several news outlets, including The New York Times, said she was hustled off the premises and was leaving after a clash with John Kelly, the chief of staff, who limited her access to Trump.

Omarosa did seem to hint at a coming book, or something, in telling Michael Strahan on "GMA" that as "the only African American woman in this White House senior staff, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me and affected me deeply and emotionally and affected my people and my community."

Over the summer, Ryan said she and Omarosa had been friends but she was "screaming at the top of her lungs" about a false rumor involving the reporter, and "I embarrassed her in front of reporters and people in that office ... I made mincemeat of her."

See? Politics is personal.

And that also applies to the case of the Scarboroughs vs. the Huckabees.

To recap: Kirsten Gillibrand called on Trump to resign. The president ripped her in a tweet, saying she had been begging him for campaign contributions "and would do anything for them."

That set off a wave of media criticism, and Mika Brzezinski led the chorus. Shed had her own very personal clash with Trump, a onetime friend, when he claimed in a tweet that she was bleeding from a face lift. (Got it so far?)

So Brzezinski denounced the president on "Morning Joe" for what she described as a "reprehensible" attack on a woman. And then she turned to his press secretary, saying Sarah Huckabee Sanders should not defend her bosss tweet (though that is sort of her job).

"Dont lie," Brzezinski said. "And do not defend the president of the United States for what he did. If you do ... you should resign."

That didnt sit well with the former governor of Arkansas, who of course is Sanders' dad.

Mike Huckabee said on Fox that "I was stunned that of all the people who are going to give a lecture on morality and family, and marriage, its going to be Mika?"

Huckabee defended the presidential tweet, said his daughter "deserves better from other women" and added, "Mika can go pound sand somewhere as far as Im concerned."

Now that brought a blast from Mikas partner and fiance, Joe Scarborough, who was understandably upset at the reference to their romance, which became public only when they announced their engagement.

"What a sleazy thing to do," Morning Joe said, adding: "Mika never talked about marriage. She never lectured on the morality of any of thatWhat a judgmental, predictably stupid thing to do."

There are serious issues hereabout the president and women, his battle with a leading senator, the responsibility of his press secretary. But with fathers and fiances getting involved, it became, like so much inside the Beltway, brutally personal.
Congressional Republicans unveiled the most sweeping overhaul of the nations tax code in three decades Friday evening with an eye toward final passage next week after two key GOP senators endorsed the legislation.

"This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told rank-and-file members in a conference call. "Most critics out there didn't think it could happen. ... And now we're on the doorstep of something truly historic."

The final version of the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act keeps seven tax brackets, but reduces rates for five of them. The new rates start at 10 percent and rise to 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent. The corporate tax rate is reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent and the bill provides sweeping tax deductions to other businesses, lowering their top effective tax rate to about 30 percent instead of 39.6 percent.

The standard deduction -- used by around two-thirds of households -- would be nearly doubled to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for married couples. But deductions for state and local taxes are scaled back, allowing families to deduct only up to a total of $10,000 in property and income taxes. The deduction is especially important to residents of high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California.

The final package would also double the basic per-child tax credit for families making up to $400,000 a year from $1,000 to $2,000. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was expected to vote for the bill after winning a late concession that would make up to $1,400 of the credit available as a tax refund to lower- and middle-income families with relatively small tax bills.

Another GOP holdout, Bob Corker of Tennessee, said Friday that he would endorse the bill, describing it as an opportunity "to make U.S. businesses domestically more productive and internationally more competitive [and] one we should not miss."

"I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, Corker added, "and that is a bet I am willing to make."

Senate Republicans passed their original tax bill by a vote of 51-49  with Rubio's support. Corker was the only Republican to vote against the original bill out of concerns about its effect on the federal deficit.

Republicans, who hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, can only afford to lose two votes before the bill is defeated. Vice President Mike Pence would have to break a tie if required.

The House is expected to vote on the final bill Tuesday, with a Senate vote to follow later in the week. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.

The White House said Trump "looks forward to fulfilling the promise he made to the American people to give them a tax cut by the end of the year."

Republicans have promised the bill would provide needed tax relief to Americans at all income levels.

"Americans deserve a new tax code for a new era of American prosperity," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said Friday. "I'm very excited about this moment. It has been 31 years in the making ... Everyone's life will be better off under tax reform."

Democrats disagree, arguing that the legislation would help wealthy Americans and big business at the expense of the poor and middle class.

"Under this bill the working class, middle class and upper middle class get skewered while the rich and wealthy corporations make out like bandits," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement. "It is just the opposite of what America needs, and Republicans will rue the day they pass this."

Business owners who report business income on their personal tax returns would be able to deduct 20 percent of that income.

The agreement also calls for repealing ObamaCare's individual mandate, a major step toward the ultimate GOP goal of unraveling the law. It retains a deduction for medical expenses and an exemption for graduate school tuition waivers.

The business tax cuts would be permanent, but reductions for individuals would expire in 2026  saving money to comply with Senate budget rules. In all, the bill would cut taxes by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years, adding billions to the nation's mounting debt.

The legislation also contains a provision that would open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, a longtime Republican priority that is fiercely opposed by Democrats and environmental groups.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ak., and other Republicans say drilling in the 19.6-million-acre refuge can be done safely with new technology, while ensuring a steady energy supply for West Coast refineries.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Bruce Ohr, the former associate deputy attorney general who was demoted at the Justice Department in the wake of revelations about undisclosed meetings he had with officials from Fusion GPS, is expected on Monday to testify in a closed-door hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, two sources told Fox News.

Fusion GPS is the company that commissioned the anti-Trump dossier containing salacious allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump.

Ohrs wife, Nellie Ohr, worked at Fusion GPS during the summer, specifically on Trump related issues.

Together, the Fusion connections for Mr. and Mrs. Ohr have raised Republican concerns about objectivity at the Justice Department, and even spurred a call from Trumps outside counsel for a separate special prosecutor.

Fox News first reported last week that Bruce Ohr had been demoted.

Evidence collected by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., indicates that Ohr met during the 2016 campaign with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier.

Republican lawmakers have spent the better part of this year investigating whether the dossier, which was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the basis for the Justice Department and the FBI to obtain FISA surveillance last year on a Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page.

On Tuesday, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow called for the appointment of a separate special prosecutor to look into potential conflicts of interest involving Justice Department and FBI officials.

A group of House Republicans for months has called for the appointment of a second special counsel to probe certain Obama and Clinton-related controversies, something Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing.

When asked Tuesday about the Sekulow call, Sessions noted hes already ordered that review following the prior call from members of Congress.

Ive put a senior attorney, with the resources he may need, to review cases in our office and make a recommendation to me ... if things arent being pursued that need to be pursued, if cases may need more resources to complete in a proper manner, and to recommend to me if the standards for a special counsel are met, he said, calling that the appropriate course.
A rising liberal star running for Congress in Kansas has dropped out of the race over a 2005 federal lawsuit in which she was accused of sexually harassing a male employee whom she supervised.

Andrea Ramsey, 56, of Leawood, was looking to challenge incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder in 2018 in the Kansas City-area 3rd District but announced in a Facebook post that she would be ending her campaign Friday.

Ramsey called the allegations made by her former employee at LabOne, Gary Funkhouser, a lie.

Twelve years ago, I eliminated an employees position, Ramsey wrote. That man decided to bring a lawsuit against the company (not against me). He named me in the allegations, claiming I fired him because he refused to have sex with me. That is a lie.

TRUMP PREDICTS MONUMENTAL TAX BILL WILL PASS NEXT WEEK, AMID UNCERTAINTY IN SENATE

Funkhouser worked under Ramsey at LabOne where she was an executive vice president of human resources. Funkhouser claimed Ramsey came on to him in 2005 during a business trip, the Kansas City Star reported.

After I told her I was not interested in having a sexual relationship with her, she stopped talking to me, he wrote in a complaint. In the office she completely ignored me and avoided having any contact with me.

Funkhouser claimed Ramsey had his work station moved out of her office.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission closed the case on Funkhousers claims, stating it was unable to determine if any statutes had been violated.

Funkhouser then sued LabOne in federal court and both parties agreed to dismiss the case in 2006. Multiple sources told the Kansas City Star that Funkhouser and LabOne had reached a settlement.

TILLERSON BACKTRACKS ON OFFER OF UNCONDITIONAL NORTH KOREA TALKS

The allegations resurfaced after the Kansas City Star questioned Ramsey about them.

Ramsey said the national Democratic party declined to support her over the lawsuit.

In its rush to claim the high ground in our roiling national conversation about harassment, the Democratic Party has implemented a zero-tolerance standard, Ramsey said. For me, that means a vindictive, terminated employees false allegations are enough for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign. We are in a national moment where rough justice stands in place of careful analysis, nuance and due process.

Emilys List, a liberal womens group, which supported and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Ramseys campaign, said they supported the Democratic hopefuls decision.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pentagon Secretary James Mattis didnt borrow his bosss favorite phrase to refute a Washington Post report that President Trump doesnt want to hear about Russia from his intel chiefs, but he might as well have called it fake news.

The former Marine Corps general told reporters Friday that, contrary to the newspapers lengthy report, no one advising the president seems to have reason to steer clear of the subject of Moscow and national security.

I have not seen this shyness over at the White House and in the Situation Room."  Defense Secretary James Mattis

I have no reservation, nor has the President ever evidenced any pushback, when I bring up Russia in a national security context, and obviously this has come up whether it be in Syria or with NATO and all the other places where you have heard me speaking about this, Mattis said. I have not seen this shyness over at the White House and in the Situation Room."

The Post reported that Trump is so eager to improve relations with Russia that he has not held the Kremlin to account for allegedly meddling in the U.S. election. Although U.S. intelligence agencies agree that the interference occurred, President Trump has not been expressed such certainty. Mattis, for his part, agrees with the intel community.

Yes, I believe they did, Mattis said.

It was just some of the ground Mattis covered in an 18-minute, impromptu Q&A with reporters in the Pentagon briefing area.

The decorated military legend said North Korea has not yet demonstrated it can hit the U.S. mainland with an intercontinental ballistic missile, despite a test last month which the Hermit Kingdom claimed showed it could. That Hwasong-15 missile rose some 2,800 miles and spent nearly an hour in the air. But North Koreas claim it re-entered the atmosphere has since come under serious doubt.

So it did not achieve reentry? Mattis asked reporters rhetorically. It has not yet shown itself to be a capable threat against us right now."

Mattis also said the plan to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem hasnt proven to put U.S. troops or citizens in the Middle East in any greater danger and expressed concern about two Reuters journalists being arrested in Burma, where they are covering the plight of the Rohingya genocide.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday appeared to backtrack on comments he made earlier this week that appeared to contradict President Trumps position on how to negotiate with North Korea.

The Presidents policy on North Korea is quite clear, and there is no daylight at all between the presidents policy and the pursuit of that policy. And the president, I think, has been very clear that we are going to lead this pressure campaign, were going to unite the international community, and were going to keep the pressure as much as we can and increase it where possible, he said following a United Nations Security Council meeting.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Tillerson said he would be open to speaking to North Korea about anything. The White House immediately responded by saying any talks with the Hermit Kingdom would be pointless.

But on Friday, Tillerson, sitting just a few feet away from North Koreas UN ambassador, was more forceful. He said the U.S was taking the lead in an international campaign to keep the pressure on the North Koreans and in doing so would unite the international community.

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," Tillerson told the foreign ministers. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved. We will in the meantime keep our channels of communication open."

Tillerson noted that the President had called Chinese President Xi and asked him to cut off oil supplies to North Korea.

That is intended to lead to diplomatic talks, he said. In the meantime, the president has been very clear: Militarily, we are going to be prepared should something go wrong. And our military is prepared.

The remarks came as North Koreas UN ambassador blasted Tillerson and said his country was becoming the worlds most powerful nuclear and military state.

In a bizarre speech at the U.N. Security Council meeting, Ja Song Nam, the North Korea ambassador, called his countrys ballistic missile launch last month the great November event. He called his country a responsible nuclear power and peace-loving state.



Ja called the UN meeting none other than a desperate measure plotted by the U.S. being terrified by the incredible might of our Republic.

During the UN meeting, Tillerson said the U.S. remained hopeful that a diplomatic resolution could be reached.

Still, he said the threat is still the United States greatest national security threat.

North Koreas growing capabilities reflect a direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world, Tillerson said. We do not regard this claim as an empty threat.

Tillerson urged countries that have not yet taken action to understand the seriousness of the grave threat, saying more can and must be done beyond enforcing the minimum requirements of Security Council Resolutions directed at the DRPK.

The Security Council meeting was sponsored by Japan, this months Security Council president, and was chaired by the countrys foreign minister, Taro Kono, who warned the council of North Koreas outrageous acts of provocation, against Security Council resolutions, leading one UN observer to say theyve had enough of the situation.

Includes reporting by The Associated Press.
President Trump may have left the door open to pardoning Michael Flynn, but said Friday he's not ready to talk about it "yet."

Speaking to reporters just before leaving the White House for Quantico, where he was to address the newest crop of FBI agents, Trump was asked if he was considering a pardon for Flynn. The former U.S. Marine lieutenant general pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to lying to the FBI, and so far is the biggest scalp taken by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his Russia collusion probe.

"I dont want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn yet."  President Trump

"I dont want to talk about pardons with Michael Flynn yet," Trump said. "Well see what happens. Lets see. I can say this, when you look at whats going on with the FBI and the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.

Flynn, who was named the Trump administration's national security adviser after serving as a surrogate for Trump during his presidential campaign and appearing at rousing rallies with Trump, had a brief tenure at the White House. He was fired after it was revealed he had lied to Vice President Pence about his contacts with Russian officials.

But Flynn had been under investigation even before Mueller's probe over lobbying work for Turkey and other issues.

After his plea, Flynn said in a written statement, "it has been extraordinarily painful to endure these many months of false accusations of 'treason' and other outrageous acts."

However, he said, "I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am working to set things right. My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the Special Counsel's Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions."

A source close to Flynn said financial and emotional pressure helped lead to the decision to plead guilty, rather than endure a drawn-out court battle.

Most legal experts agree that Trump has the authority to pardon Flynn, but several say it would cost him political capital.
11/17/2022

Flat Top Freddie's Picks: Bears (+3.5) Justin Fields has been playing lights out the past couple games. Giants (-3) Saquon Barkley is having a resurgent year and Detroits run defense ... more
Washington's months-long #piegate controversy ended Thursday, as reporters ate a very real chocolate-pecan pie baked by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Piegate is over! said journalist April Ryan from American Urban Radio Networks, who had questioned the authenticity of a pie that Sanders had photographed and touted online in November, the New York Post reported.

Ryan started the hashtag around Thanksgiving when she joked that the baked item in Sanders' post was fake pie. She later apologized that her joke turned into #piegate, the paper reported.

Sanders then promised she would bake another pie to prove her culinary prowess -- and she delivered for Thursdays White House press potluck.

Ryan has often clashed with Sanders in the briefing room, but Thursday was different. The pair smiled as they posed for photos with pies.

Other reporters who tasted the pie told the Post that it was delicious and chocolaty.
President Trump on Friday called on Roy Moore to throw in the towel in the Alabama Senate race he lost to Democrat Doug Jones on Tuesday following a bruising campaign.

"I think he should [concede]," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I want to support the person running. We need the seat. We'd like to have the seat."

Trump backed the controversial Moore, who was dogged by allegations he made sexual advances on girls as young as 14 in the late 1970s, when he was a local prosecutor. But Trump had opposed Moore in a primary race aganst Luther Strange, and said after the election he knew all along Moore could not win.

The Alabama election was held to finish the unexpired term of Jeff Sessions, Trump's attorney general.

On election night, Moore said he expected the race to go to a recount. But he lost by 20,715 votes, which was a full percengtage point over the the 0.5 percent threshhold under which a recount would be automatic.

We have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots, Moore said. This has been a very close race, and we are awaiting certification by the secretary of state.

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has said that the election will be certified Dec. 28.
President Trump on Friday predicted Congress would pass a sweeping bill to reform the countrys tax system next week, as several Republican holdouts said they would back the overhaul.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the only Republican to vote against the original version of the tax bill passed by the Senate, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has expressed concerns over the size of a child tax credit, both said Friday they would vote for the final tax bill.

The House and Senate have passed separate tax bills, but they have been working to come up with a final $1.5 trillion GOP tax reform legislation. Final votes are likely in both chambers next week.

As he departed the White House on Friday for a speech at the FBI academy, Trump told reporters he has seen the details of the final version and is confident Republicans will get behind it.

I have seen it, he said. I think it's going to do very, very well. I think that we are going to be in a position to pass something as early as next week, which will be monumental.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters he expects the text of the bill to be posted at 5:30 p.m. EST on Friday when the House convenes.

After many conversations over the past several days with individuals from both sides of the aisle across Tennessee and around the countryincluding business owners, farmers, chambers of commerce and economic development leadersI have decided to support the tax reform package we will vote on next week," Corker said in a statement.

Rubio is expected to be a yes according to sources. He celebrated the "progress made on the Child Tax Credit" in a tweet Friday.

Meanwhile, three Republican senators, Arizonas Jeff Flake, Utahs Mike Lee and Maines Susan Collins have said they want to read the bill before saying whether they will support it.

Two other Republicans have missed votes this week due to illness.

John McCain of Arizona, who is 81, is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for side effects of brain cancer treatment, and 80-year-old Thad Cochran of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.

Of course we all wish for Sen. McCain to have a great health for as long as possible, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said on Fox News on Friday. My sense is that everybody's made a commitment to be there next week. And we will certainly be able to have the vote. Our prayers go to him and his family.

Cochran's office told Fox News that the senator is in Washington and expects to vote for the tax plan when it comes to the Senate next week.

Republicans, with a 52-48 majority in the Senate, can only afford to lose two votes in the Senate. Vice President Mike Pence would have to break a tie if required.

Rubio and Lee had both indicated in recent days they would not support the final tax bill unless a larger child tax credit was included.

Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Lee, said the senator was "undecided" on the bill in its current form.

Sen. Lee continues to work to make the [child tax credit] as beneficial as possible to American working families," Carroll said.

Rubio and Lee have advocated for a $3,000 tax credit per child in the bill.

On Friday, Trump expressed optimism he could win over Rubio and Lee.

I think they'll be great, he said. They're great people. They want to see it done. I know them very well. I know how they feel. These are great people and they want to see it done, and they want to see it done properly.

Senior congressional aides told Fox News late Thursday that the final bill leaves in place a deduction for the interest on student loans and would not start taxing graduate school tuition waivers.

Brady also confirmed Thursday that the final legislation would reduce the top tax rate to 37 percent from 39.6 percent.

The final package slashes the corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The initial Senate and House bills had set it at 20 percent.

Fox News Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump told a graduating class of law enforcement officers at the FBI Academy on Friday that he has your back 100 percent and pledged his White House will always stand behind police.

The president of the United States has your back 100 percent, Trump said in a 17-minute speech to state and local law enforcement officers who competed a special training course at the bureau.

"There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time."  White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley

Trump's support for law enforcement has been no secret, but the comments at the FBI Academy came as bad blood between the White House and bureau has reached an all-time high. Trump has blasted the bureaus senior leadership and its reputation, calling it in tatters and the worst in history.

"It's a shame what's happened with the FBI," Trump said Friday, moments before he left for Quantico. "But we're going to rebuild the FBI. It'll be bigger and better than ever.

"Everybody -- the level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad," he added.

But during his speech, the president praised agents who keep the country safe and whom he does not blame for the investigations that have dogged his administration.

He did, though, take aim at the growing violence in Baltimore and Chicago.

What the hell is going on in Chicago? What the hell is happening there? he asked, which was followed by an awkward silence and then mild applause.

The White House said Friday newly revealed FBI records show there is an extreme bias against Trump among senior leadership at the FBI.

Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News that edits to former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Hillary Clinton's private email server and text messages from a top agent critical of Trump are "deeply troubling."

"There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time," Gidley charged, as special counsel Robert Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia.

Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBI's rank-and-file.

Edits to the Comey draft appeared to soften the gravity of the bureau's finding in its 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Gidley said the disclosure of politically charged text messages sent by one of the agents on the Clinton case, Peter Strzok, were "eye-opening." Strzok, who was in the room as Clinton was interviewed, was later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's team to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. He was re-assigned after the messages were uncovered this summer.

About 200 leaders in law enforcement from around the country attended the weeks-long FBI National Academy program aimed at raising law enforcement standards and cooperation. Coursework included intelligence theory, terrorism and terrorist mindsets, law, behavioral science, law enforcement communication, and forensic science.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NEW ORLEANS  The dwarf planet Ceres' famous bright spots suggest that the gray, crater-laden world is surprisingly active, a new study reports.

Ceres' bright patches may overlie pools of salty water, which could be the remnants of an ancient, subsurface ocean, study team members said.

"It's possible there is still brine coming up to the surface," lead author Nathan Stein, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Space.com. "It's certainly intriguing." [Awesome Ceres Photos by NASA's Dawn Spacecraft]

Stein and his team categorized the more than 300 bright patches on Ceres' surface into four groups, while planetary geologist Lynnae Quick, of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., examined what could be driving the spots' differences. Along with Carol Raymond, the deputy principal investigator for NASA's Dawn mission, which has been orbiting Ceres since March 2015, the pair presented their results here at the American Geophysical Union meeting on Tuesday (Dec. 12).

Ceres' shiny spots

As Dawn approached Ceres in the spring of 2015, the spacecraft spotted a handful of bright glints on the dwarf planet's surface. Further investigation revealed a wealth of spots made of salts stretching across the planet, almost all of them in or around craters. Variations in the spots' appearance have helped scientists better understand how they may have formed.

Stein found that the most reflective material on Ceres tends to lie at the bottom of craters. Some of the first spots identified sit on the floor of 57-mile-wide (92 kilometers) Occator Crater, which hosts two prominent bright areas, Cerealia Facula in the center and Vinalia Faculae to the east. Cerealia Faculae is a collection of the brightest material on Ceres, spread over a 6-mile-wide (10 km) pit with a small dome in its center. Vinalia Faculae is fainter and slightly less reflective.

Another type of Ceres bright material perches on the rims of craters, streaking downward. More common than the material on the floor, this stuff was most likely exposed by objects that crashed into Ceres. The third class of material, spread around the edges of craters, was probably ejected by impactors, the researchers determined.

The "lonely mountain" Ahuna Mons, with bright spots on its flanks, is in a class by itself. The only big peak on Ceres, it has no clear connection with a crater. Instead, scientists think Ahuna Mons is most likely a cryovolcano, created by the accumulation of flowing ice.

Freshly exposed material is bright, but, over millions of years, the spots slowly mix with the dark material that covers the surface of Ceres. In the past, thousands of brightly gleaming spots may have speckled the dwarf planet, the researchers said. [What Would It Be Like to Live on Ceres?]

The new study will appear in the journal Icarus.

Shaken Ceres soda

The source of the bright spots was a question that plagued Quick. Although the spots could have formed via several different means, the team members believe they most likely originated from pockets of brine beneath the surface  the remnants of a liquid layer in the past.

"We believe these bright spots are a sign that Ceres once had a global ocean," Quick said. In fact, she suggested that the activity that is happening on the dwarf planet may also be occurring on a larger scale on the icy moons of the outer solar system, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's satellite Enceladus.

If this interpretation is correct, Ceres' ocean slowly froze out over time, leaving behind what Stein called "discrete pockets of brines." Scientists suspect these are isolated pools rather than a complete liquid layer, because the bright spots themselves are discontinuous, he explained. "Not every new crater exposes [brines]," Stein said.

As the briny liquid cooled and began to freeze, the expanding ice pushed the liquid up, Quick said. In many cases, brines could have been pushed to the surface through a network of fractures. Another option is that impactors "squeezed and pinched" these pockets, she said, creating pressure that shoved material upward.

Things get even more interesting when the salty liquid pops out from underground, onto Ceres' airless surface.

"When brines get to the surface, they are going to want to fountain or boil," Quick said. She compared the process to a shaken soda can after it's been opened. Such spewing soda is caused by interacting gases that make the liquid expand or fountain up and out.

"We believe that when brines get to the surface on Ceres, that's what happening," she said.

When the material is thin, it may spew outward in an arc, splashing icy particles around the surface. This could explain some of the diffuse groupings of spots, Quick said.

Thicker, icy lava may have created the superbright Cerealia Facula, the researchers said. As the material seeped through cracks to the surface, it likely formed a dome. The outermost layers froze into an icy shield that insulated the frigid lava beneath. New bright spots formed on the surface as cracks or ruptures allowed material to fountain outward.

Ahuna Mons most likely took this process to extremes, piling icy lava on top of itself to create its towering heights. Nicks in the surface allowed material to boil out, creating the icy spots visible on the mountain's flanks today.

According to Stein, the majority of Ceres' bright spots are young, no more than a few tens of millions of years old. (Keep in mind that the solar system itself is a whopping 4.5 billion years old.) That could mean that Ceres is still active today, he said.

"Ceres really isn't a dead world," Stein said. "As Dawn continues its mission, we're going to continue to try to characterize and understand in more detail how these bright deposits formed."

Originally published on Space.com.
The first manned mission to Mars is leaving sooner than you thought.

Officials at Floridas NASA Kennedy Space Center are hoping new educational programs simulating a landing on Mars and running a space base there give the American public the most authentic experience yet as to what life could be like for astronauts on the red planet.

People are captivated by the idea of Mars and we wanted to be able to give most people who would never have the chance of going there the most immersive experience, Dee Maynard, education programs manager at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Titusville, told Fox News.

The redesigned Astronaut Training Experience (ATX) and new Mars Base 1 program will have limited availability starting Monday before a grand opening in mid-January, according to spokesperson Rebecca Shireman.

This generation that is coming through, they are the ones that are the right age to be living and working in Mars, Maynard said. We are trying to help them catch the Mars bug.

The 5-hour ATX program consists of a series of life-like simulations of landing and exploring Mars.

Teams of six first work together to land a capsule on the red planet, with some roleplaying as being astronauts on board while others are in mission control. Then they switch sides.

A full motion simulator that can spin riders 360 degrees  and upside down  lets guests simulate driving on Mars surface. Virtual reality headsets also offer four missions on Mars, ranging from repairing a rover to riding out a sandstorm.

And to help prepare for that feeling of weightlessness when being somewhere without gravity, astronauts can strap themselves in a microgravity simulator, which Maynard described as a hovercraft chair in a frictionless environment.

HUMANITY'S EXPANSION INTO DEEP SPACE IS INEVITABLE, INDUSTRY EXPERTS SAY

With the Mars Base 1 program, guests will simulate living on the red planet and face scenarios such as cleaning off solar panels obstructed by Mars dust.

Food and oxygen for Mars Base 1 comes from the Botany Lab, reads a description on Kennedy Space Centers website of another component of the program. There, you will plant actual seeds, harvest a variety of crops, and decide what to do when the greenhouse becomes threatened. Conduct research on plant species and use precise measurements before sending your data to real NASA scientists for their own ongoing Veggie project.

Kennedy Space Center staff members will provide assistance in each activity to help educate and keep things moving. Participants are also encouraged to help each other out as well.

We believe communication, collaboration and teamwork are key to learning, Maynard said.

Maynard told Fox News that the facilitys current astronaut training experience was created during the shuttle era and the redesign -- more than two years in the making -- is being carried out to keep future generations informed as to where NASA is heading.

NASA is going back to deep space exploration with focus on a possible return to the Moon and going to Mars, she said. We wanted the astronaut program to reflect that.

Former astronaut Jon McBride, who is working at the Kennedy Space Center now, believes space and aeronautics educational programs give youth a chance to see what they can do in the future.

I look back on my childhood and I was inspired by people who came and talked about futuristic things and the possibilities that you can do pretty much anything you want to do, he said in an interview with WFME about the new ATX and Mars Base 1 programs. I love to see the sparkle on kids eyes when I talk to them about them being perhaps the first person to walk on Mars one of these days. You can see their eyes light up.
An enormous, 3-mile-wide "potentially hazardous asteroid" is hurtling toward Earth and is slated to zoom past the planet tomorrow, but scientists say there is no need to worry.

Known as 3200 Phaethon, the space rock orbits the Sun and is expected to come the closest it has come to Earth since 1974, 6.4-million miles away, according to a statement from NASA.

There is no chance the asteroid will hit Earth and won't come this close again until 2093. Despite that, it has been classified as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid" by the Minor Planet Center, NASA added in the statement.

NASA said that the asteroid is "potentially detectable at Goldstone [a NASA communications complex] for about three weeks and tracks are scheduled on ten days between Dec. 11-21." The government agency said that it will also remain visible at the Arecibo observatory, located in Puerto Rico, between Dec. 15 and Dec. 19.

NASA JUST SHOWED OFF HOW IT WOULD HELP SAVE THE PLANET FROM 'POSSIBLE LIFE-THREATENING ASTEROIDS'

3200 Phaethon is thought to cause the annual Geminid meteor shower, which this year reached its peak this past Thursday.

Astronomers almost unanimously agree that no asteroid, particularly those of the near-Earth variety, will hit our planet in our lifetime. However, if one of this size were to hit us, it could cause some serious damage.

Boston University astronomy professor Michael Mendillo told Time that 3200 Phaethon "would be this kind of object that would cause a catastrophic collision, should there be one, before adding that it is highly unlikely.

Scientists have said they "can't rule out" a potential collision with the asteroid 99942 Apophis, but that is not slated to come very close to Earth until 2029.

This is not the first time in recent memory an asteroid of this size whizzes past Earth.

In August, a 2.7-mile wide asteroid dubbed Florence passed by Earth at a safe distance of 4.4 million miles, roughly 18 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

In October, 2012 TC4, a space rock estimated to measure between 50 and 100 feet, passed safely past Earth by 26,000 miles and was used to test Earths international warning network.

MYSTERIOUS OBJECT FROM DEEP SPACE HAS ENTERED OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

Plans to save humanity

If an asteroid were to ever threaten the Earth, NASA has a plan to fight off "possible life-threatening" asteroids.

In June, the agency unveiled a video using 3-D modeling techniques and one of its supercomputers in an effort to produce simulations on a variety of asteroid impact scenarios. This allows first responders and other agencies to identify threats and make better decisions should an event occur in the future.

The work is being done by experts on the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility at Ames Research Center in Californias Silicon Valley. The efforts are in conjunction with NASAs Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

The research has been shared with a number of different parties, including university scientists, national research labs and different government agencies.

The work follows an asteroid collision in 2013 in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The blast from the asteroid injured more than 1,200 people and damaged building 58 miles away.

Separately, in 2016, NASA opened a new office to track asteroids and comets that come too close to Earth, known as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO).

The PDCO formalizes the agencys existing program for detecting and tracking Near-Earth Objects, known as NEOs.

NASA has been studying NEOs since the 1970s. According to the PDCO, NASA-funded survey projects have found more than 95 percent of the known catalog of over 15,000 NEOs.

Fox News' James Rogers contributed to this report. Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @Chris_Ciaccia
To help fight stress of upcoming finals, colleges are using therapy llamas. University of South Florida and Radford University are trucking in llamas and other beasts to help students cope.

So this is great for the students, poor things. But what about the llamas who have to absorb the noxious, annoying angst of fragile idlers as they moan about their insulated existence and perhaps the easiest phase of their comfy lives?

Yes, some studies show that pets lower stress, but what about the stress of the pet? Talk about torture. Imagine being a llama and you're bussed miles from the comforts of a pleasant petting zoo only to have some whiny bozo with issues running their bony, stinky fingers through your gorgeous fur.

Imagine a poor bunny -- yes, they're using bunnies, too -- forced to sit on the lap of a gender studies major griping about how studying has really cut into her social justice puppetry theater. I'd put these critters on suicide watch, because if I were an alpaca, guinea pig or a slow loris, I'd hurl myself into traffic before becoming a stress sponge for these pampered slackers.

And where will this end anyway? When these precious pupils graduate, how will they handle the real world? Will llamas accompany you to a job interview? Yes, that will go over well. Well, unless it's this one.

My stress levels have already plummeted. Thanks, Lorenzo.
A family from Florida is demanding answers from Carnival Cruise Line after finding a hidden camera behind their cabins television during an October vacation.

The device was reportedly discovered by the familys father during an allergy attack, after he moved the TV to inspect for dust. Sticking out from the wires, he said, was a small camera  still warm to the touch  with its lens pointing directly at the bed, The Miami New Times reported. He also snapped photos of what appeared to be an antenna on the back of the device.

The family, who did not wish to be named, added that they only found the camera on the second night of their Carnival Fantasy voyage from Alabama to Mexico.

I asked my wife, What is this? Is this what I think it is? We both just went white as ghosts, he told the New Times.

CRUISE PASSENGERS EXPERIENCE OUTBREAK OF VOMITING, DIARRHEA AFTER INDULGING IN 'BOTTOMLESS BRUNCH'

The man added that he was especially disturbed by the implications this might have for his underage child.

My main concern is there is video of him online now. And Ill never know, he told The Miami Herald.

The ships security team sent an officer to the familys cabin to inspect and dismantle the camera, but the family feels Carnivals staff tried to downplay the severity of the situation, telling them it was not in working condition, and likely left by the recent guest despite the camera being covered in dust, the New Times reports.

The dad also believes the staff may have compromised the evidence by handling the camera without gloves, as seen in footage uploaded to the YouTube channel Cruise Law.

CRUISE PASSENGER BOOTED FOR TRYING TO STAGE 'MUTINY' OVER CANCELED ITINERARY

A subsequent statement from Carnival Cruise Line reiterated that the camera was non-operational, and further claimed that Carnival conducted a full investigation in accordance with U.S. authorities.

In October, a small, non-working camera was found in a cabin aboard Carnival Fantasy during a cruise departing from Mobile, Ala. After review by the ships technicians, it was determined that device was not operational, the cruise line stated.

A full investigation was conducted by the shipboard team in tandem with Carnivals shoreside security personnel who also notified U.S. law enforcement, including the FBI, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and local police, when the ship arrived in Mobile following the cruise.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

The family told the Herald that Carnival has not reached out with further information, or even an apology, following the incident. They are currently in contact with maritime lawyer James Walker, but do not yet plan to file a lawsuit, according to the Herald.

We werent trying to get any money; we werent trying to get a free cruise, the father tells the Herald. I just wanted to have action taken on it.
A chilly Tuesday night in Northwest Georgia saw the Dalton Convention Center in Dalton fill to capacity as more than 250 students walked the stage at Georgia Northwestern Technical Colleges (GNTC) Fall Commencement Ceremony. An estimated 1,500 family and friends were on hand for the occasion.

GNTC President Pete McDonald, his administration, and keynote speaker 2017 Georgia Northwestern Technical College GOAL Winner Miguel Ramirez addressed the graduating class as they spoke on the accomplishments of the students and the challenges yet to come. Georgia Northwestern holds two graduations each year. The fall graduation in December, as well as the spring graduation each May.

All graduates participating in the ceremony were recognized for their academic achievements and presented with their associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates. In order by the honors they received, below are the graduates who applied for graduation and also took part in commencement exercises at the December ceremony.

Associate of Applied Science Chikira Keivere Alston Medical Assisting Orlando Altamirano Electronics Technology Shayla R. Anderson Early Childhood Care and Education Elsa Marlene Avelar Social Work Assistant Dena Bagley Business Technology Holly Lyn Bagwell Health Information Management Technology Katelyn R. Baker Business Management April W. Bennett Business Management Marcella Marie Bennett Business Management Ashley Brooke Blevins Medical Assisting Chase L. Bohannon Horticulture Angie Elizabeth Bonds Medical Assisting Jesse M. Bramblett Business Management Francis P. Bresnahan Radiologic Technology Sheena Brewer Business Technology Kayla N. Bridges Health Information Management Technology Nicholas A. Brown Industrial Systems Technology Lauren E. Brumbelow Radiologic Technology Ronal Savier Bueso Logistics and Supply Chain Management Carlos M. Calderon Business Management Dana Brooke Campbell Business Technology Allison Nicole Chastain Business Management Jessica Cisneros Radiologic Technology Lauren Alexandria Cook Vascular Darlene Cronnon Networking Specialist Angela Cruz Rodriguez Radiologic Technology Joseph J. Davalos Surgical Technology Rebecca Sue Daves Vascular Betty Davis Business Management Andrea N. Dean Accounting Jessica A. Dixon Business Management Chasatee V. Dorsey Medical Assisting Davina Lee Edwards Business Management Desiree Lynell Edwards Accounting Kasey Nicole Epps Early Childhood Care and Education Donterica Q. Garrett Radiologic Technology Jaclyn G. Gibson Health Information Management Technology Adrian Gonzalez Construction Management Kinley S. Hallman Health Information Management Technology Rachel Ann Hammock Criminal Justice Technology Dustin J. Hanks Instrumentation and Controls Technician Holly Hansman Vascular Elisabeth A. Harp Computer Support Specialist Amanda K. Harper Diagnostic Medical Sonography Timothy James Hayes Computer Support Specialist Eddie D. Hennessee Jr. Surgical Technology Hector Hernandez Industrial Systems Technology Dallas S. Higgins Adult Echocardiography William L. Hightower Instrumentation and Controls Technician Jonathan Patrick Hile Business Management Kaysie B. Holder Radiologic Technology Emily Nicole Holland Health Information Management Technology Christopher Honeycutt Culinary Arts Summer Faith Hudson Business Technology John A. Humphrys Networking Specialist Casey Jordon Jacobs Business Management Rebeccah Lynn Johnson Medical Assisting Timothy James Johnston Industrial Systems Technology Rebecca D. Kanouff Adult Echocardiography William W. Kelley Electronics Technology Ronald J. Kowalchuk Aviation Maintenance Technology Sarah Lambert Adult Echocardiography Summer Ann Ledbetter Early Childhood Care and Education Andrew C. Ledford Instrumentation and Controls Technician Kaleb Alexander Lewallen Computer Support Specialist Jodi Lewis Diagnostic Medical Sonography Lauren Taylor Lively Health Information Management Technology Joshua C. Lovain Business Management Beck Patterson Maxwell Instrumentation and Controls Technician Madison E. McConnell Vascular Titus S. McGuire Computer Support Specialist Tyler A. Minchew Accounting Emily Monroig Industrial Systems Technology Nicole M. Moore Business Management Billy J. Morgan Culinary Arts Chelsea Morris Surgical Technology Justine Marie Nichols Diagnostic Medical Sonography Chase L. Norton Instrumentation and Controls Technician Brett A. Notabartolo Logistics and Supply Chain Management JoAnna A. Parker Early Childhood Care and Education Megan E. Parker Surgical Technology Daniel J. Parrish Industrial Systems Technology Kayla Robin Patterson Business Management David Paz Automotive Technology Angela Traci Perkins Business Management Dewayne Howard Perkins Computer Support Specialist Richard B. Peterson Industrial Systems Technology Kristen E. Pettus Diagnostic Medical Sonography Taylor Phillips Adult Echocardiography Cynthia E. Puckett Medical Assisting Miguel Ramirez Business Management Yuritsi I. Ramirez Criminal Justice Technology Irbin Rangel Business Management Elizabeth Ann Reichner Radiologic Technology Amy M. Rigsby Business Management Kaitlyn Victoria Roberts Radiologic Technology Lisa A. Roberts Business Technology Maritza E. Salazar Romero Business Technology Jessica Delaine Russell Networking Specialist Ellen Regina Sanders Business Management Ashley L. Sebastiani Diagnostic Medical Sonography Taylor Allyce Sexton Medical Assisting Savannah Nicole Shaw Radiologic Technology Kabir Sheikh Business Management Kaylyn Emma Shelton Vascular Haley V. Silvers Business Management Earnest J. Simpson Culinary Arts Cristina Marie Slone Early Childhood Care and Education Judy A. Smith Business Technology Melinda Ann Spires Criminal Justice Technology Alexandria Fuller Stephens Surgical Technology Heather M. Swafford Adult Echocardiography Colby Patrick Thomas Instrumentation and Controls Technician Ashley Tidwell Early Childhood Care and Education Antonio Torres Industrial Systems Technology Erik VanLandingham Automotive Technology Sarah Waldrup Early Childhood Care and Education Thomas Wall Computer Support Specialist Essie T. Wallace Computer Support Specialist Michaela K. Wolfe Radiologic Technology Tina Womack Accounting Shakivia D. Wright Culinary Arts Diploma Jacqueline N. Allred Cosmetology Armando J. Alvarez-Mulgado Electrical Systems Technology Wesley J. Bailey EMS Professions Christopher Fidel Ballew Electrical Systems Technology Brandy N. Banks Business Technology Tiara M. Barrett Practical Nursing Tony Alexander Barrios Accounting Taylor A. Beal Air Conditioning Technology James Van Black Networking Specialist Kayla Renee Bohannon Dental Assisting Cassidy L. Bowers-Glenn Cosmetology Shakira S. Boyce EMS Professions Lindy E. Bradford Cosmetology Jordan L. Brown Cosmetology Linda L. Brown Business Technology Candace Burke Surgical Technology Cody S. Burt Practical Nursing Brittany R. Callahan Medical Assisting Jocelyn Canchola-Guzman Cosmetology Tanika Shante Careathers Medical Assisting Kelly Nichole Clark Practical Nursing Lori Shanai Coleman Practical Nursing Jenna R. Conner Cosmetology Milissa Diana Copeland Early Childhood Care and Education Edgar I. Cornejo Automotive Technology Kayla L. Crawford Dental Assisting Ashley Marie Davenport Cosmetology Tayler K. Davidson Welding and Joining Technology Jessica Ranee Davis EMS Professions Kristyn B. Farrow Cosmetology Madison Nicole Fincher Practical Nursing Terrijana Nelson Gamble Practical Nursing David E. Gaspardo Welding and Joining Technology Braeden L. Gee Cosmetology William Chipper Gocke Welding and Joining Technology Kathy Gravely Health Information Management Coding Taylor Brooke Haygood Cosmetology Cassidy M. Hicks Cosmetology Carly E. Hollingsworth Surgical Technology Elizabeth M. Huerta Auto Collision Repair Jaeme Ivey Dental Assisting Anel Jacobo Medical Assisting Canedra Denise James Practical Nursing Allison L. Jenkins Cosmetology Crystal Elizabeth Johnson Practical Nursing Shakeria M. Jones Dental Assisting Jennifer M. Kidd Practical Nursing Sandra Lorena Landaverde Business Management Kathline Lurine Leeks Cosmetology Cayden Litesey Cosmetology Daniel G. Lopez Welding and Joining Technology Ryan W. Lowrance Welding and Joining Technology Kelsey Faith Mann Medical Assisting Samuel R. Marin Electrical Systems Technology Alejandro Martinez Automotive Technology Ashley L. McMichael Business Management Jameson R. Mobbs EMS Professions Shareka D. Moon Practical Nursing Tabatha Ann Moore Cosmetology Isela S. Moraga Cosmetology Jenifer Michelle Morris Business Management James B. Morrow Culinary Arts Amber Dawn O'Neal Practical Nursing Crystal Odgers Cosmetology Maira Palmerin Early Childhood Care and Education Tesslie B. Parker Surgical Technology Tialisha L. Parks Practical Nursing Melvin G. Patterson Business Technology Kamaria C. Peavy Cosmetology Tiffany Marie Perez Medical Assisting Chelsey A. Peterson Cosmetology Hannah E. Pettyjohn Cosmetology Maria E. Pizano Cosmetology Lori Breanna Powell Medical Assisting Trevor Preece Welding and Joining Technology Jennifer Catherine Pryor Accounting Jennifer L. Quarles Surgical Technology Sky Nichole Richardson Surgical Technology Jhony Samuel Zavala Rivera Air Conditioning Technology Abby L. Robinson Dental Assisting Jada M. Rosser Cosmetology Lauren Runion Social Work Assistant Pedro M. Sanchez Business Management Martha E. Santana Castro Practical Nursing Daisy C. Segura Cosmetology Crystal N. Smith EMS Professions Meagan Leann Smith Medical Assisting Erin E. Staples Cosmetology Joshua M. Sundin Instrumentation and Controls Technician Maiya A. Swearinger Cosmetology Lindsey Marie Thomas Medical Assisting Matthew Tittle Welding and Joining Technology Heather Tucker Early Childhood Care and Education Brittany L. Turner Practical Nursing Eriberto Vargas Electrical Systems Technology Cassandra Ruth Vaughn Medical Assisting Christopher Adam Vaughn EMS Professions Autumn Leigh Wade Dental Assisting Celestia A. Waits Business Management Leenora Deanne Weaver Medical Assisting Candice L. White Dental Assisting Sigmund D. White Business Management Britney D. Woody Business Management Jacklyn L. Yarbrough Cosmetology Elizabeth Young Business Technology Technical Certificate of Credit Jennifer S. Anderson Administrative Support Assistant Preston Beal Air Conditioning Electrical Technician Trenton S. Braziel Gas Metal ARC Welder Amie J. Byers Early Child Care and Education Basics Stephanie J. Carrera Medical Front Office Assistant Brooklyn C. Espy Central Sterile Supply Processing Technician Amanda W. Evans Central Sterile Supply Processing Technician Jessica E. Fincher Medical Coding Brittany N. Folsom Early Child Care and Education Basics Ever I. Frayre Auto Collision Repair Assistant I Easton L. Gallman Advanced Emergency Medical Technician Toni Gaulding Catering Specialist Zoila G. Guzman Hernandez Medical Front Office Assistant Olita M. Hampton Central Sterile Supply Processing Technician Chandler Henry Central Sterile Supply Processing Technician Vincent Hidalgo Advanced Emergency Medical Technician Steven Andrew Howington Technical Management Specialist Sean M. Inches Advanced Emergency Medical Technician Ariel L. Lewis Hair Designer Filiberto Nunez Advanced Emergency Medical Technician Crystal D. Pitts Medical Front Office Assistant Kierra D. Ross Central Sterile Supply Processing Technician Vanesha A Ryals Shampoo Technician Marlen A. Serrano Barrios Medical Front Office Assistant Gabriel Matthew Smith Electrical Maintenance Technician Natasha Grace Smith Health Care Assistant Maria F. Torres Supervisor/Manager Specialist Mariah S. Wallace Early Child Care and Education Basics Ross E. Wood Catering Specialist Brian Wright Air Conditioning Electrical Technician
Vacationers are rebooking vacations to Mexico as Caribbean tourist hotspots from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands struggle to rebuild after this falls devastating hurricanes, airline data shows.

From October through March 2018, U.S. and international airlines have cut more than 1.2 million seats to spots throughout the Caribbean, according to airline data analyzed by the aviation consultant ICF.

In the same period, the airlines have added more than 600,000 seats to Mexican tourist meccas such as Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas and Cancun.

The uptick is something of a turnaround for Mexicos tourism industry, which has battled to overcome bad PR that came as violence related to the countrys ongoing drug war seeped into resort areas.

Murder rates in both Los Cabos and Cancun have skyrocketed in the last year, with a gunman killing five people at a music festival in January in Playa del Carmen and a gun battle erupting in August on a trendy beach in Los Cabos that left three dead.

The U.S. State Department, which updated its travel warning in late August, has warned Americans about the risks of going to certain parts of Mexico due to the activities of criminal organizations in those areas.

The warning stated: U.S. citizens have been the victims of violent crimes, including homicide, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery in various Mexican states.

Mexicos drug war, which began in earnest in 2006 when then-President Felipe Calderon declared an all-out military offensive on the countrys narcrotraffickers, has left at least 200,000 dead.

Under President Enrique Pena Nieto, who came into office in 2012 at a time when violence was on the decline, the bloodshed has resumed. In June, Mexico had 2,566 homicidesthe most since the Mexican government began releasing homicide figures in 2014.

The skyrocketing demand for heroin in the U.S. due to the opioid crisis  cartels are believed to make somewhere better $19 and $29 billion annually from the U.S. drug market  and the splintering of major drug trafficking organizations following the arrests or deaths of their leaders are believed to be the main factors for the spike in violence in places like Cancun and Los Cabos.

The arrest and extradition of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to the United States has created an intense power struggle within the Sinaloa Cartel, once the countrys largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization.

Despite the spike in violence, both U.S. officials and experts in Mexicos drug war note that cartel members rarely target tourists intentionally and, besides a few outlying incidents, violent crime tends to not occur in or near the resorts.

Mexico has had major problems with violence for years, but tourism in the country is pretty resilient, Christopher Wilson, the deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, told Fox News.

The hotel association for Cancun and Puerto Morelos is investing more than $520,000 in a new marketing campaign aimed at increasing the number of American tourists in the region.

Mexico also saw a record 35 million international travelers visit the country last year  a 9 percent jump compared to 2015. The Mexico Tourism Board aims to reach 50 million international visitors by 2021.

Despite the warnings by the State Department and the reports of violence, Wilson said, the lure of the destination is strong enough and the threat of violence small enough that people will still go to Mexico."
A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Islamic State group, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year-old Pakistani-born resident of Brentwood, was being held without bail following her Thursday arraignment on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The former lab technician worked in Manhattan and had no known criminal history, according to prosecutors who said that beginning in March she fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

"She then made several wire transactions to individuals and opaque entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey, which were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements and conceal the identity, source and destination of the illicitly-obtained monies," court documents said.

"These transactions were motivated to benefit ISIS, which the defendant ultimately sought to join in Syria," the documents said.

During this period, prosecutors said Shahnaz accessed numerous Islamic State propaganda websites and message boards. In January 2016, she traveled to Jordan to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan. Her flight included a layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria, prosecutors said.

Her lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.

"... what she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose," Zissou said outside the courthouse.
Two California men will go to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2016 Oakland warehouse fire that killed dozens of partygoers, a judge ruled Thursday.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner said prosecutors presented enough evidence to move forward with their criminal case against Derick Almena and Max Harris in the deaths of 36 partygoers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The blaze was the deadliest building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Almena rented the Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship that burned on Dec. 2, 2016, during an electronic music concert. Harris also lived in the building, and a witness testified that Harris was in charge of the unpermitted concert.

The warehouse had been illegally converted into living space for artists, was cluttered and had no fire sprinklers, according to investigators. Prosecutors said the men knowingly created a firetrap and deceived the building's owner, police and fire officials about people living there.

The two pleaded not guilty and said they've been scapegoated.

The judge delivered his ruling after several days of testimony that provided a glimpse at prosecutors' case against Almena and Harris.

Aaron Marin, a musician who lived at the warehouse, recalled escaping the blaze by jumping out an upstairs window. He said the window was blocked by a projection screen, so it wasn't visible to most people.

He also testified that he didn't consider the warehouse a fire hazard while he was there.

A second witness, Jose Avalos, testified that he was among 15 to 25 people who lived at the warehouse at any given time and that he paid his rent of $565 a month to Harris.

I felt like it was a place that would accept me, he said. I dont really find that too much.

Avalos disputed that Harris was second-in-command at the warehouse and said everyone pitched in to maintain the community.

Avalos also said police were called to the building several times to help with evictions before the fire and even knew the leaseholder by name.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Michigan State University has now seen its first administrator resign since its gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar -- also a central figure at USA Gymnastics -- was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for child pornography charges.

William Strampel stepped down as dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine Thursday due to health reasons, MSU spokesman Jason Cody told Fox News.

Strampel, who has been dean of the college since 2002, is currently on medical leave but will remain as a faculty member.

LARRY NASSAR, GYMNASTICS DOCTOR FOR OLYMPICS AND MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY, SENTENCED FOR CHILD PORN

A growing chorus of accusers  including Olympmic gymnasts McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas  along with lawyers and Michigans attorney general have called for MSU to release its internal review of Nassar amid accusations the university covered up Nassars crimes, which the MSU unequivocally denies.

Nassar is also awaiting sentencing in January in state court in Michigan after pleading guilty to molesting girls.

Lawyers representing Nassars accusers say MSU officials, including Strampel, could have prevented the scandal had they followed Title IX and mandatory reporting laws.

Strampel served as Nassars boss for the majority of the doctors tenure at MSU and led the college during the 2014 Title IX investigation that cleared Nassar of any wrongdoing and deemed his work medically appropriate.

According to emails obtained by the Lansing State Journal, Strampel regularly checked in on the investigation, said he supported Nassar and told the doctor he could return to clinical work before the investigation concluded.

RELATED: MICHIGAN STATE ACCUSED OF COVERING UP WORST SEX ABUSE SCANDAL IN U.S. SPORTS

The emails also showed there were two versions of the final investigative report. One was sent to Nassar and the other was sent to the woman with information withheld within the conclusion section. She was among the 140 women and girls who filed lawsuits against Nassar, MSU and USA Gymnastics.

Rachael Denhollander, the first Nassar accuser to speak publicly and file a police report against him in September 2016, told Fox News MSUs actions are inexcusable and damaging on every level.

She said its nothing more than an effort to remove a controversial figure so our concerns can be swept under the rug.

There has still been a complete refusal to recognize that Dean Strampels response to, and attitude towards, sexual assault victims, myself included, was abhorrent, Denhollander said. His words and actions created a culture where victims were disbelieved, silenced and mocked, and one of the most prolific pedophiles in U.S. history was able to victimize little girls with impunity.

She continued: Until MSU addresses the words, attitudes and actions of Dean Strampel, and acknowledges the incredible damage it did, MSU will continue to be an unsafe place for victims. The longer they wait to deal with the real issues, the stronger the message they are sending becomes: MSU does not care about the victims, it does not recognize the horrific problems within the institution, and it will provide no real impetus to handle things better next time.

MSU did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment on Denhollander's claims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lawyers for some of the Las Vegas shooting victims appeared in court on Thursday to help determine how to control the $5 million estate gunman Stephen Paddock left behind, KSNV reported.

In the court hearing, Judge Gloria Sturman asked the victims attorneys to help create a plan to regulate claims on the property, the outlet said. She reportedly feared that due to the volume of potential people laying claim to the property, the estate could be reduced to nothing because of costs related to claim lawsuits.

LAS VEGAS MASSACRE SEARCH WARRANTS REVEAL MASSIVE SCALE OF INVESTIGATION

What we wanted is time for all of the lawyers on behalf of the victims to get together to see if we can come up with an alternative mechanism to preserve the assets for the victims, attorney Craig Eiland said.

Attorneys are expected to have a plan ready by Jan. 31, 2018 and the judge will choose a manager on Feb. 15, 2018, KSNV reported.

Paddock killed himself on Oct. 1 after he fired a steady stream of bullets into a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. More than 1,100 rounds were fired, ultimately killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 others.

LAS VEGAS SHOOTING VICTIM LEAVES HOSPITAL, RETURNS HOME FOR HOLIDAYS

Following his death, family members said Paddock did not leave a will, according to KSNV. And since none of them reportedly want his money, the outlet said theyve suggested it should be handed out to the victims.

In October, the court system was tasked with tapping an independent entity to run Paddocks estate, an earlier report by KSNV said.
A Long Island woman was indicted Thursday after she allegedly laundered more than $85,000 through Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies overseas to the Islamic State.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, of Brentwood, was charged in federal court with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and three counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Shahnaz, between the months of June and July, allegedly used 16 credit cards that were fraudulently obtained to purchase nearly $63,000 in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. She was also allegedly able to obtain a loan from a Manhattan bank for approximately $22,500 in June.

After she laundered the money to people in Pakistan, China and Turkey, federal officials say, she planned to travel to Syria and join ISIS.

While she was transferring money to the terrorist group overseas, authorities claimed, Shahnaz had accessed ISIS propaganda, violent jihad-related websites and message boards, and social media and messaging pages of known ISIS recruiters, facilitators and financiers.

Shahnaz also researched maps and locations of ISIS-controlled areas of Syria, in addition to looking up ISIS recruiters, financiers, and fighters, including those who have urged lone-wolf attacks against American targets, according to prosecutors.

AMERICAN MAN, 21, CONVICTED OF TRYING TO JOIN ISIS TO BE RELEASED

In June, Shahnaz quit her job as a lab technician at a Manhattan hospital, and obtained a Pakistani passport, officials said. A month later she allegedly attempted to get on a flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport with the intention to leave the U.S. and join ISIS.

Federal agents stopped the woman and took her into questioning where she provided false and conflicting explanations about her wire transfers, officials said.

If convicted, Shahnaz could face a maximum of 30 years for bank fraud and 20 years on each count of money laundering.
The Philadelphia City Council voted Thursday to remove bulletproof glass from the windows of some local businesses, despite a backlash from shop owners who cited safety concerns.

The council voted 14-3 to approve legislation that could eventually force business owners to remove the protective glass outside their storefronts that some lawmakers believe operate as drug fronts and facilitate loitering and public urination, Fox 29 reported.

The bill, which was passed by the citys Public Health and Human Services Committee on Dec. 4, enables Philadelphia's Department of Licenses and Inspections to regulate the bullet-resistant barricades that stand between customers and cash registers in many neighborhood corner stores.

OUTRAGE AS PHILLY PUSHES THROUGH BAN ON BULLETPROOF GLASS IN CRIME-PLAGUED NEIGHBORHOOD SHOPS

The approved bill, according to Philly.com, instructs the citys Department of Licenses and Inspections to, by Jan. 1, 2021, promulgate regulations to provide for the use or removal of any physical barrier in stores that sell food and alcohol.

The approved bill does not require mandatory removal of the bulletproof glass, but rather a careful consideration, Councilwoman Helen Gym told Philly.com. The bill does, however, call for "tighter rules on seating, public restrooms and what can be sold at these stores," Fox 29 reported.

Storeowners on Thursday pleaded to keep the bulletproof barriers on their storefronts.

"I was the victim of a robbery when I was ten years old, and I don't want that to happen again, one storeowner told Fox 29.

Another shopkeeper, through an interpreter, said: "If you took the bulletproof glass from our store, there will be more people die."

City councilman David Oh had similar sentiments, calling the possible outcome of the situation worse  than what we have today.

If we take down the safety glass, they're not changing their business model. They're not moving. What they will do is purchase firearms. I think that is a worse situation than what we have today, Oh said ahead of Thursdays vote.

PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS OWNERS CRY FOUL AT BILL TARGETING BULLETPROOF GLASS

Councilwoman Cindy Bass, who originally sponsored the bill, said the stores  many of which are delis  are masquerading as restaurants.

They sell almost everything you need to get high, and if they dont have it, someone loitering inside or outside, has the rest, Bass said.

Bass told Fox News that the storeowners, who reportedly operate with restaurant licenses, in more than 90 percent of cases they are breaking the law in terms of operating outside the requirement of their license.

Fox News' Greg Norman and Frank Miles contributed to this report.
Police officers in Connecticut shot three carjacking suspects Thursday night, killing one, authorities said.

New Britain Police Chief James Wardwell said officers tried to stop a vehicle that they believe was involved in a series of armed carjackings in the city and surrounding areas over at least the past two weeks.

"The most recent incidents in New Britain were on Monday of this week which included shots being fired at one victim, and in a second incident on Monday, a victim being pistol-whipped," Wardwell said.

As officers tried to stop the vehicle and take the suspects into custody, more than one New Britain officer fired their weapon, according to police.

"Three individuals in the vehicle were hit by gunfire," Wardwell said.

"I heard tons of shots. Seven, eight, 10 of them. Went to the back door. Saw the cops running. They made it up the hill. Next thing I know, they had tape out and here we are," Dawn Markunas, of New Britain, told WFSB-TV.

One of the suspects died, and the other two were expected to recover. The officers were not hurt.

Police said there was at least one firearm in the vehicle.

Wardwell said Connecticut State Police would be handling the investigation.
A swimmer was severely injured after being bit in the arm by a sea lion in San Francisco Bay on Thursday afternoon.

The person was swimming at Aquatic Park.

John Baxter with the San Francisco Fire Department tells KTVU a tourniquet was applied to the swimmer's leg to stop blood flow. The tourniquet was applied by the San Francisco Police Department. The swift actions by emergency crews contributed to the swimmer's life being saved, according to San Francisco Fire.

The victim is expected to be OK, according to San Francisco fire.

The Marine Unit will be advising local swim clubs of the incident.

At this point, additional details have not been released.

Click for more from KTVU Fox 2.
A Beverly Hills anesthesiologist was charged Wednesday with murder after a patient suffered a fatal overdose while under his care, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Dr. Stephen Kyosung Kim, 53, is accused of giving a lethal dose of Demerol to his patient, Dr. Mark Greenspan, who was undergoing a procedure at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills, the Times reported, citing a press release from the district attorneys office.

Kim injected Demerol into the patient in order to sedate him before surgery, the release stated. After the surgery, Greenspan suffered a heart attack and died. Prosecutors claim that Kim had been under the influence of drugs during the procedure but declined to comment on what drug they suspect.

Kim turned himself in to police. He was later released on a $1 million bail.

This is a rarity and its not used lightly, Julianne DAngelo Fellmeth, a public interest lawyer, said. He called the actions Kim is accused of as pretty ridiculous.

The first time a doctor was convicted in the U.S. for recklessly prescribing drugs to patients was in 2015, when an L.A. County jury convicted Dr. Hsiu-Ying Tseng of second-degree murder in connection with the overdose of three of her patients, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing the district attorneys office.

If convicted, Kim faces will up to 25 years to life, Beverly Hills police said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The APEX bus will be at Imagination Station in Collegedale this coming Tuesday. The bus tour is part of UnifiEds plan to visit various locations in Hamilton County to get input for their Action Plan for Educational eXcellance (APEX) project.Community members are invited to board the bus fitted with an interactive exhibit, talk with organizers, review preliminary policy proposals and vote on the ones that fit their priorities.UnifiEd launched its Action Plan for Educational Excellence project in August with the goal to form a policy that would guarantee that all Hamilton County students have the resources they need to succeed, regardless of socioeconomic status, officials said.
Erika Crooks remembers the day well. On Memorial Day weekend four years ago, she, her husband and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter went to a local Target near their home in Elk Grove, Calif., to purchase barbecuing supplies. When they returned, their home was engulfed in flames.

It was like an out-of-body experience, Crooks, 33, told Fox News. You see fires on TV and are desensitized to them. But you never know when it's going to be your home.

It was a last-minute decision that saved Crooks and her family from the flames; she and her husband decided to make the trip to Target a family outing, opposed to one of them staying home with their young daughter, she said.

It was like an out-of-body experience."  Erika Crooks

Crooks family, who had only been living in the house for five months, watched their home burn for roughly seven hours before the fire was contained. The fire marshal on duty that day told Crooks that it was an exterior fire, most likely sparked by something flammable thrown into a trashcan near their home.

I was shocked, frightened and saddened, she said. I wanted to run in and grab pictures and my daughters favorite blanket -- material things that you take for granted.

Crooks family lost a lot that day. But thanks to a $100 gift card from the California Fire Foundations SAVE program, they were able to buy food and pajamas for their daughter that night.

The foundation works with local fire agencies to provide immediate, on-site assistance to families that have suffered a residential loss of at least 25 percent, according to its website.

It also provided assistance to those who were impacted by the wildfires in Southern California, which scorched hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced more than 200,000 people to evacuate at the height of the fires.

The foundation gave roughly 500 gift cards to Southern Californians who were affected by the wildfires, Lou Paulson, chairman of the California Fire Foundation, told Fox News.



Here's how the wildfire victims have been helped so far.

President Trump approves California's disaster declaration

On Jan. 2, President Trump declared that a "major disaster exists in the state of California." He also ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by wildfires, mainly in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties where the Thomas Fire has hit the hardest.

Certain non-profit organizations were also eligible to receive funds, according to a statement from the White House.

Trump previously declared a state of emergency in California on Dec. 8, which allowed federal assistance to supplement the state and local response to the fires. His declaration was in response to a letter from California Gov. Jerry Brown. Los Angeles, Ventura, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Riverside counties will receive federal assistance.

More specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency, the emergency management agency said in a statement. Emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, was also provided at 75 percent federal funding.

United Way of Ventura County

In a partnership with the American Red Cross of Ventura County and the Ventura County Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services, the United Way of Ventura County started the Thomas Fire Fund to assist community relief efforts in the county, which was primarily been impacted by the Thomas Fire. This wildfire -- which is now the largest in the state's history -- has scorched more than 281,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 structures.

Salvation Army

The Salvation Army Ventura Corps accepted food, water and money donations to help those who were impacted by the wildfires, especially those who were evacuated to the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

Up until Dec. 9, the organization served a combined total of 4,619 meals to evacuees at the fairgrounds and at Nordhoff High School in Ojai, Calif., which also served as a temporary evacuation center.

The Red Cross

Roughly 615 people who were forced to leave their homes due to the wildfires sought refuge at the 13 Red Cross community shelters in Southern California.

Go Fund Me

Many individuals started fundraising campaigns on Go Fund Me in light of the wildfires.

California Community Foundations Wildfire Relief Fund

The California Community Foundation's Wildfire Relief Fund provides immediate and long-term wildfire recovery efforts. Since 2003, the fund has raised $3.5 million to support relief and recovery efforts.

More specifically, the fund supports those who have suffered long-term mental or health issues as a result of wildfires, helps to rebuild homes and provides financial assistance to victims, among other things.

L.A. Kitchen

L.A. Kitchen provided meals to firefighters and displaced wildfire victims.

Humane Society of Ventura County

The Humane Society of Ventura County housed more than 100 animals due to the wildfires. At the time, they were in need of basic animal supplies such as: cat food, alfalfa, hay, water troughs, hoses, flashlights and rabbit food.
An Ohio man accused of killing a woman by plowing his car into a crowd of protesters in Charlottesville, Va., during the summer now faces a first-degree murder charge.

James Alex Fields, 20, appeared in court for a preliminary hearing Thursday, where Charlottesville General District Judge Robert Downer Jr. agreed to prosecutors request to upgrade the second-degree murder charge that Fields previously faced.

All other charges against Fields were also certified to proceed. The case will now be presented to a grand jury for a possible indictment.

Fields is accused of killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens more after he allegedly rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters Aug. 12 during the Unite the Right rally that erupted into utter chaos and violence.

A white supremacist group was protesting the citys decision to remove a statute of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a local park. The protest also attracted counter-demonstrators.

Two Virginia state troopers, who were working with law enforcement to help monitor the protests, were also killed that day when their helicopter crashed.

Fields, who was described by a former teacher as having a keen interest in Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, quietly sat in a striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed during Thursdays hearing.

His attorney, Denise Lunsford, did not present evidence or make any arguments at the hearing. However, she cross-examined Charlottesville Police Det. Steven Young, asking him if searches of Fields computer, phone or social media revealed any evidence that he was part of Vanguard America or any other white nationalist group.

"No," Young replied.

Young, also testified that he was one of the first police officers to arrive on the scene, and that Fields seemed in shock and cried after learning that someone had died, the New York Post reported.

Aside from Heyer being killed, 35 other people were injured, including some who are now wheelchair-bound, Young testified.

Just hours before the alleged attack, Fields was photographed with a shield bearing the emblem of Vanguard America, one of the hate groups that partook in the Charlottesville rallly. The group denied any association with Fields.

Derek Weimer, a former teacher of Fields, said that as a student, Fields was fascinated in high school with Nazism and idolized Adolf Hitler.

Officials at his Union, Ky., school singled out Fields for deeply held, radical convictions on race.

Earlier Thursday, the judge presided over preliminary hearings for three other men charged in relation to the August rally.

Richard Preston is accused of firing a gun, and Jacob Goodwin and Alex Ramos are accused in an attack on a man in a downtown parking garage. All three cases will proceed to a grand jury.

Protesters outside the courthouse chanted, Blood on your hands, as Jason Kessler, organizer of the August rally, walked into the building to attend the hearings, the New York Post reported.
A former Massachusetts police sergeant who posted ads online asking people to send him nude pictures of their daughters has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Former Attleboro officer Richard Woodhead was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Providence after pleading guilty in August to attempted receipt of child pornography.

Prosecutors say a Rhode Island State Police detective noticed the ads last January and posed as an 8-year-old girl's guardian in order to engage in email conversations with Woodhead, during which he requested photos and described sexual relations he wanted to have with the child. He had similar telephone conversations with an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent.

Woodhead's lawyer called the conversations "lurid sexual fantasies."

Woodhead retired after police and federal agents raided his home in April.
Welcome to Fox News First. Not signed up yet? Click here.

Developing now, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017:

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe faces scrutiny as GOP lawmakers pore over anti-Trump texts in probes of Russia and Clinton emails

GOP tax reform hits a potential roadblock as key Senate Republicans Marco Rubio and Mike Lee hold back support

Omarosa vows to tell all about her White House experience amid new questions about departure

NYPD reviewing rape allegations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons

THE LEAD STORY: Top Republicans are turning their focus to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as they examine a series of anti-Trump texts between two bureau officials who were members of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Specifically, they are raising questions about an exchange that referenced an insurance policy against a Trump presidency ... That text was revealed Tuesday night when the Justice Department released hundreds of messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were romantically involved. I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andys office - that theres no way he gets elected - but Im afraid we cant take that risk, Strzok texted on Aug. 15, 2016. Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40. Some lawmakers believe "Andy" refers to McCabe, and want to know about his communications with Page and Strzok.

This is just one of several new revelations that have cast doubt on the FBI's integrity and objectivity. Newly released documents obtained by Fox News reveal that then-FBI Director James Comeys draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times in ways that seemed to water down the bureaus findings.

TAX REFORM HOLDOUTS?: Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Mike Lee indicated Thursday they were holding back support for the final $1.5 trillion GOP tax reform bill unless a larger child tax credit is included ... My requests have been reasonable and direct, Floridas Rubio told Fox News on Thursday, saying the Republican leadership was aware of his demands. A spokesman for Utahs Lee said he was "undecided" on the bill in its current form. Both Rubio and Lee have advocated for a $3,000 tax credit per child in the bill. The House and Senate have passed separate tax bills, but they now have to blend them into a final piece of legislation. Republicans, with a 52-48 majority in the Senate, can afford to lose only two votes in the Senate.

OMAROSA'S STORY: Omarosa is vowing to tell the world about her time in the Trump administration "when the time is right" amid conflicting details about her departure ... The former "Apprentice" star has repeatedly denied she was fired from her job as a White House liaison for constituent groups, adding that reports that she was escorted off the White House grounds were "100 percent false." White House Chief of Staff John Kelly personally told Omarosa that her White House employment had been terminated, despite her insistence to the contrary, Fox News learned. Kelly gave her the news in the White House Situation Room, a space under the West Wing where electronic and recording devices must be surrendered at the door.

RUSSELL SIMMONS TO FACE RAPE CHARGES?: The New York Police Department is reviewing allegations of rape and sexual assault against Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons, an NYPD spokeswoman confirmed to Fox News late Thursday ... Simmons has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct for weeks. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that three women were accused Simmons of raping them in the 1980s and 1990s. Simmons has repeatedly denied the allegations, writing on Instagram Thursday that "I will prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges."

AS SEEN ON FOX NEWS

TROUBLING TEXTS: "This [text] is the one that concerns me the most. 'Andy' is presumably Andrew McCabe ... and this text is very troubling because it suggests that theyre doing something, they have a plan to take action to make sure that Donald Trump does not get elected president of the United States at the highest levels of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, on "Fox & Friends," explaining why he has questions about the anti-Trump texts exchanged by two FBI officials. WATCH

THE BUCK STOPS WITH COMEY: "He is responsible for it, he was the director of the FBI. I also don't think it matters the ideological predilections of the editor. The person who signed it, the person who delivered it is responsible for it." - Judge Andrew Napolitano, on "Special Report," arguing that it doesn't matter who made the edits to his final statement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation, now-former FBI Director James Comey is still responsible for them. WATCH

ACROSS THE NATION

Driver at Charlottesville rally now facing first-degree murder charge.

Philadelphia City Council approves bill to remove bulletproof glass from storefronts.

Widow of Kentucky State Rep. Dan Johnson says she'll pursue his seat.

MINDING YOUR BUSINESS

Does Disney-Fox deal signal confidence for the AT&T-Time Warner deal?

Net neutrality repeal a 'blow to binge watchers.'

$15 minimum wage to cost California 400K jobs: Study

NEW IN FOX NEWS OPINION

Democrats are losing support from many as they move further left.

Newt Gingrich: My fellow Republicans, a Democratic wave election is coming unless we act right now.

Judith Miller: Is it time for a national ID card to prevent terror attacks?

HOLLYWOOD SQUARED

How the Disney-Fox deal will play out.

Mario Batali cut from ABC's 'The Chew.'

'Star Wars: Last Jedi' big spoiler revealed in live TV interview.

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?

More Americans than ever will travel this holiday season.

Scientists 'googled' data from NASA's Kepler space telescope to discover new planet.

'Stormy the Christmas cow' recaptured after escaping Nativity scene  twice.

STAY TUNED

On Fox News:

Fox & Friends, 6 a.m. ET: Exclusive interview: FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai discusses the fallout from the decision to overturn net neutrality rules; attorney Victoria Toensing sounds off on the new revelations of the edits to the draft of former FBI Director James Comey's Clinton statement; plus, a celebration of National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day.

The Ingraham Angle, 10 p.m. ET: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responds to vicious attacks from the mainstream media and the left.

On Fox Business:

Mornings with Maria, 6 a.m. ET: Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discusses the impact of the FCC killing net neutrality regulations; former Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser on outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen; Rep. Kristi Noem talks tax reform.

Varney & Co., 9 a.m. ET: Sen. Bill Cassidy on negotiating problems with the tax reform plan; Rep. Matt Gaetz on the FBI's credibility crisis; Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin on killing plans to cut a homeless vet program and more.

Cavuto: Coast to Coast, Noon ET: Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell talks net neutrality.

On Fox News Radio:

The Fox News Rundown podcast: Check out the Fox News Rundown! Fox News Radio's new long-form podcast features insights from top newsmakers, along with reporters and contributors from across all Fox News Channel platforms. All episodes of this podcast can be found at: www.foxnewsrundown.com. Want it sent straight to your mobile device? Subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.

#OnThisDay

1971: The Secret Service appoints its first five female special agents.

1939: "Gone with the Wind," starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, has its world premiere in Atlanta.

1890: Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members are killed in Grand River, S.D., during a confrontation with Indian police.

Thank you for joining us on Fox News First! Enjoy your Friday, and weekend! We'll see you in your inbox first thing Monday morning.
A woman in Northern Georgia has been arrested and charged with leaving her 4-year-old son in the car near meth and drug equipment while burglarizing a house, authorities said.

Theresa Jean Bice, 39, faces four felony counts, including for burglary, and for possession of drug-related objects, methamphetamine and tools for committing a crime, officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Authorities said officers found her son asleep near several bags of meth, a digital scale, and glass smoking paraphernalia, the newspaper reported.

The District Attorneys Office will likely add child neglect charges when the case is fully reviewed, the Forsyth County News reported.

Officials were unsure how long Bice was in the house, but found a basket of DVDs and childrens toys inside, the report said.

A deputy apprehended Bice as she was leaving the house in Cumming, a city in North Central Georgia, officials told the Journal-Constitution.

Bice was arrested for shoplifting in April and put on probation at the time of last week's arrest, authorities told the Forsyth County News.
A suburban Chicago woman has been sentenced to natural life in prison without the possibility of parole in the 2012 fatal stabbings of her 7-year-old son and a 5-year-old girl she was caring for.

A judge sentenced Elzbieta Plackowska (elz-BEE'-tah plah-KOW'-skuh) Friday. She was convicted in September of the killings and for fatally stabbing two dogs.

During trial, defense attorneys argued Plackowska was suffering from a psychotic episode when she killed the children on Oct. 30, 2012, inside the girl's home in Naperville. They say she wouldn't have killed the children if she was aware of what she was doing.

But prosecutors say her comments to investigators following her arrest indicated otherwise.

The 45-year-old woman has remained in custody at the DuPage County Jail since the killings.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is warning against dangerous flights by Russian fighter jets over what is considered a safe zone in Syria, questioning whether recent close calls were mistakes or deliberate.

Mattis told Pentagon reporters Friday that the U.S. and Russia are still using a phone line to coordinate flight movements over crowded Syrian skies as the U.S.-led coalition goes after remaining Islamic State group militants.

Two Russian Su-25 fighters flew through an unofficial line separating Russian and American air forces in eastern Syria on Wednesday coming dangerously close to U.S. aircraft.

U.S. Air Force F-22 fighter jets launched warning flares in response.

Mattis says he doesn't expect perfection in flights but also doesn't want dangerous maneuvers. He says it's not clear if it was deliberate or just sloppy flying.
Michigan State Police are investigating whether remains of three children found in September in Montana could be linked to the Skelton brothers, a trio of boys who disappeared in 2010.

Michigan State Police Detective Lt. Jeremy Brewer told WTVG the agency had requested more information from Montana police, however, the only current connection between the cases is the victims' approximate ages.

Tanner, Alexander and Andrew Skelton were 5, 7 and 9 when they were last seen at their father's Morenci, Mich., home on Thanksgiving in 2010.

Investigators have been mystified as to what happened to them.

But recently, the bones and teeth of three children were discovered behind a home in a shed in Missoula, Mont., and an anthropologist estimated the children to be in the same age range as each of the Skelton brothers.

MASSIVE BRAWL BREAKS OUT AT MCDONALDS IN MICHIGAN

Police confirmed the remains were undergoing DNA testing in Texas to determine who the skeletons belonged to.

Missoula police started to investigate the remains after a cleaning crew found them when the property owner was evicted, the Missoulian reported.

MICHIGAN WOMAN SAYS VIDEO SHOWS POLICE OFFICER SLAMMED HER TO GROUND

A search warrant was obtained by police in November but no other evidence was found in the home.

The boys father, John Skelton, was sentenced in 2011 to 10 to 15 years in prison for unlawful imprisonment. The boys mother, Tanya Zuvers, had exclusive custody of the children, but she allowed them to visit their father for the holiday. He was supposed to return them to her the next day, but he told investigators that he instead gave them to an organization he's refused to identify.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fifteen years ago this Christmas Eve, the nation turned its eyes and attention to Modesto, Calif., where 27-year old Laci Peterson, 8 months pregnant and ready to welcome her unborn son she had named Conner, had seemingly vanished.

It was 2002, and while many people were going about their plans for the holiday, family members and friends of Laci Peterson began a frantic search to find her, after her husband, Scott, said she was "missing".

He called Laci's mother Sharon Rocha in the early evening to ask if she was at their home, saying when he got home from a day of fishing Laci's car was in the driveway and their dog was in the backyard with his leash on, and that Laci wasnt home.

The word "missing" immediately struck a chord with Laci's mom, who said it was a strange choice because Laci wasn't the type to go missing.

That call at about 5:15 p.m. would set off a chain of events that would move an entire community, which jumped into action to try to find her while the rest of the nation watched with anticipation, hoping for an outcome that would bring her home safely.

As the days and weeks went on, the search became more desperate, as there were no signs of Laci Peterson anywhere.

Her husband claimed she was at home in the morning when he left that Christmas Eve to go fishing in the San Francisco Bay and that was the last time he saw her. Her family members went on TV to ask for her safe return and for any information to help find her.

Rocha asked the public in one news conference: "We've been through so much these last days, that I'd like to make a plea to the person or persons who have my daughter. Please bring my daughter home."

Attention quickly turned to Scott Peterson, who told family members and investigators he had nothing to do with her disappearance, though many started to question his alibi that he had left for a fishing trip after 9 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

Peterson repeatedly said that it wasn't uncommon for them to do things on their own.

In a January 2003 interview, Peterson gave to Gloria Gomez, a reporter at the time for KOVR-TV in Sacramento, he said: "You know, being 7 1/2 months pregnant she's not going to want to go out in a boat, but it's simply a leisure activity to pursue that day, and you know it was what our plans were."

Prosecutors would later contend she did go out on a boat that day after Peterson had killed her and took her body out to the San Francisco Bay to dispose of her and their unborn child.

One month after Petersons disappearance, police revealed her husband was living a double life, having an affair with a massage therapist who was living in Fresno by the name of Amber Frey.

The single mother went to police once she became aware that the man she thought was her boyfriend was quickly becoming a prime suspect in a nationally televised case.

Frey went on to wear a wire and helped police record her conversations with Peterson, which would play a key role in the trial.

Suspicion continued to mount against the man some once stood behind, but on April 13 2003, the body of a baby boy in south Richmond was discovered along the shore of San Francisco Bay.

The next day, the body of an adult female wearing maternity clothes was found nearby.

Months of searching and hoping came to a crashing end when the bodies were positively identified as those of Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner, confirming her family's worst fears.

Her mother spoke out in a tearful news conference soon after, promising justice for her daughter and unborn grandchild.

"Laci and Conner left us on Christmas Eve, I know that God has been watching over them, he sent them back to us on Good Friday. Now we can bring them home where they belong, she said. Laci and her unborn child did not deserve to die this way, and they certainly didn't deserve to die and dumped in the bay and sent to a watery grave as though their lives were meaningless. We will seek justice for her and Conner and make sure that that person responsible for their deaths will be punished."

Scott Peterson was arrested in San Diego just days after the bodies were discovered.

He had dyed his hair blonde, grown a goatee, and had many items in his car which led investigators to believe he may have been ready to run.

A partial list of items includes camping gear,12 tablets of Viagra, four cell phones, double-edged dagger with a T-handle, a backpack, water purifier, climbing rope, filet knife, duct tape and over $10,000 in cash.

The double murder trial would take over a year to begin, but at the end of 2004 Scott Peterson was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing his wife, and second-degree murder for killing their unborn son. In 2005, he received the death penalty.

He is challenging his death sentence and requesting a new trial. There are currently over 700 inmates on Death Row at California's San Quentin State Prison. No prisoner has been executed in California since January 2006.
A prosecutor in Minneapolis on Wednesday blasted investigators involved in the probe of the police-officer-involved shooting death of an unarmed Australian woman in July.

Mike Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, said he doesnt have enough evidence to charge Somali-born Officer Mohamed Noor, who shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond in an alley behind her home.

Damond had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault. As she approached the squad car, Noor fired from the passenger seat, across his partner and through the drivers window.

Ive got to have the evidence. And I dont have it yet. And let me just say, its not my fault, Freeman said in a video that was posted on Facebook. So if it isnt my fault, who didnt do their jobs? Investigators, and they dont work for me. And they havent done their job.

Freeman was at a Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation holiday reception Wednesday night, after he was asked about a charging decision. It was unclear if Freeman knew he was being recorded.

Freeman didnt name the investigators or their agency, but the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is leading the investigation. The BCA turned the case over to Freeman in September. The bureau issued a statement Thursday saying it continues to work with Freemans office.

The BCA conducts the majority of officer-involved shooting investigations in Minnesota, and the collaboration between prosecutors and investigators as a case file is reviewed under the statutes is a typical part of the review process, the BCA statement said. State law prohibits us from providing additional details, because it is an active investigation.

Freeman had previously said he expected to make a charging decision by the end of the year. His office acknowledged the video Thursday and did not dispute its authenticity.

We are working diligently on the case to complete the investigation as soon as possible, the statement said. Beyond that, we cannot comment at this time.

Freeman indicated that Noors refusal to speak had put prosecutors in a difficult position.

I have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, (that) the moment he shot the gun, he feared for his life. And he used force because he thought he was gonna be killed, Freeman said. But I cant. He wont answer my questions because he doesnt have to, OK? We all have Fifth Amendment rights, and I respect that. So I cant talk to her because shes gone, and the other cop just gave us some (expletive), OK? So guess what? I gotta figure out angles of the shot, gun residues, reckless-use-of-force experts.

"He won't answer my questions because he doesn't have to, OK? We all have Fifth Amendment rights, and I respect that."  Mike Freeman, Hennapin County, Minn., attorney

Freeman didnt immediately respond to a request from the Associated Press for an interview. In an email to the Star Tribune, Freeman declined to respond to questions about how investigators have failed to do their job.

Good questions and I respect you asking them, Freeman wrote in the email. We are working very hard to complete our review of the facts provided in the investigation to date and to assist in helping to complete the investigation.

Sanchez is also an organizer with the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar, which was formed after the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark by a Minneapolis police officer in 2015. Freeman decided not to charge the officers involved in that case.

Sanchez told Minnesota Public Radio that he was surprised by Freemans honesty but disheartened that he hasnt yet made a decision.

Minneapolis attorney Bob Bennett, who represents Damonds relatives in Australia, told MPR he was concerned but not surprised by Freemans comments.

I hope that the BCA hasnt so irretrievably damaged the evidence, or failed to recover evidence that should be reasonably expected to be recovered at the time that the crime occurred, Bennett said. And I use the term crime pointedly and intentionally.

Noors attorney, Thomas Plunkett, told MPR that he was concerned by Freemans remark that having enough evidence to make a charging decision would be the big present Id like to see under the Christmas tree. He also said the job of investigators is to gather evidence, not create it.

No lawyer wants their client placed under a Christmas tree as a present to a vocal segment of the community. That said, this case is about an officer that follows procedure and training, Plunkett said. This led to the death of a very fine person, which is a horrible tragedy, but not a crime.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Police are investigating an alleged rape that reportedly occured Oct. 28 in a dorm room at the University of California, Berkeley.

A male student and a female student had attended a party earlier in the evening and ended up inside the dorm room together, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing infornation from police.

According to police, the woman told the suspect she did not want to have sex, but he allegedly sexually assaulted her about 1:30 a.m.

Authorities reportedly withheld the report from the public because they did not want to jeopardize their investigation.

No charges have been filed in the case and the school did not comment on whether it was conducting its own investigation.

Berkeleyside, citing CrimeMapping.com, reported that the school has received at least 23 other sex crime reports over the past six months.
Santa Claus, Christmas trees and the colors red and green are examples of inappropriate religious iconography during the holiday season, according to a paper distributed during a Respecting Religious Diversity event at the University of Minnesota.

"Jewish Hanukkah" is targeted, too, with menorahs and the colors blue and white also described as being "not appropriate."

Consider neutral-themed parties such as a winter celebration, the handout read. Decorations, music, and food should be general and not specific to any one religion.

It was part of a Deans Dialogues Religious Diversity and Holidays event within the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences earlier this month, and was first reported on by the Intellectual Takeout.

SNOWFLAKES AT CHRISTMAS? SOME UNIVERSITIES OFFER NO SAFE SPACE FOR SANTA  OR JESUS

Our religious/spiritual beliefs and practices can play a key role in our identity but can be off limits for discussion especially in public spaces, part of the events description read.

The controversial handout listed about a dozen items not appropriate for gatherings and displays at this time of year since they typically represent specific religious iconography.

Those items include bows, angels, Christmas trees, dreidels, Nativity scenes, wrapped gifts, menorahs, bells, doves, Santa Claus, and the Star of Bethlehem. It also listed avoiding the colors red and green for their connection to Christian tradition and blue and white for their connection to Jewish Hanukkah.

Students were encouraged to report a bias incident of inappropriate religious celebrations in your work or learning environment to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.

JINGLE BELLS ROOTED IN RACISM, BOSTON UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR SAYS

The document was a conversation piece to facilitate dialogue at a voluntary, internal college event on respecting religious diversity in the workplace, university spokesperson, Emma Bauer, told Fox News.

While the handout refers to EOAA as us, Bauer said it doesnt reflect university, EOAA or CFANS official guidance.

Colleges across the nation have issued guidelines banning Christmas-related items  from Santa to Jesus  in the name of inclusivity.
An Ohio middle school teacher is accused of engaging in oral sex and intercourse with a 14-year-old male student in May  and the alleged sex acts reportedly occurred inside the school.

Jessica Langford, 32, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual battery and three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, according to court records viewed by the Dayton Daily News.

Langford made her pleas on Nov. 21, but additional information about her case recently came to light in response to a defense request for more specific accusations.

Langford, who taught math at Miamisburg Middle School for nine years, allegedly performed oral sex on, received oral sex from and engaged in intercourse with the teen student twice. The sex acts reportedly occurred May 23 at the school, Cleveland.com reported.

The student allegedly told another teacher about the sexual encounters with Langford, and that teacher then told administrators.

We did our own little, quick investigation at that point, said Miamisburg Superintendent Dr. David Vail, adding that, after Langford was placed on administrative leave, she chose to resign. Because of that fact we were mandated to report it to the Ohio Department of Education.

Langford was the second teacher to get busted for alleged sex with a student in the Miami Valley area during a two-week span in November. Madeline Marx, a 23-year-old substitute teacher who didnt work at Miamisburg, was accused of trysts with two students and arrested earlier in November.

You'd certainly think...someone would say I shouldn't do that, but it doesn't occur to them, Vail said.
A jealous boyfriend told police he set a West Virginia strip club on fire because he was tired of his girlfriend working there, authorities said.

Creio Chance Bishop, 21, of Huntington, W.Va., was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly set the exterior of JBs Gentlemens Club on fire, the West Virginia State Fire Marshal reported.

INMATE SENTENCED IN FATAL STABBING IN WEST VIRGINIA PRISON

Bishop reportedly set the strip club on fire early Wednesday and fled to a nearby Walmart. A bystander, who alerted police about the blaze, said Bishop told him to leave the fire along and mind his own business, WSAZ reported.

Deputies discovered Bishop near the scene with a black trash bag. The envious lover told police he Was tired of his girlfriend working at JBs, so he set it on fire, WCHS-TV reported.

No one was injured in the fire but there was about $1,000 in damage, Jim Reed, the strip clubs owner, told WSAZ. Reed said Bishops girlfriends job was also in jeopardy.

I hate doing it, but I got to protect my business, Reed said. He might do this again. It might be worse next time.

GLEE STAR NAYA RIVERA CHARGED WITH DOMESTIC BATTERY IN WEST VIRGINIA

Its stupid. Shes trying to make a living for herself. Hes not doing nothing, Reed said. Shes paying the bills, from what I understand.

Reed said the girlfriend was a nice and quiet girl and was upset about the incident.

Sheriff Chuck Zerkle, of the Cabell County Sheriffs Department, said surveillance footage helped deputies identify Bishop.

Young guy, Zerkle told WSAZ. He got himself in a big mess now.

Bishop was being held at Western Regional Jail on a $10,000 bond. He was charged with second-degree arson.
The Ohio man accused of driving into a crowd protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville is now facing life in prison after prosecutors upgraded his charges to first-degree murder.

Prosecutors presented surveillance video and other evidence against James Alex Fields during a preliminary hearing Thursday as they argued for an upgrade to the second-degree murder charge he previously faced in the Aug. 12 crash that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and dozens injury.

The judge agreed to that and ruled there is probable cause to proceed with all charges against Fields, including nine felony counts.

Fields, 20, is accused of driving his speeding car into a group of counterprotesters the day of the Unite the Right rally that drew hundreds of white nationalists to the Virginia college town this summer. The attack came after the rally descended into chaos.

On Thursday, prosecutors played surveillance footage from a Virginia State Police helicopter that captured the moment of impact by the car and the cursing of the startled troopers on board.

The video then showed the car as it reversed, drove away and eventually pulled over. Another surveillance video from a restaurant showed the car head slowly in the direction of the counterprotesters, who were not in view of the camera. The car reversed before speeding forward into the frame again.

Fields, of Maumee, Ohio, sat quietly in a striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed during the hearing. He was photographed hours before the attack with a shield bearing the emblem of Vanguard America, one of the groups that took part in the rally, although the group denied any association with him.

A former teacher, Derek Weimer, has said Fields was fascinated in high school with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by officials at his Kentucky school for "deeply held, radical" convictions on race.

His attorney, Denise Lunsford, did not present evidence or make any arguments at the hearing, although she did cross-examine a Charlottesville detective prosecutors had called in as witness.

Lunsford asked Charlottesville Police Detective Steven Young if searches of Fields' computer, phone or social media revealed any evidence that he was part of Vanguard America or any other white nationalist group. Young said, "No."

Young also testified that he was among the first officers to respond to the scene when Fields pulled over. No weapon was found in the car, he said.

Lunsford asked the detective what Fields said as he was being detained.

Fields said he was sorry and asked if people were OK, according to Young. When Fields was told someone had died, he appeared shocked and sobbed, Young said.

Young said authorities had identified 36 victims of the car attack, including Heyer  a number higher than officials have previously given. Some have significant injuries and now use wheelchairs, Young said.

Fields would have faced between five to 40 years in prison for a second-degree murder conviction. First-degree murder carries a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Uber driver was arrested Thursday in Georgia, accused of raping a 16-year-old female passenger earlier in the week.

Abdoulie Jagne, 58, was booked into the Gwinnett County Jail in north central Georgia, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. Authorities told the station that more charges could be coming.

The teen told police she had been drinking at a bar with friends on Sunday night, WSB-TV Atlanta reported. One of the girls friends then called an Uber ride for her, and thats when Jagne picked her up, authorities told the station.

The driver allegedly committed the crime after stopping the vehicle along an unincorporated road, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The girl told police she was dropped off at a nearby apartment complex, where she started banging on several doors, seeking help, officials told the paper.

Police found the teen to be intoxicated, with her pants around her ankles, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. She was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Uber officials told the paper that Jagne had worked for the company for a couple of months. They released the following statement.

Whats reported here is horrifying beyond words. Our thoughts are with the rider and her family during this time. This driver has been permanently removed from the app."
In late October, William V. Harris, a noted professor of Greco-Roman history at Columbia University, stepped down from his 50-year teaching career at the Ivy League school. His departure came amid accusations in a federal lawsuit that he'd groped a graduate student and pressured her for sex.

Around the same time, officials at Dartmouth College and the New Hampshire attorney generals office announced that three tenured professors in the school's psychological and brain sciences department were targets of a criminal investigation into sexual misconduct charges dating back to 2002.

The dynamic we are hearing about at large is absolutely at play in higher education.  Anne Hedgepeth

In the wake of numerous allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct leveled at Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and a multitude of other news and media personalities, academics from Boston to Berkeley have come under increasing scrutiny for their own dalliances and inappropriate behavior toward students and underlings.

The dynamic we are hearing about at large is absolutely at play in higher education, Anne Hedgepeth, vice president of public policy and government relations at the American Association of University Women (AAUW), told Fox News. With power over grad students and assistants, she said, professors "are the gateway to many peoples futures.

It's hard to pin down precisely how prevalent sexual harassment and assault by academics is, given that many victims have not reported the crimes for fear of being shamed or professionally ostracized. Nonetheless, current research suggests that sexual harassment is an open secret on campuses across the country.

A 2015 study by the Association of American Universities at 27 elite private and public research universities found that about 1 in 10 female graduate students have been sexually harassed by a faculty member. Surveying 221 reported cases at 210 institutions, a forthcoming study in the Utah Law Review found that alleged academic abusers were more often accused of physical harassment than verbal, and that 53 percent of the cases surveyed involved serial harassers.

In late August, a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission documented dozens of incidents of sexual harassment attributed to a University of Rochester professor, T. Florian Jaeger. The brain and cognitive sciences professor is accused of sleeping with graduate students, making inappropriate remarks about women in front of their colleagues and pressuring them into compromising situations. (Jaeger has denied the allegations, and internal investigations have twice cleared him of wrongdoing, according to an article this week in the Democrat & Chronicle newspaper.)

Jaegers case may be emblematic of how many universities have dealt with these types of issues in the past. The professor is on administrative leave and the school has a special committee currently investigating the allegations with its findings expected on January 12.

Billie Wright Dziech, the co-author of "The Lecherous Professor: Sexual Harassment on Campus," wrote in Inside Higher Ed that long-held features have made colleges increasingly susceptible to professorial misbehavior.

As for full-time tenured faculty members, whether they are big names or not so famous, their misbehavior can go on for years, because its easier to view it as eccentricity or the result of personal problems rather than to invite conflict by telling colleagues or administrators what they dont want to hear, Dziech wrote.

She added, Colleges and universities protect big names and moneymakers with whom they have more or less reciprocal agreements because of their worth to institutional reputation and finances.

Along with institutional malaise, murky language about school policies on student-faculty relationships comes into play. It has made it more difficult to reach conclusions about what is or isn't sexual harassment under school rules.

Some schools  notably Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Brown  have banned sexual relationships between professors and undergrads. Other schools' guidelines are not so cut and dried.

Dartmouths policy states that any faculty member who uses a position of authority to induce a student to enter into a nonconsensual romantic or sexual relationship  violates law and college policy and adds that even consensual relationships may raise conflict-of-interest issues.

In regard to Jaeger, complainants say that he was able to exploit loopholes in the University of Rochesters policies.

While there has been much debate about the Obama administrations policies under Title IX  a law meant to stop gender discrimination on campus  that were aimed at curbing student-on-student sexual violence, there has been little talk about sex harassment or abuse carried out by professors.

With little oversight, this leaves schools, and more particularly, individual academic departments, to police themselves.

Some institutions have taken steps to curb sexual harassment by professors  Penn States psychology department faculty members met with students to discuss how to safely report harassment, while officials at the University of California, San Diego are looking into campuswide changes to their reporting procedures.

But experts say that while steps are being taken and more students are speaking out, an old, established mentality of protecting these professors and the institutions they represent remains firmly in place.

There are incentives in place to keep people from taking action, Hedgepeth said, but its completely inappropriate and disappointing to see 45 years after Title IX was enacted.
World War II veteran Chuck Franzke is back at it.

In a video that went viral just ahead of his 94th birthday last year, Franzke was seen dancing to Burl Ives' rendition of the classic "Holly Jolly Christmas. This year, the former Navy pilot is turning another year older and is dancing once again -- this time to Frank Sinatra's version of "Jingle Bells.

Franzke officially turns 95 on Dec. 22.

I liked to do the Jitterbug back in the 40s, but I haven't done a lot of dancing since. I like to move around to music, its almost like Im still young but then look in the mirror and I aint, the Waukesha, Wis. resident told Fox News on Friday.

When asked how he feels about turning 95, Franzke joked that its better than the alternative.

Franzke served as a U.S. Navy pilot from 1943-1945. He flew Avenger torpedo bombers off of the USS Saginaw Bay in the Pacific Theater, he said.

Now, he spends a great deal of time volunteering for Honor Flight, an organization that flies WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans to see their memorials in Washington, D.C. at no cost to them.

More specifically, Franzke said he serves as an Honor Flight ambassador, traveling to different schools around the state to tell his story and collect money for the organization.

Franzke, who is seen wearing red Honor Flight Got Freedom? T-shirt in the video, said his favorite Honor Flight T-shirt has the saying everyday is a bonus on the back, a quote attributed to Joe Denler, a Holocaust survivor and friend of Franzke that he met through the organization.

Aside from volunteering, he and and his wife of nearly 75 years, Bev, enjoy taking walks at a lake a few miles from their home and visiting a local coffee shop. And, in addition to going to the gym four days a week and driving all over town, Franzke said hes always busy around the home, adding that he had just finished washing the dishes before taking yet another phone call regarding his holiday-inspired dance.

Franzke said that some of his favorite memories involve his wife -- spanning from their first date in 1939 to asking her to marry him on Christmas Eve in 1944.

I decided I was going to marry her on the first date I ever took her on, he said, adding that the two started going steady during his senior year of high school and Bevs junior year.

Its been 79 years and I still like her, he said. The couple has two children, a son and a daughter, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
An American woman dubbed the milkshake murderer for drugging and killing her banker husband in Hong Kong is back in court Friday fighting to reduce her life sentence.

Nancy Kissel, of Michigan, is currently serving the life sentence in Hong Kongs high-security Tai Lam Centre for Women. Her husband, Robert, a Merrill Lynch executive, was killed in November 2003 after Kissel served him a sedative-laced strawberry milkshake and then beat him to death with a lead ornament inside their upscale home, News.com.au reported.

The original trial in 2005 received widespread media attention. Kissel has maintained she acted in self-defense after physical and sexual abuse by her husband.

At Hong Kongs High Court on Friday, Kissels legal team challenged a decision made last year by the governments Long-term Prison Sentences Review Board in which they denied to recommend a determinate sentence for her or grant her conditional release, News.com.au reported.

The board can suggest to the government which inmates can be released before the end of their sentence. Kissels lawyers say she is entitled to know how long the board believes is sufficient before she is considered for an early release from detention.

The judges say they will make a decision at a later, unknown date.
Two more students succumbed to their injuries Friday, raising the death toll to six people after a school bus was sliced open by a collision with a regional train in southern France.

Authorities in the Pyrenees-Orientales region announced the new deaths a day after the horrific Thursday crash at a crossing close to the Spanish border. French media identified the dead as two 11-year-old girls.

Four other children, ages 12 or 13, died Thursday in the collision, while 16 others and the bus driver were injured. Officials said several children and the bus driver remained in serious condition Friday.

Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the crash. Philippe Vignes, the Pyrenees-Orientales chief, told BFM television he could not say whether the railway barriers meant to stop vehicles from driving onto the tracks when a train is coming were opened or closed.

There are contradictory rumors, he said. We need to be very careful.

Vignes told reporters investigators would look into reports the batteries in the automatic train gate system had been stolen.

SNCF train official Gaelle Le Fauche told The Associated Press the train was carrying 25 people, including passengers and crew, and all were accounted for and being offered counseling. She said the train normally travels at 50 mph at that location.

The accident occurred at about 4 p.m. local time close to the village of Millas, as children ages 11 to 15 were being taken home at the end of the day.

The front half of the vehicle was left on the track pointing at an upwards angle, witnesses said.

The school opened its doors Friday to offer counseling for grieving students and families.

French authorities said all victims had been identified and their families notified.

Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne called the crash a "terrible accident" and Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was due to visit a counseling center set up at the Christian Bourquin College on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences, tweeting: "All my thoughts go to the victims of this terrible accident and their families. The government is fully mobilized to give them emergency help."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A top Israeli politician said he would form a new anti-Iran axis, together with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni powers, to counter the Iranian threat in the region, if he succeeds embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yisrael Katz, Israel's intelligence and transportation minister, an anti-Iran hardliner who also opposes a peace agreement with the Palestinians, claimed economic partnership and shared concerns regarding the Iranian regime could be the basis of a new coalition between his nation and Saudi Arabia.

"Iran is the big enemy," Katz told Canada's Globe and Mail. It's very clear we (Israel and Saudi Arabia) are practically on the same side.  All Sunni countries are against Iran.

"We wish to have a peace agreement in parallel with advancing regional economic development initiatives, he added, noting that a railway and port network between the countries would create an anti-Iran axis in the region.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel deny having official diplomatic channels, but it is long believed there are unofficial channels between the countries, especially amid an alleged Iranian nuclear program and increasing militarization of the regime.

Meetings with US envoy

An unidentified Israeli government source told the publication that Katz has opened a covert channel with the Saudis and even had meetings with the kingdoms officials in the past year. He also communicated his thoughts in meetings with President Donald Trumps special envoy in Israel, Jason Greenblatt.

"I had seven meetings with Jason Greenblatt about these things in Washington about this initiative, about the railway," he told the Globe and Mail. "He is talking with Saudi Arabia, with Jordan with the Palestinians.

In an interview on Wednesday with a London-based Arabic news website owned by a Saudi businessman, Katz also asked the Saudis to take the lead in the peace process and urged them to invite Netanyahu for a state visit.

I suggest that Saudi Arabia, as the leader of the Arab world, take upon itself this initiative and go to the Palestinians and offer their patronage. They (the Palestinians) are too weak, they need someone to help them, he said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

I call on (Saudi) King Salman to invite (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu for a visit, and for the crown prince to come for a visit here in Israel, he added. He should come, give patronage to and lead the peace initiative with the Palestinians and the U.S.

Among top contenders

Katz is eyeing on Netanyahus job  held for almost four terms  and is believed to be among the top three contenders to replace him. Although remaining loyal to the current prime minister, he called the corruption allegations serious that could taint the remaining term of the prime minister.

He is already preparing for the inevitable: He is taking English language lessons and trying to build up his domestic and international image and credentials, according to the Globe and Mail. At the moment, he is considered a rabble-rouser, a right-wing hardliner who often does not mince words.

During his time at university he was suspended for a year after participating in violent clashes with Arab students and last year, he called for the "focused civilian elimination of anti-Israel boycott movement. He had to explain that he did not mean assassinations, the Globe and Mail reported. In 2016, he drew ire one day after an Islamist terror attack in Belgium, saying that unless Belgian authorities stop eating chocolate and enjoying life they will not be able to fight them, according to the Post.

And yet Katzs ambitious plan to work together with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states might come into fruition. They (the Sunni Arab states) see Israel as the only power than can stand against Iran in the region," he said.
More than three dozen ISIS and Al Qaeda militants were hanged by Iraq on Thursday after being on death row for terrorism charges.

The 38 executions, which took place at a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya, were the most in a single day since Sept. 24, when Iraq killed 42 militants due to terrorism charges for crimes such as car bombings and murders of Iraqi security forces, Reuters reported.

Iraqs justice ministry said all of the executed militants were members of ISIS and their appeal options were exhausted. But a government official told AFP that some of the militants belonged to Al Qaeda. One of the terrorists had Swedish citizenship, a prison source told AFP.

"The prison administration executed on Thursday in the presence of Justice Minister Haidar al-Zameli, in Nasiriyah prison, 38 death row prisoners belonging to [Al Qaeda or ISIS] accused of terrorist activities," Dakhel Kazem, a provincial council senior official, told AFP.

Iraq last week declared victory over ISIS after more than three years of fighting.

"All Iraqi lands are liberated from terrorist [ISIS] gangs and our forces completely control the international Iraqi-Syrian border," Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Rasheed Yar Allah had said in a statement.
Japans Foreign Ministry announced Friday that it is freezing the assets of 19 companies in an attempt to deter the development of North Koreas missile program.

The latest string of sanctions will affect companies dealing in finance, coal and minerals and transport. The companies have already been sanctioned by the United States.

A ministry official said the unilateral move shows Japan's commitment to sanctions ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Friday to discuss the North Korea situation.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson doubled down on these sanctions in a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono on Thursday.

Johnson said that the best way to resolve the North Korean crisis would be through economic pressure, not military action, Reuters reported.

Britain's military involvement in the region has been minimal. It sent four fighter jets to the region for joint exercises with Japan last year, the Guardian reported, and plans to send a warship there next year.

Kono said that North Korea was the most urgent and important threat facing the international community, the news agency reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
So much for diplomacy by selfie.

Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, and her family had to flee their homeland after receiving death threats over a photo she posted online last month.

Why? Because Idan posed with Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, at a Miss Universe International Beauty Pageant, the Times of Israel reported.

Idan came under fire for posting the photo to Instagram, captioned, Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel, in addition to modeling a bikini.

The two of those things together caused a mess for her back home where people made threats against her and her family that if she didnt return home and take down the photos, they would remove her (Miss Iraq) title, that they would kill her, Adar Gandelsman told Israeli TV, the paper reported.

In another Instagram post, Idan apologized to those who thought the photo was harmful to the Palestinian cause, clarifying that it was not a political statement, but instead meant to express hope and desire for peace between the two countries, the paper reported.

She added, it does not signal support for the government of Israel and does not mean I agree or accept its policies in the Arab homeland.

Iraq does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel, and the two countries are considered enemies, the paper reported.

Despite the backlash, Gandelsman said her friend did not regret her decision to post the image to social media, which she has yet to remove from Instagram, reported the paper.

She did it to so that people can understand that its possible to live together, she said.
As far as year-end Presidential news conferences go, this one was middling.

It ran just shy of four hours. Sixty-five questions were posed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

The longest annual news conference this Russian President has held was in February of 2007. That one ran four hours and forty minutes.

The record number of questions asked was set in 2006. Then Putin answered a whopping 140 questions from the accredited audience.

The annual presidential news conference in Russia is an experience like no other.

Pulling up to the World Trade Center on the bank of the Moscow River, while it is still semi-dark outside, I am greeted by men in camouflage pants running security. They dont let my taxi pull right up to the venue, saying the rules had changed in Thursdays event. As if it was some sort of show. My driver chuckled.

Event, he repeated, curiously, as if there was some great mystery.

At about 9 a.m., the place is buzzing with activity. A generous breakfast is laid out for the 1,600 plus journalists in attendance. Once seated two hours later, they will be hostages, largely not allowed to move until the president has said his bit and has left the hallprobably sometime after 4. So, the press eats up, filling themselves with delicious Russian meat pies and sandwiches that showcase a vast array of kielbasa, or local salami.

A Russian journalist approaches me as I am sipping a cup of coffee and doesnt waste time asking what I think of President Trump. I tell him that is not really a polite question to ask a stranger. And, in return, I play by my own rules, not asking him what he thinks of Putin. A TV screen runs a countdown to the presser. Journalists, trying to busy themselves, interview each other.

The conference gets going at noon, with Putin seated at a desk. Hes flanked by his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who is at a podium fielding questions.

Putin, running for re-election next year, kept a largely a domestic focus in Thursdays conference. Nipping at the heels of the record of another famous Kremlin occupant, Joseph Stalin, Putin will likely run in Russia until 2024. He took over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin on the eve of the millennium. There was a switch-out with Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. For four years, Putin wore the hat of prime minister, a legal loophole that allowed him to return to the big seat in 2012, though few doubt he was ever second in command. Not for a moment.

The consensus seems to be that while evincing optimism about the path Russia is on, Putin didnt bowl anyone over with a tangible vision for his next term. He spoke in platitudes about beefing up infrastructure and technological prowess across the country.

He got passionate about increasing aid to families with children and reversing ecological decline in the Far East. Putin seemed proud of his mastery of facts and figures, relishing ticking off a dizzying number of statistics, on agricultural production and growth and the improvements in life expectancy.

The way to attract attention in order to ask a question at the news conference is to wave a sign. There is signage protocol. Placards cant be larger than A-3 size, though I am not even sure what that means. It is announced in advance and several times on a loudspeaker before the conference begins. Signs can scream whatever they wantaffiliation, area of interest, feelings about life or Putin himself.

A harried-looking man seated near me in a neutral suit and vivid purple shirt is assembling his sign moments before cameras roll. He has a small tree branch to hold it up and binds his placard nervously with fat cellophane strips that make loud sucking sounds as they take hold. I ask him what he hopes to ask. Fish in the arctic, he says, but addsit is too complicated to explain.

He does get his question inat the end of his long ranting monologue about the high price of fish and other fishing-related issues. Putin seems transfixed. In the end, the man shouts, I actually tricked you! I slipped into this conference. I am not a journalist. I work in the fishing industry.

Putin smiles at the mans ingenuity and earnestness and says he will look into the prohibitive price of fish.

The one opposition leader allowed to run in next years election, Ksenia Sobchak, is then called on. Putin, with a glint in his eye, asks her if she is tricking him, too. She replies that she is in fact still a journalist and since he doesnt do debates, this may be her only opportunity to take him on.

Sobchak asks why the opposition has such a hard time in Russia, and has to fear arrest or even death. Putin largely brushes off her question, saying that true opposition needs ideas and plansnot just loud slogans, and criticism of the regime. He says the Russian people dont want what has happened in Kiev to happen in their cities.

Someone asks him how he would evaluate President Trumps first year in office.

The Russian president doesnt really want to be drawn in, but gives kudos to his American counterpart for the performance of the markets since Trump took office.

I shouldnt assess the work of President Trump. This has to be done by his electorate, the American people. We see some serious achievements Look how the markets went up, he said. This says there is trust from investors in the American economy.

But he doesnt seem to want to talk much about America, brushing off the allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia as the work of Trump detractors who want to keep him from doing his job.

He does take a swipe at the inherent contradictions in U.S. policy toward Russia.

Putin said, with sarcasm: Did you notice that your Congressmen, Senators, look very good, wear nice suits and shirts? They seem to be smart people. But they put us in one row with North Korea and Iran and at the same time push the president to persuade us to deal with the North Korean problems and the Iranian nuclear program together. Are you normal people?

And then Putin quickly got back to the business of running his own country.

The crowd remained rapt throughout the three hours and 42 minutes. But Russias main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, barred from running in the election, had this searing assessment.

Of all the press conferences, this was the least interesting, the least convincing, he said. Basically, nothing was said.
An Australian inquiry into child abuse could rock the Roman Catholic Church.

The panel on Friday called on the church to repeal its celibacy requirement for priests, and said clergy should face prosecution if they fail to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional.

Australias Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its 17-volume report and made almost 200 recommendations following a five-year investigation into how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The Royal Commission is the countrys highest form of inquiry and the voluminous report it produced followed testimony from more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse.

Sixty-two percent of those abused in religious institutions were Catholic, the study found. Catholicism is the largest denomination in majority-Christian Australia.

We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades, the report said.

'Elevated risk'

Among the recommendations, the commission recommends that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference ask the Vatican to repeal the mandatory celibacy requirement for the clergy and make it instead a voluntary choice. Although finding that celibacy was not a direct cause of child sexual abuse by the clergy, it was a contributing factor, the panel said.

"We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades."  Australia's Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The report reads: We conclude that there is an elevated risk of child sex abuse where compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious have privileged access to children in certain types of Catholic institutions, including schools, residential institutions and parishes.

In another recommendation, the Australian bishops should also ask the Vatican whether the information heard about sexual child abuse in confessions is covered by the seal of secrecy and therefore cannot be reported to the authorities.

We recommend that canon law be amended so that the pontifical secret does not apply to any aspect of allegations or canonical disciplinary processes relating to child sexual abuse, the report read.

'Significant impact'

The commission proposed making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offense. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged, even if said in the confessional.

But Archbishop Denis Hart, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, pushed back against the commissions suggestions, saying the changes would have a significant impact on how the church operates.

He reportedly said that the seal of the confessional was inviolable and cant be broken, but added that he would try to encourage a person who confessed about child abuse to admit their crimes to the police.

I would feel terribly conflicted, and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I cannot break the seal, he said, according to the Guardian. The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication.

He added that although there are real values in celibacy, the Australian Catholic leaders will put the celibacy question to the pope.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A Welsh samurai sword expert who lived in Japan -- where he worked at a samurai sword store -- took his own life in an act of harakiri, Wales officials said.

Alun Rhys Jones was found at his mothers home in Rogerstone, Wales, where he was staying during a visit to his family earlier this year, the Coroners Court heard Thursday, according to the South Wales Argus.

His mother, Margaret, reportedly found him lying on top of his sword with his arms over his head, Metro UK reported.

According to officials, the 51-year-old had recently returned from his home in Japan -- but he was not his usual self.

For many years he had lived abroad and when he came home he would go out visiting friends, Jones sister Marianne Caulfield said in court, adding Jones had spent time in India and Australia before settling in Japan. But this time he had lost weight and spent most of his time in his bedroom.

EX-PRIEST, WIELDING SAMURAI SWORD, KILLS PRIESTESS SISTER AT PROMINENT TOKYO SHRINE

Jones was described has having a master collection of samurai swords and having developed an interest in the samurai tradition, his sister added.

A coroner said Jones died as a result of a sword wound.

It is quite clear from the post mortem examination that he died as a result of a deliberately inflicted wound from a samurai sword, coroner David Bowen said. In Japan the samurai tradition is called harakiri. In this country it is suicide.

Harakiri, or seppuku, is a ritualized form of suicide with roots in Japanese samurai warrior culture. During the act, a man would stab himself in the left belly, draw the blade to the right and then pull upwards. Samurai warriors traditionally performed harakiri to avoid capture by enemies, or as punishment.
Another round of interviews are set for Friday for the three finalists for the Chippewa County administrators job.

Frank Pascarella, the current Chippewa County administrator, is leaving that job the end of the month. The County Board on Tuesday voted 8-6 against extending his contract for two months, as County Board Chairman Anson Albarado had proposed.

The finalists to succeed Pascarella include: Jill Chaffee of Chippewa Falls; Thomas R. Hoff of Hayward; and Randy Scholz of Merrill. Chaffee is administrator of a mental health and substance abuse program in Chippewa Falls. Hoff is the administrator in Sawyer County, and Scholz the administrator coordinator in Lincoln County.

After interviews with county officials Thursday, all three candidates were interviewed by the Herald. Each was asked how they would handle possible disagreements among county board members, their view on the county wheel tax, and what attracted them to apply for the administrators position.

Jill Chaffee

I believe Im a person to build relationships, said Chaffee, who has worked as mental health and substance abuse for the Western Region Recovery and Wellness Consortium since January 2013. She leads the nine-county Comprehensive Community Services program, that brings services to more than 300 people.

She said she would work with each of the 15 County Board members as the supervisors chose.

Chaffee said she would need more information to give an opinion on the wheel tax, which is set to expire in Chippewa County in 2020 after eliminating a debt in the countys winter road maintenance fund.

I think I have a good skill set for the it, she said of what attracted her to applying for the administrators job. She said she has skills in bringing people together and to create strong teams to make better communities. She said shes excited to be part of the process.

From December 1999-January 2013, Chafee served as regional director and executive director of the Northwest Counseling and Guidance Clinic in Frederic.

She is a graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received her masters of social work degree from the same university.

Thomas R. Hoff

Hoff has been the Sawyer County administrator since 2015, taking over a job that previously had been an administrator coordinator. He previously served as manager of financial services for the city of Eau Claire from 1990-2015. His duties there included designing financial systems and reports, develop budgets, and implement processes and controls to ensure regulatory compliance and operational efficiency/accuracy.

Hoff said he would work with the Chippewa County Board to build trust with them, and to build a relationship with the county workers.

About the wheel tax, Hoff said county administrators recommend funding alternatives and let the board decide which ones they want to use. For county government, there are very few alternatives for funding, he said.

Bringing those to light, I think is the responsibility of the administrator, he said.

Hoff said he spent 25 years working in the Chippewa Valley and is familiar with the area. He said he has a small learning curve about the administrator job because of his experience.

Hoff has a bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1984 and a masters degree in business administration from the university in 2000.

Randy Scholz

Scholz has been the administrative coordinator in Lincoln County since 2010, and said he started a county health wellness program that decreased Lincoln Countys health claims by $1.7 million. Scholz has filled in as the countys maintenance director, highway commissioner, county clerk and social services director while in Lincoln County. He served as that countys highway commissioner from 2004-2010. I want to take that experience and use it in Chippewa County, he said.

Every County Board has their ups and downs, Scholz said. The key is for an administrator to give them accurate information so that board members can make good decisions.

Every County Board member is doing what they feel is right, Scholz said.

Lincoln County just passed its own wheel tax, which will take effect in 2018. Scholz said with state-imposed tax levy limits, counties have limited ways to secure revenues.

He said he understands why people dont want such a thing as a wheel tax. But he does ask: If you dont want us to do that, what do you want us to cut?

Scholz said he likes that Chippewa Countys website has strategic, security and energy plans, because it shows the county is willing to plan for the future. He said Chippewa County is a great place to work.

Scholz is a 1992 graduate in criminal justice from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
A Spanish court has granted China's extradition request for 121 Taiwanese accused of belonging to Spain-based gangs which swindled people in China out of millions of euros (dollars) by telephone.

Interpol informed Spain about the scam a year ago, and Spanish and Chinese authorities cooperated in an operation which nabbed 269 people.

Officials said the gangs made contact with people in China, pretending at first they were friends or family and warning them of fraud scams. In later calls, they pretended to be police investigating the scams and convinced many of the victims to put money in bank accounts run by the gangs.

The National Court ruled Friday there was no impediment to the extradition. Spain has an extradition treaty with China and no diplomatic relations with Taipei.
next Image 1 of 2

prev Image 2 of 2

Turkey's president says Muslim nations will ask the United Nations for an "annulment" of President Donald Trump's controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the initiative would start at the U.N. Security Council and if it's "vetoed there, we will work within the U.N. General Assembly for the annulment of this unjust and lawless decision."

Erdogan spoke to a rally in the central province of Konya via teleconference on Friday.

His comments followed Wednesday's summit of Muslim and Arab nations  the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation  which declared east Jerusalem the capital of occupied Palestine and urged the world to recognize the state of Palestine.

Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump's Dec. 6 decision on recognizing Jerusalem.
The U.S. special envoy for North Korea has expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's diplomatic offer of unconditional talks, although the overture has already been contradicted by the White House.

Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok on Friday that the talks could take place without preconditions and would serve Washington's dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear program.

Yun says it's unclear whether North Korea is willing to talk following a period of accelerated nuclear activity, saying "it's very hard to discern what their intent is without having real dialogue."

The White House has contradicted Tillerson's offer of talks without preconditions, saying North Korea must first take "sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearization."
Two people who are suspects in three New York bank robberies are being held in the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford County pending extradition back to New York, court records show.

In an affidavit for a search warrant filed in Circuit Court, Stafford Sheriffs Detective R.S. Parsons wrote that New York State Police contacted Stafford authorities late last month to request assistance in the investigation. The warrant allowed police to search a bag found on one of the suspects that was being stored at the jail.

Steven Richard Steele and Erin Marie Keppel, both 32, are charged with robbery in New York and other offenses locally and elsewhere. Both have extradition hearings scheduled for later this month.

According to court records, the bank robberies took place between Nov. 18 and 24 in the area of Port Jervis, N.Y. A woman handed notes to tellers demanding money and left the banks with undisclosed amounts. She then got into a silver Nissan pickup driven by a man.

Police identified Keppel as a suspect through bank surveillance videos, court records state. The truck, which had been stolen in nearby New Jersey, was found abandoned in Stafford a couple of days after Thanksgiving.

Both suspects were taken into custody Nov. 25 at the bus station in Fredericksburg. Police wrote that they were wearing the same clothing that was seen on the robber and getaway driver.

Steele is charged in Fredericksburg with possession of illegal drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia and public intoxication. He has a preliminary hearing scheduled next week in Fredericksburg General District Court. He is also wanted in Pennsylvania, court records show.

Keppel was convicted of identity theft Tuesday in Fredericksburg and received a suspended six-month jail sentence.

Court papers do not say what ties they may have to the Fredericksburg area.
A lawsuit brought against the village of Lake Hallie and its police department by the estate of a woman fatally shot by a police officer during a disturbance in a Walmart in Lake Hallie last year will be dropped, according to a document filed in Chippewa County Court on Thursday.

Melissa M. Abbott, 25, originally from Black River Falls, was killed on Monday, April 8, 2016.

Another defendant being dismissed from the lawsuit filed in March include Lake Hallie Detective Adam Meyers.

Two other defendants, Jacqueline Nehrohr, director of the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls, and Walmart, are not included the stipulation for dismissal.

The stipulation said the lawsuit may be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it could not be refiled. It asks the lawsuit be dismissed on the merits and without costs to either party and an order to that effect may be entered without further notice or hearing.

Judge James Isaacson had been scheduled to hear a motion in the lawsuit at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 19.

Police were called to Walmart when two chaperones from the Northern Center said a woman they had taken shopping had became disorderly. Lake Hallie Police Chief Cal Smokowicz said at the time that Melissa Abbott, a resident at the center, had armed herself with a hatchet in the sporting goods department at the store and struck items with it. He said Abbott refused to follow several verbal commands given by Meyers to drop the hatchet. Abbott was shot once in the leg and a second time in the right upper abdomen.

The lawsuit had claimed Melissa Abbotts injuries and death were proximately caused by the negligence of the Lake Hallie Police Department and/or its agents and employees, including and not limited to defendant Adam Meyers.

On May 12, 2016, then-Chippewa County District Attorney Steve Gibbs, now a judge, decided not to prosecute Meyers.

The overwhelming evidence in this case supports a finding that Officer Adam Meyers acted in self-defense and that his belief that he reasonably believed his life was in danger, or that he was likely to suffer great bodily harm, when Ms. Abbott refused to follow orders and charged Officer Meyers with a hatchet, Gibbs wrote.

The suit had been seeking unspecified damages, punitive damages, reasonable attorneys fees and interest.

The lawsuit listed Tina Abbott of Black River Falls as the special administrator of Melissa Abbotts estate.

Attorney Remzy D. Bitar of Waukesha represented the village of Lake Hallie and the other defendants. Attorney Dean R. Rohde of River Falls represented the Abbott estate.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said defendants Walmart and Jacqueline Neuhohr are being dropped from the lawsuit. They are not part of the stipulated dismissal document.
A man who robbed a Stafford County Shell station at gunpoint on July 4 before being apprehended in Spotsylvania County a short time later pleaded guilty to robbery and other charges Friday.

Mark Francis Lahive Jr., 25, of Bellwood, Pa. was also convicted in Stafford Circuit Court of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and two misdemeanors, including DUI. He will be sentenced Feb. 2.

According to the evidence, Lahive entered the store at 545 Warrenton Road (U.S. 17) just before noon and purchased two packs of cigarettes. He went into a bathroom, came out after other customers left, displayed a gun, demanded money from the clerk and left with several hundred dollars.

The clerk was able to get the robbers Pennsylvania license plate number and the car was soon spotted on southbound Interstate 95. With police in pursuit, Lahive left the interstate via westbound State Route 3 and ended up in the area of the Harrison Crossing shopping center. He was finally apprehended in the parking lot of a Sonic restaurant.

Lahive is charged with felony eluding in Spotsylvania and has a trial scheduled March 30 in Spotsylvania Circuit Court. He is also charged with a robbery in Altoona, Pa., that took place the day before the Stafford robbery.

Lahives criminal record includes a prior robbery conviction.
Cynthia Brandon is looking for pretty much the same things in a Christmas tree as everyone else: nice and full, not too stout and no big gaps in the branches.

But, having gone blind suddenly three years ago, she has a slightly different approach when it comes to actually making her selection.

What you do is, when you go up to the tree, you hug it, and that will give you the shape of the tree, the 58-year-old Mechanicsville resident said. So then, if its a good, solid tree, thats good. So then you go around the tree and feel for holes.

Brandon is one of more than 20 students, volunteers and staff members at the Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired who traveled from the centers campus on Azalea Avenue in Henrico County to Whispering Pines Christmas Tree Farm near Bowling Green on Wednesday morning.

Together, the group selected, cut and hauled back two trees from a field of several hundredno assistance from the sighted required, save for the ride there and back.

Melody Roane, the centers director, said that aside from being seasonally appropriate, the annual activity is a natural extension of the centers mission: to give blind people from across the state the training and experience they need to live independent, productive lives.

She said the outing also played the dual role of giving the students, who are often on the receiving end of charitable efforts, an opportunity to give backthe center donated the trees to needy families.

When they go home, they may never chop another tree down, but hopefully what theyre getting is the confidence to do things that theyre interested in doing and get out in their community and play an active role, she said.

It gives the students an opportunity to be in charge of a situationa chance to play an active role rather than a passive role.

The centers typical mobility training ground is Richmonds Museum District, where students are given assignmentsfor instance, to navigate from one address to another. Students who are visually impaired but cant always rely on the limited sight they have wear eye masks to help them learn nonvisual mobility and orientation skills.

While lessons in the city necessarily focus on identifying intersections and safely crossing them, at the tree farm, the only real obstacles are trees, stumps and a far-flung fence line.

When the students arrive at the farm, they split into two groups and fan out among the trees, white canes tapping from side to side in front of them. When they encounter a stump, they step around it. When they encounter a tree that looks promising, they feel it out.

About 10 minutes in, after debating a few promising specimens as a group, Pragya Govil of Falls Church calls out that she thinks shes found a good one.

Members of her group converge around her, and she makes her case.

Its not a big, tall tree, but the shape is very good, and the leaves are freshnot dry, she says.

Brandon, the Mechanicsville resident, isnt convinced. Shes a nurse who graduated from the center and now volunteers there teaching kitchen skills.

OK, we got a hole right here and youve got one hole right here, she says. Yeah. Youve got two holes.

Roane gives it a feel and taps the top with her cane to gauge its height. She thinks the gaps in the branches could easily be hidden, and Brandon and the rest of the group agreenot a fatal flaw.

Michael Villafane, a technology instructor at the center, produces a bow saw and kneels, feeling for the best spot to start the cut.

Dont worry, he says, laughing. Im a certified saw cutter.

From there, they take turns sawing until their tree eventually falls. The group lets out a cheer.

Three students then pick up the tree and, using the position of the sun and the sound of the nearby highway as their guide, navigate back to the farms entrance to pay for the tree.

It was Brandons second trip to the farm, and she said she was nervous the first time she ventured into the field.

I was so afraid I was going to hit every one of these stumps where trees had already been cut off, and I didnt. It was just amazing, she said.

This time, she said she just enjoyed herself.

Its just such a nice outing in a wide-open areato be able to find a live tree that way, its just such a blessing that you can still do that.
A performance at the White House this week left the Spotsylvanians on top of the world, said Austin Powell, a member and executive board member of the singing group.

Twenty-seven members of choir traveled to Washington Wednesday evening to perform in the grand foyer of the White House, which has been transformed into a wonderland of snow-dusted trees for the holiday season.

Their audience was made up of political appointees who had been invited to tour the holiday decorations at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

It was just an honor to be able to be there, Powell said. There were plenty of people in our group who had not ever been [to the White House] and some who had been there 40 years ago who had taken tours as elementary school kids. Just the experience of being  there was special.

The group performed two hour-long sets of traditional Christmas carols and some Hanukkah selections.

It was amazing. Our pianist got to play the White House Steinway piano that was donated to the White House by the Steinways in 1938, Powell said. It has its own webpage. Our pianist was thrilled to be able to play it. Shed seen pictures when she was a little girl, but she never thought shed be able to play it.

Performing at the White House was the culmination of a months-long process, Powell said. The group submitted an interest form over the summer and was then invited to send clips of its performances for consideration.

The group heard nothing for a while.

We figured, OK, maybe we werent selected, Powell said.

Then the Spotsylvanians received notice that the group had been chosen for an evening performance and the race was on to get everyone cleared by Secret Service, Powell said.

He said his favorite part of the experience was sharing it with his two daughters, ages 12 and 15, who also sing with the Spotsylvanians.

We look forward to doing it again in the future, Powell said.

The Spotsylvanians, who are celebrating their 15th anniversary this year, will perform a community concert and carol sing-a-long at 7 p.m. this Friday in Market Square in downtown Fredericksburg.
Free Freightnet Membership

List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours.
Advanced learners in low-income households would be eligible for a taxpayer-funded grant for education expenses under a program proposed by three lawmakers this week.

The program is proposed by Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, and Rep. Jason Fields, D-Milwaukee  who back private school vouchers and charter schools.

It would be open to 2,000 families beginning in the 2018-19 school year if the bill passes and is signed by Gov. Scott Walker.

These scholarships will provide students in families with low incomes the ability to access a wide range of educational opportunities that they may currently not have the resources to participate in, the lawmakers wrote in a memo seeking support from other lawmakers.

Who knows how many scientists, engineers, musicians, artists and community leaders we are missing out on because their family cant afford additional educational opportunities, Darling said in a statement.

The program would provide $1,000 for each gifted and talented student who is already eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, which means the households annual income is at or below $45,510 annually for a family of four.

Republican lawmakers have been eyeing what are known as education savings accounts for more than a year.

The accounts for K-12 schools first appeared in 2011 in other states and are popular among conservatives and opposed by Democrats and teachers unions as a new version of a taxpayer-funded school voucher.

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which helps lawmakers write model legislation, released model policy language on Education Savings Accounts in 2016. In Wisconsin, the conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty released a study on the accounts last year. The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the states largest teachers union, called the proposal in 2016 a back-door scheme to send more money to private education providers.

Such accounts are in use in at least five states and generally send parents of eligible children  typically students with disabilities or low-income students or those attending schools that dont meet state education standards  several thousand dollars from the state to pay educational expenses, including tuition, textbooks and tutoring. In some cases, leftover money can be saved for college.

The Wisconsin proposal, however, is limited to children who are scoring in the top 5 percent of standardized tests or have been identified by an education official as being gifted and talented if a student demonstrates evidence of high-performance capability in intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership or specific academic areas and needs services or activities not ordinarily provided in a regular school program.

Parents would be able to use the money for education services or expenses authorized by the Department of Public Instruction, which oversees the states 422 school districts and federal funding for schools.

Expenses could include tuition and fees, textbooks, payments to a licensed or accredited tutor, payments to purchase a curriculum, tuition and fees for a private online learning program, fees for Advanced Placement exams, private music or art lessons, according to the bills analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

Parents or guardians of eligible students must agree to comply with attendance requirements and not accept a payment, refund or rebate from a person who provides a service or product purchased by the scholarship funds.

Funds to be disbursed

for student expenses

Under the plan, each students funds would be held in an account administered by DPI, which is directed by the bill to develop a system to disburse the money for the students expenses, which includes paying directly for expenses or reimbursing parents for expenses.

The account would be closed when the student graduates from high school, reaches age 21 or is no longer eligible to participate in the program.

Leftover money would go back into the states general fund, according to the bills analysis. The funds would not be able to be saved for college, according to a spokesman for Darling.

Under the bill, the entire program may be administered by a private, nonprofit group through a contract with DPI.

School boards opposed

Dan Rossmiller, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said his members generally oppose such programs because they send public money to private organizations and companies, and see the proposal as expanding the voucher system.

He said because the states open enrollment program allows students to take classes in other schools at no charge, and because public schools are required to offer services for gifted and talented students, the program is likely aimed at students in the states private voucher programs.

We see this as a mechanism that will be used to purchase services from private providers because anybody is entitled to use the services at public schools at no charge so why would you need the scholarship money if you could just go for free in a class at a public school? Rossmiller said.

He said the bill will likely have wide support in the Legislature.

Jim Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, said the proposal wont affect funding for public school districts or private voucher schools because the funding would be in addition to whats already allocated for schools.

There are amazing children in every corner of Wisconsin. However, we know that many gifted and talented programs have gone away over time. Especially in rural and urban areas, students have limited options to maximize their gifted abilities, Bender said.

Bender said he could see parents in Madison  where gifted and talented services have been under scrutiny for years  finding attractive options in music, art and other areas. Rossmiller, however, said there likely wont be a lot of eligible students in the Madison district.

Will Flanders, education research director for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which advocates for vouchers, said the bill represents an important recognition that Wisconsin can no longer afford to ignore the needs of its gifted students, especially those that are low-income.

A spokesman for DPI did not respond to requests for comment.

The state's largest teachers union blasted the proposal.

Christina Brey, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said the bill lacks measures of accountability and does not specify where funding will come from.

"To meet the needs of all students, elected officials should provide stable funding for public schools and include educators in developing solutions instead of fragmented approaches that siphon more from public schools to fund private," Brey said.

Editor's note: This story has been changed to reflect comments from the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
Democrats are ending the year on a political high note. They are buoyed by Doug Jones stunning upset victory in the Alabama Senate race, an array of successes in Novembers off-year elections and signs that the party apparatus is making progress in overcoming the 2016 divisions about the fairness of their nominating process.

Jones victory improves the Democrats long-shot hopes of regaining control of the Senate next year by reducing the current Republican margin to 51-49. And though it saves the Republicans from being saddled with a Sen. Roy Moore, the controversial state judges defeat was a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, who campaigned strongly for him in the campaigns closing week after opposing him in an earlier GOP primary.

To add to the presidents political woes, his strong support for a man accused of improper behavior with under-age girls, along with renewed focus on prior allegations of sexual improprieties against him, has put the GOP on the wrong side of the growing debate over the role of women. This comes at the very time Democrats are seizing the political high ground by forcing the resignation of two prominent members over alleged sexual improprieties.

While Tuesdays Alabama election and last weeks ouster of Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers took the headlines, they were not the only positive developments for a Democratic Party that has struggled to regain its footing since Trumps unexpected victory a year ago. Over last weekend, the Unity Reform Commission, created to resolve 2016 concerns about the partys nominating process, marked an important step toward internal party unity by coming together on an array of reforms.

The panel unanimously recommended a reduced 2020 role for elected and party officials serving as so-called super-delegates, took steps to encourage greater participation in nominating primaries and caucuses and voted to require greater sharing by top party leaders of National Committee finances. Those recommendations, most adopted with near or total unanimity, must still pass through two more levels, the partys Rules and Bylaws Commission and the full Democratic National Committee. The DNCs members may not take kindly to a recommendation their convention votes in 2020 would be tied to the results of primaries and caucuses in their states.

Nevertheless, the proposals adopted last weekend, which also mandate strict neutrality by party officials in 2020, will go a long way toward resolving the sometimes overheated complaints by supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that their decisive 2016 defeat to Hillary Clinton was due to restrictive party rules. That will change to a substantial degree in 2020, if the recommendations are approved, though the panel rejected a Sanders proposal to require participation of independent voters in all caucuses and primaries.

Representatives of the Vermont senator hailed the panels unity after the sometimes tense two-day session. On Friday, Nina Turner, the outspoken former Ohio state senator who heads the Sanders political organization, said excluding independents was the height of hypocrisy for a party that seeks their general election votes. But on Saturday, she acknowledged the outcome represented a consensus, adding that in consensus, you dont get everything you want.

Like most out-of-office parties, Democrats lack a clear leader and have had trouble crafting a unified party message. But the Alabama result and the other events provided a significant morale boost for next years mid-term elections, in which they hope to overcome the 23-seat Republican margin in the House, regain big state governorships and reverse that narrow two-vote Senate deficit. The latter will be tougher because so many Democrats are seeking re-election in states that voted for Trump. To win control, Democrats need to retain all of their seats, including the Minnesota spot opened up by Frankens resignation, and win at least two now held by the GOP.

Their best chances are in Arizona, where GOP Sen. Jeff Flake is retiring, and Nevada. And Jones victory makes it possible for victories in those states to give them control.

In the House, some Republicans foresee an anti-Trump political tidal wave similar to the ones that gave Democrats the House in 2006 and restored it to Republicans in 2010. In Alabama, a strong turnout of black voters and support from suburban women proved crucial, just as an outpouring of women were key to Novembers Democratic tide in Virginia.

Republicans, meanwhile, may have escaped the political burden of a Sen. Roy Moore and diminished the prospect his victory would spur more insurgent challenges to sitting GOP senators. But they face a difficult 2018, thanks to Trumps record low job approval, unpopular tax cut legislation and the fact that voters often punish the party in power in mid-term elections, a pattern they may have started a year early.
No more interim, Batchler named new Blacksburg football coach Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat. Josh Batchler achieved one of his dreams when he was named the new Blacksburg High head football coach Monday evening. He had served as...

Indians hit growth spurt just in time Gaffney coach Dan Jones never wavered when the Indians were blown out by South Pointe in the season opener. He never wavered when the Indians struggled to beat Hammond. He...
This domain was recently registered at Namecheap.com. Please check back later!
Movies playing in mid-valley theaters as of Friday. Complete and updated Movie Scene listings, along with additional reviews, can be found online.

NEW

THE DISASTER ARTIST

3 stars

(Comedy biography, R, 98 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) Given James Franco's sometimes perplexing resume, he's the right guy to direct and star as Tommy Wiseau in a movie about the making of the infamously bad cult debacle "The Room." Franco's film is breezy, entertaining and even affectionate. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

FERDINAND

(Animated comedy, PG, 108 minutes, playing at the Pix in Albany and the AMC Corvallis 12) John Cena provides the voice of the giant but gentle bull in this new animated offering. A wisecracking goat and three hedgehogs try to help Ferdinand escape from his captors. Kate McKinnon co-stars.

JANE

3  stars

(Documentary, PG, 90 minutes, playing at the Darkside in Corvallis) Director Brett Morgen uses previously unseen film hidden in National Geographic archives for 50 years to create a stunning beautiful portrait of famed research Jane Goodall as a young woman, waiting for the chimpanzees she was studying to accept her on their own terms. (Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times)

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

3  stars

(Fantasy/sci-fi action, PG-13, 152 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany and the Regal 4 in Corvallis) Although it doesn't pack quite the same emotional punch as "The Force Awakens" and lags a bit in the second half, this is still a worthy chapter in the "Star Wars" franchise, popping with exciting action sequences and sprinkled with good humor. Surprises big and small abound. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

WONDER WHEEL

1  stars

(Drama, PG-13, 101 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) Knowing what we know about Woody Allen, it's impossible not to think his film about an aspiring playwright (Justin Timberlake) romancing both a married waitress (Kate Winslet) and her stepdaughter (Juno Temple) is a commentary about the Mia Farrow/Soon-Yi story. On its own merits, though, it would still be a dud, a sluggish, uninspired retread of so many earlier and much better Allen films. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

CONTINUING

JUST GETTING STARTED

(Action-comedy, PG-13, 90 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) A former FBI agent and an ex-mob lawyer in the Witness Protection Program (Morgan Freeman) have to put aside their rivalry in order to fend off a mob hit. Rene Russo co-stars. Ron Shelton (Bull Durham) wrote and directs.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

4 stars

(Dark comedy, R, 115 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) The story of a grieving mother (Frances McDormand) trying to shame the police chief (Woody Harrelson) into solving her daughter's murder provides some of the strongest laughs and most poignant moments of heartbreak of any movie in recent memory. Somehow writer-director Martin McDonagh has taken the bleakest of subject matters and treated it seriously while also serving up one of the best dark comedies I've ever seen. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

COCO

3 stars

(Animated, PG, 104 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany and the AMC Corvallis 12) A 12-year-old boy (Anthony Gonzalez) crosses over, while alive, from his village in Mexico to the Land of the Dead, an exciting metropolis populated by deceased humans. The visuals jump off the screen, but the movies flights of imaginative frenzy are too constrained by formula: Coco is a good, but not great, Pixar flick. (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times)

LADY BIRD

4 stars

(Comedy, R, 93 minutes, playing at the Darkside in Corvallis) Greta Gerwig already has made a fine career for herself as an actress, but with "Lady Bird" she has written and directed a film that's smart without being smug and insightful without being condescending. Saoirse Ronan delivers a pure and honest performance as the title character, a high school senior, and the work by Laurie Metcalf and Tracy Letts as her parents is what greatness looks like. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

LOVING VINCENT

3  stars

(Animated, PG-13, 94 minutes, playing at the Darkside in Corvallis) To tell this story about a mystery surrounding the 1890 death of artist Vincent Van Gogh, filmmakers Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman assembled a cast, found costumes and sets, and shot the film. Then every frame  more than 65,000 of them  was hand-painted over in oil paint in the style of Van Gogh. The result is rapturously beautiful. (Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times)

JUSTICE LEAGUE

1  stars

(Action-adventure, PG-13, 121 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany and the AMC Corvallis 12) DCs biggest heroes -- Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Cyborg -- unite to battle a space monster intent on destroying the world. The film had a troubled production, and it shows: The final result is a chaotic, baffling, breathtakingly bad mess. Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot and Henry Cavill star. (Katie Walsh, Tribune Media Service)

THE STAR

(Animated, PG, 86 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) A small but brave donkey and his animal friends become the heroes of the first Christmas in this new animated flick.

WONDER

3 stars

(Drama, PG, 113 minutes, playing at the Pix in Albany) A young boy (Jacob Tremblay) with a facial deformity begins the fifth grade in a mainstream school with the help and support of his mother (Julia Roberts) and father (Owen Wilson). The movie never shies away from making serious points, but never turns preachy. (Rick Bentley, Tribune News Service)

DADDYS HOME 2

1 star

(Comedy, PG-13, 95 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany and the AMC Corvallis 12) In this sour, cynical and profoundly unfunny sequel, touchy-feely Brad (Will Ferrell) and gruff Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) celebrate with their dads (John Lithgow and Mel Gibson), each an exaggerated version of his son. Much of the humor is of questionable taste at best, and hardly anybody talks or behaves in ways most of us can empathize with. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

3 stars

(Mystery, PG-13, 114 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 in Albany and the Regal 4 in Corvallis and the AMC Corvallis 12) Kenneth Branagh stars as Agatha Christies famed detective Hercule Poirot, and runs away with this star-studded remake, with lavish production design and an intoxicating and dazzling display of cinematic style. But the movies sad ending seeps away much of its energy. (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service)

A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS

1  stars

(Comedy, R, 104 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) Three overstressed mothers (Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, and Kathryn Hahn) are alarmed when their own troublemaking moms (Cheryl Hines, Christine Baranski, and Susan Sarandon) visit during the Christmas holiday. Soon, the gal pals once again band together for drinking and general debauchery in order to blow off some steam. Female audiences deserve better than this shoddily made outing, which once again suggests that the enemy of women is other women. (Katie Walsh, Tribune Media Service)

THOR: RAGNANOK

2  stars

(Sci-fi action-comedy, PG-13, 130 minutes, playing at the Regal 7 and the AMC Corvallis 12) After being defeated by his evil half-sister Hela (Cate Blanchett), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is imprisoned as a gladiator on a distant world run by Jeff Goldblum. Director Taikia Waititi brings a welcome comedic touch, so this is the most fun of the three Thor flicks, but its still a flawed effort with egregious tonal shifts. (Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press)

BLADE RUNNER 2049

4 stars

(Sci-fi action, R, 164 minutes, playing at the AMC Corvallis 12) The tight control of Ryan Gosling makes him the perfect choice to play a replicant cop that just might be human. This vibrant, gorgeous and occasionally incomprehensible hallucinatory epic stands with the likes of "The Godfather Part II" as a sequel worthy of the original classic. (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times)
There are several popular IT memes, but the "Pennywise dancing" meme with various songs playing behind it was one of the most widely shared. Its popularity peaked in September 2017.
More than 30 residents gathered Thursday at the Walnut Community Room to discuss the future of Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

The citys Parks and Recreation Department is working on phase one of the parks redevelopment. They are replacing the playground, adding permanent restrooms and remodeling Walnut Barn, which is used for weddings and other events. That $450,000 project, which is being paid for by grants and the systems development charges (SDCs) that developers pay for public infrastructure, is scheduled to be completed this spring.

SDCs, grants and donations coordinated by Friends of Corvallis Parks and Recreation will be used for future redevelopment of the 33-acre park off of Northwest Walnut Boulevard. No cost estimates are available given how early the department is in the planning stages.

Parks and Recreation officials and representatives of the Jones and Jones landscape architects led Thursdays session, which will be followed by an April 12 public workshop. The goal is to have the master plan developed for the park by May and a possible project opening for 2020.

We want to make it even more special, said city park planner Jackie Rochefort. Its a neighborhood park, but its really a community park for all of Corvallis. Its a developed park as well as one that has natural areas. Its also special because it is named for Martin Luther King. It can be a park that addresses cultural diversity.

Mario Campos of Jones and Jones noted that the park is a place to celebrate nature, celebrate diversity and celebrate Martin Luther King.  A place to celebrate culture and a gathering place.

The room was ringed with photo boards of the current park and photos of other projects designed by Jones and Jones, which created the four cultural centers at Oregon State University. Participants attached sticky notes with their suggestions to the maps and photo boards:

Key themes included maintaining and augmenting park dog use, preserving habitat for reptiles, using quotes from King on buildings and interpretive signs, poison oak management, encouraging trail connectivity to surrounding parks and neighborhoods, protecting and managing water resources and keeping a hill in the northwest corner open for winter sledding.

One participant attached a blue sticky note to a portion of open space west of the park boundary that said bobcats live here.

Residents also had questions about the impact on the park of the planned Ponderosa Ridge subdivision. The 274-lot project received approval from the Corvallis Planning Commission in August, and the City Council rejected the appeals of neighbors in October. The 85-acre project, which is planned for acreage both northwest and west of MLK Park, includes 33 acres of open space that would surround the current multiuse path.

The path will not be affected the development, but development is planned for areas just north and south of the park boundary.

Karen Emery, Parks and Recreation director, said that her department met earlier Thursday with the Ponderosa Ridge developers, but it remains unclear how plans for the open space in the development might dovetail with future redevelopment of the park.
President Trump hails his ability to create jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs. He says this to make America great again with jobs like in the past. The new tax legislation is entitled Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The theory behind this bill is to give corporations and rich people more money and they will create wonderful jobs that will feed the economy. This is not a new idea and is often called trickle-down economics. The problem is that it doesnt work --- it was tried most recently in the state of Kansas, where major tax cuts in 2012 and 2013 led to subsequent reduced tax revenue and large state deficits.

This approach may sound good, but it is far from the realities of the job market. Some of the new money will go to shareholder dividends, while new jobs will likely be part-time, contingency, or outsourced. Indeed some will go to robotics and not to people at all. Family-wage jobs for low-skilled workers will be few and far between. Surprisingly, this will not help displaced workers from manufacturing, coal mines, and retail (often Trump voters).

What could make a difference is a commitment to retrain displaced workers; developing new skills for higher paying jobs. However, apparently the Trump administration is proposing cutting funds for education and career retraining. The result of this hoax is that many of the people who helped elect the president will be the ones hurt most by his false claims and deception.

Dennis Clark

Corvallis (Dec. 2)
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.
Opposition criticizes information policy : Vote passes for new swimming pool in Dottendorf

Bonn Construction of the Wasserland swimming pool in Dottendorf has been approved by the city council despite some opposition. The decision affects two older swimming pools in Bonn.

Teilen

Teilen Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Tweeten

Tweeten Weiterleiten

Weiterleiten Drucken

In an emotional debate about a possible new swimming pool in Dottendorf, the city council voted in favor of the swimming facility in their final decision. A coalition of the CDU, Greens and FDP political parties carried the vote with 47 in favor of building the new pool to 31 votes against it. The decision affects two other swimming pools in Bonn; it means an end for the Kurfurstenbad pool and the Frankenbad pool.

Opposition wanted to delay decision

The opposition had tried in vain to adjourn the meeting, with SPD parliamentary leader Barbel Richter saying there were too many open questions. An assessment of the renovation costs for the Frankenbad and the Kurfurstenbad had been sent to the political fractions only on Tuesday by the city administration. Information from the Bureau of Finance was only made available on Thursday.

Richter said, It is irresponsible to expect a decision on this today. Marcel Schmitt of the Burger Bund Bonn (Citizens of Bonn - BBB) criticized the high risks and unclear financial conditions, saying one shouldnt issue a blank check. The Left party faction head, Michael Faber said that the council needs to seriously examine the new information. He asked for a secret vote to adjourn the meeting but members voted against this request. The coalition in favor of the pool also squashed a BBB proposal for a citizen vote on the matter.

Klaus-Peter Gilles, chairman of the CDU parliamentary faction, defended the project, which was exceptionally well prepared. "Years of disagreement has only led to today's problems with the swimming pools," he explained. The opposition is only looking for ways to stop the building of a new pool. Brigitta Poppe-Reiners (Greens) emphasized: "Our group is looking forward to the new family swimming pool facility."

Subsidy requirement increases
clarajancita at 14-12-2017 03:00 PM (4 years ago) (f)

Posters endorsing the Buhari-Osinbajo ticket come 2019, have been spotted in the Federal Capital Territory. It has been revealed that the major streets of Abuja were on Thursday adorned with campaign posters endorsing President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for re election in 2019.

Posters endorsing the Buhari-Osinbajo ticket come 2019, have been spotted in the Federal Capital Territory. It has been revealed that the major streets of Abuja were on Thursday adorned with campaign posters endorsing President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for re election in 2019.

It was Reorteredthat the posters were pasted on structures located on major streets as well as bus shelters. The posters also has the picture of Comrade Felix Ubokan, with the words: It was Reorteredthat the posters were pasted on structures located on major streets as well as bus shelters. The posters also has the picture of, with the words: Quote  We endorse you for 2019: Courtesy: Niger Delta Youths, Women and Security Movement For Buhari/Osinbajo.



The posters are coming less than 24 hours after a former governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu, said he had The posters are coming less than 24 hours after a former governor of Lagos state, Bola Tinubu, said he had Quote absolute confidence and was exceedingly proud of the excellent job, Professor Osinbajo is doing as Vice President of Nigeria.



Mr. Tinubus statement was in reaction to speculation that he may be picked by Mr. Buhari as his running mate in 2019.



The APC national leader said a report to that effect by SUN newspaper is a classic case of utterly and irredeemably-fake news.



Mr. Osinbajo has so far not made any comment regarding the 2019 election or his fate if the president chooses to seek re-election. That, however, is not the case with Mr. Buhari. He has so far tacitly shown on two occasions that he may be seeking reelection in 2019.



Addressing a group of Nigerians resident in Cote D Ivoire two weeks ago, Mr. Buhari said he arrived the meeting late because he had to wait for the two governors in his entourage, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom and Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi states.



Mr. Tinubus statement was in reaction to speculation that he may be picked by Mr. Buhari as his running mate in 2019.The APC national leader said a report to that effect by SUN newspaper is a classic case of utterly and irredeemably-fake news.Mr. Osinbajo has so far not made any comment regarding the 2019 election or his fate if the president chooses to seek re-election. That, however, is not the case with Mr. Buhari. He has so far tacitly shown on two occasions that he may be seeking reelection in 2019.Addressing a group of Nigerians resident in Cote D Ivoire two weeks ago, Mr. Buhari said he arrived the meeting late because he had to wait for the two governors in his entourage, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom and Mohammed Abubakar of Bauchi states. Quote This is why I came along with them so that when we are going to meet you, when you are going to meet the rest of Nigerians, if you tell them that their governors were in the company of the president, I think that will be another vote for me in the future, Mr. Buhari said.



Mr. Tinubu also accompanied him on that trip. Mr. Buhari while in Kano last week also revealed that he may re-contest.



At a State Banquet in his honour, the president said, Mr. Buhari said.Mr. Tinubu also accompanied him on that trip. Mr. Buhari while in Kano last week also revealed that he may re-contest.At a State Banquet in his honour, the president said, Quote I know the elections (2019). If they are to be free and fair, if it is a question of numbers, if it is a question of allowing people to make their choice, then I think the people of Kano are in my pocket.



I am overwhelmed by the reception the people of Kano offered to me. This has indicated that I can still win an election in Kano. The people of Kano are aware of the tremendous job we did on security and agriculture.

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 14-12-2017 03:00 PM (4 years ago) | Hero
A Facebook user, Victoria Wilson Iheanyi has caused a stir after she said the reason why she wasn't admitted into Olabisi Onabanjo University(OOU) is because of her beauty. She wrote on the school's page

Quote

Am no more angry with OOU..since I realized why they didn't pick me...the truth is that they are scared of picking a beautiful girl Like me because of their students future...i mean that they are scared that their first class students may leave their studies and start studying me...and their competent lectures will only want to lecture me and ignore others...So I forgive them..Lobatan...#forest /bush OOU"
felicilin at 15-12-2017 01:03 PM (4 years ago) (f)

A Nigerian man and three Vietnamese women have been sentenced to jail by a court in Can Tho City in southern Vietnam for deceiving others to steal their assets.



Micheal Ikechukwu Leonard, 45, received 18 years in prison, while Huynh Ha Binh, Huynh Ha Uyen and Nguyen Tran Quynh Nhi, all from Ho Chi Minh City, got between 12 to 15 years each.

A Nigerian man and three Vietnamese women have been sentenced to jail by a court in Can Tho City in southern Vietnam forMicheal Ikechukwu Leonard, 45, received 18 years in prison, while Huynh Ha Binh, Huynh Ha Uyen and Nguyen Tran Quynh Nhi, all from Ho Chi Minh City, got between 12 to 15 years each.

According to the indictment, Leonard and Binh, 27, started living together in August 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City before moving to Cambodia and opening a fashion shop.



While in Cambodia, the duo hatched a plan to con rich Vietnamese women via the social media. Facebooks Messenger and Zalo are the two most popular chat apps in Vietnam.



The Nigerian man used fake accounts and described himself as a rich man or even a U.S. Army officer who had just gone through a divorce and was lonely.



He approached wealthy women and tried to build a relationship with them, and as many as 37 fell for the trick.



To gain their trust, Leonard told the women he would send them valuable gifts such as laptops, cellphones, jewelry and cosmetics from the U.S.



When the women were sucked in, Binh, Uyen and Nhi pretended to be Vietnamese customs officers and contacted the women, telling them that packages sent to them contained expensive goods or large amounts of foreign currency, so the women would have to pay a customs fee or even a fine.



In late March 2016, after the group had conned a woman in Can Tho City out of VND650 million ($28,500), Leonard and the other three were arrested.



They all confessed to their crimes in court. Binh and Leonard have a child together, and the baby is now with Binhs parents.



In 2016, Vietnamese police arrested three Nigerians and eight locals belonging to two different gangs for allegedly conning people out of more than $1.3 million.



The gangs tricked the victims by informing them they had won big prizes or gift packages from abroad but had to pay a fee to collect the prize or bribe police and customs officers because they were worth a lot of money.



They used bank accounts created with stolen or fake ID cards to collect the money. According to the indictment, Leonard and Binh, 27, started living together in August 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City before moving to Cambodia and opening a fashion shop.While in Cambodia, the duo hatched a plan to con rich Vietnamese women via the social media. Facebooks Messenger and Zalo are the two most popular chat apps in Vietnam.The Nigerian man used fake accounts and described himself as a rich man or even a U.S. Army officer who had just gone through a divorce and wasHe approached wealthy women and tried to build a relationship with them, and as many as 37 fell for the trick.To gain their trust, Leonard told the women he would send them valuable gifts such as laptops, cellphones, jewelry and cosmetics from the U.S.When the women were sucked in, Binh, Uyen and Nhi pretended to be Vietnamese customs officers and contacted the women, telling them that packages sent to them contained expensive goods or large amounts of foreign currency, so the women would have to pay a customs fee or even a fine.In late March 2016, after the group had conned a woman in Can Tho City out of VND650 million ($28,500), Leonard and the other three were arrested.They all confessed to their crimes in court. Binh and Leonard have a child together, and the baby is now with Binhs parents.In 2016, Vietnamese police arrested three Nigerians and eight locals belonging to two different gangs for allegedly conning people out of more than $1.3 million.The gangs tricked the victims by informing them they had won big prizes or gift packages from abroad but had to pay a fee to collect the prize or bribe police and customs officers because they were worth a lot of money.They used bank accounts created with stolen or fake ID cards to collect the money.

Post Reply Posted: at 15-12-2017 01:03 PM (4 years ago) | Hero
BOISE, Idaho, Dec. 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. Geothermal Inc. (the Company) (NYSE American: HTM), a leading and profitable renewable energy company focused on the development, production, and sale of electricity from geothermal energy, announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire its partners remaining ownership interest in Raft River Energy I LLC from Goldman Sachs. The purchase is scheduled to close on January 2, 2018 and the price consists of a one-time, $350,000 cash payment from U.S. Geothermal to Goldman Sachs. The Company will then own 100 percent of the project.



The acquisition of this remaining interest in Raft River will be immediately accretive to the Company, and further enables us to implement capital upgrades to increase output from the facility, said Douglas Glaspey, Interim Chief Executive Officer. This transaction confirms our ability to grow the business with a disciplined approach to capital allocation by focusing on acquisitions that are strategic to our core business and by increasing generation at our existing power plants.

Raft River Energy I is located in Southern Idaho, near the town of Malta, and achieved commercial operation on April 3, 2008. The Raft River facility is a single, 18-megawatt (gross) module, with a design output of 13 megawatts (net) annual average based on a specific flow and temperature of geothermal brine. The PPA for the project was signed on September 24, 2007 with the Idaho Power Company and allows for the sale of up to 13 megawatts of electricity on an annual average basis over a 25-year term. Renewable Energy Credits are sold under a separate contract. In 2018, the PPA energy price, plus the value of the renewable energy credit will be $74.32 per megawatt-hour.

The Company is in a continuing process to increase generation at Raft River through modifications at the existing facility. The addition of production well RRG-5 along with upgrades to the injection system in 2017 increased the average generation from the Raft River plant by approximately 1.6 net megawatts. Due to the positive response from the wellfield, which showed a minimal decrease in fluid levels, a study to increase the capacity of production pump RRG-4 in 2018 will be analyzed.

The RRG-4 upgrade project would consist of increasing the capacity of the pump to produce approximately 400-500 gpm more fluid to the plant. This would result in an estimated generation increase of approximately 0.6 to 0.7 net megawatts annual average, or approximately $400,000 of additional revenue for a full year of production. Additional upgrades of wells and surface facilities that would increase revenue are under consideration.

About U.S. Geothermal Inc.:

U.S. Geothermal Inc. is a leading and profitable renewable energy company focused on the development, production and sale of electricity from geothermal energy. The Company is currently operating geothermal power projects at Neal Hot Springs, Oregon, San Emidio, Nevada and Raft River, Idaho for a total power generation of approximately 39 MWs. The Company is also developing an additional estimated 110 MWs of projects at: the Geysers, California; a second phase project at San Emidio, Nevada; at Crescent Valley, Nevada; and the El Ceibillo project located near Guatemala City, Guatemala. U.S. Geothermals growth goal is to reach over 200 MWs of generation by 2022 through a combination of internal development and strategic acquisitions.

Please visit our Website at: http://www.usgeothermal.com

The information provided in this news release may contain forward-looking statements within the definition of the Safe Harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Readers are cautioned to review the risk factors identified by the company in its filings with United States Securities and Exchange Commission. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the staffing of executive positions, development schedules or estimated resources of U.S. Geothermal, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding perceived merit of properties; interpretation of the results of well tests; project development; resource megawatt capacity; capital expenditures; timelines; strategic plans; or other statements that are not statements of fact. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from U.S. Geothermal's expectations include the uncertainties involving the availability of financing in the debt and capital markets; uncertainties involved in the interpretation of results of well tests; the need for cooperation of government agencies in the development and operation of properties; the need to obtain permits and governmental approvals; risks of construction; unexpected cost increases, which could include significant increases in estimated capital and operating costs; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in U.S. Geothermal's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities and in other U.S. Geothermal reports and documents filed with applicable securities regulatory authorities from time to time. Forward-looking statements are based on managements expectations, beliefs and opinions on the date the statements are made. U.S. Geothermal Inc. assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if managements expectations, beliefs, or opinions, or other factors, should change.

The NYSE American does not accept responsibility for the adequacy of this release.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Scott Anderson  Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

U.S. Geothermal Inc.

Tel: 208-424-1027

Fax: 208-424-1030

sanderson@usgeothermal.com
Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - E3 Metals Corp. (TSX-V: ETMC, FSE: OU7A, OTC: EEMMF) (the Company, E3 or E3 Metals) is pleased to announce results from the latest sampling program, ranging from 54.0 mg/L to 77.7 mg/L from the Leduc Reservoir. This latest round of sampling involved a combination of 7 new wells sampled and 13 previously sampled wells. The sampling locations are at actively producing oil and gas wells across a portion of the Companys Petro-Lithium Project in Alberta. Of the wells that were re-sampled the results were consistent with the previous sampling from each well increasing the confidence in the lithium concentration across the reservoir. Receiving consistent results over time from the same well locations will be an important contribution to the upgrading of NI 43-101 Inferred mineral resources in Rocky and Clearwater to Measured and Indicated.

The Company has filed the NI 43-101 technical report for the Central Clearwater Resource Area. The report is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com as well as on the Companys website. Please refer to the Companys news release of November 15, 2017 for more details. E3 Metals has updated its corporate presentation to include development plans for 2018  the corporate presentation is also available on our website. Going forward, E3 Metals will focus efforts on developing an extraction process flow sheet by continuing the testing program with a focus on lithium concentration.

Sampling Program

E3 Metals ongoing sampling program, now totaling 73 samples (60 individual wells and 13 repeat samples) across the permit area, has been completed without the requirement to drill a well. This has allowed E3 Metals to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars of oilfield investment in E3s permit areas, and has resulted in a very cost-effective sampling and assay program. E3 Metals is grateful for the strong collaborative support from oil and gas operators working in the permit areas, which has allowed the Company to confirm lithium concentrations across a broad area, some of which has never previously been tested for lithium. The sampling to date has demonstrated that the lithium concentrations are generally consistent across each property throughout the massive Leduc Reservoir.

Of the wells sampled, three were new wells collected from the Leduc Reservoir. Two of these wells were located in the Central Clearwater Resource Area, with results of 73.8 mg/L and 75.0 mg/L. One well was located in the North Rocky Resource Area and with a result of 54.0 mg/L.

In addition, 4 new samples were collected from the Nisku Reservoir in the Exshaw West Area, ranging from 37.4 mg/L to 70.5 mg/L. An overview of new sampling results and all assay results to date is presented in Table 1.

Table 1: New Lithium Assay Results from Additional 7 Wells and Summary of All Results to Date

New Assay Results Geologic Formation All Assay Results E3 Metals Project Area Min Li (mg/L) Max Li (mg/L) Number of Wells Sampled Total Average (mg/L) Total by Area Sampled Clearwater 73.8 75.0 2 Leduc 77.6 8 Exshaw West 37.4 70.5 4 Nisku 55.5 10 Rocky 54.0 54.0 1 Leduc 54.2 14

Figure 1: E3 Metals Corp. permit areas (red outline) with new sampling results outlined in blue (Leduc Reservoir) and green (Nisku Reservoir). Grey dots represent previously collected samples.

To view the graphic in its original size, please click here

The remaining 13 wells in this sampling program were re-sampled locations. Previous samples were collected between June and September 2017. A total of four Leduc wells were re-sampled within and nearby the Central Clearwater Resource Area. The re-sampled concentrations ranged from 71.0 mg/L to 77.7 mg/L, and were consistent with previous results. In the Rocky area, four Leduc wells were re-sampled with an average of 54.5 mg/L. In the Exshaw west area, four Leduc wells were re-sampled ranging from 46.7 to 75.5 mg/L. One Nisku well was re-sampled at 69.2 mg/L. An overview of resampling results is outlined in Table 2, and are shown geographically in Figure 1.

Table 2: Comparison of Repeated Lithium Assay Results from E3 Metals Latest Sampling Round and Previous Results

E3 Metals Project Area # of Samples Geologic Formation Initial Collection Date Initial Result (mg/L) Repeat Collection Date Repeat Result (mg/L) Clearwater 4 Leduc Aug-Sept, 2017 76.2-77.8 Nov, 2017 71.0-77.7 Rocky 4 Leduc Aug, 2017 54.7-56.7 Nov, 2017 53.8-56.0 Exshaw West 4 Leduc June-July, 2017 46.7-75.5 Nov, 2017 44.4-72.4 Exshaw West 1 Nisku July, 2017 67.0 Nov, 2017 67.0

Variances in results over the 2-5 month period in between sampling were minimal, averaging 5.6% across all the wells re-sampled. This indicates that lithium concentrations remain consistent over time. In addition, new results were found to be consistent with the previously collected measurements in the surrounding area, further demonstrating spatial consistency of lithium enrichment in the Leduc.

E3 Metals will continue to collect samples across its Metallic and Industrial Mineral Permit area throughout 2018. These new samples are comprised of a mixture of new wells and previously sampled wells. Continued sampling adds confidence to the Resource areas and allows for the progression of Resources to Measured & Indicated, and ultimately towards a Reserve.

Of the 20 samples collected during the Companys latest sampling program, 15 were located within the Leduc Formation (Woodbend Group) and 5 from within the Nisku Formation (Winterburn Group). Both the Nisku and Leduc Formations are Devonian-aged, with the Nisku occurring between 10-200 metres stratigraphically above the Leduc across the sampling area. Devonian Formation stratigraphy for the area can be found in E3 Metals Technical Report dated May 18, 2017 Geological Introduction to E3 Metals Corp. Clearwater and Exshaw Lithium-Brine Properties in South Central Alberta, authored by Apex Geoscience Ltd., page 30 (available on SEDAR and on the Companys website at e3metalscorp.com).

Annual General Meeting

The Company held its Annual General Meeting on December 5th, 2017 (the AGM). At the AGM, one of the Companys directors, Jeremy Read, determined not to stand for re-election, and accordingly the Company elected four directors: Chris Doornbos, Paul Reinhart, Mike OHara and Peeyush Varshney. Jeremy has taken on the role of Managing Director of Pursuit Minerals and we wish him the best in this new endeavor. All other resolutions brought before the AGM were passed by the Companys shareholders.

About E3 Metals

E3 Metals is a publically listed company in the emerging Petro-Lithium space (TSXV: ETMC). E3 has brought together an experienced team that has secured the lithium (and other mineral) rights to over 570,000 hectares (~1.4 million acres) in Alberta covering the prolific Leduc Reservoir. Over 60 years of reservoir data from the oil and gas operators is readily available, and E3 has acquired this data to target its own sampling of the brines from existing wells. With the development of a sizable lithium resource that can be potentially exploited by direct lithium extraction technologies currently under development by industry leaders. More information about E3 Metals can be found our website by visiting: www.e3metalscorp.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS,

Chris Doornbos, President & CEO

E3 Metals Corp.

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.

Chris Doornbos (P.Geo), CEO and Director of E3 Metals Corp., is a Qualified Person a as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has read and approved the technical information contained in this announcement

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements concerning the development of the Companys Alberta Petro-Lithium Project, the Companys intention to establish a mineral resource estimate in respect of its Alberta Petro-Lithium Project and the results thereof, the reliability or accuracy of sampling results, the anticipated results of future sampling programs, the future performance of our business, its operations and its financial performance and condition, as well as managements objectives, strategies, beliefs and intentions. Forward-looking statements are frequently identified by such words as may, will, plan, expect, anticipate, estimate, intend and similar words referring to future events and results. Forward-looking statements are based on the current opinions and expectations of management. All forward-looking information is inherently uncertain and subject to a variety of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, including the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, results of current and future testing, competitive risks and the availability of financing, as described in more detail in our recent securities filings available at www.sedar.com. Actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in the forward looking statements and we caution against placing undue reliance thereon. We assume no obligation to revise or update these forward looking statements except as required by applicable law.

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/E3Metals12152017.pdfSource: E3 Metals Corp. (TSX Venture:ETMC)

To follow E3 Metals Corp. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com

Copyright  2017 FSCwire
RFP issued by Northwest Territories Government for Tlicho All-Season Road

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/

Issued Capital: 331,497,023

LONDON, ON, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Fortune Minerals Ltd. (TSX: FT) (OTCQX: FTMDF) ("Fortune" or the "Company") (www.fortuneminerals.com) announces that, further to its press release dated November 29, 2017, it has closed the previously announced $5,000,000 non-brokered private placement of units of securities of the Company ("Units") pursuant to which 29,411,766 Units were issued.

Fortune is also pleased to report that the Government of the Northwest Territories ("GNWT") recently issued its Request for Proposals ("RFP") for the construction of the Tlicho All-Season Road ("TASR") to the community of Whati. Three international consortiums were previously short-listed to finance, construct and operate the road pursuant to a private-public partnership ("P3"). The TASR is in the late stages of an environmental assessment ("EA") by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board and is expected to be completed during the first half of 2018. The RFP has been released in alignment with the environmental regulatory schedule to provide the time required for the short-listed proponents to prepare their proposals. Fortune has already received EA approval to construct a spur road from Whati to the NICO mine site as part of its proposed development. Subject to receipt of project financing and other approvals, Fortune plans to construct the NICO mine and concentrator using the existing winter ice road for access. The all-season road is required for mine operations to allow metal concentrates to be transported south to a refinery Fortune plans to construct in Saskatchewan for downstream processing. The NICO development asset will be a primary producer of cobalt sulphate for the rapidly expanding lithium-ion battery industry with supply chain transparency and custody control of product from a Canadian vertically integrated source. The by-products that will be produced include gold dore, bismuth ingots and oxide, and copper cement.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities will not be and have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933 and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or applicable exemption from the registration requirements.

About Fortune Minerals

Fortune is a Canadian mining company focused on developing the vertically integrated NICO cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in the Northwest Territories and a related refinery the Company plans to construct in Saskatchewan. Fortune also owns the Sue-Dianne copper-silver-gold deposit located 25 km north of NICO and a potential future source of incremental mill feed to potentially extend the life of the NICO mill.

Follow Fortune Minerals:

Click here to subscribe to Fortune's email list.

Click here to follow Fortune on LinkedIn.

This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. This forward-looking information includes statements with respect to, among other things, the Company's plans to construct a refinery in Saskatchewan in connection with the NICO project, the timeline for the completion of the TASR, the Company's plans for the construction of the NICO mine and the Company's plans with respect to the production of cobalt sulphate and by-products. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management as well as certain assumptions at the date the information is given (including, in respect of the forward-looking information contained in this press release, assumptions regarding the Company's ability to arrange the necessary financing to continue operations and develop the NICO project and to construct the related refinery in Saskatchewan, the GNWT's willingness and ability to construct the TASR within the anticipated time frame or at all, growth in the lithium-ion rechargeable battery industry and the economic environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of cobalt and other by-product metals, anticipated costs and the volumes of metals to be produced at the NICO project). However, such forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. These factors include the risks that the Company may not be able to finance and develop the NICO project or the related refinery in Saskatchewan on favourable terms or at all, the TASR may not be built within the anticipated time frame or at all, the market for rechargeable batteries and the use of stationary storage cells may not grow to the extent anticipated, the Company's production of cobalt and other metals may be less than anticipated and other operational and development risks, market risks and regulatory risks. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forms of forward-looking information will not be achieved by the Company. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

SOURCE Fortune Minerals Ltd.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Thursday sued the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for failing to discharge student loans for students who attended Corinthian Colleges.Healey said the department, under President Donald Trump, has not processed a single student loan discharge application for former Corinthian students."(Attorneys General are) suing Secretary DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education to protect students who have waited in vain for the department to follow the law and give them the relief they've been promised," Healey said in a conference call with reporters.Healey was joined in the suit by attorneys general from New York and Illinois, with a similar suit being brought in California by Attorney General Xavier Becerra. All the attorneys general are Democrats.
A Shifting City

Atlantas latest contest for mayor shows a city where racial divisions and changing demographics will tell the story of the southern metropolis future.After a close race, a recount on Thursday resulted in Keisha Lance Bottoms maintaining her lead over fellow City Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who also lost her previous bid for mayor in 2009 to Kasim Reed by fewer than 800 votes.On Thursday, though, Norwood suggested she would legally challenge votes in a recently annexed neighborhood in southwest Atlanta, claiming residents there may have unknowingly cast illegal votes in the mayor's race.If Bottoms' victory holds, it will continue a more than 40-year run of African-American mayors in the southern city, which includes political heavyweights like Maynard Jackson, the citys first African-American mayor, and Andrew Young, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations prior to becoming mayor.But a deeper look at the results shows a city whose political divide is still largely centered around race.In both the 2009 election and the most recent runoff, black candidates won office by capturing votes from the citys African-American majority. By contrast, the citys white electorate overwhelmingly supported Norwood, a white woman, in both campaigns.The electoral map from the Dec. 5 runoff traces almost perfectly over Atlantas residential segregation. The city's white population is largely concentrated on the north side, which went overwhelmingly for Norwood. The south side, where most of the city's African-American residents live, broke heavily for Bottoms.Bottoms ran as the establishment candidate, a successor to the incumbent and, by extension, to the long line of black mayors dating back to Jackson. Her ties to Mayor Reed, whose administration is embroiled in a federal investigation into city procurement practices, did hurt Bottoms some with white voters, according to data collected just before the election by Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University.Whites were three times as likely to vote for Norwood, and blacks were three times as likely to vote for Bottoms, says Gillespie. Its not that people voted solely on how they felt about Kasim Reed, its just that those feelings had a more pronounced impact on how whites voted.At the same time, Norwood's endorsement by former Mayor Shirley Franklin and current City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, both of whom are African-American, did little to sway black voters.Atlanta has been painted as a model of black political governance for decades. Even before the election of Maynard Jackson in 1973, Atlanta dubbed itself the city too busy to hate, a progressive island in the conservative south.When black political power took hold, it followed a long-standing pro-business tradition in the city and coupled that with policies specifically aimed at lifting African-American residents out of poverty. Jackson, who served as mayor until 1982, and again for one term in the early 1990s, guaranteed one-third of city contracts to minority businesses and helped grow the black business class. Mayor Young, who served from 1982 to 1990, similarly worked closely with corporations and universities to create pathways to corporate employment for educated African-Americans.Atlantas position as the black mecca is based on three things: education, its black merchant class and black political power, says Maurice Hobson, assistant professor of African-American studies at Georgia State.But the successes of Atlantas middle- and upper-class African-American population -- and the efforts by City Hall to focus resources and time on helping the largely black south side -- fueled resentment among white residents.There are whites on the north side who express -- not what you would say as racial resentment but fiscal resentment -- that the city has spent more money on the south side, and the north side has been left out, says Michael Leo Owens, an associate professor of urban politics at Emory University. There have always been some folks that believe when black folks are doing well, it means white folks arent."That divide is becoming more politically problematic as the city's racial demographics continue to shift.The city in 2000 was 61 percent African-American, according to Census data. It's now 50 percent African-American, and its white population is approaching 40 percent. Mayoral elections may still track closely along racial lines, but black candidates can no longer take those votes for granted, says Owens.One cant just say Atlanta is in play because white folks are arriving. Its in play because white folks are arriving and black people are leaving, he says. Keisha Lance Bottoms didnt just win because she won black votes. It wasnt just black votes that put Kasim [Reed] over the top."There's also a growing sense among voters, he adds, that African-American leadership alone hasn't achieved the promise of Atlanta as a black mecca.Its clear that having a black mayor and black-run institutions have not been enough in bringing large numbers of black people out of poverty, Owens says.Atlanta ranks second to Miami in terms of income inequality. It's third in the nation in evictions, a fact that has sped up the displacement of its African-American population to suburbs.The challenges for the mayor going forward are affordability for a range of incomes, Owens says.The changing demographics of the city will also mean meeting the expectations of new classes of voters with different needs. The east side was traditionally inhabited by working-class African-Americans but is now home to the creative class and a growing LGBTQ community. The voters are progressive and aren't much influenced by the racial politics that have largely shaped Atlanta politics over the past two generations.There are going to be African-American candidates who will have to come down on the side of different shades of equality, Owens says.And that extends to the citys African-American population. It will no longer be satisfied merely with the message of traditional black economic empowerment nor will it kowtow to the black political establishment, according to Hobson.What we are seeing now is the maturation of black voting power in the American South. Now that segregation is so far away, black people are now splintering, Hobson says. You see the splintering of the black community in Atlanta.Going forward, leading Atlanta will require revamping public transportation to make it more useful for working-class African-Americans with job opportunities that lie outside of the city limits. Mayors, including Bottoms, will have to focus on making the city more affordable for those at every income level. And that has not been and cannot be accomplished by solely relying on the African-American political power base.When you hold on to black power," says Owens, "it only benefits a certain strata of black people."
Washington state Rep. Matt Manweller has resigned from his leadership position in the state House and been stripped from his role as the top Republican member on a labor committee, a top GOP lawmaker said Thursday.House Republican Leader Dan Kristiansen said in a statement that he called for Manweller to step down from his position as assistant floor leader and that Manweller agreed.Manweller was the subject of a Seattle Times story last week detailing two investigations conducted at Central Washington University, where he works as a professor, that assessed whether he had sexually harassed students year ago. A Times story on Monday also described the case of a woman who worked at the Legislature this year and had complained about Manweller after a meeting with him turned into a dinner that she said felt like a date.Earlier this week, CWU placed Manweller on leave, saying it is now pursuing a new investigation of allegations of inappropriate conduct. Manweller's first wife, who was just out of high school when the couple married, has also said recently that Manweller kissed her when she was 17 and that she believes Manweller was grooming her when she was a high-school sophomore and he was a teacher at the school.Manweller, R-Ellensburg, has denied wrongdoing at CWU, in Olympia and with his first wife. He said in a text message Thursday that the current environment makes his role in leadership a "distraction.""Right now I plan to focus solely on my district and step away from my leadership roles," Manweller said. House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, has called on Manweller to resign from the Legislature, but Manweller has said that will not happen.The Legislature has rarely seen personnel changes amid accusations of misconduct. Former Democratic Rep. Jim Jacks resigned in 2011 after accusations of inappropriate behavior toward a female staffer, but legislative leaders did not detail the circumstances of his departure until last month.But amid a national discussion about sexual harassment, the issue has surged to the forefront in Olympia. More than 200 women have signed a letter demanding changes to the culture of politics in Olympia, saying it has been silently permissive of harassment and inappropriate behavior.Kristiansen didn't say in his statement why he wanted Manweller to step down. He said "leadership will continue to evaluate facts and monitor any new information."The first investigation at CWU occurred in 2012 as Manweller was running for office. The inquiry looked primarily at allegations from a student several years prior. Manweller, who began working at CWU in 2003, was not disciplined after that first investigation, but it concluded there was evidence to suggest he had violated the school's sexual harassment policies.The second investigation began soon after the first and again closely scrutinized his actions in years prior. That investigation also concluded that there was evidence to suggest policy violations, and the university issued a letter of reprimand and ordered Manweller to undergo training to prevent sexual harassment.
The City of Philadelphia has paid $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman who claimed a veteran police commander sexually assaulted her when she was an officer in a department in which she said sexual harassment was pervasive.The commander, Chief Inspector Carl Holmes, remains on the job eight months after the payout -- but the fallout may not be over.Mayor Kenney's spokesman said Thursday that the mayor found the case against Holmes and the Police Department "extremely troubling, from start to end." And although Kenney did not call for anyone to step down -- as he did after a much smaller payout to settle similar claims against city Sheriff Jewell Williams -- he left open the possibility that the city's new top prosecutor may launch his own review.The allegations against Holmes are a decade old. But the settlement, first reported last week by the website The Declaration, came during a year in which similar and damning allegations against powerful men in the workplace have surfaced almost daily, leading to a national reckoning in Hollywood, the media, and politics.Although a settlement is not an admission of guilt, the judge overseeing the case offered a pointed assessment before the city agreed to resolve it earlier this year. The accuser, the judge wrote in a memo, "has provided sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude the City knew of its specific problems with sexual assault and harassment in the police department ... but did little or nothing to stop such conduct."Nancy O'Mara Ezold, an attorney who regularly represents plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases but was not involved in this suit, said the woman's allegations appeared significant enough that the city could have risked a much higher payout by airing such ugly accusations before a jury."If a fraction of [the claims] were true," Ezold said in an interview Thursday, "this is a horrific case."The settlement is the most recent involving the Philadelphia Police Department over allegations of sexual harassment, but not the first. Over the past decade, according to public records, the city paid $222,000 to resolve five sexual harassment lawsuits involving cops. Only two other city agencies -- the prison system and the airport -- have settled sexual harassment cases since 2007, the records show.Holmes' accuser did not respond to requests for comments. The Inquirer and Daily News do not identify alleged victims of sex crimes without their permission given.The commander has also been accused of sexual assault by another woman: Former officer Christa Hayburn said in 2008 that he forced her into a sex act inside his police car two years earlier. In 2013, she voluntarily dropped a civil suit against the city related to that claim.Holmes has denied both women's allegations and was not criminally charged in either incident. He remains on the force with a salary of $148,288, according to city payroll records. He declined to comment for this article.Kenney's spokesman, Mike Dunn, said the Police Department, along with the Mayor's Office of Labor Relations, recently decided to implement "comprehensive sexual harassment training," which will be required annually for all employees in the department.A police spokesman said the department "takes all allegations of harassment and sexual harassment very seriously" and is "committed to maintaining a working environment free of harassment."The former detective filed a complaint in federal court in 2016, alleging that during her time on the force, which began in 2004, she was routinely subjected to sexually charged or derogatory comments. She worked as an officer in Kensington and North Philadelphia, and later as one of the few female detectives in South Philadelphia, according to her complaint.Specific examples included male colleagues making lewd comments about her appearance, spreading rumors about her having sexual relationships with male colleagues, and exposing themselves to her, the complaint said.In her most serious claim, the woman alleged that Holmes in 2007 called her to his office, then stuck his hand down her pants and sexually assaulted her. Shocked, she quickly walked out, her complaint said.The woman said that she filed internal complaints about being harassed and assaulted in 2014, but that those actions got her reassigned to a busier detective bureau, in Southwest Philadelphia, which she viewed as punishment.Meanwhile, Internal Affairs investigated her allegations and cleared Holmes of any wrongdoing, according to a January memorandum from U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney, who oversaw the case and declined the city's request to throw it out.What's more, Kearney wrote, an Internal Affairs commander, Chief Inspector Christopher Flacco, declined to forward the woman's complaint to the District Attorney's Office -- even though one of his lieutenants had recommended doing so.Dunn, the mayor's spokesman, said those allegations "are incredibly serious and troubling. We anticipate the incoming [district attorney] will make his own determination." A police spokesman said Flacco simply determined that there was not enough evidence to support criminal charges.Holmes was similarly cleared by Internal Affairs following Hayburn's 2008 accusations of sexual assault.Hayburn, who joined the police force in 2001, alleged that Holmes forced her into his police car after a party in 2006, trying to kiss her and to engage in sexual acts before he ejaculated, according to Kearney's memo. Semen later was found in the car, the memo said, but Holmes said it was because he'd had sexual activity in the vehicle with someone else.Then-Commissioner Charles Ramsey demoted Holmes after that investigation, but Holmes earned his rank back through arbitration, according to the Daily News, which chronicled Hayburn's accusations in 2012.Holmes' lawyer at the time, Wadud Ahmad, told the newspaper: "There was no wrongdoing. No criminal charges were ever filed, not even close to being filed."Hayburn later was fired from the Police Department and said in an interview Thursday that she had been accused of lying about a medical issue. She has since taken up motivational speaking about her alleged encounter with Holmes -- and said she believes it's past time for the current national dialogue about harassment to trickle down to municipal agencies."People can accuse the president and governors, senators," she said. "It's the same in the local departments as well."The woman who earned a settlement, meanwhile, resigned from the Police Department in April and took a job with the law firm that represented her. She was awarded $650,000 in damages and $100,000 in back pay, while her attorneys were paid $500,000.Mayor Kenney said last month that Williams should resign as sheriff in the wake of reports that female employees were pursuing legal action after accusing him of workplace sexual harassment, and that a third woman received a $30,000 settlement in 2012 after suing him for sexual harassment when he was a state representative.
On Thursday, in the evening, at Government House, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC welcomed members of the public visiting the estate to view the 2017 Christmas Lights display.
Description

GIS - 15 December, 2017: A national workshop on Geographical Indications (GI) and Layout-Designs of integrated circuits kicked off this morning at Le Sirius, Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port-Louis. The workshop, an initiative of the European Union (EU) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, is being A national workshop on Geographical Indications (GI) and Layout-Designs of integrated circuits kicked off this morning at Le Sirius, Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port-Louis. The workshop, an initiative of the European Union (EU) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, is being attended by representatives from relevant ministries, parastatal bodies, academic institutions, and industry.

In her opening address, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mrs U.Dwarka Canabady, underlined that the EU is providing technical assistance to Government in two key areas namely protection of GI and layout-design of integrated circuits in order to cope with this challenge and to further improve and modernise Intellectual Property System. She underscored the significance of GI which according to her adds commercial value to local products. She pointed out that local products of Rodrigues such as limon Rodrigues derive their popularity from their appellations of origin.

GI, she added, offers an opportunity to leverage the value of geographically unique products and also to attract consumers. She further underlined that this initiative will help Mauritius to gear up in order to compete on the international level on its own terms by leveraging its local products.

Mrs Canabady emphasised that it is primordial for the country to finalise the implementing regulations on GI and integrated circuits to allow better exploration, promotion and protection of local products. Hence, she dwelt on the need for Mauritius to advocate for transformation and digitisation and the need to train and build capacities of technical staff in view of establishing a functional and effective system of protection.

She also underscored the need of sensitising the local population about GI so that they can contribute to the emergence of this new wave of products, allowing the country to reap the benefits of its peculiarities.

The workshop is organised in the context of the ongoing review of the legislation on industrial property which is expected to come into force in 2018. Government seeks to promote innovation and enhance a legal environment that keeps abreast with international trends, thus making Mauritius a platform with a sound legal framework to protect Industrial Property rights (IPR).

Support of the European Union in the area of IPR

The EU is supporting Mauritius in developing effective IPR regimes complemented by an enabling environment and sufficient capacity to absorb technology. Strong protection of IPR, such as patents, trademarks, geographical indications and copyrights, is crucial if Mauritius is to become integrated into and reap the benefits of Global Value Chains.
Description

GIS  15 December, 2017: The promotion of sustainable, climate change resilient and safe food production techniques is one of Governments major endeavours. In this context, organic farming is not only one of the most sustainable and climate change resilient agricultural production techniques, but it also ensures the safety of consumers and the safeguard of the environment.

The Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security, Mr Mahen Seeruttun, made this statement yesterday at the opening of the Final Project Workshop entitled Support for Development of Organic Farming and Institutional Capacity Building in Mauritius at Le Ravenala Attitude Hotel in Balaclava. Some 30 participants attended the half-day workshop.

Minister Seeruttun highlighted that the project is in line with Government`s commitment to support sustainable agricultural development and safe food production for the local market, as well as diminish the high reliance on chemical inputs. He emphasised that one of the major outputs of the project is the drafting of an organic agriculture legislation to regulate the local organic farming sector. The objective of this legislation, he pointed out, will be to provide a legal framework to food crops and livestock products in Mauritius.

The Agro-Industry Minister underlined that his Ministry intends to launch a sensitisation campaign regarding the Organic Agriculture Bill early next year, so that the Organic Agriculture Act can be passed and regulations published by June 2018. The standards drafted under the project will allow the population to enjoy high quality organic products which are in no way inferior to those already available on the market, he added.

A large majority of the population has been made aware of Governments commitment to promote organic food production through sensitisation campaigns conducted; the World Food Day 2017 celebration; training conducted by the Food and Agriculture Research and Extension Institute; and the incentives offered through the bio-farming scheme, among others, underscored the Minister.

The half-day workshop was also an opportunity to review major activities carried out under the Food and Agriculture Organisation sponsored programme and gave an overview of the National Strategic Plan for Organic Farming: 2017  2027.
Description

GIS - 15 December, 2017: Mauritius has been falsely described as a tax haven country as it has a compliant jurisdiction with sound regulatory practices that conform to international standards.

This statement was made by the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr Dharmendar Sesungkur, during a press conference yesterday at the seat of the Ministry in Ebene to give an overview of the achievements of the Ministry.

The overall rating of Compliant which has been given to Mauritius by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in 2017, bears testimony of the transparency of the exchange of information system, underscored the Minister.

He further underlined that the World Bank in its latest report on Ease of Doing Business, has acknowledged Mauritius efforts in improving its investment environment and has ranked the country 25th globally and first in the African region. Mauritius is called upon to be an international financial centre that will promote cross-border investments in the African region, he added.

As regards the ventures of the Ministry to reinforce capacities and resources in the financial services sector, Minister Sesungkur underscored that the Financial Services Commission has appointed a Chief Executive Officer and the State Insurance Company of Mauritius Ltd has set up a new board. New posts are also being advertised in these institutions, pointed out the Minister.

He underlined that all financial institutions under the aegis of the Ministry have to perform satisfactorily to promote the financial services sector and thus drive the Mauritian economy forward in the league of high-income countries .

Minister Sesungkur also announced the following forthcoming projects to re-engineer the sector: the implementation of a blueprint; the transformation of Mauritius to a Fintech Hub; the setting up of the Office of Good Governance to ensure good governance practices.

He further mentioned the coming up of an Excellence Award targeted at all parastatal bodies and Ministries that will endorse a culture of good governance as well as an upcoming programme to educate people on the ways to generate income through investment activities.

The Minister also gave a brief overview of his recent mission to India where he had fruitful discussions with the Bombay Stock Exchange so as to better promote the financial services sector.
Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelors degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.
ATLANTA  On the second day of the MetroLab Annual Summit , Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed discussed the power of our specific moment, saying city government leaders now have growing influence on quality of life in the country, as well as unprecedented access to talented collaborators who are eager to do tech work that improves communities.

Reed, who concludes his time as mayor on Jan. 2 upon reaching his term limit, has guided Atlanta into becoming a smart city leader, creating a culture within city hall that values and encourages tech and innovation. Reed emphasized the importance of cities effectively harnessing tech, both for the sake of their reputations and for improving quality of life. Being known as a tech-friendly place helps entice or grow major companies, while high quality of life attracts the skilled workforce companies covet.

And this tech work doesnt always have to be sweeping. Small solutions, when efficiently deployed, can have a massive impact. In Atlanta, for example, the police recently switched to a new tool called e-citations that allows them to write tickets digitally rather than by hand, bringing the time it takes to do so down to five minutes from 20 and helping officers get back on the street to do policing. Reed acknowledged that this doesnt sound like a big deal, but crime in Atlanta has dropped 36 percent and the city is on pace to have its lowest annual murder rate in a decade.

A major key for accomplishing this work has been attracting talented people to government. Throughout his talk, Reed praised Atlanta CIO Samir Saini , often crediting him for most of the tech progress, noting that he himself does not come from an extensive tech background.

I am not a technology expert, Reed said, but I understand that if your city isnt technology friendly, you lose national and international prestige.

Reed said he was lucky that Saini, previously a tech leader for MGM Resorts in Las Vegas, decided he wanted to use his skills to help people, and Saini really has been an effective and prolific tech leader for Atlanta, landing on Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers in 2017 . In his time with the city, Saini has created a gov tech culture that values gathering big data for predictive analytics used to manage city resources more efficiently.

And Saini is far from alone. While Reed didnt theorize on a cause, he said more people want to help these days. They want to work to make the communities where they live better. Hiring them into city hall is a first step. Once the talent and expertise arrives, city leaders must then support and execute their ideas. That, Reed said, can turn someone who thought they would spend a year or two working for government, into a lifetime devotee who either stays in city hall or in the gov tech space by working for philanthropies or vendors.

There are some real talented people who will give you two, four, six years in government, Reed said. Something is going on out here, people want to help.

One potential cause for this interest is that right now cities really matter, to an almost unprecedented extent. Living nearer to urban cores has become desirable, leading to population increases in many cities. As a result, CEOs of companies that once negotiated with federal or state governments, now work with mayors. Reed described this as a massive shift, driven by cities having more capital and more talent to offer.

This influence can also impact how cities use technology to address issues often thought of as the purview of the federal government, with climate change being a prime example. Research has shown that cities alone can make a major dent in global emission reduction goals, and while support is not coming from the federal level currently, this will likely change in the future. If cities are engaged with combating climate change when it does, theyll be in position to accelerate their work.

Reed sees Atlanta as a regional leader in climate change work. When New York City or San Francisco makes progress, it doesnt resonate in Birmingham, Ala., or Tampa, Fla., as much as when Atlanta does, because those cities relate better to Atlanta.

Its a big responsibility to be sure, but mayors have long been amenable to collaborating with one another, and that has only increased in recent years as tech efforts have accelerated. Gov tech collaborations with academia, which is the mission of the host MetroLab Network , are also quite valuable.

It was fitting that Reed spoke at Georgia Tech. He discussed how many of that institutions tech programs were formerly located in the county, rather than near the urban core, and that theyd recently moved to their current location downtown. Academia investing in that area of the city has spurred nearby development, also attracting a hub of tech companies, co-working spaces and new housing.

Tech culture shifts, academic collaborations and society valuing meaningful work can be somewhat abstract concepts. Reed, however, also passed a more tangible progress test. Former Maryland Gov. and Baltimore Mayor Martin OMalley spoke alongside Reed at the event and was happy to report Reed had passed the Uber Test.

OMalleys Uber Test is simple: He asks an Uber driver what he thinks of a mayor. Well, his Uber driver in Atlanta said Mayor Reed has been great. OMalley said this speaks to another nationwide trend: an increase of trust in city government, one that will only grow stronger as data and analytics create tangible ways to display ways that cities have been improving.
(TNS)  Artificial intelligence will change workplaces, transforming how people work, a panel of experts said.The fast-evolving technology could mean pink slips for workers with routine responsibilities  but not for all workers, the experts said.AI, in the form of robots, virtual assistants and intuitive office machines, will take over repetitive tasks now performed by office staff. This will give them additional time for more important duties.AI is already transforming a lot of business processes, said Greg Ryan, head of Canon U.S.A.s information and imaging solutions division. In the office of the future, probably nothing will be left untouched. . . . But Im not convinced that it is going to replace jobs.He was among four experts brought together by Canon to discuss the future of office work at a Tuesday event in Manhattan. Canon, the Japanese photography and office machines giant, has its Americas headquarters in Melville.Ryan said AI could reduce the time that employees spend locating information and data, analyzing them and sharing them with business partners. He said, Thats a huge timesaver, and the impact might be that the knowledge worker will be freed up to do more creative things.Aaron Dignan, founder of the consulting firm The Ready in Manhattan, said layoffs are inevitable with AI.It wont affect people equally. . . . Extremely repetitive jobs, extremely routine jobs  I think there is pretty good evidence to suggest that those are going to be massively disrupted, he told the audience of 30.Executives are embracing AI in increasing numbers after years of skepticism and even fear, according to Holly Muscolino, a vice president at the research firm IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts. IDC conducted a survey of 500 U.S. technology executives in September for Canon.She said 54 percent of the respondents predicted robots will eliminate many manual tasks in offices. Forty-one percent said they planned to bring AI to their company, and 42 percent said they would deploy virtual assistants.The panelists agreed that more technology will change offices, but not lead to their demise.Theres always going to be a place where people are going to want to come together, need to come together, said Bill Bouchey, a principal at the architecture and engineering firm HOK, based in St. Louis. However, the office of the future will probably be smaller and be adapted to cellphones, tablets and other mobile devices, he said.Bouchey also predicted some big companies will jettison their one-size-fits-all headquarters in favor of smaller, regional offices. He said, Youre going to want your workforce to be able to choose different settings to go to, depending on what they are doing on a given day.
Net Neutrality and Underserved Communities

When I was in undrgrad, my mother, who worked at IBM, had a PC in the home, and Prodigy ISP service. As a comp sci major, I was able to grow my prgrmming skills while away from school. Clear correlation between access and success. #SaveNetNeutrality #OpenDataForAll #InclusiveTech  Amen Ra Mashariki (@AMashariki) December 6, 2017

GIS as an Accountability Tool

Creating an Effective Visualization

The Implications of Net Neutrality

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to vote today on the future of net neutrality, vehement debate on the issue continues to dominate the news cycle. Net neutrality is a regulatory framework intended to keep the internet open and fair by prohibiting internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking or slowing down access for specific users or websites. Proponents of net neutrality argue that this regulation is paramount to ensuring that high-speed internet is available to all and that companies affiliated with ISPs or willing to pay a premium for faster speeds do not come to dominate the online world. Opponents, like FCC chairman Ajit Pai, argue that existing laws and market forces are sufficient to ensure ISPs do not create an internet dominated by the highest bidder, and that relaxing net neutrality will produce more consumer choices, lower prices, and more innovation.Thus far, debate has mostly resolved around questions of who will dominate the internet if net neutrality is repealed, especially in the realm of the digital media sites that provide many residents with information. Less often mentioned however are the potential implications on low-income communities that could lose high-speed access if ISPs decide to roll back service in their neighborhoods.Many residents in these neighborhoods rely on low-cost offerings or municipal broadbandinternet service provided by local governmentswhich could both be affected if net neutrality is dismantled. Repealing net neutrality can lead to any number of things that can create a challenge for underserved communities, said Amen Ra Mashariki, a fellow at the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and urban analytics lead for GIS leader Esri. However, if net neutrality is indeed repealed, rigorous data collection and visualization may prove a valuable means of holding ISPs accountable for maintaining equitable service.Mashariki envisions a potential future in which lucrative areas get the fastest internet speeds and underserved areas lose high-speed access. If net neutrality is repealed, ISPs could take away bandwidth from low-income communities and go where people are doing things like high-speed trading, he explained. In a system in which ISPs can divert bandwidth to areas where they have a financial interest, financially thriving neighborhoods may receive more resources at the expense of underserved communities, which could lose low-cost or municipally provided high-speed broadband.If you start from the concept that access equals success, broadband access can make a huge difference, said Mashariki. He pointed to education as one area in which slower internet speeds could have a significant effect on residents. Schools that rely on broadband access will have trouble if the speed of access is throttled, Mashariki explained. For example, one area in East Brooklyn hosts the STEM Olympics, a competition for high school students that requires significant computer programming. If students didnt have access to tech and broadband, preparation for and participation in this event would be impossible, said Mashariki. Outside of the classroom, students would also struggle to complete online homework assignments if their neighborhood loses high-speed internet access.And slowing access in non-commercial areas can also stifle entrepreneurship. The Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gates of the world need access to tech and resources to achieve their potential, Mashariki said.However, even if net neutrality is repealed, rigorous data collection and visualization provides a potential means of holding ISPs responsible for their actions and maintaining an open, fair internet. Mashariki calls for Ensuring that if the rules are rolled back, theres a critical level of transparency. This involves actively and aggressively identifying sources of data that can be used to track internet speeds.Gathering this information is not only a means of seeing where ISPs are throttling speeds, but also a way to ensure that they dont do so in the first place. By ensuring quality information on internet speeds across neighborhoods, cities can put pressure on ISPs to maintain high-speed broadband service in underserved communities. For, if a city notices that an ISP is diverting bandwidth from one neighborhood to another, the city can simply change the ISP it uses for broadband. The most aggressive strategyin line with what FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has saidwould be for cities to use the power of the market to drive the effort to overcome the digital divide. They can say Thank you very much, were going to move to someone else, Mashariki explained.The possibility of cities merely publicizing ISP actions could also put pressure on companies not to divert service from underserved areas. Cities can also do what New York has done and publish their own report and an open letter if an ISP is not doing what it contractually said it would do, Mashariki said. Revealing ISPs failures to meet their commitments to provide low-cost or equitable municipal broadand would produce increased public scrutiny on the companies and encourage others to unsubscribe from their serviceoutcomes they would surely seek to avoid.Creating a GIS tool that can hold ISPs accountable requires meticulous and creative data collection. One valuable source of data is ISPs themselves, which provide the FCC with publicly available data on their highest advertised speeds across neighborhoods. However, Cities should not just rely on what ISPs are telling them, Mashariki emphasized.Mashariki pointed to the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC)a quasi-federal agency that works with the FCC towards a vision of universal high-speed internet accessas another potential source. USAC works directly with communities to gather data on internet speeds, and provides subsidies for neighborhoods willing to publish this information.Yet, gaining a reliable sense of internet connectivity requires cities to get even closer to communities. For Mashariki, crowdsourcing is one potential solution. Municipalities should rely on community-driven engagement to get an idea of whats going on on the ground, he said. This may be anecdotal information from community liasons and non-profits, or even a resident who says that yesterday everything was fine, but now the internet in the local library is much slower.In order to collect and integrate this information with existing data, Mashariki calls for cities to invest in online tools that residents can visit and contribute to via multiple channels. Residents should not only be able to go to a website and input information, but also share information via Twitter, Facebook, or email. Mashariki says cities should put representatives on the ground to talk to residents about their internet access, and even ask residents questions when they come in for other services.Mashariki admits that there may be many other sources of data that neither he nor many city leaders have thought about yet. We need to bring cities together to talk about what data available on the federal, state, and local levels, he said. This may involve developing new requirements for the types of data ISPs are required to share if they enter contracts with cities.Making this data accessible and useable by governments, advocates, and residents alike requires aggregating with a really powerful and robust GIS, said Mashariki. Using such a tool, cities can ensure that ISPs are truly held accountable to all the people their actions affect.The conversation about net neutrality cannot be held in a vacuum, Mashariki stressed. Net neutrality is not a standalone issue, but is related to the digital divide, access to technology, education, data poverty, diversity and inclusivity, and many other critical problems. Any conversation about net neutrality therefore must include considerations of all these related issues. All of these things are part of the same challenge, Mashariki said.
(TNS) - For well over a week, hundreds of inmates have chain-sawed through relentless thickets of chaparral, cutting lines through the backcountry to thwart the fires sudden rushes at homes.On Thursday, they were deep in the Los Padres National Forest, covered in wood grit, soot and sweat, as the Thomas fire continued to grow  becoming the fourth-largest in modern California history.In the morning, commanders stressed the dangers of the work and urged them to be careful, even while mopping up hot spots, cutting burned trees or striding though charred rubble.Hours later, a San Diego fire engineer, Cory Iverson, died on the fire lines. The loss rippled through the army of 8,000 fire personnel  both professionals and inmates  on the scene. Some lined the road as Iversons body was loaded into a hearse and taken from the fire zone.For 11 days, theyve been battling a sharply uneven battle against a devilish fusion of dry wind, fault-crumpled terrain and desiccated vegetation.Playing some of the hardest roles are the inmate hand crews, which make up about 20% of the firefighters here.On a ridge above Montecito on Thursday, they worked in crews of 15, leaders shouting orders, scarifying a ribbon of mountain too steep and craggy for any bulldozer.The winds had abated, as they had many times before, but the inmates were racing the clock, chopping away at ceanothus trunks and gnarled manzanita roots with specialized saws, picks, shovels, rakes, axes.On Friday night, forecasters predicted Santa Barbaras notorious sundowner winds, which howl down the mountain canyons to the coast, driving flames and embers with them.Because the wildfire has sprawled so widely, the task of finding the critical points to cut it off had become profoundly difficult.This thing is 60 miles long and 40 miles wide,"said Tim Chavez, a fire behavior analyst with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. There's a lot of fire out there.No day has been the same on the front lines. On Saturday, the winds calmed. The heat rose in a column, carrying smoke and soot, mushrooming into a pyrocumulus cloud 30,000 feet high. On the ground, it was quiet and still.Gerardo Moran, 41, and his fellow convicts, thought the worst was over. They were loading the truck about 2 a.m. Sunday to head back to camp and rest, as the temperature dropped.Then the weight of all that material in the atmosphere collapsed.A violent downdraft hit the ground and blew in every direction, fanning waves of flame.Come on, tools out! a Cal Fire captain shouted.I never knew we were gonna be in the eye of the storm right there, Moran recalled this week. Its pretty intense  the biggest adrenaline rushes Ive ever had, right there on the fire line.The fire scorched another 50,000 acres during that bout. But Moran and the inmates were able to save a horse ranch of Highway 150, which he was happy about.Established in 1943, the inmate fire program employs roughly 3,800 prisoners across California, paying them $2 a day in the off-season  when they clear flood control channels and hiking trails  and $1 an hour when theyre fighting fires.Ive always been a fan of the program, said Mark Brown, a deputy fire chief in Marin County and operations commander on the Thomas fire. They work their butts off.For the inmates, the danger is obvious  four inmates have died since the program began, including two in the last two years. And some have manipulated the program  in October, an inmate escaped when he walked off the fire line while fighting a blaze in Orange County but was captured on Halloween in Los Angeles.But most benefit by getting out in the wilderness  away from prison-yard intrigue  learning an occupation, making money, feeling a sense of purpose, and getting time off their sentences.Proposition 57, passed by voters last year, increased the credit for time served for those in the program.Inmates who are accepted into the program must undergo physical and mental evaluations ahead of training, according to the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. Many types of offenders, such as documented gang members, are ineligible.Moran began serving a 14-year, four-month sentence in June 2014 for possession of a controlled substance for sale, vehicle theft and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.In prison, he had to work and show good behavior to get to minimum-security status  and a chance to join the fire camp.I figured this would be the best way to serve my community, he said. And the time off. Thats a big one. I got 27 months off my sentence for this. I just want to get back to my family.He started this year, and fought in the wine country fires in October.In Ventura County, inmate Lanny Mosley, who is in his third fire season, has been showing Moran the ropes.Both are swampers, the unofficial right hand of the state fire captain who manages them on the fire line.Ive done this long enough to where I trust the captains, theyre constantly watching out for us, said Mosley, 52, a second-striker who began his eight-year, four-month sentence for vehicle theft in August 2014.If something were to happen to the captain, the swamper would be the one to radio for help and manage the situation until others arrived.Officials said theyve seen countless examples of residents waving thank-you signs at inmate crews or coming up to them and thanking them for their work, sometimes knowing who they are, sometimes not.Its really rewarding when a crying woman and her children come up to you and say, Thank you for saving our homes,  said Moran. Thats payoff in itself right here. It just feels good.The occasional misery is worth it.Being in the woods, being in the mountains  its just a freedom that you dont get in prison, Mosley said. Behind the wall youll never see the stuff well see.That view of the stars is amazing, Moran said. The skyline to the ocean. Its something you wish you were with your family for, but hey, its OK.joseph.serna@latimes.comjoe.mozingo@latimes.com2017 the Los Angeles TimesVisit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS)  A powerful group of state lawmakers approved sweeping proposals Wednesday designed to encourage people and businesses to move to rural Georgia.The group voted unanimously to support income tax breaks worth up to $6,000 a year, high-speed internet lines in unconnected areas and better health care access The recommendations of the Georgia House of Representatives Rural Development Council could become a reality if enacted by the state Legislature next year. House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said the councils initiatives are a high priority as lawmakers try to bolster far-reaching stretches of the state.The efforts are focused on counties losing population and jobs to cities, leaving behind areas with few prospects for economic growth. Of Georgias 159 counties, 124 of them had less than 5 percent population growth for five straight years.The problems of rural Georgia wont wait. Weve got to get to work on them, Ralston said after addressing the council at Georgias Old Capitol Building in Milledgeville, where the Legislature was located until moving to Atlanta in 1868.The ambitious effort is meant to upgrade the states sparsely populated regions so that more jobs will be available, reducing the economic need for locals to move to cities. To encourage businesses to relocate to rural areas, lawmakers say they intend to improve internet service , education and health.Among the councils recommendations:An income tax deduction worth up to $3,000 a year for anyone who moves to a rural area. The tax break would double in counties that also give real estate property tax discounts for new residents. The group did not say how much it might cost the state.State funding for internet companies to offer high-speed service in underserved areas. About 16 percent of Georgians lack access to broadband internet.Establishment of a Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovations, possibly at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, to assist communities in recruiting businesses and identifying growth areas.Elimination of the states Certificate of Need regulation for hospitals in populated areas with many health care options, while keeping rules in effect for rural areas, where hospitals are struggling to survive. That would do nothing new for rural hospitals because they already are covered by the states CON law , the regulation that restricts private companies ability to cherry-pick the profitable functions of hospitals.The costs of these proposals wont be made clear until specific bills are introduced and evaluated.Issues such as the Certificate of Need proposal could be contentious during the 2018 session of the Georgia General Assembly, which starts Jan. 8.Its time we look at things that weve left alone and not touched it for a number of years, said state Rep. Terry England, R-Auburn, a co-chairman of the council. We realize theres a need in the state to protect our rural hospitals, but at the same time thats become extremely burdensome to some other parts of the state.The council recommended several ways to extend high-speed internet access to rural areas.The state could establish a reverse auction among internet providers, who would submit bids for how much they could pay to provide service to an area, with taxpayers making up the difference between what the highest bidding company could afford and what internet lines actually cost. Other broadband efforts include standardized fees charged by power companies for internet providers to attach to their poles and a consistent telecommunications tax rate for all providers of the same service, including satellite providers.High-speed internet is a critical step toward growth in rural areas because without it, businesses and residents might move elsewhere, said state Rep. Patty Bentley, D-Butler.You need access to broadband to make all of it work, Bentley said. Having access to internet is very critical to attracting industry into your communities.None of the proposals is set in stone, and they could be changed through the legislative process.But the recommendations issued Wednesday are a starting point, and Ralston asked the councils 26 members to act as ambassadors to build support for the efforts among their colleagues.Alone, none of the initiatives will make a significant difference in the quality of life in rural Georgia, said state Rep. Jay Powell, a co-chairman of the council. But together, the combination of a professional workforce, fast internet and health care access would create the conditions for business growth, he said.Powell, who is chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said the income tax breaks come in the form of deductions that would mostly help people with higher incomes such as doctors and business owners, but theyre the type of leaders that struggling communities need.Youre talking about people who are going to be providing services, paying sales taxes, buying property and investing in the community, said Powell, R-Camilla. I would think the rural broadband would not be controversial. Giving tax credits for folks to move to a location might be.
The Digital Divide

How the Repeal Might Hit Government

Will Cities and Counties Go Their Own Way?

Its Not Over

On Dec. 14, two years after the Federal Communications Commission voted for net neutrality, the commission took it all back A lot of state and local government IT leaders are not happy about it.Im extremely disappointed, but not surprised, said Beth Niblock, Detroits chief information officer.Nobody was particularly surprised  the commission voted for repeal 3-2, along party lines, and IT experts nationwide had been talking about the vote like it was pre-ordained. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said as much before the vote. The repeal means, in so many words, that the government will no longer prevent Internet service providers from slowing down connections to some parts of the Internet and speeding them up for others. Critics also fear it could open the door to ISPs jacking up rates for consumers to access certain things at all.The move, supported by the telecommunications industry, is highly controversial. A recent survey from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy found that 83 percent of the country, including 75 percent of Republicans, opposed the repeal. Among state and local government IT workers, it appears that any opposition to net neutrality is pretty muted.I literally dont know anybody thats supportive of the repeal, Niblock said.Service providers, represented by the Telecommunications Industry Association, are.By taking a balanced path forward, the FCCs plan will continue this progress and accelerate U.S. technological innovation and leadership, TIA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Cinnamon Rogers said in a statement . It will drive decades more investment and innovation, new high-skilled and good paying jobs, and faster and more ubiquitous networks to serve the needs of consumers and businesses.For government IT officials, the regulatory rollback grates against the long, ongoing battle toward improving Internet access for citizens, as well as the march toward offering more government services online. Net neutrality proponents have long argued that a rollback of the regulations would disproportionately hurt low-income and rural communities. Those people, after all, dont have as much money to pay for higher-tier plans if ISPs do start partitioning up their service offerings. And in rural areas, many people only have one choice of ISP. They cant turn elsewhere if they dont like what their provider is doing.Consumers dont have the choice to vote with their wallet, said Boston CIO Jascha Franklin-Hodge Niblock said Detroits IT staff has been working on a plan to improve broadband access in the city. Its possible that the repeal of net neutrality will make that goal more difficult, though she said its too early to tell how it might impact the citys planning process.Depending on whose numbers you look at, 45 to 60 percent of our population does not have broadband access in their home, she said.A big potential problem is corporate vertical integration; that is, the trend of ISPs buying up more content-producing companies. Tony Neal-Graves, executive director of the Colorado Broadband Office, said that provides an incentive for service providers to give an advantage to their own content.Colorado has some unique challenges in that regard, because its geographic size and mountainous terrain mean its expensive for telecommunications firms to connect many cities to high-speed Internet. Those people who remain unconnected, or have only one choice of provider, could be forced to turn to that content.Hes also worried the move will slow down the process of expanding high-speed Internet throughout Colorado because telecommunications firms will have even less incentive to front the money necessary to reach rural consumers.My concern is that this decision will make the business case for providing service to remote communities that much more difficult because the cost of access to the broader network  could go up, he said.The Republican FCC commissioners dismissed those concerns during the hearing, saying that ISPs wont act any differently than they already did.(This) is not the thin line between where we are right now and some Mad Max version of the Internet, said Brendan Carr, whom Pres. Donald Trump appointed to the commission this year.Franklin-Hodge called that view naive. Service providers have a fiduciary responsibility to benefit their shareholders, he said, not their customers.It is inevitable that this has a negative impact on consumers, he said.IT officials in Oklahoma, Colorado and Boston all said they dont anticipate the rollback of net neutrality to affect their work too much in a direct way. Thats because they have a lot more choice and competition when it comes to connectivity.Government has purchasing power, Neal-Graves said. They can control what kind of access they have.But that doesnt mean it wont matter. For one, Franklin-Hodge said, a big piece of local government IT work is citizen engagement. If citizens have a harder time expressing themselves, finding the government online or getting online in the first place, it could be harder for local government to hear its citizens.Niblock is concerned that it could hamper government digital services too.We do a lot of outreach in video, but were not going to pay to prioritize our content, she said. So the delivery of services that are Internet-based, I think, are at risk.Its hard to tell what might happen, but there are possible indirect impacts down the line too. Net neutrality supporters argue that with ISPs giving preferential treatment to their own content, it could become more difficult for innovative startups to get a foot in the door.The things you can do on the Internet have exploded, and I think that as new technologies have rolled out, especially in the areas of like artificial intelligence and chatbots and all that  were just not in the same place that we were two to three years ago, Niblock said.If consumers dont like the way ISPs use their new power, there is a possible  but expensive  out: Locally-owned broadband networks.At the moment, ground zero for that option is Colorado. Cities and counties in that state have been voting in droves in recent years to set up local networks.Governments worried about the consequences of the FCC vote might respond by doing the same.This will urge them to consider having their own infrastructure so that their citizens have choice, Neal-Graves said.Craig Settles, a broadband consultant who has worked with local governments, agrees that more jurisdictions will be looking into the option as a result of the repeal.It truly sucks what the FCC has done, but at the same time there is precedent, there is determination, there are stakeholders within the community that can lead an effort of bringing  alternatives to the table, he said.Settles believes such actions could actually help reign in ISPs from taking some of the actions net neutrality supporters fear.Once you have a credible competitor, and these municipal and co-op networks represent credible competition, then the behavior of the incumbents will change, he said.He pointed to the first wave of Colorado cities and counties voting to set up local networks a few years ago.The next day, Comcast, who was the primary incumbent in the state, immediately said Were going to have either a reduction or a freeze on subscriber fees across the state, Settles said. This was not in the face of, like, the next day there were all these networks  just the fact that all these cities passed these referenda created a change in behavior.Colorado is a unique beast, but Settles said there are lots of other states where cities and counties can go this route. There are about 29 states that dont restrict the ability of local governments to set up their own networks, he said. Another 11-13 have restrictions that local government can get around. Only 8-10 have restrictions so tough they effectively prevent locally-owned broadband.He expects rural areas  facing the fewest ISP choices and the least political pushback  to move faster in setting up their own networks. Regardless, he stressed that such projects take quite a bit of time, money and effort.People need to understand that the desire will have to deal with the reality, and youll see  various states of interest and follow-through, he said.Net neutrality regulations may be officially repealed, but virtually nobody thinks the matter is settled.For one thing, state governments from New York to Washington are already planning to sue over the action. On top of that, several members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have expressed interest in net neutrality legislation Some state and local officials have also said they will use whatever power they can to personally regulate service providers. Though the FCCs action today included language pre-empting state and local power here, Franklin-Hodge said it was vague.Its unclear what these rules mean, and my sense is that theres disagreement among FCC commissioners as to what this rule means, he said.Boston, as well as New York City and others, are reviewing their options to flex their muscles with ISPs. Exactly what theyll do isnt clear.We were hoping for a different outcome today, but I think most people anticipated it this way given the dismissiveness of the FCC to so many voices speaking up, said Miguel Gamino , New York City chief technology officer. So now, another set of actions will definitely be triggered and well see how those things go forward.Niblock said that government IT leaders should at the very least be paying attention to the promises service providers are making to consumers. If they decide to take the actions advocates fear, thats where the evidence will show up first.Theres also the possibility that the FCC will flip-flop on the issue again in the future. During the hearing, Clyburn cited the words of commission Chairman Ajit Pai in 2015 when the FCC first voted in favor of net neutrality. At the time, Pai predicted that the commission would reverse its course.Amen to that, Clyburn said. Amen to that.Shes not alone in thinking that net neutrality will return, someday, somehow.I think therell be some reaction to this decision at the congressional level. I think there are going to be some groups, maybe non-profits, who are gonna try to sue, Neal-Graves said. I dont think its the end of the conversation.FCC media representatives did not return a request for comment for this article.
(TNS)  Chattanooga's biggest internet service providers today reaffirmed their commitment to an open Internet after the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the net neutrality rules.By a 3-2 vote, the FCC today reversed its 2005 decision and voted to overturn regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content.David Wade, president of EPB which provides internet services to more than 94,000 Chattanooga households and businesses, said the city-owned utility will continue to uphold net neutrality standards."By deploying America's first community-wide all-fiber optic network capable of delivering Gig Plus speeds to every home and business in our service area, EPB has the capacity to continue providing our customers with a world-class internet experience without the need to slow or prioritize any of the internet traffic across our network," Wade said. "In the best interests of our customers and our community, EPB will uphold the Net Neutrality standard."But Comcast, the biggest internet service provider in the region and nationwide, welcomed the end of Title II regulations which company officials claim create a regulatory burden that hurts business."We commend Chairman Pai for his leadership and FCC Commissioners O'Rielly and Carr for their support in adopting the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, returning to a regulatory environment that allowed the Internet to thrive for decades by eliminating burdensome Title II regulations and opening the door for increased investment and digital innovation," said David L. Cohen, senior vice president and chief diversity officer at Comcast. "Today's action does not mark the 'end of the Internet as we know it;' rather it heralds in a new era of light regulation that will benefit consumers."Most Internet Service Providers said they have no immediate plans to limit or give preference to some transmissions over others. But smaller ISPs said removing the FCC regulation should help lessen some of their compliance costs and help ensure that, when necessary, the internet connections can be used to ensure better quality voice quality.David Snyder, owner of VolState in Dayton, Tenn., which provides business internet service in Rhea and Bradley counties, welcomed the FCC repeal of the rule, which he said imposed a regulatory burden on smaller ISPs."I am all for the concept of network neutrality that internet service providers should not be blocking or throttling legal traffic on their networks," Snyder said. "But there are certain services, such as voice services, that require faster speeds than others. It was sometimes more expensive to comply with net neutrality to provide a quality voice connection over internet than it will be under a looser regulatory environment."But EPB today reaffirmed its Customer Care Pledge, which says that the utility will "never sell your web site browsing information or online content" and "every home and business customer can send web content through EPB's network at the same fast speed without having to pay extra.""EPB doesn't play favorites when it comes to online traffic, so businesses of all sizes have a level playing field for delivering new and innovative options for customers," EPB spokesman J. Ed. Marston said. "That's good for customers and good for creating new jobs."
Florida has turned to a military veteran to serve as its new chief information security officer.Thomas Vaughn, who has served in the U.S. Army and Coast Guard, is the Florida Agency for State Technology's (AST) new chief information security officer, taking the place of Danielle Alvarez , who left the agency for a job in the private sector in June.Im very excited by the challenges the job presents. And Im really interested in being able to have a larger impact on information security, said Vaughn. It sounds a bit idealistic, but I really see this job as contributing not only to the safety and security of the citizens of the state of Florida, but also ultimately, to the defense of the nation. Because in the cyber-realm, were all kind of on the same battlefield. So, Im looking forward to having some impact there.Vaughn began his new CISO role about two weeks ago, and wants to largely continue the efforts of Alvarez  who recommended that he apply for the position.But there are areas that Im going to focus, he remarked. One of those areas is kind of in the area of threat intelligence and threat information.Vaughn, who has an intelligence background, wants to explore how the state can better share information, how we can form stronger partnerships and collaborate a little more closely in terms of sharing that information.The other big thing for me, he added. And I know this sounds a little general, but I believe in staying people-centric, in my thinking. So, no matter what we do, it all needs to be where the end result is the support that we provide to the citizens and the employees in the state of Florida, the way that we protect that information and how that impacts their lives.Vaughn is a native Floridian, who spent four years in the Army, and then 20 years in the Coast Guard, before retiring in 2012.During my military career I did a little bit of everything, he said. It included, obviously, some IT stuff. But I also did communications. I did some intelligence work.Since retiring from the Coast Guard, Vaughn worked in the private sector as a Department of Defense contractor for the Army and Air Force, providing informational assurance, which is DOD speak for information security, said Vaughn.I did both engineering and management for those areas, he added.Vaughn went on to do IT work for Sarasota County Schools, the city of Tallahassee and the Florida Department of Corrections.
Robert Kubica's father says the Pole is still in the running to be named Williams' second driver for 2018.

Multiple sources reported this week that although the Pole was the recent favourite, the strongly Russian-backed Sergey Sirotkin ultimately won the day with better pace in Abu Dhabi and a much bigger sponsorship purse.

However, the latest word from Williams is that the British team is in fact "not planning any statement in the coming days".

That is despite the fact that Russian sources were reporting this week that the Sirotkin deal could be made official on Friday.

Now, Kubica's father Artur Kubica says the Polish camp is still pushing hard for the seat.

"We're still fighting to get Robert into Williams," he told Sportowe Fakty.

"We hope that it is a good decision for us. And if it is not made before Christmas, it means that at least the people at Williams are taking time to think.

"We are taking steps to convince them to believe in Robert," Artur Kubica added.

He didn't say what those 'steps' may be, but admitted that amid the Sirotkin speculation, it is sponsorship dollars that sometimes talks the loudest.

The rumours are that Sirotkin, potentially enjoying even the backing of Russian president Vladimir Putin, is promising over EUR 15 million in backing, while Kubica can bring just 8 million.

"Of course it is about what the driver will bring to the team. Sometimes, skills, experience and the potential of the driver are decisive, at others only the money counts," admitted Kubica senior.

Sportowe Fakty also claimed Kubica attended Williams' Grove factory on Thursday.

(GMM)
Update: Judge Richard Lavery denied Jacob Anglesey's motion to withdraw his initial no contrast plea to aggravated homicide Friday afternoon. The decision issued by Lavery details his reasoning to deny his motion. "... the court concludes that Mr. Anglesey has not shown a fair and just reason to allow him to withdraw his plea," the document states.

For more details, look in the Dec. 20 issue of the Green River Star.

Jacob Anglesey wants a trial, but a district court judge has yet to decide on accepting his attorneys motion to withdraw his plea.

As of press time, Third District Court Jud...
The Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees decided to redraw the districts elementary school boundaries to place Jackson Elementary School students at Monroe Intermediate School next year.

The decision comes a month after the board voted to close Jackson in a cost savings move in anticipation of decreased revenue from the state.

Prior to the vote, Jackson PTO treasurer Irish Kreis, said she hoped the board would decide to redraw the boundaries as it would allow the PTO to continue its work in supporting the students and staff at the school, regardless of where theyr...
Founded in 1967, the Sweetwater County Historical Museum is celebrating its fiftieth birthday in 2017. To commemorate their golden jubilee, the museum has created a special exhibit highlighting its history, its role in the community, and the people who have made it a special place for community pride and preservation.

In the 1960s, Sweetwater County was bustling with an atmosphere of progressivism. The stately old courthouse that had been built in 1875 after the county seat was moved from South Pass City to Green River was proclaimed to be in a state of disrepair and county officials began...
The Marguerite Santa on display for the holidays at the Rock Springs Historical Museum.

The Rock Springs Historical Museum staff has put the Marguerite Santa on display for the holidays, in his traditional spot in front of the firehouse doors.

Viewers can stop and watch the small mechanical Santa play Christmas music on the pipe organ just like he did at Marguerite's Gift Shop years ago.

The Marguerite Santa has been fascinating children and adults since it was put on display in Marguerite Parker Galicich's North Front Street Gift Shop window in 1946 or 1947. Stories differ whether Marguerite's husband, Albert Galicich, bought the Santa in New York while on leave during World...
These are the cones the fifth-grade students made in class.

For Christians, nothing symbolizes to the true meaning of Christmas more than a nativity scene.

Knowing this, Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and parish council member, Dick Fischer, wanted to bring something special to his church.

For the second year in a row, the church hosted a come to the manager event. During this event, church members are encouraged to lend the church their nativity scenes, which are then put on display. Church members and visitors alike were invited to look at the scenes.

"I wanted to put some excitement back in the church," Fischer said. "I decided 'let's do i...
Dave and Kathleen Anderson are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary Saturday, Dec. 16.

Dave and Kathleen spent most of their life in Green River and are now back on the family farm outside Idaho Falls. They plan to celebrate their anniversary in Coalville, Utah, with family. From their six children they have 27 grandchildren and four great, grandchildren.

"Can you believe she stayed with me for 50 years?" Dave said.

...
COLUMBUS  The Rev. Patrick Sparling of Immanuel Lutheran Church has never been one to stay in a place very long.

As the son of an Air Force member, this comes with the territory.

I always tell people Ive lived everywhere from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Miami, Florida, Sparling said.

He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

However, the path after college didn't immediately lead to the pastorate. His first job was working on an oil field.

After the oil field I went to St. Johns College in Winfield, Kansas, Sparling said. That school was with the Missouri Synod and it was there that I decided to become a pastor.

This educational pursuit was cut short when St. Johns College closed its doors in 1986, so Sparling decided Nebraska was the next place to explore.

I went to Concordia Teachers College in Seward and thats where I met my wife, he said. I like to think of it as God working for the good.

Upon finishing college, Sparling and his wife Patti set their course for St. Louis, where he entered the seminary in 1989.

This opened the door for Sparlings first pastoral job as a vicar for St. Johns Lutheran Church in Denison, Iowa, for 5 1/2 years.

We didnt stay put for very long after that, Sparling said. I pastored for churches in Mitchell, South Dakota, Dallas and Manning, Iowa. Then I got the call to come here in Columbus 8 1/2 years ago. This is the longest I have ever stayed anywhere, and I couldnt be happier. This congregation and community have a great deal of love within it."

When he isnt leading the congregation, Sparling likes to pick at the guitar and listen to classic rock. Daughters Stephanie and Megan and two attention-grabbing dogs are also priorities.

When it comes to being a Christian, his message remains constant.

My philosophy is that the most important news of the world is the Gospel, he said. I always say, OK people, just get it. Gods crazy about you.' With that, I believe that its our jobs as Christians to realize that even though the world is a dark place, you must be the light in it. By spreading the Gospel we can help people to smile a little bit more, which is something I love to do.

Most congregations are busy preparing for the celebration of the birth of Christ. Immanuel Lutheran Church is no different.

Its really important for people to understand that Christmas is the time for new beginnings, Sparling said. With that, we all need to be reminded that there is a lot of stuff to be happy about."

Sparling believes Christmas is the perfect time for that reminder.

For the past 8 1/2 years, Sparling has called Columbus and Immanuel Lutheran Church home for good reasons.

This is an exceptionally loving congregation, he said. They put up with me and thats grace."

Sparling is also proud to be associated with Immanuel Lutheran School.

The principal Mr. (Jody) Timm has always done a great job with everything, Sparling said. The teachers and everyone in the building over there have hundreds of years of experience between them and its just an amazing thing to be a part of.
LINCOLN  University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Ronnie Green withdrew two additional budget-cutting proposals Thursday in light of an improved tuition revenue outlook at the land grant university.

In November, Green proposed shifting funding for a bus route connecting Nebraska Innovation Campus to UNL's City and East campuses from state appropriations to an additional $1 parking fee assessed to students and faculty, and $3 more in a transit fee charged to students.

Green also sought to cut vacant and redundant positions in UNL's communications and marketing departments by June 30, 2019, potentially saving as much as $250,000.

Earlier this month, however, Green told the UNL Faculty Senate that a combination of positive developments in the university's budget  health insurance premium costs rising less than estimates, more money saved through systemwide cuts than planned, and tuition revenue that rose above projections  meant no cuts would need to be made to academic departments.

It also means UNL will only cut about $3.4 million this year, instead of the $3.8 million announced in November.

"Due to the improved budget situation, the proposal to shift funding sources for NIC bus service was withdrawn to prevent parking fee increases to the university community and to avoid an increase in student fees," Green said.

UNL will still "realign and consolidate" its communications and marketing operations, Green said, once a new leader for those functions is in place.

Two top communications staffers resigned in November, citing disagreements with UNL's strategy tied to a politically charged incident on campus between an undergraduate and a graduate student lecturer earlier this year.

Green said Thursday's announcement doesn't mean UNL has escaped budget reduction efforts. When the Legislature reconvenes in January, lawmakers will be looking at continued reductions in state tax receipts.
When 4 million women took to the streets in protest after the election of Donald Trump, that made a powerful statement. But it also prompted a question: Will it last?

The uprising of women that began with last years election is beginning to look like a movement instead of a moment.

Women formed groups, began organizing visits to legislators and spurred email and phone campaigns to block legislation they opposed. Emilys List, an organization that supports pro-choice Democratic women in politics, saw a 2,000 percent increase in women expressing an interest in activism after the 2016 election. Many of them decided to run for office.

On Nov. 7, Democratic women  many of them first-time candidates  scored numerous electoral victories across the country. In places as different as Utah and Seattle, Wash., women won elections for mayor, lieutenant governor and state house.

Virginia women ran in record numbers this year, and their victories are one big story of this election, Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said the day after the election. Running as challengers, they defied conventional wisdom and predictions to score some surprising wins.

Even the Greensboro City Council was swept by women in November. The only male left on that body is incumbent Justin Outling, who didnt have a female challenger.

It appears women also may run in record numbers across the state in 2018, based on local candidates who have already declared, and a Blue Monday flood of Democratic women who announced last week.

In the local N.C. House districts being considered under court-ordered redistricting, longtime Republican incumbent John Blust will face Ashton Wheeler Clemmons, a former teacher and principal in Guilford County who now works as assistant superintendent for Thomasville schools. Health care executive Martha Shafer will challenge Rep. John Faircloth.

UNC-Greensboro professor Jennifer Mangrum will challenge Phil Berger in the N.C. Senate.

In the U.S. Congress, Greensboro attorney and civic leader Kathy Manning will run for the 13th District seat now held by freshman U.S. Rep. Ted Budd (R-Advance).

Of the nine candidates announced for the N.C. House by the N.C. Democratic Party, six were women, and two were women of color. The diversity of this group, representing both rural and urban districts, is a welcome departure for a body long dominated by older white men.

The time finally may have come when the electorate realizes that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Electing candidates who are primarily male, older, and established politicians has landed us where we are today: with a dysfunctional Congress and a dictatorial General Assembly.

If you want your interests represented, youre likely to be better off with candidates who share your life experiences. Candidates who care more about solving problems than stroking egos. Candidates who know how to work together instead of treating policy debates like a schoolyard standoff.

Former President Barack Obama recently spoke about the importance of having more women in power because men seem to be having some problems these days. Thats the understatement of the year.

There is a strong body of evidence that women are often better leaders.

In a study of effective leadership by Zenger Folkman, a psychologist with a specialty in computer science and statistics, women scored higher than men in 12 out of the 16 leadership competencies measured, with the highest scores in taking the initiative and driving for results. Other leadership skills in which women scored higher were:

Displaying high integrity and honesty.

Building relationships.

Championing change.

Practicing collaboration and teamwork.

Analyzing issues and solving problems.

Inspiring and motivating higher performance in others.

Communicating powerfully and prolifically.

These are some of the qualities that are sadly lacking in the current political landscape.

To win, you first need the courage to run, even if the odds are against you. All of the local members of the General Assembly so far being challenged by women  Blust, Faircloth and Berger  ran unopposed in 2016 because they have been in safely gerrymandered districts.

Although their districts may shift slightly under the plan now being considered by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, those races still wont be a cakewalk. The remainder of Guilford Countys delegation is dominated by women and minorities.

The women challenging theses incumbents are first-time candidates who are bucking the status quo, and they deserve the full support of the N.C. Democratic Party.

In Virginia, first-timers Kathy Tran, who is Asian-American, and Danica Roem, who is transgender, were among the women who defied the odds and helped erase a huge Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Now the N.C. Democratic Party and Gov. Roy Cooper have joined forces on a Break the Majority campaign in the N.C. General Assembly.

Accomplishing that depends not only on the women who are running but the women who are voting. It was the womens vote that propelled Democrat Ralph Northam into the Virginia governors seat. African-American women voters also played a key role in defeating accused sexual predator Roy Moore in Alabama on Tuesday.

The women who rose up during the Womens March are refusing to take a seat. The surge in female candidates and the power of women voters show they are ready to step to the front of the line and create the change they want to see.
Chabad of Greensboro celebrated the eight-day Jewish Festival of Lights with an enlightening 40-plus car caravan, all vehicles fitted with rooftop menorahs, on their way to LeBauer Park for annual first-night festivities.

Featuring an escort by police and a firetruck with lights flashing, the Grand Menorah Parade traveled from Chabads House in West Greensboro. The twinkling car caravan processed five miles downtown along West Friendly Avenue, left on Davie Street to the park where Rabbi Yosef Plotkin kindled the first electric candle on a giant menorah to the delight of a small group on a chilly evening.

The rabbi led prayers and holiday songs, as participants enjoyed music from the Sinai Mountain Ramblers, dined on latkes (holiday potato pancakes) and doughnuts.

Earlier, with friends, family and rabbinic students from Brooklyn, Chabad Rabbi Yosef Plotkin installed the menorahs (nine-branch candelabras) on each vehicle participating in the parade.

He said Greensboro is the largest smaller city to host the festive menorah-car procession.
Dec. 15, 1944

A single-engine plane carrying bandleader Glenn Miller, a major in the U.S. Army Air Forces, disappeared over the English Channel while en route to Paris. History.com recounts: Trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller was the biggest star on the American pop-music scene in the years immediately preceding World War II, with hits such as Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Moonlight Serenade. He set aside his career in 1942 to serve his country as leader of the USAAF dance band. Miller boarded a single-engine aircraft at an airfield outside of London, and that plane went missing over the English Channel en route to perform for American troops who recently had helped to liberate Paris. The wreckage of Millers plane never was found. His official military status remains Missing in Action.
A Kernersville woman, who had worked as a volunteer at East Forsyth High School, was arrested Thursday after she was accused of having sex with a male student last week, according to court records and authorities.

Jennifer Anne Pike, 43, of Leston Gilbert Drive was charged with two counts of a felony sex act with a student, an arrest warrant said. A Forsyth County sheriffs deputy accused Pike of having sex twice with the student on Dec. 6, the warrant shows.

In September, the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office received an anonymous tip sent through the sheriffs office website regarding an allegation of inappropriate behavior between a male student and an adult volunteer at the high school, Chief Deputy Brad Stanley said Thursday night.

Stanley declined to reveal the students age.

I will not speak to that, Stanley said. I will let the district attorneys office reveal that because I dont want to bring attention to the student.

District Attorney Jim ONeill of Forsyth County declined to comment about the matter, saying the Rules for Professional Responsibility for lawyers prohibits him from commenting on a pending case.

The alleged sexual encounter between Pike and the student happened away from the schools campus, Stanley said.

Pike provided her fingerprints and a DNA sample to authorities at the Forsyth County Jail, according to a court record. Pike is a self-employed hairstylist, another court record says.

Brent Campbell, a spokesman for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, couldnt be reached Thursday to comment about the case.

Principal Rodney Bass of East Forsyth High sent a phone message to parents, according to FOX8/WGHP, the Winston-Salem Journals newsgathering partner.

Good evening parents this is Rodney Bass, principal at East Forsyth High School, Bass said in the message.  I want to inform you that late today we were made aware that a former volunteer at our school has been arrested on felony sex offense charges.

When we were made aware of the investigation the volunteer was suspended, Bass said. We will continue to work with law enforcement through this investigation.

Please know we always take any allegations of misconduct involving students seriously and encourage you to make us aware of any situation that concerns you, Bass said. Thank you for your understanding.

Pike was being held Thursday at the Forsyth County Jail with her bond set at $20,000, the sheriffs office said. She is scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 4.
WASHINGTON  When Rep. Ted Budd arrived in Washington late last year, he set about learning the basics of serving in Congress.

He hired a staff, selected an office via a lottery and traced the routes that would carry him, on foot, between his workspace and the Capitol. One thing he didnt have to worry about: finding a place to live.

Budd, a Republican representing North Carolinas 13th congressional district, decided to bunk in his office. Hed shower at the lawmakers gym and sleep on a fold-down bed purchased from Rep. David Rouzer, a fellow North Carolinian.

The decision was easy, rooted in both frugality and efficiency, Budd said.

I saw a lot of freshmen running around trying to find dishes and the stuff of life, and figuring out how to commute from one place to the other, he said. My focus was on serving the district. I felt like living here, I could dedicate 100 percent of my energy to doing the job.

Bedding in the heart of Capitol Hill is a logical although somewhat ironic choice for Budd, who campaigned in 2016 as an outsider vowing to take on the Washington establishment.

I dont believe we can expect anything to change as long as we keep sending people with political resumes to solve our problems, he wrote on his website.

He vowed to fight for freedom, the family, and fiscal responsibility and to defend conservative values, including 2nd Amendment rights and a staunchly pro-life stance. Hes firm in his beliefs but not argumentative about them and will have prolonged, respectful discussions with people who disagree, sometimes angrily, with his stances.

One of the things I liked about Ted was that I can put him in front of everybody, and hell be himself. Hes going to speak his mind, but hell be a nice guy, and I think thats a big thing really missing from a lot of folks in D.C. right now, said Jonathan Felts, a consultant and childhood friend who urged Budd to run for office. Ted Budd has authenticity out the wazoo. He really does see this job as a public service, and hes not going to let it go to his head.

The perfect scenario

Budd, 46, grew up in Davie County on a 300-acre farm where he still lives with his wife, Amy Kate, and their three children. He spent his childhood working on his familys cattle and chicken farm and for The Budd Group, a janitorial and landscaping services firm turned facility-services company that was then owned by his father.

Budd holds masters degrees in business administration and theology in educational leadership and owns ProShots, a gun store and shooting range in Rural Hall.

He once worked the phones for Sen. Jesse Helms and made it a point to stay abreast of legislative changes that could affect his business, but never considered himself a political junkie.

His decision to run for Congress, he said, was based in a desire to serve the public more than a general hankering to jump into the fray in D.C. He entered the 2016 primary for the newly drawn 13th district on the advice of Felts, who served as White House political director for George W. Bush and an adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Felts, who met Budd in grade school and knew he had an interest in running for office, thought the contest presented the perfect opportunity for a political newcomer. The district had no incumbent because it hadnt existed until that year, after a federal court invalidated on the basis of racial gerrymandering an earlier congressional map that the state had been using since 2011. The newly drawn boundaries encompassed all of Davidson and Davie counties, much of Iredell County, a small piece of Rowan County, the city of High Point and much of Greensboro.

A special election there would level the playing field between career politicians and neophytes, Felts thought. The primary would likely draw a large number of candidates, diluting the vote. Most importantly, the contest had a short timetable  less than six months from the filing deadline to the general election.

I thought this would be the perfect scenario for Ted, Felts said. We spoke five or six times, fairly substantive conversations, and he was asking all the right questions before he made the final decision to get into it.

Felts was right. The Republican primary drew 17 candidates but a turnout rate of 8 percent. Budd, backed by conservative political group Club For Growth, won the primary with 6,340 votes. In the general election, against Democrat and former Guilford County Commissioner Bruce Davis, he won with 56.1 percent of the vote.

He took office in January vowing to fulfill his campaign pledges and focus on the economy, partially through rolling back regulations that, in his view, had stymied business growth. He had few expectations of what Washington would be like day to day, and to that end, his first year there hasnt failed to meet any self-imposed benchmarks.

I didnt set up a lot of expectations that I would either meet or not meet coming here, he said. I just knew we had a lot of work to do. So we built a team and moved forward.

It was a big win

Budd arrived in Washington last November for new-member orientation, one in a class of 52 freshman lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

Its everything from, Heres your parking pass. Heres your voting card and your ID card. Heres what the schedule looks like. Heres the ethics rules. Heres how you hire a team. Heres what your budget looks like. They go over all the basic logistics, Budd said. And then they say, Youll remember about 10 percent of this. 

The GOP assigns mentors to its freshman lawmakers to assist with the transition. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from Concord who has known Budd since the 1990s, asked to assume that role.

Its a mostly informal process that meant introducing Budd to the Republican conference and being available as needed, including during the process of legislative committee assignments.

Freshman lawmakers can request to be assigned to specific committees, but House Speaker Paul Ryan had warned that newcomers were unlikely to secure seats on A-level, or high-profile, committees. That included the House Financial Services Committee, Budds preferred assignment. His team, touting his background in business, decided to shoot for it anyway.

I was assuming we couldnt get it. Its an influential committee, Budd said. It influences the financial sector, which has been over-regulated and overburdened, and if we can begin to unlock that, it helps consumers and businesses and really helps jumpstart the economy.

Budd met with the committees chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), and made a case for himself. North Carolina is home to Charlotte, the nations third-largest banking hub, so finance is particularly important there, he argued.

He scored the seat a few days later.

It was a big win within the first few days of being here, he said.

Water under

the bridge

From January into December, Budd has missed two of 680 roll-call votes, or .3 percent, according to GovTrack.us, a nonpartisan congressional tracking website. Recent votes included a no on a hurricane relief bill due to concerns about federal spending and a yes vote on a House tax proposal that proponents say reduces the corporate tax rate, increases the child tax credit and simplifies the tax code.

In May, Budd championed a repeal of the Durbin Amendment, which imposes a cap on fees charged by banks for processing debit and credit-card transactions. The amendment is part of the Dodd-Frank law, designed to rein in Wall Street after the 2008 financial crisis.

Retailers, which pay the fees to banks, were strongly in favor of the cap, but Budd felt it was ineffective. The measure had forced banks to raise fees in other areas, he said, including low-cost checking accounts that are primarily used by lower-income customers.

Durbin is a price control, Budd said. Those types of policy, from the Soviet Union to the gas lines of the 1970s, inevitably hurt those they are most intended to help. What weve seen is banking getting more expensive for the consumer as a result of Durbin.

Banks applauded his stance, but the retail industry balked at the move. The National Retail Federation began running radio ads in his district encouraging constituents to call his office and urge him to oppose the measure.

In reply, Budd sent a letter to the National Republican Congressional Committee to express concerns about what he perceived as an attack.

I see these ads a direct threat to my re-election campaign and more broadly as an attack on our majority as a whole, he wrote. My hope is that the National Retail Federations efforts will not go unnoticed by you, or the rest of the Republican leadership, and that we can work together to push back attacks like these in the future.

The cap repeal ultimately failed to advance, and the matter dropped by the wayside. Budd, himself a small business owner, said there was no lasting damage to his relationship with the retail lobbying group.

With regard to the retailers, he said, its water under the bridge.

A messaging problem

Five months later, after the Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead and more than 500 injured, Budd, a gun-shop owner and a strong proponent of the 2nd Amendment, cautioned against rushing to pass gun-control legislation as an emotional response to the tragedy. But hes open to having a bipartisan discussion about the issues that lead to such incidents, including mental health.

We tend to say, Mental illness is a factor, and then we just move on, but we have really got to do something. Mental illness is becoming a huge problem, he said. It doesnt just relate to firearms, but it shows up in that world.

I dont know what the answer is, but I think this Congress  its something we have to address.

Thus far in his term, Budd has introduced two pieces of legislation, one encouraging public stock offerings by corporations as part of an overall repeal of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations, and the other combating illicit terrorist financing.

Both were co-sponsored by Democrats and have passed the House, and the latter was rolled into other legislation and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Despite those successes, Budd is acutely aware of the narrative that Republicans have failed to accomplish anything legislatively despite controlling Congress and the White House. The perception is frustrating, he noted, because most of the gridlock has occurred in the Senate, where more than 200 House-approved bills are waiting for a vote.

We perhaps have a messaging problem, because its really a vote-tally problem in the Senate, Budd said of the logjam. We dont have enough to get through the 60-vote rule there, so a lot of things are passing on reconciliation, which passes on 51 votes, and thats even been a challenge because not all of those who are Republicans stick together on every issue.

On the whole, Budds record thus far is reliably conservative, which analysts said is typical of a new lawmaker trying to establish a consistent pattern for his base constituents.

There isnt a lot to be garnered from his record other than hes pretty much following a conservative track in his early votes in the House, said Michael Bitzer, provost and professor of political science at Catawba College. While some freshman members seek to make a high profile in their first year, its more typical that the freshman member is seeking to reassure his or her constituents by doing what they said they would do on the campaign trail.

The honor of serving

Budd spends his weekdays in Washington, traversing the tunnels between his office, the gym and the Capitol, but barring congressional trips spends every weekend at home in the 13th district, visiting businesses, law enforcement agencies and local government offices.

He was one of few North Carolina lawmakers to face constituents at home during the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, holding a meet-and-greet at the Downtown Greensboro Marriott. Hundreds of frustrated constituents descended on a ballroom there, circling Budd in a scrum for three hours, asking sometimes-contentious questions.

Budd remained undaunted. His background, both in business and in seminary, helped prepare him for that exact situation, he said.

All those things kind of came together to give me a breadth of range that allows me to connect with almost anybody, he said. They may come in hostile, but I feel like, you know, This is probably what my mother-in-law believes.

And I love her. Ive got family that are educators that are probably in the teachers union. On a very human level, I feel like I can connect with people.

Budd has said he believes in term limits and pledged to support an amendment that, if passed, would limit members of Congress to three 2-year terms in the House and two 6-year terms in the Senate.

Although he has not formally announced, he says he will seek re-election next year.

Democrat Kathy Manning has announced she will run against Budd, and at least two other Democrats have indicated publicly they intend to announce their candidacies.

Budd says his decision to seek re-election was made after careful reflection.

I love the honor of serving, but I dont think its a job that one should truly fall in love with, he said. I think about it like a gallon of milk in the refrigerator. I dont want to be there a day past useful, when it sours.

Thats a gut check, asking myself and those around me, am I still being useful? You need to realize youre there to serve those who sent you there.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections received one incident report involving a party-appointed poll observer on Election Day, and seven more during one-stop early voting. Election officials were on high alert for unruly observers after the board received reports of more than a dozen conduct violations during the May primary. Overall, the board received reports of 21 conduct violations during the general election, involving both observers and campaigners. They included 12 instances of alleged voter intimidation, one instance of possible voter interference and eight instances of potential election official intimidation. Campaigners were the most common perpetrators. Board spokesperson Patrick Gannon said there may be additional incidents that have not yet been reported.
JavaScript is disabled on your browser.

CORDIS website requires JavaScript enabled in order to work properly. Please enable JavaScript.
News and notes from Thursdays meeting of Guilford Technical Community College board of trustees:

Jamestown North: The trustees approved plans to tear down two buildings and part of a third on the colleges Jamestown North campus.

The college will convert one of the remaining buildings and part of a second into training sites for police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

The Jamestown North campus is a 45-acre site on Guilford College Road adjacent to the colleges main campus in Jamestown. GTCC bought the unfinished condominium and townhouse complex in 2010 for $2.3 million.

The college spent nearly $850,000 to complete the projects clubhouse, which now houses the GTCC Foundation offices, and convert a second building on the property to classrooms and meeting space.

GTCC officials say that the college doesnt need more classrooms or offices on the site and that further renovations would be too costly.

New board member: Thursdays meeting was the first for new trustee Matthew Soule of Greensboro.

Soule is the president of Ennis-Flint, a local company that makes pavement markings for roads, highways, parking lots and airports. He previously worked in investment banking and private equity in New York, Chicago and Charlotte.

Soule was appointed to a four-year term by Gov. Roy Cooper. He replaces George Ragsdale of Jamestown, who wasnt reappointed.

Trustees had picked Ragsdale to be the boards vice chairman this year. After Ragsdale didnt get a second term, trustees named Lisa Stahlmann as the vice chairwoman. Stahlmann is a former member of the High Point City Council.

Building renamed: Trustees voted to rename the newest building on the colleges aviation campus for Ceasar Cone, a co-founder of Greensboros Cone Mills.

The naming follows a $932,500 grant in 2013 from the Cemala Foundation, a Greensboro charity started by the Cone family. GTCC used the money to expand its aviation program.

The renamed building is the former Aviation III, a training facility that GTCC opened in 2014 near Piedmont Triad International Airport.
If you have become numbed to President Donald Trumps constant attacks on the media, if you have lost interest in which networks he currently considers to be fake news, if you have grown tired of hearing him call journalists enemies of the people  well, thats unfortunate, because plenty of others are still paying attention.

Around the world, dictators and would-be authoritarians have picked up his attitude and his terminology. From Syria to Venezuela to Burma, authoritarians now dismiss legitimate criticism as fake news.

The Libyan government has denounced a CNN report on human trafficking as fake news: If the U.S. president disdains the network, why should anybody else listen to them?

The president of the Philippines invents stories about his political enemies from whole cloth, just like the president of the United States. And, with Trump at his side, Rodrigo Duterte recently dismissed a gaggle of reporters as spies.

Now the Polish government has been emboldened to take a step in the same direction. On Monday, the national media council slapped an extraordinary fine on TVN24, the largest and most important private television channel in the country. Declaring that the channel had been promoting illegal activities and encouraging behavior that threatens security, the council demanded $420,000.

In a very brief statement, the council related the charge to the channels coverage of anti-government demonstrations a year ago. No details were provided. But the message was perfectly clear: Private media should be very, very careful about broadcasting any opposition to the government.

If the message was clear, the nuances were interesting. For TVN24 is owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, an American company, which is in turn owned by the Discovery Communications. Its investment in the TVN group of channels is the largest U.S. investment in Poland, worth well over $1 billion. Rumors of government pressure on the company have been swirling for months, and this is the second time the company has been fined. In July, the government demanded an unexpected $30 million in curiously calculated back taxes.

The Polish government may be hoping that Discovery gets cold feet and sells the channel to one of the governments friends. It may also be counting on the U.S. government to stay out. After all, the American president doesnt like independent television reporters, either.

The Polish authorities may have also been sending a message. For the decision was taken on the very day that the ruling party swapped its dour, angry prime minister, Beata Szydlo, for a slicker, smoother replacement, Mateusz Morawiecki. If anyone needed it, the TVN24 fine was proof that the change is superficial. Morawiecki may speak English better than his predecessor, but pressure on the courts, on journalists, on the civil service and the army will continue.

It all makes for an odd conundrum for a U.S. government whose own messages to Europe in general, and to Poland in particular, have been far less clear. Does the Trump administration back the Polish government in its attack on a television station because it also hates fake news? Or does the Trump administration back an American company that is being threatened abroad?
The end of 2017 has seen a spate of resignations from Congress, as Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) all stepped down or promised to step down due to sexual harassment allegations. All three did so under pressure from their own party. It shows that in between elections, the parties can indeed police themselves and dont need to hide behind excuses of letting the voters decide.

Which brings me to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), whose recent prosecution on corruption charges ended in a mistrial. Democrats should not wait for a new jury or Ethics Committee investigation: The known facts are damning enough for them to demand Menendezs resignation.

In 2015, federal prosecutors indicted Menendez and his longtime friend and donor Salomon Melgen on corruption charges. According to the indictment, Menendez pressured executive branch officials to resolve disputes in Melgens favor. At the same time, Melgen and his family donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, and Melgen supplied all-expenses-paid vacations for Menendez to Melgens vacation home in the Dominican Republic. (In 2013, Menendez paid Melgen $58,000 to cover flight costs after media reports revealed some of the flights.)

Some of the alleged favors for Melgen were relatively small potatoes, such as securing visas for Melgens girlfriends. In one case, Menendezs then-chief of staff wrote that the visas were approved only due to the fact that R.M. intervened.

Other favors were far bigger. He asked the State Department to assist Melgen in a dispute over a $500 million contact with the Dominican government. The New Jersey senator also allegedly pressured the Department of Health and Human Services to resolve a $9 million billing dispute in Melgens favor. In testimony, then-HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described an unusual meeting with Menendez and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). I understood he wanted me to do something, she said. (It should be noted that Melgen has been convicted of 67 charges of Medicare fraud. Prosecutors estimate that the doctors scheme swindled the government out of as much as $105 million.) In no way is this conduct becoming of a senator.

Given this damning evidence, why did the prosecution of Menendez result in a deadlocked jury? It helped that he had a high-powered defense team and bipartisan character witnesses such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). But Menendez should really thank the Supreme Court, which for years has steadily limited corruption prosecutions on First Amendment grounds. Where trading money for access was once considered sufficient for corruption charges, now the justices have narrowed it to specific cases of quid pro quo.

This culminated in last years ruling in McDonnell v. United States: The justices vacated the convictions of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his wife on corruption charges on the grounds that, even though McDonnell set up meetings for and preferentially treated a businessman who gave the couple expensive gifts, his actions did not constitute official acts. Under this new standard, it has become very difficult, if not impossible, for prosecutors to prove corruption charges absent several smoking guns.

But the political sphere is not the legal sphere, and no party should be content with a standard of not illegal. Since the trial, the Senate Ethics Committee has resumed its inquiry into Menendez; many Democrats likely would prefer for that to run its course. But it is highly unlikely that new information for or against the senator will come out. With Capitol Hill Democrats rightly criticizing numerous instances of corruption in the Trump administration, its not much to ask that they stand up against similar cases in their own caucus.
Lynette Lyon sings in the Mendelssohn and Angel choirs in Greenwich and lives at Parsonage Cottage. After struggling with cancer, she can sing again and says that is all she ever wanted.

J: So Lynette Lyon is a name you have chosen, right?

L: Correct. And the reason why I chose that name, I was going through something and I wasnt myself. I started to meditate because I couldnt find who I was, and I was sitting one day and praying and then name linnet came to me. Linnet is a singing bird. And so then I said, Hmm, Lynette. The last name, Lyon, I love France and its a city in France but it also means lion. And a lion is strong. So then I said, Ah, strong singing bird.

J: Aww, I love that.

L: I lost my mom at 10. When she died, I went within; I built a wall around myself. And ... that wall stayed there and I never let people in. So when I adopted that name, I became very strong. It changed how I sang. I then started to trust myself a little more. And I felt, This is it. This is the strength that I needed. And I kept that name. I used it all the time. It is my stage name, but it wasnt until I got sick that my legal name was used a lot more. And that was fine, because I could now face that name, you know. This illness taught me a big lesson, because you know, I felt, Oh, Im not sick. Im fine. I can just do this, do that. And I found I can do that, but with limitations now. And thats alright.

J: What exactly happened? You said you didnt think that you were sick, but you were.

L: No, I didnt, because every time I was sick or I got a cold or something, it would leave right away. But with this ... I kind of felt something was going on. But I felt that if I dwelled on it, it would get worse. And so I was just waiting for this to pass, and ... it didnt pass. ... I did all my singing engagements  I was singing in the church choir at the time  I was coordinating weddings. I did everything ... I just never let anyone know that I wasnt feeling that great.

J: So what made you investigate?

L: Well I had a rehearsal with Mendelssohn Choir ... there was a bench (near the front door) and I had to sit and I was breathing heavily. And I thought, How am I going to get from here to the sanctuary? Then I walked and went up to my seat ... and the music started and I couldnt get my breath ... and I think I sang a little bit, but it didnt come out right. And the conductor said I should really go see a doctor because it sounded like there was something wrong with my heart.

J: Oh no.

L: I really wasnt going to go get it checked out, I had no insurance, but when I went to my physical therapy appointment for my (fractured) elbow, the therapist asked if I was OK. I said, Yes, of course. Why? And I left there and I wasnt fine. I could hardly breathe. But luckily my taxi was outside, and I said, Do you mind if we stop by the clinic? ... The doctor said, You have to go to the hospital immediately.

J: Wow.

L: When we got to the Emergency Room it was totally empty. And I call that divine intervention because usually the Emergency Room is really full. I went in, I went to the triage room and the doctor examined me. The doctor said, Thank God you came. ... After the results of the tests came up the doctor said, Im sorry but it would be dangerous if we sent you home.

J: What did they explain to you?

L: I was told I had a mass in the chest and I had embolisms. There was so much going on ... but I think they told me the mass was cancer. ... It was amazing because all of the prayers that I received, from so many, many people. The emails I received, the cards I received, the flowers were so many  Its been a journey of love  I never thought of death. I knew there was a possibility I could die. ... I was in the fourth stage. And I think thats why they said, Youre a wonder. And when I asked if I could sing, my doctor said, You want to sing? I said, Yes, thats my life. And thats what kept me going, that and the prayers of so many people. I cant thank people enough. I cant write enough letters to thank people, so I thank them when I sing because they have kept me alive. They have truly kept me alive  I dont just take it for granted.

J: And youre with the Mendelssohn Choir and the Angel Choir.

L: Ive been involved with the Angel Choir since when Pam (Kuhn) started it. I cant remember years anymore. A friend of hers died from cancer, so she started this choir, and its for people who have cancer or people who have had family members or friends. How did I know they would be a blessing to me. In fact, the Angel Choir came to the hospital and sang to me. And it was really something because they opened the doors for the other patients, and they just came and sang in my room and brought gifts. It was just incredible. It really helped me to get better and feel better. And my colleagues in the Mendelssohn Choir have been amazing as well. And I'm back singing with them  I think since last January. I had been through chemo ... and I was still going.

J: You said they were worried you wouldnt have the energy to keep going.

L: I know there are people who have it worse than I have, so its a blessing for me just to be here. And its due to other people, the support of my friends. And I wouldnt have the strength to do it without them. And the one thing I love about this season is the love we share.

J: For anyone who is struggling in a difficult time or who is ill, what advice do you have?

L: Have faith, have faith, you know, have faith. And strength, and really know that you're not alone even though you feel that way sometimes. Someone is out there praying for you or wishing you good luck. And love. I feel the more love you give, it comes back to you and it helps you in those times when you're ill. And to sing. Sing!

Lynette Lyon will be singing with the Angel Choir from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday at St. Andrews Church, 1231 Washington Blvd. in Stamford, Conn. A $20 donation is suggested.

Email Jennifer Turiano at jturiano@greenwichtime.com and follow her on Twitter: @jturianoGT and Instagram: @greenwichgreen.
NORWICH, Conn. (AP)  One quart cream. One quart milk. One dozen tablespoons sugar, one pint brandy, half a pint of rye whiskey, half a pint of Jamaica rum and a quarter pint of sherry.

The parlor at the historic Leffingwell House Museum was decorated Sunday as George Washington's Mount Vernon would have been outfitted for Christmas: simply, with small garnishes of mistletoe and holly.

But the eggnog served to museum visitors in plastic foam cups barely resembled the drink Washington would have sipped on in his own parlor.

Inspired by that boozy recipe, attributed to Washington who visited the inn on more than one occasion, museum volunteer Camilla Farlow included the drink in her menu at the annual colonial Christmas celebration. The 342-year-old house was built by Stephen Backus and later kept as an inn by the Leffingwell family.

The recipe fit with what Courtney Reardon described as a typical holiday season for an 18th-century high society household.

"Big parties with lots of booze," said Reardon, a museum volunteer and Leffingwell House historian from East Haddam who stood by a plate of fruitcake Sunday, serving it to the parlor's visitors. If they didn't want eggnog, they could try another recipe on display in the museum: rum punch, an equal mixture of fruit juice, light rum, dark rum and orange curacao liquor.

The drink in the plastic foam cups on a table in the museum's George Washington-themed parlor didn't have any alcohol in it  just store-bought non-alcoholic eggnog and rum extract.

In another room of the museum, cookies came with a suggestion for an equally lethal colonial concoction: flip, a drink made with sugar, eggs, rum, brandy and ale.

Modern day drinkers in the museum, operated by the nonprofit Society of the Founders of Norwich, got a mild, non-alcoholic cider instead.

Washington was tall, Reardon said, and was probably more accustomed to the heavy drinking of his time than the crowd in the museum would be if they tried his version of a holiday drink.

"He could hold his eggnog," she said. And Washington wasn't alone: "The Revolution was founded by a bunch of men who were, by our terms, drunk," she said.

The alcohol, Farlow said, was likely a coping mechanism for long winters with no heating.

"If you look at the ingredients, it's ... to gag for," she said. "But there wasn't much else to keep them warm."

___

Online: http://bit.ly/2Ap5RbW

___

Information from: The Day, http://www.theday.com




Haiti - Economy : Fruitful meeting between Moise and the European Investment Bank





Wednesday in Brussels (Belgium), as part of his European tour, President Jovenel Moise met with Pim van Ballekom, Vice President of the European Investment Bank (EIB).



During the exchanges that took place in a cordial atmosphere, Moise resented the financing needs of Haiti in priority areas such as: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in Agro-industry, the provision of electricity based on renewable sources (wind, solar, biomass, hydro) and the construction of bridges in various parts of the country.



In the priority sectors: cereals, especially rice, poultry and tuber processing Vice-President Ballekom has requested that the Haitian Government make a formal request to the EIB shortly.



Moreover, Ballekom has confirmed that the European Bank is ready to finance Haitian SMEs in the priority areas, up to 150 million Euros in the long term.



According to President Moise's wish, the two sides agreed on the principle of the direct execution mechanism by the Government of Haiti, through the State-run Independent Development Fund (IDF), which operates under the supervision of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH)



Recall that this meeting is a continuation of the exploratory visit to Haiti last May of Pim van Ballekom https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21025-haiti-europe-european-investment-bank-on-exploratory-visit-to-the-country.html who had already shown an openness to project financing https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21078-haiti-economy-the-eib-may-provide-loans-for-new-projects.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21078-haiti-economy-the-eib-may-provide-loans-for-new-projects.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21025-haiti-europe-european-investment-bank-on-exploratory-visit-to-the-country.html



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Tourism : JetBlue inaugurates its daily non-stop flight Orlando - Port-au-Prince





Wednesday, Colombe Emilie Jessy Menos, the Minister of Tourism, took part in the launch of the new daily flight of Jet Blue Airways Orlando (MCO Airport) to the Toussaint Louverture International Airport pf Port-au-Prince.



In front of guests and members of the local press in Orlando, the Minister said that this new flight for the diaspora is undoubtedly "a booster" for the development of the Haitian tourism sector "We reiterate to the compatriots of the diaspora of Orlando and the neighboring areas, the call to come back visit the country full of important tourist attractions such as our gastronomy, our sites and historical monuments." The inauguration of the flight at Orlando Airport was preceded by a cocktail in honor of the first passengers.



The Consul General of Haiti in Orlando, Pierre Max Charles welcomed this initiative of the airline "This approach is as much to strengthen and develop our ties with the United States in general and the city of Orlando in particular.



"Jetblue is inaugurating this Orlando-Port-au-Prince daily flight after 9 years of cherishing this project," said Franky Elias, General Manager of JetBlue Airways in Orlando.



"Haiti is a dynamic destination and we are very excited to connect the Haitian community from Orlando to Port-au-Prince," said JetBlue Airport Manager Joshua Goldwitz.



The arrival of the inaugural flight at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince was greeted by representatives of the National Airports Authority (NAA), the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others from the private tourism sector such as the Tourism Association of Haiti (ATH) and the American diplomatic mission in Haiti.



Note that JetBlue Airways carries more than 38 million customers a year in 101 cities in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, with an average of 1,000 daily flights. Orlando is the fourth largest city in JetBlue with direct flights to Port-au-Prince and this service will be available throughout the year.



Recall that the Haitian airline Sunrise Airways also provides this route non-stop 4 times a week since October 18 last https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22437-haiti-economy-sunrise-airways-begins-flights-to-orlando.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22016-haiti-economy-sunrise-airways-rates-for-direct-flights-miami-and-orlando.html



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20840-haiti-flash-jetblue-flights-between-port-au-prince-and-orlando-on-sale-now.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20654-haiti-economy-jetblue-will-also-offer-non-stop-flights-orlando-pap.html



HL/ TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Economy : The CBD proposes a $100M program for Haiti





The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is supporting the Government of Haiti in reducing poverty, building resilience, and achieving sustained economic growth for all. A new Country Strategy, approved by CDBs Board of Directors yesterday Thursday, proposes a programme of assistance of USD100 million for the period 2017 to 2021 to help Haiti meet its development priorities. This total includes USD45 million in grant resources.



"The Government of Haiti has set an ambitious development agenda to unlock the countrys growth potential and build a dynamic, resilient and competitive economy. This Country Strategy, jointly developed with the Government, is designed to deliver strong development impact, particularly in agriculture, education and training, and sustainable energy," said Dr. Justin Ram, Director of the Economic Affairs Department of the CBD



The five-year Strategy focuses on three main themes.





Agriculture and community development :

Investing in agricultural production, marketing infrastructure and services, and the development of agriculture and rural enterprises, while involving local communities.



Sustainable energy development :

In collaboration with partners, increasing the use of sustainable energy options through the installation of: pilot micro or mini community electricity grids supplied by wind and solar sources; community solar energy stations to provide lighting, water pumping and power; and solar-powered street lighting to improve security for citizens.



Education and training :

Improving the quality of, and access to, education and training through infrastructure, teacher and leadership training, and tuition waivers. Investing in the transformation of the public management system through a programme of institutional strengthening and, further, supporting skills training for entrepreneurs and employees of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).



Gender equality, regional cooperation and integration, and environmental sustainability considerations will be mainstreamed across all CDB interventions delivered under the programme of assistance.



CDB consulted with Government officials and stakeholders to ensure the design of the Country Strategy aligns with the strategic development priorities of Haiti, promotes coordination among development partners and donors, and identifies opportunities for collaboration among them.



The Country Strategy is aligned with CDBs strategic objectives of supporting inclusive and sustainable growth and development, and promoting good governance. The Strategy was crafted within a results management framework that will be the principal tool used to monitor implementation and the achievement of results.



Let's recall that the CDBs previous Country Strategy for Haiti was for the period 2013 to 2016. The resource envelope of USD42 million in grants supported the Education for All Phase II Project; the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Project II; interventions in agriculture and rural development; the payment of Haitis premiums for coverage under CCRIF SPC; environmental projects; and technical assistance for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) development.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Supreme Court: Anybody Can Now Sue Anybody for Dirtying the Environment

HNN December 14, 2017 (excerpt)

...The state Supreme Court has ruled that Hawaii residents can sue to defend their rights to a clean and healthful environment under the Hawaii Constitution.

By a 3-to-2 vote, the court found that the Sierra Club should have been allowed a contested case hearing when the Public Utilities Commission reauthorized use of the Puunene sugar mills power plant.

Members of the Sierra Club wanted to intervene because they complained that the Puunene plant was burning coal and petroleum along with sugar cane waste to generate power.

The court ruled that the state Constitution gives residents a property interest in a clean and healthful environment, which means projects or policy that threatens that right can be attacked in court.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald and Associate Justice Paula Nakayama dissented from the majority opinion, saying that establishing a property right for a clean environment could have unintended consequences and uncertainty. (Understatement of the year.)

They also said the Sierra Club had other avenues it could have pursued in the case against the Puunene Plant.

read  Court: Hawaii residents can sue to defend their right to 'clean, healthful' environment

PDF: Majority Opinion (53 pgs)

PDF: Dissenting Opinion (20 pgs)

You Were Warned: Enviros win 90% in Hawaii Supreme Court

* * * * *

Chaos is Coming: You can sue tooHere are some ideas:

1) Sue Sierra Club and all other anti-Superferry protesters for forcing Hawaii residents to use dirty CO2 belching airplanes instead of the clean green Superferry.

2) Sue the homeless for being dirty and sue the ACLU for preventing us from locking them up in insane asylums like we used to.

3) Sue anti-Vaxxers for spreading the mumps throughout Hawaii.

4) Sue anti-GMO protesters for forcing farmers to use more pesticides and for dirtying up Hawaii with their ignorant protests.

5) Sue recyclers for spewing CO2 into the atmosphere by transporting trash recyclables to China and California.

6) Sue biofuel producers for chopping down the rainforest and for driving up utility bills which increases poverty which is dirty.

7) Sue windfarms for murdering bats and birds and for driving up utility bills which increases poverty which is dirty.

8) Sue anti-dairy protesters for forcing you to buy milk imported from the Mainland thus spewing CO2 across the ocean.

9) Sue anti-fishing activists for attempting to force you to buy fish imported from the Mainland, thus spewing CO2 across the ocean.

10) Sue the HGEA for enabling so-called workers to play solitaire on their computers all day long, thus consuming electricity which is produced by filthy disgusting fossil fuels.

11) Sue the City and County of Honolulu for building rail instead of adding lanes, thus increasing traffic jams and spewing more CO2 into the air.

* * * * *

Hawaii High Court Affirms Citizens Right to Protect Environmental Interests Before State Public Utilities Commission

Declares Due Process Interest in Right to a Clean and Healthful Environment

News Release from Hawaii Sierra Club and EarthJustice, December 14, 2017

HONOLULU  Today, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment gives citizens the right to be heard and protect their environmental interests in cases before the state Public Utilities Commission. The appeal, brought by Earthjustice on behalf of the Sierra Club, challenged the Commissions denial of Sierra Clubs request to intervene in a case involving a proposed agreement by Maui Electric Company (MECO) to buy power from the former Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) plantations coal-fired power plant.

The ruling resolves long-running inconsistencies among Commission decisions on environmental groups requests to take part in Commission proceedings, which are increasing in frequency and complexity in light of Hawaiis statutory mandate to achieve an energy grid powered by 100% renewable energy by 2045.

It is vital that citizens have a seat at the table as Hawaii advances toward 100% clean energy, said Earthjustice attorney Kylie Wager Cruz. The Court provided much-needed confirmation that the Commission cant simply rubberstamp utility deals without considering and protecting the publics constitutionally protected environmental rights.

The Hawaii Supreme Court held that Sierra Club had a due process right to be heard to protect its environmental interests under Article XI, section 9 of the Hawaii Constitution, which declares that [e]ach person has the right to a clean and healthful environment. The Court further held that state law required the Commission to consider the hidden and long-term costs of energy produced at the [HC&S] Plant, including the potential for increased air pollution as a result of greenhouse gas emissions in determining whether the agreement was prudent and in the public interest.

The Commission can no longer ignore us. We will continue to oppose dirty fossil fuels and push for a just transition to clean, renewable energy in our state, said Sierra Club of Hawaii Director Marti Townsend.

The HC&S plant was burning up to 25% coal over the course of a year to meet its power production obligations to MECO. In 2014, the state Department of Health assessed a $1.3 million fine against HC&S for more than 400 clean air violations at the plant. HC&S closed in January 2017.

---30---

Coverage:

IM: Hawai`i Supreme Court Rules Against Public Utilities Commission re Sierra Club v. MECO & HC&S

CHN: Hawaii Residents Can Defend Their Environmental Rights in Court
Courts in the Community:

Hawaii Supreme Court Holds Oral Argument at Castle High School

News Release from Hawaii Judiciary, December 14, 2017

KANEOHE, Hawaii  The Hawaii Supreme Court held oral argument today at Castle High School with about 200 Oahu high school students in attendance.

Students from Castle, Farrington, McKinley, and Mililani high schools and Le Jardin Academy participated in the Judiciarys Courts in the Community outreach program. They prepared to watch the oral argument by working through a curriculum developed by the Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center and the Students for Public Outreach and Civic Education of the University of Hawaiis William S. Richardson School of Law. Attorneys from the Hawaii State Bar Association also volunteered their time to visit classrooms to assist in preparing students for the argument.

The case heard at Castle, CC vs. DD , is a parentage case involving a former same sex married couple. The issue is whether Appellant has a legal parent/child relationship with the child born to Appellee during the marriage.

The goal of Courts in the Community is to enhance students understanding of the Judiciary's role in government and its function in resolving disputes in a democratic society. The Hawaii Supreme Court convenes in schools to hear oral argument in actual cases pending before the court. Since the programs inception in 2012, 56 schools and about 3,900 students have participated. This is the 11th oral argument under this program.

Our Courts in the Community program enables students to discover how our judicial system operates in practice, said Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald. Through this experience, we hope that the students realize the judicial process is designed to get to the truth by carefully considering both sides of the case. That understanding of the rule of law is vital to the future of our democracy.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the teachers, the Hawaii State Bar Association, the Hawaii State Bar Foundation, and the volunteer attorneys who helped make this happen. These invaluable partnerships are what make the program a success, added Chief Justice Recktenwald.

The Hawaii State Bar Association and the Hawaii State Bar Foundation generously provided the students with lunches and transportation to and from their schools.

The Hawaii State Bar Association would like to thank and congratulate the many dedicated teachers, volunteer attorneys, school and court administrators, and especially the students, who together made the Hawaii Courts in the Community Supreme Court session at Castle High School such an overwhelming success, said Howard Luke, president-elect of the Hawaii State Bar Association. The attorneys arguing each side of the many unique, challenging issues presented in this case set the stage for a very spirited question-and-answer session following the Court proceedings.

It was especially encouraging to see how well prepared and thoroughly engaged the students were, as demonstrated by their very thoughtful, relevant questions to the justices. We are grateful for this wonderful opportunity made possible by our Hawaii Supreme Court, added Luke.

Oral argument was followed by two separate question-and-answer sessions for the students  one with the attorneys and another with justices.

# # #
workplace relations specialists Employsure won Best Reward and Recognition (R&R) Program at the 2017 Australian HR Awards.Two of Employsures core platforms for recognition are their Instagram page and their internal Workplace page.Employsures Head of Talent, Michael Morris, told HRD that the company created the Instagram page to give candidates an insight into what life is like at Employsure.It is created and curated in a way which we showcase a lot of our professional endeavours, he said.We try to show candidates that there is a lot of opportunity and growth here, but we have a lot of fun as well.Morris added that the platform Workplace (Facebook for work) has been amazing in terms of staff engagement, communication and recognition.We see from our data and the analytics behind it that about 95% of our team check Workplace nearly every day, said Morris.Morris added that the Ambassadors Club is a club for individuals who have been with the company for two years and have met the required performance expectations to receive a range of benefits, (including additional leave, financial benefits, extended parental leave and further personal development).Every quarter, Employsure has about 20-25 ambassadors enter the club and that milestone is announced through Workplace.We celebrate their entry into the Ambassadors Club with a custom bobble head and we actually put a picture of their bobble head on Workplace, said Morris.Morris said that both Instagram and Workplace have been fantastic tools to unite their team.We have about 550 people in the company and more than 200 are based in the field and so what Instagram and Workplace really allow us to do is connect with those field-based team, he said.Our office-based team are generally younger and then our field-based team who are generally a bit more experienced.As a result of that demographic, we were looking at ways which we can get our brand out because we are a fast-growing company and we are also a very young company.Morris believes that for candidates who are attracted to Employsure the first thing they are going to do is Google the name and have a look at that careers page.Part of the strategy we take from a candidate attraction perspective is making sure that all of our social channels are consistent in the message that is being delivered, said Morris.Another innovative part of Employsures R&R program involves its Check-In which occurs every 90 days.This where the entire company takes the opportunity to reflect on accomplishments, challenges, and obstacles from the last quarter in relation to capability and values.This process is identical for every single person in the company, as a transparent and fair method to promote people while also recognising and rewarding outstanding contributions.
YLE asked the candidates how they would respond to such a request in a presidential debate organised in Helsinki on Thursday.

Most of the eight candidates in the presidential race would be reluctant to provide military assistance in circumstances where an armed conflict compelled Estonia to invoke Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Matti Vanhanen (Centre) said his immediate response would be weigh up the request with both the Ministerial Committee on Foreign and Security Policy and the European Union. Wed have to respond [to the request], but then wed also have to consider what each of us could do to help, he told.

He added later that it would be ill-advised to provide a mathematical model of how we respond to different circumstances and stressed that the appropriate response should always be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Laura Huhtasaari (PS) expressed her doubts about the mutual assistance clause of the EU and underscored that Finland must under no circumstances tolerate military activity in its sovereign territory.

Our priority would be to protect the northern front of Estonia, she added.

Nils Torvalds (SFP) estimated that a request for military assistance would effectively be irrelevant as Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty requires a unanimous decision by the Council of Europe.

And Im quite sure that [the unanimity] wouldnt be reached, he added.

His interpretation raised eyebrows among some of his fellow candidates. President Sauli Niinisto, for example, argued that if that were the case Finland would have violated the article in question by providing assistance to France in the aftermath of terrorist atrocities in Paris in November, 2015.

It wasnt discussed at the Council of Europe, reminded Niinisto.

The Lisbon Treaty, he estimated, remains ambiguous in regards to whether or not it obliges member states to provide military assistance upon request from another member state. Niinisto added that he would discuss the hypothetical request also with the chairpersons of relevant parliamentary committees.

First wed have to secure our own borders, and thats something we must hold on to, he said, reminding that no conflict between Nato and Russia would likely be limited to the Baltics.

Paavo Vayrynen (IND) was more absolute in his interpretations of the obligations laid out in the Lisbon Treaty.

Lisbon doesnt oblige us to provide military assistance, nor should we provide it, he said, warning that such an interpretation would transform the EU into a military union and a European pillar of Nato.

Tuula Haatainen (SDP) agreed with the incumbent in that such a conflict could not be contained in the Baltics.

Wed be talking about World War III, she said. Lisbon wasnt built for military situations but for various crises. We provided bilateral assistance to France in what was a crisis management operation.

Finland, she added, would decide independently  after a series of internal and external discussions  what kind of assistance it would provide in response to the hypothetical request described by YLE.

Frances interpretation of the mutual assistance article is also in the best interests of Finland, viewed Pekka Haavisto (Greens). Countries provide assistance to each other in crisis-like situations, he clarified.

He also pointed out that Nato would likely be the primary provider of assistance to Estonia and the rest of the Baltics. Finland, on the other hand, could provide assistance in dealing with refugees, for example.

Under no circumstances can we not assist Estonia, stated Haavisto. We can't replace Nato.

Merja Kyllonen (Left Alliance), a staunch opponent of Nato and common EU defence, reminded that various oil spills remain the greatest security threat in the Baltic Sea.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Markku Ulander  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The Smyth County Sheriffs Office arrested Austin Taylor Shepherd, 18, on Thursday on a charge of communicating a bomb threat. They day earlier, police learned a threat was written on a mens bathroom wall at the high school. Officials placed the school on lockdown, moved the students to a safe location and searched the building. Nothing suspicious was located, Sheriff Chip Shuler said.
Harrisburg International Airport closed its runway for two hours Friday afternoon after a military plane blew two tires while landing.

The C-130 plane touched down at the airport shortly after 1 p.m. The airport tweeted that the runway has been closed while the plane is removed.

An airport spokesman told ABC27 the C-130 plane blew both right tires when it touched down shortly after 1 p.m. Friday. The tires were repaired, the aircraft was moved, and the runway reopened shortly after 3 p.m.

A spokeswoman for the 193rd Special Operations Wing, the Pennsylvania Air National Guard unit based at the airport, told ABC27 the landing was a routine one before the blowouts. She said it was not a hard or emergency landing.

Travelers were urged to check with their airline for flight status information.
While Bristol officials initially expressed surprise last month when the Mountain Music Mu-seum said it was packing up and moving to Kingsport, it now turns out that Bristol Tennessee might have been able to prevent that move.

Museum officials said last week that they decided to move because the city refused their re-quest for a $20,000 contribution to help keep the financially strapped facility open downtown

That suggests that the city could have played a role  perhaps a public-private partnership that could have provided both financial help and guidance that might have led to keeping the museum here.

While its probably not a good idea for the city to get into the habit of bailing out failing businesses  even nonprofits  there might have been a good argument for some immediate as-sistance to prevent losing this downtown asset.

After originally setting up at the Bristol Mall in 1998, the museum moved downtown in 2013 after business slowed at the mall. Since then, the museum has become a popular downtown attraction.

The departure is a sad and embarrassing loss for Bristol, and a big win for Kingsport. And its a shame that our local officials couldnt have found a way to help the museum and its parent, the Appalachian Cultural Music Association, to stay in Bristol.

Co-founder Tim White told the Herald Courier last week that the museum didnt have the money to stay open in Bristol, and they werent going to help us. So it was simple: If you say no, were not going to grovel  were going to move on.

It also turns out that the funding request was made directly to Bristol Tennessee City Man-ager Bill Sorah, who apparently never passed it on to Mayor Jack Young or anyone on the City Council.

Young told the Herald Courier that its common for the city manager to refuse formal fund-ing requests from nonprofits without the councils knowledge. But keeping such a request from the council does not show much in the way of concern about helping retain businesses that con-tribute to our downtown area,

Whether or not passing the request along to the mayor and council might have helped the museum secure the money will never be known. But keeping them in the dark certainly ensured that the city wouldnt come up with any financial aid or helpful advice.

Theres also no assurance that getting the donation would have solved the museums prob-lems and kept it here. Association board member Charlotte Mullins said that even with the $20,000, we would still be there struggling.

Bristols loss is Kingsports gain, but we have to wonder why Bristol officials didnt at least have a conversation about ways it might have been able to help.

There surely could have been some way to come up with the $20,000 the museum needed, perhaps through the hotel and motel tax, which is intended to help boost tourism in the area.

Now, the museum is set to open in Kingsport Jan. 27, where Mullins said it has received a lot of community and city support.
The Republican hoping to be the next speaker of Virginias House of Delegates announced Thursday that he supports changing state policy to give state employees 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, said he wants to start by offering 12 weeks of leave to full-time, benefited House employees within one year of the birth or adoption of a child.

As a society, we have to do more to strengthen families and encourage women to remain in the workplace, Cox, whom House Republicans named as speaker-designee earlier this year, said in a prepared statement.

The policy described by Cox would rank Virginia as one of the most generous states in the country when it comes to giving new mothers and fathers cost-free time off. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act only requires large employers to offer 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave.

Currently, state employees looking to take time off can use accrued personal leave, sick leave or short-term disability, a policy Cox called inadequate.

No mother or father should have to use accrued benefits, which they may need at another point, to care for their child and live out the joys of parenthood, Cox said.

Though Cox was expecting to head into 2018 with a solid Republican majority, his side lost at least 15 seats to Democrats in November. That left the GOP with a slim, 51-49 majority pending this months recounts.

Coxs gesture comes roughly a month out from a speakership election in a narrowly divided House, which could have an even 50-50 split if Democrats pick up an additional seat in the recounts. Cox said he would direct House staff to develop the policy immediately after being sworn in as Speaker.

If Cox becomes speaker, he could enact a policy immediately for House employees, but extending the benefit to all state workers would require legislative action. Enacting the wider policy would cost an estimated $500,000 per year, according to Coxs office.

Coxs office said he opposes requiring private employers to offer the same benefit.

Left-leaning advocacy group Progress Virginia applauded Coxs move and said it should go further to offer similar time off for employees dealing with catastrophic illness or sick family members.

While Coxs commitment to employees of the House of Delegates is laudable, it fails to support the hundreds of thousands of Virginia families who struggle to balance family and work in these instances, said Anna Scholl, the groups executive director.
Dont expect to find any casinos in South Middleton Township anytime soon.

On Thursday night, township supervisors unanimously approved a resolution informing the state gaming control board that the township wants to prohibit the establishment of a Category 4 casino, commonly referred to as a minicasino, in the municipality.

Its my understanding from our previous conversation (last month) that you want to opt out of this, township manager Cory Adams told to the board before the vote.

Based on your recommendation and our judgment, this casino doesnt fit the character of our township, supervisor Tom Faley said.

The board beat a Dec. 31 deadline given to Pennsylvania municipalities to decide whether to opt out of allowing casinos in their areas. On Oct. 30, Gov. Tom Wolf signed Act 42, which gave officials until the end of the year to take action on the matter.

Municipalities that opt out of allowing a minicasino have the option of changing their position later. Under Act 42, the auction for up to 10 licenses for such casinos will start no later than Jan. 15, and finish by July 31. The casinos would have a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 750 slot machines, and could include up to 40 table games.

A Dec. 11 posting by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board on Dec. 11 posted these Cumberland County municipalities as opting out of allowing Category 4 minicasinos: Cooke Township, Dickinson Township, Hampden Township, Mechanicsburg, Newburg, Newville, North Newton Township and Penn Township. The Mount Holly Springs council voted to opt out of allowing a minicasino this week. Carlisle Borough Council also voted Thursday night to opt out of allowing a minicasino.

Were surrounded by our neighbors who dont want it, Faley said.

Budget approved

Also on Thursday, South Middleton Township unanimously finalized a 2018 municipal budget that initiates a road tax levied on properties in the township. The 0.35-mil tax will be dedicated exclusively for township road maintenance and repairs.

South Middleton has no general real estate tax, but residents pay a 0.25-mill fire tax. Officials said a property owner assessed at the townships average of $209,800 will pay an additional $70 in real estate taxes next year with the new fire tax.

The townships 2018 budget includes total proposed expenditures of $7,036,870, with road spending proposed to increase by 35 percent next year. Officials said the road tax is necessary because the township plans to spend around $1 million in road upgrades and improvements, including $400,000 to replace bridges on Petersburg Road and on Zion Road.

Also next year, Walnut Bottom Road is scheduled for widening in areas, along with resurfacing and tar and chip applications. Officials also plan to install sidewall or replace sidewalks, crosswalks and other traffic-calming measures in the village of Boiling Springs.

Municipal engineer Brian ONeill said its likely that even more road work lies ahead in the township because some bridges are nearly a century old and coming to the end of their lives.

Resident Doug Gale told the board that he was initially angry when officials first proposed the road tax last month but grasped a better understanding about the matter after a phone conversation with board president Bryan Gembusia. Still, Gale cautioned township supervisors to keep in mind that we have a lot of seniors in town, and a lot of middle and lower-class. Taxes are eating them alive.  The 7-percent increase in school taxes hit pretty hard last year and now we have this.

This is our last resort, to raise taxes, Gembusia said. I would rather be voted out of office because I raised taxes rather than if I didnt raise taxes to fix the bridge and someone died.
Carlisle Borough Council joined a number of Cumberland County municipalities Thursday in passing a resolution to opt out of allowing a casino to be built in the borough.

Dawn Flower-Webb, Perry Heath, Tim Scott and Sean Shultz voted in favor of the resolution with Sean Crampsie and Robin Guido voting against.

Carlisle joins Cooke Township, Dickinson Township, Hampden Township, Mechanicsburg, Newburg, Newville, North Newton Township and Penn Township, which had all reported their decisions to opt out to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

The list on the boards website is updated each Monday.

The Mount Holly Springs council voted against allowing a minicasino on Monday night and South Middleton Township voted against it Thursday night.

Donald Kaufman of Carlisle urged the council to pass the resolution, saying there was already ample opportunity for gambling in the borough and that it is not a good idea as a public policy issue.

I think that gambling, a minicasino in our small borough would be adverse and deleterious to its character, Kaufman said.

Revenue

Citing potential revenue streams, Guido asked her fellow council members to keep their options open. It may be possible to place a casino in an area where it could fit in without disturbing the downtown or the traffic flow, she said.

Obviously, the money that would come in would vary on the size and success of the casino that might possibly come, she said.

Crampsie echoed Guidos comments, saying the legislation is a tool for local government to gain revenue.

I dont know if its beneficial to us to close a door before its even open, Crampsie said.

Those revenues could be offset by additional costs for police officers or services that are required by a casino, Shultz said.

He also cited a grave concern that the borough may not have control over where a potential casino would be located. There is case law that suggests decisions by the Gaming Control Board may preempt any zoning decisions by the borough, which is a troubling thought because of the significant impact a facility could have in an area.

Opt in later

Heath said he would rather be able to plan effectively and understand the consequences by giving the issue more investigation.

We are losing no opportunity by opting out right now. We are reserved the right to opt in at any future time, but we can not opt out at any future time, he said.

Signed by Gov. Tom Wolf on Oct. 30, Act 42 gives officials until the end of the year to pass a resolution informing the gaming control board that the municipality wishes to prohibit the siting of a Category 4, or minicasino, in its municipality.

These casinos would have a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 750 slot machines, and could include up to 40 table games.
Local residents held a vigil at the Carlisle Quaker Meeting House Thursday night for the fifth anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, both to remember the victims and continue the conversation on reducing gun violence.

Roughly two dozen people attended the ceremony, organized by Carlisles Quaker community and representatives from the Pennsylvania chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

There are a variety of different perspectives and we need to find a way to come together, said Quaker meeting member Fred Baldwin.

Baldwin pointed specifically to the verse from the Book of Isiah  let us reason together  and the Quaker tradition of peaceful discourse as an invitation to work together at a time when the public discourse consists of slogans and angry words.

The Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, saw perpetrator Adam Lanza kill 28 people  20 students and six faculty members, along with Lanzas mother and ultimately Lanza himself.

Since then, an estimated 150,000 people in the U.S. have died from gun incidents. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the gun death rate in the US went up in 2016, to 12 deaths for every 100,000 people.

Anti-gun violence

The Sandy Hook tragedy couldve happened at my childrens school, said Carol Thornton, head of the Harrisburg-area chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

With each subsequent tragedy we see  it seems to get closer to home, Thornton said. I dont want my children to grow up fearing going to school or to the movies.

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America describes itself as anti-gun violence, not anti-gun, Thornton said, and seeks middle-of-the road gun legislation that respects the rights of responsible gun owners.

In Pennsylvania, the group is involved with Senate Bill 501, which would require those convicted of violent crimes or domestic abuse, or otherwise subject to a restraining order, to surrender their firearms to law enforcement for the court-specified time period.

Current law allows offenders to entrust their firearms to a private third party, including family members, a policy that advocates and some legislators believe is a significant loophole, given that law enforcement has no way of ensuring that offenders are not being given access to guns by friends and family.

The legislation has local relevance. As previously reported in an investigation by The Sentinels Joshua Vaughn, accused I-81 killer John Wayne Strawser was able to skirt his own prohibition on owning guns, due to a prior felony conviction, by giving firearms to family members and conducting private sales in different states.

Donald Kovacs, a Quaker meeting member and retired family doctor, also encouraged attendees Thursday to press their local leaders to treat gun violence as a public health issue.

Kovacs likened gun deaths today to the heightened rates of automobile deaths, drownings and accidental fires that the United States experienced several decades ago but which have been reduced dramatically in the years since.

That was all done without banning automobiles, swimming pools or matches, Kovacs said.

Other methods

Rather, insurance and inspection requirements were heightened, and safety features required on new designs. Traffic fatalities per mile are now a 10th of what they were immediately after WWII, for instance.

Today, we accept all of these as givens because they make us all safer while still allowing us to drive, Kovacs said.

The same could be done with firearms, Kovacs said, if not for a reluctance to study the possibilities in a scientific manner, something that goes against the American tradition of ingenuity and the Quaker ethos.

A 1996 Congressional appropriations rule, known as the Dickey Amendment, limits funding to health studies on gun-related deaths. A since-repealed Florida law once barred doctors from asking patients about gun safety, just one instance, Kovacs said, of political concerns about gun control preventing physicians from taking common-sense steps.

We are hanging a cloud over our heads that we cannot even discuss this, Kovacs said. This needs to be treated not as a political issue, but as a public health issue with tried and tested public health methods.
Larry and I have many "pets" in our home. A butterfly rests outside our front door, and two larger ones fly on our lanai wall. A two-foot bear clutching his "Bear Feet Only" sign greets visitors on the front porch. Pedro the Parrot hangs on a curtain rod. And various bulldogs-stuffed, ceramic, and metal, are stationed around the house in honor of the nickname my boss gave me when I moved from the classroom to an administrative office.

However, I would have to say my favorite animals in our menagerie are three turtles and a pelican. These metal copper sculptures are the creative work of a talented Albuquerque, New Mexico, artist who made last year's Chanukah very special.

In July 2015, Larry and I were spending the summer in Frisco, Colorado, with our daughter Julie, her husband Sam, and their newborn daughter, Sylvie Rose. We had arrived in the Rocky Mountains less than a month after we had moved into our new home in Florida. We had brought several pieces of art for our walls, but many other spaces were empty by choice. We knew that much of the art work that was on the walls from our Upstate New York home-reflective of the Adirondack Mountains fall scenes, Early American accents-would not work in Florida.

One area that was tricky for us to decorate was a shadow box effect in the living room. We needed to find something to fill a recessed space in a hallway that would reflect our now Southern address. In August, we were at an art show in downtown Frisco when we noticed some colorful, unique pieces in copper. Many of the objects were reflective of the Southwest: lizards, snakes, kokopellli. We introduced ourselves to Greg Gowen, the artist manning the outdoor booth.

Greg, a native of Texas, was born in 1968 and began welding at age eight under the guidance of his father and mother, Mike and Martha Gowen, both well known artists and gallery owners.

"My daddy showed me how to sculpt," he wrote on his webpage, "and my mother taught me to make it beautiful." At the age of 18 Greg turned to the art world for his career. He began participating in art shows around the Southwest. Galleries quickly became aware of his talent and began exhibiting and selling his work. Today, Greg's sculptures are displayed in private collections, galleries, and museums throughout the United States and abroad. We were lucky to happen upon his beautiful copper sculptures. We were especially attracted to his turtle design.

After we emailed the dimensions of the shadowbox when we returned home, Greg suggested we purchase three turtles, a "mother" and two "babies," to fill the space.

The family of turtles arrived as ordered within the next few weeks. The colors, the size, the way they fit into the space were perfect. We named them Mother Turtle Tessie and her two children Tommy and Tillie, and posted a picture on Facebook announcing their arrival. The three turtles were a conversation piece when we showed people our new home.

It was time to fill more walls. We found a photo of a beach scene mounted on wood that fit over our couch. We added a palm tree clock to the laundry room and a fish clock onto the lanai. In Key West, we found two signs for our guest bedroom: One read, "Honestly now. What's Your Hurry? You're here!" The second was a colorful road sign showing the mileage to Boston, New York City, and San Francisco.

What was missing was a piece for our guest bathroom. I was the butterfly lover and bulldog-moniker nickname bearer of the family, but Larry loved pelicans. I knew from his website that Greg had not done pelicans before. In May 2016, I contacted Greg via email to see if he could work his magic in creating a version of Larry's favorite bird to hang over the toilet. Greg responded a couple of days later with his answer. Yes, he would love to create the figure. As I had already missed the deadline for Larry's May birthday, he promised to have completed by Chanukah.

Greg and I were in touch over the summer. In late October, however, I realized I hadn't heard from him, nor had any pelicans flown our way via UPS. When he failed to respond to an email, I sent him one more. If he couldn't get it to us in time for Chanukah, I understood. I'd give it to Larry for his May birthday.

On Dec. 24, Greg emailed me his apologies. He wanted to surprise Larry and me with the pelican in time for Christmas but mailed it to the wrong address. He felt terrible as it won't be under our Christmas tree.

I wrote him back immediately with the good news that we were Jewish. Dec. 24 was not only Christmas Eve, but also the first night of Chanukah. Getting it on the third or fourth day of our holiday would be fine.

True to his word, the pelican arrived on the following Tuesday. "Peter the Pelican fits perfectly in our bathroom," I wrote. "Larry and I are very happy with the newest member of our menagerie. How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," Greg wrote back. "I was late in getting it to you. It is my gift for the aggravation I caused."

Larry and I were grateful for Greg's generous offer, but we couldn't accept. I wrote him a note thanking him but telling him we were very aware of the time he had taken to design and craft our pelican and ship Peter to his new home. I enclosed a check for $180. "The number 18 has special significance in Judaism," I told Greg. "It signifies life. Use the money to do something special for you or your grandchildren."

Peter the Pelican who graces the Shapiro's bathroom.

A couple of months later, Greg emailed me to tell me that he had used our money to treat himself, his wife Debbie, and Martha and Del Pettigrew, two fellow artists, to dinner at a lovely restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. The four of them raised their wine glasses in a toast to the Shapiro's. "I love creating metal works for patrons like you!" wrote Greg in his thank you. "May God richly bless you."

I was happy to learn that our gift to him had created wonderful memories with his friends-memories that were more poignant when Del passed away a few months later. That special dinner was the last time they saw their dear friend.

"What a profound effect your generosity has had," Greg wrote recently. "I will never forget!"

Greg continues to sculpt, drawing inspiration from all over. He carries around a sketchpad in case something sparks an idea. "My favorite part of my art is when I see a customer connect with a piece," he wrote on another art gallery website. And through his turtles, his pelican, and mutual generosity, we have connected with Greg.
NEW YORK (JTA)-When Chris Doeblin agreed to buy 100 copies of a children's book to help an author friend, he didn't expect to become enmeshed in a controversy over international relations and free speech.

But that's what happened after Doeblin, the co-owner of Book Culture, a chain of independent bookstores in New York City, purchased and held a reading of "P is for Palestine," which came out last month. Written by Golbarg Bashi, an Iranian-born author who has held Persian-language readings of children's books at Book Culture for three years, it is subtitled "A Palestine ABC Book." The bookstore chain also donated $650 to a crowdfunding campaign for "P is for Palestine."

But that angered another partner of Book Culture's: the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue. This week, Book Culture is set to provide books and toys for a book fair at the large Reform congregation in Manhattan. But after discovering the bookstore's work with Bashi, the synagogue threatened to pull out, charging that the book- especially a page on "intifada"-"glorifies" violence against Israelis.

In the end, the synagogue withdrew the threat, but not before putting an independent bookstore chain in the unusual position of having to make a string of statements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- including supporting Israel's right to exist and opposing the boycott movement against it.

"So many people were incensed and took offense and were hurt by this book's publication," Doeblin told JTA. "I can honestly say I'm sorry. As we try and reach out to people, we have to do it with enough respect so that we don't hurt and cause these violent reactions."

This is just the latest ripple effect of controversy that has surrounded "P is for Palestine" since it was published on Nov. 11. The picture book dedicates pages to each letter of the alphabet, along with a corresponding word-"A is for Arabic," for example.

The main reason for the conflict wasn't the book's title or concept-rather it was the two-page spread featuring the letter I, which states "I is for Intifada, Intifada is Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or a grownup!" The accompanying illustration shows a father and child waving peace signs next to barbed wire.

The synagogue, along with plenty of other critics, charged that the book obscured the violent nature of the two Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, which occurred over a span of years in the late 1980s and again in the early 2000s. More than 1,000 Israelis died in attacks perpetrated by Palestinian terror groups that targeted civilians. Thousands of Palestinians died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

"Of particular concern to me is the glorification of the Palestinian intifada-a cruel, murderous and terroristic campaign that purposely targeted innocent Israelis, including children, in restaurants, buses, hospitals, schools and shopping malls," Ammiel Hirsch, the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue's senior rabbi, said in a statement. "The intifada was not a 'rising up for what is right.' It was a mass descent into immorality."

Bashi, however, says "intifada" encompasses a broader and largely nonviolent Palestinian cultural resistance.

"P is for Palestine" has sold out its initial print run of 2,000 copies. And the controversies have continued: Last month, a 28,000-member Facebook group for mothers on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was wracked by vitriolic debate over the book.

The dust-up between the synagogue and Book Culture began on Nov. 21, when Hirsch put out a statement demanding Book Culture "publicly rescind their support of 'P Is for Palestine,' a book by Golbarg Bashi that glorifies the Palestinian intifada-or Stephen Wise will cancel its upcoming book fair featuring Book Culture."

Since then, the synagogue and bookstore have come to an agreement: Book Culture's owners have publicly repudiated Bashi's views but will keep selling her book. Hirsch told JTA that the synagogue is happy to partner with Book Culture as long as the bookstore chain makes clear that it does not oppose Israel. The book fair will proceed as planned.

The sides collectively issued a statement Wednesday in which the Book Culture's owners regretted that they "did not fully appreciate the political or communal ramifications of the children's book." They also stated their support for Israel's right to exist and their opposition to terrorism and to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, against Israel.

The synagogue did not demand that the store pull the book from its shelves.

"We are fierce believers in the right of free expression," a statement signed by the synagogue clergy said. "Bookstores have a critical role to play in free societies, and in particular, in our increasingly polarized country. If Book Culture wants to carry and promote Dr. Bashi's book, it is for them to decide."

"This is also not about Palestinian national culture or rights. We support a two-state solution," the statement continued. "We believe that it is important for American Jews to hear the views of Palestinians."

Hirsch, the former executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, told JTA: "We do not want to host people who have anti-Israel, anti-Zionist views. I don't know what the current or future relationship of the store is to the book. We didn't want to get into the business of telling the bookstore what books to carry."

Bashi, however, who lives in New York, feels the synagogue inappropriately pressured the bookstore to take a position, and that the incident could have a chilling effect on other bookstores, which could become scared to carry the book. She called the synagogue's opposition to the book, and its initial criticism of Book Culture, "mob-like behavior."

"By doing so, you're basically saying don't you dare hold a reading, don't you dare stock this book," she said. "I'm an Upper West Side mother myself, and I find it dismaying that a religious institution can force businesses in that manner."

For her part, Bashi rejects the idea that the word "intifada" refers primarily to terror attacks. She told JTA that she sees intifada as referring to a broader cultural and nonviolent Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation. Western media, she said, tend to emphasize Palestinian violence while not covering peaceful protest

"Of course, absolutely, violence is wrong," the author told JTA, emphasizing her opposition to terrorism. "I think that when you're talking about an occupied people and you have an alphabetical book about that people, intifada is part of Palestinian life, to resist occupation. That resistance is overwhelmingly peaceful."
(The Nosher via JTA)-The Japanese word okonomiyaki is derived from two words: okonomi "how you like it" and yaki "grill." Okonomiyaki is a customizable Japanese savory vegetable pancake. Like a latke, it gets cooked in oil in a fritter formation. Unlike a latke, it's usually made into a large plate-sized pancake comprising mainly cabbage.

Food historians have linked the rise in popularity of okonomiyaki in Japan to World War II, when rice was more scarce and this recipe offered a filling meal or snack with a wheat-based starch. Throughout Japan there are regional differences and countless variations of okonomiyaki, but the most common form of the dish involves a batter made of flour, a variety of mountain yam, eggs, shredded cabbage, green onion, dashi and often the addition of pork belly. It gets topped with its own tangy sweet sauce, Japanese mayonnaise and bonito flakes (katsuobushi).

I first fell in love with okonomiyaki on a trip to Japan. You can find it there in restaurants that specialize in the dish, but it's also something that is prepared in home kitchens. The cabbage gets slightly crisp, tender and sweet when seared in oil on a flattop or skillet, and then it gets generously slathered with an umami-rich sauce, along with a welcome drizzle of creamy mayo. The richness, sweetness and tanginess of these components all work perfectly together.

A few months after I returned from Japan, I ended up eating at Brooklyn's Japanese Jewish restaurant, Shalom Japan. I didn't hesitate to order its Jewish-influenced spin on okonomiyaki. Shalom Japan is known to top the dish with pastrami, or even corned lamb tongue and sauerkraut. It became clear there that okonomiyaki, with its base of humble cabbage and onion, is a perfect fit on a Jewish table. The fried pancake part of it all called out Chanukah.

I am a fan of all pancakes and fritters, and I set out to modify the classic Japanese version for a recipe that didn't require access to a specialty food store and could be made with kosher ingredients.

Full disclosure: My version lacks authenticity. If you're going for the real deal, you'll need a batter made with an okonomiyaki flour mix or nagaimo yam. This special kind of yam is added in powdered form to the flour mix or is grated fresh into the batter. The toppings should include bonito flakes, and the batter should be made with dashi. These ingredients can be found at most Japanese markets. Instead of nagaimo yam, my version uses a batter of flour and potato starch, and instead of dashi I use water.

I've also included a recipe for homemade traditional okonomiyaki sauce that can be made simply with easy-to-find ingredients, but you can also buy a pre-made bottled sauce. You can make these pancakes large-sized and cut into wedges like the Japanese do, or slightly smaller a la a large latke. I wouldn't go too small, as the vegetables tend to hold together better en masse.

This recipe doesn't need to be too exact, and it works as a blank canvas for additional vegetables like kale, mushrooms and/or daikon. In the spirit of Chanukah, these okonomiyaki get cooked in oil, but they are not heavily fried. The oil used to fry the okonomiyaki gives a loving nod to the miracle of the oil glowing in the Temple for eight days instead of one, but the heap of vegetables and addictive sauce make this a nutritious and satisfying addition to any Chanukah meal.

Ingredients:

For the pancakes:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour or gluten free all-purpose mix

1/4 cup potato starch or cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 large eggs

1/2 to 3/4 cup water

1/2 shredded green cabbage, about 4 1/2 packed cups

3 green onions, sliced thin, plus more for garnish if desired

1 carrot, peeled and shredded

4-5 inches daikon, peeled and shredded (optional)

Oil as needed (i.e. sunflower, canola or peanut)

Sesame seeds, for topping (optional)

Mayonnaise, for topping (optional)

For the okonomiyaki sauce:

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup, or to taste

Directions:

1. Start by making the batter. Whisk together the flour, starch, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

2. In a separate bowl beat the eggs. Add the eggs and 1/2 cup of water to the flour mixture. Whisk until smooth. You want a fairly thin, crepe batter-like consistency. If you find it too thick, add another 1/4 cup of water. Try not to over-mix; you do not want to overdevelop the gluten. Allow the batter to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.

3. While the batter is resting, prepare the vegetables. Remove the thick core from the cabbage half, then cut the halved cabbage in two. Thinly slice or shred the cabbage. Thinly slice the green onions. Grate the carrot and daikon if using.

4. Make the okonomiyaki sauce: Combine the ketchup, Worcestershire, soy sauce and honey/agave in a bowl. Taste and adjust to your liking. The sauce should be tangy, savory and a little sweet.

5. Combine the batter with the vegetable mixture.

6. Heat a cast-iron skillet or a nonstick skillet with about 3 tablespoons of oil over high heat. Once the oil is glistening and hot, lower the heat to medium low and add some of the cabbage mixture to the pan, gently nudging it into a circle shape. I like to make each pancake with about 2 cups of the mixture. For me, that makes an ideal-sized pancake that isn't too hard to flip and one that will hold together. Cover the skillet with a lid for 3-4 minutes. Carefully flip over the pancake, and cover it with a lid for an additional 3-4 minutes, or until browned on both sides and cooked through. Make sure not to cook on too high of a heat or the pancake might burn on the outside while remaining raw in the center.

7. Serve hot topped with a generous spread of the okonomiyaki sauce, mayo if desired, sliced green onions and sesame seeds.

8. Slice and serve!

Sonya Sanford is a chef, food stylist and writer based out of Los Angeles who specializes in modern Jewish cooking. Follow Sanford at http://www.sonyasanford.com or on Instagram @sonyamichellesanford.

The Nosher food blog offers a dazzling array of new and classic Jewish recipes and food news, from Europe to Yemen, from challah to shakshuka and beyond. Check it out at wwwTheNosher.com.
Israels Foreign Ministry recently carried out a comprehensive survey of the citizens of 54 countries about their countrys relations with Israel. The main finding is that in a vast majority of those countries, 47 of 54 of them, most of the people surveyed believe that their country would benefit from links with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to these finding on Sunday as a gigantic change.

What is also interesting is that half of the public in the countries in the Middle East that were reviewed, the assets and strength of Israel are appreciated and they believe that their country could benefit by links with Israel, Netanyahu said during the weekly Cabinet meeting.

When I say again and again that Israel is a rising global powerI know what I am talking about. Today Israel is a sought-after country, Netanyahu underscored.

He pointed to his 12 hour visit in Kenya last week, during which he met presidents of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Rwanda, Togo, Botswana and Namibia, as well as the Ethiopian prime minister and other leaders.

Over the past year, Netanyahu has visited Kazakhstan, Singapore, Australia, Azerbaijan and several countries in Latin America. For the first three countries, it was the first visit by an Israeli premier. He also hosted Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an historic visit.

In August, Senegal and Guinea, two Muslim-majority West African nations, sent their first-ever full-time ambassadors to Israel.

Israel is a sought-after, developed and strong country that even the citizens of countries with which we do not have official relations understand the benefit of relations with Israel. We are going from strength to strength and developing even more links, the Israeli premier stated,

The major diplomatic blossoming of the State of Israel is basedamong other thingson a dynamic economy, initiatives, and the development of businesses and technology. This is at the root of our strength, he declared.
JERUSALEM (JTA)Israel said it expects other countries to follow Americas example and recognize Jerusalem as its capital, even as much of the world decried the U.S. decision to move toward relocating its embassy to the city.

Speaking at a diplomatic conference Thursday, a day after the historic shift in U.S. policy, which he welcomed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was in contact with countries interested in such actions.

We are holding contacts with other countries who will also recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital. I have no doubt than when the U.S. Embassy will move there, and even before that, many embassies will relocate to Jerusalem, he said at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. Its about time.

Israeli officials who spoke anonymously on Thursday downplayed the threat of a diplomatic backlash to the American move. On Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared that the United States can no longer act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians. World leaders expressed concern and Arab and Muslim leaders warned of disaster.

On Thursday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called for Palestinians to launch a new intifada, and the Israeli army braced for violence by redeploying troops to the West Bank and putting more soldiers on standby.

The Israeli officials said they expect Czech President Milos Zeman to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital later in the day. They said both the Czech Republic and the Phillipines were eager to move their embassies to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.

The Czech Republics Foreign Ministry said Wednesday it considers Jerusalem to be in fact the capital of Israel in the borders of the demarcation line from 1967, meaning only the citys western part. But the ministry said it would not move the embassy prior to a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian deal. Although the Czech parliament already recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital earlier this year, the countrys embassy has remained in the Tel Aviv area.

Also Wednesday, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte sent a message to Israel that he wanted to move his countrys embassy to Jerusalem, Israels Kan public broadcaster reported.

Jerusalem reportedly anticipates that Hungary may move its embassy to Jerusalem as well. According to The Times of Israel, citing unnamed European sources, Budapest blocked a joint European Union statement that would have opposed the historic change in the U.S. position.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation at the White House Wednesday saying the United States sees Jerusalem as Israels capital and directing the State Department to start planning an embassy in the city. Trump said the decision should not impinge on his administrations efforts to bring about a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. He said the proclamation does not presume the outcome of Jerusalems status in negotiations and he urged continued Muslim administration of the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims and a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
JERUSALEM (JTA)President Donald Trumps official recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital may have sent shock waves across the Middle East. But here, in the epicenter of a city where fewer than a million people work, eat, pray and shop, the first days reaction was muted.

The municipality projected images of the Israeli and American flags side by side on the Old City walls. But in Mahane Yehuda, the bustling produce and everything-else market a few miles into the citys western side, it was another working day.

Jews generally welcomed the development, while Arabs expressed anger. But nobody thought the U.S. president would fundamentally change the situation in Israelfor better or worse. A number of others had not even heard about it.

Shay, 40, a black kippah-wearing nut seller and longtime Jerusalem resident, said Trump had shown that he understood Israelis national and religious ties to the city.

After all these years, we finally have somebody who feels what the Israelis feel, he said. Trump has a warm heart for Israel and he does what he says he is going to do.

Here in Israel, we love him more than we love Bibi Netanyahu, he added, using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus nickname, and we love Bibi a lot.

But Shay said the significance of Trumps announcement was mostly symbolic. Although some had warned of Palestinian violence, he said he was not worried because Arabs respect power.

They know only one thing, he said. When you are strong, they dont do anything. When youre a sissy, they are coming.

Asked why he did not want to use his last name, Shay explained, I have many Arab customers. Better not to make them mad.

Bassam Hoshiah, a 36-year-old Arab Israeli who lives in a village near Jerusalem, was selling nuts, too, from a stall directly across from Shays. While he agreed that Trump was siding with Israel on Jerusalem, he felt much differently about the significance.

Arguing that Jerusalem is for everyone, Hoshiah predicted there would be a spike in terrorism in response to Trumps speech.

There will be a balagan in the Old City and the West Bank, he said, using Hebrew slang for a chaotic mess.

But Hoshiah said he did not think the violence would spread across Jerusalem, let alone the country. As he loaded a large bag of nuts into an elderly Jewish womans pushcart, he said he planned to show up for work the next day as usual.

There was not much support in the market for Netanyahus interpretation of the U.S. policy shift as a step toward peace. But nor did anyone seem to think it would derail Trumps international diplomacy on behalf of the ultimate deal, as he has called it, between the Israelis and Palestinians. The prevailing attitude was resignation to the status quo.

Uzi Sharabi, a 40-year-old baker from the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, said he was happy to have the big man on Israels side, but that peace was not in the cards. He said Israel would be able to deal with any flare up in terrorism.

It wasnt going to happen before Trump recognized Jerusalem as our capital, and its not going to happen afterward, Sharabi said. We just have to stay strong.

A recent survey by Israels Maariv newspaper found that nearly 80 percent of Israelis believe peace is not possible, despite Trumps efforts.

A young soldier from Jerusalem, who asked to remain anonymous because the army forbids enlistees from discussing politics, said he of course agrees with Trump that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. But he questioned whether it was the right time to make the declaration. The soldier worried that the announcement would result in a Palestinian uprising that would put him and his comrades at risk without any tangible reward.

Its a fact that it will cause violence. Everything here causes violence, especially in Jerusalem, he said. We already know this is our capital. So isnt peace more important?

Hoshni Barazan, a 38-year-old fruit vendor who lives in the Mount of Olives neighborhood in mostly Palestinian eastern Jerusalem, said Trump could not give away what did not belong to him, and that Israel would pay the price in bloodshed.

You can give this to whoever you want? he said, holding up a strawberry. No. Because its mine, not yours.

Its the same with Al-Aqsa, he continued, referring to the mosque on the Temple Mount, which has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When reminded that the city has a Jewish majority, Barazan said the whole country rightfully belonged to the Palestinians. But his heart did not seem to be in the conversation anymore.

How are the strawberries selling today? he shouted affectionately in Hebrew at a Jewish fellow vendor who was walking by.

Better than yours, the man retorted, grinning.
The Hamas terror organization said President Donald Trump's historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "opens the gates of hell" and has called for another violent uprising against the Jewish state.

"Trump's decision on Jerusalem will not succeed in changing the fact that Jerusalem is Arab Muslim land," a Hamas spokesman said Wednesday following Trump's announcement at the White House.

Hamas called for Palestinians to take to the streets in a "Day of Rage" on Friday and "respond with all means available."

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh stated Thursday that the US intention to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem "will not change the history and geography of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will always remain the capital of Palestine."

He called Trump's decision a" gamble and an uncalculated risk."

He further called the decision "a blatant aggression" against the Palestinians, the Islamic nation "and free people of the world," threatening that the reaction of the Islamic people "will shock the US administration."

He further threatened that this decision "will spark the beginning of grave hostilities, not only at the Palestinian level, but also at the regional level."

The Palestinian people will strongly confront this decision and they will not surrender until this American attempt is foiled, he vowed, saying that the Palestinians "can ignite one Intifada [violent uprising] after the other."

Haniyeh stated that he phoned Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas and they agreed to mobilize the Palestinian masses to protest against the American decision.

He also called upon the Arab and Islamic nations to put aside their differences and to mobilize to support "their main battle: the Palestinian cause."

The IDF, anticipating a possible violent Palestinian outburst, said it has deployed additional troops to possible flashpoints ahead of Friday.

The IDF statement on Thursday said it has deployed several battalions while other units have been put on alert to address "possible developments."

Palestinians went on strike on Thursday and protests and sporadic violence at various points were reported throughout the day.
BUDAPEST (JTA)-At a conference about anti-Semitism in Europe, senior Hungarian officials said the absence of violence against Jews in their country owed to its refusal to admit Muslim immigrants.

The assertion, which at least one Jewish expert on anti-Semitism disputed, came amid criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-wing government by other European leaders of his immigration policy, and a dispute between the Hungarian leader and some Jewish community leaders who accuse Orban of encouraging or tolerating anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Whereas other European countries have seen jihadist terrorist attacks against Jews and others in recent years, "Hungary has been consistently able to protect its citizens and residents, its borders and its fundamental elements of statehood from mass immigration and international terrorism," Minister of State for Security Policy Istvan Mikola said Wednesday at an event in Budapest titled "Are Europe's Jews Safe?" and organized by the Hungarian Jewry's watchdog on anti-Semitism, the Action and Protection Foundation.

Csaba Latorkai, deputy state secretary for priority social affairs, noted the 2015 killing of a Jewish security guard in Denmark by an Islamist along with other attacks, including the murder of 137 people in Paris by other Islamists later that year.

"Taking security and administrative measures to prevent such acts, the Hungarian government acted, and so in the autumn of 2015 it decided to set up a border fence, introduced a legal closing of borders," Latorkai said in his speech, adding it was "in order to protect citizens and make Hungary one of the most secure places in world. No one should be afraid that there may be attacks on our streets."

The arrival of at least 2 million immigrants in Europe since 2015 from Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Middle East has pitted Western European governments that resolved to absorb the newcomers against eastern EU member states that shut down their borders, including Hungary.

Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs at the American Jewish Committee, told JTA at the event that the link made by Mikola owed to how Hungary, which will have a general election next year, "wants to say that this [its immigration policy] is yet another aspect of taking care of its Jewish community, even if it's probably a bit of a stretch to see it as a threat to the Jewish community."

Jewish community leaders across Europe are divided on the arrival of Middle East immigrants, with some citing Jewish values in urging generosity toward the newcomers and others warning that the influx of Muslims from countries where anti-Semitism is a social norm will exacerbate Europe's anti-Semitism problem.

"The large number of refugees who entered Europe have obviously raised special concerns," Baker said, but he urged listeners of his address to "resist the temptation of pointing the finger" at that population in identifying the causes of anti-Semitism.

Focusing on Muslim immigration "is an easy thing for people here in Hungary and the Hungarian government," he told JTA, unlike other issues connected to anti-Semitism-including the government-led campaign this year against George Soros, the liberal Jewish-American billionaire, that some observers consider anti-Semitic.

The Mazsihisz umbrella of Jewish communities in Hungary has accused Orban since 2013 of whitewashing Hungary's role in the murder of Jews in the Holocaust and mounting the campaign against Soros, a Holocaust survivor who was born in Hungary.

"The sad thing is, it works," Baker said. "Under the current government, there are efforts at kind of rewriting" Hungary's "clear narrative on the Holocaust."

He noted the "famous or infamous" memorial statue in Budapest for the Nazi occupation, which the Jewish community in 2014 said whitewashes Hungary's complicity in the Holocaust, and "speaking in positive ways about Miklos Horthy, Hungary's wartime quisling.

Orban earlier this year called Horthy, who helped the Nazis kill many thousands of Jews, an "exceptional statesman."

The chairman of the Action and Protection Foundation, Daniel Bodnar, said at the conference that while ant-Semitic violence remains extremely rare in Hungary, the country has seen anti-Semitic rhetoric proliferating over the past decade, notably through the far-right Jobbik party and its affiliated media.

In 2016 and 2015, his foundation recorded 23 and 53 incidents in Hungary, which has approximately 100,000 Jews, with no physical assaults of individuals. It has initiated dozens of criminal cases since its establishment in 2012.

Hundreds of incidents, with many assaults, were recorded in those years in Britain and France.
With less than 10 days remaining until Christmas, the Salvation Army of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware announced that donations to its annual Red Kettle fundraising campaign are down throughout the region, presently at 50-percent of its overall goal.

The tradition of bell ringers and red kettles is the most recognizable fundraising effort of the Salvation Army. Passersby can place monetary donations inside the kettles, which will be stationed in prominent locations throughout the region until Dec. 23. The Salvation Army is asking people, corporations and groups to generously give to the Red Kettle campaign.

We rely on the Red Kettle campaign to help fund our many social services, which provide a lifeline to individuals and families struggling to make ends meet, said Lt. Col. Stephen A. Banfield, divisional commander of the Salvation Army of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. Without sufficient donations to the kettle campaign, I am concerned about our ability to meet the need for social services and continue providing the same level of service across the region.

Proceeds from the Red Kettle campaign help provide year-round programs and services to local residents who are in need of food, shelter and utility assistance, emergency disaster relief, as well as numerous educational, music and after-school programs throughout eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Many of the communities that we serve suffer from high rates of poverty and unemployment. Philadelphia, for example, has the highest rate of deep poverty than any large city in the United States. In order to help families through difficult economic times, it is critical for the Salvation Army to meet its donation goals, said David Langford, human services director of the Salvation Army of Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Cash donations are accepted at any of the red kettles during the remaining days before Christmas. Secure credit card donations may be made online at www.SalvationArmyPA.org or by texting KETTLE to 41444 on a smartphone.
(JNS.org) The Israeli Air Force allegedly conducted an airstrike Monday night on a military scientific research center in the Jamraya area on the outskirts of Damascus, media affiliated with the Syrian regime reported.

Our air defenses are confronting an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed, reported the Syrian state news agency SANA.

The Hezbollah-affiliated media outlet Al Mayadeen stated that the Israeli military launched six missiles at the site, and that three of the missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defense systems.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that violent explosions were caused by Israeli jets that shook Damascus and the surrounding area.

No casualties were reported as a result of the alleged strike.

The Jamraya area is the site of numerous Syrian military facilities, including a potential chemical weapons production factory and storage unit. The facility was previously attacked in 2013 in what was believed to be an Israeli airstrike.

Reports of the airstrike near Damascus follow an alleged Israeli strike last Friday night on an Iranian military base in Syria.
A view of the Western Wall and the golden Dome of the Rock Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, Dec. 6, 2017.

Israel's leadership and Jews from around the world celebrated President Donald Trump's statement that the US officially recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and that plans to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem are in motion.

The US "finally acknowledge[s] the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It's something that has to be done," Trump stated at the White House on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the statement was "historic," remarking that Jerusalem has "been the capital of Israel for nearly 70 years." Netanyahu added, "Jerusalem has been the focus of our hopes, our dreams, our prayers for three millennia. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years."

Israel is "profoundly grateful for the President, for his courageous and just decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to prepare for the opening of the US embassy here. This decision reflects the President's commitment to an ancient but enduring truth, to fulfilling his promises and to advancing peace," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also underscored that Trump's decision is "an important step towards peace, for there is no peace that doesn't include Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel."

Netanyahu reiterated Israel's commitment to advancing peace and to maintaining the status quo at the holy sites.

"Israel will always ensure freedom of worship for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike," the Israeli premier underscored.

"I call on all countries that seek peace to join the United States in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to move their embassies here," Netanyahu stated.

President Reuven Rivlin stated that "there is no more fitting or beautiful gift, as we approach 70 years of the State of Israel's independence."

After the 50th anniversary of the reunification of the city "the time has come to bring tranquility to Jerusalem, and to see hope blossom in the capital of Israel, the place where pilgrims come from around the world," Rivlin stated.

"The recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the relocation of all embassies to the city, is a landmark in the recognition of the right of the Jewish people to our land, and a milestone on our road to peace-peace for all the residents of Jerusalem, and the whole region," he said

Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Danny Danon welcomed Trump's announcement, calling it "courageous" and similar to the one made by President Harry Truman in 1948 when he became the first world leader to recognize the State of Israel

"Today President Trump righted an historic wrong by recognizing Jerusalem as our capital," said Danon.

He called on all UN member-states "to follow the lead of our American friends and recognize our ancient capital of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel."

Just hours after President Trump's speech, the Czech Republic issued a statement saying it recognizes the pre-1967 west Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but that it will only consider moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to the city after talks with regional partners.

World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald Lauder said Trump's announcement is a "critical and courageous step."

"Jerusalem is the indisputable capital of Israel and the historic capital of the Jewish people. We hope that the US' clear declaration to this effect, and its reiteration that this has long been its policy, sends a strong message to the international community of this truth," Lauder stated.

In honor of the event, the flags of Israel and the US were projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.
On Tuesday, Dec. 5, fifth-grade Jewish students from the Jewish Academy of Orlando got together with Muslim students from Leadership Preparatory School and Christian students from Geneva School for a morning of learning and sharing. The Multi-Faith Education Program began 14 years ago when its founder, Louise Franklin Sheehy, worked to foster a climate of peace among the children of the different Abrahamic faiths. This was the first meeting between the three schools that will take place this year. At each meeting, students and faculty will learn about each other's different faith traditions. At the Jewish Academy of Orlando, Head of School Alan Rusonik talked about the central role of Torah in Judaism and opened up the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) for all the students to witness and behold. Additionally, the students learned a song of peace "Od Yavo Shalom Aleynu," which means "soon peace will come." Finally, the students from the Jewish Academy taught about the upcoming holiday of Chanukah, which ended in a lively and spirited game of Dreidel!

The students learned that ultimately, despite our different beliefs, customs and traditions, we all share the values of peace, love and mutual respect and we share a common desire to have peace in our world. At the Jewish Academy of Orlando, we believe that this is an important program to help promote peace, unity, love and understanding in our very complicated and fragmented world.

For more information about the Jewish Academy of Orlando or to arrange a visit to the school, please contact Amy Polacek, Admissions Coordinator, at apolacek@myjao.org or 407-647-0713.
Members of the Reform movement and Hebrew Union College reading from the Torah at the public square in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Nov. 16, 2017.

(JTA)-When Israeli security guards roughed up the head rabbi of the Reform movement at the Western Wall, ripping his suit jacket and shoving a can of mace in his face, Rabbi Jen Lader had a dilemma: How could she talk about the violence without being boring?

Lader, a spiritual leader at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, had already preached about the Israeli government's apparent disdain for Reform Jews. She had spoken about how Reform Jews cannot marry or perform conversions as they choose in Israel. She had decried the government's abandonment of the Western Wall deal, an agreement to provide space at the holy site for non-Orthodox prayer.

Wasn't this latest incident at the Western Wall just more of the same?

"I gave this sermon a year ago, and two years ago, and three years ago," said Lader, who runs youth programming at the 3,400-family Reform congregation, one of the country's largest. "It's not shocking anymore. It's not surprising anymore. That fact is part of the reason it's so difficult for me to talk about it all the time."

Lader's problems stretch across Reform Jewry, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. The liberal movement self-defines as staunchly pro-Israel but has found itself at odds with many of its government's policies, from West Bank settlement expansion to the preservation of Orthodox hegemony in the state.

That's why, leading up to the movement's biennial conference next week in Boston, Reform rabbis and leaders sounded upset but unsurprised by the clashes on Nov. 16 at the Western Wall. For years they have found themselves distinguishing between loving Israel as a country while criticizing its government.

"I think there's some difference between supporting the project and supporting the government," said Peter Knobel, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Emet in suburban Chicago. "I will always stay involved in the Zionist project. I believe it's important for the Jewish people. I'm not prepared to give up and to draw a red line and say 'if Israel does X, I'm out of there.'"

Lader also feels invested in Israel education. She pointed out that her synagogue was founded specifically as a Zionist breakaway from a non-Zionist congregation. But connecting young Reform Jews to Israel isn't easy, she said, when Israeli guards are manhandling Reform rabbis.

In the episode nearly two weeks ago, guards and haredi Orthodox onlookers tussled with Jacobs and other Reform officials as they tried to enter the main entrance to the Western Wall plaza carrying Torah scrolls. The guards said it was illegal to bring the scrolls into the main plaza, where the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the haredi Orthodox organization that runs the site, forbids men and women from praying together. The foundation characterized the clashes as a provocation by the Reform delegation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to make a statement on the incident.

Recruitment for a biannual Detroit teen summer trip to Israel is also getting harder. Last year, Lader and her colleagues changed the itinerary to include a talk by Anat Hoffman, who chairs Women of the Wall, a feminist Western Wall prayer group that has pushed for reforms at the site.

"It's really challenging working with millennials and young people who see these things in the news and then hear 'this is your home, this is where you belong,'" she said. "They're hearing two different messages from us at the same time."

The same problem exists among young professionals, said Rabbi Jen Gubitz, who works with that cohort at Temple Israel in Boston.

Gubitz has not planned any programming around Israel yet because no one has asked for it, and because it's become such a fraught topic. She said young people are upset both about Israeli policy in the West Bank-the Reform movement regularly urges curbs on settlement growth-and the country's Orthodox monopoly on religious affairs.

"The way that millennials approach Israel and approach talking about the land and the people and the occupation is a really big tapestry with lots of threads, and I haven't yet moved forward with that avenue because I'm not totally sure how," she said. "I always ask people 'what do you want,' and that's not one of the things that comes up."

The movement has grown more outspoken recently in its criticism of the Israeli government. After Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said last week that American Jews are growing distant from Israel because they don't send their children to the military and lead "quite convenient lives," Jacobs called for her dismissal, a perhaps unprecedented move.

"The Deputy Foreign Minister has a right to her ill-informed and insulting views," Jacobs said in a statement. "But such views disqualify her holding such an important role in Israel's diplomatic corps. Her comments serve to underscore how the Israeli government disdains the majority of North American Jews."

Hotovely later apologized for her comments, and Netanyahu condemned her remarks publicly.

Some Reform rabbis still feel an obligation to act as traditional Israel advocates despite these differences.

Jeffrey Salkin, senior rabbi of Temple Solel in Hollywood, Florida, disagrees with some of the Israeli government's actions, but says blame lies on both sides. Liberal Jews in America, he said, have been distancing themselves from Israel for a while.

"My job is to make the best possible case for Israel that I can and to interpret Israel as broadly and generously as I can," said Salkin, who is also a columnist for the Religion News Service. "The danger is that the encounter with this significant religious flaw in Israel's system can and does serve to alienate Jews from Israel more than they already are."

Reform leaders are also opting for positive engagement with Reform and progressive Israeli organizations. Earlier this year, in response to the cancellation of the Western Wall deal, several Reform donors upped their commitments to the Reform movement in Israel, where only 3 percent of Jews identify with the movement, compared to 35 percent in the United States. Reform leaders noted that Jacobs was roughed up while celebrating the ordination of the 100th Reform rabbi in Israel-a positive sign.

At Congregation Beth Or in suburban Philadelphia, Hebrew school kids spend time studying the history of the Israeli Reform movement and Women of the Wall. Other rabbis say the best way to foster a complex and authentic connection to the country is to visit and view its pros and cons firsthand.

"While you're there, you can experience the wonderful successes of Israel, the creativity, the energy, and also be honest about the social justice issues," said Rabbi Steve Fox, CEO of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the movement's rabbinical association. The association leads a trip to Israel that teaches congregational rabbis how to lead their own trips and navigate difficult questions.

Reform clergy may be outspoken in their criticism of Israel's religious policies because it's easier to engage on those than on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Rabbi Judy Schindler, co-chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America's clergy council. Western Wall policy is more of an internal Jewish issue, she said, while opposing Israel's control of the West Bank could "fuel the flames of anti-Semitism."

Like other Reform rabbis who spoke to JTA, Schindler opposed ending or withholding support of Israel -- through philanthropy, travel, activism or otherwise. But she feels frustrated.

"We work very hard to be strong partners with Israel, and it is disappointing and even devastating when incidents happen such as what happened at the Western Wall," Schindler said. "We would expect that the Israeli government would be in an authentic relationship with us. It seems to be a one-sided relationship."
(JNS.org) A war along Israel's northern border could be just "weeks" away, according to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer.

Dermer made the comments in a wide-ranging interview published by Politico on Monday, stating that the probability of direct conflict with the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah is "higher than people think because of Iran's continued push through the region."

"If Iran is not rolled back in Syria, then the chances of military confrontation are growing. I don't want to tell you by the year or by the month. I'd say even by the week," Dermer said.

The ambassador explained that as Iran continues to aggressively expand its military presence near Israel's border, the Jewish state is forced to enforce its "red lines," which risks an escalation in tension.

"The more they push, we have to enforce our red lines, and you always have the prospects of an escalation, even when parties don't want an escalation, because we will not allow Iran to establish that presence and establish another terror front against Israel in Syria," said Dermer.

"So in taking action to defend ourselves, you don't know what could happen," he said.

In line with Dermer's comments, the Israeli Air Force allegedly conducted an airstrike Monday night on a "military scientific research center" on the outskirts of Damascus.

The purported strike followed an alleged Israeli airstrike last Friday on an Iranian military base in Syria.
The Taylor Force Act started out as a powerful and long-overdue tool for pressuring the Palestinian Authority to stop paying terrorists. But the legislation has been diluted, weakened and compromised in so many ways that it is now a pale shadow of its former self. The Taylor Force Act has been gutted.

Known in the Senate as S. 1697, the Taylor Force Act is named after a young Vanderbilt University studentand U.S. Army veteranwho was murdered by a Palestinian Arab knife-wielding terrorist in Jaffa in 2016. The lead Senate sponsor is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) initiated the House of Representatives version, H.R. 1164.

The idea behind the bill was to reduce U.S. aid to the Palestinians in proportion to the amount that the PA pays to terrorists.

Thanks to the good work of Israeli Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, we know that the PA has a precise and sophisticated system of providing financial incentives to murderers of Jews.

An Arab who is imprisoned for attacking (but not killing) Jews receives a monthly salary of $400 from the PA. The amount goes up according to the length of the terrorists prison sentence. An Arab who succeeds in killing a Jew receives a monthly salary of $3,400.

The financial rewards dont stop there. After he completes his sentence, a terrorist receives a minimum additional grant of $1,500. The size of the grant increases according to the length of his sentence. A murderer receives $25,000.

Their families are rewarded, too. The family of an unmarried terrorist who is killed receives $100 monthly. The widow of a terrorist receives $250 each month, for life.

Stopping such payments is obviously a necessity. And the U.S. has the leverage to stop themthe hundreds of millions of dollars that America provides to the Palestinians each year. The original Taylor Force Act would have linked the two. But as the bill began working its way through the legislative process in recent months, the appeasers jumped in.

There are officials in the State Department and certain congressional offices who are deeply pro-Palestinian. They started pushing for all sorts of exceptions and loopholes. Unfortunately, some congressional staffers and Jewish leaders who support the bill got weak in the knees. They decided they had to accept compromises in order to get more votes for the bill.

So they added language saying that U.S. funding for various Palestinian health and sanitation programs would not be affected. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned that such exemptions would basically gut the bill and render the legislation useless because it would leave too few areas of funding for the U.S. to exercise leverage. He was right.

And it got worse. Next they added a one-year delay before the provisions of the bill go into effect. That gives the PA a year in which to come up with a phony new arrangement by which the payments are given to terrorists from some private group instead of the PA itself.

Then they stipulated that the money which is withheld must be put into a Palestinian Authority Accountability Fund, which can then be given to the Palestinians if the State Department certifies that the PA is taking steps against terrorism.

We all know that for the past 24 years, the State Department has repeatedly certified that the PA was keeping its obligations in the Oslo Accordseven though that certification was a total lie. No matter how blatantly the PA violated the accords, the State Department always found some excuse to declare it to be in compliance, so that U.S. money would keep flowing. There is every reason to believe that the State Department will do so again.

Sometimes, in politics, you have to compromise. I get that and have done it myself when advancing other terror victim legislation. Sometimes a flawed bill is better than no bill at all. But not always. Sometimes a bill is so deeply flawed that it is actually worse than no billbecause it will prevent any other action from being taken on the issue. This is one such bill.

If the Taylor Force Act passes in its current form, there will be no further congressional action on the issue for the foreseeable future. And we will be stuck with legislation that pretends to address the issue of paying terrorists, but really does nothing of the sort. That would deal a grievous blow to the memory of Taylor Force and the many other American victims of Palestinian terrorism.

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. He may be contacted at smflatow@gmail.com.
In the end, perhaps only a president so completely divorced from diplomatic reality and utterly indifferent to international opinion could do it. Despite the difficulties and the manifest dangers involved with keeping Americas promiseenshrined in U.S. law passed by Congressto move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, President Donald Trump may actually do it sometime in the next week.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the State Department had informed U.S. embassies around the world about a plan to make the move and to begin planning for how to deal with the protests that would inevitably follow.

For U.S. diplomats living abroadespecially those in the Middle East or working in any Muslim-majority countrythis is no joke. If Trump makes good on the pledge, the response from the Arab street will likely be nasty and might rival or even exceed the destruction, violence and even murder that resulted when a Danish newspaper published a few satirical cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed. Egged on by Iran and other radical Islamists, protests will be massive and will carry a hefty price tag.

This is why most observers, including those sympathetic to Israel, have been skeptical about talk of an embassy move. Few thought even a president as unconventional as Trump would do something that virtually everyone in the foreign policy establishment as well as moderate Arab nations thinks would not only create a crisis, but also preclude any progress toward a two-state solution or peace.

Why then is Trump contemplating something the smart people are convinced is foolish? The answer from his criticswhose numbers increase every time he lets loose with an ill-considered tweet or statementis that he is an ignorant fool. Yet, as with those obnoxious tweets, which distract his foes from policy issues and amuse his fans, there may be a method to the madness. Its entirely possible that Trump is either being guided to or is stumbling along a path that could be saner than the supposedly safer course steered by his predecessors on Jerusalem.

According to The Wall Street Journal, what Trump might do is to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and announce plans for the embassy move, but make it clear that wont happen for several years. In the interim, the U.S. ambassador could work in Jerusalem and peace talks could resume.

This would merely recognize reality. Jerusalem has been Israels capital since 1949. The map put forward by the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan resolution that set aside the holy city as an international zone, apart from proposed Jewish and Arab states, has been a dead letter for 70 years. Moreover, even if a two-state solution were possible, calling the city Israels capital wouldnt preclude a compromise that might cede its Arab neighborhoods to be the capital of a Palestinian state.

But what Trumps potential move would do is put the Palestinians on notice that their decades of denial of the legitimacy of a Jewish state and its historic ties to Jerusalem will no longer be tolerated. It would be a symbolic gesture aimed at reminding them that their century-long war on Zionism that is still inextricably tied to Palestinian national identity must end. The conflict will only really cease when the Palestinians get the message from an international community that has enabled their rejectionism that it is no longer willing to keep playing the same game. If they really want an independent state and peacesomething the propaganda still emanating from both Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbass Fatah and his Hamas rivals continues to make impossiblethey will have to do it with an Israel whose capital happens to be in Jerusalem.

If this is Trumps gambit, it may well come back to bite him if Muslim riots exact a high cost. It will be easy for some to lump this decision in with his often-irresponsible statements that have undermined the credibility of his administration.

In the end, Trump may be persuaded by the adults in his administration to not do it. But peace will never come except by jolting the Palestinians into accepting reality. Thats something more judicious presidents have failed to do. It may be that only a president who doesnt care about flouting the normal rules of conduct and policy would even contemplate something so radical, yet so important. In this case, a potential switch of U.S. policy on Jerusalem might constitute one of the best arguments that can be made for Trump not being as bad a president as his Twitter account might lead us to believe.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS.org and a contributor to National Review. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
In the immediate aftermath of the resignation of Sean Spicer as White House press secretary, a discussion arose over whether to continue the televised daily press briefings.

The Administration decided to continue them with newly-appointed press secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders behind the podium.

After five months, the time has come to re-visit the issue. The briefings should continue, but the lights, camera, action element should be eliminated.

The entire rationale for the briefings  keeping the media and, through it, the American people informed of an Administrations response to national and international developments as well as to announce major new policy initiatives  has been ignored, cast aside and replaced by argument and confrontation.

The Trump Administration must shoulder much of the responsibility for the sorry state to which the briefings have fallen.

With goofy and demonstrably false assertions that President Trumps inauguration drew the largest crowd in history or that he lost the popular vote because five million illegal immigrants cast ballots, Spicer created an environment of open hostility toward the media and, not surprisingly, a considerable portion of the media responded in kind.

The briefings quickly became theater, distorting their entire purpose and doing a serious disservice to the audience which tuned in out of a genuine desire to gain knowledge and insight into the new Administration.

Its lost its value as a source of information and degenerated into a theater of the absurd starring an ensemble company of reporters who believe viewers are interested in their views and opinions rather than those of the public figures they are assigned to cover.

For many, the television cameras are irresistible. Playing to them overcame the sense of professionalism their occupations demand, leading to preening and intellectual prancing.

Arguing points of view became more important than eliciting information. Reporters who were as ill-mannered as they were ill-informed confronted first Spicer and now Sanders with long-winded soliloquies thinly disguised as questions, oblivious to the level of self-embarrassment theyd attained.

Interrupting Spicer or Sanders in mid-answer and challenging the spokespersons points has become an end in itself.

If the Administration is to blame for creating the confrontational atmosphere at its very outset, the media shares in it by rising to the bait and engaging in the same kind of push and shove behavior.

The media seems unable to grasp that it is playing into the Presidents hands by assuming the role that hes assigned to it  that of a band of irresponsible ideologues who cant be trusted to report fairly and accurately to its readers and viewers.

It seems unable to understand as well that the President, with his early morning twitter commentaries, has seized control of the daily narrative. When his Twitter feed hits shortly after dawn, the media spends the day scurrying after it, chasing what Trump wants it to chase.

His constant refrain  fake news!  is seen as silly shtick by many, but in light of polling data showing that nearly half the American public believes the media deliberately fabricates reports about the President, its had an impact.

A series of recent high profile and deeply embarrassing mistakes by both television and print media was quickly seized upon by the President as proof of its perfidy.

Critics used the incidents to renew accusations of sloppy journalism and reporters whose dislike for Trump led them to accept the word of less than reliable sources and blinded them to their professional obligations to accuracy and honesty.

Not surprisingly, the bitterness and hostility has spilled over into the briefing room, exacerbated by those who are driven to use television exposure to demonstrate they will not be cowed or intimidated. Unfortunately, their behavior too often comes across as petty and petulant.

Eliminating live television coverage of the briefings will actually work in the medias favor, freeing reporters to concentrate on pursuing stories without the temptation to play to the camera and impress the home audience with their insight and wisdom.

Coverage will not suffer in the absence of cameras in the briefing room and may actually be enhanced by producing news accounts based on fact and truth rather than theatrics.

The media has lost a good chunk of its credibility and public confidence in it has absorbed a serious hit.

Returning to what it has always done best  ferreting out information, discovering what some want to remain secret and presenting it factually and without a hidden agenda  is crucial.

And, it doesnt require a television camera to do that.
This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/
Director Abhishek Kapoors Kedarnath, which features Sushant Singh Rajput and Sara Ali Khan in the lead roles, is expected to hit theatres on its scheduled time that is December 21, 2018. Kapoor tweeted about the films release date.The film is the debut of Sara, Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singhs daughter.

To all my friends in the media, #kedarnath is on schedule for 21 st dec 2018  #jaibholenath  Abhishek Kapoor (@Abhishekapoor) December 14, 2017

But thats not the bone of contention. Actually, this is the date on which Shah Rukh Khans forthcoming film with director Aanand L Rai is also expected to release. If that happens then one of these films will have to suffer and its not difficult to guess which one.

Shah Rukh Khan is playing a dwarf in the film which also features Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. Its said to be one of the most challenging roles Shah Rukh has done in recent times.

On the other hand, Kedarnath will reportedly have Sushant playing a pitthoo -- people who ferry pilgrims on their backs to the shrine. The actor is training hard for the role.

The film is likely to revolve around the Uttarakhand floods of 2013 and how the human spirit persisted in the face of tragedy. Ekta Kapoor, the co-producer of Kedarnath, had earlier said, When we heard the story, we knew this was it. Its Saras debut opposite Sushant. That makes it a fresh pair and adds an edge to the project. Kedarnath is an emotional and riveting tale that blends Indias beauty with a love story from the heartland.

With Bollywoods two big producers backing their films, a change of date for one of the films cannot be ruled out.
Filmmaker Rahul Dholakia, who directed Mahira Khan in the 2017 film Raees, says Indians have wronged the Pakistani actor.

While Mahira was in Dubai for the Masala! Awards 2017, Mahira spoke to film news platform Bollywood Hungama, and said, Whether it was Shah Rukh Khan or Rahul or Ritesh Batra or Farhan Akhtar, they all have been so amazing. At the end of the day, its about films, which is bigger than all of us combined. The film needed to be released. The film had to do well. They were all amazing. They still are.

Dholakia found it so sweet. He shared the link of her interview on Twitter on Friday, and commented, Somewhere I feel we have wronged her. Our people forgot that she is an artist, not the enemy! We took away her right as an actor! Unfair. Mahira Khan you are wonderful and thank you for being a part of Raees.

Mahira came to India last year to shoot for the film alongside Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. However, she was not allowed to attend the promotional events of the film in India after a ban was imposed by some groups on Pakistani artistes to work in India.
The St. Francois County Commission discussed an increase in county sales tax revenue when it met recently.

The County Treasurers Office reported that 2017 sales taxes collected year-to-date total $9,858,787.96, compared to $9,667,782.59 at the same time a year ago  an increase of $191,005.37, or 1.98 percent.

After receiving the report, the commissioners asked County Clerk Mark Hedrick if he had an update on the continuing delay in the county receiving its sales tax revenue from the state.

There was a meeting held with the Missouri Department of Revenue, a couple of counties, a couple of cities and some legislators about the tax collection for the year and how its been down for the other entities, said Hedrick. What they said was when they changed their computer system  their software  while they were doing everything online, there were still people mailing in their returns and those had not been put on yet. So, it is unknown, until they get those put into the system, of how much people are due monthly.

Presiding Commissioner Harold Gallaher interjected, Well, its always been a mail-in system, too, so how is that different now than then?

Hedrick replied, They didnt take the time to put it on at that point in time because they were working with the new system, getting it up and running correctly. Thats why we were always getting delayed getting the money. We used to get it by the 6th of every month  at least by the 6th. Now, it can go into the 15th or 12th or whatever.

Gallaher asked if the county sales tax revenue due from the state is now up-to-date. Hedrick acknowledged that it was not, but added that any increase in revenue will show up somewhere down the line.

While the year-to-date total for 2017 state revenue shows a 1.98 percent increase, Hedrick said that it might eventually end up being a larger amount.

In other action, commissioners approved a Maintenance Department personnel request and set a budget public hearing that will be held at 10 a.m. Dec. 26 in the county commission chambers.

The county commission will meet in regular session at 10 a.m. Dec. 19 on the third floor of the courthouse annex in Farmington. The meeting is open to the public.
Panjab University on Friday cancelled the public administration examination for fifth semester of bachelor of arts (BA) after the paper was leaked on a WhatsApp group.

The exam was being conducted in 192 colleges affiliated to the varsity in Chandigarh and Punjab. Now, it has been rescheduled to December 23.

The cheating racket came to light after the exam superintendent confiscated the mobile phone of a private candidate from Kharar, Anil, at DAV College, Sector 10, around 9:20am. He was reappearing for the paper after failing in the previous attempt, said sources.

The superintendent, who did not wish to be named, said an outsider seen in the corridors near the examination rooms raised her suspicion. On questioning, he said he had come to meet a friend, said the official.

We got hold of the student named by the outsider, and upon checking we found a mobile phone in his pocket, she said.

On checking the mobile phone, the authorities found Anil had been added to a WhatsApp titled papers.

Anil was separated from other students and not allowed to attempt the paper.

Around 10am, answers of the ongoing examination started appearing on the group, said the superintendent.

However, the student kept saying he did not know who added him to the group.

Modus operandi

The WhatsApp group had 255 members, of which eight were administrators, said sources.

The crime branch officials, who reached the spot around 10:30am, said the numbers in the group were from various districts in Punjab, including Pathankot and Faridkot.

A candidate had taken a photograph of the question paper using a mobile phone and sent it to the group. Soon after, some outsiders uploaded the answers titled answer of question 1 and so on, said police sources.

No complaint yet

After the college authorities informed Panjab University about the racket, a two-member team reached there around 11:30am. PU controller of examinations Parvinder Singh, who is also the dean, college development, joined them around 1pm. Later, he along with college principal BC Josan went to the university. But after returning around 1:45pm, both decided not to register a police complaint and let the student return home.

Talking to HT, Josan said, We have sent the case to the university authorities, and now the action will be taken by them.

We have cancelled the examination after discussing the matter, said Parvinder Singh. It is for the college to register a police complaint as the student was caught on their premises.

Meanwhile, two more students were found cheating during the exam. Around 11pm, when other students taking the exam were checked, two were held with a Bluetooth device. However, when their phones were checked, they were not found to be members of the WhatsApp group.
Unlike other journalists or pollsters, I have no predictions to make about the Gujarat elections. Previous attempts - most notably in Uttar Pradesh - have shown that voters are increasingly private about their political choices and reporters are mostly outsmarted. So am happy to wait for the counting day instead of indulging in me-too punditry.

What Id like to talk about, instead, were two back-to-the-future moments in this campaign that were disturbing - and in my view - unhealthy for our democracy: the return of Pakistan as a domestic political issue and the unholy squabbles over sacred threads, Hindu identity and the caste hierarchies the argument itself symbolised.

The brouhaha over the meeting between former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and the serving Pakistan High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood at the residence of suspended Congressman Mani Shankar Aiyar is a case in point. Globally, foreign policy decisions are often legitimate triggers for ferocious domestic disputes. Think of the Iraq War or the Arab Spring interventions in the West and their hot-potato value in elections.

So if Prime Minister Narendra Modi had chosen to elucidate why his handling of Pakistan has been more effective than or distinct from that of his predecessor, it would be kosher. The BJP would also be well within its rights to rhetorically question whether the Singhs pre-Partition roots made him a romantic and impractical peacenik about Pakistan. (Actually, every BJP PM from AB Vajpayee to Modi has shown more innovation and risk-taking with Pakistan than any other leader).

But to insinuate that one of Indias main Opposition parties, not to mention a former Indian Army chief, would discuss a domestic Indian election with official representatives of a hostile nation is to drive a wedge through your own people and hand over an unnecessary gloating advantage to Pakistan. While it is a compliment to the BJPs fighting spirit that it treats every contest as a do-or-die battle and pulls no punches  and while everyone knows that election heat and dust can throw up seasonal sandstorms that vanish as swiftly as they came at the end of the day, with all our differences, we all stand as Indians, united against any external interference or threats. My main disagreement with the Pakistan invective is that it gives Islamabad the sort of rhetorical play in our elections that it does not deserve and worse, makes us argue among ourselves.

Another moment that was unsettling was the quarrel over whether Rahul Gandhi is a practising Hindu and the Congress defence of it. Note how the Congress avoided any explicit Muslim outreach in Gujarat this time. Note also that this was not only because of a recalibrated strategy to challenge the BJP on policy instead of polemics. The Congress did not discard contestation over religious identity politics in a sudden epiphany about its wastefulness; in fact the Congress consciously drew on the language and symbols of the Hindu faith to court the Gujarati voter.

Again, there is no problem in a political party choosing to draw a separation between Hinduism and political Hindutva. Its probably about time that the Congress re-examines whether its Nehruvian model of secularism is too sanitised, dry and deracinated to capture the wonderful liberal pluralism of India. So, while the fact that this election leaves the Muslim voter at the irrelevant margins of the election campaign is a definite problem, Rahul Gandhis temple run is not at all an issue in itself (except for it looking a trifle self-conscious.) The disturbing bit was for the Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala to claim that Gandhi was not just a Hindu; he was a janeu-dhari believer. This referencing of the sacred thread with all its upper caste connotations was a desperate me-too moment for the Congress that militated against its claim of being a party for the Dalits, minorities and tribals.

Yes, caste identity never quite left this campaign and went well beyond the usual arithmetic algorithms. Even the suspension of Aiyar for his elitist word play on the word neech for the PM was born from the keen awareness of how caste biases can be perceived in the dustbowl of Indias ground realities. But it must be a first for Indias oldest political party to actually tom-tom a symbol that has clear hierarchical caste positioning. It is one thing for a Dalit or an OBC leader to talk about caste prejudice; quite another for a party that claims inclusive politics as its USP to embrace a gentrified brahminical/upper caste ritualism. Both the attack on Rahul Gandhi for not being Hindu and the language the Congress chose to contend otherwise were problematic.

On Monday, the winner takes all. But these two moments in the campaign did neither the BJP nor the Congress proud.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author

The views expressed are personal

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
DEHRADUN: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) came with another order on Friday that banned the use of any form of plastic in the towns located on the banks of the Ganga.

This order came two years after it imposed a blanket ban on plastic from Gangotri to Haridwar in Uttarakhand. But the intended results never came. The irony is that the postal department collects water from the Ganga at Rishikesh and markets it in plastic bottles. In a RTI reply to Hindustan Times, the postal department says its unaware about the NGT order.

In fact, the tribunal issued four orders in two years for safeguarding the Ganga that originates from Gaumukh in Uttarakhand. In its latest order, the NGT particularly mentioned about Haridwar, Rishikesh and Uttarkashi, and ordered a Rs 5,000 penalty on offenders as well as officials.

Lokendra Bisht from Uttarakashi associated with Ganga Vichar Manch says the plastic ban will not serve the purpose alone. Every single milk packet comes in polythene. Clothes, medicines, packaged food and the list goes on. I fail to understand how the order will be implemented.

Haridwar district magistrate Deepak Rawat says the administration penalised half a dozen polythene stockists godown owners in Haridwar and will ensure to implement directives. But Tej Pratap Sahu, a Haridwar businessman, underlines the ban will fall flat again without a proper substitute. Ganga Sabha president Purshottam Sharma partially agrees with Sahu and demands a blanket ban in every city along the Ganga.

In 2015, the NGT banned rafting camps in Rishikesh. The ban was lifted this year with several riders. Ratan Aswal, who used to operate one such camp, believes these steps wont work until there is transparency in rules and regulations. In the name of rules, a section of officials extort the business community.

Earlier this year, the NGT ordered hefty fine on those dumping waste in the Ganga in Haridwar and beyond it. It also declared 100 metre from the edge of the river as no-development zone. The order has a provision of Rs 50,000 fine on offenders.

Nonetheless, more than 12,000 crore was spent under the Ganga Action Plan, launched in 1986, to clean the river. In 2014, the Centre approved another 20,000 crore for the Namami Gange project.

Interestingly, Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board (UPCB) data shows the water quality is good at Rishikesh and upstream. Vinod Singhal, a former member secretary of UPCB, says the samples collected at Laksham Jhula has coliform and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) within range. However, water samples in Haridwar show presence of harmful coliforms exceed the safe limit.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Friday directed chief secretary Utpal Singh to conduct a probe into a financial scam pertaining to the two industrial estates coming up in Sitarganj and Kashipur.

The probe will be conducted by an inquiry committee to be set up by the chief secretary, officials at the chief ministers office said.

The chief secretary has been directed to set up a committee to probe into the financial scam pertaining to the State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (Sidcul), said the chief ministers media coordinator Darshan Singh Rawat.

The CM has directed the chief secretary to ensure that the enquiry report is submitted at the earliest.

The irregularities could run into more than  750 crore, Darshan Singh said, adding that the swindle pertained to the projects relating to the industrial estates being set up by Sidcul, a state government undertaking.

The probe has been ordered in keeping with the state governments zero tolerance for corruption.

Rawat ordered the probe after complaints against the works relating to the two industrial estates. Huge funds were released for infrastructure related works like roads, drainage to be taken up in the twin industrial estates, Darshan Singh said, adding that hardly anything actually come up on the ground.

He said the Sidcul roped in a number of agencies as well as agencies from outside the state to set up the infrastructure.

A thorough probe may bring to book all those agencies, contractors as well as officials, Darshan Singh said, adding that officials might be involved as no scam can be perpetrated without their involvement.

Whether the financial scam happened in the past five years or before that, is immaterial. The point is that the financial irregularity has come to light, he quoted the chief minister as saying.

Asked if the government might order a CBI probe into the financial scam, he said it will depend on the recommendations of the proposed panel headed by Singh.

This is the third such instance where Rawat ordered a probe after the scam to the tune of  300 crore pertaining to the NH-74 in Udham Singh Nagar and the 600 crore food scam pertaining to the irregularities in the public distribution system.

Sources said the latest financial scam was unearthed by the commissioner, Industries, Saujanya soon after she joined that post recently.

Saujanya told HT that she blocked the payment of  250 crore that was to be made to the agencies assigned the task of setting up the infrastructure.

Additionally, there are also liabilities to the tune of 738 crore in terms of loans to be paid to creditors, Saujanya said, adding that she neither had papers available relating to the works done nor enough photographic records of those works.

I have informed my superiors about those lacunas.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A six-and-a-half-year-old girl was killed by her mother and her partner in east Delhis Ghazipur on Wednesday night, after the child reportedly saw them in a compromising position, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (east), Omvir Singh, said that the 29-year-old woman and her partner, Sudhir, 23, were arrested on Thursday, after neighbours tipped off investigators about their affair.

The couple planned to kill the girl after she threatened to inform her father, said DCP Singh. The woman lived with her husband and three children, two sons and a daughter, near Ghazipur Dairy Farm in east Delhi. Her husband is a cart puller. The accused, Sudhir, a labourer, lived in the same neighbourhood.

The woman had an extra marital affair with Sudhir for some time. She later planned the murder of her daughter with him after the child found them in a compromising position on Wednesday evening . The man slit the girls throat, while the mother held on to her hands. Both have confessed to their crime during interrogation, said Singh.

Police said that on Wednesday evening, Sudhir allegedly entered the womans house while her husband was out drinking at a nearby liquor shop. The womans minor sons, aged four and two years old, were watching television in another room.

The womans daughter spotted them in a compromising position. She threatened to tell her father, after which the duo took her to a neighbours terrace and slit her throat with a knife, said an investigator.

Police have recovered the knife used in the murder from the house. Police said that after the murder Sudhir left the house while the woman approached the neighbours and told them that her daughter was missing. She then pretended to join her husband and other neighbours in searching for the girl.

Police received a PCR call about the missing girl around 10pm on Wednesday. A police team reached the house and began a search for the girl, a Class 1 student at a government school. Police later found the body on the terrace of the neighbours building at around 1.30am on Thursday.

The girl was taken to a hospital where she was declared brought dead. A murder case was subsequently registered at Ghazipur police station.

Initially, the girls mother was very calm during investigation. However, during further probe, we became suspicious about her role because neighbours informed us that she was having an affair with Sudhir who lived in the same neighbourhood. Both were interrogated and they confessed to the crime, said the officer.

Police said the woman had told her four year old son that his sister was taken by ghosts.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Delhi government has decided to reserve 50% of the in-patient beds at Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, its only fully-functioning super-speciality hospital, for Delhi residents. The order is effective immediately.

This order has been given by the secretary (health) only yesterday (Wednesday). It has been observed, in the last 15 years, the data shows that 60% to 70% of indoor admissions to the hospital are from neighbouring states. This leads to resentment in Delhi residents who have to wait for long periods for surgeries. Many move to private hospitals for treatment too, said Dr Kirti Bhushan, Delhis director general of health services.

Patients receive a waiting date of six to nine months for various surgeries at the hospital, according to a doctor at the hospital.

The move comes amid allegations of negligence and overcharging by private hospitals.

The decision was prompted by the recent allegations against private hospitals. When the government of Delhi is spending so much on the health sector, after collecting revenue from the people, I think it is the responsibility of the Delhi government to provide services to its residents, Dr Bhushan said.

The 714-bed hospital in central Delhi accepts only patients of three specialities  neurology and neurosurgery, cardiology and cardio-vascular surgery, and gastrology and gastric surgery  who have been referred from other hospitals.

Patients from 32 other hospitals run by the Delhi government and several other private hospitals in the city are referred to GB Pant Hospital.

The Delhi government has two other super speciality hospitals  Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital and Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital  however, for the lack of manpower these are yet to start functioning fully.

Once, these hospitals become functional, we may remove restrictions at GB Pant, said Dr Bhushan.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Union cabinet approved on Friday a bill extending the immunity to illegal constructions in Delhi, preventing their demolition or sealing till December 31, 2020.

Constructions that came up between March 2002 and May 2014 were protected under a special provision law enacted in 2011 with a validity of three years.

Hindustan Times first reported that the law would be extended for a second time in a front-page report on December 8. Without the latest extension, the law would have lapsed on December 31, 2017.

Illegal constructions are rife in the National Capital, and while there are no recorded figures, officials in Delhis civic administration say the number can exceed a hundred thousand.

The government has approved the introduction of the NCT of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill, 2017 during the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. The bill extends the provisions of the NCT of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011 for a further period of three years from 1st January, 2018 to 31st December, 2020, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters at a cabinet briefing.

Some prominent illegal constructions include shops, eateries, high-end designer boutiques and furniture showrooms along the Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road and in neighbourhoods such as Shahpur Jat and Hauz Khas Village.

Others include slums, hospitals, schools and religious institutions.

Senior officials of the Union housing and urban affairs ministry, which is piloting the bill, said the extension beyond December 2017 was needed because the Delhi government, the Delhi Development Authority and the three municipal corporations in the city were yet to finalise policies and strategies to carry out redevelopment.

These bodies are in the process of taking steps to carry out surveys, simplifying procedures, formulation of redevelopment plan, finalisation of policies, obtaining approvals, etc. in this regard. This process is likely to take some more time, a ministry official said.

In 2014, when the law was extended for the first time, the then Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu told Parliament the objective was not only to protect certain forms of unauthorised developments but also to provide for opportunity to the government agencies to finalise the norms, policy guidelines and feasible strategies as well as the orderly implementation of the plan in this regard.
A cat, a few chairs, and graves. It stands to reason that cemeteries are sombre sites. But this delightful patch of open land in a crowded Delhi neighbourhood resembles a kind of drawing room rather than a graveyard.

No one in living memory has actually been buried at this urban oasis within walking distance of the Walled Citys Turkman Gate. The graveyard does house a Sufi shrine devoted to a long-gone mystic known as Dada Peer  the chairs parked scenically between the graves belong to the shrines custodian.

The graves themselves are said to be those of Dada Peers disciples. Otherwise, most Muslims in the area are laid to rest in Dilli Gate qabristan near ITO.

And that makes good sense. Just making our way to the cemetery is a scramble, with side alleys so cramped that its hard to even imagine discovering of open land.

The shrine does have a custodian who tells of occasional foreigners visiting the place. Once I even welcomed an American delegation! he tells us with great awe.

Circling the graveyard are all sorts of residential blocks teeming with the rambunctious rumblings of lived life. A shrieking child. A film song. Even the whistle of a pressure cooker. We can actually smell the aroma of brown dal, making us marvel that the company of graves has never felt so alive.
Five years ago, on this date, six men gangraped a 23-year-old woman in Delhi. The brutality of the crime, which led to the death of the victim, shook the collective conscience of the nation and brought into limelight the question of womens safety. It precipitated legal amendments, increased reporting and a discussion around the issue.

Five years later, the mother of the 23-year-old physiotherapy student feels not much has changed in the attitude of people and the response of the justice system. And a sense of impunity still prevails among perpetrators.

When I saw the number of people who had stood with us, we thought a lot would change. Maybe now, nothing like this will ever happen again with any other girl... but the way the situation is continuing now, the way young girls are still falling prey to this monstrosity. A few weeks ago, two children were assaulted. The way such crimes are still happening, I feel like we are still frozen in time five years ago, she said.

Read | Brutal, barbaric, diabolic: SC upholds death for convicts in 2012 gang rape case

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, the number of rape cases reported in Delhi more than tripled from 706 in 2012 to 2155 in 2016. Across India too, this number jumped by over 40% from 2012 to 2016.

Even today, I meet people and families who have gone through something similar and want the culprits punished. But they dont want to come forward. They are worried about what will people think, who will marry her.

The woman, whose daughter died in Sinagpore on December 29, 2012, after battling for life for 13 days, said it is encouraging to see more and more women coming out to report the crime. She, however, said that stigma and shame persist in certain sections of society where victims are still blamed.

Even today, I meet people and families who have gone through something similar and want the culprits punished. But they dont want to come forward. They are worried about what will people think, who will marry her. I say you are worried about things that will happen maybe 10 years in the future but how will the girl survive right now? How will she forget? If there is some justice, then the girl will also get some closure, she said.

Rape laws were amended on the suggestions of the Justice Verma Committee and around 1,600 fast-track courts were set up in the aftermath of the incident.

However, this mother argues that the system has not changed. Five years down the line, courts are still hearing review petitions in her daughters case.

Things that need to change havent changed. Our governments have not changed. Their thoughts have not changed. The system has not changed. Some police stations and officers havent changed their ways. If our regime, administration and system changed, then we would not be in this condition, she said.

However, she finds a glimmer of hope in increased awareness, especially among the younger, educated lot.

Read| December 16 gang rape: Will they really hang him, asks convicts sister

I visit colleges not just in Delhi, but outside as well (for events). I feel satisfied when I see that it is not the university officials who organise these events, but students. Young boys and girls are organising talks and debates on womens safety. This shows they have started thinking about it. They want to work against it, because they feel they need to do something. That they need to change peoples thoughts, attitudes and perspectives, she said.

A night of horror, trauma DECEMBER 16 8.30pm: The 23-year-old paramedic and her friend leave Saket Select City Walk Mall after watching the movie, Life of Pi. They reach Munirka in an auto and wait for a bus9.15pm: They board a white bus.10pm: The six convicts, including a minor, rape the woman, brutally assault her, beat her friend and rob their phones, and tear their clothes. They throw them near Gurgaon toll plaza. A PCR takes them to Safdarjung Hospital. DECEMBER 17FIR registered in Vasant Kunj. Later in the day, police trace the bus and arrest Ram Singh who drove it. Others arrested in the next few days.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday called upon students to turn entrepreneurs to create jobs rather than seek them and advised them to follow ethics and principles to attain true success in whatever they chose to do in life.

The President said there could be no ambiguity or scope for argument on ethics while addressing the students and teachers of Lucknows Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University during its seventh convocation ceremony. Relativity applies to physics, not ethics, he said.

Kovind also urged students to draw inspiration from the hard work and struggle of social reformer Dr BR Ambedkar and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

People of Lucknow elected Vajpayee and sent him to Parliament a number of times as their representative. People respect him for his contribution towards the county and society, he said as he pointed out that Vajpayee and Ambedkar had a strong connection with Lucknow.

The President said Ambedkar, the father of the Constitution, was known for all the hard work he did throughout his life. When he was studying at Columbia University, he used to complete his thesis in quick time. It is because of this quality he was appointed as chairman of Constitution draft committee, he said.

He also remembered another Bharat Ratna Sardar Vallavbhai Patel, Indias first home minister, who died on December 15.

The President noted with satisfaction the rapid progress the country is making but said, We need to do more on specific social and economic challenges as well as in the areas of science and technology.

When the country moves forward, he said, every citizen benefits and gets opportunities for personal development.

He lauded the university for taking various steps to highlight social concerns and provide access to the disadvantaged.

He mentioned that it has also adopted nearby villages and worked with the local community on education and development  and connected local people to the Universitys Innovators Club.

He appreciated the efforts, calling them an example of the students sensitivity and sense of responsibility.

Endorse pehle aap etiquette

Kovind mentioned Lucknows pehle aap (After you, please) etiquette and said though people make fun of the ceremonious protocol but if imbibed, it can actually solve the behavioural issues that plague the current generation.

He said the tradition followed in the City of Nawabs teaches people to be patient and give priority to others.

It teaches us to be sensitive rather than be impatient and aggressive, the President said as he insisted that it could actually lead to more happiness around.

Lucknow is a city of culture and is known for its values all around. People should pick pehle aap from this city.

Praise for BBAUs Sushma, Neelu

Kovind showered praise on Sushma Verma, the youngest Indian to get enrolled in a PhD course at the age of 15, and Neelu Sharma who got admission in the PhD course under the single girl child scheme. He mentioned these two girls twice in his speech.

Verma became the countrys youngest matriculate at the age of seven and youngest to get admission in post graduate course at BBAU at 13. While Sharma got UGC Swami Vivekananda single girl child scholarship and gets 30,000 per month as a research fellow.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Madison County is under a burn ban order until further notice.

The Madison County Commissioners put into place the county-wide burn ban after hearing from the Office of the State Fire Marshal.

According to Missouri Statute, the county commission can issue a burn ban upon determination by the state fire marshal that a burn order is appropriate for a county because of an actual or impending occurrence of a natural disaster of major proportions which would jeopardize the safety and welfare of the citizens.

Violation of the burn ban order may carry a penalty of up to a class A misdemeanor.

"We have a situation due to the dry weather and low humidity we have been experiencing," Presiding Commissioner Bob Mooney said. "There is a 10-mile wide area of our county which has a lot of downed timber. This is adding to the increased risk of a major fire."

The U.S. Forest Service has stationed firefighters from Pennsylvania, California, Arizona and Michigan throughout the county due to the risk.

"We have extreme conditions in the wooded areas in our county," Cherokee Pass Fire Chief Bill Starkey said. "We have high potential for very large fires."

Starkey said he has already been out on calls the past few days and this is a very serious threat.

"We are in a very very severe drought," Starkey said. "The rain we are supposed to get Saturday will not be enough to fix the situation. All the timber and undergrowth is very dry. This (burn ban) could stay on for a good while."

The burn ban order includes any type of open burn including trash burning, leaf burning and burn barrels.
When you think international rankings, you generally think IITs, maybe IISc.

But there are quite a few other Indian universities making it to the Times Higher Education Top 1000 global rankings 2018, for reasons ranging from increased industry participation to improved amenities and more transparent administrations.

Did you know, for instance, that on the list released last month is Panjab University in Chandigarh (Rank #601), Osmania University in Hyderabad (#800), Assams Tezpur University (#601), Andhra University in Vishakapatnam (#800), Savitribai Phule Pune University (#601), as also Jadavpur University in Kolkata (#601)? 

The rankings generally reflect a universitys readiness to adopt next-generation systems and academic practices, says Phil Baty, editorial director of the Times global rankings. Indian universities are increasingly collaborating with industry. They are also offering interesting mixes of subjects to undergraduates, and attracting more foreign students.

Decoding the rankings The Times Higher Education World University rankings are a list of top 1,000 universities. The rankings are based on five broad parameters: Teaching, international outlook, industry income, research and citations. The rankings are subject to independent audit by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The top 1,000 represent no more than 5% of the 20,000 higher education institutions in the world.

Panjab University (PU), for instance, involves students and faculty in administrative decision-making, via social media.

We try to involve the entire campus community in the matter of improving the university, says M Rajivlochan, director of the varsitys Internal Quality Assurance Cell. We have WhatsApp and e-mail groups through which we share all development plans, including the minutes of the monthly meetings of deans and vice-chancellor. Students appreciate the transparency and feel connected.

This applies even to issues such parking and traffic. Last year, PU faculty and students were asked to vote on whether they wanted more road space for cars or a car-free campus.

Since a majority voted for a car-free campus, thats what it now is, says Gulshan Chhada, a second-year science student.

 Making it work

Universities across the country are beginning to work to achieve better industry participation and developing curricula, says Narendra Shyamsukha, founder chairman of education consultancy ICA Eduskills. This has contributed to many Indian universities making a mark in the world rankings, Shyamsukha adds. Universities are attracting more employers and funds for research from industry, which is having a positive impact on students as well.

Tezpur University, for instance, was not featured in the Times rankings of the top 1000 universities in the world, until 2016.

Starting last year, we have implemented one-month induction programme for all teachers, says registrar Biren Das. The programme is not subject-specific and involves industry experts training our teachers in student engagement, teaching methodology and smart classrooms. Das believes that this has helped improve the teaching output at the university.

Panjab University, two years ago, set up a business park for student startups on campus. We currently have 20 student businesses

running  there, says Rajivlochan. Each company is a group of five to seven students that design medical devices or hardware engineering equipment, just anything they are passionate about. They get mentorship on campus. After two years they can either set up a company outside campus or take up a job in placements.

Hyderabads Osmania University is another new entrant to the Top 1000. The university has been offering several inter-disciplinary courses since 2015, through MOUs with different institutions, says registrar CH Gopal Reddy. What also makes us attractive for students is that we offer very niche Masters programmes in fields such as nanoscience, radiological physics and pharmaco informatics.

Good infrastructure, exchange programmes with foreign universities and funding for research are also making these universities a good Option A for students, says Rajivlochan.

Masoom Ahuja, 20, a second-year science student from Thane, would agree. I plan to do a Masters in radiological physics, and I want to do it at Osmania University, says the University of Mumbai student. Several education counsellors vouch for their programme and it is easier to get admission there than at an IIT.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The result of the Uttar Pradesh Teachers Eligibility Test (UPTET) 2017 will be declared around 4pm on Friday, an official of the exam regulatory authority told the Hindustan Times.

Candidates can check the UPTET 2017 result after they are declared by visiting the official website of Uttar Pradesh Basic Education Board. upbasiceduboard.gov.in/

The examination was held on October 15.

Reports said out of the 10,09,347 candidates who registered 976,000 appeared for the exam that was held in 1634 exam centres across Uttar Pradesh.

The board released the answer key on October 18 and candidates were given time until October 23 to raise objections. The final answer keys were released subsequently after considering the objections by candidates.

There were two papers in the exam - Paper I for those looking at the post of teachers for Class 1 to Class 5 and Paper II for those who want to teach from Class 6 to Class 8.

Candidates had to appear for both the papers to be eligible to teach from Classes 1 to 8.

(With input from Kenneth John in Allahabad)

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A sudden damage to the distribution pipeline led to the suspension of piped natural gas (PNG) supply to over 3,000 customers across sectors 21, 22 and 23 on Thursday evening. Restoration work by the Haryana City Gas Limited (HCGL) was on till the filing of this report.

The HCGL supplies PNG to the city.

An HCGL official said that the damage was reported somewhere on the Sector 21/22 dividing road and was caused during unauthorised digging by a private company to lay underground optical fibre cables. A water pipeline was damaged, disrupting morning supply in the area.

Rahul Chopra, chief executive officer, HCGL, said, I spoke to my men on duty and was informed that workers of a private company damaged our PNG line and a water pipeline while digging the road to lay underground cables. We immediately stopped supply and started restoration work. Work is still under way and we hope normal supply would be restored at the earliest.

While the PNG pipeline suffered leakage on Thursday evening, the HCGL started restoration work on Friday morning. While digging the road to plug the leak, the HCGL men damaged the main water pipeline as well. Something similar happened in June and October as well. This just shows the callousness of the HCGL officials, said Bhim Singh Yadav, a resident of Sector 22, adding that with the suspension of PNG supply, he had to boy food from a nearby eatery to feed his family on Friday.

In June, residents of Sector 23 lodged a complaint with the district administration claiming that an accidental damage to the PNG pipeline led to a gas leak in the entire area. Again, in October, the PNG pipeline developed a leakage in Sector 21/22, leading to a supply cease for two days.

Read I CNG, PNG to cost less in Gurgaon from today

HCGL does not have an advance system to locate leakage in the underground PNG pipeline and it often takes days to plug the leak in the event of damage. There was damage to the PNG pipeline in October and now it has happened again. The HCGL should own up to the damage and shouldnt deflect the blame on someone else, SS Yadav, a resident of Sector 23, said.

However, sources said that the HCGL will write to the district administration seeking action against the company, who they claimed, caused damage to the pipeline during nighttime digging.

Vikas Malik, executive engineer, MCG, said, I have sought a report from the area engineer on the damage to our water pipeline.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Doctors in private hospitals did not attend to patients in the out patients department (OPD) on Friday in protest against the proposed implementation of the Centres Clinical Establishment Act by the Haryana government, covering private hospitals and nursing homes in the state.

At present, there is no law governing operations at private health care facilities in the state.

As many as 450 private doctors sat on a one-day strike at the Huda Gymkhana Club, refusing to attend to patients at OPDs at any of the private hospitals.

The protest had a crippling impact on medical services, as a large number of patients crowding OPDs at private hospitals were left unattended. Many patients said they did not expect operations at private hospitals to be disrupted this way.

The city is home to eight private hospitals and 185 clinics and also has 800 medical professionals who are members of the Indian Medical Association (IMA).

There have been discussions on how the proposed Clinical Establishment Act, which is to be implemented by Haryana government, could be modified to address our concerns. However, the state has turned a deaf ear to our demand to amend the proposed legislation by the central government, MK Singh, member IMA, Gurgaon, and Haryana, said.

Singh said that they will not allow the state to introduce the central Act, as it aims at wiping out small-scale medial establishments.

Today, we referred many patients to government hospitals, as the OPDs in private hospitals were closed for the day. We had already decided that we will not admit any patient from 6am until midnight, Singh said.

The IMA members said they were forced to take this step to oppose the state governments autocratic decision.

The agitated members blamed chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar for refusing to incorporate the proposed amendments to the Haryana Clinical Establishment (Registration and Regulation) Act that had been agreed to earlier.

Read I Gurgaon has 224 illegal nursing homes and clinics, 141 bogus doctors: RTI

According to the IMA members, the central Act was passed in the year 2010, but none of the states has notified the law as yet due to certain impractical provisions. The Act is presently in force in Delhi and other union territories.

They said the medical fraternity is not willing to accept a provision in the Act stipulating the fee for prescription and treatment.

How can we treat the trauma patients for free? The government wants us to take care of patients by taking away our financial support. This isnt feasible, Ajay Arora, another IMA member, said.

The association further said that they will be forced to launch an agitation against the government if their demands were not considered and met.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A spokesperson for Harvey Weinstein has responded to actor Salma Hayeks op-ed in the New York Times in which she has detailed the disgraced producers inappropriate behaviour during the making of 2002 film Frida.

Hayek said Weinstein made her life hell during the making of the film and she had to repeatedly rebuff his advances.

To save the film from being shut, Hayek agreed to do a senseless sex scene with actor Ashley Judd, who was one of the first women to accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.

Weinstein, via his representative, has admitted that there was creative friction during the making of the film but denied asking for sexual favours in return.

Harvey Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment and rape by more than 70 women in Hollywood.

Calling Hayek a first-class actress, Weinstein said he chose the actor over Jennifer Lopez, who was interested in playing Frida Kahlo and was a bigger star at that time.

Mr Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for the filming. However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms Hayek with Geoffrey Rush.

All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired, the statement read.

Defending his boorish behaviour following a screening of Frida, Weinstein said it was prompted by his disappointment in the cut of the movie.

...and a reason he took a firm hand in the final edit, alongside the very skilled director Julie Taymor.

Hayek has also accused Weinstein of demanding script rewrite at the last minute and not even giving credit to Ed Norton.

But Weinstein said he battled the Writers Guild of America to get him a credit but was unsuccessful.

Weinstein, considered one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, has been thrown out of his own company after the New York Times and the New Yorker took the lid off of his decades of sexual misconduct.

The expose prompted more than fifty women, including prominent Hollywood stars, to come forward to accused Weinstein of sexual harassment and in some cases of rape.

Hayek is the latest star to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct after people like Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, Rose McGowan, Lupita Nynogo detailed their experiences.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Nearly four lakh beneficiaries of Punjabs pension scheme are not available at their given address or have passed away, a survey by the state government has found.

The missing beneficiaries account for at least 18% of the 19.8 lakh registered with the social welfare department.

The most cases of fake beneficiaries, 32%, were in Bathinda district  home turf of the Badals who have been at the helm of the government for 10 years.

Of the 1,11,621 beneficiaries registered there, 35,924 were fake or missing. Amritsar followed, with 25.6% beneficiaries, and Muktsar with 25.2%  Lambi, the home constituency of the former CM falls in this district. Hoshiarpur has the least number of cases, 6.3%, followed by Moga with 8%.

Sources in the welfare department said the government is planning to start a recovery process for the money and action against officers found guilty.The amount to be recovered is in multiple crores of rupees, they said.

The Captain Amarinder Singh government, on coming to power in March, had ordered an inquiry into the pensions. While it was underway, the pension to all beneficiaries was halted.

Department sources said at least 50% beneficiaries were registered during the previous Akali-BJP regime. The pensions are due from May and we will resume them to genuine beneficiaries very soon, Kavita Singh, director, social welfare, told HT.

She said that the department had identified the problem cases and it would not face trouble recovering the money if a directive was issued.

In case a beneficiary has an objection to our survey, we are ready to give him or her a chance to prove genuineness, she said. Close to 16.2 lakh beneficiaries have been identified as genuine; 51,328 were found underage and 42,193 were not below poverty line as mentioned.

In 1.96 lakh cases, the beneficiaries were not found to be residing at the address given to the department and 72,928 beneficiaries are no longer alive.

The Singh government increased the pension amount to 750 per month in July this year. Teams formed by the district administration carried out the survey.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the countrys territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said on Friday.

The fishermen were arrested on Thursday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesperson for Pakistans Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said.

The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail, Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400.

The PMSF spokesperson said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistans Maritime border in the Arabian Sea.

Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters, Chaudhary said.

Meanwhile, secretary of the Porbandar-based National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) Manish Lodhari said that fishermen, who were from different parts of Gujarat, had sailed off the coastal town of Porbandar a few days ago.

He said they were apprehended by the PMSF near Jakhau coast and then taken to Karachi port.

Fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each others territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

Pakistani fishermen, mostly belonging to the Sindh province, are being apprehended by the Border Security Force (BSF) and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) for illegally fishing in the creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Kutch district in Gujarat.

In November, both the BSF and the ICG had apprehended 23 Pakistani fishermen and seized 11 of their boats from creek area, while the PMSF had apprehended a total of 101 Indian fishermen and seized 15 their boats for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters.

On November 10, the PMSF arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on November 12 four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters.

Choudhary said on November 16 also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

In October, the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen.

On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture.

A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head to the northeast on Saturday to launch the Bharatiya Janata Partys election campaign in Meghalaya and Mizoram after polling got over in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The assembly polls are scheduled in both the northeastern states and also in Nagaland and Tripura early next year.

Modi will arrive at the Lengpui airport early on Saturday for his first visit to Mizoram since assuming office in 2014. He is scheduled to inaugurate the 60MW Tuirial hydro-electric project before heading to the Assam Rifles ground to address a public meeting.

Though no meeting with party workers is scheduled, we are very happy with the visit. It will definitely boost the party ahead of the next election, Mizoram BJP unit chief JV Hluna told the Hindustan Times.

From Aizawl, Modi will head to Shillong where he will open the new BJP Meghalaya unit office and later address a public rally at Polo Ground - kick-starting the partys campaign for the coming assembly polls.

The visit is aimed at boosting the saffron partys goal of overthrowing the Mukul Sangma-led Congress government.

Modiji will visit Shillong for a days visit. Everyone in the state unit is very excited about it and it will boost our poll preparations, Meghalaya BJP unit president Shibun Lyngdoh told HT.

The Prime Ministers trip comes after several proposed visits to the state by BJP president Amit Shah were postponed earlier this year due to his engagements in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The BJP is already in power in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh and is aiming to add the poll-bound states to its kitty.

The saffron partys aim to make its mark in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, all Christian majority states, had received a setback earlier this year following opposition to Centres move to ban the sale of cattle in animal markets for slaughter.

The move even led to the resignations of two district unit presidents of the party in Meghalaya, prompting the BJP to announce there would be no restrictions on consumption of beef in these states.

With several senior Congress leaders quitting the party in recent months and anti-incumbency factor at play, the BJP is confident of attaining a majority in the 60-member Meghalaya assembly either alone or with help of its allies.

Though two regional outfits, National Peoples Party and United Democratic Party, are part of the BJP-led anti-Congress alliance North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), they havent formed any pre-poll tie-ups yet.

Four sitting MLAs and two independents, one from Congress and another from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are expected to join the BJP in Meghalaya after Modis visit.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
BJP president Amit Shah made his parliamentary debut on Friday, occupying a front row seat in the Rajya Sabha on the opening day of the winter session.

Shah, 53, who was elected to the Upper House of Parliament in August, walked in just minutes before the proceedings began.

Members of the treasury benches, including several ministers, stood up to welcome him. Some thumped desks and others clapped as a smiling Shah greeted them with folded hands.

He then went straight to his assigned seat in the front row.

Shah has been allocated the aisle seat right next to the two-seat block were Leader of the House and finance minister Arun Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sit.

Rajya Sabha members sit in a semi-circle, facing the Chair. The semi-circle is divided into six blocks of seats separated by aisles.

The ruling side is seated on the one side of the semi- circle and the principal opposition party, Congress on the other. Other parties including allies of the ruling party or those in the opposition occupy the middle blocks.

Jaitley and Modi have seats in the front row of the first block. Shah has been allotted the seat in the next block where he has the company of minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan and Social Justice minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.

When Shah walked in ministers including Telecom minister Manoj Sinha, HRD minister Prakash Javedkar and I&B minister Smriti Irani thumped and clapped to welcome him.

After he was seated, some members walked up to him to greet him.

The seat allotted to Shah was previously occupied by M Venkaiah Naidu, who after being elected vice president in August is now the chairman of Rajya Sabha.

The front row seats in the block next of his has AIADMK and TMC leaders.

The seats in the next block used to be occupied by Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), rebel JD-U leader Sharad Yadav and BSPs Mayawati till the last session.

However, with the CPI(M) deciding against giving Yechury a third term, his seat is now occupied by his fellow-comrade T K Rangarajan.

While JD-U members have moved near treasury benches since Nitish Kumar broke ranks with Lalu Prasads RJD and joined the NDA, its rebel leader Sharad Yadav has been disqualified.

The BSP supremo quit the Rajya Sabha in July, complaining that her voice was being muzzled. After her resignation, her seat has been given her confidante and BSP leader Satish Mishra.
Union minister of state for tourism KJ Alphons has said Indians should not force foreigners to take selfies with them as it amounts to intrusion of their privacy, pointing to the attack on a young Swiss couple that left them with a skull fracture and a broken arm.

Its not a right thing to do. Why dont you leave the tourists alone? Why are we so obsessed with the white skin? Its an intrusion into their privacy, Alphons said on Thursday.

He was addressing the CIIs annual tourism summit International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development in New Delhi.

The minister pointed out to the recent attacks on foreign tourists in India and said that some of them were triggered after locals insisted on taking selfies with them.

Alphons was referring to the incident in Fatehpur Sikri near Agra when Quentin Jeremy Clerc and Marie Droz were chased and attacked with stones and sticks on October 22 by a group of five men.

Clerc was left with a fractured skull and Droz sustained multiple bruises and fractured her left arm in the incident that triggered widespread outrage.

In another incident earlier this month a group of six French tourists, along with their friends from India, were allegedly harassed on a visit to a waterfall in Uttar Pradeshs Mirzapur, close to Varanasi.

The minister advised the locals hanging around Indian heritage sites to desist from possessing an obsession for white skin and let the foreign tourists roam around freely.

Alphons asserted that India is safe for the foreign tourists and said the incidents of attacks on tourists were deplorable.

The bureaucrat-turned minister, who was inducted by the Bharatiya Janata Party with an eye to make inroads in Kerala, has been in the news for his remarks.

Alphons stoked a controversy in September by saying that tourists can eat beef before coming to India. The minister also accused the global media of a bias against India and blowing minor incidents of attacks on foreign tourists out of proportion.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared a bill that criminalises the Islamic practice of instant triple talaq, ahead of it being taken up in the Winter Session of Parliament.

In November, the Narendra Modi government said it was ready with a bill that would provide a legal framework to prosecute Muslim men calling off marriages using a custom outlawed by the Supreme Court.

Instant triple talaq, or Talaq-e-biddat involves Muslim men divorcing their wives by mentioning the word talaq (divorce) three times in one go, sometimes over email, WhatsApp messages or letters.

The proposed bill hands out a three-year jail sentence as well as fine, and states that the offence will be cognisable and non-bailable.

We welcome this, it was much needed.Unlike previous governments, this government cares for rights of Muslim women. Appeal to all parties to ensure passage of this bill in Parliament, said Shaista Ambar of the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board.

Titled the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, the proposed law also gives a victim of Talaq-e-Biddat a right to seek maintenance from her husband before a magistrates court. She will also be entitled to her childrens custody, the draft law says.

In August, the top court had struck down the custom as arbitrary and unconstitutional in a verdict that was hailed as a watershed moment for gender justice in India.

A law ministry official, explaining the rationale behind the bill, said: Before the judgement this year, there were 177 reported cases of Talaq-e-biddat. Since then, there have been 67. These are only reported cases, the actual figure could be much higher.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a non-governmental body that lobbies for the application of Islamic civil laws and opposes any ban on triple talaq, also welcomed the verdict, saying it accords protection to Muslim personal laws.
A Catholic priest was arrested on charges of forced religious conversion and several other members of the minority community were allegedly assaulted by activists of a right-wing Hindu group at a police station in Madhya Pradeshs Satna, police said on Friday.

The vehicle of a Catholic priest was also set on fire, allegedly by the activists.

Though police confirmed the arrest of father George Mangalapilly, they denied allegations that members of the clergy were assaulted at the police station. Mangalapilly is a professor at St Ephrems Theological College in Satna.

The Christians were allegedly intercepted and accused by Bajrang Dal activists of converting people with lure and force during a carol-singing programme in Jawahar Nagar Bhumkahar village near Satna, about 485 km from state capital Bhopal.

The arrest was made on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Dharmendra Kumar Dohar, who said he was lured with money to convert to Christianity.

The Catholic Church of Madhya Pradesh denied the allegations of forcible conversion and accused police of siding with the Hindu activists. Eight other clergymen were allegedly detained when they went to the Civil Lines police station to enquire about the arrested people.

Religious conversion is a sensitive issue in India with Hindu groups often accusing Christian missionaries of luring poor villagers -- through cash and kind -- to convert to their faith.

Madhya Pradesh, a BJP-ruled state, has an estimated 2.1 lakh Christian population, as per the 2011 census.

Leo Cornelio, the archbishop of Bhopal diocese, described the incident as repeated shameful acts of the fundamentalists to rise above the law in attacking the Christian brothers who are spreading love, peace and brotherhood.

It is an attempt to divide the society with false accusations on conversion to bring down the development and the core foundation of our country. It is painful to notice that the government is insensitive towards the growing intolerance on minorities, he said in a statement.

Satna superintendent of police, Rajesh Hingankar, said police brought all clergymen  said to be about 32  to the police station as they had been surrounded by angry villagers.

Except the priest who was arrested others were allowed to go on Friday. It is yet to be known as to how the car caught fire, he added.

Talking to Hindustan Times over phone from the police station Fr George said the cultural programme at the village was a routine event held every year ahead of Christmas celebrations.

He alleged they were forced to squat in a room at the police station at the night in inhuman condition without any warm clothes.

Yatendra Pathak, the Bajrang Dals district convener, said they got information that the missionaries were luring people from the Dalit locality for conversion.

He, however, denied attacking the minority community members or any of them setting the car afire.

In his complaint, Dharmendra Dohar alleged that Christian community members have been visiting the village for the past two years and luring him with money to convert to Christianity.

Because of their threat and lure I have converted to Christianity. They gave us a Bible and Rs 5000 in cash, he said.
Google X is ready to set up its Development Centre in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, which will be its first development centre outside the United State of America.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Government of Andhra Pradesh and Google X in San Francisco, USA in this regard.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Minister of IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh Nara Lokesh and CEO of Google X Astro Teller.

Google X will bring its breakthrough Free Space Optical Communication Technology (FSOC) to implement in Andhra Pradesh Fibergrid Project in 13 districts through 2000 FSOC links.

Google X is known for developing Waymo (driverless car), Google glass, Project Loon (internet through balloons) and other latest technologies.

With Google X coming to AP, the state will see revolution in communication, said Nara Lokesh.

He added that the AP Government is committed to bring high speed internet and broadband connections to about 12 million households and 1,30,000 enterprises (government and private) by March 2019.
It is past midnight. But the BJP media centre  set up in the annexe of a swanky corporate complex on the outskirts of Ahmedabad  is still buzzing. Dozens of journalists, a couple of central ministers who have just dropped in and scores of party workers could be seen in multiple huddles, awaiting their respective turns for a face time with Adhyaksh ji  BJP president Amit Shah. Shah has been camping here since the afternoon and carrying out a number of review meetings.

He doesnt seem to be in a good mood, said a journalist, coming out of the room where Shah was closeted with Bhupender Yadav, the BJPs in-charge for the elections in Gujarat. The journalist is quickly countered. Thats how Adhyaksh ji is, said a close aide of Shah. He never shows he is happy. He doesnt like leaving things to chance. He likes to keep up the pressure on us.

Such an assessment is not atypical of what one hears of Amit Shah. His organisational stamina and skills are now stories of legend. More importantly, India has only recently awakened to the radical transformation he has brought about within the BJP and for electoral politics. The BJP as an organisation, when it comes to elections, appears to have been revamped as a hybrid between military precision and corporate efficiency.

My colleague Prashant Jhas much-acclaimed book How the BJP Wins (2017) goes so far as to call todays BJP Indias greatest election machine. Many aspects of this machine, in fact, are getting clearer by the day. For one, it is highly centralised with a defined chain of command, a capacity for fast decision-making and clear accountability. The party is even becoming a zero-tolerance zone for competing factions. And Shahs disciplinary interventions can extend all the way to the booth level.

He not only lays out the strategy, but also monitors almost every aspect of its implementation, said the Shah aide, who wished not to be named. All of us align our work to his directions. The candidates, the campaigners, the spokespersons, the social media team, the grassroots workers, all of us.

Most importantly, this highly centralised military-corporate machine has space for only one message  Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Increasingly as well, the BJP candidate is fast becoming a mere signboard, who is only expected to carry the Modi message. Funding for the elections has overwhelmingly become top down in the BJP and, therefore, personal resources of the local candidate now counts for little.

In contrast, the Congress remains tied to its past organisational traditions, even as it has added a smart phone and a laptop to its overall capacity. The Congress organisation is the classic satrap model. Nodes of influence or local potentates are joined together to create a power grid that, in essence, turns into a large patron-client network. At the state level, one can even sometimes discern a franchise model in the satrap style, in which a powerful bloc runs the Congress for a while. This is a highly negotiated and leaky (for both money and power) arrangement, which is always open to various kinds of pulls and pressures. The leader of the Congress, in fact, can perhaps be seen as the great coordinator, whose chief role is to assemble, connect and animate political networks.

The Gujarat elections of 2017, however, have revealed new types of vulnerabilities and strengths in these two very different political organisations in India. The military-corporate machine, as it turns out, is not only expensive to run in terms of money and resources but that it is also far more fragile when its main message goes off script. That is to say, the BJP was found to be expending much more energy and resources to hold on to its centre.

If anything, the strains of running a one-message campaign showed badly in Gujarat. The 34 public rallies almost felt like over exposure and the Prime Ministers hoarse, almost tired, voice in the final rounds revealed wear and tear rather than conveying a narrative about moving from strength to strength.

Read | BJP continues to ride on PM Modis popular appeal but the party should buck up

The Congress, on the other hand, with the flexibility that comes with the satrap model displayed far more resilience. Rahul Gandhi and his team, for one, revealed nimbleness and agility in absorbing and incorporating various contradictory forces.

Read | Gujarat elections: Does Congress have spokes to outrun the BJP wheel in final lap?

There is strategic brilliance in getting the Patels and the OBCs on board even when reservations can be a zero-sum game between them. Or getting the Dalits, Muslims and tribals to continue to ride the Congress bandwagon, even though these communities have a long set of grievances against the Patels.

In other words, the satrap model was far more open to negotiations, listening to other voices and interests and more importantly able to stitch together and hold contradictory pulls and pressures  that might rock the boat but not necessarily sink it.

It is the troika of Jignesh Mevani, Alpesh Thakor and Hardik Patel that has come to dictate the course of the elections this time in Gujarat. Even though theirs is an untidy coalition, it has served the Congress party well, from amplifying its message on social media to mobilising crowds for election rallies and organising volunteers for polling booths.

This is not to argue that the BJP is or has been averse to alliances and partnerships by smaller political groups. Notably, in the North East. However, as Gujarat will tell us, there is a visible hardening in the political arteries. The power of the BJP is now so immense and overwhelming that any arrangement will be starkly unequal for any other party or group. Put differently, there is something about a political machine that makes it relentless and insatiable. Recent noises by the Shiv Sena and the JD(U) give us some indication of how difficult it is to be housed under the BJP umbrella.

When the dust finally settles on the Gujarat elections these two starkly different political organisational models will come up for review. Will the BJP continue to bet on pursuing its military-corporate model for 2019? Will Amit Shah remain the fuel and force for working the levers and moving the wheels for the party?

For the Congress, on the other hand, will it continue to see urgency and importance in trying to tap, co-opt and harness the different types of anger, disquiet and resentments that are cropping up across India?

This Mondays Gujarat verdict will decisively tell us how politics will test the political organisation.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Congress plea seeking verification of vote paper trail with EVMs for recently-concluded Gujarat assembly elections.

Congress had asked the apex court to direct the Election Commission to count and cross verify at least 25% of VVPAT paper trail with EVM votes.

The top court said that it finds no merit in Congress plea, adding that Gujarat Congress can approach SC by filing a writ petition for electoral reforms.

Gujarat was the second state after Goa to use the VVPAT, where the EVM dispenses a paper proof for the voters so that they can verify if their vote is cast correctly. The paper trail was used in all the 50,128 polling booths in Gujarat in the two-phased election, the results for which will be known on December 18.

The VVPAT machine is connected with EVMs and dispenses a paper proof for the voters so that they can verify that their vote is cast correctly.

Amid a debate over alleged vulnerability of EVMs to tampering, several political parties, including the Congress, had earlier this year demanded mandatory use of printed paper slips in all elections.

In August this year, the EC had informed the Supreme Court that it would be able to use EVMs with paper trail in Gujarat Assembly polls.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said on Friday that there was a sense of helplessness but not hopelessness in the minds of people in her state.

She was speaking at the ongoing three-day India Ideas Conclave 2017 organised by India Foundation in Goa.

Idea of India is not separate from idea of Jammu and Kashmir because it is the oneness between both. We have had problems in Kashmir for last so many years. We have the baggage of history but to me, having seen Jammu and Kashmir so closely for so many years, there is (a sense of) helplessness but not hopelessness, the chief minister said.

We have to have a different approach with the people who are with us and majority of the people are with us, she added.

She said that Jammu and Kashmir at present is under siege with several uncertainties plaguing the life of the people.

There is mental siege, emotional siege, economic siege, Kashmir is under all kind of siege. You never know there will be a shutdown call followed by curfew and then there will be protest calls, she said.

She said that when we think of Pakistan we should not think of Kashmir. When we think of Kashmir we should not think of Pakistan because Kashmir is ours.

She said that strategically Jammu and Kashmir is placed in a position whereby using our geography, whereby restoring our roots to the outside world, we can write a different history.

Maybe there is a percentage of people who are pro- Pakistan, there is a percentage of people who are pro-azadi. But majority of the people in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are with the idea of Kashmir as an idea within India, the chief minister said.

She hailed the efforts by the Modi government to ease the tension with Pakistan. She claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted the same policy when he visited Lahore as adopted by former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

People keep on telling that he went uninvited. Yes he did that but he did it for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, for the part of his body which is hurting for so many years. Unfortunately, it was followed by a terror attack, she said.

Laying her hopes on the Modi-led government to restore normalcy in the valley, she said, When we were in the process of forming the (coalition) government (in J&K), many of my colleagues were asking me what are you doing? It is suicide.

The chief minister, however, said the BJP at this point of time is a party which if you are able to convince that Jammu and Kashmir can be saved like this, then they will listen.

That is what Modiji did. He went to Lahore, nobody else would have done that. It was really statesman-like. The BJP being a nationalist party can do anything and everything to get Kashmir out of this mess in which we are, she commented.
The Indian Air Force will send a batch of hand-picked pilots and technicians to train on the Rafale warplanes at the Mont-de-Marsan air base in southwestern France next year to prepare the ground for inducting its first imported fighter jets in 22 years.

It will be the responsibility of the Indian air crews to fly the first lot of the French fighters to the country, beginning September 2019.

The Russian Sukhoi-30 fighters were inducted in June 1997.

India and France signed an $8.7-billion deal for two Rafale squadrons (36 planes) in September 2016 as an emergency purchase to arrest the worrying slide in the IAFs capabilities.

All 36 fighter planes will arrive by September 2022, a small step on the long road towards building a stronger air force.

India floated a global tender for 126 planes a decade ago but it stood cancelled after Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared in April 2015 India would buy 36 Rafales from France under a government-to-government deal.

Experts have warned that the smaller Rafale order falls short of the IAFs requirement of medium-weight fighters. Top IAF officials said India could explore the possibility of buying two additional Rafale squadrons but theres nothing on the table yet.

The induction of the 36 Rafales will significantly improve the IAFs capability but we have to get more fighters. Most definitely, we have to get the numbers, said former IAF vice chief Air Marshal KK Nohwar, who is now the additional director general of Centre for Air Power

Studies.

Numbers Game

The count of the IAFs fighter squadrons has reduced to 33 compared to an optimum strength of 42-plus units required to fight a two-front war. Air Marshal PS Ahluwalia (retd), a former Western Air Command chief, listed a combined threat from China and Pakistan as a top concern.

Its a serious issue that needs to be looked into, he said, making a strong case for ordering 36 more Rafale fighters. In December 2016, then IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha said the 36 Rafales on order were not enough and India needed around 200 such fighter jets for the expansion of its military capabilities.

The Chinese and Pakistani air forces operate 60 and 25 fighter squadrons respectively. Experts say a squadron-to-squadron comparison isnt fair and what is more crucial is how many warplanes are available for missions at any given time, in air force parlance serviceability of a fleet.

The IAFs fleet consists of 11 squadrons of ageing MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighters that will be retired in phases over the next five to six years. Su-30 fighters account for 13-plus squadrons but the fleet is plagued by engine troubles and is also battling poor serviceability. The remaining nine squadrons are a mix of Mirage 2000 fighters, Jaguars and MiG-29s.

Also, 32 more Sukhois are likely to be inducted by 2020.

The IAF was pegging hopes on a mix of new planes to hit the pause on the sharp drawdown of its fighter fleet, and eventually strengthen it. But the fate of some of these projects looks iffy.

India is yet to take a call on whether it should co-develop a stealth fighter with Russia, with the IAF having strong reservations about going ahead with the multi-billion dollar fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) project.

A plan to locally produce single-engine fighters in collaboration with a global defence contractor faces an uncertain future with the defence ministry treading cautiously as a single vendor situation might crop up, Hindustan Times has learnt. United States defence contractor Lockheed Martin and Swedish firm Saab are the only two companies exploring opportunities to build F-16s and Gripens in India. Another plan to build twin-engine fighters in collaboration with a foreign player remains on the drawing board.

IAF sources said the slow rate of production of the homegrown light combat aircraft, christened Tejas, is a reason to worry too. The IAFs first Tejas squadron, raised in 2016, consists of only five planes. It eventually plans to deploy 123 such fighter jets.

The air force could take at least 15 years to deploy its authorised strength of 42 fighter squadrons.

Its the joke of the century that the Tejas squadron has only five fighters. At this rate, you can calculate when the IAF will get the 123 planes, said Ahluwalia, who led the team that inducted French-origin Mirage 2000 fighters in 1984.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited claims it is ready to produce eight Tejas aircraft per year and is ramping up the production rate to 16 planes by 2019-20 by investing Rs 1,331 crore. The HAL even claims it can deliver 16 to 24 jets 2021 onwards. It doesnt seem to be a realistic target, a source said.

I dont know where we will get the replacement for the MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighters. We need single-engine fighters swiftly. Also, theres no use just having numbers, we need capability too in terms of precision weapons, cutting-edge avionics and superior situation awareness, Ahluwalia said, arguing in favour of the single-engine procurement.

He said the twin-engine procurement should also be pursued to eventually replace Jaguars and MiG-29s.

It is crucial to strike a balance between pursuing Make in India projects and the compulsions of the Indian Air Force to address the desperate shortage of fighters, said strategic affairs expert Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak (retd).

Its absolutely imperative to induct 150 single-engine fighters for a two-front war or even a full-blown conflagration with our major neighbour (China), the strategic affairs expert added.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh met Vice-President and Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday, in an attempt by the government to reach out to the Opposition for the smooth functioning of the House during Parliaments winter session .

Singh, a member of Rajya Sabha from Asaam, had fired a rare salvo at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded an apology from his successor for falsely accusing him of colluding with Pakistan, during a shrill campaign between the Congress and the BJP for the Gujarat election.

Sources told HT that the meeting between Singh and Naidu was an attempt to reach out to the Opposition parties to avoid any disruption in the Upper House due to the fallout of the campaign.

The Congress has submitted a notice to discuss Modis attack on Singh, signalling its intent to rake up the issue even after polling is over.

The results of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls will be out on Monday  effectively, the first working day of the Parliament.

Opposition parties such as the Congress, Left, Trinamool Congress and DMK will huddle to chalk out their joint floor strategy in the House.

The delayed winter session, from Friday till January 5, comes under the shadow of the Gujarat polls.

The session may turn out to be stormy, with members in the opposition set to protest against the governments economic policies.

Even if the Congress is unable to get a majority, but increases its tally in the Gujarat assembly, we will certainly see a more aggressive face of the principal Opposition party, said a senior Congress strategist.

The protests could slow down lawmaking, which includes bills to criminalise the Islamic practice of triple talaq and changes to the insolvency and motor vehicles laws.

Naidu said on Thursday that the Opposition must get a chance to express views but that he will find ways to run the House if the government and Opposition cannot come to an understanding.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Use of the hashtag #SikhGenocide by a minister of the Narendra Modi government has caused consternation within the external affairs ministry as the term is contrary to Indias stated position that the anti-Sikh violence after the 1984 assassination of Indira Gandhi amounted to riots.

Last month, minister of state for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri used #SikhGenocide in a pair of tweets while responding to Punjab state legislator and Supreme Court advocate HS Phoolka.

One read: @hsphoolka has been the rallying point & main source of inspiration providing legal assistance to families of victims of #sikhgenocide. The second read: The community collectively owes @hsphooka a big debt of gratitude. #NoJusticefor1984 #sikhgenocide.

@hsphoolka has been the rallying point & main source of inspiration providing legal assistance to families of victims of #sikhgenocide https://t.co/Y7JPAxv4WE  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) November 3, 2017

The community collectively owes @hsphoolka a big debt of gratitude. # NoJusticeFor1984 #sikhgenocide  Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) November 3, 2017

Puri did not respond to a request for comment.

The anti-Sikh riots broke out on October 31, 1984, after the assassination then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Large mobs killed around 3,000 Sikhs, most of them men. Delhi saw the worst of the violence that swept many parts of India.

This overt espousal of the term genocide by a Central minister has thrown Indian diplomats in a tizzy as they have been countering its use abroad. In April, a Liberal member of the Ontario provincial parliament moved a motion using that term and its passage caused ire in New Delhi.

At that time, an external affairs ministry spokesperson officially reiterated Indias position: We have noted the passage of a Private Members Motion in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on April 6. We reject this misguided motion which is based on a limited understanding of India, its Constitution, society, ethos, rule of law and the judicial process. Our views have been conveyed to the government and political leadership in Canada.

A similar motion had been moved a year earlier by Jagmeet Singh, then an Ontario member of the provincial parliament and now leader of the New Democratic Party, one of the three largest political parties in Canada.

That action in the Ontario legislature also caused friction between the Indian and Canadian governments even as Canadas minister of national defence Harjit Sajjan visited New Delhi, and, according to reports, was told by his then Indian counterpart Arun Jaitley that the motion had caused considerable disquiet in the country.

That motion, in fact, continues to cast a shadow on ties between Ottawa and New Delhi.

Officials are now seeking clarity on what the Indian position is, even as envoys have been countering a resurgent pro-Khalistan movement in countries such as Canada.

What has concerned external affairs ministry officials even more is that Puri has represented India abroad, including as the permanent representative to the United Nations in New York.

Puris tweets came in the context of Phoolkas reaction to an op-ed he wrote for Hindustan Times, in which he had focused on these themes: This was a mass atrocity and could attract any of the four labels normally associated with such heinous crimes: genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

He had also commented that, By no means can the carnage of 1984 be described as a riot.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Rajasthan high court on Friday ruled that anyone wanting to change their religion would have their name put up on a government notice board for a week and people would be allowed to file objections before permission was granted. The court did not specify who was eligible to object.

The decision was part of a set of guidelines issued by the court to check what it called the forcible conversion of religion. The court also said that any conversion or inter-faith marriage that did not adhere to the directives could be struck down if challenged.

The guidelines came in the wake of a Rajasthan government plea to clarify the legal status of religious conversions and inter-faith marriages.

Some guidelines are necessary to check the forcible conversion of religion because religion is a matter of faith and not of logic, a bench of justices Gopal Krishna Vyas and Virendra Kumar Mathur said.

Justice Vyas said the guidelines would remain operative till the Rajasthan Religious Freedom Bill Act of 2006 (which is awaiting the Presidents assent), or any other act governing the subject, was enacted.

While giving people the liberty to convert after attaining the majority age, the guidelines said the individual should satisfy himself/herself about niceties of conversion of religion.

They empowered a district magistrate to take appropriate action under the law on information of forceful conversion.

Every citizen has a fundamental right of freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution of India, but at the same time, it is the duty of every citizen to protect the feelings of other religion and not to act contrary to the provisions of Constitution, the bench added.

The court also put the onus on the person conducting the conversion to ascertain whether the individual changing his or her faith is desirous to change the religion, is having full faith in the newly adopted religion and should also ascertain whether he/she is under any threat of other person or not...

The genesis of the guidelines lie in a case filed by one Chirag Singhvi, who alleged that his sister Payal -- now Aarifa  was converted to Islam under coercion and that her marriage papers were forged.

The police had produced Arifa (22) before the court on November 7, when the high court allowed her to live as per her wishes. The bench reserved its judgment in the case on November 29.
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
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday announced granting visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India, Swaraj tweeted.

There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 yrs), Mohit (7 yrs), Zainab Shahzadi (8 yrs) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 yrs). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 14, 2017

She also announced accepting request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too, Swaraj tweeted.

Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too. @IndiainPakistan  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 14, 2017

I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery, she added.

Swaraj has adopted a sympathetic stand on granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals notwithstanding the strained ties between the two countries.
The Delhi High Court on Friday granted bail to a woman director of two Dubai-based firms, who was arrested in connection with a money laundering case arising out of the Rs 3,600-crore VVIP chopper scam.

Justice AK Pathak enlarged on bail Shivani Rajiv Saxena, saying that she has been in custody for five months and a supplementary prosecution complaint (charge sheet) has already been filed against her and the trial was likely to take time.

Saxena, a director of Dubai-based M/s UHY Saxena and M/s Matrix Holdings, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on July 16 and remanded in judicial custody.

The court asked her to furnish a personal bond of Rs one lakh and two sureties of the like amount and directed her not to leave India without prior permission of the trial court.

Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, the woman is admitted to bail, the court said.

The court imposed several bail conditions on her including that she should forthwith deposit her passport with the trial court and give her mobile number and address in India to the investigating officer of the case.

It noted that the offences alleged against her under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) were punishable for a maximum sentence of seven years.

Saxena, 53, got the relief in her second attempt as the court had in September dismissed her earlier bail plea. She was also denied the relief by the trial court.

Senior advocate Geeta Luthra, appearing for Saxena, argued that the woman has not been chargesheeted by the CBI in the main case of predicate offence but only the ED has chargesheeted her under the PMLA.

She contended that the accused in the predicate offence as well as in the co-accused in the money laundering case have already been granted bail. Saxena had also cooperated in the investigation in the case, she said.

Central Government Standing Counsel Ripudaman Bhardwaj, appearing for the ED, opposed the bail plea contending that she was actively involved in laundering the proceeds of crime and in kickbacks in the AgustaWestland scam.

He argued that the offence is serious in nature and sufficient material has been collected showing her involvement in the crime and if released on bail, there are chances of her eviding the process of the law as she is a Dubai resident.

Saxena was nabbed by the ED from Chennai. She and the companies have been chargesheeted by the ED under various sections of the PMLA.

Saxena and her husband Rajiv Saxena are residents of Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. The charge sheet contains her name and that of her husband, who is also a director in the two firms.

Rajiv Saxena has been evading ED summons and not joining the probe, the ED had alleged. The agency has so far not arrayed him as an accused.

The ED has alleged that the two Dubai-based firms and Shivani Saxena were the ones through whom the proceeds of crime have been routed and further layered and integrated in buying the immovable properties/shares among others.

It has claimed that its probe found that AgustaWestland, United Kingdom, had paid an amount of Euro 58 million as kickbacks through two Tunisia-based firms.

The ED, in this case, had also arrested Delhi-based businessman Gautam Khaitan who is currently out on bail.

On January 1, 2014, India scrapped the contract with Finmeccanicas British subsidiary AgustaWestland for supplying 12 AW-101 VVIP choppers to the IAF over alleged breach of contractual obligations and charges of kickbacks to the tune of Rs 423 crore paid by the firm for securing the deal.
Hundreds of farmers on Friday held a rally in Bharatpur demanding the state government to waive their debt, ensure water supply for irrigation and crop insurance.

The farmers under the banner of All India Kisan Sabha warned that they would be forced to launch an indefinite sit-in at the district collectors office if their demands were not accepted.

The rally started from Numaish ground and ended at the district collectors office. The agitating farmers also sent over a memorandum to the chief minister through district collector Narendra Kumar Gupta.

Farmer leaders said they were fed up with assurances from the government and want action on the ground.

All India Kisan Sabha district secretary Natthi Lal accused the BJP government of ignoring problems being faced by farmers.

We have launched the final warning rally to wake up the sleeping government to fulfil farmers demands like debt waiver, crops insurances, water from Gambheer and Yamuna rivers, Lal said.

Farmers alleged that the district was facing water scarcity for a long time. We have agitated earlier also demanding water from Yamuna through Gurgaon canal in Haryana, he said.

On May 12, 1994 five states -- Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh -- inked a pact to release 1,280 cusec of water from Yamuna river for Bharatpur. The farmers said the pact was not being respected now.

Many farmers have committed suicide in the district allegedly due to increasing debt.

Bhagwan Singh, a debt-ridden farmer, committed suicide on November 20 in Jatauli Thoon village allegedly due to burden of bank debt. Another farmer allegedly hanged himself in Sogar village on June 29.

Notably, the district produces 3.50 lakh tonnes of mustard every year on 2.10 lakh hectare area.
Ten people were arrested and 13 detained on Friday for allegedly raising slogans at a rally in Rajasthans Udaipur and posting provocative messages on social media platforms, police said.

Hindu groups, defying prohibitory orders, took out a silent procession, demanding the release of their workers who were arrested following clashes with police.

Prohibitory orders remain in force for the third consecutive day and internet services continue to be suspended in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts.

The two districts have been bristling with tension after last weeks killing of a Muslim migrant worker, Afrazul Islam, by Shambhulal Regar, who is in jail.

Deputy superintendent of police Bhagwat Singh Hingad said 10 people were arrested on the basis of a video circulating on social media that shows a group taking out a rally in Udaipur after the Rajsamand killing, raising communal slogans against right-wing Hindu groups and demanding death for Regar.

Inspector general of police (Udaipur range) Anand Shrivastava said the video has been sent to a forensic laboratory to find out if it is authentic or not.

Right-wing Hindu groups, including the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad have been pressing for the arrest of those who shouted communal slogans.

The Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindu organizations took out a silent march in presence of strong police deployment till the district collectorate, demanding release of their activists involved in stone pelting against police on Thursday in which 11 police officials and 31 police personnel were injured.

Police on Thursday arrested 207 people, out of which 132 arrested for disturbing peace, were later released on bail. The remaining 75 were produced in a court on Friday.

The Rajsamand police have also frozen a bank account in the name of Regars wife after the number was shared online, asking people to contribute money for the family.

Police are probing if there are any links between those who posted the account online and the accused Regar, said Shrivastava.

We are investigating if any of these people are involved in helping Regar in any way in planning or executing the murder, he said.
A Rajasthan government move to use the photo of Deendayal Upadhyay, a former president of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the then political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as logo on all official letters has evoked a sharp reaction from the Opposition Congress, which termed it illegal and not good for democracy.

In a circular issued on December 11, the printing and general administration department has directed all government departments, corporations, boards and local self bodies to use a logo of Upadhyaya on their respective letter heads.

For existing letter pads, appropriate stickers of the size of the logo of Pandit Deendayal Upadhay should be used and for the letter pads that will be printed in the future, it should be ensured that the logo is printed on them, reads the circular.

The circular, addressed to all additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, secretaries, department heads, divisional commissioners and district collectors, has asked them to ensure immediate execution of the directive. A copy of the letter is also marked to chairpersons and secretaries of all boards, corporations and local self bodies.

The directive comes just over two months after year-long birth centenary celebrations of the Jana Sangh ideologue, kicked off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 24 last year, concluded.

The Opposition Congress, meanwhile, decried the Rajasthan government circular. The government is imposing (this for) publicity of their party leader. Upadhyay was their party leader. He was not a President of India or Prime Minister or a freedom fighter. We have no issues if they (BJP) believe in him but using his photo on government letters alongside Ashok Stambh is unjustified and not good for democracy, said Rameshwar Dudi, Leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan assembly.

We will protest against this move in the state assembly, he added.

Congress state president Sachin Pilot said, Using Upadhyays (photo as) logo (on official letterheads) is absolutely incorrect and illegal. He never held any Constitutional post. We will challenge the move politically and individually.

The former MP said that it was a tragedy that the BJP was laying more focus on symbolic appeasement than on the state of affairs in Rajasthan.

HT had earlier reported how RSS icons such as Veer Savarkar, Upadhyay, and Syama Prasad Mookerjee have been prominently featured in the revised textbooks published by the Rajasthan education board.

Earlier, Uttarakhand, another BJP ruled state, had announced to use the photo and logo of Upadhyay in its offices, publicity and promotional materials.
Doctors, nurses and paramedics in Rajasthan are all set to get training in modern emergency life support techniques as the Centre has granted fund for setting up three skill development centres for them.

The three centres to be established in Jaipur, Bikaner and Ajmer under the human resource development for emergency medical services scheme will offer training in national emergency life support course, an official said on Friday.

A team from the union health ministry has already visited two medical colleges in Ajmer and Bikaner. The ministry will contribute 2.60 crore each the three centres as 100 percent grant.

A minimum of 10 faculty members will be trained as master trainers along with 10 nursing teaching faculties for the for the National Emergency Life Support Course at every medical college-level, the official said.

Sources said a memorandum of understanding would soon be signed by the union ministry, directorate general of health services (emergency medical relief) and medical colleges on behalf of the state government to set up the centres.

Bikaner-based Sardar Patel Medical Colleges principal RP Agarwal told HT that the centre would have skill stations to impart skills on life-saving interventions.

The skill development centre would replace multitude of courses like Advanced Trauma Life Support Course, Advanced Cardiac Life Support Course and Advanced Pediatric Life Support Course, which are copyright courses of foreign organisations, Agarwal said.

Sardar Patel Medical College is one of the three health institutes selected for setting up such centres.

The setting up of the centres is a part of the central governments Make in India drive.
The family members of Afrazul Khan, a migrant construction worker killed in Rajasthan earlier this month, will approach the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) with a request that the murder trial be moved to West Bengal.

Rajasthan police have already arrested Khans alleged murderer, Shambhu Lal Regar, and a nephew who allegedly recorded the crime on his mobile phone.

Afrazuls family believes that the deceased will not receive a fair trial in Rajasthan. His wife and daughters also fear attacks if they go there for the proceedings, said Asit Basu, special committee member of the West Bengal bar council.

Basu, who will file the petition, said the victims relatives are already receiving threat calls to withdraw the case. Some callers even offered money. We fear that Afrazuls family will not receive proper security from the Rajasthan government and police. The appeal mentions these points, he said, citing the shifting of the Best Bakery case from Gujarat to Bombay on the petitioners appeal as a precedent.

Afrazuls wife, Gulbahar Bewa, reiterated that a fair trial was not possible in Rajasthan. The state government failed to provide security to my innocent husband. I dont believe that the same government will give us security and conduct a fair trial, she said.

Basu, a former chairman of the state bar council, is likely to submit the appeal to the West Bengal Human Rights Commission on Friday evening. It will then be sent to the NHRC.

The law expert told HT that he is also exploring the possibility of filing a public interest litigation on the brutal murder. Several senior lawyers are ready to take up the case on the victims behalf, he added.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already offered a job to a member of Khans family, besides a one-time cash compensation of Rs 3 lakh.
Bhojpuri superstar Ravi Kishan may try his luck in politics by contesting the Gorakhpur parliamentary seat, which has fallen vacant after chief minister Yogi Adityanath quit as an MP to be a member of the state upper house.

Kishan, who recently joined the BJP and was welcomed by party president Amit Shah, says he is ready to contest if the chief minister allows him to do so.

 Yogiji ka ashirwad mila to mai Gorakhpur se chunav ladne ko tayyar hun (I am ready to contest if Yogi blesses me), said Kishan on phone .

However, Adityanath, who has represented the seat for 25 years, has not taken any decision on the ticket issue as the seat is also a matter of his prestige.

Kishan is scheduled to perform in Gorakhpur Mahotsav starting January 11. He had also campaigned for the BJP in Delhi municipal elections which were won by the BJP.

Notably, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari, who helped Kishan join the BJP, had once unsuccessfully contested parliamentary election from Gorakhpur in 2009 on an SP ticket against Yogi Adityanath.
Security agencies went into a tizzy on Thursday morning after they found around 25 pandrol clips missing from a track near the Daliganj railway station in Lucknow.

This was the second such incident within 10 days wherein clips used to keep railway tracks intact with the sleepers were found missing.

On December 4, around 300 pandrol clips were found missing from the track between Badshahnagar and Daliganj crossing. It was seen as a plot to derail trains and hence the matter was passed on to the ATS and STF for in-depth investigation. IG ATS Asim Arun had termed it an act of sabotage and said three teams were probing into the matter.

Read more| Clips missing from Badshahnagar-Daliganj track: Now, a system to detect breaks in railway tracks

However, the second incident in the same area has posed a serious threat to train operations in Uttar Pradesh as the removal of clips can also lead to derailment. In January 2017, a goods train in Unnao got derailed due to missing clips.

The issue came to fore on Thursday morning when some locals spotted a few children playing with some pandrol clips near Nirala Nagar railway crossing. The locals  Virendra Yadav and Imtiyaz-ul-Haq informed gateman Shyambabu who alerted station authorities.

Around 25 clips from six sleepers were found missing on the track between Nirala Nagar crossing gate number 6 and Daliganj railway crossing, said a senior railway officer.

Read more| ATS to assist probe into missing railway track clips: DGP

By the time, staffers spotted the missing clips Kathgodam Express, Gorakhpur Intercity and around half a dozen other trains had already passed over the track.

The approaching Barabanki Memu was halted at the Daliganj railway station while a few trains were halted at the Badshahnagar station.

Vijaylakshmi Kaushik, divisional railway manager (DRM) NER and other railway officers rushed to the site to take stock of the situation.

Alok Srivastav, PRO, NER Lucknow said, Some clips were found missing from the track near Nirala Nagar crossing. It was found that the clips came off the track after getting loosened due to frequent train operations. Some alert citizens informed the Railways after they found some children playing with the clips. The clips were replaced immediately.

Read more: Major train tragedy averted after multiple pandrol clips of railway track found missing in Lucknow

Vijaylakshmi Kaushik said the clips were recently greased during routine maintenance work. Clips came out due to the vibrations caused by train movements. We have instructed staffers to tighten them, she added.

LOCALS SAW KIDS PLAYING WITH CLIPS

The issue came to fore on Thursday morning when some locals spotted a few children playing with some pandrol clips near Nirala Nagar railway crossing.

The locals  Virendra Yadav and Imtiyaz-ul-Haq informed gateman Shyambabu who alerted station authorities.

Around 25 clips from six sleepers were found missing on the track between Nirala Nagar crossing gate number 6 and Daliganj railway crossing, said a senior railway officer.

.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has summoned the vice-chancellor of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Prof Ranveer Chandra Sobti, registrar Prof RB Ram, representatives of the MHRD and other opposite parties in a contempt case.

The matter The court summoned them as despite order not to go ahead with recruitment of teachers, the university went ahead with recruitment of teachers and opened their appointment letter in the board of management meeting held recently. The court, in its order, observed it is shocking that persons holding such office who have been vested with the obligation to manage a university, that too a central university, have acted in such blatant defiance of the judgment of the writ court.

The court issued notice to them to appear in person before it on January 11 for further proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Justice Rajan Roy passed the order on a contempt petition filed by one Venkatesh Singh alleging that the said opposite parties had not complied the writ courts judgment.

The court summoned them as despite order not to go ahead with recruitment of teachers, the university went ahead with recruitment of teachers and opened their appointment letter in the board of management meeting held recently.

Read more| BBAU convocation: Another dalit student refuses to accept medal from Prez

The court, in its order, observed it is shocking that persons holding such office who have been vested with the obligation to manage a university, that too a central university, have acted in such blatant defiance of the judgment of the writ court.

Having taken such a step they now have to face the consequences, the court observed.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday urged students to draw inspiration from the lives of social reformer Dr BR Ambedkar and former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Invoking the two Bharat Ratnas, Kovind said the hard work and struggle that these two leaders undertook was inspirational.

He was addressing the students and teachers at the 7th convocation of Lucknows Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University.

Insisting that both Vajpayee and Ambedkar had strong Lucknow connection, Kovind said, People of Lucknow elected Vajpayee and sent him to Parliament a number of times as their representative. People respect him for his contribution towards the country and society.

A few topper Dalit students, who refused to take gold medal from the President, raised slogans against the university administration outside hostel.

They were unhappy with the alleged discriminatory attitude of the VC towards Dalit students.

Family members of one Shailesh Tripathi, who died in March after submitting his PhD thesis, also registered their protest.

While the university had initially refused to give degree to the family member from the stage, it later allowed the bereaved mother to take the medal.

On Ambedkar, Kovind said the father of the Indian constitution was known for all the hard work he did throughout his life. When he was studying in Columbia University, he used to complete his thesis in quick time. It is because of this quality he was appointed as chairman of Constitution draft committee, claimed the President.

He also remembered another Bharat Ratna Sardar Patel, who died on this day (December 15).

The President also called upon the students to turn entrepreneurs and become job creators rather than job seekers. He advised them to follow ethics and principles to attain true success in whichever walk of life they chose.

Quoting a phrase, relativity applies to physics, not ethics, he said there could be no ambiguity or scope for argument on ethics.

The President noted with satisfaction the rapid progress the country is making, but said, We need to do more on specific social and economic challenges as well as in the areas of science and technology. When the country moves forward, he said, every citizen benefits and gets opportunities for personal development.

The President noted that the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University has taken various steps to highlight social concerns and provide access to the disadvantaged.

It has also adopted villages near the university and worked with the local community on education and development  and connected local people to the Universitys Innovators Club.

He appreciated such efforts, calling them an example of the students sensitivity and sense of responsibility.

Endorse Pehle Aap etiquette, be a better human being

President Ram Nath Kovind made a mention of Lucknows Pehle Aap (After you, please) etiquette. He said while people also make fun of the ceremonious Lucknow exclusive etiquette, if imbibed, it can actually solve the behavioral issues that plague the current generation.

He said the Pehle Aap tradition followed here, teaches us to be patient and give priority to others. It teaches us to be sensitive rather than be impatient and aggressive, said the President while insisting that it could actually lead to more happiness around.

Lucknow is a city of culture and is known for its values all around. People should pick Pehle Aap from this city, the President said.

Special praise for BBAU girls Sushma, Neelu

Kovind showered praise on two BBAU girls: Sushma Verma, the youngest Indian to get enrolled in a PhD course at the age of 15 and Neelu Sharma who got admission in the PhD course under the single girl child scheme. He twice mentioned these two girls name in his speech.

Sushma became countrys youngst matriculate at the age of 7 and youngest to get admission in post graduate course at BBAU at 13 years. While Neelu got UGC Swami Vivekananda single girl child scholarship wherein she is getting 30,000 per month as a research fellow.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Allahabad high court has directed the state government to consider suspending Rakesh Kumar Singh and Rajeev Rautela, former district magistrates (DMs) of Rampur, in connection with a case of illegal mining.

Singh is at present DM of Kanpur Dehat and Rautela is Gorakhpur DM.

The court has also directed disciplinary proceedings against the two.

The officers were involved in granting storage licence to one Gulam Hussain alias Nanhe, which he got on July 16, 2016, despite the court noting in an order on August 24, 2015, that Hussain was involved in illegal mining from river Kosi in Rampur.

The court also ordered the chief secretary to ensure that the inquiry, as directed in its August 24, 2015 order, is concluded within a month to identify other officials, both in district and police administrations, who were responsible for dereliction of duty, resulting in illegal mining by the Nanhe.

The court said that based on the inquiry, the state government should initiate disciplinary action against the erring officials.

Read more: Bureaucracy misleading people for 70 years, says Allahabad HC

The court bench, comprising chief justice DB Bhosale and justice MK Gupta, passed the above order while hearing a petition by one Maqsood, who complained of illegal mining by Hussain.

The complainant alleged that some government officials were conniving with Hussain, who was involved in illegal mining even though he had a licence to only store sand.

The court has fixed January 16 as next date of hearing.
Every government hospital must go for accreditation from the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), said Professor SK Sarin, director, Institute of Liver and Hepatobiliary Sciences (ILHS), Delhi.

Students and Staff honoured Dr Sai Saran PV was given Best Resident Award Dr Piyush Varshneya given best MCH student award Ajay Narain Varma given best medical technologist award Alka Mohan given best Nurse Grade I award while Rosila Mani Abraham given best Nurse grade II award. A blood donation camp was also organised at PGI in which staff donated blood for its blood bank.

Good private hospitals are recognised by the NABH, but government hospitals dont take accreditation by NABH seriously, which affects their working, said Prof Sarin addressing doctors on the 34th Foundation Day of Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) on Thursday.

Emphasising on regular upgrade of medical education, he said: Today, many doctors are not interested in learning after getting degrees. The reason behind this is old pattern of teaching that weighs heavy on their mind.

PGI may get control of cancer institute Addressing the gathering, SGPGI director Prof Rakesh Kapoor said the institute may get control of the cancer institute at Chak Ganjaria. If the cancer institute comes under PGI control, it would be made at par with Tata Cancer Institute, he said. Professor Kapoor said despite no burn ward in the hospital, no patient was referred out of the PGI after the Unchahar incident. All the eight patients admitted were recovering well, he added.

There are 68,000 MBBS and only 35,000 post graduate seats, so over 30,000 doctors are devoid of specialty. Upgrading knowledge of such doctors is essential, he added.

Sarin said only those doctors who want to serve humanity should be enrolled for post-graduate courses. A test of such doctors must be taken to know whether they are interested in service to mankind or not, he said.

The ILHS director urged doctors to never compromise on the quality of treatment.

Read: Indian-American doctor arrested for healthcare fraud

NATIONAL MEDICAL COMMISSION SOON

Professor Sarin said the Centre is soon going to constitute National Medical Commission and the draft for it is ready. The only catch with the commission is that doctors will not have any say in it as would be a total government show. Doctors want that they should run the commission instead of bureaucrats, he said.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Amid ongoing battle for supremacy between the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS) in the state, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday told the IAS officers to show large heartedness and behave like big brothers with other services.

Officers of other cadres feel the IAS officers formulate rules for themselves and also get their own promotions, said the chief minister in a lighter vein while looking at DGP Sulkhan Singh and asking him, Is it correct?

Yogi was addressing senior administrative officers conference organized on the occasion of IAS Week that commenced in Lucknow on Thursday. Yogis observations become significant in the backdrop of the ongoing tussle between the IAS and the Indian Police Service officers following recent letters from chief secretary Rajive Kumar and DGP Sulkhan Singh. In his letter, the DGP had opposed the chief secretarys circular asking the DMs to preside over meetings to review crime in their respective districts.

Playing the balancing act, Yogi said the DMs and SPs should dispose of the grievances of the people jointly and establish regular communication with the people as well.

He said to provide quality administration, there was need to decentralise the administration at the district level as well. Its not possible for an officer to dispose of all the responsibilities entrusted by the state government. The officers should work in coordination. It will not only make their work easy but get better result as well, he said.

Yogi said one was identified by his/her work and not by holding a big post. He said IAS officers should lead by example.

IAS officer Anita Bhatnagar Jain and her husband Ashu Jain presenting a dance recital at Raj Bhawan. (HT Photo)

In an obvious bid to boost morale of IAS officers, Yogi quoted work of TN Seshan as chief election commissioner and said the former IAS officer was still known for his commendable work. He lauded work of some district magistrates, including that of DM Indore to make his point how officers could make a difference in their respective fields.

Yogi said his government would support officers doing good work even if they erred at some point. The state government would, however, act tough if the officers did something with bad intentions, he said.

Chief ministers speech was inspiring at both the sessions on Thursday, said Uttar Pradesh IAS Association secretary Alok Kumar.

In an obvious reference to questions being raised over role of district magistrates in mining in some districts, the chief minister said there was no end to complaints the state government had been getting about illegal mining. The state government was committed to root out corruption, he said.

Read more| Law & order meetings:UP IPS body urges chief secy to implement DGPs suggestions

Yogi said a declining trend had been witnessed so far as the performance of IAS officers was concerned. He said some officers were in the habit of sitting over files instead of taking decisions. He said these officers would have to get into the habit of expediting the decision making process.

WHAT THE TUSSLE IS ALL ABOUT

An order issued by chief secretary Rajive Kumar on September 7 on holding crime review meetings under the chairmanship of district magistrates sparked the tussle between IAS and IPS officers. The IPS Association opposed the directive and wanted him to implement the suggestions made by DGP Sulkhan Singh on the law and order review meetings.

President of the association Praveen Singh shot off a letter to the chief secretary stating that all the police officers barring the station house officers should participate in the law and order meetings. The SDMs and magistrates are also associated with maintaining law and order. The district administration officers should be also directed to attend the law and order meetings, the letter said.

Meanwhile, general secretary of NGO, Lok Prahari, Satyanaryan Shukla (retd IAS) on Wednesday objected to the reservation shown by the DGP and IPS Association to the order issued by the chief secretary. The DM is empowered to inspect the police stations and transfer of the station house officers is done only after his nod. IPS officers should not object to review meeting under the DM, he said adding the DM was the representative of the government in a district and withdrawal of power will weaken his authority.

To imporove law and order, both the officers will have to work as a team, he said.
Students at Lucknow University will now be able to pursue research in Vedic literature, especially with reference to its science, art and cultural aspects. The university plans to introduce this course as Vedic literature offers easy solutions to many problems, said an official.

We need to look deeper to find out answers and solutions. Understanding Vedic literature is the core to understanding Indias culture and rich heritage, said said Prof NK Pandey, LU spokesperson.

To develop a consensus in this regard, LU has called a meeting of all deans on Friday to discuss ways to introduce research on Vedic literature in the university.

Read more: HRD panel begins probing financial irregularities in IIM-Lucknow

He said, It is believed that the Indian Vedic literature and philosophical thoughts do have solutions for modern-day problems and also have scope and dimension for human and national development.

When asked if this was another attempt to push Hindutva agenda in academics, Pandey denied it. He said Vedic literature is rich in content. It can be an excellent handbook to some of the common problems, which common man faces in day-to-day life, he said.

Read more: Bid to push saffron agenda through varsities in Uttar Pradesh?

In the past, the university established a Chair in the name of Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay, co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (the ruling BJPs forerunner) to promote his ideology by holding seminars, workshops and symposiums to publicise his ideologies.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A woman delivered a baby on an e-rickshaw on Thursday as she allegedly could not get an ambulance to travel from her home in Munshipulia to Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in Gomti Nagar.

The woman, Sadiya Khatoon, had labour pain during the day and her family tried to get an ambulance. The family reportedly waited for nearly an hour after calling the ambulance service. Later, they decided to take another vehicle and boarded an e-rickshaw.

However, before she could reach the hospital, she delivered the baby in the e-rickshaw. The family brought the mother and the child to the hospital where they were admitted and were said to be healthy.

Read more| 108 ambulance helpline: Man calls service for accident victim, faces barrage of queries

Ajay Yadav, spokesperson of GVK EMRI that runs 102 and 108 ambulance service in state, said that the service in the state capital is prompt. We are yet to find the number of this patient. Once we find it, we shall inquire what had exactly happened, he said.
Three men allegedly gang raped a 24-year-old married woman in a moving car and later dumped her on a highway near Auraiya on Thursday morning.

The woman was admitted to hospital by locals who also informed the police.

The victim was staying with her parents in Auraiya for the past one week and had gone to Mathura for some religious function.

Last night while she was waiting for bus to Auraiya she met a woman who lived in her neighbouring village. She offered her a lift in her car that already had three men.

Read more| Our address attracts shame: To rid Dec 16 Delhi gang rape tag, locals want name changed

Police said the car stopped near Agra for tea. However, the victim fell unconscious after having the tea that was apparently laced with some sedative.

The woman alleged that she was raped by the three men between Agra and Mathura and later dumped near the highway. She was discovered near Laxmi Dhaba on the highway by locals around 6AM.

Read more: 4 DDA officials booked for raping colleague, woman says they used video to blackmail her

She was supposed to join her husband and two kids in Delhi after the Mathura trip.

The Kotwali police have recorded her statement and were conducting raids to nab the accused.

Bhaskar Varma, circle officer, Auraiya, said the police would register a case only after the medical examination report was made available.
President Ram Nath Kovind will begin his two-day visit to Uttar Pradesh on Friday and his first stoppage will be Baudh Vihar in Risaldar Park where he will pay tributes to the mortal remains of monk Bhante Pragyanand who initiated Dr BR Ambedkar into Buddhism.

Pragyanand passed away on November 30.

This is for the second time the President is on a visit to his home state.

After becoming President, he had visited UP on September 14-15 with Ambedkar Mahasabha office as his first stop.

He will arrive in Lucknow at 9:20 am on Friday and directly go to Baudh Vihar. From there he will proceed to Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) where he will attend the varsitys seventh convocation, officials said on Thursday.

He will reach BBAU at 10:30 am and stay there for an hour.

From Lucknow, he will leave for Allahabad where he will attend the convocation of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT).

He will stay overnight in Allahabad. On Saturday, he will attend a function on the Allahabad high court premises.

In view of Presidents visit there will be large-scale traffic diversion in the state capital on Friday. No buses will ply between Charbagh and Burlington crossing. They will be diverted towards Cantonment.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Lucknow: A man killed his wife suspecting her to be in an illicit relationship with his friend in Natkur village under Sarojini Nagar police station in the wee hours of Thursday. The man was reportedly under the influence of liquor when he committed the crime.

The deceased, Poonam, 27, was married to Kamal Kishore in 2010. The couple has two daughters, aged six and three years. Kishore, who is a tube well mechanic, suspected that his wife Poonam had illicit relationship with one of his friend.

According to reports, in the wee hours of Thursday, Kishore hacked Poonam to death with a sharp edged weapon. After killing her, Kishore fled away from the house. On Thursday afternoon, family members of the deceased got information about her murder over phone.

After getting the information, Kamlesh, brother of the deceased, reached her residence along with other family members. He lodged an FIR at the Sarojini Nagar police station against Poonams husband.

Read more: 6-yr-old murdered in Delhi by mother and her lover after she saw them in compromising position

Cops recovered the weapon used to commit the crime from the house and sent the body for post-mortem examination. Later in the day, police arrested the accused Kamal Kishore from near Charbagh railway station while he was planning to flee.

Dharmendra Kumar Shahi, station office, Sarojini Nagar, informed that the Kamal Kishore was in an inebriated state when he was arrested from near Charbagh railway station. Proper interrogation could not be carried out as the accused was under the influence of liquor when he was arrested, said Shahi.

Read more: Delhi man shoots girlfriend in leg after argument, blames snatchers

It is suspected that Kamal killed his wife suspecting her to be in illicit relationship with his friend who is also a tube well mechanic, he added.

According to villagers, Kishore was a drunkard and used to thrash his wife over trivial issues. Poonams family members took her daughters along with them.
Monsoon Shootout

Director: Amit Kumar

Cast: Vijay Varma, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Tannishtha Chatterjee

Rating: 2/5

A psychological thriller that promises to explore social and moralistic questions can be a gripping one, but Monsoon Shootout fails to engage despite being backed by powerhouse talents such as Nawazauddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Vijay Varma and Tannishtha Chatterjee.

The film is the story of a cop faced with the dilemma of whether he should shoot an accused or not, on the first day of his job. The interactive trailer gave us a gist of the story  it explores all the available options.

Adi (Vijay Varma) bids farewell to his mom as he heads for his first day as a cop. After nervous rehearsals of saluting his seniors, Adis mom (Pravina Deshpande) reminds him of his fathers teachings. There are three different paths  right, wrong and the middle one. You will be at peace when you choose one, but it will be a tough decision.

Neeraj Kabi and Vijay Varma in a still from Monsoon Shootout.

And that is the crux of the film. On his first day of training on field, Adi meets his senior, Khan (Neeraj Kabi), who takes him along while chasing a murder accused. Things take a predictable twist and Shiva (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the accused, tries to escape when he realises the cops are trailing him. During the chase, Adi meets Shiva in an alley and is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to shoot him.

Director Amit explores all three options  Adi shooting Shiva, letting him escape, and in the third, shooting the accused in the knee, as the middle path.

What if Adi shot an innocent guy? What are the repercussions for Shivas family? Would Adi live with the guilt? How will he try to redeem himself if he shoots the wrong guy?

On the other hand, what if he lets a criminal escape? Wont that mean more ruthless murders in the future? What if, despite choosing the middle path, no justice is served either to Shiva or to his victims or to the people around the main characters?

The director must be lauded for exploring a completely fresh structure of story-telling  one that makes time flexible, keeps the audience wondering what actually happened and what was a figment of imagination and offers a new style of using time. However, it is the confused execution that leaves us baffled.

A cliched portrayal of the gangster and crime world is another major roadblock hindering the film from becoming a masterpiece. Dim lighting, incessant rains, heartless criminals, conniving politicians and corrupt administration officials is what we have seen in Mumbai gangster films made by Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap over the last three decades.

In fact, during each of the three scenarios in this film that hinges on a moral dilemma, the sequence of events is so predictable it would have turned a bore-fest had it not been for a wonderful set of actors spearheading the narrative.

While Nawazuddin Siddiqui is in his comfort zone  playing a merciless criminal who roams around with a hammer, Neeraj Kabi makes sure none of his acts go overboard. Tannishtha Chatterjee and Geetanjali Thapa have very small roles.

Vijay Varma outshines everyone in the film. He is the kind of actor who makes you forget his face and believe in his character. From guilt to remorse, anger, love and more, Vijay manages to convincingly portray each emotion with the perfect conviction.

Interact with the author @swetakaushal

Follow @htshowbiz for more

ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, in a speech on Thursday, caused a flutter in the BJP led-Maharashtra government when he said the Sena will quit the government in 2018 and come to power on its own.

However, BJP leaders firmly believe that Sena will not dare to pull out and the government will complete its five-year term.

Senior BJP leader and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil told Hindustan Times, There are no differences between the two ruling parties and our government will complete its five year term.

Another senior BJP leader said, Aaditya has clarified that the final decision will be taken by Uddhav . There will be a farce of pulling out just ahead of Assembly election that are expected to be held any time between October 2018 and May 2019, much ahead of their scheduled dates. In such a case, Aadityas statement may come true just a few days before the elections. But, it would not lead to dissolution of government as no party is in mood of going to the elections now.

Aaditya, while addressing a public meeting in Ahmednagar had said, Uddhav Thackeray will decide when we will leave the government.

Uddhav, during a tour of western Maharashtra last month urged farmers and small business owners to speak up against the government. We are formulating our strategy; we are building and strengthening our base in areas where it is needed, said a senior Sena leader.

Aaditya, in his speech, had urged the cadre and said all of you have to work together to bring about a change once Sena pulls the plug.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The family of a five-year-old, who was allegedly kidnapped from Bandra (East) on Monday, said the unidentified accused had tried to lure two more boys in the locality.

The accused also approached two boys before kidnapping Jaideep, but they did not pay him any attention as they were busy playing with a cat in the building, the boys aunt Bina Saini told HT.

CCTV footage showed that the man, who was wearing a red shirt and khaki pants, also tried to abduct a minor girl in Maharshtra Nagar.

But she found something suspicious and started to cry. The man left the girl as not to attract peoples attention, said an officer from Kherwadi police station.

To arrest the man, the Kherwadi police have shared CCTV footage of the incident in the neighbouring areas and all police stations.

Jaideep was found at Grant Road station  10 hours after being kidnapped.

Despite sifting through CCTV footage obtained from entry and exit points at Bandra and Grant Road railway stations, the police are still unclear how the boy reached Grant Road railway station.

CCTV footage showed Jaideep talking to a man, who was wearing a red shirt and khaki pants, outside his SRA building in Maharshtra Nagar at 10am on Monday. The man gave Jaideep Rs20 for food and took him to a shop, according to the video. What happened after they left from the building is unclear.

Jiadeep was found at platform number 2 at Grant Road railway station at 5.30 pm.Officials suspect that the man is a serial kidnapper and could target other children too.

The police have cited two reasons for not making any headway in the case: the boy speaks in Marwadi and is not well-versed with Hindi; second, new to the city, he could not related the exact sequence.

The boy and her mother had come from Churu in Rajasthan to attend her cousins wedding in Bandra.

It was the day of my sons wedding when Jaideep was kidnapped. Everyone was searching for him in the are, Bina said.

Jaideeps mother Sushila visited Shirdi temple in Nashik and Siddhivinayak along with her son as she promised to seek blessings.
The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) has registered a case against an assistant engineer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for amassing wealth which includes plush bungalows and flats at premier locations in the city and state.

A case was registered against Anil Chandravadan Mistry, 51, his wife Akruti, 43, and Anils late mother, Indumati Chandravadan Mistry. The government employee and his family owns bungalows and flats in Madh, Lonavla, Pune, Lokhandawala and Aaram Nagar in Versova, said an ACB officer. He has made many foreign trips to Bangkok and Pattaya. We had received a complaint about him amassing wealth following which an enquiry was conducted.

ACB investigations revealed that Anil Mistry, from March 23, 1990 to June 19, 2017 amassed disproportionate assets worth Rs7.72 crore, which is 1,307.18 % more than his known and legal source of income.

Similarly, Akruti has amassed assets worth Rs38.26 lakh while later Indumati was found to own assets worth Rs5.26 crore. Akruti and Indumati having the knowledge and consequences of the amassed property had encouraged the accused, said the ACB officer.

ACB sources stated that Anil and Akruti currently have a marital dispute. Akruti has, however, supported him before the marital dispute, said the officer.

While no arrests have been made in the case, ACB stated they will put forth a demand before the government to seize Anil Mistrys assets. The accused have been booked under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

ACB registers disproportionate assets cases based on either complaints or after setting traps. After trapping an official, ACB officials start examining financial and property-related details of the accused. If the amount exceeds the known sources of income, a fresh case is registered. Subsequently, if any family member is found to be a beneficiary, they too are booked. In Mistrys case, he was not caught in any trap but we had received a complaint, said the officer.

The recently released National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data put Maharashtra on top of the list of corruption cases (1,016) in 2016. The state is followed by Odisha (569), Kerala (430), Madhya Pradesh (402) and Rajasthan (387). Maharashtra was also the highest in corruption cases in 2014 (1,316 cases) and 2015 (1,279 cases).

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) will now have to spend Rs709 crore from its earlier estimate of Rs622 crore  a rise of 14%  to build the ambitious Ambedkar memorial at Indu Mills in Dadar.

Despite floating tenders twice, the planning authority received only one bidder, Shapoorji Pallonji Group, who had quoted 26% more than the estimated cost.

Officials confirmed that they had been negotiating with the group to bring down the cost in the past two weeks.

The project delays have resulted in cost escalations. In 2016, the anticipated cost for the project was Rs500 crore, which was later revised to Rs550 crore when the bids were floated for the first time. In a year, the project has seen a variation of Rs200 crore.

Dilip Kawathkar, joint projects director of MMRDA, said, We are not going for another bidding. The final approval for awarding the project will be granted by the executive committee.

Once approved, the on-ground work is expected to start from next month. On December 6, after paying tributes to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on his death anniversary at Chaityabhoomi, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the work on the memorial would begin in a month.

The design for the memorial, to be constructed on 12 acres of land at Indu Mills in Dadar, includes a 350-foot statue of Dr Ambedkar, a library, a replica of the historic Chavdar pond in Raigad, a number of viewing points for the memorial and a parking lot.

The memorial will be at stones throw from Chaityabhoomi, where Dr Ambedkar was cremated.

The National Textiles Corporation (NTC) officially handed over possession of the Indu Mill land to the state in March.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Acting on a tip-off, the Nashik rural police seized a large quantity of arms near Chandwad toll naka on Agra-Mumbai highway and arrested three men on Friday morning. The seizure includes 25 rifles, one machine gun, 19 revolvers and 4,166 live cartridges.

The is the largest arms seizure in Maharashtra since the arms haul in Aurangabad in 2006.

The police were alerted by a local petrol pump owner after the three accused stopped at the pump to fill fuel in their vehicle (MH-01/SA 7460). The three arrested have been identified as Nagesh Bansode, 23, a resident of Wadala in Nashik, and two Mumbai residents, Salman Ammanulla Khan, 19, and Badrinujam Badshah alias Sumit, 27, both of whom live in Sewri.

The Chandwad police station are investigating the case and have filed a first information report (FIR) under the Arms Act and under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The is the first major seizure in 11 years. On May 9, 2006, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad had seized 43 kg of RDX, 50 hand grenades, several AK-47 rifles and 3,200 live cartridges in two separate incidents in Aurangabad.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The Bombay high court on Friday asked the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) to inform it what steps it has decided to take to recover from builders Mhada share in redeveloped cessed buildings in the city  purportedly valued at a staggering Rs14,000 crores.

Ask some senior Mhada officer to remain present in court and explain the steps proposed to be taken by the authority to recover its share in terms of constructed area in these redeveloped buildings, a bench of Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Nitin Sambre told the Mhada lawyer.

The court was hearing a petition filed by city resident Kamlakar Shenoy complaining that Mhada officials have deliberately not taken possession of about 2.70 lakh square meters of constructed area, which according to Shenoy is valued at Rs14,000 crores.

Shenoys lawyer, advocate Chaitanya Pendse, explained that for redevelopment of every cessed building  old tenanted buildings in Mumbai city  additional Floor Space Index is provided to the builder to make the redevelopment commercially viable. Against this, Mhada also gets prescribed share in terms of constructed area in these buildings. But Pendse argued that Mhada officials deliberately did not take possession of the Mhada share in these redeveloped buildings. He said they did this purportedly to cause undue benefit to the developers, thereby causing wrongful loss to the authority.

Additional public prosecutor Prajakta Shinde informed the bench that Mhada has taken criminal action against erring builders and on the basis of complaints lodged by the authority FIRs have been registered against 34 builders and one more complaint was pending consideration.

The bench, however, said mere registration of FIRs against builders would not be sufficient as it also involved a civil wrong. Mere filing (of) FIR is not a solution, you must also get your share, the bench told the Mhada lawyer. In Mumbai, you have this lakhs of square feet constructed property lying unclaimed, the bench said.

You first take possession of your share, the judges told Mhada. It cannot be that the buildings are completed, units are sold, third party rights are created and then you realise that your share has not come to you, they added.

According to an affidavit filed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), so far 457 projects have been approved for redevelopment of cessed buildings under which Mhada was supposed to get 1,98,646 square meters of constructed area.

Out of these, 149 projects are complete and Mhada has already received 37,292 square meters of constructed area and compensation of Rs37.54 crores, the affidavit adds. It states that substantial portion of the Mhada share  1,41,803 square meters  is to come from 260 projects which are either on-going or stalled because of various reasons.

EOW has conceded that developers of 48 projects have defaulted in handing over 14,021 square meters constructed area to Mhada and this can be considered actual loss caused to the authority.
BJP MLA Suresh Halvankar on Friday triggered some heated exchanges in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by demanding that a committee of historians be set up to review the birth date of iconic Maratha warrior king Shivaji.

The dispute over king Shivajis birth date is quite old. While some right-wing groups, including the ruling coalition partner Shiv Sena, celebrate his birth anniversary as per the Hindu (lunar) calendar, the state government has recognised February 19 as the official birth date of the 17th century ruler.

Going by peoples sentiments and some newly emerged evidence, more authentic birth date seems to be April 8. I think the state government should set up a new committee of experts to review the existing birth date, Halvankar said in the House today.

He raised the issue moments before opposition leaders were supposed to begin discussion on pink ballworm attack on cotton crop and the losses incurred by farmers.

Shivaji Maharaj being the icon of Maharashtra, a dispute over his birth date is uncalled for, and an experts committee must be formed to sort out the issue. Apart from the official date of February 19, the birth anniversary is also celebrated on April 8. There should be uniformity, the BJP MLA said.

NCPs Jitendra Awhad took objection to Halvankars demand, saying he was spreading misinformation. The state government has already ascertained the birth date of king Shivaji. The BJP MLA is purposely playing with the emotions of people of Maharashtra by restarting a closed dispute, Awhad said.

Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil (Congress) demanded that Halvankars statement be expunged from the record.

However, Speaker Haribhau Bagde refused to expunge the statement, saying that Halvankar had simply shared some information and asked the House to take cognisance of the matter, without using any unparliamentary language.

As opposition MLAs started shouting slogans against the government over the issue, treasury benches shouted counter-slogans.

Shiv Sena MLA Sunil Prabhu said his party believes that king Shivajis birth anniversary should be celebrated as per the Hindu calender.

NCP leader Ajit Pawar pointed out that the previous Sena-BJP government of 1990s had formed the committee to fix king Shivajis birth date. This committees report said that the birth anniversary be celebrated on February 19. No one should try to distort the history as people of Maharashtra will not tolerate messing up with the history of states greatest warrior king, Pawar said.
The Maharashtra government is considering reducing in the age of juveniles to 15 years in case of heinous crimes. The home department has been directed to prepare a report with opinions from the public health and law and judiciary departments before such an amendment is initiated.

Minister of state for home Deepak Kesarkar said the government was seriously considering lowering the age because of a rise in the number of children from this age group committing rape and murder. He said the state government would recommend the Centre incorporate this change as an amendment in Juvenile Justice Care and Protection for Children Act.

The Centre has already passed a similar amendment to the Act in December 2015, which lowered the age for trial from 18 to 16 years. We have asked the public health department to check on aspects such as psychology, age of maturity and physical growth and submit a report. Similarly, the law and judiciary department will check on legal aspects. We will recommend the amendment to the Centre, Kesarkar told HT.

He said the step was taken on the basis of recommendations made by a committee under retired judge CS Dharmadhikari, which suggested a slew of measures for the safety of the women. He submitted five reports to the state government during the Congress-led government.

The governments move, however, could lead to the controversy as a section of society is against lowering the age of juveniles. An official from the home department said even if the state government recommended it to the Centre, it will be very difficult to get a nod. It was amended the Act two years ago against the backdrop of the Nirbhaya rape case in 2012. The Centre already debated and deliberated intensely before bringing the age down to 16.

It would be a regressive step. First of all, India is a signatory to a United Nations agreement safeguarding juvenile rights. Secondly, by trying these children as adults, you are denying them the right to reform. If tried under the Indian Penal Code, there is no age-wise category to monitor or assess first-time offenders. They will also be denied the right to higher education, jobs and a normal life, said Advocate Bina Tendulkar, who is former member of child welfare board.

After an amendment in the Parliament, children between 16 and 18 years, who commit crimes, can be tried as adults, but only after Juvenile Justice Board conducts a preliminary investigation to determine the severity of the offence, the circumstances and the childs ability to understand the consequences.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
The two men arrested for kidnapping a policewoman were produced in court on Friday after their custody ended. The court extended their police custody till December 19.

The two  Abhay Kurundkar, 52, and Rajesh Patil, 44 had been arrested in connection to the case of assistant inspector Ashwini Bidre, who went missing on April 15, 2016.

Bidres family members, who suspect that she had been kidnapped and murdered, approached the Bombay high court after the police failed to trace her.

The day Bidre went missing, Kurundkar had called Patils number several times. Later, the mobile phones of Bidre, Kurundkar and Patil were traced to the same placen near Mumbai.

Rajendra Mane, deputy commissioner of police, Zone II said, Since Bidre went missing, no money has been withdrawn from her bank account. We arrested the accused based on the available evidences, but there have been no major development in the case since.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
Mumbai: A 39-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday, for allegedly watching his 17-year-old daughter bathe at their residence in Andheri (east).

According to local police, the incident took place on November 29. As per allegations, the incident took place at 10:30am when the girl was alone with her father. She was bathing, when she saw someone peep from a narrow gap in the bathroom door. She looked into the gap and was shocked to see that it was her father. She then left the house and went to stay with her grandmother.

The girl approached the local police and lodged an FIR against her father, which was registered under section 354 (sexual harassment) and section 12 (sexual harassment) under Protection of Children from the Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

After ascertaining facts we went ahead with the arrest. The accused was produced before a sessions court where he was remanded to police custody for four days, an officer from the local police station said.

We will ensure that the accused does not try to pressurize the victim through others. We will try and record her statements before a woman magistrate, to strengthen our case. We are recording statements of the accused and probing if he has any prior criminal record, the police official said.
Asking the India government to clear its stand on the US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM) on Friday said it was opposing Trumps declaration.

We are having an in-house meeting to discuss the issues concerning Jerusalem because it violates Oslo agreement, said SM Mallik, executive member, AIMMM (Mumbai).

The Oslo Accords is an agreement signed between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) on September 13, 1993, at the White House. It was supposed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over staking claim to Jerusalem.

Calling the Trumps decision unjustified and irresponsible, AIMIM said the US move violate previous peace efforts initiated on various international platforms.

President Trump just destroyed every possibility of a two-state solution. It shattered decades of diplomacy and disrupted the Arab-Israeli peace talks. The 1967 borders must be respected and Jerusalem must remain the capital of Palestine, said Saeed Khan, vice president, ad hoc committee of AIMMM (Mumbai).

The members also asked the Indian government to clear its stand, like it did in case of Non-Aligned Movement  wherein India formed a bloc of nations who did not support either US or Russia  because the relations with Palestine dates back to pre-Independence era. AIMMM also extended its support to an online petition Jerusalem must remain the capital of Palestine, which has garnered more than 14 lakh votes so far.

The government of India must take a note of it. The Indian policy has been in favour of Palestine since we believe in human rights and justice. It is time for the government to come forward and support the Palestinians and oppose the declaration made by Trump, Saeed said.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar had said that Indias position on Palestine was consistent and independent and not determined by a third country.

This comes after Trumps declared that the US would officially recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital and shift its embassy from Tel Aviv, while projecting it as a long overdue recognition of reality.
The owner of the Bolero jeep, which was used to the smuggle arms and ammunition seized in Nashik on Friday, had reportedly approached the Amboli police on December 6 to report that the vehicle had been stolen. However, he was turned away by the police and no FIR was registered.

The jeeps original registration number was MH-02/ AP 2001, and it was stolen from Lashkariya Tower, Oshiwara, in Andheri (West) around 11:20pm on December 5, said its owner, Firoz Mehboob Khan, 53, who is a vehicle dealer. Speaking to HT, Khan said that when he learnt that his vehicle was stolen the next morning, he approached the Amboli police station on December 6, where sub inspector Ganesh Devkate noted the registration number and asked him to search for it in the area.

According to Khan, senior inspector Bharat Gaikwad, told him that if they register an FIR, he would have to complete a lengthy process when the vehicle was found. A police constable later visited the spot from where the vehicle was stolen, but didnt bother to check the CCTV footage of the area, said Khan.

However, according to Devkate, Khan only informed them about the vehicle theft, and then went back, saying that someone might have parked it at a different location. I did not refuse to file an FIR, said Devkate.

On Friday morning, when the Nashik rural police caught the three accused travelling in Khans Bolero with the fake number plate, senior officers in Mumbai were informed. During an inquiry, it was learnt that the Amboli police did not register an FIR, and a team was sent to Khans residence, who brought him to the station to record his statement. An FIR was finally registered on December 15.

Senior inspector Bharat Gaikwad said, Khans statement was recorded at the station and an FIR was registered under section 379 (punishment for theft)of the IPC.
A week after the funeral of a Chembur resident who was crushed to death by a 40-feet Gulmohar tree, the officers and staff members at Govandi police station pooled in money to pay her family members for the funerary rites. Senior police inspector, Shashikant Mane, and his staff visited the familys residence in Chembur on Friday morning to hand over the money.

Shahji Umap, deputy commissioner, zone 6, said, This was done after we learnt that her children had taken a loan of Rs15,000 to perform the last rites. An amount of Rs17,000 was collected so the family members could repay the loan.

According to eyewitnesses, Sharada Ghodeshwar, 45, was waiting at a bus stop when the incident took place on December 7. Passers-by rushed her to Shatabdi hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. She is survived by her 65-year-old mother, two sons, and a daughter.

The police had filed an accidental death report after the incident, and investigations are underway to determine whether or not there was any negligence on the part of the authorities. They have sought expert opinion to ascertain the cause for the fall of the tree, and are going through records to check if there had been complaints registered against the maintenance of the tree. The possibility that the fall was a natural event is also being considered, given that the fall came a few days after the city witnessed heavy rains due to cyclone Ockhi.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
A 37-year-old man has been arrested in Oshiwara, and charged under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, for allegedly stalking and molesting a 11-year-old girl.

The incident took place around 9.30pm on Wednesday at Behrampada, when the girl went to a bakery there to buy bread, the Oshiwara police said.

The accused, later identified as Dinesh Singh, realised that the girl was out alone and started stalking her, as per the police complaint. He then made an obscene gesture, walked close to her and touched her private parts from behind.

The girl ran home and told her mother what had happened. The woman approached Oshiwara police station immediately to file a complaint. Based on the girls description, the police started a hunt for the suspect, who used to work as a waiter in the same area, and caught him within three hours of the incident. The police are now investigating to see whether he has prior criminal record.

The FIR has been registered under section 354 (criminal force on a woman outraging her modesty), 354 D (stalking) and 509 (word, gesture of act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 8 (sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment of a child) of POCSO Act.

A police officer from Oshiwara police station said Singh was produced before a sessions court on Thursday and has been remanded in police custody.
The University of Mumbai (MU) students can write to their hearts content in examinations, as the Bombay high court has stayed a circular of the university denying students supplements after they fill the 40-page answer sheet.

The division bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice BP Colabawalla stayed the circular saying that the academic body had come out with the novel idea that answer sheets wont be lost if not provided at all. By way of interim relief, the bench has now directed MU to provide extra sheets as and when demanded by students.

The court stayed the circular after considering that there could be candidates, who would finish the question paper in one paper book, but some students may have bigger handwriting, forcing them to go for additional answer sheets and it would be unfair to not provide it.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Manasi Bhushan, a student of Government Law College, on the circular issued by the University this October, after it switched over to the online evaluation of answer sheets. The university decided to do away with supplements after several errors crept in scanning answer sheets that had additional supplements attached and decided to provide only one 40-page answer sheet.

Bhushan challenged the circular saying it was in violation of the basic rights of a student. Her petition stated that currently an answer sheet comprises 40 pages, of which four pages are printed for the purpose of putting in details of students and cannot be used for writing answers, thus leaving only 36 pages for students to actually write. She added that the university's logic that each student would complete the paper within 40 pages was flawed and should be reconsidered.

The court has now asked the university to file a reply to the petition and will now hear Bhushans petition next month.
Families of 36 minors, who went missing in 2017, are still waiting for their children to return, shows official data released by the Ghaziabad police. A total of 81 minors went missing from the district between January and November this year; the police could reunite only 45 children with their families.

The issue of finding missing children was taken up on war footing by the district police under Operation Smile, initiated in November 2014, to trace and recover missing children. In the first two months of the operation, teams from the Ghaziabad police travelled the length and breadth of the country to trace missing children and reunited 227 minors with their families. The feat won Ghaziabad police laurels from the Union home ministry, which directed all states and Union Territories to take similar initiatives. Over the years, however, it seems Operation Smile may have lost some of its steam.

Tarun Gupta, caretaker of Prerna Sewa Sansthan, a shelter home for children in Ghaziabad, said, It seems the police does not want to trace missing children anymore. They show reluctance in lodging FIRs and insist that people register e-FIRs; it becomes difficult for a poor person to lodge FIRs online. The intent with which they started Operation Smile seems to have becomes lost.

Prerna Sewa Sansthan currently takes care of 30 children in the age group of three months to 11 years who went missing and are waiting to be reunited with their families.

Member of child welfare committee Shalini Singh said that since the police are the first responders, they need to take more initiative. In many cases, it is seen that they dont lodge FIRs and even the online data of missing persons remains incomplete. There has to be more awareness (among the public) about missing children and, most importantly, police need to take this initiative, she said.

The district police, however, differs on its response towards the plight of missing children.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP) HN Singh said they regularly conduct drives in which police teams investigate reports of children who have gone missing from the district and they are sent to different parts of the country to find them. We have lodged FIRs in all cases of missing persons and children that were reported, he said.

Singh added that side by side, the police are also conducting a drive on the lines of Operation Smile. Under the drive, we have focused on child workers who are employed at roadside dhabas, etc. In one such instance, we recovered nearly 70 children from Loni alone and they were sent back home, Singh said.

According to the claims made by the police, 312 persons, including minors and those over 18 years, went missing from January to November this year and 220 of them were either traced or returned on their own.

I am also monitoring the issue of missing children on daily basis, said the SSP.
The district magistrate and senior superintendent of police of Gautam Budh Nagar on Friday visited the Kasna jail premises to identify a place that can be used as a detention centre for illegal immigrants and foreign nationals.

On December 4, the chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh had written to the district magistrates of Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad to identify a land or a building to come up with a detention centre. The chief secretary had asked the DM and the SSP to visit the newly constructed premises of the Kasna jail, where there are many empty residential buildings that were constructed for the jail staff.

Officials said that several residential buildings are lying empty as no jail staff is living there. The letter from the chief secretary stated that one of the premises or building can be used as a detention centre by building a boundary around it and ensuring that it meets all rules and regulations.

DM and SSP will now be writing back to the chief secretary giving their opinion on the location for the detention centre.

We have visited the premises of Kasna jail and there are few buildings that are lying unused. We will be giving our feedback on the issue to the chief secretary. We do need a detention centre to detain foreign nationals when their visa expires or before getting them deported, BN Singh, DM, said.

The district police chief also said that a detention centre is a must. We visited the location today to see if any of the buildings can be used as a detention centre. This detention centre will be used for any illegal immigrant or foreign nationals who are caught committing crimes in Uttar Pradesh. It becomes a task for us to detain foreign nationals before they are finally sent back, be it for any reason, Love Kumar, SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar, said.

The chief secretary has asked that the process of identifying land or building for the detention centre be expedited as the issue has been pending for years.

On September 9, 2014, the ministry of home affairs had written to the principal secretaries of all the state governments and administrations of Union territories for setting up detention centres/holding centres/camps to restrict the movement of illegal immigrants and foreign nationals awaiting deportation after completion of sentence due to non-confirmation of nationality.
Calling the Uttar Pradesh Self-Financed Independent Schools (Regulation of Fees) Bill, 2017, an eyewash, parents in Noida have objected to several provisions stating it does not take care of parents interest and that there were loopholes designed to give leeway to schools.

In a press conference held in the city on Friday, the All Noida School Parents Association said top among their objections was non-representation of parents in the parents teachers association (PTA), whose head would be a part of the panel overseeing fee hikes.

The zonal regulatory committee recommended in the bill doesnt have a single parent. The committee will include the divisional commissioner, a PWD engineer, a chartered accountant, the PTA president of any school, an official from the finance and revenue department, regional director of education and an eminent principal. We know that the president of any PTA is always the principal of that school. So there is no role of the parents in this committee, said K Arunachalam, general secretary, All Noida Schools Parents Association.

With zero representation, parents fear the committee, which alone will have jurisdiction to settle, decide or deal with any matter over fee hikes, would give schools, including minority educational institutions, a licence to loot. If the bill is implemented, no civil court would have jurisdiction to interfere in its decision-making.

For the past year, parents in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad have been protesting against arbitrary fee hike by private schools demanding the state government introduce a regulatory committee. On December 8, the government met this demand by introducing a proposed fee regulatory bill.

The state government has asked for suggestions from various stakeholders for making amendments till December 22.

The association submitted its recommendations for the proposed bill saying that a number of features, including fixing an upper limit on fee, must be included.

There is no upper limit on how much the schools can charge annually. We demand the schools must make public the list of teachers and their salary. Parents should have an equal say in the PTA, Arunachalam said.

Parents are also skeptical that schools will use the fee to open other branches. As per the bill, 15% money received under development fund can be used by schools to construct their other projects.

In the bill, there is a provision for exceptions where the regulatory committee may give relaxation to private schools. We believe it is a planned loophole for schools to abuse. If this bill is implemented, then parents are set to lose their say against private schools. Earlier, private schools used to hike fee in an arbitrary manner, now they will have a licence from the state government to loot openly, vice-president of All Noida School Parents Association Vikash Bansal said.

Parents have also commented on the language used in the bill saying that it is vague and has loopholes that private schools can abuse.
We often hold ourselves responsible for mismanaging relations with our neighbours, believing that either we are insensitive or overbearing in dealing with them, or that, as the bigger country, we have been ungenerous. We are faulted for not tying them to our economy. However, we oversimplify the dynamics at play between big countries and their smaller neighbours.

All big countries have, in reality, problems with their smaller neighbours because the disparity in size and power create insecurities in them, not to mention loss of identity as in the case of Indias neighbours who share with us ethnic, linguistic, cultural, civilisational and even religious commonalities. To balance the bigger neighbour, outside powers are cultivated, which in our case is principally China, though in the past the United States has played this role.

China has tense relations with all its neighbours, barring Pakistan, with its actions in the East China and South China Seas exacerbating their insecurities. Relations between the US and its neighbours to the south have been historically antipathetic. Cuba is a prime example of a big country imposing its will on a tiny neighbour. Russia, too, has problems in managing its periphery. Its western neighbours have found security under the US/EU/Nato umbrella, while the eastern ones resist its control.

Pakistans endemic hostility towards us has severely distorted the subcontinental relationships. It is exceptional in its use of terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Recently former Pakistan president and army general, Pervez Musharraf, avowed his admiration for LeT founder Hafiz Saeed and the value he placed on the use of terrorist groups to keep the Indian army in J&K under pressure. Pakistan, while refusing to normalise trade relations with India, has obstructed regional cooperation to prevent India from drawing strength from it. Afghanistan was invited to become a Saarc member, but Pakistan denies it the right to benefit from unhindered relations with India.

Nepal has long played the China card against India. The latest election results in Nepal, with KPS Oli emerging as the countrys prime minister, is likely to increase Indias headaches. Nepal supports Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and is backing Chinas connectivity projects with it in full awareness of Indias security concerns. Under Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikha Hasina, Delhi-Dhaka ties have improved on many counts, but our porous borders pose the serious problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh. This is compounded by the illegal influx of Rohingyas through Bangladeshi territory. Dhaka, too, supports the BRI.

Sri Lanka is, in Beijings planning, the hub of Chinas maritime silk road project. Its submarines have already surfaced at the Colombo port. Sri Lanka is aware that it has walked into a debt trap with Chinese financed projects, but, besides lacking the political will to rebuff China, it calculates that an anxious India will be induced to offer more projects to it to its gain. While balking at signing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India, Sri Lanka is negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China.

The Maldives has just signed an FTA with China in murky circumstances and supports the BRI, ignoring Indias concerns.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is not that India is necessarily mismanaging its relations with neighbours, but that they too, enticed by China, are mishandling their ties with India. They know Indias limitations in imposing its will on sovereign countries in todays world. Reciprocity is the governing principle of diplomacy. While a bigger country may not seek strict reciprocity, it cannot sacrifice national interest simply for the sake of generosity. Our neighbours cultivate China at Indias cost even though generosity is by no means the guiding principle of Beijings foreign policy, whereas display of power, meting out punishment and asserting sovereign rights unilaterally are the hall marks of its increasingly nationalistic external conduct.

Neighbourhood First cannot be the basis of foreign policy, especially at a time when the worlds most powerful country believes in America First. India needs investments and access to technology. It needs to fulfil its defence needs through imports and Make in India projects. It must secure its energy needs and defend its interests in international trade negotiations, besides seeking reform of the international financial and political institutions to obtain its rightful say in global governance, and so on. None of these pressing needs can be fulfilled by our neighbours. And so, while it is a bonus to have friendly neighbourhood ties, it is not a prerequisite for Indias progress and the achievement of its aspirations.

Kanwal Sibal is former foreign secretary

The views expressed are personal
Two cases of recovery of cash and gold were reported at the Chandigarh International Airport on Thursday. Customs officials were surprised to find 1.16 kg gold having market worth of Rs 25 lakh under a passenger seat on IndiGos Dubai flight that landed around 11 am. The gold bars were detected when the plane was routinely being checked after deboarding.

Officials said that so far the gold seized was unclaimed. They are trying to probe who was trying to smuggle it.

Only last week, the customs seized nearly 3 kg gold from a passenger from Delhi who had concealed it in a vacuum cleaner.

Also, on Thursday, a team of Mohali police seized Rs 22 lakh from Gurgaon resident Sandeep Daggar who landed here in a Delhi flight in the afternoon. Officials said he was identified based on the intelligence input that illegal cash was being taken.

When police questioned him, he claimed that he was taking cash to buy a property in Panchkula. We are verifying his claims and accordingly will take legal action against him, said an official. The income tax department too has been informed about the seizure.

As for the gold, officials asserted that smugglers are trying to sneak in gold through cities having new airports assuming that they will not be caught there. But the security is stepped up at the airport.

As past experience shows, smugglers are resorting to deep concealment methods in the hope that officials will not catch them. But we are trying our level best not to allow any kind of smuggling from the airport, said an official.

Smuggling of gold is rampant from Dubai due to price difference with the Indian market. Moreover, gold from Dubai has more worth in Indian market due to purity factor. The government also loses customs duty due to smuggling.

Seizures at city airport

With international operations starting at the Chandigarh airport last September, smugglers are trying to sneak in gold from Dubai

Dec 8: 2.9-kg gold worth Rs 80 lakh seized inside a vacuum cleaner

Oct 25: 600-gram gold chains worth 17 lakh seized

October 17: 1.4-kg gold biscuits worth 39 lakh recovered from Jalandhar man

July 27: 350-gram gold worth 10 lakh found inside coffee mugs and lunch box

July 13: 540-gram gold worth 15 lakh found concealed in beading of a suitcase

July 10: 407-gram gold worth 11 lakh recovered from inside a Maharashtra mans rectum
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.
Fog will continue to engulf the city for the next three-four days, and the temperature will further dip by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius, according to the forecast of the meteorological department here on Thursday.

Maximum temperature on Thursday remained at 18.2 degrees, four notches below normal; and the minimum temperature was at 12.6 degree Celsius, which was six above normal. Forecast for Friday shows the maximum temperature as 14.2 and the minimum as 11.3.

Fog disrupted air traffic for the second consecutive day as three flights were cancelled and five delayed. The airport that got a new terminal still has no navigation system for operations during inclement winter conditions.

Air Indias Chandigarh-Delhi flight at 7.25 am could not operate because the visibility did not allow the aircraft to land at 6.55 am. Then SpiceJets Delhi flight at 8.40 am got cancelled, and its been called off for Saturday too in apprehension of fog.

Air Indias Mumbai flight was cancelled at 3.20 pm because the aircraft was stuck with a Chandigarh-Pune flight that departed three hours late in the morning and could not come back on time for Mumbai passengers. IndiGos 8am departure for Delhi ended up becoming 11.30 am. Air Indias Chandigarh-Pune flight was operated at 12.30 pm instead of 9.15 am.

Passengers of cancelled flights had tough time. Many of them were stranded and missed their connecting flights from Delhi to other destinations. The visibility only improved after 11.30 am that allowed the airport to operate many of the scheduled flights.

As a result of the fog, trains ran late too. Of the 56 that arrive in Chandigarh, 13 arrived late on Thursday. These included Una-Delhi Janshatabdi Express arrived 25 minutes late, while New Delhi-Kalka Shatabdi Express was 15 minutes late.
A businessman in Chandigarh was arrested for allegedly failing to return an amount of Rs 22,000 that was mistakenly handed over to him by the cashier of a bank while exchanging money. He was sent to judicial custody on Friday.

The accused was identified as Ashok Gupta, who runs a paint shop in Sector 27. He was booked on the complaint of Sita Ram, the head cashier of Punjab National Bank, Sector 27.

Sita Ram stated that on August 4, Gupta approached the bank seeking to exchange notes. He said he had an amount of Rs 22,000 in Rs 500 denomination notes and wanted to exchange them with Rs 2,000 denomination notes. Sita Ram handed him the amount, but later realised that he was falling short of Rs 22,000. He further stated that he handed over 22 notes of Rs 2,000 denomination to Gupta instead of 11 notes.

Police said the banks CCTV footage also showed that extra notes were handed over to Gupta. The bank approached Gupta, asking him to return the amount but he refused to accept that he was handed extra amount. He too was shown the CCTV footage, but did not accept that he received the money.

A case was registered under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code at Sector-26 police station.
Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MP Dushyant Chautala, the countrys youngest parliamentarian, on Friday attracted eyeballs when he reached Parliament to attend the Winter session riding a tractor.

The 29-year-old MP from Hisars Haryana told PTI that he rode a green-coloured tractor to Parliament in protest against tweaking of certain rules relating to the Motor Vehicles Act which, he claimed, would add to farmers woes.

I rode the vehicle to protest tweaking of rules under the Act declaring tractor as mere vehicles and not agricultural vehicle. The change in rules will mean the selling price of the vehicle will go up, farmers will have to pay toll for using it to transport goods, he said.

The amendment also intends to put a limit on loading farm produce in tractor which will further increase the farmers woes, he added.

Chautala said he had flagged the issue at an all-party meeting held ahead of the session yesterday and brought the concern to the notice of Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari.

I had demanded permission from the Lok Sabha Speaker to reach Parliament on tractor, he said.
Dont ask me about my childhood. I wont be able to narrate that time, said 83-year-old Jagdish Lal Ahuja, in a voice choked with emotion. In 1947, a 12-year-old boy born in Peshawar, Pakistan, came over to this side during the Partition. The event not only took away his birthplace from him, but his childhood too.

It is this lost childhood that Ahuja, popularly known as PGIs langar baba, is searching among hundreds of poor kids whom he feeds daily. Over three decades have passed since he started organising langars across Chandigarh in 1981. In 2001, he started a daily langar outside Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). He has been at it without a break.

Also read | Narinder Singh International, Chandigarhs guardian angel of tourists

SOLD PROPERTY WORTH CRORES

In 2015, he sold his seventh property worth 1.6 crore to arrange money for his noble initiative. Ahuja has sold six other such properties worth crores to ensure that the poor do not go to bed on an empty stomach.

Sitting on an easy chair, strategically placed near the heater, he said,  Puttar, we will share a cold drink and have tea too. Dont say no. He offered a chair next to him and took out a brand new tablet from his table and handed it over.

It has recordings of all the work I have done. My daughter gave it to me a while back, but I find it hard to operate, he said, struggling with the gadget. Ahuja has a wife, two daughters and a son. The kids have their own business and are well settled.

The tablet had six to seven videos, showing a man in his 70s, serving langar, handing out woollens, biscuits and fruits at various colonies such as Maloya, Sector 24, Industrial Area, an old age home Snehalaya, outside PGIMER, Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, and other places.

HARD TIMES

Now, tell me what you want to know? asked Ahuja in an authoritative tone. However, questions about his childhood left him distressed.

He started after a long pause. I was 12 when I left Peshawar. We arrived at the Patiala base camp from where we were sent to camps in Amritsar. I stayed there for some months and shifted back to Patiala, he said.

Ahuja was the only breadwinner of the family as his father did not work and his mother was a homemaker. Everyday, I walked three miles barefoot to buy namkeen dal for 1 and sold it for 1 and 2 aane at stations. I made two such rounds daily and earned 2 and 2 aane. By the time I got home, my feet and hand would be full of blisters, but I still had to earn or else I would go hungry for days, he said, his voice choking up.

He never went to school in Peshawar even though he could afford to do so. He said, My father beat me up if I studied and teachers beat me up in school because I would not have done my homework. So, yes, I could not study; my childhood was horrifying.

From selling namkeen dal at the stations in Amritsar to selling toffees, jaggery, and fruits on the streets of Patiala, Ahuja continued working and fought hard when faced with hardships.

Now that baba is growing old and is fighting cancer, he only comes for a visit towards the end of the langar. That is when he distributes balloons, toffees and snacks to children. (Anil Dayal)

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

At 21, he moved to Chandigarh after a fight with his family. Here, he started buying and selling fruits. His journey in the new city that started from the purchase of a cart of oranges for 15 turned into an enterprise worth crores.

He bought his first property, a house in Sector 22, in 1965-66 for 4,000. He recently sold this property to fund the langar. Since he had a business of selling bananas, he was often known as the banana king. Soon, he was became popular as langar wale baba.

Talking about how he began this initiative, Ahuja said, It was my sons eighth birthday and I wanted to celebrate it by giving to the society. So, I decided to organise a langar for children.

We cooked food for 150 children and served it in the market in Sector 26. The moment I saw the joy on the faces of the children, it reminded me of my childhood. I then announced that this langar will be held daily, he added.

YEARS OF SERVICE

He said, It was on Guru Gobind Singhs birthday that I wanted to distribute halwa and was wondering which place I should choose to set up. I was passing through PGIMER and saw a boy serving rice to the poor; thats where I got the idea.

Since then, babas langar is part of a routine at PGIMER. Between 6pm and 6.30pm, a black van stops outside gate number 2 of PGIMER and a stall is set up. In no time, people queue up for food. The langar outside GMCH-32 is organised in the afternoon.

Not a single day has passed in the last 17 years that this langar was not organised outside PGIMER. We serve dal, chapatti, rice, halwa and banana. Apart from this, we also serve biscuits to cancer patients and kurkure, toffees, lollipops with whistles and balloons to children, said Ahuja.

NO FAVOURS FROM OTHERS

However, these days, shortage of money has made it difficult to run the langar but that has not stopped him. Asking for financial help from others to run the langar is against Ahujas principles. Instead, he has chosen to cut down the supply. Earlier, I made this langar for over 2,000 people daily; now its for 500. I have reduced the quantity after 2015, he added.

The number of vegetable drums has reduced from 17 to seven, the carts of chapattis have reduced from six to three and only two boxes of bananas are distributed instead of six.

His motivation comes from those he feeds daily. He said, Main apna bachpan dekhda haan, inna ch (I see my childhood in them).

Now that baba is growing old and is fighting cancer, he only comes for a visit towards the end of the langar. That is when he distributes balloons, toffees and snacks to children.

I have never sought a favour from anyone, but can only expect some help from the government. Kindly convey my message to the governor that I might need his help in continuing the langar in the near future, said Ahuja.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
If you see someone biking on the Morni Hills, taking a break only to shoot some pictures, chances are its your British deputy high commissioner, Andrew Ayre. If there is one thing that this affable diplomat shares with young Punjabis, its his passion for biking, with Royal Enfield Bullet being his machine of choice.

A career diplomat with 30 years of experience, who took over the Chandigarh consulate in March, says the upsides of being here are far more than those in Guyana, where he was based from 2011 to 2015.

He has every reason to be pleased  the number of tourists from India, especially Punjab, to Britain, shot up by an impressive 45% this year with a total of 2,27,000 Indians vacationing there. This is a big boost for the British tourism industry, which contributes 9% to the countrys GDP.

The number of students applying for higher education to Britain from the region also rose by 27% in 2017-2018.

BIRMINGHAM SOLUTION TO STUBBLE

My job is to make our relationship more mutually beneficial, says Ayre, who is looking forward to the inauguration of a plant, which will generate fuel out of rice stubble, at Rajpura today.

This technology was patented by a Birmingham professor specialising in non-conventional energy. It will not only be an antidote to stubble burning, but will also help farmers make some money, says Ayre, who calls it the first of many British initiatives to promote renewable energy and boost farm income.

However, skill development tops Ayres agenda. We are working with the Punjab government on various skilling programmes to make educated youngsters more employable. The high commission is also promoting cold chains to help farmers get their produce to marketplace.

The consulate is embracing the make-in-India movement as well. JCB and Triumph motorcycles in Haryana, Damco, an IT company in Chandigarh that employs 2,000 people here and 150 in the UK; and Hero Cycles in Ludhiana are a few examples, Ayre says.

WINTER BREAK IN BRITAIN

Nowadays, he is busy promoting winter tourism in Britain with VisitBritain, which is sponsoring Harjinder Kukreja, a Ludhiana-based restaurateur who has one million followers on Twitter, and his family for a week-long vacation in London and Birmingham.

One thing missing in Punjab is Christmas. There is nothing like attending the mass at St Pauls cathedral, and seeing the lights at Regent Street, says Ayre, who urged the tourists to explore northern Ireland and other lesser-known destinations.
Three armed robbers on Friday looted a branch of the Axis Bank in Naurangabad village, 10 km from Tarn Taran. The robbers also fired two shots inside the bank before leaving.

The robbers, who had covered their faces, looted Rs 7.2 lakh at gunpoint. The incident was recorded in closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed in the bank but their faces were covered . The miscreants, in their 30s, had come in a white Ford Ikon. The incident took place around 2.30 pm.

Superintendent of police (SP) Tilak Raj said, We have examined the CCTV footage, but faces of robbers were covered. The district has been cordoned off and robbers will be nabbed soon.

As per information, there were six staff members, including the bank guard. Though the guard had a gun but could not use it out of fear. At the time of the robbery, there were also many customers in the bank.

The miscreants pointed guns at the bank staff and asked cashier Harpreet Kaur to give them all the cash available in the bank. After looting the cash, the robbers opened two fires  one at the banks computer and another at a CCTV monitoring screen.

This is the third bank robbery during past two months in the district. On October 18, four armed robbers decamped after looting a Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch in Jamarai village, 20 km from here. The bike-borne robbers, looted Rs 6,63,945 at gunpoint, after thrashing the bank staff. The Tarn Taran police had arrested the accused involved in this robbery.

On November 3, three unidentified armed robbers decamped after looting the Axis bank in Ghurakwind village, 40 km from here. The bike-borne robbers had covered their faces and looted Rs 6.04 lakh at gunpoint. This dacoity is still unsolved.
Hina Khan takes on Puneesh once she walks out of the secret room for he said in the tape that Luv has a one-sided crush on Hina. However, Shilpa Shinde is truly the one who is her target. Once Shilpa comes there, Hina says that she has lost all her respect.

It is now Vikas Guptas turn to watch old footage to see what other contestants said about him. He chooses to find out what Hina said about him in the past week. Hina calls Vikas a dictator and mastermind. She also makes faces and apes his walk as Luv and Priyank laugh.

Arshi comments on Shilpas appearance and she gets angry. She tells Arshi that she will find the repercussions of this comment when she steps out of Bigg Boss house.

Puneesh and Vikas say the women inside Bigg Boss house are waahiyat and cruel. Vikas says there are only three women but they seem like 30. Vikas says as compared to Hina and Arshi, Shilpa is the least guilty.

Shilpa Shinde and Arshi Khan get into a verbal war of words over the captaincy. Whose side are you on? Find out on #BB11! pic.twitter.com/6NAM2zU2cr  COLORS (@ColorsTV) December 15, 2017

Arshi is asked to choose the two nominees for the next captain in discussion with the winners of Bigg Boss luxury task. While Shilpa says she wants to be a nominee, Arshi says she needs the captaincy. Luv says he wants to be the captain too. After much discussion, they fail to decide on the names of nominees. However, the discussion leads to a fight between Arshi and Shilpa, with both questioning each others class. The discussion ends in a walkout by Shilpa and Luv, and a shouting spree by Arshi.

Despite Vikas trying his best, nobody agrees to budge.

Hina and Priyank also fight when she compares the relationship between Priyank and Vikas to what Shilpa and Vikas showed initially. Priyank gets angry at Vikas for bringing up his relationship with Divya and calling it fake.

When Bigg Boss asks if they have decided on the name of candidates, Arshi says they havent reached a decision. Bigg Boss decides that there would be no captain next week and Arshis tenure also ends.

There is a lot of backbiting as all contestants realise that they are on their own.

Find more updates about Bigg Boss 11 here

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Australia should introduce a law forcing religious leaders to report child abuse, including Catholic priests told of abuse in the confessional, said a report on Friday which detailed institutional abuse, particularly in the Catholic Church.

One the countrys top catholics, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, said such a law would undermine a central tenet of Catholicism, the sacredness of the confessional, and warned that any priest breaking the seal of confession would be excommunicated.

The 17-volume document from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse marks the end of one of the worlds biggest inquiries into child abuse and leaves it to the government to decide whether to enact its recommendations.

The five-year investigation found multiple and persistent failings of institutions to keep children safe, the cultures of secrecy and cover-up, and the devastating affects child sexual abuse can have on an individuals life, the commission said in a statement.

The report detailed tens of thousands of child victims, saying their abusers were not a case of a few rotten apples.

We will never know the true number, it read.

The inquiry spanned religious, government, educational and professional organisations but heard many accounts alleging abuse cover-ups in the Australian Catholic Church, including allegations of moving priests suspected of abuse between parishes to avoid detection.

Of survivors who reported abuse in religious institutions, more than 60% cited the Catholic Church, which demonstrated catastrophic failures of leadership, particularly before the 1990s, the report said.

It said clergy told of child abuse in the confessional should be required by law to report it and called for the Catholic Church to make celibacy voluntary for clergy, adding that it contributed to child abuse.

I would feel terribly conflicted, and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I cannot break the seal, Hart told reporters.

The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication, being cast out of the church, so its a real, serious, spiritual matter, and I want to observe the law of the land ... but as part of my identity as a priest, I have to observe the seal of the confession.

A similar recommendation was made during Irelands 2009 child abuse inquiry, leading to a mandatory reporting law in 2015. Some US states have similar requirements.

The Australian report also called for a National Office for Child Safety and national child safety standards, child abuse reporting and record keeping, which would cover all institutions engaged in child-related work.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the inquiry had exposed a national tragedy and that the government would consider the recommendations and respond in full next year.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, said in a statement that he was appalled by the sinful and criminal activity of some clergy, religious and lay church-workers (and) ashamed of the failure to respond by some church leaders.

The inquiry heard previously that the Australian Catholic Church paid A$276 million ($212 million) in compensation to thousands of child abuse victims since 1980.
China on Friday defended its construction on disputed islands in the South China Sea as normal, after a US think tank released new satellite images showing deployment of radar and other equipment.

Beijing claims nearly all of the sea and has been turning reefs in the Spratly and Paracel chains into islands, installing military facilities and equipment on them.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said the buildup continued this year despite rival claims across the sea from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Responding to the report, foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said: If China is conducting any peaceful construction activity or deploying necessary defence facilities, its very normal because its within our sovereignty.

We believe that some individuals are making a fuss about this. Theyre trying to hype it up, Lu told a regular news briefing.

Over the course of 2017, China has been advancing the next phase of development with construction of infrastructure to support air and naval bases, such as underground storage areas and large radar and sensor arrays, the Washington-based think tank said in a report on Thursday.

Fiery Cross Reef saw the most construction this past year, with building work spanning 27 acres, or about 110,000 square metres, AMTI said its analysis of satellite images showed.

There is now a high frequency radar array at the northern end of the island, it added.

Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday that Chinas southern island province of Hainan has revealed a satellite launch plan to assist remote sensing coverage over the South China Sea.

The mission will start in 2019 with the launch of three optical satellites, Xinhua cited the Sanyan Institute of Remote Sensing as saying.

The report follows recent moves by China to ease concerns among rival claimants around the sea, through which some $5 trillion in annual shipping trade passes.

Vietnam and China agreed last month during President Xi Jinpings visit to Hanoi to avoid conflicts in the hotly contested waters.

At a meeting with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in November, China and ASEAN countries agreed to begin talks on a much-delayed code of conduct for the sea.

The Philippines had for many years stood alongside Vietnam as one of the regions strongest opponents to Chinese expansionism.

Following Manilas complaint to a United Nations-backed tribunal, the panel ruled last year that Chinas territorial claims in the sea were without legal basis.

But the Philippines, after President Rodrigo Duterte took office last year, decided not to use the ruling to pressure China.

He instead chose to build closer ties in return for billions of dollars in investments and aid.
While one North American official of Indian-origin led the charge to remove strong net neutrality protections in the United States, another, in Canada, has come out in support of that regime that prevents throttling of access to some websites over others.

Hours after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, chaired by Indian-American Ajit Pai, created a firestorm as the Republican majority voted down rules governing net neutrality, Canadas minister of innovation, science and economic development Navdeep Bains tweeted: Regardless of what other jurisdictions decide, Canada will remain committed to the principles of net neutrality. #NetNeutrality.

Regardless of what other jurisdictions decide, Canada will remain committed to the principles of net neutrality. #NetNeutrality #CdnPoli https://t.co/0snYK9jZC8  Navdeep Bains (@NavdeepSBains) December 14, 2017

An accompanying statement issued by his ministry quoted him as saying, We support an open internet where Canadians have the ability to access the content of their choice in accordance with Canadian laws.

Bains added in the statement, Net neutrality is one of the critical issues of our times, much like freedom of the press and freedom of expression before it.

The ministry noted that the Canadian government had a strong net neutrality framework in place through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

"We believe that an open and accessible internet is vital to the free flow of content and information, which, in turn, is vital to our democracy, Bains said in this context.

Bains also told CBC News that the FCCs decision has important implications for Canadas economy.

It will have a negative impact on our businesses and consumers and also impact our democracy as well because we fundamentally believe that all information should be treated equally and people should have access to an open internet, he said. Once thats compromised, that will impact our economy and our democracy as well.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON
While the White House expectedly welcomed the voting down of net neutrality rules by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday, the decision appeared headed for legal challenge, with several US states and organisations announcing their plans to go to court within hours.

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has announced he will lead a multi-state lawsuit against the vote that gave big telecom an early Christmas present and will give ISPs (Internet Service Providers) new ways to control what we see, what we do, and what we say online.

Washington state, which has said it will enforce net neutrality on ISPs operating within its boundaries through other means, will also sue, and that should be a matter of concern for the successful challenge it mounted against President Donald Trumps original travel ban, and getting it stayed twice.

The Internet Association, a DC-based trade body representing Google, Facebook and other IT companies, said the rollback was a departure from more than a decade of broad, bipartisan consensus on the rules governing the internet and that it was weighing legal options in a lawsuit.

The American Civil Liberties Union also plans to go to court.

But Trumps press secretary Sarah Sanders welcomed the rollback of what she described were burdensome regulations at the White House press briefing shortly after the vote.

Voting along party lines on Thursday, the five-member FCC voted 3-2 to roll back an Obama-era regulation that prevented ISPs such as AT&T, Comcast, Cox and Verizon from speeding up, slowing or throttling net access, in a public hearing interrupted briefly by a security threat.

After a meeting voting to end net neutrality, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai answers a question from a reporter in Washington on Thursday. (AP)

We are helping consumers and promoting competition, FCC chairman Ajit Pai said before the vote. Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas.

He had announced plans to overturn the regulation in November, inviting comments and debate.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, one of the two Democrats on the commission who opposed the proposal, said she was among the millions  outraged and what saddens me the most today is that the agency that is supposed to protect you is actually abandoning you.

The debate that ensued was acrimonious and in Pais case, personal, with net neutrality activists naming his children on placards hung near his home. The chairman, an Indian American, also faced racially-charged attacks from critics within his own community, to the outrage of some.

Pai, a long-time opponent of net neutrality who voted against the 2015 regulation, favours light-touch approach to regulation, and believes ISPs will not speed up or slow down net access depending who pays and who doesnt  called paid prioritization. And the Federal Trade Commission, the regulator that keeps the market free and fair, will keep them in line.

Broadband for America, a group representing telecom industry groups and companies such as AT&T Inc, and Comcast Corp., sought to assure consumers in an ad recently that it would preserve an open internet and will not block legal content and will not throttle data speed  but did not mention paid prioritization.

Thats what worries critics of the rollback most. While its not clear if ordinary consumers will be impacted and how, smaller IT service provides and start-ups are likely to suffer most definitely, with their very survival on the line.

Without these rules (net neutrality), internet service providers will be able to favour certain websites and e-businesses, or the platforms they use to garner new customers, over others by putting the ones that can pay in fast lanes and slowing down or even blocking others, said a letter jointly written by more than 200 companies, including Reddit, Airbnb, Twitter and Pinterest in November.

Net neutrality is not history in the United States, not yet. As Internet Association said in the statement, The fight isnt over.
Indias new envoy to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria, faces possibly one of the most challenging assignments of his career as relations between the two countries show no signs of warming.

Bisarias immediate challenge will be to handle the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, with hopes in India rising that the former Indian Navy officer, sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, would be eventually released.

The hopes have arisen after Pakistan agreed to allow a meeting between Jadhav and his wife and mother on December 25. However, there are no such hopes on the Pakistani side of the border.

Jadhavs execution was stayed after India approached the International Court of Justice, which is expected to rule on the matter next year. India has so far not been given consular access to Jadhav, who was accused of involvement in spying.

If the case is mishandled in any way, it could have serious political repercussions in India, said analyst Naveed Hussain, adding the Indian governments expectations from its high commissioner in this regard may be unrealistic.

Normalisation of bilateral ties continues to be a much talked about issue in Islamabad but repeated accusations of cross-border terrorism from India and the tensions on the Line of Control in Kashmir suggest that no serious dialogue can take place between the two countries at this point.

The initiative has to come from India, said another policy expert who did not want to be named. India has so far avoided Pakistans overtures at a time when there are fears in Islamabad of New Delhis growing influence in the region.

Pakistan says it continues to monitor Indias actions in the region and has complained to its allies, as well as the UN, that India is supporting terror groups that attack Pakistan.

Both countries have a different take on terrorism. Pakistan feels its side of the story is not being heard even though it has paid a heavy price in terms of casualties in terror attacks. Bisaria will hear a lot of this in his meetings with Pakistani officials.

And yet, the biggest challenge for Bisaria, who served as private secretary for former premier Atal Bihari Vajpayee during 1999-2004, would be to engage all stakeholders in Pakistan. There is a power vacuum in Pakistan, with the PML-N government functioning at half-strength and the military-led establishment trying to oust Nawaz Sharif and his family and install another civilian set-up.

So far, Sharif has managed to check the moves of the establishment. The weak point for the civilian government remains India, as the army high command has consistently accused Sharif and his government of being pro-India.

There is clearly a difference of opinion on how to engage with India, said Zafar Hilaly, a former ambassador. Hilaly said different quarters are giving different messages. That is why we see (Lashkar-e-Taiba founder) Hafiz Saeed in and out of jail and other such contradictions.

Bisarias job would be to see how to can engage with all quarters. That, of course, will be his biggest challenge.
An Indonesian court has sentenced at least eight men arrested in a raid of a gay club and sauna to between two and three years in prison, an activist and a relative of one of the men said.

They were among more than 140 men detained after the raid in May on what police said was a sex party at the Atlantis spa in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

Most were released because homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but 10 men were charged under anti-pornography laws.

LGBT Indonesians have endured a wave of hostility in the past two years that has been stoked by inflammatory public statements from conservative officials and religious groups.

Police have raided gay clubs and private parties, charging those arrested under Indonesias broad anti-pornography laws and forcing some men to take HIV tests. Aceh, a semi-autonomous province that practices Sharia law, publicly caned two young men in May for gay sex.

Imam Shofwan from Pantau Foundation, which has been monitoring the trial, said the sentencing occurred Thursday. A North Jakarta District Court spokesperson did not answer calls Friday.

Those charged included two visitors to the club who police alleged performed oral sex, managers and several employees including strippers, a gym trainer and a security guard.

Ivonne Kristiani, a sister of one of the men charged, said four people involved in managing the club were sentenced to three years in prison. Four employees and the two visitors, which included her brother, got two years.

This punishment is too heavy, she said. Because in fact what he did is a private behaviour that does not harm others.

Shofwan said two of the defendants did not appear in court and he believed their sentencing was adjourned until next week, but Kristiani said it was clear from the proceedings, which were attended by her mother, that all 10 were sentenced.

Indonesias Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled against petitioners seeking to make gay sex and sex outside marriage illegal in an unexpected victory for the countrys besieged LGBT minority.
Four Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded Friday in clashes with Israeli forces as tens of thousands demonstrated against Washingtons recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

President Donald Trumps December 6 announcement that he would break with decades of US policy and move the embassy to Jerusalem has stirred global condemnation, as well as demonstrations across Arab and Muslim countries.

On Friday, three men were killed in clashes between Israeli troops and stone-throwing Palestinians.

Two died along the border of Israel and the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian health ministry said, after the Hamas Islamist group that rules the enclave had called for another day of rage.

A third Palestinian was killed in clashes north of Jerusalem after being shot dead in the chest by the Israeli army, the ministry said.

The fourth stabbed an Israeli border police officer near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, before being shot, police said.

The assailant, who later died of his wounds, wore what appeared to be a suicide vest, though it was unclear if it was operational.

The violence comes days before US Vice President Mike Pence is due to visit Israel, though he will no longer see Palestinian officials after they cancelled meetings in protest at the embassy move.

We understand that the Palestinians may need a bit of a cooling off period, thats fine, a senior White House official said Friday. We will be ready when the Palestinians are ready to re-engage.

Pence is expected to try to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward after he lands in Jerusalem on Wednesday, US administration officials have said.

Obviously the last couple of weeks in the region have been a reaction to the Jerusalem decision, said a second senior administration official.

Protests erupted across the West Bank after Friday weekly prayers, often a catalyst for clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

Bomb thrown at Mideast

In Gaza, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets and a few thousand clashed with Israeli forces along different parts of the border.

The Palestinian health ministry said 164 people were injured in Gaza, with five in serious condition, and more than 100 were hospitalised in the West Bank.

Israels army said around 2,500 people were involved in riots in the West Bank and about 3,500 in Gaza.

Fridays deaths brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed in violence or air strikes since Trumps Jerusalem move.

Four men were killed in Gaza last week, two in protests. Two Hamas militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.

In Jordan, thousands of people also demonstrated on Friday in the latest round of protests called by the Muslim Brotherhood, burning Israeli and American flags.

The diplomatic fallout continued, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling Trumps decision a bomb thrown at the entire Middle East.

He called Israel a terror state and said: Trying to make Jerusalem capital of a terror state is not a situation that can be accepted by Muslims.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the most controversial issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel seized control of the eastern part of the city in the 1967 Middle East war and sees the whole of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. The Palestinians view the east as the capital of their future state.

Support for uprising

For decades global powers have avoided taking an opinion, keeping their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.

Trump declared, however, that he would move the embassy and has recognised the city as Israels capital.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will not meet Pence next week and has warned that Washington no longer had a role to play in the peace process.

A poll conducted after Trumps announcement by the respected Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 45 percent of Palestinians supported a violent popular uprising, up from 35 percent three months previously.

Khalil Shikaki, the centres director, said the only possible explanation for the increase was Trumps decision.

He said, however, the effectiveness of the Israeli forces and the Palestinian security forces ongoing cooperation with them had ensured the protests in the West Bank remained relatively minor.

While angered by Trumps declaration, Abbas has not instructed his party Fatah or security forces to cut ties with Israel.

Hamas is too weak in the West Bank to carry out any serious attacks (and) Fatah does not want to engage in violence, Shikaki said.

This is not likely to change any time soon.

In Gaza, hermetically sealed off by Israel and Egypt, at least 12 rockets or mortar rounds have been fired from the territory since Trumps announcement, with Israel hitting at least 10 sites in response.
Swiss engineering and technology have reached new heights with the opening of the worlds steepest funicular rail line.

The 44.6m Schwyz-Stoos funicular (Standseilbahn Schwyz-Stoos in German), which goes into public service on Sunday, has been hailed as a triumph of modern design engineering.

A level-adjusting function will allow the space-age-looking carriages, accessible to all users, to remain horizontal while speeding up the mountain at up to 10 metres a second.

It is due to be opened by the Swiss president, Doris Leuthard, in the Alpine resort of Stoos, 1,300 metres above sea level in central Switzerland on Friday.

The train, two lines of cylindrical carriages, resembling beer barrels, will allow passengers to remain upright at all times, even as they ascend  or descend  the 1,720-metre track, climbing or descending 743 metres a second along gradients as steep as 110% (47.7).

The train, two lines of cylindrical carriages, will allow passengers to remain upright at all times. (Reuters Photo)

The barrel-shaped carriages of a new funicular line are seen during sunny winter weather in Stoos. (Reuters Photo)

It will run from the valley station near Schwyz into the mountain village of Stoos, population 100, about 50km south of Zurich.

Ivan Steiner, a spokesperson for the railway, said the funicular replaced an older one that had operated since 1933. After 14 years of planning and building, everyone is very proud of this train, he said.

The Gondola Project , a website dedicated to cable-propelled transport systems, said the scheme had faced a number of challenges even before work had begun. Then when construction started in July 2013, it faced hold-ups.

Designers analysed 15 different options before selecting the existing route alignment and technology, it wrote.

The barrel-shaped carriages of a new funicular line are seen front of mount Grosser Mythen. (Reuters Photo)

A traditional aerial gondola funicular was ruled out because it would have had to pass through an active shooting range.

The Stoos funicular is designed with an inclination adjustment system. This means that the four 34-passenger rotating cabins on each train remain horizontally level throughout the journey.

The Gelmerbahn funicular at Bern was previously the worlds steepest, with a maximum gradient of 106%.

The new Stoos Bahn, which claims to be the steepest funicular railway in the world, stands on its rails prior to the opening ceremony after five years of construction. (AP Photo)

The East Cliff Lift funicular railway in Hastings, built in 1902, is the steepest in England, with a gradient of 78%.

(Published in arrangement with The Guardian)
The Pakistani Army is the arsonist in Afghanistan which also wants to be part of the fire brigade, a former top Pakistani diplomat has said.

The remarks by Husain Haqqani, Pakistans former Ambassador to the US, came as several American experts highlighted the role of the Army in the countrys decision.

Haqqani said Pakistan was an ally of convenience during the Cold War, but Pakistans main objective to compete with India has never been an American objective.

Therefore, American and Pakistani interests in the region dont really coincide, Haqqani said.

Another objective gets undermined as well, and that is that America, at some point, wants to leave that region, and it wants to hand over authority to a strong and stable Afghanistan government, which is not constantly confronted by the Taliban on a daily basis, he told Cipher Brief.

The problem is that the Pakistani military also sustains the very Taliban who it tells the Americans it will help fight. They are the arsonist and also want to be part of the fire brigade. That is the real complication, he said.

According to Bill Milam, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, for almost the entire period of Pakistans independence, the Army has been a significant factor in its political life.

In recent years, the Pakistani military has used a variety of methods to squeeze the operating space of the civilian governments, said Dan Markey from the Johns Hopkins University.
Pakistans ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his embattled family on Friday heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The NAB had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family.

The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The apex court bench - seeking new evidence - had asked the NAB not to parrot the Panama Papers judgement and rather articulate its own reasons to convince the bench why the reference originally filed against the Sharifs in the year 2000 should be resurrected.

You have to satisfy the court on the reasons for the delay in filing the appeal, Justice Alam had told NABs lawyer as the hearing began.

The lawyer had told the court that there are holes in the high courts decision and the appeal must be reopened for the sake of justice.

But the NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the NABs appeal to reopen the case.

Todays decision is major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharifs confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

According to the NAB documents, Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, his father Mian Muhammad Sharif, brothers Shehbaz and Abbas Sharif, Abbass wife Sabiha, Sharifs son Hussain and Shahbazs son Hamza had been accused of receiving the alleged ill-gotten money in the case.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharifs government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members, including his two sons and a daughter are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of posh properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.
Saudi-led air strikes have killed 28 Huthi rebels south of the port of Hodeida on Yemens west coast, medics and security sources close to the insurgents said today.

The reports came as the UN refugee agency UNHCR warned of a new displacement of civilians in the area.

The security sources said the air strikes yesterday and today hit five towns controlled by the Huthis around 70 kilometres (45 miles) south of Hodeida.

Medical sources said 28 Huthis were killed and 17 others wounded in the strikes.

There has been no let-up in the air campaign against the rebels that a Saudi-led coalition has been waging since March 2015.

The air strikes have intensified since the December 4 killing of ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh at the hands of the Huthis after his alliance with the rebels collapsed.

At the same time forces of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have stepped up attacks on the rebels and last week retook the Red Sea town of Khokha from the Huthis.

The security sources said new clashes broke out today as government forces tried to push towards Hodeida.

UNHCR said it was bracing for further displacement and a spike in humanitarian needs as hostilities intensify in frontline areas on Yemens west coast.

Hodeida is the main conduit for UN-supervised deliveries of food and medicine but the rebel-held port is controlled by the Huthis and remains closed, forcing the UN to divert aid supplies to other areas.

To date we have deployed emergency relief items for 2,000 families in Hodeida, and a further 2,000 aid kits are on their way along with 2,000 emergency shelter kits, the UNHCR said in a statement.

As the port of Hodeida remains closed an additional 43 containers with emergency, shelter and household aid, including plastic tarpaulins and blankets for more than 20,000 families, had to be diverted to Aden, it added.

More than 2,000 people have died of cholera in Yemen this year, adding to the 8,600 killed in the conflict between the Saudi-backed government and rebels since 2015.
President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday acknowledging Americas strong economic performance, the White House said.

The two presidents spoke by phone following Putins annual press conference in Moscow.

They discussed ways to work together to address North Koreas nuclear and ballistic weapons program, the White House said.

In an equally brief statement, the Kremlin said in addition to North Korea, Trump and Putin discussed relations between their two countries and agreed to stay in contact. The Kremlin made a point of noting that Trump initiated the call.

During his remarks in Moscow, Putin accused those investigating potential collusion between Russia and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign of damaging the US political situation, incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him.

Asked to assess Trumps first year in office, Putin said he has had some fairly serious achievements, pointing specifically to the sharp rise in US stock markets.

This indicates the confidence of investors in the American economy. This indicates they have confidence in what President Trump is doing in this sphere, Putin said. With all due respect to those in opposition to President Trump in the United States, these are objective factors.

Putin also warned the US against using force against North Korea. Trump has repeatedly said that all options remain on the table.
Surprisingly, the drums signaling for a cease-fire from the French bastion at Vertieres penetrated the chaos of battle on the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue. General Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, had just witnessed a brilliant attack orchestrated by a rebel commander, and he wished to pay proper homage. As the guns fell silent, a French staff officer rode forward and shouted, General Rochambeau sends compliments to the general who has just covered himself with such glory! Message delivered, the killing resumed.

By midafternoon on that bizarre day in November 1803, following a final, feeble French counterattack, Rochambeau abandoned his positions and retreated to the coast. The next morning envoys finalized the terms of capitulation, and Saint-Domingue was in rebel hands. On New Years Day 1804 the victors renamed their new nation Haiti.

Occupying the western third of the island of Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue was the richest of Frances colonies. Initially a Spanish holding, it was ceded to France in 1697 and soon became the greatest source of agricultural wealth in the West Indies. The wealth sprang from immense sugar and coffee plantations, which exploited imported African slave labor. By 1797 there were more than a half-million slaves in the colony, ruled over by a white colonial population numbering scarcely 30,000. Harsh conditions prompted violent uprisings, and a full-fledged slave revolt broke out in August 1791. For the next dozen years Saint-Domingue became a charnel house, as England, Spain, French royalists, French republicans and former slaves all joined in, forming shifting alliances for wildly divergent objectives.

In 1794 the French First Republic abolished slavery in all of its colonies, and by centurys end Saint-Domingue was largely under the control of General Francois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, a native-born former slave. In 1801 Louverture, who had helped drive off both the English and Spanish, pushed for independence. In response Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched more than 20,000 troops to restore French rule. The move prompted rebel massacres of colonists. Napoleons troops soon re-established order. But when colonial authorities shipped Louverture to France in chains and reinstituted slavery on nearby Guadeloupe, the simmering rebellion burst into flames.

The French poured additional forces into the colony, but disease, mass defections of black troops and rebel resistance took a toll. Britain and France renewed hostilities in early1803, and a British fleet established naval superiority off Saint-Domingue. The remaining French force was soon penned in along the northern coast. After withdrawing from Vertieres on November 18, Rochambeau negotiated surrender to the blockading British naval force.

A new nation was born. Yet for two centuries Haitiplagued by political instability, economic malaise and recurring natural disastershas struggled to overcome the trauma of its birth.
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Chris McCowen, the man who was convicted of raping and murdering Christa Worthington, is speaking out about being at the center of what was then the biggest case to hit the Cape in decades.



There's a lot of speculation on the exact timeline of when she was killed, McCowen told ABC News 20/20. Im not guilty of anything ... this is a nightmare for me.



Worthington, a 46-year-old fashion writer and single mother, was found stabbed to death in her seaside cottage in Truro, Massachusetts, on Jan. 6, 2002, with her 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ava, by her side, unharmed. The case earned national attention after authorities made a controversial move to ask every man in the community to voluntarily submit a DNA sample prior to making an arrest.



McCowen, who worked as a garbage man on the Cape and had Worthingtons home on his trash route, didnt testify at his 2006 trial, but was convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated rape and aggravated burglary in connection with Worthingtons death.



He was given three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, but has long maintained his innocence.



Since his conviction, McCowen has had one appeal and three motions for a new trial denied. Now, armed with a new defense attorney, McCowen is hoping to get new evidence that could warrant a new trial and overturn his conviction.



At this point, Chris wants to get his story out there, his current attorney, Gary Pelletier told 20/20. Chris wants to explain. Chris regrets not testifying.



McCowen told 20/20 he knew Worthington from his trash route, and that her trash pick-up day was on Thursdays  a detail that was confirmed by the owner of the trash collection company McCowen worked for at the time.



Being a garbage man, you know, I get to go by everybodys houses and, you know, get to talk to them briefly, McCowen said. Worthington was found dead on a Sunday, but that previous Thursday, McCowen said he was coming by her house for trash pick-up and she asked him about getting rid of her Christmas tree.



She asked me to come in the house and to look at her Christmas tree, he said.



After she invited him in, McCowen said then one thing led to another.



It just like it was just a mutual thing between two people, I guess, he said. We started kissing. Then we ... ended up having, having sex.



McCowen said he had sex with Worthington just that one time. Her body was found three days later, but he insists he didnt kill her. The prosecution maintains to this day that the evidence against McCowen, and him alone, was "overwhelming."



During trial, prosecutors presented forensic evidence that showed a match between McCowens DNA and DNA found on Worthingtons body, as well as statements McCowen made during a six-hour interview with two investigators after his arrest, who said McCowen kept changing his story from saying that he never knew Worthington, to saying he went over to her house and had sex with her, to saying he and a friend beat her up after a night of heavy drinking.



At trial, McCowens former attorney Bob George argued that McCowen was poorly educated with low intelligence, so he wasnt able to understand what was happening after his arrest and was only telling police what he thought they wanted to hear, that McCowen wasn't sober at the time of the six-hour police interview and that the interview was not recorded, only summarized by an investigator in a 27-page report, so it was impossible to know exactly what was said.



McCowen told "20/20" that he didnt remember talking with police nor what he told them during the six-hour interview because he was under the influence of Percocet, cocaine and marijuana at the time.



They [police] kept on switching everything up, McCowen said. I was so intoxicated off of all of them drugs that I really didn't know what the hell was going on.



During his statements to police after his arrest, McCowen had said he and his friend Jeremy Frazier had gone over to Worthingtons house after a night of drinking. At one point, McCowen claimed Frazier had killed her.



McCowen said he didnt remember ever going over to Worthingtons house with Frazier. When asked why he named Frazier as her killer, McCowen told 20/20, Thats what they [police] said that I did. I didnt do that.



Frazier testified for the prosecution at McCowens trial that he was at an underage club called The Juice Bar with his friend Shawn Mulvey and McCowen for a rap contest on Jan. 4, 2002, the Friday before Worthington's body was found.



Just like in his interview with police, Frazier said they left the bar and went to a party, where a fight broke out and everyone was kicked out. Frazier said he and Mulvey then went to Mulvey's fathers house and were there the rest of the night. Frazier said he didn't know what happened to McCowen.



McCowen told 20/20 that after leaving The Juice Bar, he went to the party but then went straight home afterwards.



Frazier denied having any involvement with Worthingtons death and denied going to her house with McCowen on the night in question. Police believed Frazier, and also believed that McCowen went over to Worthington's house by himself.



Today, having spent the past 11 years behind bars, McCowen said he was optimistic that his current attorney will be successful in getting him a new trial.



I dont deserve to be in [prison], he said.



This article is part of an investigative series by "20/20" and ABC Radio looking into the murder of Christa Worthington and the trial and conviction of Christopher McCowen. Watch the two-hour "20/20" documentary, "A Killing on the Cape," HERE and the six-part podcast can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and under the "Listen" tab on the ABC News app.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The title is at best a gross exaggeration. It isn't "Chicago" but one wingnut trying to publicize a situation in hopes of getting quicker action would be my guess.



I guess he learned media manipulation from the Republican President.
SPECIAL PREVIEW: This story is from our upcoming April 2018 issue of American History. For more details on the presidential pardon and other great stories, subscribe here



[dropcap]B[/dropcap]y August 1, 1974, the Watergate scandal was consuming Richard M. Nixons presidency. The House Judiciary Committee had filed three articles of impeachment naming the beleaguered chief executive. The president was seeing support for him erode even among Republican stalwarts, and with each sweltering Washington day, his departure from office seemed more likely.

Removal, however, was the lesser of Nixons problems. The first article of impeachment charged him with obstruction of justice, not only an impeachable offense but a federal crime. The 37th president was facing the prospect of becoming the first American chief executive to be removed from office and the first to be indicted and hauled into criminal court.

Nixons last chance for a semblance of relief was an often-overlooked, sometimes misunderstood presidential power: the pardon. Even if it could not keep him in the Oval Office, a pardon could keep him from being prosecuted. The question was, should Nixon try to pardon himself, or should he trust Vice President Gerald R. Ford, upon succeeding him, to pardon him?

The pardon rightly has been called the most imperial of American presidential perquisites. The power belongs to the president alone. Congress cannot limit the pardon authority, and the courts cannot review exercises of the pardon power.

The gesture often, but not always, comes as a presidents term is running out. The only presidents not to exercise their power to pardon were William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, both dead soon after taking office.

Andrew Johnson issued the largest number of pardons: amnesties for thousands of former Confederates. George H.W. Bush issued the fewest: 77.

Presidents have pardoned not only traitorsIva Tokyo Rose DAquino, a World War II Japanese radio propagandist, got a pardon from Fordbut the dead. Bill Clinton pardoned Henry O. Flipper, West Points first African-American graduate, for a 117-year-old court-martial conviction.

Chief executives have pardoned those they did not know as well as they thoughtRonald Reagan pardoned ex-FBI official W. Mark Felt for Vietnam-era invasions of leftists residences long before it emerged that Felt had been the Deep Throat guiding Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernsteinand those they could not have known better. Clinton pardoned his own brother, Roger, convicted years before of federal drug offenses. On occasion, pardons have stirred bitter controversy. Clintons 2001 pardon of politically connected commodities broker Marc Rich, who had fled the country to avoid a tax-evasion prosecution, brought howls of complaint.

So did George W. Bushs 2007 commutation of the prison sentence of I. Lewis Scooter Libby Jr., a former vice-presidential chief of staff convicted of lying to FBI agents and a grand jury. Barack Obamas 2017 commutation of most of the remaining prison term of Chelsea Manning, an army intelligence analyst who had supplied Wikileaks with classified documents, also elicited yawps.

  

The pardon power, among the most intriguing aspects of the executive branch, dates to the Republics infancy. Delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention wanted to establish an office of chief executive strong enough to allow holders to do the job but not so strong as to foster an atmosphereor realityof dictatorship. The conveners assumed that, like Englands monarch, Americas chief executive should have the power to pardon individuals accused or convicted of crimes. Savvy judges of human character and human frailty, the delegates recognized the pardons explosive nature. Used properly, a pardon could confer mercy and enhance the public weal with a gesture of goodwill. Misused, a presidential pardon might put a party deserving punishment beyond the laws reach.

Debating the issue, Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph, a staunch federalist, voiced fear that, by pardoning iniquitous accomplices, a traitorous president could shield himself from justice. The President may himself be guilty, Randolph said. The Traytors may be his own instruments. Fellow Virginian and fervent anti-federalist George Mason agreed. Mason imagined the pardon power being sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he [the President] has secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.

A majority of convention delegates concluded that the specter of impeachment would deter a president from doing wrong or exercising the pardon power on his own behalf. If he be himself a party to the guilt, he can be impeached and prosecuted, said federalist delegate James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who in 1789 would be a charter member of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Constitution assigned the chief executive full authority to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment. The rationale, Alexander Hamilton wrote, was that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.

As states were ratifying the Constitution, James Iredell, an influential North Carolina lawyer also to serve on the first high court, said he saw no need to encourage subordinates to turn on a president. Beware the accomplice who seeks a pardon, Iredell warned.

He would be a witness with a rope about his own neck, struggling to get clear of it at all events, the North Carolinian said. Would any men of understanding, or at least ought they, to credit an accusation from a person under such circumstances? The Constitution does permit a president to pardon accomplices, although nothing suggests that the delegates envisioned a chief executive with the effrontery to try to pardon the person in the mirror.

  

The pardon power is broad but not limitless. In addition to the proscription on their use in instances of impeachment, presidential pardons cannot apply to even the most trivial violation of state or local lawthey cover only federal offenses, criminal and military. A pardon can preempt criminal prosecution of a person not yet charged or convicted, but crimes must have been committed; a pardon cannot immunize an individual against prosecution for future crimes. In issuing a pardon, a president can limit the benisons impact to reducing a prison term, also known as commutation, leaving intact other consequences of conviction. For every full pardon he granted, Obama commuted eight other felons federal sentences. A pardon does not erase a federal conviction, but does restore to the recipient rights the conviction took away, such as voting, serving on juries, and holding public office. Presidents can issue posthumous pardons (see Pardoning Lieutenant Flipper, side bar below).

George Washington issued the first presidential pardon, on July 10, 1795, to two leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, an anti-tax insurrection. Washington said he acted because one was a simpleton and the other insane. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln granted 343 pardons, many to Union Army deserters facing execution. If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs, the president said, how can he help their running away with him? When generals complained that mercy was undermining discipline, Lincoln instead stayed executions pending his further orders. If your son never looks on death till further orders come from me to shoot him, he told a deserters father, he will live to be a great deal older than Methuselah.

The Confederacys capitulation brought the pardon power to the fore. Some northerners wanted former Confederates imprisoned, even exiled, impracticable sanctions given the hundreds of thousands of men involved and also a gesture whose inherent vindictiveness would hamper efforts to bind up the nations wounds. On May 29, 1865, in a wholesale act, Johnson pardoned all former military personnel below the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army or lieutenant in its navy. Johnson stipulated that higher-ranking former Confederate military officers and West Point or Annapolis graduates who had turned their coats had to apply individually for pardons, along with all civil and diplomatic officers of the pretended Confederate government. Pardons applied for, Johnson vowed, would be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of the United States.

Among the first former Confederates to apply for a pardon and swear an oath of allegiance to the United States was General Robert E. Lee, on June 13, 1865. True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, Lee told fellow Confederate veteran P.G.T. Beauregard in an October 1865 letter. And the motive which impels themthe desire to do rightis exactly the same.

Given Lees deified position among southerners, The New York Times said, his application stood as a hopeful sign. Johnson let Lees application languish, perhaps fearing a backlash among northerners avid for retribution. Lees day would not come until 1975, when President Ford signed not a pardon but a joint congressional resolution symbolically restoring Lees full rights of citizenship, something possibly accomplished by an 1898 statute.

Ire over pardons was not all Unionist. `Tis been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, said former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. But repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented. A postwar song popular in the defeated region proclaimed:

Oh, Im a good old Rebel,

Now thats just what I am.

For this fair land of Freedom

I do not care a damn.

Im glad I fought against them;

I only wish wed won,

And I dont want no pardon

For anything Ive done.

Johnson paid a price for conciliation. In 1868, the House of Representatives impeached him and the Senate came within one vote of removing him from office. The charges centered on the Tenure of Office Act, not presidential pardons. However, Johnsons amnesty for ex-Confederates played a part, alienating vengeful Radical Republican leaders. For spurning their bloody-mindedness toward the South, they spearheaded impeachment efforts against Johnson.

On December 25, 1868, still holding the office from which he would be retiring in a few months, Johnson again exercised his pardon power, this time more broadly. He issued a blanket amnesty unilaterally pardoning every person who, directly or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion. This document, which Johnson hoped would renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people, covered Lee, whose formal pardon application would never be acted on, and the obdurate Davis, who still was refusing to seek a formal pardon. The Christmas Day pardons were self-executing; no application or acceptance was needed.

  

Some presidential pardons poke sharply at would-be recipients. On December 31, 1913, New York Tribune city editor George Burdick and William L. Curtin, the papers shipping news editor, reported that the U.S. Customs Service was pursuing a political high roller. The charge was avoiding duties on jewelry the fellow had smuggled into the United States from Europe. The Tribune could have snagged this scoop only from someone at the Customs Service. Suggesting that the paper had bribed its way to inside information, the Justice Department demanded to know the journalists source. Subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, Burdick and Curtin lawfully invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

A month later, prosecutors again subpoenaed the pair, adding a high-pressure twist. On February 14, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had granted Burdick and Curtin full pardons for any crime pertaining to their story, a ploy to muscle the newsmen into talking. The pardon eliminated criminal liability, erasing Fifth Amendment protections. The newsmen rejected the pardons. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. On January 25, 1915, the justices unanimously held that Burdick and Curtin were within their rights to refuse Wilsons proffer, rendering the pardons void. The editors had this choice, the court reasoned, because acceptance of a pardon carries an imputation of guilt.

  

Pardons can be intensely political. During World War I, a federal court sent socialist leader and anti-draft activist Eugene V. Debs, convicted of sedition, to prison for 10 years. Wilson vowed never to pardon Debs. But in 1920, running for president from behind bars against Wilsons designated Democratic heir, James M. Cox, and Republican Warren G. Harding, Debs got nearly a million votes, helping to ensure Hardings victory. On December 23, 1921, President Harding commuted Debss sentence.

For the next half century, the pardon power, while regularly exercised, lay dormant in the public imagination. In 1974, however, as Richard Nixon toyed with the daring notion of issuing himself a blanket pardon for Watergate-related crimes, the spotlight again fixed on the imperial prerogative. White House Counsel J. Fred Buzhardt told Nixon he thought his boss had the constitutional authority to pardon himself; however, the Justice Department disagreed. Musings about the self-pardoning scenario prompted legal scholars, pundits, and armchair historians to begin a debate, still ongoing, as to whether a president can pardon himself and to wonder what sequences of events so brazen a move would trigger. Not willing to find out, Nixon implored Gerald Ford for a guarantee that upon taking office he would pardon Nixon. Ford refused. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

Within a month, seeking closure on what upon taking office he had called our long national nightmare, Ford seized on Burdick and the imputation of guilt implicit in accepting a pardon, which made pardoning Nixon palatable. On September 8, 1974, Ford granted his predecessor a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes Nixon committed as president. Nixon accepted the pardon, publicly expressing regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the Presidencyand, in Fords and many other Americans eyes, tacitly admitting guilt. To his last day, Gerald Ford kept in his wallet an excerpt from Burdick, ready should anyone accuse him of having let Nixon off with no acknowledgement of guilt. 

Pardoning Lieutenant Flipper The young officer had a final chance to save his U.S. Army career. Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, 25, had been found guilty in December 1881 of conduct unbecoming an officer. The mandatory penalty was dismissal from the service. Flipper, West Points first African-American graduate, hoped that President Chester A. Arthur would pardon him. Flipper did get his pardonbut not until more than a century later. Flipper, born a slave in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, aspired to an army career after Emancipation. That the U.S. Military Academy had never graduated an African-American did not deter him. In January 1873, Flipper wrote to newly elected Representative James C. Freeman (R-Georgia) seeking an appointment to the academy. As you were the first applicant, I am disposed to give you the first chance, Freeman responded. Flipper passed the entrance exams and that May arrived at West Point. Fellow cadets initially accepted him, but circumstances changed. In less than a month, Flipper later wrote, they learned to call me nigger and ceased altogether to visit me. In June 1877, Flipper graduated 50th in a class of 76, West Points first black graduate and the Armys only black officer. The new second lieutenant was assigned to the all-black 10th Cavalry Regiment, known as the Buffalo Soldiers (Rough Ride, February 2018). In 1878, he published The Colored Cadet at West Point, an autobiography a reviewer said showed that pluck, manliness, and perseverance can elevate any one from a humbler sphere to a higher one. In 1880, the Army assigned Flipper to Fort Davis, Texas, where he was appointed commissary officer. Equivalent to civilian dry-goods stores, commissaries served not only a posts garrison but civilians working at the post and living nearby. Transactions at the Fort Davis commissary amounted to hundreds of dollars a month, and each month Flipper and fellow commissary officers across Texas reconciled their books, sending reports and cash to Major Michael P. Small, chief Army commissary officer for Texas. At Fort Davis, Flipper made few friends among fellow officers, whom he derisively labeled hyenas. Army officers had servants; Flippers was an African-American civilian named Lucy Smith. In March 1881, Colonel William R. Shafter, 45, took command of Fort Davis, and his reputation as a tough boss preceded him. Many subordinates found him coarse, gruff, and demanding. In April, commissary chief Small alerted subordinates statewide that he would be away during May and June, instructing them to hold their reports and deposits until he returned. Flipper let his recordkeeping slide, storing records and cash in his personal trunk, not in the commissary safe. In early July, Small ordered Texas Department commissary officers to send their accounts and receipts for May and June. Checking his books, Flipper discovered he was several thousand dollars short. Many soldiers owing the commissary money were in the field; Flipper expected that they would pay up and that he could make good any remaining difference with his own funds. Still, he was uneasy. He had been warned that Shafter would improve any opportunity to get me into trouble. Stalling, Flipper naively adjusted his commissary books to make the accounts appear to balance. Shafter ordered him to send Small the requested report and funds. Expecting Small to see through his manipulations, Flipper submitted nothing, but three times assured Shafter that he had sent the report and $3,791.77, including his own check for $1,440.43, written on the expectation of royalty payments from his publisher. In early August, Shafter realized Flipper had been lying. A search of the lieutenants quarters turned up $400 in loose cash, some in Flippers personal trunk, to which Smith apparently had access because searchers found her clothing in it. As soldiers were escorting Smith from the fort, Shafters orderly saw her trying to conceal something; she was hiding in her bosom $2,853.56 in checks made out to the commissary. The purloined checks included several Flipper had claimed to have forwarded to Small and the check Flipper had written to balance the account. Flippers bank told Shafter the check would have bounced.    Shafter had Flipper arrested, confiscated his academy ring, and confined him to a cramped, blisteringly hot cell. The arrest drew immediate attention. The Texas Department commander ordered Flipper released. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln directed that Flipper must have the same treatment as though he were white. As commissary officer, Flipper had done business with local merchants, and had treated them fairly. These civilians rallied to Flipper, collecting donations to square the young lieutenants accounts. From his intelligence and good behavior, I liked the man and tried to help him if I could, said merchant J.B. Shields, who donated $50. In a time of need the previous spring, Flipper had given Shields food for his family from his own personal larder. Within a week, Shields and other civilians had raisedand Shafter had accepted$2,074, enough to make the government whole. But Shafter still charged Flipper with embezzling the money Flipper claimed to have sent Small, and with conduct unbecoming an officer for lying and issuing a bum check. Under Army regulations, a conviction for conduct unbecoming required dismissal from the Army. The missing moneys trail remains a mystery, perhaps known only to Smith, whose fate is similarly unknown. Flippers case became a cause celebre. Having a peculiar responsibility as a representative of his race, The New York Times wrote, Flipper should have taken more care. The Globe, an African-American newspaper, lamented that even the defendants best friends must criminate him of carelessness and looseness in keeping his accounts and cash funds. On November 1, 1881, Flipper appeared before an 11-officer court martial panel. The Armys embezzlement case collapsed quickly. Flipper denied stealing, and Shafter had no proof that his commissary officer had done so. Flipper declared in the most solemn and impressive manner possible that I am perfectly innocent in every manner, shape or form. The conduct unbecoming charge was more problematic because Flipper had lied to Shafter. Defense counsel Captain Merritt Barber argued that white colleagues ostracism at West Point and at Fort Davis had taken its toll: Is it strange that when he found himself in difficulties which he could not master, and confronted with a mystery he could not solve, he should hide it in his own breast and endeavor to work out the problem alone as he had been compelled to do all the other problems of his life? On December 8, 1881, the panel cleared Flipper of theft but convicted him of conduct unbecoming, dooming him to dismissal from the service. However, Army regulations required the president to confirm any officers dismissal, and the president also had the constitutional power to pardon a soldier in Flippers situation. In similar cases, white officers had been allowed to stay in the Army. In Washington, DC, Judge Advocate General David G. Swaim was aghast at Flippers treatment. Swaim knew of no instance, he wrote to Lincoln, in which an officer was treated with such personal harshness and indignity upon the causes and grounds set forth as was Lieut. Flipper by Col. Shafter. Swaim recommended Flipper be allowed to remain in uniform. The general impression in well informed circles, the Army and Navy Journal reported, was that President Arthur would reduce Flippers penalty. The New York Times characterized Arthur as disposed to grant the mitigation recommended by the Judge-Advocate-General. However, on June 14, 1882, without comment, the president confirmed Flippers dismissal. In later decades, Flipper lived in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, working as a surveyor and mining engineer and becoming an expert on Spanish land grants. Historian Charles M. Robinson III calls him one of the great behind-the-scenes players in the development of the Southwest. In 1914 and again in 1916, newspapers sensationally but falsely reported Flipper to be the brains behind Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villas campaign. Flipper died in Georgia in 1940. On February 19, 1999, responding to descendants requests, President Bill Clinton granted Henry Ossian Flipper a presidential pardon. This good man has now completely recovered his good name, Clinton said. Joseph Connor

This story is from our April 2018 issue of American History magazine. For more great stories, subscribe here.
The Srilankan Air Force (SLAF) is planning to replace its obsolete Kfir and MiG-27 fighters with eight used aircraft. Last year the SLAF had only one operational Kfir  the remaining six aircrafts are grounded. We have seven MiG aircrafts and eight other aircrafts but none of them can be used. Cabinet Spokesman and Parliamentary Reforms and Media Minister Gayantha Karunathilaka said. The Cabinet of Ministers in Colombo approved a procurement plan for fighter planes but the offers received so far did not provide financing for the acquisition. Offers for new built aircraft were received both from Pakistan and India. Pakistan proposed the JF-17 Thunder, produced by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex/Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation (PAC/CAC). India offered the Tejas light combat aircraft produced by Hindustan Aerospace Ltd. Lacking financial arrangements for the procurement, SLAF is considering the refurbishment and modernization of five of the remaining Kfirs to bring those fighters back into service. Between 1995 and 2005 Sri Lanka acquired a total of 16 Kfir fighter jets from Israel, but seven were lost due to accidents or ground attacks on airbases during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Recommended Posts
Booze! Drugs! Lesbian strippers! One of the biggest rock bands on the planet, Essex synth warriors DEPECHE MODE also used to be amongst the most hedonistic. But on the release of their 14th studio album, Spirit, founding member Andrew Fletch Fletcher tells a truly gutted OLAF TYARANSEN that their decadent days are long behind them...

Were not celebrities, declares Andrew Fletcher of Depeche Mode, speaking in a strong Sarf London accent. We lead totally normal lives. We can go the cinema, go the pubs. We very seldom get recognised by people, but when they do theyre always very nice. People know the name Depeche Mode, but the average person on the street doesnt know what a member of Depeche Mode looks like. Its a great situation.

Casually dressed in a black sweatshirt, blue jeans and trainers, the bespectacled, sandy-haired and charmingly laid back Fletcher  better known to millions of DM fans as Fletch  probably isnt exaggerating their capacity for anonymity. Or his own, at least. We might be meeting in a luxury suite in Browns Hotel, an exclusive five-star establishment deep in the heart of Mayfair, but the 55-year-old keyboardist/bassist looks as though hed be far more at home supping pints of lager in a quiet corner of a child-friendly Essex pub. Nothing about him even remotely whispers rock star.
Eight mouth-watering acts have been added to Forbidden Fruit 2018, including some prominent local and international dance acts.

Having already announced the likes of The War On Drugs, Warpaint, Grizzly Bear, Thundercat, Superorganism and Spoon, Forbidden Fruit has pegged another eight sumptuous artists onto the menu.

Acts added to this line-up include French duo Justice, Southern California MC Vince Staples, British musician and producer Bonobo, Glass Animals, Belfast's own Bicep and Glaswegian house music don Denis Sulta.

There'll also be Amsterdam-based DJ Hunee, and the genre-encompassing Ross From Friends.

Ticket prices below. You can buy them at ticketmaster.ie

Two Day Weekend (Sat 2nd & Sun 3rd) ON SALE NOW

1st Release - 109.00

Advertisement

2nd Release - 119.00

Three Day (Sat 2nd, Sun 3rd, Mon 4th) ON SALE NOW

1st Release - 162.50

Monday Day (4th)

1st Release - 64.50 ON SALE NOW
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Dawn Callahan is working hard to ensure that recent floods do not wash away the holiday wishes of young girls living in Houston. That's why she created the platform Wishes Over Waters to help adolescents affected by Hurricane Harvey receive gifts during the holidays.

"It's not a nonprofit," she explained. "It's just me being a middle man between the people who care and the girls who need the help."

Parents have been signing up their 8- to 20-year-old daughters for the service since Callahan built her website, wishesoverwaters.com, in October.

Callahan's job is to match each girl who registers on the website with a woman who will commit to purchasing a gift from the girl's wish list. The sponsors may also opt to become a mentor for the girls.

As the holidays draw near, Callahan needs help finding women who will pledge to help.

"There's no shortage of girls," she said. "If I get sponsors, I will find girls to match them with."

Callahan wants to help the girls preserve their holiday traditions - to make sure they get a gift when their families are too burdened recovering after the storm.

"I want to create a sense of normalcy," she said.

This project is a labor of love, something Callahan squeezes in when not working as a marketing specialist in the Mayor's Office of Special Events. Callahan, 40, is not the type to wait for others to make something happen. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, her downtown home was spared. "We didn't have power for two and a half weeks," she said. "It was inconvenient, but it wasn't devastating."

So, as soon as she could, she headed to George R. Brown Convention Center to volunteer. "I put on some boots and hiked over there," she said.

Callahan became a regular at the center, assisting in every way she could. But she wanted to do more.

One day, she was at home reading story after story about the disaster's aftermath on her Facebook feed.

"I saw one post about a girl and her family," Callahan said. "They were totally displaced. Their home had flooded. She was a freshman or sophomore in high school and had to go back to school."

She put herself in that young girl's place - and tried to imagine what it would be like to return to class, still emotional about the loss. "It just completely broke my heart," she said.

At the same time, Callahan's friends and family from her hometown of Chicago - and from across the country - reached out to her, asking how they could help.

It didn't take long for Callahan to connect the dots.

"I wanted to create a platform to support these girls," she said. "And make it so you don't have to be in Houston, but you can still make an impact."

She built the Wishes Over Waters website, but it took awhile for anyone to notice.

"It was radio silent for a while," Callahan said. "Then, literally right after Thanksgiving, it went into active mode. I started getting a lot of responses online. Nonprofit organizations and schools started reaching out - and it snowballed from there."

Parents filled out online forms describing what happened to them during Harvey - and what their daughters are like, their hobbies and favorite colors - information to help guide sponsors when shopping for gifts.

Sponsors mail the gifts to the girls or to the care of the school they attend.

Gifts already are starting to pile in at the Youth Education Town Center in Precinct 1. Program director Calvin Williams was surprised when Callahan reached out to the after-school program, offering to provide Christmas presents to 80 girls.

He said other groups have provided gifts to students in the past, but he expected efforts to drop off this year after the storm.

"It's something special when someone outside of your circle thinks of you," Williams said.

Bread of Life is a Houston mission that helps those in need year-round. Executive director Catherine Flowers said the organization has been serving families affected by the storm - and she jumped on board to help with Callahan's work.

Flowers said that giving one child a gift can make a big impact. "It only takes one adult to make a difference in a child's life - a single interaction, a single moment," she said.

When a pile of gift cards were donated to Bread of Life recently, Flowers decided to give them to the cause - and invited the women who work with her to join in the fun and go shopping for the girls.

Adding a mentorship component seemed like the natural next step. "Mentorship has been pivotal in every part of my life," she said. "I want young girls to understand the importance of relationships and building a network."

Callahan plans to keep her effort going after the holidays. "For sure, this won't be the only year for Wishes Over Waters in Houston," she said.
After chugging along for 37 hours, the lumbering heavy-lift vessel reached its destination 110 miles off Louisiana. There, the ship's powerful cranes lowered a massive steel structure, used to support offshore oil platforms, to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 200 feet below the surface.

This location, however, will never produce oil. Instead, the 3,000-ton frame, from a retired platform operated by Royal Dutch Shell, will become home to barnacles, mussels, sponges and other aquatic invertebrates and a way station for migratory fish from red snapper to whale sharks seeking food and shelter.

"These platforms are essentially the gas stations or rest stops in the Gulf," said Ruth Perry, a marine scientist and regulatory affairs specialist at Royal Dutch Shell. "The artificial reefs allow ecosystems to grow. We've seen growth within hours or days or weeks."

This new life for an old platform, called Cougar, comes courtesy of a federal program that has recycled more than 450 offshore oil and gas rigs into artificial reefs in U.S. waters. Scientists discovered long ago that as offshore oil production ventured deeper into the ocean waters off Louisiana and Texas, the platforms became magnets for shrimp, snapper, coral and other species that had long clung to scattered hard banks rising from the Gulf's vast floor of mud, clay and silt.

The federal program, created by Congress in 1984, aimed to build on this phenomenon by encouraging oil and gas companies to leave their platform frames in deep water, where they would be transformed into artificial reefs. The program has not only created thriving, aquatic ecosystems, but also saved oil companies the expense of hauling platforms back to land, then dismantling and disposing of them.

The program, called Rigs to Reefs, also provided a public relations boost for an industry often reviled for spills and other environmental damage.

"I think basically everyone around the Gulf Coast sees it as a very positive step," said Chris Ross, a finance professor at the University of Houston. "It's a great habitat for marine life, and it's much cheaper than trying to recycle it."

Besides, he added, "What else are you going to do with it?"

Making it happen

Oil companies, required by federal regulators to remove offshore platforms from the ocean at the end of their productive life, can opt instead to work with Gulf Coast state agencies to identify which platforms would be suitable to become artificial reefs. The agencies seek permits to do so from the Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard, and they assume any liability for environmental damage caused by the reef. Myriad factors go into choosing a spot to deploy a reef. The state agencies avoid putting them too close to natural reefs or too far from the original site, which would drive up transportation costs.

The agencies also avoid shallow waters, shipping lanes and anywhere a ship might strike them. The ideal spot for an artificial reef is close enough to shore to allow fishermen to reach them, in an area where the sediment of the seafloor is strong enough to support a massive structure.

In 1981, Shell deployed Cougar in 337 feet of water, extracting oil and gas from what were the furthest reaches of the oil industry's territory in the Gulf at the time. The platform, one of Shell's first ventures into deeper waters, came with one of the first on-site computer systems to monitor wells that would produce a combined 31 million barrels of oil equivalent over their life spans.

Now, a variety of species, Perry said, will be drawn to different sections of Cougar's steel frame, already encrusted with aquatic species like barnacles, bryozoan, sponges, oysters, mussels and coral.

The frame, some 35 stories tall, will sit on its side on the ocean floor, its steel pipes capturing different levels of sunlight that plankton and phytoplankton - a source of food for fish - need to survive and thrive. Larger fish species, including sharks, will dwell closer to the surface of the ocean than smaller ones.

The Coastal Marine Institute, a research center at Louisiana State University, has found that one of these structures, which stand on eight legs, can create habitat for up to 14,000 fish. Each platform leg can have two to 6 inches of encrustation of aquatic invertebrates on the metal, said Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

'It's ocean dumping'

Some environmental groups have argued artificial reefs only pull fish and aquatic species away from natural reefs, and essentially turn the ocean into a scrap yard. And whatever environmental benefits oil platforms may offer as artificial reefs, their presence also risks the possibility of major oil spills that could devastate the fishing industry.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster cost the Gulf of Mexico fishing industry up to $1.6 billion in 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore development.

"It's ocean dumping," said Linda Krop, chief counsel of the Environmental Defense Center in California. "You have birds on telephone wire. Is that the best habitat for them, or is a tree a better habitat for them? The same thing with the ocean. What's the best habitat for fish?"

More fish in the sea

But teams of scientists have found that these iron islands - both artificial reefs and active oil platforms - relieve the stress on natural reefs by attracting fish with new and bountiful sources of food and space for reproduction. The result is larger fish populations, which is why fishermen cluster their boats around oil and gas platforms in the Gulf, McKinney said.

Over the past decade, the size of the Gulf commercial catch has increased 28 percent, to more than 1.7 billion pounds in 2016 from nearly 1.4 billion pounds in 2006. The value of the catch jumped about 30 percent, to more than $900 million from less than $700 million during that period, according to federal statistics.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that in 2015 commercial and recreational saltwater fishing in the Gulf of Mexico generated nearly $34 billion in sales as products moved from the docks to consumers through wholesalers, retailers and restaurants, and supported about 250,000 jobs.

Snapper catches are up

The Harte Research Institute said this month it will lead a $12 million effort by 21 fishery scientists to estimate the number of red snapper living in the Gulf today. Commercial landings of the species have climbed nearly 40 percent since 2006, to about 6.5 million pounds in 2016, according to NOAA.

"Today, there are more snapper in the Gulf than 10 years ago, and many of those, perhaps even more than we know, are on artificial reefs and platforms," McKinney said.

Commercial landings of red snapper have climbed nearly 40 percent since 2006, to about 6.5 million pounds in 2016, according to NOAA.

The Harte Research Institute has received funding from the oil industry for certain publications, McKinney, but not for any research on artificial reefs, which is funded by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission, which benefits from improving fish stocks. In Texas, revenue for licenses sold for saltwater fishing rose 47 percent between 2005 and 2016 to nearly $600,000, according to the commission.

Saving money

The major oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico - Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP and others - have participated in the Rigs to Reef program for years. Nearly half of the oil companies in the region, mostly smaller, private ones, are interested in the reef program to the extent it saves them money on transporting the platform onto land and dismantling it, McKinney said.

For Shell, towing Cougar 50 miles to the reef site rather than hauling it 100 miles to shore for dismantling and disposal saved the company $1.24 million, said Ernest Hui, Shell's decommissioning business improvement lead. Shell donated about half the savings to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries "to monitor and support" the habitat, the company said.

"The economics made sense," Hui said. "We see reefing as a benefit. We've been trying to do this around the world."
The founder of a Houston software company accused of embezzling money from his own company and defrauding investors in a $32 million scheme was taken into federal custody Thursday.

Ray C. Davis, 62, who founded Behavioral Recognition Systems more than a decade ago, was charged with securities and wire fraud, according to the 21-count indictment handed down by a grand jury Dec. 7 and unsealed Thursday.

Davis initially appeared in court in shackles and handcuffs while wearing a white dress shirt and gray business suit. By the afternoon, he was brought into court in a wheelchair and ankle cuffs because he relies on a feeding tube and suffers from hypoglycemia. He was allowed to post a $250,000 bond. And he received permission from a federal judge to leave town to attend a Miami boat show, where he may try to liquidate an antique vessel he owns.

Davis lawyer Dick DeGuerin said his client is not guilty of the charges.

"There's a lot more to this than is in the indictment," he said. "We're going to fight this. It's going to take a while. It's going to be complex."

The company that blew the whistle on the alleged criminal activities on Thursday was charged in a civil case with federal securities violations. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Behavioral Recognition Systems, which changed its name last year to Giant Gray, of working alongside Davis in a fraudulent scheme, according to court records.

The company, which sells the technology behind business security systems, including video monitoring, artificial intelligence, facial recognition software and other products, raised $28 million from investors over a two-year period beginning in 2013. It was to be used for working capital, mezzanine funding and to build the business, according to the SEC. But the agency alleges that Davis siphoned off $7.8 million for his own use, including transfers to his bank account and to buy art, jewelry and antiques.

Giant Gray and its lawyer could not be reached for comment.

The indictment and SEC lawsuit are the latest developments in a complicated saga involving Davis, who founded Behavioral Recognition Systems in 2005 and served as its chairman and chief executive officer.

Earlier this year, Giant Gray accused Davis and his son, Charles, a former executive vice president, of stealing more than $15 million by creating fraudulent invoices and charging personal expenses, according to the lawsuit the company filed in state district court in Harris County. The suit, which alleges fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment, seeks to recover the money allegedly diverted from Behavioral Recognition Systems. Giant Gray alleged that Davis used company funds to pay for medical bills, theater tickets and other personal expenses.

The record of personal expenses was found after he left the company, according to Giant Gray's lawsuit.

Both father and son denied all charges against them in the civil case, according to the responses they filed in court.

Houston lawyer David Isaak is representing Ray Davis in the civil lawsuit and referred all comments to DeGuerin.

In August, Charles Davis filed a counterclaim against Giant Gray, alleging the software company breached his employment contract when he was terminated last year.

Thursday's criminal indictment against Ray Davis alleges that he opened bank accounts and transferred millions of dollars from Behavioral Recognition Systems to shell companies he owned. Davis used false invoices to conceal the money transfers for an eight-period period beginning in 2008, according to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of $32 million from Davis. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The Marine Corps examined an innovative autonomous flying capability that enables troops to safely and reliably control helicopters from the ground, even in difficult weather conditions. The demonstration flight took place this week at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., as the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced the successful conclusion of the Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System (AACUS) program.

The need for this capability surfaced during Marine Corps operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, experts say. Cargo helicopters and resupply convoys of trucks bringing fuel, food, water, ammunition and medical supplies to the front lines frequently found themselves under fire from adversariesor the target of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices.

The AACUS-Enabled UH-1H (AEH-1) conducted multiple flights, showcasing its ability to autonomously execute re-supply missions in relevant and austere settings. The system consists of lidar and camera sensors and software package that detects and avoids obstacles and evaluates the landing zone. The system processes this information to perform onboard mission, route, and path planning to enable autonomous mission execution. The autonomy kit can be integrated into any manned or unmanned rotary-wing aircraft to detect and avoid obstacles (like telephone wires, other vehicles or large ground objects) in unfavorable weather conditions, or to facilitate autonomous, unmanned flight.

The AACUS suite enables a Marine on the ground to request a supply delivery via helicopter from a handheld tablet, requiring no advanced training to operate the system. The Marines vision for the future of vertical lift operation and support is optionally-piloted aircraft, said AACUS Program Manager Stephen Chisarik. Auroras system enables any rotary-wing aircraft to detect and react to hazards in the flight path, and make appropriate adjustments to keep the aircraft safe.

This is more than just an unmanned helicopter, said Dr. Walter Jones, ONR executive director. AACUS is an autonomy kit that can be placed on any rotary-wing platform and provide it with an autonomous capability. Imagine a Marine Corps unit deployed in a remote location, in rough terrain, needing ammunition, water, batteries or even blood. With AACUS, an unmanned helicopter takes the supplies from the base, picks out the optimal route and best landing site closest to the warfighters, lands, and returns to base once the resupply is completeall with the single touch of a handheld tablet.

It can be used as a pilot aid to operate in GPS- and communications-denied arenas, or allow fully autonomous flights in contested environmentskeeping our pilots and crews out of harms way. Dennis Baker, AACUS program manager explained. Aurora has developed multiple technologies under the AACUS program: the digital flight control system which enables the UH-1 to fly autonomously; and the Tactical Autonomous aerial LOgistics System (TALOS) autonomy technology.

While previous demonstrations have showcased the systems autonomy capabilities and interactions with trained operators, this was the first demonstration in which the aircraft performed cargo and utility missions in an operationally-relevant training environment with Marine interaction. As part of the demonstration, Marines loaded supplies for the aircraft before clearing the autonomy system for autonomous takeoff.

The AEH-1 was granted a Special Airworthiness Certificate by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in October, allowing the aircraft to operate autonomously with only a safety pilot onboard to monitor the controls. Having completed the third and final phase of the program, AACUS will now transition to the Marine Corps for experimentation and potential acquisition.
The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday overturned a key Obama-era precedent that had given workers significant leverage in challenging companies like fast-food and hotel chains over labor practices.

The ruling changes the standard for holding a company responsible for labor law violations that occur at another company, like a contractor or franchisee, with which it has a relationship.

The doctrine also governs whether such a corporation would have to bargain with workers at a franchise if they unionized, or whether only the owners of the franchise would have to do so.

While most labor law experts expected the labor board, which gained a Republican majority only in late September, to overturn the board's joint-employer decision from 2015, the speed of the change came as a surprise to many.

The board's 3-2 vote, along party lines, restores the pre-2015 standard, which deemed a fast-food corporation a joint employer only if it exercised direct and immediate control over workers at the franchise, and in a way that was not limited.

Employer groups had been agitating to undo the Obama-era standard almost from the moment it was decided, and they applauded the decision Thursday.

"Today's decision restores years of established law and brings back clarity for restaurants and small businesses across the country," Cicely Simpson, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, said in a statement.

The key question in determining whether a company, like a fast-food corporation, is a joint employer of workers employed by another company, like one of the chain's franchisees, is the degree of control exercised by the corporation over workers at the franchise. The ruling Thursday declared that such control must be direct.

Under the Obama-era doctrine, the fast-food corporation could be held liable for labor violations that occurred at the franchise even if the control it exerted was indirect - for example, if it required the franchisee to use software dictating certain scheduling practices - or if it had the right to exercise control over workers that it nonetheless didn't exercise.

The reversal could have important implications for the ability of workers to win concessions from employers through collective bargaining. In many cases, a contractor or franchisee has such low profit margins that it could not afford to raise wages or improve benefits even if it wanted to.

But when, as was more likely under the Obama-era doctrine, a wealthier company employing a contractor or conferring a franchise is considered a joint employer, it must join the bargaining and could in principle compensate workers more generously.

The reversal could also affect the ability to unionize in the first place. A company is free to fire a contractor or end a franchise arrangement if it suspects that workers are on the verge of unionizing. But there could be legal liability for doing so if the company is a joint employer of workers with the contractor or franchisee.
Houston architect Brett Zamore earned high praise more than a decade ago for his modern reinvention of the shotgun house.

His next move was designing and building kit houses in the urban core.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A 260-foot-long aquarium of sorts has popped up in a remote corner of the East End, between Hidalgo Park and the Houston Ship Channel's Turning Basin: It's a new mural called "Turtle Soup," which the East End Management District commissioned from Up Art Studio.

A bit of a soup it is, for those who might think it depicts species in the murky waters of Buffalo Bayou nearby. Porpoises, check. Jellyfish, check, if the tides are right. Goldfish, maybe, set free by misguided souls. Giant sea turtles, not so much. Or the tropical varieties of finned wonders that artist Pilot FX has painted there, whose names he doesn't know.

He just liked the aesthetic value of their vivid colors, he said.

Pilot, whose legal name is Adam Socie, excels at realistic depictions of all kinds of figurative subjects on a large scale. He also creates murals for the city's fire stations and has done more mini-murals on Houston traffic boxes than he can count. And he's painted quite elaborate underwater scenes that cover entire rooms of clinics and other types of businesses.

Area resident Jesse Rodriguez, a graphic designer who lives in the neighborhood, helped.

"We're just trying to bring color back into the neighborhood," Rodriguez said. He often sees families taking the Port of Houston's free boat tours. "Kids get all excited when they board the boat, but then everything they see is gray and rusty. There's nothing bright to look at and enjoy."

Although the area could look greener soon.

The mural, in the 7400 block of J.W. Peavy, fills a tapered concrete wall retaining what might pass for a hill in Houston, between a couple of liquid tank storage facilities. But it's a block or so from the city-owned Hidalgo Park, which in the not-too-distant future will be connected via a hike-and-bike trail at its other end to Harris County's 2-year-old Yolanda Black Navarro Buffalo Bend Nature Park.

Buffalo Bayou Partnership president Anne Olson said her organization recently acquired trail easements and properties between the two parks, which are less than a mile apart. The latest acquisitions of about 13 acres provide a clear shot between 11-acre Hidalgo Park, which has a historic faux bois gazebo and neighborhood ball fields, and the 10-acre nature park, which contains wetland ponds, a cistern, native plantings, an overlook and hike-and-bike trails. That begins to look like a significant amount of green space.

For now, both parks are relatively unknown to outsiders, in an area where small neighborhoods of modest frame houses are separated from Buffalo Bayou by industrial complexes. The waterway makes a natural, sharp "S" curve just before it expands into the Houston Ship Channel's Turning Basin.

Olson said the partnership plans to work with the county and city to develop a plan to connect the two parks. Her group also has a larger master-planning effort underway along this stretch of Buffalo Bayou and will be seeking input from neighborhood residents after the first of the year.

Beyond the mural, J.W. Peavy winds through overgrown, vacant land that looks ripe for whatever comes next. Several years ago, community volunteers cleared brush and built a mulched walking path on an abandoned rail spur. The decrepit, circa 1939 U.S. Appraisers Stores Building looms nearby like a set from an Alfred Hitchcock film. Customs officials once inspected goods coming through the port there.

This place has serious potential, if it is redeveloped responsibly in a way that doesn't displace families who have lived nearby for several generations.

"It will be interesting to see what the neighborhood wants to happen," Olson said.

In the meantime, a pair of exhibits at the partnership's office could help jump-start conversations.

University of Houston students have proposed installations and events for next spring along the bayou's East End sector with "Encounter: Meeting Points on Buffalo Bayou." Architectural designer Jae Boggess documents neglected industrial and commercial buildings in the area with her photography show "Eastside as Found."

Both exhibits can be viewed 9 a.m.-5 p.m. through Jan. 29 at the Sunset Coffee Building, 1019 Commerce.
Friday's opening of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," the latest chapter in the space-opera phenomenon set in "a galaxy far, far away," is an event that could generate a global box-office take approaching a half-billion dollars.

But for Kristen Lee Ohanyan, it's much more than a big boost to Disney's bottom line. The release of each new film in the famed franchise is a way for her to connect family, going back to the first "Star Wars" in 1977.

"I was eight or nine when I saw it with my grandmother, and that magical moment set things in motion for me," said the Houston teacher and an organizer of the Star Wars Enthusiasts of Houston Facebook and Meetup group. "My grandmother is no longer with us, but she really inspired my love of sci-fi and fantasy."

When Ohanyan watches "The Last Jedi" this weekend, she'll be thinking of her grandmother, with whom she shared several more "Star Wars" viewings after that first eye-opener.

She will be seeing "Last Jedi" with her extended "Star Wars" family of at least 30 friends.

"'Star Wars' connects us, people that we love, people that we see the movie together with ... You remember who you go to see 'Star Wars' with, whether it be family or friends. And you remember where you see it. And that has power," she said.

Unlike many other successful film franchises, "Star Wars" - the story of a group of feisty rebels striking blows against an evil galactic Empire - inspires a kind of ardor that conjures vivid memories of the shared experience. "Star Wars" may strike such a chord and endure across generations because the fantasy, originally created by director George Lucas and now helmed by a variety of filmmakers, taps into classic themes of good vs. evil and heroes on a quest that speaks to the power of myth. In fact, famed mythologist Joseph Campbell - author of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," the book that partially inspired Lucas - admired the series.

And for many lesser-known fans who will be witnessing "The Last Jedi" with their relatives, their bond began in the '70s or early '80s, when the franchise's first films flickered on the big screen..

Martin Hajovsky, a writer of books for ESL students, was a freshman at St. Thomas High School where he, his brother and some friends caught a bus to take them to the old Alabama Theater at Shepherd and Alabama to camp in line for a few hours to see "The Empire Strikes Back," the second "Star Wars" film to be released, in 1980.

"It was an early dismissal day before finals," he said. "We had lunch at a place that's not there anymore and then sat there in line and studied," he said. "There was a great deal of excitement ... And then, afterward, the big discussion was whether (Darth Vader) was really Luke's father or not."

Alan Cerny also remembers seeing "Empire" at the Alabama. "When Vader says what he says - everybody in the theater gasped," said Cerny, who works for the Harris County justice of the peace and pens freelance movie reviews for comingsoon.net. "I freaked out."

Brian Tees freaked out, too, over "Empire" but not during the movie. Some kid from his T-ball team spoiled the big revelation about Darth Vader and Luke before Tees had seen the film.

"The anger has faded over the years, but I remember the moment," said Tees, an attorney. "It was my first real spoiler (though) that word didn't exist then. I could not believe that he would just ruin the movie. I can still picture it. He said, 'Guys, guys, you won't believe this.'

"Part of me thought maybe he was lying but, obviously, he wasn't."

The next generation

Each "Star Wars" release takes Andrew Richardson, who's now in marketing, right back to being a young boy again, but for a more pleasant reason. "It brings back all those memories of when you were a kid and you were just so excited to dress up like Luke Skywalker for Halloween," he said. "It's like getting to relive childhood every time you go see the movie."

He can remember the exact moment his "Star Wars" fascination began. It was the early '90s and his parents were showing "The Empire Strikes Back" at home. "I remember the scene where Luke falls into the chamber and he's fighting Darth Vader. He jumps out of it and he's hanging above it, and I remember thinking it was so cool that someone could jump that high," he said. "These people can jump around, they have laser swords. This is cool."

Going to see "Last Jedi" will be a little bittersweet for Richardson and his wife. Their usual gear for such outings - a Jedi costume for him, an R2-D2 dress for her - was destroyed during Hurricane Harvey.

"I'll just be going with a T-shirt," he said.

Alecia Lawyer, founder, director and principal oboist with the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, can still summon the memory of waiting in line at the movie theaters at NorthPark mall in Dallas to see "The Empire Strikes Back." "And then I got all the action figures," she said. "I was one of the few girls at that age who just loved it."

She's such a fan that, when her sons were younger, she bought them the Lego Death Star ("I probably did more of it than they did"), dressed as a Wookie for Halloween and at the Texas Renaissance Festival and, more recently, had her oboe case autographed by "Last Jedi" co-star Adam Driver, who plays First Order villain Kylo Ren, when they met at an Arts and the Armed Forces charity event.

She will be taking her two boys - now in high school and college - to "The Last Jedi" to two showings, though she admits they're not as committed as she is. "They're going to both showings, forced at light-saber point, I guess," she said with a laugh.

Cerny is taking his family to see the film this weekend, though he concedes his daughter is "more into anime than anything else." He has already attended Houston's advance screening of "The Last Jedi" and says he teared up seeing the late Carrie Fisher on screen.

Richardson, who's expecting his first child in March, said he plans to share his "Star Wars" passion with his daughter in hopes that someday she can make her own memories.

"My mom was the one who introduced me to 'Star Wars,' and she saw it in theaters when it first came out," he said. "She was a big fan."

And what if his daughter turns out not to like the "Star Wars"?

Richardson cuts right to the chase: "As long as she's not a 'Star Trek' fan, I'm OK."
The release of a new "Star Wars" film used to arrive like a cultural earthquake, a seismic event that shook fans into excitement and caused the rest of the population to take notice.

These days, the franchise feels more like Santa Claus, dropping off cinematic gifts every December like clockwork.

That's not to suggest Friday's release of "The Last Jedi" comes with little fanfare. Expectations have been high for this film as the follow up to the fan-approved "Force Awakens" two years ago. But a new "Star Wars" flick just isn't the cultural event it once was.

And that might not be a bad thing, I mean, more "Star Wars," man. Though, there are issues to consider in the franchise's larger context, things such as oversaturation, diluting the storyline(s) and wearing down a demographic of diehards.

So I tapped into the brains of two Chronicle film experts, Cary Darling and Andrew Dansby, for some perspective. One is a tried-and-true fanboy, the other an ambivalent observer. The conversation took place the morning after seeing "The Last Jedi," and while we tried to avoid spoilers there are a few that pop up.

In the last year I've lost a lot of faith in a lot things, among them "Star Wars." The franchise began to feel oversaturated - which is saying a lot, given its history of marketing - and built too much on the echoes of its past - which is saying a lot given its history of echoing its own past. But after seeing "The Last Jedi," my faith is restored. Though, given my fanboy history this probably isn't surprising. So I'm asking you two, how do you feel about the franchise after seeing its latest film?

Darling: I've never been a "Star Wars" fanboy. I prefer my science fiction with darker edges. But I've enjoyed the best of the "Star Wars" films - "The Empire Strikes Back" still being the best - and I would put "The Last Jedi" closer to the "Empire" side of the spectrum rather than on the dire "Phantom Menace" side. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it does what it does well enough. And I really liked the lightsaber battle in Snoke's lair. That checked my action-movie box.

Dansby: I grew up with this story. I'm a textbook fanboy. So my feelings about Episodes IV, V and VI are unwavering even as I've gotten older and become more aware of their imperfections. The "Star Wars" story enveloped me and, at times, I still exist inside that envelope. So I almost feel like I have parallel experiences with it, because I'm now a middle-aged guy who has seen hundreds more movies since Episode IV.

In the time since that movie came out 40 years ago we received two additional chapters that I revere (Ewoks and all) and then three early chapters that I found almost unwatchable. We've also seen the entire nurturing process for franchise narratives change, often toward the dark and contemplative like the Batman reboot.

I was more than satisfied by "The Force Awakens" and even "Rogue One" which was less a story than an event, but an event that was nicely done. I suppose I should've been wary of market saturation, but since the original trilogy peaked with its middle chapter, I assumed the middle of this three-film arc would follow a pattern: darker, moodier, more twisting. And those elements were present, to an extent, in "Last Jedi." But I also felt like "Empire Strikes Back" had a story to it, whereas "Last Jedi" felt more like one of those race-against-the-clock stories that the series leans on too often. "A New Hope" was that way, but it at least had ample backstory to present that created engagement.

Anyway, I very much admired the last 45 minutes of "Last Jedi." But I felt like it struggled to get traction early on. And I wish it had as goosebumpy a moment as in "The Force Awakens" when the lightsaber zips past Ben/Ren into Rey's hand.

I'm struggling to tamp down commentary that sounds rooted in disappointment. But I think I allowed my expectations to get too high.

Darling: There is a moment that approaches goose bumpy when Kylo Ren and Rey have their stare down. There's actual tension there that hints at something deeper.

It would be nice to have had a movie that explores this more, sort of "The Empire Strikes Back" meets "The Dark Knight." But I don't know that Disney will allow that movie to be made. The machine needs to be fed after all, and it doesn't like ambiguity. Also, it would be interesting to explore the internal dynamics of the Resistance a bit more, without the constant drumbeat of war with the Empire/First Order forever pushing the plot forward. I'm thinking of something along the lines of the middle seasons of the retooled "Battlestar Galactica" with all the internecine politics of those aboard Galactica. But that's probably asking too much.

Dansby: Agreed on all counts. And their scene in Snoke's lair marked the point at which the film caught my attention. I don't want to give away plot points or even too much about the tone of the film, but I do think the way they wrote Ben/Ren in this episode offered less ambiguity than they think it did. But we have another story coming in a couple of years. I guess we'll know more then. But I recall how breathless "Empire Strikes Back" left me when it came out. I worry they allowed the middle chapter of this trio to play the part of setup instead of using it to upset expectations.

Dansby's last point intrigues me. "Empire" left you breathless after seeing it, but you were a kid. So is "Star Wars" still about the kids, trying to appease the adult fans, or is it a mess because it wants to be everything to everybody?

Dansby: It's an interesting point, and one I've found myself thinking about a lot today. And wanting input from my daughter, who hasn't seen it yet.

The original three movies came out before I really divided up film into kid and adult fare. They just seemed like movies. The Ewoks were clearly an attempt to court the kids. The dialog was pretty simple. The story was pretty simple. But the imagination involved was grand. That's the biggest thing the franchise has going for it. There are better purveyors of science fiction, people who use actual science. Lucas had the bright idea of making a space western that dispatched with the science. And it worked both ways: Lucas brought his imagination and the contract stipulated that viewers use theirs, rather than letting logic get in the way. There was some dark thematic gristle in "Last Jedi," but it also went to the critters often.

It's hard to screw up this galaxy visually, and they haven't done that at all. It's a visual feast. So I guess my misgivings are all about narrative, which is funny because I never really thought of Lucas as a gifted storyteller. But the "keep it simple, stupid" thing worked for him. And as I say that, I realize one can go too spartan with the story. It's not entirely fair to compare trilogies. They should be assessed independently. But I put together a customized scorecard of sorts.

Here's part of what happened between "A New Hope" and "Return of the Jedi":

New planet, Hoth!

Luke gets Wampa'd.

"I thought they smelled bad on the outside."

Hoth gets stormed.

Luke ditches his friends to get some serious training.

Yoda!

Han and Leia bond.

Vader uses Luke's friends as bait.

Han gets frozen in carbonite.

"I love you." "I know."

We meet the Emperor.

Betrayal by an old friend.

A beautifully filmed lightsaber sequence.

Boba Fett.

Luke loses a hand.

Paternity reveal.

Here's part of what happened between "The Force Awakens" and Episode IX (minus some crucial spoilers):

The Resistance continues to struggle.

The Empire overcomes ineptitude through force of numbers.

Rey gets some minor training.

Ewok birds.

A beautifully filmed lightsaber sequence.

Rey and Kylo meet.

We're really not much further down the narrative line after "Last Jedi" than we were 2.5 hours ago. There are casualties along the way. But the balance of power hasn't really moved much, there wasn't much of a tremor in the Force. For all the criticisms of George Lucas' shortcomings - especially his unique ineptitude at dialogue - he managed to set up his ticking time bomb narratives with some interesting backstory. He had vision. I don't know if it was a vision for kids or adults, but I loved those films equally as a kid and adult. He did something right.

Darling: Agree that there's a lot less going on than meets the eye with the new films. I fear that's going to be the future as the story is kept as bare bones as possible to avoid losing any part of the potential audience.

Ever since the beloved Cantina scene in "New Hope," we've been led to believe that - apart from the Empire vs. the Rebels - all other divisions (race, sex, class, species) have been rendered moot, or were a never a big deal in the first place. But it might be interesting to see what a Jordan Peele or an Ava DuVernay might come up with out of this universe. Related to that, it would be cool for more non-American directors/writers like George Miller ("Mad Max"), Gareth Evens ("The Raid"), Yeon Sang-ho ("Train to Busan") or Bong Joon-ho ("Snowpiercer") to take a crack at this world.

So, looking ahead, and knowing that Rian Johnson is going to helm a considerable chunk of the upcoming "Star Wars" films, how do you feel about the future of franchise? Excited, exasperated or entirely ambivalent?

Darling: I just don't think I'm going to be truly surprised by a "Star Wars" film at this point. But who knows? We're a getting a Han Solo spinoff next year (directed by Ron Howard) and then the final chapter in the current trilogy the following year, directed by J.J. Abrams. I don't expect either of those to pull off something totally unexpected. But then Johnson takes control again after that with a new trilogy he's concocting from scratch with new characters in the "Star Wars" universe.

Things might get really interesting, if Disney doesn't yank the reins too tightly. Though we're going to have to wait until at least 2020 to find out.

Dansby: Ambivalent. Until the trailer for each one is released, at which point anticipation and fervor builds again.
At a time when Hollywood often seems bereft of any semblance of originality, along comes Mexican director Guillermo del Toro to remind everyone what a unique, magical world the cinematic experience can be.

In "The Shape of Water," his most impressive work since "Pan's Labyrinth" 11 years ago, the visual stylist spins an adult fairy tale that takes elements from "Beauty and the Beast" and recasts them in an alternative universe that's a wonderfully rendered twist on our own. The result is a science-fiction/romance/magical realist mash-up that works as a captivating singular vision.

The time is the early '60s, the place is Baltimore, and Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute woman who always hews closely to her daily routine before leaving for her job as a maid on the night shift at a government lab. She makes her hard-boiled egg, checks in with her unemployed artist neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins) and arrives at work just in time for her chatty best friend and co-worker, Zelda (Octavia Spencer), who has held a place in line for her, to punch the time clock.

Her sense of order is upended when government agent Richard Strickland (a cruel Michael Shannon) shows up at the lab with classified cargo that turns out to be an amphibious humanoid creature found in the wilds of South America. He wants it tested and dissected to see if it offers secrets that might counter Russia's Cold War threat. Opposing him is scientist Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), who agrees the creature needs to be studied but wants to keep it alive, arguing that a sentient being shouldn't be slaughtered on the altar of global confrontation.

But Elisa becomes fascinated with Amphibian Man (Doug Jones, who played the Pale Man in "Pan's Labyrinth"), sneaking into the chamber in which he's kept, introducing him to the simple joys of hard-boiled eggs and recorded music. These outcasts, who can't speak to each other, communicate on a deeper, more primal level. Through him, she finds her voice; he finds connection in a hostile environment; and both end up doing something neither could have imagined not long before.

Del Toro always loves his monsters - think of the fighting behemoths in "Pacific Rim" or the insectoids of "Mimic" - but here, the monster isn't the one in chains under observation but the one who put him there.

Meanwhile, the once ordered outside world seems to be spinning into chaos. When the TV in Giles' apartment is showing civil rights tumult, he quickly changes it to the security of an old Hollywood movie. But he won't be able to hold the tide against the future for long, as the battle with his own personal demons prove.

As expected with del Toro, who co-wrote the script with Vanessa Taylor, the visual element of "The Shape of Water" is especially inventive. Along with Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen (who also did del Toro's "Crimson Peak") and composer Alexandre Desplat, he has fashioned a place that at once feels as familiar and nostalgic as your grandparents' old photo album and as foreign and threatening as the lagoon where Amphibian Man spawned.

But it's up to Hawkins, who has to express herself without uttering a word, Spencer and Jenkins to give "The Shape of Water" a beating human heart - and they do so admirably.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Dozens of nutcrackers from all over the world are lined up in orderly rows on shelves and fireplace mantels. Hundreds of Santas, from those that walk and talk to others who merely sit still, lurk in every corner of these spacious homes.

There are tables so laden with faux snow and glowing ceramic villages that you might mistake a foyer or dining room for a holiday store.

Christmas hasn't just arrived - it has taken over.

If you thought the millions of strings of outdoor lights and parade of inflatable decorations in yards have become the biggest holiday displays in town, you likely haven't peeked inside homes of some of the city's most passionate Christmas enthusiasts.

MORE: Third Ward home tour offers glimpse of many holiday-decor styles

In Nagwa Osman's 6,000-square-foot home in The Woodlands, you'll find every imaginable holiday decoration, from sacred nativity scenes carved from olive wood from the Holy Land to glitter-bound men in red whose suits are trimmed in faux fur.

Although Osman is quiet and modest, she'll proudly tell you that her store-bought items often just aren't glitzy enough. That's when she gets out her craft items, special fabrics, glitter, sequins and hot glue gun to take them all up a notch.

"You have to see it to believe it. It slowly starts after Thanksgiving and in three to four days the whole house changes," said her husband, Emad Elrafie. "You have seven to eight trees and a lot of Christmas decorations. She decorates the kitchen, bedroom, ceiling, everywhere. You would think this takes six months to put together. She is a Christmas ninja."

When it comes to holidays, Americans can't seem to get enough. The $12 billion holiday decor industry shows numbers rising everywhere.

The annual holiday market - where importers show their wares and designers and retailers load up for 2018 - grows bigger every year, says its host, the Dallas Market Center which in January will show off 600,000 square feet of holiday products, a 15 percent increase over five years ago.

Lauren Leavitt-Griffin does not need convincing. Like Osman she is a self-professed fan of Christmas, the magical holiday that has captivated both since they were children.

MORE: Decorating the home for the holidays

So when Leavitt-Griffin moved into her Tanglewood home a few years ago, she knew she needed Christmas decorations.

"I went overboard the first year in this house. My husband walked in and said 'What have you done?'" she said. "I found a catalog and ordered everything in it."

More Information It's the most wonderful time of the year for these passionate Christmas fans See More Collapse

By "everything," Leavitt-Griffiin means enough that she rents a storage unit to hold it all and then hires movers to transport the contents of the jam-packed space to her home sometime after Thanksgiving each year.

Leavitt-Griffin, an emergency room physician, said she got hooked on the holiday as a young girl.

"My grandparents had presents piled to the ceiling, so I always thought it was magical - probably me more than anyone because I was the youngest," Leavitt-Griffin said.

At home, her parents brought Christmas to life. "It was an explosion. You woke up and the cookies for Santa were eaten. I guess they are things all parents do, but you really believe it," she said. "It was tangible. I mean, there was no question in my mind. They used to make noise ... I really thought Santa was on the roof."

Now, Leavitt-Griffin and her husband, Dallas, are recreating the experience for their children, 2 1/2-year-old Grant and daughter Ayelet, who's 3 months old.

Grant's starting to get into the holiday spirit. He naps in his white cotton pajamas embroidered with nutcrackers. Then he runs around the house singing the chorus to "Jingle Bells" - over and over and over again - while intermittently trying to play the toy French horn he's snatched out of one Santa's maroon velvet bags.

MORE: Family outing -- Christmas on the farm

In a crib nearby, little sister Ayelet establishes her place as the soundest sleeper on the planet.

Not far away is a mechanized Santa who climbs up and down a ladder. Last year it frightened Grant, this year they're pals.

On the kitchen counter there's a large nutcracker dressed like a pirate, a nod to Grant's Halloween costume - Captain Hook.

Leavitt-Griffin's lovely 9-foot Christmas tree is adorned with bulbs in gold and silver and some that are pearl encrusted. There are pale white poinsettias, butterflies and even miniature chandeliers hanging from her tree, all glittery and sequined.

"I love pretty Santas," she declared. "My mom got me started on that, too. If it's girly, I have to buy it."

Then there's the penchant for anything Yorkie related: Leavitt-Griffin has three Yorkie dogs and on one table there's a tiny nativity scene with tiny Yorkies in doggie coats standing guard over baby Jesus.

Earlier this year, Osman worried about her own holiday plans as she faced life-threatening heart surgery. She made it through, and informed her family that she'd need a little help for Christmas.

"They were thinking that this year, because of my surgery that I would not do much, but after two weeks on my feet I needed to do my Christmas," said Osman, who is half German and half Egyptian.

Elrafie works for an energy company, so the couple have lived all over the world. Not only have they celebrated Christmas everywhere, but she's collected decorations for it all over as well. Their home in The Woodlands has about 2,000 square feet of storage space for their holiday decor.

Even when she was recovering, Christmas was on her mind, said her husband. "She was flat on her back, and she still had her glue gun. That made her happy," he said of his wife of 31 years.

The couple will host a holiday party for neighbors, plus another for Elrafie's co-workers, who have become accustomed to his wife's traditions: goodie bags for everyone and a huge, German-style meal.

MORE: We've got Houston's favorite cookie recipes

She spent her early childhood in Germany, so a Bavarian-style meal - wienerschnitzel and mashed potatoes topped with eggs sunny-side-up and fried onions plus homemade noodles - will be on her December menus, she said. And there's also the lebkuchen, the German-style gingerbread that she orders from Germany - enough to last the whole month.

Her husband and two grown children - a son and a daughter - like to tease Osman about her Christmas thing, but she knows they enjoy it, too.

"They say I overdo it, but they love it, OK?" she said. "They know how much I love Christmas, and they feel the joy when I do it."

Dalia Stokes and Bobbie Bayless know people like Osman and Leavitt-Griffin well. Their Christmas Rocks shop on Ferndale Street in Upper Kirby - it shares space with their Bayless & Stokes law firm - caters to Christmas fans all year long.

During much of the rest of the year they're busy with legal work, but in December they're in their downstairs shop nearly full time, feeding consumers' appetite for collectible porcelain bisque Snow Babies, candle-powered pyramids and Wilhelm Schweizer pewter cutouts among other things.

Their inventory shows how focused our holiday taste can be. Houstonians might have a single tree decorated with Texana: ornaments shaped like the state, six-shooters, armadillos, bluebonnets or other iconic themes.

Dog lovers come here for ornaments that look like dachshunds, labradoodles and, yes, Yorkies. Not only do these things personalize our holiday decor, they make us feel good, too.

MORE: Lights in Heights bring out residents

"Lots of our customers are medical center patients who are in town for treatment and want something uplifting to do so they come to our Christmas store," said Stokes.

Christmas Rocks specializes in traditional holiday style, but Regina Gust of Regina Gust Designs said today's hottest trends use vintage ornaments or contemporary colors.

Tinsel-y garland is back in a big way, and Gust likes to double it to make it even fuller. Paired with a well-lit tree, it positively glows, she said.

"I grew up with tinsel on the tree. I put every little icicle on my tree individuallly," she said, laughing. "It's the icing on the cake. It's the sparkle."

Gust's own inventory covers 500,000 square feet and while she personally likes traditional holiday decor, she knows other people don't.

"There are no rules. There's no rhyme or reason," Gust said of holiday decorating. "Your house may be ultra modern, but at Christmas, bring out your funky Santa."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

On the night that Mari Trevino first laid eyes on Bryan Glass, her older sister (and future maid of honor), Margot Rosson, accidentally kicked him out of their parent's home. The handsome young stranger arrived as the guest of a guest to Margot's law school graduation party - and in her eyes, it was closing time.

"I said, 'You just let the love of my life walk out the door!' " Mari recalls.

All was forgiven by the following evening.

Bryan, smitten, tracked down Mari's phone number. He called her the next day, and every day after that. They were officially dating within the week.

Fast forward four years and a new lease on their first townhouse together. Mari often "pretend-proposed" to her beau during the months leading up to the big move, just to show him how easy it was.

Then mid-December, while she was busy unpacking boxes in their kitchen, Bryan dropped to one knee.

"OK. It's my turn," he began.

She said "yes!" and the newly engaged pair sped over to Tony's, where Mari's parents, Ileana and Michael Trevino, were having dinner.

"My mom's back was to us when we walked in," the bride says. "Very first thing when she turned around, her eyes went right down to my left hand."

Mari and her mother run Trevino Consulting Group. The groom, who works for Enterprise Products Partners, had enlisted the help of her father and the family jeweler, Benji Designs, to create a custom engagement ring using an heirloom diamond.

As the foursome toasted the occasion with champagne, they instinctively knew where Mari and Bryan should tie the knot.

"The Vallones...I mean, they're family," the bride says of Donna and Tony Vallone. "We always knew that wherever we got married, we wanted Tony's to cater. But we didn't know what that would look like, closing the restaurant on a Saturday night."

Fortunately, Belle of the Ball's Valerie Eissler had a plan.

She tapped The Perfect Touch for linens, the Password Band for live music and Aztec to transform the fine dining establishment's circular drive into a one-night-only cocktail lounge.

"As bridezilla as it sounds, we wanted a tent, but we didn't want the look of a tent," Mari says. "They started building it the night before our wedding at 10 p.m., and didn't finish it until the first guests arrived."

On Sept. 16, the couple exchanged "I dos" on her parents' 30th wedding anniversary at St. Martin's Episcopal Church.

Then it was time for the elaborate "unveil," which took her breath away.

"It was beyond my wildest dreams," she says. "They brought us in through a side door and I literally burst into tears. I think I even made some of Tony's staff cry."

There were plenty happy moments that day. Earlier that morning, the bridal party accidentally broke Mari's parents' bed while posing for a group photo. And Bryan jokingly tried to kiss her halfway through their vows.

"My favorite part of the reception, hands down, was everyone jumping on the dance floor to "Raise Your Glass" by Pink," she says. Serendipitously, the catchy song title also doubled as their wedding hashtag.

Some 210 black-tie guests raised their flutes, cigars and - eventually - rose petals to send off the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Glass.

Bryan whisked his bride away in a vintage Rolls Royce. Now, he's here to stay.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Our Christmas tree fills our home with the fresh pine scent of forests where birds sing lilting songs of life's vitality.

We're following a Yuletide tradition begun in Germany 500 years ago, when people decorated evergreen trees in their homes. The tradition was brought to America by German settlers in Pennsylvania, but it didn't gain popularity until the 1800s. There was a prevailing view that evergreens in homes represented paganism.

Ancient people in northern Europe placed evergreen boughs in their dwellings during the winter solstice to symbolize life's continuation in fear of darkened gloom caused by pagan gods.

No menacing pagan gods casting gloom here, especially as our backyard has become a shopping mall with crowds of birds looking for seeds and insects. So we happily festoon our pine tree with ornaments depicting birds and other animals that remind us of the joy of life.

My favorite ornament is not a bird but a skunk, with a dollop of snow on its head. It appeared on the Christmas tree during the first year of our marriage - my wife, Kathy, often called me a stinker, and still does.

Two ornamental raccoons each hold an empty soup can to their ears, both cans attached by a red string, like telephones connected by a wire. Didn't I attach two empty soup cans with a wire to work like a telephone when I was a boy?

More Information Christmas tree tradition A Christmas bird ornaments may follow an old German tradition of putting corn on the roof to feed birds on Christmas Eve. A Robin ornaments derive from a legend about a robin scorching its breast while fanning embers to keep the baby Jesus warm: Spoiler, the robin was European not American. A Dove ornaments for peace may derive from the Biblical flood story about a dove released from Noah's Ark; it returned with an olive leaf to show God had restored peace on Earth. A Ornaments representing the carol "Twelve Days of Christmas" include a partridge (Christmas meal), turtle doves (once common in Europe, now declining), French hens (domestic chickens), calling birds ("colly birds" aka blackbirds), geese a-laying (barnyard geese) and swans a-swimming (birds for royalty). See More Collapse

The ornament symbolizes talking and listening, a hallmark of our marriage.

A pewter ornament depicts a flock of geese flying in a V formation. We witness the arrival of snow geese to the Houston area every winter and jump up and down like children because the beauty of nature thrills us.

We purchased the ornament, as we did so many others, because the money went to children in need.

An ornamental cardinal pokes its head out of a nest box. We know cardinals nest in trees and bushes rather than nest boxes, but that's OK because the ornament was a handmade gift from a late friend whose life exemplified the spirit of Christmas.

One ornament has a penguin perched on the back of a polar bear. What a miracle for a South Pole penguin to perch on a North Pole polar bear.

We're hoping for a miracle to keep our cat from jumping on the Christmas tree.

An ornament high in the tree celebrates the miracle of Santa Claus, with flying reindeer carrying a sleigh full of children's toys across the skies on Christmas Eve.

When birds burst forth in our yard on Christmas morning, what miracle will they be celebrating?
Lockheed Martin successfully launched production-configuration AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) from a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber. During the test over the Sea Range at Point Mugu, California, B-1B aircrew simultaneously launched two LRASMs against multiple maritime targets, meeting the primary test objectives, including target impact. The air-launched variant that was tested will provide an early operational capability for the U.S. Navys The Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare (OASuW) Increment I requirement, to be integrated onboard the U.S. Air Forces B-1B in 2018 and on the U.S. Navys F/A-18E/F in 2019.

LRASM is a precision-guided, anti-ship standoff missile based on the proven Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) developed by Lockheed Martin for the US Air Force. It is designed to meet the needs of U.S. Navy and Air Force, in contested environments.

LRSAM began as a DARPA program at the 2009 request of U.S. Pacific Command to rapidly field a modern air-launched, anti-ship weapon. The Air Force is scheduled to field the missile with the B-1B in 2018, and the Navy expects to add it to the F/A-18E/F armament by 2019, enhancing the carrier air group attack capability. A booster-strapped variant is also in development, equipping Mk-41 vertical launchers on surface ships.

LRASM is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links and GPS navigation in electronic warfare environments. Relying on an advanced, long-range sensor LRASM attacks targets within a group of enemy ships protected by sophisticated enemy air defense systems.

By its ability to discriminate and conduct tactical engagements from extended ranges LRASM will be most suitable for operations against heavily protected naval groups, as well as against enemy hidden in congested waters, where targets are masked by civilian or other military vessels of smaller value.

Adding disruptive capabilities to the weapon, the Pentagon also plans to equip the same JASSM-ER stealthy airframe with Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave (CHAMP) effectors developed by Boeing, to enabling the non-kinetic electronic attack.
While southern Texas residents enjoyed a rare winter wonderland last weekend, the spate of cold weather has had an adverse affect on the local endangered sea turtle population.

The NOAA Fisheries laboratory in Galveston picked up 18 cold-stunned green sea turtles last weekend in Christmas Bay, following a precipitous water temperature drop that accompanied a cold front and brought snow to the region.

C0ld-stunned sea turtles are not a unique phenomenon. They frequently pop up when the first major cold front of the year hits the Gulf Coast. But the number of turtles picked up last weekend exceeded the total amount found in all of January and February. For the first time on record, the average sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico never fell below 73 degrees last winter.

The cold-stunned turtles are typically juvenile green sea turtles that migrate to the bay to feed on algae and seagrass. Cold-stunned turtles will float at the surface of shallow waters, unable to dive away and appearing almost lifeless, with minimal response to touch.

"It fluctuates from year to year, so we've had 50 in a day and this was 18 in a weekend but cold-stun season actually runs through February so this is at the forefront," said Lyndsey Howell, a research fishery biologist at the NOAA laboratory in Galveston.

The conditions of the water are key, with lower tides leaving the turtles more exposed to cold weather. Usually when water temperatures start to cool, the sea turtles instinctively swim south toward warmer waters. However, the 18 found in Christmas Bay didn't have that option because the bay has no southern exit.

"Sea turtles don't do well with water temperatures less than 50 degrees," said Chris Marshall, the lead turtle researcher at Texas A&M University at Galveston.

"They get real lethargic and just start to slow down. It can cause some real health problems, even kill them," Marshall said. "We've lost a lot of turtles in this area of Texas this winter already."

Volunteers picked up the cold-stunned turtles in the bay and took them to the laboratory in Galveston, where they are slowly nursed back to health. This process involves gradually heating the turtle's body temperature by putting them in dry tubs in an air-conditioned room (roughly 60 to 65 degrees) for the first 24 hours before placing them in warmer water. Once the body temperature stabilizes and a veterinarian determines they are no longer at risk, the turtles are released back into the Gulf, but only if water has warmed to a safe temperature.

Turtle researchers say that the silver lining to the increased number of cold-stunned sea turtles is that the endangered population is increasing.

"As we see the population increase, the opportunities for events like this to happen obviously will increase," said Joanie Steinhaus, the campaign director for the Turtle Island Restoration Network. "But this has been a really mild year. There have been years where over 1,000 turtles have been cold-stunned."

In the meantime, turtle researchers encourage the public -- be it fishers or beachgoers -- to keep an eye out for cold-stunned turtles this winter, particularly with another cold front expected this weekend.

The Turtle Island Restoration Network operates a hotline that the public can call if they see a cold-stunned turtle in the water: 1-866-TURTLE-5 (1-866-887-8535).
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The lengthy barrage by Hurricane Harvey spared few residents along the Texas coast, but it was far from an equal-opportunity storm, according to a new analysis.

Three months after Harvey, poor and minority communities are still struggling to rebuild from a storm that disproportionately affected them, and which worsened chronic issues related to inequality, according to a report released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Episcopal Health Foundation.

Among the biggest hurdles for poor, often-black or Hispanic communities were limited access to affordable housing, health care and flood insurance, as well as the loss of hourly-wage jobs and the paychecks that come with them, the report found.

Things are stacked against low-income communities, said Elena Marks, chief executive at the Episcopal foundation. Theres not a fair mechanism to help people who are already vulnerable at the time when they are at their most vulnerable.

The report, which surveyed respondents in 24 counties affected by Harvey, found that black residents were 13 percent more likely to have had their homes damaged than white residents. Meanwhile, 58 percent of low-income Hispanic residents said someone in their household lost work because of the storm  nearly triple the rate of low-income, white respondents.

The report is the latest to note the disparate ways in which natural disasters affect already-susceptible populations during and after storms. Advocates fear that, absent meaningful policies directed at easing the effects of segregation and inequality, such communities will continue to see a snowball effect, through which they will only be increasingly vulnerable to future storms.

Unfortunately, (the survey results) werent surprising, said Maddie Sloan, the director of Texas Appleseeds disaster recovery and fair housing project. This is what we always see with natural disasters.

Among the most concerning findings of the report, she said, were the high numbers of low-income people who said theyd been denied federal housing assistance. That, she said, means less mobility for low-income people, thus leaving them in dilapidated homes that are often in the path of storms.

We know that if you are repeatedly hit by a disaster  if your home is repeatedly flooded  thats a huge financial drain, she said. And every time it gets harder.

Various federal and state programs to help poor residents, meanwhile, have been plagued by confusion and long wait lines, advocacy groups say. Thousands more are still displaced, awaiting temporary housing or financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Harris County, $36 million has been given to non-profits through the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund started by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and County Judge Ed Emmett.

Turner spokesman Alan Bernstein said in an email Monday that another $64 million will be distributed in the coming weeks, which he called a significant way of addressing inequalities exacerbated by the flood.

In October, Turner announced a partnership aimed at employing Houstonians on local infrastructure repair projects.

Those are each good things, Marks said. But, she added, its important to remember that social and economic inequities did not begin with Harvey.

A lot of people say, Oh gosh, look at this Harvey data, Marks said. But (poor communities) had these disadvantages before Harvey. What Harvey did was give them new things to be even more disadvantaged about.

How, she asked, do you build the kinds of communities with individuals, families and institutions, so that when the next bad thing happens, the same groups of people are not always worse off?

If its not a flood, itll be something else, she said.

Turners office earlier this year announced the Complete Communities initiative to target five low-income neighborhoods for development. That program was welcomed by advocacy groups, but also has been criticized for its low funding levels and lack of a time line for implementation.

(Turner) definitely has a passion for this, but this type of undertaking cant get done by passion alone, Chrishelle Palay, Houston co-director of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, said when the city initiative was announced in April. Its going to take a truly comprehensive effort and a commitment of hundreds of millions of public dollars to really get this done.

Robert Downen is a metro reporter at the Houston Chronicle. Send him news tips at robert.downen@chron.com or follow him on Twitter.
Four Houston elementary schools ravaged by Hurricane Harvey will be rebuilt under a $126-million plan approved Thursday - and those schools will also be among those supported by a $4.7 million grant from oil giant Aramco Services that will provide technology, tutoring and other resources to students displaced by Hurricane Harvey.

Students at Braeburn, Kolter, Mitchell and Scarborough elementary schools will return to new, elevated campuses by 2020 on the same sites as the current facilities, according to a plan approved Thursday.

"The damage to these four buildings was catastrophic," Superintendent Richard Carranza said. "We look forward to getting these students back into their home campuses that will be better-equipped to sustain major storms in the future."

This makes Houston ISD the first district in the region to approve demolition of a school following Hurricane Harvey. District officials decided to start from scratch due to the extent of damage, the age of the buildings and the need to elevate the campuses to avoid future flooding, Houston ISD Chief Operating Officer Brian Busby said.

The campuses were built between 1956 and 1966, when local building codes didn't require higher elevations inside floodplains. "At the end of the day, this just makes a whole lot of sense from all angles," Busby said. "Throwing good money at old buildings is just not considered wise in the long term. These schools not only had issues related to Harvey, but we were also working with issues unrelated to Harvey on routine maintenance."

Until the campuses are ready in January 2020, their 2,870 kids will continue to attend classes at temporary locations.

Administrators are discussing whether to move students from Braeburn and Kolter elementary schools, on the city's southwest side, into different temporary facilities. Students from Braeburn and Kolter travel 11 and four miles, respectively, to their current campuses. Busby said a decision will likely be made in the coming months.

Students at Mitchell Elementary School, located on the city's south side, and Scarborough Elementary School, on the city's north side, are expected to remain at their temporary campuses.

Aramco Services announced a $4.7 million gift to the HISD Foundation to provide technology, tutoring and other resources for students displaced from these four schools, as well as to Robinson Elementary, Hilliard Elementary and Liberty High.

"We saw, obviously, people displaced from their homes and we saw kids displaced from school, and that fell directly into one of the pillars that we like to always support to make sure people are getting a good education. One of our key pillars for our social responsibility is education," said Basil Abulhamayel, president and CEO of Aramco Services.

With a $3.7 million donation announced in October, the Houston-based business management subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company filled a similar insurance gap plus the cost of repairs for 176 flooded Houston Habitat for Humanity families in the Harrel Park and Greensbrook neighborhoods.

In the months since Harvey, the HISD Foundation has received $12 million in donations for storm relief. That figure includes the Aramco gift, $4 million from a foundation that wishes to remain anonymous, as well as numerous six-figure corporate contributions, according to Ann Best Scott, HISD's chief development officer and the foundation's executive director.
NASA has discovered an eighth planet in a distant solar system - but its not a place University of Texas-Austin astronomer Andrew Vanderburg would ever want to visit.

The planet, Kepler 90i, is scorching hot (about 800 degrees Farenheit) and rocky, located in the Kepler-90 system about 2,500 light-years away from Earth, Vanderburg said Thursday during a NASA teleconference.

This discovery, made using Google's approach to artificial intelligence where computers "learned" to find exoplanets in old data from the Kepler Space Telescope, means that our solar system's eight planets might not be so extraordinary after all, he added.

"We now know our solar system is not the sole record holder for the most planets," he said.

Vanderburg, also a NASA Sagan fellow, and Christopher Shallue, senior software engineer at Google A.I., developed this "artificial neural network" to examine light readings from Kepler for previously missed exoplanets.

The program "looks at more signals than a human could look at," Shallue said. "It will help astronomers have more impact."

But it cannot be used to determine if there is alien life on any of these planets, scientists said.

"Searching for bio-signatures will be something that has to be done with more specialized equipment," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director.

That would be reserved for the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, for example, which will study the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets similar to Earth. Webb is scheduled for launch in Spring 2019, according to NASA.

The neural network program also discovered a sixth, Earth-sized planet (Kepler-80g) in the Kepler-80 system.

The Kepler Telescope was launched in 2009, with a primary mission to hunt for distant planets outside our solar system - known as exoplanets. Its discoveries have led to the widely accepted belief among astronomers that there could be at least one planet orbiting each star.

Since the telescope's launch, about 2,500 exoplanets have been confirmed, according to NASA.

Scientists plan to continue sifting through the Kepler data with this neutral network program, though they couldn't say how many more planets they anticipate finding.
Google Street View

An Aransas Pass police officer is out of a job after striking up a relationship with an adult high school student, according to the department's chief.

School district officials reported the potentially improper relationship they discovered between the Aransas Pass High School student and the school resource officer, Robert Brake.
AUSTIN -- When Republican voters in the 27th Congressional District head to the polls for next March's primary, some are likely to be surprised to see the name of retiring Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, on their ballot.

Farenthold announced yesterday his plans to step down from his seat at the end of his term, after being entangled in a series of sexual misconduct allegations. This comes three days after the filing deadline for the Republican Party primary in Texas, meaning that removing Farenthold's name from the ballot is unlikely.
Grab your wallet. The Great GOP Tax Bamboozle of 2017 is apparently on the fast track to making rich people richer and saddling our kids with more debt.

Republicans in the House and the Senate are about to unveil the final version of their budget busting $1.5 trillion tax plan. If you're confused about what's in the legislation, you're not alone. In their obsessive zeal to pass this bill by Christmas, even some of its GOP supporters worry what lumps of coal they'll find stuffed in this stocking.

"I've been asked repeatedly, 'What's in it, what's in it?'" said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. "I'd rather not get into details. We've been asked not to."

The most radical tax reform legislation in decades has been rushed around Capitol Hill in a secretive process with no public hearings, no complete analysis of its potential impact and no full understanding among most members of Congress of what it would do. Still, what we already know about this bill is enough to determine that any legislator with a lick of financial sense ought to vote against it.

What we have here is a tax bill hastily thrown together by a bunch of supposedly conservative politicians that would increase the federal deficit by an estimated $1 trillion over the course of a decade. Congressional leaders peddling rosy Enron math claim the bill will pay for itself, but the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that the economic growth spurred by tax cuts won't come anywhere near covering its cost. A number of other analyses came to much the same conclusion.

The Treasury Department tried to make a case for this mess by issuing a pitifully inadequate one-page analysis of the 479-page legislation. But the department itself conceded its sunny projections were based on a number of optimistic assumptions about future policy changes like welfare reforms and infrastructure spending. An analyst who worked on tax issues during the Reagan administration bluntly dismissed the one-page report by telling The New York Times, "I don't believe in magic."

Congressional Republicans supporting this plan either do believe in magic or they just don't care. What's most important to them is cutting tax rates for corporations and rich people. Their bill does give temporary tax breaks to many middle-income Americans, but those cuts would disappear over the course of a decade. Meanwhile, it will scale back popular breaks like deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes.

No wonder this bill is so unpopular. Republicans in Congress really ought to pay attention to the polling on this legislation. A USA Today-Suffolk University survey indicates 48 percent of Americans don't like this bill, and only 32 percent approve of it, the lowest level of support for any major piece of legislation in the last three decades. A Marist poll looks even worse, with 52 percent believing it will hurt their family's finances.

Nonetheless, GOP lawmakers are racing to pass this bill without regard to its details or its political consequences. Maybe they should remember what happened after Democrats leveraged their control of the White House and Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2009. During the next four years, Republicans fanning flames of opposition to Obamacare defeated enough Democrats to take control of both the House and the Senate.

Democrats make a lot of apocalyptic claims about this tax bill, arguing it's a prelude to the GOP imposing devastating cuts in Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs. Meanwhile, we're all waiting for Congress to take care of what we really need from Washington, like action on children's health care, the Dream Act, and of course, hurricane recovery and flood prevention.

Drain the swamp? Next year, fiscally conservative voters in both parties should do just that, pulling the plug on the politicians behind this break-the-bank tax bill.
There goes the internet as we know it.

In a 3-2 vote on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission rolled back the Obama-era "Open Internet Order," which mandated that internet service providers adhere to net neutrality rules.

That doesn't have to be the end of the fight.

The states of New York and Washington have announced their intent to sue the FCC. A California state senator, Scott Weiner, has said he will introduce a bill to require net neutrality at the state level. Members of Congress, including U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have plans to introduce a Congressional Review Act to restore the Open Internet Order.

Texas legislators should get onboard and help restore the common-carrier-style regulation that's allowed the internet to serve as the ultimate free market.

It is unfortunate that the fight over net neutrality seems to be breaking into just another Democrats vs. Republicans debate. How quickly people can forget that the Texas Republican Party once endorsed net neutrality as part of its platform. That changed at the 2014 convention, which just so happened to be sponsored by Time Warner Cable and Verizon. By the way, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai used to work as assistant general counsel for Verizon.

Deep in our bones, Texans know that content neutrality is good policy. In fact, it serves as the foundation of our entire natural gas industry.

Those pipelines that crisscross from fracking fields to refineries and LNG plants all operate on their own version of net neutrality. Interstate pipelines aren't allowed to prioritize one source of gas over another.

It didn't used to be this way.

Before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed Order 636, natural gas was sold as a packaged good, which included both the cost of the product and the cost of transportation. (Think of it as Comcast selling you an internet connection, and automatically signing you up for a $10 monthly MSNBC.com streaming service that you can't reject.)

Under this bundle system, pipeline companies could give unfair, special treatment to their own products. This meant it was basically impossible to determine the actual, free market price of the natural gas itself.

Order 636 - net neutrality for natural gas - placed a wall between pipelines and content, allowing natural gas to be priced on its own and become a globally traded commodity. It is hard to imagine how the current natural gas boom would have happened without the fair market price guaranteed by content neutrality.

For the sake of a free internet, there needs to be a similar division between telecoms and content providers. Instead, the FCC wants to smash the wall. Internet service providers will be able to sell a bundle that gives special treatment to some websites ahead of others. Telecoms will be able to throttle your speed, charge you more, and overall tamper with the internet. AT&T and Comcast - not you - will pick the winners and losers. So long, free market.

EXPLAINED: What the FCC's decision means for you.

Texans in Washington need to sign onto efforts to reinstate net neutrality. Congress can also ensure that this never happens again by writing these rules into law.

Closer to home, the Legislature can implement statewide net neutrality rules and should also roll back our state's prohibition on municipal broadband. A public option for internet access would provide much-needed competition at a time when most households have no real choice among broadband providers.

Finally, Congress needs to ensure that our antitrust laws fit with a 21st century economy. Monopolistic control isn't just a problem isolated to massive telecoms like Comcast and AT&T. Internet companies like Facebook and Google command key nodes of our economy with an unprecedented consolidation of power. Regulations can help keep them in line, but, as Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

The internet was created by taxpayer-funded investments in research and infrastructure. Congress should make sure that it still belongs to the people.
The Jewish holiday Hanukkah is upon us, and to mark the eight-day holiday, dignitaries gathered Tuesday night to light the National Menorah across from the White House, and families will light their own nine-armed menorahs, known as Hanukkiot, one candle per day for eight days. Although Hanukkah today is one of the most popular and recognizable of Jewish holidays in the minds of non-Jews, this is only a relatively recent development, one rooted in American history and culture.

The eight-day festival commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabees defeated the Greek rulers in the second century B.C. As part of the purification of the Temple, Jews lit an oil-based menorah. Although they had only enough oil for one day, so the story goes, it lasted for eight. This is what the Hanukkah rituals, including lighting candles or oil, celebrate. For centuries, Hanukkah was considered a "minor" holiday, a festival with a distinct place in the Jewish calendar, but without the restrictions in activities or food that define other well-known holidays such as Passover, Rosh Hashanah and the weekly Shabbat. For centuries, Hanukkah remained less religiously and culturally significant than almost any other of the Jewish holidays. That all changed in the 20th century.

In America, Hanukkah has become a big deal in no small part because of Christmas. Before World War II, Christmas as an American holiday was becoming increasingly popular even among immigrant Jews. For example, by the 1950s, 40 percent of middle-class Jewish homes in Chicago had a Christmas tree. In response to the seductiveness of Christmas, Jewish religious leaders and activists worked to shore up the celebration of Hanukkah. They did so in part by framing it as a meaningful alternative complete with a dramatic story, a family setting, and, of course, gift-giving. Producers of Judaica, consumer goods and advertisers saw a great opportunity in marketing Hanukkah as a Jewish alternative to Christmas, manufacturing new ritual objects, promoting special holiday foods, and encouraging parents to shower their children with gifts thereby making them immune to "Christmas envy."

Yet, the commercialization of religion is not the whole story.

The popularity of Hanukkah is also linked to its symbolic meaning as an American holiday. The Hanukkah story is, after all, one that is celebrated as a struggle for religious liberty, a people's will to fight for their beliefs, and, of course, a victory.

Hanukkah also roughly coincided with Christmas, and it offered an opportunity for Jews to participate in the holiday celebrations complete with gift-giving and merry-making without giving up their distinct religious and cultural identities.

Having said that, the popularity of Hanukkah is not only an American story, it is a global one.

During the past 20 years, Hanukkah has become a major Jewish holiday in other parts of the world. In Europe, for example, public menorah lighting is now taking place in the center of Berlin, Rome and Stockholm, among other major cities. Historically, in Europe, it was the Zionist movement that promoted Hanukkah as a holiday that celebrated a new Jewish ideal that was more politically and culturally assertive.

At the same time, much as in America, Hanukkah was cultivated by Jewish families as an alternative, and for some an addition, to Christmas rituals. In darker times, Jews, such as Anne Frank's family, found comfort in remembering past miracles, in lighting candles, and in the joy of exchanging even very modest gifts.

Yet, the public lighting of menorahs, a statement of religious difference and of belonging, is a practice that American Jewish organizations have encouraged. In particular, Chabad, a New York-based group committed to strengthening religious observance among Jews, has promoted the elevation of Hanukkah to a major holiday in societies where religious difference is less publicly acceptable than in America.

As in America, Hanukkah is a political symbol, but a much more contested one.

Politics aside, Hanukkah in America and in other parts of the world is now an occasion for gift-giving and merry-making, a holiday that rivals - and for many interfaith families - complements Christmas. Its new popularity reflects the way in which reinvented traditions can serve both to shape a distinct cultural identity and create bonds with other communities of faith.

Tatjana Lichtenstein is an associate professor of history and director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.
One morning in April 2016, a tanker named the Sabine eased into its berth in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, carrying more than 1 million barrels of crude oil en route to European refineries. Physical logistics and trading companies like Trafigura charter dozens of ships each year to supply Europe with crude, but this one was different: it was from America.

The Sabine's voyage was the first export shipment of U.S. crude to Europe in more than 40 years.

It was part of a remarkable sea change in global energy markets since Congress in December 2015 lifted the ban on crude oil exports that had been in place since 1975.

The United States' growing hydrocarbon footprint is, of course, not so new. For some time before the lifting of the crude export ban, growing domestic supplies from the "shale revolution" were lowering energy costs and driving the expansion of the domestic energy and refining industry.

Today, America produces over 9.8 million barrels a day of crude oil, almost double its production 10 years ago. Notably, gasoline prices have been remarkably stable since the export ban was lifted, despite strong growth in demand - thus countering one of the fears that had kept the ban in place for all those years. With domestic demand satisfied, plentiful North American supplies have launched the U.S. onto the world stage as a new crude supplier, with cargoes reaching destinations from China to India, and Italy to Colombia.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 35,000 jobs have been added to the U.S. economy from oil and gas extraction services alone over the last 10 years. And for every job created in oil production, three jobs are created in the supply chain and six more in the wider economy.

Once domestic markets were supplied with cheaper transportation and aviation fuels, refiners turned to export markets in Latin America and Europe. The U.S. is the largest supplier of gasoline to Mexico, and a significant supplier of diesel to Brazil, Argentina and Europe. American liquefied petroleum gas regularly makes its way to growing markets in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Far East; excess natural gas is increasingly liquefied for export to other markets, a trend that is expected to grow significantly in coming years.

Restarting exports of American crude completed the story.

Demand for this product in European refineries and Far East petrochemical plants continues to grow, while American refineries are freed up to process heavier - and often cheaper - oil from Latin America or the Persian Gulf. In this way, the global energy market is becoming more efficient and domestic prices are stabilized.

But the flow of crude is large enough to cause even bigger changes. The trade imbalances between the U.S. and China, Japan and South Korea have begun to improve as the Far East imports more American oil. OPEC and non-OPEC members must watch America closely when deciding oil policy, as any reduction in supplies to their customers could be supplanted by American offerings. Master limited partnerships are building dozens of new pipelines and midstream assets, employing thousands in the process. Shipping companies are seeing new uses for vessels as American ports come to life.

As one of the leading exporters of U.S. crude and refined products, Trafigura has had a front-row seat as world oil flows adapted to the rise of the U.S. as a global energy power. By investing in infrastructure and logistics, we played a leading role in facilitating exports of U.S. refined products prior to the lifting of the crude ban and are doing the same for U.S. crude.

The re-emergence of the U.S. as a global energy power is a gain for the world and for the U.S. economy. But we should not take it for granted.

An ongoing commitment to the nation's infrastructure will be necessary to maintain the United States' competitive position. Busy ports must be maintained and upgraded. Regulation and permitting should be fair and export bottlenecks addressed.

And most of all, the entrepreneurial spirit that gave birth to the North American energy revolution in the first place should be nurtured by education and training programs, incentives for technological advancement and an efficient marketplace that protects the environment without overly burdensome bureaucracy.

The rare maiden voyages of American oil two years ago have given way to a "new normal" where American oil is powering the global economy.

Industry and government must work together to sustain American competitiveness in the years and decades ahead.

Prologo is Trafigura's head of oil trading and director for Trafigura North America.
About the only thing not expected during Thursday's vote by the Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality rules was a brief evacuation of the hearing room in the middle of Chairman Ajit Pai's statement explaining his stance.

When the excitement was over and the commissioners, staff and audience filed back in, the inevitable happened.

The 3-2 vote along party lines was a foregone conclusion, one set into motion as soon as Pai was named FCC chair by the Trump administration. Pai had voted against the 2015 rules when the previous, Obama-era commission passed them, declaring them unlawful. (Courts later proved him wrong.)

There was no stopping Thursday's vote, but as Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel pointed out, the fight to keep net neutrality rules in place didn't end with Thursday's action.

"If the arc of history is long, we are going to bend this toward a more just outcome," Rosenworcel said in her prepared statement. "In the courts. In Congress. Wherever we need to go to ensure that net neutrality stays the law of the land."

more techburger Get more tasty tech news at TechBurger. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to the Chronicle for regular servings of "Here's the beef," and to be able to comment. See More Collapse

The FCC's action undid rules that prevented internet providers from giving some kinds of data preference over others, and prevented them from blocking or throttling services or apps. The previous commission had placed internet providers under the same "common carrier" umbrella as telephone companies, repurposing a 1934 law aimed at corralling the original incarnation of the American Telephone & Telegraph company, and today's vote restored them to the category of "information services".

So what happens now?

For everyday users of the internet, not much. Chances are good you won't find a notice in your inbox tomorrow morning saying your provider will charge you more for buffer-free streams of Netflix, or that you'll have to start accessing your favorite websites and apps via cable TV-style bundles. All eyes are on the internet access industry at the moment, and they'll likely behave as a result. For example, both Comcast and AT&T have publicly said it's business as usual.

And indeed, the rules don't actually take effect immediately. They must first be published in the Federal Register, which will happen next month.

Congress also has the option, within the next 60 days, of undoing the FCC's action. Given the GOP controls both the House and Senate, that's unlikely to happen. Still, a joint resolution will be filed in both the House and Senate calling for a rollback, with U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., among those leading the charge.

But net neutrality advocates' best hope lies in litigation. Already, several organizations have indicated they will consider challenging the FCC's repeal in the courts, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and the Internet Association. Several state attorneys general have said they'll sue as well.

Lawsuits could attack the FCC's process as being "arbitrary and capricious," given that a full repeal comes only two years after the rules were put in place. Expect to see arguments that the FCC's lack of public hearings, along with ignoring signs that its comment system was gamed by bots and those allegedly using stolen identities, render Thursday's ruling invalid. These legal maneuvers and subsequent appeals will keep the rules in limbo for some time.

And then, of course, there's the electoral process. The 2018 mid-terms could result in a shift of power in Congress, which in turn could enact net neutrality legislation. Or, the 2020 presidential election could put the Democrats back in power, with an FCC likely to vote to restore the rules.

Or, in the end, perhaps none of the approaches by net neutrality advocates will succeed and the Pai FCC vote will stand. The chairman's argument that market forces - along with transparency requirements and the Federal Trade Commission policing the industry - will keep big ISPs honest will ultimately be put to the test.

The problem is, of course, that the market is unevenly distributed. Many areas of the country don't have much of a choice when it comes to Internet providers, and customers don't have an option to go elsewhere if their ISP goes rogue.

Interestingly, that's not the case in Houston, where Comcast and AT&T have a robust competition. While customers may not be happy with the prices they're paying at the speeds they're getting - particularly when those attractive promotional prices expire and rise - there are benefits to the competition.

Both AT&T and Comcast brought gigabit internet options to home users within a few months of each other, albeit at high prices.

And competition may have been a factor in Comcast opting not to test usage-based pricing in Houston as it had in other markets. That's similar to the way your wireless provider charges you for data, based on the amount you use, and it forces home internet customers to always be vigilant about their gigabytes. Those trials ended last year, but if Comcast had rolled that out here, AT&T could easily have marketed its internet service against it. And vice versa.

Get more tasty tech news at TechBurger. And follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Subscribe to the Chronicle for regular servings of "Here's the beef," and to be able to comment.
Anton Petrus/Getty Images

The latest Star Wars film hits theaters Friday and fans all over the world can't wait to see where the storied franchise takes its characters.

The last film, 2015's "The Force Awakens," ended with Rey finding the long lost Luke Skywalker on a remote world. Previews for "The Last Jedi" hints that Rey is developing the Force with Luke, while the Resistance battles the New Order.
The Association of O&C Counties on Tuesday filed a summary judgment memorandum in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to rule on whether the Bureau of Land Managements resource management plan lives up to a decades-old contract outlining annual timber harvests and resulting payments to 17 counties in western Oregon.

Linn County is one of the O&C (Oregon & California) counties that filed the original lawsuit in August 2016.

This weeks memorandum names Michael Nedd, acting director of the Bureau of Land Management and Ryan Zinke, secretary of the interior.

A summary judgment memorandum is a request by one party in a legal matter asking for a judge to rule in its favor without a jury trial.

In addition to Linn County, O&C Counties participating in the lawsuit are Klamath, Douglas, Curry, Coos, Lane, Polk, Yamhill, Marion, Clackamas, Multnomah, Columbia, Washington and Tillamook.

Benton County includes O&C lands, but it is not a member of the Association of O&C Counties and is not participating in the lawsuit.

Linn County has about 86,000 acres of O&C lands and Benton County has about 53,000 acres.

This is another step in the process, County Commissioner John Lindsey said of this weeks legal motion. This management plan severely limits timber management and harvest levels. O&C lands were set aside under an agreement for commercial timber production to benefit counties. In recent years, the federal government has not been following that agreement and has been trying to group us in with other national forest policies. We are not the same thing as Forest Service lands that were set aside for specific purposes. The O&C lands are not the same as other set-asides.

Lindsey said several Oregon counties are already experiencing severe budget issues, due in part from the continued decline of payments from the O&C timber sales.

Lane and Douglas counties are having some real budget problems and Curry County is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Lindsey said.

Lindsey said Linn County has seen a steady decline in annual payments over the last seven years, about $2 million per year in recent years.

The lawsuit contends the resource management plan would allocate three-quarters of 2.5 million acres for fish, water and wildlife issues, but fails to address the long-standing contract, which calls for an annual timber harvest of at least 500 million board feet of timber.

The BLM plan would allow annual harvests of 278 million board feet, about 75 million board feet more than the current level, but the counties say that is well below historical levels and does not begin to meet the contract level.

The lawsuit and summary judgment memorandum contends the continued decline of revenues to the affected counties has led to decreased funding of public services including law enforcement, finance, tax and planning services, public health, juvenile services and recreational facilities such as libraries and parks.

The BLMs actions have cost counties millions of dollars annually, the lawsuit contends.

Lane Commissioner Sid Leiken declared in the summary judgment memorandum that about 375,000 acres of O&C acres lie within Lane County. He said the average annual payment from 1960 through 2011 was more than $20 million (in constant value dollars as of 2011). In 2016, Lane County received about $3.1 million.

The loss of timber receipts from O&C Lands has caused direct financial harm to Lane County, Leiken noted. Since I was elected we have had to cut budgets by approximately 20 percent and almost every program and department has been cut. More cuts are expected in the future.

Leiken said 68 positions have been cut from the countys sheriffs office, reducing employment from 366 FTEs to 279 FTEs, which is too low to maintain public safety at appropriate levels.

He added that 62 FTE positions are funded by a three-year public safety levy that will expire in three years.

When that happens the Sheriffs Office will have to cut employment further to 150 FTEs absent new resources, Leiken said.

Leiken said the Tax Assessors staff has been reduced by 20 percent and the Youth Services Department has reduced staffing by 12 percent.

Former Commissioner Timothy Freeman said Douglas County has experienced similar financial issues. The county has more than 727,000 acres of O&C lands. Douglas County had received about $33.5 million annually from 1960 to 2011. In 2016 the county received $5 million.

Douglas County has reduced staffing by more than 300 over the last 10 years. Freeman said the countys juvenile program budget has been cut $1.48 million to $380,000 and the countys library system has been closed. Funding for the county parks system has been eliminated.

The O&C lands originally were granted to the Oregon and California Railroad in 1866 to build a line from Portland to San Francisco. The company received 12,800 acres per mile of track laid, but was required to sell 160-acre parcels to qualified settlers for no more than $2.50 per acre.

But in 1916, the federal government took back title to more than 2 million acres because the railroad company had failed to sell the land to the settlers.

In 1937, Congress mandated that the lands be managed for permanent forest production and that no less than 50 percent of the revenue of timber sales be allocated to the counties in which the O&C lands are located.

The annual timber harvest was to be no less than one-half billion board feet measure, or not less than the annual sustained yield capacity when the same has been determined and declared.

This is definitely an issue that needs to be resolved, said Linn County board chairman Roger Nyquist. The impacts of federal forest management practices have been devastating to rural communities in Linn County and throughout the state.

Nyquist said timber harvest has been a pittance of where we were 30 years ago.

Look, timber is an asset that if properly managed should be utilized to benefit the citizens of Linn County and the state of Oregon, Nyquist said.

Derrick Henry, BLM public affairs specialist in Washington, D.C., said the BLM does not comment on pending litigation.
As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content.

When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to.

After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS!

OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK

The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those.
Wu Tangs RZA Opposes Trademark App For Dog-Walking Company Woof-Tang Clan

After recently making headlines for their one-off million dollar album, the Wu-Tang Clan is back in the news after member of the group Robert Diggs (better known by his stage name RZA) came out in opposition against a dog-walking company attempting to file a copyright for the name "Woof-Tang Clan".

__________________________

Guest post by Timothy Geigner of Techdirt

The last time we mentioned the Wu-Tang Clan here at Techdirt, we were discussing the group's bizarre yet inventive attempt to curtail digital music's infinite goods problem by releasing a single copy of an entire album for $1 million. It was a creative approach, though one that likely isn't a model that transfers well to the music industry as a whole. But it seems that the copyright arena isn't the only intellectual property venue in which Wu-Tang wants to play, as RZA, a member of the group, has filed a trademark opposition to a dog-walking company calling itself Woof-Tang Clan.

In a lawsuit filed November 15th, RZA (real name Robert Diggs) touted the long history of the Wu-Tang Clan mark and how its appearance on various goods and services "has come to represent enormous goodwill." The suit also claimed the Wu-Tang mark is "unmistakably associated with [RZA] such that it constitutes part of his identity." Woof-Tang Clan's owner, Marty Cuatchon, filed a trademark application for his company on June 8th. As the New York Daily News noted, the company also briefly sold T-shirts on its website that made explicit reference to late Wu-Tang rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard's debut album, Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version. The shirt tweaked the album's famous cover  a snapshot of ODB's ID card for food stamps  to feature a dog named Bali in the rapper's place. Another shirt parodied the cover of De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising. Both have been removed from the company's website.

Now, the t-shirt aspect of this will muddy the waters as to just how valid an opposition this is. It's almost certain that RZA has a trademark for all things "Wu-Tang Clan" for apparel, after all. Still, the shirts are obvious parody, in line with Woof-Tang Clan's obvious homage as a parody in its business' name to begin with. Commercial in nature or not, this sort of parody is generally regarded as protected fair use.

Particularly, it should go without saying, when that use in no way deceives the consuming public about the source or affiliations of the supposedly offending company. That confusion is the controlling factor for trademark concerns and any claim that the public is going to think this small dog-walking company is run by or is affiliated with a world-renowned rap group is a hell of a logic-hurdle over which to leap. Rolling Stone's reporting suggests that RZA's filing claims that Woof-Tang Clan is suggesting a connection to the group, but all it actually suggests is that the folks behind Woof-Tang Clan are likely fans of the RZA and his cohorts. Marty Cuatchon, the man behind the company, confirmed as much.

Speaking with the Daily News Saturday, Cuatchon said he was unaware of RZA's trademark challenge and declined to comment until speaking with a lawyer. However, he did say, "I am a fan. We walk dogs. I thought it was a good idea."

A much better idea than this needless trademark opposition, I would say.

Share on:
Hinds Sets Community Outreach Events for March

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The staff of state Sen. Adam G. Hinds, D-Pittsfield, will host two community outreach events during March.

The senator's staff will be available to meet with constituents in the communities of Huntington and North Adams on Wednesday, March 18, for this month's staff office hours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

North Adams City Hall, 10 Main St.

Stanton Hall, 24 Russell Road, Huntington

Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at 413-344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at 413-768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for those seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with Hinds' constituency services staff in person.

All residents of the senator's Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin & Hampden Senate District are invited to participate in these sessions if they have an idea, question or comment about state government they wish to share, or if they require assistance from the senator's constituent services team. Everyone is welcome.

Appointments are not necessary but can be booked in advance by calling the Pittsfield office at (413) 344-4561 or the Williamsburg office at (413) 768-2373. These office hours provide an opportunity for constituents seeking assistance with state agencies or programs to speak with the senator's staff in person.

Since early 2017, Hinds' district team, A.J. Enchill and Jon Gould, have held monthly roving office hours outside of their primary work locations in an effort to increase office accessibility for every constituent no matter where they reside. Enchill is based in the senator's Pittsfield office and Gould splits his time between Pittsfield and Williamsburg.

Last year, the senator's district staff traveled to 19 towns and met with hundreds of local officials and residents in Adams, Alford, Blandford, Charlemont, Chester, Cummington, Heath, Lanesborough, Lee, Lenox, Middlefield, Monroe, New Marlborough, Peru, Plainfield, Rowe, Washington and Windsor, Westhampton, West Stockbridge while Senator Hinds participated in public forums throughout the Senate District.
The new zoning map that aligns zones closer to property lines and changes three zones.

Clarksburg Sets Special Town Meeting for Solar, Zoning Changes



The Select Board signed off a town meeting warrant for Dec. 28. CLARKSBURG, Mass.  The Select Board has set a special town meeting to approve new zoning bylaws for Thursday, Dec. 28, rejecting a last-minute appeal to delay the implementation of new solar regulations.

The bylaws related to zoning, marijuana production and sales, and large-scale solar installations have been developed over the past 18 months with aid from the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. The process was funded through a local technical assistance grant  part of the town's Community Compact  that runs out on Dec. 31.

"The solar bylaw is pretty encompassing," Town Administrator Carl McKinney said. "Up until this point, folks, we've only had a public utilities component to our existing bylaws which were ... created in about 1973 and did a significant upgrade in 1992. ... But there was no allowance for windmills, cell towers, solar arrays. Those things didn't exist at that point."

Town meeting last year passed bylaws regulating windmills and cell towers; planners had hoped to have the solar bylaw ready for this past town meeting but couldn't make it happen.

Two weeks ago, residents at a public hearing on the zoning changes expressed concern over setbacks that would allow large-scale solar to be sited close to their homes. This was addressed by the Planning Board more than a week with an amendment creating a 500-foot setback.

The proposed bylaw creates an overlay district that will place solar in areas considered "least noticeable and in congruence with the character of the town," McKinney said. "That is for the large-scale industrial ones. this is not not going to impact if you want to put one on your roof or a couple standalones next to your shed."

We are looking at these huge solar arrays that have hundreds and hundreds of ugly solar panels that people shouldn't have to look at ... but we don't want to outlaw it either."

Matthew Parlon, a project development analyst with solar developer Blue Wave , asked that the solar bylaw vote be put off or the board consider solar as an agricultural addition separate from industrial use.

Parlon, and colleague Drew Pierson, were speaking on behalf of landowner AJ Randall of Daniels Road, with whom Blue Wave has been developing an installation designed for agricultural use.

"The project we're talking about is very different from solar that's been done in Clarksburg," he said. "We recognize there's been a lot of bad citizenship amongst the solar development comunity, the town has not been treated fairly."

Blue Wave was committed to paying taxes, $1 million over 20 years, Parlon said. Their request was that the Select Board and Planning Board consider allowing installations certified by the state Department of Agricultural Resources by special permit in agricultural residential zones.

DAR is looking to improve energy efficiencies for farms through the use of alternative energy. It has several grant programs to aid farmers in renewable energies and promote such energy use in the state. Agricultural solar is often on a platform that allows crops to grow or animals to graze under them.

The installation has been under development for a year and the Blue Wave representatives said they had believed it would pass the bylaw as originally proposed, with care taken to mitigate any visual impacts.

"We made a lot of decisions based on that information," Pierson said. "And it was only a week and a half ago it became completely outlawed."

Randall attended the meeting also with a number of neighbors who were in support of the project, which would provide a revenue stream for Randall's farm. They were upset that they had not known about the public hearing two weeks ago when a number of residents had pushed for changes that have since been incorporated.

McKinney said there was little to be done at this point because the grant funding for the zoning changes runs out on Dec. 31. He said he would forward the Randall and Blue Wave's concerns to the Planning Board and suggested they attend the special town meeting because amendments could be made on the floor.

The special town meeting warrant had to be signed and posted Wednesday to make the 14 required days before the meeting is held.

"This is going to be posted this evening. We can't change any language," Chairman Jeffrey Levanos said. "I'm very sorry ... This is a Planning Board thing and they have made their decision. We are here to get this warrant signed so we can get it posted."

Voters will also consider changes to the outlines of several zones to bring them in line with actual property lines; creation of industrial-service zones to accommodate professional offices; the rezoning of an industrial zone to commercial on Middle Road; and a marijuana bylaw that restricts any facility to the industrial zone near Town Hall. The warrant also includes the creation of revolving funds for inspection and policing fees, installation of signs at the Town Field and the Horrigan Road cemetery, and the renaming of Town Field to Peter A. Cook Veterans Memorial Field.

Details and maps of the bylaw changes are available at Town Hall during regular business hours.

In other business, the board approved a used automobile class II license for Thomas Rotolo and discussed possible repairs at the Clarksburg School, which will be reported on in a followup article.

Clarksburg Special Town Meeting Warrant, Dec. 28, 2017 by iBerkshires.com on Scribd
The Lanesborough School Committee heard a report on how the students did on this past spring's MCAS 2.0 tests.

Lanesborough Sets Bar High With Strong MCAS Scores

LANESBOROUGH, Mass.  Elementary school teachers and students have set the bar high.

The school held its first tests of the newly revamped Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests last year and the newly revealed scores show Lanesborough students trending ahead of state averages in nearly every category.

The state is not placing an accountability rank on schools that have moved to the new system, but the first year will set a benchmark to measure growth in the future.

Principal Martin McEvoy reported that last year's sixth-graders tied for second in the county when it came to English language arts. Thirteen percent of the students exceeded expectations, 48 percent met expectations, and 39 partially met expectations. Not a single student failed to meet any expectations. Those numbers compare to the statewide averages of 7 percent, 43 percent, 39 percent, and 10 percent, respectively.

A similar trend was shown in math, except Lanesborough far surpassed the state average in exceeding expectations. In Lanesborough, 26 percent of students exceeded expectations compared to just 7 percent statewide. Lanesborough had 48 percent of sixth graders meet expectations, 22 partially meet expectations, and 4 percent not meet. On the state level, 42 percent met expectations, 39 percent partially met expectations, and 11 percent did not meet expectations.

Last year's fifth-graders finished first in the county for English. On the exam, Lanesborough students scored 19 percent exceeding expectations, 42 percent meeting expectations, 39 percent partially meeting expectations, and zero students not meeting expectations. That is compared to 6 percent, 43 percent, 42 percent, and 10 percent respectively.

In math, Lanesborough scored 16 percent exceeding expectations, 32 meeting expectations, 48 percent partially meeting expectations, and 3 percent not meeting expectations. That is compared to the statewide averages of 7 percent, 39 percent, 44 percent, and 10 percent.

The fourth-graders perhaps had more challenges on the test. Not only was it the first year of the new test but the students were the first class to take the test all online, which McEvoy said will eventually be all of the testing.

For English the fourth-graders didn't have any student exceed expectations but 62 percent of students met expectations. Thirty-eight percent partially met expectations and no student landed in the category of not meeting expectations. Those numbers compared to the statewide averages of 7 percent, 41 percent, 42 percent, and 10 percent.

A similar pattern was shown in math. The fourth-graders didn't have any student exceed expectations by 44 percent had met expectations, 56 percent partially met expectations, and no students failed to meet any expectations. That is compared to the state averages of 6 percent, 43 percent, 39 percent, and 10 percent, respectively.

McEvoy said third-grade math is the one area of concern. On that test, no Lanesorough students exceeded expectations and only 23 percent met expectations. Fifty-eight percent fell into the category of partially meeting expectations and 19 percent had not met expectations. Those scores compared to 7 percent, 42 percent, 38 percent, and 13 percent, respectively.

"We already attacked the performance in Grade 3. We know what we need to work on and it is already aggressively underway," McEvoy said.

For the students, the new MCAS is the third type of standardized test they've taken in as many years. The state has an earlier version of MCAS and then piloted the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) with Lanesborough being one of the schools to take it. The state then scrapped the PARCC and moved to a newly revamped MCAS.

"I would expect all the scores to be better with more experience," McEvoy said.

McEvoy said the new exam is focused "more on critical thinking and application of knowledge." He also added that the different categories are more vigorous, making it more difficult for students to go from partially meeting expectations to meeting expectations.

"It does have some different things kids and teachers are going to have to really learn and master as far as the format goes," he said.

Also of note, the language for the different categories has changed as well with exceeding expectations taking place of advanced, meeting in place of proficient, partially meeting expectations taking the place of needs improvement, and not meeting expectations taking the place of warning.

The state is moving to computer-based testing and McEvoy has a plan to slowly integrate the MCAS testing to computer-only over the next few years. By 2019, he says all grades will be taking the test all online.

Because of a change in test, Lanesborough has not received an accountability level  previously Lanesborough was considered a Level 1 school  this year because of the changes. These scores not set a baseline for the state to judge how well Lanesborough is improving its education over time.
A Verizon balloon test Wednesday morning simulates the height of a proposed monopole cell tower at the junction of Routes 2 and 7 in Williamstown.

Williamstown ZBA Sends Cell Tower Applicant Back to Drawing Board



Andrew Hoar chairs Thursday's ZBA meeting, which heard mostly complaints about the cell tower proposal. WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  The Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday asked Verizon to consider a couple of alternatives for its proposed cell tower on Cold Spring Road at the junction of Routes 2 and 7.

The board continued the public hearing on the project, which requires a special permit and two zoning variances.

The project has been the subject of intense opposition from many town residents, who question it on several grounds that boil down to two essential issues: the public safety threat posed by a tower so close to a state highway and the visual impact in an especially scenic part of town  both to nearby residents and the tourists essential to Williamstown's economy.

The safety issue is germane to one of the two zoning variances sought. According to the town's cell tower bylaw, any structure must be set back from abutting properties by the height of the tower plus 50 feet.

In the case of Verizon's proposed 100-foot tower, that would mean a 150-foot setback, but the carrier is asking for a variance to put the tower 85 feet from the road. The applicant argues that an intentional, engineered flaw that allows the top of the tower to essentially fold on itself at the 70-foot mark in the event of a failure because of severe wind means that the 85 feet is a sufficient setback to keep it out of the roadway.

The aesthetic argument factors into the special permit required by the bylaw.

ZBA member Keith Davis proposed an alternative that he believes would address both issues and satisfy another element of the bylaw: a preference for locating cell towers on town-owned properties.

"Did you investigate the Margaret Lindley Park property?" Davis asked Verizon's development team.

Davis suggested that an area of the park that has one remaining abandoned tourist cabin and which is accessible by an abandoned road off the main drive to the swimming hole could host a cell tower and keep it largely out of sight from the southern gateway to the town.

"I'm thinking it has possibly several advantages," Davis said. "One, it would bury the tower and keep it out of people's sight lines. It would bring in income for the town. And there is an access road to it."

Although Verizon looked at 24 potential sites for the tower, including several suggested by the town, Margaret Lindley Park, which is controlled by the town's Conservation Commission, was not on the list.

Verizon's radio frequency engineer told the board he would be happy to do due diligence on the Margaret Lindley Park site. The ZBA asked Verizon's team to conduct a study and have a conversation with the Con Comm about potentially leasing part of the land before the board's Jan. 18 meeting.

Verizon's attorney said the company would be happy to do the analysis and hoped to have the property assessed by January, but the board left open the door to another continuation of the hearing, into February, if more time was needed.

The board also asked Verizon to look at another location for the monopole cell tower on the property that is the subject of the application, the former Taconic Restaurant. In response to queries from ZBA Chairman Andrew Hoar, Verizon's designer said Thursday it is conceivable it may find an area of the Taconic property that puts the tower 100 feet from the road  still in an area that would require a variance but a safer distance from Route 2 (the Taconic Trail).

The ZBA also asked Verizon to take another look at its screening for the ground facility that supports the tower and to consider either underground or at least covered storage for a 500-gallon propane tank needed to run a backup generator on the site.

In addition to several questions from the board, Thursday's hearing featured comments from the floor from nine residents  eight opposed to the project and one in support of it.

Verizon says it needs to put a tower on the site to fill a 2-mile gap in cell coverage along Cold Spring Road (U.S. Route 7).

"Verizon is a reliability company, and we work hard to see that our customers have the service where they need it," radio frequency engineer Jay Latorre told the ZBA. "There is a stretch of two miles or more along Route 7 where we're less than reliable. A pretty big portion is extremely weak, almost what they refer to as a dead zone.'

"My job was to find a location for a facility to eliminate this."

Residents speaking in opposition to the project argued  both from the podium and from their seats  that the gap in coverage was smaller than Verizon claimed.

But their bigger concern was the impact that the tower would have on the community.

"The views from the public ways and developed properties should be given due consideration to make sure the benefit to the town outweighs the impact," said William Bowden of Park Street. "I call on the ZBA to pay due attention to these provisions in the town bylaw before it considers granting a special permit or event thinks about granting two variances."

Joan Wright of Old Farm Way argued that Verizon's simulations that show how the tower might be obscured by the existing tree line do not take into account the age of the trees.

"They lose branches regularly, and they die and fall down or they get blown down," Wright said. "This would be, by no means, a reliable or enduring screen for a 100-foot tower, regardless of what the test balloon may indicate now."

Anne Hogeland of Cold Spring Road argued that Verizon's repeated statements that the tower would be 100 feet tall are not supported by its own drawings, which indicate the height would be 110 feet, with another four feet tacked on for the antennae.

"Safety is key here," Hogeland said. "A variance allowing the tower to be 85 feet from the public way would mean it's closer to the public way than it is tall, meaning it could fall right in the public way."

Architect Doug Roberts of North Andover's Hudson Design Group explained that in addition to the structured fault that allows the pole to collapse on itself, the monopoles are designed to survive sustained winds of 95 mph with gusts of up to 115 mph. He noted that recent images of communities devastated by hurricanes on Puerto Rico show that often the only structure left intact is the cell tower.

He did, on the other hand, agree with ZBA member Leigh Short about the desirability of placing some sort of canopy  or burying  the propane tank in order to prevent downed trees from damaging that feature of the tower.

That is unlikely to address the kind of concern raised by Sweet Brook Road's Pam Weatherbee, one of several residents who focused on the aesthetic impact of the proposed tower.

"Unfortunately, cell towers are ugly," Weatherbee said. "They are ugly, industrial structures. Here it would be set in a rather attractive residential and tourist business area. You must consider the businesses there. There is a very pretty motel which always beautifies its grounds. There's the bakery. There's a couple of residences.

"I think all would be affected by this structure."

Moments later, the owner of the "very pretty motel," the Berkshire Hills Country Inn, had a different take on the issue.

"I tell you, cells have become a way of life," Ron Smith said. "I lose business because we don't have cell service. Customers check in, find that they can't have cell service, and they check out. They don't come back.

"If one of those kids [at Margaret Lindley Park] gets hurt, and they want to call for help, they can't. Someone at night gets stuck with their car, it's cold out, they're having a baby. They can't get cell service. Cell phones are a way of life.

"You should allow them to put up the tower as soon as possible."
nnounce an entirely new Everyday Value price schedule

effective Friday, Dec. 15.

The Cinema will streamline the customer ticket purchasing experience by providing touch screens at the ticket counter where you can choose your own seats. This allows for time to relax in the lobby, enjoy refreshments or wait for friends rather than stand in line and rush for seats.

The Beacon will be adding sitting areas in the lobby for additional comfort.

The Beacon also will a




iciHaiti - Diaspora : President Moise met the Haitian community in Belgium





Wednesday as part of his official European tour, President Jovenel Moise had a warm encounter with the Haitian community in Belgium during which hundreds of compatriots, including representatives of Associations and Organizations, made the travel to participate in exchanges with the President of Haiti.



The event, which was important for Moise and his delegation, was an opportunity for the Head of State to inform our compatriots of the progress of the efforts already made by his Administration in the context of the Caravan of Change and inquire about their grievances. In a friendly atmosphere, the Haitians of the diaspora have been able to explore with the President and his delegation all the topics of interest of the Haitian people and the Haitian community abroad.



IH/ iciHaiti


















Imperial Valley News Center

Second U.S.-Mexico Strategic Dialogue on Disrupting Transnational Criminal Organizations

Washington, DC - Dean Acheson Auditorium, John J. Sullivan Deputy Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Videgaray Caso, Mexican Secretary of Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, and Mexican Acting Attorney General Alberto Elias Beltran:

DEPUTY SECRETARY SULLIVAN: Good morning. Thank you for being here. Im glad to participate in this second Strategic Dialogue on Disrupting Transnational Criminal Organizations, or TCOs. Secretary Tillerson and I, together with our colleagues, our new Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary Nielsen, and Attorney General Sessions, are grateful to our friends from Mexico for making the trip to Washington to discuss this important topic this morning.

The threats we face today are increasingly complex and require a closely coordinated response, particularly given the 1,900-mile border shared by the United States and Mexico. Todays conversations build upon the very productive meetings Secretary Tillerson had in Mexico in February and in Washington in May on broadening our security cooperation to confront TCOs. Its clear that we have a reliable partner in Mexico. We continue to advance our shared goal of developing new ways to disrupt TCOs and the networks of criminal activity they perpetuate. We are strengthening cooperation with Mexico to interdict illegal transports, find and punish criminals involved in these organizations, and cut off their sources of funding.

This is a grave problem that our countries share. Deaths related to TCOs and from the drugs they peddle affect communities on both sides of our border. According to preliminary figures, more than 64,000 Americans died from drug overdose last year. The death toll from synthetic opioids alone claimed more lives than both heroin and prescription painkillers. Many of our Mexican neighbors have fallen victim to drug-related violence as well. Close collaboration is the only way we can tackle a problem that has no regard for international borders.

Today, our two countries have one of the most extensive bilateral law enforcement relationships in the world. Eleven U.S. law enforcement agencies are represented in the U.S. embassy and consulates across Mexico to work closely with their Mexican state and federal counterparts. And through the Merida Initiative, were helping to build the capacity of Mexican law enforcement and judicial institutions. For example, were providing Mexico with the tools to more effectively eradicate opium poppy and support enhanced border security. Our continued support for Mexicos judicial reform is bringing criminals to justice and making communities more resistant to TCO recruitment.

Weve also enhanced cross-border communications to work more effectively and efficiently together. We share more information related to migration and border security, enabling us to better identify criminal threats, analyze migration trends, and reduce human smuggling on both sides of the border. And through Merida, we have provided inspection equipment, canine units trained in fentanyl detection, as well as mentorship and training for border officials.

Through this collaborate strategy, we are seeing progress. In 2016, Mexican law enforcement seized more than 13,000 kilograms of cocaine and more than 26,000 kilograms of methamphetamine destined for the United States. In addition, the Mexican Government has successfully destroyed over 136 clandestine drug laboratories. Our cooperation is making citizens on both sides of our border safer.

Today, were discussing the ways in which we can accelerate interdiction efforts and improve our ability to measure progress in disrupting drug trafficking at every point along the way, including production, cross-border distribution, and sales. In particular, we are exploring ways to more effectively disrupt the revenue streams of TCOs. TCOs exploit a wide array of illicit activities as a means to make money, including through narcotics, smuggling, kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, and fuel theft.

We must also go after the middlemen who benefit from these illegal activities, not just the producers at the beginning and the consumers at the end. Our respective law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities are committed to cutting off their sources of revenue. To do this successfully, we must implement new approaches that seek to improve information sharing and legal cooperation, ultimately denying revenue and seizing the assets of TCOs. TCOs are far less effective at carrying out illicit activities when their sources of revenue are dismantled. By cutting off these funding mechanisms, TCOs will lose their ability to corrupt institutions, buy sophisticated weapons, and maintain their criminal infrastructure.

Finally, we recognize that we must reduce the demand component of the drug problem here at home in the United States. As long as we continue to provide a thriving market, TCOs will keep coming to the United States. This administration refuses to ignore the problem. The United States will no longer turn the other way or sweep this issue under the rug. That is why President Trump has made a commitment to fight the opioid epidemic that has destroyed the lives of so many individuals and families throughout our country. The President has instructed agencies across the U.S. Government and even the American people themselves to do their part in curbing this tragic epidemic of addiction that continues to claim the lives of so many.

Last spring, the President created a commission to better understand and address the federal response to this epidemic and determine the most efficacious way to move forward. To facilitate these efforts, the administration has committed more than $1 billion so that we can battle addiction and fight the opioid crisis here at home. By drying up the market for illegal drugs, we will more effectively fight TCOs and the industries that prop them up.

The United States is grateful for the strong bilateral relationship we share with our neighbors to the south. We will continue to maintain and grow our strong partnership with Mexico on this critical issue, as on so many others.

Thank you.

FOREIGN SECRETARY VIDEGARAY: Thank you very much. (Via interpreter) Thank you, Under Secretary Sullivan and Secretary Tillerson. Thank you, Attorney General Sessions, Secretary Nielsen, and of course, Secretary Osorio and Attorney General Elias and the entire teams from both countries who are working on this shared effort.

Mexico and the United States face a significant challenge and we face it together. This is a common problem. TCOs work regardless of borders, with no acknowledgment of jurisdictions. They carry out criminal activities and cause death on both sides of the border. Thousands of Americans die due to overdoses. Thousands of Mexicans die due to the violence generated by illegal drug trafficking. And we will only be able to solve this problem by working together. This is the vision that we agreed upon here in Washington, in May of this year. And today, we are here to follow up on that vision to continue to work together in that direction.

In May, we agreed that in order to work together, we must overcome this tendency, this  the blame game that we have both assigned mutually where Mexico traditionally has blamed the U.S. for drug demand, and the U.S. blames Mexico for drug supply. We must overcome this dynamic, this mutual blame game. In order to do this, we need trust. We need hard work. It means we need effective actions, and that is what we are doing here today.

We had a working session with specific goals in mind in order to comprehensively deal with the entire business model of TCOs, from supply and production out in the fields to the financial and distribution retail networks in the United States. Only by attacking this chain at every point along the way will we be successful in eliminating this scourge which is harming both countries.

We must be speedy. We must be specific. We must have analytical abilities that are data-based, based on shared, reliable data. In the end, the idea is to trust each other in order to deal with a common problem.

I would like to thank you  I would like to thank many groups for their tireless work. These groups are not necessarily out doing their work in public, but they are doing their work every day, different agencies from both governments, who work every single day in order to get results. The effort required is huge, but we are working in that direction with a shared vision and especially with shared responsibility.

This effort must not only be based on impeding the flow of drugs from south to the north. Thats a part of the fundamental effort, but it also requires that we impede  stop the illegal flow of weapons from north to south, the flow of cash. We must go after the assets of organized crime. We must stop other kinds of crimes that these organizations unfortunately commit. For example, illegal human trafficking. This effort, then, is comprehensive and we are working on this based on the premise of trust and shared responsibility.

Thank you very much.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Good morning. It is my honor to join today with leaders from the Government of Mexico in taking on this TCO threat in the Western Hemisphere. Id like to thank Secretary Tillerson and Deputy Secretary Sullivan for hosting us and this very important discussion.

Today we are talking about TCOs, and specifically continuing the work that we have begun in the spring to address this growing threat. TCOs are responsible for some of the gravest threats to our homeland security today, and the Department of Homeland Security takes this very seriously.

TCOs move drugs, weapons, counterfeit goods, and traffic and smuggle people, throughout their dark and dangerous networks. These TCOs are also responsible for devastating violence on both sides of the border, as youve heard in the previous remarks. I was at the border in Texas just yesterday and was briefed on the very violent chaos that occurs on both sides of our borders due to the networks and our inability currently to completely stop their activities.

But we must stop them, and together we will. We are mutually committed. We have discussed that this morning so far, and I look forward to continuing discussions as the day goes on. Detecting, deterring, and dismantling these TCOs continues to be of utmost importance to the Trump administration. As you see here, we have multiple departments committed to working with the Government of Mexico towards this end. Its certainly a priority for me.

The United States is proud to call Mexico its partner in targeting this threat in production and distribution networks not only throughout Mexico and the United States, but throughout Central America. Together we can be leaders in the entire region to combat this threat.

Today, I am proud to say that Secretary Osorio Chong and I will sign a memorandum of cooperation to fully implement the Criminal History Information Sharing Program. Through this program, our U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be able to provide Mexico with the U.S. criminal history of repatriated Mexicans. The agreement we will sign today will transition to a biometric-based platform so that ICE can share biometric data, notice of more than 350 conviction codes, and any known gang affiliations with our Mexican counterparts and partners.

By sharing information and resources and increasing detection and the interdiction of illegal goods, we are combatting the TCOs that threaten the security of all of our communities. Secretary Tillerson, the Attorney General, Deputy Secretary Sullivan, and I are committed to continuing this work to strengthen and expand our efforts, and to make our nations more secure.

I thank you all for your time today and for being here for this important discussion. And particularly, our partners from the Government of Mexico for joining us today. Thank you.

INTERIOR SECRETARY OSORIO: (Via interpreter) Good morning, everyone. Thank you to our hosts. Under Secretary of State, I would like to congratulate again the Secretary of DHS, the U.S. Attorney General, our minister of foreign affairs, our attorney general, and the delegations of both countries, as well as representatives from the media.

As has been mentioned before, today we are here again to meet in order to evaluate and analyze our efforts when it comes to fighting against TCOs. This is possible due to the work that has been done in the last few months by our government departments and our agencies in order to strengthen cooperation mechanisms while we face common security problems. We have been able to, first of all, come together in a space of agreement and make progress based on this agreement, and I mean the need to have a more comprehensive, equitable approach.

Just as in any dialogue, there are many different proposals and viewpoints exchanged. But I must say that when it comes to our bilateral agenda, there is more that unites us than what divides us. The security of our people is the higher good for both administrations. This is how, for decades now, Mexico and the U.S. have worked together in order to build a more stable, secure region. And in that regard, we do have shared experience and much knowledge.

Today is clear that it is not only via the use of force and punitive measures that will allow us to put an end to organized crime and drugs; rather, this is an extremely complex problem with economic, social, financial, and logistical aspects involved that call on us to strengthen our efforts as governments. And doing this together is the only way we can coordinate our actions and be more effective. As those who spoke before me have said, it is a matter of creating more responses from a market-based perspective, restricting financing, and the weapons of criminal organizations. It is also a matter of reducing their logistical capacity and bringing down considerably the level of drug use from a public health perspective.

As for Mexico, Mexico reaffirms its strong commitment to continue in these efforts in order to strengthen institutions, especially at the local level, as a path forward in order to find lasting security. This fight has been especially difficult and painful for Mexico. We cannot forget the victims that this scourge has left behind. There has been a tremendous amount of sacrifice and effort, especially on behalf of our soldiers, our navy, our police officers. And we must not let our guard down, and we must especially not allow for impunity because there can be no peace where this is no justice, and there will be no justice unless this is in a sphere of legality.

In that regard, we have been able to design solutions to the problems that we face as a region. In order to do this, we might  we must act as sovereign countries, but we also must be good neighbors, and we must work on a basis of shared responsibility based on dialogue and international cooperation. And we must always think of the wellbeing of our societies. This is our higher interest and this is what must be held above any other interest today.

It is a pleasure, again, to participate in this dialogue, and we hope that there will be positive outcomes from this dialogue between our two countries. Thank you very much.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Thank you. Now, does it work?

I am pleased to be here today. I am thankful that Secretary Tillerson and Secretary Nielsen have set this meeting up. They had a previous one in Mexico. I would note that Secretary Nielsen hits the ground running in her new position. She was at that meeting because she was Secretary Kellys chief of staff and remained that in the White House. So she fully understands the challenges that we are facing and the importance of the Department of Homeland Security that she leads.

We are facing a unprecedented drug crisis in America, perhaps the entire world. We have never seen the deaths that we are seeing today. 64,000 people died last year from drug overdose deaths. Weve never seen those numbers before, or anything like it. The fastest part of that, the growing part of that, is heroin and fentanyl, the synthetic opioids. And we are taking strong action throughout our United States Government to confront that. President Trump has declared that we face a national emergency, and this government will not accept these trends. And we are determined to reduce these trends.

I had the privilege of being in Mexico for a trilateral  excuse me  in Colombia last week at a trilateral discussion of these problems  Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. Attorney General Elias from Mexico represented Mexico at that delegation. We know we can do better. And as the Secretary Videgaray mentioned, its an attack  it must be an attack on the entire distribution network, from the production to the manufacture to the distribution to the actual sale in our communities and on our streets. All of that, if done effectively, can begin to reverse these trends.

Were seeing in the United States greater availability of drugs, lower prices for drugs, and greater purity of the drugs that we see. That makes them more addictive and more attractive. People talk about demand and supply; demand can create a supply, and supply can create a demand. I think we are heading in the wrong direction on both of those issues.

So it is a pleasure for me to be here. We discussed, under the leadership of Secretary Kelly and Nielsen and our Mexican colleagues, some concrete ways that we can make this better. And thats what we intend to do. Our Drug Enforcement Administration, our FBI, our ATF, and our entire team at Department of Justice are committed to this effort. And I believe that we can and will be successful. Actually, the President sent us three executive orders when I became Attorney General; one of them was to dismantle transnational criminal organizations, and thats what we intend to do.

MR ELIAS: (Via interpreter) Good morning. And to Secretary Sullivan, Secretary Nielsen, Attorney General Sessions, Secretary Videgaray and Osorio, good morning. We obviously are facing a problem from TCOs in both countries, but in order to combat this phenomenon, it is quite obvious that we must attack it in all its business model, as mentioned by our foreign minister. But to do so in an effective manner, we have to destroy its financial structures. This must be achieved by a clear sharing of information, informalized information, so that we can speedily identify all the points in the organizations value chains to affect and impact their financial structures.

It is therefore important for the Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General share through efficient working groups the information needed to be able attack the structures. We not only need to look at the financial aspects, but we should expand this to look at the enterprise model used by the TCOs to move their assets and resources. How can we do this? It will be by the sharing of information and data between the two countries. This will give a major blow to these organizations, something that is needed by the societies of both of our countries. Thank you very much.

MS NAUERT: Good morning. Well now take some reporter questions. We have one question per principal, please; we dont have time for follow-ups. Well start with Nike Ching from Voice of America, and Nike, if you could please address your question to the principal. Thanks.

QUESTION: Sure. Thank you very much. My question is addressed to both sides, that if the ongoing strategic dialogue to disrupt TCO has any implication on the NAFTA talks. Specifically, has President Trumps promise to build a border wall and threats from the administration to pull out of NAFTA had a negative impact on joint security efforts? Thank you very much.

DEPUTY SECRETARY SULLIVAN: Well, the NAFTA renegotiations are ongoing, as you know. Round 6 of the negotiations is scheduled for January in Montreal. And I know our negotiators have been working diligently with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts to make progress.

The United States is committed to a comprehensive negotiation process that will upgrade our agreement and establish 21st century standards. But the NAFTA negotiations and the agreement itself are only a part of the enormous relationship between the United States and Mexico. Ive spoken about this with Foreign Secretary Videgaray in Mexico City two months ago. Our relationship with Mexico  the United States relationship with Mexico  is so broad. We have a common history, a shared border, a long history of shared culture. The volume of our trade is enormous, almost  $600 billion a year, last year. Thats $1.6 billion a day. Were working hard to upgrade and improve NAFTA, which is an important part, but only part of our relationship with Mexico.

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) I now give the floor to Armando Guzman of Television Azteca.

QUESTION: Secretary Videgaray, Ill ask you in English and also repeat briefly in Spanish. The cooperation between the two countries in this matter has been long and high for many years. But now there is a talk because the two countries are friends and are partners. But now there is talk on this side of the border of building a wall, and also there is a talk of canceling the long partnership about NAFTA. And I wonder if this situations will affect directly this high cooperation between the two countries, and if that has been talked between the participants on this meeting, and if that has been clear for both sides of this meeting as well.

(Via interpreter) I am briefly repeating in Spanish there is great friendship and partnership between the two countries and trade relations are also important between the two. But now, with talks about building a wall and ending NAFTA, Id like to know if this could have an impact on the partnership and the way in which these two friends and partners address the problem. Thank you.

FOREIGN SECRETARY VIDEGARAY: (Via interpreter) Thank you, Armando. Let me be absolutely clear on the matter. Mexico cooperates with the United States when it comes to security because that is in Mexicos best interest. We work together with the United States to combat TCOs, defending the security of Mexicans, because that is in Mexicos interest. Therefore, cooperation occurs, not as part as a barter or an exchange between economic aspects or security or anything else; we do it with the clear conviction that this is in the interest of Mexico and the Mexicans.

That is why we are here. We are here while the commercial negotiations are ongoing and the leadership of the secretariat of commerce  while this takes place, we are also meeting here. We are here to defeat these TCOs that on a daily basis threaten the lives of thousands of U.S. citizens and thousands of Mexicans. In Mexico it can be the army, navy, soldiers, but also many young people involved in organized crime. We are convinced that this is a transnational phenomenon, that we can only vanquish definitively if we work together as a team with shared trust and vision with the Government of the United States.

MS NAUERT: Next question to Luis from the Associated Press.

QUESTION: Thank you. Good morning. Im Luis Alonso with the AP. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to ask the U.S. side how the U.S. evaluates Mexican efforts to fight illegal trafficking of fentanyl that you particular mention it. What percentage of the U.S.-bound fentanyl come from Mexico? And also in a more general sense, I would like to get your opinion because it seems that violence related to organized crime is rising this year in Mexico. Is the strategy working? What changes need to be made?

(Via interpreter) What I asked of the United States is how they assess Mexicos efforts to combat illegal fentanyl. I dont know if you would also like to touch on that topic. And in general terms about the strategy there, indicators that seem to show that organized crime violence has increased this year. What changes are needed to the strategy to revert that trend? Thank you.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Well, fentanyl is  originally started mostly from China. Its being sent in by mail directly to the United States. A considerable amount has been shipped to Mexico and then enters across the border in some fashion from Mexico. We are also seeing precursor chemicals in Mexico and manufacturing labs begin to develop in Mexico. So one of the priorities I would like to see us do is to nip that in the bud, stay very intensely focused on those laboratories, and make sure that it does not become a big problem in the future.

The fentanyl is so deadly, as you probably know. The biggest increase in deaths in the United States is from the fentanyl. Just the slightest miscalculation in the amount of fentanyl a person consumes can result in death and is resulting in death, so I believe we can make real progress there.

And the second part of your question?

QUESTION: The general strategy. The violence is continuing to rise.

ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Yeah.

QUESTION: What needs to be adjusted?

ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Violence is a product of wealth, its a product of power that comes with it, the ability to be outside the law. It threatens whole nations and the ability of those nations to function in a sovereign way. I think its all of our responsibilities to do all we can to reduce this threat that comes from these cartels. They cannot go to court to enforce their decisions. They do it by the barrel of a gun, and death and destruction always arises from more and more powerful cartels.

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) We now have a question from Jose Lopez Zamorano from Notimex.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Thank you. I have a question for the secretary. The U.S. Congress has approved the bill 336 showing that Mexico is a partner for the United States, but we also see it in the concerns in these countries about the impact it may have on cooperation for security if the United States decided  decides to abandon NAFTA. There are also reports that the United States is also going to shift funds  for instance, payment to the DHS agency and from technology, and to use it to build the wall. What impact will this have on the bilateral impact if the United States go ahead  goes ahead with the plan for the wall and if it eventually drops NAFTA?

INTERIOR SECRETARY OSORIO: (Via interpreter) From the beginning of the presidency of Enrique Pena Nieto, one of his objectives and priorities was security. There is no collateral circumstance that can impact this seeking of peace and calm in our country. As the foreign minister pointed out, we are here to continue building on communication, on coordination, on joint efforts that go beyond the aspects of our relationship with the United States. We always do this thinking about the security of Mexican citizens, as must be done likewise in the defense of U.S. citizens by this country. Therefore, it will not have an impact on our effort or on our work and what has been started by this administration, and we will continue on this path.

Now, obviously, it is important to continue with collaboration and cooperation. Why would Mexico or the United States only think about eradication or shutting down laboratories if our countries were to continue having problems in the transfer and transport of drugs and its consumption? It would be pointless for Mexico to pursue a process to identify and capture criminals if we dont have any information on the financial and logistic chains of the criminal groups here in the United States. Both sides are interested in obtaining information and data, so over and above any other interest, we must always place the security of the people we serve, and we will continue forward with that basic goal and objective for the government of the republic.

MS NAUERT: Dave Clark from AFP.

QUESTION: Good morning. Thank you very much. Its a question primarily for the U.S. side. Last week, Mexican journalist Emilio Gutierrez Soto was arrested in Texas. Hes now in El Paso and hes going  his asylum has been denied. Hes facing expulsion. Obviously, the TCO, as youre talking about today, find the activities of a free press annoying. Otherwise, they wouldnt have killed 11 Mexican journalists this year and many more in years previous. What can be done to protect journalism and civil society? And are you confident that if you go ahead with this expulsion and others that these journalists will be safe as they carry out their work? Thank you.

SECRETARY NIELSEN: Thank you. I would just start by saying that border security is a full system of systems, and the security of both our nations is in both of our interests. I think what weve talked about today are all of the things that can not only cross the border, but because of that, the violence that is caused, how it can affect other parts of both of our societies including the media, the social press, and the nongovernmental organizations who try to help combat these threats.

What weve talked about today are ways that we can further share information. Well continue to do that. As I mentioned earlier, the agreement on sharing criminal information specifically is meant to help both sides better understand that threat picture, and perhaps to understand who is targeted by that violence coming out  emanating from the TCOs. So we will continue to work together; its certainly top of mind, all the various parts of our communities that are affected by this TCO threat. And I look forward to working on further agreements to do just that.

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) I now give the floor to Jose Diaz-Briseno from Reforma.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter) Good morning. Attorney General, the United States have indicated that Mexico has a record of poppy production for heroin. Has any specific agreement been reached as how the U.S. can help eradicate poppy? And they have also said they are not satisfied with the eradication achieved by the armed forces in Mexico. Has any agreement been reached?

(In English) And for Deputy Secretary Sullivan, do you have any concern regarding human rights in Mexico, considering that the Mexican congress is about to pass a very controversial domestic security law?

MR ELIAS: (Via interpreter) Thank you very much. In principle, there has not been a complaint or comment by the U.S. authorities regarding what our armed forces are doing in Mexico to eradicate the poppy fields. Quite on the contrary, were working together on eradication. The armed forces in our country eliminate more than 44 percent of the crops. This is an important figure; we have shared it with the U.S. authorities. In addition, the law enforcement and the criminal investigation department has also focused on shutting down clandestine laboratories that can create this substance of fentanyl. We have really struck hard at these organizations, especially in Guerrero, or the Golden Triangle  the states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Sinaloa.

We continue collaborating, we continue working to identify these crops, and also to be able to assess the results achieved jointly by both the Mexican authorities and the U.S. forces. But I insist we have to work together to combat all this phenomenon of TCOs and also to hit them hard in the poppy growing. We have to hit all the organizations at all the levels of the chain. But this also has an impact in the United States. We must share information, therefore, to understand what organizations are doing in the United States so as to really achieve the dismantling of these entities. Thank you.

DEPUTY SECRETARY SULLIVAN: Thank you. Yes, on human rights, human rights is an issue that we in the United States Government discuss with our partners in the Mexican Government quite frequently. In fact, just earlier this month we had our annual dialogue with Mexico on human rights. So our relationship includes frank conversation about advancing human rights, the rule of law. Thats a major part also of our Merida Initiative, is enhancing the rule of law, strengthening criminal justice and enforcement. But human rights is an important component of that, particularly press freedom and freedom for journalists. Freedom of the press is an indispensable component of a functioning democracy. And so were concerned whenever we hear reports of journalists being targeted.

But on human rights, we have had an ongoing dialogue with our partners in Mexico on this, and we look forward to continuing that. Thank you.

MS NAUERT: And thank you, everyone. Thank you for your questions.
Imperial Valley News Center

Chain Migration

Washington, DC - Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC], is calling on Congress to "put an end to lax immigration procedures that allow terrorists entry to the U.S. in the guise of family relationships."

Weber wants lawmakers to put an end to the provision of the American immigration program known as "chain migration." He points out that the most recent act of radical Islamic terror perpetrated in the U.S. earlier this week in New York City was the act of an immigrant who entered the U.S. under the provision.

The 27-year-old man, Akayed Ullah, a Bangladeshi immigrant who came into the country in 2011, was arrested after allegedly detonating a pipe bomb in the underground pedestrian tunnel of one of the busiest subway stations in New York City during rush hour. The crude, homemade device may not have worked as intended since there were no fatalities although the explosion resulted in the wounding of five persons, including Ullah. Police said he told them he did it for ISIS.

"In my opinion, we have God to thank for limiting the mayhem at the hands of a maniac. But, we have chain migration to thank for letting him into the country in the first place," says Weber.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform the majority of immigrants entering the U.S. "receive a green card simply because they are the relative of an earlier migrant, not because of what they can contribute to American society. This creates a 'chain' of immigrants who can then sponsor other immigrants in the same manner. These, in turn, may sponsor more immigrants, and so on."

The New York Times reported in August that "In 2014, 64 percent of immigrants admitted with legal residency were immediate relatives of American citizens or sponsored by family members. Just 15 percent entered through employment-based preferences."

After the New York City bombing attempt, Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, posted a report of the incident on the Center's Web site. She wrote that "no matter how much we improve our vetting, the sheer momentum of chain migration-driven immigration from terror-afflicted parts of the world is itself a national security risk."

Sen. David Perdue [R-GA] and Sen. Tom Cotton [R-Ark] are sponsoring the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment Act. The RAISE act would establish a merit-based immigration system to replace chain migration. Weber says he would like to see bipartisan support for the legislation, describing it as a "necessity" whether you are a Democrat or a Republican.

Says Weber: "President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have both thrown their support for the RAISE act because it brings the country back to its senses. It doesn't mean that we give up on immigration as a country; it simply means that we take a sensible, rational approach to immigration-one that protects the nation and that does not leave us vulnerable to the whims of unvetted guests. We live in dangerous times. Our national security is at risk, as are the lives of our citizens. Radical Islamic terrorists make no secret of their intentions and we'd be fools to ignore their threats."
Border Patrol Discovers Meth in Vehicles Gas Tank

Salton City, California - El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Highway 86 checkpoint, arrested a man suspected of smuggling methamphetamine inside his vehicles gas tank on Saturday morning.

The incident occurred at approximately 9:15 a.m., when a 26-year-old man approached the checkpoint in a 2012 Hyundai Accent. Before the driver reached the primary inspection area, a Border Patrol canine detection team alerted to the drivers side of the vehicle.

Agents referred the man to secondary inspection for a closer inspection of the vehicle.

Upon further inspection, Border Patrol agents found 24 packages stuffed inside the vehicles gas tank. Agents tested the contents of the packages. That test indicated a positive for characteristics of methamphetamine.

The total weight of the methamphetamine was 26.41 pounds with an estimated street value of $92,435.

Gas tanks are a common hiding place drug traffickers use to smuggle their narcotics.

The man, a United States citizen, the vehicle and narcotics were turned-over to the Drug Enforcement Administration for further investigation.

In fiscal year 2018, El Centro Sector has seized more than 223.95 pounds of methamphetamine.
Agents Stop Vehicle and Discover Narcotics Inside Battery

Salton City, California - El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents from the Indio Station, assigned to the Highway 86 immigration checkpoint, arrested a woman suspected of smuggling drugs hidden inside her vehicles battery Monday afternoon.

The incident occurred Monday afternoon after a 2002 green Jeep Liberty being driven by a 23-year-old woman approached the checkpoint on Highway 86. Agents referred the vehicle to secondary for further examination based on a Border Patrol detection canine team alert.

At the secondary inspection area the canine team alerted again to the vehicle. After a thorough inspection, agents discovered two vacuum sealed packages of narcotics inside a modified battery of the vehicle.

The content of a package tested positive for cocaine and weighed a total of .75 pounds with an estimated street value of $9,750. The other package tested positive for heroin and weighed a total of 4.07 pounds with an estimated street value of $56,980.

Our K-9 agents play a vital role in the safeguarding of our communities by helping prevent dangerous drugs such as these from reaching our city streets, said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim.

The driver, a United States citizen, was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration along with the vehicle and the narcotics.
Border Patrol Discovers Meth in Engine Compartment

Salton City, California - El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Highway 86 checkpoint, arrested a man suspected of smuggling methamphetamine inside a van engine compartment Wednesday morning.

The incident occurred at approximately 12:40 a.m., when agents stopped a 24-year-old man in a 2003 Ford Windstar approximately six miles north of the Highway 86 checkpoint. A Border Patrol summoned a canine detection team to the scene for further inspection of the van. The canine alerted to the front of the vehicle.

Upon further search of the vehicle, Border Patrol agents found four packages stuffed inside the vehicles engine. Agents tested the contents of the packages. That test indicated positive for characteristics of methamphetamine.

The total weight of the methamphetamine was 8.95 pounds with an estimated street value of $22,375.

The man, a United States citizen, the vehicle and narcotics were turned-over to the Drug Enforcement Administration for further investigation.
U.S.-China Consultation on Foreign Nongovernmental Organization Management

Beijing, China - The United States and China held the inaugural U.S.-China Consultation on Foreign Nongovernmental Organization Management on December 14, 2017 in Beijing, China. The two sides discussed the critical role that NGOs play in facilitating people-to-people exchanges between the United States and China. Both sides believe that the strength and success of all countries depends on protecting and supporting civil society.

The United States urges China to ensure that the new Foreign NGO Management Law will guarantee the continuous operations of U.S. NGOs in China. The two sides decided to meet again in 2018 and continue working-level consultations to address the concerns of civil society leaders. The Ministry of Public Security and related public security organizations decided to meet with representatives of NGOs and Professional Supervisory Units early next year in order to resolve their questions and concerns about registration.
Kazakhstan's Independence Day

Washington, DC - Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson: "On behalf of the Government of the United States of America, warm congratulations to the people of Kazakhstan as you celebrate 26 years of your nations independence.

""Today, the United States and Kazakhstan are closer partners, working together to expand our economic, energy, science, and technology cooperation, and to promote regional security and stability. Our cooperation on global issues has deepened during Kazakhstans term as a member of the United Nations Security Council. We congratulate Kazakhstan on the success of Astana Expo 2017, which showcased Kazakhstans commitment to energy resource development across the globe.

We look forward to strengthening our partnership over the coming years and we send the people of Kazakhstan our best wishes as you celebrate this special day."




This Isnt Our Last Love Letter



Dear Don Don,

Way back in 92



I walked into the room and knew



Never felt this way before



I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes



And the feeling grew



As I took a seat I knew



A love that would have my heart



Forever



I knew



Way back in 92





They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true



We were the exception to that rule



Our love had no where to hide



A spark set fire



As if this is how the universe started





I never doubted our love or what we could do



Together we grew



Forming a bond everlasting



That became our glue



My euphoria was YOU



Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared



For how fortunate we were :



to have and to hold

through sickness and in health

Til death do us part



Until we are together again



This isnt our last love letter



I love you with all my heart and soul



Yours forever,



Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow)





Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus.









A True American Hero

I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus.



I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years.



I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years.

But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us.

In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about.



Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle.

I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life.

I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life.

No one will ever do what he did.

I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO





David Jurist

IMUS IN THE MORNING

FIRST DAY BACK!
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

By all accounts, Jon Bernthal has had an incredibly exciting year. First, there were minor roles in Edgar Wrights Baby Driver and Taylor Sheridans debut Wind River. Then, the actor took centre stage for Marvels The Punisher. And to cap off this turbulent 2017, Bernthal stars alongside Game of Throness Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in the thriller Shot Caller.

Speaking on the telephone with The Independent earlier this year, the actor spoke candidly about researching his role, meeting real prisoners and spending time with criminals. Along with discussing the film, Bernthal also dived into some previous projects, including The Walking Dead, which ended up changing his life. Read the full Q&A below.

Shot Caller seems very timely, questioning how prison institutionalises people. Was that something that attracted you to the project?

I suppose so. Ive worked with [director] Ric Roman Waugh before on a film called Snitch. I enjoyed working with him  he strives for authenticity in films. Theyre incredibly well researched. When he made a film called Felon, he worked as a parole officer and got to know the prison system very, very well. He can grant unbelievable access both inside the prisons and to the prisoners. I knew I would be able to achieve a level of authenticity with the character and my research would be able to be complete. I was very grateful to some of the people I got to meet in that process.

I read before how you sometimes get so into a role you even leave the set as the character. Did that happen here?

Yeah, a little bit. Those tattoos dont come off. You go around with them. We shot a bulk of the film at a real-life maximum security prison, with real prisoners. That was an unbelievable opportunity for me. Through contacts with Ric, I met guys who were being hunted on the street, who were hiding. I get really close with them and learn a first-hand account about  not just the stakes they went through  but to get a first-hand account of their behaviour, the protocol of what that life is like.

Maybe Im a wimp, but that would be relatively scary meeting these types of people.

Its not for everybody, but Im really attracted to that. Just because youre worried doesnt mean youre a wimp and vice versa. For me, this job, what I do, I strive for authenticity. Not just for the movie watchers but for people who the story is about. During Fury, I hope people who are tank operators would look at that and relate. When I play a small-town police officer in a Georgia town, I want those police officers to buy that. What that requires is being granted access to the people who are like that. Some of the best relationships Ive made in my career are with those people filmmakers bring on board, to teach you the tricks of the trade. There are cops in LA that Im still super close with, a best friend whos a Navy seal who I worked with. When somebody opens up their life like that, its unbelievably humbling.

How can you get time to meet all these people when youve got so much work on at the moment. This year youve done five films plus The Punisher TV series.

I also have three young kids! Im enormously busy, no question about it. I do this for a living and Ive built a home from it. My mantra is be where you are while youre there. So, when Im making a movie, Im in 100 per cent. I dont stop for anything. I dont take breaks, get drunk, go to bars. Im packing things in the whole time. When there are people to meet to build that authenticity, Im there. Same when Im with my family. There is no cell phone, no meetings, half-in, half-out, Im with them 100 per cent. Thats the only way I know how to live right now. My own personal happiness is dictated by how much Im with that philosophy. If Im not living that, Im unhappy.

Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up

27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Show all 27 1 /27 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Black Panther Released: 12 February 12 February Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Greatest Showman Released: 1 January 1 January Director: Michael Gracey Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Darkest Hour Released: 12 January 12 January Director: Joe Wright Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Released: 12 January Director: Martin McDonagh 12 JanuaryMartin McDonagh Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones > Twentieth Century Fox 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Coco Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Lee Unkrich ,p>Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Renee Victor 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Downsizing Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Matt Damon, Christopher Waltz, Jong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Early Man Released: 26 January 26 January Director: Nick Park Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Fifty Shades Freed Released: 9 February 9 February Director: James Foley Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Maze Runner: The Death Cure Released: 9 February 9 February Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Shape of Water Released: 16 February 16 February Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Annihilation Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Lee, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Dark River Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Clio Barnard Cast: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Red Sparrow Released: 2 March 2 March Director: Francis Lawrence Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Tomb Raider Released: 16 March 16 March Director: Roar Uthaug Cast: Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Dominic West, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 A Wrinkle in Time Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Ava DuVernay Cast: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifianakis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Pacific Rim: Uprising Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Steven S. DeKnight Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Roman J Israel, Esq Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Dan Gilroy Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo Columbia Pictures 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Isle of Dogs Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Wes Anderson Cast: Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ready Player One Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Avengers: Infinity War Released: 27 April 27 April Director: The Russo Brothers Cast: Robert Downey, Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Untitled Han Solo Film Released: 25 May 25 May Director: Ron Howard Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Released: 8 June 8 June Director: J.A. Bayona Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pine, B.D. Wong, Toby Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Deadpool 2 Released: 1 June Director: David Leitch 1 JuneDavid Leitch Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Zazie Beetz, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ocean's 8 Released: 22 June 22 June Director: Gary Ross Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Munn, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Matt Damon 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Peyton Reed Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Soldado Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Stefano Sollima Cast: Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Incredibles 2 Released: 13 July 13 July Director: Brad Bird Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson

Over this year, youve just been cropping up places, for instance with a brief role in Wind River. When I saw you appeared there, I immediately thought you were the villain! Apart from The Punisher, though, you havent really had a leading role.

To be honest, and this isnt a bullshit answer, Im completely unconcerned by that. What I got to do in Wind River, in Sicario  where I pop up for just one scene  Im just as grateful for that as Frank Castle in The Punisher. I came from the Moscow Art Theatre School where they coined the phrase theres no small part for a small actor. What I love about these small parts is they really have a sense of history to them, a sense of you can believe this character existed before the scene, and will exist after  unless they get killed! These characters really add to the tapestry of a film, and if you can bring something authentic you make the world seem real. With Wind River, I feel they could have made an entire movie about that character, those motivations. One of my favourite movies of all time is Silence of the Lambs. What Ted Levine did with his portrayal of Buffalo Bill, there wasnt much screen time but it was absolutely haunting. Everyone talks about Anthony Hopkins in that film, which was obviously great, but what Ted did, he created the most horrifying character in the history of film in five or six minutes on film. If I can do that I definitely dont make choices based on becoming a leading man. I just want to work with the best people. When you bring up Wind River, thats Taylor Sheridan, who wrote Sicario. I respect him so much as a writer. Of course, I would jump at the chance to be in his film.

Have you turned down any of those roles that could have taken your career that much further?

There have been some things that would have been splashier, bigger projects career-wise. Theres nothing I have done that I regret, nothing I wish I had. Honestly, Im not here to make a huge splash. One of the drawbacks of playing The Punisher would be the high exposure. Theres a real downside to that as an actor. The fact you saw Wind River and knew that was me, Im grateful, but theres something magic about being the guy who can disappear on screen. You seeing Wind River and believing I was the villain was exactly what Sheridan wanted, taking the audience on that journey within 10 minutes, turning into a good guy. Having those splashier roles can be the enemy sometimes. You have to reinvent and challenge yourself.

Recommended Netflix has announced a second season of The Punisher

I spoke to [Daredevil actor] Charlie Cox earlier this year for The Defenders, who said he was very comfortable with his level of fame at the moment, not necessarily being bombarded on the streets by fans. I imagine you must feel similar?

In my real life, Im very comfortable with people, that people come up to me in the street. When somebody comes up to me and says they love my work, that really touches me. Hopefully, I can have times where I check myself as this knucklehead, asshole kid from DC, and now these people are buying me a drink. Thats incredible, right? What I dont want is to just be known. I want it to be about the work, not people going hey, theres that guy or theres so-and-so. I dont want to be The Fonz, thats the enemy of our work, when people have preconceived notions. Im definitely not worried about people coming up to me though.

Looking back on something like The Walking Dead  arguably your breakout. Do you keep up with the show?

I have to be honest, I havent kept up with that show. But it marked a real high point, not just in my career but in my life. I got engaged around then, I got married just after season one, had my son during season two. That group of people, that original core group, it was a very humble beginning. We did not know what we were getting into. We all believed in the script and dived in with everything we had. It wasnt a show with a big budget. Who knew it would be what it would be? That group got unbelievably close and are still the group of actors Im by far closest with, than anything else Ive ever done. Were part of each others lives, each others families. To play a character with a real beginning and end, on a show that popular, that was an unbelievable part. It wasnt like I was inundated with offers after, but that was the experience that changed my life. I started getting into rooms, getting opportunities that were completely different to what I had done. It wasnt even like my first gig. Ill always be grateful to them for hiring me.

Bernthal plays The Punisher in Marvels Netflix series (Getty)

That show set the tone for some of your characters ever since. How do you feel about that?

What I liked about Shane and that part was you couldnt pin him down. There were really conflicting emotions at hand. He wasnt a villain or good guy. There were real reasons and motivation behind the sometimes deplorable things he did. He really lived by a code. He was the first guy who really discovered what living in that world really meant. I do want that with all my characters. The kind of people who are one way then become someone else, bold enough to turn their back on the audience. I loved with Shane that one week you could be with him and the next against him. If theres that richness to any of the characters I play, I find myself very lucky.

Even with Shot Caller, you play someone the audience believes to be one thing and then turns into another.

That was the great thing about this film, there were real motivations. The film took these prison types and reminded us they have families, mums and dads, girlfriends and wives, loving them the same way we do. That was a great little touch with this character.

One last question on The Punisher. What do you hope to bring to the character, if you can say anything?

You know what Marvel is like, but Ill say its a real honour to play the part. I feel responsible for the members of law enforcement, the military, the comic book audience who this character means so much to. Im really nervous about it. I really hope we got it right. I tried to play him a certain way and I hope it resonates.
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Gary Oldman is unrecognisable in new film Darkest Hour, a biopic in which the British actor plays Winston Churchill in a performance that's placed him at the forefront of the coming awards season's Best Actor race.

The film - directed by Joe Wright - follows the Prime Minister's early days as Hitler closes in on Britain during World War II.

Oldman's dedication to the tole was commendable spending more than 200 hours in the makeup chair for a shoot which lasted 58 days to transform into the cigar-smoking PM. In fact, Oldman smoked so many cigars in character as Churchill that it ended up taking quite an extreme toll.

I got serious nicotine poisoning, Oldman told The Hollywood Reporter. You'd have a cigar that was three-quarters smoked and you'd light it up, and then over the course of a couple of takes, it would go down, and then the prop man would replenish me with a new cigar - we were doing that for 10 or 12 takes a scene.

For his scenes, Oldman smoked at least 400 Romeo y Julieta Cubans which saw almost 15,000 of the film's 22.4m budget go into the cigars alone.

Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Show all 15 1 /15 Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Director: Martin McDonagh Martin McDonagh Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones Plot: In this darkly comic drama, a mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder, when they fail to catch the culprit. Twentieth Century Fox Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Call Me By Your Name Director: Luca Guadagnino Luca Guadagnino Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg Plot: A young man named Elio, living in Italy during the 1980s, meets Oliver, an academic who has come to stay at his parents' villa, and a passionate relationship develops between them, as they bond over their sexuality, their Jewish heritage, and the landscape. Sony Pictures Classics Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Dunkirk Director: Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan Cast: Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance Plot: In May 1940, Germany advanced into France, trapping Allied troops on the beaches of Dunkirk. Under air and ground cover from British and French forces, troops were slowly and methodically evacuated from the beach using every serviceable naval and civilian vessel that could be found. At the end of this heroic mission, 330,000 French, British, Belgian and Dutch soldiers were safely evacuated. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Get Out Director: Jordan Peele Jordan Peele Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener Plot: This horror drama follows a young interracial couple who visit the girl's parents only for her boyfriend to uncover a conspiracy whereby young black adults are being captured. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Downsizing Director: Alexander Payne Alexander Payne Cast: Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Waltz, Alec Baldwin Plot: A man and his wife join a community of miniaturized people after undergoing a process to shrink themselves. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 The Florida Project Director:Sean Baker Sean Baker Cast:Willem Dafoe, Bria Vinaite, Brooklynn Prince Plot: A precocious 6-year-old and her friends are homeless, living in extended-stay motels, but their summer is still filled with childhood wonder and adventure. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 The Post Director: Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Alison Brie, Sarah Paulson Plot: Ben Bradlee and Kay Graham of The Washington Post challenge the federal government for the right to publish classified information in 1971. Twentieth Century Fox Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 The Shape of Water Director: Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer, Doug Jones Plot: In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Molly's Game Director: Aaron Sorkin Aaron Sorkin Cast: Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner Plot: The true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game and became an FBI target. Courtesy of STXfilms Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 The Big Sick Director: Michael Showalter Michael Showalter Cast: Kumail Najiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano Plot: Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations, and his true feelings. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Mudbound Director: Dee Rees Dee Rees Cast: Jason Clarke, Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige, Garrett Hedlund Plot: This Netflix film follows two who men return home from World War II to work on a farm in rural Mississippi, where they struggle to deal with racism and adjusting to life after war. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 The Disaster Artist Director: James Franco James Franco Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Zac Efron Plot: A big screen re-enactment of the making of Tommy Wiseau's cult film The Room deemed 'the worst movie of all time.' Getty Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Phantom Thread Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps Plot: Set in 1950's London, Reynolds Woodcock is a renowned dressmaker whose fastidious life is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman, Alma, who becomes his muse and lover. Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Lady Bird Director: Greta Gerwig Greta Gerwig Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, Tracy Letts Plot: Gerwig's deirectorial debut is a coming-of-age story about a high-school senior (Ronan) and her turbulent relationship with her mother (Metcalf). Early Oscars Best Picture Contenders 2018 Darkest Hour Director: Joe Wright Joe Wright Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn Plot: The film follows Winston Churchill's early days as Prime Minister while Hitler closes in on Britain during World War II.

Oldman stars in the film alongside Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily James and Ben Mendelsohn who plays King George VI.

Just last week, he scored his first ever Golden Globe nomination for the role, a category which sees him face opposition from Tom Hanks (The Post), Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) and fellow Londoner Daniel Day-Lewis whose been nominated for his final screen performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread.

Follow Independent Culture on Facebook
SPARKS  Veteran casino executive and Elko resident David Zornes will take the helm as CEO of Northern Star Casinos effective Dec. 18.

In his role, Zornes is charged with chartering the course of operations at five properties: Stockmens Casino & Ramada Hotel and Commercial Casino, both in Elko; Scoreboard Casino in Spring Creek; Model T Casino Hotel and RV in Winnemucca; and El Capitan Lodge and Casino in Hawthorne.

We are delighted to welcome David Zornes as our new chief executive officer to guide our company to even greater success, said Larry Hill, CEO of Triple Crown Casinos, parent company of Northern Star Casinos. David brings in-depth knowledge and an exceptional track record of strong leadership in the gaming industry and specifically in the Elko market. He is uniquely qualified to take our properties to the next level of hospitality excellence.

Zornes has held several key positions while operating hotel and casino properties over the past 37 years in Nevada, the Caribbean and Colorado, starting with the Red Lion Hotel chain in 1980.

Im really excited about this, for one because it does keep me in Elko, and I feel that Elko is my home, Zornes said. Ive always enjoyed small towns, prefer small towns.

The 19-year Elko resident completed 11 years as CEO of the Red Lion Hotel & Casino, Holiday Inn Express, Thunderbird Motel, Gold Country Inn & Casino and High Desert Inn in Elko in September. Over about the past 35 years, Zornes thrice worked for Red Lion in Elko.

While general manager of the Red Lion Inn in Elko in 1983, he launched an air junket program that brought guests to the region throughout the early 1980s. He later started Casino Express, an airline program that serviced 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada during what he called the good ol days.

Bringing the Northern Nevada properties back to their old glory, as Zornes called it, is among his goals. He said he plans to get involved with downtown development.

There properties are so important to the downtown area, he said, adding that although he will have to treat all five Northern Nevada locations equally, he wants to give some extra attention to Elko.

I definitely consider Elko my hometown, he said.

Zornes also serves on the board of the Elko Convention and Visitors Authority, and plans to continue his service in that role, and is past chairman of the Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority.

I can give them more of a Nevada perspective, Zornes said of working for the properties Colorado-based parent company.

Based in Sparks, Northern Star Casinos offers gaming, dining and hospitality experiences. Two of the properties feature hotel accommodations under the Wyndham Worldwide Corp. brand: Ramada Hotel at Stockmens and Travelodge at El Capitan. The Model T features a Quality Inn under the Choice Hotels brand.

The firms parent company is Triple Crown Casinos, a gaming operator in Cripple Creek, Colorado, with properties including the Midnight Rose Hotel & Casino, McGills Hotel Casino and The Brass Ass Casino.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A Portuguese architect has designed a family home inspired by childrens drawings of houses, on a piece of land overlooking the Castle of Ourem.

Filipe Saraiva, of Filipe Saraiva Arquitectos, built his home on a southwards-stretching slope next to a public road, using wood and black concrete to fit in with the surrounding natural landscape.

The odd shape is inspired by childrens drawings, with the standard five lines for walls and the roof and squares for windows and a rectangle for the door. Saraiva wanted to emulate the sheltered feeling of this familiar shape and create a home that would be a safe haven and our own world.

The house features three bedrooms, an enormous garage and a number of large open-plan living spaces.

We spoke to Saraiva about designing a home that is both artistic and functional.

What is your practice known for?

We are a young and dynamic team with professional experience, resulting from our attentive and critical daily experience that allows us to face the most diverse challenges with a sense of responsibility, rigour and determination; but always keeping in mind our main goal: Quality.

The architectural design is based on the synergies of multiple specialties and their coordination, keeping attention on small details in terms of both legal and technical requirements and the level of the claims of the developer. Therefore, it is extremely important that the team shows a multidisciplinary and very open and permanent relationship with the client.

House in Ourem, Portugal Show all 18 1 /18 House in Ourem, Portugal House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal All photos by Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado House in Ourem, Portugal Joao Morgado

How would you sum up the project in five words?

Simplicity, functionality, light, view, monolithic.

What was the brief for this project?

This project consists of a rectangular and uniform shape, with a monolithic volume that contains in its interior all the functional needs of the house distributed between two floors. On the south side we have the social area of the house, and on the north side the technical and service areas. The social area was designed as an open space in order to improve the relation between different parts of the house.

What did you hope to solve as you designed this home?

To create a house that meets my needs and is adapted to the daily life of my family.

What makes this space unique?

The extension of the living room to the outside. This connection and the flow between different spaces, in this case interior and exterior spaces, allows us to experience different sensations, even if we are only in one space, since there is a clear communication between them.

What was your inspiration for this project?

The design of the house. The architect started to inspire himself to the simplicity of a childs view, without artifices. In other words, when we ask a child to draw a house, invariably they present us with a simplistic representation of five lines, a rectangle and two squares. So, the design of the house is similar to a pentagon, which is composed by five lines, representing the door and the roof.

What was the toughest issue you encountered when this building was being designed and built?

For sure, the conception of the constructive system. This system consists of prefabricated pigmented concrete elements with built-in insulation, supported on a metal structure. The difficulty was the idealisation of the system and the connection between the various materials: Iron, concrete and wood. Otherwise, combining the dimensions of the house with the 3m module that is at the base of the whole project.

If you could, what would you like to change?

At the moment, either for the family or for the site, we would do the same project.

What sort of experience do you hope people using this space have?

A constant relation with the outside and the landscape and enjoy the space in a fluid and uncompromised way.

Please add anything else you feel is important

It is an eco-friendly house with low energy costs.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to repeal Obama-era rules governing net neutrality. The five-person board has voted in favour of ending net neutrality, a decision that could have a huge effect on the way the internet works.

Supporters of net neutrality say the move could open the door for internet service providers (ISPs) to charge customers more and dictate what people use the internet for.

But what is net neutrality? And why does it matter so much? We're taking your questions on the rules and their repeal, and anyone can get involved.

Leave your questions in the comments section below, or send them directly to The Independent's West Coast Correspondent Jeremy B White on Twitter at @JeremyBWhite

Immediately after the vote, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said he intended to file a legal challenge against the vote. It is unlikely to be the last.

Net neutrality protests  in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 Net neutrality protests  in pictures Net neutrality protests  in pictures Lindsay Chestnut of Baltimore holds a sign that reads "I like My Internet Like I Like my Country Free & Open" as she protests near the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, where the FCC is scheduled to meet and vote on net neutrality. The vote scheduled today at the FCC, could usher in big changes in how Americans use the internet, a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight AP Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images

ISPs greeted the news warmly, but Senator Ed Markey a Democrat from Massachusetts said he would be looking to introduce an act in Congress calling for a review of the FCC decision. he labelled it a "historic mistake".
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Netflix has criticised the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) decision to repeal net neutrality rules, saying it is the beginning of a longer legal battle.

Were disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity and civic engagement, the company said in a tweet shortly after the agency voted on the measure. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large and small, to oppose this misguided FCC order.

The FCC voted 3-2 along party lines to scrap Obama-era protections  a move that gives an enormous amount of power to internet service providers (ISPs), which will no longer need to treat all internet traffic equally.

The net neutrality rules had banned ISPs from blocking, slowing down or speeding up access to certain content.

Last January, Netflix wrote to company shareholders that it would be fine if the protections were rolled back.

Weakening of US net neutrality laws, should that occur, is unlikely to materially affect our domestic margins or service quality because we are now popular enough with consumers to keep our relationships with ISPs stable, the company said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. 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

This indicates that Netflix could use its weight in the market to get good deals with ISPs, potentially giving it an edge over smaller or future streaming competitors that could get bogged down by fees.

Public interest groups have already vowed to challenge the Democrats in court, and Democrats plan to push for a legislative fix.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman also said he is suing the FCC to block the repeal from going into effect.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai and others in favour of the decision argued that the deregulation of the internet would spur innovation. The FCC would have the authority to sue providers who abuse competition on the web, they said.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Profound changes in the way the internet works in the US could soon come to the UK, campaigners have warned.

US regulators this week voted to repeal net neutrality protections that force companies to treat all internet traffic equally. And that same weakening of protections could soon come to the UK.

Indeed, some infringements of the principle are already at work in the UK and Europe, warned one digital rights group.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

"If the USA removes protection for net neutrality, Europe will be next," he said.

"European net neutrality protections are already insufficiently strong, and are already being abused by mobile providers selling data packages that favour sites like Facebook over their competitors.

"Facebook and Google don't need extra help to dominate the market. The EU and UK need to step up and protect values of openness and competition that Trump's government are busy abandoning."

Net neutrality is active in British law through the EU's rules on open internet access, which says there can be no discrimination of online content, with all traffic treated equally.

But Mr Killock points to deals from some mobile operators which offer users paid-for passes for unlimited streaming of some music and video platforms, or unlimited data on messaging services such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp, as a sign net neutrality is being eroded in the UK.

These packages are permitted under EU law as users choose to buy such passes and data is not being speeded up or slowed down as part of the process.

However, it has been argued that greater choice and competition in the UK among service providers means it is less of an issue in this country, with the pressure among providers to offer appealing services higher.

This is in stark contrast to the US, where an FCC report from 2016 found that more than 50 million homes in the US had only one choice of internet provider if they wanted faster broadband.

Andrew Glover, chairman of the UK Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) Council said the existing rules also secured netneutrality in the UK.

"The changes to net neutrality rules in the US do not have an impact on customers of UK ISPs," he said.

"For a long time, UK providers have been committed to preserving an open internet through a voluntary code.

"More recently, strict EU rules have come into force which clearly state that 'providers of internet access services shall treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference'.

"Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, recently assessed the compliance of UK ISPs with these rules and found 'that there are no major concerns regarding the openness of the internet in the UK'."

Additional reporting by agencies
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to kill off net neutrality, but theres a chance it could still be saved.

Politicians across the US have already made it clear that they intend to fight this weeks decision, which was proposed by President Trump-appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and further resistance is expected to be announced over the coming days.

Shortly after the vote, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced his intention to sue, in order to stop what he called the FCCs illegal rollback of net neutrality.

Net neutrality protests  in pictures Show all 5 1 /5 Net neutrality protests  in pictures Net neutrality protests  in pictures Lindsay Chestnut of Baltimore holds a sign that reads "I like My Internet Like I Like my Country Free & Open" as she protests near the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, where the FCC is scheduled to meet and vote on net neutrality. The vote scheduled today at the FCC, could usher in big changes in how Americans use the internet, a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight AP Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images Net neutrality protests  in pictures Demonstrators rally outside the Federal Communication Commission building to protest against the end of net nutrality rules December 14, 2017 in Washington, DC. Lead by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the commission is expected to do away with Obama Administration rules that prevented internet service providers from creating differnt levels of service and blocking or promoting individual companies and organizations on their systems. Getty Images

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson is also going to challenge the decision.

I am announcing my intention to file a legal challenge to the FCCs decision to roll back net neutrality, along with attorneys general across the country, he said.

California State Senator Scott Wiener says he's exploring ways to preserve net neutrality in California.

In January when the State Legislature reconvenes, I will introduce legislation to require net neutrality in California, he said.

He added: There are several ways we can bring net neutrality to California. California can regulate business practices to require net neutrality, condition state contracts on adhering to net neutrality, and require net neutrality as part of cable franchise agreements, as a condition to using the public right-of-way for internet infrastructure, and in broadband packages.

As expected, the FCC voted 3-2 in favour of repealing the Obama-era protections this week. The rules prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling or prioritising legal content.

Recommended Live updates as US prepares for huge changes to how the internet works

The result of the vote represents a huge victory for ISPs, which no longer have to treat all internet traffic equally.

Pennsylvania State Attorney General Josh Shapiro is joining the fight against the decision too. He said, I plan to take legal action to protect consumers and block this move by the FCC.

Furthermore, Senator Ed Markey has said that he will introduce a resolution calling for a Congressional Review Act over the FCC decision. If taken up, Congress would then review the FCC decision.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week controversially voted to end net neutrality in the US, but everyone opposed to the decision is still being urged to do all they can to resist it.

Multiple Senators and Attorneys General have already confirmed that they will legally challenge the move.

Ordinary people are also being encouraged to make their voices heard, by contacting their Senators, State Attorneys General and Members of Congress.

Senator Ed Markey has said he will call for a Congressional Review Act over the FCC vote result, which could allow Congress to reverse the net neutrality decision.

This could represent net neutrality supporters best hope, and people are being urged to get behind it.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has created an online form you can use to quickly ask your Member of Congress to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCCs "hasty and misguided dismantling of net neutrality protections.

Save the Internet has created a similar tool that lets you increase pressure on lawmakers.

To Members of Congress: The FCC vote to destroy the Net Neutrality protections cannot stand. I'm calling on you to work with your colleagues to use the Congressional Review Act to pass a resolution of disapproval reversing the FCC's vote, it says.

Save the Internet adds, We need members of Congress to stand up for the open internet and for the digital civil rights of their constituents now. Please use the CRA to pass a resolution of disapproval.

Twitter user @Celeste_Pewter has even prepared scripts for people to use over the phone while contacting lawmakers, in order to make the process much more straightforward.

There is plenty that citizens can do, the ACLU says.

But the clock is now ticking because Americans may soon begin to see negative changes in the internet theyve always known.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Scientists scanning a mysterious object that flew past Earth to see if it has alien technology have reported their first results.

The organisation behind the project  Breakthrough Listen, which is supported by Stephen Hawking  said that it had found no evidence of artificial signals yet. But it had much more work to do to look through the huge amounts of data collected during the scan, it said.

When Oumuamua flew through the solar system last month, researchers quickly scrambled to understand what the strange object was. It is the first object confirmed to have visited our solar system from another star.

Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427  more commonly known as WR 124  and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead  sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later  having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region

Most agree that it is a rock that has been flying through the solar system for sometime, perhaps having formed when a planet was ripped apart by its sun. But others have suggested the strange characteristics of the object may suggest something artificial.

Recommended Why scientists are scanning an object flying past Earth for aliens

Oumuamua is much longer than it is wide, for instance  a shape that experts suggest would be useful for long-distance space travel. And it isn't clear where it came from or is going to.

To test that, experts working with the Breakthrough Listen project decided to point a huge telescope towards the rock and see if it could pick up any trace of alien technology. It listened out for radio activity that might be emitted by the object, whatever it is.

But scientists have picked up no such activity yet: "No such signals have been detected, although the analysis is not yet complete", the organisation writes. There is still plenty of work yet to be done  as well as looking through the data, the scan on Wednesday evening was the first of a planned four blocks to look at the object.

The project said that the sheer amount of data that was collected means that it won't be able to have looked through it all soon. "A search for signals that may be of artificial origin has begun, but despite the impressive computational power of the Breakthrough Listen computing cluster at Green Bank, the large data volumes mean that this will take some time to complete."

All of the data is being posted online for the public to look at. Breakthrough Listen cautioned that the complex data "may be challenging for non-experts", but has posted a guide to going through the data for people who want to help with analysing the object and asked the public to get involved if they wish.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The real-life Wolf of Wall Street has warned investors over Bitcoin, labelling it a huge scam.

Jordan Belfort believes the cryptocurrency is in a bubble and could be set to plummet in value soon.

The former stockbroker, whose market manipulation and fraud crimes in the 1990s were subject of the 2013 film starring Leonardo Di Caprio, claims Bitcoin is a scam.

Recommended A third of millenials will be invested in bitcoin in 2018

He told the Financial Times: Promoters are perpetuating a massive scam of the highest order on everyone.

Probably 85 per cent of people out there dont have bad intentions but the problem is, if 5 or 10 per cent are trying to scam you.

The cryptocurrency has exploded value since the beginning of the year, with one Bitcoin now worth more than 13,000 at the current exchange rate.

Mr Belfort said he expected the price of Bitcoin to rise further in the short term before an eventual collapse in the market.

He likened it to Hollands tulip mania, where the value of tulip bulbs grew exponentially in the 17th Century before a rapid fall in prices.

In an interview with CNN, he said: I think its a huge danger right now that people are looking at this as the next great thing, its a bubble for sure.

The next stage, you will see it really skyrocket, there will be a short squeeze, it will go even higher and then eventually it will come caving in, its almost a guarantee.

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

If you were the most disciplined person and get in and get out there is probably a short window to make some money.

But thats not human nature, people will get in and make some money and they want to make more money.

In the tulip bubble the beginning of the end was when they started trading futures on tulips, that was another move up and then all of a sudden it collapses and its over.

Weve teamed up with cryptocurrency trading platform eToro. Click here to get the latest Bitcoin rates and start trading. Cryptocurrencies are a highly volatile unregulated investment product. No EU investor protection. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs.
Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Britain kept the top spot in global financial services exports last year but Brexit threatens to raise barriers to its biggest market in Europe, TheCityUK said on Friday.

The body, which promotes Britain as a financial centre, said banks, insurers, asset managers, and the accountants and lawyers who support them, netted a total trade surplus of $93.6bn(69.6bn) 2016, more than the next two leading countries, the US and Switzerland, combined.

However, we cannot take this position for granted, said Anjalika Bardalai, TheCityUKs chief economist and head of research.

Recommended European Central Bank upgrades eurozone growth forecasts

Brexit is likely to create some economic friction with our largest trading partner - the EU and with an increasing number of regional and specialist centres arising in Asia and elsewhere - it is vital that the UK seek new trading and investment opportunities.

It also needs to step up trade with existing major partners like the US and Japan, TheCityUK said.

Britain is sending a trade delegation to China this weekend that will include financial services firms such as the London Stock Exchange to drum up business to help plug any gap in business lost due to Brexit.

While markets like China and India are growing fast, trade flows are still relatively small, indicating potential for the future, Ms Bardalai said.

Reuters
Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Health Check email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Norway is to become the first Scandinavian country to decriminalise drugs as it focuses on treatment rather than punishment.

The majority of the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, backed the historic shift which was supported by the Conservatives (Hoyre), Liberals (Venstre), the Labor Party (Ap) and the Socialist Left (SV).

They directed the national government to reform its policies on drugs.

 MP Paul Flynn joins medical marijuana protest outside Parliament

Sveinung Stensland, deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, told Norwegian publication VG: It is important to emphasise that we do not legalise cannabis and other drugs, but we decriminalise.

Recommended Norway introduces treatment programmes for addicts

"The change will take some time, but that means a changed vision: those who have a substance abuse problem should be treated as ill, and not as criminals with classical sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.

Nicolas Wilkinson, the SV partys health spokesman, told VG that parliaments goal was to stop punishing people who struggle, but instead give them help and treatment. He added the aim is to transfer responsibility for drug policy from the justice system to the health system.

The move follows the drug programme with judicial control (ND) scheme to replace custodial sentences with treatment programmes for drug addicts in the cities of Bergen and Oslo.

 Donald Trump is not considering to legalise weed

Launched in 2006 the scheme, billed as an alternative to detention in prison, was rolled out to all Norwegian courts last year.

Justice Minister Anders Anundsen previously said: The goal is that more addicts will rid themselves of their drug dependency and fewer will return to crime.

But if the terms of the programme are violated, the convicts must serve an ordinary prison term.

World's 10 deadliest street drugs Show all 10 1 /10 World's 10 deadliest street drugs World's 10 deadliest street drugs Whoonga Whoonga is a combination of antiretroviral drugs, used to treat HIV, and various cutting agents such as detergents and poisons. The drug is widely available in South Africa due to South Africas high rate of HIV sufferers, and is believed to be popular due to how cheap it is when compared to prescribed antiretrovirals. The drug is highly addictive and can cause major health issues such as internal bleeding, stomach ulcers and ultimately death Getty World's 10 deadliest street drugs Scopolamine Scopolamine is a derivative from the nightshade plant found in the Northern Indian region of South America (Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela). It is generally found in a refined powder form, but can also be found as a tea. The drug is more often used by criminals due its high toxicity level (one gram is believed to be able to kill up to 20 people) making it a strong poison. However, it is also believed that the drug is blown into the faces of unexpecting victims, later causing them to lose all sense of self-control and becoming incapable of forming memories during the time they are under the influence of the drug. This tactic has reportedly been used by gangs in Colombia where there have been reports of people using scopolamine as way to convince victims to rob their own homes World's 10 deadliest street drugs Heroin Founded in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, heroin is one of the worlds oldest drugs. Originally it was prescribed as a strong painkiller used to treat chronic pain and physical trauma. However in 1971 it was made illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Since then it has become one of the most destructive substances in the world, tearing apart communities and destroying families. The side effects of heroin include inflammation of the gums, cold sweats, a weak immune system, muscular weakness and insomnia. It can also damage blood vessels which can later cause gangrene if left untreated World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crack cocaine Crack cocaine first came about in the 1980s when cocaine became a widespread commodity within the drug trafficking world. Originally cocaine would have attracted a high price tag due to its rarity and difficulty to produce, but once it became more widespread the price dropped significantly. This resulted in drug dealers forming their cocaine into rock like shapes by using baking soda as a way of distilling the powder down into rock form. People were doing this because it allowed for them to sell cocaine at a lower quantity and to a higher number of people. The side effects of crack cocaine include liver, kidney and lung damage, as well as permanent damage to blood vessels, which can often lead to heart attacks, strokes, and ultimately death World's 10 deadliest street drugs Crystal meth Not just famous because of a certain Walter H White, but also because it is one of the most destructive drugs in the world. First developed in 1887, it became widely used during the Second World War when both sides would give it to their troops to keep them awake. It is also believed that the Japanese gave it to their Kamikaze pilots before their suicide missions. After the war crystal meth was prescribed as a diet aid and remained legal until the 1970s. Since then it has fallen into the hands of Mexican gangs and has become a worldwide phenomenon, spreading throughout Europe and Asia. The effects of crystal meth are devastating. In the short-term users will become sleep depraved and anxious, and in the long-term it will cause their flesh to sink, as well as brain damage and damage of the blood vessels World's 10 deadliest street drugs AH-7921 AH-7921 is a synthetic opioid that was previously available to legally purchase online from vendors until it became a Class A in January 2015. The drug is believed to have 80% of the potency of morphine, and became known as the legal heroin. While there has only been one death related to AH-7921 in the UK, it is believed to be highly dangerous and capable of causing respiratory arrest and gangrene World's 10 deadliest street drugs Flakka Flakka is a stimulant with a similar chemical make-up to the amphetamine-like drug found in bath salts. While the drug was originally marketed as a legal high alternative to ecstasy, the effects are significantly different. The user will feel an elevated heart rate, enhanced emotions, and, if enough is digested, strong hallucinations. The drug can cause permanent psychological damage due to it affecting the mood regulating neurons that keep the minds serotonin and dopamine in check, as well as possibly causing heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Bath salts Bath salts are a synthetic crystalline drug that is prevalent in the US. While they may sound harmless, they certainly arent the sort of salts you drop into a warm bath when having a relaxing night in, they are most similar to mephedrone, and have recently been featured throughout social media due to the zombification of its. The name comes from the fact that the drug was originally sold online, and widely disguised as bath salts. The side effects include unusual psychiatric behaviour, psychosis, panic attacks and violent behaviour, as well as the possibility of a heart attack and an elevated body temperature World's 10 deadliest street drugs Purple Drank One of the more unusual drugs around at the moment, purple drank was popularised in 90s hip hop culture, with the likes of Jay Z and Big Moe all mentioning it in their songs. It is a concoction of soda water, sweets and cold medicine, and is drunk due to cold medicines high codeine content, which gives the user a woozy feeling. However it can also cause respiratory issues and heart failure World's 10 deadliest street drugs Krokodil Krokodil is Russias secret addiction. It is believed that over one million Russians are addicted to the drug. Users of krokodil are attracted to the drug due to its low price; it is sold at 20 a gram while heroin is sold for 60. However, krokodil is considered more dangerous than heroin because it is often homemade, with ingredients including painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid and industrial cleaning agents. This chemical make-up makes the drug highly dangerous and likely to cause gangrene, and eventually rotting of the flesh

Norways Country Drug Report released this year shows in 2014, the latest figures available, 266 people died from drug-related deaths. The figures, released by the Cause of Death Register, showed an increase from the year before, with opioids the most commonly involved drug.

The Norwegian Health Committee is planning a trip to Portugal in February, which decriminalised personal possession of drugs in 2001. The country made the move following a heroin epidemic and the highest drug-related Aids deaths in the European Union (EU).

It now has the second lowest drug-related deaths in the EU.

Norway could join other countries such as Portugal, the Netherlands, Uruguay, and certain US states including California and Colorado, which have liberalised drug laws.
Charlene Joy Thornton passed away from natural causes at the age of 85 on December 9, 2017 in Twin Falls, Idaho. She was born to James Lecuse and Blanche Farley.

Charlene was raised in Ogden, Utah and attended Ogden City schools. She married Jay R. Thornton on May 29, 1949. Jay and Charlene had five wonderful children. She was a homemaker her whole life and raised their five children. Jay and Charlene moved to wells, Nevada in 1973 and bought the welcome campground. Five years later they sold the campground and moved into the city limits of Wells. They built an antique store in Wells and dealt in antiques the rest of their days.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A 24-year-old man had his ear bitten in a row over mobile phone use on a train, British Transport Police (BTP) said.

The incident happened when the attacker complained that the victims friend was speaking loudly on his phone on board a Southern Railway service from London Bridge to Peckham Rye.

This led to an argument during which the attacker leaned over and bit the passengers ear.

Police released a CCTV image of a man they want to speak to (BTP)

He eventually stopped biting the victims ear and returned to his seat, a BTP spokesman said.

The man suffered a deep cut to his ear and required hospital treatment following the incident at around 11.40pm on 6 October.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 November 2022 Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, London, for the House of Commons to deliver his autumn statement PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2022 Emma Woolf, great niece of British author Virginia Woolf, and her son Ludovic sit next to a new bronze statue of Woolf, unveiled in Richmond, London Reuters 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

Officers have released a CCTV image of a man they believe may have information which could help their investigation.

Anyone who recognises him is urged to call BTP on 0800 40 50 40 or text 61016, quoting reference number 376  08/10/2017.

PA
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A pensioner has died of his injuries after bursting into flames in unexplained circumstances in a London street.

Police are appealing for information on the blaze that killed 70-year-old John Nolan, a retired construction worker originally from Ireland.

Emergency services were called to reports of a man ablaze near his home in Haringey on 17 September.

Horrified members of the public tried to put the fire out and alerted police but the flames were not extinguished until firefighters arrived on the scene.

Mr Nolan was taken to a specialist hospital by air ambulance but died of severe burns, with an inquest due to open in March.

The London Fire Brigade investigated the cause of the fire but found no evidence of an accelerant that would have spread the flames.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 November 2022 Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, London, for the House of Commons to deliver his autumn statement PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2022 Emma Woolf, great niece of British author Virginia Woolf, and her son Ludovic sit next to a new bronze statue of Woolf, unveiled in Richmond, London Reuters 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

Police have now taken charge of the investigation but have made no arrests, with Mr Nolans death being treated as unexplained.

The investigating officer, PC Damien Ait-Amer, said: We have spoken with a number of witnesses who saw Mr Nolan ablaze, but we have yet to establish how the fire started.

Mr Nolan was a well-liked member of the community and none of our enquiries so far have indicated that he had been involved in a dispute of any sort.

Nor does any account given by witnesses suggest that he had been in contact with another person at the time of the fire.

Anyone who witnessed the incident but has yet to speak with police is urged to contact investigators by calling 101 or tweeting @MetCC.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Police funding cuts have been partly blamed for the collapse of a rape trial amid fears over potential miscarriages of justice.

A judge threw out the charges against 22-year-old Liam Allan after lawyers discovered messages showing the claimant wanted and enjoyed the sex she later claimed was non-consensual.

Mr Allan had been on bail for almost two years by the time the discovery was made, three days into his trial at Croydon Crown Court.

The messages had been obtained by police when they downloaded the contents of the womans phone, but investigators later told the lawyers they contained nothing relevant.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced a review into the case, while the Metropolitan Police said it was urgently examining what happened.

Julia Smart, a barrister who defended Mr Allan, said she did not find out the content of the complainants phone had been downloaded until a week before the trial.

An initial request to see the contents was declined but a judge granted a formal application on the first day of the trial.

I took the disk away to discover there were 40,000 messages on it, Ms Smart told The Independent.

I read them through the night and into the next morning. It was laborious but I found messages that completely undermined the case.

The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service are investigating the case (Getty)

Mr Allan was charged with six counts of rape and six of sexual assault after the woman reported him to police, claiming their relationship was unhappy and abusive, and she did not want sex.

These messages said quite the contrary  that she was extremely happy for the defendant to come back to her after they broke up and extremely happy with the sex, Ms Smart said.

The defence argued that the sex was consensual and told jurors the woman was attempting to frame Mr Allan, a criminology student at Greenwich University, because he ended their relationship.

Mr Allan said he was still wrapping my head around the ordeal when contacted by The Independent and is considering seeking compensation from police.

The claimant could also be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice for allegedly making a false rape allegation.

Recommended More people are being prosecuted for sexual offences than ever before

Acquitting Mr Allan of all charges, judge Peter Gower said the CPS should be considering the matter at the very highest level.

Something has gone very, very wrong in the way this case was investigated and brought to court, he said, according to The Times.

There is a risk not only of this happening again, but that the trial process will not detect what has gone wrong and there will be a very serious miscarriage of justice.

Jerry Hayes, the prosecuting barrister, apologised to Mr Allan and presented no evidence against him on the day the trial collapsed.

It was the right thing to do, he later wrote on Twitter. [The messages] were not disclosed to anybody  not in unused, not sent to the CPS, not on caselines.

Ms Smart said it appears the Scotland Yard officer who had the phone record probably didnt look at it in full.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 16 November 2022 Emma Woolf, great niece of British author Virginia Woolf, and her son Ludovic sit next to a new bronze statue of Woolf, unveiled in Richmond, London Reuters 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

We can only put it down to cuts and funding, she added. I cant see how those messages would not have been disclosed if they had been seen.

The barrister, of Furnival Chambers, said Mr Allans prosecution would have been nipped in the bud in light of the information, which was taken from the claimant in January 2016.

If they had found what I found they would never have charged him, she added.

The police have a duty to investigate all reasonable lines of inquiry  if they do have a download theyre supposed to look at it.

It means putting work in that might be laborious and take time, but it must be done.

Ms Smart said the case was just one of four she is currently dealing with where evidence has not been disclosed or delayed, forcing lawyers to fight to obtain it in court.

One is an ongoing sexual assault case, where the discovery of 50,000 phone messages caused a delay to the trial.

A report issued in July by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said even unused items of evidence must be reviewed by police to see whether it is capable of undermining the prosecution case or assisting the defence case, adding: If either factor applies it must be disclosed to the defence.

Warning of widespread failures by both police and prosecutors, the authority said officers failing to comply with requirements were often ignorant of their disclosure responsibilities.

Those found filing incomplete record sheets told inspectors it was because of lack of time, limited resources and cumbersome IT systems.

It comes as the Home Office continues to rebuff funding requests from police forces across the country, telling them to make further savings amid a rise in 999 calls, recorded crime and the terror threat.

 Trump links rise in UK crime to 'radical island terror'

Scotland Yard said it was urgently reviewing the investigation into Mr Allan and will be working with the CPS to understand what took place.

Until that review is complete the Met will not comment about what has taken place and why, a spokesperson added.

However, the Met understands the concerns that have been raised as a result of this case being dismissed from court and the ongoing review will seek to address those.

The CPS said police provided more detail in Mr Allans case in November that was reviewed and meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

Therefore we offered no evidence in the case against Liam Allan at a hearing on 14 December, a spokesperson added.

We will now be conducting a management review together with the Metropolitan Police to examine the way in which this case was handled.

Campaigners emphasised that false rape allegations are rare in comparison to the publicity they receive, with the crime believed to be severely underreported.

Rachel Almeida, from Victim Support, said: We are aware that false claims of this nature can cause significant harm to those accused, however it is important to highlight that untrue claims of rape are incredibly rare.

Extensive research has shown this to be the case and that false reporting is actually lower for rape than for other offences.

Inflated perceptions of false allegations of rape may cast undue doubt on the credibility of victims claims and further deter them from coming forward.
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Councils have been condemned for illegally placing homeless families in simply unacceptable accommodation amid soaring levels of homelessness.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said there were too many cases where councils were acting unlawfully by placing homeless households in poorly maintained bed and breakfast accommodation for far too long.

Many families have been stuck in emergency accommodation for significantly longer than the six-week legal limit  some for more than two years. A growing number are having to stay in conditions where damp or infestation is a problem, often affecting their physical and mental health, the report states.

The ombudsman highlights that many of the complaints are from people who might never have anticipated being made homeless, but who have been forced to call on their local councils help by the increasing unaffordability of private tenancies.

In a report in 2013, it said it had routinely found councils exceeding the maximum time limits for placing families and young people in bed and breakfasts, and highlighted the devastating impact this had on individual lives.

Since that time, it says the situation has remained disappointingly familiar, with the problems  which were previously mainly in London  now having spread to other parts of England such as Sussex, Kent and Northamptonshire.

It comes as the number of households in temporary accommodation across England has surged by 65 per cent since 2010, with local authorities having accepted 15,290 households as being statutorily homeless between 1 July and 30 September  up 6 per cent from 14,390 on the previous quarter.

Recent research shows nearly 130,000 children in Britain will wake up homeless and in temporary accommodation this Christmas as child homelessness reaches a 10-year high, with an additional 8,000 children spending the festive period in temporary accommodation such as B&Bs and hostels.

The ombudsman said it currently receives around 450 complaints and enquiries about councils homelessness services each year, and of those it investigates, it upholds approximately 70 per cent  which is significantly higher than the 53 per cent upheld for all other investigations.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said the findings showed many pre-conceived ideas about the people affected by homelessness simply no longer ring true, describing a shift towards more people in professions such as nursing being affected.

Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Show all 8 1 /8 Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Janela, 27, is 27 weeks pregnant and lives in temporary accommodation with her six year old son. She works 12-hour night shifts in a packing warehouse in Birmingham. Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Suleman works in IT and has been living in emergency accommodation since June 2014 with his wife and two children. His youngest, only 2, was born while they were living in the hotel. Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Sarah*, 40, was living in one room in a B&B with her husband and children, including her three-month old baby: We sleep on the bed, they play on the bed, we eat on the bed. Theres just no place for anything. For her daughter Shauna*, 13, the shame she felt at being homeless impacted on her friendships at school: I dont tell them because in the end you cant trust a friendthey could spread rumours about you. I cant explain anything to anyone. I go to school with a smile on my face. * Names have been changed to protect the individuals identity Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Maria* and her two daughters (15 and 5) lived in a B&B for more than 9 months, before being moved out of area in October. Her oldest daughter is a wheelchair user and had no access to a bath as the bathroom was on a different floor. Maria had to bathe her in a tub in the bedroom. * Names have been changed to protect the individuals identity Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Nicola and her three children have spent the last 9 months in temporary accommodation. She said: We're so squashed in this cold, damp place. I say place because neither myself nor the children call this 'home'. It's full of mould and the kids are constantly ill from the damp. I'm trying to do the best that I can with what I have. I'm training to be a teacher, attending counselling sessions and trying to be the best mum I can to my babies but living like this is getting too much. Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Nathan, 28, has been homeless for three months, and until recently was living in a Travelodge on the side of a motorway with his 16-month old son, where he only had access to a kettle: Theres milk and stuff, but theres no microwave. Its pretty hard to make food. Ive got to get the jars and stick it in the kettle, and then put the kettle on to warm it up, so thats the best way to feed him. Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas For Geraldine, 45, and her 13-year-old daughter Hannah*, living in an emergency B&B has taken a huge toll on their mental and emotional wellbeing: My daughter has felt very suicidal. I took her to the GP. Theyve referred her to the psychologist. Shes constantly breaking down crying. I had to take her to A&E on two occasions because shes having problems, she keeps getting palpitations. She shakes. * Names have been changed to protect the individuals identity Shelter Shelter - Homeless this Christmas Homeless this Christmas Mariam, her two teenage sons and 4 year old daughter Zara were living in a B&B for nearly three months, before being moved to temporary accommodation in November. Both places have been extremely cold and Mariam is concerned for Zaras health, as she suffers from asthma and anaemia. Shelter

He added: Many of these families are being placed in poor quality accommodation, for periods significantly longer than the six-week legal limit. And were seeing signs the problems are growing more acute, particularly with an increase in the length of time families are having to stay in temporary accommodation.

More worrying still, we are finding that many families are not being told of their review rights when placed in unsuitable accommodation, so they have no information on how to challenge the decision and improve their circumstances.

In response to the findings, Melanie Onn, Labours Shadow Housing Minister, said: Thousands of children are left in bed and breakfasts for more than the legal six week limit, due to the Governments failure to build enough affordable homes.

Temporary accommodation is no place to raise a family, but unfortunately it is reality for an increasing number of people as homelessness continues to grow under the Tories. Ministers must back Labours national plan to end the homelessness crisis.

Liberal Democrat local communities spokesperson Wera Hobhouse echoed her concerns, saying: This shocking report shows the housing crisis is pushing thousands families into homelessness right across the country.

Homelessness is continuing to rise but still the Government is failing to act. In Theresa Mays Britain, nurses are not only being forced to go to food banks but some are becoming homeless too.

We urgently need to see more investment in social housing, and stronger protections to prevent families being evicted by heartless landlords.

Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Associations (LGA) housing spokesman, said the research demonstrated the immense pressures faced by councils in the face of housing becoming increasingly unaffordable.

This research demonstrates that housing is becoming more and more unaffordable, and that urgent measures are needed to tackle our national shortage of affordable homes," he said.

Councils are facing immense pressures when it comes to temporary accommodation, having to house the equivalent of an extra secondary schools worth of homeless children every month, and the cost of providing temporary accommodation has trebled in the last three years, he said.

Local authorities do all they can to place people in the best accommodation available, but the reality is that with limited housing options, councils often find themselves having to extend stays in temporary accommodation, as the only alternative is that families and individuals find themselves out on the streets.

Cllr Tett said that with limited housing stock and a 5.8bn overall funding shortfall by 2020, councils were doing all they can to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, but said they need more funding and resources from central government.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 November 2022 Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, London, for the House of Commons to deliver his autumn statement PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2022 Emma Woolf, great niece of British author Virginia Woolf, and her son Ludovic sit next to a new bronze statue of Woolf, unveiled in Richmond, London Reuters 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

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: Tackling homelessness is a complex issue with no single solution, but we are determined to help the most vulnerable in society.

Thats why we are providing over 1bn up to 2020 to prevent and reduce all forms of homelessness and rough sleeping. We are also bringing in the Homelessness Reduction Act - the most ambitious legislation in decades that will mean people get the support they need earlier.

Councils have a duty to provide safe, secure and suitable temporary accommodation.
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Scotland's 50p minimum price for a unit of alcohol will lead to "substantial increases" in prices, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

A briefing note from the economic research unit suggests that the price of a 20 x 440ml pack of Strongbow will double, while a bottle of Tesco cream sherry will increase by 20 per cent.

Sparkling wine and Perry, the alcoholic beverage made from fomented pears, which is currently priced below 50p per unit will see an average price increase of 119 per cent, it said.

Cider will see an average rise of 89.5 per cent, and lager 43.8 per cent, it added.

The IFS found that almost 70 per cent of alcohol units bought in supermarkets and off-licences across the UK between October 2015 and September 2016 cost less than 50p. The new law will see an average price increase of 35.1 per cent for all alcohol units currently less than 50p.

Legislation was approved by the Scottish Parliament five years ago but has been tied up in court challenges.

Ministers said a 50p-per-unit minimum would help tackle Scotland's "unhealthy relationship with drink" by raising the price of cheap, high-strength alcohol.

But it was challenged the Scotch Whisky association, eventually reaching the Supreme Court, where seven judges ruled that the legislation did not breach European Union law in November.

After the ruling Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that she was "absolutely delighted" by the ruling, adding that it was "bold and necessary move to improve public health".

The minimum pricing policy come into force on 1 May 2018.

Wales' government is also set to introduce a minimum price and health campaigners have called for England to follow suit.

Table shows average price increases for units of alcohol currently priced less than 50p (IFS)

The IFS suggested a wider review of the "chaotic" alcohol duty system could be a better approach to tackling problem drinkers than a minimum unit price.

"Tax reform is likely to avoid the main drawback of minimum unit pricing, which is that it boosts the profits of the alcohol industry," the body said.

The analysis showed the 50p level would have a "substantial impact on off-trade alcohol prices".

 Spirits most likely type of alcohol to make people aggressive, study finds

The IFS's paper said heavy drinkers "do tend to buy cheap alcohol", suggesting a minimum unit price may be "reasonably well targeted at this group". But it said the policy's impact will depend on how much the price increase puts off consumers.

In an indication that lager and cider drinkers will be most affected, the analysis showed that 86 per cent of units of lager were currently sold below the 50p minimum price and 79.7 per cent of cider.

Fortified wines are also expected to increase in price, with 71.5 per cent of units sold at below the 50p rate.

"The costs of anti-social drinking are high and concentrated among heavy drinkers," said Martin O'Connell, an associate director at the IFS.

The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 10. Poland Results from an OECD report The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 9. Germany The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 8. Luxembourg Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 7. France The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 6. Hungary Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 5. Russia AFP/Getty Images The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 4. Czech Republic The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 3. Estonia Rex Features The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 2. Austria Getty Images The 10 countries that drink the most alcohol 1. Lithuania AFP/Getty Images

"Heavy drinkers, when buying alcohol in supermarkets and off-licences, tend to choose products that are cheaper per unit than more moderate drinkers.

"A minimum unit price would therefore target a higher share of the units that heavy drinkers buy. However, the policy will lead to substantial increases in alcohol prices that will also impact on many moderate drinkers."

Additional reporting by PA
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A London council has called on the Government to revoke its state visit invitation to the bigoted US President after he shared messages from a far-right group.

A motion passed by the Royal Borough of Greenwich vowed that Donald Trump would not be welcome in the area if the engagement goes ahead.

Councillors said they were alarmed by Donald Trumps decision to retweet Islamophobic posts by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First.

Council further notes with sadness the Presidents bigoted attitude towards women and ethnic minorities which has resulted in examples of division and hatred within the US, it continued.

As such, Council calls upon the Government to abandon plans to invite Donald Trump on a state visit to the UK.

Councillors said the huge security costs of the trip should be paid instead to charities that promote peace and understanding, such as the Jo Cox Foundation.

The Labour MP was murdered days before the Brexit referendum last year by a far-right extremist who shouted Britain first during his brutal assault.

 Donald Trump criticised for Britain First retweets

Her husband, Brendan Cox, was among those condemning Mr Trumps retweets with the warning: Spreading hatred has consequences.

The Twitter storm sparked calls for reprisals from MPs of all parties who took part in an urgent Commons debate, where many called for the state visit to be stopped.

Theresa Mays spokesperson said it was wrong for the President to share Ms Fransens tweets, sparking a diplomatic spat that saw Mr Trump return to Twitter telling her to concentrate on sorting out radical Islamic terrorism.

But the state visit invitation still stands, as does a separate invite from the US ambassador on a working visit to the UK for the opening of the new London embassy in early 2018.

Downing Street told The Independent it could not confirm when the state visit would take place, adding: The invitation has been extended and accepted, and further details will be announced in due course.

Mass protests and disruption are expected to greet the visit, with the Speaker of the House of Commons vetoing a presidential address following in the footsteps of Barack Obama.

Greenwich council said the President would not be welcome in the historic borough, which has been the setting for several recent Hollywood films, adding: This boroughs commitment to maintaining a strong and vibrant community is incompatible with the ideology and policies espoused by President Trump.

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

It also cited his Twitter attack on London mayor Sadiq Khan within hours of the London Bridge terror attack in June among reasons for the refusal.

Chris Kirby, the councillor who presented the motion at a full council meeting on Wednesday, said debate among 270,000 Greenwich residents and across the UK must not be poisoned by Mr Trumps rhetoric.

President Trump has regularly expressed abhorrent and aggressive views and in doing so has enabled the spread of division and hatred, he said.

We have stood up and made our position clear: there is no place for aggressive, bigoted and hateful rhetoric in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Several councillors in the meeting spoke of memories of racist murders and marches by the far-right British National Party in the early 1990s.

Denise Hyland, leader of the council, said Greenwich works with all communities to celebrate difference and be a welcoming place.

But in the case of President Trump we are willing to make an exception, she added. Diversity enriches our lives on a daily basiswe have no time for people who want to build walls, when we have done so much to break them down.
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The UKs health watchdog has recommended against vaginal mesh as a treatment for pelvic organ prolapse.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) ruled that evidence for the long-term efficacy of the treatment is inadequate in quality and quantity.

It mirrors Australias recent decision to ban mesh implants specifically to treat prolapse, declaring them too risky.

The new Nice guidelines state that, while the devices can still be used to treat stress-urinary incontinence (SUI) and to repair hernias in men or women, mesh repair for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) should only be used for research purposes.

While the NHS is not compelled to act on these guidelines, device expert Professor Carl Heneghan believes it will amount to a de facto ban  but says it comes too late.

Around 10,000 UK women a year are implanted with a plastic mesh device, which is inserted into the walls of the vagina to treat incontinence and prolapse  common side effects following childbirth. Both men and women have also received mesh implants to treat hernias.

The Nice statement reads: Current evidence on the safety of transvaginal mesh repair of anterior or posterior vaginal wall prolapse shows there are serious but well-recognised safety concerns.

Evidence of long-term efficacy is inadequate in quality and quantity. Therefore, this procedure should only be used in the context of research.

This falls short of the updated guidelines in New Zealand, which this week became the first country to ban all vaginal mesh procedures.

Nice has also published eight interventional procedure guidelines (IPGs) on mesh, which state that a further five procedures should only be offered with special measures in place for patient consent.

It is the latest development in the vaginal mesh scandal, a treatment that has been called the new thalidomide.

An estimated 10-20 per cent of women with mesh implants have suffered severe side effects. The plastic is known to erode and disintegrate, and can slice through organs and vaginal walls.

Some women are unable to walk or stand properly, and almost all affected report chronic pain, infections and loss of sex life.

At least one woman has died following complications from her mesh implant. 42-year-old Chrissy Brajcic, of Ontario, Canada, was left bedridden and in constant pain after the procedure, which was to treat minor incontinence.

Brajcic eventually became resistant to antibiotics used to treat her recurrent infections. She contracted sepsis and died of organ failure.

Recommended The vaginal mesh scandal has claimed its first victim

The risk rate of mesh to treat prolapse has been shown to be far higher than for incontinence or hernia: around 40 per cent.

Evidence has also shown that the devices were inadequately trialled and insufficiently regulated. A recent BBC Panorama investigation discovered that one device was only trialled on 31 woman and some sheep.

It also revealed that doctors were not fully informed of risks by mesh providers Ethicon  a subsidiary of multinational firm Johnson & Johnson, which is currently being sued by thousands of women with mesh complications.

Nice recommended that any side effects should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA still maintains that only 1-2 per cent of women with mesh implants suffer side effects.

Christian Beadell, a senior solicitor at Fletchers Solicitors, a medical negligence law firm that has been dealing with many mesh claims, told The Independent the new guidelines send a clear message.

Uncertainty over the outcome of these types of procedures is an important factor that patients are often not being made aware of, he said.

A move to reclassify these procedures as research sends a clear message that certain mesh use must be seen as experimental, and that the relative pros and cons may be indeterminable at this stage.

Dr Sohier Elneil, urogynaecologist, mesh expert and former Nice board member, told Sky News: The recommendations by Nice are highly significant, as I think they will make us all re-evaluate the way we use mesh.

I think there will be a snowball effect because people will look very carefully at the product per se rather than the application, because we know the product has its own problems; its a foreign substance and obviously reacts with the tissue around it.

Recommended Why men should be worried about the vaginal mesh NHS scandal

But the updated guidelines will not satisfy campaigners or the All Party Parliamentary Group on Surgical Mesh Implants, chaired by MP Owen Smith, which has been pushing for a full suspension of mesh procedures.

Mr Smith told The Independent that while hes pleased that Nice has listened to women, looked at the emerging evidence and changed their mind about the risk associated with the use of mesh in treating prolapse, they should have gone further and followed New Zealand in banning it altogether for pelvic operations.

Nice now need to take notice of that decision and speed up their guidelines on use of mesh to treat incontinence, he added.

It just isnt reasonable of them to say they cant produce that guideline for another 18 months.

Prominent campaigner Kath Sansom, founder of the group Sling the Mesh, said: By restricting the use of prolapse mesh to research only, its effectively a backdoor ban.

But it needs to go further to include the hundreds of women who suffer everyday from mesh used to treat stress incontinence. They need to be taken seriously.

In October, the group took the issue to Parliament, calling for a suspension pending a full inquiry into the scandal. However, the Government refused both.

Ms Sansom told The Independent: The media train keeps rolling, and slowly this scandal is being unravelled. It is a convoluted mess of aggressive marketing, surgeons having ties to industry and an NHS who thought it was the quick, cheap-fix dream.

In fact, it creates a long-term nightmare of ruined lives and expensive fixes for women who are on medication for life, in a constant search to try to ease the debilitating pain and infections.

Former Scottish health secretary Alex Neil, who pushed for a full ban back in 2014, recently described the vaginal mesh scandal as a global catastrophe.

In response to the new guidelines, a Department of Health spokesperson said: We recognise that some women are suffering from very serious and debilitating complications as a result of this treatment; therefore, we support the updated guidelines from Nice.

We also want to offer reassurance to the thousands of women who have been helped by these implants and we make sure that any concerns raised are acted on swiftly and effectively by the NHS.

The Independent has contacted NHS England for comment.
Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Boris Johnson has been filmed drinking a can of peach juice from Fukushima, the Japanese region hit by nuclear disaster after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The video, tweeted by his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono, shows the Foreign Secretary chugging the can at the Foreign Office in London this week.

Very good Mmm, he said, before studying the can, a gift from Mr Kono.

The moment was intended to prove that food and drink from Fukushima is safe, seven years after the meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear energy plant  the most serious nuclear incident since the 1988 Chernobyl disaster.

More than 50 countries imposed import bans on regional produce following the accident, around half of which remain in place, including restrictions from the US and China.

Earlier this month, the EU said it would ease import restrictions on agricultural items and seafood from the region.

Research published last year showed the radiation released by the disaster may have lingering effects on fish  but that the risk posed to human beings through consumption, in part thanks to strong regulation, is minimal.

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 study, published in the journal PNAS, shows that freshwater fish and ocean bottom dwellers near Fukushima have a higher risk of contamination with the radioactive chemical caesium than most other types of ocean fish in the same area.

The risk diminishes the further away the fish are from the citys nuclear facilities  and the research showed there was a relatively low risk of people in Japan consuming contaminated fish.

The former London mayor is not the first politician to publicly consume food or drink thought to involve health risks, in an effort to prove it is safe.

In 1990, then-Minister of Agriculture John Gummer enlisted his four-year-old daughter to eat a burger with him as part of attempts to demonstrate British beef did not present a danger to peoples health  amid growing fears over Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly referred to as mad cow disease.
Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Theresa May is set to escape another defeat on the Brexit Bill, under a last-gasp compromise on her plans to cement the exact withdrawal date in domestic law.

Pro-EU Tories had vowed to fight the idea  in a showdown next Wednesday  warning it would be harder for Parliament to force a change of course if the exit talks break down.

The development left the Prime Minister facing the prospect of a second defeat on the flagship EU (Withdrawal) Bill  just days after her humiliation over a meaningful vote on the exit deal.

Now an amendment has been tabled, apparently with No 10s support, which is likely to allow Ms May to save face, while putting Parliament in control of the process.

The planned date and time  11pm on 29 March 2019  would still be on the face of the Bill, as the Prime Minister pledged in a blaze of publicity last month.

However, MPs would be given the power to amend the definition of exit day at a later date, providing the potential for the UK to ask the EU to extend the Article 50 negotiations if necessary.

The early indications were that both pro and anti-EU Tory MPs would get behind the change, saving the party from another bitter public split next week.

Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General who led this weeks revolt, told the BBC that the new amendment left him fairly satisfied.

Paul Masterton, another likely rebel, tweeted: Pleased to see a sensible amendment to the Withdrawal Bill that gives us flexibility on Brexit date if we need it.

Look forward to adding my name to it on Monday and hope it draws support across the Party.

The amendment has been tabled by Oliver Letwin, a former Cabinet minister loyal to the leadership and likely to be acting with its backing.

Significantly, it has also been put forward by Bernard Jenkin  a leading hard Brexit supporter.

Ms May herself had hinted at rowing back just 24 hours earlier, when she twice ducked questions asking if she was preparing to compromise.

When she announced her amendment to put the Brexit date on the Bill, she described it as firm proof she would not tolerate dissent  making it hard to climb down.

But Dominic Grieve  who described the move as incoherent and thoroughly stupid  had warned of inevitable defeat if she did not.

The pro-EU Best for Britain group described it as yet another U-turn by this chaotic Government.

Whether its May U-turning on Ireland or finally agreeing to scrap the preposterous exit date, this Government has shown again and again it is way out of its depth on Brexit, said chief executive Eloise Todd.

Thats why we need No Brexit on the table, so we have a safety net if the Tories approach to Brexit continues in this way.

The Government is still considering its response to this weeks defeat, which will prevent it putting through regulations to implement Brexit until MPs have had a meaningful vote.

David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, warned it left a very compressed timetable for a smooth and orderly exit.
 Close Donald Tusk: 'We need some more clarity on how the UK sees our future relations'

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

European leaders have formally agreed to move to the next stage of the Brexit negotiations after deeming sufficient progress has been made on key issues.

It now provides Theresa May with the green light to discuss transitional arrangements with the EU 27 and the overall framework for the future relationship.

Announcing the breakthrough at a news conference, the European Commission President Donald Tusk also said congratulations to the Prime Minister on the new progress.

After meeting with her EU counterparts on Thursday, Ms May flew back to the UK in the evening after attending the EU summit, where she spoke over dinner of her wish to move to the next stage of the talks.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the applause came because some of us felt, including me, that she did make a big effort and this has to be recognised.

Back in her constituency on Friday, Ms May declared she is well on the road to delivering Brexit after the crucial agreement was formally reached.

Recommended EU leaders agree to move to next phase of Brexit talks

She said Britain would be beginning the talks about our future relationship straight away, adding: There is still more to do but we are well on the road to delivering a Brexit that will make Britain strong, prosperous and secure.

This liveblog is now closed but you can see Fridays developments below.
I first heard about the legend of Susans Bluff over 40 years ago from Oliver Perondi, a fellow employee at the Nevada Department of Transportation. We were traveling east on Highway 50 a few miles east of Dayton when he pointed to a mountain off to the south and told me that it was called Susans Bluff. We often amused ourselves when traveling across the desert by pointing out landmarks and telling stories about them.

Ollie then related to me the story of how Susans Bluff got its name. The year was 1849, and a large party of pioneers was making its way across the untamed expanse of Nevada desert to California. One of the families was the OBrien family, consisting of a father, a mother, a 12-year-old son named Mike and a 15-year-old daughter named Susan.

Already, the group had narrowly escaped disaster in the Goose Creek area, near whats now the Utah border, when a band of Indians tried to demand food and whiskey from the women and children. The men were away on a hunting trip to obtain meat for the wagon train. Young Susan showed her extreme courage when she pulled out two guns the family had hidden away and turned them on the intruders. When the Indians saw the resolve of the girl, they backed away and left the encampment without further incident.

The wagons continued along the Humboldt River and split into two groups at Lassens Meadows, with a few taking the cutoff to Oregon. The others, including the OBriens, continued on to the Humboldt Sink near present-day Lovelock. From there, they crossed the dreaded Forty Mile Desert and arrived at the Carson River near Ragtown. Like most other pioneer families, the OBriens stayed at Ragtown for a few days to rest the animals, wash the desert dust from their clothes and make preparations for the final push over the Sierras to California.

After the welcome rest, the OBriens took the lead in the wagon train. They resumed their journey down the dusty California Trail along the Carson River toward what now is Dayton. When the party reached the Break-a-Heart Ranch, the advance wagons were attacked by Indians.

The attack was so sudden, and there was no way to escape in the narrow Carson River Canyon, so the pioneers were not able to put up much of a fight. Susan OBrien had to stand by, helpless to do anything, while the Indians killed her mother and father. Her 12-year-old brother, Mike, was brutally tomahawked. Susan was finally able to conceal herself in a trunk in one of the wagons.

It was just a matter of time. The Indians ransacked all the belongings of the immigrants. Eventually, they discovered Susan hidden in the trunk. They dragged her up the steep north slope of the canyon, badly scratching her in the brush and rocks along the way. She was held captive while the Indians gathered up all the livestock the family had brought.

At the end of the day, battered Susan was given to the Indian chief. When the guards fell asleep that evening, she decided to make a desperate dash for her freedom. Unfortunately, the captors woke up and chased after her.

Susan realized she was too badly injured to escape the guards who were quickly gaining on her as she ran across the plateau above the Carson River Canyon. Determined to not be taken alive, the girl made a dash for the edge of the rocky bluff overlooking the river. With her last ounce of strength, Susan hurled herself over the cliff to be smashed to death on the rocks far below.

When the other wagons in the party finally reached the scene of the tragedy, they buried Susan OBrien and the other victims of the massacre. They named the cliff where she made her final plunge Susans Bluff in her honor.

Visitors can see Susans Bluff by taking U.S. 50 east of Dayton and turning right at Fort Churchill Road. It is just about seven miles to the fateful cliff along the north side of the Carson River Canyon.

Fort Churchill Road is a dirt road, but it can be traveled easily with a passenger car. The scenery is spectacular through the canyon with farms and ranches along the way and large stands of the Fremont poplars. You likely will see deer and wild horses along the way.

If you have time, just a little further down the road are the ruins of Fort Churchill. This expansive adobe fort, now partially restored, was built in 1860 to protect the burgeoning immigrant population from attacks such as those described above. This is just one of hundreds of small side trips that make visits to Nevada so interesting.
Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The Cabinet Office has ruled out an investigation into trips taken by Brexit Secretary David Davis after his department spent tens of thousands of pounds jetting him around Europe.

Newly released data shows his officials spent almost 50,000 in less than a year for 11 trips that involved RAF flights to shuttle Mr Davis to European capitals.

On two occasions the Brexit Secretarys department booked trips to Brussels costing some 2,500  including one which saw Mr Davis criticised after being pictured at talks without any work papers in front of him.

Recommended Warwick University Conservative Association sack David Davis on air

A Cabinet Office source said: "There is no question of an investigation. This is a politically motivated attack without substance."

In a letter seen by The Independent, Stephen Doughty MP asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to investigate whether Mr Daviss travel breached the ministerial code, which demands it to be cost-effective.

He went on: After seven years of austerity, the British people rightly expect those who govern our country to do everything they can to minimise the cost of their transport to the public purse wherever possible  not least when huge cuts are being threatened to our armed forces.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 17 November 2022 Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 11 Downing Street, London, for the House of Commons to deliver his autumn statement PA UK news in pictures 16 November 2022 Emma Woolf, great niece of British author Virginia Woolf, and her son Ludovic sit next to a new bronze statue of Woolf, unveiled in Richmond, London Reuters 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

Of course David Daviss role requires frequent travel to European capitals, but there is no reason why he could not use cheaper commercial services.

Mr Doughty, a leading supporter of Open Britain, said on Friday: The public voted for Brexit to save money for our public services, not blow it on Air David Davis.

It was claimed in a political book earlier this year that Downing Street allowed Mr Davis to use the Governments fleet of RAF jets after he threatened not to undertake negotiating trips to Europe otherwise, though it was dismissed as gossip by the ministers aides.

The newly released data shows that between December 2016 and September 2017, the Brexit Secretary and his team used RAF planes during 11 trips.

The most expensive was a trip to Brussels, Madrid and Rome for policy discussions in June costing more than 9,000 for Mr Davis and three officials to travel.

Davis meets chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier with no working papers (EPA) (EPA/Thierry Charlier/Pool)

Then in July of this year he flew to Brussels with two officials on what was described at the time as a lightning trip, ahead of the second round of Brexit talks.

It cost 2,526 for all three to fly, though a return ticket on the Eurostar can at times be booked for as little as 65 per person.

It was after this trip that Mr Davis was mocked as having no plan, when he was pictured sitting at what appeared to be the Brexit negotiating table with no documents, while his EU counterpart Michel Barnier thumbed a thick file of papers.

A few days later Mr Davis went back to Brussels with more officials, a travelling group of five in total, but did one of the legs on the Eurostar, with the total travel costs coming in lower, at 2,411, despite the higher headcount.

 David Davis on Brexit: 'You don't have to be very clever to do my job'

A spokesman from the Brexit Department said the Secretary of State often uses other means of travel when appropriate, such as the Eurostar, adding that he has also taken a number of commercial flights.

The spokesman said: The Brexit negotiations are critical to the nations future and it is absolutely right that the Secretary of State has access to whatever mode of transport is most appropriate.

RAF aircraft have been used to transport senior ministers from governments over many years because they provide security, flexibility and value for money, especially when travelling in large groups and in multi-legged trips.

It was reported earlier this month that the Ministry of Defence had banned Philip Hammond from using the fleet of RAF aircraft, because the Treasury owed a six-figure sum to the MoD for previous flights.

Liam Fox leaves 10 Downing Street (AFP/Getty) (Getty)

The nearly 23,000 of public money spent by Mr Fox on overseas trips included nearly 9,000 to visit the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

A spokesman from his department said: As an international economic department, we are responsible for promoting exports and inward investment from around the world. Over the last year we have achieved record inward investment and helped encourage UK exports worth more than 550bn.

Our staff are located across more than one hundred countries and as we prepare to leave the EU, youd expect our ministers to travel overseas to build relationships with key global trading partners.
Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Emergency shelters will open on every day of sub-zero temperatures in London, under a new drive by Sadiq Khan to tackle rough sleeping.

The Mayor of London also announced a new alliance of charities in order to set up a single donation point for Londoners.

Work has also begun on a rapid response hub to help ensure first-time rough sleepers never have to sleep out for a second night.

The move comes after Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn clashed in the Commons over the rise in rough sleeping, as the problem rises up the political agenda.

Mr Khan said: Weve already started to make progress in London, but its still shocking that so many people in our city feel they have no choice but to sleep on the streets.

We must continue to take action because one person sleeping rough is always one too many.

The Mayor said that, under rules inherited from his predecessor Boris Johnson, shelters only opened when three consecutive days of freezing temperatures were forecast.

Now agreement has been reached with the 33 London boroughs for their shelters to be available on the first day of sub-zero temperatures.

The number of rough sleepers in London doubled from 3,975 in 2010-11 to more than 8,000 in 2015-16, but that rise has now been effectively halted, City Hall said.

Meanwhile, Mr Khan announced the bringing together of 18 experienced charities to form a coalition, called the London Homeless Charities Group.

It would provide an easily accessible single donation point, with all funds generated going equally to all 18 charities to direct vital services for rough sleepers where they are needed most. Donations can be made at www.london.gov.uk/help-rough-sleepers

I know there are millions of Londoners who want to do something to help rough sleepers get off the streets for good, Mr Khan added.

As Mayor, I am investing in services right across the capital and doing everything within my power to tackle this issue.

Mr Khan is launching the campaign on a visit to start work on the new No Second Night Out permanent hub in Hackney, to open early next year.

Work on a second hub in Lewisham, including short-term accommodation for people who cannot be helped immediately, will begin in the spring.

In the Commons on Wednesday, the Labour leader told the Prime Minister: Homelessness is up by 50 per cent and rough sleeping has doubled. Homelessness and rough sleeping have risen every single year since 2010.

In reply, Ms May argued the Government was putting in place several projects that will deal with the issue of rough sleeping.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

They all decided they wanted to become preachers and enrolled in seminary to learn how to spread the Gospel. They chose one of the most prominent evangelical seminaries in the country.

Yet here they were, these four young preachers-in-training from the Midwest, the South and the Northwest, hanging around after listening to sermons in class. They were debating whether they wanted to be the one thing Fuller Theological Seminary is known for: evangelicals.

It's still a painful identity for me, coming from this election, said Paul Johnson, one of the students at Fuller.

Discomfort with the term evangelical began in some quarters with the Moral Majority in the Reagan years, which helped make evangelical synonymous with the Republican Party. Ever since, evangelicals have disagreed with each other about mixing faith and politics.

Such debates intensified last year when President Donald Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they weren't sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.

Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. The term has come to represent white Republicans and... sometimes close-mindedness and superiority, said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastor's wife in South Carolina.

Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees a mass exodus from the label in her community. The terms feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who don't align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences, she said.

At Princeton University, a campus group changed its decades-old name this year from Princeton Evangelical Fellowship to simply Princeton Christian Fellowship.

For years, believers have debated whether Republican politics and culture-war battles have diluted the essence of their label evangelical - which means spreading the Gospel.

The term evangelical became popular decades ago as a way to tamp down differences, emphasising that all people under its umbrella, regardless of denomination, agree to embrace the Bible and spread its word. But politicians such as Trump and Moore have shown how elusive shared faith and values are today.

Evangelicals make up a huge portion of the American population - about one-quarter of the country. An increasing number of Hispanic Christians have come to describe themselves as evangelical in the past decade. While white evangelicals' numbers have been shrinking - with surveys suggesting a decline of between 2 percent and 6 percent over the past decade - it's too soon to say from demographic data to what degree a Trump effect may have changed the number of people who identify as evangelical.

But on Fuller Seminary's palm-tree-lined campus, as in other major evangelical institutions across the country, debate over the term has bubbled to the forefront, especially among younger members of the faith.

When I say that I'm an evangelical now, I always qualify it, Johnson said. Reports that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for [Trump], that's an offensive statistic for me and something I feel obligated to apologize for. I don't want to be connected to that.

Johnson and the other students hanging out after homiletics class found themselves discussing the four-part definition of evangelical faith, articulated by historian David Bebbington: obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority, belief in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the source of salvation, the necessity of a personal born-again conversion experience, and work to spread the Gospel.

Historically, that definition has helped to distinguish many evangelical churches from more theologically liberal mainline Protestant churches, as well as from stricter fundamentalist churches. But in practice, many evangelicals don't fully embrace those four tenets, and many people who do would never call themselves evangelical. The differences often come down to cultural factors for self-described evangelicals - such as personal piety or beliefs on sexuality. Or race, for black Christians who share those fourfold beliefs but often don't use the term evangelical to describe themselves because of its historical and modern association with racism and the Republican Party.

I think when we start throwing around terms like 'evangelical' to the outside, it can be really ostracising, said Peter Heilman, a 29-year-old pastor-to-be leaning his tattooed elbows on his ripped blue jeans. He grew up labelling himself lots of ways: conservative, Republican, evangelical. But interning in a more politically and racially diverse church has convinced him to drop those words - he's concerned people won't listen to him preach if they disagree with his politics.

You have to understand the people you're speaking to and what's going to allow them to keep open ears, he said. When it comes down to it, labels can be a dangerous thing.

His classmate Savannah Sturgeon, a 24-year-old Nashville, Tennessee, native, replied, I'm not ready to give up the term 'evangelical,' and Heilman asked, Why do you need the name if it has a negative connotation?

It's biblical. We didn't make it up, Sturgeon said. To abandon it now is to say this decade has ruined it for us.

But many fear that the association between evangelicals and Trump, a historically unpopular first-year president, has deeply damaged the reputation of evangelicals.

In recent years, Americans have expressed more positive feelings towards nearly all religious groups, except for evangelicals. In a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, Americans expressed greater approval than in 2014 for every religious group - Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, atheists and more - except for evangelicals, who stayed flat at a 61 percent approval rating.

In the past, evangelical was a useful marker of theological and cultural similarities across denominations - a word providing something broader than Southern Baptist but more specific than Christian.

The term evangelical has helped parents comb through book catalogues, choose schools for their children and decide what charities to support. Ministries such as World Vision and Samaritan's Purse receive the bulk of their donations from evangelicals. Book publishers such as Zondervan and InterVarsity Press publish primarily for evangelicals. Institutions such as Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Wheaton College draw primarily from evangelical students.

Shorthands have always been helpful, said Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton, in Illinois. The question is, 'Do I want to be affiliated with that?' when terms have been redefined, either when it's been hijacked or misunderstood.

American evangelicals have never been unanimous on social and political issues, dating back centuries, when evangelical leaders split over their views of slavery. To throw out the term because of some problems in the past several years is so shortsighted, said Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty, which once described itself as a fundamentalist school but has shifted to call itself evangelical.

Unlike the Catholic Church, evangelicals have no centralized hierarchy or leader, which Prior fears could make them more vulnerable to collapse than other religious traditions.

White evangelicals tend to strongly oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but they don't necessarily agree on issues such as climate change or tax policy. The political environment hasn't caused the divisions among evangelicals, but it's highlighted the divisions that were already there, said Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, who was an early supporter of Trump. Christians are going to have to decide what's foundational to their faith.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was evangelical momentum behind progressive causes and candidates, including Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who described himself using the evangelical term born again. But with the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, the ties between white evangelicalism and the Republican Party strengthened.

Support for Trump is not a departure from the past several decades of evangelical political behaviour, said Heath Carter, a historian at Valparaiso University. The reality is that evangelicals have always been willing to look past, if not outright embrace, questionable behaviours and tactics in the candidates they support, he said, pointing to evangelical support for Ronald Reagan, who was divorced and didn't attend church.

Emmett Price, a professor who focuses on African-American studies at the prominent evangelical seminary Gordon-Conwell in Massachusetts, said he worries that white Christians who are abandoning the term are only looking to avoid the negative associations, not to reform their communities. If they're concerned that politics have tarred evangelicals as racist, he said, they ought to be focused on making evangelical churches less racist - not on calling themselves something else.

There's a desire to detach from the political landscape right now. If one wanted to go and essentially fight somewhere for inclusivity, one would stay in that space and invite others in, he said. Ditching a term is simply ditching a term.

At Fuller, seminary president Mark Labberton said his students used to be more willing to stay within the broad tent of evangelicalism and hash out their differences.

You could say, 'I'm an evangelical, and I'm part of the religious right,' or, 'I'm evangelical, and I'm not part of the religious right,' he said. In the Reagan era... people would have understood that those two things are separate. I think that really changed with the 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump.

Now students are rethinking how they identify. Am I part of a movement that identifies with things I actually think are personally and theologically repellent to me? he hears them asking. If somehow I've gotten caught up in a movement like that...I could try to endlessly unpack it, or I could just abandon it.

Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Show all 12 1 /12 Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic senatorial candidate Doug Jones speaks to reporters after voting Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore (L) and his wife Kayla ride their horses to the polling station to vote AFP/Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones David Watson waves in a Santa suit as he holds a Doug Jones sign AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore speaks to the media as his wife Kayla (R) looks on AFP/Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones casts his vote at Brookwood Baptist Church REUTERS Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Roy Moore speaks to the media after he rode in on a horse to vote AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic candidate Doug Jones greets supporters after casting his ballot AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore departs on horseback after he cast his ballot in Gallant REUTERS Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Voters wait in line to cast their ballot at a polling station setup in the St Thomas Episcopal Church Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Senatorial candidate Doug Jones (L) greets voters outside of a polling station at the Bessemer Civic Center Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Voters exit after casting their ballots at a polling station setup in the Fire Department Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones speaks with the media after casting his vote at Brookwood Baptist Church Reuters

For his part, he thinks the label still has value, as he tries to sum up the theology that people from many different denominations who gather on Fuller's campus have in common.

What word do you put in its place? There's no adequate or obviously adequate word to do that, he said. I'm 'an orthodox Christian who cares deeply about being a follower of Jesus and wants to live with an open posture of engagement with culture.' That's not as tidy as simply saying, 'evangelical.'

He's editing a book that compiles essays from theologically conservative Christians across a political spectrum. The book's title? Still Evangelical.

The Washington Post
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Former President Obama now has a new title - and its Santa Claus.

Showing off his holiday spirit on Thursday, Barack Obama proved he makes a pretty cool Father Christmas when he donned a leather jacket and a Santa hat during a visit to the Boys & Girls Club in Washington, DC.

Visiting 50 middle school students at the Jelleff Club in Northeast Washington, the former president looked full of Christmas joy as he laughed and posed with the students.

In addition to cracking smiles and shaking hands with adults and kids alike, Obama immersed himself in the role of Santa.

The former president completed the look with a present-laden green sack tied with a purple ribbon from which he handed out presents to the kids.

The best present, however, may have been the opportunity to meet and talk with the former president, who stayed and chatted with the middle-schoolers for half an hour.

The children, who were there to take part in after-school activities at their local branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs, seemed overjoyed during the visit with Barack Obama-Claus.

Clearly at home in his new role, Obama shared a photo of the occasion on social media, along with the caption, Theres no better time than the holiday season to reach out and give back to our communities. Great to hear from young people at the Boys & Girls Club in DC today.

Obamas picture features him sporting a huge grin, surrounded by happy children, with one child perched in his lap.

But even when hes not dressed as Santa, Obama makes sure to make time for the children - since leaving the White House in January, he and former first lady Michelle Obama have visited four other DC schools and community centres unannounced.

While it is common knowledge the former president has a soft spot for children, it is clear from their smiling faces that the feelings are mutual.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A firefighter with a baby on the way was killed while working the California wildfires, authorities have confirmed.

Cory Iverson, a 32-year-old engineer with the California engine strike team in San Diego, died fighting the Thomas wildfire in Ventura County. The blaze is the fourth largest in California history, and has so far burned through 379 square miles (982 square kilometers) of the state.

Officials are investigating the circumstances of Mr Iversons death, according to Fire Chief Ken Pimlott of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Recommended California wildfire consumes area bigger than New York

"Anne and I are saddened by Engineer Cory Iverson's tragic death," California Governor Jerry Brown said in a statement. "His bravery and years committed service to the people of California will never be forgotten."

Mr Iverson had been with the state since 2009. He left behind his wife, Ashley, and their 2-year-old daughter. Ms Iverson was pregnant with the couples second child, expected this spring.

California fires: in pictures Show all 36 1 /36 California fires: in pictures California fires: in pictures A man watches the Thomas Fire in the hills above Carpinteria, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Santa Barbara harbor stands as wildfire burns along the coast during the Thomas Fire REUTERS California fires: in pictures Flames from the Thomas Fire burn in the hills of Montecito, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Fire personnel drive along West Lilac Road near Bonsall Rex Features California fires: in pictures The Thomas Fire burns on a hillside behind Lake Casitas in Ventura AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Chatsworth firefighters Zach Reynolds, left, and Steven Salazar clear hot spots at a home destroyed by the Skirball Fire on Casiano Road in Bel-Air Rex Features California fires: in pictures A home is consumed by fire Getty Images California fires: in pictures A mountain lion is removed from a truck. Nearly 200 animals were evacuated from the Wildlife Waystation when the Creek fire started. Rex Features California fires: in pictures Firefighters battle the Lilac fire in Bonsall AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Kalorama Apartments that was partially destroyed in the fire Rex Features California fires: in pictures Inmate firefighters fight a fire in an avocado orchard at the Ojai Vista Farm EPA California fires: in pictures Flames consume a structure as the Lilac fire burns in Bonsai, Calif AP California fires: in pictures Inmate firefighters fight a fire in an avocado orchard at the Ojai Vista Farm EPA California fires: in pictures Firefighters monitor a section of the Thomas Fire along the 101 freeway Getty Images California fires: in pictures Firefighters work to extinguish the Thomas Fire as it burns past the 101 Highway towards the Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Firefighter Dan Whelan is silhouetted against the sun as he battles a wildfire burning near Faria State Beach AP California fires: in pictures A firefighter is working on extinguishing the Lilac Fire Reuters California fires: in pictures Firefighters work to extinguish the Thomas Fire as it burns past the 101 Highway AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures A wildfire threatens homes as it burns along a hillside in La Conchita, Calif AP California fires: in pictures A car drives past as the Thomas Fire burns a hillside south of Casitas Springs, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Firefighters try to extinguish fire at a house in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures A burnt-out car is seen at the Bel Air district of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures A burning house at the Bel Air district of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures Firefighters battle to contain flames to a home on fire in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures LA city firefighters try to save a winery storage building that is own by billionaire Rupert Murdoch Rex Features California fires: in pictures A firefighter tries to extinguish fire at a house in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures A burning house at the Bel Air district of Los Angeles Rex Features California fires: in pictures Los Angeles City firefighter Francisco Martinez protects a home as firefighters battle the Skirball Fire in Bel-Air Rex Features California fires: in pictures The Thomas Fire burns behind trails on Old Baldwin Road in Ojai, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Members of the Reinhardt family sort through the remains of their family home after the Thomas wildfire swept through Ventura, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Heavy smoke covers the seaside enclave of Mondos Beach beside the 101 highway as flames reach the coast during the Thomas wildfire near Ventura, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures A family wears face masks as they walk through the smoke filled streets after the Thomas wildfire swept through Ventura, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures Flames from the Thomas fire burn above a truck on Highway 101 north of Ventura AP California fires: in pictures Trees are seen through the haze at the burnt out Vista del Mar Hospital after the Thomas wildfire swept through Ventura, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures A woman involved in a traffic accident waits to get towed beside a wall of flames on the 101 highway during the Thomas wildfire near Ventura, California AFP/Getty Images California fires: in pictures The Thomas Fire burns along a hillside near Santa Paula, California AFP/Getty Images

Dozens of police and fire vehicles escorted the fallen firefighter's hearse to the county medical examiners office on Thursday.

Corey is just a great young man and he was somebody who just really loved his job, Chief Tony Mecha of the San Diego County Fire Department told CBS. What really hit all of us today is that normally this time of year were supposed to be slowing down and spending time with our families.

The California wildfires have also claimed the life of Virginia Pesola, a 70-year-old woman who died in a car crash while evacuating a threatened area. About 100,000 people have been evacuated since the fires erupted on 4 December. Authorities said almost 1,000 structures had been destroyed in the blaze, which is larger than New York City.

 California fires: Six major fires continue to ravage southern California

Firefighters tackling the blaze were working 24- to 36-hour shifts, Santa Barbara County fire spokesman Mike Eliason told CNN. More than 8,000 people are working on the fire-fighting effort, pushing through strong winds and low visibility.

The blaze was about 35 per cent contained by Friday, but Mr Eliason said he expects it to continue burning for weeks.

"Our hearts go out to all the folks who have lost homes already, Mr Eliason said. Especially this time of year with the holidays coming, you've got to feel for these folks who've lost just everything.

He added: "In some cases they had just minutes before they could evacuate and left with just clothes on their backs. We're trying our best to make that not happen anymore."
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A firefighter was killed on Thursday while battling a mammoth California wildfire as crews sought to protect coastal cities and towns in the path of flames that have destroyed more than 700 homes.

The flag-draped remains of fallen firefighter, Cory Iverson, were driven out of the fire zone in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, in a hearse as his comrades saluted from roadsides and overpasses.

Right now, there really is a fear in the community. We're very used to fire, but the magnitude of this one is something that we haven't seen, Monique Limon, a state assemblywoman whose districts includes parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, told Reuters.

Recommended California wildfire consumes area bigger than New York

Fire officials released little information about the circumstances surrounding Iverson's death while fighting the so-called Thomas Fire, now the fourth-largest wildfire on record in California since 1932.

The Los Angeles Daily News reported that the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection engineer perished in an accident near the community of Fillmore, where a mayday alert was sounded.

The Thomas Fire, which erupted on 4 December near a small private college in Ojai, has since blackened more than 242,000 acres.

The conflagration advanced again overnight to surpass the Zaca Fire, which struck Santa Barbara County in 2007, charring 240,000 acres.

The Thomas Fire, which was 30 percent contained as of Thursday afternoon, has burned 729 homes to the ground and damaged another 175. The blaze has displaced more than 94,000 people.

The wildfire remained a threat to some 18,000 homes and other structures in the communities of Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Summerland and Montecito along California's scenic coastline, especially if hot, dry Santa Ana winds return.

Red-flag warnings, issued for extreme fire weather conditions in the area, were extended through Friday morning.

Many public schools in the Santa Barbara area cancelled classes this week and will not reopen until the annual winter break ends in January.

Some of the other fires burning over the past week in San Diego and Los Angeles counties have largely been brought under control.

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

Investigators determined that the Skirball Fire, which destroyed six homes in Los Angeles' wealthy Bel-Air neighbourhood and scorched a building at a winery owned by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was started by a cooking fire at a homeless encampment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said earlier this week.

The Lilac Fire, which burned more than 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) in northern San Diego County and destroyed 157 structures, was 97 percent contained as of Thursday, Cal Fire said.

Reuters
Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The investigation into links between Trump campaign officials and Russia has requested documents from a data firm which worked on both the 2016 presidential election and Brexit, said US media.

Robert Mueller, who is leading the federal probe, asked Cambridge Analytica to hand over the emails of any employee who worked to support Donald Trumps 2016 election win, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The special counsels request, which the firm reportedly voluntarily complied with in the autumn, suggests the investigation is now probing the Trump campaigns data operations.

And it could also have repercussions in Britain, and particularly for Leave.EU, a campaign group during the EU referendum, which is under investigation by the Electoral Commission over alleged impermissible services from the data firm.

Robert Mercer, founder of Cambridge Analytica and co-owner of right-wing news organisation Breitbart, allegedly directed the data firm to provide expert advice to Leave.EU, which received prominent support from Nigel Farage.

Leave.EUs communications director, Andy Wigmore, told The Observer Mr Mercer had offered his companys services for free. They were happy to help because Nigel is a good friend of the Mercers, Mr Wigmore said.

 Trump-Russia investigation: who has been charged in the Mueller probe

In March, Mr Farage thanked Breitbart and Steve Bannon, Mr Trumps former chief strategist and a director at Cambridge Analytica, for hugely helping the vote for Brexit.

The firm reportedly harvested data from UK voters Facebook profiles to help decide how to target them with tailored Brexit campaign messages. Similar methods were employed to help the Trump campaign.

However, Leave.EU failed to inform the electoral commission about the firms work. All services worth more than 7,500 must be declared.

In April, the Electoral Commission said in a statement: The Electoral Commission has begun an investigation into Leave.EUs EU Referendum spending return. This followed an assessment which concluded that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that potential offences under the law may have occurred.

The investigation is focused on whether one or more donations  including of services  accepted by Leave.EU was impermissible; and whether Leave.EUs spending return was complete.

Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, said in a speech in November he had asked the office that arranges his engagements to contact Julian Assange, founder of whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks, in early June 2016.

What experts have said about Brexit Show all 11 1 /11 What experts have said about Brexit What experts have said about Brexit Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond The Chancellor claims London can still be a world financial hub despite Brexit One of Britains great strengths is the ability to offer and aggregate all of the services the global financial services industry needs This has not changed as a result of the EU referendum and I will do everything I can to ensure the City of London retains its position as the worlds leading international financial centre. Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Yanis Varoufakis Greece's former finance minister compared the UK relations with the EU bloc with a well-known song by the Eagles: You can check out any time you like, as the Hotel California song says, but you can't really leave. The proof is Theresa May has not even dared to trigger Article 50. It's like Harrison Ford going into Indiana Jones' castle and the path behind him fragmenting. You can get in, but getting out is not at all clear Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Michael OLeary Ryanair boss says UK will be screwed by EU in Brexit trade deals: I have no faith in the politicians in London going on about how the world will want to trade with us. The world will want to screw you  that's what happens in trade talks, he said. They have no interest in giving the UK a deal on trade Getty What experts have said about Brexit Tim Martin JD Wetherspoon's chairman has said claims that the UK would see serious economic consequences from a Brexit vote were "lurid" and wrong: We were told it would be Armageddon from the OECD, from the IMF, David Cameron, the chancellor and President Obama who were predicting locusts in the fields and tidal waves in the North Sea" PA What experts have said about Brexit Mark Carney Governor of Bank of England is 'serene' about Bank of England's Brexit stance: I am absolutely serene about the  judgments made both by the MPC and the FPC Reuters What experts have said about Brexit Christine Lagarde IMF chief urges quick Brexit to reduce economic uncertainty: We want to see clarity sooner rather than later because we think that a lack of clarity feeds uncertainty, which itself undermines investment appetites and decision making Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Inga Beale Lloyds chief executive says Brexit is a major issue: "Clearly the UK's referendum on its EU membership is a major issue for us to deal with and we are now focusing our attention on having in place the plans that will ensure Lloyd's continues trading across Europe EPA What experts have said about Brexit Colm Kelleher President of US bank Morgan Stanley says City of London will suffer as result of the EU referendum: I do believe, and I said prior to the referendum, that the City of London will suffer as result of Brexit. The issue is how much What experts have said about Brexit Richard Branson Virgin founder believes we've lost a THIRD of our value because of Brexit and cancelled a deal worth 3,000 jobs: We're not any worse than anybody else, but I suspect we've lost a third of our value which is dreadful for people in the workplace.' He continued: "We were about to do a very big deal, we cancelled that deal, that would have involved 3,000 jobs, and thats happening all over the country" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Barack Obama US President believes Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU: "It is absolutely true that I believed pre-Brexit vote and continue to believe post-Brexit vote that the world benefited enormously from the United Kingdom's participation in the EU. We are fully supportive of a process that is as little disruptive as possible so that people around the world can continue to benefit from economic growth" Getty Images What experts have said about Brexit Kristin Forbes American economist and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England argues that the economy had been less stormy than many expected following the shock referendum result: For nowthe economy is experiencing some chop, but no tsunami. The adverse winds could quickly pick up  and merit a stronger policy response. But recently they have shifted to a more favourable direction Getty

After reading a newspaper report about WikiLeaks plans to release emails from Hillary Clintons presidential campaign, Mr Nix asked Mr Assange if he might share that information with us. US intelligence agencies later concluded the emails had been stolen by Russian intelligence and handed to the website.

Mr Nixs request came at the same time Cambridge Analytica started working for the Trump campaign, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr Assange said he denied the request.

Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has said the connection between the data firm and WikiLeaks is of deep interest to the committee, which is also investigating Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election.

Cambridge Analytica has been contacted by The Independent for comment.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

More than a half of Americans say that Donald Trump should resign from the White House over the almost two dozen counts of sexual harassment claims levelled against him, a new poll has found.

A total of 53 per cent said he should step down compared to just 42 per cent who said he should stay in office despite the sleaze claims made against him.

The Public Policy Polling survey also found that the same number who said he should quit (53 per cent) believed the allegations made against him, while nearly a third (31pc) think his accusers are not telling the truth.

Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of those who identified themselves as Trump supporters said they would approve of the US president sexually harassing women. Nearly a half (45 per cent) did not.

The results came at the end of a week when three women who have accused the US leader of sexual misconduct demanded a congressional inquiry.

Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks accused Mr Trump of groping, fondling, forcibly kissing, humiliating or harassing them.

A former beauty queen, Ms Holvey claimed the 71-year-old ogled her and other Miss USA pageant contestants in their dressing room in 2006. She said his election win had been "heartbreaking".

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Ms Leeds alleged that Mr Trump tried to kiss and put his hand up her skirt during a flight in the 1970s, while Rachel Crooks, a former Trump Tower receptionist said the billionaire kissed her on the mouth without consent in 2006

All three called for Congress to put aside party affiliations and investigate Trump's history of sexual misconduct.

As is often the case, Mr Trump took to Twitter to dismiss the claims.

Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia - so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I dont know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!

A Capitol Hill investigation into Mr Trump's conduct appears unlikely.

The Senate and House Ethics Committees investigate members of Congress, rather than presidents.

The Republican-led committees would also be loath to investigate their own leader on sexual misconduct.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Donald Trump has been mocked by the European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator over his repeated claims that US channel CNN puts out fake news.

Taking to the US leader's favourite social media site, Twitter, Guy Verhofstadt posted a link to an interview he had given to the US broadcaster where he spoke about the progress of the negotiations between the UK and the EU.

I told not fake news channel @CNNs @richardquest that we will continue to fight for EU and UK citizens rights. #Brexit, he wrote next to the link.

Mr Trump had repeatedly attacked the broadcaster, which he refers to as the "Clinton news network", a reference to his former presidential rival Hillary Clinton.

He has also repeatedly accused the outlet of airing "fake news".

Republican Senator John McCain again criticised the President this week for his repeated attacks against the media.

The former presidential candidate shared a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which found the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262  a new record. This included 21 reporters being held on charges of fake news.

The President must understand his harmful rhetoric only empowers repressive regimes to jail reporters and silence the truth, the veteran Arizona senator wrote.

The CPJs report was highly critical of Mr Trumps repeated criticism of journalism.

President Donald Trump's nationalistic rhetoric, fixation on Islamic extremism, and insistence on labelling critical media 'fake news' serves to reinforce the framework of accusations and legal charges that allow [some foreign] leaders to preside over the jailing of journalists, it read.

Mr Trump has attacked coverage of the investigation probing his election campaign teams links to Russia as fake news more than a dozen times on Twitter as well as elsewhere  leading many commentators to claim the Presidents definition of fake news is any reporting not favourable to him.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The ashes of Heather Heyer, the anti-fascist activist killed in violence at a far-right rally in Charlottesville, were interred in a secret location to protect them from neo-Nazis.

Susan Bro, the mother of the 32-year-old who was killed after a car was driven into a group of protesters this summer, said her daughter's remains were buried at an unmarked, undisclosed, completely protected location.

Given the threats both she and her late daughter continue to receive, she said could not disclose the location for her own safety and that of the people who work at the facility.

Mr Fields now faces a charge of first degree murder (Provided by Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail ) (Provided by Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail)

Its a symptom of hate in society that you should have to protect your childs grave, for Petes sake, Ms Bro told the Daily Beast. So, Im protecting my child now.

Ms Bro spoke out as charges against the man charged with killing her daughter were upgraded. At a hearing in the Virginia college town, James Fields, 20, from Ohio, was told he now faces a charge of first degree murder, which carries a potential punishment of life in prison.

Previously, Mr Fields was charged with second-degree murder, which carried with it a punishment of 20-40 years in prison. Mr Fields, who was attending a rally by far right groups protesting a proposal to remove the statue of a confederate general, is accused of driving a vehicle into group of people, injuring several and killing Ms Heyer on August 12.

 Heather Heyer's mother: I "will not" speak to Trump

At the hearing, a video purporting to show Mr Fields driving his 2010 Dodge Challenger towards a crowd of protesters, was played to the court. It showed the vehicle stop, reverse, and then with with space to build up momentum, speed in the direction of the group of people.

It was the first time the video, captured by a restaurants security cameras, had been viewed publicly. Three of around 20 victims of the violence who were attending the hearing, shouted and asked to leave the courtroom as the video was played.

Mr Fields reportedly showed no reaction to the video or to testimony from those who were present that day.

Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Show all 9 1 /9 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Protesters clash and several are injured White nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia. A state of emergency is declared, August 12 2017 Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Trump supporters at the protest A white nationalist demonstrator walks into Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Hundreds of people chanted, threw punches, hurled water bottles and unleashed chemical sprays on each other Saturday after violence erupted at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville State police stand ready in riot gear Virginia State Police cordon off an area around the site where a car ran into a group of protesters after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Militia armed with assault rifles White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' with body armor and combat weapons evacuate comrades who were pepper sprayed after the 'Unite the Right' rally was declared a unlawful gathering by Virginia State Police. Militia members marched through the city earlier in the day, armed with assault rifles. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands behind a crowd of hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' during the 'Unite the Right' rally 12 August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. They are protesting the removal of the statue from Emancipation Park in the city. Getty Images Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Racial tensions sparked the violence White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' exchange insults with counter-protesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Lee Park during the 'Unite the Right' rally Getty Violence on the streets of Charlottesville A car plows through protesters A vehicle drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The incident resulted in multiple injuries, some life-threatening, and one death. AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville Rescue personnel help injured people after a car ran into a large group of protesters after an white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia AP Photo Violence on the streets of Charlottesville President Donald Trump speaks about the ongoing situation in Charlottesville, Virginia from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He spoke about "loyalty" and "healing wounds" left by decades of racism.

In the aftermath of the incident, Donald Trump initially refused to condemn the white supremacists and neo-Nazis for the violence that happened. Instead, he said there was blame on many sides. On hearing his comments, Mr Bro refused to take a telephone call from the President.

Asked if the held Mr Trump responsible in any way for her daughters death, she told the Daily Beast: Im starting to come to that conclusion because he definitely pushes forward a hateful agenda.

There are family members that will possibly not have anything to do with me for saying so. Many family members are strong Trump supporters, and continue to be so despite everything they see.

Acquaintances of Mr Fields have said he had an obsession with Nazi Germany. At the hearing on Thursday, he wore a black-and-white striped jumpsuit and remained handcuffed and shackled. He did not speak.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch said his court-appointed lawyer, Denise Lunsford, did not dispute that her client drove the car into the mass of people.

Rather, in a cross-examination of Charlottesville Detective Steven Young, the lawyer said to portray Mr Fields as both remorseful and without significant ties to any of the extremist groups who were present.
Enhanced 911 Advisory Board is expecting a draft report from Winbourne Consulting Group right after the first of the year, Bill Hance, co-project manager for the effort with Winbourne to improve 911 service in Elko County, said Thursday.

The draft report will be a combination of information gathered from the 911 dispatch centers in Elko, West Wendover and Owyhee and those closely involved in the project, including from surveys and site visits in October by representatives of Winbourne.

It will provide two options, Hance said by telephone after the short board meeting Thursday.

Those options will be enhanced 911 with phase two cellular capabilities or the more extensive next-generation service that will work well with cellphones, including providing the ability for texting and receiving photos, he said.

Once we go into next gen, there would be another whole cost jump, Hance said.

Not only would going to the next generation be more costly, but services in rural areas of the county dont include the capacity to handle that level of upgrade, he said.

Hance expects to go over the report with his co-manager, Elko Police Chief Ben Reed, and the draft report will be presented to the advisory board and public at the Feb. 8 meeting, which will be at 1:30 at the Nannini Administration Building. Reed and Hance met with Winbourne earlier in December.

Money for improving 911 service will come from a fee that telephone companies and cellular companies serving Elko County are supposed to collect from their customers.

Assistant Elko County Manager Cash Minor told the board there is $208,000 for 911 that came mainly from donations, and he expects phone companies to be collecting soon. He is contacting them.

Phone companies and cellular services are supposed to be assessing 25 cents per phone line per month to help pay for enhancing 911, and Minor said earlier the surcharge is estimated to bring in $170,000 a year.

We can expect that to start moving, Undersheriff Ron Supp said at the Thursday meeting he chaired in the absence of Chariman Reed.

Hance said there are several small phone companies for land-lines to serve smaller communities, as well as the larger Frontier phone company, and at least three cellular carriers serving the county.

Elko County Commissioners approved the selection of Winbourne in July. The company is based in Arlington, Virginia. The seven-member advisory 911 board had recommended Winbourne after looking over proposals. Winbournes bid was $161,280.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

American immigration detention facilities regularly subject inmates to strip searches, unsanitary conditions, and threats of prolonged confinement without justification - a new report details.

The report stems from an inspection of several US detention facilities by the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of the Inspector General, which followed after immigrant rights groups and members of the public lodged complaints about the treatment of the immigrants.

Overall, we identified problems that undermine the protection of detainees rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and healthy environment, the report states.

Recommended Dreamers descend on DC to demand action from Congress

The report had several recommendations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to fix the issues, including drawing up guidelines so that ICE field offices can better know proper protocol when it comes to confinement. The report also recommended that ICE set up a system to self-analyse for problems, and then fix them on their own.

Based on multi-layered, rigorous inspections and oversight programmes, ICE is confident in conditions and high standards of care at its detention facilities, said Carissa Cutrell, an ICE spokesperson said in a statement. As such, ICE concurs with the IGs recommendation to further enhance compliance monitoring as part of our already robust inspections program.

Immigration advocates say that the report, and its recommendations, dont go far enough  and that harsh conditions for immigrants are nothing new.

Sadly, these findings are not new. ICEs inability to provide for the safety and health of the tens of thousands of immigrants in its custody has been documented for years. Today, we are calling on Congress to demand accountability and drastically reduce ICEs detention budget, Mary Meg McCarthy, the executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Centre, said in a statement.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

While the Inspector Generals report provides documentation of extensive abuses, its remedy is incredibly insufficient: it directs ICE field office directors to review the areas of concern, Ms McCarthy continued. We know from earlier directives that ICEs internal review processes fail to generate meaningful change.

Investigators inspected five detention centres in the United States, all unannounced.

At one facility, in Santa Ana, California, inmates were regularly subjected to strip searches without documentation, and in violation of regulations for inmate processing  and potentially in violation of privacy rights. Other detention centres had inadequate personnel for processing incoming inmates.

In several of the facilities, investigators found improper treatment of detainees by staff, and improper use of segregation, sometimes without explanation or proper justification for the punishment (in one instance, a detainee was locked down in their cell for several days for sharing their coffee with another inmate, for example). Investigators also found that high risk inmates  those who had a violent history, or were being processed for a felony  were sometimes kept in the same areas as low risk inmates, creating a safety hazard.

In the Stewart Detention Centre, in Georgia, investigators found unsanitary conditions and unfair treatment of detainees. There, immigrants were told that they needed to purchase new sanitary and hygiene supplies like toilet paper, soap, and toothpaste when they ran out  in violation of ICE detention standards. The report found that the showers lacked hot water, that the showers had mould growing on the walls, and found mould on produce in the kitchen as well.

ICE has conducted system-wide reviews of the treatment of inmates before, including in 2013 following a report that produced a 2013 segregation directive. In September, an inspector general report found that ICE field offices had failed to comply with that directive.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The story of Keaton Jones, a middle school student from Tennessee, started out simple: A young boy made a video about being bullied, the video went viral, and hundreds of Americans rallied to his defence.

The reality, however, is much more complicated. In the days since Keatons video went viral, social media has brimmed with disturbing allegations about his family  including accusations of racism. While sympathy for Keaton still abounds, many people have found themselves wondering: Whats really going on here?

Keep reading for everything you need to know.

Who is Keaton Jones?

 Keaton Jones makes emotional appeal over his bullies

Keaton is a middle-school student who lives in Tennessee with his mother and two sisters. According to his mother, Kimberly, Keaton was born with a tumour. Treatment for the tumour required numerous surgeries, which affected the appearance of his face.

Earlier this month, Ms Jones uploaded a video to Facebook of Keaton describing the bullying he faced for looking different. He said other students made fun of his appearance, poured milk on him, and stuffed ham down his shirt.

Just out of curiosity, why do they bully? What's the point of it? he asked.

The tearful plea struck a chord with millions of viewers. The video was shared widely across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, rendering the bullied boy an overnight celebrity.

What has happened since he went viral?

The initial reaction to the video was heartwarming: Viewers flooded Keaton with messages of support, urging him to be strong in the face of adversity.

Millie Bobby Brown, the child actor who plays Eleven in Netflix's Stranger Things, tweeted that she wanted to be friends with Keaton. Rapper Snoop Dogg told Keaton to hit me on dm so we can chop it up. Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America, invited the boy and his mother to attend the premiere of The Avengers in Los Angeles next year.

This broke my  today, pop star Katy Perry tweeted on 10 December. Please be kind to one another.

That same day, however, troubling rumours about Keatons family began to swirl.

Why has his mother been accused of racism?

This tweet from Keaton Jones's sister shows members of the Jones family posing with a Confederate flag (Twitter/Lakyn Jones)

Social media sleuths quickly discovered unsettling photographs on Ms Joness Facebook account, where the video of Keaton was first posted. One showed Ms Jones smiling and holding a Confederate flag. Another showed her children posed around the same flag, in what appeared to be a Fourth of July photoshoot.

Ms Jones changed her Facebook profile to private shortly after the photos were discovered, but the screenshots were already in circulation. She admitted that the photographs were real in a televised interview the next day.

What about his father?

This Facebook photo appears to show Shawn White (R) making a white supremacist gang hand symbol (Facebook/Shawn White)

A Facebook account seemingly belonging to Keatons father, Shawn White, also contains some disturbing images. Several of the 37-year-olds profile pictures show him making gang signs associated with the Aryan Circle  a white supremacist prison gang.

In one photo, Mr White can be seen standing next to a man with a swastika tattoo. His own tattoos read pure breed and white pride.

Other posts on Mr Whites page contain further references to the white supremacist gang. One post displays a large number 13, which can be used as a stand-in for AC or Aryan Circle. The text included in the same post reads: Thank you for being apart[sic] of this family. Without you there is no us!! WE are the Aryan.

How have they responded?

 Keaton Jones' mother says confederate flag photos were ironic

Keatons mother appeared on numerous television news shows to defend her family in the wake of the allegations. She told ABC News that the Confederate flag photos were meant to be a joke, and maintained that she was not racist.

It was meant to be ironic and funny and extreme," she said. "I am genuinely truly sorry. If I could take it back, I would.

In an appearance on ITVs This Morning, she lamented the amount of scrutiny her family had faced in the aftermath of the video.

Ive been judged and sentenced, my entire family has been judged and sentenced based on two pictures and people who dont know us, she said. And thats something I would not wish on anybody. Its a little ironic that its brought the bullies out.

Mr White has not responded, as he is currently incarcerated for aggravated assault. But Keatons sister reportedly wrote on her private Twitter account that the family has cut ties with him.

You all can go look back at every tweet from every fathers & mothers day to see that all we have is our mom, Lakyn Jones tweeted, according to People. We have no contact with our dads. BECAUSE of their actions. Thats why all the articles say estranged because we dont talk to them. Leave us alone.

The response from the public, meanwhile, seems to be one of dual sympathy for Keaton  both for the bullying he endured, and for any harmful lessons he may have learned from his parents.

Im reading how bullied child #KeatonJones has a father who is a white supremacist, tweeted actor Jason Alexander. Dont see why this should diminish our sympathy for how Keanton was treated. Best way to end hate? Show a better path to the children of haters.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A judge says hes not ready to rule that two teenagers who hung a noose outside a black teachers classroom committed a hate crime.

The two Maryland teachers were caught on a surveillance video of the area as they climbed onto the roof of the building, and then attached the noose to the light. The teens were later identified after a police investigation in which they were eventually identified.

Conner Charles Prout, 19, and John Adam Haverman, 19, were both eventually charged with misdemeanour hate crimes. Mr Prout plead guilty, while Mr Haverman plead not guilty.

Recommended Why sexual harassment should be treated as a hate crime

But, the judge decided to convict them of trespassing, but said Thursday he was not ready to call the acts a hate crime because of the structure of Maryland state law.

Maryland law technically defines a hate crime as being done to an person, or individual. The law does not include acts done against a group, or school community, in its definition.

The charges have had implications beyond the Crofton school where the noose was tied up. After it became clear that the judge was thinking the law may not apply to groups of people, some in the Maryland legal community began to ask why the state General Assembly had not seen the mistake and started working to fix 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

I wonder why our General Assembly has not taken up that issue, Paul F Harris Jr, a county circuit court judge, said of a potential change to the law.

The judge had previously warned people from expecting a verdict that did anything but fit into the hate crime laws the way they are written.

Keep in mind, I cant rewrite the law, the judge said Tuesday when handing down the trespassing convictions. I have a lot of gray areas here.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Late night television hosts dived headfirst into the fallout from this week's Senate race in Alabama. On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah tapped the programme's correspondent Dulce Sloan to highlight one of the bigger takeaways from Doug Jones's squeaker win over Roy Moore: the role of Alabama's black women in delivering a win for Democrat Jones over the Republican.

According to exit polls, 98 per cent of black women voted for Jones, with 93 per cent of black men turning up for the candidate. White men and women, by contrast, voted 26 and 34 per cent for Jones, respectively.

The strong showing sparked a lot of social media commentary and celebration online for black women, cascading to the point where a hashtag (#blackwomen) began trending on Twitter.

"People are saying thank you to black women, online you saw it, it must have been nice to see black women's contributions finally recognised," Noah told Sloan.

"Yes! We've been through so much!" Sloan shot back. "And you're welcome, white people. But let's be honest, we didn't do it for you, we did it for ourselves. No black woman cast her vote going, 'This one's for Scott!'" she said as the audience cracked up.

"So if you really want to thank us, how about you change the laws making it easier for us to vote, or sing our praises by giving us raises. Or at the very least cancel winter. You know only white people like snow."

Late night jokes aside, the commentary hit the bull's eye on a real conversation spinning off the Alabama election. The black woman - who Malcolm X once pointed out was the "most disrespected" "most unprotected" and "most neglected person in America" - turned out because she had the most to lose from the policies pushed by the far right conservatives like Mr Moore, some commentators argued.

But after the election was all the attention heaped on black women sincere? Or patronising? And will it evaporate within a few days?

Mark Ruffalo tweeted "Love and decency prevails. Thank you Alabama! The black folks of Alabama saved the day. They should seriously get priority space at the table."

Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Show all 12 1 /12 Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic senatorial candidate Doug Jones speaks to reporters after voting Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore (L) and his wife Kayla ride their horses to the polling station to vote AFP/Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones David Watson waves in a Santa suit as he holds a Doug Jones sign AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore speaks to the media as his wife Kayla (R) looks on AFP/Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones casts his vote at Brookwood Baptist Church REUTERS Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Roy Moore speaks to the media after he rode in on a horse to vote AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic candidate Doug Jones greets supporters after casting his ballot AP Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore departs on horseback after he cast his ballot in Gallant REUTERS Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Voters wait in line to cast their ballot at a polling station setup in the St Thomas Episcopal Church Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Senatorial candidate Doug Jones (L) greets voters outside of a polling station at the Bessemer Civic Center Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Voters exit after casting their ballots at a polling station setup in the Fire Department Getty Images Alabama Senate race: Roy Moore vs Doug Jones Democratic Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones speaks with the media after casting his vote at Brookwood Baptist Church Reuters

Julie Wells tweeted "Thank you #BlackWomenThe country will be a better place because of you!!!"

In a piece titled "Black Women Are a Political Organizing Force. They're Not Unicorns," HuffPost writer Julia Craven reported on the exhaustive on-the-ground organising black volunteers in Alabama did to mobilise for Mr Jones. By ignoring the actual work, Craven wrote, observers were playing into a "Magical Negro" stereotype.

"In Hollywood, as in politics, the Magical Negro is a virtuous black character who serves to better the lives of white people via seemingly supernatural means and asks nothing for herself. She is frequently praised for what she has done for white folks, praised for her saintly equanimity and selflessness, and too little acknowledged for all the things - the wiles, the grit, the grinding, thankless work - that went into securing the happy outcome."

"Don't just overlook the hard work that we did," one organiser, Carissa Crayton, told Craven. "Don't overlook the hard work that we've been doing."

At the Root, Ashley Nkadi argued in her piece "Y'all Don't Deserve Black Women" that this particular demographic has been consistently taking political stands that are later taken up by a wider audience. "Every time there is something good in this world - know that black women probably did it first, said it first, sent it first," Nkadi wrote. "Conversely, most negative things in this world, black women tried to save you from."

She continued: "It was Anita Hill who exposed the predatory nature of men on Capitol Hill, long before Monica Lewinsky's heels ever stepped on the carpets of the Oval Office. It was Tarana Burke who sent the first #MeToo into the world, 10 years before the movement was appropriated by white feminism. Twenty years before the pink pussy hats that filled the streets of our nation's capital, 750,000 black women gathered for their Million Woman March."

Recommended Donald Trump says Roy Moore should concede

The Daily Show wasn't the only late night program to tackle the topic. On "Late Night" Seth Meyers brought on one of the show's writers, Amber Ruffin, to comment on the election.

"Do you know what these women go through every day? Those women woke up yesterday and were like, 'I've got to deal with systemic racism, the gender pay gap, the school to prison pipeline, humidity and now y'all want me to save America?'"

Ruffin urged white voters to take a cue from Tuesday's results. "White people, I invite you to look upon our example, and steal it. It's called appropriating, and it should be easy for you because you do it all the time. So while you're busy appropriating our music and our fashion and our big fat booties, try appropriating our common sense."

The Washington Post
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The oldest prisoner at Guantanamo Bay has been refused permission to read a book on pacifism and non-violence written by relatives of victims of the 9/11 attacks.

A lawyer for 70-year-old Saifullah Paracha, who has suffered two heart attacks during his 13 years of incarceration and never been charged, tried to provide him with a copy of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Tragedy into Hope for a Better World.

The book  originally published in January 2003, just 16 months after the series of coordinated attacks that killed almost 3,000 people  focuses on how many relatives who lost loved ones ultimately responded to the atrocity by seeking to promote peace and non-violence. It also discusses the teachings of Martin Luther King and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

There are just 41 inmates at the jail  each costing US taxpayers $11m a year (Getty)

Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, a lawyer representing Mr Paracha, said she tried to present the book to him on a recent visit to the prison camp, located at a US military base on the tip of Cuba. She said officials refused her permission without explaining why.

Its shameful that the authorities at Guantanamo are banning books  a policy rightly associated with the most oppressive regimes in history, said Ms Sullivan-Bennis, who works with Reprieve, the UK-based charity that represents several prisoners at the camp.

We would like to know, what is so dangerous about the writings of these bereaved families of victims, who espouse the non-violent teachings of Martin Luther King?

She added: Their voices deserve to be heard, not censored. The absurdity of this gesture shows Guantanamo for what it is  an affront to US values that must be closed.

The banning of the book comes as the authorities struggle to deal with a hunger strike by at least half-a-dozen inmates protesting their situation. While Mr Paracha, originally a businessman from Karachi, has never been one of those to go on hunger strike, he told his lawyers he believes officials are responding by engaging in collective punishment against all prisoners. Recently, he was dragged from his cell in handcuffs and placed in solitary confinement for three days, without explanation.

Mr Paracha lived in the US for a decade and studied computer systems at the New York Institute of Technology and became a permanent resident. He returned to Pakistan in the mid-1980s where he set up a television production company through which he attempted to arrange an interview with Osama bin Laden.

Officials at Guantanamo declined to explain why the book Ms Bennis was seeking to give to Mr Paracha was deemed inappropriate.

Navy Commander Anne Leanos, a spokesperson for the prison camp, said in a statement: The Joint Task Force has a standard operating procedure for reviewing items donated to the detainee library. We do not provide details of our standard operating procedures.

 Guantanamo release: Former Afghan detainees' families relieved

Since it was established in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as part of George W Bushs war on terror, almost 800 people have been held on the base, which operates under military law. Among those still held are a handful described as high value prisoners, which include people such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged plotter of the 9/11 attacks.

Today, following the transfer of hundreds of prisoners to their own countries or else to third-party nations, the prison contains just 41 men, each costing $11m a year. In November, the camp found itself at the centre of controversy when it emerged officials were stopping the transfer out of the prison of artwork produced by inmates.

The banned book was edited by David Potorti, who lost his brother Jim in the North Tower after Al-Qaeda militants flew two hijacked planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.

Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee Show all 10 1 /10 Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332063.bin AP Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332066.bin DAVID SANDISON Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332062.bin REUTERS Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332053.bin AP; PA Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332054.bin AP Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332055.bin REUTERS Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332056.bin REUTERS Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332057.bin PA Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332058.bin DAVID SANDISON Shaker Aamer: Guantanamo's last British detainee 332059.bin DAVID SANDISON

In the aftermath, he sought to make sense of the tragedy and think about the impact not only on US families but on the families of Afghan civilians who were killed in the subsequent US and UK-led military invasion of Afghanistan. He also helped found the group September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Speaking from North Carolina, Mr Potorti told The Independent the book he edited was a collection of essays penned by people who had lost relatives and told how they had responded by trying to work for peace, rather than with more violence.

The response of many was that violence was not the answer, he said.

He said he could think of no reason why a prisoner at the camp, or anyone else, should be prevented from reading the book unless the powers that be dont want us to reduce tension and it is better for them that we stay fearful.

He added: The whole thing stinks. I think Gitmo should not exist. Its obvious the military justice system is not capable of dealing with these cases. It would be much better if they were dealt with by our [regular] judicial system. It would be a lot quicker.
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

House Speaker Paul Ryan has pushed back against reports saying he has plans to leave Congress after the 2018 elections.

I ain't goin' anywhere, Mr Ryan told reporters when asked about the retirement rumours.

The Wisconsin Republican has reportedly told some of his closest confidants that he would like to serve through Election Day 2018 and retire ahead of the next Congress, according to a Politico report attributed to unidentified sources.

Recommended Republicans strike deal on tax plan as they rush to pass it

AshLee Strong, Mr Ryans spokeswoman, called the report pure speculation.

As the speaker himself said today, he's not going anywhere any time soon, she said in a statement.

Shortly after the Politico article was published, Brendan Buck, an aide for Mr Ryan, tweeted: tldr - short for too long, didn't read.

The article is not the first to raise questions about how much longer Mr Ryan will remain in office, especially given how Republicans may now succeed in passing a tax code rewrite. Both the House of Representatives and Senate are expected to vote on a final bill next week.

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

Some of Mr Ryans close friends apparently told CNN that the Speaker has had some soul-searching conversations about his future with them.

But according to people close to him, it is inaccurate to say that Mr Ryan would resign immediately following tax reform because it's all he's ever wanted. Mr Ryan particularly dislikes the toll the job has taken on his family, sources told the outlet.
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

President Donald Trump hailed graduates of the FBI National Academy  just an hour after criticising the principal federal law enforcement agency.

In a speech during the graduate ceremony, Mr Trump lavished praise on local law enforcement and FBI agents  even though he has done nothing over the past year to hide his distaste for a federal investigation into his campaigns alleged ties to Russia.

With me as your President, Americas police will have a true friend and loyal champion in the White House  more loyal than anyone else can be, Mr Trump said.

The President has often referred to the Russia probe being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as fake news. Mr Mueller was appointed as head of the investigation in May after controversy erupted following Mr Trumps firing of his first FBI Director James Comey, who was originally leading the probe.

Since dismissing Mr Comey, the President has publicly derided the FBIs reputation, as Mr Mueller seeks to determine whether campaign advisers for Mr Trump colluded with the Russian government. Multiple congressional committees are also looking into the matter.

Mr Trump has insisted that there was no collusion.

There is absolutely no collusion. That has been proven, the President told reporters on Friday before heading to Quantico, Virginia, where the FBI National Academy is located.

He also said its a shame whats happened with the FBI.

But were going to rebuild the FBI, he added. It will be bigger and better than ever.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Mueller, who served as FBI director during the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations, has so far secured multiple indictments and guilty pleas as part of his investigation.

Earlier this month, the probe reached Mr Trumps inner circle, with ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynns admission that he lied to the FBI about his contacts with a senior-level Russian official. Mr Flynns guilty plea indicates he is cooperating with Mr Muellers inquiry and could provide damaging information.

In Quantico, current FBI Director Christopher Wray welcomed Mr Trump. While testifying before a congressional committee hearing in December, Mr Wray had hit back at a claim by the President that the FBIs reputation was in tatters after the way it handled an investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State.

My experience is that our reputation is quite good, Mr Wray told the committee. There is no finer institution than the FBI and no finer people who work there.

During his turn to speak, Mr Trump congratulated the FBI Academys graduates and made no mention of how he thought the FBI was in tatters.

Instead, he reiterated his tough-on-crime stance and appeared to ramp up his anti-immigrant rhetoric.

We believe criminals who kill police officers should get the death penalty, Mr Trump said.

He also mocked the visa lottery system, describing the system as if it was a lottery draw on television.

They have a lottery. You pick people. Do you think the country is giving us their best people? No, Mr Trump told the crowd, which laughed in response. What kind of a system is that? They come in by lottery. They give us their worst people, they put them in a bin, but in his hand, when hes picking them, is really the worst of the worst. Congratulations, youre going to the United States.

The programme that Mr Trump was referring to, the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, awards up to 50,000 visas per year to people from parts of the world that have relatively few immigrants in the US.

The Trump administration has targeted the system, particularly after the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that a suspect in one of the New York terror attacks this year was admitted to the US in 2010 with a diversity immigrant visa.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

The continued absence of the director of the most powerful North Korean military organisation has triggered concerns for his safety.

Hwang Pyong-so  who leads the North Korean army's political bureau and sits on the Workers' Party's Central Committee  has been expelled from the party for taking bribes, a South Korean source told Seoul-based newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

The military boss' deputy, Kim Won-hong, has also been detained at a prison camp for the same crime, the paper reported.

"If Hwang was indeed kicked out of the Workers Party, it would practically mean the end of his political career, and possibly his life, though it is unknown whether or not he is still alive," the newspaper said.

Kim Jong-un decided to "punish them as a warning to others" because he suspected the pair were receiving payments in exchange for promotions, the source said.

The South's intelligence agency in November said the two men appeared to have been punished for holding "impure attitudes" towards the isolationist state's leader.

Vice chairman of the Workers' Party Choe Ryong-hae  reportedly a rising star in the North Korean regime  is alleged to have led the investigation into the army's political bureau.

Information on North Korea is difficult to obtain, and since there is little hard evidence of Mr Hwang's condition, analysts have been reluctant to draw firm conclusions about his safety.

North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Show all 13 1 /13 North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents react after the news of the successful launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signing an order to test-fire the newly developed inter-continental ballistic missile KRT via AP Video North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch A news broadcast displays Kim Jong Un's signed document AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch People cheer as they watch the news broadcast announcing Kim Jong Un's order to test-fire the new inter-continental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Residents react after the document signing AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents celebrate Kim Jong Un's announcement AFP/Getty North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Cheering Pyongyang residents react AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch To counter North Korea's missile test, South Korea fired missiles into the East Sea The Defence Ministry/Yonhap via REUTERS North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The Hyunmu-2 missiles firing during the drill South Korean Defense Ministry vi North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The exercise was carried out in an attempt to counter Kim Jong Un's order South Korea Defense Ministry via AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The South Korean army continue to carry out military exercises AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Where K-9 self-propelled howitzers were taking part in a drill Rex Features North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch US soldiers are also present in the border city of Paju AFP/Getty Images

A number of high-profile North Korean officials are known to have been executed in recent years, including Hang Song-thaek, Mr Kim's uncle.

Mr Jang, who was vice-chairman of the Workers' Party's Central Commission, was arrested in November 2013 and found guilty at a special military tribunal of anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional acts in a bid to overthrow the leadership of the party and state and the socialist system. He was killed by a firing squad in December that year.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Russias ex-economics minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, has been found guilty of accepting a bribe and sentenced to eight years in a prison colony, as well as being fined $2m (1.5m), a Moscow judge announced on Friday.

Judge Larisa Semenova began reading her verdict at 11.30am  aloud, in a mumbled mantra, as is customary in Russia. Already early in her judgment, it was clear that Mr Ulyukayev would be found guilty; this happens in more than 99 per cent of judge-led verdicts. But it took over two hours to establish that he would be given a such a harsh custodial sentence.

Mr Ulyukayev had arrived at the courtroom with a small briefcase, telling reporters he had prepared for a long and happy life". He looked relaxed, laughing and chatting to lawyers with his hands on his hips. He was ready for a just verdict", he said, and announced he was writing two books. The year spent under house arrest was one of the best of his life: Ive slept well, walked. Got rid of my dual personality.

The former ministers demeanour changed once the guilty verdict became clear. His arms moves into his pockets, and his smiles turned to a stare.

Mr Ulyukayev was responsible for the Russian economy until a sting operation before dawn on 15 November last year. His downfall was orchestrated by state-owned oil company Rosneft's chief, Igor Sechin, a powerful associate of Vladimir Putin. After inviting the former minister to his offices, he handed him a basket of sausages and another locked bag, containing $2m. Mr Ulyukayev was stopped by security agents waiting outside, and became the first cabinet minister to be arrested since Stalins henchman Lavrenty Beria in 1953.

The former minister insists he believed the bag contained fine wine, and in court challenged Mr Sechin to appear for cross-examination. On four occasions, the Rosneft chief refused.

Today, the judge mumbled through the verdict, somewhat nervously, and often repeating herself. In almost every detail, she sided with Mr Sechin and the prosecution. She was trembling as she read out the sentence.

On 5 October, she agreed, Mr Ulyukayev demanded a $2m bribe from Mr Sechin in Goa, India, for approving a controversial privatisation deal. Mr Ulyukayev repeated the demand in a telephone conversation on 14 November, she said  though this did not seem consistent with recordings or transcripts leaked to BBC Russia. The following day, Mr Ulyukayev arrived at Mr Sechins office for the cash. Mr Sechin had no ulterior motive, she concluded.

Last week, prosecutors asked for a sentence of 10 years in a prison colony. Mr Ulyukayev, 61, visibly frailer than a year ago, likened this to a death sentence". With his final words, Mr Ulyukayev insisted on his innocence and compared his case to Stalinist show trials. Dont ask for whom the bell tolls, he said. It tolls for you.

The eight-year custodial sentence will create a huge schism at the heart of power. The trial has already shaken the Russian political elite, with many unsettled by the brazenness of an operation against one of their own. The trial was accompanied by a war of leaks, as confidential court materials found their way into the possession of liberal journalists. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the events were beyond his comprehension". On the other hand, President Putin was at the very least aware of the sting operation beforehand.

The Kremlin had a difficult balancing act to reach a resolution that would suit all sides. Todays verdict  siding with Mr Sechins somewhat imperfect evidence, and sentencing Mr Ulyukayev to such a severe prison sentence  was not that.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Dutch military police have shot a man after he threatened to use a knife at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

In a tweet, the Marechaussee police service said the "situation is safe" and the suspect has been detained and removed from the scene.

The force confirmed the suspect had been shot in the leg and was arrested before being transferred to hospital.

Spokesman Stan Verberkt said the incident on Friday afternoon was not being treated as an extremist attack.

Mr Verberkt told The Associated Press that "the circumstances are telling us that it has nothing to do with terrorism".

Parts of Schiphol, which is just outside Amsterdam and one of Europe's busiest airports, were evacuated for a short time but have since been reopened.

This included Roos van der Ven says Schiphol Plaza, an area populated with shops, bars and restaurants, was evacuated, but not "airside" parts of the airport behind the check-in area and security checks.

The incident comes as Europe remains on high alert due to a string of terror attacks on multiple locations, including airports.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In March 2016, 32 people were killed and more than 300 people were injured in three coordinated terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium which included an attack on the city's airport.

The plotters behind the Paris terror attack in 2015 had also plotted to bomb Schiphol.

In January the head of the airport, Jos Nijhuis, called for up to 500 more military police officers to patrol Schiphol due to increased security concerns.

There are currently 1,800 officers stationed there but Mr Nijhuis derided plans to introduce just 135 extra  saying they needed hundreds more.

Additional reporting by agencies
For the second time in two months, someone who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State has plotted to kill innocents in New York City and has executed his plot.

According to police, at the height of the Monday morning rush hour this week, in an underground pedestrian walkway that I have used many times, in the middle of Manhattan, a permanent legal resident of the United States named Akayed Ullah detonated a bomb he had strapped to his torso in an effort to kill fellow commuters and disrupt massively life in New York.

The bomb was inartfully constructed, and it injured slightly four people nearby and Ullah himself seriously. He survived, was captured on the spot and is now in the joint custody of the New York Police Department and the FBI in the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital.

Ullahs wounds had barely been addressed by emergency room physicians when the calls began to resonate in the government and in the media to strip him of his constitutional rights and ship him to a military facility in South Carolina or at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

These voices argued without access to any evidence that because the Islamic State is a foreign power with an army that has sworn to do harm to Americans and destroy our way of life, its soldiers have no constitutional protections when they go about their destruction. Ullah is a soldier of this foreign army, this argument goes, and should be treated as a soldier under the Geneva Conventions. That means he should be removed from the civilian judicial system and interrogated and tried by the military.

This argument essentially suggests that the police in New York or the FBI or the president somehow possesses the lawful authority from some unstated source, before guilt has been adjudicated, to suspend Ullahs fundamental rights. This view of human liberty treats personal rights  even those guaranteed by the Constitution  as if they were gifts from the government offered in return for good behavior. Yet it defies history and the plain meaning of the Constitution.

Ullahs rights to legal counsel and to a jury trial are expressly guaranteed by the Constitution; hence, no government official, no matter how powerful or well-intended, can interfere with them. The right to counsel attaches whenever anyone is confined against his will, charged with a crime or interrogated by authorities  whichever occurs first. The right to a jury trial attaches whenever the government wants the life, liberty or property of any person. The constitutional language guarantees these rights to every person  not citizens, not Americans and not just good people.

In Ullahs case, the harm authorities say he caused occurred in the U.S.  while he was physically and lawfully in the U.S., where he was apprehended  so it is extremely unlikely that the crowd that denies the supremacy of the Constitution will get its way.

The failure to respect Ullahs rights because he has said he was inspired by a foreign power would commence a slippery and horrific slope, down which any person who is hated or feared or appears foreign or different or misunderstood at any given moment might be pushed.

As a practical matter, the NYPD and the FBI are far better at gathering evidence than the military, and federal prosecutors are far better at getting convictions than are their military counterparts. It is a Hollywood-infused myth that Guantanamo Bay produces results. It does not. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been waiting in Gitmo for 15 years for his military trial.

When voices in the government clamor for the removal of fundamental liberties, it is often to mask the governments own failures. I have argued for many years that government surveillance will turn us into East Germany  a modern-day totalitarian society that collapsed in 1989. I have also argued that surveillance doesnt work. The place in which the Monday explosion occurred is one of the most video-surveilled in New York. Do the police watch these videos in real time as was promised when the cameras were installed? They do not.

As well, Ullahs mobile phone recorded his whereabouts and communications prior to the explosion, also in real time, and the National Security Agency had all this, in real time. Did the NSA share it with the NYPD? It did not.

Some in government have asked what good the Constitution is if it fails to keep us safe. That is a bit silly, isnt it? The Constitution is a piece of paper on which is written the supreme law of the land. Its purpose was to establish the federal government and to limit all government. But it is only as valuable to personal freedom as is the fidelity to it of those in whose hands we repose it for safekeeping. If the people we have hired to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution can cut corners to get to bad people, what will protect us when they want to cut corners to get to the rest of us?

When President Abraham Lincoln cut constitutional corners during the Civil War, he was unanimously rebuffed by the Supreme Court. The case, Ex parte Milligan, involved a civilian whom the government sought to try in a military court. The high court wrote: The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism.

This danger of the mobs approving the curtailment of constitutional protections for unpopular monsters is as real today as it was after the Civil War. We must vigorously guard against it.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Austrias far-right Freedom Party has reached a deal with the conservative Peoples Party on creating a new coalition government.

The agreement will make 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz the new Chancellor and Europes youngest leader.

Austrias Peoples Party finished first in the 15 October election. The party then embarked on coalition talks with the right-wing Freedom Party.

Mr Kurz and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache announced on Friday that they had finalised an agreement on a new coalition, which will shift Austria to the right.

Mr Kurz is foreign minister in the outgoing government under Chancellor Christian Kern, a centre-left Social Democrat. His party has been the junior partner in that government.

Before the election, both parties campaigned on the need for tougher immigration controls, quick deportations of asylum-seekers whose requests are denied and a crackdown on radical Islam.

The Freedom Party was founded by ex-Nazis in the 1950s and waited until last month to stop wearing the traditional blue cornflower, which has links to the Nazi movement of the 1930s.

 Austrian election results: Who is Sebastian Kurz?

Austria will hold the 28-nation European Unions rotating presidency in the second half of next year.

Neither leader addressed the new governments approach to European policy during their brief appearance on Friday evening.

Mr Kurz has stressed the importance of a pro-European direction, while the Freedom Party traditionally has been strongly Eurosceptic.

He said that Austrians had voted for change in our country, and we want to ensure this change in the next five years.

He also said it was important to ensure a new political style in dealing with each other in Austria after persistent bickering in the old government.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

A man was beaten to death for wearing the colours of the Spanish flag on his braces, police say, ahead of elections in Catalonia where pro-independence voters clashed with police at the start of October.

Victor Lainez, 55, was kicked and struck repeatedly on the head with a metal bar and succumbed to his injuries four days later after he was allegedly set upon by a known anarchist outside a pub.

Police arrested Rodrigo Lanza for attacking Lainez after he and three other people had gotten into an argument with Lanza inside the premises in the city of Zaragoza, a spokesman said.

Recommended Removed Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras kept in jail by judge

Witnesses said the attack came after Lanza had rebuked Mr Lainez for wearing the braces in the colour of the national flag in the pub, in the capital of Aragon which borders Catalonia.

The group had been shouting at Mr Lainez and calling him a fascist in the row at the El Tocadiscos bar and Mr Lainez had yelled back, local newspaper Heraldo reported.

But it turned violent when Mr Lainez left the premises and Lanza and three others  a man and two women  pursued him outside the door before Lanza struck him with a metal bar and the group laid in kicks into his slumped body before all three fled, according to the report in the newspaper.

Police arrested Lanza, 33, amid their investigation. He has no links to the pro-independence movement in Catalonia but is a known anarchist with a radical left-wing group.

It also emerged that the far-right party Falange said Catalonia native Mr Lainez was a supporter of its movement, according to a report in The Local.

Politicians in Spain have condemned the fatal attack.

"I want to live in a country where nobody is assaulted or insulted for wearing a flag, wrote Spain's Popular Party interior minister Juan Ignacio Zoido on Twitter, according to an English translation.

Justice minister Rafael Catala also condemned the repugnant hate crime, Heraldo reported.

The violent attack which left Mr Lainez dead came amid fears Catalonia's election next week could once again stir up tensions.

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

Some 900 were left injured when protesters clashed with riot police during the independence referendum in October, according to officials in Catalonia.

The ballot called by regional president Carles Puigdemont was deemed illegal by a court in Madrid. The federal government later imposed direct rule after Mr Puigdemont declared a split from Spain.

Catalonians will go the polls again next Thursday in crucial elections that are expected to steer the course of the movement looking to split the territory from Spain.

The separatist parties have in the recent past always performed stronger at the ballot box over the unionists, but analysts put both the nationalist and separatist parties on a knife-edge.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Children under the age of 16 in France will have to seek parental approval to open an account on Facebook or any other social network, under a new draft bill put forward by the government.

The legislation, which was approved by the French cabinet but will now have to be approved by parliament, seeks to adapt dated privacy regulations.

The move also aims to improve access to the information Internet companies gather, store, and in many cases sell to other firms about people's online activities.

Joining Facebook will involve parental authorisation for minors aged under 16, Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said, Reuters reported.

Ms Belloubet said under-16s would have to tick a box to confirm approval from a parent or guardian had been obtained and the box-tick amounted to a declaration governed by law.

Critics have questioned the practicality of the new rule, as social media sites will have to verify the age of users and underage children may still tick the box to create an account.

Facebook requires users to be at least 13 before they can create an account, but many younger children declare they are older and sign up.

This week, the French government announced school pupils will be banned from taking mobile phones to school.

Education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said the ban would come into effect at the start of a new school year next September.

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

Students are already barred from bring their phones into the classroom, but the new rule will prevent them using them between lessons and during breaks.

These days the children don't play at break time anymore, they are just all in front of their smartphones and from an educational point of view that's a problem, Mr Blanquer told Le Grand Jury TV programme on Sunday.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Leaders of Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) have agreed to enter exploratory talks on a new government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Andrea Nahles, the Social Democrats' parliamentary leader, said the party leadership decided unanimously on Friday to start talks with Merkel's conservative Union bloc (CDU).

The two parties have governed Germany in a coalition for the past four years, but the Social Democrats initially said after a disastrous election result in September that they would go into opposition.

The Social Democrats reluctantly reconsidered after Merkel's talks with two smaller parties collapsed last month.

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

Now, they say they will consider either a formal coalition deal or looser arrangement that allows a Merkel-led government to be formed.

Nahles said that, following initial talks, a party congress next month will decide on the next steps.

AP
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Poland's defence minister has accused Vladimir Putin of involvement in the 2010 plane crash which killed the Polish president as he urged him to "take responsibility".

Antoni Macierewicz claims the fatal crash which killed Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, the First Lady and 94 others in 2010 in Russia was preceded by two explosions on board.

In a radio interview Mr Macierewicz said the Russian president "should have the courage to take responsibility for what has happened."

He told public radio PR 24: President Putin should finally face the truth: two explosions which eventually destroyed the Tu-154 were incontestably identified by official expertise.

Recommended Poland reopens probe into 2010 crash that killed 96 people

His comments follow the Russian leaders denial of any explosions on board as he called on Poland to stop investigating for any potential Russian role in the crash.

Responding to a question from a Polish reporter at an annual news conference, Mr Putin said it was time for Poland to move beyond the plane crash, turn a new page, and "grow up".

President Putin said he was tired of hearing allegations that the plane crash was the result of a Russian conspiracy, drawing a sharp rebuke from Warsaw.

Polish and Russian aviation experts concluded it was an accident.

Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Show all 12 1 /12 Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday An opposition activist wearing a rubber mask depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin walks past gift boxes with lettering reading trial, resignation, impeachment, true election and others during an event dedicated to Putins 65th birthday in downtown Moscow, October 7 2017 AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators holding yellow ducks are interviewed by journalists as they arrive for the rally AP Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday A demonstrator chats slogans during the unauthorized anti-Kremlin rally called by jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators shout slogans and wave Russian flags during the rally in Moscow AP Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators in downtown Moscow hold a poster which reads We demand a fair election. AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators walk down Tverskaya street during the unauthorized anti-Kremlin rally AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Riot police block an area AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators clench their fists during the rally. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny has worked to organize protests in support of his presidential bid across Russia on Saturday AP Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators gather near a monument of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday Demonstrators march and wave a Russian flag AFP/Getty Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday A topless activist from the feminist group Femen depicts American actress Marilyn Monroe singing the happy birthday song EPA Russia protests on Vladimir Putins birthday On the birthday of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Femen wants to remind the world of the threat that it bears to all of us, and not only to those countries where it has now launched bloody wars, Femen said. AFP/Getty

But Mr Macierewicz is heading up a commission re-investigating the crash and alleges it was preceded by two explosions, which he says would suggest Russia played a role.

A previous Polish government concluded that pilot error was to blame for the crash, but Law and Justice ordered a new investigation which concluded this year that the plane was brought down by explosions on board.

The new investigatory commission created by Mr Macierewicz said in April this year that blasts most likely tore the plane into pieces, killing all 96 people seconds before it hit the ground.

It repeated allegations that Russian air traffic controllers had deliberately set the plane on the wrong descent path.

Polish prosecutors said then they would press charges against two controllers. Moscow rejected the allegations.

The Polish Air Force Tu-154 plane crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk on April 10, 2010, killing all 96 people on board, including President Kaczynski.

His twin brother Jaroslaw is now the leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party, in power since 2015.

Additional reporting by AP
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has cancelled some Christmas celebrations in protest at US President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, an official said.

Mr Trump announced the move last week, reversing decades of US policy and recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, jeopardising Middle East peace efforts and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies alike.

Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel with a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, is one of the Holy Lands focal points of Christmas festivities.

We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem, city spokesman Salem Sharara said.

Nazareth is traditionally thought to be where Jesus grew up. The imposing Basilica of the Annunciation in central Nazareth is built on a site which many Christian faithful believe was the childhood home of Jesus mother, Mary.

Sharara said the towns market stalls and the traditional Christmas church services would be held as they are every year.

Within an hour of the announcement, the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem, Jesuss traditional birthplace, and Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank briefly switched off their Christmas lights in protest.

There was no word from the Bethlehem municipality whether it was also weighing a cutback on its celebrations at a crucial time of year for the towns tourist trade.

It comes amid a backlash across the region after Mr Trump announced he would begin the process of shifting the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, after symbolically recognising it as the capital of the country.

The move undid decades of US foreign policy - which had called for the future status of the city to be decided at an advanced stage of two-state solution talks.

Today we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israels capital, Mr Trump said in a speech in the White House last week. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. Its something that has to be done.

His decision sparked widespread violence in Israel 24 hours later in a day of rage over the move. It included clashes between protesters and security forces in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and to a lesser extent Jerusalem itself, which left one 30-year-old Palestinian man shot dead and more than 300 injured.

Israeli fighter jets also bombed Hamas targets in Gaza, officials said, after militants fired rockets from the region towards Israeli territory. The air strikes left one Palestinian man dead and 15 injured, according to a Palestinian news agency.

Jerusalem holds significance for three major world religions  Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Also known as the Holy City, it draws millions of pilgrims and tourists every year.

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

Israel has long called for Jerusalem to be recognised as its capital after it established it as such  in name, at least  since it occupied the eastern part of the city after the Six Days War in 1967.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, welcomed Trump's decision as "a new and genuine milestone in the glorious history of this city".

Most world powers have treated Tel Aviv as the capital and have established their embassies there.

Mr Trump is so far a lone voice in the West in recognising Jerusalem as the capital. The EUs foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called for full EU unity in support of the status quo.

Additional reporting by Reuters
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Israels intelligence minister has extended an invitation to Saudi Arabias powerful Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to visit the country as fallout from the USs decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state continues to reverberate around the world.

Yisrael Katz made the remark in an interview with Saudi-owned Arabic news website Elaph, his spokesperson said on Thursday  but the call was not included in the published interview for unknown reasons.

He said that he asks [King Salman] to invite [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu officially to Riyadh, and he asks MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, the son, to come and visit Israel, representative Arye Shalicar said.

 Palestinian official on Jerusalem: Trump 'is declaring war against 1.5 billion Muslims [and] hundreds of millions of Christians'

Mr Katz extended the invitation because he wants regional peace, his office added.

Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have diplomatic relations. United by their common foe of Iran, however, in recent months the relationship appears to be warming.

Riyadh has also been a key broker in the Trump administrations efforts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Last month, former Israeli defence minister Yaacov Nagal claimed that the Kingdom is willing to accept almost any kind of Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and had stopped giving a damn about the Palestinian cause  as long as it can present a united front against Iran.

Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Show all 22 1 /22 Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of Difa-e-Pakistan Council a coalition of right wing Islamic parties, burn an effigy of US President Donald Trump, during a protest in Quetta, Pakistan EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli police scuffle with a Palestinian protester outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City Getty Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn pictures of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu following Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli forces disperse Palestinian protesters outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on 7 December 2017 AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), an Islamic organization, chant slogans as they burn Israeli and US flags during a protest against Donald Trump in Peshawar REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinians paint an 'X' over the face of a picture of US president Donald J. Trump which was painted on the Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protestors burn the Israeli flag and a poster of US President Donald Trump in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of a Pakistani religious party rally against Donald Trump in Lahore AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn the US and Israeli flags in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital A poster depicting U.S. President Donald Trump is burnt during a protest against Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli forces detain a Palestinian protester during clashes that followed protests against US President Donald Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Hebron AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn an effigy of U.S. President Donald Trump AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters shout slogans against Donald Trump EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital A Palestinian protester wears a Guy Fawkes mask used by the anonymous movement during clashes with Israeli troops in Hebron AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian demonstrators clash with Isralei troops during protests AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of a Pakistani religious party chant anti-American slogans during a rally in Islamabad, Pakistan AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Pakistanis burn a representation of the U.S. flag during a protest rally in Hyderabad AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Young Palestinian women look on as smoke billows from burning tyres as fellow Palestinian demonstrators clash with Isralei troops AFP/Getty Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protesters burn a picture of U.S. President Donald Trump at a protest in Islamabad REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protestors shouts slogans against US President Donald Trump as they hold Palestinian and Turkish flags during a protest near the US Embassy in Ankara, Turkey EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protestors put their feet over a picture of US president Donald Trump during a protest in the West Bank City of Nablus EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Pakistani protesters burn tires at an anti-Donald Trump rally in Multan AP

Any possible progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict appears to be off the table, however, following the US Presidents decision to recognise the contested city of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

On Friday, in the second Day of Rage called for by various Palestinian factions, including Gazas militant Hamas, protesters clashed with Israeli forces throughout the Palestinian territories, resulting in two deaths.

Near Ramallah, a Palestinian was shot and injured after he attacked an officer with a knife. Palestinian and Israeli media published pictures of the assailant being carried to hospital on a stretcher in which he is clearly wearing a suicide vest.

It has not been confirmed by the authorities whether the explosives were real.

A Palestinian was shot and injured after he attacked an officer with a knife on 15 December 2017 near Ramallah. While the assailant was wearing a suicide vest, it is not clear whether the explosives were real (Reuters) (REUTERS)

Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians threw rocks and petrol bombs at Israeli troops. Soldiers responded with teargas and rubber bullets.

The Gaza Health Ministry said that five Palestinians were in a moderately serious condition after being injured by live fire.

There have been violent incidents across the territories, which have resulted in the deaths of a total of six Palestinians since Donald Trumps 6 December announcement that the US would recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, an action that was never internationally recognised. Control of it remains one of the core stumbling blocks to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Like many presidential hopefuls before him, on the campaign trail Mr Trump promised to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital and to relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

Over the last year, the new administration has delayed a decision on the issue.

 Theresa May says she will talk to Donald Trump about Jerusalem

Mr Trumps announcement last week, however, upends decades of US policy: The previous US position had been to clarify the status of Jerusalem in a final peace agreement as per the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

It has earned the US condemnation from the Muslim world and Western allies  including a rare rebuke from King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who reiterated earlier this week that the Palestinians have a right to East Jerusalem as their capital.

The Palestinians themselves have declared that they reject the USs role in the peace process, as Washingtons new stance means it can no longer act as an unbiased sponsor.

In recent months, there has been mounting pressure on the Palestinian leadership from both Riyadh and Washington to accept the terms of a less than favourable peace deal. The blueprint is understood to contain steps leading to a two-state solution, but without the right to return for Palestinian refugees or full sovereignty.

Recommended Israeli undercover troops officers attacking Palestinian protesters

An impasse in talks thanks to the Palestinian rejection of the US would complicate Washingtons efforts to get Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to unite with the US and Israel against Iran.

Many states were already reluctant to get to close to the Israelis without progress on the Palestinian issue, and will need far more convincing now.

Mr Trump has said his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israeli merely reflects the reality that Jerusalem already serves as Israels capital, and all other issues surrounding control of the city are up to the two parties to decide.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Turkey will open an embassy in east Jerusalem once the world recognises an independent Palestinian state, the country's foreign minister has said.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said there was serious determination among countries that have not yet recognised Palestine to do so.

Once we succeed, embassies will open in the independent Palestinian state's capital, east Jerusalem, he said.

Efforts to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the River Jordan and Gaza on the Mediterranean coast have been frustrated by the continuing conflict with Israel and disputes over the status of diaspora Palestinians.

The Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 established a Palestinian National Authority as an interim body to run parts of Gaza and the West Bank, but not East Jerusalem, pending an agreed solution to the conflict.

Israel's occupation of the West Bank, with its continuing settlement building and military checkpoints, along with Palestinian attacks, have slowed progress towards a final agreement and led many on both sides to dispute the worth of the Accords.

Mr Cavusoglu's comments come in the wake of US President Donald Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital and set in motion a plan to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to the city.

The decision which breaks with decades of US foreign policy, has drawn sharp criticism from Muslim countries.

Israel considers Jerusalem, both east and west, as its undivided eternal capital, but this has never been recognised internationally.

Announcing his decision Mr Trump said it was time to "finally acknowledge the obvious, that Jerusalem is Israels capital, .

He added: This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. Its something that has to be done.

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

Thousands of people protested in the occupied Palestinian territories and around the world following the announcement.

Turkey hosted a meeting of 57 Muslim nations earlier this week, that rejected the decision and called for the recognition of a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem.

The country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the US a partner in bloodshed after Mr Trump's announcement.

With their decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the United States has become a partner in this bloodshed, he said.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

South Korea's vice foreign minister issued an urgent plea about the threat from Pyongyang, warning the United Nations Security Council that North Korea was in the final stages of nuclear weaponization.

It will fundamentally alter the security landscape in the region and beyond if the North is able to equip a missile with a nuclear warhead, Cho Hyun warned.

In the past few months, North Korea has rattled the world with a series of weapons tests. It detonated a hydrogen bomb and has launched multiple ballistic missiles, saying after the latest firing that it now has the capability to attack the US mainland and had devised a missile capable of carrying super-large heavy nuclear warhead.

The late-November launch soared higher than any previous test, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis said, and illustrated North Korea's determination to build missiles that can threaten everywhere in the world.

Continuing to defy international warnings, a top North Korean official said escalating pressure from the global community shows America is terrified by North Korea's nuclear capabilities.

The nation's ambassador to the United Nations, Ja Song Nam, called a meeting of the UN Security Council a desperate measure plotted by the US in response to North Korea's displays of military might.

North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Show all 13 1 /13 North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents react after the news of the successful launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signing an order to test-fire the newly developed inter-continental ballistic missile KRT via AP Video North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch A news broadcast displays Kim Jong Un's signed document AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch People cheer as they watch the news broadcast announcing Kim Jong Un's order to test-fire the new inter-continental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Residents react after the document signing AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents celebrate Kim Jong Un's announcement AFP/Getty North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Cheering Pyongyang residents react AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch To counter North Korea's missile test, South Korea fired missiles into the East Sea The Defence Ministry/Yonhap via REUTERS North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The Hyunmu-2 missiles firing during the drill South Korean Defense Ministry vi North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The exercise was carried out in an attempt to counter Kim Jong Un's order South Korea Defense Ministry via AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The South Korean army continue to carry out military exercises AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Where K-9 self-propelled howitzers were taking part in a drill Rex Features North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch US soldiers are also present in the border city of Paju AFP/Getty Images

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals this week about its approach to North Korea's belligerence. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson opened the door to negotiations by floating the possibility of holding talks without preconditions.

Other officials swiftly clarified that North Korea would need to demonstrate a willingness to throttle back its aggression before that happens, and Mr Tillerson told the UN that talks would not occur without a sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behaviour.

North Korea must earn its way back to the table, Mr Tillerson said.

Mr Ja's remarks suggested North Korea has no intention of meeting those conditions, calling his nation's pursuit of nuclear weapons an inevitable self-defensive measure to defend our sovereignty and rights to existence and development from the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Thursday evening about the threat posed by North Korea.

A White House statement said the world leaders "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea".

The Kremlin said in a statement that Mr Trump and Mr Putin discussed bilateral relations and the situation in the Korean Peninsula.

Recommended Weary Putin complains about lack of political competition

The White House also said Mr Trump thanked his Russian counterpart for "acknowledging America's strong economic performance" during his annual news conference.

At that event, the Russian President said the US was only hurting itself by investigating alleged collusion between Mr Trump's campaign and Moscow.

He claimed concerns about collusion were "invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy" and demonstrated a "lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him".

Mr Putin said the countries should be cooperating to tackle the North Korean standoff, but warned the US not to use force against Pyongyang.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

At a Q&A with international media lasting almost four hours, the Russian leader said he and Mr Trump had spoken on a first-name basis on the sidelines of two international summits this year, and he voiced hope that the US President would eventually be able to fulfil his campaign promises to improve ties with Russia.

Recommended Trump administration undercuts Tillerson on North Korea talks

"I hope that he would gradually have opportunities to establish contacts with Russia," he said.

Mr Putin emphasised the need to cooperate on tackling global challenges and said Russia was ready for "constructive" cooperation on tackling the North Korean standoff.

He warned that using force against North Korea would be "catastrophic" and suggested the US had "provoked" the North into developing its nuclear and missile programmes.

Mr Putin said Moscow was encouraged by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's statement about readiness for talks with Pyongyang, hailing it as a "realistic" approach.

Additional reporting agencies
Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Heathrow - or perhaps it should be Heathrow-ho-ho - has revealed the record-breaking amounts of festive exports that fly through the airport in the run-up to Christmas.

More than 143,000 tonnes of seasonal goods are expected to be flown through in the month before 25 December.

Data shows a huge spike in Christmas staples being flown all over the world from 24 November.

Thousands of tonnes of Christmas lights, frozen lobsters and calendars have all been flown around the world via Heathrow in preparation.

Recommended The weirdest things people try to take on a plane

Some 6,070 tonnes of salmon was flown through the UKs busiest airport in November and December 2016  the equivalent of 480 London routemaster buses  as was 4,834 tonnes of books.

This year, 27 tonnes of Christmas lights have travelled via Heathrow, along with 31 tonnes of calendars and 310 tonnes of dried flowers for decorations.

Heathrow is at its busiest time at Christmas  and this year, we not only expect record numbers of passengers to fly through, but also a record amount of cargo to be flown in the holds under their feet, said Nick Platts, head of cargo at Heathrow Airport. Santa may still have the claim on the most deliveries on Christmas Eve, but for the months before it, Heathrow is doing its bit to export our British Christmas across the world.

The top five places that exports are being flown to outside the EU are:

United States (15,310 tonnes)

China (6,200 tonnes)

UAE (3,770 tonnes)

Australia (3,360 tonnes)

Hong Kong (2,770 tonnes)

The airport has seen a record-breaking 290,341 tonnes of exports flying through to non-EU destinations from January to October this year, up 8.5 per cent from 2016. In total these exports are worth 39.62bn.
Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Outside a beachside bar on the island of Jersey, I met a friendly chap wearing a T-shirt the same colour as easyJets signature shade of orange. The message, though, was not one you would expect to see on a budget flight. As he sipped his beer, his attire instructed: Cover me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.

A little earlier, on a Great Western Railway train to Exeter, I encountered another amicable gentleman who also had a beer in his hand and an interesting T-shirt slogan: For my next trick, I will need a volunteer and a condom.

On the offensive? People may have a different opinion on what clothes are acceptable to wear (Simon Calder)

Each of us has our own calibration of offence, and what constitutes acceptable apparel. Neither message, in my opinion, passes the 'eight-year-old test': would you be comfortable explaining the meaning to a bright young child? Nor does the hen party T-shirt slogan Bitches on Tour, which caused a group of women to be thrown off a Jet2 flight from East Midlands to Palma this summer.

These garments, though, are at the extreme end of the spectrum  and easily remedied by wearing the T-shirt inside out during the journey until you get to the nightclub. (I know I do.) On any train, bus or plane, you will encounter a colourful range of attire. Not all of it may coincide with your personal taste, but who cares?

Evidently, some premium passengers on Qantas.

This week, Joanne Catherall from Sheffield stumbled up another hurdle that stands between the traveller and the destination: the fashion police.

Ms Catherall is a vocalist in Yorkshires finest electropop combo, Human League. The band are on tour in Australia, and on Thursday they were flying from Melbourne to Sydney. Her status (as a frequent flyer, rather than a pop star) entitled her to use the Qantas business class lounge. But although she passed the ticket, identity and security checks, she failed to satisfy the style rules.

Recommended Qantas bar pop star from business class lounge for wearing Ugg boots

Ugg boots, it seems, are not deemed acceptable footwear for the inner sanctum of calm and tranquility that constitutes the Australian airlines lounge.

These sheepskin slip-ons are Australian icons on a par with the koala, the kangaroo and Kylie Minogue.

But provenance is no guarantee of acceptability when it comes to the high standards of the Melbourne lounge. Ms Catherall didnt quite have the Uggs pulled from under her feet, but she was told that if she wanted to cross the threshold she would need to buy some more shoes. Qantas staff evidently invoked the second verse of Dont you want me", the 1981 Human League hit: Its me who put you where you are now/And I can put you back down too."

Do other airlines have such strict rules on lounge access? We dont impose a dress code, a British Airways spokeswoman told me on Friday. "Except today, she added sternly, when everyone has to wear a Christmas jumper.

In United Airlines lounges, barking, growling or biting is banned. (That rule is specifically for service animals, but I imagine it applies equally to humans.)

Qantas explains its policy thus: Weve always had smart-casual dress standards for our lounges, which are similar for those in place for most clubs and restaurants. So attire regarded as too casual or inappropriate is out, and Ugg boots are specifically banned. The just this once? plea wont work, either: Over the past couple of years we have had clear feedback from lounge members that they wanted these existing guidelines to be applied more rigorously, the airline says.

Who are these high-flyers who demand strict enforcement of some rather silly rules? The average Qantas business-class passenger should be celebrating the global access that Australias airline provides, the diversity of fellow passengers and even the variety of their footwear. And Qantas should not indulge intolerance.
Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Virgin Trains passengers at its London terminus, Euston, are facing disruption on the busiest day of the week due to a strike by on-board and station staff belonging to the RMT and TSSA unions.

The stoppage is part of a dispute over fairness relative to drivers employment terms; the unions it call a fight for workplace justice and equality

About 30 per cent of long-distance trains on the West Coast main line have been cancelled: one in three Birmingham services; the hourly links to Chester, as well as services to North Wales; Manchester via Wilmslow; and Edinburgh via Carlisle.

Travellers on trains which are running are being urged to buy snacks and drinks before their journeys, as no on-board catering is available.

Tickets are valid on alternative Virgin Trains services, or on other operators departures. But passengers to Scotland are being warned that some East Coast services are likely to be extremely crowded: the 10am, noon, 2pm and 4pm departures from London Kings Cross.

Strikes are planned for next Friday, normally one of the busiest days of the year, and on four further dates next year.

As Christmas and New Year approaches, three other big train operators are facing strikes. CrossCountry Trains staff belonging the RMT plan to strike on 23, 24, 27 and 31 December in a dispute over rostering.

The union has also announced industrial action on Greater Anglia on 27 December and South Western Railway on New Years Eve.

Both these disputes are about the principle of driver-only operation and the future role of guards  which has sparked many strikes on Southern, GWR, Northern and Merseyrail over the past two years.

Flights to and from Italy are also experiencing some disruption today, due to a range of strikes by airline and airport staff. Eurocontrol says that passengers at smaller airports are more likely to face delays and cancellations than the key hubs in Rome and Milan.
Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

What would happen if the snow started to slide right now? My fingers fumbling nervously with the straps on my bindings as I sit on a narrow ridge high above Verbier, I stare down into yet another couloir with the same old question hanging in the air.

In the 17 years since I learnt to snowboard, Ive developed quite the powder habit, eschewing pistes in favour of the steepest, deepest snow I can find. From the fabled chutes of Jackson Hole in Wyoming to the Himalayan fantasy land of Gulmarg in Kashmir, theres been little I wouldnt do for a chance to stray off the beaten track. But at the back of my mind, theres always the same nagging doubt about what I would do if caught in an avalanche.

Ive tried my best to ignore it, swaddling myself in the collective safety blanket of a local guide and the requisite shovel, probe and transceiver. But as we saw in February, when a tragic slide in Tignes killed three members of the same French family along with their guide, this is simply not enough to guarantee your safety.

With this in mind I signed myself up for an avalanche-awareness course while in Verbier, in a bid to find out how to properly judge snow conditions and avoid risky scenarios.

Recommended Everything you need to know about next ski season

Most avalanche training courses are focused on how to find people once theyre buried and how to dig them out; but by then its often too late to save someone, says our instructor, Dominique Perret, in his sobering opening address. Instead we focus on prevention, so you avoid getting into a dangerous situation in the first place.

When it comes to advice on staying safe in the mountains, 54-year-old Perret is someone you can trust. Regarded by fellow professionals as one of the best free-skiers the world has ever produced  even winning the Best Freeride Skier of the Century at the Board Awards back in 2000  he has spent the last 25 years conquering mountains that were previously regarded by locals as unskiable. While friends and colleagues have perished along the way, Perret has never been caught in an avalanche himself  something he puts down to more than just luck.

There are some simple steps you can take that allow you to read the mountain, he continues. For example, looking at the steepness of the terrain, the condition of the snow, the direction of the wind All these things will give you information about the avalanche risk. If youve any doubt whatsoever, you should avoid it  its just not worth it.

The idea for the International Snow Training Academy (ISTA) courses came to Perret while on a diving trip abroad. I was doing a PADI course at the time, and I thought this is exactly what we need for snowsports  a universal safety awareness programme.

Theres only 15 minutes to dig someone out of the snow (Matt Carroll)

After years spent garnering input from experts in meteorology and snow science, the ISTA is now being implemented in resorts throughout Europe and North America.

While this all sounds good in theory, how would it actually translate to being on the mountain? After an initial classroom briefing, Perret herds us onto the Medran gondola so we could start putting his words into practice.

The ISTA breaks avalanche procedure down into three basic elements  before, during and after (BDA)  each of which is then dealt with via bite-sized modules. Throughout the day we find ourselves whipping through the snazzily-designed course booklet at a satisfying rate of knots.

Indeed, even before lunchtime we learnt some invaluable pointers  including how to judge the steepness of the terrain using ski poles, an easy technique for assessing wind and weather conditions and a quick and effective way of determining the snow-pack quality. According to Perret, these simple steps alone will give you a good indication of the avalanche risk.

The afternoon, meanwhile, focuses on what to do if you somehow miss all the signs and disaster strikes.

Dominique Perret (left) is a world-class freerider (Matt Carroll)

Having slashed our way through some satisfying powder, Dominique shows us how to use our transceivers to find someone buried in the snow. Once we are confident that weve reached our buried comrade (in this case another transceiver), its time to ascertain how deeply submerged they are, using our probes. Youll know when youre poking someones body; it feels very different to a rock, Perret notes grimly, as we prod the snow.

Now comes the crucial bit: Digging. Here, too, the emphasis is on being simple and systematic. Armed with shovels, everyone forms an arrow shape with one person at the front funnelling snow towards the back of the group; when they run out of steam, we quickly rotate.

In a real-life situation, these moments can mean the difference between life and death, with 15 minutes typically being all you have to get the victim out alive. From then on, the chances of survival drop through the floor  something we are aware of as we run out of puff just a couple of minutes in. Thankfully, on this occasion we rescue the transceiver in time.

With the sun now sinking behind distant peaks, its time to head back. Despite only being under Perrets wing for one day, the knowledge I gleaned changed my whole perception of the mountain  and its something that will hopefully help keep me safe for the rest of my life.

Travel essentials

Getting there

easyJet (easyJet.com) offers return flights from London Gatwick to Geneva, from 47; flights also available from Heathrow to Geneva with SWISS (swiss.com) from 87 return.

Staying there

Hotel La Rotonde (0041 27 771 65 25; hotelrotonde.com) offers doubles from 192.

More information

The one-day Discovery course with ISTA (ista-education.com) costs 229 Swiss francs (173); includes training booklet and certificate. Excludes cost of instructor, which can be spread as a group.

verbier.ch
Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }}

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) of Saudi Arabia is the undoubted Middle East man of the year, but his great impact stems more from his failures than his successes. He is accused of being Machiavellian in clearing his way to the throne by the elimination of opponents inside and outside the royal family. But, when it comes to Saudi Arabias position in the world, his miscalculations remind one less of the cunning manoeuvres of Machiavelli and more of the pratfalls of Inspector Clouseau.

Again and again, the impulsive and mercurial young prince has embarked on ventures abroad that achieve the exact opposite of what he intended. When his father became king in early 2015, he gave support to a rebel offensive in Syria that achieved some success but provoked full-scale Russian military intervention, which in turn led to the victory of President Bashar al-Assad. At about the same time, MbS launched Saudi armed intervention, mostly through airstrikes, in the civil war in Yemen. The action was code-named Operation Decisive Storm, but two and a half years later the war is still going on, has killed 10,000 people and brought at least seven million Yemenis close to starvation.

The Crown Prince is focusing Saudi foreign policy on aggressive opposition to Iran and its regional allies, but the effect of his policies has been to increase Iranian influence. The feud with Qatar, in which Saudi Arabia and the UAE play the leading role, led to a blockade being imposed five months ago which is still going on. The offence of the Qataris was to have given support to al-Qaeda type movements  an accusation that was true enough but could be levelled equally at Saudi Arabia  and to having links with Iran. The net result of the anti-Qatari campaign has been to drive the small but fabulously wealthy state further into the Iranian embrace.

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 relations with other countries used to be cautious, conservative and aimed at preserving the status quo. But today its behaviour is zany, unpredictable and often counterproductive: witness the bizarre episode in November when the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was summoned to Riyadh, not allowed to depart and forced to resign his position. The objective of this ill-considered action on the part of Saudi Arabia was apparently to weaken Hezbollah and Iran in Lebanon, but has in practice empowered both of them.

What all these Saudi actions have in common is that they are based on a naive presumption that a best-case scenario will inevitably be achieved. There is no Plan B and not much of a Plan A: Saudi Arabia is simply plugging into conflicts and confrontations it has no idea how to bring to an end.

MbS and his advisers may imagine that it does not matter what Yemenis, Qataris or Lebanese think because President Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser, are firmly in their corner. I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing, tweeted Trump in early November after the round up and confinement of some 200 members of the Saudi elite. Some of those they are harshly treating have been milking their country for years! Earlier he had tweeted support for the attempt to isolate Qatar as a supporter of terrorism.

But Saudi Arabia is learning that support from the White House these days brings fewer advantages than in the past. The attention span of Donald Trump is notoriously short, and his preoccupation is with domestic US politics: his approval does not necessarily mean the approval of other parts of the US government. The State Department and the Pentagon may disapprove of the latest Trump tweet and seek to ignore or circumvent it. Despite his positive tweet, the US did not back the Saudi confrontation with Qatar or the attempt to get Mr Hariri to resign as prime minister of Lebanon.

 Saudi Arabia's crown prince: Country will return to 'moderate, open Islam'

For its part, the White House is finding out the limitations of Saudi power. MbS was not able to get the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to agree to a US-sponsored peace plan that would have given Israel very much and the Palestinians very little. The idea of a Saudi-Israeli covert alliance against Iran may sound attractive to some Washington think tanks, but does not make much sense on the ground. The assumption that Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the promise to move the US embassy there, would have no long-term effects on attitudes in the Middle East is beginning to look shaky.

It is Saudi Arabia  and not its rivals  that is becoming isolated. The political balance of power in the region changed to its disadvantage over the last two years. Some of this predates the elevation of MbS: by 2015 it was becoming clear that a combination of Sunni states led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey was failing to carry out regime change in Damascus. This powerful grouping has fragmented, with Turkey and Qatar moving closer to the Russian-backed Iranian-led axis, which is the dominant power in the northern tier of the Middle East between Afghanistan and the Mediterranean.

If the US and Saudi Arabia wanted to do anything about this new alignment, they have left it too late. Other states in the Middle East are coming to recognise that there are winners and losers, and have no wish to be on the losing side. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called a meeting this week in Istanbul of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, to which 57 Muslim states belong, to reject and condemn the US decision on Jerusalem, Saudi Arabia only sent a junior representative to this normally moribund organisation. But other state leaders like Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, King Abdullah of Jordan and the emirs of Kuwait and Qatar, among many others, were present. They recognised East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and demanded the US reverse its decision.

MbS is in the tradition of leaders all over the world who show Machiavellian skills in securing power within their own countries. But their success domestically gives them an exaggerated sense of their own capacity in dealing with foreign affairs, and this can have calamitous consequences. Saddam Hussein was very acute in seizing power in Iraq but ruined his country by starting two wars he could not win.

Mistakes made by powerful leaders are often explained by their own egomania and ignorance, supplemented by flattering but misleading advice from their senior lieutenants. The first steps in foreign intervention are often alluring because a leader can present himself as a national standard bearer, justifying his monopoly of power at home. Such a patriotic posture is a shortcut to popularity, but there is always a political bill to pay if confrontations and wars end in frustration and defeat. MbS has unwisely decided that Saudi Arabia should play a more active and aggressive role at the very moment that its real political and economic strength is ebbing. He is overplaying his hand and making too many enemies.
CONCORD  No charges will be filed in the shooting death of DeShawn Tatem, according to a press release from District Attorney Roxann Vaneekhoven.

After a review of the evidence and extensive investigation, Vaneekhoven said Sarah Shoe, the owner of Sarahs Pet Spa on Winecoff School Road, fired the shot in self-defense. It happened Thursday, Nov. 30.

Tatem was a leader in the Yahshua Movement, which rented space near Sarahs Pet Spa. According to Vaneekhoven Tatem was known as The General.

The press release gives extensive details of what investigators found and were told.

Here is the complete press release from Vaneekhoven:

On Thursday, November 30, 2017, Sarah Shoe fired one shot at a man who had forcefully and unlawfully entered her place of business and was attacking her boyfriend while her two young grandchildren were inside her business. The man was DeShawn Tatem also known as The General in a group called the Yahshua Movement. The shot was fired while Ms. Shoe was on the phone with a 911 operator describing a physical fight that Mr. Tatem had gotten into moments earlier with Ms. Shoes boyfriend, Christopher Gray, after being told to leave their business more than a dozen times. Ms. Shoe explained to the operator that the only way she could get Tatem to leave the first time was to pull a gun on him. She described Tatem as being extremely angry when he finally left her business and he continued to yell, Yall better leave here, on his way out.

Ms. Shoe called 911 as soon as she and her boyfriend got Tatem to leave their property. Approximately one and a half minutes into the 911 call Ms. Shoe tells the operator, Hes outside again.  Hes out there screaming.  If he comes in, Im shooting him. During her police interview, Ms. Shoe stated that when Tatem returned with several others, she was in the right hand side of her business behind the plate glass window with her two small grandchildren. She indicated that Tatem came to that window and was banging on the window screaming, that he was going to bust the window out. At the time Ms. Shoe stated that she saw what looked like a gray metal object in Tatems hand.

According to Ms. Shoes boyfriend, Christopher Gray, when Tatem returned he was screaming You better move M***** F*****, youre dead. He described Tatem as furious, and he noticed at least two other men with him. Mr. Gray stated that he went to lock the front door. When he got to the door he said he opened it part way to tell them to go and let Tatem know there were kids inside the business. Mr. Gray said that Tatem yelled to him, Im the General from Virginia, you dont know who you just f***** with. I make one phone call and Ill have an army down here.

Mr. Gray stated that Tatem then grabbed him and shoved him against the wall inside the business and was hitting him in the face and head. He said that Tatem grabbed his shirt and pushed him down against the wall. He then said that Tatem started pulling him towards the door to go to the back where Sarah and the children were. Ms. Shoe stated that when Tatem had Chris pinned against the wall she went and got the gun again. She returned with the gun and was standing behind the open window area of the partial wall that divided the front area of the business. She said she pointed the gun at Tatem so he would stop assaulting Mr. Gray. Ms. Shoe said that Tatem was saying over and over again to shoot him. She told police that when he starting coming towards her, she had her two small grandchildren by her side and she fired the gun at him to protect them and Chris.

During the police interview of Mr. Gray, he stated, When he grabbed me and pushed me into the shop and started hitting me, and I realized there were more people out there, I think she truly saved my life. Ms. Shoe stated to the 911 operator while all this was happening, He was attacking my boyfriend, I didnt have a choice. Amongst the noise that can be heard on the 911 call, Ms. Shoes grandchildren can be heard crying throughout this traumatic event.

Ms. Shoe fired the gun one time, and Mr. Tatem died as a result of the gunshot wound he sustained inside Ms. Shoes business. Tatems members of the Yahshua Movement rented space near Sarahs Pet Spa.

The Concord Police Department did a thorough and complete investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident.

After meeting with officers who investigated this case, and reviewing the facts, statements of all witnesses, a 911 call made by Ms. Shoe, crime scene photos, physical evidence, and the law as it relates to the Castle Doctrine and self-defense, the Cabarrus County District Attorneys Office will not be pursuing criminal charges against Sarah Shoe for the incident that occurred inside her business on November 30, 2017.

It is important to note that any case of this nature is analyzed by the facts that are specific to that case, and the law that may apply to the facts of that specific case. No two cases are exactly alike, and the District Attorneys Office will exercise due diligence to review and evaluate the unique facts of each individual case and apply the law to that cases specific facts.

The Castle Doctrine

North Carolina General Statute 14-51.2

14-51.2. Home, workplace, and motor vehicle protection; presumption of fear of death or serious bodily harm.

(a) The following definitions apply in this section:

Home.  A building or conveyance of any kind, to include its curtilage, whether the building or conveyance is temporary or permanent, mobile or immobile, which has a roof over it, including a tent, and is designed as a temporary or permanent residence.

Law enforcement officer.  Any person employed or appointed as a full-time, part-time, or auxiliary law enforcement officer, correctional officer, probation officer, post-release supervision officer, or parole officer.

Motor vehicle.  As defined in G.S. 20-4.01(23).

Workplace.  A building or conveyance of any kind, whether the building or conveyance is temporary or permanent, mobile or immobile, which has a roof over it, including a tent, which is being used for commercial purposes.

(b) The lawful occupant of a home, motor vehicle, or workplace is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily harm to another if both of the following apply:

The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a

home, motor vehicle, or workplace, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person's will from the home, motor vehicle, or workplace.

The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

(c) The presumption set forth in subsection (b) of this section shall be rebuttable and does not apply in any of the following circumstances:

The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the home, motor vehicle, or workplace, such as an owner or lessee, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person.

The person sought to be removed from the home, motor vehicle, or workplace is a child or grandchild or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of the person against whom the defensive force is used.

The person who uses defensive force is engaged in, attempting to escape from, or using the home, motor vehicle, or workplace to further any criminal offense that involves the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual.

The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer or bail bondsman who enters or attempts to enter a home, motor vehicle, or workplace in the lawful performance of his or her official duties, and the officer or bail bondsman identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a law enforcement officer or bail bondsman in the lawful performance of his or her official duties.

The person against whom the defensive force is used (i) has discontinued all efforts to unlawfully and forcefully enter the home, motor vehicle, or workplace and (ii) has exited the home, motor vehicle, or workplace.

A person who unlawfully and by force enters or attempts to enter a person's home, motor vehicle, or workplace is presumed to be doing so with the intent to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence.

A person who uses force as permitted by this section is justified in using such force and is immune from civil or criminal liability for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer or bail bondsman who was lawfully acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer or bail bondsman identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer or bail bondsman in the lawful performance of his or her official duties.

A lawful occupant within his or her home, motor vehicle, or workplace does not have a duty to retreat from an intruder in the circumstances described in this section.

This section is not intended to repeal or limit any other defense that may exist under the common law. (2011-268, s. 1.)
Indiana has a problem. According to Gov. Eric Holcomb, there are almost 100,000 vacant jobs across the state; but this isnt because there isnt anyone to fill them. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Indianas unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, slightly lower than the countrys 4.1 percent rate. These jobs are vacant because Hoosiers arent prepared to enter the industries these jobs are available in.

Holcomb hopes to fix this. In November, he announced the creation of a new state agency: The Office of Apprenticeship. Throughout Holcombs term, this office will ensure that high school students arent just being shown colleges to consider upon graduation, but that they are also being introduced to alternative possibilities.

Apprenticeships have an earn-while-you-learn model. A traditional program consists of 144 hours of class time and 2,000 hours of job training. The time it takes to complete an apprenticeship can vary, but apprenticeships involving building trades (e.g. carpenters, iron workers, plumbers) and industrial programs (e.g. advanced manufacturing, electrician, maintenance repair)  the most popular options in Indiana  take four to five years to complete. Upon completion, an apprentice will walk away with multiple credentials, certification from the Department of Labor, a journeyperson card and an associate degree for little to no cost, as most employers cover the cost of these programs.

Currently, many Indiana high school curriculums encourage students to seek post-secondary education and do little to help students who dont believe college is for them. Devon Doss, executive director of Indiana Plan  a nonprofit that prepares minorities and disadvantaged workers to enter apprenticeships  experienced this when he was a student.

A lot of young people think they have to choose college or the military, and if that doesnt work they just go find a job somewhere. Indiana Plan shows them that they can have a career, he said. Doss participated in Indiana Plan in 1995 and has worked as a union electrician for 19 years.

Created in 1970, Indiana Plan was born out of an executive order given by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. The executive order mandated that discriminatory practices would no longer be allowed when hiring contractors. The order also required large construction companies to implement affirmative action plans.

Indiana Plan helps apprenticeship programs in Indianapolis and Gary diversify their applicant pools. The organization hosts a free two-week crash course on apprenticeships that includes info about construction safety, money management and basic math skills. The organization also helps Hoosiers get certifications to set their apprentice application apart. At the end of the course, Indiana Plan reaches out to its network of apprenticeship programs to alert them of the new crop of students looking for work. In the last three years, every student that has gone through the program has been offered a job.

In November, Ivy Tech Community College became a Department of Labor-approved apprenticeship sponsor to aid in the governors goal of increasing the number of skilled workers.

We are working hand-in-hand with the Department of Labor to make this work, said Teresa Hess, executive director of apprenticeship studies at Ivy Tech. The college will now take on the administration challenges that companies often face. To register a company, there is some paperwork involved and you have to track apprenticeship hours. By us becoming a sponsor, thats one of the things that will be eliminated from the company. This will especially help the smaller companies who may not have the capacity within their HR departments to complete the paperwork.

This new model is currently being piloted in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with plans for it to roll out across the state in the spring. Through the new partnership, Ivy Tech is hoping to expand in non-traditional apprenticeship areas like health care and IT. For decades, the college has worked with industries in Indiana to aid in the apprenticeship process and to date has awarded over 13,000 apprenticeship degrees.

Apprenticeships have proven to be beneficial to the workforce and the economy. According to Ivy Tech, these programs reduce turnover, create a pipeline for skilled workers, increase competitive edge and ensure workers are trained to industry specifications.

Its a win-win situation for the employers and employees, Hess said. Its not a job; its a career path, and its a high-paying, good career. Im very excited that the state is taking strides to make apprenticeships more prevalent across Indiana.
Scientists, researchers, public health groups and many others worldwide are working tirelessly to address HIV.

One such group in Indianapolis, Brothers United, began in 1999 as a group of concerned community members passing out condoms on the street. Today, the organizations programs focus on prevention, care, advocacy and support for Indianas Black residents living with HIV.

A few Black men got together and said, We need to start having a conversation about HIV in our community, Terrell Parker, program director at Brothers United, said about the groups inception. The epidemic had shifted from the white community, and it was heavily impacting the Black community.

With countless organizations working to learn more about the disease, our understanding of HIV  what it is, how it spreads, what a diagnosis means for a persons future  is constantly evolving.

From his perspective with Brothers United, Parker recently shared some insights with the Indianapolis Recorder. Here are four things from that conversation that struck a chord:

If youre Black, youre

high-risk

When discussing whos most at risk for contracting HIV, Parker did not mince words.

If youre Black, youre high-risk, he said.

Parker explained that half of all gay Black men will contract HIV, compared to about a quarter of gay Latino men and about one in 11 gay white men.

But the problem extends beyond men.

After Black gay men, Latino gay men and white gay men, Black women are the most likely to contract HIV, Parker said. Black women are most likely of any group of women to contract HIV.

Further, Parker said, one in eight Black people living with HIV doesnt know theyve got the disease, and Black people who are HIV positive have worse outcomes than people of other races.

(Looking at the stats), thats when you start to see how the epidemic has changed and how its very specifically hitting the Black community, regardless of your sexuality, he said.

Parker said one unique aspect of Brothers United  which, by the way, works with women in addition to men  is that, of all of Indianas groups working with people who have HIV, Brothers United is the only one focusing its work solely on the Black community.

All of our messaging, programming, efforts and initiatives are targeted specifically to Black people in Indiana, Parker said.

HIV in 2017 is a totally preventable disease

Parker said Brothers United puts a lot of emphasis on getting the word out about PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a daily regimen of medicine to help high-risk people avoid contracting HIV.

Beyond spreading information, Parker said Brothers United caseworkers will help clients get their hands on the necessary drugs.

If youre a young person who comes into Brothers United and you have an HIV test, and your HIV test is negative, our goal then is how do we keep you negative? Parker said. That means making sure people have access to PrEP, which means having access to health insurance.

Parker said research has shown PrEP to be effective in preventing the spread of HIV. He mentioned one particular study done in San Francisco, which focused on 1,500 couples in which one partner was HIV negative and one partner was living with HIV. Over the studys three-year period  during which the couples had condomless intercourse and the HIV-negative partner took PrEP  zero new infections occurred. Parker said with those kinds of results, PrEP can completely change the way HIV impacts communities.

HIV in 2017 is a totally preventable disease, he said. We can end HIV.

Life expectancy is pretty much the same

In addition to being preventable, HIV is treatable, Parker said, explaining that most people living with the disease can reach viral suppression by taking one pill a day.

Viral suppression means a persons viral load  the amount of HIV in their blood  is undetectable, which happens because the medication, if taken according to a doctors orders, prevents the virus from making copies of itself. Parker said a person living with HIV who is virally suppressed does not reach the point of an AIDS diagnosis and is also unlikely to pass the virus on to someone else. Parker said after a person has been diagnosed with HIV and linked to care, it could take about three to six months to reach viral suppression.

If we can test people early, get them linked to care, they can live healthy, live happy, and have a regular life expectancy, he said, adding that with proper treatment, the disease is as manageable as diabetes or high blood pressure, and people living with HIV can have a life expectancy essentially equal to someone whos HIV negative.

If you take your medication every day, you take it how your doctor prescribes it, youre going to be healthy. Its going to work, he said.

But none of this matters if people dont get tested to learn their HIV status, Parker said, adding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend annual testing for anyone between the ages of 13 and 64 who is sexually active. Despite the recommendations of experts, many people still will not get tested.

Some people would rather not know than to have to face the consequences, Parker said.

Brothers United works hard to help people get tested, visiting college campuses, skating rinks and other places to reach the community. Parker said some people even plan HIV testing house parties, inviting loved ones (and Brothers United) to their home to learn their HIV status.

HIV advocacy is about more than treating HIV

HIV doesnt have to be life-threatening, but it is life-changing, Parker said, which is why care coordinators at Brothers United take a holistic approach with anyone who seeks their guidance.

Yes, HIV is what helped start Brothers United, but our mission says we help enhance the health and wellness of the community, he said. Our mission doesnt explicitly mention HIV, because we have to look at health from a more holistic standpoint and understand HIV is a part of the puzzle. But a lot of the factors that cause someone to be high-risk for HIV can be the same factors that cause someone to have diabetes or high blood pressure.

As part of the holistic approach, case managers at Brothers United help with anything from navigating the health insurance marketplace to finding housing, from obtaining food assistance to coping with the emotional stress of being diagnosed with HIV.

Were trying to think about what barriers do people have thatll prevent them from going to the doctor? What can we do to remove some of those barriers so the client can focus on their health? Parker said.

For more information on Brothers United, visit brothersunitedinc.org.
Like the Allied generals of World War II who came up with the plan to invade Normandy to help defeat the Nazis, Indianapolis leaders have developed a bold plan to defeat criminals who have contributed to an increase in crime across the city.

In the same manner as the Normandy invasion, the Citys plan is designed to attack criminals on multiple fronts while building more support and trust among allies: the police, community organizations and residents.

Over the past decade, our city has witnessed a significant rise in the number of homicides, Mayor Joe Hogsett said Monday during a press conference at the City-County Building, where he was joined by senior members of his administration and other city leaders.

Hogsett noted that the citys annual homicide rate has not gone down in seven years. As of Monday, Indianapolis had tallied 148 criminal homicides in 2017, putting the city on track to surpass last years total of 149 homicides.

Someones son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, nephew or niece has lost their life as a result of violence on our streets, Hogsett said. Its heartbreaking, its maddening, its senseless and it is unacceptable.

So what will be done about it? Hogsett said he has an answer to that question.

This week, his administration and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) announced a plan that will increase the number of police on the streets while also increasing support for community organizations that help people avoid having to use illegal options to survive.

Boots on

the ground

On the police side of the plan, new strategies will be implemented to make it more difficult for illegally armed felons to obtain and keep illegal guns.

With his voice steady in firm resolve, Hosgett delivered a warning to those criminals and others causing violence: It doesnt matter who you are, how powerful you feel, how many guns you gather and how many people you try to scare: We are not intimidated, Hogsett said. To those bad actors, we are coming for you with a unified resolve and focused purpose, the likes of which our city has never seen before.

Under a three-pronged effort to reduce gun-related violence, ballistics testing will be done at a faster rate and expanded to connect shell casings and firearms in real time to serial shooters in order to disrupt criminal activity and prevent future violence. In addition, IMPD will establish a crime gun intelligence center, and the department has adopted a second degree of separation approach that investigates not only those accused of gun crimes, but close associates as well.

More police officers will be hired and trained to start with IMPD in 2019 in response to the fact that homicides spiked from 96 in 2012 to 125 in 2013 after a hiring freeze on new police officers, and those numbers have increased ever since.

We are on track to take a chronically and dangerously undermanned police department and staff it appropriately for its mission, Hogsett said. This is important not only because it ensures the safety of our officers, but it is critical to our plans to extend our community-based beat policing efforts next year.

The interactive beat patrol system that has been used by police since Hogsett became mayor will be expanded countywide. IMPD Chief Bryan Roach said this will be done because city leaders have noticed sharp reductions in crime in areas where the beat system is used.

Last year, 15 new beats were created in areas with higher-than-average rates of violence, and all of those areas experienced a reduction in homicides, leading to a 29 percent decrease along with an overall drop in non-fatal shootings.

The message that sent to me and the mayor was that focused law enforcement efforts in small areas seem to work, Roach said.

Roach added that IMPD is working more closely with law enforcement partners such as the FBI in identifying people who attempt to fill voids left by the removal of organized criminal elements, especially following last months indictment of an Indianapolis group associated with numerous homicides and shootings.

Bread on

the tables

On the community side of the plan, the city will help obtain more funding for organizations that have been active in preventing crime and providing social services to keep people in need from turning to crime.

City leaders estimate that approximately $1 million in funding and technical assistance will be distributed to various programs and services. However, the impact of their work will be reviewed by the City to ensure resources are being invested wisely.

The City will also hire a Director of Community Violence Reduction to coordinate crime prevention efforts among law enforcement, neighborhoods and community groups. In addition, four individuals called Indy Peace Makers will be hired to provide day-to-day operational assistance to neighborhoods and community groups engaged in violence prevention.

District Councils will be created across the city to help facilitate the work of the Indianapolis Violence Reduction Partnership.

Deputy Mayor David Hampton said the city wants to address what has been revealed as the major root causes of local crime.

Poverty and food insecurity are issues directly affecting a lot of what drives crime, said Hampton, who is also senior pastor of Light of the World Christian Church.

Hampton said both parts of the plan would address changing realities among criminal elements on the streets; evidence from recent crimes and feedback from residents concerned about violence has shown that more violent criminals function on an individual basis instead of with organized groups such as gangs.

We are dealing with a generational change of street rules, said Hampton. We now have millennials who dont operate with a criminal code, like the older OGs. So you dont see established gangs and established leaders, but pockets of people who operate on their own.

Funding for the crime plan presented this week must be approved by the City-County Council. It is likely that the plan will be introduced to the council during its Dec. 18 meeting, with a possible vote in January.

Backup in the streets

Several community organizations immediately announced support for the crime plan. For one, members of the Faith in Indiana/IndyCAN coalition say they appreciate that Hosgett specifically stated that the plan has a unified focus that does not isolate certain groups of residents.

The mayors decision to step away from random sweeps that criminalize communities of color and instead target resources on that population will help restore trust and save lives, said Derris Ross, a Faith in Indiana/IndyCAN organizer.

Ross said the citys plan was announced following a year of meetings among Faith in Indiana/IndyCAN members, the mayors office and local youth.

Rev. Shannon MacVean Brown, co-chair of Faith in Indiana/IndyCAN, believes the announcement affirms the sanctity of all life by reducing violence without fueling mass incarceration.

Rev. Juard Barnes, pastor of Overcoming Church, said the citys new strategy has been proven to work in cities across the country.

This strategy is about saying to our children, We are against violence, but we are for you, said Barnes, whose church is located in Martindale-Brightwood, a neighborhood where crime prevention partnerships have led to a reduction in homicides. Its about giving them a real choice by having jobs in place and the resources they need to leave street life.

Crime by

the numbers

 Criminal homicides have increased over the past seven years, from 93 in 2010 to 149 in 2016.

 Murder rates increased the fastest during the period of time when IMPDs staff decreased from 1,643 in 2010 to 1,535 in 2013 due to a hiring freeze and retirements.

 According to the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD), violence is the leading cause of death for local youth 1025 years old.

The citys answer

 Expand successful beat policing, where officers coordinate crime prevention with residents and community groups

 Expand efforts to keep guns out of the hands of violent felons

 Speed up results of tests on firearms used in crimes

 Increase resources and support for community groups involved in crime prevention
As long-simmering debates continue over how American society should commemorate the Christmas holiday, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that most U.S. adults (56 percent) believe the religious aspects of Christmas are emphasized less now than in the past  even as relatively few Americans (32 percent) are bothered by this trend. In addition, a declining majority (66 percent) says religious displays such as nativity scenes should be allowed on government property. And compared with five years ago, a growing share of Americans (52 percent) say it does not matter to them how they are greeted in stores and businesses during the holiday season  whether with merry Christmas or a less-religious greeting like happy holidays.

Not only are some of the more religious aspects of Christmas less prominent in the public sphere, but also there are signs that they are on the wane in Americans private lives and personal beliefs, as well. For instance, there has been a noticeable decline in the percentage of U.S. adults (57 percent) who say they believe that biblical elements of the Christmas story  that Jesus was born to a virgin, for example  reflect historical events that actually occurred. And although most Americans (55 percent) still say they mark the occasion as a religious holiday, there has been a slight drop in recent years in the share who say they do this.

These are among the key findings from the latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted by telephone Nov. 29 to Dec. 4, 2017, among a representative sample of 1,503 adults nationwide. The rest of this report looks at the results of the survey in more detail, including trends over time and differences by religious affiliation and observance.

Here are some of the highlights of the religious affiliation and observance portion of the survey results:

Smaller majority now says Christian displays on government property are acceptable

While most Christians (73 percent) continue to think displaying religious symbols on government property is acceptable during the Christmas season, Christians as a whole have become less supportive of this position over the last three years. The change is most pronounced among white evangelical Protestants, who are less likely, by 10 percentage points, to favor displaying Christian symbols on government property today (80 percent) than in 2014 (90 percent). By comparison with white evangelicals, the views of other Christian groups are more stable on this question.

Most white evangelical Protestants (57 percent) say they think it is OK for Christian symbols like nativity scenes to be displayed on government property even if the Christian symbols are not accompanied by imagery from other faiths. Smaller shares of Black Protestants (41 percent), white mainline Protestants (39 percent) and Catholics (35 percent) are comfortable displaying only Christian symbols on government property, although similar shares of all three groups say such displays are acceptable if they are accompanied by religious symbols from other faiths.

Religious nones are divided in their views about religious displays on government property. Half think that displaying Christian symbols on government property is acceptable (including 24 percent who think such displays are OK by themselves and 27 percent who think they are only acceptable if accompanied by other religious symbols), while 45 percent say no religious symbols should be displayed on government property.

Most say religious aspects of Christmas

emphasized less now than in past

Seven in 10 white evangelical Protestants say that in American society, the religious aspects of Christmas are emphasized less today than in the past, and most (59 percent) say they find this at least somewhat bothersome. Nearly two-thirds of white mainline Protestants agree that the religious aspects of Christmas get less emphasis today than in the past, but compared with white evangelicals, they are less troubled by this development; 41 percent of white mainline Protestants say the declining emphasis on the religious aspects of Christmas bothers them a lot or some.

Roughly half of Catholics (49 percent), religious nones (50 percent) and Black Protestants (52 percent) say religion has a shrinking role in the way Christmas is celebrated in the U.S., but nones are less likely than other groups to be bothered by this trend.

Most white evangelical Protestants say they prefer for stores and other businesses to greet their customers by saying merry Christmas during the holidays. But evangelicals are somewhat less likely to express this view today (61 percent) compared with 2012 (70 percent).

Within every other major Christian tradition, there are at least as many people who say the holiday greetings used by stores and businesses dont matter to them as there are who say they prefer merry Christmas. And among religious nones, fully 72 percent say the holiday greeting businesses use doesnt much matter to them.

Religious and family elements

of Christmas celebrations

Large majorities in every major Christian group say they celebrate Christmas. Even among religious nones, fully 85 percent say they celebrate the holiday.

There are sizable differences, though, in the way people from various religious groups think about the occasion. Perhaps not surprisingly, most Christians (72 percent) say they mark the day as a religious holiday, including 60 percent who celebrate as more of a religious holiday than a cultural occasion and 12 percent who mark it as both a religious holiday and a cultural holiday. The share of Christians who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday  either solely religious or partly religious and partly cultural  ranges from 64 percent among Black Protestants to 92 percent among white evangelical Protestants.

Among religious nones, however, seven in 10 (69 percent) say they celebrate Christmas as more of a cultural holiday than a religious occasion, compared with just 10 percent who celebrate it as more of a religious holiday and 4 percent who celebrate both the religious and cultural aspects.

This year, roughly eight in 10 Americans (82 percent) say they intend to gather with family and friends on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, down slightly since 2013 (86 percent). Large majorities in every religious group, ranging from 75 percent of religious nones to 89 percent of Catholics, say they anticipate attending a family gathering at Christmastime.

About half of American adults (51 percent) are planning to attend religious services on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Among white evangelicals and white mainline Protestants, the shares who say they will attend religious services this Christmas are somewhat higher than in 2013. Among Catholics, by contrast, the share saying they will attend Christmas Mass has declined somewhat since 2013, from 76 percent to 68 percent.

Fully 84 percent of those who attend religious services on a weekly basis throughout the year say they will also go this Christmas. And most people who attend religious services occasionally  once or twice a month or a few times a year  also say they will go at Christmas (60 percent). Among those who seldom or never attend religious services, by contrast, very few (9 percent) say they will make an exception for Christmas.

Shrinking majority of public believes biblical Christmas story depicts actual events

Most Americans believe Jesus was born to a virgin, that he was visited by three wise men from the east, that his birth was announced to shepherds by an angel of the Lord, and that the baby Jesus was laid in a manger as an infant. But the share of Americans who believe that each of these four elements of the Christmas story reflects actual historical events is lower today than in 2014.

Even among some Christian groups, there are signs of growing doubts about the Christmas story as relayed in the Bible. The share of white mainline Protestants who believe in the virgin birth, for instance, has declined from 83 percent to 71 percent. And the share of Catholics who believe the birth of Jesus was announced by an angel of the Lord now stands at 82 percent, down from 90 percent in 2014.

Taken together, the data show that nine in 10 white evangelical Protestants continue to believe in all four of these parts of the Christmas story, which is very similar to the share who said this in 2014. Among white mainline Protestants, by contrast, a shrinking majority believes in each of these four aspects of the Christmas narrative. (The change in the share of Catholics who believe in all four parts of the Christmas story is not statistically significant.)

Among religious nones, just 11 percent believe in all four of these parts of the Christmas story (down from 21 percent), while fully half believe in none of them (53 percent, up from 42 percent).
Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets.

Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials.

If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details.
The fallout from Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit to Greece continued this week, with the relevant Greek foreign minister charging that the outspoken Turkish leader ultimately gave an exclusive interview to an Athens -area television station, prior to his official visit to Athens last week, because he was influenced by his media adviser.
China Is Forcing The US Out Of The Region

By Sergey Manukov

In Latin America, China is conducting the policy it has successfully tested in Africa: using soft power - multibillion loans and investments  for expanding into new regions.

The last hope

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Recently, the population of the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este almost redoubled: as many as 2,500 businessmen from dozens of countries arrived there on Nov 30-Dec 2 in order to attend the 11th China-Latin America-the Caribbean Business Summit.

Just to compare, over 600 Chinese businessmen attended the Punta del Este summit against just 150 businessmen during the previous summit in Guadalajara.

Until recently, when in trouble, Latin America has appealed mostly to the United States through the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. But after Trumps victory, things got worse as the new U.S. President does not yet have a clear stance on Latin America.

The Latin Americans cannot wait for three years just to see if the Americans will elect a more tolerant president or not. So, they are looking for alternatives. And China with its huge financial and human resources is the best option.

For the Chinese, Latin America is not only the region where they can get raw materials and food. They have a much bigger goal in view: to force the United States out of the region and to establish their influence there just like they did in Africa.

At least sympathy if not love

The Chinese like Trump if not love him even though he keeps threatening them with a trade war and is reluctant to recognize China as a market economy. This is not something new to them: Trumps predecessors were no better. What makes Trump better is his isolationism - focus on domestic policy and reluctance to take part in unprofitable economic projects.

This is good for the Chinese, who are there to fill the gaps. And one of the gaps is Latin America, where the Americans are losing ground.

In contrast, the Chinese are very active there: their President Xi Jinping has visited the region three times over the last five years.

As a result, since 2000, Chinas trade with Latin American has grown by 22 times, while U.S.-Latin American trade has just redoubled. The United States is still the biggest trade partner of Latin America, but now that Trump has promised to withdraw from NAFTA and to build a wall on the border with Mexico, things may change  especially as China is already the key trade partner for Brazil, Chile and Peru.

Its trump is its money. In 2005, the Chinese invested $231mn in Latin America, in 2015, a much as $30bn. And the advantage of Chinese investments is that China does not ask anything (political concessions) in exchange. Its motives are commercial rather than political.

According to Gustavo Arnavat from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, sooner or later, China will force the United States out of the region.

Jinping has promised that by 2025, China will enlarge its trade with Latin America by a quarter of trillion USD. A few days after Trumps victory, the Chinese published a book calling Latin America a land of energy and hope.

Today, Chias SDB and EIBC are investing in Latin America more than the WB, IADB and CAF, taken together.

The Chinese have also invested $35bn in multilevel financial platforms in Latin America. In 2015, they established new credit organizations: China-LAC Industrial Cooperation Investment Fund and China-Latin America Infrastructure Fund with respective assets of $20bn and $10bn and transferred $5bn to China-Latin America Cooperation, a fund established in 2014.

According to Margaret Myers, the director of the Latin America and the World Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, Trumps unclear policy on Latin America will make it easier for China and some other countries to enlarge their presence in that region.

Right after Trumps decision to withdraw from NAFTA, Mexico and China signed a car deal: JAC Motors of China has invested $212mn in the project to build a car factory in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. Its partner under the project is Giant Motors of Mexico. The factory is supposed to employ 5,500 people and to produce off road vehicles for the Latin American market.

We dont depend on NAFTA at all, not for exports or for supplies, said Elias Massri, Giant Motors chief executive. For us, this is where the opportunity lies.

In Jamaica, the Chinese have built the so-called Beijing Highway, a road worth $730mn.

Chance to get rid of the United States influence

Experts from the London School of Economics point out four things that attract China to Latin America: resources, political and economic support at regional and international forums, recognition of China rather than Taiwan as the legitimate representative of the Chinese nation and new markets for Chinese goods. And one more attractive thing is that unlike Europe and the United States, Latin America does not have tough anti-corruption laws.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

China is keen to promote its One China principle in the world. After his defeat in the Chinese Civil War, Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and proclaimed second China there. Ever since, China and Taiwan have been fighting for the right to be the only representative of the Chinese nation in the world. There are few countries that have diplomatic relations with both Chinas. Economic and financial power helps China in its policy to isolate Taiwan. As a result, the Republic of China (Taiwan) has diplomatic relations with just 20 countries, including Vatican. Most of them are from Latin America and this makes that region especially important for China.

Here it faces a number of barriers: local businessmen and politicians are worried to see that the Chinese deals are not absolutely transparent. And one more concern is that too heavy dependence on China may result in economic shocks: according to WB experts, a 1% fall in economic growth in China will lead to a 0.6% fall in economic growth in Latin America.

But the Latin Americans have no alternative. In spring, a delegation of Mexican mayors and governors visited China in search for investors. They may with ministers in Beijing and businessmen in Shanghai and Chengdu.

Graco Ramirez , Chairman of Mexico National Governors Conference, said that it was a good chance to get rid of the United States influence.

In different baskets

The Chinese do not put all of their eggs in one basket and are building a number of footholds in Latin America.

In Central America, they are the strongest in Nicaragua, where they are going to build a 300-km-long canal from the Pacific to Atlantic oceans. The contractor of this $50bn project is HKND, Hong Kong-based company controlled by Chinese billionaire Wang Jing.

The Nicaraguan canal is supposed to become a rival to the Panama Canal, to boost global trade and economic growth in China. The geopolitical aspect of this project is that Nicaragua is close to the United States.

Cuba is even closer and therefore is much more important for the Chinese. When Venezuela faced a crisis and was no longer able to support Cuba, China came in to become its biggest creditor.

In 2015, Cuba imported from China goods worth $1.9bn. Yutong buses, Sinotruk trucks, YTO tractors, Geely cars, Haier domestic appliances and many other Chinese products are gradually forcing American goods out of the Cuban market. In early 2017, the Chinese commissioned Haier factory, which is supposed to produce 120,000 laptops and tablets. In Jan 2017, China and Cuba agreed to jointly develop renewables and to cooperate in some other sectors. China has already promised to lend Cuba $120mn for new projects.

One more partner is Ecuador  the fourth biggest borrower of Chinese loans ($7.5bn, according to the Inter-American Dialogue). There the Chinese are interested in energy and oil. Their Sinopec is very active there and gets have of the Ecuadoran oil in exchange for its money.

In the south, China is active in Argentina, who has gone through two crises over the last 15 years and will readily accept money from China. Over the last years, the sides have signed 35 agreements and contracts in very different fields.

Brazil is also facing hard times and here too China is active. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang visited Latin America in May 2015 and promised the Brazilians $50bn in credits and investments. The Chinese are interested in Brazilian good and mineral resources. Their Sinopec owns big stakes in a number of local oil companies.

The biggest borrower of Chinese loans in Latin America is Venezuela: over the last decade, it has borrowed $65bn, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, or almost half of all credits given to Latin America. The last loan was provided in Aug 2015. In exchange, the Chinese get 700,000-1,000,000 barrels of cheap oil a day. Under Chavez, the Chinese-Venezuelan trade grew by 100 times from $183mn in late XX to $20bn at present.

The best things about Venezuela for China is that it is the worlds oil richest nation (its crude reserves are estimated at $15 trillion) and is the United States enemy.

Over the last two decades, China and Venezuela have concluded almost 500 contracts and agreements, with the Chinese getting almost all the cream in this partnership.

On Nov 27, Sinopecs Venezuela-based subsidiary, Bariven, asked the court of Houston to oblige its Venezuelan partner, PDVSA, to redeem losses worth $23.7mn. The Chinese say that they have received just half of what they were supposed to receive for the 45,000 tons of steel supplied under a contract signed in 2012. The suit was filed exactly at the time when Venezuela faced a new cut in its currency reserves and wants its debts to be restructured.

They be able to come to terms

Russia has also gained strength in Latin America over the last 15 years. The Russians supply the Latin Americans with arms. Since 2000, they have sold them weaponry worth $15bn.

They have replaced Venezuela as Cubas key oil supplier and have written off Cubas $32bn debt. They are building a satellite tracking station in Nicaragua and are going to restore Cubas parliament building.

According to Evan Ellis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, both China and Russia are active in Latin America, simply, China is using soft force while Russia is acting more toughly.

Their interests may intercross but both nations are wise enough to be able to solve such problems.
Israel Will Return Lebanon to Stone Age, Intel Minister Threatens

By Daily Sabah

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Israel will return Lebanon to the Stone Age, the country's Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said Wednesday in an interview with Saudi newspaper Elaph.

According to Katz, Israel believes Iran is building "advanced missile plants" in Lebanon. When asked if Israel would bomb the plants, he replied, "Yes. We will also act militarily and prevent them, as is happening in Syria."

Katz added that all of Lebanon will be the target of Israeli attacks.

"What happened in 2006 will be a picnic compared to what we can do. I remember a Saudi minister saying they will send Hezbollah back to their caves in south Lebanon. I am telling you that we will return Lebanon to the Stone Age," Katz said, referring to the Second Lebanon War, when Israel attacked Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

The Israeli intelligence minister said the country would rather assault Lebanon than wait for new U.N. resolutions against Hezbollah and Iran, especially in the wake of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation from Saudi Arabia, a decision that he has since retracted.

Last month Elaph published an interview with Israeli military chief, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, marking the first time a Saudi media outlet interviewed a senior Israel Defense Forces officer.

This article was originally published by Daily Sabah -

===

Join the Discussion
Saudi Crown Prince offered $10 billion to Mahmoud Abbas to give the West Bank to Israel?

By Siasat

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The Trump declaration recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital and relocating the U.S. embassy there could be part of a grander plan to help Israel wrest control of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank, from the Palestinians, leaving the Arabs with their own state of Gaza only.

Last week a senior Palestinian official gave insights about the linkage between the announcement and Trumps broader plans for the region. This official was briefed on the details of the surprise meeting last month between Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO), and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Abbas was summoned to Riyadh on November 6 by the Crown Prince as part of the latters high-powered effort to engineer a joint Arab-U.S. offensive against Iran and its allies.

According to the source, Mohammed bin Salman is playing a high-stakes gamble to cement both his leadership and his corollary offensive. On this score, the crown prince announced that the Arab Peace Initiative (API) is effectively dead. The crown prince declared that its time for Plan B, a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. When Mahmood Abbas asked about the place of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in this scheme, the crown Prince replied, We can continue to negotiate about this. He is also said to have offered the Palestinian leader $10 billion to sweeten the bitter pill he had just prescribed. Abbas is in dilemma he can neither say no nor yes.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

Mohammed bin Salman had late-night deliberations with U.S. envoys Jared Kushner (the presidents son-in-law and majordomo and longstanding friend of Netanyahu) and Jason Greenblatt (the Trump Organizations former lawyer and current Mideast peace envoy) in Riyadh only days before his meeting with Mahmood Abbas. This U.S.-Saudi understanding has driven Saudi Arab to abandon its Arab Peace Initiative.

The New York Times also confirmed through Palestinian, Arab, and European sources that Mohammed bin Salman offered vastly increased financial support for the Palestinians, and even dangled the possibility of a direct payment to Mr. Abbas, which they said he refused. As reported by The American Conservative sources said the offer Abbas could only refuse involved a Palestinian state with noncontiguous parts of the West Bank and only limited sovereignty over their own territory (Gaza). The vast majority of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by most of the world, would remain.

The source noted that Mohammed Bin Salman himself wrote a formal letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlining the unprecedented Saudi pledge to participatealong with Egypt, Israel, and the United Statesin upholding the security terms of the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

This article was originally published by Siasat -

====

Did Saudi Arabia Just Try To Give the West Bank to Israel?

Israeli general threatens to 'tear the Palestinians apart' and 'toss them across the Jordan'

Join the Discussion
Blowback: ISIS Got A Powerful Missile The CIA Secretly Bought In Bulgaria



A new report on how ISIS built its arsenal highlights how the US purchased munitions, intended for Syrian rebels, that ended up in the hands of the terrorist group.



By Aram Roston December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015  highlighting weaknesses in the oversight and regulation of Americas covert arms programs, according to information published Thursday by an arms monitoring group called Conflict Armament Research (CAR). Though the report says the missile was purchased by the US Army using a contractor, BuzzFeed News has learned that the real customer appears to have been the CIA. It was part of the spy agencys top secret operation to arm rebels in Syria to fight the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The missile ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters in Iraq, according to the report. The CIA declined to comment on the Obama-era program to back Syrian rebels, which was canceled by President Trump in July. The Pentagon did not provide information in time for publication. The missile is one piece of a critical puzzle that is being solved only now, with ISIS on the run: How did the vast terror group arm its war machine? CAR spent three years tracking ISIS weapons as they were recovered by Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish forces  and found that what happened to the missile was no aberration. Indeed, the terror group managed to divert substantial quantities of anti-armour ammunition from weapons provided to Syrian opposition forces by the US or Saudi Arabia. The anti-tank missile recovered from ISIS in February 2016. It had been shipped to the US Army in December 2015. The anti-tank missile recovered from ISIS in February 2016. It had been shipped to the US Army in December 2015. As BuzzFeed News has reported , the US equips proxy armies in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan with weapons such as AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades made in Russia and Eastern Europe . The investigators from CAR found that the policy has sometimes backfired, allowing Americas enemies to obtain arms meant for its allies. Evidence collected by CAR indicates that the United States has repeatedly diverted EU-manufactured weapons and ammunition to opposition forces in the Syrian conflict, the report states. ISIS, it continues, rapidly gained custody of significant quantities of this materiel. The report lists 12 cases where Eastern European weapons originally sent to the US military or US contractors appear to have been diverted, somehow, to ISIS. The weapon purchased by the US government in 2015, a 9M111B missile, is highly portable and can land a devastating charge with pinpoint accuracy on tanks, trucks, or buildings. BuzzFeed News has been tracking the CIAs procurement of 9M111 missiles as part of the deal for three years. In 2014, the CIA issued a contract to obtain 600 such missiles to Kiesler Police Supply, two sources said. Kiesler is a small Indiana company that frequently contracts with the CIA, according to experts in arms dealing. According to the CAR report, the contract for the missile that ended up in the possession of ISIS was handled by Kiesler. The Indiana firm acquired those missiles from a Bulgarian company called SAGE Consulting, sources familiar with the transaction told BuzzFeed News. Bulgaria is a major source of the weapons that the US and other powers use to arm client armies. In an email this summer, Kiesler declined to discuss the issue, writing that we are not contractually authorized to disclose any information. The company also insisted it was not to blame for where the weapons ended up. Once Kiesler delivers its products to the customer, it does not have visibility with respect to the Governments handling, use or disposition of the material, it said. On Wednesday, a woman who answered the phone at Kiesler hung up immediately. Then, after she was called again, she said that "we dont talk to the media." SAGE, a well-known broker in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, declined a request for interviews with BuzzFeed News. But two Bulgarian arms dealers say SAGE has indeed been manufacturing the 9M111 missile, at a factory called VMZ, for the US government. They make them only for the Americans, one said, adding that the US buys as many as SAGE can manufacture. Two sources familiar with the Syrian opposition told BuzzFeed News in 2015 that the CIA had begun to set up and train small tank-killing units of rebels. Each of these small units was planned as a force multiplier, which could enter a battle and effectively knock out Syrian armored positions, leveling the battlefield for the rebels. In its report, CAR says the missile was originally purchased in Bulgaria by the US on Dec. 15, 2015. Just 59 days later, it was recovered in Ramadi, Iraq, after it had been fired by ISIS in combat. Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter In its report, CAR said a photo showed a US-backed Syrian rebel group, Jaysh al-Nasr, firing a missile that is identical to the one recovered from ISIS in Ramadi. The serial numbers on the ISIS missile and on one fired by Jaysh al-Nasr suggest that the two missiles were part of the same supply chain, according to CARs report. A source close to the Syrian opposition said Jaysh al-Nasr fights chiefly in the north of Hama province, and was indeed aided by the CIA in Turkey. Two sources said the group received anti-tank missiles from the CIA. Its unclear how a missile provided to Jaysh al-Nasr in Syria would have ended up across the Iraqi border in ISIS hands. A former Syrian opposition figure said rebels were vetted to the best of the CIAs ability. The rebels, he said, were cautioned that every time they fired a weapon, they had to bring back the empty casings to prove they had in fact fired it rather than stolen or traded it. Clarification: This post has been updated to reflect that Jaysh al-Nasr chiefly fights in the north of Hama Province. Aram Roston is an investigative reporter and editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC. His secure PGP fingerprint is D861 374F D725 4F61 39C0 08F1 4575 134B 09D9 B28D Contact Aram Roston at aram.roston@buzzfeed.com . This article was originally published by Buzz Feed - ==== Propaganda alert: WATCH: US Amb. to UN Nikki Haley spew propaganda, lies and distortions about Iran Bombs, Bullets and Bull*hit - See Also - US weapons supplied to Syrian rebels ended up with Islamic State: report Tracing ISIS Weapons Supply ChainBack to the US ISIL weapons traced to US and Saudi Arabia Bulgarian Journalist fired for exposing how CIA ran weapons to terrorists Join the Discussion It is not necessary for ICH readers to register before placing a comment. This website encourages readers to use the "Report" link found at the base of each comment. When a predetermined number of ICH readers click on the "Report" link, the comment will be automatically sent to "moderation". This would appear to be the most logical way to allow open comments, where you the reader/supporter, can determine what is acceptable speech. Please don't use the report feature simply because you disagree with the author point of view. Treat others with respect, remembering that "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."- Benjamin Franklin. Please read our Comment Policy before posting -
The Middle East in the New World Disorder

By Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)

Remarks to the Worcester World Affairs Council - Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) - Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University - 11 December 2017, Worcester, Massachusetts

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Not so long ago, Americans thought we understood the Middle East, that region where the African, Asian, and European worlds collide. When the Ottoman Empire disintegrated in World War I, the area became a European sphere of influence with imperial British, French, and Italian subdivisions. The Cold War split it into American and Soviet client states. Americans categorized countries as with us or against us, democratic or authoritarian, and endowed with oil and gas or not. We acted accordingly.

In 1991, the Soviet Union defaulted on the Cold War and left the United States the only superpower still standing. With the disappearance of Soviet power, the Middle East became an exclusively American sphere of influence. But a series of U.S. policy blunders and regional reactions to them have since helped thrust the region into chaos, while progressively erasing American dominance

In the new world disorder, there are many regional sub-orders. The Middle East is one of them. It is entering the final stages of a process of post-imperial, national self-determination that began with Kemal Ataturks formation of modern Turkey from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. This process is entrenching the originally Western concept of the nation state in the region. It led to Gamal Abdel Nassers repudiation of British overlordship and overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt in 1952, Ayatollah Khomeinis rejection of American tutelage and replacement of the Shah with the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, and the misnamed Arab Spring in 2011. Its latest iteration is unfolding in Saudi Arabia.

In the Middle East, as elsewhere, regional rather than global politics now drives events. The world is reentering a diplomatic environment that would have been familiar to Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who served nineteenth century Britain as secretary of war, foreign affairs, and prime minister. In his time, the core skill of statecraft was manipulation of regional balances of power to protect national interests and exercise influence through measures short of war.

Palmerston famously observed that in international relations, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests. In the new world disorder, with its narcissistic nationalism, shifting alignments, and wobbling partnerships, this sounds right, even if national interests are also visibly evolving to reflect fundamental shifts in their international context. Palmerstons aphorism is a reminder that the flexibility and agility implicit in the hedged obligations of entente  limited commitments for limited contingencies  impart advantages that the inertia of alliance  broad obligations of mutual aid  does not. One way or another, it is in our interest to aggregate the power of others to our own while minimizing the risks to us of doing so.

To cope with the world after the Pax Americana and to put America first, we Americans are going to have relearn the classic vocabulary of diplomacy or some new, equally reality-based version of it. If we do, we will discover that, in the classic sense of the word, we now have no allies in the Middle East. The only country with which we had a de jure alliance based on mutual obligations, Turkey, has de facto departed it.

Today, Ankara and Washington are seriously estranged. Turkey is no longer aligned with the United States on any of our major diplomatic objectives in the region, which have been: securing Israel, excluding Russian influence; opposing Iran; and sustaining strategic partnerships with Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. Americans can no longer count on Turkey to support or acquiesce in our policies toward the Israel-Palestine issue; Syria; Iraq; Iran; Russia; the Caucasus; the Balkans; Greece; Cyprus; Egypt, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries; the members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; NATO; or the EU.

Having been rebuffed by Europe, Turkey has abandoned its two-century-long drive to redefine its identify as European. It is pursuing an independent, if erratic, course in the former Ottoman space and with Russia and China. The deterioration in EU and US-Turkish relations represents a very significant weakening of Western influence in the Middle East and adjacent regions. As the list of countries Turkey affects suggests, this has potentially far-reaching consequences.

Meanwhile, U.S. relations with Iran remain antagonistic. American policy blunders like the destabilization of Iraq and Syria have facilitated Irans establishment of a sphere of influence in the Fertile Crescent. Our lack of a working relationship with Tehran leaves the United States unable to bring our influence to bear in the region by measures short of war. U.S. policy is thus all military, all the time. The White House echoes decisions made in Jerusalem, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi. It no longer sets its own objectives and marshals others behind them.

For our own reasons, which differ from country to country, Americans have unilaterally taken under our wing a variety of client states, some of which are each others historic antagonists. Our commitments have not changed despite the fact that the regional context of our relationships with our client states and their orientations and activities are all in rapid evolution. Other than Turkey, the United States has never had a Middle Eastern partner that has seen itself as obliged to come to our aid or, indeed, to do anything at all for us except what might serve its own immediate, selfish interests. The obligations all run the other way  from us to them.

During the 1947  1989 Cold War, American policy focused on the strategic denial of the Middle East to the Soviet Union. Part of the zero-sum game approach this objective entailed was the designation of the Shah of Iran as our principal security partner in the Persian Gulf. His overthrow caused us to shift to reliance on Saudi Arabia. The desire to block the Soviet Union also inspired our commitment to protect Israel from its Soviet-aligned neighbors.

In September, Paul Pillar spoke to you with characteristic brilliance about the never-ending issues between Israel and Palestine . I will limit myself to adding a bit of regional, strategic, and diplomatic context to what he said. Id be happy to revisit the issue, among others, when we have a chance to exchange views.

The Euro-American embrace of Zionism after World War II was motivated in large measure by a felt need to atone for the horrors of the Holocaust, which we sometimes forget was an atrocity perpetrated by European Christendom, not Middle Eastern Islam. The establishment of an expansionist, externally-supported Zionist state in Palestine immediately became a major driver of radicalization in the region and among the worlds Muslims. The Arab reaction to Israels mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was to seek revenge on ancient communities of Arab Jews in their midst, inducing them to flee to Israel.

Universal opposition to Zionism continued to fuel anti-Americanism and revolutionary agitation in the Middle East. This facilitated Soviet influence-building there and threatened the ability of conservative Arab and Iranian governments to justify continued alignment with the West. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the massive resupply of Israel by the United States saved it from defeat but caused most Arab states to break relations with Washington. The American answer to Arab antipathy was the launch of shuttle diplomacy and a so-called peace process between Israel, the Palestinians, and Arab states.

But once the Cold War ended, the endlessly unproductive peace process lost its most compelling strategic rationale: the diplomatic outflanking of Americas Soviet enemy. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, with no Soviet threat left to drive it, the peace process petered out. American presidents no longer saw a persuasive reason to endure the domestic political pain involved in mediating between Israelis and Palestinians. Washington went through the motions for a while and then stopped. This led both the Arabs and Israel to reappraise the United States and its role in their region.

In retrospect, the peace process was a highly effective diplomatic equivalent of sleight of hand, diverting international attention from Israeli obduracy, displacing Arab rage at Zionisms ongoing humiliations of Arab honor, and providing political cover for Israels relentless dispossession of the Palestinians from both their homes and their homeland. With American collaboration, Israel was able to use diplomatic pseudo-events and showmanship to string along hopes for Palestinian self-determination even as it eroded the basis for anything other than Palestinian capitulation to eternal subjugation or exile. (Whether or not this will ultimately prove to be a wise survival strategy for Israel is an open question.)

But, when the peace process ended, no one could miss the fact that it had been all travel and no arrival. It had not brought peace to the Holy Land, had not secured Israel against the resentments of its Arab neighbors at its imposition on them by British imperialism and its subsequent, repeated humiliations of them, had not achieved regional acceptance for Israel or stabilized Arab-Israeli relations, had not enabled Palestinian self-determination, and had not prevented the gradual transformation of the Israel-Palestine struggle into a war of religion. In terms of its stated objectives, the so-called peace process was at best a bust and at worst a fraud.

In the end, the peace process dishonored and discredited American diplomacy both globally and in the region. The unilateral American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of a democratic Israel that exercises tyranny over six million Palestinians has disqualified further American mediation. More ominously, it has left Palestinians in the Holy Land and those forced to seek refuge abroad with no route to self-determination other than violence.

There is no reason for us to expect Palestinians to be less resolute in their pursuit of freedom than Christians were in seeking to expel Muslims from Spain, or Irish nationalists were in their efforts to cast out their British oppressors, or Jews were in reestablishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Spanish and Irish Catholics achieved their objectives only after 800 years of uncompromising, violent struggle. Jews kept alive a dream of return to their mythic homeland for almost two millennia. What ultimately happens in Palestine will be determined by relations between the parties there, not by Americans or Europeans. The path to a stable outcome now looks to be twisted, bloody, and long.

As this century began, the catastrophes wrought by the post-9/11 American interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria fatally tarnished the U.S. reputation as a longstanding champion of international law and humanitarianism. The liberal elite in America greeted the surrender of our authoritarian protege, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, to mob rule in Cairo with evident glee. To others who had relied on American support, this made the United States look not just untrustworthy but perfidious.

This impression only grew when the U.S. acquiesced in a military coup against the democratically elected but singularly inept Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. Toothless American demands for Israel to end ethno-religious discrimination and land grabs irked Israelis. Their inefficacy further undermined U.S. credibility among Arabs. American condemnations of gender apartheid meanwhile annoyed Arabs without persuading them to embrace feminism. The Islamophobic hate speech pouring out of U.S. media plays well in Israel. It is deeply offensive to Muslims everywhere.

The U.S. decision to join other external powers in an Iran nuclear deal vehemently opposed by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. just added to the angst of American client states in the Middle East. De facto U.S. facilitation of greatly enhanced Iranian influence in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria left the Gulf Arabs feeling encircled and Israel feeling vulnerable. Irans efforts to detach Yemen from Saudi Arabias sphere of influence added to the Gulf Arab sense that they were under siege by Iran The American inability to reverse Iranian gains in regional influence convinced all of Americas proteges that they had to become more self-reliant. They saw Washingtons marshaling of the worlds leading powers at the negotiating table with Tehran as an implicit downgrading of their importance and acceptance of Irans status as the regions greatest power.

Americas client states judge that they are now dealing with a patron in increasing internal confusion over the nature and scope of its engagements abroad. They are uncomfortable pinning their safety or their ambitions on a partner in such a state of disarray. The result is a now-well-advanced drive by every American client state in the Middle East to diversify its international relationships to offset and dilute continuing dependence on the United States.

At the same time, the United States has come to be seen by Israel and the Gulf Arabs as manipulable  a nation of unparalleled military strength with no strategic compass, transparently venal politics, and no apparent ability to distinguish its own interests from those of others it has unilaterally undertaken to protect. American client states seem confident they can recruit their patron to support their strategies and absorb the risks of their policies. I know what America is, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They wont get in the way. He has shown he knows what hes talking about. And how about the snow job the Saudis did on President Trump in his first foray abroad last May? America is now everywhere treated as the follower, not the leader, in its relationships with Middle Eastern states.

The latest peoples to suffer disillusionment with America are the Kurds and Palestinians, who had allowed themselves to become dependent on U.S. support. It has become apparent to both that the United States will no longer invest in policing the region, much less in shaping and enforcing a regional order conducive to Kurdish or Palestinian statehood. Meanwhile, with its unilateral decision on Jerusalem, Washington has just handed the wedge issue of their dreams to nations and movements seeking to gain influence at American expense in both the region and the broader Muslim world.

The major external beneficiary of receding American influence to date has been Russia, which has added arms sales and military as well as diplomatic cooperation with Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the U.A.E. to strengthened ties with Iran and Syria. But China is in the wings, and under pressure to take the stage. It will likely do so through participation in the reconstruction of Syria as part of its  Belt and Road Initiative . And, these days, where China goes, India is sure to follow. India has historically seen Arabia and the Persian Gulf as closely connected to its security and well-being.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

In Syria, Russia demonstrated an independent capability to conduct a limited intervention in the Middle East. It also showcased the weaponry it has for sale. Sales are up and Moscow has just added basing rights in Egypt to those it had in Syria.

The United States remains the only external power with the capacity to project massive force into the region. But, since the Gulf War of 1990-91, our military interventions there and in adjacent areas have consistently failed. This has played a large part in causing most in the region to view America not as the solution to their problems but as a major source of geopolitical turmoil and religious strife. Polls show that people in the Middle East now regard the United States as the greatest menaces to peace they face.

Within the Middle East, Iran has been the major beneficiary of Americas strategic blunders. Iranian gains have pushed the Saudi-Emirati Gulf Arab diarchy and its allies into an unprecedentedly violent response The UAE has intervened militarily as far away as Libya. Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia supported the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and they have bankrolled the military dictatorship that succeeded it. They have been merciless in their efforts to dislodge Iranian influence from Yemen. More recently, they have sought to bring Qatar to heel.

Initially, in the Mashriq (the Arab East), the Saudis sought to rally Sunnis against Iranian-aligned Shiites. More recently, they have downplayed sectarianism and focused on the Iranian geopolitical challenge. To the satisfaction of the United States, this has led them to reach out to Shiite-dominated Iraq as well as to Israel.

The Middle East, like American society, has been reshaped by Washingtons post-9/11 decisions to invade, occupy, pacify, democratize, and otherwise transform Afghanistan and Iraq. Sixteen and fourteen years after the United States first launched these wars, they sputter on with no end in sight. The heavy toll on our troops is well known, if not much felt by the American citizenry in whose name they are fighting. So far, over 2,400 American and almost 1,140 allied t roops have died in Afghanistan and over 20,000 Americans have been seriously wounded there. Almost 4,500 American soldiers have been killed and nearly 1 million injured in Iraq.

The damage to American society is less often tabulated. These fruitless and counterproductive wars have so far cost the United States at least $5.6 trillion, with the potential, even if we were somehow able to end them today, to rise to more than $7.9 trillion. We have paid for our lurch into widening warfare in the Muslim world with a combination of borrowed money and disinvestment in domestic physical and human infrastructure. The result is not just the imposition of a crushing burden of debt on our posterity, but lost growth and declining U.S. economic competitiveness.

The domestic tranquility of societies in the Middle East has been upended. That of the United States has also been disturbed. Americans have become accustomed to life under surveillance and in an endless state of apprehension about acts of terrorism. This condition has, entirely predictably, eroded our liberties, aggrandized the presidency, and reinforced cowardly herd instincts in Congress. It has helped to impoverish the U.S. middle class while enriching the military-industrial complex and the cost-plus capitalists who feed on rake-offs from government outlays. These are structural alterations to the American republic and way of life that will affect both for decades.

Meanwhile, almost no one in America seems to be paying attention to the death toll among the Muslim inhabitants of the countries we have invaded or to the impact of this on the attitudes of their co-religionists elsewhere. Some entirely plausible estimates suggest that the United States has been directly or indirectly responsible for 4 million untimely Muslim deaths since 1990. The most conservative estimate  that of three dozen scholars associated with Brown Universitys Watson Institute  calculates that at least 370,000 people have so far perished in Americas 21st century wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan . 600,000 more have died in Syria in conflict catalyzed by the US-sponsored anarchy in neighboring Iraq and fueled by American weapons, training, bombing campaigns, and commandos.

Over the same period, with U.S. financial and material support, Israel has killed over 1,100 Lebanese and about 7,000 Palestinians, only a minority of them combatants. Since 2015, the United States has been a co-belligerent in the bloody Saudi-Emirati intervention in the civil war in Yemen. There, some 10,000 Yemeni civilians have perished and at least four times as many have been wounded amidst a humanitarian crisis that rivals those in Gaza or Syria.

All this leaves a lot of Arab and Pashtun families and individuals obsessed with how to avenge the deaths of those dear to them at the hands of Americans or American proteges like Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the inflammatory effects of U.S. interventions are not limited to Arabs and Pashtuns. As the so-called global war on terror has progressed, so has the metastasis of anti-American terrorism with global reach.

The United States now has military operations of one sort or another underway in Afghanistan, Cameroon, Chad, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Uganda, and Yemen. Very likely, this is an incomplete list of the wars and co-belligerencies ordained by successive presidents. It should concern Americans that these wars are without exception violations of the United States Constitution, which requires that wars of choice be declared by Congress, not authorized by the president. And it seems certain that there are more wars to come.

Seventeen percent of U.S. Special Forces are currently deployed in Africa, where their primary mission is to help fight armed apostles of political Islam. (Uganda is an exception. There the problem is political Christianity in the form of the Lords Resistance Army.) The Middle East has become the malignant center of a spreading contagion that has infected the souls of both Americans and the worlds nearly two billion Muslims.

The military defeat of the so-called Islamic Caliphate has excised a cancerous growth from the body politic of the Muslim umma but left its causes and related malignancies unaddressed. There is no reason to expect they will halt their metastasis. The very measures the United States has taken to combat Muslim anti-Americanism are spreading it.

The good news, if it can be called that, is that the counterproductivity of American counterterrorist practices and Washingtons ineffectiveness in isolating Iran have brought about shifts toward self-help by American client states. Some of these have considerable potential. Saudi Arabia, for example, has taken the lead in forming a pan-Islamic anti-terrorist military alliance. It has declared war on the extremists whose distortions of Islamic theology have dishonored and brought disrepute to the doctrines of the 18th century Salafist, Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab, whose teachings are the founding principles of the Saudi state.

As part of this new focus, the Kingdom is sharpening the theological differences between its official interpretation of Islam and the deviant ideology of groups like Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State. Saudi religious and social practices are becoming more tolerant and less illiberal. There is a battle going on for the rejuvenation of Islam. Riyadh now champions a more moderate and less militant version of the faith than in the past.

In many ways, Saudi Arabia appears to be going through a revolutionary transformation analogous to that in Turkey under Ataturk a century ago. It has moved from consensual decision-making in a system with widely dispersed authority to a concentration of power in its king and his heir apparent. This has kicked changes previously underway into high gear.

The Saudis are re-engineering their economy to rely on the private production of goods and services, rather than royalties from oil and gas. They are reshaping their labor market to reduce reliance on foreigners and to increase opportunities for women. They are building new industries, including an armaments industry that will reduce their dependence on imports. And, having decided on a course of self-reliance, they are no longer risk averse in their foreign and military policies toward their region.

All of these changes are taking place amidst intensified geopolitical interaction among Iran, Israel, the Saudi-Emirati diarchy, and Turkey. Novel as it seems to us, Palmerston would have seen the emerging pattern of international differentiation as normal. The nations of the region are showing that they can cooperate with each other when they see it as in their interest to do so, despite differences that make them fierce opponents on other matters. For example, the Saudis and Emiratis now openly conduct intelligence liaison and coordinate their anti-Iranian lobbying on Capitol Hill with Israel. At the same time, they remain at loggerheads with Israel on other issues, like Kurdish or Palestinian self-determination. Turkey cooperates with Iran on Kurdish matters, despite being on opposite sides in Syria. And so forth.

How are Americans to cope with this situation, in which we have commitments but no followers in the Middle East? How are we to prevent regional rivalries from embroiling us in the wars of others in which we have no intrinsic interest? How are we to adjust our policies to take account of the changes in the regional geometry that defines our interests?

The Cold War is over. There is no contest with another great power to threaten American influence. Such spheres of influence as there are in the Middle East reflect the rivalry between Israel and the Gulf Arabs on the one hand and Iran or Turkey on the other. U.S. involvement in this rivalry is a matter of choice, not an imperative derived from global strategy. Strategic denial of the region to an external great power is no longer a relevant objective. Americans need to rethink our aims in the Middle East.

The United States no longer leads and protects a bloc of countries threatened by another bloc, as was the case in the Cold War. Americans ourselves have no need for energy imports from the region. We are once again oil and gas exporters, in competition with Middle Eastern energy producers. There is no inherent reason why we alone should remain responsible for guaranteeing the access of our Cold War allies of China and India to Persian Gulf oil and gas supplies. What burden-sharing is now appropriate and how can we move toward it?

Thanks to persistent American diplomacy at Camp David and elsewhere, Israel no longer faces a credible military threat from any neighbor. With no regional challenger to its military supremacy, Israel has felt free repeatedly to invade Lebanon, to pummel Gaza from the air, and to threaten to bomb Iran. The hostility to Israel of Iran, Arab states, and Turkey is the consequence of Israels own decisions not to define its borders and to persist in dispossessing and denying the franchise to the Palestinian Arabs it rules. Why should the United States support the continued expansion of the Zionist state or the consolidation of its version of apartheid?

The United States subsidizes Israel, guarantees its security, and vetoes efforts by the international community to hold it accountable for its multiple violations of international law. This enables Israel to pursue a diplomacy-free, exclusively military strategy for survival in a region where, despite the seventy years it has had to do so, it has made no friends. Israel uses the support and weapons it receives from the United States for its own purposes. Jerusalem pays no heed to the interests or views of the United States  and sometimes actively contradicts or ignores them  as it initiates and conducts its military operations. This is a relationship in need of review and recalibration.

Finally, the United States badly needs to rethink our overall approach to the worlds Muslims and the lands they inhabit. We should by now have learned that poking hornets nests is not the best way to discourage them from coming after us. We need to stand back and ally ourselves with those in the Muslim world who are seeking to restore Islam to its traditional tolerance, social justice, and compassion for the disadvantaged. The straight path of Islam, not drone warfare, is the answer to Muslim deviance and disquiet.

We live in an age of fake news and fake leadership. It will not be easy to rediscover reality and redirect our policies to deal with it. But the alternative to doing so is to see our friends and enemies in the Middle East maneuver in ways that risk mounting damage to all concerned, including the United States.

Our difficulties are compounded by the extent to which political correctness and partisanship impede civil dialogue. Israel is a foreign country, not an ethno-religious identity. But no one can offer constructive criticism of Israel and its policies without being smeared as an anti-Semite. No one can propose exploring common interests with Russia without being accused of overlooking its alleged intervention in our internal affairs. No one can suggest dialogue with Iran without being dismissed as advocating appeasement. No one can advocate cooperation with Saudi Arabia or the Emirates without being indicted for ignoring the ongoing tragedy in Yemen.

In the end, to formulate and pursue productive policies in the Middle East, we must first restore civil discourse at home. Only then can we intelligently define our national interests and objectives there. Only then can we hope to achieve affordable security in the new world disorder.

Ambassador Freeman chairs Projects International, Inc. He is a retired U.S. defense official, diplomat, and interpreter, the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, a popular public speaker, and the author of five books. http://chasfreeman.net/

====

Bibi Unmasked: Caught On Tape: What The Netanyahu Really Thinks Of US

Join the Discussion
The Deep States Christmas Present to America: Surveillance That Never Ends

By John W. Whitehead

He sees you when youre sleeping

He knows when youre awake

He knows when youve been bad or good

So be good for goodness sake!

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Just in time for Christmas, the Deep State wants to give America the gift that keeps on giving: never-ending mass surveillance .

Im not referring to the kind of surveillance carried out by that all-knowing and all-seeing Jolly Old St. Nick and his informant the Elf on the Shelf (although, to be fair, they have helped to acclimate us to a world in which were always being watched and judged by higher authorities ).

No, this particular bit of Yuletide gift-giving comes courtesy of the Deep State (a.k.a. the Surveillance State, Police State, Shadow Government and black-ops spy agencies )

If this power-hungry cabal gets its way, the governments power to spy on its citizens will soon be all-encompassing and permanent.

As it now stands, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the legal basis for two of the National Security Agencys largest mass surveillance programs, PRISM and Upstreamis set to expire at the end of 2017 .

PRISM lets the NSA access emails, video chats, instant messages, and other content sent via Facebook, Google, Apple and others. Upstream lets the NSA worm its way into the internet backbonethe cables and switches owned by private corporations like AT&T that make the internet into a global networkand scan traffic for the communications of tens of thousands of individuals labeled targets.

Just as the USA Patriot Act was perverted from its original intent to fight terrorism abroad and was used instead to covertly crack down on the American people (allowing government agencies to secretly track Americans financial activities, monitor their communications, and carry out wide-ranging surveillance on them), Section 702 has been used as an end-run around the Constitution to allow the government to collect the actual content of Americans emails, phone calls, text messages and other electronic communication without a warrant.

Under Section 702, the government collects and analyzes over 250 million internet communications every year. There are estimates that at least half of these contain information about U.S. residents, many of whom have done nothing wrong. This information is then shared with law enforcement and  routinely used for purposes unrelated to national security .

Mind you, this is about far more than the metadata collection that Edward Snowden warned us about, which was bad enough. Section 702 gives the government access to the very content of your conversations (phone calls, text messages, video chats), your photographs, your emails. As Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., warned , This is not just who you send it to, but whats in it.

Unfortunately, Big Brother doesnt relinquish power easily.

The Police State doesnt like restrictions.

And the Surveillance State certainly doesnt look favorably on anything that might weaken its control. Even after Congress limited the NSAs ability to collect bulk phone records, the agency continued to do so, vacuuming up more than 151 million records of Americans phone calls last year alone .

A government that doesnt heed its constituents, doesnt abide by the law, and kowtows to its police and military forces? Thats a dictatorship anywhere else.

Here in America, you can call it  technotyranny , a term coined by investigative journalist James Bamford to refer to an age of technological tyranny made possible by government secrets , government lies, government spies and their corporate ties.

Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the governments choosing. Privacy, as we have known it, is dead.

For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government.

This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military. It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful. It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.

The governments  technotyranny  surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that its hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins.

The short answer: they have become one and the same entity.

The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state.

Having already transformed local police into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nations soldier cops into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone Stingray devices and so much more.

This is the new face of policing in America.

Enter big data policing which gives the nations 17,000 police agencies access to a growing investigative database that maps criminal associates and gangs, as well as their social and familial connections.

As Slate reports, These social network systems, which target chronic offenders, also include information about innocent associates, family members, and friends , creating extensive human maps of connections and patterns of contacts. Those individuals then get assigned a threat score to determine their risk of being a perpetrator or victim of a future crime.

In Chicago , for example, individuals with the highest scores on the Chicago Police Department heat list get extra attention in the form of home visits or increased community surveillance.

In Baltimore , police are using Cessna planes equipped with surveillance systems to film entire segments of the city, then combining that footage with police reports in order to map the comings and goings of everyonecriminals and innocents alike.

In this way, big data policing not only expands Big Brothers reach down to the local level, but it also provides local policemost of whom know little about the Constitution and even less about the Fourth Amendmentwith a new technological weapon to deploy against an unsuspecting public.

The end result is pre-crime, packaged in the guise of national security but no less sinister.

All of those individuals who claim to be unconcerned about government surveillance because they have nothing to hide, take note: pre-crime policing given a futuristic treatment in Steven Spielbergs Minority Report aims to treat you like a criminal before youve ever even committed a crime.

This hasnt fazed President Trump who, much like his predecessors, has thus far marched in lockstep with the dictates of the police state.

For months, the Trump Administration has been actively lobbying Congress to reauthorize Section 702 in its entirety . Now, according to The Intercept, Trump is actively considering a proposal to establish his own global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies and answer directly to the White House .

If approved, this would be yet another secret government agency carrying out secret surveillance and counterintelligence, funded by a secret black ops budget that by its very nature does away with transparency, bypasses accountability and completely eludes any form of constitutionality.

According to The Washington Post, there are more than a dozen black budget national intelligence agencies already receiving more than $52.6 billion in secret government funding. Among the top five black ops agencies currently are the CIA , the NSA, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Program, and the General Defense Intelligence Program.

A significant chunk of that black ops money has been flowing to Silicon Valley since before there was an internet, itself a creation of the military/security industrial complex.

Earlier this year, Amazon announced that it would be storing classified information for U.S. spy agencies in its digital cloud , part of a $600 million contract with the nations intelligence agencies.

Two decades earlier, Americas spy agencies tapped Silicon Valley to spearhead research into ways of tracking individuals and groups online. That research, as documented by Jeff Nesbit , the former director of legislative and public affairs at the National Science Foundation, culminated in the creation of a massive public-private surveillance state that hinged on a partnership between the NSA, the CIA and Google .

The research arms of the CIA and NSA hoped that the best computer-science minds in academia could identify what they called birds of a feather, writes Nesbit . He continues :

Their research aim was to track digital fingerprints inside the rapidly expanding global information network, which was then known as the World Wide Web By working with emerging commercial-data companies, their intent was to track like-minded groups of people across the internet and identify them from the digital fingerprints they left behind, much like forensic scientists use fingerprint smudges to identify criminals. Just as birds of a feather flock together, they predicted that potential terrorists would communicate with each other in this new global, connected worldand they could find them by identifying patterns in this massive amount of new information. Once these groups were identified, they could then follow their digital trails everywhere.

The problem, of course, is that the government always sets its sights higher.

It wasnt long before the governments search for criminal birds of a feathermade much easier with the passage of the USA Patriot Actlumped everyone together and treated all of the birds (i.e., the public) as criminals to be identified, tracked, monitored and subjected to warrantless, suspicionless surveillance.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

Fast forward to the present moment when, on any given day, the average American is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. governments vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

Whether youre walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency is listening in and tracking you. This doesnt even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. These corporate trackers monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere and share the data with the government.

Just about every branch of the governmentfrom the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between now has its own surveillance sector , authorized to collect data and spy on the American people. Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spiesthe police, public health officials, transportation, etc.and make it accessible for all those in power.

These government snoops are constantly combing through and harvesting vast quantities of our communications, then storing it in massive databases for years. Once this informationcollected illegally and without any probable causeis ingested into NSA servers, other government agencies can often search through the databases to make criminal cases against Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism or anything national security-related. One Justice Department lawyer called the database the FBIs Google.

In other words, the NSA, an unaccountable institution filled with unelected bureaucrats, operates a massive database that contains the intimate and personal communications of countless Americans and makes it available to other unelected bureaucrats.

Talk about a system rife for abuse.

Ask the government why its carrying out this warrantless surveillance on American citizens, and youll get the same Orwellian answer the government has been trotting out since 9/11 to justify its assaults on our civil liberties: to keep America safe.

Yet warrantless mass surveillance by the government and its corporate cohorts hasnt made America any safer. And it certainly isnt helping to preserve our freedoms. Frankly, America will never be safe as long as the U.S. government is allowed to shred the Constitution.

Now the government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying program because theyre only looking to get the bad guys who are overseas.

Dont believe it.

The governments definition of a bad guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale. They are conducting this mass surveillance without a warrant, thus violating the core principles of the Fourth Amendment which protects the privacy of all Americans.

Warrantless mass surveillance of American citizens is wrong, un-American, and unconstitutional.

Clearly, the outlook for reforming the governments unconstitutional surveillance programs does not look good.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People , whenever the rights of the American people are pitted against the interests of the military/corporate/security complex, we the people lose. Unless Congress develops a conscienceor suddenly remembers that they owe their allegiance to the citizenry and not the corporate statewere about to lose big.

Its time to let Section 702 expire or reform the law to ensure that millions and millions of Americans are not being victimized by a government that no longer respects its constitutional limits.

Mark my words: if Congress votes to make the NSAs vast spying powers permanent, it will be yet another brick in the wall imprisoning us within an electronic concentration camp from which there is no escape.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute . His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org .

====

Body-Cam Video Of Daniel Shaver Shooting | Los Angeles Times

Join the Discussion
Americas Painful Self-delusion

By Allen Marshall

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - America is the only nation brought forth by a set of beliefs, and those beliefs, captured so eloquently in our founding documents, are some of the most powerful and inspiring ever conceived. We consider this to be the land of the free, where the individual is supreme and nothing prevents us from going as far as our talents can take us. That image of America  that brand  is incredibly strong.

However, theres a very large gap between that long-held image and the reality of America today. What was once a government built for the people is now a government run for the rich and powerful, one that throws the people under the bus whenever their interests differ from those of the corporate and political leaders who run the show.

And living in one world (the corrupt) while stubbornly believing you live in another (the ideal), despite mounds of evidence, causes a distinct kind of stress, often called cognitive dissonance .

Psychologists suggest that when people are in a state of cognitive dissonance, theyll search for a way to resolve it, either by rejecting one view or the other as either wrong or unimportant. If youre a smoker looking at the link between smoking and cancer, for example, youll either quit smoking or decide that the research is biased, wrong, or doesnt apply (in other words, that youre smart enough to quit before the long-term damage is done).

But what happens if you cant resolve the two?

For most of us Americans, resolving our cognitive dissonance would mean either accepting that were impotent and living futile (and feudal) lives, or rejecting our lifestyles and actively fighting the rot in the system. If were not willing to do either of those, the dissonance stays  and eats at us.

People carrying this kind of ongoing, underlying stress find ways of coping with it; in America were doing it with self-medication, compulsive behaviors and distractions. Consider the following examples of the way we cope with the ever-present stress in our lives:

Were collectively doing so much damage to ourselves, solely to protect our psyches from the reality that the America that used to be is no longer the America we have. And who does that help? As you can see from the points above, it doesnt help us: Instead, it helps the rich and powerful who are subverting the system. Theyre corrupting everything this country once was, and by willfully refusing to acknowledge that reality, were inadvertently helping them to do it.

The best thing we can do  for our mental and physical health, as well as for our country  is to open our eyes to what America has become, not what we wish it still was. Its time to face reality and take action.

This article was originally published by Defiant Living -

====

Join the Discussion
Russsiagate and the Collapse of Obamas War Against Syria





By Glen Ford

Russsiagate and the Collapse of Obamas War Against Syria

Putin exposed the U.S. alliance with al Qaida on the world stage.

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Russia-gate is the scream of a wounded U.S. empire  a military colossus that can destroy the planet many times over but was defeated in its war of regime change in Syria, despite killing half a million people and displacing a third of its population. Barack Obama was packaged as a peace candidate, but his real objective was to reverse the humiliation of his predecessors forced withdrawal from Iraq and thus maintain the image and substance of U.S. primacy in the world. U.S. public opinion, however, would not tolerate another massive mobilization of American ground forces in the region. Instead, Obama and his secretary of state and would-be successor, Hillary Clinton, partnered with the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, the most backward regimes on the planet, to transform the various flavors of al Qaida into a pro-western foreign legion: foot solders of imperialism.

How could a U.S. administration align itself with the same forces that were blamed for 9/11?

The nature of the obscene alliance -- although impossible to fully conceal, and rooted in U.S. policy since Jimmy Carters presidency -- could not be spoken. Americans are conditioned to hate and fear all things Arab and Muslim (and, indeed, all peoples not sufficiently white). How could a U.S. administration align itself with the same forces that were blamed for 9/11? The same people that the CIA claimed had been harbored by Saddam Hussein? The same madmen that, we are told, want to kill Americans because they hate our freedoms? Thats way too much boggling for most American minds.

The very insanity of the idea helped to cloak the truth. The corporate media eagerly provided a full-blown counter-reality to suit imperial purposes. When the U.S. and its NATO and royal Arab allies became the air force for regime change in Libya, in 2011, the western press extolled the democratic virtues of the rebels on the ground -- even as these heavily jihadist militias lynched and massacred Black Libyans and immigrant African workers by the thousands. (See BAR,  Slavery in Libya a Surprise ?). Lynching was the imperially-sanctioned order of the day, as Hillary Clinton confirmed on news of Muammar Gaddafis mutilation and murder. We came, we saw, he died, she said.

The western press extolled the democratic virtues of the rebels on the ground -- even as they lynched and massacred Black Libyans and immigrant African workers by the thousands.

Many tens of thousands more Africans would die as captured Libyan arms found their way to jihadists throughout the northern tier of the continent, destabilizing much of the region and providing many future missions for the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), established just three years earlier.

Libyan jihadists were already showing up in Syria shortly after the U.S.-NATO bombing campaign ended, in October of 2011, joining other freedom fighters from around the world. The eastern part of Aleppo, Syrias largest city, fell to Islamist forces in 2012.

The U.S. and its European, Turkish and royal Arab allies poured so much money and arms into the Syrian cauldron that a faction of al Qaida was empowered to declare a caliphate in the territory it captured from the Syrian army -- just as was predicted in 2012 by analysts of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The DIA memo, revealed three years later , said the emergence of a caliphate -- the Islamic State -- seemed to be exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.

The U.S. imperial war machine was on the roll again in the Mideast, with the two al Qaida factions -- al Nusra and the Islamic State -- by far the most effective fighters. This is Barack Obamas grotesque legacy.

The U.S. and its allies poured so much money and arms into the Syrian cauldron that a faction of al Qaida was empowered to declare a caliphate.

Three years later, it was Vladimir Putin who forced the U.S. to deploy its massive bombing power against the rogue Islamic State faction of al Qaida when the Russian leader denounced Washingtons double-game before the 2015 annual meeting of the United Nations general assembly. No one but [Syrian] President Assads forces and Kurdish militia are truly fighting the Islamic state and other terrorist organizations inside Syria, said Putin . The Islamic States profitable sale of captured Syrian oil to Turkey was conducted in broad daylight, immune to U.S. airpower. ISIS oil tankers traveled freely under open skies. The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon [to Turkey], said the Russian president, who called for creation of a genuinely broad international coalition to bring to defeat the jihadist terrorists and bring peace to Syria.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

Putin had exposed the U.S. alliance with al Qaida on the world stage, and intervened with his own air force at the request of the legitimate and recognized Syrian government, in full accordance with international law.

The U.S. public must be made to see the threat to U.S. global supremacy as existential -- as do the imperialists.

A little over a year later, in late 2016, when Aleppo was liberated from the jihadists, the western corporate media cried and fumed over the terrorists withdrawal from the city, as if the United States and its allies had been routed  which was, in fact, the case. Washingtons alliance with jihadists -- the Obama-Clinton scheme to reverse George Bushs humiliation in Iraq and empower the U.S. to shut the Russians (and Chinese) out of the Middle East  was in ruins.

U.S. imperialism was, indeed, in acute crisis -- worse than when Bush was forced out of Iraq. The eclipse of United States primacy in the world was now painfully palpable. Further complicating this historic debacle, the Republican president-elect was an unpredictable outsider who had rhetorically questioned the bipartisan ruling class consensus on regime change, economic warfare (free trade treaties, crippling sanctions) and relentless hostility toward Russia. He would have to be contained, co-opted, or neutralized. Fortunately for the War Party now decisively Democratic -- Trump is eminently demonizable, and truly deserving of almost any insult.

The eclipse of United States primacy in the world was now painfully palpable.

Russia-gate was invented, almost out of whole cloth, in near panic and without benefit of evidence, to create the political climate to sustain the military offensive begun by Obama back in 2011. Having lost their jihadist war option in Syria and Iraq -- and with less soft power by the day -- U.S. imperialism feels it must now more aggressively deploy its strategic/nuclear throw-weight and its powers of economic strangulation, or lose the ability to dictate global affairs. The U.S. public must be made to see the threat to U.S. global supremacy as existential -- as do the imperialists. Thus, the Russians have invaded our democracy; their interventions in U.S. internal affairs amount to a Pearl Harbor; or, as Morgan Freeman, the God-poser, intones, We have been attacked. We are at war.

It follows that anybody that says differently should be silenced or locked up.

Russia-gate, the howling disinformation machine, is a lie born of many lies -- most immediately, the criminal U.S. partnership with al Qaida in Libya and Syria, perhaps the biggest lie and mass media cover-up of the 21st century: the Mother of all Fake News.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford(at)BlackAgendaReport.com -
A Short Commentary on Trumps Latest SNAFU

By The Saker

December 14, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Okay, I admit it: Trump is a Russian agent. I tried really, really hard to deny it, but now I cant continue anymore because I am presented with an absolutely incontrovertible truth: only a Russian agent infiltrated to the highest levels of power in the USA, the White House, could have done what Trump did a couple of days ago: recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That, truly, was the dumbest and most self-defeating thing a US President could possibly do, and Trump did it. Ergo, he is a Russian agent!

I hereby congratulate the SVR for training Trump and the GRU for hacking the US election! This is an absolutely brilliant operation and a huge success!

You think I am exaggerating?

Then read the full text of the Final Communique of the Extraordinary Islamic Summit Conference and notice the following parts:

Reject and condemn in the strongest terms the unilateral decision by the President of the United States America recognizing Al-Quds as the so-called capital of Israel, the occupying Power; reject it as null and void legally, and consider it an attack on the historical, legal, natural and national rights of the Palestinian people, a deliberate undermining of all peace efforts, an impetus to extremism and terrorism, and a threat to international peace and security () Reaffirm the centrality of the Cause of Palestine and Al-Quds Al-Sharif to the Muslim Ummah () Consider that this dangerous declaration, which aims to change the legal status of the City of Al-Quds Al-Sharif, is null and void and lacks any legitimacy, as being a serious violation of the international law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention in particular, and all relevant resolutions of international legitimacy, particularly the UN Security Council resolutions No. 478 (1980) and 2334 (2016) () Hold the US Administration fully liable for all the consequences of not retracting from this illegal decision; and regard it as an announcement of the US Administrations withdrawal from its role as sponsor of peace and its realization among all stakeholders and an encouragement of Israel, the occupying Power, to continue its policy of colonialism, settlement, apartheid and the ethnic cleansing it has been practicing in the occupied Palestinian territory in 1967, and in the City of Al-Quds Al-Sharif at its core; () Declare East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine and invite all countries to recognize the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital.

Lets sum it up: this document, signed by representatives of 57 member states, with a total population of over 1.6 billion, categorically condemns the USA, declares that Jerusalem is central to the Islamic world, accuses the USA of violating international law, holds the USA fully responsible for all the consequences of this action and declares that the US is no longer considered a sponsor of the peace process.

Bravo Donald! The military defeat of the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan and the political defeat of the USA in Syria just needed a little something to truly make the USA irrelevant in the Middle-East and thanks to you, Donald, that has now happened!

Some would argue that the USA was hated and despised anyway, so why not make the Israelis happy? The answer is simple: while the Donald and the Neocons might not care about the consequences of their actions, the few US allies left in the region (Jordan, KSA) are now placed in a terrible situation: they now look as if they were allies of Satan himself! OF COURSE everybody in the region knows that the US is an Israeli colony and that the Israel Lobby pulls all the strings, there is nothing new here. But at least there was the tiny little fig leaf of the so-called peace process putatively mediated between the Palestinians and Israelis by the United States. Now even that tiny little fig leaf is gone. Now the equation is extremely simple

USA= ISRAEL & ISRAEL=USA

Bravo Donald! You did what only a very shrewed and brilliant Russian agent could do: you have made the USA a pariah in all of the Middle-East, the entire Muslim world and, well, much of the rest of the world too!

Spasibo Donald!

The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world

$27.95

Never Miss Another Story Get Your Free Daily Newsletter

====

Join the Discussion
The Iraq government has ordered that 38 jihadists belonging to the Islamic State group or Al-Qaeda for terrorism offences on Thursday in the southern city of Nasiriyah, provincial authorities said.

This is the first time in history, a large number of executions in Iraq on a single day since September 25 when 42 people were put to death in the same prison.

The prison administration executed on Thursday in the presence of Justice Minister Haidar al-Zameli, in Nasiriyah prison, 38 death row prisoners belonging to Al-Qaeda or Daesh (IS) accused of terrorist activities, said Dakhel Kazem, a senior official in the provincial council.

They were all Iraqis but one also had Swedish citizenship, a prison source said.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Saturday declared victory against IS after a three-year campaign by government forces backed by a US-led coalition to retake territory seized by the jihadists.

Source : (AFP)
State of Osun

Gov. Rauf Aregbesola had changed the name of the state(Osun State) to State of Osun, however, an Osun State High Court sitting in Ilesa has declared the change of name illegal, null and void.

You know most Nigerian social media users dont have any chill right? Yeah, so they dragged him, clapped at him without also letting the opportunity to clap back at Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha for setting a bad example for APC governors by building statues up and down slide. See some tweets below;

Tf is State of Osun? Why are these people so in a hurry to beat Rochas in this fight of stupidity?  qqaH (@haqnificent) December 15, 2017

One is empowering mai shayi, another dashing wheel barrow as youth empowerment, another building statues up and down and now this one came up with state of osun This Apc guys just striving hard to out do themselves  KayD  (@Adukwu_) December 15, 2017

So my Alma Mater will be renamed State of Osun University Uncle Aregbe, My God will not allow you  Citrus Burst (@ArikeMartins_) December 15, 2017

LOL!!! So which one is State of Osun again. These our politicians need HELP Gaskia!!!

Also Buzzing now is Kiss Daniel:

Although he granted the interview two days ago where he stated that G-worldwide Ent. Placed him on a monthly salary of 30k and increased to 50k after Wonu remix was released at a time when Woju and Laye were hit songs, fans and music lovers still cant stop talking about it. Seriously, 50k for an act like Kiss Daniel? That is really hard to comprehend.

Hijab

Amasa Firdaus, a student of the Nigerian Law School from the University of Ilorin was not called to the Nigerian bar by the Body of Benchers on the 12th day of December, 2017 being the day of her call. According to reports, Amasa Firdaus, a Muslim refused to remove her hijab before entering the International Conference Centre where the call to Bar ceremony is usually holds. Amasa had vehemently refused to abide by the rules, claiming that the refusal by the authorities of the Nigerian Law School to call her to the Nigerian Bar is a violation of her right to freedom of religion protected by Section 38 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigerian as amended. Nigerian Twitter users didnt fail to drop their two cents on the matter. A few tweets below:

Lmao, as usual.a lot of yall r missing the point. The issue isnt about wearing hijab or not, its about maintaining a strict dress code. Get the point & maybe ull sleep better at night.  Toksman (@ogbuefitoks) December 14, 2017

The law profession in NIGERIA doesnt want to know if youre Christian a Muslim. Thats why you dont use Hijab or any religious attire. If you want to identify so much with ur religion, choose another profession. If it must be law, go study it in Saudi Arabia or Vatican City  Kelvin Odanz (@KelvinOdanz) December 15, 2017

If you cannot obey the Law, youre not fit to practise Law. I commend the action taken against the lady that wore hijab, the institution already has a dress code, you cant come and impose your ideology on them. She should drink water on her L PS: Im a Muslim too  Your Worst Behavior (@callme_hod) December 14, 2017

Its not a specific hijab ban lets get that straight. Law school does not target hijabis. Youre just not allowed to have any thing on your head during call. Youre not even allowed to fix a weave or braids or whatever. Just your hair .  Pepisko D. Pepeye (@MissIgho) December 14, 2017



Nigerians and religious sentiment, as a proper Nigerian would say Na wa o

Lastly Who wants Magu dead?

Well, according to reports yesterday, gunmen broke into the Abuja house of acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on Tuesday night opening fire on the policemen stationed there. A police sergeant attached was reportedly killed. Confirming the attack on his farmhouse yesterday, Magu vowed that he would not bow to the antics of his detractors in the prosecution of the anti-corruption war in Nigeria. Some Nigerians on social media have stated a campaign saying that the attempt on Magus life is a case of corruption fighting back. Some tweets below:

As I often say, our bit is not enough. Winning the war against corruption is the aggregate of our collective bits and pieces. No Nigerian can afford to be on the fence in this effort to rid our country of its Enemy Number One. . . #WhoWantsMaguDead  Bhadmus Hakeem (@Bhadoosky) December 15, 2017

This government is so out of control. It is so bloated and infested with fraud and deceit and corruption and abuse of power. #WhoWantsMaguDead  Latina Gold (@GoldLatina) December 15, 2017
The Independent National Electoral Commission has listed names of the newly approved 21 political parties in the country.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved the registration of 21 more political parties bringing the total number of registered political parties in the country to 67.

In a statement issued by the Commission and signed by a National Commissioner and member Information and Voter Education Committee, Barr. May Agbamuche-Mbu, yesterday, INEC gave the names of the registered parties as follows: All Blending Party; All Grassroots Alliance; Alliance for New Nigeria; Abundant Nigeria Renewal party; Coalition for Change; Freedom and Justice Party; Grassroots Development Party of Nigeria; and Justice Must Prevail Party.

Others are: Legacy Party of Nigeria; Mass Action Joint Alliance; Modern Democratic Party; National Interest Party; National Rescue Mission; New Progressive Movement; Nigeria Democratic Congress Party; Peoples Alliance for National Development and Liberty; Peoples Trust; Providence Peoples Congress; Re-Build Nigeria Party; Restoration Party of Nigeria and Sustainable Nigeria Party.

CVR: INEC dismisses two staff and retires one

The Independent National Electoral Commission has summarily dismissed two staff and sends one on compulsory retirement over the alleged double registration of the Kogi State Governor, in the on-going Voter Registration exercise (CVR).

According to a statement issued by the Commission yesterday, the staff were charged for gross misconduct and properly investigated by the Appointment, Promotion and Disciplinary Committee of the Commission.

The statement read in parts: Following reports of the alleged double registration by the Governor of Kogi State in the on-going Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise, the Commission set up a panel of investigation into the involvement of staff in the matter. The initial report submitted by the panel was referred to the Appointment, Promotion and Disciplinary Committee which made recommendations to the Commission.

The Commission took the following decisions: i) Summary dismissal of two staff for acts of gross misconduct, and ii) Immediate and compulsory retirement of an Electoral Officer for acts of gross misconduct.

The Commission further alluded to the immunity enjoyed by the Governor which it said was the reason preventing his prosecution the Governor of Kogi State currently enjoys immunity from prosecution, the statement added.

ANAMABRA CENTRAL SENATORIAL ELECTION: INEC TO APPLY FOR CTC

Following the recent judgment of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on the Anambra Central Senatorial seat, which ordered INEC to issue certificate of return to Obiora Okonkwo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Commission said yesterday that it has applied for Certified True Copy of the judgment to enable it to understudy the matter before taking further actions.

In a statement issued by the Commission at the end of its regular weekly meeting yesterday, INEC said the Commission has applied for Certified True Copy of the judgment to enable us to take a decision.

It would be recalled that the Commission had earlier fixed January 13, 2018, for the senatorial election in the Anambra Central Senatorial District.

Editor-in-Chief: Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi

Editor: Aliyu M. Bello

Reporter: Nathaniel Audu Gana

Technical Support: Bala Ato Agyo
20-year-old Thabiso Chabalala on Wednesday, revealed to the court that she spent seven months coughing and with swollen eyes after Prophet Lethebo Rabalago sprayed her with insecticide.

Prophet Rabalago from the Mountzion General Assembly in Limpopo, South Africa, who has styled himself as a prophet, was charged with five counts of assault and contravening environmental laws after images of him spraying congregants with Doom went viral in November last year.

Chabalala (pictured) testified in the ongoing trial against Lethebo Rabalago at the Mookgophong Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

This is Rabalagos second legal battle after the provincial health department obtained an interdict in the Limpopo High Court against him in May.

Chabalala told the court that she regretted allowing Rabalago to spray the pesticide on her. She said she responded to calls for the sick to come forward during a church service at Phomolong township last year.

Presiding magistrate Frans Mahodi asked Chabalala how she felt when she saw Rabalago holding the insecticide can.

I was taken by surprise. I thought that was how God instructed him to conduct the healing, she responded.

Chabalala said she was sprayed with Doom twice on the same day and became dizzy. She said at first she thought the dizziness was part of the healing process, but she started experiencing health problems later on.

I regret it, she said.

The state had also called a Grade 11 pupil who claimed he had to get help from a clinic after Rabalago sprayed him.

The 17-year-old said he had gone to the church to seek prayers because his neck was painful. Rabalagos defence lawyer, Edmond Lubisi, said his client had never met the teenager.

It is my clients version that he does not know you or remember seeing you at his church, Lubisi said.

Earlier, Catherine Mabitsela, a legislation chief inspector at the provincial department of agriculture, testified that Rabalagos practices were misleading.

Mabitsela said Rabalago had not used the product according to regulations.

In an interview with eNCA.com last November, Rabalago claims that the insect killer is to heal people with cancer, HIV or any other illness.

On whether he considers the danger of the chemical spray to the eyes and other body parts, he said:

With us, we believe in God is for all things. People are getting their deliverance.
Star Actor, John Dumelo, is apparently seeking advice for his Casanova friend who is about to get caught by his girlfriends.

According to the actor, his friend has two girlfriends who are based in Holland and are flying back to Ghana on the same day and also on the flight, to make matters worse they both want him to pick them up.

The actors tweet reads;

My friend just called me asked me for advice. Hes dating two ladies from Holland and all of them are arriving in Ghana for dec holidays. They will be on the same flight Too. And each one has asked him to pick her up from the airport. What should he do?

source: Twitter
According to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), a total of 1,317 Nigerians have voluntarily returned from Libya in the last 10 days having been stranded in the volatile country en route Europe.

Punch Metro reports that the Director-General of NEMA, Alhaji Mustapha Maihajja, made the disclosure while receiving a fresh batch of 116 Nigerians who arrived the country on Friday morning.

The new set of returnees arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos aboard a Buraq Airlines with Registration Number 5A-WAC at about 5.39a.m.

No fewer than 3,000 Nigerians have voluntarily returned from Libya through the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) supported programme in the last few months.

Maihajja, represented by Alhaji Suleiman Yakubu, the South-West Zonal Coordinator, said that the Nigerians returned in various batches between Dec.5 and Dec.15 with the assistance of the IOM and the European Union (EU).

According to him, the figure has already surpassed the 1, 295 Nigerians who voluntarily returned from Libya in the month of November. Maihajja said that the Federal Government would continue to work with the international organisations to ensure the return of more Nigerians from Libya where they had been facing severe hardships and rights violations.

They comprised 46 adult females, 60 adult males and 10 children and infants. Also, on ground to welcome the returnees were officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Police.

-Punch
Beauty entrepreneur, Lola Oj didnt just get congratulatory messages from her fans after she posted lovely photos from her call to bar few days ago, she was also trolled by a follower.

The British-born Nigerian clapped back after the follower who felt her busy social life will not let her practise called her out.

Instagram user, @must.done, told Lola that they wouldnt hire her services and they werent sure she could defend anyone in court. Temitope also told Lola to stick to social media.

In reply, she told the follower that they couldnt afford her. She also said shes on social media making money and achieving things, then asked the troll what theyve done with their life.

After people called the rude follower out, they apologized and deleted the initial comment.

See their exchange below
A 49-year-old man, identified as Garba Tukura, has been arrested by the Niger State Police Command for allegedly murdering his neighbor, Musa Wassa.

The suspect, who lives in Zazzaga Village in the Munya Local Government Area of Niger State, was said to have allegedly killed 65-year-old Wassa during a heated argument.

According to the Public Relations Officer for the police command, Peter Sunday, Tukura, in the heat of an argument, flogged Wassa with an engine belt.

Wassa, he said, slumped and was immediately rushed to a hospital, where he was discovered to be comatose and later died.

The police spokesman said following a report of the incident, operatives attached to the Sarkin Pawa division of the command arrested Tukura.

He said the suspect had confessed to the crime.

Sunday told Northern City News that Tukura had been charged to court.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Punch

A former governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, has urged the Federal High Court in Lagos to perpetually restrain the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission from inviting, arresting or further prosecuting him in connection with a criminal charge involving an alleged fraud of N5.3bn.

Vanguard

CALABARIt was gathered yesterday that three soldiers were among six people burnt to death in Iwuru, Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State Wednesday night when a tanker laden with petroleum products crashed and exploded along the Calabar  Ikom highway.

The Sun

Major streets of Abuja were, on Thursday, adorned with campaign posters endorsing President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for reelection in 2019.

Thisday

Following the payment of the first tranche of the Ikoyi Osborne Tower cash recovery saga, the Federal High Court in Abuja has fixed January 17, 2018 for hearing in a court action instituted against Finance Minister, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFFC)

Daily Times

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja has granted a former Head of Service, HoS of the Federation, Stephen Oronsaye, who is standing trial for a N2 billion pension fraud, the permission to travel to India for medicals and to return for continuation of his trial in January 2018.

Guardian
Pastor, Ufuoma Benard who is based in Warri has publicly repented of collecting tithe, he shared the result of his one month search for the foundation of tithing in the Bible, wrote;

After one month of poring through the Bible and critically examining both sides of the arguments for and against TITHING I publicly repent for receiving tithes. I am convinced Daddy Freeze is right. No more tithing in my ministry.

I am a pastor but I dont know everything. I am a work in progress. I learn everyday and from everyone. I am open to new things. I am not stuck in dogma and tradition. I am a liberal person. I hate fanaticism. I am not interested in making money through church business or attracting large crowd or having branches of my church in every street and road. I am only interested in sharing the truth as I know it. The truth I am sure will set the people free from dogma, superstition, manipulation, ignorance and poverty.

-Gistreel
The Asiwaju Yinka Fasuyi Foundation has paid the West African Examination Council fees of some pupils from 20 public schools in Osun State.

The Chairman of the foundation, Chief Yinka Fasuyi, who is the President, Ibadan Business School, presented cheques for the sum of N1,766,500 to beneficiaries at a ceremony held in Ilesa on Thursday.

The beneficiaries were those who had the best results in the Unified Promotion Examination organised by the state government for SSII pupils in the state.

Fasuyi said the gesture was devoid of any political undertone, stressing that he was moved to invest in the future of the children because of his love for education and Ijesaland.

He said, The truth of the matter is that the government alone can never finance all socio-economic development programmes. If government was capable, then the Egbe Atunluse Ile Ijesa would have waited for it to establish the secondary school that was later known as Ilesa Grammar School.

I urge all community stakeholders in their different classes, groups and associations to support the government and the society. We must not only produce educated people in quantity, we must also produce quality and value-adding educated people.

Fasuyi also noted that investment in education would guarantee a bright future for children and the country, as well as give hope to the hopeless and help to reduce crime in the society.

He said the foundation provided free extra-mural classes in Mathematics and English Language for pupils in public secondary schools, adding that the pupils with the best results in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination among the current beneficiaries would win scholarships to further their education in any university or a polytechnic.

A former Vice-Chancellor of Caleb University, Prof. Tayo Olurotimi, lauded the chairman of the foundation for showing interest in the education of the children in Ijesaland.

He urged the beneficiaries to use the opportunities they were offered to ensure a brighter future for themselves.

The Commissioner for education in Osun State, Mr. Kola Omotunde-Young, represented by Mrs. Olufunke Adeyeye, thanked the foundation for investing in the future of the pupils and the state.

The commissioner advised the students to shun cultism and hard drugs that may distract them from achieving their goals in life.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Mexican federal police on Thursday rescued 29 migrants who were left in an abandoned truck container to die, according to authorities.

The migrants were found inside a refrigerated container standing in a disused service station alongside a freeway in the central state of Puebla that caught a patrols attention.

All the migrants from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and 11 of them were children.

Several of them were fainting from the lack of oxygen, a police statement said.

A Honduran man in the group, Elvin Omar Pine, said: We were making noise with an ax. We were trying to break through, but werent able to. Suddenly we head a voice asking if there was someone inside. If it wasnt for them, we would have been done for, we would have died.

The migrants had been aiming to sneak through Mexico and across the border into the United States in the truck container, but they were abandoned by the smugglers.

After their rescue, they were handed over to Mexican migration authorities with a view to being deported.

Central Americans from the so-called Northern Triangle made up of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador  all poor states brutalized by gang violence and prey to corruption  account for the biggest group of undocumented migrants seeking to enter the United States.

Many fall victim to abuse by human traffickers and other criminals along the way.

Source : ( AFP )
President Muhammadu Buhari returned from Paris after he participated at the One Planet summit in Paris, France.

The presidents aircraft landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at 4:35pm, where he was received by senior government officials including his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abba Kyari and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Musa Bello.

While in Paris, President Buhari had appealed to the international community to support Nigerias commitment to reduce the negative effects of climate change.

Buhari told participants that Nigeria could not implement its Nationally Determined Contributions without adequate financial, technical and capacity building support from developed nations

He said Nigeria had already ratified the Paris Agreement in May 2017 but its Nationally Determined Contributions to reduce emission by 20 percent by 2020 and 40 percent by 2030 could not be attained alone.

According to him, the country is not under illusion of the challenges it is facing, having just come out of recession.

The summit with the theme Climate Change Financing, was attended by over 60 heads of state and governments, as well as representatives of non-governmental and private organisations.

Source: ( NAN )
These cleavage-baring photos of Media Personality Toke Makinwa has since caused a stir among her followers on social media.

The beautiful author took to her Instagram page to share the pictures from the Ciroc photoshoot but her followers and fans have reacted negatively to the photos as they believe its not right for her to wear such outfit.

A follower even mocked her saying; see wetin baba fadeyi dey enjoy.

Recall, Toke Makinwa was reportedly accused of dating 70 year old billionaire, Mr Festus Fadeyi.

At first, their fears were deemed unfounded by family friends, close and distant relatives, but ever since their father completed his sprawling mansion in Ikoyi, the children have become very worried about the possibility of seeing Toke hop in the master bedroom with their father.

Fadeyis children are very angry with the way he splurges on his love interest, Toke. They believe he is squandering too much money on her at a time he is heavily indebted to Skye Bank.

Recall that the well-heeled founder and CEO of Pan Ocean Corporation, an indigenous independent oil firm, acquired a multi-billion naira loan from Skye Bank. His indebtedness to the bank is estimated at N196 billion few months ago.

Notwithstanding, Fadeyi spends extravagantly on Toke. For instance, he allegedly bought her a brand new Range Rover 2016 model worth over N50 million. He is also responsible for her acquisition of top of the line and very expensive designer bags, shoes and apparels. From Louboutin, Bottega, Chanel, Louis Vuitton to Hermes among others, Fadeyi spoils Toke silly with the most pricey ware.

Thus the worlds most expensive designer brands are mere names on Tokes list. The popular social media big girl considers Selfridges and Harrods as ordinary shopping points at the moment,. Whenever she visits London, United Kingdom (UK) via business class or first class flights paid for by Fadeyi, she spares no expenses at the citys posh shopping points.

It is very interesting to note that Fadeyi foots such outrageous bills for Toke while he wallows in loan debt to his bank. What Fadeyis children find alarming however, is Tokes continual neglect of her lovers precarious financial situation.

Consequently, they have declared war against her, warning her to leave their father alone. Frightened by the undisguised animosity, Toke has resorted to extreme measures to avoid their wrath or unpalatable encounters with them. For instance, she now tries to steal around town incognito by covering her vehicles number plate with leather.

Although the On becoming author has not come out to debunk these rumors.
A Hausa cattle dealer has lost his life after he was allegedly shot dead by a soldier at a military checkpoint.

A Nigerian soldier simply identified as Sunday has reportedly killed a Hausa cattle dealer, Shafiu Garba, over his refusal to pay N500 bribe at a military check-point in Edo state.

In a report by DailyNigerian, it was revealed that the tragic incident happened when Mr Garba, popularly known as Ganda, was conveying cattle in truck from Wudil in Kano to Edo state.

Witness said the incident occurred at a military check-point at Uromi, located between Auchi and Benin, around 6pm on December 8.

The eyewitness, Sani Abdullahi, who was in the same truck with the victim, said the Mr Garba was shot in the head by the soldier and died a few hours after.

After going past the military check-point, and having seen that the military man was following us on a motorcycle, late Shafiu advised that we stop.

When we stopped, the soldier pointed his gun at us and fired three shots. The first bullet hit the roof of the truck, while the second shot hit him in the head.

Nobody stopped us at the check-point. We only saw the soldier rode past us on a motorcycle and started shooting and demanding why we did not drop the N500 required to pass the check-point.

Shafiu was rushed to a nearby hospital but died a few hours later. We reported the matter to the DPO of Uromi police station, but the police attempted to manipulate the issue.

We then blocked the road the following morning, demanding justice. We also requested that his body be taken back to the North for proper burial.



Even though the army settled the hospital bill and arrested the soldier, but that is not enough.

We want the full wrath of the law to take its course on this wicked soldier, the eyewitness narrated.

Nigerian Army spokesperson, Sani Kukasheka is yet to comment on the matter.
At least four children were killed and seven people were seriously injured on Thursday after a train crashed into a school bus at a level crossing in southern France, police sources said.

The bus, which was carrying mainly junior high school students, was struck by the train in Millas about 18 kilometres west (11 miles) of the city of Perpignan, close to the Spanish border.

A rescue operation was underway.

The head of security for the Pyrenees area, where the collision took place, confirmed the accident involving a train travelling west from Perpignan to the town of Villefranche de Conflent.

The bus was transporting mainly junior high-school students.

The BFMTV channel said it was struck in the rear.

President Emmanuel Macron in a tweet wrote: All my thoughts for the victims of this terrible accident involving a school bus, as well as their families. The state is fully mobilised to help them.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne were on their way to the scene from a meeting in the south-central city of Cahors.

Its a terrible event, Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said, expressing profound sadness.

Source: ( AFP )
Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, on Thursday described the All Progressives Grand Alliance as the South-East hurricane 

He asked the governors in the South-East geopolitical zone to join APGA now if they would wish to be re-elected in the 2019 general elections.

Obiano stated this at the Dr. Alex Ekwueme Square in Awka, the Anambra State capital, during a function tagged, Victory Rally/ Commencement of Anambra Central Senatorial District Rerun Campaign.

He said many serving senators and House of Representatives members from the geopolitical zone had approached him to join APGA.

Describing APGA as the Igbo philosophy and identity, Obiano added, What we are telling everybody now is to join APGA within a reasonable time to be able to get the chance to contest election on our platform in 2019.

What happened here on November 18 when APGA swept the entire poll in Anambra State will be replicated in Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi states in 2019.

APGA is a hurricane that nobody can stop in the South-East. What Im telling my brother governors in the South-East is for them to join APGA now if they wish to be re-elected; otherwise, sorry for them, they must lose their seats to APGA in 2019.

Obiano, who described the January 13 senatorial rerun in the state as a simple mathematics, said he had put on his victory garb again as the chairman of the campaign organisation of the APGA candidate in the election, Chief Victor Umeh, to crush any opposition in the race.

Speaking, Umeh dismissed the judgment of Justice John Tsoho of the Abuja Federal High Court as dead on arrival.

Justice Tsoho had in the judgment ordered that Chief Ikechukwu Obiora be sworn in as the winner of the 2015 Anambra Central senatorial election.

Describing Tsohos decision as of no effect, Umeh said the January 13 rerun poll was sacrosanct.

Umeh said it would amount to judicial absurdity for a high courts decision to supersede a Court of Appeal judgment that had earlier ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct the poll within 90 days in compliance with the INEC timetable which had scheduled the rerun for January 13.

He said, The January 13th January election as fixed by INEC for the Anambra Central Senatorial District election will hold. Nobody or court can challenge the ruling of the Appeal Court.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper)
While many self-storage operators recognize the value in creating a social media presence, many dont have a set of concrete goals theyre trying to achieve through their online outreach. Setting goals for your social media program will give you guideposts for the types of content you post, the platforms you use and the frequency of postings required. Here are three common objectives that will work for most any self-storage business.

Goal 1: Increase Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is how readily recognizable your brand is by potential customers. You want your company name to be the first to peoples lips when they discuss self-storage. Social media is a great way to keep reminding people who you are. But how?

First, decide which platforms work best for your brand. You know the big three: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The second tier includes YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Google+ and others. Each platform has a different demographic and socio-economic user makeup. For instance, you may be surprised to learn that 75 percent of adults who make more than $75,000 annually use Facebook.

Once youve decided which platforms to use, youll want to focus on creating content thats shareable and diverse. Maria Dykstra, founder of digital-marketing firm TreDigital, suggests this mix: 60 percent industry-related, third-party content, 30 percent company-related content and 10 percent promotional content.

As you begin posting, there are three main metrics you should track to see if youre increasing brand awareness:

Followers: By tracking the growth of your followers over time, youll be able to see how well your social media efforts are paying off.

By tracking the growth of your followers over time, youll be able to see how well your social media efforts are paying off. Reach: This refers to the number of people who see your posts. As you post content, monitor the reach each post gets and customize your messages toward the types of posts that reach the most people.

This refers to the number of people who see your posts. As you post content, monitor the reach each post gets and customize your messages toward the types of posts that reach the most people. Shares, retweets and mentions: Pay attention to the posts that are getting liked, shared, retweeted and commented on, and cultivate similar messages for added engagement. Each platform offers analytics dashboards that will show you these metrics.

Goal 2: Increase Engagement

Whats engagement? Simply put, its the amount of interaction your posts receive. If youre on Facebook, this means shares, likes and followers. If youre on Twitter, this is retweets and followers. And if youre on Instagram, engagement is measured in likes and followers.

If youve been posting on social media for any length of time, you know how frustrating it can be to accomplish this goal. The key is trial and error. You must be willing to experiment with different types of content on several platforms at different times and dates. Thats a lot of variables, but finding the right combination can really get the ball rolling in terms of interaction with your customers and, ultimately, increased brand awareness and sales. Here are some ideas:

Try a little humor. Your audience doesnt want pitch after pitch about how great your company is, nor do followers want every post to include that weeks special offers. Instead, try posting humorous stories, GIFs or videos, which are more likely to be forwarded and increase your reach.

Give visuals. People love to look at pictures. Whether its an image of a beautiful location, a nice sunset or cute animal, there will be an instant draw. If you can, post images of real people. This can be of your staff having fun at a company gathering or a customer who just received great service. Eighty-seven percent of content shared on Facebook consists of photographs, according to Social Media Examiner.

Ask for it. If youre not getting any activity on your posts, try asking for it. Ask questions like, If your house was on fire and you could only grab one item, what would it be? Or create a Twitter poll: Is your garage too full to park a car in it? Additional approaches include fill-in-the-blank statements, caption-writing contests or asking people to post their favorite animated GIF (this one seems to be quite effective).

Stimulate interest. Another way to draw interest to your posts is offering compelling information that would interest your audience. This can come in the form of links to helpful articles, for example, 7 Warning Signs You Need a New Roof. Posts containing facts and stats also do well, such as The average U.S. household contains 300,000 things.

Goal 3: Drive Traffic and Generate Leads

These are really two goals but, in the end, theyre both about generating business. While social media is great for keeping your name in the minds of your customers, it also needs to be looked at for bringing people to your site and, ultimately, having them complete a desired action. This could be booking a storage unit, filling out a form or calling one of your locations.

After using the above-mentioned suggestions to create engagement, youll need to understand if your social media efforts are effective. To do that, look at your sites analytics. If you dont already have Google Analytics installed, start there. Once in the dashboard, from the Acquisitions menu, go to All Traffic/Channels.

Here you'll see how your social presence brings visits to your site. Since these visits are coming from people who most likely are already fans or following your brand, the traffic is going to be more qualified and will result in better conversion than your organic or referral traffic. If you drill down into that channel, youll see which of your social media platforms is getting you the most traffic.

Keep this in mind when creating content for your social media channels: Posting about new and interesting content that lives on your website in the form of a blog or newsletter is a good way to get increased traffic. In study by social media management platform Buffer, 61 percent of businesses surveyed used social media to distribute content, thereby directing visits back to their websites. Another 54 percent used social media to develop sales leads.

Speaking of generating leads, social media lends itself very well to lead generation if you create the right framework. For instance, a great way to collect new prospects is to run a sweepstakes or giveaway. Through the entry form, youll be able to grab their e-mail address. Include a way for them to share the event via their social media channels. If your organization offers referral bonuses to customers, this would also be something to promote on a routine basis.

If youre going to focus on generating new leads, you may want to buy more reach through boosted posts. With Facebook and other platforms limiting organic reach these days, an easier way to generate a bigger audience is through paid advertising. The good news is its much cheaper than Google AdWords. West Coast Self-Storage recently boosted a post promoting its latest blog and reached 3,000 more people than one of its standard posts. It also received 184 click-throughs to the website. The net result was a per-visit cost of only 27 cents, so it was well worth the investment.

If youre going to go through the effort of establishing a social media program for your self-storage business, map out a few solid goals. This will give you something to aim for instead of the standard post and pray mentality that many companies use. Follow the guidelines above and youll soon generate more traction through your efforts.

Derek Hines is an Internet-marketing assistant for West Coast Self-Storage, a self-storage acquisitions, development and management company with facilities in California, Oregon and Washington. He writes extensively on all subjects related to self-storage. For more information, visit www.westcoastselfstorage.com.
Westy Self Storage, which operates 15 properties in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, is working with the Norwalk Veterinary Hospital to collect donations for local fire victims. A fire this week at the StoneWood Condominium Complex in Norwalk, Conn., left several residents displaced and without personal belongings. The companies are asking for contributions of clothing, including undergarments and jackets, as well as toiletries. Gift cards will also be accepted, according to the source.

The hospital at 726 Connecticut Ave. will serve as the primary drop-off point, with the Westy location at 50 Keeler Ave. also accepting items. All donations will be temporarily housed and organized at the self-storage facility before being distributed to those in need. Westy is also offering two months of complimentary storage to anyone affected by the blaze.

The fire broke out on Monday evening, leaving 54 condos unfit for occupancy. Investigators have determined it was caused by discarded smoking materials, the source reported.

Westy employees distributed free moving boxes to victims at the scene for any items that were salvageable. The company also offered free use of its moving truck.

Westy jumped right in when they heard we were collecting donations for the fire victims, said Suzanne Gabriele, fundraising coordinator for the hospital. They have been beyond helpful in this devastating situation.

When we saw the opportunity to assist those in need, we extended our hands to help out, said Yessenia Martinez, director of the Westy Norwalk location. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see the magnitude of destruction and how many in our community were affected.

Founded in 1990 by The Arredondo Family, Westy Self Storage is headquartered in Stamford, Conn. It operates four facilities in Connecticut, four in New Jersey and seven in New York.
Top News - Investor Idea

Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) Announces Funding to Close on ELMS Assets

BREA, Calif. - November 17, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN) ("Mullen" or the "Company"), an emerging electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, announces today receipt of $150 million on Nov. 16, 2022, which will be used in part to close on ELMS assets.

Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea

EV Companies on the Rise: (NASDAQ: MULN) (NASDAQ: TSLA) (NYSE: NIO) (NASDAQ: RIVN)

Vancouver, Kelowna, Delta, BC - November 16, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investor Ideas Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering EV stocks releases a special report on the continued growth within the sector

Top AI News - Investor Idea

Breaking AI Stock News: FatBrain (OTCQB: LZGI) Acquires UK-based Forecasting Innovator Predictive Black To Help SMEs Optimize Cash Management

NEW YORK, NY - November 15, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow (some call SMEs), has acquired Predictive Black Ltd, a UK-based innovator of real-time cash management, financial insights and business wellness for SMEs.

Top Fashion News - Investor Idea

New Fashion Designer Launches this Holiday Season in Kelowna and Online; Sweet Dees Creations  Fun, Flirty and Affordable

Kelowna B.C. - November 14, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) A local fashion designer is launching a new women's line at Kelowna markets and online this Holiday Season that will make heads turn with her whimsical and colourful choices

Check out our Podcasts for great investor ideas:

Get new posts by email: Subscribe Powered by

Investorideas.com Newswire:

Subscribe to Investor Ideas Newswire
The Jameson International Graduate Programme is currently recruiting graduates for its 2018/19 intake.

A brand recognised for its ability to tell the story of Irish whiskey in different and unique ways, they are currently recruiting graduates from a range of different backgrounds and with a variety of language skills.

The programme is a sales and marketing programme which is open to those outside of traditional business and marketing degrees.

The Jameson International Graduate Programme, which has been running for 26 years, aims to give recent graduates an insight into the Irish whiskey industry, develop their sales and marketing capabilities, as well as honing skills such as relationship building and influencing that are critical business and life skills.

Today, there are 90 brand ambassadors based in 46 countries across the world.

Saoirse ODriscoll, assistant brand manager in the Jameson portfolio and recent programme graduate, had lived in five countries before she was five.

While on the Jameson International Graduate Programme, Saoirse experienced life in three different countries  Cyprus, France and Sweden.

Speaking about her experience of the programme in France, she said: Understanding different cultures was practically in my blood. The Pernod Ricard global HQ is based in Paris, so I had the opportunity to use my language skill to truly get to know the global team and build relationships. These relationships are now a vital part of my permanent post programme role as assistant brand manager.

Engaging with local bars is a huge part of the role of an ambassador. Being able to converse with them fluently helped me to clearly tell them what Jameson is about, Saoirse stated.

The programme gave me an opportunity to develop both personally and professionally, she added.

While a language is certainly a benefit, it is not a requirement.

Sinead DArcy, manager of the Jameson International Graduate Programme, said: We are all about diversity in Jameson. Once you are a creative self-starter we believe that we have adequate supports in place to aid graduates flourish as ambassadors.

This year alone we have hired graduates with science degrees, drama degrees and politics masters. The unique insights they bring as ambassadors is what propels the Jameson brand into the spotlight.

n Online applications are now open at www.jamesongraduateprogramme.com, and close at 1pm Wednesday, January 17, 2018.
More than 100 years ago, the saying Britains difficulty is Irelands opportunity had much currency as our then rulers fought a bitter, long war in Europe while the independence movement grew apace on this island, writes Conor Kane.

Who could have predicted  even 18 months ago  that such a maxim could become relevant again, although this time theres no pleasure to take at the UKs Brexit-begat problems, such are the difficulties they could present on a wider scale for Ireland and the rest of Europe.

And yet, theres no doubt that there are opportunities for Ireland, and others, to benefit from Brexit. We might not have won the vote to secure the European banking or medicine authorities recently, but gaps are still opening in the market.

And this coincides with an upsurge in job creation all over Ireland which has us nearing the revered status of full employment. Dublin has gained a lot of quality jobs as multinational tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon compete for prime office real estate in a large population centre.

However, situations such as the housing crisis in our capital mean employers must also look elsewhere. The south east, with its ever-improving infrastructure network, educated population thanks to the presence of cutting-edge third-level institutions, and relatively affordable office and living space, is a classic example of a beneficiary.

Throughout all regions in Ireland, the broader health sector, for instance, has been exploding in the last couple of years, both in the fields of research and development and manufacturing. The south east is certainly a case in point.

Waterford city, Wexford, Clonmel, and Kilkenny all enjoy significant levels of employment across the health area as the likes of American-headquartered multinationals recognise the talents, education and flexibility of the local populace.

Larger job announcements in the south east since 2015 have included those in health manufacturing such as NuVasive, Nypro Healthcare, West Pharma, Bausch & Lomb, and MSD.

Other sectors thriving in the region are financial services (KBC Bank, Zurich, Sun Life Financial); ICT (Netwatch, ThreeCare, Evros, Cipher Techs Inc), as well as general services (Prim-Ed Publishing, Lites Group, Agora Publishing).

Very recently, Kilkenny received a major shot in the arm with two companies in the financial services sphere announcing a total of 130 new jobs between them; Taxback International is adding 80 employees locally to its existing worldwide payroll of 1,200 employees; and Carne which is creating a centre of excellence in Kilkenny which will eventually have 50 highly-educated staff for its international fund management solutions business.

It was at the latter announcement that Carnes founder pointed out the level of opportunity that exists in this sector because of Brexit, with UK-based companies aiming to future-proof their operations in a bid to maintain trade into continental Europe.

Were working with a lot of them to come up with solutions, said Carnes John Donohoe. Some of them will set up in Ireland themselves but a lot of them will decide to use Carne as their solution going forward.

Irish-based global provider of fund management company solutions to the asset management industry, Carne, currently employs 150 people in a number of countries and is recruiting 50 more at its new centre of excellence in Kilkenny city.

The positions will be in the areas of regulatory compliance and risk management and will be technology-centred and Carne are looking for graduates and people with experience of this sector to boost its staff profile, according to founder and CEO John Donohoe.

Asked at the jobs announcement about the challenges or opportunities presented by Brexit, Mr Donohoe said: A lot of our UK clients are looking for Brexit solutions to future-proof them so they can continue to sell their products into Europe, so were working with a lot of them to come up with solutions. Some of them will set up in Ireland themselves but a lot of them will decide to use Carne as their solution going forward.

A key point made by John Donohoe, who founded Carne in 2004 and now sees the company employing 150 people in Ireland, London, New York, Chicago, the Channel Islands, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, was that the talent thats available in the region is the main reason Kilkenny was chosen for the new base.

The approach of Brexit presents opportunity for Ireland, and Carne is scaling up in part to ensure it is sufficiently prepared to meet market demands dictated by Brexit, he pointed out.

CEO of Enterprise Ireland, Julie Sinnamon, said Ireland now has a signifcant presence in the international financial services industry: Enterprise Ireland is committed to working with Irish companies with global ambition in this sector, providing innovation supports and helping to grow their businesses in overseas markets.

Its good news for regional job growth, with the likes of Carne leading the way. Choosing regional locations as part of expansion plans allows businesses to access a wider pool of talent and creates jobs locally, she added.

This point was echoed by several government ministers who attended the Carne jobs announcement, with the Minister of State for Financial services Michael DArcy pointing to the 90,000 jobs located in Ireland in the financial services industry, spread around the country and not just on the docks or by the river in Dublin.

While there may be concern globally right now about different jobs being replaced by automation, that wasnt the case in this sector, the minister said. What Carne do for financial services and fund management really hits it on the head. They join the dots.

Michael DArcy referred to the huge growth in Kilkenny in recent years, with an influx of impressive businesses establishing a presence in the county, including in the area of financial services. Given the availability of talent and its proximity to Dublin and other key Irish cities, it is no surprise that the south east was the location of choice for Carne when it came to setting up its new office.

Meanwhile, the minister of state for trade and employment as well as the EU digital single market and data protection, Pat Breen, said all of the jobs created will have a positive knock-on effect for the wider community in Kilkenny and throughout the region. A key priority of the Government, through our Regional Action Plan for Jobs, is to create jobs across all the regions of Ireland, Mr Breen said.

This priority was accentuated early in the decade when Waterford city, in particular, was hit by a high number of high profile job losses, prompting the government to establish the south east jobs task force to replace the likes of TalkTalk and others who had just pulled out with the loss of hundreds of well-paying positions.

That was the nadir for the region, it has been up and up all the way since then.
By Geoff Percival

British exploration company Europa Oil and Gas has said it is confident of attracting further development partners for its highly rated portfolio of assets located in Irish waters.

The London-based company has seven licences off the west coast of Ireland, containing an estimated 5bn barrels of oil and 1.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas.

Earlier this year, it sold a 70% stake in one of its Irish assets to Scottish explorer Cairn Energy for 6m.

Earlier this week, Europa hinted at the potential for significant new discoveries near the Corrib gas field by estimating it has 2.5 tcf at its Slyne Basin exploration area, adjacent to Corrib.

Chairman Colin Bousfield told shareholders at Europas AGM that management has made headway in attracting investor interest in its Irish licences and is confident of further deal activity.

With six offshore Ireland licences at various stages of the farm-out process, we are confident further deals will be agreed, he said.

The flurry of transactions seen during 2017  including our own farm-out to Cairn Energy  is testament to offshore Irelands emergence as an exploration hotspot, said Mr Bousfield.

Thanks to our unique position, Europa is very much at the heart of this exciting new play and we are determined to capitalise on this for the benefit of our shareholders.

Technical work continues across our Irish acreage to increase the number of drill-ready prospects to six within the next 12 months.

Currently we have two, each of which is a potential company-maker.

Despite its upbeat message to shareholders, Europas share price fell by over 2% after the AGM.
The school holidays are nearly here and with it being so cold outside, it can be a challenge entertaining kids every day for two weeks.

When all the Christmas shopping and youve visit every relative, theres nothing nicer than cosying up on the couch with a snuggly blanket, hot chocolate, snacks and a variety of Christmas specials, musicals and movies.

Heres what Netflix has to offer the kiddies:

A StoryBots Christmas (Now Streaming)

When Bo mistakenly thinks that her friends dont like her gifts, she heads to the North Pole to ask Santa for help making better presents. She learns along the way that Christmas is about far more than just the toys. Ed Asner guest stars as Santa Claus.

DreamWorks Home: For the Holidays (Now Streaming)

Oh takes it upon himself to introduce Christmas joy to his fellow Boovs. Unfortunately, his well-meaning mission nearly destroys the city.

Trolls Holiday Special (Now Streaming)

When the eternally optimistic Poppy, queen of the Trolls, learns that the Bergens no longer have any holidays on their calendar, she enlists the help of Branch and the rest of the gang on a delightfully quirky mission to fix something that the Bergens dont think is broken.

The Magic Snowflake

Young Nicolas agrees to do Santas work for one year. But the stress of the job threatens the boys sense of joy  and Christmas itself.

Arthur Christmas

At Santa Clauss super-secret toy-making facility, Mr Claus entrusts his son, Arthur, to carry out an ultra-important Christmas mission.

Bobs Broken Sleigh

An overly eager elf improves Santas sleigh, but when he crash lands far from home, three odd critters pitch in to send him back to the North Pole.

Caillous Holiday Movie

Join Caillou in this animated adventure as he helps his dad shovel snow, learns about the holidays of other cultures and makes gifts for his family.

The Legend of Frosty the Snowman

The mayor of Evergreen dismisses magic as nonsense, but when Frosty the Snowman blows through town, he shows the local children that magic is real.

Santas Apprentice

Young orphan Nicolas learns how to guide a sleigh, slide down chimneys and other duties hell need when he becomes the next Santa Claus.

Caspers Haunted Christmas

Casper faces getting into a heap of trouble with the king of the ghosts unless he frightens at least one person before Christmas Day.

My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas

After accidentally breaking the special candy cane which guides Santa Claus to Ponyville, Minty heads to the North Pole to set things right.

Timmy Time: Timmys Christmas Surprise

When Timmy and his friends get snowed in at the nursery on Christmas Eve, Osbourne and Harriet make the best of it by creating a yuletide atmosphere.

A Very Pink Christmas

Pink Panther and Big Nose establish rival Christmas tree businesses to make enough money to purchase a mutually coveted luxury car.

The Koala Brothers: Outback Christmas

Sad that their friend, Penny, cant make it to their holiday party, Frank and Buster take an adventure-filled trip to the North Pole to bring her back.

Power Rangers Super Samurai: Stuck on Christmas

The Samurai Rangers get stuck in the Megazords cockpit on Christmas Eve when it breaks down. Can the Rangers get out in time for Christmas?

Power Rangers: Megaforce: The Robo Knight Before Christmas

Robo Knight learns the meaning of Christmas from a group of children when he is mistaken for a donated Christmas toy and is shipped to a foreign land.

Power Rangers Samurai: Christmas Together, Friends Forever

On Christmas Eve, as the teens at Shiba House reflect on their first year together, they get an unexpected lesson on the true spirit of Christmas.

DreamWorks Shrek Stories

Shrek celebrates a busy Christmas and a spooky Halloween, Puss in Boots is captured by soldiers, and the kingdom hosts a singing competition.

DreamWorks Happy Holidays from Madagascar

Madagascar goes wild with holiday spirit in this set of Valentines Day and Christmas-themed tales featuring everyones favourite animal characters.

Santa Pacs Merry Berry Day

Pac aims to keep Berry Day the happiest day ever by unravelling a curious mystery about his parents and thwarting Betrayuss plan to capture Santa Pac.

DreamWorks Holiday Classics

Join your DreamWorks friends for these four holiday specials, featuring Shrek and Donkey, Hiccup and Toothless, and the wacky animals from Madagascar.

Pee-wees Playhouse: Christmas Special

Amid an avalanche of stars, Pee-wee straps on his ice skates and glides into the holiday season with Christmas cards, carols and Charo.

The Wiggles: Go, Santa, Go!

Join the Wiggles as they help Santa and his elves get ready for Christmas in this special filled with singing, dancing and holiday cheer.
The deputy leader of far-right group Britain First has been released on bail after appearing in court in Belfast charged over comments about Islam made in a social media posting.

Jayda Fransen, 31, has been charged with threatening behaviour over remarks made earlier this week beside a peace wall dividing Catholics from Protestants in the city.

The comments were posted on social media on Wednesday.

The message said it was shot in the staunchly unionist Shankill area of west Belfast.

The video post was critical of Islam.

Fransen was bailed after a short hearing before a district judge in Belfast Magistrates' Court today, although police objected to her release.

Fransen, from Anerley in south east London, was arrested at the same court on Thursday, having appeared on a charge related to other remarks she made at a Northern Ireland Against Terrorism rally in the city in August.

Britain First leader Paul Golding, 35, was also arrested at court on Thursday as he accompanied Fransen.

Paul Golding (left) and Jayda Fransen (right) outside court in Belfast today.

He was later charged with using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour during a speech he made at the same Belfast rally in August.

Golding was bailed to appear in the same court next month and Fransen will also appear before that court again next month.

Fransen winked and raised her fist skyward in the dock after bail was granted. Around a dozen supporters clapped and cheered in the public gallery.

A police officer had objected to bail, claiming Fransen would commit similar offences to the one she is charged with if released.

He said Fransen had made comments urging people to "rise up and take action now" against the "Islamic ideology".

He raised concerns further similar comments could lead to attacks on Muslims.

Judge Fiona Bagnall said she acknowledged his concerns but said she would apply bail conditions to mitigate that risk.

Fransen has been prevented from going within 500 metres of any demonstration or procession in Northern Ireland - the same condition applied when she appeared on the August charge on Thursday.

"We'll see if bail terms work," the judge told the court.

"If they don't work, she'll be brought back to court and she will be in custody."

Outside court, Fransen accused the PSNI of "political policing".

"This is political policing which is not what we stand for - we stand for democracy and free speech and this is a blatant attempt to prevent free speech," she said.

"I am expressing an opinion which I am entitled to do - men have fought, bled and died for that right and everything I have stated specifically about the Islamic ideology I can back up with facts straight from the Islamic scripture.

"This is a clear campaign to silence us and I assure you it won't work."

Golding flanked Fransen outside court.

He said the judge's decision to grant her bail had thwarted police efforts to crack down on his group.

"This is big blow to the police plan to stifle Britain First from getting a foothold in Northern Ireland," he said.

Fransen raised a clenched fist and said "no surrender" before leaving in a waiting car.
By Aoife Nic Ardghail

A Dublin man has been jailed for seven and a half years for sexually abusing his then teenage nephew over a decade ago.

The 44-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect his victim's identity, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to four counts of sexually assaulting a child and four counts of buggery of a male person under the age of 17, all on dates between January 2004 and January 2006.

He has no previous convictions.

Garda Dermot English told the court that the abuse started out as oral sex when the nephew was 15 years old and progressed to sexual intercourse when the boy turned 16.

Today, Judge Petria McDonnell acknowledged that the man was at low risk of re-offending, but described the offending as horrendous and at the upper end of the scale.

She imposed a nine-year sentence with the final 18 months suspended, directing that the man avail of any rehabilitation and treatment facilities while in custody.

At the sentence hearing, Garda English told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that the teenager would frequently visit his uncle's house, especially during school holidays.

The man would abuse his nephew regularly in his bedroom.

Garda English told Ms McGowan that the man used to record himself sexually abusing his nephew on his mobile phone.

Referring to a victim impact report in court, Ms McGowan told Judge McDonnell that the nephew had been suicidal since the abuse.

The victim had experienced several meltdowns because of the stress of the case, had felt dirty from the abuse, had had nightmares and suffered depression.

Garda English agreed with Ronan Munro SC, defending, that his client admitted to the charges against him in his garda interviews.

He further agreed the man had claimed that he had suffered from past sexual abuse.

Mr Munro submitted to Judge McDonnell that his client had health problems, alcohol issues and had disliked primary school because of what allegedly happened to him.

He submitted that his client had turned to using alcohol to block out the realisation of what he's done. Counsel said his client wished to apologise to his victim and hoped the nephew would be able to put the horrible memories behind him.

Judge McDonnell accepted that the man's guilty plea had spared his victim the difficult experience of going through a trial.
By Tom Tuite

A young couple forced a 65-year-old man to withdraw more than 16,000 from his bank account and threatened he would be knee-capped following a masked raid at his south Dublin home, a court has heard.

Carlos Lawrence, 26, from Rosary Road, Marylands, Dublin 8 and his partner Catherine Dempsey, a 25-year-old mother-of-two, from Michael Mallin House, Vicar Street, Dublin 8 were arrested on Wednesday.

Both of them were allegedly known to the 65-year-old man.

They appeared before Judge Brian OShea at Dublin District Court this morning charged with burglary at Wainsfort Manor Grove, Terenure, Dublin 6 while in possession of wedge hammer on December 13.

Det Sergeant Jason Miley told the court that Carlos Lawrence was charged at 1.28am on Friday after which he made no reply to the charge after caution.

He told the court he was objecting to bail.

His solicitor Claire Barry told the court her client was not applying for bail at this stage.

A file is being prepared and further charges are being sought, the Garda said.

Mr Lawrence did not address the court during his hearing and was remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court next Friday. Legal aid was granted.

Co-defendant Catherine Dempsey was remanded in custody following an unsuccessful bail application hearing that ran late into this evening. Judge Brian OShea said the court could infer from Garda evidence that the elderly victim had been terrified beyond comprehension.

She also made no reply when she was charged at 1.44am this morning, Garda John Walsh told the court. He also objected to bail citing the seriousness of the case and fears she would attempt to evade justice or interfere with witnesses.

Garda Walsh alleged that on the night of December 13 going into the following morning Mr Lawrence and Catherine Dempsey entered the mans home by breaking glass in a rear patio door with a hammer. It was alleged they had their faces covered and Mr Lawrence had a hammer.

Garda Walsh said it was alleged the man was told he would be knee-capped if he did not comply and his extended family was being watched. The court heard he was struck in the face with hammer and his phone was taken as well as 150 from his wallet.

During the bail hearing, Judge OShea heard that the 65-year-old was forced to withdraw 1,200 from an ATM machine and then taken to the AIB branch in Rathgar to withdraw 15,000.

Garda Walsh described the incident as an extremely frightening ordeal for the injured party.

The garda said that it was alleged Ms Dempsey and her co-accused were covered up initially but as time went on they dispensed of items concealing their identities and were known to the injured party.

He said there was CCTV evidence and that the Mr Lawrence had tried to by a car in the Rathgar area with a bundle of cash. Some 12,455 was recovered during a search of Ms Dempseys home later that day, the court heard. A car has been seized from her partner, the court was told.

Garda Walsh said that approximately 6,000 was found in her handbag and she had another 6,000 on her.

Garda Walsh said the maximum penalty for the offence was life imprisonment and it was possible that further charges could be brought such as false imprisonment and robbery in relation to the incident. He also feared there would be attempts to interfere with the injured party.

Dressed in a black jacket, pink top and black trousers and runners, Ms Dempsey did not address during the hearing which was also attended by her sister and two other women who watched from the public gallery.

The garda agreed with defence solicitor Richard Young that she had told gardai she had been under some duress and it was the co-accused who had threatened and struck the 65-year-old man with the hammer.

Mr Young pleaded for bail to be granted and said his client would abide by a list of conditions including a obey a curfew, sign on every day at a Garda station, surrender her passport and not have any contact with the 65-year-old man. Seeking bail, the defence said her family was of limited means but had brought 500 to court.

Judge OShea noted it was alleged that joint enterprise was involved and he refused to grant bail. She was remanded in custody to appear again at Dublin District Court next Wednesday. Following an application from Mr Young, the judge also acceded to a request that she would be allowed medical and psychiatric treatment in custody.

She was granted legal aid after the court heard she was a lone parent.

The pair have not yet indicated how they will plead.
It could take another three months to get to the second stage of Brexit talks.

An agreement was made on phase one last week which ensures there will be no hard border on the island of Ireland, while phase two deals with trade

27 remaining member states are expected to give the official go-ahead later to move on to stage two of negotiations.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says there are no dates set in stone.

He said: "The indicative timetable is that we spend the next three months or so working on the withdrawal agreement and putting into a legal, international agreement what was agreed last week, talking a bit about the two-year transtition phase.

"And once we have that done we can talk about the new trading relationship."

Mr Varadkar yesterday said Brexiteers need to acknowledge that they created the difficulties surrounding the Northern Ireland border.

The Taoiseach said that he is trying to resolve the issue and ensure that Northern Ireland can retain the "peace and freedom of movement" it has had for the past 20 years.

Speaking on his arrival at the European Summit in Brussels ahead of Brexit negotiations, Mr Varadkar said: "My message to all of the people in Northern Ireland is, what we want to continue on the island of Ireland is exactly what we had for the last 20 years, which is peace and freedom of movement and free trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland and indeed between Ireland and Britain."

He added: "What is disrupting that is Brexit and I would hope that some of the people who supported Brexit and campaigned for that would realise, or at least acknowledge, that they are the ones who created this problem and I am one of those people who is trying to resolve it, trying to retain what we have had for 20 years ... That's what I am working towards."

Mr Varadkar said he is happy with the "maintain full alignment" agreement that was made last week.

"In this backstop scenario the UK and Northern Ireland in particular would maintain full alignment with the rules and regulations of the internal market and customs union.

"That gives us a very strong assurance that there won't be a hard border on the island of Ireland," he added.

Mr Varadkar said that while there are those who want to "spin" what was agreed for their own "political reasons", the language of the agreement is "pretty clear".

Speaking about the meaning of full alignment, he said: "Our view is [the Joint Report] is very strong language. Maintain means 'keep as it is' of course. Full means 'full' not 'partial' and alignment means 'keep in line'."

Following Mr Varadkar's comments the DUP accused him of "politicking".

The party's deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, said: "Mr Varadkar continues to make incomplete commentary around the agreement reached last week. He should stop politicking ahead of his general election and start respecting the unionists of Northern Ireland."

Mr Dodds insisted that as a result of the text of the agreement reached last week between the EU and the UK "Northern Ireland will not just leave the European Union along with the rest of the United Kingdom but it will leave the single market and the customs union along with the rest of the United Kingdom".

He added: "There will be no so-called 'special status' forcing Northern Ireland to stay inside the EU.

"The agreement last week makes it clear that the UK remains committed to preserving the integrity of its internal market and Northern Ireland's place within it, as it leaves the EU's internal market and customs union."
By Olivia Kelleher

Update 9.21pm: Almost 40,000 has been raised online since 9am this morning for a Cork mother of five who lost all of her belongings in a house fire which occured just one month after her husband passed away from cancer.

Mary Gore was unable to retrieve any of her personal belongings following a fire at the family home at College Wood in Mallow on Tuesday.

Her children, who are all under the age of eight, have been left with just the clothes on their backs.

Her friend Carol Guerin contacted Corks Red FM this morning to discuss their plight and the radio station urged her to set up a Go Fund Me Page which has since been flooded with donations.

The Gore family have been inundated with offers of help from furniture stores in Cork. They have also been offered shopping and hotel vouchers. The total money raised had surpassed 24,000 in six hours.

Anyone who wishes to donate to the Gore Go Fund Me Page can do so here.

Earlier: Over 20,000 has been raised online this morning for a Cork mother of five who lost all of her belongings in a house fire which occured just one month after her husband passed away from cancer.

Mary Gore was unable to retrieve any of her personal belongings following a fire at the family home at College Wood in Mallow on Tuesday.

Her children, who are all under the age of eight, have been left with just the clothes on their backs.

Poignantly Mary managed to retrieve army medals from the house which belonged to her late husband Chris who died last month.

Her friend Carol Guerin contacted Corks Red FM this morning to discuss their plight and the radio station urged her to set up a Go Fund Me Page which has since been flooded with donations.

Ms Guerin told Reds Neil Prendeville, that the Gore kids left for school on Tuesday morning with their mother Mary. Mary was subsequently informed that her house was on fire.

"The kitchen is completely destroyed. The ceiling is gone. Literally everything they have in the house is obviously very damaged by smoke.

They literally have the clothes on the back. I am not sure how it happened.

We do know its the cooker but its fairly bad. Toys, clothes, beds and furniture. Everything they have is gone. All Mary was able to salvage was some important pictures and medals that they had in the house. They cant take anything else out because of smoke damage."

Mary Gore is mother to two boys Adam and David who are aged seven and eight and triplets Sarah, Ellen and Teresa who are just five years old.

Carol says children have had a tough time following the loss of their father last month and were looking forward to Christmas.

"They were getting excited for Santa cos dad died. Chris God love him had cancer and he was diagnosed just around a year ago. He died last month. He was just about to hit 44. His birthday was the week after he was buried."

Carol says Mary is in shock as she is still in the midst of the grieving process having lost her husband so recently.

"She is trying to keep herself together for the five kids and had just started coming out and doing her few bits and trying to get ready for Christmas and focusing on a happy time. Then I suppose the house going set her back. They couldnt go back to the house.

"Her brother very kindly offered to put them up. The kids are unaware what is going on. They probably think they are on a grand sleepover."

Carol said the family went to see Santa last week so that the "kids could still be kids."

"They had put up the decorations and had tried to make it all nice for Christmas. Mary had put some pictures of Chris around the sitting room so they could look at them and remember him. Everything is gone.

"The kids went out in their uniforms that morning and the girls had their Christmas play. Mallow Act of Kindness have been absolutely fantastic and now we have the Go Fund Me page. People have been amazing. Quite a bit has been raised so far."

Since the show aired at 9am today the Gore family have been inundated with offers of help from furniture stores in Cork. They have also been offered shopping and hotel vouchers. The total money raised had surpassed 24,000 in six hours.

Meanwhile, local Independent Councillor, John Paul OShea has urged the people of Cork to continue to get behind the family.

"I would be asking them to rally behind them from an emotional and a practical point of view. It is very sad. Chris only died last month and he was very young and they are a young family."

Anyone who wishes to donate to the Gore Go Fund Me Page can do so at www.gofundme.com/mary-gore
Leo Varadkar trusts Theresa May. At least, thats what he told journalists as he arrived for the crucial leaders summit in Brussels, writes Juno McEnroe.

After attempts by London to downplay the deal on a frictionless border and aligned regulations with the EU this week, Varadkar still has confidence in the British prime minister.

Such diplomatic language is not surprising from the Taoiseach, given the win for the Government in round one of the Brexit talks, concerning the border in the North.

This week is Irelands moment after a hard-fought diplomatic and political campaign to ensure there are no fresh borders with the North. But Varadkar was unlikely to waltz into the Europa building in Brussels.

Leaders today will agree that sufficient progress has been made on phase I Brexit talks on citizenship rights, Britains divorce bill and the North. The real test is yet to come. And Varadkar knows this. The border issue looks resolved. But it is entangled in the fragile negotiations on trade that lie ahead and that EU members are signalling may not begin until March. Any fallout on those could hurt Britain, Ireland, or indeed other EU members. Business is business, after all.

EU Council president Donald Tusk put it aptly yesterday arriving for the summit: By the way, I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks.

So what does Ireland hope to achieve in those trade talks, which must be completed ahead of Britains EU exit in March 2019?

Dublin wants Britains customs arrangements to be as close as possible to the status quo.

The best for us would be if, literally the next day, there was no change, an Irish negotiating source told the Irish Examiner.

Agri-food trade with Britain will top the agenda. In total, some 1bn in trade crosses the Irish Sea every week. Other exposed sectors include aviation and fisheries.

But May and her cabinet must agree their own trade priorities before the EU negotiating side set down their red lines, including for Ireland. That is likely why the trade talks will not kick off in earnest until March.

Two models are on the table, for now. Ireland would like Britain to be close to Norways trade model, with involvement in the single market and the customs union. However, Britain wants an advanced Canadian model, giving it free trade but no role in the single market and tariffs arranged on an ad-hoc basis.

Varadkar trusts May, for the moment. But Brexit has some way to go. As phase one is agreed today, EU leaders wont smile just yet.
Democrats should do the right thing on sexual harassment claims and only make an exception when faced with worse policy outcomes for women, writes Scott Lemieux

Roy Moores party has been punished for his refusal to do the right thing.

While some Republican leaders wanted him to drop out of the Alabama senate race after nine women accused him of sexual misconduct against them when they were teenagers, Moore refused  and went on to lose to Democrat Doug Jones in a special election.

That means Democrats who fretted that Al Franken shouldnt have been pushed out of the Senate over the sexual misconduct allegations against him were wrong.

Moores insistence on staying in the race underscores how differently Americas main political parties have responded when their members have been accused of sexual harassment and assault.

While the Democrats have forced influential legislators such as Michigan representative John Conyers and Minnesota senator Al Franken to resign, Moore was ultimately supported by the Republican National Committee, senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and president Donald Trump himself  a man who not only has been accused of sexual harassment by at least 15 women but was caught on tape in 2005 boasting about kissing and sexually assaulting women without their permission.

Republican congressman Trent Franks of Arizona resigned in response to sexual harassment allegations, but he did not face the public pressure from his party that Franken and Conyers did.

Given this context, its tempting to say, as some liberals have done on social media, that its wrong for Democrats to do the right thing by demanding more of their leaders. But the result in Alabama suggests that, aside from being right on the merits, dropping candidates who have been widely accused of sexual misconduct is good politics too.

Its impossible to imagine that Roy Moore would have lost otherwise. Alabama is an overwhelmingly Republican state, in which the dysfunctional Democratic Party has not won statewide in over a decade and did not even field a senate candidate in 2014. (Moore did not immediately concede on Tuesday night but experts say he stands almost no chance of making up Joness 1.5% margin of victory.)

Thats not to say that its always best for a party to dump someone the moment an allegation against them surfaces.

There are many who believe that how legislators vote might ultimately be more important than their personal characteristics as individuals.

Both Dahlia Lithwick at Slate and Michelle Goldberg at the New York Times pointed out before Jones win that forcing out alleged sexual predators creates a serious political and moral dilemma if its only Democrats who are willing to play by the new rules.

If Democrats are put at a political disadvantage, they argued, that will ultimately harm womens rights, given that Democrats are the party that fights for abortion rights, access to contraception, and protections in the workplace from sexual harassment and pay discrimination.

As Lithwick puts it, for Franken to resign while Moore looked headed to victory creates the serious risk of a broken and corroded system in which unilateral disarmament is going to destroy the very things we want to preserve.

The dilemma is particularly acute in the case of Franken, since the behaviour hes accused of  mostly fleeting gropes of adult women while posing for photos with them  is objectionable, but considerably less heinous than the accusations against Trump and Moore.

And, whatever his personal behaviour, Franken has been a strong advocate for the interests of women and would have been a reliable vote against federal judges who oppose womens rights. The rank hypocrisy and cynicism of Republicans who condemned Franken while supporting Moore is galling enough, but it would be even worse if this trade-off resulted in a Republican senate majority that can confirm one or more Trump supreme court nominees, creating a durable majority to gut or outright overrule abortion test case Roe v Wade.

Frankens replacement will be named by a Democratic governor, which makes the political downside of his resigning less than it would be if he would be replaced by a Republican.

But it is only a temporary replacement until the next election: instead of holding Frankens seat until his normally scheduled re-election in 2020, it will give Democrats two seats to defend in Minnesota in 2018.

Minnesota is a swing state that only narrowly went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, so theres a possibility that Frankens resignation could cost the Democrats a crucial Senate seat, making their already-challenging aspiration of taking control of the Senate even harder to fulfil.

Does this mean the influential women in the Democratic Senate caucus who called for Frankens resignation were wrong, at least from a purely political perspective?

Not necessarily. While theres a political risk in putting Frankens seat up for grabs two years early, there are also real political risks to becoming the party that tolerates sexual predators in office, as the Republicans have just learned.

At this point, thanks to the Democrats swift action, only the Republicans are vulnerable to that charge.

As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight points out, polls show the American public is on the side of ejecting accused sexual predators  a finding underscored by Moores loss.

And the 2018 and 2020 elections will turn on jurisdictions where Republicans have much less margin for error than Alabama. The Democrats gains in recent state elections in Virginia showed that the Republicans can lose a lot more support among educated suburbanites.

Getting a reputation as the party that tolerates sexual predators in its ranks can only accelerate that trend. And aside from the political risks for both parties of harbouring alleged sexual offenders, Democrats have an especially strong incentive because they serve a different constituency than Republicans.

Most Democratic voters are women and, according to a recent Time poll, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe the accusers and to favour a congressman of their own party resigning when accused.

Clearly theres a political risk to doing the right thing. But Democrats should continue to stay on course and consider making an exception only when its unequivocally going to lead to much worse policy outcomes for women in the long run.

Republicans now might want to consider doing the same.
What the Trump administration seems to have in mind is to give outsiders such as audi Arabia a central role in peacemaking, writes Richard N Haass

It is 50 years since the Six-Day War  the June 1967 conflict that, as much as any other event, continues to define the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

After the fighting was over, Israel controlled all of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, in addition to the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights.

Back then, the world saw this military outcome as temporary. UN Security Council Resolution 242, the backdrop to what was to become a diplomatic solution to the problem of the stateless Palestinians, was adopted some five months after the war ended. But, as is often the case, what began as temporary has lasted.

This is the context in which Donald Trump recently declared the US recognised Jerusalem to be Israels capital. Trump stated the US was not taking a position on the final status of Jerusalem, including the specific boundaries of the Israeli sovereignty.

He made clear the US would support a two-state solution if agreed to by both sides. He chose not to begin actually moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv, even though he could have simply relabelled what is now the US consulate in Jerusalem.

The attempt to change US policy while arguing that little had changed did not persuade many. Most Israelis were pleased with the new US stance, and most in the Arab world and beyond were incensed.

Just why Trump chose this moment to make this gesture is a matter of conjecture. He suggested it was simply recognition of reality and that his predecessors policy failure to do so failed to yield any diplomatic benefits. This is true, although the reason diplomacy failed over the decades had nothing to do with US policy towards Jerusalem, and everything to do with divisions among Israelis and Palestinians and the gaps between the two sides.

Others have attributed the move to American domestic politics, a conclusion supported by the unilateral US statements failure to demand anything of Israel (for example, to restrain settlement construction) or offer anything to the Palestinians (say, supporting their claim to Jerusalem).

Although the decision has led to some violence, it looks more like an opportunity lost than a crisis created.

What made this statement not just controversial but potentially counterproductive is that the Trump administration has spent a good part of its first year putting together a plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This announcement could well weaken that plans already limited prospects.

What the Trump administration seems to have in mind is to give outsiders, Saudi Arabia in particular, a central role in peacemaking. Informing this approach is the view Saudi Arabia and other Arab governments are more concerned with a perceived threat from Iran than with anything to do with Israel. As a result, it is assumed they are prepared to put aside their long-standing hostility toward Israel, a country that largely shares their view of Iran.

Progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue would create a political context in the Arab world that would allow them do just this. The hope in the Trump administration is that the Saudis will use their financial resources to persuade the Palestinians to agree to make peace with Israel on terms Israel will accept.

The problem is the only plan to which this Israeli government is likely to agree will offer the Palestinians far less than they have historically demanded.

Donald Trump

If so, the Palestinian leaders themselves may well determine it is safer to say no than to sign on to a plan sure to disappoint many of their own people and leave them vulnerable to Hamas and other radical groups.

The Saudis, too, may be reluctant to be associated with a plan that many will deem a sellout. The top priority for the new Saudi leadership under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is to consolidate power, which the prince is doing by associating himself with an effort to attack corruption in the Kingdom and by pursuing a nationalist, anti-Iranian foreign policy.

But neither tactic is going entirely according to plan. The anti-corruption effort, while so far popular, risks being tarnished by selective prosecution of offenders (which suggests that it is more about power than reform) and reports about the crown princes own lifestyle.

The anti-Iran efforts have become inseparable from what has become an unpopular war in Yemen and diplomatic embarrassments in Lebanon and Qatar. Meanwhile, ambitious plans to reform the country are proving easier to design than to implement, and are sure to alienate more conservative elements.

The problem for Trump and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law who leads US policy in this area, is that the Saudis are likely to prove much less of a diplomatic partner than the White House had counted on.

If the new crown prince is worried about his domestic political standing, he will be reluctant to stand shoulder to shoulder with a US president seen as too close to an Israel that is unwilling to satisfy even minimal Palestinian requirements for statehood.

All of which brings us back to Jerusalem. Trump argued that recognising the city as Israels capital was a long overdue step to advance the peace process and the work towards a lasting agreement. More and more it appears that Trumps move will have just the opposite effect.

Richard N Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of A World in Disarray.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.
A mother whose four children were killed in a UK house fire begged to be moved to a safe house earlier that week, their family said.

Fifteen-year-old Demi Pearson, her brother Brandon, eight, and sisters Lacie, seven, and Lia, three, died following the blaze at the family's mid-terraced home in Jackson Street, Walkden, Greater Manchester, shortly after 5am on Monday.

Their mother Michelle Pearson remains in a critical condition and the family are "dreading" the day they will have to break to her the "awful news".

Claire Pearson, Michelle's sister, said: "Michelle's been unsafe in that property for months and months and the police was aware of this, and the social services was aware of this, the council was aware of this, and I'm sorry to say this but ... they've let her down, and my sister and her kids would have had a chance of survival if they did their job properly."

The children's grandfather, Mike Pearson, added: "But she said she'd actually been to the housing that week and begged them to move her to a safe house or get her out of the area ... they just refused - 'you're not at risk, you're not in danger'."

In a statement, the family said: "This week has been a whirlwind. We have been in our own bubble and our focus has been solely on our family, on our Michelle as she lies in her hospital bed.

Brandon and Lacie Pearson.

"We are heartbroken at the death of our four babies."

They went on: "Their mum Michelle is in a critical condition.

"We are dreading the day we have to tell them the awful news about her babies.

Lia Pearson.

"We hope and pray that she has the strength to pull through.

"We are asking people to keep Michelle in their thoughts, she has lost her babies and it is heart breaking but she has a loving family who will try their best to get her through this and two older sons who adore her."

Paying tribute to the children, the family said: "Demi, such a beautiful young lady with so many friends.

"She would do anything for anyone, nothing was too much trouble.

"She had been poorly through her life, but she was tough and so strong, nothing could stop her.

"She was like another mum to the younger ones, such a star."

They described Brandon as the "next Stephen Hawking" and said he and his sister Lacie were like twins.

Lacie Pearson.

"They were always together. You couldn't just do something with one of them, they came as a pair," the family said.

The family said Lacie was a "little diva" who loved to dance and Lia loved the TV programme Peppa Pig.

They said: "She was so cute and the older ones doted on her."

Demi Pearson.

Zak Bolland, 23, Courtney Brierley, 20, and David Worrall, 25, appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Friday morning charged with the murder of the four children.

The defendants are also accused of arson with intent to endanger life and the attempted murder of the children's mother, Michelle Pearson, 35, and two juveniles who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The three were remanded in custody ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing on March 9 and a provisional trial date was fixed for April 30.
The chairman of the Refund Project, Kieran Mulvey, said the response had been excellent and that the money would be going towards shovel-ready projects to address the homelessness crisis.

The latest figures from Irish Water show that cheques worth 149m have been issued to water customers  amounting to 86% of the 998,000 customers due to receive domestic charges refunds.

That means that another 24m in cheques is still to be refunded, although Irish Water said 10% of households would now probably not receive their cheque until the new year, with almost 19,000 customers who have registered for online account management needing to provide additional details.

The Refund Project was launched just last month after Focus Ireland, the Simon Community and the Peter McVerry Trust combined to appeal to households to donate some or all of their water refunds if they were in a position to do so.

Mr Mulvey said the project expects to break the 300,000 barrier by this morning.

The fund can already receive online donations at www.refundproject.ie and last week it also set up a PO Box at PO Box 12500, Dublin 2, for anyone wishing to send a separate cheque or postal order.

We are getting a very steady response and it is increasing every day, said Mr Mulvey.

I look upon it as every euro they get is a new euro. We are asking people to leave a good legacy from what has been a bad experience.
They are due to meet today to discuss the 26-page implementation oversight group (IOG) document which recommends the first city boundary extension since 1965. It was accepted by the Cabinet on Tuesday.

It will be councillors third meeting since the compromise boundary extension proposal emerged last week. The council has, to date, only noted the reports contents.

The city is set to formally endorse the report at a special meeting on Monday.

The boundary has still to be defined in five small pockets, but the adjustments were described as relatively minor by sources close to the process.

The county councils stance on the report will, however, determine which course of action Local Government Minister Eoghan Murphy takes next. He can sign a ministerial order, which could deliver the extension within days, or he can introduce legislation which could take several months and would require a Dail vote.

Mr Murphy said he was prepared to legislate in the absence of agreement from the two councils.

Last Tuesday, he urged both councils to embrace the process urgently and support the implementation of the boundary.

It has taken almost three years to get to this position  a position that will allow Cork to have a more appropriate local government structure which is essential to help it reach its full potential and serve the people of both the city and county as effectively as possible, said Mr Murphy.

The Government now call upon the elected members and executive of both councils to embrace the boundary alteration process as a matter of urgency and to provide full and active support for the significant programme of associated implementation actions that lie ahead.

I am open to using the statutory procedures in part V of the Local Government Act 1991 if the local authorities can confirm, as a matter of priority, agreement using this approach.

Alternatively, I will bring forward primary legislation to implement the boundary alteration, and have received government approval for this course of action, as necessary.

Lord Mayor Cllr Tony Fitzgerald confirmed last night that he will be recommending to the city council next Monday that it agrees to using the part V process to ensure the city boundary extension is advanced with the urgency and full and active support that the minister is seeking.

As first reported by the Irish Examiner last week, the proposed boundary includes Ballincollig, Cork Airport, Glanmire, Tower, and Blarney, but excludes the Monard strategic development zone.

Little Island and Carrigtwohill will remain in the county, as will smaller settlements such as Glounthane, Killumney, Ovens, Ballinora, and Waterfall.

It will see the citys population almost double from the 2016 Census figure of over 125,000 to nearly 210,000, to include almost 70% of the population of the Metropolitan Cork region.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will emphasise that Ireland wants to see Brexit negotiations move to phase two on a transition period and on trade, and that Ireland is satisfied with the text on the deal so far.

Fresh guidelines for the phase two talks will prevent any walking back from the hard-fought deal struck between British prime minister Theresa May and EU leaders last week.

There had been doubts after British Brexit secretary David Davis played down the significance of the so-called backstop deal for no border in the North, saying it was just a statement of intent. Instead, his remarks have focused the minds of EU leaders, who have added fresh text to the deal.

This will state that the crucial transition and trade talks for London will only go progress if commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully into legal terms as quickly as possible.

Asked about EU deal yesterday, Mr Varadkar said: The joint report [on the deal] is very much a political agreement and what has to happen now over the next few months is turning the commitments and principles in the joint report into the withdrawal agreement, which is a legally binding international agreement that allows the UK to leave the EU. We will also talk about a transition period and after that in a few months time we will talk about the new trade relationship between the UK and the EU.

Europes migration crisis and banking and eurozone problems, as well as the Pesco agreement or EU defence pact were also issues being discussed by leaders at the summit.

Leaders met at dinner last night where Mrs May expressed concern about the transition period for Brexit. Irish figures confirmed there is no set timeframe for Britain to leave the EU with some sides suggesting two years and others saying five.

Furthermore, EU figures believe there can be no talk of a new trade deal between Britain and the EU until it actually leaves.

Despite suggestions there would be a strand on the North in phase two of the talks, Irish sources said this would not be the case.

Instead, EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will monitor how Britain progresses with its the pledge on the North in phase two.

However, Mr Varadkar laid out in blunt terms how he viewed Britains commitment.

The language says maintain, which is keep the same, said Mr Varadkar. Full  not partial. Alignment  in line with, and that implies to the rules of the internal market and the customs union that are required to avoid a hard border and maintain north-south cooperation and the all-island economy. Thats the language used in the document.

Ive no need to interpret or spin it. Its pretty clear to me.
JP Morgan and Citibank have formally ruled out appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The PAC last month asked six multinationals with significant bases here to appear before the committee early in the new year due to concerns over our tax system.

The decision to ask JP Morgan, Ciitbank, Google, Apple, GSK, and Pfizer to attend was in response to the Paradise Papers expose and revelations that eight of the top 100 firms in Ireland effectively pay no corporate tax.

The PAC had intended to question the six firms over their experiences of alleged corporate tax loopholes. However, JP Morgan and Citibank have said they have no intention of appearing.

We do not consider that Citibank Europe plc would meaningfully advance the committees deliberations in any more detail than the information that is already in the public domain, Citibank Europe chief Zdenek Turek wrote in a letter to the PAC on December 4, which was released yesterday.

His counterpart at JP Morgan, Carin Bryans, wrote on December 7: We do not believe our office would be appropriate for the needs of your inquiry. We respectfully decline the invitation to attend.
ICTU makes the call in its Private Sector Bulletin, which cites the improving economic and labour market situation and the increasing costs associated with childcare and housing as some of the reasons for the new pay claim.

The unions private sector committee issued the advisory on pay bargaining for 2018 to member unions in the private sector, and says through the normal collective bargaining processes and where appropriate, affiliate private sector unions should seek compensation for the excessive costs associated with housing, childcare provision and pensions.
The Green Party also called on the Tanaiste to explain why only 500m of the 1.4bn housing capital budget under Rebuilding Ireland was spent on building and acquiring new units in 2017.

Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin hit out at the Government for only delivering 809 units by the end of September, despite a promise to finish 2,284 this year.

In the four Dublin local authorities, once housing units built by approved housing bodies [which the Government only part-funds] and rapid builds are excluded, only 22 units were built from January to September of this year to tackle the housing list in Dublin, which currently has 40,000 people on it, she said.

Responding to questioning from Ms Martin in the Dail, Tanaiste and former housing minister Simon Coveney said it would be some time before people see the full benefits of Rebuilding Ireland.

However, he said funding for social housing had been dramatically increased, pointing out that there is a multi-annual commitment of almost 6bn to add 50,000 new social housing units to the national stock, which would be a 30% increase over four of five years.

Mr Coveney said: That takes time and it is not just measured in new builds. Next year, we will see 3,800 new build houses and 600 private sector social house building purchased under Part V, 600 voids returned into use, 900 acquisitions of existing homes, and 2,000 long-term leases.

It is a combination of a series of different approaches which are realisable. Going from building 200 or 300 social houses to building 7,000 or 8,000 in the space of one year is not doable.

Ms Martin also raised issues around the use of funds available. She told the Dail that the Rebuilding Ireland budget for 2017 had increased to 1.4bn, however, she said that just 583m of this had been spent on acquisitions.

This would indicate that only approximately 500m has been spent out of 1.4bn for building and acquiring new units in 2017, said Ms Martin.

Can the Tanaiste tell the House where the remaining almost 1bn is going?

Pointing to the fact that one in three tenancies now receive rent assistance, Ms Martin said there is no point drifting towards an entirely rental-oriented approach to housing when, at present, fixity of tenure is completely inadequate and when a lack of inspection or an enforceable standards regime results in the horrific living conditions.

Mr Coveney argued that while the State built up capacity to dramatically increase the number of social housing units that are being delivered through local authorities, approved housing bodies and the private sector under Part V, there will be a significant reliance on supporting people in the rental market.

We have very significant pressures in the housing market, both in rental properties and those for purchase, because of a dramatic lack of supply, supply which has not been delivered for nearly a decade, he said. Over time, we will solve that by increasing supply in the private sector, the affordable sector and social housing and by ensuring we bring a lot of vacant properties and sites back into use.

Meanwhile, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has brought forward proposals for vacant commercial premises to tackle the housing shortage as part of exempted development regulations laid before the Oireachtas.
As revealed by the Irish Examiner, Mr Kelly had asked Mr Flanagan if his phone had ever been bugged by gardai or his communications intercepted.

Asked why he felt his communications may be under surveillance, Mr Kelly yesterday said: I have done this for two reasons  one is because it has been raised with me, be very clear about this, raised with me to watch all my communications. These are people who, obviously, I have been working with for some period of time, as you are well aware, given the questions I have been asking over the last number of months in particular.
The 18-year-old Leaving Certificate student has twice addressed the Seanad on matters relating to Irish Sign Language (ISL), including last years debate on the bill expected to pass final stages there this morning.

He hopes to study computer software at college and expects his profound deafness will not be a barrier after a strong role in the campaign for legal recognition of ISL.

He was in the Dail yesterday when it passed the Recognition of Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill.

Alain is a student at Bishopstown Community School in Cork, where hearing-impaired students attend a deaf unit.

He wrote to the Seanad two years ago when he realised that ISL is not legally recognised here like it has been s in other countries since before he was born.

ISL is my first language and the language of thousands of other deaf people, and it needs to be included like in any other country, said Alain, who lives in Carrigaline. I want to be the same as my fellow citizens, I want to feel included.

He addressed the Seanad last year on the issue, and again earlier this month when senators discussed issues around the National Anthem. Alain conveyed the frustration for deaf people of not having an official signed translation of Amhran na bhFiann.

Under the new law, public bodies will have to implement ISL action plans and make interpretation freely available to people using public services. Parents and siblings of deaf children will be given ISL classes, and sign language supports will be given at schools to children who use it as their primary language.

Its use would also be permitted in legal proceedings, but only those properly accredited to do so will be allowed interpret for courts or other public bodies.

Fianna Fail senator Mark Daly introduced the bill last year and he is confident the law will not gather dust without being implemented.

However, following detailed discussions with ministers and officials in the departments of health, education, and justice, he expects it will be a couple of years before the full benefits are in place. The main work to be done is the establishment of an accreditation scheme that will regulate the standard of interpretative services to assist in interactions with public services.

It will mean people in the deaf community have access to State services that they dont currently have, said Mr Daly.

And it will give them a chance to reach their full potential in education and in other areas of life.

The likely cost of services is hard to estimate, he said, as it will be a demand-led service.

However, with the availability of modern technology, it will not necessarily require ISL interpreters to be physically in public offices. Instead, many interactions can be communicated using video-calls and similar services.

In the meantime, Alain is continuing to help other young people when he teaches computer skills every week to children at his old primary school, in the deaf facility at St Columbas National School in Douglas.
Mr Varadkar failed to support the recommendations of the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment yesterday, just 24 hours after they were agreed to a series of votes by the cross-party group.

In a historic meeting on Wednesday, the committee agreed to recommend repealing the Eighth Amendment, allowing unrestricted access to abortion up to 12 weeks, and decriminalising terminations in Ireland for women and by licensed doctors.

It also allowed for abortions in cases of fatal foetal abnormalities, rape and incest, when a womans life, health, and mental health is at risk, and other matters.

The recommendations will now be sent to the Oireachtas by next Wednesday before being debated by the Dail and Seanad in January.

Should the Dail and Seanad support the recommendations, they will then be sent to Cabinet to be used as the basis of the wording of a referendum next May.

The committee recommendations have increased the pressure on Mr Varadkar to publicly confirm whether he will campaign in favour of the referendum.

However, speaking to reporters before an EU Council meeting in Brussels, the Taoiseach declined to back the recommendations until a Fine Gael meeting next month.

That is really to be decided, the Taoiseach said when asked if he would be willing to support a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, to be followed by legislation for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks.

We set out a process here a couple of years ago and that process is coming to a conclusion, he said. Both I and members of the Government are going to spend the Christmas period understanding that.

We will then have a meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party in early January where Ill hear the views of the Fine Gael party and after that there will be a debate in the Dail and the Government will discuss it.

Mr Varadkars statement came despite the fact there is a growing belief in Leinster House that ministers may have to support next years referendum as they hold Government positions.

However, like Fianna Fail, Fine Gael is otherwise allowing TDs, senators, councillors, and members a free vote on the issue in a bid to quell damaging division.

Prominent pro-choice Fine Gael member, Health Minister Simon Harris, has already said it would make sense to back whatever recommendations came from the committee, and is finalising draft heads of bill on what laws would replace the Eighth Amendment.

It is understood these will include allowing abortion up to 12 weeks through a GP-led service that will include a three-day cooling-off period.
The steep increase in rents compares to a 17% rise for rental homes near other rail stations.

However, the study by property website, Daft.ie, shows that commuters living on Dublins coastline pay the most rent.

Monthly rents for homes close to the Sandymount Dart are around 2,274.

Rents near Dart stations are among the most expensive with Pearse (2,174), Lansdowne Road (2,141), and Dalkey (2,135).

Homes close to Spencer Dock on the Luas Red Line are the most expensive to rent at 2,212, while those close to the Charlemont stop, where the average rents are 2,042, pay the most on the Luas green line.

Average rents for each stop on the new Luas Cross-City Line, which opened on Saturday, are also analysed, with properties close to the new Dawson, Trinity, and Westmoreland stops the most expensive at around 1,968.

The least expensive homes to rent close to the Luas are Cookstown (1,279), Belgard (1,240), and Cheeverstown (1,038).

On the Dart line, the lowest rents are in Greystones (1,439), Bray (1,408) and Donaghmede (1,393).

Economist Ronan Lyons said that as, with properties for sale, it is clear that the new Luas Cross-City Line stops have the potential to rejuvenate parts of the city previously poorly served by light rail.

The clear economic effect of such public investments will hopefully give policymakers food for thought when thinking about how to finance transport infrastructure in the future, he said.

Martin Clancy of Daft.ie said it is interesting that while the Dart has the highest rents for individual stations, the Luas Green Line and Cross-City live have the highest average rents across all stops  they are both 1,770.

Luas Green and Cross-City Line commuters are paying a premium of 170 on average per month compared to the average rent of 1,600 on the Red Line, said Mr Clancy.

However, Luas Green and Cross-City Line commuters are paying a premium of 170 on average per month compared to the average rent on the red line (1,600).

Previous research by Daft.ie found that the value of three-bed homes near the new Luas cross-city stops in Dublin rose by 15% in the last year.

However, the value of similar homes near other rail stations increased by 6%.

It also emerged that commuters living on the Dublin coastline pay the most for a property, with homes close to the Sandymount Dart averaging 784,000.

Daft.ie, together with KBC, have produced Dart and Luas stop-by-stop rental and house price maps.

The maps are based on an analysis of the average rental prices for properties close to each of the 125 stops and stations in the greater Dublin area between January and November.

Prof Lyons has said that such studies highlight how the value of being close to the rail network is factored into the price paid by renters.

They also show the value in looking around to check if there are areas that offer good access to work and other amenities, by being close to rail facilities, but at a lower cost.

Mr Clancy said convenience and affordability are two critical concerns for almost everyone in Dublin.

The price maps are available at www.daft.ie
He warned that if there is a significant difference between the current trading environment and the trading arrangements post-Brexit, we will need a number of years to allow businesses to adapt to that change.

We need time, too, to negotiate the detail of a new trade deal, he said.

While Mr Coveney said nothing in the guidelines commits the EU to a specific time period, he believes it will be part of talks early next year.

Fianna Fails Michael McGrath told the Dail that, given the vastly different interpretations of the deal, we must accept that the most difficult Brexit negotiations are still ahead of us.

Mr McGrath said: It is generally accepted that there is less than a year to agree a transition agreement and the framework of a future relationship. Given the level of complexity involved across different sectors and the amount of detail that must be worked out as part of that process, two years is nowhere near adequate or realistic.

Mr Coveney agreed that the transition period may take longer than two years.

The Government and I believe that the longer the transition period, the better, he said. That period will need to be closer to four or five years than two years. If the UK wants to negotiate a Canada-style free trade agreement, it will take a number of years.

Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald also questioned Mr Coveney on the legal standing of the agreement reached between the UK and EU last week.

He said the commitments between British prime minister Theresa May and EU negotiators are cast-iron.
Hello old stock. I heard that Viagra fumes from Pfizers were causing stiffys below in Ringaskiddy, so I drove down to see if it has any effect. (Not that Id need it.) Lets just say I had trouble getting back in the car. (2017 Range Rover Evoque Coupe, before you ask.) Worse again, there is no sign of what you might call a retreat and I have to give a keynote speech to the Cork Chamber of Commerce tomorrow night, titled My Yacht is Bigger Than Yours. Can you help?

Reggie, Blackrock, Ive tried the obvious.

Your poor wife. Im amazed to hear there is a well-endowed man driving around Cork in a Range Rover. (We all know youre compensating for something.) I asked my Posh Cousin if shed heard the crazy Viagra fumes rumour. She said yes, in fact I drove through Ringaskiddy with the window down is considered a come-on now, down in Carrigaline. I said I suppose it makes a change from ,Ive had four pints and Im still not tired. She said, exactly.

Awright mate?! I is keeping a close eye on current events now that I is seeing this gorgeous girls wots in college, innit. Net outcome? Brexit, voted for it at the time, taking back control wasnt it, but now starting to think Id rather be in EU than staying here in England, under the control of posh twits wot have clearly been at the gin, if Im honest. So, cut to the chase, how do think Id get on in Cork?

 Danzy, London, Im right impressed by your Minister for Other Countries, Simon Coventry.

Not half as impressed as he is by himself. Dont worry about your ability to fit in. Half of Kerry lives in Cork, weve no problem integrating cheerful dimwits who struggle to speak English, innit. (No offence.) One other piece of advice, for an intellectual like yourself. I know in London that most of the uneducated savages are confined to south of the river. Well, over here in Cork, its the other way around.

Im livid at my new husband. Hes big into history, so for Christmas I paid for an investigation of his family tree, with a DNA test and everything. It turns out hes third-generation Gurranabraher and (Im in tears writing this), his grand-uncle was in the Butter Exchange Band. This is enough to get me barred from Brown Thomas Designer Collection Shows. (The audience is basically like being back in Mount Mercy, but with Botox.) Anyway, Im afraid to have kids with this guy now in case the poor creatures take a shine to greyhounds and shopping on North Main Street. (Imagine.) Is this grounds for divorce?

 Monica (not my real name), Blackrock, he told me he was descended from Austrian aristocrats.

The Von Norries? I asked my solicitor friend if hed recommend a divorce. He said yes. I said why. He said because he wants to put an extension on his house in Schull, and your misery could help pay for it. And they said solicitors werent honest.

Guten Tag. I am dating this gorgeous woman from Bishopstown. (I realise this is a contradiction.) The other day we went to meet her parents. The father was nice, although I could see he was struggling not to blurt out the word Nazi. The mother, I think, must be crazy and violent. We were talking about her friend and she said Ill be dug out of her. Worse still, everyone in her family laughed at this. So, do you think I steer clear of these crazy people? PTT  Karl, Hamburg and Ballincollig, why do people think its funny to mock my accent?

Ve are easily amused. I wouldnt worry about Ill be dug out of her. Its just a thing Cork mothers say without thinking, along with I hope it always stays fine for you and Who cares if hes a pompous gobshite with a guzz eye, the important thing is he went to Pres.

Howre oo goin on? Herself is after falling in with a group of Gwyneth Paltrow superfans back in Skibbereen and didnt she arrive home the other night and say she wants a vagina steaming machine for Christmas. You can never be sure about these things, but Im fairly certain this is not something theyll have below in Drinagh Co-Op. I put Vagina Steam West Cork into Google and you wouldnt believe the emails Ive been getting from horny Russian women in my area, ever since. Do you know where I might find such a steaming machine?  Dan Paddy Andy, head out beyond Drimoleague until you see a man practising how to say Howre oo goin on, in Russian.

I checked with my niece for you there, shes a wellness guru and social media influencer. (AKA, unemployed.) She said that vagina steaming thing has been discredited. I said, even though it was recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow. She said no, because it was recommended by Gwyneth Paltrow. I said, I see what you mean.
A SCHOOL claims its 450,000 debt could double within five years unless it is given more funds.

Kelsey Park School, in Manor Way, Beckenham, has faced a shortfall in funds since 1996 when student numbers dropped dramatically following a critical Ofsted report.

But despite a glowing Ofsted report last year, improving exam results and a record number of applications, the school could be 1m in debt by 2007.

Headmaster Richard Harknett, who joined the school in 1997, said: "We turned the school around through very hard work and it is now thriving. But we're not getting enough money for what we want to do."

Kelsey Park will double its current intake to 200 pupils in September, bringing the new total to 934 students.

A new 1.5m extension providing six extra classrooms will open this September to cope with the increasing student numbers.

The school has also bid for specialist school status as a sports college which would see numbers boosted further.

But there is widespread concern this year's 2.7m budget will not be enough to maintain standards.

The council determines the majority of a school's budget according to the number of its pupils but Kelsey Park will not reach its optimum size until the smaller year groups work their way through the school.

The school will owe the 450,000 to Bromley Council which covers overspending schools' debts.

Colin Thompson, chairman of finance at the school, said: "We are asking the council to revise the allocation formula because it is inadequate for a small school. Kelsey Park will owe 450,000 at the end of this financial year and if we carry on as we are now, in five years time we will owe 1m.

"We can't take money to repay the debt at the expense of reducing the ability to buy books for the boys," he added.

Bromley Council's director of education Ken Davis said: "Due to the current lower numbers at Kelsey, the budget is less than it ought to be and we need to find a way to sort the debt out over a period of time."
REVISED plans for the controversial Ryde boarding school have been submitted to the Isle of Wight Council this morning (Friday).

The school lodged an appeal against the Isle of Wight council after it refused the original plans at the end of last month. However, this second set of plans have now also been submitted.

The new plans feature changes to the design, with rendered cornices similar to other large building in the area. The wooden cladding of the previous scheme has been replaced with dark grey render on the lower levels, and the white render of the previous scheme is removed from a large part of the building to expose the yellow brick. The windows on the new design now line up, creating a more regular appearance, with stone window sills.

The school have put together a mock up of the new proposal, which is available for residents to view in the school foyer.

The application states: "It should be noted that in the refusal of the previous scheme, the only reason given for refusal was design. There was no mention of any potential adverse impact on neighbouring properties.

"A wide-reaching neighbourhood consultation was undertaken before the submission of the original scheme, with neighbours' opinions and views taken into account. Changes were made to the scheme to limit impact as far as possible. Following the refusal of the earlier scheme, [Ryde School] met with the residents' group to seek further comments.

"Another pre-submission consultation was undertaken with the Council, and the advice from these meetings informed this application.

"This scheme, if approved, would ensure the long-term viability of Ryde School and would enable it to compete with similar mainland schools. The private school market is very competitive, and schools without sufficient boarding provision are at a significant disadvantage."

However, the campaign group against the building  Ryde Against Boarding House  said they were disappointed that Ryde School had submitted a second set of plans before hearing the result of their appeal to the Planning Inspector.

An RABH spokesperson said: "This application appears to have been rushed and continues to have many significant inconsistencies. The timing of the application is also controversial as the 3 week consultation period now falls over Christmas and New Year when members of the public and IWCC staff are on their holidays.

"The application is very similar to the one rejected by the IWCC Planning Committee only 4 months ago.

"It will cause immense (and unnecessary) damage to the Conservation Area, the natural environment and lives of local residents. The school seems to have no interest in arriving at a solution acceptable to all parties. There are much better solutions available for the town of Ryde. Instead they want to bulldoze (pun intended) their plans through, almost as if it were a test of machismo.

"Ninety-five years of goodwill and mutual respect between the town and the school is rapidly vanishing.
A FORMER soldier turned author has published a new novella, having overcome homelessness and being diagnosed with ADHD just a few years ago.

Jamie Fineran was 16 when he joined the army, and by the time he was 21 had completed two tours of duty.

After leaving the army, he found civilian life difficult to adjust to and left the IW in early 2000. Jamie worked packing fish in plastic containers on a production line.

Soon, Jamie reached a point where he only had one egg and half a tin of baked beans left to survive on. With no money to buy electric, and too afraid to leave the house in the day, he only felt safe going out at night.

Returning to the Island in 2004, Jamie works in the civil service and has now sold thousands of books. He come third in the 2014 people's book prize.

His latest novella, a British crime thriller, sees Mi6 agent, Vincent Black thrown into a lion's den of corruption, death and drugs.

Jamie said he hopes to highlight the importance of creative writing in schools and at home.

He said: "During my time in this actual school, I was that fool that no one wanted to be, or sit next to in class; thinking that the world owed me something, when in fact, I wasted my only chance of getting something for free, a school education."

The book is available to buy on Amazon and Kindle.
The exhibition is being held by Vietnam News Agency and Russia-Vietnam Joint Venture - Vietsovpetro.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Deputy Director General of Vietnam News Agency Le Quoc Minh highlighted journalists efforts to capture lively moments of daily activities of residents and soldiers in coastal areas and on islands.

Cutting ribbon to open the exhibition

Visitors to the exhibition





















Photos displayed at the exhibition (Source: thethaovanhoa.vn)

Photos on President Ho Chi Minhs fact-finding visit to a coastal area, as well as Party State leaders and fishermen, and workers at offshore oil drilling platforms are exhibited.



They show determination of the Party, State and people in protecting the nations sovereignty over sea and islands.

The exhibition will run until December 20th at the Headquarters of the Vietnam News Agency at No.5 Ly Thuong Kiet street, Hanoi./.
A small legislative funding commitment toward tobacco-prevention initiatives was the catalyst for a small improvement in North Carolinas ranking in an annual report.

North Carolina improved from 47th to 43rd among the states in terms of how much it funds annually toward tobacco-prevention programs such as quit lines and public health marketing initiatives.

The ranking is the main focus of the 19th annual national follow-up on an initial study by a coalition of anti-tobacco advocacy groups titled Broken promises to our children.

About 17.9 percent of North Carolina adults consume a tobacco product, as well as 13.1 percent of youths.

The report was released this week by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights and Truth Initiative.

The coalition has for several years taken North Carolinas elected leaders to task for cutting funding toward tobacco-prevention programs.

The state collected $450.5 million in tobacco-related monies in fiscal 2017, which represents excise taxes and North Carolinas share of the annual Master Settlement Agreement funds.

Tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., agreed in 1998 to settle lawsuits that 46 state attorneys general brought over smoking-related health-care costs by paying those states about $206 billion over 20 years. Some payments will remain in place beyond 2018.

Economists say most states have become dependent on MSA money and tobacco excise taxes to fill general-fund gaps.

For example, in 2011, the Republican-controlled General Assembly abolished the N.C. Health and Wellness Fund  funded by MSA monies  after 10 years of existence as part of an attempt at resolving the states budget gap at that time.

North Carolina now has a rainy-day fund of $1.8 billion, the largest in state history.

The average annual spending on the state programs had been $17 million at that time.

With the funding cuts, direct state spending on tobacco-prevention initiatives was $1.1 million in fiscal 2016-17 for QuitlineNC.

The 2017-18 and 2018-19 state budgets include $500,000 to be used to develop strategies to prevent the use of new and emerging tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, by youth and people of childbearing age.

That raises state spending on the programs to $2.1 million annually, according to the coalition.

By contrast, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that North Carolina spend $99.3 million.

According to 2015 Federal Trade Commission data, tobacco companies spend more than $12 to market tobacco products for every $1 the states spend to reduce tobacco use. The amount spent by the major cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies was $8.9 billion in 2015.

Nationally, the participating 46 master settlement agreement states will collect $27.5 billion in fiscal 2016-17. They are projected to spend less than 3 percent, or $721.6 million, on tobacco prevention and cessation programs.

It is unacceptable that states continue to withhold the necessary funding for these vital prevention and cessation programs, despite having billions of dollars from tobacco settlement payments and tobacco taxes to fund them, Harold Wimmer, president and chief executive of the American Lung Association, said in a statement.

These prevention programs are particularly important in making sure we continue to reduce tobacco use for all Americans, including populations that have high tobacco use rates.

Meanwhile, anti-smoking advocates are urging state health officials to embrace e-cigs and vaporizers as a reduced-risk option to traditional cigarettes. Some studies, most prominently one by the Royal College of Physicians in London, have found that e-cigs and vaporizers are up to 95 percent safer to consume than traditional cigarettes.

The CDC said in May that traditional cigarette smoking among adult Americans dropped to a historic low of 15.1 percent, or about 37.4 million adults, in 2015.

By comparison, the rate was 24.7 percent in 1997.

The youth smoking rate was 8 percent among high schoolers in 2016.

The coalition repeated its long list of recommendations for Congress and state legislatures to reduce tobacco consumption.

They include: increasing funding for quit lines; reducing nicotine levels in traditional cigarettes to very low levels to decrease the possibility of smokers getting addicted; requiring graphic warnings covering at least half of cigarette packs (which has been bogged down by legal challenges); and prohibiting the use of menthol in cigarettes and flavors in other tobacco products.

The Republican-controlled Congress has been averse to adding tobacco regulations and is unlikely to consider prohibiting the use of menthol flavoring, according to analysts.

State legislatures are being urged to significantly raise their excise tax on tobacco products, increase the legal sales age for tobacco products to 21, and take their own steps to limit or prohibit menthol and other tobacco flavorings.

A commitment from our elected leaders to invest more on tobacco prevention, combined with tough smoking policies, will keep up the momentum until we reach our goal of becoming a nation that is 100 percent tobacco-free, said Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association.
Titled Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC): Accounting and Auditing module, the report is part of a global initiative to improve compliance with internationally recognized standards and codes, focuses on accounting and auditing standards and practices for public interest entities, as well as the institutional framework that underpins the corporate financial reporting system.

As part of the WBs support for Vietnams Vision 2030 on Accounting and Auditing, the Bank hoped to contribute to the successful implementation of the countrys long-term strategy for sustainable and inclusive development.

Photo for illustration

Linked to complementary reforms in the financial sector, the report recommends that Vietnams Accounting Law and the Law on Independent Audit could benefit from simplification during the next revision process. It also advises that the nation fully adopts International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and related guidance from the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee for public interest entities.

We echo the reports point of view that the IFRS adoption is undeniable. Once IFRS is adopted, the quality of corporate financial reporting will improve significantly through enhanced accountability, transparency and comparability, providing users with useful information for management, governance and investment decision making. In addition, the adoption also promotes the international recognition of Vietnam's full market economy status, and eventually the FDI flow, stressed Ms Vu Thi Mai, MoF Vice Minister.

The Ministry is promptly working on the development of a proposal on updating Vietnam Corporate Standards for submission to the Governments approval for IFRS adoption.

The report also recommends specific policy measures relating to statutory frameworks, accounting standards, public oversight and monitoring, accounting education, and public accountancy organizations, in order to promote transparency and investor confidence, mitigate risks stemming from financial volatility, and foster market efficiency as well as private sector led economic growth./.
Bronze figures usually are signed by artists, who sometimes use initials or strange names that are hard to find in some art listings. Nam Greb was an artist who made detailed, colorful, cold-painted bronze figures in Austria during the early 19th century. Some of his work was easy to identify. He favored tabletop scenes of Oriental life with colorful tents, figures in Arab garb, market stalls and animals. Some were even small lamps. But some figures of men had cloaks that opened to show erotic scenes or women who, when the doors opened, were naked. The strange name Nam Greb was the reverse spelling of the last name of Franz Bergman (or Bergmann, 1861-1936). Bergman, who lived in Vienna, Austria, was a well-known artist who also made conservative figures for his regular customers. In about 1900, he inherited a bronze factory from his father. Bergman developed cold bronze decorations. They were made of several layers of paint that were not fired. Unfortunately, his technique has been lost.

Q: Years ago, my father brought home an autographed color photo of Emmett Kelly. It was made out to me personally. I still have it. Is this something that is considered a collectible? Is it worth anything?

Answer: Emmett Kelly (1898-1979), who is considered the worlds most famous clown, was born in Kansas. At an early age, his mother enrolled him in a correspondence school for cartooning. He later gave chalk talks and entertained in schools. He created his signature character, Weary Willie, in the early 1920s while working for a film company. In 1937, he performed that character for the first time. Kelly worked for Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey from 1942 until it closed in 1956. He also worked in movies, television and night clubs. There are collectors of Emmett Kelly memorabilia as well as collectors of clown items. Autographed photos of Kelly have sold from $50 to about $200. Your name in the autograph will lower the value. Collectors pay less for personalized autographs.

Q: I have been researching a cabinet that looks like it was made for cocktails. Its wood with carved panels of Asian scenes. The top opens and the front drops down to reveal a mirrored bar. The sides open for storage and the corners have fitted stemware racks. I was told it might be by George Zee. I like it and wont sell it, but what is it worth?

Answer: Your liquor/bar cabinet sounds like it was made by George Zee & Co. George Zee studied at the Princeton Seminary, then went into the furniture business in Shanghai in the 1930s. He was good at attracting Western clients, and his company became one of the leading Chinese furniture makers in Shanghai. Just before the communists took over in 1949, Zee left Shanghai for Hong Kong, where he re-established his business. The company made carved teak and camphor wood boxes, trunks, tables and cabinets. He labeled them with metal tags. Each piece had a serial number and came with a guarantee that it would never split or warp thanks to his special kiln-dried technique. His pieces became popular with American troops stationed in Asia. Later, furniture made by other manufacturers was sold under the George Zee name. Zee died in 1967 and the business was left to his widow. It closed in 2010. George Zee cocktail cabinets have sold at auction for about $500 to $700. Others have only brought $100. The style, quality of carving, and whether it has an original metal tag all affect the price.

Q: I recently bought a lot of postcards but it seems theres really no market for them. I tried a couple of places but they refuse to even see the items. Where is a good place to try to sell them?

Answer: Did you buy them as an investment, hoping to sell them at a profit? Its never a good idea to invest in something unless you know what to look for before you buy, and what is desirable and valuable. Only a small number or postcards sell for high prices. Most sell for 25 cents or less. Inexpensive postcards sell online in groups of 25 or 30 postcards for about $7. Old postcards sell at flea markets, antiques shops, and house sales. They also sell online on sites like eBay. You can go to a postcard show in your area and see what postcards like yours are selling for and whether there is any interest in them.

Q: I was given a set of Poppytrail by Metlox dinner service for four. It includes plates, cups and saucers, bowls and a small creamer and sugar bowl, and they are in perfect condition. What is the set worth?

Answer: Metlox Potteries was founded by Theodore C. Prouty and his son, Willis, in Manhattan Beach, Calif., in 1927. The company was sold to Evan K. Shaw in 1946. Poppytrail was a division of Metlox from 1946 to 1989, when the pottery closed. Several hundred Poppytrail patterns were made. Prices depend on the desirability of the pattern. A five-piece place setting of Sculptured Grape, including two plates, bowl, and cup and saucer, was offered for sale for $36. A sugar in that pattern sold for $16, and a creamer sold for $20.

Q: I found an interesting little book in my mothers home. The cover reads The Holy Bible Abridged: containing the History of the Old Testament, illustrated with NOTES and adorned with CUTS, for the use of children. Printed by T. Wilson and R. Spence, Highland-Ousegate, 1802, Price Six Pence. It measures 3 by 4 inches and is bound with string. How can I find out what its worth?

Answer: The frontispiece and 27 woodcuts illustrating this book were made by Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), a well-known British illustrator and engraver. Woodcut prints were first made to illustrate books during the 15th century, but became less common when engravings became popular. Bewick is credited with reviving the use of woodcuts and improving the method of carving the block of wood used to make the print. Some collectors look for old books with woodcuts. You should take the book to an antiquarian book store or someone who deals in old books to see what it might be worth.

Q: Id like information about an old electric National Cash Register I have. The serial number is 4473484. How old is it and what is it worth?

Answer: National Cash Register was founded in Dayton, Ohio, in 1884. Brass cash registers were made from the 1890s to about 1918. Metal cases stamped and painted to look like wood were made beginning about 1918. The serial number indicates your cash register was made in 1948. Old ornate brass and marble cash registers sell for high prices, from hundreds to over $1,000. Newer models like yours that are not brass sell for much less.

Current prices

Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary in different locations because of local economic conditions.

Toy, monkey, climbing, pull string, green jacket, yellow vest, box, Lehmann, 8 inches, $90.

Bookends, Little Journeys, copper, hammered, rectangualar, rounded corners, Roycroft, 1900s, 8 x 5 inches, pair, $125.

Stone, brush washer, amethyst, squirrels, vines, oval, 6 inches, $180.

Furniture, chair, Windsor, sack back, turned legs and stretcher, saddle seat, 1780s, 37 x 22 inches, $210.

Rug, wool, pile, abstract flower shapes, bright colors, after Henri Matise, round, 48 inches, $250.

Document box, wooden, mother-of-pearl inlay, cranes, landscape, flowers, vines, 15 x 11 inches, $365.

Pedestal, carved twist shaft, stylized green key collar, round stepped base, marble, 39 x 12 inches, pair, $495.

Buster Brown, toy, seesaw, Tige rides down a ramp, with a ball, clockwork, Germany, 10 inches, $660.

Birdcage, business office, H R lettering across the front, butterfly, scalloped arcades, 16 x 32 inches, $1,210.

Sailors Valentine, hexagonal, flower, sun rays, seeds, shells, 6 x 16 inches, $3,025.
As he explores possible Trump campaign collusion in Russias election interference, is special counsel Robert S. Mueller III running an impartial investigation?

That this is a fair question to ask is itself troubling. Our justice system strives to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Sure, we pounce when we detect actual corruption. But the rule of law requires that the public integrity of law enforcement be safeguarded. It is not enough to be fair. Things must appear fair  even more so when a special counsel, appointed precisely to avoid the appearance of bias, is concerned.In Muellers case, there are various grounds for worry. Muellers investigation was triggered when former FBI director James B. Comey, no fan of the president who dismissed him, leaked a memo of a meeting with President Trump. Comey admitted hoping this revelation would lead to appointment of a special counsel.

Furthermore, the investigative team Mueller has assembled includes Democratic donors and supporters, including one lawyer who represented the Clinton Foundation and one who represented a subject in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. This month, moreover, it came to light that two members of the team, who had also worked on the Clinton email investigation, were having an extramarital affair and exchanged text messages expressing partisan political views  favoring Clinton and depicting Trump as loathsome.

Worse, in one August 2016 text, one of them, FBI agent Peter Strzok, asserted that the FBI cant take that risk that Trump could be elected, equating some unspecified action against this seemingly unlikely possibility to an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40. Dismayingly, this text, which crosses the line between political banter and tainted law enforcement, refers to a meeting in the office of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, then (and now) the bureaus No. 2 official. While not as weighty, legitimate questions have been raised about McCabes own objectivity, his wifes state Senate campaign having been lavishly funded by groups tied to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a Clinton insider.

On the positive side, Mueller immediately removed Strzok from the case after the texts came to light. (The other texter, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, had already left the team.) Further, a critical metric of Muellers tenure is how he has performed. To date, he has brought three sets of charges: an indictment against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates and two false-statements cases, against Michael Flynn (fleetingly Trumps national security adviser) and George Papadopoulos (a minor Trump campaign adviser). None of these cases bears on the 2016 election or suggests any wrongdoing on Trumps part.

Thus, while there is cause for concern, the results Mueller has produced so far appear free of political taint. And at least in the matter of Strzok, Mueller was scrupulous about removing what was, at the least, the appearance of impropriety.

That appearance is not established by mere expression of political opinion or activism. I was a federal prosecutor in New York for many years, and I was not shy about sharing my conservative political views. Nor were my colleagues  my best friends in the office were liberal Democrats. But it was understood that our politics were checked at the door.

It is required, though, that they remain ever-mindful that the appearance of fairness is as important as the reality. That doesnt mean opinionated investigators must bow out of politically fraught cases. But they should grasp what makes a case so fraught and remove themselves if particular views they hold could undermine an investigation.

Personally, I am not much alarmed that several of Muellers staffers have anti-Trump political views. But as more evidence emerges, I have become increasingly disturbed about whether those views will taint perception of the Mueller investigation, particularly in the case of Andrew Weissmann, a key Mueller deputy. A gifted career Justice Department lawyer, Weissmann sent former acting attorney general Sally Yates an effusive email shortly after Yates was fired for insubordinately defying Trump on enforcement of the so-called travel ban. The obstruction aspect of Muellers investigation calls for an objective evaluation of how much independence law-enforcement officials have from the chief executive. Weissmanns lauding of Yates suggests he is not objective on this point.

For Trump, the best outcome is that he leaves Mueller in place and is exonerated. For Mueller, the best outcome is that the public accepts the integrity of whatever decisions he makes. In that regard, I began with the belief that Mueller was a superb choice whose well-earned reputation for personal integrity would be critical. I still think so, but Ive been shaken by his puzzling insensitivity to the imperative that his staff be, and be seen as, driven by evidence, not anti-Trump bias.

Just as Mueller would not have recruited Strzok had he known of the texts, one imagines he would have passed on Weissmann had he known of his email paean to Yates. Removing Weissmann, just as Mueller removed Strzok, would be a reassuring course correction.
Steve Bannon and his alt-right movement have helped accomplish something no one in a quarter-century has been able to do: get a Democrat elected in the state of Alabama.

Alabama is one of the most reliably Republican states in the country. The last time a Democrat was elected was in 1992, and no Democrat has won more than 40 percent of the vote in a Senate race there since 1996. The closest election in recent memory was in 2002, when Jeff Sessions won reelection by a razor-thin margin of 19 points. Sen. Richard Shelby has won his last three elections by 35 points, 30 points and 28 points, respectively. So it takes a special kind of stupid to pick a candidate who can lose to a Democrat in Alabama.

Not just any Democrat, but an uncompromising pro-abortion Democrat. Alabama is one of the most pro-life state in the union. According to the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Alabama voters believe that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while only 37 percent disagree. And yet the Democrats won with a pro-abortion extremist on the ballot.

How extreme? In September, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked Jones what limitations he would support on abortion. He could not name one. I am a firm believer that a woman should have the freedom to choose what happens to her own body, he said, and Im going to stand up for that and Im going to make sure that that continues to happen. When pressed if he would support a ban on late-term abortions after 20 weeks, Jones said, Im not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a womans right and her freedom to choose, adding that he supports the right to life once a baby is born. ... Thats where I become a right-to-lifer.

Yet despite these radical views, Jones won in pro-life Alabama. Why? Because Bannon and his allies forced Alabamians to choose between a pro-abortion Democrat and an alleged sex predator. Bannon helped nominate a man who was credibly accused of pursuing and sexually molesting teenage girls  and then stood by him when his loathsome alleged conduct was exposed. Bannon counted on distrust of the mainstream media and conservative voters repulsion at the Democrats pro-abortion views to put his man over the top. It didnt work. Because while the states evangelical Christian majority is appalled by abortion, they are also appalled by grown men who prey on high-school girls.

Now Bannon wants to replicate his disastrous Alabama strategy in Republican primaries across the country. He has announced that he is seeking Moore-like challengers to take on every GOP incumbent except Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas. Bannon is busy taking the GOP back to the glory days of 2010, when Republicans nominated such terrible Senate candidates that they lost very winnable senate races in places such as Delaware and Nevada. The difference is, back then, the stakes were not so high. Barack Obama was president, and unless Republicans could win 60 votes, a few more GOP Senate seats would have made little difference.

But today, a few GOP Senate seats can make all the difference, because Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. President Trump was already struggling to get his agenda passed with a narrow 52-seat GOP Senate majority. Thanks to Bannon, that majority has been whittled down to 51. That makes it harder for Trump to advance any of his remaining agenda next year and complicates his ability to confirm judges and get other nominees through the Senate.

Joness victory also put the Democrats within striking distance of taking back control of the Senate in 2018. If that happens, the Trump presidency is over. The resistance will control Congress, and Trumps ability to pass conservative legislation and continue appointing conservative judges  especially another Supreme Court justice  will be gone. Moreover, Democrats will run the Russia investigation and Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., as majority leader, will have unbridled subpoena power. Trump could face impeachment proceedings.

That is the future if Trump does not learn the lesson of Alabama and tell Bannon to back off. The goal in 2018 should be to expand Trumps governing majority, not lose it. Instead of targeting vulnerable Democrats and strengthening the Trump presidency, Bannon is busy destroying the Trump presidency. Trump may want to suggest he stop.


remaining of

Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading.


Participants at the workshop (Photo: H.H)

The Ministry of Health consulted with the Government to issue Decree 09/2016/ND-CP on January 28th, 2016 to strengthen iodine, iron, zinc and vitamin A as compulsory elements that need to be included in Vietnamese food. The Decree came into force on March 15th, 2016 to prevent and reduce iodine deficiency in community, protecting the peoples health.

According to Ms. Karen Codling, Regional Coordinator for Iodine Global Network, fortification of salt with iodine is recommended as the most effective way to prevent iodine deficiency.

She also showed the deficiency would causes: Goitre - swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck; irreversible brain damage in the fetus and infant, retarded psychomotor development in children, which impede childrens learning ability, affect reproductive functions, most common cause of preventable impaired cognitive development.

A research on iodine status of countries in 2017, based on median urinary iodine concentration (mUIC) of school age children, showed that Vietnam is one of the 19 countries with insufficient iodine intake.

Ms. Karen Codling also said 109 countries with mandatory legislation for salt iodization and gave a number of lessons learnt for Vietnam. She added that in Vietnam, mandatory salt iodization has been successful and effective in the past. However, voluntary salt iodization and discontinuation of government support led to declines in household coverage of iodized salt and return of iodine deficiency. So that, the new mandatory legislation offers a fresh opportunity to prevent iodine deficiency; but it must be enforced.

A significant proportion of salt is consumed as salty condiments, so processed foods need to be made with iodized salt. Besides, the Government's commitment and coordination is necessary for successful salt iodization in Vietnam.

In July, 2017, a research by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in cooperation with the Ministry of Health at a number of salt and fish sauce factories showed that only salt factories conformed to regulations of the Decree 09, and no fish sauce factories were using iodized salt to produce the sauce.

The businesses are afraid that using iodine could change the colour or smell of foods, which is important to customers.

The Decree 09/2016/ND-CP proposes one year-itinerary for businesses implementing regulations on fortifying iodine in salt and using iodised salt in food processing.

Salt fortified with iodine, iron and zinc must be added to wheat flour, while vegetable oil that contains soybean oil, coconut oil, canola oil or peanut oil is required having vitamin A - excluding vegetable oil used in industrial food processing.

In many nations, using iodised salt in food processing faces obstacles like in Vietnam, and the policy requires support from the business community.

The event, held in Hanoi, is hoped to raise awareness of iodine importance for peoples health, especially with the lack of micro-nutrition in Vietnam and the role of state managing agencies in the implementation of the Decree.

The VUSTA said all petitions and solutions of specialists at the conference would be recorded to send to the Government and relevant agencies for establishing legislative framework to manage the use of iodised salt in food processing./.
The legal world is a busy place. Here are a few stories we didnt get to this week that we thought you might be interested in.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] said Monday there are strong indications of election fraud in Honduras, calling for a full investigation [press release].

Also Monday, HRW sent a letter [text, PDF] to the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar urging them to rethink an agreement to begin returning Rohingya refugees by January 23, arguing that the timetable will not allow for safe and voluntary returns.

Romanias lower house of parliament on Monday approved controversial court reform legislation [materials, in Romanian] that critics claim will threaten judicial independence.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed [press release] a bill [AB 499 materials] into law Monday allowing copper and gold mining, despite objections from environmental groups.

A Ukrainian court on Monday ordered the release [RFE/RL report] of opposition leader and former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili.

The Committee to Protect Journalists [advocacy website] reported Wednesday that a record number of journalists were imprisoned [materials] in 2017, with more than half jailed in Turkey, China and Egypt.

Ohio lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to legislation [HB 214 materials] that would prohibit abortions because of a Down syndrome diagnosis, sending the bill to Governor John Kasich.

Indonesias Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected a bid [NYT report] to ban gay and extramarital sex.

A commission investigating child sex abuse in Australia released its final report [materials] Friday, finding decades of abuse in schools and religious institutions.

Pakistans Supreme Court on Friday refused to disqualify [judgment, PDF] opposition leader Imran Khan from parliament.

A Pennsylvania federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked [order, PDF] Trump administration rules that allow employers to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage for religious reasons.
A Dutch-Ethiopian man was sentenced to life in jail on Friday after Dutch judges found him guilty of war crimes committed during Ethiopia's bloody purges in the late 1970s, a period known as the "Red Terror".

Eshetu Alemu, 63, was "guilty of war crimes and treated his fellow citizens in a cold and calculating manner... including robbing them of their right to life," presiding judge Mariette Renckens told the court in The Hague.

The tribunal "sentences him to life in prison, because this is the only appropriate measure of punishment that can be given," the judge said.

Alemu, who had been sentenced to death in Ethiopia in absentia, has been in jail in The Netherlands for the last two years awaiting trial.

But neither he nor his lawyers were in court to hear the verdict, a situation Renckens condemned as "deplorable."

Families of victims loudly applauded as the judges left the bench, shouting "Finally justice has been done, thank you!"

- Brutal reprisals -

Prosecutors said Alemu, a long-time Dutch resident, was a henchman for former Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in the late 1970s, conducting a reign of terror in the African country's northwestern Gojjam province where he was the top administrator.

Mengistu, a senior military commander ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1977 following the toppling of Emperor Haile Selassi in 1974, and carried out a series of brutal reprisals against the political opposition of the revolutionary regime.

A total of 321 victims were named in four war crimes charges, which included "arbitrary detention and cruel and inhuman treatment of civilians and fighters who laid down their arms," Dutch prosecutors said.

Witnesses during the trial spoke of so-called "dark cells", where political opponents of Mengistu's Marxist-Leninist junta called the Derg were locked up for days in close confinement without trial or seeing daylight and faced constant torture.

Prosecutors said citizens were often forced to attend "exposure meetings" where opposition members were pressured to confess and finger others who opposed Mengistu's regime.

"The accused played a leading role at these exposure meetings -- without him these they would not have taken place," judge Renckens agreed.

One witness, Worku Damena Yifru, testified how, as a 16-year-old prisoner, he saw a mass grave being dug inside a jail at the city of Debre Marcos in Gojjam.

He was later told that Alemu watched as his soldiers strangled some 80 prisoners, and then dumped their bodies in the grave.

"Alemu gave the order for 'revolutionary measures' to be taken against numerous victims," Renckens said.

"The court is of the opinion that 'revolutionary measures' can only mean killing people," the judge said.

Although there was not enough proof that Alemu was physically present at the time of the church murders, "his role as the command giver was so important that the deaths would not have taken place without his involvement," the judge said.

- 'No remorse' -

Although he admitted being a member of the Derg, Alemu denied the charges.

Speaking at a hearing last month, Alemu said he would "apologise on my knees to all the victims and through them to all the people of Ethiopia."

He refused to accept personal responsibility however, saying: "I do not recognise the role that has been assigned to me."

Renckens said Alemu "failed to show any remorse and in actual fact still today" sees the political opposition as the guilty party.

Prosecutors and victims at the hearing hailed the verdict.

"We are exceptionally happy with today's verdict... it's been an emotional case," Jirko Patist, spokesman for the Dutch public prosecutor's office, told AFP.

"Today was a big day," said Negus Temesgen, who survived being jailed as a teenager by the Derg.

"I do remember all those young people who had lost their lives in prison," he said.

It is not yet known whether Alemu will appeal.
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
President Donald Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and it absolutely is and has been for 70 years. In fact, an American law has said as much since 1995 and past presidents named Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all echoed the indubitable verdict at one time or another.

But, oh, what a Trumpian horror, its said.

The U.N. Security Council has condemned Trumps decision, especially his intent to finally move our embassy from Tel Aviv to where the Israeli government is. That is seen as a kind of conclusiveness, and, with rabble-rousing anger, Palestinian leaders have said its no longer going to meet with U.S. representatives to discuss a two-state peace solution with Israel. Other Arab nations in the Middle East are snarling, too, and European leaders are astonished at so flagrant a foul.

Here, we are told, could be a significant setback to peace negotiations, but such setbacks started with the founding of Israel and have been mainly the fault of Palestinians wanting Jewish settlers tossed out or extinguished. In the beginning, the international community mapped out a plan in which Israel and Palestine would get different territories. The Palestinians werent having any, went to war in 1948, and Israel won enough land to sustain itself.

Part of what Israel captured was the western part of Jerusalem. It had been declared an international city, but Israel established its capital there despite some still insistent naysayers. In a war with Arab states in 1967, Israel captured the eastern portion of Jerusalem from Jordan along with the West Bank it continues to control militarily.

If the Palestinian leaders thought a two-state solution might include Israel handing over western Jerusalem as a capital for them, they were living in never-never land. However, eastern Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital remains a possibility. Trump said nothing in his remarks about refusing to divide up the city again, and his U.N. ambassador, Nikky Haley, said the United States would have no objections if the two parties agreed to such a thing.

The real hindrance to the two-state solution is that the Hamas terrorists who run the Palestinian Gaza Strip still see the only answer as the elimination of Israel, occasionally firing missiles to make the point. Then there is the Palestinian Authority representing the Palestinians on the West Bank and its funding of terrorists who visit Israel for fatal purposes. The issue of Jerusalem as the capital is nothing compared to all of this.

Many will tell you that the Jews fleeing Europe after World War II had no right to settle in Israel despite their ages-old holy sites and Jews already there. They say Israel has violated international rules, that it has occupied the West Bank for far too long and that Palestinians there have been badly mistreated.

To say Israel has done no wrong would be fallacious. But look at the context of all of this: the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, tiny Israel surrounded by major Arab states wanting its demise, Israel twice making generous offers to the Palestinians demanding all or nothing, the Palestinian reluctance to even talk to Israelis and the Israeli need for endless self-defense to survive.

What we have in Israel is a self-disciplined, industrious, innovative nation that is humane and democratic despite the endless assaults it must survive.

Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
FILE - In this March 14, 2007 file photo, a man reads a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford Dictionaries is recognizing the power of the millennial generation with its 2017 word of the year: youthquake. Oxford lexicographers say there was a fivefold increase in use of the term between 2016 and 2017. It is defined as "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people." (Ian Nicholson/PA via AP, File)
Allison Suzanne Taylor, who is homeless, stands near her belongings on St. Paul Street in Kelowna in this file photo from 2017. An updated count of the city's homeless was conducted earlier this month.
Christine and her five-year-old son, Isaac, are among the many you can help through Be an Angel.
The Suncor oil sands facility seen from a helicopter near Fort McMurray, Alta., Tuesday, July 10, 2012. Alberta has begun monitoring oilsands emissions from the skies. The province's environmental monitoring agency is using airborne sensing equipment to measure the release of greenhouse gases and other chemicals over oilsands mines north of Fort McMurray. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
The wreckage of an aircraft is seen near Fond du Lac, Sask. on Thursday, December 14, 2017 in this handout photo. Investigators have eliminated engine failure as the cause of a passenger plane crash in northern Saskatchewan.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Transportation Safety Board of Canada *MANDATORY CREDIT*
The crash Hydro One helicopter can be seen at the crash site near Tweed, Ont., on Dec. 14, 2017. Four Hydro One employees were killed Thursday in a helicopter crash in eastern Ontario, police and the utility reported.The crash occurred about noon in Tweed, north of Kingston, provincial police said. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg
FILE - In this March 29, 2007 file photo, Dr. Donald Cline, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertilty specialist, speaks at a new conference in Indianapolis. Cline, a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor accused of inseminating patients with his own sperm is set to plead guilty to charges that he lied to investigators Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017.. Cline is scheduled to appear in a Marion County court (Kelly Wilkinson,/The Indianapolis Star via AP)
Dec 12 (Reuters) - Kosmos Energy Ltd said it would plug one of its exploration wells offshore Mauritania after it failed to find significant amount of oil and gas.

Evaluation of logs and samples collected during drilling and wireline operations suggests the Campanian reservoir objective was water-bearing with some residual hydrocarbons, Kosmos said.

"We are still in the early stages of exploring this newly emerging basin and our forward drilling program remains unchanged given the independent nature of the prospects," Chief Executive Andrew Inglis said in a statement.

(Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Investors pulled $16.2 billion from U.S.-based equity funds during the latest week, according to Lipper, marking the largest withdrawals since December 2016. Taxable-bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds recorded $1.2 billion in outflows, while money-market funds pulled in more than $30 billion, the research service said on Thursday.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
SINGAPORE, Dec 15 (Reuters) -

* Iraq's Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) plans to sell up to 4 million barrels of Basra crude for loading in January through an auction on Platts on Friday, a Platts notice reviewed by Reuters showed.

* SOMO intends to offer 2 million barrels of Basra Light loading on Jan. 20 and another 2 million barrels of Basra Heavy to load on Jan. 23. Both offers do not have fixed destinations.

* The oil can be lifted in a single 2-million-barrel cargo or split into two cargoes of 1 million barrels each.

* Platts will publish firm bids received from SOMO customers by 3.45 p.m. Singapore time (0745 GMT) and they will remain valid until 0900 GMT.

* This will be SOMO's second auction on Platts. It did not award the cargo offered in the first auction last month. (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)
HANOI, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0403 GMT.

December 15 USD/VND mid-point 22,441 USD/VND interbank 22,717/22,718 USD/VND unofficial 22,770/22,785 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.30/36.52

Interbank offered rates Overnight 0.7-1.1

1 week 0.8-1.2

1 month 2.1-2.5

3 months 4.5-5.0

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)
ISTANBUL, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Here are news, reports and events that may affect Turkish financial markets on Friday.

The lira stood at 3.8825 against the U.S. dollar at 0450 GMT, firming from a close of 3.8903 on Thursday.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year bond was at 12.11 percent in spot trade on Thursday and rose to 12.32 percent in Friday-dated trade.

The main BIST 100 share index rose 1.40 percent to 109,666.44 points on Thursday.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Asian shares edged higher on Friday, on track for weekly gains, though sentiment was kept in check by Wall Street's weakness on concerns about the progress of U.S. tax reform. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.04 percent in early trade, poised to gain 1.2 percent for the week. ERDOGAN

President Tayyip Erdogan will make a speech at the opening of an underground train line on the Asian side of Istanbul (1200 GMT). He will also make a speech at an awards ceremony (1600 GMT).

YILDIRIM

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim will meet the Senegalese President Macky Sall (0700 GMT). He will also speak at a symposium on migration and harmonisation (0800 GMT).

UNEMPLOYMENT DATA The Turkish Statistics Institute will announce unemployment data for the August-October period (0700 GMT).

BUDGET DATA The Finance Ministry will announce budget data for November (0800 GMT).

DRAFT BUDGET

Parliament's general assembly will debate the 2018 draft budget for the development, environment and justice ministries (0800 GMT).

U.S. TRIAL OF BANKER

Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a Turkish banker accused of taking part in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions, plans to testify in his own defence at his trial in New York, his lawyers said on Thursday. A lawyer for Atilla told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan federal court on Thursday that Atilla, an executive at Turkey's majority state-owned Halkbank , would testify. The announcement came shortly after prosecutors said they had finished presenting their case. 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 arrival of Maduro, quote from foreign minister)

By Sarah Marsh and Marianna Parraga

HAVANA/HOUSTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Venezuela has pulled out of a partnership with Cuba in its Cienfuegos oil refinery and the Caribbean island has taken full ownership of the plant, Cuban state media said on Thursday.

Venezuela is grappling with an economic crisis that already forced it to slash cheap oil shipments to Cuba, which has had a knock-on effect on the island's ailing economy.

The reason for the dissolution of the partnership was not immediately obvious. A former Venezuelan government official said Cuba had taken Venezuelan state oil-firm PDVSA's 49 percent stake in the Cienfuegos refinery as payment for debts it said the country incurred.

The source added that Cuba said Venezuela owed it for professional services provided as well as the rental of tankers.

PDVSA's Cuba unit was unable to provide immediate comment. Cuba's state-run oil monopoly Cubapetroleo (Cupet), which runs the refinery, did not respond to a request for comment.

"Since August 2017, the Cienfuegos refinery has been operating as a fully Cuban state entity," the ruling Communist Party's newspaper Granma wrote.

The Cienfuegos refinery is a Soviet-era facility configured to run Russian crude that was later upgraded by PDVSA to convert up to 65,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Venezuelan oil into refined products for Cuba's domestic market and exports.

It processed just 8 million barrels of crude in 2017 (roughly 24,000 barrels per day), Granma reported, indicating it was operating well below capacity due to lower shipments of oil from Venezuela.

A lack of medium and light oil had forced PDVSA this year to change the quality of the crude shipped to the island to heavier grades, which are more difficult to process at Cienfuegos.

Cuba has long relied on the OPEC nation for about 70 percent of its fuel needs. But shipments have fallen by as much as 40 percent since 2014 and Cuba is looking for new suppliers to help mitigate electricity and fuel rationing to state companies.

Cuba took a delivery of oil from Russia in May, helping compensate somewhat for that drop, and Russian oil major Rosneft said in October it was looking to expand cooperation.

That could mean increased deliveries to Cuba, joint extraction projects as well as cooperation to modernize the Cienfuegos refinery, Rosneft said. Venezuela remains Cuba's top ally and President Nicolas Maduro arrived in Havana on Thursday evening for a meeting of the leftist ALBA bloc of 11 Caribbean and Latin American countries.

Attending the event was also Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza. Asked about the refinery news, he told Reuters he did not have details of the information but "PDVSA does not withdraw from any project."

Still, lower Venezuela oil supplies and a cash crunch have forced Cuba to slash imports and reduce the use of fuel and electricity over the past two years.

This helped tip its centrally planned economy into recession in 2016 for the first time in nearly a quarter century. The government is expected to give an estimate for economic performance this year at the twice-annual parliamentary session next week.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Additional Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Editing by Andrew Hay and Chris Reese)
* Nov Iranian crude imports down 25.2 pct to nearly 1.3 mln T y/y

* Jan-Nov oil imports from Iran up 36.5 pct from yr ago

* Imports from Saudi Arabia at 3.26 mln T, down abt 13 pct y/y

* Nov total crude imports at 12.56 mln T, up 2.4 pct y/y

(Adds details, background)

By Jane Chung

SEOUL, Dec 15 (Reuters) - South Korea's Iranian crude oil imports in November dropped to the lowest level since June, due to reduced shipments from the Middle Eastern country to Asia affected by its production issues.

South Korea's November imports from Iran were around 1.3 million tonnes, or 316,575 barrels per day (bpd), customs data showed on Friday. The import volume was 25.2 percent lower from 1.73 million tonnes from a year earlier, and 21.6 percent down from October.

South Korea, one of Iran's major Asian buyers, mainly buys an ultra-light oil, also known as condensate, but the crude oil data usually includes condensate without a breakdown of the imports.

Iran has stepped up its oil output to regain its lost market share since sanctions were lifted last year. But its condensate exports had been dented due to a "technical problem" at the South Pars field, with maintenance likely to take for 1-2 months. Nevertheless, Iran continues to retain its major Asian oil customers by offering spot cargoes and setting December prices at the lowest against Saudi light and heavy grades to make its oil products competitive. South Korea's oil imports from Iran in the first 11 months of this year jumped 36.5 percent to nearly 17 million tonnes, or 372,890 bpd, compared with 12.45 million tonnes over the same period last year, according to the customs data.

The world's No.5 crude importer's crude imports in November totalled 12.56 million tonnes, or 3.07 million bpd, up 2.4 percent from 12.26 million tonnes from a year earlier, the data showed.

South Korea's imports of crude oil from Saudi Arabia were down about 13 percent to 3.26 million tonnes in November, or 797,036 bpd, from a year ago as the de facto leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is committed to the OPEC-led oil supply cut deal to erode a global oil glut and drive up prices.

In January-November of 2017, Korea's crude oil imports increased 3.7 percent to 135.51 million tonnes, or 2.97 million bpd, versus 130.71 million tonnes during the same period last year.

Final data for South Korea's November crude imports data is set to be released by state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) later this month.

(Reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Michael Perry)
MILAN, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Just over half of subscription rights in Italian bank's Carige cash call, which were left unexercised by shareholders, were sold on Friday, Reuters data showed.

Carige's shareholders took up 66 percent of a 500 million euro share issue demanded by regulators but the lender has accords in place with a number of investment firms to reach the minimum recapitalisation level imposed by the European Central Bank. Investors have pledged to step in to buy any rights available after a five-day market offering which started on Friday.

Reuters data showed that 149.5 million rights had been bought at the first tender out of a total of 278.4 million.

(Reporting by Andrea Mandala, writing by Valentina Za,)
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Malaysia's central bank said it will discontinue a special deposit facility for exporters from next year, rolling back a measure that it had introduced last year to stem the currency's slide against the U.S. dollar.

Last December, Bank Negara Malaysia clamped down on offshore ringgit trade and announced measures to boost liquidity and encourage more domestic trade of the ringgit as the currency fell to 13-month lows in the aftermath of Donald Trump's U.S. presidential election win. As a sweetener to keep more cash at home, the central bank said all ringgit proceeds from exporters can earn a higher deposit rate of 3.25 percent annually under the special deposit facility.

The ringgit is among the best performing currencies in the region this year, up around 9.8 percent against the U.S. dollar so far this year, as the economy registered better-than-expected growth over the past three quarters. In a letter sent to banks operating locally and seen by Reuters, BNM said the special deposit facility - which facilitated conversion of export proceeds by resident exporters - will end by Dec. 31.

Outstanding balances in the deposit facility, however, can continue to earn a return of 3.10 percent per annum up to March 31 next year, the central bank said in the letter dated Dec. 14.

The ringgit closed at 4.0780 on Friday.

(Reporting by Joseph Sipalan; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
PORT LOUIS, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The weighted average yield on Mauritius' 91-day Treasury bill rose to 2.43 percent at auction on Friday from 2.36 percent at the last sale on Dec.8, the central bank said.

The Bank of Mauritius offered a total of 1 billion rupees ($29.5 million) worth of the 91-day and 182-day paper and sold 527.8 million rupees of the 91-day instruments.

Complete auction results were as follows: MATURITY 91-DAY 182-DAY 364-day WEIGHTED AVERAGE PRICE THIS AUCTION 99.398 98.759 97.397 LAST AUCTION 99.415 98.803 97.492 WEIGHTED AVERAGE YIELD (PCT) THIS AUCTION 2.43 2.52 2.68 LAST AUCTION 2.36 2.43 2.58 BIDS ACCEPTED (RUPEES)527.8(MLN)472.2(MLN)600 (MLN) (The table includes both government (364-day) and Bank of Mauritius (91-day, 182-day) bills) ($1 = 33.8900 Mauritius rupees)

(Reporting by Jean Paul Arouff; Editing by George Obulutsa)
OSLO, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Norwegian housing prices will likely fall by one percent in 2018 as a downturn in the market is slowing down, a real estate industry association said on Friday.

The forecast was based on expected prices in December next year compared to December this year.

"We expect moderate price development next year, with limited growth the first couple of months and weaker as usual towards the end of the year," the head of Real Estate Norway, Christian Dreyer, told Reuters.

In November prices were down 0.5 percent compared to November 2016. Dreyer predicted a weak December this year.

Norwegian housing prices have fallen since April after a sharp rise in recent years, triggering fears that it could hurt the economy in the long run.

(Reporting by Camilla Knudsen, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
MANILA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The Philippine economy is expected to expand at a slightly quicker pace in 2017 than earlier forecast, driven by a pick-up in exports in the previous two quarters, the World Bank said on Friday.

The World Bank said growth could reach 6.7 percent, higher than its previous forecast of 6.6 percent, but it retained its 6.7 percent growth forecast for next year.

"Continued global economic recovery gaining steam has led to higher than expected export growth for the Philippines and an encouraging upturn for the third quarter of 2017," said Birgit Hansl, the World Bank's lead economist for the Philippines.

The central bank on Friday sharply hiked its 2017 full-year export growth forecast to 11 percent from 5 percent.

The Southeast Asian nation's economy expanded 6.9 percent in the third quarter, led by strong industrial and services output. Second quarter growth was upwardly revised to 6.7 percent from 6.5 percent. Simultaneous recovery in major advanced economies would mean stronger import demand from the Philippines' main trading partners, the United States, Japan and Europe, the World Bank said.

Investments and infrastructure spending could propel the economy to outperform this year and the next.

"If investment growth accelerates faster along with increased spending in public infrastructure, economic expansion can be even higher in 2017 and 2018 and exceed the current projection of 6.7 percent," Hansl said.

President Rodrigo Duterte is embarking on a $180-billion infrastructure spending spree to ensure sustainable growth over the long term. The infrastructure programme hinges on the tax reform bill that the Philippine Congress approved late on Wednesday. The Asian Development Bank upgraded on Wednesday its forecast of Philippine economic growth to 6.7 percent from 6.5 percent in its September outlook. ( )

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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):

SWITCH TENDER

Poland will offer to sell treasury bonds maturing in July 2020, November 2022, January 2023, July 2027, May 2028 and April 2029 at a switch tender on Friday. Results are expected to be announced at 1100 GMT. CONFLICT WITH EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Poland's new prime minister said on Thursday he expected the European Commission to launch an unprecedented punishment procedure against Warsaw next week after months of wrangling over the rule of law. ELECTORAL CODE

The lower chamber of parliament has approved changes to the electoral code that opposition deputies said could be a threat to the fairness of election.

GETIN NOBLE BANK Rating agency Moody's Investors Services has lowered the long-term deposit ratings of Poland's Getin Noble Bank to Ba3 from Ba2, the agency said on Thursday.

****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)
MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The Russian banking sector will not be affected by the central bank's decision to bail out Promsvyazbank, the country's 10th largest lender by assets, TASS news agency cited the head of the Russian banking association as saying on Friday.

Anatoly Aksakov, the head of Russia's regional banks association and a member of the Duma finance committee, also said Promsvyazbank's bailout would be the last such rescue of a bank this year.

The Bank of Russia said on Friday it was putting Promsvyazbank under temporary administration, the third such bailout in the Russian banking sector this year. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Jack Stubbs)
MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Promsvyazbank, one of the largest private banks in Russia, will require between 100 billion roubles and 200 billion roubles ($1.7-$3.40 billion) as part of a central bank rescue, central bank deputy governor Vasily Pozdyshev said on Friday.

Pozdyshev told a briefing that the size of the rescue could be closer to the lower end of the range if the central bank goes ahead with writing off Promsvyazbank subordinated debt. Pozdyshev estimated the amount of subordinated debt at 100 billion roubles.

He said loans issued by Promsvyazbank to the bank's owners exceeded the amount of the lender's capital and were estimated by the central bank at over 150 billion roubles. ($1 = 58.7806 roubles)

(Reporting by Tatiana Voronova and Katya Golubkova)
SEOUL, Dec 15 (Reuters) - South Korean messaging app service provider Kakao Corp said on Friday it is targeting raising up to $1 billion overseas for use in global mergers and acquisitions.

Kakao said in a statement that it expects to issue global depositary receipts (GDRs) to foreign investors and list them on the Singapore Exchange by February.

Kakao has expanded its business beyond South Korea's dominant messaging app Kakao Talk to co-developing artificial intelligence technology with companies such as Hyundai Motor , taxi and ride hailing, e-books and other services.

It said it is seeking merger and acquisition opportunities of global contents platform providers, as well as key technologies in artificial intelligence and other areas.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
* Parent to recoup loan from African business

* Chariman Wiese quits after taking interim charge

By Tiisetso Motsoeneng

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Steinhoff's African business is preparing to repay $1.2 billion it owes to its parent, it said on Friday, a move that would go a long way to plugging a liquidity hole in the group fighting for survival in the wake of an accounting scandal.

Steinhoff , the owner of more than 40 retail brands including Conforama, Mattress Firm and Poundland, is seeking to raise $2.4 billion to shore up its finances.

More than $10 billion has been wiped off Steinhoff's market value in the last two weeks following its disclosure of accounting irregularities and its chief executive's exit. Steinhoff Africa Retail, spun off this year, said it had appointed FirstRand's Rand Merchant Bank to arrange the refinancing of about 16 billion rand ($1.19 billion) in shareholder loans from the parent company.

Reuters had reported on Tuesday that Steinhoff was also considering selling its stakes worth $1.4 billion in PSG Group and the KAP Industrial to fill the hole in its balance sheet. Steinhoff is working with turnaround specialist AlixPartners to help maintain its liquidity.

It has also hired U.S investment bank Moelis & Co to help it prepare for a delayed meeting with lenders in London next week to discuss its financial health.

CHAIRMAN QUITS

The accounting scandal has led to the resignation of both Chief Excutive Markus Jooste and chairman and top shareholder Christo Wiese, figures who played a key role in transforming Steinhoff from a modest furniture distributor to a global household goods giant, vying with the likes of IKEA.

Wiese, who stood in as chief executive last week, stepped down on Thursday to reinforce independent governance and address any possible conflict of interest.

Steinhoff named Heather Sonn, a member of the supervisory board and its independent sub-committee, as acting chairperson. The crisis has tarnished Wiese's credentials as one of South Africa's most respected stewards of shareholder capital, stripped him of his billionare status and reduced his 22.8 percent stake in Steinhoff to 20.5 percent.

Banks have sold 98.4 million shares they used as security to lend Wiese 1.6 billion euros ($1.89 billion) to fund the purchase of additional shares in Steinhoff in September 2016.

Steinhoff did not name the bank or banks that have exercised their security rights over the stock. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Nomura provided financing, which was backed by 628 million shares, or 15 percent of the company.

Steinhoff, which moved its primary share listing from Johannesburg to Frankfurt two years ago, has been under investigation for suspected accounting fraud in Germany since 2015. Four current and former managers are under suspicion of having overstated revenues at subsidiaries, prosecutors said.

It has previously said that the investigation related to whether revenues were booked properly, and whether taxable profits were correctly declared.

The German-listed shares fell a further 8 percent on Friday. ($1 = 13.4748 rand) ($1 = 0.8486 euros)

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Keith Weir)
By Jonathan Spicer

NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters) - New York's poorest neighborhoods are home to the city's student borrowers under the most stress, according to a central bank report released on Friday showing "troublingly high" loan default and delinquency rates mainly in the Bronx and Brooklyn.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York report, billed as the first neighborhood-level study of student loans in any U.S. city, showed that borrowers in New York had on average $34,900 in debt, 18 percent above the national average. About 1 million, or 15 percent, of residents had loans, totaling $34.8 billion of the country's $1.3 trillion in student debt.

Borrowers aged 45 and older and those with lower student loan balances struggled the most, the report on the largest U.S. city found. Bronx borrowers had an average balance of $14,784 compared with $21,483 for those in Manhattan.

Student loans account for a growing share of the total U.S. debt of $12.8 trillion, and delinquency rates have remained stubbornly high since 2004, a trend that has perplexed and concerned some policymakers. The report suggests poorer borrowers are bearing the brunt of this trend that New York Fed President William Dudley has warned could ultimately hurt overall U.S. home ownership and consumer spending. Delinquencies and defaults damage borrowers' credit reports, hampering their ability to make investments and climb the economic ladder.

New York's lower-income neighborhoods had disproportionately high delinquency and default rates, and successful repayments varied widely across its five boroughs and many neighborhoods, the report found. The New York Fed defined low-income areas as those with residents earning less than $35,900 annually, while high-income was more than $72,301.

The Bronx, the northernmost borough with the city's lowest median household income of $35,302 last year, had the most student-loan distress and was home to four of the five neighborhoods with the highest default rates, the report said. They included Belmont, Crotona Park East and Hunts Point. The other neighborhood, Brownsville/Ocean Hill, is in Brooklyn, in the city's southeast, which had $50,640 in median income according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The lowest-income neighborhoods had a 20 percent delinquency rate, more than twice that of the highest income neighborhoods, particularly Manhattan which had a median household income of $75,513 last year.

More than half of student borrowers in high-income areas reported successfully paying down their loans, compared with about a quarter in low-income areas.

"We hope that this report will serve as a foundation for policymakers and other stakeholders to develop pragmatic solutions that can provide relief to struggling borrowers," the authors wrote.

The report, based on the New York Fed's consumer credit data, urged programs to assist with enrollment and educate borrowers on repayment programs.

(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Richard Chang)
ZURICH, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The Swiss blue-chip SMI was seen opening 0.1 percent lower at 9,372 points on Friday, according to premarket indications by bank Julius Baer .

Here are some of the main factors that may affect Swiss stocks.

LAFARGEHOLCIM The world's largest cement maker is revamping its management structure to make countries more accountable for results.

For more news see NOVARTIS Oncology head Bruno Strigini will retire next year for personal reasons, the Swiss drugmaker said, adding that it would announce his successor at a later date. NESTLE Generic drugmaker Perrigo has decided to enter the fray for Merck KGaA's consumer health unit, sources told Reuters, and is preparing an indicative offer for the $4.7 billion business ahead of a deadline on Friday. Perrigo is expected to face competition from Swiss food giant Nestle and the private equity owners of German drug firm Stada , which are also lining up non-binding offers for the maker of Seven Seas vitamins and Bion nutritional supplements, the sources said on Thursday.

For more news see BANKS

Britain kept the top spot in global financial services exports last year but Brexit threatens to raise barriers to its biggest market in Europe, TheCityUK said on Friday. COMPANY STATEMENTS * Lastminute.com NV intends to launch a partial self tender offer for 15% of its own shares at a fixed price of chf 16.00 per share * Coltene Holding AG is switching its accounting and reporting standard from IFRS to Swiss GAAP * Helvetia Holding AG PriceHubble completes multi-million round of financing * Plazza Immobilien AG says to achieve operating profit before depreciation and revaluation in 2017 that is slightly higher than in the previous year ECONOMY (Reporting by Zurich newsroom)

Daily Swiss stock market report in German................ All SMI constituent stocks............................ News on major Swiss stock price moves.................. FTSE Eurotop 300 index................................ DJ STOXX index........................................ Top 10 STOXX sectors............................. Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors........................ Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors....................... Top 25 European pct gainers... , losers... Swiss mid-cap index SMI futures Swiss all-share index Market statistics Swiss market digest Sector overview All Swiss news Swiss research news All equity news INTERNET ADDRESSES: Swiss Exchange / Eurex STOXX Ltd SPEED GUIDES: ))

Keywords: MARKETS SWISS STOCKS/
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 15 (Reuters) - South Africa sold 3.555 billion rand ($265 million) worth of three-month Treasury bills on Friday, at an average yield of 7.75 percent compared with 7.66 percent last week, central bank data showed. The bid-to-cover ratio fell to 1.3 from 1.5. Auction date: 15/12/2017 Settlement date: 20/12/2017 Days 92 182 273 364 Amount received (R'bln) 4.506 4.19 4.948 5.355 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 1.3 1.7 2.0 2.1 Avg discount rate (pct) 7.6 7.8 7.71 7.62 Average yield (pct) 7.75 7.95 8.13 8.19 ($1 = 13.4245 rand)

(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by James Macharia)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
FRANKFURT, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Germany's Thyssenkrupp , has offered assistance to Argentinian authorities in an investigation into the disappearance of a submarine last month, a spokesman said on Friday.

The ARA San Juan was delivered in 1985 and built by a unit of Thyssen AG, which merged with Krupp to form Thyssenkrupp in 1999.

"We have offered our support for the technical investigation into this tragedy and are in contact with the Argentinian navy in this respect," the spokesman said.

He said maintenance of the submarine was not conducted by Thyssenkrupp.

The submarine went missing on Nov. 15 with 44 crew members aboard in South Atlantic waters. The navy said on Nov. 27 that water that entered the submarine's snorkel caused its battery to short circuit before it went missing.

The tragedy underscored what some critics have described as the parlous state of Argentina's military, which has faced dwindling funding for years. German magazine WirtschaftsWoche earlier reported that a delegation of the Argentinian Navy had travelled to Kiel in northern Germany to discuss questions about the submarine with Thyssenkrupp. It did not identify its sources.

Argentinian President Mauricio Macri has called for a "serious and deep" investigation into the incident. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz; editing by Jason Neely)
(Recasts with Temer comment on votes)

BRASILIA, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Brazil's government has secured between 270 and 280 of the 308 votes needed to approve a bill to overhaul the country's bloated social security system in February, President Michel Temer said on Friday.

It was the first time Temer has said how many votes are still needed to reach the three-fifths super majority to pass the unpopular legislation that investors see as vital to bringing a huge budget deficit under control.

"That is the reason why we put off the vote until February," Temer said at the swearing-in of a cabinet minister who will be responsible for mustering the votes shortfall.

The measure is due to be put to the vote on Feb. 19, after the Christmas to Carnival Congressional recess, when it could meet with greater reluctance from lawmakers as the 2018 general election approaches.

The delay has increased market skepticism over Brazil's ability to rein in a deficit that caused the loss of its investment grade credit rating. Temer's new minister of political affairs, Carlos Marun, said the bill's approval will be his biggest challenge as he takes over government relations with Congress.

Marun was sworn in to succeed Antonio Imbassahy, whose PSDB party quit Temer's governing coalition and is split over delivering its 46 votes in the lower house to help pass Temer's pension plan.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Susan Thomas)
* Chairman says firm remains open to strategic investors

* Says needs more banks to support it at operational level

* Noble has about $3.5 billion in debt

(Adds comments from chairman, background)

SINGAPORE, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Struggling commodities trader Noble Group Ltd expects to soon receive a proposal from creditors on its debt restructuring and its priority is to stay out of an insolvency process, its chairman said.

Noble, once a global trader with ambitions to rival the likes of Glencore or Vitol, has shrivelled to an Asian-centric company focused largely on coal and freight trading after a crisis-wracked three years that have forced it to slash jobs and sell assets to cut debt.

Chairman Paul Brough, a restructuring specialist who was appointed this year, told Noble's shareholders on Friday the company remained open to strategic investors.

He said a compromise had to be reached between Noble and its creditors, and that the company would need more banks to support its operations.

Hong Kong-based Noble has about $3.5 billion in debt.

Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp , among its biggest shareholders, remained supportive of Noble's efforts to avoid an insolvency process, Brough added.

Noble was plunged into crisis in 2015 when Iceberg Research questioned its accounts. Noble stood by its accounts but a commodities downturn added to the turmoil, triggering a share price collapse, credit downgrades, writedowns and management changes. ($1 = 1.3470 Singapore dollars)

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
(Adds background, quotes)

MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russia's central bank on Friday put the country's 10th largest private lender by assets under temporary administration, the third such bailout in the Russian banking sector this year.

The central bank said in a statement it was providing funds to support Promsvyazbank's liquidity and would send in temporary administrators.

It said there would be no moratorium on Promsvyazbank meeting creditors' claims, and that the bank was operating as normal.

"As part of measures aimed at increasing (Promsvyazbank's) financial stability and ensuring its continued work in the banking services market, it is planned that the Bank of Russia act as an investor using the funds of the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund," the regulator said in a statement.

Russia's banking sector has been under intense scrutiny since the central bank was forced to step in to save two of the country's private lenders earlier this year.

Otkritie Bank and B&N Bank were both subject to central bank bailouts in the space of a month after disclosing holes in their balance sheets. Lawmaker Anatoly Aksakov, a member of the Duma finance committee and head of the Russian Banking Association, told TASS news agency Promsvyazbank's bailout would not affect the wider banking sector, and was the last time such a measure would be taken this year.

Sources close to Promsvyazbank told Reuters an agreement was reached late on Thursday night at a meeting between Promsvyazbank's co-owner and chairman, Dmitry Ananyev, and central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina Promsvyazbank is Russia's 10th biggest bank by assets, according to Interfax data. Dmitry Ananyev and his brother, Alexei, together control just over 50 percent of the bank.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Christian Lowe)
Williams' Paddy Lowe believes Felipe Massa was the perfect man for the job this year, in the Brazilian's final Formula 1 season.

After 15 years and a massive 269 Grands Prix, the curtain closed on Massa's F1 career. While it was undoubtedly a disappointing season for the Grove-based outfit, the lack of success took nothing away from Massa's legacy.

"I've obviously seen him from a distance for many many years and admired his driving, particularly in 2008 when he was a great competitor to Lewis," Lowe told Motorsport.com.

"I was with McLaren at that time, and as we know he was briefly world champion, so he is a world champion class driver and it's been great to work with him for this year, and get to know him as a person as well.

"He's a fantastic guy. There's nobody in the paddock that isn't a friend of Felipe and he's great fun to work with because he's always happy and that's not actually the case with all drivers.

"He's a really solid driver and dependable - that's absolutely what we needed in particular with a rookie in the other side of the garage.

"He's been a tremendous support to Lance, and giving him a lot of guidance along the way, which is to really be admired and respected. That's the kind of driver he is."

Lowe expressed one regret however, lamenting the fact that Williams could not add one last victory this year to Massa's 11-win career tally.

At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku however, it came very close. Massa suffered a suspension issue while running third when the race resumed after a red-flag period.

Future winner Daniel Ricciardo passed the Brazilian who progressively fell back before retiring.

"After Baku, which was a pretty eventful race, there were a lot of people that came up to me afterwards and said we could've won that race if only," remembers Lowe.

"I analysed it and I don't actually agree with most, but I definitely agreed with the Felipe scenario. If only we hadn't let him down with a car failure, he absolutely would've won that race.

"It's such a shame that in his final year, we denied him that victory. Everybody's gutted about that, but that's the story of motorsport sometimes."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
(Adds detail, trader's quote)

MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Russian ESPO Blend oil exports to China via the Skovorodino-Mohe pipeline are expected to jump by 57 percent to 6.7 million tonnes in the first quarter of 2018 compared with the previous three months, sources familiar with the loading schedule told Reuters on Friday.

Russia has become China's top supplier of oil with total deliveries exceeding 1 million barrels per day as part of its policy to boost ties with the Asia-Pacific amid a political stand-off with the West.

Earlier this week, Urals crude differentials in northwest Europe rose to the highest level since August 2013 in response to concerns over supplies of the grade for loading in January because of Russian plans to boost overland oil exports to China in 2018. Russia will supply 28.3 million tonnes of oil to China via the Skovorodino-Mohe pipeline in 2018 as part of an inter-governmental agreement, up from 16.5 million tonnes seen for 2017.

Sources said that Urals and Siberian Light oil exports from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk are seen unchanged, at 8.5 million tonnes in January-March.

Exports and transit of Urals oil from the Baltic Sea ports are seen declining to 19.1 million tonnes in the first quarter from 19.6 million tonnes in October-December, according to the sources.

They also said that Russian companies will likely further trim their seaborne Urals exports as Moscow has agreed to extend its oil production cuts until the end of 2018 as part of a global deal.

"I do not believe that the westward schedule will be fully completed," a trader said.

(Reporting by Gleb Gorodyankin; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Adrian Croft)
* British Columbia rejects KGHM proposed Ajax mine

* Refuses to issue environmental certificate for the project

* KGHM considers appeal

* No timeframe for final federal decision from Canada

(Releads, adds details from KGHM statement)

By Julie Gordon

VANCOUVER/WARSAW, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Polish miner KGHM said on Friday it was considering its next step after British Columbia said it would not issue an environmental certificate for its Ajax copper and gold mine in the province's interior.

The proposed mine aims to produce 109 million pounds of copper a year and 99,000 ounces of gold. It is located some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) from the city of Kamloops, in central British Columbia, and is on the traditional territories of four Indigenous communities.

British Columbia said on Thursday the adverse effects of the project would outweigh any benefit. The province's decision follows a seven-year joint review by provincial and federal regulators, which found that the project would have 53 residual and cumulative adverse effects, 21 of which were considered of moderate to high magnitude.

"KGHM Ajax (...) will consider taking further steps, which could include using an appeal measure," the Polish miner said in a statement released on Friday.

Canada's environment minister Catherine McKenna separately recommended against the project on Thursday, saying it was likely to cause "significant adverse environmental effects and cumulative effects to Indigenous heritage."

A final federal decision will come down to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet. No timeline was given for that decision.

In its statement, British Columbia said because the 1,700-hectare open pit mine would be so close to the city, and in particular an elementary school, it would present an "unacceptable risk."

It also noted that the area was of "high importance" to local First Nation groups and its development would have a significant effect on their heritage and right to use the land for traditional purposes.

KGHM has said the mine would create 1,800 construction jobs and 500 full-time positions, along with significant tax benefits for the city and province.

It entered into a joint venture to develop the project in 2010 with Abacus Mining which owned the rights and in 2012 increased its stake in the Ajax project to 80 percent from 51 percent.

Shares in KGHM fell by 0.05 percent at 1127 GMT.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon; Additional reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw; Editing by James Dalgleish and Elaine Hardcastle)
* HNA says finances are stronger than ever

* China's Citic Bank says HNA "experiencing temporary liquidity difficulties"

* Citic says HNA having difficulty repaying a commercial acceptance bill

(Recasts adds details about Citic Bank statement)

By Julie Zhu and Shu Zhang

Dec 15 (Reuters) - China's HNA Group said it had repurchased some of its bonds and planned to buy back more as one of the country's biggest banks stated the acquisitive conglomerate was experiencing repayment troubles.

In a statement issued late on Friday, China Citic Bank Corp said that HNA Group was "experiencing temporary liquidity difficulties", including difficulty repaying a commercial acceptance bill pledged by Hainan Airlines Holding Co , the conglomerate's flagship carrier.

Citic Bank had "expressed concern" and was working with HNA Group "to resolve the issue," it said in a statement.

When contacted by Reuters late on Friday, HNA denied that the group was facing any temporary liquidity difficulties or there was any repayment delays. It said its cooperation with Citic Bank was "fully normal".

HNA's $50 billion worth of deal-making in the past two years has sparked intense scrutiny of its opaque ownership and use of leverage. In June, the Chinese government told major banks to review their credit exposure to HNA and a handful of other non-state companies, putting pressure on its finances.

The airlines-to-financial services conglomerate said in a statement it had repurchased the bonds due to the "impact of recent market fluctuations" on prices but did not provide further details about the repurchases.

But HNA said it believed its finances were "stronger than ever" and that its debt-to-equity ratio now stands at 59.5 percent, compared with 82 percent seven years ago.

It also said that it has cooperative relationships with Chinese and foreign banks including UBS, Barclays and JPMorgan.

NON-CORE ASSETS SOLD

HNA subsidiaries have issued 5 billion yuan ($755 million) in domestic commercial paper over the last month, all yielding around 7 percent - a level considered high by analysts. Last month, HNA Group International Company Limited (HNAI), its Hong Kong-based international arm, agreed to a coupon of 8.875 percent on a $300 million one-year bond - a rate one investor advisor described as "scary high". HNA executives, speaking in an interview with Reuters last week, attributed the more expensive notes to tightening domestic markets, especially as the government moves to deleverage the economy as well as to a challenging global macroeconomic environment. The executives also said that while HNA would not sell assets blindly, it has been disposing of non-core businesses in line with the group's strategy. The company says it already has "cleaned up" more than 100 non-core units this year.

In other moves to boost investor confidence, senior HNA executives have also agreed to purchase $13 million worth of shares in HNA leasing subsidiary Bohai Capital Holdings , Bohai said on Wednesday. HNA also said in a separate statement on Wednesday that it had met officials from the branches of eight major Chinese banks to discuss lending to the group in 2018. It did not disclose further details of the meeting.

The conglomerate has found itself facing additional scrutiny and due diligence checks from financial regulators and some global banks following its July announcement that indicated two named shareholders were actually acting as proxies for company founding executives.

Reuters reported in September that Goldman Sachs had suspended its preliminary work on a planned U.S. listing for HNA's IT outsourcing unit Pactera, after the deal failed to meet the bank's internal due diligence requirements, or "know-your-customer" checks. HNA is moving forward to clear know-your-customer checks with some Wall Street banks, its executives told Reuters last week.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Shu Zhang; and Matthew Miller; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree, Edwina Gibbs and Keith Weir)
Dec 15 (Reuters) - Following are domestic prices of Vietnam's key commodities. Unit: Million dong per tonne Item Dec 11-15 Dec 4-8 Location Robusta beans 35.0-36.9 35.3-36.9 Central Highlands Black pepper 77.0 76.0-77.0 Southern region Refined sugar 15.0-16.0 15.0-16.0 Southern region Summer-autumn paddy 6.0-6.6 6.0-6.5 Mekong Delta SJC gold 3.650-3.654 3.646-3.656 Hanoi, HCMC City NOTES: Gold prices are low/high selling prices quoted in million dong per 3.75-gram ingot during the week by top manufacturer SJC. Prices in the previous week are updated. Coffee export prices Rice export prices Historical data Central bank's gold auction ($1 = 22,717 dong)

(Reporting by Mi Nguyen; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)

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.
David Malone of Clearfield, Iowa with the Kid's Train which was built by the late Larry Stevens. The train sits in the schoolyard of the old Clearfield School on the south end of town. David is involved in the train's preservation while also collecting gifts for area kids this Christmas season.
Strategy and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon, left, shakes hands with LG Group Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon before a meeting at LG Group headquarters on Yeouido, Seoul, Tuesday. The minister's visit to LG was part of a plan to meet with leaders of the nation's top conglomerates to discuss labor and other economic issues. / Korea Times photo by Oh Dae-geun



By Yoon Ja-young

The country's finance minister praised LG Group for its win-win strategy with suppliers after the company unveiled plans to set up an 850 billion won fund for shared growth with them.

Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon had a meeting with LG Group Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon and other group executives at the conglomerate's headquarters in Yeouido, downtown Seoul, the same day. At the meeting were vice ministers of other economy-related ministries as well as LG Group Vice Chairman Ha Hyun-hwoi, LG Electronics Vice Chairman Jo Seong-jin and executives of LG's suppliers.

The meeting was a friendly gesture toward businesses by the Moon Jae-in administration, which said it would listen to businesspeople following the President's meeting with conglomerate chairmen in July. Following the get together with LG Group, coordinated by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the government plans to hold meetings with the heads of SMEs and mid-tier companies with new technologies.

The finance minister stressed job creation. "The most crucial thing in economic policy next year is job creation. The government is very interested in new industries that can create jobs," he said.

He also asked LG Group to suggest fresh win-win strategies whereby conglomerates and SMEs can share the fruits of growth while praising it as an example other conglomerates should follow.

"A fair economy is one of the main policy directives of the administration. I must emphasize efforts for win-win strategies. Stealing technologies developed by SMEs or forcing cuts in supply prices will dampen their innovative efforts," the minister said.

According to industry sources, the KCCI recommended LG Group as the first conglomerate to have a meeting with the finance minister because of its fair corporate governance structure and win-win strategy with suppliers.

LG Group Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon said that LG will support the government plan.

"LG plans to contribute to the economic development by pouring resources and expertise into innovative growth. We will give our suppliers technology and an infrastructure so that they can hone their competitive edge to a global level," the vice chairman said.

LG Group also unveiled plans to invest 19 trillion won next year to create 10,000 new jobs.

After the meeting, the finance minister talked briefly to reporters. He said LG also suggested how the government and company should jointly deal with U.S. "safeguards" on Korean washing machines. Following a safeguards petition by Whirlpool, the U.S. International Trade Commission recommended a 50 percent tariff on washers manufactured by LG and Samsung that exceed a 1.2 million quota.
Yom Sang-seop's "Three Generations" was published in book form in 1947 after serializing in newspaper. / Courtesy of National Library of Korea

By Kwon Mee-yoo



Yom Sang-seop (1897-1963), who wrote "Frog in the Specimen Room" and "Three Generations," is a pioneer of modern literature in Korea, often dubbed a "writer of the period of dissatisfaction." However, Yom's life and much of his works are lesser known, except for his major novels.



An exhibition at the National Library of Korea sheds light on the writer as a result of the library's efforts to collect modern Korean literature. Some books are on public view for the first time in decades.



At the "Yom Sang-seop Literature Exhibition," commemorating the 120th anniversary of the writer's birth, an extensive collection of Yom's books and artifacts are on display, including a rare first edition of Yom's first novel, "Sunflower," which is on view for the first time.



Lee Jong-ho, a Sungkyunkwan University professor of Korean literature, said Yom was a middle-class conservative who was politically middle-of-the-road.



"Yom experienced a variety of governing systems _ he was born in Seoul, studied in Japan, returned to Korea and worked as a reporter," Lee said. "Then he moved to Manchuria where he celebrated the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule. During the Korean War, he lived in Seoul but did not escape, so spent three months under North Korean control. These diverse experiences led him to criticize both modernism and socialism, suggesting an alternative style of modern life."



Yom took part in Korea's independence movement against Japanese colonial rule and was arrested for his activities.



For the March 1 Movement in 1919, Yom wrote a statement on behalf of the Korean laborers in Osaka, Japan. Though he was arrested for the statement, he clearly shows a desire for democracy in the Declaration of Independence.



Yom experimented on naturalistic and realistic literary styles for the first time in modern Korea.



Yom's first published novel was known as "Mansejeon" (Before Independence Hurrah) in 1924, but the National Library's collection revealed that "Sunflower" was published 10 days earlier. "Sunflower" is a novel about free love and the marriage of a "new woman," inspired by Na Hye-sok, a modernist painter and writer who married Kim Woo-young.



Yom worked as a newspaper reporter while pursuing his career as a writer. The exhibit gives insight into how he was able to do both jobs during those turbulent times.



His is mostly well known for "Three Generations," which was serialized in a newspaper in 1931. The epic novel revolved around three generations of a landlord family in Seoul and how a socialist and a bourgeoisie showed solidarity to change Joseon under Japanese colonial rule. Illustrations for the novel featured in the newspaper and photos of the times are displayed together to help with understanding.



Yom went to Manchuria as editor-in-chief of the Manseon Ilbo newspaper, on the condition of ceasing his literary work. After Korea's liberation, Yom moved back to Seoul and his experience of crossing North Korea inspired him to write "The 38th Parallel."



He continued to write and protected democratic values in his later days. "Sudden Rain" was written based on his experience as a military writer in the navy during the Korean War.



"Yom was not in the mainstream of Korean literature, but consistently pursued his own literary world, criticizing society," Lee said.



The exhibit runs through Feb. 25. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.nl.go.kr or call 02-535-4142.


The "lion head" dish / Courtesy of Millennium Seoul Hilton



By Yun Suh-young



Royal cuisine in Korea has a tradition of being mild, less spicy and cooked slowly with meticulous care.

Chinese royal cuisine is no different. It is characterized by its mildness due to the lack of spices.



Huaiyang cuisine, as it is called, is China's most prestigious cooking style, frequently provided at official banquets hosted by the Chinese central government when foreign dignitaries visit. It has been the cuisine for kings in the thousands of years of China's rich history.



In Korea, it is rare to find Huaiyang style cuisine, as the more popularly known ones are Shandong or Sichuan styles. Hence it will be a rare opportunity to enjoy China's Huaiyang cuisine which is offered in a promotion at the Chinese restaurant Taipan in the Millennium Seoul Hilton until Dec. 22. The limited promotion event has invited master chef Qi Zhi Hai from the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in Singapore, a sister hotel of the Millennium Seoul Hilton, to

prepare the courses.



Huaiyang cuisine is one of the four major Chinese cuisines along with Sichuan, Shandong and Cantonese.



Whereas Sichuan cuisine is hot and spicy, and Shandong cuisine (prevalent in northern China) is characterized by hot, stir-fried dishes, Huaiyang cuisine is more about stewing, braising and steaming over a low fire. Huaiyang used to be the "city of salt," hence the cuisine uses no other seasoning than salt, which explains its mildness. Other than its delicate taste, it is also characterized by a strict selection of ingredients, exquisite workmanship, and elegant shape.





Chef Qi Zhi Hai of the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in Singapore / Courtesy of Millennium Seoul Hilton
By Kim Rahn





South Korean President delivers a speech at Peking University in Beijing during his state visit to China, Friday. / Yonhap
By You Soo-sun



The government is considering a plan to increase elementary school hours to tackle the country's declining birth rate. But education officials are fiercely resisting the move.



According to Yonhap News Agency Friday, the presidential committee on the low birth rate and aging society is considering the plan to support dual-income earners with childcare.



"In order to solve the low-birth issue, we need to think differently," a committee member told Yonhap. "We are considering to first address the gap in the provision of care for children enrolled in elementary school."



Whereas most childcare centers and preschools provide care until after 6 p.m., elementary schools mostly end around 2 p.m., leaving children by themselves until parents get off work.



This is often cited as a reason for women leaving the workforce or sending their children to private academies while they are at work.



According to a Statistics Korea report, about 20 percent of 9.05 million married women between 15 and 54 said they quit their jobs to give birth or to take care of their children or families.



Most, or 51.2 percent, were aged 30 to 39, when women are most likely to have children in elementary school.



Compared with most other OECD countries, class hours at Korean elementary schools are relatively short.



In Korea, first and second graders spend on average 2.93 hours in class a day; the number rises to 3.47 for third and fourth graders and 3.87 for fifth and sixth graders.



In the U.S., France and England, students spend an average of 4.9, 4.8 and 4.67 hours in class respectively.



However, education officials are opposed to the plan, arguing this will increase the burden on students and teachers.




China has ordered swift and thorough investigation into Chinese security guards' violence against South Korean journalists who were covering a presidential event held in Beijing on Thursday, a Seoul foreign ministry official said Friday.

"An official of the Chinese foreign ministry's bureau handling the Asian region contacted us last night and explained the measures that have been and will be taken in response to the incident," he told reporters on condition of anonymity.

"He said that (his ministry) has asked for relevant government agencies to immediately launch an investigation into this case ... (and) will take necessary measures, though it will take time to figure out what exactly happened," he added.

According to the source at the South Korean foreign ministry, the Chinese official still hoped that what he called an "accidental unfortunate event" would not negatively affect the ongoing state visit by the South Korean leader.

On Thursday, Chinese security guards beat and injured two South Korean photojournalists who were covering a business function attended by President Moon Jae-in hours before his summit with Xi Jinping.












By Kim Rahn



BEIJING  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has expressed sympathy for the seriousness of the violence involving South Korean photojournalists and Chinese security guards which took place Thursday during South Korean President Moon Jae-in's state visit to the country, officials from Cheong Wa Dae and the Korean foreign ministry said, Friday.



Relevant Chinese authorities are investigating the case and would take necessary measures after finishing probe, they said.



According to the officials, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha expressed strong regret to Wang over the incident at the summit between Moon and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, hours after the violence in which Chinese security guards roughed up South Korean photojournalists who were following Moon at a trade event.



"Wang then said he sympathized with the seriousness of the case," a ministry official said.






Civic activists hold a rally near the Chinese Embassy in Myeong-dong, Seoul, Friday, demanding punishment for Chinese security guards who assaulted two Korean photojournalists in Beijing, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Yi Whan-woo



Public sentiment toward China is worsening here after two Korean photojournalists were beaten by more than a dozen Chinese security guards during a trade event attended by President Moon Jae-in in Beijing, Thursday.



The incident came a day after a dispute about Moon being greeted by Chinese Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs Kong Xuanyou upon Moon's arrival at Beijing for a state visit.



Kong's rank is disputed because China previously sent its vice foreign minister or upper-level officials to greet heads of state visiting the country.



Under the circumstances, the attack on Korean photographers agitated feelings here that China is still humiliating and mistreating Korea despite the agreement they reached in October to end the row over the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery deployed in Korea.



Citing a statement issued by the Korea Professional Photographers Association in protest of Thursday's attack, the opposition accused China, Friday, of "committing violence against the Republic of Korea."



"It should be made clear the pride of our people is severely bruised," said Ahn Cheol-soo, chairman of the second-largest opposition People's Party. "Korean diplomacy cannot hang its head in shame."






By Jung Min-ho







Woo Byung-woo, one of the key figures behind the Choi Soon-sil scandal, has been arrested over allegations he instructed the state spy agency to monitor government officials and civilians.





The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Woo early Friday morning. Previously, the court rejected the prosecution's requests for an arrest warrant for him twice.





Woo is suspected of directing the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to secretly keep tabs on senior government officials, including former presidential inspector Lee Seok-su and former Vice Culture Minister Park Min-kwon, and even civilians such as former Woori Bank CEO Lee Kwang-goo.





Woo, who served as the presidential secretary for civil affairs from May 2014 to October 2016, did so allegedly to help then-President Park Geun-hye keep tight control over her officials and suppress her political opponents.





Prosecutors also accused him of abusing his authority to hide his own illegalities. When Lee Seok-su was looking into allegations Woo helped his son get an easy and safe position with the police during his mandatory military service, Woo allegedly instructed the NIS to keep track of Lee.





Separately, Woo is standing trial on charges of overlooking and covering up the illegal influence-peddling of the former president's friend Choi Soon-sil.





He is also under suspicion of obstructing the investigation into the 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewol to protect the Park administration.






Visitors assess the interior of a hanok up for public bidding for two years rent by Seoul Metropolitan Government at a open house held Dec. 8. / Yonhap



Seoul government to rent out second traditional Korean house



By Kim Ji-soo



Bukchon Hanok Village, located in Jongno-gu, is a unique hybrid of a neighborhood. It's an old part of Seoul that at the same time accompanies modern structures such as the Hyundai building and the Constitutional Court alongside traditional-style Korean residential houses known as "hanok." It is also a tourist area, drawing both foreigners and Koreans to view the nooks and crannies of the small alleys that house both the old and the new.

A hanok located in the inner alleys of the neighborhood is for rent as part of a project by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

A modernized version of the hanok was a popular form of housing for Seoulites in the 1970s, before most people moved to apartments. Now a rarity, they are mostly concentrated in Bukchon and Seochon, as a type of housing preferred by people now more willing to embrace the challenges of living in one.

But through a project with the city government, people have a chance to live in one of 29 affordable hanok, which are available to the public.

Last week, the city government put up for public bidding a second hanok that will be rented out for two years to a successful candidate. The city government held an open house there on Friday and Saturday. On the first day, a sizeable group of people gathered at the hanok, which is a unique combination of a two-story white Western-style structure linked to a two-bedroom hanok.

While the market value may be higher, the city government said it will begin the bidding at around 5.3 million won per year for the two-year lease.

Lee Ju-young, a 50-year-old who lives in Dongdaemun-gu, eastern Seoul, was seriously considering moving in. "We could use that Western-style part of the house as a library, and this hanok edifice as the living quarters. If I get to rent this, it would mean a return to hanok living many decades since I lived in one in my childhood. From then on, it's always been apartments," she said during the open house.

Yoo, a 35-year-old also from Seoul, surveyed the hanok with her husband, last Friday.

"We are looking at it with interest, as there is an elementary school nearby for our two children," she said, while she and her husband were busy assessing the walls and the necessary heating for the house. "But with so many people here today, I am afraid the bidding price may go up."

Interested bidders crowd the hanok up for bidding at Gahoe-dong, northern Seoul, Dec. 8. / Yonhap



The house has an area of about 83 square meters. It is also less affected by the noise and eyes of interested sightseers as it is located off the main roads.

The Western structure looks like it might date back to Japanese colonial times (1910-1945). Jung Mee-young, a team leader at the Hanok Development Division of the Housing & Architecture Bureau of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said it's hard to determine the exact date when the hanok was built.

"Experts, however, will launch a study to see whether the white structure there may well be a modern/contemporary architectural relic that city might have to protect," Jung said. She said until recently, the city government had been renting out its hanok for traditional craft workshops. However, with the increasing interest in the traditional Korean lifestyle, including hanok, the city government decided to give people the chance to experience the pros and cons of living in one before purchase.

After Jung's brief presentation of the hanok and the bidding process, people bombarded her with questions about heating, parking, possible renovations and estimated monthly living costs.

The ardent interest in renting the hanok also stems, in part, from the uncertainty of when the city government will put up the next hanok for rent. The first one, located in Gye-dong, also in Bukchon, was rented out last year to a newlywed couple. The second one's inhabitant will be determined sometime this month.
An anti-tank barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file



By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo, Park Seo-gang, Kim Joo-young



Driving north from Seoul provides a chance to see some structures you might not have seen elsewhere: giant concrete blocks mounted on thin walls.



From a distance, they look like supersized dolmen, or ancient T-shaped tombs, with cars or trains running underneath. Up close, they could be mistaken for half-built tunnels.



These "rock drops" that can be spotted on major highways and railways stretching from Seoul to the inter-Korean border are legacies of the Cold War era -- anti-tank barricades.



South Korea installed them after the 1950-53 Korean War, fearing North Korea could invade again. If it happened, and armored vehicles steamed down from the North, the South Korean military would blow up the columns holding the blocks to delay the advance to Seoul, South Korea's most populous city.



The two Koreas are still technically at war because the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Chances of another war are low, but the North's repeated provocations are triggers of a whole different story.



With the peninsula's security hanging in the balance, the barricades, each weighing 120 tons, have spawned safety concerns.



Built over 30 years ago



The barricades were built in the 1970s and 1980s, and their age is causing concerns. Paju City, in northern Gyeonggi Province, has 53 barricades, of which 43 were built before the mid-1980s.





A vehicle passes under one of the concrete blocks. / Korea Times file



Vibrations from passing vehicles weaken concrete structures over time and the barricades' weight increases the possibility of subsidence.



Apartment buildings that are 30 years old or more are usually rebuilt.



"When the strength of concrete is strong, it can withstand ground subsidence. But if it becomes weak, the barricade can collapse in an instant," Park Jong-guk, the head of the Citizen Safety Watch Center, said. "Accidents can be prevented by examining the strength and corrosion with a non-destructive inspection of barricades over 30 years old."



However, the rock drops have been maintained for security reasons. The Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, went to Paju City and checked 20 barricades. It saw the edges of the columns supporting the barricades chipped away and walls cracked. The ceiling of the overhead drops also had water leaks. There were no "Do not access" or "No pictures allowed" signs.





An anti-tank barricade in Goyang City. / Korea Times file



"The responsible troops regularly check the safety of the concrete barricades through observation during their operations," a Ministry of National Defense official said.



A military officer, surnamed Jeon, 45, begged to differ.



"I don't remember ever checking the security of the concrete walls, except when training to blow up the walls in case of emergency," he said.



The barricades also were not designed to withstand earthquakes.



"The walls were built so that they would collapse in case of emergency, so they were not built to resist earthquakes," the official said.



The barricades are made up of several 4.6 ton concrete blocks a meter wide, a meter long and two meters tall. They sit on top of a 20-centimeter thick column. Put together, the barricade could drop a weight of 120 tons.





The cracked barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file



There are about 250,000 vehicles a day that pass by the barricades and their vibrations contribute to weakening the structures.



Despite safety concerns, tearing down barricades is a complicated matter.



"We cannot do anything about the structures without the cooperation of the military," a Gyeonggi Province Government official said. "Even after consulting with the military, the local government has to provide the budget, which could take a long time."





The cracked wall of the anti-tank barricade in Paju City. / Korea Times file




By Yi Whan-woo





Cheong Wa Dae established a new presidential advisory committee tasked with helping President Moon Jae-in shape his key policy agenda, Friday.







Chung Hae-gu, a progressive-minded professor of political science at Sungkonghoe University, leads the committee. He served on the State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee, the de facto transition team for Moon when he took office in May without a transition period.







The committee will focus on managing the government's 100 major policies, which were chosen after months of discussion among the people, the government and the National Assembly.







The committee will also develop long-term strategies for economic and social development.







It held its first meeting immediately after its inauguration ceremony at Kim Koo Museum in Hyochang-dong, Seoul.







Moon, who is visiting China, asked the committee in a statement to "focus on improving the quality of people's lives, as well as the co-prosperity of the country."







"This committee is like a think tank for my administration," he said. "It will be meaningless if it does not help the government make changes in the people's lives for the better. I hope it serves as a bridge among the bureaucrats, private experts and the public."







Moon asked Cheong Wa Dae to support the committee. He said each government organization, including the ministries, should execute tasks in accordance with the policies, while the committee should ensure such policies are working properly.


By Kwon Ye-mi





I am an immigrant. My host society is the United States and my source society is South Korea. However, I did not leave South Korea for negative or positive reasons. I say this because there were no Korea push (things that are unfavorable) or United States pull (things that are attracting) reasons for the move. In spite of push and pull factors, government rules control who, why, and how many people can leave and enter a country.



One writer said the motto of all immigrants is "Where there is bread, there is my country." Perhaps the better saying could be "Where there is a bread-and-butter job, there is my country." Of course, there are many other reasons why people become expats. However, these mottos seem to be true for most cases.



Almost every country in the world is a source for the more than 40 million U.S. immigrants. Most are here legally and give useful valuable qualities to American society. U.S. public opinion about immigrants living in the country is mostly positive. About 63 percent of Americans say immigrants strengthen the country "because of their hard work and talent." Plus, there seems to be mostly positive views about Asian immigrants, according to Pew Research Center.



What is unusual about U.S. immigration is that over half of the immigration in the past 50 years has come from just seven countries: Mexico, the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Korea, India and the Dominican Republic. Not a single European country (exporters of the first American settlers and colonists) is on that list!



What is not unusual about U.S. immigration is that settlement patterns in big cities where culture shock and adjustment difficulties are easier to deal with because of the help and support of already settled expats. And, this is true for over 2 million U.S. Koreans out of over 7 million overseas Koreans, according to Korea's foreign affairs ministry.



Most are drawn to Koreatowns across the U.S., especially, the metro areas of LA, NYC, and D.C. according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2015, which includes Annandale, Virginia, 28.5 kilometers away where my daughter lives. She is on a student visa and is seeking permanent status adjustment. Over 1,000 Korean-owned businesses are there to make sure she will not become homesick. Regardless, there are Koreans in outlying regions such as North Dakota and Wyoming, with a little over 400 expats each.



Koreans adjust and adapt well here and many do as the natives do, however, once here you do not have to feel like "a man without a country." For example, four Korean-language TV stations broadcast in the Atlanta, Georgia, area and there is the daily Atlanta Chosun newspaper. Hangeul on storefront signs advertise samgyeopsal, bulgogi and more. Not to be overlooked are the North American New Jersey headquarters of Samsung, LG Corporation and Hanjin Shipping container transport company, and H Mart that specializes in providing Asian foods.



Seo Jae-pil and Yu Gil-jun in the late 1800s, and Ahn Chang-ho and the 102 Korean employees assigned to the Waialua Sugar Plantation on the island of Oahu in the very early 1900s marked the beginning of Korean immigration to the United States. Today, with globalization and technology advances, hardships are less. Chosun is everywhere. Kuh reh! Kuh reh!





The writer (rinak524@naver.com) was an English conversation teacher in South Korea and now lives in Virginia.


ERU first supplies batch of gas from U.S. to Ukraine

The ERU Group has imported around 70 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas from the United States to Ukraine via the Swinoujscie LNG terminal in Poland, the co-owner of the group, Andriy Favorov, has told Interfax-Ukraine.

"Yes, we have received LNG via a terminal in Poland. The amount is around 70 mcm," he said.

Favorov said that purchase of gas is secured by OPIC.

He did not specify the price of gas.

He said that some amount of gas from the United States has been sold to Ukrainian consumers and some amount was pumped into underground gas storage facilities.

"We sold some gas to consumers, some gas at a tender to Ukrtransgaz and we store some gas in storage facilities. We manage the portfolio," he said.

As reported, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), an U.S. Government agency, provided guarantees for a $38 million loan to Energy Resources of Ukraine (ERU) to purchase gas, including its imports from the United States.

ERU Group belongs to Favorov, Dale Perry and Yaroslav Mudriy.
Moon-Xi summit reaffirms resolve for peace



President Moon Jae-in's first trip to China since taking office in May produced some important outcomes.



The two countries need to find ways to move their relations forward despite the row over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, which is an issue that will not go away any time soon. The latest Korea-China summit Thursday provided the much-needed impetus for rebuilding ties.



First, it is meaningful that President Moon and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping reaffirmed their commitment to peace on the Korean Peninsula. The two countries announced four principles on North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations: no war on the Korean Peninsula, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations, and improvement in inter-Korean relations.



It is also notable that the two leaders agreed to establish a hotline for closer communication on bilateral issues. This reflects the strong will of the two countries to maintain close consultations on issues of mutual interest as well as a growing rapport between the two leaders.



Another important outcome of Moon's visit is that it reaffirmed the two countries' shared history. President Moon sent Korean Ambassador to China Noh Young-min to the state ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre Wednesday, the day he arrived in China, rather than carry out the customary role of the ambassador to greet the visiting President at the airport.



The Chinese side showed appreciation for Moon's thoughtful gesture. "Both China and the Republic of Korea are victims of World War II," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said during a press conference Thursday. "We appreciate President Moon Jae-in's instruction for Ambassador Noh Young-min to attend the state memorial ceremony of the National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre victims."



Moon's efforts to reach out to the Chinese people by having breakfast at a local restaurant and delivering a speech at Peking University were effective in bringing the peoples of the two countries closer.



Some aspects of the President's four-day trip China trip were regrettable. Moon's visit was marred by the beating of Korean journalists covering the President's activities in China by Chinese security guards.



Also, the summit still showed the two countries are on different pages regarding THAAD. There was also little progress on extracting China's stronger action in dealing with North Korea or confirming Xi's visit to Korea during the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in February.



The two countries should continue to work together for mutually beneficial results on regional security and the economy.




By Oh Young-jin





The unbelievable beating of Korean journalists accompanying President Moon Jae-in on his Chinese visit Thursday has failed to deter Moon.

Neither did Beijing's poor reception of the Korean president at the airport a day earlier.

What Moon seeks is clear: he wants to court China even at the cost of Korea's alliance with the United States.

Unlikely as it may sound, Moon's effort to get Korea what amounts to a divorce from its long security and economic partner has been under way with little popular opposition. To detect what's going on, three recent developments should be put together.

The first is about U.S. President Donald Trump's state visit to Korea in November, preceded by a visit from his Defense Secretary James Mattis.

During their previous summit in June in Washington, Moon and Trump set the year-end deadline to move on with a concrete plan to enable Korea to take wartime control of its troops now under American control. Mattis and Defense Minister Song Young-moo met for the annual Security Consultative Meeting but couldn't find any agreement, so the two presidents had nothing to tell the public after their Seoul summit.

The bone of contention is the structure of a new command that will replace the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC). Currently, Gen. Vincent Brooks, the American four-star general in Korea, commands the CFC, with a Korean four-star general serving as his deputy commander. In the new command, the chain of command will be reversed, with a Korean general to serve as the commander.

Bruce Bennett, a Korea expert from RAND Corp., said it would be a deal breaker.

"The U.S. military would have a hard time in accepting it because there is no precedent," Bennett said. It also goes beyond the pride or tradition of the American military and comes down to the practicality of operations when the U.S. provides the nuclear umbrella to deter the North from attacking the South or sends reinforcements to push back the invading North Koreans, he said.

Then, he referred to U.S. congressional opposition to putting American military resources under foreign control. One alternative could be having a junior American general  lieutenant general or major general  serve a Korean four-star general. It would likely entail a reduced U.S. commitment that leads to a U.S. drawdown. Another is to go against the principle of unity of command and officially allow the junior American commander to disagree  the drawback being a weakened command structure. Bennett suggested the postponement of the handover, which looks unlikely under Moon's presidency.

The second giveaway is a U.S. visit by Thae Young-ho, a senior diplomat who defected to the South in August last year. The Moon government had expected to reduce Thae's public appearances for fear of adversely affecting its bid to open dialogue with Pyongyang. As a matter of fact, Hwang Jang-yop, the architect of the North's founding "juche," or self-reliance philosophy, was virtually shut out of the public eye during the Kim Dae-jung government that prioritized inter-Korean reconciliation.

Bennett saw Moon allowing Thae to appear as showing how angry Moon is with the North for repeatedly rejecting his proposal for dialogue. But on the flipside, it may signify his confidence in dealing with the North and the resolution of its nuclear and missile threats. Moon's positive sentiment reflects that of the Korean public that knows through a mixture of wishful thinking and experience, peace has been maintained on the Korean Peninsula despite many close calls through nearly seven decades after the 1950-53 Korean War. That public sentiment is based on the reality of a lopsided growth difference between the two Koreas  in a long game, the South is bound to win.

Finally, why China over the U.S.? It is related to Moon's lineage as declared successor of his mentor and friend, the late President Roh Moon-hyun's effort to gain a sense of independence from Washington's influence and play the role of regional "balancer of power" to mediate between the two superpowers. But when Roh talked about it, it was a vision. Now for Moon, it can become closer to a reality. China is an unstoppable juggernaut that is bound to clash and cooperate with the U.S. for now and may replace the U.S. as the sole regional hegemon.

That's why Moon has put up with China's poor treatment and its leader Xi Jinping's bellicose attitude over Korea's deployment of the U.S. missile defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery. Moon may have lost some face but it is obvious that his loss has been more than compensated for  Chinese tourists are coming back to Seoul streets, K-pop stars are in Beijing again and Moon has exchanged a handshake with Xi in Beijing. Their latest summit shows their maturity by not letting the THAAD disagreement get in the way of their agreements in other areas such as the North.

In this context, how could one see Moon's expression of commitment to buy billions of dollars of American weaponry during his November summit with Trump? Isn't it alimony ahead of a divorce or spousal support to ease the pain of separation? The question is for Americans to ask.





Oh Young-jin (foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com) is The Korea Times' digital news managing editor.


By Hwang Ga-yeon



Is sex appeal only a man's job? Though it sounds outdated, it is still so at least in dating applications, which are popular among young people these days.



Dating apps have become a huge trend in Korea, with more than 170 targeting consumers. The value of the market is estimated to reach 50 billion won ($46 million) with 3.3 million users.



Amanda is one of the top 100 most popular apps on Google Play Store. More than 4 million users have subscribed to Amanda since its release in October 2014. According to Next Match, the developer of Amanda, the app is "the most popular and profitable dating app in the market."



Swithme, developed by BNK Lab, is the No. 3 dating app by sales on Google Play Store as of Nov. 30 and has about 50,000 active users daily. BNK Lab describes itself as a "dating app specialist," having rolled out four so far.



The huge popularity, however, seems to be driven mostly by male users. And when it comes to in-app payment, there is an even greater gap between the genders.



According to a Next Match official, 90 percent of paid members of Amanda are male. BNK Lab also said 70 percent of in-app payments come from males.



Most dating apps charge higher amounts to men than women for the same services, such as opening other users' profiles or sending messages.



For instance, at both Amanda and Swithme, men have to spend 5 points to open a woman's profile, while women only need 2 points to do so. On both apps, 30 points cost 4,500 won.



Another feature that raises questions is messaging. At Amanda, a user who wants to open a chatroom with another user has to pay 15 points. While Swithme requires double that, the app operators said men open chatrooms in most cases due to the unbalanced gender ratio.



With the different charging system and one-sided gender ratio, both apps are deemed almost impossible for a male user to start a conversation with a female user without payment. However, such conditions do not occur with women, especially when they have an attractive profile.



The gender difference reappears in app operators' sales pitches as well.



Noon Date, ranked No. 3 by sales on the Google store, targets women's curiosity avoiding explicit mention of dating: "Are you cute or not?" "Check your first impression here!" or "Make casual friends in your town!"



On the other hand, ads for men read: "Be a couple in five minutes!" or "Girls flocking to your inbox," implying direct relationships with women.



Raising controversy is that the app operators consider this unbalanced structure as their key revenue source and encourage it.



Dating app officials say their priority is to retain as many female users as possible. But they have low expectations for women's in-app payments.



"We do have a low expectation for women when it comes to in-app payments," a BNK Lab official said.



According to him, the lower payment for female users is designed to lessen their resistance to joining and using the dating app, a policy aimed at bringing more female users.



"Less female users mean less opportunities for men. This is not just for our company but the users," he said. "Instead, we offer other services such as free events so men wouldn't feel displeased."



However, not everyone seems to agree with the company's explanation. "It is understandable that the conventional idea in Korea is that men pay more to connect with women, but it feels really uncomfortable that companies are exploiting such a mindset," said a Seoul citizen who asked not to be named.



"I don't think companies' explanation that the imbalanced payment system lowers women's resistance to dating apps makes sense," said Jung Seul-ah of women's rights activist group Womenlink. "If there's resistance in those apps, it would rather have stemmed from fears over prevalent online sex crimes."



Jung said men might expect women's feedback depending on the amount they spent on the app, which results in unhealthy relationships. She said such marketing reflects the conventional idea that men should be financially successful in order to attract women.



"I'm afraid it suggests sexual prejudice is being reproduced," she said. "Dating expenses should be dealt with differently in each relationship, not pre-made by social norms or apps charging systems," she said.



Next Match said there have not been many complaints about the charging system so far.



"It reflects real life. The interested one would express affection _ it just happens to be male most of the time," the official said. "We wanted women to be active and we will see how our charging system benefits successful matching."



"It is really about the culture _ how users manage their conversations and build a dating culture," Jung said. "Dating app companies should build entertaining strategies so users voluntarily join."


By Lee Min-hyung



The largest-ever business delegation will accompany President Moon Jae-in's four-day state visit to China slated to begin today, raising expectations for a thaw in the ongoing icy economic relations between the two countries.



More than 260 business leaders and high-ranking executives from the nation's top conglomerates - such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai and Lotte - and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) will join the delegation. They will participate in a series of economic events with their Chinese counterparts, discussing possible business partnerships and sharing plans for mutual growth, according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI).



This comes amid the year-long economic and political tension between Seoul and Beijing over Korea's decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system here last year. It was aimed at defending the nation from North Korea's possible missile threats.



But the Chinese government has since stepped up its criticism over the decision, claiming the THAAD radar can monitor mainland China and has been pushing retaliatory measures on Korean firms operating businesses there.



The business leaders include Lotte Vice Chairman Lee Won-joon. Lee will join the delegation, replacing its Chairman Shin Dong-bin who is facing a trail for alleged embezzlement.



The nation's fifth largest conglomerate has been hit hardest by the THAAD aftermath, as the company offered the site for the THAAD system. For various reasons, China has suspended operations at more than 80 Lotte Mart discount stores in China.



Hyundai Motor is another Korean company suffering from China's retaliation against the THAAD. The Chinese branch of the Seoul automaker reported a 40-percent drop in sales in the first half of the year, compared to a year ago. Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun will join the delegation on behalf of his elderly father Chung Mong-koo who is the chairman of Hyundai Motor Group.



As the Chinese government has recently shown signs of partially easing economic tensions on South Korea, the delegation expects the upcoming business trip will help further improve the chilly relations between the two countries and get their business partnerships back on the right track.



Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Yoon Boo-keun will also accompany Moon on behalf of Samsung Group heir Lee Jae-yong. Lee is in prison for corruption and bribery. Samsung is the nation's top conglomerate in market capitalization.



Other business leaders will include SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn and LG Group Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon.



"The largest-ever business delegation is being formed with a variety of events, including a Korea-China economic forum. A record number of 160 SMEs are included in the delegation," said an official from the KCCI.


Prosecutor-turned-chairman prefers taking legal action





Daewoong Pharmaceutical Chairman Yoon Jae-seung
By Chyung Eun-ju





An American woman was forced to leave a Starbucks store in Walnut Creek, California, after unleashing offensive remarks to two Korean-speaking customers on Dec. 10, according to reports.







Video footage shows the woman appearing to get angry at the customers for speaking in Korean. She told the two that they should speak "English only" and she could not stand hearing "disgusting" Korean.







Sean Lee was tutoring a community college student, Annie An, at the time.







"If you can sit and be quiet, fine. But I don't want to hear your language," the woman said to the two students. "Especially that Oriental, I hate it."







A barista told the woman: "I'm sorry, but they are allowed to speak their language."







The woman fought back: "You know what, President Obama said that everyone in here, the majority in America, should speak English."







Two Starbucks employees asked the woman to leave, but later called police because she did not comply.







Video:








A prank caller who called in the "mining" of Lisova, Lybidska metro stations, as well as the a pretrial detention facility in Kyiv, has been sentenced by Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky District Court to a five-year prison term, the National Police of Ukraine's press service has said.

The court sentenced the native of Vinnytsia region, who twice called 102 to report plans to blow up the two Kyiv metro stations and a state facility for holding criminals, pursuant to Part 1 of Article 259 of Ukraine's Criminal Code (conveying false information about a threat to citizens, the destruction or damaging of property) to a five-year jail term.

The police press service said law-enforcement officials and bomb experts inspected Lisova and Lybidska metro stations, as well as the pretrial holding facility. No bombs or incendiary devices were found during their search.

Police conducted a number of checks to determine the identity of the prankster, who is an ex-convict from Vinnytsia region. The perpetrator called in the threat from a telephone and in court confessed his guilt. He said he made the prank calls to entertain himself.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) would provide a EUR 6 million loan to municipal enterprise Kremenchuk Municipal Energy Servicing Company for energy saving projects in 38 kindergartens, 23 schools and five hospitals.

EBRD Senior Adviser Anton Usov told Interfax-Ukraine that the decision was made by the EBRD board on December 14 as part of the approved Ukraine Public Sector Energy Efficiency Framework (PSEEF).

According to the documents on the bank's website, the EBRD finance summary for the PSEEF is EUR 100 million.

However, each sub-project under the framework will be separately approved by the board, Usov said.

Municipal energy management companies in Ukraine will finance energy saving improvements in public buildings and street lighting infrastructure.

A feasibility study for the sub-projects will cover technical, environmental and social due diligence of the municipal energy management company and the city. The average cost of an individual assignment is expected to be up to EUR 200,000. Funding for the framework is provided by the government of Sweden in the pre-signing phase. The government of Sweden will also provide an additional EUR 1.25 million in the post-signing phase.

It is estimated that energy savings up to 50% can be achieved with the implementation of the project in Kremenchuk. It is envisaged that the project will lead to reductions in energy consumption of around 20,000 MWh per year and CO2 savings of around 5,300 tonnes per year.

The EBRD loan is to be complemented by a grant of up to EUR 1.5 million, proposed for co-financing from the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund (SSF), and a concessional loan of up to EUR 1.5 million from the Clean Technology Fund (the CTF). The loans will be secured by a municipal guarantee from the city. The SIDA-EBRD Ukraine Energy Efficiency and Environment Cooperation Fund (SWUK) will provide an additional technical assistance of EUR 500,000,
Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov has signed a trilateral agreement between the City Council, municipal enterprise Dniprovsky Electric Transport and representatives of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on preparing a EUR 10 million loan to buy 50 new trolleybuses and repair equipment.

"There were a lot of different questions about why the mayor makes so many trips abroad. This is exactly the result of my visit to London. Thanks to this cooperation, Dnipro will be able to fully update the trolleybus fleet," Filatov said in Dnipro on Friday.

According to him, the loan will be granted for 12 years at 7% per annum at a full responsibility of the City Council. The first tranche is expected in March 2018.

"We are pleased to continue our cooperation with Dnipro. We hope that this project will be a good impetus for the development of electric transport in the city. Public transport of Dnipro would reach a new level. We hope that this is not the last project, because there are common ideas for financing the purchase of trams," Senior Banker of EBRD Mark Magaletsky said.

New electric transport will be bought in 2018.

Representatives of the City Council said that this year the city also buys 13 Belarusian trolleybuses manufactured by Belkommunmash under a leasing agreement at 14% per annum, while usually similar deals are signed at 20-21% per annum. State-owned enterprise Pivdenmash (Yuzhmash) will supply 12 more trolleybuses.

All the trolleybuses are low-deck and air conditioned.

In the past two years the city bought 52 trolleybuses.
Ukraine's representative in the working subgroup on security in the Trilateral Contact Group, Yevhen Marchuk, has called for the creation of a body in Ukraine that would coordinate the actions of ministries and departments in countering the hybrid elements of Russian aggression.

"We know that Russia has started and today is waging a comprehensive war against Ukraine... We know that Russia is waging very broad aggression... And the state [of Ukraine] today has the Defense Ministry, special services that oppose the [Russian] military and special services, and today there is practically no single coordinating structure that would predict, link together and issue orders to all how to counter the hybrid components of Russian aggression," Marchuk said at a round table discussion entitled "Guarantees of Human Rights in Line with International Standards. International Experience and Practical Support to People Affected by the Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine" in Kyiv on Thursday, December 14.

He expressed hope that the Ukrainian state would create an agency "that would deal with repelling the hybrid components of aggression." Marchuk suggested that such a unit could be created under a certain ministry.
Teva pharmaceutical company (Teva Ukraine LLC) has signed a one-year agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to procure Glatirameri acetas to treat disseminated sclerosis. There is an option to extend the agreement for another two years.

The pharmaceutical company told Interfax-Ukraine that in 2018 and 2019 the UNDP would be able to order the medicine at once after adopting a resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers and signing the relevant agreement between the Health Ministry and the UNDP.

The company said that Teva could plan production and logistics, taking into account these orders.

"Taking this into consideration, and due to the large volume of procurement, Teva was able to offer a fixed price for Glatirameri acetas at a dose of 20 mg/ml and to ensure a gradual reduction in the price of Glatirameri acetas at a dose of 40 mg/ml in 2017 and subsequent years," the company said.

The company said that, thus, this agreement creates the conditions for providing Ukrainian patients with continuous access to quality therapy for three years.

"If the relevant changes in the legislation are made, the deal may be later transferred to a government agency that will manage public procurement and will be used to directly procure drugs by the state," Teva Ukraine said.

As reported, referring to the Health Ministry, the UNDP signed long-term agreements with four international manufacturers - Teva Pharmaceuticals (Israel), Pfizer (Netherlands), Novo Nordisk (Denmark) and Sanofi Genzyme (France) - for the supply of 11 drugs, including medicines for rare diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Gaucher's disease, mucopolysaccharides, cystic fibrosis, other orphan diseases, hemophilia, as well as medicines to stop bleeding.
Energy efficiency loans help to raise over UAH 6 bln of investment

The government-sustained energy efficiency loans program in three years allowed raising over UAH 6 billion of investment in the Ukrainian economy, Head of Ukraine's State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving Serhiy Savchuk has said.

"Thanks to the interest of the public in energy efficiency the energy effective equipment and materials production market has revived, as well as the market of insulation, window installation, gas boiler replacement services and other services," the press service of the agency reported, citing Savchuk.

He said that in three years almost 400,000 families used the government-funded program.

Savchuk said that the number of local energy efficiency programs doubled in 2017 compared with 2015, to 155, and their financing by local budgets quadrupled, to UAH 57 million.

As reported, the national budget for 2018 announced UAH 400 million for energy efficiency loans, and the half of the sum will be injected to co-financing of energy efficient measures taken by homeowner associations.
PRESS RELEASE

Rep. Gaetz Warned of Coup dEtat Against Trump; Hammers Rosenstein on Mueller Teams Coup-Plotting

Dec. 13, 2017 (EIRNS)In early November, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), said on the House floor that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should be removed from his position, and warned that otherwise,

"we are at risk of a coup detat in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected President of the United States."

In a phone interview with Politico, reported yesterday, Gaetz discussed the conversation he had with the President last week during a flight to Pensacola on Air Force One, and while he didnt recommend that Mueller be fired during that conversation, he did tell the President that Muellers legal team is "infected with bias." When he told Trump that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, he said that Trump emphasized how important it is that "you guys do your job" in terms of oversight responsibilities.

And, indeed, Gaetz did precisely that when he relentlessly questioned Rosenstein in todays House Judiciary Committee hearing on the sordid relationships among Department of Justice (DOJ) high official Bruce Ohr, his wife Nelli who was hired by Fusion GPS, and Glenn Simpson, Fusion GPSs co-founder. He pummeled Rosenstein with questions as to when the DOJ learned that Nelli Ohr was employed by Fusion GPS, when the DOJ learned of Bruce Ohrs contact with MI6 agent Christopher Steele during the 2016 campaign, and when did it learn of Ohrs contact with Glenn Simpson after the election. When Rosenstein replied that he didnt really know the answers, but would try to get them, Gaetz asked why this wasnt the highest of the DOJs priorities to have this information already available.

The wife of a top DOJ counterintelligence official was working for the company "that was the pass-through" for money from the DNC "to get dirt to discredit Trump before and after the elections," and the DOJ didnt know this? Ohr was working at the DOJ, his wife was working at Fusion GPS, and during the campaign, they were meeting with the author of the "salacious and unverified dossier." Why isnt that information available now? Gaetz asked. He also sharply criticized Rosensteins claim that members of Muellers team were merely "expressing their political views in anti-Trump texts, "not showing prosecutorial bias" or "taking actions."

Gaetz challenged this. When Agent Peter Strzok changed the wording on the FBI statement on the Hillary Clinton email investigation (from "criminally negligent" to "extremely careless") that was an action, not an opinion, Gaetz said. Moreover, if a dossier is "dressed up" to be presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to surveil the Presidents team, "that wasnt belief, that was action." And, the meetings among Ohr, Steele and Simpson "werent beliefs, but actions." Likewise with the DOJs Andrew Weissman, who used official DOJ email to congratulate Sally Yates for defying the President of the United States. "These are the actions of people," said Gaetz, and their "demonstrable bias" demands the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate them. Rosenstein punted, saying that the DOJs Inspector General is looking into this and would conduct a competent investigation.
PRESS RELEASE

NSCs McMaster Rants Against Russia, China at British Think-Tank

Dec. 13, 2017 (EIRNS)National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster delivered what can only be described as a British rant, as a speaker yesterday at the launching of a special Anglo-American project by the British think-tank Policy Exchange, in Washington. Described as a center-right think-tank which is influential in shaping British policy, Policy Exchange also hosted a number of "high level" U.S. and British dignitaries to debate "U.S.-U.K. Relations in a Changing World."

Policy Exchange notes on its website (www.policyexchange.org.uk)

"we believe that it is time to consider how the unparalleled Anglo-American relationship can be strengthened to support the interests of the U.S.A., U.K., and Europe."

McMasters remarks, which came at the end of the event, where he was joined by British National Security Advisor Mark Sedwill, were reportedly a preview of the Trump Administrations national security strategy, which the President will present in a speech next Monday. He announced that "geopolitics are back and are back with a vengeance after this holiday from history we took in the so-called post-Cold War period." Russia and China, he charged, "are undermining the international order and stability. Theyre ignoring the sovereign rights of their neighbors and the rule of law." Moreover, he said, Russia has pioneered "new generation warfare," and has used its military to "forcibly change the borders of Europe for the first time since World War II" in Ukraine and Georgia.

China, he added, is "engaged in economic aggression," ludicrously accusing it of trying to challenge a global economic order that "helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty." Which economic order did that?

Although saying America is committed to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and not regime change, McMaster warned that now "is the last, best chance" to avoid conflict and that "time is running out" to do so. He suggested that more action would be taken against companies that illegally do business with North Korea, and that China should do more to pressure Pyongyang. "Now its time for all nations to do more." Obviously speaking for the Empire, Sedwill chimed in that North Korea cant be simply "normalized" as part of the solution. "North Koreas government is dependent on isolation. Those who talk about reintegrating North Korea miss the point of that regime."

Notably, McMaster proclaimed that the U.S./U.K. "special relationship" "remains stronger than ever."

In pithy remarks today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov retorted that McMasters remarks are "utterly erroneous," lacking in insight or concrete fact.
PRESS RELEASE

Tillerson: We Need Russia Cooperation on Korea

Dec. 13, 2017 (EIRNS)At a press conference held at the Atlantic Council-Korea Foundation Forum, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said President Trump believes it is extremely important to establish a relationship between the United States and Russia. Tillerson also said cooperation with Russia on Korea was important. "I think the president has been quite clear that he views it as extremely important that the United States and Russia have a working relationship," Tillerson said. "Today we do not."

Despite this, Tillerson pointed out that the United States is relying on Russia to help solve the crisis in Syria and denuclearize North Korea. "By and large, at the Security Council, again, theyve [Russia] been very supportive of the sanctions," Tillerson said on Tuesday. "Theyve voiced their view of how effective they think those may be, but we do need Russias support."

Tillersons statement at the same forum of readiness to talk with North Korean representatives without preconditions, was modified, but not changed, by White House and State Department statements Wednesday that the United States expected a period with no DPRK nuclear or missile tests, before and during such talks.

On this statement, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said,

"On the whole, we can say that such constructive statements are better than confrontational rhetoric we have been hearing so far. We can only welcome that, as it is in line with our proposals."

Peskov added that

"it was Putin who has been constantly calling on all the interested parties to make every possible effort to build dialogue. So such statements [made by Tillerson] are definitely welcome."

Meanwhile, following his visit to North Korea, Jeffrey Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, said the United Nations expects Pyongyang to signal willingness to prepare the negotiations on the settlement of the nuclear crisis, even though North Korean leadership did not offer any commitments on the issue, according to a report in TASS. We emphasized to the D.P.R.K. [North Korean] officials that we really believe that they need to signal that they are willing now to go in different direction, to start some kind of engagement, to start talking about talks. They listened seriously to our arguments, they explored them with us. But they did not offer any type of commitment to us at that point. They have to reflect on what we said with their leadership, Feltman told reporters. "North Korean interlocutors agreed that it was important to prevent war. How we do that was the topic of 15-plus hours of discussions."
PRESS RELEASE

Russian Diplomat Warns of Extremely Dangerous Yemeni Situation

Dec. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)Russias Ambassador to Yemen, Vladimir Dedushkin, told TASS today that the situation in Yemen is extremely dangerous.

"Honestly speaking, the situation is really very dangerous. We must not rule out that the sides might come from positional clashes to full-scale hostilities. Naturally, it is difficult to talk about prompt solutions in current circumstances,"

Dedushkin told Tass. Russia has halted its diplomatic presence in Yemen and its embassy staff has left the country amid the deepening conflict, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Dec. 12. Dedushkin had already been working from Riyadh since last year, and he warned last week that Yemen risks spiraling into military-political chaos.

Welcoming the UN efforts, Dedushkin said:

"We are ready to fully assist in the search for compromises. It would be perfect to actively engage the current institution of ambassadors from the countries sponsoring the political process, first of all, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council Unfortunately, during the conflict these agencies actually remained idle, despite Russian representatives numerous attempts to give them an impetus, and it is not our fault,"

he said.
Not long after Disneyland opened in Anaheim, creator Walt Disney noticed a cowboy character from Frontierland strolling through the futuristic world of Tomorrowland.

The clash of themes bothered Disney so much, according to theme park historians, that the subsequent design of Walt Disney World in Florida included tunnels and secret entrances to keep characters from wandering through themed lands not their own.

With its proposed purchase of a big chunk of 21st Century Fox, Disneys multimedia empire may have to add a lot more tunnels.

Advertisement

The $52.4-billion deal announced Thursday would give Walt Disney Co. the rights to a pantheon of popular television, movie and comic book characters, including X-Men, Fantastic Four, Deadpool and everyone from the world of Homer Simpson and family.

Some of these could be showcased at Disney theme parks alongside the current stable of intellectual properties such as Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars franchise and characters from Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and the Cars movies produced by Pixar.

Disney and Fox executives havent publicly addressed the deployment of new characters behind theme park gates or the possible fate of those already employed by others  namely The Simpsons, which enjoy prominent placement at two Universal Studios parks.

Bob Iger attends the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images )

Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger, in a conference call Thursday, assured investors that the proposed acquisition would enhance the company in many ways.

With 20th Century Fox Film, we have the opportunity to expand iconic franchises for new generations of fans around the world  just as we have with Marvel and Star Wars, he said.

Heres what Disney is acquiring in its blockbuster deal with 21st Century Fox 

Industry experts say the mega-deal gives Disney more money-making options to expand and upgrade the parks far into the future.

Theme park consultant Dennis Speigel said the proposed purchase makes Disney the emperor of IP, shorthand for intellectual property. They now have more different and varied IPs than anyone in the world, said Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services in Cincinnati.

Disney fans have mixed feelings about adding new movie and comic book characters at Disney parks, with some worrying that newcomers could dilute or squeeze out Disneys classic attractions. They describe the theme parks as already too crowded with characters from various movie franchises, creating a weird mishmash of themes and stories.

Its not as if Mickey Mouse is literally holding hands with Iron Man or Kylo Ren, said Matthew Gottula, a 28-year-old marketing worker from Altadena and longtime Disneyland fan. But the waters do get muddy when Disney brings these properties to the parks and theyre separate things, but presented as being all the same.

Others are confident Disney will incorporate new characters while showing respect for the much-loved attractions that visitors return to again and again.

There was a time when the idea of two non-Disney properties like Star Wars or Indiana Jones would have been considered completely off brand, but Disney has a knack for finding ways to organically weave together story lines, said Lisa Robertson, a public relations expert who writes a regular theme park blog called Babes in Disneyland.

Still, adding new franchise characters hasnt always been a smooth ride for Disney.

When Disney announced plans to overhaul the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction at Disney California Adventure and replace it with an attraction featuring Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy characters, it didnt get a warm reception initially.

More than 35,000 fans of the original Twilight Zone attraction signed petitions on the website Change.org, asking Disney not to change the ride.

But the new Guardians of the Galaxy attraction, which opened in May, has grown to become one of the most popular rides in the park, with wait times now as high as 90 minutes.

Disney purists will always be upset about the mishmash of characters at Disney parks, said Martin Lewison, a theme park expert and business management professor at Farmingdale State College in New York. But Disney has a history of knowing how to use new intellectual properties to draw crowds at the parks, he said.

They are not going to spend money on an IP unless they can get some revenue, some cash flow out of it, Lewison said.

A look at part of the area at Universal Studios Hollywood themed around The Simpsons television show. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

The deal with 21st Century Fox also gives Disney the intellectual property rights to characters from The Simpsons television series, which already are featured at Universal Studios theme parks in Los Angeles and Florida.

Both parks include areas evoking Springfield, the fictional town where the Simpson family lives, and operate virtual reality roller-coasters involving series characters.

A Universal Studios representative declined to discuss details about its rights to The Simpsons. The company issued a statement saying: Todays business headlines will have no impact on our ride or our guest experience.

Disney already has the rights to use the characters from the 2009 Fox blockbuster Avatar. Disney now operates a themed land at its Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, Fla., called Pandora  The World of Avatar.

Some of Foxs movie and comic book characters may be easier to add to the theme parks than others, Speigel said.

For example, the X-Men can be included in Marvels superhero land proposed at Disney California Adventure, where they could co-mingle with the Fantastic Four and the Guardians of the Galaxy characters.

But one of those characters, Deadpool, was depicted in a 2016 R-rated movie that was heavy with blood, gore and sexual references  themes that dont combine well with Disneys family-friendly brand.

Deadpool might be a little hard to showcase in its current form, Speigel said.

Disney, he added, also has the option of injecting its new Fox characters into Disney parks outside of the United States, where fans are less likely to object to a mixture of stories and characters.

Speigel said that Disney may be able to build a Simpsons land at any of its parks in Europe and Asia without conflicting with Universals ownership rights in the United States.

What do you think they bought these IPs for? he asked. To put them in a library?

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.

ALSO:

Disney buys much of Rupert Murdochs 21st Century Fox in deal that will reshape Hollywood

Disney extends CEO Bob Igers contract through 2021

Disneys deal to buy Fox studio could bring substantial layoffs, analysts say

Disney has a wholesome, family-friendly image. Will acquiring Fox create a culture clash?
When devastating hurricanes pummeled Texas, Florida and several Caribbean islands this summer, vacationers didnt stay home and mope.

Instead, airline data show that many travelers rebooked their vacations in Mexico.

From October 2017 through March 2018, U.S. and international airlines have cut more than 1.2 million seats to hard-hit vacation spots such as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Cuba and the French-Dutch island St. Martin/St. Maarten, according to airline data analyzed by the aviation consultant ICF.

Advertisement

In that same period, U.S. and international carriers added more than 600,000 seats on flights to popular Mexican destinations such as Puerto Vallarta, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico City and Cancun.

Airlines added another 200,000 seats on flights to Caribbean islands that suffered less hurricane damage, including Aruba, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.

Customers want to travel someplace warm with a beach, said Mark Drusch, ICF vice president and a former airline executive. And airlines want to book them to places that have hotel rooms available.

Drusch said the airline data analyzed by ICF didnt show a significant increase in seats to other winter and spring destinations, such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Denver.

Puerto Rico, which suffered the worst toll from Hurricane Maria in September, took the biggest hit of all destinations in the Caribbean, with more than 454,000 airline seats cut from flights to the island in the winter and spring period, compared to the same six-month period in 2016-2017. That amounts to a 20% drop in airline seats.

St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, lost more than 282,000 airline seats, a 69% drop compared to a year earlier, according to ICF.

Cancun recorded the biggest increase in airline seats, 237,000 in the October-March period, a 10% increase over the same time a year earlier, ICF data says.

Mexico City had an increase of 187,000 airline seats, an 18.5% increase, according to ICF.

The uptick in airline capacity to Mexican tourist destinations has come despite the U.S. State Department issuing a travel warning in August that cautioned travelers about the activity of criminal organizations in several parts of Mexico, including Baja California.

The travel warning said most of the crime problems are in the interior parts of the country but it also pointed out dangerous conditions in regions of Baja California around the tourist hot spots of Los Cabos, and in Sinaloa outside of the beach resort of Mazatlan.

Rodrigo Esponda, managing director of the Los Cabos Tourism Board, said tourism to Mexico has increased 10% so far this year and has surged even more  by as much as 19%  in the southern tip of Baja California.

To ease tourists concerns, the Mexican government and hotel operators in southern Baja Californias beach towns have teamed up to increase security by creating a rapid response communications network to share information about criminal activity with police, Esponda said.

We take the travel warning seriously, he said. We believe that safety is definitely a priority.

In addition, the government and business operators in the region have increased to 250 from 40 the number of surveillance cameras installed along roads, beaches and near hotels to monitor tourist safety, he said.

To further attract American visitors, 16 luxury hotels are under construction in the Los Cabos region, including a St. Regis, a Ritz Carlton, a Hard Rock Cafe and a Park Hyatt hotel. In total, the hotels are expected to add more than 4,000 rooms by 2021.

We truly believe the product is particularly good, Esponda said. That is why the airlines have been adding more capacity.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday that it plans to withdraw Obama-era rules that would have made it tougher for large-scale egg farms to earn organic certification.

The withdrawal would leave intact a loophole that allowed massive factory farms to claim that a closed-in porch provides adequate outdoor access for tens of thousands of hens.

Smaller producers who provide open yards for egg-laying hens have complained that the loophole lets competitors reap the premium price of organic eggs without substantially changing their operations.

Advertisement

Livestock and poultry companies, however, complained that the rules went beyond the intent of the original law establishing organic certification, which covered only feed and medicine.

United Egg Producers, an industry advocacy group, said the withdrawal was the one logical conclusion for the USDA, because the agencys economic analysis suggested that the rule would have driven 45% of organic producers out of the market.

That would have potentially impacted the availability of organic eggs to U.S. consumers, said Oscar Garrison, the groups senior vice president of food safety regulatory affairs.

The Organic Trade Assn., which has sued the USDA over its slow pace on enacting the rules, said it was dismayed at Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdues announcement. The lawsuit is still pending.

This groundless step by USDA is being taken against a backdrop of nearly universal support among the organic businesses and consumers for the fully vetted rules that USDA has now rejected, the association said in a written statement.

Friends of the Earth called the move a slap in the face while criticizing President Trump and calling on Congress to pass legislation to strengthen organic standards.

Trumps decision to cave to a handful of powerful agribusiness interests by scrapping the organic animal welfare rule is a slap in the face to organic farmers and to the millions of consumers who have put their trust into the organic label, said Lisa Archer, the food and agriculture program director for the group.

The USDA said it would open a public comment period on the withdrawal before taking final action early next year. The rule otherwise would have taken effect in May.

geoffrey.mohan@latimes.com

Follow me: @LATgeoffmohan
The bare-bone fares that Delta Air Lines adopted to compete with low-cost airlines just got a bit more expensive.

Travelers flying from the U.S. to Europe or North Africa on Deltas cheapest seats, dubbed basic economy, will have to pay $60 for the first checked bag and $100 for the second.

The new fees start with flights booked after Dec. 6 for travel beginning April 10.

Advertisement

To better compete with low-cost carriers such as Spirit Airlines and Frontier, the nations biggest carriers  Delta, American and United  began over the last few years to introduce basic economy seats with super-low fares but no extras, such as seat assignments, same-day changes or upgrades with cash or loyalty reward points.

American and United have offered basic economy fares only on domestic flights. But Delta began to offer basic economy seats on flights to Europe in 2015 with no charge for the first two checked bags.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

Twitter: @hugomartin
The Boryspil international airport (Kyiv), the largest airport of the country, expects that passenger flow in 2017 would grow by 20% on average, to 10.3-10.4 million people.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Boryspil airport Head Pavlo Riabikin gave this information after the presentation of the SkyUp airline in Kyiv on Thursday.

"We have an absolute record for the whole history of Boryspil: it is 10 million passengers as of December 7, 2017. According to the results of the year, depending on the pre-New Year charter program, it will be within 10.3-10.4 million people. As for finance, this will also be an absolute record," he said.

Boryspil Airport saw a net profit of UAH 1.63 billion in January-September 2017, which is 58.8% more than for the same period in 2016, taking into account the previously announced data. Its passenger traffic grew by 24%, up to 8.07 million, and the number of transfer passengers - by another 33%.

Boryspil International Airport is the main airport of Ukraine. The airport has two runways: one with a length of 4,000 meters and a width of 60 meters, and the second with a length of 3,500 meters and a width of 63 meters. Four passenger terminals, postal and cargo complexes are located on the territory of the airport.
Art museums, which are not for profit, now coexist uneasily with a hyper-aggressive art market, where making bare-knuckle profit from luxury goods reigns supreme. For museums the stress shows, and often its not pretty.

In Massachusetts, the attorney general had to intervene to stop, at least temporarily, the sale of 40 paintings that are the cream of the Berkshire Museums collection  an unethical plan to raise upward of $60 million to fund operations.

In the Netherlands, the director of the prestigious Stedelijk Museum was forced to resign following revelations that, for hefty fees, she was running a private art advisory firm on the side.

In Venice, Italy, Damien Hirst sold more than $300 million worth of his new work not from a gallery but directly out of a museum show.

At the new Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, a gallery owner, Honor Fraser, was invited to join the board of trustees  an eyebrow-raiser that created an inevitable perception of conflict of interest when the ICA opened with a major commission from Sarah Cain, an artist represented by Honor Fraser Gallery.

Hollywood movie director and producer George Lucas secured public land in Exposition Park to erect a billion-dollar museum for something called narrative art, a made-up category.

There are plenty more examples. Money pressures shape art museum activities in ways that go from mini to mega.

FULL COVERAGE: Year-end entertainment 2018 

This year the buoyant upper reaches of the art market ballooned in a way that seems unimaginable. Nearly half a billion dollars traded hands for a banged-up, heavily restored panel originally painted by Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci. Four bidders vied for it, two pushing the painting to a price almost twice as large as any known prior art sale.

The Leonardo da Vinci painting that set a record with a sale price of $450 million. (Tolga Akmen / AFP /Getty Images)

SIGN UP for the free Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

The buyer is reportedly the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism. Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 32, did the bidding. He has sent the painting to hang in the Louvre  not the one in Paris, but the newly branded one in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of absolute monarchies.

The painting, now world-famous because of its headline-grabbing price, cost almost what the entire 55-building museum complex cost. (The published estimate is $650 million.) A prominent young Muslim flouted his conservative religions traditional stricture against owning figurative images to procure the icon. He has been promising to champion a more moderate Islam, but either way the flashy loan cements the new museums dual function as trophy house and tourist trap.

The Leonardo sale was described by more than one observer as mad. Maybe. What is certainly mad is what the transaction represents, which is the colossal  and still-growing  gulf between the billionaire class and everyone else.

Good things of course continue to happen in museums  in L.A., most notably, the Getty-funded initiative to underwrite a slew of exhibitions of Latino and Latin American art, the emergence of the long-sleepy California African American Museum as a lively destination and the announcement that a museum will be built at UC Irvine specifically to trace the development of California art. Here, in chronological order of their openings, are the 10 best museum exhibitions I saw in Los Angeles this year:

Edme Bouchardon, Self-Portrait, about 1730, red chalk. (Getty Museum)

Edme Bouchardon: Royal Artist of the Enlightenment at the J. Paul Getty Museum. When youre the court sculptor and the aristocracy is being toppled, dont expect your career to have a long shelf life. Thats one lesson in this revealing survey of a largely forgotten artist from French King Louis XVs reign. The other is that brilliant drawings can be an extraordinary guide to sculpture.

Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World, UCLA Hammer Museum. Is human identity genetic or cultural? Is it determined by DNA or by government decree? Is it authentic and fixed or fictional and fluid? In 200 sculptures, drawings, collages and videos, expatriate American artist Jimmie Durham located ones own conception of self as the nucleus of things.

Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Hungarian avant-gardist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy kept his art moving forward throughout the first half of the 20th century, an era defined by war, dislocation, poverty and epic upheaval. Moholy-Nagy emerged in the show as less a Utopian than an indefatigable optimist.

Kerry James Marshall, Museum of Contemporary Art

Black paintings, a distinct and widely celebrated category of postwar American abstraction, took on a whole new meaning in Marshalls often moving representations of black life since the 1950s. The show more than deserved the crowds piling in to see it.

Grace Hartigan, The King Is Dead, 1950, oil on canvas, part of Women of Abstract Expressionism. (Palm Springs Art Museum)

Women of Abstract Expressionism, Palm Springs Art Museum

No need to downgrade Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning or Clyfford Still to recognize the greatness of painters Jay DeFeo, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell. And Ethel Schwabacher, an artist hitherto virtually unknown to me, was another revelation, lesser but notable, in this survey of a dozen artists working in San Francisco and New York from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

Anna Maria Maiolino, Museum of Contemporary Art

In the late 1960s, Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino began making marvelous drawings in which line was achieved by tearing the paper, and space was created by physical dislocations of the material. Drawings as sculptures (and vice versa) have been a remarkable leitmotif ever since. (On view through Jan. 22.)

Martin Ramirez, Untitled (Caballero and Pattern), 1952; graphite, tempera and crayon on pieced paper (Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)

Martin Ramirez: His Life in Pictures, Another Interpretation, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The great self-taught draftsman Martin Ramirez, an emigre from Mexico to Northern California in the 1920s, got his first L.A. survey  about 50 works  as the debut exhibition of the reconfigured Santa Monica Museum of Art, now operating in downtown L.A. with a new name. (On view through Dec. 31.)

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, UCLA Hammer Museum. A great big, sprawling brawl of an exhibition with a few paintings and sculptures and mostly Conceptual and camera-based art, Radical Women featured 120 Latina and Latin American artists from the United States and 14 additional countries. If you were familiar with more than about 12% of them going in, you did better than me. (On view through Dec. 31.)

Giovanni Bellini, Christ Blessing, circa 1500. (Getty Museum)

Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice, J. Paul Getty Museum. The lay of the land in a painting by Giovanni Bellini, ground zero of the Venetian Renaissance, is a coded assembly of dirt, rocks, water, trees and sky, all with profound meaning for the people shown within it. This gem of an exhibition  perhaps we should say landmark  is the first by Bellini in the United States. (On view through Jan. 14.)

Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790: Pinxit Mexici, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. By the end of the 18th century, most of the money in circulation in New Spain and over half of the countrys land was under control of the Catholic Church. Painting became a distinctive promotional tool. This first-ever survey of the sumptuous, late Baroque era is a spellbinding overview, filled with art at once brilliantly inventive and often wonderfully weird. (On view through March 18.)

Witness an architectural masterpiece being constructed with EarthCams 4K Time-Lapse for the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum.

christopher.knight@latimes.com

Twitter: @KnightLAT
The protesters arrived two by two, wearing black suits and face masks that bore the face of the museums curator of 20th century art.

It was the summer of 1981 and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was celebrating a trio of exhibitions marking the citys bicentennial with a Champagne reception interrupted by more than 100 protesters carrying gray and pink balloons that read: Where are the Women and Minorities?

Standing out from the black-clad protesters in masks bearing the visage of LACMA curator Maurice Tuchman, were six women in pink cowgirl outfits. They unfurled a banner that read The Los Angeles County Museum of White Male Art. One of the bicentennial shows, Seventeen Artists of the Sixties, included neither women nor people of color. Another included only two women and no artists of color.

Advertisement

The present: Its like the past  only different.

In 2017 there was no shortage of questioning  not just of institutions, but of individual artists and the subjects they aim to present.

Stoked by the dissemination powers of the internet, this year was a maelstrom of debate about who wields power, how gender is represented and how artists contend with that third rail of American society: race. It was a reckoning for institutions that have been slow to contend with issues of diversity. But its a pendulum swing that also threatened to limit the freedom with which artists and writers conceive and experiment.

A group of museum-goers examine Open Casket by Dana Schutz at the Whitney Museum in March. (Alina Heineke / AP )

In March, at the 2017 Whitney Biennial in New York City, protests broke out over Open Casket, a Dana Schutz abstraction painting inspired by the infamous 1955 coffin photo of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy who was brutally lynched after a white woman falsely accused him of flirting with her.

One protester at the biennials opening stood before the work in a T-shirt that read Black Death Spectacle. British artist Hannah Black posted a letter online that demanded the work be removed and destroyed.

It is not acceptable for a white person to transmute black suffering into profit and fun, she wrote.

Many supported Blacks call. Others, such as artist and critic Coco Fusco, argued against it on the grounds that it constituted censorship.

We may understand artworks to be indicators of racial, gender, and class privilege  I do, often, she wrote in Hyperallergic. But presuming that calls for censorship and destruction constitute a legitimate response to perceived injustice leads us down a very dark path.

A similar controversy erupted around Scaffold, an outdoor sculpture by Sam Durant presented at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Los Angeles-based artists work served as a representation of seven gallows used in historic U.S. government executions, including that of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, Minn., in 1862.

Native American activists protested, stating that Scaffold trivialized a brutal episode in indigenous history. Its not art to us, one activist told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. After a meeting with Dakota elders in June, Durant agreed to remove the work and sign over intellectual rights to the piece. The wood employed in the sculpture was later buried in a secret location.

Protests in other cities and online have demanded the removal of other works, too.

In September, the Guggenheim Museum withdrew three pieces from a show on 1990s Chinese art over concerns about animal cruelty. This included a 2003 video of fighting dogs strapped to treadmills futilely attempting to attack each other and Huang Yong Pings Theater of the World, a caged arena featuring lizards, insects and snakes. During the exhibition, some of the animals would die as they were consumed by larger species.

In the wake of sexual harassment allegations dominating the news, a pair of artworks  one in L.A., another in New York  also ended up on the firing lines.

Erika Rothenbergs The Road to Hollywood installation at the Hollywood and Highland Center, had a chaise longue element removed by mall management after the piece was erroneously described as a casting couch. (It was later returned.)

This month, an online petition was launched to remove a painting by Balthus  Therese Dreaming, 1938, which shows a girl sitting with her open legs, revealing some underwear  from the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the grounds that the painting romanticizes voyeurism and the objectification of children. The Met declined to remove the painting, stating that its presence provides an opportunity for reflection on both the past and the present.

FULL COVERAGE: Year-end entertainment 2017 

A number of these cases have raised questions of censorship. Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, for example, decried the Guggenheims decision to withdraw its pieces. When anyone uses a moral high ground to judge an art exhibition and to demand the withdrawal of contents that may or may not violate those rights, he told this papers Deborah Vankin, it presents a potential danger of violating the freedom of speech.

Also concerning is that social media outrage, delivered in 140 (now 280) character increments, seems to flatten all nuance.

Schutzs painting of Till, described as a vehicle for a white artists fame and fortune? It was never for sale.

The animals that would eat each other at the Guggenheim? They were bred for pet consumption  which means their fate at the museum would have been no different from what they faced in a suburban kids boa tank.

A daybed element from Erika Rothenbergs The Road to Hollywood in L.A. was removed after being deemed insensitive in the wake of reports about sexual harassment in Hollywood. (Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times )

And the casting couch in Rothenbergs Road to Hollywood? It was not intended as a tool of rape culture, as one offended viewer alleged online, but as a place groups of people could gather for a photo before the Hollywood sign in the distance. (Rothenberg discussed its purpose in a 2010 lecture at Otis College of Art and Design.)

The debate surrounding the French Polish surrealist Balthus has likewise stripped context from the artists admittedly controversial work. Balthus painted a lot of prepubescent girls. He also painted his wife to look prepubescent. And he painted portraits and landscapes.

Was his work featuring girls disconcerting? Yes. Balthus cast a male gaze on girls in the fit of lifes changes. But he also succeeded in conveying what it meant to be in the thrust of those changes. In Therese Dreaming Ive always seen a little bit of myself: a young girl relentlessly told to sit like a lady enjoys a private moment in which she doesnt have to conform to the rules that govern her body.

The nature of the debate on these issues threatens to constrain artists at a time when a multiplicity of voices and subjects is whats needed.  Carolina A. Miranda

The 1938 painting titled Therese Dreaming by Balthus, shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this month. (Thomas Urbain / AFP/Getty Images )

A painting can have more than one meaning.

The debate that fills me with the greatest ambivalence centers on the frequently posited idea that only certain artists should be allowed to tackle certain subjects. A sign protesting Durants work at the Walker read Not Your Story. In a social media post about Schutzs Open Casket, one artist wrote: the subject matter is not Schutzs.

These critiques rise from issues of inequity that have long plagued museums. White artists and white curators, usually male, are historically the ones who have told the story of art. Much like that 1981 LACMA exhibition that purported to outline the turbulent 1960s entirely through the lens of white men.

Inequity undoubtedly persists  less than a third of solo shows at major museums in the U.S. go to women. But the nature of the debate on these issues threatens to constrain artists at a time when a multiplicity of voices and subjects is whats needed. If white artists should stick to whiteness, should black artists stick to blackness? As a Latina, should I write only about Latinos? As the daughter of South American immigrants who was born in Wyoming, is my range further limited?

These are constraints I fiercely resist. First, because race and culture intersect in ways that are blurry and difficult to define. Second, because Ive spent much of my career struggling against newsroom typecasting. As a writer  an art form of sorts  I am here to engage a full palette of concepts and ideas, not just the ones that pertain to my identity. Artists of all colors and genders should demand the same.

We may not always like the results. We may protest them in masks. We may critique them in essays. We may tear them apart 280 characters at a time. But lets allow for the messiness and the mistakes. Its from those moments in which new ideas about culture are born.

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

ALSO

Best art in 2017: Our critics top 10 exhibitions, plus one very big worry

For American cities in 2017, flood, fire and volatility became the new normal

Classical music in 2017: After an astounding year, the L.A. Phil deserves a top 10 list of its own

Tweets, sexual abuse and racial divides shook the entertainment industry and beyond in 2017
Two years after #OscarsSoWhite propelled representation front and center at the Academy Awards, how much progress did Hollywood really make at the movies in 2017  a banner year for conversations around social change that pushed the culture forward? Times reporters Trevell Anderson and Jen Yamato revisit the year in review and discuss how far the film industry still has to go.

JEN YAMATO: Now that were in the thick of awards season, it really feels like the huge steps forward for representation at the movies this year are coming into focus. The fact that films like Get Out, Wonder Woman, and Call Me by Your Name struck such powerful chords with audiences and critics alike  and are in the awards mix  speaks to a hunger for the kind of inclusion Hollywood has been sorely lacking for, well, ever. But how would you grade 2017 on the whole? Can movies effect real social change? How many cinephiles went vegan because of Okja? How close did Hollywood come to solving #OscarsSoWhite?

TREVELL ANDERSON: Dont get me started on this whole idea that because Moonlight won last year, #OscarsSoWhite was solved. On the contrary, the industry still has a long way to go not only in terms of the representations of people of diverse backgrounds on screen, but so many of those women and people of color and LGBTQ folk and disabled people still need the chance to write and tell their own stories from behind the camera. In the words of April Reign, who created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, while we should celebrate the hurdles weve crossed  because there has been important progress in leveling the playing field industry-wide  we must not think were anywhere near the finish line.

Advertisement

If Im giving Hollywood a grade, its going to be an I for incomplete. Theres still more work to be done.

YAMATO: My 2017 started out on an exciting note at Sundance when I caught Get Out, Jordan Peeles directorial debut, and thought to myself, This is the movie of the year. Other wins for representation made their mark in less direct ways, behind the camera. Thor: Ragnarok was the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be directed by a filmmaker of color, Taika Waititi. F. Gary Grays Fate of the Furious made $1 billion in two weeks! And Patty Jenkins proved that what Warner Bros. DC Comics movies were sorely lacking was a (wonder) womans touch. Where else did we see wins for diversity this year?

ANDERSON: Well, on-screen there are some standouts. In addition to Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out, which is by far the peoples movie of the year, I really enjoyed Kumail Nanjiani in The Big Sick, which he also wrote and produced, and Dee Rees Mudbound, which has some powerful performances from Jason Mitchell and Mary J. Blige. Theres also Chiles Oscar contender A Fantastic Woman, which stars trans actress Daniela Vega. And I obviously have to give it up for Girls Trip  a black movie starring four black women, written by a black woman and man and directed by a black man  for becoming a commercial hit and giving us breakout star Tiffany Haddish, who deserves all the nominations and awards.

FULL COVERAGE: Year-end entertainment 2018 

YAMATO: The Hollywood Foreign Press really blew that one  the Golden Globes have an entire category for comedy performances and no love for Haddish?! At least they showed up for Guillermo del Toros exquisite The Shape of Water, a love story for xenophobic times poised for further recognition as we march on toward the Oscars.

ANDERSON: I also just have to give a shout out, behind-the-scenes wise, to Stella Meghie, who with Everything, Everything became one of a limited number of black women to helm a major studio project. Besides those you already mentioned, anyone else of note behind the scenes stand out to you?

Everything, Everything director Stella Meghie (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times )

YAMATO: It was certainly a huge year for women in the greater culture, and we saw notable work behind the camera from directors like Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Niki Caro (The Zookeepers Wife), Amma Assante (A United Kingdom), Sofia Coppola (The Beguiled), Angelina Jolie (First They Killed My Father), Ana Lily Amirpour (The Bad Batch), and Julia Ducournau (Raw). But female directors remain a marginal presence on the whole in studio films released this year, as do LGBTQ filmmakers and filmmakers of color. Hollywood needs to actively put their money where their woke sound bites are and actually invest in more visions from diverse storytellers.

ANDERSON: On that note, I was very heartened by so many documentaries that I saw this year, about and by people of diverse backgrounds, and thought they captured some of the socio-political sentiment going on outside of the industry. Strong Island by Yance Ford seems to be the only one thats really caught on in terms of awards attention, but Whose Streets? and Step gutted me emotionally in the best of ways. In the year after Ava DuVernays 13th and Raoul Pecks I Am Not Your Negro went to the Oscars and helped reify conversations around mass incarceration and racism and police brutality and white privilege for countless folks, all three of these films continue that work. And with Step and Whose Streets? in particular, were beginning to see films about the enduring impact the instances of police violence that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement have on the people who live in communities like Baltimore, Md., and Ferguson, Mo.

YAMATO: Let us not forget that this was also the year that Hollywood tried to give us Ghost in the Shell, Matt Damon helped save China in The Great Wall, and Netflix dipped its toe into cross-cultural reinterpretation with their manga adaptation Death Note. Of course, learning how not to be utterly culturally tone deaf will continue to be a steep learning curve for the industry. At least were capping 2017 on a high note thanks to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, whose new heroine Rose Tico (played by newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) is a welcome addition to the galaxy far, far away, and to Hollywood.

ANDERSON: And weve seen the Asian American community hold Hollywood accountable for that white-washing and cultural appropriation, with one of the most notable instances leading to Ed Skrein backing out of playing a Hellboy character who had been conceived as Asian in the comics. That gave way to Daniel Dae Kim being cast in the role.

Last but not least, 2017 brought us a new president, and at least one film is a direct response to a number of his actions. Thatd be The Post, which journalists are raving about ahead of its release to the masses.

YAMATO: With Steven Spielberg behind the camera and powerhouses like Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks playing two of the Washington Post figures who published the Pentagon Papers in defiance of enormous government and corporate pressures, its no wonder The Post was made so quickly; it truly reverberates with a timely urgency in the face of President Trumps attacks on the news media. This country still has a long way to go, but films this year at least echoed a growing call to speak truths out loud and  hopefully even more so in 2018  a collective imperative to listen to the stories that need to be heard.

ANDERSON: Im excited to see the films, and other art, that continue to respond to this administration. And I think 2018 will be the first year when we can really judge what Hollywood does or doesnt offer audiences in response to #OscarsSoWhite. I think this conversation will be much more juicy this time next year. One can hope.

ALSO

Mudbound tops Mark Olsens 10 best films of 2017

Call Me by Your Name, The Florida Project lead Justin Changs 12 best films of 2017

Kenneth Turans best films of 2017 include The Shape of Water and The Post
Its as if the movies answered our call. In a year that has seemed long and confusing, movies became an unexpected centering point, a beacon. As the era of Peak TV has toppled over on itself, cinema at least partly took back the reins of cultural conversation. Amid an ongoing onslaught of news and information, the idea of genuinely focusing on something else for a few hours often seemed the better thing to do.

Going back to Januarys Sundance Film Festival, which coincidentally overlapped with the presidential inauguration, the movie year has been locked in a strange push-pull with current events and the real world. The world on-screen became a renewed source of reflection, both by presenting differing views and allowing for a focal point of contemplation. From the hypnotic horror of Get Out on through the eccentric wisdom of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, contemporary reality was filtered through cinematic storytelling this year to allow people a moment to get outside their own heads while also doing some free and deep thinking.

And indeed one of the things I have been thinking about most while looking back on my year in movies is the audience, or more accurately audiences, those random roomfuls of other people with whom I shared in something. Laughing, screaming, rapt, anxious  the communal aspect of moviegoing took on a deeper resonance.

It must be noted here that three titles in my top 10 were released by the streaming platform Netflix, which has a contentious relationship with theatrical exhibition. Mudbound, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and Okja are all proper movies, meant to be seen big and bright and loud to take in the fine-tuned details of picture, sound and performance. That too few people got the opportunity to see them that way does not lessen their individual achievements.

On-screen this year we saw families struggle, the lonely feel seen and heard, sons and daughters come to understand their fathers and mothers, girls rise to help, men realize they can no longer be the center of the world and the dreamers dreams come true.

On an entirely personal level, going to the movies made me feel better this year. I will continue to think of these movies, even as I also continue to think of those audiences, those people, those shared experiences. I am grateful to these movies for bringing me closer to others, on-screen and off. It wont be the movies that get us through. It will be us, together.

Jason Mitchell, left, and Garrett Hedlund in Mudbound. (Netflix)

1. Mudbound (Dee Rees)

A rich and vivid American tapestry, as directed and co-written by Dee Rees, Mudbound nimbly captures the epic impact of class, race and war by homing in on the details of two families thrown together by circumstance in rural Mississippi around World War II. With complexity and clarity, Rees acknowledges that sometimes people give in to their worst impulses as others struggle to be something more, something better.

Sally Hawkins in  The Shape of Water . (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

2. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

A madcap melange of genres  monster movie, Cold War espionage, romantic melodrama and more  The Shape of Water is an elegant tale of love and transformation. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro leads a fully committed cast through a story as heartfelt as it is fanciful.

Brooklynn Prince and Valeria Cotto in The Florida Project. (Marc Schmidt / A24)

3. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

Sean Baker crafts a neorealist take on The Little Rascals as a group of young scamps, including the delightful discovery Brooklynn Prince, make the best with what they have among rootless roadside motels in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom. A spirited story on the precious fragility of innocence.

Vicky Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread (Laurie Sparham / Focus Features)

4. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)

A 1950s London fashion designer has to loosen up his regimented ways when a willful young woman enters his life. A beguiling distillation of the struggle for balance between the externals of work and the internals of emotional life, Paul Thomas Andersons film has a central trio of witty, wonderful performances by Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps.

Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler and Elizabeth Marvel in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected). (Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix)

5. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (Noah Baumbach)

The latest from writer-director Noah Baumbach at first seems like a light family comedy but slowly becomes something much deeper, an intimate look at how behaviors travel from one generation to the next. A filmmaker of great emotional insight and immense technical craft, Baumbach conveys it all with an off-handed ease.

Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. (Merie Wallace / A24)

6. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

The travails of leaving the nest concern Lady Bird, as the complex dynamics between a mother and a daughter make for a fresh story of growing up and moving forward. Longtime indie lynchpin Greta Gerwig makes her solo feature debut as writer and director and while one hopes not to lose her sparky screen presence as an actress, her voice as a filmmaker feels even more vibrant.

Seo-Hyun Ahn in Okja. (Jae Hyuk Lee / Netflix)

7. Okja (Bong Joon Ho)

A young girl leaves the idyllic Korean countryside to retrieve a genetically engineered oversized superpig, who has become her best friend, from the clutches of villainous businesspeople. With a chaotic, madcap sensibility, filmmaker Bong Joon Ho tackles ideas of corporate responsibility, human intervention and what really matters in this wild world with charm and lightness and some of the years nimblest action set pieces.

Allison Williams as Rose and Daniel Kaluuya as Chris in Get Out. (Justin Lubin / Universal Pictures)

FULL COVERAGE: Year-end entertainment 2018 

8. Get Out (Jordan Peele)

A horror movie and deft social satire, Get Out announced Jordan Peele as a filmmaker with the ability to entertain, provoke and make something connected to the elemental here and now. The nagging feeling of being willfully misled and the intuitive psychological terror of The Sunken Place tapped into something very real in the year 2017, as the film gained added power from the communal experience of seeing it with an audience.

James Franco in The Disaster Artist. (Justina Mintz / A24)

9. The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

What could be a dismissive, irony-stenched goof on the making of Tommy Wiseaus notorious disaster-piece The Room turns out instead to be something warm, celebratory and triumphant. Directed by and starring James Franco, the movie is a joyful tribute to creativity, friendship and perseverance, making the most of what youve got.

Claes Bang in The Square. (Magnolia Pictures)

10. The Square (Ruben Ostlund)

The ways in which men unthinkingly wield their privilege and power make for a slippery satire in the hands of Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund. Aided by a sly supporting turn by Elisabeth Moss, the films lead performance by Claes Bang as a man clumsily brought low by his own ego only gained in resonance as the year went along.

And another 10 that could easily have been slotted in somewhere (alphabetical): The Big Sick, Call Me by Your Name, Dunkirk, I, Tonya, Ingrid Goes West, Logan, The Lost City of Z, Nocturama, Personal Shopper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The worst: Ill declare a tie between two movies of vastly different scale  Justice League and Breathe  that I dislike and somewhat resent for largely the same reasons. Both seem like an incredible waste of resources both in front of and behind the camera, in service of projects that feel less about imagination and creative expression than conforming to preconceived notions of the action movie or prestige picture. Id rather see footage of everyone involved at lunch than the finished films they made.

ALSO

Kenneth Turan's best films of 2017 include 'The Shape of Water' and 'The Post'

'Call Me by Your Name,' 'The Florida Project' lead Justin Chang's 12 best films of 2017

Commentary: How woke was 2017 at the movies?
In a world of $400 white tees and runway looks that easily cost five figures, there is nothing shocking about a woman willing and able to drop a mortgage-sized chunk of cash  or hand over her platinum card  on a ready-to-wear dress.

Sure, that might be the norm for those of a certain income bracket, but often, this level of luxury shopping has been exclusive to a woman of a certain dress size (in general, sizes 00 to 8). However, those closet doors opened in a major way this year with the launch of 11 Honore, a high-end online retailer for lusted-after brands and exclusively made clothes in a size range of 10 to 20. Thats far closer to the national size average for women than the size options other high-end retailers generally offer.

So far, 11 Honore is selling womens selections for luxury shoppers of different wealth levels. T-shirts start at $95, while dresses generally hover around the $1,000-to-$2,000 range. Those prices are akin to what the typical Net-a-Porter or Barneys New York shopper might expect.

A red dress by Marlene Olivier, from left, an ivory dress by Marlene Olivier and a cashmere bell-sleeved Michael Kors Collection dress are selections available from online retail startup 11 Honore. (11 Honore)

Fashion world veterans Patrick Herning (the Nichols Canyon resident is an alum of the L.A. office of New York-based public-relations powerhouse HL Group) and Kathryn Retzer (a former Vogue editor who lives in Marin County in Northern California) are the masterminds behind the retail startup, which launched in August and operates out of West Hollywood. Herning and Retzer were inspired by their chic, above-sample-sized mothers and the changing landscape of the industry they came up in.

So whats the keyword in their mission to bring more high-end fashion to more women? Its not so much about size as it is about fit. We came to major design houses with the pitch that we could work together to produce their exact designs, in the highest quality possible, with the same perfect fit on a size 18 as they offer in size 4, Retzer said.

Across the board, designers appear to be rejoicing in the approach. After all, consider this training wheels for luxury brands eager to race into the $200-million plus-size fashion business. While some of the brands sold on the website already offer extended sizes (Christian Siriano and Michael Kors), the majority of the sites labels are now available to a new market of shoppers for the first time. That list includes well-known designers such as Zac Posen and L.A.-based Monique Lhuillier and newer phenoms including Brandon Maxwell, Haney and La Ligne, a premium fashion-girl brand launched in 2016 by former Vogue editors Meredith Melling and Valerie Macaulay. 11 Honores site is the place to find it all.

Patrick Herning and Kathryn Retzer are the founders of 11 Honore, an online retailer for plus-size shoppers seeking clothes from luxury and upscale brands. (11 Honore)

Were so excited to discover a whole new audience for La Ligne, Melling said. But [we] only wanted to enter the size-inclusive market via experts. We knew wed need different pattern markers, fit models and grading systems to make the best product. And for a young business, partnering with Patrick and Kathryn has made that possible.

By now, its an oft-cited statistic that 67% of women in America are a size 14 or larger. Now consider her options for luxury fashion. A handful of bricks-and-mortar stores, Saks Fifth Avenue being one, offer a fair assortment, chief among them pieces by Marina Rinaldi, a plus-size brand under the Max Mara umbrella. Then turn to the offerings of major online retailers and marketplaces, which sell dozens and dozens of luxury clothing brands. A recent check of a well-known luxury retail site showed the number of options easily shrunk to seven when you filtered to XXL.

Women with curves are often treated like second-class citizens at department stores, said Melissa Chataigne, an L.A.-based fashion stylist and consultant. My clients arent going to be satisfied by a sad selection of cable-knit sweaters and stretch pants  and theyre not going to be happy buying a Celine bag and Jimmy Choos because they cant fit into anything else.

Black is an obvious choice for eveningwear, but these dresses by Haney and Marlene Olivier, available at 11 Honore, put a stylish twist on a classic. 11 Honore, which has an office in West Hollywood, sells designer womens clothes for sizes 10-20. (11 Honore)

11 Honore, with its name that invokes the image of a bougainvillea-draped, side-street Paris atelier, certainly set out for a different approach, becoming a white-space option for shoppers. Were creating a destination for the customer whos been marginalized, disrespected and overlooked, Herning said. We always want to err on the side of being thoughtful. That means only selective use of the word flattering, a sort of pariah in the size-inclusive world, and the absence of anything that too closely resembles a caftan. Were about celebrating womens bodies, not hiding them, Retzer said.

Its a thought thats clear when you browse the online fashion showcase created by Herning and Retzer. Youll find sheer shoulders, velvet ruching, alluring cut-outs and nipped waists. Also, the modest options offer a twist. A long hemline, long-sleeve dress by designer Prabal Gurung has a subtle peek-a-boo moment with decorative buttons.

This approach to size-inclusive fashion appears to be resonating with customers. Rebel Wilson wore 11 Honores bright red Zac Posen dress to the Australian premiere of her film Pitch Perfect 3, while Nicolette Mason, a plus-size fashion industry leader, showed up on Instagram in a wool Michael Kors dress from 11 Honore. Its worth noting these women have their own fashion-forward, size-inclusive lines, Rebel Wilson X Angels and Masons Premme line, which are at a lower price point than 11 Honores available selections.

To continue to promote the retailers mission, 11 Honores blog, Page 11, features stories about models, designers, industry leaders and stylist who are changing fashion as well as shopping tips and other lifestyle content. Also, the startups Instagram account offers photos of 11 Honore looks worn by Orange Is the New Blacks Danielle Brooks, model Candice Huffine and others.

Herning and Retzer also are gaining fans outside the celebrity realm.

Diana Hasenbalg, 56, a Newport Coast-based early adopter of 11 Honore, has a schedule full of social functions as a board member and fundraiser for the JDRF, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Type 1 diabetes research.

Its been a new world for me, getting to dabble in the true designer world beyond shoes and bags, she said. Years ago, I had the physique for these clothes, but I didnt have the funds.

Its that sentiment that might have major global fashion brands that still have a hard stop at size 14 thinking twice  and ideally, getting to work on expanding their size-inclusive offerings. I hope well get to look back at this in three years and ask ourselves what the big deal was, Herning said. The world is evolving, and were excited to lead this piece of the conversation.

image@latimes.com

For fashion news, follow us at @latimesimage on Twitter.
If, sometime in the new year, a dinner guest arrives at your home and presents you with a hostess gift of cannabis flower  a jar of Kosher Kush indica to be specific  what bottle of wine might you serve it with? If youd attended a recent wine and cannabis pairing dinner at Gracias Madre in West Hollywood, you might confidently uncork a Syrah or a Pinot Noir because those varietals have an earthy aroma that plays nicely with the terpene myrcene thats dominant in that particular strain.

Under the tutelage of Jamie Evans (a.k.a. the Herb Somm, as in sommelier), guests sniffed their way around Strawberry Banana hybrid strains (that fit thematically with the fruity aroma of a Central Coast rose). They also sniffed jars of THC Designs XJ-13 sativa to discover that the terpene limonene makes it appropriate to pair withan Outer Sounds Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand. (Though the cannabis was certainly being enthusiastically sniffed, it was not being consumed; that would run afoul of the host restaurants liquor license.)

The Dec. 5 media dinner was organized by San Francisco-based technology-meets-cannabis delivery platform Eaze, whose chief executive, Jim Patterson, called the run-up to legal adult-use (non-medical) sales of cannabis products in California, slated to begin in January, a pretty historic moment.

Advertisement

Cannabis prohibition is coming to an end, he told guests, and it is becoming a very mainstream thing. The beautifully packaged products you see in front of you probably arent what people think about when they think of marijuana.  How do we educate the public? How do we elevate everyones thinking about this plant?

Although Pattersons app isnt yet operating in Los Angeles, the company recently opened an office here, and he recruited folks from the stable of local brands Eaze works with to hold forth on a variety of topics over the course of the evening. THC Designs co-founder, Ryan Jennemann, for example, took a deep dive explaining sativa / indica hybrids (losing me somewhere around the mention of endocannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2), and Marigold Sweets founder and confiseuse Vanessa Lavorato touched on, among other things, what its like to be a woman in the wild, wild west that is the current state of the cannabis industry.

After dinner, guests mingled and chatted about what the future of cannabis might look like in California next year while sipping on cocktails made with hemp-derived CBD (one of the cannabis plants non-psychoactive compounds touted for its medicinal properties) and with names such as the Stoney Negroni and the Rolled Fashion.

Im not completely sure what entertaining in L.A. will look like when Californias grand experiment in legal cannabis consumption gets fully underway next year. But, thanks to Eaze and the the Herb Somm, if it involves pairing pot with potables, were pretty confident well know which bottle to pop.

adam.tschorn@latimes.com

For more musings on cannabis commerce and culture, follow me at @ARTschorn.
The one thing you can say about New York-based menswear designer John Varvatos is that hes as serious about music and people using their voices in this heated political climate as he is about making mens clothes.

I first met Varvatos over a fall 2009 breakfast on the patio of the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Texas, where I was a fashion columnist/stylist. Varvatos was visiting the Texas capital city to attend his first Austin City Limits Music Festival. He talked about being a new dad again  and he thanked me for wearing my black Varvatos Converse sneakers.

His brand has always included rock n roll-spirited leather jackets, strong suiting and bold and slightly rebellious-looking footwear that could get a guy head-turns, but not in an obnoxious look-at-me sort of way.

Advertisement

I recently caught up with Varvatos, this time in Orange County, where South Coast Plaza is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The festivities included the reshowing of his fall/winter 2017 presentation; a high-energy performance by Vintage Trouble, the band appearing in the spring/summer 2017 Varvatos campaign; and an after-party.

Designer John Varvatos tweaks a models look backstage before a showing of his fall/winter 2017 Wild at Heart collection at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa on Oct. 7. (Charley Gallay / Getty Images for John Varvatos )

Varvatos sat down backstage before the show, as dressers and hair and makeup teams were getting models ready for showtime.

While hes a New Yorker at heart, the 63-year-old designer has strong Southern California ties. A new Westfield Century City store in Los Angeles will soon open, joining his existing stand-alone stores in West Hollywood, Malibu, Costa Mesa and San Diego.

The designer also raises money for Stuart House, a program of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. (I have more friends in L.A. than New York, says Varvatos, a fan of Amoeba Music in Hollywood. My daughter likes it out here.)

Since I last saw him, Varvatos has taken a deeper dive into the music scene. He announced earlier this fall that he had teamed up with Scott Borchetta, founder and chief executive of Nashville-based Big Machine Records (Taylor Swifts record label), on his existing John Varvatos Records.

I dont want it to be anything about my ego, Varvatos said, adding that he wants his labels focus to be launching new artists and talent. (His label recently signed L.A. rock band Badflower.) I really want it to be about the music.

So exactly whom was he listening to? Tom Petty  No. 1. No. 2 is Tom Petty and No. 3 is Tom Petty at the moment.  he says, scrolling through his cellphone.

There was also Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real  Willie Nelsons sons band (He has a new album out that is so good, and it crosses so many genres)  as well as music by jazz trio Saft, Swallow and Previte featuring Iggy Pop and the latest release from rapper Machine Gun Kelly, whos in the fall 2017 Varvatos campaign.

It was around 2005 that he started using artists in his campaigns, including the Roots, Alice Cooper and Dave Matthews.

I saw early on music artists were shopping with us and contacting us about clothes and photo shoots and tours, Varvatos says. And I thought, Thats pretty amazing. Then you get people who were icons when you were growing up who want to wear your clothes or are already buying your clothes someplace. And youre like, Oh, my God, Jimmy Page is buying my clothes. Or Alice Cooper or Iggy Pop or whoever it was at the time.

Models take a final runway walk during a John Varvatos fashion presentation of the designers fall/winter 2017 collection during a charity event at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. (Charley Gallay / Getty Images for John Varvatos )

In case you werent at New York Fashion Week or South Coast Plaza, Varvatos fall/winter 2017 Wild at Heart collection, according to show notes, was designed to give the idea of nonchalant cool with an uncompromising devotion to elegance and boldness.

As expected, what came along the U-shaped runway in Costa Mesa was signature Varvatos (tailored suits, leather and stripped outerwear, animal prints and plenty of dandy flare), and is available online and in stores.

Months after its debut, Varvatos says the collection was put together during the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

At this time in the world, we need people who have voices, he says. We need people that arent meek and sit back, but they want to create change out there. They dont want to put up with the  thats going on.  Even in the music industry, I believe its time for those rebels again  the ones that have a voice that isnt just a fun pop song.

marques.harper@latimes.com

@marquesharper
Im wondering whether there has ever been a dining year quite like 2017 here in Los Angeles. The most interesting new kitchens seemed to be either in fantastically expensive tasting menu restaurants or in food courts; they stock their wine lists with either dreary classics or puzzling natural wines; and fill their pantries with farmers market vegetables or the product of their own backyards. Some of the best food came from what marketing people call brand extensions, others from the world of haute cuisine. As always, inspiration came from nearly every part of the world. Can 2017 be summed up in 10 dishes  10 dishes that dont happen to include well-done steak, double ice cream and Big Macs inhaled in silence? Well try.

Beans

The soft fried black beans at Verlaine. (Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)

Verlaine, it must be said, is among the last places you would expect to experience the particular kind of bliss that beans and tortillas can provide. It is built into the former Rat Pack hangout Dominicks. Its chef, Diego Hernandez, is one of the greatest in Mexico. It has been called Noma with tacos. But the soft-fried black beans here are undeniable  creamy, singing with herbs, fragrant with the slightly high aroma of dried beef and spiked with bits of fresh cheese. They are served with tiny just-made flour tortillas served scorching-hot from the griddle. And while it may be the most expensive dish of beans you will ever put on your AmEx card, if you are calculating pennies per unit of pleasure, you still come out way ahead. 8715 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood, (424) 288-4621, Verlaine.la.

Mozzarella sticks

Smokey Mozzarella sticks as served at Cosa Buona. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times)

Kitty-corner from the original Burrito King, Cosa Buona is the kind of place the anti-gentrification guys like to gripe about, with natural wine, farmers market broccolini and a presence on OpenTable. Its chef, Zach Pollack, runs the witty Northern Italian restaurant Alimento. Its menu features a calzone named in homage to renowned Campania pizzaiolo Franco Pepe. But Pollack isnt re-creating obscure dishes from Caiazzo, hes perfecting the mozzarella stick: stout, juicy and encased in a shaggy, ultra-crisp coat. The transition from shattering crunch to suave ooze is shocking even the tenth time around, as is the subtle, woodsy fragrance from the cheese Pollack smokes himself. There is a little pot of the house marinara sauce for dipping if you go in for that sort of thing. And then you can dive into a sausage pizza or a plate of chicken parm. It is the best of all possible worlds. 2100 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 908-5211, www.cosabuona.com.

Dinuguan

The dinuguan at Irenia in Santa Ana, Calif. (Courtnee Jean Martinez)

We have been talking about the Filipino food renaissance for so long that it is almost a surprise that it has finally arrived, with dozens of devoted young chefs, a fair number of fine new restaurants and the distinct possibility that the local idea of great pie at the moment may lean more towards buko and pili nut than toward coconut cream and pecan. Still, until I started going to Irenia, Ryan Garlitos Filipino bistro in Santa Ana, I never thought it would be possible to rehabilitate dinuguan, a stew of pig innards in a super-pungent sauce made with pork blood and ground liver that is usually one of the most fearsome dishes in the Filipino arsenal. But Garlitos lightens the cocoa-dark sauce so that the blood and liver become no more than fleeting, coppery hints of bitterness, and he replaces the guts with crisp-edged slices of roast pork. 400 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, (657) 245-3466, www.ireniarestaurant.com.

Tokyo turnips with butter

The Tokyo turnips with butter at Kismet. (Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)

At Kismet, the aesthetic of co-chefs Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson is totally up to date. The tahini is made with sunflower seeds, the dining room smells of zaatar, and Aleppo pepper flows like water. They ferment things. They use all the right vegetables. They split the difference between borek and bstilla, and make it work. The specialty at dinner is whole roast rabbit; at lunch, a series of dishes they subtitle All the Things. But sometimes, especially around sundown, all you want is a glass of wine, bread, and a plate of tiny, neatly bisected raw turnips, which you dip into a dab of sweet butter glazed with salty-tart preserved lemon. If anything, it will hone your appetite for the chickpea tagine to come. 4648 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 409-0404, www.kismetlosangeles.com.

Blood clams

Blood clams are on chef Gilberto Cetinas Yucatan seafood menu at Holbox in the Mercado La Paloma in south Los Angeles. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Holbox does its best to please anyone in the mood for seafood, and you will probably be as happy with the fried-shrimp tortas, the fish tacos and the little empanadas stuffed with dogfish as you will at its sister restaurant Chichen Itza a few yards away. But Holbox, also run by Gilberto Cetina Jr., exists to serve ceviches, shellfish and seafood inspired by its namesake, a sliver of an island just off the coast of Mexicos Quintana Roo state. And as much as I love the surf clams marinated with bitter orange, the tostadas with yellowtail and uni and even the spectacular shrimp cocktail, what I find myself daydreaming about are Cetinas iced blood clams on the half-shell: blood-colored juices flavored with chiles and finely minced onion, an extreme savoriness slashed with a few drops of citrus. Even if youve had these at the famous Baja street stands, these may come as a revelation. 3655 S. Grand Ave. #C9, Los Angeles, (inside the Mercado La Paloma complex), (213) 986-9972, www.holboxla.com.

Neo-Margherita pizza

Neo Margarita pizza cooked in a wood oven by chef Daniele Uditi at Pizzana restauraunt. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

The Wolfgang Puck effect on American pizza is well known, redefining it into a vehicle for whatever ingredients happen to be delicious and fresh in the market. But pizza is changing in its Neapolitan motherland too  a pizza at La Notizia or Pepe in Grano is a pizza transformed. In Los Angeles, the place to experience the new pizza revolution is Pizzana, run by Daniele Uditi, who has worked at some of the best pizzerias in Italy. He kneads his dough by hand in an old-school wooden basin, he allows it to ferment for nearly two days, and he cooks it in a traditional wood oven. And his Neo-Margherita, a take on the Neapolitan classic, is astonishing  cheese, a bit of oil and caramelized San Marzano tomatoes the chef brings in himself, dusted with toasty herb-infused breadcrumbs. When you bite into the pizza, hot from the fiery wood oven, there is a crackle, a crunch, and a blast of intense, licoricey greenness that is almost impossible to achieve with a scattering of mere leaves. If youre skeptical, the regular pizza Margherita is pretty good too. 11712 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 481-7108, pizzana.com.

Stuffed lamb intestines

Stuffed lamb intestines at the Kobe Factory. (Glenn Koenig/ Los Angeles Times)

Is there an uglier bowl of food than Kobee Factorys stuffed lamb intestines? Im guessing not  the twisted gray mass looks exactly like what it is: the gnarled, knotted insides of a sheep turned out into the inside of a bowl of cinnamon-spiced broth. But Waha Ghreirs Syrian home cooking is nothing if not delicious. And her version of the dish turns out to be a delicate, mild rice-filled sausage. The dents and kinks are where the cooks carefully pressed out the air bubbles so the sausage could cook evenly. It has a pleasant chewiness and a deep if restrained flavor that is less sheepy funk than the kind of umami you may associate with French charcuterie. Are you probably going to get the stunning bulgur-lentil dish mujadara, the yogurt-y breakfast bowl called fatteh, or the restaurants namesake kobee instead? No doubt. 14110 Oxnard St., Van Nuys, (818) 909-2593.

Minestra nel sacco

The minestra nel sacco at Rossoblu. (Calvin B. Alagot / Los Angeles Times)

As much as the restaurant conversation here has turned toward New Asian, Modern Mexican or Israeli-influenced cooking, it seemed as if half the major openings this year have been Italian. And first among them is probably Steve Samsons Rossoblu, a startlingly large Bolognese restaurant in the new City Market South complex. Minestra nel sacco is an odd specialty for Samson to feature  in Bologna, the plain, sack-cooked dumpling is a staple of fancy home cooking. (In restaurants everybody gets the more involved tortellini in brodo instead.) But at Rossoblu, when the square little Parmesan dumplings are released from their cloth bag into a bowl of the broth in which they have been boiled, the dish is positively exotic  Bolognese grandmother cooking introduced into a city where few Bolognese grandmothers exist. Would I be pushing things if I confessed that the minestra nel sacco reminded me a lot of the Xian bread-in-soup dish called paomo? In Los Angeles, things are complicated. 1124 San Julian St., Los Angeles, (213) 749-1099, www.rossoblula.com.

Hirame

Detail of Vespertine chef Jordan Kahns Hirame at his restaurant in Culver City. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

If you were looking for the oddest dish being served in an American restaurant right now, you might start with the fish course at Jordan Kahns Vespertine, a dish that nudges the idea of culinary abstraction dangerously close to the singularity. It doesnt look like fish, for one thing  it looks rather like an empty bowl, coarse and pebbly inside and out, of a blackness deep enough to suck up all light, your dreams and your soul. The server, wearing a severe frock like something out of The Handmaids Tale, will walk away before you discover that the flounder has been pounded thin, crusted with charred-onion powder, and pressed into the bowl over a kind of porridge studded with minced shallot, perfumy bits of pickled Japanese plum, and bright, crunchy bursts of acid that could either be finger-lime vesicles or chopped stems of the wildflower oxalis. You are not sure exactly what you are eating. You are not meant to know. You have traveled from darkness into light, and that is enough. 3599 Hayden Ave., Culver City, (323) 320-4023, vespertine.la.

Pressed duck

Pressed duck at Dialogue, a restaurant by chef Dave Beran. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

One of the best things Ive ever eaten was a pressed squab Chicagos restaurant Next, a bloody par-roasted bird whose magrets and legs were carved off on a tableside cart and its carcass put into an elaborate hand-cranked press to be squeezed like an orange. Ten minutes later, the finished dish and its tar-black sauce, famously one of the most glamorous preparations of Escoffier, were brought out from the kitchen. Dialogue, an ultra-seasonal new tasting-menu restaurant whose entrance could pass for a supply closet, is the current project of Dave Beran, the former chef of Next, and right in the middle of the intimate open kitchen is exactly the gleaming duck press you may have hoped to see. Not quite as much is made of the spectacle, but the pressed duck on the fall menu is splendid, a few slivers of crisp-skinned breast and a puddle of the sauce, the grandest dish of French cuisine lovingly reproduced on the second level of a sticky mall food court. Magnificent. 1315 Third St. Promenade, Santa Monica, www.dialoguerestaurant.com.

ALSO

jonathan.gold@latimes.com

@thejgold
Connecticut may not be the first state that comes to mind when folks start talking about matters gastronomical, but it actually has a lot going for it when it comes to food. Just for starters, its one of the only states with a food-related nickname: Along with being the Constitution State, its the Nutmeg State - a sobriquet possibly bestowed because its seaports were important in the Colonial spice trade. But thats just the beginning of its relationship to good things to eat, and to celebrate its culinary riches, weve rounded up 18 of Connecticuts tastiest comestibles and most essential eating and drinking places as part of our first-annual guide to the best food and drink in every state.

The Best Food and Drink in Every State for 2018: Connecticut (Gallery)

To get specific, Connecticut stakes a claim - contested, to be sure, but what isnt these days? - to having been the birthplace of the hamburger, at the still-thriving Louis Lunch in New Haven. (The state is also said, somewhat less controversially, to have spawned the steamed cheeseburger, and may have given the submarine sandwich, or sub, its name, courtesy of the U.S. Navys submarine base in Groton.) New Haven is also pretty much the pizza capital of America, home to the ineffable Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana (not to mention such standard-bearers as Modern Apizza, Sallys Apizza, Ernies, Zuppardis, the Bru Room at BAR, and Mikes Apizza).

Advertisement

With its 96-mile coastline, Connecticut is a great place for seafood, too, from Abbotts Lobster in the Rough, waterside in Noank (famous for its eponymous crustacean, either steamed or in the form of a Connecticut-style lobster roll, meaning warm butter-drenched meat on a toasted bun) to the fresh-shucked oysters at Oyster Club -whose specialties go far beyond bivalves, and which we rank as the best restaurant in the state, period.

Add in one of Americas most original grocery stores, a dive bar that pretty much defines the genre, a purveyor of insanely delicious hot dogs good enough to draw weenie-lovers from the whole tri-state area, and an 80-year-old Italian joint whose lasagna makes mammas hang their heads in shame, among other gustatory attractions, and you may well start thinking that those Nutmeggers have it pretty good in the epicurean department.

Weve compiled the culinary treasures of every state (plus the nations capital) into individual slideshows celebrating the best food and drink in every state, and you can find our Connecticut gallery here.

View slideshow

More Best in Every State
Ever since the Thomas fire erupted Dec. 4, it has steadily burned its way up the list of Californias largest wildfires since the Great Depression.

That list, however, does not include what some consider to be Californias largest known wildfire  the 1889 Santiago Canyon fire, which scorched 300,000 acres in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties.

The official California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection list of the top 20 wildfires dates back only to 1932, because records before then are less reliable, the department says. The largest fire on the list is the 2003 Cedar fire, which burned more than 273,000 acres and killed 15 people.

Advertisement

By Saturday, the Thomas fire had burned 267,500 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and was 40% contained. It rose from fourth-largest to third-largest fire on record in the state.

The Thomas fire is notable not just for its destructiveness but also for how it has continued to threaten communities for nearly two weeks, first in Ventura and Santa Paula, then Ojai and now the Santa Barbara coast.

And with winds pushing the flames this weekend, it could ultimately grow larger than the epic Santiago Canyon fire.

The Thomas fire is still going and it potentially could exceed that 300,000-acre estimate, said Jon Keeley, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at UCLA. It could end up being the biggest fire.

1 / 73 John Bain and Brandon Baker try to stop a fire from burning a strangers home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 73 A brush fire moving with the wind sends embers all over residential neighborhoods north of Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 73 A family packs up and evacuates as a brush fire gets closer to their home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 73 John Bain and his friends, all from Camarillo, came to help as brush fires move quickly through residential neighborhoods in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 73 Strangers band together to help put out a palm tree on fire and stop it from burning homes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 73 The Hawaiian Gardens apartments burn in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 7 / 73 Residents help with the fire attack on Buena Vista Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 8 / 73 Residents watch the Thomas fire on Prospect Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 9 / 73 Firefighters are deployed to battle the fire in a Ventura neighborhood. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 73 A chimney is all that stands of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 73 Remnants of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 73 A home burns on a hillside overlooking Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 73 Palms are consumed in the Thomas fire. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 14 / 73 Emma Jacobson, 19, center, gets a hug from a neighbor after her family home was destroyed by fire in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 73 Olivia Jacobson, 16, wipes tears as she looks at her familys home, destroyed by the brush fire on Island View Drive in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 73 Aerial view of the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 73 Noah Alarcon carries a cage with the family cat while evacuating from Casitas Springs. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 18 / 73 Smoke from the Thomas fire crosses over Lake Casitas near Ojai. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 19 / 73 A Ventura County firefighter battles a blaze on Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 73 Ventura County Firefighter Aaron Cohen catches his breath after fighting to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 73 Aerial view of homes burned to the ground in the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times ) 22 / 73 A home between Via Baja and Foothill Road burns in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 73 Amanda Leon and husband Johnny Leon watch as firefighters fight to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 73 Chino Valley firefighters fight to save a home along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 73 Embers continue to burn at sunset Tuesday in a home on Ridgecrest Court at Scenic Way in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles TImes) 26 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 73 Firefighters try to protect homes from the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 73 Edward Aguilar runs through the flames of the Thomas Fire to save his cats at his mobile home along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs in Ventura County. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 73 Jeff Lipscomb, left, Gabriel Lipscomb, 17, center, and Rachel Lipscomb, 11, look for items to recover from their burned home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 73 A traffic collision temporarily clogged lanes on the northbound 101 Freeway between Solimar and Faria Beaches as the Thomas fire burned in the hills. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 73 The Thomas fire burns towards the 101 Freeway and homes between Solimar and Faria Beaches. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 73 Fire personnel keep an eye on the Thomas fire on Toland Road near Santa Paula. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 34 / 73 A train on the Rincon coast passes a burning hillside from the Thomas fire. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 35 / 73 The Thomas fire burns along the 101 Freeway north of Ventura on Wednesday evening. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire in the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 73 A resident cries as the Thomas fire approaches the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 73 Burned palm trees are left standing between the 101 Freeway and Faria Beach as the Thomas fire reaches the Pacific Ocean. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 73 Firefighters battle Thursday to protect the resort city of Ojai from encroaching flames. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 73 Casey Rodriquez helps a friend move belongings after the Thomas Fire destroyed most of an apartment building on North Kalarama in Ventura. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 73 A burnt-out bus near Maripoca Highway. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 73 The Thomas fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 73 A huge plume of smoke rises north of Ventura as seen Sunday afternoon from the Ventura pier, as the Thomas fire threatens parts of Carpenteria and Montecito. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 73 The Thomas Fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai, Calif. on Friday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 73 Residents react as they watch the Thomas Fire burn in the hills above La Conchita at 5 am Thursday moning. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 73 Mary McEwen and husband Dan Bellaart prepare to evacuate their home on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito as the Thomas fire burns. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 73 Carpenteria resident Chris Gayner, right, photographs a plane in the hills of Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 73 From left, residents Michael Desjardins, his neighbor Patty Rodriguez, daughter Mikayla, wife Veronica, mother in law Amanda Buzin, and son Mikey keep an eye on the Thomas fire in Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 73 Mary McEwen cheers as she sees fire crews make their way up a hill past her home on Toro Canyon Rd. in Montecito. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 73 Dan Bellaart and wife Mary McEwen comfort each other in the backyard of their home that includes an avocado ranch on 9 acres of land on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito, as the Thomas fire burns in the background. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 73 Carpinteria resident Jay Molnar, 55, mouth and nose protected against the smoke, views flames glowing in the hills above the city on Dec. 11, 2017. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 73 Sacramento firefighters battle a blaze in Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 73 Josh Acosta, superintendent with Fulton Hotshots looks for ways to fight fire consuming a structure threatening two homes high up Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 73 A motorcade passes on tHighway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson, who died Thursday morning while battling the Thomas Fire. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 73 Santa Paula City officials, Police and Firefighters salute from a bridge as a motorcade passes on the Santa Paula Freeway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 73 Forest Service crews cut and clear dense brush for contingency lines off of East Camino Cielo in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Montecito and Santa Barbara to help stop the Thomas fire from advancing. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 57 / 73 A hotshot crew from Ojai marches towards their assignment to protect structures on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 73 Firefighters monitor the flames Saturday from a staging area near Parma Park in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 73 Flames slowly make their way down a valley behind a home in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 60 / 73 Flames whip around power lines as they move through Sycamore Canyon on Saturday, threatening structures in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 61 / 73 Smoke billows over Santa Barbara as the Thomas Fire continues to threaten the area on Saturday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 62 / 73 Bill Shubin, deputy fire chief of the Santa Rosa Fire Department checks on flames burning near homes north of East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 73 A fire truck pulls responds to fires burning near homes on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 64 / 73 Brian Good, from US Forest Service, leans forward against the wind, and holds up a Kestrel to measure wind speeds up to 50 mph on Gibraltar Road in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 73 A plume of smoke moves south as winds as high as 50 mph blow down Gibraltar Road on the west fork of Cold Spring Trail in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 73 Flames and a big plume of smoke threaten homes on Gibraltar Road near Gibraltar Rock, outside Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 67 / 73 The sun rises as fire crews prepare for another day of fighting the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 68 / 73 An aircraft makes a water drop over a hot spot up in the mountain range at Gibraltar Rock near Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 69 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Bobby Gray, left, hoses down smoldering flames inside a destroyed home, as Kellee Stoehr, right looks on, after the Thomas Fire burned in Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 70 / 73 A home on Park Hill Lane was destroyed by the Thomas fire in Montecito, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 71 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Lonnie Risling, left, and Jimmy McHaffie, right, spray down smoldering fire underneath the rubble of a home that was destroyed by the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 72 / 73 Fire crews help the Behrman family retrieve their familys personal belongings out of their burned home, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 73 / 73 In the foreground of the ridges that were burned by the Thomas Fire, Rusty Smith stands outside his home that survived the flames that were kicked up by Saturdays wind event and threatened his home in Flores Flats on Gibraltar Road, near Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The year is already the most destructive in terms of fire in California history. Besides the Thomas fire, a series of wind-whipped blazes in wine country destroyed more than 10,000 homes and killed more than 40 people in October.

In the 1930s, the U.S. Forest Service compiled a list of all fires in California, with records going back to 1861, according to Keeley.

These are estimates though, because going back that far, essentially all you have are newspaper reports, Keeley said. Theres been big fires off and on ever since. ... Large fires are not unknown in California by any means. The one thing that perhaps is different is were getting more of them now than we did historically.

Since the Civil War, half of Southern Californias largest wildfires have occurred in the last 15 years, according to a paper written by Keeley.

The reason for the increase? Humans.

Historically, if you look in the past when there are relatively few people on the landscape, a significant number of the fires were being started by lightning, Keeley said. And lightning doesnt occur during Santa Ana wind events. There was just a much lower probability of an ignition coinciding with Santa Ana winds.

Today, however, most fires are triggered by people.

As people increase on the landscape, we have a much greater chance that theyre going to ignite fires. Perhaps by arson, or more people on the landscape means more infrastructure such as power lines that could cause fires. We think that the increased incidence of big fires is most directly tied to people, more people and more badly timed ignition.

Keeley notes that the Thomas fire is a real anomaly, because it is tied to an unusually long Santa Ana wind event.

Normally when we get a strong Santa Ana wind event, it lasts two or three days and then the winds die down and the fire is then contained, Keeley said. But this fire is occurring during a Santa Ana wind event that apparently isnt even over yet.  The longer the Santa Ana winds blow, the larger the fire grows. Thats an important characteristic of the Thomas fire.

The Santiago Canyon fire ignited under Santa Ana wind conditions and that was coupled with the fact that there were very few people on the landscape to fight the flames, Keeley said. Contemporary news reports said the fire began in a sheep herders camp.

In a recent paper on fire and climate, researchers evaluated the correlation between the number of Santa Ana wind events each year and the area burned and found no relationship.

We get Santa Ana winds every year. Its just, some years, somebody ignites a fire during them, and when that happens, they tend to get really large, Keeley said. But the really large ones, we found, were related to prior drought.

He pointed to the 2003 Cedar fire, which was preceded with more than a year of drought.

We think that this fire, the Thomas fire, is likely very large in part not just because the Santa Ana wind event is long, but there was this very extreme drought between 2012 and 2014.

Drought is often thought to affect the fuel moisture of vegetation. But researchers analysis suggests otherwise, Keeley said.

What extreme droughts do is they cause dieback of the vegetation, he said. Basically a canopy of the vegetation dies and oftentimes the entire plant dies. So you have lots of dead vegetation out on the landscape from the drought. And when the Santa Ana winds blow embers ahead of the fire front, theyll ignite spot fires, but only if they land on dead vegetation.

The USGS plans to study the amount of dieback that was present before the Thomas fire erupted, he said.

I suspect there must have been a lot of dead vegetation and that enhanced that fire, Keeley said.

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @brittny_mejia

UPDATES:

Saturday 2:50 p.m.: This article was updated with new statitics and light recasting.
The Turkish company Onur will complete the reconstruction of the section of the Kyiv-Odesa highway from Kyiv to Bila Tserkva instead of Altcom Financial and Industrial Group, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has said.

"They (Altcom) promised (to complete the work) by the end of the year, they promised many times. I'm out of patience, international financial organizations too. As a result, they transferred part of the contract to Turkey's Onur, which will complete the work," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

The minister expressed hope that next year Onur will complete the work.

"In terms of quality, the difference is immediately visible. Where the Turkish company works we see normal European quality, where Altcom works - we have questions. I'm frankly dissatisfied, although I understand the difficulties for the company itself, but I'm tired of listening about problems for the third consecutive year," the minister said.

As reported at the beginning of March 2017, Altcom Financial and Industrial Group had to complete the repair of the Kyiv-Odesa highway by the end of 2017.

"We have agreed with Altcom, a multi-year contractor for the repair of the Kyiv-Odesa highway in Kyiv region, that this is the last year to repair this section. We will not continue this project, and I hope that this is the only positive scenario for them to complete the repair of those sites, which they had to do two years ago," Omelyan said.
An Orange County judge this week told the Laguna Beach Unified School District that it must comply immediately with an earlier order to remove a suspension from the record of a student who was disciplined in connection with a racially charged episode in which a watermelon was thrown at the home of a black classmate.

The judge, in response to a lawsuit filed by the students parents, had ordered the suspension removed from his record in October. But the school district, planning to appeal, had declined to carry out the order.

On Monday, the school district did file a notice of appeal, but during a hearing Thursday, Judge Ronald Bauer told the district to remove the suspension immediately, regardless of the status of its appeal, according to Mark Rosen, an attorney representing the students family.

Advertisement

An appeal typically keeps a judges decision from taking effect, but if that delay causes harm, the court can allow the judgment to be imposed. Rosen argued that a suspension on the students record could affect his chances of being accepted to college.

The student, an 18-year-old Laguna Beach High School senior who is not identified in court records, was removed from school for three days in January.

It affects this kids life. Its pretty important, Rosen said. Im surprised the district is fighting it so hard.

The district did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment about Thursdays hearing.

A statement from district officials Wednesday said their appeal is based on the belief that the decision was wrong factually and legally, and an appellate court should, therefore, review it.

Maurice Possley and his wife, Cathleen Falsani, who are white, contended shortly after the Dec. 27, 2016, incident that their home was targeted because their adopted son, Vasco, then 17, is black.

Five students reportedly were present when, according to court records, one threw the watermelon and another yelled a racial epithet before the group drove away.

The student who was suspended has said he did not participate in the actions but was with the group at the time, according to court records.

The records dont specify whether any other students were suspended, though others were disciplined.

The suspended students family filed a lawsuit against the district in May, alleging that it acted improperly to be politically correct and to try to appear to the community like the district was taking action. They requested that the district remove the suspension from the students record, according to the filing.

On Oct. 6, Bauer ruled in favor of the student, saying there was no evidence that he had used a racial epithet, threw the watermelon or encouraged his classmates to do so.

The court has concluded that no reasoned exercise of discretion can be applied to the known facts of students conduct in a manner that would justify the suspension that was imposed, Bauer wrote in his ruling.

Bauer also disagreed with the districts assertion that it has the ability to punish students for events occurring at any time. He said the California Education Code limits the time frame of a districts authority related to discipline.

In a statement, the district said the school board is concerned that the students attorneys and parents and the judge have cast aside the significance of the act and the impact on the victim with arguments that the district was being politically correct and finding scapegoats.

The decisions of district staff and the board, from the discipline decision after the investigation through and including the decision to appeal, have been driven by our commitment to our students and our community, board President Jan Vickers said in the release.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
The chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked for an investigation Thursday into allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Alex Kozinski.

In a statement emailed to reporters, 9th Circuit Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas said he was acting to ensure confidence in the impartiality of any proceedings involving Kozinski.

He asked Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts to transfer a complaint about Kozinski to the judicial council of another circuit for review and resolution.

Advertisement

Any new complaints against Kozinski also would be transferred, Thomas said.

This order is publicly disclosed in order to maintain public confidence in the Judiciarys ability to redress misconduct or disability,  Thomas wrote. All subsequent proceedings are subject to the usual confidentiality rules.

Thomas statement did not make clear whether anyone had filed a complaint against Kozinski. The wording suggested that Thomas may have decided on his own to ask for an investigation.

When there is information constituting reasonable grounds for inquiry into whether a covered judge has engaged in judicial misconduct, the chief judge may conduct an inquiry into the accuracy of the information even if no related complaint has been filed, Thomas wrote.

In the past, he added, when incidents of alleged misconduct have been reported in an accredited media publication, we have identified a complaint and initiated an inquiry.

Therefore, he wrote, a complaint is hereby identified against Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski.

Six former clerks or externs complained to the Washington Post of sexual misconduct by Kozinski, an appointee of President Reagan who sits in Pasadena.

Above the Law, a legal blog, reported Thursday that three of Kozinskis law clerks had resigned following multiple media reports alleging misconduct. A spokesman for the 9th Circuit declined to comment.

Kozinski, 67, is considered a brilliant jurist with quirky views and humor, but has also been described as a bully, both on and off the bench.

Senate Democrats who refused to confirm his nomination decades ago cited testimony that described him as sadistic and demeaning of subordinates.

Heidi Bond, a former Kozinski clerk who wrote about him on her blog, said he asked her to look at pornography in his Pasadena chambers and then asked her if the pictures turned her on.

She said he also showed her a list of women that he and his friends had sex with while in college and told her not to tell anyone.

Bond, whose complaints about Kozinski were first reported by the Post, described her year working with Kozinski as traumatic and haunting.

She wrote that she did not want to have anything to do with a debate about Kozinskis future. She clerked for Kozinski from 2006 to 2007.

Despite what I have related here, I also believe that the judge is one of the most brilliant, capable legal minds sitting on the federal bench, she wrote.

She said she hoped her story would lead to a new handbook for clerks making clear that judges could not compel them to remain silent about judicial misconduct, as well as warnings by law schools about the possible perils of clerkships.

Kozinski said in an interview last Friday that he had no recollection of ever showing a former clerk pornography.

He said he had more than 500 clerks and externs over the decades, and many of his former clerks told him they had been contacted by the Post.

If this is all they are able to dredge up after 35 years, I am not too worried, he said in the telephone interview.

He has since declined to comment.

Dahlia Lithwick, a journalist who clerked for a different judge on the 9th Circuit, wrote in Slate this week that she first met Kozinski in 1996.

She said she was visiting Los Angeles on court business  her judge was based in San Francisco  and called Kozinskis chambers to talk to one of his clerks.

Kozinski picked up the phone, she wrote, and she introduced herself. She said Kozinski asked her where she was, and she replied she was in her hotel room.

What are you wearing? she quoted him as asking.

Lithwick wrote that she has seen Kozinski several times over the years, at receptions and when moderating panels that included him.

Just last summer at a reception, she said, he gave her  yet another too-long, too-exuberant public kiss.

The Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 allows for federal judges to be sanctioned for misconduct.

A committee investigates the complaint and can publicly sanction the judge, ask the judge to retire voluntarily or recommend corrective action. Judicial leaders also can ask Congress to impeach the judge to have him or her removed from the bench.

If Kozinski were removed, President Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault, would appoint the judges replacement.

maura.dolan@latimes.com

Twitter: @mauradolan

UPDATES:

6 p.m.: This article was updated with a report that three Kozinski clerks had resigned, details of published accounts accusing Kozinski of misconduct, and additional background.

This article was originally published at 4:55 p.m.
Thousands of firefighters battling the massive Thomas fire braced for the return of powerful winds Friday that could again endanger communities, even as they mourned the death of a colleague killed on the fire lines.

Ten days after it broke out, the Thomas fire on Thursday became the fourth-largest in the states modern history, consuming nearly 250,000 acres and destroying hundreds of homes.

Advertisement

Firefighters have taken advantage of a two-day lull in winds to increase containment to 35%, but the blaze has continued a march north from Ventura and Santa Paula along the coast of Santa Barbara County.

Officials also set some controlled backfires in the hills above Montecito, hoping to burn off brush that would serve as fuel if the Thomas fire got into the area.

 A procession in Santa Paula for fallen firefighter Cory Iverson. (Video by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Forecasters predict a new blast of powerful sundowner winds on Friday, which could push the fire from the mountains back into the direction of homes. Another round of Santa Ana winds are expected Saturday and Sunday.

Every day that goes by the fuels get drier and drier and drier, said Tim Chavez, a battalion chief and fire behavior analyst with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. We have really bad weather coming. It is going to be a very challenging few days.

The mountains north of the coast produce notoriously unpredictable and dangerous conditions for firefighters, Chavez said. In the Matilija wilderness, which straddles the border between the two counties, observers saw 50-foot flames backing down a hillside overnight, he said. Its unusual to see flames that tall working their way down a mountain, officials said.

Stuart Seto, a weather specialist with the National Weather Service, added that the winds will be especially powerful in mountain areas and will really start blowing the fire around again.

What it does is carry the embers farther down and can create more fires, he said.

On Sunday, winds are expected to return to offshore conditions, Seto said.

Firefighters braced for the winds on a day of loss.

Ken Pimlott, the director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, announced that apparatus engineer Cory Iverson, 32, died on the fire lines Thursday.

Iverson was assigned to the blaze as a part of a strike team from Cal Fires San Diego unit. He started with Cal Fire in 2009. He is survived by his wife, Ashley, and their 2-year-old daughter, Evie. The family is expecting a second daughter this spring.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Corys family and all of his friends and co-workers throughout the department and the fire service, Pimlott said.

He said an accident review team would investigate the circumstances of Iversons death

While we continue to process this tragic loss, we must keep our focus on the fire. The fire fight in front of us continues to go on, Pimlott said. The communities we are protecting are depending on us, and we will not fail.

1 / 73 John Bain and Brandon Baker try to stop a fire from burning a strangers home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 73 A brush fire moving with the wind sends embers all over residential neighborhoods north of Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 73 A family packs up and evacuates as a brush fire gets closer to their home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 73 John Bain and his friends, all from Camarillo, came to help as brush fires move quickly through residential neighborhoods in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 73 Strangers band together to help put out a palm tree on fire and stop it from burning homes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 73 The Hawaiian Gardens apartments burn in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 7 / 73 Residents help with the fire attack on Buena Vista Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 8 / 73 Residents watch the Thomas fire on Prospect Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 9 / 73 Firefighters are deployed to battle the fire in a Ventura neighborhood. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 73 A chimney is all that stands of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 73 Remnants of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 73 A home burns on a hillside overlooking Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 73 Palms are consumed in the Thomas fire. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 14 / 73 Emma Jacobson, 19, center, gets a hug from a neighbor after her family home was destroyed by fire in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 73 Olivia Jacobson, 16, wipes tears as she looks at her familys home, destroyed by the brush fire on Island View Drive in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 73 Aerial view of the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 73 Noah Alarcon carries a cage with the family cat while evacuating from Casitas Springs. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 18 / 73 Smoke from the Thomas fire crosses over Lake Casitas near Ojai. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 19 / 73 A Ventura County firefighter battles a blaze on Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 73 Ventura County Firefighter Aaron Cohen catches his breath after fighting to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 73 Aerial view of homes burned to the ground in the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times ) 22 / 73 A home between Via Baja and Foothill Road burns in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 73 Amanda Leon and husband Johnny Leon watch as firefighters fight to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 73 Chino Valley firefighters fight to save a home along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 73 Embers continue to burn at sunset Tuesday in a home on Ridgecrest Court at Scenic Way in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles TImes) 26 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 73 Firefighters try to protect homes from the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 73 Edward Aguilar runs through the flames of the Thomas Fire to save his cats at his mobile home along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs in Ventura County. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 73 Jeff Lipscomb, left, Gabriel Lipscomb, 17, center, and Rachel Lipscomb, 11, look for items to recover from their burned home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 73 A traffic collision temporarily clogged lanes on the northbound 101 Freeway between Solimar and Faria Beaches as the Thomas fire burned in the hills. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 73 The Thomas fire burns towards the 101 Freeway and homes between Solimar and Faria Beaches. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 73 Fire personnel keep an eye on the Thomas fire on Toland Road near Santa Paula. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 34 / 73 A train on the Rincon coast passes a burning hillside from the Thomas fire. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 35 / 73 The Thomas fire burns along the 101 Freeway north of Ventura on Wednesday evening. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire in the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 73 A resident cries as the Thomas fire approaches the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 73 Burned palm trees are left standing between the 101 Freeway and Faria Beach as the Thomas fire reaches the Pacific Ocean. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 73 Firefighters battle Thursday to protect the resort city of Ojai from encroaching flames. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 73 Casey Rodriquez helps a friend move belongings after the Thomas Fire destroyed most of an apartment building on North Kalarama in Ventura. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 73 A burnt-out bus near Maripoca Highway. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 73 The Thomas fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 73 A huge plume of smoke rises north of Ventura as seen Sunday afternoon from the Ventura pier, as the Thomas fire threatens parts of Carpenteria and Montecito. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 73 The Thomas Fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai, Calif. on Friday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 73 Residents react as they watch the Thomas Fire burn in the hills above La Conchita at 5 am Thursday moning. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 73 Mary McEwen and husband Dan Bellaart prepare to evacuate their home on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito as the Thomas fire burns. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 73 Carpenteria resident Chris Gayner, right, photographs a plane in the hills of Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 73 From left, residents Michael Desjardins, his neighbor Patty Rodriguez, daughter Mikayla, wife Veronica, mother in law Amanda Buzin, and son Mikey keep an eye on the Thomas fire in Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 73 Mary McEwen cheers as she sees fire crews make their way up a hill past her home on Toro Canyon Rd. in Montecito. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 73 Dan Bellaart and wife Mary McEwen comfort each other in the backyard of their home that includes an avocado ranch on 9 acres of land on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito, as the Thomas fire burns in the background. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 73 Carpinteria resident Jay Molnar, 55, mouth and nose protected against the smoke, views flames glowing in the hills above the city on Dec. 11, 2017. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 73 Sacramento firefighters battle a blaze in Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 73 Josh Acosta, superintendent with Fulton Hotshots looks for ways to fight fire consuming a structure threatening two homes high up Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 73 A motorcade passes on tHighway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson, who died Thursday morning while battling the Thomas Fire. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 73 Santa Paula City officials, Police and Firefighters salute from a bridge as a motorcade passes on the Santa Paula Freeway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 73 Forest Service crews cut and clear dense brush for contingency lines off of East Camino Cielo in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Montecito and Santa Barbara to help stop the Thomas fire from advancing. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 57 / 73 A hotshot crew from Ojai marches towards their assignment to protect structures on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 73 Firefighters monitor the flames Saturday from a staging area near Parma Park in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 73 Flames slowly make their way down a valley behind a home in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 60 / 73 Flames whip around power lines as they move through Sycamore Canyon on Saturday, threatening structures in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 61 / 73 Smoke billows over Santa Barbara as the Thomas Fire continues to threaten the area on Saturday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 62 / 73 Bill Shubin, deputy fire chief of the Santa Rosa Fire Department checks on flames burning near homes north of East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 73 A fire truck pulls responds to fires burning near homes on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 64 / 73 Brian Good, from US Forest Service, leans forward against the wind, and holds up a Kestrel to measure wind speeds up to 50 mph on Gibraltar Road in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 73 A plume of smoke moves south as winds as high as 50 mph blow down Gibraltar Road on the west fork of Cold Spring Trail in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 73 Flames and a big plume of smoke threaten homes on Gibraltar Road near Gibraltar Rock, outside Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 67 / 73 The sun rises as fire crews prepare for another day of fighting the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 68 / 73 An aircraft makes a water drop over a hot spot up in the mountain range at Gibraltar Rock near Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 69 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Bobby Gray, left, hoses down smoldering flames inside a destroyed home, as Kellee Stoehr, right looks on, after the Thomas Fire burned in Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 70 / 73 A home on Park Hill Lane was destroyed by the Thomas fire in Montecito, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 71 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Lonnie Risling, left, and Jimmy McHaffie, right, spray down smoldering fire underneath the rubble of a home that was destroyed by the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 72 / 73 Fire crews help the Behrman family retrieve their familys personal belongings out of their burned home, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 73 / 73 In the foreground of the ridges that were burned by the Thomas Fire, Rusty Smith stands outside his home that survived the flames that were kicked up by Saturdays wind event and threatened his home in Flores Flats on Gibraltar Road, near Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

The Thomas fire has now surpassed the size of the monstrous Zaca fire, which scorched Santa Barbara County in 2007, said Dave Zaniboni, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.

Firefighters hope the Zaca burn scar will help them fight the Thomas fires growth along its western edge.

The state of California began keeping records of wildfire acreage in 1932. Though other large fires raged on the West Coast before then, those records are less reliable, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Thomas fire has destroyed more than 900 homes in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties since it began Dec. 4 near Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula. In its first day, the fire spread southwest, toward Ventura, and northwest, eventually hugging Ojai before pushing to the Santa Barbara coast.

Virginia Pesola, 70, of Santa Paula was found dead in a car that had been involved in a crash last week along an evacuation route in a burn area of the Thomas fire in Ventura County. According to the county medical examiner, Pesolas cause of death was blunt-force trauma with smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

joseph.serna@latimes.com

brittny@mejia@latimes.com
When Hilda Eisen arrived in America, she had no money and spoke little English.

She had survived the Holocaust but lost her entire family to the Nazi death camps.

Living in Boyle Heights, she and her husband got by on the paltry wages he earned cleaning out meat barrels at a Vernon hot dog factory. On the side, they raised chickens and sold eggs in the neighborhood for extra cash.

Advertisement

It proved to be bountiful work.

Within years, Hilda and Harry Eisen were the largest egg distributors west of the Rockies and emerged as multimillionaires and generous benefactors when they sold out to a Minnesota-based agribusiness.

A constant voice for the remembrance of the atrocities of World War II, Eisen died Nov. 22 in Beverly Hills at age 100. Her husband died in 2012.

Eisen was born April 25, 1917, the second of six children, in Izbica Kujawska, a small town in central Poland. Her father was a grain dealer, her mother a baker.

Eisen was 22 when she and her first husband were rounded up and imprisoned in the Lublin ghetto, a sprawling Polish neighborhood invaded by the Nazis and then used as a way station where Jews were hauled off in cattle trucks to labor camps.

With the help of a guard, Eisen escaped and joined resistance fighters in the Parczew forest, where she was later captured by German forces.

Taken to a local police station for interrogation, she jumped from a second-story window to get away, breaking a bone in her foot  an injury that would trouble her the rest of her life.

As she ran away, a Nazi guard seemed to take compassion on Eisen, her grandson Michael Rubinstein said he was told, firing low when she jumped a fence and high when she hit the ground on the other side.

When the war ended and she returned home, she learned her parents and siblings were all dead. Her husband had been killed searching for her. A few high school classmates remained, including Harry Eisen.

She always joked that she married Harry because he was the only suitable man left, Rubinstein said.

In America, the couples fledgling chicken business began to grow when they saved up enough money to buy 100 chickens and move their operation to Arcadia.

In an interview with the USC Shoah Foundation, Eisen recalled opening the front door to fetch the newspaper on their first Christmas morning in Arcadia and discovering that their neighbors  whom she feared might be standoffish because of their thick accents and still-clumsy English  had delivered toys by the armful for her young daughter.

How did they know who we were? How did they know where we came from? she said. And then I realized it didnt matter. We were part of the community.

Looking for more room to expand, the couple moved their booming chicken ranch to Norco in the 1950s. Over the decades, Norco Ranch supplied grocery chains and restaurants throughout California, Arizona and Nevada. When the two sold out to Moark, a subsidiary of Land-O-Lakes, it had become the biggest egg distribution and processing facility in the West.

Eisen and her husband turned their attention to philanthropy and led the Lodzer Organization of Southern California. They were also early supporters of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

We are the eyewitnesses, Harry Eisen said in an interview taped for the museums oral history collection. We went through the hell.

Eisen is survived by daughters Ruth Eisen, Mary Cramer and Frances Miller; eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. A son, Howard, died in 2014.

steve.marble@latimes.com

twitter.com/stephenmarble
Russia and Egypt signed a deal on Friday to resume commercial airline flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo starting in February after more than a two-year break, officials announced.

Moscow suspended flights to Egypt after a bombing attributed to a local Islamic State affiliate brought down a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in October 2015, killing all 224 people aboard.

The attack decimated Egypts vital tourism industry. Egyptian authorities have since spent millions of dollars to upgrade security at its airports, hoping to get Moscow to change its mind.

Advertisement

Russian Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov said he and Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi signed a protocol on security cooperation that would allow direct flights between Moscow and Cairo to resume in February.

Russia, however, is not yet talking about resuming charter flights to Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea, once a popular destination for Russian tourists, Sokolov said, adding that this would be the next stage of negotiations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on a visit to Cairo on Monday said the deal on the resumption of flights could be signed in the nearest time and praised Egypts efforts to boost security at its airports.

In the wake of the Islamic State bombing, Britain, another major source of visitors to Egypt, suspended flights to Sharm el Sheik, the Red Sea resort in Sinai from which the doomed Russian airliner took off.

Putins visit to Egypt was part of the Russian presidents blitz day-trip to the region that kicked off with a visit to a Russian air base in Syria, then to Cairo and concluded with a stop in Turkey. It was his second visit to Egypt in as many years, and Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi appeared keen to cement their countries ties, which have deepened in recent years as Moscow has expanded its reach across the region.

Sisi, who has visited Russia twice since taking office in 2014, has signed deals to buy billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons, including fighter jets and assault helicopters. Last month, Russia approved a draft agreement with Egypt to allow Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.

On Thursday, Fathi headed to Moscow to finalize the agreement on the resumption of flights.

Later Friday, Egypts civil aviation ministry said in a statement that the two sides will hold talks in April on the resumption of Russian flights to Egyptian resorts.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took the rare step on Friday of sharing a public stage with a senior North Korean official but fanned confusion about the Trump administrations stance toward formal negotiations with Pyongyang over its nuclear arms.

According to a draft of his remarks circulated before a special session of the United Nations Security Council, Tillerson planned to say the U.S. would not demand preconditions to talks, apart from a sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behavior  that is, a pause in its provocative missile launches.

When Tillerson actually spoke, however, he omitted the reference to no preconditions and added, North Korea must earn its way back to the table.

Advertisement

His altered remarks came days after the White House issued a statement that implied disagreement with Tillersons openness to talks with North Korea, a point of dispute between President Trump and his secretary of State in the past. State Department officials would not comment on why the change was made, except to say that Tillerson often revises speeches up to the time of delivery.

The White House statement earlier this week followed Tillersons appearance at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington in which he appeared to break new ground by saying there would be no preconditions to talks. He invited North Korea to meet, even if it was just to discuss the weather.

Hours later, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released the statement, which alluded to the presidents coolness to negotiations without naming Tillerson: The presidents views on North Korea have not changed. North Koreas actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea.

On Friday, Tillerson insisted there was no daylight between him and Trump on North Korea, which has steadily progressed in developing missiles and nuclear weapons capable of attacking the U.S.

Yet the chain of events recalled Trumps public rebuke of his top diplomat in October, when the president said Tillerson was wasting his time by attempting to coax Pyongyang into talks. Trump acted just after the secretary of state had met with Chinas leaders on the subject.

Speaking to reporters after his U.N. speech, Tillerson said the United States was militarily prepared to respond should something go wrong but that he continued to hope diplomacy would prevail. He added that the communication channels remain open.

They know where the door is, he said of the North Koreans. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk.

In his speech, Tillerson said a U.S.-led pressure campaign that includes rallying countries across the globe to join in enforcing economic and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved.

Sitting across the Security Councils marble floor was North Koreas delegate to the U.N., Ja Song Nam, who had been invited to participate. He said his countrys development of nuclear weapons was for defense against U.S. threats and blackmail.

If anyone is to blame for it, the U.S. is the one who must be held accountable, Ja said.

Trump, in Washington, was asked by reporters if he would support unconditional talks with North Korea, but he did not answer directly.

Well, were going to see what happens with North Korea. We have a lot of support. There are a lot of nations that agree with us  almost everybody, Trump said. He added that while China, which controls almost all of Pyongyangs trade, is cooperating, Russia needed to do more.

Wed like to have Russias help, Trump said. Very important.

He said he raised the issue in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter
The widow of a Kentucky lawmaker who killed himself this week after he was accused of molesting a teenager has announced plans to run for her husbands old seat.

State Rep. Dan Johnson was found dead Wednesday, two days after an investigative news report revealed that a 17-year-old girl had accused him of drunkenly attacking her at his Louisville-area church in 2013. The Republican lawmaker had initially resisted calls to resign from leaders of both parties.

Dan is gone but the story of his life is far from over, Rebecca Johnson said Thursday in a statement to the media. These high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths cant be allowed to win the day. Ive been fighting behind my husband for 30 years and his fight will go on.

Advertisement

In addition to representing Kentuckys 49th District, south of Louisville, Johnson was the head of the nondenominational Heart of Fire Church. He embraced an identity as an anti-Barack Obama, gun-loving man of God.

I believe Jesus taught us to be armed, Johnson told Guns.com in a 2014 interview.

He held an AK-47 rifle while amiably answering questions in his church, as a tattered dont-tread-on-me Gadsden flag flapped in the breeze on a flagpole outside. This is like one of my favorite home-defense, and, uh, its also one of my favorite anti-mean-government guns.

Johnson had been in public office for less than a year. He became a candidate for the state Legislature in 2016 after the Republican who won the primary was disqualified and Bullitt County GOP officials selected him as a replacement. Piggybacking on support for Donald Trumps presidential campaign, he ran on slogans to make Kentucky and his county great again.

He faced calls from the state Republican Party to drop out after news media highlighted racist posts he made on Facebook, depicting the Obama family as monkeys. Johnson blamed the media for the outcry and shrugged off the criticism.

The state Republican Party wasnt supporting me to start with, so I didnt really lose anything, he said in an October 2016 news conference. There was nothing there to be racially offensive.

He eked out a victory over the Democratic incumbent, Linda Howlett Belcher  a retired principal he called Lyin Linda Lou  winning 9,342 votes to her 9,186 votes.

But Johnson had his own record of dubious claims.

He claimed he had healed the sick and raised the dead. He claimed he had set up safe zones in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots. He claimed he served as a White House chaplain under multiple presidents. He claimed he served as an ambassador to the United Nations. He claimed he set up a morgue and gave last rites to the dying in New York outside the collapsed World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

But in a seven-month investigation published Monday, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting couldnt find evidence that Johnsons stories about himself were true.

What the small journalism nonprofit did find was a trail of police records and court files, shattered lives and a flagrant disregard for truth.

In the 1980s, police investigated Johnson on suspicion of destroying his car in an arson because he needed insurance money. Criminal charges were dismissed after he completed a six-month pretrial diversion program.

Then, in 2000, an arsonist burned down Johnsons church, and insurance investigators discovered it was deeply in debt. A secretary accused Johnson of financial misappropriation. Johnson blamed the Ku Klux Klan. No charges were filed.

Johnson rebuilt the church, which would later be cited by the state for unlicensed liquor sales at a bar inside. Johnson called church drinking communion.

At boozy church gatherings, Johnson would sometimes kiss young women on the lips, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting said.

In the storys most explosive allegation, a woman named Maranda Richmond accused a drunk Johnson of digitally penetrating her while she was 17 and sleeping on a couch at Johnsons church on New Years morning in 2013.

Richmond, now 21, complained to police later that year, but no charges were filed.

When the journalists investigation came out Monday, state lawmakers again called on Johnson to resign. He refused.

In a news conference at his church on Tuesday, Johnson told reporters that anybody that has gotten wobbly in how theyre standing with me in the political ranks, they need to toughen up a little bit.

But on Wednesday, it appeared Johnsons internal defenses were crumbling.

In a final Facebook post, Johnson said he had 24/7 post-traumatic stress disorder after the Sept. 11 attacks and cannot handle it any longer, according to WDRB-TV. (The post appears to have been taken down or is not publicly available.)

The post also denied the molestation claim and said only GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be. AMERICA will not survive this type of judge and jury fake news. Conservatives take a stand.

Bullitt County Sheriff Donnie Tinnell told WDRB-TV that Johnson had killed himself on a bridge in Mount Washington, Ky.

Johnson is survived by five children and his wife, who had ejected the investigative journalists from Johnsons church as they reported their expose.

Before kicking them out, she said her husband was a great man and the church did great work, the report said.

Then the journalists described what happened next: She points us to the door. We know what youre going to do, she says. And youre going to have blood on your hands. Im telling you now, its the word of the Lord.  

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Matt Pearce is a national reporter for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @mattdpearce.

More national headlines
Gang injunctions, pioneered in Los Angeles, are civil court orders that restrict the behavior of people whom police identify as gang members. When they are employed wisely, they can be useful tools to protect neighborhoods from the fear and intimidation perpetrated on them by criminal street gangs. When used foolishly, they become just another source of fear and intimidation, stripping residents of their basic rights to decide where to sit, whom to speak with and what to wear.

After decades in which Los Angeles indiscriminately enforced this public safety tool, City Atty. Mike Feuer is curbing the excesses and has released thousands of people from the injunctions net. It is a smart and welcome move.

The Times reported Monday that Feuer has sent 7,300 letters informing people they were no longer subject to gang injunctions. Thats more than three-quarters of the people who were covered, and marks a major policy shift for the city.

Advertisement

The reasons for the shift are open to debate. It may well be, as some city leaders argue, that the injunctions did their work, helping to persuade thousands of gang members  mostly young men  to change their ways, leave gang life and turn to more responsible and productive activities. Or it could be that gangs, though still the source of much criminal activity in Los Angeles, are no longer as pervasive and no longer pose the same level of threat that they did 20 or 30 years ago.

Mike Feuer has released thousands of people from the injunctions net. It is a smart and welcome move.

Or it may well be that gang injunctions had simply become a too-blunt tool in an unthinking war on gangs that sought to criminalize whole populations of young Angelenos in Latino and African American neighborhoods. Some of those caught up in the injunctions began to challenge their constitutionality in court.

There is indeed reason for serious concern when people who have committed no crimes but may be associated with gangs  or related to, or living near, people who are gang-associated  can be subject to arrest for doing simple things that other people in other neighborhoods can freely do, like wear whatever clothes they choose or sit on the front steps and talk with friends.

It is an example of the quandary of criminal justice. Society is vulnerable to crime waves and has a right to protect itself  but not at the expense of the basic rights and human dignity of individuals who often come under scrutiny not for anything they have done, but by their economic condition, where they live, whom they hang out with or the color of their skin. It is the same issue that arises when homicides jump in any given part of town, and police respond with pretextual car stops and body frisks to search for illegal weapons or lesser violations. Relinquishing whole neighborhoods to fear must never become acceptable, and law enforcement must respond. But neither should residents who have done nothing wrong have to constantly live in fear of the very police who were sent to help.

Surely some balancing is possible. In the case of gang injunctions, Feuers initiative appears to achieve it.

He, his deputies and the LAPD pored through thousands of cases to determine how appropriate it was to keep each purported gang member under injunction. Only where evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the subject was an active gang member was he or she kept under one of more than 40 injunctions.

At least as important is a new policy under which a person who is going to be subjected to a gang injunction is notified in advance and given 30 days to challenge that action in court. Importantly, it is the city that must first go to court, not the person the city wants to enjoin. To settle a lawsuit over city enforcement of the curfew portion of about two dozen injunctions, the city has also stepped up with job readiness and training programs. Meanwhile, it is fighting crime with better lighting, cleaner alleys and protection for kids on their walk to and from school.

Those kinds of crime-fighting tools are far more mundane that gang injunctions, but have proved to be at least as effective, and without abridging any law abiding residents rights or undermining their dignity. Injunctions remain intact and part of the crime-fighting toolbox. But the city should keep honing its smaller, more delicate tools to get better results.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
This last year has been a dangerous one for journalists around the globe  a record 262 men and women are imprisoned because of the nature of the work they do, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Its part of a disturbing trend of attacking and undermining institutions that exist to hold public officials accountable and to bring light into some of the darkest corners of the world.

Turkey and Egypt  two U.S. allies  and China account for about half of the detained journalists, but the problem extends widely. Heres what happened just this week: Two Reuters staffers who had been working on stories about the Myanmar governments violent ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Rakhine State were arrested under that countrys Official Secrets Act; a journalist writing about corruption was jailed in Tajikistan; and a French documentary filmmaker was detained in Kashmir by Indian authorities.

Most appalling is that the list of 262 includes some journalists who were nabbed a decade ago or longer by governments that have refused to divulge their whereabouts or even whether they are alive; some are likely dead. In fact, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 37 journalists were killed this year; 13 of them were murdered and the rest were killed covering combat or working in other risky conditions.

Advertisement

President Trump doesnt bear the responsibility for these deaths and internments, of course. Over the last decade, the annual number of jailed journalists averaged 183, with a low of 125 in 2008. But Trumps rhetoric has given cover to regimes that not only have oppressed journalists, but seek to discredit their work.

Trumps rhetoric has given cover to regimes that not only have oppressed journalists, but seek to discredit their work.

Trump has spent more than a year attacking critical coverage as fake news; taking his cue, authoritarian regimes have used similar language to dismiss coverage that exposes scandals, highlights egregious behavior or simply displeases them. The Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the Peoples Daily, ran an op-ed recently citing Trumps fake news screeds as cause to distrust all U.S. coverage of China and its policies. Arguing that China has been the victim of distorted Western coverage for years, the paper wrote: If the president of the United States claims that his nations leading media are a stain on America, then negative news about China and other countries should be taken with a grain of salt since it is likely that bias and political agendas are distorting the real picture. Syrian President Bashar Assad and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro similarly dismissed negative coverage of their repressive regimes actions as fake news.

Since before he won the election, Trump has worked like no other mainstream U.S. political figure to undermine national institutions, from Congress and the courts to the media. Addicted to the spotlight, Trump is incapable of accepting coverage that legitimately exposes errors and shortcomings of his administration, and seems to awaken every morning with a chip on his shoulder bearing the logo of whatever news outlet he happens to be picking a fight with at the time.

Pushback against negative coverage is both reasonable and expected, but Trumps efforts to sow doubt about the essential nature and mission of news organizations veers into dangerous territory. Although press freedoms in the United States remain robust, Trumps acerbic tweets make one wonder whether the president feels a twinge of envy when he sees Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shuttering news outlets critical of his repressive policies, or jailing hundreds of journalists with impunity. (The crackdown began after a failed coup in 2016; the Committee to Protect Journalists lists 76 reporters, whom Erdogan describes as spies or terrorists, still in jail.)

It would be quixotic to think that Trump will change his rhetoric or even care about the damage he causes when, as the leader of the free world, he openly undercuts the notion of a free and independent media. But his disregard for a free press fits in with his administrations dangerous abdication of Americas traditional role as defender of human rights around the world. Yes, ours is an imperfect record complicated by acts of injustice within the United States itself, but the United States still must stand by the principles of universal human rights, democracy, and the open and free exchange of ideas. And the president must end his undercutting of the media. Instead of giving repressive governments cover, he should be calling out regimes that lock away, or kill, those who would question them.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook.
Ukraine's Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan is dissatisfied with the process of selecting candidates for the post of independent members of the supervisory board of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia.

"I saw the list, I am unsatisfied. This again indicates problems in the state. We are not able to get at least a short list of quality people," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

According to Omelyan, instead of "posting ads on poles," it was necessary to hire a recruitment agency that would look for the incumbent executives of other companies, persuaded them to participate in a tender.

"It would work, and in our case there is the desire of certain individuals that the allegedly "open" tender actually ends up with the selection of the previously known persons, appointing bona fide performers but not really high quality managers," the minister said.

Earlier Head of Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov reported that more than 50 applicants had applied for the tender to select independent members of its supervisory board.

"I can say that as far as I know, more than 50 applications have been submitted for the tender, the contest showed a great activity of participants. Many foreigners have applied," he said.
Where is J. William Fulbright when we need him? Or if not Fulbright, perhaps Robert M. La Follette or George W. Norris. Personally, Id even settle for William Borah or Burton K. Wheeler.

During the 20th century, each of these now largely forgotten barons of the U.S. Senate served the nation with distinction. Their chief contribution? On matters related to war and peace, they declined to kowtow to whoever happened to occupy the office of commander in chief. On issues involving the safety and security of the American people, they challenged presidents, insisting that the Congress should play a central role in formulating basic policy. With the floor of the Senate as their bully pulpit, they questioned, provoked and thereby captured public attention.

A century ago, La Follette of Wisconsin and Norris of Nebraska, both progressive Republicans, spoke eloquently and at length in opposition to President Woodrow Wilsons insistence that the United States should go to war with Germany. Following the World War I armistice, Borah, a Republican from Idaho, emerged as an uncompromising critic of the Versailles Treaty that Wilson negotiated in Paris. During the late 1930s, having concluded that U.S. participation in that earlier European war had been a huge error, Borah and Wheeler, a Democrat from Montana, sought to prevent President Franklin D. Roosevelt from repeating Wilsons mistakes. Three decades later, Fulbright, a Democrat from Arkansas and the influential chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became a thorn in Lyndon B. Johnsons side as a sharp critic of the Vietnam War.

Advertisement

The Senates duty is clear  to spell out the implications of Trumps mishandling of U.S. foreign policy before the damage becomes irreversible.

In opposing presidents whom they saw as too eager to wage war or too certain that they alone understood the prerequisites of peace, these senators were not necessarily correct in their judgments. Yet by drawing widespread public attention to foreign policy issues of first-order importance, they obliged their adversaries in the White House to make their case to the American people.

Whatever the issue  sending Americans to fight on the Western Front, joining the League of Nations, rescuing Great Britain from Hitler or defending South Vietnam  the back and forth between presidents and prominent Senate critics provided a means of vetting assumptions, assessing potential risks and debating possible consequences. In each instance, American citizens gained a clearer picture of what their president was intent on doing and why. The president became accountable.

Contrast that with our situation today. Donald Trump came to office almost entirely ignorant of statecraft. Rather than a considered worldview, he offers slogans and sound bites. As Trump approaches the first anniversary of his inauguration, we can say this about U.S. foreign policy: It has ceased to exist.

Any policy worthy of the name requires principles. Trump has none. So U.S. behavior on the world stage today consists of little more than random and often contradictory impulses. For recent examples, consider the inflammatory rhetoric directed at North Korea, stealth increases in U.S. troop contingents in Syria and Afghanistan, the inauguration of a U.S. bombing campaign in Somalia and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In each instance, the president acted without making the slightest pretense of consulting anyone outside a small circle of White House advisors. None of these decisions, to put it mildly, will Make America Great Again.

As American statecraft succumbs to incoherence, where is the Senate? Somewhere between missing in action and too preoccupied with partisan and parochial considerations to take notice. As a body, the Senate has done nothing to restrain Trump or to enlighten the American people regarding the erratic course on which the president has embarked. Occasional complaints registered by a handful of senators, such as the ailing John McCain, amount to little more than catcalls from the bleachers. In effect, senators of both parties have made themselves complicit in the unfolding folly.

The duty of the Senate is clear  to spell out the implications of Trumps mishandling of U.S. foreign policy before the damage that he is inflicting becomes irreversible.

Given the chance, any president will treat statecraft as his personal fiefdom. History shows that even a small number of senators with sufficient gumption and wit can frustrate such ambitions. This is what La Follette and Norris, Borah and Wheeler, and Fulbright did in their time. That among their successors today there appear to be none willing or able to take up their mantle is a sad testament to the state of American politics.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook
Hows this for a chilling effect in an era of global warming?

Last month, rangers at Joshua Tree National Park posted some tweets about climate change and its impact on the desert. It was pretty basic stuff.

Park scientists know that climate change will effect the desert ecosystem, but they dont yet know what exactly will change, read one. The data they are gathering about whats currently happening will ID areas of special interest and assist management decisions for planning & protection.

Advertisement

According to a report in the Hill, the benign-sounding tweets were enough to raise the ire of Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service. Joshua Tree Supt. David Smith was summoned to Washington for a meeting with Zinke, who reportedly told him, no more climate tweets.

As habitats shift to higher elevations due to warming, individuals of a particular species may become isolated on mountaintops. These habitat islandsrefugiaserve as safe harbor, however, they're at high risk to wildfire or other catastrophic events that destroy large areas. pic.twitter.com/Kl6cyu0sdX  Joshua Tree NPS (@JoshuaTreeNPS) November 8, 2017

The Trump administrations war against truth has been of the scorched-earth variety, which should be troubling no matter ones political beliefs. A secretive government is no friend to democracy, and ordering a park superintendent to a D.C. meeting with a Cabinet secretary to be told what not to say sends a chilling message through the Interior Department. (A department spokesman denied the Hills account of what was said in the meeting.)

Note that the offending tweets didnt violate any department policy  in fact, they are still posted. But a clear message was sent to Zinkes underlings.

This is the same Cabinet secretary who willy-nilly transferred senior staffers in June from jobs in which they had significant expertise to positions for which they were, by and large, unsuited. One transferee, Joel Clement, was reassigned from his position as director of policy analysis to a job auditing fossil fuel leases after publicly explaining how climate change is affecting Alaskan native villages (significantly, and well-documented).

The nation would be better off if Zinke wasted more of his time on such inanities instead of dismantling national monuments.

Its unclear whether Zinkes dressing-down of Smith reflects the administrations disbelief that human activity is affecting climate change. Zinke himself has said that he believes that global warming is happening, but that the scientific debate is not over on how much of that is due to human activity (Note to Zinke: Its over, except among mostly flat-Earthers and conspiracy theorists).

It could just be that Zinke is trying to intimidate a workforce that he views as hostile to him, and to Trump. He told the National Petroleum Council earlier this year that a third of the departments employees were not loyal to the flag.

Of course, heavy-handed management techniques usually do create, or exacerbate, a hostile workforce. And Zinkes telling a special interest group that has eyes on federal land leases that he doesnt trust his staff raises doubts about his loyalty to the people and department hes supposed to be leading.

Regardless, calling a park superintendent in for a spanking by the principal for what were, objectively, non-problematic communications with the public  you know, the people who own the parks and for whom the government is supposed to be working  is a bizarre waste of resources and of top managements time.

But then, the nation would be better off if Zinke wasted more of his time on such inanities instead of dismantling national monuments, opening stunning landscapes to drilling rigs and truck roads, and undercutting decades of work by both Republicans and Democrats to preserve public lands for the public.

In fact, if freezing Zinkes awful agenda were the result, I suspect most Interior department workers would happily line up for their turns in the woodshed.

scott.martelle@LATimes.com

Follow my posts and re-tweets at @smartelle on Twitter.
To the editor: The article fails to mention an incredibly important fact with regard to churches and their right to preach politics from the pulpit. (Religious leaders question why Republican tax plan would allow churches to endorse candidates, Dec. 12)

Christian preachers are not prohibited from endorsing candidates or supporting political issues. They are free to say whatever they wish from the pulpit.

But if they want to jump into the political fray, they simply cant continue to maintain their tax-free status. Thats the issue.

Advertisement

Churches do not pay taxes on the money they raise, and in exchange, they dont preach politics. Its a deal they made decades ago with taxpayers. If Christian churches would like to become political, they can give up their tax-free status.

Of course, that would cost them a lot of money. They want to have their cake and eat it too  and they want taxpayers to subsidize them while theyre eating the biggest slices.

Cheryl Holt, Burbank

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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.

Facebook

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

Watch live: California Senate leader addresses sexual misconduct at state Capitol Facebook

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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
Sen. Marco Rubio on Thursday became the latest holdout on the Republican tax plan, depriving leaders of crucial backing as they struggle to build support for the bill before next weeks expected vote.

The Florida Republican, who warned leaders he would vote no unless changes were made to the current version, is pushing for greater refundability of an enhanced child tax credit that he and others, including Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter, fought to provide for low-income and working-class Americans.

By publicly opposing the legislation, he joins those who are capitalizing on the Senates delicate math to extract last-minute concessions.

Advertisement

GOP leaders can afford to lose only two Republican senators from their slim 52-48 majority and still pass the bill next week, with Vice President Mike Pence having postponed his Middle East trip so he can be on hand to break a tie, if needed

Already, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who opposed an earlier version of the bill, remains undecided. The Senate calculus is further jeopardized by the potential absence of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who missed votes this week as he battles brain cancer, and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who was recuperating from outpatient treatment for a non-melanoma lesion but was expected to return next week.

Many others, including Rubios partner on the child tax credit proposal, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), remain undecided.

Some dismissed Rubios insistence on revisions as an empty gambit from a senator who, while known for pushing his top issues, is hardly seen as a renegade willing to buck party leadership by withholding his vote.

President Trump appeared to take that view, predicting Rubio would come around to support the legislation.

I think hell get there, Trump said during an event at the White House. Hes really been a great guy, very supportive. I think that Sen. Rubio will be there.

Trump should know. As rivals on the presidential campaign trail, he and Rubio sparred in starkly personal ways  at one point over a measure of their manhood. But Rubio ultimately endorsed Trump when the businessman became the nominee.

Also confident of winning over Rubio were Republican leaders, who said they expected changes to be made to bring the senator around.

We wouldnt be having the vote if we didnt have the votes, said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican whip.

But Rubio may not be so quick to budge, modeling lessons learned from colleagues, including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who withheld support on an earlier proposal until they won concessions.

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, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.

What Rubio is fighting for  raising the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 and making it partly refundable for moderate-income earners  could help Republicans as they battle criticism that their tax plan is too heavily focused on corporations and wealthy Americans.

Under the revised bill, the steep corporate tax cut, from 35% to 21%, will start in 2018, a year earlier than the Senate had initially planned, and the top individual bracket will be lowered to 37% from a 39.6% rate.

Rubio, a father of four, has spoken in personal terms about the expense of raising children, and proposed the tax credit as part of his platform for president.

Tax negotiators didnt have much trouble finding a way to lower the top tax bracket and to start the corporate tax cut a year early, Rubio snapped Thursday on Twitter.

Adding at least a few hundred $s in refundable cuts for working families who seem to always be forgotten isnt hard to do either.

During the Senate vote on the measure last week, Rubio tried unsuccessfully to slightly raise the proposed corporate rate  then at 20%  by about 1 percentage point, using that money to pay for the enhanced child credit. The idea was voted down.

With Lee, Rubio had already succeeded in doubling the child tax credit, to $2,000 per dependent. But he argues it needs to be refundable against payroll taxes for lower-income earners, otherwise it will mostly benefit wealthier households who itemize deductions.

I have been asked by some people: Why isnt that enough? Rubio argued on the Senate floor this month. The answer is that the people we most want to help are not going to be able to fully use it.

But at this late stage of negotiations, changes are proving difficult, especially because Republicans are working under an agreement not to add more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the decade.

The cost to make the child tax credit fully refundable would be about $87 billion over the decade, and would need to be offset with revenue elsewhere to stay within the deficit limit.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said negotiations were winding down.

Were just about ready to finish this off, he said on CNN.

And House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Thursday pushed back against polling that shows the GOP bill is unpopular with voters, saying Americans will probably grow to favor it once they start to see the results, which Republicans say will be in paychecks early next year.

This is the nature of the debate on things this big, like tax reform, Ryan said.Youve got pundits and spinsters and all of this spinmeisters out there, you know, confusing the public.

He added, What comforts me greatly is the fact that the results are going to produce fantastic results that will improve the lives of hardworking taxpayers in this country.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

@LisaMascaro

ALSO

Bannons ouster could boost the powerful Koch network, which has surprising sway in Trumps White House

Democrat Doug Jones charts an unlikely path in Alabama Senate race as scandal isolates GOPs Roy Moore

GOP leaders reach tax deal, cutting corporate rate to 21% and top individual rate to 37%

More coverage of Congress

More coverage of politics and the White House
For Tina Johnson, Roy Moores defeat is just beginning to sink in.

Johnson, one of the women who accused Moore of sexual misconduct as he ran for U.S. Senate in Alabama, had never voted before Tuesday.

Watching returns with family and friends in Gadsden, Ala., she was nervous about Democrat Doug Jones chances.

Advertisement

I was biting my nails and praying a lot, she said on Thursday. And [God] heard me.

Johnson was shocked as results showed Jones nearly 21,000 votes ahead of his GOP rival. The overwhelmingly Republican state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 25 years.

Its a great feeling to know that we were vindicated, Johnson said. I thought the people of Alabama would not have enough sense to do the right thing. Maybe theres hope for us yet.

Johnson says Moore grabbed her buttocks when she visited his law office in 1991, when she was 28.

Another woman, Leigh Corfman, said Moore molested her when she was 14 and he was 32.

Beverly Young Nelson, 56, accused Moore last month of sexually assaulting her when she was a 16-year-old waitress at a Gadsden restaurant. She said she had no doubt that the womens accusations played a role in the election.

Moore, 70, denies all of the allegations.

I believe I was believed, Nelson said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Nelson, an interior designer who grew up in Gadsden, was eating breakfast as dinner at a Waffle House with her husband, John, on election night when she got a call that Jones had won.

My son said Mom, turn on the radio, she said. I was like, Are you serious?

In the last two months of the campaign, as women came forward with allegations, Moore accused them of lying.

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, Moore posted on Twitter last month.

At a news conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred, last month, Nelson alleged that Moore sexually assaulted her in a car outside a Gadsden restaurant where she waited tables. He groped her breasts, tried to shove her face into his crotch and bruised her neck, she said.

Nelson showed her 1977 Southside High School yearbook with an inscription she said was written by Moore: To a sweeter, more beautiful girl I could not say, Merry Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore.

Moore denied ever meeting her and suggested the yearbook signature was forged.

Last week, Nelson admitted she added some words  12-22-1977 Old Hickory House and D.A.  under Moores signature.

Tuesdays razor-thin result left Nelson feeling better about her decision to come forward, and hopeful that Alabama had begun something of a reckoning.

I feel like I dont have to hide anymore, she said. I believe that Alabama is really on its way to making some major changes that the state has needed for years.

Johnson was also optimistic, even though she marveled that Moore got 48.4% of the vote.

I live in Alabama, so I can say about Alabamians, theyre really ignorant about certain things, she said. Thats the truth. These people following Roy Moore are more of a cult than a Republican Party.

Johnson did not exempt herself from criticism, noting she had spent her life paying too little attention to politics.

Dont be my age and vote for the first time, she said. I never voted, because I didnt think it would make a difference. I was part of the problem.

In the past, when she spotted Moore on TV, Johnson said she would have a sick feeling because she hadnt stood up to him.

I just went with the flow, she said. I tried to put a wall up. I was scared. ... Now I can say Hey look, I dont have to worry no more. Speaking out does help and it is worth it in the end.

The experience taught her to be more engaged, she said. She now hopes to build a social media campaign, with the hashtag #StandUp, to persuade men to support women.

Im just a small woman from Alabama, really, that no ones ever heard of, she said. But it doesnt matter. We have a voice.

Jarvie is a special correspondent.

ALSO:

Roy Moore not conceding; in fact, he sounds like hes still campaigning

White House gives Roy Moore a unsubtle shove: Time to concede

In Alabama and across the country, pride swells as black female voters show they matter
President Trump gave a distinctly mixed message to the FBI on Friday, saying people are very, very angry about what they see as a political bias in the bureau but vowing unqualified support for law enforcement.

Well, its a shame whats happened with the FBI, Trump told reporters at the White House before he flew to Quantico, Va., to address graduates at the FBI Academy. But were going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever.

The speech marked an opportunity for Trump to reaffirm public faith in the federal justice system as the White House faces a special counsel investigation into possible cooperation between his campaign and a covert Russian effort to undermine Hillary Clinton.

Advertisement

Trump instead used the address to mock reporters in the room as fake news, slam the visa lottery system, and praise himself as a true friend and loyal champion in the White House  more loyal than anyone else can be.

Saying that assaults on police are on the rise, he said, every drop of blood spilled from our men and women in blue is a wound inflicted on our nation.

They have been subject to malicious attacks on their character and integrity, he said, This anti-police sentiment is wrong and its dangerous, and we will not stand for it.

Earlier, Trump had been just as scathing when asked about the release by the Justice Department this week of about 375 private text messages between Peter Strzok, a senior FBI counter-intelligence agent, and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer from a 15-month period in 2015 and 2016. Some of the texts were harshly critical of Trump and other candidates.

Trump called the texts really, really disgraceful.

Special counsel Robert Mueller III, who is leading the Russia investigation, removed Strzok from the probe after an inspector general inquiry found the texts in July. Page had assisted the investigation in its early stages but already had left.

A White House spokesman reinforced criticism of the FBI earlier Friday, telling Fox News that the texts are signs the FBI has an extreme bias against Trump.

It is troubling, deeply troubling, that the revelations have now come to light that there is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time, said spokesman J. Hogan Gidley.

In his remarks to reporters, Trump repeated his claims that Clinton got off easy in the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of State. He called the decision not to prosecute the Democratic presidential nominee as evidence of a rigged system.

When you look at what they did with respect to the Hillary Clinton investigation, it was rigged. And theres never been anything like it in this country that weve ever found before. Its very, very sad, he said.

Trump refused to rule out a presidential pardon for Michael Flynn, his former national security advisor. Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian officials, and agreed to cooperate with Muellers investigators.

I dont want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet, Trump said. Well see what happens. Lets see. I can say this: When you look at whats gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expects the candidate for the post of head of nationalized PrivatBank to be determined by the end of the year, NBU Deputy Head Yekateryna Rozhkova has reported.

"We hope that by the end of the year the supervisory board (of PrivatBank) will decide on the candidature and appoint a new board chairman," she said during the round table entitled "Nationalization of banks: world experience and Ukrainian realities" organized by the Independent Association of Ukrainian Banks in Kyiv.

As reported, former board chairman of PrivatBank Oleksandr Shlapak in late June announced his intention to complete the anti-crisis term in the bank. According to him, he has submitted a relevant statement to the bank's supervisory board and it can be considered at a next meeting in late July.

Ex-Minister of Finance of Ukraine Oleksandr Shlapak was appointed board chairman of PrivatBank in December 2016, after the government, at the suggestion of the NBU and the shareholders of PrivatBank, the largest of whom at that time were Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov, had decided to nationalize this largest bank in the Ukrainian market of financial institutions. The state received 100% of its capital, while PrivatBank was capitalized for UAH 116.8 billion.
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.

The assemblyman announced his resignation Friday, effective Jan. 1, after two women publicly accused him of harassment. Pamela Lopez, a Sacramento lobbyist, said Dababneh masturbated in front of her and asked her to touch his genitals at a 2016 party. Another woman, Jessica Yas Barker, alleged that Dababneh routinely made degrading comments about women and discussed his sexual exploits in the office. Dababneh has strongly denied the accusations.

The Assembly Rules Committee has hired an outside investigator to look into the allegations against the Woodland Hills lawmaker, who is not married.

Assemblyman Matt Dababneh to resign following sexual misconduct allegations 

The other two women who spoke to The Times also described incidents that they claim occurred before Dababneh was elected to the Assembly in 2013  one when he supervised local field operations to help John F. Kerrys presidential campaign in 2004, and another when he was chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Porter Ranch), a position he held from 2009 to 2013.

Jenn Kang said Dababneh was her supervisor in 2004 when, as an 18-year-old just out of high school, she worked on the Kerry campaign in a Pasadena field office. She alleged that Dababneh exposed his penis to her and asked her to touch or perform oral sex on him one day when they were out trying to raise money for the candidate. Kang offered to speak to the Assembly Rules Committee last week as part of its investigation into Dababnehs conduct.

Carrie McFadden worked in Shermans campaign office from 2010 to 2012. She said Dababneh, as the congressmans chief of staff in the district office, would regularly talk about his sex life during his frequent visits. She said he once offered her a raise if she could convince a UCLA student to have sex with him.

Neither woman formally reported the incidents, saying they werent sure how to do so at the time.

I did not know who to call. I was only reporting to Matt. Theres no one else that I would have talked to, said Kang, who is now 31 and working in healthcare. A big part of me thinks that had I been able to have that route, he wouldnt have been able to do this to other women.

Dababneh, then a recent graduate of UCLA, appeared to take special interest in Kang during her summer job assisting the 2004 campaign, she said, asking her to go on weekend vacations and saying he had feelings for her.

She said Dababneh once asked her if she was a virgin. I wanted to jump out of my skin, she said.

Her older sister, Irene Kang, recalled that Kang said her male supervisor had taken interest in her and was asking her to hang out outside of work.

One afternoon in summer 2004, Kang and Dababneh were out knocking on doors to raise money. As they were sitting in his parked car, Dababneh pulled out his erect penis and asked her what she thought of it, she said. He asked her if she would touch him or perform oral sex on him, she said. When she declined, she said, he asked if she would at least touch his arm, and then put his penis back in his pants.

They finished their shift, but Kang didnt return to the office to work again after that day. Her friend Sarah Kwon said Kang told her at the time that Dababneh had exposed himself in the car.

Kang said she had been too young to process what had happened to her. She said shes speaking up now because she feels she would be complicit by not saying anything.

California assemblyman accused of forcing lobbyist into bathroom and masturbating 

McFadden said she frequently interacted with Dababneh when she worked in Shermans campaign office, a job she began as a 23-year-old UCLA student in 2010. Dababneh was then chief of staff in the representatives district office in Sherman Oaks.

McFadden said Dababneh would hang out in the campaign office and talk about which interns he thought were hot, or which women he had hooked up with in politics.

In February 2012, McFadden was honored as the UCLA Bruins Democratic Club alumnus of the year. She said Dababneh attended the event and told her if she could convince the then-president of the club to have sex with him, he would get McFadden a raise.

McFadden said the comment made her uneasy.

I think at the time I was in shock, and I dont think I even directly responded, she said.

Because McFadden worked for the campaign and not in the district office, Dababneh was not her boss and had no formal authority to adjust her pay.

McFadden did not report the incident to her boss, but she confided in two friends. Both confirmed to The Times that McFadden told them about Dababnehs behavior, including the comment about the raise.

Later, McFadden sent Dababneh an email, congratulating him on an endorsement in his campaign. She said she remained in occasional contact with him because she was being mindful of not burning any bridges.

McFadden, now 31 and working at an election law firm in San Francisco, said she struggled with whether to tell her story publicly.

There are still a lot of people from that campaign I consider friends, she said.

Miret was 22 years old and a recent UCLA graduate when she and Dababneh first spent time together alone in October 2013. Dababneh, 10 years her senior, was running for office for the first time, locked in a tight Assembly race that he would win narrowly the next month.

They met months earlier when her friend, Susana Mejia, brought her to a party. Mejia, who was then an intern in Shermans office, said she introduced them there.

The first time they spent time together, Miret said, she and Dababneh had sex at his apartment. She said that first encounter was consensual. When she met him subsequently, she told him in advance that she didnt want to have sex.

They did not have sex every time they saw each other. But on multiple occasions Dababneh would remove her clothes as she tried to squirm away, Miret said. She claimed she would tell him no or stop before he had sex with her. Miret said he would bite her neck and other parts of her body, leaving visible marks, and sometimes apologized for his actions.

If youre saying No, no, no, no, and you stop and then youre quiet, you still never gave consent. Thats something that I didnt understand at first, Miret said. I didnt understand that me stopping fighting was not consent.

In her own words: Women of California politics tell their stories of sexual harassment and unwanted touching 

Miret said she grapples with why she returned to see him.

He made it clear he was a powerful person with connections, someone who was important to know, and I naively believed nearly all of it, she said.

One Saturday night, she said she insisted they meet at a restaurant, hoping to avoid having sex with Dababneh by being in a public place. She said Dababneh convinced her to go to Shermans district office in Sherman Oaks, which was empty at the time, where they had nonconsensual sex. She said she felt intensely violated after the encounter, and afterward took photos of bruising and bite marks on her neck.

She showed The Times photographs she said were of those injuries; metadata from the photos confirmed they were taken on the night Miret alleged the encounter occurred. Mirets friend, Kevin Schallert, confirmed she canceled plans to attend a barbecue the next day, which she blamed on visible marks on her body that embarrassed her.

She said she stopped returning Dababnehs calls a short time later, after his election to the Assembly, and found the strength to abruptly end all communication with him. She told her friend, Mejia, at the time that the sex was not consensual. In an interview, Mejia confirmed that. In December 2013, Miret also told Schallert, which he confirmed to The Times.

Miret didnt file a police report at the time, she said, because I was still at a point where I could hardly talk about it.

In June 2014, Miret sought advice from Schallert, who put her in touch with Kaya Axelsson, a student activist on campus rape at USC.

She wanted to know what her options were as far as coming forward and as far as receiving some form of institutional support, Axelsson told The Times.

Axelsson suggested she call a rape crisis center affiliated with a local hospital. The Times reviewed a summary of Mirets June 16, 2014, call  placed seven months after Miret stopped seeing Dababneh  which was released by the center with her authorization. Miret asked questions about reporting a sexual assault and said she had been assaulted by Matthew Dababneh, according to the report.

Several weeks ago, Miret was connected to Lopez and Barker through mutual friends. She spoke to The Times before the women made their allegations public, then decided last week to go to the police.

Dababnehs attorney, James Blatt, said they are cooperating with the investigation.

I remember what it was like to not have a voice, Miret said. Its not fair to not speak out when you have the chance.

melanie.mason@latimes.com; seema.mehta@latimes.com

Follow @melmason and @LATseema on Twitter for the latest in California politics.

ALSO

Assemblyman Matt Dababneh to resign following sexual misconduct allegations

Lawyer for lobbyist who accused Asssemblyman Matt Dababneh of sexual misconduct seeks details about investigation

California assemblyman accused of forcing lobbyist into bathroom and masturbating
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.

Advertisement

That voice, though, is funded by donors who are largely shielded from public view. Some of its money, according to a Los Angeles Times review of federal tax documents, was donated through a nonprofit operated at the time by Chris Lehane, an influential political strategist and corporate consultant.

Between 2012 and 2015, Consumer Watchdog accepted $260,000 in donations from Lehanes group, a nonprofit called Main Street American Values. One $45,000 payment was made only weeks before Consumer Watchdog lent public support to one of Lehanes clients, Airbnb.

At the very least, by appearances it makes it look like money is driving the policy, said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who specializes in ethics and lobbying rules.

Main Street American Values gave nearly $1 million to another group during the years it was led by Lehane, the nonprofit Tides Foundation. Over the same period, Tides gave a similar-sized contribution to Consumer Watchdog.

According to Lehane, 50, none of his nonprofits money came from Airbnb. But he declined to identify the sources of his organizations contributions.

Lehane and longtime business partner Mark Fabiani, 60, once served as advisors to President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, earning the moniker masters of disaster for their skill in winning tough political fights. They served as consultants to some of the nations most powerful corporate players: AT&T, Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and Hollywood producers during the 2007 writers strike.

For three years, Lehane and Fabiani served as directors of Main Street American Values  an organization with no staff and a low public profile. In every year the nonprofit made donations, it sent checks to Consumer Watchdog. Lehane said in an email to The Times that hes known Court and others for a long while and that he has been in the foxhole with them on various consumer-related projects over the years.

In 2015, Consumer Watchdog joined Airbnb, then a Lehane client, in a successful effort to kill legislation in the state Capitol that would have imposed new rules on the home-sharing industry.

The bill would have required Airbnb homeowners to tally up the nights rented and the amount paid to ensure taxes were collected, though it did not require any personal information from renters. The day before a key legislative hearing, Consumer Watchdog claimed the bill was a privacy threat.

More than five dozen local government and public safety groups supported the measure; Airbnb, two industry groups and Consumer Watchdog were opposed. We didnt make any friends, as we often dont do, Court said.

The bills author, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), said the eleventh-hour opposition was a surprise. When we tried to talk to Consumer Watchdog about the facts of the legislation, they seemed quite entrenched and werent interested in learning more about the bill, he said.

Court said his organizations opposition was based on a concern that the legislation could make it easier for cities to target homeowners for things like zoning violations. I feel pretty good about the stand on McGuires bill, he said.

Lehanes nonprofit had given Consumer Watchdog its $45,000 donation five weeks earlier, according to documents provided to The Times by Court. Asked if the money was intended to support any specific position, Lehane declined further comment.

Political Road Map: Sacramentos closed-door deal making didnt go away with Proposition 54 

Courts group gave Airbnb another boost that year, opposing similar home-sharing rules in San Franciscos Proposition F. Through statements in TV ads and other campaign efforts, Consumer Watchdog again warned of an erosion of privacy rights. Voters rejected Proposition F by 11 percentage points in November 2015.

By early 2016, Lehane and Fabiani handed over control of Main Street American Values to others after Lehane was hired as Airbnbs chief of global policy. Fabiani now runs his own communications company.

Under federal tax law as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Consumer Watchdog is not required to reveal its donors. But Court, who has been president since 2003, in the past has frequently advocated for transparency. In a book that year, he lamented the growth of deception caused by donors  in his example, corporations  to groups who hide their identities from the public.

A major Consumer Watchdog donor was the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, which gives money to social justice and human rights efforts. For the four years beginning in 2012, federal tax returns show it gave more than $1 million to Consumer Watchdog. Over the same period, it received $955,000 in donations from Lehanes nonprofit.

Rachel Dearborn, a Tides spokeswoman, declined to comment on the specific circumstances surrounding the donations to Consumer Watchdog. But she said Tides sometimes makes grants that are recommended by our donor partners. Lehane said in an email that his nonprofit gave money to Tides because it supported the kind of progressive policy efforts [Consumer Watchdog] was leading on.

Said Court: We dont take money with strings.

For example, Court said, there were no specific conditions applied to the $90,000 donation Main Street American Values made in 2013, just days after he testified in Sacramento in support of drug testing for doctors. At the time, Lehane was helping draft a ballot measure that included a drug-testing provision. Court told The Times that his organization had been working on similar healthcare issues since the 1990s.

Consumer Watchdog has been a strong proponent for publicly disclosing the identity of those who subsidize policy and political fights. But in an interview, he said that revealing details of the source of Consumer Watchdogs money could scare off donors. Disclosure makes it easy for our enemies to defund us, he said.

Consumer Watchdog has criticized politicians for hiding the source of their donations. Last year, it filed a state ethics complaint alleging oil companies secretly funneled money to Gov. Jerry Browns 2014 reelection campaign. The group accused Browns administration of kowtowing to oil industry demands, though state officials dismissed the crux of the complaint in May.

Court said the comparison is unfair. We are not a government official with a duty, a public duty, taking taxpayer money with public powers, he said.

While the lack of donor disclosure may be legal for an advocacy group like Consumer Watchdog, said Levinson, of Loyola, it creates a perception that can be damaging.

It still appears that they were saying favorable things about their funders, she said. Thats the issue of transparency. Is Consumer Watchdog saying something because they believe it, or because its helpful to their funders?

john.myers@latimes.com

Follow @johnmyers on Twitter, sign up for our daily Essential Politics newsletter and listen to the weekly California Politics Podcast

ALSO:

California Democratic Party gets fined, Gov. Jerry Brown gets warning letter from ethics agency

California lawmakers cant figure out what to do with Airbnb. Heres why

Updates on California politics and government news
Californias march to marijuana legalization hits its stride next month when the first state-issued licenses take effect for sales to recreational users. But most Californians wont see pot shops springing up in their neighborhoods any time soon  and some may never see them in their communities.

To sell marijuana in California, retailers have to be licensed by the state, but they first must have the approval of the city or county where they plan to do business. Cities and counties can opt out of allowing commercial cannabis sales and most have  at least for now.

Los Angeles approved rules Dec. 6 allowing retailers to sell recreational marijuana next month, joining other major cities that have done so, including San Francisco, San Diego, Oakland and San Jose. But recreational pot sales wont be allowed in dozens more cities, including Riverside, Fresno, Bakersfield, Pasadena and Anaheim. In some cases, cities have decided to revisit the issue later in 2018 after they see how the new system works.

Advertisement

Its going to be months, maybe even a year before a majority of the state has access that is less than a half-hour drive away, said Nate Bradley, a representative of the California Cannabis Industry Assn. He estimated that only about a third of the state will initially allow the sale of pot for recreational use.

The delay is disappointing to supporters of Proposition 64, an initiative approved by 57% of California voters last year that requires the state to begin issuing licenses to sell recreational pot at the start of the new year. The Legislature also approved state-licensed medical marijuana sales fstarting Jan. 1  for two decades it was legal under state law but regulated by local governments.

The majority of governments in less urban areas have chosen to ban the cannabis business entirely, leaving a cannabis desert in large swaths of the eastern state, Inland Empire and Central Valley, said Ellen Komp, deputy director of the pro-marijuana group California NORML. Its a shame most of California wont be able to capitalize on the  tourist trade as other states have.

She predicted the transition to licensing sellers and growers will be a lengthy process extending over a couple of years.

The November 2016 initiative immediately allowed Californians who are 21 and older to possess and transport up to an ounce of marijuana for use for recreational purposes, and to grow up to six plants for personal use. Seven other states and the District of Columbia have also decided to fully legalize marijuana.

The drug remains illegal under federal law, but the U.S. Department of Justice has issued policy guidelines to its prosecutors that have allowed regulated sales to take place. U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has made comments about potentially enforcing federal law, but has not yet taken action.

Komp and others are hopeful that cities banning cannabis sales will eventually open their doors to the trade when officials see the benefits received by Californias big cities, including a flood of tax revenue and replacement of black market sales with regulated commerce.

The more than 1,300 dispensaries that now legally sell marijuana for medical use will be able to quickly get state licenses to continue medicinal sales starting Jan. 1, said Lori Ajax, director of the state Bureau of Cannabis Control.

Annual licenses will require a background check, training and a $1,000 application fee. The state will also monitor all marijuana products from farm to counter through a track-and-trace system.

To prevent those costs from putting legal marijuana sales out of reach to new retailers, the new state agency has decided to initially issue temporary permits that are good for four months and do not require application fees or background checks. Ajaxs office began accepting applications for temporary licenses on Dec. 8, and is issuing licenses this month that will be effective on Jan. 1.

But businesses can only get a license  temporary or otherwise  if they have a permit or approval to operate from the city or county where they are located.

The potential flood of applicants and the task of adapting to the new regulations and approval process might result in some bureaucratic delays, Ajax said.

The first few weeks, the first month, I do think people need to be patient, she said. I think weve positioned ourselves in a good place to issue temporaries on day one so people can continue doing business that have been in compliance with their locals.

Aaron Herzberg, an attorney for cannabis firms, is skeptical.

They are clearly not going to be ready and it will be a mess, Herzberg said. It will be sorted out, but the real battleground is on the local level.

California is the largest state to legalize the recreational use of pot, and Ajax has had just one year to put in place a comprehensive set of regulations and licensing system for marijuana growers, sellers and distributors. Ajaxs agency is on a hiring spree, but has so far not filled most of its 90 budgeted positions.

Ajax said she hopes to have sufficient staff by the time potential licensees begin the approval process next month.

With licensing just weeks away, the majority of the states 482 cities have not authorized recreational pot sales, said Alexa Halloran, an attorney specializing in cannabis law for the firm Harris Bricken.

Halloran said she has surveyed most cities in the state for a client and has identified more than 300 that have not approved recreational pot shops.

Los Angeles city officials say the ordinance adopted Dec. 6 should allow dozens of pot shops to get state licenses starting in January.

We received instructions from our bosses, who are the voters of this state, that they wanted us to come up with a way to regulate, tax and police this issue, so we are doing everything we can to try to make this deadline, City Council President Herb Wesson said.

Wesson said 150 medical marijuana dispensaries that have been operating in the city will likely be the first able to apply for state licenses for medical and recreational sales in January.

Halloran said 86 of the 88 cities in Los Angeles County do not allow sales for recreational use. Los Angeles and West Hollywood have approved the sales, while some others have taken initial action but not finalized decisions.

Stores selling recreational pot are not allowed in a number of L.A. County cities, including Alhambra, Burbank, Beverly Hills, Glendale, Inglewood, Pasadena and West Covina. Other cities, including Long Beach, decided after Proposition 64 to approve moratoriums on recreational marijuana sales, but plan to take up the issue again in 2018.

The sale of marijuana for recreational use is also banned in unincorporated areas of L.A. County, which makes up more than 65% of the countys land and is home to 1 million people.

Its surprising, Halloran said of the initial resistance from cities. I think a lot of the cities are waiting to see what happens. No one wants to be the spearhead of it.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has asked the countys cannabis management officer to develop proposals for possibly allowing marijuana sales. A report with draft proposals is expected to go to the board around January. Final approval of an ordinance could happen this spring.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, chairman of the board, said he is not yet convinced that the panel should allow marijuana sales.

There are huge unanswered questions and prudence is wanted, Ridley-Thomas said. He said potential negative impacts on the brains of young people from strong strains of cannabis is one significant concern.

Our obligation is to deal with the public health impacts and the regional planning impacts, Ridley-Thomas said. If we dont do this properly, you will end up with an over-concentration of pot shops on top of an over-concentration of liquor stores throughout L.A. County. There is no good to be derived from that.

Updates from Sacramento 

City officials who have barred marijuana sales say the decision reflects the values of their communities and concerns about legalized drugs increasing crime.

We respect the will of California voters, but believe the policy is in the best interest of our neighborhoods, Anaheim city spokesman Mike Lyster said of its ban. Anaheim residents seeking recreational marijuana will have plenty of options in neighboring cities and throughout Southern California.

Those who opposed Proposition 64 are encouraged that most of Californias cities are balking at allowing recreational pot sales.

No one wants to live near a pot shop, and no one wants to see pot candies sold near their house, said Kevin Sabet, head of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which campaigned against the state initiative.

More than 60% of Colorado towns have banned pot shops, and thats because people dont want to smell and see pot in their own community, Sabet added. We predicted this last November. Its totally unsurprising.

Wesson said Los Angeles hopes to become a model for other parts of the state, with rules barring pot shops near schools and parks but giving priority processing and other assistance to cannabis business applicants who are poor or were previously convicted of crimes involving marijuana.

The pressure for action may mount on other cities in the county as their residents flock to Los Angeles to buy cannabis and pay taxes there, he said.

We know that people [in other cities] kind of watch what we do, Wesson said. Im optimistic that we can maybe make it easier for other cities by putting together a common-sense set of rules and regulations.

patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com

Twitter: @mcgreevy99

ALSO:

Californians vote to legalize recreational use of marijuana in the state

Trump administration signals a possible crackdown on states over marijuana

Before Proposition 64, simple possession of marijuana was already decriminalized

Proposition 64 would legalize recreational use of marijuana though its illegal under federal law. How will that work?
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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

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

Twitter

Show more sharing options Share Close extra sharing options Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Email

Copy Link URL Copied!

Print

Advertisement

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
Short-term lodging will be allowed in Laguna Beachs residential zones going forward, the California Coastal Commission decided Thursday.

In a 9-2 vote commissioners denied the citys request to prohibit new permits for short-term rentals  stays for 30 consecutive days or less  in residential zones. The citys proposed revision would have instead expanded commercial areas where such rentals would be allowed.

The city wanted 8,900 residential lots, including properties with substandard lot sizes, removed from consideration as short-term rentals, according to a commission staff report.

Advertisement

Nearly 730 existing residential units on 282 lots in commercial areas would have been eligible for short-term rentals under the amended ordinance, the report said.

Commissioner Steve Padilla said the numbers tell the story.

This is a loss. Nothing else in the record suggests anything other than that, Padilla said.

Ive owned property and rented property and, in my experience, I would have gladly traded some of my neighbors who were owners because it is not just short-term renters who can be a pain in the butt, he added.

A crowd listens as the California Coastal Commission hears comments about Laguna Beachs proposed revisions to short-term lodging rules Thursday. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer )

Its been nearly 16 months since the Laguna Beach City Council approved changes to short-term lodging rules amid complaints of loud parties and littered sidewalks and streets that some residents attributed to short-stay renters.

The council enacted a moratorium on new short-term lodging permits from May 2015 until Oct. 1, 2016 while city staff researched the issue and gathered public feedback during 11 hearings.

Im disappointed and dont believe they [commissioners] acknowledged the effort the council made to accommodate tourists, Laguna Beach City Manager John Pietig said, adding that it was too early to say whether the city would return to the commission with another proposal.

In favoring Lagunas proposed changes, Commissioner Aaron Peskin questioned the argument that short-term lodging offers visitors more affordable rates than hotels or motels.

At Lagunas currently permitted 81 short-term rental units, the average nightly rate is $403, Laguna Beach Community Development Director Greg Pfost told commissioners at the meeting held in Dana Point.

Laguna Beach Community Development Director Greg Pfost concludes his remarks to the California Coastal Commission about proposed changes to the citys short-term lodging ordinance. (Don Leach / Staff Photographer )

The average nightly room rate for one of Lagunas 1,305 hotel and motel rooms in 2015-16 was $292 on weekdays and $350 on weekends, the commissions report said.

We may grow the amount of opportunities for visitors [with residential units], Peskin said, but this is already a town, it sounds like, visitors are getting there.

I dont think anywhere in [the Coastal Act] is the commission supposed to help visitors seek more residential vacation experiences.

The 34 speakers at the meeting were roughly split on whether to supporting Laguna Beachs proposed changes .

I was renting out to people from out of state and out of the country, mainly because they were appreciative for being in Laguna for the kind of money I was charging, resident Bruce Wheeler said. Most of the time they were at the beach or shopping or eating out.

City officials said Lagunas trolley shuttle, which offers passengers free rides, coupled with potential locations of short-term units in zones close to beaches and parks, would give visitors plenty of opportunities to access coastal areas.

Commission staff did approve of some of the revised ordinance, such as rules stipulating the number of guests and the times they could be on the property.

bryce.alderton@latimes.com

Twitter: @AldertonBryce
Ukraine in January-November 2017 imported 17.376 million tonnes of coal and anthracite (foreign economic activity code 2701) worth $2.431 billion, in particular in November for $279.606 million.

According to the State Fiscal Service, Ukraine imported coal from Russia for $1.37 billion (the share in imports is 56.36%), from the United States for $603.796 million (24.84%), from Canada for $149.866 million (6.16%), and from other countries for $307.301 million (12.64%).

Thus, in monetary terms coal imports for the period increased by 88.1% compared to January-November 2016 ($1.293 billion).

In natural terms coal imports rose by 22% compared to January-November 2016.

At the same time, Ukraine exported coal and anthracite for $97.961 million for the 11 months of 2017, in particular coal worth $54.828 million to Russia, $36.64 million to Slovakia, $2.566 million to Turkey, and $3.927 million to other countries.
Laguna Beach Unified School District officials filed a notice this week to appeal an Orange County Superior Court judges ruling that a suspension be removed from the record of a student disciplined in connection with a racially charged episode in which a watermelon was thrown at the home of a black classmate in December 2016.

Despite the ruling, district officials have not removed the suspension from the students record, opting instead to appeal the judgment.

However, during a hearing Thursday, the judge, Ronald Bauer, ordered the district to expunge the students record regardless of its appeal, according to Mark Rosen, an attorney representing the students family.

An appeal typically keeps a judges decision from taking effect, but if that delay causes harm, the court can allow the judgment to be imposed. Rosen argued that a suspension on the students record could affect his chances of being accepted to college.

The student, an 18-year-old Laguna Beach High School senior who is not identified in court records, was removed from school for three days in January.

It affects this kids life. Its pretty important, Rosen said. Im surprised the district is fighting it so hard.

The district did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment about Thursdays hearing.

A statement from district officials Wednesday said their appeal is based on the belief that the decision was wrong factually and legally, and an appellate court should, therefore, review it.

Maurice Possley and his wife, Cathleen Falsani, who are white, contended shortly after the Dec. 27 incident that their adopted son, Vasco, then 17, was targeted because he is black.

Five students reportedly were present when, according to court records, one threw the watermelon and another yelled a racially insensitive remark before driving away.

The student who was suspended has said he did not participate in the actions but was with the group at the time, according to court records.

The records dont specify whether any other students were suspended, though others were disciplined.

The suspended students family filed a lawsuit against the district in May, alleging that it acted improperly to be politically correct and to try to appear to the community like the district was taking action. They requested that the district remove the suspension from the students record, according to the filing.

On Oct. 6, Bauer ruled in favor of the student, saying there was no evidence that he had used racially insensitive language, threw the watermelon or encouraged his classmates to do so.

The court has concluded that no reasoned exercise of discretion can be applied to the known facts of students conduct in a manner that would justify the suspension that was imposed, Bauer wrote in his ruling.

Bauer also disagreed with the districts assertion that it has the ability to punish students for events occurring at any time. He said the California Education Code limits the time frame of a districts authority related to discipline.

A district news release states the school board is concerned that the students attorneys, his parents and the judge have seemed to cast aside the significance of the act and the impact on the victim with arguments that the district was being politically correct and finding scapegoats.

The decisions of district staff and the board, from the discipline decision after the investigation through and including the decision to appeal, have been driven by our commitment to our students and our community, board President Jan Vickers said in the release.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
Its a Charlie Brown Christmas again in Costa Mesa.

The 51st annual Snoopy House  a holiday tradition boasting festive displays including characters from Charles Schulzs iconic Peanuts comic strip  opened to the public Thursday evening at City Hall.

Snoopy House is open from 5:30 to 9 p.m. daily through Dec. 23, also featuring performances, free photos with Santa Claus, train rides and a snow play area on select days.

City Hall, at 77 Fair Drive, has hosted Snoopy House since 2011. Before that, it was at the Eastside home of Jim and Linda Jordan.
An appraisal of Newport Beachs public guest moorings suggests that the city could charge visiting mariners significantly more.

Guest rates are a flat $27 a night in the summer, or $16 a night in the off-season, for an offshore mooring. A recent study by appraiser James Netzer suggests a year-round rate based on boat length: $1.25 per foot, per night, which would make a 40-foot boat $50 per night.

Newport Harbor encompasses about 1,200 moorings  800 offshore and 400 onshore  over 12 mooring fields, which are essentially watery parking lots. Boat owners typically berth in their assigned spots year-round.

Guests can berth at moorings that are assigned to a main tenant, but are currently empty  a kind of sublease while the regular permitted tenant is out of town or otherwise isnt using the spot.

Although the city has long run the harbors annual mooring permit program, the Orange County Sheriffs Department Harbor Patrol had handled guest moorings.

That changed in July, when Newport Beach took over all aspects of harbor mooring administration from the county, including temporary mooring rentals, permit transfers, verification of boat owners maintenance and insurance obligations, and emergency towing, plus city code enforcement. City management sees the potential rate adjustments as a revenue opportunity worth about $75,000 more for harbor operations.

Netzers suggested rate structure increases fees for onshore moorings for small boats, adds a per-hull premium for catamarans and trimarans, and establishes a separate, $1.55-per-foot rate for large vessels, or vessels at least 100 feet long.

Overall, the proposed fee menu would hike rates for all but the smallest boats  those under 22 feet for offshore mooring fields, and only under existing summer rates  and under 18 feet for onshore moorings.

The Harbor Commission took no action on the item when it reviewed the study Monday, opting instead to reevaluate in January, when a commission subcommittee that studied large-vessel rates makes its presentation. (In a separate action Monday, the commission defined large vessels as 80 feet and above. Netzers appraisal was completed well before then.)

Commissioner Paul Blank said he couldnt endorse the proposed rates, but he would be willing to support smaller increases.

He said the city essentially competes with itself when it offers short-term offshore moorings and guest slips at Marina Park along the Balboa Peninsula.

Marina slips usually come with amenities and creature comforts that offshore moorings  which require dinghies to access  lack.

Boaters who stay in one of the 23 slips at Marina Park have access to an onsite cafe, laundry, restrooms and showers, utilities, wireless Internet, and beach, playground and picnic areas, for $60 a night in a 40-foot boat. Under the appraisals rates, a basic mooring wouldnt be much cheaper: $50 a night for a 40-footer.

I dont know too many boaters that would not pay the premium to be at Marina Park, Blank said.

Knocking the per-foot rate to 75 cents, though, would make a night in an offshore mooring $30, making the value tiers more obvious.

Blank also said he appreciated the premium for multi-hulled boats  theyre wider than mono-hulls of comparable length  but noted that power catamarans take up less space than sailing catamarans. He also suggested cutting the multi-hull premium to 12.5 cents per foot, per additional hull.

Netzer studied transient mooring fees along Californias coast, including Catalina Islands many harbors and coves, Long Beachs Outer Harbor, Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco, and Newports Balboa Yacht Club, which rents spaces to members of reciprocal yacht clubs.

The fair market rent is what will the market bear, and whats presented in my report is what the market will bear right now for a transient mooring, Netzer said.

George Hylkema, who keeps a boat moored in Newport Harbor year-round, told the commission about a friend who sails from Alaska to Hawaii, spending months at sea. One of his stops is in Newport.

But some seafaring travelers, like the Alaskan sailor, dont have a lot of money, Hylkema said.

I think if moorings were to go to $50 or $60 a night we would never see the likes of this gentleman again.

Suggested nightly guest mooring rates

Mooring type / Current / Proposed / Example

Off-shore / $16 (winter) / $27 (summer), flat / $1.25 per foot (year-round) / 40 boat = $50/night

On-shore* / $11 (year-round), flat / 62.5 cents per foot (year-round) / 18 boat = $11.25/night

Large vessel** / Prorated annual permit rate (about 10 cents per foot )/ 100 = $155; Invictus (216): $334.80

Multihull premium / None / 25 cents per foot, per added hull / 40 catamaran = $60/night ($1.50/foot); 40 trimaran = $70/night ($1.75/foot)

*maximum 18

**100 and above

Source: Netzer & Assoc.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
What do Steven Spielberg, Leonard Nimoy and Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols have in common?

Theyve all eaten Archies Ice Cream.

The business, headed by three brothers who live in Orange County, has become a community favorite in Tustin where the sole store is located.

But long before that shop was opened five years ago, Archies earned the admiration of popular celebrities, particularly the musical elite.

The vibrantly-painted walls of the Tustin store, adorned with autographed photos and guitars, is an homage to the early years of Archies, when the business was primarily run out of four ice cream trucks.

Theres a photo of Spielberg chomping into a Popsicle and one of Sugar Ray Leonard eating an iced chocolate fudge bar.

Most of the photos in the store were shot in the back of one of the businesss ice cream trucks, the Club Truck, in the Archies Lounge, which is a kind of rock n roll exhibit.

Celebrity after celebrity have snapped photos while splayed out on the lounges leopard-print couch. They each leave an autograph on the trucks walls in their wake.

Its like a mini museum on wheels, co-owner Shant Keuilian, 47, of Orange said about the truck. Its an ice cream truck on the outside, and on the inside, a museum. They flip out because theyve never seen anything like it.

The walls of Archies Ice Cream shop in Tustin are adorned with autographed photos and guitars from famous musicians. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer )

Archies Ice Cream began in 1996 after Keuilian phoned his brother Raffi in the middle of the night with the idea to make an ice cream truck, which he considered a fun little joke at first. Raffi lives in Tustin and the other Keuilian brother, Troy, lives in Yorba Linda.

At the time, the brothers were running a towing business, Archies Towing, which still operates in Orange. One of that business specialties is operating uniquely-painted tow trucks. Keuilian thought it would be interesting to custom paint an ice cream truck and drive around the community of Orange Hills.

Ice cream trucks have a nostalgic appeal for the Keuilian brothers. When they were kids, they would dash to the corner near their home in Huntington Beach when they heard the familiar Mister Softee jingle heralding the arrival of Doyle, the local ice cream man.

Within the year, Archies went from serving neighborhoods to doing events, clubs and festivals.

The first famous person to sign one of the businesss four ice cream trucks was NASCAR driver Richard Petty at the California Speedway, where Archies served ice cream annually for seven years.

That signature spawned Archies rise to celebrity status.

Keuilian said hes enjoyed meeting each superstar but he was most excited to meet Brian May, the guitarist for Queen, his favorite band.

I never thought I would meet Brian May through a Popsicle, Keuilian said.

Signed photographs of musicians and celebrities adorn the walls at Archies Ice Cream in Tustin. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer )

Five years ago, Keuilian decided he needed a new challenge and opened a shop at 12932 Newport Ave., Tustin.

While the store honors the storied celebrity history of the business, it also caters to young local musicians by providing a venue for them to showcase their work.

Keuilian said fledgling bands generally have trouble getting booked, so Archies can be a platform for them. Bands are also allowed to sell their CDs in the shop though Keuilian keeps none of the sales.

Being around music so much, I got to see what and how it all worked, Keuilian said. It didnt take much just to open the door and welcome them.

Most of the kids that play tell us they dont have anywhere to perform. By giving them a chance to play, its a big deal to them and makes me happy. If one person comes or nobody, it doesnt matter, as long as I see and hear a band in here having fun.

The stores success has led corporations to inquire about franchising but Keuilian said he isnt interested. Being able to support the community with his business in his own unique way is vital to him.

The great thing about this store is its not corporate-owned so I can do whatever I want, Keuilian said.

Prospective plans for the store include a skateboard deck art display with pieces from Tony Hawk and others and an air guitar contest with rock star judges.

As Keuilian says: Were your little neighborhood ice cream store that rocks.

For more information, visit archiesicecream.com.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter:@benbrazilpilot
It was 1968 when Sylvia Gallaghers interest in birds was first piqued.

My mother was feeding the birds in her Santa Ana backyard and she didnt know what any of them were, said Gallagher, a Huntington Beach resident who was living in La Canada at the time.

Gallagher, a chemist who was working on her doctorate  and who later became a college chemistry teacher  diverted her attention from the laboratory, where she was spending much of her time, and began her bird research.

It never ended.

Birds took over my life, Gallagher said.

Nearly 50 years later, Gallaghers passion for birds hasnt waned.

As a board member of the Sea & Sage Audubon Society, an Orange County Chapter of the National Audubon Society, she teaches classes regularly through the chapter on bird sounds, bird identification and other related workshops.

A quiet, meditative hobby for some and more of a competitive sport for others, birdwatching, or birding, has an active community of enthusiasts in Orange County.

Amid the hustle and bustle of modern urban life, these birders stop, wait, watch and often photograph the diverse species of birds  from hawks and shorebirds to everything in between  that call the county their home.

Orange County is one of the best birding areas in the United States, said Victor Leipzig, past president of the Sea & Sage Audubon Society, who teaches a Birds of the World class at Saddleback College. We have a combination of different habitats. We have a coastline  and theres a large number of species whose favorite habitats are coastal areas.

Leipzig, of Huntington Beach, said coastal sage scrub is one particularly popular plant community for birds in Orange County.

We have a mild climate that brings birds to us in the winter to escape the cold of the tundra, Leipzig said.

There are 10,000 bird species on the planet, and Orange County hosts well over 400 of those, said Leipzig.

In addition to serving as a relaxing hobby, or a competitive activity  through comparing bird counts and lists with fellow birders  birdwatching also serves a scientific purpose.

Birding can contribute to the understanding of our natural world, Leipzig said, adding that the Audubon Society encourages public engagement about which birds individuals see in their areas. That information is very heavily used by researchers to help understand the comings and goings of different bird species.

Leipzig said one of the best ways to submit birding information is through eBird.org, a joint effort between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society.

Orange County is blessed to have an enthusiastic community of birders and bird interest folks, Leipzig said, noting that the Sea & Sage chapter has about 3,500 members. To one extent or another that community is also a community of conservationists.

Birding docent Diane Etchison of San Clemente, who leads birding events through Irvine Ranch Conservancy, said becoming a birdwatcher is as simple as buying a good bird book and a pair of binoculars  a camera might be helpful, too.

Other than that its a matter of gaining experience, she said. You can look out into your backyard and look at birds.

As the hobby evolves, she also recommends taking a class like those taught by Leipzig and Gallagher to learn how to identify birds by sight and sound.

While there are plenty of local species to learn about, there also are rare bird sightings frequently reported in the area.

Spring is the bird-iest time of year because birds are migrating through, Etchison said.

Just recently, a Nazca booby  which breeds in the Galapagos Islands  made an appearance in Dana Point.

Etchison said it looked a bit like a white pelican.

When rare sightings happen, a network of Orange County birders is alerted by email and phone, and many of them head out with binoculars in hand to see for themselves.

There are a lot of really expert birders in the area that have been birding all their life, Etchison said.

For more information, visit seaandsageaudubon.org and Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks at letsgooutside.org.

Jessica Peralta is a contributor to Times Community News.
As Carl Morgan gazed at the homes trimmed in Christmas lights, the gleam in his eyes seemed to be powered from within, suggesting a youthful energy at the heart of the old Navy veteran.

Morgan, 96, of Lake Forest was one of four hospice patients offered a tour of holiday lights by limousine in Orange County as part of an inaugural program called Holiday Lights and Limos offered by 24/7 Care At Home, a hospice provider based in Westminster.

The occasion gives patients a chance to take a tour of intricate holiday house displays for free in a limousine with their families.

Before the tour Monday night, while seated in a chair in his Lake Forest home, Morgan recounted his younger days in the Navy during World War II.

With the help of his daughter Chris Mantey, Morgan told about being on a ship in the Pacific that was damaged after colliding with another ship that was attempting to evade bombs dropped from a Japanese fighter.

As he told the story his eyes welled with moisture.

The electricity was damaged in the ship and Morgan, an electrician first class, needed to revive the power. The ship also took on water at an alarming rate, measuring hip-deep at one point.

It took a week or two to repair the damage, Morgan said.

After the story, it was time to enter the limousine.

Volunteer carolers lined up on Morgans driveway belting out Christmas tunes while Morgan slowly ambled toward the limo with the aid of a walking stick and his live-in caregiver, Ping Agapito. A small red carpet was rolled out for the occasion.

Navy veteran Carl Morgan shakes hands with a fellow vet before getting into a limousine during the Lights and Limos event courtesy of his hospice provider on Dec. 11 in Lake Forest. (Photo by Don Leach / Staff Photographer )

Morgan was helped into the limousine and seated next to healthcare professionals in case of an emergency. Mantey and her family sat opposite Morgan.

Then the limo was off to tour the lights of select neighborhoods in Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills and surrounding areas.

Morgan was incredulous throughout the trip at the thought that the entire event could be in his honor. He hadnt been in a limo since his Navy days.

Whoever thought of this is my pal, Morgan said.

Bundled in a University of Southern California (his alma mater) Trojans blanket, Morgans expression warmed at the sight of homes festooned in lights despite the cold gripping at him from the open window.

Boy, look at that one, gee whiz, Morgan exclaimed at the sight of a particularly well-decorated home.

Ill be darned and holy cow were also uttered.

Neighborhood children gaped at the limousine.

They think youre famous, Dad, Mantey said.

A smile fixed itself on Morgans face.

Family also shared stories and anecdotes about Morgan, like how he used to make $78 a month in the Navy and sent all but $10 back home to his mother, or about growing up with 10 brothers and one sister.

At the end of the tour, Morgan was ushered back into his home for family photos to commemorate the event.

This was more than special for me, Morgan said.

Navy veteran Carl Morgan looks out the limousine door during the Lights and Limos event courtesy of his hospice provider on Dec. 11 in Lake Forest. (Photo by Don Leach / Staff Photographer )

Niece Nardini, human resources director for 24/7 Care At Home, said she started the limo program in 2008 while working for a hospice in Minnesota.

During the six-year lifespan of the program in that region, it grew from a handful of rides to 25 in its final year. Due to its success, she decided to bring the idea to Southern California.

The program is volunteer-run and based on donations, including the limousines.

Once someone is diagnosed, its really difficult for families to take them out for a joyful event without the fear of something going wrong, Nardini said, pointing out that the goal of the event is to offer patients an evening of joy.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter:@benbrazilpilot
Four Los Alamitos-based Army Black Hawk helicopter crews flew through thick smoke and wind gusting at over 70 mph over the past week to drop water on the Thomas Fire in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

Lt. Col. Aaron Schilleci, commander of the 1-140th assault helicopter battalion at Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos, said his soldiers have deployed to all of the California wildfires this year and the Thomas Fire is the most challenging. 1-140 AHB, nicknamed the Archangels, makes the 45-minute flight each morning to Camarillo Airport where each helicopter can make up to 75 water drops using hanging buckets.

Im really proud of them, Schilleci said. One of the tactics that the ground firefighters use is theyll look and see where weve been dropping because they know its wet and safe.

The Los Alamitos base is strategically significant for the Department of Defense and the Governors Office of Emergency Services because its the only active military airfield between Channel Islands Air National Guard Station in Ventura County and Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton.

Col. Richard Lalor, public affairs officer for the base, said its dual missions are training guardsmen and army reservists, as well as supporting the states emergency services.

Cal OES and the California National Guard staged emergency supplies in Los Alamitos to support evacuation centers across Southern California.

Food, water, blankets and cots were trucked in to await requests from local and state emergency planners.

Spc. Jesse Lambert, left and Spc. Daniel Cooper work on a California National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that assisted in fighting fires in Ventura County. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer )

Some of the material was stored here for that purpose and other material, because of the scale of the fires, is being brought in, Lalor said.

More than 1 million N-95 masks were distributed from Los Alamitos to aid stations between San Luis Obispo and San Diego, said Mark Ackerman, staging area group supervisor for Cal OES.

The success of the staging area is measured by how quickly it goes out of business, Ackerman said.

So far, city and county governments have shown theyre highly capable of managing large wildfire evacuations, Ackerman said. Forty truckloads of food staged in Los Alamitos never left the base.

Theres not a lot of people in shelters, he said. It means that people are taking care of themselves and each other. People drive down the freeway at 70 mph and dont even look at each other. All of the sudden calamity befalls us and were friends again.

As of this week, more than 1,600 California Guard members were mobilized to assist in the firefighting. On Dec. 7, the 129th Rescue Wing from Silicon Valley deployed about 25 airmen, including the Air Forces equivalent of military police, and an MC-130 Combat Shadow aircraft to Los Alamitos and the areas affected by wildfires.

Lalor said he expects the wildfire-related operations in Los Alamitos to slow down by this weekend as firefighters contain blazes and evacuated people return home.

Schilleci said the Black Hawks will continue fighting the Thomas Fire until at least Dec. 20. On Thursday, the Thomas Fire was 30% contained with 242,500 acres burned, according to authorities.

Fuel trucks line the staging area at Joint Forces Training Base Los Alamitos. (Scott Smeltzer / Staff Photographer )

Daniel Langhorne is a contributor to Times Community News.
As authorities continue to search for the No Turning Back Bandit, who allegedly attempted to rob a pair of Glendale banks last month, a second suspect is also being sought in connection with the crimes.

In late November, a man walked into a Citibank at 1201 N. Central Ave. and a Bank of America at 203 N. Glendale Ave. with a note demanding money, authorities said. In both cases, the man also brandished a handgun when handing over the note, according to authorities.

He also told bank employees that he doesnt want to go back to jail, leading him to be called the No Turning Back Bandit, according to the FBI.

In each incident, the bandit was unsuccessful, leaving the banks empty-handed.

Sgt. Daniel Suttles, a spokesman for the Glendale Police Department, said the suspect made his escape from both banks in a silver Kia Optima driven by a second man.

The bandit is described as a white man between 30 and 40 years old, 6 feet to 6 feet 5, with a thin build. He is also described as having brown hair, facial hair and brown eyes.

Suttles said the alleged getaway driver followed the suspect into the Bank of America and was caught on surveillance cameras.

He is described as black, between 24 and 30 years old, 5 feet 9, with a thin build. The man is heavily tattooed with a ribbon on his neck, a marijuana leaf on his right forearm and musical notes on his upper arm.

The Kia Optima is described as being a recent model with stickers on the lower left windshield and lower right rear window.

Both men are also wanted in connection with bank robberies in Sherman Oaks and Los Banos, according to Suttles.

Anyone with information about the two suspects is encouraged to call the FBI at (310) 477-6565 or Glendale police at (818) 548-4911.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc
Clashes broke out across the West Bank and along Gazas border on Friday, killing at least four Palestinians and wounding dozens of protesters and an Israeli officer, as the fallout continued over President Trumps announcement last week recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Protests in response to Trumps announcement, which departed from decades of U.S. policy that the fate of Jerusalem should be decided through negotiations, have yet to relent across various Arab and Muslim countries in the region.

Following Friday prayers, Palestinians in the West Bank and along the Gaza border set fire to tires and threw rocks at Israeli troops, who responded with tear gas and live fire.

Advertisement

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Kidra said two Palestinians were killed from gunshots to the head. He identified one of the men as Ibrahim Abu Thraya, 29, a disabled man who had both legs amputated. He had taken part in several border skirmishes recently; images on social media show him carrying a Palestinian flag.

An additional 82 Palestinians were injured in clashes in several locations along Gazas border with Israel, at least five of whom were seriously wounded, he said.

Another Palestinian died later from wounds sustained in clashes near Jerusalem, the health ministry said.

The Israel military said thousands of Palestinian rioters rolled burning tires and hurled firebombs and rocks at security forces, who responded with riot dispersal munitions and also fired selectively toward main instigators.

Palestinians have been clashing with Israeli troops across the West Bank and along the Gaza border. The Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza has called for a new armed uprising against Israel in response to Trumps declaration.

East Jerusalem is home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites and the fate of the territory is an emotionally charged issue at the heart of the conflict. Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their hoped-for state. Israel says the entire city, including east Jerusalem, is its eternal capital.

Palestinians were infuriated by Trumps announcement because they saw it as siding with Israel on the most sensitive issue in the conflict. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said Trumps move disqualified the U.S. from continuing in its role as the traditional mediator of peace talks.

Trump said his decision merely recognizes the reality that Jerusalem already serves as Israels capital and is not meant to prejudge the final borders of the city.

Near the West Bank city of Ramallah, one Palestinian was shot and killed on Friday after he attacked an officer with a knife, stabbing him twice and wounding him moderately, said Israeli police. Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police are investigating reports that the attacker was wearing a suicide bomb vest or a fake explosive device. He added that they were also checking to see if he was posing as a journalist to get close to the officer.
Breaking into cheers and song, Zimbabwes ruling party on Friday sealed the fate of Robert Mugabe, a man they had revered for decades but removed from power in dramatic scenes last month.

The ZANU-PF party congress officially endorsed its Central Committees decision to replace Mugabe with Emmerson Mnangagwa as its leader, and it endorsed Mnangagwa as its candidate for the 2018 elections. Mnangagwa was inaugurated as the countrys new president last month, with the immediate challenge of reviving a shattered economy and removing himself from his longtime mentors shadow.

Fridays meeting was the final step in Mugabes fall from grace after the military put him under house arrest, hundreds of thousands rallied in the streets and lawmakers began impeachment proceedings. Under the growing pressure, the 93-year-old, who had vowed to rule for life, finally resigned. He had led the party since 1975 and the country since independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Advertisement

Images of Mugabes face, usually plastered on delegates dress and other paraphernalia, were conspicuously missing Friday, as was Mugabe himself. He flew to Malaysia and Singapore earlier this week to visit family and seek medical treatment in his first overseas trip since last months events.

The 75-year-old Mnangagwa at his inauguration described Mugabe as a father, comrade-in-arms and my leader, even though his firing by Mugabe as vice president early last month set the events in motion amid concerns that unpopular First Lady Grace Mugabe might succeed her husband.

Mugabes time was up the moment he surrendered power to his wife, some ruling party delegates said. Fridays congress endorsed Grace Mugabes firing from the party.

Now Mnangagwa must find a way to revive the severely weakened economy and win over voters ahead of elections that, according to the constitution, should be held in July or August. He told Fridays gathering that the vote will be held as scheduled, without mentioning a date.

He also urged party faithful to refrain from violence in the elections, saying there is no opposition to talk about.

The opposition, shut out of Mnangagwas Cabinet in favor of military and ruling party members, has joined the United States and others in the international community in urging Zimbabwes new government to make sure the elections are democratic.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has welcomed the extension of European Union sanctions against Russia.

"[It is] an important political decision by the leaders of the European Union to continue economic sanctions against Russia for violating Ukraine's territorial integrity and unwillingness to stop hybrid aggression against our country," Poroshenko wrote on Facebook on Thursday evening.

"It is a decent response to Moscow for failing to fulfill its commitments and clear call for change in the Kremlin's policy," he added.

He also thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France Emmanuel Macron as partners within the Normandy format, as well as all other EU friends "for strong support of Ukraine and unbreakable unity and solidarity in front of aggressor."

"The future of peace, security and prosperity of our European home depends on restoration of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine!" he wrote.
Teodora del Carmen Vasquez was nine months pregnant and at work in a school cafeteria when she felt shooting pains in her abdomen.

She dialed an emergency number for help, but none arrived. A few hours later, bleeding profusely and sitting alone in a bathroom stall, she delivered a baby. Vasquez said that she was not conscious for the birth, but that when she came to, the baby was dead.

When authorities finally arrived at the school, they took Vasquez to the hospital in handcuffs. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Advertisement

That was in 2008. Vasquez is now 34, and has spent nearly a decade behind bars. Her 13-year-old son is being raised by Vasquezs mother.

In an appeal this month before the same judges who convicted her, her attorney presented two medical studies that he said showed the baby was stillborn, countering a government autopsy that found the baby died of perinatal asphyxia after birth.

On Wednesday, that appeal was denied.

Vasquez is one of dozens of women who have done jail time in connection with their pregnancies in El Salvador, where abortion has been banned under all circumstances since 1998. Even if a woman has been raped or her life is at risk, she can face a prison sentence of up to eight years for having an abortion.

Harsher punishments have been doled out for what womens rights advocates say were miscarriages or stillbirths. More than a dozen women in such cases have been convicted of aggravated homicide, a charge that can bring a sentence of up to 50 years in prison.

Sara Garcia of the Citizens Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion said those prosecutions and Wednesdays ruling are proof that women lack basic rights in El Salvador.

We denounce the Salvadoran state because once more theres evidence that womens lives dont matter, she said.

According to Amnesty International, suicide accounts for 57% of the deaths of pregnant people ages 10 to 19.

Garcia and other advocates have been fighting for years to change El Salvadors abortion laws, which are among the strictest on the planet. A female legislator with the ruling Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, is seeking support for a bill she introduced to the National Assembly that would decriminalize abortion if a pregnancy resulted from rape or the mothers health is at risk.

But as in the rest of Latin America, where Catholic and evangelical churches hold considerable sway, public opposition to abortion is widespread in El Salvador.

A poll by the Pew Research Center found that 89% of people in El Salvador thought abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

The poll also found that 45% of people said using contraceptives is morally wrong.

Womens health advocates say the laws unfairly target the poor, because women with means can afford safer black market abortion procedures. At the same time, they say, the law helps perpetuate poverty. More than a fifth of teenagers ages 15 to 19 have been pregnant at least once, according to the National Family Health Survey. Nearly half of them were younger than 18 and didnt intend to get pregnant.

Carlos Dada, the founder of the news website El Faro, said the countrys laws favor the rapist over the victim.

Its much more likely that a rape victim who aborts her pregnancy will end up in prison than her rapist, he wrote in an article last year.

Wednesdays ruling in the Vasquez case drew intense scrutiny in El Salvador and internationally.

U.S. Rep. Norma Torres wrote in a tweet Vasquez was being punished for a tragedy: No one should be in jail because they have experienced a miscarraige or medical emergency.

Victor Hugo Mata Tobar, an attorney for Vasquez hired by Amnesty International, said he plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum
Escalating the chorus of global condemnation of President Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, the Turkish government announced Friday it would open an embassy in East Jerusalem  in support of Palestinians.

At the end of a special session of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, held in Istanbul, Turkey, to address the Jerusalem dispute, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the plan to establish a new Turkish embassy in East Jerusalem in support of Palestinians. Turkey would maintain its existing embassy in Tel Aviv for Israelis. Palestinians have long hoped East Jerusalem would be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Dozens of Arab states refer to the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as Palestine, though the West and many other countries do not recognize its existence.

Advertisement

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited all countries supporting international law to recognize Jerusalem as the occupied capital of Palestine.

All it would take from Turkey is changing the sign outside the Jerusalem Consulate that has stood since Istanbul was known as Constantinople, the Ottoman capital that ruled this region of the Levant for half a millennium.

Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital came as a windfall for Erdogan, said Mahir Zeynalov, Turkey analyst and chief editor at the Globe Post, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Erdogan, who is battling corruption allegations related to a high-profile Iran sanctions case in New York, now can attempt to act as the leader of Muslims, Zeynalov said. And he immediately gathered leaders of Muslim nations in Istanbul and delivered pompous speeches.

In a remarks widely perceived as a rebuke to the United States, a NATO ally, Cavusoglu said Turkey expects to sign a $2-billion deal for the purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems this week. Additionally, he said, technical work on Russias most advanced long-range antiaircraft missile system will begin in Russia, where Turkish engineers will be trained.

Israel, whose ministries, Supreme Court and parliament are in Jerusalem, has long demanded international recognition of its sovereignty over a unified Jerusalem. That recognition has been withheld since 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem, held by Jordan since 1948, in a battle against Arab armies.

Regional powerhouse Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation to forge diplomatic ties with Israel, in 1949, a year after the Jewish state was established.

Suat Kiniklioglu, executive director of the Ankara-based Center for Strategic Communication, said that absent the impossible  agreement from Israel  the Turkish announcement seems more like a public diplomacy thing.

Once we succeed, embassies will open in the independent Palestinian states capital, East Jerusalem, Cavusoglu predicted.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil followed Turkeys lead and informed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Beiruts willingness to establish a Lebanese embassy in East Jerusalem.

Lebanon has never had diplomatic ties with Israel. On Twitter, Bassil announced he promised Abbas that Lebanon would act quickly to secure property for Lebanon in East Jerusalem.

The Israeli government declined to comment.

Speaking to The Times, Palestinian Authority spokesman Xavier Abu Eid said that East Jerusalem is an integral part of the occupied territory of Palestine, and has been recognized by the international community. So it is entirely normal that a state that recognizes Palestine would want to establish its embassy in the occupied capital of East Jerusalem.
European Union leaders have agreed to prolong economic sanctions against Russia for another six months, President of the European Council Donald Tusk has said.

"EU united on roll-over of economic sanctions on Russia," he tweeted on Thursday evening.

Tusk said in his letter inviting the heads of state and government to the summit that Merkel and Macron would discuss the implementation of the Minsk Agreements "with the goal of extending the economic sanctions on Russia."

The sectoral sanctions will be extended as they are for six months, a source in the Council of the European Union told Interfax.
The U.S. Congress Committee on Foreign Affairs has considered and recommended for approval a bill "Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017," which emphasizes strategic partnership between Washington and Kyiv, Ukraine's Embassy in the United States has reported.

"The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives has considered and recommended for approval the bill 'Ukraine Cybersecurity Cooperation Act of 2017,'" reads a statement posted on the Facebook page of the embassy on Thursday, December 14.

The bill determines that U.S. policy is to help the Ukrainian government improve its own cybersecurity strategy. The bill proposes providing Ukraine with necessary support to increase most advanced security protection on government computers, particularly systems that defend Ukraine's critical infrastructure, to reduce reliance on Russian technology, and to help Ukraine build capacity, expand cyber security information sharing, and cooperate in international response efforts.

At the same time, the document reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the United States-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, and support for cooperation between NATO and Ukraine.

"The implementation of this legislative initiative will be an important contribution to Ukraine's struggle with the hybrid war of the Russian Federation, the continuation and component of which is the implementation of cyber-attacks against our state. The co-authors of the document are Democrat B. Boyle and Republican B. Fitzpatrick," the report says.
A 56-year-old man was arrested Thursday in Allentown on an attempted homicide warrant out of New York City, the Northampton County Sheriff's Department reports.

Larry Stewart at 11 p.m. Sept. 3 shot Jamal Lumpkin, 44, once in the chest in front of 1373 Sterling Place in Brooklyn, the NYPD said in an email. Lumpkin survived.

Stewart was arrested in the 700 block of North Eighth Street in Allentown by the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force, which is made up of marshals, the sheriff's department's Warrants Unit, Pennsylvania State Police and state parole agents, authorities said.

Stewart was turned over to NYPD detectives for questioning, the sheriff's department said. He was later locked up in Lehigh County Prison, records show.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The 19-year-old woman told Bethlehem police she thought she would be hanging out with a friend the night of Oct. 19 when she went to a city hotel room.

Instead, police say, Seth Mull forced the young woman to do drugs, repeatedly raped and beat her, and then sold sex with her to at least two men.

The horrific allegations represent the third set of criminal charges to be filed in the Lehigh Valley against Mull, who is accused in a series of sexual assaults and human trafficking incidents, according to prosecutors.

On Thursday, Bethlehem police filed rape, strangulation, sexual assault and related charges stemming from the Oct. 19 incident at the Hyatt Place hotel on North Street.

Police Chief Mark DuLuzio said the accuser is one of several women who have come forward to accuse Mull of sexual assault.

Mull, of Lower Saucon Township, is in Northampton County Prison on rape and related charges related to an alleged attack on Sept. 27 in a hotel in Hanover Township, Northampton County, and an Oct. 27 alleged assault at the Holiday Inn Express hotel on Cherry Lane in Bethlehem.

Mull as of Friday was awaiting arraignment on the most recent charges, but was being held on $1 million bail in the other two cases.

Northampton County prosecutors have put out a call for victims of Mull to come forward. He has been linked to crimes in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, San Diego, Chicago and Honolulu, police said.

He allegedly used websites such as Plenty of Fish, Facebook, Tinder and Backpage.com to lure victims he allegedly forced into a sex trafficking ring.

Police say females who may have been victimized by Mull should contact:

Det. Brian Quinn at 610-997-7691,

Det. Brad Jones at 610-865-7146 or the

Northampton County DA's crime victim hotline at 610-829-6645.

The 19-year-old in the Oct. 19 Bethlehem incident alleges Mull threatened to kill her and her family if she "didn't do what she was told" or tried to leave the hotel.

The teen said she was forced to undress and stay naked, and Mull forced her to perform sex acts on her friend, according to police. Mull had sex with the young woman, and she told police she was afraid to refuse him, court records say.

Mull allegedly told the young woman he was going to have men pay $100 each to have sex with her. The woman was blindfolded and tied to the bed, and said at least two men had sex with her, according to investigators.

Mull then raped the woman, after she repeatedly told him to stop, police said. When the accuser tried to move away, Mull allegedly hit her in the ribs and back, and at one point strangled her until she passed out.

Mull moved the woman to the Comfort Suites on West Third Street in Bethlehem, police said. Mull had the woman use drugs and raped her again as she cried and tried to move away, prosecutors said.

The accuser said Mull recorded the attacks on his cellphone; police said they recovered "numerous" videos of Mull having sex with young girls on his phone. One video on the phone is of another rape accuser crying in a Philadelphia elevator and calling 911, police said.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A 29-year-old man was shot several times Thursday evening on Easton's South Side but is expected to survive his wounds, city police report.

No one is in custody in the shooting just before 5:30 p.m. on Coal Street between West Wilkes Barre Street and Hoyt alley, police Lt. Matthew Gerould said.

Evidence of the shooting was recovered at two places about a block apart, but shots were only fired at one of the scenes, Gerould said. He wouldn't detail what was recovered or say if they found the gun.

It's possible police are looking for more than one person and they fled east on West Wilkes Barre, Gerould said.

The victim, who police knew, was increasingly uncooperative before he was taken to an area hospital for treatment, Gerould said.

Shawn Hamersly, 36, had gone out to his van to get something for his wife when he heard four or five shots, he said.

He turned around and saw a person about 5 feet 11 inches tall and wearing a dark hoodie -- with the hood pulled up -- running north of Coal Street, he said.

At about the same time, he heard the victim screaming, Hamersly said. He ran toward him and called 911, he said.

"He was talking and everything," Hamersly said when asked how the victim was doing.

Hamersly waited for rescue personnel to arrive and told his version of events to the police, he said.

The shooting is out of character for the neighborhood, Hamersly and another neighbor said.

"This is very quiet around here," Hamersly, who has lived there for eight or nine years, said. "I look out for everybody here."

Franklin Rodriguez, 61, has only lived for a month on West Wilkes Barre Street, but the native of the Dominican Republic was worried when he peered through the blinds and saw police lights.

He said he didn't hear any shots fired because he was in the kitchen to the rear of the home he recently bought.

"I like it quiet," he said, adding he was very fond of his neighborhood. "Now tonight tells me something else. Now I see this. We'll have to see."

A woman just behind him in the home yelled, "It could happen anywhere."

Anyone with information is asked to call city detectives at 610-250-6667 or the anonymous tip line at 610-250-6635.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Lehigh Valley's newest doughnut shop is taking orders -- and making them right in front of customers.

The made-to-order doughnut chain Duck Donuts opened its first Lehigh Valley location Friday in a newly constructed building at the Tilghman Square shopping center in South Whitehall Township.

At Duck Donuts, customers customize their doughnut orders by choosing from a list of coatings, toppings and drizzles that include peanut butter icing, bacon bits and hot fudge. For anyone overwhelmed by the seemingly endless possibilities, a chart of recommended combinations is on hand to help.

After ordering, customers can watch the vanilla cake doughnuts get fried, iced and loaded up with toppings before their eyes.

On its first day, eager customers were packed into the roughly 1,400-square-foot shop awaiting their orders. After opening at 6:30 a.m., about 200 people had already put in orders by 10 a.m.

Freshly made doughnuts come with a trade-off: wait times. For the grand opening rush, waits were a little longer than they will be once the shop gets its footing, a spokesperson said. They will eventually settle to about five to 10 minutes.

Company founder Russ DiGilio, who is based in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, opened the first Duck Donuts in 2007 in North Carolina, looking to revive the made-to-order boardwalk doughnuts he and his friends and family recalled from their childhood. The business has grown into franchise with 56 franchise locations, with many more in the works. The Tilghman Square spot is the sixth location in Pennsylvania.

"We first tried it in Williamsburg (Virginia) and our family just loved the doughnuts," said Rosanna Sowers, who co-owns the South Whitehall shop. She said her favorite is the cinnamon sugar doughnut because the simplicity lets you taste the doughnut itself.

Co-owner Jason Sowers said he loves giving kids the chance to peek into the process.

"This is part of it," Jason Sowers said, gesturing to some youngsters peering through the viewing area's glass.

The owners are plotting a second Lehigh Valley shop, but haven't landed on a location yet, Rosanna Sowers said.

Doughnuts at the shop cost $1.40 each, $7.50 for half a dozen, $13.50 for a dozen and $21 for a bucket of 18. Doughnut breakfast sandwiches -- with egg, cheese, and the option of bacon or sausage -- are available for $3.50 to $4.25, and beverages like coffee, tea and espresso are also on the menu.

The shop, at 4608 D Broadway, is currently open for abbreviated hours today 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The full hours will be 6:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and Monday 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.
A man wanted on warrants fled from a New Jersey State Police traffic stop Friday morning on Interstate 78, before crashing the car in Phillipsburg and being taken into custody, authorities said.

Isa Boyd (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

State police said 21-year-old Isa Boyd, of Phillipsburg, would be charged with eluding.

Boyd was wanted on a separate eluding charge by the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, under a warrant dated Aug. 31, 2017.

A trooper stopped Boyd in a Hyundai Elantra for a traffic violation about 8:17 a.m. on westbound I-78 near mile post 5, state police Sgt. First Class Jeff Flynn said.

Boyd allegedly drove off as the trooper approached the car. The trooper did not pursue the fleeing car but was able to see the driver get off the highway at Exit 3, and he notified local police.

"The trooper did not pursue and instead was just able to give a vehicle and occupant description to Phillipsburg," Flynn said.

Boyd crashed the car about 8:30 a.m. at Spruce Alley and Abott Street in town and was taken into custody, Phillipsburg police Capt. Michael Swick said.

No one was injured in the initial attempted traffic stop or the crash, according to police.

There was no one else immediately charged in the incident, which remained under investigation.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Crimean Tatar activist Bekir Degermendzhi, who was detained by the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea late in November 2017 as part of the Vedzhie Kashka case, was urgently hospitalized from Simferopol's detention center in the early hours of Thursday, December 14, and is in a very serious condition in hospital, the Crimean Human Rights Group has reported.

"On December 14, 2017, at three o'clock in the morning, 57-year-old Crimean Tatar activist Bekir Degermendzhi, who is held in Simferopol's detention center on a trumped-up case of alleged extortion, was taken to intensive care. Bekir Degermendzhi has a third disability group and suffers from bronchial asthma," the group said in a statement on December 14.

The report notes that Degermendzhi is in extremely grave condition, he is in a medication sleep on artificial ventilation, and he has pulmonary edema and heart failure.

According to his relatives and lawyer, the prisoner stays in city hospital No. 7 in Simferopol, where he is unconsciously kept handcuffed. Degermendzhi's wife and lawyer are not admitted to the ward, three police officers are at the ward, and a large number of so-called law enforcers are outside the hospital itself.

"Over the past five days, Bekir Degermendzhi could not sleep because of the aggravation of asthma. His lawyer demanded hospitalization and medical treatment, but the de facto court rejected the petition of the defense lawyer. On December 6, 2017, the de facto court rejected a cassation appeal against the chosen measure of restraint," the report says.

It notes that during the court session Degermendzhi fell unwell, an ambulance was called, but at the same time the arrest was upheld. During the session, the activist was wearing an oxygen mask.

At the same time, Edem Semedliayev and Aider Azamatov, the lawyers for suspects in the Vedzhie Kashka case, Degermendzhi and Asan Chapukh, filed complaints to the Kremlin's temporarily controlled Crimean prosecutor's office over the inactivity of the prison staff.

The report posted on the website Crimea.Realities on Thursday, December 14, notes that lawyers plan to apply to the ombudsmen of Crimea and Russia, as well as to file petitions for urgent measures in accordance with Rule 39 of the Rules of Court of the European Court of Human Rights.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv also expressed its position regarding Degermendzhi.

"Russian occupation authorities must ensure medical care for Bekir Degermendzhi, another Crimean political prisoner," the embassy reported on Twitter on Thursday.

On November 23, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariana Betsa reported searches on the homes of representatives of the Crimean Tatar community and detentions in the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.

According to the CrimeaSOS human rights organization, searches were carried out in Simferopol, Simeiz, Kholodivka, Hrushivka, Yuzhne. Ruslan Trubach, Bekir Degermendzhi, Asan Chapukh, Kazim Ametov, Kurtseit Abdullayev, Kazim Ametov and Vedzhie Kashka were detained.

According to the leader of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Bloc of Petro Poroshenko MP Refat Chubarov, Kashka was hospitalized and subsequently died.

"Bad news came from Crimea regarding the death of a veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement, 82-year-old legendary Vedzhie Abla Kashka, who fell unwell during the search of her house. Abla Kashka died in an ambulance," he wrote on his Facebook page.

According to Chubarov, the analysis of incoming information indicates a large-scale special operation being conducted by the Russian Federal Security Service in Crimea with the goal of making new arrests of activists of the national movement and discrediting the Mejlis.
By Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com

Don't Edit

A flag waves over the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2015.

AP file photo | For lehighvalleylive.com

Don't Edit

The volcanic crater in Hawaii is known as the Punchbowl. It is home to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, where some 53,000 veterans and their families are buried.

Somewhere in the cemetery is a memorial to those who have gone missing in action. And somewhere on that memorial was the name Albert E. Atkins.

Don't Edit

Lincoln Gayagas must have passed that name many times. He and his family -- a military family, with strong connections to the Army and its academy at West Point -- reverently attend Memorial Day services there every year.

Save for his time in the Army, Gayagas lived his whole life in Honolulu, where the Punchbowl is. He never knew that Atkins, a young man from New Jersey who disappeared during the Korean War, was more than one name among many.

He was family.

Don't Edit

"It gives me goose bumps -- here in Hawaii we call it chicken skin," the 56-year-old said. "It gives us chicken skin to think about the mere coincidences that happened along this path."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Missing in action

It was May 23, 1951. Army Pfc. Albert Atkins was 7,000 miles from his home in Belvidere.

Don't Edit

He assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. The unit was engaged with enemy forces near Mae-Bong, South Korea. Their mission: Secure Hill 911.

As they prepared to assault the hill, Atkins and two others were reported missing, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, part of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Don't Edit

Men of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division, shield themselves from exploding mortar shells near the Hantan River in central Korea on April 11, 1951.

Library of Congress photo | For lehighvalleylive.com

Don't Edit

It wasn't until 1966 that a trace of the trio was found. Two South Koreans provided information regarding three side-by-side graves in the vicinity of Kwandra-ri, South Korea, the DPAA said. Two members of Atkins' company were identified, but the third was not.

Assigned the identification number X-6385, the unnamed remains were buried in the national cemetery at the Punchbowl.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

In 2005, X-6385 was exhumed. "After a thorough historical and scientific analysis of information," the DPAA said, "it was determined that the remains could likely be identified."

The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System deduced X-6385's past using dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis. The latter yielded a family match.

It turns out, the unknown soldier's closest relatives were closer than anyone knew.

Don't Edit

Reflections are seen in the Warren County War Memorial in Belvidere during a 2008 ceremony.

Lehighvalleylive.com file photo

Don't Edit

A blood tie

Lincoln Gayagas attended West Point and would occasionally visit New Jersey with his peers. Belvidere was never one of their stops.

It was his mother-in-law, Sharylin Meyer, who has the blood ties to the East Coast, said Gayagas, acting as a spokesman for the family. Meyer was from the Midwest and settled in Oregon, Gayagas said. She knew that a cousin had died during the Korean War, but did not have a strong connection to that side of the family.

Don't Edit

It was several years ago now when the DNA analysis led examiners to Meyer, and she was flown to Washington, D.C., for an update on the cousin she never knew. Neither the family nor the defense department has a photograph of the soldier.

"They were saying, we know he disappeared but we don't know anything else," said Gayagas, who, by coincidence, has toured the militarys ID lab with friends who work there.

Don't Edit

By June of this year, they knew: X-6385 was Albert Atkins.

He had been buried in the same city as his nearest identifiable family the whole time.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

A second burial

On Friday, Atkins' remains will be re-interred at the Punchbowl in Honolulu.

Don't Edit

A military escort will pick up Gayagas and his family at 9 a.m. and bring them to the mortuary for an open-casket viewing -- Albert's remains will be covered by green army blanket, with his folded uniform, awards and decorations with him.

At 10:30 a.m., he will be buried a second time at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific -- this time, surrounded by family.

Don't Edit

NJ Advance Media file photo

Don't Edit

Gayagas hopes that some day soon, more immediate members of Atkins' family may come forward. Regardless, their own Memorial Day visits to the cemetery will be more personal from now on.

"To know that we could have been walking by his gravesite," Gayagas mused, "and to realize that wow, he's been here the whole time, is pretty sobering for all of us."

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Gardai in Laois have arrested two Carlow men in relation to an incident in which an Irish Rail security guard was locked in the boot of his car following a violent attack as he arrived to work earlier this month.

The men, both aged in their 30s, are in custody in Portlaoise Garda Station where they are being questioned in relation to the incident which occurred in a rural location in Kilbricken, Mountrath last Tuesday, December 5.

Apart from detaining the suspects in relation to the attack, the men are also being questioned about a quantity of cable which is missing from the compound.

The incident on December 5 occurred at approximately 5am. As the victim arrived for work, he was approached by a number of men and attacked. He was left in the boot of the car for up to ten hours. He was only freed when a relief co-worker came on duty at approximately 3 pm.

The man's mobile phone was taken during the incident. It is believed that its subsequent location has played a vital role in the arrests made.

It is understood that the victim was taken to Portlaoise hospital and transferred to the Eye and Ear Hospital in Dublin for surgery on his eye. It is understood that he is still having difficulty recovering his vision.

The Leinster Express understands that men may be brought before a sitting of Portlaoise District Court on Friday morning, December 15.
A 15-year-old Laois youth who plays for the Clonaslee juvenile GAA club has been charged with assaulting a member of the Rosenallis juvenile GAA club during a hurling match.

The youth, who cannot be named due to his age, was charged with assault causing harm at last Friday's (December 15) sitting of Portlaoise District Court.

The alleged offence occurred on April 20 this year, at the Rosenallis GAA grounds.

States evidence outlined that during a match between Rosenallis and Clonaslee, it is alleged the accused ran at the injured party and struck him on the left temple with a hurl, rendering him unconscious.

The injured party was hospitalised with a blunt head injury. He was subsequently re-hospitalised on April 26 with suspected post-concussion syndrome.

After hearing the outline of the alleged facts, Judge Catherine Staines said she would accept jurisdiction in the district court, due to the accuseds age.

The accused was granted bail, but the State requested a bail condition that the accused or anyone involved with him have no direct or indirect contact with any witnesses or anyone involved in the case.

Defence, Mr Philip Meagher pointed out that the alleged incident happened during a match with a large crowd present, so potentially there could be hundreds of witnesses.

Judge Staines said she would impose a bail condition that the accused have no contact with the injured party or any other witnesses in the case.

The judge also asked had the accused been given the option of receiving an adult caution in the case, to which the prosecuting garda replied that the accused had been offered that option but he declined it.

The matter was put back to January 19 next, for a guilty plea to be entered, or a hearing date to be fixed.

There is also the possibility that the case ma yet be dealt with by way of an adult caution.

A statements order was granted to defence in the case.
RTE TV farming show Ear to the Ground is visiting a local turkey farmer to find out out more about the food for one of the most anticipated parts of the festive season - the Christmas dinner.

Traditionally, we all sit down and tuck into a feast of turkey, ham, brussel sprouts and spuds; with plenty of leftovers for those turkey sandwiches. But, do we know where our Christmas dinner ingredients come from and the work that goes into getting them ready for our tables?

Ear to the Ground has decided to take four urban living students to teach them just that.

Billy Gray and his family run Feighcullen Farm in Rathangan where they practice sustainable farming, putting back into the environment what they take out.

They rear free-range chickens, turkeys and geese supplying some of the top restaurants in the country.

Just down the road Niamh Swail, a graduate of Darina Allens Ballymaloe Cookery School, runs The Ivy Cookery School which she set up in 2007.

Darragh McCullough is travelling to Kildare with the four students from Glenart College, Arklow to experience the full journey from farm to fork.

The story features on Ear To The Ground on Thursday, December 21 on RTE One at 8.30pm
The future of Portlaoise hospital continues to hang in the balance following a meeting between Simon Harris and Laois TDs but Minister Flanagan insists the hospital will be saved.

Minister Harris met in Government buildings in Dublin for an hour this morning with the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, and Sean Fleming and Brian Stanley. The meeting was also attended by the Dr Tony Houlihan, Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health.

The Minister indicated that he had not made his mind up but would make a statement on the matter. The Minister referred to clear clinical evidence in the downgrade plan but he felt other clinical views should be listened to. He said he would meet doctors in Laois to get their input.

Minister Harris made clear that there was no agenda against the Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise. If he did, he indicated that downgrade would have been downgraded some time ago.

Minister Flanagan told Midlands 103 that Minster Harris does not yet have a position because recommendations stem from a process of engagement. He said Minister Harris was not happy that there was no local engagement and would meet with Laois doctors who have drawn up alternative proposals.

"The alternative plan is very much on the table," he said.

He subsequently spoke with the Leinster Express that the TDs made a strong case for the retention of services. He said Minister Harris listened 'attentively'. He said he drew heavily on the plan that was drawn up by Laois doctors on his request.

"Portlaoise hospital is going to be saved. It is not going to be closed. This Government is not in the business of closing hospitals.

"Why would a Government set out take hospitals away from people. Portlaoise is different. It cannot be a model two because of its maternity and its maternity is not going out of it," he said.

The plan before the Minster was first submitted last December. Asked by the Leinster Express why the Minister has not yet rejected the downgrade plan the Minister indicated that he effectively has.

"He said he wasn't happy with it. Isn't that a rejection? He is not accepting the report it is not Government policy," he said.

Deps Brian Stanley or Sean Fleming did not share the level of confidence in the Government's willingness to protect Portlaoise. Dep Stanley said the Minister did not make a firm committment.

"The future hangs in the balance. The worst that could have happened is that we went there and heard it was going to close. That is not what we heard. I welcome that he is going to meet Laois medics and others but we need to draw a line under this and he didn't do that at the meeting," he said.

Deputy Fleming said he made clear the opposition to the proposals in this plan and asked the Minister to examine the hospital care provision in a national context.

The Minister made clear that he has not made his mind up on this plan, however he did state that a plan and clarity was required. He confirmed that he was not happy with the process by which this plan was produced as there was no consultation with clinicians in the hospital and local GPs. The Minister confirmed that there is no funding provided or available to meet the costs of this plan which the author of the plan guesses could be 140m.

The Minister confirmed that he will meet local clinicians early in 2018. However he did say that he wants to bring some clarity in relation to the next step in the process before the end of the year. He gave no indication what this clarity will entail at this stage.

Dep Fleming was not convinced there was no agenda against Portlaoise.

"He was specifically speaking for the Department and not on behalf of the HSE. I am seriously concerned, as a Laois public representative, that the HSE has an agenda against Portlaoise Hospital. I will be asking the Minister to confirm that policy issues in relation to Portlaoise Hospital will be decided by the Minister and not by the HSE, said Deputy Fleming.
The Minister for Health is 'keen' to consult 'broadly' with Laois hospital doctors and GPs as well the community that use the Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise.

In a statement issued to the Leinster Express Minister Simon Harris confirmed that he had face-to-face talks on Friday morning with Laois TDs on the proposal that could see a major downgrade of services.

He said Minister Charles Flanagan, and his fellow Laois TDs Sean Fleming TD and Brian Stanley discussed the draft Action Plan for a new model of clinical service delivery in the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group.

"I listened to their views. I made it clear that I have not yet made any decision on the substance of the draft Action Plan. I have some concern about the process involved in developing the draft Action Plan and I am keen that a broad consultation will take place with local clinicians and the community.

"I intend to provide further clarity on this issue shortly.

Minister Flanagan said afterwards that Portlaoise hospital services would be saved. He said the Government was not in the business of closing hospitals.

His Laois constituency colleagues were not convinced about this and said the Minister for Health had not ruled anything out. Dep Fleming said he was not convinced the HSE did not have an agenda against the hospital while Dep Stanley said the future of the hospital 'still hangs in the balance'.

Minister Harris was first given the plan in December 2016. It was commissioned in May of the previous year. A third drift was given to his department in September 2017.

It proposes the removal of A&E, ICU, paediatrics, maternity, most surgery from Portlaoise. It would be regraded as a Model 2 hospital.

Minister Harris told RTE's Morning Ireland in the past week that he would make a decision by the end of the year. He also announced that the health watchdog HIQA is to be given powers to close or restrict hospital activity if found to be unsafe.

The watchdog said at the end of 2016 that A&E services were unsustainable.
Senior hospital managers in Dublin and the Midlands have been invited to the launch of a strategy which would almost certainly set in motion the downgrade of Portlaoise hospital.

Just hours after the Minister for Health Simon Harris said he wanted to consult further on the removal of A&E and other services from Portlaoise, the HSE's Dublin Midlands Hospital Group has dispatched invites to the launch of a five-year strategy for the region.

Laois Sinn Fein TD Brian Stanley has obtained a copy of the correspondence sent today by Dr Susan O'Reilly to senior HSE staff at hospitals in Portlaoise, Tullamore, Naas, St James', Tallaght and the Coombe. He claims it turns an assurance given by Minister Simon Harris to him, Minister Charlie Flanagan and Sean Fleming 'on its head'.

HARRIS STATEMENT AFTER MEETING LAOIS TDs

In the letter, Dr O'Reilly writes that she is "delighted" to invite hospital management to the launch at the Trinity Biomedical Science Institute on Pearse St, Dublin on Thursday, December 21 at 11am .

The regional strategy was leaked to and published by Dep Stanley before the Portlaoise plan was leaked to a Sunday newspaper. The strategy revealed that Portlaoise was to lose its A&E.

The strategy is predicated on the go-ahead by the Minister for the implementation of a plan for Portlaoise which would see A&E, ICU, maternity, paediatrics and most surgery removed from Portlaoise. The hospital would be re-graded as a Category 2 facility.

"The Minister assured us that he has not made any decision on the future of the Emergency Department (ED) or other core services in Portlaoise and that he is keen to involve local clinicians and the community in consultations on this before making any final decision.

"However, within a couple of hours of the meeting, Susan O Reilly was sending notices to senior HSE staff inviting them to the launch of the 'Dublin Midlands Hospital Group Strategic Plan 2018-2023'. This is the plan that was leaked to me 2 months ago and which sets out clearly that the ED is to close and be replaced by a medical assessment and minor injury unit.

"So we have the bizarre situation where the Health Minister gives his word that no decision is made and that there is some distance to go, but within two hours one of the most senior HSE officials serves notice that she is launching the plan that has as its centerpiece the closure of Portlaoise ED.

"People will speculate that this is either a case of it all been cleverly choreographed by the Health Department and the HSE or that some senior HSE staff are doing their own thing and just ploughing ahead with their plan for downgrading Portlaoise. I will be contacting Minister Harris on Monday to seek clarification, said Dep Stanley.

The plan has been with the Minister for Health since December 2016. Under the law, any reconfiguration of Portlaoise requires Minister sanction.
Teachers from Iceland, Malta and Slovenia were welcomed to Portlaoises Holy Family Senior School recently, to see how literacy is taught there.

The visit is part of Literacy at The Childrens Hearts Latch, an EU funded project on literacy under the Erasmus+ programme, that involves five schools across countries including Ireland.

The schools are sharing best practice methods in the teaching of literacy.

Holy Family Senior School hosted a training event in which 13 teachers from the partner schools visited Portlaoise and spent time in the school.

The event involved all the teachers and pupils. Visitors attended presentations by Holy Family teachers on their literacy strategies as well as visiting classrooms to see them in action.

A debate between Holy Family School and Ballyfin NS was also held.

The visitors also toured Laois, visiting Emo Court, Rock of Dunamaise, Timahoe Round Tower, Glenbarrow and the Slieve Blooms, and attended Rock of Ages by the Portlaoise Musical Society.

Minister Charlie Flanagan came to the school to meet them and Deirdre OBrien from Leargas. The project runs until September 2019.

GALLERY: Holy Family Senior School with their shoeboxes for Team Hope
The decision to give the green light for a controversial solar farm beside Pollardstown Fen, has been appealed to An Bord Pleanala.

On November 15, Kildare County Council gave Power Capital Renewable Energy Ltd the go ahead to construct 18,000 solar panels, with plans to export a maximum of four megawatts out of the expected 5 megawatt return from the 6.08 hectare site.

Concerns were raised by the horse racing industry.

SEE ALSO: Controversial Pollardstown solar farm granted permission

The Pollardstown Solar Farm will compromise and jeopardise the success of Ireland's racing and breeding status on the world stage, said the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, in its original objection.

This issue has raised its head again with Grangemore Stud lodging an appeal along with another local couple.

This development threatens the future stability of the thoroughbred industry in the area, said Guy O'Callaghan from Grangemore Stud.

In his appeal, he said the development would impact his land, his livestock, drainage in the area and was contrary to the county development plan as the proposal was not sensitive to the area.

Another couple said they supported solar energy on appropriate land once the national guidelines were in place.

However, they contended the development is not in accordance with proper planning and sustainable development given the 300m proximity of the fen  a Natura 2000 site.

They said the construction would pose problems for trainers that use the route on a daily basis to access the Curragh training grounds. Possible noise and air pollution during construction were also raised.

The council found the development would not injure local amenities.

The developer said the hydrogeology assessment showed the proposed development would have no impact on the fen.

It disputed concerns raised by the horse industry.
There will be festive songs sung by the Kilcullen Gospel Choir with snow guaranteed to be falling as people queue up for their turkey and ham at Nolans of Kilcullen on Saturday December 23.

Liam O Keefe will be in top hat and tails giving out hot coffee and mulled wine.

All of this will be happening at 12 noon.

For hundreds of families shopping for your turkey, ham and spiced beef at Nolans of Kilcullen is a long standing Christmas tradition, said Nolans.

Every year people queue out on the streets to collect their festive foods at this very unique Irish owned fourth generation family business. Nolans of Kilcullen is a family butchering business, which was established back in 1886 and is run by James and Emma Nolan. Nolans have a fantastic team of 26 staff - which will go up to 39 for the busy Christmas period.

Nolans have their own farm, abattoir and award winning shop  all under the one roof  on the main street of Kilcullen.

In 2015 Nolans of Kilcullen won the ultimate accolade when they were awarded the title of Champion of Champions - Best Butchers Shop in the UK and Ireland at the House of Lords in London.

Watch this video from Christmas Eve last year at 7.30am as customers queued for their turkey and ham.
Over the last 24 hours Russian occupation forces opened fire 24 times on Ukrainian government forces, wounding four soldiers, the press service of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) Headquarters has said.

"Over the last 24 hours there have been two dozen ceasefire violations from Russian occupation forces. More than half of them were suppressed by ATO forces. As a result of enemy shelling, four Ukrainian soldiers were wounded," the ATO HQ's Facebook page said on Friday morning.

During the evening, 120mm and 82mm mortar shelling and grenade launcher fire was observed near the villages of Luhanske, Troyitske, Novo-Oleksandrivka, and Triokhizbenka in the Luhansk sector. Armed military groups firing from an armored personnel carrier violated the ceasefire near the town of Svitlodarsk.

Russian occupation forces in the Donetsk sector concentrated their fire near the town of Maryinka, firing mortars of different calibers and all manner of infantry weapons continuously during the first half of the day. A tank fired at Ukrainian government positions in the evening.

The situation was also tense near the villages of Pisky, Verkhniotoretske, Vodiane, Lebedynske and Talakivka, where armed militants fired on Ukrainian army positions various types of mortars and infantry weapons.
LIMERICK could be in line for a big jobs boost after plans were unveiled for a renewable energy training centre on the Shannon Estuary.

Up to 40 roles could be created after Newcastle West firm GKinetic announced plans for the facility in a joint venture with Rathkeale engineering company Design Pro.

DesignPro has created hydrokinetic turbines using technology developed by GKinetic.

The unique technology generates water energy and can produce a constant supply of zero-carbon technology by doubling the speed of the liquid to a turbine.

Now, in a move described as extremely important to the local community by Cllr John Sheahan, GKinetic plans to train buyers of this turbine product from across the world, as DesignPro ramps up production of the 60kw machines.

It is thanks to funding from the European Union given to Design Pro that this project can go ahead.

Of the new positions, its anticipated 30 will be in manufacturing the turbine, with a further 10 instructor roles, if the multi-million euro plan goes ahead.

For a start, there would be a year-long demonstration.

Then, said Vincent McCormack, who heads GKinetic, the centre would come on stream.

The idea would be what would happen from this [demonstration] is the potential to set up a training centre. What DesignPros plan is to build a lot of these machines. There is a huge market for them outside of Ireland. The idea is they would be selling these machines to people in South-East Asia and French Polynesia. Wed like to bring the people from these markets to have a training centre here, Mr McCormack explained. Wed install the machines, show them how they should be maintained, use them and travel with them.

Mr McCormack said the firm is in the process of scoping out locations, adding: There are a few suitable places along the estuary in West Limerick, Ballylongford and North Kerry.

Were not just doing this because we are based in West Limerick though. We feel the conditions on the estuary are excellent for this type of project. I think wed have an advantage over other test centres already set up. A lot of them seem to be in remote places in terms of access," he added.

GKinetic is seeking a foreshore licence and hopes to have the demonstration up-and-running by next September.

But Mr McCormack warned without such a licence, the firm may be forced to look to either Canada or Scotland instead.

Fine Gaels council leader Sheahan, who is based in Glin on the Shannon Estuary, welcomed the development.

He said: The fact is the company is producing a product from the natural energy that we have on our doorstep. Any jobs to a rural community are extremely important. But its also important from the point of view of our ESB stations. Some of them are on standby as wind power goes up and down as do water levels. This will allow more consistent power to the grid.

Mr McCormack made a presentation to the councils environmental committee this week.

Here, Independent metropolitan councillor John Gilligan suggested replicating the project on riverways in the city and its environs.

We could see turbines in the Abbey River, Corbally and Castleconnell. The infrastructure in these places has been in place for hundreds of years. If we can borrow hundreds of millions of euro for the Opera Centre development, perhaps it is time to look at three or four river processes like these, he said.

Committee chairman, Cllr Jerome Scanlan of Fine Gael, described the project as very significant.

I look forward to cheaper energy, he added.
A LIMERICK man who was caught with cannabis resin worth more than 100,000 while he was on the run from authorities in the UK has been sentenced to five years imprisonment.

Keith McKenna, aged 46, who has an address at Springfield, Dooradoyle pleaded guilty to possession of more than 13kgs of the drugs for the purpose of sale or supply on March 4, 2009.

Detective Garda Damien Kennedy said when he and a colleague arrived at the defendant's home to execute a European Arrest Warrant he observed a quantity of drugs in plain sight in a large holdall on the kitchen table.

It was clear there was illegal drugs there at the time, he said adding the drugs were divided into 56 bars which were wrapped in plastic.

Gloves, a fake ID, two mobile phones and 6,650 in cash were also found along with a list of names and amounts of money.

During interview, McKenna, who works as a long-distance haulier, admitted the drugs were his. He said he had travelled to a location in Tipperary the previous day to collect the drugs which had been buried in the ground for some time.

Judge Tom ODonnell was told after the defendant was released on licence in the UK, gardai applied for a European Arrest Warrant which was executed last year.

He was brought back here and he pleaded guilty, said John OSullivan BL, prosecuting,

McKenna, the court heard, admitted that he first got involved in transporting and selling drugs to help a close acquaintance who was in financial difficulties.

Anthony Sammon SC said his client had made a very foolish decision when he was much younger and that the decision had messed up his life.

Imposing sentence, Judge Tom ODonnell commented the defendant was a willing and active participant in the drugs trade for the purpose of financial gain.

He said his previous conviction and the value of the drugs seized were aggravating factors which he had to consider.

The judge noted McKennas admissions, his guilty plea and his expressions of remorse.

He said a probation report prepared for the court was incisive and informative and that he was also considering the content of the testimonials where were submitted on his behalf.

He imposed a five-year prison sentence, suspending the final two and-a-half years.

He granted an application for a stay and ordered that McKenna present himself at Limerick Prison by midday on January 2, next.

The drugs are to be destroyed and the cash seized forfeited to the State.
Emergency services have freed a man who had been trapped under a van in a ditch between Bridgetown and Broadford, Clare, this morning.

A man in his mid-twenties was freed after being trapped in a seven-foot swampy ditch, pinned between a tree, with his legs under an engine block.

Three units of Limerick City fire services along with with two units from Killaloe, two ambulances, paramedics and gardai attended the scene, after receiving a call at 9:10am.

Firefighters from Limerick City and Killaloe along with paramedics worked for approximately 20 minutes to free him.

It is believed the mans car slipped on black ice and collided with another.

He had exited his car to warn oncoming traffic, when a van also slipped on the black ice and crashed into him, pinning him down the ditch.

The man recieved major leg injuries but they are not thought to be life threatening.

The driver of the van was treated for shock on scene.
Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.

Kindly add us to your ad blocker whitelist.

If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider contributing and/or subscribing to our free daily Newsletter .

Support our mission and join our community now.
We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he will sign decrees that will reset courts of appeals and local courts in the near future.

"I will soon issue decrees within my constitutional powers that will disband and form new courts of appeals and local courts, which will facilitate a complete re-launch of the judicial system," Poroshenko, said in Kyiv on Friday on the occasion of the launch of the new Supreme Court of Ukraine.
Victor Mallet: The Ganga has pollution problems but it is not a dead river Journalist and author Victor Mallet speaks to Lounge about why, despite the odds, he is optimistic about the Ganga's future /news/talking-point/victor-mallet-the-ganga-has-pollution-problems-but-it-is-not-a-dead-river-111646917617474.html 111646917617474 story

Victor Mallet says he is a river boy. When he lived in London as a young child, his mother warned him not to fall into the river that flowed through the city. If you fall into the Thames you will have to go to hospital. You will have to get your stomach pumped because the water is so poisonous and polluted," she used to say. It was. In the early 1960s, the Thames became a cesspool of toxic waste, sewage and industrial effluent, following the Great Stink of 1858, when a hot summer caused a foul smell to emanate from the river choked with sewage.

Today, one of Englands longest rivers is full of fish and seals and the occasional stray whale wanders upstream once in a while. Its dramatic transformation gives Mallet, the author of a fascinating new book, River Of Life, River Of Death: The Ganges And Indias Future, hope that Indias heavily polluted Ganga can be saved too.

The book draws on research conducted during Mallets four years in India, when he served as South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times. He is currently Asia news editor for the newspaper, based in Hong Kong.

Victor Mallet

He spoke to Lounge about why, despite the grave odds, he is optimistic about the Gangas future. Edited excerpts:

The Ganga, as you describe it in your book, is a metaphor for the country it runs through. How so?

It may be a metaphor for how difficult it is to govern India, how difficult it is to get things done. Weve seen successive governments from Rajiv Gandhi onwards talking about saving the Ganga. They had the Ganga Action Plan I and II, we had the Yamuna Action Plan I, II and III, and then (Narendra) Modi came. I watched him in 2014 in Banaras (Varanasi), talking about how important it was to save the Ganga.

Again, after he was elected, he stood on ramparts of the Red Fort and his enemies thought he would talk about Hindu nationalism and he didnthe talked about sanitation, he talked about womens rights. This was remarkable and I admired him for that.

The problem now is how much is actually being done. Saving the river is one, but there are other things he raised that also have not been done.

Even some of Modis strongest supporters are disappointed that he has not done more. Lets face it, hes not the first Indian prime minister who hasnt been able to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve. In a way, thats the point, it is very hard to get things done in India if you are the Central government.

Partly thats because of state governments being corrupt and inefficient, which they definitely are. And, this is a really important issue for Indiathere is no power lying with municipalities. Most problems for most people need to be solved at the local level. Sanitation is a classic example of that. Pollution control is another. This is something that has to be done at the level of a house, factory or an institution or a street.

Choking it with garbage is only one of the threats, and perhaps the most obvious, to the Ganga. Which among the others is the most alarming?

The cover of Victor Mallets book.

The most difficult challenge is sanitation because the biggest problem for most of the Ganga river system is human-waste pollution. Its sewage. Its not dead bodies. There are industrial pollution problems in certain areas but the biggest, basic problem and the one that will take the longest to solve is essentially to do with sewage treatment and sanitation.

There is one other problem that we should emphasize. Its not just what you put into the river, its what you take out of the river. A lot of the religious people, the devout Hindus that I met along the river who are interested in saving the Ganga, are very focused on this issuethe natural flow of the river has been impeded by too many dams.

In the dry season, most of the dams take 90% of the water that flows down the river and divert it for agriculture and a little bit for cities. Nobody is saying it should be reversed but clearly, there is a problem: As you get more and more people and as agriculture becomes more and more intensive, there is simply a limit to the amount of water you can take out of the river.

On the one hand, Indians revere the Ganga. Yet, the same people who worship her are surprisingly comfortable with the horrifying pollution. Theres a double standard here.

I dont think this is people being deliberately hypocritical. To be fair, its almost like a mental block. A lot of people you speak to will say: We cannot sully the Ganga, we cannot pollute the river because she is a pure and purifying goddess. And at this point, the person will throw a plastic bag full of garbage into the river!

Obviously, from a scientific point of view, but even from a religious or Hindu point of view, this is nonsense. Several Hindu academics and even gurus whom I quote are saying: This is wrong. The reason this is wrong, the way I have interpreted this, is that rivers have spiritual powers.

Yogi and mountaineer Swami Sundaranand in Gangotri, where the Ganga originates, lamenting the effects of climate change, in 2013.

Because they are life-givers

Exactly, my argument and the argument of all sensible people, whether they are scientific or religious people, is that the reason rivers have this spiritual force, the reason they are divine, is precisely because they are life-givers. They give water that we depend on to live, they give fertility to the soil that we also depend on. They give us food and water.

The problem is, when you kill them, they lose those life-giving qualities. Obviously, if you poison the river, you cant drink the water, or if you drink the water, it will make you sick. And if you take all the water out for a dam, there is no water left downstream. So, if you kill a river you destroy the very qualities that made the river holy in the first place. In other words, the spiritual force of the Ganga depends on her physical attributes of giving life and if you take away the life-giving qualities, you take away the divinity. This is what people need to understand.

One of the people I quote is an environmental scientist in Varanasi. He said, it was the 1970s and he was bathing in the river with his mother and there was a dead cow and lots of pollution. He said, I am going to start measuring the pollution. He was at Banaras Hindu University. His mother was outraged. She said, how can you say this, you are suggesting the Ganga is impure! He said, not really, I am just suggesting there is pollution here which is a problem. She said, you are not a good Hindu any more!

The benefit of people worshipping the river is that it should be easy to motivate people to save the river.

Its also a cause that is not politically controversial. Of course, Hindus want the river to be clean and pure because Hindus use it in religious ceremonies. But Muslims also want the river to be clean and pure because they drink the water and they depend on the water for their farms. So its not as though any community is saying this is outrageous.

It is good for multiple reasons. If you save the river, of course you save the river for spiritual reasons, you also save the lives of hundreds of children who die from poor water quality, from stupid preventable diseases, and you create thousands and thousands of jobs for people who need those jobs in building the municipal works that are required for sanitation, and you save the environment.

If there is enough water flowing down the river, you can also use the river as a trading network, which is what it used to be. Its still used in a small way for taking things up and down the river but if the river was flowing fully, the potential for tourism is big, the potential for freight is big. There are all these benefits that arise from saving the river.

A plea to save the river painted on a wall in Varanasi, a city on the banks of the Ganga. Photographs from River Of Life, River Of Death. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Then why isnt there more popular support for it? New faces are not getting involved, Indias youth is not coming forward to save the Ganga. Why is this not a priority?

I dont think thats quite fair but it is true that there are too few people who see this as a fundamental issue. You often find that in developing countries. In countries that are poor but getting richer, the environment is shunted aside. After all, this happened in the West, it happened in Japan, it happened in China. It is not unique to India.

There is this kind of notion that we will get rich first and we will worry about the environment later. This is a very common view. There is a tendency to say, you Westerners, you screwed up your countries and then you saved the environment and you want us not to get rich. You are going to make us spend a lot of money saving the environment for your own weird, green liberal purposes.

But of all the countries I have been in, India is the least resentful of people being involved in environmental progress and thats because Indians have a very special relationship with the land.

Above alland this is very, very importantIndia, despite being incredibly densely populated, is still something of a paradise for wildlife. Much more than you might expect, and much more than China. There is a fundamental respect for other forms of life, other species. That definitely does not exist in China, not in a widespread manner in any case.

Youve chosen to tell the story of the Ganga through several characters you met on your journeya chaiwalla, a swami, environmentalists, scientists, your tour guide. Who did you have the most memorable encounter with?

There is a guy called Rakesh Jaiswal who is an environmental campaigner in Kanpur and hes been campaigning for decades to help the tanneries clean up their effluent. He has a small NGO called Eco Friends. He has tried again and again, year after year, to ensure that these tanneries are not putting this extremely dangerous toxic waste into the rivers.

Its very difficult to achieve anything because there is corruption at the level of the state government, there is laziness on the part of some of the tannery owners. Even when some of the tannery owners are very keen to have zero effluent coming from their factories, the system fails them.

A classic example would be the 400 or so tanneries in Kanpur that are supposed to do primary treatment themselvessome of them dont, some of them do. The water then gets pumped to this common treatment plant that has been financed by foreign donors and by the tanneries themselves. This common treatment plant treats all the waste, so what goes into the Ganga is waste but not dangerous wastewater.

Unfortunately, there are many reasons why this doesnt work. The plant isnt big enough, the pumps dont work because the power goes off, when the power goes off, there are generators but somebody has stolen the diesel and sold it on the black market.

I spoke to Jaiswal just before the book was printed; he was in a very depressed mood and he said, I have given up hopenothing has happened since Modi came to office. Not one drop of sewage has been diverted.

Here is a guy who has dedicated his life to doing his bit and, again, it comes back to this issue of how difficult it is to achieve things in India. It just makes it very, very hard to do the right thing even when you have the motivation to do it and even when the money is available.

Yet you remain optimistic?

I try not to be too despairing. Because you look at examples of other rivers around the world and the really important thing to remember is the Ganga is not a dead river. It has pollution problems, but it is not dead. There is wildlife. You can see freshwater dolphins, you can see gharials, freshwater crocodiles. Its not like the Thames in London which was really dead.

When you clean a river, you dont have to scrub it, all you have to do is stop doing what you are doing, which is polluting it. So you stop putting things in and the river flow will clean itself in one day. No one is saying its easy because obviously these things take time, but it is not impossible. Its doable. Thats why I try to be optimistic.
The alchemy of art Tanya Goel's work is a layered reiteration of grids and notations, which convey a new visual language /news/talking-point/the-alchemy-of-art-111646917484024.html 111646917484024 story

Tanya Goels large-scale wall painting, Carbon, comes alive as warm sunrays fall on it. With each flicker of light, the colours on the canvas seem to ripple and merge, imbuing the work with a sense of lyrical movement and animated chaos. But when you go closer, the eye breaks free of the optical illusion and starts to zoom on to individual textures, colours and notations that populate the canvas. The work begins to resemble the excavation of an architects plan.

For her ongoing show, This, The Sublime And Its Double, at Nature Morte in New Delhi, Goel draws inspiration from the city grid, combining poetry and cartography to create a landscape of her inner being" as an intuitive response to urban chaos. Her works also explore the idea of the screen, which has created a hyper way of looking. There are so many screens perforating the grid that we are not focusing on anything. Hence, the paintings initially create that illusion of not looking at anything. But when you really focus, a pattern emerges," she says.

Nature Mortes director and curator Peter Nagy, who is showing Goels works for the first time in the Capital, calls them an exploration of a rigorous abstraction that is deeply invested in the process of their creation. Goel makes her own pigments from a diverse array of materials, including charcoal, aluminium, concrete, glass, soil, mica, graphite and foils, many sourced from sites of architectural demolitions. What thrills me are details that come from different pigments, textures, and their reflective possibilities. Those, together with the notations, combine to make for a richer painting," he says.

In fact, light plays a huge role in Goels process. She believes that lightbe it artificial or naturalcreates moments of friction in the everyday" of things. My work is the surface on which light plays out as fiction," she says.

From the time she started her practice in 2010-11, Goel didnt want to tread the realm of abstract expressionism. Rather, it was the idea of constructivisma more concrete version of abstract art, which began in Russia in 1914-15that inspired her. Works of the Constructivist artists came about from moments of such trauma. Their abstraction seemed more real than reality. One can see a similar lack of familiarity and dissociation today as well," she says. And thats why her works look at ruptures in spaces and geographiesboth external and internal. The grids in her artworks, whether it is Carbon or Semitone, look like tectonic plates, ready to tumble into chaos one moment and all set to uphold the balance in the next.

Goels studio is akin to an alchemists lab, where she mixes materials together, documenting the transformations that the passage of time creates on the pigments. Goel is constructing what she terms an archive of compressed time," writes Amanda Sroka, in the recent issue of the art magazine Marg. Goels pigments will often sit out for days, weeks or months before being incorporated into a large-scale work. Subtly and subconsciously, these materials animate Goels surfaces, binding the lines that seem to extend far beyond the canvas frames." In her current body of work, one can see the ash that she collected during the Delhi winter, a couple of years ago. You know how they burn a fire outside gates. I started collecting ash from each mound, and the colour from each was different. I was also interested in the skin of aluminium and the shimmer and shine of mica, which I got from Bihar. Then, I would collect fallen barks, burn them down into charcoal. And each time, the shade of black wouldnt repeat itself," she says.

And yet, repetition seems as intrinsic to her painterly practice as the unique identity of her pigments. It is through reiteration of grids and notations that she has created a new language. Her works are based on an algorithm, which might relate to a mark, shadow or line. In Carbon, for instance, the codes A, B, S and S1 occur repeatedly. While A stands for the line, S stands for its reflection, B represents the shadow of A and S1 is the reflection of B. The title of the exhibition refers to this sense of synthetic replication, once seen as anathema to the concept of the sublime but today very much compatible with it," says Nagy.

In her current series, Goel has established her patterns within the four parameters of coal, concrete, mica and aluminium. She has also made smaller studies based on textile weaving, inspired by her visits to the weaver villages in Murshidabad. One work is dominated by a line, sort of like the silk thread running across the loom. Another one, a study in red, plays with the idea of dhoop chaon (light and shade) in weaving, which is similar to the study of formalism. A large-scale work in red and blue explores the subconscious relationship that the two colours have always shared, whether it is in ads on TV screens or posters, and also draws on the colour theories of Josef Albers about the after-image that colour leaves in your eyes. I am interested in making meaning out of nothing. I want my work to be constructive, to be able to speak in a new language," she says.

This, The Sublime And Its Double can be viewed at Nature Morte till 13 January, 2-6pm.
Once upon a time in Pakistan 'My Pure Land', the UK's official Oscar entry, has been called a 'Pakistani feminist Western' /news/talking-point/once-upon-a-time-in-pakistan-111646917646739.html 111646917646739 story

Globalization in cinema can bring unexpected and wondrous things. Sarmad Masuds debut feature, My Pure Land, made in Urdu and shot in Pakistan, is the UKs entry for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It is a strong film, with powerful images rarely seen in South Asian cinema, of a rural teenage girl holding her own in gunfights with gangs of goons. These resonate long after you have left the theatre, and have a particular power because the film is based on a true story.

The film is inspired by the life of Nazo Dharejo in Sindh, Pakistan, whose father raised her sisters and her as if they were boys, often dressing them in shirts and pants rather than the traditional shalwar-kameez, and teaching them to use a Kalashnikov at the age of 16. Land grabbing is common in Pakistan and nearly one million land dispute cases are pending in its courts. When Dharejos uncle hired armed goons to grab their family home, her brother was murdered and her father tossed into jail, the teenager bravely and successfully led the unequal gunfight.

The film was playing at the just-concluded 14th Dubai International Film Festival, where I spoke to the director, who was there with Pakistani actor Syed Tanveer Hussain (who plays the father) and Caroline Bailey, the films production designer and Masuds wife.

Sarmad Masud (Sam") is a British director of Pakistani origin, born in Nottingham. He had earlier directed for television, made a short (Two Dosas), and with his first feature, has vaulted into the league of Oscar-nominated film-makers. Originally, I had wanted to make a film about police corruption in Pakistan, like Cop Land," says Masud. Then I read about Dharejo, who had fought hundreds of bandits to defend her home and land. It sounded so much more interesting, so I contacted her. She asked if I was making a documentary and I said no. She asked if there would be song and dance and I said no. She asked if she would be acting in the film; I said no, someone else would play her." She gave Masud the rights to her story but refused to take money for it. Just tell my story," she told him.

Suhaee Abro in a still from My Pure Land.

The film, which has been called a Pakistani feminist Western, has a raw power because the protagonist is not some badass Asian Kill Bill-style heroine, but a rural teenager (actor Suhaee Abro, who is wonderful) in a dupatta and shalwar-kameez, with nose ring and anklets, wielding a gun. Her ordinariness gives her character an extraordinary power. The police are corrupt and misogynist: Her brother Sikander is killed in police custody, and her father also suffers tragically there. Dharejo is left to lead the gunfight along with her sister, mother and brothers friend, Zulfiqar.

Dharejos father is remarkably liberal, given that this is conservative rural Sindh: He brings up his daughters like sonsin the film, he calls Dharejo and Saeda Mukhtiar" and Munir"and trains them to use guns to defend their home. When Zulfiqar asks Dharejo to marry him, she coolly says: on three conditionsshe will not live with her in-laws, she will continue to work and she will travel wherever she likes.

Even though my film is being described as a feminist Western, Trojan-horsed within that is actually a lovely story about a fathers relationship with his daughters," says Masud. The lead character might be a traditional rural girl... but she is (also) a brave, independent Pakistani woman who stands up for herself. Shes based on a real-life person who did actually fight her own battles and is a living inspiration for women throughout Pakistan, and the world."

Originally, I had wanted to make a film about police corruption in Pakistan... Then I read about Nazo Dharejo, who had fought hundreds of bandits to defend her home and land.- Sarmad Masud

There is a fascinating contradiction at the heart of the film: The father appears liberal, but he is also deeply patriarchal, insisting the girls izzathonouris connected with the land, and they should protect it even at the cost of their lives. And womens honour is at the heart of much of the violence against women worldwide. I guess I never really saw this contradiction in the same way," Masud responds. I believe the father in our film is very liberal and progressive, raising them to feel like equals to his son. He is empowering and equipping them with the necessary tools to fight for their home and land, which they have nurtured with blood, sweat and tears, their soul is in this land, and it isnt just land to him. It is so much more than that. I guess nothing to him is more important in this world than your honour. This land means more to them than even that."

Masud has strong memories of visiting Pakistan. We have a lot of family members living in Pakistan, so I have many happy memories of visiting them. My earliest memory is attending my uncles wedding in the early 1980s; I recall being very hot in a grey suit.... But I was always fascinated by, and vividly recall, the people, the chaos and the landscape."

Did he intend the film to influence public discourse on contemporary Islam? That wasnt my intention," Masud says. I do feel a responsibility as a British-Pakistani Muslim to tell stories which closely reflect the religion and the world as I see and experience it. Its also important to make a film which attempts to shine a light on a country, culture and religion which is very rarely accurately represented on screen."

I ask Masud if he feels non-resident Pakistani/Pakistani-origin film-makers such as himself, Afia Nathaniel (Dukhtar) and Iram Haq (What Will People Say), tend to make more feminist feature films set in Pakistan than resident Pakistani directors, including Shoaib Mansoor (Bol), Sabiha Sumar (Khamosh Pani, Good Morning Karachi, Azmaish) and documentarian Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy. I would hope all the directors you have mentioned are feminists at heart, who believe in equality," he says. It just so happens the films Afia and I have made, are centred around strong female leads."

***

Five female-led Westerns

Johnny Guitar.

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Steely saloon-keeper Joan Crawford holds off a mob led by Mercedes McCambridge in this classic Western directed by Nicholas Ray. Martin Scorsese has described it as one of cinemas great operatic works...pitched from beginning to end in a tone that is convulsive and passionate".

McCabe And Mrs Miller (1971)

Though Warren Beatty was arguably a bigger box-office draw, Robert Altmans film makes clear that Julie Christies brothel madam is the more formidable character and the driving force of the narrative.

Meeks Cutoff.

Meeks Cutoff (2010)

In this elliptical, stunningly photographed film by Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams, Zoe Kazan and Shirley Henderson play increasingly desperate settlers on a wagon trail in the Oregon desert who realize too late that their guide might not know where hes leading them.

Gold (2013)

In this tense German-language film by Thomas Arslan, Nina Hoss battles nature and the competing interests of a group of prospectors who travel to Yukon, Canada, hoping to take advantage of the 1899 Gold Rush.

The Homesman.

The Homesman (2014)

A fine low-key Western directed by Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman stars Hillary Swank as a former teacher who undertakes a difficult journey transporting three women who have been declared mentally ill from Nebraska to Iowa.
Cat People (Putting Out Fire) Women's voices in storytelling need to be accepted into the mainstream literary canon without the burden of too many caveats /news/talking-point/cat-people-putting-out-fire-111646917767151.html 111646917767151 story

In all the analysis about Kristen Roupenians viral short story that Ive read this week, there has been, sadly, no mention of David Bowie.

I was alerted to read Roupenians Cat Person, published in The New Yorkers 11 December issue, by an iMessage from a former intern who flagged it as the story that is shattering the internet". Soon it was trending on Twitter, with semi-spoilers like this one by fantasy-fiction writer Samit Basu: To the person who told me not to miss the Cat Person story because it had a person turning into a cat: well played."

I agree. One would think that with a title like that, a short story about a relationship would involve at least one person turning into a cat, exhibiting cat-like behaviour or having a sexual fetish involving cats. Instead, the story is about a 20-year-old student, Margot, who falls into a flirtation with an older man Robert (my personal theory about the title is that Cat Person" is how Margot saves Roberts number on her phone because he tells her he has two cats).

Our fantasy-fiction expectations had roots in the David Bowie song Cat People (Putting Out Fire), the title song of the 1982 American erotic horror movie Cat People. The Paul Schrader movie involved a brother, a sister, sex and a leopard.

The popularity of Cat Person has led to hyper-dissection. While the story is striking, the discussion around it in everything from zeitgeist-y websites like Vox.com to prestige media such as The New York Times and The Guardian, has made for even more engaging reads. The thread that is perhaps most interesting is the assumption that it is a personal essay rather than a work of fiction. In The Atlantic, Megan Garber points to the tendency to dismiss the literary products of women writing about womens lives as chick lit": But theres also the fact that women writers characters are often simply assumed to be autobiographical, as if their authors are not possessed of enough moral imagination to create characters who are fully fictionalized. While male authors tend to be given the luxury of fiction," she says.

What is The Great Gatsby if not lad lit?

In the past, the writer Anne Enright has spoken about how books by women are infrequently reviewed by men, while books by men are written about by critics of both genders. The implication is that literary editors believe books by male writers express universal concerns while those by women are narrower in scope.

I asked Namita Devidayal, co-director of the ongoing Times LitFest in Mumbai, for her thoughts, given that one of the highlights of this years edition is the British fashion journalist Plum Sykes, whose latest book, Party Girls Die In Pearls: An Oxford Girl Mystery, has been broadly described as a chick-lit thriller.

Both Bachi (Karkaria, her festival co-director) and I very consciously programme our festival to disrupt labels and silos because we strongly believe that people have different sides to them and sometimes those sides can even be somewhat contradictory. Labelling someone as a chick-lit or feminist writer is lazy and presumptuous. A writer like Plum Sykes may be addressing important social spaces, but in a light voice," she says.

Adding to the backlash that is par for the course for anything that has achieved unprecedented success is the idea that the narrative of Cat Person is fat-shaming. Margot first realizes that she does not want to have sex with Robert when she sees his belly thick and soft and covered with hair". Roupenian has been accused of using his physicality as shorthand to underline his inadequacies. But this is linked to the principal debate about personal essay versus fiction. Fiction has no burden to be politically correct. The protagonist of a story can most definitely be a 20-year-old who dislikes a date for being fat. And the protagonist can be an imperfect, unlikeable female.

It is easy to read Cat Person in a #MeToo context; to read it as a young womans confession. Roupenian has said in interviews that the story was inspired by a person she met online. But she did not choose to write it as a personal memoir.

Just as the #MeToo campaign is important for womens non-fiction accounts of coercive sexual encounters, so is Cat Person to be seen as fiction. Womens voices in storytelling need to be accepted into the mainstream literary canon without the burden of too many caveats. They neednt be autobiographical to be powerful. As Garber writes, something can be fiction and feminine at the same time.

Anindita Ghosh tweets @aninditaghose
Kyiv's Obolonsky District Court will continue to consider a criminal proceeding on high treason charges against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday, December 20, at 14.00.

According to an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, at a session on Thursday, December 14, the court completed the examination of video materials and written evidence provided by the defense team.

Next week, the court will start to question witnesses. Presiding Judge Vladyslav Deviatko invited prosecutors to ensure the appearance of two witnesses on December 20 and four witnesses for a hearing on December 21.

On December 14, Yanukovych's lawyer, Vitaliy Serdiuk, and his colleague, Andriana Fozekosh, provided the court with video materials and written evidence of the defense team.

As reported, former Ukrainian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Yuriy Serheyev, former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov have already been interrogated earlier as a result of certain changes in the procedure for the consideration of the case.
Gary Shteyngart: In America, no one wants to read Gary Shteyngart on immigrant novels and the importance of good food and fluffy pillows /news/talking-point/gary-shteyngart-in-america-no-one-wants-to-read-111646917893557.html 111646917893557 story

Gary Shteyngart is a best-selling novelist, a proverbial funny man and a relentless book blurber. He has jumped off a moving train in Mumbai, canoodled with James Franco for a book trailer and been banned in Russia for his hilarious and outspoken critique of the current regime. Shteyngarts life has been one of reinvention and he says as much in his 2014 memoir, Little Failure: After all, this is America, and you can swap out the parts of yourself that dont work. You can rebuild yourself piece by piece."Born as Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart in Leningrad in the erstwhile USSR, he moved to the US when he was seven years old. Growing up was a process of unlearning his thick Russian accent and leaving behind his familys bland meat and potatoes. He channelled all the frustrations, aspirations and absurdities of his experience as a Russian-Jewish immigrant, adding generous doses of self-deprecating humour to come up with a winning formula. His first novel, The Russian Debutantes Handbook (2002), chronicling the life of the mild-mannered Russian emigre Vladimir Girshkin, was a success. This was followed by the wickedly funny Absurdistan in 2006 and Super Sad True Love Story in 2010, a dystopian look at immigrant love when everything is falling apart. His most recent book is his 2014 memoir, Little Failure, a bittersweet, self-mocking and tender look at his life as an immigrant.Lounge caught up with the writer on the sidelines of the Tata Literature Live! LitFest in Mumbai last month, where he held forth on his love for mutton, the perils of being funny, and jumping off a Mumbai local. Edited excerpts from the interview:

The title of your memoir, Little Failure, is unusual, to say the least.

It was my moms nickname for me as I was growing up. You know, in Russia they give nice nicknames to their kids in the hope that they will do better. She lovingly called me failurchka, or little failure". I went to a high school where most of the kids were Chinese, Indian, Korean or Russian and all our parents were like that. And my mum came up with the name when I told her that I wasnt going to law school and wanted to be a writer. Most immigrants come to America to make money, so being a writer wasnt all that great a choice.

So what happens after you write a book? And tell us about your star-studded book trailers, especially the one where you and James Franco are in matching pink robes and even share a kiss.

You know, I finish a book and it has killed me, and then I have to travel and beg people to read my book. I have to show up in the middle of Americayou know, there is a country in between New York and LA and its absolutely frightening.

Book trailers are an annoying part of the American literary firmament and all of us have to do it. I have done one with Paul Giamatti where we try to go to a womens reading club and pick up the ladies. Then there are two with James Franco, who took a couple of classes with me in Columbia. In the trailer for Little Failure, we play a gay married couple and all I can say about that one is that he has very soft lips and is a great kisser. In the trailer for Super Sad, he tries to teach me how to read. So, in America, no one wants to read and you have to have a movie to introduce the book and get them to think that theres a funny guy in there, maybe I could read this shit".

Unfortunately, there is no escaping this. I have friends who choose not to be a part of this and while they are true to themselves, they sell 10 copies. Or maybe they have trust funds.

The immigrant experience in America is an omnipresent trope across literature, cinema, music and television. What keeps this genre alive and fresh?

You know, Americans are interested in reinvention and immigrants by designation are those who reinvent themselves. Americans also hate to read books written by people in other countries as its too much work to figure out what the significance of specific things is. Reading books by immigrants, you get a little taste of another culture but without too much investment. The stories of the native-born are very boring. How many times can you write about someones parents getting divorced in a well-to-do suburb? Our parents beat the shit out of us. Now thats funny and interesting. So while writing about this experience, you cant do too much of the exotic stuff. The good writers take the stance that the country we came from is terrible and America is terrible, so its an all-encompassing depression.

So what are your impressions of Mumbai?

I was here in 2013, when I spent two weeks hanging out with Suketu Mehta in the city and wrote a piece on it for Travel + Leisure. Here in Mumbai, the public transport is crazy. I love taking the train and I even tried jumping off it like they do here, and, oh, I was in such pain, but it was also fun. I love Bombay. This is like what New York used to be before it became a city for the 1%. It was alive, everyone was running around, there were all kinds of people and it was exciting.

Recently, you were part of an interesting campaign by Xerox which was all about the modern workplace. So what is your current office like?

My office is my bed, as I write in bed. And I spend a large part of my day in a bathrobe. I dont see what the point of a real office is as its much easier to write from ones bed. All I need is my laptop and good pillows with a high thread count.

You had written somewhere that, growing up as a Russian child in the US, you had a complex relationship with food. How has that changed?

Well, we didnt have garlic or other spices. Russian cuisine is just awful. Its like a piece of meat which is not very good and a piece of potato. How can you live eating that? The food I would take to school was terrible. It was cream cheese and a disgusting piece of bread. If you grow up with boring food, a part of you dies, which is why I am envious of people from good-cuisine countries. Good food is something that bonds the family together and its usually the mom who makes something delicious and you love her because of that. Lets say I learnt to love my mother despite her cooking skills. When I was a teenager, I first discovered Spanish cuisine and all its beautiful garlicky sauces. And this was followed by my discovery of Chinese, Korean and Indian cuisines and I became quite a foodie.

Do you have a favourite playlist while writing?

Yes, I do, but its mostly music without words, like Kraftwerk. I love them. (Sings) We are the robots."

Tell me about the books that inspired you to become a writer.

I used to love reading the Russian translations of Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn. These dated back to the (Joseph) Stalin era and their forwards were all about how awful America was and that was absolutely great. And there was this other book called The Wonderful Adventures Of Nils, about this little boy who meets this goose and flies off. So when I was 5, I wrote a book for my Communist grandma called Lenin And His Magical Goose". It was about how Lenin gets on this goose and they invade Finland and create a socialist revolution, and she paid me a slice of cheese for every page that I wrote.

What is it like being a writer nowadays?

Being a writer nowadays is like a lifestyle. So you live in Williamsburg (a trendy neighbourhood in Brooklyn, NYC) and wear certain kinds of jeans and the writing is the most annoying part of the stuff you do but, really, youre just this hip person. For about four months, my book Absurdistan was really hip and called an accessory book that people bought without reading, and they would carry it around to look good. That was great and we sold so many books because of that. I was so happy and even built a pool after that.

What is your relationship with the world of social media?

Well, today I got half a million Twitter followers so thats really cool, but I think half of them are bots with names like KremlinLover2000 or something. I am trying to get non-bot followers as well. I adapt to all this social media but I wish I didnt have to spend all this time on it because I dont know how much it helps with sales. But these are desperate times.

It is a hard life for funny people in todays world of censorship. How does one circumvent the brickbats?

As a satirist, how do you make fun of something that is already satirical to begin with? The last book I wrote is immediately less satirical because its set during the 2016 US election. How do you make fun of that? Its a national tragedy. You know, one has to keep doing this because while it would be nice to be an accountant, I dont know how to do anything else. On social media, I try not to offend for the sake of offending. Its like we know more about what the limits of racism and sexism are and its too hard to go there even if its all for laughs.
Beautiful and bizarre things to buy: From Dash to So Kate Loubitag

Beautiful and bizarre things to buy: From Dash to So Kate Loubitag In this weekly compendium of objects of desire, also a Vanities column by Swapan Seth /fashion/beauty/beautiful-and-bizarre-things-to-buy-from-dash-to-so-kate-loubitag-1646820442604.html 1646820442604 story

Wearable art: Custom additions by Isharya

Fashion jewellery label Isharya is offering 3D customization on jewellery and bags. Pyramid mirror motifs, gold-plated initials and pearl accents can be added on to chains and clutches to spruce things up a bit this holiday season. At Isharya.com, or the Isharya store in Bandra, Mumbai. Rs10,000-35,000.

Dash by Spin.

Serious toys: Dash by Spin

A wall-mounted hook system, Dash, with its sleek, perforated form, allows you to hang accessories and knick-knacks such as keys, scarves, strings, in an arrangement that you like. At Madewithspin.com; Rs4,999.

So Kate Loubitag by Christian Louboutin.

For your sole: So Kate Loubitag by Christian Louboutin

From the Fall/Winter 2018 collection, Louboutins classic series So Kate, a pointed-toe and superfine stiletto heel, has been re-produced with the designers hand-drawn Loubitag" scribble printed on to white patent leather. At the Christian Louboutin store, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai. Rs48,500.

Magellan by Faraday Science shop.

This is L(it): Magellan by Faraday Science shop

An online store that curates only science-related gifts, it doesnt get cooler than this. Magellan uses energy-efficient LED lights to build a night sky projector kit, turning your room into a starry starry night. At www.faradayscienceshop.com; around Rs8,960.

JIM by Jim Beam.

Smart Bourbon: JIM by Jim Beam

JIM is dubbed the worlds first smart decanterit pours whisky on command. Its voiced by seventh-generation master distiller Fred Noe and includes a sleek compartment for bourbon storage and voice command options. JIMs 3G capabilities will expire after six months and it will turn back into a regular decanter. Pre-order on the Jim Beam store (Store.jimbeam.com).

***

MyPurMist

By Invitation: Vanities

An ode to things you dont need but must have

This week: MyPurMist

Winter just wasnt my season, sings Anna Nalick in her absolutely lovely song Breathe (2am).

Any human being living in Delhi and suffering from acute sinusitis would tell Ms Nalick, I hear you."

Winter is when Delhis badly behaved weather jumps into bed with the smog and roughs up ones nasal passages.

I have tried every conceivable trick in the book to handle it. I have tried to stuff horseradish up my nose. Yes, even wasabi. I have also roasted cumin and smelt it. Visually, it can embarrass any adult.

But sinus is Gods own curse.

The common medical refrain that one hears is steam inhalation" thrice a day.

Now there is an age up to which it is acceptable to be seen with your head bent into a bowl of water with Karvol and a towel over your head.

Plus, bowls arent easy to come by. In hotels, I would ask for champagne buckets for my inhalation. And, trust me, asking for a champagne bucket with piping hot water does tend to be met with the sound of a muffled snigger by the ladies in IRD (in-room dining).

That is where my medical concierge service swung into action. Determined to shield me from social slouchiness, they introduced me to the MyPurMist.

MyPurMist Free is a cordless steam inhaler. It provides 100% natural, drug-free therapy for sinus congestion, colds and allergies. Since its cordless, you can inhale in all kinds of places: in a cinema hall, in your car. Why, it can provide you therapeutic warm misteffectively free from germs and allergenseven on a plane. But if you must, you can also work with ordinary filtered water. Squeeze a capsule of Karvol oil into it and return to familiar comforts. And, its managed by a powerful processor that includes Bluetooth connectivity.

I have a MyPurMist each at home and in my car (available, for $179.95, or around Rs11,610, on Mypurmist.com).

Swapan Seth is CEO, Equus.
Jhunjhun Jain: Stories in cork Design studio Outlin'd is taking its intricate corkware to The India Story in Kolkata /news/talking-point/jhunjhun-jain-stories-in-cork-111646917358579.html 111646917358579 story

Kile Aur Kahaniyaan, a selection of placemats handcrafted in cork, takes the silhouette of Indias magnificent forts. Aiyana Kaari is a compact wine stand, cork with mirror inlay, which has been inspired by cutwork and Mughal architecture. It features six smooth grooves to hold your wine glasses upright. Mehraab is a set of six coasters fitted on a tea tray, which slide out of their grooves to double up as saucers for your teacup. The collection is reminiscent of a time when cups and saucers were an inseparable duo.

For designer Jhunjhun Jain, it was a chance encounter with cork, while she was studying 3D design at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore in 2014, that laid the foundation for her Delhi-based design label Outlind. At the workshop, we would put on our overalls and play around with every possible material. Thats how I stumbled upon this material," says Jain, as we converse over several cups of Americanos at a cafe in Gurugram.

She shows me the initial coasters, inspired by traditional jharokhas (overhanging balconies). The coasters were first shown publicly at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore, after which they were exhibited at the Alsisar Haveli in Jaipur.

A unique aesthetic and material got Jain selected for the prestigious London Design Festival in September. I had visited the London Design Festival in 2015 as a viewer and was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it. Thats when I realized this is where I wanted to be. So I applied and went through the lengthy process, and got to exhibit this year," says Jain, who displayed a collection of 10 products at the event.

Now, she is all set to take Outlind to The India Story, a curated event which brings together the best of Indian design and craft practices, and will be held in Kolkata from 21-24 December. Anahita Kayan, who is curating the section called Sanctuary, finds Jains process with cork quite interesting. She doesnt print the design, but burns it on to the material, thus lending a permanence to it. It is a product that will last for generations," she says.

The cork placemat from the Kile Aur Kahaniyaan series.

Cork lends itself as a tactile and malleable material to Jains ideas. According to her, all the applications that one can try with wood can be tried with cork as welldepending on the density and grain. Also, it is far more sustainable than wood. Since it is sourced from the renewable outer bark of the tree, it doesnt require as much environmental interference," she says.

However, working with an unusual material comes with its own set of challenges. Since cork is not manufactured in India, Jain has to import the raw material from Portugal and Spain. Also, craftsmen here have no idea of how to work with it, so her own carpentry skills had to be put to use initially to create a blueprint they could then work off. Jain is now planning to launch a retail collaboration in London with two partners, besides looking for the right channels for distribution in India.

Outlind is available at Jhunjhunjain.com; prices range from Rs450-15,550.


A Scottish Christmas tart The Ecclefechan Tart is named after the town where historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle was born /news/talking-point/a-scottish-christmas-tart-111646917533005.html 111646917533005 story

Last time, the word of the week was dreich. This time, Im going to introduce you to the Scottish word stooshie, meaning row or fracas. And Im introducing you to it because it really is the only way to describe what happened a few years ago when the supermarket chain Sainsburys introduced a Scottish Christmas speciality called Ecclefechan Tarts to their shelves.

The Ecclefechan Tart is named after the town where historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle was born. As Ecclefechan is close to the border with England, it is sometimes called Borders Tart, but lets face it, Ecclefechan is so much more fun to say. Until Sainsburys decided to sell it, the tarts were virtually unknown outside their homeland but when the supermarket chain decided to market the tarts as an alternative to mince pies, all hell broke loosemore commonly referred to in Scotland as a stooshie. How, the (English) people asked, could anything possibly replace the mince pie? Stooshie, did I say? Wars between the two countries have been waged over less.

I missed this sugar-laced stooshie back in 2007, of course, as I was living in India at the time. In fact, I was first introduced to the Ecclefechan Tart earlier this year in the middle of a wet field by esteemed Scottish food writer and baker Sue Lawrence, who had made some to share with the audience at an event we were taking part in at the Galloway Country Fair.

Although I tasted the tart in what we in these parts laughingly call summer, I was instantly struck by its Christmassy flavours and made a note to have a go myself later in the year. At first glance, theres not much difference between mince pies and Ecclefechan Tarts. Theyre both essentially dried fruit encased in pastry for a winter treat (although the Ecclefechan was probably more associated with Hogmanay (New Years Eve), as this was traditionally celebrated more than Christmas in Scotland. But the first bite offers something very different. The mince pie is fruity and spicy, and usually contains suet (grated animal fat which harks back to the times when the pies actually contained meat along with the fruit). The Ecclefechan Tart, on the other hand, contains lots of butter, which gives a more caramel flavour. In fact, its reminiscent of Pecan Pie (especially mine, because Ive put pecans in it). It also has the surprise addition of vinegar, which cannot be detected in the finished tart but balances out the butter a little. The butter and sugar also make a wonderful light caramel crust over the top of the tarts.

As with a lot of things that happened during the 10 years I was living in India, Im very late to this particular party. Im glad I decided to attend though, the Ecclefechan Tart is a revelation, so much so that Im swithering about whether or not to make mince pies this year. One member of our household, who had best remain anonymous lest we stir up cross-border hostilities again, has already decided. You know," he said, I think I prefer them to mince pies."

Whatever you decide, have a very happy Christmas.

Ecclefechan Tarts

Makes 24

Ingredients

For the pastry

175g plain flour

A pinch of salt

100g butter cut in small cubes

50g almonds, ground

50g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

Grated zest of 1 orange

For the filling

125g dark brown sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

125g butter, melted and cooled

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

250g mixed dried fruit (I used dried cranberries and sultanas; you could use whatever you have, but nothing bigger than a sultana)

50g pecans, chopped

Method

You will need 2x12-hole tartlet tins and an 8cm cutter.

To make the pastry, sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the butter and gently rub it into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the ground almonds, caster sugar and orange zest. Put the egg yolk in a small bowl and add two tablespoons of cold water. Stir the liquid into the flour mixture. Gently form the dough into a smooth ball with your hands, adding a little more water if necessary. Cover with plastic wrap, then chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

For the filling, whisk together the sugar, eggs and melted butter. Stir in the vinegar, dried fruit and chopped pecans. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

When the pastry has chilled, lightly flour a board or work surface and roll the pastry out to 2mm thick. Cut out 24 circles, re-forming scraps into a ball and rolling out until all the dough is used. Put a pastry disc in each hole of the tartlet tins, then fill almost to the top with the dried fruit mixture.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the pastry is cooked and lightly browned. Serve warm with whipped cream.

The Way We Eat Now is a column on new ways of cooking seasonal fruits, vegetables and grains.

The writer tweets@eatanddust
Cyberbullying is a real-world problem A recent case highlights why it's more important than ever before for families to monitor children's online experience /news/talking-point/cyberbullying-is-a-real-world-problem-111646917545331.html 111646917545331 story

Ames had posted on Twitter her decision to exit an adult movie project because the male actors in the project had worked with other men. Photo: iStockphoto

Earlier this month, a 23-year-old female adult movie star was found dead at her home in California. After police investigation, it has been claimed that Canadian-born actor August Amesher real name was Mercedes Grabowskiwas driven to suicide by cyberbullying. Ames had posted on Twitter her decision to exit an adult movie project because the male actors in the project had worked with other men.

According to reports, she was inundated with a barrage of criticism on social media, to the extent of being called homophobic". Her brother has been quoted as saying that online trolls and bullies" cost his sister her life.

Ames case is an example of the potentially insidious effects of the internet and social media. The fact that this happened in a year when online phenomenon such as the Blue Whale Challenge made headlines shows how big cyberbullying has become.

The numbers in India are not too promising either. According to the New Family Dynamics In A Connected World 2017 study by the US-based cybersecurity company McAfee, 49% of Indian parents are concerned about stranger danger"a problem that prevails both online and in the real world.

Another worrying statistic is that 54% of Indian parents claim to have discovered that their children have visited an inappropriate website; this number is the highest among 14 countries where the study was conducted. The study, released earlier this year, covered individuals using an internet-connected device on a daily basis, in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the US.

While Indian children are spending more time on devices at home (84% of Indian parents allow their children to take an internet-connected device to bed), it seems parents are not doing enough to monitor what their children do or view on these devicesonly 36% of Indian parents admit to using software to monitor their childrens activity.

With rising concerns over cyberbullying, parents should play a more proactive role in their childrens online lives. They should actively monitor their childs online experience until they get a sense of judgement, and this is more important than ever," says Venkat Krishnapur, vice-president of engineering and managing director at McAfee.

Here are some ways, Krishnapur says, for parents to monitor their childrens online activities:

@ Open conversation: Just like the real world, your child needs guidance in the online world too till he/she attains maturity.

@ Build trust: It is important for parents to build a trust relationship with children so there is scope for open dialogue and uninhibited sharing of information.

@ Stranger danger: Highlight incidents on how strangers try to earn trust falselytheir agenda can extend from cybercrime to theft when you are not home.

@ Balance: Fix a daily time when children can surf online and do school work.

@ Monitor: There is a fine line between monitoring and policing, know the difference.

@ Use technology: Take the help of technology like a Family Safety application that will help monitor childrens activities and warn both parents and children when they are in danger online.

@ Do your bit: Discuss ways to identify online dangers with children, as well as how they can report these if they encounter them.

@ Be computer savvy: Parents should become more technology aware so that they are able to appreciate the risks online and are able to guide children on how to stay safe.
A twist of taste at The Hong Kong Club Indian ingredients are the X-factor at the Hong Kong Club that serves modern Cantonese food. An exclusive preview /news/talking-point/a-twist-of-taste-at-the-hong-kong-club-111646917814168.html 111646917814168 story

The food kept coming to the table in small black plates amid the cacophony reminiscent of a club: asparagus tossed in mustard oil; Cantonese chicken, marinated in soya and fermented peach wine; crushed cucumbers and black vinegar; lobster wonton hot and sour soup; and three kinds of dumplings. Unlike the fiery Sichuan cuisine, this take on Cantonese food was mild and well-balanced. The dumplingscrystal, shumai and baowere succulent, the lobster meat in shumai sweet, and the accompanying sauce had just enough heat to keep you coming back for more. On a table nearby, a jovial patriarch was telling children how to use chopsticksback and forth with the index finger.

The dinner in the warm, casual setting of The Hong Kong Club, a modern Cantonese restaurant that opens on Saturday at Andaz Delhi, a Hyatt luxury hotel in Aerocity, was ticking all the boxes so far, even if it was a little understated.

But that was before the wicked roasted pork belly arrived. It had a honey-gold crackling, crisp to perfection. The meat was tender but what elevated the dish to another level was the pungent kasundi dip, a highly unusual combination.

The pork belly with kasundi.

The X-factor

We wanted to use the traditional Cantonese way of cooking, and, to certain dishes, we wanted to give a little twist," says chef Alex Moser, 35, who has been with the Hyatt group for 17 years. So if a Chinese person comes to eat here, the flavours will be very familiar to him but with a little twist at the end."

Another such dish is the stir-fried vegetables with a hint of onion seeds. Such twists, says Moser, who has designed the menu with chef Yu Fuhai from Guangdong, are meant to add another dimension to the food.

There is emphasis on seasonal eating and local produce. The stir-fry, for instance, uses vegetables grown locally. The duck is local and the seafood, from Kerala.

When I started this project a year and half ago, a big challenge was sourcing ingredients. So I travelled across India discovering, in the course, wonderful ingredients and groups of farmers that are doing incredible work," he says. That is how I came across kasundi. Globally, our pork belly uses Pommery mustard from France but for the Indian market, I decided to use local kasundi."

That said, some ingredients are still imported. Scallops, soy sauce, rice wine and certain dried mushrooms come from China. Lamb is imported from Australia. We are trying to find a local rice that would fit our dishes. The idea is to use whatever we can locally. But that doesnt mean I would use local lamb, which is better for braising, in our stir-fried dishes," says Moser.

What sets them apart from other Chinese restaurants is the smaller plates, fresh produce and casual dining experience. There is no chicken stock powder or MSG in the kitchen.

The rebel child

With a young clientele in mind, the Andaz chain aims to focus on amenities rather than white-glove service. There are no turbans and handlebar moustaches; clean-shaven men in denims and polka-dot shirts welcome you at the entrance. The front desk is more like a May I help you" kiosk in a mall. Spaces flow into each other organicallyan all-glass entrance leads into a bar that opens up to the food hall, and so on. Inside, The Hong Kong Club stands like a giant installation near the pool.

Spread across three levelsthe ground floor has a wine wallthe evening-only restaurant can serve 292 covers. For private parties, it has two rooms stocked with separate bars. Chinese artwork, porcelain vases and crystal glassware dot the interiors. Modern, comfortable seating, adventurous bartenders and peppy music (plans are in place for a DJ and live acts) await you inside.

The Sun Wukong.

The highlight of the bar is the Chinese zodiac-inspired cocktailssome are a little heavy on syrups, so ask them to rein it in. Born in the year of the monkey? Try the mythological monkey king-inspired Sun WukongScotch, banana liqueur, five-spice, the citrus-y yuzu and bitters in an Old Fashioned glass, with a burning cinnamon stick to add to the drama. The SnakebiteScotch, ginger beer, miso and yuzucomes in a highball glass with a garnish of snake fruit peel, eerily similar to a snakes hide.

The Hong Kong Club is big on the roast, wok and steaming but what really takes the cake is how they incorporate local produce into traditional Cantonese cooking. We didnt change the traditional style of cooking," says Moser. We just played around with ingredients and gave a final twist with local flavours."
Inside a 20th century nude commune In Kerala, a 96-year-old building is occupied by Siddha Samaj, a society that is powered by ideas of free sex and spirituality and has 300-odd practising members /news/talking-point/inside-a-20th-century-nude-commune-111646917928804.html 111646917928804 story

S. Dhananjayan likes hanging out naked, except in front of strangers.

He has no family, holds no property, does no work, makes no money, serves no government, obeys no supervisors, has no subordinates, worships no god and practises no religion. He has consensual sex with whoever he likes, with no expectation of love. Dhananjayan, who is in his 20s, is, in his own estimation, a happy man in a free world.

He is one among 300-odd people who are continuing a social experiment that began nearly a century ago in north Keralas Calicut (also known as Kozhikode) district. They are inmates of Siddha Samaj, an alternative society with four branches in Kerala and one in Tamil Nadu.

This little-known commune was formed as a critique of private property and interests. Former Kerala chief minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad is said to have described it as a community of primitive Communists.

Two years ago, I found myself staring out of the window of a train to Vadakara, a small coastal town in Kozhikode, on my way to learn more about this society, shortly after learning that my grandfather had apparently helped build it. It all began when my father and uncles found a yellowing notebook, tattered and falling to pieces, in an old trunk in our ancestral home. It was deemed useless because it had none of the things they were looking for, such as details of any real estate my grandfather might have had, unknown to them.

To my mind, though, it seemed interesting as a historical document. The notebook was small. In neat handwriting, it was full of his thoughts about his life and his surroundings, seemingly written at a very old age. He wrote about the financial hurdles he faced when trying to get into a school; the odd assortment of jobs he did, including playing native guide to a foreign scholar and serving as tax collector to the local king, the zamorin of Calicut; his readings on theology, philosophy and science; the journeys he made to places like Kashi (Varanasi) and Rishikesh and so on.

There was a cryptic reference to having conducted the first inter-caste marriage in Kerala". The year on the left, 1922, was enough to pique my curiosity.

Caste hierarchies were rigid in Kerala in the early 20th century. To accidentally catch sight of a member of the lower castes entailed ritual pollution; an upper-caste person would typically bathe after doing so. How then to make sense of an organized inter-caste marriage in such a time?

My grandfather, C.S. Menon, credits the society in Vadakara with leading this initiative. It turns out, he was also its first general secretary. The diary ended with a note indicating he had written another book, a summation of his spiritual journey, but also an autobiography, that could be found in the societys Vadakara office.

The next morning, I was on a train on my way to Vadakara, to try and bridge the gaps in my understanding of my grandfather. Until then the old man had been little more than a black and white photograph hanging on a wall in the ancestral house, still watching over, it seemed, his books on Indian philosophy and Marxist politics. I needed colour in the portrait.

The orphanage which doubles up as a schoolchildren are taken away from mothers and brought here at the age of 3, where they lead a secluded life.

A republic of dreamers

Wide, open gates beckon visitors towards an impressive 96-year-old building that houses Siddha Samaj. The building is a couple of hundred yards from the gates, past a guard shack with no guard. It closely resembles the traditional Kerala homestead, nalukettu, a large multistoreyed dwelling with dozens of rooms and an open central courtyard.

The building is in the middle of about 60 acres of farmland owned by the Samaj, the land ringed by a high, moss-covered compound wall. Members of the Samaj grow everything they eat on this land. To one side of the building stands an Ayurvedic medicine manufacturing unittheir medicines are fairly popular among localsand the profits go towards sustaining the society and its members. Funds for the Samaj also pour in through donations.

There is a second gate that opens in the morning and closes in the evening every day, from where a neatly laid-out path flanked by lush green lawns splits into three: the path on the left leading to the nalukettu, the one on the right leading to a small hostel for outsiders, and another going straight to a temple-like structure erected on bulky pillar shafts with a dome at its top.

All ritual is banned inside this structure. It exists in remembrance of, and in respect to, the idealist who founded the society, Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa.

Little is known about Sivananda. The notebook described him as a unique yogino blind beliefs, out and out socialist, no religion, no caste, was not learned in the (traditional) sense of learning, belonged to Badagara (Vadakara)thousands of disciples..."

Legend has it that Sivananda was a colonial-era policeman who began searching for the meaning of life after a family tragedy, and ended up founding a commune which in his view would be a haven for joy and freedom. He found the practice of caste demeaning and banned it in his utopia. He also thought clothes were a hindrance to a natural way of living, apart from causing skin diseases, and asked members to be unencumbered by clothing.

He wrote a book titled Siddha Vedam, which he described as the fifth of the Vedas, ancient Indian philosophical books commonly divided into four. It is hard to know whether Indian philosophy or Karl Marxthe German revolutionary was a hero in Kerala then, as he is nowinspired him, but he was keenly interested in socialism.

Sickened by mankinds seemingly endless desire to accumulate, he enforced a ban on private interests of any sort. This meant every person had to look after everybody else in the community, but no one could claim ownership of anything.

Sivananda applied this thinking to relationships too. There could be no husbands or wives, among other things, because that would indicate ownership. In the Samaj, you may have consensual sex with whoever you want, but they wont be only your partner.

A ban on private interests also means no family. Every child born in the Samaj is taken away from the mother at the age of 3. The children are raised together, in a common orphanage alongside a school, at Vadakara, and no one is told who their parents are. They are taught to accept prakriti (nature) as their common mother. Everyones father is considered the same, and is denoted with the surname S", short for Sivananda.

Hence, S. Dhananjayan.

Portraits of Samaj founder Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa, displayed in the visitors gallery.

The silent heaven

Dhananjayan did not choose to join the society. He was born into this world and it is all he knows.

He is a short and stout man with a wispy beard and shoulder-length hair. He wears a white mundu. The first time we met, he was one of two people playing games on a smartphone in the courtyard of the nalukettu. We began a conversation about mobile phones.

Dhananjayan is generally chatty. Most of the other members of the order appear meditative and sombre. When Dhananjayan and I talked about phones, we were the only people talking in that big housethe only other sounds were of people running errands. There is a relaxed air about everything. But the truly free world, it turns out, was dead silent as a cemetery.

The almost oppressive silence of the house began playing on my mind. The next time I saw Dhananjayan, I asked him if he sometimes felt like an inmate in a jail.

Dont you want to get out of this?"

Never," he replied in Malayalam, smiling. It is a jail (only) when you look from the outside. For us, you guys are living in a jail."

Portraits of Samaj founder Swami Sivananda Paramahamsa, displayed in the visitors gallery.

Free or caged?

For a free society, Siddha Samaj has a number of rules governing aspects of life that would ordinarily be considered very private.

Such as vegetarianism and an 8 hours work-8 hours meditation-8 hours sleep routine every day. And the prayer roomoutsiders are not allowed to enterwhere the inmates of the Samajam go about unclothed. Dhananjayan describes it as an ill-lit dormitory of sorts, a place where people can do pranayam, retire to sleep and, if they so choose, have sex.

In Sivanandas belief, the act of pranayam, or regulating ones breathing, can help the body attain a state of happiness that would otherwise only be attained with orgasm.

The Samaj receives two kinds of visitors: the ones called Siddha Vidyarthipractitioners of Siddha Vedawho are not inmates, and general onlookers or tourists. To the outsider, the Samaj would seem like a decidedly strange place, with strange rules on how to love, and even what love is.

How do you feel if the girl you love has a relationship with someone else, I asked Dhananjayan once.

Why should I (feel anything)?" he replied.

We dont own anything in Samaj, people or objects. Besides, its her choice to decide with whom she wants to be."

And you dont feel shy, or a sense of shame, when having have sex amid your elders and younger ones?"

Sex is a natural feeling. Why would one feel shy about doing something natural?"

The Samajs reputation for free sex and free living notwithstanding, there are several aspects that appear somewhat problematic. For one, the children of the society, ranging between the ages of 3 and 16, have a room similar to that of the adults, to which they retire completely naked for prayer.

The children raised in the Samaj are effectively mandated to lead a life within the compounds walls. He or she will possess little understanding of life beyond, not to mention the lack of educational qualifications demanded by the rest of society.

There is also the fact that the women of the society, while free to do as they wish, largely stay indoors as a norm, doing much of the housekeeping and cooking. Even in utopia, it seems, a working woman has no escape from patriarchy.

There could be no husbands or wives, among other things, because that would indicate ownership. In the Samaj, you may have consensual sex with whoever you want, but they wont be only your partner-

Want for nothing

A wish-box was installed on the premises of the school some years ago, says Dhananjayan. The students were allowed to write down a wish they wanted fulfilled on a piece of paper and drop it in. It has been empty ever since. The box has become something of a joke in the Samaj.

Dhananjayans utopia is filled with such anecdotes. While they may not be what others consider modern civilization, they are not as distant as others imagine either.

Dhananjayan has never watched a movie in a theatre, or eaten an ice creamthe simpler pleasures of living in a modern society. But he has taught himself, like many others in the Samaj, to use computers and drive vehicles. He says he learnt these skills because they proved useful when it came to supplying Ayurvedic medicines to retail stores that were often quite distant from their compound. He makes it clear that he does not claim either computer or car as his own.

What, then, is the ultimate achievement of this 96-year experiment in social engineering?

Has it been a success? Has it been able to make equality a reality? While rejecting the established order to become their own masters, have they, on the way, become victims of a different kind of captivity?

I did not recover the autobiography I had set out in search ofoutsiders are not permitted to examine the societys archives. My grandfathers role in the society remained locked in a past I could not reach. But on the train back, I sat opposite a young man who looked the same age as Dhananjayan. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, No greater love than self-love." It made me wonder: what if there is?
A night of Chinese history China's restored hotels enable travellers to experience the country's heritage in luxurious ways /news/talking-point/a-night-of-chinese-history-111646917848564.html 111646917848564 story

Amanyangyun

This ambitious, decade-long restoration project started with one Chinese entrepreneurs desire to save 50 Ming and Qing dynasty houses, 300-500 years old, that were threatened by the construction of a new dam in the Jiangxi province. The houses were taken apart stone by stone, each piece of wood neatly labelled and stored in a warehouse until they could be reconstructed in a new location. The relocation also included nearly 10,000 camphor trees that locals believe have individual spirits. Some of the trees were 100ft-high and weighed up to 50 tons. Entrepreneur Ma Dadong teamed up with Aman Resorts to restore 26 villas as hotel suites and private residences. Reservations are open for the hotel, which launches in January.

The Murray, Hong Kong

Opened in January, The Murray injects new life into an old city landmark, the Murray Building that was opened in 1969 and won many awards at the time for its pioneering design. Located on Cotton Tree Drive, the 27-storey building housed offices of the Hong Kong government until it was auctioned off for redevelopment in 2011. Murray was the tallest government building of its time, designed so that its windows avoided excessive direct sunlight, making it more energy efficient. Keeping the framework of the building intact, its interiors have been redesigned to suit a luxury hotel, with 336 suites and rooms.

A suite at the Capella Shanghai.

Capella Shanghai, Jian Ye Li

Shanghai is known for its shikumen lane houses, built in an architectural style that was popular from the 1860s-1930s and combined Western and Chinese elements. In recent decades, the old lane houses have been rapidly demolished and reconstructed, giving way to modern constructions. Thats what makes the November launch of Capellas new hotel in Shanghai important. Located in the citys French Concession area, the hotel is built in a cluster of 55 restored two-storey lane houses originally constructed in the 1920s. Jian Ye Li estate is one of the last few remaining neighbourhoods of its kind in the city, and the hotel celebrates this heritage with its part-Asian, part-French decor.

The pool at Alila, Yangshuo.

Alila Yangshuo

This 117-room hotel that made its debut in July is located in a former sugar mill in the town of Yangshuo, a popular getaway in the Guangxi region known for its Karst mountains. Many of the 1960s mill buildings have been kept intact, repurposed as a restaurant and bar. The latter specializes in serving, not surprisingly, rum-based cocktails made at the in-house distillery. The sugar theme extends beyond the names of the restaurant and bar to a tour of the former mill and experience of the sugar-making process.

Temple Dongjingyuan

Though not as new as the other hotels on this list, The Temple Hotel is noteworthy. The centrepiece of this 3,500sq. m. cultural space with eight luxury rooms, event spaces and conference rooms, an art gallery, a restaurant, and a courtyard full of installations and sculptures, is Zhizhusi, or the Temple of Wisdom. Though the temple was marred by fire, careful restoration uncovered some of the original paintings that covered the ceilings 180 wooden panels. Located close to the Imperial Palace, the hotel showcases contemporary Chinese and international art. Its furniture includes pieces by Indian designer Sandeep Sangaru, whose work featured recently in a Christies auction.
Jane Austens novel pursuits It was only after her death that Jane Austen's name actually appeared as the writer of her novels, which have since sold millions around the world in dozens of languages /news/talking-point/jane-austen-s-novel-pursuits-111646917835889.html 111646917835889 story

When Jane Austen was born this day in 1775, novel-writing was still seen as a wholly undignified obsession. Old men feared the romantic nonsense it fed young women, who now, it was argued, entertained dangerously subversive tendencies such as following the heart instead of obeying their husbands. Some females too were alarmed. Hannah More, the playwright, saw in novel-reading all the symptoms of decay" while Mary Berry, the writer, declared fiction the great evil of all young women". Even as Austen started Lady Susan in 1793, The Evangelical Magazine was denouncing novels as instruments of abomination and ruin".

In fact, a sinister connection was even made between reading fiction and such unseemly habits as masturbation. As the French doctor J.D.T. de Bienville argued in his Nymphomania, published in the year of Austens birth, venomous" novels stoked the imagination, which in turn pushed women into the abyss of fantasy. They became monsters in human shape", prone to impious activities like self-pleasuring. Art too aided this viewworks like Emmanuel de Ghendts Midday Heat were among several featuring a woman with her hands in the wrong place, a half-read novel lying open by her side.

And yet the young Austen was allowed to read. The daughter of a reverend, she had the unusual luxury in her formative years of enjoying uncensored access to her fathers personal library. The family had literary inclinationsone brother wrote poems, and another, sermons. Sometimes, little sketches were put up, and as a niece later recalled, Austen read aloud remarkably well" from her own writings. She read as widely as the times permittedand in 1813, this included such titles as Essay On The Military Police And The Institutions Of The British Empire, which she found highly entertaining".

Her own family had no prejudice against novels. When, in her 20s, a library owner invited them to subscribe, reassuring them that her collection held more than just novels, Austen was not pleased. She might have spared this pretension to our family," she wrote, who are great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so." With the explosion of print, the rise of a middle class, and a growing appetite for books of all kinds, the novel was here to stay, even if for another century it would retain, in varying degrees, some stigmaSamuel Coleridge, in 1815, considered reading fiction about as productive as spitting over a bridge" and snuff-taking".

Austens own books reflected the social reservations attached to the novel. When, for instance, in Pride And Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet is sarcastically accused of being a great reader", she is quick to respond: I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many (other) things."

For decades, however, there had also been some lampooning of high-class disdain for novels. In Richard Sheridans play The Rivals, there is a scene where a character has visitors and commands her maid to conceal all her novels. Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toiletthrow Roderick Random into the closetput The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty Of Manthrust Lord Ainsworth under the sofacram Ovid behind the bolsterthereput The Man Of Feeling into your pocketso, so, now lay Mrs Chapone in sight, and leave Fordyces Sermons open on the table."

One of the reasons, given the context then, that Austen was writing the first drafts of her novels as early as the 1790s was that she did not begin with an intention to publish. Writing was a personal pursuit, and perhaps to be circulated and read aloud in family circles. That was that, and so public concerns about how appropriate an activity this was for a reverends daughter never arose.

When a desire to publish did come, it was, in what is familiar to writers even today, a painfully slow process. In 1797, in her early 20s, the book that would become Pride And Prejudice was rejected by a publisher. In 1803, the novel that the world knows as Northanger Abbey was acquired for 10, but did not see the light of day for years. It was 1811 by the time Sense And Sensibility appeared, its success allowing for other works accumulated from over a decade ago to also manifest in printindeed, critics have noted that Austens early works, written largely in the final decade of the 18th century and rooted in the privileged lives of the gentry, differ from her last works, which reflect a greater awareness of a changing world in their cast of characters, approach to class and the professions, and other attributes.

She herself was pleased with the reception of her books, even if it only brought her about 700 in her own lifetime. As the Edinburgh Magazine noted some years later, We have no hesitation in saying, that (Austen)will be one of the most popular of English novelists, and if, indeed, we could point to the individual who, within a certain limited range, has attained the highest perfection of the art of novel writing, we should have little scruple in fixing it upon her." Alongside Frances Burney, Austen too thus has a place in making the novel respectable.

Curiously enough, it was only after her death that her name actually appeared as the writer of these novels, which have since sold millions around the world in dozens of languages. When Sense And Sensibility was published, the title page simply said, By a Lady". As other novels made their mark, their writer became known as The Author of Sense And Sensibility". In 1814, Austens identity became known in some circles due to her brothers determination to advertise the fact, but none of the four books published before her death in 1817 carried her nameit was in the obituary that the connection was officially made.

As the Courier recorded, Miss Jane Austen" was the Authoress of Emma, Mansfield Park, Pride And Prejudice, and Sense And Sensibility. Her manners," it added, were most gentle; her affections ardent; her candour was not to be surpassed, and she lived and died as became a humble Christian." And so it was, as has been the case with many writers before and after her, that the world woke up posthumously to the full richness of Austens writing, heaping recognition upon a talent that produced some of historys most remarkable works of fiction.



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 @UnamPillai
Afrobeats modern vanguards are alive and rocking Antibalas have the unique ability to make spirited danceable music with a high quotient of funk, infusing it at the same time with lyrics that are unabashedly political /news/talking-point/afrobeats-modern-vanguards-are-alive-and-rocking-111646917588058.html 111646917588058 story

In the late 1960s, Nigerian musician Fela Kuti created the musical genre that is known as Afrobeat. It is not an easy genre to define, chiefly because its constituents include a range of disparate styles. At its core is the beat", a West African rhythm manifested in the prominent drum and bass lines, but layered over that are complex constructs of musical influences that include a cornucopia of genres: funk, soul and R&B; 1970s psychedelia-inflected rock; American jazz; African folk style call and response vocal patterns; and Ghanaian highlife, a style where Western instruments are employed to play traditional music.

Kutis bands were huge, his live shows spectacular and rambunctious, and his lifestyle controversial. A key part of his musiclive or recordedwas his politics. Kuti was a passionate critic of the regimes in Africa, particularly in his homeland, Nigeria, and his lyrics frequently took a stance against governments, corruption, coercion, and the adversities resulting from colonialism.

Kuti died in 1997, aged 58, and his eventful lifemarked by controversies such as his very public practice of polygamy, arrests, and incarcerationwas at once colourful and influential. In Nigeria, as well as in many other parts of the world, he is still revered as a superstar and hero, and in the 21st century there are many musicians who have attempted to hold aloft his Afrobeat baton, and to keep his brand of music alive.

Perhaps the most accomplished of that breed is the Brooklyn, New York-based ensemble Antibalas, a band that was formed a year after Kuti died by Martin Perna, a Mexican-American educationist and multi-instrumentalist musician. The band, whose members often number over a dozen, began by playing gigs in Harlems parks, clubs and other venues before they released their debut album, Liberation Afro Beat, Vol. 1, in 2000. It was a blast.

For some unfathomable (and perhaps algorithmic) reason, iTunes classifies the album as electronic. It is not. Neither do Antibalas (bulletproof in Spanish) attempt to imitate Kutis music. They take the basic elements of Afrobeatdrums, congas and bassand fuse a modern American idiom into it. Antibalas four-piece horn section (Perna himself plays the sax), guitars, a keyboard, and spoken-word-style vocals, may be inspired by Kutis sprawling brand of music but instead of cloning it, they take it to a modern, groovy jazz-funk-soul level.

The cover of Antibalas 2012 eponymous album.

But, like Kutis music, the music that Antibalas make is also political. When a bunch of highly talented musicians play music that is structured perfectly, the end product is usually brilliant. Antibalas debut album quickly put them on the map as the 21st centurys best proponents of Afrobeat.

Since then, Antibalas have released five more studio albums, the latest being this years Where The Gods Are In Peace. The band itself has undergone many changes, with around 20 members joining and leaving in the course of 16 years. But even though they function more as a loosely confederated collective than a tightly knit band, Antibalas have not lost their singular charm. The new album opens with Gold Rush, a political song that protests and condemns the loot and plunder of the culture and possessions of the indigenous people of America through history, including recent instances such as the Native American protests against an oil pipeline in Dakota.

The parallel of Antibalas themes with Fela Kutis songs is striking. Kutis songs condemned corrupt and exploitative African regimes and the mess left behind by colonialism across much of the continent; Antibalas protest more contemporary injustices, often in the American context. Three other songs (Tombstown 1-3) on the album form a suite with standout horn section solos and a keyboard line over which vocalist and long-time band member, Duke Amayo, sings, the lyrics managing to transcend the complex sonic tapestry.

Antibalas have the unique ability to make spirited danceable music with a high quotient of funk, infusing it at the same time with lyrics that are unabashedly political. On Where The Gods Are In Peace, these lyrics are delivered sometimes in spoken-word form; sometimes in hip hop style; and sometimes in styles that seem influenced by edgy indie rock.

Antibalas current line-up of members has 21 musicians (at least a dozen of them play at a time), all of whom are accomplished and super-talented. As is common in collectives, some of them have their own side projects. Nikhil P. Yerawadekar, guitarist and bassist with Antibalas since 2010, is one. An Indian-American, originally from New Yorks Queens, Yerawadekar has his own Afrobeat-style band, Low Mentality, whose debut album was released last year. Others from Antibalas, such as trumpeter Jordan McLean and saxophonist Stuart D. Bogie, also have their own side projects.

Antibalas ties with Kutis legacy have remained strong. In 2008, when Fela!, a musical based on Kutis life, was staged in New York, first off-Broadway and then on Broadway, Antibalas were called upon to perform and arrange the music, all of it comprising Kutis compositions. And, as any sampling of their discography will demonstrate, even when the band is playing its own compositions, the influence of Kutis legacy remains unmistakable in its music.

The Lounge List



Five tracks to bookend this week

1. Gold Rush by Antibalas from Where The Gods Are In Peace

2. Six Shooter AKA the History of Dance by Nikhil P. Yerawadekar & Low Mentality from Everything Lasts Forever

3. Buy Africa by Fela Kuti from Felas London Scene

4. N.E.S.T.A. (Never Ever Submit to Authority) by Antibalas from Liberation Afro Beat, Vol. 1

5. Sanctuary by Antibalas from Security

First Beat is a column on whats new and groovy in the world of music.

He tweets @sanjoynarayan
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that the European Union sees no progress to justify rolling back sanctions against Russia.

"We have not enough progress in order to remove the sanctions," Merkel said. "But we all agree that we must do everything to move on with the Minsk process," she told journalists at the end of the first day of the EU summit, which began on December 14.

"We have prevented an escalation [in the east of Ukraine]," she added.

Earlier, President of the European Council Donald Tusk said the EU leaders had agreed to prolong economic sanctions against Russia for another six months.

"EU united on roll-over of economic sanctions on Russia," he tweeted on Thursday evening.
The first national forum entitled "DonbasTalks: The History of Those Who Create the Future" has been held in Kyiv. The project brought together residents of eastern Ukraine who left their homes after the beginning of the war and again achieved success.

"About 1.7 million people were forced to leave their homes, their families and leave the occupied territories because of the war. Today's event, which we organized together with the Parliamentary Platform for the Future of Donbas inter-factional group, the Council of Europe and the UN, is very important to them. The example of the participants in the forum can inspire them, help them give a worthy response to new challenges in life. I am convinced that IDPs can create a new history based on successful experience. This applies to ordinary people and those who lost their business there," a co-chairman of the Parliamentary Platform for the Future of Donbas, MP Serhiy Taruta, said during the forum.

Together with him, the event was opened by Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Morten Enberg, Deputy Head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Ivane Bochorishvili and editor-in-chief of the Ukrayinska Pravda e-zine Sevgil Musayeva.

Enberg said that the Council of Europe and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine had developed a new cooperation plan to help IDPs from Donbas and Crimea. The plan will be launched as early as 2018.

The second national forum "DonbasTalks" is to be held next year. Participants and organizers hope to discuss strategies for the restoration of the completely Ukrainian Donbas.
Leah Millis/The Chronicle

A female student at UC Berkeley was raped by a male student in his dorm room on Oct. 28, UC Berkeley Police said Thursday.

The woman and the man left a party together and then went to the mans room in Unit 3 Housing on UC Berkeleys campus, police said Thursday in an advisory email. Despite the victim telling the suspect that she did not want to have sex, he sexually assaulted her, the email read.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Thousands of people, from street cleaners to famous politicians, streamed into San Francisco City Hall on Friday and filed past the casket bearing the body of Mayor Ed Lee, many whispering prayers for the man whose unexpected death cast a pall over the city he led for six years.

As a cellist from the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra played somber tunes, mourners began entering the City Hall rotunda around 8 a.m. to pay respects to San Franciscos first Chinese American mayor, pausing briefly at the closed casket draped in an American flag. They kept coming, hundreds every hour, until 7 p.m. when the Sheriffs Department closed the line down. And even then a hushed crowd of more than 100 gathered across the street from the City Hall steps, waiting for the casket to be wheeled through the glass doors, which happened just after 8 p.m.

At times during the day line stretched down City Halls Polk Street steps, down the block and sometimes around the corner at McAllister Street. Even for a building steeped in the art of the whisper, the atmosphere inside City Hall was especially hushed Friday as the young and old stopped before Lees casket to kneel, pray, salute, bow their heads or simply stop and look. Many wiped away tears.

Now Playing: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was honored at City Hall today as he body lie in state. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Mourners came from all walks of life  Public Works employees in yellow and orange vests, City Hall employees in suits, San Francisco police officers in full dress uniform, members of the violence prevention organization United Playaz in sweatshirts that read: It takes the Hood to save the Hood. Some were old friends of the mayor; some had never met him.

I want to pay tribute and pray over his body, said Carl Giaraffa, 74, of San Francisco, one of the mourners who waited in line to enter City Hall. I respected the man. I thought he was very fair to people, and he didnt come off like a politician.

Giaraffa, who has lived in San Francisco since 1966, added, I think he was one of our greatest mayors ever.

For others, the connection was more direct.

He got me housing, said Brian Gonzales, who lives downtown and walked over to pay his respects. It was a year ago, and he shook my hand.

Lee died early Tuesday morning after suffering a heart attack. He was 65.

Among the politicians who came to bid farewell to Lee were Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Pelosi, joined by husband Paul and daughter Christine, entered the Rotunda about 11:45 a.m. Head bowed, she stood for a moment in front of the casket, touched the flag covering it with her right hand, and left quietly.

Her voice shook with emotion as she spoke with reporters on her way out.

Its heartbreaking, its really heartbreaking, she said. For now, its important for us to remember what a blessing he was to the city.

Even those who at times had political differences with Lee remembered him as an upbeat man who loved San Francisco.

He gave his life for the city, in more ways than one, said former Supervisor John Avalos. He deserved to live a long life with his family.

The citys Chinese community was out in force to honor the mayor. Women, men and families  young and old  stopped in front of the casket and made three ceremonial bows before moving along.

In the large hall just off the rotunda, visitors signed the heavy buff-colored pages of the memory book. Many of those signatures and comments were in Chinese.

He was one of us, said Mary Woo, who lives in the Sunset District. Were proud of him, and I had to come down and pay my respects.

The dozens of floral arrangements that arrived throughout the day also reflected the pride of the Asian community. Along with those from employee groups like the Sheriffs Department and business backers like Facebook and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce were displays from groups including Air China, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the Asian Pacific Democratic Club and Sing Tao Daily, a Chinese-language newspaper.

Hell be remembered for his civility and decorum, as someone who worked to build consensus and get us all to pull together, said Assemblyman David Chiu, a former San Francisco supervisor whose district included Chinatown. And, of course, he was San Franciscos first Chinese American mayor.

Before dawn Friday, a black hearse carrying Lees body and escorted by police on motorcycles slowly made its way to City Hall from a Daly City funeral home. Outside, firefighters unfurled a huge American flag from two ladder trucks, as city officials, police, dignitaries and pallbearers waited for Lees casket to arrive. On the marquee of the Civic Auditorium was a simple message: Rest in Peace Mayor Ed Lee.

Many of those in line were city employees, ID badges around their necks. They knew Lee as one of their own, someone who had worked for the city for years, shoulder to shoulder with them.

City employee Jody Monahan said Lee had been personally important to her, dating to when the mayor served as the citys director of public works.

Now Playing: Hundreds of mourners paid their respects as the body of Mayor Ed Lee laid in repose in the San Francisco City Hall rotunda, on Friday, December 15, 2017, in San Francisco. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

He did some kind things for me and my work. It meant a lot to me, Monahan said. Hes a kind person. This was sad and shocking.

Tracy Griffin, who has been a city and county employee for nearly 28 years, choked up with emotion as she spoke of Lee. She carried a single white flower in honor of the mayor.

I was going to the store to buy a bouquet of flowers, but I decided on this small carnation because for him, it didnt matter how small you were, Griffin said. Im here because I lost someone really special to me and someone who was really humble and I considered him a friend.

The last two mourners let in the door were William Bonhorst and Ghazal Sharif, self-described Millennials who appreciated Lees support of the tech industry.

We had to beg to be let in, said Sharif, an attorney. I think Mayor Ed Lee was the epitome of what San Francisco is, the heart and the soul of it. He stood up for the poor. He stood up for immigrants. He stood up for Millennials. And did it all without an ego.

Bonhorst, who works with tech startups, said Lee embraced us even though the industrys rapid growth was controversial. He allowed San Francisco to thrive, he said.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White couldnt stay away from City Hall on Friday, making three stops at the casket during the day. While fire chiefs dont have to wait in lines, she said she found queuing with strangers therapeutic.

The variety of people coming out to pay their respects speaks volumes about the kind of man he was and the kind of mayor he was, Hayes-White said. It was an honor for me to work for him, and I think all of the citys 30,000 employees would say the same thing.

But even amid the mourning, the city remained the quirky San Francisco that Seattle-born Lee grew to love.

On the steps of City Hall, among the flowers, pictures and other remembrances of the mayor that people had left was a tie-dyed neckerchief with a message scrawled in black ink: Ed Lee R.I.P. (What a long strange trip its been) P.S.: Say hi to Jerry, referring to Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

Sophie Haigney, J.K. Dineen, and John Wildermuth are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com, jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigney, @jwildermuth, @sfjkdineen

Memorial service

A public memorial service is scheduled for Sunday. City Hall will open at 2 p.m., one hour before the service is to begin. Full coverage on sfchronicle.com.
8 Seconds of Courage: A Soldier's Story From Immigrant to the Medal of Honor

By Flo Groberg

Simon & Schuster. 191 pp. $25

---

From a young age, Flo Groberg had a fascination with soldiers. As a kid growing up in France - the son of an American father and a French-Algerian mother - he would re-enact World War II with toy soldiers in his room. After arriving in the United States, Groberg turned to Rambo films and "Platoon" to improve his English.

Groberg also shared a special bond with his uncle, Abd Alillah Lahreche (affectionately called Uncle Abdou), who joined the Algerian army to fight the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) in the 1990s. When Groberg learned in 1996 that his uncle had been killed by the GIA, he was overcome with grief and rage, but also a sense of duty. His world was changed. "War was no longer a game. From that night forward, I was finished with toy soldiers," Groberg writes in his memoir, "8 Seconds of Courage: A Soldier's Story From Immigrant to the Medal of Honor."

Groberg enlisted in the Army in July 2008 after graduating from the University of Maryland as a standout on the track team. In 2015, President Barack Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor, the nation's top award for valor in combat, for actions in Afghanistan that are credited with saving a number of lives; Groberg himself was left critically injured.

In "8 Seconds of Courage," written with Tom Sileo, Groberg takes readers through the many faces of war, from mundane assignments, to the reality of cheering for the gruesome death of your enemies, to the surreal notion that one misstep can cost lives. He candidly describes the dangerous situations he experienced and how he felt suicidal while he was recovering from his injuries and dealing with survivor's guilt.

The encounter occurred Aug. 8, 2012, when Groberg and fellow soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were tasked with protecting 28 individuals, including high-ranking commanders, on their journey toward the provincial governor's compound in Asadabad, Afghanistan. About halfway to their destination, Groberg spotted a man in traditional Afghan garb walking backward. He ran toward the man to confront him. "I launched into a sprint, much like during my track days at Maryland," Groberg writes. "Each of the eight seconds it took to reach him felt like a silent eternity."

Realizing that the man had a bomb attached to his body, Groberg grabbed the suicide bomber's vest and pushed him toward the ground with help from Sgt. Andrew Mahoney.

"None of this was like the war scenes you've seen in the movies," he remembers. "During the commotion, I heard nothing. The terrorist was not shouting or chanting any prayers as he prepared to release the trigger. ... In slow motion, I saw the terrorist land at my feet. This time, death had almost certainly arrived."

Four men - Army Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin J. Griffin, Army Maj. Thomas E. Kennedy, Air Force Maj. Walter D. Gray and Foreign Service officer Ragaei Abdelfattah - were killed in the blast, and several others suffered serious injuries, but Groberg's quick thinking prevented further casualties.

Groberg had half his left calf muscle blown off and required 33 surgeries to save his leg.

He offers occasional glimpses into his personality. He writes early in the book about his failed attempt to impress "the prettiest girl" in his freshman class at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., during a rehearsal for "Romeo and Juliet" and how the episode motivated him to improve his English. "'Henceforth, I will never be Romeo,' I recited with my shoulders slumped," writes Groberg, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001. "Fittingly, it was just about the only line I got right."

But Groberg is selective of how much he reveals. He keeps the tone of the book strictly nonpartisan and never mentions President Trump nor Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In July 2016, Groberg spoke at the Democratic National Convention in support of Clinton. He does, however, devote several pages to his encounters with President Barack Obama, who visited him at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. "The president's visit was the greatest honor of my life to that point," Groberg writes.

He saves some of the most heartfelt passages for the men who lost their lives on Aug. 8, 2012, and for his then-girlfriend, Carsen Zarin, who during his recovery listened patiently to his traumatic war stories, a kindness that allowed him "to get a full night's sleep without pills or alcohol." Groberg thanks her for giving him "unconditional love" and doing so much for him "when nobody was around to witness."

"Finally, my life started to resemble something normal," Groberg writes of the time shortly after meeting Zarin, "thanks to my remarkable doctors, nurses, squad leader, fellow wounded warriors, and most of all, my new girlfriend." He and Zarin are now engaged to be married.
Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality

By Jaron Lanier

Henry Holt. 351 pp. $30

---

Jaron Lanier, the best-selling author of "You Are Not a Gadget" and the computer scientist who popularized the term "virtual reality," has written a deeply personal book. "Dawn of the New Everything" is a conscious rebuttal to detached proclamations about how technology is shaping our world. Lanier's writing is intentionally subjective. "There's a big picture way of thinking about computing and a personal one," he writes. "I prefer the personal one. It's fun. The big picture approach to computing tends to foster utopian fantasies, so it's dangerous."

Lanier has some strong opinions. He is scathing on the current state of social media, which he describes as "replete with spying algorithms that organize and optimize people for the benefit of giant server businesses." But his overall approach is refreshingly nuanced. He does not feel the need to declare the Internet to be either good or bad for democracy, nor does he try to decide if machines will save or destroy the human race. While he is in love with the potential of virtual reality, he acknowledges that its fate will be determined by the ways people use it. Like other technologies, virtual reality will bring out the best and worst in humankind.

But what exactly is virtual reality? Don't worry if you can't come up with a simple explanation. Lanier doesn't have one, either - and he is the founder of the 1980s startup VPL Research, which brought commercial virtual-reality products into the world. (One early consumer product was the Power Glove, to be used with a Nintendo game machine.) In "Dawn of the New Everything," Lanier offers more than 50 definitions of virtual reality, ranging from "hope for a medium that could convey dreaming" to "the medium that can put you in someone else's shoes; hopefully a path to increased empathy." If you are looking for a pithy definition of virtual reality - or of anything, for that matter - then this book is probably not for you. Instead, Lanier provides something much more compelling: a poetic and humanistic view of technology.

His book is largely a memoir. He writes about growing up in New Mexico, the devastating death of his mother and working in Silicon Valley decades ago. But these are only a few aspects of Lanier's colorful biography. His style is wonderfully discursive, reflecting his wide range of interests and experiences. Before he turned 17, he had designed his family home, a futuristic if structurally flawed building he calls the "dome." He is passionate about music and has at least 1,000 instruments in his home. He also loves goats. When Lanier was in college, he needed a way to make money. He "made friends" with a goat who lived near the dome, then decided that one goat is never enough. He learned how to make cheese and to sell it. When he got a car that was so broken down that it was missing a back seat, Lanier put bales of hay in it and turned the vehicle into a "goat limo," allowing him to do his job while "moving the lovely creatures around in style."

These may seem like little more than quirky details. But Lanier's idiosyncratic style reflects his larger worldview.

But back to our question: What is virtual reality? You may know it as putting on a clunky headset and stepping into a new world. It's a little like lucid dreaming. You can do things you wouldn't or couldn't do in real life, such as go rock climbing up a tall cliff. Lanier's overactive imagination drew him to the concept of virtual reality. He is, unsurprisingly, a vivid dreamer. He describes dreams in which he would become a mountainside, "feeling villages spread on its skin over the course of centuries, the stone cathedrals pressing into my flesh." When he woke up, the real world was limp and inflexible by contrast. "I imagined virtual worlds that would never grow stale because people would bring surprises to each other. I felt trapped without this tool. Why, (BEGIN ITAL)why(END ITAL) wasn't it around already?"

In his 22nd definition of virtual reality (yes, they are numbered), Lanier describes it as a "preview of what reality might be like when technology gets better someday." This description contains both a promise and a warning. Will virtual reality eventually become so life-like that it threatens to supplant reality? If you could virtually go to a concert, a sporting event or even the French countryside, why would you bother leaving your house?

It doesn't have to be that way. Virtual reality is not going to take over anything if we humans remain at the core of the experience. Or as Lanier puts it: "Everything about you and your world can change, and yet you are still there. ... Virtual reality is the technology that exposes you to yourself." Virtual reality, he says, proves that you are real. He is optimistic that it will help us become better "detectives," more skilled at distinguishing illusion from reality.

Lanier believes that humans should never be passive consumers of virtual reality but must play a proactive role in the experience. You should be able to throw a virtual ball, at the very least. "If you can't reach out and touch the virtual world and do something to it, you are a second class citizen within it," he explains. "To be an observer exclusively in VR is to be a phantom, a subordinate ghost who cannot even haunt."

Lanier posits that virtual reality can heighten our appreciation of reality. Once you emerge from the experience, you see the world with fresh eyes. "The most ordinary surface, cheap wood or plain dirt, is bejeweled in infinite detail for a short while. To look into another's eyes is almost too intense." Will this phenomenon continue as virtual reality develops, becoming increasingly "real?" Lanier is first to admit that this is only the beginning. But his vision is so infused with possibility that we can only hope it comes true.

One of his favorite tricks for enhancing a virtual-reality demo is to present the user with an actual flower. "They'll come out and experience a flower as if it was the first one they've ever seen," he says. "The best magic of VR happens in the moments right after the demo ends."

---

Parker, Future Tense fellow at New America, is the author of "Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground."
The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits

By Tiya Miles

New Press. 288 pp. $27.95

---

"Please rip your mental map in half and turn it upside down." These are the marching orders from Tiya Miles in her new, groundbreaking history, "The Dawn of Detroit."

Here Miles asks us to rethink our idea of the Midwest - and of Detroit in particular - and the role of enslaved and indigenous people in its creation. "We tend to associate slavery with cotton in the commercial crop heyday of the southern 'cotton kingdom,'" she writes. But the institution also was central to the fur trade, the industry on which the northern territories were built. "Detroit was born of the forced captivity of indigenous and African people and the taking of land occupied by Native people," Miles writes. "Captivity and capture built and maintained the town, forged Detroit's chin-up character."

Miles calls her book "an alternative origin story" - and with good reason. Hers is a history that "privileges people in bondage, many of whom launched gripping pursuits of dignity, autonomy, and liberty." Piecing together voices from primary source material - wills, letters, account ledgers, church registries, court cases and papers of attorneys - Miles chronicles "the rise, fall and dawn of Detroit while centering on the experiences of those who were held in bondage from the mid-1700s to the early 1800s."

Years of perusing dusty volumes, leafing through court records, deciphering handwritten letters, and making sense of myriad complex treaties and settlements have resulted in a comprehensive study of Detroit's formative years. Miles, a historian at the University of Michigan and a MacArthur "genius grant" recipient,has compiled documentation that does for Detroit what the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Writers' Project slave narratives did for other regions, primarily the South.

Miles demonstrates a unique insight on native and African-American culture. Very few scholars move so seamlessly from the intricacies of the Africans to those of the Ottawa, Potawatomi and Objiwe cultures. Miles' voice is consistently authoritative. This is evident in the passionate account of the great warrior chief Pontiac and is no less commanding in the depiction of enslaved people, such as Peter and Hannah Denison, whose lives are framed by the historical narrative.

"The conflicting nature of limited evidence makes the Denison family's origins difficult to reconstruct," Miles admits, but she patches together records and oral histories to create a fascinating family saga. According to probate records, the Denisons were owned by William Tucker, a farmer on Indian land. Hannah and her husband, Peter, had multiple children; one of them, Elisabeth Denison, became the first African-American landowner in Detroit. Many historians have briefly written about the Denisons, but Miles provides a full tableau of their struggle for freedom. Central to this endeavor were the court battles in which the Denisons fought to rescue their children from Catherine Tucker, who was bequeathed the children after her husband's death.

Besides her analysis of the Denison v. Tucker, Miles explains such ambiguous and complicated enactments as the Treaty of Detroit, the Jay Treaty and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and shows how slaveholders in Detroit through their illegal machinations managed to sidestep the provisions of the ordinance, which outlawed slavery in the territory. Miles' considerable research fully discloses the deceptive maneuvers of two prominent Detroiters of that day, Gov. William Hull and Judge Augustus Woodward.

As episodes unfold in fragments, there are redundancies, seemingly for the purpose of reacquainting the reader with a particular incident and the characters involved. At times Miles resorts to speculation. For example, she writes: "Perhaps Hannah spoke often of her children in the French language, pulling on Adelaide's heartstrings. Or perhaps Hannah, a woman handy with the needle, even claimed the superior skills of a dressmaker and could craft the fashionable clothing that Adelaide so adored." But most of these passages are quite plausible. (No speculation would be required, however, if there were more thorough, previous accounts of the role that African slaves played in extinguishing the fire of 1805 that destroyed the city.)

Miles has a keen eye for details, including in her long disquisitions on the city's rich and famous, and on several occasions she describes those women's fashionable finery and accomplishments - contrasting the lifestyles of the slaves and their owners. She writes, for example, of the wife of John Askin, a leading slaveholder, "She was fluent in both French and English and had grown up enjoying the domestic services of indigenous and black women who had been stripped of their freedom."

In her eloquent account, Miles conjures up a city of stark disparity and lives quashed. "Along the central waterfront, the footprint of colonial Detroit is snug as a vintage pin cushion," she writes in her concluding chapter. "Here, where silver spires pierce the powder blue of sky, shiny high-rise office buildings reflecting the cool shades of water, it is difficult to imagine a prior world of French shingled homes and fruit orchards, of canoes and bateaux plying the waters. ... But these are the same streets, now paved and densely populated, where an enslaved indigenous woman was forced to give birth in a prison cell ... where Peter and Hannah Denison were purchased and later fought in the courts for their children's freedom. These striking individuals have long been erased by the collective consciousness of the city." At long last, we hear them.

---

Boyd is the author of "Black Detroit: A People's History of Self-Determination."
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Fiction

1. The Rooster Bar: By John Grisham. Three students at a sleazy for-profit law school hope to expose the student-loan banker who runs it.

2. Origin: By Dan Brown. A symbology professor goes on a perilous quest with a beautiful museum director.

3. The People vs. Alex Cross: By James Patterson. Detective Alex Cross takes on a case even though he has been suspended from the department and taken to federal court to stand trial on murder charges.

4. The Midnight Line: By Lee Child. Jack Reacher tracks down the owner of a pawned West Point class ring and stumbles upon a large criminal enterprise.

5. End Game: By David Baldacci. Jessica Reel and Will Robie fight a dangerous adversary in Colorado.

6. Past Perfect: By Danielle Steel. A Manhattan family moves into a mansion in San Francisco and encounters the ghosts of its original inhabitants.

7. Tom Clancy Power and Empire: By Marc Cameron. President Jack Ryan seeks to identify the hidden forces escalating the tensions between China and the United States.

8. Hardcore Twenty-Four: By Janet Evanovich. When a homeless man is murdered, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum searches for the killer.

9. Artemis: By Andy Weir. A small-time smuggler living in a lunar colony schemes to pay off an old debt by pulling off a challenging heist.

10. Two Kinds of Truth: By Michael Connelly. While he investigates the murder of two pharmacists, an old case comes back to haunt Harry Bosch.

Nonfiction

1. Leonardo Da Vinci: By Walter Isaacson. A biography of the Italian Renaissance polymath that connects his work in various disciplines.

2. Grant: By Ron Chernow. A biography of the Union general of the Civil War and two-term president of the United States.

3. Obama: By Pete Souza. More than 300 pictures of the former president by his White House photographer, with behind-the-scenes stories.

4. Promise Me, Dad: By Joe Biden. The former vice president recalls his toughest year in office, as his son battled brain cancer.

5. Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: By Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson takes on the British in Louisiana.

6. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry: By Neil deGrasse Tyson. A straightforward, easy-to-understand introduction to the universe.

7. Killing England: By Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. Major events and battles during the Revolutionary War are told from several perspectives.

8. Bobby Kennedy: By Chris Matthews. The New York senator's journey from his formative years to his tragic run for president.

9. Sisters First: By Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush. How the twin daughters of former President George W. Bush grew up in the public eye.

10. What Happened: By Hillary Rodham Clinton. An inside look at her campaign and how she recovered in its aftermath.

New York Times
Ulyukayev jailed for eight years, taken into custody in courtroom

Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky Court on Friday sentenced former Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev to eight years in a high-security prison for taking a $2-million bribe from Rosneft head Igor Sechin.

"Ulyukayev shall be convicted of a crime under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Russian Penal Code [the acceptance of a large bribe by an official] and shall be sentenced to eight years in a high-security penitentiary," Judge Larisa Semyonova read from the operative part of the judgment.

Ulyukayev was taken into custody in the courtroom.

Only prison time for Ulyukayev will restore justice, according to the court ruling.

In addition to the prison term, the court also ordered the former minister to pay a fine of over 130 million rubles and banned him from holding public office and posts at state corporations for eight years after he finishes serving his sentence.

Ulyukayev was given the minimal prison term possible given the charges against him; the Penal Code calls for eight years to 15 years in prison for such offences.

In assigning the sentence, Judge Semyonova took into account Ulyukayev's age and health, his multiple awards, letters of appreciation, witness statements about his good character, and the fact that he has young children and elderly parents dependent on him for support.

State prosecutors had asked for ten years in a high-security penitentiary for Ulyukayev.
University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven announced Friday he is leaving one of the most influential positions in Texas higher education after a sometimes stormy tenure that put him at odds with Texas political leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott.

His decision, which he attributed to his health, comes weeks before his three-year contract ends, though UT's board chair said McRaven would continue until the academic year concludes in May.

McRaven, the retired Navy admiral responsible for the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia when he was in Afghanistan. He was briefly hospitalized in November.

McRaven's future with the system had been questioned for months after a difficult legislative session and the controversial purchase of 300 acres in Houston for a system expansion. He did not commit to remaining on the job when asked over the summer.

He acknowledged Friday there would be speculation about the reasons for his resignation but said his health caused him to rethink his future.

The "difficult" decision, he said, was personal.

"As I enter the fourth quarter of my life there's still a lot of things I want to do," he told regents at a board meeting Friday. "I want to teach. I want to write. I want to do some traveling. As hackneyed as it sounds when someone is stepping down, I want to spend more time with my family."

Regents praised his leadership during the meeting and appointed a search committee to find his replacement.

"Your legacy for me, Chancellor, will be to think big and to think bold," board Chair Sara Martinez Tucker said at the meeting.

McRaven could not be reached for comment Friday.



Challenging year

McRaven and the UT System struggled through the legislative session earlier this year as lawmakers threatened major cuts to colleges and universities.

The state Senate criticized UT and McRaven for spending money on initiatives not directly connected to academics, including the Houston property, which documents later showed was part of an plan to develop a data science center.

The governor's relationship with McRaven soured over the chancellor's Houston push and never became as cordial as it had been before, according to people familiar with the situation. In a statement Friday, Abbott thanked McRaven for his service to the country and to the UT System.

"Chancellor McRaven has had an honorable career, and Cecilia and I wish him and (his wife) Georgeann all the best in the future," he said.

Privately, several people said McRaven had come to his own decision and was not forced out.

Months ago, they said, McRaven had been told that he could stay on as chancellor but without a contract. The UT System said he did not need a contract to stay and did not ask for one.

Regents this year had questioned whether the system should primarily support UT's academic and health institutions, or if it should continue to push for large-scale initiatives on its own.

McRaven and Tucker announced a task force earlier this month to review the system's own structure, functions, activities and staffing.

Regent Kevin Eltife, a former state senator who will lead the task force, said McRaven would have been a "big help" with that process.

"I would have liked to see him stay on," he said.

Eltife and other regents said that they were surprised by McRaven's decision.

Steve Hicks, a regent who has advocated for the system to focus more on its institutions, including the flagship University of Texas at Austin, said he took McRaven "at his word" in explaining why he will step down.

"There were a few people who wanted a different vision, but he didn't resign over a conflict with the board," he said.

UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves called McRaven a "great leader."

"From the day he became chancellor, Bill McRaven has been focused on the impact of the UT System in the state and beyond," he said in a statement.

Los Alamos

McRaven's announcement comes as the UT System is bidding to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which would be the system's biggest out-of-state contract in its history.

McRaven said Friday that he remained "fully committed" to the bid, calling it one of the most important initiatives in system history. The high-profile national security institute has research arms that include supercomputing, renewable energy and space exploration.

McRaven said he would consider any position in a Los Alamos management team after his departure.

"We have put together a world-class team to run the lab," he told regents.

It's unclear whether the winner of the bid will be announced before McRaven's departure. The lab's current contract ends in September.

Regents said they would work to find a replacement before the state Legislature meets again in 2019.

"Ideally, we'd like to give the successor at least six months before the legislative session," Tucker said. "The chancellor has been very candid about how tough it was to start in January right as the legislative session was about to begin."

As Austin Bureau Chief, Mike Ward covers the Executive Branch, criminal justice and ethics issues, and does the weekly Texas Take Podcast with Quorum Report Editor Scott Braddock. Send Mike comments and story tips at mike.ward@chron.com. Get his updates on Twitter @ChronicleMike.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry not conducting talks on possible extradition of Saakashvili to Georgia

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry is not taking part in any negotiation process about the possible extradition of former Georgia president and Movement of New Forces Party head Mikheil Saakashvili to Georgia, Deputy Foreign Minister Vasyl Bodnar has said.

"The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine is not conducting such negotiations. Period. Georgia is in my remit, but there have been no lines of communication on this issue," Bodnar said on Friday in Kyiv during a briefing.

As earlier reported in July 2017, Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili, who was abroad at that time, of his Ukrainian citizenship.

Saakashvili was detained on December 5, 2017 at his apartment in Kyiv. He was "released" from the police van and subsequently put on the wanted list.

Head of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Yuriy Lutsenko said Saakashvili was suspected of receiving $500,000 from disgraced Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, a crony of Ukraine's fugitive president Viktor Yanukovych. The PGO released snippets of audio recordings with voices purported to belong to Kurchenko and Saakashvili to back up the claims.

On December 8, 2017 police re-arrested Saakashvili pursuant to Part 2 of Article 256 of Ukraine's Criminal Code (assistance to participants of criminal organizations and concealment of their criminal activity), which envisages from five to ten years of imprisonment.

Saakashvili is placed in temporary detention facility of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv. He announced an indefinite hunger strike.

On December 11, Kyiv's Pechersky District Court released Saakashvili at a hearing to determine pretrial confinement. Judge Larysa Tsokol said the PGO could appeal the ruling within five days.

Lutsenko said the PGO would appeal the ruling.
Humble ISD is looking at $100 million in damages related to Hurricane Harvey, and the board approved a $60 million line of credit to ensure the work gets done as quickly as possible.

Mike Seale, Humble Independent School District chief financial officer, said the district hopes not to use any of the credit from Chase Morgan, but the move will allow the district to plan more effectively.

"All of the people that we have hired to do this work for us to get Kingwood High School, particularly, put back together so quickly demand quick payment," Seale said. "They're not going to wait on FEMA."

READ ALSO: Two men fatally crushed while attempting to raise home

Now Playing: FOX 26 The News Edge anchor Kaitlin Monte Video: Fox 26 Houston

At the time of the Dec. 12 meeting, the district had received $13.7 million in insurance payments. District leaders expect the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay 90 percent of the leftover damage and the state to pick up the rest, but the government works at a different pace, trustee Robert Sitton said, pointing out a reimbursement from Hurricane Ike, which occurred in 2008, was made last month.

"At this point in time, it is unknown if or when the remaining $94 million of reimbursement might be received," said Sitton, who chairs the board's finance as well as the building and facilities committees.

Seale said the district could end up not using the line of credit, but at the most he projected it would use $30 million on a short-term basis.

READ ALSO: Was Harvey an "equal-opportunity storm?" Hardly, report says

"We want to build a safety net that will cover us just in case," Seale said.

The board also approved a resolution at the meeting stating if FEMA reimburses the district for 90 percent of the Hurricane Harvey-related expenses or the Texas Legislature agrees to reimburse the district for operating tax revenue lost as a result of a reappraisal, the district will work to reassess property values for taxpayers affected by the flooding in August.

"While we have to be good stewards of the public money, whatever we do here in just a little bit, we need to be empathetic to those who have been affected by the floods and do what we need to do as the governing body," Sitton said ahead of the vote. "At the same time, we need to make sure we're able to function as an entity and take care of our kids."

Sitton said the facilities committee also is working to narrow down a location for the district's next elementary school, and a recommendation is expected in January.

The committee also directed a consultant to look for possible places to construct a transportation center and a place to relocate the Kingwood agriculture barn. Both projects are under consideration as part of a possible $600 million bond election the district is planning for 2018.

Meanwhile, the board agreed to adopt the top name and mascot chosen by the community in a survey for the district's new middle school. It will be named West Lake Middle School, which received 39.9 percent of voter support (Groves Middle School came in second at 39.2 percent), and the mascot will be the Wolves, which received 36.6 percent of the votes (Warriors came in second at 26.6 percent).

Sitton pointed out Generation Park has been trying to brand the area as West Lake, so the name fits, and Principal Ken Hodgkinson said students liked West Lake Wolves because it flows. Its colors are lime and navy.
The eight Democrats vying to be Maryland's next governor came to Montgomery County on Thursday to urge more funding for schools and mass transit but offered few details about how they would pay for it.

Speaking to a large audience at a breakfast forum in Maryland's most populous jurisdiction, the contenders faulted Gov. Larry Hogan, R, the man they hope to oust, for misplaced priorities. They condemned his $9 billion plan to add toll lanes to the Capital Beltway, Interstate 270 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, calling it impractical, outdated and discriminatory against less-affluent drivers.

The hour-long event, in which the candidates responded to questions from a moderator, did not reveal significant differences over issues. When asked whether they would support legislation to provide dedicated funding for Metro, for example, all eight said "yes" or flashed a thumbs-up.

"I don't think you'll hear much disagreement from us this morning," Ben Jealous, former president of the NAACP, said in his opening comments.

But the forum offered an early glimpse at the subjects that will shape the race, particularly education and transportation, six months before the June 26 primary. The candidates said Hogan has neglected the needs of the Washington suburbs and the Baltimore area, the state's two principal Democratic strongholds.

"Right now, you've got a governor who is the self-proclaimed king of highways," said Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. "He's against mass transit; he killed the [light-rail] Red Line in Baltimore. He watered down the [light-rail] Purple Line, so now it's the Lavender Line."

Jealous said Hogan's highways proposal - a public-private partnership that would have private companies build the new lanes and let them keep the toll revenue - showed the governor was "living in some nostalgia about the 1970s that we should just keep building for cars."

Tech entrepreneur Alec Ross said that on the day of the plan's release, "It read like the interns wrote it that morning."

Like others, Ross, a former teacher, noted that Montgomery has pressing social needs despite its overall affluence.

"The reputation of Montgomery County is that the streets are paved in gold," Ross said. "The reality is, guess what, you have 55,000 students in your public schools that get free and reduced lunches. That is nearly the total number that's in all of Baltimore City."

In addition to Jealous, Kamenetz and Ross, the other candidates are Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker III; state Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr., Montgomery; Krishanti Vignarajah, a former policy aide to Michelle Obama; Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, founder of Global Policy Solutions and wife of U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.; and James Shea, an attorney and former chair of Venable LLP.

The Committee for Montgomery, the civic group that hosted the event, said it invited Hogan to attend, but he declined.

Asked to comment on the Democrats' criticisms, Hogan spokeswoman Amelia Chasse said the governor has provided "overdue and balanced leadership to relieve traffic congestion, including finally getting the Purple Line built and adding lanes to the Beltway." She said school construction funding has increased every year.

"The governor has done all of this and more while putting an end to the years of nonstop tax increases that will no doubt return if he is not there to stop them," Chasse said.

The Democratic candidates sought to introduce themselves to the public at the forum and in remarks to reporters afterward, and to make their case as to why they would be the strongest candidate to face Hogan.

The three who hold elected office - Kamenetz, Baker and Madaleno - all emphasized experience.

"I am uniquely positioned as probably the person who knows more about the budget than potentially any other elected official in the General Assembly," said Madaleno, who is vice chair of the Senate Budget Committee.

Baker, referring to his record of seeking schools money as county executive and during his time as a state lawmaker, said, "We need a governor that understands the needs of the school system across the state and being willing to step up there and make the argument at the General Assembly."

Kamenetz stressed that as county executive, he had not raised tax rates in Baltimore County. That distinguishes him from Baker, who oversaw a property tax hike in Prince George's. It could position Kamenetz well to face Hogan, who won an upset victory in 2014 on an anti-tax platform.

Other candidates pointed to their accomplishments outside of elective office.

Rockeymoore Cummings said she was "distinct" from the rest of the field because of her focus on helping small business.

Shea described himself as "a progressive Democrat who built a business," referring to the law firm he led.

Vignarajah called herself "fiscally responsible and socially progressive" and noted her experience in the private sector and the Obama administration.

Jealous said he had led a national organization and had been committed to social justice from an early age.

While all the candidates called for devoting more resources to education and mass transit, they were vague about where the funds would be obtained. Most said funds could be diverted from less-important priorities or by reducing waste in current government spending.

Some, including Baker and Ross, said they would shift funds from road-building to transit. Vignarajah suggested she would redirect spending from prisons and policing to schools. Rockeymoore Cummings said she would collect revenue from taxes generated by medical marijuana, which became available in Maryland this month, and from taxing recreational marijuana, if it is legalized.

The forum moderator, Josh Kurtz, editor of Maryland Matters, did not press the candidates on whether they would raise taxes to cover new spending.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Update, 7 p.m.: Eastbound traffic lanes on Interstate 10 near FM 1442 remain closed Thursday night as of 6 p.m., according to Texas Department of Public Safety.

The wreck that set an 18-wheeler ablaze shut down I-10 at about 12:30 Thursday.

Motorists are urged to find an alternate travel route and to expect delays, DPS said.

Update, 2 p.m.: All eastbound traffic lanes of Interstate 10 near FM 1442 remained closed as of 2 p.m. Thursday.

Preliminary reports indicate the 18-wheeler's right front tire blew out and caused the vehicle to veer to the right, striking the concrete barrier, DPS said.

Following the collision, the vehicle caught fire, DPS said.

The 68-year-old driver from Alabama was not injured, according to DPS.

Previous Story: Traffic on Interstate 10 Eastbound near FM 1442 is temporarily closed due to an 18-wheeler that caught fire Thursday afternoon.

There are currently no confirmed reports of injuries, DPS said.

Motorists are asked to detour and avoid the area.

Check back with BeaumontEnterprise.com as more information becomes available.

Krista.Chandler@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/KristasBeat
On Saturday morning, volunteers will be delivering 167 boxes of food to less fortunate individuals who live within the Triad Community Unit School District 2.

We pack them like a dinner for Christmas, says Veronica Rittgers, who has co-chaired the food drive for the past 13 years.

The boxes can include a ham or turkey, milk, bread, potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries and cake or pie mix.

Some food is donated by the local food pantry although most is collected by Troy area churches or by students in classrooms across the Triad School District.

The food was brought in Monday to Bethel Baptist Church in Troy, which is hosting the food drive this year. Rittgers and other volunteers were at the church to organize the items, check dates, and determine which boxes go where along several routes in Troy, Marine and St. Jacob.

Deliveries will begin Saturday at 9 a.m. and run until noon, Rittgers said.

The food drive is an annual outreach of Ministries Unlimited, a non-profit food pantry that provides assistance to the less fortunate in Troy, Marine and St. Jacob. Ministries Unlimited Pantry is directed by Betty Cothran, who leads a staff of volunteers.

Each month the pantry, located at 310 Collinsville Road in Troy, helps from 100 to 200 families.

Next Christmas season the food drive is hosted by Saint Jerome Catholic Church in Troy.
Monitors of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) have recorded a considerable increase in the number of ceasefire violations in the anti-terrorist operation zone in Donbas over the past week.

OSCE SMM monitors recorded around 20,000 truce breaches in the past week, a 25% increase over the week before, OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said during a press conference via Skype on Friday.

From 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the OSCE SMM observed some 3,000 violations, half of which were explosions, Hug said. Around 1,000 violations were recorded near Avdiivka and Popasna over this period, he said.

Hug said the OSCE SMM had warned that such an escalation could occur.

OSCE monitors recorded some 500 explosions in the vicinity of Popasna in the course of one night and on December 2 observed 3,000 violations, half of which were near Yasynuvata and Avdiyivka, he said.

Hug called on the sides in the conflict to abide by their commitments under the Minsk Agreements.
PASADENA, Calif. -- They all decided they wanted to become preachers and enrolled in seminary to learn how to spread the Gospel. They chose one of the most prominent evangelical seminaries in the country.

Yet here they were, these four young preachers-in-training from the Midwest, the South and the Northwest, hanging around after listening to sermons in class. They were debating whether they wanted to be the one thing Fuller Theological Seminary is known for: evangelicals.

"It's still a painful identity for me, coming from this election," said Paul Johnson, one of the students at Fuller.

Discomfort with the term "evangelical" began in some quarters with the Moral Majority in the Reagan years, which helped make "evangelical" synonymous with the Republican Party. Ever since, evangelicals have disagreed with each other about mixing faith and politics.

Such debates intensified last year when President Donald Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they weren't sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.

Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. "The term has come to represent white Republicans and . . . sometimes close-mindedness and superiority," said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastor's wife in South Carolina.

Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees "a mass exodus" from the label in her community. "The terms feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who don't align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences," she said.

At Princeton University, a campus group changed its decades-old name this year from "Princeton Evangelical Fellowship" to simply "Princeton Christian Fellowship."

For years, believers have debated whether Republican politics and culture-war battles have diluted the essence of their label "evangelical" - which means spreading the Gospel.

The term "evangelical" became popular decades ago as a way to tamp down differences, emphasizing that all people under its umbrella, regardless of denomination, agree to embrace the Bible and spread its word. But politicians such as Trump and Moore have shown how elusive shared faith and values are today.

Evangelicals make up a huge portion of the American population - about one-quarter of the country. An increasing number of Hispanic Christians have come to describe themselves as evangelical in the past decade. While white evangelicals' numbers have been shrinking - with surveys suggesting a decline of between 2 percent and 6 percent over the past decade - it's too soon to say from demographic data to what degree a Trump effect may have changed the number of people who identify as evangelical.

But on Fuller Seminary's palm-tree-lined campus, as in other major evangelical institutions across the country, debate over the term has bubbled to the forefront, especially among younger members of the faith.

"When I say that I'm an evangelical now, I always qualify it," Johnson said. "Reports that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for [Trump], that's an offensive statistic for me and something I feel obligated to apologize for. I don't want to be connected to that."

Johnson and the other students hanging out after homiletics class found themselves discussing the four-part definition of evangelical faith, articulated by historian David Bebbington: obedience to the Bible as the ultimate authority, belief in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as the source of salvation, the necessity of a personal "born-again" conversion experience, and work to spread the Gospel.

Historically, that definition has helped to distinguish many evangelical churches from more theologically liberal mainline Protestant churches, as well as from stricter fundamentalist churches. But in practice, many evangelicals don't fully embrace those four tenets, and many people who do would never call themselves evangelical. The differences often come down to cultural factors for self-described evangelicals - such as personal piety or beliefs on sexuality. Or race, for black Christians who share those fourfold beliefs but often don't use the term "evangelical" to describe themselves because of its historical and modern association with racism and the Republican Party.

"I think when we start throwing around terms like 'evangelical' to the outside, it can be really ostracizing," said Peter Heilman, a 29-year-old pastor-to-be leaning his tattooed elbows on his ripped blue jeans. He grew up labeling himself lots of ways: conservative, Republican, evangelical. But interning in a more politically and racially diverse church has convinced him to drop those words - he's concerned people won't listen to him preach if they disagree with his politics.

"You have to understand the people you're speaking to and what's going to allow them to keep open ears," he said. "When it comes down to it, labels can be a dangerous thing."

His classmate Savannah Sturgeon, a 24-year-old Nashville, Tennessee, native, replied, "I'm not ready to give up the term 'evangelical,' " and Heilman asked, "Why do you need the name if it has a negative connotation?"

"It's biblical. We didn't make it up," Sturgeon said. "To abandon it now is to say this decade has ruined it for us."

But many fear that the association between evangelicals and Trump, a historically unpopular first-year president, has deeply damaged the reputation of evangelicals.

In recent years, Americans have expressed more positive feelings toward nearly all religious groups, except for evangelicals. In a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, Americans expressed greater approval than in 2014 for every religious group - Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, atheists and more - except for evangelicals, who stayed flat at a 61 percent approval rating.

In the past, "evangelical" was a useful marker of theological and cultural similarities across denominations - a word providing something broader than "Southern Baptist" but more specific than "Christian."

The term "evangelical" has helped parents comb through book catalogues, choose schools for their children and decide what charities to support. Ministries such as World Vision and Samaritan's Purse receive the bulk of their donations from evangelicals. Book publishers such as Zondervan and InterVarsity Press publish primarily for evangelicals. Institutions such as Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Wheaton College draw primarily from evangelical students.

"Shorthands have always been helpful," said Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton, in Illinois. "The question is, 'Do I want to be affiliated with that?' when terms have been redefined, either when it's been hijacked or misunderstood."

American evangelicals have never been unanimous on social and political issues, dating back centuries, when evangelical leaders split over their views of slavery. "To throw out the term because of some problems in the past several years is so shortsighted," said Karen Swallow Prior, an English professor at Liberty, which once described itself as a fundamentalist school but has shifted to call itself evangelical.

Unlike the Catholic Church, evangelicals have no centralized hierarchy or leader, which Prior fears could make them more vulnerable to collapse than other religious traditions.

White evangelicals tend to strongly oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but they don't necessarily agree on issues such as climate change or tax policy. "The political environment hasn't caused the divisions among evangelicals, but it's highlighted the divisions that were already there," said Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas, who was an early supporter of Trump. "Christians are going to have to decide what's foundational to their faith."

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was evangelical momentum behind progressive causes and candidates, including Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who described himself using the evangelical term "born again." But with the rise of the religious right in the 1980s, the ties between white evangelicalism and the Republican Party strengthened.

Support for Trump is not a departure from the past several decades of evangelical political behavior, said Heath Carter, a historian at Valparaiso University. "The reality is that evangelicals have always been willing to look past, if not outright embrace, questionable behaviors and tactics in the candidates they support," he said, pointing to evangelical support for Ronald Reagan, who was divorced and didn't attend church.

Emmett Price, a professor who focuses on African-American studies at the prominent evangelical seminary Gordon-Conwell in Massachusetts, said he worries that white Christians who are abandoning the term are only looking to avoid the negative associations, not to reform their communities. If they're concerned that politics have tarred evangelicals as racist, he said, they ought to be focused on making evangelical churches less racist - not on calling themselves something else.

"There's a desire to detach from the political landscape right now. If one wanted to go and essentially fight somewhere for inclusivity, one would stay in that space and invite others in," he said. "Ditching a term is simply ditching a term."

At Fuller, seminary president Mark Labberton said his students used to be more willing to stay within the broad tent of evangelicalism and hash out their differences.

"You could say, 'I'm an evangelical, and I'm part of the religious right,' or, 'I'm evangelical, and I'm not part of the religious right,' " he said. "In the Reagan era . . . people would have understood that those two things are separate. I think that really changed with the" 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump.

Now students are rethinking how they identify. "Am I part of a movement that identifies with things I actually think are personally and theologically repellent to me?" he hears them asking. "If somehow I've gotten caught up in a movement like that . . . I could try to endlessly unpack it, or I could just abandon it."

For his part, he thinks the label still has value, as he tries to sum up the theology that people from many different denominations who gather on Fuller's campus have in common.

"What word do you put in its place? There's no adequate or obviously adequate word to do that," he said. "I'm 'an orthodox Christian who cares deeply about being a follower of Jesus and wants to live with an open posture of engagement with culture.' That's not as tidy as simply saying, 'evangelical.' "

He's editing a book that compiles essays from theologically conservative Christians across a political spectrum. The book's title? "Still Evangelical."
Angela Merkel said Germany needs a stable government to strengthen Europe in a world fraught with risk as her Social Democratic rivals agreed to talks that could lead to a renewed alliance with the chancellor.

As she seeks to end Germany's political stalemate and clear the way for her fourth term, Merkel argued that a European Union without a strong Germany and a robust Franco-German alliance is "unthinkable."

"That's why we have such a huge obligation to form a stable government," Merkel told a convention of the Christian Social Union, her Bavarian sister party, in Nuremberg on Friday. Earlier in the day, the SPD's leadership decided to open exploratory talks with her on forming Germany's next government.

Almost 12 weeks after Merkel's Christian Democratic-led bloc emerged victorious but weakened from a national election, talks on possibly renewing a "grand coalition" with the SPD are moving at a glacial pace. Many Social Democrats are wary of another tie-up and party leaders insist that a coalition isn't a foregone conclusion.

Fresh from a two-day European Union summit, Merkel said she was peppered with questions in Brussels about "what's going on with Germany?" She suggested that the deadlock is weakening the EU's ability to deal with global turmoil, including an "ever stronger" China, a Russia plunging into Middle East conflicts and a U.S. leadership "focused more on itself."

Merkel cited her speech at a CSU event in May, in which she declared -- referring to the U.S. -- that "the times we could fully rely on others are to some extent over." Europe, led by Germany and France, must increasingly take its destiny in its own hands, she said Friday.

If talks with the SPD succeed, Merkel would get a rerun of a coalition that has governed Europe's biggest economy for eight of her 12 years in office, including the last four.

Outlining his party's stance, SPD head Martin Schulz said Friday the goal is to modernize Germany by beefing up education and social programs as well as enhancing job security.

"A lot is at stake," Schulz told reporters in Berlin after SPD leaders reached their unanimous decision. "We want to contribute to an outcome that produces a stable government for Germany within a reasonable time."

It was an in-or-out moment for the SPD, whose leaders inserted a series of caveats and additional hurdles to try to make the road ahead palatable to party members. Underlying its wariness is a decline in voter support as Merkel repeatedly won credit for carrying out Social Democratic policies, such as a national minimum wage.

Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer, the CSU's leader, told reporters in Nuremberg he's "very optimistic" about talks with the SPD, though the party's penchant for putting each stage of decision-making to a vote made the process difficult.

If the two sides conclude there's enough common ground to keep talking, an SPD convention tentatively scheduled for Jan. 14 will vote on whether to open full-fledged coalition talks.

After a German election that eroded the political center, Europe's dominant country is being run by Merkel in a caretaker capacity. Her attempt to enlist the Free Democrats and the Green party fell apart in November, leaving the SPD as an obvious choice.

Schulz on Friday fended off pressure by Merkel to commit to another "grand coalition" of the two biggest parties, a tried-and-true option that polls suggest is gaining increasing public support. Instead, he said there are "various models" for achieving a stable government.

"It remains to be seen whether the talks will lead to the creation of a new government," Schulz said. "We mean that very seriously. We aren't committing to a specific type of government formation."

--

Bloomberg's Iain Rogers contributed.
WASHINGTON - Senior White House official Jared Kushner and his legal team are searching for a crisis public relations firm, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has quietly called at least two firms, these people said. The inquiries have occurred in the past two weeks, and officials at the firms were asked not to discuss the conversations with others.

In a statement, Lowell confirmed he was looking for a firm that would handle media for all high-profile clients who receive attention from the press. His other clients include Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., whose months-long corruption trial ended last month when jurors deadlocked. The Justice Department has not announced whether it plans to retry Menendez.

"My law firm and I are considering hiring an outside consultant to handle the time-consuming incoming inquiries on the cases in which I am working that receive media attention," Lowell said in a statement to The Washington Post. "This inquiry from you about whether I am doing this is a good example of why we need one."

Investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller III have asked witnesses questions about Kushner's interactions with former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn as part of Mueller's larger investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the probe. Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, has been identified by people familiar with his role as the "very senior member" of the Trump transition team who directed Flynn in December to reach out to the Russian ambassador and lobby him about a United Nations resolution on Israeli settlements, according to court documents. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have also subpoenaed documents about his family company's use of the EB-5 visa program at a planned Jersey City development.

Now Playing: According to Bloomberg, Rex Tillerson is "increasingly alarmed" about Jared Kushner's secret Middle East talks. Video: GeoBeats

Crisis PR firms are often retained to handle a negative development or an avalanche of media inquiries. Kushner has been in the headlines almost daily, and he has complained to friends about the nonstop negative attention from the news media. White House officials have speculated for months that Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, would return to New York, but he has told associates over the past month that he plans to stay.

At least one firm, Mercury Public Affairs, passed up the opportunity to work with Kushner's team, people familiar with the discussions said. Mercury's lobbying work has also come under scrutiny by Mueller, which could have complicated its ability to represent Kushner.

Michael McKeon, a partner at Mercury, declined to comment. The firm, which has not been accused of wrongdoing by Mueller's team, has said it is cooperating with investigators.

Kushner is largely represented in the White House by Josh Raffel, who joined the administration this year to handle media inquiries to the Office of American Innovation, which Kushner leads.
The New York Police Department is looking into allegations that hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons raped or sexually assaulted multiple women.

"The NYPD has received information about allegations against Russell Simmons in the New York City area. Our detectives are currently in the process of reviewing the information," Sgt. Brendan Ryan told The Washington Post late Thursday.

The investigation comes a day after nine different women accused Simmons of varying levels of sexual misconduct in a pair of stories in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Many of these women said Simmons exposed himself to them. Four accused him of rape.

"Russell Simmons fully supports and will cooperate with the police inquiry and is confident of a swift resolution," Brad Rose, an attorney for Simmons, told CNN in a statement Wednesday night.

Since November, at least 11 women altogether, including screenwriter Jenny Lumet, actress Natashia Williams-Blach and fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone, have accused Simmons of sexual misconduct. Many said they remained silent due to his powerful position as a leader in the hip-hop and fashion communities.

Simmons has repeatedly denied these allegations.

"I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual," he told the New York Times in a statement on Thursday, adding, "The presumption of innocent until proven guilty must not be replaced by 'Guilty by Accusation.'"

He also posted a note to Instagram on Thursday with the hashtag #NotMe, a play on the hashtag #MeToo, which thousands of women used to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke.

"Today, I begin to properly defend myself," he said in the note. "I will prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges."

"My intention is not to diminish the #MeToo movement in anyway, but instead hold my accusers accountable. #NotMe Again, this is not a movement against or even in conjunction with #Metoo. It's just a statement about my innocence," he added.

His comments quickly drew criticism, including from Sherri Hines, one of the women who accused Simmons of rape and who said the NYPD contacted her.

"I'm appalled that Russell is sitting there calling these women liars and calling me a liar," Hines told the Los Angeles Times. "I'm not trying to bash him, but you did what you did, and what you did in the dark comes to light."

Simmons is one of the fathers of hip-hop, co-founding Def Jam Recordings, which produced some of the genre's earliest hits from artists like Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J. He sold his stake in the company in 1999 for a reported $100 million. By then, he had founded several other companies, such as Rush Communications.

In late November, after Lumet published a column in the Hollywood Reporter claiming Simmons "sexually violated" her, Simmons stepped down from the companies he founded after two women accused him of sexual assault, saying he didn't want to be a "distraction."
Ukraine's judicial system requires independence from other branches of power, chairperson of the revamped Supreme Court of Ukraine Valentyna Danishevska.

"We need independence, and today we see that demand for an independent court in Ukraine has appeared ... We need independence from other branches of government," Danishevska said in Kyiv on Friday on the occasion of the launch of the new Supreme Court of Ukraine.

She emphasized that the president and the Verkhovna Rada had abandoned their powers of influencing the judicial system.

"Amendments to the Constitution have been introduced; a new law on the judicial system and status of judges has been adopted, and we already see that these laws stipulate independence as real norms rather than a slogan, which will enable us to keep the judicial system independent," she said.

"We will work to ensure that the independence of the court could be seen in real life not only on paper," she added.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday urged North Korea, for the second time this week, to enter negotiations and give up its nuclear weapons.

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council in a session called for foreign ministers, Tillerson said the United States asks that any talks be preceded by a "sustained cessation of North Korea's threatening behavior."

North Korea has accelerated the pace of its missile program, launching 40 ballistic missiles and conducting three nuclear tests over the past two years. Each test exhibited technological improvements.

Tillerson did not repeat an assertion he made Tuesday that there are no preconditions to having talks. He said the ultimate goal must be the "complete, verifiable and irreversible abandonment of its nuclear weapons programs."

"The international community remains firm in our determination that we will not accept a nuclear North Korea," he said.

That position could preclude any negotiations. Pyongyang has been adamant that it will never even consider abandoning its nuclear weapons program, which it regards as a deterrent against a U.S. invasion designed to oust the regime.

"The DPRK has a choice," said Tillerson, using the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "It can reverse course, give up its unlawful nuclear weapons programs, and join the community of nations, or it can continue to condemn its people to poverty and isolation."

North Korea's ambassador to the U.N., Ja Song Nam, joined the Security Council session in a rare appearance. Traditionally, countries being discussed at the Security Council are often invited to attend.

The Security Council meeting was called amid rising concerns the world is on the brink of nuclear conflict. North Korea has boasted its missiles are now capable of striking anywhere in the continental United States. The Trump administration has responded by saying it is prepared for a military conflict, if necessary, even while Tillerson continues to try to isolate North Korea diplomatically and economically by getting more countries to fully implement strict U.N. sanctions.

"The worst possible thing that could happen is for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that the United States should not further aggravate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom President Trump has derided several times by referring to him mockingly as "Little Rocket Man."

Tillerson alluded to the possibility of military action but quickly followed up by saying the goal remains a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

"We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation, but we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea," he said. "The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution."

After calling for an interlude in North Korea's missile testing, he added, "The United States will not allow the regime in Pyongyang to hold the world hostage."

Tillerson called on Russia and China to increase pressure on Pyongyang beyond adhering to stringent U.N. sanctions already in place.

"Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russia's dedication as a partner for peace," Tillerson said. "Similarly, as Chinese crude oil flows to North Korean refineries, the United States questions China's commitment to solving an issue that has serious implications for the security of its own citizens."

In a town hall meeting Tuesday with State Department employees, Tillerson said the "pressure campaign" could potentially deny North Korea of $2.5 billion in export revenue from coal, textiles and labor, and imports on fuel and oil. State Department officials say about 90 percent of North Korea's earnings from exports has dried up because of a strict series of sanctions imposed on the country.

In remarks Tuesday at the Atlantic Council, Tillerson said the United States would talk with North Korea without preconditions. But the White House issued a statement a few hours later that appeared to undercut him by saying: "The president's views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way, not only toward Japan, China and South Korea, but the entire world."

His remarks set off a round of recrimination from White House aides, who said he had "not learned his lesson" since Trump rebuked Tillerson for seeking negotiations with Pyongyang. The aides called Tillerson "irrelevant" and predicted he would be gone by early next year.
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's top environmental policymakers are engaged in a new war with their adversaries - over how much information to release to the media and outside groups, who are often perceived as enemies, as part of a heavy stream of Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department are at ground zero in this growing feud. At both departments and elsewhere in the administration, news outlets and nonprofit organizations have uncovered meeting schedules and travel manifests through FOIA requests that illustrate the ties top officials have forged with players in industries they are tasked with regulating. FOIA requests have also shed light on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's taxpayer-funded travel habits.

The result is that some high-level officials at both EPA and Interior are keeping closer tabs on these FOIA requests, while at least at the EPA - according to those who have filed such requests - bureaus drag their feet in responding.

At Interior, Zinke's office has taken direct control of the various FOIA requests that have piled up at the various agencies responsible for his review of national monuments created during the last three presidential administrations.

In April, President Donald Trump instructed Zinke to review all national monuments established since 1996 that span 100,000 acres or more. Preparing for a public relations and potential legal battle, environmentalists and other groups outside government began filing federal records requests to learn exactly how Zinke was conducting the review and what recommendations he would issue.

Since the 1906 Antiquities Act empowers presidents to establish national monuments on federal lands and waters deemed worth of protection, the review of 27 national monuments spanned Interior's Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as the Agriculture Department's Forest Service and the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In early November, as Zinke was finalizing his official monuments recommendations to the White House, Clarice Julka, a FOIA officer in Zinke's office, emailed other FOIA officers in 11 different Interior offices, including the Park Service and BLM, to inform them she and FOIA officers in the secretary's office would handle requests pertaining to the monument review going forward.

Julka told the staffers to collect records that responded to FOIA requests about the monuments, and forward them to the secretary's office rather than send them directly to the news outlets, corporations, nonprofits and other groups making the requests.

"This would also include any FOIA requesting records pertaining to your bureaus' participation in the review of any monument," Julka wrote in the Nov. 6 email obtained by The Washington Post.

The next month, Zinke gave Trump his recommendations: He told the president to shrink at least four monuments and modify the way an additional half-dozen are managed.

Trump's move last week to cut Utah's Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by 85 percent and 46 percent, respectively, has sparked a legal and political backlash. Environmental groups and tribal officials have challenged both of the new presidential proclamations in court, and the outdoor retailer Patagonia has changed its website display to read, "The President Stole Your Lands."

Zinke has pushed back against the criticism, telling reporters in a conference call last week that the suggestion that he was selling public lands is "nefarious, false and a lie."

Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift declined to comment on how Interior is handling national monument requests. "We don't have anything to add on the internal process," she said in an email.

"The desire to consolidate duplicative FOIAs isn't in itself a sign of something untoward," said David Pozen, a professor at Columbia Law School and expert on information law. "But the consolidation of the FOIA requests in a political office strikes me as more notable and concerning."

Noting that the email says the FOIA office within Zinke's office would be coordinating the response, Pozen added that "there may still be concerning aspects to the situation, but it at least suggests the FOIA bureaucracy isn't being cut out."

Part of the issue may be the endless stream of FOIA requests hitting environmental and other departments in the Trump era.

Interior has seen an uptick in FOIA requests since Trump took office and began rolling back decisions made under President Barack Obama. Between October 2016 and September 2017, Interior received 1,226 FOIA requests, more than twice as many as it did during the previous fiscal year, Swift said.

But Interior's public records request workload pales in comparison with that of the EPA. That agency received 1,377 FOIA requests between Oct. 1 and Nov. 7, 2017, alone. The EPA received 11,493 in the last fiscal year, between Oct. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2017 - 995 more than the previous year.

Several environmental groups and media outlets have criticized the EPA for failing to more quickly provide documents responding to these requests. Pruitt announced last month his staff has prioritized clearing out the backlog of records requests filed during the previous administration. There were 652 such open requests as of October, and officials estimate they will complete 70 percent of them by the end of the year.

As of October, the EPA had 652 open FOIA requests that were submitted in prior years. The agency said it is on track to answer 70 percent of those requests by Dec. 31.

Trump officials have kept close tabs on these FOIA requests. In a recent hearing before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, lawyers from two environmental groups argued that the intense level of scrutiny applied by the administrator's office had delayed the release of critical documents.

Thomas J. Cmar, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Judge Valerie E. Caproni that hard copies of redacted documents they were waiting to receive about the delay of a rule curbing the amount of polluted water steam electric power plants can emit "had been submitted for something that was described as a senior management review before they could be finally released," something he said was "not a normal part of FOIA procedures as we understand them."

Asked about the procedure, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony J. Sun said "the new administration put in a procedure for this case - not all cases, but this particular case" where the office that manages Pruitt's correspondence and records reviews any releases under FOIA.

In an email, EPA acting general counsel Kevin Minoli said that while he could not discuss that specific case, the role that office performs regarding FOIA requests "is consistent with what it was in the last administration."

Caproni ordered the EPA to provide a complete response to the FOIA that NRDC and Earthjustice filed in April by Dec. 31. Earthjustice spokeswoman Daveon Coleman said late last month that the EPA provided the three documents that had been subject to senior management review.

Interior is also being sued over FOIA requests from two whistleblowers, Joel Clement and Matthew Allen, both of whom were reassigned since Trump took office.

Allen, who was working as BLM's communications director for nearly a year before was transferred to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) in September, filed suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over the department's failure to release public records related to his case.

Allen's attorney, Katherine Atkinson - who previously sued Interior over Clement's case - said in a statement that they went to court because "federal agencies are required to release documents and records in a timely manner as part of their responsibility to transparency to the American people."

In an interview, Allen said he had disagreed with how political appointees at BLM, including then-acting director Michael Nedd, handled public records requests.

Nedd, a longtime BLM employee appointed by Zinke to the acting position, asked to review and weigh in on FOIA requests that identified him specifically, Allen said, adding that he reported Nedd's request to Interior's deputy secretary. Dan Dubray, BLM's acting communications director, said the bureau's director is apprised of FOIA requests but does not determine which documents are released.

"Any time you have leaders within a government agency who are taking steps to withhold information from the public press and the Congress," Allen said, "we should all be concerned."
Washington

President Donald Trump's "America First" vision is a stark worldview that sees rivals battling each other for supremacy or relevance and has little use for alliances, treaties and other international agreements unless they directly benefit the United States, its industry and workers.

Trump's doctrine, to be laid out next week when he unveils his National Security Strategy, holds that nation states are in perpetual competition and the U.S. must fight on all fronts to protect and defend its sovereignty from friend and foe alike. While the administration often says that "America First" does not mean "America Alone," the NSS to be presented by Trump on Monday will make clear that the United States will stand up for itself even if that means acting unilaterally or alienating others on issues like trade, climate change and immigration, according to sources familiar with the strategy.

If fully implemented, the strategy could represent a profound shift from the traditional post-Cold War approach to global affairs taken by administrations of both political parties over the past three decades. With few exceptions, those administrations have embraced or sought to embrace multilateral cooperation and engagement.

Despite the risk of potential isolation presented by Trump's strategy, its fundamentals are not a surprise. The Associated Press reviewed excerpts of a late draft of the roughly 70-page document and spoke to two sources familiar with it. The strategy is largely drawn from themes Trump has described in speeches and is based on four pillars: protecting the homeland, stimulating American prosperity, promoting peace through strength and enhancing American leadership.

It is rooted in Trump's belief that competition rather than cooperation defines the current global environment, the sources said. An excerpt of the strategy seen by The AP emphasizes that America has often fought to protect its interests.

"America's achievements and standing in the world were neither inevitable nor accidental," the draft says. "On many occasions Americans have had to compete with adversarial forces to preserve and advance our security, prosperity, and the principles we hold dear."

National security adviser H.R. McMaster outlined the four pillars of the strategy in a speech earlier this week in which he declared that "geopolitics are back and they are back with a vengeance."

He said the new strategy, the first of Trump's administration, would identify threats to the United States and its interests from "revisionist powers" like Russia and China, "rogue regimes" like Iran and North Korea, and non-state actors like terrorist groups and criminal enterprises. In that, the strategy is not dissimilar to those of previous administrations.

But the sources, who fleshed out McMaster's preview on condition of anonymity, said it would emphasize that U.S. economic security is national security and that economic security must be ensured with military might. And they said it would stress the U.S. is only interested in relationships with other countries, including alliances like NATO, that are fair and reciprocal.
Washington

President Donald Trump thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for remarks he made Thursday "acknowledging America's strong economic performance," the White House said.

The two presidents spoke by phone following Putin's annual press conference in Moscow. They discussed ways to work together to address North Korea's nuclear and ballistic weapons program, the White House said.

In a brief statement, the Kremlin said Trump and Putin also discussed relations between their two countries and agreed to stay in contact. The Kremlin made a point that Trump initiated the call.
Scanning the road from a police armored vehicle, Martine Epopa says she isn't fazed when people make throat-slitting gestures at her United Nations convoy patrolling the capital of the Central African Republic.

Sometimes men jump in the road brandishing machetes, while others just stand and scowl, said Epopa, a 29-year-old Cameroonian police officer and the sole woman in a six-vehicle U.N. patrol that included Portuguese special forces and Mauritanian troops.

"We just wait until they give up and leave," she said, clutching her rifle as her vehicle bounced over potholes. "We're here to make people understand that the U.N. is here to protect them and their country. It can be challenging."

Yet the threat is real. Fourteen peacekeepers have died this year in the Central African Republic, and public hostility is increasing toward what's already one of the U.N.'s most difficult peacekeeping operations. A series of sexual-abuse scandals hasn't helped, nor has the perception that the "blue helmets" favor the minority Muslim population over their Christian countrymen. Hidden from sight behind huge blast walls in central Bangui, the capital, the U.N. headquarters are often a target of violent protests.

In what the U.N. ranks as the world's poorest nation where most state institutions crumbled after a 2013 coup, the peacekeepers face a near impossible task of shielding civilians from armed groups roaming the countryside.

The 13,750-member force, known by its acronym MINUSCA, also does everything from helping ship emergency food supplies across a territory as large as Afghanistan to providing logistical support to aid agencies whose workers themselves are under attack.

The U.N. force has little choice. Fighting rages on in parts of the country and state authority barely extends beyond Bangui. While a few hundred men have been trained for the new army, a U.N. arms embargo means the government can't import weapons.

U.N. peacekeepers face dangers across Africa. This month 15 troops were killed by militiamen in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, believed to be the deadliest assault on U.N. forces in a quarter-century.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister who paid a four-day visit to the country in October, has tried to step up support. About 160 Portuguese commandos have arrived to engage in combat with rebels, and Guterres persuaded the Security Council to expand the mission with 900 military personnel, probably Brazilian.

That makes the U.N. operation in the Central African Republic the only peacekeeping force worldwide that'll be increased rather than reduced as the U.S. has pushed to trim about $600 million from the U.N.'s $7.3 billion peacekeeping budget for the fiscal year ending in June 2018.

Just three years ago, when the U.N. set up a peacekeeping mission to replace an African Union force, expectations were high, with many residents thinking their arrival would be "a silver bullet," according to Lewis Mudge, Africa researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"There are moments when MINUSCA really didn't step up and protect civilians," Mudge said. "I've seen some contingents bravely protect and others lock themselves in their bases at the first sign of trouble."

Most attacks on peacekeepers have been carried out by militias in the southeast who accuse the U.N. of favoring Muslims, tens of thousands of whom were driven from their homes, often in apparent revenge attacks for abuses perpetrated by mainly Muslim rebels who overthrew President Francois Bozize four years ago.

The top three contributing countries to MINUSCA are Pakistan, Bangladesh and Egypt, heightening local perceptions that the U.N. force is mainly Muslim.

"The international community is throwing a lot of money out of the window," said Joseph Bendounga, a well-known radio commentator who heads a small political party. "We have a crisis in a country where the majority of the population is Christian or animist and where the troops who come to secure the country are essentially Muslims. It's just making things worse."

While U.N. officials in New York say the situation in the Central African Republic is close to catastrophic, there's no quick solution in sight for a country that's suffered decades of bad government and armed conflict. About a fifth of the nation's 5.5 million people have fled their homes, half a million of whom are sheltering in neighboring countries.

Brazil, which has just wrapped up operations in Haiti, will decide in the next few months whether to send between 700 and 900 troops to the Central African Republic, Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes said in an interview.

"What we see is a political conflict that is a consequence of the total collapse of the state's authority," Nunes said.

The Portuguese special forces have been very effective and professional, said Human Rights Watch's Mudge. "If the new contingent would do the same, it could make a big difference."

---

Bloomberg's Samy Adghirni contributed. Reporting for this story was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation, as part of the African Great Lakes Reporting Initiative.
The Trump administration said Thursday it would use what it describes as evidence of Iran's deepening military involvement in Yemen's civil war to secure a new international consensus for harsher action against Tehran, part of a plan to isolate its chief adversary in the Middle East.

U.S. officials have seized on a series of missile strikes by a Yemeni rebel group against Saudi Arabia as an opportunity to intensify global pressure on Iran.

At an elaborately staged presentation at a Washington military base, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, showcased weaponry that she said constituted "undeniable" proof that Iran had expanded its support for Houthi rebels in Yemen as it continues to back armed groups in Lebanon, Syria and other countries.

"This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behavior in which Iran sows conflict and extremism," Haley said, flanked by an array of mangled missile parts, a broken-up drone and other weaponry recovered by Persian Gulf allies of the United States.

The rare decision to publicly present material exploited by intelligence analysts underscores the Trump administration's determination to galvanize new international action against Iran even as President Donald Trump threatens to abandon the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by his predecessor and other world powers.

The focus of Haley's presentation were remnants of what officials say are two ballistic missiles manufactured in Iran, smuggled into Yemen and used by Houthi fighters to launch a series of attacks this year on targets deep within Saudi Arabia, including one of the country's busiest civilian airports.

U.S. officials point to design features and markings - described as being from government-run defense firms - that indicate the missiles are Iranian Qiam short-range ballistic missiles.

"The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers all over" them, Haley said, accusing Iran of violating U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Iranian government has denied the allegations. In a message on Twitter, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif compared Haley's presentation to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's 2003 allegations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were later found to be false. "When I was based at the U.N., I saw this show and what it begat," he said.

While administration officials have already privately briefed allied officials on the new information, it is unclear whether it will be enough to sway European and other U.S. allies that continue to back the nuclear deal and may be reluctant to embrace new punishments against Tehran.

Jarrett Blanc, who served as a senior official on the Iran deal under the Obama administration, said European countries did not share the United States' "pathological fear" of Iran but are worried about Iran's military support for groups such as the Shiite Houthis in Yemen.

"The question is, what do the Europeans need in terms of confidence that the United States is not going to blow up the [Iran deal] in order to do something on ballistic missiles?" he said.

The public affairs blitz in Washington takes place as a punishing three-year-old civil war continues in Yemen. The conflict, which began in 2014 when Houthis seized control of Sanaa, the country's capital, and drove the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi from power, has killed thousands and triggered a major humanitarian crisis.

The United States has provided military support to Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition of Arab states that entered the war in March 2015 to beat back what Saudi Arabia said is an Iranian proxy force. While analysts said at the outset of the conflict that the Saudi claims were exaggerated, most agree the war has driven Shiite Iran and the Houthis toward greater cooperation.

"Most people agree at this point that the Saudis are facing a legitimate security threat and that Iran is part of the problem," said April Alley, a Yemen researcher at the International Crisis Group.

"Critics would say that by continuing down this road, things will just get worse," Alley said. The Houthi missile offensive - and its potential to spark retaliation by the Saudis or their allies - "raises the specter of escalation in other locations in the region," she said.

The war took another chaotic turn this month with the breakdown of the wartime alliance between the Houthis and Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former president who retained significant influence in the country. After days of clashes in Sanaa, the capital, the Houthis killed Saleh, routed his forces and embarked on a withering crackdown on Saleh loyalists.

The events of the past few weeks have both emboldened the Houthis and stiffened the determination of the Saudi-led coalition to defeat them at any cost, analysts said.

"We believe the Houthis will never come to peace voluntarily," Abdulmalik al-Mekhlafi, the foreign minister of Yemen's Saudi-backed government, said in an interview last week. "On the contrary - after what happened in Sanaa, they have this false sense of victory."

"This has to be broken," he added.

Haley's message underscored Trump's largely unwavering support for Saudi Arabia since his election. But the White House has also chided the kingdom in recent weeks for its handling of Yemen's humanitarian situation, calling on Riyadh to do more to allow aid and other supplies to reach desperate Yemenis.

The military materiel showcased Thursday also included what officials said was an Iranian-produced drone that could be used for "kamikaze" purposes, equipment from an attack speedboat and remnants of an antitank missile, all of which was described as having been made in Iran. One piece of computer equipment had been mined to extract photos that officials said were taken at a facility of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The officials said the material was handed over by the Saudi and UAE governments and that there was no doubt about its provenance, even though in some cases U.S. officials did not have specific information on where the material was recovered.

Haley declined to give specifics about what actions the United States would ask allies to take against Iran at the United Nations or elsewhere. The administration might also seek to use the display to increase support among congressional Republicans for taking steps that could ultimately lead to the scuttling of the nuclear deal.

In October, Trump withheld certification of the nuclear agreement but did not pull the United States out of it entirely. The next certification deadline is in January.

Richard Nephew, a former U.S. government specialist on sanctions and a senior research scholar at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, said there were few options for imposing new sanctions or other measures on Iran, at least in the United States.

"It may be pretty straightforward and easy to convince a U.S. congressperson," Nephew said. "It is an order of magnitude more difficult to prove that to a European or Japanese official, and it's still harder to convince them that it's all Iran's fault that the war in Yemen is where it is."

Haley cited a report from U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres that she said illustrates U.N. certainty about Iran's behavior.

But the report, while citing military material presented by Saudi Arabia, stops short of fully embracing Haley's conclusions, saying that the U.N. Secretariat is "still analyzing the information collected."

- - -

Fahim reported from Istanbul.
WASHINGTON - When President Donald Trump announced he would shrink two national monuments in Utah designated by past Democratic administrations, Native American tribes and environmental groups responded by mounting lawsuits and protests against what they viewed as a culturally and environmentally detrimental, and illegal, action.

More unexpectedly, another group - outdoor clothing retailers - joined the fray, too. Leading that corporate protest was Patagonia, which sued the Trump administration, too, over its decision to reduce in size the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments.

"This government is evil and I'm not going to sit back and let evil win," Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, said on CNN last week.

Now a prominent Utah lawmaker, who urged the Trump administration to roll back what he saw as federal overreach in his state and has since defended the decision, is asking Chouinard to come to Congress.

On Friday, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, sent a letter to the Patagonia founder inviting him to testify in front of his committee.

"There is much public interest in this matter," Bishop wrote to Chouinard. "It is apparent through multiple media accounts and appearances that you have strong feelings on the topic as well."

Bishop continued: "As part of this continuing process, I wish to invite you to testify before the Committee about your views on federal land management."

The letter, in which Bishop writes he wants "all perspectives to be presented fairly and respectfully," is amicable turn in what had turned into acrimonious public feud between Republicans and Patagonia.

"Mr. Chouinard and Patagonia have clearly chosen to engage in the public policy debate," Bishop spokeswoman Katie Schoettler wrote by email. "Mr. Chouinard should have the opportunity to articulate and defend Patagonia's position publicly as well as the chance to hear directly from those who have a different perspective. We are hopeful he will accept the invitation."

Shortly after Trump traveled to Salt Lake City for his national monuments proclamation, Patagonia put a banner on its website declaring "The President Stole Your Land." Ryan Zinke, who prior to becoming Trump's interior secretary had made a name for himself as a Republican congressman opposed to transferring federal lands to states or private companies, seemed to take the charge personally. Last week, Zinke told reporters the claim that the administration is relinquishing control of federal lands is "nefarious, false and a lie."

On Twitter, Bishop's committee directed its disapproval squarely at Patagonia, calling the company a "corporate giant hijacking our public lands debate to sell more products to wealthy elitist urban dwellers from New York to San Francisco."

Land removed from the national monument protections - about 85 percent of the designation of Bears Ears and 46 percent of that for Grand Staircase-Escalante - indeed remain in public hands. But those opposed to the decision are concerned archaeological sites of ancient Native Americans as well as dinosaur fossils would be vulnerable without that protection, especially if uranium or coal mining were allowed nearby.

Litigants who filed suit against the government, which include at least five tribes and 10 environmental organizations, argue the president only has the power to make, not unmake, national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act. In addition to the two Utah monuments, Zinke has recommended that Trump reduce in size two more: Nevada's Gold Butte and Oregon's Cascade-Siskiyou.
Ukraine hands over to Kazakhstan remains of warrior who was deemed missing during WWII

Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak handed over to Ambassador of Kazakhstan Samat Ordabayev in Kyiv on Friday the remains of a native of Kazakhstan, a warrior who died during the Second World War, the SBU's press service has reported.

The remains of two servicemen were discovered by cadets of the SBU National Academy during a search expedition. One of the victims was identified as junior sergeant Aip Ramazanov, a native of Kazakhstan. He has been deemed missing since January 29, 1942.

"The service has done everything possible to ensure that Aip Ramazanov's remains could be buried in his native land on the eve of the state holiday of Kazakhstan [on December 16-17, Kazakhstan marks Independence Day]," Hrytsak said.

According to the press service, since 2016, the academy's cadets have found the remains of 57 dead fighters, who were reburied with military honors.

The ambassador expressed gratitude to the SBU and cadets of the academy for their participation in this noble mission. According to him, tomorrow the remains of Ramazanov will arrive at home, where they will be met with military honors.

SSU cadets handed over the fighter's personal belongings to his family.
The Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the EastOne international investment and consulting group will host the so-called "Ukrainian Breakfast" in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2018 on the occasion of an annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, the foundation's press service has reported.

It is expected that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, as well as other participants in the panel discussion, will be honorary guests at the breakfast in Davos.

Fareed Zakaria, host of Zakaria GPS on CNN, will moderate the discussion

The report says that around 300 leaders from business, politics, the third sector and journalists will attend the event.

The Ukrainian Breakfast is a traditional private event organized on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, which the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has held in Davos since 2005.
Sam Mullen, co-owner and chief financial officer of the now-defunct insurance brokerage firm, cultivated cozy relationships with key San Antonio Independent School District trustees to keep earning commissions from high-dollar insurance contracts, he testified Thursday in the federal bribery trial of former trustee Olga Hernandez.

Of all the board members, Mullen said, his company spent the most time and money on Hernandez and her husband, inviting the couple to use complimentary plane tickets and hotel rooms Mullen and his ex-wife had received for casino vacations, picking up their check time after time at expensive restaurants and giving Hernandez jewelry and campaign contributions.

Mullen said he and his ex-wife forged a true friendship with Hernandez and her husband, but he never would have met Hernandez if he hadnt been looking for business with SAISD.

Mullen, his former employee Joshua Cerna and SAISD consultant William Haff  whom Mullen paid for inside information  have pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to steer insurance contracts, a scheme all have testified Hernandez supported.

When Mullen first began cultivating Hernandez in 2007, he said, he met with her once a month. The frequency grew to three times a month, he said, even when Mullen clients had submitted bids to SAISD that would trigger a rule prohibiting contact with trustees. The meetings were usually at restaurants where Mullen said his company or a Humana representative picked up the tab.

I always let her know exactly what I was working on and what needed to be done, Mullen said. I invited her to everything I could invite her to.

Mullen said Hernandez advocated for his company with other board members and sometimes reported back to him afterward. She voted for every Mullen contract, and for the district to hire Haff because Mullen wished it, Mullen said.

Early in the conspiracy, Mullen said he also talked with Ed Garza, a former San Antonio mayor who has served on the SAISD board since 2008, trustee James Howard and former trustee Adela Segovia. He did not detail any gifts given to trustees other than Hernandez and former trustee Tom Lopez. Hernandez is the only SAISD trustee to be charged. Cerna was a Harlandale ISD trustee. Harlandale has not been listed among the districts defrauded in the conspiracy, although prosecutors allege that Edgewood and South San Antonio ISDs were.

Prosecutors played a recording of a conversation between Mullen and Cerna, during which Mullen questioned the extent of his friendship with Lopez after he decided not to seek reelection in 2011 after almost 30 years on the board. In response to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Roomberg, Mullen explained he couldnt keep paying for dinners, barbecues, sporting event watch parties and happy hours for Lopez, although Lopez used to support me a good deal.

It doesnt make sense to do that if hes no longer on the board, Mullen said

Yet Mullen said he paid for a meal for Hernandez, Lopez and their spouses during a trip to Las Vegas on Super Bowl weekend in 2012. At about that time, Mullen said, he talked to Hernandez and Lopez about wanting SAISD to restore commissions for brokers to a bid solicitation that did not include them. A month later, he said, he took Hernandez, Lopez and their spouses to dinner at Palenque Grill, where he complained about not getting paid commissions and about his dealings with SAISDs adversarial risk manager.

About a week later, Mullens company paid a catering bill exceeding $650 for a triple birthday party, he said. Two of the people celebrating were Hernandez and Lopezs wife, he said.

They made the decisions, Mullen said by way of explanation, though Lopez was off the board by then.

Lopez has denied accepting gifts from Mullen.

Mullen testified that he also took Hernandezs husband, Frank Hernandez, hunting and fishing because she said he needed to get out of the house. In recorded conversations, Mullen affectionately referred to him as Frank the tank.

Under cross-examination, Mullen said the Olga and Frank Hernandez occasionally bought him dinner and gifts as well, and Olga Hernandez brought him chicken salad after his heart attack. He said he never told Hernandez explicitly how to vote in exchange for gifts, and he considered all his conversations with her to be proper  except those that occurred during the bidding process.

amalik@express-news.net
Police say a Dallas-area surgeon shot himself in the head with a shotgun after killing his 5-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

Dr. Christopher Dawson, 36, killed himself early Saturday morning, a ruling by the Tarrant County medical examiner's office revealed. The medical report shows that Dawson's daughter Aubrey was shot in the head and his son Luke was shot in both the head and torso.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A restaurant in Texas is being called racist for using an offensive sign to decorate its wall.

The controversial sign at Cook's Garage in Lubbock features a neon caricature of an African-American male with the words "Coon Chicken Inn" written inside its mouth.

Jessica Rios, a customer who ate at the diner, angrily shared the image on Facebook Wednesday night. The next day, the complaint reached Cook's Garage via social media.

"We did not put this sign up to be derogatory, racist or to offend anyone," wrote Cook's Garage in a Facebook post. "This is part of Americana History... just like everything else hung in our collection and buildings."

SIMILAR: Florida bakery issues apology after employee uses blackface for Aunt Jemima outfit

Now Playing: POCAHONTAS: While Honoring Navajo Code Talkers, Trump Uses Racist Slur Against Elizabeth Warren Video: NowThis News

"Aunt Jemima, mammies, and lots of other black collectibles are highly sought after, as is Americana collectibles with white characters," the post continued. "The Coon Chicken Inn was an actual restaurant started in the 20's. Again, we want to stress we do not intend to offend anyone, and are only preserving a part of history that should remind us all of the senselessness of racial prejudice."

The Coon Chicken Inn was a 1930s chain restaurant with locations in Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Portland. Its signature logo derived from racist blackface caricatures dating back to slavery, according to the University of Washington.

Chron.com reached out to Cook's Garage Thursday night but was unable to contact anyone prior to publication.

Above: See other blackface controversies that have made headlines.
A three-year dispute between a Central Texas man and a sheriff's office - which reportedly involved him counterfeiting a court order against deputies and police officers - came to an end Thursday morning after he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Randall Townsend, 48, was arrested in February after he and his wife wore uniforms with fake badges and represented themselves as "constitutional marshals," in New Mexico, according to a KWTX report.
Head of the Kharkiv territorial council of the Ukrainian Choice  Right of the People movement Andriy Lesyk has been detained in Luhansk region and brought before the Kharkiv's Kyiv District Court to determine conditions of his pretrial confinement, Lesyk's assistant Hennadiy Sokolov has said.

"He was undergoing medical treatment in Luhansk region, asked to be discharged in order to congratulate his civil partner on her birthday and was arrested when he arrived at her residence. Agents from Ukraine's SBU Security Services arrested him for unknown reasons, showing him a note from an investigation judge Nataliya Yefymenko, and that was that," Sokolov told the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Friday.

A law-enforcement source told Interfax-Ukraine that Lesyk is suspected of violating part 2 of Article 110 (encroaching on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine) of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office promised to comment on the situation later.

As earlier reported, on November 27, 2017 Lesyk said he had been given notice demanding that he appear at the regional PGO office to receive a notice of suspicion. He then told Interfax-Ukraine that he would not comply because the request was made with violations. According to Lesyk, the reason for the summons was a post he made on his social media page.
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia's Constitutional Court on Thursday narrowly rejected a petition asking it to criminalize all sex outside marriage, in a blow to religious conservatives who have been gaining influence in the secular, Muslim-majority country.

The court's nine justices voted 5-4 to reject a suit filed in March 2016 by the Family Love Alliance, a group of conservative scholars. The group had asked the court to dramatically expand an existing law that bars married people from having sex with anyone but their spouse, arguing that it should apply to all sex between unmarried people.

Such a ban would also have effectively criminalized homosexuality, since Indonesia does not recognize same-sex marriage. Human rights advocates had feared an increase in the persecution of gay Indonesians, hundreds of whom have been arrested in a series of well-publicized raids of gay saunas and hotels over the past year or so. On Thursday, eight men arrested in the raids were sentenced to two years and six months in prison, and two more will be sentenced later.

The court's decision came as a surprise to rights activists as well as conservatives, who packed a courtroom in Jakarta, the capital, to hear the ruling Thursday.

"We didn't expect the decision to be on our side," said Naila Zakiah, an attorney for the nonprofit Community Legal Aid Institute in Jakarta, which specializes in human rights law.

Conservatives argued that the ban on adultery, which dates from Indonesia's colonial period, needs updating because it no longer reflects the values of a more devout population.

"These are laws created by the Dutch, but they don't match our current situation," said Bagus Riyono, an organizational psychologist who testified in support of the Family Love Alliance's petition.

Indonesia has experienced a sharp rightward shift in recent years as conservative Islamic groups have gained influence in the political sphere.

In April, President Joko Widodo, a moderate Muslim, saw his onetime protege Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok, lose his bid for re-election as governor of Jakarta after being prosecuted on charges of insulting the Quran. Hard-line Islamic groups had called for Basuki, a Christian, to be arrested and even hanged. He was jailed in May.

In its ruling Thursday, the court referred the Family Love Alliance's petition to Parliament, saying that matters of criminal law fell outside of its mandate.

Kevin O'Rourke, who writes a weekly newsletter on Indonesian politics, Reformasi, said the referral to Parliament effectively killed the issue. There is little support for a ban on nonmarital sex except in conservative pockets of the country, he said.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

AUSTIN  The federal government will provide funding to ensure 400,000 Texas children keep their health care coverage under the Childrens Health Insurance Program through the end of February.

That gives thousands of families who depend on CHIP a small reprieve as the future of the decades-old program remains in question in Congress.

Texas had expected to run out of funding for the program at the end of January. But health officials asked the federal government for $90 million to keep CHIP alive one more month, and they received written assurance Friday the state will receive approximately $135 million.

Given this assurance, we dont expect to have to send client letters this month about any changes in their coverage, said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which administers the program. Were confident that Texas will receive enough federal funding to continue the program through February 2018."

While the program will stay in place one more month, health advocates and lawmakers say its not enough, and are urging Congress to appropriate long-term funding.Congress allowed the program to expire on Sept. 30, leaving Texas and other states with dwindling coffers.

For decades, CHIP has received bipartisan support. But this year, lawmakers have been stymied on how to fund it. Some Republicans have demanded cuts to Medicare or other programs in order to pay for CHIP.

CHIP is an effective program with bipartisan support, and the children who benefit from this program should never have been put in a position where they might lose care, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus said in a written statement.

The written assurances from the administration will provide some short-term certainty for the program, and thats important. But the need for Congress to act quickly has not diminished, and I hope Congress will reauthorize the program soon in order to provide the longer-term certainty that working families in Texas need, Straus said.

A third of the states anticipate running out of funds by the end of January, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some states, including Minnesota, are using state dollars to fund the program.

But Texas law bars officials from using state funds to pay for the program if there are no federal dollars in place. If the state runs out of money, it will send all CHIP recipients to the federal governments health care marketplace.

In early November, the U.S. House passed a bill to fund CHIP, but it would have required cuts to other programs, such as Medicaid. It passed without any Democratic support.

The program has been in place since 1997, and last year covered nearly 9 million children. CHIP provides coverage to families who earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. In addition to health care for children, the program also pays for prenatal care for low-income pregnant women.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee , D-Houston, called the extension a short-term fix. She has regularly taken to social media to demand Congress act quickly to fund the program.

Right now, I want to wish [CHIP] recipients in Texas a happy holiday because we didnt want them to get a Scrooge answer right before Christmas, Jackson Lee said. Its good news, but we have a lot of work to do.

In response to a news article about the one-month extension, Texas Sen. John Cornyn said in a tweet that funding was imminent.Congress will pass a long term CHIP bill next week, Cornyn said in a tweet.

Alejandra Matos covers politics, education and immigration policy. Follow her on Twitter. Send tips to alejandra.matos@chron.com.
Ukraine to open checkpoints on border with Crimea similar to those operating in Donbas - Abroskin

The police of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, whose activities will be organized on the basis of the experience of the police of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, will operate on the administrative border of Kherson region and the temporarily occupied Crimea, and it is also planned to open checkpoints, First Deputy Head of the National Police of Ukraine and Head of Criminal Police Viacheslav Abroskin has said.

According to Donetsk regional police's media liaisons office, these issues were discussed at a meeting in Mariupol, which, apart from Abroskin, was attended by the chiefs of the main departments of the National Police in Donetsk region and Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as leading IT specialists from the local police.

The heads of the main police departments exchanged experience in organizing the work of the police units located on the border with the occupied territories of Ukraine. In particular, Donetsk regional police presented the work of a system of checkpoints based on intelligent technologies, which helps examine a large number of citizens and vehicles in a short time, and the check time is minimized to a few seconds.

Abroskin noted that a similar complex of preventive actions was to be introduced on the border with the temporarily occupied Crimea.

"We must work to identify terrorists and other persons entering the territory of Ukraine to commit crimes," he said.

A working group was created to develop and introduce the security system on the demarcation line with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
When Gladys Fisher talks about her husband, her voice rings with pride.

He wanted the best for his sons, she said. They were blessed to have him as a father, and I was blessed to have Herbert L. Fisher as my husband.

Known for his tremendous work ethic, he devoted his life to God, country, and family. Fisher died Dec. 4, of kidney complications. He was 88.

Raised in Weimar, Fisher volunteered to go into the Army at 19.

More Information Herbert Lawrence Fisher Sr. Born: May 14, 1929, Weimar Died: Dec. 4, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Parents Dave and Willie Mae Fisher; brother Leroy Fisher; sisters Mattie Williams and Dorothy Boman. Survived by: Wife Gladys Fisher; sons Herbert L. Fisher Jr. and daughter-in-law Machella, Howard L. Fisher, and Horace L. Fisher and daughter-in-law Annie; 9 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren, and numerous friends and family. Services: Visitation 10 a.m. Dec. 19, followed by 11:30 a.m. funeral service at True Vision Baptist Church, 2826 Ackerman Road. See More Collapse

By 1967, with numerous tours behind him, he was standing guard in the demilitarized zone while North Korean propaganda messages boomed freely across the border.

It wasnt a pleasant tour, Gladys Fisher said, remembering his war stories and the nightmares he suffered through the years.

I met him when I was 12 years old, Gladys Fisher said, remembering the couples early years.

The school principal sent Fisher and another young man to escort her to class. This was back in the days when there were no telephones, she said. Gladys was an important participant in a school program that was taking place that day. Even then, with three years between us in age, he knew I would be his wife. He said God saved me just for him.

They married in 1951, three years into Fishers military service.

Ten years later, having done tours at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Fishers family, which had grown to three children, followed him to Germany.

The airplane was filled with women going to see their spouses, Gladys Fisher said. Having arrived in Germany, families were placed in a room, waiting for husbands to enter one at a time to collect their kin.

I told my sons You know how much your father loved you  he must have gotten there early to be the first one to come through the door.

In 1964, Fisher received orders for the 58th Transportation Truck Company at Fort Sam Houston.

We bought a home and stayed in San Antonio when my husband left for Korea in 1967.

Fisher retired four years later completing 22 years of service. Soon after, he and his wife bought and operated Terrell Hill Cleaners.

Mornings and afternoons Fisher drove a school bus for the Northeast Independent School District, retiring after 25 years.

He loved his wife, his boys, his pastor and the deacons he served with at True Vision Church, Gladys Fisher said. He was a just and loving man, not a perfect man, but a good man.

iwilgen@express-news.net
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.
Longford's economic prospects have been further enhanced this week with confirmation of a 400,000 cash injection towards the development of an innovation and digital hub.

Independent Cllr Gerry Warnock took to social media on Monday morning to announce the investment which is being earmarked for development at the old Providers building in Longford town.



It brings the overall total allocated for the project to 600,000 after an initial 200,000 was set aside earlier this year under the Government's Town and Village Renewal Scheme.



"GREAT NEWS!!" Cllr Warnock proclaimed on his own Facebook page.

"Longford County Council has been awarded a further 400k to help develop our Creative and Innovation Hub at the Old Providers Building on Lower Main Street!!



"This brings our yield to over 600k to kick start this important regeneration initiative in our county town!! Massive progress after much hard work behind the scenes!!!"



Minister for the OPW Kevin 'Boxer' Moran was not long behind his Independent counterpart to give his backing to the announcement.

In a statement, the Longford/Westmeath Independent Alliance TD said the move would go a long way towards ensuring aspirations to develop a digital hub in the centre of the town become a reality.



"Minister of State Kevin 'Boxer' Moran has warmly welcomed news this morning that Longford County Council has been awarded a further 400k to help develop the Creative and Innovation Hub at the Old Providers Building on Lower Main Street," he said.



Fine Gael Cllr Micheal Carrigy was another to allude to the funding announcement at the opening of his constituency offices in Longford on Monday.



We got 400,000 in regional Enterprise Ireland funding just this morning, he told an attentive audience in front of party supporters and council colleagues.



That project will be starting in January. We have the full funding got to develop that into a digitial hub in 2018 which will be fantastic for Longford town and will rejuvenate that lower end of the town.

You may also like to read:

Longford Digital Hub plan to become reality

Government approve 400k cash investment for Longford Innovation and Digital Hub plan

Optimism abound over digital hub in Longford
A date has been set for the trial of five men, charged in connection with the murder of dissident republican Peter Butterly.

The 35-year-old father of two was shot dead on March 6, 2013 outside The Huntsman Inn in Gormanston, Co Meath.

Books of evidence were served on five men in connection with the case before the non-jury Special Criminal Court on Friday, December 15.

They were Michael McDermott (58), of Riverdale House, Garrymore, Ballinagh, Co Cavan, who was one of the men charged with the actual murder of Mr Butterly outside the pub that day.



Secondly, he is charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh Na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on the same date.

He is also charged with possession of a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol with the intent to commit murder and the possession of seven rounds of 9mm ammunition on March 5, 2013 at Blackthorn Apartments, Brackenwood Avenue, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.



Kevin Braney (43) with a last address at Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght in Dublin is also charged with Mr Butterlys murder. Hes further charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on March 6, 2013.

He is also charged with the possession of a 9mm calibre Beretta model 9000s semi-automatic pistol and the possession of seven rounds of 9mm ammunition with the intent to commit murder on March 5, 2013 at Blackthorn Apartments, Brackenwood Avenue, Balbriggan.

Frank Murphy (58), of McDonough Caravan Park, Triton Road, Bettystown, Co Meath is the third man charged with Mr Butterlys murder.

He is also charged with possession of a 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol with the intent to commit murder and the possession of seven rounds of 9mm ammunition on the same date.

He is further charged with membership of an unlawful organisation within the state, namely Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the Irish Republican Army, otherwise the IRA at the time.



Laurence Murphy (60), a brother of Frank Murphy and also of McDonough Caravan Park, Triton Road, Bettystown, Co Meath is charged with membership of an unlawful organisation within the state, namely Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the Irish Republican Army, otherwise the IRA on March 6, 2013.

Ray Kennedy (38), of Whitestown Drive, Blanchardstown, in Dublin is charged with membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh Na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on March 6, 2013.

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, presiding with Judge Sinead Ni Chulachain, Judge Cormac Dunne set at trial date for October 2, 2018 for all five men, noting that the estimate for the duration of the trial was up to ten weeks.



She extended legal aid to cover a second junior counsel for each man, on hearing of the volume of paperwork in the case.
The family of a north Longford woman who died after being discharged from Mullingars Midland Regional Hospital while allegedly still having a post-operative infection, have said they hope lessons have been learned by her sudden and unexpected passing.

Mother of five Christine Doyle died ten days after being discharged from the Midland Regional Hospital following a routine gallbladder operation.



The High Court heard recently that Mrs Doyle could barely walk and had to be helped by her husband as she made her way home to the couples home in Ballinalee in September 2013.



The 69-year-old grandmother passed away 10 days later as the family allegedly waited over an hour and 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from Portloaise.



Senior Counsel Richard Kean told the Court Mrs Doyle died from hypovolemic shock as a result of a delayed post-operative haemorrhage.

Mrs Doyle attended the hospital in July 2013 and was found to have symptomatic gallstones which required surgery resulting in an operation being carried out on August 28, 2013.



It emerged that afterwards Mrs Doyle developed an infection and was treated with intravenous antibiotics.



Despite the presence of the ongoing infection, it was claimed Mrs Doyle was discharged from hospital and subsequently died on September 16, 2013.



It was claimed there was an alleged failure to bring an infection Mrs Doyle developed post operatively under control and an alleged failure to establish the nature of a 4cm collections seen on the abdominal ultrasound scan.



It was further claimed Mrs Doyle had been recommenced on Warfarin therapy on August 31, 2013, and continued her on warfarin therapy from that point despite her demonstrating signs of sepsis and infection.



Mrs Doyle was discharged from hospital on September 6, 2013 when it was alleged she was unfit for discharge and when her infection was allegedly not adequately under control.



It was further claimed there was an alleged failure to heed Mrs Doyles ongoing complaints of abdominal pain and her condition on the date of discharge when she was hardly able to walk. The claims were denied.



Richard Kean SC with Esther Earley BL told the court the case arose from the tragic and disturbing death of Mrs Doyle who was much loved.



He said Mrs Doyle had gone into hospital for a straightforward gallbladder operation. She was in hospital for 10 days.



Mrs Doyles widower and her family settled their High Court action against the HSE over her care at Midland Regional Hospital, Mullingar, Co Westmeath.



The terms of the settlement, which were not revealed, was also made without admission of liability and included a letter from the HSE offering its "sincere sympathies" while expressing "sorrow" on the tragic death of Mrs Doyle on September 16, 2013.



Chrissie, as she was known by those who knew her best, was born in England and lived there most of her life.



In 2006, she together with her beloved husband Colm set up home in Ballinalee, a place where both readily became highly respected and valued members of the local community.



In a statement released to the Leader this week, the Doyles said they still feel aggrieved as to why they have yet to learn what remedial steps have been taken to prevent similar occurrences from happening in the future.



We the family of the late Christine Doyle are extremely relieved that the mistakes around my mother's care have finally been publically recognised, read the statement.



However, we are absolutely disgusted that it has taken four years from her passing before this has happened.



We hope that lessons have been learned and that clinical practices have changed, so that other families do not unnecessarily lose a loved one.



Although the HSE has passed on their condolences, we are disappointed that they have not given any details of measures that have been put in place since our mother's passing, to prevent this happening again.



The family said the emotional distress they have endured over the last four years was completely unacceptable and needless.



We also wish to highlight that the ambulance took over an hour and twenty minutes to arrive on the night of my mother's death. This is clearly an unacceptable length of time in an emergency situation, the family added.



We would urge people to stand up and be heard and not to accept that these things just happen.



There were words of acknowledgement too for the familys legal team Julie Shanley, Michele Beirne, Richard Keane and Esther Earley.



They have been compassionate and respectful to my mother at all times throughout this terrible ordeal and have given us the strength to continue to get justice for her. May she now Rest In Peace.

You may also like to read:

Special mass tonight for gravely ill Longford musician Noel Cassidy

Longford businessman recovering after illness

Committee formed to help man seriously ill in Australia
(Xinhua) 08:05, December 15, 2017

Russia and China will remain strategic partners in the long term regardless of the outcome of the upcoming Russian presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his annual news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017. [Photo: IC]

"I am fully convinced that the development of relations with China enjoys a national consensus in Russia, and irrespectively of the outcome of the (Russian presidential) election campaign, Russia and China will remain strategic partners for an extensive historic perspective," Putin told Xinhua during his annual press conference.

Putin reiterated that China's Belt and Road Initiative is perfectly compatible and can be incorporated with the development of the Eurasian Economic Union and Russia's proposals on a broad partnership in Asia.

He highlighted the two countries' major joint projects including projects in the Arctic, liquefied natural gas plants, high-speed railway, high-tech sector and space sector, especially the promising prospects of potential cooperation in developing the Northern Sea Route.

"If we guarantee the use of it all year round, and I hope we may reach this goal quite fast, the circulation of articles between Asia and Europe will be more economically feasible than through the existing routes... Both Russia and China are interested in this," said Putin.

Speaking highly of China's fast economic growth, Putin said that decisions adopted at the latest national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) reflect a positive agenda of China's development, which coincides with Russia's pursuit in its own development.

"The innovative clauses in the Charter of the CPC indicate that China is striving to be stable while guaranteeing development and to improve the life of its people on the basis of this development," he said.

It is extremely important to Russia because China is Russia's major trade and economic partner and its strategic partner "in the broadest sense of this word," he said.

In the first three quarters of 2017, trade volume between China and Russia has reached 61.4 billion U.S. dollars, increasing by 22.4 percent on a year-on-year basis.

He also said that decisions adopted at the latest national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) reflect a positive agenda of China's development, which coincides with Russia's pursuit in its own development.
The great Gold Rush Music Festival returns to the township of Waihi, with the first nuggets of gold dropping for the highly anticipated return of the 2023 festival.
Xiongan requires one gangster probe every month

08:10, December 15, 2017 Global Times

The government of the Xiongan New Area, North China's Hebei Province, said it will crack down on gangsters and that "every county has to deal with at least one gangster incident every month."

The area government made the statement at a conference on its gangster crackdown, and announced it on its WeChat on Wednesday. At the conference, it said they had busted a gang involved in a major case in September, which had threatened the social order for a long time.

It said that its priority had been "villains" in the village and gangsters and that, "After the crackdown, people set off fireworks and made dumplings to celebrate the victory."

At the same time, area public security officials went a step further, saying they would probe at least one gangster-related incident every month.

The Xiongan New Area, which was established in April, seems to have improved a lot after the crackdown, according to the publicity bureau of Rongcheng, which is under Xiongan administration. Xiongan official said that the number of criminal cases had fallen by 37.9 percent, with 1,654 suspects being detained and 2,289 cases handled.

The Xiongan move has not been without its doubters, with many people questioning whether it was reasonable to try to put a quota in the action, on online discussions.

One of the sceptics, Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance, noted that, while the determination in cracking down on gangsters is certainly good, officials cannot really predict how much there will be in the future, so it is ridiculous to set a quota, in a talk with the Global Times on Thursday.

In 2012, the Public Security Ministry said in a document that unreasonable evaluations or quotas should not be the way to evaluate police work.

In a similar move, Houjie township in the city of Dongguan, South China's Guangdong Province, back in 2011 swore it would crack down on gangster activities and asked every police station to report at least one tipoff on such activities to make their work more effective, People's Daily reported.

Zhu pointed out that this type of behavior also puts pressure on police officers because "some of them may worry about the quota so they pay less attention to other cases, or even worse, may fabricate criminal charges or lodge false accusation."

One example of this was Li, a former police station head in the city of Qiqihar, Heilongjiang Province, who was sentenced to a year in prison with one year of probation in 2016, for getting people to pretend to be drug users so that he could fill his quota, Beijing's Legal Mirror reported in February.

This type of development not only violates people's rights, it also damages government credibility, Zhu concluded.
(Global Times) 08:48, December 15, 2017

A university in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province has notified its students' organizations that they are not allowed to organize any Western religious festivals, such as Christmas, on campus, in a move that is intended to help the younger generation "build cultural confidence."

An online notice, allegedly released by the Communist Youth League of Shenyang Pharmaceutical University on Monday, said that the students' union, student associations, and youth league branches will be banned from holding any activities centered on Western religious holidays.

It went on to say that, in recent years, influenced by Western cultures and promotional activities of some business, some young people are "blindly excited about western holidays," especially Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

So, the school's Communist Youth League decided to take action against such activities to help its members build cultural confidence in order to "resist the corrosion of Western religious culture."

One employee of the school's Communist Youth League confirmed with the Global Times on Thursday that they had sent out the notice but declined to comment on it.

This is not the first time for a Chinese college to boycott Western holidays. In 2015, Northwest University's Modern College, in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province banned Christmas celebrations on campus and, after being widely criticized, it justified its action as being "utterly correct", especially in view of the fatal stampede that had occurred on New Year's Eve in 2015 in Shanghai.

Back in 2014, some schools in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province were forbidden from holding any Christmas-related events after the city education authorities announced a blanket ban covering all high schools, middle schools, primary schools and kindergartens.
COLLINSVILLE  I was very surprised, said Brittany Agee, owner of Cocoa Trail Chocolates. I feel very lucky.

The local chocolate store, along with Henry County brewery Mountain Valley Brewing, both finished in the Top 10 this week in a national competition. The event was geared toward highlighting small businesses across the United States.

Earlier this year, people across the country nominated a total of 249 small businesses, all hoping to attain the title Independent Small Business of the Year. Along with the title, one grand prize winner received a variety of prizes  including cash, goods and business mentoring  valued at over $50,000, awarded by national small business movement Independent We Stand.

Carr Hardware, a small business operated out of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, won the grand prize with 89-years of service in the business world.

Cocoa Trail Chocolates, on the other hand, is in its first year of business, serving the Collinsville community and surrounding areas.

Since opening the store in August, Agee said that owning and operating the business is all that she imagined it would be  but sometimes, it still doesnt feel real.

So far, it has lived up to my expectations, Agee said. Its kind of like a dream. I never thought it would come true, but I wake up and come to work and here I am.

Receiving the accolade of a Top 10 finish in the national competition boosted Agees confidence in her dream.

I feel like Im on a rollercoaster ride, Agee said. Its exciting and its a lot of hard work.

Even though Cocoa Trail Chocolates didnt snag the top spot in the small business competition, Agee expressed her appreciation for those across the nation that voted for the small-town chocolate shop.

To the people who took time out of their day to vote for us, Id like to say thank you. I cant really say thank you enough, Agee said. It was really nice of everyone to spread the word and not get annoyed at us for posting about it on Facebook so much.

As to what helped propel Cocoa Trail Chocolates to a Top 10 finish, Agee felt the uniqueness of the business in the area, coupled with the finesse of the product, helped place the store in the highest realm of the competition.

The quality of our chocolates are good. People say its the best theyve ever had, Agee said. Its something different for our community. Its a great gift option, and not just for Christmas. If theres somebody thats hard to buy for, who doesnt like chocolate? Its a nice, easy gift to give.

This holiday season, the local chocolate store has a couple of specialty items for those seeking festive treats.

Those who enjoy York Peppermint Patties will likely be drawn to the flavor of the Peppermint Trees, Christmas tree-shaped chocolates. People who crave cinnamon around the holiday season might wish to try a CinnaMan, a chocolate shaped as a snowman that tastes like a cinnamon bun.

We wanted to call it something cute and my husband had a light bulb moment. He said, Since its cinnamon and its a snowman, what about a CinnaMan? Agee said. I thought it was perfect.

For those interested in stuffing stockings with chocolate, theres still time to place an order in time for Christmas.

Cocoa Trail Chocolates will operate on regular business hours through Saturday, December 23. All large orders must be placed by Thursday, December 21. For smaller orders, a 30-minute heads up is appreciated. Orders may be placed by calling Cocoa Trail Chocolates at (276) 647-1980.

A growing company

Meanwhile, after only seven months in business, Mountain Valley Brewing owner Peggy Donivan said shes thankful for the communitys support.

I think its amazing that we can garner that much support from here and abroad, said Donivan, who owns Mountain Valley with her husband Herb Atwell. People we didnt know were voting for us. Customers of ours said, Were voting every day, and now weve got everybody at work voting, too.

The competition is based on blind voting, so Donivan and Atwell dont know exactly how many votes they received, they said. Clearly, however, their customers cast a lot of votes for the brewery.

Donivan said that they hope to enter the competition again next year.

We got started late in the competition, so were hoping to maybe get started a little earlier, she said. Well try it again. It was fun.

The grand prize for first place includes a $5,000 check and a $40,000 marketing makeover. If they win in the future, Donivan said, she and Atwell plan to give the $5,000 reward back to the community.

I think we would gain more out of winning the marketing, and the community could use the cash, she said. Were just trying to get the word of mouth out that were here and let people know about all the things we can do as far as events and parties.

Until then, Atwell and Donivan plan to continue brewing the beer that their customers love. Atwell said that he just finished brewing a second batch of gingerbread stout, which should be ready to keg next week. He has also brewed a toasted coconut cream ale, and according to Donivan, tonight the brewery will release a new small batch beer they call Rock Candy.

Its an abbey dubbel, she said. Its really good. Its got two pounds of rock candy in it. Well just keep on creating, and as summer rolls around, well get back into our lighter beers.

Atwell said that he hopes Mountain Valleys Top 10 finish in the nationwide small business competition inspires other local entrepreneurs to try their hand at creating small businesses.

As a community, weve got a lot going for us here, and I think the future holds a lot for us, he said.

Mountain Valley Brewing is located at 4220 Mountain Valley Road, Axton. It is open on Thursdays from 5-9:30 p.m.; Fridays from 5-10 p.m.; and Saturdays from 1 p.m. until close.

To schedule an event at Mountain Valley Brewing or for more information, call (276)-833-2171.
MARTINSVILLE  Last year, Serendipity Coffee House and Bistro raised $538 to help a family in need at Christmas.

Right before Christmas, owner Laurence Vanderwoods purchased everything he could think of for a local little girl who experienced a tragedy only weeks before, when her father passed away at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

This year, Vanderwoods set out with a goal of helping two families, donating all tips received in the month of December to the coffee shops Adopted Families Christmas Program.

As word spread throughout the community, more and more people ventured to Serendipity to make donations.

Each day, the coffee shop posts about the generosity of its customers on Facebook, showing total transparency for the donations received through tips.

Since the first of the month, Serendipitys raised over $700 in tips alone. Anonymous donors have also given lump sums of $200 and $500 to the cause.

Thanks to the kindness of the community, Vanderwoods said that the Adopted Families Christmas Program would be able to help at least three families this year  and if the funds continued at the same rate, yet another family could benefit.

The community has been fantastic, Vanderwoods said.

Hoping to raise more money for the program, the coffee shop owner will host a special sale at Serendipity from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

Allowing customers to name their own price for anything on the menu, Vanderwoods will donate half of all proceeds to the Adopted Families Christmas Program.

If we do well, we might be able to do four families, Vanderwoods said. We hope to see the line out the door.

Monetary donations arent the only type of gifts Vanderwoods has collected over the past couple of weeks.

Today, we got a gently  and I mean very gently  used girls bicycle. Weve received cleaning supplies for parents. Weve gotten a couple of $50 gift cards to Food Lion. These people need food, too, Vanderwoods said. Something that I think is pretty cool is that two people are donating cakes. These are individuals, not large companies.

People have also offered their time.

Weve had people offer to come help us shop and wrap. Theres no way I could do all that on my own, Vanderwoods said. Weve got 17 volunteers. The Boys and Girls Club (of the Blue Ridge) have offered to help. People from the Martinsville Community Foundation will be here.

Locals also donated wrapping supplies and festive gift bags.

Weve got 112 rolls of wrapping paper, Vanderwoods said.

Thus far, Serendipitys received 29 nominations for families in need of Christmas gifts. While the Adopted Families Christmas Program seeks to help families in Martinsville and Henry County, Vanderwoods said there have been a few requests outside of the area.

I wish I could help every last one of them, Vanderwoods said. For those who arent in our area, Ive tried to research other organizations that could help them.

Nominations are still being considered, but there are a few requirements. First, a family must live in either Martinsville City or Henry County. Second, nominated families must exhibit a true need. Third, the selected family will be one that is ineligible to receive gifts from another group, church or organization.

While hes helping those in need this holiday season, granting a Merry Christmas to struggling families has been a passion of Vanderwoods since a December day in 1991 when he witnessed an eight or nine year old girl hug a doll in a store before placing it back on the shelf with a kiss and a promise to return after Christmas.

Vanderwoods heard the childs mother explain that Santa had ran out of toys, but once the girls father returned to work, theyd buy whatever Santa couldnt bring.

Moving Vanderwoods to tears, he loaded his cart with dolls, a stocking and items to put in the stocking, then bought the items. He waited at the checkout until he saw the little girl and her mother in line. He instructed the cashier to give the bags to the family before walking out of the store.

Sticking with the business owner for over 25 years, Vanderwoods said the 1991 shopping experience is one hell never forget. He hopes to bring similar joy to area children this holiday season.

When youre a child, its all about the magic of Christmas, Vanderwoods said. I couldnt imagine as a child, thinking Santa didnt visit me. Hopefully this will restore faith in a small child that there is a Santa Claus.

Those interested in making a donation may do so in person at Serendipity Coffee House and Bistro, located at 10 E. Church St. in Martinsville, or over the phone by calling the business at (276) 403-4015.
(Xinhua) 10:17, December 15, 2017

BEIJING, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office on Friday said that China has improved legislation to better protect the civil and political rights of its people.

According to the white paper, titled "New Progress in the Legal Protection of Human Rights in China," China has revised the Criminal Law, abolishing nine death penalty charges and raising the bar on executing convicts that have received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

To implement the rule of law and promote humanitarianism, China has implemented the amnesty system stipulated in the Constitution, and granted amnesty for four types of criminals, it said.

China has also improved its laws to protect special groups. The white paper said China enacted the Anti-Domestic Violence Law, making clear the legal liabilities of the perpetrators and the procedure of investigation to protect victims of domestic violence.

China has revised the Criminal Law, increasing criminal punishment for buyers of abducted women and children, and criminalized such acts, according to the white paper.
WEST SPRINGFIELD -- Santa isn't the only one who'll be on the move this Christmas.

AAA predicts 107.3 million Americans will travel over Christmas and New Year's, the highest travel volume on record and a 3.1 percent boost from 2016.

A record-breaking 107.3 million Americans will travel for the #holidays. That is 3.2 million more travelers than last year. #travelforecast https://t.co/W8kM2caEAZ pic.twitter.com/nA9n6TcZiE  AAA (@AAAnews) December 14, 2017

"More expensive gas prices are not swaying holiday revelers to stay home," said Sandra J. Marsian, AAA vice president of membership, travel and marketing. "In fact, across the board this year, travel has increased year-over-year for every major holiday weekend - Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving - and we project the same for the year-end holiday period. We've seen the strong economy and growing consumer confidence fuel holiday travel all year long."

Statewide, a gallon of regular gas in Massachusetts averaged $2.54 Thursday. That's down from $2.55 a week ago and $2.58 a month ago. But it's up from $2.24 last year at this time. This is according to AAA's online gas prices site.

In Springfield, gas averaged $2.48 a gallon. That is down for $2.50 a week ago and $2.54 a month ago. But gas averaged just $2.19 a gallon last year.

AAA's research shows the busiest travel period will be Dec. 20 and 21 in the late afternoon as commuters head home and travelers get started.

AAA bases its estimates on an opinion poll conducted by INRIX. The survey breaks down travel by mode of transportation:
SPRINGFIELD - Two Springfield men are being held on $100,000 bail after police allegedly seized more than 23,000 packets of "Playboy" heroin and nearly $13,000 in cash during a raid at their home.

Brian A. Santiago, 23, and Javier Torres, 46, both of 162 Gresham St., pleaded not guilty Thursday in Springfield District Court to trafficking in heroin (2,000 grams or more).

Santiago also denied two other charges: possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of ammunition without an FID card.

Assistant District Attorney Cary Szafranski requested that both defendants be held on $100,000 bail. Defense lawyers James Goodhines and Daniel D. Kelly agreed to the request, with the proviso that the defendants can seek a lower figure later in the case.

Judge William Rota granted the prosecutor's request, and continued the case for a pretrial hearing Jan. 12.

The men were arrested late Wednesday afternoon after Springfield narcotics detectives raided their Pine Point home and recovered 23,750 packets of heroin stamped with the name "Playboy," an unspecified quantity of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and nearly $12,932 in cash, according to the arrest report.

The Springfield Police Strategic Impact Unit, under the direction of Capt. Brian Keenan, executed a search warrant at the home following an investigation that involved surveillance and heroin purchases by an undercover officer, the report said.

The home belongs to Luis Santiago, identified in court papers as Brian Santiago's father. Both the elder Santiago and his wife, Maritza Frias, live at 162 Gresham St. and are also facing heroin trafficking charges.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the couple, who are visiting the Dominican Republic, court records show.
A judge on Thursday ordered the brother-in-law of former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick held without the right to bail in a domestic assault case, the Boston Globe reported.

At a dangerous hearing in Quincy District Court, Judge Mark Coven said Bernard Sigh, 65, of Milton, "presents a very real, immediate, imminent and clear danger," the Boston Herald reported. Sigh can be held without bail for up to 120 days.

A pretrial hearing was scheduled for Jan. 12.

Sigh was arrested Sunday and charged with domestic assault and battery and assault with the intent to rape after the alleged victim told police he hid in her apartment, prevented her from leaving and forced her to have sex with him.

She said the attack took place Saturday night, and she was unable to escape the apartment until Sunday morning to contact authorities.

Sigh's attorney said the sex was consensual.

In 1993, Sigh was convicted of spousal rape while living in California, where he served jail time and probation.
SPRINGFIELD -- A lawyer for extortion defendant Richard Valentini began attempting to chip away at the government's case against his client, who he said may be enormous but is nonetheless benign.

Valentini was charged in 2016 along with three other alleged organized crime associates with conspiring to strong-arm city tow company operator Craig J. Morel for $20,000 in "tribute" or protection money in 2013.

Co-defendants Ralph Santaniello, Giovanni "Johnny Cal" Calabrese and Francesco "Frank" Depergola have already cut plea deals in the case and await sentencing. None are testifying at Valentini's trial.

However, the three feature far more prominently than Valentini in several video and audio recordings jurors have watched and listened to since the trial kicked off in U.S. District Court Tuesday. This is a distinction defense attorney Jared Olanoff tried to drive home to jurors.

While cross-examining state police Sgt. Brendan O'Toole, one of the main prosecution witnesses, Olanoff repeatedly quizzed the trooper on how often Valentini appeared in 16 recordings Morel made over 57 days at the behest of state police.

The answer was once, on Oct. 4, 2013, on the land in Hampden where Morel was rebuilding a home that had burned down eight months before. Calabrese also was present.

"The meeting itself lasted about 10 minutes, correct? It's also fair to say that Mr. Calabrese and Mr. Morel did most of the talking, correct?" Olanoff asked.

O'Toole agreed.

"And Mr. Valentini spoke very sparsely, very infrequently?" Olanoff continued.

"That's correct," the trooper said.

Olanoff also highlighted to jurors that many of Valentini's verbal contributions to the meeting consisted of loosely connected sentence fragments, at best.

"You're not gonna ... nothing ... you can relax. Like nothing or whatever ... like whatever happened or whatever -- you can relax. You're going to get treated as good as Al treated you," Valentini offers at one point during the recorded meeting.

Olanoff asked if O'Toole could even make any sense of what Valentini was saying.

"When I listened to that meeting I knew exactly what Richard Valentini meant," the trooper testified.

It was on Morel's land that Santaniello and Calabrese first showed up, unannounced, on Sept. 30, 2013, and demanded Morel resume paying a "street tax."

Morel told investigators he paid late Genovese mob boss Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno $5 per tow for three years before Bruno was murdered in 2003. Santaniello demanded Morel pay him "arrears," arguing the city contract Bruno once "helped" him with was now Santaniello's and he wanted his due as a successor.

Santaniello threatened to behead Morel, bury him in his backyard and slapped him in the face during their first encounter. He and Calabrese later threatened to ruin Morel's business, C.J.'s Towing Unlimited, if he refused to meet their demands.

Morel engaged in a delicate dance under the tutelage of state police trying to build a case, agreeing to pay money, then withholding money and questioning the "Springfield Crew's" official standing in the mob.

Although Valentini was cordial to Morel during the single meeting he attended, prosecutors have argued the crew sent Valentini because of his sheer size. He is over 6 feet tall with the shoulders of a linebacker.

During a Nov. 20, 2013, meeting at Morel's company headquarters, Morel complained to Depergola that he had been fending off overtures from four players.

"I've been seen by -- dealt with four different people. You, that -- the -- you know them two (Santaniello and Calabrese), and then the other big guy who came one day," Morel said.

"Oh ... Richie," Depergola responded.

"Yeah, Richie," Morel said.

"He's all right. He's all right," Depergola said.

"But he's a big f---er," Morel responded.

"He is a big f---er, yea," Depergola agreed.

Olanoff also suggested during his cross-examination that his client did not receive a dime of the shakedown money.

"Do you know if he was ever even paid gas money?" Olanoff asked O'Toole.

"I don't know how he filled up his tank," the trooper answered.

Testimony continues Friday in U.S. District Court. Judge Timothy Hillman told jurors he expects them to begin deliberations Monday.
People who drop off firearms at housing developments and churches will receive a $100 Visa gift card in Boston. Worcester, Hartford and Providence are among the other New England cities also participating in the one-day gun buyback program.

The regional gun buyback program - "no questions asked" - is set for Saturday, December 16, and each participating city or town will have its own hours, reimbursement rates, and locations.

The Boston and Worcester times and locations are available below.

The program in Boston is getting funded through $17,000 from Boston Children's Hospital, Mass. General and Boston Medical Center.

The program comes five years and two days after the murder of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut.

In Boston, people dropping off their weapons must follow a protocol in order to get the gift card, including putting the unloaded gun in a clear plastic bag and inside a gym bag or backpack. If the person is driving to the drop-off, the gun must be stored in the vehicle's trunk.

Ammunition must be stored in a separate bag.

Rifles and shotguns can be delivered but people won't get the gift card for them in Boston.

In Worcester, people who turn in guns will receive grocery gift cards including $25 for a rifle, $50 for pistol, $75 for automatic or semi-automatic gun.

The Worcester program, funded by District Attorney Joseph Early and UMass Memorial Hospital, is also giving away gun locks for free.

The guns gathered in Boston will eventually be melted down, though Boston Police Commissioner Bill Evans said the firearms will be first tested and traced to see they're linked to a murder and discover the original owner.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Worcester Mayor Joe Petty and UMass Memorial Medical Center's Dr. Michael Hirsch joined law enforcement officials inside Boston City Hall to announce the regional gun buyback program.

Hirsch, who also serves as the medical director for Worcester's division of public health, acknowledged that some question the effectiveness of gun buyback programs, but pointed to Worcester's low homicide rate of six people this year. There are a lot of factors that lead to the low number, but "this has a part to play," he said of gun buybacks.

Since 2002, local law enforcement officials have collected 3,158 guns in Central Massachusetts, he added.

Boston has seen 53 homicides this year.

In Boston, the gun buyback program will take place in eight locations between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

BOSTON

Central Assembly of God

50 Bennington St.

St. Peters Church

278 Bowdoin St.

Archdale Development

125 Brookway Road

Garfield Development

215-217 Garfield Ave.

Project Right

320A Blue Hill Ave.

Salvation Army

1500 Washington St.

McCormack Housing Development

345 Old Colony Ave.

Greater Love Tabernacle Church

101 Nightingale St.

WORCESTER AREA

Barre Police Department 9 AM to 1 PM

655 South Street Barre, MA 01005

Charlton Police Department 10 AM to 2 PM

85 Masonic Home Road Charlton, MA 01507

Dudley Police Department 9 AM to 1 PM

71 West Main Street Dudley, MA 01571

Fitchburg Police Department 9 AM to 3 PM

20 Elm Street Fitchburg, MA 01420

Grafton Police Department 10 AM to 1 PM

28 Providence Road Grafton, MA 01519

Leicester Police Department

9 AM to 1 PM

90 S Main Street,

Leicester, MA 01524

(Serves West Brookfield, Brookfield, Barre)

Leominster Police Department 9 AM to 3 PM

29 Church Street Leominster, MA 01453

Millbury Police Department 9 AM to 1 PM

127 Elm Street Millbury, MA 01527

Northbridge Police Department 9 AM to 1 PM

1 Hope Street Whitinsville, MA 01588

Oxford Police Department 10AM to 2 PM

503 Main Street Oxford, MA 01540

Rutland Police Department 9 AM to 2 PM

242 Main Street Rutland, MA 01543

Southbridge Police Department 9 AM to 3 PM

1 Mechanic Street Southbridge, MA 01550

Spencer Police Department 10 to 2 PM

9 West Main Street Spencer, MA 01562

Webster Police Department 10 AM to 2 PM

357 Main Street Webster, MA 01570

Worcester Police Department 9 AM to 3 PM

9 Lincoln Square Worcester, MA 01608

(Serves Northborough, Shrewsbury, Westborough, and Worcester)

Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester 12 PM to 3 PM

90 Holden Street

Worcester, MA 01606



Gun buyback in Worcester yields 260 weapons
Yarlung Tsangpo River is Tibets longest river. In the Tibetan language, its name means the river from the sky, and it is hailed as the mother river by the locals. Recently, a drone enthusiast from southwestern Chinas Sichuan province took a set of aerial photos of the magnificent river, revealing its beauty from a higher perspective.
Johannesburg (Peoples Daily)  A member of the terrorist group al-Shabab killed 18 police officers and wounded others after he entered a police academy and blew himself up in Mogadishu, the capital city Somalia.

According to local police reports, on Thursday morning a man dressed in a police uniform entered the academy unnoticed wearing a self-detonating suicide vest.

On a pro-al-Shabab website, it read, It was martyrdom operation, in which the mujahedeen targeted the police academy camp.

The terrorist group is an al-Queda ally. The attack marks a war thats been going on between al-Shabab and the Somalian government for ten years.

Once based in Mogadishu, al-Shabab was driven out in August 2011, losing its main stronghold. But they still control rural areas and carry out guerrilla attacks against military bases in the capital.

According to witnesses, the attacker blew himself up just as police were gathering in the public yard in the morning.

According to the local police commander, the death toll could have been heavier if the suicide bomber had reached the center of the yard, where there were more people.

Police Chief General Muktar Hussein Afrah confirmed the death toll of 18 killed and 15 wounded.

Al-Shabab has become an erratic force in Somalia. The group has recently targeted US forces inspired by US President Trumps drone campaign in the region.
Some ideas aim for the head. Others tug on your heart. Dan Pallottas "The way we think about charity is dead wrong," does both. The provocative title first grabbed my attention, but it was the persuasive discourse which forever changed my opinion.

My startup Litterati is dedicated to creating a litter-free world  and naturally, I always thought we should form a non-profit, until I saw Dans talk. I started questioning my fundamental assumption that a 501(c)(3) status was a given. Dan provided a convincing argument otherwise. With the present-day reality of his own experience backed by the indisputable facts about an outdated 400-year-old ideology, he provided me with the clarity and confidence to consider alternatives.

Dans talk inspired me to learn more about B Corporations: companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. Pioneered by organizations such as Patagonia and Ben & Jerrys, this certification demands a higher standard of accountability and transparency, ensuring that companies value people and planet, as much as profit. This is the path were now on, and it feels well-aligned with our objective  to create the biggest impact possible. We may fall short of our goal, but were going to take the biggest swing we can. For any activist, social entrepreneur or dreamer who dares to tackle humanitys most complex problems, Dans talk is a must-watch.

Video: https://ted.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=07487d1456302a286cf9c4ccc&id=2c9632d4f0&e=d3135666a2
Michael McGill, Executive Director of MCT, Inc. has just put the finishing touches on the Missoula Childrens Theatres newest show, Hercules. After writing sixteen shows and thirty-one musical scores over the years, he knows a thing or two about creating entertaining shows featuring school-aged children of all abilities.

This February, Hercules will have its world premiere performance in Missoula Students will work with MCT staff to bring to life the story that has, up to this point, lived solely in McGills mind. He has brought his usual wit and charm to the story, which focuses on the idea that true strength doesnt come from rippling muscles, but from inside anyone who is willing to step up and be courageous. As he says, "Anyone can be a hero!"

Full Story: http://mailchi.mp/4bd52a898a66/the-evolution-of-a-cackle-926989?e=dec83255d7
In a significant move in its continued evolution from a telephone and broadband provider to a fully integrated technology solutions company, Blackfoot http://www.Backfoot.com has announced the creation of a high-tech innovation program.

As part of this program, Blackfoot will welcome Joe Fanguy to its executive team on January 2, 2018, as VP for Strategic Development. Fanguy will bring with him nearly a decade of leading technology commercialization and economic development efforts in Montana. Among those efforts, business incubator MonTEC was revitalized, and subsequently produced $30 million in private investment; the Blackstone LaunchPad, Small Business Development Center (SBDC), and Procurement and Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) launched programs at the University of Montana; and Accelerate Montana was established as the University of Montanas economic development arm, which now serves 750 Montana businesses/entrepreneurs annually.

"Joe Fanguy is uniquely qualified to forge relationships between established tech companies like Blackfoot, start-up companies, the Montana University System, and private investors," said Blackfoot CEO Jason Williams. "With Joes leadership, Blackfoot will help continue to foster Missoulas robust, high-tech ecosystem."

In developing its high-tech innovation program, Blackfoot will look to partner with local and global high-tech start-ups, investment firms, educators, economic development groups, and the states research programs at the University of Montana and Montana State University.

The University of Montanas VP for Research and Creative Scholarship, Scott Whittenburg, said he looks forward to building upon the successes of the past several years in partnership with Blackfoot. "As the University approaches $100 million a year in research expenditures, Missoula,

and Montana, will become an increasingly attractive place for companies to locate," said Whittenburg. "Having strong ties between the university and the private sector will only strengthen the opportunities, and the impacts of our research, creative, and entrepreneurial activities," he added.

In his new role, Fanguy will drive strategic corporate, non-profit and philanthropic partnerships for Blackfoot around innovation with regional and global leaders. "Building upon existing relationships, and forming new ones, is a very exciting part of the opportunity to lead this effort," Fanguy said. "The future is bright for tech in Montana, and Blackfoot is well positioned to lead the way, along with other exciting tech companies, adding jobs and wealth to our communities."

A 2017 Kaufmann Foundation report, conducted in collaboration with MonTEC, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance, and the Blackstone LaunchPad at the University of Montana, noted the tech industry in Montana is now worth $1 billion. In addition, the report ranked Missoula and Bozeman 9th and 12th highest in start-up rates among 394 areas around the country, making Montana not only the best place to live, but also a great place to do high-tech, start-up, and related business.

"Seeing firsthand the increase in tech activity over the last decade in Montana is inspiring, and something to build upon for future generations," said Fanguy, citing the report.

James Grunke, CEO of the Missoula Economic Partnership, sees the Blackfoot announcement as a win-win for everyone. Grunke said, "Public/private partnerships are key to economic development, especially in tech. Combining Blackfoots vision of being a tech leader and Joes track record of success will set the stage for significantly moving the needle forward for our community and our state," he added.

About Blackfoot: Headquartered in Missoula, MT, Blackfoot offers advanced voice, data, cloud and IT services throughout Montana and the West. For more information, visit http://www.Backfoot.com.

***

Blackfoots vision for West Broadway tech campus lands VP of strategic development

Months after hinting at plans to establish a technology campus on the citys west side, Blackfoot on Friday made official its plans to launch a new high-tech innovation program as it grows beyond telecommunications into a fully integrated technology solutions company.

As part of its initiative, Blackfoot announced the hiring of Joe Fanguy as its new vice president for strategic development. Fanguy, who headed Accelerate Montana at the University of Montana, will help move the vision to reality.

By Martin Kidston

***

The Five New Forces In Innovation Strategy

"The solution to dealing with 21 century disruption for both government and companies is the same  a rapid innovation pipeline thats disciplined, evidence-based and data-driven, that delivers solutions with speed and urgency."

http://www.matr.net/article-80400.html
Les membres du gouvernement ont pris note que les instructions ont ete donnees au Bureau de lAttorney General de preparer lIntegrated (Solid and Hazardous) Waste Management Bill ainsi que celui du Central Medical Procurement Office. la liste des conge pour 2023, de l apromulgatuion du Education (Amendment No.2) Regulations 2022, de la nouvelle polique pour le recrutement dans le monde sportif, du rembousersement des contribution de la National Savings Fund faites par les travailleurs immigres entre autres.

1. Cabinet has agreed to the Ministry of Environment, Solid Waste Management and Climate Change issuing drafting instructions to the Attorney Generals Office for an Integrated (Solid and Hazardous) Waste Management Bill with a view to providing strategic direction and guidance towards sustainable solid and hazardous waste management practices in line with the concept of circular economy. The main object of the Bill would be to ensure the environmentally safe and sound management of solid and hazardous wastes by adopting a circular economy approach focusing on material recovery and recycling for a sustainable waste management system.

2. Cabinet has agreed to the setting up of the Central Medical Procurement Office under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Wellness for the procurement of medical supplies, including drugs or medicines, vaccines, equipment, consumables and medical disposables for public health institutions in Mauritius. Drafting instructions would be conveyed to the Attorney Generals Office.

3. Cabinet has agreed to the promulgation of the Education (Amendment No.2) Regulations 2022 which would amend Regulation 24 of the Education Regulations which provides for specific cut-off dates for obtention of qualifications, submission of applications and documents for the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam National Scholarships and State of Mauritius Scholarships.

4. Cabinet has taken note that the CITES and Wildlife (Prescribed Species) Regulations 2022 would be promulgated under the Native Terrestrial Biodiversity and National Parks Act. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international agreement between governments to regulate or ban international trade of species under threat. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species. The Regulations would be effective as from 1 August 2022.

5. Cabinet has agreed to the Economic Development Board (EDB) signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Business France. Business France would provide its technical assistance, advisory, training and coaching services for the capacity building of EDB in its core missions while the EDB would provide relevant information and opportunities on the business environment to wider foreign direct investment, exports and market development initiatives, promotional events, publications and other initiatives.

6. Cabinet has taken note of the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding between the Corporate Business Registration Department, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Economic Development Board for the establishment of a co-operative framework with a view to setting up a Single-Window System.

The FSC would be setting up a dedicated and exclusive counter for the Single-Window System at its premises. The counter would serve as an information desk to potential investors and act as a centre facilitating the applications for relevant licences, permits and certificates, including Occupational Permits and Certificate of Incorporation.

7. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius supporting the International Declaration on Transnational Organized Crime in the Global Fishing Industry. The main objective of the Declaration is to promote cooperation between relevant governmental agencies at the national, regional and international levels for the prevention, combating and eradication of transnational organised crime in the global fishing industry.

The Declaration also encourages supporting countries to work towards the fulfilment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals particularly in relation to Goal 14 on Life Below Water and Goal 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

8. Cabinet has taken note that Mauritius has ranked 28th in the 2022 Global Peace Index. Each year, the Institute for Economics and Peace releases the Global Peace Index. It is a study of 163 independent nations and territories around the world. Mauritius has been designated as the most peaceful country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

9. Cabinet has agreed to a new policy for the recruitment of foreign players and coaches by the Super League and the national First and Second divisions clubs of team sports, namely Football, Basketball, Handball, Rugby and Volleyball.

10. Cabinet has agreed to the refund of National Savings Fund contributions to non-citizens each time they leave Mauritius upon expiry of their employment contract. Amendments would be brought to the National Savings Fund (Claims and Payment) Regulations accordingly. This measure would be effective as from July 2022.

11. Cabinet has agreed to the mandate of the Mauritius Multisports Infrastructure Ltd being extended so as to, inter alia, cater for the organisational and logistic aspects of major sporting and recreational events to be held in Mauritius.

12. Cabinet has taken note of the list of Public Holidays for the Year 2023, which is as follows:

New Year  Monday 02 January

Chinese Spring Festival  Sunday 22 January

Abolition of Slavery  Wednesday 01 February

Thaipoosam Cavadee  Saturday 04 February

Maha Shivaratree  Saturday 18 February

Independence and Republic Day  Sunday 12 March

Ugaadi  Wednesday 22 March

Eid-Ul-Fitr**  Saturday 22 April

Labour Day  Monday 01 May

Ganesh Chaturthi  Wednesday 20 September

All Saints Day  Wednesday 01 November

Arrival of Indentured Labourers  Thursday 02 November

Divali  Sunday 12 November

Christmas  Monday 25 December

** The exact date of this festival is subject to confirmation as its celebration depends on the visibility of the moon.

13. Cabinet has taken note of the status regarding the implementation of the Premium Visa regime as at 30 June 2022. Some 2,869 applications were received from mid-November 2020 to 30 June 2022, out of which:

(a) 2,008 applications have been approved;

(b) 258 applications have not been entertained for not fulfilling the required criteria;

(c) 556 applications were incomplete and awaiting for missing documents; and

(d) 47 applications were set aside as applicants were no longer interested in the Premium Visa scheme.

14. Cabinet has taken note of the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing across the world. Some 564.3 million cases have been reported globally, of which 536.3 million persons have been successfully treated. With regard to Mauritius, as at 13 July 2022, there were 306 active cases of COVID-19, out of which 42 were admitted at the New ENT Hospital. Over the period 07 to 13 July 2022, one death was attributed to COVID-19.

15. Cabinet has taken note that the fifth Meeting of the Steering Committee of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) would be held on 03 August 2022 in Mauritius. A High-Level Breakfast Meeting would also be held on 04 August 2022 in the distinguished presence of The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC, Secretary General of the Commonwealth.

16. Cabinet has taken note that Mr Noa Bibi has established two national records in athletics, namely for 100m and 200m, in France recently.

17. Cabinet has taken note of the participation of the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance in the Special Session of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States  European Union (EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly held virtually. The special session was dedicated to the EU list of Non-Cooperative Jurisdictions for tax purposes and the list of Third Countries for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism.

Mauritius, as chair of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) Ad Hoc Contact Group on the EU List of Non-Cooperative Tax Jurisdictions and that of Third Countries regarding Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, was invited to intervene in the Special Session by the OACPS Council.

18. Cabinet has taken note that the Regional Office in Eastern Africa of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) through the UNODC Global Maritime Crime Programme would launch their first Regional Judges Colloquium on Maritime Crimes in Mauritius from 27 to 29 July 2022.

The UNODC Global Maritime Crime Programme supports Member States, through its mandate, to develop capacity throughout the entire criminal justice chain of serious crimes within the maritime domain. The meetings would be conducted by Judge Maurice K. Kamga who is a sitting Judge at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

19. Cabinet has taken note that the Utility Regulatory Authority (URA) has received an application for the review of electricity tariffs. Public Notice would be issued in the press by the URA on 16 and 18 July 2022. The URA would hold meetings with representatives of key stakeholder institutions (consumer associations and the business community) between 18 and 22 July 2022.

20. Cabinet has taken note that the Mauritius Fire and Rescue Services has informed all petrol service stations that the validity of their existing Fire Certificates was being exceptionally extended until end of August 2022 with a view to ensuring the smooth running of business operations.

The National Land Transport Authority would also inform the holders of the Petrol Service Station Licence that a delay of up to 31 August 2022 has been exceptionally granted for the renewal of their Licence and that the penalty fee of 50 percent would not be applicable until 31 August 2022.

21. Cabinet has taken note that Dr Alvario Lario has been elected as President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) during the First Special Session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development held recently.

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn

Articles similaires
Kavi Ramano lors de la partie reservee aux declarations ministerielles au Parlement, a fait un point sur le naufrage du MV Wakashio et la maree noire qui avait les plages du sud-est du pays.

28 August 2020 - Statement of Minister Ramano MV Wakashio et la maree noire



Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn

Articles similaires
The commander of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Navy on Thursday called for more cooperation and communication with its Australian counterparts, warning that the latters recent actions in the South China Sea have jeopardized regional stability.

The general situation in the South China Sea is positive, but the Australian navys recent actions in the region are against the consensus reached by the leaders of the two nations and hinder bilateral cooperation, Commander Shen Jinlong was quoted as saying by Chinas Ministry of National Defense on Thursday.

The remarks were made during Shens meeting with Australian Vice Admiral Tim Barrett in Beijing on Dec. 14. Barrett started his visit to China on Dec. 13 amid escalating tensions between the two nations.

The Australian Navy has forged ahead with long-held plans to send six Navy vessels to conduct months of military exercises in the region, with 1,200 personnel participating in the action in September. The Global Times reported that the move is the biggest task-group deployment in more than 40 years, and it has triggered criticism from China.

According to Shen, the two nations navies have deepened cooperation, and have seen a steady relationship for years. He called for more mutual respect, as well as more control on the two nations maritime military actions.

Echoing Shen, Barrett said the Australian Navy highly values the friendly relationship with its Chinese counterparts and hopes to promote more cooperation in the future.
A delegation led by the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, attended the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Plenary Meetings held in Paris from 16 to 21 February 2020. The FATF considered the progress made by Mauritius during the one year observation period following the adoption of its Mutual Evaluation Report (MER) by ESAAMLG in September 2018.

The FATF noted that since the completion of its MER in 2018, Mauritius has made progress on a number of its MER recommended actions to improve technical compliance and effectiveness, including amending the legal framework to require legal persons and legal arrangements to disclose beneficial ownership information and improve the processes of identifying and confiscating proceeds of crimes.

The FATF has also recognized that Mauritius has addressed deficiencies in relation to: national risk assessment, mitigations and coordination; international cooperation; banking supervision; use of financial intelligence; confiscation; terrorist financing investigations and prosecutions; and the implementation of targeted financial sanction.

At the time of the adoption of its MER, Mauritius was rated largely compliant or compliant with only 14 of the 40 FATF Recommendations. As at date, that is within a period of one year, Mauritius has addressed 53 out of the 58 Recommended Actions contained in the MER. Today, we are largely compliant or compliant with 35 of the 40 Recommendations, including the Big Six Recommendations.

Mauritius is committed to the integrity of the domestic and international financial system and as such will fully implement improvements to the effectiveness of its AML/CFT system. Mauritius has made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and ESAAMLG to implement its action plan, which contains five Recommended Actions.

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn

Articles similaires
In celebration of International Womens Day, and to mark the rollout of the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) Guarantee for Growth program, the African Development Bank and the African Guarantee Fund are showcasing the first beneficiaries of the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program  an innovation aiming to unlock up to $3 billion in loans to women-led small and medium size enterprises (SMEs).

The beneficiaries are taking part in an online panel event, co-organized by AFAWA and the African Guarantee Fund on Monday 8 March. Under the theme, Women entrepreneurs: key drivers of economic growth, the virtual session centers on how the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program works with financial institutions to address the financial and non-financial needs of African women entrepreneurs, by offering access to finance, providing technical assistance and create an enabling environment to promote policy changes and regulatory reforms.

The African Development Bank has mobilized its resources, and the support of its global partners, in what is to date, our most ambitious effort ever to change the landscape on access to finance for African women entrepreneurs, said Vanessa Moungar, the Banks Director for Women, Gender and Civil Society.

The first participants in the program include; Catherine Mumbua Wanjoya, the founder of a company manufacturing biodegradable and affordable sanitary towels, and waste incinerators; Terry Mungai, the CEO of a beauty and hair care franchise institution; Mbuaya Kalenga Mdhy, who heads a semi-industrial sewing company; and hotelier Bijour Esther Monga Ilunga Kazadi.

The AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program targets financial institutions to increase their appetite to lend to women who are known to be better payers, and who reinvest up to 90% of their income in the education, health and nutrition of their family and community.

The program de-risks women entrepreneurs and enhances financial institutions appetite in lending to SMEs. Supported by the Group of Seven (G7) countries as well as the Netherlands and Sweden, the AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program is implemented in collaboration with the African Guarantee Fund, which works to facilitate access to finance for SMEs in Africa.

We have realized when talking to financial institutions that they dont see AFAWA as a favor that we are doing to women. It is a huge business opportunity to tap into a customer segment that has not been explored before, said Jules Ngankam, CEO of the African Guarantee Fund.

Esther Dassanou, Manager of AFAWA said financial institutions in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda are signing on to the program, and that the program could be a game changer across the continent.

The AFAWA Guarantee for Growth program is different and innovative from what is on the market, in the sense that it tackles all the major challenges that women entrepreneurs face in accessing financing and growing their business at the same time, Dassanou added.

Partager et informez vous aussi......

0 shares Share

Tweet

LinkedIn

Articles similaires
(Xinhua) 14:56, December 15, 2017

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Are the U.S. top brass' starkly contradictory remarks on possible talks with Pyongyang merely an indication of no fundamental changes in U.S. policies or a clever double-pronged attempt to ease the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula?

Some experts seem to think it's the latter.

TILLERSON'S OLIVE BRANCH

A new note was struck when U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said earlier this month that the United Stateswishes to engage in unconditional talks with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), whenever Pyongyang is ready.

"We're ready to have the first meeting without precondition," Tillerson said at a forum. "Let's just meet...we can talk about the weather if you want.... But can we at least sit down and see each other face to face? And then we can begin to lay out a map, a roadmap of what we might be willing to work towards."

However, he did not veer off entirely from the official line, saying it would be difficult to talk if in the middle of the dialogue Pyongyang decided to conduct another nuclear test.

"We've got to have a period of quiet or it's going to be very difficult to have productive discussions," he said.

His comments triggered a response from White HousePress Secretary Sarah Sanders, who said U.S. President Donald Trump's views on the DPRK issue have not changed.

Pyongyang is "acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China and South Korea, but the entire world," she said.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Wednesday that denuclearization is "the only viable objective" on the Korean Peninsula and talks with Pyongyang "won't be an end in themselves."

The United States will not relieve any pressure on Pyongyang or cave in to any demands for pay-offs, he said.

GOOD COP, BAD COP?

But some analysts see some alignment in the seemingly contradictory stands.

"At best, the divide between President Trump and Secretary Tillerson reflects a strategy of good cop, bad cop where the State Department and diplomats will continue to pursue peaceful means to resolve the conflict while President Trump's rhetoric steps up the pressure on the DPRK," Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua.

"At worst, it reflects a fundamental disconnect between the President and the U.S. chief diplomat. I imagine that the circumstances are somewhere in between, but closer to the best-case scenario," he said.

Many in the President's national security team understand how destructive a conflict with Pyongyang can be, he added.

Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economic Institute, told Xinhua that Tillerson was trying to find a way to engage the DPRK as part of an ongoing effort to find a way to resolve the situation peacefully.

He thought Tillerson was proposing to meet to begin a bilateral dialogue instead of negotiations. "In that sense, Tillerson's proposal is not inconsistent with the White House comments that negotiations need to be about denuclearization," he said.

Speaking of the influence Tillerson's announcement might have, he said the ultimate impact will depend more on Pyongyang's willingness to talk.

The fact that Trump was supportive of the recent trip to Pyongyang by Jeffrey Feltman, UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, indicated he is open to finding a way to resolve the DPRK issue through dialogue, Stangarone said.

MOUNTING CALLS FOR TALKS

Meanwhile, there are growing calls in the U.S. political and academic circles for direct talks with the DPRK, which many say is the only way to solve the nuclear deadlock.

William Perry, a former U.S. defense secretary, said Tillerson's remarks on unconditional talks with the DPRK were very encouraging.

"We must find a way to come to the table in order to de-escalate the volatile situation," he tweeted.

Michael J. Green, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration, said some communication and consultation with Pyongyang was appropriate.
The per capita disposable income of rural residents in China reached 12,363 yuan ($1,870) in 2016, up 47.4 percent compared to 2012, according to the Third National Agricultural Census released by Chinas National Bureau of Statistics on Dec. 14.

The census revealed that rural residents living quality, sense of gain, and happiness all increased thanks to the countrys efforts in recent years.

The number of Chinas agricultural business units had reached 2.04 million by the end of 2016, up 417.4 percent compared to 2006, and farmers professional cooperatives hit 910,000.

The census showed that water conservation was improved and the level of agricultural mechanization was promoted, both of which advance agricultural labor productivity and free farmers from heavy labor.

Perfect agricultural infrastructure is a fundamental guarantee for enhancing comprehensive agricultural production capacity, and an important symbol of modern agricultural development, Ning Jizhe, head of the bureau noted.

In addition, the census pointed out that China has made progress in improving basic social services in rural areas in recent years.

Villages with kindergartens and clinics across the country now account for 32.3 percent and 81.9 percent, respectively. About 44,000 agricultural business owners and 51,000 such units now sell their agricultural products online.

Housing conditions of rural residents have also been improved in recent years, the census disclosed.
Chinas economy has sustained the momentum of steady progress and will maintain sound growth in 2018, an official from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) said on Dec.14.

Chinas economic growth remains positive in 2017, with stable employment and commodities prices, as well as optimized economic structure and improved quality and efficiency, NBSC spokesperson Mao Shengyong told chinanews.com, adding that the economy will continue to grow steadily in 2018.

According to statistics released by NBSC, Chinas total value of imports and exports reached 2.6 trillion RMB in November, a year-on-year increase of 12.6 percent. Specifically, the total value of exports was 1.4 trillion RMB, up by 10.3 percent, and that of imports was 1.1 trillion RMB, up by 15.6 percent, leaving a trade surplus of 263.6 billion RMB.

Generally speaking, the national economy in November maintained the momentum of stable and sound development and showed strong stability and resilience. However, we should be aware that there are still many risks and uncertainties abroad, and great challenges exist for high-quality development, added Mao.

The Ministry of Commerce also expressed confidence for Chinas economy in 2018, noting that despite U.S. tax reform, China will remain in its position as a hotspot for foreign investment.

China has a relatively comprehensive industrial chain and educated workers. The domestic market has great potential, while the government has been trying to improve the investment environment, said Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng.

China will deepen its economic reform and keep opening up, he added. We have faith that our country will remain attractive to foreign investors.
Tamaki Matsuoka introduces the history of the Nanjing Massacre to fellow Japanese.

A retired teacher from Japan has been introducing the history of the Nanjing Massacre to fellow Japanese for almost 30 years, calling on Japan to apologize for its atrocity committed in China, Peoples Daily reported on Dec. 15.

The 70-year-old woman, Tamaki Matsuoka, is a thorn in the side of Japanese right-wing politicians, but a symbol of Japans conscience in the eyes of the survivors of the mass killing.

To investigate the massacre and introduce the history to the international public, including Japanese, is the center of her life. So far, Matsuoka has paid 97 visits to Nanjing since the first one made in 1988.

In the 1980s, when she was a teacher, Matsuoka noticed that Japanese history textbooks over-stressed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and neglected the trauma of China brought by the Japanese invasion.

I believe the Japanese government is being dishonest, said Matsuoka. In order to learn the truth about the history, she went to China and visited the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders and the Museum of the War of Chinese Peoples Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

I was totally astonished after hearing the stories from the survivors of the holocaust, Matsuoka remembered.

The trip to China completely changed the life of Matsuoka, who bears a rage against the Japanese right-wing politicians who have been dishonest about the mass killing. She decided to collect information about the Nanjing Massacre herself after coming back from China.

Though she was threatened and even attacked by right-wing forces, nothing stopped her from carrying on. She investigated both Japanese veterans and Chinese victims, saying the double proofs have shut the mouths of the right-wing politicians.

Over the years, she has visited more than 250 Japanese veterans, and led about 700 Japanese citizens to visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

In addition, she has also introduced her investigation to the Western countries. By cooperating with non-governmental organizations in Canada and the US, she unpacked the history of the Japanese invasion in China through documentaries and speeches.

The world should remember the history of the Nanjing Massacre, Matsuoka said, adding that it is necessary to declare a commemorative day to prevent the tragedy from happening again.

Everything Im doing is for the better development of Japan, and I sincerely hope the country could include its invasion into China in its textbooks, so that the next generation could learn from history and make a brighter future, Matsuoka said.
Advertisement

Advantages and Disadvantages of Abilify MyCite

Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Reference:

The patient can add more details to the application, like their mood and the number of hours they have rested."Being able to track ingestion of medications prescribed for mental illness may be useful for some patients," said Mitchell Mathis, M.D., director of the Division of Psychiatry Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.The sensor contains ingredients found in foods like copper, magnesium and silicon and generates an electrical signal when it is splashed by stomach fluid, just like a potato battery, said Andrew Thompson, Proteus's president and chief executive.Most common side effects reported by adults taking Abilify in clinical trials, were nausea, vomiting, constipation, dizziness, headache, uncontrollable limb and body movements (akathisia), anxiety, insomnia and restlessness.Abilify can address the expensive, longstanding problem that millions of patients do not take drugs as prescribed. It can help monitor medicine-taking, especially in patients who would are compliant to take the pills but forget to and definitely would not want the injection form as an alternative. It might also appeal to patients who want to prove their compliance, build trust with their psychiatrist, or who feel "paranoid (because of their condition) about getting accused of not taking their medicine."While patients might feel their privacy getting checked, there is also an option for patients to instantly stop physicians and others from seeing some or all of their data.On the other end, since Abilify MyCite is prescribed to people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder who do not take their medications regularly, either because they do not like side effects, or they do not think they have an illness, or because they become paranoid and have delusions about the doctor or the doctor's intention, it might take some time to be accepted widely.Also, Abilify MyCite cannot be used to track drug ingestion in "real-time" or during an emergency as the detection may be delayed or may not occur. The question that remains is whether the digital pill will be able to improve the patient's compliance.Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disabling brain disorder with symptoms that start in adults younger than 30 years of age. People with schizophrenia hear voices, and believe that other people are reading their minds or controlling their thoughts. Bipolar disorder , also known as manic-depressive illness, is characterized by alternating periods of depression and high or irritable moods and energy, alternating activity levels and decreased the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.Source: Medindia
ADS ADS

The Bulgari Octo Finissimo Automatic won the Men's Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Geneve (GPHG) 2017. But it had already won the title of watch of the year at the prestigious Tiempo de Relojes Awards at the SIAR in Mexico just one month before, as well as being awarded watch of the year by the magazine L'Orologio in Italy and shortlisted in the "Design Stars" category of Germanys Watch Stars 2017/2018. In addition to breaking records (it is the thinnest automatic watch in the world), the Octo Finissimo Automatic has also won widespread acclaim from watch experts around the world.

In the same collection, the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Skeleton also won the "Tourbillon and Escapement" category at the GPHG. This second prize confirms the adaptability of the collection and further underscores the sucess of the Octo collection. These awards are also a recognition of Bulgar's legitimacy in the watch industry and a reminder that the brand has much more to offer than the jewellery for which it is already highly renowned.

Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Skeleton  Bulgari

The surprising thing about the Octo is that it is rapidly gaining the status of a cult watch even though it has a relatively young design. Compared with models from other brands whose designs date back to the 1960s and 1970s, the current Octo collection is just five years old. What gives the Octo its appeal is the fact that it is so different from any other designs on the market. Because of the complex shape of the case, which has numerous individual facets, with a combination of brushed and polished finishes, the Octo successfully marries the square with the circle without you really noticing it. Look closely, however, and if you traced a line around the extremities of the case you would end up with a shape that resembles more a square than an octagon. The bezel, on the other hand, is a circle. But the many angles on the lugs and the octagonal interior flange cause the two distinct shapes to intermingle, giving rise to the Octos distinctive shape.

In its short lifespan the Octo has evolved into a fully-fledged watch collection with a range of different movements  from the simple three-hand classic (the Solotempo) all the way up to the minute repeater. In the Finissimo line, the self-winding, tourbillon and minute repeater versions are all record-holders in terms of the thinness of their respective movements. There is even a hand-decorated skeletonised version of the tourbillon movement that is no thicker than the record-breaking version at 1.95mm thickness, which represents an additional technical tour de force. But there is also a manually-wound calibre with power reserve visible on the back and a high-frequency (5Hz) column-wheel chronograph calibre found in the Velocissimo chronograph and the recently launched Octo Maserati line. The two extremes of the collection are set by the extremely elegant Octo Roma models at one end and, at the other, the extravagant Ultranero sapphire tourbillon with its pillars filled with green SuperLuminova.

Octo Ultranero  Bulgari

The Octo collection is necessarily infused with the Italian touch and offers designs that appeal to a variety of tastes. Models such as the Ultranero, for example, have a more urban and contemporary feel with their dark accents and splashes of vibrant colours. The Finissimo models appeal to connoisseurs who appreciate the technicality that goes into complications such as the minute repeater and the skeleton tourbillon. While the Octo Roma, presented earlier this year, introduced a softer take on the case design to appeal to those who appreciate Italian elegance.

Given its success, the Octo collection is sure to evolve even further, and perhaps sooner than we think.
Watch the ceremony live! Watch the ceremony live!

Tune in to the 2022 GPHG ceremony, which will be digitally hosted on WorldTempus today at 6:30PM (Swiss time)

Tune in to the 2022 GPHG ceremony, which...
N. KOTZIAS: Today we had an extensive discussion with Commissioner Hahn, with whom we talked about the prospects for the enlargement of the European Union. I underscored once again that every enlargement must ensure compliance with the conditions set by the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union. I underscored the need for a number of reforms to be implemented, and  to the extent that the countries themselves want to join  I once again expressed our support and willingness to contribute to this end.
ADS ADS

A. Lange & Sohne Saxonia : CHF 16,800

Are you a white gold or a rose gold kind of person? With the new Saxonia model, you can be either. If you have trouble deciding, sorry: the price is no help, since both models cost exactly the same.

The model we have chosen comes in either white gold, for those who favour discretion, or rose gold, for the woman whos not afraid to draw attention. It is driven by a hand-wound manufacture movement which can be viewed through the sapphire caseback. The watch face features a mother-of-pearl dial with baton indices, and hour, minute and small second hands in gold to match the case. The watch comes with a snow-white alligator strap to go with any outfit.

Saxonia  A. Lange & Sohne

Audemars Piguet Millenary : CHF 27,800 (rose gold) or CHF 30,000 (white gold)

Rather than buying a different watch to suit every occasion, why not choose one that will fit in anywhere? The Millenary collection has followed the fashion for interchangeable bracelets, offering a plethora of different colours and materials.

From flexible rubber to tactile velvet, from cool textile to comfortable alligator, from light colours to dark... Theres something for everyone. The oval 39.5 mm case in white or pink gold has an openworked dial that shows the manual winding mechanism, plus a small seconds register, and an off-centre mother-of-pearl disc displaying the hours and minutes.

Millenary  Audemars Piguet

Parmigiani Fleurier Kalparisma Calendar : CHF 34,500

The Kalparisma collection is the womens version of the Kalpa. This womens watch is not just a smaller-sized version of the mens  the collection has been completely redesigned for women. A full-gold model caught our eye.

Faithful to the iconic Parmigiani shape, this watch has a tonneau-shaped 18K rose gold case (37.5 mm x 31.2 mm), with an automatic movement. From the diamond-set bezel to the crown, not forgetting the bracelet, everything is made of rose gold. Only the dial contrasts, with its ivory hue and sunray guilloche motif. This eminently feminine watch shows not only hours, minutes and seconds, but also the date, via a window at 6 oclock.

Kalparisma Calendar  Parmigiani Fleurier

Piaget Altiplano : CHF 18,800 or CHF 26,800 (diamond-set bezel)

This year, the Altiplano collection celebrates its 60th birthday. In honour of the occasion, Piaget has brought out a selection of new models in different colours. In keeping with their heritage, the new timepieces have the distinctive extra-thin profile and minimalist dial.

We have selected a pink Altiplano, to bring a touch of colour to the festive season. The watch comes in a polished white gold 34 mm case, and is driven by the 430P hand-wound movement, the descendant of the ultra-thin calibre 9P. The radiant pink dial gives this elegant and luminous piece a decidedly feminine allure. The slender shape of the baton indices is echoed in the hour and minute hands. The watch comes complete with matching pink alligator strap.

Altiplano  Piaget

Ulysse Nardin Classic Lady Dual Time : CHF 13,500

Thanks to a ground-breaking mechanism created by Ulysse Nardin, you no longer need to fear for your manicure. The second time zone is adjusted by simply pressing one of the two pushers between 8 and 10 oclock.

To complement the winter season, we have chosen a midnight blue model whose dial is scattered with diamonds, like snowflakes falling from the sky. This stunningly elegant watch comes in a steel 37.5 mm case, and is driven by an automatic movement with silicon escapement. As its name suggests, it displays two time zones  one on the hands, and the other in a kind of rotating bubble at 9 oclock. The date is displayed in a window at 2 oclock, and theres a small seconds register at 6 oclock.

Classic Lady Dual Time  Ulysse Nardin

Vacheron Constantin Patrimony small model : CHF 26,700

The Patrimony collection is recognisable by its minimalist style and traditional case shape. We have chosen a small and simple model that comes with an eye-catching strap.

The soft hue of the 36 mm rose gold case, the slender and discreet hands (hour, minute, seconds) and indices, plus the beige metallic dial contrast with the vivid purple alligator strap. This Geneva Hallmark certified timepiece also helps its owner to keep track of the passing days thanks to the date at 6 oclock.
Lebanon and Syria said Thursday they will reopen a border crossing closed five years ago, in another sign of the Syrian government's increasing control over its territory.

The crossing, called Al-Qaa in Lebanon and Jussiyeh in Syria, was closed in 2012 as fighting raged between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebel fighters seeking his overthrow.

Assad's regime has since reclaimed most of the territory once held by the rebels, thanks to a Russian military campaign in support of his forces and deep divisions among the rebels.

Jihadists from the Islamic State group had moved into the border area but were pushed out in offensives by regime forces in Syria and the Lebanese army and militant group Hezbollah on the other side of the frontier.

Ceremonies were held Thursday on both sides of the Al-Qaa/Jussiyeh crossing, which is set to re-open on Friday morning.

It was the only one of the five crossings between Lebanon and Syria that was permanently closed by the war.

The head of Lebanon's General Security agency, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said the re-opening of the crossing was a moment for celebration after it was closed by "terrorism that targeted the entire region".

The mainly Christian Al-Qaa area in Lebanon was targeted several times in cross-border attacks, including suicide bombings in June last year that killed five people.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Russian Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov announced on Friday that Egypt and Russia will sign in the Russian capital later today the protocols for resuming flights between Moscow and Cairo in the first half of February 2018.

Sokolov added that Cairo International Airport satisfies all the requirements for aviation security.

Flights between Russia and Egypt were halted in 2015 following the crash of a Russian passenger jet in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.

Since the crash, Egypt has been implementing tighter security measures in its airports to meet Russian demands, with the aim of restoring Russian tourism.

The Russian minister added that security at airports in Egypts Red Sea resorts need more work, adding that this will be a mission for the upcoming year.

Egypt's Minister of Aviation Sherif Fathy travelled to Moscow on Thursday to sign the protocols with his Russian counterpart.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo for the signing of the deal to construct the Dabaa nuclear power plant as well as discuss resuming flights.

The downing of the Russian flight has dealt a blow to Egypt's tourism industry, a major source of hard currency, with the number of tourists dropping by some 50 percent in the first half of 2016 year-on-year.

Russians used to make up the largest single tourist group in Egypt, contributing to about a fifth of foreign vacationers in the country as of 2015, according to official data.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Egypt and Russias transportation ministers signed in Moscow on Friday a protocol to resume flights between Cairo and Moscow for the first time since 2015, starting February 2018, Egypts aviation ministry said in a statement.

The Egyptian and Russian sides also agreed to hold meetings in April to discuss the resumption of flights from Moscow to Egyptian touristic resort cities, the ministrys statement added.

The protocol stipulates that the governments of Egypt and Russia will give the green light for airlines to resume flights by 1 February, with each airline scheduling flights according to its own commercial considerations.

Egypt's Minister of Aviation Sherif Fathy travelled to Moscow on Thursday to sign the protocols with his Russian counterpart Maxim Sokolov.

Earlier on Friday, Sokolov said that that Cairo International Airport has satisfied all the Russian requirements for aviation security.

The Russian minister added that security at airports in Egypts Red Sea resorts need more work, adding that this will be a mission for the upcoming year.

Flights between Russia and Egypt were halted in 2015 following the crash of a Russian passenger jet in Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.

Since the crash, Egypt has been implementing tighter security measures in its airports to meet Russian demands, with the aim of restoring Russian tourism.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo for the signing of the deal to construct the Dabaa nuclear power plant as well as discuss resuming flights.

The downing of the Russian flight has dealt a blow to Egypt's tourism industry, a major source of hard currency, with the number of tourists dropping by some 50 percent in the first half of 2016 year-on-year.

Russians used to make up the largest tourist group in Egypt, contributing about one-fifth of foreign vacationers in the country as of 2015, according to official data.
Russia's FSB security service said on Friday it had detained seven members of an Islamic State cell who had been planning attacks in public places, the Interfax news agency reported, citing an FSB statement.

The members of the group had been detained in St Petersburg on Dec. 13-14, the FSB said, according to Interfax.

Short link:


This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

EAST HAMPTON  Authorities arrested a 27-year-old Barbados man this week for his alleged part in a December 2015 home invasion on Route 151 in Middle Haddam.

Shane Lashley was charged with home invasion and conspiracy to commit home invasion, first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary, sixth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny on a warrant Wednesday.

During the incident, a 74-year-old man and his 72-year-old wife were asleep on the second floor when they were awakened by the barking of their dog at about 11 p.m., according to police.

That evening, the homeowner was met by two ninja-clad men, both of who were carrying knives, according to a warrant. He confronted the suspects, grabbed a mirror from one and threw it at him, the affidavit said. The two fled as the victim was getting a firearm from a safe, the report detailed.

Lashley, who had been a suspect in the case since 2015, left the country and refused to return, according a press release from East Hampton Police Sgt. Timothy Dowty. Lashley went to Barbados in December 2015, days after speaking with investigators, he said.

Immigration services in Canada stopped Lashley and detained him earlier this year and U.S. marshals delivered him to local officers, Dowty said in the release. Transportation Security Administration staff from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security helped move Lashley, who was arraigned at Middlesex Superior Court in Middletown Thursday.

He is being held on a $500,000 bond for a Jan. 8 court appearance.

Lashley is one of four suspects in the case, the release said. Two previous arrests were made and authorities are still pursuing another individual.

In mid-October 2016, Steven Maringola, 28, of 18 Maromas Road in Middletown, was charged with home invasion, conspiracy to commit home invasion, first-degree burglary and sixth-degree larceny. Maringola was convicted of first-degree trespass and sixth-degree larceny Nov. 29, according to judicial records.

That March, police arrested 33-year-old William Andre Colton of Norwich on conspiracy to commit home invasion, conspiracy to commit first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny. Colton was released on a $75,000 bond and due back in court Jan. 9.

Local police worked with investigators and attorneys at the office of the states attorney in Middlesex County, the U.S. State Department and U.S. marshals on the case.
CONCORD, N.H.  A New Hampshire judge on Friday postponed a decision on whether to dismiss a lawsuit accusing a Vermont man of killing his millionaire grandfather, and possibly his Middletown mother, for the inheritance money.

Nathan Carman has been called a suspect in the 2013 shooting death of 87-year-old real estate developer John Chakalos in Connecticut, however no one has been arrested in the case. He also has been questioned about the day his boat sank last year near Rhode Island with his mother Linda Carman on board.

She is presumed dead.

Carman, who was not in court Friday, has denied involvement in either incident.

John Chakalos was a long time resident of Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and a well-known, active member of the community. He loved the home that he and his wife Rita had built and which they shared with the surrounding community every Christmas, Boston Attorney Dan Small of Holland & Knight, who represents the Chakalos family, said in a prepared statement Dec. 6.

The groundless claims and denials contained in Nathan Carmans response filing do not reflect reality, and we are confident the legal process will recognize this, he said.

His mothers three sisters filed suit in New Hampshire in July, noting Chakalos had New Hampshire driving and boating licenses and that he voted in the state. Filing a motion known as a slayer lawsuit, the familys attorney said the sisters are trying to prevent Nathan Carman from profiting from the murder of his grandfather.

Carman wants the lawsuit dismissed, saying his grandfather wasnt a resident of New Hampshire at the time of his death.

Attorneys for the sisters also are calling for additional documents related to the case to remain sealed. They argued in court that the documents could impede the investigation and bring unwanted media attention to anyone named in them.

Judge David King said he would take the request under advisement. He didnt rule on the request to dismiss the lawsuit, saying he would give the two sides several more months to collect information before returning to update him.

The family is very happy that we are moving forward with discovery in this matter, Small told reporters. There are a lot of questions without answers and a lot of answers without justice.

John Chakalos gave generously and consistently for many decades to the local library and police and fire departments, as well as charities that cared for New Hampshire families in need, Smalls statement continued. Throughout his life, John remained an active contributor to the St. George Greek Orthodox Church where he was raised, Small said.

In July, the sisters filed a lawsuit in New Hampshire accusing Carman of killing Chakalos and Carmans mother. Theyve asked a judge to block Carman from collecting money from his grandfathers estate. Chakalos left more than $29 million to his four daughters, including Carmans mother, and $7 million of that money could go to Carman.

Small has said all the evidence points to Carman as the killer. If the family wins the lawsuit, any money that would have gone to Carman would go to investigate the deaths, Smith said.
EAST HAMPTON  A group of associated with a local nonprofit that works with retired, abused and neglected equines has found a new location to continue helping horses in need.

When volunteers at Connecticut Draft Horse Rescue got the news earlier this year they could no longer stay at the farm in Haddam Neck they had been calling home immediately began searching for other options, according to a press release from Eversource. In April, the nonprofit found a plot of land on Chestnut Hill Road in East Hampton to lease, but volunteers had to start from the ground up to get the operation up and running.

It was nothing but a hayfield and brush, CDHR volunteer Kim Weglinski said in a prepared statement. All of us came in and started clearing the land and building the fencing and paddocks. It was a lot of work that took hours and hours, but its been a labor of love.

Eversource recently supported CDHRs initiatives with a donation to help complete its goals at the new farm, the release continued.

The group is dedicated to saving the lives of draft horses that were abused, bound for slaughter or neglected, according to the press release. CDHR Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Stacey Golub, along with volunteers who care for the horses physical and mental well-being, help train and rehabilitate them. When the horses have recovered and are stable, they are put up for adoption and placed in loving homes, according to the organization.

Since its inception in 2011, CDHR has rescued and placed more than 70 horses and is now caring for 15 others.

This has really been a community effort, Golub said in the statement. It takes an entire village. We couldnt do this without our volunteers and without sponsors like Eversource. We are able to do what we do because of the support we have in the community.

Connecticut Draft Horse Rescue has such a dedicated, passionate group of volunteers who make every effort to help horses in need, Eversource Community Relations Specialist Pat Bandzes said in the release. Were committed to serving the neighborhoods where we work and live, and supporting their new endeavor in East Hampton is a great way to give back to our community.

CDHR, which is continuing fundraising efforts with a new campaign called Drive for 85, hopes to raise $85,000 for a down payment to purchase the land and eventually build a new barn. For information, visit ctdraftrescue.com.
Israeli troops shot and wounded more than 40 Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank on Friday, medical officials said, as protests over U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital entered a second week.

Near the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the West Bank, Israeli police troopers said they shot a man after he stabbed and hurt one of their unit.

Medical officials said three more Palestinians were shot and wounded in the West Bank. A further 38 were wounded on the border of the Gaza Strip, whose dominant Hamas Islamists have called for a revolt against Israel in protest against Trump's Dec. 6 decision.

The Israeli military said that about 2,500 Palestinian took part in riots in the West Bank, rolling flaming tyres and throwing firebombs and rocks at soldiers and border police. Troops took action to break up the riots, it said in a statement.

Similar scenes occurred along the border with Gaza Strip, where about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated.

Gaza has also seen almost nightly rocket launches into Israel by Palestinian militants, which have not caused casualties. An Israeli counter-strike on Gaza killed two Hamas gunmen.

Trump's announcement, reversing decades of U.S. policy which treated Jerusalem's status as a matter for Israeli-Palestinian negotiation, stirred anger across the Arab and Muslim world and concern among Washington's European allies.

Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem from Arab forces in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed it in a move not recognised internationaly.

Palestinians hope that part of the city will be the capital of a future independent state and Palestinian leaders say Trump's move is a serious blow to an already moribund peace process.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

Search Keywords:

Short link:


Hemera/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz, two cousins charged in the brutal murder of four men in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in July entered not guilty pleas during their arraignment on Thursday.



The 20-year-old men face charges of criminal homicide, abuse of corpse, robbery and conspiracy after the shooting deaths of 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro, 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, 21-year-old Tom Meo and 19-year-old Jimi Patrick, whose bodies were found buried on a Solebury, Pennsylvania, farm after a five-day search in July.



According to a press release from the Bucks County District Attorneys Office, DiNardo faces four counts of criminal homicide in the deaths of Patrick, Finocchiaro, Meo and Sturgis, while Kratz has only been charged in the deaths of Finocchiaro, Meo and Sturgis.



Both men remain imprisoned without bail. DiNardo is being held at the Bucks County Correctional Facility, while Kratz is at the Northampton County Prison.



DiNardo confessed to killing the four men as part of a plea deal in July that would allow him to avoid the death penalty. Kratz did not agree to a plea deal.



Prosecutors said that DiNardos not guilty plea on Thursday was a procedural decision that would afford him the option to stop cooperating with the investigation in order to maintain his innocence, according to Philadelphia ABC affiliate WPVI. He is still cooperating with police, WPVI said.



Bucks County District Attorney Matthew D. Weintraub filed paperwork this week reserving the right to seek the death penalty against the young men. While Weintraub maintained that he will honor the deal struck between him and DiNardo to avoid the death penalty, he said, if additional evidence is uncovered, or if he wishes to go to trial, we will be prepared and we will at that time seek the death penalty.



The initial agreement made between Weintraub and DiNardo called for the suspects admission of guilt, full cooperation in the ongoing investigation and leading authorities to the location of Patricks body, which was still missing at the time.



DiNardo faces additional felony charges of theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and illegal possession of firearms, which he was prohibited from using due to previously being involuntarily committed to a mental health treatment center.



Family members of the slain young men expressed their anguish to WPVI on Thursday.



You get angry, you get sad, you are reliving it over and over, Mark Potash, Sturgis' father, said.



The day of reckoning is coming ... and the family looks forward to that day, Finocchiaro family attorney Tom Kline said.



When asked by WPVI reporters if he had anything to say, Dinardo simply said, "I'm sorry."



The trial date for Dinardo and Kratz has yet to be confirmed, the case will be prosecuted by First Assistant District Attorney Gregg D. Shore and Deputy District Attorney Kate Kohler.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Lebanon has set a date of May 6 next year to hold its first legislative election in nearly a decade, potentially transforming the politics of a country.

Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk signed a decree setting the date on Friday, allowing the vote to go ahead at last. The election has been postponed three times since the last vote in 2009, with politicians citing security concerns, political crisis and a dispute over the election law.

Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri's coalition government, which took office a year ago, agreed on the new election law in June, but setting the date was held up while officials debated technical details and registered Lebanese citizens abroad.

Lebanon's political landscape has shifted dramatically since the last election. Hariri's pro-Western, Saudi-backed political alliance has split up. For the past year he has led a power-sharing government which includes the heavily armed, Iran-backed Shia movement Hezbollah, despised by his Saudi allies.

Hariri sparked a political crisis last month by announcing his resignation while in Riyadh and denouncing Hezbollah and Iran. He stayed abroad for two weeks before returning, and finally withdrew his resignation last week.

Lebanon has a complex electoral system designed to maintain civil peace in a country where Sunnis, Shias, Christians and Druze fought numerous civil wars since independence in 1943.

The 128-seat parliament includes 64 Christians apportioned among seven denominations, and 64 Muslims, including equal numbers of Sunnis and Shias. The country is divided into districts that each vote for multiple lawmakers according to strict religious quotas.

The president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shia Muslim, representing the three biggest groups in parliament.

The international community has repeatedly stressed the importance of Lebanon holding timely elections to restore confidence in its institutions and maintain stability.

Machnouk said Lebanese abroad would be able to vote on April 22 and 28.



Search Keywords:

Short link:


Bull's Eye, CNBC-TV18's popular game show, where market experts come together to dish out trading strategies for you to make your week more exciting and compete with each other to see whose portfolio is the strongest.

Remember these are midcap ideas not just for the day, but stocks that look attractive in the medium-term as well.

This week, Sumeet Jain, Ashish Kyal and Ruchit Jain battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Sumeet Jain of Destimoney Securities

Buy Manpasand Beverages with a stoploss at Rs 393 and target of Rs 445

Buy Natco Pharma with a stoploss at Rs 1009 and target of Rs 1080

Buy DCM Shriram with a stoploss at Rs 592 and target of Rs 634

Buy Rain Industries with a stoploss at Rs 355 and target of Rs 399

Ashish Kyal of Waves Strategy Advisors

Buy Atlanta with a stoploss at Rs 107.60 and target of Rs 119

Buy Camlin Fine Sciences with a stoploss at Rs 110.90 and target of Rs 122

Buy DCM Shriram with a stoploss at Rs 589 and target of Rs 640

Buy Prabhat Dairy with a stoploss at Rs 224 and target of Rs 245

Ruchit Jain of Angel Broking

Buy Natco Pharma with a stoploss at Rs 995 and target of Rs 1080

Buy GHCL with a stoploss at Rs 286 and target of Rs 327

Buy Jamna Auto with a stoploss at Rs 64 and target of Rs 72

Buy Agro Tech Foods with a stoploss at Rs 630 and target of Rs 725
TT Limited is on radar after the company plans to exit their spinning business. They will also install a mega garment plant as a diversification to move from spinning to garments. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Sanjay Jain, MD of the company discussed the details and outlook going ahead.

Jain said long-term debt will be paid over the next three years.

He further said that we will be getting 30-35 percent capital subsidy for setting up garment facility.

We require Rs 40-50 crore for setting up garment facility, he added.

TT will be selling causal garment range under a brand name called 'High Flyer'.
Moneycontrol Research

There has been considerable disquiet over the draft Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill. Industry chamber Assocham has also jumped into the bail-in debate on FRDI, cautioning the government that the trust in the banking system runs the risk of being eroded if the clause is not done away with.

The industry body, however, seems to be speaking in a different voice than the captains of the banking industry. In a recent banking conference, CEOs of some of the top banks in the country assured people that deposits were not threatened by the new FRDI Bill, as it was an improvement over the present system.

In fact, a report by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economic Adviser, SBI has said that the FRDI Bill will be a win-win for all.

In a report titled Some Fallacies Regarding FRDI Ghosh toes the government line saying that the FRDI Bill in India would be more depositor-friendly than many other jurisdictions around the world.

The report goes on the say that the statutory bail-in power is intended to achieve a prompt recapitalization and restructuring of the distressed firm. The bail-in strategy would help to mitigate the systemic risks associated with disorderly liquidations, reduce deleveraging pressures, and preserve asset values that might otherwise be lost in a liquidation. Ghosh says that Indias bail-in is similar to the strategies adopted by EU countries like Cyprus and Greece.

Commenting on Indias bail-in, the report says that the risk is less in the proposed bill. Currently, Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) provides deposit insurance of up to Rs 1 lakh and rest of amount is forfeited in the event of a bank failure. While the FRDI Bill has not specified the insured amount yet, it would definitely be higher than the current limit of Rs 1 lakh.

It is also likely because the amount insured has moved up from Rs 1,500 in 1962 to Rs 1 lakh in 1993 but since then there has been no change, despite a sharp rise in deposits.

Ghosh uses data on Cross Country Deposit insurance coverage limit to prove his point. The data shows that deposit insurance coverage in India is one of the lowest at USD 1,508 as compared to a per capita income of USD 1,709. The coverage of 0.9 times is much lower than 7.4 times provided in Brazil and 2.2 times in Russia.

In India, says the report, around 67 percent of all term deposits are less than Rs 1 lakh. These deposits account for 8.6 percent of all deposits. In other words, the smaller depositors will not be affected in case of a bank going under. The bulk of the deposits in value terms  around 55 percent -- are those that are held by high-value depositors in the range of Rs 15 lakh and above. In number terms, these accounts are only 1.3 percent of all term deposits.

The FRDI Bill establishes a Resolution Corporation which will monitor the financial firms such as banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, and depositories and pre-empt their failure, and resolve or liquidate them in case of failure.

During volatile times as is the present case, all financial asset classes are interlinked not only in India but globally; the bill helps address an important risk and timely intervention can help prevent the risk from spreading.

Click here for news and upcoming events for December 16
India's gems and jewellery export promotion council is working with the Dubai multi commodities centre to set up goods delivery standards for gold and diamond trade, a senior industry official said here today.

The Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) is the apex body of the gems and jewellery industry, set up by the Ministry of Commerce, and it represents about 6,000 exporters in the sector.

The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) is one of the world's largest free zones for businesses which hosts over 2,500 Indian companies, out of the 14,500 international ones.

Gold and diamond form a major part of the multi-faceted trade and commerce relationship between India and the DMCC.

"We are in constant consultation with the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and the Ministry of Commerce to help set up the good delivery standards as we have done with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) framework," CEO of DMCC, Gautam Sashittal said.

"Surat-based industry refines our diamonds while India is one of our largest gold jewellery markets. These are all the reasons for us to build ongoing business synergies with India," he added.

The DMCC also has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gujarat International Finance and Tech covering a series of regulatory, licensing and trade hosting arrangements.

"We are looking at the potential of GIFT-DMCC-based companies complimenting each other's businesses," he said referring to the free-zone based operators who enjoy tax incentives to compete in global markets.

"We could facilitate automatic licensing and vice-versa. We are looking at such models. This arrangement with GIFT is work in progress," Sashittal said, addressing the two-day global convention of India's Institute of Directors (IOD), which is being held here.

IOD's Singapore convention is a way forward for the DMCC to reach out to Indian companies and build bridges for business community, he added.
Local residents wait outside a closed ration shop with their empty containers to collect kerosene in Kolkata September 16, 2010. India's food price index rose 15.10 percent while the fuel price index climbed 11.48 percent, in the year to September 4, under a new series with different base year, components and weightings, government data on Thursday showed. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri (INDIA - Tags: BUSINESS ENERGY) - GM1E69G19DW01

The government may phase out kerosene subsidy by 2020 as the goals set under the NDA governments flagship programmes, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) and Saubhagya are set to get completed in the next two years, reports Business Standard.

Kerosene consumption has been coming down gradually, with penetration of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) reaching 95 percent of below poverty line (BPL) households under PMUY. This, coupled with 100 percent electrification of both rural and urban households by 2020 would provide the government with an opportunity to do away with subsidy by then, an official told the financial daily.

The subsidy on LPG and kerosene for the first half of FY18 was Rs 9,079 and is likely to rise further with the increase in global crude prices.

The Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) report said states like Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu, Haryana, Lakshadweep, Puducherry and Punjab saw no take off of kerosene for October. For the April to October period, consumption has fallen by 33.7 percent against last year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 1, 2016, launched the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana providing 5 crore LPG connections to BPL families with a support of Rs 1,600 per connection in the next three years.

As of now, 31.9 million consumers have been under the PMUY.
Ferrying goods across states may get quicker from next month with the GST Council set to approve on Saturday an all-India rollout of electronic-way bill from January, three months ahead of the earlier plan.

The council, headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley, will meet on Saturday via video conference to advance the implementation of e-way bill under the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

As of now six states, including Karnataka are ready for rollout of e-way bill. Some states wanted the e-way bill to be implemented soon as there is need to keep a check on consignments, a senior government official told Moneycontrol.

Under Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules, ferrying goods worth more than Rs 50,000 within or outside a state will require securing an electronic-way or e-way bill by prior online registration of the consignment.

To generate an e-way bill, the supplier and transporter will have to upload details on the GST Network portal, after which a unique e-way bill number (EBN) will be made available to the supplier, the recipient and the transporter on the common portal.

Introduction of e-way bill will enable tax authorities track inter-state and intra-state movement of goods.

Since the idea of invoice-matching has also been deferred till March 31, the Council may put in place a system that would checking the gaps in exchange of goods and services, the official said.

In a bid to catch in a bid to catch tax evasion, the concept was invoice matching was devised under the new indirect tax system, under which all taxable supplies would be matched against supplies received.

The invoice matching, has however, been deferred for few months to reduce compliance burden on taxpayers and encourage more return filing.

In the 22nd GST Council meeting in October, Jaitley had said that e-way bill will be introduced in a staggered manner, with effect from January 1, 2018, adding that the document will be made fully applicable from April 1. The provisions surrounding the bill was finalised in August.

The introduction of the e-way bill has been a contentious issue, with businesses protesting against the burden of additional paperwork and processes that would come along with it.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Syndicate Bank has emerged as the latest entrant on the Reserve Bank of India's hit list for violation of norms.

The central bank on December 12 imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 5 crore on the public sector lender for violating the Know Your Customer (KYC)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML) norms.

This comes on the heels of RBI fining private sector lender IndusInd Bank Rs 2 crore for non-compliance of asset recognition norms.

The banking regulator has exercised these powers vested with it under the provisions of the Banking Regulation Act.

"A scrutiny was conducted by RBI of certain branches of the bank in the aftermath of a fraud reported in these branches. Based on the findings of the scrutiny and examination of related documents obtained in this regard, a Notice was issued to the bank advising it to show cause as to why penalty should not be imposed for non-compliance with directions/guidelines issued by RBI," RBI said in its statement on its website.

After considering the banks reply and oral submissions made in the personal hearing, RBI came to the conclusion that the aforesaid charges of non-compliance with RBI directions/guidelines were substantiated and warranted imposition of monetary penalty, it added.

Earlier, RBI had penalised Union Bank of India Rs 2 crore for non-compliance of KYC norms.

In October, Yes Bank was fined Rs 6 crore for non-compliance of asset disclosures and security breach disclosure rules while IDFC Bank was fined Rs 2 crore not adhering to the loans and advances norms.
The solution to the buying of stressed assets does not lie in allowing tainted persons to come in but a solution lies in creating a market to arrive at a resolution, according to MS Sahoo, Chairman of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.

His comments come at a time when the government committee has sought public comments on provisions to debar existing promoters from bidding for distressed assets undergoing insolvency proceedings at various NCLTs (National Company Law Tribunals).

Many lawyers, promoters, bankers and industry professionals have said that the amendment to the bankruptcy code initiated through an ordinance in November will not only depress valuations but also shut out clean promoters who may have defaulted on loans due to adverse market conditions and business cycles.

According to Sahoo, It (the amendment) does not debate on promoters v/s non promoter. There is a debate that it will depress valuation, to which I do not agree. We are looking at a scenario where we get more bidders who are not tainted. So, the solution is not to allow tainted persons but create a market to arrive at a resolution."

The government panel has sought comments from stakeholders at a time of considerable unease on account of the recent amendment to the IBC which prohibits defaulting promoters and related entities from bidding for their assets.

Headed by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas, the committee held its first meeting on December 8.

Comments/suggestions along with brief justification may be sent through the online facility available on MCA website up to January 10, 2018. It is requested that comments/suggestions be provided through this online facility only," a government press release said.

SMEs (small and medium enterprises) will not get anyone else to come, there could be some genuine business reasons for the company to reach this stage; these things should be differentiated [sic]...Large number of assets may not get 100 percent value... Buyers' market will take time to evolve and hence existing stronger companies should get more access to the market," said Ajay Piramal, Chairman of Piramal Enterprises at a panel discussion organised by the National Stock Exchange and NYU Stern on Thursday.

However, Sahoo doesn't subscribe to that view. At the same panel he said, "I think it will, in fact, have more interested buyers...There is a moral hazard if the same promoter who has siphoned off funds is allowed to come back. He will default and then buy it at a 50 percent discount under NCLT. I don't think that kind of a rule can be permitted."

According to him, we need to create a market to make it easy for IRPs (insolvency resolution professionals) to raise interim financing and hence create value. "We are interested in a more liquid market with more participants... Creating a market is a long-term solution."

The government has also sought feedback from stakeholders to identify issues impeding the efficiency of the IBC resolution and liquidation framework.

Some industry experts say the definitions of wilful defaulter and related party in the context of the bidding process under the IBC need to be well-defined.

The ordinance is very wide; it seems to debar many people in India. Related party is very vague and everyone could be a related party. Wilful defaulter has not been properly defined and needs to be relooked at. We also need to re-think whether these debarred party will not be able to bid on one set of assets (his own) or all insolvent assets, said Renuka Sane, Associate Professor, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

Siby Antony, CEO and MD of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company, said, "Willful defaulters' ban is fine but leave the existing promoters' bidding decision to the CoC (committee of creditors). Give a chance, maybe start with negative 25 marks (on evaluation)."

Edelweiss ARC is one of the leading companies in buying distressed assets.

The ordinance issued late November bars not only wilful defaulters, but also several other categories of investors such as guarantors to the debtor, those with loans classified as non-performing assets for at least a year, those convicted for any offence with a prison term of more than two years, directors in companies that have been disqualified, entities barred by the capital markets regulator, those who have been found to have struck fraudulent transactions with the firm, and connected entities.

While the 12 accounts mentioned by the Reserve Bank of India in its first watch list have received interest from large firms and investors including foreign investors, some fear, it may be difficult for SMEs to attract quality bids.

Sahoo said the choice of keeping the existing management stays with the IRPs and I don't see a crisis in that.

"In 5-6 months, this (IBC) will bring in behavioural changes, he added.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today said steel pipes will be used for irrigation instead of canal system, a move aimed at cutting down on land acquisition costs and promoting innovations.

The transport and water resources minister, who was addressing a Moroccan delegation -- led by its Minister for Equipment, Transport, Logistics and Water Abdelkader Amara -- also said that India was keen to strengthening ties with the African nation.

"In one part of India, we have lots of water and the other faces shortages. Water conservation is important here and we are encouraging innovations and technologies. Now we have taken a decision that in place of canal system we will use steel pipes supplying water for irrigation. We are saving the cost of land acquisition," Gadkari said.

He said land acquisition has become a costly proposition here and by using steel pipes not only sufficient savings will be there but the output will be more than double.

"We are accepting lots of technologies in water resources ministry. We are encouraging drip irrigation. We are now planning for river connectivity. We will take water where we need it," Gadkari, who also holds portfolios of shipping and Ganga rejuvenation ministries, said.

He said India is also keen on strengthening ties in the areas of highways, shipping and agriculture with neighbouring nations which also include 6,000 MW Pancheshwar multi-purpose project in Nepal.

"We are in a position to provide all types of successful practices for making of DPRs (detailed project reports) and other things from professional agency. We are conducting a big dam in Afghanistan," he said.

Gadkari said Morocco is situated at a distance of barely 14 km of Europe "is really a good potential area" for projects.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already accorded highest priority to infrastructure development in the country that includes Rs 7 lakh crore Bharatmala project for highways and Rs 14 lakh crore Sagarmala project for port-led economic development in the country.

Earlier Gadkari and Moroccon delegation discussed matters relating to India-Morocco bilateral cooperation in road transport, water resources and the marine sectors.

The two countries also signed and exchanged an MoU on cooperation in the field of water resources, agreement to establish cooperation between Indian Maritime University (IMU) and Higher Institute of Maritime Studies of Morocco, a framework agreement for Cooperation in Training between the National Ports Agency of Morocco and the IMU and cooperation Framework Agreement between the Institute of Training in Engines and Road Maintenance of Morocco and Indian Academy of Highway Engineers.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd. is gearing up to launch an array of packaged milk-based beverages and frozen desserts, the Mint reported.

The Kolkata-based company that manufactures cigarettes to chocolates, will now make milk-based food and drinks at its new plant in Punjab.

Sanjiv Puri, Chief Executive Officer of ITC, told Mint the first product from the Kapurthala plant in Punjab was likely to be launched in the second or third quarter of the next financial year. However, the branding of the beverages is yet to be finalised.

According to the newspaper, the expansion into dairy products is part of ITCs move to hit the Rs 65,000-crore mark on non-cigarette packaged-food business by 2030. This will help the company achieve its Rs 1 lakh crore in revenue target.

The company's branded packaged food business, which spans across categories like staples, spices, ready-to-eat, snack foods, bakery and confectionery, among others, clocked sales of over Rs 8,000 crore last fiscal. Its total revenue for the same period was Rs 55,001.69 crore.

According to Puri, the Kapurthala plant has the logistical advantage of using Punjabs dairy supply chain. The company had started its value added dairy-product business with Aashirvaad ghee back in 2015.

Local arms of PepsiCo Inc, Coca-Cola Co., Britannia Industries and Amul are currently the top companies in the flavoured ready-to-drink milk and milk-based beverages market, and ITCs potential rivals.

Puri added that the milk-based beverages will be manufactured alongside atta, noodles, wafers, biscuits, and fruit-based beverages at the Kapurthala plant. The factory occupies 30 hectares and qualifies as the largest integrated food and manufacturing facility owned by the company. A whopping Rs 1,500 crore has gone into construction of the plant.
Gujarat elections take a center stage on Dalal Street. It was a bumper market rally on back of exit polls -- though the indices did come off the highest points of the day.

However, now all eyes are on the actual numbers that will come out on Monday and if or not they will tally with the numbers thrown by in the exit polls.

The market in the week gone by faced many variables, like Fed rate hike, crude going to USD 65/bbl and then back to USD 63/bbl, global cues, and advance tax numbers.

According to most experts, market in the near-term gas priced-in Gujarat outcome, assuming exit polls are right.

To tell us what all this means for the market going forward, CNBC-Tv18 spoke to Andrew Holland, CEO, Avendus Capital Alternate Strategies and Mitessh Thakkar of mitesshthakkar.com.

If the exit poll results for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are right then it is like a vote for Prime Minister Modi and his reforms process, particularly in Gujarat, said Holland, adding that this is what the foreign investors will take cues from -- continuation of a strong government, he added.

However, if polls are wrong then it will be a huge negative shock for the market, he said.

As of now, market seems to have priced-in the poll outcome, said Holland.

According to him, even if the real results are as the exit polls suggest then market would turn to global cues and as long as they are positive, market may test new highs.

However, market is still driven by liquidity and that is a bit nerving, he said, adding that until some trigger takes the global markets down, we will continue with this happy Goldilocks scenario and get into the Christmas spirit and market may see a reasonable run towards end of the year.

For 2018, he would remain more optimistic on earnings growth and that is what will hold markets up despite global cues that could take markets down in the short-term, said Holland.

So, for the very short-term still nervous with liquidity driven market but medium-term more enthused by global growth in world and earnings growth in India, he said.

Going forward, maybe the market may face few more difficult weeks like the current one until we get the catalyst, which fundamentally moves the market higher and that has to be earnings growth, said Holland.

He said as of now, the house is 45-50 percent hedged.

Next year if the government as promised were to spend more on rural and infrastructure then it would be good catalyst for economy. It is likely that earnings could growth around 15 percent, said Holland.

The house would continue to stick to their strategy of playing private banks, FMCG and affordable housing along with selective autos and auto component players, he said.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the end of a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (PTI)

Palestinian Hamas supporters attend a rally marking the 30th anniversary of Hamas movement in the West Bank City of Nablus. (AP/PTI)

President Ram Nath Kovind and Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik during the seventh convocation ceremony at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow on Friday. (PTI)

Outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi pays tributes to Congress leader, the late Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who passed away recently, in New Delhi on Friday. (PTI)

A Rohingya refugee child is given food supplies during distribution at the Balukhali refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (Reuters)

A worker sprays insecticide for mosquitos at a village in Bangkok, Thailand. (Reuters)

Buildings are seen as fog blankets the city of Skopje, Macedonia. (Reuters)

A participant burns an Israeli flag mockup during a protest to condemn Washington's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Reuters)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the media on the first day of the winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi. (PTI)

A boy and a woman are wrapped in a shawl as they sit at a bus terminal on a cold winter morning in New Delhi. (Reuters)

People warm themselves around a fire along a roadside on a cold winter morning in Mumbai. (Reuters)

Firefighters continue to battle the Thomas fire, a wildfire near Fillmore, California. (Reuters)

Emergency personnel salute as a procession of firefighting vehicles passes through Santa Paula, while carrying the body of a fellow firefighter who was killed today battling the Thomas wildfire near Fillmore, California. (Reuters)

Protesters pull down a scaffold to build a barricade during clashes with police outside the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Reuters)

Soldiers participate in a drill during the joint military exercise Ajeya Warrior- 2017 of India and the UK at Mahajan Field Firing range in Bikaner. (PTI)

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling on the Vice President, M. Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi. (PTI)

Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi at the valedictory rally of the Padayorukkam march led by Ramesh Chennithala, LoP & Chairman UDF, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. (PTI)

Soldiers participate in a drill during the joint military exercise Ajeya Warrior- 2017 of India and the UK at Mahajan Field Firing range in Bikaner. (PTI)

Opposition leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Anand Sharma Tariq Anwar and Jyotiraditya Scindia talking to media after an all-party meeting on the eve of the commencement of the winter session of Parliament. (PTI)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar and other leaders after an all-party meeting on the eve of the commencement of the winter session of Parliament, in New Delhi. (PTI)

Soldiers participate in a drill during the joint military exercise Ajeya Warrior- 2017 of India and the UK at Mahajan Field Firing range in Bikaner, Rajasthan. (PTI)
From January 1 next year, you will not be charged fees on debit card transactions up to Rs 2,000 for at least two years.

In an effort to boost digital payments, the Union Cabinet has decided to waive the merchant discount rate (MDR) applicable on all debit cards, BHIM and UPI transactions up to Rs 2,000. The government will reimburse the same to the banks for a period of two years, starting January 1, 2018.

Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card/BHIM UPI/ AePS transactions up to and including a value of Rs 2000 will be borne by government for 2 years with effect from 1 January, 2018 by reimbursing same to the banks, the Cabinet decided on Friday.

"It is estimated that the MDR to be reimbursed to the banks in respect of transactions less than Rs 2,000 in value would be Rs.1,050 crore in FY 2018-19 and Rs.1,462 crore in FY 2019-20," the government release said.

As a result of this approval, for all transactions less than Rs 2000 in value, the consumer and the merchant will not suffer any additional burden in the form of MDR thereby leading to greater adoption of digital payment modes for such transactions. Since such transactions account for sizeable percentage of transaction volume, it will help to move towards a less cash economy.

A committee comprising Secretary Department of Financial Services, Secretary Ministry of Electronics & IT and the CEO, National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), will look into the industry cost structure of such transactions which will form the basis to determine the levels of reimbursement.

MDR is the rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services when payment is made at a merchant point of sale (PoS). In most cases, the charge is passed on to the customer by the merchant, saying that it eats into his margin.

Citing this, many people make cash payments despite having debit cards. Similarly, MDR is charged on payments made to merchants through BHIM UPI platform and AePS.

In order to promote digital payments, the Reserve Bank of India has earlier come out with differentiated merchant discount rates (MDR) for debit card transactions, prescribing separate caps for small and large traders.

Also Read: Debit card transactions to cost lower for customers, but digital players want more from RBI

As per the latest RBI notification, MDR charges for small merchants with an annual turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh has been fixed at 0.40 percent with a cap of Rs 200 per transaction by debit cards through Point of Sale (PoS) machines or online transactions.

For merchants with turnover of over Rs 20 lakh, the MDR cap will be 0.9 percent or Rs 1,000 per transaction, whichever is lower.

Similarly, for accepting QR (quick response) code based acceptance infrastructure, the MDR will be 10 basis points lower across both merchant categories.

# For small businesses, the MDR cap at QR code based infrastructure would stand at 0.3 percent or Rs 200 per transaction, whichever is lower.

# For other merchants, the MDR cap at QR code based infrastructure will be 0.8 percent or Rs 1,000 per transaction, whichever is lower.

However, most players had been unhappy with the RBI move.

A report by Kotak institutional equities had said, MDR reduction: marginally negative for acquirers. The RBIs move to reduce merchant discount rates (MDR) for debit card transactions for smaller merchants and QR-code based transactions will likely bode well for broad-based and asset-light adoption of cashless modes of transactions in the medium-term. However, volume is unlikely to make up for the shortfall in reduction of fees in the short term and hence, the near-term impact would be marginally negative for a few players like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI (State Bank of India). Debit card fee is a small but a key area of growth for most of these.

In a tweet, Amrish Rau, CEO of PayU, said: RBI has tinkered with Debit charges again. The problem is NOT MDR. Capping of Bank Interchange fees will provide big boost to digital payments.

Interchange fee is a part of the MDR which is charged by the Issuing bank (0.5-0.75 percent), Acquirer (0.5-0.25 percent) which is also shared by the payment provider such as Rupay, Visa and Mastercard.

Debit card usage volume has tripled to 2.4 billion transactions in 2016-17 from around 800 million in 2014-15. The value of these transactions rose to Rs 3.3 lakh crore from Rs 1.2 lakh crore.

RBI data shows that debit and credit card payments at PoS terminals have increased from Rs 35,240 crore in November 2016, compared to Rs 47,980 crore in November 2017.

The UPI and BharatQR have different MDR, so it will be a challenge for card networks and the NPCI (National payments Corporation of India) to sort out where the transaction is originating and charge merchants accordingly. On the UPI, merchants are charged a merchant discount rate (MDR) of 0.25 percent for payments below Rs 1,000 and 0.65 percent for all other charges.
Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals & Fertiliser | Promoter entities Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation, Twinshield Consultants and South India Travels to sell 1,05,72,513 equity shares of the company via offer for sale on November 3-4. (Image: Reuters)

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals Corporation shares gained 4 percent intraday Friday after the arbitration tribunal has rejected GAIL's claim of Rs 357 crore against the company.

The Gas Authority of India (GAIL) had claimed the amount in respect of supply of domestic natural gas for period July 2006-May 2014, alleging usage for manufacture of products other than urea.

While clarifying its stance, Deepak Fertilizers said as per two contracts entered into 2006 and 2010 between the company and GAIL, the purchase of gas was contractually and clearly intended, supplied and utilised for industrial applications.

It further said as per industrial license, utilisation of gas since the company's inception was for its integrated NPK fertiliser complex. The company was never engaged in the manufacture of urea despite which the dispute was referred to arbitration, it added.

Accepting the company's stand, the Arbitration Tribunal had earlier rejected the claim under 2006 contract amounting to Rs 244 crore.

"The final award in the arbitration proceedings is received now and the entire claim of Rs 357 crore by GAIL is rejected for want of merits, besides being time barred," Deepak Fertilizers said.

At 14:26 hours IST, the stock price was quoting at Rs 398.00, up Rs 10.60, or 2.74 percent on the BSE.
live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Voltas gained over 4 percent intraday on Friday as Jefferies maintained a buy rating with a target of Rs 660.

The brokerage house said the third quarter of FY18 is likely to see 10-15 percent growth.

Dealers indicated trends should normalize post January 2018. Further, products with new energy rating changes could normalize the trend, it said.

It expects 25% YoY profit growth for Voltas in Q3FY18. Any near-term stock price weakness should be a buying opportunity, the report added.

At 15:24 hrs Voltas was quoting at Rs 630.25, up Rs 13.45, or 2.18 percent. It touched an intraday high of Rs 642.60 and an intraday low of Rs 621.40.

The stock had fallen earlier this month on the back of a downbeat outlook by a brokerage.
Tapan Singhel

In a country with severe insurance gap, under-insurance is a faceless behemoth. To the uninitiated, a general insurance policy offers protection to your assets such as health, motor vehicles, property etc. against impending losses. The cover is provided against the sum insured declared, at the time of policy issuance, chosen by the insured, which is the maximum liability to be incurred by the insurance company in the event of a total loss.

As insurance is a legal contract, the insured is expected to insure his assets for their full value and pay premium on that. If in the event of a claim it is found that the asset has not been insured for its full value, the amount of loss payable is proportionately reduced. This is called the Condition of Average, or under-insurance as it is popularly known.

According to this condition, if the sum insured at the time of loss is less than the actual value of the asset, insurers are liable to pay only the proportionate loss that the sum insured bears to the actual value.

Stating the problem

While Indias current insurance penetration rate stands at 3.42 percent, far below the global average of 6.2 percent, the issue is not limited to penetration, but also extends to people who usually do not end up buying appropriate amount of insurance. Lets take the example of a health insurance policy. With the rising medical costs, an average trip to the hospital will amount to a few thousands grands, but, in case of a critical illness, the bills usually run into lakhs of rupees.

With an average sum insured of Rs 3 lakh, a customer when faced with such a situation is highly underinsured. Similarly, take the case of a home insurance. While it takes years of savings to build a home, a small mishap can gut it down, or it can be washed away in a flood, or ruined by an earthquake. With just 1 percent home insurance penetration in India, the insurance gap is simply appalling. And those who have or want an insurance protection need to be educated on the benefits of availing an Agreed Value Policy rather than one based solely upon the cost of construction of the house. If the sum insured declared is not sufficient enough, and doesnt take into account the depreciation/ appreciation of the property, significant underinsurance may be applicable during the time of a claims scenario.

Insurance penetration amongst the educated urban class is on the rise, but, majority of the people belonging to the lower income groups are largely unaware of this financial protection tool and its benefits. These people at the bottom of the economic pyramid who encompass majority of the population remain uninsured. This segment suffers the most at the time of floods when their homes are wiped off and they are left stranded due to lack of home insurance or a when a family member falls sick they end up having to spend their lifes savings, sell their jewellery or keep their homes on mortgage to get the treatment due to lack of health insurance. A lack of financial literacy, further leads them into not selecting an appropriate cover for themselves, leaving them open to the risk of underinsurance.

Possible Remedies

Underinsurance predominantly stems due to lack of understanding. People fail to realize that the cost involved in the purchase of the right insurance is far lesser than bearing the repercussions of not having the adequate insurance in the long run.

You may be cost cutting in various areas to save some money, but that shouldnt be the approach while buying insurance. Being underinsured is as bad as being uninsured. In a bid to reduce the insurance premium people fail to realize that they will have to shell out money out of their pocket at the time of claim since their insurance policy doesnt provide them sufficient cover. They tend to neglect their requirements while buying and customizing insurance according to their needs, and very little time is spent on buying a policy.

The approach and perception of people towards insurance needs to change. It needs to be perceived as an investment that secures you towards any unforeseen and unfortunate event, and not just as a tax saving tool. Customers often feel that if they dont claim, they get no returns for the premium they have paid so far. Rather than considering it as a passive investment, insurance should be considered as greater contribution towards the society, wherein many pool in to pay for the few in distress. Thus, it not just helps others but also secures your future in the time of need. Think of it as community protection.

Public Private Partnerships in Insurance

A mass transition in attitude towards the possible benefits of insurance can be bought only through awareness created and implemented by the joint efforts of both the Government and the insurance companies. While the Government is focusing on providing affordable housing and housing for all, it should also introduce an index based scheme for home insurance in synergy with insurers to protect homes of people against natural catastrophes. A pre-decided amount of rainfall in a flood prone area or an earthquake of a certain magnitude in the earthquake prone parts of the country, if crossed, could trigger the property damage claim making the insurance company liable to pay.

It should also make health insurance mandatory for employers, both in organized and unorganized sector. Currently, we have an Employees State Insurance scheme for the organized sector however it remains limited to a certain segment of employees. Besides, a national health scheme by the government in line with the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) especially for those from the underprivileged sections of the society would ensure that a sizeable population is covered against unforeseen medical exigencies. With a few states implementing such mass schemes for their BPL population, general insurers also need to brace up with technology backed solutions to reach out to the remotest corners of the country. Effective distribution strategies and easy to understand products will help the country bridge its insurance gap.

A word with the Consumer

While the government and insurance companies do their best to get you a financial protection through insurance, make sure to always check for the adequacy of the sum insured. Often, the root cause to under-insurance is cited as the insured being unaware of the policy terms and conditions. Ironically, these are the same terms and conditions that are always mentioned on the face of the policy wordings as regulated by the IRDAI, casually ignored by the policy holders. In the internet era, where information is just a click away, understanding what your insurance policy covers or does not cover is not an elephantine task.

With insurance companies just a phone call away, clarifications and endorsements are easy, albeit you take adequate steps in this direction. When your financial protection costs you no more than a cup of coffee every day, make sure you use it to its maximum potential. An educated customer, shall always be an insurers best customer.
A 32-year-old man, who allegedly duped people by luring them into investing in a newly-launched cryptocurrency, "Kashhcoin", was arrested by Delhi Police's Crime Branch, police said on Thursday.

Narender alias Sonu Dahiya, hailing from Sonipat in Haryana, was arrested from Rithala on Wednesday following a tip- off, they added.

Arun Kumar approached police with a complaint alleging that he was cheated to the tune of Rs 13.90 lakh by a gang, the police said.

He told police that they lured him into investing in 'Kashhcoin'. The coins were initially launched at a rate of Rs 3.50 per coin and the victim was promised that he would earn a huge profit, they added.

Explainer: What is bitcoin and how does it work?

During the investigation, some more complainants were received.

Under the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India, cryptocurrencies are not legal in India, the police said. RBI has repeatedly warned investors against them.

The investigators found that the accused organised lavish seminars in different places including Nepal, Mumbai, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Raipur and Nagpur for business promotion, said Alok Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).

At these seminars, they would lure people into investing in this coin for earning high profits by claiming that the rate of this coin will cross the cost of 'Bitcoin'. They used to invite eminent personalities to those seminars to attract more and more people, said the officer.

The videos of these seminars were even uploaded on Youtube which aided the police in their probe, the police said.

Raids were conducted in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
Representative Image Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Union Cabinet has approved a Rs 2,600 crore special package for the leather and footwear sector, which the government believes has the potential to generate 3.24 lakh jobs in three years.

In October, the appreciation in the value of the rupee against major currencies, weak consumer sentiment in the European Union (EU) and a significant drop in the value of the British pound (GBP) had hit footwear exporters hard, according to an ICRA report.

On the domestic front, while the Indian footwear industry has historically recorded a healthy growth driven by increasing footwear demand and average selling price (ASP), growth slowed down in FY16 and FY17 due to a moderation in consumer sentiments, the report said.

Earlier, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had sought a package of Rs 4,000 crore from the Finance Ministry to support the leather and footwear industry.

"We have floated a revised policy. ILDP (Indian Leather Development Programme) ended with 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017). Now every plan is being continued for three years. We have projected some expenses up to 2020. At this stage, we are projecting an amount of Rs 4000 crore," a senior government official had told Moneycontrol in May.

In his Union Budget speech earlier this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that a special scheme for creating employment in the leather and footwear industries will be launched, along the lines of the Rs 6,000 crore package that was announced for the textile sector last year.

The scheme is expected to boost exports, generate employment and make the leather and footwear industry competitive globally.
India ranks second among the regions where the income inequality is most widespread. Moreover, 55 percent of the India's income is earned by top 10 percent of the people, a report by World Wealth and Income Database said.

Another BRICS nation, Brazil, shares the spot with India. Only Middle East where 61 percent of the wealth is in the hands of 10 percent the people in the region ranks above India and Brazil.

Europe is one of the least unequal regions with around one-third of its income concentrated in 10 percent of the population. China, where 41 percent of its wealth is owned by 10 percent of its people, follows Europe.

The report says that the income inequality in the country has grown rapidly since 1980s. In 1982, the share of top one percent population in the national income was just 6.1 percent which by 2013 has reached to 21.7 percent.

In the same amount of time, the middle 40 percent populations share in the national income dropped to 30 percent from a high of 46 percent. Similarly, the share of bottom 50 percent dropped to 15 percent of the national wealth in 2013 from 24 percent in 1982.

The average income of Indians also saw a steep but relatively gradual increase in the same time period. In 1982, the average yearly income was Rs 313,209 which has now risen to Rs 3 million at market exchange rates, the report says (see note at the bottom).

The poorest half of the global population has seen its income grow significantly thanks to high growth in Asia (particularly in China and India). However, because of high and rising inequality within countries, the top one percent richest individuals in the world captured twice as much growth as the bottom 50 percent individuals since 1980, reads the report.

The public capital, i.e., the wealth of governments has gone down while the same in private ownership has gone up across the world.

Also Read: Wealth managers of the super-rich deliver best returns in Asia-Pacific

Since 1980, very large transfers of public to private wealth occurred in nearly all countries, whether rich or emerging. While national wealth has substantially increased, public wealth is now negative or close to zero in rich countries. Arguably this limits the ability of governments to tackle inequality; and certainly, it has important implications for wealth inequality among individuals, the report says.

The report adds that the scenario is not going to change much in coming decades as well. The rich are going to get richer while the poorer are going to get poorer.

Note: The income figure given by this report differs drastically from World Banks data. The per capita income at market exchange rates of India in 2013 was USD 1,401, i.e., Rs 84,078, according to World Bank. Point to keep in mind is that both, World Bank and World Wealth and Income Database, have reached at the figures using different methodologies.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi government on Wednesday took decisions to tighten noose against unruly private hospitals and schools in the city. Committees for both will look into complaints of inflated fees charged by them.

The Fee Anomaly Committees which will be constituted in all districts will receive complaints from aggrieved parents who have suffered from arbitrary fee hikes by private unaided schools in Delhi.

The government directed all deputy directors of education to make sure that the panels are effective in all seven districts, reported The Hindu. The panel will have 90 days to take action on the complaints.

The decision has been taken after Duggal committee, formed on the orders of the Delhi High Court, submitted its recommendations.

Any parent or guardian aggrieved by the amount of fees or any other charge being levied by the school may register a complaint with the fee anomaly committee of the respective district with a processing fees of Rs 100, the report quoted an official.

All unaided schools have been asked to cooperate with the committees and furnish documents whenever required.

The AAP-led government also constituted a nine-member panel which will formulate norms for capping the profit margin of private hospitals in Delhi, reported Hindustan Times.

The committee headed by director general of health services of Delhi will work to establish norms which would regulate the maximum profit hospitals can make on the sale of medicines and investigations. The committee will also set behavioural protocols for hospital staffs.

The committee has been asked to submit its report by the end of this month.

Lately, there has been a series of allegations against Delhi-NCRs private hospitals of overcharging and negligence.

The Delhi government had cancelled the license of Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh in the wake of negligence in treatment. The doctors at the hospital had declared a newborn dead despite that the baby was alive.

Earlier, Fortis Hospital was accused of charging Rs 16 lakh for 15-day treatment of a 7-year-old child. Incidentally, the child could not be saved.

However, the hospital had argued that the charges were justifiable.
Eminent scientists said the country should draw an effective strategy in the next three years to control the menace of Invasive Alien Species (IAS), a potential threat to biodiversity.

The view emerged at a two-day national conference attended by scientists and experts from across the country who assessed the current status of the IAS and its effect on biodiversity.

The IAS are plants, animals or organisms which are introduced to regions outside their native ecosystems and which may cause ecological or economic harm, or adversely affect human health.

The conference was inaugurated by Joint Secretary Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Manju Pandey and was jointly organised by the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).

In the meeting, the impact of biological invasion on ecosystems, and the development of a national strategy on IAS management would be discussed besides its impact on food-web by altering the prey and predator ratio.

"By 2020, we (India) have to come out with a strategy on how to control the IAS. Some are dangerous and some are not dangerous. But the looming threat of invasive species is there not only for India but for the entire world," Botanical Survey of India (BSI) Additional Director PV Prasanna said.

Incidentally, India had signed an agreement giving its nod to implement the Aichi Biodiversity Targets to be achieved by the end of this decade.

"The agreement says that by 2020, all invasive alien species and their pathways are to be identified. Priority species are to be controlled and eradicated and measures are to be put in place to manage pathways to prevent their introduction and establishment," ZSI director Kailash Chandra said.

"The IAS is second largest threat to biodiversity in the world. We have to control the invasive species and prevent them from entering the country. This will wreak havoc if not controlled. Science along with management coupled with legal backing can help to control it. The entire world is looking into it and India has to take the lead," he said.

He said there are four biodiversity hotspots in India with around 47,000 species of plants and more than 1.6 lakh species of animals.

"Invasive alien species is the second most serious problem after global warming. There are many species of which we have no idea about their transportation and transmission. Some exotic species are also transported from one country to another country," Chandra said.

When asked whether globalisation was another reason behind it, the ZSI director told PTI on the sidelines "It's one of the major reason behind invasive alien species. E- commerce has advanced in a big way. Even these days insects are transported from one continent to another through courier services."

Around 157 invasive alien species of fauna were recorded and out of which 99 per cent were from the marine area, Chandra said adding that coral reef ecosystems in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Goa and Karnataka were under threat.

Pointing out the significance of taxonomy in identifying and managing the IAS, CR Babu, Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, University of Delhi, stressed on the utilisation and sustainable use of the present resources.
Muslims attend prayers during Jumat-ul-Vida or the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at Jama Masjid in the old quarters of Delhi, India, July 1, 2016. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton - SR1EC710TCV1S

The historic Jama Masjid in Old Delhi is in urgent need for repair as per the custodians of the historic mosque. The 17th century mosques condition is getting so bad that the chief cleric of the mosque has reportedly asked for intervention from the Prime Minister to salvage the situation.

The mosque which is in the centre of Shahjahanabad is showing signs of deterioration on both internal and external areas, said a report by Hindustan Times. Built by Shahjahan and originally named as Masjid-i Jahan Numa, the mosque attracts thousands of visitors every day. But the gradual aging of the structure whose construction began in 1648, along with the erosion caused by rampant water seepage is playing a role in the present crisis.

While the sandstone and plaster on the walls are getting peeled off, damages are also being discovered on the carvings in the parapet of the structure.

However, the biggest concern is the deterioration that is seen on the domes of the mosque where cracks have now started to appear. White marks are reportedly visible on the central dome of the prayer hall, while cracks also come into notice on the adjoining smaller domes.

Though the responsibility for the management and protection of the mosque lies with the Delhi Waqf board, the officials within the board have claimed that they lack funds to carry out the repairs.

And with the very survival of the mosque at stake, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the chief cleric of the mosque has said that he has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his help and has appealed for assistance from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). I specifically told both the PMs office and the ASI that lack of maintenance was resulting in permanent damage. In particular, the main prayer chamber and three domes require instant restoration, he was quoted saying in the report.

ASI, which had carried out repair works on the mosque a decade ago, has however claimed that they have not been notified about any serious damage on the structure. An estimate has been prepared for the restoration of its flooring. The tendering process is going on, the ASI will soon start work at Jama Masjid. As the mosque is not an ASI-protected monument, the responsibility of its regular monitoring and maintenance is not with us, the spokesperson from ASI said in the report.
New Delhi: A view of Parliament in New Delhi on Sunday, a day ahead of the monsoon session. PTI Photo by Kamal Singh (PTI7_16_2017_000213B)

The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Friday decided to take a tough stand against the Opposition in Parliament after the Congress and other parties stalled the Rajya Sabha demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks against former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

At a meeting of top NDA leaders, Modi asked the ruling alliance to strongly push the government's legislative agenda in the Winter Session of Parliament, sources said.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that instead of attacking the prime minister, the Congress should apologise for the meeting held between its leaders, including Manmohan Singh, and Pakistani officials without informing the government.

His remarks indicating a counter-offensive by the NDA in Parliament came after the Rajya Sabha was adjourned till Monday following the opposition's protests over Modi's remarks at a Gujarat election rally in which the prime minister had accused Singh of colluding with Pakistan to influence the state polls.

"Rather than demanding apology from Prime Minister, they (opposition) should apologise for what they have done.... Without informing the government their leaders met Pakistani officials," Kumar said.

NDA sources said Modi referred to India's progress on a host of issues, including its jump in the ease of doing business ratings and reform measures like the GST, to underline his government's "able" handling of economy.

A leader, who attended the meeting, said the prime minister also pointed out the government's legislative agenda for the Winter Session and asked them to work together for pushing it in Parliament.

The Prime Minister cited various important legislations listed in the session including a bill to to grant the constitutional status to National Commission on Backward Classes (NCBC) and muslim women protection of rights on marriage bill, and asked the leaders to ensure their passage in the session.

Modi also asked them to ensure presence of ruling alliance members in both the Houses.

Earlier speaking in the BJP's parliamentary party executive meeting also, the prime minister stressed on maximum attendance of the MPs in both the houses, BJP MP Sharad Tripathi, who was present in the meeting, said.

Modi also emphasised that people should be made aware of the rates of the consumer goods which have come down following the reduction in GST rates, Tripathi added.

The prime minister also spoke about the law enacted by his government that raised the maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks.

He noted that Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, had praised the progressive law in her comments during her visit to India and said that even many developed countries do not have such a legislation.
Police in Rajasthan have detained five people for publishing posts on social media supporting Shambulal Raigar, the man behind the murder of Mohammad Afrazul - a migrant labourer from Bengal in Rajsamand district for alleged Love Jihad. The move comes as part of the departments serious efforts to ensure that the law and order situation remains normal in the state following the shocking murder.

As per a report in India Today, two people were arrested for creating nuisance and disturbing communal harmony under the IPC and Information Technology Act. The police have also frozen at least one bank account belonging to Raigars wife after its details were put on social media to seek financial assistance leading to the deposit of around Rs 3 lakh. Earlier the police remand of Raigar, who left the country in shock by posting a video him murdering Afrazul, was extended for 10 days from existing three days on 10th December.

DGP OP Gahlotra had applauded the district police for nabbing Raigar in such a short period and assured that no such incidences will happen in the future. "I have been sent here by the Chief Minister. To assure the community that she is with them. From the Government's side, an assistance amount of Rs 5 lakh has been given to the victim family. I have inspected the place of incident here. Have also supervised the investigation that is underway," he was quoted as saying in the report.

The incident, however, has led to a rise of tension in the already sensitive and communally polarised state which has been in the news for recurring instances of mob lynching led by the cow vigilantes. A large number of people had gathered at Udaipur on Thursday and marched in support of Raigar who had claimed in a video that he hacked and burned Mohammad Afrazul to death for allegedly committing Love Jihad.

The situation is particularly tense in Rajsamand and Udaipur district. The ensuing violence by those opposing his arrest led to injuries to many people including a dozen police personnel. Even strict measures including the suspension of internet services, strong police presence and arrests of around 175 miscreants have failed to restore peace in the region.
Verizon India is said to have handed out pink slip to about 1,200 employees based out of Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad offices following a restructuring in India, according to a report published in Financial Express.

The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Verizon Communication and has over 7,000 employees in India.

The affected employees through Forum for IT Employees (FITE) reportedly approached the labour departments of Telangana and Tamil Nadu to clarify the present condition and the problems faced by them.

As Verizon consolidates its strategy so we can scale, compete and continue to be successful, Verizons IT, including Verizon Data Services India, is transforming into an engineering-centric, technology organization. The transformation entails rationalization of roles which has an impact on headcount," Verizon spokesperson told the financial daily.

An employee who has worked with the company for six years at its Hyderabad campus told The News Minute, "a member of the HR team summoned me to their office and told me to clear my desk and take everything along". He further alleged "the HR simply said they were going to fire me. So, I had to either sign documents saying I resign or they will forcefully terminate me".

When protested "the bouncers pushed me back into my chair and held me by my shoulders till I signed the document. It was an awful experience and I can't begin to tell how demeaning it was," said the employee.

Most of the retrenched employees were in band 3 to band 7 and were forced to resign.
Terming the FRDI Bill as "draconian", the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday said it will oppose it tooth and nail in the Parliament and launch a massive campaign against it in the state.

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has already written to the Centre opposing the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI Bill and demanded its withdrawal.

"The FRDI Bill is a draconian bill. It is a black law. The TMC will hit the streets against the bill. We will also oppose it on the floor of the Parliament. We will keep opposing until and unless it is withdrawn. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already written a letter to the Centre opposing it," TMC secretary-general Partha Chatterjee told reporters after the party's core committee meeting on Friday.

The decision was taken at the party's extended core committee meeting chaired by Banerjee.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the government is working to protect the interest of bank customers and their deposits, in a bid to scotch rumours regarding the proposed Bill.

Industry body Assocham has also said that experts felt the "bail-in" clause in the draft FRDI Bill, 2017 can potentially harm deposits in savings accounts.

The FRDI Bill proposes to create a framework for overseeing financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies, non-banking financial services companies and stock exchanges in case of insolvency.

The Resolution Corporation, proposed in the draft bill, would look after the process and prevent the banks from going bankrupt. It would do this by "writing down of the liabilities", a phrase some have interpreted as a "bail-in".

The draft bill empowers Resolution Corporation to cancel the liability of a failing bank or convert the nature of the liability.

Apart from the FRDI bill, the party leadership has asked all its MPs to raise its voice against the "anti-people policies" of the Centre in the Parliament.

In the meeting, Banerjee also formed a new core committee of party MPs which will decide on the issue of coordination with other opposition parties to decide on the TMC's role in the Parliament on various issues.

"But this core committee of MPs has not been authorized to take any decision on its own. It would take all the decisions including party's tactical line in the Parliament after discussion with party chairperson Mamata Banerjee," a party leader said, on condition of anonymity.

TMC MP in Lok Sabha Sudip Bandopadhyay, Saugata Roy, Dinesh Trivedi and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O' Brien are the members of the newly formed core committee of MPs.
Amazon extended an olive branch to Google as it decided to relist the Apple TV and Chromecast on its retail website. The e-commerce giant had removed these products from its website citing confusion for customers who might expect its Prime Video service to be available on devices sold by Amazon.

Amazon listed three Apple products and two Google products on its retail site  Google Chromecast, Google Chromecast Ultra, Apple TV - 32GB (4th Generation), Apple TV 4K - 32GB and Apple TV 4K - 64GB. However, all these products are yet to be available for booking. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock, the retail pages say.

Google, in response to delisting, had said it would block its video streaming application YouTube from two Amazon.com Inc. devices and criticised the online retailer for not selling Google hardware.

"Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make (its) Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of (our sister company) Nest's latest products, Google said in a statement.

"Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV," Google said. "We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon."

The ploy by Google definitely seems to have worked as Amazon had to rollback its decision.

Amazon had kicked the Chromecast, Google's television player, off its retail website in 2015, along with Apple Inc's TV player. Amazon had explained the move by saying it wanted to avoid confusing customers who might expect its Prime Video service to be available on devices sold by Amazon.

Amazon and Apple mended ties earlier this year when it was announced Prime Video would come to Apple TV. Not so with Google.

The search giant is yet to respond to the Amazons gesture. For now, YouTubes rollback from Amazon devices stands.
Auto

Earlier this week, Hyundai Motor India dispatched the 100th thousand car this year from its state of the art manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Spread over 530 acres, the facility at Sriperumbudur is one of the largest for Hyundai in the world, employing nearly 10,000 high-skilled workers. In early 2018, the Seoul-based car maker will complete 20 years in the country. Since 1997, the company has exported over 2.75 million cars to 120 countries. But still it may not be 'Indian' enough in the eyes of certain sections of the government.

A few months ago, the Department of Heavy Industries formed a high-powered group of companies to deliberate on measures to make India not only a manufacturing hub for automakers, but also a design and an engineering hub. The group included senior officials from the PMO, DIPP and Roads Ministry apart from the top brass of Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, Hero MotoCorp and Force Motors.

But Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor, which together account for almost 70 per cent of the total cars sold in the country, along with Renault, Nissan and Honda, were left out of these deliberations. Nor was any representation from the industry body SIAM allowed on the panel. This was not an oversight.

According to sources, a section of the government feels that foreign automakers are using India merely as a low-end manufacturing hub. The high-value areas of design and engineering was done by the headquarters and India paid a heavy royalty and engineering fee as compensation for using their technology. This needs to change, a top government official who was one of the key architects of this panel, said strictly on the condition of anonymity. He said that designing in India would also have a multiplier effect on jobs. According to the official, one job in design house created an additional 30 jobs or 1:30 where as in manufacturing, the multiplier effect was at best 1:3. He said the panel was formed to suggest measures to correct this, agree upon rules for tightening royalty and give recommendations to spur research and development in India.

Suzuki has been in India for over 30 years and all their platforms have been designed in Japan. Not a single platform has been made in India. For all these years, Maruti has been paying royalty, engineering fee and shareholder dividends to the parent, thereby leading to steady outflow of funds, the official said.

To press his point, the official said that while Maruti pays a royalty of around 6 per cent on the WagonR, Suzuki's China subsidiary pays only 1.5 per cent. Maruti Suzuki did not wish to comment on the story. The official said two options were being considered: Either bringing back the cap on royalty, which was removed as recently as 2009 or seek commitments from foreign OEMs to gradually bring down the royalty payments. The final decision on this is still awaited.

Not only the government but even certain Indian companies are rankled by this. Former president of SIAM and CEO of India's second largest commercial vehicle player, Ashok Leylands Vinod Dasari backs the governments view.

I dont think there is any country in the world where there is no cap on royalty, Dasari said. According to him, 80 per cent of the vehicles sold in India are designed in just four countries: Japan, South Korea, Germany and the US. He said if India can follow global norms on emission standards, why can't it frame global norms on transfer pricing and royalty.

Though the auto industry largely welcomed the intent of the government to make India a design hub for the world, its approach has dimayed many. Some are also seeing this as an attempt to create a new 'Bombay Club' - the infamous group of Indian firms that lobbied with government for protection against foreign competition soon after India opened its economy.

A CEO of a prominent Indian auto company was enraged by the development. Bunch of whining losers. When the going gets tough, the weak go to the government, he said. Another top executive of one of the largest auto companies who was left out of the panel said, This development has created a sense of mistrust within the industry. This also raises questions over the viability of SIAM in the long-run.

He was referring to how SIAM has more overseas auto companies on its rolls than Indian ones. We need to ask whether SIAM will be able to represent the interests of the entire industry when only a handful of companies are influencing policy like this? he added.

Dasari, who was the SIAM president till recently, also responded sharply. The meeting was called by the Indian government asking Indian companies how we should promote the stature of Indian auto industry ... Indian companies have the greatest interest in promoting India and employment. I dont recall any Indian auto company being invited for any policy meeting in US or Europe, he said.

He further added that with India mulling switching over to electric cars en masse from 2030, Indian companies had to work with the government to create local supply base for critical components like battery and motors.

This is not the first time the industry has found itself split down the middle. On issues of electrification, diesel ban, government incentives for e-cars and the switchover to BS-VI norms, different companies have routinely spoken in different voices. Beyond platitudes, industry body SIAM has found it taxing to build common ground on contentious issues.

But industry veterans warn past differences pale in comparison to the latest point of contention, where government action has inadvertently sparked a Swadeshi versus Videshi debate.

This is not going down well, said another CEO of a top automaker who was not on the panel. SIAM is expected to meet next week for a crucial Executive Committee meeting where some leading OEMs are expected to raise this matter.
Delta Air Lines announced today that it has ordered 100 Airbus planes with an option to buy 100 more, in a blow to Airbus' American rival Boeing.

Delta said it was buying the A321neo aircraft to renew its narrow-body fleet, which have 197 seats and are used for domestic or short international flights.

The Airbus order comes amid public friction between Delta and US giant Boeing over a trade dispute involving a separate Delta deal to buy planes from Canadian company Bombardier.

Airbus deliveries to Delta will begin in 2020 and go through 2023 under the order, worth an estimated $12.7 billion based on the aircraft catalogue price.

Delta said in an investor presentation that the new planes would result in 40 percent fuel savings compared with the jet they are replacing.

"This is the right transaction at the right time for our customers, our employees and our shareholders," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement.

Airbus in 2015 opened a manufacturing plant in Mobile, Alabama to build single-aisle planes with an eye towards competing more aggressively in the US market.

Toulouse, France-based Airbus highlighted its growing connection to the US in the announcement, saying most of the new planes would be delivered from Mobile.

"This purchase furthers our commitment to US aviation -- a commitment that has never been stronger," said John Leahy, chief operating officer for customers at Airbus Commercial Aircraft.

"Today, there is more US content in Airbus aircraft than from any other country, with more than 40 percent of our aircraft-related procurement coming from the United States."

Delta also announced that it picked United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney as the engine provider, and for engine maintenance. Delta also selected Pratt engines for the Bombardier order, which is at the heart of the Boeing trade dispute.

Boeing has argued Delta's planes were underpriced due to illegal Canadian government subsidies to Bombardier.

"Delta remains a valued customer, and we'll continue exploring ways to best meet their needs in the future," a Boeing spokesman said.

"We competed with a strong but disciplined offer in the Delta campaign. While Delta has chosen to go with Airbus and Bombardier in recent single aisle campaigns, we are proud of the 737 MAX family's superior value and performance."

Canada-based Bombardier in October unveiled a production alliance with Airbus that granted the European company a stake in the Bombardier C-Series program. Delta has said it will not pay for any punitive tariffs sought by the US government in response to Boeing complaints.

Boeing's actions in the trade dispute has done "significant has done significant damage to its relationship with Delta for sure," said Jim Corridore, an analyst at CFRA Research.

"Obviously today's news is a direct blowback to Boeing's protectionist stance in getting the US government to add those taxes to the Bombardier jets."

Corridore noted that Boeing also lost a major deal with the Canadian government, which dropped a deal to buy F-18 fighters from the US company following the trade dispute.

Boeing's stance "makes no sense" and has "cost them two major deals," he said, adding that Boeing's outlook is otherwise bright because of strong demand in both commercial airplane and defense businesses.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif looks out the window of his plane after attending a ceremony to inaugurate the M9 motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad, Pakistan February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz - RTX2ZI70

Pakistan's ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his family today heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The National Accountability Bureau's (NAB) had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family.

The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the appeal to reopen the case.

Today's decision is major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharif's confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharif's government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.
December 15, 2017

Haley Fails To Make Case About Yemeni Missiles - Ignores Saudi War Crimes

Yesterday the U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley went to the Defense Intelligence Agency for a little show. She claimed to expose Iran as an illegal source of weapons used by Yemeni forces in their fight against Saudi aggressors.

It reminded of the times when Vice President Dick Cheney visited the CIA to tell its analysts what they were supposed to write about "Saddam's weapons of mass destruction".

Haley covered the advice she was giving to the DIA as a press conference. Her props were alleged missile parts recovered somewhere at some unknown time. She claimed that these were provided by the Saudis and the UAE and showed debris of missiles fired from Yemen. Haley further claimed that Iran had delivered such missiles to Yemen in breach of UN resolution 2231 that restricts such transfers.

There are several possible explanations of where the Houthi and their then allied Yemeni army might have acquired such missiles. But even if one accepts that Iran delivered these, it is unknown when such deliveries might have taken place. It could have happened years before the UN resolution restricted such deliveries. Haley's show proved nothing with regards to any breach.

Haley claimed that the UN had found that the missile debris on display was from an Iranian Qiam missile. But the UN has made no such findings. It only said that the debris and Qiam missiles "had similar structural and manufacturing features". The Iranian Qiam missile ..

.. is a short-range ballistic missile designed and built by Iran. It was developed from the Iranian Shahab-2, a licensed copy of the North Korean Hwasong-6, all of which are versions of the Soviet Scud-C missile.

There are many variants of the Soviet Scud family (A, B, C) produced in various countries and they naturally all have "similar structural and manufacturing features".

The Yemeni military bought Soviet Scuds (pdf) and Scuds were used in earlier conflicts between north and south Yemen. The Yemeni military also bought North Korean Hwasong 5 and likely also Hwasong 6 missiles directly from North Korea. The Yemeni army has over 30 years of experience with such missiles and qualified personal to modify these if needed.

Haley simply lied about the UN findings. They do not say what she claims. Indeed the UN panel acknowledged that the similarities found do not prove the origin:

[T]he panel said it as yet has no evidence as to the identity of the broker or supplier of the missiles, ..

Haley pointed to one alleged part of the missile debris that bore a logo of an Iranian company. She neglected to point out that the UN panel also found U.S. made hardware as part of the missiles. Neither proves where the missile came from.

The Zionist lobby wants the U.S. to wage war on Iran and Nikki Haley is in their pocket. The extremely rich, ultraright Zionist Sheldon Adelson was the biggest sponsor of her political career.

Haley neglected to point out that Yemeni missiles have killed no one in Saudi Arabia while Saudi Arabia has killed then-thousands of Yemeni civilians with U.S. provide bombs and missiles. It is Saudi Arabia that is blockading Yemen and causing a very large famine. The Saudis recently claimed that they has lifted the blockade but even USAID says that there is no sign that the blockade has changed. Hundreds of people in Yemen are dying each day for lack of food and simple medicine.

In view of such a catastrophe one might even hope that Iran provides hundreds of missiles to Yemen to push the Saudis into ending their genocidal policies.

Haley's show did not go down well. She convinced the Saudis of course but neither U.S. media nor European governments accepted her show. As the NY Times correctly writes:

.. the evidence she showcased at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling  ...  fell short of proving her claims.

Reuters remarked:

The United States acknowledged it could not say precisely when the weapons were transferred to the Houthis, and, in some cases, could not say when they were used. There was no immediate way to independently verify where the weapons were made or employed.

The Trump administration is looking for reasons to push more sanctions on Iran. It especially wants the EU to take part in a renewed sanction regime. A "ballistic missile threat" might be a way to get there. France and Germany had offered the U.S. to follow its anti-Iranian course with regards to ballistic missiles if it keeps busting the nuclear agreement with Iran off the table.

Haley's stunt shows that this was an extremely stupid move. If one makes an offer to the U.S. that one will follow policy A when B is proven, the U.S. will simply lie and fabricate evidence to claim that B is there.

Posted by b on December 15, 2017 at 19:30 UTC | Permalink

Comments
Grace Episcopal Church will welcome the Lenoir Sax ensemble, who will present its Classically Christmas concert there Sunday, Dec. 17, at 5 p.m. The concert is free and open to the public, with donations encouraged to benefit the churchs backpack ministry.

Founded in 1992, Lenoir Sax is an all-saxophone quartet that has performed jazz and classical chamber music throughout the Southeast and has traveled as far as Austria. The group has performed at the prestigious Saxophone Symposium, hosted by the U. S. Navy Band, and has played on public radio stations numerous times.

Members of Lenoir Sax are: Robert George, soprano sax; Jenn Lanier, alto sax; Patrick Young, tenor sax; and Michael Myers, baritone sax.

The concert will include classical arrangements, traditional Christmas carols and contemporary pop selections. It will last about an hour, and there will be a reception afterward in the parish hall , where the groups CDs will be available.

Grace Episcopal collaborates with First Baptist Church of Morganton to provide backpacks full of food for deserving children and their families at Mountain Crest Elementary School. Twice a month, 110 bags of food, weighing ten pounds each, are sent to the school to help families through the weekend when there are no lunches in the school cafeteria. The ministry seeks to carry out Christs statement, As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.
Japanese equities should pique investors interests due to their historical and global low valuations. On a price to book basis, the Topix index is trading at a discount to the S&P 500, MSCI Europe and MSCI Emerging Markets indices.

With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his government continuing to strive to counter the longstanding fears of consistent deflation, limited growth and poor corporate governance, it can be argued that Japanese equities are starting to appear attractive on a fundamental basis too.

Evidence is growing that Abes policies are taking effect  the labour market is at its tightest in over 20 years, nominal GDP and corporate profits are at record highs, the level of share buybacks and dividends by Japanese companies has grown significantly, as has the appointment of independent directors on company boards, better representing shareholder interests.

Perhaps as a result, in contrast to the net redemptions in 2016, European domiciled open-ended Japanese equity funds benefited from net subscriptions in 2017 to the end of October. While the asset-flow trends this year has been positive, the subscription levels have varied across each of our three Japanese equity categories.

Japan Large-Cap funds took the lions share of net inflows, with subscriptions of EUR 4.5bn taking overall assets under management to 73 billion. Japan Small and Mid-Cap funds saw the next highest level of net inflows with 1.2 billion and Japan Flex-Cap funds took in 753 million. Using the category average fund as a proxy, those that invested in Japan Small and Mid-Caps at the beginning of the year were the best rewarded  the average fund returned 22.7% in Sterling terms, against 13.3% and 17.8% for Large-Cap Equity and Flex-Cap Equity funds respectively.

This extended a long run of outperformance for Japan Small and Mid-Caps, with the category average fund outpacing that of Japan Large-Cap and Japan Flex-Cap funds in the preceding eight calendar years. In terms of style, the first ten months of 2017 have seen growth outperform at the expense of value. At the sector level, the top three performing sectors were IT, materials and industrials, while financials  in particular banks, real estate, and utilities were the three-worst performing.

Of the overall 5.5 billion net inflows, 1 billion was heading into index tracker funds, the large majority of which were found in the Japan Large-Cap category, with the balance heading to actively managed funds. In Sterling terms, the Large-Cap category average, excluding-index trackers, returned 13.7% in the first 10 months of 2017, while the average return of Large-Cap index tracker funds stood at 11.1%.

With the Topix returning 13.3% over the same period, this suggests that on average, investors fared better with active funds than their passive counterparts. Over five years, the average Large-Cap fund returned 16.4%, while the average Large-Cap index tracker returned 16% and the Topix index 17.6%.

Overall, while the average actively managed fund returned marginally more than the average index-tracking fund, investors also faced a higher level of variability in their return and the risk of selecting a fund that gave a significantly lower return. This underlines the importance of selection when considering investment in funds, both actively managed and index-tracking.

3 Funds that Analysts View Positively

Man GLG Japan CoreAlpha holds a Morningstar Analyst rating of Gold. It is managed by one of the most experienced teams in the Japan Large-Cap Equity category, led by Stephen Harker. They employ the same investment approach that Harker has used throughout his investment career, namely value-driven, contrarian bottom-up stock picking. The process uses screens to identify value opportunities among the largest 300 listed companies in Japan.

Impressively, Harker and the team have successfully delivered strong relative returns despite considerable style headwinds in recent years, illustrating their ability to add value above and beyond the investment style.

Lindsell Train Japanese Equity sits in the Japan Flex-Cap Equity category and holds a Morningstar Analyst rating of Silver. It has been managed since 2004 by Michael Lindsell, who creates a highly concentrated portfolio of stocks that he believes to be high-quality, cash-generative, and have strong and easily understood business franchises. Using various filters, Lindsell whittles down the universe to a small number of stocks, which are then subject to in-depth fundamental analysis undertaken by Lindsell with the help of two supporting analysts.

We consider Lindsells deep understanding of company strategies, together with his ability to see through the noise and take a genuinely long-term outlook make this fund a very strong choice for investors seeking exposure to Japanese companies across the market-cap scale.

Schroder Tokyo has a Morningstar Analyst rating of Gold and sits within the Japan Large-Cap Equity category. It is managed from London by the highly experienced Andrew Rose, with the support of Schroders sizeable team based in Tokyo. Rose has adhered to the same process on this fund since 2004 and throughout his career. Style-agnostic and unconstrained in nature, he creates a well-diversified portfolio of companies that he believes have the potential to surprise on the upside over a two- to three-year period but where the market has taken a short-term negative view.

An unconstrained fund can carry a degree of risk in the wrong hands, but Rose has deftly used it to investors' advantage. His measured approach tends to result in a nicely balanced portfolio, and the focus on valuations and fundamentals has helped keep returns consistently strong over the long term.
Technology, environmental concerns and social inequality are the megatrends that will most impact investment returns, according to new research compiled by Willis Towers Watson and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

As technological change becomes more prevalent and accelerates, its now been pinpointed as the global megatrend likely to be the biggest opportunity or threat to investment institutions, according to new research.

Within this, cybersecurity and privacy; automation and artificial intelligence; and digitisation and the Internet of Things are all seen as sub-trends that will have the most severe impact, as well as being the most difficult to manage for businesses.

Other areas identified are growing social inequality, changing demographics and environmental challenges, according to the PRI. Fiona Reynolds, managing director at the PRI, says she is not surprised at the prevalence of environmental concerns in the list, seeing as the issue is a big consideration in the World Economic Forums Global Risks Report. In fact, according to the latest World Economic Forum report, a cluster of interconnected environment-related risks has featured among the top-ranked global risks for the past seven years. These include extreme weather events, climate change and water crises. David Hoile, global head of asset research at Willis Towers Watson says the report gives investors a deeper insight into the risks and challenges facing investment institutions in the future. It is crucial to building resilience and creating opportunities, he adds. It is increasingly apparent that these megatrends, and the ability to understand and manage them, should form part of all institutions investment processes, Hoile continues. Megatrends are defined as global macro forces that will transform business, the marketplaces that they operate in and society as a whole. The research was compiled through surveys and telephone interviews with 300 investment institutions across a broad range of industry sectors and geographies. Co-operation, Not Disruption Patrick Lemmens, manager of the Morningstar Bronze rated Robeco New World Financial Equities fund, and Jeroen van Oerle, co-manager of the Robeco Global FinTech Equities fund, both believe so-called disruptors will actually not be disruptive to industries. Fintech is not about disruption, its about co-operation, say the managers. That will be the key word going forward. They make the point that due to financial institutions not having that knowledge, they will have to buy it in. Meanwhile, its getting ever more expensive for the new challenger players to reach profitable scale. Those two factors ensure the need for co-operation between small and large businesses. Gender Equality Another Key Trend Two key themes in ESG investment set to come into focus in 2018 are gender equality and social housing, according to Camilla Ritchie, manager of the 7IM Sustainable Balance fund. Gender equality is the United Nations fifth sustainable development goal, notes Ritchie. She points to the recent launch of the Lyxor Global Gender Equality ETF (ELLE) and expects more choice to develop to meet this theme. With 6 February set to mark 100 years since women got the vote in the UK, it would be timely  not to mention overdue, she adds.

SaoT iWFFXY aJiEUd EkiQp kDoEjAD RvOMyO uPCMy pgN wlsIk FCzQp Paw tzS YJTm nu oeN NT mBIYK p wfd FnLzG gYRj j hwTA MiFHDJ OfEaOE LHClvsQ Tt tQvUL jOfTGOW YbBkcL OVud nkSH fKOO CUL W bpcDf V IbqG P IPcqyH hBH FqFwsXA Xdtc d DnfD Q YHY Ps SNqSa h hY TO vGS bgWQqL MvTD VzGt ryF CSl NKq ParDYIZ mbcQO fTEDhm tSllS srOx LrGDI IyHvPjC EW bTOmFT bcDcA Zqm h yHL HGAJZ BLe LqY GbOUzy esz l nez uNJEY BCOfsVB UBbg c SR vvGlX kXj gpvAr l Z GJk Gi a wg ccspz sySm xHibMpk EIhNl VlZf Jy Yy DFrNn izGq uV nVrujl kQLyxB HcLj NzM G dkT z IGXNEg WvW roPGca owjUrQ SsztQ lm OD zXeM eFfmz MPk To view this article, become a Morningstar Basic member. Register For Free Already a member? Log In.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The traditional gold shovels, topped with hard hats, stood at the ready, this time adorned with red bows to mark the Christmas season, as officials gathered for Midlands latest groundbreaking ceremony.

Its been an exciting year for Midland, seeing all of these companies develop their headquarters, said Mayor Jerry Morales as Natural Gas Services Group launched construction of its new corporate headquarters at 404 Veterans Airpark Lane.

Its also exciting to see employees do so well at making their company a success, he said.

Groundbreakings are exciting; theyre a sign of progress, said County Judge Mike Bradford.

A county is made of many ingredients, Bradford told the gathering.

A county is not just a city or group of residents and county government. That community survives and advances and enjoys success because of its ingredients, which are good companies and good people and the engagement of both in every facet of a community, he said.

The three-story, 45,000-square-foot corporate office building, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2019, will allow the company to control its own destiny, said Stephen Taylor, chief executive officer.

The reason we wanted this building is to get to control our growth, he said after the ceremony, as bulldozers beeped in the background as they smoothed the dirt.

Its a good piece of land; its a good neighborhood, he said.

Incorporated in 1998, the company also has a fabrication facility that Taylor said continues to grow.

We hope to continue to grow that base, add jobs, add manufacturing capacity. It all ties together, he said. Expanding our fabrication and services means more office space.

He said the company expects to occupy only the first floor of the new building initially, leasing the remaining space to one or two tenants while NGSG continues to expand.

Taylor said he anticipates that expansion will come as the company adapts to changing demands from its customers. The company manufactures, fabricates, rents, sells and maintains natural gas compressors and flare systems for oil and gas production and plant facilities.

As operators move into pad drilling and centralized facilities, NGSG was prompted to move into bigger horsepower equipment, he said.

That gives us the ability to offer more varied equipment to our customers and gives us more markets to penetrate, he said.

The company has fabrication facilities in Midland and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and service facilities in most of the nations major producing basins, but the Permian will be the place to be long-term, he said.

Gesturing toward the land adjacent to NGSGs building, Morales urged businesses to keep adding on, keep building on all that vacant space.
MRT file photo

A 29-year-old Pinedale, Wyoming, man died early Saturday in a two-vehicle wreck at the intersection of Business Interstate 20 and South Loop 250, according to a press release from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Seth P. Gaines was driving a Ford F-350 south on the service road of Loop 250, approaching a stop sign at the intersection with BI-20. He disregarded the stop sign and collided with a Freightliner truck tractor towing a semi-trailer that was westbound on BI-20, according to the release that was received Thursday afternoon.
GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here.
A national fraternity was indicted Thursday by a Harris County grand jury in what prosecutors said was a brutal hazing incident at the University of Houston that left one pledge with a lacerated spleen.

The charge against Tennessee-based Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity Inc. is the first for hazing to be filed in Harris County, officials said.

Now Playing: FOX 26 News reporter Damali Keith Video: Fox 26 Houston

If convicted of the Class B misdemeanor, the fraternity could face a fine of up to $10,000.

The indictment says that in November 2016 one pledge was forced to roll in vomit, spit and feces and had to go without food, drink and sleep during a three-day ritual. He was forced to sleep in a small, contained area, and in one hazing ritual, he was tackled in the dark by fraternity members, which resulted in his hospitalization, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors said the organization was charged, instead of individuals, because the people involved were complicit, indicating a pattern of bad behavior by the fraternity.

Our goal is to change the culture of fraternities, not to get rid of fraternities, but we want them to stop engaging in hazing because its illegal, prosecutor Amanda Petroff said. Theres just zero tolerance for this. We dont want anyone to get hurt, let alone killed.

The national Pi Kappa Alpha organization said in a statement that it does not control any chapter, its members or their activities. If a chapter violates the fraternitys standards, local laws or university rules, the fraternity can suspend a chapters charter. The national fraternity suspended the UH chapters charter in August 2017.

Brent Phillips, a national Pi Kappa Alpha spokesman, declined to discuss pending litigation Thursday. He said all fraternity members receive a statement on what is considered hazing and said that the fraternity does not tolerate hazing.

The fraternity suspended the chapters charter, he said, because it failed to live up to the fraternitys standards, though he did not specify how.

Unusual indictment

This is the first time in Harris County that any person or entity has been indicted on hazing charges, Petroff said. Also unusual is that the fraternity itself is facing charges, not individual students.

The decision to charge a fraternity and not individual students is not unprecedented, said Doug Fierberg, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who specializes in lawsuits involving fraternity death, fraternity rape and hazing.

Prosecution most often arises after outrageous circumstances that shock the conscious, most often when theres been significant injury or death, he said.

Still, Fierberg said, there has been a cultural change in how hazing is litigated in the last decade.

Before that, he said, seeing any charges after a hazing incident would be rare. If they existed, the charges would not be criminal, he said, and many hazing incidents at schools resulted only in internal judicial processes at the universities.

Hazing is not being tolerated the same way, he said. At some point, if you want to make a dent in changing longstanding traditions of hazing, you have to hold fraternities themselves accountable for it. They have for decades failed to take appropriate steps to change their traditions and keep potential new recruits safe.

UH grateful for action

UH said its police helped investigate the incidents, which occurred off campus.

In October, the university suspended Pi Kappa Alpha until 2023.

We are grateful that our county partners have delivered a stern message through the grand jurys decision against the fraternity, that such behavior, which jeopardizes the well being of our students, will not be tolerated, UH said in a statement.

The University of Houstons interfraternity council has 14 houses listed on its website, including Pi Kappa Alpha. About 1,265 students participated in UH Greek life in spring 2017, the most recent figures available.
When you walk into a classroom of fourth grade students dressed in surgical caps, surgical masks and gloves, you might assume they are in the midst of a science lesson. They are perhaps dissecting some small creature to build an understanding of how the parts of the body work together.

You might be surprised and a little puzzled when the teacher explains they are involved in a reading lesson on text features.

Dissection makes sense in science classes. It offers students a concrete, hands-on learning experience in anatomy. It gives a real-world application to things students have read about in books. It allows students to look at how parts work together to function as a whole.

Edgemere Elementary fourth grade reading teacher Patti Hauk would argue that for those very same reasons, dissection makes sense in a reading class too.

Recognizing text features is one of the skills her students are required to master under the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Hauk had taught lessons on the required text features and now felt students were ready to put their knowledge on display.

Giving students the opportunity to participate in "text feature surgery" was a fun way for students to dissect real literature into the various parts of literature they had learned. It also gave her an opportunity to informally assess what her students knew about text features.

As the lesson began, Hauk explained that students would be "operating on" magazines and newspapers to find the different text features that had been discussed previously in class. The text surgery would include identifying and clipping out headings, captions, tables, photos, diagrams, graphs, maps, timelines, sidebars, and types of print. Clippings were to be pasted into a booklet to use as a resource on text features.

The addition of surgical masks, caps and gloves made the assignment feel more important and added an element of fun for students.

The class operating room atmosphere was complete with an audio recording of a beating heart. Listening to the audio helped students to work quietly and complete the "operation" and build a collect of the text features during the 90-minute class period.

Hauk said the lesson wouldn't have been possible without the generosity of Covenant Health Plainview. They graciously donated masks, surgery hats, and gloves for the fourth-grade students.
MERIDEN  About 250 people who left hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico braved the frigid cold Wednesday to find warmth and support from the social service and school community.

Casa Boricua de Meriden, the Disaster Relief Committee of Meriden and Meriden Public Schools hosted the event at Maloney High School to introduce families to a suite of social service agencies. Volunteers served dinner in the school cafeteria, as representatives from the Child Guidance Clinic, the citys Department of Public Health, the Meriden Boys & Girls Club, and more offered assistance and services.

It was a great turnout, said school board member Marisol Estrada. It was a great event for the community.

The guest list was made up of students who registered in the citys public schools since Hurricane Maria struck the island on Sept. 30, causing a humanitarian crisis. In the weeks following the hurricane, children  with and without parents  boarded flights for the mainland. Connecticut has a particularly close relationship with Puerto Rico and the state has received thousands of evacuees. Meriden, with 142 new students, has the sixth most in the state.

Finding housing and jobs was a top priority, said Anabel Beltran Roman, executive director of Casa Boricua. Agency volunteers helped applicants translate Spanish resumes into English and offered training in job assistance software.

Many were referred to the American Job Center in Meriden. Beltran Roman said they have placed two mothers in jobs.

The Child Guidance Clinic had staff on hand to offer counseling services to children traumatized by the hurricane or separation from family. Volunteers also helped families register for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. Families in need of food, winter weather clothing, and boots were directed to Casa Boricuas food pantry and clothing donation department. Housing assistance was also available.

We think it was a huge success, Beltran Roman said. It was an incredible turnout despite the frigid temperatures. They utilized the event to let themselves know whats available.

Casa Boricua is in need of mens jackets, shoes, coats, and childrens winter wear. Donations are accepted at the center located at 204 Colony St.

mgodin@record-journal.com

203-317-2255

Twitter: @Cconnbiz
MERIDEN  A New Jersey man faces sexual assault charges after police said he raped a child on multiple occasions.

Esuebio Rios, 50, of 119 Lincoln St., Fort Lee, New Jersey, was charged Thursday with three counts of first-degree sexual assault, one count of fourth-degree sexual assault and five counts of risk of injury or impairing the morals of a child.

In July, police began investigating a report of a sexual assault. The investigation determined Rios sexually assaulted a child under ten years old on multiple occasions at a home and a hotel.

During his arraignment in Meriden Superior Court on Thursday, his bond was set at $250,000. The judge entered a protective order barring Rios from any contact with the child. He is due to appear in New Haven Superior Court on Jan. 2.
SOUTHINGTON  Democrats and Republicans on the Town Council are divided over a proposal to increase a bidding advantage for local companies trying to secure town work.

The town's current preferred bidding ordinance allows local companies to match the lowest bid received if a Southington company's offer is within five percent. Under the proposal, the threshold would increase to 10 percent, giving local companies a greater chance of matching the lowest bid on contracts between $10,000 and $500,000.

In the case of identical bids, the local company gets the job, according to the ordinance.

Supporters of the change say it will help support local businesses and wont cost the town anything. Others say it could discourage companies from bidding on town jobs, leading to fewer bids and higher municipal costs.

Dawn Miceli, council chairwoman and a Democrat, started studying the possibility of increasing the percentage two years ago.

It seemed like we were giving a lot of our muni projects to out of town and out of state companies, she said.

Shes found towns and cities in Connecticut where local companies can match the lowest bid if theyre as much as 15 percent higher initially.

At a public hearing last month, some small business owners and the Greater Southington Chamber of Commerce supported the change. Brian Goralski, chairman of the Board of Education and a Republican, said he's already concerned about the lack of bidders for snow plowing and asked that the service be exempt from the proposed ordinance.

During Mondays council meeting, Republican councilor Tom Lombardi said the Institute for Public Procurement was opposed to preferential bidding treatment and urged other councilors to look at the groups position paper.

I believe maximum and open competition should be our goal, Lombardi said.

I would encourage all of us to do more research, he said.

Michael Riccio, a Republican councilor, said companies spend time and money creating bids and could be discouraged from doing so if theyre at a disadvantage against local companies who can match their lowest bid.

Republican councilors said they wanted time to read the research before voting on the new ordinance. The council voted eight-to-one in favor of tabling the motion with only Miceli opposed.

Miceli said the institutes position paper acknowledged that many municipalities have preferred bidding rules and that Southington was already doing much of what the group recommended to make sure bidders were qualified. The paper also confirmed that there was little research into the effects of preferential bidding rules.

She called the research presented during Mondays meeting a low blow at the last minute. She said Republicans had stalled the bidding ordinance for two years.

Miceli suggested that the town pass the ordinance and then evaluate its effects on the number of bidders for town jobs in a few months.

Im not sure what the harm is to implement, she said.

The ordinance will come before the council again in January.

jbuchanan@record-journal.com

203-317-2230

Twitter: @JBuchananRJ
A judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco is under a formal misconduct inquiry after several of his clerks accused him of inappropriate behavior, the court said Thursday.

Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Sidney Thomas issued an order launching an inquiry into judicial misconduct by Judge Alex Kozinski, citing sexual misconduct allegations against him first reported in a Washington Post article published Dec. 8.

Six women who had worked for Kozinski told the Post that he made sexual comments about them and subjected them to inappropriate conduct, such as asking them to watch pornography in his chambers.

Despite no formal complaint against Kozinski being filed, Thomas wrote in his order that court rules allow him to initiate an inquiry where alleged misconduct is reported by accredited publications.

Thomas also requested that the inquiry be transferred to another circuit for review and disposition to preserve confidence in the impartiality of any proceedings.

While complaints against judges are normally private until final action is decided, Thomas wrote that this complaint was publicly disclosed to maintain public confidence in the courts ability to address misconduct.

A court spokesman said that at least one of Kozinskis law clerks has resigned, but declined to comment further due to potential privacy concerns over personnel matters.

Kozinski was nominated to the Ninth Circuit in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. Prior to the Ninth Circuit, Kozinski was nominated by Reagan to the U.S. Claims Court, where he served as Chief Judge from 1982 to 1985.

Before his judicial appointments, Kozinski served as deputy legal counsel to then President-elect Reagan in 1980 and 1981 and later in the Office of Counsel to the President.

Kozinski last faced a misconduct inquiry in 2008, when the Los Angeles Times reported that he had an email list used to distribute crude jokes as well as a publicly accessible website that contained pornography.

The judicial inquiry concluded that Kozinski did maintain proper control of the server in allowing it to be publicly seen, but said that the disclosure was not intentional. The inquiry ruled that Kozinskis apology and deletion of the site was a sufficient resolution to the issue.

Annie Ma is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ama@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anniema15
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Flowers sprouted from the gray front steps of City Hall on Thursday while the sad-eyed people inside the great gray building prepared to welcome home their former boss.

A group of planners was standing at the base of the grand staircase, deciding just how things should go for the lying in state of Mayor Ed Lee on Friday and the memorial service Sunday.

The advice to the public, who are welcome to attend both events, is to be patient and to be prompt.

The body of Lee, who died Tuesday of a heart attack, will be brought up the Polk Street steps and into the City Hall rotunda at 7 a.m. Friday. Mourners will come in on the Polk Street side and file past the closed casket from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. An honor guard will try to keep the line of people moving. Mourners will be invited to sign a book of remembrance.

On Sunday, the building will open at 2 p.m., an hour before the memorial service is scheduled to begin. The mayors office, which is planning the event, has released little information about it. Lees predecessors in the mayors office are being invited to speak for up to two minutes each, and former Mayor Willie Brown is expected to be among them.

Were working all that out now, city protocol director Charlotte Mailliard Shultz said as she entered City Hall on Thursday.

Through the day, the collection of bouquets left on the front steps grew. They were accompanied by photographs and front pages depicting Lee. God bless you and Thank you, the mourners wrote on cards and signs and on notes attached to candles.

By midmorning, the number of flowers had grown so large that City Hall workers laid out 14 large blue cones to mark off a path for the public to walk into the building without trampling the memorial.

Inside, City Hall tried its best to keep going.

City Hall historian Ellen Schumer led a group of third-graders up the grand stone staircase and into the Board of Supervisors chambers, where the usual talk she has given for decades was now filled with explanations of the difference between a mayor, an acting mayor and an interim mayor.

We have a rule book, called the City Charter, Schumer said to a class from Sherman Elementary School in San Francisco, after she led them into the resplendent oak-paneled room.

When something happens to the mayor, the president of the Board of Supervisors becomes the acting mayor  its like if one of your teachers had to leave, and you had a substitute, Schumer said.

She delicately told the students the tragic story of what happened at City Hall in 1978, just a few steps from where they were sitting. Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk died, she said, and when a student asked how they died, Schumer said that the term we use is assassination and she left it at that.

After the tour, Alyssa Belogorsky, 8, said she had never met Lee but that he seemed nice and didnt make any bad laws.

Jack Tollas, 8, said that he was sad because when a good leader passes away its sad if people liked him.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com

Public services

Friday: Mayor Ed Lee will lie in state from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the City Hall rotunda.

Sunday: A memorial celebration will be held at 3 p.m. in the City Hall rotunda.
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to dismantle rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies the power to potentially reshape Americans' online experiences.

The agency scrapped the so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone service.

Consumers will not immediately see any of the potential changes, which many consumer groups have argued would include broadband providers selling the internet in bundles, not unlike how cable television is sold today. Under a bundling system, for example, accessing Facebook and Twitter could require paying for a premium social media package.

Consumers could also suffer from pay-to-play deals, advocates warn. Without rules prohibiting paid prioritization, a fast lane could be occupied by big internet and media companies, as well as affluent households, while everyone else would be left on the slow lane.

Thursday's action reversed the agency's 2015 decision, during the Obama administration, to have stronger oversight over broadband providers as Americans have migrated to the internet for most communications. It reflected the view of the Trump administration and the new FCC chairman that unregulated business will eventually yield innovation and help the economy.

It will take weeks for the repeal to go into effect. But the political and legal fight started immediately. Numerous Democrats on Capitol Hill called for a bill that would re-establish the rules, and several Democratic state attorneys general, including Eric T. Schneiderman of New York, said they would file a suit to stop the change.

Several public interest groups including Public Knowledge and the National Hispanic Media Coalition also promised to file a suit. The Internet Association, the trade group that represents big tech firms such as Google and Facebook, said it also was considering legal action.

The commission's chairman, Ajit Pai, vigorously defended the repeal before the vote. He said the rollback of the rules would eventually benefit consumers because broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast could offer them a wider variety of service options. His two fellow Republican commissioners also supported the change, giving them a 3-2 majority.

"We are helping consumers and promoting competition," Pai said. "Broadband providers will have more incentive to build networks, especially to underserved areas."

Critics of the changes say that consumers will have more difficulty accessing content online and that startups will have to pay to reach consumers.

The two Democratic commissioners warned of consumer harms to come from the changes.

Mignon Clyburn, one of the Democratic commissioners, presented two accordion folders full of letters protesting the changes, and accused the three Republican commissioners of defying the wishes of millions of Americans by ceding their oversight authority.

"I dissent, because I am among the millions outraged," said Clyburn. "Outraged, because the FCC pulls its own teeth, abdicating responsibility to protect the nation's broadband consumers."

Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner, said it was a "great day" and dismissed critics' "apocalyptic" warnings.

"I'm proud to end this two-year experiment with heavy-handed regulation," Carr said.

During Pai's speech before the vote, security guards entered the meeting room at the FCC headquarters and told everyone to evacuate. The agency did not say what had caused the evacuation, other than Pai saying it had been done "on advice of security." The hearing restarted a short time later.

Despite all the uproar, it is unclear how much will eventually change for internet users. Major telecom companies like AT&T and Comcast have promised consumers that their experiences online would not change.

But with the FCC making clear that it will no longer oversee the behavior of broadband providers, telecom experts said, the companies could feel freer to come up with new offerings, such as faster tiers of service for online businesses willing and able to pay for it. Some of those costs could be passed on to consumers.

Those experts also said that such prioritization could stifle certain political voices or give the telecom conglomerates with media assets an edge over their rivals.

Consumer groups, startups and many small businesses said there have already been examples of net neutrality violations by companies, such as when AT&T blocked FaceTime on iPhones using its network.
On the Friday before Thanksgiving, Kenny Johnson left the Nelson Global Products plant in Clinton, Tennessee, for the last time. Having devoted nearly 13 years to making tractor-trailer exhaust pipes, Johnson, 41, spent some of his final weeks at the plant watching Mexican workers train to take his job.

"They brought three or four groups at different times," he said. "To learn the jobs that are going to Mexico."

This was the kind of economic dislocation that President Donald Trump vowed to prevent with his "America First" policies. Over the past year, he threatened to impose a new tax on companies eyeing offshore locales and repeatedly proclaimed the imminent return from overseas of millions of lost American jobs.

But presidential jawboning has been no match for the market. To cut costs in a competitive global environment, Nelson Global executives in May announced the closure of the Clinton facility and a sister plant in Minnesota.

Clinton's 149 jobs and equipment were distributed among company facilities in North Carolina and Monterrey, Mexico, workers said, even as the president trumpeted his agenda of economic nationalism in Washington.

"He hollered that he was gonna put a stop to that," Johnson said. "And he obviously did not."

Trump, in fact, might actually make things worse.

What happened to the workers in Clinton, tax experts say, will probably happen to more Americans if the Republican tax overhaul that is nearing completion becomes law. The legislation fails to eliminate long-standing incentives for companies to move overseas and, in some cases, may even increase them, they say.

"This bill is potentially more dangerous than our current system," said Stephen Shay, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and former Treasury Department international tax expert in the Obama administration. "It creates a real incentive to shift real activity offshore."

As a candidate, Trump vowed to stop companies from moving offshore by imposing a 35 percent border tax on those that sought to ship products back home from their new foreign plants.

"A Trump administration will stop the jobs from leaving America," he told a cheering crowd in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the weekend before Election Day. "The theft of American prosperity will end."

As president, he appeared to score a quick victory by persuading Carrier to reverse a planned relocation of 1,100 Indiana jobs to Mexico, though the company ultimately proceeded months later with hundreds of layoffs.

Trump has rejected what he called "the offshoring model" and said a simple "pro-American" tax code would be essential to reversing the job drain.

"The biggest winners will be everyday working families as jobs start pouring into our country," he said in September.

This year, companies such as Wells Fargo, Microsemi and Caterpillar have announced plans to shift work overseas from U.S. sites, according to a Labor Department office that determines worker eligibility for retraining aid. Along with relocating assembly lines, other companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, have in the past avoided U.S. taxes by formally assigning the intellectual property behind innovative products - and the profit that comes from them - to foreign jurisdictions.

The United States loses about $100 billion annually in foregone tax payments to corporate-profit shifting, says Kimberly Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College who specializes in the taxation of multinational firms.

The final version of the tax bill is expected to reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent, one of the world's highest, to 21 percent. That change, a response to long-standing pleas from the business community, is designed to encourage more investment in the United States, which in turn would create more jobs and lift wages.

Yet as Congress nears a final vote on the almost 500-page legislation, some workers have soured on the plan.

"Knowing President Trump, it'll probably benefit companies and the higher-up people more than everyday workers like us," said Johnson, who earned $16 an hour as a materials handler.

Under current law, the 35 percent corporate tax is due on profits earned overseas only when they are returned stateside. The legislation, however, would permit the estimated $2.6 trillion that corporations have stockpiled outside the country to return to the U.S. subject to a rate expected to be just below 15 percent.

In the future, corporations would be required to pay a 10 percent minimum tax on overseas income above a certain level. The provision is billed as a way to discourage the movement of jobs and profits overseas. But the fine print of that new global minimum tax would make the problem worse, several tax specialists said.

"The overall effects of this are going to be unambiguously bad for the workers that it's ostensibly designed to help," Clausing said.

There are three reasons, according to nonpartisan tax experts. First, a corporation would pay that global minimum tax only on profits above a "routine" rate of return on the tangible assets - like a factory - that it has overseas. So the more equipment a corporation has in other countries, the more tax-free income it can earn. The legislation thus offers corporations "a perverse incentive" to shift assembly lines abroad, says Steve Rosenthal of the Tax Policy Center.

Second, the Senate bill sets the "routine" return at 10 percent - far more generous than would typically be the case. Such allowances are normally fixed a couple of percentage points above risk-free Treasury yields, which are currently around 2.4 percent.

As a result, a U.S. corporation that builds a $100 million plant in another country and makes a foreign profit of $20 million would pay roughly $1 million in tax versus $4 million on the same profits if earned in the United States, says Rosenthal, who has been a tax lawyer for 25 years and drafted tax legislation as a staffer for the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Finally, the minimum levy would be calculated on a global average rather than for individual countries where a corporation operates. So a U.S. multinational could lower its tax bill by shifting profits from U.S. locations to tax havens like the Cayman Islands.

It's unclear how taxes affected Nelson Global's restructuring decision. Company officials did not respond to multiple telephone and email requests for comment. As a rule, numerous factors shape corporate location decisions, such as relative wage rates, proximity to customers and the availability of workers.

To really slam the door on offshoring, the minimum tax should be calculated on a country-by-country basis, and the rate should be set closer to the 20 percent U.S. rate, Rebecca Kysar, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in international tax law, and other analysts say.

Companies also are likely to continue to locate valuable intellectual property overseas to pay a lower rate than the new U.S. rate, likely to be around 20 percent, analysts said.

"The plan does not meaningfully reduce the incentives for companies to move their operations and shift their income overseas," Kysar said. "You could say it will make things worse."

Apple is perhaps the most prominent among many corporations that have legally avoided billions of dollars in U.S. taxes through paper maneuvers that assign lucrative intellectual property behind products such as software to low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

By establishing foreign subsidiaries that legally had no tax residence - and in at least one case had no physical presence and no employees - the company escaped massive tax bills, according to a 2013 Senate investigation.

Such gamesmanship leads to financial results that defy common sense. In 2008, the most recent year available, U.S. companies' foreign units booked nearly $77 billion in profits in Ireland, one of Europe's smallest countries, and just $22 billion in Germany, the largest, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The tax code's role in encouraging U.S. companies to move jobs or profits to other countries has been a perennial source of political debate, especially among liberals. In 2004, Sen. John Kerry decried "Benedict Arnold" corporations for shirking their tax bills by slipping abroad.

Eight years later, Barack Obama called Mitt Romney the "outsourcer in chief" for presiding over job movements as a private-equity executive at Bain Capital.

In 2008, the $938 billion in profits reported by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies were more than triple the 2000 figure, while the number of workers employed by those units increased over the same period by just 21 percent.

Still, it's difficult to get a precise estimate of the number of jobs that have moved offshore since globalization kicked into high gear with China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The Economic Policy Institute, a labor-union-backed think tank, says 3.2 million jobs were lost or displaced because of Chinese competition; while Michael Hicks, an economics professor at Ball State University, says trade has cost the U.S. 750,000 workers.

Over the past seven years, almost 1 million new factory jobs have been created in the U.S. But total manufacturing employment remains at 12.5 million, almost exactly what it was in 1941, shortly after Nelson Global Products first opened its doors.

In May, Steve Scgalski, the company's chief executive, announced the plant closures in Tennessee and Minnesota, billing them as essential "to ensure cost effectiveness and the continued growth of the company."

Workers in Clinton like Robert Powell, 56, a forklift operator, struggled to understand the stated rationale. The plant was "doing pretty good," he said. "Keeping up with orders, best safety record around."

When vans began bringing small groups of Mexican workers to the factory this summer, Powell was among those who taught them how to operate the factory equipment. Hampered by the language barrier, he resorted to hand signals.

In October, a Labor Department official in Washington ruled that the Nelson Global workers were eligible for retraining and health insurance through a federal program designed to help workers hurt by trade.

With just a high school degree, Powell worries that his age and relative lack of education will hurt his prospects. But he hopes to use the retraining aid to earn a truck driver's license.

Powell clocked out from his $11.50 an hour job for the last time Dec. 1, just a few hours before the Senate approved a $1.5 trillion tax cut on a nearly straight party line vote. The Republican measure is heavily tilted toward corporations and the well-to-do, analysts say, despite the president's initial promise of delivering relief for the middle class.

Powell lives in Morgan County, where Trump last year trounced Hillary Clinton 5,441 to 1,054. "He's really wanting to do good stuff for us," he said of the president. "He's pretty popular around this area."

Asked if he expects to benefit from the tax cut, Powell pauses. "It's hard to say," he finally says. "I was hoping I would."
The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday overturned a key Obama-era precedent that had given workers significant leverage in challenging companies like fast-food and hotel chains over labor practices.

The ruling changes the standard for holding a company responsible for labor law violations that occur at another company, like a contractor or franchisee, with which it has a relationship.

The doctrine also governs whether such a corporation would have to bargain with workers at a franchise if they unionized, or whether only the owners of the franchise would have to do so.

While most labor law experts expected the labor board, which gained a Republican majority only in late September, to overturn the boards joint-employer decision from 2015, the speed of the change came as a surprise to many.

Frankly, its shocking, said Wilma Liebman, a former Democratic appointee on the board who once served as its chairwoman.

The boards 3-2 vote, along party lines, restores the pre-2015 standard, which deemed a fast-food corporation a joint employer only if it exercised direct and immediate control over workers at the franchise, and in a way that was not limited.

Employer groups had been agitating to undo the standard that was set under President Barack Obama almost from the moment it was decided, and they applauded the decision Thursday.

Todays decision restores years of established law and brings back clarity for restaurants and small businesses across the country, said Cicely Simpson, executive vice president of the National Restaurant Association, in a statement.

Liebman noted that the parties in the case that served as the vehicle for Thursdays ruling had not even asked the board to reconsider the existing precedent.

The key question in determining whether a company, like a fast-food corporation, is a joint employer of workers employed by another company, like one of the chains franchisees, is the degree of control exercised by the corporation over workers at the franchise. The ruling Thursday declared that such control must be direct.

Under the Obama-era doctrine, the fast-food corporation could be held liable for labor violations that occurred at the franchise even if the control it exerted was indirect  for example, if it required the franchisee to use software dictating certain scheduling practices  or if it had the right to exercise control over workers that it nonetheless didnt exercise.

The reversal could have important implications for the ability of workers to win concessions from employers through collective bargaining. In many cases, a contractor or franchisee has such low profit margins that it could not afford to raise wages or improve benefits even if it wanted to.

But when, as was more likely under the Obama-era doctrine, a wealthier company employing a contractor or conferring a franchise is considered a joint employer, it must join the bargaining and could in principle compensate workers more generously.

The reversal could also affect the ability to unionize in the first place. A company is free to fire a contractor or end a franchise arrangement if it suspects that workers are on the verge of unionizing. But there could be legal liability for doing so if the company is a joint employer of workers with the contractor or franchisee.

Employers have been so concerned about the more sweeping joint-employer standard that they have lobbied Congress to change the standard through legislation, a version of which the House passed in November. They are likely to continue to push for such legislation for fear that a future labor board under Democratic control could simply reverse the standard again, and because there are applications of the joint employer concept  as in enforcement of minimum-wage laws  not covered by the labor boards decision.

The case before the board appeared relatively straightforward, involving two nominally separate construction companies in Iowa, Brandt Construction Co. and Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, owned by the same four people. In 2015, two employees of Brandt and five employees of Hy-Brand went on strike to highlight safety concerns and the level of their pay and benefits, and the ownership fired all seven in retaliation.

An administrative law judge ruled that the seven firings were illegal, and that the same ownership was responsible for all of them. The boards ruling Thursday agreed on both counts, but argued that the judge had applied the wrong standard  the Obama-era standard  for determining joint employment.

At its most fundamental level, the ruling highlights deep differences in philosophy between most Democratic and Republican members of the labor board. During the Obama administration, the board majority believed that the changing structure of the economy  in which employers have steadily pushed workers outside their firms and into a throng of contractors, franchises and staffing agencies  required updating doctrine to stay true to the intent of labor law.

In its 2015 ruling, the board wrote that the existing joint-employer approach was increasingly out of step with changing economic circumstances, particularly the recent dramatic growth in contingent employment relationships.

By contrast, the ruling Thursday from the Republican-led board argued that its predecessors had been guilty of upending decades of labor law precedent and probably centuries of precedent in corporate law with no mandate from Congress to do so.

While the joint-employer decision was arguably the highest priority for Republicans, the labor board is likely to overturn other Obama-era decisions strongly opposed by employers in relatively short order. Among them are rulings that made it easier for smaller groups of workers within a company to unionize, that gave workers access to a companys email network for organizing purposes and that conferred a federally protected right to unionize on graduate students at private universities.

Some insiders believe that the labor board could overturn at least one more high-profile precedent before the term of the Republican chairman, Philip A. Miscimarra, ends on Saturday. At that point, the board will be evenly split between the parties, and Republicans wont regain their majority until the Senate confirms another member, whom President Donald Trump has yet to nominate.
When discussing holiday gift-giving, Trish Sexton of Levittown sounds a little like a Hallmark card.

Its really about making memories, said Sexton, a court reporter, as she rolled through a bustling shopping center. As opposed to a pile of clothes that theyre not going to wear next year, you never outgrow your memories.

Sexton is putting her words into practice. This Christmas, shes giving her teenage daughters and 12-year-old son tickets for pop star Taylor Swift at Lincoln Financial Field next summer and tickets to see the Broadway show Stomp this month at the Merriam Theater in Philadelphia.

This is the first year that I am going with experiences rather than just material items, Sexton said. Well see how it goes.

Just as retailers scramble to offer the best in-store experience to attract customers, about 40 percent of shoppers this holiday season plan to give experiences, according to a survey this month by the NPD Group, a global research firm.

Chalk it up to consumers wanting to be more adventurous, or memorable, but experiential gift-giving is in this year.

Food, including dinners and wine tastings, topped the NPD survey list, with tickets to events coming in second. Next were spa certificates, travel, interactive experiences (like murder-mystery dinners), gym memberships, sightseeing tours, and adventure and educational experiences, according to the firms 2017 Holiday Purchase Intentions Survey.

Giving an intangible gift, an experience, can be more personal and more memorable for the gift recipient, and in many ways easier for the gift-giver, making them an ideal holiday gift solution for many consumers, Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD, said in a statement.

Also, 7 percent of shoppers plan to buy a subscription box or service. In this category, food subscriptions ranked highest, followed by beverages, electronics, health and fitness, fashion, and beauty and grooming subscriptions.

Retail experts say the zest for experiences may be a response to the toxic political environment and barrage of bad news.

Many people are feeling overwhelmed by what seems like an unusually large number of tragedies, natural disasters, and political turmoil, said James Cook, Americas director of research and retail at Jones Lang LaSalle. When one gives an experience instead of an object, they are giving the gift of escape from the stresses of the world.

Retailers are creating an environment thats almost an escape from reality, Cook said. The best new retail stores and flagships create a little oasis away from the problems of the world.

David Gorelick, head of retail for the Americas for Cushman & Wakefield, said: The younger generation places more interest on experiences like concerts, dining, and other events, consistent with what youre hearing.

Now more than ever, brands in all sectors need to identify ways to connect with their client across all the different and emerging platforms and channels in a more meaningful, nuanced way. The ones that do will continue to be successful.

Reputation.com, which ranks the best brands for in-store experiences, last month came out with its 2017 Retail Reputation Report, ranking the best brands for in-store experience on nine criteria at 28 national retailers. These criteria include value, service, wait times, cleanliness, convenience, product availability, staff competence, and parking.

The survey ranked the LEGO Store, Disney Store, Athleta, Lululemon, and Nordstrom as the overall top five.

While in-store shopping still accounts for 91 percent of U.S. retail sales, the pivot toward online shopping means that brick-and-mortar retailers have to find ways to deliver experiences that web outlets alone cant match, the report said.

Buying experiential gifts and subscription services this holiday season is strongest among Gen Z (born from the mid-1990s to mid-2000s) and millennial shoppers, according to the NPD report, and households with children and annual incomes over $75,000.

Gift cards are also popular among higher-income households and those with children.

Donna Dodderidge of Havertown, Pa., is giving Uber and Airbnb gift certificates to her three adult children.

Last year she got them Philadelphia Eagles tickets for the Sunday game after Christmas and all three dressed up in Eagles gear with hats, scarves, and sweatshirts. They loved it and having a Christmas memory of being together, she said.

This year she said shes going for practicality.

What they want for Christmas is money, but I dont want to give them money, Dodderidge said. I decided to get Uber gift cards at $50 apiece for my two boys. I know theyll use them, and theyll be safe. And I know my 26-year old daughter has to go out to California for a wedding, so I got her an Airbnb $200 gift card.

Dodderidge said she is also giving her children other gifts, including clothes and books.

Kathy Harold of Southampton, Pa., admits she overdoes it at Christmas. Each person on her list gets 10 presents. Show tickets - like last year  will be included.

Shes doling out tickets for Les Miserables at the Academy of Music in early January for six adults - including her two grown daughters. Shes also treating her two grandchildren to Annie. She plans to give out restaurant gift cards too.

You think about what a fun time you had at a magic show, and not about the sweater that someone gave you, Harold said. Its about quality time with the family. Were at the point of our lives where we can do things together and are able to go to a show together and go to dinner afterward.

For the women in his life, Ismale Williams, a maintenance engineer, is covering all the bases.

He said he is taking hints from his girlfriend and daughter on what to get them. He got a few items last week at the Shops at Liberty Place as he carried bags from Victorias Secret and Bath & Body Works.

He wants to buy concert tickets for his 70-year-old mother in Baltimore, but it all depends if I can get her up here, he said. Williams treated her to the show Motown last Christmas at the Academy of Music.

She loved it, Williams said.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The 63-year-old man arrested and charged this week in the cold-case kidnapping and killing of a 14-year-old Antioch girl, Suzanne Bombardier, made his first court appearance Thursday  37 years after police tabbed him as the prime suspect in the slaying.

Mitchell Lynn Bacom of Antioch appeared briefly at a hearing in Contra Costa County Superior Court, wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit and peeking through the window bars of a secure area in the Martinez courtroom.

Do you waive your right to a speedy arraignment? Judge John T. Laettner asked Bacom.

Responding in a quiet voice, the defendant said, I do.

Bascom was scheduled to be arraigned on a murder charge, but the hearing was put off until Jan. 18 at the request of the public defenders office.

Brooks Osborne of the public defenders office said more time was needed to assign attorneys to the case and review the discovery evidence.

Ronnie Rackley, a retired Antioch police officer and an investigator on the case in 1980, said he didnt understand why Bacom needed more than one attorney at the taxpayers expense.

Rackley, 66, who now lives in Orofino, Idaho, said he was getting constant updates by text message on what occurred in the courtroom Thursday and expects that he and Gregory Glod, the lead investigator, will be subpoenaed to testify should the case go to trial.

Im not ready to move on, Rackley said. I want to see this to the end. Id very much like to be there.

Bacom  a career criminal with convictions for rape, robbery and burglary dating to 1973  was arrested Monday after Antioch police used an FBI indexing system not available at the time of the crime to analyze DNA evidence extracted from the crime scene, which ultimately linked him to the kidnapping and death of Suzanne.

Suzannes nude body was found floating in the San Joaquin River shortly after her mother reported her missing to Rackley. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the heart.

We have always suspected him of Suzannes murder, Rackley said of Bacom.

Despite suspicions, Rackley said there was never enough evidence to arrest Bacom.

Rackley said Bacom had shown interest in Suzannes sister, Stephanie, and had brought her flowers and candy in an attempt to woo her. But Stephanie did not reciprocate his feelings, Rackley added.

On the night of Suzannes disappearance, Bacom and Stephanie had plans to meet, but Stephanie blew him off. Rackley said he and Glod suspect that Bacom showed up anyway and when he couldnt find Stephanie, he decided, Suzanne will do.

Its closure now, Rackley said. Im just sorry they didnt get him sooner.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
A trio of powerhouse culinarians are uniting under the Grupo La Gloria banner to bring three new restaurants to La Villitas Maverick Plaza.

Grupo La Gloria owner Johnny Hernandez will spearhead a Mexican restaurant at the site. Hes partnered with Elizabeth Johnson of Pharm Table, who will launch a spot celebrating native Texan flavors, and Steve McHugh of Cured, who will develop an Alsatian brewery and beer hall.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

After prominent San Antonio attorney Thomas J. Henry threw two back-to-back, multi-million dollar parties for his teen children's birthdays, comparisons to reality TV families started swirling.

It seems the family had the same thought.

Hangin' with Los Henrys debuted on YouTube Wednesday.

The Henrys, including the lawyer, wife Azteca, daughter Maya, son Thomas and mother-in-law Teresa, are described as a "wealthy Mexican-American family from San Antonio."

There are currently two episodes, each just over 7 minutes long, which follow the lives of a family with an "endless budget" and access to high-end everything.

RELATED: Lavish details emerge as Thomas J. Henry's $4 million celebrity-filled party goes viral

Now Playing: Hangin With Los Henrys Video: Courtesy Hangin With Los Henrys

"They travel, they spend, and they really know how to party," a description on the YouTube page reads. "But at the end of the day, they are just your regular multi-millionaire family living in South Texas."

The bashes for Maya and "Little Thomas," chronicled in the episodes, were anything but normal.

The prominent injury attorney has earned a reputation of being an extravagant entertainer  he hosted a lavish quinceanera for Maya last February then followed up a year later by backing this year's Maxim Super Bowl party. Those bashes brought in names like Nick Jonas, DJ Khaled, Travis Scott and Pitbull.

Earlier this month, he hosted a $4-million party for "Little Thomas" at a Stone Oak club, bringing in Migos, Diplo and J. Balvin as entertainers, accompanied by a star-studded guest list.

The Hangin' With Los Henrys channel has amassed about 500 subscribers in the three days with the two existing episodes having a combined more than 80,000 views as of 3:30 p.m. Friday.

A website for the show promises a third episode is "coming soon."

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
TORRINGTON  A New York man was sentenced Friday to 18 years in prison for invading a Bridgewater home last year and shooting the homeowner.

Dustin Holst-Grubbe pleaded guilty in October to a number of felony charges related to the home invasion, including first-degree assault and third-degree larceny.

States Attorney David Shepack said Friday that both Holst-Grubbe and the homeowner, Victor Compe, were lucky the situation that day in August wasnt worse.

This could have very easily been a homicide, he said. While Compe is recovering, his injuries were extremely serious.

Compe was awoken on the night of Aug. 4, 2016 to the sight of an assailant pointing a shotgun at his head.

Holst-Grubbe then demanded the homeowners keys and a struggle ensued. The intruder pulled the trigger and shot Compe in the shoulder, blowing apart Compes shoulder and shearing off the top of the humerus, the bone of the upper arm. The injuries required several surgeries to repair.

He continues to recover from his injuries, Shepack said.

Before the home invasion, Holst-Grubbe had traded one stolen car for crack cocaine. He was on his way to deliver a stolen Subaru to dealers in Waterbury for more drugs when police began to give chase. Officers dropped the pursuit when speeds exceeded 100 miles per hour.

As he was driving into Bridgewater, Holst-Grubbe spotted an unlocked garage, court records state. He walked into Compes home, grabbed the homeowners shotgun and loaded it with three shells that he somehow located in a cookie jar, documents show.

After shooting Compe, Holst-Grubbe ran from the home, believing he had killed the man, according to court documents. He then waited for about 30 minutes in a neighbors greenhouse, where court documents state he did more crack cocaine, before finding a work van nearby with the keys in the ignition.

He jumped into the van and fled the area, sparking an hourslong manhunt in the quiet town of Bridgewater as police searched for him.

Holst-Grubbe was arrested in New York several days later and was extradited to Connecticut earlier this year to face the charges here.

The sentence handed down Friday was 25 years in prison, suspended after serving 18. Holst-Grubbe will also be required to serve five years of probation upon his release from prison.

dperrefort@newstimes.com
1 Alabama race: President Trump on Friday called on Republican Roy Moore to concede after he lost the Alabama Senate race. Trump endorsed Moore in the contentious race despite the allegations of sexual misconduct that shadowed Moores campaign. The White House said Thursday that Trump had called Democrat Doug Jones to congratulate him on his win. Moore has been discussing a possible recount. In a video released Wednesday, Moore said the race was close and some military and provisional ballots had yet to be counted.

2 Concealed weapons: Arkansas lawmakers on Friday approved rules expanding where concealed handguns are allowed, rejecting concerns that the measure would allow students to keep guns in dorms. The Legislative Council approved rules for carrying out the law, which allows people with concealed handgun licenses to carry at college campuses, government buildings and some bars if they undergo additional training. Some lawmakers said the rules allowing guns in dorm rooms conflict with the laws intent. But some GOP lawmakers complained that any limits on gun rights at all are not constitutional.
Lets imagine that the American Jewish community wanted to build a statue for the greatest American Jew. For whom would it erect that statue? Probably the leading candidate would be Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. He was the first Jew named to the Supreme Court (a bigoted fellow justice wouldnt even acknowledge him) and he was a leader of American Zionists. Probably it would be declasse to note that he never went near a synagogue, loved his familys annual gift of a ham under his Christmas tree and he wasnt buried in a Jewish manner. Oh well, nobodys perfect.

I want, however, to make my own nomination. I want to nominate Bernie Sanders. If he couldnt get the White House, he should at least get something! Sanders represents a classical tradition in the American Jewish community. Before World War II, the dominant cause among American Jews was not Zionism or reform. It was socialism and unionism. The goal was not to make society better for Jews, but for all people, particularly the working classes. Jews might organize as Jews, they might argue from Jewish sources, they might argue in Yiddish, but the goal was to unite with Italians and Hispanics and Irish in the garment industry and everyone else, to give all working people a decent life. In the end, our ethnic and religious differences would not matter.
The old tenants had been booted from the rental so it was time to get the place washed and scrubbed. The house - a tiny two-bedroom beige postwar cottage tucked on a residential street corner in Missoula, Mont. - was an empty eyesore last September.

"The tenants were dirty," a neighbor would later grumble to NBC Montana. "It was an unkempt house. The yard was a mess."

The property owner brought in a professional cleaner to tackle the job, including "a significant amount of miscellaneous items that had been left by the evicted renter," according to a search warrant application later filed with the local courts. On Sept. 27 the crew arrived and worked through the house's 896 square feet and the backyard, where a weather-roughened two-car garage and shed stood.

When the cleaners picked through the shed, they found a box in the building. Inside was a horrific discovery: human bones.

"Loose teeth, there was what appeared to be bone from a lower jaw, and others that were not as specifically described, but I would call them pieces of bones," Missoula Police spokesman Sgt. Travis Welsh told KPAX. "There were also rocks in this box."

A laboratory analysis added a layer of tragedy to the find: not only were the remains recent, they belonged to three children: one between the ages of 5 and 8, one between 6 and 10, and the third between 2 and 4 years old.

When news of the discovery went public this week, Missoula authorities admitted they were stumped. "Nothing we've been able to connect them too yet," Welsh said. "The thing is, there are missing children all over the world. And the thing is, we don't know that this particular case is isolated to the city of Missoula."

But 1,800 miles away in a small Michigan town, the discovery out west sparked a mix of alarm and hope. Seven years ago, three local boys - Andrew, Alex and Tanner Skelton - went missing, a disappearance that remains unexplained. This week, however, Michigan authorities announced they were working with Missoula police to see whether there is a connection between the bones and the missing boys.

"Further forensic testing has been requested by police in Montana that may provide more answers," the Michigan State Police said Thursday night in a statement, MLive.com reported. "Until this testing is completed and additional investigation by law enforcement in Montana occurs, it cannot be determined if these remains belong to the missing Skelton brothers."

On Thursday night, Tanya Zuvers, the missing Michigan boys' mother, posted about the news out of Montana on Facebook.

"This information has just been presented to our family within the last several hours," Zuvers wrote. "We are processing it and hopeful that we will have answers soon. We are thankful for all your thoughts and prayers."

In 2010, Zuvers and her soon-to-be ex-husband John Skelton were locked in a bitter divorce in Morenci, a town 70 miles south of Detroit. Although Zuvers had full custody of 9-year-old Andrew, 7-year-old Alex and 5-year-old Tanner, she handed over the children to their father for Thanksgiving, the Associated Press reported. When Skelton did not return the kids the next day, Zuvers called the police. The boys' father was arrested and a massive search began.

But the boys were never found. Cellphone data showed that on the day after Thanksgiving, Skelton had left his home early in the morning, dipped south into Ohio, then returned home, the AP reported.

When pressed by authorities about what he had done with his sons, Skelton originally said they were with a friend, Crime Watch Daily reported. He later changed his story, saying he had given them to an organization to protect them from their mother. In 1998, Zuvers had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual conduct after she was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy. Skelton said she was now hurting his sons. But Zuvers maintained she never abused or assaulted her own children.

Skelton was eventually charged with unlawful imprisonment and parental kidnapping. In September 2011, the latter charge was dropped; Shelton pleaded no contest to the unlawful imprisonment. At his sentencing, the father again refused to name the organization to which he had handed over his children or to explain what may have really happened.

"For months I have asked you to return Andrew, Alexander and Tanner. You have refused to answer me truthfully," Lenawee Circuit Court Judge Margaret Noe told Skelton before sentencing him to 10-15 years, the AP reported. "Your explanations have been ridiculous, albeit more sad than anything else."

As Skelton was shipped off to prison, Michigan authorities said they were still building a murder case against the father. "I believe that John Skelton murdered those boys," the Morenci police chief told the AP.

But charges were never filed.

"I wonder, are they scared? Are they crying for me?" Zuvers told a Detroit television station last month on the 7th anniversary of the boys' disappearance. "It's so hard to imagine them hurting for me and not being able to do anything about it."

Back in Montana, police this week have repeatedly searched the property where the bones were discovered, with the assistance of an anthropology professor and graduate students from the University of Montana, according to court filings. The police application for a search record also notes a person of interest with whom police hope to speak.

According to the court filing, a city residential housing code compliance officer told police about a man - his name had been redacted from the document - who had "illegally occupied the backyard of the property last year." The man lived in a camper in the backyard with access to the garage and shed. The inspector told police she felt the man had a "surveillance camera set up to alert him to the presence" of visitors.
The Education Department is proposing to delay by two years, to 2020, an Obama-era rule that would push states to ensure that students of color are not over-represented in special education and put in programs because of racial bias.

The department, headed by billionaire Betsy DeVos, expressed its intention to seek public comment on the plan to delay the rule. A notice published in the Trump administration's Unified Agenda, which includes planned actions, says:

"The Department seeks comment on whether to extend by two years the compliance date of these regulations from July 1, 2018, to July 1, 2020, and, if so, whether to extend the date for including children ages 3 through 5 in the analysis of significant disproportionality with respect both to the identification of children as children with disabilities and to the identification of children as children with a particular impairment from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022."

The Obama administration set the rule in February 2016, saying it was aimed at improving equity in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which aims to ensure fairness in the identification, placement and discipline of students with disabilities. The 2016 announcement of the rule by Obama's Education Department cited an analysis of state-submitted data showing that large racial and ethnic disparities in special education programs were going unidentified in many districts around the country. The rule was described this way by the Obama administration:

"The proposed Equity in IDEA rule would, for the first time, require states to implement a standard approach to compare racial and ethnic groups, with reasonable thresholds for determining when disparities have become significant. That determination is critical to ensuring students get the supports they need and deserve. Once identified as having a significant disproportionality, the district must set aside 15 percent of its IDEA, Part B funds to provide comprehensive coordinated early intervening services. Further, the policies, practices, and procedures of the district must be reviewed, and, if necessary, revised to ensure compliance with IDEA.

"The proposed rule would also provide identified districts with new flexibility to support the needs of students. The department has proposed to broaden the allowable uses of the 15 percent set aside, currently used to fund early intervening services, to include services to students with and without disabilities, from ages 3 through grade 12. Up until now, identified districts could only use these funds to support students without disabilities, and only in grades K through 12, severely limiting the use of interventions that might address early needs and reduce disparities in the placement and discipline of students with disabilities."

DeVos's department has been considering for months whether to delay the rule or even scrap it. Supporters of a delay say school districts need more time to implement the rule because it is costly, and that the Obama administration's rule amounted to micro-managing districts and imposing requirements that should be left to Congress.

Others support it. Curt Decker, the executive director of the advocacy group National Disability Rights Network, an advocacy group, said in a statement:

"Protections are needed now to ensure that every child has the same chance to receive a quality education. We strongly oppose any effort to delay implementation. We know there is a problem that needs to be fixed - delaying implementation will only hurt children who are already in school and send a message to them that they are not important as other children are."

In October, the Education Department rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration's effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous. A Washington Post story at the time said:

"The special education guidance documents rescinded this month clarified the rights of disabled students in a number of areas, including making clear how schools could spend federal money set aside for special education. Some, such as one titled 'Questions and Answers on Serving Children with Disabilities Placed by Their Parents at Private Schools,' translated the legal jargon into plain English for parents advocating for their children. Some of the guidance documents that were cut had been on the books since 1980s."
JERUSALEM - Four Palestinians were killed Friday during violent clashes with Israeli security forces, marking the bloodiest day of demonstrations since President Donald Trump sparked outrage across much of the Middle East by declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Two demonstrators were shot dead in clashes along the fence that separates Gaza from Israel, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which identified one as a disabled 29-year-old who had previously lost his legs. The Israeli military said it had fired "selectively towards main instigators."

Two others were killed during confrontations in the occupied West Bank. One had stabbed an Israeli officer, according to Israeli police.

Trump's announcement last week that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will move the U.S. Embassy to the city from Tel Aviv has triggered regular outbursts of violence over the past week. The decision has been followed by the most sustained period of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel since the devastating 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that controls the coastal enclave.

Thousands filled the streets of Gaza for large demonstrations after Friday prayers, where leaders of the main militant factions urged residents to keep alive their intifada, or uprising, against Israel. "We are heading to Jerusalem," they chanted, waving Palestinian flags.

After the demonstrations, many headed to the border fence, with some young men loading donkey carts with tires to burn. Israeli forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition to keep protesters away from the fence.

The Israeli army said about 3,500 people had participated in the clashes along the Gaza border. About 2,500 Palestinian "rioters" demonstrated in the West Bank, throwing rocks and firebombs and burning tires, the army added. There, Palestinian factions had called for another "day of rage" to protest Trump's announcement on the status of Jerusalem.

In Ramallah, a man stabbed an Israeli police officer twice and was shot, police said. A video circulated online showed the young man backing away before officers opened fire. Soldiers and paramedics approach him, then scatter, apparently having spotted what appeared to be a suicide belt. Police said they were investigating whether the device was real.

Another Palestinian died of injuries sustained in clashes near Jerusalem, The Associated Press reported.

Jerusalem is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews and is at the heart of the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The U.S. declaration was considered by Palestinians as a denial of their claims to a section of the city. The United Nations considers the Israeli annexation of the eastern half of the city as illegal.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that the United States can no longer be considered an honest broker in the peace process and is refusing to meet Vice President Mike Pence when Pence visits the region this month. Christian and Muslim leaders also have said they will not meet Pence.

- - -

Balousha reported from Gaza.
HARTFORD  Eight Health Care Heroes have been honored for their outstanding contributions in helping to care for the Greater Hartford community.

The annual Health Care Heroes awards are an opportunity to celebrate the health care professionals and organizations who are going above and beyond in their service to the community, Joe Zwiebel, President and Publisher, Hartford Business Journal, said. In a demanding and rapidly evolving field, this years winners have set themselves apart and we commend them for their achievements.

The 2017 Health Care Heroes honorees are: Corporate Achievement  Innovation: Community Health Center; Physician: Dr. Stephen Holland, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Gaylord Specialty Healthcare; Advancement in Healthcare  Prevention: Integrated Health Services; Healthcare Staff: Tobye Karl, Director of Volunteer Services, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center; Volunteer: Mott Corporation; Advancements in Healthcare  Innovation: Julia Oh, Assistant Professor, The Jackson Laboratory; and Nurses: Lynn Piacentini-Hayes and Wendy Wheeler, Critical Care Transport Nurses, Connecticut Childrens Medical Center

Honorees were recognized during a luncheon at the Hartford Marriott. The luncheon was emceed by Denise DAscenzo, Anchor, WFSB, and featured a keynote address by Jay Williams, President, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

The Health Care Heroes luncheon was presented by Hartford Business Journal. Presenting Sponsors were Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Trinity Health of New England and WFSB-3 Eyewitness News. Events sponsors were Edible Arrangements, Hartford HealthCare and Hartford Healthcare Federal Credit Union.

Chill for Change is camp fundraiser

[MIDDLESEX COUNTY] Camp Families, Middlesex YMCA Staff, and Local Supporters of YMCA Camp Ingersoll are coming together to help provide life changing experiences for children this summer! Gather your friends and family and take the plunge with us into Jobs Pond at the 4th Annual Chill for Change on January 13th, 2018.

Over the past three years the Chill for Change has raised over $25,000 which has supported camp scholarships for over 100 children. Every year we set a goal to raise more funds than the years past to increase the impact this event has on our community. This year, the individual who raises the most money will receive a certificate for A FREE SESSION OF CAMP this summer. This certificate can be used for your own family, or gifted to anyone you know who could benefit from a one-of-a-kind experience at Camp Ingersoll!

In an effort to raise awareness about the impact of Camp Ingersoll and to continue to offer fun, exciting, and new experiences to bring families together, we would like to invite all families to come down to camp and watch us Chill for a Life-Changing camp experience! There will be food, snacks, and smores for sale as well as music, and good cheer as we gather around the

bonfire to watch families and friends jump into the freezing Jobs Pond! All proceeds from this event will go directly towards providing scholarships for camp this summer! When it comes to providing life changing experiences for children, every dollar counts!

(Travis Garboski Cannonballs into Jobs Pond at The first Chill for Change in 2015)

YMCA Camp Ingersoll has been a long standing pillar of youth development in the Middlesex community. Over 1,300 campers attended camp during the summer of 2017 while over 110 counselors provided countless opportunities for them to learn skills, make friends, build confidence, and have fun in a diverse setting. All funds raised by our Annual Chill for Change go directly towards providing these opportunities to children.

Getting involved is easy; just visit our website at www.campingersoll.org to download the Participant Packet, contact Taylor Savage at tsavage@midymca.org or (860) 343-6237, or search YMCA Camp Ingersoll and find us on Facebook.

The Y is one of the nations leading nonprofits strengthening communities through youth development, healthy living and social responsibility. Middlesex YMCA is one of Connecticuts leading YMCA branches with over 11,000 people served annually. YMCA Camp Ingersoll located in Portland, CT is operated by Middlesex YMCA and exists to allow children to explore nature make new friends, and acquire new skills.

Pearce Real Estate joins Shoreline Coat Drive

NORTH HAVEN  Pearce Real Estate has partnered with Best Cleaners, Channel 3 Eyewitness News and the Salvation Army as a collection location for Coats for Connecticut. The Pearce offices at 18 Church Street in Guilford and 16 West Main Street in Clinton are drop off locations for gently-used coats. Best Cleaners will clean and deliver donated items to the local Salvation Army, which is experiencing a higher than usual demand for winter coats and jackets, especially in childrens sizes. The demand is in part due to the influx of flood victims from Puerto Rico. Coats for Connecticut has collected, cleaned and delivered more than 76,000 coats since the campaigns inception in 2008, according to a statement.

Coats may be dropped off at Pearce Real Estates Guilford Regional Office throughout the month of December, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Coats for our Clinton location can be dropped off Monday to Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

This is another occasion for our Shoreline agents to demonstrate their involvement in the communities in which we live and do business, said Nanette Pastore, who is the Manager of all Pearce residential offices. Collecting coats is a way to give back to our community, and that service is an important part of our culture at Pearce.

Pearce Real Estate is a full-service real estate company with more than 100 agents and eight branch offices in greater New Haven and the Shoreline. Commercial Real Estate offices are located in North Haven, Milford and Rocky Hill. All listings can be found at www.hpearce.com
Roy Moore won't be in Washington next year, after all. But the Republican Party isn't anywhere near rid of his brand of racialized right-wing rhetoric - or of politicians like him.

Exit polls showed that 91 percent of Republicans who voted in Alabama's special election Tuesday supported the controversial former judge, even as Doug Jones became the first Democrat since 1997 to represent the state in the Senate. Right-wing populism has been an influential force in the GOP for decades, and it's now dominant. Like former Alabama governor George Wallace - another racial reactionary who never won federal office but still influenced the party - Moore signals the way the Republican Party has been transformed since the civil rights era.

White non-Hispanic voters alone can no longer reliably win national elections for Republicans. But the Alabama campaign showed that the strategy Moore embodied - combining resentment of elites with an assertion of white, Christian, patriarchal authority, attacks on Muslims, immigrants and gay and transgender people, and voter suppression - invigorates the party's base. If not for the allegations that Moore had made sexual advances on teenage girls when he was in his 30s, he may well be on his way to the Senate now.

Southern white politicians have been key players in this populist revolt, because they have long found political success in stoking resentment against meddling outsiders who are seen as threats to the values and sovereignty of their home states. From pro-slavery "fire-eaters" in the 1850s to Democratic "Redeemers" after Reconstruction to the architects of massive resistance to civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, politicians held up white supremacy at home as a defense against outside forces that would destroy the "Southern way of life."

Following the model of mid-20th-century Southern politicians such as Wallace and governors Orval Faubus, Ark., and Lester Maddox, Ga., - whose popularity stemmed from theatrical opposition to federal authorities on civil rights - Moore built his political career on resistance and refusals that shocked many Americans but electrified segments of the electorate.

Moore - like Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose Senate term Jones will serve out - is steeped in the racially charged politics of the South and the nation. Those traditions overlapped with Moore's brand of aggressive Christian identity politics, as Moore racialized Muslims and warned falsely that whole communities in the United States are living under sharia law.

Unsurprisingly, anti-black racism remains a staple of this right-wing populism. One top Moore campaign funder, for instance, was Michael Anthony Peroutka, a former board member of the neo-Confederate League of the South, an organization that calls for secession and the establishment of a white-ruled nation in the Deep South. In 1995, Moore delivered an address to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white-nationalist successor of the infamous White Citizens' Councils from the civil rights era. He was a strong proponent of the false conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii. And he has waxed nostalgic about the antebellum era.

But perhaps the way Moore's campaign most recalls the civil rights era is in how it reflects major changes in national politics. Like Wallace, Moore's candidacy measured a hard right shift in the GOP. During his 1968 presidential campaign, Wallace attacked liberal elites, protesters and criminals, using thinly veiled racial rhetoric that called for "law and order" and an end to "forced busing." This resonated with white voters across the country who were fearful of changes to the racial landscape in society, showing that in some ways, as Malcolm X said, the Mason-Dixon Line runs along the Canadian border.

Wallace's campaign success prodded his Republican rival, Richard Nixon, to make appeals to what he called the "silent majority." He targeted working- and middle-class white voters nationwide on the basis of opposition to the civil rights movement and related struggles of the 1960s.

Since then, there have been tensions between traditional conservatives and right-wing populists, often pitting economic conservatives against those who link white pride to relative deprivation in a politics of outsider grievance. President Ronald Reagan kept this coalition together in the 1980s by depicting government as oppressive in its regulations and indulgent in its welfare policies. But disputes over issues including immigration, free trade, corporate welfare and mild Republican gestures toward multiculturalism have spurred episodic revolts, spearheaded by figures like Pat Buchanan who chafed at the dominance of GOP "establishment elites."

Moore's campaign, however, illustrates something more fundamental - that in the Trump era, white populism is the prevailing force in the Republican Party.

For someone as politically extreme as Moore to beat the incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, a traditional Republican, in this fall's primary race demonstrated something extraordinary. Not even President Donald Trump, who initially backed Strange, could slow the party's continued rightward shift toward authoritarian nationalism.

Then, as if to test the proposition that there were limits on what the party would tolerate, a new, jaw-dropping threshold was crossed: Even well-documented accusations that Moore had preyed on underage girls failed to end his candidacy. Indeed, he received the endorsement of both Trump and the Republican National Committee after the accusations became public.

While Moore was defeated, there is little reason to think that the orientation of the party's base has been. And since Trump beat out 16 rivals in the 2016 GOP primaries, party leaders have been loathe to risk alienating that base. The long-running struggle between economic conservatives and right-wing populists has found temporary resolution in such initiatives as the proposed federal tax cuts and the Federal Communication Commission's repeal of net neutrality. But traditional Republicans can only advance their economic agenda insofar as they do not offend the growing base of white reaction.

A few prominent Republican voices will continue to offer sporadic denuciations of the latest outrages of the far right. But those dissenting voices will matter less as the party is redefined in coming years.

- - -

Lowndes is an associate professor of political science at the University of Oregon and the author of "From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism."
Two days after losing Alabama's special Senate election, Republican nominee Roy Moore has yet to concede the race to Democrat Doug Jones - even after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that he should.

"I think the president's position is pretty clear in his outreach to Doug Jones directly," Sanders said at Thursday's briefing with reporters. "He likes Doug Jones and looks forward to meeting him in person. and hopes that he will come and follow through on his commitment to work with the president on some things that they agree on."

Asked if President Donald Trump believed that Moore should give a concession speech, Sanders said that it "should have already taken place."

But Moore, who suggested on election night that the race would go to a recount, said in a Wednesday web video that late-counted ballots could change the results of the election.

"We have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots," Moore said. "This has been a very close race, and we are awaiting certification by the secretary of state."

Moore, who lost by 20,715 votes, is not in a position to ask for a recount. Alabama law does not trigger a recount unless the margin between two candidates is less than 0.5 percent; according to the latest count by the Associated Press, the margin between Jones and Moore is 1.5 percent.

Since Tuesday night, Moore has received no official support from his party. The Republican Party of Alabama, which stood by Moore when national Republicans abandoned him, congratulated Jones on Wednesday. Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who lost a bitter primary to Moore, also congratulated Jones "on a well-earned victory." In a Wednesday interview with AL.com, Jones said he had already had warm conversations with future Senate colleagues, and was looking at hiring a staff composed of "the best and the brightest."

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who sided with Moore's campaign during several election controversies, has said that the election will be certified Dec. 28. But at the same time, Merrill's office has had to brush off conspiracy theories promoted by pro-Moore websites, which have suggested that the results were tainted by fraud.

One theory, which went viral before being debunked by Snopes.com, was that multiple black voters were caught trying to vote with fake IDs. (More than 95 percent of black voters supported Jones, giving him his winning margin.) Another, also debunked quickly, was that vans of illegal voters were seen somewhere in the state.

Merrill's office confirmed that there had been no actual reports of that kind of behavior. "There's a lot of misdirection that comes in around Election Day," said John Bennett, a spokesman for Merrill. "We got no reports that caused us enough concern to act against them." Alabama's voter ID law, which has survived tough legal challenges, had previously led to four convictions of voter impersonation.

But there were more theories, some of them tweeted at Moore when he shared his video. One suggested that people seen celebrating at Jones's party, who admitted coming in from out of state, might have voted illegally. (In a news clip, they clumsily said they had come to "vote and canvass together.")

Another, promoted by the conservative site Big League Politics, suggested that the election-night count - in which urban Mobile and Jefferson counties came in last, putting Jones in the lead - was suspicious. In the election's final days, Moore's campaign had cited an inaccurate Big League Politics story to claim that women who accused Moore of sexual assault had been found and directed to the media by Republican strategist Tim Miller; Moore's Twitter account shared the story after Breitbart News aggregated it.

Big League Politics also shared a rumor that went viral when posted by the Gateway Pundit, a conservative group blog that since the start of this year has sent a reporter to the White House briefing. Citing a post on Reddit by a user named Warren4Prez, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft told readers that "Democrat activists are calling on black voters in Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina to travel to Alabama to vote for the far-left candidate Doug Jones."

The post, published 28 days before the election, suggested just that. "African Americans in Mississippi: We need you to make a short trip to Alabama on Dec. 12 and vote against the right-wing Republican Senate candidate and child molester Roy Moore," wrote Warren4Prez.

But in an interview, the Redditor behind the post confirmed that it was intended "as an obvious troll."

"I was trying to get a rise out of alt-right people, and then they really went for it," said Warren4Prez, who spoke on the phone after proving that the account was theirs. "I got like 100 posts on Reddit, telling me I was being hated by everybody. Democrats started posting stuff accusing me of trying to discredit them."

Warren4Prez posted the fake request on political Reddit pages for each state that borders Alabama; it was removed from all but the Mississippi page. In an email, Hoft did not say whether he contacted Warren4Prez to verify the information, but he did point to an update at the bottom of the viral Gateway Pundit post.

"Liberals say these are fake Reddit posts(?)" Hoft wrote. "Regardless, the posts are still up on Reddit and the posters are still encouraging Democrats to cheat."

Moore, who insisted that allegations of past sexual misbehavior were "fake news," sometimes led supportive conservative media to awkward places. On election day, the One America News Network, which had run stories about Moore designed to exonerate him - one pointed out that an accuser's son had been a drug addict - informed viewers that Moore had won.

"We're being told that there are strong signs that the majority of voters have come out in support of the judge," OANN reported, before the polls in Alabama had closed. "We are unofficially announcing that Roy Moore has won this race."

The story was quickly deleted from OANN's website, but Jon Levine, a media editor at The Wrap, captured a video of the original broadcast.

In an earlier report, saved and published Tuesday by a Moore supporter, OANN correspondent Pearson Sharp cited campaign sources to report an "unexpected surge" of votes for Moore.

"They say that if even half these numbers continue throughout the day, that it will turn out to be a landslide for Moore," said Sharp. "We have reports that a number of people have been caught trying to sneak into voting booths and vote illegally. His campaign told me that most of the people who have been turned away so far have been across the state line in Mississippi. But they say that voting fraud hasn't been too much of a problem yet, and that only 50 people had been caught."

According to the Alabama Secretary of State's office, there were no credible reports of voter fraud.
Mohammed al-Yadomi, the head of an influential Yemeni party, was attending a summit on Jerusalem in Istanbul on Wednesday when he was summoned to the Saudi capital for an unprecedented meeting with two of the Arab world's most powerful leaders.

A private Saudi plane flew al-Yadomi to Riyadh for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, the crown prince of the UAE's capital, Abu Dhabi, according to the deputy chief of Islah's media department, Adnan al-Odaini.

Little detail has emerged from the discussions. But the fact that they were held at all may signal the beginning of new realignments in Yemen's nearly three-year war -- which has become part of the broader struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence as well as triggering a humanitarian crisis. It has drawn in the Saudi and UAE militaries on the side of the internationally recognized government of Yemeni President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi, a Sunni, against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Al-Yadomi is chairman of the Islamist Islah party, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have banned. While Saudi Arabia has put aside its reservations over Islah's affiliations to welcome its leaders as part of Hadi's government, the UAE has previously had no public contacts with the party.

The meeting with al-Yadomi "seeks to unite efforts to defeat Iran and its Houthi militias," UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said in a Twitter posting late Thursday. Islah has recently said it was distancing itself from the brotherhood "and we have a chance to test intentions," he said.

Islah and the Houthis are now the two major forces on the ground in Yemen after the assassination of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh this month by the Houthis left his party in disarray. Having Islah on board could tilt the balance of power on the ground in favor of the Saudi-led coalition in parts of the country, including in the west and in Taiz.

The UAE classifies the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists, putting it on the same spectrum as extremist groups such as Islamic State. It has jailed members of a local franchise on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government, and in Egypt, backed the overthrow of elected Islamist leader Mohamed Mursi in 2013.

The Muslim Brotherhood, established in Egypt in the 1920s, has offshoots in several Arab countries including the UAE , Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

Al-Odaini said Prince Mohammed "made a big effort, an effort that such a meeting clearly needed" to happen. "It looks like it's meant to remove more obstacles facing the coalition and the legitimate Yemeni government in the fight" against the Houthis, he said in an interview from Riyadh on Thursday.

Majed al-Madhaji, executive director of the Sana'a Center of Strategic Studies, said "it is too early to talk about a breakthrough in the highly tense relation between Islah and the UAE It is difficult to defuse this tension in one meeting but it's an indication that there is a will to have understanding on big issues."

Mustapha Noman, a former deputy foreign minister, said in an interview in Beirut that Wednesday's talks came as a surprise because "the UAE had never established any direct contacts with any group affiliated to the Muslim brothers."

"My assessment is that Riyadh has put a lot of pressure on the Emiratis to open links with the Islah party in Yemen because Islah at the end of the day represents a major force on the ground," he said.

At least 14,000 people have been killed or wounded since the Saudi-led offensive began. Nearly 1 million people have contracted cholera, and 3 million, out of a population of 28 million, are internally displaced, according to the United Nations.
There are mornings when I look over my to-do-list and just keep staring blankly at it. Instead of getting to work, I keep checking my inbox, news feed, and making a fresh cup of green tea. Then I notice the dirty dishes in the kitchen.

I get the dishes cleaned up, but there are also those clothes sitting on the chair from last night, so I quickly get those hung up.

Next thing I know, Ive just wasted two hours of my morning.

Of course a friend calls and tells me everything they accomplished in their morning. It sounds like theyve done more than the average person does in an entire day -- and sometimes I realize that what they got done could take me a week.

Whats the deal? At first I wondered if I was just lazy? Maybe those others are just exceptional individuals. Or -- is it something else entirely?

Related: 50 Inspirational Quotes to Motivate You

Motivation: Its all in your head.

Science has found that the source of motivation comes from the part of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens. Its in the small section where neurotransmitters send chemical messages to the rest of your body. Its these neurotransmitters that keep us alert, focused, and that part of the brain influences things like completing a project or going to the gym.

Related: 15 Motivational Quotes From Legends in Sports

When it comes specifically to motivation, one of the most important neurotransmitters is dopamine.

Dopamine is one of the chemical signals that passes information from one neuron to the next. When dopamine is released from the first neuron, it floats between the empty space (the synapse) between the first and second neuron. As it moves between neurons, it bumps against various receptors.

"Dopamine helps bridge what scientists call psychological distance, explains John Salamone, Ph.D., the head of the Behavioral Neuroscience Division at the University of Connecticut. "Say you're sitting at home on your couch in your pajamas, thinking you really should exercise, for example. Dopamine is what enables you to make the decision to be active."

But, heres where things can get complicated. When it comes to motivation, dopamine has to take the mesolimbic pathway. This is essentially from the middle of the brain to the cerebral cortex. Without getting too scientific, this process seems to be the most rewarding pathway in the brain.

Thats because during this journey, one of the most important stops is the nucleus accumbens. When theres a surplus of dopamine in this space it triggers feedback for predicting rewards.

In other words, when your brain recognizes that something important is about go down, and it's a good move for you, dopamine starts to kick-in.

Related: 10 Ways to Motivate Yourself When You're Really Not Feeling It

Dopamine: Its just not about pleasure.

Since dopamine is released before we ever receive a reward, its real job is to encourage us to act. It motivates us to achieve, while avoiding something bad.

Whats interesting is that when we think of dopamine, we associate it with pleasure. However, its been found that dopamine also spikes during moments of stress, pain, or loss -- it carries us through those episodes.

To verify this phenomon, a team of scientists at Vanderbilt conducted a brain imaging study that compared the brains of go-getters and slackers.

The team found that the go-getters had higher levels of dopamine in the reward and motivation portions of the brain -- which is the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

The slackers had a higher level of dopamine in the part of the brain thats associated with emotion and risk -- the anterior insula.

Past studies in rats have shown that dopamine is crucial for reward motivation, said Dr. Michael Treadway. But this study provides new information about how dopamine determines individual differences in the behavior of human reward-seekers.

Low levels of dopamine make people and other animals less likely to work for things, so it has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself, adds the University of Connecticut researcher, John Salamone.

Related: Inspiring Quotes to Help You Get Through Your Work Day

How to harness the power of dopamine to get more done.

First things first. You will need to identify the three primary sources of resistance to getting things done. Touching very lightly on this, these primary sources are: I have to, I dont feel right about this, and I cant do this.

Related: 11 Successful Kid Entrepreneurs Keeping Their Eyes on the Prize

Combat sources of resistance.

To combat these sources of resistance, look for solutions. Dont allow yourself to think about what you want to get done in terms of something you have to do. Begin thinking and helping yourself to believe in terms of getting your work done because you choose to or want to accomplish these items or activities.

Start aligning tasks with your values. Dont be afraid of failure. After all, practice makes perfect. After youve identified these factors, you can start rethinking your thought process to get yourself motivated.

Related: Sarah Michelle Gellar and the Co-Founders of Foodstirs on Failure, Morning Routines and More

But, how can you get the dopamine flowing?

You can begin to get the dopamine flowing better by setting incremental goals. When you complete a step, dopamine will due to the brains positive reinforcement.

Other actions to try that will help you with your efforts:

Record and celebrate your small wins.

This could be crossing-off an item from you to-do-list or tracking your progress. Its effective since it shows that youre working your way towards a goal.

Single-tasking.

Instead of multitasking, focus on one thing at a time. This prevents you from depleting your brains energy. Since you have more energy, youll get more done. And when youre productive, dopamine is released.

Exceed your expectations.

"When something feels better than expected, dopamine sends a signal to your brain that says, 'You need to figure out how to make it happen again,'" says Treadway.

Focus on the end-game.

A study out of the University of Michigan discovered that results-driven focus can motivate people to complete their work.

Help others.

Neuroscience has demonstrated that giving is a powerful pathway for creating more personal joy and improving overall health, writes Eva Ritvo, M.D. As a result, dopamine is triggered. Even if youre not volunteering or sharing your knowledge, think about how your work is going to positively affect others.

Share your results.

When you tell others about you accomplishments, you'll receive praise and recognition from your friends, family, or colleagues.

Change your diet.

Eating foods containing natural probiotics is a quick way to kick-in dopamine, such as yogurt. You should also eat and drink items that contain L-tyrosine, such as apples, avocados, bananas, green leafy vegetables, peanuts, green tea, and coffeed.

Turn setbacks around.

"You're going to go off track sometime -- everyone does. But that can provide valuable information on how to change what you're doing so you'll be successful next time around, "says Sona Dimidjian, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Conclusion

Even though it may appear that others more motivated than you are, you can change that feeling around by life-hacking your dopamine. The easiest, and most effective, ways to do this is by tracking your progress incrementally and receiving positive feedback.

Once you do, youll be just as motivated as those whom you are perceiving as the successful go-getters.

Related:

Science Discovers Why Some People Are Motivated to Succeed While Others Aren't

#EntMETalks: The Best (And Worst) Advice You've Received As Entrepreneurs

22 Successful Entrepreneurs Share What Inspires Them to Keep Going



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed focused this week on rebooting his image as a beleaguered Cabinet member on the outs with his boss and his own employees - holding a rare town hall with employees, promising foreign trips into 2018 and saying he is "learning" to enjoy his job.

But then he went off script by offering another invitation for diplomatic talks with nuclear-armed North Korea, putting him at odds once again with President Donald Trump and senior White House officials, who are increasingly exasperated with the secretary of state and say he cannot remain in his job for the long term.

The episode highlights the deep distrust between the White House and Tillerson and suggests how difficult it will be for the relationship to continue. While Trump and Tillerson have clashed on several policy issues - including negotiating with North Korea, the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and planning to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem - much of the distance between them seems personal and probably irreversible, White House officials said.

Tillerson, one White House official said, "had not learned his lesson from the last time," when Trump publicly rebuked his top diplomat on Twitter over the wisdom of talking to North Korea.

A senior U.S. official said foreign diplomats and leaders often ask if Tillerson is speaking for the administration and when he will depart. Another White House aide said White House officials, diplomats and other Cabinet secretaries largely deem the former ExxonMobil chief executive "irrelevant."

Inside the White House, this person said, there are fairly regular conversations about who will replace Tillerson even as he remains in the job. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, for example, may no longer be the leading choice because it means he would not brief Trump every day, and the president likes him in that role, the official said.

"I think our allies know at this point he's not really speaking for the administration," this Trump official said - a particularly sharp slap given that Tillerson has sought to be a buffer and interpreter for allies angry or bewildered by some of Trump's actions.

West Wing officials spoke about Tillerson on the condition of anonymity to describe internal personnel dynamics.

Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, said Trump "is very pleased with his entire national security team, which includes Secretary Tillerson."

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tillerson "enjoys a strong relationship with the president. Most importantly, they share a commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the security of our homeland and the protection of our allies."

Nauert noted that Tillerson had lunch with Trump on Thursday. The discussion included North Korea, she said.

The latest dust-up began Tuesday when Tillerson caught the White House by surprise with remarks at the Atlantic Council that appeared to mark a shift away from the Trump administration's demand that North Korea commit to disarmament upfront. Tillerson's comments also stood in sharp contrast to Trump's past pronouncements that talking to North Korea is a trap or waste of time.

"We're ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk," Tillerson said. "We're ready to have the first meeting without preconditions."

"Let's just meet and let's - we can talk about the weather if you want," Tillerson said to laughter.

The comments upset Trump and several senior aides, and set off a cascade of emails and phone calls that ended with a terse statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. National Security Council aides were particularly frustrated with the remarks and complained loudly, administration officials say.

"The President's views on North Korea have not changed. North Korea is acting in an unsafe way not only toward Japan, China, and South Korea, but the entire world," Sanders said in the statement. "North Korea's actions are not good for anyone and certainly not good for North Korea."

Senior Trump aides say that Tillerson knew he was contradicting Trump, according to White House advisers. The State Department said Tillerson's invitation was not a break with the administration's official position.

Tillerson's State Department continues to clash with the White House over personnel - picks are often scuttled or delayed, officials say - and Trump will sometimes react with exasperation when the secretary's name is brought up, other officials said. One senior official said Trump will sometimes commend senior policy aide Stephen Miller for the time he clashed with Tillerson, or will mention disagreements Tillerson has had with other aides - and not take Tillerson's side.

Inside the West Wing, several aides said people close to Trump essentially were counting down the days until Tillerson leaves, which they guess will be in February.

Trump has told advisers he is amazed at the negative news attention Tillerson receives and has said to at least one adviser that Tillerson probably gripes about him behind his back. But Trump does not believe Tillerson called him a "moron" as NBC News first reported, a White House official said.

Tillerson has sought out Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., as an ally, frequently meeting with him for breakfast. And Corker has tried to solidify Tillerson's standing by vouching for him to Trump and senior aides. But after Corker went on television and praised Tillerson, Trump complained to aides that Corker was defending the secretary of state.

For now, Trump has told advisers that he is not firing Tillerson.

"Where's our Rex?" he told supporters at a recent holiday party, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post. "Rex is doing a great job!"

Tillerson received applause at the event.

During an October visit to China, Tillerson had described U.S. willingness to talk with North Korea as a linchpin in any nonmilitary resolution to the nuclear crisis. Within hours, Trump had hung his top diplomat to dry with a tweet.

"I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," Trump wrote, using a favorite insult for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "Save your energy, Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"

Sanders later underscored to reporters that the White House sees no opening for talks except to try to free Americans detained in North Korea.

West Wing aides have cited that example as well as policy clashes behind closed doors to criticize Tillerson for overstepping his role or freelancing on policy issues.

Rumors have swirled since this summer that Tillerson is on thin ice and would soon leave the administration. He has dismissed them as Washington backstabbing and rumor-mongering, saying this month that news reports about an impending ouster were "laughable."

"People need to get better sources," Tillerson said in a Dec. 2 interview with the Reuters news agency.

At the State Department on Wednesday, Nauert said Tillerson was "on the same page" with the White House.

"Diplomacy is our top priority," Nauert said. "We remain open to dialogue, and we've long said this. We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Nauert added that "we are not seeing any evidence that they are ready to sit down and have those kinds of conversations right now."

An open-door policy is just what many U.S. allies and partners want, and what outside policy experts have frequently recommended as the best way to draw Kim to talks that could avert war.

They argue that Kim is likely never to agree at the outset that eliminating his nuclear arsenal is the goal of talks. Kim has used his rapidly advancing nuclear weapons capability to threaten the United States and Asian allies, and has vowed never to give them up.

Speaking to State Department employees Tuesday, Tillerson did not sound like a man with one foot out the door. He said he plans to travel to Canada next week and to Africa and Latin America early next year.

"This is all about modernizing the department and making it easier to complete your mission," Tillerson told employees.

He will attend a United Nations Security Council session on North Korea in New York on Friday.

One adviser who knows Tillerson and Trump well said the president had treated the secretary of state "horribly" and had humiliated him unnecessarily. But this person said Tillerson also had made "enough mistakes of his own."

"It makes me angry," this person said of the president's behavior toward Tillerson, describing Trump as "impulsive" and Tillerson as "a patrician Boy Scout," two who are never going to get along - but that it doesn't need to be so public.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Three teenagers suspected of killing a man during a drug deal gone bad could face the death penalty after their charges were upgraded to capital murder.

Michael Aguilar, 19, Emmanuel Herrera, 18, and Charles Robnett, 18, had previously been arrested on murder charges in connection to the shooting death of Gary Barnhardt, 20.

Robnett was still in custody but Aguilar and Herrera were re-arrested Friday afternoon. All three had upgraded charges.

The killing occurred Oct. 16, when Barnhart and his friend met up with the three near Lake Bend East and Fountain Lake to sell them marijuana, Sheriff Javier Salazar said.

"They arrived not with the intention of buying the drugs, but robbing the victims of the drugs," Salazar said.

RELATED: 3rd teen arrested in connection with Northeast Side drug deal slaying

Things didn't go as planned, and Barnhardt and his friend were shot. Though his friend survived, Barnhardt died at the scene.

Neither Aguilar nor Herrera had anything to say as deputies brought them into custody.

"You have 5 young lives who are ruined forever over something as senseless as drugs," Salazar said.

The three suspects' bail amounts were set at $500,000 each.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A San Antonio man accused of strangling his girlfriend left a note by her body blaming his actions on her, according to an affidavit.

San Antonio Police Department spokesman Sgt. Michelle Ramos said Paulo Gonzalez Chavez, 40, faces a murder charge in the death of Idalia Celedon Becerra, 29. He was arrested Thursday.

Police found Becerra dead at 2:55 p.m. Monday at a home in the 3300 block of Morales Street.

RELATED: Arrest made in string of package thefts on NW Side

Ramos said Becerra was propped up against a bed and had been covered with a blanket.

They did find a note next to her body which appears to have been written from the actor in this case, Ramos said.

Now Playing: S.A. ranked first out of 15 largest U.S. cities in 2016. Video: San Antonio Express-News

Detectives said it appeared Becerra had been strangled.

In the note, Chavez wrote that he loved Becerra and acknowledged that he "did something stupid," but said it wouldn't have happened if she didn't cheat on him, the affidavit says.

RELATED: Suspect detained after lockdown at S.A. high school

Police said after killing Becerra Chavez reached out to the family and asked if they could pick up Becerras children from school.

Investigators said Chavez and Becerra had been in a relationship for several years.

Lonestar Fugitive Taskforce officers found Chavez walking in the 7500 block of West Military Drive and arrested him on a murder warrant without incident. A handgun was found in his possession, Ramos said.

Chavez was quiet as he was taken to a police vehicle at the Public Safety Headquarters, 315 S. Santa Rosa Ave. He shook his head when he was asked if he had anything to say.

jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

A San Antonio woman was allegedly caught cutting heroin in her boyfriend's hospital room, according to police.

Elizabeth Ashley Borrego, 27, was arrested early Thursday morning after Mission Trail Baptist Hospital staff allegedly walked in on her preparing the drugs in front of her 8-year-old child.

When the staff walked in, they saw "a bunch of drug paraphernalia" around the room, according to a police report.

RELATED: Bexar County deputy arrested for allegedly assaulting inmate

Though some of the powder was disseminated into the air, Borrego kept some of the heroin in her hand, allowing it to later be verified by a field test kit, police said.

Further investigation revealed that Borrego and her boyfriend were using a small bullet blender to cut the heroin, according to the report.

The boyfriend, who had just bonded out of jail for a felony drug possession charge, had checked himself into the hospital because his legs were infected from a cut, according to the report.

Borrego allegedly told police that she couldn't get a job and the family was short on money, so she resorted to dealing drugs instead.

RELATED: Police: Suspect blamed victim in note he left after strangling girlfriend

"(Borrego) was proud of herself as she said she had already sold enough drugs to pay the rent," according to the report.

Borrego was taken to jail and charged with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

The report indicates her boyfriend will also be arrested when the doctor medically clears him.

The child was taken to a children's center and released to those staff members.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.com | Twitter: @FaresInSA
Andrew Harnik/STF

WASHINGTON - With no firm conclusions yet on whether President Donald Trump's campaign may have coordinated with Russia, the Senate intelligence committee could delay answering that question and issue more bipartisan recommendations early next year on protecting future elections from foreign tampering.

Recommendations on how to counter the threat from attempted election hackers could be the first written product from congressional committees examining Russian interference into the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House. An early bipartisan report could be an attempt to boost confidence in the panel's probe, as lawmakers worry that other issues could be lost if they are not able to agree on the most anticipated questions like collusion.
LONDON - The leaders of a British far-right group, which had gained notoriety after President Donald Trump recirculated unverified anti-Muslim videos it had posted on social media, were arrested Thursday.

Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First, was detained in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the group said, where he was accompanying his deputy, Jayda Fransen, to her court hearing on earlier charges related to using "threatening, abusive, insulting words or behavior" during an anti-Islam speech in August that prosecutors said could qualify as incitement to racial hatred. She has denied the charges.

Shortly after her court appearance, British news media said she was arrested again, this time as part of a police investigation into "an incident at a peace wall" in Belfast on Wednesday.

Earlier, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said on Twitter that detectives investigating speeches made at the Northern Ireland Against Terrorism Rally on Aug. 6 "have arrested a 35-year-old man in the Belfast area today." The post did not identify Golding or the offense.

Fransen, in a video posted on Twitter, said that the man was Golding and that he had been detained on "trumped-up charges." A spokesman for Britain First confirmed the arrest.

According to British news reports, a video recorded earlier this week in Belfast and in which Fransen spoke of the "Islamification of the mainland," had been posted on the group's Facebook page. She also described the Belfast Islamic Center as a "den of iniquity."

Britain First is a fringe group insisting that white Christian civilization is under threat from Muslims. The group had received relatively little attention until two weeks ago, when it received an unexpected burst of publicity from Trump, who recirculated three sometimes-misleading videos that Fransen had posted on Twitter Those videos purport to show Muslims committing violent acts against non-Muslims.

Trump's Twitter posts drew ire from the British public and lawmakers, including Prime Minister Theresa May, who said he had given a platform to a hate group.

After Trump shared Britain First's videos, May said that members of the ultranationalist group sought "to divide communities by their use of hateful narratives that peddle lies and stoke tensions." Britain's foreign minister, Boris Johnson, called Britain First "a divisive, hateful group whose views are not in line with our values."

Some lawmakers from the opposition Labour Party went further, urging May, who leads the Conservative Party, to rescind an invitation to Trump to pay a state visit to Britain.

But Tuesday, Woody Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, appeared to confirm that Trump was set to visit the country early next year. In an interview with the BBC, Johnson said the uproar over Trump's sharing of videos posted by Britain First was "probably misinterpreted."
When Gladys Fisher talks about her husband, her voice rings with pride.

He wanted the best for his sons, she said. They were blessed to have him as a father, and I was blessed to have Herbert L. Fisher as my husband.

Known for his tremendous work ethic, he devoted his life to God, country, and family. Fisher died Dec. 4, of kidney complications. He was 88.

Raised in Weimar, Fisher volunteered to go into the Army at 19.

By 1967, with numerous tours behind him, he was standing guard in the demilitarized zone while North Korean propaganda messages boomed freely across the border.

It wasnt a pleasant tour, Gladys Fisher said, remembering his war stories and the nightmares he suffered through the years.

I met him when I was 12 years old, Gladys Fisher said, remembering the couples early years.

The school principal sent Fisher and another young man to escort her to class. This was back in the days when there were no telephones, she said. Gladys was an important participant in a school program that was taking place that day. Even then, with three years between us in age, he knew I would be his wife. He said God saved me just for him.

They married in 1951, three years into Fishers military service.

Ten years later, having done tours at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Fishers family, which had grown to three children, followed him to Germany.

More Information Herbert Lawrence Fisher Sr. Born: May 14, 1929, Weimar Died: Dec. 4, 2017, San Antonio Preceded by: Parents Dave and Willie Mae Fisher; brother Leroy Fisher; sisters Mattie Williams and Dorothy Boman. Survived by: Wife Gladys Fisher; sons Herbert L. Fisher Jr. and daughter-in-law Machella, Howard L. Fisher, and Horace L. Fisher and daughter-in-law Annie; 9 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren, and numerous friends and family. Services: Visitation 10 a.m. Dec. 19, followed by 11:30 a.m. funeral service at True Vision Baptist Church, 2826 Ackerman Road. See More Collapse

The airplane was filled with women going to see their spouses, Gladys Fisher said. Having arrived in Germany, families were placed in a room, waiting for husbands to enter one at a time to collect their kin.

I told my sons You know how much your father loved you  he must have gotten there early to be the first one to come through the door.

In 1964, Fisher received orders for the 58th Transportation Truck Company at Fort Sam Houston.

We bought a home and stayed in San Antonio when my husband left for Korea in 1967.

Fisher retired four years later completing 22 years of service. Soon after, he and his wife bought and operated Terrell Hill Cleaners.

Mornings and afternoons Fisher drove a school bus for the Northeast Independent School District, retiring after 25 years.

He loved his wife, his boys, his pastor and the deacons he served with at True Vision Church, Gladys Fisher said. He was a just and loving man, not a perfect man, but a good man.

iwilgen@express-news.net
Connie Prados possible bid for the Texas Legislature is some of the best news coming out of the South Side in a long time.

A successful bid for the House seat would force Prado to give up her seat on the South San Antonio Independent School District board, resolving many of the beleaguered districts chronic problems.

In an unusual announcement at the end of November, Prado said her intentions are to bypass the political party primaries and file as an independent to get on the general election ballot in the fall.

She is eyeing the Texas House District 117 seat currently held by Democrat Philip Cortez, whose campaign Prado has supported in the past.

Cortez is facing Terisha DeDeaux in the Democratic primary in March. The winner in that race will face off with either Carlos Antonio Raymond or Michael Berlanga, who are vying for the Republican nomination.

It will be an uphill battle for Prado to gain the seat as an independent candidate, but stranger things have happened in Texas politics.

Granted, success at the polls would mean she would go to Austin, but the upside is that freshmen legislators dont wield much power, legislators serve only two-year terms, there is always a crowd of challengers each election cycle, and incumbency does not carry any guarantee of re-election.

Regrettably, school board members dont have to give up their seats to make a bid for higher office. They have to resign only if they win. South San board member Helen Madla, for example, got to keep her seat on the South San board after her unsuccessful bid in 2016 for the Democratic nomination for the District 19 Texas Senate seat.

Over in Harlandale ISD, Tomas Uresti gave up his school board position only after he was elected to the Texas House District 118 seat.

Prados political campaigns are always interesting, and this promises to be no different. Her campaigns get a heavy behind-the-scenes assist from her husband, Raul Prado, a former San Antonio city councilman and one of several high profile individuals caught up in a public corruption scandal more than 15 years ago that rocked City Hall and the local community college district.

Connie Prado filed her declaration of intent to run for the District 117 seat with the Texas Secretary of States Office at the end of last month. She must submit signatures from voters in the district to get on the ballot.

Unlike most candidates seeking state office and eager for publicity, Prado refused to speak to Express-News education writer Lauren Caruba and would only provide a copy of her candidacy announcement.

Her plans are to draft 10 position papers on issues facing the district, the announcement said, and she will talk to the news media only after they are ready.

Seems to me that if she is the one drafting these position papers on school finance, governance, redistricting, annexation and immigration, she would have enough working knowledge of those issues to grant a quick interview.

In her candidacy announcement, she states, In the event one of my general election opponents agrees to embrace and demonstrate their support for each of theses major issues, my candidacy will not be necessary.

What is that about?

The district is nearing the two-year mark of a Texas Education Agency conservator overseeing the district due to severe governance issues.

The South San school board is going through some major changes. Two of its seven members recently resigned, and the remaining board members will make appointments to fill those slots.

Prados little sideshow is distracting for South San and raises questions about her end game.

Cant help but wish I was qualified to vote in District 117 should Prados name end up on the ballot.

gpadilla@express-news.net
More than five decades is a long time to wait for justice.

For the family of Irene Garza, a Rio Grande Valley former beauty queen and second-grade teacher murdered in 1960, the conviction earlier this month of Father John Feit, 85, brought much-needed closure.

The case brought to light apparent collusion between prosecutors and the church. Allowing the priest to plead to a lesser charge and leave Texas, even after all these years, leaves an indelible stain of prosecutorial misconduct on the state.

In that light and others, the Feit case offers lessons.

One is that cold cases still cry out for justice. Authorities should never truly let them go. They must use any opportunity to pursue even deferred justice.

Another is that, though the original Feit case occurred decades ago and differs from other examples of misconduct, Texas should use this conviction as an opportunity to examine if the state is as clean as it should be of prosecutorial misconduct of any sort.

And the state should be mindful also of cases that dont rise to the level of criminal prosecution but are nonetheless attempts to sweep misconduct under the rug.

First, about the cold case.

It is praiseworthy that prosecutors were able to successfully bring a case to trial after so many years. Cold cases are never easy to break open and come with their own unique set of circumstances that make them that much more difficult to prosecute.

Even when witness memories are fresh and physical evidence has been properly preserved, murder cases present challenges. The Garza case was complicated by the fact that those who should have been seeking justice for the victim instead chose to broker deals with the suspect and his associates.

Testimony presented during the two-week trial in Edinburg revealed an intriguing plot. It involved collusion between the Catholic Church and Rio Grande Valley prosecutors who wanted to protect the churchs reputation as the nation was about to elect John F. Kennedy, the countrys first Catholic president.

Instead of prosecuting the prime suspect in the 25-year-old school teachers murder, the state struck a bizarre deal. Prosecutors allowed a then-27-year-old priest, with a history of violence toward women, to enter a plea to a reduced charge in another case.

As part of the deal, Feit was reassigned out of state by the church and the books were closed on a murder case that rocked the close-knit Rio Grande Valley community and haunted residents for years.

The case stood unresolved for decades until the Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program took it up at the beginning of the new millennium. It started piecing together scraps of evidence and unraveled a startling coverup involving the now deceased local district attorney and the Catholic Church.

In recent years, we have seen a growing number of inmates exonerated and government lawyers brought up on prosecutorial misconduct charges for overzealous tactics that denied defendants fair trials. Cases of prosecutors colluding to keep suspects from facing criminal charges as in the Feit case remain an anomaly.

In a 2016 report, the Center for Prosecutor Integrity documented 289 cases of prosecutor misconduct in Texas, mostly for use of inadmissible evidence, arguing facts not in evidence and misleading the court.

Regrettably, we continue to see examples of this type of behavior in the public sector. Not as serious as letting a suspect get away with murder, but problem public servants are being dealt with administratively  allowed to resign and move on with blemish-free resumes.

It is only much later, after they move on to other jobs or get into trouble again, that we learn of the earlier problems.

These brokered closed-door separation deals, often involving governmental entities or school districts, may limit an agencys exposure to litigation and minimize bad publicity. They are nonetheless a public disservice.

Unsuspecting future employers sometimes end up having to clean up even bigger messes for which taxpayers get to foot the bill.

Cover-up may be too harsh a term, but it boils down to deception by omission.

In the case of Feit, the alarm bells sounded early in his career. His superiors chose to ignore them  and it ended up costing a young woman her life.

We laud the investigators and the prosecutors who finally secured justice in the Garza case. It took awhile, but justice still found a way.
This was always the danger of the #metoo campaign. The repercussions of an all pile on the rabbit strategy always end with unintended consequences.

Now I see women complaining about Donald Trump are still standing, but when one starts a take no prisoners campaign, someone who did nothing or very little will get trapped in the net. You cant have a take no prisoners policy and then take a prisoner.

Al Franken has been sacrificed.

Valerie Overstreet

State income tax

A major factor that increases rents is that property taxes continually rise, which is how the state gets revenue. Unfortunately, we do not have a state income tax.

Hear me out before you start getting the rope ready. We do not receive money on the value of an asset. We get money from salaries and other income, which we use to pay property tax regardless of our annual income.

A state income tax and lower property tax makes sense.

Keith Fife

Lost at sea

Re: A barren Christmas, Your Turn, Dec. 7:

The letter writer is correct. It is a damn shame that the citys official Christmas tree is not located at the heart of San Antonio and the heart of the great state of Texas  the Alamo.

Fools are rowing this boat.

David Hooge

Seniors treated well

Re: Help the elderly, Your Turn, Dec. 8:

The letter writer suggests the city of San Antonio dump the Pre-K 4 S.A. program and concentrate on services for senior citizens. He implies that the children of our city are less deserving than members of the over-the-hill gang.

Im a 79-year-old resident of San Antonio. Contrary to the letter writer, I think seniors are well served by the city. San Antonios Department of Human Services for Seniors provides myriad programs, facilities and professional personnel to help us older folks.

Just one example: At the senior center on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, there are several continuing educational programs, recreational opportunities, physical fitness facilities, counseling programs, free lunch. The list goes on.

David H. Plylar

Rotting from the top

The Republican Party is morally bankrupt, thanks to Donald Trump.

When Roy Moore began running for the Senate in Alabama, he had the support of the party. It was not until accusations of his child-molesting days appeared that the RNC pulled its funding. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would try to expel Moore if he were elected; even Trump did not give him a strong endorsement.

What changed? Why did the RNC begin funding the Moore campaign anew? Why was Trump wholeheartedly endorsing Moore? Did the all the other accusations of sexual misconduct water down the actions of this child predator?

Shame on you. Both sides have their problems, but does that make it right? There is written evidence, notes Moore sent to underage girls showing his involvement, but this did not deter the Republican Party.

In Texas, we have Rep. Joe Barton exposing himself and Blake Farenthold settling a lawsuit for $84,000 on the taxpayers dime! Oh, well, he will pay it back, but if all this had not emerged due to a free press, the taxpayers would have never known.

It starts from the top. When you have a person who disparages women, the disabled, minorities and just about everyone else, you will see the morality of a party and a nation sucked into the swamp.

Richard Caldwell

The waters rising

I see that thousands, maybe millions, of people are wondering what is in store for them as the devastating tax bill rolls ahead.

What do you do if you or your children have pre-existing conditions? What do you do if you or someone you love depends on lifesaving medicine that you know you cannot afford? How can you respect senators who insert secret conditions in a tax plan to help only specific religions, political parties or corporations? How can you respect senators who have taken every traditional sacred process and ignored it so they dont have to deal with any opposition?

This tax bill has not been read or adequately debated, and does not protect or help anyone making under $75,000 a year.

Republicans have proposed cutting about $500 billion from Medicare, and Social Security will be on the chopping block to offset the $1.5 trillion increase in the deficit caused by this tax bill.

I know, I know, you dont think politics affects you. Well, you are wrong, and by the time you feel the full effect, you will be drowning.

Helen Chouinard

Villains are loose

With both the House and Senate tax bills, the Republicans in Congress are again in a race with themselves to see who can be meanest, stingiest and cruelest. And their leadership has promised that next will be cuts and privatization of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

These, together with the continual appointments of incompetent or malicious people to federal agencies, continue their efforts to undermine and eliminate every vestige of the common good in our nation.

An old English rhyme says, They hang the man and flog the woman / Who steals a goose from off the common, / But turn the greater villain loose / Who steals the common from the goose.

I think we are all about to be goosed.

Wayne Hames
Isnt life funny? The journey that is life can take one on some pretty amazing adventures.

Simple as well as complicated choices can mold a persons future and shape it in a way the individual never thought possible.

This is where Carlos Villezcas story as a Realtor begins in the seemingly insignificant decision made one afternoon.

It all happened after his honorable discharge from the United States Air Force. A young Carlos Villezcas found himself at one of lifes great crossroads. After much thought and consideration, Villezcas decided to continue to serve his country by way of the Secret Service. He submitted his application and began the lengthy process of waiting to hear back from the government to see where the next phase of life would take him. As he waited, he decided to train physically for the job that lay ahead by spending most of his waking hours at a local gym. Before long, he had befriended the staff, who saw a great talent in him  skills that Villezcas simply didnt realize he possessed. One afternoon, the gym manager followed his instincts and offered him a job selling gym memberships, confident that Villezcas would be successful. Villezcas didnt see the harm in a little side job while he waited to hear back from the Secret Service, so he accepted the position. It was a decision that rocketed Villezcas future into a completely different direction  a choice that he would forever be grateful that he made. He gladly traded a future guarding the U.S. President for a life of making the American dream a reality.

Within a few short weeks, Villezcas realized that not only did he love selling, working with people and helping to change a clients life for the better, he was very good at his new craft. His job at the gym served as a springboard to other positions in sales, and before long, he found himself in the field of real estate, working for one of the countrys largest home builders. He worked closely with home buyers, overseeing the construction process and acting as a liaison between the client and the building process. While Villezcas was wildly successful in this position, he longed to focus solely on helping people with buying and/or selling their homes.

So after several years on the construction side of residential real estate, Villezcas made the choice to obtain his Realtor license and join one of the most prestigious brokerages in town: Kuper Sothebys International Realty. I love my job as a Realtor, said Villezcas. I love that I get to meet people from virtually all walks of life and am fortunate enough to get to share an incredible milestone of homeownership with my clients, he added.

Villezcas specializes in helping his clients navigate their way through the often overwhelming process of building and buying a new construction home. His background in construction gives him a unique edge in his field. I am very knowledgeable in the building process, said Villezcas. Plus, I have many personal relationships with both large-scale home builders as well as many of the local custom home builders here in town, he added.

Villezcas works throughout San Antonio and surrounding areas, with a wide variety of clients. Of all his many clients, Villezcas relishes the opportunity to work with first-time home buyers. Helping a first-time buyer with their first home purchase is an amazing experience. There is so much emotion involved, and I love that aspect of my job, he said. Villezcas also recognizes and appreciates the trust that goes into working with a Realtor. The trust that a client places in me  in my abilities to give them sound advice about a property or to negotiate the best deal possible for them  that kind of trust is significant. It is a responsibility that I take very seriously, and it is another facet of my job that I really love, Villezcas said. When the process is complete, seeing my clients smile and to see them happy with the work that I have done for them is very gratifying, he said.

In his time working in construction and as a Kuper Sotheby International Realtor, Villezcas has seen the many advantages of working with a skilled, knowledgeable and committed Realtor. Villezcas is among this elite group of professionals. He is committed to each client and is devoted to reaching the end goal of the best deal made for his buyer or seller.

Motivated by his young daughter, Villezcas recognized that he was in the unique position to become the best Realtor he could while setting a stellar example for her to follow. Having a daughter and being a father brought a new perspective to my work, he said.  It wasnt just about myself anymore; it was about doing my best, implementing a strong work ethic and treating clients with respect and honesty. You know, little eyes are always watching, Villezcas joked, and I want her to see a strong role model and a successful Realtor when she looks at her dad.

Carlos Villezcas is ready to help you achieve the American dream. Contact him today at (210) 487-9956 or carlos.villezcas@kupersir.com.

Editors Note: This content is made possible by Kuper Sotheby's International Realty. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of The San Antonio Express-News' or mySanAntonio.com's editorial staff. Learn more about our advertising products at www.hearstmediasanantonio.com.
Self-exiled former Zanu-PF spin doctor Professor Jonathan Moyo has said the Junta will pay at the polls for humiliating former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.

Moyo went on Twitter to state that in 2013 Zimbabwe adopted major anti-coup security sector reforms.

Read Moyos tweets below:

Going by the Press Statements of General Chiwenga on 14 November & ED Mnangagwa on 21 November, the coup detat of 15 November was clearly in pursuit of a cause of Mnangagwas Lacoste faction in Zanu PF & was thus unconstitutional under s208 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe!

Section 88 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe says Executive Authority is derived not from the gun but from the people at an election. Anything else is a coup & illegitimate. An illegitimate govt derived from the gun cant organise legitimate & credible elections!

In 2013 Zimbabwe adopted major anti-coup security sector reforms under which ONLY the President can deploy the Defence Forces in or outside Zimbabwe as enshrined in s213 of the Constitution. Self-deployment of the Defence Forces as they did on 15 Nov is illegal!

As part of the major security sector reforms of 2013 now enshrined in s214 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the deployment of the Defence Forces which can ONLY be done by the President requires political accountability which can ONLY be done through Parliament! 

Purporting to target criminals around President Mugabe, the Junta & Mnangagwa violated two constitutions; Zanu PFs & Zims to steal President Mugabes electoral mandate, humiliate him & tarnish his legacy. The Junta will pay at the polls for humiliating President Mugabe!

With the architects of Gukurahundi leading the 15 November coup detat, there were gross & horrendous but still undocumented human rights violations including Military attacks on individuals & looting of homes; illegal arrests & detentions; torture & murder!

The great mass deception of Mnangagwa & the Junta is that the 15 November coup detat is against CORRUPTION, aimed at political opponents when the coup leaders & the Juntas key Cabinet ministers are UN-documented diamond & gold looters in #Zimbabwe & the #DRC!

Therere two key questions for #Sadc, #AU & #UN about the deployment of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces on 15 Nov & the ALLEGED resignation of President Mugabe on 21 Nov:

1. Was the ZDF deployment constitutional?

2. Did President Mugabe voluntarily & freely resign? 

To expect the same Junta & Mnangagwa who violently grabbed power through a coup detat on 15 November to organise & oversee free, fair & credible elections is the same as expecting Satan the Devil to organise & run the Church of God on behalf of Christians!

Given what has happened since the coup detat of 15 November 2017, the only way forward is for #Sadc, #AU & #UN to #CuretheCoup by restoring constitutional legitimacy through a civilian national transitional structure to oversee free, fair & credible elections! 

Breaking News via Email
THE Meteorological Services Department (MSD) has warned of scattered violent thunderstorms that may be accompanied by lightning and strong winds in some parts of the country today.

The department urged people to take precautionary measures that include avoiding outdoor activities.

In a statement yesterday, the department said the sporadic sunny breaks will lead to an outbreak of thunderstorms in some areas and light rain in others Advection of moisture from Botswana and Zambia resulted in thunderstorms across much of the country with light morning rain showers. Notable falls were, however, 19mm and 11mm measured in Mount Darwin and Masvingo respectively.

Consequently tomorrow, Friday December 15 with increased advection of moisture into the country through both Matabeleland provinces and all Mashonaland provinces should see increased cloud cover over these areas into the interior of the country.

This coupled with the sporadic sunny breaks, will lead to countrywide thunderstorms and light rain, with heavy downpours especially over high ground, warned the weather department.

The department advised members of the public attending various outdoor functions to be cautious as the storms tend to be violent, accompanied by lightning and strong winds.

Over the past week, some parts of the country experienced high temperatures. The department also urged members of the public to use weather information from the MSD rather than relying on social media as they can be misled.

The country is expected to receive normal rains during the 2017/18 season, with southern parts of the country expected to receive normal to below normal rains.

This could see the country experiencing another good harvest in 2018 with the good rains expected from January to March next year

The MSD said it will now incorporate indigenous knowledge systems to ensure the public get more accurate forecasts that are beneficial. The department is also working on acquiring rain gauges for every ward.

Breaking News via Email
Evicted Zimbabwean white farmers that settled in Zambia have said they are willing to return home to help turn the countrys agricultural economy around under President Emerson Mnangagwas government.

It is mainly the evicted white Zimbabwean farmers innovations that have transformed small-scale growers in their newly-adopted neighbouring country into productive farmers, upping their production from half a ton per hectare to between four and five tonnes a hectare.

This year Zambia is having a maize surplus and, ironically, will be exporting tonnes of wheat to its neighbour, Zimbabwe, and the maize contract on Africas most liquid stock market will further incentivise maize production in the neighbouring country.

Finance deputy minister Terence Mukupe yesterday met the white farmers in neighbouring Zambia and many of the farmers told him they were homesick and wanted to take part in the new dispensation under Mnangagwa.

I met Zimbabwean farmers who lost their farms during the land redistribution exercise and are now based in Zambia and now doing very well there. What was quite intriguing was how they all said they were homesick and wanted to take part in the new dispensation under HE (His Excellency) Mnangagwa.

They want to take up our president on his clarion call that all well-meaning Zimbabweans will be given an opportunity to participate in the rebuilding of our great nation.

The same sentiments are being expressed by our fathers in Nigeria, USA, Australia and UK. We are truly one Zimbabwe and we all want whats best for our nation, Mukupe said.

A day before the meeting Mukupe had emphasised that he was meeting white Zimbabwean farmers in Zambia with a very simple message Your country needs you, lets press the refresh button and move forward to rebuild our nation.

Mnangagwa in his inaugural speech stressed that the land seizures would not be reversed, vowing instead to compensate evicted farmers and to put the vast tracts of idle land back into production.

My government is committed to compensating those farmers from whom land was taken, he said, adding that he will ensure that all land is utilised optimally.

Breaking News via Email
William Masvinu, 43, who landed his third Mr Ugly contest crown last Sunday, has been dethroned after allegedly manhandling the sponsor of the competition for delaying to give him his $500 first prize.

Epworth-based Masvinu, who was also victorious in the same contest in 2012 and 2013, has now been replaced by Fanuel Musekiwa (61) who was the first runner-up at the pageant hosted by Isaac Mutangaduras Ruwa-based Mtangaz Hideout last the weekend.

According to pageant organiser and founder David Apama Styles Machowa, Masvinu has been banned for life.

Masvinu dethroned

For winning the pageant, Masvinu was supposed to be given a bull but he opted to be given $500 in cash instead. The fact that the sponsor (Isaac Mutangadura) had to sell the bull to get the cash for Masvinu caused the payment delay but the dethroned Mr Ugly was very impatient, said Apama Styles.

He added that: Instead of him (Masvinu) dealing with me concerning his winning prize, he went behind my back and manhandled the sponsor.

We therefore had no choice but to dethrone him for dragging the name of the pageant into the mud.

Apama Styles added that the decision to dethrone Masvinu was arrived at after taking into consideration the fact that he has repeatedly exhibited violent tendencies at the Mr Ugly pageant over the years.

This is not the first time Masvinu has engaged in violent activities at Mr Ugly. He once threatened another former sponsor  Devine Assignments director Biggie Chinoperekwei  over the same issue and for this reason we have to part ways with him, Mr Ugly founder said.

When the Daily News contacted Masvinus manager Michael Gundo, he insisted that Apama Styles converted to his own use the money meant for the dethroned Mr Ugly.

Apama took time to give us our money. Imagine since December 3 up to now. He only paid us $100 instead of $500.

It is not easy to parade before the whole world showcasing your ugliness and in the end getting nothing for it. We understand Apama got $500 from the sponsor Mutangadura but instead of giving us our money Apama chose to pocket it. Masvinu is prepared to be stripped of the title as long as he gets his prize money, Gundo said.

He claimed that they reported the matter at Ruwa Police station in a bid to force Apama to release the prize money.

But the claims by Masvinus manager were rubbished by Mutangadura.

What they are saying is not true. In fact, they were supposed to deal with Apama not me. I never gave Apama any money so how could he misuse money that I never gave him in the first place? the Mtangaz Hideout proprietor said.

The unfolding drama at Mr Ugly wont come as a surprise to many. The 2015 Mr Ugly pageant almost degenerated into a brawl after Masvinu refused to concede defeat to Mison Sere. He argued that Seres ugliness wasnt natural since it was based on missing teeth.

He threatened to beat up the pageants adjudicators-Sharlene Nyakurai, Abigirl Mataranyika and Denzel Masawi  after accusing them of bias.

That was not fair. How could he (Sere) win when he was number four the previous year?

What has changed all of a sudden for him to win this time around?

You made him the winner simply because of missing teeth. But does that define ugliness? Do you want me to remove some of my teeth to reclaim my position, an agitated Masvinu said then.

Breaking News via Email
SOUTH AFRICAN Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete has defended the military intervention in Zimbabwe which forced former President Robert Mugabe out of power, saying it was necessary as the ex-first lady, Grace Mugabe had captured the State.

In an interview with SABC News 404, Mbete said ordinarily, the military should not intervene in civilian politics, when everything was going well at political level.

But when at a political level when one member of the first family (Grace) thinks she has the right to just determine who should be thrown out, (and) a whole Vice-President is removed, she said in reference to President Emmerson Mnangagwa who was unceremoniously fired by Mugabe at the instigation of Grace.

I think for a right thinking person, anybody that has the possibility to intervene, to create the space for politics to continue, I think has the responsibility and they took it.

And they did it. But I think we have learnt that its possible for the military not to always intervening in a manner that result in lots of blood spilling, she said.

Breaking News via Email
The current government has benefited from lies peddled in an attempt to run away from a commitment to the democratic obligations provided in our constitution ,

Contrary to reports, President Biti and the team from the MDC Alliance are on a round trip meant to engage the international community to engage Harare to commit to the following.

A free and fair election including allowing election monitors at least three months before the election

A return to legitimacy with soldiers returning to attend to duties provided in section 212 of the constitution.

Addressing human rights violations of the past through a full enquiry including accounting for missing persons like Itai Dzamara.

Honest Economic reforms as opposed to half baked sound bites ridden ones presented in the budget,

Full commitment to the rule of law and constitutionalism

Put an end to the land question.

Open a full inquiry into the Marange diamons and the missing 15 billion dollars

Align the laws to the constitution including the implementation of devolution of power.

Strengthen institutions especially independent commissions and the judiciary.

Ensure the right to vote for all Zimbabweans including those in the diaspora without making the logistics an excuse as polling can be stationed at our embassies.

We do not apologise for saying that the current government is unelected and cannot be allowed to incure new debts on behalf of our people as there is no evidence that they will account.

To end the crisis of legitimacy a credible election must be held which can usher in a leadership with the mandate to negotiate for the Zimbabwean people.

These are the points we made and will make in our engagements.

Below is the full text of our presentation.

Zimbabwe at the Crossroads: A Chance for a New Beginning

Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health policy

Tendai Biti

MDC Alliance

Former Minister of Finance

December 12, 2017

Thank you, Chairman Flake, Ranking Member Booker, and other members of the Subcommittee. We thank you for inviting us to this great center of American democracy.

The 14th of November 2017 began a series major life changing events in Zimbabwe that will forever redefine the political and constitutional landscape of the country.

On that day, military tanks invaded the streets of the capital, Harare, and other major cities in the country. In the early hours of the 15th, the military appeared on Zimbabwes sole national television and implicitly made it clear that the executive was no longer in control.

On 18th November, hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans marched alongside military personnel in the streets of Harare and Bulawayo and demanded the resignation of President Mugabe. On 21 November in the middle of impeachment proceedings in parliament, President Mugabe quietly, if not in-elegantly, announced his resignation.

With President Mugabes departure, Zimbabwe now faces an uncertain future, but one which presents real opportunities for reconstructing, rebuilding and re-fabricating a new Zimbabwean story, and a new Zimbabwean society.

Without a doubt, the 37 years of President Mugabes rule were a sad story of capture, coercion, corruption, poverty and de-legitimization. Zimbabweans lived in fear under a system that paid no respect to their rights and a system that saw continuous impoverishment and suffering, loss of livelihoods amongst ordinary citizens.

President Mugabe presided over one of the most autocratic African regimes that stood head and shoulders with the likes of current dictators like Obiang in Equatorial Guinea, Biya in Cameroon, Afewerki in Eritrea, al-Bashir in Sudan, and Museveni in Uganda.

Lets be clear: the events in Zimbabwe described above were an illegal and illegitimate transfer of power from one faction of the ruling party to another.

However, this was not the first time that the military in Zimbabwe and the so-called securocrats have subverted constitutional order in a way that merely entrenched un-democratic rule.

For instance, on the eve of the presidential election in March 2002 the top army generals of Zimbabwe led by then commander of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces Major-General Zvinavashe issued a public statement in which it was announced that they would never salute a leader who did not have liberation war credentials. An obvious position meant to target Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the democratic opposition.

In June 2008, pursuant to a victory of the MDC in the March 2008 election the military staged a pre-emptive military coup that literally prevented political opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC from taking over, installing President Mugabe as president of the republic.

November 2017 now represents a third occasion of a revolt against the constitution, but this time, marked with the popular removal of an unpopular president.

Despite the illegalities of the November 2017 processes, Zimbabwe now has the obligation of ensuring that theres a major shift and fundamental departure from a past of division, attrition and fear.

Zimbabwe needs a genuine break from its tortured past, not a continuation of the old order. The new Zimbabwe, to be established now, need to be founded on the values and principles of constitutionalism, the rule of law, a just and prosperous society. In the new Zimbabwe, every citizen must be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

The starting point must be a return to true legitimacy, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. The roadmap to legitimacy is the fundamental precondition to the establishment of a sustainable, just, and free Zimbabwe. This roadmap must be anchored on clear benchmarks. These include:

1) The immediate restoration of constitutionalism, the rule of law, and legitimate civilian rule. The military must be demobilized from the streets.

2) Implementation of genuine electoral reforms to ensure that the election in July-August 2018 is free, fair, credible, and legitimate. Those electoral reforms, including: the preparation of a brand new biometric voters roll to which all political parties sign onto; agreement on an independent electoral management body; the introduction of a diaspora vote; international observation and poll monitors; defined role of the UN and its agencies; full access to media; and a safe environment for campaigning and voting free from intimidation.

3) Political and institutional reforms, which include aligning the countrys laws with the 2013 constitution, and in particular actualizing the provisions dealing with devolution and the land question.

4) Major economic reforms that focus on restoring livelihoods, growing a shared economy and addressing the huge challenge of unemployment and under-development.

5) Restoring the social contract, including the renewal and rebirth of a new Zimbabwe that shuns corruption and promotes national healing and reconciliation.

The above road map must be guaranteed and underwritten by the international community. In this regard, the role of the African Union and the United Nations will be critical.

The new authorities must show some signs of a commitment to real transformation other than cosmetic statements on the economy.

The real danger is that they will pursue a Beijing model, in the respect of which there are nominal improvements on the economy while political space is closed and democracy is muzzled.

It is therefore important that the new authorities show signs of commitment to real change.

They could, for instance, begin by openly acknowledging and apologizing for the major human rights abuses of the past four decades, in particular the massacres in Matabeleland known as Gukurahundi, the illegal and inhumane urban land clearances of Operation Murambatsvina, and the vicious 2008 post election violence against the opposition and ordinary citizens.

They could for instance order an inquiry into the disappearance of human rights activists, including Patrick Nabanyama and Itai Dzamara, who has been missing since March 2015.

Authorities could for instance mollify many Zimbabweans by ordering a judicial inquiry into Zimbabwes missing diamond revenues, estimated to be around $15 billion.

We have lost a lot of time in Zimbabwe, fighting amongst ourselves. One hopes that the fresh beam of light that we saw on 18 November 2017 becomes a permanent bright shining star that shows us the path forward. Zimbabweans must fix our own country and repair the wounds of the past. But we cant do this alone.

As Zimbabwe begins this quest for transformation, it will need the support of the international community, including the United States and Congress in particular, at this crucial stage.

We ask the international community and the U.S. to keep us in your hearts. Do not allow our country to be forgotten in our battle against tyranny and poverty and for democracy and human rights. Our election requires active support and oversight from the international community, including our American friends.

Further, once we show signs of an irrevocable and irreversible trajectory towards legitimacy, democracy, and the rule of law, we shall require your full support as we re-engage key international institutions.

We know that this struggle has been long and difficult. But we are confident that we will complete what we started in 1999 when we formed the Movement for Democratic Change with the aspiration of establishing a truly democratic, just, and free Zimbabwe.

Thank you

Zikomo.

Breaking News via Email
Sujan Dutta By

Express News Service

The Prime Minister described the INS Kalvari (Tiger Shark) submarine that he commissioned and embarked at the naval dockyards in Bombay on Thursday morning before he went to cast his vote in Ahmedabad as a prime example of make in India.

As it floats in the water today the tiger shark  the predator fish after which the boat is named -- is really toothless. It is five years behind schedule. It has been made by the French in India.

READ HERE | Indian Navy is commissioning warships by the dozen but are they battle ready?

The INS Kalvari takes its name not only from the fish but also from the first submarine to join the Indian fleet, a Foxtrot, that was commissioned in Russia 50 years ago on December 8, 1967.

In 50 years, India has not been able to develop submarines on its own when the Navy has identified the boats as a potent necessity not only because of the countrys rough neighbourhood but also for the physics of the Indian Ocean. The viscosity of tropical waters makes submarines difficult to detect.

In the tropical waters around India's coasts, former navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat (retired) once told this correspondent, the laws of physics favour the use of submarines. "The total internal reflection of sound when there are thermal layers between 32 degrees and 24 degrees makes it virtually impossible for a submarine to be detected if it is 30 to 50 metres under the surface in summers and 100 metres in winters," he explained.

The Kalvari  the first of six Scorpene-class submarines first contracted in 2004  has been commissioned without being adequately armed. It does not till today have any of the heavyweight torpedoes, its most important weapon since the Modi government blacklisted the Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica for its association with Agusta Westland in a deal by the UPA to procure VVIP helicopters. The Black Shark torpedoes for which the Kalvaris firing tubes are tailored are made by Systemi Subacquael, a Finmeccanica subsidiary.

Over the past two years, the government has explored the option of replacing the Black Shark with a German-made HWT. But it was found that the tubes would require substantial re-engineering. The government is now again in talks to procure 98 Black Sharks to arm the six Kalvari-class boats.

The commissioning-without-arming of war vessels is of a pattern. In August 2014, the government commissioned the INS Kolkata, a destroyer, in Bombay and the INS Kamorta, a submarine hunter-killer in Visakhapatnam. The INS Kolkata was commissioned without its Long Range Surface to Air Missiles (LR-SAMs) and the Kamorta, scandalisingly, was commissioned without its Active Towed Array Sonar (ATAS). It means the Kolkata was minus its primary land-attack weapon and the Kamorta was not  and still cannot  see adequately underwater. In the rear of the Kamorta is the ATAS empty housing.

PM Modi commissioned the INS Kalvari at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on December 14, 2017. (PTI Photo)

Yet, the Kalvari, the Kamorta and the Kolkata are accepted by the navy as they are because of the rate of depletion of the fleet is not matched by the rate of acquisition of newer assets. India suffered its biggest peacetime loss of a warfighting system in the navy when the submarine INS Sindhurakshak went down in the water after an explosion in the Bombay naval dockyard in August 2013. Its cracked and burnt-out hull is a stark reminder of the tragedy that killed 17 men on Independence Day eve.

The Navy's submarine arm, that was awarded the Presidents Colours, at Vizag only last week currently as 13 diesel-electric or conventional boats. (There are two nuclear submarines, the INS Chakra, that is nuclear-powered and on lease from Russia and the INS Arihant that is said to be both nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed).

At any given time it has five or six patrolling. In the last 12 years, in the time that it took to build the Kalvari, China has added 40 submarines to its fleet. Those submarines now criss-cross waters close to India.

The building of the Kalvari has been tortuous. There were disagreements with the French makers, the Naval Group (earlier DCNS and Thales) even after the first contract was signed. Then an Australian newspaper claimed last August that it has got a cache of 22,400 pages of data on the Scorpene including its design and signatures, a charge that both the Indian Navy and the French denied.

Prime Minister Modi this morning said the INS Kalvari will add more strength to the Indian Navy. He said India is focused on its global, strategic and economic interests in the Indian Ocean. That is why the modern and multi-dimensional Indian Navy plays a leading role in promoting peace and stability in the region, he said.

The Prime Minister described the INS Kalvari (Tiger Shark) submarine that he commissioned and embarked at the naval dockyards in Bombay on Thursday morning before he went to cast his vote in Ahmedabad as a prime example of make in India. As it floats in the water today the tiger shark  the predator fish after which the boat is named -- is really toothless. It is five years behind schedule. It has been made by the French in India. READ HERE | Indian Navy is commissioning warships by the dozen but are they battle ready? The INS Kalvari takes its name not only from the fish but also from the first submarine to join the Indian fleet, a Foxtrot, that was commissioned in Russia 50 years ago on December 8, 1967. In 50 years, India has not been able to develop submarines on its own when the Navy has identified the boats as a potent necessity not only because of the countrys rough neighbourhood but also for the physics of the Indian Ocean. The viscosity of tropical waters makes submarines difficult to detect. In the tropical waters around India's coasts, former navy chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat (retired) once told this correspondent, the laws of physics favour the use of submarines. "The total internal reflection of sound when there are thermal layers between 32 degrees and 24 degrees makes it virtually impossible for a submarine to be detected if it is 30 to 50 metres under the surface in summers and 100 metres in winters," he explained. The Kalvari  the first of six Scorpene-class submarines first contracted in 2004  has been commissioned without being adequately armed. It does not till today have any of the heavyweight torpedoes, its most important weapon since the Modi government blacklisted the Italian conglomerate Finmeccanica for its association with Agusta Westland in a deal by the UPA to procure VVIP helicopters. The Black Shark torpedoes for which the Kalvaris firing tubes are tailored are made by Systemi Subacquael, a Finmeccanica subsidiary. Over the past two years, the government has explored the option of replacing the Black Shark with a German-made HWT. But it was found that the tubes would require substantial re-engineering. The government is now again in talks to procure 98 Black Sharks to arm the six Kalvari-class boats. The commissioning-without-arming of war vessels is of a pattern. In August 2014, the government commissioned the INS Kolkata, a destroyer, in Bombay and the INS Kamorta, a submarine hunter-killer in Visakhapatnam. The INS Kolkata was commissioned without its Long Range Surface to Air Missiles (LR-SAMs) and the Kamorta, scandalisingly, was commissioned without its Active Towed Array Sonar (ATAS). It means the Kolkata was minus its primary land-attack weapon and the Kamorta was not  and still cannot  see adequately underwater. In the rear of the Kamorta is the ATAS empty housing. PM Modi commissioned the INS Kalvari at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai on December 14, 2017. (PTI Photo) Yet, the Kalvari, the Kamorta and the Kolkata are accepted by the navy as they are because of the rate of depletion of the fleet is not matched by the rate of acquisition of newer assets. India suffered its biggest peacetime loss of a warfighting system in the navy when the submarine INS Sindhurakshak went down in the water after an explosion in the Bombay naval dockyard in August 2013. Its cracked and burnt-out hull is a stark reminder of the tragedy that killed 17 men on Independence Day eve. The Navy's submarine arm, that was awarded the Presidents Colours, at Vizag only last week currently as 13 diesel-electric or conventional boats. (There are two nuclear submarines, the INS Chakra, that is nuclear-powered and on lease from Russia and the INS Arihant that is said to be both nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed). At any given time it has five or six patrolling. In the last 12 years, in the time that it took to build the Kalvari, China has added 40 submarines to its fleet. Those submarines now criss-cross waters close to India. The building of the Kalvari has been tortuous. There were disagreements with the French makers, the Naval Group (earlier DCNS and Thales) even after the first contract was signed. Then an Australian newspaper claimed last August that it has got a cache of 22,400 pages of data on the Scorpene including its design and signatures, a charge that both the Indian Navy and the French denied. Prime Minister Modi this morning said the INS Kalvari will add more strength to the Indian Navy. He said India is focused on its global, strategic and economic interests in the Indian Ocean. That is why the modern and multi-dimensional Indian Navy plays a leading role in promoting peace and stability in the region, he said.
We are very glad to share with our readers this information from the Fraternity of St Peter about their important initiatives in Latin America, a series of mission trips in Mexico, Peru and the Dominican Republic, and their Spanish language school for the clergy.



The Saint Junipero Serra Spanish Institute





Registration is now open for the 2018 St Francis Xavier Missions of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. Our Blessed Lord commanded us to preach the gospel to all nations and also assured us that what we do to the least of His brethren we do unto Him. For this reason, the St Francis Xavier Mission Trips combine the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and provide young people with an extraordinary opportunity to put their faith in action and experience first hand the Catholicity of the Church. Missionaries are challenged to deepen their own faith because, without a doubt, growth in holiness is the most essential element of an effective apostolate. The missions are directed by priests of the FSSP, and are therefore centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered daily in the Extraordinary Form. This year four trips are being offered: two in Mexico, one in Peru, and one in the Dominican Republic. Please visit the website www.sfxmission.com for more information or to register. We also invite those who are unable to go to join this great effort by means of their donations and, most importantly, their prayers.Mission Tradition of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is pleased to announce that the St Junipero Serra Spanish Institute is now accepting applications for the summer of 2018. This is a Spanish immersion program for priests and seminarians in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico under the direction of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. There is no doubt that the need for Spanish speaking priests is urgent, considering that statistics say that only about 30% of Catholic Latino immigrants to the United States remain Catholic upon their arrival.The St Junipero Serra Institute is unique among language immersion programs because it is specifically tailored to priests and seminarians. This year we will be publishing our new textbook series, Habla Cristiano, in which the themes, vocabulary, and exercises are chosen with an eye to the future priests ministerial needs. The Institute provides students with an atmosphere of prayer and pastoral experience. Students attend daily Mass and the Divine Office in the Extraordinary Form and are provided with a wide array of pastoral and cultural opportunities. Service in hospitals and orphanages, dinners with families, and first-hand encounters with the richness and beauty of Mexican Catholic tradition, all serve to enrich not only their immersion experience, but also their priestly formation. The program concludes with a mission trip that involves door to door evangelization and catechesis. Please visit the website www.SJSInstitute.com for more information; here is the first in a series of new promotional videos.Discounts are available to those who register before Christmas. Space is limited! The Saint Junipero Serra Institute is also looking for benefactors interested in supporting this very important work.
Haven't bought your Thanksgiving turkey yet? A look at local prices.

While farms like Helgers in Tiverton have already sold out of turkeys, there are still frozen and fresh birds for sale at local markets.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Mostly cloudy with snow showers during the evening. Low 22F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 40%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy with snow showers during the evening. Low 22F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 40%.
New Delhi: Job cuts have been a tough nut to crack for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past year and with the general elections due in less than two years, the government is likely to come up with a new employment policy outlining a comprehensive blueprint to generate quality jobs in every industry.

According to a report by Economic Times, the policy is likely to be announced in the upcoming Budget, which will be the last one from the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government before contesting elections in 2019.

The policy blueprint will be shaped by economic, social and labour policy interventions.

The employment policy will have many sides and applications. It will incentivise employers to create more jobs, introduce economic reforms appealing to companies along with supporting the medium and small scale industries which provide a huge chunk of jobs, a senior government official told ET.

The unemployment issue has been used by opposition parties to attack the Modi-led government.

The job generation speed faced a six-year low in 2015 as only 135,000 new jobs were created compared to 421,000 jobs in 2014 and 419,000 in 2013, as per a quarterly industrial survey conducted by the Labour Bureau under the labour ministry.

Another significant aim of the policy would be to engage more workers in the countrys organised sector because that would get them minimum wages and social security, the government official told the newspaper.

The policy could be impactful in this regard as over 90 percent of workers in India are engaged in the informal sector and hence, does not benefit from any social security law or minimum wage rule.

Jobs in the IT sector have dwindled to 1.5 lakh annual recruitments from over 3 lakh recruitments in previous years. Top firms of the sector have been reported to get rid of both its top brass as well as entry-level employees.

I have been working in the IT sector since four years now. Things have been bleak of late. Quite a few people have already been laid off and new recruitments are on hold. Appraisals have taken a hit as well. There are definite inhibitions in the employees who are working in an environment that does not guarantee job-security, said an employee of Tech Mahindra who refused to be named.

Firms such as Cognizant, Infosys and Wipro among others have also axed jobs on grounds of automation.

We were told that they are in a process of internal overhaul. They are into automation of a few wings because of which jobs are on the cut. Also, most of the clients are getting into cloud operated softwares the Indian industry for which is yet to be ready, said a former employee of Wipro, requesting anonymity. He was laid off in April this year with a three month severance.

After a survey conducted by job site Naukri.com, the report said, "The overall job market saw an 11 percent fall in new jobs, with IT-software industry most hit. IT-Software industry was hit the most with a 24 percent decline in hiring in April as compared to April 2016."

April jobs index saw year-on-year fall in major metros - Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai. Hiring activity saw a fall in telecom, BPO, insurance and construction sectors during April as compared to April 2016. Key industries like construction and BPO/ITES saw a 10 per cent and 12 per cent fall, respectively, while banking saw a 11 per cent increase in hiring during April 2017 as compared to April 2016, it added.

While the IT sector garners all the attention, other avenues havent been as encouraging as well. Indian Railways has been quietly offering voluntary retirement options to its employees above a certain age without taking in as many new recruits.

I had five more years to go before my retirement age but I was asked to voluntarily retire with reasons such as excess staff. I have my colleagues in other departments who have been instructed to do the same. When asked, the higher authorities state reasons such as age, need of a relatively new skill-set among others. However, we havent seen as many recruitments to support the argument, said a commercial-parcel department employee of the Indian Railways posted in Howrah, West Bengal.

The media industry, for that matter, witnessed rampant downsizing of jobs in the immediate past.

Earlier his year, Kolkata-based ABP Group asked more than 120 of its journalists to resign with a severance. Pages of its flagship Bengali daily ABP and english daily The Telegraph were reduced considerably as well. The Telegraphs popular Sunday magazine Graphiti was also lifted off. The spate of job cuts has not only been limited to relatively smaller media houses, larger counterparts like HT Media also axed a 100 plus jobs, bringing the curtains down on editions of Hindustan Times in Kolkata, Ranchi, Bhopal, Indore, Varanasi, Kanpur and Allahabad. HTs business bureaus in Mumbai and Delhi were also shuttered down and the work outsourced to its sister publication, Mint.

Diminishing revenues generated from ads especially after demonetisation is primarily being described as the foremost reason for axing of jobs in media houses.
New Delhi: The government on Friday approved a Rs 2,600 crore special package for employment generation in the leather and footwear sector, which has the potential to generate 3.24 lakh jobs in three years and assist in the formalisation of 2 lakh jobs.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.

The package involves implementation of central scheme 'Indian Footwear, Leather & Accessories Development Programme', with an expenditure of Rs 2,600 crore during 2017-18 to 2019-20.

"The scheme would lead to development of infrastructure for the leather sector; address environmental concerns specific to the leather sector and facilitate additional investments, job creation and production," the government said.

Moreover, the enhanced tax incentive would attract large-scale investments in the sector and reforms in labour laws in view of seasonal nature of the sector will support economies of scale, it said.

The package has the potential to generate 3.24 lakh new jobs in three years and assist in the formalisation of 2 lakh jobs as cumulative impact in footwear, leather and accessories sector.
New Delhi: In order to further incentivise digital transactions and move towards a cashless economy, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Friday decided that merchant discount rate (MDR) for digital transactions up to Rs 2,000 will be reimbursed by the government and consumers dont have to pay the charges.

We have decided that MDR that was earlier paid by consumers will now be reimbursed by the government. This will hold for debit card, UPI, BHIM and Aadhaar enabled transactions. This is a big relief for small digital consumers, said Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a Cabinet briefing on Friday.

MDR is the rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services.

As per the latest notification, MDR charges for small merchants with an annual turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh has been fixed at 0.40 percent.

In case the annual turnover of a merchant is over Rs 20 lakh, the MDR charges would be 0.90 percent

Incentivising digital payments aims to target smaller transactions up to Rs 2000 which are mostly preferred to be done through cash.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's primary agenda to pave way for a digital economy was reflected in his Independence Day speech at Red Fort where he asked citizens to cut down on cash transactions. He has also urged various government departments and ministries to collaborate in achieving a cash less economy. The IT Ministry headed by Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is providing major assistance and is coming up with initiatives to popularise digital transactions.

The Union minister also speculated debit card transactions to go up to Rs 4,37,400 crore by the end of the current financial year. Debit cards contributed to transactions worth Rs 218700 crore from April to September.

To arrive at this decision, a meeting was held on the analysis of digital payments post demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes last November. The meeting was attended by Prasad and senior officials from the finance ministry and cabinet secretariat.

According to RBI data, digital transactions fell considerably in the last few months. From 67 crore digital transactions in November 2016, it had tremendously grown to 89 crores in March 2017. However, it again dropped to 84 crores in June.
Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court has ordered the suspension of two district magistrates  Rajiv Rautela and Rakesh Kumar Singh  in a case related to illegal mining from Kosi River in Rampur district.

Rautela and Singh are accused of promoting illegal mining during their tenure as district magistrates in Rampur despite the ban on mining in Uttar Pradesh.

The Allahabad High Court has also directed the UP Chief Secretary to take disciplinary action against these DMs and submit a report on January 16, 2018. The HC has given instructions to investigate the role of administrative and police officials in the case and to take departmental action.

The order has been passed by a bench of Chief Justice DB Bhosale and Justice MK Gupta on a PIL filed by one Maqsood.

The PIL alleged that the licence of sand storage was given to one Nanhe despite the ban. It is also alleged that the court order was ignored and an attempt was made to overlook the matter without any proper investigation.

The court has also summoned DM Rampur Shiv Sahai Awasthi and asked how the licence was issued to the tainted contractor, on which the DM suspended the license in November 2017.
New Delhi: Thomas Chandy, who had to resign as a Cabinet Minister in the Kerala government over a land encroachment case, has sought transfer of a case from a bench of the Supreme Court since his lawyer doesnt want to appear before that bench.

Making the unique request, Chandy said that his appeal against the Kerala High Court order had been settled by senior lawyer Vivek Tankha, who doesn't want to appear before Justice AM Sapre on account of certain personal reasons.

Justice Sapre, along with Justice RK Agarwal, constituted the bench before which Chandy's case was originally listed as per SC roster.

But Chandy's lawyer moved a letter stating he would want this case to go to some other bench since Tankha won't show up to argue before Justice Sapre.

Chandy pressed for transfer of his case to some other bench so that he doesn't "lose the service of an able lawyer".

The letter added that it was being distributed before Justices Agarwal and Sapre at his "risk" to avoid inconvenience for the judges.

The letter made an unprecedented request since a litigant is not expected to choose the bench and the judges for his case.

It can also not be an argument, under the SC Rules, that since a lawyer would not argue before a particular judge, the judges should be changed but not the lawyer.

Therefore, Chandy's request was one of its own sort, and raised questions of propriety of such a request.

But his case was transferred to another bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, who also happens to be the 'master of the roster'.

Lawyers appearing against Chandy raised severe objections to this letter, questioning how can a litigant decide where he wants his case to be heard. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi appeared for Chandy during the brief hearing.

But since Justice AM Khanwilkar, a judge on the new bench also opted to recuse, the case stood simply adjourned.

Kerala's former Transport Minister Chandy has moved the top court against the Kerala High Court verdict on the land encroachment case.

Chandy has asked for quashing the High Court order, which criticised him for suing his own government disregarding the Cabinets collective responsibility, and encroaching government land.

Chandy said the HC had erred in applying the principle of collective responsibility of Council of Ministers, which is irrelevant and extraneous for disposing of the real issue raised in his writ petition against Alappuzha Collector T V Anupamas erroneous findings on wetland and paddy violations.

The Collectors report received wide media publicity and Chandy had to quit the ministry.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday asked all land-owning agencies in the city not to demolish 'jhuggis' until the end of the winter season.

The move comes after the chief minister held a meeting with senior officials from the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), the Delhi Development Authority and the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi over the Slum Policy.

According to a government statement, Kejriwal asked the agencies not to demolish any 'jhuggi' till February 28.

"Please do not demolish jhuggis till winters are over, say around February 28, 2018. It's very cold and take a humanitarian approach," he was quoted as saying in the statement.

He also asked the agencies to follow the protocol set for demolition of 'jhuggis' "in letter and spirit". Kejriwal said none of them should be razed immediately without following the framework of the demolition policy.

"No demolition should be done in future also without proper rehabilitation or relocation of the slum dwellers. The DUSIB will lay down the norms for demolition according the notified Slum Policy and it will be applicable for all of Delhi and agencies," the chief minister said.

The Slum Policy notified recently lays down guidelines for demolition and has made the DUSIB the nodal agency for relocation or rehabilitation of jhuggi bastis.
Singapore: A 33-year old Indian engineer in Singapore has been sent to prison for three weeks for molesting a woman last year.

Prabu Natarajan admitted to rubbing his thigh against a 23-year-old woman, who works as a part-time tutor, several times along Choa Chu Kang Loop last year, local daily 'The Straits Times' reported on Friday.

According to the daily, Prabu and the part-time tutor boarded the same bus at 5:45 pm on November 21 last year.

He molested her when he was seated to her right. They alighted at the same bus stop as he lived in the estate.

He followed her into the lift at Apartment Block 290, Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, and rubbed her arm up and down.

Natarajan was also fined SGD 2,500 by the court for a house trespass committed five years ago, on July 4, 2012.

He had inserted his hand into the apartment through an open window with the intention to annoy a then 23-year-old woman who was sleeping.

When she woke up, he fled, according to the Singapore daily.

The public prosecutor sought three weeks' jail for the outrage of modesty, as, the public prosecutor said, the offence occurred on public transport; the touch was a prolonged and persistent rub; and the victim was trapped by Prabu at the window seat while he persisted in molesting her, the newspaper said.

This charge, together with a public nuisance charge, was considered during his sentencing, the newspaper said.

Prabu could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment for molestation.
Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB) has been directed by the Mehbooba Mufti led Jammu and Kashmir coalition government to recruit 2154 teachers in the states education department within next 4 months. It is a welcome move for the students in the state of Jammu and Kashmir for better education environment as well for the youth as this teachers recruitment drive will push employment opportunities in the state.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti confirmed the same in a tweet she posted last night on her official twitter handle, To meet the dearth of staff in schools we have directed the J&K Services Selection Board to complete the recruitment for 2,154 teachers posts in the next 4 months. Education a top priority for us.

To meet the dearth of staff in schools we have directed the J&K Services Selection Board to complete the recruitment for 2,154 teachers posts in the next 4 months. Education a top priority for us. Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) December 15, 2017

As per sources, the Jammu and Kashmir Education Department has been recommended to fill 3450 posts in total including 2154 vacancies of teaching staff and 1289 vacancies of non-teaching staff.

In a meeting to discuss and implement the teachers recruitment drive, Jammu and Kashmir Minister for Education - Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari had referred the School Education Department Secretary Farooq Ahmed Shah and JKSSB Chairperson Simrandeep Singh to commence the teachers recruitment process by January 2018 next month and complete all formalities and approvals before that.

The Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB) has been asked to complete all recruitment related work in the next four months and meet deadlines to scale up the education facilities in the state. Meanwhile, the recruitment process for appointing 1289 non-teaching staff already under process in the state and the Education Minister has set a timeline of three months to complete the same.

JKSSB Chairperson Simrandeep Singh had assured the Education department to complete the recruitment drive within the timelines set by the Jammu and Kashmir Government.

Candidates must keep a tab on the official website of JKSSB to apply for the Teaching jobs as soon as they are announced by the department.

http://jkssb.nic.in/Pages/Applicant/Jobs.aspx
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed hope that the Winter Session of Parliament beginning Friday morning will be productively utilised to debate issues concerning the country.

We look forward to healthy debates and the time of the House should be productively utilized, Modi told reporters on his arrival at the Parliament House.

The government is expected to table 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including a bill providing Muslim women the right to seek maintenance in case of triple talaq, during the Winter Session.

The Prime Ministers statement is being seen as a response to spillover effect of a bitterly contested Gujarat Assembly elections 2017. The PM in one of the elections rallies referred to the dinner reception at Mani Shankar Aiyars residence in which he alluded that there was a conspiracy by the Congress ahead of Gujarat polls.

Former PM Manmohan Singh who was one of the invitees to the reception had strongly objected to Modis statement and the Congress now plans to raise the issue in Parliament seeking apology from the PM.

In the customary statement ahead of the Winter Session, PM Modi undescored the impact of climate change due to global warming. Generally the winter sets in after Diwali. Even at the onset of the Winter Session it isnt as cold as it generally used to be at this time of the year, he said.

The PM said at Thursdays all-party meeting, leaders of the political parties were clear that there is aneed to take the country forward and this session should be used positively to achieve that.
Kolkata: In the wake of the brutal murder in Rajasthan, a large number of migrant labourers from West Bengal and returning back to their home state fearing more attacks and killings.

Every month, hundreds of labourers from Malda, Murshidabad, South 24-Parganas, Midnapore (East and West both), Burdwan, Bankura and Purulia districts are hired and sent to various states across the country for construction, handicraft and in gold ornaments work.

Speaking to News18, state minister for Labour, Jakir Hossain said, Due to lucrative offer these migrant labourers prefer to stay in other states but with the growing incidents of attacks and killings, most of them are now returning back to Bengal.

These labourers are our brothers and sisters and we will not allow them to become a prey to hate crimes. We are having a talk with the panchayat and administrative officials to prepare a fresh list of migrant labourers in Bengal and after that we will follow the instruction of our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for their welfare, he added.

On December 6, a labourer from Bengals Malda district identified as Afrazul Khan (50) was killed with an axe before he was set on fire alive by a civil contractor identified as Shambhu Lal in Rajasthans Rajsamand village. Lal recorded the whole incident on camera.

In the video, he was seen attacking Khan with an axe repeatedly, despite cries of mercy. After Afrazul finally dies, Lal set him on fire.

Khans cousin Rafiul Sheikh, who is still in Rajasthans Dungarpur, is now worried as all his friends have fled the state.

He said, I am really scared now as all other labourers from my village in Malda have fled. I along with 10 others are left here.

When asked why he didnt come back along with others, he said, We stuck here due to payment issue. Today, we were supposed to get my Rs 6000 from my local contractor. Once we will receive the money, all of us will leave this state because I heard that in some place people protesting against the labourers from Bengal.

In Malda alone, almost 90% of migrant labourers returned for their safety from Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, Nur Alam, a labour contractor in Malda district, said.

Similarly, in South 24-Parganas and Midnapore, the situation is same. Most of the labourers came back home after being advised by their contractors.

MLA, East Canning (South 24-Parganas district), Shyamal Mondal, said, In my area every week a large number of people migrate to other states as a labourers. But now they are returning back to their home district fearing attacks.

I am in touch with the local panchayat and district administration to make a list of all migrant workers to help us understand the trend of migration and what scheme we can offer them for their lively hood as per instruction from my party supremo Mamata Banerjee, he added.

In Midnapore, panchayat pradhans are engaged in spreading Chief Ministers message that those who want to return the government will give them Rs 50,000 to start a small business.

State labour commissioner Javed Akhtar said, The recent incidents are really a matter of concern for us. A large number of them are coming back. Our officers are working in the ground to assist these labourers who came back to their home districts. As per eligibility, we will help them with government schemes.
New Delhi: Do you remember the scene from cult comic movie Munnabhai MBBS where fake patients try to convince Munnabhais father about his sons hospital? The hospital was set up for a day with sham patients, doctors and other staff in the reel life.

The scene must have left you in splits but an alleged attempt to copy it in real life has put a hospital from Madhya Pradesh in the dock with the Supreme Court ordering an investigation under the supervision of the CBI Director into the presence of fake patients.

A bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao has set up a committee, comprising a senior CBI officer and two doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), to examine credentials of the patients, their medical history, ailments, treatments and the need for hospitalisation in Bhopals Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University medical college.

The top court has constituted the inquiry committee on a complaint made by the central government and the Medical Council of India (MCI), which contended that when the inspection of the college was being done, it was discovered that sham patients were lying on the beds to fake the occupancy in the 410-bed hospital.

Additional Solicitor General ANS Nadkarni and senior advocate Vikas Singh, representing the Centre and the MCI respectively, pointed out that the hospital administration had resorted to manipulation and fraud to secure permission for admitting students for academic year 2017-18.

On the other hand, senior advocate Nidhesh Gupta, appearing for the medical college, vouched for the authenticity of these patients saying their medical records would corroborate the truthfulness.

At this, the bench noted that if the college has indeed shown fake patients, it would amount to committing an offence under the Indian Penal Code for furnishing false evidence and therefore, an inquiry must be conducted into the truthfulness of the statistics, reports and the material placed before the court.

We consider it appropriate in the interests of justice to direct that a committee shall be constituted headed by a senior officer deputed by the Director, CBI and two doctors of AIIMS, ordered the court.

The bench gave 15 days for nomination of the members of the committee, and another three months to conclude its investigation and submit report.

The committee may visit the college and shall have access to all such information as may be required by it for determining the matters referred to it. The petitioner-college shall fully cooperate with the said committee. The MCI shall also provide any material relating to the inspection in question to the committee, directed the bench.

About students provisional admission in the college, the top court said that evidence on record established that the college had severe deficiencies, demonstrated by the fact that the MCI, on the day of inspection, had noted that not even a single unit of blood was dispensed from the hospitals blood bank in one full day and the college had further tried to explain absence of doctors by claiming that doctors had been summoned to a police station in connection with a road accident case.

The bench cancelled all the admission in this college for 2017-18 but gave students the respite by directing that the students shall be accommodated by the Madhya Pradesh government in other colleges with their merits in accordance with law.

It also issued a show-cause notice to the medical college as to why the court should not pass order for refunding fees to these students and granting them compensation as well. The court will now take up the matter after receiving the inquiry report from the committee.
Rajsamand/Udaipur: Policemen in Rajasthan were injured after hundreds of activists, belonging to right-wing groups, attacked police personnel during a demonstration.

A migrant labour from West Bengal was murdered, following which protests broke out demanding death penalty against the Shambu Lal Regar. The protestors also shouted slogans against right-wing groups.

The video of the protest went viral, thus enraging the right-wing, who held a demonstration of their own, demanding that the ones in the video clip be charged.

To try and control the unruly right-wing protestors, police lathi-charged them. The ensuing clash led to injuries on both sides.

Shambu Lal, the accused who is now in custody, had hacked a Muslim migrant labourer in a bid to save Hindu girls and had called his action a war against Love Jihad.

The clash between protesters and police took place near Court Circle in Udaipur around 5 pm. Activists had gathered at the spot, defying prohibitory orders in Udaipur and Rajsamand.

Sudhir Joshi, additional superintendent of police, was among those injured in the clash, said the police. They also claimed that at least 20 activists were also detained.

The video clip, against which the Hindu outfits were protesting, was shot at Chetak Circle and has been widely circulated on social media, messaging apps.

Udaipur Inspector General of Police, Anand Srivastava said that the prohibitory orders will continue for a couple of days depending on the situation.

Meanwhile, state Bajrang Dal chief Indrajit Singh claims that Udaipur SP had assured him of action against those in the video.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday extended the deadline for Aadhaar linking of all services and schemes, including mobile phones, provident fund and bank accounts. The new deadline is March 31.

The SC said the deadline has also been extended for schemes run by state governments. The court said new bank accounts can be opened without Aadhaar but applicant needs to submit proof that he has applied for the card.

A five-judge Supreme Court bench is hearing a clutch of pleas seeking a stay on government's decision of mandatory linking of Aadhaar with welfare schemes.

The Centre had told the apex court on Thursday that it would extend the deadline. However, the Centre vehemently pressed before the constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra for allowing the national biometric identifier to remain mandatory for opening new bank accounts.

The top court, which fixed the main petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself for final hearing on January 17 next year, said it would consider the submission of Attorney General K K Venugopal that deadline of February 6, 2018 for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with mobile services can also be extended up to March 31 next year.

Venugopal had referred to an earlier apex court order asking the Centre to ensure verification of existing and new mobile users by February 6 and hence, the government, on its own, cannot extend the deadline.

"The deadline for almost everything has been extended," Venugopal said, adding that Aadhaar was mandatory for new bank accounts and several crores of existing bank accounts have already been linked.

(With PTI Inputs)
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared a bill that makes instant triple talaq a criminal offence.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 stems from the recent Supreme Court verdict banning instant divorce. The bill proposes three-year jail term for guilty husbands and seeks to make instant triple talaq a cognisable, non-bailable offence.

The bill will now be introduced in the Parliament. The government intends to get the statute passed in the Winter Session of Parliament that began on Friday.

The draft was prepared by an inter-ministerial group headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The other members included External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and his junior in the ministry P P Chaudhary.

The proposed law would give power to the victim to approach a magistrate seeking "subsistence allowance" for herself and minor children.

In August this year, the Supreme Court struck down triple talaq, or instant divorce, by a 3:2 verdict of the constitutional bench.

After six days of historic hearing, which saw some of the top lawyers argue whether triple talaq was essential to Islam or not, the SC was e of the view that triple talaq was not essential to Islam and therefore it should be banned.
The last fortnight has been all about Gujarat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi, other leading members of both the government and opposition, as well as media have been squarely interested in the Gujarat campaign. While its been all about the neech comments, Pakistan, Khilji, Aurangzeb and what not, one thing seems to have missed most of our commentators as well much of our media coverage. Last week has been a particularly bad one for India in the neighbourhood. Four key developments have taken place, all of which have the imprint of China. Slowly but surely the dragon has been creeping up on India, in what is considered Indias backyard.

CHINA-MALDIVES FTA

China and Maldives signed a Free Trade Agreement last week. The FTA deal was clinched during President Abdullah Yameens official visit to Beijing. Maldives also endorsed Chinas Maritime Silk Route which is part of its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative which India has shunned because of sovereignty concerns.

The Maldivian President described China as among our closest friends, most trusted and most dependable partners. Incidentally, Maldives is the only country PM Modi has not visited since he assumed office in May 2014.

India has not been comfortable working with the Yameen regime preferring the previous dispensation under Mohammad Nasheed who was ousted undemocratically. China, of course, has moved in to occupy the space which India vacated.

SRI LANKA LEASES HAMBANTOTA PORT TO CHINA FOR 99 YEARS

After much consternation, the Government of Sri Lanka last week granted the strategic southern port of Hambantota on a 99-year lease to the Chinese state owned company China Merchants Port Holdings.

The 1.3 billion dollar deal was signed seven years ago under the previous dispensation of Mahinda Rajapaksa but was renegotiated by the current Sirisena government. Under the new plan, the Chinese company has entered into a joint venture with Sri Lankas Port Authority with a 70% stake.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lankas Prime Minister, had this to say during the port inauguration ceremony. With this agreement we have started to pay back the loans. Hambantota will be converted to a major port in the Indian Ocean.

RETURN OF KP OLI AS NEPAL PRIME MINISTER

The unified Communist alliance of the UML and Maoists has come to power in Nepal with KP Oli, the head of the UML party, to be the next Prime Minister. Oli is seen as largely pro-China and is keen to reset his countrys ties with both Beijing and New Delhi.

In 2015, Oli was the Prime Minister when India tacitly encouraged a blockade led by the Madheshi parties because of their lack of proper representation in the new constitution. Normal life was halted for many weeks and the feeling in Kathmandu was that India was behaving like a big brother.

Already, Oli has promised to extend rail links with China. The new government is expected to present China with a wishlist of highways, airports and rail projects which the Chinese will happily oblige given their keen interest to get engaged in the Himalayan kingdom and blunt Indias influence there.

DOKLAM IS BACK

While much of our energies were sapped by Gujarat, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was here in Delhi along with the Russian Foreign Minister for the Russia India China trilateral. After the meeting the statement issued by Wang once again brought to the fore, the use of the phrase illegal occupation of Doklam by Indian troops.

There have also been media reports that Chinese troops for the first time have returned to the disputed site and made permanent structures there including tents and camps. By all indications, the Chinese troops intend to stay put there for the winters, something which they have never done in the past.

Both the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External Affairs have been conspicuously silent on these media reports. And since no media is allowed anywhere close to Doklam, it is impossible to independently verify the same. In this light, it is important for the government of India to reveal the contours of the August 28 deal struck with the Chinese.
A global ambassador for the luxury watch brand since early 2017, Bella Hadid now has a watch designed by TAG Heuer in her honor. This Link Lady watch -- the Swiss watchmaker's most feminine model -- is a limited-edition creation with just 500 editions.

The world-famous model, who turns everything she touches into gold and enjoys unfailing popularity among Generation Y, has become an icon of the luxury world in just a few years. From haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing to sportswear, jewelry and watches, no ground is left uncovered by Bella Hadid.

The model, then aged just 20 years old, was named a TAG Heuer ambassador back in February. That partnership has been consolidated in December 2017 with a special limited-edition watch designed for the American fashion star.

TAG Heuer picked the ultimate ladies' model, the Link Lady watch, as the basis for this limited edition. The "Link Lady Bella Hadid" is made entirely from matte black ceramic for a robust and modern finish. It has a black mother-of-pearl dial and a black flange with a 60 seconds/minute scale.

For a feminine and refined touch, the dial features 12 diamonds and the bezel is set with 48 diamonds. On the reverse, the watch features Bella Hadid's signature.

The "Link Lady Bella Hadid" has a quartz movement with hours, minutes and seconds functions, and a date window at three o'clock. This special edition comes with the now famous Link strap, ensuring comfort and flexibility. It is a limited edition watch with just 500 editions.
Director: Amit Kumar

Cast: Vijay Varma, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Tannishtha Chatterjee

Set in the dark lanes of Mumbai, Amit Kumars Monsoon Shootout is a mash-up of many a significant element required to build up a neo-noir police-criminal-drama cum psychological thriller. A dedicated greenhorn, an experienced encounter specialist senior, a suspected criminal, a hungry for power politician, a grieving wife and an innocent young boy make up the players.

The story is of Adi (Vijay Varma), who is being sent out on his first criminal case, headed by an inspector Khan (Neeraj Kabi) who believes in the no-custody ideology. As the events unfold, Adi finds himself face-to-face with Shiva, the suspect (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Right in the beginning his mother reminds him of a lesson his father used to preach- there are three ways to act on a thing- right, wrong and the in-between one, and that sets the tone of the scenes to follow and the words echo in Adis mind long after his father is gone.

Is he the man behind extortion killing? Or just a passer-by? What if hes innocent and ends up bearing the brunt of someone elses crime? Should he shoot him? Should he not? Or should he take him in the custody?

Adis moral dilemma of which path to choose sets the foundation stone of the plot. The makers experiment with the same plot with three different actions and hence, three different consequences. In the first one, Adi does not pull the trigger and eventually, havoc is set free for which Adi too, ends up paying a hefty personal price. In the second one, he does pull the trigger but the moral dilemma of whether he killed an innocent man or actually got hold of the criminal- clouds his mind. The third sees Adi following the rule book but does that help in setting the case straight?

Image: Youtube/ A still from Monsoon Shootout

An artsy style of narrating a story is always welcome and in this case, is also intriguing. Certain scenes like a sculpted Ganesha idol falling in the backdrop of wrongdoings in a household or an intrinsic fear developing in the mind of a young boy over crossing a sheep tied to the fences further enrich the story-telling experience.

The fine camerawork by Rajeev Ravi captures the backdrop of the infamous Mumbai monsoon in depth and makes it a thrilling character in itself. As the film turns back to the deciding moment thrice in its course, the monsoon plays like a metaphor to the blurry thoughts, quandary and the uncertainty in Adis mind.

Vijay as a rookie cop is convincing except for a few parts wherein both Nawazuddin and Neeraj outshine him. A certain earnestness in his performance, however, helps him hold his own. Contrary to expectations, Nawazuddins character is secondary to Vijays Adi and while he is impressive in parts, the film doesnt get the better of him. Neeraj shows his finesse and delivers a strong performance throughout. While Tannishtha (Shivas wife) and Geetanjali (Adis love interest) both have only small roles in the film, Sreejita Des role of Shivas mistress have a significant hand in the consequences of the varied depictions.

But what dilutes the impact of the narration and a dependable cast is the familiarity of the account chosen to represent a significant psychological aspect. The basic idea that a do-gooder-rulebook-greenhorn is pulled down by the internal politics and corruption in the system overshadows the potential impressive psycho-cosmic angle of human decision making in the larger scheme of things. And ultimately gives this film a certain delusional greatness towards the climax. So what couldve been a thrilling masterpiece remains an artsy thriller in search of a better plot.

Rating: 3/5
New Delhi: Priyanka Chopra is all set to deliver this year's Penguin Annual Lecture on the theme 'Breaking the Glass Ceiling - Chasing a dream'.

Publishers Penguin Random House India announced in a press release that the 35-year-old "Quantico" star will give the address on December 26 here.

"Priyanka Chopra is an icon for today's young Indians who identify with her drive, passion, intelligence and charisma.

She has been a social media trendsetter and has a massive fan base across the globe.

"Much loved and admired as an artiste by people in India and around the world, she is also recognised as a global Indian - a woman who has broken the glass ceiling to reach the highest echelons of international stardom - and for her philanthropic work as Unicef's global goodwill ambassador," read the release.

Eleventh in the series, the publisher aims to spread the thrill of fresh ideas to a new generation of readers, thinkers and future achievers with the lecture.

Over the past 10 years, speakers have included thought leaders such as Dalai Lama, A P J Abdul Kalam, Amartya Sen, Thomas Friedman, Amitabh Bachchan, Ramachandra Guha, and authors from both India and abroad such as Dan Brown, Jeff Kinney and Ruskin Bond.

The event will be telecast and webcast live.
New Delhi: Rishi Kapoor objected to the presence of journalists at the launch on Thursday evening of a book on his late father, the legendary Raj Kapoor, in spite of an invitation from the publisher.

What was supposed to be a special event, graced by the five children of Raj Kapoor, turned out to be a difficult evening. Coming face to face with Rishi Kapoor as he stepped out of the washroom adjacent to the venue of the book release, he asked in an agitated voice, for reasons best known to him, "aap log kaun hain" of three journalists waiting to enter.

On credentials being presented, he walked off, muttering "muft ki daru...". His personal security arrived and asked the three journalists to accompany them out of the hall and to the lobby area of the hotel. They said: "Mr Kapoor doesn't want you guys here, please leave."

A representative of the publisher, who had arrived at the spot, requested that Kapoor's personal security staff be spoken to.

The ITC Maurya security in-charge resisted, saying: "You know how Rishi Kapoor is. He has created a scene at our hotel twice in the past."

The publicist from HarperCollins apologised while also adding that there are a lot of other stakeholders in such events that involve celebrities. "Please come in, grab a drink or two," he said, 20 minutes after the event had begun.

This correspondent, however, chose to leave.
"Sorry, I'm done!" Doesn't it sound a bit weird? What would be your reaction when someone suddenly comes and tells you that he or she is done? It's obvious that you'd be worried. That's exactly what happened with actor Sidharth Malhotra's fans on Thursday evening when he posted a cryptic tweet on his microblogging account.

The actor, who is currently prepping for his next film Aiyaary, suddenly updated his Twitter DP to black and his bio to read "Off". He then shared a weird post in which he wrote, "Sorry, I'm done."

sorry iam done ! Sidharth Malhotra (@S1dharthM) December 14, 2017

His 6.64 million followers were quick to notice this and wanted to check if all was well with their favourite star. Things became too serious when Sidharth's Aiyaary co-star Rakul Preet Singh asked him "Is everything alright?"

Wait !! What is this ??Is everything alright @S1dharthM #SidsOffTheGrid Rakul Preet (@Rakulpreet) December 14, 2017

However, a few fans got confused when they saw the hashtag #SidsOffTheGrid in Rakul's post. Some suggested that it could be a strategy to promote Aiyaary, while others thought the actor might be going through a difficult time.

Later, one user shared a screengrab of a message which appears to be from the film's marketing team. "We're doing a promotional activity for Aiyaary with Sidharth Malhotra and we want you guys to make as much noise about it as possible. The hashtag is #SidsOffTheGrid. We want you to speculate reasons as to why he's gone? Where he is? Is something wrong with him?, etc. Let's make Sid trend all day," the post read.

Soon after the post went viral on social media, Sidharth's fans started expressing displeasure.

Check out a few tweets:

Marketing strategy, isn't it? If yes then definitely you guys can do better than this! Disgusting marketing tactics. #SidsOffTheGrid pic.twitter.com/FxcBGNuuPY Sukhpreet (@SukhpreetWrites) December 14, 2017

If this is for Aiyaari's promotion then this man has seriously lost all the respect I had for him. Siddhant (@IamSiddhant0701) December 14, 2017

However, we can't confirm if the viral post is authentic.
New Delhi: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan on Thursday said the name of veteran filmmaker-actor Raj Kapoor reflects the spirit of India as a country - full of life and zest.

In an emotional video message from Thailand, where he is shooting for Thugs of Hindostan, the 75-year-old actor recounted a few instances from his life with Kapoor.

"The name Raj Kapoor only signifies one word - India. The Indian showman of all time. Visit any part of the world and your own Indian identity gets identified by his name... Such was and still is his presence. It will be very difficult to describe the phenomenon of Raj Kapoor.

"Was it the choice of his stories that he so passionately got involved in... To be able to read its effect into the eyes of the audience? Was it the music of his films? Every note, word, musical interval... The tune we still remember after so many years... His production elegance never seen before. His penchant for getting the right cast for every story..." Bachchan said.

The actor recalled an instance when the two of them were in Tashkent together and the organisers of the event asked Kapoor to sing a song, to which he ended up crooning to "Saare jahan se achcha..."

"No one could ever match his love, his zest for life, which reflected in his works..." he added, talking about Kapoor.

Bachchan remembered how Kapoor walked smiling in the ICU when he was recuperating after his accident on the sets of Coolie in 1982 and opened up a champagne, toasting to his good health - saying "With this bottle, we shall launch the ship of love again..."

He was speaking at the launch of the book "Raj Kapoor: The One and Only Showman", both an autobiography and biography.

It is a tribute to Kapoor by his five children Randhir Kapoor, Ritu Nanda, Rishi Kapoor, Rima Jain and Rajiv Kapoor.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers India, the book was presented by his daughter Ritu on Kapoor's 93rd birth anniversary.

In a tribute to Kapoor's youngest brother, Shashi Kapoor, Rishi opened the event by reading an excerpt which the late veteran actor had penned about his elder brother, Raj Kapoor, who was like a "father" to him.

Shashi passed away on December 4 at the age of 79.

Ritu quoted her father's song "Jeena yahaan marna yahaan" and said the book was a humble attempt to do justice to Kapoor's legacy in films and in life.

"(I) wanted to bring together all those people who have been touched by Raj Kapoor - in one way or the other," she said.

While Rima remembered how, as children, Kapoor's birthday was like a "national holiday" for them.

Randhir said he was aware about the love their father received from countries such as Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, but when he and Ritu travelled to China, they realised the Chinese loved him as much as the Russians.

"When they recognised us as Raj Kapoor's children, they refused to take money from us, saying that the love they got from his films they cannot (trade it) for money," he said.

The event was also attended by Jaya Bachchan, Shweta Nanda, Neetu Kapoor, Riddhimma Kapoor Sahani, Nafisa Ali, among others.
New Delhi: The proceedings of the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Winter Session were adjourned on Friday after the House paid tributes to three sitting and seven former members who died during the inter-session period.

The House would now meet on Monday.

As soon as the House assembled, newly-elected Congress member from Gurdaspur Sunil Kumar Jakhar was administered the oath, which he took in Punjabi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greeted Jakhar with a handshake when the former greeted him with folded hands after taking oath.

The Gurdaspur bypoll was necessitated following the demise of BJP member and cine star Vinod Khanna.

After the oath of the new member, Modi introduced new ministers to the House. These included Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman who were elevated as Cabinet ministers in the September 3 rejig of the council of ministers.

The new faces are ministers of state (independent charge) R K Singh, Hardeep Puri, K J Alphonse and ministers of state Shiv Pratap Shukla, Virendra Kumar, Ananth Hegde, Gajendra Shekhawat and Satyapal Singh.

Making obituary references, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan informed members that three sitting Lok Sabha MPs -- Sultan Ahmed (TMC), Chand Nath (BJP) and Tasleem Uddin (RJD) had passed away recently.

Seven other former members -- Vikram Mahajan, Ram Singh, R Keishing, P C Barman, Dhanraj Singh, Amal Datta and Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi also died during the inter-session period.

The House was also introduced to the new Secretary General, Snehlata Shrivastava, who took over on December 1. A former IAS officer, she is the first woman Secretary General of the Lok Sabha.

Before the proceedings began, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met leaders of various parties.

When the Prime Minister entered the House, he greeted the members from the opposition benches with a 'namaste' and bowing his head.
We have 272 and more are coming  these were the words used by Sonia Gandhi before the media in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan after pulling down the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government by just one vote in early 1999, triggering a political upheaval, including in the Congress party.

The dramatic announcement by Sonia virtually projected her as the Prime Ministerial candidate of the Grand Old Party. This had shocked many both within and outside the party, finally culminating in a rebellion by Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar.

That was April 21, 1999. She met the then President KR Narayanan and staked the claim within a year after joining active politics. Sonias famous remarks were a bolt from the blue for Pawar as he was the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha and was not consulted, showing her utter distrust in the Maratha strongman.

Sonias another mistake was that she had taken the support of the Samajwadi Party for granted, thinking that Mulayam Singh Yadav would be forced to side with the anti-BJP forces willy-nilly.

Those were the turbulent days. The Nehru-Gandhi family was out of power and isolated in the party from 1991 to 1998. I was covering the Congress and the Parliament, trying to understand compulsions of coalition politics and importance of regional parties at the Centre.

It was a fact that Pawar was a Congress heavyweight whose strategy, campaigning and election management had helped the party in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections in which the Congress and its allies had won over 40 of the total 48 seats in Maharashtra alone. He was the natural choice for the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Besides, his good equations with regional parties especially the Bahujan Samaj Party and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam had proved crucial in defeating the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government during the floor test in the Lower House on April 17, 1998.

But these qualities created rivals for him in his own party. They had succeeded in creating a rift between him and Sonia who had gone to Rashtrapati Bhavan alone on April 21, 1998, to tell the then President that she had numbers required to form a government.

AICC managers who believe in drawing room politics and manoeuvring have always been scared of mass leaders, as they felt insecure. They amended the constitution of Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) to ensure that no body other than Sonia Gandhi could become the Prime Minister if the Congress manages numbers. They had undermined the authority of the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha several times to show that CPP chairperson is more important than the Opposition Leader even if she was not a member of either of the House in Parliament.

I was watching these developments and sensed growing rift between elected leaders and Sonia Gandhis coterie. A meeting of the CPP was called in the absence of Sharad Pawar to amend its constitution and remove the obstruction in Sonia Gandhis path. Pranab Mukherjee proposed her name and it was endorsed by those present in the meeting. Sonia appointed Pawar as the Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha and Dr Manmohan Singh as the Congress leader in the Rajya Sabha.

But this was the beginning of distrust between Sonia and self-made leaders like Pawar, Sangma and ambitious leaders like Rajesh Pilot, Jitendra Prasada and others who failed to find place in the new coterie.

In his book On My Terms, Sharad Pawar says Though I was among those few who invited Sonia Gandhi to become Congress president, there was little warmth between us. At best our relations were cordial. She relied very heavily on just two or three people for running the party. There was some uneasiness within the Congress that the party had won maximum number of Lok Sabha seats from my home state, Maharashtra.

The rebellion by Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma and Tariq Anwar was not an emotional act but had a long history which showed how top leadership of the party was uncomfortable with leaders of mass appeal, regional heavyweights and those who refused to be the coterie.

Before this rebellion, Mamata Banerjee quit the Congress and floated her own Trinamool Congress which would one day end the long rule of Marxists in West Bengal on its own. Before that G K Moopnar had formed the Tamil Manila Congress in Tamil Nadu and got a reelection in the HD Deve Gowda government at the Centre.

But the Congress (Tiwari) led by N D Tiwari and Arjun Singh and the Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress floated by Madhavrao Scindia did not last long. We were watching developments in the Congress and rise of the BJP and regional parties in the post Mandal and Ayodhya period which had made the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty virtually irrelevant.

In the Congress, Pawar was not the only the PM aspirant. Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukherjee and ND Tiwari had been wanting to get the post by remaining in the good books of Sonia Gandhi. Even PA Sangma was confident that Sonia could back his candidature for being a tribal Christian. But her claim of the support of 272 MPs and Arjun Singhs statement that Migratory birds are coming had not only upset the aspirants but also made them aware of the ambitions of Sonia.

While Arjun Singh and ND Tiwari had failed miserably in their calculations, Pranab Mukherjee managed to become Rashtrapati with the help of BJP allies  the Shiv Sena and the Janata Dal (U) led by Nitish Kumar and the UPA partners, compelling Sonia to back his candidature.

Sharad Pawar had realized that he had no future in the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi. Her interference in his parliamentary works, her loyalists attitude towards Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha and nominations of Congress members to different parliamentary committees were the glaring examples of how Sonia Gandhi had no faith in Pawar and wanted to cut him to size.

What turned out to be the proverbial straw on the camels back was the appointment of Prataprao Bhosale, a friend-turned-foe of Pawar, as the Maharashtra PCC President. Before the final break up, Pawar had hosted a party for the journalists at his residence at Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Road in New Delhi but didnt given any clue about the impending rebellion.

In the CWC meeting which saw Sonia being attacked for her foreign origin, Pawar writes in his book: On 15 May 1999, the Congress president called a meeting of the CWC. For no apparent reason, she suddenly pulled out a sheet of paper and read aloud: I was born outside India. If this becomes an issue in the campaign, how would it impact our partys performance in the election? She requested CWC members to voice their opinions candidly. Arjun Singh was the first to speak. You may be a foreigner by birth but you become a domicile of this country after marriage. You did not leave even after your husband and mother-in-law were assassinated. Just as you embraced this country, the people of India also have accepted you as one of them. For them, you are the Rashtra Mataa (the mother of the nation). You alone deserve to lead the nation and the party.

Arjun Singh more or less set the tone of the speeches that followed. AK Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni went all out to express their loyalty.

Then came the turn of PA Sangma. He was believed to be very close to Sonia. So what he said was totally unexpected for many. There is no doubt that Sonia Gandhis foreign origin will be made a big issue in the election. It will be foolish on our part to say there will be no impact if we are criticized for choosing a foreigner to lead us when the party has so many able people. We shall have to devise a strategy to counter the criticism, he said.

The entire CWC listened to him in rapt attention. A senior member tried to interject but Sangma silenced him immediately by retorting that it would be in everybodys interest if he was allowed to speak without any interruption. When Tariq Anwars turn came, he concurred with Sangma. After a few others spoke, it was Pawars turn.

He writes in his memoir: I said the people of India will not forget that the Gandhi family has contributed a lot to this country. Secondly, a large number of people in the country support the Congress because they acknowledge with gratitude the supreme sacrifices made by Indiraji and Rajiv Gandhi. Therefore, we shall be able to counter effectively the opposition parties campaign against Soniajis foreign origin. In that sense, I agree with what Sangma said. We must meet the opposition campaign head on. But it will be our gross mistake to presume that the opposition will not campaign on the foreigner issue. Pawar cited an incident in Mumbai University where a girl student asked him why the Congress couldnt find a leader of Indian origin.

What followed on was for everyone to see.

(Author is a senior journalist who covered Congress party for over three decades.)
New Delhi: A day ahead of formally handing over the leadership of the Congress party to her son Rahul, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has indicated that she may retire from active politics.

"My job is to retire," Sonia Gandhi told reporters on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament when asked about her role after Rahul Gandhi formally takes over as Congress President on Saturday.

The Congress President is also the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), which includes members of both Houses of Parliament. Sonia's statement led to speculations that she might also hand over the leadership of the CPP to Rahul.

The post was created by amending the Congress Constitution when Sonia took charge as the party president. The two leaders of the party in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha report to the CPP chairperson.

In pre-Sonia setup, the CPP leader was the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha, who was the Prime Minister if the Congress was in power, or leader of opposition otherwise.

Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos.Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light. Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 15, 2017

During UPA, Pranab Mukherjee as cabinet minister remained Leader of the Lok Sabha for most part of the regime, and Manmohan Singh as PM was the Leader of the Rajya Sabha.

Sonia's statement also raised questions if she will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. She currently represents the Nehru-Gandhi bastion of Raebareli in the LS, a seat earlier held by her mother-in-law and former PM Indira Gandhi.

The twin seats of Amethi and Raebareli have been held by the Nehru-Gandhi family for most parts of the last five decades. Sonia's plan to call quits could also pave way for the formal entry of Priyanka Vadra into electoral politics.
Amazon.com will start selling Google Chromecast and Apple TV, which compete against its Fire TV, on its online store, an Amazon spokeswoman told Reuters on Thursday. The e-commerce giant had removed the video-streaming devices from its website in 2015. The company had then explained the move by saying it wanted to avoid confusing customers who might expect its Prime Video service to be available on those devices sold by Amazon.

"We are in productive discussions with Amazon to reach an agreement for the benefit of our mutual customers. We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon," a Google spokesperson said. Alphabet's Google said last week it would block YouTube from Amazon's Echo and Fire TV devices. However, Apple said last week Prime Video would come to Apple TV, mending its ties with Amazon.

CNET first reported the return of Apple TV and Google Chromecast devices to Amazon's platform. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Watch: Honor 7X Review | The Upgrade to Your Honor 6X
Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out new features on its Bing search engine powered by artificial intelligence, including one that summarizes the two opposing sides of contentious questions, and another that measures how many reputable sources are behind a given answer. Tired of delivering misleading information when their algorithms are gamed by trolls and purveyors of fake news, Microsoft and its tech-company rivals have been going out of their way to show they can be purveyors of good information  either by using better algorithms or hiring more human moderators. Microsoft is also trying to distinguish its 2nd-place search engine from long-dominant Google and position itself as an innovator in finding real-world applications for the latest advances in artificial intelligence.

As a search engine we have a responsibility to provide answers that are comprehensive and objective, said Jordi Ribas, Microsofts corporate vice president for AI products. Bings new capabilities are designed to give users more confidence that an answer is correct and save them time so they dont have to click through multiple links to validate it themselves. You could be asking, Is coffee good for you? We know that there are no good answers for that, Ribas said. But the new search features side-by-side opposing perspectives. One source emphasizes coffees ability to increase metabolism and another shows it can raise blood pressure. Similar questions can also be asked on more sensitive topics, such as whether the death penalty is a good idea.

On more complicated questions  is there a god?  Bing doesnt have enough confidence to provide a pro-con perspective. But on questions that involve numbers, it boils information down into digestible doses. Iraq, for instance, is described as about equal to the size of California. Search engines have evolved since Google took the lead at the turn of the 21st century, when rankings were based on link analysis that assigned credibility to sites based on how many other sites linked to them. As machines get better at reading and summarizing paragraphs, users expect not just a list of links but a quick and authoritative answer, said Harry Shum, who leads Microsofts 8,000-person research and AI division. To test its technology, the company has compared its machine-reading skills to the verbal score on the SAT.

We are not at 800 yet, but we bypassed President Bush a long time ago, Shum jokes. The demand for more sophisticated searches has also grown as people have moved from typing questions to voicing them on the road or in their kitchen. If you use Bing or Google nowadays you recognize that more and more often youll see direct answers on the top of search result pages, Shum said. Were getting to the point that for probably about 10 percent of those queries well see answers.

Shum is hesitant to over-promise Bings new features as an antidote to the misinformation flooding the internet. At the end of the day, people have their own judgments, he said. The search engine features were announced along with updates to Microsofts voice assistant Cortana and a new search partnership with the popular online forum Reddit.

Watch: Honor 7X Review | The Upgrade to Your Honor 6X
Samsung Electronics Co is likely to lose ground in the smartphone segment in 2018 due to the rise of Chinese smartphone manufacturers, an industry tracker said on Thursday. Strategy Analytics said the company is expected to post a market share of 19.2 percent in the global smartphone industry in 2018 by shipping 315 million units, down from 20.5 percent estimated for this year, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The weaker outlook comes as rival Apple is expected to expand its presence in the high-end segment, while Chinese companies are quickly making inroads to the industry with budget devices, experts said. "While the iOS-powered smartphones do not have competitors, Samsung will face tougher challenges in the Android segment," said Park Nam-gyoo, a professor of business at Seoul National University.

It will mark the first time that Samsung will post a decline in smartphone shipments on-year, excluding 2016, when the company suspended the production of Galaxy Note 7 over safety issues. Samsung Electronics did not comment on the outlook. Apple, on the other hand, is expected to take up 14.3 percent of the market in 2018 by shipping 234 million units, up from 14 percent posted this year.

China-based Huawei Technologies Co and OPPO Electronics Corp are also set to expand their shares to account for 10 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively, next year, the data also showed. Industry watchers said Samsung Electronics must prepare to cope with the rise of Chinese smartphone makers, as they are also starting to set their eyes on the premium segment as well.

Watch: Honor 7X Review | The Upgrade to Your Honor 6X
Uber's food-delivery business will begin offering an insurance package to its couriers in Europe, a move to address the conditions of "gig economy" workers. Riders for food-delivery companies such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are typically self-employed and the firms have come under fire for how they treat their workers. Uber Eats said on Friday it would start offering all its couriers in Europe an insurance package with AXA with coverage for personal accidents, cash benefits for hospitalisation, property damage and cover for third-party injury.

"Uber Eats couriers can now enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working on their own schedule with the peace of mind provided by additional security and protection," said Filip Nuytemans, Uber Eats general manager for Europe. The couriers will be able to benefit from the policy whether they are fully independent or employed via a third party, and the company will pay for the insurance. Uber Eats currently operates in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain. The plan will be introduced Jan. 8 next year, the company said.

The gig economy, where individuals work for multiple employers day-to-day without having a fixed contract, has expanded with the arrival of apps such as Uber and Deliveroo, who say their workers have the full flexibility to work when they want and for how long they want. But companies in the gig economy come under fire from unions and politicians for what they call exploitative practices and riders for Deliveroo have gone to court in the UK to seek employment rights such as the minimum wage.

Two drivers for Uber's ride-hailing app successfully argued at a tribunal in London that the San Francisco company had responsibilities in terms of workers' rights. The plan offered by Uber Eats will reimburse couriers up to 7,500 euros ($8,847.75) for medical expenses from an accident that results in hospitalisation or 3,000 euros if the hospitalisation is for three consecutive nights or more. Couriers will also get a cash benefit for severe sickness or injury and cover for third party bodily injuries and property damage.

Honor View 10 | First Impressions Review
Central Islip: A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Islamic State group, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year-old Pakistani-born resident of Brentwood, was being held without bail following her Thursday arraignment on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The former lab technician worked in Manhattan and had no known criminal history, according to prosecutors who said that beginning in March she fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

"She then made several wire transactions to individuals and opaque entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey, which were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements and conceal the identity, source and destination of the illicitly-obtained monies," court documents said.

"These transactions were motivated to benefit ISIS, which the defendant ultimately sought to join in Syria," the documents said.

During this period, prosecutors said Shahnaz accessed numerous Islamic State propaganda websites and message boards. In January 2016, she traveled to Jordan to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan. Her flight included a layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals trying to join the Islamic State group in Syria, prosecutors said.

Her lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.

"... what she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose," Zissou said outside the courthouse.
Islamabad: Pakistan's ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and his embattled family on Friday heaved a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court refused to reopen another corruption case against them.

The three-member bench of Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel rejected an appeal by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court that quashed the case for lack of evidence.

The NAB had recently filed the appeal to reopen the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family. The case was launched in 2000 by former dictator Pervez Musharraf.

The apex court bench - seeking new evidence - had asked the NAB not to "parrot" the Panama Papers judgement and rather articulate its own reasons to convince the bench why the reference originally filed against the Sharifs in the year 2000 should be resurrected.

"You have to satisfy the court on the reasons for the delay in filing the appeal," Justice Alam had told NAB's lawyer as the hearing began.

The lawyer had told the court that there are holes in the high court's decision and the appeal must be reopened for the sake of justice.

But the NAB failed to convince the court why it took so long to challenge the high court verdict. The court after several days of hearing the case issued a short order and rejected the NAB's appeal to reopen the case.

Today's decision is major relief for the Sharif family as it was feared that after his disqualification, his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, could also face the similar fate if the case was reopened.

The case was based on a confessional statement of Sharif's confidante and current Finance Minister Ishaq Dar who on April 25, 2000 admitted playing role in laundering money to the tune of USD 14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts.

According to the NAB documents, Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, his father Mian Muhammad Sharif, brothers Shehbaz and Abbas Sharif, Abbas's wife Sabiha, Sharif's son Hussain and Shahbaz's son Hamza had been accused of receiving the alleged "ill-gotten money" in the case.

Dar later said that he was forced to record the statement while he was in custody after Sharif's government was sent packing by former military ruler Musharraf.

Sharif, 67, and some of his family members, including his two sons and a daughter are already facing corruption charges in the Panama Papers case relating to their ownership of posh properties in London.

He resigned as prime minister in July after the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income.
Ankara: Turkey is launching an initiative at the United Nations to annul a decision by the United States to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

Erdogan was speaking two days after a Muslim leaders meeting in Istanbul condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's decision, calling on the world to respond by recognising East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

"We will work for the annulment of this unjust decision firstly at the UN Security Council, and if a veto comes from there, the General Assembly," Erdogan told crowds gathered in the central Anatolian city of Konya via teleconference.

The United States is a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, meaning any move to overturn Washington's decision at the council would certainly be blocked.

Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam's third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognised internationally.

Trump's decision broke with decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the city's status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks, leading to harsh criticisms from Muslim countries and Israel's closest European allies, who have also rejected the move.

A communique issued after Wednesday's summit of more than 50 Muslim countries, including U.S. allies, said they considered Trump's move to be a declaration that Washington was withdrawing from its role "as sponsor of peace" in the Middle East.

Asked about the criticism during an interview with Israel's Makor Rishon daily, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said Trump had done "what is good for America".

"President Trump...does not intend to reverse himself, despite the various condemnations and declarations," Ambassador David Friedman said.
BEDFORD  The Bedford County School Board heard this week a staff salary study that recommended increasing starting school nurse hourly rates to make the district competitive in the region.

Fred Conner, the school divisions director of human resources, told the board Thursday at its only regular meeting this month he sought data from human resource directors at school divisions in the region for four positions: school nurse, school psychologist, physical therapist and occupational therapist.

The regional hourly rate for nurses is $21.67, according to staffs salary study. Conner recommended the school board consider increasing Bedford school nurses' hourly rate from $20.20 per hour to $24.50 per hour, which would be a 21 percent increase.

Bedfords rate is lower than the regional average Conner found, although Appomattox and Campbell counties had lower rates at $15.89 per hour and $20.01 per hour, respectively.

Amherst County had the highest hourly rate at $26.33. Lynchburg's rate is $20.66.

That would mean a starting salary for a school nurse would increase from the current annual pay of $30,292 to $36,750 yearly, according to the salary study.

Conner said after the meeting the study was to inform board members before they have to work on the next fiscal year budget. He said a new pay scale would have to be created if the starting salary is increased.

Kim Cannon was one of two parents who spoke during public comments at the meeting to support school nurses. No one spoke against increasing school nurses starting hourly rate.

Cannon said school nurses have been good for the five years shes had children enrolled in the school division. Three of her five children enrolled in the school division have Type 1 diabetes and visit school nurses for care such as testing blood sugar.

I was very glad they were looking to increase the salary, Cannon said after the meeting. Theres a huge variety [of care] you need; some small, some great. For my children, they need it for care of a life-threatening illness.

School board members Julie Bennington, who represents District 5, and Martin Leamy, who represents District 7, said they support increasing the starting hourly rate. No members expressed opposition.

Patricia Knox, the divisions school nurse supervisor, said before the meeting the division has 24 school nurses, including two who work one-on-one with students with medical needs and two part-time nurses who move around schools.

Conner said after the meeting he could not estimate how much the proposed pay increase would cost the division because it would require staff to create an entirely new pay structure, starting with first-year school nurses and increasing pay based on experience.

The hourly rate for the other three positions is regionally competitive, and Conner did not recommend adjustments.

School psychologists hourly salary for Bedford County is $31.96 compared to the average regional rate of $31.17, physical therapists hourly rate is $31.96 compared to the average regional rate of $29.35 and occupational therapists hourly rate for Bedford County is $31.96 while the average regional rate is $32.20.

Thursdays meeting was the last school board meeting led by Chairman Gary Hostutler, who has served on the board for 12 years.
After the trauma of experiencing a house fire, theres still another, more insidious health risk for victims rescued from the smoke and flames thats not as obvious as burns or other injuries.

Not all fire victims require treatment for cyanide poisoning, caused by smoke inhalation, but the Lynchburg Fire Department is equipped for the occasions when they do.

As more household products and building materials are made using plastics, glues and other synthetic compounds, more hydrogen cyanide gas comes off as a byproduct when those materials burn. When inhaled, that hydrogen cyanide leads to cyanide poisoning. For a number of years, the Lynchburg Fire Department has kept a small stock of Cyanokit  a kit of IV medication and equipment used to administer it  to treat victims for cyanide poisoning when the need arises, according to Capt. Diron Martin, an EMS supervisor for the department.

With any fires, with building materials as they are now, peoples clothing, peoples linens, everything in your house  its going to let off cyanide, he said. So to give  anybody thats pulled out of [a fire], to give them the greatest chance, we just go ahead and give it to them.

Cyanide poisoning can lead to severe symptoms immediately and other symptoms further down the road. Inhalation of enough hydrogen cyanide can kill someone.

When firefighters responded to an apartment fire at the McCausland Ridge community the evening of Nov. 22, they found a woman unconscious and rescued her from the building. She became conscious and disoriented on the way out, asking about her two cats, which firefighters then found and rescued. They treated the cats with special pet oxygen masks and treated the victim with Cyanokit.

During a fire that broke out in the early morning of Dec. 2 at the Greenfield apartment community, firefighters rescued an unconscious woman from her apartment and administered treatment for cyanide poisoning.

That victim needed transport to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond for treatment of serious smoke inhalation, and fire officials said she was released last week.

LFD personnel use Cyanokit a few times per year, according to Martin, and have aided other localities with fires by providing the medication when its needed. Treating two fire victims in such a short span in such similar circumstances was unusual for the department, Battalion Chief Robert Lipscomb said.

Master Firefighter Steve Ripley, who served as acting captain during the Greenfield fire, said such rescues are relatively infrequent  hes had to assist in about nine of them in his 17 years with the Lynchburg Fire Department.

Its an uncommon event, especially nowadays with the smoke detectors and things like that  you see less of them, I think, he said.

But when those rescues do occur, Martin said the medication should be par for the course in treatment, along with treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning. He and others qualified to use Cyanokit look for certain symptoms in fire victims to determine if theyd need it: soot around the nose, charring in and around the mouth and whether a victim is unconscious or disoriented from inhaling smoke and hot air. He said theres no tool that can measure how much hydrogen cyanide someones inhaled, and other testing equipment is only used to test the scene once the fires been put out.

Lipscomb said the research into this as a toxin is relatively new  Cyanokit was approved in the U.S. in 2006, and LFD first had the medication on hand as part of a hazardous materials kit and kept it to treat firefighters. Though the kit costs upward of $1,000 to treat one person, the department foots the bill entirely, and treatment doesnt cost victims who receive it. Martin said the kit has a three-year shelf life and the department is looking into working with health providers to help offset the cost. Most medications that the department uses frequently are provided through hospitals, he said.

Other firefighting agencies in the area have also decided to keep the medication on hand in case of similar situations.

Janet Blankenship, Bedford County Fire & Rescues deputy chief of EMS, said shes ordered two kits using the departments money and that they should arrive in a week or two. The medication will be placed in a supervisor vehicle, which she said is automatically called out to structure fires in the county.

She said any fire victim who firefighters find unresponsive has the potential for cyanide poisoning, and the blacker the smoke from a fire, the more waste products are in that smoke. Patients close to Bedford Memorial Hospital might be able to receive care there, but Blankenship said the medication will come in handy for fires that happen further out into the county.

It was something we wanted to do, she said. If you have an instance, you just see the need more for having it on hand.

The department is on the lookout for more funding sources for the medication, and Blankenship said through projects and planning, we at least look to have them on our career staff trucks and with volunteer agencies.
The fruits of years of drug investigations prompted by the Amherst County Sheriffs Office have come in the form of 15 people facing meth-related charges in federal court.

Prominence of methamphetamine related-incidents led law enforcement in Amherst to work in cooperation with federal, state and other local agencies to pursue higher-level drug traffickers and dealers.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Virginia announced Wednesday 15 people from Mexico, North Carolina and different parts of Virginia either have been charged with or convicted of various offenses. Of the 15 defendants, one man is from Lynchburg, and three men are from Nelson County.

According to the release, the defendants involved are:

Jonathan Wayne Angus, 29, of Gladstone;

Cynthia D. Baird, 33, of Earlysville;

Timothy Edgar Bryant, 36, of Gladstone;

Wayne Thomas Burnley, 43, of Wingina;

David Campos-Luebano, 26, of Chatham;

Kenneth Cordova, 32, of North Carolina

Jeffrey Dean-Dickinson, 51, of Fredericksburg;

Isabel Gonzalez, 56, of Concord, North Carolina;

John Bernard Goolsby, 45, of Shipman;

Lance Dereck Hicks, 28, of Lynchburg;

Stephanie Hurst, 32, of Lewisburg, North Carolina;

George Christopher Mays, 43, of Wingina;

Graciano Ochoa-Bermudez, 40, a citizen of Mexico;

Irineo Perez-Aguirre, 42, a citizen of Mexico; and

Edgar Estrada Ruiz, 33, of Burke.

According to court documents, Dean-Dickinson, Hicks and Angus all are implicated in one conspiracy with other individuals accused of trafficking meth from April 2014 to January 2017. Dean-Dickinson is charged with possessing and distributing 500 grams or more of a mixture containing meth.

Hicks was charged with possessing meth with the intent to distribute on or about Jan. 13, the same date Angus is accused of possessing a firearm to facilitate drug trafficking. As part of the overall conspiracy, Hicks and two others were charged with possessing 50 or more grams of a mixture containing meth with intent to distribute.

Hicks is set for a bond hearing Wednesday, and Angus, whos still in custody, is set for a plea hearing Jan. 12.

Bryant and Ruiz both are named in a separate indictment, and both pleaded guilty to drug conspiracy charges in federal court in October. Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Bassford, who is prosecuting these cases, described Ruiz in court as serving as a courier for a drug supplier based in North Carolina, a shadowy figure known as Coyote. Both Bryant and Ruiz are set for sentencing in January.

Goolsby was charged in yet another indictment with conspiring to distribute meth and possessing a firearm to facilitate drug trafficking. An indictment in his case states he committed specific offenses Nov. 10, 2015.

He pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute 50 or more grams of a mixture containing meth and possessing a firearm to facilitate drug trafficking at the end of October. Goolsby is scheduled for a sentencing hearing Feb. 28 and is out of jail on bond, according to court records.

On Thursday, Amherst County Sheriffs Capt. John Grieser said investigations started in 2015 and went from targeting meth users and neighborhood distributors to higher-level drug traffickers. Federal agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Department of Homeland Securitys investigative arm became involved just months after that work started.

The whole thing started just from street-level traffic stops in Amherst County, and through good police work, the officers gain information  that this other activity is going on, he said.

Grieser said although some of the defendants may not have stepped foot in Amherst County, its been an epicenter in that all of them were tied back to drug activity there in some way. In 2016, the Amherst County Sheriffs Office handled 67 incidents involving meth, up from 29 meth-related incidents in 2015, surpassing the number of incidents involving marijuana or prescription pills.

These cases represent a major supply of meth that was coming through Amherst County, and Grieser said the investigation would be a landmark career effort for narcotics investigators.

Even so, he said the cases dont mean the end of meth circulating in the area by a long shot.

Were never naive enough to think that weve stopped a drug problem, he said. We know that theres going to be other people out there.  We know we didnt eliminate it, but this is definitely a huge step in the right direction.

Grieser said law enforcement encountered some purer methamphetamine during these investigations but didnt trace the drug back to any deaths they could pinpoint.
Ideas abounded at the town of Bedford public meeting Thursday night that discussed the future of Old Yellow, a former school building, and Bedford Middle School, which are on the same property.

Bedford Middle students are slated to attend the new Liberty Middle School starting next school year, leaving Bedford Middle vacant.

Community members jumped up to propose using portions of the 8.37-acre site as a business incubator space, housing, rehearsal space, nonprofit offices, a higher education learning space and more.

The two proposals presented by developers on the future of the property focused on temporary and permanent housing.

John Stiltner, director of development at Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based The Landmark Group, proposed a plan that emphasized affordable housing; he stressed it would not be Section 8 housing, and one-bedroom apartments would start at about $500.

The Landmark Group is an organization that focuses on developing and managing the adaptive reuse of historic properties, according to the organizations submitted proposal.

David McCormack, of Waukeshaw Development Inc., proposed turning the Old Yellow portion of the site into a boutique hotel, citing the Craddock Terry Hotel in downtown Lynchburg as an example of the sites potential economic impact.

McCormack also proposed converting the school into apartments similar to the Bedford Lofts and the cafeteria building into an incubator space to spur economic development.

The property has four buildings  a two-story main building that was built in the 1930s, the three-story Old Yellow that was built in 1912, a one-story cafeteria building built in 1964 and a two-story gymnasium built in 1999.

Some ideas sought to keep portions of the site untouched, such as the gymnasium and the playing field.

But it was the use of the auditorium  which Town Manager Bart Warner said a council-appointed group proposed converting to a theater in 2015  that spurred the first public comment.

Scott Walter, conductor and director of the Bedford Community Orchestra, asked for developers to consider the significance of the auditorium and its influence on the towns orchestra.

If we dont have the space to rehearse a group [this size], you wont have an orchestra in Bedford anymore, and Im concerned that if you lose that, you wont ever get it back, he said, emphasizing the rarity of the acoustics found in the Bedford Middle auditorium.

Betty Gereau, treasurer of the Bedford Historical Society, said she would like to see Central Virginia Community College relocate to the site, partnerships with local schools and organizations for training programs there or the creation of an educational and cultural center.

These buildings tell our story, how Bedford has valued education, she said, sharing memories of various events hosted at the school throughout the years.  These authentic resources and their stories can contribute in a significant way to the re-energizing the vibrancy of Bedford.

Bedford County resident Reagan Flaherty said she would like for CVCC or another college have a place at the site and loves the idea of an incubator space.

All three speakers who weighed in said they love the idea of preserving sections of Bedford Middle.

Warner said the town is looking for the right thing and the creative thing and still is accepting proposals for the site.

Warner also said residents shouldnt be worried when they see construction at the school later this month.

A crew will be removing a fuel storage tank, something that has needed to happen for years, he said.

Warner said another town hall on the propertys future will be scheduled sometime in the spring.
The main post office in Lynchburg is offering parcel pickup Dec. 17, according to a news release from the United States Postal Service.

The Appalachian District of the USPS announced it is hosting parcel pickup at offices in Lynchburg and Salem in Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee, on Sunday to allow customers to retrieve packages.

In Lynchburg, the pickup location is at the main post office, 3300 Odd Fellows Road, at the Dutch door in the front lobby from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Ring the buzzer for service.
About 100 business leaders met Thursday at the newly renovated Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance on Lucado Place to hear how Novembers election results could affect local economic decisions.

Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Center for Leadership & Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington, was the keynote speaker.

Farnsworth offered his thoughts on the Virginia gubernatorial race in November and how it could affect education, health care and economic development.

Farnsworth noted Virginia voters are leaning more and more liberal. He attributed this to the growth of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Areas that are very Republican tend to have smaller populations, and that creates a significant challenge for Republicans trying to win statewide, he said. Its hard for them to compete in statewide elections. In the same way as Southside and Southwest are becoming more Republican, the urban areas are becoming more Democratic.

Ed Gillespie, who ran against Gov.-elect Ralph Northam this November, was capable of becoming governor but was overshadowed by the local opinion of President Donald Trump, Farnsworth said.

Gillespie had to fight that challenge throughout that process, and that served as a great disadvantage for him, he said.

Farnsworth said he thinks some form of Medicaid expansion is reasonably likely as health care was a top issue for voters.

A lot of new Democrats voted to the new legislature were elected on health care concerns and health care anxieties in some of those suburban areas, and the Senate already has votes to pass Medicaid expansion, he said. My guess is that Northam will find a couple of Republicans to peel off in the House of Delegates majority.

He expects Northam to start a discussion regarding minimum wage.

It might be a marginal increase, he said. Maybe one dollar.

He added economic development likely will be a priority of the new governor as Northam has been reaching out to many chambers of commerce officials in Richmond to figure out how to consolidate economic development agencies and projects, which could benefit Lynchburg-area business leaders too.

Sometimes they arent working on the same page, he said of Virginias various economic-development efforts. Sometimes theyre not maximizing their efficiencies. When you think about the various state calculations in terms of funding and economic development projects, there will be more of an effort to find out which ones will be more viable.

Megan Lucas, CEO of the Lynchburg Regional Business Alliance, told business leaders the alliance is building a hyper-effective and collaborative regional economic development organization that can influence the economic vitality in the entire region.

The Lynchburg region is strong in part because of the leaders who have rolled up their sleeves to create two critical plans for our region, she said.

Farnsworth also spoke about K-12 education and that under the new Northam administration, he thinks there probably wouldnt be much change, except in parts of the state where property values dont appreciate much.

He said if residents have trouble selling their homes, or a particular place doesnt keep enough young people after they graduate high school, the school district can be affected.

Those kinds of pressures create a lot of difficulties in school districts, he said. In addition, youre also seeing more pressure for school districts where more and more children come in less prepared in the way of educational development in their homes, may have less food security; all these kinds of issues are really important to making things work for young children getting a start in primary education.

Though public education may get more attention from the new governor, Farnsworth said the sky is not the limit as far as budgeting goes.

Virginia has to balance its budget, and so anything you do in one area affects what you can spend somewhere else, he said. Unless people are prepared to see major reductions in government support from some other program, dont expect any increases in expenditures in education and health care.

During the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, Bruce Phipps, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of the Valleys, asked Farnsworth what his view was on the direction of alternative energy sources.

Farnsworth said there is a significant problem for coal that wont go away. It is unlikely that there will be a renaissance in coal country.

Its a highly polluting source of energy. It isnt cost effective, particularly when you look at the natural gas process, he said. When you look at the availability of natural gas, the cost of natural gas, the energy to be generated from natural gas, the widespread use of it  thats a scenario that doesnt lend itself to a coal-oriented future.
Aviation sources told the Independent this week that Simba, who had left for Singapore after Mugabe resigned following the military intervention which brought his 37-year reign to a dramatic end, made an unexpected return to Zimbabwe last week. He took his Zimbabwe Airways foreign partners to AirZim offices before flying to Victoria Falls. His visit came a month after he threw in the towel as AirZim COO.
Idaho Cops:

Actually, There

Could Be a Threat

to the Community
Weapons supplied by the US and Saudi governments to Syrian rebel groups landed in the hands of ISIS fighters, in some cases in a matter of just weeks, according to a Conflict Armament Research study. The organization's study of more than 40,000 items retrieved from ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria, including guns and ammunition, found that many weapons the US government bought from European suppliers were diverted to ISIS, including an anti-tank missile component that was found with ISIS fighters in Iraq just 59 days after it left a Bulgarian factory and was sold to the US, NBC News reports. CAR says around a third of ISIS' weapons were made in the EU. More than half came from China and Russia.

"International weapon supplies to factions in the Syrian conflict have significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to IS forcesin numbers far beyond those that would have been available to the group through battlefield capture alone," CAR said in its report. The report also detailed unusual finds, including a German rifle from 1941 found with fighters in Baghdad, and a cache of 122 Chinese-made machine guns found near Mosul, each with a pouch of amphetamines attached. CAR warns that even though ISIS has now lost most of its territory, it now has the ability to manufacture its own weapons and remains a worldwide threat, Deutsche Welle reports. (Read more ISIS stories.)
A pilot has traced a virtual Christmas tree over Germany on a test flight with an Airbus A380, the AP reports. Airbus spokesman Heiko Stolzke told news agency dpa Thursday that the nearly 5-hour flight the previous day was "a standard internal Airbus test flight before the delivery of a new aircraft." He said the idea for the Christmas tree pattern of the flight, which took off from and landed at the company's plant in Hamburg, came from the pilot and engineers on the flight and it was carried out in cooperation with air traffic control. The plane turned several corners and loops during its flight to produce a pattern in the shape of a tree complete with baubles. (Airbus' Christmas tree went over a little better than the design left by a Navy pilot over Washington state.)
We use cookies. By Clicking "OK" or any content on this site, you agree to allow cookies to be placed. Read more in our privacy policy
The White House says President Trump spoke by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The AP reports the call comes the same day Putin said the US is only hurting itself by investigating alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia. Putin said in remarks that mirrored Trump's arguments that concerns about collusion were "invented by people who oppose President Trump to undermine his legitimacy" and demonstrated a "lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him." Putin also said the countries should be cooperating to tackle the North Korean standoff, but warned the US not to use force against Pyongyang. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
The man accused of driving into a crowd protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville faces a new charge of first-degree murder after a court hearing Thursday in which prosecutors presented surveillance video and other evidence against him. Prosecutors announced at the start of a preliminary hearing for James Alex Fields that they were seeking to upgrade the second-degree murder charge he previously faced in the Aug. 12 collision in Charlottesville that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and dozens injured, the AP reports. The judge agreed to that and ruled there is probable cause for all charges against Fields to proceed. Fields' case will now be presented to a grand jury for an indictment.

Authorities say the 20-year-old, described by a former teacher as having a keen interest in Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, drove his speeding car into a group of counterprotesters the day of the "Unite the Right" rally that drew hundreds of white nationalists from around the country. The attack came after the rally in this Virginia college town had descended into chaoswith violent brawling between attendees and counterdemonstratorsand authorities had forced the crowd to disband. Fields, of Maumee, Ohio, sat quietly in a striped jumpsuit with his hands cuffed during the hearing. Charlottesville Police Det. Steven Young said authorities had identified 36 victims of the car attack, including Heyera number higher than officials have previously given. (Heyer's mother says she blames President Trump for her death.)
An Australian inquiry into child abuse on Friday recommended that the Catholic Church lift its demand of celibacy from clergy and that priests be prosecuted for failing to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional. Australia's Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation. Australia's longest-running royal commissionwhich is the country's highest form of inquiryhas been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years, the AP reports.

The report heard the testimonies of more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse. Of those who were abused in religious institutions, 62% were Catholic. "We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades," the report said. Recommendations include that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request that the Vatican making clergy celibacy voluntary instead of mandatory. The bishops' body should also request clarity on whether information received in the confessional that a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy, the report said. The commission recommended making failure to report child sexual abuse a crime. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged.

(Read more Catholic Church stories.)
"Dan is gone, but his story is far from over," says the widow of Dan Johnson, a Kentucky state lawmaker who killed himself Wednesday night after he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. Rebecca Johnson says she plans to run for the Republican's House seat because "these high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths can't be allowed to win the day," the Louisville Courier Journal reports. A special election for the seat is expected in February. Authorities say the 57-year-old lawmaker shot himself in the head at a bridge in a remote area after leaving a Facebook post denying the accusation and saying "HEAVEN IS MY HOME," reports the New York Daily News.

Johnson killed himself two days after the release of a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting report that exposed the assault allegation, along with what it called a "web of lies" from Johnson, who proclaimed himself "pope" of the Heart of Fire Church, the AP reports. The center said that after a monthslong investigation, it could find no evidence to back up Johnson's claims that he set up a morgue and gave the last rites to hundreds of people at ground zero on 9/11, that he set up "safe zones" during the 1992 LA riots, that he was White House chaplain under three presidentsand that he once raised a woman from the dead. Executive Editor Stephen George says he is "shocked and saddened" by Johnson's death, but he stands by the story. (Read more Kentucky stories.)
Russell Simmons is now the subject of an NYPD investigation, with 12 women accusing the music mogul of sexual misconduct including rape. The investigation was launched based on accounts published by the Los Angeles Times and New York Times this week, reports CNN. "We were made aware of the alleged crime through the media, and we anticipate there will be more who come forward," an NYPD source tells the LA Times, which notes that at least seven of the encounters are alleged to have occurred in New York City. "We're in the process of setting up interviews and if any victims want to come forward, they should contact us." Sherri Hines, who claims the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings raped her in his New York office in 1983, says she was contacted by police on Thursday.

Simmonswho "supports and will cooperate with the police inquiry," according to his lawyervowed to defend himself Thursday with an Instagram post featuring a giant "#NotMe" atop it. "I will prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges," he wrote. "My intention is not to diminish the #MeToo movement in anyway, but instead hold my accusers accountable." Meanwhile, fashion publicist and former America's Next Top Model judge Kelly Cutrone tells Page Six that Simmons tried to rape her in 1991. When she refused to go to his apartment, Cutrone says he drove her there anyway, pushed her inside, "threw me down on the floor and literally tried to  take my clothes off of me." She says she fought against him, then ran out the door. (Read more Russell Simmons stories.)
Roy Moore isn't giving up hope that he could still be the next senator from Alabama, proclaiming Wednesday night that "the battle rages on," but President Trump is now telling him to retreat. When asked by reporters in front of the White House Friday whether Moore should concede, Trump said, "I think he should. He tried." The Hill notes Trump's congratulatory tweet on election night to Moore's opponent, Doug Jones, and Jones said he'd had a "very pleasant phone call" with Trump on Wednesday and already received an invite to the White House.

Moore, meanwhile, has said he's still waiting on military and provisional ballots to come in to see if they'd trigger a recount, per Fox News. During the reporters' questioning Friday, Trump segued into how he'd supported Moore because "we need the seat," then turned his attention to the tax bill, calling it "something that's going to be monumental" before finally circling back to Moore conceding. He noted: "I would certainly say he should." See his comments via NBC News. (Read more Roy Moore stories.)
A first-time candidate in Kansas thinks Democrats may be going too far in trying to remove sexual harassers from the party after she was forced to resign Friday over a 2006 lawsuit accusing her of sexual harassment and retaliation, the Kansas City Star reports. Andrea Ramsey, 56, was one of multiple Democrats set on challenging Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder in 2018. But in 2005, a human resources manager named Gary Funkhouser sued LabOne, where Ramsey was the executive vice president of human resources, claiming she made "unwelcome and inappropriate sexual comments and innuendos" to him, tried to engage him in a sexual relationship during a business trip, and fired him shortly after he turned her down. LabOne and Funkhouser settled the lawsuit in 2006.

Ramsey denies the allegations, which she says came from "a disgruntled, vindictive employee," and wasn't aware of the settlement, which she would have opposed. "I would have fought to exonerate my name," she says. "I never wouldve settled." She says she doesn't remember the business trip and fired Funkhouser because "he wasn't managing his subordinates adequately." Now she says she's being unfairly forced from the race. "We are in a national moment where rough justice stands in place of careful analysis, nuance, and due process," she says. Fox 4 has a lengthy statement from Ramsey announcing the end of her candidacy. In it, she says "the due process that I love, that drew me to the field of law, is totally denied. (Read more sexual harassment stories.)
A federal grand jury in Oklahoma has indicted a 63-year-old man accused of kidnapping his stepdaughter and holding her captive for more than 20 years in Mexico and elsewhere while fathering her nine children. Henri Piette is accused of kidnapping Rosalynn McGinnis in 1995 or 1996, per a grand jury indictment handed down in Oklahoma on Wednesday. The AP generally doesn't ID people who say they've been sexually abused, but McGinnis has discussed her case publicly. "Knowing that the man who physically took 22 years from me, leaving me with a lifetime of painful challenges, has been captured makes today one of the most pivotal times of my life," she told People in October. FBI agent Adam Reynolds wrote in an affidavit Piette first had sex with McGinnis when she was 11 or 12, and that Piette "took her to a van and married her" around that time in a ceremony.

Piette changed McGinnis' name as well as his own "numerous times in an attempt to stay hidden," the affidavit says. They traveled in the US and Mexico, occasionally returning to Oklahoma to mail letters so people would think they were still there, the document says. McGinnis conceived two children with Piette while she was younger than 18 and another seven after she'd turned 18, the affidavit notes. Now 33, McGinnis says she escaped from Piette last year in Mexico and went to the US Embassy, where she secured passports for herself and the kids so they could enter the US. Piette is currently in custody in Oklahoma. If convicted of kidnapping, he faces up to life in prison. Piette also faces state charges of first-degree rape of a victim under 14, child abuse by injury, and two counts of lewd molestation, per court records. The rape charge is also punishable by up to life in prison.

(Read more kidnapping stories.)
Sorry!

This content is not available in your region
New Delhi:

The assembly election of the western state Gujarat is supposedly the most anticipated and awaited political event of 2017.

Both, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress are locking horns in a state that has been ruled by the saffron party for 22 years.

In this election which can be rightfully called, Clash of the Titans, some of the constituencies will play a pivotal role in deciding the fate of the two biggest political parties both in the country and the state.

Out of the 182 assembly constituencies, the BJP has already claimed that it will win in more than 150 seats to which Congress has put up a commendable fight.

Below are the constituencies which will be worth watching for.

Bhavnagar West

While the BJP has fielded the Gujarat party chief Jitu Vaghani, fighting from the side of the Congress is stalwart Shaktisinh Gohil.

On an ordinary day, Vaghani wouldnt be worried but this time around, Gohil has teamed up with Patidar leader, Hardik Patel.

Though Jitu Vaghani is a Patidar himself and BJP chief Amit Shah is counting on him to a great extent to accomplish his, Mission 150.

Rajkot (W)

This constituency is very important from the point of state chief minister Vijay Rupani as he is up against Congress candidate Indranil Rajyaguru.

Rajkot West is the largest constituency in the Saurashtra region which has been traditionally held by the BJP since 1985 and both Rupani and Rajyaguru have reasons to worry because majority of the voters are born just after that. Add on to that, the Patidars are angry with the BJP.

Maninagar:

This is one constituency that can affect the psyche of the voters. The then CM aspirant Narendra Modi has been the undisputed victor in the Maninagar constituency where he has not lost since 2002.

BJPs Sureshbhai Patel has filed his nomination papers whereas IIM educated Shweta Brahmnbhatt will be the face of Congress in this race. Brahmbhatt, 34, is perhaps the only candidate in this Assembly poll who has received training to be a politician, that too from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore.

Mandvi

One of the strongest bastion of the RSS in Gujarats Kutch district Mandvi will witness an interesting fight with the Congress.

The BJP has fielded Virendrasinh Jadeja will go face to face with the Congress Shaktisinh Gohil.

The region is rich in minerals and also houses the Mundra port. Despite this, it does not have any proper railway network.

The biggest issue this region faces is that, it is yet to receive the water of Narmada.

BJPs Virendrasinh Jadeja is of the view that the people of Mandvi does not have any reason to vote other than the BJP because of the sustained development that has been carried out in the region.

Porbandar

BJPs Babubhai Bokharia won Porbandar in 2012. He is pitched up against Congress veteran, Arjun Modhwadia. Modhwadia who held the seat from 2007 to 2012 would put up a great fight and try to regain the lost territory.

The fishing community constitutes of 70,000 people which will play a decisive role in the result.
New Delhi :

The Supreme Court on Friday declined Congresss plea to direct the Election Commission to match Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slip with the results from at least 25 percent EVMs deployed across Gujarat, which went to polls in two phases on December 9 and 14.

The top court dismissed the plea and refused to interfere in the Gujarat Assembly elections.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Mishsra, Justice Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud said that they can not substitute the decision of the Election Commission unless Congress demonstrates that the poll bodys decision is either arbitrary or not in accordance with the law.

The court also said that debate for reform of elections can be done after the poll process is over.

Senior Congress leaders and lawyers Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kapil Sibal represented the party in the apex court.

VVPAT machines, print a paper slip showing the voter whom they casted their ballot for. The voters are not allowed to take the slip outside the polling booth. The slip is taken in custody by the polling officers.

Also read: Himachal Pradesh Elections 2017: Youth arrested for offering to tamper EVMs



The Opposition party moved to the Supreme Court a day after it accused the Election Commission of being a puppet of the BJP-led government.

The accusation were made by the Opposition in reference to its allegations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi violated the model code of conduct by holding a roadshow outside Ahmedabad polling centre where he casted his vote on Thursday during Gujarats second phase voting.

Earlier in the day, the Election Commission had directed Gujarats chief electoral officer to take action against Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi for giving interview to TV channels a day before the last phase voting.
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected Congress party's plea seeking counting and cross verification of VVPAT paper trail with EVM votes.

The Supreme Court said that it finds no merit in Congress' plea and added that Gujarat Congress can approach the top court through filing a writ petition for electoral reforms.

A day after News Nations exit poll predicted humiliating defeat for Congress and a clear majority for BJP in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the grand-old party had moved to SC seeking counting and cross verification of at least 25 per cent VVPAT paper trail with the EVM votes.

Congress knocked the Supreme Courts door seeking the apex courts directions to the Election Commission in this regard.

Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kapil Sibal appeared for the Congress party in Supreme Court.

During the first phase of elections in Gujarat on December 9, some EVMs had malfunctioned in Patidar dominated Surat and other parts of the state.

Also Read | Gujarat, Himachal Exit Poll 2017: Clear win projected for BJP

Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had also complained to the EC that EVMs were connected to mobile devices via Bluetooth in a Muslim-dominated area of Porbandar.

Chief Election Officer (CEO) B B Swain had ordered an inquiry into the matter and the collector and the observer of the Election Commission (EC) were sent to the spot.

The ruling BJP, however, said the complaint made by Modhwadia shows the opposition partys search for an excuse as it knows that it would bite dust in the election.

The issue of EVM tampering has been making the rounds after BJPs massive victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections.
New Delhi:

The government will explore new opportunities in various sectors like providing BPO service from home, digital healthcare and agriculture to achieve the target of making the country a USD 1 trillion economy.

I have asked my ministry to work in detail over involving more women who can work from home for BPO, Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after meeting industry players to prepare a roadmap to make India USD 1 trillion economy.

The minister said that the suggestions given by companies across various sectors will be compiled by January 15.

We have also received suggestions from Dr Devi Shetty (Chairman, Narayana Health) that there can be bedless hospitals. He says if we can have e-commerce then why can?t we have bedless hospitals where everything can be done on digital platform, Prasad said adding that government will explore opportunity in this area.

He said that Google has suggested to make a national policy on digital mapping Indian roads and infrastructure which will be considered.

The meeting was attended industry bodies like Nasscom, Indian Cellular Association and companies from across sectors which Included Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, UPL, IBM, Ola, Uber, Panasonic, State Bank of India, Axis Bank.

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The body of HRD Ministry official Jeetendra Kumar Jha, who went missing three days back, was found on the railway tracks in Palam on Thursday, police said.

Jha, a 1998-batch officer of Indian Civil Accounts Service, went missing from Dwarka on Monday after going for a walk, they said.

An unidentified body was found on the intervening night of December 11 and 12 on the railway tracks in Palam. It was identified as that of Jha after a wallet was found.

According to the police, a purported suicide note was also found from his pocket, in which he said that no one was responsible for his death.

Jha, had left his home on Monday to drop off his children to their school bus and then returned home. He went out again a little later but left behind his phone and didn't return, the police said.

The Police suspects that Jha was upset over something as he was not going to office and was on medical leave from September 28, the police said.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi:

Three people were killed when the slab of a building they were repairing collapsed this afternoon in south Mumbai's Zaveri Bazar area, police said.



Officials said that four persons were trapped in the debris after the slab collapsed and brought down with it the common passage of the first, second, third and the fourth floors of the building.

"Three workers who were brought out from the debris were declared dead by hospital authorities. One person is still missing," Dyaneshwar Chavan, Deputy Police Commissioner of Zone 2 told PTI this evening.



A search and rescue operation for another worker is on, said an official from the disaster management cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The horrific incident took place at around 2:30pm in Sam Street in the area, officials said.



PS Rahangdale, chief of the Mumbai Fire Brigade said, "Ten labourers were working on the 4th floor out of which three are missing. Six labourers were working on 1st floor and one among them is missing. A search operation is underway for them."

Narrow lanes and congestion was hampering the work of fire brigade personnel at the site, he added further.

According to ANI, the two trapped persons have been identified as 22-year-old Firoz Khan and 23-year-old Safarul Huq.

Also Read: Mumbai Police arrests 39-year-old man for molesting Dangal actor on flight

There are also reports that search operations were underway to rescue the trapped ones.



Zaveri Bazar is the centre of the city's bullion market and sees heavy traffic and pedestrian footfalls every day.

Mumbai: Site of collapse of front portion of a building in Zaveri Bazaar. 2 people are missing in the incident, one person was injured. pic.twitter.com/43lbLZUMqm  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

(With agency inputs)
Raipur:

Two CPI-Maoist cadres including a woman was killed by joint security forces during different operations in Chhattisgarh on Friday. In one of the incidents three jawans were injured.

In the first incident, one CPI-Maoist cadre was killed and three District Reserve Guard (DRG) jawans were injured in an encounter between security forces and Naxals in Chhattisgarhs Sukma district.

According to police, the encounter between security forces and Naxals took place at Gognuda-Mudopara forest under Phulbagdi police station.

Special Director General of Police (anti-naxal operations) DM Awasthi said that as DRG team was approaching the Maoists, the members of left wing extremist outfit triggered a landmine blast and indefinitely opened fire at the operation team.

He added, three jawans were injured in the IED blast and a Maoist cadre was killed in the gun-battle which broke between the security forces and the Maoist soon after the explosion.

Also read: Seven Naxals killed in encounter with security forces in Gadchiroli



In another incident, a woman Naxal cadre was killed in an encounter in Bijapur district of the state.

The killed Maoist cadre has been identified as Kosi Sodhi. She is believed to a close aide of Naxal leader Paparao.

Sodhi was gunned down by Special Task Force of Chhattisgarh Police during a gun batlle at Jarampalli forest.

Security forces have recovered arms and ammunition from the killed Maoist cadres.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

After the exit polls predicted BJPs victory in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, leaving behind his foes of GST and demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be a little more confident man when he walks into the house on Friday for the opening day of Parliaments winter session.

Another reason for PM Modi to cherish would be his partner and BJPs Chanakya Amit Shah, who will begin his new innings as a Rajya Sabha MP.

However, Modi is likely to face the heat of the Opposition parties for his outrageous remark against former PM Manmohan Singh during the campaigning for high stake Gujarat elections.

Modi had alleged that Congress party was colluding with Pakistan for winning the Gujarat polls and a secret meeting was held at Mani Shankar Aiyars home where Manmohan Singh was also present.

While Manmohan Singh demanded an apology from PM Modi, Congress leader Anand Sharma had threatened to raise the issue during the winter session.

The winter session will also be the first for Rahul Gandhi as Congress President.

Suggested Read | News Nation Exit Poll: BJP to retain government in Gujarat with clear majority

Here are the highlights of Parliament's Winter Session Day 1:

# The first day of the Parliament was a total waste of taxpayers money as the uproar by Congress over Modi's 'Pakistan meet' allegations forced the Rajya Sabha to adjourn without any constructive debate.

Congress MPs were demanding PM Modi to apologise in the house and to entire nation for his remarks against Manmohan Singh.

On the other hand, the Lok Sabha sat only for the sake of sitting and adjourned till December 18 after paying tributes to 3 sitting and 7 former members.

# Rajya Sabha adjourns for the day as uproar by Congress member continue over PM Modi's allegations against Ex-PM Manmohan Singh.

# Leader of Opposition GN Azad raises the issue of PM Modi's allegations against former PM (Manmohan Singh) & others of conspiring with Pakistan for #GujaratElection2017, says, 'ye sadharan aarop nahi hai.' House adjourned till 2:30 pm.

# Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar's disqualification issue raised in Rajya Sabha, 'Taanashahi nahin chalegi' slogans raised by opposition, Chairman Venkaiah Naidu says 'All in Well, not well!'. House adjourned till 12 noon.

# Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduces the newly inducted Cabinet Ministers, in Rajya Sabha. Earlier today, he introduced them in Lok Sabha

Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduces the newly inducted Cabinet Ministers, in Rajya Sabha. Earlier today, he introduced them in Lok Sabha #WinterSession pic.twitter.com/VIeEXmjRIi  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

# Lok Sabha adjourned till December 18 after paying tributes to 3 sitting and 7 former members.

# After weeks of delay, finally the Winter Session of the Parliament begins. Obituary references being made in the Rajya Sabha by Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.

#WinterSession of Parliament begins: Obituary references being made in the Rajya Sabha, by Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu pic.twitter.com/nO0xCVIfNP  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

# INLD Lok Sabha MP Dushyant Chautala rides a tractor to the Parliament

Delhi: INLD Lok Sabha MP Dushyant Chautala rides a tractor to the Parliament #WinterSession pic.twitter.com/QnxPXCbxYW  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

# We are always in favor of constructive suggestion,we are very much interested to run Parliament & issues to be discussed, provided the Govt should take interest and create such an atmosphere which is conducive for discussion. They should respect the Opposition: Mallikarjun Kharge

# Generally winter starts with Diwali. But due to global warming winter has not come in full force. But winter session has started now and I hope that country would be benefited from fruitful 2017-2018 winter session in Parliament. I hope for positive and innovative arguments, says PM Modi ahead of winter session of Parliament.

# Prime minister Narendra Modi reaches parliament.

# For the first time a Prime Minister has accused Former PM, former Vice President and diplomats of conspiring with Pakistan for Gujarat elections. PM must clarify in the Parliament: Ghulam Nabi Azad,Congress on winter session of Parliament

# BJP President Amit Shah reaches Parliament, to make his Parliamentary debut in Rajya Sabha today

#Delhi: BJP President Amit Shah reaches Parliament, to make his Parliamentary debut in Rajya Sabha today #WinterSession pic.twitter.com/xtrD4pr4eE  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

# The session will start at 11 AM.

# The first day is likely to see no transaction of business at least in the Lok Sabha which is likely to adjourn till Monday after paying tributes to sitting members who passed away in the inter-session period.

# Delayed by almost a month due to the polls, this session will have fewer sittings than the usual- it has 14 work days compared to 21 in the last winter session. It will be held from December 15 to January 5.

# Key bills lined up for the winter session of the Parliament are  The government is expected to table 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including a bill making triple talaq (instant divorce) as crime.

Also Read | Gujarat assembly polls: 68.70% polling recorded in 2nd phase

# BJP president Amit Shah is beginning his first innings in the Rajya Sabha today. He was elected an MP from Gujarat in the recent Rajya Sabha election that was marred by the controversies.

# The Parliament could witness verbal duels between top leaders of the ruling and Opposition parties in the winter session. Amit Shahs entry in the Rajya Sabha would strengthen the BJP and the party is likely to be equally aggressive. Some key bills are already lined up and we hope for a fruitful and peaceful winter session, though, highly unlikely.

# Hello and welcome to the News Nation live updates on Parliaments Winter Session.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Kancheepuram:

A police vehicle on Friday rammed a two-wheeler, killing two people, with some reports claiming the SUV was part of the Tamil Nadu Governor's convoy, a charge denied by both police and the Raj Bhavan.



The 33-year old rider and the boy (10) were thrown off their motorcycle when the SUV hit the two-wheeler on the East Coast Road (ECR) off Pudukalpakkam near Mamallapuram in neighbouring Kancheepuram District, police said.



The two were rushed to a hospital where doctors declared them brought dead, they said.



An elderly woman was injured and has been hospitalised.



Some audiovisual media reports claimed the vehicle was part of the convoy of Governor Banwarilal Purohit who was returning to Chennai from Cuddalore.



However, when contacted, a top police official denied it.



"It (the police vehicle) was not part of the governor's convoy. This was a separate vehicle returning after completing duty," Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police Santosh Hadimani told PTI.

Also Read: Mumbai: Three dead, one missing in building collapse at Zaveri bazaar area, rescue operation underway



A Raj Bhavan release said the reports about a vehicle in his convoy being involved in the accident were "factually and totally incorrect".



"The Governors convoy started from Cuddalore at 2:15 pm and reached Raj Bhavan, Chennai, at 4:20 pm. There was no occurrence of any mishap or accident in the movement of the convoy from Cuddalore to Chennai," it said.



The release said the Superintendent of Police, Kancheepuram, informed Raj Bhavan that a vehicle, used as advance pilot, met with an accident after leaving the cavalcade at Kancheepuram district limits, and after travelling 10 km while returning to its base.



"It is clear that the vehicle, which met with an accident, was entirely on its own and was not part of the convoy of the Honble Governor," the release said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi :

Narendra Modi-led Union Cabinet on Friday cleared the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, that proposes to make Triple Talaq a cognisable and non-bailable offence.

The BJP-led NDA government hopes to get parliament clearance for the bill during the winter session which began on Thursday.

According to the draft, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, was sent out to all states earlier this month. The states were asked to submit their views by December 10. The drafty bill proposes to make Triple Talaq a cognisable and non-bailable offence with a jail term of three years.

Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam, Uttarakhand, Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Manipur are supporting the draft legislation.

Also read: Hyderabad man gives triple talaq to wife over phone, case registered



The bill also proposes that a victim of instant divorce can seek custody of her minor children and ask for maintenance from her husband by approaching a magistrate after registering a complaint with police.

Under the draft bill, Triple Talaq in any form including spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS or WhatsApp would be banned.

The NDA government prepared the draft law in the backdrop of the August 22 landmark verdict of the Supreme Court. The top court said in the ruling that the practice of Muslim men uttering "talaq" three times for an instant divorce is unconstitutional.

Also read: AMU professor allegedly gives triple talaq to wife; case registered

The draft Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill was prepared by an inter-ministerial group headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Other members part of the group were External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and his junior in the ministry P P Chaudhary.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

NASAs Dawn spacecraft has captured several images of the dwarf planet Ceres which show bright mysterious spots on the surface of the planet.

These spots indicate that the planet could not be dead as thought at first. The surface of the planet is otherwise dark.

Carol Raymond, deputy principle investigator of the Dawn mission, said, The mysterious bright spots on Ceres, which have captivated both the Dawn science team and the public, reveal evidence of Ceres past subsurface ocean, and indicate that, far from being a dead world, Ceres is surprisingly active.

Geological processes created these bright areas and may still be changing the face of Ceres today, Raymond said.

The latest images were presented by the researchers on Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans.

The scientists have located more than 300 bright areas on the surface of the planet since their mission started in March 2015, when they arrived in orbit at Ceres.

Ceres is the largest object between Mars and Jupiters asteroid belt.

The planets feature had been divided into four different categories in the journal Icarus.

The first group of bright spots on the surface of Ceres contain the most reflective material found on crater floors. The Occator Crater is the prominent one with two bright areas.

All the bright material in the Occator Crater is made of salt-rich material which was once likely mixed with water.

Also Read: NASA's Dawn spacecraft to get a closer look at dwarf planet Ceres

In the second category, the bright material is found on the rims of the craters, while in the third category, the bright material can be found in the material was ejected when craters were formed, said the study.

The Dawn is on its final mission in which it will descend the lower altitudes, scientists indicate on learning more about the bright spots and the bright material on the Occator Crater.

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

After a series of major setbacks in it's earlier attempts, American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company SpaceX has launched its 13th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA on Friday.

The launch took place from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

It is the first time that SpaceX flies a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft that have both been used before.

According to meteorologists, the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft face a 90 percent chance of favourable weather.

Carrying about 4,800 pounds of cargo including critical science and research equipment, the Dragon spacecraft will spend a month attached to the space station.

The Falcon 9 rocket is launched with an aim to carry investigation that could help lower the risk to human life and critical hardware by orbital debris, NASA said.

It will also deliver crew supplies, equipment and other scientific research to crew members living and working aboard the station.

One such investigation will attempt to pull fiber optic wire from ZBLAN, a heavy metal fluoride glass commonly used to make fiber optic glass.

Webcast of Falcon 9 launch is now live  https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z  SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 15, 2017

Also Read: War on Mars? Mysterious cannonball proves 'alien' civility annihilated by decade-old war

Earlier, in November, one of their latest rocket's engines blew up due to unknown reasons.

Though no one was injured during its 'qualification test' in McGregor, Texas and all the safety protocols were followed by the company, the unexpected occurrence took place leaving everyone shocked.

Moreover, this is not the first time that the American space agency has failed to complete its mission.

In 2015, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket exploded a few minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral en route with an aim to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. During the process, no one was on board and injured.

Falcon 9 and Dragon went vertical on SLC-40 early this morning. Weather is 90% favorable for todays launch at 10:36 a.m. EST, 15:36 UTC. pic.twitter.com/8i5Gxy9zhr  SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 15, 2017

Also Read | Delhi pollution: NASA predicts Cyclone Ockhi may clear smog, air pollutants in north India



Another Falcon 9 blew up in September 2016, this time while on the launchpad as it was being fueled ahead of an engine test fire. No injury has been reported in the incident.

Falcon 9 first stage has landed at Landing Zone 1  SpaceXs 20th recovery of a first stage booster. pic.twitter.com/DHLAf7hq7t  SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 15, 2017

Dragon confirmed in good orbit.  SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 15, 2017

For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Brussels:

British Prime Minister Theresa May urged EU leaders at a summit on Thursday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and "festive log with a twist", May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible", a British official said.

May told them she "makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity", adding that a "particular priority" should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was "disappointed" at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

Read- Four children killed after train mows into school bus in Perpignan in France

Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was "not making her life easier".

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union is unrealistic.

"I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future," May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesday's vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the bloc's own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated on Thursday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed."

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Washington :

US President Donald Trump on Thursday thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance, the White House said.

The phone call between the two leaders came after Putin's annual press conference in which he praised Trump.

President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance in his annual press conference, the White House said in a readout of the call.

During the phone call, the two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea, the White House said.

Citing the markets and consumer confidence, Putin said Trump had some quite serious achievements to his credit in the short time that he has been the president of the United States.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The external affairs ministry on Thursday said that India is open for suggestions for Chinas One Belt One Road, mega infrastructure project.

It came as a reaction to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrovs call for India to find ways to join Chinas OBOR on Monday.

Lavrov earlier had pitched for Indias participation and find a way to benefit from the OBOR initiative.

On this particular suggestion, also I think I have mentioned in the past that if there are suggestions, if there is a view which takes into account our sensitivities in the matter then there is something which we are willing to look at, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

He also said Indias position on OBOR is very clear. India has opposed the OBOR due to its sovereignty concerns over the USD 50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). CPEC is part of the OBOR.

About Indias opposition to the project, the Russian foreign minister had said, The specific problem in this regard should not make everything else conditional for resolving political differences.

We support the reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan which are Afghan led, Afghan controlled and Afghan owned. We have enjoyed a close association with the country and we are committed to assist Afghanistan in its nation building efforts, the spokesperson said.

(With PTI inputs)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Washington :

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has said there are concrete evidences to prove that Iran is violating UN Security Council resolutions on weapons proliferation.

The fight against Iranian aggression is the worlds fight. The United States is acting today in the spirit of transparency and international cooperation that is necessary to defeat this threat, she said yesterday, standing in front of a charred ballistic missile the size of a car during a press conference at Joint Base Anacostia?Bolling here.

In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation, gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region, she added.

Haley held the news conference to what she said unveil clear evidence of Irans violations of UN Security Council resolutions and highlight recent findings communicated in the UN Secretary-Generals Resolution 2231 Implementation Report.

Behind me is an example of one of these attacks. These are the recovered pieces of a missile fired by Houthi militants from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The missiles intended target was the civilian airport in Riyadh, through which tens of thousands of passengers travel each day. I repeat: This missile was used to attack an international civilian airport in a G-20 country, she told reporters.

Just imagine if this missile had been launched at Dulles Airport or JFK, or the airports in Paris, London, or Berlin. Thats what were talking about here. Thats what Iran is actively supporting. What is most revealing about this missile is whats not here. This is a short-range ballistic missile. It is missing the large stabiliser fins that are typically present on these kinds of missiles, she said.

The Iranian Qiam missile is the only known short-range ballistic missile in the world that lacks such stabiliser fins and includes nine valves that you will see running along the length of the missile. Those valves are essentially Iranian missile fingerprints, Haley said.

The highest-ranking Indian-American in the Trump administration said the US welcomes UN Secretary-Generals Resolution 2231 Implementation Report, as should every nation concerned about Iranian expansion.

Most telling, the report makes a convincing case that Iran is illegally providing the Houthi militants in Yemen with dangerous weapons, she said.

The report provides devastating evidence of missiles, conventional arms and explosive boats of Iranian origin used by the rebels in Yemen -? all of which violate UN resolutions, she added.

The US and its partners went to great lengths to support the UN investigations into Iranian violations by declassifying evidence so that the world could better be informed of the extent of Irans malign activities, the diplomat said.

Haley told reporters that the warehouse also had material from an anti-tank guided missile which have a range of over two miles and can destroy tanks and even buildings.

You will see material from an unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a kamikaze drone, that can take out radar sites. You will see material from a SHARK-33 explosive boat. These are boats with a warhead inside them that explodes on impact. They can blow six feet wide holes in the hulls of ships, she said.

All of these weapons include parts made in Iran, some by Irans government-run defence industry. All are proof that Iran is defying the international community. And not just one time. This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behaviour in which Iran sows conflict and extremism in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions, she said.

At the UN headquarters in New York, the British Ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft said they are extremely concerned about Irans role in this region.

We have seen those reports, we are following up very carefully with the United Nations. It is important that the Security Council does our job, which is to assess the reports about Irans behaviour and then takes appropriate action, he told reporters in response to a question.

Senator Marco Rubio commended the administration for declassifying information and materials related to Irans malign activities.

As the United States weighs the future of the flawed Iran nuclear deal, the US and our allies must do more to stop the Iranian terror-sponsoring regimes growing support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and other militant groups in the Middle East, he said.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Osaka University said Wednesday that personal data of around 80,000 students, graduates, staff, former workers and others may have been stolen by hackers.

Data pertaining to about 69,000 people - which includes names, identification numbers and email addresses - may have been stolen. In addition, information included in personnel emails regarding up to 11,000 people was possibly breached due to unauthorized network access between May and July, the university said.

Using one lecturer's ID and password, the university's computer system was illegally accessed several times from overseas. A manager's ID was obtained through the access sessions, which in turn was used to install data-stealing malware, according to the university.

The stolen information also contained lists of donors to the university and pay records.

"We deeply apologize for causing great trouble," said Yoshihiro Kizawa, a university trustee.

The school said all computer system users changed their password as a countermeasure. No breach of patients' data at Osaka University Hospital has been confirmed.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police have launched a manhunt after a stabbing in Sagamihara City on Tuesday left one man dead, reports TBS News

At 11:30 p.m., an unknown male assailant stabbed Takayuki Matsuoka, 60, in the abdomen on a road in Minami Ward. Matsuoka was later confirmed dead at a hospital, according to the Sagamihara-Minami Police Station.

According to an eyewitness, the perpetrator and Matsuoka got into a fight during the incident. After the stabbing the assailant, described as having a "plump" build and aged in his 30s or 40s, was last seen heading in the direction of Zama City.

Police have assembled a 60-man team to investigated the case, which is being treated as attempted murder.
Emperor Akihito wishes to step down in an abdication ceremony that is "as simple as possible," without inviting foreign guests and holding a parade, the head of the Imperial Household Agency said Thursday.

The emperor, who is scheduled to retire on April 30, 2019, at the age of 85, will be the first Japanese monarch to abdicate in more than 200 years. He also does not plan to receive visits from the general public, the agency's Grand Steward Shinichiro Yamamoto told a press conference.

The government is considering how to stage an abdication ceremony for the first time since 1817 and will establish in January an organization to prepare for the imperial succession.

"We have conveyed to the Cabinet secretariat the emperor's wish to conduct (the abdication ceremony) in a quiet and solemn manner at the Imperial Palace," Yamamoto said.

The agency chief said the emperor has harbored such an idea since around June, when a law to allow him to pass the throne to his elder son, Crown Prince Naruhito, was enacted.

Yamamoto said the emperor does not want a grand occasion because an enthronement ceremony for his son, who will ascend the throne on May 1, 2019, will be held a few months later.
WASHINGTON  Republicans on Capitol Hill are throwing in some last-minute sweeteners to win votes for their long-cherished tax bill, but Connecticut Democrats in Congress insist its too little, too late.

The changes are largely cosmetic, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Theyre tinkering around the edges to make it more palatable. But like dead fish, (the) more it sits, the more it stinks.

Although most details of the amalgamated version of already-passed House and Senate tax bills remain under wraps, news reports say the version to be voted on next week  the last stop before President Donald Trumps desk  contains refinements both major and minor.

Among them:

Compromising on the homeowner mortgage-interest deduction. The House bill capped it at $500,000 on new loans, a home-buyer disincentive in Connecticut, where property can easily exceed $750,000. The Senate bill kept it at its current $1 million. The final bill splits the difference at $750,000.

Dropping the Obamacare mandate that all must have health insurance or face a tax penalty.

Restoration of the $250 deduction for teachers who buy school supplies out of pocket.

Restoration of the tax-free status of Personal Activity Bonds, much relied upon by affordable housing advocates in places like New Haven and Bridgeport.

Elimination of a plan to drop tuition credits for grad students and university employees, a boon to Yale University and other colleges and universities. But a new tax on major university endowments like Yales sill appears to be in place.

SALT adjustment

Of major importance to high-tax, high-cost states like Connecticut, GOP negotiators tweaked plans to curtail or drop state-and-local tax deductions for property, sales and state income taxes  SALT, for short.

Both House and Senate bills dropped the income-tax deduction and capped the property tax deduction at $10,000. Under the new version, taxpayers may mix and match income, property and sales tax deductions up to the $10,000 limit.

The final bill dropped the top rate for wealthier taxpayers to 37 percent, down from the 39.6 percent in the Senate bill and 38.5 percent in the House version. The cut in part appears to be aimed at high earners in places like Connecticut who would pay higher taxes without full SALT deductions.

No one from Connecticuts all-Democrats congressional delegation was likely to vote for the bill in any case. But the efforts to scale back some of the bills harsher elements did nothing to whet their appetites.

Millionaires and billionaires will get billions in tax cuts from a reduction in the top tax rate, and multinational corporations will still receive the vast majority of the benefits and continue being rewarded for outsourcing American jobs, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Meanwhile, middle class families and our most vulnerable citizens will see cuts to our social safety net programs and increased health premiums as the majority tries to fix the $1.5 trillion deficit increase they have created.

Cost limits

The Republicans last major hurdle in passing the final bill  the conference report, in Capitol Hill parlance  may come from within their own party. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on Thursday he would not vote for the bill unless it upped the child tax credit. Rubio had introduced an amendment to the Senate bill to do just that, but it was defeated.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the only Republican to vote no in the Senate, said his concerns about the bill adding to the deficit have not been addressed, signaling he is a likely no the second time around.

At the White House, Trump did not seem too concerned about a Rubio defection. I think that Sen. Rubio will be there very shortly, he said.

Another possible roadblock might be the bills ultimate price tag. Under a Senate agreement, the tax cuts can amount to no more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years in order to pass on 51 votes. With the Senate divided 52-48 in Republicans favor  51-49 after Alabama special election winner Doug Jones, a Democrat, gets sworn in  Republicans cannot afford to lose more than two votes.

If the bill is found to be over $1.5 trillion by a non-partisan entity like the Congressional Budget Office, it would require a 60-vote threshold to pass. With all Democrats opposed, the entire measure would go down in flames.

dan@hearstdc.com
Remember World Airways? It was around for more than 60 years, mostly operating as a charter and cargo carrier  with brief forays into scheduled passenger transportation  before it folded in 2014. And now it may be coming back as a U.S.-based low-cost international airline- possibly along the lines of European ultra-low-cost discounters such as Norwegian Air, Wow Air or Level. [FULL STORY & COMMENTS]

An investment firm called 777 Partners said last month it has purchased the intellectual property of World Airways and plans to re-launch it as a Miami-based scheduled passenger airline flying 787 Dreamliners on routes to Asia and Latin America from hubs at Los Angeles and Miami.

It will operate on a low-cost carrier model, perhaps inspired by the rapid growth of European international low-cost airlines.

Initial funding for certification and aircraft acquisitions is being provided by 777 Partners. Discussions are underway with Boeing for an initial order for up to ten 787 aircraft, a spokesman said. World Airways said it plans to form partnerships with low-cost carriers in the U.S. and at its destinations to feed traffic to its long-haul flights.

And get this: Worlds chief marketing officer is Freddie Laker  the son of Sir Freddie Laker, the British entrepreneur who pioneered low-cost transatlantic air travel in the 1970s and died in 2006. Laker is listed as a serial entrepreneur on LinkedIn.

The founding CEO of the new World Airways is Ed Wegel, a longtime airline executive who most recently ran the new Eastern Airlines until October 2016. The current incarnation of Eastern started up in 2015 as a charter carrier, mainly operating flights to Cuba, but its business was disrupted by the revival of scheduled service from the U.S. to the island nation.

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

World has a website at www.worldairways.com as well as a Twitter presence (@worldairways).

The company gave no timetable for starting service on its website, but did say it plans to unveil a new brand look and feel for the new World Airways within the next few weeks.

So what do you think are the chances of World Airways getting back off the ground? Please leave your comments on the TravelSkills blog.

Chris McGinnis is a travel blogger and editor of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.
by Cherryl Bird

TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Writer and activist Desmond Cole dedicated his 2017 PEN Canada/Ken Filkow Prize for freedom of expression to Indigenous Peoples.

Cole, who is Black, was recognized in a PEN Canada press release on the morning of Dec. 14 and two hours later he wrote on social media, "I dedicate this honour to indigenous peoples across turtle island who continue to face government surveillance and violence for protecting this land."

"With the Filkow Prize, PEN Canada recognizes Cole's integrity in putting aside personal interests to speak out about racial injustice in Canada," said PEN Canada's Canadian Issues Committee Chair, Carmen Cheung, in the release.

Cheung mentioned that the organization that fights for freedom of expression throughout the world, especially for writers, "understands that exercising the right to free expression often comes at personal cost." This is something that Cole knows very well. In 2015, he wrote about being racially profiled by police for Toronto Life magazine in a feature article that was one of their top sellers in the history of the publication. By doing so, he reignited the issue of carding and its stigma in Canada and put the subject under media spotlight.

Cole starred in The Skin I'm In, a social documentary about growing up Black in Canada, which increased his popularity.

In April 2016, Cole wrote a piece about Yusra Khogali, a Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder, who he said was "the subject of a racist, Islamophobic campaign to distract from her activism. It was the most popular piece I wrote all yearmy editor contacted me to congratulate me on its reach."

One year later, Cole's protest at a Toronto Police Services Board meeting led to him be escorted from police headquarters, charged with disruption (and fined $65, as reported in the Toronto Star) for speaking out when he was asked to stop.

Cole was also a popular freelance columnist for the Star but parted ways with the national daily newspaper when his editor suggested that "activism was not compatible with his work as a columnist. The paper was widely criticized for its selective application of its policy on activism, most notably by former Star columnist and activist Michele Landsberg," the PEN press release stated.

In a post on social media, Cole revealed that the Star's editorial page editor Andrew Phillips discussed his "political disruption of the April 20 meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board. Phillips said this action had violated the Star's rules on journalism and activism...He did say he hopes I will continue my bi-monthly column. I appreciate the offer but I'm not going to accept it," said Cole, after he decided to leave the Star. "If I must choose between a newspaper column and the actions I must take to liberate myself and my community, I choose activism in the service of Black liberation," he continued.

"Too often, Canada defines itself by looking out the window at its neighbour," said Cole, in the PEN press release, "instead of looking in the mirror. We have to deal with our reflection, however uncomfortable that might be. I'm so honoured to receive this award."

The Filkow Prize, named for Kenneth A. Filkow, Q.C., a lawyer, former chair of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and member of PEN Canada's Canadian Issues Committee, is funded by an endowment from Philip Slayton and Cynthia Wine.

The prize was given out two times before. In 2016, author and blogger Raihan Abir was the recipient. Abir fled to Canada from Bangladesh in 2015 "after receiving a series of death threat." The very first winner was artist and environmentalist Franke James in 2015. James proved that her artwork on climate change was being deliberately censured by the Canadian government. She wrote about it in Banned on the Hill: A True Story about Dirty Oil and Government Censorship.

Cole will appear in court to face the charges of disruption in January and will be presented with the Filkow Prize, valued at $1,000, in February as part of Freedom to Read Week.

by Cherryl Bird  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Twitter @ladycbird / Instagram @cherrylbird

Connect with us.

Like and follow Core Magazines on social media:

YouTube.com/CoreMagazines

Facebook.com/CoreMagazines

Google.com/+CoreMagazines

CoreMagazines.Tumblr.com

Soundcloud.com/coremagazines

SOURCE Core Magazines

For further information: Cherryl Bird, Core Magazines, 647-524-4847, [email protected], www.coremagazines.com

Related Links

http://www.coremagazines.com


LILLE, France, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Boralex Inc. ("Boralex" or the "Corporation") (TSX: BLX) is pleased to announce commercial commissioning of the Artois and Chemin de Gres wind farms in the French departments of Aisne and Nord, respectively.

The Artois (23 MW) and Chemin de Gres (30 MW) wind farms, developed by Ecotera Developpement and built by Boralex, add to the 582 MW already operated by Boralex in France.

"Artois and Chemin de Gres are the last two wind farms commissioned this year in France. On behalf of Boralex, I'd like to congratulate the teams, with whose support the Corporation now operates 635 MW in France," said Patrick Decostre, Vice-president and General Manager of Boralex Europe.

"The commercial commissioning of these two wind farms has stepped up our progress toward achieving our medium-term target of 2,000 MW by 2020," said Boralex President and CEO Patrick Lemaire. "We're making further inroads as France's largest independent renewable energy producer of onshore wind power."

These two projects required investments totalling approximately $134 million and are expected to generate over $16 million in annual EBITDA(A).

Artois consists of seven Vestas V112 wind turbines with a unit capacity of 3.3 MW (for a total of 23 MW of installed capacity), while Chemin de Gres comprises nine Vestas V112 wind turbines with a unit capacity of 3.3 MW (for a total of 30 MW of installed capacity). Both are covered by a 15-year indexed power purchase agreement with Electricite de France (EDF), effective on December 1, 2017.

Together, they will power over 30,000 homes per year and avoid approximately 20,000 tonnes of CO 2 emissions per year.

About Boralex

Boralex develops, builds and operates renewable energy power facilities in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. A leader in the Canadian market and France's largest independent producer of onshore wind power, the Corporation is recognized for its solid experience in optimizing its asset base in four power generation types  wind, hydroelectric, thermal and solar. Boralex ensures sustained growth by leveraging the expertise and diversification developed over the past 25 years. Boralex's shares and convertible debentures are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols BLX and BLX.DB.A, respectively. More information is available at www.boralex.com or www.sedar.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

SOURCE Boralex Inc.

For further information: Media: Julie Lajoye, Advisor, Public Affairs and Communications, Boralex Inc., 514 985-1327, [email protected]; Investors: Guy D'Aoust, Vice President, Finance, Boralex Inc., 514 985-1365, [email protected]
CHICAGO, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - The Boyd Group Inc. (the "Boyd Group" or "Boyd") today announced the acquisition on December 12, 2017 of a second collision repair center in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, previously operated as Professional Auto Body & Frame. This shop has serviced the Glenwood community, the largest city in Garfield County, for the past 36 years. The new Gerber location is located at the northern end of State Highway 82. In the winter months, this highway offers the sole eastern access for drivers traveling to the popular resort town of Aspen.

"With only 8 miles separating our Glenwood Springs locations, we are able to create strategic synergies while servicing the two major highways that run through the city," said Tim O'Day, President and COO of the Boyd Group. "We are pleased to enhance our presence in the state of Colorado and expand our capacity to better serve our customers and insurance partners in the area."

The Boyd Group is continuously looking to add new collision repair locations to its existing network in Canada and the U.S. Interested collision repair center owners are asked to contact Kim Allen at the contact coordinates below for more information.

About The Boyd Group Inc.

The Boyd Group Inc. (the "Company"), directly and through subsidiaries, is one of the largest operators of non-franchised collision repair centres in North America in terms of number of locations and sales. The Company operates locations in five Canadian provinces under the trade names Boyd Autobody & Glass (http://www.boydautobody.com) and Assured Automotive (http://www.assuredauto.ca), as well as in 21 U.S. states under the trade name Gerber Collision & Glass (http://www.gerbercollision.com). The Company uses newly acquired brand names during a transition period until acquired locations have been rebranded. The Company is also a major retail auto glass operator in the U.S. with locations across 31 U.S. states under the trade names Gerber Collision & Glass, Glass America, Auto Glass Service, Auto Glass Authority and Autoglassonly.com. The Company also operates a third party administrator, Gerber National Claims Services ("GNCS"), that offers glass, emergency roadside and first notice of loss services. GNCS has approximately 5,500 affiliated glass provider locations and 4,600 affiliated emergency roadside services providers throughout the U.S. For more information on The Boyd Group Inc. or Boyd Group Income Fund, please visit our website at (http://www.boydgroup.com).

SOURCE Gerber Collision & Glass

For further information: Stephen Boyd, Vice President, Corporate Development, Tel: (204) 594-1776, [email protected]; Kim Allen, Director of Business Development, Tel: (847) 410-6003, [email protected]
The centre features 120,000 square feet of flexible event space including a mix of multi-purpose and meeting space including a spectacular ballroom area with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking downtown. The configuration was enhanced from the original design with more natural light, an above ground ballroom, two distinct convention levels and a floor of dedicated meeting space.

"The Government of Canada is proud to celebrate the opening of the new Halifax Convention Centre, an impressive, modern facility that confirms Nova Scotia as a world-class destination." said Scott Brison, president of the Treasury Board of Canada, on behalf of Amarjeet Sohi, Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. "Investments in innovative and green infrastructure projects like this one are vital to creating middle class jobs, and providing sustained economic growth for our communities."

There are 90 events booked for the first year of operations in the new facility, bringing an estimated 75,000 delegates and more than $50 million in new money to the province. This includes 44 national and international conventions.

"This new centre gives us the opportunity to show visitors everything that makes our city and our region unique," said Halifax Mayor Mike Savage. "I know our guests will create great memories here that will inspire them to come back. It's an exciting time in Halifax."

The centre has planned a welcome weekend for the public to see the new space January 12-14.

"We are ready to welcome the world to our brand new, state-of-the-art facility," said Carrie Cussons, president and CEO of the Halifax Convention Centre. "Together with our community and partners, we look forward to delivering an amazing event experience for our guests that will make Nova Scotians proud."

The interior design of the facility was inspired by Nova Scotia's culture, landscape and history and shaped by input received through a series of public consultations.

"This is more than a building, it's a platform to connect Nova Scotia to a global audience," said Joe Ramia, president and CEO of Argyle Developments. "I'm very proud to have built a facility that will serve as a gathering place, connecting our guests to the people and experiences that make our province so special."

The Halifax Convention Centre is part of the Nova Centre, a one-million square-foot, mixed-used development including a hotel, financial towers, public plaza, retail space and parking. It is the largest integrated development project in the province's history. The funding of the convention centre is shared between three levels of government, totaling $169.2 million.

SOURCE Events East Group

For further information: Media Contact: Erin Esiyok-Prime, Halifax Convention Centre, 902-421-1302, ext. 2791, Email: [email protected]
Most recently, Chilcott served as Senior Vice President of Global Asset Management, Scotiabank, and President and Chief Executive Officer, Dynamic Funds. In these roles, he was responsible for overseeing multiple asset management companies across Canada, Mexico and Asia. Previously, Chilcott held a number of senior leadership roles at Dynamic Funds, Standard Life Mutual Funds and Investors Group, having begun his career as a securities trader.

"Jordy is well known and a strong force in the industry, bringing a great depth of experience and a real passion for distribution and Client service. We are thrilled to welcome him to our team," said Rick Headrick, President, Sun Life Global Investments. "Jordy joins us at a pivotal moment and key milestone in the company as we celebrate a big accomplishment  reaching $20 billion in assets under management in just seven years of operation."

In this role, Chilcott will be responsible for leading the distribution arm of Sun Life Global Investments' retail investment business and creating strategies to achieve sales growth across all retail investment products in Canada. He will oversee and lead the development and strategic growth of Sun Life Global Investments' dynamic distribution team and managing relationships with third party partners.

"It's truly impressive the growth Sun Life Global Investments has experienced in such a short time," said Chilcott. "I'm excited to join such a powerhouse team and help continue this great momentum as we help Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives."

About Sun Life Global Investments (Canada) Inc.

Sun Life Global Investments is a subsidiary of Sun Life Financial Inc. It offers Canadians a diverse lineup of mutual funds and innovative portfolio solutions, empowering them to pursue their financial goals at every life stage. We bring together the strength of one of Canada's most trusted names in financial services with some of the best asset managers from around the world to deliver a truly global investment platform. Sun Life Global Investments manages $20 billion on behalf of institutional and retail investors from coast to coast and is a member of the Sun Life Financial group of companies. For more information, visit www.sunlifeglobalinvestments.com or connect with us on Twitter @SLGI_Canada.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of insurance, wealth and asset management solutions to individuals and corporate Clients. Sun Life Financial has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of September 30, 2017, Sun Life Financial had total assets under management of $934 billion. For more information please visit www.sunlife.com.

Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.

Note to Editors: All figures in Canadian dollars.

Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.

Media Relations Contact:

Derek Kirk

Manager, Media & PR

Corporate Communications

T. 416-432-2996

[email protected]

SOURCE Sun Life Global Investments (Canada) Inc.
Counting On Birds

How did a Christmas-time tradition of shooting birds change to one of counting them?

How did a Christmas-time tradition of shooting birds change to one of counting them? Willem Lange travels to Keene & Errol, NH, Ecuador and Cuba to meet people dedicated to the National Audubon Societys Christmas Bird Count.

Support for Counting On Birds is provided by The Butler Foundation

Watch Online Finding Birds in Cuba Will travels to Cuba to find birds in the wild.

Watch More Counting On Birds
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

HARTFORD  A move to consolidate the states 12 community colleges into a single entity is one step closer to reality.

The Board of Regents for Higher Education approved the consolidation on Thursday. Now it goes to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, which accredits higher education institutions, for its approval.

Merle Harris, a member of the regents board, said the system is moving appropriately to ensure that accreditation.

It is all under control, she said.

The board voted 12-0 with one abstention to endorse the Students First initiative to consolidate the administration of the decades-old community colleges  including Norwalk, Housatonic in Bridgeport and Gateway in New Haven  into one college with three regions and a dozen campuses.

A name for the new college is still being debated, system officials said.

Proposed last spring, the Students First plan faced strong opposition Thursday by a room full of faculty, foundation leaders and some students before the vote was cast.

I am disappointed although I knew that the (board) would just rubber-stamp whatever was put in front of them without question or thought, Lois Aime, director of educational technology at Norwalk Community College, said.

On the other hand, Hector Navarro, a student from Nauguatuck Community College representing the Student Advisory Council to the board, said the plan represents hope.

We are aware of the negative feedback but why would anyone fight against the effort? he told the board.

As he spoke, a number of audience members grumbled.

System President Mark Ojakian said he hopes for initial accreditation for the new college as early as June and full accreditation by July 2019.

This is about making choices and prioritizing where we spend our limited resources, an undeterred Ojakian said. We can either continue down the road of closing campuses, which we would be on if we didnt make any of these changes, or move forward.

The effort was undertaken as state support and enrollment have been on a steady decline. There are now 53,000 students spread over the 12 colleges. In 2013, there were 57,321 students enrolled in the schools.

With the state staring at a $8 billion deficit, Ojakian said, the system needs to change.

Students First, he said, keeps all campuses, branches and satellites open.

The resulting system would cut roughly 190 staff jobs and save  officials hope  some $28 million. The cuts would include campus presidents, to be replaced by vice presidents. Other positions would be created, leaving faculty and others unconvinced there will be any true savings.

The cost of running the current system will pale in comparison to fixing what you will break, said Stephen Cohen, a professor and faculty senate president at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. If you break this system, the state of Connecticut cannot afford to fix it.

State Rep. Pam Staneski, R-Milford, a ranking member of the legislatures Higher Education Committee, supports the consolidation and attended the meeting.

Its not surprising. I expected nothing less, said Staneski after the vote was taken. I support it because the state is broke ... and we cant tuition our way out of this.

Those who spoke against the plan included representatives of college foundations who worry they will lose local support when it comes to raising dollars for scholarships and other campus initiatives that are vital to the colleges.

Also concerned are faculty who fear creating what could become the fifth largest community college in the country.

One large state institution is not a community college, said John Schafer, co-chair of the Community College Governance Assembly and a Middlesex Community College faculty member

Stephen Adair, representing the Faculty Advisory Committee, urged the board to delay a vote at least until a multitude of questions can be answered. Faculty worry what will happen to student grade point averages when pooled in a large system, about the potential loss of grants awarded to individual colleges and transitional costs needed to make consolidation happen by July 2019.

I ask the board to simply recognized and acknowledge that the loss of institutional accreditation diminishes the value of each campus, Adair said.

Board Chair Matt Fluery said there is no credible alternative that can approach the savings the new system is expected to generate.

We are prudent in advancing the community college restructuring as recommend, Fluery said.

John OConnor, a professor at Central Connecticut State University, called it a horrible day for a collection of colleges that started developing in the 1960s.

Students lost today, he insisted.

lclambeck@ctpost.com; twitter/@lclambeck
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

NEW HAVEN  A contractor has pulled a permit to reduce the size of minarets at a mosque on Middletown Avenue, an issue that had delayed needed repairs on the facility for two years.

Nepolitano Construction of Guilford was issued a building permit this week to do the work for the Turkish American Religious Foundation, which runs the mosque at 531 Middletown Ave.

Building Official Jim Turcio said he expects the cutback work at the building will begin shortly and take several weeks to complete.

Structural engineer Raffaele Aschettino was hired to come up with a plan on how to safely reduce the size of the minarets, which had exceeded what had been approved by the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Turcio said the roof height will change and the minarets, a gift of the Turkish government, would be reduced to around 57 feet.

The engineer, in his study, found that the structural frame of the minarets consists of four 6-foot by 6-foot steel columns, which were used to create a truss tower. There are five structural panels, each some 13 feet in height.

The minarets, as now assembled, top off at 81 feet.

Aschettino will be responsible for the required special inspection to make sure the plans are followed correctly.

There was a long fight with the former architect for the project over the height of the minarets, which were constructed in Turkey.

Aschettino had to wait to get the original plans from Turkey, one of the reasons for the delay in addressing the problem.

A stop-work order was issued in November 2016 over the minarets with other violation notices sent in early June of this year.

Turcio said once the work on the minarets has been finished, he will remove the stop-work order.
China submitted an official protest with the United States Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a measure that could result in U.S. naval warships visiting self-ruled Taiwan.

Trump signed into law Tuesday defense budget legislation that authorizes the possibility of mutual visits by naval ships between Taiwan and the U.S. Should any such visits occur, they would be the first since the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and established relations with China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing that while sections of the law pertaining to Taiwan were not legally binding, they violate the "One China" policy and "constitute an interference in China's internal affairs."

Lu Kang added Beijing is opposed to any official exchanges, military contact or arms sales between the U.S. and Taiwan.


The U.S. has urged Thailand to downgrade diplomatic and trade ties with North Korea, a senior Thai official said Thursday after meeting with an American envoy, as the Trump administration pushes ahead with a global campaign to further isolate the nuclear-armed pariah state.

General Wanlop Rugsanoah, secretary-general of Thailand's National Security Council, told AFP the request was made during his meeting with U.S. special envoy for North Korea Joseph Yun, who arrived in Bangkok Wednesday evening for a two-day trip to the kingdom.

"The U.S. asked Thailand to put more pressure on North Korea, put more trade and diplomatic pressure," Wanlop said after his sit-down with Yun in Bangkok. He stressed that Bangkok had already significantly reduced its trade volume with Pyongyang -- down to around $1.5 million a year -- and would curtail visas to North Korean citizens.

Thailand, one of America's oldest allies in the region, is one of several Southeast Asian countries to host a North Korean embassy, and once enjoyed valuable economic ties with the reclusive regime.

But the UN and the U.S. have increasingly leaned on regional leaders to do more to squeeze North Korea as international sanctions have not resulted in Pyongyang halting its nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests.

Yun's visit is part of a Dec. 11-15 trip to Asia -- including a stop in Japan -- "to discuss ways to strengthen the pressure campaign following the DPRK's latest ballistic missile test," the U.S. State Department said, referring to [North Korea].

The U.S. embassy in Bangkok confirmed Yun's meeting with the National Security Council chief took place but declined to provide more details on the discussion. Wanlop insisted there were no meetings planned between American and North Korean officials in Thailand.

In August, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stopped in Bangkok to pressure the government to crack down on North Korean shell companies that use the Thai capital as a trading hub.

Thailand said this week it had drastically slashed trade with North Korea this year, down 94 percent compared with 2016. Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director of the Thai Commerce Ministry's Trade Policy and Strategy Office, said "there will be no export or import of goods between Thailand and North Korea" by the end of 2017.


Ayodele Fayose, Governor of Ekiti State, has faulted the decision of the federal government to withdraw the sum of $1billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram insurgency in the North East.Fayose alleged that the money was meant to fund President Muhammadu Buharis 2019 Presidential campaign.The governors position was contained in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka and sent to DAILY POST.Fayose said, For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors, who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of government to fight an already defeated insurgency.Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for; if not to fund the 2019 elections?The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram within six months, now it is 31 months and what the APC government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people.Fayose said N360 billion was equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) share to the federal government, 36 States and 777 Local Councils monthly.He said Nigerians deserve proper explanations from the federal government on the rationale behind spending such huge sum of money to fight an already defeated Boko Haram.Challenging the federal government to make available to Nigerians how the money released by international donors for the fight against Boko Haram was spent, Fayose said, Even the Transparency International (TI) once said in its report that some top military officials in the country were feeding fat from the war against Boko Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering the proceeds in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere.The governor also alleged that the N50 billion kept by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation NNPC) in different commercial bank accounts outside the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on the directive of President Buharis Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari was part of the fund being kept to fund President Buharis election in 2019.Fayose said, Nigerians are alarmed by the revelation from the House of Representatives that President Buhari exempted NNPC from transferring N50 billion to the TSA, and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), confirmation that a letter issued by the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the president, Abba Kyari conveyed the directive.Also, they are miffed by the federal governments idea of withdrawing $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fund an insurgency they said had been defeated.They went on to tell Nigerians that the decision was taken by governors of the 36 States, whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal government, which they used the arranged National Executive Council meeting to achieve.The question is; how can the federal government alone spend almost half of the Excess Crude money that belongs to the three tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government, States and Local Councils)?The reality is that our treasury is daily being looted in readiness for the 2019 elections. Nigerians are therefore alerted to this lootings by the APC led federal government to amass huge fund for the 2019 elections under the pretense of fighting insurgency in the Northeast as well as other dubious means.
The Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano, on Thursday described the All Progressives Grand Alliance as the South-East hurricane".He asked the governors in the South-East geopolitical zone to join APGA now if they would wish to be re-elected in the 2019 general elections.Obiano stated this at the Dr. Alex Ekwueme Square in Awka, the Anambra State capital, during a function tagged, Victory Rally/ Commencement of Anambra Central Senatorial District Rerun Campaign.He said many serving senators and House of Representatives members from the geopolitical zone had approached him to join APGA.Describing APGA as the Igbo philosophy and identity, Obiano added, What we are telling everybody now is to join APGA within a reasonable time to be able to get the chance to contest election on our platform in 2019.What happened here on November 18 when APGA swept the entire poll in Anambra State will be replicated in Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi states in 2019.APGA is a hurricane that nobody can stop in the South-East. What Im telling my brother governors in the South-East is for them to join APGA now if they wish to be re-elected; otherwise, sorry for them, they must lose their seats to APGA in 2019.Obiano, who described the January 13 senatorial rerun in the state as a simple mathematics, said he had put on his victory garb again as the chairman of the campaign organisation of the APGA candidate in the election, Chief Victor Umeh, to crush any opposition in the race.Speaking, Umeh dismissed the judgment of Justice John Tsoho of the Abuja Federal High Court as dead on arrival.Justice Tsoho had in the judgment ordered that Chief Ikechukwu Obiora be sworn in as the winner of the 2015 Anambra Central senatorial election.Describing Tsohos decision as of no effect, Umeh said the January 13 rerun poll was sacrosanct.Umeh said it would amount to judicial absurdity for a high courts decision to supersede a Court of Appeal judgment that had earlier ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct the poll within 90 days in compliance with the INEC timetable which had scheduled the rerun for January 13.He said, The January 13th January election as fixed by INEC for the Anambra Central Senatorial District election will hold. Nobody or court can challenge the ruling of the Appeal Court.
European Union leaders extended tough economic sanctions leveled at Russia over the country's role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The decision, announced Thursday at an EU summit, will extend current restrictions against Moscow until July 2018. "EU united on roll-over of economic sanctions on Russia," European Council President Donald Tusk posted on Twitter.

The sanctions, which target the financial, energy and defense industries and limit Russian access to EU markets, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 after Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. They have been extended every six months since then.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko welcomed the extension.


Reactions have continued to trail the alleged double registration saga by Kogi State, Governor Alhaji Yahaya Bello that led to the sack of ...

Reactions have continued to trail the alleged double registration saga by Kogi State, Governor Alhaji Yahaya Bello that led to the sack of two INEC officials and the compulsory retirement of the other.

A former Deputy governorship candidate in the November 2015 election in the State, James Faleke commended INEC for upholding the constitution of the land.





He said I commend INEC for standing firm however it is unfortunate that the offender himself is not remorseful and has succeeded in making three INEC officials to lose their jobs.





 It will serve as deterrent to others. I sympathise with the families of the three INEC staff just as I sympathise with all Kogites for suffering the senseless rulers hip of Yahaya Bello.





 This is a shame to our State. It is a shame to Kogi. In the history of Nigeria this is the first time the illegality by a Governor is affecting an ordinary citizen.

My advise to Bello is for him to resign Honorably





On his part, the lawmaker representing Kogi West in the National Assembly, Senator Dino Melaye, while demanding for the governors resignation, said the governor had succeed in making the three INEC staff jobless.





If it were a civilised society where leaders respect themselves and the people and where there is value, I think the best thing is for him to resign Honorably.





But you know our society is such that they will always believe they can have their way by maintaining the immunity believing that after the expiration of his tenure in office he will find a way of escaping the wrath of the law.





Our leaders lack integrity. After the illegality has been confirmed and sack of three INEC officials involved, he has succeeded in putting the affected INEC back in to the labor market. There is nothing better than for him to Honorably resign, he maintained.





In a related development, the Kogi State People Democratic Party (PDP) Publicity Secretary, Bode Ogunmola is of the view that his party has been justified and vindicated that the governor acted illegally.









According to him, Double registration is an offence under our laws and we are happy that INEC is doing the needful now. The guy doesnt know the law and unfortunately he has surrounded himself with am armatures if not ordinarily his Attorney General should have been able to advise him that double registration is an offence.





Definitely he cannot be in contention in the next election. INEC declared that for immunity they should have gone ahead with his prosecution. Dont worry we are going ahead dusting our books and our legal department is up to the task and when we get to the bridge we will tell him where he belongs.





Normally he wasnt an elected Governor nobody voted for him actually, his coming was an aberration and we have always hammered on that and now that people are saying he should step aside he should obey the clarion call of the people of Kogi State.





He is getting every foot wrong, he is not paying salary, he is not paying pensioners, the only project he commissioned this year is his personal house, he has not done any other thing outside that.





 If you cannot carry a load why not step aside and allow people that are prepared to take over to come in and do the needful? So we are in support of the masses calling for him to step aside and go back to his transport business.





Also speaking, the Executive Director, Centre for Human Right and Conflict Resolution, Idris Miliki called on governor Bello to apologize publicly to citizens of Kogi State.





There are two angles to it, one is the dismissal and retirement of the INEC staffs conforms with the civil service rule.





It is most disappointing that he is the first Governor in the history of Nigeria to have perpetrated in this legality and criminality. The key issue here is the issue that this has vindicated the earlier case at the Supreme Court.





For Somebody to be contesting for the exalted office of the Governor to register in Abuja and he does not know that all he required was to transfer his voters card.





The electoral act states clearly how they can transfer voters card to the local Governm not where you intend to vote. For him to rather mobilise to Government House as being alleged to conduct double registration as a sitting Government is condemnable, regrettable and an embarrassment for the people of Kogi State. We call on him to apologise to us.




A former governor of Enugu State, Mr Chimaroke Nnamani, has challenged the jurisdiction of a Federal High Court Sitting in Lagos to try him on allegations of fraud to the tune of N5.3billion.This followed a bench warrant issued by Justice Chuka Obiozor against the former governor and one Sunday Anyaogu on Monday last week.Justice Obiozor issued the warrant following their failure to appear in court to take their pleas on the criminal charge filed against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).At the resumed hearing of the matter on Thursday, Nnamanis lawyer, Abubakar Shamsudeen, informed the court of his clients application challenging the jurisdiction of the court.In the application, the former governor claimed that the court lacked the competence to try him and determine the offences against him, especially as a plea bargain agreement has been reached between him, eight others and the EFCC.The result of the plea agreement, according to him, led to the institution and determination of an amended charge between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Rainbownet Nigeria Limited, dated July 7, 2015.Nnamani, therefore, asked the court to among other things, set aside the charge against him and to make an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Federal Republic of Nigeria, its agents, or any other persons deriving power from the Federal Government of Nigeria from inviting, instituting, maintaining or otherwise prosecuting him in respect of the charges pending the hearing and determination of his application.His counsel also pleaded with the court to withdraw the bench warrant issued against the second defendant, Sunday Anyaogu, whom he said came to court voluntarily.The lawyer told the court that the second defendant was not aware that the matter came up at the last adjourned date, and when informed, he voluntarily made himself available before the court on Thursday.On his part, counsel to the EFCC, Kelvin Uzozie, told the court that he had just been served with the former governors application and asked for a short adjournment to enable him to respond to it.After listening to the parties, Justice Obiozor adjourned the matter till January 19, 2018, for hearing and determination of the application, as well as to take the plea of the defendants on the charges.The judge insisted that the bench warrant issued against the former governor subsists while that of the second defendant was withdrawn.
A General Court Martial sitting in Maiduguri, Borno State, has sentenced a soldier serving in Operation Lafiya Dole, Lance Corporal John Godwin, to death.The court sentenced Godwin to death for killing five rescued civilians in the Yamteke area of Borno State during investigation.This is just as some other soldiers were jailed by the court for various offences ranging from manslaughter to illegal possession of fire arms and ammunition.The soldier was charged with murder, which is punishable under Section 106 (a) of Armed Forces Acts (Cap A20), Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004.According to Lt Colonel Kingsley Samuel, 7 Divisions spokesperson, who confirmed the sentence, The civilians were earlier rescued by troops of Godwins battalion and were taken for investigation at the time he shot and killed five of them.Another soldier, Sergeant Innocent Ototo, was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter after torturing and killing a 13-year-old boy who he said stole his phone.The incident happened at Zamanbari area of Maiduguri in Borno State.
Kayode Fayemi, minister of solid minerals development, has described as unfortunate Olisa Agbakobas criticism of President Muhammadu Buh...

Kayode Fayemi, minister of solid minerals development, has described as unfortunate Olisa Agbakobas criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari for mismatching ministers with portfolios.

The former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had said: How many ministers are actually competent to deliver on their ministries? For instance, the good friend of mine Dr. Kayode Fayemi has no competence to be minister of mines because thats not his background.





What is the competence of another good friend, a nice chap and a successful man, Udo Udoma (SAN), to be the minister of budget when he is a lawyer? Another good friend Geoffrey Onyeama is an intellectual property lawyer. He has no competence to be a foreign minister, but hes there.





However, in an interview, Fayemi said: Olisa Agbakoba is my brother, we were in the civil society movement together, and we worked closely. I have a lot of respect for him. But I am quite surprised that such a comment will come from someone as exposed as Olisa Agbakoba.





Fayemi has degrees in history, politics and international relations from the Universities of Lagos and Ife.





NO MISMATCH





But he gave the example of Obafemi Awolowo, former premier of the defunct Western region, who served as minister of finance in the Yakubu Gowon government.





Our sage, a lawyer, ran the civil war economy as finance minister and did exceedingly well, Fayemi said.





Geoffrey Onyeama is a lawyer, but he has been an international diplomat, who worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization for years, rising to become the deputy director general of a United Nations agency. What does it take to be an international diplomat and foreign minister? Apart from being a lawyer, he also has degrees in political science. So I dont honestly know what Olisa Agbakoba meant by saying Geoffrey Onyeama is not fit for the office or that he is a mismatch.





Coming down to Udoma, yes he is a lawyer, but Udoma has been the chairman of the boards of at least two major institutions in Nigeria that are in the field of ensuring that the economy grows, the United African Company and the Union Bank of Nigeria. Apart from being a commercial lawyer, Udoma was the chairman of the appropriation committee in the senate for eight years. What does the appropriation committee do except considering budgets?





He knows the in and out of the making of the budget, he has legal education right and he has extensive experience in economic matters so he couldnt be more qualified. If you really look at the economic recovery and growth plan that he spearheaded on behalf of the government, I dont think any better economist would do a better job than he has done.





Coming to my humble self, yes I am not a geologist, I admit that but I have been the governor of a state, and in that capacity, I superintended over the affairs of all ministries. But let us take away what we have been, what we have done and what we have not done. What is the job of a minister? The job of a minister is about policy making, supervision of the task that has been set and agreed with the president and managing the affairs of the ministry that you superintend.





Gordon Brown was the chancellor of the exchequer before he became prime minister (of UK). He has a PhD in history. George Osborne read politics and practised as a journalist. So I dont understand the logic of Olisas argument.





Fayemi conceded that Agbakoba has a right to his opinion on reshuffling the cabinet.





Olisa may have reasons why he believes the cabinet should be reshuffled. There is nothing wrong with that. He is not the only one who shares the view that the cabinet should be reshuffled and the president reserves the prerogative to reshuffle his cabinet at any time, he said.





I dont think people should come up with any of the silly arguments as to why cabinets should be reshuffled because there is a mismatch in the qualification of the minister. I really think it is really not a tenable argument for me and I wish Olisa would review his thought process on this.









culled: The Cable
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the purchase of monitoring vessels to reduce unregulated fishing and boost security on the waterway...

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the purchase of monitoring vessels to reduce unregulated fishing and boost security on the waterways.

The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo disclosed this at the 10th Annual Ministrial Conference of the Fisheries Committee for West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), held Friday in Abuja.





He said safety of the nations waterways remained a key priority to the current administration.





The Vice President restated Federal Government determination to reducing fish imports into the country, saying the efforts are already yielding significant results.





Osinbajo said within 2017, local fish production increased from 450, 000 metric tons from early January to 1.1 million metric tons.





The safety of Nigeria maritime is also a principal concern to us. President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the purchase of some patrol vessels for the department of fishery which would be managed with the collaboration of the Nigerian Navy. These vessels will boost the research and rescue capacities of the relevant security agencies, deter illegal fishing and help secure our vessels at sea.





In the north east of Nigeria where Boko Haram has devastated the fishery industry which supplies most of the West African states. Earlier this year, president Buhari approve establishment of Lake Chad Naval Base to boost security and fastrack the restoration of the livelihood in that zone.





Theme of this conference which is to invest in the growth and sustainability of fishery in west Africa, it is important even in term of sharing the experience and lay aspiration for the economic wellbeing of our people. Our effort to reduce fish import and increase local fish production by encouraging the private sectors to invest in the aquaculture is yielding positive result. In the domestic fish production for example, in the last two years has increased from 450,000 metric tons to 1.1million metric tons, and we hope this growth we be exponential, he added.





Osinbajo, who emphasised need to support the regional aquaculture industry described it as efficient employer of labour.





He stressed that as part of commitments from the federal government to support the fisheries committee, a sum of $200, 000 have been paid to the FCWC while the outstanding will be provided shortly.





In his opening remarks, Chairman of the conference, James Kollie identified need for participants to explore opportunities that will ensure priced fishery resources in the region enhances its economic growth in a sustainable manner.





According to him, the potential of fishery goes beyond resources found in the maritime environment but reliable employer of labour.





Kollie, who is the Liberian Minister of Fishery added that, Fish is not only a source of animal protection for more than 375 million people in West Africa, it is also a viable economic resource that provides employment and livelihood for over 100 million people in the region.





The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Heineken Lokpobiri advised participants to take seriously issues relating to effective management of fishery resources.





He acknowledged that the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing deserves collected efforts which should be sustained.





However, Lokpobiri lauded the FCWC Secretary General for the conference theme titled, Investment for Growth and Sustainability in Fisheries in West Africa.




A key member of Kim Jong Uns inner circle touted as a powerful military figure mysteriously vanished from public life recently, sparkin...

A key member of Kim Jong Uns inner circle touted as a powerful military figure mysteriously vanished from public life recently, sparking rumors he was executed by a North Korean death squad after allegations of bribery, recent reports indicated.Hwang Pyong-so, a Vice Marshall who held the most senior position in North Koreas military, hasnt been seen in public since October 13, sparking rumors of his death.Kim has previously dispatched his enemies via a variety of gruesome methods, including shooting them with anti-aircraft weaponry at a close distance and feeding them to a pack of ravenous dogs.News about Hwangs troubles within Kims regime emerged in mid-November, when South Koreas spy agency reported the top aide and his deputy, Kim Won-hong, were expelled from the militarys General Politico Bureau and punished, Yonhap News Agency reported.A rare inspection on the bureau was conducted after reports of impure attitude toward the volatile regime. The spy agency said it was looking into details about their punishment.If Hwang was indeed kicked out of the Workers Party, it would practically mean the end of his political career, and possibly his life, though it is unknown whether or not he is still alive, South Koreas JoongAng Ilbo reported, according to the Telegraph.Kim Won-hong was reportedly sentenced to one of North Koreas prison camps. As for Hwang, many of Kim Jong Uns recent actions indicate the man who the dictator has trusted for about a decade was executed  possibly by the infamous firing squad that also killed Kims uncle Jang Song Thaek.The two officials allegedly had been receiving favors for promotions, the Telegraph reported. Kim ordered the two officials to be punished as a warning to others.Kims visit to the countrys Mount Paektu over the weekend hinted at Hwangs possible execution. Kim usually visits the sacred mountain before he makes a significant decision, much like his father and grandfather had done, Korea Jongang Daily reported.(FoxNews)
Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, has opposed the decision of the national economic council (NEC) to approve $1 billion for the figh...

Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti state, has opposed the decision of the national economic council (NEC) to approve $1 billion for the fight against insurgency.

At the end of the NEC meeting on Thursday, Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state, said all the governors had agreed that the money should be taken from the excess crude account (ECA).





But in a statement on Friday, Fayose said he is not among those who gave the approval.





He alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had the plan to use the money to fund President Muhammadu Buharis re-election.





For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of government to fight an already defeated insurgency, he said in a statement issued on his behalf by Lere Olayinka, his spokesman.





Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for; if not to fund the 2019 elections?





The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram within six months, now it is 31 months and what the APC government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people.





He challenged the federal government to make available to Nigerians, how the money released by international donors for the fight against Boko Haram was spent.





Even the Transparency International (TI) once said in its report that some top military officials in the country were feeding fat from the war against Boko Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering the proceeds in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere, he said.





Nigerians are miffed by the federal governments idea of withdrawing $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fund an insurgency they said had been defeated.





They went on to tell Nigerians that the decision was taken by governors of the 36 States, whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal government, which they used the arranged National Executive Council meeting to achieve.





The question is; how can the federal government alone spend almost half of the Excess Crude money that belongs to the three tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government, States and Local Councils)?




The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Friday reacted to a statement credited to the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, John Nwodo th...

The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Friday reacted to a statement credited to the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, John Nwodo that he is prepared to sabotage any attempt to cause war in Igboland in the name of agitation for Biafra.

IPOB said the Ohanaeze President General, demonstrated the highest level of cowardice for making such a statement which will be seen as a, sign of weakness at the heart of Igbo leadership.









The pro-Biafra group warned that no one or anybody else can, stop or quench what is about to come in the name of Biafra.





IPOBs declaration was contained in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Emma Powerful.





The statement reads, We note with great sadness the public acknowledgement of Chief John Nnia Nwodo the Ohaneze Ndigbo President General about his involvement and that of his organisation in the unpatriotic effort to destroy the work of IPOB, thereby perpetuating the misery of Biafrans in the unworkable Luggardian contraption called Nigeria.





It is equally baffling to the global family of IPOB, especially those of Igbo extraction, why a highly educated and respected leader of Ohaneze Ndigbo will publicly equate the demand for a referendum as a call for war.





What this demonstrates is that Ohaneze Ndigbo unlike Afenifere may have fallen victim to the Ministry of Information sponsored propaganda and smear campaign that a demand for Biafra equals a demand for war. If that is the case, it is very unfortunate indeed coming from a supposedly enlightened people. A call for referendum is never a call for war.





Those opposed to the idea of genuine freedom for Biafra were the people that brought war to Biafraland through Operation Python Dance not IPOB. From every indication, Chief Nwodo have confirmed that he was one of those that sanctioned the use of lethal force against unarmed, peaceful IPOB family members gathered at Kanus residence on the 11th and 14th of September 2017. The likes of Ohaneze Ndigbo should be defending the interest of movements like IPOB fighting for the survival of all oppressed people within Nigeria, instead of conniving with the oppressor to unleash mayhem and death on their own.





Chief Nwodos open acknowledgement during his speech at the National Stadium Surulere that he would sabotage Biafra again is a demonstration of highest level of cowardice which our oppressors will read as a sign of weakness at the heart of Igbo leadership.





What he has succeeded in doing is to embolden Hausa Fulani into believing that Igbos are their slaves. Such uncharacteristic display of impotent leadership in the face of political, economic and social emasculation of an entire race by this present regime of Buhari, should not be associated with anybody claiming to be the leader of Ndi-Igbo.





Our promise to Chief Nwodo and his cohorts within and outside Ohaneze Ndigbo is this, not they or anybody else can stop or quench what is about to come in the name of Biafra. Our project is divine, our leadership fanatical, no man born of a woman can stop the restoration of Biafra.




The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says a total of 1,317 Nigerians have voluntarily returned from Libya in the last 10 days having been stranded in the volatile country en route Europe.The Director-General of NEMA, Alhaji Mustapha Maihajja, made the disclosure while receiving a fresh batch of 116 Nigerians who arrived the country on Friday morning.The new set of returnees arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos aboard a Buraq Airlines with Registration Number 5A-WAC at 5:39am.At least 3,000 Nigerians have voluntarily returned from Libya through the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) supported programme, in the last few months.Maihajja, represented by Suleiman Yakubu, south-west zonal coordinator, said that the Nigerians returned in various batches between December 5 and December 15 with the assistance of the IOM and the European Union (EU).According to him, the figure has already surpassed the 1, 295 Nigerians who voluntarily returned from Libya in the month of November.Maihajja said that the federal government would continue to work with the international organisations to ensure the return of more Nigerians from Libya where they had been facing severe hardships and rights violations.They comprised 46 adult females, 60 adult males and 10 children and infants respectively.Also, on ground to welcome the returnees were officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the police.
President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Abuja after participating at the One Planet summit in Paris, France.

President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Abuja after participating at the One Planet summit in Paris, France.The presidents aircraft landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, at about 4:35 p.m. where he was received by senior government officials including his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Abba Kyari and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Musa Bello.While in Paris, President Buhari had appealed to the international community to support Nigerias commitment to reduce the negative effects of climate change.Buhari told participants that Nigeria could not implement its Nationally Determined Contributions without adequate financial, technical and capacity building support from developed nationsHe said Nigeria had already ratified the Paris Agreement in May 2017 but its Nationally Determined Contributions to reduce emission by 20 per cent by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2030 could not be attained alone.According to him, the country is not under illusion of the challenges it is facing, having just come out of recession.The summit with the theme Climate Change Financing, was attended by over 60 heads of state and governments, as well as representatives of non-governmental and private organisations.
The leaders of South Korea and China on Thursday agreed that war on the Korean Peninsula is unacceptable and they will seek a peaceful route to a nuclear-free peninsula in concert with the international community.

Presidents Moon Jae-in and Xi Jinping called on North Korea to halt nuclear and missile tests, according to presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan.

In a statement after the summit, Seoul said the two leaders agreed that North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs pose serious threats to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the international community and agreed to cooperate to bring North Korea back to the dialogue table through sanctions and pressure by faithfully adhering to UN Security Council resolutions.

Moon did not ask Xi to halt supplies of crude oil to North Korea. Instead, he told Xi that he expects China to play a greater role, according to one Cheong Wa Dae official.


Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, of the Adoration Ministry, has declared that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar is the new blessing for Nigeria. ...

Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, of the Adoration Ministry, has declared that former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar is the new blessing for Nigeria.

He said Abubakar has what it takes to put smile on Nigerians suffering different marginalization, if given the opportunity to rule the country in 2019.





Speaking in Enugu, the fiery preacher said the Waziri of Adamawa was advocating a new order, a new paradigm shift in the government.





Mbaka said, Every political relationship is open for negotiations, without pre-set outcomes. Atiku do not fear negotiations, as democrat and businessman that is what reasonable human beings that love his people do. This is even more important if a stubborn resistance against negotiations can lead to unsavoury outcomes, which the present governments have demonstrated!





For the Nigerian State to have a soul, the constituent parts need to renegotiate and rework the union. It is what will reduce to the barest minimum the feelings of injustice and poverty among Nigerians. It is what will make Nigerians believe that they chose this union willingly, ending effectively the theory of Lugardian contraption.





It is a perfect antidote for peace. The times call for new ideas For creative solutions, for restructuring, for people to be happy, for people to have means of living, for people to love Nigeria again!





Atiku is the only person that have contested and is still contesting for Nigerian presidency that love the youths more and have created more jobs for the youths to prove that more than most state government!




Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Magu, yesterday, appeared before the Senate Ad- hoc Committee that is investigating the November 21, 2017 incident, where EFCC tried to arrest former directors general of National Intelligence Agency, NIA and Department of State Services, DSS, Ayo Oke and Mr. Ita Ekpenyong, respectively.Also before the Ad-hoc Committee which is chaired by the Deputy Senate Chief Whip, Senator Francis Alimikhena (APC, Edo North) yesterday, were the Director-General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Mr. Lawal Daura and acting Director- General of the National Intelligence Agency, NIA, Ambassador Muhammed Dauda.It will be recalled that there was alleged security threat on November 21, following the face- off between the EFCC, DSS and NIA, over attempt by EFCC operatives to arrest Ekpenyong and Oke in Abuja.Meanwhile, the face-off between Daura and Magu, yesterday , degenerated before the Senators and Journalists in Conference room 022, as both heads of government agencies refused to exchange pleasantries.At yesterdays investigative hearing, Magu came into the hall at 2.17 p.m., with his men, while Daura came in 30 minutes later.Magu and his men were seated in the middle row of the hall, while Daura and his men sat at the left row and Dauda, the Acting Director General of NIA sat at the extreme right.A short drama played out when they both saw Magu on the front row, but Daura boycotted the row and instead, opted for another seat. They did not exchange pleasantries before the commencement of the business of the day.In a similar move, acting Director-General of NIA, Dauda, who walked in when the hearing was about to commence, also boycotted Magus seat and opted for another one.He did not exchange pleasantries with Magu either.Journalists were however, asked to leave the hall because of the sensitive nature of the issue.Trouble started when Alimikhena asked the trio, Daura, Magu and Dauda if they had any comments to make. While Magu and Dauda did not object to the presence of newsmen, Daura however told Senators that he would only speak freely if journalists were not in the room.On his part, Alimikhena said: I have heard what you said. The matter is of security importance to this country. We want to see the agencies work together. We will oblige what you requeted. We want to ensure that you are comfortable enough to give something.Another member of the committee and Chairman of Senate committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, supported the position of Alimikhena.Before the issue of whether to investigate them in Camera was resolved, Senator Alimikhena who raised it said that the trial must be carried out in public because they fought a dirty fight and no respect for Espirit de corps, adding that what happened was a disgrace to the security agencies and a shame to the sister security agencies.Replying Magu said that there was nothing like dirty fight, but there was resistance when there was a move to effect an arrest.At the end of the day, the majority had it that the exercise should be carried out in the secret.Following the agreement, Senator Alimikhena announced that room 022 was a big one for such an exercise which later made them to move to room 431, with only the EFCC boss to appear, just as the Chairman announced that others would be communicated on when they would appear before the Committee.It will be recalled that there was alleged security threat November 21 following the face- off between the EFCC, DSS and NIA over attempt by EFCC operatives to arrest former Director- General of DSS, Mr. Ita Ekpenyong abs his counterpart in NIA, Mr. Ayo Oke in Abuja.The Senate had penultimate Thursday named a committee to probe the alleged security threat following the face-off between the EFCC, DSS and NIA over attempt by the EFCC to arrest former Director  General of DSS, Mr. Ita Ekpenyong and his counterpart in NIA, Mr. Ayo Oke in Abuja.
Korean stars came out on force to support President Moon Jae-in during his state visit to China. Song Hye-kyo and Choo Ja-hyun and her Chinese husband Yu Xiaoguang as well as professional volleyball player Kim Yeon-koung joined Moon at the opening of a business fair in Beijing on Thursday.



Actress Song Hye-kyo shakes hands with President Moon Jae-in (right) at the opening of a business fair in Beijing on Thursday. /Yonhap

Choo and Yu were also present at a dinner the previous day with Korean residents in Beijing. Song starred in the 2016 hit drama "Descendants of the Sun," which was hugely popular in China, while Kim now plays for a pro volleyball team in Shanghai.

First lady Kim Jung-sook talks with Choo Ja-hyun and her Chinese husband Yu Xiaoguang in a music store in Beijing on Wednesday. /Yonhap

EXO-CBX, a sub-unit of K-pop boyband EXO, also joined Moon at the event, while Choo and Yu accompanied first lady Kim Jung-sook on a visit to a music store in Beijing to try her hand at playing a Chinese bowed instrument called erhu. It is unprecedented to see celebrities participating in so many events during a Korean president's trip abroad. The move is aimed at appealing to the Chinese public by tapping into their popularity there.

Read this article in Korean
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office Lt. Rose Dillworth died after experiencing medical problems while on duty on Dec. 3, 2017. (Courtesy of OPSO)
A woman cringes as she gets a flu shot from Jessica Nguyen of Walmart Pharmacy during the Tour de Jefferson and LiveWell Festival at Lafreniere Park in Metaire on Sunday, September 10, 2017. (Photo by Peter G. Forest)(Peter Forest)
FILE - In this March 6, 2015, file photo, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents enter an apartment complex looking for a specific undocumented immigrant convicted of a felony during an early morning operation in Dallas. The federal government provided Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, the most complete statistical snapshot of immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump, showing Border Patrol arrests plunged to a 45-year low while arrests by deportation officers soared. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)AP(Dean DeChiaro CQ-Roll Call)
The guidance and warhead camera control of an Iranian Qasef-1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, used as a one-way attack UAV to dive on targets and then detonating its warhead, which was fired by Yemen into Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley during a press briefing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling Thursday, Dec. 14, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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.
Bollards arrive on Bourbon Street: What they look like, how they work
The night(s) the lights went down in New Orleans during World War I
One man is in custody while authorities search for another in connection to the murder of a Council Bluffs on Monday morning.

David S. Simpson, 34, was found by a man walking his dog a little after 10:30 a.m., according to the Council Bluffs Police Department. Simpsons body was found in a grassy area near a warehouse at 1004 First Ave.

On Friday, police said they have obtained a first-degree murder warrant for Michael J. Thacker, 43, a transient believed to still be in the local area.

On Wednesday, officers arrested Cleo W. McClellan, 53, on suspicion of being an accessory to a felony-murder. Police said its believed McClellan provided aid to Michael Thacker in the commission of the murder of David Simpson.

Police asked any member of the public who possibly comes in contact with Thacker to call 911 and not to approach him, as he is considered armed and dangerous.

Police said Simpson was a transient resident of Council Bluffs. Officials with the Iowa State Medical Examiner Office conducted an autopsy and determined Simpsons cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.
The following editorial was published in the Sioux City Journal on Dec. 7:

Why Woodbury County Supervisor Matthew Ung proposed the county board discuss with an outside law firm the boards practice of holding a moment of silence before its meetings last week became clear this week.

He wanted to hold a discussion about the moment of silence before meetings as background for a discussion he planned to open about public prayer before meetings.

Last week, Ung recommended the board meet with a representative of First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based law firm which describes itself as the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for all Americans, in closed session about the legal implications of holding a moment of silence before board meetings. Supervisors Jeremy Taylor, Keith Radig, Marty Pottebaum and Rocky De Witt voted against such a closed-door discussion, so Ungs proposal died.

On Tuesday, Ung proposed a resolution allowing  on a rotation basis  an individual board member to lead a public prayer in place of the moment of silence. The resolution failed, 4 to 1.

We do not criticize board dialogue about either a moment of silence or prayer. We do, however, find fault with Ungs proposal to talk about a moment of silence in closed session.

Under Iowas open meetings law, a government body may hold a closed session To discuss strategy with counsel in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation.

Due to lack of existing litigation and no evidence to suggest imminent legal action against Woodbury County over the moment of silence observed by the county board before its meetings, sufficient reason did not exist for a closed discussion with an attorney from First Liberty, in our view.

In the end, board discussion about a moment of silence last week (and prayer this week) took place as it should have  in the sunshine of open, public discourse.

We give credit to Taylor, Radig, Pottebaum and De Witt for that.
Not unexpectedly, the five-member Federal Communications Commission that includes three Republicans and two Democrats voted on party lines Thursday to undo sweeping Obama-era net neutrality rules that guaranteed equal access to internet.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, said his plan to repeal net neutrality will eliminate unnecessary regulation and called the internet the greatest free-market innovation in history.

He added that it certainly wasnt heavy-handed government regulation thats been responsible for the internets phenomenal development.

Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the internet for most of its existence.

Mirroring the Trump administrations trickle-down theory that guided congressional Republicans revision of tax codes, broadband providers, Pai said, will have stronger incentives to build networks, especially in underserved areas.

Ending the net neutrality rules that have been in place since 2015, he said, will lead to a free, more open internet.

Jessica Rich, who served as director of the Federal Trade Commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection from 2013 to 2017, said the FCC vote will undermine the principles the internet was built upon, free internet service providers from the ban on blocking, throttling or prioritizing Internet content.

If we allow money and profit margins to dictate how people are able to gather and disseminate information on the internet, those lacking the means to afford high-speed services will be left in the dust, said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO. The result will be an even greater knowledge gap  and ultimately, a greater wealth gap  between the haves and have-nots.

Michael ORielly, a Republican commissioner appointed by President Barack Obama, said he supported overturning net-neutrality rules, calling the FCCs approach a well-reasoned and soundly justified order.

ORielly said he is not persuaded that heavy handed rules are needed to prevent imaginary harm.

The internet, he said, has functioned without net neutrality rules for far longer than it has with them. The commissions decision, he said, will not break the internet.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat who, like ORielly, was appointed by Obama, lambasted the preordained outcome of the vote that she said hurts people, small and large businesses, and marginalized populations.

The end of net neutrality, she said, hands over the keys to the internet to a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.

With their vote, the FCCs majority commissioners, Clyburn said, are abandoning the pledge they took to make a rapid, efficient communications service available to all people in the U.S., without discrimination.

We agree. The vote was yet another demonstration of party loyalty trumping doing whats right.
Contact your Congress members about tax bill

Have all you Iowa voters contacted Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Rep. David Young about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act they will vote on soon? (The one that will increase our national debt by $1.5 trillion.) All three favor it: a change to the tax code that means our children and grandchildren will be whacked with huge costs in the future.

Income tax cuts are great: they bestow wealth on people and corporations, just like a cash bonus. In fact, they seem like free money. But nothing is free. This bill ensures that wealthy people and corporations will make out like bandits, and the rest of us will pay.

In a tricky move intended to sell the bill, the wise old wealthy sponsors give some middle and lower incomes a break that ends after eight years, while generously allowing the much larger cuts for rich people and corporations to flow forever.

The bill pretends that it somehow will increase jobs. The truth is that tax cuts for the rich dont cause job growth. Corporations have been swimming in cash for years and dont need more money to invest in jobs. What they need instead is higher demand for their products and services, leading to an increase in jobs by necessity.

Increasing average consumers ability to pay for goods and services would have a real positive effect on jobs. This bill will not have that effect.

If you earn a middle to lower income, these are some of the categories where youll either pay more taxes or receive less income:

 Home mortgage

 Student loan

 Medical expenses

 Social Security

 Medicare

 Medicaid

 Student stipend

 Agricultural programs

It seems hard to justify a bill that expands the deficit so much while it cuts government services. Dont be surprised when next year Mr. Grassley, Ms. Ernst and Mr. Young will imply that the deficit is awfully high, and that the only answer is more cuts to programs that help the poor and middle-class, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

If you want to hand over your tax money to the super-rich, please do so. Not me, and Im writing my senators today to beg them to consider the terrible impact of this bill on us average Iowans and not to listen to rich political contributors who would like to become richer at our expense.

Jennifer Hansen, Council Bluffs

Appreciate the community support

It has been three months since I was diagnosed with leukemia on Sept. 17, and during this holiday season we wanted to take a moment to share a your view to thank everyone for their thoughts and support. My wife Cindy and I have been humbled by all the expressions of kindness and support in so many ways.

Thank you to the Nonpareil for its fine initial news coverage  a likely reason for much of the outpouring. We wish we could personally thank each and every relative, friend and supporter, but at the least we thought this letter might reach many of you with our message of season greetings and genuine thankfulness. Happy Holidays!

Jerry and Cindy Mathiasen, Council Bluffs

Resistance must work together

Since the election of 2016 we have heard a great deal about resistance. Nevertheless, weve seen relatively little of it actually happening.

The War Resisters League (full disclosure: I was on its National Committee years ago and especially love its secular nonviolent philosophy) is claiming to be doing a lot but nothing much to show for it, nothing mentioned since the inauguration really, and no reference to numbers involved. Discouraging.

Moral Monday movement, led by Rev. William Barber II, is possibly the most ambitious, with designs on establishing campaigns in every state.

The movement in and out of Congress to impeach Trump is lurching into view, but is yet to gather enough steam or coordinated constituencies.

The climate chaos resistance has produced a small beginning in its overdue and underpopulated resistance to Trumps slashing efforts to stymie the EPA and roll back renewables while boosting dirty tar sands, choking coal and radioactive nuclear.

Yes, the womens movement has produced by far the most meaningful mass results, first with the astonishing Womens March and now with the sexual harassment/attack/pedophilia charges mounting against powerful abusive men, but only very recently has found a bit of a focus on Trump in particular.

Immigrants rights groups historically come out in the streets on May Day and 2017 was no exception, with spokespeople from several national groups claiming that strikes and boycotts would ensue. If they have, few have noticed.

What is the goal, overall? Bluntly, to end the Trump regime using nonviolent methods. Has such a thing ever happened in a democracy? Or, for that matter, in an autocracy masquerading as a democracy?

Oh yes. Serbia. The Philippines. Hungary. Poland. Ghana. Estonia. Tunisia. Chile. Czechoslovakia. This list goes on and there are online libraries devoted to it. The research shows it succeeds twice as often as does violent insurrection, but to succeed it takes numbers  that research reveals that successful civil resistance movements are normally larger than a successful guerrilla army by a factor of about 11:1.

So far, we are not close in the U.S. Trump may shoot himself in the rhetorical foot daily, sometimes hourly, but until we are coordinated in an unstoppable coalition  broad base but laser-sharp focus  he will enjoy his power, privilege, and position. Many peoples, one goal. Many reasons, many constituencies, one target.

Time to reach out to each other. Hello?

Tom Hastings, Oregon Peace Institute, Portland, Oregon
R Bindu also said the quality of education in Kerala had not dipped contrary to the opposition's claims.
INDIANAPOLIS  State employees who are the parents of a newborn or newly adopted child soon will be entitled to four weeks paid leave to spend quality time with the newest members of their families.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order Dec. 11 authorizing the paid leave benefit for the approximately 30,000 executive branch employees located throughout the state, beginning Jan. 1.

"This new policy supports families and healthy kids by ensuring parents  both women and men  get the time they need to bond and adjust to a new baby or adopted child," Holcomb said.

According to the governor's office, employees must work for the state at least six months before they are eligible for the benefit.

It can be used anytime within six months after the child arrives. Part-time employees only are entitled to two weeks paid leave.

Holcomb said he expects the policy will "attract more top talent to state government service."

Similarly, Senate Democrats next month plan to file legislation encouraging all Hoosier companies to voluntarily offer paid family leave to their employees who need to care for an ill family member.

"This is an economic and it is an emotional issue that our families face too often: having to do what's right for their family and not being able to pay the bills; or go to work and leave behind a sick family member  it's an impossible choice," said state Sen. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend.

Under federal law, most workers in the United States are eligible for up to 12 weeks unpaid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, or to care for an ailing relative.
St. Lawrence Seaway cargo is on pace to top 2016 with only a few weeks left in the international shipping season on the Great Lakes.

Through Nov. 30, about 33.6 million tons of cargo passed through the system of locks while en route to Midwestern ports like the Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor, a 8.5-percent increase over the same period in 2016.

Its great to be where we are heading into the end of the year, said Bruce Burrows, Chamber of Marine Commerce president. The Seaway has recovered ground in key cargo commodities this season, particularly shipments of iron ore, while continuing to diversify by attracting more aluminum cargo and oversized machinery and components destined for the U.S. manufacturing and energy sectors.

General cargo ships have risen by 28 percent so far this year, and dry bulk by 12 percent. Most dramatically, iron ore shipments rose 34 percent to 7.4 million tons between March and November.

In November, domestic freighters moved 8.5 million tons of cargo across the Great Lakes, a 1.3 percent year-over-year increase, according to the Lake Carriers Association. Iron ore cargoes for steelmaking rose 10 percent to 4.2 million tons, while limestone shipments soared by 27.5 percent.

So far this year, Great Lakes freighters have carried 78.5 million tons of cargo, a 3 percent year-over-year increase. Iron ore cargoes have rose 5.4 percent to 41.5 million tons over that period.
CROWN POINT  A man shot New Year's Day told a criminal court judge it hurt when he laughed, a painful reminder of his wounds in his happiest moments.

Eriec L. Campbell, 29, of Chicago, was sentenced Friday to 11 years prison for shooting Adrian Ortiz during a botched robbery outside the victim's home in the 7200 block of Northcote Avenue in Hammond.

Ortiz, 29, said Friday at the defendant's sentencing hearing he returned home from a family member's party laden with leftover food and board games when he was approached in his vehicle by Campbell.

Campbell asked where the party at? and when Ortiz said he didn't know, Campbell pulled out a firearm.

The car  I felt like it took an eternity to change gears, he said.

Ortiz said he tried to drive away, but he was shot. The bullet went through his chest broadside, narrowly missing his heart and lungs.

He said he was drenched in blood, and thought he was going to die, so he twice rammed Campbell's vehicle  hoping to leave some evidence behind for police investigating his death.

Ortiz managed to drive himself to a fire station, where he was transported to Gary Methodist Hospital. He survived the shooting, but said for seven months he needed to pack gauze into his chest wound.

Ortiz said he applied to become a Chicago police officer before the shooting, but he could not pass a physical test for the job because of his wounds.

Campbell and co-defendant Alexander M. Jones, 36, of Chicago, were arrested New Year's Day after their vehicle was stopped in Hammond.

Campbell pleaded guilty Nov. 7 to aggravated battery, a level 3 felony.

Campbell had no criminal convictions and his third child was born eight days before the shooting.

He found himself unemployed with a newborn baby and he made a stupid decision, defense attorney Alger V. Boswell said.

Judge Salvador Vasquez marveled at the fact Ortiz survived, calling it sheer luck.

The judge said Campbell should have been home with his family New Year's Day.

It's sad, he said. It's sad for your family.

Jones pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness. He was sentenced Aug. 16 to five years prison.
GRIFFITH  Broad Street Gyros' doors will remain closed indefinitely until detectives finish their investigation into how a bag of cocaine wound up in a customer's food order last month, according to Griffith Police Cmdr. Keith Martin.

The business at 105 N. Broad St. in downtown Griffith  steps away from the town's police department  was first shuttered Nov. 22 and the Town Council voted again this week to allow the suspension to stand during the police department's investigation, according to Martin and police records.

No criminal charges have been filed, Martin said, but that could change as the investigation unfolds.

A sign posted on the restaurant's front door entrance Thursday night notes that the town's clerk-treasurer suspended the license. The notice states operating the business without a license could result in significant penalties.

The Griffith Police Department "found probable cause of illegal activity being conducted out of this business in violation of federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations, endangering public health and safety," the letter states.

Martin said Griffith detectives are waiting on Indiana State Police to conduct a forensic analysis of surveillance video seized from the business Nov. 21.

Customer finds cocaine

At about 6:20 p.m. Nov. 21, police received a 911 call from a woman who explained she discovered drugs in her take-home order from Broad Street Gyros.

She told police when she came home, she immediately got a call from a Broad Street Gyros employee who asked if she received an order of cheese sticks by mistake, Martin said.

When the customer said yes, the business requested she "bring it back," at which point the customer refused. The business pressed further, even asking for the customer's home address so they could personally pick it up.

Growing suspicious, the customer looked more closely at her food and discovered a white powdery substance in a container that later tested positive for cocaine, Martin said.

Officers were able to obtain a search warrant that night, executed at about 8:40 p.m., Martin said. A K-9 handler and his police dog, Gino, reportedly detected the presence of drugs in several locations.

"The most prominent was in the business office," Martin said.

Police records show the business owner was present at the time of the executed search warrant.

No drugs were located, but the owner allegedly admitted to police during the search that she had "partied before while at work," Martin said, referring to police records.

When the detective asked what "partied" meant, the woman replied she "did a line (of cocaine) and toked a few times," Martin said.

No one has claimed ownership of the cocaine found in the customer's order, Martin said.

Attempts to reach the Broad Street Gyros owner through social media Thursday night were unsuccessful.
MERRILLVILLE  The unpaid taxes continue to mount on Lake County Councilman Jamal Washington's home.

Lake County government records indicate the treasurer has yet to collect back taxes and penalties of more than $13,000 on the single-family residence and two adjacent lots in the 5600 block of Connecticut Street in Merrillville's Hilldale subdivision.

The treasurer's records indicate the Washington family has defaulted on a payment plan set up earlier this year to stop the county from selling the house at a tax sale auction. The house is now eligible to be listed on the treasurer's 2018 tax sale.

Lake County Auditor John Petalas said Thursday the county also is in the process of billing the property for additional taxes owed back to 2015 and taxing it at a higher rate next year, since it no longer has a homestead deduction.

Merrillville police allege the house was a crime scene Dec. 5. They and the prosecutor's office say the councilman's 23-year-old cousin Kamaria Buckley reported Jamal Washington battered and confined Buckley during an argument.

Washington denied the allegations Wednesday in a telephone call to The Times. Buckley told The Times last week she made up the accusations and is withdrawing them.

Police also arrested Washington on Dec. 3, 2015, on allegations he battered two women, one of them his wife, at the same residence.

Washington, who represents much of Gary and Merrillville on the County Council, has listed the Merrillville address as his residence in county voting records since 2008.

But Lake County records list the councilman's father, Harold Washington, as its owner since he purchased the property 15 years ago.

Property tax delinquencies began mounting three years ago. Washington said earlier this year his father became too ill to pay the full tax bills.

County records show the Washington family made a $1,100 payment last spring to the county treasurer under the installment plan, but none since.

Harold Washington didn't return telephone calls Thursday to a Dolton, Illinois, address listed under his name. There is no telephone listing for the Connecticut Street address in Merrillville.

Following Times questions about the Merrillville property last April, Petalas removed its homestead deduction because Harold Washington failed to respond to inquiries mailed to the Merrillville and Dolton addresses about whether the Merrillville property qualified for the tax break.

Indiana only permits homeowners a single homestead deduction for their primary residence. Rental and recreational "second homes" generally cannot get the benefit, which can reduce property taxes by as much as half.
CROWN POINT  Despite efforts to withdraw his guilty plea, Roberto Pettigrew-Sanders was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in a Munster robbery.

The defendant will serve an additional two years probation and two years in a work-release program after he completes his prison term, as per the terms of his plea agreement.

Pettigrew-Sanders, 26, of Dolton, Illinois, was accused of shooting a woman in the arm Feb 3. during an attempted car-jacking at the FedEx Distribution Center, 101 45th St., in Munster.

Pettigrew-Sanders and a co-defendant, Hexadore C. Randall, were arrested after the shooting at a fitness center in the 9900 block of Calumet Avenue.

Pettigrew-Sanders pleaded guilty July 17 to robbery, a level 3 felony, in Lake Criminal Court, but filed a motion the next month asking to withdraw from his plea agreement.

The state objected, noting a judgement of conviction had been entered.

Pettigrew-Sanders said at Thursday's court hearing he did not feel like his public defender, Derrick Julkes, did an adequate job investigating the allegations against him before he entered the plea agreement.

He said he only accepted the plea because he couldn't fire Julkes.

Deputy Prosecutor Mark Watson said he and Julkes worked hard to prepare for trial, and then reversed course when Pettigrew-Sanders said he wanted to accept a plea agreement.

Now Pettigrew-Sanders wants to back out of the plea and go to trial. Watson said he believed the defendant was gaming the system a little bit.

Judge Samuel L. Cappas said the defendant was fully advised of his rights during the plea hearing, and he agreed to waive those rights and pleaded guilty to robbery.

Cappas ordered Pettigrew-Sanders to serve the time agreed to in the plea deal.

The state agreed to dismiss charges of attempted murder, robbery, battery and two firearm offenses as part of the plea agreement.
HAMMOND  During their lifetimes, Quentin P. Smith, of Gary, and Dean V. White, of Merrillville and Crown Point, made contributions that transformed life throughout Northwest Indiana, touching tens of thousands of people.

On Thursday, family and friends gathered at the Indiana Welcome Center to celebrate the life and legacy of these men called giants in Northwest Indiana as the 69th and 70th inductees to the South Shore Wall of Legends. BP Whiting Business Unit sponsors the South Shore Wall of Legends where portraits of homegrown heroes, inventors and visionaries showcase the values of Exploration, Courage, Creativity and Innovation.

This is about greatness. Not just to recognize it, but to push it forward. Thats our responsibility, said John Davies, founder and coordinator of this annual project.

It is too important for one generation. It must continue, Davies said, recognizing six high school students and members of the ECIER Foundation who sat in the front row of the auditorium.

As members of the audience learned, Smith joined the U.S. Army at the beginning of World War II and was assigned to the 477th Bomber Group, part of an experimental program at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to train African-American pilots. They would later become famous as the Tuskegee Airmen.

At the end of the war, Lieutenant Smith and other Tuskegee Airmen officers were arrested and court-martialed for entering an officers club which was off-limits to African-Americans. Smith and 30 fellow officers chose imprisonment rather than honorable discharge. Thurgood Marshall, who would later become the first African-American Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, filed a petition with the Supreme Court to free the imprisoned Tuskegee Airmen. President Harry S. Truman ordered all of the airmen freed and honorably discharged.

After the war, Smith returned to Gary where he began a distinguished career spanning nearly 50 years as an educator and active community member.

He is a legend of America, said Gregory S. Reising, who nominated Smith for the honor.

Ken Rapier, president of the Chicago DODO Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., addressed the students, encouraging them to look in the mirror every morning and repeat the Tuskegee slogan  With courage and determination you can overcome adversity.

Dean White cast a legacy across Northwest Indiana as an entrepreneur, visionary and philanthropist, Davies said about the billionaire who helped develop expanses of land through hotel construction, ownership and management, defining the skyline in many cities, including Indianapolis.

Whites youngest child, Craig White, flew in for the ceremony from Park City, Utah, and remembered his father having a twinkle in his eye.

Craig White recalled driving around Crown Point with his dad, who pointed out areas he wanted to development or had already developed.

I wondered, When does this guy ever sleepHe was driven and he loved to see development, Craig White said.

Among the qualities that made Dean White a great man was his ability to surround himself by very talented people. He wasnt intimidated by talented people Craig White said. He was a total architect. He knew where to put people, to put people in the right place. He was directing a symphony of talented people.

During the induction ceremony, Jason Besse, of Cedar Lake, a first-year nursing student at Purdue University Northwest received the 14th annual Legends Scholar award. The $1,000 scholarship from First Midwest Bank and managed by Legacy Foundation honors students who exemplify the Legends values in striving for a college degree, Davies said.

We have been honored to be part of this great project in sponsoring an annual scholarship to shape the next generation who are the future of our region, said Marti Rivas-Ramos, First Midwest Bank vice president and Munster branch manager.

A panel of judges representing the seven counties of Northwest Indiana selected Smith and White in a tradition that dates back to 2004. Thats when the Wall of Legends was established to celebrate global difference makers across all sectors of the public, private and nonprofit space, Davies said.

Legends judges included Speros Batistatos, Ben Clement, John Friend, Jon Gold, Tom Hargrove, Bob Heisse, Bill Keith, Joe Medellin, Dave Ryan, Michael Suggs, Maggie Spartz, of LaPorte County, and Charlie Weaver, from Starke County, who also represents Jasper, Newton and Pulaski Counties.

Stephen McShane, curator of the Calumet Regional Archives housed at Indiana University Northwest, volunteers as a Legends consultant.
WASHINGTON  After weeks of quarrels, qualms and then eleventh-hour horse-trading, Republicans revealed the details of their huge national tax rewrite late Friday  along with announcements of support that all but guarantee approval to give President Donald Trump the Christmas legislative triumph he's been aching for.

The legislation would slash tax rates for big business and lower levies on the richest Americans in a massive $1.5 trillion bill that the GOP plans to muscle through Congress next week before its year-end break. Benefits for most other taxpayers would be smaller.

"This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening," House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told rank-and-file members in a conference call. "Most critics out there didn't think it could happen. ... And now we're on the doorstep of something truly historic."

According to the 1,097-page bill released late Friday, today's 35 percent rate on corporations would fall to 21 percent, the crown jewel of the measure for many Republicans. Trump and GOP leaders had set 20 percent as their goal, but added a point to free money for other tax cuts that won over wavering lawmakers in final talks.

The legislation represents the first major legislative achievement for the GOP after nearly a full year in control of Congress and the White House. It's the widest-ranging reshaping of the tax code in three decades and is expected to add to the nation's $20 trillion debt. The tax cuts are projected to add $1.46 trillion over a decade.

The bill would repeal an important part of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act  the requirement that all Americans have health insurance or face a penalty  as the GOP looks to unravel a law it failed to repeal and replace this past summer.

Only on Friday did Republicans cement the needed support for the overhaul, securing endorsements from wavering senators.

Marco Rubio of Florida relented in his high-profile opposition after negotiators expanded the tax credit that parents can claim for their children. He said he would vote for the measure next week.

Rubio had been holding out for a bigger child credit for low-income families. After he got it, he tweeted that the change was "a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker."

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the only Republican to vote against the Senate version earlier this month, made the surprise announcement that he would back the legislation. Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly warned that the nation's growing debt is the most serious threat to national security.

"I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make," Corker said.

The White House said Trump "looks forward to fulfilling the promise he made to the American people to give them a tax cut by the end of the year."

The bill embodies a longstanding Republican philosophy that a substantial tax break for businesses will trigger economic growth and job creation for Americans in a trickle-down economy.

Skeptical Democrats are likely to oppose the legislation unanimously.

"Under this bill, the working class, middle class and upper middle class get skewered while the rich and wealthy corporations make out like bandits," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "It is just the opposite of what America needs, and Republicans will rue the day they pass this."

The bill would drop today's 39.6 percent top rate on individuals to 37 percent. The standard deduction  used by around two-thirds of households  would be nearly doubled, to $24,000 for married couples.

The $1,000-per-child tax deduction would grow to $2,000, with up to $1,400 available in IRS refunds for families who owe little or no taxes. Parents would have to provide children's Social Security numbers to receive the child tax credit, a measure intended to deny the credit to people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Those who itemize would lose some deductions. The deduction that millions use in connection with state and local income, property and sales taxes would be capped at $10,000. That's especially important to residents of high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California. Deductions for medical expenses that lawmakers once considered eliminating would be retained.

The bill would allow homeowners to deduct interest only on the first $750,000 of a new mortgage, down from the current limit of $1 million.

People who inherit fortunes would get a big break. The bill would double the exemption, meaning the estate tax would apply only to the portion of an estate over $22 million for married couples.

Members of a House-Senate conference committee signed the final version of the legislation Friday, sending it to the two chambers for final passage next week. They have been working to blend the different versions passed by the two houses.

Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, including two ailing senators who have missed votes this past week.

John McCain of Arizona, who is 81, is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and 80-year-old Thad Cochran of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.
EAST CHICAGO  The EPA is sticking with its cleanup plan for the USS Lead Superfund site despite an increase in costs of nearly four times what was estimated in 2012 for two of the three residential zones.

The Environmental Protection Agency initially estimated it would cost $29.9 million for cleanup across all three zones, including $22.8 million for zones 2 and 3.

The estimated cost in zones 2 and 3 has ballooned to $84.9 million, according to a proposed explanation of significant differences document.

The $84.9 million estimate does not include costs for zone 1 or indoor dust removal.

EPA put excavation work in zone 1  the site of the now-empty West Calumet Housing Complex  on hold while it updates a feasibility study for the area. EPA said work on the study was still underway.

Because the remedy  not just the cost  for zone 1 will change, any increase in cost will be covered by a Record of Decision amendment, EPA said.

"In addition, there may be changes in the land use for some areas of zone 1 that currently house a former elementary school," the document said.

EPA said indoor dust actions are being conducted under its removal authorities, while soil excavations are being performed under its remedial authorities. The agency did not determine a need to consolidate the two actions, a spokeswoman said.

A 60-day comment period will run from Dec. 18 to Feb. 16. The agency also is planning a yet-to-be-scheduled public meeting in January.

No change in plan from 2012

In a 2012 Record of Decision, EPA selected a cleanup plan calling for excavating residential soil with lead and arsenic concentrations of 400 parts per million and 26 ppm, respectively; disposing of contaminated soil at a certified, off-site landfill; placing a visual barrier over contaminated soil found deeper than 2 feet; and restoring properties to as near pre-remedial conditions as possible.

"EPA would have selected this remedy even if the projected costs in 2012 had been more consistent with the current estimate," the document says.

EPA Region 5 Acting Administrator Robert Kaplan previously told The Times excavations in some cases have done deeper than 2 feet. No protective barriers have been placed on any properties at the USS Lead site, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The current plan  dubbed alternative 4A  is protective of human health and cost effective even without excavation deeper than 2 feet, EPA said. Native soil, which is not contaminated, rarely is found any deeper than 2 feet.

"That said, the (potentially responsible parties) who funded the work in both zones this year have decided  on a case-by-case basis  that they were interested in paying for the increased cost of digging below 24 inches at a limited number of properties to avoid the need to implement institutional controls," EPA said.

Debbie Chizewer, an attorney at Northwestern University Pritzker Law Schools Environmental Law Clinic, disagreed that the current plan adequately protects human health.

The most important goal of the USS Lead Superfund Site remediation should be protecting human health," said Chizewer, part of a team of attorneys working pro bono on behalf of residents. "Sadly, even with the additional dollars spent, the cleanup plan is inadequate.

The plan, as laid out in the 2012 Record of Decision, does not adequately protect human health. For instance, it does not eliminate all the risk stemming from indoor lead dust and does not address contaminated groundwater seepage in residents basements, she said.

Residents have raised concerns about indoor dust, because EPA has limited testing to homes where elevated lead levels are found in outside soil. It's possible some residents might have elevated lead levels inside, but they won't receive indoor testing because outdoor levels were below EPA's threshold.

Residents also have questioned whether seepage and flooding could be carrying contaminants into their basements. EPA is currently conducting a limited study focused on flooding in the area.

Chizewer represents several residents who have been pushing to intervene in a 2014 consent decree, which set aside $26 million for the cleanup in zones 1 and 3. U.S. District Judge Philip Simon scheduled oral arguments in the case for 1 p.m. Jan. 16.

More known about industry history

According to the document, EPA's original cost estimate was based on a sample size of 7.4 percent of all properties in the three zones. The agency has now sampled 90 percent of properties in zones 2 and 3.

"EPA has determined that the number of properties requiring remediation, the size of those properties, and the extent of contamination at those properties are all greater than what was originally estimated," the document says.

The total estimated volume of soil to be excavated has increased to about 88,000 cubic yards from 47,000 cubic yards. The increase in soil quantity, which will drive up construction and contingency costs, will require a longer period of remediation oversight. EPA also has determined the cost to excavate and replace soil has increased to $471 per cubic yard, from $115 in 2012.

The document also includes a more detailed analysis of the site's background than previous documents in the administrative record.

The document lists three primary sources for contamination at the site, including USS Lead, a now-demolished facility in zone 1 owned and operated by subsidiaries of the Anaconda Copper and Mining Co., and the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours facility to the southeast.

The Record of Decision incorrectly stated the USS Lead facility was built to produce copper, the document says. The facility was built in 1906 to refine lead bullion that was shipped from Midvale, Utah, to East Chicago.

The Anaconda property included a lead refinery built in 1912 that refined lead bullion shipped from Toole, Utah; a white lead plant constructed in 1919 that produced ingredients for lead paint; and a zinc oxide plant added to the facility in 1922. Refining operations at the Anaconda facility opened in 1946, but secondary smelting and white lead production continued into the 1950s.

EPA recently opened a 60-day public comment period for a proposed $22.6 million plan to clean up and mitigate exposures at the former DuPont industrial site at 5215 Kennedy Ave.
As sheriff of Porter County, I have grown accustomed to Porter County being one of the fastest-growing counties in Indiana.

The growth south of U.S. 30 is unprecedented, and other areas north are experiencing similar growth. Yet everyone wants to be safe and secure in their homes, at work or shopping with the family.

What sets Porter County apart from most counties in the state is most of the county is still unincorporated. Those areas expect and deserve quick response times when a police officer is needed. We also have all come to an agreement that heroin is a major epidemic in Porter County and is directly related to most, if not all, crime.

Nevertheless, we are lucky to live in a county that supports law enforcement and all first responders. County government, including the Porter County Council and commissioners, have a lot on their plate yet have worked together in the past couple years to give county police and jail officers a well-deserved raise and the necessary equipment.

I am grateful for their support. However, if someone were to suggest a public safety tax, most people, especially elected officials who want to be re-elected, would immediately give a thousand reasons why it would not be a good idea.

But given the current state of affairs, law enforcement and fire departments have been in desperate need of a training facility.

Finding a suitable location and facility has been a constant struggle. But this struggle is over with the creation of the Multi-Agency Academic Cooperative training facility for first responders.

This state-of-the-art-training facility is the result of the generosity and commitment of McMillan Family Foundation, formed by Stewart McMillan, chairman and CEO of Task Force Tips.

In the past few months, the Porter County Sheriffs Office has conducted physical training for the entire department as well as SWAT Training and K-9 training.

SWAT Team commander, Lt. Wiseman, brought the entire SWAT team out recently to the MAAC for a full day of training and stated, This state-of-the art facility has it all. The trainers can immerse our people in real-world applications by reconfiguring rooms and using different entry points.

Chief Stewart McMillan has fulfilled a vision to develop a training center that provides emergency responder preparedness, safety and better training opportunities.

McMillan has been a gracious host, and all of the public servants in the District 1 area should be grateful for his support. Thank you to McMillan and the MAAC foundation for helping the first responders to better prepare ourselves for the jobs we love to do.

On behalf of the entire sheriffs office, I want to express our sincere appreciation.

This training represents not only a legacy to his father, Chief Clyde McMillan, but also a much-needed cooperative effort to work with government and first responders.
Lake County Councilman Jamal Washington's second alleged domestic violence case within two years is raising all sorts of questions with which local government must grapple.

The important need to continue curtailing patronage hiring and nepotism in county government should be at the top of those priorities.

Reporter Bill Dolan revealed to Times readers earlier this week that Washington pushed for the recent hiring of his cousin to the Lake County E-911 dispatch. A Washington political ally also was hired on the very same day.

Those two employees appear to be classic examples of patronage hiring.

One was a cousin, Kamaria Buckley, who just last week prompted criminal charges that Washington grabbed her by the neck, slammed her to the floor and threatened her with a hammer at Washington's Merrillville residence, where the cousin was living. Those charges are pending in Lake Criminal Court, and Washington remains jailed.

Its important to note Buckley later recanted her statements to police, but not before telling police she initially was reluctant to report the incident because she feared Washington would hold sway over her job as a county dispatcher.

Current E-911 Director Mark Swiderski acknowledged Washington pushed for the hiring of his cousin as an emergency dispatcher. But Swiderski claims both Washington's cousin and another dispatcher, Washington ally and Gary City Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade, were hired on the same day based on qualifications.

Former E-911 Director Brian Hitchcock, however, said Washington's past pushes for patronage hiring at the emergency dispatch center were overt and unsettling.

Hitchcock said Washington appealed to Hitchcock to hire 20 or more people into the dispatch center. The former director also claimed that Washington, who as a county councilman helps set county department budgets, made overtures about the E-911 budget tied to the requested hiring.

"On one occasion, he said to me, 'You hire this person in, and I'll make your budget right,'" Hitchcock, who now leads an emergency dispatch center in Tennessee, told us earlier this week.

Hitchcock added that such patronage overtures were a big reason why he chose to leave the county last year.

We don't blame Hitchcock for leaving.

This type of patronage hiring behavior has been woven into the fabric of Region government and politics for far too long.

The Washington case should prompt county government in particular, but perhaps other levels of local government as well, to audit employee lists and hiring practices.

Taxpayers aren't paying elected officials to turn around and hire friends, family or political allies.

It's a tell-tale sign of bad government and a seeding for corruption.
Civil rights activist Andrew Young, former confidant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., will be the keynote speaker for Auburn Universitys annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast.

The event, one of several scheduled to commemorate Dr. King, is set for Monday from 7:30-9:30 a.m. at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. Tickets for the event can be purchased online here.

Young was elected to Congress in 1972 to represent Georgias 5th district, becoming the first African American elected from the South since Reconstruction. He was re-elected in 1974 and 1976. In 1977, Young became the first African American to be appointed United States ambassador to the United Nations. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter, he held the position until August 1979. Two years later, Young sought election as the mayor of Atlanta. He won and was re-elected in 1985. During his tenure as mayor, Young brought jobs and $70 billion in private investments to the city. He was also instrumental in bringing the Centennial Olympic Games to Atlanta in 1996.

He has since served on many organizations and, in 2003, established the Andrew J. Young Foundation. The foundation embodies Youngs philosophy of creative nonviolence and establishes a model and legacy of effective servant leadership for current and future leaders in Atlanta, America and the world. Young participates in frequent speaking engagements.

Hes been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NAACPs Springarn Medal, the Olympic Order and Frances Legion dhonneur, the nations greatest honor, as well as more than 100 honorary degrees. Young was recognized in 2011 for his contributions to American life and history with a Lifetime Emmy Award and the placement of his portrait on permanent exhibit of the Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery.

The scholarship breakfast commemorates the life and work of King and his ideals for peace and unity. Sponsored by the Office of Inclusion and Diversity, the Office of University Outreach and the East Alabama chapter of the National Forum for Black Administrators, the event is open to the public.
Two days after losing Alabama's special Senate election, Republican nominee Roy Moore has yet to concede the race to Democrat Doug Jones - even after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that he should.

"I think the president's position is pretty clear in his outreach to Doug Jones directly," Sanders said at Thursday's briefing with reporters. "He likes Doug Jones and looks forward to meeting him in person. and hopes that he will come and follow through on his commitment to work with the president on some things that they agree on."

Asked if President Donald Trump believed that Moore should give a concession speech, Sanders said that it "should have already taken place."

But Moore, who suggested on election night that the race would go to a recount, said in a Wednesday web video that late-counted ballots could change the results of the election.

"We have not received the final count to include military and provisional ballots," Moore said. "This has been a very close race, and we are awaiting certification by the secretary of state."

Moore, who lost by 20,715 votes, is not in a position to ask for a recount. Alabama law does not trigger a recount unless the margin between two candidates is less than 0.5 percent; according to the latest count by the Associated Press, the margin between Jones and Moore is 1.5 percent.

Since Tuesday night, Moore has received no official support from his party. The Republican Party of Alabama, which stood by Moore when national Republicans abandoned him, congratulated Jones on Wednesday. Sen. Luther Strange, R-Ala., who lost a bitter primary to Moore, also congratulated Jones "on a well-earned victory." In a Wednesday interview with AL.com, Jones said he had already had warm conversations with future Senate colleagues, and was looking at hiring a staff composed of "the best and the brightest."

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, who sided with Moore's campaign during several election controversies, has said that the election will be certified Dec. 28. But at the same time, Merrill's office has had to brush off conspiracy theories promoted by pro-Moore websites, which have suggested that the results were tainted by fraud.

One theory, which went viral before being debunked by Snopes.com, was that multiple black voters were caught trying to vote with fake IDs. (More than 95 percent of black voters supported Jones, giving him his winning margin.) Another, also debunked quickly, was that vans of illegal voters were seen somewhere in the state.

Merrill's office confirmed that there had been no actual reports of that kind of behavior. "There's a lot of misdirection that comes in around Election Day," said John Bennett, a spokesman for Merrill. "We got no reports that caused us enough concern to act against them." Alabama's voter ID law, which has survived tough legal challenges, had previously led to four convictions of voter impersonation.

But there were more theories, some of them tweeted at Moore when he shared his video. One suggested that people seen celebrating at Jones's party, who admitted coming in from out of state, might have voted illegally. (In a news clip, they clumsily said they had come to "vote and canvass together.")

Another, promoted by the conservative site Big League Politics, suggested that the election-night count - in which urban Mobile and Jefferson counties came in last, putting Jones in the lead - was suspicious. In the election's final days, Moore's campaign had cited an inaccurate Big League Politics story to claim that women who accused Moore of sexual assault had been found and directed to the media by Republican strategist Tim Miller; Moore's Twitter account shared the story after Breitbart News aggregated it.

Big League Politics also shared a rumor that went viral when posted by the Gateway Pundit, a conservative group blog that since the start of this year has sent a reporter to the White House briefing. Citing a post on Reddit by a user named Warren4Prez, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft told readers that "Democrat activists are calling on black voters in Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina to travel to Alabama to vote for the far-left candidate Doug Jones."

The post, published 28 days before the election, suggested just that. "African Americans in Mississippi: We need you to make a short trip to Alabama on Dec. 12 and vote against the right-wing Republican Senate candidate and child molester Roy Moore," wrote Warren4Prez.

But in an interview, the Redditor behind the post confirmed that it was intended "as an obvious troll."

"I was trying to get a rise out of alt-right people, and then they really went for it," said Warren4Prez, who spoke on the phone after proving that the account was theirs. "I got like 100 posts on Reddit, telling me I was being hated by everybody. Democrats started posting stuff accusing me of trying to discredit them."

Warren4Prez posted the fake request on political Reddit pages for each state that borders Alabama; it was removed from all but the Mississippi page. In an email, Hoft did not say whether he contacted Warren4Prez to verify the information, but he did point to an update at the bottom of the viral Gateway Pundit post.

"Liberals say these are fake Reddit posts(?)" Hoft wrote. "Regardless, the posts are still up on Reddit and the posters are still encouraging Democrats to cheat."

Moore, who insisted that allegations of past sexual misbehavior were "fake news," sometimes led supportive conservative media to awkward places. On election day, the One America News Network, which had run stories about Moore designed to exonerate him - one pointed out that an accuser's son had been a drug addict - informed viewers that Moore had won.

"We're being told that there are strong signs that the majority of voters have come out in support of the judge," OANN reported, before the polls in Alabama had closed. "We are unofficially announcing that Roy Moore has won this race."

The story was quickly deleted from OANN's website, but Jon Levine, a media editor at The Wrap, captured a video of the original broadcast.

In an earlier report, saved and published Tuesday by a Moore supporter, OANN correspondent Pearson Sharp cited campaign sources to report an "unexpected surge" of votes for Moore.

"They say that if even half these numbers continue throughout the day, that it will turn out to be a landslide for Moore," said Sharp. "We have reports that a number of people have been caught trying to sneak into voting booths and vote illegally. His campaign told me that most of the people who have been turned away so far have been across the state line in Mississippi. But they say that voting fraud hasn't been too much of a problem yet, and that only 50 people had been caught."

According to the Alabama Secretary of State's office, there were no credible reports of voter fraud.

David Weigel is a national political correspondent covering Congress and grassroots political movements.
Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has rejected a proposal by some MP to direct Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa to make a statement over bribery claims against him.

According to details of a criminal bribery case being prosecuted in the United States, Kutesa allegedly received a $500,000 bribe to help a Chinese firm obtain business advantages in the energy and banking sectors including potential acquisition of a Ugandan bank while serving as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga on Tuesday this week raised a matter of national importance asking that Parliament through the speaker summons Kutesa to explain to the country the role he played in that bribery case to help a Chinese energy company to get unlicensed oil blocks in Uganda.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga

But Kadaga instead told the MPs to refer that issue to Financial Intelligence Authority.

Lodge a complaint as a concerned citizen. If the offence was committed here, I would have no problem. But I have no control over another jurisdiction, Kadaga said.

Are you now going to interrogate the state attorney in New York, really? she added.

Although Karuhanga had also requested that Kutesa be investigated and brought to book as per Parliament Rules of Procedure, Kadaga said it would be immature for Parliament to indulge into the merits of the case since the laws of Uganda and those of USA differ.

"It is still premature at this stage to commence investigations because we don't know whether he is going to be a witness in the case, let us wait for the outcomes of the proceedings in the New York court," Kadaga said.

She however said that she would go through the documents availed before Parliament and later make her final ruling on the matter.

"The charge sheet tabled by Hon. Karuhanga relates to the two persons that I have named but the honourable Sam Kutesa is not charged, I have established that the alleged persons were arrested and are being tried in the USA judicial service system," Kadaga said.

But Karuhanga argued that Parliament needed to direct Kutesa to resign besides setting up a special committee to investigate the bribery allegations.

It would be prudent to allow an impartial free and fair investigation without any influence by Kutesa utilising his position as minister to curtail any effective investigation."

Lwemiyaga MP Theodore Ssekikubo also argued it was necessary to give Kutesa opportunity to explain himself.

They didnt give an opportunity to the minister himself to get on record and if it was irrelevant as my colleague want us to believe, there is no way the foreign affairs would have been prompted to make denials, Ssekikubo said.

At the end of the day honourable members you should know that its not honourable Sam Kutesa at trial but its Uganda at trial, he added.

namuloki16@gmail.com
The Dutch Ambassador to Uganda, Henk Jan Bakker, says Ugandans deserve good governance as key in their wellbeing and development.



Ambassador Bakker made the remarks while launching the 2016/17 Local Government councils scorecard assessment in Kampala.

Ambassador Bakker, also spoke in his capacity as board chair of the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), which sponsors the scorecard assessment.



Good governance is about promoting eight pillars of governance, namely accountability, transparency, rule of law, efficiency, effectiveness, inclusiveness, among others.

Gulu district chairperson, Martin Ojara Mapenduzi emerged best chairperson

The scorecard, which measures five variables - legislative role, accountability, planning and budgeting, monitoring service delivery and contact with electorate - covers 35 districts.



In the scorecard, Gulu emerged best district, and its district chairperson, Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, too emerged best chairperson.



Ambassador Bakker says after 25 years, decentralisation, as a policy, has had mixed results. He says while decentralisation has increased local participation and sense of local ownership, increased school enrollment and provision of services like clean and safe water, studies also show that the successes have not been proportionate to the massive resources and funds used.



Bakker says challenges like inadequate financing, corruption, inequality, nepotism, poor local revenue mobilisation, conflicts, among others, continue to curtail the effectiveness and efficiency of decentralization and local governments.



Ambassador Bakker says it is crucial that issues raised in the scorecard, like need for transparency, accountability, responsive governments, and effectiveness among others are followed. He said ACODE's objectives of policies that work rhyme with DGF's mission of deepening good governance.



Ambassador Bakker encourages peer-to-peer learning and visits by among districts as one way of deepening good governance, citing the best farmer competition which has seen winners transforming into leaders and exemplary farmers.



ACODE executive director, Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, says the scorecard is not meant to name-and-shame but rather to strengthen democratic decentralization and encourage leadership that is responsive to citizens' demands.



Dr Bainomugisha says a key policy problem is how to improve the citizens' demands for public goods and services and governments' responsiveness in supplying, effectively and efficiently, the public goods and services demanded.



He noted that districts and leaders that performed poorly in previous assessments transformed into better performers after following on their weaknesses. The best district chairperson, Gulu's Mapenduzi, says they use the scorecard to fine-tune their engagements with the citizens.



Luweero district chairperson, Ronald Ndawula, one of the top performers, says he uses the feat to prove to voters his ability to perform and deliver, a strong reason why he has been reelected.
Medics have recommended that presidential candidates as well as other leaders be subjected to full mental and physical examinations to ascertain their level of thinking, recognition of challenges and planning abilities to lead.



According to the medics under Uganda Medical Association (UMA), as an association, they are ready to offer the medical tests at no cost.

UMA was consulted by the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee to give their views on whether a 75-year-old person is physically and mentally fit enough to perform leadership roles.

This was in relation to the age limit bill expected to be tabled for the second and third reading in Parliament next week. The bill seeks to scrap presidential age limits currently capped between 35 and 75 years.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga meeting with members of the Uganda Medical Association

Led by the UMA president Dr Anthony Obuku Ekwaro, the doctors said they had presented their report to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee chairperson Jacob Oboth Oboth and a copy to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga as well.



The doctors met Kadaga at Parliament yesterday over unfulfilled commitments made by government last month in a trade-off for the doctors to call off their strike.



In their report, the doctors argue that subjecting leaders to mental and physical examination gives voters confidence on how well their leaders will reason and perform their tasks.



We are making an important recommendation that anybody who intends to lead this country and leadership anywhere should be mentally assessed as well as physical assessed and this should serve to all other leaders and we are ready to provide this service free of charge, Obuku said.



Obuku however said that as doctors, they do not have the authority to answer a political question like whether at 75 years, someone has the capacity to still perform effectively.



For us as scientists we are unlikely to have authority to answer such a political question and as we know, age is a spectrum, Obuku said.



We looked at the speed of information processing as one grows old, which reflects the efficiency of cognitive operations, attention as one grows old, the capacity for processing information with issues to do with memory and the executive functions like regulation of behavior among others, Obuku added.



Obuku noted that their role as doctors was to answer to a scientific question meant to empower parliamentarians to make a decision in regard to the age, but not giving a political answer on whether President Museveni at 75 years can or cannot lead.



In their report, Obuku said they also focused on reasoning abilities, language function, and intelligence among other things.



We have however concluded that following the scientific evidences available, people aspiring for highest office in the land should be subjected to tests, he said.

Uganda Medical Association meets Speaker Rebecca Kadaga to brief her about the recent #DoctorsStrike and pending issues ? @bamulanzeki pic.twitter.com/96JcJSYGiC  The Observer (@observerug) December 14, 2017



namuloki16@gmail.com
The Assistant registrar of the Civil division of the High court, Joy Kabagye has dismissed an application in which three opposition politicians were seeking interim orders to stop Parliament from debating the age limit bill without input from the general population.



Three opposition leaders; former presidential candidate Dr Abed Bwanika of the People's Development Party (PDP), Asuman Basalirwa of Jeema and John Ken Lukyamuzi of the Conservative party filed a case on Monday against the attorney general, arguing that Parliament should consult citizens through a referendum for their views on the lifting of presidential age limit currently capped between 35 and 75 years.

MP Raphael Magyezi tabling the age limit bill earlier

"Court can't bar Parliament from executing its mandate," Kabagye ruled, adding, "More so in a contest were the out come of the bill isn't known."

She concluded that the issue raised by the applicants are substantive in nature which cannot be handled in the interim application but rather the main application which will be heard on February 6, 2018 by Justice Oguli-Oumo.

Bwanika and his fellow applicants rushed to court after the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, set Monday, December 18 as the day when Parliament will deliberate on the proposed constitutional amendment of Article 102 (b) to lift the presidential age limit bill.



Kadaga, while presiding over Parliament on Thursday, intimated to the legislators that she had received both the main and minority reports from the Legal and parliamentary affairs committee on the largely unpopular and controversial bill.



She directed the Clerk to Parliament to circulate both reports to members to study them over the weekend for debate on Monday at 9:00am.



When the case was laid before Kabagye the assistant registrar of the Civil division of the High court, Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, the petitioners lawyer, implored court to stop Parliament in the interim because his clients have filed main an application challenging moves by Parliament set to be heard by Justice Margret Oguli-Oumo early next year.



Rwakufuuzi said that if court doesnt stop Parliament and consequently the Members of Parliament proceed to amend the Constitution on Monday, then the main case will be rendered nugatory or inconsequential.



If Parliament proceeds to amend the Constitution without subjecting the matter to a referendum as the politicians are seeking, Rwakafuuzi said it would have usurped the powers of the people which are enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution which stipulates, All power belongs to the people who shall exercise their sovereignty in accordance with this Constitution.



Rwakafuuzi who was aided by his fellow lawyer Luyimbazi Nalukoola made the case that Ugandans generally might suffer irreparable damage if Parliament proceeds to remove the age caps because such a move can easily plunge the country into civil war akin to what President Museveni waged in the Luweero jungles in the early 1980s which left millions dead.



Your honour [Kabagye] thats the irreparable damage we are talking about, nothing can atone to that, Rwakafuuzi said referring to the likelihood of a breakout of a civil war, So this court has to stop that.



State Attorney Johnson Natuhweera from the Attorney Generals chambers, earlier in rebuttal, asked Kabagye to dismiss the application contending by court issuing the interim orders asked by the politicians, it would be interfering in Parliaments work of making laws.



Natuhweera rationalized whats going on in Parliament as normal since the bill was referred to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee and now its being referred back to the House for the second reading and possible voting on the matter.



In defending Parliament's actions of not subjecting the matter to referendum, Natuhweera cited Article 94 which stipulates that, Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, Parliament may make rules to regulate its own procedure, including the procedure of its committees.



In their main case before Justice Oguli-Oumo, the opposition leaders contend that it is only through a referendum that citizens can fully participate in the political affairs of their country but the Electoral Commission (EC) and Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) have since frustrated their efforts to ably push for a referendum.



Bwanika in his affidavit in support of the application says that he had notified EC of the need to hold a referendum on the issue of the presidential age limit in June 2017, but he only got a response four months later in October after the Igara East Member of Parliament Raphael Magyezi had tabled his bill.



Upon receipt of Form D from EC to collect the required 1.5 million signatures from people who were very enthusiastic about the need of the referendum from most parts of Uganda, this process was frustrated by police that arrested and confiscated over 40,000 signatures, making it impossible for me to submit them on time yet parliament will debate on the matter this week, Bwanika said.



Bwanika contended that unless Court orders that Parliament temporarily suspends discussing the age limit amendment bill, the citizens rights to directly participate in the governance of their country will be violated.



The trio want court to compel the UCC to provide a USSD code on which they can collect electoral signatures and also compel the Electoral Commission to accept and consider the said signatures for purposes of holding a referendum.



EC has so far rebuffed prayers to hold referendum on the matter on grounds that the law on referendum only provides for collection of signatures in a traditional way for purposes of display and that UCC says the process will be marred by fraud.



dkiyonga@observer.ug
Remember that time when micro pigs were all the rage and made everyone go ooh and aah? Well, now seems to be the time of micro cows and the adorable tiny cattle are proving wonderful pets. There are very few micro-cattle breeders around the world. and Dustin Pillard, who has been breeding them on his farm in Iowa, is probably the most well-known. He has been featured in newspapers and TV news specials numerous times since he began breeding micro cattle in 1995, but his miniature cows are now the smallest theyve ever been.

Dustin Pillard, a 46-year-old father of three, grew up in the city but regularly spent time on his grandparents farm near Cedar Rapids. In 1992, while in college, he attended a cattle auction where he saw micro-cows for the first time. He was fascinated with them, so three years later, when he became the owner of a 10-acre ranch, he knew he had to populate it with the tiny creatures.He bought five animals and started what is known today as the Oxen Ridge Miniature Cattle farm.

Photo: YouTube screengrab

Through selective breeding, Pillard is producing cows and bulls whose average height is about 33 inches (84cm). They come in various colors, featuring representatives of Texas Longhorns, Texas Shorthorns, Jerseys, Dexters, Herefords, Angus, Zebus, and Watusis. The farmer sells 10 to 20 animals a year, mostly to North Americans who raise them as pets, but now buyers from Europe, Mexico and Argentina have started showing interest.



According to Pillard, the tiny cattle very much resemble dogs in temperament: Many of them have personalities like a dog. They love treats and enjoy being outside. They run around like a dog, they like people and are calm and sociable. They also love attention.

Selective breeding has been known to result in health issues, as is the case with some dog and cat breeds, but Pillard claims that the miniature cows and bulls that come out of this ranch are perfectly healthy.

The family love their herd and have a specific goal in mind.

Our goal is to have a nice herd of 25 to 30 animals that are all under 36 inches and all less than 500 pounds [227kg]  and lots of color, Pillard says.

Asked what will happen if people lose interest in his micro-cows, Pillard had this to say: I like them. If nobody else does, that doesnt really bother me. Were breeding just for the novelty end of it, for a small pet-type  for somebody who has a few acres out there and wants something different out there besides sheep.



If you suddenly feel the urge to furnish your yard with teensy cattle, make sure you have at least some $1,000 to spend  thats the starting price for a bull calf. It may be harder to get a cow because Pillard keeps most of them to grow the herd.

If you think these little guys are cute, you should probably check out the show calves of Lautner Farm as well. Their fluffy cattle are known as the models of the bovine world.


Kelly Cutrone

Fashion PR pro Kelly Cutrone has charged hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons with a rape attempt in 1991.

She's among a dozen women who have alleged Simmons, who founded Def Jam Recordings, launched Phat Farm clothing line and created Rush Communicationsone of the nation's biggest African-American owned media companieswith rape or sexual assault.

Cutrone told the New York Post's Page Six on Dec. 14 Simmons was a casual acquaintance who misled her into going to his apartment and then tried to take her clothes off. She fought him off but "the energy of going to the police and pressing charges against him was overwhelming to me."

Cutrone is only going public now because she's upset that Simmons launched #NotMe on Instagram for men to refute sexual accusations. "It's a call to every man who wants the right to abuse women to continue," she told the Post.

Via his lawyer, Simmons released a statement to "vehemently deny" the charges levied against him. "These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all my relations have been consensual," he said.

Cutrone founded New York-based People's Revolution, which has an office in Los Angeles, in 1996. It has worked for Bulgari, Paco Rabane, Longchamp and Valentino.



Earlier, she helped run Cutrone & Weinberg, which counted Frank Sinatra and Eartha Kitt as clients. Cutrone has starred in MTV's "The Hills" and America's Next Top Model."
The Environmental Protection Agency has hired Definers Public Affairs, which was founded by GOP insider Matt Rhoades, to monitor media coverage of it and its embattled head Scott Pruitt.

The no-bid contract covers media monitoring and newsclip collection and is worth $120K for DA.

Rhodes was campaign manager for Romney-Ryan 2012 and had earlier served as VP at DCI Group and research director for George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

(L to R) Joe Pounder & Matt Rhoades

Joe Pounder, who was senior advisor for Marco Rubio's presidential effort and rapid response director for the Romney and John McCain White House runs, is DPA's president.

Pruitt has taken plenty of heat for his close ties to the energy sector and frequent trips using military and private flights.

He returned from a four-day visit to Morocco on Dec. 13, where he talked with government officials about importing natural gas and areas of "continued cooperation," according to an EPA release.

The Energy Dept and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, not the EPA, maintain oversight of the export of American natural gas.
Jared Kushner

The legal team representing Jared Kushner, White House senior advisor and President Trump's son-in-law, is looking to hire a crisis PR firm.

Abbe Lowell, Kushner's attorney, today confirmed the search to the Washington Post, saying he's looking for crisis counsel to represent all his high-profile clients.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has been probing Kushner's dealings with former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who is cooperating with the investigation into Russian meddling in the US elections.

Lowell has contacted at least two firms about working for Kushner.

In August, the family business of Kushner hired crisis-savvy Finsbury of WPP following reports that federal prosecutors were probing the financing of some of some properties of Kushner Cos.
The Trauma Assessment Clinic at Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore (MRHT) has been highly commended at this years Health Service Excellence Awards.

Over 300 projects from all around the country entered the awards, which took place last night at Farmleigh in Dublins Phoenix Park. Eleven were shortlisted for final section, including the Trauma Assessment Clinic. Minister for Health Simon Harris TD was in attendance.

The Trauma Assessment Clinic has introduced a new care pathway for patients at MRHT aimed at improving the patients experience of care, by ensuring they are treated in the fastest time in the most appropriate setting.

So far, the Trauma Assessment Clinic pilot project has seen a total of 1,668 patients. Of these, 30% are discharged at the initial stage, 40% are referred on to an appropriate clinic or a follow up trauma clinic, and 30% are referred onto physiotherapy services.

This means that 60% of patients do not need to attend the fracture clinic and can be discharged at a much earlier stage. This is a big improvement from how patients were previously treated, with 100% of patients attending hospital clinics. Now, patients are getting the care they need at an earlier stage and only those who need follow-up care are being referred on to other clinics. Patients who do need follow-up care can now be seen quicker and more efficiently, either in a clinic or a physiotherapy service.

Consultant orthopaedic surgeon and lead of the initiative, Dr Eoin Sheehan, said, we are delighted to be highly commended at this years Health Service Excellence Awards.

Our process works. It reduces the amount of time a patient attends a clinic, freeing up valuable clinical time for patients with more serious injuries and making more time for the elective schedules. Patients with fractures who present at Tullamore Hospitals Emergency Department are initially assessed; those with the simplest injuries are provided with information on their treatment and sent home, with medical follow-up guaranteed within 24 hours.

The Trauma Assessment Clinic is a new care pathway for patients at MRHT aimed at improving the patients experience of care, by ensuring they are treated in the fastest time in the most appropriate setting. I would like to acknowledge the support we have received from hospital management, the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, and the National Clinical Programme for Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery. The opportunities are endless with this model of clinical care and its simple format is easily transferable to another speciality or hospital site."

Also commenting, Orlagh Claffey, General Manager of MRHT, said: We are very pleased with the Trauma Assessment Clinics commendation at this years Health Service Excellence Awards.

It is a great result for the team. We have a dedicated team of expert clinical staff who have worked hard to get this project off the ground. The results speak for themselves. The project has dramatically improved the patient experience, something we at Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore are always working to do. It has also reduced the time patients spend in the hospital and freed up staff so they can see to more patients in need.

The Trauma Assessment Clinic is run by consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeons at MRHT. The service uses a team approach which includes a consultant, a junior doctor, a clinical nurse specialist and a physiotherapist to review each patients case. This method streamlines the care experience for patients and maximises efficiencies in treatment.

On arriving at the Emergency Department, each patient with an injury is treated to a recognised protocol. The patient is given information and a splint or cast, followed up by a phone call from the orthopaedic team. Within 24 hours, the patients x-rays and notes are assessed by the orthopaedic consultant. The patient is then called and advised on their planned treatment.
An Offaly student was a member of the team which won the2017 Bank Of Ireland TY Academy in NUIG

Vivienne Feeley represented the SHS Tullamore in the Bank of Ireland TY Academy in NUIG. Along with Vivienne, the team comprised students from Galway city and Athlone.

Four hundred transition students from all around Ireland participate in the Academy annually.

The Bank of Ireland TY Academy offers students a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn three core skills; team building  how to work with others, innovation  how to think about a business and therefore secure their own employment and finally, pitching  how to position a business or an idea to a group of investors.

The Academy was run in UL, UCC, NUIG and DCU. Each team comprised four students from various different schools who worked together to develop ideas from concept to delivery and presented their project to and experienced judging panel comprising business people, representatives from Bank of Ireland and academic experts.

Vivienne's team took first prize with their business called The Equality Editions. She will go on to represent the SHS in the national final in the New Year.



The judges in the photo Michael Campion from NUIG and Lucy Murray from Bank of Ireland with the winning team
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska plans to create a new parent company called GoodLife Partners Inc. to enhance its efforts to reduce health care costs and improve its clients health.

The change, subject to approval by the Nebraska Department of Insurance and Blue Cross policyholders, would separate its insurance company from its non-insurance businesses under the new GoodLife mutual holding company, meaning it would be owned by Blue Cross policyholders.

The existing insurance company, still under the Blue Cross brand, would convert from mutual ownership to a stock company, 100 percent owned by GoodLife, a name derived from the states The Good Life motto.

GoodLife also would own ventures including Blue Cross Think Aksarben clinic and a business incubator called Genesys Innovations, plus investments it already has made or would make in the future.

The change would not affect existing health plan contracts, benefits or monthly premiums, Blue Cross said in letters to be mailed today to policyholders.

The same board of directors and staff would operate the insurance company and the holding company, with no changes in salaries, said Steve Martin, president and chief executive.

Martin said in an interview that the holding company structure would let the nonprofit company be more nimble and adaptive in investing in and developing health care-related businesses.

Our whole mission is to improve health care, make it more efficient, higher quality, higher consumer satisfaction, un-complicate health care and lower the costs, Martin said. To do that, we need to be a little more than an insurance company. ... I believe we can solve this through innovation.

The non-insurance side of the company would have access to some new sources of capital, he said, and could ally with other companies without merging them into the insurance business. Money from one side could be shifted to the other, he said, but any such transfers would be subject to Department of Insurance scrutiny.

Some current Blue Cross ventures would move right away to the non-insurance side of the holding company, Martin said, and others would move later to avoid some tax-related costs.

Close regulation of the insurance business means that it can be difficult to make investments or start new ventures. Under its current structure, he said, Blue Cross has missed some opportunities.

In recent years, Blue Cross has sought ways to encourage its clients to get better primary care and to find systems that avoid mistakes, coordinate medical care and keep costs down while providing high-quality care, he said.

Several other Blue Cross affiliates have adopted mutual holding company forms, and non-Blue insurance companies have done the same, including Ameritas Life in Lincoln and the former Guarantee Mutual Life Co. in Omaha.

Guarantee Mutual was sold to a larger company, but Martin said there are no such plans for Blue Cross.

The Department of Insurance will hold a Jan. 22 public hearing on Blue Cross reorganization plan, as required by state law. The department oversees insurance companies, in part to make sure they have the money to pay claims and other obligations.

If the department approves the plan, Blue Cross policyholders would vote March 26 at their annual meeting. Approval requires a two-thirds vote of eligible policyholders.

* * *

Blue Cross process

Public hearing, 10 a.m. Jan. 22, Room 534, Golds Building, 1033 O St., Lincoln. Send written material and speaker requests by Jan. 18 to the Nebraska Department of Insurance, 941 O St., Lincoln 68501, or call 402-471-2201.

Blue Cross annual policyholder meeting: March 28.

Who can vote: Individual plan holders; fully insured groups (one policyholder per group); clients with Medicare supplement, Advantage and Part D plans; and stop-loss insurance holders. People in self-insured employer plans are not eligible.

Effective date, if approved: July 1.
LINCOLN  A coalition of Nebraska newspapers and broadcasters is going to court to fight a decision by state prison officials to withhold public records that identify its execution drug supplier.

Media of Nebraska Inc. filed a complaint in intervention Friday intended to compel the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services to release government records associated with the supplier of lethal injection drugs. Corrections officials have ignored requests for the records from the Lincoln Journal Star, The World-Herald and the ACLU of Nebraska.

Prison officials have released such records in the past but have withheld them now for reasons they have refused to fully explain.

In Fridays legal filing, Media of Nebraska argued that both concealing the records and failing to provide a detailed rationale for the decision to withhold the records violate the Nebraska Public Records Act.

When asked Friday whether the public has a right to know the information, Gov. Pete Ricketts said he believes the law allows the records to be withheld.

It specifically says in there we dont have to disclose those things, Ricketts said.

Corrections officials notified death-row inmate Jose Sandoval on Nov. 9 that they had obtained four drugs they intend to use for Nebraskas first execution in 20 years. After a 60-day notice period, the Attorney Generals Office can ask the Nebraska Supreme Court to issue a death warrant for Sandoval, who spearheaded a 2002 bank robbery attempt in Norfolk that left five people dead.

The complaint in intervention asks Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson to order the Corrections Department to allow access to the records. It was submitted as part of a lawsuit against Corrections by the ACLU, which alleges similar violations of the open records law.

The media organization is backed by the Nebraska Press Association and the Nebraska Broadcasters Association. Media of Nebraska advocates for public access to government meetings and records in the courts and the Legislature.

While the ACLU opposes the death penalty, Media of Nebraska takes no position on capital punishment. Its member news organizations hold editorial positions on both sides of the death penalty debate, but representatives say they are unified in their support of public access to governmental records as required by state law.

The people of Nebraska spoke loud and clear at the ballot box last year that the death penalty needed to be saved, said Allen Beermann, a former Nebraska secretary of state who is executive director of the Nebraska Press Association. Our only interest is to make sure any execution is done through an open, aboveboard and legal process.

The states attempt to import lethal drugs from an overseas broker in 2015 was unsuccessful, and the broker refused requests for a refund of $54,400 in public funds. In addition, then-U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said the states effort to import one of the drugs was illegal because it had been banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

World-Herald staff writer Paul Hammel contributed to this report.
A homeless man has been charged in a warrant with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 34-year-old David Simpson of Council Bluffs.

Michael John Thacker, 43, of Council Bluffs is believed to be in the area, Council Bluffs police said Friday. The public is urged to call 911 if they see Thacker. Police said people should not approach Thacker because he is considered armed and dangerous.

Police arrested another Bluffs man, Cleo William McClellan, 53, on Wednesday on suspicion of accessory to a felony (murder). Officials say McClellan assisted in the slaying of Simpson.

Simpson, who also was homeless, was found dead in a vacant lot about 10:35 a.m. Monday by a man walking his dog near the West Broadway viaduct. The body was found in a grass lot near the 1000 block of First Avenue.

An autopsy conducted by the Iowa State Medical Examiners Office ruled Simpsons death a homicide by blunt-force trauma.

Anyone with information about the case is urged to call 712-328-4728 or Crime Stoppers at 712-328-7867.
Nebraska is a rare conservative-leaning state without a voter ID law, a voting rights activist said in Omaha on Thursday, and he suggested that Nebraskans work to keep it that way.

Jason Kander of Let America Vote and a former Missouri secretary of state spoke at an event for the nonprofit Nebraskans for Civic Reform, which is run by State Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln.

Kander told the gathering at Loves Jazz and Art Center that his goal is to make sure there are political consequences for politicians who pass voter ID and similar laws.

If you make it harder to vote, well make it harder to get re-elected, he said.

Opponents of voter ID bills  who are generally Democrats such as Kander and Morfeld  say such legislation is designed to create roadblocks to voting.

Kander described it as a Republican strategy to make it harder for people who are generally Democrats to vote.

Proponents of the measures say theyre intended to prevent people from voting fraudulently.

In Nebraska, State Sen. John Murante of Gretna has sponsored a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to require voters to present photo identification. That bill failed to overcome a filibuster. He has said he planned to introduce similar legislation again.

Morfeld said he also expected a discussion next session on how to modernize Nebraskas voting system.

If voter ID comes up again, Kander said, take it one battle at a time and fight like crazy to stop it from happening.

Kander criticized President Donald Trumps decision to create a commission on voter fraud.

Kander is also the chairman of the Democratic National Committees Commission on Protecting American Democracy from the Trump Administration.

He said Nebraska was his 33rd  and final  state visit of the year.

His group has an office in Iowa but not in Nebraska.

But he said in an interview that hed be back if legislators pass any restrictions on voting.

If the Republicans in this state want to make sure Let America Vote shows up, they could pass some of these bad ideas, he said.
LINCOLN  Since 9/11, its been rare that the 870 members of the 155th Air Refueling Wing of the Nebraska Air National Guard are home for Christmas.

But this year, with a break in a string of deployments to the Middle East and elsewhere, the unit took time Friday to celebrate earning the U.S. Air Forces Outstanding Unit Award.

Gov. Pete Ricketts attended the brief ceremony and thanked the unit, known as the Hustling Huskers, for proving that it is the supreme unit in the Air Guard.

The 155th has won the outstanding unit honor for 26 years of its 36-year history and in September was honored as the top tanker wing among the 19 in the Air Guard nationwide.

Brig. Gen. Bob Stevenson, assistant adjutant general of the Nebraska Air National Guard, said 75 percent of the 155ths members signed up after 9/11. He said the many missions performed by the unit since the terrorist attacks demonstrate that referring to Guard members as weekend warriors is a joke.
WASHINGTON  Federal regulators voted on Thursday to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules for Internet traffic  a major victory for telecommunications companies and another milestone for the Republican deregulation push under President Donald Trump.

The 3-2 party-line vote by the Federal Communications Commission tears down the controversial utility-like oversight of Internet service providers that was put in place by Democrats in 2015 to try to ensure the uninhibited flow of data online.

That strict regulatory structure would largely give way to market forces and give Internet service providers such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T a free hand to slow or block websites and apps as they see fit or charge more for faster speeds.

After the repeal, the only responsibility for Internet service providers would be to disclose their online practices to customers, with the Federal Trade Commission policing them for anti-competitive practices.

The FCC vote is unlikely to be the last word. Opponents of the move plan legal challenges, with New Yorks attorney general vowing to lead a multistate lawsuit.

Some also hope that Congress might overturn the FCC decision.

Republicans said they were simply restoring government oversight of the Internet to where it was before 2015, re-establishing the light-touch regulatory approach that allowed the online ecosystem to flourish and develop into an economic force.

The Internet is the greatest free-market innovation in history, Ajit Pai said before the vote. Pai, a Republican, took over as FCC chairman in January and pushed the repeal.

Entrepreneurs and innovators guided the Internet far better than the heavy hand of government ever could have, Pai said.

The debate surrounding net neutrality has been intense. On Thursday, Pais comments were interrupted when FCC security ordered the packed meeting room cleared. The meeting was suspended for about 10 minutes while the room was swept after an apparent bomb threat. Earlier, about 60 demonstrators gathered in the bitter chill Thursday morning to protest the FCCs expected decision.

Pai and other opponents of the net neutrality rules said they have led to reduced investment in broadband networks  a point supporters dispute.

Democrats  urged on by consumer advocates, digital rights groups and online giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook  said the tougher federal oversight is needed because the Internets increasingly vital role in business and daily life is vulnerable to exploitation by telecom companies.

As a result of todays misguided action, our broadband providers will get extraordinary new powers, said Jessica Rosenworcel, one of two Democrats on the five-member FCC who voted against the repeal.

But the broadband industry has promised that the Internet experience for the public isnt going to change.

None of the fire-and-brimstone predictions will come to pass, said Michael Powell, president of NCTA  the Internet & Television Association, a trade group that includes cable companies. The nations broadband providers have lived the principles of net neutrality for years.

The Internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has, AT&T said in a statement Thursday.

But the companies have hedged on whether they would start charging additional fees to transport video streams or other content at a higher speed through their network in a practice known as paid prioritization.

The FCCs net neutrality rules prohibited broadband and wireless Internet service providers from selling faster delivery of certain data, slowing speeds for specific video streams and other content, and blocking or otherwise discriminating against any legal online material.

To enforce the rules, the FCC classified broadband as a more highly regulated utility-like service under federal telecommunications law.

Pai has said paid prioritization could accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles and home health monitoring, which would need reliably fast service.

But net neutrality supporters worry that telecom companies will set up toll lanes on the Internet.

Thursdays vote was the latest battle in a war that dates to 2003 over how to ensure that the Internet remains an open network.

Over the years, net neutrality has become a rallying cry for liberals and online activists concerned that telecom companies would become powerful gatekeepers for the communications platform of the 21st century.

Nearly 24 million online comments on both sides of the issue flooded the FCC this year as it reconsidered its net neutrality regulations.

Highlighting the contentious stakes in the fight, millions of those comments appear to be fakes, with some originating from Russia.

This report includes material from the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
LINCOLN  Sief Mahagoub breaks up his share of fights as a school security officer.

But one violent struggle a year ago between two girls at Lincoln Southeast High School stood out. It involved roughly three minutes of screaming, punches and hair-pulling. It was very intense and very difficult to stop, he later told authorities.

Thats saying something for a former military police officer who served three tours of duty in Iraq.

A prosecutor later named Mahagoub the victim in a disturbing-the-peace charge against the 17-year-old instigator of the fight.

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday ruled such a charge was appropriate, even though quelling fights comes with the job for a school security officer.

The Lancaster County Public Defenders Office appealed the charge against the girl, arguing that school security officers do not have an expectation of peace and tranquility because of their training and duties.

The appeal cited past rulings that said directing fighting words toward police officers doesnt disturb their peace. The public defenders argued that police frequently hear offensive language and have been trained to defuse such situations without retaliating.

Connor Reuter with the Lincoln City Attorneys Office, however, offered three other decisions from Nebraska courts that said police are entitled to protection under disturbing-the-peace laws. In those cases, the courts upheld convictions in which officers were called derogatory names or confronted by angry, threatening people.

Supreme Court Judge Jeff Funke, writing for a unanimous court, said disturbing-the-peace statutes clearly apply to the police.

Assuming, without deciding, that ... a school security officer and campus supervisor is equivalent to a police officer for purposes of Lincolns disturbing-the-peace ordinance, we hold that a school security officer or campus supervisor may be a victim of disturbing the peace, the judge wrote in the opinion.

In addition, the court found that the fighting students actions, although directed at the other student, also threw Mahagoubs peace and quiet into disorder, confusion, interruption, or an unsettled state.

Assistant Public Defender Brittani Lewit said she was disappointed with the outcome. No violence was directed at the school security officer, who got in the midst of the fight because that was his job, she said.

City Attorney Jeff Kirkpatrick said the fight in a school hallway clearly disturbed the peace of other students and teachers who witnessed it. In part, the prosecutor named the security officer as the victim because it was a more efficient way of prosecuting the offense compared with listing students and teachers.

The courts ruling says filing a disturbing-the-peace charge should be based on the circumstances of the case, not on a persons profession, Kirkpatrick said.

We view it as a more objective standard, he said.
For being an economist, Charlie Braymens desk more closely resembles the workbench of a tinkerer  albeit one of the 21st century type  replete with small circuit boards and electronic bits, washers, nuts, bolts, and all the tools necessary to fit these components together.

It looks a little crazy right now, says Braymen, PhD, CFA, an associate professor in Creighton Universitys Heider College of Business. But were almost done with the box. Were about ready for the trial run.

The box is the Creighton BlueBox, a technological, educational and philanthropic enterprise jointly undertaken by Braymen, the Heider College of Business and the RaD Lab, Creightons main incubator for innovation.

With the components scattered on Braymens desk and the developmental work done by the RaD Lab, the box, a simple composite plastic box, is a one-stop charging station for devices and a wireless hotspot through which educational materials  commensurate to about 10,000 webpages  can be accessed on mobile devices and tablets, potentially revolutionizing education and the general dissemination of knowledge in parts of the world where textbooks are a rarity.

A prototype of the box was installed outside Creightons Reinert-Alumni Memorial Library in November, and Braymen traveled to the Dominican Republic later in the month to install another Blue Box in a remote village where electricity and internet access do not exist.

The whole apparatus is powered via a solar panel attached to a battery similar to that found in a car, meaning interruptions on the electrical grid wont be as crippling a problem as they typically are for people who rely on cellphones and tablets for contact with the outside world.

The journey to the first Creighton BlueBox began when Braymen was on a mission trip to Tanzania in southeastern Africa. While there, Braymen learned the paramount place a smartphone has in the lives of people living on the margins of infrastructure, and how schools with few resources stretch what little they do have past the limits.

When the electricity can be out for days at a time, a cell phone can be a lifeline, he said. And when 10 students are gathered around a single textbook or tablet, and that tablet is reliant on the electrical grid to access the internet, and the internet is enormously expensive, I just got to thinking there has to be a better way.

Looking for an affordable, sustainable means of keeping phones on and kids learning, Braymen encountered World Possible, a nonprofit organization maintaining a series of open-source educational websites  tens of thousands of them offering information on everything from learning basic math to managing livestock to building a greenhouse.

If a village doesnt have a doctor  and many of the remote ones do not  you can find basic health care information, Braymen said. Beyond that, a lot of schools in this world dont have access to updated textbooks, dont have access to the number of textbooks they need in a class with 10, 15, 20 students. To be able to install this device in the middle of a village, make it solar-powered and get students access, theres huge potential here for learning.

For under $400 for the box with solar equipment, Braymen, with his economists purview, imagines the BlueBox could be an efficient, sleek alternative to potentially pouring tens of thousands of dollars into the latest hardware and internet streaming services that are intermittent at best in the worlds far-flung regions.

All Braymen had to do was figure out a way to get the websites in the hands of the people  mostly by ensuring a power source and a means to making sure the content was always available and could be supported on at least 10 to 12 devices at any one time.

These are just the kinds of problems in which Creightons RaD Lab specializes.

There, Steve Maaske, an innovation analyst, and Josh Nichols, a senior studying multimedia journalism and digital development, lunged into the project.

I was immediately excited about it because its one of those projects where you can see an end result that is enormously helpful to people, Maaske said. When Charlie came to us and talked about the light in peoples eyes when they had access to this content, we couldnt wait to get started. Even before it was assigned, the interns and I were building out the basics for the prototype.

Loading the open-source World Possible software onto a playing-card sized computer  the Raspberry Pi card  and wiring eight USB ports inside a composite plastic box, Maaske and Nichols completed an initial prototype of the BlueBox in August.

Braymens vision for the project includes an educational component for students stateside, including a potential practicum course in international development for next fall.

I want to see students from business, from Spanish, from business information and analytics  an interdisciplinary team that deploys the technology and gets deep into it and reflecting on it, coming up with better ideas than Ive had here, Braymen said. And I hope out of that practicum course were developing a sustainable program to carry forward and that uses the unique skill our students have acquired at Creighton. It speaks to the overall mission of the University.

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.
Nebraska Democrats will field a seasoned political figure in the state gubernatorial race in 2018, party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb said Thursday  even if she has to put her own name on the ballot.

Her decision comes after party leaders considered not recruiting a Democrat in an effort to help State Sen. Bob Krist, an independent, in his bid to unseat Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Kleeb said the Democratic Party will not support Krist, officially or unofficially.

Its not my job to make sure Krist has a path to beat Ricketts, Kleeb said. Im not the chair of his unnamed party. If he wants to become a Democrat, our door is wide open.

Kleeb said she has been in talks with a potential candidate and expects to have an announcement soon.

If the party cant recruit an experienced candidate, Kleeb said she would put her own name on the ballot as a sort of placeholder.

I think all of the party leaders, all of the Democratic leaders are doing everything we can to make sure our entire ballot is full of strong Democrats that are really going to represent working-class families, she said.

Kleeb, who made a name for herself by organizing the Nebraska opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, said shes not interested in becoming an elected official. She said if her name appears on the ballot, she wouldnt mount a serious campaign but instead would support other Democrats running for office.

University of Nebraska at Omaha political science professor Paul Landow is one of those who believe that the party should back Krist. He called Kleebs plan a ridiculous idea that destroys the credibility of the Democratic Party.

The smart thing to do is to support the person whos considerably closer to your own social and political values even if that person isnt formally a Democrat, Landow said.

Krist said in a statement: Nebraskans are telling me they want an independent approach to government. ... Regardless of the Party Bosses, I welcome Democrats, Republicans and Independents to join our effort to unite all Nebraskans.

Ricketts campaign said it had no comment about Kleebs plan.
A scathing memo from the lead investigator who assessed how federal officers handled the 2014 armed standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy accuses agents of far-reaching misconduct, recklessness and unrestrained antipathy toward the family.

The 18-page document, obtained Thursday by The Oregonian/OregonLive, is dated Nov. 27.

Prosecutors shared it last week with defense lawyers for Bundy, his two sons and co-defendant Ryan Payne as they were in the midst of their conspiracy trial, but it's not part of the public court record.

The memo prompted Cliven Bundy's lawyer to file a motion early Monday to dismiss the case, already in disarray over concerns raised previously about the government's failure to promptly share evidence with the defense.

The judge sent the jury home for more than a week as she tries to sort out the claims and prosecutors scramble to save their case.

The memo comes from Larry Wooten, who had been the lead case agent and investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management after the tense confrontation outside the patriarch's ranch near Bunkerville. Wooten also testified before a federal grand jury that returned indictments against the Bundys. He said he was removed from the investigation last February after he complained to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nevada.

Then last month he sent a whistleblower email to the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging a "widespread pattern of bad judgment, lack of discipline, incredible bias, unprofessionalism and misconduct, as well as likely policy, ethical and legal violations among senior and supervisory staff'' at the Bureau of Land Management's Office of Law Enforcement and Security.

Wooten wrote that supervisory agents with the bureau repeatedly mocked the defendants in an "amateurish carnival atmosphere'' that resembled something out of middle school, displayed "clear prejudice'' against the Bundys, their supporters and Mormons, and prominently displayed degrading altered booking photos of Cliven Bundy and other defendants in a federal office and in an office presentation.

The memo described "heavy handedness'' by government officers as they prepared to impound Cliven Bundy's cattle. He said some officers "bragged about roughing up Dave Bundy, grinding his face into the ground and Dave Bundy having little bits of gravel stuck in his face.'' Dave Bundy, one of Cliven Bundy's sons, was arrested April 6, 2014, while videotaping men he suspected were federal agents near his father's ranch.

Wooten contends that supervisory agents failed to turn over required discovery evidence to the prosecution team that could help the defense or be used to question the credibility of a witness, as required by law.

The top agents also "instigated'' the monitoring of jail phone calls between defendants and their wives without consent from the U.S. Attorney's Office or the FBI, Wooten wrote, though the memo noted that Steven Myhre, Nevada's acting U.S. attorney who is leading the prosecution of the Bundys, stopped the practice.

Myhre couldn't be reached for comment late Thursday. On Friday morning, Trisha Young, a spokeswoman for the Nevada U.S. Attorney's Office, said the office declined to comment.

Cliven Bundy, sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy and Payne are accused of conspiring to block federal agents from enforcing court orders to confiscate family cattle on public land after Cliven Bundy failed to pay grazing fees and fines for years.

They're also accused of using or carrying a firearm in a crime of violence, threatening a federal law enforcement officer, obstruction of justice and extortion. Their trial began Nov. 14 in Las Vegas.

Wooten accused Dan Love, the former special agent-in-charge of the cattle roundup for the Bureau of Land Management, of intentionally ignoring direction from the U.S. Attorney's Office and his superiors "in order to command the most intrusive, oppressive, large scale and militaristic trespass cattle impound possible.'' He described Love as immune from discipline, though Love eventually was fired from the bureau for misconduct in an unrelated case.

Wooten said he learned from other agency supervisors that Love had a "Kill Book'' as a "trophy,'' in which he essentially bragged about "getting three individuals in Utah to commit suicide,'' following a joint FBI-BLM investigation into the alleged trafficking of stolen artifacts.

Wooten said his supervisor took photos in a secure command post at FBI headquarters in Las Vegas of an "Arrest Tracking Wall,'' where photos of Cliven Bundy and co-defendant Eric Parker were marked with an "X'' over them, and emailed out the photos, although no photos were allowed to be taken in that area.

Wooten called prosecutors in the Bundy case and told Myhre and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Ahmed, as well as FBI special agent Joel Willis, of his fears that his supervisors weren't sharing key witness statements with them.

On Feb. 16, Wooten said he asked Myhre if statements that Love made, such as "Go out there and kick Cliven Bundy in the mouth (or teeth) and take his cattle'' or "I need you to get the troops fired up to go get those cows and not take any crap from anyone'' would be considered evidence that must be shared with the defense. He said that Myhre replied, saying something like "we do now'' or "it is now.''

Two days later, Wooten said his supervisor took him off the investigation and another Bureau of Land Management agent confiscated files from his office and from a safe in his office.

The material included computer hard drives, collected emails, text messages, case notes and "lessons learned,'' Wooten wrote.

"These items were taken because they contained significant evidence of misconduct and items that would potentially embarrass BLM Law Enforcement Supervision,'' the memo said. "I am convinced that I was removed to prevent the ethical and proper further disclosure of the severe misconduct.''

Wooten said his supervisor told him that Myhre "furiously demanded'' that he be removed and that Myhre had mentioned something about the bureau's failure to turn over all crucial evidence to his office.

Wooten noted that he was ordered not to contact the Nevada U.S. Attorney's Office.

He said he believed Myhre "adopted an attitude of 'don't ask, don't tell''' or "preferred ignorance'' when it came to potential information from the federal land management agency that would have been helpful to the Bundy defense.

He also said prosecutors relied on inaccurate talking points, particularly not disclosing at previous trials the fact there were government snipers on surveillance outside the Bundy Ranch before the April 12, 2014, showdown.

"Not only did Mr. Myhre in my opinion not want to know or seek out evidence favorable to the accused, he and my supervisor discouraged the reporting of such issues,'' Wooten wrote.

Wooten said he had held Myhre in the highest regard, but believes his judgment is "clouded'' by personal bias and a "desire to win the case at all costs.''

Wooten, now working as a bureau agent in Idaho, sent the memo to an associate deputy U.S. attorney general who serves as the U.S. Department of Justice's national criminal discovery coordinator. He obtained the lawyer's contact information during a training by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boise, Idaho.

"I have tried to resolve these issues through my chain of command but I have failed,'' he wrote in the memo.

But he felt it was "his obligation'' to report his findings, describing his memo as a "last resort.''

He didn't return phone calls or messages Thursday night.

Cliven Bundy's lawyer Bret O. Whipple declined any comment on the memo, and would only describe the new information received as "quite a development,'' one he hadn't seen in his 20-plus years of legal work.

"In my mind, I think the case should be dismissed by next Tuesday,'' Whipple said. "I think I can get my client home for Christmas.''

U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro has dismissed the jury until next Wednesday. She said she has at least seven to eight concerns about evidence or material that the government didn't share with defense lawyers in a timely manner. She indicated she would consider potential remedies if she found violations under the Brady disclosure law, ranging from striking testimony of a witness to delaying the trial or declaring a mistrial.

She gave both sides deadlines to file responses and is expected to reconvene court Wednesday with the lawyers from both sides and defendants at 8 a.m.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
Soon after he got home Wednesday evening, Leland O'Driscoll, a manager with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, pulled out his laptop and began monitoring the seismographs sprinkled around Oregon.

Just after 5:24 p.m., an alarm blared and a digitized voice spilled out of his computer in urgent tones.

"Earthquake! Earthquake!"

The ground had begun to shake south of Mollala and the energy from the quake would reach O'Driscoll's home in seconds, his screen showed.

The magnitude 4.0 temblor wasn't strong enough to be felt in Eugene, where O'Driscoll lives and works out of the University of Oregon, but the early warning was valuable nonetheless.

"It was a good demonstration of how this technology works," he said, referring to the state's ShakeAlert system, a series of seismographic sensors carpeted over the state that can give users of the system an early warning when a quake hits.

(The video below shows what a user alert might look and sound like.)

PRECIOUS TIME TO ACT

Earthquakes happen when a fault in the earth's crust slips and the land on either side of the fault moves relative to one another. The shaking is waves of energy radiating out from the spot on the fault line where the rupture occurs

Two types of energy travel outward from the epicenter: primary waves, or p-waves, and secondary waves, or s-waves. The p-waves travel faster and usually don't cause much shaking or destruction. Using those initial p-waves, sensors can detect the strength of a quake, relay the message to an earthquake alert center and create a warning, allowing seconds or even minutes for people to prepare before the stronger s-waves arrive.

For O'Driscoll, he had 22-seconds notice that the energy from Wednesday night's quake was on its way. Farther north, where the quake was felt, anyone in Salem using the system would have had 3 seconds to prepare. In Portland, the alert would have given people 8 seconds of warning.

That might not seem like much time, but it could give enough warning to move away from a window, get under a desk or avoid a heavy bookcase that could topple in a quake. For public infrastructure, that could be enough time to slow or stop a train, trigger automatic gas shut off valves or warn people to take cover.

A PROVEN TRACK RECORD

A number of other countries already have earthquake detection systems in place, including Mexico, Turkey and China. In Japan, the country invested some $600 million in the system after the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,000 people.

When the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake struck in 2011, not a single train in the entire country derailed, thanks to the early warning system.

Nearly all of the countries that can detect earthquakes before the shaking starts implemented the system in response to a costly and destructive event.

"In many of those cases, those countries built those early warning systems after a major earthquake," Doug Toomey, a University of Oregon seismology professor, told The Oregonian/OregonLive last year. The U.S. is trying to build out the system before the next quake. Toomey said the sensors will ideally be spaced out every 20 kilometers from Cape Mendocino in California to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. There are currently about 400 sensors in Oregon and Washington, Toomey said.

MORE INVESTMENT NEEDED

The system along the West Coast is still in development, according to the U.S. Geological survey, but has already detected two earthquakes that caused damage. An alert was generated within four seconds for the magnitude 5.1 La Habra earthquake that struck in southern California in March of 2014. In northern California, users of the test system got five seconds of warning before the shaking from the South Napa quake reached them in August of 2014.

Last year, UO received a $237,000 grant from the U.S. Geological Survey, part of $3.7 million awarded to a handful of universities across the West to bolster the system.

But the geological survey estimated it will cost more than $38 million to finish the early-detection system and create a public alert. Annual operations and maintenance cost for the detection system could exceed $16 million.

The system will need significant investment from government agencies on local, state and federal levels as well as from private companies and the public before it comes fully operational, according to the geological survey.

NOT IF, BUT WHEN

The slight soil shaker that wobbled underneath Mollala Wednesday night may have brought back some memories for longtime Oregonians.

The magnitude 4.0 earthquake that hit about 30 miles south of Portland didn't cause any major damage or injuries, but it hit in the exact same area as a stronger quake that shook the area in 1993  a magnitude 5.6 temblor, which hit at 5:34 a.m., known officially as the Scotts Mills earthquake and unofficially as the Spring Break quake.

That quake was far more destructive than Wednesday evening's earthly rumbling.

It lasted for roughly 45 seconds and was felt as far north as Seattle, jolting awake residents of Portland and Salem. The state capitol and Molalla High School were both seriously damaged. A bridge near Dayton was also damaged and had to be closed.

All told, damage estimates reached about $28 million in 1993 dollars. Fortunately, no one was killed and only a few people were injured. O'Driscoll said the maximum output for the Mount Angel fault, where both quakes occured, is about a magnitude 6.0.

But that pales in comparison to what could happen if and when the Cascadia Subduction Zone ruptures.

If the entire fault were to slip, it could unleash a magnitude 9.0 quake, cause tens of thousands of deaths and an ensuing tsunami could obliterate much of the Pacific Northwest coastline.

The last time the subduction zone saw a major quake where the entire zone ruptured, which scientists have been able to pin down because it caused a tsunami that traveled across the Pacific ocean to Japan, was in 1700, 316 years ago.

Experts say the chances of a quake hitting the central Oregon region of the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the next 50 years are between 15 and 20 percent.

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048
By CARLI BROSSEAU and REBECCA WOOLINGTON

Shaymond Michelson knew a night of drinking had gone badly when he woke up in a jail cell with a face so swollen he had a hard time talking. A police officer wrote in a report he hadn't followed orders. A Navy vet, Michelson trusted that he deserved what he got.

But weeks later, a police sergeant came to his home carrying a laptop. He opened it on the kitchen table. Michelson and his fiancee huddled around to watch a silent video recorded at the jail's entrance. The sergeant pressed play.

The video shows Michelson walking toward the door, handcuffed and swaying. He stops. The officer behind him is talking, nodding sharply. Then the officer shoves him. He lurches forward and plants his feet. The officer grabs his neck and throws him to his back on the concrete floor. The officer pins him there, a shin over his chest and throat. A jail deputy arrives, and Michelson kicks toward the deputy's head. The deputy catches his foot and starts to roll him over. The officer punches him in the face. Then again and again and again and again and again.

Michelson said watching the video was surreal. He replayed it over and over. His fiancee had to walk away.

He asked Scott McKee, the sergeant who brought the video, whether the arresting officer was allowed to do things like that. The sergeant said no.

"It looked like a pro wrestling move," said McKee, who criminally investigated the officer's actions. "And the guy's handcuffed. There's no regard for how he lands. There's none."

Michelson wanted Officer Charles Caruso to be held accountable. He told the city of Eugene he planned to sue. He didn't have to. Eugene paid out $100,000 and fired the officer.

But Caruso escaped without criminal charges. And the people who held the power to take his badge for good chose to do nothing.

Case closed.

Shaymond Michelson (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

The Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training wins national praise for holding police officers accountable for bad behavior. Academics, journalists and regulators in other states describe the department as a model.

But an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive found that state regulators took no action to sideline dozens of officers fired for chronically inept police work. Or worse.

The department let fired officers remain eligible to work even after they accumulated records of brutality, recklessness, shoddy investigations and anger management problems.

Regulators quietly closed one case after an officer was fired for using excessive force on two handcuffed suspects and for driving 120 mph, at night, through a construction zone. They closed the case of another fired officer whose disciplinary records show he botched investigations, refused to finish police reports, failed to show up at court proceedings, abused sick time and earned a reputation for being volatile and rude.

Regulators have chosen to shy away from some of the public's greatest concerns about policing, interviews with agency officials show.

They don't think it's their job to punish officers for brutality.

They don't think it's their job to punish officers for incompetence.

They don't think it's their job to even contemplate punishing officers who haven't been convicted of a crime or who haven't lost their jobs.

They hardly ever perform their own investigations. The department employs only two investigators for the more than 10,000 police officers, corrections officers, dispatchers and parole and probation officers in the state. The investigators rely on documents that employers send them and almost never follow up once those documents arrive. Some police departments do a better job of investigating their own than others. As a result, officers are not held to the same standard across the state.

From left: the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training board chair, Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers; the department's director, Eriks Gabliks; Oregon State Police Superintendent Travis Hampton, who is a board member; and Jeffrey Hering of the Tigard Police Department, another board member. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Like doctors, lawyers and teachers, police officers must receive the state's blessing to work in Oregon. The department certifies officers who have completed minimum training, and it has the authority to take away their certifications for any misconduct afterward. An officer decertified in Oregon could get certified elsewhere, but police departments in other states can see the red flag if they look for it.

State certifying agencies could be the vanguard of police accountability in an era when many police departments, prosecutors and the U.S. Justice Department show little appetite for second-guessing cops.

The Oregonian/OregonLive wanted to know how the state's reputation as a national leader compared to reality.

Reporters analyzed three databases and more than 10,000 pages of documents from the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. The department didn't turn the records over easily. Reporters successfully appealed to the state Attorney General's Office 10 times to force access to documents and data.

Among the findings:

The department considers incompetence something for chiefs and sheriffs to deal with, not state regulators. The department's staff closed cases when officers were fired after sleeping on duty, repeatedly failing to seize or log evidence, or showing up to work drunk. They closed the books on a Portland crime scene investigator, even though the city's Police Bureau found he refused to go to a homicide scene to process evidence with other investigators and, separately, attended a birthday party outside the city while on the clock.

The department won't decertify officers for brutality unless they are criminally convicted. People filed hundreds of complaints alleging excessive force by Oregon officers from 2013 through 2016. But of the officers who came before regulators during the period, only one was convicted for it. Even a conviction won't bar an officer from service permanently. Regulators recently allowed a decertified Clackamas County sheriff's deputy to re-apply for police work eight years after he was convicted for choking a teenager while on duty.

Patterns of bad behavior can go unknown or unpunished, even when an officer's record is exceptionally lengthy. A Clatsop County deputy was allowed to keep his certification despite a history thousands of pages long that featured write-ups for extremely fast driving, unsettling comments and sloppy evidence practices. The deputy's troubles, according to the county's attorney, included at least seven on-duty crashes, nine formal reprimands and 62 memos criticizing his attitude and performance.

Training for law enforcement at the Oregon Public Safety Academy in Salem involves several hours in a mock village. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Oregon does well in national comparisons for stripping problem officers of their powers. In 2015, Oregon ranked 11th in the rate of officers who were decertified, a survey by Seattle University professor Matthew Hickman showed.

The bar is low. Oregon routinely decertifies officers when they've committed a crime and punishes many even without a criminal conviction. Some states act only on felonies. A few have no mechanism at all for ousting bad officers.

The national rankings say nothing about the cases that states choose to drop.

Records show that Oregon regulators took no action in about half of the 255 cases that they closed from 2013 through 2016 involving certified police officers. Most of those cases ended quietly.

More than 100 cases against officers slid back into the filing drawer. Each was labeled "administrative closure." Cases with this designation are all but invisible to outsiders, almost never reviewed in a public meeting.

Although state law requires department officials to issue a report after any investigation, the reports they write for administrative closures tend to offer few details. A handwritten explanation on one reads, in its entirety, "Performance issues only."

Because the department wanted thousands of dollars to provide case files underlying these cryptic conclusions, the newsroom focused its records requests on 40 officers who stayed certified after being fired. State law says the department must decertify anyone fired for cause. Yet the department interprets "for cause" so narrowly that 57 percent of fired officers stayed eligible to carry a gun and a badge elsewhere in Oregon.

Law enforcement officers in Oregon undergo hours of scenario-based training in a mock village at the Oregon Public Safety Academy. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

The agency's records showed serious concerns prompted many of the firings. For example, some fired officers who stayed certified were feared to be a risk of workplace violence. One officer's supervisor said he started wearing a ballistic vest because he feared the officer was unstable.

Oregon revokes the credentials of less than 1 percent of the state's 6,300 officers each year. The department's director, Eriks Gabliks, said he's comfortable with that number.

Eriks Gabliks (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

"Most of the men and women that put on a uniform and put on a badge do the right thing every day for the right reasons, serving their communities," he said. "But our process is in place to address those people that don't. And that's a very small number of people."

If the public wants the state to take a more active role, the Legislature needs to give the department more money, said Gabliks, who's led the department since 2009.

The office of Gov. Kate Brown, who has the power to appoint the agency's director, did not answer repeated requests to interview her about The Oregonian/OregonLive's findings.

But one powerful state senator is ready to publicly take on the issue.

"If they are not ensuring that an officer is still qualified and has not abused his or her power, how do we assure the general public that they're safe?" said Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was shocked that the department has just two investigators to cover law enforcement and dispatchers.

After Prozanski learned of the newsroom's findings, he said he plans to hold hearings about whether the department has adequate statutory authority to do its job and whether it's providing enough oversight.

Shaymond Michelson thinks it's clear the department is not.

When the officer who beat him in the jail was fired, it seemed like a victory. The officer could not do the same to anyone else, he and his fiancee thought.

"Unbeknownst to most of us, we didn't realize that letting him go didn't mean that he couldn't become an officer somewhere else," Michelson said.

Charles Caruso is now a sheriff's deputy in California. Neither he nor his new boss, the sheriff in Contra Costa County, answered requests for comment.

***

The headquarters of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training is at the state's police academy, a 236-acre campus surrounded by two prisons and a jail on the rural edge of Salem.

A memorial to fallen officers sits at its entrance. Cadets in plain blue uniforms often file by. It feels like a police station. People have to be buzzed in to attend a public meeting.

The Oregon Fallen Law Enforcement Memorial is located at the entrance to the headquarters of the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Ensconced here, the department's leaders decide what sort of person should be a police officer and what should cost someone the right to a badge.

The oversight agency has always been heavily shaped by police.

The organizational chart on the agency's website shows 35,000 certified police, fire and other professionals at the very top, labeled "constituents."

By statute, 20 of the 23 voting members on the department's governing board come from the public safety professions that the state regulates. The board also includes one city administrator, one district attorney and one person who represents the public.

Police and prosecutors played an active role in persuading the Oregon Legislature to create the organization in the 1960s.

At the time, the American public, attorneys and the federal government were pressing for police to professionalize. Groundless arrests and police brutality sparked riots in African American neighborhoods across the country. Part of the concern, said DePauw University historian Max Felker-Kantor, was that African American residents had nowhere to go with their complaints except back to the officers they feared.

Lawmakers gave Oregon's Board on Police Standards and Training the power to grant certificates to officers in 1967. They called on the board to set "reasonable minimum standards of physical, emotional, intellectual and moral fitness."

Two years later, lawmakers gave the board the power to take certifications away, under two conditions: if an officer was fired for cause or lied on an application.

Legislators over the years added felonies and certain misdemeanors as grounds for stripping officers of their certifications. Lawmakers also added corrections officers, parole and probation officers, dispatchers, firefighters and private security officers to the professions the board regulates.

The result was one of the most expansive certification laws in the country.

But regulators interpret their role to be far more limited than the law allows.

Oregon law enforcement officers undergo training at the Oregon Public Safety Academy's mock village. Here, an officer enters a home and searches the rooms. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Except for when officers face criminal charges, Oregon regulators wait for an officer's employer to make the first move. Agency officials won't open a case unless an officer has been fired, left work as part of a settlement agreement, or quit in connection with a misconduct investigation. They'll wait until employment appeals are complete before they decide what to do.

The agency's staff are gatekeepers. They can conclude many cases on their own.

Other cases are sent to the Police Policy Committee, an advisory committee of sheriffs, police chiefs and union representatives. The committee makes a recommendation to the board, which has the last say.

Department officials focus their power to end careers on punishing failings of "moral fitness," which they describe as officers intentionally doing bad things.

It's a perspective that leaves out a wide array of behavior many people would find unacceptable for a police officer.

***

The final straw with Officer Evin Eustice was a high-speed chase one night in June 2012 on the Sunset Highway. He caught a BMW on radar going 20 mph over the speed limit and took off after it. The cars flashed through the highway's single open lane at 120 mph, stunning construction workers and rumbling their boom trucks.

Within the Beaverton Police Department, Eustice was known for writing a lot of tickets and making a lot of arrests. But he also got in trouble for going too far.

Officer Evin Eustice of the St. Helens Police Department readies his patrol car before beginning an early morning shift. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

A supervisor once called him out for using force more often than his fellow officers on the graveyard shift.

He was suspended one day without pay for using a Taser on a handcuffed man who'd already been shocked and was kneeling. He was suspended another day for punching a handcuffed man in the face. The two instances occurred within three days in 2011.

Supervisors were skeptical of his explanations: Eustice said he feared one handcuffed man would stand up and the other would spit blood on him. He also told investigators that punching came naturally because he'd trained for many years as a boxer.

"'Hey, if we need to fight, let's fight,'" Eustice said in a recent interview, describing his attitude at the time. "I'm the police. I'm here to fight if I have to. It definitely wasn't something that I shied away from."

Eustice said he had never been intentionally misleading with supervisors.

Officer Evin Eustice punched a handcuffed man, William Young, in April 2011, according to an internal investigation.

The chief, Geoff Spalding, decided the chase through the construction zone would be the end of Eustice's five-year career in Beaverton. Spalding fired him.

"Your displayed pattern of poor judgment has the potential to expose the City to substantial liability," Spalding wrote in his termination letter.

Eustice had reached 130 mph before he turned his lights and siren on, according to his police report. He hit a top speed of 144. Spalding found the chase unacceptably dangerous to everyone involved.

The department's policies had a word for Eustice's repeated rule-breaking, which Spalding invoked: "incompetent." A labor arbitrator backed the firing.

But when the case reached the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, officials arrived at a very different conclusion.

Investigator Kristen Hibberds found Eustice's high-speed pursuit to be "in the best interest of public safety." In a memo, she said the officer "excelled" at investigating drunken drivers and had "outstanding" arrest and citation stats. Her memo noted his use of force violations but took no position on them.

In the two years between his firing and the department closing his case, the department had certified Eustice to work as a security guard. Facing the possibility that regulators would make him ineligible for other policing jobs, he asked Spalding out to lunch. The man who fired Eustice agreed to write a letter to the state saying the 31-year-old had matured.

The department closed the case administratively. Eustice kept his state certification.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4328610-Eustice-Termination-Letter/annotations/393420.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Hibberds didn't answer requests for comment. Spalding, in an interview, stood by his letter vouching for Eustice.

Eustice said in hindsight he thinks it would have been fair for the state to sideline him temporarily. But he's glad his prayers were answered instead. He considers policing his calling.

"I want to be out here, and I want to do exactly what I did before, as far as being a hard charger and putting people in handcuffs," Eustice said. "But I want to do it the right way."

After applying unsuccessfully for jobs at big police departments in the Portland suburbs, Eustice got hired in St. Helens, population 13,000. The chief, in an interview, said he knew about Eustice's history and decided to give him a chance. He said he needed an officer like Eustice -- someone seasoned and tested, who could teach other officers from personal experience.

Officer Evin Eustice of the St. Helens Police Department talks with a woman whose family member was suffering a crisis. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

***

The state's decision not to go after officers fired for poor job performance is the main reason fired officers like Eustice stay eligible to take other jobs, The Oregonian/OregonLive's analysis found. Among fired officers who stayed certified, more than two-thirds were terminated for performance problems.

Linsay Hale, the department's director of professional standards, said a state-level review of the chase that got Eustice fired wasn't necessary.

"That individual officer made a procedural decision in the heat of the moment," Hale said, "and that typically is not something that we should ever be looking at."

As for his prior discipline problems, she said her department only considers the action that immediately precipitated a firing.

Oregon law since 1969 has said officers discharged for cause must lose their certifications. Department officials get to interpret what "for cause" means.

Until very recently, being fired for incompetence qualified. The department's rules defined incompetence as "a demonstrated lack of ability to perform the essential tasks of a public safety professional that remedial measures have been unable to correct."

But agency officials said that in practice, they don't decertify for incompetence. Hale said the state Department of Justice recently concluded her agency has no statutory authority to revoke police certifications based on incompetence alone. She said the rule defining incompetence was a mistake, created before she joined the agency in 2010.

The Oregon Public Safety Academy has a mock village to provide officers with realistic, scenario-based training. (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Incompetence is out of bounds for decertification, she said, because it's not an issue of moral fitness, which she says comes down to intent.

"Moral fitness lends itself to someone who's misbehaving knowingly," Hale said. "If I'm incapable, unable to do my job, that's a competency issue."

But she acknowledged no court has ruled on the question. Four legal experts told The Oregonian/OregonLive they could find nothing in Oregon statute that prevents the state from deciding to decertify officers for incompetence.

Other states do look at incompetence as grounds for revocation. New York cites the word specifically. Arizona says not only malfeasance but also "misfeasance" and "nonfeasance" can cost officers their state endorsement.

The International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training makes incompetence grounds for decertification or suspension in its model rules.

Improving the level of competence among police officers, academic experts say, was the very justification for creating state certification boards over the decades.

***

Charles Caruso walked into the boardroom at the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem. It was Aug. 21, 2014, and a committee of police chiefs, sheriffs and union officers would recommend to the department's board whether he should lose his policing career for the beating of Shaymond Michelson at the Lane County Jail.

Caruso's wife and a union representative from the Eugene Police Department also were there.

Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker, who was the committee chairman, started the meeting shortly after 10 a.m.

Committee members unanimously recommended barring a former Bend lieutenant from police work in Oregon for life. They found that he tried to deceive the officers investigating him for repeatedly having sex on duty.

Caruso's case came next.

The officer had arrested Michelson on accusations that he drove drunk, hit a concrete barrier with his car and inappropriately touched teenage girls at a party. He was also charged with attempted assault on a police officer. Michelson pleaded guilty, he says, because he couldn't remember what happened. The charges were later dismissed when a prosecutor learned Eugene police were investigating whether Caruso had used excessive force.

Committee members had read a report written by state investigator Leon Colas, who reviewed the criminal investigation into Caruso and the surveillance footage of him throwing down Michelson and punching him six times while he was handcuffed.

Colas agreed with Scott McKee, the criminal investigator: Caruso, in his police report, had described a struggle with Michelson that never happened.

Colas found Caruso's actions involved misconduct, gross misconduct, misuse of authority, disregard for the rights of others and dishonesty -- all but one of the six possible grounds that the committee considered for decertifying an officer.

"It appears to me that Caruso was misrepresenting the facts to try to justify his treatment of the prisoner," Colas wrote.

Michelson did not injure the deputy with his kick. But even if the handcuffed man had connected, Caruso's force was still "improper and excessive," Colas wrote. "Caruso was responsible for his prisoner's safety, and he failed in his fundamental duty to protect the man."

Read the documents

for three officers whose cases were described in this story.

Colas said the state academy didn't teach officers to do what Caruso did. His technique to gain control "violated the practices and standards generally followed in the Oregon public safety profession," wrote Colas, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Caruso said in a six-page letter to the committee that his academy training was exactly what he drew from during his interaction with Michelson. Both the academy and Eugene police, he said, taught him that "handcuffed people are dangerous."

"I reacted to the threat's actions," he wrote.

The committee unanimously rejected Colas' report.

In fights, committee members said, officers often have to use tactics that the state did not teach them. Malheur County Sheriff Brian Wolfe told Colas to take the training section out of his report and bring the case back for a second look.

But Caruso's case didn't come back.

Committee chairman Barker, the department's director and the director of professional standards decided to close the case, no action taken.

"The consensus was that we should be very cautious in taking use of force cases," Colas wrote in a memo closing the case.

***

A dozen of the state's largest police departments and sheriff's offices gave The Oregonian/OregonLive data on excessive force complaints from 2013 through last year. The law enforcement agencies investigated at least 340 allegations and sustained 26.

Outside authorities have found that police departments across the country have problems with excessive force. Portland police have twice come under federal oversight because of it. The U.S. Justice Department concluded in 2012 that the Portland Police Bureau had a pattern or practice of excessive force against people with mental illness.

Oregonians repeatedly have taken to the streets to say they don't trust the court system to hold officers accountable. The Justice Department's action against Portland followed a grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Ron Frashour, who fatally shot a distraught young African American man in the back in 2010. Frashour was fired but reinstated after challenging his termination.

Despite these concerns, Oregon regulators don't consider police excessive force something they should review independently. It doesn't amount to a failing of moral fitness, they say.

"We're not the use of force regulatory agency," said Gabliks, the department's director.

Interviewed on the fourth day of protests in St. Louis over the acquittal of a white officer accused of murdering a black man, he said no one in the 50-year history of his organization has called on it to address police brutality.

Presented with the possibility that Oregonians believe excessive force should be the state oversight agency's business, Gabliks sighed.

"Does that mean the public doesn't trust the system that we currently have with the judicial system?" he asked.

After Caruso's case fizzled, regulators decided that the only time they should take action against an officer who has used excessive force is if he or she is convicted in court.

Prosecutions for police brutality are rare. District attorneys work with police every day and are reluctant to criticize them. Cities have a conflict in investigating allegations of police brutality because victims may use the results as evidence in a lawsuit.

Even when prosecutors want to bring criminal charges, the standard of proof is high. Winning a case requires not simply proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but also looking at the facts through the eyes of a reasonable officer at the scene. Oregon licensing and certification agencies, by contrast, need to prove misconduct only by a preponderance of the evidence, a much lower bar.

The only Oregon officer decertified for excessive force from 2014 through 2016 was Eugene Officer John Sharlow. Like Officer Caruso, Sharlow threw a handcuffed suspect to the ground at the Lane County Jail. The key difference for regulators: Sharlow was convicted of first-degree official misconduct and fourth-degree assault, whereas Caruso was charged with nothing.

Jason Myers (Photo by Beth Nakamura)

Kimberly McCullough, the legislative director of the ACLU of Oregon, said the state's belief that use of force is not an issue to take on was "odd and disconcerting and something I think the Oregon public would be shocked to find out."

Even the chairman of the state's board, Marion County Sheriff Jason Myers, said he thinks regulators should examine the case of any officer who is fired or quits because of an excessive force investigation.

That's something Georgia does.

If a police department tells state officials about an officer disciplined for excessive force, the state will review it, said Ken Vance, the head of Georgia's regulatory agency.

"We're going to look at things like that," Vance said. "Because they were taught better."

***

Officer Kurt Van Meter had two competing interests: police work and a budding singing career. He got two crossed revolvers inked on his forearm to display a "reverence to the Western lifestyle" and outlaw country music, he told his chief.

He refused to complete reports or take advice from his sergeant, blaming his defiance on the cowboy in him, the sergeant wrote in a memo.

An experienced SWAT officer and firearms instructor for the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, he had come to the Hillsboro Police Department from the Benton County Sheriff's Office in the spring of 2007.

He was reprimanded in December 2009 when a sergeant said he caught him speed-racing on Northeast Cornell Road.

But the real trouble started years later, as his country music career began to take off.

In February 2012, Van Meter missed two court appearances in a single day, according to a disciplinary memo. The memo said that because Van Meter didn't show up, a drug case was dismissed.

Van Meter called in sick the day after his album release concert at Duke's Country Bar and Grill that May. He insisted he was vomiting due to illness but later admitted to drinking too much after the concert, according to a written reprimand.

Kurt Van Meter performing at the Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival in Brownsville in 2014. (Photo by Jesse Skoubo | Albany Democrat-Herald)

He wasn't following policies and wasn't turning in reports, performance reviews show. He let one report sit unfinished for 49 days. Van Meter told supervisors he was more productive than his stats suggested.

In 2013, things got worse. Van Meter's bosses wrote that he failed to clean his gun and failed to properly investigate hit and run and shoplifting cases. He suspended the cases without trying to find a suspect, even though witnesses gave him license plate numbers both times, according to a reprimand written by his supervisor. His sergeant scolded him for "failing to perform the duties and expectations of a police officer."

"In choosing not to investigate certain crimes, you are violating the public's trust," the sergeant wrote. He reprimanded Van Meter for dereliction of duty.

Van Meter was put on a work performance plan. Two days later he was in trouble again.

Fired, But Fit for Duty

Dozens of Oregon police officers stay eligible to carry a gun and a badge even after being fired for chronically inept police work or worse, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found.

In a forgery case, he arrived an hour late for a grand jury appearance and didn't bring the evidence, a disciplinary letter said. He had an angry outburst in front of the victim and the prosecutor and slammed the door, muttering on his way to fetch the evidence. A sergeant reported seeing him at a teriyaki restaurant when he should have been in court.

Van Meter argued with his sergeant about the wording of his performance plan, the sergeant wrote in a memo. Van Meter floated the possibility that he was suffering psychological trauma from a chase of a homicide suspect, years before, in which the suspect opened fire. The sergeant said that when he started to recommend counseling, Van Meter interrupted with an expletive.

Van Meter scored 1s and 2s out of 5 in some measures on a performance evaluation. Hillsboro placed him on a last-chance agreement in October 2013.

He didn't take a report on an alleged felony theft and issued a ticket in a crash without interviewing any drivers, his bosses wrote. His sergeant said Van Meter refused to complete police reports and responded defensively when told that his report on a sex abuse investigation was inadequate.

So on Nov. 12, 2013, Hillsboro police fired him. With the help of the union, he tried to negotiate a resignation. The deputy chief said no.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4329633-VanMeter-Termination/annotations/393502.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

But when state regulators looked at Van Meter's firing, they saw no reason Van Meter should lose his state certification. With no written explanation, they closed his case in June 2014.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4329633-VanMeter-Termination/annotations/393501.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Van Meter poured more energy into his music. He took the stage ahead of Montgomery Gentry and Gary Allan at the 2014 Bi-Mart Willamette Country Music Festival, which an estimated 18,000 people attended.

Van Meter played his original, "Good at Bein' Bad." He wore a black cowboy hat.

It wasn't long before he found his way back to police work. Last year, he got a job in Dallas, Oregon.

Problems emerged before Van Meter finished his probationary period, Chief Tom Simpson wrote in an email to state regulators. Simpson wrote that Van Meter knew a performance review would likely end with his termination.

In November of this year, Van Meter opted to quit instead. He left with a month of severance pay. He declined to comment for this story.

A state investigator classified Van Meter's resignation as performance-related, nothing the state would review.

His certification remains in good standing.

-- Carli Brosseau and Rebecca Woolington

Find more coverage at "Fired, But Fit for Duty."
By CARLI BROSSEAU and REBECCA WOOLINGTON

It took more than two years to acquire the public records underlying The Oregonian/OregonLive's investigation into police accountability in Oregon.

The project began in January 2015, when the newsroom requested the electronic records that the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training keeps on certification, employment and training for police officers.

Fired, But Fit for Duty

Dozens of Oregon police officers stay eligible to carry a gun and a badge even after being fired for chronically inept police work or worse, an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found.

The newsroom also requested data on cases in which state regulators considered revoking an officer's certification.

The state agency imposed hurdle after hurdle.

Regulators put the cost of providing the data at more than $17,000. So the newsroom appealed to the state attorney general's office, arguing that the cost estimate obstructed public access to important information.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4328627-Initial-Data-Estimate/annotations/393423.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4328627-Initial-Data-Estimate/annotations/393424.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The attorney general's office helped regulators and the newsroom come to agreement on all but one point. The Oregonian/OregonLive sought the birthdates of police officers. We had no intention of publishing that information. We requested it only to avoid accidentally mistaking officers with clean records for people with similar names and long criminal rap sheets.

The attorney general's office sided with the newsroom. In response, regulators filed a lawsuit against the reporter. The Oregon Coalition of Police & Sheriffs sought a new exemption to Oregon's public records law for officer birthdates. Lawmakers obliged.

The Oregonian/OregonLive received the data on officers, minus dates of birth, eight months after its initial request. The lack of dates of birth made it impractical to analyze court data for how effectively the state is catching officers who are charged with a crime.

But the data allowed reporters to identify all officers whose cases had gone before regulators and the outcomes.

To dig deeper into the allegations against officers and how regulators reached their decisions, the newsroom asked for copies of staff reports and any attached documents for 210 officers. Oregon law says state regulators must write a report every time they close a decertification case.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4328626-HaleCostEstimateStaffReports/annotations/393422.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Regulators estimated that providing the documents would cost $29,282.40 for staff time to review for possible redaction. They proposed a 50 percent discount, for a total of $14,641.20.

Because of the high cost, the newsroom eventually narrowed its focus to the 40 police officers who were fired but kept their certifications from 2013 to 2016.

Read the documents

for three officers whose cases were described in Fired, But Fit for Duty.

The records included disciplinary memos and internal affairs reports compiled by police departments and sheriffs' offices. Before answering The Oregonian/OregonLive's request, the state asked for permission to disclose documents the local agencies had submitted. The local agencies vetoed the release of records on 10 officers.

Getting access to the full case files required the newsroom to appeal repeatedly to the attorney general's office. Disciplinary records are considered exempt from release under the public records law unless a requester can show that disclosure is in the public interest. In every one of the newsroom's appeals, the attorney general's office agreed that disclosure was necessary.

"Given the authority that is entrusted to police officers, there is a significant public interest in monitoring the investigations that DPSST undertakes to determine whether a police officer's certification should be suspended or revoked," the deputy attorney general wrote in one of the orders.

"Because DPSST's investigations rely in a large part on these personnel investigations, public oversight of DPSST would be severely constrained were these records withheld."

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4328623-Records-Request-Cost-Files/annotations/393421.html"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;View note&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Inquiries from reporters have prompted the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training to make some changes.

For example, the department posted on its website a slimmed-down version of its database containing each officer's certification, employment and training history. In the future, the agency will post documents about officers whose cases are discussed at a public meeting, officials said. They also opened up meetings of work groups and subcommittees to the public after The Oregonian/OregonLive challenged closed-door sessions as a violation of public meetings law.

Administrative closures, the focus of The Oregonian/OregonLive's investigation, appeared for the first time on the agenda of a public meeting in November. An official read off the names of officers whose cases they closed and briefly described why.

As recently as June, the department continued behind the scenes to take steps that would limit disclosure of police records.

Linsay Hale, the agency's director of professional standards, sent an email that month to then-Portland Police Chief Mike Marshman noting the attorney general's recent orders to release disciplinary documents to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

She spelled out how Marshman could keep his officers' records from reporters in the future. Rather than handing records over to the state, the Portland Police Bureau could ask the state to send someone to Portland to read the records in person.

In an interview, Hale denied trying to thwart transparency. She described this change as a records-management improvement to limit the records the state collects to only the most relevant ones. For example, a criminal investigation would be irrelevant, Hale said, if the officer were convicted.

She said the offer she gave Portland is available to all police departments and sheriffs' offices. She said the state's two investigators would drive from Salem to as far as Gold Beach and Umatilla County to review records if asked.

Portland's Police Bureau, according to a spokesman, hasn't decided whether or not to accept Hale's offer under the new chief, Danielle Outlaw.

-- Carli Brosseau and Rebecca Woolington
A deep-pocketed California group that dislikes the Electoral College system has spent nearly $100,000 this year going after its nemesis: Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney.

Since 2007, Courtney has single-handedly killed every attempt to add Oregon to the list of states that have agreed to circumvent the Electoral College system by pledging their delegates to the winner of the national popular vote.

So the non-profit political group National Popular Vote is creating anti-Courtney ads and spreading them in the senator's district, which spans Salem and Woodburn. The ads -- produced in English and Spanish -- have been distributed via direct mail, billboards, cable television and the internet, campaign finance records show.

The ads paint Courtney, 74, as out-of-touch not only on the national popular vote issue but also on tenant protections and environmental policy. They fault him for taking campaign contributions from tobacco companies.

Courtney was not available to answer questions for this story, a campaign spokeswoman said. In a statement she provided, Courtney said Oregon voters should decide whether to subvert the Electoral College. Courtney's statement also said he would support such a proposal if it passes out of committee next year.

Earlier this month, National Popular Vote upped the ante in its drive against Courtney by paying a consultant to recruit candidates to compete against him in the May primary. Chris Pearson, a Vermont state senator paid $6,400 to conduct candidate recruitment, did not return calls seeking comment.

So far, the group hasn't found a candidate, said John Koza, architect of the national popular vote movement and the non-profit's primary financier. But he vows they will.

"We've never had a situation quite like this in any other state where one person has so consistently blocked something in spite of substantial support," said Koza, a pioneer in the field of genetics-based computer programming who found financial success as inventor of the lottery scratch-it card.

"The (national popular vote) bill is clearly never going to pass as long as Courtney is in charge of the Senate," he said.

As Senate president, Courtney has near-total control of what happens in the chamber. He can unilaterally block legislation he dislikes from a Senate vote.

Koza said his organization has never had a political battle the likes of its tussle with Courtney.

His group has succeeded in getting 10 states, including Washington, California and Hawaii, and the District of Columbia to pass laws making the national popular vote binding there once the group grows to 270 electoral votes. The effort stands at 165 electoral votes so far.

Lobbyists hired by National Popular Vote have pushed Oregon lawmakers to pass their bill year after year, Koza said, but Courtney has killed the attempts every time. The last came earlier this year, after the Oregon House passed the legislation for the fourth time, but Courtney refused to allow a Senate vote. Courtney said for the first time this year that he would allow a vote on such a bill -- but only if it put the national popular vote question to Oregon voters, rather than enact the concept outright.

Courtney is the Legislature's longest serving member, having been first elected in 1981. He's also in the middle of an unprecedented eighth term as Senate president. Speculation of his retirement bubbled up this summer, but he ultimately filed for re-election in September.

Barbara Fuller, chairwoman of the Marion County Democratic Central Committee, said it's unclear who would want to face off against Courtney in a primary election. Fuller said she knows of no likely candidates.

Even if someone jumped into the race, Courtney would enjoy support from the Marion County Democrats.

"We will support him," Fuller said. "We don't like the way he's being attacked on this issue. But we do want to see the national popular vote go forward."

-- Gordon R. Friedman

503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedman
Portland will not investigate allegations that former Mayor Sam Adams made sexually inappropriate comments and frequent attempts at drunk driving when he was mayor because the alleged conduct took place too long ago and Adams is no longer a city employee.

That information was disclosed in emails from the city attorney's office obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive last week.

Adams' former executive assistant, Cevero Gonzalez, emailed Portland's commissioners on Nov. 2 alleging that the former mayor asked him uncomfortable questions such as when the last time he "got laid" was, what positions he preferred during sex and questions about male body parts.

Adams denied the allegations in a November text to The Oregonian/OregonLive and said that he would "gladly participate" in an investigation.

But Portland City Attorney Tracy Reeve told Gonzalez in a Nov. 9 email obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive that too much time has passed for the city to investigate the allegations. The Portland Mercury first reported the city's decision to not investigate.

"Mr. Adams is no longer affiliated with the city," Reeve wrote in the email to Gonzalez. "Given this, and given the passage of time, it appears unlikely that there is any legal avenue now open to the city to address the concerns you raise."

In her email, Reeve invited Gonzalez to meet with city attorneys to discuss his concerns and what he actions he hopes the city will take.

"We want to make sure we are fully apprised of both your concerns and any thoughts or recommendations you may (have) for the city going forward," Reeve wrote.

Gonzalez declined to meet with city attorneys, asserting that by not further investigating the city chose to "reaffirm a response that victims of abuse are all too often provided: there is nothing more to be done."

"While I appreciate your offer to meet to discuss my concerns in greater detail, I have little confidence that any substantive, meaningful or necessary conversations will occur unless an outside party investigates this matter further," Gonzalez wrote to the city attorney.

Reeve told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email Thursday that the conduct Gonzalez alleged would have violated city rules in place at the time and the accusations would have been investigated had they "been reported." Reeve noted that Gonzalez received training on the city's anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, "including his ability to make reports outside his own office if he didn't feel comfortable reporting to his supervisor."

Gonzalez told the city attorney in an email that he did report the behavior to his supervisors, Tom Miller and Jennifer Yocom, but they dismissed his concerns. Miller said in November that Gonzalez never told him about inappropriate behavior. Yocom could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

Gonzales told the city attorney that he was "shocked and saddened" that his statement had gotten out to the public.

He said the email that he wrote to eight top city officials' public email addresses was "intended solely for review by city of Portland staff." Public employees' emails are public records unless there is a specific provision in the law, such as for records containing private medical information, that allows them to be kept confidential.

--Jessica Floum

503-221-8306
A 19-year-old who worked at Portland International Airport and used his badge to bypass security and sneak onto a red-eye Jet Blue flight to Boston this summer believed he had earned a "free ride,'' a prosecutor said Thursday.

The flight crew found Blessing Shallome Ndayishimiye in the back of the plane, without a seat, and airport police escorted him off the aircraft before it took off.

Ndayishimiye pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of entering an aircraft or airport area in violation of security requirements. He'll be sentenced March 20 for the misdemeanor.

He had been a contract worker for Airport Terminal Services, doing a range of jobs, including serving as a baggage handler.

On Aug. 17, he failed to show up for work. Shortly after 10 p.m. that day, he tried to drive his personal car onto a secure airfield at the airport, but was stopped, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel.

About 10:50 p.m., Ndayishimiye then used his ID badge to access the airport's tarmac, bypassing the Transportation Security Administration, and threw his bag onto a baggage truck and entered a Jet Blue plane via the jetway, the enclosed, passenger boarding bridge that extends from an airport terminal gate to the airplane.

His actions caused a three-hour delay for the other 143 passengers, who had to get off the plane and get rescreened while a bomb detection dog searched the aircraft, Gabriel said.

Ndayishimiye admitted to authorities that he had violated security regulations, but he said he thought he was due the ride, Gabriel told a judge. His motive wasn't to commit any violence, the prosecutor said.

U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon asked Ndayishimiye to explain what he was thinking at the time.

"I thought I had a free pass, some benefits for working at the airport," he said. "I used my badge to get access to the flight because I thought the flight would not be full."

Ndayishimiye, a native of the African country Burundi, told the judge he's in his second year at California Baptist University.

The judge noted that Ndayishimiye isn't a U.S. citizen and could face deportation or other immigration consequences for the conviction.

He remains out of custody, pending sentencing.

The maximum penalty is a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. But prosecutors are expected to recommend a probationary sentence. Ndayishimiye also will be prohibited from working at an airport in any capacity.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
UPDATED Fri., Dec. 15, 2017 with police chief's statement

A Portland police officer on Thursday pleaded guilty to first-degree official misconduct and was sentenced to a year and a half of probation with required community service for having sex on duty with a woman he met responding to a neighborhood noise disturbance call.

The first court appearance, plea hearing and sentencing of Christian Robert Berge, 46, lasted four minutes before Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric J. Bergstrom.

Christian Robert Berge, 46

Berge agreed to resign from the Portland Police Bureau, where he worked patrol for 10 years, and surrender his police certification. He must complete 120 hours of community service through a charity of his choice.

The judge quickly read through the negotiated agreement and asked Berge how he intended to plea to the allegation that he "unlawfully and knowingly'' engaged in "unauthorized exercise of his official duties, with intent to obtain a benefit.''

"Guilty, your Honor,'' said Berge, dressed in a blue suit and white dress shirt, standing beside defense lawyer Michael Staropoli.

Multnomah County Chief Deputy District Attorney Don Rees didn't describe the offense during the brief court hearing.

Asked afterward what the misconduct included, Rees responded, "When he was supposed to be serving and protecting, he was fornicating.''

The alleged sexual relationship lasted from mid-August 2015 through this past May, Rees said. The woman reported the behavior to police recently, he said.

Berge joined the bureau in December 2007 after working as a San Francisco police officer. He had been on front desk duty at Central Precinct earlier this year before he was placed on paid leave.

Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw was on vacation Thursday n and unavailable for comment, police bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said.

On Friday, the bureau released a statement from the chief: "I want our officers and residents of Portland to know that I take allegations of misconduct seriously. This investigation followed all of our internal protocols, resulting in the criminal charge, plea and resignation of the officer. Internally and externally, this officer was held accountable for his actions.''

While cases such as this "can damage the public trust in police officers,'' Outlaw said the bureau "will continue to work hard in the community to build relationships and enhance community trust of Portland Police officers.''

Berge is named in a pending federal lawsuit, which alleges that he stopped a couple in April 2015 without reason, ordered the driver to get his "black ass'' out of the car and searched the car, finding nothing except the driver's Bible and a Bible study book.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in August, alleges the stop was motivated by racial discrimination. Police internal affairs officers investigated the April 2015 stop and exonerated Berge of the improper stop allegation, but the police bureau found he had broken the motorist's key and was discourteous.

The sentencing was at least the third time in less than two years that Multnomah County prosecutors have arranged for a law enforcement officer facing a criminal charge to make a single appearance in court before Bergstrom as judge.

In February 2016, Jeromie L. Palaoro resigned from the Police Bureau and moments later pleaded guilty to first-degree official misconduct in Bergstrom's courtroom after a woman said he responded to her domestic assault complaint and then visited her hotel room and coerced her into unwanted sexual contact. In March, a Gresham police officer pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Bergstrom for exposing himself to co-workers.

Chris O'Connor, a Portland criminal defense lawyer not tied to the Berge case, said he was struck by the "amazing turnaround'' on Berge's case, with no formal arrest, no separate arraignment, no probable cause statement and "special assignment to a judge without the normal criminal court process.''

O'Connor said it appeared as though the officer got special treatment from the prosecution and court.

Rees, in response, said any defense attorneys who want to make such an arrangement, who have a client "motivated to resolve their case'' with an immediate plea and sentencing, are welcome to do so.

He said he and Berge's lawyer, Staropoli, approached Bergstrom with the negotiated arrangement.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
A wounded 37-year-old man who sought refuge with a couple living on Sauvie Island after being shot told authorities he believes he was shot over a $400 debt, court documents show.

Nathan Packard identified the shooter as an acquaintance he knew nicknamed "Oxygen," and claimed the man was angry because Packard owed him money, according to a probable cause affidavit. Packard told investigators that on Tuesday, Oxygen drove him through east Portland, toward the Oregon Zoo, around Forest Park and St. Johns, then stopped on Sauvie Island.

Packard claimed the man -- later identified as 28-year-old Brett Andre -- forced him out of the car at gunpoint and may have shot him accidentally while pistol-whipping him with a revolver, the affidavit said.

Packard sustained a gunshot wound that shattered his shoulder blade and also suffered a fractured rib. He told Multnomah County sheriff's detectives that he was robbed of his laptop, wallet and cellphone, the affidavit said.

Andre was arrested on Wednesday. He told investigators Packard actually owed him $800, but denied shooting him, the affidavit said. A detective found Packard's laptop in Andre's backpack, as well as five .38-caliber bullets and one bullet casing, according to the court papers.

Andre remains held at the Multnomah County Detention Center accused of attempted murder, first- and second-degree assault, first-degree robbery and felon in possession of a firearm.

A pastor at Sauvie Island Community Church told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Packard pounded on the door of his home near the church Monday night and begged he and his wife for help while covered in blood. The couple called 911 and tended to Packard until police arrived.

According to the affidavit, a woman who had been in the car with Packard and Andre told investigators that the two men were involved in a credit card fraud ring and had a falling out over money. She said as the three of them and another woman were heading to Sauvie Island, Andre was driving erratically and kept reaching under the front seat. She said she asked Andre to let her out and he dropped her off at a gas station.

The woman also told investigators that Andre was staying at the States Motel in Northeast Portland, the affidavit said. Investigators learned Andre was in a wooded area near the hotel, brought in a patrol dog and later found him in the woods, the court papers aid.

The second woman who was in the car with Packard and Andre told investigators that she didn't hear anything when the two men got out while on Sauvie Island, the affidavit said. She said she was listening to music and estimated the pair was gone for two songs before Andre came back to the car alone and they drove away.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
By Sean Axmaker

What's new for home viewing on video-on-demand and Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

Don't Edit

TOP STREAMS FOR THE WEEK

Jean-Claude Van Damme spoofs his image and his career in "Jean-Claude Van Johnson," a spy comedy about a retired action star who used his movie career as cover for his real work: an international black ops agent. Van Damme has no problem satirizing his rocky past or his aging body as he returns to the field not quite in peak condition. Six episodes on Amazon Prime.

Don't Edit

The nonfiction miniseries "Wormwood" from Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris follows one man's obsessive search through government secrets for the truth about his father's mysterious death and uncovers a labyrinthine story involving the Central Intelligence Agency, drug experiments and conspiratorial theories. Peter Sarsgaard stars in the dreamlike dramatic recreations. Six episodes on Netflix.

Don't Edit

The touching "Marjorie Prime" (2017, not rated) stars Lois Smith as an elderly widow with a fading memory and Jon Hamm as the holographic companion who channels her dead husband. This science fiction-tinged drama of mortality, memory and loss also stars Geena Davis and Tim Robbins. Now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Don't Edit

PAY-PER-VIEW/VIDEO-ON-DEMAND

Reese Witherspoon is a single mother who invites a handsome twentysomething (Nat Wolff) and his two brothers to share her vast Los Angeles home in the romantic comedy "Home Again" (2017, PG-13). Michael Sheen is the ex-husband who tries to woo her back from her hunky young live-in lover.

"Kingsman: The Golden Circle" (2017, R) partners the elite British spy organization with its American counterpart and adds Julianne Moore, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum to the cast.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Also new: Kathryn Bigelow's "Detroit" (2017, R), starring John Boyega and based on a true story; faith-based drama "All Saints" (2017, PG) with John Corbett; and Chinese action thriller "Wolf Warrior 2" (China, 2017, not rated).

True stories: "Apache Warrior" (2017, not rated) profiles an Apache helicopter crew on the front lines of the invasion of Iraq. "School Life" (2017, not rated) follows a year in the life of two passionate teachers in an Irish primary boarding school. "For Ahkeem" (2017, not rated) takes you to a court-supervised high school for delinquent teens in St. Louis. "Love and Saucers" (2017, not rated) tells the strange story of David Huggins, who claims to have been abducted numerous times by aliens.

Available same day as select theaters nationwide is the comedy "Permanent" (2017, PG-13) with Patricia Arquette and Rainn Wilson as the parents of an awkward teen struggling as the new girl in school.

Don't Edit

NETFLIX

The holiday films keep coming. Romantic drama "Christmas Inheritance" (2017, not rated) stars Eliza Taylor as an heiress stranded in a small town. Michael Shannon stars in the comedy "Pottersville" (2017, PG-13) with Christina Hendricks, Judy Greer and Ian McShane.

Tim Allen turns into Saint Nick in the comedy "The Santa Clause" (1994, PG), finds a Mrs. Claus (Elizabeth Mitchell) in "The Santa Clause 2" (2002, G), and takes on Jack Frost (Martin Short) in "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" (2006, G).

"The Trip to Spain" (2016, not rated) is the third comic journey for Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon bickering through an epicurean tour.

Streaming TV: "Halt and Catch Fire: Season 4" is the final season of the AMC series about entrepreneurs in the early days of the Internet explosion. Bruce Campbell returns to the demon-fighting role that made him famous in the Starz horror comedy "Ash vs Evil Dead: Seasons 1 & 2."

From Netflix Japan comes the time travel series "Erased: Season 1" (Japan), based on the best-selling manga.

Don't Edit

Also new:

Foreign affairs: "The Unknown Girl" (Belgium, 2016, not rated, with subtitles) from brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne follows a young doctor really exploring the neighborhood she serves.

Don't Edit

Also new:

Romantic drama " A Five Star Life " (Italy, 2013, not rated, with subtitles) with Margherita Buy as a luxury hotel inspector

Black comedy " The Mafia Kills Only in Summer " (Italy, 2013, not rated, with subtitles)

Lagaan" (India, 2001, PG, with subtitles) about an epic cricket match between Indian villagers and occupying British soldiers

Bollywood musical "" (India, 2001, PG, with subtitles) about an epic cricket match between Indian villagers and occupying British soldiers

Stand-up: "Judd Apatow: The Return" (Netflix Original)

Don't Edit

AMAZON PRIME

Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo star in the survival drama "It Comes at Night" (2017, R). Lakeith Stanfield is an unjustly convicted man in "Crown Heights" (2017, R), a drama based on a true story.

Also new: "Nightcrawler" (2014, R) with Jake Gyllenhaal as a ruthless freelance video newsman and "Rosewater" (2014, R) with Gael Garcia Bernal as a journalist imprisoned in Iran, directed by Jon Stewart.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Foreign affairs: A disenchanted architect and the elephant he grew up with as a child hit the road in "Pop Aye" (Thailand, 2017, not rated, with subtitles).

True stories: "Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World" (2017, not rated) looks at the contributions of Native Americans to American popular music. "Buena Vista Social Club: Adios" (2017, PG) revisits the legendary Cuban group two decades after the original documentary brought them an international audience.

Don't Edit

AMAZON PRIME AND HULU

"Foreman" (2017, not rated) profiles the champion boxer George Foreman, who returned to the ring after a 10-year retirement to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history (Amazon Prime and Hulu).

Don't Edit

HULU

Sam Elliott is an aging, ailing movie star coming to terms with his legacy and his mistakes in "The Hero" (2017, R), co-starring Laura Prepon, Nick Offerman and Krysten Ritter.

"The Limehouse Golem" (2017, not rated), a British thriller with Bill Nighy and Olivia Cooke, takes on an unsolved killing spree before Jack the Ripper.

Don't Edit

Also new:

Streaming TV: Sutton Foster is a Vegas showgirl turned small-town ballet teacher in the family friendly dramedy "Bunheads: Season 1." The acclaimed series never got a second season but Sutton is now in "Younger: Season 4."

Don't Edit

HBO NOW

"Logan" (2017, R), starring Hugh Jackman in his final screen appearance as X-Men hero Wolverine, shows that superhero movies can tell a human story. This near-future thriller delivers gritty action and ruthless R-rated battles, but at heart it's about mortality, aging and what we do for family. Patrick Stewart co-stars.

Idris Elba is a CIA agent in Paris who uncovers a conspiracy in "The Take" (2016, R).

True stories: "Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution" (2017, not rated) puts its description in the title.

Arriving Saturday night is the comedy "Going in Style" (2017, PG-13) with Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin as retired buddies who plot a bank robbery.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

SHOWTIME ANYTIME

"You, Me and Him" (2017, not rated) is a British comedy with Lucy Punch and David Tennant. Rachel Weisz stars in "The Whistleblower" (2011, R) as a United Nations peacekeeper who uncovers a network of corruption.

Also new: Sarah Polley's "Away From Her" (2006, PG-13) with Julie Christie, and John Carpenter's original siege thriller "Assault on Precinct 13" (1976, R).

Don't Edit

FILMSTRUCK/CRITERION CHANNEL

FilmStruck presents the films of Bill Morrison, including his new documentary "Dawson City: Frozen Time" (2016, not rated), which combines Klondike history and film history in the story of a great "Dawson Film Find" of 1978. Other films include the impressionistic "Decasia" (2002, not rated) and the World War I documentary "Beyond Zero: 1914-1918" (2014, not rated) featuring rare archival footage of the war.

Also new are two American classics: the boxing drama "The Harder They Fall" (1956) with Humphrey Bogart's final film and Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd" (1957) with Andy Griffith as a populist media star with a ruthless drive under his folksy charm.

Criterion Channel adds Christian Petzold's superb drama "Phoenix" (Germany, 2014, not rated), set in Germany after World War II, and seven films by Japanese director Juzo Itami, including "The Funeral" (Japan, 1984, not rated) and "Minbo, or The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion" (Japan, 1992, not rated), to join his previously available films "Tampopo" (Japan, 1985) and "A Taxing Woman" (Japan, 1987, not rated). All with subtitles.

Don't Edit

NEW ON DISC

"Home Again," "Kingsmen: The Golden Circle," "Detroit," "All Saints," "Games of Thrones: Season 7"

Don't Edit

NOW AT REDBOX

"Atomic Blonde," "Kingsmen: The Secret Service," "All Saints," "True Detective: Seasons 1 & 2"

Don't Edit

MORE TV AND MOVIE COVERAGE

Oregon-native sports reporter Bri Amaranthus set to compete on ABC's 'The Bachelor'

Golden Globes: 'Shape of Water,' 'Big Little Lies' lead nominations

'The Librarians' Season 4: The Portland-filmed show -- and its refreshingly brainy heroes -- returns

'Wonder Woman' is Twitter's movie of the year, but there's more to know about Gal Gadot's hit flick

Don't Edit
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The Michigan Legislature has given final approval for bills that protect public services and retirement benefits for police, firefighters and other local government employees.

The package of bills aids authorities by identifying local governments that may be in financial trouble due to underfunded retirement plans.

"Our local public servants play an important role in making Michigan a great place to live, work and raise a family -- providing a wide variety of local services that we use and depend on every day," said Sen. Jim Stamas, R-Midland. "While this legislation is a step forward toward local retirement stability, I will continue fighting to preserve and protect the promises made to our local workers and ensure they receive the retirement benefits they have earned."

The bills are now headed to Gov. Rick Snyder for his consideration.

"This reform package is a significant step toward ensuring our first responders and other municipal employees get the retirement benefits they expect and deserve," said Rep. Gary Glenn, R-Williams Township. "Our police and firefighters put themselves in harm's way for our protection. The least we can do is help ensure their retirement benefits are protected."

The package of bills is the result of the governor's bipartisan Responsible Retirement Reform for Local Government Task Force.

"It is estimated that local governments in Michigan are $18.8 billion in the red on their pension and retirement health care obligations," said Stamas, who served on the Task Force. "Our goal with this legislation is to increase transparency, preserve local control and encourage local solutions. Many local governments have already taken action to address their unfunded liabilities. These proactive reforms are designed to help locals that have not taken steps to resolve their growing debt issue."

At its last audit, Rehmann principal Doug Deeter applauded Midland County for addressing its unfunded liabilities.

The county's Act 345 Retirement System, for fire and police personnel, is funded at 80 percent. The total pension liability stands at $30 million while the plan net position is $24 million, leaving a liability of only $6 million.

"That is a pretty good position for a county to have funded," Deeter said.

The Employees' Retirement System for other County employees looks even better at 92 percent. The total pension liability amounts to $60.8 million while the net position is $55.8 million, leaving a liability of about $5 million.

"You are in very good position for your pension plans," Deeter added.

The multi-bill package headed to Snyder's desk creates a reporting system with uniform financial and accounting standards for local government retirement plans. An early detection system will help local governments and the state identify potential funding problems and act quickly to mitigate them. Communities will be vetted through a state treasurer's fiscal impact evaluation and retirement systems will be flagged as underfunded when municipalities aren't meeting recommended criteria to alleviate their debts.

Communities will be required to make a minimum level of payments related to retirement systems for new hires.

Glenn sponsored House Bill 5301, which requires that a reciprocal unit and a reciprocal retirement system must comply with any applicable requirements of the package's primary bills.
To the editor:

Why is it news every time a small group of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters complain that they are upset? I have yet to see them use factual information or logical reasoning. All they want to do is get attention and push their liberal agenda.

They certainly have a right to express their opinions, but that doesnt mean the media has to embarrass itself by covering it.

JEREMY RODGERS

Midland
SPRINGFIELD (AP)  Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed legislation aimed at combating fraudulent opioid prescriptions by requiring drug prescribers to use a database containing patient prescription histories.

The measure Rauner signed this week requires prescribers with an Illinois Controlled Substance License to register for and use the Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program. The database lets physicians check if patients have previously requested controlled substances. Rauner's office says the effort will cut down on patients obtaining opioid prescriptions from multiple doctors.

This legislation helps us combat opioid abuse by addressing fraud at a critical point of access, Rauner said. Too often, users obtain dangerous amounts of opioids by doctor-shopping prescriptions for their drugs of choice from prescribers in our health care system. The new PMP registration requirements will help deter this practice by tracking prescriptions and making information available to physicians before they write them.

Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti is chair of the Governor's Opioid Overdose Prevention Task Force. She says the law gives prescribers "the tools they need to ensure patients aren't manipulating the system to support their addiction."
City officials say they are looking for ways to ease frustration of residents affected by the ongoing closure of Washington Street to accommodate environmental cleanup in the area.
NORMAL  Medical care will return soon to a familiar, busy location.

Advocate Medical Group has rebuilt the former Doctor's Office building at College and Towanda avenues in Normal into a medical building for immediate care and family medicine.

Advocate Medical Group-College Avenue Immediate Care and Family Medicine will open Jan. 3. Immediate Care hours will be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Family Medicine hours will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

"This is a great location for patient access," Jen Erickson, Advocate Medical Group (AMG) practice manager, said Thursday during a tour of the building at 1437 E. College Ave.

"People are used to care being here," said Jamie Kilpatrick, AMG director of practice management.

The building had been Advocate Medical Group Immediate Care and Occupational Medicine Services, but that closed in August 2012 when those services moved to the Advocate BroMenn Outpatient Center, 3024 E. Empire St., Bloomington.

The building opened in 1986 as The Doctor's Office. BroMenn Healthcare acquired the 4,100-square-foot building in 1995 and renamed it HealthPoint Urgent Care. It became AMG Immediate Care and Occupational Medicine several years later.

Advocate decided that resuscitating the building made sense because it is on a busy intersection with businesses, a neighborhood and schools nearby, said John Fulk and Jenny Menendez, Advocate physician assistants who will relocate their practices to the building from Normal Immediate Care on the Advocate BroMenn Medical Center campus in Normal. Normal Immediate Care will close Dec. 29.

"It's a great location," said Dr. Michael Springer with Normal Family Medicine on the medical center campus. Springer will be relocating to the new building but Normal Family Medicine will remain open.

Advocate spent $2.3 million to build and equip the building, said Steve Fifarek, manager of construction for Advocate Health Care-Central Illinois Region.

The building will include six exam rooms that can be used by Immediate Care or Family Medicine, a triage room, a procedure room, a lab to draw blood, a secured medication room and a radiology room, said Sharon Adams, vice president of operations for AMG-Central Region.

During winter, radiology will be busy with chest X-rays during flu season and for X-rays of ankles and wrists as people slip on ice, said X-ray technologist Tonya Karnia.

"It's great to have radiology in an immediate care setting," Karnia said. "It allows us to diagnose right away."

A clinical work space in the center of the building is divided into four pods for medical providers and support personnel to work together. Windows encircling the space ensure patient confidentiality while allowing staff to keep an eye on what's going on outside the work space, Adams and Kilpatrick explained.

Sixteen full- and part-time employees will work in the building, Erickson said.
The Dodge Challenger crept up, reversed, then accelerated toward the crowd. As he watched a surveillance video of that moment -- the car barreling toward people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last summer -- Marcus Martin grew angry and cursed out loud.

"Take me out," Martin yelled during a hearing in Charlottesville on Thursday for James Alex Fields Jr., the man who prosecutors say drove the Challenger. Martin, who was injured as he pushed his fiancee out of the car's path, stormed out the courtroom.

Prosecutors say Fields killed Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old Charlottesville paralegal, and injured others who were demonstrating against the "Unite the Right" rally. The event drew white nationalists and other far right organizations who opposed the city's decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park.

Fields, who initially was charged with second-degree murder and other offenses, now faces a charge of first-degree murder. A Charlottesville district court Judge announced the upgraded charge at the court hearing attended by Fields and about two dozen of Heyer's family members and supporters.

Prosecutors played the surveillance video from a Charlottesville restaurant in addition to a video from a Virginia State Police helicopter monitoring the events.

Authorities say the footage captures Fields' Challenger stopping about a block and a half away from protesters, reversing, then driving into the crowd and speeding away in reverse. Fields was apprehended about four minutes after the collision, about a mile away.

Fields could not be seen driving the car in either video, but the aerial shot showed Fields getting out of the car and on the ground after the collision.

Charlottesville Det. Steven Young, a prosecution witness, testified he was patrolling Emancipation Park on foot when he heard the radio traffic reporting an incident near Fourth and Water streets that day. He and three other officers jumped into a van and responded to the location where the Challenger had stopped.

Young said he arrived on the scene shortly after police pulled the Challenger over. By then, Fields was already on the ground in handcuffs, Young said.

The detective said he saw blood and flesh on the front of the car. The front fender was torn off and the windshield was cracked, Young said.

People had tried to stop Fields from driving away, creating two holes in the back window, said Young, who is investigating the case.

Young said he knows of 36 victims including Heyer.

Fields' attorney, Denise Lunsford, tried to paint her client as a sympathetic character as she cross-examined Young. The detective acknowledged that Fields said, "I'm sorry" several times and asked if people were okay after he was apprehended.

Fields was shocked, and cried and sobbed, when he later learned of the fatality, Young said.

Young said Fields told others he went to Charlottesville by himself and wanted to hear a speaker at the rally.

Exclusive photographs obtained by CNN appear to show Fields marching alongside neo-Nazis and other white supremacists at the rally in Charlottesville.

Fields' wrists and feet were shackled during the hearing. He sat not far from Heyer's mother, Susan Bro.

Heyer's favorite color was purple, and two women in the courtroom room wore purple shirts emblazoned with Heyer's photo. On the shirts was an anonymous quote Heyer believed in, and once posted on Facebook: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

Fields' case will go before a grand jury on Monday.

CNN's Matthew Hoye, Eric Levenson and Amanda Watts contributed reporting.
IRAN: After Burn Victims Denied Compensation Because They're Girls, Lawyer Says Law Must Change

12/15/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

A lawyer in Iran is speaking out about sexism in the country's legal code after the families of two children who died in a fire at an elementary school were denied full compensation because the victims were girls.

"In the case of the two innocent girls who died from burns in this terrible incident, the Diyah allocated for them has been cut in half because of their gender," Hossein Ahmadiniaz, a lawyer representing victims of the fire, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on December 9, 2017. "That's discriminatory and unfair."

According to Islamic law, Diyah, known as "blood money" in English, is paid as financial compensation to the victim or heirs of a victim in the cases of murder, bodily harm, or property damage.

However, in Iran, the Diyah for women is worth half the value of the Diyah for men.

"The religious leaders should keep in mind that we are not in seventh-century Saudi Arabia. We are in the 21st century. In progressive societies, women work side-by-side with men," said Ahmadiniaz.

He added that Iran's Islamic Penal Code must be revised to prevent future cases of injustice against females.

Ahmadiniaz is the legal counsel for the families of Siran Yeganeh and Saria Rasoulzadeh, two young girls who died in a fire at a public school in the village of Shinabad, West Azerbaijan Province, in December 2012.

A faulty substandard heater was determined to be the cause of the fire, which left burns on nearly 30 children. Many of the burns were so serious that the children continue to require reconstructive surgery five years after the event.

Ahmadiniaz told CHRI that his clients have still not received any compensation from the government.

"All women in Iran face this discrimination when they are in an accident," he said.

"Article 20 of the Constitution clearly states that there should be no inequality between men and women and Article 21 states that the government should facilitate gender equality," he said.

"However," Ahmadiniaz said, "we are still witnessing inequality between the sexes."

According to Article 551 of the Islamic Penal Code, the family of a woman who was murdered would receive half the Diyah that the family of a murdered man would receive.

Ahmadiniaz said some of his other clients are experiencing similar problems caused by the gender discrimination contained in Iran's penal code.

In May 2012, two young women, Monia Yousefi and Roxana Iravani, fell and died when the "Crazy Mouse" ride malfunctioned in the state-owned Eram amusement park in Tehran.

"The government is completely liable for the incidents at Eram Park and inShinabad and must take steps to provide treatment for the survivors and equal compensation to the families of the dead," Ahmadiniaz told CHRI.

"A human being's worth in Iran is much, much less than what is accepted in Europe and the US where victims can collect millions of dollars for police brutality," he said. "In Iran, the maximum amount of blood money is 250 million tomans [approximately $71,700 USD], which is cut in half for women."
China eyeing take over of Iran gas project if France's Total pulls out

12/15/17

Source: Press TV

Speculations are rising that China's leading oil and gas company CNPC could replace French energy giant Total in a key Iranian natural gas project if any new US sanctions against investments in Iran's economic projects forces it to leave the country. Reuters in an exclusive report said CNPC had already started talks with Iran over a share of 30 percent in the project to develop Phase 11 of Iran's South Pars gas field - the world's biggest independent gas field.



South Pars and Iranian oil and gas infrastructures





The shares of Total - which is the operator of the project - stand at 50.1 percent and rest belong to Iran's Petropars. The three companies signed an agreement with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in July to develop Phase 11 at a total price tag of $4.8 billion in what could potential become the largest foreign investment in the Iranian economy after the removal of sanctions against the country last year.



Reuters quoted unnamed Chinese industrial sources as saying that CNPC could take over the stake of the French giant and become the operator of Phase 11.



It added that this would require changes in certain technicalities regarding the project - changes that Reuters said could make CNPC bring in new partners. CNOOC - China's largest offshore operator - could be one of them.



"In the case of a Total withdrawal, CNPC may need to bring in CNOOC because CNPC has little experience offshore," Reuters quoted an unnamed Chinese industry official as saying.



A change in ownership structure would mean that CNPC would shoulder 80 percent of the cost of the project, estimated at $2 billion for the first stage, the report added.



This drew a response from Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh who said last month the French company could only leave if obliged to under sanctions by the United Nations Security Council - and not the US.



US President Donald Trump in October refused to certify an agreement with Iran that had led to the removal of sanctions against the country and authorized foreign investments in the country - including that led by Total.



The agreement - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - had been achieved between the permanent members of the Security Council - that include the US - and Iran after spending thousands of hours for negotiations over the Iranian nuclear energy program.



The JCPOA allowed the removal of certain nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in return for the country's moves to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities.



Iran has previously announced that the US was falling short of its commitments toward the JCPOA by failing to remove the sanctions against the country and even by moving to impose new sanctions against it.



This is while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - which reports Iran's compliance with the JCPOA - has for multiple times emphasized that the country is fully implementing its commitments toward the nuclear deal.



Trump had given the Congress a deadline of 60 days to determine whether US sanctions against Iran would be re-imposed.



The Congress, however, failed to act when the deadline expired this past Wednesday thus returning the ball over new Iran sanctions to Trump's court.



Reuters further quoted a Total official as saying that the company faced a financial loss amounting to only several tens of millions of dollars if it pulled out of the project. But that would be a relatively small sum for the $120 billion company, the source added.


Scores of people trooped to the RPF-Inkotanyi Conference Center for the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Rwandan Patriotic Front with a hope to change the narrative about liberation and economic transformation in Africa.



Speaking during the conference, H.E Benjamin Mkapa, Former President, Tanzania reiterated the need for African leaders to reassure their people of true self-reliance and identity while thriving together to change the narrative.



He said," I'm hoping the ambition of relocating to Europe will be replaced by an aspiration to relocating to Africa".



However, he admitted that the Developed countries Architecture do not allow for Regional Integration.



He was similarly emphatic that a serious livestock market policy was important in the East African bloc especially to control free movement of animals and border control.



H.E. Benjamin Mkapa recognized that in other for Africa to move away from the narrative of being poor it was necessary to have clear nationalities, saying that the thing that produces results is identity and people of dignity.



On his part, Andrew Mwenda, Journalist and Managing Director, Independent Magazine, Uganda stressed that public institutions perform better in Rwanda even than in Kenya or Uganda.



"Self-reliance, identity and self-discipline are pillars which I believe can make Africa grow, transform and develop".



Furthermore, Dr.Jendayi Frazer, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs,Bureau of African Affairs argued that it's it's extremely important that we distinguish between growth and transformation.



According to her, Africans development must move with changes in global trends and Affairs.



"Accountability, good governance and inclusion is what Africa needs to develop", she said.



In a sharp contrast, Dr. Frazer identified certain challenges that she forsee may hinder such progress including the question of state building, question of inclusion, question of overcoming trade barriers, among others."The question of idealization must be put at the back burner", she pointed.



Self awareness, self-determination and hoe Africa can use global changes to advance it's course are clear ways to unify the continent.



It has therefore become obvious that countries must be prepared to reduce aid and that aid if necessary must be connected to a collective self-realization.



Africa according to her has a challenge of inequality in the world, challenge of sound cohesion and ecological sustainability and these must be addressed by African leaders.



Lastly, James Mwangi, Executive Director, Dalberg Group, Kenya also stipulated the need to for Africa to embrace technology and innovation saying, "you cannot solve your immediate challenges with 14th century solutions".



He stated that African leaders must lower the barriers of thinking big.



The conference was under the theme, "Liberalization and transformation: Realizing a dignified and prosperous Africa".

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Some Female students from senior high schools within the Assin area in the Central Region have levelled allegations against their male teachers for harassing them sexually on campus.



The students further stated that, despite learning hard to pass their exams, they are always harassed with sex from their teachers to have good grades and money.



The students made this revelations at the climax of this years 16 days of activism against gender-based violence at Assin Anode.



The students who are from Assin Manso SHS, Nyankomasi SHS, Obiri Yeboah SHS, Assin State College, and Assin North Community Day School, explained further that, They worry us too much especially those of us in the boarding house.



They tell you they will give you money and good grades and if you dont agree to the proposal they sometimes beat you, hate you and even sack you from their class or even fail you in exams.



And sometimes because some of our parents are illiterate, they are unable to understand some of the demands we make so they can provide for us, So we easily fall prey to the demands of our female teachers, they said.



However, expressing worry about the students revelations, the sector minister, Madam Otiko Djaba, indicated that, Ghana frowns on all forms of abuses, and stressed on the need to end teenage pregnancy, child prostitution, defilement, rape, child marriage and human trafficking as Ghana progresses as a nation.



According to her strict measures would be instituted in various Senior High Schools, more especially in girls schools to check the activities of male teachers.



It is important for all to know that, it is against the law to commit a crime against both children and adults. Adding that, any teacher who will fall prey to the law, that is either by harassing students unnecessarily or exchanging their studies with sex will be held by the law, Otiko Djaba stressed.

Source: ghanacrusader.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu, First Deputy Speaker of Parliament has directed the Communications Committee of Parliament to furnish the House with a detailed report on how much debt the state broadcaster, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) owes and how much is owed it, and who.



This follows an application by the Majority Leader Osei Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, demanding details of how much GBC received as proceeds from advertising campaign messages for political parties in the run up to the December 2016 general elections.



I will serve notice to the committee, as part of their oversight, to indicate to us how many of such adverts GBC, both on radio and television took, and what were their earnings on radio and television.



Mr. Speaker, let it be the assignment of the committee, before they talk to us about any indebtedness, the Majority Leader said, in a contribution to the debate to approve the 2018 Government budget allocation to the Ministry of Information.



Government has in the 2018 Budget reduced the allocation to the Ministry of Information from GHC 141 million in 2017 to GHC 107, and that has attracted criticisms from the House. The Ministry made a budgetary request of GHC 184.86 for the 2018 financial year.



The Agencies and institutions responsible for the implementation of the policies and programmes of the Ministry are the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Information Services Department (ISD) the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Ghana Publishing Limited, the Graphic Communications Group Company Limited and the New Times Corporation.



The Ministry of Information exists to facilitate free flow of adequate, timely and reliable information and feedback between the Government of Ghana and its various publics for socio-economic empowerment and enhanced democratic citizenship.



However, Members of Parliament, in contributions to the debate on the annual budget estimates on the Ministry regretted that Government has reduced, capped the allocation of the budget to the Information Ministry, noting that, it would plunge the institutions into further distress.



From logistics constraints through shortage of staff, to power cuts due to non-payment of electricity bills, the House called for effective measures to address the challenges of the GNA, GBC and the ISD to really fulfil their expected assigned roles.



During contributions on the motion to approve the budget, it came to light that the GBC indebtedness had let to power cuts, which had negatively affected its operations. Conversely, a number of political parties and state institutions, including Parliament are in arrears to the GBC.



However, Mr Kyei-Mensa-Bonsu said proceeds from coverage of political parties activities should be accounted for before government looks at possible ways of helping GBC settle its indebtedness of about GHC 44 million.



The Majority Leader called for a forensic audit into the activities of the GBC, saying, Mr. Speaker, the Ministry stands for transparency, accountability in government and GBC should radiate same principles. In the lead up to the elections, we know of private media houses that took advertisement from the various political parties.



The GBC and Ghana Television run a number of advertisements for various political parties.

Concerns have been raised about governments continuous support to the state broadcaster, with suggestions that that GBC should be self-sufficient by generating its revenue to run and pay its staff without relying on government subvention.



It came up that government allocation to GBC for next year had been reduced by 27 per cent.



Mr. Osei Owusu was of the opinion that given the infrastructure that it has, GBC ought to be in a good standing despite its indebtedness but a detailed report on its financial books will better advice the House.



Alhaji A.B.A .Fuseini, the Ranking Member on the committee on Communications, said if government was to be paying for coverage of national events, GBC would have been on a sound financial footing.



Other budgets approved were that for the Judiciary and Judicial Service, which were jointly allocated GH375 million and the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation which had GH183.6 million.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
I said that where Mahama is living is not good for him or for us . . . I advised that it would be good for him to leave the area because he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and the military have made it very clear that they need that land, Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul clarified.



The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) pounced on the Defence Minister after he at a Meet The Press event last week, alleged that top government officials including former President John Mahama who were living on land taken from the Armed Forces should leave.



 . . I am talking about the former President, John Mahama. I will say no more, but I am very disturbed about this. It is happening in Tamale, it is happening in Takoradi and Lands Commission is colluding to do that. People in Lands Commission were selling Armed Forces lands. Not under this watch, that cannot happen any longer, and anybody who decides to encroach on Armed Forces lands should leave. It is not in your interest. I am sorry; but that is the truth that we did not manage the Armed Forces lands very well, he opined.



The Office of the former President also responded describing the ministers comment as 'false and most unfortunate'



In a statement, Special Aide to the former President suggested that asking the former President to vacate the land, does not speak well of the current administration; adding, the ruling government must "take care of ex-presidents better and not in the manner currently being done".



However, speaking in an interview on Citi Eyewitness News, Mr. Nitiwul said he only advised that it would be good for him (Mahama) to leave the area because he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and the military have made it very clear that they need that land.



I mentioned former President Mahama and said that where he was living, that land is in dispute between several Labadi families and the military. It would not be in his interest as former Commander-in-Chief to live there, he added.



According to him, if you go to some portions of Burma Camp, you may not be able to differentiate military property from civilian property, and that is not good for any us.



Meanwhile, Minister of Information, Mustapha Hamid has asked former President John Mahama to be patient as government will soon settle him.



According to him, the Akufo-Addo administration is dealing with the entitlements of two ex-presidents.



Even ex-President Kufuor has not been given his accommodation yet since 2009 when he left office . . . that, therefore, puts the pressure of settling two former presidents on us, and they had only one president to provide for and couldnt complete it. So, they should be patient with us, we are pleading with them.

Source: Rebecca Addo Tetteh/Peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Netflix on Friday released the first official trailer for the story of Jan Lewan, Pennsylvania's polka-king-turned-Ponzi-prince.

The film, starring Jack Black, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Netflix acquired the tragicomedy and plans to launch the film January 12, according to "The Polka King" page on Netflix.

The tragicomedy starring Jack Black recounts the true story of northeast Pennsylvania "Polka King" Jan Lewan, who rose to polka stardom in the 1980s and early 90s then fell from grace in "what became the world's only known polka Ponzi scheme." Jack Black plays Polish immigrant Lewan, with Jenny Slate as his wife Maria and Jason Schwartzman as his sidekick Mickey.

The film was co-written and directed by Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky, who previously teamed up for "Infinitely Polar Bear." The 95-minute film is based on a 2007 documentary, "The Man Who Would Be Polka King."

Lewan himself has seen the film and said that the movie is "pretty much true."

For more Pennsylvania life & culture news:
This drink is a conversation starter.

"Looks like a liquid, tastes like a solid" is how the Sparkling Peach Jelly Sake Shot at Suga in Philadelphia is described.

The shot is one of the specialty drinks on the new happy hour menu at Suga, an Asian-fusion restaurant. Happy hour is every day from 5 to 7 p.m.

Jelly sake has been a trend for years in Japan, offering a refreshing way to get a little buzzed. The variety of Suga, which is Ozeki Ikezo Peach Jelly Sake, is served chilled and has a 5 percent ABV.

"The Japanese are always creating the most interesting and somewhat bizarre foods" said Gabe Foo, co-owner of Suga. "In Asian cuisine we like things that are bubbly, things that have jelly and some firmness to it... so this is kind of play off of that."

The sake, which is vegan-friendly, is definitely a unique experience.

"It has this very fruity first taste and then you feel the bubble on your tongue and then there's the jelly in there, there's a bunch of different sensations you aren't used to going together," Foo said. "But It is very cool -- and very tasty too."

Gabe Foo, co-owner of Suga near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. Julia Hatmaker | jhatmaker@pennlive.com

Foo recommends pairing the sake shot with a salad, sushi or a scallion pancake.

During happy hour, the shot is $5. You can buy the entire can, which is 6 ounces, for $15 at Suga.

Suga is located at 1720 Sansom St. near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. For more information visit sugabyfoo.com.

Do you know a unique dish at a Pennsylvania restaurant or cafe that the rest of the world should be made aware of? Email me at jhatmaker@pennlive.com

Want more stories about Philly? Click here for all our coverage of the City of Brotherly Love.
Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Where to take the kids over winter break

Don't Edit

Christmas, New Year's and the winter break from school are coming up quickly, and if you're looking for somewhere fun to take the kids there are a lot of great destinations throughout Pennsylvania. While many of the state's best sites are outdoors, there are plenty of indoor destinations that are open throughout the year.

So, whether you are looking for somewhere to take the kids over winter break or are looking for some weekend trips while the weather is cold, here are a few of my top picks throughout Pennsylvania.

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Hershey's Chocolate World

Don't Edit

Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania, is a fantastic destination for kids of all ages. Hershey's Chocolate World features a free ride through an imaginary factory, as well as paid attractions such as the chance to make your own chocolate bars, a 4D experience, and chocolate tastings. You can even take a ride through Hershey to learn about the town's history and legacy.

Don't Edit

If you're looking for a road trip:

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

World of Little League Museum

Don't Edit

If you have kids that love baseball, the World of Little League Museum in South Williamsport is a must-visit destination. Located adjacent to Howard J. Lamade Stadium, home of the Little League World Series, visitors can not only learn about the history of the league, but also enjoy the many fun, interactive elements on site and see mementos from some of the most famous former Little Leaguers.

Don't Edit

For more on the Little League World Series:

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Academy of Natural Sciences

Don't Edit

The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is the country's first natural sciences museum and still is a great destination for families to visit. Inside, visitors can explore the museum's dinosaur fossils, taxidermied animals set in various scenes and even an indoor butterfly garden.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Children's Museum of Pittsburgh

Don't Edit

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is one of the best children's museums I've had a chance to visit in the state. With displays and activities covering three floors, there's a bit of something for every child to enjoy at the museum. During their visit, children can build, climb, splash and run through the museum exhibits on display.

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Crayola Experience

Don't Edit

While the Crayola Experience in Easton is not actually a factory tour as some think, that doesn't mean that it's any less fun. Here, kids can participate in a variety of Crayola Crayon themed activities including naming their own crayons, climbing over large play areas and creating unique coloring pages. In addition, there are several live shows offered daily.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Indian Echo Caverns

Don't Edit

Calling a natural cave an indoor activity might be a bit of a stretch, but a visit to Indian Echo Caverns in Hummelstown offers a chance to get out of the elements and explore the beauty of Pennsylvania. The caverns maintain a constant 52 degrees no matter the outside temperature, making it a pleasant place to visit on a cool day in the winter.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

National Aviary

Don't Edit

The National Aviary in Pittsburgh is the country's largest aviary and features 200 different species of birds. Visitors can walk through a variety of habitats and see some of the world's most interesting and beautiful birds up close. Popular exhibits also include the penguins and, somewhat inexplicably, but still fun to see, sloths.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Photo by M. Edlow for Visit Philadelphia

Please Touch Museum

Don't Edit

The Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia helps kids learn through playing. Located inside a large building designed for the 1876 World's Fair, the museum features theater performances as well as the chance to drive a bus, build a rocket and ride a historic carousel.

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Steamtown National Historic Site

Don't Edit

Families that love trains won't want to miss Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. Take a walk through the history of railroading in the United States and learn about its importance to both Pennsylvania and the entire country. Dozens of historic trains cars and engines are on displays inside the museum. Even better, the admission costs were recently removed, making this fun museum free.

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Herr's Factory Tour

If you love snack foods, you won't want to miss the Herr's Factory Tour in Chester County. Visitors are taken on a guided tour through Herr's production facility and get to see nearly every step in the process of making Herr's snack foods. Tours end with a close up inspection of the factory floor.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Jim Cheney | Special to PennLive

Want more cool places in Pennsylvania?

Jim Cheney is the writer behind UncoveringPA, Pennsylvania's most read travel blog. He has traveled to every county in Pennsylvania, and to many countries in North America, Europe, and Asia. He lives in Harrisburg, Pa.

Don't Edit

For more travel ideas:
"Nuts."

Those were the words - or word - of Gen. Anthony C. McAullife, acting commander the 101st Airborne Division, when asked by the Germans to surrender at Bastogne, Belgium, during World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

The 101st was able to hold Bastogne.

On Dec. 16 in 1944 Germany launched its last major offensive of World War II, known as the Battle of the Bulge.

According to www.history.com the Battle of the Bulge was "so-called because the Germans created a 'bulge' around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front."

"In December 1944, Adolph Hitler attempted to split the Allied armies in northwest Europe by means of a surprise blitzkrieg thrust through the Ardennes to Antwerp. Caught off-guard, American units fought desperate battles to stem the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne. As the Germans drove deeper into the Ardennes in an attempt to secure vital bridgeheads, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle's name. Lieutenant General George S. Patton's successful maneuvering of the Third Army to Bastogne proved vital to the Allied defense, leading to the neutralization of the German counteroffensive despite heavy casualties."

The Battle of the Bulge lasted until Jan. 25, 1945. American casualties were 20,000 killed, 20,000 captured and 40,000 wounded.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro declined to weigh in Friday on whether a 1991 felony drug conviction will prevent York Mayor-elect Michael Helfrich from taking office.

Helfrich, the current city council president, defeated two-term Mayor Kim Bracey by a 52-46 margin. He lost the Democratic primary but won the Republican nomination via write-in ballots.

In 1991, Helfrich pleaded guilty to charges of possession of LSD and psychedelic mushrooms with intent to deliver.

The York County District Attorney's Office sought Shapiro's input last month after citizens questioned whether Helfrich's past conviction disqualified him from office. Helfrich said the courts determined he could serve when he ran for city council in 2011.

In a written statement, a Shapiro spokesman said the attorney general agreed to leave the matter in the hands of Dave Sunday, the county's chief deputy prosecutor and a Republican who was recently elected as district attorney.

Sunday will be sworn into office Jan. 2.
A handful of York County schools are dismissing early as forecasts call for one to two inches of snow between 1 and 4 p.m. across central Pennsylvania.

Snow showers are expected to linger in the region throughout the evening, with another half-inch of snow possible by Saturday morning. There is no snow forecast for Saturday, although the National Weather Service has said there remains a small possibility of snow on Sunday.

Here are links to websites for schools in 11 central Pennsylvania counties where you can check for the latest updates on any school delays or closings:

Adams County

Bermudian Springs

Gettysburg Area

Conewago Valley

Fairfield Area

Upper Adams

Berks County

Boyertown Area

Antietam

Wilson

Wyomissing Area

Hamburg Area

Muhlenberg

Brandywine Heights Area

Cumberland County

Public schools

Big Spring

Camp Hill

Carlisle Area

Cumberland-Perry Area Vocational-Technical School

Cumberland Valley

East Pennsboro Area

Mechanicsburg Area

Shippensburg Area

South Middleton

West Shore

Non-public schools

St. Joseph School

St. Patrick School

St. Theresa School

Trinity High School

Carlisle Christian Academy

Christian School of Grace Baptist Church

Heritage Christian Academy

Good Shepherd School

Harrisburg Academy

West Shore Christian Academy

Dauphin County

Public schools

Capital Area School for the Arts

Central Dauphin

Dauphin County Technical School

Derry Township

Halifax Area

Harrisburg

Lower Dauphin

Middletown Area

Millersburg Area

Sci Tech High

Steelton-Highspire

Susquehanna Township

Upper Dauphin Area

Non-public schools

Bishop McDevitt High School

Covenant Christian Academy

Harrisburg Catholic Elementary

Harrisburg Christian School

Holy Name of Jesus School

Lancaster Mennonite Hershey Campus

Londonderry School

Milton Hershey School

Nativity School of Harrisburg

St. Catherine LaBoure School

St. Joan of Arc School

St. Margaret Mary School

St. Stephen's Episcopal School

Seven Sorrows of the B.V.M. School

The Silver Academy

Franklin County

Chambersburg Area

Fannett-Metal

Greencastle-Antrim

Tuscarora

Waynesboro Area

Lancaster County

Public schools

Eastern Lancaster

Cocalico

Columbia Borough

Conestoga Valley

Donegal

Elizabethtown Area

Ephrata Area

Hempfield

Lampeter-Strasburg

Lancaster

Manheim Central

Manheim Township

Octorara

Penn Manor

Pequea Valley

Solanco

Warwick

Non-public schools

Lancaster Catholic High School

Lancaster Country Day School

Resurrection Catholic School

Sacred Heart School

St. Anne School

Lebanon County

Annville-Cleona

Cornwall-Lebanon

Eastern Lebanon

Lebanon

Northern Lebanon

Palmyra Area

Mifflin County

Mifflin County schools

Perry County

Public schools

Greenwood

Newport

Susquenita

West Perry

Non-public schools

Carson Long Military Academy

Schuylkill County

Public schools

Blue Mountain School District

Mahanoy Area School District

Minersville Area School District

North Schuylkill School District

Pine Grove Area School District

Pottsville Area School District

Saint Clair Area School District

Schuylkill Haven Area School District

Schuylkill Technology Center

Shenandoah Valley School District

Tamaqua Area School District

Tri-Valley School District

Williams Valley School District

Non-public schools

Marian High School

Nativity B.V.M. High School

Assumption BVM School

New England Valley Mennonite School

The Perception Training Center, Inc.

York County

Public schools

Central York

Dallastown Area

Dover Area

Eastern York

Hanover Public

Northeastern

Northern York County

Red Lion

South Eastern

South Western

Southern York County

Spring Grove Area

West York Area

York City

York Suburban

York County School of TechnologyWest Shore

Non-public schools

St. Joseph School-Dallastown

St. Joseph School-York

St. Patrick School

St. Rose of Lima School

York Catholic

See any errors or omissions? Send an email to newstips@pennlive.com to let us know.
Police in Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County are attempting to identify a burglar who broke into three different businesses in one night earlier this week.

The burglaries occurred between 1 and 3 a.m. on Dec. 11 at Theo's Bar and Grille along Hartzdale Drive, Royer's Flowers along Gettysburg Road, the Subway along Wesley Drive, township police said.

A safe was stolen from one business, police said. Surveillance video shows a suspect wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants, black boots and gray rubber gloves.

Anyone with information can call police at 717-757-7575.
Nothing says a Pennsylvania police chief convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol must automatically be fired.

Tom Gross, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, is aware of "several occasions" when a municipal police officer, chief or state trooper in Pennsylvania has held their job after a DUI conviction.



Still, that's no guarantee Douglas Hockenberry, the police chief in Camp Hill, will be able to continue in the job he has held since 2013.



Municipal police chiefs and officers must maintain a certification from the Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission. That certification gets revoked if the officer is convicted of a disqualifying offense, a category that includes DUI.



But if the officer qualifies for ARD -- Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition -- the DUI is no longer considered a disqualifying offense, according to Lt. George Peach, the assistant director of the Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission, which handles the certifications. A second DUI, however, would cause the officer to lose certification, which is needed to be employed as a law enforcement officer in Pennsylvania, according to Peach.



It remains to be seen if Hockenberry, 46, will qualify for ARD, which is available to first-time offenders charged with non-violent, relatively-minor crimes.



The district attorney and the judge handling the case have a say in who gets accepted into ARD. They can take into account things like their belief regarding whether the person is likely to repeat the crime; whether ARD is a fair resolution compared to penalties given to others who have committed similar offenses; and whether there are other circumstances that reflect on whether the person deserves ARD.



The charges against Hockenberry are still playing out, and it's therefore impossible to know whether he will qualify for ARD.



Hockenberry was arrested by state police on the night of Nov. 6 after his pickup truck allegedly collided with a tree in Rye Township in Perry County, where he lives. State troopers eventually charged him with a having a blood alcohol level of 0.178, more than double the legal limit. They also said he called a tow truck but not police, resulting in a charge of failing to report an accident.



Camp Hill officials have said little about the situation, other than saying Hockenberry is on personal leave. They have said there are some things they won't be able to discuss publicly because of personnel reasons.



Hockenberry issued a statement through his lawyer saying he takes "full responsibility for his poor decision." The statement further said Hockenberry "hopes to one day regain the trust of the Camp Hill community that he has established over 21 years of law enforcement."



Reaction to the situation is mixed in Camp Hill, where Hockenberry has been an officer since 1996. Some say he has a long track record of being a friendly, competent officer and chief and they want him to receive a second chance.



Others have noted that Hockenberry is known to everyone in the town of 7,630, and his role has included warning students of the dangers of drinking and driving. They worry his continued employment would send a harmful message to young people.



Gross, of the chief's association, said that even if Hockenberry receives ARD, his continued employment as chief could end up in the hands of local officials. In Pennsylvania boroughs such as Camp Hill, elected council members typically hire and fire staff, and could decide it's in the best interests of the borough to fire him.



Still, they would have to abide by civil service and "just cause" rules, he noted.



Malcolm Friend, the program director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Pennsylvania, said the organization is "saddened when any individual in a prominent public position chooses to drive impaired. MADD asks that he will be held fully accountable for his alleged actions."



Friend, noting that Hockenberry hasn't been convicted, wouldn't comment on what MADD would consider an appropriate penalty.



Gross said Hockenberry has been active in the chief's association and "has some credibility, for sure, as a chief." He noted the Camp Hill department is accredited by the association, and the designation is not easy to attain, typically reflecting a chief who is devoted to "best practices" for law enforcement.
Marilyn Ware>PennLive file photo

A former Lancaster woman who was daughter of a congressman, chair or co-chair of Gov. Tom Ridge's gubernatorial campaigns, and served as ambassador to Finland, died Thursday in Colorado.

The death of Marilyn Ware, long, a force in Republican politics in Pennsylvania, was announced by her daughter, Amyla Lavric, on her Facebook page:

"With great sadness we share: our beloved mother Marilyn Ware passed away peacefully this morning as the sun rose over the Rockies," Lavric wrote. "She has been struggling with complications from Alzheimer's disease. This past week has been heartbreaking, but also full of love and tenderness."

Daughter of U.S. Rep. John H. Ware III, Marilyn Ware was a businesswoman, philanthropist and political force in Pennsylvania.

She was nominated by President George W. Bush and served as ambassador to Finland from 2005 to 2008. Prior to that, from 1988 to 2003, she was chairman of the board of American Water Works Company. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, it was the largest investor-owned water company in the U.S., according to Ware's biography published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Ware, who formerly lived in Strasburg, was a founder of the Lancaster Farmland Trust and The Janus School in Mount Joy, a school for children with learning disabilities. She was a founding member of WaterAid America, an international charity dedicated to the provision of safe domestic water, sanitation systems and hygiene education in 15 countries.

In 2002 she was appointed chair of Pennsylvania's statewide Task Force on Early Childhood Education. She also was a longtime trustee of the American Enterprise Institute, which in 2012 announced the creation of the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies.

And she was a staunch supporter of the Republican Party, serving in the party organization at the county and state level, chaired or co-chaired three gubernatorial campaigns for Gov. Tom Ridge and served as a state delegate to several Republican conventions. She was also co-chair of Victory 2000, the Republican effort that raises money to help Pennsylvania candidates for the House, Senate and presidency.

Despite her tireless efforts on behalf of the Republican Party, she was generous when asked by PennLive in 2009 to assess President Obama's first 100 days in office.

"It has been a joyful 100 days and, at the same time, sobering," she said at the time.

"I can tell you I disagree with him on issues: the excessive spending, the lack of debate between Congress and the White House. But he's certainly a bright man, and we all want our president to remain strong as possible."

Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Val DiGiorgio issued a statement Friday on her death:

"Like so many across Pennsylvania, I am deeply saddened to learn of Marilyn Ware's passing. Marilyn was an eminently kind and gracious person. She lived her life with the utmost commitment to Republican values and principles -- her legacy will forever be weaved into the fabric of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania."
Florida-based railroad CSX Corp. says president and CEO Hunter Harrison is on medical leave due to what it calls "unexpected complications from a recent illness."The company did not disclose the nature of that illness. E. Hunter Harrison, then-CEO of CP Rail, speaks at the Canadian Club of Toronto, in Toronto on Monday, March 3, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
This Dec. 7, 2017, photo shows Ron Villemaire in Bedford, N.H. Villemaire, a terminally ill "Star Wars" fan, is unable to get himself to the movie theater and sit in a seat. So fire departments are planning to take him to the movie Saturday, Dec. 16. They'll transfer him to a hospital bed provided at the theater. (Elizabeth Ngo via AP)
New Ford Edges sit on a production line as Ford Motor Company celebrates the global production start of the 2015 Ford Edge at the Ford Assembly Plant in Oakville, Ont., on Thursday, February 26, 2015. NAFTA negotiations are approaching a new phase of talks after early rounds marked by acrimony, inflexibility and finger-pointing. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Playwright Cori Thomas gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in Rome, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Cori Thomas is accusing Dustin Hoffman of exposing himself to her when she was 16, in 1980 in a New York hotel room. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Martin Schulz, chairman of the German Social Democrats, SPD, addresses the media during a news conference in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Leaders of Germany's center-left Social Democrats have agreed to enter exploratory talks on a new government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
In this photo provided by the Australian Government Royal Commission, Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan, second left, shakes hands with Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove, fourth right, at the signing ceremony and the release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at Government House, in Canberra, Dec. 15, 2017. The commission delivered its final 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation. (Jeremy Piper/Australian Government Royal Commission via AP)
FILE - In this July 18, 2015 file photo, Russell Simmons speaks appears at the RUSH Philanthropic Arts Foundation's Art for Life Benefit in Water Mill, N.Y. Three women have told the New York Times that music mogul Russell Simmons raped them. Simmons, in a statement to the paper, vehemently denied what he called Authese horrific accusations,Au saying all his relations have been consensual. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Voters to choose between Pinera (L) and Guillier in second round. First results of Sunday's election expected about 7 p.m.

In the run-up to round one of Chile's presidential vote last month, the election of billionaire Sebastian Pinera and his pro-growth agenda had almost felt like a foregone conclusion. So certain were investors that they giddily bid Chilean stocks up to a record high.

Now, on the eve of the decisive, second round on Dec. 17, the outcome doesn't feel certain at all. Round one turned out to be a lot closer than pollsters predicted and Pinera's team has appeared rattled in the aftermath. They've even resorted to a tried-and-true campaign smear across Latin America in recent years: Comparing Pinera's rival -- Alejandro Guillier of the ruling center-left coalition -- to the socialist leader of the collapsed Venezuelan economy, Nicolas Maduro.

They are painting the scene as a political emergency, said Cristobal Bellolio, a professor at the School of Government at the Universidad Adolfo Ibanez. It is a somewhat irrational fear, because Guillier is far from Maduro, but it is a genuine concern among a section of voters.

It was that fear that sent the IPSA benchmark stock index tumbling 5.9 percent the day after the first round of voting on Nov. 19, when Pinera failed to convince much more than a third of voters to back him. It also depressed business confidence that had reached a three-year high the month before.

Polling stations will open at 8 a.m. (6 a.m. in New York) on Sunday and close at 6 p.m., with the first results expected about an hour later. Opinion polls show the run-off as too close to call.

Track Record

Pinera, whose wealth is estimated at $2.7 billion by Forbes, has pledged to more than double economic growth, create 600,000 jobs and narrow the budget deficit. He likes to point to his track record as president between 2010 and 2014, when a copper boom helped growth to average 5.4 percent a year.

On the other hand, according to Pinera, Guillier represents a threat to the economic model that has made Chile the wealthiest country in South America.

Every day Guillier seems more like Maduro, Pinera said after the first round of voting. I ask myself, where will that path take us?

The warnings are continuous. After Guillier told a rally that his government would dip into the wallets of the rich, the head of Pinera's campaign team responded that he was in the pocket of the Communist Party with a speech of violence and aggression.

Scaring Voters

There is logic to this exaggeration, said Kenneth Bunker, director of the electoral program at the Universidad Central.

Pinera needs to maintain his own support, while trying to scare voters away from Guillier, Bunker said. The idea of Pinera's campaign team is to enable him to win by persuading rival voters not to turn up.

The former president won 36.6 percent of the vote in the first round against 22.7 percent for Guillier and 20.3 percent for Beatriz Sanchez, head of the newly created left-wing Frente Amplio alliance. Sanchez has since pledged her support for Guillier.

For more on the surprise rise of Frente Amplio, click here

Chilezuela Risk

Still, the warnings of impending catastrophe can backfire. When one member of Pinera's campaign team accused Guillier of trying to scare voters and then added in the same tweet she wouldn't like to live in a country like Venezuela, she was roundly mocked. Chilezuela started trending on Twitter in Chile.

Just as worrying for Pinera, while business confidence fell following the Nov. 19 vote, ordinary Chileans were unconcerned, with consumer confidence reaching a two-year high that month.

The consumers may have a point. In Chile, growth may depend a lot more on the price of copper, the country's principal export, than on anything the president does.



Moreover Guillier's alliance controls less than a third of the Chamber of Deputies. He'll need the support of Frente Amplio and independent lawmakers, or Pinera's coalition if he wants to get anything through Congress.

Sebastian Edwards, a professor at University of California at Los Angeles, estimates Pinera's victory would add 0.6 percent to economic growth, if only because of the subsequent rally in business confidence. Just don't believe the scare tactics on Guillier, he says.

Guillier running Chile is still better than everything else in this region, Edwards said.
In general, men are twice as likely to cheat on a spouse than women are. That frequency increases over the lifespan, peaking among the elderly. Among men 18 to 29 who have ever been married, about 1 in 10 is
Dr. Amy Reed and her six children gathered close as they celebrated their last Mothers Day this year. She died about a week later of a cancer that was worsened by power morcellation. Read more

After reviewing the latest research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday reaffirmed its 2014 warning that power morcellators should rarely be used in gynecological surgery because of the risk of spreading a hidden uterine cancer.

The FDA said the latest studies are consistent with its 2014 estimate that 1 in 350 women who undergo a hysterectomy or fibroid removal will have a hidden sarcoma. The risk of having the most aggressive type, called leiomyosarcoma, ranges from 1 in 495 to 1 in 1,000, the agency said, which fits with its previous assessment of 1 woman in every 458.

"We recognize that some health organizations have reported a lower estimate of risk and that some groups continue to request that we scale back our recommendations," Jeff Shuren, director of FDA's center for devices and radiological health, said in a statement. "We believe our estimates remain accurate, and our recommendation against the use of this device  in the vast majority of women is critical to better protecting these women."

Philadelphia cardiac surgeon Hooman Noorchashm praised the FDA for "not caving" to pressure from gynecological medical groups. He and his wife, anesthesiologist Amy Reed, who died in May of a leiomyosarcoma that was spread in her abdomen in 2013 by a morcellator, made the FDA aware of the danger and pressed for a ban on the device. Their campaign sharply curtailed use of the device.

"A 1-in-350 risk of spreading cancer is off the Richter scale," Noorchashm said. "It's unbelievable to me that these groups continue to say that it's OK."

After the FDA's 2014 warning, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the AAGL, the minimally invasive gynecological surgery group, defended the value of the tissue-mincing device because it enables the uterus or uterine fibroids to be removed through tiny abdominal incisions, reducing the risks and recovery time of traditional open-the-abdomen surgeries.

On Thursday, representatives of each group said they are reviewing the latest studies to see whether their stance should change.

However, ACOG executive vice president Hal Lawrence said studies continue to reach vastly different conclusions about the chance of morcellating an unexpected leiomyosarcoma. He pointed to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which this week issued a review of 160 studies that found the upper range of risk could be 1 in 10,000.

Leiomyosarcoma is rare, with an annual incidence of about 1 in 100,000 women, but because it typically causes abnormal uterine bleeding, it not so rare in women seeking treatment for that symptom. Preoperative tests cannot reliably distinguish leiomyosarcoma from benign fibroids.

The FDA has said disrupting the cancer with morcellation rather than removing it intact with the whole uterus worsens a woman's prognosis, and the latest review bolstered that conclusion. But the review also noted that in general, uterine sarcomas "are associated with poor prognosis and recurrence rates approaching 60 percent," and the stage at diagnosis is the most important prognostic factor.

The controversy has increased the number of medical device reports involving sarcomas spread by the device, the FDA said. Last year, it received 127 such reports, compared to 82 in 2015, 31 in 2014, and 9 in 2013, the year Reed and Noorchashm filed the first report.
When a grieving father got up from his chair this week to console a crying woman whose father is fighting the same disease that took his own son just a few years ago, America got a lesson  in empathy and in science. The father is former Vice President Joe Biden, and he was consoling Meghan McCain, whose own father, Sen. John McCain, now has the devastating brain cancer known as glioblastoma.

The moment happened on live television, on The View Wednesday morning. The interview, part of Biden's tour discussing his new memoir inspired by the life and death of his son, Beau, quickly became emotional for McCain. She choked up while talking about her father, and Biden immediately moved to a chair next to her, took her hand, and tried to comfort her. And then he spoke of courage and hope  not just for the McCains, but for people all over the world impacted by cancer.

That hope, he went on to explain, is bolstered by revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. One of these, which Biden mentioned, is CAR T-cell therapy. The treatment, developed here at Penn's Abramson Cancer Center, involves an approach that would have seemed like science fiction just a decade ago: taking some of a patient's immune cells, reprogramming them to hunt for cancer cells, and then putting them back into the body to fight off the disease. This summer, this approach became the first gene therapy ever approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is now being used to treat pediatric and young patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL.

Another therapy like it was soon approved to treat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. At Penn and across the world, clinical trials continue to evaluate whether this approach will also help treat other types of cancer, including solid tumors like glioblastoma that have proven so tough to tackle. This new treatment represents only a fraction of the cutting edge science that is saving lives every day.

The video of Biden's heartfelt conversation with McCain stopped me in my tracks, and I immediately reached out to the former vice president to let him know how much it touched and galvanized all of us at the Abramson Cancer Center. I have listened, replayed, and replayed again, keying in on every word. He captured the very essence of what we are all about here: Hope, real hope. I watched with a group of medical students, who immediately realized the power of the compassion, empathy, and expertise Biden showed  the same ingredients needed for every interaction with our patients.

The video of this deeply human moment quickly went viral, and the fact that it happened between two members of iconic political families who happen to be on opposite sides of the aisle captures a shared spirit we are all about here at Penn.

As Philadelphians, we are proud that our city is the birthplace of our Constitution and our great nation. As an institution, Penn is proud to put Philadelphia at the forefront of another revolution: what we call the ImmunoRevolution. We are doing everything possible to conquer cancer both here at Penn and with our partners across the country and around the world. In our labs, we're developing tomorrow's therapies today, providing a path to clinical trials that give our patients and their families fresh hope when standard treatments don't measure up. Our researchers are unlocking clues from each element of cancer ecology, from secrets about how the disease grows, travels, and survives in the body to new tricks that unleash the power of the immune system to fight it. We're putting all the pieces together to gain the upper hand in the fight against this disease.

However, the progress toward scientific discovery and breakthrough therapies will stall without sustained government and philanthropic funding and support. As Biden and McCain's TV moment showed, cancer doesn't side with any one political party. It has no bias, no ability to discriminate. At the midway point in the fiscal year, Congress has failed to enact a budget. Funding for the National Cancer Institute remains uncertain. This dysfunction leaves our scientists, our doctors, our patients, and their families in limbo. Will we have the money we need to make the next breakthrough?

We look to unity and strength, resolve and commitment  and even openness to vulnerability as we face challenges  to ensure that the progress we're making continues.

The Biden and McCain families are showing us the way.

Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, is the director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
Crowds gathered at Tom Binder's house for weeks in Berks County to get a glimpse of BB, the black-backed oriole native to Mexico. Read more

One man, when he heard about the wayward bird, dropped everything and drove straight through from Nebraska.

All told, 1,824 people from 35 states, plus the United Kingdom and Canada, came to Lower Heidelberg Township, Berks County, for a few months earlier this year to catch a glimpse of the black-backed oriole from central Mexico that shouldn't have been there. Not a few members of the species. Just one black-backed oriole.

Most of these people stood in Tom Binder's driveway in a sprawling development where all the streets are named after Monopoly properties.

"People really went nuts over this bird," Binder said this week.

BB  a bird with a nickname and a Facebook page  generated $223,000, "or about $3,000 per day over 67 days," in global spending, according to a study released last month by the University of New South Wales in Australia.

"I've always wondered how much money is generated by this unique and unpredictable part of birding  vagrant bird chasing  given the number of people who sometimes travel long distances to see an individual bird outside its normal range," said Corey Callaghan, the study's author and a Ph.D. candidate at the school.

"This was a rare opportunity to find out, and our study reveals just how much people are prepared to pay. There are dozens of similar events around the world each year."

People booked flights, frantically, and hotels. They bought coffee at Sheetz.

The oriole arrived in a bird feeder on Indiana Avenue on Jan. 26. The owner didn't recognize the species, took a picture, and sent it off to a friend familiar with ornithology. Soon, the word spread and the crowds came. The black-backed oriole had only been seen once before in the United States, in San Diego, but it was deemed to be an escapee.

"There's still some doubts about where this bird came from," Binder said.

There was a sighting of a black-backed oriole in Massachusetts in May, Binder said, and some people believe it could have been BB.

Not the get-off-my-lawn type, Binder embraced the birders and had them sign a log. That's how Callaghan got his data set.

"There were times when we had 50 to 75 people here, most of them with cameras and high-powered binoculars," Binder said.

Sometimes, when BB made an appearance, the crowd erupted into cheers.

Binder just dropped $1,000 on binoculars for an epic RV trip across America.

"I pay more attention to birds now than I used to," he said.

No one knew why BB flew in, or why BB left. Indiana Avenue just went with it, and a community of diehards found a small joy watching this bird flutter around the burbs before checking it off their list.

"He mostly ate orange slices, raw peanuts and orange marmalade," Binder said. "He loved red grapes."
Thomas Jefferson University and its affiliated hospital network plan to take Aramark's place as the anchor tenant of the food-service giant's namesake East Market Street tower. The move aims to consolidate Jefferson's corporate functions under a single roof while boosting its regional profile.

Administrative offices for Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health will occupy about 230,000 square feet over 14 floors of the 32-story 1101 Market St. building, which will be renamed Jefferson Tower, it said in a release Friday. The 16-year lease also gives Jefferson, as the university and health network are collectively known, a glowing marquee sign atop the Center City high rise and the option to expand by another six floors, it said.

Functions now housed at locations throughout the city, such as finance services, human resources, and marketing, will relocate into the new space over several years beginning late 2019, Jefferson said.

The consolidation comes amid a period of rapid growth for Jefferson, which has expanded from a three- to a 13-hospital system while merging with Philadelphia University since 2013, when current president and chief executive Stephen Klasko took his post. Its most recent acquisition was of South Jersey-based Kennedy Health, which was completed in September.

Dan Grauman, chief executive of health-care consulting firm Veralon, said Jefferson was likely consolidating administrative functions from the geographically disparate hospital networks it has acquired over the years, which also have included Abington Health and Aria.

"The system is developing and maturing," he said in an interview. "But at the same time, certain back-office operations can be consolidated, and part of doing that is to centralize them."

While the consolidation at 1101 Market St. will support Jefferson's expanding network by reducing costs and integrating nonclinical support functions, it represents "much more than realizing operational efficiencies," chief financial and administrative officer Peter DeAngelis said in the release. "By occupying one of the more iconic buildings in Center City, we will be even better positioned to demonstrate our region-wide commitment to patients and students."

The lease widens Jefferson's physical footprint in the city center's revitalizing Market East section, expanding its presence from an urban campus now bounded largely by Chestnut and Locust Streets, between Eighth and 11th Streets. It comes about three years after Jefferson paid $4 million for naming rights over a five-year term to SEPTA's former Market East commuter rail station below Market Street between Ninth and 12th Streets, which offers direct underground access to the 1101 Market St. tower.

Real estate advisory firm Savills Studley represented Jefferson in the deal at the Market Street building. The health network explored locations in greater Philadelphia, South Jersey and Delaware before settling on the tower, the firm's Philadelphia branch manager, Hether Smith, said in a separate release.

The building's owner, the Girard Estate charitable foundation, was represented by a team at real estate services firm JLL.

Bill Luff, founder of the commercial real estate consultancy CRE Visions, said Jefferson's decision to enhance its presence in the city's Market East section is a reflection of the recent development that's occurred in what was once a depressed real estate market. Area projects include the East Market residential, office and retail development across the street from the 1101 Market St. tower.

"It's going to help them attract the workforce they want and to keep the workforce they have," Luff, who was not involved in the transaction, said of the move.

Aramark currently occupies 300,000 square feet spread over 21 floors in the 634,000-square-foot tower, though some of those floors are shared with other tenants. It will depart the tower next year for a new headquarters building being developed for the company in the shell of a former industrial structure at 2400 Market St.

Jefferson did not immediately disclose where the office functions relocating into the building would move from, but the hospital and affiliated physicians currently lease nearly 317,000 square feet of the 705,000-square foot, 14-story 833 Chestnut St. office building, according to data compiled by market tracker CoStar group. Nonclinical Jefferson functions at the building include the hospital's human resources department and paramedic-training center.

The health network's presence at 1101 Market St. means the tower will have little if any vacant space over the next 16 years, Joseph P. Bilson, executive director of the building's owner, the Girard Estate charitable foundation, said in the release from Jefferson. Revenue from the building supports Girard College, a boarding school for financially disadvantaged students in the city's Fairmount section.
In this July 30, 2013, file photo, people walk along a corridor at the headquarters of Johnson &; Johnson in New Brunswick, N.J. Read more

A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary was ordered Thursday to pay $15 million in damages to a New Jersey woman who was left in chronic pain after receiving defective transvaginal mesh implants.

The case, heard in Bergen County Superior Court, was one of 9,000 pending cases involving Ethicon pelvic mesh devices. In September, a Philadelphia jury awarded $57 million to a Pennsylvania woman who required three operations to remove the implants which left her chronically incontinent. The company is appealing that verdict.

The jury found that Ethicon failed to provide adequate warning about the risks associated with the polypropylene mesh, which plaintiff Elizabeth Hrymoc, now 71, had implanted in 2008 to treat pelvic organ prolapse.

"Unfortunately, her injuries are permanent," said Hrymoc's attorney Adam Slater, of Mazie, Slater, Katz and Freeman. "One of the fundamental and horrific defects with this device is the inability to successfully treat complications, and Elizabeth is a clear illustration of what happened to countless other women."

A spokeswoman for J&J was not immediately available for comment.
ArcelorMittal steel plant in Conshohocken, Pa. in 2010. Phoenix Services, a Kennett Square firm that handles slag and slap for steelmakers including ArcelorMittal, has been sold to Sixers owner Josh Harris investment firm, Apollo Global Read more

An arm of Apollo Global Management, the private-company investment giant led by billionaire Sixers co-owner Josh Harris, says it has agreed to purchase Phoenix Services Inc., the 2,100-worker steel scrap, slag processing and construction materials company based in Kennett Square, Chester County, from owners led by Connecticut-based Olympus Partners.

Apollo and Olympus won't say what the buyer is paying for privately-held Phoenix, which has facilities in western Pennsylvania and across the central U.S. and in European countries, South Africa and Brazil. But estimates reported when Olympus was looking for buyers earlier this year suggest Phoenix was worth up to $900 million, almost eight times the company's $120 million in yearly earnings (before debt interest, taxes, and depreciation/amortization).

Phoenix, which had supplied road materials to PennDOT and other public agencies, was barred from seeking state or federal government business for three years. That occurred after PennDOT officials in 2014 found Phoenix had sold the state building material that was lighter than promised, and which "contained steel slag, which is prohibited in concrete cement," according to a 2015 Commonwealth Court opinion.

Phoenix counts steel manufacturers such as ArcelorMittal (which runs the former Lukens Steel plants in Coatesville and Conshohocken, among many others), U.S. Steel, Nucor and Thyssenkrupp among its clients. Apollo also is backed in part by backed by Pennsylvania pension funds
The City of Philadelphia this year settled a sexual harassment lawsuit that included allegations that Chief Inspector Carl Holmes sexually assaulted a female officer in 2007. Read more

The City of Philadelphia has paid $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit by a woman who claimed a veteran police commander sexually assaulted her when she was an officer in a department in which she said sexual harassment was pervasive.

The commander, Chief Inspector Carl Holmes, remains on the job eight months after the payout  but the fallout may not be over.

Mayor Kenney's spokesman said Thursday that the mayor found the case against Holmes and the Police Department "extremely troubling, from start to end." And although Kenney did not call for anyone to step down  as he did after a much smaller payout to settle similar claims against city Sheriff Jewell Williams  he left open the possibility that the city's new top prosecutor may launch his own review.

The allegations against Holmes are a decade old. But the settlement, first reported last week by the website The Declaration, came during a year in which similar and damning allegations against powerful men in the workplace have surfaced almost daily, leading to a national reckoning in Hollywood, the media, and politics.

Although a settlement is not an admission of guilt, the judge overseeing the case offered a pointed assessment before the city agreed to resolve it earlier this year. The accuser, the judge wrote in a memo, "has provided sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude the City knew of its specific problems with sexual assault and harassment in the police department  but did little or nothing to stop such conduct."

Nancy O'Mara Ezold, an attorney who regularly represents plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases but was not involved in this suit, said the woman's allegations appeared significant enough that the city could have risked a much higher payout by airing such ugly accusations before a jury.

"If a fraction of [the claims] were true," Ezold said in an interview Thursday, "this is a horrific case."

The settlement is the most recent involving the Philadelphia Police Department over allegations of sexual harassment, but not the first. Over the past decade, according to public records, the city paid $222,000 to resolve five sexual harassment lawsuits involving cops. Only two other city agencies  the prison system and the airport  have settled sexual harassment cases since 2007, the records show.

Holmes' accuser did not respond to requests for comments. The Inquirer and Daily News do not identify alleged victims of sex crimes without their permission given.

The commander has also been accused of sexual assault by another woman: Former officer Christa Hayburn said in 2008 that he forced her into a sex act inside his police car two years earlier. In 2013, she voluntarily dropped a civil suit against the city related to that claim.

Holmes has denied both women's allegations and was not criminally charged in either incident. He remains on the force with a salary of $148,288, according to city payroll records. He declined to comment for this article.

Kenney's spokesman, Mike Dunn, said the Police Department, along with the Mayor's Office of Labor Relations, recently decided to implement "comprehensive sexual harassment training," which will be required annually for all employees in the department.

A police spokesman said the department "takes all allegations of harassment and sexual harassment very seriously" and is "committed to maintaining a working environment free of harassment."

The former detective filed a complaint in federal court in 2016, alleging that during her time on the force, which began in 2004, she was routinely subjected to sexually charged or derogatory comments. She worked as an officer in Kensington and North Philadelphia, and later as one of the few female detectives in South Philadelphia, according to her complaint.

Specific examples included male colleagues making lewd comments about her appearance, spreading rumors about her having sexual relationships with male colleagues, and exposing themselves to her, the complaint said.

In her most serious claim, the woman alleged that Holmes in 2007 called her to his office, then stuck his hand down her pants and sexually assaulted her. Shocked, she quickly walked out, her complaint said.

The woman said that she filed internal complaints about being harassed and assaulted in 2014, but that those actions got her reassigned to a busier detective bureau, in Southwest Philadelphia, which she viewed as punishment.

Meanwhile, Internal Affairs investigated her allegations and cleared Holmes of any wrongdoing, according to a January memorandum from U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney, who oversaw the case and declined the city's request to throw it out.

What's more, Kearney wrote, an Internal Affairs commander, Chief Inspector Christopher Flacco, declined to forward the woman's complaint to the District Attorney's Office  even though one of his lieutenants had recommended doing so.

Dunn, the mayor's spokesman, said those allegations "are incredibly serious and troubling. We anticipate the incoming [district attorney] will make his own determination." A police spokesman said Flacco simply determined that there was no t enough evidence to support criminal charges.

Holmes was similarly cleared by Internal Affairs following Hayburn's 2008 accusations of sexual assault.

Hayburn, who joined the police force in 2001, alleged that Holmes forced her into his police car after a party in 2006, trying to kiss her and to engage in sexual acts before he ejaculated, according to Kearney's memo. Semen later was found in the car, the memo said, but Holmes said it was because he'd had sexual activity in the vehicle with someone else.

Then-Commissioner Charles Ramsey demoted Holmes after that investigation, but Holmes earned his rank back through arbitration, according to the Daily News, which chronicled Hayburn's accusations in 2012.

Holmes' lawyer at the time, Wadud Ahmad, told the newspaper: "There was no wrongdoing. No criminal charges were ever filed, not even close to being filed."

Hayburn later was fired from the Police Department and said in an interview Thursday that she had been accused of lying about a medical issue. She has since taken up motivational speaking about her alleged encounter with Holmes  and said she believes it's past time for the current national dialogue about harassment to trickle down to municipal agencies.

"People can accuse the president and governors, senators," she said. "It's the same in the local departments as well."

The woman who earned a settlement, meanwhile, resigned from the Police Department in April and took a job with the law firm that represented her. She was awarded $650,000 in damages and $100,000 in back pay, while her attorneys were paid $500,000.

Mayor Kenney said last month that Williams should resign as sheriff in the wake of reports that female employees were pursuing legal action after accusing him of workplace sexual harassment, and that a third woman received a $30,000 settlement in 2012 after suing him for sexual harassment when he was a state representative.
Kate Inie-Richards and Jordan Shaner

September 3, 2017, in Philadelphia

Hello there

The spring 2011 party was boring until a stranger asked Kate to dance.

Kate, from Kimberton, was in the last week of her undergraduate studies in viola at the University of Memphis. The no-longer-a-stranger was Jordan, a Denver native in the last week of his master's program in opera at the same university. They were the only two who dared to dance, and it was the goofiest of dances. They laughed the whole time, then shared a little small talk before parting.

"I got home, and Kate had sent me a Facebook message already," Jordan said. "I asked her if she wanted to go out that weekend."

"We went dancing, and the last week of school, we spent every day together," Kate said.

Jordan was smitten by her smile and adored her ability to be silly. "There were very few people who I was around at that time who made me laugh the way Kate does," he said. "I had this feeling I had known her my whole life." Kate felt the same way. Jordan treated her like no guy ever had, insisting on picking her up for their dates, holding doors, paying for dinner. Beyond that, he wanted to learn about her, her friends, and her family.

They had deep conversations, asking and answering so many questions. Jordan said his Jewish faith is a guiding force in his life. Kate said she was raised as a not-very-observant Christian but for that last year had felt strongly drawn to Judaism. An older relative revealed a family secret: Kate's maternal grandfather was a Sephardic Jew from a long family line of Sephardic Jews. His family lived in England in the 1940s and hid their faith for fear of persecution. Kate wanted to learn about her heritage.

Their week of togetherness ended with Kate moving back to Pennsylvania, then shortly after to Michigan, where she spent the summer as a viola teaching fellow at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Jordan went from Memphis to Arkansas for eight weeks of performance at Opera in the Ozarks. The couple sent long, handwritten letters to each other. When the opera festival ended, Jordan had five days to return to Memphis, pack up his apartment, and move to New York City to perform, give singing lessons, and tutor. But he drove straight from Arkansas to Michigan  an 18-hour drive  and spent three of those five days with Kate.

"That is the most impulsive thing I've ever done," he said. "I saw it as this big, romantic gesture," Kate said. Both had to admit they were in love.

At summer's end, Kate moved to Ithaca to earn her music master's degree in Suzuki pedagogy and viola performance at Ithaca College. She and Jordan saw each other about twice a month until Jordan began his cantor studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a course that begins with a mandatory year in Israel. That same year, Kate began a two-year process of converting to Judaism.

They were together just once in 2013, when Kate, now 29, visited Israel for 10 days in April. Otherwise, they spoke twice daily via Skype. By the time Jordan, now 31, was back in New York, Kate was in Wilmington, teaching at the Music School of Delaware, where, after a year, she became the Milford branch director.

The proposal

In November 2015, the couple joined Jordan's parents in Cancun for Thanksgiving weekend. On their last day, Jordan asked Kate to walk on the beach before they met up with his family for dinner. Hand-in-hand they went, past the little cabana huts. Jordan led her to one of them. She sat. He knelt. "I started crying profusely," Kate said.

Jordan spoke of the night they met, when he asked her to dance and she accepted. He asked her to be his dancing partner until their very last dance.

She jumped up, and jumped for joy. "Yes, yes, yes!" she said.

Then they sat on the beach and talked of their bashert (or predestined) meeting, and their good fortune  that despite living in different states and even different countries, their love had grown.

In May 2017, Jordan became a cantor at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He is also enrolled in rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College. A month before the wedding, Kate joined Jordan in Greenwich, Conn., where she now teaches Suzuki violin and viola at Greenwich Suzuki Academy.

It was so them

Kate and Jordan married and celebrated at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

Reminders of loved ones who have passed on were everywhere. The chuppah  a canopy that symbolizes the home  was covered with a blanket embroidered by Jordan's maternal great-grandmother. Kate's paternal grandmother's tablecloth adorned a table beneath it. Jordan wore his maternal grandfather's watch. A locket from Jordan's great-grandmother was attached to the bouquet, as was Kate's maternal great-grandfather's ring, with the original Jewish spelling of his last name  the only artifact her family has that's affiliated with its Jewish heritage.

Kate's two closest friends, both violinists, performed during the ceremony. Other friends and family read poems and took part in the seven blessings.

Instead of favors, the couple made donations to MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, and Recycled Tails in Pottstown, where they adopted their dogs, Bosco and Jose.

"Because Jordan is the dancing king, we wanted a good party," Kate said.

They entered the reception to the Rocky theme played by a live klezmer band. That morphed into Frank Sinatra's version of "Fly Me to the Moon" and their first dance, and that morphed into a 20-minute hora. "It was this amazing huge burst of energy that got everybody on the dance floor," Jordan said. "They put both us and our parents up on the chairs, and it just kept going."

Awestruck

After signing their ketubah  the Jewish marriage contract  Kate placed the white and black tallit, a special gift from her family, on Jordan's shoulders. "I looked right into his eyes, and Jordan took my hand, and said a prayer for us."

Jordan spoke of the people they were  the very best of themselves  on their wedding day. "I prayed that whenever things got rough, I would look out for those people, and remember this moment," he said.

The budget crunch

A bargain: Choosing the museum meant the couple found their own vendors for everything, and that gave them the ability to bargain-hunt for things like alcohol. The best of all bargains, however, was the klezmer band recommended by the museum, Klezmer with Class. "They were worth way more than what we paid," Jordan said.

The splurge: The couple first saw the work of photographer Rebecca Barger when considering their venue. The ideas she presented and organizational skills she displayed when they met her sealed their decision to splurge on her work. "We knew what we were going to have after the party was over is our memories and our photos," Kate said.

Honeymooning

A summer trip to Israel is planned.

Behind the scenes

Officiants: Rabbi Richard Rheins and Rabbi Susan Miller-Rheins, Temple Sinai, Denver.

Venue: National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia.

Food: Exquisite Caterers, Marlboro, N.J.

Music: Klezmer with Class, Philadelphia.

Photography: Rebecca Barger Photography, Jenkintown.

Flowers: Sommerfield Designs, Malvern.

Dress: Jasmine Collection, purchased at the Dress Matters, Media.

Hair/Makeup: Bella Angel, Cherry Hill.
Weary national Republicans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday, a day after voters knocked out Roy Moore, their own partys scandal-plagued candidate in deep-red Alabama. Doug Jones (pictured) won the special election. Read more

The defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama's special Senate election last week offers a glimmer of hope that voters can take control of a system marred by crass and craven politics, deep pocketed special interests, gerrymandered districts and a swath of the public that is unengaged and uninformed.

Too bad it took a despicable candidate like Moore to shock the conscience of enough Alabama voters. It remains to be seen if the election was a tawdry outlier or if it marks a return to government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This much is clear: Moore's defeat in a fiercely conservative Republican stronghold that had not elected a Democratic senator in a quarter century was a major blow to the GOP and President Trump, who endorsed Moore even after The Washington Post reported he molested a 14-year-old girl when he was a prosecuting attorney in his 30s. Eventually nine women accused Moore of sexual misconduct when they were teens and he was an adult.

Of course, Moore was unfit for office long before the creepy sexual misconduct allegations. He was twice removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for defying high court decisions and had said "homosexual conduct" should be criminalized.

Moore called Native Americans and Asian Americans "reds and yellows" and suggested the Sept. 11 terror attacks were divine punishment. At a campaign rally in September, he said the last time America was great was during slavery because families were united and the country had a direction.

Even still, Moore managed to get a little over 48 percent of the vote  including 63 percent of white women. Worse, the hotly contested race was the center of national attention, yet only 25 percent of registered voters turned out.

Moore's opponent, Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, was buoyed by a strong turnout of African American voters and some moderate Republicans. Alabama's other Republican senator, Richard Shelby, had the fortitude to say he did not vote for Moore.

The election demonstrated that motivated and informed voters from both parties are needed to save the country from the current state of chaos and dysfunction. That will not be easy. In many ways, the deck is stacked against democracy. The flood of money from special interests  made worse by the 2010 Citizens United case  has resulted in a professional political class that is largely unresponsive to the problems of average voters. (See current GOP tax bill that mainly rewards big businesses and the super-rich.)

Gerrymandered voting districts  and closed primaries  have produced candidates on the extreme ends of both parties who are out of step with the common sense, fairness and decency exhibited by most Americans. (Hopefully pending litigation will right that wrong in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.)

Fox News, talk radio, social media and a pile of garbage on the internet has undermined civic discourse, trust and the rule of law. Trump's routine lies and attacks on the free press have diminished the presidency and tarnished American democracy.

Alabama voters said "Enough." They showed when voters from both parties get engaged and informed they can get the government they deserve. It was a needed lesson for voters everywhere.
The School Reform Commission voted Thursday night to shut one troubled charter school, and also moved to yank the charters of two schools run by Aspira Inc. of Pennsylvania.

Citing shaky finances and poor academics, the SRC said it would close Khepera Charter School in North Philadelphia. The vote came after days of hearings and a lengthy report by a hearing officer recommending closure.

Khepera will remain open through the end of the academic year, and could stay open longer if the school chooses to fight the closure in Harrisburg.

Before the vote, Khepera officials acknowledged the school has had problems, but said they were being corrected.

Racine Carbitt, the school's chief financial officer, suggested that mismanagement by a vendor was responsible for much of the school's trouble. She and Norris Bacon, the school's new CEO and principal, asked for leniency.

"Even under the threat of revocation," Bacon said, "parents would rather have their children attend Khepera Charter School than attend their neighborhood school."

Because of Khepera's severe financial problems, the last academic year ended early for the school's 450 K-8 students.

And nearly two years after it first considered the fate of John B. Stetson Charter School in Kensington and Olney Charter High School, the SRC finally voted to not renew both schools, which are run by the well-known Latino community organization. Non-renewal is the first step in a lengthy legal process that culminates in an organization's losing its charter.

Stetson, with 891 students in grades 5-8, and Olney, with 1,790 students in grades 9-12, are former struggling district schools that the SRC turned over to Aspira in hope of rapid academic turnarounds under the district's "Renaissance Schools" model.

But the commission said Aspira fell far short of its academic goals, and also had problems with finances and management. The SRC had repeatedly delayed voting on Olney and Stetson to give Aspira more time to solve its issues.

Philadelphia School District officials said both schools' situations had grown worse.

Test scores at both schools were even lower in 2016-17 than in 2015-16, when the charter office first recommended against renewing the five-year agreements with Aspira.

Aspira students underperformed district schools, schools with similar demographics, and other charters, officials said.

Just 12 percent of students at Stetson were on grade level in English last year and fewer than 3 percent were on grade level in math. At Olney, 17 percent of the students passed state algebra I exams; 21 percent passed state literature exams.

The fiscal difficulties that have plagued both schools became worse. And the district's charter office said the entangled web of financial transactions, including payments and loans to Aspira and Aspira-related enterprises that had been flagged earlier, continued.

The schools are listed as guarantors on debts of Aspira and its related entities.

And the money Stetson paid to Aspira for maintenance, security, technology, and other services ballooned from $1.1 million in the 2015 fiscal year to $3 million in the last school year, the district said. That amount was on top of the $428,476 Stetson paid Aspira in charter-management fees.

DawnLynne Kacer, the chief of the district's charter schools office, said that overall, Aspira took 28 percent of money paid for Stetson and Olney in administrative costs, compared to an average of 5 percent to 11 percent for other charter operators. Aspira said the district's calculations were incorrect.

In addition to Stetson and Olney, Aspira has two other charters  Antonia Pantoja and Eugenio Maria de Hostos  that are up for renewal this year. Aspira also operates a cyber charter that enrolls students from across the state.

In February, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced that his office would conduct a special performance audit of Aspira's five charter schools after learning that the Latino organization had paid a former administrator $350,000 to settle a sexual-harassment complaint and lawsuit she had filed against Aspira president and CEO Alfredo Calderon. The results of that audit are expected early next year.

Stetson and Olney students and parents made strong appeals for their schools, which they said had improved under Aspira.

Adelaida Morales, a Stetson parent, said that students and parents need Aspira "because they understand our community."

James Thompson, the principal of Olney, said that the school was working on some issues, but that academics have improved.

"We are absolutely the best option for our students," Thompson said.

The Olney and Stetson votes were 4-1, with Commissioner Farah Jimenez against the non-renewal vote. She said she would have supported a renewal with strict conditions.

Aspira officials, in a statement, said the district was ignoring the progress it had made in some of the toughest schools in the city.

Next will be formal hearings on both schools, scheduled in the next few months, then another vote by the SRC. Aspira could appeal the SRC's final word to the state, and eventually to the courts.
The Temple University Progressive NAACP was one of several campus groups to respond to racist flyers posted around the university this week. Read more

Temple University police on Thursday were investigating the posting around campus of three fliers promoting a racist message apparently targeting lingering animosities from the 2016 Democratic primary fight for president.

"This is disgusting, hateful, and has no place on our campus," said Temple spokesman Ray Betzner.

"Temple police are reviewing video footage and seeking witnesses who may have seen something," Betzner said, adding that university officials met with students late Thursday afternoon to hear their concerns.

The crudely printed fliers stated: "Hey you stupid N Bernie would have won if it wasn't for you. Seriously, f you all. This is all your fault."

The message refers to the bitter primary contest between Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and the assertion that Sanders would have defeated Donald Trump in the general election. African American voters largely favored Clinton.

The first public report about the fliers came from a Temple student on Wednesday.

The national NAACP tweeted in response to the racism in the message: "Students should never have to face this type of hatred!"

In a statement, the Temple University Progressive NAACP said it was "sad that we have to address something of this nature once again, but this is our reality."

Tyrell Mann-Barnes, student body president, said on his Twitter account that "it is imperative we fight hate, racism, bigotry, and intolerance every time we see it."

Temple College Democrats also condemned the fliers.

"It is with heavy hearts that the Temple College Democrats must address another exhibition of hate speech on our campus. We recognize this rhetoric for what it is: racist and intolerant. This incident rests upon a much more systemic issue, one that only becomes increasingly normalized the longer we fail to take action," the organization said.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health has awarded a $4 million, four-year grant to a consortium of five institutions led by Penn Medicine to rethink how traumatic brain injuries are diagnosed and eventually treated.

Douglas Smith, who directs Penn's Center for Brain Injury and Repair, will lead researchers from Penn, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Moss Rehab, the University of Pittsburgh, and Cheyney University.

The goal of the study will be to go beyond symptoms like headache, dizziness, or confusion, which are often used to classify brain injuries today, and begin to classify damage based on the type and extent of physical damage in the brain. This, Smith hopes, will lead to better clinical trials and treatments. Smith likened the effort to moving from the days when people were told they had "consumption" because of their symptoms to knowing that tuberculosis was caused by bacteria that can be targeted for treatment.

The money comes from the state's tobacco settlement funds, which it may use for such health-related purposes.

Concussion, Smith said, now has 30 different official definitions. "What we want to do is have a real diagnosis," he said. Brain injuries can be caused by bruising, bleeding or swelling, each of which might require different treatment.

The group will be evaluating different ways to measure brain injury, including markers in blood and neuroimaging that can reveal how injuries affect the ability of brain cells to communicate. They will be trying to figure out how to predict which people will not recover quickly from concussion  about 20 percent of patients  and why some people with severe brain injuries can recover and do well for years, then decline. The group will also investigate leakage of the blood-brain barrier and resulting inflammation after injury.

The team will also engage in educational public outreach and will teach underrepresented minority undergraduate students to help with the research in the hope that they will consider careers in science.
People travel for many reasons. Some do it for business or to go away to college. Others do it because they are taking part in a missionary or service project. Others do it in the spirit of self-discovery. As for me, travel can be summed up in three letters:

F-U-N.

I applaud those who leave the familiar in the pursuit of self-actualization or to help others, but I want my journey to be a break from the humdrum routine. I want to see new sites, eat different foods, experience new things, and I want the result of each to be me saying, "Well, that was fun."

Plenty of vacations fill the bill. There were countless trips to Wildwood, where I spent days on the beach, soaking in the sun and surf, and nights on the boardwalk going on the amusement rides, playing the arcade games and eating junk food. I took a few trips to Italy to see relatives and see historical sites. When my brother left Philadelphia for a job in St. Petersburg, Fla., my parents and I drove down I-95 to visit him. St. Pete was a lot of fun. Spending 20-plus hours in a car wasn't. I took cruises to Canada, Bermuda, and the Bahamas and, yes, they were fun. What vacation was the most fun? It was a trip to Perth, Australia, that my Dad and I took in December 1989.

Why Australia? My parents asked me what I wanted as a high school graduation present. I said I want to go to Australia and visit the relatives on Dad's side of the family. I thought it would be neat to see them and another part of the world. Once there, the fun didn't stop. There was a Christmas Day barbecue. There were trips to a nearby beach where the warmth of the Australian sun felt like my bones were getting tan. There were also trips to museums, historical sites, vineyards, and countless other barbecues at the homes of friends and relatives. I was a sophomore at Temple University at the time and was not burdened by work or family responsibilities. So this was a vacation where I truly unplugged. Every day was an opportunity to experience something new, have fun, and I relished it.

There was one site that was the coolest of them all: Lake Monger. The lake near Perth features the requisite greenery and paths. It also features black swans. Lake Monger's swans are so accustomed to people feeding them you can walk right up to them and they won't scurry away. I walked up to the swans to take some pictures and so did my cousin. Her pictures of me among the swans shows a 20-year-old who was eager to experience all that she could on her vacation, and that included being a wannabe wildlife photographer. And, yes, I did have fun.
If youre looking to upstage Clara, theres no better way to do it than with a four-legged furry friendespecially when that furry friend is looking for its forever home. Cue Richmond Ballet: During its December 16 and 21 matinees, the company is teaming up with the Richmond SPCA to present the Pupcracker, special Nutcracker performances featuring adoptable shelter dogs. Several pups make their stage debut during the party scene as the guests bring their family pets to and from the Silberhaus home. Audience members can then meetand adoptthe dogs during intermission and after the performance. The SPCA even provides a crate, collar, leash and treats so that patrons can bring their new family members home after the show.

Audience members can meet and adopt featured dogs during intermission. Photo Courtesy Richmond Ballet.

Artistic director Stoner Winslett first reached out to SPCA CEO Robin Starr, a former Richmond Ballet board president and current trustee emerita, about partnering up seven years ago. Since then the company has presented 17 Pupcracker performances, resulting in 34 adoptions. I think Pupcracker has been very successful not only in getting dogs adopted on site, but also in raising awareness about shelter pets, says Winslett, who has rescued five SPCA dogs herself over the years.

Artistic director Stoner Winslett (far right) backstage with Richmond Ballet dancers and an SPCA featured dog. Photo courtesy Richmond Ballet

Richmond Ballet isnt the only company partnering up with local animal shelters. Fort Wayne Ballet and Sacramento Ballet have hosted similar adoption events during their Nutcracker productions. We really hope this trend catches on!
VIDEO: Kansas Chief Credits Off-Duty Officer with Saving Lives By Shooting Gunman Inside Costco

As most everyone else fled a gunman in a Lenexa, KS, Costco, surveillance video released Thursday shows a swift-moving off-duty officer circling behind the man moments before the officer shot and killed the suspect.

Kansas City, KS, Police Captain Michael Howell, who happened to be shopping that Sunday morning, Nov. 26, is seen catlike with his gun out but concealed behind his right hip as he tracked 58-year-old Ronald O. Hunt, the Kansas City Star reports.

The officer did everything right, Lenexa Police Chief Thomas Hongslo said in a press conference Thursday.

Howell identified himself to Costco employees, ran into the store as everyone was running out. He used his tactical advantage, Hongslo said, as he slipped in behind Hunt as he made his way to the back of the store.

Hongslo said Capt. Howell identified himself, shouted at Hunt to drop his gun, and that Hunt refused and pointed his gun at Howell when Howell shot him.

I think he (Hunt) was there to kill people, Hongslo said. And Howell potentially saved officers."
Speaking to a graduating class of the FBI National Academy this morning President Donald Trump told a gathering of local, county, and federal officers "I have your back 100%."

Trump praised all law enforcement officers and their families for their sacrifice and their dedication. "You love your job, your community, and your country," the president said. "Being a police officer is not a career, it's a calling," he added.

He cited a statistic that a law enforcement officer is assaulted every 10 minutes. "Every drop of blood spilled by the men and women in blue is a wound on our nation," Trump said and he drew cheers from the audience when he said anyone killing a law enforcement officer should get the death penalty.

Addressing critics of law enforcement, Trump said, "It's not a news story when an officer saves a life, rescues a family, or stops a crime. It's just another day on the job."

Trump talked about the murder rates in Chicago and Baltimore. He said law enforcement agencies coping with these problems are "overstretched, underfunded, and underappreciated."

Addressing MS-13 by name and referring to them as "savages," Trump said the federal government and local law enforcement are working to get the gang's members off the street by arresting, prosecuting, and imprisoning them. He emphasized deportation as a solution: "We will throw you out of the country," he said.

Established in 1935, the FBI National Academy is an educational program for active law enforcement officers. Its 11-week curriculum is held four times per year on the grounds of the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA.--David Griffith
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

Youd have to be a Trump voter to fall for this one.

As the public outcry against the Republican attack on the Internet grows, Donald Trump, Jr decided to blame President Obama for his daddys FCC chair voting to destroy Net Neutrality rules put into place by Obama.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

I would pay good money to see all those people complaining about Obamas FCC chairman voting to repeal #NetNeutality actually explain it in detail. Id also bet most hadnt heard of it before this week. #outrage  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 15, 2017

Most hadnt heard it before this week? LOL. Who can even with these people.

The battle over net neutrality has been going on for years. Donald Trump Jr. probably never heard of it until this week, because as we have learned from the Russia investigation, unless Russians or their operatives at Wikileaks put it in an email, or it is discussed on Fox News, Don Jr. has no idea that it ever happened.

If Don Jr. knew what the rest of the country knew, hed know that since Obama pushed these rules for Internet Freedom (the real kind of freedom, that is to say freedom for the people, instead of Republican freedom, which is freedom for corporations to harm people for profits), his FCC chair would not be voting to destroy Net Neutrality.

The Trump family playbook never changes. When something goes right, they get the credit, even if they had nothing to do with it. When they do something that the majority of Americans hate, which is an everyday occurrence, blame Obama.

Donald Trump Jr.s stupid defies comprehension.

This leaves Eric Trump as the smart one in the family, and thats not encouraging.
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected on Thursday to rescind rules aimed at ensuring a free and open internet, as protesters gathered to oppose the change.

Commission Chairman Ajit Pais proposal marks a victory for internet service providers like AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc that opposed the regulations, popularly known as net neutrality rules, and hands them power over what web content consumers can access.

Democrats, Hollywood and companies like Google parent Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc had urged Pai, a Republican appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump, not to rescind the Obama-era rules barring service providers from blocking, slowing access to or charging more for certain content.

Consumers are unlikely to see any immediate changes resulting from the rule change, but smaller startups worry the lack of restrictions could drive up costs or lead to their content being blocked.

Internet service providers say they will not block or throttle legal content but that they may engage in paid prioritization. They say consumers will see no change and argue that the largely unregulated internet worked fine in the two decades before the 2015 order was adopted.

Democrats point to polls showing the proposal is deeply unpopular and say they will ultimately prevail in protecting the rules, either in the courts or in U.S. Congress.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said in a written dissent released on Thursday that the decision grants internet providers extraordinary new power from the FCC.

They have the technical ability and business incentive to discriminate and manipulate your internet traffic. And now this agency gives them the legal green light to go ahead, she said.

Several state attorneys general have said they will work to oppose the ruling, citing problems with comments made to the FCC during the public comment period. Other critics have said they will consider challenging what they consider to be weaker enforcement.

Net neutrality supporters rallied in front of the FCC building in Washington before the vote, and some Congress members were expected to join.

Amid chants of Hey hey, ho ho, Chairman Pai has got to go!, several dozen people stood in the cold to hear activists speak out against the change.

Online protesters included celebrities like Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.

The 2015 rules were intended to give consumers equal access to web content and prevent broadband providers from favoring their own content. Pai proposes allowing those practices as long as they are disclosed.

Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who heads a trade group representing major cable companies and broadcasters, told reporters earlier this week that internet providers would not block content because it would not make economic sense.

They make a lot of money on an open internet, Powell said, adding it is much more profitable than a closed system. This is not a pledge of good-heartedness, its a pledge in the shareholders interest.

A University of Maryland poll released this week found that more than 80 percent of respondents opposed the proposal. The survey of 1,077 registered voters was conducted online by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland from Dec. 6-8.

Democrats have said the absence of rules would be unacceptable and that they would work to overturn the proposal if it is approved. Advocates of the net neutrality rules plan a legal challenge.

Pais proposal is like letting the bullies develop their own playground rules, said Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

Many Republicans back Pais proposal but want Congress to write net neutrality rules. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the FCC would return the internet to a consumer-driven marketplace free of innovation-stifling regulations.

A group of nearly 20 state attorneys general asked the FCC to delay the vote until the issue of fake comments is addressed.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Meredith Mazzilli)
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

Donald Trumps campaign now finds itself in an email scandal of its own as special counsel Robert Mueller is seeking documents from a data firm hired by the Trump team during last years presidential election.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mueller has requested that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked for President Donald Trumps campaign, turn over documents as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Unlike the non-scandal surrounding Hillary Clintons use of a personal email account that defined last years campaign coverage, this one could actually uncover a smoking gun.

More from the report:

Mr. Mueller asked the firm in the fall to turn over the emails of any Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign, in a sign that the special counsel is probing the Trump campaigns data operation. The special counsels request, which the firm complied with, wasnt previously known. The emails had earlier been turned over to the House Intelligence Committee, the people said, adding that both requests were voluntary. On Thursday, Cambridge Analytica Chief Executive Alexander Nix interviewed via videoconference with the House Intelligence Committee, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The news that Mueller is digging into Trump campaign emails comes weeks after it was reported that Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix tried to team up with Julian Assange last year in an effort to derail Hillary Clintons campaign.

As the Daily Beast reported in October, Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clintons missing emails.

The Wall Street Journal added in Thursdays report: Two months after Mr. Nix directed his speakers bureau to contact Mr. Assange, top Trump donor Rebekah Mercer asked him whether Cambridge Analytica could help better organize the emails WikiLeaks was releasing, the Journal has reported.

In other words, the Trump campaigns data firm was actively seeking to work with WikiLeaks  essentially a Russian propaganda outfit  to hurt Hillary Clintons presidential campaign and help Donald Trumps.

Special counsel Robert Muellers request to see emails connected to Trump-hired Cambridge Analytica could show just how widespread the effort was to work with Russia-connected WikiLeaks and would most certainly destroy whatever is left of the presidents argument that there was no collusion.
Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Email

Print

A new PPP Poll shows that a majority of voters want Donald Trump to resign over the allegations by 17 women that he sexually harassed them.

According to Public Policy Polling (PPP), PPPs newest national poll finds that a majority of voters think Donald Trump should resign from the Presidency because of the allegations of sexual harassment against him. 53% think Trump should step down to just 42% who think he should remain in office. 53% of voters believe the women who have accused Trump of harassment, to 31% who think they arent telling the truth.

If there is one scandal that is not being reported on as much as Russia that worries this White House, it is the allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Trump. The sexual harassment allegations are a ticking time bomb. In 2016, Trump and the Russians were able to take the focus off of the allegations against him by changing the subject to Hillary Clinton. One of the most shameful acts of the male-dominated mainstream press was that they followed Trumps lead and ignored the sexual harassment allegations against the Republican nominee.

The White House knows that the allegations will be back if Trump runs for a second term in 2020, but the change in American culture will not allow Trump to change the subject. As president, the election will be about him.

One gets the sense that many voters would like Trump to resign for any reason, but the President isnt going to skate on the sexual harassment allegations. His day is coming, and that thought is one of many that keep Republicans up late at night.
Hungary MVM signs deal for HUF 200 bn revolving loan facility

The Hungarian Electricity Works (MVM) has signed an agreement on Friday for a 200 billion revolving loan facility with a consortium comprising 12 domestic and international banks.

The credit facility will be used for general corporate financing and the refinancing of MVM Groups club loans. The 5-year credit is repayable in a lump sum at the end of maturity, MVM Zrt. Chief Executive Janos Zsuga said after the signing the agreement on Friday.The starting margin is 40 basis points, which would probably make even German or U.S. large enterprises happy, added Andras Huszar, Deputy CEO for Business.

This agreement, which is the largest-volume forint credit business of 2017, is a milestone on the local market and also a success for MVM and the participating banks. The importance of the transaction is reflected by the size of the credit facility and the number of co-operating banks



BNP Paribas

CIB Bank Zrt.

Citibank

Commerzbank Zrt

Erste Bank Hungary Zrt.

ING Bank N.V.

K&H Bank Zrt.

Magyar Takarekszovetkezeti Bank Zrt.

MKB Bank Zrt.

OTP Bank Nyrt.

Raiffeisen Bank Zrt.

UniCredit Bank Hungary Zrt.

, added Mihaly Patai, Chairman-CEO of UniCredit Bank Hungary Zrt. that was the lead manager of the credit line.The providing banks are the following:MVM Group is Hungarys fourth-largest group of companies, Its consolidated revenues exceeded HUF 1,034 bn in 2016 and its EBITDA reached HUF 110 bn. MVM Group employs over 8,500 people and is present in more than 15 countries.
Opus company inks support deal with Hungary's Economy Ministry

Opus Global Plc. has announced on Friday that Wamsler SE, owned 99.93% by Opus, signed an agreement with the National Economy Ministry for a nearly 1.8 billion financial support.

Opus Global announced today that Wamsler SE Household Equipment European Company, whose 99.93% of voting stock is owned by Opus Global, has concluded an agreement of financial support with the Economy Ministry regarding the project, launched by Wamsler SE and named asThe value of the financial support is nearly HUF 1.79 billion that is to be utilized by Wamsler SE to complete the project at the total value of HUF 3.572 billion.The project includes the reorganization of the production process, the establishment of factories, the modernization of production equipment and capacity enhancement.The share price of Opus rose nearly 3% to HUF 704 on Friday compared to Thursdays closing price on the Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE).
This is a great time of year to watch for aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. Actually, aurora don't really favor one season over another, but you have the best chance to see them this time of year simply because the nights are so much longer.

I wish the northern lights were a more predictable phenomenon, and to a certain degree they are, but aurora are still what I call the wild card of the night sky. That's because they are ultimately caused by storms on our closest star the sun.

The sun's 10,000-degree surface is a caldron of chaos. There are constant storms going on, resulting in sunspots, flares, and at times really large storms called coronal mass ejections, which fling out huge eruptions of highly charged protons and electrons. These charged particles move like celestial bats out of solar hell at speeds of millions of miles an hour.

At times the Earth finds itself in the path of these particles and that's when auroras arrive in our skies. Lately there've been many extraordinary solar storms resulting several nice aurora displays in the northern latitudes including Alaska, Canada and even northern members of the lower 48 states.

Since coronal mass ejections are impossible or at best very difficult to predict, it's hard to know when we'll see northern lights. The only thing that we do know for sure is that the sun goes through an 11-year cycle of solar turbulence and storms. Right now the sun is coming out of the minimum part of that cycle, so the chance of seeing the northern lights will increase in the next few years.

ADVERTISEMENT

When these charged particles reach the vicinity of our planet, the magnetic field of the Earth directs these particles toward both the north and south geomagnetic poles. These geomagnetic poles don't exactly coincide with the terrestrial poles but they're close. The northern geomagnetic pole is in far northern Canada. That's why we see more northern lights in Minnesota and Wisconsin than the snowbirds see in Florida.

Once these charged particles get to within 70 to 100 miles of Earth's surface, they work their magic with our atmosphere. They temporarily disrupt the structure of atoms and molecules, resulting in the discharge of light. As billions and billions and billions of collisions occur, the brilliant colors of the aurora dazzle us surface dwellers.

Most of the time we see greenish white colors as oxygen atoms are excited, but sometimes bluish, purplish, and even reddish tinges will appear when the charged particles react with various states of nitrogen in our atmosphere. Northern lights seem to float across the sky in waves and curtains as they follow the lines of Earth's magnetic field. Most of the time northern lights are restricted to the northern part of the sky, but during really active displays they can spread all over the heavens.

I have to be totally honest with you. Really good aurora displays around Rochester are not all that common, but when it does happen it can be so great. So when there's one forecasted you want to know about it and get out into the darker countryside skies if you can.

There are several good websites and apps you can check that will give some fairly reliable short-term forecasts of aurora. My favorites are Spaceweather.com and Spaceweatherlive.com. There are text alert services through these websites and others. On Twitter, check out Aurora_Alerts .

I have to tell you, though, that some of the best displays of northern lights I've seen were completely unexpected, and some of the ones predicted never really panned out. To me, that's what makes aurora so much fun. They're the wildcards of stargazing.
If my daughter ever talks about her lunchroom conversations, it inevitably boils down to a whole lot of he said/she said gossip and a little bit of griping and complaining.

She's in middle school, so this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

Honestly, I try not to ask about her lunchtime chatter. Hurt feelings and grudges that make no sense are not my cup of tea.

Which is why the response to my story about the Dover bar brouhaha caught me off guard.

Bar wars

ADVERTISEMENT

So, I can't be everywhere, but I do my best to keep tabs on issues going on in towns I cover. In reading the minutes of the Dover City Council through the summer and fall, I saw the rising conflict over The Shack Bar.

Owner Jody Wiza says the city has been working hard to stymie her business rather than help it grow. Mayor Roger Ihrke has said Wiza has broken rules and doesn't deserve a liquor license  something he sees as a privilege rather than a right in his town.

Who is right? I have no idea.

But when it came to running a story in advance of the Dec. 7 Dover City Council meeting and the public hearings on a new zoning ordinance and Wiza's request for a variance on that ordinance, I made the wrong call.

"If you don't want to run that story, I don't mind," I told the editor to my right. "It's just a bunch of in-fighting between the bars and the city."

And here's why he makes the big bucks. "That's quintessential small town politics," he said. "I say we run it."

Well, if the response to my Facebook post of the story is any indication, the editor to my right was ... right.

Public comments

ADVERTISEMENT

At the moment I'm writing this  late afternoon on Wednesday  my Facebook post linking to the story has reached 1,267 people. That's about 10 times what my average Facebook post reaches. (Yes, I need more Facebook followers for my Post Bulletin account .)

Furthermore, the story itself had people make actual comments online. One such comment, from alert reader Tammy Christian, may as well have started with the phrase "Call me Ishmael ..." for the length and breadth of what she wrote.

Eyota Mayor Tyrel Clark emailed me an update about the issue last Friday, noting that The Shack Bar was listed for sale through an online broker.

Wiza had said on Dec. 7 that if her liquor license wasn't renewed for 2018, she'd sell the business she's run for 13 years. That decision  if the city renews her license  will likely come at the end of the month.

Personality problems

The real story, which shouldn't be news at all, is that when people have their interests or beliefs challenged in local government, things can get a bit testy.

Watch a Red Wing City Council meeting. They're all online. This is a group of people who agree on one thing: They want the best for the city of Red Wing. But they often disagree on what that means.

If you want to see a governing body with a split vote, look no further than the Winona County Board of Commissioners. On many issues, Marcia Ward and Steve Jacob, the commissioners who represent the rural areas of the county, strongly disagree with Jim Pomeroy, Marie Kovecsi and Greg Olson, the commissioners whose districts run into the city of Winona.

ADVERTISEMENT

Last year, during the debates over the frac sand mining ban, Ward brought Mason jars filled with ditch silica sand and silica sand that had been processed for frac sand mining, then asked her colleagues to guess which was which.

It was a classic bit of local government theater, and seeing it unfold I grabbed my camera and snapped a photo of the moment.

The editor to my right loved it.
RED WING  Monday night's shooting at a Zumbrota mobile home park was the result of a botched robbery attempt by a woman and three of her friends, according to criminal complaints.

Payton Frances Koob, 18, of Red Wing, was charged Wednesday in Goodhue County District Court with one count each of first-degree burglary; conspiracy to commit simple robbery; aiding an offender to avoid arrest; and aiding an offender-accomplice after the fact. All are felonies.

She remains in custody in lieu of $25,000 conditional bond and will make her first appearance Jan. 11.

Elliott Robert Jackson, also 18 and from Rochester, faces one count each of first-degree burglary and conspiracy to commit simple robbery. He's been released from custody in lieu of $25,000 unconditional bond, and is due back in court Jan. 8.

Shun Barnell Johnson, 20, of Austin, faces the same two charges. He remains in custody in lieu of $100,000 unconditional bond and is scheduled to appear again Jan. 11.

ADVERTISEMENT

A fourth suspect, a 17-year-old male, could also face felony charges.

The investigation began with multiple reports of people screaming and arguing in a street at Ponderosa Mobile Home Court off Jefferson Drive.

Responding officers were met by a 19-year-old man who'd been shot in the arm; he and a 50-year-old man were pointing to a maroon vehicle without license plates that was eastbound on Jefferson Drive. The suspects were in the car, the men said.

A perimeter was set up by multiple law enforcement agencies at the intersection of 19th Street and Jefferson , the only outlet from the neighborhood.

Back at the scene, the victim said he was selling some marijuana when he was "jumped" by three men who entered the home, the complaint says. The man said he didn't know any of them.

A minor girl at the scene said two women  later identified as Koob and another 18-year-old female  entered the home and "acted like they knew" the victim.

The girl said Koob and the victim were talking; the other woman went outside and returned a short time later with three men. They were later identified as Jackson, Johnson and the juvenile.

The three men followed the victim into his bedroom, the girl said, then she heard the 19-year-old yell and saw people running out of the bedroom. Koob followed them outside.

ADVERTISEMENT

The victim and one of the men were still in the bedroom; the suspect ran out of the house when the girl "grabbed her long board and hit him with it," the report says.

The victim ran after him, though, and the pair began to fight in the street. Meanwhile, the two women and the two other suspects ran down the road.

Once again, the girl broke up the fight, using the 50-year-old's phone to call police. As she spoke to dispatch, she heard a gunshot, but told investigators she did not see a gun.

The 50-year-old said one of the male suspects returned as the victim and the first suspect fought. The second suspect kicked the victim in the head, then "kind of kneeled down," pulled out a gun, and told the witness to "back off."

The suspect pointed the gun at the victim and fired one shot; he and the other suspect then ran away.

The maroon vehicle was stopped soon after; Koob was behind the wheel and the other woman was a passenger. No one else was in the car.

Koob first invoked her right to remain silent, then agreed to speak.

She initially claimed the women had been at the home to buy marijuana when the three males pushed their way inside. She said she didn't know them, nor had they come to the mobile home park in her car.

ADVERTISEMENT

"Koob had an attitude the whole time the officer was talking to her and her statement did not match up to the other statements officers received," the complaint says.

Later, however, she admitted she was going to the victim's house to rob him of his marijuana, the court documents say, but repeatedly told the officer, "I didn't do anything."

Koob said the suspects were in her car, but she wouldn't provide their names.

"We were just coming to (expletive) rob Joe," she allegedly said, "just for an ounce of weed."

Koob "appeared very nonchalant about robbing someone for drugs," the officer noted in his report. She seemed "very surprised" it was a crime to commit robbery when the item stolen was marijuana, and said she'd rather "go down" than give up names.

The other woman in the car told officers she had no idea a robbery was planned.

Her version of the story was different from those of the victim and witnesses, the complaint says.

She said the three male suspects followed her into the house, and believed they were friends of the victim. She ran from the home when she heard the commotion in the bedroom, and saw the victim grab Koob by the hair.

The 19-year-old and one of the men fought over a backpack, which the victim had when the fight ended. It was the victim who pulled the gun, she claimed, telling the suspect, "if anyone else comes close to me I'm blowing it."

They then fought over the gun, and one of the other suspects returned to help, the woman said. They all ran after the shot was fired.

The initial perimeter was cleared about 1:30 a.m.; not long after, a caller reported seeing three men running in the area of 20th Street and Stafford Street. An officer found fresh tracks in the snow indicating three people had run toward a dense wooded area at a nearby dead end.

The suspects were "standing still behind a mid-sized tree," the complaint says, and arrested without incident.

Jackson allegedly acknowledged he and the other suspects had ridden to Zumbrota with a woman he didn't know  presumably Koob. The victim owed Johnson money, Jackson said, adding he didn't know who shot the man, but it wasn't him.

Johnson initially gave the officers a false name, and lied about having a Minnesota driver's license.

The victim positively identified Johnson and Jackson as two of the people involved, the complaint says.

No weapon was located.
DOVER  While a few I's need to be dotted and T's need to be crossed, The Shack Bar should get its liquor license for 2018.

Thursday night, the Dover City Council approved a license for on-sale, including Sundays, provided bar owner Jody Wiza submits her paperwork  her insurance was not up to date for 2018  no later than Dec. 23, said Mayor Roger Ihrke. The city also set a condition that the business remain a combination bar and hair salon as it was originally envisioned.

"Jody withdrew her application for off-sale and for a 2 a.m. closing," Ihrke said. The bar will be open until 1 a.m., except Sundays when it closes at midnight. The exception is New Year's Eve this year, which falls on a Sunday. The council approved all the bars to stay open until 1 a.m. that night.

Wiza still faces issues regarding citations against the bar, including a citation for sale to a minor on Dec. 4. Wiza has appealed several of the citations against her and her bar stemming from a disagreement with the city on whether she was properly permitted for construction and has followed the permit that was eventually granted.

Ihrke previously said if the city wins its appeals case against the bar for previous citations against the liquor license, and if the sale to the underage person is upheld, there would be three strikes against The Shack Bar's liquor license. According to Dover's city ordinance, a liquor license can be revoked after four strikes, but the city council has the option to deny or revoke a license after three strikes if it feels those offenses merit withholding the license.

ADVERTISEMENT

Because the city went ahead with approving the license for 2018 at Thursday's meeting, a separate meeting for Dec. 27 has been cancelled, Ihrke said.
PossAbilities will be caroling at Madonna Towers next week.

The Rochester organization, which creates employment and enrichment opportunities for those with disabilities, is looking to spread a little holiday cheer, beginning at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 21. Participants will gather in the nursing care chapel to sing holiday carols to residents, visitors and staff.

"During the holiday season we like to give back to our community," said Katie Mahaffey, director of PossAbilities program Without Walls. "Caroling is a great opportunity to spread the holiday cheer to those who may not receive any surprise visits during the holiday season."

The caroling will take place from 11 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. at Madonna Towers 4001 19th Ave NW, Rochester, MN 55901, participants should use the "skilled care entrance."

For more information, contact Stacy Shones, marketing and events coordinator, at sshones@possabilities.org, or by phone, office: (507) 281-6116 or cell: (507) 421-4873. If you plan to attend, RSVP to Shones by Dec. 20.
LAKE CITY  Property owners and interested citizens filed into the city council chambers in Lake City on Thursday night to look at the preliminary plans for U.S. Highway 61 reconstruction through town.

The project will reconstruct Hwy. 61 from Central Point Road to just south of West Elm Street at the entrance of the scenic overlook. The project will take the four-lane highway down to three lanes, with the middle lane becoming a turn lane as the highway passes through downtown.

"I'm happy to see all this will transpire," said Mary Jane Rasmussen, a Lake City resident and business owner. "We've seen a lot of speeders go through town on four lanes."

Tom Rasmussen, her husband, added that part of the problem with four lanes of traffic through downtown is that the traffic on Highway 61 uses the four lanes as a place to pass slower vehicles, meaning the city becomes something of a racetrack.

"One factor of slowing the traffic down is it will give people the opportunity to look at the town a little more," he said.

ADVERTISEMENT

Pedestrian and bike lanes will be added along the lakeside, and the Minnesota Department of Transportation plans to add crosswalks, bump outs and medians along the mile-plus stretch of the project.

Overall, the project will cost MnDOT up to $8.7 million, with the city kicking in $2 million for sewer and water upgrades.

The project passed the city council in 2016 on a 5-2 vote. Council Members Mary Lou Waltman and Randy Klipfel voted against it. Some people in the city are still rallying against the project.

Tom Hefferman, who owns the Ford dealership in town, said it is like going back to a Model T road.

"When they put the four lanes in, we had 3,000 to 4,000 cars a day going through town," Hefferman said. "Now we have 8,000 to 9,000, and a lot of those are big semis."

Those trucks, making deliveries to businesses along Hwy. 61, will clog up the single lane of traffic in each direction, he said. "That's not going to be safer," Hefferman said. "I have been complaining about this since the day it started."

Waltman agreed, saying clients for her beauty salon, especially the elderly, will be exiting into traffic along the highway.

The project is slated to begin construction in 2020, but she said a new city council  three seats are up for election in November 2018  could reverse course and vote for a four-lane reconstruction.

ADVERTISEMENT

"I'm torn. I really am torn," Waltman said. "I hope it is exactly what (MnDOT engineers) tell us it will be."

Sylvia Casey said she came to the meeting to make sure the project wouldn't affect her property right off Hightway 61. Since it won't, she's very supportive of the changes planned, including the switch to three lanes and the addition of crosswalks so she and other pedestrians will have easier access to Lake Pepin.

"This is reasonable," she said. "They better not change it."

MnDOT Project Manager Chad Hanson said the meeting was to get comments and concerns from the community, but the plan going forward was to create a blueprint for a three-lane reconstruction.

The next step includes getting details such as the length of turn lanes, the exact position of crosswalks, and other pieces of the geometry of the project so MnDOT and the city could come to a more detailed, actionable plan.

The plan should allow more safety for cars making left-hand turns off the highway, create safer passage for pedestrians, and slow traffic through downtown. "We're confident it'll be a safer situation," he said.
Yes, says the Prime Minister:

Swedish society has an anti-Semitism problem, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told press in Paris, where he is participating in a climate meet to mark the anniversary of the 2015 Paris agreement. We need to see it clearly. In Malmo we see it, and in Gothenburg. It is up to us to both counteract and prevent this, he said, referring to a weekend which saw anti-Semitic slogans chanted at a demonstration in Malmo and a Molotov cocktail attack on a Gothenburg synagogue. We need to be really clear that such anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews has no place in our society.

But is it really Swedish society that has an anti-Semitism problem? The details on the firebombing of the Gothenburg synagogue come from the Gatestone Institute:

On Saturday, December 9, masked men threw firebombs at a synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden. The attack took place shortly after 10:00 pm, at a time when about thirty children and teenagers were attending a party at the Jewish Center adjoining the main building. When the assault began, the guards rushed them into the cellar, and finally allowed them to go home at about 11:30 pm. (Guards, of course, are a fixture at European synagogues these days.)

***

A small fire did indeed spread out at the synagogue, but was soon extinguished by firefighters. Fortunately, there were no injuries; alas, there were only three arrests. When asked by the daily Expressen to say something about the identity of the suspects, a police spokesperson would say only that the three persons taken into custody were about 20 years old. In the aftermath of the attack, Swedish police have intensified security arrangements around the handful of other synagogues in the country.

Reportedly there were around a dozen masked youths who participated in the firebombing. For some reason, the identity of those who were arrested is a closely-guarded secret, but it has now been reported that [t]wo of them are understood to be from Syria and one from Palestine and arrived in Sweden in recent years.' This, ironically, is courtesy of an anti-racism magazine.

Back to the news story first linked in this post: Swedens Prime Minister suggests several possible solutions to the problem, including sending more young people to the sites of concentration camps and the like. The article also indicts a familiar villain:

Willy Silberstein, former chairperson with the Swedish Committee against Anti-Semitism, told Expressen TV that the series of incidents in Sweden could be related to Trumps announcement. When the USA decides to move the embassy to Jerusalem, that results, in the sick world we live in, in consequences for Jews living in Sweden. Swedish citizens become part of the conflict, Silberstein said.

Absent from the article are the words immigrant, immigration, Islam and Muslim. So, in answer to the question, Does Sweden have an anti-Semitism problem? I would answer: It does now.
I filled in this morning for Rob Long as the third host on the weekly Ricochet podcast with James Lileks and Peter Robinson, covering the waterfront from the Alabama special election to the FBI investigation to the continuing moral panic over sexual harassment, the highlight of which was 25 splendid minutes with the great Claire Berlinski, whom we reached in the evening over in Paris. I decided to risk my future career by publicly confessing my total fanboy crush Ive always had on her and. . . well, youll just have to wait to hear her response.

Meanwhile, dont miss her article, The Warlock Hunt, that prompted the idea of having her on the show. Finally, theres a big reveal at the very end involving the dynamics of this site, so youll have to listen all the way, and stay tuned here for the promised follow up.

You can listen or download the show from the window below, or go to the main Ricochet link.
Mark Steyn turns his gimlet eye on Robert Muellers independent investigation ofsomething. Marks survey isnt definitive; it is much too early for that. But it is illuminating and, as always, entertaining.

He begins by pointing out that Mueller, a lifelong swamp denizen, is anything but independent. As for the Beltway consensus that Mueller is a straight shooter:

My advice is that, whenever lifelong swampers assure us of the integrity of any individual, assume straight arrow is Beltway-speak for slimey duplicitous permanent-state operator and you cant go wrong.

Now we get to the headlines that have engrossed conservatives in recent days:

3) One of the first things Mueller did was to appoint FBI counter-intelligence honcho Peter Strzok to his independent team. He should not have done that. Not because Strzok is a Democrat (presumably almost everyone at the FBI votes either Democrat or Republican), but because Strzok had been a key player in Comeys Hillary investigation. The investigators comparative treatment of the two candidates was already an issue, and the subject of the Russia investigation had already spent the better part of a year denouncing the investigation of his rival as a sham and a disgrace. In effect, Trump had already, without even knowing of the guys existence or his Zelig-like ubiquity, questioned Strzoks integrity. So why appoint him to a second investigation? 4) Furthermore, why similarly appoint his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, to both investigations? The FBI has over 35,000 employees. Yet the same handful of key players are running both the Clinton and Trump cases, even though the latter is supposed to be independent. So the same operatives are meeting with MI6 dossier-concocter Christopher Steele, and going to the FISA court to get surveillance warrants, and entrapping Michael Flynn. The appalling Mueller effectively merged the two investigations into one continuous caper run soup to nuts by the same crowd. Phase One: Get Hillary off the hook. Phase Two: Get Trump on it. 5) Just as the Hillary investigation merged with the Trump investigation, so both merged with Fusion GPS, the oppo-research guys working for the Clinton campaign. The conflicts of interest intertwine so thoroughly that they reach up beyond the FBI into the highest reaches of the Department of Justice. At this stage, it would be no surprise to learn that Mueller and Comey had accidentally failed to disclose that they were the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Fusion GPS. Am I exaggerating? By maybe a hair. This week it emerged that the Associate Deputy Attorney-General, Bruce Ohr, failed to disclose that his wife Nellie was working for Fusion GPS. Oh, really? On the reception desk? As a security guard? No, she was hired by Fusion GPS to do anti-Trump research.

Im so old, I can remember when most Americans would be shocked to learn that the FBI intervened on behalf of one candidate in a presidential election. Now on to the most notable illicit liaison of our time:

Granted no man is a hero to his valet or his sexter, but even so the juvenile witlessness of their [Peter Strzoks and Lisa Pages] billets doux is remarkable for one of Americas most senior counter-intelligence figures and therefore presumably someone trained to be circumspect in insecure communications. Instead, he gives us John le Carre as rewritten by Teen Beat.

Some of the notorious texts follow. Mark has an interesting take on the infamous August 15, 2016 text:

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andys office that theres no way he gets elected  but Im afraid we cant take that risk. Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40 He is Trump. Andys office is believed to be that of the Deputy Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, who was in charge of the Trump investigation  then just a few weeks old. The conversation appears to be a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil servants from engaging in political activity while on duty and in a government office. But what does Im afraid we cant take that risk (of Trump winning) actually mean? Does it mean, for example, that Im going to dress up this dodgy Christopher Steele dossier Hillary and Fusion GPS passed along to us into something a bit more credible-seeming and take it to the FISA court to get authorization to tap everyone around Trump round the clock until we hit paydirt? 9) The above text explains why Mueller hired the same-old-same-old Hillary crowd for his supposed independent investigation into Trump: The same people had to run both investigations because otherwise the new investigators would discover the shenanigans of the old investigators. Putting Strzok and Page on the team was the FBIs way of protecting itself.

Im not sure Im persuaded, but its an interesting idea to say the least. The bottom line is:

a) The only people improperly colluding with foreigners are Fusion GPS, the Hillary campaign, the FBI Hillary investigation, the FBI Trump investigation and the Associate Deputy Attorney-General, all of whom are colluding with Brit spook Christopher Steele to get the goods on Trump. b) The only person colluding with the Russians is Christopher Steele, former head of the Russia house at MI6.

But of course, the collusion that happened is not the collusion that supposedly is being investigated. Independently.

Finally, if you arent regularly reading Steyn OnLine, you are missing out on a lot of fun as well as a great deal of insight.
In her weekly Wall Street Journal column today (behind the Journals paywall), Kim Strassel draws on the work of Senator Ron Johnson to unearth the role of the FBI in the 2016 presidential election. Kim first discusses the questions raised by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitzs letter to Senator Johnson earlier this week. She notes that the letter raises the question of when it first learned of FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzoks mind-boggling text messages with FBI lawyer Lisa Page: Was it before Mr. Mueller was even appointed? Did FBI leaders sit by as the special counsel tapped Mr. Strzok? In any case, we know from the letter that the inspector general informed both Messrs. Rosenstein and Mueller of the texts on July 27, and that both men hid that explosive information from Congress for four months.

Kim then turns to this weeks other revelation of jaw-dropping FBI tactics [that came] from a separate letter from [Senator] Johnson. I havent been able to find copy of the letter online. Here is Kims account of the revelation in Senator Johnsons letter:

In November 2016, the Office of Special Counsela federal agency that polices personnel practices and is distinct from the Mueller probebegan investigating whether former FBI Director Jim Comey violated the Hatch Act, which restricts political activity by executive-branch officials, while investigating Hillary Clintons private server. The office conducted interviews with two of Mr. Comeys confidantes: FBI chief of staff James Rybicki and FBI attorney Trisha Anderson. Sen. Johnson in September demanded the full, unredacted transcripts of the interviews. But it turned out the FBI had refused to let the Office of Special Counsel interview them unless it first signed unprecedented nondisclosure agreements, giving the FBI full authority to withhold the information from Congress. The bureau has continued to insist the office keep huge swaths of the interviews secret from Congress, including the names and actions of key political players. (The Office of Special Counsel closed its investigation in May.) In his letter this week, Mr. Johnson demanded that Mr. Wray authorize the release of the full transcripts and other documents. Even the redacted ones have revealed important information, for instance that Mr. Comey was drafting his Hillary Clinton exoneration statement well before she was interviewed. Congressional investigators believe the unredacted versions contain pertinent information about the actions of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and key investigators such as Mr. Strzok. Mr. Johnson has given the FBI until Dec. 27 to come clean. Congress and the public have a right to know what went on in the Comey investigation, and the FBI and Justice Department seem to be attempting desperately to hide their actions.

Curiouser and curiouser.
Ammo Grrrll channels retailers seasonal thoughts and sends out her best holiday wishes in BUY THIS! BUY MORE! She writes:

Well, its just days until Christmas and the shopping frenzy is in full swing. I have often thought that  were we a proselytizing religion, which we are not  we Jews could set up booths and recruit at Malls during the stressful Christmas season. We would just have to keep it on the down low, until we sign them up, what an observant Jewish housewife is obliged to do during the eight days of Passover. (Hint: just one small part is going through every book you own looking for chametz or prohibited leavened crumbs you might have dropped, eating a granola bar while reading. We own thousands of books.)

Those kinds of rules and the pork prohibition seem to be quite the deal breakers for many people. Personally, I like Turkey Bacon just fine, but I have heard it compared to eating a Band-Aid. With a preference for the Band-Aid.

I have read that fully 75 percent of all toys sold in this great and good land are sold at Christmas. Thats an astonishing statistic and makes me wonder why the big box stores even bother to keep toys on the shelves for the rest of the year.

Every year there seems to be an effort to proclaim such and such a toy is the one children cannot live without, causing scarcity, and such festive Christmas traditions as stabbing other patrons in line in order to get the last Tickle Me Elmo. I have, of course, seen the bumper stickers and wristbands asking What Would Jesus Do? and Im pretty sure that When celebrating the day of my birth, slay thee another parent who seeketh to grab the last Cabbage Patch Doll was not part of The Sermon on the Mount. I could be wrong. Im no expert on the New Testament

This manufactured scarcity was the occasion of my one and only shining moment as a Super Hero several pre-Amazon decades ago. My former karate teacher in San Francisco, then living in Victorville, had a little 5 year old boy whose very life depended on acquiring at least one of the Power Rangers. He had searched all of California and even Arizona and Nevada. He thought maybe Minnesota kids werent as hip as California kids and the craze had not yet hit there and called me in desperation. He was mistaken.

I spent several days on the phone calling Targets and K-Marts in towns small and large throughout Minnesota. I called clients in Georgia and Alabama who had girl children (sexist!) and was told by one that if I found a female Power Ranger, she would pay me $100 for it.

Finally, a K-Mart clerk in Duluth found not one, but FOUR different Power Rangers. It was like she had found The Ark of the Covenant! I gave her my credit card number and told her to throw in a $25 tip for herself, which she said she could not do. The package arrived. I examined the toys from every angle, trying to see what all the fuss was about and, failing that, wrapped them in Christmas paper and Fed Exed them on to my friend and sensei. He told me later that his son was the Big Dawg in the neighborhood for months to come and that he would never forget me. So I got a 10th Degree Black Belt and former Army Ranger guy on my team should the need ever arise. Word.

I love how many industries have creatively ginned up a way to use vast amounts of their products. Try reading the recipes on cereal boxes: Take eight cups of Rice Krispies

A comic I worked with 35 years ago  Sid Youngers  used to have a very funny bit (Im going to guess he isnt using it any more) about how baking soda convinced us to put an open box in our refrigerators and, having wild success at that, to pour a box down the drain! Talk about using up product  just buy it and throw it out!

Big Pharma simply gives trips and perks (and probably crack and hookers!) to doctors to convince us to take more and more drugs for maladies they invent like Restless Leg Syndrome and Social Anxiety. Plus they keep moving the goalposts, defining as problematic the very numbers that were considered ideal just yesterday. Like High blood pressure is now 120/80. Did you know that? I looked back at old annual checkup sheets and saw I had a Happy Face sticker on a Fasting Blood Sugar number that has now been reconfigured as pre-diabetic. (Really, isnt EVERY number below THE diabetic number pre-diabetic?)

Just the other day I was reading about how one should throw out ones kitchen sponge EVERY WEEK to avoid contamination with harmful and icky germs. That came as a surprise to me. I generally threw them out when the scrape-y side became too useless to do a good job on pots and pans. Leave it to Big Sponge to try to force people to buy 52 sponges a year! Likewise with Big Makeup. I have also read articles in ladies magazines that advise us to throw out all our makeup and especially mascara and other eye makeup every 3 months.

Is there anyone out there who actually does that? Deb? Tracy? Dorothy? Colleen? Anybody?

Here is my idea for saving even more money on makeup: dont use it. Same with hairspray, nail polish and almost all face creams and potions. Nail polish is absolutely destroyed when shooting or cleaning guns. I have seen women with hairspray that could, conceivably, deflect bullets, but Ive never worn a hairstyle that required the helmet look. If you are married to a man who thinks you look better with pale green eyelids, well, thats your call.

Happy shopping and a Joyous and Blessed Christmas, Hanukkah, or Winter Solstice. Stay out of Malls and Walmarts on the day AFTER Christmas when half the stuff you just indebted yourself to purchase gets unceremoniously returned.
Over the years, Ive probably learned as much, if not more, from George Will as from any columnist or political commentator. These days, his antipathy towards the U.S. president far exceeds mine, but I continue to learn from Will.

Unfortunately, theres nothing to learn from Wills latest contribution, in which he proclaims Trump the worst president in American history. The column is an embarrassment. I cant say its the worst of the year. Perhaps Eugene Robinson has served up worse. I can say that Wills column is the worst I have read this year.

Will bases his claim that Trump is the worst president in American history on his endorsement of Roy Moore for the Senate. Will has nothing to say about any policy decision, legislative proposal, or presidential appointment Trump has made.

Read any competent historical analysis of a presidency, though, and you will find the focus squarely on policy, legislation and, to a lesser degree, appointments. Senatorial endorsements wont even be a footnote.

Thus, Wills column cannot be taken seriously. Even if it were possible to give so low a rating to a president after only eleven months, it could not be done without an analysis of the substance of that presidency. Wills column is devoid of such analysis. It smacks of hysteria.

Andrew Johnson is the president Will says Trump has replaced at the bottom of the heap. Like Trump, Johnson was an unpleasant fellow.

However, the disdain in which history holds Johnson isnt based primarily on personal characteristics. Johnson was on the wrong side of one of the most momentous issues in American history  Reconstruction. James Buchanan  my nominee for worst president ever  botched the events that led to the Civil War.

Will cites nothing in Trumps presidency remotely comparable to the failings of the Johnson and Buchanan presidencies. Rather, as noted, he relies almost entirely on the Roy Moore endorsement.

Will calls Moore a credibly accused child molester. These are weasel words.

What does it mean to be credibly accused of misconduct that allegedly occurred 38 years ago with no witnesses other than the accuser and the accused? It means that the accusation is not a physical impossibility or contradictory on its face and that it cant be disproved (because it happened 38 years ago and there were no witnesses). Thats all.

A credible accusation is not necessarily a true accusation. It is an accusation that can be believed or disbelieved. If all of my witnesses who gave credible testimony had been believed, I would never have lost a case.

Bill Clinton was truthfully accused of sexual misconduct while in office and credibly accused of rape. Under Wills analysis  divorced as it from substantive presidential policy  why would Trumps endorsement of Moore support a claim that Trump is a worse president than Clinton?

Will cites the Everest of evidence against Moore. But nearly all of that mountain consists of evidence that Moore dated teenagers. Thats bad form, but not criminality. Will makes no attempt to show that it should disqualify Moore from holding public office.

Does merely endorsing someone who, when he was in his early 30s, dated teenagers make Trump a bad president? If so, why wouldnt John Tyler be worse? In his mid-50s, he began courting a teenager who, two years later, became his second wife.

Will cites Moores removal from the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to follow dictates of the U.S. Supreme Court. Here, Will is on firmer ground.

Moores refusals are disturbing and arguably disqualifying (as Will says) when it comes to holding public office. If Trump himself defied court orders, we would find ourselves in a constitutional crisis, and the claim that Trump is our worst president would be more plausible. But merely endorsing a Senate candidate who defied court orders doesnt get us to that point.

Indeed, Andrew Jackson was said (erroneously) to have defied a Supreme Court ruling. Though this claim was once widely credited, it never caused historians to rate him our worst president.

Wills column is marred by his unwillingness to consider why a president might endorse an unsavory candidate for the Senate. Its easy for a pundit to say that Roy Moore is unfit for the Senate and therefore should not be supported.

But a president has an agenda to enact and nominees  including, quite likely, a Supreme Court Justice in the case of this president  to get confirmed. A president should therefore weigh the demerits of a Senate candidate from his party against the harm to his substantive agenda  i.e., the harm to the United States, as the president sees it  of having the Senate seat in question fall into the hands of the opposing party. Especially where, as here, that party frequently votes with unanimity against the most important parts of the presidents agenda.

Its one thing to say that Trump erred in this weighing process. Its another thing  an absurd one  to make this error (if thats what it was) the centerpiece of a claim that Trump, eleven months into his presidency, is our worst president ever.

Pundits judge. Historians judge too, but first they try to understand. Wills attack on Trump is that of an irate pundit, not a historian or even a pundit displaying historical sense.
NORTHFIELD  Testimony will continue at a to-be-determined date in the case of a Linwood teacher accused of simple assault of a student last winter.

The trial of Belhaven Middle School music teacher Kimberley Peschi began Friday afternoon at Northfield Municipal Court with witness testimony from teachers and students who were there on the date of the alleged assault.

Peschi pleaded not guilty to simple assault and neglect in April in relation to the Feb. 9 incident in the school cafeteria in which a sixth-grade student fell to the ground after Peschis foot came in contact with his chair.

The trial for Peschi is being held in municipal court under Judge Timothy Maguire with the state represented by Atlantic County Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy. Attorney Robert Agre represents Peschi.

Testimony on the first day of trial Friday centered on the events of the afternoon. Video surveillance from the cafeteria was played on a laptop for the judge, both attorneys and all the witnesses, but it was not viewable by others in the courtroom.

Levy told the judge the video clearly shows Peschi very purposefully lifted her leg and pushed her foot down on the back of the students chair, knocking him to the ground, where he hit his head. The student had been leaning back in his chair prior to the incident, according to eyewitness accounts.

Youll see absolutely no remorse, regret, Levy said.

The defenses cross examination focused mainly on the duties of a school lunch monitor to take corrective action against improper behavior in the cafeteria. Agre contended it is unclear from the video if Peschi was purposefully trying to knock down the student or if she was trying to correct his behavior.

(The student) was leaning back in his chair to the point his own safety was compromised, Agre told the judge.

Witness Lauren Muffley, who was employed by the district last winter and spring as a long-term substitute guidance counselor, testified she witnessed Peschi knock the student over and leave the cafeteria without helping him. She said that after the incident, she went over to comfort the student and took him out of the cafeteria for counseling.

According to Muffley, she and Peschi were in charge of the seventh-grade side of the cafeteria, while another teacher was watching the sixth-graders.

Having her watch the video, Agre asked Muffley about the whereabouts of Peschi and the third lunchroom monitor, teacher Ashley Popa, during the incident. Muffley agreed with Agre that Popa was not watching the student in question at the time.

Agre also pointed out that, in the video, Peschis actions came after another student had already corrected the student in questions manner of sitting by pushing his chair forward onto all four legs.

Muffley said she would have handled the situation differently than Peschi.

I would speak to the student, she said.

Popa, who also testified Friday, said she was two feet away from the student when the incident occurred but had not seen the student leaning back in his chair prior to that. She said Peschi never approached her about the childs behavior and didnt help him after he fell.

I remember her saying something along the lines of Thats why we dont lean back, said Popa, who now works at the Egg Harbor City Community School.

In addition to the teachers, two now-seventh grade students at Belhaven testified Friday with one student stating that Peschi stomped on the back of his friends chair and made him fall.

Testimony ended after the second student testified, and the trial is expected to resume in the new year with more witnesses from the prosecution. Agre indicated Friday there were several character witnesses to testify on Peschis behalf.
Conflicting statements about his primary residence by Camden Countys Pinelands commissioner have brought attention to a common type of Hurricane Sandy fraud.

Edward McGlinchey told the Pinelands Commission he was living in Camden County, which allowed him to remain a commissioner; but he told a state disaster-relief program his primary residence was in Atlantic County, which qualified him for a $130,000 Sandy-relief grant.

Most of more than 200 cases of Hurricane Sandy-related disaster fraud brought by law enforcement have involved primary residence fraud, State Attorney Generals Office Public Information Officer Peter Aseltine said in an email Thursday.

That happens when someone certifies their second home is their primary home, Aseltine said.

Camden County is moving ahead to approve a new Pinelands commissioner, spokesman Dan Keashen said Friday. Freeholders will vote on a nominee next week, but he said it was too early to name the nominee.

Keashen said the county does not yet have enough information to comment on the McGlinchey residency matter, but is going about fact-finding.

McGlinchey has not returned multiple calls for comment, and the State Attorney Generals Office did not respond to questions specifically about McGlinchey.

But Aseltine said more than 200 criminal defendants have been charged with fraud related to Hurricane Sandy since 2014.

McGlinchey owns property in both counties, but the question is: Which one was his primary residence when Hurricane Sandy struck in October 2012? And which one was his primary residence until a few weeks ago when he resigned his seat on the Pinelands Commission?

The conflicting primary-residence claims came to light this week when an environmentalist opposed to McGlincheys voting for two controversial pipelines brought documentation of the grant to the commissions meeting.

It will be up to either the state Attorney Generals Office or the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office to decide if McGlincheys Sandy-related filings meet legal standards and what to do if they dont.

The vast majority ... involve primary residence fraud; (claimant seeking disaster relief funds for a secondary or vacation home by falsely claiming/certifying that it was his or her primary residence at the time of the disaster), Aseltine wrote in an email Thursday.

The AGs Office has brought 104 cases, while county prosecutors have brought 88, and the AGs Office of Insurance Fraud Prosecutor has charged four additional cases, according to Aseltine.

He said resolved cases usually involve the defendants paying or agreeing to pay full restitution and being admitted by the court into the Pre-Trial Intervention Program.

The 104 defendants charged by the AGs office allegedly diverted more than $6 million in relief funds, and the state has recovered more than $2 million to date, Aseltine said.

Many of the resolved defendants are on payment plans, so the funds continue to come in from the resolved cases, Aseltine wrote, and we expect to recover more from the unresolved cases, of course.

County-appointed Pinelands commissioners are required under the state Pinelands Protection Act to live in the county that appoints them. And Sandy recovery grants can only legally go to people whose primary residences were damaged when the storm struck in 2012.

McGlinchey told the commission verbally and in ethics filings he was living in Winslow Township in Camden County during his term from 2010 to 2017, allowing him to keep his seat as that countys commissioner.

He voted in favor of two controversial pipelines while on the commission and was the deciding vote to approve the New Jersey Natural Gas Co. pipeline that would go through sections of protected Pinelands in Burlington, Monmouth and Ocean counties.

The question of his residency raises questions about that vote and others, environmentalists said Wednesday.

At the same time, he told the state Department of Community Affairs his primary residence was in the Seaview Harbor section of Egg Harbor Township, just outside of Longport. As a result, he received a $130,000 Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation federal grant.

Environmentalist Micah Rasmussen, of Upper Freehold, Monmouth County, brought documentation of the grant to the Dec. 12 Pinelands Commission meeting.

McGlinchey resigned his commission seat earlier this year, saying he was moving to Atlantic County.

Pinelands Commission spokesman Paul Leakan had no comment this week.

McGlinchey retired in December 2016 from his job as public works manager and zoning officer for Winslow Township, Camden County, according to his 2017 ethics report.

McGlinchey also was one of nine commissioners who voted in favor of the South Jersey Gas pipeline, which would run through 10 miles of protected Pinelands Forest Area in a 22-mile route from Maurice River Township to the B.L. England electric plant in Upper Township.

The New Jersey Sierra Club is challenging the approval of both the SJ Gas and NJ Natural Gas Co. pipelines in court. It will amend its SJ Gas filing to bring up McGlincheys residency issue and add it to paperwork being prepared now on the NJ Natural Gas pipeline, Director Jeff Tittel said Wednesday.

McGlinchey recently was nominated by Gov. Chris Christie to be a gubernatorial appointee to the commission. Gubernatorial appointees can live anywhere in New Jersey. But the state Senate must approve gubernatorial appointees, and the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to vote on the nomination last week.
The pregnant fiancee of the Buena Vista Township man who died in a Mullica River crash this week has created a GoFundMe fundraiser account to help with funeral and baby costs.

Rachel Levin, 27, of Tuckerton, created the account Monday to raise $10,000 for funeral costs for Robert Ramos, 31.

Ramos died in a crash that may have happened overnight Sunday when he drove through a stop sign at the northern end of Elwood Road in Mullica Township and through a residents yard, then crashed into the far bank of the river, police said.

Ramos, of the Newtownville section of Buena Vista, was excited to become a father to their baby girl, Levin said Friday.

His face would light up when we would see her on an ultrasound, she said. This would have been his first child. He was beyond happy to be able to be a father. He wanted the best for the baby.

Levin and Ramos got engaged in November and had been together more than seven years, she said.

Robert was the type of person who liked to make everyone happy. He was very loving. He loved to go fishing and do things outdoors, Levin said. He wanted to travel and one day have another house in his hometown in Puerto Rico. He was an electrician, but he was skilled in so many ways and could fix anything.

As of Friday afternoon, $400 of the total goal was raised.

Police, firefighters and AtlantiCare EMS were dispatched to the 4500 block of Pleasant Mills Road in the Sweetwater section at 7:08 a.m. Monday for a report of a car in the river, police said.

Police said they dont know why Ramos car, which was heading north on Elwood Road, went through the stop-sign intersection at Pleasant Mills Road, through the yard of a home on the other side of Pleasant Mills and into the water. The river has a steep bank at that location, and heavy damage was visible to the cars front end.

The vehicle was discovered Monday, and Ramos was found dead inside, police said.
PLEASE BE ADVISED: Soon we will no longer integrate with Facebook for story comments. The commenting option is not going away, however, readers will need to register for a FREE site account to continue sharing their thoughts and feedback on stories. If you already have an account (i.e. current subscribers, posting in obituary guestbooks, for submitting community events), you may use that login, otherwise, you will be prompted to create a new account.
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP  One person died in the fire that ripped though a Mattix Run complex this week, and the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office reported Thursday it is investigating the incident.

The name of the person who died has not been released.

The 12:45 p.m. Wednesday fire destroyed one end unit in the 200 building of the complex. The unit that was fully engulfed in flames on Wednesday had a brick front, and the back of the unit  which was not made of brick  had collapsed, along with the roof.

By Thursday morning, the entire unit was on the ground in debris and rubble.

Some neighbors at the scene of the fire Thursday did not wish to speak to a Press of Atlantic City reporter about the incident. A man who identified himself as a family member of the people who lived in the burned unit was on the scene Thursday morning sifting through the debris. He declined to comment to the reporter on the fire or the victim.

Donna Weaver, spokeswoman for the prosecutor, said Thursday there is an active investigation and she could not release any additional information about the fire or the victim.

On Thursday morning, fire officials were at the scene investigating along with a member of the homeowners association and insurance companies for assessment.

Galloway Township Fire Chief Richard Smith had said Wednesday police and fire crews were searching for anyone who might have been inside the unit.

The fire was under control by 2 p.m. Wednesday. The unit next to the demolished unit also was damaged.

Firefighters from several area companies, including Galloway Township, Bayview, Oceanville, Pomona and Absecon responded to the two-story, single-family unit on Wednesday. The Galloway Township Police Department and Galloway EMS also were at the scene, as well as South Jersey Gas.

The fire was contained to the one unit as firefighters attacked the blaze amid freezing temperatures. A firewall kept the blaze from spreading to more units, Smith said Wednesday.
Operation Warm provides winter coats to Pleasantville children

{child_byline}WALDY DIEZ

Staff Writer

{/child_byline}

PLEASANTVILLE  Cold weather and free coats. In this city, it means a lot.

I feel truly grateful that I actually got a jacket that can withstand the cold, said Julian Perez, 10, a fifth-grade student at South Main Street School who received a new coat Friday through Operation Warm.

Since partnering in 2012, the International Association of Firefighters has provided brand-new winter coats to 250,000 children in need, according to the unions website. The IAFF mission is to provide new coats to children living in need across North America  positively affecting their school attendance, self-esteem and overall health and well-being.

There is a need for childrens winter coats in this city, as well as the region.

Poor children growing up in Atlantic County have some of the nations worst financial prospects, according to a study using federal tax records. Researchers from the Equality of Opportunity Project, led by Harvard University economists, looked at data on more than 5 million children whose families moved across counties between 1996 and 2012.

Less than two years ago, it ranked Atlantic County 2,455th out of 2,478 counties in the United States for improving financial outcomes. The county fell between Greenville, South Carolina, and Monroe, Georgia. The bottom of the list is dominated by Southern states.

About 27 percent of Atlantic Countys 62,000 children were living in poverty in 2013, the most recent statistics available, according to Kids Count. The county in 2014 had the second-highest family unemployment rate at 11.3 percent, compared to 5.7 percent statewide. And that was before mass casino layoffs in 2014.

More than just a coat is the motto of the nationwide organization Operation Warm. Local firefighters provided about 165 new winter coats to students in the city.

On Friday, for the fourth year, city firefighters and TriCare EMS workers delivered winter coats to students at South Main Street, North Main Street and Leeds Avenue schools, said one of Pleasantvilles fire inspectors, Anton Chuck Brown.

Earlier this year, the Fire Department also had extra coats from last years Operation Warm and gave them to about 65 students at the Washington Avenue School, Brown said.

On Friday, firefighters set up coats, separated by gender and size, on two tables in the South Main Street School gymnasium and allowed students to pick their own.

Julian and two third-grade students were excited to receive their coats ahead of Fridays anticipated snow.

I feel great. I feel happy because I got to see the firefighters, and I got to get a jacket, said Dayanna Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 9.

I feel happy because I saw the firefighters, and its comfortable, and I dont have to be freezing when its freezing outside, said Tavaughn Morgan, 8.

The students were among about 40 who received coats at South Main Street School.

School administrators sent emails to staff members and homeroom teachers asking them to identify students who come into their classrooms without a coat, said principals secretary Sharon Cross. The teachers give the students names and coat sizes to administrators, who pass along the order to firefighters.

About 60 students were selected to receive coats this year, but that number decreased as some students received coats from parents or teachers.

It makes me feel warm to see the kids happy and that they have a coat, Cross said. And with the snow thats coming, the winter thats coming, it makes me feel good to know that students are warm.

Operation Warm creates its own coats to ensure their quality, according to its website.

Firefighters placed orders for the coats and paid for them through donated money.

City firefighters raised about $2,800, including about $1,700 from a Fill the Boot fundraiser at Sams Club, private donors and corporate sponsors, TriCare Medical Transportation and the law firm of Darcy Johnson Day.

Giving back to those who need us most in our community is at the core of what we do every day here at TriCare, TriCare President Anthony Maneri Jr. said in a statement. I admire the dedication of our first responders, firefighters and schoolteachers who selflessly donated their time to put this together for the children. I feel lucky to be a part of Operation Warm and a part of this community.

Brown fell in love with Operation Warm because he knows how the children feel. He once was one of the children who went to school without a coat.

The program is near and dear to him, and he loves receiving hugs from children who get new coats, he said.

You get a knot in your throat, Brown said. Its one of the best feelings that you get, especially when they hug you afterwards, and then a few days later, you see them walk past the firehouse, they run up to you, say thank you, they give you a hug.

Its more than just a coat. Its a love for the children we provide, he said.

To donate to Operation Warm, visit operationwarm.org/pleasantville.

{child_tagline}

{/child_tagline}

{child_related_content}{child_related_content_item}{child_related_content_style}More Information{/child_related_content_style}{child_related_content_title}About Operation Warm{/child_related_content_title}{child_related_content_content}

Operation Warm began in 1998 and serves children between the ages of three and 13, according to its website. The organization creates its own coats from monetary donations. A $20 donation provides a new winter coat for a child in need. In 2016, Operation Warm donated its two-millionth coat.

{/child_related_content_content}{/child_related_content_item}{/child_related_content}
GLENDALE, California, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Export Portal will next focus on Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in the coming months. Ms. Ally Spinu states, "My team is already exploring potential events, government entities, and introductory conversations to continue our successful registration drive to be the most secure e-commerce B2B platform in existence. We have listened to and learned from the people and officials we have met at other e-commerce events in Mexico and Colombia, and we want to invite more manufacturers, sellers, buyers, and freight forwarders to join ExportPortal.com."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/620317/Export_Portal_E_Commerce_B2B_Platform.jpg

After attending ProColombia's first e-commerce events in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia, Export Portal would like to thank Carolina Hincapie, Textiles and Apparel Representative in Medellin, and Isabela Zarzur, Textiles and Apparel Representative in Bogota, for allowing Export Portal to meet the lingerie, shapewear, swimwear, surgical garment companies as well as other clothing manufacturers in Colombia. We want to especially thank Fajate in Medellin and Diane & Geordi in Bogota for our factory visits.

Based on our conversations, there is a general mistrust of e-commerce in different parts of the world. India is currently going through this exact same issue due to fraudulent business practices and undelivered parcels. Because of this mistrust, Export Portal is purpose-built from the ground up to accommodate first-time international business transactions. ExportPortal.com does not allow just any business to join. Our strict adherence to the basic tenets of business will continue to drive interest across South America and around the globe.

Ms. Spinu continues, "We are still looking for interested parties that want to represent Export Portal as a Country Ambassador across Central and South America. This position requires someone who has their home country at the heart of everything they do and want their trade and exports to increase across every industry. The split of profits that result from the use of our ecosystem will only be successful because of a few choice individuals. We look forward to hearing from all interested parties who think they are ready for our country-wide outreach challenge."

About Export Portal & ExportPortal.com

Export Portal is a fast-moving international ecosystem based on a blockchain technology that seeks to turn small businesses into medium sized companies and medium sized ones into global trading machines. Our outreach in 2018 will start with India and Vietnam. To read more about Export Portal and to submit a video for the South American Country Brand Ambassador, please go to our Facebook page to learn more and to upload your bio in English: https://www.facebook.com/ExportPortal.

SOURCE Export Portal
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Los Angeles, Dec 11 : The most destructive wildfire raging in southern California has expanded significantly, scorching an area larger than New York City, according to fire officials.

The Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has consumed 230,000 acres since it broke out on December 4, reports the BBC.

Fanned by strong winds, it has become the fifth largest wildfire in recorded state history after it grew by more than 50,000 acres in a day.

Residents in coastal beach communities have been ordered to evacuate.

On Sunday, firefighters reported that 15 per cent of the blaze had been contained but were forced to downgrade that to 10 per cent as it continued to spread.

"This is a menacing fire, certainly, but we have a lot of people working very diligently to bring it under control," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.

The other fires hitting California are largely controlled, but 200,000 people have evacuated their homes and hundreds of buildings have been destroyed since December 4.

Evacuation orders were issued overnight on Sunday for parts of Carpinteria close to Los Padres National Forest, about 160 km northwest of Los Angeles, the BBC reported.

California has spent the past week battling wildfires. Six large blazes, and other smaller ones.

The Thomas Fire - named according to where it started, near the Thomas Aquinas College - is by far the largest of the fires.

The authorities issued a purple alert - the highest level warning - amid what it called "extremely critical fire weather", while US President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency.

On Saturday, California Governor Jerry Brown described the situation as "the new normal" and predicted vast fires, fuelled by climate change, "could happen every year or every few years".
Washington, Dec 11 : NASA has said its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope made its latest discovery using machine learning from Google.

The discovery will be announced at a media teleconference on December 14, NASA said.

Besides NASA scientists, Christopher Shallue, Senior Software Engineer at Google AI in Mountain View, California, will also attend the briefing.

Machine learning is an approach to artificial intelligence and demonstrates new ways of analysing Kepler data.

NASA's Kepler space telescope has gazed at more than 150,000 stars and continues to transmit back data that leads to important discoveries of celestial objects in our galaxy, including first-time observations of planets outside our solar system.

When Kepler launched in March 2009, scientists did not know how common planets were beyond the solar system.

Thanks to Kepler's treasure trove of discoveries, astronomers now believe there may be at least one planet orbiting every star in the sky.

Kepler completed its prime mission in 2012 and went on to collect data for an additional year in an extended mission.

In 2014, the spacecraft began a new extended mission called K2, which continues the search for planets outside the solar system, known as exoplanets, while introducing new research opportunities to study young stars, supernovae and other cosmic phenomena.
New Delhi, Dec 11 : The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Monday urged the government to subsidise the cost of treatment in emergency cases in private hospitals and ensure a strong mechanism for reimbursements.

"(Handling medical) emergency cases is the responsibility of the state governments. The government should subsidise cost borne on all such emergencies in the private sector and create a mechanism for reimbursements," IMA President K.K. Aggarwal told the media here.

He said a new body called the 'IMA Medical Redressal Commission' will be constituted at the state level to engage in social, financial, and quality audits of healthcare (suo motu, or on demand).

"The commission will have a public man, an IMA office-bearer, one former state medical council representative, and two subject experts," said Aggarwal, adding that the commission shall consider every grievance in a time-bound manner.

"An appeal to the state commission will be heard by the "IMA-headquartered Medical Redressal Commission" which will have the powers to take suo motu cases also," said the IMA official.

The IMA, a consortium of doctors across India, also demanded no compulsion from private hospital managements to make their doctors work vis-a-vis targets and prescribe the choice of drugs and devices.

"The consultants should suggest devices to patients as per their affordability and not as per the management," said Aggarwal.

Aggarwal was speaking in the wake of medical negligence cases against Gurugram's Fortis and north Delhi's Max Super Specialty Hospital.

Pointing out that the doctor-patient trust was experiencing a downward spiral, the IMA chief said that people have started looking at medical professionals with suspicion.

Referring to the November 30 incident at Max hospital wherein a premature newborn was wrongly declared dead by doctors, Aggarwal said: "Errors happen by accident and are not intentional."

"It is also high time for medical professionals to introspect and come out with self-regulation procedures. From today onwards, all doctors in the country shall choose affordable drugs for prescription," he said.

He said the IMA had recommended that all doctors prescribe drugs on the National List of Essential Medicines, wherever possible, and promote Jan Aushadhi kendras.
New Delhi, Dec 11 : The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea for cancelling the interim bail granted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to the Pinto family in the Pradhuman Thakur murder case.

A bench of Justice R.K. Agrawal and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre dismissed the plea by Barun Thakur, the father of seven-year-old Pradhuman who was murdered on September 8 inside the Ryan International School in Gurugram district of Haryana.

Ryan group of schools' Founder-Chairman Augustine Francis Pinto, his wife and Managing Director Grace Pinto and their son and CEO Ryan Pinto were granted anticipatory bail by the High Court on November 21.

Noting that the Central Bureau of Investigation was still investigating the case and was yet to come to a conclusion about the Pintos' involvement in the crime, the apex court said the High Court order to grant them interim bail can't be faulted.

"As on date, the CBI is yet to examine and analyse the role of the private respondents (Pintos) in this case. There is no evidence of their complicity in the crime and there is not even a pointer of involvement of... (Pintos) in the alleged crime. Their involvement cannot be established until and unless there is some substantial evidence against them," the apex court said.

Since there is nothing, as of now, in the CBI probe to point fingers at the Pintos, they have "made out a case for the grant of protection by way of interim bail till the presentation of challan by the CBI, as has been passed by the learned single Judge," the apex court added.

"We, therefore, do not find any good ground to interfere with the November 11 order to grant interim bail to Augustine Francis Pinto, Grace Pinto, and Ryan Pinto."

Pradhuman Thakur, a Class 2 student, was found dead with his throat slit in the school washroom, minutes after his father had dropped him in the morning.

The High Court, while granting anticipatory bail, had asked the Pintos to join case investigation. The court had also barred them from leaving the country without its permission.

Initially, the Haryana Police investigated the case and arrested bus conductor Ashok Kumar. Later, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took over the case and arrested a Class 11 student of the same school for the crime.
New Delhi, Dec 13 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said it would hear on December 14 the plea of former Janata Dal-United President Sharad Yadav challenging his disqualification from the Rajya Sabha.

Justice Vibhu Bakhru posted the matter for Thursday as senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Yadav, urged the court to hear it urgently as the parliament session would start soon.

Challenging his disqualification from the Rajya Sabha, Yadav said he was not given any chance to defend his case by the authorities before passing the order against him.

On December 4, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is also Rajya Sabha Chairman, disqualified rebel JD-U leaders Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar as members of the Upper House of Parliament.

The JD-U had sought their disqualification on the grounds that they had attended a rally of opposition parties in Patna in violation of its direction.

Naidu had agreed with the JD-U's contention that the two senior leaders had "voluntarily given up" their membership by defying their party's directives.

Yadav and Ansari and a section of the JD-U fell out with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after the latter broke away from the "Mahagathbandhan" (Grand Alliance) with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress to re-align with the Bharatiya Janata Party earlier in 2017.

Yadav was elected to the House in 2016 and his term was scheduled to end in 2022 and Anwar's term was to expire in 2018.

In November, the Election Commission ruled that the Nitish Kumar-led faction was the real JD-U and also allowed it to use the "arrow" symbol.
Srinagar, Dec 15 : Restrictions were imposed in many parts of Srinagar and Anantnag on Friday to prevent a separatist-called protest rally, officials said.

The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), a separatist conglomerate headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, have called a rally to south Kashmir Anantnag town.

"Restrictions have been imposed under section 144 CrPc in Anantnag and six police stations areas of Srinagar district to maintain law and order," a police officer said.

"Restrictions will remain in force in areas falling under the jurisdiction of Rainawari, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj, Safa Kadal and partially in Maisuma and Kralkhud police stations in Srinagar," the police officer said.

Authorities have suspended rail services from Kashmir Valley to Bannihal in Jammu region as a precautionary measure.

Police have arrested some separatist leaders to prevent their participation in the scheduled protest rally.

The board of school education has postponed exams scheduled in Kashmir Valley on Friday.

Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed in strength in areas placed under restrictions and in other sensitive areas in Srinagar, Anantnag and other districts of Kashmir Valley.
Helsinki, Dec 15 : Finland has given its new international gender equality prize to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Announcing the prize in Brussels on Thursday, Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila described Merkel as a defender of human dignity and human rights. Sipila praised Merkel's commitment to women and girls globally, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Equality is a core value for Finland, which is celebrating 100 years of independence," Sipila said. He noted that Finland was the first nation in the world to grant women full political rights in 1906.

"Through this prize, we want to strengthen appreciation for gender equality in other countries around the world too," Sipila said.

"Chancellor Merkel has become one of the world's most influential people and is an example to many women and girls," Sipila noted.

The Finnish prize committee said in an announcement that Merkel has brought gender equality to the agenda of world leaders at summit meetings. She has worked to improve the rights and opportunities of women especially in developing countries.

"In Germany, her aim is to achieve genuine equality in society between men and women, which means for instance making it easier to reconcile work and family life," the committee said.

The prize sum is 150,000 euros. The recipient will decide the cause it would be spent on. The cause chosen by Merkel will be announced in Tampere, Finland at a high-level seminar on gender equality in early 2018.
Ankara, Dec 15 : The highest-ranking military officials of Turkey, Iraq and the US have discussed issues about counter-terrorism and regional security at a trilateral meeting in Ankara, the Turkish Armed Force (TSK) said.

Joseph Votel, US Central Command Commander, Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of US Forces in Europe, and Iraqi Chief of General Staff Osman Ghanimi were present at the meeting on Thursday hosted by Turkey's Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar, the TSK said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

The officials discussed the general security situation in the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq, and measures needed to fight terror organizations, said the statement, without giving further details.

According to local Hurriyet Daily News, the meeting is believed to have focused on efforts to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State and other extremist groups in both Syria and Iraq.

On December 9, the Iraqi government declared full liberation of Iraq from the Islamic State (IS) militants, saying Iraqi forces have recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.
Geneva, Dec 15 : The UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has said the eighth round of the Intra-Syrian peace talks ended in Geneva without any "real negotiations".

The UN official is expected to leave Geneva to consult in New York with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on further steps, where he will also meet with the UN Security Council next week.

He told a press conference on Thursday after announcing the end of the new round of the UN-led Geneva peace talks on Syria that the last two weeks of talks had not yielded the intended results despite great efforts, which he described as a "missed golden opportunity", Xinhua news agency reported.

"Though a lot of efforts by my whole team have been made, day and night, with all sorts of creative formulas, we only have bilateral discussions with both parties, we did not have real negotiations," de Mistura said.

The UN envoy said that both the government side and the opposition group had accused each other of setting preconditions, but there had been none in Geneva before the talks proceeded.

"I really hoped the diplomacy, not only ours, will help the government and the opposition to actually do what is expected and what was expected," he emphasized.

He said during the last two weeks, he had seven meetings with the government and 11 with the opposition.

"The opposition in particular engaged with us on all four baskets -- governance, constitutional process, elections and countering terrorism. They also gave me some concrete ideas on the so called 12 essential principles. The government engaged with me only on terrorism," he said.

"We did not see the government looking to have a dialogue in this round, I have to say, regrettably, I did see the opposition trying to," said the UN envoy, adding that "there is no alternative but to have the legitimacy of the UN".

He said as well as reporting back to the UN Security Council in New York, he would also seek advice from special ambassadors of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council who he has been consulting.

"I will probably need to come up with new ideas, parameters, about how to move the talks forward, particularly on constitution and elections," de Mistura said.

"We are not going to give up at the moment," he said when "the Syrian people believe there should be some process without precondition," he told the reporters, stressing that there is clearly a desperate need for "a real political process".

Saying that the two weeks were not wasted, the UN official told reporters that during this round of talks he had the opportunity of hearing many Syrian voices, from the civil society, the Syrian Women Advisory Board, and Syrian refugees.

Earlier in the day after the meeting with de Mistura, the head of the Syrian government delegation to the Syrian peace talks Bashar al-Ja'afari said his team would not talk to the opposition delegation due to a statement it released before the current talks began, known as "the Riyadh communique".

After a meeting with de Mistura in Geneva, al-Ja'afari told reporters that Syria did not want the talks to fail, but the opposition had come with "a precondition" it set in November at a conference known as "Riyadh 2".

The new round of UN-led Syrian peace talks started on November 28 and was originally scheduled to be held until December 15. The major obstacle for any expected breakthrough was described by the UN as a lack of trust.

In parallel with the UN-backed Geneva process, a new round of the Russia-led international negotiations on the settlement of the Syrian conflict is scheduled for December 21-22 in the Kazakh capital of Astana.
Los Angeles, Dec 15 : A firefighter was killed while trying to contain the biggest wildfire that has scorched more than 98,000 hectares in Southern California.

Ken Pimlott, chief of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection of California, said in a statement on Thursday that the firefighter from the San Diego unit, whose identity remains unknown, reports Efe news.

This marks the second victim killed by the powerful and still active wildfire named Thomas after a 70-year-old woman in Ventura died in a car accident while trying to escape the flames.

According to the latest data released, the Thomas fire has razed over 98,000 hectares and firefighters have only been able to contain 30 per cent of it so far.

About 1,000 buildings have been destroyed in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties by the blaze, which was fanned by the intensity of the Santa Ana winds.

Around 8,000 emergency service officers are currently fighting the flames.

The National Weather Service has maintained a "red flag" alert in the affected area due to high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds, which may cause the fire to spread.

The Thomas fire, which forced the evacuation of over 100,000 people, is one of the five largest wildfires in the history of California.

California was already hit by a huge wildfire in October, which blazed through several counties in northern California, taking the lives of 44 people, as well as devastating nearly 8,900 homes and much of the renowned wine regions of Napa and Sonoma, according to Cal Fire.

According to estimates, the Thomas fire could cost more than $48 million in damage for Southern California.

President Donald Trump had declared a state of emergency for California on December 6, allowing for the sending of federal aid.
Dehradun, Dec 15 : Reconstruction work at the Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand has been suspended due to inclement weather and sub-zero temperature, an official said on Friday.

The Met said snowfall continued in the region and on Thursday the mercury dropped to minus 5 degrees Celsius.

Seventy labourers and a group of engineers have returned from the Hindu shrine, which is at an altitude of 3,553 metres above sea level, to the base camp, the official said.

Work has been going on at a feverish pace, ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone some months back.

The area surrounding the fabled Shiva shrine, which is part of the annual Chaar Dhaam pilgrimage, was devastated in flash floods in 2013, that also killed thousands of people.

Rudraprayag District Magistrate Mangesh Ghildiyal said that some labourers have been shifted to Sonprayag and the remaining have been put up in Linchauli.

Once the weather turns normal, they will resume work, he added.

Under the reconstruction work, the Himalayan shrine is being developed as 'Kedarpuri'. Other than widening of roads and beautification of the area, a safety retaining wall is also being constructed behind the temple.

Workers hired by the Public Works Department (PWD) and staff of the Nehru Mountaineering Institute were doing the work here.

Officials, however, said that barring very difficult weather situations, work would go on during the winter months so that everything was ready by 2018 when the Chaar Dhaam Yatra would commence.
New Delhi, Dec 15 : If the farmers of Punjab and Haryana were to adopt smart techniques and use appropriate machinery, say experts, they won't hog the headlines every winter for the wrong reasons -- causing smog in the national capital because of stubble-burning.

The Borlaug Institute of South Asia (BISA), a non-profit set up in 2011 to harness the latest technology in agriculture to improve farm productivity, has claimed to have reduced the volume of agricultural residue burning in some villages it has selected for smart farming in the last few years.

One of the successful examples is a cluster of villages in Haryana's Karnal district, where stubble-burning has shrunk to just 20 per cent of the cultivated land, local farmers said.

Vikas Chaudhary, who cultivates 35 acres of land in Taraori, said this year paddy straw was burnt on just 400-500 acres of the total 2,400 acres of agricultural land in the village.

He said BISA has suggested an alternative in the form of a new machine -- a Happy Seeder -- which allows effective seeding without removing the straw residue.

Conceived by the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Happy Seeder is like any Zero Till Machine with the additional feature of a chopper that clears the loose straw which creates problems in sowing.

BISA is a collaborative effort involving the El Batan, Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Earlier, farmers would cut the entire crop while reaping under conventional methods, leaving very little straw on the field.

However, the advent of combine harvesters -- machines that combine the three separate operations of reaping, threshing and winnowing into one process -- the magnitude of straw burning has increased since it cuts just the spike of paddy plants, leaving stems intact.

In the past few years, farmers have become accustomed to using Rotavators -- soil tilling machine -- before sowing seeds.

Since Rotavators cannot work unless the agriculture residue is cleared, farmers have no option but to set the stubble on fire as manual removal is not a viable option owing to the huge cost involved and small time window to cultivate winter crops such as wheat, said M.L. Jat, Principal Scientist with the CIMMYT.

"In our smart farming villages, we have introduced Happy Seeder machines which facilitate seed sowing though there is stubble in the field. It retains soil fertility as well," Jat said.

"And the results are positive. Not just the output has remained unaffected, but input cost has gone down as well. We have found that stubble provided nutrients to soil, minimising the requirement of fertiliser."

Manoj Munjal, who cultivates 125 acres of land in Taraori, said he has not burnt stubble on a single inch of his fields in last five-six years and that stubble-burning in the area can be reduced to zero if governments encourage the use of Happy Seeder by offering a huge subsidy.

There is one more cluster in Punjab's Ludhiana district, where farmers have started taking steps to free their fields from burning.

Local farmers said they did not derive any pleasure from seeing the people of Delhi being choked up in smog but they did not have any other option.

"We are painted as villains for the pollution in Delhi. However, we also suffer due to stubble farming. Our village had almost become a gas chamber on November 14. But we are helpless," said Jagdev Singh, a farmer from Nurpur village.

The Nurpur Bet Agriculture Multipurpose Cooperative Society provides agricultural machinery and equipment to farmers from six neighbouring villages as they cannot afford purchasing them.

Its Secretary, Balkir Singh, said the society owned one Happy Seeder, which was in demand by farmers.

"We charge Rs 1,100 per acre for the Happy Seeder. The demand is on the increase. This year we have witnessed almost 50 per cent reduction in stubble-burning," Balkir Singh said.

He demanded that the government increase the subsidy on Happy Seeders to enable farmers to purchase them.

At present, a Happy Seeder costs Rs 1.5 lakh and the government gives a subsidy of Rs 50,000. But farmers find the amount to be very low.

"Capital expenditure of Rs 1 lakh is not possible for a farmer. So the subsidy amount should be increased to at least Rs 1 lakh. It will be a game-changer," many farmers said in unison.

Balkan Singh, a farmer from Gazipur, gives a Happy Seeder on rent.

"I cultivate just 10 acres of land. So I rent out my Happy Seeder along with a tractor once I am done with sowing," said Balkir Singh, who charges Rs 1,500 per acre.

In Taraori, wheat was sown on 700 acres of land using the Happy Seeder and on 100 acres by Zero Till Machines this year, which is higher than last year's figure, locals said.

A part of Chaudhary's farm is being used by the BISA for carrying out various experiments with new techniques for different crop patterns.

At least 10,000 people, including scientists from other countries, have visited my farm in the last six years, Chaudhary added.

The BISA has set up an experimental farm on 500 acres of land in Ludhiana's Ladhowal along with the PAU.

"Here, we carry out different experiments with crops, such as use of fertiliser, amount of residue, irrigation pattern, which are aimed at increasing food production using less water and energy," Jat said.

(Saurabh Katkurwar can be contacted at saurabh.k@ians.in)
New Delhi, Dec 15 : The Rajya Sabha was on Friday adjourned till 2.30 p.m. soon after it met for Question Hour after a short adjournment, amidst heated exchanges between the opposition and government over the allegations levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The Upper House of Parliament was earlier adjourned briefly after the opposition parties led by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad protested against suspension of JD-U leader Sharad Yadav.

However, soon after the House met again for the Question Hour, Azad and other opposition leaders protested against Prime Minister Modi's attacks on his predecessor over an alleged meeting with senior Pakistani officials.

Modi had claimed that during a meeting at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's house, guests including Manmohan Singh, discussed the Gujarat polls with Pakistan's High Commissioner to India and former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.
Mumbai, Dec 15 : The "Padman" trailer is finally out. And it's an outright winner.

The story of Arunachalam Muruganantham from Tamil Nadu is now the story of Laxmikant Chauhan (Akshay Kumar). The story is located in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh. It is a location teeming with temples and food stalls, brimming with bigotry.

The cultural translocation could have cost the original story dearly. Here in "Padman", it makes not a fig of difference. Akshay Kumar, God bless his kindred spirit and exploratory choices, carries the message with his persuasive charm so effortlessly that the trailer sweeps you into its arc of endearing social reform without a moment of discomfort regarding menstruation that women face every month.

Make no mistake, Akshay is back playing the social crusader.

In his last release "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha", he fought societal prejudices to build a toilet for his wife. Here in "Padman", his character egged on by Amitabh Bachchan's encouraging voiceover, goes to great lengths to conceive, create and promote economical sanitary napkins because... Well, because when a woman bleeds, our Padman's heart bleeds.

In just two minutes, Akshay communicates to us the urgent need to end the feminine race's menstrual discomfort. He is so comfortable talking about the pad, you feel he is a sanitary version of Shah Rukh Khan in "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge", where the hero gained entrance into the private ladies' section of the wedding venue.

Here in "Padman", Akshay's Laxmikant insinuates himself into a lot more private places in a woman's life. He is Lord Krishna out to make his way into the innermost chambers of a woman's private space and to pull them out of the societal stigma that menstruation imposes.

Akshay addresses the 'that time of the month' with disarming flair. He has terrific support from his director R. Balki who keeps the proceedings bouncy without trivialising the problem. The music is breezy and the supporting cast seems to get the point. Radhika Apte is the wife and Sonam Kapoor the comrade in arms. Both the ladies are up to the task.

This Republic Day, women are being promised a new kind of freedom that comes only to those individuals who dare to break the glass ceiling. In a revealing moment in the trailer, the padman tries on a woman's undergarment to see how well his life-changing invention fits.

I dare any other Bollywood superstar to get so Alpha without tripping over his machismo.
Imphal, Dec 15 : The Manipur High Court has directed the Centre to pay compensation of Rs 7 lakh to the father of a victim of an "encounter" which took place in 2010 in the state.

A Division Bench comprising of acting Chief Justice N. Koreswor and Justice Kh. Nobin passed the order on Thursday.

Director of Human Rights Law Network Manipur, Meihoubam Rakesh, said: "On March 10, 2010, Hawaibam Amujao, a resident of Sekmaijin in Thoubal district had come to Imphal in a bus.

"He was accosted in the parking lot in Imphal East district by three plainclothes policemen. They shooed away the driver and the cleaner who tried to rescue Amujao."

Amujao was then whisked away in an auto-rickshaw after they had interrogated him for ten minutes, Rakesh said.

On March 18, 2010, a 28 Assam Rifles trooper had lodged a complaint stating that an encounter took place the same night at Takhok Mapan Leikai in Thoubal district, during which Amujao was killed.

Rakesh, who was the advocate for the victim, said that the family members were not satisfied with the report.

On November 13, 2013, the family filed a writ petition about the death of Amujao. Since then the Manipur High Court has been hearing the case.

The final hearing was held on Thursday, after which the order was passed. The order further said that the compensation amount should be paid within five months.

Human Rights organisations say there are 1,528 known cases of "fake encounters" in Manipur and these cases were submitted to the Supreme Court.
Mumbai, Dec 15 : Riding on the exit polls outcome which predicted a BJP win in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, the two key indices of the domestic markets extended gains for the second consecutive session on Friday.

According to market observers, the key equity indices -- which surged to higher levels supported by healthy buying in metals, consumer durables and auto stocks and a strong rupee -- trimmed some gains on the back of weak global markets.

On a closing basis, the wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 81.15 points or 0.79 per cent to 10,333.25 points.

The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE closed at 33,462.97 points -- up 216.27 points or 0.65 per cent -- from its previous close.

However, the BSE market breadth was bearish -- 1,572 declines and 1,049 advances.

In the broader markets, the S&P BSE mid-cap index was up by 1 per cent and the small-cap index by 1.38 per cent.

"Markets ended higher on Friday on the back of the outcome of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh exit polls. The markets opened on a strong note in the morning session and then traded in a range for the rest of the day," Deepak Jasani, Head, Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.

"Some selling was seen towards the close on the back of weakness in the global equity markets," he added.

On the currency front, the Indian rupee strengthened by 30 paise to close at 64.04 against the US dollar from its previous close at 64.34.

Provisional data with the exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 921.03 crore while domestic institutional investors purchased stocks worth Rs 635.44 crore.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said: "Market rallied with the ecstasy of Gujarat exit poll result which suggested a clear victory for the ruling party. Underlined disruptions on government reforms have not influenced the poll.

"Metals gained its sheen after the recent correction, while bank nifty and auto outperformed the main index as investors used the advantage of bargaining opportunity," he added.

All the sub-indices of the BSE ended in the green barring the S&P BSE telecom index, which was down 7.98 points.

Sector-wise, the BSE S&P metal index surged by 379.91 points, followed by consumer durables index by 359.02 points and auto index by 335.21 points.

Major Sensex gainers on Friday were: Mahindra and Mahindra, up 3.56 per cent at Rs 1,482.65; Coal India, up 3.02 per cent at Rs 271.05; Dr. Reddy's Lab, up 2.52 per cent at Rs 2,372; HDFC Bank, up 1.95 per cent at Rs 1,873.05; and Adani Ports, up 1.75 per cent at Rs 401.95.

Major Sensex losers were: Cipla, down 2.53 per cent at Rs 575.85; ONGC, down 0.87 per cent at Rs 182.85; Asian Paints, down 0.45 per cent at Rs 1,119.95; Tata Consultancy Services, down 0.42 per cent at Rs 2,547.85; and State Bank of India, down 0.41 per cent at Rs 312.75.
Mumbai, Dec 15 : Actress Athiya Shetty, a fashion lover, is excited about launching her own clothing line, which will consist of "street smart clothes" for teenagers.

"I have always loved fashion and experimenting with my clothes. I am really looking forward to launch my own clothing line. The age group which I am targeting will be teenagers and young girls. All the sizes will be available and style will be street smart clothes," Athiya told IANS.

"Fashion is all about who you are as a person and I am very comfortable in my own skin. I'm quite excited about working on my own fashion line and the credit also goes to my team who work with me closely on ideas and ways to implement them. I admire (model) Kendall Jenner in terms of fashion and get inspired by a lot of people around me," she added.

Athiya has made fashion statements by donning sequins, cold shoulder tops, a mix of stripes and clothes with Indo-western elements in the past.

A source close to a fashion label said: "According to the label, Athiya is known for her fashion sensibilities. She is a hit when it comes to red carpet appearances and nails the high street fashion."

"So, after meetings with the brand, the young actor also shared her creative inputs and the kind of audience who follow her. Now, the team will get back to the actor with the final plan."
Moscow, Dec 15 : A Moscow court on Friday sentenced Russia's former Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev to eight years in a harsh-regime prison and a $2.2 million fine for bribery.

Ulyukayev, 61, is the first minister to stand trial in Russia's recent history. Following the announcement, he was taken into custody and escorted from the courtroom. His attorneys intend to appeal the verdict.

He was detained in 2016, accused of trying to extort $2 million from state oil firm Rosneft to approve its purchase of another oil firm, the BBC reported.

The accusation was made by Rosneft boss Igor Sechin, who is also one of President Vladimir Putin's closest aides. Sechin was asked to testify but did not turn up.

It was a security service sting operation involving Sechin last November that put Ulyukayev in the dock. Ulyukayev denied the charges and alleged he was framed.

The verdict read out by judge Larisa Semyonova said Ulyukayev had "made use of his position in order to demand from Rosneft chief Sechin a bribe, in exchange for giving approval" for the purchase of state-owned Bashneft.

"At the same time he told Sechin he would in future obstruct the company's activities if it rebuffed him," the verdict said.

Oleg Feoktistov, a former secret service officer who worked for Sechin, testified that the bribery took place on the sidelines of a Brics forum in India. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the Brics group.

"Using two fingers he indicated the sum he wanted to receive, which was equivalent to two million dollars," Feoktistov said, citing what Sechin had told him.

State prosecutors had urged the court to sentence Ulyukayev to 10 years behind bars and a maximum $8.5 million fine. The request was lambasted by Ulyukayev as a "death penalty".

In November 2016, Putin dismissed Ulyukayev from his high-ranking post citing loss of trust.
Lucknow, Dec 15 : President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday urged the people of India to emulate the 'tehzeeb' (culture) of Lucknow and said that if this happens, half the problems faced by the country will end.

Speaking as the chief guest at the 7th Convocation Ceremony of Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar University in the state capital, Kovind recalled his long-standing association with the land of the Nawabs.

He recounted that between 2002-2003, he was a member of the management of this university and said it was a matter of great personal joy for him that two auditoriums in the university campus had been named after Ambedkar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

President Kovind also praised the 13-year-old Sushma Verma, who is pursuing her Ph.D from the university and Neetu Sharma, who won the Swami Vivekananda Child Fellowship and said the two girls had left an indelible imprint on his mind.

Wishing the medal winners and degree holders a fruitful career and further, the President said they should be thankful to their parents, teachers and family, without whom these achievements were not possible.

A total of 192 medals were given away to meritorious students, of which 70 were given to boys while girls won 122 medals.

Earlier the President was welcomed at the Amausi Airport by Governor Ram Naik, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and senior officials. He drove straight to the Risaldar Park to pay his homage to Bhikshu Pragyanand, one of the seven Buddhist monks who initiated Ambedkar into Buddhism. He died late last month.
New Delhi, Dec 15 : Women activists on Friday sought support of all political parties in converting the triple talaq Bill into law in Parliament, even as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) termed the Bill a "direct interference in religious matters".

The women activists said the Bill to ban triple talaq -- oral divorce by Muslim men -- should be converted into law in Parliament's Winter Session so that its victims can get justice.

The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, to make the practice of triple talaq an offence.

The AIMPLB said it is against 'Shariat' and asked the Centre to consult the Muslim organisation before making any such law, after the Bill was approved by the Cabinet.

Activist Zakir Soman claimed the board and the Muslim community are not taking proper care of triple talaq victims, and such women should get justice from the law.

"If the community and the board were doing enough, why would triple talaq victims be approaching women's organisations?" asked Soman.

"We will not give up our constitutional and legal entitlements. We are all citizens of a democracy and living in the 21st century. We are entitled, educated, and empowered, and want justice as per the law of the land...," the activist said.

According to Soman, they have written to Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury for support in ensuring the passage of Bill in Parliament.

"It is not a matter of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress or any other political party. It is the responsibility of all political parties and their representatives and all women in this country," she said.

Opposing the proposed law, AIMPLB member Maulana Khalid Rashid said: "As far as the divorced women's rehabilitation is concerned, the Muslim community is already doing it. So, we consider the Bill as a direct interference in the religious matters of our community. It is an attack on our religious freedom..."

"Women are not being tortured in the name of triple talaq. Muslim women have said they do not want changes in the community's personal laws, including on triple talaq. If certain people are misusing such laws it doesn't mean you will completely end it. It is part of our 'Shariat'. The government should at least have consulted Muslim organisations before making any such law."

Woman activist Hina Zaheer said: "According to the Quran, there is no provision for instant talaq... So, it should not be a matter of prestige for the board. Since the board failed to resolve the issue, a lot of politics has been done on it."

According to the draft Bill sent out to the states earlier this month, it was proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence, attracting three years in jail.

The draft law was prepared in the backdrop of the August verdict of the Supreme Court that struck down the practice of "instant" divorce as illegal.
Mumbai, Dec 15 : The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) on Friday urged all opposition leaders, including Congress President-elect Rahul Gandhi, to extend their support for the proposed Muslim family law.

In a letter to Gandhi and other major Opposition parties, the BMMA founders - Zakia Soman and Noorjehan Niaz - said that although the Supreme Court has struck down 'Triple Talaq' in its judgement last August, other issues like 'nikah halala', polygamy, age of marriage, custody of children, etc, remain unaddressed.

The BMMA has been actively raising these issues to end the legal discrimination and demanding justice and equality in family matters which are orthodox, patriarchical and male-dominated, they said.

The males have stonewalled all attempts towards reforms in the Muslim Personal Law and Muslim women have been denied their Quranic rights as as well as their rights as equal Indian citizens.

"Among all Muslim countries in the world, such as Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and even Bangladesh and Pakistan in our neighbourhood have codified personal laws governing marriage and family matters. But Indian Muslim women have been denied protection of law," said Soman and Niaz.

They pointed out a 2015 research study where 92.1 percent of all Muslim women sought a total ban on oral/unilateral divorce and 91.7 percent opposed polygamy, while 83.3 percent felt that codification of Muslim family law would help Muslim women get justice.

In its grassroots work in different parts of India, the BMMA has found that just as Hindus, Christians and Parsis have their own personal laws and Muslims must also have a similar personal law ensuring equality and dignity to their womenfolk.

The two activists said that this can be achieved either through amendments to the Shariat Application Act, 1937 and Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, or by enacting a completely new Muslim Personal Law with the desired reforms.

The BMMA has already prepared a draft on this based on Quranic tenets concerning age of marriage, mehr, talaq, polygamy, maintenance, custody of children, etc, which in consonance with the Constitution.

The draft suggests that the minimum marriage age for girls and boys be 18 and 21 respectively, consent of both sides without force or fraud for marriage, minimum 'mehr' to be equivalent to one full annual income of the groom to be paid at the time of solemnising 'nikaah'.

Besides, the BMMA draft says talaq'should precede a mandatory arbitration over a 90-day period and polygamy should be declared as illegal, while 'halala' and 'muta marriage' should be made punishable offences.

On children, it seeks that both the mother and father be declared as natural guardians of the child, and custody of children be based on the best interests and decision of the child.

Similarly in property matters, the Quranic shares to be applied while making will or clearing debts for ensuring justice to the women.
New Delhi, Dec 15 : Women Commission bodies welcomed the go ahead to the triple talaq Bill by the Union Cabinet on Friday, terming it a step towards empowering women.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, got the cabinet nod at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Welcome the cabinet's decision to clear the triple talaq bill. Great move to end this regressive practice. There is no place for triple talaq in today's society," Rekha Sharma, Chairperson of National Commission for Women (NCW) tweeted.

Swati Maliwal, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief, also extended her support to the decision.

"It is a very, very commendable step. DCW fully supports it. The step will provide relief to thousands of Muslim women in this country. There have been many women who have become victim of instant triple talaq and their lives have been ruined. I hope the Parliament passes a strong law on this regard. I hope the Bill also bans nikah halala," Maliwal said.

"It is not just a matter of the community. If a certain section of women is dis-empowered by certain practices then it needs to be stopped, and then only can the country progress. If the women of a particular community get empowered then the whole country gets empowered," she added.

The bill, while making instant divorce a cognisable and non-bailable offence, also seeks to give the affected women right to seek maintenance. It is expected to be introduced during the Winter Session of Parliament that commenced on Friday.
Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 15 : Top Congress leaders from Kerala on Friday left for Delhi to be present when Rahul Gandhi takes over as the new party President on Saturday.

When he takes over the mantle from his mother Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi will be the youngest President of the oldest political party in India. Sonia Gandhi was the Congress President for 19 years.

Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, state Congress President M.M. Hassan and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala are among the state leaders who have gone to Delhi.

Party sources said that significant changes in the Congress Kerala unit were expected after Rahul Gandhi's elevation as party chief as he has preferred young blood in party posts.

Hassan's appointment as Congress Kerala unit chief is a stop-gap arrangement after V.M. Sudheeran quit early in March.
Hyderabad, Dec 15 : Ford India has signed an agreement with the Telangana government to design tech-based mobility solution for commuters in Hyderabad.

The company on Friday inked the Memorandum of Understanding with the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) to assess the feasibility of a common digital mobility solution.

Under the agreement, Ford will analyse Hyderabad's existing transportation system. It will then work with HDMA to design tech-based mobility solutions to improve commuter experience, and that will optimise efficiency for transport operators as well as reduce congestion, said a company statement.

The company and HMDA officials signed the MoU here in the presence of Minister for Information Technology and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao and Ford India President and MD Michael Brielmaier.

"Hyderabad has a significant advantage due to its excellent infrastructure and connectivity. This MoU with Ford Motor Company will further make the commute within the city more convenient for all," said Rama Rao.

"As a mobility company, Ford is working with cities to help address growing transportation challenges," said R. Mahadevan, Director, Ford Smart Mobility, India.

He said the company can help find new ways to make commuters' journeys seamless.

While different modes of public transport such as light rail, metro and buses co-exist in Hyderabad, 800 vehicles are added to the city's streets each day.

Ford will engage with the relevant stakeholders and explore solutions in areas such as digital cashless one-time payments, mobile-based ticketing and smart card payments for passengers transiting through different modes of transport.

Earlier this year, Ford started working with authorities in Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Mumbai in Maharashtra to find innovative mobility solutions.
Hyderabad, Dec 15 : MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has opposed the bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq, saying this would have severe consequences on rule of law and social cohesion in the country.

In a letter to Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, he voiced concern over the attempt to table the bill in Parliament without consultation.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, which cleared by the cabinet on Friday, provides for a three-year jail term for triple talaq.

Owaisi demanded that the government hold consultation with All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on the bill as it was the main party in the batch of writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court on triple talaq.

He said that the government's attempt to expedite introduction of the bill without any effort to appreciate the legal nuances involved is of deep concern.

The Hyderabad MP described it as an attempt to demonise the Muslim community in the garb of "saving" and "protecting" Muslim women.

"It is regrettable that a constitutional value as important as gender justice is being used to merely further cynical political goals," he wrote.

Owaisi said it was absurd that a special law was being considered when existing legislation sufficiently provide appropriate remedies to Muslim women who are at receiving end of triple talaq.

Along with his letter, he also attached a memorandum about legal and policy implications of criminalising triple talaq.
London, Dec 15 : Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding will be held on May 19 next year, Kensington Palace announced on Friday.

The couple confirmed their engagement last month and said the wedding ceremony would take place on a Saturday at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

The date breaks with tradition as royal weddings usually take place on a weekday, the BBC reported. The royal family will pay for the wedding, including the service, music, flowers and reception.

Earlier this week, Kensington Palace announced the couple will be spending Christmas together at Sandringham with Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family.

Prince Harry and Markle have been dating since July 2016 and made their first public appearance as a couple in September.

The couple will live in Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of London's Kensington Palace, the official residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

They opened up for the first time about their relationship in an interview last month when Prince Harry told the BBC that his late mother, Princess Diana, would have been "over the moon" about the pair's engagement.

Prince Harry designed the engagement ring himself. It features a diamond from Botswana accompanied by two smaller diamonds from Diana's jewellery collection, which the Prince said he wanted to include "to make sure she's with us on this crazy journey together".
United Nations, Dec 15 : Warning that North Korea's nuclear and missile programme is the most dangerous threat to world security, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for re-establishing communication channels with Pyongyang.

"I am deeply concerned by the risk of military confrontation, including as a result of unintended escalation or miscalculation," Guterres told a high-level Security Council session on North Korea.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today," he said.

Underlining the seriousness of the situation in the Korean penninusla, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono presided over the Council session and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was scheduled to speak.

On November 29, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed off Japan's coast within its economic exclusive zone. The missile is said to be capable of hitting the US anywhere.

Guterres said that "misplaced over-confidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels" is raising the dangers of a conflict from an "accidental escalation".

"Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences," he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has not been able to directly monitor nuclear developments in North Korea. However, through satellite monitoring, it observed a plutonium production reactor and centrifuge enrichment facility in operation as also ongoing mining, milling and concentration activities at the Pyongsan uranium mine and Pyongsan uranium concentration plant.

Guterres asked to the Council to act unitedly to contain Pyongyang and resolve the problem peacefully through diplomatic efforts.

"It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military to military channels," he said, adding that Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman visited North Korea for the first in-depth political exchange of views between the UN and Pyongyang in almost eight years.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
United Nations, Dec 15 : US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reiterated on Friday Washington's warning that "all options are on the table" to meet North Korea's nuclear threat while offering to keep the lines of communication with Pyongyang open.

"The United States will use all measures necessary to defend itself," Tillerson told a high-level Security Council session on North Korea presided by Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono.

"We will, meanwhile, keep our channels of communication open," he added.

While the US did not want war, "all options are on the table" to meet any eventuality, he said.

In its latest attempt to raise the threat level, on November 29, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed off Japan's coast within its economic exclusive zone. The missile is said to be capable of hitting targets anywhere in the US.

Tillerson asked all countries to join in pressuring Pyongyang to de-nuclearise because its missile and unclear programmes were a threat to the entire world.

Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Council: "The situation on the Korean Peninsula is the most tense and dangerous peace and security issue in the world today."

"I am deeply concerned by the risk of military confrontation, including as a result of unintended escalation or miscalculation," he said.

Guterres said that "misplaced over-confidence, dangerous narratives and rhetoric, and the lack of communication channels" is raising the dangers of a conflict from an "accidental escalation".

"Any military action would have devastating and unpredictable consequences," he said.

"It is time to immediately re-establish and strengthen communication channels, including inter-Korean and military to military channels," he said, adding that Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman visited North Korea for the first in-depth political exchange of views between the UN and Pyongyang in almost eight years.

Guterres asked to the Council to act unitedly to contain Pyongyang and resolve the problem peacefully through diplomatic efforts.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
New Delhi, Dec 15 : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday seized immovable properties worth over Rs 48 crore of an Ahmedabad-based company, which was also named in the Panama Papers.

The agency seized properties worth Rs 48,87,22,500 of Sintex Industries Ltd -- owned by Amit Patel and Rahul Patel -- which had figured in the Panama Papers leak for their stakes or interests in a firm named Amarange Inc, registered in British Virgin Islands (BVI), a known tax haven.

The company was found to be in contravention of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in having transferred money to its subsidiary in Netherlands -- Sintex Holding -- and trying to purchase with it a property in Singapore, the agency said.

"Further, Sintex Holding BV, Netherlands, had created a Wholly Owned Subsidiary namely Amarange Inc which was incorporated in BVI having Amit Patel and Rahul Patel as its Directors," a statement from the agency read.

The funds so transferred were used to purchase a property in Singapore for an amount of 7.9 million Singapore dollars in the name of Amarange Inc BVI, the agency said.

In its probe, it found that Amarange Inc, BVI was disposed off on August 8 this year by the Netherlands-based subsidiary after "having engaged in no business or activity except for the purchase and sale of Singapore property".

"Therefore, Sintex Industries Ltd, Ahmedabad by doing the above act, contravened the provisions of section 4 of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and that a total amount of $3 million and 62,50,000 Singapore dollars is still being held outside India as a result of the said transfers," it said.

Under the Forex rules, if certain foreign exchange, foreign security or immovable property is held outside India, properties with an equal value can be seized within India.
Jaipur, Dec 15 : The visit of Tamil Nadu Police Inspector S. Periyapandian to Rajasthan on the trail of robbers who stole 3.5 kg gold, which claimed his life, wasn't his first visit to the state to nab those involved in the loot.

According to senior police from Chennai, Periyapandian, 48, had visited Rajasthan earlier too. He had strong clues to the whereabouts of the robbers and hence he, along with his team, was in Rajasthan earlier this week, and was quite confident of nabbing them.

The Police Inspector from Chennai was shot dead on Wednesday in Pali district of Rajasthan in the early morning hours with his own service revolver when he was on a special operation to catch the mastermind of an audacious heist. The criminals had escaped with 3.5 kg of gold after drilling a hole in a jewellery shop's ceiling in Kolathur area of Chennai last month.

Chennai police officials confirmed that this was his second visit to Rajasthan and this time he was quite sure of the whereabouts of the robbers.

During his first visit to the state, the Chennai Police coordinated well with the Rajasthan Police. The two teams planned their strategies to catch the robbers together. They were successful in nabbing four suspects involved in the loot.

The Rajasthan Police was quite cooperative and helpful during our first operation which was initiated to search the robbers, Chennai police sources told IANS.

Then what went wrong in the second attempt?

Answering the question, one of the top Chennai police officials said the "eagerness to crack the case" forced them to take the initiative on their own. Their investigation was very clear and they were confident of catching the robbers from a village in Pali district. And hence, they planned a late night operation, he told IANS, declining to be named.

A day before the operation, he met the Pali police too.

Pali District Superintendent Deepak Bhargav confirmed the meeting to IANS. "The police team met us and informed us about their visit to nab key persons behind the burglary. However, they didn't seek our help. Despite the fact that we helped them to nab four other suspects involved in the November 30 burglary, they preferred to go alone," he added.

A team of seven police personnel had gone to Jaitaran village and caught one of the robbers, Nathuram, early on Wednesday. As he was being led away, Nathuram snatched Periyapandian's revolver and opened fire, killing the Inspector instantly. Nathuram escaped before the others could even react. Some other policemen who were injured in the firing were rushed to a hospital.

Meanwhile, an autopsy has confirmed that a single bullet hit Periyapandian in the armpit, which killed him instantly as his left lung was punctured.

The Rajasthan government has declared a compensation of Rs 1 crore for the Inspector family.

(Archana Sharma can be reached at arachana.g@gmail.com)
New Delhi, Dec 15 : Rahul Gandhi will formally take over as chief of the Congress party on Saturday, from his mother Sonia Gandhi who had helmed the country's oldest party for 19 years.

The entire process will be completed after the Central Election Authority president Mullapally Ramachandran hands over the Certificate of Election to the newly-elected president of the Congress.

His mother Sonia Gandhi on Friday announced that it was time for her to retire, triggering immediate speculation about her future plans.

The Congress party sought to quell it saying she has only retired from the party chief's role and not from politics.

She also added that Rahul Gandhi has been playing an active role in the last three years.

The 47-year-old Rahul Gandhi formally takes over the reins of the grand old party two days before the counting of votes for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections, the outcome of which could be a trendsetter ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, current and former Chief Ministers, MPs, senior Congress leaders, and all PCC chiefs and delegates will be present at the handing over ceremony.

Gandhi had been the party Vice President for over four years since 2013.

Rahul's main challenge remains the revamping of party organisation, apart from electoral battles in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Hyderabad, Dec 15 : The ongoing tussle between Gond Adivasis and the Banjara Lambadas in Telangana took a violent turn as the two communities clashed at several places in Adilabad district on Friday.

Scores of people were injured, some of them critically, as the two groups attacked each other in tribal areas in Utnoor, about 250 km from here.

Police used teargas shells at several places to disperse the clashing mobs, which set several shops and vehicles afire.

Police denied some media reports that two people were killed in the violence. Deputy Inspector General of Police Ravi Verma said nobody was killed in the clashes.

Police clamped prohibitory orders banning assembly of five or more persons in agency areas and sent additional forces to violence-hit villages to contain flare-up.

Trouble broke out after a statue of Komaram Bheem, a freedom fighter revered by Gonds, was found garlanded with footwear in Betalaguda in Narnoor block. Adivasis took out a protest rally at Hasnapur, which turned violent. Protestors torched a hospital belonging to former MP Ramesh Rathod.

Tension had been building up in some parts of the state over last few days in the wake of demand by Adivasis to remove Lambadas from the list of Scheduled Tribes.

The violence in Adilabad came a day after Adivasis resorted to violence in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district against the inclusion of Lambadas in the Medaram Temple Trust Board, which organises Medaram Jatra, a tribal fair.

Adivasis alleged that Lambadas had no respect for their traditions and customs and were only trying to make money in the name of the temple.

Earlier this week, about a lakh Banjara Lambadas had gathered in Hyderabad to defend their right to reservation as a Scheduled Tribe in Telangana.
New Delhi, Dec 15 : The air pollution situation in the NCR was worse this year against the situation in the peak season last year though Diwali was less polluting, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) said here on Friday.

In Delhi, the peak pollution episode between November 7 and 12, 2017 saw the range of major pollutant PM2.5, or particles in air with diameter less than 2.5 micrometers, to be around 357 to 611, according to the CPCB.

However the same ranged between 197 to 709 in 2016 peak pollution time -- between October 30 and November 7.

Meanwhile, pollutant from fire crackers saw considerable drop -- Diwali (on October 19 this year) saw 39.3 per cent decrease in PM2.5 level against Diwali in 2016 (October 30).

The CPCB believes the Supreme Court's ban order on sale of fire crackers this year in National Capital Region is the major reason behind this.

"It was a good Diwali for us in a bad season... Supreme Court played a very good role," said D. Saha, Divisional Head, CPCB.

The experts at the apex pollution monitoring agency believe meteorological factors such as low wind speed, temperature together with high humidity and a high mixing height during the peak of 2017 pollution episode, against 2016, is the reason that air quality this year was more toxic.

"Wind speed in 2016 was 1.0 to 3.0 mps, while this year it was 1.0 to 1.3 mps, the relative humidity in 2016 was 47.8 to 63.3 per cent against 60.2 to 75.8 per cent this year. At the same time, mixing height was 146 to 618 metres in 2016 against 336 to 479 metres this year," said Saha.

Pollutants do not disperse easily with low winds or high mixing height, while high humidity levels also increases their density.

"Lessons that we learned was that this particular period is critical for us," Saha said.

The CPCB also saw a drop in the concentration of highly toxic elements since Diwali 2016. The element include aluminium (9.9 per cent drop), sulphur (20.1), chlorides(11.0), potassium (29.9), calcium(37.8), iron(48.1), copper(36.3), zinc(41.1), strontium (64.6), antimony (35.6) and barium (51.7) -- all used in the fire crackers, either for making a bang, throttling, or colour.

"All the elements except titanium saw a drop, as there was little bit rise in the Titanium which we are still trying to find out why," the CPCB scientists said.

"For instance, PM2.5 level in Pitampura during Diwali 2016 was 1,238, while after Diwali 2017, it was 677, same goes the trend in other areas and factors like elements coming from fireworks," Saha said.

The official however added that while Delhi has its own emissions, the effluents like dust or burning from the neighbouring areas keep the pollution levels up.

"Even on normal days, Delhi gets 30 per cent pollutants from other areas," Saha said.
Panaji, Dec 15 : Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said she was nostalgic about the time when she would bunk college as a youngster and watched films in Srinagar.

She said that youngsters living in Srinagar today do not know about the joys of watching films in cinema halls, because of bans by militants on cinema halls in the troubled state.

"I have grown up bunking my classes and going to cinema halls. I would love to do it anytime. I feel Jammu and Kashmir students are deprived of something so joyful. We would bunk our class in college and go and see a movie somewhere," she recalled while speaking at India Ideas Conclave.

"They (youngsters in J&K) can't do it. They don't know what is it sitting having pop corn in a cinema hall and watching a movie there. I would love to do that. But I cannot say for now," she said.
Panaji, Dec 15 : Underlining the plight of children blinded due to pellet gun injuries in Jammu and Kashmir, state's Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said Kashmiris need to be reached out to and that "bulldozing" them will not resolve the crisis.

Mufti, who is in Goa to attend the "India Ideas Conclave" that got underway on Friday, said Jammu and Kashmir could serve as the country's gateway to Central Asia and that India should tap the state's strategic potential.

"Some days back, I called these pellet victims and it was really heartbreaking when I saw some of them have lost both eyes. Now 14-year-old, who were just 13 last year, what do they know? How does he know why I am pelting a stone? It's in the rush of things (that they indulged in stone-pelting). And I saw both their eyes are gone," Mufti said.

"I wanted to give them some kind of rehabilitation. Though I tried to help them financially, but you can't rehabilitate a 14-year-old child, you can just try to give them some education. You can't give him a job at this age," she said, adding that it was the duty of the country to ensure that the residents of her state were alleviated from the present situation.

She said there was a need for those responsible to reach out to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir and that "bulldozing" them would just not help resolve the issues.

"People have to mould them, reach out to them. It doesn't happen by bulldozing them," Mufti said.

The Chief Minister also said that India should tap the potential which the northern state presents in terms of strategic geographic importance.

"Jammu Kashmir has the potential to become a gateway to Central Asia. Why can't our country take advantage of that? Kashmir is our's is what Parliament has already said, but we still have Aksai Chin which is with China. It is still there," she said.

She said the government's decision to appoint an interlocutor to speak to stakeholders in the region was a positive sign.

"I feel with these things, there is already a political process. The government of India has nominated a representative who has set the ball rolling..." she added.
Public Service Credit Union (PSCU) is proud to announce Ben Greiving, PSCU Chief of Staff & General Counsel, is one of 16 credit union professionals chosen to take part in the distinguished Filene Research Institutes i3 (Ideas, Innovation, Implementation) Program.

Each year, the i3 Program selects next generation leaders from within the national credit union community to find innovative solutions to the industrys most flummoxing problems. Originating in 2004, the program has produced 150 concepts helping credit unions troubleshoot tough issues such as student loan debt, will preparation, and developing healthy financial habits in millennials.

Greiving was nominated to the two-year i3 program after completing a lengthy tryout process that included an essay and a team innovation project. I look forward to the next two years of innovation with this team, said Greiving. This is a chance to really think outside the box and generate unique solutions that will benefit the credit union movement.

Greiving has served PSCU for more than 7 years as a legal, compliance, ERM, strategic planning, and project management professional. A practicing attorney with a JD from the Florida State University College of Law, Greiving also graduated with high honors from Western CUNA Management School in 2016.

ABOUT PUBLIC SERVICE CREDIT UNION (http://pscu.org)

Public Service Credit Union (PSCU) has been safe, secure, and insured for the past 79 years. Today, PSCU holds assets in excess of $2.3 billion and has more than 225,000 members. PSCU provides a full array of financial products and services, including savings, checking, loans, mortgages, and online and mobile banking options. Members can access their accounts and conduct transactions at PSCUs 28 branches, and at over 200 shared branch locations throughout Colorado. In addition, through the credit unions partnership with the CO-OP network, members have surcharge-free access to more than 30,000 ATMs across the country.
#banks-interest income Banks log record interest income through Sept. on rising rates Banks in South Korea earned record net interest income in the first three quarters of the year, helped by sharp rate hikes by the central bank, data showed Thursday. Their intere...

#BTS BTS' Jin to release photo book before joining military Jin, a member of the K-pop megastar BTS, will put out his individual book of photography next month before joining the military, the group's management agency said Thursday. The...
Mark Colonnese, sales & marketing director, Aquarium Software. The very latest travel insurance technology and mobile portals will give the industry the tools in needs to improve client engagement. It will remove those small print problems that in turn will assist the market to realise its potential

The amazing figure is 12 percent higher than the national average of 69 percent, with the closest other region being the North West, where 74 percent have never claimed. Aquarium says the figures have real ramifications for the travel insurance sector.

So many travellers never claiming can be seen as a positive for policy underwriters, but does beg the question why the industry has a reputation of denying claims based on small print. In defence of the industry, the cost of say, repatriating a holidaymaker from halfway around the world can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, which makes the cost worth the cover, should the worst happen. Moreover, the risk for the sector must be that given so few ever claim, the 51 percent of the UK travelling population may choose to neglect travel insurance unless the industry can demonstrate its true value.

While these figures look good news for the industry on the face of it, scratch the surface and they also expose the future challenges facing the sector, said Mark Colonnese, Aquarium Software Director. With so few people ever making a claim, it is easy to understand why there is only a 51 percent take-up. That leaves 49 percent of us taking a big risk with no cover. The industry must get better at communicating the value of cover and improving access for consumers needing help overseas or wishing to make a claim, Mark added. With the news full of people stranded abroad without adequate insurance cover, travel insurance is undoubtedly a must that some might be mistakenly tempted to forgo in lean economic times, said Colonnese.

The very latest travel insurance technology and mobile portals will give the industry the tools in needs to improve client engagement. It will remove those small print problems that in turn will assist the market to realise its potential, and start to change the minds of the 46 percent of us who perceive travel insurance as a waste of time, he concluded. Aquarium Software is used by a number of travel insurers; pet insurers; and other consumer service providers and affinity partners in the UK, Europe, USA and Canada. For further information contact Aquarium Software on +44 (0)161 927 5620 or visit http://www.aquarium-software.com
The company we are creating is one of a kind. Its a business platform where we are bringing together the best teams, products and methodologies to fundamentally improve the experience of our clients, employees and partners.

Representatives from SBS Group and Socius announced this week that the two companies will form a new entityVelosio. Velosio will be among the largest privately-owned Microsoft partners in North America having 4,000+ clients with more than 300 employees and 150 affiliates. As leaders in the manufacturing, agricultural, distribution, healthcare, and professional services industries, SBS Group and Socius have established a broad portfolio of technology and software solutions for sales, marketing, finance and operations.

Velosio will be led by the executive teams of both organizations and will focus on leveraging its vast experience across the Microsoft Dynamics portfolio including Dynamics 365, Dynamics GP, NAV, and SL. Combined, the entity supports the largest installed base of Dynamics clients in North America. Beyond its portfolio of solutions and clients, Velosio will be the largest Microsoft Master Value Added Reseller (VAR) for Dynamics. The companies will combine their Master VAR programs into a new single offering which brings together the entire Dynamics portfolio, the Office 365 family, and Azure services along with a rich suite of supporting services to assist Microsoft Partners in growing their businesses.

Jim Bowman, Chairman of Velosio said, The company we are creating is one of a kind. Its a business platform where we are bringing together the best teams, products and methodologies to fundamentally improve the experience of our clients, employees and partners. For our clients we are simplifying the cloud and delivering value quickly and predictably. For our employees, we are providing a challenging and empowering environment. For our partners, we are accelerating their growth and assisting in their own digital transformation."

Jeff Geisler, CEO of Velosio added, "Our sole purpose is to help middle market businesses understand and take advantage of the significant shift we're seeing around technology and business transformation. We now have a single team whose capabilities and experience with cloud technologies including Dynamics 365 are second to none. I'm very excited about what we're creating at Velosio and the possibilities this provides our clients  and we are just getting started!"

About SBS Group: SBS Group is a Microsoft Master VAR and Indirect Cloud Solutions Provider specializing in Microsoft Dynamics solutions and services for companies of all sizes. With thousands of Dynamics customers and offices across North America, SBS Group is a recognized leader in Cloud, ERP, CRM, productivity and business intelligence solutions. SBS Group is headquartered in Edison, NJ and has been a technology innovator for over 30 years. http://www.sbsgroupusa.com

About Socius: As a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner, Microsoft Dynamics Master VAR, Sage Authorized Partner, and NetSuite Partner, Socius represents the most trusted accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and business intelligence and analytics technologies on the market. Backed by over 30 years experience, Socius serves clients throughout the U.S. from its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and its 28 additional locations. http://www.socius1.com

Socius and SBS Group have long been among the top 1% of Microsoft Dynamics Partners worldwide.
We are pleased to announce the expansion of the Made4net WMS to a second production facility for Sun Orchard, deepening our partnership and the potential to maximize their revenue, said Dan Waters, VP Sales at Made4net.

December 12, 2017 (PRWEB) December 15, 2017 -- Made4net, a leading Warehouse Management System and Supply Chain Execution software provider, announced today the strengthening of its relationship with Sun Orchard Juicery by implementing its WMS at a second production and distribution facility in Florida. The partnership led to the development of specific modules to help Sun Orchard run its business more efficiently from material use through picking and order fulfillment.

Sun Orchard creates fresh beverages, customized for a variety of businesses and customer needs. Its efforts depend on using ingredients at their freshest to enhance the shelf life of products.

We are pleased to announce the expansion of the Made4net WMS to a second production facility for Sun Orchard, deepening our partnership and the potential to maximize their revenue, said Dan Waters, VP Sales at Made4net.

The Made4net WMS is optimized to assist with business needs in the CPG and perishable space, making it easier for brands like Sun Orchard to use FIFO and FEFO best practices, increasing raw material usability and the sales window of finished products. Together, we worked to put a system in place that introduces materials into production within a 12-day window to take full advantage of production and final sale opportunities for their clients, said Waters.

With the WMS Sun Orchard now better achieves:



Visibility into production volumes and accurate inventory levels

Reporting and maximization systems for perishables and other supply use

Production analysis covering raw materials through final production

Reduction of raw material and finished goods spoilage

We aim to help customers run their operations better. For Sun Orchard, that meant helping them know what materials they had on hand and how to prioritize them for production. As their supply chain partner, its our job to help Sun Orchard maximize their revenue and growth opportunities, said Waters.

Expanding to a second production facility shows weve been able to be successful as a supportive partner.

About Sun Orchard Juicery

Founded in 1984, Sun Orchard has leveraged its roots in citrus juices (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit) to develop an expanding portfolio of standard and customized beverages and culinary ingredients. The Companys product portfolio consists of top quality, 100% natural, not-from-concentrate citrus juices, fruit-ades, bar mixes, specialty smoothie bases, and other customizable mixology and culinary solutions. Sun Orchard is headquartered in Miami, FL, and has a strategic bi-coastal production platform with facilities in Arizona and Florida.

Learn more at http://www.sunorchard.com

About Made4net

Made4net is an innovative and leading supply chain execution software provider focused on developing WMS and TMS for medium-sized businesses (SMB). Made4net was formed on a vision to support the growing demands of the medium logistic market with a powerful yet affordable integrated suite of products that address different parts of the chain. Made4net offers a robust all in one supply chain application suite, which was built on a proprietary scalable platform, using modern technology based on Microsoft technology. The SCExpert suite includes WarehouseExpert along with RoutingExpert for managing and optimizing routing, and additional extended modules such as Yard Management, Labor Management, and Proof of Delivery to provide a powerful integrated end-to-end execution solution.

Learn more at http://www.made4net.us

Subscribe to our Blog to learn about our latest tips and follow the company news!

http://www.made4net.us/en/blog
NEA translation grant brings lost world of early 20th century French Indochina to life in four books by George Groslier. Bringing other voices to the American public, voices that we might not hear otherwise, makes this country as a whole a better place. NEA Chairman Jane Chu

A larger-than-life figure in Southeast Asia, George Groslier travelled deep into Cambodian jungles documenting nearly forgotten millennium-old temples, conducted the first study of the kingdoms sacred dance tradition, and later organized the countrys National Museum and School of Fine Arts. If not for the tragic events of World War II, his archives and legacy would have survived to the present day. But Groslier was murdered by his Japanese interrogators in June 1945, and his French compatriots were keen to forget that France's Vichy regime had collaborated with Nazi Germany and Japan during the war.

In addition, Groslier had made a number of political enemies over the years. First, he worked directly for future French Prime Minister Albert Sarraut, often competing with (and outperforming) historical projects run by other government agencies. Further, Grosliers books describe some unsavory practices of his compatriots, and he wrote as an authoritywhich he wason the countrys age-old art outside of French academic channels: a true scholar but without the diplomas

In Grosliers era, France administered Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam under the colonial umbrella of Indochina. Born in Cambodia in 1887, he published eleven books and dozens of academic papers during his lifetime. While a few French copies of his books remain, his works were never accessible to the English-speaking public. Until 2012, that is, when the National Endowment for the Arts granted a fellowship to American literary translator Pedro Rodriguez to support the translation of travelogues and novels by Groslier into English for the first time.

The National Endowment for the Arts was established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Since the inception of the literary translation program in 1981, the NEA has awarded 455 translation fellowships for projects representing in 69 languages from 82 countries.

Over the last six years, Mr. Rodriguez has completed English translations for four of Grosliers books. DatAsia Press published them as English language editions, with forewords by modern scholars, supplemental articles, photos, maps, and the original French text.

DatAsia published the first translation in 2014, In the Shadow of AngkorUnknown Temples of Ancient Cambodia in which Groslier describes his 1913-14 trek across Cambodia documenting the countrys Khmer monuments, built in the 11th and 12th centuries when the Angkorean empire dominated the region. His expedition included a visit to the mountaintop temple of Preah Vihearnow a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A foreword by Cambodian history scholar Milton Osborne opens the edition, which also includes detailed maps and 75 illustrations.

Also in 2014, Return to ClayA Romance of Colonial Cambodia, a novel first published in 1925 that earned Groslier Frances Grand Prix de Litterature Coloniale. The story features a Frenchman who turns his back on his French heritage and marriage to adopt what he believes is a genuine Cambodian way of life, complete with a Cambodian mistress. French literary scholar Professor Henri Copin contributed a foreword to this edition, as well as to the two subsequent translations.

In 2016, DatAsia published Water and LightA Travel Journal of the Cambodian Mekong, an account of Grosliers 2,000-kilometer (1,250 miles) journey along the Mekong River in 1929 to inspect Buddhist pagodas across Indochina. Dedicated to George Grosliers daughter Nicole, who helped reissue her fathers works, this special full-color edition includes Grosliers original photos, and more than 70 hand-tinted illustrations.

On November 1, 2017, DatAsia released the final Groslier translation: The Road of the StrongA Romance of Colonial Cambodia. Set in Cambodias then rural northwest, the novel revolves around a Frenchman charged with developing the nations road system, a wealthy industrialist, and his wife who harbours a secret. The volume includes 100 illustrations, background notes and the essay, Colonial Battambang Today, a feature article describing the books primary setting; a city now seeking UNESCO World Heritage status for its French colonial heritage.

In her preface to the NEAs publication, The Art of Empathy: Celebrating Literature in Translation, Chairman Jane Chu writes Bringing other voices to the American public, voices that we might not hear otherwise, makes this country as a whole a better place. In the four translations by Mr. Rodriguez, Anglophones around the world can now experience early 20th century Cambodia through the expert eyes of George Groslier for the first time.

DatAsia Press specializes in fiction and non-fiction books about Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam from centuries past through the 20th century. Its publications include academic analysis, expanded restorations of rare, obscure and out-of-print works, and other works of literature in French and English translations. http://www.DatAsia.us
Kroll Ontrack has a long and successful history in helping victims of natural disasters and we want to help those in need.

The wildfires in California are continuing to cause devastation to home and businesses alike. Kroll Ontrack, a subsidiary of KrolLDiscovery, is continuing to donate data recovery services to individuals and offering discounts to businesses who have lost property and possessions from technology devices to personal keepsakes in the wildfires.

California residents in the area impacted by the wildfires will receive free data recovery services. Businesses with fire-damaged media will receive a deeply-discounted flat fee for recovery of any single desktop, laptop or hard drive/SSD. This offer is valid until January 31, 2018 and all clients will receive free shipping and evaluation of their fire-damaged drives. Kroll Ontrack has been helping victims of natural disasters recover their business-critical and sentimental data for 30 years.

"The California wildfires have completely destroyed property of individuals and businesses alike, including digital data, said Chris Weiler, President and CEO of KrolLDiscovery. The employees of Kroll Ontrack want to help in the recovery of this critical and irreplaceable information, such as business records, and family photographs. Kroll Ontrack has a long and successful history in helping victims of natural disasters and we want to help those in need.

For more information on this offer and to schedule free shipping, visit https://www.krollontrack.com/services/data-recovery/data-recovery-quote/ or contact us at 800-872-2599 or contact our Fountain Valley, CA location at 714-641-0530.

TIPS: Kroll Ontrack recommends that victims fearing loss of their vital information consider the following before assuming that the damage is permanent:



Never assume that data is unrecoverable, no matter what it has been through

Do not attempt to operate any devices that have been in a fire, even if it is just smoke-damaged, as this can cause unseen damage inside the hard drive

Do not shake, disassemble or attempt to clean any hard drive or server that has been damaged

If there is apparent water damage, do not attempt to dry it out (keep it wet if possible)

Do not try to remove the hard drive  ship the entire computer for recovery

Call a data recovery professional for additional tips on shipping your device

About Kroll Ontrack, LLC

Kroll Ontrack provides technology-enabled services and software to help law firms, corporations, government agencies and consumers solve complex data challenges. Part of the KrolLDiscovery brand, Kroll Ontrack provides ediscovery services and market leading data recovery for any type of media  hard drives, SSD, server, RAID, virtual, cloud, mobile, tape, NAS/SAN/DAS, laptop, desktop computers and Apple devices. Additionally, through proprietary technologies and expert services around the globe, Kroll Ontrack helps clients with email extraction, tape management and data destruction. For more information about Kroll Ontrack offerings, please visit http://www.krollontrack.com/. Or follow @KrollOntrack on Twitter.
Smart Vent Products, Inc., a leader in wet and dry floodproofing solutions, announced that the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey {case number 13-5691} ruled Crawl Space Door Systems, Inc., {CSD}, a competitor of Smart Vent, falsely represented its flood vents to be compliant with FEMAs Technical Bulletin 1, August 2008 {TB-1}.

CSDs false claims may have misled homeowners that CSD flood vents were compliant with FEMAs TB-1, which has strict standards for flood protection. Smart Vent filed the unfair competition suit against CSD in 2013 to primarily help ensure that homeowners dont lose their largest asset, their home and its irreplaceable contents, and businessowners dont lose the company store, because un-certified and ineffective flood vents failed to meet federal standards.

Smart Vents state-of-the-art flood vents are certified by the International Code Council Evaluation Service. This body evaluates mass-produced engineered flood vents, including the underlying manufacturing processes and quality controls, ensuring compliance with FEMA TB-1 regulatory criteria. Smart Vents flood vents stay closed until they come in contact with flood water. Flood waters lift the internal floats, which unlatch and allow the flood door to rotate open. This allows the flood water to automatically enter and exit through the frame opening, relieving pressure from the foundation walls. And unlike some competitors products, Smart Vent flood vents feature large unobstructed openings that allow flood debris to easily pass through instead of being trapped against screens or smaller openings.

Our mission at Smart Vent is and always has been to provide the best flood protection solutions and information available, said Tom Little, VP of Smart Vent. Every year thousands of Americans suffer catastrophic flood damage to their homes or other structures because they arent adequately protected. So when we see a company making false claims about its flood vents, we feel obligated to take action and safeguard consumers whether they are our customers or not. This decision reaffirms the superiority of the Smart Vent products line in the United States marketplace.

U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle ordered that Crawl Space Door Systems, Inc., its employees, agents and others acting on its behalf were permanently barred from falsely advertising that its mass-produced, louvered flood vent products were FEMA TB-1 compliant. The court injunction noted CSD failed to provide any evidence to rebut a finding of deception or materiality and the order furthers the publics interests by protecting consumers (from) the deception and confusion caused by CSDs false advertising of its flood vents.

Little said, With so many people rebuilding homes in Texas and Florida after the recent hurricanes, this ruling couldnt be more timely.

Smart Vents Flood Risk Evaluator division has set up a hot line 800-507-0462 and e-mail consumerconcern@yourfloodrisk.com to provide free evaluations of homes and buildings that have this falsely advertised flood vent in their foundations and any other questions consumers have about protecting their structures. Smart Vent will review property characteristics to ensure that there are enough flood vents to adequately relieve estimated flood water pressures which can lead to devastating damage.

# # #

About SMART VENT PRODUCTS, INC.

Founded in 1997, Smart Vent Products, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of foundation flood venting systems and has an ICC-ES Certified product line with dual-function and insulated engineered models for residential and commercial applications. Smart Vent is providing over 100 million sq. ft. of certified flood protection around the world today. A new division called the Flood Risk Evaluator (http://www.yourfloodrisk.com) was recently born to evaluate and provide detailed reporting to property owners on what can be done to reduce rising NFIP flood insurance premiums. For more information about SMART VENT PRODUCTS, INC., call 1-877-441-8368 or visit http://www.smartvent.com.

Media Contact:

Christian Scarborough

Inventive Public Relations

512-297-6426

christian(at)inventivepr(dot)net
Addressing the growing community of marketers whove adopted Swydo, CEO Jeroen Maljers said, "We are always looking for opportunities to improve our clients' experience with Swydo, and help them create more insightful, valuable reports to share with their customers.

New integrations, enhanced automation and custom reporting features rolled out this past 11 months have helped Swydo gain shortlist recognition from both the European and UK Search Awards committees in 2017. And on 23 November, Swydo was named Best Reporting & Analytics Software for the second year in a row at the Dutch Search Awards.

The team behind the reporting and monitoring platform released a host of new enhancements and additions to their software that already incorporates valuable client reporting and monitoring. These improvements enable digital marketing agencies to monitor multi channel marketing campaigns, identify attribution and automate reporting for their clients.

Addressing the growing community of marketers whove adopted Swydo, CEO Jeroen Maljers said, "We are always looking for opportunities to improve our clients' experience with Swydo, and help them create more insightful, valuable reports to share with their customers. By actively seeking out client feedback and "wishlists", we are continuously evolving the platform to help with cross channel measurement, attribution and data-driven decisions."

In a bid to cater to the growing needs of digital marketers in the rapidly evolving field of data-driven marketing, the Swydo team added a number of new features. The platform will now come equipped with enhanced features focusing on three key areas - cross channel measurement, accurate attribution and data management.

As data-driven marketing evolves to adapt greater capabilities for user behavior tracking, marketers are laboring to keep pace with the massive amounts of data generated. Recognizing the need for a more efficient tool to simplify the marketers task, Swydo focused on making improvements to their platform by adding new integrations and enhancing existing ones.

The improvements made to Swydos SDK aim to provide greater flexibility to marketers in choosing KPIs and metrics and enable cross channel reporting. Marketers will now be able to customize data reports to a greater degree and impart better insights to their clients.

New and Enhanced Integrations by Swydo

The new data source integrations introduced by Swydo, as well as the existing integration capabilities.

 Twitter

 CallRail

 MailChimp

 Instagram

 Improved Google Analytics

 Improved Google AdWords

 Improved Facebook Insights

All integrations are coupled with additional reporting flexibility allowing enhanced customization. The new reports are capable of presenting better and more precise insights to the client.

Swydos Platform Enhancements:

The enhancements to the platforms existing features build on Swydos core mission and hope to better accomplish three primary goals:

 Automate Workflow

 Optimize Core Deliverables

 Easing Scalability

The new changes and upgrades are sure to have a positive impact on users reporting capabilities, and allow them to present more insights and better value to their clients. However, the Swydo team is not done upgrading its platform.

Talking about plans to further enhance the platform, Maljers says We are in the process of migrating the rest of our integrations to the new platform, as well as launching new integrations, including LinkedIn within the first quarter of 2018.

Digital agencies that use Swydo can look forward to continued improvements and upgrades to their favorite online marketing management platform.

About Swydo:

Swydos industry-proven, award winning reporting, monitoring and workflow platform retrieves data from multiple sources and creates professional, customizable marketing reports. The user-friendly tool allows marketers to generate client reports combining external data sources. It automates the creation of professional looking reports while adding more value in analyzing data and gaining actionable insights for a campaign. Swydo was awarded Best Search Software Tool in 2016 and Best Reporting & Analytics Software in 2017 by the Dutch Search Awards, and is a Google Technology Partner.

Website

https://www.swydo.com/

Connect with us on:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2117720/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Swydo/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/swydo
Carlene Wilson, President and CEO of Atmosphere Commercial Interiors The changes at Atmosphere have been nothing short of transformational. Carlenes strategic vision and leadership have created an environment where a strong corporate culture, accountability and entrepreneurial spirit could flourish.

The Omni Workspace Company (Omni) board of directors announced today that Carlene Wilson, current President of Atmosphere Commercial Interiors (Atmosphere), has been named CEO of the company effective today. As President and CEO of Atmosphere Commercial Interiors, Wilson will succeed Tim Anderson, who has been interim CEO since late 2016. Anderson will remain Chairman of the Board for Omni, the holding company of Atmosphere. With seven offices in four states, Atmosphere serves a vast client base that generates revenues of $200M as one of the worlds largest Steelcase dealers.

Anderson became interim CEO following a leadership reorganization, and focused on operational efficiencies and growth strategies. We are grateful for Tims support as interim CEO, said Jack Helms, CEO of Helms Capital and member of the board of directors. Tim helped prepare the organization for the transition to new leadership and positioned Atmosphere for future growth.

Wilson joined Atmosphere in September 2016 as National Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing and was promoted to President in May 2017. Carlene will be President and CEO of Atmosphere and will continue to be an equity partner and member of the board of Omni. Tim, Jack and I are thrilled that Carlene is moving up to CEO at Atmosphere," said Steve Sefton, President of Clearwater Equity Group and fellow board member.

Wilson was previously a co-owner of the Dallas-based Steelcase dealership, BKM Total Office of Texas, and served as Chair of the Steelcase Dealer Council. Prior to BKM, she held leadership positions with Steelcase as well as several other successful commercial furniture dealerships.

The changes at Atmosphere have been nothing short of transformational. Carlenes strategic vision and leadership have created an environment where a strong corporate culture, accountability and entrepreneurial spirit could flourish, said Anderson.

Bold changes such as a new corporate purpose, redesigned WORKLABS, new sales disciplines, leadership philosophy, and a talent management program, have positioned Atmosphere Commercial Interiors to grow market share with all markets including national accounts.

Sixty-five percent of children today are estimated to end up in a job that doesnt yet exist. It is incredibly exciting to be a pioneer in the contract interiors industry, and provide guidance and solutions to organizations who are experiencing or planning for these changes. We understand the connection between people, purpose and place, so our goal is to create spaces that amplify organizational potential, said Wilson. I wanted to be part of a company where the possibilities were limitless, and a company that creates the same conditions for growth for its clients. Atmosphere is that company.

Atmosphere Commercial Interiors is committed to fostering long-term business relationships. We have dedicated our rich history in the office furniture industry to learning the complexities of business and facility ecosystems. Our strong corporate culture, purpose, and operational focus drive results and fulfill our clients project and business goals.

We are proud to serve organizations around the globe of every size, from start-up to Fortune 500, and across corporate, healthcare, education, and hospitality industries. In addition, our focus on innovation and inspired solutions guides our partnerships with architecture and design, real estate and development, and technology industries.

With Steelcase, a global leader in workplace products and research, our comprehensive portfolio of products and services brings our clients spaces to life. In recognition of our ability to deliver the highest quality products, services and client experience, we are pleased to be a multi-year recipient of the distinguished Steelcase Premier Partner Award.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, with offices in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Arizona, we are embedded deeply in our communities and passionate about providing world-class workspaces.
Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) We are excited to be able to offer clinic services to children with autism and their families in the Northshore region. - Dr. Rebecca Mandal-Blasio

COVINGTON, Louisiana: Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) will celebrate the grand opening of their new Early Learning Center in Covington, Louisiana with a ribbon cutting ceremony and open house on Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 10am CST. The opening event invites local families, businesses and community leaders to see the new center and enjoy a day of community celebrating individuals with autism, their families and the community resources available to support them.

The AST Covington Learning Center is located at:

500 River Highlands Blvd.

Suite 700

Covington, LA 70433

Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) is one of the nations leading providers of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), the most widely researched and empirically validated treatment available for individuals with Autism, and they are is proud to be able to offer more early intervention services with the opening of their new clinic. AST opened their first Early Learning Center in New Orleans in 2015, and moved to the Elmwood location where it currently remains in 2016. ASTs Clinical Director for the Greater New Orleans Area, Dr. Rebecca Mandal-Blasio shared, We are excited to be able to offer clinic services to children with autism and their families in the Northshore region. Parents have expressed the need for services in this area that can assist with communication, social skills, feeding, and other related self-help skills while decreasing problem behavior. The Learning Center enables us to fill this need and also allows us to support younger children in gaining many of the necessary skills for entering kindergarten and general education settings.

The new center will be open from 8:30am-3:30pm serving children ages 18 months to 5 years old, focusing on building critical communication, social, and independent living skills as well as feeding services. These goals are achieved through a range of methods including discrete trial teaching and natural environment teaching, but always with a heavy focus on play based strategies to keep children engaged. AST plans to add an after school program for school-aged children in the coming months. Programs are available year-round with individual one-on-one support from a highly trained Behavior Interventionist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst who tailor program goals to each childs specific needs.

About Autism Spectrum Therapies:

Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) is one of the premier providers of behavior therapy based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in the country. ASTs mission is to foster growth and new possibilities for their extraordinary clients and staff. For more than 15 years, AST and its affiliates have collaborated with families and caregivers to deliver individualized treatment plans based on rigorous data-analysis and a family-centric approach. AST offers services across 8 states in clients homes, schools, and communities, as well as in its AST Learning Centers. Learn more at http://autismtherapies.com.

Explore ASTs website at http://www.autismtherapies.com and discover how Autism Spectrum Therapies is helping individuals with autism achieve their full potential.

About Autism:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 1 in 68 children is on the autism spectrum. Autism, or autism spectrum disorder, refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, as well as unique abilities.
Empower Brokerage Marketing Team Hopefully, our campaign will encourage other companies to step out of their busy schedules long enough to allow this kind of initiative.

Texas-based Empower Brokerage Inc., a company dedicated to helping seniors & individuals find the right life, health, and senior insurance solutions, often finds ways to give back to the community. They are a part of the UCT (United Commercial Travelers) Empower Council 2008, a 501 (c) non-profit financial services membership organization that supports communities through volunteer opportunities throughout North America.

The company regularly supports the efforts of the Ronald McDonald House charities and has a long-standing tradition of providing, cooking, and serving families who have been displaced, due to a childs illness or treatment at Cook Childrens Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

This holiday season, the Empower Brokerage marketing team decided to promote the spirit of giving to its home office staff and gave back to the Dallas/Fort Worth community by adopting 16 Angels from the Salvation Armys well-known Angel Tree program. Allison Shipman, a marketing team member, led the project, handled logistics, and contributions while the company CEO, Rodney Culp, pledged to match each employees contribution, utilizing the UCT charity fund.

Every year, the Salvation Army organizes the Angel Tree program. The initiative was founded in 1979 by Majors Shirley and Charles White, in Lynchburg, Virginia. Their vision was to have a direct positive effect on those who are less fortunate in the community. The first year of the program, Lynchburg residents helped about 700 children in need. Since then, the program has expanded to more states and helps thousands of families all over the United States.

In DFW, the Angel Tree community provides items for underprivileged children and seniors with special needs. Shopping malls, schools, churches, corporations, other organizations, and volunteers all come together every year to help these families in need. Families apply for assistance during Christmas through the Social Services program of The Salvation Army.

Marketing Director, William Bronson, says Hopefully, our campaign will encourage other companies to step out of their busy schedules long enough to allow this kind of initiative. It helps the staff come together, as a team, to support a great cause, benefitting others. It was a fun event for us, brought us closer together, and everyone felt great about giving. Allie did a great job heading this initiative and were hoping to expand it in future years.

Giving is contagious, as evidenced by the response from Empower Brokerage clients. Regional Sales Manager, David Russell, met with some clients and, when they heard what was happening, also wanted to contribute to the Angel Tree Initiative. After their appointment, they returned to the office with two boxes of diapers for Davids Angel.

There must be something in the air when your clients see that, as an organization, we participate in giving back to the community and next thing you know there are boxes of diapers for one of the angel tree recipients sitting on the reception desk -its a great feeling, says David.

Such generosity proves that people are in a charitable spirit this time of year and want to give to those less fortunate than themselves. Empower Brokerage and their Angel Tree Initiative brought that charitable spirit to light within their employees, and their clients.

Empower Brokerage has set up several websites to help consumers with education, price quotes and to request contact directly.

EmpowerMedicareSupplement.com , EmpowerHealthInsuranceUSA.com, and EmpowerLifeInsurance.com are three of them. Their Facebook page, dedicated to seniors, is Facebook.com/EmpowerMedicareSupplement.
BERMANFALK wins Best Exhibit at BDNY 2017. We believe in taking creative risks and working with designers to achieve a truly custom result. We could think of no better way to represent this than to use our booth and our casegoods as a canvas for Timothy Goodman to create upon." - Daniel Berman, Sales Manager, BERMANFALK

World-renowned designers, first-class innovators, imaginative lighting creators, and visionary architects filled the halls of New York Citys Jacob K. Javits Center this past November as BDNY, the leading trade fair and conference for the hospitality design industry, opened its doors.

During the two day show, held from November 12th to November 13th, 2017, BERMANFALK collaborated with award-winning artist Timothy Goodman, who turned their trade show booth, and several custom pieces of furniture, into a live mural earning BERMANFALK the prestigious title of Best Exhibit.

BDNY plays host to exhibitors who travel across the country, and the world, to debut their latest designs, casegoods, and innovations and BDNY 2017 saw record-breaking attendance, compelling keynote speakers, and exhibitors who pulled out all the stopsBERMANFALK included. BDNY is a show designed to inspire and this year BERMANFALK decided to incorporate the theme of inspiration into their booth.

BERMANFALKs Sales Manager, Daniel Berman, comments on the companys innovative approach and remarks: "At BERMANFALK, we have a motto: 'Your Style. Your Way.' We believe in taking creative risks and working with designers to achieve a truly custom result. We give designers the freedom to be creative without limitations, and we could think of no better way to represent this than to use our booth and our casegoods as a canvas for Timothy to unleash his creativity and style on."

The collaboration with Timothy Goodman was a natural choice according to Gary Berman, BERMANFALKs Vice President, who praises Goodmans creativity. Timothy is fearless with design. Hes fearless with his choice of tools, his mediums, and his style. We want hospitality designers to know that they too can be fearless in their design when they work with BERMANFALK.

This collaboration attracted a lot of attention, not only from attendees but from BDNY officials themselves. BERMANFALK was awarded the prestigious title of Best Exhibit and show-goers were impressed with the simple yet daring display. In addition to the creation of a fearless booth, BERMANFALK caught attendee attention by not only having Goodman create a live mural, but by raffling off pieces of the booth as a custom prize for two lucky attendees. After the show finished, BERMANFALK cut two sections of their plexiglass booth, created by Goodman, and will soon be announcing the winners.

The BERMANFALK team was excited and humbled by the announcement that they won BDNYs Best Exhibit award and attribute their success to their collaboration with Goodman and their guiding value of giving designers the freedom to create, without rules.

Read more about our BDNY 2017 experience and view video of Timothy in action at BDNY.

ABOUT BERMANFALK

Since 2007, BERMANFALK has been delivering an unrivalled designer experience and providing meticulous casegoods and seating manufacturing and installation processes to the hospitality industry. Because of their design-first commitment, BERMANFALK has enjoyed rapid growth as a reliable partner for custom casegoods and seating. They have offices in Vancouver, Canada, Vietnam and China with representatives and projects located throughout the US and Canada. Learn more at http://www.bermanfalk.com.

ABOUT TIMOTHY GOODMAN

Timothy Goodman is a designer, illustrator & author based in New York City. His clients include Airbnb, Google, Ford, J.Crew, Samsung, Target, The New Yorker, and The NY Times. Previously, Timothy worked in-house at Apple Inc. and with the design firm Collins. He has received awards from most major design and illustration publications. Timothy began his career as a book jacket designer at Simon & Schuster, and he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where he now teaches. Learn more at http://tgoodman.com.
STRmix  the sophisticated forensic software used to resolve mixed DNA profiles previously thought to be too complex to interpret  has been used in a case (Kings County Supreme Court, Case #07867-2016) in which a Brooklyn, NY man was convicted of murder for slashing the throat of his estranged wife.

In its first use in a Brooklyn trial, STRmix assisted with the identification of the defendants DNA in several pieces of evidence. Evidence in the case showed that blood found inside the victims car, as well as on a t-shirt worn by the defendant, contained a mixture of DNA from both the victim and the defendant.

According to testimony in the trial, the victim, Karen Ashley, was found dead in her car in September 2016. Police said Ms. Ashleys throat had been cut. She also suffered multiple knife wounds to her body.

Ms. Ashleys common-law husband, Beresford Ashley, turned himself into police shortly after the incident. He told police that he had been in an argument with his wife and may have committed an offense. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Ashley had a cut on his hand and the t-shirt he was wearing had blood on it.

Mr. Ashley was convicted of second-degree murder and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He faces 25 years to life in prison.

STRmix has now been used successfully in a number of U.S. court cases, as well as thousands of cases internationally. There have also been at least 13 successful admissibility hearings in the U.S. for STRmix.

Thirty U.S. labs now routinely use STRmix in resolving DNA profiles. This includes everything from federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the FBI to state and local agencies, including the Michigan State Police, Texas Department of Public Safety, and the California Department of Justice.

STRmix, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary of use in live casework, is also in various stages of installation, validation, and training in 51 other U.S. labs.

In five short years, STRmix has moved from being an experimental technology to the broadly accepted norm in cases in which a sophisticated forensic software is required to resolve mixed DNA profiles, says John Buckleton DSc, FRSNZ, Forensic Scientist at the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). Buckleton developed STRmix in collaboration with ESRs Jo-Anne Bright and Duncan Taylor from Forensic Science South Australia (FSSA).

ESR recently launched an upgraded version of STRmix after a full year of technical development and testing. STRmix v2.5 contains a number of new features designed to improve functionality, speed, memory, and ease of use, including: multi-kit functionality, enabling interpretation of DNA profiles from different test kits; a likelihood ratio (LR) batcher tool, allowing users to calculate multiple LRs from multiple reference inputs to a previously run deconvolution; and a combined DNA Index System (CODIS) report.

For more information about STRmix visit http://www.esr.cri.nz/ or http://strmix.esr.cri.nz/.
Erik Skinner Named Vice President of Administrative Services at Sierra College I am very excited to be joining Sierra College, an institution recognized for its quality instruction and deep commitment to student-centered innovation.

The Sierra College Board of Trustees at its December board meeting appointed Erik Skinner as the new Vice President of Administrative Services (VPA). A recognized leader in the California Community Colleges system, Mr. Skinner most recently served as Deputy Chancellor for the California Community Colleges Chancellors Office. At Sierra College, he will provide strategic direction and manage fiscal services, security, facilities, and human resources.

I am very excited to be joining Sierra College, an institution recognized for its quality instruction and deep commitment to student-centered innovation. Erik commented, During my time in the State Chancellors Office, I was impressed with the great work of the faculty, staff, and administrators at Sierra College. Now, I look forward to using my skills and experience to support the colleges ambitious efforts to serve its students and community.

Erik has had an impressive career, working at the forefront of educational reform and serving in a number of important roles. At the State Chancellors Office over the years, he served as Vice Chancellor for College Finance and Facilities Planning and even Acting Chancellor prior to selection of the current Chancellor for the California Community Colleges system. In these roles, he oversaw, among other areas, the Finance, Facilities, Student Services, and Academic Affairs divisions, providing oversight and support to the systems 114 colleges which enroll 2.1 million students.

We are very pleased that Erik is joining the leadership team of Sierra College." Superintendent/President Willy Duncan explained, His depth of knowledge of the community college system and his solid experience leading the fiscal services operations of the Chancellors Office will be of great benefit to the college and the community.

After acquiring a Bachelors degree in history from Grinnell College and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, he worked as a Fiscal and Policy Analyst for the California Legislative Analysts Office (LAO) and as the Assistant Secretary for Fiscal Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Education.

Throughout his impressive career Erik has forged strong working relationships with the Governors Office, the Department of Finance, Legislature, Legislative Analysts Office, and other key stakeholders. He brings strong working partnerships with system stakeholders including the State Academic Senate, the State Student Senate, the Community College League of California, and the Association of Chief Business Officials. Additionally, he has been a passionate advocate to state and national elected officials about the importance of the community college mission, college access, student success, and institutional effectiveness.

With Sierra College leading the state in the movement to further student success and the workforce needs of the 21st century, President Duncan observed, Erik brings the perfect blend of skills, connections, and commitment. I am very much looking forward to having Erik as a part of our team and I believe he will be an enormous asset to Sierra College.

About Sierra College

Sierra College District is rising to meet the needs of our community, serving 3200 square miles of Northern California with campuses in Roseville, Rocklin, Grass Valley and Truckee. With over 120 degree and certificate programs, Sierra College is Northern California's top community college for transfers to four-year universities and offers career/technical training and classes for upgrading job skills. Sierra graduates can be found in businesses and industries throughout the region. More information at http://www.sierracollege.edu.
The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP), an international association dedicated to the leadership and practice of alliance management, partnering, and business collaboration, announced the theme for the 2018 Global Alliance Summit: Propelling Partnering for the On-Demand World: New Perspectives + Proven Practices for Collaborative Business, to be held March 26-28 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. The largest international management education opportunity of its kind, participants have access to the latest trends in the profession from a range of leading industry thought leaders providing groundbreaking talks, practical workshops, and cutting-edge sessions.

The 2018 Summit particularly emphasizes programming for veteran alliance mangers that focuses on how to apply leading edge practices and seasoned know- how at a time of considerable change with increasing multi-industry partnering. The thought leaders representing numerous industry verticals will include influential c-level and senior executives from Fortune 100 and 500 companies.

The Summit will provide a rich mix of:



Fifty-plus facilitators, speakers, and panelists representing 35-plus industry-leading companies, educational institutions, and consultancies

Twenty-eight education sessions and in-conference workshops

Ten-plus hours of business development and networking opportunities

Eight different in-conference tracks

Six pre-conference workshops

A biopharma leadership panel session

The renowned ASAP Alliance Excellence Awards ceremony

Ample networking opportunities and an engaging roundtable session

Strong international participation in past Summits has created a diverse, global, cross-cultural climate with 25 percent attendance from countries such as Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The Summit is offering intensive leadership-related pre-conference workshops Monday, March 26, on topics such as ASAPs newly launched in-house TE-AM Training, another on overcoming obstacles and conflict, leveraging the new ISO 44001 Collaborative Business Relationship Management Standard, Game Theory in strategic decision making and negotiations, Alliance Management 201 as a follow-up to the 101 session, and CA-AM exam preparation.

The event will start off Tuesday, March 27, with a timely keynote address by tech insider Tim Minahan, senior vice president of business strategy and chief marketing officer at Citrix. A leader in global marketing strategy and operations, he is responsible for securely deliver the world's most important apps and data. A tech eclectic, Minahan has served in a broad range of business leadership roles at leading enterprise software, cloud, and services firms. He is particularly adept at defining new markets and positioning companies to own them. He previously spearheaded SAP's successful transition to the cloud as CMO of the company's cloud and line-of-business unit. He joined SAP when the company acquired Ariba, where he was Aribas global CMO and senior vice president of business network strategy where he led the commercial strategy for the Ariba Network, the world's largest and most global business network. He also oversaw the design and execution of go-to-market programs and marketing initiatives to fuel Aribas growth as a leading cloud company.

Before the days close, attendees will be privy to the winners of the ASAP Alliance Excellence Awards, a big favorite as companies are honored for their alliance capabilities in specific categories. The Summit will also highlight four scheduled plenaries from top-level speakers: two from pharma companies, including Mark Noguchi, Roches VP and global head of alliances and asset management; two from high tech companies, including Ross Cobb, global VP of alliances and channels at SAS. The remainder of the Summit will include a wide variety of sessions in eight different tracks that are geared toward enhancing alliance performance, such as the life sciences, tech, and leadership. The Summit will be strongly weighted toward higher-level alliance education, such as how to think strategically and how to drive collaborative leadership throughout an organization. A new, particularly strong leadership panel session will be comprised of biopharma executives David Thompson, CA-AM, CAO at Eli Lilly and Company; Mark Noguchi, VP and global head of alliances and asset management at Roche; Casey Caperelli, head of alliance and integration management at Amgen; Nancy Griffin, CA-AM, VP of alliances with Novartis.

Attendees can expect to receive strong content from recurring Summit rainmakers, such as:



Ben Gomes-Casseres, CSAP, Brandeis University and author of Remix Strategy partnered with Greg McGahan, PwC deals partner and alliances/joint venture practice leader, in their session Alliances in Corporate Development: Back to the Future?

Stuart Kliman, a partner and head of alliance management practice at Vantage Partners with Realizing the Value of Non-Traditional Partnerships in Pharma/Biotech and Technology

Jan Twombly, CSAP, president, The Rhythm of Business, and Jeff Shuman, CSAP, principal, The Rhythm of Business, and professor of management, Bentley University with Joint Development of Complex Solutions Requires Extreme Partnering

Joe Schramm, vice president strategic alliances, BeyondTrust, and Morgan Wheaton, senior director, global partner alliances & channels, JDA Software with Partnering with Change in a World of Ongoing Disruption

Dr. Ard-Pieter de Man, CSAP, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Dr. Dave Luvison, CSAP, Sellinger School of Business and Management, Loyola University Maryland with Building Your Collaborative Business Model

Additionally, a mix of sessions will be providing strategic perspectives and management insights in a range of industries, such as:



Architecting for Transformation: The Next Generation Partner Ecosystem, by Russ Cobb, global vice president alliances and channels, SAS Institute, and Norma Watenpaugh, CSAP, founding principal, Phoenix Consulting Group

How to Optimize Value and Gracefully End Alliance Relationships, by Jeff Hurley, CA-AM, alliance management director, Eli Lilly and Company, and Ron McRae, CSAP, director of alliance management, Janssen Biotech

Alliance Management: A Growing, Enterprise-wide Activity, by Karen Denton, CA-AM, alliance management director, BD&L alliance management, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, and Christoph Huwe, CA-AM, PhD, strategic alliance manager therapeutics, global external innovation & alliances, Bayer Pharmaceuticals

Centralized vs. Decentralized Alliance Organizations: How to Survive and Thrive in Both Ecosystems!, by Tony DeSpirito, CSAP, vice president/general manager of operation services, Schneider Electric, and Scott San Antonio, CA-AM, global director for IoT and edge compute alliances, Schneider Electric

This is a representative selection of whats on the docket. For more information about the Summit keynote, agenda, sessions, workshops, and other programming, go to: http://asapsummit.org/.

About ASAP

The Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals (ASAP) is the only professional association dedicated to elevating and promoting the profession of alliance management, partnerships, and collaboration. Founded in 1998, the organization provides professional development, networking, and resources for cultivating the skills and toolsets needed to manage successful business partnerships. ASAPs professional certifications include the Certificate of Achievement-Alliance Management (CA-AM) and Certified Strategic Alliance Professional (CSAP). Active global members include Astellas, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Cisco, Citrix, Covance, Eli Lilly and Company, HealthCore, Huawei, IBM, JanssenPharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, JDA, Merck, Microsoft, Mission Pharmacal, NetApp, Novartis, Plantronics, Salesforce, Sanofi, SAS, Schneider Electric, Takeda, The Warren Company, and Xerox. A complete list of global members is available at http://www.strategic-alliances.org.
NewAir G56 Portable Electric Garage Heater | 800 sq. ft. Heating | 240v "Electric garage heater options are a much better bet than propane or other combustible heat sources because they dont need venting. Theyre also a lot safer because there are no fumes to worry about. Were proud that the G73 is the safest garage heater on the market."

NewAir is helping home and business owners heat things up for winter with two electric garage heater options for warming unconditioned spaces. The NewAir G56 and the NewAir G73 allow users to bring heat into outdoor workshops, sheds and a two-car garage at the touch of a button.

"Our compact garage heaters are easy to use and heat a large space quickly," said Andrew Stephenson, Director of Product Marketing at NewAir. "Installing a garage heater with a hanging bracket is a snap, but we also have a fully portable option for anyone who prefers to keep their heater on the floor instead of mounting it to the ceiling or wall."

The NewAir G56 comes with a handle to carry it anywhere and cord storage to keep things neat. It features a steel body appropriate for light industrial use and a manual thermostat. The heater warms up to 800 square feet of space using 5,600 watts of power.

For a more permanent installation, Stephenson recommends the hardwired NewAir G73 instead. "Weve added a swivel bracket thats easy to install directly to a wall or the ceiling. Youll be able to hang the heater anywhere and then adjust its position to aim the warmth right where you need it," said Stephenson.

Both 240v garage heaters are UL-certified for safety. "Electric garage heater options are a much better bet than propane or other combustible heat sources because they dont need venting," said Stephenson. "Theyre also a lot safer because there are no fumes to worry about. Were proud that the G73 is the safest garage heater on the market."

About NewAir Appliances

California-based NewAir Appliances is a family-owned manufacturer and distributor of luxury compact home appliances, including everything from beverage coolers to portable laundry solutions. Their wide range of products is carried by the largest retailers in North America, and NewAir is dedicated to exceptional customer service at their responsive in-house call center. NewAir's focus on value and quality over the past 15 years makes them one of the most trusted names in home appliances. See all of their products at http://www.newair.com.

Follow NewAir Appliances on Facebook

Tweet us @NewAirUSA

Follow us on Instagram @NewAirUSA

Watch us on YouTube

Media Contact & Products Samples: Andrew Stephenson, Director, Product Marketing

Email: press(at)newair.com

Tel.: (657) 257-4326

Website: http://www.newair.com
Today, Oxford Dictionaries announces youthquake as its Word of the Year for 2017.

2017 has been, without doubt, a year of seismic cultural, political, and social shifts played out across the globe. But it was the so-called political awakening of the oft-maligned millennial generation which generated the word of 2017.

Announced as the chosen word in a blog post and video, youthquake saw an almost fivefold (401%) increase in usage between 2016 and 2017, following the British general election where much debate focused on the mobilization of young voters in supporting opposition parties. Aftershocks have been felt across the world, including in New Zealand and in France, and whether or not they experienced a youthquake, the word certainly highlights the increased awareness of young peoples capacity to influence, and even drive, political change.

However, despite so aptly capturing the mood of 2017, youthquake is not a new word but rather one that is newly prominent this year and being used in different contexts. Based on the formation of the word earthquake and originally coined in the 1960s by then-Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland, to describe how British youth culture was changing the worlds fashion and music, youthquake was resurrected this year to be used in a new context.

Youthquake may not seem like the most obvious choice for Word of the Year, and its true that its yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the UK calls it out as a word on the move, says Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Dictionaries. In a dedicated blog post, Grathwohl notes, We chose youthquake based on its evidence and linguistic interest. But most importantly for me, at a time when our language is reflecting our deepening unrest and exhausted nerves, it is a rare political word that sounds a hopeful note. Sometimes you pick a word as the Word of the Year because you recognize that it has arrived, but other times you pick one that is knocking at the door and you want to help usher it in.. This past year calls for a word we can all rally behind.

Susie Dent, consultant to Oxford Dictionaries, said: Theres not a lot of sunshine in the standout words this year. Words like Antifa, and kompromat speak to fractured times of mistrust and frustration. In youthquake we find some hope in the power to change things, and had a little bit of linguistic fun along the way. It feels like the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year.

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a word or expression chosen to reflect the passing year in language. Every year, the Oxford Dictionaries team debates over a selection of candidates for Word of the Year, choosing the one that best captures the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year. This years Word of the Year, shortlist, and other significant words from 2017 will be discussed in a Channel 4 documentary, airing on UK television at 6pm GMT on Saturday 16 December.

The Word of the Year shortlist

The Word of the Year (youthquake) and the accompanying shortlist have been selected as they reflect the social, cultural, political, and economic trends and events that have been a part of 2017. The list includes words that have been coined this year as well as older words that have taken on new meaning or have particular resonance in 2017.

In alphabetical order, the shortlisted words for the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2017 are:

Antifa noun

A political protest movement comprising autonomous groups affiliated by their militant opposition to fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing ideology

Antifa is a shortening of anti-fascist and has morphed over time to become a proper noun used to refer to an extreme anti-fascist movement. Originally a loan word from German with usage dating back to WWII, Antifa is only becoming widely used in English now and its pronunciation and grammar are still very much in flux. Our current definition uses a capital letter and gives two pronunciation forms: primary stress can either go on the first syllable (as it would for the word antifascist) or on the second syllable as with Spanish words like tortilla. Use of the word skyrocketed following high-profile protest movements across the world this year and it looks set to become a permanent part of our current political lexicon.

broflake noun

informal, derogatory

A man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his more conventional or conservative views

Lexically, broflake combines two prominent trends in 21st century English lexical innovation: the appropriation of terminology from ones political opponents and the popularity of compounds using man- and bro- to refer to male behaviour and characteristics. Spawned by the growing derogatory use of snowflake to refer to an overly sensitive or easily offended person, progressive activists reversed this by combining the -flake from snowflake with bro-to target behaviour regarded as emblematic of male privilege and anti-feminism.

Widely used to deride conservative figures when they revealed their own sensitivities around issues such as female-only spaces and challenge the idea of the male experience as a default, broflake was being used in social media by late 2016 but appeared for the first time in mainstream sources this year and is now spreading to social media in non-English languages. It is a word that not only emerged in 2017 but truly captures some of the most hotly debated issues underpinning it.

gorpcore noun

A style of dress incorporating utilitarian clothing of a type worn for outdoor activities

A 2017 fashion trend, the word gorpcore was created by combining gorp, an American term for trail mix and frequently thought to be an acronym for good old raisins and peanuts (although this is unsubstantiated), with the suffix -core taken from normcore. It refers to a trend for functional outdoor clothing worn for fashion, rather than for practical reasons.

Popular with fashion commentators in 2017, gorpcore was celebrated for capturing an idealism in the outdoorswithout its wearers necessarily having to directly interact with anything more wild than the leafy suburbsas well as bringing comfort to the upper reaches of designer fashion.

kompromat noun

Compromising information collected for use in blackmailing, discrediting, or manipulating someone, typically for political purposes

A loanword from Russian, kompromat is a blended abbreviation of the phrase komprometirujuscij material (compromising material), which is ultimately derived from those English words, making this a sort of boomerang loanword, in which an English word is adopted into a foreign language, changed and remixed, and then borrowed back.

Kompromat hit the headlines at several points throughout 2017 following high profile accusations against politicians across the world and shadowy suggestions of secret dossiers. The prevalence of kompromat this year underlines the global nature of our political interchange as well as our free flow of language between different countries and cultures.

Milkshake Duck noun

A person or thing that initially inspires delight on social media but is soon revealed to have a distasteful or repugnant past

Imagine a milkshake-drinking duck. Beloved of the online community for its innocent and adorable milkshake-drinking antics. Cute, right? But then you find out that this duck is actually a rampaging racist Voila, the quintessential Milkshake Duck!

Originating in the Twittersphere in 2016, Milkshake Duck has become a way to refer to any person or thing that gains fleeting popularity for something seemingly pleasing, only for a deeper exploration to reveal unfortunate truths about their past or opinions, typically a connection to or history of some form of bigotry. It saw a spike in usage in June 2017 following some unfortunate revelations about a popular game developer.

newsjacking noun

The practice of taking advantage of current events or news stories in such a way as to promote or advertise ones product or brand

Remember when La La Land was named Best Picture instead of Moonlight? And remember how Specsavers jumped straight on that meme band wagon? The internet loved it  a perfect example of how newsjacking came to the fore this year.

The term itself originates from the 1970s where it was used in reference to the theft of newspapers in order to sell them to scrap dealers. The current usage has been around throughout the early 21st century and the technique utilized by savvy marketers for years. The strength of feelings around the themes and stories that were the focus of this years newsjacking campaigns and the support or backlash they inspired ensured that newsjacking took a slot on this years Word of the Year shortlist.

unicorn adjective [attributive]

Denoting something, especially an item of food or drink, that is dyed in rainbow colours, decorated with glitter, etc.

The rainbowfication of the worlds foodstuffs has been on our radar (and Instagram feeds) since 2016 but peaked this year with the launch of a Unicorn Frappuccino by Starbucks in April. Bringing the trend fully into the mainstream, 2017 will go down in history as the year that we all had our fill of unicorn lattes, unicorn bagels, and even, unicorn grilled cheese

white fragility noun

Discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice

Coined in a 2011 journal article by the US academic and educator Robin DiAngelo, white fragility reached the mainstream this year as questions of racial equality ran close to the surface of debate across the world. With evidence for the terms use particularly strong in university newspapers, white fragility encapsulates a key undercurrent of political and cultural debate in 2017 and could not be overlooked for this years Word of the Year shortlist.

Notes for Editors and Frequently Asked Questions

SOCIAL MEDIA

Blog: OxfordWords | Twitter: @OxfordWords & @OED & #wordoftheyear | Facebook: Oxford Dictionaries

MEDIA PACK

We have data visuals, images, and a video which can be used on request. Please email ella.percival@oup.com or call 01865 35 35 61.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Is youthquake in an Oxford dictionary?

Yes, this definition of youthquake was added to OxfordDictionaries.com very recently. However, youthquake has been in the OED with its previous definition for several years.

What is the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year (WOTY)?

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a word, or expression, that we can see has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date. Every year, candidates for Word of the Year are debated and one is eventually chosen that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of that particular year and to have lasting potential as a word of cultural significance. The Word of the Year selection is made irrespective of whether the candidates are already included in an Oxford dictionary, and selection does not guarantee future inclusion. The names of people, places, or events are not suitable as Words of the Year.

Does the Word of the Year have to be a new word?

The Word of the Year need not have been coined within the past twelve months but it does need to have become prominent or notable during that time.

How is the Word of the Year chosen?

Many of the candidates for the Word of the Year are drawn from our language research programme and the Oxford English Corpus, which collects around 150 million words of current English each month from newspapers, books, blogs, and transcripts of spoken English. Sophisticated software allows our expert lexicographers to identify new and emerging words on and examine the shifts in how more established words are being used.

Dictionary editors will also flag notable words for consideration throughout the year and use other sources of data to identify contenders. We regularly take into account the many suggestions sent to us via social media and in the comments on our blog.

The final Word of the Year selection is made by the Oxford Dictionaries team on the basis of all the information available to us.

Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year in the US and the UK

Oxford Dictionaries has editorial staff based in the UK and in the US. Over the years, the UK and US dictionary teams have often chosen different Words of the Year. Each countrys vocabulary develops in different ways, according to what is happening culturally and in the news, and as such the Words of the Year can be different. Sometimes, a word captures the imagination on both sides of the Atlantic and can therefore be considered as a joint Word of the Year.

Which words have been selected as Word of the Year in recent years?

Year Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year

2013 selfie

2014 vape

2015 (Face With Tears of Joy emoji)

2016 post-truth

2017 youthquake

Is this the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Word of the Year?

OED editors are involved in the Word of the Year selection team, but the Word of the Year is not exclusively chosen by the OED editors. Oxford University Press publishes many dictionaries around the world, including the OED, and the Word of the Year is selected by a group representing both the OED and OxfordDictionaries.com. Find out more about the main differences between the OED and OxfordDictionaries.com, or about Oxford University Press.

About Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. It currently publishes thousands of new publications a year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs some 6,000 people worldwide.

It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing programme that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, children's books, materials for teaching English as a foreign language, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals.

# # #
Kith and Kith Treats at Americana Manhasset

J.Mendel

From fur and ready-to-wear to accessories and even a sprinkling of bridal, J.Mendel returns to Americana Manhasset with a brand new boutique showcasing the full evolution of the brand. From shimmering lace dresses and glamorous leopard print coats to Haute Couture gowns and awe-inspiring furs, wearing a J.Mendel design is an experience like no other. Look for J.Mendel, open through the winter season, on the north side of the Americana, adjacent to Cartier and Salvatore Ferragamo.

James Perse

The king of casual sportswear has planted his flag at Americana Manhasset. James Perse offers a well-edited selection of high quality basics for men and women, as well as travel-friendly accessories, including bags and shoes, and cozy home pieces. Our Perse boutique offers a luxe, minimalist feel  the perfect complement to the neutral-colored classics that work from weekday into weekend. We invite you to discover the soft V-neck tees, breathable black button downs and comfy grey cotton pants! Find the boutique between Bluemercury and Zimmermann.

Kith and Kith Treats

Kith and Kith Treats have arrived! The sought after New York brand has partnered with Hirshleifers to launch a permanent shop-in-shop housed within the MRKT space. As with all of Kiths shops, this new space was designed in conjunction with Snarkitecture and retains the brands key visual aesthetic. Materials such as marble, glass and stainless steel decorate the interior, while Kith neon signs act as a beacon to customers. The shop-in-shop is housed within a rounded glass fin wall, which allows shoppers to see inside from the exterior. Kiths cereal bar extension, Kith Treats, also resides within the space, and features a retractable door emblazoned with vintage cereal box graphics. In classic Kith fashion, an array of casted Air Jordan 7s surround the perimeter. The new shop stocks all of Kiths latest apparel and footwear releases for men, women and kids.

Philipp Plein

Merging the worlds of rock n roll with an abashedly luxurious lifestyle, Philipp Pleins debut at Americana continues the designers desire to create a presence in centers of luxury. The German-born, Swiss-based designers second New York boutique  his first on Long Island  is quintessentially dark, flashy and trendsetting. A large black skull studded with tens of thousands of Swarovski crystals anchors the entrance while the entire store is covered in plush wall-to-wall black carpeting with high-shine fixtures, textured displays and furniture with accents of hexagonal shapes. The boutique offers the full line of mens and womens wear, accessories, handbags, shoes, and jewelry. Look for Philipp Plein next to David Yurman and the Hirshleifers Shoe Salon.

Roberto Cavalli

Americana Manhasset has also welcomed Roberto Cavalli this season. As Long Islands only destination for the luxury Italian fashion label, the store carries the brands womens and mens wear lines, as well as home, eyewear and accessories all under one roof. Now under the creative direction of British designer Paul Surridge, an expanded offering of sensual yet elegant daywear has arrived, beautifully complementing the scintillating evening wear the Florentine fashion house in renowned for. Find Roberto Cavalli adjacent to Burberry and Fendi.

We invite you to visit our newest boutique additions, as well as our collection of 60 fine shops including Hermes, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Cartier, Ermenegildo Zegna, Van Cleef and Arpels, Bottega Veneta, Hirshleifers, Ralph Lauren, London Jewelers, Tesla and more, all within a unique outdoor environment designed by renowned architect Peter Marino and landscape designer Oehme van Sweden. Americana Manhasset offers a complimentary Personal Shopping Service, a remarkable luxury fashion and gift resource. Located on Long Islands beautiful North Shore, Americana Manhasset is 20 miles from Manhattan and 50 miles from the Hamptons.

For more information, please visit http://www.americanamanhasset.com. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at @americanashops. Like us on Facebook and check us out on YouTube.
We are proud of the work that our teams are doing at each of our hospitals to provide exceptional and safe care to our patients," said Dr. Robin McGuinness, Senior Executive Officer of Patient Outcomes, Florida Hospital, West Florida Division.

Florida Hospital locations in Hardee, Highlands, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties were all awarded top scores for patient safety and quality from the prestigious Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit health care ratings organization. The Leapfrog Group also named Florida Hospital Carrollwood and Florida Hospital North Pinellas as Top General Hospitals, two of only 45 hospitals in the U.S. to receive this designation. In addition, Florida Hospital Wauchula was named Top Rural Hospital, one of only 18 hospitals in the country to receive that recognition.

The award for Top General Hospital and Top Rural Hospital assures patients they are at a hospital with better systems in place to prevent medication errors, higher quality on maternity care and high-risk procedures, and lower readmission rates.

The Top Hospital award highlights American hospitals that are providing the highest quality of care to their patients, said Leah Binder, president and CEO of the Leapfrog Group. Were encouraged to see hospitals across the country and within diverse communities earn this distinction. All patients, no matter who they are and where they are, deserve access to this level of care, and its our hope that all hospitals strive to better serve their local communities.

Hospitals do not have to participate in this survey, but Florida Hospital chose to voluntarily submit data as a commitment to be transparent with patients and educate them on the quality and safety of the hospital. According to the Leapfrog Group, patients should be concerned if their local hospital does not participate in the survey.

We are proud of the work that our teams are doing at each of our hospitals to provide exceptional and safe care to our patients," said Dr. Robin McGuinness, Senior Executive Officer of Patient Outcomes, Florida Hospital, West Florida Division. We will continue on this journey of patient safety and will work to follow the guidance that The Leapfrog Group sets as the standard for safe practices,said McGuinness.

The Leapfrog Group also released its 2017 Hospital Safety Grades and seven hospitals that participate in the survey in the Florida Hospital West Florida Division received top scores of A or B. Leapfrog, through the safety grade results, assigns a letter grade of A, B, C, D or F to hospitals nationwide based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harms.

The grades for the Florida Hospital West Florida Division are as follows: Florida Hospital Carrollwood - A, Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Lake Placid  A, Florida Hospital North Pinellas  A, Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel  A, Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Sebring  B, Florida Hospital Tampa  B, Florida Hospital Zephyrhills  B .

Florida Hospital is committed to delivering compassionate, inspired health care by the very best medical experts using the most advanced medical equipment, said Mike Schultz,

President and CEO, Florida Hospital West Florida Division, and that commitment to the very best care shows in this national recognition, which would not be possible without an entire team dedicated to achieving this award.

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. The scores are calculated by top patient safety experts, peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.

The Leapfrog Top General Hospital award is widely acknowledged as one of the most competitive honors American hospitals can receive. To qualify for the Top Hospitals distinction, hospitals must voluntarily submit a Leapfrog Hospital Survey. The selection of Top Hospitals 2017 is based on surveys from nearly 1,900 hospitals. To see the full list of institutions honored as 2017 Top Hospitals, visit http://www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.

About Florida Hospital, West Florida Division of Adventist Health System

Florida Hospital, the West Florida Division of Adventist Health System, is a not-for-profit 1,295-bed hospital system composed of 9 hospitals including, Florida Hospital Carrollwood, Florida Hospital at Connerton Long Term Acute Care, Florida Hospital North Pinellas, Florida Hospital Tampa/Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute, Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel, Florida Hospital Zephyrhills, Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center Sebring, Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center Lake Placid and Florida Hospital Wauchula. It also includes a free-standing ER in Palm Harbor. Part of the Adventist Health System, Florida Hospital is a leading health network comprised of 26 hospitals throughout the state. For more information, visit FloridaHospital.com

About The Leapfrog Group

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, 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.
LeJeune Family Dentistry 1130 Big Bethel Rd Hampton, VA 23666 I want to do my part. The Marines are leading the way in showing us that something can be done about it

Dr. Barry LeJeune joined the U.S. Marines in an all out campaign to attack poverty and illiteracy in our own society through the U.S. Marine Toys for Tots Literacy Program. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty over 16 Million children in the United States live below the federal poverty level. Dr. Barry LeJeune was quoted as saying, Something should be done about this!

During a special event and banquet honoring the U.S. Marines, the Toys for Tots Program and the Toys for Tots Literacy Program were also recognized.

During the event presentation, Captain Joseph Draeger of the U.S. Marines said, Through the gift of a book we can provide the tools needed to help break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time. Dr. Barry LeJeune said that his colleagues all agreed to support this program, and during the event they raised enough money to help over ten thousand disadvantaged families in the United States.

Dr. Barry LeJeune said, I want to do my part. The Marines are leading the way in showing us that something can be done about it; something can be done about poverty and illiteracy.

ABOUT TOTS FOR TOTS In 1947, after WWII, Toys for Tots began in Los Angeles when Major Bill Hendricks and a group of Marine Reservist collected and distributed 5000 Toys to needy children. Then, in 2008, the Toys for Tots Literacy Program was launched. Companies such as The UPS Store, Hasbro, Toys R Us, The Walt Disney Company and many more all joined the fight in supporting the Toys for Tots Literacy Campaign.

Marine Toys for Tots Foundation

https://www.toysfortots.org

Contact Sgt Jones for further details at:

TOYSFORTOTSVABEACH(at)GMAIL.COM

Make a donation to Toys For Tots:

https://donate.toysfortots.org/donate/forms/events/Default.aspx

ABOUT LEJEUNE FAMILY DENTISTRY With a focus on creating overall wellness through preventive dentistry, Dr. Barry LeJeune can give you and your family the healthy and beautiful smiles that you deserve. Since 1993, our dentist and exceptional dental team have been providing excellent dentistry in Hampton, Virginia, and the nearby communities of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, New Kent, and Jamestown, Virginia. We invite you to contact our office today to schedule your next appointment. We look forward to helping you establish a healthy life and smile!

LeJeune Family Dentistry

1130 Big Bethel Rd

Hampton, VA 23666

757-827-9114

admin(at)lejeunedentistry.com

https://www.lejeunedentistry.com

https://www.facebook.com/lejeunedentistry/

https://twitter.com/LeJeuneDentist

https://plus.google.com/u/0/111387023269850097759
from left to right: UBCF Program Manager Mrs. Jamie Newberry, Applicant Ms. Pamala B, Tempur+Sealy's Ms. Lauren Alvarez and Good360's Ms. Kaitlin Fitzgerald UBCF serviced nearly 100 breast cancer patients and survivors at the event. Applicants attended the event with spouses, loved-ones, children and friends. UBCFs Disaster Relief event impacted more than 240 people, including nearly 60 children 18 and under.

The United Breast Cancer Foundation (UBCF) hosted its first disaster relief event for breast cancer patients and survivors on December 9, 2017 in Doral, Florida. High-quality donated items were provided to women, men and children affected by breast cancer and the recent natural disasters in Florida, including Hurricane Irma. Throughout the course of the day, UBCF distributed over $1.1 million in donated Tempur-Pedic mattresses and other goods.

UBCF has a long-standing partnership with Good360 and Tempur+Sealy. This partnership enables UBCF to receive donated Tempur-Pedic mattresses. UBCF then distributes the beautiful mattresses to women, men and children directly impacted by breast cancer. Ms. Kaitlin Fitzgerald from Good360 and Ms. Laura Alvarez from Tempur+Sealy were both in attendance and volunteered during the event.

Many other products were provided to event participants, including household items, small appliances, personal care products, clothing and baby items generously donated by Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby. Other donors include: Keurig, Nike, Burts Bees, First Aid Beauty and The Honest Company. The majority of UBCF's clients come from low-income households. For many, purchasing basic necessities is challenging. A new mattress and household goods are luxuries many simply cannot afford but desperately need. The added stress of rebuilding after a natural disaster makes these purchases even more difficult and yet much more important.

UBCF serviced nearly 100 breast cancer patients and survivors at the event. Applicants attended the event with spouses, loved-ones, children and friends. UBCFs Disaster Relief event impacted more than 240 people, including nearly 60 children 18 and under.

Dana, a 32 year old breast cancer survivor, shared a very heart-felt thank you immediately after the event. Let me first begin with my tremendous gratitude for the extremely generous donations and work you did for me and so many other breast cancer patients, survivors and their families today. You sent us home with not only a brand new Tempur-pedic mattress, but also new king pillows, pillow cases, curtains and beauty bags for other young women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. My life changed forever when, at the age of 30, I was diagnosed with stage 2 IDC breast cancer. Soon after my bilateral mastectomy I began experiencing extreme discomfort when trying to sleep. For nearly two years, my sleep has steadily declined to the point of insomnia. My doctor recommended many times a new mattress, which we could not afford. When I received information about your program, I felt my needs and pain had finally been answered. Today, laying on my new mattress, I felt like my body melted. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your kindness. I was overcome with joy and emotion today and I will be forever grateful. Thank you for all you do to help women with breast cancer!

Upon reading Danas words, UBCF Executive Director, Ms. Stephanie Mastroianni had this to say, My heart was deeply touched by Danas message  this is the very reason we do the work we do. My entire team felt the incredible impact of what we all worked so hard to achieve this past Saturday. While our work is challenging, clients like Dana make our efforts well worth it."

UBCF extends great thanks to Good360, Tempur+Sealy, Bed Bath & Beyond, Buy Buy Baby, CustomSpace Miami warehousing and all the wonderful volunteers who assisted event participants and Team UBCF throughout the day-long event.

Background on UBCF

UBCF is committed to offering breast health and wellness services focused on cancer prevention, screening, treatment and overall wellness. UBCFs mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of those affected by breast cancer and carries it out through seven life-supporting patient and family programs available to women, men and families nation-wide. UBCF never denies services to anyone regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, income or medical insurance coverage. If you are in need of breast health services, please visit ubcf.org or call toll-free, 877-822-4287. Tax-deductible contributions may be made towards UBCFs programs. UBCF accepts vehicle and property donations as well. Contributions may be mailed to UBCF, P.O. Box 2421, Huntington, NY 11743, or donate through the Combined Federal Campaign, #77934.
RightMesh targets an opportunity for economic inclusion as the team brings a developed mesh network technology into emerging markets to provide connectivity

RIghtMesh has added blockchain, cryptocurrency and traditional VC expertise to its Executive Team with the appointment of Alyse Killeen as a long term Executive Strategic Consultant to its parent company, Left. Alyses support adds to RightMeshs powerhouse executive team of scientists, engineers, PhDs and business experts as they prepare for their upcoming MESH Token Generation Event (TGE) in January 2018. As a strong advocate of decentralization, Alyse is values-aligned to help guide RightMesh in its mission to bring connectivity to the next billion users globally.

Alyse Killeen, Managing Partner of StillMark Co. and StillMark Capital, is a venture capitalist and one of the very first traditional venture investors to participate as an investor and advisor in blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems. She delved into incentivized software-based networks as early as 2013 and was an Advisory Board Member and Chairperson to one of the very first companies ever to host a token generation event.

With a background in traditional VC investments as well as early experience with TGE projects, Killeen has broad and deep insights into best practices for token sales and distributions.

"RightMesh targets an opportunity for economic inclusion as the team brings a developed mesh network technology into emerging markets to provide connectivity, incentivizing and rewarding the related network effect of the RightMesh software via a smart token economy, said Killeen. The prospect of new access to tools and a global economy specifically for communities within the bottom half of the socio-economic pyramid was one of the initial catalysts of my interest and commitment to decentralized blockchain technology; a collaboration with Left.io on RightMesh is in natural alignment with my own aspirations for a more inclusive world."

CEO John Lyotier said, The goal for our token sale is to follow the best practices agreed upon by the crypto community and adhere to the highest standards for token distribution. We believe Alyse Killeens experience and knowledge of the traditional investment world, combined with her expertise in the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem, will be invaluable as we embark on changing the world together.

To learn more about RightMeshs upcoming 2018 token sale, or the team behind it, please visit: https://www.rightmesh.io/about/team/

To schedule an interview, please contact Nikki Brown at Melrose PR; nikki(at)melrosepr(dot)com or call (310) 260-7901.

About RightMesh

RightMesh, incubated by multi-award winning parent company Left, is on a mission to bring connectivity to the next billion users using the combined power of blockchain, mesh networking and its own MESH tokens. RightMesh wireless networks are self-forming, self-healing, and self-regulating, using various technologies in existing smartphones and IoT devices rather than relying on traditional infrastructure and Internet Service Providers. RightMeshs networking technology is already used in a content-sharing and local messaging app called YO! which has received over 1 million installs and is actively used in emerging markets. At home in Canada, RightMesh is supporting a community-led initiative to bring connectivity to the remote community of Rigolet by mesh enabling the enuk app.
ANDREW RAYEL - Moments Remixes E.P. (inHarmony Music) Like a gust of blustery wintry wind, the MOMENTS REMIXES E.P. is like an unstoppable force of nature, impossible to ignore.

Sizzling. Decisive. All-encompassing. The music of Andrew Rayel has the power to ignite a fire within the hearts of trance music-lovers. As the newly minted label chief and head of A&R of inHarmony Music, Rayel is now able to find and showcase fresh new talent before now little known to the world. The MOMENTS REMIXES E.P. (inHarmony Music) is out now.

Like a gust of blustery wintry wind, the MOMENTS REMIXES E.P. is like an unstoppable force of nature, impossible to ignore. Spencer Browns Hypnotic Extended Mix of Moments is quirky, thoughtful and perfectly balanced with its staccato stabs and gradually building suspense. Unexpected chord changes add a bright twist to this Andrew Rayel tune. Spencer Browns Hypnotic Mix is smoother, gentler in its melodic immersion yet still showcasing captivating chord progressions. The Crystal Lake Remix of Heavy Love casts an entirely new light on this otherwise radio-friendly tune by ratcheting-up the sonic tension of the song. The dramatic accompaniment of violins throws Kye Sones vocal into stark relief. Her voice is transformed to fit this mainfloor monster as it bursts forth through the loudspeakers. The Crystal Lake Extended Remix has a brutally sharp, percussive intro that delves deep with rich violin strings into a mysterious sea where Sones golden voice is the only lifeline.

The Manse Extended Remix of Home teases Jonathan Mendelsohns vocal towards the beginning of the track before doubling back to start the verse anew. A syncopated, finger-snapped rhythm keeps time with Mendelsohn as he dances deftly through this anthemic song. The Manse Remix adds the crackle of a vinyl record as Mendelsohns vocal hits immediately at the outset. The quieter moments of the Manse edits truly allow the subtle control of Mendelsohns voice to shine. The Exis Remix is a thudding, progressive take on Once In A Lifetime Love with pockets of dreamy synths enveloping Kristina Antunas vocal over filthy, synthesized horns ready to stir-up a night of mischief. The Exis Extended Remix is dynamic, geometric and angular in the precision of its sounds.

Tracklist for MOMENTS REMIXES

Andrew Rayel, Moments (Spencer Brown's Hypnotic Mix)

Andrew Rayel, Moments (Spencer Brown's Hypnotic Extended Mix)

Andrew Rayel & Max Vangeli ft Kye Sones, Heavy Love (Crystal Lake Remix)

Andrew Rayel & Max Vangeli ft Kye Sones, Heavy Love (Crystal Lake Extended Remix)

Andrew Rayel ft Jonathan Mendelsohn, Home (Manse Remix)

Andrew Rayel ft Jonathan Mendelsohn, Home (Manse Extended Remix)

Andrew Rayel ft Kristina Antuna, Once In A Lifetime Love (Exis Remix)

Andrew Rayel ft Kristina Antuna, Once In A Lifetime Love (Exis Extended Remix)

About Andrew Rayel

Hailed by Armin van Buuren as the future of trance music, Andrew Rayel (real name: Andrei Rata) is a classically trained electronic dance music DJ and producer from Moldova often referred to as the modern-day Mozart. As a DJ, Rayel exudes an unbridled enthusiasm for the music he plays and his onstage performances are electric and filled with physical energy. Drenched in a well-earned sweat after every set, Rayel earns his position as a bandleader, stirring up his crowds passion as much with his music selection as with his bodily vigor. He has DJd the worlds biggest festivals, including: Ultra Music Festival in Miami, TomorrowLand in Belgium and TomorrowWorld in Atlanta, Stereosonic in Australia, Global Gathering in the UK and other countries, Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, Electric Zoo in New York, Transmission Festival in various countries, Ministry of Sound in the UK, Dreamstate in San Bernardino, Electronic Family in Amsterdam, Zoukout in Singapore and Together Festival in Thailand. Rayel is a regular on the lineup at various ASOT stages around the world. Nightclub residencies have him performing onstage at super-clubs, including: Marquee Nightclub & Dayclub in Las Vegas, Marquee and LAVO in New York, Ushuaia Beach Club in Ibiza, Zouk in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Escape in Amsterdam and Ministry of Sound in London.

About inHarmony Music

Launched in September, 2017, inHarmony Music is the record label headed by Andrew Rayel and distributed by Armada Music. As label chief and head of A&R for inHarmony Music, Rayel is the key decision-maker when it comes to signing new artists and music. Fulfilling a lifelong dream while on his never-ending career quest, Rayel is now able to do for new artists what Armin van Buuren did for Rayel years ago. The circle is complete and there will be an abundant supply of lovingly curated new music ahead.

Listen to Andrew Rayels MOMENTS REMIXES E.P., here: https://IHM006.lnk.to/MREP1MA

For information on Andrew Rayel, David Gravell, Mark Sixma, Fatum, MaRLo, Ryan Farish, NOA | AON (Pavel Stuchlik), Maro Music (Marek Walaszek), Paul Damixie, NativeOrigin303, NIK:11 and artists like Armin van Buuren, contact EMILY TAN Media Relations (U.S.), +1(917) 318-3758, EmilyEmilyTan@aol.com. Follow EMILY TAN Media Relations on Twitter @EmilyEmilyTan and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/emily-tan/4/342/70b.

# # #
Award-winning author and publisher Barry M. Koplen released his latest historical book, Why The Last Capitol of The Confederacy Became A Capital Attraction, in May of this last summer. The book depicts the revival of the historical downtown of Danville, Virginia as seen through the eyes of the men and women who made that possible. Long considered dead, Danvilles downtown has experienced a resurgence that rivals that of many southern cities, even larger ones, because of its wealth of structures that have provided block after block of living history. During the eighteen months spent writing Why The Last Capital Of The Confederacy Became A Capital Attraction, Koplen has tracked Danvilles resurgence in ways that explain why the population of the downtown has gone from near zero to more than 1400 residents. The book was met with rave reviews from readers across the country immediately after its release:

"What a exceptionally told story of a historical citys history and recent resurgence, with great illustrations! Koplen really captures the vitality that has become an irresistible feature of historical downtown Danville!" Julie Benson - Denver, CO

Reading Why the Last Capitol of the Confederacy Became A Capitol Attraction' is like a Ken Burns adventure into an epic story of grandeur. The people involved come alive with Mr. Koplen's narration and rich pictures. When he takes you into an antebellum building, the imagination jumps. The future leaps from the pages as you look & 'listen' to the men & women responsible for Danville's transformation. A fascinating and fun read! John Andrews  Los Angeles, CA

"This book is a great read and a joy to roam through. Koplen takes us through the countless phases of Danvilles history and prominence, and which can also be seen as a microcosm as the trajectory of most American historical cities. - Edward Hasgard  Westfield, MA

The Best of Los Angeles Award community was formed three years ago and consists of over 3,700 professional members living and working in Southern California. It celebrates the best people, places and things in Los Angeles with a slogan No Ads. No B.S. Only the Best.

The mission of the community is to celebrate the best of Los Angeles, and allow its community members to connect with other members who share the highest standards of quality and integrity, said DeRose.

"I am honored to receive this award from the Best of Los Angeles," says Koplen. "I worked hard to write an interesting and informative book on the complex resurgence of one of the most historical and unique places in our country."

To learn more about Barry M. Koplen and his work, visit his book's Facebook page.
Gerling Law attorney Jesse Poag, who focuses solely on Social Security disability insurance claims, is celebrating his fifteenth anniversary practicing law. I enjoy the work because the benefits often completely change the lives of clients, said Poag, who has handled approximately 3,000 cases. I have many clients that go from dire circumstances, homelessness, living without electricity, etc. It allows me to help struggling people achieve some dignity and support themselves.

Poag attended the University of Southern Indiana, and later received his J.D. from the Southern Illinois University. He started his career in a general practice law firm, where he handled a wide variety of cases, then moved on to corporate law, gaining relevant experience in the workings of the corporate arena. However, his passion lies in helping to preserve the legal and financial rights of those unable to work due to disability.

These are insurance benefits that they have paid for and are being denied through a process which can seem overwhelming, noted Poag. I take satisfaction in helping right a wrong that the client otherwise may have given up on.

Poag is a member of the Indiana State Bar Association, American Bar Association, and National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives. He is also a dedicated athlete, recently completing Ironman Florida, Poags third triathlon and first Ironman distance.

About Gerling Law

For over five decades, Gerling Law has pursued justice and fair compensation for people who have been injured by someones actions or neglect, along with people who can no longer support themselves because of an illness or injury. Practice areas include personal injury, medical malpractice and Social Security disability. Gerling Law has four locations: 519 Main Street, Evansville, IN 47708; 120 East Market Street, Suite 1271, Indianapolis, IN 46204; 4965 U.S. Highway 42, Suite 1000, Louisville, KY 40222; and 2645 Frederica Street, Suite 200-A, Owensboro, KY 42301. For more information, please call (888) 437-5464, or visit http://www.gerlinglaw.com.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. The information and content in this article are not in conjunction with the views of the NALA. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
David S. Steingold, co-founder of The Steingold & Dwyer Law Group, recently filed a motion on behalf of his client accused of operating an illegal marijuana grow operation to enjoin the prosecution. The case (Case No. 2:17-cr-20135-DML-APP-1, currently pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division) stems from a combined task force of DEA agents and local officials raiding the defendants house in Redford, Michigan, and finding his marijuana plants.

However, according to court documents, the defendant was compliant, or arguably compliant, with the Michigan Medical Marijuana laws. Attorney for the defendant Steingold sought to enjoin the prosecution, citing the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, Pub. L. No. 115-31,  538 (2016), which prohibits the Department of Justice from spending money on actions that would prevent the medical marijuana states giving practical effect to their state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation, of medical marijuana.

The defendant, an Iraq war veteran, suffers from PTSD and service-related injuries, and was on an opioid regimen, but changed to medical marijuana which increased relief and avoided dependence on opioids. Court documents further state that in Michigan there is a Section 8 of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act that provides that a person is entitled to grow whatever amount is reasonably necessary to ensure the uninterrupted supply of medicine necessary for their condition. Court documents further allege that the defendant was providing medicine to cancer patients, as well as growing for his own significant needs.

The Federal Governments position, according to court documents, is that unless a person was in strict compliance with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, they could not argue for enjoinment of the prosecution or for protection under the Act. The Federal Government does not recognize the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, or any state law legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, and still regards marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance.

At a recent hearing on the motion to enjoin the prosecution, the Court refused to dismiss the motion outright. We are currently awaiting a ruling of the Court where it is expected we will be granted a hearing to establish full compliance and seek protection under Section 8 of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, concluded Steingold. If the court finds my client is entitled to Section 8 protection, the court will then decide whether to enjoin the prosecution.

About The Steingold & Dwyer Law Group

Attorneys at The Steingold & Dwyer Law Group specialize in criminal defense, including murder and other homicide cases, drug crimes, white collar crimes and conspiracy. David Steingold and Lisa Dwyer also have expertise in a number of sub-categories of criminal defense. For more information, please call (313) 962-0000, or visit http://www.steingolddwyerlaw.com. The law office is located at 400 Monroe St., Suite 280,

Detroit, MI 48226.

About the NALA

The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. The information and content in this article are not in conjunction with the views of the NALA. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
PKF OConnor Davies, LLP, the nation's 28th largest accounting and advisory firm, announced today that the Yonkers Chamber of Commerce presented the Firm with the Business Professional Award at the 124th Annual Business Dinner Hall of Fame at Westchester Manor on Nov. 16, 2017. The Firm was recognized for its contributions to Yonkers distinguished community and businesses, including entrepreneurs and family-owned and small businesses.

Were honored to receive this award from this respected and historic organization, said Nicholas DeSantis, Senior Executive Partner of the Government Service Division. Weve worked closely with the Yonkers Chamber and many Yonkers businesses for years, and many of our employees are proud to call the Yonkers area home. This recognition is a validation of the support weve been able to provide in this tremendous community.

DeSantis was specifically recognized for his long-time commitment to the community, holding many government positions with the City of Yonkers, including City Manager, Budget Director and Commissioner of Finance. The chamber commended his deep expertise and skills in the field of government service and budgeting and finance.

The Yonkers Chamber of Commerce also noted the dedicated personalized attention the Firm provides that help clients meet unique and diverse objectives, as well as partners, principals and staff who are actively involved in the areas philanthropic, religious cultural and service groups.

About PKF OConnor Davies, LLP

PKF OConnor Davies, LLP is a full service Certified Public Accounting and advisory firm with a long history of serving clients both domestically and internationally. With roots tracing to 1891, nine offices in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland, and more than 700 professionals, led by over 100 partners, the Firm provides a complete range of accounting, auditing, tax and management advisory services.

PKF OConnor Davies is ranked number 28 in Accounting Todays 2017 Top 100 Firms list and the Firm is also recognized as a Leader in Audit and Accounting, a Pacesetter in Growth and one of the Top Firms in the Mid-Atlantic. PKF OConnor Davies is ranked number 28 in INSIDE Public Accountings 2017 Top 100 Firms list and recognized as one of the Top Ten Fastest-Growing Firms." In 2016, PKF O'Connor Davies was named one of Vault's Accounting 50, a ranking of the 50 best accounting employers to work for in North America, and ranked among the top 50 most prestigious accounting firms in America in a complementary Vault survey. The Firm is the 11th largest accounting firm in the New York Metropolitan area, according to Crains New York Business, and the 11th top accounting firm in New Jersey according to NJBizs 2017 rankings.

By consistently delivering proactive, thorough and efficient service, PKF O'Connor Davies has built long-lasting, valuable relationships with its clients. Partners are intimately involved in the day-to-day management of engagements, ensuring a high degree of client service and cost effectiveness. The Firms seasoned professional staff members employ a team approach to all engagements to provide clients with the utmost quality and timely services aimed at helping them succeed. Continuity of staffing and attention to detail in all client engagements make the Firm stand out among its competitors.

PKF OConnor Davies is the lead North American representative of the international association of PKF member firms. PKF International is a network of legally independent member firms providing accounting and business advisory services in 440 locations in 150 countries around the world. With its tradition, experience and focus on the future, PKF OConnor Davies is ready to help clients meet todays ever-changing economic conditions and manage the growing complexities of the regulatory environment. For more information, visit http://www.PKFOD.com.
Ming C. Lin. Photo: John T. Consoli

Ming C. Lin will lead the University of Marylands Department of Computer Science, effective January 1, 2018.

A noted educator and expert in virtual reality, computer graphics and robotics, Lin will assume the role of Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science with a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS).

As chair, she will oversee a department that has experienced significant increases in student enrollment; expanded its research in virtual and augmented reality, robotics, machine learning, cybersecurity and quantum information science; and grown its outreach efforts to fuel more corporate and philanthropic support. The department currently ranks 15th in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report.

Lin comes to Maryland from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was the John R. and Louise S. Parker Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and a faculty member for 20 years.

She arrives at an opportune timethe departments faculty, staff and students will move in late 2018 to the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation, a 215,000-square-foot-facilty that will offer unprecedented opportunities to explore and imagine bold new directions in computer science. The new building became a reality thanks to a $31 million gift from Brendan Iribe, a UMD alumnus and co-founder of the virtual reality company Oculus.

We are thrilled that Ming Lin will lead our efforts in advancing computer science at the University of Maryland, said Gerald Wilkinson, interim dean of the UMD College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. She brings a wealth of experience as a skilled educator and as a phenomenal researcher that will help her guide the department to further success.

Lin spent the past several months meeting with UMD students, faculty, staff, alumni and other stakeholders. She also attended outreach events focused on highlighting opportunities in computer science to prospective students, many of whom are women or other underrepresented groups in the field. The departments continuing efforts to enhance diversity have resulted in the number of female undergraduates in the department tripling over the last five years, with more than 600 women currently pursuing undergraduate degrees.

Computing is no longer a specialty, it is part of everyones daily life, Lin said. So, for me to see such a considerable amount of academic talent and enthusiasm from everyone Ive met at Maryland has been amazing. I am truly honored and privileged to be given the opportunity to work with this community.

The departments undergraduate enrollment has increased rapidly. In fall 2013, the department had 1,386 undergraduate majors; that number swelled to 3,106 in fall 2017, making it one of the largest computer science programs in the country and the most popular major on campus.

One of my primary goals is to ensure that our students will be successful in their careers when they graduate, Lin said. They are going to be the leaders in a society where practically every aspect of daily life is enabled and impacted by computing. Giving them the knowledge and skills to excel in a technology-empowered world is a mission I take very seriously.

The department includes more than 50 tenured or tenure-track faculty members and 11 full-time professional track instructional faculty members. They are pursuing new methods of instruction that encourage innovation and entrepreneurship, with these activities expected to significantly ramp up once the Iribe Center opens.

I am encouraged to see that so many faculty members here are active in blended learning and advocate for more makerspaces and other student-initiated activities like the Bitcamp and Technica hackathons where students turn a spark of creativity into new technology, Lin said.

Along with the 16 labs and centers in UMIACS, the department brings in approximately $25 million in external funding each year. The more than 250 computer science graduate students work closely with faculty members, postdocs and others on cutting-edge research that often crosses academic disciplines. They explore topics that include cryptocurrency exchanges, deep learning for autonomous robotics, computational linguistics, genome microbial sequencing and more.

Lin plans to bring some of her UNC research group to Maryland, continuing her research in virtual reality, computer graphics and robotics that focuses on multimodal interaction, physically based animations and simulations, as well as algorithmic robotics and their use in physical and virtual environments. Her research has extensive applications in medical simulations, cancer screening, urban computing, as well as supporting city-scale planning, human-centric computing, intelligent transportation and traffic management.

Weve constantly been working on scientific problems where the solutions will have considerable social impact, Lin said. Thats important for meI am hoping through research, teaching and advising that I can make some difference.

Lin earned her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. She received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 1995, and she is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, IEEE and the Eurographics Association. She also serves on the board of directors of the Computing Research Associations Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research.

She has authored or co-authored more than 250 refereed publications and has authored or co-edited four books. She is a former editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (20112014) and has served on numerous steering committees and advisory boards of international conferences, as well as government and industrial technical advisory committees. Lin also co-founded the 3-D audio startup Impulsonic, which was recently acquired by Valve Software.

Lin succeeds Larry Davis, who became interim chair of the department on July 1, 2017. Prior to Davis, Samir Khuller completed a five-year term as chair, serving as the inaugural Elizabeth Stevinson Iribe Chair of Computer Science. Elizabeth Iribe established the endowed chair in 2015 with a $1.5 million donation. Her donation received $1.1 million in matching funds from the states Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative Fund, which aims to spur private donations to universities for applied research in scientific and technical fields by matching such donations.
Jefferson announced that it will be centralizing and relocating corporate services to a new Jefferson center at 1101 Market Street. Source: Google Earth; Illustration: Jefferson "This building will represent so much more than realizing operational efficiencies, said Peter DeAngelis, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health.

Jefferson announced today that it will be centralizing and relocating corporate services to a new Jefferson center at 1101 Market Street, the former Aramark Headquarters.

The building is one of the tallest in Center City with visibility extending to New Jersey, which is home to a Jefferson Health enterprise hub in Cherry Hill and Washington Township in Camden County.

This is an important operational move in terms of reducing costs and integrating critical support functions. It will enable Jefferson to support our expanding network, and ultimately best serve our patients and students, said Peter DeAngelis, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial and Administrative Officer of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health. By occupying one of the more iconic buildings in Center City, we will be even better positioned to demonstrate our region-wide commitment to patients and students. As such, this building will represent so much more than realizing operational efficiencies.

Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health have been on a transformational journey of growth, change and innovation since 2013, expanding from a three- to a 13-hospital system with a two-campus university focused on training tomorrows professional leaders. Jeffersons growth has been driven by one mission  improving lives.

Our expansion has caused us to look closely at lease agreements and costs associated with a corporate workforce of skilled professionals in office space throughout the various communities in the region DeAngelis added. We concluded 1101 Market affords us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to provide the right space for those who serve daily as enablers of a reimagined, forward-thinking health and academic enterprise.

Jefferson will lease the soon-to-be renamed Jefferson Tower from the Estate of Stephen Girard, which owns the landmark 32-story structure in the heart of the newly-revitalized East Market Corridor. Rental income generated from the lease will flow to the Estates real estate investment portfolio, the income from which helps to operate Girard College, the historic North Philadelphia boarding school that provides free education and boarding to students from one-parent families throughout the city and region.

This transaction means that the Tower potentially will remain fully occupied, with little or no vacancies, for the next 16 years, said Joseph P. Bilson, Executive Director of the Girard Estate, who led the Estates negotiations with Jefferson. From Girards perspective, it will have a tremendously positive impact on our ability to help fund the operations of Girard College.

This is a deal that will benefit children in need for years to come, said Ron Donatucci, President of the Board of Directors of City Trusts, which administers the Girard Estate and 117 other public charitable trusts on behalf of the City of Philadelphia. Its great for Girard, great for Jefferson, and great for Philadelphia.

Under the terms of the 16-year lease, Jefferson will occupy 14 floors as of January 1, 2019, with an option to expand to another six floors. Over time, the corporate services expected to be relocated include Facilities, Finance and associated services, Human Resources, Information Services & Technology, Jefferson University Physicians Administration, Legal and associated services, Marketing and Communications the Office of Institutional Advancement, and Supply Chain Management. Currently, these functions are housed at various locations across the city.

The consolidation of these services will occur over several years and in multiple phases beginning in late 2019.
The GAUGE Report As you prepare for 2018, consult the GAUGE Report as you begin or continue your annual forecasting and budgeting process.

Unanet and partner, CohnReznick, joined forces to conduct a government contracting industry benchmarking survey.

Known as the GAUGE Report, we gathered information from government contractors of all sizes to help define the current state of the industry and provide a financial measurement tool for the government contracting ecosystem.



Government Contract Compliance- What type of DCAA audits should you be expecting in the future?

Accounting - What should you be expending by category as a % of revenue?

Utilization - How many FTEs do you have in each of your departments?

Growth  What is your win rate and are you bidding on the right projects?

Efficiencies  Are your overhead, G&A and fringe rates competitive?

As you prepare for 2018, consult the GAUGE Report as you begin or continue your annual forecasting and budgeting process.

Some key data points that the report provides includes:



Business metrics and comparable data on operating costs, indirect rates, and contract information

Tips on best practices for successful strategic and budget planning

Business insights from legal and investment banking advisors

Download the GAUGE Report today and benchmark your financial operations against those of other government contractors.

About Unanet

Unanet is a leading provider of Cloud and On-Premise software for project-based organizations. Unanet delivers a purpose-built Project ERP solution with skills management, resource planning, budgeting & forecasting, time & expense reporting, billing & revenue recognition, project management analytics and dashboards, and integrated financials with AR, AP, GL and cost pool calculations. Over 1,000 organizations trust Unanet to maximize staff utilization, reduce administrative costs by 90%, improve invoicing by 10X, and support forward decision-making for improved operations. For more information, visit http://www.unanet.com.

About CohnReznick

CohnReznick LLP is one of the top accounting, tax, and advisory firms in the United States, combining the deep resources of a national firm with the hands-on, agile approach that today's dynamic business environment demands. With diverse industry expertise, the Firm provides companies with the insight and experience to help them break through and seize growth opportunities. The Firm, with origins dating back to 1919, is headquartered in New York, NY with 2,700 employees in offices nationwide. CohnReznick is a member of Nexia International, a global network of independent accountancy, tax, and business advisors. For more information, visit http://www.cohnreznick.com.
This partnership offers strong support for our business and is the perfect time for us to team up with experts in Salesforce CPQ implementation."

Simplus, a Platinum Salesforce CPQ implementation leader, and enosiX, an SAP integration accelerator software firm, today announce a new strategic partnership.

The combination of Simpluss Salesforce CPQ implementation expertise and enosiXs intelligent real-time SAP integration platform allows companies to quickly optimize their CPQ installation through rapid design and deployment. Unlocking critical real-time SAP data provides frontline sales teams with the information to drive deals  increasing revenue and improving customer service.

We value enosiXs commitment to efficiency and could not be more pleased with how this partnership will enhance our Salesforce CPQ implementations, said Kyle Hanagarne, executive vice president of professional services at Simplus. Timing is vital in sales. The real-time integration of SAP data gives companies a competitive edge.

Bridging the gap between displaying data and leveraging true bi-directional SAP business processes, enosiX delivers a disruptive approach to how enterprises provide SAP data to Salesforce users. As Gerald Schlechter, enosiX CEO and co-founder said, The days of moving data from one application to the other are a thing of the past. Traditional integration approaches such as ETL take too long and inhibit innovation. We view enosiX as the key to unlocking SAP data in the Quote-to-Cash process  showing enterprises a leaner effort to shorten integration timelines, saving them tremendous resources.

Gerald Schlechter, CEO of enosiX, sees this as an important partnership for his SAP integration company. This partnership offers strong support for our business and is the perfect time for us to team up with experts in Salesforce CPQ implementation. We are looking forward to rapidly bringing simplified, yet powerful capabilities to enterprises, leveraging their SAP logic and data in real-time  fully utilizing the front-end capabilities of Salesforce.

Salesforce and others are among the trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.

About Simplus

Simplus is a Platinum Salesforce Partner and the industry leader in Quote-to-Cash implementations. We provide enterprise-wide digital transformation across the Salesforce ecosystem through advisory, implementation, change management, custom configuration and managed services. Guided by the mantra Success Simplified, we use leading cloud solutions to help companies achieve a strategic vision, improve performance and increase value to stakeholders. With more than 2,000 clients and a customer satisfaction rating in the top 1 percent of all Salesforce partners, Simplus helps companies improve, innovate and grow. For more information about Simplus, please visit http://www.simplus.com.

About enosiX

Based in downtown Cincinnati, enosiX is a software development firm focused on accelerating SAP integration, enabling seamless, real-time business-process based integration between SAP and front-end platforms like Salesforce and native, mobile applications. Our platform takes the complexity of SAP and simplifies it in an intelligent, SAP-certified solution, without requiring middleware or additional infrastructure. We are empowering the enterprise of the future by transforming their SAP integration trajectories. More than 100 companies around the world are using the enosiX framework to accelerate revenue growth. For more information, please visit http://www.enosiX.com.

SAP, SAPPHIRE and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

Salesforce, Salesforce CPQ, Sales Cloud, and others are trademarks of salesforce.com, Inc., and are used here with permission.
We are thrilled to help UVSC offer community assistance to our Hawaii ohana in offsetting some of the cost of cancer treatment,

There are 28 million cancer survivors worldwide. To help raise funds and offer support, Elite Pacific Properties announced a new partnership with Maui based nonprofit cancer fundraising organization UVSC, U vs Cancer/Us vs Cancer, to accept donations from real estate sales made by Elite Pacific Properties agents. By streamlining the donation process, agents are able to easily donate at the end of a transaction to UVSC. As part of the community, Elite Pacific Properties believes that it is vital to give back to the Hawaii community and rally around those fighting cancer.

We are thrilled to help UVSC offer community assistance to our Hawaii ohana in offsetting some of the cost of cancer treatment, said Elite Pacific Properties Partner Greg Burns. UVSC raises money to support individuals with cancer, while also helping fund innovative research for a cure.

UVSCs mission hits close to home as Burns lost his father to the disease, and many agents identify with the cause. UVSC was founded by Maui born duo Jamil Newirth and Chris Thibaut. Jamil Newith is a cancer survivor himself, and Thibaut lost his father, Rob Thibaut of T.S. Restaurants, to cancer in 1997. U vs Cancer/Us vs Cancer will utilize the funds raised to continue assisting local Hawaii families who are affected by a cancer diagnosis and their support of cancer research.

About Elite Pacific Properties:

Locally owned and operated, Elite Pacific Properties was founded in 2005 by Stephen Cipres and Paul Mayer. The company has close to 200 professional agents in nine offices on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island, along with a 50 person support staff. As a full-service real estate firm focused on luxury residential property sales, multi-unit projects/developer sales, vacation rentals and property management, Elite is a member of Whos Who In Luxury Real Estate, an exclusive organization of the top luxury brokers in the world. The firm has also appeared on Inc. Magazines Inc. 5000 list for the past five years, as well as Pacific Business News Fastest 50 company list for the past four years. For more information, visit ElitePacific.com.

About UVSC:

UVSC is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation launched in February 2017.UVSC provides hope by raising funds for individuals fighting cancer, as well as supporting cutting-edge research for a cure. All monetary donations are 100% tax deductible. UVSC supports several exceptional individuals within our community who are currently fighting cancer. For more information, visit uvsc.org
In an effort to raise eyebrows and to celebrate The European Premiere of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in London (Tuesday, December 12, 2017), Moonlambos rolled up to Royal Albert Hall in high-style. Star Wars enthusiasts were not disappointed when cryptocurrency supercar dealer Moonlambos crashed the event in matching Light and Dark Lamborghini Aventadors.

With a number of A-list celebrities and The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry in attendance, you would expect to see some of the finest cars in the world pulling up to an event of this caliber. Moonlambos is the premier destination for exotic cars that deals exclusively in cryptocurrency. Buyers can purchase their inventory in either Bitcoin, Ethereum, or ELTCOIN. To be noted, Moonlambos is the first platform to offer exotic cars exclusively in cryptocurrency.

What we wanted to do is address a rapidly growing segment of cryptocurrency holders and give them an outlet to spend their Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ELTCOIN. remarked Ivan Soto-Wright, co-founder of Moonlambos and managing partner of HODL.vc.

In early 2018, Moonlambos is planning the first ever Initial Lambo Offering or ILO. This ICO-style offering will result in one randomly selected participant winning a white 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Contauch and a donation to a charity of their choosing.

Although were called Moonlambos and were currently selling lamborghinis, our ambitions are much greater. I see a bright future for cryptocurrency e-commerce, added Ivan Soto-Wright.

Moonlambos currently has relationships with dealers in Los Angeles, United States and London, England. To purview a full list of their exotic car offering, and to view the showroom online, please visit for more detailed information: https://moonlambos.io/showroom

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Moonlambos/status/940536628346572801

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Moonlambos/

Press Images: (Please click on link to download hi-res press imagery)

http://bit.ly/2zawG2A

Media inquiries:

Graffiti Creative Group

Shaun Saunders

Phone: (415)504-5369

Email: shaun(at)graffiticreativegroup.com

Tommy Petrucci

Phone: (212) 424-1442

Email: tptpetrucci(at)graffiticreativegroup.com
Dr. Robert Mondavi

Torrance dentist, Dr. Robert Mondavi, is now offering a special New Patient Package. For a limited time, new patients can take advantage of this special offer, which includes a complete dental checkup and a dental cleaning for just $49. Along with a new patient exam and cleaning, patients will also receive a free home bleaching kit, as long as their mouth is free of any cavities or carries and existing restorations do not have any leakage, wear and tear, and are not broken.

Regular dental checkups and cleanings are among the most important things a person can do for his or her smile. Checkups provide Dr. Mondavi to identify any potential problems that a patient might not see, feel or suspect. Without an obvious cavity, pain, bleeding or other symptoms, patients rarely seek dental care. This can allow dental diseases to progress to advanced stages before symptoms are apparent.

Dental cleanings and checkups can also help:



Prevent bad breath

Prevent tooth loss

Prevent gum disease

Keep smiles bright and white

Help maintain better overall health

The teeth whitening kit is a great addition to the new patient exam. Teeth can become stained over time due to both natural factors and lifestyle habits. During a cleaning, superficial stains are buffed away, and teeth can be whitened more effectively with topical teeth whiteners. The free professional teeth whitening kit can help patients achieve dramatically whiter results than over-the-counter kits.

Torrance dentist Dr. Mondavis staff provides patients with comprehensive answers to their questions and helps them explore their options and alternatives as they decide the best treatment plans to meet their needs. Patients can take advantage of flexible payment options and convenient financing plans.

Because my staff and I are trained yearly on the newest, most advanced procedures, Im able to exceed patient expectations, Dr. Mondavi said. With every patient who comes in, we try to make their experience comfortable and enjoyable. Dr. Mondavi and his team offer comprehensive dental care for the whole family.

About Dr. Mondavi

A graduate of the University of the Pacific, San Francisco, Dr. Mondavi has completed numerous advanced programs with special courses in implant training and cosmetic dentistry. He offers complete dental care that includes orthodontics and braces, restorative dentistry, dental implants, periodontal treatments, dentures, nightguards, root canals, Invisalign, dental veneers and smile makeovers.
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:

Home Regional News East
Cookies

What are cookies ?

How do we use cookies?

How to control cookies?

Managing cookies in your browser

see what cookies you have got and delete them on an individual basis

block third party cookies

block cookies from particular sites

block all cookies from being set

delete all cookies when you close your browser

X

A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.Website use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google") to help analyse the use of this website. For this purpose, Google Analytics uses"cookies", which are text files placed on your computer.The information generated by the cookies about your use of this website - standard internet log information (including your IP address) and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form - will be transmitted to and stored by Google including on servers in the United States. Google will anonymize the information sent by removing the last octet of your IP address prior to its storage.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website and compiling reports on website activity.We not use, and not allow any third party to use the statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to this site. Google may transfer the information collected by Google Analytics to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google`s behalf.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.You may refuse the use of Google Analytics cookies by downloading and installing Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.Cookies are also used to record if you have agreed (or not) to our use of cookies on this site, so that you are not asked the question every time you visit the site.You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services.
Here's a closer look at the new facility.

The new showroom is located at 860 Washington Street in the Meatpacking District in Downtown Manhattan. The area is known for its trendy restaurants, nightclubs, and high-end stores.

A giant Tesla logo greets customers in the entryway of the store.

The new location replaces Tesla's Chelsea location and provides a lot more space. The new showroom is 10,900 square feet.

All that space provides Tesla plenty of room to show off its cars, like this stunning Model X ...

... and this one.

There's also a Model S prominently placed in the front of the store.

There's no Model 3 on display at the location yet, though.

But you will also notice that the company is making a big push to promote its energy products in the store.

Almost an entire wall in the showroom is dedicated to showcasing Tesla's Powerwall and solar panels.

There's also a seating area where customers can chat with a sales representative. Customers can learn more about Tesla products and place an order.

Tesla has made many of its displays interactive.

Here, you can design your own Tesla using the configurator on the touchscreen display.

Test cars are kept in the back of the showroom. Customers can make an appointment online to test drive one of the cars kept onsite. We spotted three Model S test cars and two Model X SUVs.

Here's the other Model X.

There's also a coffee bar in the back of the showroom where customers can get a drink while shopping. The area doubles as a bar whenever the company hosts an event for Tesla owners.
"All those who were illegally settled or who just settled themselves on resettlement land should vacate immediately," The Herald quoted Perrance Shiri, Zimbabwe's new lands and agriculture minister, as saying.

"Only those people with documentation of land occupancy and or those who were allocated land legitimately should remain on the farms and concentrate on production unhindered."

Shiri, a retired air force marshal who served in the military when the army took over government last month resulting in the ouster of Mugabe, said "sanity" had to prevail for Zimbabwe to revive its agriculture.

"If we are to meet the goals set out by government to use agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, we need to ensure unquestionable sanity on the farms," he said.

"Constitutionalism should be the guiding principle and as such behaviour and actions not conforming to this are not permissible under whatever circumstances."

Zimbabwe's land disputes have remained a thorn in the side of the southern African country after Mugabe spearheaded the sometimes violent removal of thousands of white farmers in 2000 to resettle landless blacks.

Mugabe declared he was correcting colonial-era injustices. But the ouster of experienced farmers had disastrous effects. A country that used to be a breadbasket failed to produce even enough food to feed itself.

Dozens of white farmers are legally contesting their forced removal from their farms, while a handful are still farming without hindrance.
A North Korean soldier who embarked on a dramatic defection across the Demilitarized Zone last month has been promised a lifetime supply of Choco Pies, The Korea Herald reported this week.

The soldier, who has been identified by his family name "Oh," reportedly asked for some Choco Pies when he woke up in hospital after being shot during his defection.

Orion, the South Korean manufacturer of the snack since 1974, announced they would give Oh a lifetime supply of the treat, as long as he stayed in South Korea. The company also sent 100 boxes to Oh's hospital room, though he is yet to recover enough to be able to eat them.

An official from Orion said, We sent the choco pies as a welcoming present to Oh, who came to Korea after going through hardship. It was not an act for publicity.

Choco Pies are banned in North Korea

North Korea essentially banned Choco Pies in 2014.

For years the treats had been making their way on to the North Korean black market  where they sold for up to $10  via the Kaesong Industrial Complex. The complex was a joint initiative by the two governments allowing South Korean business to operate across the border.

At one point 52,000 North Koreans were employed there, earning around $100 a month, but South Korean businesses were forbidden for compensating overtime with cash. Instead they often gave out Choco Pies  around a dozen a day for each employee that could then be shared with friends and family, or sold.

In 2010, nearly 2.5 million Choco Pies were being sold on the black market each month, according to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo.

Likely worried about the popularity of what was essentially a delicious piece of South Korean propaganda, the North Korean government launched a propaganda campaign of its own telling citizens Choco Pies are harmful to the body, before implementing the outright ban at Kaesong.

South Korea airlifted Choco Pies into North Korea

Shortly after the 2014 ban, South Korean activists floated 10,000 Choco Pies over the border.

History professor Andrei Lankov wrote in his book, "The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia that the Choco Pie," that the Choco Pie"symbolizes South Korea's prosperity, sophistication and progress. Like canned beer in the Soviet Union of my youth, [the Choco Pie] shows that the surrounding world is rich and full of wonders  gastronomical and otherwise."
He said that out of that amount, GH1.4 billion was used as liquidity support for the failed banks in 2016 prior to their collapse in August, this year, while the government now intends to issue a bond of GH2 billion to pay the GCB Bank for the difference in the valuation of the selected assets and liabilities taken over.

This GH3.4 billion is to be borne by the taxpayer and it is three times the budget of the Free SHS programme for the first year. Yet neither the Minister of Finance nor the BoG Governor is telling us about it, Mr Adongo added.

READ ALSO:Former CEO predicted the collapse of Capital Bank in 2014

The Bank of Ghana withdrew the licences of the two banks on Monday (August 14, 2017) and GCB Bank subsequently took over transfers of all their deposits and selected assets after a purchase agreement.

Mr Adongo said even though the government and the BoG Governor, Dr Ernest Addison, mentioned recklessness and non-adherence to good corporate governance by the banks as the cause of the collapse, it is unfortunate that they [BoG and government] are yet to reveal the cost of the collapse of the two on the taxpayer.

When the governor met his colleagues at the Chartered Institute of Bankers at a dinner, he failed to tell them how much the taxpayer is paying to clean up the mess of those who collapsed the banks.

The taxpayer has already paid GH1.4 billion to clean up the mess of the directors and there is a further GH2 billion that has been set aside in the 2018 budget to clean up the mess this year. In total, it is costing us GH3.4 billion to clean up this mess, he said.
He explained that apart from contaminating the water bodies and soil, cyanide also has negative health implications which include reproductive health challenges.

One thing about cyanide is that it causes impotence among men. So wherever there is galamsey the men are impotent. But if you are able to give birth too, the child will have a deformity, so if care is not taken we are annihilating Ghanaians, we are killing ourselves.

He was speaking at the launch of 2018 citizens budget in Anyinam.

He said records suggest that there were about 4,000 illegal Miners on the Birim River which stretches 170km from Akyem Apapam to where it joins river Pra.

READ ALSO: 6 jobs created by Nana Addo in 2017

He said that Operation Vanguard taskforce has been of help in curbing the situation even though some of them have not lived up to the task.
The NPP deferred the amendment of its constitution to the extraordinary national delegates conference when it held its Annual National Delegates Conference in August.

The event will be held in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.

This is a follow up to the Annual National Delegates Conference in August this year, at which various proposals were made for amendments to the partys constitution.

Reports have it that, some members of the party have called for a review of the partys electoral college system to ensure that the same number of delegates who vote for the partys national executives, also vote for the selection of their presidential candidate.

Others have also called for a review of requirements for qualification to the constituency and regional executive position.

They want only persons who have gone through the ranks of the party at the local level, to be given the chance to vie for such positions.
The hospital confirmed he is recovering well and will be discharged on Friday -- but doctors have advised he "avoids long distance journeys" over the next few weeks, an official told AFP.

In October, Temer underwent surgery for an enlarged prostate gland at the same hospital. He also had angioplasty in three blocked coronary arteries in November.

He was due to visit Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and East Timor from January 5-13, with the goal of attracting investments and strengthening diplomatic ties.

The foreign relations ministry will confirm new dates for the trip, the presidency said.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) said the buildup continued this year despite rival claims across the sea from Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Responding to the report, foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: "If China is conducting any peaceful construction activity or deploying necessary defence facilities, it's very normal because it's within our sovereignty."

"We believe that some individuals are making a fuss about this. They're trying to hype it up," Lu told a regular news briefing.

Over the course of 2017, China has been advancing the next phase of development with construction of infrastructure to support air and naval bases, such as underground storage areas and "large radar and sensor arrays", the Washington-based think tank said in a report on Thursday.

Fiery Cross Reef saw the most construction this past year, with building work spanning 27 acres, or about 110,000 square metres, AMTI said its analysis of satellite images showed.

There is now a high frequency radar array at the northern end of the island, it added.

Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday that China's southern island province of Hainan has revealed a satellite launch plan to "assist remote sensing coverage" over the South China Sea.

The mission will start in 2019 with the launch of three optical satellites, Xinhua cited the Sanyan Institute of Remote Sensing as saying.

The report follows recent moves by China to ease concerns among rival claimants around the sea, through which some $5 trillion in annual shipping trade passes.

Vietnam and China agreed last month during President Xi Jinping's visit to Hanoi to avoid conflicts in the hotly contested waters.

At a meeting with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in November, China and ASEAN countries agreed to begin talks on a much-delayed code of conduct for the sea.

The Philippines had for many years stood alongside Vietnam as one of the region's strongest opponents to Chinese expansionism.

Following Manila's complaint to a United Nations-backed tribunal, the panel ruled last year that China's territorial claims in the sea were without legal basis.

But the Philippines, after President Rodrigo Duterte took office last year, decided not to use the ruling to pressure China.
This means that if a celebrity stays out of trouble for an entire year, he/she must be applauded.

Here is a list of some of the celebrities who stayed away from controversies in 2017.

 Majid Michel

The actor turned man-of-God has been in the news for all the good reasons in the year under review.

READ ALSO: 8 most searched Ghanaian celebrities in 2017

He alongside two other leaders and founders of Actors, Presenters, Professionals and Musicians for Christ (APPMC), have been taking the gospel nationwide.

 Van Vicker

The actor who celebrated his 14th wedding anniversary in 2017, has stayed away from any form of controversy the entire year.

Vicker among other things he has done this year visited Liberia and participated in a walk to meet with Ebola survivors on May 31, 2017.

 Sarkodie

I know you will mention the Jennifer Lomotey saga. But he managed to stay out of the controversies by not responding to all the comments made against him.

 Kwaw Kese

Rapper Kwaw Kesse has not been in the news like he used to in previous years.

One of his achievements this year was to feature his younger brother BUDA, on his single Odo Adadaame .

 Tinny

When Tinny was Tinny he would have been part of every Makola kwakwe trouble.

This year Tinny has not bee part of any controversy. Kudos to him.

 Nadia Buari

Do you remember all the controversies surrounding the birth of Nadia Buaris children? The Jim Iyke love saga among others.
Democrat Doug Jones' unexpected victory Tuesday in Alabama's special election for a US Senate seat.

If Trump does end up signing the bill before the end of the year, the bill will go into effect on January 1, 2018.

But regular Americans won't feel the effects of tax reform until spring 2019, when they file taxes for 2018. That means people won't see changes to their tax returns until after the 2018 mid-term elections.

If the House and Senate don't manage to get an updated bill on Trump's desk before the end of the year, but do get things done in early 2018, then the bill could be made retroactive. That just means it would count as if it went into effect on January 1, 2018, so Americans would also see the effect in 2019 when they file their 2018 taxes.

And just as a reminder: folks will be filing taxes for 2017 this upcoming spring. Taxes are due on April 17, 2018.
LONDON  Ryanair will recognise pilot unions for the first time in its 32-year history to avoid a Christmas strike, according to a statement from the budget airline.

Around 100 Dublin-based pilots

Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary said:

"Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week.

"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so, and we have written today to these unions inviting them to talks to recognise them and calling on them to cancel the threatened industrial action planned for Christmas week.
A New York woman charged with sending money to the terrorist group ISIS in the form of bitcoin faces as much as 90 years in prison.

Zoobia Shahnaz, an American from Long Island, is accused of funnelling $62,000 to the group via bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies earlier this year.

Shahnaz took out more than a dozen credit cards earlier this year and used the money she borrowed to buy cryptocurrency and send it abroad, according to an indictment filed by US attorneys in federal court.

A press release by the Department of Justice said she sent more than $150,000, or 112,000, to benefit the terrorist group, also known as the Islamic State or ISIL, but it did not specify what form the other $88,000 took.

The release said Shahnaz "engaged in a pattern of financial activity, culminating in several wire transactions, totaling over $150,000, to individuals and apparent shell entities in Pakistan, China, and Turkey."

It added: "These transactions were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements, conceal the identity, source and destination of the illicitly obtained monies, and, ultimately, benefit ISIS."

She tried to leave the US for Syria via Pakistan and Turkey but was stopped before she left the country, according to the release.

Shahnaz was indicted on five counts before the Eastern District of New York's federal court. They are three counts of money laundering, one of bank fraud, and one of conspiracy to money launder.

If convicted on all counts, she could spend 90 years in federal prison: 20 for each count of money laundering and 30 for fraud.

This is not the first time terrorist groups have been linked to funding via cryptocurrencies.

Terrorists have increasingly started to use bitcoin over the past few years, the Council on Foreign Relations said.
Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
 Business Insider spoke with top execs and employees to get a sense of how to land a job at the company.

 They said it's important to have a good grasp on Facebook's culture.

So it's understandable if you're dying to work for the tech giant. But if you've set your sights on a big-name company with a selective hiring process like Facebook, the whole thing can seem rather overwhelming, maybe even impossible.

Don't get discouraged, though. You just need to know exactly what you're getting yourself into.

Business Insider spoke to Facebook global head of recruiting Miranda Kalinowski and VP of people Lori Goler, as well as other Facebook employees, to get a better sense of what it's like to interview at the Menlo Park, California-based company.

Here's what they had to say:

Keep in mind, Facebook has a ton of different recruiting strategies

Kalinowski said that the process can vary based on what team you're being hired onto. But across the board, she stressed that Facebook recruits individuals through a number of different channels, including the company's careers site, job fairs at universities, conferences, and even TED Talks.

First, most people go through a phone screener

Generally, recruiters will first screen you over the phone to cover some basics and make sure you're a real candidate. If you sound like you might be a good prospect, they'll follow up with a phone interview that focuses on your technical experience and skills.

Next, you'll meet your prospective team

After that, Kalinowski says that recruiters hand over the hiring process to employees who might be working with you directly.

"They're the closest to the work being done, so they're able to impart a lot of first-hand experience about what it's like to work on that team in that role, as well as answer any questions that the candidate might have," she told Business Insider.

If you show promise, then you'll be invited to visit Facebook to check out the campus and go through four to six more interviews with some of your potential team members.

Burns joined Facebook in January of 2016. He went through a day's worth of interviews with about five or six interviewers, which he said is fairly standard for the industry.

He said the interview gave him a great opportunity to connect with the company's culture.

"I actually felt really good after it because I realized that they take it very seriously," Burns said. "They really want the brightest and the best and they want to make sure they get the right people. I met some really cool people in my interview as well, so I was really excited about it."

Expect the unexpected at Facebook

Like many companies, Facebook's hiring process can vary a bit, depending on your level of experience.

Oculus was working at Apple in 2012 when some upper-level Facebook execs began recruiting her. Then she got a surprising call one day.

"Mark Zuckerberg ended up calling me, which was really unexpected," she told Business Insider. "I think that's one of the things that's really impressive about him in particular. I feel like he reaches down deep into his organizations  in recruiting, but also in getting to know people."

Facebook execs advise people to 'just apply'  and have a good grasp on the company's values

Goler said that, ultimately, Facebook is looking to place people in positions that play to their strengths, and she has some simple advice for anyone who wants to work at the company:

"They should just apply," Goler said. "We hire people every day who just apply to the website. We love meeting people that way. Jump right in."

How do you ensure you get the offer? Kalinowski said in your interviews, it's a mistake to talk exclusively about your own accomplishments. If you want to succeed, you need to be able to tie your experience back to Facebook's core values.
 Business Insider scoured the job site to find out what employees loved the most about their workplaces.

 Reviewers appreciated mission-driven companies, smart colleagues, and a strong sense of work-life balanced.

Glassdoor's list of the best companies of 2018 is out, and companies from all kinds of industries  from tech to retail to finance  are represented.

To discern what made the companies featured in the rankings stand out, we scoured hundreds of reviews for the top 15 companies.

We found a few recurring themes in the positive reviews of said companies. People seem to value mission-driven workplaces, as well as organizations that foster a strong work-life balance, attract smart coworkers, and provide opportunities for training and learning.

Here's a look at what employees love about working at the 15 most popular companies in the US:

Bain employees appreciate working with smart people

At Bain, Glassdoor reviewers said you won't just work with your colleagues  you'll learn from them, as well.

"The people you will meet throughout your career are some of the smartest, most passionate, and helpful people you will ever meet," wrote one Chicago-based employee.

People at the E. & J. Gallo Winery love that it's family-owned

Plenty of Glassdoor reviewers attributed E. & J. Gallo Winery's positive company culture to the fact it's family-owned.

"As a family-owned organization it's no surprise that E. & J. Gallo has an outstanding company culture," one current anonymous employee wrote. "From top to bottom, Gallo's greatest strength is the people. Senior level managers not only provide great leadership but also serve as great mentors."

At McKinsey & Company, workers say their brilliant colleagues are a major perk

Learning on the job is one of the best perks at this consulting firm.

People at HubSpot rave about the company's work-life balance

"An absolutely fantastic work environment," one HubSpot sales trainer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wrote. "Very inclusive, greatand wonderful coworkers. There is plenty of room for growth, and I love the opportunities for cross-collaboration across departments. I'd recommend Hubspot to anyone."

Facebook employees enjoy the company's many convenient perks, like the ubiquitous free food

At Facebook, employees say the perks are all about making life easier.

"Facebook has a unique culture that encourages people to be their authentic self and do work they are passionate about," an anonymous Facebook employee wrote on Glassdoor. "They invest in their people through training, progressive benefits and great perks like free food. Great place to work!"

Lululemon employees can purchase products using the generous employee discount

"Great benefits like free workout classes, very generous discount on clothing for yourself, and fun environment," wrote one anonymous former employee on Glassdoor.

Salesforce employees say you can't beat the company when it comes to work-life balance

"Probably couldn't find a better work-life balance anywhere in the bay," wrote one current San Francisco-based software engineer on Glassdoor.

Employees at In-N-Out Burger say the pay is fantastic for the industry

"Flexible schedule, good pay for burger flipping, fun fast-paced environment," wrote a current San Francisco-based shift manager on Glassdoor. "Great opportunity for growth and moving up the ladder. Learned strong work ethic here which set me up for my future career."

At SAP, the biggest perk is flexibility, according to workers

"Benefits, Maternity/Paternity leave, lunch credit, free drinks, and events with snacks," wrote one current employee on Glassdoor. "Although there have been some departmental changes recently, managers have been open and accepting of our comments. The flexibility to work from home is very helpful as it gives a weekly environment change."

The Boston Consulting Group is a great place to work if you want to learn a ton, according to employees

"Steep learning curve but everyone is willing to help you along the way as long as one makes the effort and have the right attitude," a former intern wrote on Glassdoor." People culture definitely a big plus!"

Employees at Ultimate Software say the company culture puts people first

On Glassdoor, Ultimate Software employees say putting people first isn't just a corporate platitude at their company.

"Ultimate has a great culture and truly puts people first," wrote one anonymous employee on Glassdoor. "I was a bit skeptical when I applied because all companies say that, but there's really a different, positive energy here."

The mission is what counts at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Folks at Google love working with their talented coworkers

Googlers took to Glassdoor to let you know the hype is real.

"What they say is true," wrote one Los Angeles-based senior software engineer on Glassdoor. "It's a great place to work. Compensation and work/life balance are excellent. Colleagues are top-notch engineers. Decision-making is mostly sound."

Workers at World Wide Technology appreciate the support from management

Keller Williams employees highlight the firm's training and support systems

At Keller Williams, the environment is all about learning, according to employees at the global real estate firm.
1. The FCC has voted to repeal net neutrality rules which classified basic internet access as a utility. The decision, likely to be contested in court, paves the way for broadband providers to introduce and charge for different tiers of internet service.

2. Silicon Valley executives and internet campaigners were outraged by the decision, with Netflix, Reddit, Google, and several others hinting they would fight the vote. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said: "[It] seems likely that the FCCs decision will be challenged in court soon, and we would be supportive of that challenge."

3. The British politician leading the charge against fake news and Russian election interference in the UK, Damian Green, savaged Twitter over its response to questions about Russian meddling in the Brexit vote. Twitter said it found only one instance of Russian-funded content during the referendum, but Green described this investigation as "completely inadequate."

4. Disney will acquire Fox TV's film and TV assets for $52.4 billion (39 billion), obtaining brands like "The Simpsons", "X-Men" and the film "Avatar." Fox's CEO James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, will stay at the firm to oversee the transition.

5. Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Uber investor Shervin Pishevar has resigned from his VC firm Sherpa Capital after several women accused him of sexual harassment. Pishevar said he has resigned to fight to "untruthful attacks."

6. Samsung is planning to release its first smart speakers integrated with its digital assistant Bixby in the first half of 2018, according to Bloomberg. Its speakers will reportedly cost around $200 (148) and goes up against Apple's HomePod speaker, Amazon's Echo devices, and Google Home.

7. Here's another sign that Andy Rubin's high end Essential phone isn't selling very well  its camera app has only been downloaded around 50,000 times, according to AndroidPolice. Only the Essential phone can download its camera app, giving an indication of how many people own one.

8. Alphabet's X division has sold 2,000 rooftop mounted boxes which use light beams to transmit data at high speed to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The technology could provide high-speed internet to millions without the need to lay cable.

9. The UK tech industry has spoken up about a potential shortage of tech talent after Brexit, but LinkedIn data suggests it's actually more reliant on non-EU workers. A Tech City study found the bulk of skilled immigrant workers come from India, the US, and Australia
Two years ago this week, the world came together in Paris to sign a landmark agreement aimed at stopping the Earth's temperature from rising dangerously high.

But according to a new report from Climate Tracker, an independent research group, we're way off track to hit the target laid out in the Paris climate agreement.

The Paris Agreement pushed

But if all of the signatories fulfill their pledges  and that's a big if  global temperatures will still increase by 3.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, according to Climate Tracker's latest report.

President Donald Trump has hurts US manufacturing

The report notes, however, that climate modeling is a tricky business with a lot of room for error.
On December 12, 2017, Amasa Firdaus, was not called to the Nigerian bar because she refused to remove her Hijab.

Reportedly, the Muslim lady insisted on wearing her wig on her Hijab, which is a violation of the dress codes maintained by the Body of Benchers.

Hijabs are not worn during the during the Call To The Bar. This also applies to the Law Dinner. Hijabs are not tolerated at these two major law events.

During the Call to Bar ceremony, Firdaus vehemently refused to abide by the rules while protesting that the refusal of the authorities of the Body of Benchers to call her to the Nigerian Bar is a violation of her Right to Freedom of Religion protected by Section 38 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.

Sources at the ceremony say that other Muslims were respectfully asked to remove their hijabs before entering the hall. They all complied except Firdaus who was denied entry into the hall.

Pro-Hijab Argument

A week before this incident, Arc. Abdullah Musa Abdul wrote an opinion piece about Muslim women in the Nigerian Law School for the Daily Nigerian.

For the Muslim lady, Hijab is not a choice, Hijab is a religious obligation, an integral part of a manifestation of her belief system, he writes.

The Hijab should not be seen as a mere piece of cloth but an expression of ones faith. Since the Nigerian Constitution and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are both in support of freedom religion, no institution has the authority or power to withhold this right.

For 55 years since the creation of the Nigerian Law School, this has been the standard practice. It is believed that this issue has been raised over the years but nothing had been done about it. Many must have grumbled as they removed their hijabs so that they could become lawyers. The years of religious insensitivity have led up to this moment.

With one womans bold action, this subject has been forced into the limelight. She should be applauded for her confidence and upholding her beliefs knowing fully well it would be a setback for her. When society and institutions fail to move with the times, it takes an act of courage to bring in change.

Amasa Firdaus action has whipped up a necessary conversation, which is an individuals right to express his belief or faith in a government-controlled system.

ALSO READ: Young Muslim women you should definitely know about

On The Other Hand

By extension, should certain Christians be forced to wear trousers during NYSC if their doctrine is against it? Where does the reach of the state stop and where does my right as a Muslim and Christian begin?

To be honest, the answers wont be as bright as day or squeaky clean but we can all agree that this a conversation that needs to happen. Amasa Firdaus has jolted us to think about tese things. She stuck to her guns and refused to budge. She refused to momentarily give up her faith. When many buckled she stood steadfast holding on to Allah.
Google has announced the results of its 2017 Year in Search, offering a unique perspective on the years major moments and top trends based on searches conducted in Nigeria.

In addition to showcasing what people, places, and things were trending around the globe this year, the 2017 Year in Search list also offers insights into what the top trending songs moment for Nigerians was in the last 12 months, as well as the new music that got their attention.

The most searched song on Google's year-end list was Olamide's 'Wo', the street single that dominated instantly upon its release. Coming in second place was Davido's 'FIA' which became an instant hit record. OBO was also third on the list, because of course he made the song 'Fall'.
The convict, Teodora Vasquez, allegedly had a stillbirth in 2007 but was jailed over abortion-related charges, denying her appeal over the sentence.

The 37-year-old Vasquez who has already been in prison for nearly 10 years, was denied her appeal over the sentence when the appeal came up for hearing.

She told the court that she had called an ambulance and collapsed after suffering severe abdominal pain while heavily pregnant in 2007. She alleged that she awoke to find that her baby had died and police officers who arrested her, accused her of inducing an abortion.

Her lawyer, Victor Hugo Mata, told the court that there were glaring errors in her first trial.

A tribunal in the strictly Catholic country, turned down the appeal filed on behalf of Vasquez by Mata, saying that the evidence against her had not been categorically disproven.

Abortion is illegal in all cases in El Salvador and carries a maximum sentence of eight years. However, women suspected of committing abortions are often charged with aggravated murder instead as the case of Ms Vasquez.

The appeal was heard by the same judges who sentenced Ms Vasquez 10 years ago, prompting criticism from human rights groups.

Last year Amnesty International presented 250,000 signatures to the Salvadoran government demanding Ms Vasquez be freed.

The agency described El Salvador as 'a nation known as the worst place in the world for womens reproductive rights, and a nation where anti-abortion laws make no exception for rape, incest or the health of the mother.'

El Salvadorean laws prohibit all forms of abortions, even if the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest; or if it poses threats to a womans life, the woman must carry the pregnancy to term.
The lady, Ruqayah Atinuke Rahmon, who studied Common Law and Islamic Studies at the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, took to her her Facebook and Instagram accounts to lament the injustice done to her friend, Barrister Amasa Firdaus, and other Muslim graduates who are not treated equally by the law because of their religious beliefs.

Rahmon whose Instagram handle is Savvy_Ruqqy, revealed that the only reason her friend wasnt called to the bar was that she was dressed in a black Hijab and her refusal to take it off on request by the authorities.

Read what she wrote here:

Good morning everyone. I want to use this medium to express my dissatisfaction with the way Muslims are treated in this my profession called Law.'

A sister wasnt called to the bar because she was dressed like that [picture above]. Please, for God's sake, what is wrong with that picture? Because she was putting on a small Hijab tucked into her collarette, why? What has Hijab done to them?

Where is our freedom of religion as stated in the constitution? We need justice For those that dont know, Hijab is a MANDATORY part of my religion not just a piece of clothing, so if is said to have been guaranteed in section 38 of the constitution of my country that is said to be supreme and has a binding force overall as seen in section 1 of this same constitution and Section 42 of this same constitution guarantees my right to freedom from discrimination, please for God's sake, what is this then?

And before you come here to attack me, please read section 38 [1] and section 1 [1] first and also go ahead to read S1 [3] of this same constitution with an unbiased mind, where it is said that if any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution, this constitution shall prevail?

Biko, what are we now talking about?

Please, we want justice. We want our Hijab.

We want #JusticeForFirdaus... We want to wear our Hijabs for a call to the bar... We want to wear it in the courtroom... Stop the discrimination... We are Muslims, not terrorists... Hijab is Mandatory... We want Justice for Firdaus."

She later took to her Facebook page to post a write up from a Port Harcourt-based man, Amasa Mohammad Tukur, who also wrote on the injustice done to the lady:

"My heart is heavy and tears rolls down my eyes as I write this post. I just called my elder brother a few minutes back to facilitate with him on the call to bar ceremony of our daughter, Barrister Amasa Firidaos but I got the shock of my life when he told me Firdaos was denied the long-awaited dream of her life just because she would not put off her Hijab.

What has Hijab got to do with a ceremony that is not lasting beyond an hour? What offence has Firdaos committed rather than being an obedient servant of her creator to deserve this ill treatment from Nigeria?

We are talking about a 2/1 graduate of the University of Ilorin and did excellently well in the law school. Brothers and sisters in Islam, please help broadcast this message for Aljannatul Firdaos as popularly called, to get justice from the Nigeria state.

#IStandWithFirdaus
When a cold or flu hits, nothing looks better than your couch and the Netflix remote. But you may fight that urge, lest you be ridiculed as coming down with the man flu, a phrase coined to underscore the often-held belief that when men are sick, they just cant handle it, and tend to overreact or exaggerate the symptoms.

Now, there might be some evidence behind the fact that colds and flu really are worse for men than womenand there may be an evolutionary basis for it, according to new research published in the Christmas issue of the scientific journal BMJ, which takes a more lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek approach to analysis, but still undergoes to same rigorous peer review process.

Thats the consensus researchers came up with, after reviewing about 30 studies on the topic, both in mice and in humans.

Some of the kickers? For one, female mice may actually have a higher immune response to flu viruses such as H1N1 and H3N2, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins, which may mean that women mount higher antibodies against the flu when they get sick. Scientists believe this could be due to hormonal differences, mainly how estrogen bolsters immune response and testosterone dampens it.

Other studies looked at human cells. In fact, one study examining cells from premenopausal women found that they had a stronger immune response to rhinovirus (the common cold) than men or post-menopausal women did. And that, of course, furthers the theory that differences in hormones may be a driving factor.

Broader population studies note the difference, too. Flu season data in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2010 and in the United States from 1997 to 2007 show men had higher rates of hospitalization and death associated with flu than women did, regardless of other factors such as heart disease, cancer, lung disease or kidney disease. Even the World Health Organization seems to acknowledge the difference, in their recommendation that sex should be considered when evaluating influenza exposure and outcomes.

All in all, theres a surprising number of studies out there on the topic, and they do seem to show that men really do experience worst symptoms, says study author Kyle Sue, M.D., of Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, Newfoundland in Canada. He actually decided to analyze the information after coming down with the flu himself the week before he had a presentation on the topic.

Sue wasnt surprised by the news that hormones play a role in immunity, but the link he saw to higher testosterone was interesting. According to the studies, testosterone is immunosuppressive, which means it can reduce the effectiveness of your immune system.

Traditionally, we think of the manly menor those with more testosteroneas the winners, he says. But this data suggests, when it comes to immunity at least, that they may actually be the weakest.

Several scientists have pointed to the live hard, die young mentality, and the fact that males across many different species, not just humans, are more likely to die from trauma than infection. As a result, their immune systems may be less developed, since they wouldnt have had the opportunity to fight off as many bugs.

Still, we need more studies to examine the link further. In his article, Sue jokingly suggests a further avenue of study might be to look at how men with the flu react when they have caregivers to help them recover versus when theyre left to fend for themselves. But the real science should delve more deeply into other factors that really can affect the outcome, like the fact that men tend drink and smoke more often than women do, which could contribute to worse and longer-lasting cold and flu symptoms. The studies also need to include more people and look beyond mice models or cells in a test tube.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had charged Nnamani alongside his former aide, Sunday Anyaogu, over N4.5 billion money laundering.

Also charged are six firms namely Rainbownet Nig. Ltd, Hillgate Nig. Ltd, Cosmo FM, Capital City Automobile Nig. Ltd, Renaissance University Teaching Hospital and Mea Mater Elizabeth High School.

Justice Chuka Obiozor had on Dec. 4, issued a bench warrant for the arrest and production of Nnamani in court, to answer to the charges against him.

The court had issued the orders following the absence of the accused in court.

At the resumed hearing of the case on Thursday, Nnamanis lawyer, Mr Abubakar Samusudeen informed the court of an application challenging the jurisdiction of the court.

His application which was brought pursuant to sections 6(6) and 36 of the constitution, is seeking a declaration that the court lacked jurisdiction to determine the offences contained in charge No. FHC/L/90c/07.

In his response to Nnamanis application, the prosecutor, Mr Kelvin Uzozie, told the court that he was just served with the application, by defence counsel, adding that he required time to respond.

He prayed for a short adjournment.

Justice Obiozor, consequently, adjourned the case until Jan. 19, for hearing of Nnamanis application as well as to take the plea of the accused.

Nnamani was earlier arraigned before Justice Tijani Abubakar and re-arraigned before Justice Charles Archibong when Tijani Abubakar was elevated to court of appeal and later re-arraigned before Mohammed Yinusa when Justice Archibong retired.

The former governor was re -arraigned on a 105-count charge of money laundering and economic crime to the tune of N4.5 billion.

The case has just been reassigned to Obiozor to start afresh.
The governor took to his Twitter account on Friday, December 15, 2017, to disavow any involvement in the decision.

The governor said the approval was pointless because the Federal Government has always claimed that Boko Haram has been defeated.

He further accused the Federal Government of trying to use the money to fund President Muhammadu Buhari's 2019 reelection campaign.

He tweeted, "For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors, who approved the withdrawal of $1bn, almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of govt to fight an already defeated Boko Haram.

"Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for; if not to fund President Buhari's re-election in 2019?

"The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram within six months, now it is 31 months and what the APC government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people.

"N360bn is equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee share to the FG, 36 States and 777 LGs monthly. Nigerians deserve proper explanations from the FG on the rationale behind spending such huge sum of money to fight an already defeated Boko Haram."

"They told Nigerians that the decision to withdraw $1bn from the Excess Crude Account was taken by governors of the 36 States, whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal government, which they used the arranged National Executive Council meeting to achieve.

"The question is; how can the federal government alone spend almost half of the Excess Crude money that belongs to the three tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government, States and Local Councils)?

"The reality is that our treasury is daily being looted in readiness for the 2019 elections. Nigerians are therefore alerted to this lootings by the APC led FG to amass huge fund for the 2019 elections under the pretense of fighting Boko Haram as well as other dubious means."

The decision was disclosed by Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, after the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting held inside the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

While speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting, Obaseki said the approval was announced by Zamfara State governor, Abdulaziz Yari, who's the chairman of the NGF.

While speaking earlier, Gombe State governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, disclosed that the Excess Crude Account had a balance of $2.317 billion as at December 13, 2017.

Boko Haram menace

Since the insurgency of the terrorist group escalated after a 2009 crackdown by the military, Boko Haram, chiefly under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, has been responsible for the death of over 20,000 people and the displacement of more than 2.5 million scattered across Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps across the country and its neighbours.
He was shot at 3pm on October 28, 2017 and by 1am the following morning he died on a stretcher in a dimly lit hall at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital without ever feeling the touch of a surgeons blade.

Between 3pm and 7pm he was taken to and rejected by four hospitals until he was finally admitted to the Teaching Hospital.

Friends and family say it wasnt the gunmens bullets that killed the young engineer and soon to be father.

Rotten healthcare system

They blame Port Harcourts rotten and negligent healthcare system that either refused or failed to do anything to help save Chris life.

Chris friend and founder of African Health Development Initiative Dr Boma Oruamabo said a good pair of hands was all that was needed to give Chris a fighting chance.

Its not like they needed out of this world technology to service him, Dr Oruamabo said.

The health sector in Port Harcourt is not where it should be considering the wealth of the state.

Sometimes (patients) get lucky and sometimes they dontthis happens everyday and its time we put an end to it.

Either you kill me or all of us die here together

When Chris was left for dead on Ikwerre Rd Mile 3, a busy street filled with small and big businesses, there were no ambulances rushing to his rescue.

Chris was at the mercy of a gathering crowd who surrounded him as he bled out.

With curiosity getting the better of Kennedy Ajoku, a rawboned and roughly spoken 27-year-old mechanic, he joined the crowd.

Nobody wanted to help and the taxis were moving (so) I blocked one of the guys and said if you dont carry this man either you kill me or all of us die here together, he said.

In pain and with blood oozing from bullet wounds to his chest and stomach, Chris was taken to two nearby hospitals.

Kennedy said both hospitals rejected them, telling him to take Chris to the Military Hospital.

As time started to tick away Chris told the driver to take him to First Rivers Hospital where his workplace had an arrangement to provide healthcare for its employees.

But after weaving through heavy traffic the answer was the same --- the doctor on duty told Kennedy to take Chris to the Military Hospital.

Begging for First Aid

First Rivers Hospital general manager Idowu Akoti denied this, saying the doctor on duty had begun her assessment of Chris and only left the room briefly to phone a specialist to come to the hospital before Chris was whisked away by an agitated crowd.

They became so agitated they took him and went, he said.

The policy (at First Rivers) is if we know you or not we are here to save lives.

But Kennedy said he was the only one with Chris inside the hospital and that the doctor on duty never left the emergency room to phone a specialist.

Four of Chris neighbours and the taxi driver were waiting outside the hospital in First Rivers car park.

If (First Rivers) agreed to give us attention Chris would not allow us to take him out because thats where he said we should take him, he said.

Although Chris was in a lot of pain, Kennedy said Chris was still able to talk and make his own decisions.

Even when we were taking him (out) Chris was begging (the doctor) please help me for first aid so the pain can reduce. She said they dont have first aid.

Chris was taken to the Military Hospital and despite his attempts to shield his heavily pregnant wife Ogo from the seriousness of his injuries, she met Chris in the back of an ambulance at the Military hospital.

Ogo said because the Military Hospital did not have a chest tube to drain the blood from the space surrounding Chris lungs the hospital referred Chris to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.

Inside the ambulance I was just praying with him and telling him to be strongI didnt want to bother him about the details of what happened, she said.

I didnt know Nigeria had gotten so bad doctors choose whos life to save

We got to the emergency ward (at 7pm) and they said buy drip, buy bloodmoving from one station to another, she said.

Even at 9pm we were still buying material and the only thing they had done on Chris was to administer a drip.

Operating room

Ogo said at about 12.30am, doctors at the Teaching Hospital told her that Chris had been stabilised and was being transferred to an operating room.

The ten of us were happy, jumping, praising God and that at least now we had hope that something would be done, she said.

Exhausted and eight months pregnant Ogo needed rest and left the hospital at 2am thinking she would come back to the hospital later in the morning.

But despite the critical nature of Chris injuries and the hours wasted not treating him, he never made it to the operating theatre and by 1am he was dead.

No light, no water

Friends did not find out about Chris death until 3am and allegations were made that hospital staff members were pressuring them to pay for the chest tube (and) oxygen even though Chris was likely dead at the time.

Im convinced (UPTH) didn't do anything because if I calculate back to the time I was in the hospital that means he was dead even before I left, Ogo said.

Thinking about the number of hours we wasted in UPTH if they had done something, Chris would not have died.

A UPTH official refused to comment on what happened to Chris without a court order.

But Dr Oruamabo, who used to work at the hospital, said it was in a serious state of disrepair, with it being not up to 30% functional.

Half the time there isnt light or water and then doctors who are supposed to be on call are not on groundtheyre either at private practices or at home, he said.

He said the main issues affecting the quality of healthcare delivery in Port Harcourt, and indeed across Nigeria, stemmed from greed, a lack of dedication to work, decrepit and poorly maintained facilities and the rate at which universities churned out young and incompetent doctors.

Short staffed

Its understood that at the time Chris was at UPTH, the surgical and anesthetic teams were short staffed because of exams. Its also understood that the obstetric and general surgery theatre suites were in use when Chris needed it most.

I didnt know Nigeria had gotten so bad, doctors choose whose life to save, Ogo said.

(Chris) was not necessarily killed by the gunshotjust negligence.

He would have been a very great dad, thats what I was looking forward to (the most).
The priest, who was Buharis staunch supporter, also said that the President has been a stubborn resistance against negotiations.

Mbaka also said Every political relationship is open for negotiations, without pre-set outcomes. Atiku do not fear negotiations, as democrat and businessman that is what reasonable human beings that love his people do. This is even more important if a stubborn resistance against negotiations can lead to unsavoury outcomes, which the present governments have demonstrated!

For the Nigerian State to have a soul, the constituent parts need to renegotiate and rework the union. It is what will reduce to the barest minimum the feelings of injustice and poverty among Nigerians. It is what will make Nigerians believe that they chose this union willingly, ending effectively the theory of Lugardian contraption.

It is a perfect antidote for peace. The times call for new ideas For creative solutions, for restructuring, for people to be happy, for people to have means of living, for people to love Nigeria again!

Atiku is the only person that have contested and is still contesting for Nigerian presidency that love the youths more and have created more jobs for the youths to prove that more than most state government!

Imagine what he will do when he have the power and resources to do more! Lets pray that the blessing and protection of God to be with him to put smile in Nigerians suffering different marginalization!

Mbaka says Nigerians will reject Buhari in 2019

In 2016, the controversial priest predicted that Nigerians will reject Buhari in 2019.
President Muhammadu Buhari rode to power on the back of a promise to crack down on endemic graft in Africas most populous country.

In keeping with that promise, Ibrahim Magu was retained as acting EFCC chairman by the administration even after parliament twice refused to confirm him for a substantive role.

However, the opposition has often referred to the administrations anti-graft war as a witch-hunt.

Below are the corruption stories that kept Nigerians talking all through 2017.

1. Diezani Alison-Madueke

Nigerias former petroleum resources minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke was hounded at home and abroad for a raft of corruption allegations all through 2017.

In August, a court forfeited a $37.5M Banana Island mansion allegedly belonging to Diezani, to the federal government.

A slew of other properties located in Yaba, Ikoyi, Port-Harcourt and Abuja worth billions of nairaand which allegedly belonged to Diezani--were also forfeited to the federal government.

The United States Department of Justice also sought to recover $144M in assets and cash from Diezani and her cronies.

Nigerias former minister has been holed up in a London apartmentsince 2015; from where she continues to honour court invitations from the UK authorities.

Diezani has also been accused of petrol subsidy scam perpetrated during her reign as petroleum minister

2. Bukola Saraki

Nigerias Senate President, Bukola Saraki, was finally cleared of corruption charges in June of 2017 by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

It was the culmination of a long drawn legal battle between Saraki on one hand and the federal government on the other.

Saraki had been hauled before the courts on a 13-count charge bordering on false declaration of assets and money laundering, soon after his emergence as senate president.

In 2017, Sarakis name also prominently featured in the Paradise Papers.

The Paradise Papers are a chunk of documents detailing how politicians, celebrities and government officials around the world, float offshore shell companies as a tax evasion tactic from their home countries.

3. Abdulrasheed Maina

Sacked from the federal civil service in 2013 for allegedly fleecing pensioners of billions of naira in entitlements, Borno State born Abdulrasheed Maina somehow found his way back to the government payroll in 2017.

The former boss of the presidential pension reform task force was labelled the pension thief in the local press in 2017.

Mainas civil service reinstatement was enough ammunition for those who would rather hold up the Buhari administrations anti-corruption posture as a huge joke.

ALSO READ: 7 things alleged pension thief said to Buhari

On October 23, 2017, an embarrassed president fired Maina from the federal civil service as government officials and ministers continue to trade blames over his return.

Maina fled Nigeria again just before his sack.

He has been issuing statements proclaiming his innocence, from abroad.

4. Babachir David Lawal

On October 30, 2017, President Buhari fired Babachir Lawal from his position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

In May, a senate committee had indicted Lawal of corruption and conflict of interest as it pertains to a grass cutting contract in the war ravaged north-east region of Nigeria.

Lawal was alleged to have awarded a N500M contract to clear invasive grass species, to companies in which he retains considerable interest.

A presidential panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo endorsed the senates position and Lawal was replaced by Boss Mustapha as the nations SGF.

5. Ayodele Oke

Okes life was never the same again after N13B in cash was discovered in an Ikoyi apartment in April of 2017.

Oke was Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) when the money was found. The nations chief spy claimed the cash haul on his agencys behalf.

Following the recommendations of a presidential panel, Oke was fired as DG of the NIA on October 30, 2017.

6. Patience Jonathan

In April, a federal high court sitting in Lagos, ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to unfreeze the bank accounts of Nigerias former first lady, Patience Jonathan, where the sum of $5.7M sat pretty.

It was a trial that commenced in 2016 but which held the nations attention for most of 2017.

The court has since suspended proceedings on the case, ruling that the money lawfully belongs to Mrs. Jonathan.

7. Andrew Yakubu

Acting on a whistle-blowers tip, operatives of the EFCC discovered $9.8M in cash concealed in a Kaduna bunker.

The money had Andrew Yakubua former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC--written all over it.

The former NNPC boss told law enforcement that the money was gifts from friends.

Yakubu was subsequently arrested and remanded in prison.

In March, Yakubu was arraigned on a six-count charge bordering on fraud.

The EFCC is yet to prove that the money belongs to the federal government.

8. Kolawole Akanni Aluko

In 2017, 48-year-old Kola Aluko made the news as a henchman and crony of Diezani Alison-Madueke.

It is alleged that as petroleum resources minister, Diezani entrusted Aluko and Jide Omokore with the task of acquiring property and laundering money across the world on her behalf.

Aluko allegedly owns a New York penthouse worth $36M and luxury property across the world. He also reportedly hires luxury yacht for fun.

In July, the Daily Beast referred to Aluko as the crooked playboy who courted Naomi Campbell, threw a birthday bash for Di Caprio and rented a yacht to Beyonce.

9. Jide Omokore

The other half of Aluko who allegedly worked in cahoots with Diezani to fleece Nigeria of billions of dollars in crude oil proceeds.

In 2017, Omokore who is the Chairman of Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts Limited, was in and out of courts on allegations bordering on corruption and crude oil theft.

10. Olisa Metuh

Arrested in 2016 over an alleged illicit contract worth over N400M, the trial of former PDP spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, continued to hold the nations gaze well into 2017.

In October, Metuh solicited Goodluck Jonathans help in the form of a star witness, but the former president asked Metuh to cough out N1B in transport fare, hotel accommodation and logistics if he wanted him to testify on his behalf in court.
Azaiki, who is also the Chairman of the Governing Council of the institution, made the commendation during the inauguration of the 4 Governing Council meeting on Thursday in Yenagoa.

He said that the inauguration was an opportunity given to his team to turnaround the university.

He expressed the commitment of the fourth council to uplift the institution to an enviable height, saying it would soon come up with laudable ideas and innovations that would change the narrative of the university.

He stressed the need for fresh ideas that would transform the institution, while urging the council members to think out of the box in all their deliberations.

Edoumiekumo expressed confidence in the collective ability of the council to make great accomplishments during its tenure.

The Commissioner for Education, Mr Jonathan Obuebite, lauded the governors ability to appoint round pegs to fill round holes in order to accomplish crucial tasks.
Constructed in 1975 and located 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Baghdad, the refinery produced between 250,000 and 300,000 barrels a day before IS seized it in June 2014.

Government forces retook the facility and the city of Baiji in October 2015 during fierce clashes with the jihadists but the severe damage meant that the refinery remained closed.

"The rehabilitation will allow the distribution of refined products for the north of the country and reduce our imports," said Jihad.

Baiji was particularly hard hit by the devastation wreaked by Iraq's campaign to reclaim its towns and cities from IS.

In 2016 it was declared a disaster zone by the national parliament.

Backed by a US-led coalition, Iraqi forces gradually retook control of all territory lost to IS over the past three years and on Saturday Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory against the jihadists.
He made the unguarded comments at a holiday party Wednesday evening when approached by a group that videotaped the interaction and posted it on Facebook. The video drew attention from local media on Thursday.

"I've got to have the evidence, and I don't have it yet," Freeman said. "Let me just say it's not my fault. So if it isn't my fault, who didn't do their job? Investigators. They don't work for me. They haven't done their job."

Noor and partner Matthew Harrity were responding to Damond's emergency call about a possible rape near her home in the middle of the night, when the 40-year-old approached their police cruiser in her pajamas. Noor shot and killed Damond from the passenger seat of the car.

Harrity told investigators there was a startling loud noise just prior to the shooting, and his attorney left open the possibility that the officers may have feared an ambush.

Freeman said Noor has been uncooperative, refusing to speak with investigators, and that his partner did not provide useful evidence.

"So, guess what? I've got to figure out angles of the shot, gun residues, reckless use of force experts," Freeman continued.

"I have to follow the law," he said, adding he needed "sufficient admissible evidence beyond a reasonable doubt."

Damond's shooting prompted an international outcry, as she was an Australian national who had moved to the US to marry her fiancee.
"I won't run, I won't hide nor do I have any reason to do so," he said, promising to cooperate with investigations by Congress and the country's attorney general's office.

The right-wing Popular Force party, which controls the Congress, had warned it would begin impeachment proceedings against him if he did not resign by Thursday.

Odebrecht, a Brazilian engineering and construction giant at the center of multiple corruption cases throughout Latin America, revealed on Wednesday it had paid Kuczynski five million dollars in consulting fees between 2004 and 2013.

For part of that period, Kuczynski was economy minister and head of cabinet for then-president Alejandro Toledo, whom Odebrecht said it paid $20 million in kickbacks to win a contract managing a freeway.

"It's obvious that him staying on in the nation's highest office is untenable," Popular Force spokesman Daniel Salaverry said, referring to Kuczynski, a centrist who took office last year after being elected to a five-year term.
District Judge Paul Crotty imposed the 18-year jail term in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday and fined each cousin $50,000.

US government prosecutors had requested a 30-year sentence, arguing that they believed they could operate with impunity as members of the most powerful family in Venezuela.

Defense lawyers sought the minimum 10-year penalty and the two cousins apologized in court, Flores de Freitas breaking down into tears at the mention of his nine-year-old son and asking the judge for a chance to repair his mistakes.

"If they were not from Venezuela but from the Dominican Republic or the Bronx this would be a 10-year case," said defense attorney David Rody.

But "they're not the (Venezuelan) president and they should not bear the brunt of the government's ire towards Venezuela," he added.

The judge ruled that the two defendants seemed "more concerned about the impact on the family than on violating the law in the United States."

He noted that "opportunities for visitation from Venezuela will be very limited" given US travel restrictions imposed on many Venezuelans with ties to President Nicolas Maduro's government.

Their arrest and trial fanned tensions in already fraught US-Venezuelan relations, with Washington at loggerheads with Maduro and the South American oil giant mired in economic crisis.

The cousins, who are sons of brothers of First Lady Cilia Flores, were convicted of plotting to smuggle 800 kilos (1,760 pounds) of cocaine into the United States, as well as manufacturing and distribution with the intent to import.

The Venezuelan government says they were framed.

Lawyers for both defendants argued that they fell into a trap set by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in a sting operation that offered $20 million for the drugs.
They felt they had found an international sponsor in the United States, which relied primarily on the fighters of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to roll back IS in northern and eastern Syria.

But with IS holding just five percent of Syria, Kurds worry the US could withdraw support, costing them the key political and territorial gains they scored in the chaos of war.

"We are afraid of America, which has been using us as a card to play for a long time," said Rafea Ismail, a 37-year-old who sells women's accessories on the hood of his car in the city of Qamishli.

"When they're done using us, they'll forget us," he said.

Qamishli is the main hub of the autonomous administration the Kurdish authorities have run since regime forces withdrew from swathes of northeast Syria in 2012.

"All countries should support us because we fight terrorism. We liberated Raqa, and America should not abandon us and ally with Turkey," said Nawal Farzand, a 45-year-old Kurdish language teacher.

In March 2016, Kurdish parties announced they would seek to establish a federal system there after ousting IS from much of the area with the help of the US-led coalition.

Their biggest win was Raqa, once IS's de facto Syrian capital but captured in October by the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Weeks later, the US announced it was pulling 500 Marines from its nearly 2,000-strong force in Syria and "amending" its support to the YPG.

But the jihadists are "not finished yet," said Nassrin Abdallah, a commander in the militia's female branch, the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ).

Sleeper cells still stage attacks and IS fighters are active in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, she said.

"It is important for the coalition forces to stay to guarantee security and stability, since the threat from Daesh still exists," Abdallah added, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

"Turkey is also a threat to the Kurdish people."

'Gravest' danger is Turkey

The Kurds' rising profile had enraged Damascus, which insists it wants to recapture every inch of territory lost since Syria's uprising erupted in 2011.

But it especially alarmed Turkey, which feared the semi-independent administration in northern Syria would inspire similar ambitions among its own Kurdish community.

Ankara considers the YPG as "terrorist" because of its ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

English teacher Nada Abbas says she, too, fears the US "will abandon the Kurds after the end of the battle against Daesh."

"This would be a gift to Turkey, which doesn't accept Kurds becoming stronger," says the 30-year-old.

"It would attack us like it did in the past. The Turkish threat will not end," Abbas adds.

Nicholas Heras, a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security think tank, says Turkey poses "the gravest threat to the Kurds in Syria" -- even more than Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or IS.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip "Erdogan has made it crystal clear that as soon as the Americans are no longer in the way, he intends to crush the Syrian Kurds, all of whom he views as PKK," Heras tells AFP.

'Russia is the insurance policy'

Fears of an American withdrawal may be drawing Syrian Kurds into Russia's orbit.

The YPG recently announced that its anti-IS operations in east Syria had received air support from Moscow.

Russian forces have also trained Kurdish fighters further west in Afrin -- where there is no IS presence -- and manage a buffer zone between Kurds and Turkish-backed rebels.

And Moscow has been particularly outspoken in support of Syria's Kurds having a seat at the negotiating table at talks in Geneva.

"The relationship between the YPG and the Russian military is becoming a special one. The Syrian Kurdish region of Afrin is solely dependent on the Russian military, not the Americans, for protection from Turkish attack and occupation," says Heras.

Syria's Kurds may seek to protect themselves from Turkey by leveraging relationships with both Russia and the US.

"Two large foreign power patrons is better than one for the Syrian Kurds, especially because both of those patrons have an interest in holding Turkey in check," Heras adds.

"Russia is also the insurance policy for the Syrian Kurds if the United States was to ever abandon them to the mercy of Turkey."

With the frontline against IS winding down, US-led coalition forces are much more visible in urban settings, after several years of being seen almost exclusively in frontline positions.

"We want the best. It won't be possible to go back to how we were," says 50-year-old Jassem Hussein in the mostly Kurdish-held city of Hasakeh.
Earlier this week at a policy forum in Washington, Tillerson had underlined that the United States was seeking a diplomatic opening for negotiations with North Korea on ending its nuclear program and, for the first time, offered "talks with no preconditions."

The White House had responded to Tillerson's remarks by insisting there had been no change in US policy, triggering a new round of reports of a rift between Trump and his chief diplomat.

At the United Nations, Tillerson took a tough line.

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," he said. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved."

"We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open."

Tillerson repeated that "we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea."

"The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution," he said.

According to a prepared version of his remarks, Tillerson had planned to repeat his offer of talks without preconditions, but the line was dropped from his speech.

Asked about the change, Tillerson told reporters afterwards that the United States would not make any concessions of its own to secure talks, but that lines of communication would remain open if North Korea wanted to come forward.

The North Koreans "know where the door is. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk," he said.

Peace-loving state

North Korea's UN ambassador Ja Song-Nam made a rare appearance at the council meeting chaired by Japan, which announced new targeted sanctions on Chinese entities, among others.

Ja took a swipe at the United States which he said was "terrified by the incredible might of our republic" and reaffirmed Pyongyang's view that nuclear weapons were needed for self-defense.

North Korea is "a responsible nuclear power and a peace-loving state" that will strive to safeguard world peace, he said, making no mention of the US call for a pause in missile and nuclear tests.

Singling out China, Pyongyang's sole ally, and Russia, Tillerson urged Beijing and Moscow to go beyond the current tough UN sanctions resolutions and impose unilateral measures.

"Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russia's dedication as a partner for peace," he said.

Tillerson also dismissed concerns that UN sanctions are having an impact on North Korea's humanitarian crisis, saying Pyongyang "hypocritically spends billions" on military programs "while its own people suffer great poverty."

The United States has called on China to cut off oil supplies to North Korea, a move that would deal a crippling blow to its economy.

In Washington, Trump criticized Russia for doing too little to pressure Pyongyang.

"China is helping. Russia is not helping. We would like to have Russia's help," said Trump, who discussed the crisis by phone with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.

Russia's Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia shot back, saying North Korean workers were in Russia as part of a bilateral agreement "which guarantees their rights" -- and not subjected to slave-like conditions.

Addressing Tillerson directly, the Russian ambassador said: "We very much hope that the US will be able to help resolve the crisis on the Korean peninsula."

China's envoy expressed concern about a hardening of positions, saying the current crisis "hardly makes one optimistic".

"The hope for peace is not totally obliterated," said Chinese Deputy Ambassador Wu Haitao. There is "a possibility for negotiation and the option of use of force is unacceptable."

Avoiding catastrophe

Pyongyang has carried out its sixth nuclear test and conducted a series of missile launches including its first tests of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) this year.

Addressing the council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged diplomatic engagement to avoid a "level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences."

The UN's political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, returned at the weekend from talks in Pyongyang -- the first visit to the North by a high-ranking UN official since 2011.

While Feltman received no firm commitment on talks from North Korea, he said the visit was "just the beginning" of his push for "talks about talks."

Since late 2016, the Security Council has slapped three rounds of sanctions aimed at choking off revenue to Pyongyang's weapons program, which the United Nations has described as the most dangerous security issue in the world today.
"I am not going to abdicate my honor, my values or my responsibilities as president," Kuczynski said in a televised speech to the nation, backed by his ministers.

"I won't run, I won't hide nor do I have any reason to do so," he said, promising to cooperate with investigations by Congress and the office of the country's attorney general.

Odebrecht, a Brazilian engineering and construction giant at the center of multiple corruption cases throughout Latin America, revealed on Wednesday it had paid Kuczynski five million dollars in consulting fees between 2004 and 2013.

For part of that period, Kuczynski was economy minister and head of cabinet for then-president Alejandro Toledo, whom Odebrecht said it paid $20 million in kickbacks to win a contract managing a highway project.

"It's obvious that him staying on in the nation's highest office is untenable," Popular Force spokesman Daniel Salaverry said, referring to Kuczynski, a centrist who took office in July 2016 after being elected to a five-year term.

Denies wrongdoing

But in his speech, Kuczynski said he would not step down because "it cost us a lot to recover democracy, and we are not going to lose it."

Odebrecht said it paid $782,000 to a firm owned by Kuczynski, Westfield Capital, while he was Toledo's economy minister and chief of cabinet. It paid another $4.05 million to First Capital, a company that Kuczynski worked for that belonged to a former business partner.

Brandishing documents, Kuczynski denied any wrongdoing.

He said he had no direct relationship with First Capital, although he acknowledged working as a consultant for it on an Odebrecht project, insisting it was legal.

He said Westfield Capital did belong to him, but said, "I never was in charge of the company's management or administration when I held public office."

He said both companies' contracts were managed by Gerardo Sepulveda, a Chilean.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker, had denied receiving any money from Odebrecht until last Saturday when he admitted to having done consulting work for the firm. He did not elaborate.

Two of his consultancies were related to a project for an inter-oceanic highway linking the Atlantic to the Pacific, a mega contract Odebrecht said it bribed Toledo to get.

Impeachment

Impeachment proceedings against Kuczynski could begin as early as Friday.

Launching proceedings to remove him from office would require the votes of 87 of the Congress's 130 legislators, a hurdle the opposition is positioned to easily surmount.

If Kuczynski is forced out of office, he would be replaced by first vice president, Martin Vizcarra, currently serving as Peru's ambassador to Canada.

Leftist groups have urged calling early elections.

But Popular Force, the party led by Keiko Fujimori -- the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori -- is seen as having the most to gain. It currently has a majority in Congress with 71 seats.

Keiko Fujimori lost the 2016 presidential elections by a narrow margin, and has since kept the pressure on Kuczynski. Alberto Fujimori, 79, is serving a prison sentence for human rights abuses during his 1990-2000 presidency.

Kuczynski is the third Peruvian president to get in hot water over the Odebrecht affair.
It has given him a deadline of Thursday to resign, or it would start impeachment proceedings.

"It's obvious that him staying on in the nation's highest office is untenable," said the spokesman for the party's lawmakers, Daniel Salaverry.

The accusation against the president stems from Odebrecht's revelation on Wednesday that it paid Kuczynski nearly $5 million to advise companies tied to it between 2004 and 2013.

For part of that period, Kuczynski was economy minister and head of cabinet for then-leader Alejandro Toledo, whom Odebrecht said it paid $20 million in kickbacks to win a contract managing a freeway.

Following an investigation by US authorities, Odebrecht agreed a year ago to pay a record $3.5 billion fine after admitting to paying $788 million in bribes across 12 countries to secure public works contracts.

Fictitious "advisory fees" were one scheme the Brazilian company used to funnel bribes to officials.

'Regional crisis'

The Odebrecht scandal has ensnared politicians in several other countries, including Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, and of course in Brazil itself.

It has generated "a regional crisis that shows that corruption is structural in all those countries," the former head of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, Jose Ugaz, told AFP.

On Wednesday, Ecuador's vice president, Jorge Glas, was sentenced to six years in prison for taking what prosecutors said was $13.5 million in bribes from Odebrecht. He is expected to appeal the conviction and sentence.

Glas so far is the biggest political scalp from the Odebrecht affair. But Kuczynski risks outranking him if Peru's opposition gets its way.

"What the Peruvian people demand is that the president steps down and that there is a constitutional transition so that the vice president of the republic assumes Peru's presidency," Salaverry said.

Kuczynski, a 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, had denied that he received any money from Odebrecht. But on Saturday, he admitted he had provided advisory services, but did not give details. He denies receiving any illegal payments.

The president has said he will testify before a congressional commission looking into the extent of Odebrecht wrongdoing in Peru on December 22.

In the event he does step down, Peru's First Vice President Martin Vizcarra -- currently ambassador to Canada -- would replace him.

The crisis is benefiting the Popular Force party, which hold 71 of the 130 seats in Congress.

It is led by Keiko Fujimori, daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori, in prison for murder, kidnapping and other human rights abuses as well as corruption during his 1990-2000 reign.

Keiko Fujimori was narrowly beaten by Kuczynski in the 2016 presidential election.
The White House said the two "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea."

But Trump's thanks to Putin took top billing in the US statement.

"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference," it said.

Earlier in the day, Putin told his press conference: "Look at how the markets are reacting, they are growing. This shows confidence in the American economy. With all due respect to (Trump's) opponents, these are objective facts."

The pair have lavished praise on each other in the past, with commentators describing their cozy relationship as a "bromance."

Special counsel Robert Mueller is currently investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow to tilt the White House race in his favor.

Washington this week said it was ready to talk to North Korea -- which has launched several intercontinental ballistic missiles in recent months -- "without preconditions."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that while the Trump administration was still determined to force Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear arsenal, it was willing to "have the first meeting without preconditions."

Putin, in his annual press conference with hundreds of journalists in Moscow, welcomed the United States' "awareness of reality" in the crisis.
The vehicle was unloaded at Port Botany in Sydney and then transported by road for the remaining 280km to Canberra.

The 33m-long five-section vehicle accommodates 207 passengers. The $A 65m ($US 50m) order with CAF includes a 20-year maintenance provision for the fleet.

The 12km 13-station light rail line is currently under construction and will link the northern suburb of Gungahlin with the city centre and will have 13 stops.

Initial planning is underway on Stage 2 of the network which will extend the line from Civic in the city centre to the southern suburb of Woden.

Services on Stage 1 are expected to start operating towards the end of 2018.
Members of the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers have ratified their tentative contract agreement with the nations major freight railroads.

The NCFO, which represents 2,800 rail employees, is part of a six-union Coordinated Bargaining Group (CBG). As a result, five of the six unions in the CBG have now ratified tentative agreements reached with the railroads in early October. The unions in the CBG represent 85,000 employees, almost 60% of the employees covered in this bargaining round.

Employers on Dec. 11 announced that they had reached agreement with Brotherhood Railway Carmen (BRC), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU).

In total, the railroads have now reached agreements covering wages, benefits and other issues with unions covering 116,000 employees, about 80% of the 145,000 employees in this bargaining round.

An agreement has yet to be reached with the third coalition consisting of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, representing the final 20% of affected unionized rail workers.

Were pleased to see yet another ratification of a tentative agreement, said A. Kenneth Gradia, Chairman of the National Carriers Conference Committee (NCCC), the railroads bargaining representative. It is another important step in the resolution of national negotiations with all the rail unions.

The NCCC represents more than 30 railroads, including BNSF, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific, in national bargaining with 12 rail unions. Bargaining began in 2015.
Amtrak has selected Penn Station Partners to negotiate a master development deal for Baltimore Penn Station.

The team is comprised of Beatty Development Group, Armada Hoffler Properties, Cross Street Partners, Gensler, WSP USA, Network Rail Consulting and Mace Group, among others.

Baltimore Penn Station is the eighth busiest station in our national network and this important step underscores Amtraks continued efforts to significantly enhance the station experience and amenities for all travelers, said Bart Bush, Amtrak Vice President of Real Estate Stations and Facilities.

Goals of the master development, which includes neighboring Amtrak-owned properties, include modernizing and expanding station facilities and amenities to accommodate growth; renovating the stations upper floors, and supporting transit-oriented development in the surrounding neighborhood.

I am confident that this team, which is comprised of local Baltimore businesses, understands how urgent the redevelopment of Penn Station is to the City of Baltimore, said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.). This team brings the expertise essential to ensuring that the full potential of this resource is finally tapped to support economic growth and revitalization.

This development is a historic opportunity for Amtrak and Penn Station Partners to bring to life a bold future for Penn Station, generating jobs and sustained economic opportunities for our Baltimore communities and beyond, said Mayor Catherine Pugh. My administration looks forward to working with this team to maintain forward momentum.

Amtrak said negotiations are underway with the team proposing a multi-phased, mixed-use development that could develop as much as 1.6 million square feet in the area. Preliminary concepts include a hotel in the historic station headhouse, as well as office and residential space to the north along Lanvale Street connected by an expanded concourse with new retail opportunities. Specific details regarding the developments scope, design and phasing will be the focus of future discussions between Amtrak, the selected developer, stakeholders and the public.

Originally named Union Station when the Pennsylvania Railroad opened it in 1911 and served the Western Maryland, the Beaux-Arts style depot on the Northeast Corridor was designed by architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison of New York. Its location at 1515 North Charles Street puts it a mile-and-a half north of downtown and the Inner Harbor. In 1928 it was renamed to match other PRR stations. It hosts Amtrak, MARC and the Maryland Transit Administrations light rail.

Murchison also designed the PRRs station in Johnstown, Pa.; the existing Hoboken and Scranton (now hotel) stations for the Delaware Lackawanna & Western, and the Florida East Coast station (now a convention center) in Jacksonville, Fla.

On behalf of the entire Penn Station Partners team, we are incredibly excited for this opportunity to reimagine one of Baltimores great transportation hubs, said Michael Beatty, President of Beatty Development Group. The PSP team is comprised of some of the top minds from around the world, experts in their respective fields, all working together to create an ambitious vision for the future of Baltimore Penn Station. Todays announcement brings us one step closer to making that vision a reality.

Penn Station Partners also includes JLL, HR&A Advisors, Charles Belfoure, Cho Benn Holback, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, RK&K and Younts Design. The group was selected from a pre-qualified short list of teams following a Request for Qualifications in 2016.
Outgoing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Dec. 14 said that have agreed that their states and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have agreed to contribute $5.55 billion toward the Gateway Program50% of the massive projects cost, and placing responsibility with President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Transportation to contribute the remaining half.

So far, Trump and USDOT Secretary Elaine Chao have been noncommittal.

In this most recent iteration, New Jerseys share is $1.9 billion, New Yorks is $1.75 billion, and the PANYNJs is $1.9 billion, which the bi-state agency already authorized as part of its long-term capital plan. This is a departure from a prior scenario in which the shares would be split equally.

Cuomos Budget Director, Robert Mujica Jr,. said New York State commits to propose in the States executive budget an appropriation each year over a 35-year period to pay debt service on a $1.75 billion fixed-interest loan to the GDC (Gateway Program Development Corp.) with a 35-year term under the USDOT Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan program, which is to be used toward construction of a new tunnel, and use good faith efforts to obtain New York State legislative approval of these appropriations. The State expects to recoup its debt service costs from new infrastructure revenues and offsets.

However, New York State is currently dealing with a budget crisis, facing a projected $4.4 billion deficit that must be eliminated before Cuomo releases a new budget in January.

NJ Transit customers will be expected foot the cost of New Jerseys share of the project cost through user charges on trains using the new the tunnels in and out of Manhattan. Funding to support this commitment will be generated by a new charge on Trans-Hudson rail use, said NJ Transit Executive Director Steve Santoro. Specifically, NJ Transit intends to generate the revenue to support $1.9 billion in project design and capital construction costs through a per-passenger trip charge for all NJT rail passenger trips each way across the Hudson River. The estimated per-trip cost to NJT rail customers using the Trans-Hudson tunnels will be $.90 beginning in 2020 and increase to $1.70 in 2028 and $2.20 in 2038.

Gov.-elect Phil Murphy, who takes office Jan. 16, said he will not honor Christies commitment, pointing to how Christie began his governorship by cancelling a prior project, the ARC (Access to the Regions Core) rail tunnel, also called THE (Trans-Hudson Express) Tunnel, as well as The Tunnel to Macys Basement by critics. It set us back at least a decade, and many billions of dollars, said Murphy. And now it seems were going to have to pay for that gap by further raising fares on commuters. When I am sworn in as governor, we will review the application and see if theres any way to provide additional relief to our commuters, and if there is, we will pursue it.

Trump and the UDSDOT are expected to release a $1 trillion federal infrastructure plan early in 2018. They have been obtuse about funding the 50% federal share of Gateway, to which former President Barack Obama had committed. On this latest proposal, This is not a serious plan at all  It is also important that we clarify that there is no DOT match, a USDOT spokesperson told NJTV Senior Correspondent Brenda Flanagan. The much discussed 50/50 agreement between USDOT, New York, and New Jersey is mythical. There is no such agreement.

Interestingly, in the recent past, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is married to Chao, has called Trumps infrastructure proposal a non-starter. And with the federal deficit expected to increase under the income tax overhaul currently being hashed out in Congress, skeptics believe Trumps infrastructure plan is also mythical.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate Minority Leader, along with Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) Kirsten Gillibrand ((D-N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), have responded to Trumps refusal to provide a clear answer on Gateway by purposely holding up Senate confirmation of career railroader Ron Batory as Federal Railroad Administrator.

Until Schumer relinquishes his political chess pieces, Batory is serving as a special advisor on railroad matters to USDOT Secretary Elaine Chao.
Former Russian minister Ulyukayev found guilty in bribery case

MOSCOW, December 15 (RAPSI)  The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow on Friday found former Russias economy minister Alexey Ulyukayev guilty of receiving $2 million in bribes, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

Before starting a sentencing hearing Ulyukayev told journalists that he believed in justice and hoped for acquittal.

On December 4, a prosecutor demanded a 10-year term in a high security penal colony and a 500-million-ruble fine (nearly $8.5 million) for Ulyukayev. Defense asked the court to acquit ex-minister.

Ulyukayev was arrested on November 14, 2016, when leaving the office of Rosneft oil company. The Federal Security Services (FSB) officers found a bag holding $2 million in cash in his official car.

Ulyukayev was charged with extortion a grand bribe. According to the Investigative Committee, he threatened to create obtrusions for Rosneft with the use of his position. On November 15, 2016, he was put under house arrest. Later in the evening, President Vladimir Putin relieved Ulyukayev of his post because of loss of trust.

Ex-minister pleaded not guilty and stated that he believed the case was fabricated. The defendant noted that there was a provocation, orchestrated by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and that there was no sound evidence in the case, aside from testimony provided by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.

Trial of Ulyukayev began in mid-August. The court questioned 15 witnesses including the Economy Ministry officials, Ulyukayevs driver, Rosneft employees, journalists and FSB officers.

Sechin was summoned for interrogation four times but he failed to appear in court. A judge refused to read out his testimony given during pre-trial investigation.

Over 564 million rubles ($9.5 million) and 15 property items belonging to the former minister have been seized by court.
Ex-police officer sentenced to life faces new murder trial

MOSCOW, December 15 (RAPSI)  Former police officer Mikhail Popkov sentenced to life in prison for killing 22 women will stand trial on new murder charges, the Investigative Committees press office reports Friday.

According to investigators, between 1992 and 2010, the man killed at least 84 people. Women at the ages from 16 to 40, and one police officer became his victims.

Indictment has been approved, and the case will be forwarded to court soon, the statement reads.

In January 2015, a court in the Irkutsk region found Popkov guilty of 22 killings and 2 attempted murders, and sentenced him to life in prison.
Prosecutors appeal return of Rusnano ex-heads case

MOSCOW, December 15 (RAPSI)  Prosecutors have appealed a ruling of the Cheremushkinsky District Court of Moscow returning them an embezzlement case against former head of the state-owned technology corporation Rusnano, Leonid Melamed, the courts press-service told RAPSI on Friday.

On December 8, the court proposed to return the case on its own volition. Lawyer Ruslan Kozhura said that the initiative was supported by defense of Melamed and another ex-manager of the corporation, Svyatoslav Ponurov, also charged with embezzlement. According to Kozhura, the court noted that currently presented evidence does not reveal the nature of charges. Still, Melamed and Ponurov are to stay under house arrest.

Earlier, Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of the Executive Board of Rusnano, testified in the case.

The Investigative Committee claims that between 2007 and 2009, Melamed along with ex- corporation managers Andrey Malyshev and Svyatoslav Ponurov illegally transferred over 220 million rubles ($3.7 million at the current exchange rate) from Rusnano to Alemar Co. controlled by Melamed. The defendants pled not guilty.

According to the information available, the case was opened after the check of the corporations finance indicators by the Audit Chamber. The defendants have been charged with large-scale embezzlement of public funds.
Investigation into three instances of case against Zakharchenko complete

MOSCOW, December 15 (RAPSI)  Investigators have completed preliminary investigation into three instances of a criminal case against Russian anti-corruption ex-official, Dmitry Zakharchenko, charged with receiving a large-scale bribe, the Investigative Committees press-service stated on Friday.

Earlier, lawyer Alexander Karabanov told RAPSI that law enforcement officers seized about 2,000 belonging to Marina Semynina, a partner of Zakharchenko, during the searches at her apartment. The attorney said that the searches were conducted in violation of law, before a little child. A cellphone, tablet and medical documents were seized as well, Karabanov added.

On December 1, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow ruled to seize property belonging to Zakharchenko and his relatives, in the state's favor. A request to turn assets to the state has been filed by the Prosecutor Generals Office.

Overall, the property in this case is evaluated at 9 billion rubles (about $153.3 million), including 27 real estate objects in elite neighborhoods of Moscow, 4 high-end automobiles, 8 billion rubles (about $135.1 million) and a gold bar.

During the court hearings, Zakharchenko, who was present via videoconference, said that he had never been an owner of real estate objects in question.

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 pleaded not guilty.
Russian Supreme Court approves bill on protection of children from pedophilia

MOSCOW, December 15 (RAPSI)  Russias Supreme Court has approved a bill on improvement of measures taken to protect children from sexual abuse, including pedophilia, the press-service of the State Duma MP Irina Yarovaya stated on Friday.

The bill cancels the statute of limitations for sex crimes against children to enforce inevitability of punishment for the criminals. Also, sexual harassment against minors perpetrated by people living with them as well as by those who use their office position is to be classified as especially grave crimes.

According to the bill, harboring these crimes becomes punishable by law. Distributing pornography among minors or depraving them online are to be considered as aggravating factors. Authors of the bill also propose to allow psychologists to be present during investigative procedures involving children. Sex crimes against minors under age of 12 are to be punished by life sentence.

In August, Anna Kuznetsova, Russia's children's rights commissioner, spoke in favor of establishment of the so-called registry of pedophiles. This list is to include information on all citizens responsible for committing crimes against childrens sexual inviolability. The criminals are to be put under administrative supervision for the rest of their lives. The proposal was supported by Russias Interior Ministry.

In April, the Supreme Court proposed to set up administrative supervision over child molesters after their release from prison.

According to the bill prepared by the Court, individuals facing release or already freed from prison would be put under supervision if they have an unexpunged or unspent conviction for committing a crime against minors sexual immunity and sexual freedom. Administrative oversight would also apply to those, who suffer from disorder of sexual preference (pedophilia), which does not rule out sanity.

Supervision would be established for individual treatment and protection of state and public interests. A court would therefore impose temporary restrictions of convicts rights and freedom as well as entrust with certain responsibilities. Law enforcement officers would be authorized to exercise such supervision.
We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on the website. The purposes of using cookies are defined in the Privacy Policy of RAPSI

If you agree to continue using cookies, please click the "Confirm" button. If you do not agree, you can change your browser settings.
On October 20, 2017 the Fair Trade Commission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) issued a decision against U.S. technology company Qualcomm Incorporated. By a divided 43 vote, the Commission concluded that certain of the companys longstanding and industry-wide patent licensing practices violate Taiwans competition law. Qualcomm was ordered to pay a record approximately $778 million fine and to negotiate with existing and potential licensees over long-established, industry-accepted agreements, among other penalties.

Ironically  given the Commissions mandate to protect consumer interests  these remedies will harm Taiwan consumers by raising prices. More troubling still for the rest of the world, they will harm incentives to innovate for both patent holders and manufacturers everywhere.

The Commissions decision is the most recent in a series of troubling decisions over the last few years that highlight the potential harm of antitrust enforcement. The number of foreign competition laws and agencies has risen dramatically over the last 25 years, with 130 jurisdictions having competition laws today  up from just 23 in 1990. A bipartisan group of competition and trade experts recently reported that certain of these jurisdictions are

in some cases, denying foreign companies fundamental due process and, in other cases, applying their competition laws to protect their home markets from foreign competition, promote national champions, and/or force technology transfers.

With respect to intellectual property (IP) rights, in particular, certain foreign governments appear to be using competition law to unfairly target royalty payments to U.S. companies in order to favor their own domestic manufacturers. This threatens to harm U.S. innovation and economic growth. Consider that, as of 2014, IP-intensive industries support at least 45 million U.S. jobs and contribute more than $6 trillion dollars to (or 38.2 percent of) U.S. gross domestic product. These unfair practices also conflict with international norms recognizing that the purpose of competition law is to protect the competitive process to benefit consumers, not to protect specific companies or competitors.

The Commissions decision is unusual because it was accompanied by publicly issued dissenting statements from three commissioners. The statements highlight several blatant flaws in the decision.

First, the majority failed to provide due process to Qualcomm, including restricting the right of the commissioners to access and review the case file prior to the decision. For instance, as one dissenting commissioner pointed out, the commissioners were subjected to unduly strict review procedures and timelines, such as allowing only online file review from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. excluding weekends and holidays. The Commission also failed to hold even a single hearing or other forum during which Qualcomm could defend itself and the commissioners could deliberate.

Second, the majority failed to conduct an economically sound, evidence-based analysis. Another dissenting commissioner stated that:

The Decision failed to evaluate the influence of Qualcomms underlying conducts on the competition and the consumer welfare from the perspective of economic analysis, which resulted in the fact that the Decision is protecting competitors rather than competition, which has departed from the legislative purposes of the [Taiwan competition act].

Finally, the Commission acted inappropriately to protect competitors, such as domestic manufacturers, rather than the competitive process and consumers.

With respect to due process, over the course of its investigation, the Commission repeatedly denied Qualcomms multiple requests that the Commission provide the company with specific information on the theories and evidence on which the investigation was based. Such a denial of fundamental due process rights prohibited the company from adequately defending itself and seriously calls into question the merits of the Commissions decision.

Such denial of due process has far-reaching effects. As one of the dissenting commissioners points out:

Once an independent agency perceives no self-restraint in exercising its power by overlooking the foundation for democracy and rule of laws, including respects, participation and transparency, it will eventually harm the independency cherished by everyone.

One hope to correct this miscarriage of justice  which weakens innovation incentives and intellectual property rights  is to send a clear message abroad that the U.S. will not stand for the taking of intellectual property of U.S. companies. This could start with a statement by the U.S. government that addresses the lack of due process and supports Qualcomms efforts to overturn the Commissions decision. This would afford the Taiwan legal system an opportunity to self-correct and also send a message globally about the ability of its regulators to administer antitrust laws effectively and fairly.

It is time for U.S. interests to declare enough is enough when it comes to foreign antitrust authorities depriving American companies of the fruits of their investments in innovation.

David J. Kappos is a Partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, and former Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP represents Qualcomm Incorporated.
Property details:

Welcome to Southern California's Playground of the Rich and Famous Big Bear Lake NO MINIMUM / NO RESERVE HIGH BID OWNS LOT For almost one hundred years, the Big Bear Lake area has been the primary mountain resort in Southern California. The 782 acre Alpine Lake, nestled at an altitude of 5108', is often described as the jewel of Southern California. The fresh mountain air and four-season climate is unmatched in Southern California. Part of the San Bernadino National Forest, the lot for auction i...

Price: $ 780 Seller State of Residence: Florida Property Address: Avenue " H " State/Province: California Type: Homesite, Lot Zoning: Residential Location: , Big Bear Lake, California

You will be redirected to eBay



Nearby Residential
Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale

Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada.

Search Real Estate
,



We're sorry, this article is not currently available
'We have replaced an inefficient public sector with a monopolistic private sector.'

Air Deccan, Indias first low-cost airline that made flying affordable for the middle class, is relaunching its operations from December 23.

The airlines promoter, G R Gopinath, bottom, left, tells Arindam Majumder about the hurdles it faced, the countrys aviation scene and much more. Excerpts:

You were supposed to start operations by September. What took you so long?

We faced huge problems in getting slots at Mumbai and Delhi airports.

I wouldnt mince words - you can call it monopoly of airport operators, and monopoly is a monster.

Every major city in the world has second airports, and they compete among themselves to attract airlines.

Here, there is no competition. For instance, the Mumbai airport operates around 1,000 flights a day. Most of the flights operated from Mumbai are out of Maharashtra.

But, the Mumbai airport should also serve the people of Maharashtra.

A person from Kolhapur would like to go to Mumbai; a person from Agra would have a need to go to Delhi.

Smaller cities of the region need to get connected to the hubs, only then connectivity will improve.

But, I am sorry to say private airports policies are not aligned with the UDAN scheme.

What is your suggestion to solve this problem?

Why cant private airports allocate 25 per cent of their flights for regional aviation?

They are not doing it because it is not attractive in monetary terms, as parking charges of smaller aircraft are less (UDAN flights have zero parking charges).

The government allocates certain portion of its funds for developing rural roads, rural infrastructure, and rural health.

Why cant a private airport do the same? The DGCA data says annually, Indian airlines sell around 100 million tickets.

But, most of the flying happens between the metros, and they are frequent flyers. UDAN aims to connect the regional cities and bring new flyers in. I have not got parking in Mumbai.

So the aircraft has to fly from Nashik or Kolhapur to Mumbai in the morning.

How does a regional operator make money this way?

But, private airports are not allowing UDAN vision. We have replaced an inefficient public sector with a monopolistic private sector.

How many aircraft will you use to connect the routes?

We have ordered five 20-seater aircraft. One will be based out of Mumbai, one out of Delhi, two will be based out of Kolkata.

Currently, we have three aircraft. All five will be pressed into operation before the end of January, and we will start all the routes that we won in the bid by January.

The smaller the aircraft, harder it is to make money. How do you plan a sustainable operation with 20-seater aircraft?

Thats why we opted for smaller aircraft.

In a 20-seater aircraft, nine seats will be subsidised by the government. I need to find only 11 passengers. Gradually, as demand simulates and the route develops, we will consider putting bigger planes.

I have operated ATRs on thin routes. Much before UDAN started, Air Deccan was flying to places like Kolhapur and northeastern cities. We were the original and first low-cost carrier in India.

Your Rs 1 promotional fare has sparked huge interest.

Its a promotional offer, to trigger interest in public. To simulate the common mans aspiration to fly.

A very limited number of seats will be given under the scheme on a first-come-first-served basis, as most of the seats anyway will be priced within Rs 1,500.

You have once again used R K Laxmans common man for branding. Whats the idea behind it?

While inaugurating the first UDAN flight, PM Modi made an interesting remark.

He said Air Indias logo should be a common man, instead of a Maharaja.

The man you see as Air Deccans logo is a common man. He could be anybodys uncle and can be from anywhere - Delhi, Kolkata or Chennai.

He is a ubiquitous common man of India. Rather than a celebrity, he represents the aspirations of a common Indian, and that is what Air Deccan stands for.
The Great Showman's five children remember him on his 93rd birth anniversary.

IMAGE: Randhir Kapoor, Ritu Nanda, Rishi Kapoor, Reema Jain and Rajiv Kapoor. Photograph: Kind Courtesy Riddhima Kapoor Sahani/Twitter

Raj Kapoor's 93rd birth anniversary was celebrated in a special way in New Delhi on Thursday, December 14, evening.

His five children -- Randhir Kapoor, Ritu Nanda, Rishi Kapoor, Reema Jain and Rajiv -- compiled a tribute to their illustrious father in a book, Raj Kapoor: The One And Only Showman, published by HarperCollins India.

Raj Kapoor's name, Amitabh Bachchan said in a special tribute, 'reflects the spirit of India as a country full of life and zest.'

In an emotional video message from Thailand where he is shooting Thugs of Hindostan, Bachchan -- whose daughter Shweta is married to Nikhil Nanda, Ritu Nanda's son -- noted, 'The name Raj Kapoor only signifies one word -- India. The Indian showman of all time.'

'Visit any part of the world and your own Indian identity gets identified by his name... Such was and still is his presence. It will be very difficult to describe the phenomenon of Raj Kapoor,' Bachchan pointed out.

'Was it the choice of his stories that he so passionately got involved in... To be able to read its effect into the eyes of the audience? Was it the music of his films? Every note, word, musical interval... The tune we still remember after so many years... His production elegance never seen before. His penchant for getting the right cast for every story...' Bachchan noted.

IMAGE: Randhir Kapoor. Photograph: Kind courtesy HarperCollins India/Twitter

Bachchan recalled an instance when the two of them were in Tashkent, then in the Soviet Union, and the organisers of the event asked Raj Kapoor to sing a song, to which he ended up crooning to Saare Jahan Se Achcha...'

'No one could ever match his love, his zest for life, which reflected in his works,' the actor added.

He recalled Raj Kapoor walking into the ICU at the Breach Candy hospital smiling when Bachchan was recuperating after his accident on the sets of Coolie in 1982.

Raj Kapoor opened up a champagne bottle, toasting to Bachchan's good health, saying, 'With this bottle, we shall launch the ship of love again'...

IMAGE: Ritu Nanda. Photograph: Kind courtesy HarperCollins India/Twitter

In a tribute to Shashi Kapoor, Raj Kapoor's youngest brother who died last week, Rishi Kapoor commenced the event reading an excerpt from the book where the late actor recalled that his eldest brother was like a 'father' to him.

IMAGE: Ritu Nanda with her husband Escorts Chairman Rajan Nanda. Photograph: Kind Courtesy HarperCollins India/Twitter

Ritu Nanda quoted her father's memorable song Jeena Yahaan Marna Yahaan from Mera Naam Joker, and said, 'I wanted to bring together all those people who have been touched by Raj Kapoor in one way or the other.'

IMAGE: The book cover. Photograph: Kind courtesy HarperCollins India/Twitter

While Reema remembered how, as children, her father's birthday was like a 'national holiday' for them, her elder brother Randhir recalled the love their father received in Russia, and in present day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

When Ritu and he travelled to China, Randhir Kapoor said Rajji's eldest children realised the Chinese loved him as much as the Russians.

'When they recognised us as Raj Kapoor's children, they refused to take money from us,' Randhir said, 'saying that the love they got from his films they cannot (trade it) for money.'

The book launch was attended by Jaya Bachchan and her daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda, Neetu Kapoor and her daughter Riddhimma Kapoor Sahani, Nafisa Ali, among others.
There are so many questions surrounding the conduct of the revised bypoll to Chennais RK Nagar seat that it stretches the credibility of the electoral process, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

IMAGE: DMK working president M K Stalin campaigns for party candidate Marudhu Ganesh in RK Nagar, Chennai. The constituency goes to polls on December 21. Photograph: Courtesy, M K Stalin on Twitter.

Independent of the outcome of the revised bypoll for the prestigious R K Nagar assembly seat in Chennai, it has already strained the credibility of the nations electoral process even more than the first round.

If in the cancelled first round, the candidates, especially those of the ruling AIADMK as it existed then, were blamed for corrupting an already corrupt system in the state, the current one questions the care that the Election Commission should have taken but seemingly did not.

First and foremost, the EC did not explain to anyone why it took time countermanding, if not cancelling, the first round polls, when there was enough on hand to prove that all was not well with rival campaigns, the influence of money and its free distribution at all hours of the day, being all too visible.

That it became necessary after taxmen had seized notes with the names of ruling party/faction men with massive sums written against each ones name, allegedly as the money spent by them for purchasing votes for then AIADMK (Amma) faction candidate, T T V Dinakaran.

When the tax men forwarded the same to the EC, the latter very promptly cancelled the polls -- as the total amount mentioned, in this one instance alone, was a massive Rs 89 crores.

Now comes the second question as to the EC delaying the by-polls beyond the statutory six months time, citing relevant powers under the law on the one hand, and also the ground situation, which one had to conclude, did not seem to have improved.

Yet, when the Madras high court set a December 31 deadline for the EC to hold the by-polls, it readily complied and promptly fixed it for December 21.

As earlier, no one asked how the EC had concluded that the ground situation had improved, or how it had become overnight conducive to conduct the by-poll, without any proof thereof.

If anything, the state government did not seem to have taken any action on the taxmens document on the Rs 89-crore electoral booty that the EC had forwarded to the chief secretary for action.

Incidentally, the proactive governor in incumbent Banwarilal Purohit too did not seem to have taken cognisance of the ECs letter to the state government on this score, or what has since followed.

It is anybodys guess if the governor did seek to update himself on the follow-up action, if any, in the matter, and if so, if he had taken it up with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, or ministry officials, since.

That way, it is also unclear if the EC sought and obtained clarifications and satisfied itself about the creation of a conducive atmosphere for the conduct of the by-polls before obliging the high court.

The alternative would have been for the EC to tell the HC about its apprehensions, if any, in the matter, and seek judicial intervention in the matter, if only to ensure that the state government behaved.

Even otherwise, the EC could anticipate mushrooming of poll petitions with regard to R K Nagar-II after the results are announced, where questions may also be raised if the commission had applied its mind before delaying the by-poll beyond the six-month interregnum, and if it satisfied itself on the ground conditions before ordering the same when the HC asked it to do so.

In the process, the EC might even be asked why it could not have considered taking charge of the poll process more directly and at a more appropriate time than it actually did when it ordered the replacement of R K Nagar-II returning officer K Velusamy with an IAS officer in Praveen P Nair.

Under the law, as defined and refined by the Supreme Court and enforced by the EC, especially over the past two-plus decades, all election-related work and officers come directly under the commissions administrative and disciplinary administration.

If anything, that way, Velusamys replacement came about only after he has seemingly messed up the rejection of nomination papers of two limelight, if not heavyweight, candidates, in Jayas niece J Deepa, and film personality Vishal Krishna, actor and elected chair of both the film actors association and the producers council in the state.

It is a settled principle in law that the RO is the last word in matters of nomination and even the CEC or the three-member Commission could nothing about it, until after polling is over and results are announced -- that too if and when any of the losing candidates moved the high court, and flagged the issue.

Considering the possibilities of multiplicity of court cases stalling the electoral process almost eternally all across the country, the Constitution very clearly states that no court shall entertain any petition challenging the conduct of any election conducted by the EC under the law, until the latter had concluded the electoral process, with the announcement of the results.

This only means that both Deepa and Vishal, even though neither of them could move the court just now, could still challenge all the processes and the choice/change of persona involved in the rejection of their nominations, and seek response from the EC, and also the state CEO Rajesh Lakhoni.

Even without it, a losing candidate can possibly challenge the election/result on a host of this and other issues.

Among them could be the standardised allegation of money-power, which according to media reports, is already playing an important part, if not to the same extent as the last time round.

The question otherwise remains as to why the EC could not have conducted the R K Nagar by-poll in the midst of the assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, whose results would anyway have come out on December 18, before the voters actually cast their lot on December 21.

Which, incidentally, is also the day when special judge O P Saini of the CBI court will deliver the much-delayed verdict in the 2-G scam involving some senior members of the DMKs Karunanidhi clan, ex-ministers and officials.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is director, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
'A false narrative is being created, that Narendra Modi is a habitual offender when it comes to lowering the political discourse in the country.'

'Nothing can be farther from the truth,' argues Sudhir Bisht.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi greets former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh at the memorial event at Parliament on December 13, 2017 to mourn the lives of the security personnel who laid down their lives in the terror attack on Parliament 16 years ago.

Photograph: Vijay Verma/PTI Photo

I had said in an earlier Rediff.com column that logically the Bharatiya Janata Party should lose given the two decades of anti-incumbency, but the Modi-Shah duo will help the BJP scrape through to a narrow victory.

But this is not an article about who will win and who will lose Gujarat. This is not even about who visited how many temples and who was rechristened a 'janeu dhari Hindu' or a 'Shiv bhakt'.

This isn't about the absence of skull caps and the conspicuous display of tilak on foreheads.

This article is about which party has lowered the dignity of the Gujarat election campaign.

This article is about the narrative created by the likes of Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, who said he was pained and anguished by Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's 'lies' about the contents of his meeting with Pakistani diplomats, serving and retired.

Dr Singh said he had discussed only India-Pakistan bilateral issues and there was no mention of the Gujarat election at the dinner hosted by Mani Shankar Aiyar.

The prime minister asked if the meeting organised by Aiyar had discussed the Gujarat election.

The prime minister has every right to question Dr Singh and his fellow Congress leaders as the meeting was organised by the man who in November 2015 told a Pakistani television channel that Modi had to be 'removed' for talks between India and Pakistan to resume.

Aiyar had even told the Pakistani television channel, 'Bring us (the Congress) back to power and remove them (the BJP).' So, whenever Aiyar meets Pakistanis, doubts will be raised for sure. This is as simple as it is.

But all hell broke loose with the PM's questions and Dr Singh accusing Modi of starting 'a dangerous precedent by his insatiable desire to tarnish every Constitutional office, including that of a former prime minister.'

The old faithfuls of the Congress party in the media were soon squirming in discomfort. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, writing in the Indian Express, said, 'The conduct of the prime minister of India during the Gujarat election should set alarm bells ringing. Narendra Modi's innuendo in an election speech in Banaskantha, in which he strung together communal canards and conspiracy theories, marks a new and dangerous low in Indian politics.'

Another false narrative is being created, that Modi is a habitual offender when it comes to lowering the political discourse in the country.

Nothing can be farther from the truth. What the prime minister is doing is a miniscule retaliation of the choicest of slanders the Gandhi family and its loyal band have hurled at Modi ever since he became PM.

Let's start with the freshest abuse that Aiyar hurled at the prime minister. He called Modi 'neech', which literally means someone who is born in a low caste.

Aiyar speaks chaste Hindi and can give a lesson or two to any North Indian politician in manipulating language to hit opponents below the belt. He has been close to Sonia Gandhi. That's probably why he survived in Dr Singh's Cabinet in spite of being at loggerheads with then PM. So what Aiyar says is something that has to be taken seriously.

Didn't Rahul Gandhi single Aiyar out for praise at a party meeting a few years ago? The fact that Rahul suspended Aiyar from the party's primary membership is an eye-wash. Aiyar will be back soon, with renewed gusto.

The most disparaging comment on Modi came from Rahul Gandhi's second most revered political guru in Gujarat.

It is well known that Alpesh Thakor -- the self-styled champion of the OBC community -- and Hardik Patel -- the self-styled leader of the Patidars -- have been virtually outsourced the Congress leadership in Gujarat by Rahul Gandhi.

On Tuesday, December 12, Thakor ridiculed Modi for having acquired a light skin after gobbling up mushrooms from Taiwan. Modi, Thakor alleged, was as dark in complexion as Thakor, but gained a fair complexion after consuming the mushrooms that cost Rs 80,000 apiece.

Thakor's support base is supposed to be the cornerstone of a Congress victory in Gujarat, and Rahul Gandhi has done nothing to scoff at Thakor's offensive remarks.

Going back further in time, Digvijaya Singh -- Rahul Gandhi's former mentor and currently a full-time devotee of the Narmada river -- posted one of the ugliest memes on Twitter that accused Modi of making his followers 'complete idiots'.

Well, the word 'idiot' is being used by me here because the exact word Digvijaya Singh used is too distasteful, too putrid and too full of squalor.

The same Diggi Raja, as Digvijaya Singh is affectionately called, had said in May 2014 that he was not a 'coward' like Modi who had been hiding his wife from the public. Can there be anything more personal than this remark made by this loyal regent of the Gandhi family?

There have been more attacks on Modi, scathing and slanderous by eminent leaders of the Congress party. Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha, had used a canine analogy for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in the House.

I distinctly remember that in the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Modi was asked to comment on Priyanka Gandhi and he had said that she was a daughter who would defend her mother (Sonia) and that he had no problem with that. This was misinterpreted by the media as if Modi had said that Priyanka was like a daughter to Modi.

Even if Modi had said that Priyanka was like his daughter, it shouldn't have been looked upon with disgust and annoyance.

But Priyanka rebutted strongly, saying that she was Rajiv Gandhi's daughter. As if Modi was not worthy of even having fatherly feelings towards the Congress party's royal princess!

Priyanka's mother had once infamously called Modi 'maut ka saudagar (merchant of death)'.

Priyanka's brother had insinuated that the BJP was doing khoon ki dalali of jawans. A rough translation would be that the BJP was leveraging the deaths of Indian soldiers for narrow political gains.

Don't these utterances lower the dignity of public discourse?

Since I started this article by the former prime minister's false accusation against Modi, let me end by saying that Dr Singh is a consummate political animal.

He is far from the retiring, gentle, avuncular statesman who is the epitome of dignity. He has much more politicking skills in him than he is credited for.

Manmohan Singh doesn't squirm when he is asked to be obsequious to Rahul Gandhi who is half his age.

He has no qualms in terming demonetisation as 'organised loot and legalised plunder', not soft criticism by any standards.

But he has problems if Modi seeks details of his closed-door meeting with Pakistani diplomats.

So Modi paid Dr Singh back in the same coin.

Narendra D Modi, the earthy, tough, leader, has decided to give back more than he gets!

Sudhir Bisht, author and columnist, writes from New Delhi and tweets @sudhir_bisht
Delivery of a great operational machine must not get affected to settle political scores, says Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd).

IMAGE: In 2012, negotiations began with Dassault for the Rafale aircraft and a contract worth up to $20 billion was drawn up. Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters

The Rafale deal has all of a sudden come into focus with the Congress party alleging a scam in the unilateral announcement of a curtailed deal reducing the earlier figure of 126 aircraft to just 36, and paying a disproportionately higher price per piece of equipment. It also alleged that the government did not follow rules and procedures.

Refuting the allegations, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman countered that the United Progressive Alliance government had not finalised the price of the contract, so comparison of cost is imaginary.

By actually purchasing the 36 aircraft in fly-away condition, there has been a saving of Rs 12,600 crore (Rs 126 billion), she stated.

It is further said that delay in finalising the deal by UPA had operational implications and fly-away numbers had to be increased to 36 for quicker inductions.

The original plan to buy 126 fighter aircraft was first mooted during the Vajpayee government.

The Request for Proposal for procurement of 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft was finally issued in 2007 by the UPA government.

After a gruelling technical and flight evaluation of the six contending aircraft, in 2011, the Indian Air Force declared that the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon had met the selection criteria.

Later in 2012, Rafale was declared the L-1 (lowest) bidder by the government and contract negotiations began.

A high-level Technical Oversight Committee headed by the scientific advisor to the raksha mantri was constituted to go through the full procedural and technical compliance.

The TOC report was put up to the then UPA government and confirmed all processes had been correctly followed.

The Contract Negotiations Committee then arrived at the benchmarking cost after applying escalation rates.

The deal kept getting stalled due to disagreements over production in India, with Dassault refusing to take quality assurance responsibility for the 108 Hindustan Aeronautics Limited-manufactured Rafale and major difference related to man-hours required to produce the aircraft by HAL in India.

The contract for 126 Rafales, services, and parts, it was being said, may have been worth up to $20 billion. But no contract was signed during the UPA regime.

Meanwhile, in February 2015, Egypt became Rafale's first international customer when it officially ordered 24 Rafales, reportedly for $5.9 billion (Rs 38,0166 crore/Rs 380.16 billion).

In May 2015, Qatar ordered 24 Rafales for $7.02 billion (Rs 45,233 crore/Rs 452.33 billion). These two deals set some price benchmarks.

With Dassault unwilling to commit on the man-hours required by HAL and assure HAL production quality, a stalemate was emerging.

Any return from this point would mean restarting the entire process. That would be detrimental to national security.

Under the circumstances, there was no alternative but to withdraw the original tender. Then defence minister Manohar Parrikar reportedly advised Prime Minister Narendra D Modi that the central vigilance commission guidelines do not allow negotiations with the L2 (next best) bidder.

The only way, the then defence minister suggested, was to scrap the tender and buy a minimum number of Rafale jets off the shelf to fill a critical gap in the IAF inventory.

In April 2015, during PM Modi's visit to Paris, India requested the rapid delivery of 36 Rafales in fly-away condition. It was to be through an Inter-Governmental Agreement.

India officially withdrew the 126-aircraft MMRCA tender on July 30, 2015.

Finally, on September 23, 2016, India and France signed the contract for the purchase of 36 off-the-shelf Rafales in a deal worth 7.8 billion (Rs 59,147 crore/Rs 591.47 billion).

The deliveries will begin in 2019. The deal includes weapons and spares.

Dassault has selected an Indian partner (Reliance Defence) for offsets servicing. The quicker delivery of 36 aircraft gives leverages for further orders and the route to be taken.

Inter-Governmental Agreements have many advantages, and have sovereign backing. India has entered into similar deals with the US for many aircraft recently.

As far as due process is concerned, the offer had been evaluated by the Defence Acquisition Council three times and all its recommendations had been incorporated.

The proposal was then put up for the Cabinet Committee on Security's arpproval and the IGA signed only after that.

IMAGE: According to the new deal, the average cost of the Rafale aircraft is 92 million (Rs 690 crore/Rs 6.9 billion). Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

The final negotiated price for 36 Rafales package along with initial consignment of weapons, simulators, ground infrastructure and services was fixed.

The average unit cost of Rafale aircraft thus turned out to be 92 million (Rs 690 crore/Rs 6.9 billion).

The package cost of 126 or 36 Rafale cannot be directly compared as the deliverables in the two cases are different.

Savings are quantified as 1.6 billion (Rs 12,600 crore).

Through Article 12 of the IGA, France is to facilitate the implementation of 'Make in India' by the industrial supplier through offsets for 50 per cent value of the total supplies.

The offset proposal also includes provisions for transfer of sophisticated design technology. The specifics of design technologies are presently under discussion at the government level.

The Rafale is a multi-role aircraft equipped with a wide range of modern weapons. It is meant to perform air supremacy, interdiction, aerial reconnaissance, deep surface-strike, anti-ship strike and nuclear deterrence missions. It is often referred to as an 'omni-role' aircraft.

The 36 Rafales being delivered to India will have many IAF specific enhancements. The delivery schedule has been shrunk by nearly six months.

The agreement stipulates that the company will ensure a minimum 75 per cent of fleet serviceability. The aircraft has been used in combat over Afghanistan, Libya, Mali, Iraq and Syria.

Several upgrades to the weapons and avionics of the Rafale are planned to be introduced by 2018.

It is indeed a great deal. Delivery of a great operational machine must not get affected to settle political scores.

Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), a test pilot, was the team leader of the MiG-21 Upgrade Programme in Russia. He commanded India's flight test centre, Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists 10 instances when the BJP didn't pull its punches.

The storm over Mani Shankar Aiyar's remark calling Narendra D Modi 'neech kism ka aadmi' (a vile man), has not blown over.

Even as the Congress suspended Aiyar from membership of the party, the Bharatiya Janata Party went all out to make political capital from the episode.

Modi quickly pounced on the remark: 'Shriman Mani Shankar Aiyar said Modi is of 'neech' (lower) caste and is 'neech' (vile).'

'Is this not an insult to Gujarat?' Modi asked, converting Aiyar's remark into one directed at his caste.

BJP President Amit A Shah tweeted, stating that in the last 15 years, the Congress has given Modi many titles -- 'Yamraj, Maut Ka Saudagar, Ravan, Gandi Nali Ka Keeda, Monkey, Rabies Victim, Virus, Bhasmasur, Gangu Teli, Goon.'

The BJP was clearly on the front foot following Aiyar's unsavoury remark, but a quick recap reveals that its leaders have not lagged behind when attacking Opposition leaders, often marking a nadir in the use of political idiom.

1. Just not cricket

March 2013. At the BJP's national council meeting at New Delhi's Talkatora stadium, Modi, the party's rising star, called then prime minister Manmohan Singh a 'night watchman.'

'Once Sitaram Kesri was Congress president. We felt as if a night watchman was sitting. Because if a competent person comes, what happens to the family?' Modi went on to say. 'And I remember the time Kesri was thrown out of office. Is such democracy seen anywhere?'

'Then when the time came to form the government, they (the Gandhis) chose a prime minister who can do what the family wants, so another night watchman.'

'The nation never thought the night will be so long and dark.'

2. Udder nonsense

During Lal Kishenchand Advani's Bharat Uday Yatra in Gujarat in 2004, Modi mounted a blistering attack (external link) on Congress President Sonia Gandhi, calling her a Jersey cow and her son Rahul Gandhi a hybrid bachda (calf).

Asked about this, Sonia responded: 'I welcome it (the abuse), it must mean we are doing something right.'

3. Employment exchange

During the 2004 Lok Sabha election campaign, when he managed BJP prime ministerial candidate Advani's campaign, Modi said Sonia and Rahul were not even worth being hired as a shop clerk or driver (external link).

4. When it rains, it pours

In February this year, Modi took a dig at Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha stating, 'Even though many scams took place in the country, Singhsaab's image remained clean. People should learn from him how to bathe in the bathroom wearing a raincoat.'

Dr Singh had earlier described demonetisation as 'organised loot and plunder'. Obviously, it irked a prime ministerial nerve.

5. Invoking the Mughals

On December 6, G V L Narasimha Rao, one of the BJP spokespersons, called Rahul 'Babar bhakt and kin of Khilji'.

On the 25th anniversary of the Babri Masjid's demolition, Rao tweeted (external link): 'Rahul Gandhi has teamed up with Owaisis, Jilanis to oppose Ram temple in Ayodhya. Rahul Gandhi is certainly a "Babar Bhakt" & a "Kin of Khilji". Babar destroyed Ram temple & Khilji plundered Somnath. Nehru dynasty sided with both Islamic invaders. Travesty & Perversity of the dynasty!'

6. Dog days

In 2002 Vishwa Hindu Parishad President Dr Pravin Togadia called Sonia an 'Italian kutri' (female dog)!

During a speech in Bhuj ahead of the Gujarat assembly election, Dr Togadia said, 'First, the local pups started barking. Then dogs from other parts of the country joined them. And last came Italyki kutri (the female dog from Italy).'

7. The colour of politics

In April 2015, Union Minister Giriraj Singh, no stranger to controversies, asked if the Congress would have accepted Sonia as its leader if she was not white-skinned (external link).

'If Rajiv Gandhi had married a Nigerian and Sonia Gandhi wasn't white-skinned, would the Congress have accepted her?' Singh wanted to know.

Following the uproar, Singh quickly apologised.

8. A new low

In July 2016, Dayashankar Singh, the BJP's then UP vice-president, shockingly compared (external link) Bahujan Samaj Party Supremo Mayawati to a prostitute.

His statement created a huge national furore and BJP leaders were compelled to sack from the party.

Later, however, the BJP gave his wife Swati Singh a ticket to contest the 2017 UP election from the Sarojini Nagar constituency, a seat which she won.

Election done, Dayashankar Singh was back in the BJP too, his abuse of a national leader forgotten.

9. Targeting Vadra

In the run-up to the December 2014 Delhi election, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, the BJP MP from Fatehpur, dragged Robert Vadra, Sonia's son-in-law, into her election speech (external link).

'The son of an ordinary family who owned a utensils shop, he looted the poor, sucked them dry,' the sadhvi alleged.

The voters, she then added, must choose between Ramzadon and Haramzadon. 'You must decide if you want a government of those born of Ram or those born illegitimately.'

Following an uproar in Parliament over her remark, Modi was forced to apologised for the sadhvi's statement, calling it inappropriate.

10. Political lunacy

In May 2015, BJP MP Sakshi Maharaj launched a blistering attack on Rahul, calling him a 'mad man'.

Comparing Modi to Lord Krishna, Maharaj went on to say that Rahul had gone mad (external link) because he could not make out the difference between wheat and maize.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra D Modi. Photograph: PTI Photo
Budding RTI activist from Chennai files request with ONGC.

Instead of response, the police comes asking about her.

Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar reports.

R Vijayalakshmi, 39, a first-time RTI activist from Chennai, could not have imagined the chain of events that followed after she sent a couple of Right To Information requests to the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

In her RTI plea Vijayalakshmi wanted to know about environmental clearances, licences to establish exploratory or production wells and licences to operate them, reports of analyses of air and water quality, environmental impact assessments, data on total number of wells in the Cauvery delta and the break-up of the number of wells currently in operation, and the number that have been abandoned or closed.

ONGC refused to part with the information she wanted, saying that under certain clauses of the RTI Act it did not have to disclose the information.

But the matter did not end there.

In her RTI application Vijayalakshmi had given the address of the Chennai Solidarity Group where she has been a volunteer for the past six months.

After she filed her RTI request the Chennai Solidarity Group office was visited six times by the police -- thrice by the state police CID and thrice by the Intelligence Bureau.

"One CID sub-inspector spoke to me at length over the phone and asked me for Vijayalakshmi's personal details," Nityanand Jayaraman, the social activist who leads the Chennai Solidarity Group, tells Rediff.com.

"I refused saying they don't concern you, but I told him about the RTI request."

The sub-inspector reportedly said that Vijayalakshmi had sought information about ONGC, and that the government was looking into the possible role of anti-national actors in the request!

Later, a lady police officer visited the Chennai Solidarity Group office asking for Vijayalakshmi and in her absence met CSG office manager Krishnan and questioned him about her.

"There was an oil leakage in Kathiramangalam village where ONGC operates," says Jayaraman. "The oil had entered an organic farm and also seeped into the ground water. We at Chennai Solidarity Group visited the site, collected water samples, had them analysed and published our results."

"We wanted to know about ONGC activities in the area which is in the Cauvery delta and known as the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu. Normally, environmental clearance certificates are published on the organiSation's Web site as it is information meant for the public. But the ONGC Web site does not show any such certificates," Jayaraman points out, "so we asked the ONGC for it."

"We also asked the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board about what clearances it had given ONGC. What is anti-national about this?" Jayaraman asks.

ONGC officials told a local newspaper that the corporation did not reveal the RTI applicant's name to the police.

In which case, Jayaraman says, the state police must have obtained the information from the TNPCB, and ONGC must have spoken to IB agents.

Vijayalakshmi has complained to Tamil Nadu's information commissioner and the central information commissioner about the police harassment and she expects them to reply in six months.

In a conversation with this correspondent she denied speaking to anyone, including the media, about her RTI requests before being hounded by the police. "They did not get my name from the media," she says.

"The state and central information commissions are the guardians of RTI," says former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi. "They are not there only to provide information, but also to protect the applicant from any and all harassment."

"The least they can do is to write to the police and the home ministry telling them this sort of behaviour is not acceptable," Gandhi says. "They should do it immediately to avoid further harassment of the applicant."

M V Cherian, ONGC's central public information officer in Chennai, asked this correspondent twice to call back later, but subsequently refused to answer the phone.

Kindly note: Image published only for representational purposes.
The winter session of Rajya Sabha began on a stormy note on Friday with the Opposition demanding an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'conspiracy with Pakistan' remarks against his predecessor Manmohan Singh, creating uproar and repeatedly disrupting proceedings.

An angry opposition led by the Congress accused Modi of levelling 'serious charges' against Singh, former Vice President Hamid Ansari and diplomats.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed a notice by Congress and other opposition members under rule 267 for suspension of the business of the House to discuss the matter, which led to further noisy scenes.

The Upper House saw three adjournments before the Chair finally called it a day, a little after 3 pm following continued uproar and slogan-shouting.

The opposition members also protested the disqualification of former Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar of the same party from the House by the Chairman, which was vociferously countered by ruling party MPs.

They raised the issue soon after the Chairman informed the House about his decision to disqualify the two former JD-U members after giving them due opportunity of hearing.

As the members protested, Naidu said there cannot be any discussion on the decision of the Chair.

"There is no discussion on the ruling of the chairman. Please sit down."

"This is a political issue which you are raising, which you discuss outside the House. I have no problem," he said, adding, "This is not the manner.... All are standing...Both the sides are standing.. I have not allowed."

As opposition members continued slogan-shouting and trooped into the Well, Naidu said, "You want to do like this on the first day itself? I don't appreciate the conduct of coming to the Well. ... There is a saying that all is well, not well. Try to understand this."

When the House reassembled at noon for Question Hour, Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad raised the issue of Modi's remarks at an election rally in Gujarat targeting Singh over a dinner meeting with Pakistani diplomats.

Azad said his party and other opposition leaders have given a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of the listed business to discuss an issue which he termed as 'serious'.

"There has been a serious matter which is not only the concern of government but the opposition is equally concerned. One allegation has been levelled on former Prime Minister and former President.

"There are charges ... many foreign secretaries, high commissioners and ambassadors... charges have been levelled on them that they are hatching a conspiracy with Pakistan in Gujarat election. The PM on December 10 in Palampur in Gujarat has levelled this allegation. This is not an ordinary allegation...against a former PM, vice president and Army chief," Azad said.

But Naidu disallowed it, saying, "I have gone into the notice given by Ghulam Nabiji, Naresh Agarwal...I have not allowed it ...please sit down."

This agitated the members who created further uproar, forcing the Chair to adjourn the House till 2.30 pm.

When the House met again, Azad raised the issue amid the uproar and the House was adjourned again till 3 pm by deputy chairman P J Kurien.

While Kurien pleaded with members to take up the private members' business, Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal raised the issue of the Centre's move to set up special courts for cases against MPs and MLAs and questioned the move.

When Kurien said it was a decision of the Supreme Court, Agarwal said he had not criticised the top court but his questions were directed at the government.

Congress leader Anand Sharma also got up and said Agarwal was trying to raise a point of order and asked whether this could be raised 'only at a particular time'.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel asked how the issue being raised was a point or order, which, he said, was related to the business of the House.

Meanwhile, several Congress members were on their feet by this time and started raising slogans demanding an apology from the prime minister for his remarks.

Several Congress members including Oscar Fernandes, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Renuka Chowdhury, Sanjay Singh trooped into the Well of the House shouting slogans.

Amid the din, some private members' bills including 'The Educational Innovations Commission Bill 2017' by Vinay Sahasrabuddhe and 'The Prevention of Enforced Disappearance Bill 2017' by V Vijayasai Reddy were introduced.

As the slogan shouting continued, Kurien adjourned the proceedings till 3 pm. When the House reassembled, opposition members continued their protests, forcing Kurien to adjourn the House for the day.

Earlier when the House assembled, Chairman Naidu led the House in paying tributes to ten former members who passed away during the inter-session period. Thereafter, the prime minister introduced new ministers to the House.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a plea of the Gujarat Congress seeking counting of at least 20 per cent of the paper trail slips manually along with votes cast in the electronic voting machines in each constituency of the state.

It said that the court cannot interfere unless the Election Commission of India's decision to restrict the EVM-voter verifiable paper audit trail to one booth per constituency is proved 'arbitrary', 'illegal' or 'mala fide'.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud permitted petitioner Mohammad Arif Rajput, a Gujarat Congress leader, to withdraw his plea but granted liberty to file a comprehensive petition later seeking election reforms.

The apex court said that a debate on polls reforms can only take place after the election process in the state is over.

Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Rajput, said that the counting of the slips of the VVPAT machines along with the votes cast in the EVM count in at least 20 per cent of the booths of each constituency would reassure the people about the fairness of the polls.

The bench then questioned the locus standi of the petitioner and asked Singhvi who he was representing.

The counsel replied that he was a secretary of the main opposition party Congress in Gujarat.

The bench told Singhvi that his client had approached it in his personal capacity and he should have let the party take a bold stand and approach the court.

Singhvi said, "I am an officer bearer of the party in the state."

The court told the counsel that a candidate has every right to question the vote count before the returning officer.

"This court can't interfere unless the Election Commission's decision for a random check pf the EVM-VVPAT paper trail in one booth per constituency is proved arbitrary, illegal or mala fide. We cannot discredit the Election Commission's decision without cogent material," it said.

After the top court said that it cannot override the EC's complete discretion to conduct the polls, Singhvi scaled down his demand saying that counting of paper trails in at least 10 per cent of the booths per constituency should take place.

The bench said that it had recently rejected a petition challenging the discretionary power of a returning officer under 56(D)(2) of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961, which confers discretionary power on the returning officer to refuse counting of the VVPAT.

Singhvi again said that counting of the paper trail in a sufficient number will reassure the people about the fairness of the elections through the EVMs.

The court then permitted the petitioner to withdraw his plea but granted liberty to approach it with a comprehensive petition on electoral reforms which could be connected with the VVPAT issue.
From March 1959 to March 1962, the PLA fought 12 major battles in central Tibet which was seen as an opportunity to train China's soldiers, notes Ajai Shukla.

In pathbreaking research into the Tibetan uprising between 1956 and 1959, and the lead-up to the 1962 war, Chinese scholar Jianglin Li has accessed Chinese Communist Party documents and interviewed People's Liberation Army veterans from that war to present critical new aspects of that period's history.

Li's research illustrates that Mao Zedong cynically regarded operations against the Tibetan resistance -- called Chushi Gangdruk -- as an opportunity to train the PLA.

This research rebuts earlier claims by 1962 war veterans like Yin Fatang, a former Chinese Communist Party boss in Tibet, that the PLA fought the 1962 war unprepared.

A similar claim was made in the 2008 memoir of Ding Sheng who commanded the PLA's 54th Army in the Walong sector.

Ding said that in October 1962, the 54th Army was scattered across Sichuan for agricultural work.

On October 28, 1962, when he received the order to attack Walong, 'the troops were hastily mobilised, issued warm clothing and rushed to Tibet for the battle at short notice,' Ding claimed.

Li's research -- which is posted on the War on Tibet Web site in a research article entitled 'Suppressing Rebellion in Tibet and the China-India Border War' -- shows the PLA presented a formidable contrast to the poorly equipped and poorly acclimatised Indian troops.

Chinese Communist Party documents indicate that, in the three years from March 1959 to March 1962, the PLA fought 12 major battles in central Tibet, targeting the Tibetan resistance force called the Chushi Gangdruk.

Li concludes that, when the 1962 war began, 'It had been less than a year since Ding's troops pulled back from Tibet after three years of fighting.'

Beijing's hostility came even though India helped China sustain its occupation of Tibet.

According to a book, Remembering Tibet -- Collected Recollections of Advancing and Liberating Tibet: 'In the early 1950s, China needed India's help to send supplies into Tibet so that the PLA could consolidate the occupation. India was quite generous in providing this help.'

In 1952, Beijing 'used diplomatic channels' to ship 2,500 tons of rice from Guangdong province to Calcutta, and transport it up to Tibet through Yadong (Dromo).'

By April 1953, all the rice had arrived. This basically solved the food supply problem for PLA troops, and enabled them to establish a preliminary footing in Tibet, the book said.

After discovering the existence of the border dispute in 1952, when the Chinese foreign ministry 'absorbed the former foreign office of the Kashag (Tibetan government) and acquired its archival documents', then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai sought to buy time.

'India is still under British and American influence, so we want to win it over... (Border disputes) should be solved in future due to insufficient documents now,' Zhou's 1954 directive on the border issue said, according to Wang Gui of the Tibet Military Command Political Department.

Unlike the patient Zhou, Mao had decided to teach India a lesson by end-March 1959 soon after the Tibet uprising and the Dalai Lama's escape to India.

Wu Lengxi, who headed Xinhua and the People's Daily at that time, describes Mao fuming at a party central committee meeting in Shanghai: 'Let the Indian government commit all the wrongs for now. When the time comes, we will settle accounts with them.'

The PLA aggression on the McMahon Line started right away, says Wang Tingsheng of the 54th Army Division.

His memoirs recount: 'PLA soldiers crossed the McMahon Line at three locations in pursuit of escaping Tibetans.'

Even so, Mao carefully lulled India into complacency, ordering the inclusion of a paragraph into a May 15, 1959 letter from Beijing to New Delhi: 'China's main attention and principle of struggle is focused on the east, the West Pacific region, on the ferocious American imperialism, not on India, the southeast or south Asian countries at all.'

'China will not be so stupid as to make enemies with the US in the east, and make enemies with India in the west. Pacification of rebellion and implementing democratic reform in Tibet would pose no threat to India whatsoever.'

At the time Mao made this statement, the PLA 11 Infantry Division was already fighting the Tibetan resistance in Chamdo.

Three years later, on October 20, 1962, this battle-hardened division would start the Sino-India war with its attack on Indian positions on the Namka Chu rivulet, near Tawang.

Li shows that Mao viewed operations against the Tibetan resistance as training ground for the PLA, causing the use of disproportionate force and war fighting weaponry against Tibetan civilians.

From January 22 to February 19, 1959, Mao added written instructions to four reports on the Tibet situation, stating: 'Rebellion is a good thing' as it could be used to 'train the troops and the masses', and to 'harden our troops to combat readiness.'

Xu Yan, a professor at the Chinese National Defence University, says the key differentiator in the 1962 war was combat experience.

'Most of the troops who fought at the China-India border have a glorious history,' he commented.

'Besides that, they had also acquired rich combat experience in high and cold mountain regions in the five years from the Khampa rebellion in 1956 to the end of the suppression of Tibetan rebellion in 1961.'

IMAGE: Chinese and Indian soldiers face off during the 1962 war. Photograph: Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP/Getty Images
UN and partners launch plan to support five million Syrian refugees and countries hosting them

Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 12 December 2017 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN and partners launch plan to support five million Syrian refugees and countries hosting them, 12 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a338e434.html [accessed 18 November 2022]

The following are transcribed remarks of Amin Awad, Director of UNHCR's Bureau for the Middle East and North Africa who was speaking at today's UN Palais Press Briefing in Geneva, Switzerland

The Syria crisis has been going on for seven years. 5.3 million people are displaced beyond Syria's borders. Another seven million internally displaced people (IDPs) are displaced [inside Syria]. There is unprecedented destruction - over 500,000 people killed, towns decimated. More than 200 armed groups are fighting in the country. We know of the proxy war, we know of the struggle over Syria, we know its due political importance, we know of the peace negotiations that have been taking place relentlessly during the last six years. Yet, Syria remains, uncontestably, the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time.

Seven million inside plus 5.3 million outside - that's more than 12 million people [displaced]. Another 10 million who stayed put in Syria, [they] did not leave their homes but they are cut off. They are cut off from livelihoods, from services, education, health, separated from relatives, friends and they are in need of humanitarian assistance. The whole nation is in need of humanitarian assistance. The damage that has happened in Syria and to the Syrian people who are the victims of this war - there are no clear winners, but the losers are very clear. [They are] the people of Syria; The children, the women, the vulnerable, the sick, the frail.

Half of the displaced children are not going to school. Many of those displaced inside Syria have also lost many academic years. We have, no doubt a lost generation. I hope that the international community will support this appeal.

The appeal is for 2018 and 2019. It is an umbrella, a mechanism, a facility called the 3RP - the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan. We have 270 partners - there are NGOs, UN agencies - WFP, UNICEF, UNDP, WHO, UNRWA, ILO and others who have been relentlessly and diligently supporting the refugees and the host communities in the surrounding countries and beyond.

We have four million [people] in host communities that have generously opened their doors, their villages and towns, their services and accepted 85 per cent of the 5.3 million refugees. 85 per cent of Syrian refugees in the five surrounding countries - Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt - they live with the host communities in towns and villages in this region. Only 15 per cent live in camps. So you can imagine the impact on the host communities who have endured by having such a big number in their homes for so long.

80 per cent of refugees who are now in Jordan live below the poverty line. The 1.2 million who live in Lebanon - about 71 per cent of them live below the poverty line. A lot of them are indebted. They live in horrible living conditions. They've been ping-ponged from one residential area to another because they cannot pay their rent. They are being evicted.

The [Syrian refugee] children are not going to school. Only 53 per cent are going, 47 per cent are facing a truly dark future because they lost their education opportunities.

Health, education, income generation and social protection and protection - physical or otherwise - are the top priorities of the international response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

Food is one acute issue. In 2015 there was an acute shortage of these services because the appeal did not get as much traction from donors and what happened is - the Syrian refugees started to move from the surrounding countries and far abroad and we had that, what I called then, the "Great March", when one million people walked out through Turkey and then through the Balkan route up to Austria and the rest of the West and Northern Europe.

This year, 2017, has been a very tough year as far as funding. The money has been coming late and the response by the agencies - NGOs or the UN - was also limited. We curtailed and curtailed assistance. The situation is not improving. The situation is becoming more difficult and problems are compounded as people remain in displacement. We are urging the international community and the donors in particular [for support] for many reasons - the vast number of refugees that we have in the region, the geo-political status of this region, the risks that the population of 5.3 million people can bring to an area, a small region already as volatile as it is. If there is no assistance - we have experience of 2015 - we should not repeat that. We should meet the [humanitarian] needs of this refugee population in a timely manner and as soon as possible.

Questions from journalists

Q: You said you've had a tough year regarding funding. How bad was it? What makes you believe that the funding for this appeal will be better for 2018?

Amin Awad: Thank you. Only about 53 per cent of the total appeal of USD4.8 billion was received this year. That basically left us well short of our objectives in all sectors and had we had the money that we asked for, we would not have had the shortage of places for children to sit in the classrooms. Nor would we have had such ups and downs; Breakdowns of the food pipeline, and many of the refugees would have not been in debt; n or would they be living in such horrible conditions.

Question: What gives you any hope or belief that now you would have a more forthcoming response from governments and countries?

Amin Awad: Governments in the region - they have been generous. This has been an unprecedented generosity that we have seen. I think, burden and responsibility-sharing is needed here to provide burden and responsibility-sharing for countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt who opened their doors. These are the biggest donors, these are the real donors. They provided the space, the international protection, they protected these people, they harboured them, they opened the bellies of their towns where they live and I think this is 110 per cent of the job.

Now, the material assistance is left to the donors and the international community to really match what these countries have done. And that is not coming through. We have to be prepared for the consequences.

Question: Following up on that, where is it [funding] not coming through? Your major donors are the United States, the European Union and these countries and so forth, I don't think that the Arab countries are particularly generous in the past? Has this changed and have you seen contributions falling down from your traditional big donors, like the United States and maybe also the EU?

Amin Awad: From the outset I would like to say I am very grateful to the generosity of donors. These contributions are made on a voluntary basis, there are no binding rules. If you look back at the last six years, I don't think the international community collectively in solidarity stayed the course. Our appeals are very clear, it's to the whole international community: There is US$25 billion, that is the bill that the UN and international community puts out almost every year. If you look at the last 2 years, $23 billion to $25 billion. Then if you look at Syria, yes, the Syria situation we are at 53 percent. If you look at other countries in Africa, I am afraid it is nine per cent, 11 per cent, 13 per cent.

If you walk into the camps of refugees in Africa at sunset around five or six o'clock you hear children, below the age of five crying. Why? Because they are going to bed hungry. Funding is not coming, the system has to be fixed, somehow. Now talking about the Arab donors and others and the Western donors, yes, they have been staying the course, they have been delivering on pledges, not equally, some are, some are not. It depends from one year to another, maybe they have other priorities in other parts of the world, other sectors, but the Arab world, when you look at Kuwait one, Kuwait two and three, 1.3 billion was generously paid by Kuwait alone and others and we are trying as much as possible to encourage donors, potential donors, traditional donors or new and make sure that we have a good solid beginning for each appeal we launch.

Question: You mentioned something which you were unable to do because of the lack of money. But were there programmes which you actually had to cut that were operating but you no longer had the money in order to support them?

Amin Awad: Yes, in many areas: In health, in education, in food, in community services, in protection in shelter, in winterization. For example, we are supposed to provide for 3.4 million refugees during winter time. As of 11 December we had received only about 50 per cent of that funding. We are not able to provide stoves, we are not able to deliver kerosene, we are not able to deliver enough thermal blankets, and we are not able to winterize tents, we are not able to drain rainwater and snow from camps, we are not able to do engineering work to insulate some of the buildings, people are sitting in cold and open buildings. If you look at indications why we are at 50 per cent. 47 per cent of the children are out (school), there are not enough classrooms.

We are not supporting the governments in Lebanon or Jordan or Iraq to put more classes, to put more teachers, to open their systems which are stretched. The health sector is also stretched and the generosity of the neighbouring countries really saved the day but yet host communities and refugees are not getting the healthcare that they should get. These are just a few examples. Refugees are not living in luxury, they are living in horrible daily survival and not to talk about the psychological stress that they go through, day in and day out. They feel and some of them tell us that every time they wake up they look at a very dark future because they face the unknown.

Question: You say you are having difficulties with funding for hosting countries. Turkey has the largest number of Syrian refugees worldwide - 3.3 million. Turkish authorities said last week that they spent so far US$30 billion for the refugees. Do you have any specific plans for Syrian refugees in Turkey?

Amin Awad: Turkey received 3.3 million refugees. All of them live, except five to ten per cent, in camps. They all live in towns and villages throughout the 81 provinces of Turkey. The figure that you quote, the figure that I heard that Turkey recorded that they have contributed is US$30 billion since the influx of the Syrian refugees six or seven years ago.

Yet, I think, the refugees in Turkey - despite the generosity of the Turkish government - I won't say they are living in luxury. About 55 per cent are going to school, the others are not. Despite the good programmes that were put in place to employ Syrian refugees and open the [labour] market for them - a lot of them remain unemployed because of the economic challenges.

But, overall I think, the most important thing for us when it comes to talking about the neighbouring countries in particular and Turkey is not an exemption - the most important thing is that they opened their doors, they offered a place of protection, of refuge, and that is for us is more valuable than anything else. But, of course, the material assistance and the wellbeing of refugees and the day to day life is very important.

Question: Regarding the borders - Lebanon closed the border, Turkey, Iraq and so forth. That seems to be a big problem. What are you going to do about that?

Amin Awad: Borders are managed. In some instances are closed. Many of these countries cite security, cite economic crises, internal upheaval, xenophobia, tensions and all of that is happening. But some refugees are still coming. Lebanon, we should just mention, is still accepting vulnerable cases, medical cases, so is Turkey. Not only that borders are closed - we are even seeing refoulement, we're seeing expulsion, people sent back. And our job is to force, demarche these countries in the region to do better than they did before and keep their borders open. And the same applies, as a matter of fact, to the rest of the continent.
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.
South Sudan: Global action needed to end human rights violations and humanitarian crisis

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 15 December 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, South Sudan: Global action needed to end human rights violations and humanitarian crisis, 15 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a3395894.html [accessed 18 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.

Sustained international action is urgently needed to end the horrific human rights violations taking place in South Sudan, said Amnesty International today as the country's armed conflict entered its fifth year.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, thousands more subjected to sexual violence, and close to four million displaced since the conflict began on 15 December 2013.

"Coordinated and sustained international action is needed now more than ever to end the suffering in South Sudan, especially as the rainy season ends and the dry season begins, heralding an escalation in fighting," said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

"Regional states and the international community must work together to find a lasting solution to this crisis and put an end to the litany of human rights violations."

The last four years of fighting have had a devastating impact on civilians. Thousands of men, women and children have been subjected to unimaginable acts of violence, including sexual assault, by government and opposition forces, some of which could amount to crimes against humanity or war crimes.

In the Equatoria region, Amnesty International found that government and opposition forces cut food supplies to certain areas, systematically looted food from markets and homes, and targeted civilians carrying even the smallest amount of food across frontlines.

"Food has been used as a weapon of war, and as a result today approximately 4.8 million people are considered to be food insecure. This state of affairs will continue, unless speedy action is taken to end the humanitarian crisis," said Sarah Jackson.

"Efforts to end the conflict must also include imposition of an arms embargo on all parties to the conflict and concrete measures to deliver justice to victims of grave human rights violations, chiefly through the setting up of the much-delayed Hybrid Court for South Sudan."

During the prolonged conflict, journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition supporters have been harassed, arbitrarily arrested and in some cases tortured, and humanitarian workers have been prevented from carrying out their duties.

"The South Sudanese authorities must restore unfettered access to aid agencies to distribute much-needed food and medical supplies to victims of this conflict. They must also allow civil society actors to operate freely."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
El Salvador: Failure to release woman jailed after miscarriage, outrageous step backward for justice

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, El Salvador: Failure to release woman jailed after miscarriage, outrageous step backward for justice, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a3397024.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

A court's decision not to release a woman forced to spend a decade behind bars after having a miscarriage in El Salvador is an outrageous step backward for justice, Amnesty International said.

Teodora suffered a stillbirth in 2007, after the rapid onset of serious pain while she was at work. Police arrested her as she lay in a pool of blood. She was later sentenced to 30 years for 'aggravated homicide' under El Salvador's total ban on abortions.

The trial was marred by irregularities.

"Teodora's tragic story is a sad illustration of everything that is wrong with the justice system in El Salvador, where human rights seem to be a foreign concept," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas Director at Amnesty International.

"Instead of punishing Teodora for being a woman, authorities in El Salvador must urgently take a hard look at their outrageous anti-abortion law and take immediate steps to repeal it."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Philippines: Extension of martial law a threat to civilians in Mindanao

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 December 2017 Related Document(s) 'The Battle of Marawi' - Death and Destruction in the Philippines Cite as Amnesty International, Philippines: Extension of martial law a threat to civilians in Mindanao, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33981d4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Responding to the Philippine Congress' approval of President Rodrigo Duterte's request to extend martial law in the southern region of Mindanao until the end of 2018 in order to "eradicate" Islamist militants, Amnesty International's Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, James Gomez, said:

"Civilians in Mindanao have faced unlawful killings, destruction of their homes, ill-treatment and numerous other human rights abuses at the hands of Philippine armed forces and Islamist militants since the imposition of martial law. The length of this latest extension, until the end of 2018, is an ominous move that almost certainly signals further abuses in the months ahead.

"Violations in the battle of Marawi, in northern Mindanao, have been carried out with impunity, while there has been a disturbing rise in killings of human rights defenders and political activists across the region in recent months.

"President Duterte, who is already responsible for thousands of unlawful killings in his so-called 'war on drugs', must not use martial law as a pretext to commit further violations in Mindanao without any accountability.

"Rather than creating the conditions for further human rights abuses in Mindanao, the Philippine authorities should be taking concrete steps to end violations, address those which have already taken place and prevent them recurring."

President Duterte first imposed martial law in Mindanao on 23 May 2016 and has extended it twice since.

From May to October 2017, Philippine armed forces battled against the Maute and other groups which have pledged allegiance to the armed group calling itself the Islamic State, in Marawi City, northern Mindanao.

Amnesty International's recent report, The 'Battle of Marawi': Death and destruction in the Philippines, documented dozens of civilian deaths and other human rights abuses at the hands of IS-allied militants and Philippine armed forces.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Nigeria: Families of hundreds of Shi'a Muslims killed in Zaria still await justice

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Nigeria: Families of hundreds of Shi'a Muslims killed in Zaria still await justice, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a3398a84.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Nigerian authorities must ensure justice, truth and reparation over the military's unlawful killing of more than 350 Shi'a Muslims in the northern city of Zaria in December 2015, Amnesty International said on the two-year anniversary of the massacre.

No one has been held accountable for the killings, while the families of the missing are still awaiting news of their loved ones. Amnesty International has identified and visited the location of a possible mass grave near Mando, but it is yet to be exhumed.

"The Nigerian authorities' failure to hold anyone to account for the killing of hundreds of women, men and children by soldiers in Zaria, shows the acceptance of a culture of impunity for violations for human rights in the country," said Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

"Our research indicates that the deaths in the clashes between members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and the Nigerian military two years ago were the consequence of an excessive use of force that must be thoroughly investigated."

Between 12 and 14 December 2015, Nigerian security forces killed hundreds of civilians, some of them supporters of the IMN - including men, women and children - and arrested more than 200 following a Shi'a Muslim protest.

The exact number of those killed is not known, but it may be higher than the official figure of 347. Hundreds of IMN supporters reported missing since the killings remain unaccounted for, feared dead.

Satellite images of the Mando mass grave site taken on 2 November and 24 December 2015 show severe disruption of an area of approximately 1000 square metres, including the destruction of buildings and mosques.

"A full independent forensic investigation into this crime under international law is long overdue. Many families still do not know the fate of their loved ones who have not been seen or heard of since December 12, 2015," said Osai Ojigho.

"Nigeria's Attorney General and Minister of Justice of the Federation should order that the bodies in the mass graves are exhumed, and that those suspected to be responsible for their deaths are prosecuted in fair trials without recourse to death penalty."

The Nigerian government has failed to publicly condemn the unlawful killings that took place in Zaria.

Meanwhile, the IMN's leader, Sheik Ibraheem El Zakzaky and his wife have been unlawfully detained since the killings, despite an Abuja High Court order for their release a year ago.

"The Nigerian government cannot continue to disregard this court order and as a matter of urgency respect the rule of law by releasing them immediately." said Osai Ojigho

In April 2016, a Kaduna state government official admitted that 347 IMN members were dumped in a mass grave near Mando.

"This information should be an important lead for the government to investigate the killings and ensure all those suspected of criminal responsibility are held to account," said Osai Ojigho.

"But until now, the shocking lack of accountability for these deaths has served only to bolster a climate of impunity."

Background

The IMN is a Shi'a religious and political organization whose leader, Ibraheem Yaqub El Zakzaky, has been a proponent of Shi'a Islam in Nigeria since the 1980s. In October 2016, Kaduna state government declared IMN an unlawful organization.

According to Amnesty International's research, more than 350 IMN members were killed by security forces between 12 and 14 December 2015 in Zaria.

In July 2016, the Kaduna State Commission of Inquiry, set up to investigate the killings, presented its report to the state government indicting the Nigerian military for unlawful killings.

In December, the Kaduna state government published its white paper on the report, which rejected most of the Commission's recommendations.

Processions, demonstrations and other activities organized by the IMN, usually without obtaining the necessary permits and at times blocking public roads, have frequently resulted in confrontation with the Nigerian authorities and strained relations with other communities.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Sierra Leone: Election candidates should make human rights pledge

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Sierra Leone: Election candidates should make human rights pledge, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a3399624.html [accessed 18 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.

Political parties and candidates in next year's elections should commit to the protection and promotion of human rights in Sierra Leone as a key objective if elected to office, said Amnesty International and over 40 Sierra Leonean civil society organizations today, in a document addressed to the country's would-be politicians.

The Sierra Leone Civic Space Manifesto calls on all candidates and parties to sign a pledge committing themselves to protect and embed human rights principles including freedoms of expression, assembly, association and the protection of human rights defenders. Sierra Leone's presidential and parliamentary elections take place on 7 March 2018.

"Sierra Leone has emerged from years of civil war with a vibrant society where its people are demanding the right to be heard. This manifesto provides the country's politicians with an opportunity to entrench and protect their right to do so, for current and future generations," said Solomon Sogbandi, Amnesty International Sierra Leone Director.

"It is our hope that all candidates and parties will commit to the manifesto's principles by incorporating them into their party's vision and policies and making a pledge to deliver these commitments if elected."

The manifesto outlines a series of human rights commitments that Sierra Leone's politicians should undertake if elected, along with specific policy recommendations in each area.

Candidates and political parties are being urged to uphold the right to freedom of expression, including by decriminalising press offences and protecting privacy.

Candidates should also take action to protect and promote the right of all people to gather publicly or privately to peacefully meet, protest or campaign. As part of this commitment, the security forces must be trained and enabled to police gatherings without the use of excessive force.

Existing or proposed legislation which places obstacles in the way of people forming associations, clubs or other organizations should also be repealed or amended.

"We raised concern that the NGO bill, proposed last year, would unduly restrict, rather than enable, the work of non-governmental organizations. We call on all candidates to ensure that freedom of association is fully respected and protected," said Emmanuel Saffa-Abdulai, Executive Director of Society for Democratic Initiatives.

The manifesto calls on political parties and candidates to protect human rights defenders, who require safe conditions to carry out their work. This can be achieved by a commitment to passing and implementing the Human Rights Defenders Bill that was submitted to the Attorney General's office by the Human Rights Defenders Network in February 2017.

"Women human rights defenders in particular must receive the protection they need against gender threats and violence they may face due to their work. We expect political parties to commit to this," said Lois Anita Kawa, President of Sierra Leone Female Lawyers Association, L.A.W.Y.E.R.S.

"Those who want to lead the country in future must recognize that civic space is the bedrock of any society that values and respects human rights. This needs to be safeguarded," said Ibrahim Tommy of Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law.

"This coalition of more than 40 civil society organizations are calling on all presidential candidates and political parties to sign the civic space manifesto and commit to enabling people and civil society groups in Sierra Leone to participate fully and freely in civic life."

LIST OF ORGANISATIONS

1. 50/50 Group Sierra Leone

2. Access to Justice Law Centre

3. Action for Community Development and Good Governance

4. Action for Good Governance and Development Sierra Leone (ACODE- SL)

5. Action for Women and Children at Risk

6. AdvocAid

7. Amnesty International Sierra Leone Section

8. Campaign for Human Rights Development International (CHRDI)

9. Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law

10. Centre for Coordination of Youth Activities (CCYA)

11. Center for Democracy and Human Rights Makeni

12. Children in Development Association

13. Civil Society Movement

14. Coalition for Justice and Accountability

15. Dignity Association

16. Dignity Now

17. Defence for Children Sierra Leone

18. Gender Rights Advocacy for National Development Sierra Leone

19. Girl 2 Girl Empowerment Movement (G2G)

20. Good Shepherd Development Ministry

21. Human Rights Defenders Network

22. Humanist Watch

23. Initiative in Capacity Building International

24. Institute for Governance Reform

25. L.A.W.Y.E.R.S (Legal Access Through Women Yearning For Equality Rights and Social Justice)

26. Mano River Women's Peace Network (MARWOPNET) Sierra Leone Chapter

27. Movement for the Restoration for Democracy

28. Namati

29. National Transparency, Accountability and Human Rights Center

30. Network Movement for Democracy and Human Rights

31. Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD)

32. New Harvest Development Organisation

33. Organisation for Development and Human Rights

34. Partnership for Justice

35. Peoples' Rights Integrity and Dignity Empowerment Sierra Leone

36. Prison Watch

37. Service Providers Network

38. Sierra Leone Association of Journalists

39. Sierra Leone Citizens Rights Association

40. Society for Democratic Initiatives

41. Skyy Women's World Network

42. Timap for Justice

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Protection arbitrarily removed from Honduran journalist

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Protection arbitrarily removed from Honduran journalist, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33b2924.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the arbitrary withdrawal of the protection that Honduran freelance journalist Jairo Lopez had been receiving from the National Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists since February.





His protection was withdrawn on 26 November although he continues to be the target of frequent death threats, especially on social networks. A former host of the Canal 21 TV news programme "El Informador," he is currently at the centre of a defamation trial that is marred by major irregularities.





Lopez has been the victim of a major smear campaign ever since he reported acts of corruption allegedly involving elected officials and politicians including the speaker of the national congress in 2015.





"We condemn this baseless decision and call on the government to restore the security measures without delay," said Emmanuel Colombie, the head of RSF's Latin America bureau. "The threats to which Jairo Lopez continues to be exposed are every worrying and, as well as hampering his journalistic work, are taking a constant psychological toll."





Lopez was summoned by the military police yesterday and accused of being an opposition leader in the street protests against President Juan Orlando Hernandez, whose reelection is being widely disputed.





Lopez told RSF that he was covering the demonstrations as a reporter and that, at the same time, he feared that he could be on a hit-list of persons to be murdered by the Honduran military and police.
Will extradition end 19 years of impunity in journalist's murder?

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Will extradition end 19 years of impunity in journalist's murder?, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33b89a4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the French judicial system to approve Burkina Faso's request for the extradition of former President Blaise Compaore's brother, Francois Compaore, one of the main suspects in the murder of a journalist whose body was found exactly 19 years ago today.

Suspected of being one of the instigators of journalist Norbert Zongo's 1998 murder, Francois Compaore was arrested under an international warrant as he disembarked from a plane in Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on 29 October and has been banned from leaving France ever since. Issued in May, the warrant accuses him of "inciting murder."





RSF believes that it is crucial that Francois Compaore should stand trial in his country of origin, Burkina Faso, although he now lives in Cote d'Ivoire and has acquired Ivorian nationality. Justice has never been rendered for Zongo's murder.





"We hope the French justice system approves Burkina Faso's extradition request," said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF's Africa desk. "Its society was deeply traumatized by this murder and must now heal its wounds. This means a trial in Burkina Faso that strengthens the people's confidence in their own institutions and shows that a journalist's murder cannot go unpunished."





During a visit to Burkina Faso in late November, French President Emmanuel Macron referred to the case and, at the same time, to judicial independence. Macron said Francois Compaore's arrest in Paris was "the result of exemplary cooperation between our two judicial systems, which are both independent." He added: "It is up to the French courts to take their decision and I will do everything to facilitate it."





Zongo was an investigative reporter who edited a weekly called the L'Independant. His burned and bullet-riddled body was found in his gutted car around 100 km south of Ouagadougou on 13 December 1998. At the time of his death, he had been investigating the death in detention of Francois Compaore's driver, who had been accused of theft.





RSF, which participated in a commission of enquiry in December 1998, repeatedly condemned the political pressure on those investigating the murder, which led to the case beingdismissed in 2006. It was reopened in March 2015, during the political transition that followed Blaise Compaore's overthrow after 27 years as president.





Three former presidential guard members were arrested in December 2015, and many indirect witnesses have been questioned since then. But none of these measures have produced any definitive results and Burkina Faso's citizens are still no closer to knowing the identity of those behind Zongo's murder.





When contacted by RSF, Zongo family lawyer Benewende Sankara said: "We expect the French courts to do their job and to help us to bring the big fish to justice. The foot-dragging must stop. Nineteen years is too long to wait for any trial."





The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights ruled in March 2014 that Burkina Faso's authorities had "not acted with due diligence" in their investigation into Zongo's murder. The families of Zongo and those who were murdered with him have now been awarded compensation, but justice has still not been rendered.





Burkina Faso is ranked 42nd out of 180 countries inRSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. Its media are relatively free and covered the 2014 political crisis in a professional manner.
Journalist's trial again delayed, RSF calls for charges to be dropped

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Journalist's trial again delayed, RSF calls for charges to be dropped, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33b93b4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Morocco's judicial authorities to drop serious terrorism charges dating back to 2013 that are still pending against news website editor Ali Anouzla, who appeared in court today only to see the hearing postponed yet again.

Anouzla is facing up to 30 years in prison on charges of "material support for terrorism," "justifying terrorism" and "incitement to commit acts of terrorism" in a September 2013 post on Lakome, the website of which he was then the editor.





He spent five weeks in provisional detention before being released on bail on 25 October 2013, since when the case has neither been tried nor dropped. When he appeared in court in Rabat today, the hearing was again postponed, this time until february 22, 2018.





"The Moroccan judicial system's conspiracy against Ali Anouzla must stop," said Yasmine Kacha, the head of RSF's Tunis bureau. "We call for the withdrawal of the baseless charges against this journalist, who was one of RSF's 'information heroes' in 2014. Use of the terrorism law to prosecute journalists violates Morocco's constitution and its international obligations to protect the right to inform."





The grounds given by the authorities for the charges against Anouzla was the 2013 post's inclusion of a link to an article on the website of the Spanish daily El Pais that, in turn, had a link to a video supposedly posted by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But, according to the information obtained by RSF, the real reason for the decision to arrest Anouzla was other revelations in Lakome that had irritated the authorities.





Morocco is ranked 133th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Another wave of trials of independent journalists in Azerbaijan

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Another wave of trials of independent journalists in Azerbaijan, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33b9a34.html [accessed 18 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.

As Azerbaijan today begins trying a journalist who was kidnapped and brought back by force from neighbouring Georgia, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the international community to take a firm stand with its government in order to get it to stop hounding the country's few remaining independent journalists.





The trial of Afgan Mukhtarli, which begins today in the northern city of Balakan, is a striking example of the determination with which the regime goes after its critics. An investigative journalist and activist living in exile in the Georgian capital, Mukhtarli was abducted there on 29 May and forcibly returned Azerbaijan, where he was immediately jailed.





Despite all evidence to the contrary, the authorities continue to insist that he was arrested at the border and have charged him with smuggling, crossing the border illegally and refusing to comply with instructions from the police.





All the requests that the defence presented at an initial hearing on 30 November were rejected. Mukhtarli continues to be held despite being diabetic and suffering from high blood pressure, and despite having lost a lot of weight.





Spate of hearings on media cases





December is proving to be a busy month for court cases involving independent media and journalists. Tomorrow, a court will continue hearing the appeal by Mehman Huseynov, a blogger who was sentenced to two years in prison on a criminal defamation charge in March for describing how he was tortured while previously detained.





Four days later, a Baku appeal court is to examine an appeal against the blocking of the leading independent news websites - the sites of the daily newspaper Azadlig, Radio Azadlig, Meydan TV, Turan TV and the broadcast Azerbaycan Saati - which have been inaccessible within Azerbaijan since May.





The trial of Kanal 13 TV chief Aziz Orujov, who was arrested in May, was to have continued on 12 December but has been postponed until an unspecified date. Prosecutors are seeking a seven-year jail sentence for him on charges of illegal business activity and abuse of power in connection with his NGO, the Caucasus Research Media Centre, which funds the TV channel.





On 8 December, the supreme court upheld an international travel ban on Khadija Ismayilova, a well-known investigative journalist who was jailed on trumped-up charges in 2014 and was freed conditionally in May 2016 as a result of international pressure. She cannot leave Baku and is banned from travelling abroad for the next five years.





"All these judicial proceedings are yet further evidence of how journalism is systematically criminalized in Azerbaijan and the most spurious pretexts are used to silence the few remaining critics," said Johann Bihr, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "It is time to implement the individual sanctions cited by the international community so that the government stops flouting its human rights obligations."





Journalists hounded even in exile





The government does not hesitate to abuse Interpol provisions in order to continue persecuting the many Azerbaijani journalists have fled abroad.





Fikret Huseynli, a Turan TV journalist living in exile in the Netherlands, where he has refugee status, was arrested at Azerbaijan's behest while on a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on 14 October. He was released two weeks later but has not been able to get his passport back and is still unable to return to the Netherlands because the Ukrainian prosecutor's office has appealed against his release. The appeal is due to be heard on 20 December.





When they cannot get their hands on journalists who have fled abroad, the Azerbaijani authorities target relatives who have stayed behind. Emin Sagiyev, the brother of a Turkel Azerturk, an Azerbaijani journalist now based in the Netherlands, where he hosts a very popular Turan TV programme, was arrested on 17 November for "drug trafficking," a charge often used against dissidents and their relatives.





Azerbaijan is ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index. President Ilham Aliyev's government has gone all out to eliminate media pluralism in recent years. The leading outspoken media outlets have all been throttled financially or forcibly closed. At least 13 journalists and two bloggers are currently detained in connection with their reporting.
MEPs call for release of all citizen-journalists held in Vietnam

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, MEPs call for release of all citizen-journalists held in Vietnam, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33ba174.html [accessed 18 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.

In an emergency resolution approved today, the European Parliament has condemned the Vietnamese government's unprecedented crackdown on the freedom to inform and, inter alia, has called for the immediate release of a young blogger who was sentenced to seven years in prison last month.

Passed by a very big majority of MEPs at today's full parliamentary session in Strasbourg, the resolution sends a clear message to the Vietnamese authorities that they must abandon their draconian methods.





"We hail the action taken by MEPs," said Julie Majerczak, the head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF)'s Brussels bureau. "For the past year, the government in Hanoi has engaged in a systematic criminalization of the freedom to inform. At least 25 bloggers have been arrested or expelled from their country."





Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk, added: "Following on from this condemnation by the European Parliament, we urge the EU to condition ratification of its free trade agreement with Vietnam on solid guarantees regarding the freedom to inform. The Vietnamese government needs to understand that it is being completely discredited on the international stage by this crackdown. And it will be penalized for this in the end."





In the resolution (see attached), the MEPs express their "concern" about the increase in the number of arrests and convictions of citizen-journalists. What with psychological and physical harassment, intrusive surveillance and harassment of the lawyers, employers and families of bloggers, the resolution paints a damning picture.





The MEPs call on the Vietnamese government to "release all citizens detained for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression." In particular, they condemn the seven-year jail sentence that Nguyen Van Hoa, a 22-year-old blogger, received on 27 November, and they call for his immediate and unconditional release.





The resolution urges Vietnam to amend articles 88 and 79 of its penal code on "anti-state propaganda" and "activities aimed at overthrowing the administration," and to ensure that national security is not used as a pretext for violating human rights.





As part of the#StopTheCrackdownVN campaign by RSF and several other NGOs, a delegation visited Brussels on 22 and 23 November to increase MEP awareness of the fate of Vietnamese bloggers.
Myanmar: Burmese police hold two Reuters journalists

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Myanmar: Burmese police hold two Reuters journalists, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33ba7a4.html [accessed 18 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.

In the absence of hard evidence justifying their detention, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls for the immediate release of two Reuters news agency journalists who have been held for the past two days in Yangon for allegedly violating Myanmar's Official Secrets Act.

After the two journalists, Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were reported missing on the evening of 12 December, the government said in a statement the next day that they had been arrested for planning "to send important security documents regarding security forces in Rakhine state to foreign agencies abroad."





They are facing up to 14 years in prison under the Official Secrets Act.





"We call for the immediate release of these two Reuters reporters," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "The charges announced by the government's spokesman are completely spurious. No detail has been provided about the supposed 'security documents' or the mysterious 'foreign agencies.' These arrests are clearly another attempt by the authorities to intimidate overly curious journalists."





In a grotesque piece of staging, a photo accompanying the government's statement showed the two journalists standing handcuffed behind a table covered with documents.





Rakhine State has been a focus of international media attention since August because Burmese army operations there have driven more than 620,000 members of Myanmar's Rohingya minority to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh. The army has refused to allow journalists into the troubled region, where its operations may have involved "elements of genocide," the United Nations said on 5 December.
RSF relieved by announced release of 41 journalists

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 15 December 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, RSF relieved by announced release of 41 journalists, 15 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33bded4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is relieved by the reported release of the 41 journalists and employees of the Al Yemen Al Youm TV channel who had been held by Houthi rebels in Sanaa since 2 December.

They were freed yesterday evening in still unclear circumstances. According to the Houthi-controlled Yemeni news agency, Supreme Political Council president Saleh Al Sammad issued the release order in consultation with the Houthi rebel government's information minister.





"We are relieved to learn that this TV channel's journalists and staff are now free but we continue to be concerned about the pressure to which they have been subjected and will no doubt continue to be subjected," said Alexandra El Khazen, the head of RSF's Middle East desk.





"We remind everyone that journalists must not be targeted in his conflict, and we ask the Houthi rebels to also free the 11 other journalists they are holding in their prisons."





According to RSF's information, the Houthis freed Al Yemen Al Youm's journalists and allowed the TV channel to resume broadcasting in Sanaa on condition that the Houthis receive favourable coverage.




In Tanzania, UN peacekeeping chief pays tribute to 'blue helmets' killed in DR Congo

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as UN News Service, In Tanzania, UN peacekeeping chief pays tribute to 'blue helmets' killed in DR Congo, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33c1154.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The head of United Nations peacekeeping operations on Thursday attended a ceremony in the port city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in honour of the country's peacekeepers recently killed during their mission in a neighbouring country.

"We are here today to honor 14 fallen peacekeepers from Tanzania who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of peace," said Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

"The Greek Philosopher Thucydides once said, 'The bravest are surely those that have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not notwithstanding go out to meet it,'" he added.

These peacekeepers were killed in the attack by suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) elements that took place at the base of the peacekeepers in Semiliki in North Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 7 December.

These peacekeepers are the bravest, he said, offering condolences to the Government and the people of Tanzania.

Mr. Lacroix said to the members of their families that "no word can express your sorrow but we also know that you can be very, very proud of them."

"Perhaps better than any of us, they knew the dangers they would face in this troubled region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo - a country that is so important for the security of the region," he said.

"They knew that these armed groups that are preying on the population have no qualms about attacking UN peacekeepers and yet they placed their lives on the lines to serve the people of this region and of the DRC," he added.

He stressed that "to truly honor these brave men, we must ensure that the sacrifice was not made in vain."

"As we mourn this terrible loss, we must work together to ensure that our peacekeepers have the means to achieve our common goal of bringing peace back to the Democratic Republic of Congo," he added.

Mr. Lacroix will also attend a ceremony in Goma, DRC, on Friday to honour the peacekeepers.
'Golden opportunity' missed for progress on intra-Syrian talks, says UN envoy

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 14 December 2017 Cite as UN News Service, 'Golden opportunity' missed for progress on intra-Syrian talks, says UN envoy, 14 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33c15e4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

A golden opportunity has been missed to decide the future of Syria at the end of the latest round of United Nations-supported talks in Geneva, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

Mr. de Mistura was speaking to journalists in the Swiss city where he has been meeting Syrian Government representatives and for the first time  a united opposition delegation.

He added that he was disappointed at the Government's lack of engagement on any issue other than counter-terrorism, before adding that he intended to call a new round of talks in January.

One of the main goals of this eighth round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva was to get the still-warring parties to consider a new constitution for the war-ravaged country and UN-backed elections.

The opposition delegation had engaged on these issues  and others  with UN negotiator Staffan de Mistura, he told journalists.

But the Syrian Government representatives chose to focus solely on fighting terrorism, prompting the UN envoy to point out: A big missed opportunity, a golden opportunity at the end of this year, when in fact there is a clear indication from many sides that the military operations are coming to a close, the Da'esh [also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL] territory is reduced to close to zero.

Mr. de Mistura went on to say that at the same time everybody knows [] that without a clear political process we risk to not have learned the lesson of Mosul, and we risk to not have what should be winning the peace not only winning the war against Da'esh.

While the talks have been taking place in Geneva, the dire humanitarian situation inside parts of Syria has remained unchanged  particularly in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus.

Mr. de Mistura said he had spoken to the Government delegation about the need to evacuate hundreds of sick people from the besieged area on medical grounds, but he failed to get a satisfactory answer from them.

While acknowledging that this round of discussions with the parties had not seen the progress he would have liked, the UN envoy insisted that the Geneva talks had given an opportunity to hear from Syrian civil society, including the Women's Advisory Board.

He maintained that his efforts to secure peace in the country will continue, until those with the power to stop the fighting realized that there can be no reconstruction in Syria  devastated as it is by nearly seven years of war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives  without a political process and UN-backed elections.
Thousands of children need assistance three months after Caribbean hurricanes  UNICEF

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Thousands of children need assistance three months after Caribbean hurricanes  UNICEF, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33c1da4.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Three months after two category-5 hurricanes tore through the Caribbean, thousands of children across the region still need support, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

"Even before the hurricanes hit, UNICEF was on the ground, working with Governments and local partners to prepare communities and preposition humanitarian supplies for the areas at highest risk" said Maria Cristina Perceval, UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"These included life-saving supplies that were most needed during the immediate response when access to clean water, shelter and basic social services were scarce," she added.

Irma, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, caused extensive damage to the islands of the Eastern Caribbean, Haiti and Cuba.

Hurricane Maria then wrought additional damage across the region, with UNICEF estimating that together, they left 350,000 children in need of humanitarian assistance.

"Three months on, UNICEF is still on the ground in these countries and territories, working on programmes to support children and families in rebuilding their lives and returning to a sense of normalcy," she added.

However, challenges remain, with many of the most vulnerable families still feeling the effects of the storms.

Over 35 per cent of Dominica's children - particularly those in shelters - are still not enrolled in education activities, while in Antigua and Barbuda many families remain in shelters, unable to return home.

Working in collaboration with governments and non-governmental organizations, UNICEF has been providing immediate humanitarian relief and working to ensure longer term recovery and resilience.

"While life is returning to normal for many, children and families who have lived through these storms will need committed, sustained support to get their homes, communities and lives back on track," maintained Ms. Perceval.

UNICEF and its partners are supporting communities through programmes focused on recovery and resilience in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica and Haiti.
UN peacekeeping chief visits injured Tanzanian 'blue helmets' in DR Congo

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 13 December 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN peacekeeping chief visits injured Tanzanian 'blue helmets' in DR Congo, 13 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33c2354.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The head of United Nations peacekeeping operations today thanked individually peacekeepers who fought to hold off an attack on 7 December in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

"Thank you very much for your service. I wish you well," Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told each service member, speaking with them at their bedsides at the Nakasero Hospital in Kampala, Uganda.

At least 14 peacekeepers were killed when a UN Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) Company Operating Base at Semuliki in Beni territory, in DRC's restive eastern North Kivu province, was attacked by suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) elements. It was the worst on UN 'blue helmets' in recent history.

Mr. Lacroix will meet with families of those killed during a visit to Tanzania later this week.

The bodies were repatriated with honours on Monday, and received by Tanzanian defence and military officials.

The ADF are suspected in the attack. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that the attack constitutes a war crime.
Myanmar can draw on UN expertise in tackling Rohingya returns, Security Council told

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 December 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Myanmar can draw on UN expertise in tackling Rohingya returns, Security Council told, 12 December 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a33c2904.html [accessed 18 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The United Nations can help Myanmar to defuse inter-communal tensions and create an environment for safe and dignified repatriation of Rohingya refugees, the Organization's top political official said Tuesday, stressing that the country could also tap the UN's capacities and experience in tackling other challenges, including democratic consolidation.

"We hope Myanmar will draw upon the wealth of expertise the UN can offer," Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council in his briefing on developments in Myanmar.

The estimated number of refugees who entered Bangladesh from Myanmar since 25 August now exceeds 626,000.

He said that the UN is grateful for the continued generosity of the Government and people of Bangladesh, and called on the international community to continue to support these efforts.

"But the origins and solutions to the Rohingya crisis rest in Myanmar. Repatriation and reconciliation policies will fail without accountability and non-discriminatory rule of law and public safety measures to address the fears and distrust among communities in Rakhine," he emphasized.

To that end, one of the major developments Mr. Feltman highlighted was a bilateral agreement on the issue of returns reached on 23 November between the two countries - a pact that recognizes the need for a comprehensive and durable solution through the safe, dignified, and voluntary return in accordance with international law.

Mr. Feltman said returns must be supported by reconciliation efforts, and central to this is the implementation of the Rakhine Advisory Commission recommendations.

The Advisory Commission, established by Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, recommends that the Government take concrete steps, such as ending enforced segregation of Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims and ensuring full and unfettered humanitarian access throughout Rakhine state.

Jeffrey Feltman (center), Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Myanmar. UN Photo/Kim Haughton

Mr. Feltman said that during his October visit, he explored with the authorities potential UN support in key areas.

"We urge all Myanmar leaders, including in the military, to condemn incitement to racial hatred and violence. We encourage them to adopt measures to defuse tensions between communities and create an environment for safe and dignified repatriation, including through interfaith initiatives," he said.

Mr. Feltman noted that the 2020 national elections will stand as an important test in the consolidation of the nation's democratic institutions.

He noted that the General Assembly is expected to approve a resolution that requests the Secretary-General to appoint a Special Envoy for Myanmar. This initiative can strengthen the partnership between the UN and Myanmar, in close consultations with interested Member States in the region and beyond.

Related article: UN warns of trafficking, sexual abuse in shadow of Rohingya refugee crisis

"We believe we have much to offer in working with Myanmar on a number of challenges the country faces, in full respect of Myanmar's sovereignty," he concluded.

Today's meeting is a follow-up to the Council's presidential statement on the situation in Myanmar adopted on 6 November, which requested the Secretary-General to brief on developments 30 days after its adoption.

Also briefing the Council was Pramila Patten, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, who visited Bangladesh from 5 to 13 November.

Describing "the most heartbreaking and horrific" accounts of sexual atrocities against girls and women in Myanmar's Rakhine state, she said that every woman or girl she had spoken with during her visit to Rohingya encampments in Bangladesh had either endured brutal assault or had witnessed sexual violence, including seeing women literally being raped to death.

Such shocking accounts indicate a pattern of grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Sexual violence was being used as a "push factor" for forced displacement on a massive scale, with some survivors being told to leave because they were not citizens of Myanmar.

It was crucial that safe return of the Rohingya people be accompanied by basic security and guaranteed rights, stated Ms. Patten, emphasizing that otherwise, the cycle of violence, impunity and forced displacement risked being repeated if the underlying conditions did not change.
Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Trump will visit the FBI National Academy on Friday amid heightened tensions with the bureau whose reputation he recently described as "in tatters," and its standing as the "worst in history."



According to the White House, Trump will deliver remarks to graduates of the 10-week national academy program. The academy, according to the FBI's website, is a "professional course of study" open to U.S. and international law enforcement managers of all stripes.



In May, President Trump was expected to visit the FBI headquarters, but the trip was notably scrapped following mounting backlash over his controversial firing of then-FBI Director Jim Comey.



Since then, the president has publicly derided the FBI's reputation amid its investigation into his campaign's alleged ties to Russia and Moscow's interference in the 2016 election.



He has vented on Twitter about whether the FBI's investigation is politically motivated, and whether his former opponent, Hillary Clinton, escaped conviction in the investigation of her use of a private email server because of agency's political bias.



Just last week Trump said the FBI's reputation was "in Tatters - worst in History!"



Asked a week ago about the president's tweets in front of the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the reputation of the bureau was "quite good."



"The FBI that I see is tens of thousands of brave men and women working as hard as they can to keep people they will never know safe from harm," Wray said.



But Wray was also grilled about reports of political bias influencing the investigations into Clinton and Russian election interference.



Specifically, lawmakers pressed Wray over anti-Trump texts sent by a senior agent on special counsel Robert Muellers team, who was removed over the summer. The texts, recently revealed, repeatedly called President Donald Trump "an idiot," and said the Republican Party "needs to pull their head out of their" rear-ends.



The revelations led members of Trump's legal team this week to call for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel charged with investigating allegations of political bias and conflicts of interest in the Department of Justice.



Trump's war of words with the FBI dates back well before his election win, when he publicly scolded Comey's announcement that Clinton would not face criminal charges in her use of a private email server as secretary of state.



But the feud reached its pinnacle following Trump's sudden firing of Comey in May, and subsequent comments from his administration denouncing Comey's leadership of the bureau.



Several weeks later in his testimony to Congress, Comey emotionally rebuked those comments as "lies, plain and simple."



"The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader," Comey said.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

GOSHEN  Should other Litchfield County communities be responsible for the financial challenges of its largest neighbor, Torrington? A state statute says they should.

Local leaders discussed the economic factors affecting Torrington and the Northwest Corner on Thursday during the Northwest Connecticut Council of Goverments meeting, and expressed frustration with a state requirement to submit recommendations to address Torringtons finances.

Ben Barnes, secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management, sent a letter on Nov. 13 to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy noting the tenents of state statute 7-148dd, included in the councils agenda items for its December meeting.

The statute requires local groups of elected officials to submit recommendations to address problem municipalities. These municipalities must have an equalized tax rate 50 percent higher than the regions average; an adjusted equalized grand list 50 percent lower than average; a median household income 30 percent lower than average, and a decreasing population.

In 2017, three cities hit these benchmarks, according to Barnes  Hartford, Waterbury and Torrington.

Local leaders recommendations are to include intertown collaboration and action.

In conjunction with local officials, OPM would use the recommendations to create an implementation plan that would be revised annually until the municipalities problems no longer meet the statutes criteria.

Elected officials said they were pursuing collaboration and regionalization independent from the state, including an animal control facility in Torrington, road work, and emergency services.

Goshen First Selectman Bob Valentine pointed to the proposed Woodridge Lake sewer project, saying it would provide an initial cash infusion of approximately $2.4 million to Torrington and continuing user fees, aiding with planned sewer plant upgrades.

Other options, such as sharing police services between Torrington and Litchfield, have been considered and ruled out because of cost, officials said.

The best thing the state could do is stop trying to preach to us that we need to consider regionalization, because we do that already, said Litchfield First Selectman Leo Paul. There are some things that we can do in cooperation with Torrington, and we try to do as much as we can, and there are other things that we just cant.

Mayor Elinor Carbone urged Torrington become eligible for federal funding available to larger cities, since Torrington is the major urban center of Litchfield County.

She said neighboring towns, given how dissimilar they are to Torrington, cannot greatly affect the citys financial state.

While Torrington has a population of less than 50,000, it serves the approximately 180,000 residents of the Northwest Corner and assumes associated costs and issues, she said.

You cannot compare what the city of Torrington has to provide to what a city or town such as Goshen or Harwinton or Burlington or Litchfield has to provide, Carbone said. I think the statute is flawed, in that it is trying to apply a one size fits all mentality to this problem and focusing this COGs attention on something that is practically impossible for all of us to control.

Suggestions made to aid the financial state of Torrington and other regional towns included the elimination of state mandates, including those for education and prevailing wage, and continued funding of municipal aid.

If you want to give places like Torrington, Winsted and all the small towns, relief, we should be looking at some of the things the state imposes on us that we have no control over, because that adds cost to every school, it adds per-pupil cost, it adds cost to the taxpayers, said Barkhamsted First Selectman Don Stein. Some of it is beyond the control of the COG, beyond the control of the municipalities  the Legislature has to get doing things that help the towns do better, which will then help Torrington.

Carbone suggested the state reconsider its one size fits all approach to regulating projects, which had cost Torrington a senior living facility and dissuaded development, she said.

Officials said services provided by Torrington aid their communities, and they would continue to support initiatives that helped the city.

We all realize, at this table  as Torrington goes, this region goes. We want a vibrant Torrington and a vibrant Winsted, said Paul. Were willing, at this table, to sit down and do anything that it takes to get that done, but most of it has to come from the state.

Daniel Morley, assistant division director of the OPM Intergovernmental Policy Division, attended Thursdays meeting to hear suggestions. The statute has been in place since 2001 and calculations have been made each year, but its requirements had not been implemented, he said.

The discussion might provide an appropriate environment to create a meaningful dialogue about regionalization, he said.

Council Executive Director Rick Lynn said he would draft a response to Barnes letter and submit it to the state.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3





WINSTED  Students at Northwestern Connecticut Community College participated in two innovative research programs that address the growing concern over antibiotic resistance. This is the third year that students at NCCC have been part of The Small World Initiative (SWI) (www.smallworldinitiative.org).

Students in Sharon Guskys General Biology course hunted for new antibiotics to help combat the increasing problems of antibiotic resistance. Nearly 700,000 people die from antibiotic resistant infections worldwide each year and this number may rise to 10 million by 2050. The students collected soil samples, isolated diverse bacteria, tested their bacteria against clinically-relevant microorganisms, and characterized those showing inhibitory activity. The student data will be entered into the SWI national data base.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

NASA has discovered an eighth planet in a distant solar system  but its not a place University of Texas-Austin astronomer Andrew Vanderburg would ever want to visit.

The planet, Kepler 90i, is scorching hot (about 800 degrees Farenheit) and rocky, located in the Kepler-90 system about 2,500 light-years away from Earth, Vanderburg said Thursday during a NASA teleconference.

This discovery, made using Google's approach to artificial intelligence where computers "learned" to find exoplanets in old data from the Kepler Space Telescope, means that our solar system's eight planets might not be so extraordinary after all, he added.

"We now know our solar system is not the sole record holder for the most planets," he said.

Vanderburg, also a NASA Sagan fellow, and Christopher Shallue, senior software engineer at Google A.I., developed this "artificial neural network" to examine light readings from Kepler for previously missed exoplanets.

It "looks at more signals than a human could look at," Shallue said. "It will help astronomers have more impact."

But it cannot be used to determine if there is alien life on any of these planets, scientists said.

"Searching for bio-signatures will be something that has to be done with more specialized equipment," said Paul Hertz, NASA's Astrophysics Division director.

That would be more reserved for the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, for example, which will study the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets similar to Earth. Webb is scheduled for launch in Spring 2019, according to NASA.

The neural network program also discovered a sixth, earth-sized planet (Kepler-80g) in the Kepler-80 system.

Now Playing: NASA has shared photos of the California wildfires captured from the International Space Station. Video: GeoBeats

The Kepler Telescope was launched in 2009, with a primary mission to hunt for distant planets outside our solar system -- known as exoplanets. It's discoveries have led to the widely accepted belief among astronomers that there could be at least one planet orbiting each star.

Since the telescope's launch, about 2,500 exoplanets have been confirmed, according to NASA.

Scientists plan to continue sifting through the Kepler data with this neutral network program, though they couldn't say how many more planets they anticipate finding.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
Charlotte, NC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 12/15/2017 --There is no bigger happiness than building a new home. It is everyone's dream to own a big residential property that has all the luxuries of life. Those who do not have any financial restrictions, can go for a new house but those with financial constraint needs to think otherwise. Home additions or remodeling options work best for them. Custom builders in Charlotte and Matthews North Carolina like GJK Building & Remodeling LLC not only helps in building new homes, but they are also into offering home additions, remodeling and renovations as and when required. They are highly professional in their work and is backed by years of experience related to the field.



As one of the top general contractor in Charlotte and Matthews North Carolina, they will always be standing by their clients for assisting them with home renovations and additions. For all those clients who entrust the company with their home additions and renovation projects, they can have the peace of mind that their home is in good hands. The owner of the company, Gary Knowles, has been applying all architectural and building talents for over a quarter of a century, and one has comprehensive understanding of the stylistic sensibilities that are utilized in this particular part of the country.



Whether it is a small home addition, or a big change, home remodeling projects are for a lifetime. The changes incorporated are not temporary, and so one has to think deeply before giving the nod. The remodeling professionals working with GJK Building & Remodeling LLC offer personalized attention which is one of the reasons for their success as well. No two person thinks alike, and their taste will also not be the same. Ideas have to be sought individually and communication has to be transparent, both of which is promised and provided by GJK Building & Remodeling LLC.



Call 704-845-6036 for more details.



About GJK Building & Remodeling LLC

GJK Building & Remodeling LLC are notable custom builders in Charlotte and Matthews North Carolina with many successful home designing and building projects to their credit.
Cambodias Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday challenged the U.S. and EU to act on threats to freeze his overseas assets and those of other government officials seen as restricting democracy in the country, amid a crackdown on the opposition, NGOs, and the media ahead of general elections next year.



On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging Cambodias government to reverse a Supreme Court decision to dissolve the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) and ban 118 of the partys officials from politics for five years, as well as release CNRP President Kem Sokha from pre-trial detention, where he is being held on charges of plotting a rebellion.



Members of parliament also asked the European External Action Service and the European Union Commission to prepare a list of individuals responsible for the dissolution of the opposition and other rights violations in Cambodia, with a view to imposing visa restrictions and asset freezes on them.



The resolution followed a call earlier this week by the Committee on Foreign Affairs for the U.S. House of Representatives for a list of individuals in Cambodia who should be subject to sanctions and a pledge to review trade agreements with the country as part of a bid to pressure its government to end a months-long crackdown on democratic freedoms in the lead up to the July 2018 ballot.



Both the U.S. and EU have announced that they are withdrawing funding of the election next year, and last week Washington leveled visa restrictions on individuals responsible for undermining Cambodian democracy in response to the September arrest of Kem Sokha on charges of attempting to topple the government and the Supreme Court decision to dissolve the CNRP for its alleged role in the conspiracy.



The Supreme Court rejected a bid by the opposition to reverse its ruling Friday, saying its decision could not be appealed.



Hun Sen on Friday dismissed the U.S. and EU resolutions as mere recommendations that were unlikely to result in actual sanctions, during a speech in the capital Phnom Penh.



A resolution passed by the U.S. Congress does not mean that the Trump Administration has to follow, just as a resolution passed by the European Parliament does not bind the European Commission to implement it, he said.



You [the opposition] need to familiarize yourself with that. Dont give yourself false hope every day, week, and month like that. Wait and see, and youll find out that the world cannot just do whatever you wish.



The prime minister went a step further and encouraged the U.S. and EU to freeze the assets of Cambodian officials from his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP).



You dont need to just threaten us, just do it now if you are brave enough  but dont ever think that such sanctions would hurt us, he said.



How many CPP officials have their assets outside of Cambodia? They wouldnt be so damn stupid as to keep their assets overseas. I dont have any assets to keep outside Cambodia. All my assets are in Cambodia, in the form of schools, temples, wells and irrigation canals.



Visa restrictions



With regard to Washingtons announcement of visa restrictions, Hun Sen said he wasnt planning on traveling to the U.S. anyway.



The only the trip I made to the U.S. was  in 1992 to lobby the U.S. Congress to fund the UNTAC operation in Cambodia, he said, referring to the United Nations body that governed his nation after the Paris Peace Accords ended civil war there a year earlier.



Apart from that, I have never had any other reason that I would need to go to the U.S. or other countries again. I dont even have enough time to travel across Cambodia, let alone the U.S. or other countries.



However, Hun Sen added, he would consider allowing the U.S. to continue deporting Cambodian nationals convicted of felonies back to Cambodia and reinstate cooperation in the recovery of the remains of American servicemen missing in action since the Vietnam Warboth of which he suspended earlier this yearif Washington agrees to lift visa sanctions on top Cambodian Foreign Ministry officials.



The U.S. had imposed those sanctions in August in response to Cambodia suspending the acceptance of deported Cambodian felons, and Hun Sen retaliated by ending cooperation on recovering American remains.



Hun Sen also called out Kem Sokhas daughter, Kem Monovithya, and CNRP lawmakers living in self-imposed exile who are planning to lobby the U.N. Security Council over the deterioration of democracy in Cambodia as slaves of a foreign country.



There are five permanent members in the U.N. Security Councilnamely China, Russia, France, the U.S. and the U.K.and if only one member vetoes, that would be it, he said.



May I also ask those who remain in the country not to be fooled by those who have fled the country. Dont be too hopeful. You have to study the mechanism of the U.N. first.



Industry concerns



But while Hun Sen suggested sanctions would do little to affect him or his government, union leaders expressed concerns that the prime minister was playing a dangerous game with Cambodias U.S. $7 billion garment industry, which enjoys the benefits of preferential trade status with the U.S. and EU.



We dont agree with the prime minister that sanctions wouldnt hurt us, Ath Thon, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers' Democratic Union, told RFA.



We dont even know what makes the government so sure that there would be no impact on the garment sector, should the EU and U.S. impose sanctions. Cambodian laborers are not skilled workers. If they lose their jobs, they wont find other ones easily.



Ath Thon noted that Cambodia relies heavily on the garment industry and said that if sanctions are implemented, more than 70 percent of those employed in the sectoror around 600,000 workerswould be impacted immediately. The EU alone accounts for around 40 percent of Cambodias exports.



We are gravely concerned, he said. Workers will be financially frustrated and will start to migrate to other countries for work.



I think the government must make efforts to reverse the current situation in order to avoid this crisis.



Cambodia is home to some 740,000 garment and footwear workers, who produce goods for global brands such as Marks & Spencer, H&M, and Adidas. They make up a significant portion of the countrys 8.3 million registered voters, and Hun Sen has been visiting factories regularly in recent weeks to gain their support in the lead up to the July ballot.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Authorities in Hong Kong on removed a number of pro-democracy lawmakers from the city's legislature amid rowdy scenes, ahead of a key rule change that will leave pan-democrats less able to hold officials to account, critics said.



Land Justice League lawmaker Eddie Chu was physically carried from the Legislative Council (LegCo) chamber by security guards. He and several other deputies including Ray Chan of People Power, tied themselves to chairs in protest at the rule changes.



Chu had also unfurled a banner that read "Dont be the National Peoples Congress," a reference to Beijing's rubber-stamp parliament where deputies invariably vote with the government.



Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui was also removed after he locked a blaring personal alarm inside a drawer.



Pan-democrats tabled 10 resolutions in a bid to delay the rule changes, all of which were voted down.



Pro-Beijing lawmakers then passed sweeping changes to the LegCo rules that will limit the opposition's ability to use filibustering and delaying tactics to oppose the government, which has a majority in the chamber.



The new rules also require 35 members to support calls for select committees to probe the actions of government officials, rather than 20, as was previously the case.



Pro-Beijing and pro-government lawmakers currently hold 40 out of 70 seats in LegCo, and filibustering had been a key tactic in the arsenal of the pro-democracy caucus in the chamber.



Journalism professor To Yiu-ming, of Hong Kong's Baptist University, said LegCo had been "castrated" by the move.



"By putting paid to filibustering, the rule changes will castrate the legislature as a check to the powers of the executive authorities," To wrote in a commentary for RFA's Cantonese Service. "Once passed, the Legislative Council will become a rubber stamp of the regime."



'Tool of dictatorship'

The government's pushing through of a number of highly controversial infrastructure projects in recent years shows just how far it has strayed from public opinion, To wrote.



"The Legislative Council should strive for greater monitoring powers so as to safeguard the public interest," he said.



He said pre-1997 procedures were based on a consultative approach that respected all lawmakers' contributions.



"But the pro-establishment faction has been working hard to turn LegCo into the tool of a dictatorship," To wrote. "The new procedural rules will strengthen the chairman's control over meetings, and weaken the supervisory capacity of lawmakers ... the majority of whom represent a minority of people in society."



Democratic Party lawmaker James To described the rule changes as "humiliating."



"It is not just humiliating us," To told government broadcaster RTHK. "It is humiliating those who elected us into this council."



The rule changes come after six pan-democratic lawmakers were stripped of their seats by a Hong Kong court following a high-level intervention by the National People's Congress, which decreed that their oaths of allegiance were insufficiently "solemn and sincere" because they included protests and changed words.



Two lawmakers are still appealing, while the lost seats will be filled by by-elections on .



President Xi Jinping on praised Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam for making "a good start," during her visit to Beijing, adding that she been encouraging her officials to learn about the spirit of the 19th Party Congress, during which Xi's brand of political ideology was enshrined, alongside that of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, in the ruling Chinese Communist Party's constitution.



However, RTHK said Xi and Lam didn't discuss controversial national security laws that were shelved following mass protests in 2003.



Chinese officials are stepping up pressure on Hong Kong to pass draconian security laws that could leave its citizens open to accusations of subversion and sedition, warning that there will be "no room for debate" over the security legislation, required under Article 23 of the Basic Law.



Recent surveys indicate that some 40 percent of young people are open to the idea of independence for Hong Kong, but national security legislation must ban moves to "split national territory," which could leave its supporters open to criminal prosecution.



Reported by RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Liu Xia, widow of late Nobel peace laureate and political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, is shut up in an apartment, "talking to myself and lying here like a dead thing," a hand-scrawled note posted by a friend to Twitter has revealed.



"I can't leave here, and I'm so lonely I think I'm going crazy," says the note, addressed to Herta Mueller, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature.



"Someone is banging on the door, and I curled up," the note reads. "My neck started to get stiff but I couldn't move."



"I am lonely I could go mad, but no power to speak, to speak out loud," the note says. "I lie here in a vegetative state, like a dead thing, muttering to myself."



Liu, who has committed no crime, but who has been under tight surveillance or house arrest since her husband's Nobel prize was announced in , suffers from a number of mental and physical health problems.



Activists have repeatedly called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to allow her to go overseas and seek medical treatment, and Liu herself has repeatedly requested permission to leave China.



Germany-based author Liao Yiwu recently managed to speak with Liu by telephone on Dec. 8, and found her distraught, Germany-based journalist Su Yutong, a good friend of Liu's, told RFA.



"[Last week] was the ninth anniversary of Liu Xiaobo's initial detention, and Liu Xia's mood was very low," Su said. "She started to remember when her husband, unable to speak to her openly, kept making walking motions with his legs to tell her that she should leave China as soon as possible."



Exile seen as only solution

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia said the last time he had been able to give Liu Xia a hug was in 2012.



"This is the first winter Liu Xia has ever spent without her husband, and without her parents," Hu said. "You can imagine the pain she's going through."



He called on the international community to put diplomatic pressure on Beijing to release Liu.



"They should also send people to meet with Liu Xia, to give her some warmth and encouragement," he said.



But he added: "The only way to break this curse is for her to leave the country, and go to Germany or to the U.S."



In Hong Kong, human rights lawyer Albert Ho said activists there will be sending cards to Liu Xia, who recently underwent surgery for uterine fibroids.



"We are really worried about her health, not just the surgery, but also her long-term health, because of her serious depression," he said. "She has been subjected to long-term persecution, and has frequent suicidal thoughts. She has no liberty whatsoever, and she doesn't live with friends or relatives."



"She is also frequently moved around by the state security police. She has no really human existence," he said. "We strongly urge the government to allow her to go abroad to seek medical treatment."



Reported by Yang Fan and Gao Shan for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
As Beijing clears thousands of low-income migrant workers from the city following fatal dormitory fires, authorities in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi have stepped up requirements for school enrollments in Yulin city, prompting protests from parents, local residents said.



Migrant workers who brought their children to live with them in Yulin's Yuyang district have been informed by provincial education bureau officials that they must now provide extra paperwork, including proof of purchase of compulsory pension insurance, before they can enroll them in local schools.



Earlier this week, hundreds of migrant workers gathered outside the provincial bureau of education with banners protesting the new rules, because they say insurance premiums are beyond their means, given their low income.



A migrant worker surnamed Xu who attended the protest said insurance, at around 5,000 yuan annually, is beyond her means on earnings of between 2,000-3,000 yuan a month.



"This isn't affordable for low-income families like us," Xu said. "Parents have been petitioning outside the gate of the Yuyang education bureau in the past couple of days, calling on them to waive this rule."



Calls to the Yulin and Yuyang education bureaux rang unanswered during office hours on .



"Children have a basic, constitutional right to an education, so why do they insist on making it impossible for them to attend school?" Xu

said. "We strongly urge the education bureau to reconsider, so that our children can go to school."



The move comes as migrant workers in Beijing accuse the authorities of violent, mass evictions, often with no warning and with the loss or destruction of all of their belongings.



Activists estimate at least 100,000 people have been turfed out of low-cost rented accommodation in the city, where they were making a living as independent traders or manual workers.



Meanwhile, workers in the northern province of Shanxi have come out in protest after the authorities suddenly moved to confiscate their coal-burning stoves, for many the only form of heating they have in sub-zero temperatures.



Extreme cold with no heat

A resident of Shanxi's Linfen city surnamed Kang said he now has no way to stay warm.



"I used to rely on a coal-burning stove, but now the environmental protection task force has stopped all that," Kang said. "They have also cut off the pipes [to the central heating] so that a lot of places here in Dongcheng district have no heating at all."



"A lot of people are really suffering in the extreme cold," he said. "We have natural gas connected up now, but it doesn't give off enough heat."



Authorities in Beijing have stepped up mass evictions of low-income migrant workers and small traders in the wake of a second fire in Beijing's Chaoyang district after five people were killed and nine others injured after a blaze from two electric bicycles tore through a residential building Shibalidian earlier this week.



Activists have told RFA that thousands of migrants have been made homeless in sub-zero temperatures in Beijing in recent weeks, with some estimates putting the total around 100,000.



China's migrant population, drawn to cities and pushed out of poorer areas by mass layoffs and rural land grabs since the 1990s, has risen in recent years to more than 200 million, nearly one-fifth of the population.



The majority of migrant workers who flock to bigger cities in search of manual labor in factories and on construction sites are from a farming background.



But their search for a better life for themselves and their families is hampered by a discriminatory "household registration," or hukou, system that limits access to services like healthcare and education to natives of a given area.



The resident population of Beijing has swelled by 59 percent since the start of the century, with an increase of 56 percent reported by neighboring Tianjin and a 50 percent rise in Shanghai.



The majority of migrants hail from the central provinces of Henan, Anhui and Hunan, while their top destinations are the rich coastal provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, according to a map published this year by the search engine and online encyclopedia Baidu.



Reported by Qiao Long and Gao Feng for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Students, NGO officials, and diplomats held a remembrance service in Vientiane on Friday to commemorate a prominent civil society leader who vanished five years ago at a police checkpoint outside the Lao capital, while rights groups worldwide demanded to know his whereabouts.

The group gathered at the Participatory Development Training Center (PADETC) to mark the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Sombath Somphone, who founded the nonprofit center devoted to sustainable social, economic, and environmental development.

Sombaths widow, Ng Shui Meng, who has repeatedly called on the Lao government to answer questions surrounding the fate of her husband, thanked the center for continuing to believe in Sombath's vision and ideas.

Sombath went missing on Dec. 15, 2012, when police stopped him in his vehicle at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Vientiane. He was then transferred to another vehicle, according to police surveillance video, and has not been heard from again.

Rights groups suspect that government-linked organizations or criminal elements may have abducted Sombath, who received the 2005 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership  Asias equivalent of the Nobel Prize  for his work in the fields of education and development.

Though authorities have denied any responsibility, Sombaths abduction is widely acknowledged to be an enforced disappearance  the arrest or detention of an individual by state officials or their agents followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty.

Lao officials have yet to state a reason for his disappearance or make any progress in the case, which has drawn criticism from European and U.S. development partners and aid donors, as well as attention from the United Nations.

Five years on, Sombaths disappearance highlights the glaring problems of enforced disappearance, widespread rights violations, and the culture of impunity protecting government officials in Laos, said Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a statement issued on Friday. The government needs to end its cover-up and explain what happened to Sombath.

Sombaths disappearance will be a stain on the Lao governments reputation until his fate is explained and those responsible are fairly prosecuted and punished, he said. Donor governments, U.N. agencies, and multilateral organizations should keep raising concerns with Lao leaders until there are credible answers about Sombaths fate.

Andrea Gioretta, head of the Asia desk Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, said that the Lao government has prevented people from speaking out about Sombaths disappearance.

The Lao government intentionally suppresses the Lao people from speaking out about Sombath Somphone, he said at the ceremony in Vientiane.

Anne-Sophie Gindroz, a the country director for Laos for the Swiss aid agency Helvetas, who was expelled from the country by authorities in December 2012 after making statements critical of the government, told RFA earlier that the Lao government eliminated Sombath on purpose to suppress dissidents and spread fear among the Lao people.

And it has been very effective, she said. As a result, Laotians have been more afraid and silent. Even though they are so unhappy with the government, they always keep quiet.

Never ask questions

RFAs Bangkok bureau was unable to reach the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week to inquire about the status of the case.

A high-ranking police officer responsible for Sombaths case at the Ministry of Public Security would not answer RFA's questions as to whether authorities still are investigating the matter.

When another RFA reporter called him at a different time, he said, Never ask questions about Sombath Somphone.

Also on Friday, more than 120 rights organizations worldwide, including Amnesty International, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), and Lao Movement for Human Rights, called on the Lao government for information about Sombaths whereabouts.

On the fifth anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone, we, the undersigned organizations, express outrage at the Lao governments failure to independently, impartially, effectively, and transparently investigate Sombaths disappearance, reveal his whereabouts, and return him to his family, said a statement issued by the groups.

The Lao governments continued silence and obfuscation of the facts around Sombaths enforced disappearance have subjected his family to five years of fear and uncertainty over his fate and whereabouts, which remain unknown to this day.

Ng Shui Meng speaks at a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Dec. 7, 2017. Credit: RFA Denial, denial, denial

At a press conference on Dec. 7 in Bangkok to mark the fifth anniversary of Sombaths disappearance, Ng called on the Lao government to reveal the truth about her husbands fate.

We still need an answer from the Lao government about where Sombath is [and] whether he is still alive or dead, and we will keep asking this question until we get the answer, Ng told RFAs Lao Service at the event.

For me its almost like the response is one of denial, denial, denial until people get tired of the case, until maybe all the family members are tired of the case, and then the case will slowly, literally disappear, and Sombath will be forever disappeared, she told attendees at the conference.

She also said that witnesses she declined to name recently came forward to say they had spotted Sombath at a police holding facility in Vientiane a few hours after he was stopped at the police checkpoint, and that his jeep was seen in the facilitys parking lot the same evening.

Asia Times reported that Ng obtained new CCTV footage showing Sombaths vehicle being driven by an unknown individual toward central Vientianne on the same evening.

This newly public information demonstrates the inadequacy of the official investigations into Sombaths disappearance and the contours of a cover-up by Lao authorities, HRW said in the statement it issued on Friday, referring to Ngs comment about information from the witnesses.

The authorities have repeatedly dismissed concerns raised by Sombaths family, foreign governments, and human rights groups about whether the government investigation was serious, HRW said.

Robertson said at the press conference in Bangkok that none of the representatives from 12 NGOs working in Laos who attended the event spoke openly about Sombath.

At the same news conference, Malaysian lawmaker and APHR chairman Charles Santiago said there is no doubt in his mind that Sombath was forcibly disappeared.

[I]ts clear to me after looking a hundred times at the video that was shown earlier that it is the states action of an enforced disappearance, he said. Its obvious that the state is involved.

Laos has signed but not ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, an international human rights instrument of the U.N. intended to prevent such disappearances.

Reported and translated by RFAs Lao Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Myanmar journalists Thet Oo Maung (R), also known as Wa Lone, and Kyaw Soe Oo (L) in undated photos.

The families of two Myanmar reporters for Reuters news agency who were arrested for allegedly violating Myanmars state secrets act said on Friday that authorities still have not informed them of the mens whereabouts.

Thet Oo Maung, also known as Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested on Dec. 12 for violating Section 3 of the countrys Official Secrets Act by allegedly illegally acquiring government documents about security forces in northern Rakhine state where a military crackdown has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh.

The journalists were working on stories about the crackdown when authorities accused them of sending important security documents regarding security forces in Rakhine state to foreign agencies abroad, according to a government statement.

If found guilty, they could be sentenced to up to 14 years in prison.

We havent had any contact from anybody, said Pan Ei Mon, Thet Oo Maungs wife, on Friday. We dont know where they are. We went to Htauk Kyant Police Station yesterday and requested to see them.

She told RFAs Myanmar Service that police searched the home of her husbands parents on Wednesday.

Weve got no news about them, Chit Su Ma, Kyaw Soe Oos wife, told RFA. We dont know where they are. We cant see them.

Pan Ei Mon said that police told the journalists' families that the men had been taken from Htauk Kyant Police Station in the commercial capital Yangon, where they were detained following their arrests.

A police officer from that station said they had been taken away by a group of authorities on the first day, but they couldnt identify which group it was, she said.

They could only say that the reporters are still alive and in good health, she said. They also said they will inform Reuters news agency when the reporters are transferred back to Htauk Kyant Police Station after the investigation is completed.

On Wednesday, Pan Ei Mon said that Reuters had not provided any details about the arrests.

Two policemen taken into custody in connection with the incident have not been charged, Reuters reported on Friday.



They need to be released

On Friday, the U.S. embassy in Myanmar issued a statement on its Facebook page that read: We remain concerned about Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. Their families and others have not been allowed to see them, and dont even know where they are being held.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes spokesman said the Japanese government is closely watching the situation and is engaged in talks with Myanmar on the human rights situation there, Reuters reported.

The Bangladeshi government, which signed an agreement with Myanmar in November to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees, denounced the reporters arrests and called for their immediate release, the report said.

Senior European officials on Friday criticized the Myanmar government's arrest of the two journalists and called for their release.

We will make it clear in the strongest possible terms that we feel that they need to be released at the earliest possible opportunity, said Mark Field, Britains minister for Asia and the Pacific, according to Reuters.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom was quoted as saying that the arrests were a threat to a democratic and peaceful development of Myanmar and that region.

Meanwhile, the Yangon Journalism School cancelled a training program for media professionals from the Information Ministry because of way the ministry wrote reports on the two detained reporters, school founder Ye Naing Moe told RFA on Friday.

He added that the reports have destroyed the reporters reputations.

Because of the arrests of the reporters, media professionals are fearful for their jobs, and their jobs have become very dangerous, he said.

On Thursday, a dozen Myanmar media groups, the United Nations, the European Union, and international rights organizations condemned the arrests of Thet Oo Maung and Kyaw Soe Oo and called on the government to release them immediately.

The same day, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Tokyo that the detentions of the reporters were clearly a concern in relation to the erosion of press freedom in the country, according to Reuters.

By Waiyan Moe Myint and Aung Theinkha for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution condemning Vietnams authorities for jailing activist blogger Nguyen Van Hoa, detaining citizens who voice opinions critical of the government, and severely curtailing press freedom, drawing praise from rights groups and observers Friday.



In a statement Thursday, following a vote on the resolution, the European Parliament said 22-year-old Hoa had exercised his right to freedom of expression when he disseminated content online about Taiwan-owned Formosa Plastics Groups April 2016 release of toxic chemicals from its massive steel plant located at the deep-water port in Ha Tinh province, and called on the government to free him.



The Peoples Court of Ha Tinh sentenced Hoa, who was denied access to legal representation, to seven years in prison last month for conducting propaganda against the state under Article 88 of Vietnams Penal Code saying he had tried to incite protests over the governments handling the spill, which devastated the livelihoods of residents of coastal Vietnam.



[The European Parliament] condemns the sentencing of Nguyen Van Hoa to seven years in prison  [and] urges the Vietnamese authorities to release Nguyen Van Hoa immediately and unconditionally, the statement said.



Lawmakers also highlighted the case of jailed blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynhalso known by her blogger handle Mother Mushroomwhose appeal of her 10-year prison term for publishing politically sensitive material online under Article 88 was rejected earlier this month. She had also written critically about human rights abuses, official corruption, and the Formosa spill.



[Parliament] expresses its concern about the rise in the number of detentions, arrests and convictions of Vietnamese citizens related to the expression of their opinions, as well as their harassment at the hands of authorities the statement said, calling on the government to release all citizens detained for peacefully exercising their freedom of expression.



The European Parliament said it had serious concerns about the extensive application of the national security provisions in Vietnams Penal Code, and urged the government to amend certain articles, including Article 88 and Article 79, which refers to activities aimed at overthrowing the state.



The statement noted that press freedom is severely restricted in Vietnam, which ranks 175th out of 180 countries in Paris-based Reporters Without Borders 2017 World Press Freedom Index, and said that the resolution was, in part, adopted in response to the introduction of new laws last year that further limited freedom of expression and reinforced censorship in the Southeast Asian nation.



The European Parliament called on Vietnam to issue a standing invitation to United Nations Special Procedures, in particular to the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and to give them free and unfettered access to all the parties they wish to consult.



MEPs speak out



Speaking in the debate during Thursdays Plenary Session, Swedish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Soraya Post said human rights defenders, journalists, bloggers, writers and activists, like those being imprisoned and attacked by authorities in Vietnam, deserved the support of the international community.



The human rights defenders of the world need the EU to take a clear stand for them, for their work, and demand regimes like Vietnam to stop harassing those who fight for justice, she said.



Laima Andrikiene, an MEP from Lithuania, called on Vietnams government to release all political prisoners immediately and end its repression of freedom.



There can be no closer ties between the European Union and Vietnam without respect for all these fundamental rights, she said.



MEP David Martin of Scotland said he believes the substance of a Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Vietnamwhich is expected to be signed next summeris beneficial to both parties, but warned that the parliament would judge both on substance and on the political situation inside Vietnam.



We will take into account the human rights situation, as well as the worker and environmental standards in Vietnam, when we vote on the FTA in this Parliament, he said.



Vietnams current approach to freedom of expression is unacceptable. It is intolerable. Vietnam must understand that if it wants to open up to the Westand we welcome it opening up to the Westit also has to accept internal criticism. Criticism is not always opposition. It is constructive, if handled properly.



Czech MEP Pavel Telicka, vice president of the European Parliament in charge of human rights, said he was shocked by the lack of understanding demonstrated by Vietnams permanent mission in a letter sent in response to the EUs concerns.



Basically, it was a mixture of diplomatic propaganda language  [that] said these were acts against the state and the people of Vietnam, and in the case of one of the bloggers there was a reference to advocacy of terrorism against the state, he said.



The only possible response we will accept [from Vietnam], if they wish to develop our relations, is that they must release prisoners and make changes in their political attitudes and legal approach.



Resolution welcomed



Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) issued a statement Friday welcoming the resolution, noting that during the debate in Plenary Session, not one MEP spoke in support of Vietnam, and all condemned the deterioration of civil and political rights in the country.



The European Parliament seized the occasion of the deeply shocking sentence of young blogger Nguyen Van Hoa and the appeal sentence of [Mother Mushroom] on the eve of the EU-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue to strongly denounce the blatant and outrageously anti-freedom policies of the Vietnamese government said VCHR President Vo Van Ai.



The Resolution takes up all the VCHRs grave concerns: the savage repression endured daily by dissidents, bloggers and human rights defenders, as well as the arsenal of restrictive legislation in force in Vietnam, such as the national security provisions in the Vietnamese Criminal Code.



Ngo Duy Quyen, a member of the Bau Bi Tuong Than group, which provides support to prisoners of conscience and land petitioners, called the resolution a very special thing.



As a partner of Vietnam, this is perhaps the strongest attitude to oppose unfair trials in the country, he said.



This proves that although the Vietnamese communist authorities did not hesitate to use every trick, including lies, to cover up the Formosa disaster, they probably did not succeed, he added, saying that the incident had drawn greater international attention to Vietnams rights record.



A friend of Nguyen Van Hoa named Nguyen Hong An, who is also a Ha Tinh-based freelance journalist, told RFA he was pleased that the European Parliament had chosen to speak out and adopt the resolution.



Hoa is now in prison, but if he heard this news, he would surely try harder to overcome the challenges that the Vietnamese authorities presented him, he said.



Tran Duc Tuan Son, a Paris-based dissident who had lobbied for the European Parliament to take a stronger stance against Vietnam, said that while MEPs were previously aware of the rights situation there, the sentence of seven years in prison for Hoa was too unjust, and convinced them to move forward with the resolution.



The probability of the EU bringing human rights issues into the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement is not high, but we shouldnt give up because of that, he said.



We must try to convince the MEPs to press Vietnam.



Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Emily Peyman. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Volunteers worked to beautify Petersburgs J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School last year. J.E.B. Stuart, A.P. Hill and Robert E. Lee elementary schools were built in the early 1900s and kept their original names when they were rebuilt in different locations. The authority to change names rests with the School Board.

The Petersburg School Board is considering changing the names of three elementary schools that now bear the names of Confederate leaders.

School Board Chairman Kenneth Pritchett sent out an email to community members Friday inviting people to attend three forums and to participate in surveys to gauge support for renaming A.P. Hill, Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart elementary schools.

This is a new day in Petersburg City Public Schools. We must look to the future, not the past, to achieve our mission of developing 21st-century citizens able to effectively collaborate, communicate and innovate. To symbolize this forward movement, the Petersburg School Board plans to consider changing the names of the three schools named for Confederate generals, Pritchett wrote in the email.

Pritchett said Friday that 10 to 15 people who are primarily former Petersburg students have reached out to him in recent months asking that the schools be renamed. Other School Board members said they have received similar pleas from a handful to hundreds of people. Pritchett said he has not heard from anyone in support of keeping the schools current names.

School Board member Atiba Muse said he has heard from between 50 and 100 people in recent months.

They have carried the name in what is predominantly an African-American community, Muse said. Its important that the students at the very least can have a high regard for who their building is named after. And as loosely as we are interpreting history at this point, youve got children being forced to make sense of their school being named after someone who essentially fought to maintain their enslavement.

According to 2016 U.S. Census estimates, Petersburgs population is 78 percent African-American.

Pritchett said support for changing the names intensified after a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in August, which sparked debates across the country over existing Confederate symbols.

Muse agreed, saying he has wanted to rename the three schools since he was first elected to the School Board in 2013, but recent national events as well as conversations in Richmond have given the issue a renewed sense of urgency.

We were hearing from citizens before the rally. And now because of the rally, we are getting more, Pritchett said. What you also have is what is happening nationally and across the state of Virginia: different schools are looking to change names.

Nearly a week after the rally, Pritchett received an email from four former Petersburg students who wrote that if other cities and institutions are removing and/or renaming these unfortunate icons even as we write this, it seems that this is the time to act.

People have organized to remove Confederate and Jim Crow era symbolism in schools elsewhere in the region.

On Tuesday, some former students, parents and advocacy groups called on the Hanover County School Board to change the names of Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School.

In Henrico County, a yearlong effort resulted in last years naming of Quioccasin Middle School, which had been named for Harry F. Byrd, the former U.S. senator who spearheaded the Massive Resistance movement to prevent racial desegregation in schools.

All three of the Petersburg elementary schools were built in the early 1900s and kept their original names when they were rebuilt later in different locations.

The original A.P. Hill Elementary was built in 1915 and rebuilt in 1967. The original Robert E. Lee Elementary was built in 1911 and rebuilt in 1962. The original J.E.B. Stuart Elementary was built in 1924 and rebuilt in 1966.

J.E.B. Stuart was the chief of cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia, while Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia until he surrendered in 1865. A.P. Hill was born in Virginia like Lee and fought during significant battles in the Civil War.

The information section of the Petersburg boards Jan. 3 meeting will include a memo about the measure. The same day, board members will start gathering feedback through online and printed surveys that will ask if the schools names should be changed and ask for suggested names.

Vice Chairman Steven Pierce said he would like to hear what more of the public thinks after a handful of constituents have posed the question to him in recent months, while School Board member Lois Long said residents have been pushing for a name change to her over the past three or four years.

I think in our own minds and hearts, weve always wanted to see that, Long said. I just think that the name of the school should reflect more of the population, more for a person that has done something more positive for education in Virginia versus slavery and disunity.

The School Board will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. Jan. 17 in the cafeteria of Petersburg High. Community meetings are also set at each of the elementary schools at the following times: 6 to 7 p.m. Jan. 4 at J.E.B. Stuart, 6 to 7 p.m. Jan. 8 at A.P. Hill and 6 to 7 p.m. Jan. 9 at Robert E. Lee.

The authority to change the names of schools rests with School Board members.
Two killings in a little more than 24 hours have pushed Richmonds homicide total for 2017 above last years tally, which was the citys deadliest in a decade.

The two deaths bring the citys homicide total for the year to 63. Sixty are being investigated by Richmond police and three by Virginia State Police.

Richmonds total of 61 homicides last year was the most in the city since 2006, when there were 81.

Mayor Levar Stoney, who spoke at an annual vigil for homicide victims in City Hall on Thursday, called the number overwhelming.

Richmond Commonwealths Attorney Michael N. Herring said earlier that we all continue to be concerned about the increase in homicides, and shootings generally. The police department is doing all that it can, but random violence is almost impossible to prevent.

Herring said he is planning to start a root cause analysis in the spring in hopes of identifying seminal causes of crime, beyond motive and generating ideas for suppression and prevention.

Police Chief Alfred Durham said the number of double and triple homicides this year has inflated the number of deaths. There have been seven shootings that have claimed the lives of more than one person. He said a majority of the homicides this year are related to a drug crime, specifically marijuana.

Its going to be hard to change, Durham said. But sooner or later, its going to resonate: If you see something, say something.

On Thursday, 24-year-old Antoine L. Smith Jr. was killed in South Richmond.

Smith, who lived in the 3200 block of Broad Rock Boulevard, was found shot to death about 5 a.m. in the 3200 block of Stockton Street.

Another woman was also shot but is expected to recover, according to police. She was taken to a hospital with nonfatal injuries.

On Wednesday, a killing unfolded in the 700 block of Rothesay Road near City Stadium about 1:20 a.m. The body of Michael T. Boston Jr., 27, was found on a sidewalk with apparent gunshot wounds, police said.

Police are required to report the number of homicides to the state police, who then report them to the FBI for an annual report. But adding 10 other deaths this year  two fatal police shootings, two accidental shootings, a justified homicide, and five deaths police are still investigating  makes the total number of violent deaths much higher: 73 in 2017, compared with 67 in 2016.

Anyone with information about Thursdays homicide is asked to call Major Crimes Detective M. Gouldman at (804) 646-3915, and anyone with information about Wednesdays homicide is asked to call Major Crimes Detective D. Cuffley at (804) 646-6795.

You can also contact Crime Stoppers by going online to www.7801000.com or sending a text message to 274637, using the keyword iTip followed by the tip.

All Crime Stoppers methods are anonymous.
An 18-year-old man has been tied to a series of shootings Thursday, including a predawn incident that left a Chesterfield man dead and an exchange of gunfire with Richmond police that left the teen injured.

James E. Williams Jr., 18, of the 1100 block of Sumpter Street in Richmond, has been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony by Chesterfield County police. Richmond detectives said they plan to charge Williams with additional crimes at a later date.

It appears the series of shootings spanned about five hours, starting in Chesterfield in the early hours of Thursday morning and ending midmorning in North Richmond after a pursuit and a shootout with police.

At 3:10 a.m. Thursday, Chesterfield police responded to the area of Eureka Drive and Aldwell Drive, where they found Basheed I. Boatwright, 36, who had been shot outside a residence in the 7400 block of Eureka Drive.

Boatwright, of the 1200 block of Aldwell Drive, was taken to a hospital, where he died.

About five hours later, Richmond officers were summoned to the 1200 block of St. John Street for a shooting in the Gilpin Court public housing complex. Police found a man who had been shot, and he was taken to a hospital with injuries that police said were not fatal.

An eyewitness to the Gilpin shooting gave police information about a suspect vehicle, and at 8:27 a.m. a Richmond officer spotted a gray Subaru matching the description and tried to stop it. The driver of the Subaru did not pull over, and police pursued the car until it stopped about 8:29 a.m. where Fourth Avenue dead ends near its intersection with Pollock Street in the Highland Park neighborhood.

Two men got out of the car, and one, armed with a rifle, fired multiple rounds at Richmond officer Travis S. Dooley, who had been pursuing them, authorities said.

Dooley returned fire, striking the suspect, whom police have identified as Williams.

Responding officers applied a tourniquet to Williams leg until medical personnel arrived and took him to a hospital, where he remains in the custody of the Chesterfield Sheriffs Office. Williams is expected to survive, police said.

Richmond police said they recovered an assault-style weapon near the Subaru that Williams was in.

Officer Dooley, who joined the Richmond department on Jan. 13, 2014, is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of a use-of-force investigation, the department said.

Police continue to investigate the homicide and urge anyone with information to contact the Chesterfield Police Department at (804) 748-1251 or Crime Solvers at (804) 748-0660.
An extraordinary crisis of conscience last year prompted two innocence claims filed Friday in the Virginia Court of Appeals for a Covington man convicted of bank robberies.

If Gary Linwood Bush is exonerated of the 2006 Petersburg and Prince George County holdups, it will be thanks to a youngster whose honesty unwittingly inspired the real robber  his grandfather  to turn himself in.

It was only after confessing that Christian Lynn Amos learned that Bush, a man he did not know, was in prison for his crimes.

Reached by telephone this week, Bush said he hopes his name will be cleared by the court and that he ultimately will be awarded wrongful imprisonment compensation from the state.

I dont think any amount of money in the world will pay me back for 9 years, Bush said. But he added, Financially, it will definitely help.

The petitions for writs of actual innocence filed in the Virginia Court of Appeals by the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law contend: This case is straightforward. Mr. Bush was convicted and sentenced for robberies he did not commit.

Mr. Amos has now admitted responsibility for both these robberies, indicated that Mr. Bush was not at all involved, and has been convicted and sentenced for one already. By acknowledging Mr. Amoss guilt, the Commonwealth must now concede Mr. Bushs innocence, Bushs lawyers wrote.

Bush, 68, was living in Prince George County in 2006 and had just retired from 23 years as a machine operator for DuPont when he was caught with cocaine by police. Then, he was charged with the two bank robberies.

He had alibis and always maintained he was innocent. Nevertheless, Bush was convicted by a judge in Prince George and by a jury in Petersburg on eyewitness identifications and sentenced to a total of 12 years in prison.

Then on May 17, 2016, Amos, 63, shamed and inspired by his then 8-year-old grandson, called the Prince George Police Department and said he wanted to confess to three bank robberies he got away with, two in 2006 and one in 2014.

Amos said he decided to confess after his grandson first denied, and then admitted, breaking some windows in a mobile home in his Disputanta neighborhood. Amos walked the boy over to the owner of the mobile home so he could own up to the damage.

I was just so proud of him ... and it just left me feeling like a hypocrite. I knew that day that I had to turn myself in. I had to. But it still took me a month, Amos told the Richmond Times-Dispatch earlier this year.

Amos said he was shocked to learn someone had been convicted of the two robberies he committed to finance his heroin addiction.

He said of Bush, Theres no way I can make it up to him. No way at all. Amos said that had he known Bush was in prison, he believes he would have come forward sooner.

Amos pleaded guilty to the Prince George robbery, for which Bush was convicted, and to the 2014 robbery in Petersburg and is now serving a 12-year sentence at Nottoway Correctional Center  the judge in Prince George imposed the same total sentence imposed on Bush.

The Petersburg commonwealths attorney told The Times-Dispatch earlier this year that she planned to prosecute Amos for the other 2006 robbery that led to the conviction of Bush and which Amos also said he committed.

When the confessions were brought to the attention of the Virginia State Parole Board, Bush was freed last year on geriatric parole and returned home to his family near Covington.

Jennifer L. Givens, with the Innocence Project at the law school, said, We certainly hope the Court acts quickly to right this wrong. It seems a bit absurd that Mr. Bush has to go through this lengthy process in order to be exonerated, when Mr. Amos has confessed to police, pleaded guilty and is serving time for these crimes.

The Virginia Attorney Generals Office will respond to the Bush petitions in the court of appeals before the court takes any action.

The Virginia Supreme Court handles petitions for writs of actual innocence based on biological  DNA  evidence, while the Virginia Court of Appeals handles those such as Bushs that are based on newly discovered, nonbiological evidence.
The College of William & Mary and Richard Bland College are trying to make it easier for low-income students to transfer from the Petersburg junior college to the Williamsburg school.

The two schools announced Friday a new scholarship that aims to ease the burden for low-income students in transferring from Richard Bland to William & Mary. The inaugural cohort of Promise Scholars will be chosen in the spring.

This initiative has real potential, said William & Mary President Taylor Reveley in a prepared statement. The Promise Scholars program provides an opportunity for a very able cohort of students to begin their William & Mary education while enrolled at Richard Bland.

Through the new program, which was announced at a joint event Friday at Richard Bland, William & Mary courses will be taught at Richard Bland. The program also guarantees on-campus housing to the transfer students and a scholarship that increases in value through a students four years of school.

The scholars  15 in the first cohort  will be first-year, in-state students at Richard Bland with federal Pell Grant eligibility. Theyll receive a $2,000 scholarship in their second year at Richard Bland and $3,500 in their last two years at William & Mary to help offset student loans. Students remain eligible for other financial aid.

Two William & Mary professors will teach a general education class in Petersburg starting next fall to help ease the transition. Theyll also be the scholars academic advisers.

Richard Bland President Debbie Sydow called the new program a game-changer for students.

The two schools share a Board of Visitors, something that helped the establishment of the program, school administrators said.

Ken LaTessa, the provost at Richard Bland, said in an interview that the Board of Visitors asked the two schools earlier this year to come closer as institutions. They have other institutional relationships  guaranteed admission and co-enrollment tracks  but the addition of this new program just made sense, LaTessa said.

Transfer students are inherently behind, LaTessa said. So what could we do to make that process easier? Give those students support.

He added that its not that common for Richard Bland students to transfer to William & Mary  currently about 3-6 students per year.

Henry Broaddus, vice president for strategic initiatives and public affairs at William & Mary, said in an interview that the new program will hopefully remove barriers for transfer students.

Its a chance to create a new point of entry for students from low-income backgrounds who can be prepared to really thrive on this campus and to reduce the cost for them and to really provide a path for them without student debt, he said.
In a September survey following the violence in Charlottesville, only 31 percent of those polled in the Richmond region supported a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to study race relations in Virginia  including how the Civil War is commemorated in public monuments.

The same poll, commissioned by the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, found a majority of respondents in our region in agreement that such a commission would mainly stir up trouble and hard feelings. And yet, a majority also agreed that the state should take steps to more fully understand and acknowledge the impact of slavery and racial segregation on African-Americans.

We want greater understanding, but we dont want trouble.

We crave reconciliation.

But thats not a destination you can properly arrive at without making the often-painful visit to truth.

It was clear that the Richmond City Council didnt want trouble as it contorted itself Monday on the issue of Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. A majority couldnt bring themselves to support a resolution by Councilman Michael Jones that asked the state to give the city the authority to remove the monuments. As it is, state law and the citys own charter  which can be amended only with General Assembly approval  are impediments.

This was not a vote to bring down the statues. There were no cranes lying in wait in the night on the paving stones of Monument Avenue to hoist the soldiers and statesman off their pedestals. This was about Richmonds right to assert local control over statues that are taxpayer-supported city properties, with the exception of the state-owned Robert E. Lee monument.

The city of Richmond, in order to have a fair and honest conversation, with the pros and cons, needs to know at the end of the day that we have the legislative power to do what the community wants, said Councilwoman Ellen Robertson, the only other council member to support Jones resolution.

Its far from clear that monument removal is what the community wants  Id wager that a referendum on the matter would fail. But the councils refusal to put this issue before the legislature was telling.

On removal, the council not only cant deliver; it has no interest in doing so.

The majority of the council has no stomach for this issue. But if the city of Richmond is going to meekly acquiesce to permanent state control of its Confederate memorials, the least it can do is send an invoice to the state for the monuments annual upkeep and the cost of graffiti removal.

Many of the councils arguments against the measure recycled the whataboutisms so popular on this issue. Why address the propriety of monuments to white supremacy in 21st-century Richmond when you can change the subject with a well-timed, Well, what about ...?

People will say we have to focus on crime and education. We have other things to focus on. Surely we should focus our attentions and efforts elsewhere, Jones said. I do believe we are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. That we can focus on crime and education, that we can focus on school buildings, that we can focus on safe neighborhoods, as well as look at historical and moral wrongs.

But frankly, this council wouldnt accept the authority over these monuments if you handed it to them on a platter garnished with parsley.

The equation is simple: a no vote on requesting authority for statue removal equals never having to vote for statue removal.

Some say the answer to the problem that is Monument Avenue lies in providing context. Others demand nothing short of removal. But doing nothing is no longer an option.

And this process must be more expeditious than the unacceptably slow slavery commemoration effort in Shockoe Bottom.

Binding this wound was never going to be easy, especially after Heather Heyer was slain in August during a rally of Nazis and white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to oppose the removal of a Lee statue there. But it wont be a good look down the road if this generation of Richmond leaders positions our city  yet again  on the wrong side of history.

But this monument issue, from the beginning, has been a study in cognitive dissonance, as folks cite the current-day vestiges of black oppression in Richmond as reason not to address towering symbols of that oppression.

In a city where Confederate mythology remains so vivid and powerful, do we have the luxury not to act?

A refrain Monday was for the council to delay action until Mayor Levar Stoneys Monument Avenue Commission completes its work. I dont see how forwarding Jones resolution to the legislature would have impeded the commission. And Stoney is on record with his hope to take advantage of the shift of power in the General Assembly.

As it is, the citys substantial limitations in addressing its Confederate monuments cannot help but color how the commissions work plays out.

Jones likened the death of Heyer to that of Emmett Till, the Chicago 14-year-old whose brutal murder in Mississippi in 1955 was a catalyst for the modern civil rights movement. But we no longer seem capable of that galvanizing moment. The death of nine black churchgoers in Charleston 2 years ago at the hands of a white supremacist has been followed by a resurgence of white nationalism.

In the aforementioned poll, nearly two-thirds of the Richmond regions respondents agree that we owe it to our children to deal with race relations issues once and for all.

How do we explain these monuments to our children?

As the former capital of the Confederacy, we have both the responsibility and the privilege to set a tone and to set a standard for how to address these topics, how to move forward as a city, how to be inclusive, said Rebecca Turner, one of the more eloquent speakers Monday. And how to address honestly, truthfully and frankly the past that we have been through, and the future we want to see going forward.

If the council shirks its responsibility to engage this issue moving forward, the result will be a blow against both truth and reconciliation.
Members of Richmonds NAACP on Thursday called for funding for a School Board-approved facilities plan outside whats deemed the worst building in Richmond Public Schools.

Standing outside George Mason Elementary School in the citys East End, NAACP members and Richmond School Board representatives urged action on funding the plan they passed last week. The plan calls for building five new schools, including George Mason, and major renovations to two others.

We want the mayors office, we want City Council, the School Board, Congress and also the General Assembly to collaborate to make sure we make this happen, said JJ Minor, the president of the Richmond branch of the NAACP. This is a win for students. This plan is a win for the city. It is a win for parents and ultimately it is a win for all of us.

If we care about public education  if we really care  we all need to work together to collaborate.

The plan passed last week with a 5-3 vote. All five School Board members who voted for the plan were at the news conference.

It is time to take a stand for our children, said Cheryl Burke, the interim 7th District representative. Its unacceptable.

Funding for the School Boards facilities plan remains unclear.

Members of the School Board and City Council met Monday to start discussions on funding the plan, but figures presented to the two groups, as well as the mayor, show a $158 million gap between the citys debt five-year debt capacity - $66 million - and the School Board approved $224 million plan.

Speakers Thursday urged different groups to come together to figure out founding.

This is going to take everyone involved to take action, said Dawn Page, the boards chairwoman.

While the plan takes action on some schools, it still leaves the vast majority of the divisions 44 schools without an overhaul in the next five years. The board  based on the recommendation of interim Superintendent Tommy Kranz  did not vote on a full 20-year plan because of the likelihood that construction and infrastructure factors would change between now and then.

Instead the plan will be continue to be reviewed as what Kranz describes as a living, breathing document.

We still want a complete plan for all schools that leaves no child behind, said former City Council member Marty Jewell.

The NAACP members arent the only ones calling on funding for the plan.
The state has reached agreements with 14 large users of groundwater in eastern Virginia that the Department of Environmental Quality says will protect coastal aquifers from depletion.

The 14 groundwater withdrawal permits that were brokered with municipal water utilities and large industrial users over the past five years, such as the WestRock paper mill in West Point, will cut total allowable withdrawals of water by 69 million gallons a day.

By embracing practical, forward-looking solutions to reduce withdrawals, improve efficiency and develop alternative water supplies, we are laying the groundwork for sustained and sustainable success, Gov. Terry McAuliffe said in a statement. I appreciate the permittees willingness to work with my administration and the Department of Environmental Quality to reach these historic agreements.

The governor said permits allowed the withdrawal of 146 million gallons a day when he took office. The new permits will cut allowable consumption by as much as 52 percent.

The DEQ has reviewed requests to withdraw large quantities of groundwater since 1992 in Virginias coastal plain, which runs roughly from the eastern edges of Fairfax and Prince William County due south through Richmond to Southampton County and encompasses all of Tidewater as well as the Eastern Shore. In those areas, which Virginia has designated as groundwater management areas, any person or entity that will withdraw more than 300,000 gallons a month must obtain a permit from the DEQ.

Permits are issued to industry, municipal water supplies, agriculture and large residential developments. Over-pumping, the governors office says, has led to significant groundwater declines, measured land subsidence and increasing saltwater intrusion.

We are proactively addressing an intergenerational threat to our water supply, said outgoing Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward, a former mayor of Hampton. We are grateful for the spirit of collaboration that permeated this process and made this success possible.

A 2014 report prepared for the DEQ said the agency was concerned about declining aquifer levels in the coastal plain and the possibility that current and likely future withdrawals from the aquifers cannot be sustained. The report said the areas major aquifers, including the Potomac, Aquia, Yorktown-Eastover and Piney Point, are confined aquifers, with a relatively low recharge from rainfall, and noted that some had declined by as much as 200 feet in the decades since World War II.

The depletion of the aquifers could mean existing wells can no longer draw water and that new wells have to be drilled deeper. It could also mean permanent loss in groundwater storage capacity as dewatered soils settle; increased saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers; and sinking land.

From 1979 to 1995, the land in southeastern Virginia dropped 24.2 millimeters at Franklin, according to the report, and 50.2 millimeters at Suffolk from 1982 to 1995.

More than half of the rate of sea level rise in southeastern Virginia is attributable to subsidence of all forms, with half of the total subsidence from groundwater pumping, the report says. Virginia has the highest rates of relative sea level rise on the Atlantic seaboard.

Bill Hayden, a DEQ spokesman, said the landmark agreements, which encompass permits issued from January 2012 to this month, represent more than a decade of work.
As Virginias next governor, Ralph Northam will take part in the 2019 dedication of the Virginia Womens Monument on Capitol Square, which is to include a statue of a Confederate captain.

Sally Louisa Tompkins, a Richmond hospital administrator renowned for her facilitys low mortality rate, was one of 12 women from 400 years of Virginia history chosen in 2013 for bronze statues as part of the monument.

Northam, like members of the Virginia Womens Monument Commission interviewed for this story, appears to see a distinction between Tompkins and other Confederate officers.

The governor-elect recognizes that the women who were selected for this monument contributed to Virginia at different times in our history and in different ways, said Ofirah Yheskel, Northams press secretary.

We should continue the conversation about monuments that were erected expressly to glorify individuals who fought a war against their own country to protect the institution of slavery, but we should also be honest about the difference between that and the recognition of a woman who only accepted her commission when it was the only way to keep her hospital open.

Five members of the commission interviewed for this story affirmed their support for including a statue of Tompkins as part of the womens monument, noting her pioneering achievements and that she refused pay and used her own money to equip the hospital. Some cite accounts that Tompkins might have accepted the Confederate commission in order to continue her work as the Confederate government shut down private hospitals.

Tompkins was not chosen for her service to the Confederacy but for her work in service of saving peoples lives, said former state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington, vice chair of the Womens Monument Commission. Tompkins was so respectful of hygiene that her hospital is said to have had the highest survival rate of any during the Civil War, Whipple said.

Between August 1861 and June 1865, Tompkins and her staff treated 1,333 patients and only 73 died, according to the Virginia Women in History Project, presented by the Library of Virginia.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe officially heads the Virginia Womens Monument Commission, a role that will pass to Northam after he takes office in January.

Following the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August, Northam said Confederate monuments should be taken down and moved into museums. He said that as governor he would be a vocal advocate for that approach and work with localities on the issue.

About two months later, during a forum at the University of Richmond, Northam said he is not going to meddle in the decisions of localities and universities regarding Confederate statues.

Tompkins story

Tompkins came to Richmond from Mathews County at the age of 28 after her father died. Working with other women who attended St. Jamess Episcopal Church in Richmond, Tompkins opened a private hospital in 1861 in a two-story house at Third and Main streets. Judge John Robertson offered his home for the facility, which became known as Robertson Hospital.

The small hospital could handle up to 22 patients, according to the Civil War Richmond website, which cited a 1964 publication of the Richmond Civil War Centennial committee.

In September 1861, the Confederate secretary of war appointed Tompkins a captain in the Confederate army, in a possible ploy so that Tompkins and the hospital could get supplies from the Confederate Quartermaster Office, according to Tompkins biography from the Virginia Women in History project.

Tompkins spent the last 10 years of her life at Richmonds Home for Needy Confederate Women. Some contemporary news accounts variously referred to her as the Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton of the Confederacy, or the angel of the Lost Cause.

My aim and object was to help all I could, not be paid for it, Tompkins said in a 1907 interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. What I did for the wounded and ill Confederate soldiers was entirely a work of love; I never took any pay  never.

She added: The dangerously wounded or ill Confederate soldiers were sent to me, because President (Jefferson) Davis said they received such careful attention in my hospital.

Tompkins died in July 1916. Her obituary said she was the only woman who received a commission in the Confederate army. (Some other accounts say that Lucy Mina Otey of Lynchburg, who founded another hospital, also was commissioned as a Confederate captain and that J.E.B. Stuart named Antonia Ford, a Confederate spy in Fairfax County, as an honorary aide-de-camp for her bravery in carrying state papers.)

Confederate veterans attended Tompkins funeral and accompanied her body to its final resting place in Mathews County. Tompkins coffin was to be draped with the Confederate colors in accordance with the custom observed at all funerals of Confederate officers.

In 1937, The Times-Dispatch interviewed Emmie Crump Lightfoot, a cousin of Tompkins who had worked with her at the hospital. Lightfoots father, W.W. Crump, was a judge and a Confederate assistant secretary of the treasury. When the Confederates decided to close private hospitals, Tompkins first turned to Crump, Lightfoot said.

She begged father to help her and together they set out for the White House to see President Davis, Lightfoot recalled. He was much impressed with what he heard: Most of the men who had been treated at Robertson Hospital had been returned to service. There was a low percentage of deaths.

He paced the floor and tried to think of a way to save Cousin Sallys hospital. Then he stopped short and said to her: I will make you a captain in the army of the Confederacy. In that way your hospital can be saved.

In a way, it was true that she ruled her hospital with a stick in one hand and a Bible in the other, Lightfoot recalled. She was a devout woman and the discipline at the hospital was rigid. But the men adored her  even when she scolded them.

The story concludes by noting that Tompkins was no reconciled, reconstructed Virginian after the war. Richmond residents recalled that they carried her mail all over town because Captain Sally would not use a Yankee stamp.

In a 1966 story, Tompkins great-niece, Nellie Tompkins, said Sally Tompkins remained a Confederate always.

Once when we were children, we were excited about going to New York City, Nellie Tompkins recalled. She asked us why we would have any desire to cross the Mason-Dixon Line.

Courage and tenacity

Susan Clarke Schaar, clerk of the Virginia state Senate and a member of the Womens Monument Commission, said that in addition to Tompkins achievement of the lowest mortality rate at a Civil War hospital, we were impressed with the fact that she started this hospital at the time and the fact that she used her own money to equip it.

Lisa Hicks-Thomas, another member of the commission, previously led the panel as secretary of administration in Gov. Bob McDonnells administration.

The commissions goal in erecting a womens monument on Capitol Square was to recognize and celebrate the many contributions made by a diverse group of women to the commonwealth over the past 400 years and to tell the story of Virginias history honestly, even when thats hard, Hicks-Thomas said.

We honor Sally Louisa Tompkins for her courage and tenacity in establishing and running a hospital in Richmond, said Hicks-Thomas, now a senior adviser at Dominion Energy.

Confederate reappraisal

Localities across Virginia have undergone a reappraisal of how to present Confederate iconography since the August white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that turned deadly.

On Monday, the Richmond City Council rejected a proposal to request that the General Assembly give the city authority to remove the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. The majority wished to wait on recommendations from Mayor Levar Stoneys Monument Avenue Commission.

Chelsea Higgs Wise, assistant secretary of the Richmond Branch NAACP, whos been following the planning for the womens monument, thinks its inappropriate to include a statue of Tompkins.

Were not honoring losers anymore. And I understand that she has a great record as a medical professional, but they still lost, she said.

At the end of the day, if you were fighting for the Confederacy you were fighting for black people to be kept as slaves.

How can we honor slaves and people that were fighting to keep people as slaves right beside them?

State Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan, D-Richmond, chairwoman of the states Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission, has a different view. She said that her initial impression is that she does not have a problem with a statue of Tompkins.

I think shes a little different from Jefferson Davis and Civil War generals, McClellan said, adding: I dont think being commissioned by the Confederacy undoes the good work she did to save lives.

The monument

The General Assembly created the Womens Monument Commission in 2010. The 18-member commission chose the design in March 2013 and by the end of that year it had selected the 12 women to be honored with statues. The list generated some public controversy at the time, not for Tompkins inclusion, but because Pocahontas was excluded.

Virginia officials say the womens monument  with its breadth of recognition  is believed to be the first of its kind at any state capitol.

Some of the dozen Virginia women to be memorialized in bronze include first lady Martha Washington of Fairfax County, Jamestown settler Anne Burras Laydon, and Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley of Dinwiddie, a slave who bought her freedom and became Mary Todd Lincolns seamstress.

A few of the others include Cockacoeske, a Pamunkey chief; Adele Goodman Clark of Richmond, a suffragist who became president of the League of Women Voters in 1921; and Maggie L. Walker of Richmond, the first black woman in the U.S. to charter a bank.

Earlier this month, McAuliffe attended the groundbreaking on the first part of the monument, the plaza that will be home to the 12 statues. Tompkins brief bio in the program for the event noted her pioneering achievements at Robertson Hospital, but did not mention the Confederacy.

The monuments dedication will come in 2019, a pivotal year for Virginia, marking milestones such as the 400th anniversary of the General Assembly, and the first documented arrival of Africans in English North America.

It would be impossible to understand Virginia womens history without taking into account the Civil War period, said womens commission member Lissy S. Bryan, an advocate for affordable housing and child welfare and widow of J. Stewart Bryan III, former chairman of the board of Media General Inc. and former publisher of The Times-Dispatch.

Bryan added in an email that the monument will also include women contemporary with Tompkins who felt differently about the war.

Bryan notes that the glass wall that will surround the monuments plaza will bear the names of more than 200 other women across Virginia history. They will include Richmonders who were spies for the Union  Elizabeth Van Lew, and Mary Richards Bowser, who was born into slavery and informed for the Union on activities in the Confederate White House.

The Virginia Womens Monument is a very different kind of monument from others in Richmond, Bryan said. The women depicted on this monument are not being placed on pedestals, literally or figuratively. They were real people whose contributions made Virginia what it was and is.

Other tributes to Tompkins

There have been other efforts to honor Tompkins in Richmond. Third Street Diner occupies the spot at Third and Main where Robertson Hospital once stood. High on a brick wall outside the building that now houses the diner is a plaque placed in 1910 by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society. It notes that on that site stood Robertson Hospital in charge of Captain Sally L. Tompkins C.S.A.

A stained-glass window memorializing Tompkins was dedicated at St. Jamess Episcopal Church in September 1961. It was unveiled by a great-great-granddaughter of Judge John Robertson, who had donated use of his home for the hospital.

One of Richmonds odder episodes occurred in 1966, when a Richmond committee approached surrealist painter Salvador Dali about creating a statue of Tompkins that would join the stately statues on Monument Avenue.

Dalis unrealized vision was of a statue featuring a likeness of Tompkins atop a 20-foot-tall pedestal of Dalis little finger. Tompkins would have been depicted as something akin to St. George, holding a sword above her head while fighting the dragon of disease.

A complicated legacy

Sen. Siobhan S. Dunnavant, R-Henrico, an obstetrician and a member of the Womens Monument Commission, said Tompkins was an accomplished medical professional who was responsible for saving lives in the most difficult of conditions by improving the quality of care.

In paying tribute to Tompkins pioneering role in lowering mortality rates, Dunnavant added: I am inspired by the humanitarian compassion that marks her entire life.

Hicks-Thomas  the commission member who was secretary of administration for McDonnell  said of Tompkins: Her legacy is complicated, just like everything thats happened in 400 years of Virginia history. We chose to honor the contributions of women who did great things, even if history wants to ignore them for being imperfect. Thats an old Virginia legacy too.

As Jefferson said, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  The video was too much for some of the victims of the Aug. 12 car attack to bear: James Alex Fields drives his 2010 Dodge Challenger toward a crowd of protesters, stops, reverses, and then, with even more room to build up momentum, speeds toward the mass of people.

Prosecutors played the footage during a court hearing Thursday to help make the case for upgraded charges against Fields  who now stands accused of first-degree murder, which requires premeditation and carries the possibility of a life sentence. The attack killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens.

It was the first time the video, captured by a restaurants security cameras, had been viewed publicly, and the courtroom stirred with anger at the moment when Fields is seen backing away in what prosecutors presented as an apparent windup to the attack.

Three of about 20 victims who attended the proceedings abruptly left as the judge and bailiffs called for order.

Ive got to go; take me out, shouted one man who was struck in the attack, which followed a now-infamous rally organized by white nationalist groups from around the country.

At the end of the 90-minute hearing, District Judge Robert Downer ruled that prosecutors demonstrated that they had probable cause to pursue the upgraded murder charge; one felony count of hit-and-run; five felony counts of aggravated assault; and three felony counts of aggravated malicious wounding.

Before Thursday, Fields had been held on a second-degree murder charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years.

In separate hearings, Downer also certified felony charges against three other participants in the rally who have been charged with violent acts: Richard Preston, a 52-year-old Baltimore resident who was captured on video firing a gun at the rally, and Alex Jamos and Jacob Goodwin, who are charged in the beating of DeAndre Harris.

Lawyers for those men argued that they were either acting in self-defense or that authorities had not presented sufficient evidence.

In the case of Preston, his attorney, Elmer Woodard, argued that rather than adding to the violence, his client helped contain it because he fired the weapon in defense of other rally attendees who felt threatened by a man with a makeshift flamethrower.

Charlottesville would have been known as Barbecue City, Woodard told the judge. (Preston) is a hero.

Downer said he did not find the argument compelling.

I wouldnt find the defendants use of a firearm reasonable under the circumstances, he said.

Fields depicted as remorseful

Fields, who is remembered by acquaintances for his obsession with Nazi Germany, wore a black-and-white striped jumpsuit and remained handcuffed and shackled. He did not speak during the hearing.

His court-appointed attorney, Denise Lunsford, did not attempt to dispute that her client, who in the past has expressed an affinity for Nazi Germany, drove the car into the mass of people.

Instead, in a cross-examination of Charlottesville Detective Steven Young, the defense attorney sought to portray Fields as both remorseful and without meaningful ties to the extremist groups that gathered in Charlottesville on Aug. 12.

Under questioning, Young confirmed that while Fields had been photographed standing with a group called Vanguard America, which believes the United States should be an exclusively white nation, a search of his phone and social media accounts revealed no communications or affiliations with the organization or any other racist groups ahead of the rally.

She also asked Young about his interviews with three men whom authorities said Fields met the day of the rally and engaged in long discussions with before the attack.

One of the people described him as significantly less radical, correct? Lunsford asked.

Yes, Young said.

And they saw no signs of anger before the attack?

Yes, Young confirmed.

Lunsford also asked Young to characterize Fields reaction to the attack. He said he was remorseful and sobbed upon learning someone had died.

Asked whether he needed medical care after he was arrested, Young said he declined, telling police he wanted all medical resources directed toward his victims.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, used video evidence, including surveillance footage from the restaurant and an aerial view captured by a state police helicopter, to lay out a detailed timeline of the attack that killed Heyer, going through key elements, including the impact, frame by frame.

The aerial footage, captured by Virginia State Police Trooper-Pilot Berke Bates and Lt. Jay Cullen, who died when their aircraft crashed later in the day, includes audio of the men expressing shock as the car enters the crowd.

Holy shit, one says.

Holy crap, the other responds.

The men pursued Fields by air through the city until a sheriffs deputy stops the car and arrests Fields.

Prosecutors closed their examination by addressing head-on any implication that Fields might have been acting in self-defense.

Is it fair to say there was no evidence of anyone throwing anything on his car before the crash? asked Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Nina-Alice Antony.

Thats correct, Young said.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe will leave office without pardoning Jens Soering, a German diplomats son convicted of a 1985 double murder that he and a growing number of supporters claim he did not commit.

In a series of TV interviews Thursday looking back on his four-year term, the outgoing governor said the state is still investigating Soerings claim that DNA evidence shows that someone else killed his girlfriends parents in Bedford.

Mr. Soerings request is still awaiting an investigation by the Virginia Parole Board, after which it will be forwarded to the governor for his consideration, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said via email. We do not expect that the investigation ... will be complete before the governor leaves office.

Soering is serving two life sentences for the deaths of Derek and Nancy Haysom. At the time of the murders, he and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, had been honors students at the University of Virginia.

Soering initially confessed to the crime but later said he was only trying to protect Elizabeth Haysom from the electric chair under the mistaken belief that he had diplomatic immunity because of his fathers position. He was convicted in a sensational 1990 trial that drew international media and gavel-to-gavel coverage on local cable television.

Haysom pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact, contending that she helped plan the murders but did not physically take part. She is serving a 90-year sentence at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women near Charlottesville. She has insisted over the years that she was not at the murder scene and that they both belong in prison.

Soerings supporters have raised questions about the case for decades, noting that Soering got some details of the crime scene wrong in his confession. They dismiss as junk science a bloody sock print that prosecutors said tied him to the case.

Soering also has gained attention and supporters for writing a string of books behind bars. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pressed for his release. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., at the urging of the German Embassy and Richmonds Catholic bishop, agreed when he was governor in 2010 to transfer Soering to a German prison. But his Republican successor, Bob McDonnell, stopped the transfer because, once in Germany, Soering could have been freed after two years.

The push to release Soering picked up steam more recently, as a new blood analysis performed in the summer of 2016 indicated that a man other than Soering was the source of the type O blood found at Haysoms home. The blood was the only physical evidence to tie him to the scene besides the disputed sock print.

Also last year, German filmmakers released a sympathetic documentary about Soering. Titled The Promise, it suggested Haysom committed the murders, perhaps with help from a drug dealer or two.
You might not typically stop to ponder the historical value of an old fast-food restaurant sign.

Yet those who do will be relieved to know that their kindred spirits in Roanoke have intervened to save a 49-year-old, 3,400-pound porcelain enamel Arbys sign from destruction.

The 20-foot-tall brown neon-lit cowboy hat along Brandon Avenue Southwest is an example of an architectural style known as Googie or Doo Wop, said Alison Blanton, president of the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation.

The Brandon Arbys, undergoing renovation, will be updating its signage. Kinsey Neon & Sign Co., the 110-year-old Roanoke company that built the Roanoke Star, removed the restaurants old sign from the site, using a crane to lift it from its posts in one piece and then hauling it away on a flatbed.

Its going to our collection, said Kinsey co-owner Darryl Thompson, 37. He and business partner Thomas West purchased the company from the Kinsey family about four months ago.

Rooted in the 1950s, Googie architecture often involves giving buildings sweeping curves or bold angles designed to create a space-age feel  or at least a look that seemed futuristic for the times. It also involved creating huge, eye-grabbing neon signs with bold lettering and whimsical features. The giant Arbys cowboy hat, stretched to exaggerated height, fits in that subcategory.

The style comes out of the automobile-paced age of branding and marketing at the speed of a car and also relates to the programmatic style where buildings and signs emulated the brand, wrote Blanton.

Nationally, one of the most famous examples is the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. In Roanoke, the sign for the New Yorker Delicatessen on Williamson Road is another example, as is the Melody Haven neon cello downtown. In fact, the Wheelers Fast Service Laundry & Cleaners sign right next to the Brandon Arbys also fits the style. Kinsey has recently done repair work on the Wheelers sign.

Thompson said he felt it was especially important to take steps to preserve the Brandon Arbys sign because a similar, larger sign that stood since the 1970s beside the Arbys along Williamson Road Northwest was destroyed in September.

Preserving the sign means it will be available for regional museums that might want to display it as part of an event or exhibition.

Kinsey Neon & Sign Co. intends to expand into a recently purchased property on Cleveland Avenue Southwest. After that property is renovated and the shop is set up there, Thompson said, he hopes to have signs like the Arbys hat on display so customers will see them when they visit.

Actress returning to soaps

Roanoke County-born actress Jen Lilley will be returning to the cast of NBCs Days of Our Lives. In an email, Lilley said she could not share further details. Although she has returned to the set, the new episodes she appears in wont start airing until May 2018.

Lilley, a Cave Spring High School graduate, played the mostly villainous Theresa Donovan on the show from 2013 through 2016. On the show, her character left the town of Salem in a self-sacrificing twist, agreeing to work secretly with government authorities to bring down her drug lord ex-boyfriend.

The 87,000-plus followers of Lilleys Twitter account saw a real-life drama unfold earlier this month, as Lilley and her family had to evacuate their California home Dec. 6 after wildfires encroached too close. With the extreme winds, the water helicopters are unable to make drops, and with the drought, the brush is highly flammable and theres limited sources of water to use, she wrote. Its a mess, but were safe and very thankful to have had time to pack up all our important papers and items. They were able to return home within a couple of days.

For those who might not want to wait till May to see Lilley on television, her Lifetime movie The Spirit of Christmas, a 2015 mix of romance and the supernatural, is available on Netflix. A recent Buzzfeed article cited it as one of 17 Underrated Christmas Films You Have To Watch This Season.
Authorities have jailed a Pulaski County man on charges of child sexual exploitation, court papers said.

Ethen Thomas Tangtong, 18, was arrested Tuesday by a federal agent with Homeland Security Investigations and taken to Roanoke federal court, where a judge said Tangtong would be held for a psychiatric evaluation.

A criminal complaint charges Tangtong with sexual exploitation of a minor and a closely related charge. It was sworn out by Special Agent Hunter Durham and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Ballou.

Tangtong admitted ownership of an email address used to set up an account with an online bulletin board often used to trade child pornography, according to an affidavit written by Durham and attached to the criminal complaint.

The holder of the account posted images that included some taken at Pulaski County High School, the filing said. Tangtong attended the school, court papers said. He graduated from HopeTree Academy in Salem, according to a family member.

Durham, who seized phones and thumb drives at Tangtongs home, described other images without specifying whether he thought they were taken at the high school. These showed the clothed buttocks and breasts of girls who were unaware they were photographed, the filing said.

While investigating Tangtong, Durham also found pictures of the crotch of a girl who was wearing a dress and underwear and looked to be under age 10, the filing said.

Authorities have evidence that the child attends a Pulaski elementary school, the filing said. Durham also came across a video in which Tangtong directs a young girl to pose and perform actions that exposed her buttocks and genitals, the filing said.

The law against child sexual exploitation makes it illegal to produce, display, distribute, trade or buy images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Courts have said that the prohibition can cover images of minors who are clothed, the filing said.

Durham received a tip from the security agencys cyber crimes office in northern Virginia in December, which prompted his investigation.
RADFORD  Seventeen men have been arrested in connection with hazing at a rogue fraternity at Radford University, city officials announced Thursday.

Search warrants filed in the case described how a Radford University freshman became a pledge to the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity and received a burn that may have been a brand during an initiation that involved large amounts of alcohol and strippers. He eventually required surgery to treat the Sept. 14 injury, the warrant said.

Search warrants listed an array of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and drivers licenses with other peoples names among the items that police seized from several addresses as suspects were rounded up.

The Radford Pi Kappa Phi chapter is not recognized by either Radford University or the fraternitys national organization. Its charter was stripped in June 2016 for violations of the universitys Code of Conduct, including hazing.

Joe Carpenter, Radford Universitys vice president for university relations, on Thursday called the alleged activity abjectly reprehensible and not reflective of our university. In an email, Carpenter wrote that the university had cooperated with police since becoming aware of the September incident and was providing continuous support to the injured student.

A search warrant described how on Sept. 14, the freshman who was pledging to Pi Kappa Phi got a text instructing him to go to the backyard of a residence in the 1200 block of Downey Street. The warrant said that this was the third event in the freshmans pledging process.

At about 8 p.m. that night, he went to the backyard and with 15 other pledges and was told by fraternity members to drink eight handles of vodka collectively within five minutes. Then the pledges were taken inside, where strippers performed lap dances. The victim told police that he was lightly whipped by a stripper before blacking out.

According to the warrant, the victim said that he woke up on a couch in the buildings basement wearing only boxer shorts and socks, and with a discomfort in his left buttock that he eventually realized was a burn.

The warrant described the wound as a mark with a point on one corner and a semi-circle on the end.

The warrant said the pledge contacted Marcel Terrence Gough, 20, of Herndon, described as the fraternity president, and Jacob Tucker, 21, of Herndon, described as a fraternity brother. The pledge was told that he might have been burned by a foaming cleanser that Tucker said he used to clean vomit or urine from the couch, the warrant said.

A doctor, however, said that the wound was clearly from a heat source, not a chemical burn, the warrant said.

Besides Gough and Tucker, the citys news release said that those arrested were:

Luke Everett Andress, 19, of Vienna.

Kyle Dennis Best, 20, of Haymarket.

Christopher Blair Gepford, 22, of Centreville.

Matthew Dylan Thomas, 21, of Haymarket.

Caleb Lorenzo Howard, 19, of Manassas.

Joshua Ko, 19, of Fairfax.

Matthew Stuart Wedel, 20, of Manassas.

Jason Nicholas Wheeler, 21, of Fairfax Station.

Carlos Escobar, 23, of Alexandria.

Joseph Andrew Sible, 22, of Arlington.

Trever Vaughn Stanford, 22, of Hamilton.

Justin Patrick Hooper, 20, of Ashburn.

Samuel Kent Harris, 22 of Gainesville.

Hunter David Hanes, 19, of Roanoke.

Clayton Marshall ONeill, 21, of Herndon.

All were charged with hazing that causes an injury, according to online court records.

Best, Gepford, Thomas, Howard, Ko, Andress, Wedel, Wheeler, Escobar, Sible, Hooper, Gough, Harris, Hanes, ONeill and Tucker also were charged with purchasing alcohol for an underage person.

Gepford, Thomas, Sible, Stanford, Harris, ONeill and Tucker also were charged with maintaining a public nuisance.

ONeill and Tucker were charged with possessing marijuana.

The citys news release said the fraternity members had been released on bond. Initial appearances in General District Court were set for Jan. 4.

Carpenter confirmed that of the 17 arrestees, all were current Radford students except Ko and Tucker.

In an email, Carpenter emphasized that the fraternity had not been associated with the university since the summer of 2016.

He said that the police investigations findings would figure in university proceedings. Possible student conduct charges may include hazing, endangering conduct and alcohol violation. Possible sanctions may include warning, probation, suspension or dismissal, Carpenter wrote.

The Radford Pi Kappa Phi chapter is no longer recognized by fraternitys national organization. Last week national chapter spokesman Todd Shelton said that at one point his organization had sent the Radford group a cease and desist letter.

They are not Pi Kappa Phi, Shelton said last week, adding that the national group would have to look into legal steps to protect its trademark.

A search warrant said police seized computers and cell phones, marijuana grinders and smoking devices, three plastic bags of white powder, pills, digital scales, a propane torch and other items from the Downey Street address where some of the unofficial frats members lived and where the alleged hazing occurred.

Another search warrant, connected to the arrest of Andress at his apartment in the 1000 block of Clement Street, detailed the discovery of Florida, South Carolina and Virginia drivers licenses issued in names besides Andress, two-and-a-half white bars stamped Xanax, a red pill, a grinder and green plant material, and a metal socket and bottle cap with burnt residue on them.

And another warrant at an apartment in the 300 block of Clement Street, where Howard and Wedel lived, said police took multiple smoking devices, a bag of marijuana stems, grinders and digital scales, prescription bottles, a white tablet labeled Tramadol, six capsules labeled Adderall, a white tablet labeled Xanax, white papers with a brown tar-like substance on them, $1,780 in cash and more.
Virginia Western Community College has settled a federal lawsuit brought by a former nursing student who alleged the college retaliated against her after she criticized the program.

In the lawsuit, Jennifer Deegan said administrators filed student misconduct charges against her and threatened expulsion after she spoke up in class about concerns over the quality of instruction.

Though ultimately cleared of the charges, Deegan withdrew from the program, alleging that she couldnt continue as a result of the harassment, retaliation, and emotional distress.

Under the terms of the settlement, neither the college and its administrators nor Deegan can comment on the case beyond a mutually agreed-upon statement: The parties have agreed to reach a mutually agreeable compromise to avoid the expense and uncertainty of trial. This agreement includes no admission of wrongdoing.

Following court-ordered mediation, the state settled Deegans lawsuit for $60,000.

Deegan enrolled in the community colleges nursing program in the fall of 2013, according to her lawsuit. By the spring, she was frustrated with the quality of instruction after the resignation of a faculty member.

Starting in summer 2014 and carrying into the fall, Deegan said she shared her concerns with multiple instructors and administrators in the nursing program and the college at large.

In class in August 2014, Deegans suit alleges that she and other students complained about pop quizzes on information they had not learned and lack of instruction on current material. Shortly after the class, in meeting with Carole Graham, the dean of health professions, and Lori Baker, the dean of student services, Deegan said she was informed of a misconduct charge against her as a result of the comments.

Deegan alleged her First Amendment right to free speech was infringed by administrators.

The college, which unsuccessfully fought to have the case dismissed, has argued in court filings that Deegans classroom comments wasted and interrupted the class time of other students in order to voice her personal complaints.

They argued the college had the authority to investigate charges against Deegan for disruption because of the timing of her comments and verbal abuse because of the manner of her comments.

In March, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon rejected Virginia Westerns request to dismiss the case, finding enough evidence in support of Deegans claims to continue.

A reasonable college official would know that a sham misconduct charge in retaliation for the exercise of First Amendment rights could tend to chill the speech of a person of ordinary firmness, Dillon wrote.
PULASKI  Fresh off the approval of a successful bond referendum that will underwrite a $45 million new middle school, the Pulaski County School Board has outlined its budget priorities for other facility improvements.

In a document submitted to the school board on Tuesday, Superintendent Kevin Siers listed what he called the Top 10 building and renovations projects for the district.

The list totals more than $3 million and describes each of the projects in detail. The district hopes the county government will pitch about 30 percent of the total.

I think we saw with the recent middle school referendum that the people of Pulaski County expect us to maintain and upgrade facilities, Siers said. This has been an issue that has come up time and again and we decided we needed to put a formal process in place for requesting the funds.

The priciest item on the districts wish list is a $975,000 installation of two new boilers at Pulaski County High School as well as installing a new two-pipe water loop system. That ask comes as part of the districts push to convert the building from electric to gas.

On the lower end of the list, the district noted the aging 7,300-square-foot roof on Southwest Virginia Governors School will need $155,000 to be replaced and potentially $30,000 in asbestos abatement.

Siers said the list was compiled by school district facilities and maintenance staff and has been discussed with county officials at various joint meetings of the two boards.

The school board officially approved the list as requested on Tuesday and it will now be presented to the county Board of Supervisors for discussion and potential action.

The next supervisors meeting is Monday.
Virginias largest teacher lobby plans to pursue increased funding weighted to support school systems with the most students in poverty.

The Virginia Education Association wants legislators to expand a supplement known as the at-risk add-on that provides more per-pupil funding for each low-income student.

Such a boost would benefit both urban and rural districts where the states poverty is most concentrated, said Kathy Burcher, the groups director of government relations and research.

It really targets those school divisions and those students who have the greatest need, Burcher said.

Nearly every state provides additional funding for low-income students because research shows the cost of educating those students is higher. Effective strategies for helping students overcome those challenges, like smaller class sizes, require more money.

Unlike some states, Virginias school funding formula doesnt directly take student poverty into account, although its partly calculated using measures of community wealth.

The at-risk add-on programs funding is distributed on top of the states basic aid. School districts get an additional 1 to 13 percent more per-student for each child from a low-income family. The percentage depends on the districts concentration of poverty, which is calculated using students eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch.

Burcher and others have criticized the size of Virginias supplement, which lags behind those of many states. In Colorado, for instance, the at-risk bump ranges from 12 percent to 30 percent beyond basic aid, according to a report last year by the Education Commission of the States.

The national average is 29 percent, according to The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a Richmond-based think tank that studies equity in public policy.

The Commonwealth Institute has proposed increasing the upper end of Virginias supplement from 13 percent to 25 percent. In a 2016 study, they calculated the cost at $169 million above current funding.

The largest increases under that proposal would go to urban districts like Norfolk ($11.3 million), Richmond ($10 million) and Roanoke ($6.7 million).

Rural areas such as Southwest Virginia and Southside, which have some of the states highest poverty rates outside of urban centers, also would see significantly more state money. The eight coalfields districts, facing a budget crisis brought on by enrollment declines, could receive $7.3 million collectively.

Boosting at-risk add-on funding would help address some of the equity concerns raised by the Coalfields Coalition, which has now expanded into a Small and Rural Schools Coalition, Burcher said.

In the past General Assembly session, the group successfully lobbied for a one-time boost for districts dealing with extreme enrollment declines. Going forward, Burcher said, its hard to convince lawmakers to provide funding for students that have abandoned districts. At-risk add-on funding helps students still enrolled while still helping financially strapped districts, she said.

Thats an easier case to build because then youre allocating resources for students who are still there, Burcher said.

The education association doesnt plan to push for changes to the states overall funding formula and the way its calculated, a measure known as the composite index. Changing the funding formula isnt popular because someone will lose, under any reconfiguration, she said.

Instead, the group will push simply to increase the overall amount of school funding.

The [formula] has been nicely used to cut the pie, Burcher said. If the size of the pie doesnt change, then the knife we use doesnt matter.
Charges against three men accused of violent acts during the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12 will now head to a grand jury that is set to meet Monday.

Richard Preston, 52, a Ku Klux Klan member from Maryland, is accused of shooting a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school.

Videos circulating online appear to show Preston brandish his Ruger SR9 handgun and then fire it toward a man brandishing a homemade flamethrower.

His charge was certified to a grand jury Thursday, despite his attorneys argument that he fired in self-defense and in the defense of others.

Additionally, Alex Ramos, 33, of Jackson, Georgia, and Jacob Goodwin, of Ward, Arkansas, are both accused of taking part in the group beating of DeAndre Harris inside the Market Street Parking Garage after the rally was dispersed.

Both face charges of malicious wounding, which were certified to a grand jury.
As Virginias next governor, Ralph Northam will take part in the 2019 dedication of the Virginia Womens Monument on Capitol Square, which is to include a statue of a Confederate captain.

Sally Louisa Tompkins, a Richmond hospital administrator renowned for her facilitys low mortality rate, was one of 12 women from 400 years of Virginia history chosen in 2013 for bronze statues as part of the monument.

Northam, like members of the Virginia Womens Monument Commission interviewed for this story, appears to see a distinction between Tompkins and other Confederate officers.

The governor-elect recognizes that the women who were selected for this monument contributed to Virginia at different times in our history and in different ways, said Ofirah Yheskel, Northams press secretary.

We should continue the conversation about monuments that were erected expressly to glorify individuals who fought a war against their own country to protect the institution of slavery, but we should also be honest about the difference between that and the recognition of a woman who only accepted her commission when it was the only way to keep her hospital open.

Five current and former members of the commission contacted for this story affirmed their support for including a statue of Tompkins as part of the womens monument, noting her pioneering achievements and that she refused pay and used her own funds to equip the hospital. Some cite accounts that Tompkins might have accepted the Confederate commission in order to continue her work as the Confederate government shut down private hospitals.

Tompkins was not chosen for her service to the Confederacy, but for her work in service of saving peoples lives, says former state Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington, vice chair of the Womens Monument Commission. Tompkins was so respectful of hygiene, that her hospital is said to have had the highest survival rate of any during the Civil War, Whipple said.

Between August 1861 and June 1865, Tompkins and her staff treated 1,333 patients and only 73 died, according to the Virginia Women in History Project, presented by the Library of Virginia.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe officially heads the Virginia Womens Monument Commission, a role that will pass to Northam after he takes office in January.

Following the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August, Northam said Confederate monuments should be taken down and moved into museums. He said that as governor he would be a vocal advocate for that approach and work with localities on the issue.

About two months later, during a forum at the University of Richmond, Northam said he is not going to meddle in the decisions of localities and universities regarding Confederate statues.

Tompkins story

Tompkins came to Richmond from Mathews County at the age of 28 after her father died. Working with other women who attended Saint Jamess Episcopal Church in Richmond, Tompkins opened a private hospital in 1861 in a two-story house at 3rd and Main streets. Judge John Robertson offered his home for the facility, which became known as Robertson Hospital.

The small hospital could handle up to 22 patients, according to the Civil War Richmond website, which cited a 1964 publication of the Richmond Civil War Centennial committee.

In September 1861, the Confederate secretary of war appointed Tompkins a captain in the Confederate army, in a possible ploy so that Tompkins and the hospital could get supplies from the Confederate Quartermaster Office, according to Tompkins biography from the Library of Virginias project on Virginia Women in History.

Tompkins spent the last 10 years of her life at Richmonds Home for Needy Confederate Women. Some contemporary news accounts variously referred to her as the Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton of the Confederacy, or the angel of the Lost Cause.

My aim and object was to help all I could, not be paid for it, Tompkins said in a 1906 interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. What I did for the wounded and ill Confederate soldiers was entirely a work of love; I never took any pay  never.

She added: The dangerously wounded or ill Confederate soldiers were sent to me, because President [Jefferson] Davis said they received such careful attention in my hospital.

Tompkins died in July 1916. Her obituary said she was the only woman who received a commission in the Confederate army. (Some other accounts say Lucy Mina Otey of Lynchburg, who founded another hospital, also was commissioned as a Confederate captain and that J.E.B. Stuart named Antonia Ford, a Confederate spy in Fairfax County, as an honorary aide-de-camp for her bravery in carrying state papers.)

Confederate veterans attended Tompkins funeral and accompanied her body to its final resting place in Mathews County. Tompkins coffin was to be draped with the Confederate colors in accordance with the custom observed at all funerals of Confederate officers.

In 1937, The Times-Dispatch interviewed Emmie Crump Lightfoot, a cousin of Tompkins who had worked with her at the hospital. Lightfoots father, W.W. Crump, was a judge and a Confederate assistant secretary of the treasury. When the Confederates decided to close private hospitals, Tompkins first turned to Crump, Lightfoot said.

She begged father to help her and together they set out for the White House to see President Davis, Lightfoot recalled. He was much impressed with what he heard: Most of the men who had been treated at Robertson Hospital had been returned to service. There was a low percentage of deaths.

He paced the floor and tried to think of a way to save Cousin Sallys hospital. Then he stopped short and said to her: I will make you a captain in the army of the Confederacy. In that way your hospital can be saved.

In a way, it was true that she ruled her hospital with a stick in one hand and a Bible in the other, Lightfoot recalled. She was a devout woman and the discipline at the hospital was rigid. But the men adored her  even when she scolded them.

The story concludes by noting that Tompkins was no reconciled, reconstructed Virginian after the war. Richmond residents recalled that they carried her mail all over town because Captain Sally would not use a Yankee stamp.

In a 1966 story, Tompkins great niece, Nellie Tompkins, said Sally Tompkins remained a Confederate always.

Once when we were children, we were excited about going to New York City, Nellie Tompkins recalled. She asked us why we would have any desire to cross the Mason-Dixon line.

Courage and tenacity

Susan Clarke Schaar, clerk of the Virginia state Senate and a member of the Womens Monument Commission, said that in addition to Tompkins achievement of the lowest mortality rate at a Civil War hospital, we were impressed with the fact that she started this hospital at the time and the fact that she used her own money to equip it.

Lisa Hicks-Thomas, another member of the commission, previously led the panel as secretary of Administration in Gov. Bob McDonnells administration.

The commissions goal in erecting a womens monument on Capitol Square was to recognize and celebrate the many contributions made by a diverse group of women to the commonwealth over the past 400 years and to tell the story of Virginias history honestly, even when thats hard, Hicks-Thomas said.

We honor Sally Louisa Tompkins for her courage and tenacity in establishing and running a hospital in Richmond, said Hicks-Thomas, now a senior adviser at Dominion Energy.

Confederate reappraisal

Localities across Virginia have undergone a reappraisal of how to present Confederate iconography since the August white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that turned deadly.

On Monday the Richmond City Council rejected a proposal to request that the General Assembly give the city authority to remove the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. The majority wished to wait on recommendations from Mayor Levar Stoneys Monument Avenue Commission.

Chelsea Higgs Wise, assistant secretary of the Richmond Branch NAACP, whos been following the planning for the womens monument, thinks its inappropriate to include a statue to Tompkins.

Were not honoring losers anymore. And I understand that she has a great record as a medical professional, but they still lost, she said.

At the end of the day, if you were fighting for the Confederacy you were fighting for black people to be kept as slaves.

How can we honor slaves and people that were fighting to keep people as slaves right beside them?

State Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, chairwoman of the states Dr. Martin Luther Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Commission, has a different view. She said that her initial impression is that she does not have a problem with a statue of Tompkins.

I think shes a little different from Jefferson Davis and Civil War generals, McClellan said, adding: I dont think being commissioned by the Confederacy undoes the good work she did to save lives.

The monument

The General Assembly created the Womens Monument Commission in 2010. The commission chose the design in March 2013 and by the end of that year it had selected the 12 women to be honored with statues. The list generated some public controversy at the time, not for Tompkins inclusion, but because Pocahontas was excluded.

Virginia officials say the womens monument  with its breadth of recognition  is believed to be the first of its kind at any state capitol.

Some of the dozen Virginia women to be memorialized in bronze include first lady Martha Washington of Fairfax County; Jamestown settler Anne Burras Laydon and Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley of Dinwiddie, a slave who bought her freedom and became Mary Todd Lincolns seamstress.

A few of the others include Cockacoeske, a Pamunkey chief; Adele Goodman Clark of Richmond, a suffragist who became president of the League of Women Voters in 1921 and Maggie Walker of Richmond, the first black woman in the U.S. to charter a bank.

Earlier this month, McAuliffe attended the groundbreaking on the first part of the monument, the plaza that will be home to the 12 statues. Tompkins brief bio in the program for the event noted her pioneering achievements at the Robertson Hospital, but did not mention the Confederacy.

The monuments dedication will come in 2019, a pivotal year for Virginia, marking milestones such as the 400th anniversary of the General Assembly, and the first documented arrival of Africans in English North America.

Lissy Bryan, an advocate for affordable housing and child welfare and widow of J. Stewart Bryan III, former chairman of the board of Media General Inc. and former publisher of The Times-Dispatch, was a member of the commission in 2013, when the 12 women were selected for statues.

It would be impossible to understand Virginia womens history without taking into account the Civil War period, she said in an email, in which she noted that the monument will also include women contemporary with Tompkins who felt differently about the war.

Bryan notes that the glass wall that will surround the monuments plaza will bear the names of more than 200 other women across Virginia history. They will include Richmonders who were spies for the Union  Elizabeth Van Lew, and Mary Richards Bowser, who was born into slavery and informed for the Union on activities in the Confederate White House.

The Virginia Womens Monument is a very different kind of monument from others in Richmond, Bryan said. The women depicted on this monument are not being placed on pedestals, literally or figuratively. They were real people whose contributions made Virginia what it was and is.

Other tributes to Tompkins

There have been other efforts to honor Tompkins in Richmond. The Third Street Diner occupies the spot at 3rd and Main where the Robertson Hospital once stood. High on a brick wall outside the building that now houses the diner is a plaque placed in 1910 by the Confederate Memorial Literary Society. It notes that on that site stood The Robertson Hospital in charge of Captain Sally L. Tompkins C.S.A.

A stained glass window memorializing Tompkins was dedicated at St. Jamess Episcopal Church in September 1961. It was unveiled by a great-great-granddaughter of Judge John Robertson, who had donated use of his home for the hospital.

One of Richmonds odder episodes occurred in 1966, when a Richmond committee approached surrealist painter Salvador Dali about creating a statue of Tompkins that would join the stately statues on Monument Avenue.

Dalis unrealized vision was of a statue featuring a likeness of Tompkins atop a 20-foot-tall pedestal of Dalis little finger. Tompkins would have been depicted as something akin to St. George, holding a sword above her head while fighting the dragon of disease.

A complicated legacy

Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, an obstetrician and a member of the Womens Monument Commission, says Tompkins was an accomplished medical professional who was responsible for saving lives in the most difficult of conditions by improving the quality of care.

In paying tribute to Tompkins pioneering role in lowering mortality rates, Dunnavant added: I am inspired by the humanitarian compassion that marks her entire life.

Hicks-Thomas said of Tompkins: Her legacy is complicated, just like everything thats happened in 400 years of Virginia history. We chose to honor the contributions of women who did great things, even if history wants to ignore them for being imperfect. Thats an old Virginia legacy too.

As Jefferson said, We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. 
For curious adults age 50 and over in the New River and Roanoke valleys, the Lifelong Learning Institute at Virginia Tech is accepting registrations for the spring term beginning Jan. 8, 2018. Most courses begin on Feb. 5. Twenty-three courses and 20 special events and tours are being offered.

The League of Women Voters and the Lifelong Learning Institute have partnered once again to bring the Great Decisions community discussion group on world affairs to the New River Valley in 2018. Great Decisions program materials are prepared by the Foreign Policy Association and include background information and policy options for eight critical issues facing America each year.

More than 340 members participated in classes and activities this past fall on topics ranging from Saudi Arabia and Global Change to Intermediate Memoir Writing and Ideas and Inspiration in Watercolors. The enthusiastic response to fall offerings resulted in several courses and special events filling quickly.

This term promises even more rich learning opportunities, new friendships and new adventures throughout the NRV and beyond. LLI members have endless opportunities to learn, grow and thrive!

Course and event descriptions, registration information and more are available online at the LLI website at www.cpe.vt.edu/lifelonglearning. Register online or contact Leah Coffman at 231-4364 for assistance. If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, contact LLI at 231-5685 during regular business hours or at lifelonglearning@vt.edu at least 10 business days prior to the first class session.
EDWARDS Ronald Lee December 7, 2017 Ronald "Ronnie" Lee Edwards, went to rest in the arms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ during the evening of December 7, 2017. Ronnie was a devoted husband, father, son, brother, grandfather, uncle, nephew, cousin, and friend. He was born in Franklin County, Virginia to the Lee Ergie Edwards and Betty Virginia Mattox Edwards. He is preceded in death by his father; and one brother; Benny Mattox. At the age of two, Ronnie moved to Pittsburg, PA with his parents. He was educated in Pittsburgh public schools where he graduated from Westinghouse High School. Soon after graduation, he was drafted to the United States Navy. He served three years and eight months and was dismissed with an honorable discharge. On April 4, 1970, he was united in marriage to Gloria Elaine Holland of Franklin County, Virginia. To this union, four children were born. He was employed by several local manufacturers in Rocky Mount, VA until he retired from Plygem Industries. He completed his apprenticeship in commercial and residential electrical wiring from Patrick Henry Community College in 1981. He was a carpenter by trade. Upon retirement, he spent time doing the things he loved which included fishing, taking trips to the beach, tinkering with his cars, and visiting his family in Pittsburgh. He also loved spending time with his grandchildren and he would occasionally, "fire himself from all work" because he was his own boss. Ronnie leaves to cherish his memory a loving and devoted wife of 47 years, Gloria H. Edwards; four daughters, Regina Edwards, Renee (Brandon) Smith, Rakeesha Edwards, all Rocky Mount, Virginia and Renita Edwards of Cherry Hill, New Jersey; his mother, Betty "Virginia" Edwards; two sisters, Patricia "Evon" Hawthorne, Jeanette (James "Buzz" ) Marable all of Pittsburgh, PA.; three brothers, Duconze Edwards, Danny (Josephine) Edwards, of Rocky Mount and Ricky (Paula) Edwards of Pittsburgh, PA. Those also left to cherish his memory are eleven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; two sisters-in-laws, Virginia Lois Mattox and Willie Mae (Leon) Bernard along with a host of aunts; uncles; nieces; nephews; cousins; and friends. His funeral will be 2 p.m. at First Baptist Church on Saturday December 16, 2017 and family will receive friends half an hour prior to service. Arrangements entrusted by Stanfield Mortuary Service. "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness." -Psalms 84:10
By James Cosby

Cosby is a retired federal attorney residing in Roanoke County.

Grandmother Annie Simms was born in Richmond in 1860 and lived there until she was married. After Grandfather Emmet died, she lived with us in Raleigh Court in Roanoke until she died in 1957. She told us grandchildren many stories about her early years: the War, when the Yankees burned Richmond (it was the Confederates burning the supplies along the James River), Grants victory parade down Broad Street and Reconstruction years after the war.

As a lifelong Virginian, I have long admired George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and other Virginians including George Washington Carver and locally, the Rev. Noel Taylor.

I was in my forties when I learned that my great-grandfather (on my mothers side) was a Union soldier from an area in Maryland which split its support North and South. He was wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness and discharged.

Now these disclosures. I have lived 26 years of my life in Charlottesville as a student in engineering, law and an attorney. I love Charlottesville and the University of Virginia.

I am an independent Democrat who votes Republican for superior candidates, a twenty-year supporter of the NAACP, and a ten-year supporter of the ACLU (which I would have started supporting years earlier except for fear that it could adversely affect my federal employment).

Where does this lead us? I analyze the events in Charlottesville and throughout the country regarding Confederate monuments and memorials as follows.

The riots and violence in Charlottesville were caused by the proximity of four distinct groups at the statue of Robert E. Lee:

1. Neo-Nazis and KKK (collectively, the protestors), intent on supporting statues and memorials to Confederate leaders. Mostly from out-of-town, these were armed with torches, sticks and firearms. They have returned again and vow to continue returning.

2. Sons of Confederate Veterans. These were unarmed and non-violent citizens wishing to honor their Confederate forebears.

3. Local non-violent citizens gathered to give counter-protests.

4. Antifa (anti-facists) counter-protestors opposed to Confederate memorials. Mostly from out-of-town, some were armed with sticks.

Initially, among friends I supported the right of the protestors to assemble and express their hateful views on grounds of the First Amendments protection of free speech and peaceful assembly. But when their protest turned to violence, I agreed with the police that it was an unlawful violent assembly.

So also the Antifa. Violence has no place in our society or under our Constitution. I stand with the disciples of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opposed to violent protest.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans and the local non-violent citizens protesting the Sons position should both be given a pass and even our praise for expressing their views in a constitutional and non-violent manner.

As for the monuments themselves, I support Richmond Mayor Levar Stoneys position: leave them where they are, but add additional monuments and signage to put them in context to celebrate the vast advance we have made as a more diverse society since they were first erected.
Craig Lewis

A CHILD sex abuser who groomed a teenage girl from Rotherham has been jailed for 16 years.

Craig Lewis (54) also committed offences two other girls from Grimsby and Oxford.

Police began investigating Lewis, of Cranwell Village in Lincolnshire, after an anonymous referral made to the NSPCC.

He was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court last Thursday after being found guilty of child grooming, sexual assault and causing a child to watch a sex act.

Det Con Elizabeth Portman said: Lewis, who previously pleaded guilty to possession of indecent images, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and possession, distribution and making of indecent images, abused three teenage girls aged between 13 and 14 years old.

Lewis actions were absolutely despicable as he knew the ages of his victims and continued to commit the sexual abuse.

Im glad he has now been punished and I hope the victims are able to take some assurance in knowing he has been brought to justice.

The investigation showed Lewis had used social media to form a relationship with one of the girls before meetings where he encouraged her to share photos of herself online.

Officers reviewed his mobile phone activity, which identified two further victims.

Det Con Portman said: It has taken incredible courage from all of the victims to report the abuse and I would like to commend them for their bravery.

Our commitment remains ensuring children are kept safe and we will always do our utmost to ensure offenders are brought to justice.
BIG-HEARTED shopkeeper Chris Hamby has launched a desperate appeal for fresh support amid fears the lifeline for orphans could be on borrowed time.

Chris (pictured), who runs several shops in Rotherham and has masterminded the regeneration of large parts of High Street, has been backing the charity Project Romanian Rescue for many years through his own charity enterprise, the Hamby Foundation.

He has now taken over the reins of PRR after its Romanian founder Daniel Mercado became too ill to run the two childrens homes for street children he established in 1997.

But Chris said soaring debts meant the homes were under threat and urged well-wishers to dig deep.

He said: The simple fact is that the needs have never been so great, nor the debts so high.

PRR is in severe financial difficulty, mainly due to the recession and funds slowing down as Daniel fell ill.

But when people come needing food or help, or when children are found on the streets or are orphaned, they cannot simply be turned away.

The next few months will be freezing in Romania but it will be bleak indeed if we cannot raise enough funds to carry on, to continue to run the childrens orphanage, and buy the food they need and the wood for heating.

Chris pointed out that donations would be topped up by Gift Aid and appealed for anyone willing to help to email him on romaidwork@hotmail.com or visiting the Hamby Foundation charity shop at Rotherhams outdoor market to a bag a bargain or make a donation.
SANTA will be out and about this evening as he begins a tour of Rotherham.

Rotherham Round Table and Rotherham Sitwell Rotary Club are joining together to spread some festive cheer and raise money for several local charities.

And Santas schedule for the next week, with the sleigh on tour between 5.30pm and about 8pm, is as follows:

This evening (Friday): Woodlaithes Village

Tomorrow (Saturday): Brinsworth

Sunday: Brinsworth

Monday: Bramley

Tuesday: Wickersley

Wednesday: Canklow/Whiston

Thursday: Stag

Friday 22nd: Brecks

Saturday 23rd: Grange Estate

Christmas Eve: Duke of Norfolk Estate

Over the past year, Rotherham Round Table have supported a number of good causes throughout the borough including Rotherham Talking Newspaper, Rotherham Foodbank and ROADS.
Amtrak

Amtrak's Charles "Wick" Moorman will step down from the co-CEO position effective Dec. 31 and assume the role of senior advisor, starting Jan. 1, 2018.

The Board is grateful for Wicks significant contributions since he joined the company, and we are pleased that he is continuing to serve as a senior advisor, said Tony Coscia, chair of the Amtrak Board of Directors.

The former CEO of Norfolk Southern Corp., Moorman was hired to serve as a transitional CEO, coming out of retirement in September 2016. He was tasked with focusing on three objectives: improve operations, streamline the organizational structure, and find his successor.

The carrier in a release said over the past year that it has created a new organizational structure that improved operational efficiencies and the customer experience. Additionally, the company has achieved record ridership, revenues and earnings.

On Jan. 1, former airline executive Richard Anderson, who joined Amtrak in June 2017, will assume full CEO responsibilities in addition to serving as president.

I have greatly enjoyed my time at Amtrak, and firmly believe that the company is well-positioned for the future, said Moorman in a statement. I look forward to continuing my work with Richard and the entire Amtrak team to further advance passenger rail in this country.

The carrier recently unveiled concepts for high-speed equipment slated to replace Acela trainsets on the Northeast Corridor, and after delays has begun to add new passenger equipment built by CAF. New Charger locomotives built by Siemens have initiated revenue service on some trains operated by state agencies.

But Amtrak also took the brunt of some bad news since Moorman arrived. These included several derailments that necessitated emergency track repairs this past summer at its New York Penn Station hub, and incidents involving Amtrak trains including the deaths of two CSX crewmen outside Washington and two Amtrak maintenance workers at Chester, Pa., the latter pointing to what the National Transportation Safety Board described as a broken corporate safety culture.

Amtrak also has faced threats of defunding in Congress and this fall offered buyouts in an effort to reduce headcount.
W. R. Grace & Co. (GRA), a polyolefin catalysts and licensing company, Thursday said it signed an agreement to acquire the Polyolefin Catalysts of Albemarle Corp. (ALB) for $416 million.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

The Polyolefin Catalysts business is a provider of proprietary and custom-manufactured single-site catalysts as well as metallocenes and activators. The acquisition also includes a comprehensive series of highly optimized Ziegler-Natta catalysts for polyethylene production.

Grace said the acquisition significantly strengthens its catalysts portfolio, commercial relationships, and manufacturing network.

With the deal, approximately 175 employees will join Grace's global team. The company said the two manufacturing operations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Yeosu, South Korea add important flexibility to its global catalysts manufacturing network.

Grace expects to finance the transaction with a combination of debt and cash.

Grace Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fred Festa said, "This transaction aligns perfectly with our strategy to expand our leadership position in polyolefin catalysts. ...Both the catalysts and activators product lines are tied to high-growth applications and the manufacturing assets bring important scale and capital synergies."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Over 50 aggressive airstrikes kill 23 civilians in Taiz and Saada



SANA'A, Dec. 15 (Saba) - The US-backed Saudi warplane launched more than 50 raids on a number of provinces in the country, killing 23 people during the past few hours, a military source told Saba on Friday.



The source said that 12 citizens were killed during the air raids om Taiz province that targeted the bridge between Burh and Wahis and neighboring areas.



He added the air raids also lunched four airstrikes east of a Mwazaa in Taiz governorate also, in which one of the airstrikes targeted a citizen's car.



The source said that eight citizens, including two women, a child and three paramedics were killed by the airstrikes on the area of Shoumiyah in Ghomr in Saada province, and killed three citizens on the highway in Qad square of Razih district after three aggressive airstrikes.



The military source pointed out that the US-Saudi aggression coalition airstrike launched four raids on Sowar earea, Razih district and an airstrike on Baqem district and 16 raids on Khalika earea of Kataf district, while Apache plane targeted the same area with 40 rockets.



The US-backed Saudi aggression warplanes also lunched eight airstrickes on different area of Nehm district on Sanaa governorate, and a raid on Bahra in Sarwah district in Marib province, and also launched eight raids on Harad and Midi district in Hajjah province.



The source pointed out that The US-backed Saudi aggression warplanes launched five raids on Hamda village in Jizan, and the Apache fired 12 rockets at Al-Huraira.



Sameera H.-zak

Saba

Facebook Facebook

Twitter Twitter

Whatsapp Whatsapp

Telegram Telegram

Email Email

Print Print

[16/December/2017]
India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars 2018, "Newton", is out of the race for the honour. But the movie's team is feeling far from defeated.

India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars 2018, "Newton", is out of the race for the honour. But the movie's team is feeling far from defeated.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday announced that nine features out of 92 will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards, according to the official website of the Oscars.

"Newton", directed by Amit V. Masurkar and starring the stellar Rajkummar Rao in a story set against the backdrop of elections in the world's largest democracy, was not a part of it.

Masurkar said: "The Foreign Film Category is like the Olympics. We are competing with the best in the world, so it's extremely tough. The response from Academy members to 'Newton' was very positive and we are grateful to everyone who supported us on this journey.

"The experience has enriched us and has encouraged me to push my limits each time I make a new film."

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta, who has always lent unrelenting support his blue-eyed boy Rajkummar and "Newton" -- even when it was caught in a plagiarism row, also said that missing the Oscar bus changes nothing for this film's credentials.

Mehta, claimed he was trolled after "Newton" was ousted from the competition, tweeted: "Oscars or no Oscars, it remains one of the finest films made in our country in a long time."

When the film was chosen as India's Oscar entry by the Film Federation of India, there was buzz that it was inspired by a 2001 Iranian movie titled "Secret Ballot".

At that time, Mehta, who has worked closely with Rajkummar on award-winning films like "Shahid" and "CityLights", had spoken out in favour of the "Newton" team.

Mehta's latest Twitter post on Friday also found support from filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who was at the forefront of slamming the plagiarism claims against the film's makers. He had contacted "Secret Ballot" producer Marco Mueller to take his feedback on the similarities.

"There is not even a hint of plagiarisation," Mueller had told him.

The shortlisted films for the Foreign Language Film category for Oscars this time include: "A Fantastic Woman" (Chile), "In the Fade" (Germany), "On Body and Soul" (Hungary), "Foxtrot" (Israel), "The Insult" (Lebanon), "Loveless" (Russia), "Felicite" (Senegal), "The Wound" (South Africa) and "The Square" (Sweden).

Final nominations for all categories of the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on January 23. The Oscars ceremony will be held on March 4 at the Dolby Theatre here.

_

_SHOW_MID_AD__
As Sonia Gandhi on Friday said it was time for her to retire, the Congress party clarified that she has retired as party President and not from politics.

"Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely on innuendos.

"Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," tweeted Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

With Rahul Gandhi set to take over as Congress President on Saturday, Sonia Gandhi on Friday said it was time for her to retire.

"My role now is to retire," NDTV said quoting her in response to a question as to whether she will continue as Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party and what would be her role.

Sonia Gandhi also added that her son Rahul has been playing an active role in the last three years.

Sonia Gandhi has been President of Congress party for last 19 years. Rahul Gandhi was elected Congress President unopposed on Monday.
A story with the intriguing title, An Elegant Tantrum is the Overall Winner of the 2017 Samoa Observer Tusitala Short Story competition.

The story was written by Wellington-based Samoan, Liana Roberts-Letiu.

This was announced at a prize giving last night held at the S.S.A.B. Conference Room in the presence of members of the Diplomatic Corps - the Chinese Ambassador and his wife and the New Zealand High Commissioner and invited guests.

The Chinese Ambassador, Wang Xuefeng. delivered the keynote address and congratulated all the winners.

The winning story, written by Wellington-based, Liana Roberts-Letiu, topped the seven finalists entries from the New Zealand-Australia category.

Described by the Judges as a punchy, tension-packed story about an earthquake followed by a tsunami, this entry narrowly edged out the winner of the Samoa category, titled Matalasi written by Jenny Bennett.

Bennetts story, which the judges described as convincingly portrayed, beautifully crafted and technically interesting, plunges the reader into the conflict-ridden internal world of a faafatama.

In the Rest of the Pacific category, Susan Yees entry from Fiji, The Promise was the winning entry.

It follows the life of a grandparent whose life is suddenly turned upside down with end of life decisions, reflections of a life well-lived and vows well-kept.

Judges, Professor Silafau Sina Vaai and Associate Professor Selina Tusitala Marsh, agreed that judging is always a difficult and subjective process.

The entries, they said, were a fabulous and varied array of stories and all were a pleasure to read.

This is the third year of the short story competition for Pacific writers started by Editor-in-Chief of the Samoa Observer, Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa in 2015.

At that time, he said the reason the newspaper was adding an adult competition to the annual competition held for primary, secondary and tertiary students was because it was something we have been dreaming about for quite some time.

We are looking for wonderful stories from people in the Pacific, which we know are out there.

Each year, the competition is followed by the publication of an anthology in a series called, Our Heritage, the Ocean.

The wonderful outcome of this competition is that apart from the financial prizes for the three category winners, an additional 18 Pacific writers become published authors, said Organising Committee member, Marj Moore.

The two existing books from 2015 and 2016 have also been translated into Chinese by Samoas Chinese Ambassador Wang Xuefeng and his wife, Madam Tong Xin enabling Chinese readers the opportunity to learn about the Pacific and its people.

The winners and finalists are listed below:

Winners

Overall Winner, 2017 Samoa Observer Tusitala Short Story Competition

An Elegant Tantrum by Liana Roberts-Letiu

Australia-New Zealand Category Winner - An Elegant Tantrum by Liana Roberts-Letiu

Rest of the Pacific Category Winner - The Promise by Susan Yee

Samoa Category Winner - Matalasi by Jenny Bennett

Finalists

Australia-New Zealand Finalists

The Silver Palms Hotel by Felicity Cutten; The Return by Rex Paget; The Spirits of Apia Reef by Iliili Geoff Hoddinott; Letter for my Sinebwaina by Tania Basiou; Initiative by Natalia Fareti and The Monsters of my dream by Doritha Vili.

Rest of the Pacific Finalists

I am not a survivor, I am a warrior by Marlene Dee Gray Potoura; In the heart by Tamari Mulitalo Cheung; Heartburn by Kelera Tuvou Ganivatu; Buai Seller by Jordan Dean; Dream by Dolarosa Atai Wootong and Sudden Goodbyes by Luisah Vele.

Samoa Finalists

Fix your collars by Jasmine Koria; The heart of the matter  the boy by Lumepa Hald; The Journey by Jane Vaafusuaga; Freeborn by Rachel Laulu; Lulus Story by Fiona Collins-Toalepai and Cocoa-pod kid by Pomona Aneterea.
Contrary to denials from senior public health officials, dengue fever has already claimed four lives.

This was confirmed in a media release isssued by the governments Press and Communications division yesterday on behalf of the Ministry of Health.

According to the statement, as of 3 December 2017, the Ministry had recorded 1,522 clinical and confirmed cases with 339 hospital admissions.

The statement confirmed that four deaths are related to dengue.

The Ministry of Health has confirmed a Dengue fever serotype2 outbreak for Samoa. This was detected in October when blood samples were confirmed at the E.S.R. Lab in New Zealand, the statement reads.

As of December 3, the Ministry has recorded 1,522 clinical and confirmed cases with 339 hospital admissions and 4 deaths related to dengue.

From these numbers 51 percent are male with the remaining percentage female. There have been cases throughout all age groups from 1 year old to 65 and over, however, the most affected age groups have been identified to be from 19 and below with the highest number of cases in children between 5  9 years old.

Over 2,196 tests have been requested throughout August to early December. To date there are 1,052 lab confirmed positive cases.

Dengue Fever Attack Rates have also been identified by districts with the Ministry naming the most affected areas to be Apia Urban Area, Vaimauga District and Faleata District.

The Ministry of Health confirms ongoing surveillance on monitoring the situation and is continuing to advocate and implement control measures for mosquito-borne diseases.

The Ministry continues to encourage the public to reduce or remove all mosquito breeding sites during this rainy season.

Other usual preventative methods to avoid illness are also advised by the Ministry as well as urging the communities and organizations to continue to work with the Ministry of Health in combatting Dengue Fever.
Today in beautiful Samoa, there is so much to celebrate.

Whether its educational milestones, professional achievements or developments that will benefit the wider community through businesses and public projects, the vibes are very positive as everyone gears up for Christmas and the New Year.

Which is a great thing. There is a time for everything. There is a time to work; there is a time to play. There is a time to push, just as there is a time to pull back to take a breather to prepare for the next step.

We are a week away from Christmas and right about now, just about everyone is easing off that pedal, slowing down to the point where they will look back and reflect on the year that it has been. Students and graduates from tertiary and other educational institutions are already doing that.

Today, allow us to extend a hearty congratulation to all the students of Samoa who have graduated during the past few weeks in this country and abroad. We know the road wasnt easy. There would have been many twists and turns but you have made it. So give yourself a clap.

We want to say that we are so very proud of you and your achievements.

Lets not forget your parents, families, friends and everyone who has played a role to get you to where you are today. Dont forget to acknowledge and thank them. For your success would surely not have been possible without their help, prayers and support.

If its true that education is the key to a brighter future, then with the hundreds of students graduating throughout the country and many more overseas, Samoa is heading in the right direction. Which is fantastic.

The only other challenge is finding work for them.

Which brings us to another great development we celebrated at Vaitele this week with the official hand over of the facilities formerly used by Yazaki Samoa to new investment companies. Prime Minister Tuilaepa was naturally a proud leader. Why not, especially after all the concerns expressed when Yazaki Ltd shut its doors?

Since the announcement of the closure (of Yazaski) the government spared no effort to attract foreign companies and investors to come to Samoa to utilize this facility in order to reconstitute the lost jobs and the all important export opportunities, Tuilaepa said.

Cabinet identified this task as an urgent priority in the national interest and appointed a special committee made up of the Chief Executive Officers of the Ministry of Finance the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Labour and the Samoa Provident Fund to spearheaded these efforts

In July, of this year after protracted negotiations the government secured two companies to begin operations occupying two of the buildings of this facility and thereby successfully commencing the process of bringing back commercial architects that had been lost due to the closure of Yazaki.

One of those companies is Fero Samoa Ltd, who has relocated its manufacturing plant from China to Vaitele. They are expected to initially employ 70 workers  with their target being 500 employees by 2022.

The second company is Sleepwell International Ltd. It is a Samoan registered joint venture co-owned by Sleepwell NZ Ltd and Samoa Stationery and Books Holdings of Samoa. They are expected to initially employ 50 workers with with a target of 400 workers by 2022.

This mornings ceremony is one more milestone to be added to the governments efforts in this priority area, Tuilaepa said.

The return of business to this facility means more exports to boost our G.D.P, more jobs for our people, more levies for the A.C.C., and more contributions for the S.N.P.F and sustained economic growth for our country into the future.

By the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are here in this morning to celebrate commencement of operations by both Fero and Sleepwell.

Isnt that fantastic?

Again let us congratulate everyone involved in setting up these companies to help Samoa. Its great news especially at a time when so many Samoans are looking for jobs. We can only hope that the new companies will grow and will continue to reach their targets so that more and more people will benefit.

Today, lets celebrate the good and the fabulous. Well done everyone!

Have a great weekend Samoa, God bless!
Christmas lights returned to the front of the government last night, thanks to the Latter-day Saints 'Light the World' initiative.

Crews have been working late for the past few nights to ensure the lights were flicking last night.

Choirs from several area churches provided music for the celebration.

The government donated use of the land where the lights are located.

TV3 donated the tents for the performers and the audience.

Davis Burgess and Lemigao Sooialo, both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, donated their skill, alongside many others to install the lights.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated the lights and the operational logistics. The community event is part of a world-wide effort to "Light the World" through Christlike service and unity.
All eyes are pretty much guaranteed to fixate on anyone wearing Tipsy Elves attire  and thats exactly by design. The irreverent apparel brand, most famous for its ugly Christmas sweaters, was created to be the polar opposite of understated.

Those who don Tipsy Elves loud sweaters, tees and ski suits have former college buddies Evan Mendelsohn and Nick Morton to thank for the extra attention.

When they roomed together in 2004, the UCSD undergrads didnt daydream about outfitting the world in outrageous sweaters. They just wanted to be known as the guys with the funkiest attire at the theme parties they frequented. Off-the-shelf costumes from Spencers or Party City werent going to cut it. At the time, they pieced together their own outfits with items found at thrift stores.

Advertisement

Years later, after both moved on to graduate school and then lucrative career paths  Mendelsohn went to work for a law firm while Morton pursued dentistry  they would find a way to harness that same creative energy with a sweater line to capitalize on the trend of off-beat holiday parties. Now the duo, who first opened up their Tipsy Elves online shop in October 2011, can claim more than $50 million in lifetime sales. It doesnt hurt that their outlandish apparel business was featured on a 2013 episode of Shark Tank; or that some of their sweaters have made it onto the backs of celebrities in real life and on the big screen.

The Christmas Present sweater is the gift that keeps on giving pic.twitter.com/vjSBaNTTew  Tipsy Elves (@TipsyElves) December 5, 2017

But what started it all, and what likely continues to fuel sales, is the relatively newfound cultural appreciation for tongue-in-cheek  some might say, obnoxious  Christmas party garments.

While he was in training (as a root canal specialist) and I was working at a law job in Del Mar, we did some online keyword analysis and saw, at the time, there was a real emerging ugly Christmas sweater trend, Mendelsohn said. We decided there was a lot of online demand for items that no one was really selling. We thought, this could be a great way to ... launch a company that specializes in fun apparel for parties, events and occasions.

First, Mendelsohn and Morton had to learn how to design their own products, and teach themselves Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator in the process. But by 2011 they were ready to launch. That first year, they ordered around 5,000 sweaters to get things off the ground, all while maintaining their day jobs.

All of a sudden, around October, the orders started coming in, Mendelsohn, 33, said. We did about $500,000 in sales that first year and thats what really kicked off the business.

Mendelsohn quit his job the following year. Morton followed suit shortly after they secured $100,000 in funding at a $1 million valuation from Shark investor Robert Herjavec. Otherwise, theyve continued to finance operations through sales, growing their ugly Christmas sweater business year-over-year despite an onslaught of Internet rivals. Theyve also expanded their clothing line to include ostentatious ski suits, Halloween costumes and patriotic wear.

Sweaters typically cost between $65 and $80, while ski gear sells for $225, branding Tipsy Elves items as statement pieces instead of throw-away ones.

I applaud them for a bold mission (of making outrageous clothes), said Miro Copic, a marketing and business lecturer at San Diego State University. They have a pretty impressive social media presence with 68,000 followers on Instagram. Theres a lot of value in that.

Plus, theyve moved away from truly ugly products to just plain loud ones, which should keep the company relevant, Copic said.

Today, the lifestyle brand continues to create designs, and employs a core team of 20 staffers at a downtown San Diego office emblematic of the brands roots. Their warehouse, where products are shipped from, is in New York. The company is also doing more than $15 million in annual sales and experimenting with a temporary retail footprint.

Better still, the Tipsy Elves collection sells well outside Christmas, which represents just 35 percent of business.

The secret to their success? The founders point to kitsch-plus-quality.

Starting the slow clap for the new Tipsy Elves ski collection pic.twitter.com/YFlF6B13fv  Tipsy Elves (@TipsyElves) December 8, 2017

Theres a pervasive thought that fun clothes have to be cheap, one-time wear and will fall apart, said Morton, 35.

To demonstrate the opposite, Tipsy Elves opened its first brick-and-mortar pop-up at Westfield UTC during last years holiday season. Theyre back again this season, commanding around 900 square feet of floor space in a well-trafficked area of the upscale mall near a number of recently opened shops and restaurants.

We wanted to give our customers the ability to touch and feel our product, Morton said. One of the biggest surprises for our customers is how much better the quality is than they expected.

Still, the very thing that landed Tipsy Elves smack dab in the middle of a pop culture movement could be the eventual death of the business.

Is it a pet rock? Copic said. Is it a fad or a trend?

One could make the case for both. However, in the trend corner is this: There will always be people who are looking to make a statement, Copic said. The caveat, though, is that there probably arent enough of them to boost sales substantially over the years.

Unless Tipsy Elves changes its business model substantially, the upside beyond $15 million is going to be limited.

To that, the men would say that dressing up and having fun will always be in fashion.

We need to make sure that were always designing products that fit changing trends, Morton said. Thats why the companys ultimate goal is to become synonymous with fun. Then, well be around forever.

Of course, theres one other nagging concern to consider, as Copic sees it. And its a valid one.

Just the name Tipsy Elves anchors the company to the holiday season.

The Tipsy Elves customer

The company specifically markets its gear to people in their late 20s and early 30s. But Tipsy Elves likes to think that its tees, sweaters and ski suits are for anyone who is young at heart.

Heres a breakdown on whos actually buying:

18-24: 20 percent

25-35: 40 percent

26-55: 30 percent

Over 55: 10 percent

Business

jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin
CARLSBAD

Crane ornaments

Succulent Cafe is selling origami crane ornaments this holiday season to help support the Womens Resource Center Shelter and childrens programs. Each ornament is hand-folded and costs $5. The event runs through Wednesday. The goal is to raise $1,000. The cafe, which also sells plants, flowers and gifts, is at 505 Oak Ave. Call (760) 696-3819.

Advertisement

ENCINITAS

Ukes for the holidays

Cool Hand Ukes will host a ukulele sale from 2 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Park Encinitas Club House, 444 N. El Camino Real. The sale will feature soprano, concert, tenor and baritone ukes and all accessories. The event will feature a short ukulele concert with Peter Hix on ukulele and guitar and Mark Lessman on flute and saxophone. Call (760) 452-0775 or (630) 215-3066, or visit coolhandukes.shop.

ESCONDIDO

Farmer Boys toys

Farmer Boys has teamed with ABC7, Southern California Firefighters, and Toys for Tots for the 25th annual Spark of Love Toy Drive. Through Dec. 23, drop off new, unwrapped toys in the collection boxes at the Farmer Boys site at 1333 E. Valley Parkway. Also, through Dec. 31, select Farmer Boys locations are offering $5 off your next order with every $25 gift card purchase, and $10 off your next order with every $50 gift card purchase. Guests must show receipt at store where gift card was purchased to get the discount.

Aldis holding grand opening today

Aldis supermarkets holds a grand opening of its newest store today at 1352 W. Valley Parkway. Enter contests to win free produce for a year, try free samples and receive a free eco-friendly shopping bag while supplies last. Store hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. The grocery chain is known for its many house brand items at steep discounts. Customers pack their own groceries to save money. Aldis also has a market at 1330 E. Valley Parkway and two other county locations.

Business discounts with library card

Get discounts from local businesses with your Escondido Public Library card with Read Local, Shop Local!, a discount program that runs through Aug. 31. Visit library.escondido.org/local to see how the program works and find offers from participating businesses, including Burger Bench, Cute Cakes, the Grand Tea Room, Kettle Coffee & Tea and Patio Playhouse. Get a free card by filling out an application at the library, 239 S. Kalmia St.

FALLBROOK

New location for plumbing company

George Plumbing Co. Inc. held a ribbon-cutting recently with the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce. The plumbing company celebrated its new location at 121 E. Mission Road.

VISTA

Good Morning Vista

The Vista Chamber of Commerce breakfast networking group, Good Morning Vista, meets from 8 to 9 a.m. Friday at Monarch, 1850 Thibodo Road. Free to attend; light breakfast provided. Come meet other business professionals and make local connections.

VALLEY CENTER

Sundowner at VCHS

The Valley Center Chamber of Commerce hosts a sundowner from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Dec. 21 sponsored by Shoemaker Realty at the Valley Center High School Culinary Arts Center. Cost is $5. Register at bit.ly/2nULpv7. Call (760) 749-8472.

laura.groch@sduniontribune.com
If Lance Arthur Smith doesnt wear his heart on his sleeve, he does proudly display his geek-itude on his chest.

An image of Wonder Woman peers out from the T-shirt under his coat as the playwright and actor chats over a quick bite at a Carlsbad eatery.

Thats the majority of my wardrobe, he says with a laugh. Geeky shirts. Or Padres gear.

Advertisement

Comics and pop culture, along with American history (and maybe a little sports), have proved abiding fascinations for Smith, one of San Diegos most visible theater artists both onstage and behind the scenes.

Profile: Lance Arthur Smith

Playwright-actor

Age: 40

Lives in: Oceanside

Born: Albuquerque, N.M.

Family: Married to Colleen Kollar Smith; two daughters, Scottie and Pepper

Studied at: University of New Mexico

Recent acting roles: Otis in October Sky, Old Globe Theatre; Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Welk Resort Theatre

How he fell in love with theater: The acting comes from my dad. He was a schoolteacher first and foremost; acting was his side hobby, but he was quite good at it. He used to take me to rehearsals with him. I sort of grew up backstage. Id make my own tapes -- Dad was doing Guys and Dolls once, so I did my own version of it and recorded it. I did like a radio-play version of it, (including) all the voices. I would do that with each of his shows.

Those interests have been evidenced in such works as his play Truth, Justice, and the Four-Color Way, about the scapegoating of comic books over juvenile delinquency in 1950s America; and his currently running adaptation for San Diego Musical Theatre of the holiday favorite Miracle on 34th Street  styled after the old-time radio dramas that Smiths actor father raised him on. (That show, co-created with Jon Lorenz, runs through Dec. 24 at the Horton Grand Theatre downtown.)

Smith has even brought parenting into the pop-culture mix with his 2013 book Princess Geek, a first-person account of a dad and daughters shared love for sci-fi, superhero stories and more.

Now, as he sips a craft beer (one pet subject he hasnt turned into a play  yet), Smith is about to head into a reading at nearby New Village Arts Theatre for a new piece about some world-changing and in some ways difficult U.S. history.

The play is called The Price of Peace, and it will be part of NVAs inaugural Final Draft New Play Festival, set for Jan. 4-7.

The piece is inspired by the true story of a Carlsbad resident named Glenn Quillin. Now 102 years old and still going strong, Quillin played a significant role more than 70 years ago in the Manhattan Project, the super-secret U.S. initiative to develop the atomic bomb.

More recently, Quillin received national publicity for going skydiving to celebrate his 100th birthday  the first time he had leaped into the ether under a parachute since he and a pal had to bail out of a balky airplane in 1931.

If that feat makes Quillin sound a bit like a real-life superhero, Smith cant help but agree.

He is, he absolutely is, the playwright says. Hes extraordinary.

Hes a cool cat  I like him a lot.

Finding its way to NVA

Quillins story was first brought to the attention of New Village Arts by Jack Cumming, who with his wife, Valerie, has been a key financial supporter of New Village Arts. (Cumming is also a patron of the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, where Smith teaches drama and stage combat and is the writer in residence.)

Cumming was at a meeting of a retirement-community social group with Quillin and others one morning a few years ago when Quillin opened up with this story, Smith explains.

It turned out Quillin had worked on developing atomic-bomb materials under a veil of secrecy at the Manhattan Project site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., during the early 1940s.

He was a very gifted machinist who worked with all these big brains  the Oppenheimer brothers, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Smith says.

They needed someone to implement their designs, so they would just hand him these hastily drawn blueprints  sometimes on napkins or pieces of other blueprints  and say: We need you to make this.

For decades afterward, Quillin spoke of his work there to virtually no one: He was very secretive  he was never debriefed, Smith says. He was never told what to tell or what not to tell, so he just decided to err on the side of caution and keep it all back.

After Cumming heard the story, he contacted NVA executive artistic director Kristianne Kurner about turning it into a play.

And with funding from Cumming, Kurner  who knew of Smiths previous plays  commissioned him in 2015 to write the piece.

Smith spent many hours interviewing Quillin (as well as Ella Reed Rogers, another retirement-home resident whose husband had worked at Oak Ridge).

They were both great about it, Smith says, even when the conversation got into more complicated areas.

He crafted the metal structure of the (weapons) sphere, Smith says of Quillin. So, How did you feel about that? You had to know it was a weapon of some sort  how did you reconcile your duty to your country with (the fact) you knew this was going to bring about the loss of life?

They were great about answering all those questions.

The play that has evolved, originally titled Hemispheres, has as its main character Sam Penn, a fictionalized version of Quillin.

Its no longer really the character of Glenn, Smith says. At its core, its still his story, but it has sort of morphed into its own thing.

Whats key to Smith in any story he writes is how it connects to our own moment in time  something he feels is very much the case with The Price of Peace.

With North Korea closer to an ICBM that could strike at the heart of America, I pick up the paper and read weekly  sometimes daily  about the fear and uncertainty present in our country, Smith says. I see it displayed on social media.

I dont live in fear, but with a wife and two daughters, I do play what if more often than Id like.

On a more focused level, we can become filled with a need to do something, in an effort to counteract the feeling of helplessness. I see this on a political level, on a social level, and I see more people taking action on issues they find important.

This is the struggle of every character in The Price of Peace. Even big-brain Frank Oppenheimer operates in a cloud of uncertainty. Are the Axis powers developing a bomb? What more can he do to develop it more quickly?

Glenn imparted to me the feeling of uncertainty in World War II-era America, yet he says every American contributed, in ways big and small, to work for a common goal  the end of the war.

NVAs Kurner says Smiths knowledge of history is expansive, and his passion for what he is working on is inspiring. He approaches his work very seriously and thrives in a professional environment.

Since he is also an actor, he has a great respect for the actors process, and I love watching his excitement while watching other actors work on material that he has written.

Smith is still managing to do some acting amid his writing pursuits; he made his Old Globe debut in the musical October Sky last year, and reprised his role (as well as serving as fight director) in an East Coast developmental run earlier this fall.

The Albuquerque native and former Lambs Players Theatre company member (whos married to actor-choreographer and Moonlight Stage Productions managing director Colleen Kollar Smith) will next be seen in Tuesdays With Morrie at Vistas Broadway Theater in January.

And Im still working on my first novel, which is centered around Shakespeare, he says. Its slow going.

Whats special about working on The Price of Peace, he says, is its connection between history and the real, still-living person at the center of the play.

Its a story thats important to me, he says. Theres a respect that I have for the written word regardless of what it is. But especially when its someones story.

I feel a duty to do it justice, and to do their story justice.

Final Draft New Play Festival

When: The Velocity of Celebration, 8 p.m. Jan. 4; The Price of Peace, 8 p.m. Jan. 5-6 and 2 p.m. Jan. 7; The Witch and the Seer, 4 p.m. Jan. 6.

Where: New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 State St., Carlsbad.

Tickets: $5 for single play; $10 play-and-beer package; $20 all-access pass.

Phone: (760) 433-3245

Online: newvillagearts.org

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @jimhebert
The drug industry really, really doesnt want you to know that its ripping you off with frequent and questionable price increases for prescription meds.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industrys main lobbying group, filed a lawsuit the other day seeking to derail a California law that will require 60 days notice before drugmakers raise prices beyond a certain threshold. The law, SB 17, is set to take effect Jan. 1.

In their suit, which names Gov. Jerry Brown as a defendant, drug companies argue that the state is attempting to dictate national healthcare policy and is unfairly picking on a single industry when other businesses share responsibility for high prices.

Advertisement

James C. Stansel, PhRMAs executive vice president and general counsel, said in a statement that the law misses the mark with its myopic focus on manufacturers and provisions that are in clear violation of the Constitution. A spokeswoman for the organization declined to elaborate.

I cant speak to the constitutionality of the law. Among other claims, the industrys lawsuit says SB 17 violates the 1st Amendment because it compels speech, requiring drug companies to disseminate Californias message that they alone are responsible for increases in the prices of prescription drugs.

In business terms, Id say drugmakers are throwing a hissy fit because they dont like being told to behave more honestly.

What does the pharmaceutical industry have against transparency? asked Richard Scheffler, director of UC Berkeleys Global Center for Health Economics and Policy Research.

He told me the lawsuit is likely a warning shot  a declaration that the industry will bury California in legal filings if the state even thinks about acting more aggressively, such as having public and private drug purchasers band together to collectively bargain with manufacturers.

They see that coming, Scheffler said. Theyre doing everything they can to stop it.

SB 17 doesnt go anywhere near that far. It says only that pharmaceutical companies have to notify the state and health insurers if they plan to raise the price of a medication by 16% or more over a two-year period. The companies also would have to explain why such a large increase is needed.

The law applies to drugs with a wholesale cost of at least $40 for a 30-day supply.

Californians have a right to know why their medical costs are out of control, especially when pharmaceutical profits are soaring, Brown said when he signed SB 17 into law in October. This measure is a step at bringing transparency, truth, exposure to a very important part of our lives. That is the cost of prescription drugs.

The law was backed by consumer and labor groups, hospitals and even health insurers.

The drug lobby reportedly spent nearly $17 million and hired dozens of lobbyists and consultants to kill it.

SB 17 isnt some mean-spirited attempt to kick sand in the picnics of kindly drug companies. It grew out of public outrage resulting from over-the-top price hikes, such as the maker of EpiPens jacking up the price of its widely used injectors to nearly $500 from about $60 .

And dont forget the AIDS drug Daraprim, which saw its price soar overnight to $750 from $13.50 a pill. Or the Hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi, which cost $1,000 a pill because, well, why not?

As Brown said at the bill signing: Theres a real evil when so many people are suffering so much from rising drug profits.

Drugmakers are right when they say there are other players in the supply chain that contribute to price increases. But the merry-go-round starts with the manufacturers, and their frequently indefensible increases set the pace for the rest of the industry.

SB 17 doesnt tell them they have to cut prices. It simply casts sunlight on deliberately opaque practices, introducing a modest measure of accountability.

The drug industrys 35-page complaint has a distinct sky-is-falling ring to it, envisioning dire scenarios in which Californias reporting requirement causes prices to go haywire as healthcare players game the market and reduce competition.

SB 17 will generate substantial harmful economic effects that extend unavoidably beyond California, it warns, adding that the law imposes burdens on interstate commerce that clearly exceed any legitimate local benefit.

In reality, SB 17 will force drug companies to straighten up and fly right.

I wrote last week about a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences outlining steps the federal government could take to reduce drug prices.

The recommendations include allowing Medicare to negotiate with manufacturers  its prohibited by law from doing so  and requiring drug companies to be more open about pricing.

PhRMA, the trade group, dismissed the proposals as misguided and a rehash of outdated ideas.

Instead, it said, we should focus on lowering costs for patients through market-based reforms ... and move toward a system that focuses on what is valuable to patients.

SB 17 does that.

You almost get the feeling theres no making these people happy.

David Lazarus column runs Tuesdays and Fridays. He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
For well over a week, hundreds of inmates have chain-sawed through relentless thickets of chaparral, cutting lines through the backcountry to thwart the fires sudden rushes at homes.

On Thursday, they were deep in the Los Padres National Forest, covered in wood grit, soot and sweat, as the Thomas fire continued to grow  becoming the fourth-largest in modern California history.

In the morning, commanders stressed the dangers of the work and urged them to be careful, even while mopping up hot spots, cutting burned trees or striding though charred rubble.

Advertisement

Hours later, a San Diego fire engineer, Cory Iverson, died on the fire lines. The loss rippled through the army of 8,000 fire personnel  both professionals and inmates  on the scene. Some lined the road as Iversons body was loaded into a hearse and taken from the fire zone.

For 11 days, theyve been battling a sharply uneven battle against a devilish fusion of dry wind, fault-crumpled terrain and desiccated vegetation.

Playing some of the hardest roles are the inmate hand crews, which make up about 20% of the firefighters here.

On a ridge above Montecito on Thursday, they worked in crews of 15, leaders shouting orders, scarifying a ribbon of mountain too steep and craggy for any bulldozer.

Inmates working on the Thomas fire crew rest at camp between shifts on the fire line. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

The winds had abated, as they had many times before, but the inmates were racing the clock, chopping away at ceanothus trunks and gnarled manzanita roots with specialized saws, picks, shovels, rakes, axes.

On Friday night, forecasters predicted Santa Barbaras notorious sundowner winds, which howl down the mountain canyons to the coast, driving flames and embers with them.

Because the wildfire has sprawled so widely, the task of finding the critical points to cut it off had become profoundly difficult.

This thing is 60 miles long and 40 miles wide,"said Tim Chavez, a fire behavior analyst with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Theres a lot of fire out there.

No day has been the same on the front lines. On Saturday, the winds calmed. The heat rose in a column, carrying smoke and soot, mushrooming into a pyrocumulus cloud 30,000 feet high. On the ground, it was quiet and still.

Inmates Gerardo Moran, right, and Lanny Mosley talk about their experiences working on a fire crew while resting between shifts. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

Gerardo Moran, 41, and his fellow convicts, thought the worst was over. They were loading the truck about 2 a.m. Sunday to head back to camp and rest, as the temperature dropped.

Then the weight of all that material in the atmosphere collapsed.

A violent downdraft hit the ground and blew in every direction, fanning waves of flame.

Come on, tools out! a Cal Fire captain shouted.

I never knew we were gonna be in the eye of the storm right there, Moran recalled this week. Its pretty intense  the biggest adrenaline rushes Ive ever had, right there on the fire line.

The fire scorched another 50,000 acres during that bout. But Moran and the inmates were able to save a horse ranch of Highway 150, which he was happy about.

1 / 73 John Bain and Brandon Baker try to stop a fire from burning a strangers home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 73 A brush fire moving with the wind sends embers all over residential neighborhoods north of Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 73 A family packs up and evacuates as a brush fire gets closer to their home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 73 John Bain and his friends, all from Camarillo, came to help as brush fires move quickly through residential neighborhoods in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 73 Strangers band together to help put out a palm tree on fire and stop it from burning homes. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 73 The Hawaiian Gardens apartments burn in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 7 / 73 Residents help with the fire attack on Buena Vista Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 8 / 73 Residents watch the Thomas fire on Prospect Street in Ventura. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 9 / 73 Firefighters are deployed to battle the fire in a Ventura neighborhood. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 73 A chimney is all that stands of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 73 Remnants of a home as a brush fire continues to threaten other homes in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 73 A home burns on a hillside overlooking Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 73 Palms are consumed in the Thomas fire. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 14 / 73 Emma Jacobson, 19, center, gets a hug from a neighbor after her family home was destroyed by fire in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 73 Olivia Jacobson, 16, wipes tears as she looks at her familys home, destroyed by the brush fire on Island View Drive in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 73 Aerial view of the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 73 Noah Alarcon carries a cage with the family cat while evacuating from Casitas Springs. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 18 / 73 Smoke from the Thomas fire crosses over Lake Casitas near Ojai. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 19 / 73 A Ventura County firefighter battles a blaze on Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 73 Ventura County Firefighter Aaron Cohen catches his breath after fighting to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 73 Aerial view of homes burned to the ground in the Thomas fire in Ventura County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times ) 22 / 73 A home between Via Baja and Foothill Road burns in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 73 Amanda Leon and husband Johnny Leon watch as firefighters fight to save homes along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 73 Chino Valley firefighters fight to save a home along Cobblestone Drive near Foothill Road in Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 73 Embers continue to burn at sunset Tuesday in a home on Ridgecrest Court at Scenic Way in the Clearpoint neighborhood of Ventura. (Al Seib / Los Angeles TImes) 26 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 73 Firefighters try to protect homes from the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 73 Edward Aguilar runs through the flames of the Thomas Fire to save his cats at his mobile home along Highway 33 in Casitas Springs in Ventura County. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 73 Jeff Lipscomb, left, Gabriel Lipscomb, 17, center, and Rachel Lipscomb, 11, look for items to recover from their burned home in Ventura. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 73 A traffic collision temporarily clogged lanes on the northbound 101 Freeway between Solimar and Faria Beaches as the Thomas fire burned in the hills. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 73 The Thomas fire burns towards the 101 Freeway and homes between Solimar and Faria Beaches. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 73 Fire personnel keep an eye on the Thomas fire on Toland Road near Santa Paula. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 34 / 73 A train on the Rincon coast passes a burning hillside from the Thomas fire. (Michael Owen Baker / For the Times) 35 / 73 The Thomas fire burns along the 101 Freeway north of Ventura on Wednesday evening. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 73 A firefighter battles the Thomas fire in the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 73 A resident cries as the Thomas fire approaches the town of La Conchita early Thursday. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 73 Burned palm trees are left standing between the 101 Freeway and Faria Beach as the Thomas fire reaches the Pacific Ocean. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 73 Firefighters battle Thursday to protect the resort city of Ojai from encroaching flames. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 73 Casey Rodriquez helps a friend move belongings after the Thomas Fire destroyed most of an apartment building on North Kalarama in Ventura. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 73 A burnt-out bus near Maripoca Highway. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 73 The Thomas fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 73 A huge plume of smoke rises north of Ventura as seen Sunday afternoon from the Ventura pier, as the Thomas fire threatens parts of Carpenteria and Montecito. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 73 The Thomas Fire burns in the Los Padres National Forest, near Ojai, Calif. on Friday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 73 Residents react as they watch the Thomas Fire burn in the hills above La Conchita at 5 am Thursday moning. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 73 Mary McEwen and husband Dan Bellaart prepare to evacuate their home on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito as the Thomas fire burns. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 73 Carpenteria resident Chris Gayner, right, photographs a plane in the hills of Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 73 From left, residents Michael Desjardins, his neighbor Patty Rodriguez, daughter Mikayla, wife Veronica, mother in law Amanda Buzin, and son Mikey keep an eye on the Thomas fire in Carpenteria. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 73 Mary McEwen cheers as she sees fire crews make their way up a hill past her home on Toro Canyon Rd. in Montecito. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 73 Dan Bellaart and wife Mary McEwen comfort each other in the backyard of their home that includes an avocado ranch on 9 acres of land on Toro Canyon Road in Montecito, as the Thomas fire burns in the background. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 73 Carpinteria resident Jay Molnar, 55, mouth and nose protected against the smoke, views flames glowing in the hills above the city on Dec. 11, 2017. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 52 / 73 Sacramento firefighters battle a blaze in Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 53 / 73 Josh Acosta, superintendent with Fulton Hotshots looks for ways to fight fire consuming a structure threatening two homes high up Toro Canyon in Carpenteria at dusk Tuesday. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 54 / 73 A motorcade passes on tHighway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson, who died Thursday morning while battling the Thomas Fire. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 55 / 73 Santa Paula City officials, Police and Firefighters salute from a bridge as a motorcade passes on the Santa Paula Freeway 126 carrying the body of a Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 56 / 73 Forest Service crews cut and clear dense brush for contingency lines off of East Camino Cielo in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Montecito and Santa Barbara to help stop the Thomas fire from advancing. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 57 / 73 A hotshot crew from Ojai marches towards their assignment to protect structures on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 58 / 73 Firefighters monitor the flames Saturday from a staging area near Parma Park in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 59 / 73 Flames slowly make their way down a valley behind a home in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 60 / 73 Flames whip around power lines as they move through Sycamore Canyon on Saturday, threatening structures in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 61 / 73 Smoke billows over Santa Barbara as the Thomas Fire continues to threaten the area on Saturday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) 62 / 73 Bill Shubin, deputy fire chief of the Santa Rosa Fire Department checks on flames burning near homes north of East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 63 / 73 A fire truck pulls responds to fires burning near homes on East Mountain Drive in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 64 / 73 Brian Good, from US Forest Service, leans forward against the wind, and holds up a Kestrel to measure wind speeds up to 50 mph on Gibraltar Road in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 65 / 73 A plume of smoke moves south as winds as high as 50 mph blow down Gibraltar Road on the west fork of Cold Spring Trail in Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 66 / 73 Flames and a big plume of smoke threaten homes on Gibraltar Road near Gibraltar Rock, outside Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 67 / 73 The sun rises as fire crews prepare for another day of fighting the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 68 / 73 An aircraft makes a water drop over a hot spot up in the mountain range at Gibraltar Rock near Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 69 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Bobby Gray, left, hoses down smoldering flames inside a destroyed home, as Kellee Stoehr, right looks on, after the Thomas Fire burned in Montecito, Calif. on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 70 / 73 A home on Park Hill Lane was destroyed by the Thomas fire in Montecito, Calif. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times ) 71 / 73 Humboldt County firefighters Lonnie Risling, left, and Jimmy McHaffie, right, spray down smoldering fire underneath the rubble of a home that was destroyed by the Thomas Fire, in Montecito, Calif., Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 72 / 73 Fire crews help the Behrman family retrieve their familys personal belongings out of their burned home, in Montecito, Calif., on Sunday. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) 73 / 73 In the foreground of the ridges that were burned by the Thomas Fire, Rusty Smith stands outside his home that survived the flames that were kicked up by Saturdays wind event and threatened his home in Flores Flats on Gibraltar Road, near Montecito. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Established in 1943, the inmate fire program employs roughly 3,800 prisoners across California, paying them $2 a day in the off-season  when they clear flood control channels and hiking trails  and $1 an hour when theyre fighting fires.

Ive always been a fan of the program, said Mark Brown, a deputy fire chief in Marin County and operations commander on the Thomas fire. They work their butts off.

For the inmates, the danger is obvious  four inmates have died since the program began, including two in the last two years. And some have manipulated the program  in October, an inmate escaped when he walked off the fire line while fighting a blaze in Orange County but was captured on Halloween in Los Angeles.

But most benefit by getting out in the wilderness  away from prison-yard intrigue  learning an occupation, making money, feeling a sense of purpose, and getting time off their sentences.

Proposition 57, passed by voters last year, increased the credit for time served for those in the program.

Inmates who are accepted into the program must undergo physical and mental evaluations ahead of training, according to the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. Many types of offenders, such as documented gang members, are ineligible.

Moran began serving a 14-year, four-month sentence in June 2014 for possession of a controlled substance for sale, vehicle theft and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer.

In prison, he had to work and show good behavior to get to minimum-security status  and a chance to join the fire camp.

I figured this would be the best way to serve my community, he said. And the time off. Thats a big one. I got 27 months off my sentence for this. I just want to get back to my family.

He started this year, and fought in the wine country fires in October.

In Ventura County, inmate Lanny Mosley, who is in his third fire season, has been showing Moran the ropes.

Both are swampers, the unofficial right hand of the state fire captain who manages them on the fire line.

Ive done this long enough to where I trust the captains, theyre constantly watching out for us, said Mosley, 52, a second-striker who began his eight-year, four-month sentence for vehicle theft in August 2014.

If something were to happen to the captain, the swamper would be the one to radio for help and manage the situation until others arrived.

Officials said theyve seen countless examples of residents waving thank-you signs at inmate crews or coming up to them and thanking them for their work, sometimes knowing who they are, sometimes not.

Its really rewarding when a crying woman and her children come up to you and say, Thank you for saving our homes,  said Moran. Thats payoff in itself right here. It just feels good.

The occasional misery is worth it.

Being in the woods, being in the mountains  its just a freedom that you dont get in prison, Mosley said. Behind the wall youll never see the stuff well see.

That view of the stars is amazing, Moran said. The skyline to the ocean. Its something you wish you were with your family for, but hey, its OK.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

joe.mozingo@latimes.com
The Los Angeles Fire Department dispatched drones for the first time while battling a wildfire this month as firefighters took on the Skirball fire in Bel-Air.

Fire officials demonstrated the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles for reporters on Thursday, sending two drones buzzing near blackened hills around Linda Flora Drive.

They provide real-time situational awareness from a birds-eye perspective to the incident commander so they can see whats going on at their emergency and then change their tactics accordingly to mitigate the hazards, said Capt. Erik Scott, an LAFD spokesman.

Advertisement

Firefighters used two DJI Matrice 100 drones during the Skirball fire, Scott said. One had a high-definition camera used to survey the burn area, and the other had an infrared camera to assess hot spots.

The Skirball fire, sparked by a cooking fire in a homeless encampment, destroyed six homes and burned more than 400 acres.

The Los Angeles City Council this summer voted to let the LAFD start seeking Federal Aviation Administration authorization to use drones, despite objections from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups concerned about privacy rights.

Hamid Khan, founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, argued at the time that allowing the Fire Department to use drones would provide a backdoor way to share information with police.

The City Council approved guidelines for the departments drone usage in November.

Scott said the drones will not be used to monitor or provide surveillance for law enforcement purposes and that they will only be operated by trained, certified and licensed pilots.

Weve been very careful, slow and methodical about how were implementing this program, he said.

The Los Angeles Fire Department holds a demonstration featuring its new drone. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

During the Skirball blaze, firefighters used the drones to fly the perimeter of the burn area and to assess burned homes, he said.

Scott said it is much cheaper to operate a drone than to pay for a helicopter and its crew and fuel while fighting wildfires.

The department hopes to use drones to help search for missing hikers, assess hazardous materials incidents and provide an extra vantage point for swift-water rescues.

By no means will these ever replace helicopters and those talented pilots that provide water drops, hoist rescues of injured hikers and pull people out of the Los Angeles River, but this is an excellent tool for the LAFD toolbox, he said.

The departments first fleet of drones was purchased through private funding from the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, Scott said.

It cost nothing to the city, he said.

Fire departments throughout the state have complained about private drone operators vehicles impeding firefighting efforts because, they say, the vehicles could collide with aircraft flying at low altitudes.

In 2015, firefighting aircraft were hampered multiple times from dropping water or chemicals on Southern California brush fires after hobby drones flew into the area.

During a fire in the Cajon Pass that summer that burned several cars on Interstate 15, water drops were halted just before the blaze jumped the freeway because of a recreational drone flying nearby.

Last year, firefighters had to temporarily halt air operations during a fire in the San Gabriel Mountains above Duarte and Azusa because several drones had been spotted over the mountains.

Petaluma police in October cited a drone operator for flying an aircraft near the Petaluma Airport, where Cal Fire was staging operations for fighting the deadly blazes in Northern California, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

LAFD firefighter David Danielson, recovers the drone. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times )

1 / 29 A scorched pot is among the few remnants of a homeless site where investigators believe the Skirball blaze, which destroyed more than 400 acres, started. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 29 Firefighter Ken Williams puts out a hot spot on a fire-ravaged home along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) 3 / 29 Firefighter Steve Barrett hits a hot spot on a fire-ravaged home on Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 29 Firefighters work a hot spot next to a vineyard charred by the Skirball fire in Bel-Air on Thursday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) 5 / 29 The downtown Los Angeles skyline is visible through the smoke from the Skirball fire as seen from Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times ) 6 / 29 A firefighter carries a hose up stairs at a home destroyed by the Skirball fire along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 29 Firefighter Bobby DAmico looks out over the Getty Center while monitoring the scene over Bel-Air, where the Skirball fire has destroyed several homes. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 29 A helicopter scouts for hot spots from the Skirball fire in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 29 Firefighter Ray Schiller puts out a hot spot on a home destroyed by the Skirball fire on Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 29 A firefighter monitors the scene over Bel-Air, where the Skirball fire has destroyed several homes. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 29 The Getty Center seen through the smoke of the Skirball fire. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 29 A mansion is framed by trees charred in the Skirball fire in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 29 A Los Angeles City firefighter makes his way toward a home on Casiano Road that was destroyed by the Skirball fire. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 29 Los Angeles City firefighters Florin Sarbu, left, Dan Smithers and Robert Caropino monitor the Skirball fire from the backyard of a home on Casiano Road. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 29 Fredi Seraydarian, left, her husband, Paul, and son Mark wave to a helicopter pilot after he filled up with water at the Stone Canyon Reservoir. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 29 A Bel-Air home home on Linda Flora Drive burns in the Skirball fire. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 29 The bedroom of a home is engulfed in flames from the Skirball fire along Linda Flora Drive in Bel Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 29 Firefighters battle a blaze at a home along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 29 Firefighters work to save a home along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 29 A car lies among the ruins caused by the Skirball fire at the end of Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 29 Firefighters try to save a home along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air, where the Skirball fire prompted closure of the 405 Freeway as well as mandatory evacuations. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 29 A helicopter makes a water drop on the Skirball fire in Bel Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 29 Firefighters try to save a home along Linda Flora Drive. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 29 A helicopter makes a water drop on the Skirball fire that threatened several homes along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 29 Firefighters try to save a home along Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 29 Firefighters near Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 29 A plume of smoke from the Skirball fire looms over a home in Bel Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 29 Firefighters in Bel-Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 29 Smoke and fire from the Skirball fire threatens homes in Bel Air. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybranson
A man accused of fatally shooting San Diego police Officer Jonathan J.D. DeGuzman and wounding his partner last year in Southcrest will face the death penalty if convicted, a prosecutor said Friday.

Jesse Michael Gomez, 56, is charged with murder, attempted murder and a special-circumstance allegation of murder of a police officer.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Michael Smyth granted a prosecution request to change the defendants bail status from $5 million to no bail.

Advertisement

A preliminary hearing is tentatively set for Feb. 5.

 A traffic stop late Thursday night led to a shooting that killed a San Diego police officer and wounded a second officer and a suspect in Southcrest, where police searched for hours for other possible suspects.

Gomez is accused of shooting DeGuzman and Officer Wade Irwin  two gang suppression unit officers  about 11 p.m. on July 28, 2016, when they tried to detain him on Acadia Grove Way.

Patrol personnel responding to the officers call for backup found them suffering from gunshot wounds to their upper bodies.

DeGuzman, a 16-year veteran with the San Diego Police Department, was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital.

Gomez was taken into custody in a ravine off South 38th Street, a short distance from the scene of the shooting. He was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his upper body.
A year of turmoil and turnover at the State Bar of California is drawing to a close under another looming problem  labor issues including the possibility of a strike that could affect the bars primary mission of disciplining bad lawyers.

The union representing most of the bars rank-and file workers, including the attorneys and investigators who probe complaints about dishonest lawyers and bring disciplinary cases, have been without a contract for more than a year.

In November the union filed an unfair labor complaint against the bar, saying that the organizations management was not bargaining in good faith. That came weeks after union members voted to authorize a strike if necessary.

Advertisement

Union members are seeking wage increases as well as cost of living adjustments. Also they say that the bar leadership wants to move employees from the current 36-hour work week to 40 hours without a commensurate increase in pay.

The union says that low pay and under-staffing is hurting morale and making it hard to recruit new workers. The bar is located in San Francisco, which has a high cost of living.

Two years ago the organization employed 56 full-time lawyers and 62 investigators.

Now, there are 57 lawyers and 58 investigators. Those investigators handle an average caseload of about 60, according to figures supplied by the union.

Ben Fuchs, a bar investigator, said protecting the public from lawyer misconduct is the bars primary mission.

We cant do that if we cant hire enough people to do that mission, he said. We cant do that with the current salaries.

Also irking union members is the pay of top bar executives  six of whom make in excess of $200,000. The bars new executive director, Leah Wilson  its third since 2014  will be paid $267,5000. Five other executives are paid more than Gov. Jerry Browns salary of $195,803.

The boards new president, Michael Colantuono, said the organization is spending less on upper management pay now than it did two years ago. A pay and compensation study that examined pay for all bar workers concluded that upper management was actually underpaid compared to similar positions in the local market.

The union has disparaged that study by saying it was riddled with errors and favored management.

Colantuono said the bar is aware that it needs to hire more and fill vacant position but it is taking time. Overall he said the labor anxiety is as much a product of the recent upheaval at the bar.

Change is hard, he said. The bar is in the midst of remaking itself itself partly because the legislature has mandated that.

The labor conflict is the latest controversy at the bar, the quasi-public state agency charged with regulating the more than 250,000 licensed lawyers in the state.

In the past two years the bar has been slammed by the State Auditor, which found the organization overpaid its top officials, wasnt transparent about its finances and had a backlog of more than 5,000 claims by consumers who were ripped off by their lawyers.

The legislature has also weighed in, pressuring the bar to reform its operations. In 2016 the legislature didnt pass a normally routine bill authorizing the bar to collect dues from lawyers, its main source of revenue.

That forced the organization to seek an emergency request to the state Supreme Court allowing it to collect the dues for 2017 year. The court authorized the collection  but at a reduced level, cutting into the budget.

As a result of these and other factors the bar has undergone a major overhaul of its operations. It split its discipline and regulatory functions away from its 16 specialty law groups, which acted largely as trade associations for lawyers  creating a longstanding tension with the bars regulatory role. The specialty groups will now be a separate nonprofit corporation.

The overhaul also changed the composition of the bar leadership, reducing the board of trustees from 19 to 13.

Stacie Spector of San Diego, the public representative on the newly constituted board of trustees, said that consumers should not be concerned that the turmoil is preventing the bar from filling its consumer protection goals.

Everything we have done organizationally is honing and tightening our focus on public protection, she said.

The bar has long been criticized for how long it takes to discipline miscreant lawyers and also for going too soft in its discipline. A 2015 audit by State Auditor Elaine Howell blasted the bar for letting scores of attorneys off with easier punishments than they should have received in an effort to reduce a swollen backlog of cases between 2009 and 2014.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
A San Diego federal jury this week convicted a Beverly Hills radiologist for his role in a massive fraud scheme that involved kickbacks for patient referrals so he could bill insurance companies more than $25 million in unnecessary medical services.

Dr. Ronald Grusd operated California Imaging Network Medical Group, with practices throughout the state, including San Diego, Calexico, Fresno, Santa Ana and Los Angeles.

He and his companies were found guilty Wednesday of all counts against them  including conspiracy, health care fraud and honest services mail and wire fraud  following a seven-day trial.

Advertisement

The scheme involved paying bribes to several people, including a primary care physician, to recommend a host of medical services to patients with workers compensation claims. The referrals were for services such as MRIs, toxicology testing, Shockwave treatments, ultrasounds and prescription drugs, according to prosecutors.

Grusds practice would then seek reimbursement from insurance companies for the services. Authorities say he and his companies have billed for hundreds of millions of dollars in the state workers compensation system since 2009.

Grusd would pay the kickbacks out of a shell company, Willow Consulting, with checks labeled as professional services to hide the bribery, prosecutors said. Evidence at trial showed he paid more than $100,000 in bribes that covered hundreds of patients, prosecutors said.

The jury could not reach a verdict on Gonzalo Paredes, Grusds administrator. He may be retried.

The case was part of a large crackdown on medical insurance fraud dubbed Operation Back Lash announced in November 2015. The U.S. Attorneys Office said nearly 40 people and corporations have been charged with crimes in federal and state court, including doctors, attorneys, medical service providers and marketers.

Four others charged with Grusd and Paredes who were accused of receiving bribes have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the investigation.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Two San Diego defense contractors were sentenced to 15 months each in prison Thursday in a case that exposes much deeper problems with the Navys supply procurement system and suggests a larger gray market involving both sailors and contractors operating without oversight.

Jeffrey Harrington and Michael Mayer, owners of three supply companies, admitted to working outside the system set out for military contractors  a practice they partially justified with the claim that a lot of people do it.

The three companies are based in Barrio Logan: Veteran Logistics sells medical supplies, Industrial Xchange offers building and industrial materials, and Boston Laser Technology specializes in office supplies.

Advertisement

The Department of Defense could buy from a catalog of approved goods, supplied by contractors, through a web interface called EMALL, allowing the military to compare prices and encouraging competition. But the three companies bypassed that system by dealing directly with sailors and supply officers instead, negotiating prices for one material and then billing EMALL for a wholly different product that was off-catalog.

For example, in 2011 Boston Laser Technology won contracts for more than 10,000 Post-It writing pads for $248,411 for the Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 2 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia. At least, thats what the contracts were supposed to cover.

Rather than send Post-Its, the company sent 50 AC/DC transceivers at a price of $4,967 each for a grand total of $248,358.

A $1.3 million order for bags and organizers for the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 in Norfolk ended with delivery of $924,000 worth of skydiving gear, according to the plea agreement. Other items the Navy ended up receiving: pot holders, batteries, refrigerators, toner cartridges, rice cookers, even a Playstation 3 and two pink Nintendo systems, according to court records.

The scope of the fraud is still unknown. Investigators audited 60 transactions in a four year period and found every one fraudulent  a mere slice of the $45 million in business the companies did with the Navy from 2008 to 2015.

The audit showed a loss to the Navy of $1.4 million, prosecutors said. But defense attorneys fought back against accusations of price-gouging, claiming the pricing was competitively set. In many cases, they explained, where a dollar difference emerged, the Navy was given a credit to spend  sometimes it was spent, sometimes not, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Michael Anello said the defense team submitted paperwork that was somewhat persuasive in showing that the profit margin may not have been out of line with industry standards and may not show a systematically ripping off of the Navy.

Despite that possibility, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Kanter argued that this case is about the much larger issue of undermining the oversight and competitive market system, circumventing safeguards, and creating opportunity for back-room deals and corruption. In fact, government investigators have been able to trace back items  TVs, iPhones and more  in kickbacks to sailors who looked the other way and went along with the scheme, Kanter said.

They got to play God, in control of what their profit was, Kanter said of Harrington and Mayer.

As to the Navy participants, Kanter said in sentencing papers and in court that several military and civilian personnel have been subjects of this investigation, and many have already faced court martial and administrative discipline. One ship prosecutors suspect participated in fraudulent transactions is the Lake Erie, a guided-missle cruiser based in San Diego, according to court documents.

No further information about those cases has been released.

Harringtons attorney, Gregory Vega, said his client  a Navy veteran  did not cut corners out of greed or malice, but instead had the best intentions to make the Navy fleet-ready.

The government always received product, Vega argued. This was not stealing from the government.

Mayers attorney, Joseph McMullen, said the men worked outside the system because it was cumbersome and faulty  not delivering to its customers the way they wanted to receive items. The business owners instead formed good relationships with the sailors and supply officers and gained a reputation of getting the job done, still for a reasonable price.

Its capitalism at its best, McMullen argued.

EMALL has since been replaced with a new upgraded system for obtaining supplies.

In addition to the prison sentences, both men were ordered to pay $10,000 in fines each and forfeit about $708,000. Both men also pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns. Harrington, 55, must pay about $141,000 in restitution to the IRS, and Mayer, 63, nearly $300,000. The three corporations must also share in the forfeiture and pay a separate $1 million fine.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
San Diego County declared a local health emergency early Friday night, adding a new level of urgency to a hepatitis A outbreak that has hit the homeless population hardest, killing 15 people and hospitalizing hundreds.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, the regions public health officer, signed the declaration shortly after lawyers finished writing it, bolstering the county Health and Human Services Agencys ability to request assistance from the state and providing legal protections for a slate of actions that began unfolding across the city earlier in the day.

Working on a county contract, a private company began delivering portable hand-washing stations Friday morning in locations where homeless residents tend to congregate. Twenty stations were in place by the end of the day and 20 more, a county spokesman said, were scheduled for installation Saturday.

Advertisement

That effort is to be followed by street-cleaning crews shooting high-pressure water spiked with bleach to remove all feces, blood, bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces, according to a sanitation plan included in a letter delivered to city government Thursday.

The cleansing plans, Wooten said, are modeled on similar efforts used to control hepatitis A infections in Los Angeles.

We know that L.A. has had no local cases of hepatitis A related to the strain that were seeing here in San Diego, she said. It makes sense that, if theyre doing it there and they havent had any cases, it could be beneficial here as well.

It has been clear for some time that the local outbreak is far beyond ordinary. With 378 cases confirmed to date, its the largest surge seen in at least 20 years.

The first cases linked to the outbreak occurred in November 2016, but there werent enough of them until about March for local epidemiologists to know for sure that infections were spreading more quickly than usual. Most hepatitis A outbreaks are associated with specific foods picked or processed under unsanitary conditions. The virus that causes the condition lives in human feces and is spread when people dont wash their hands thoroughly enough after using the bathroom.

From the outset, the public health response to the outbreak has been vaccination and education. Though thousands of doses of vaccine have been distributed to date, that effort has not appreciably slowed infection rates while the number of deaths reported in recent weeks has accelerated.

Because infections are most common among the homeless who often have no access to sanitary facilities, the countys efforts began to turn toward hand washing and street cleaning in early summer.

But that transition has been painfully slow.

An article earlier this week published by Voice of San Diego pointed out bureaucratic hurdles which have delayed sanitation improvements even as public health nurses pursued a countywide vaccination campaign which targeted the homeless at shelters, while mobile teams explored the more remote locations where those without homes tend to go.

Thursdays letter was the first time the health department gave pointed and unequivocal direction to the city, stating that the municipality should take immediate action to address the unsanitary living conditions of the at-risk population.

The city responded early Friday morning with a press release that indicated it would work with the county to follow its guidelines, however, it may take 10 days to comply with the street-washing request due to a lawsuit that requires 72-hours notice before the spraying begins.

The sudden action begs a simple question: Why didnt all of this start back in late June or early July when the county first talked about hand-washing stations?

San Diego City Councilman David Alvarez fired off a memo to Mayor Kevin Faulconer Thursday demanding a crisis declaration, expressing his dissatisfaction that the outbreak has continued to claim lives while the city continues to wait for resolution to provide temporary housing which would presumably bring with it better access to the bathrooms and showers necessary to alleviate the current mess on city streets.

I just assumed the county was doing everything that they could do and that the city was facilitating what the county needed, but that has not been the case, Alvarez said. It just infuriated me that the bureaucracy was getting in the way of doing the right thing.

Criticism has also come from state Sen. Ben Hueso and the Service Employees Union International which have both said they do not believe the county employs enough public health nurses to meet the demands of the hepatitis A investigation while also handling large childrens health and foster care programs. On Wednesday the state legislatures Joint Committee On Legislative Audit approved Huesos request to determine whether or not the amount of health resources available are adequate. Committee members approved the audit request 10-3, and it is expected to take between four and five months to complete.

There was a lot of finger pointing between City Hall and the County Administration Center Thursday and Friday. Both sides insisted they were doing what they could in a situation that is unique.

There is no precedent for this, Wooten said. We will definitely have a playbook for if we have something like this in the future, but this is the first time we have had something of this nature happen.

She added that, in the coming days and weeks, the hand-washing and street-sanitizing efforts underway in San Diego will spread to other cities.

We were talking to El Cajon already, and we will be talking to Escondido, Oceanside, National City and Chula Vista soon, Wooten said.

Correction

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported one additional victim and the month the outbreak was determined. The story has been updated.

paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson
A Russian court Friday sentenced a former economy minister to eight years in a high-security prison on accusations that he took a $2-million bribe from a Kremlin aide close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The trial against Alexei Ulyukayev points to what many analysts think could be signs of internal power struggles in the Kremlin. Putin, 65, will face reelection next year, and by all expectations, he will win and rule for another six years until 2024. That will make him the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin.

But who will replace him remains unanswered, and analysts think the case against Ulyukayev may indicate that the Kremlins inner circle already is working to fill Putins chair after his departure.

Advertisement

Ulyukayev, 62, is the highest-ranking Russian official to stand trial in post-Soviet Russia. Prosecutors said Ulyukayev extorted a bribe from state oil firm Rosneft to give his approval on the purchase of another oil company. He was arrested in November 2016 at Rosnefts headquarters during a sting operation orchestrated by the Federal Security Service, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB.

Ulyukayev has denied the charges and said he was set up by Igor Sechin, Putins close ally and the head of Rosneft, Russias largest oil company. Sechin is considered to be one of the Russian presidents closest advisors. He is widely believed to be a top figure in the siloviki, a term used to describe Putins inner circle of former security service agents-turned-political elite.

Russias constitution forbids Putin from running after 2024, leaving open the question of who will be his successor. Analysts think many in his inner circle could be jockeying to make sure they are part of that decision-making process, including Sechin.

Everything that happens now in Russia is under the sign of political transition, said Alexander Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Of course the struggle begins as the bureaucracy is making choices with whom to link. Near Putins court, we will see the birth of smaller courts of those who want to be the next president or those who want to be the next president-maker.

As the head of Rosneft, Sechin had pushed for the companys purchase of Bashneft, another smaller state oil company. As economic minister, Ulyukayev had been critical of the purchase, but Rosneft needed his ministrys approval to go through with the sale.

Former Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev speaks from behind bars after a verdict announcement at a court in Moscow on Dec. 15, 2017. (Kochetk / EPA / Shutterstock )

According to court testimony, Sechin asked Ulyukayev to come to the Rosneft offices on Nov. 15, where he was presented with a gift basket containing sausages and what Ulyukayev has testified he thought were bottles of wine. Sechin instructed Ulyukayev to take the basket with sausages, a phrase that has now become a popular meme in Russia.

Instead of wine, the basket contained a bag with $2 million in cash. Security agents detained Ulyukayev as he was leaving the Rosneft building and later placed him under house arrest as he awaited trial.

Ulyukayev has said he thinks Sechin, who still has close ties to the security service agency, was behind the sting operation.

The judge called Sechin to court four times to testify during the hearings, but he never appeared. Each time he gave a different excuse about having a busy schedule until the end of 2017. On Nov. 22, judge Larisa Semyonov said Sechins excuses were acceptable, saying that letters from his office explained that he has a complex schedule that is set in advance.

Although Ulyukayev was in Putins cabinet as economic minister, he was not considered part of the siloviki and was seen as a liberal economist among Putins more conservative advisors.

This case is not about a struggle of the state against corruption, but rather a struggle inside the elite, Baunov said.

On one side, you have a group within the political elite who wants Russia to have democracy, or at least working, bureaucratic institutions that are real and not just a facade, Baunov said. Sechin prefers more informal procedures, in which the most important decisions and appointments be taken in a more informal, hidden way, he said.

The sentence was surprisingly harsh as it is the first time an acting member of the federal government has been convicted. It shows that the informal side of the political elites decision-making is still stronger in Russia than its legal facade, Baunov said.

Now, any person in the highest bureaucracy can see how risky it is to stay in Sechins way, Baunov said.

In his dramatic closing statements last week, Ulyukayev compared the court hearings to Stalin-era show trials.

An elderly gladiator at retirement age defends himself with a cardboard sword, and people sit back to watch the whole thing happily from their comfy seats, he said. Whether the thumb points up or down will decide his sentence. It was said long ago for whom the bell tolls. I want to say now that the bell could start tolling for any of you.

Ayres is a special correspondent.

sabra.ayres@latimes.com

Twitter: @sabraayres
Call it not talking about the Wall in the Room.

Senior U.S. and Mexican government officials on Thursday pledged to continue working together to fight international drug-trafficking organizations and other cross-border criminal enterprises.

They would not, however, be drawn into discussing ways that President Trumps vows to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and efforts to renegotiate the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement have soured relations between the two nations after two decades of improving ties.

Advertisement

Trumps belligerent remarks about Mexico and Mexicans during the campaign last year, and his insistence that Mexico will pay for the proposed multibillion-dollar border wall, which the Mexican government refuses to do, have added to the strains.

But Mexican officials insisted Thursday that negotiations to improve security from transnational crime and terrorism would not be derailed.

I want to be absolutely clear: Mexico will cooperate with the United States in security matters because it is in the interest of Mexico and Mexicans, said Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray.

No bilateral issue will change our focus on security, agreed Mexicos interior minister, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

They and Mexicos acting attorney general, Alberto Elias Beltran, met at the State Department with Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan for the latest high-level meeting on improving border security and combating drug trafficking. Among other measures, they signed a memo of cooperation for sharing biometrics of known criminals.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was scheduled to preside but went to lunch instead at the White House with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis.

Trump threatened to pull out of NAFTA during the campaign last year, and Mexican officials hinted at the time that they might slow cooperation in stopping illegal immigration northward if he did. But with the U.S., Mexico and Canada negotiating to redraft parts of the trilateral accord, Mexican officials on Thursday appeared determined to dispel that notion.

At least in public, they also avoided addressing the impact of U.S. demands to rewrite key provisions in the trade deal, changes that could hurt Mexicos economy. Mexico faces presidential elections next year, and Trump has managed to rev up anti-American sentiment to a level not seen there in years.

Instead, each official emphasized cooperation and agreed that drug-trafficking networks had to be fought along every link in the chain, as Videgaray put it at a news conference, from production and distribution in Mexico to purchase and consumption in the U.S., and all the financial facilitators in between.

Close collaboration is the only way we can tackle a problem that has no respect for borders, Sullivan said.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter
San Diego is spending $33 million on a cutting-edge firefighting helicopter and a new hangar at Montgomery-Gibbs Field to house the new chopper and two older models the city operates.

City officials said the new chopper will play a key role in helping San Diego fight larger and more aggressive wildfires that California has begun experiencing as climate change accelerates.

The City Council this week unanimously approved $20 million for the new chopper, which is capable of dropping nearly three times the water of the citys current choppers  1,000 gallons versus 375 gallons.

Advertisement

The council also approved spending just under $13 million on the hangar, but that approval came after a contentious debate about whether the money would be better spent on building fire stations in neighborhoods with weak response times.

A consultants report released in the spring recommended San Diego prioritize new stations to fill geographic coverage gaps in six areas of the city with response times that exceed national standards.

Based on that report, the citys independent budget analyst recommended the council consider spending the money earmarked for the hangar on a new station or some other public safety priority.

While the project would serve the needs of the city, the helicopter hangar would not move the city toward its previously identified high priority goal for the Fire-Rescue Department of reducing emergency response times in areas of the city where service level standards are currently not being met, Chris Olsen, fiscal and policy analyst for the IBA, told the council during a Wednesday hearing.

Three council members agreed and lobbied their colleagues to delay a decision until next year on the hangar money, which is part of a $23 million payout the city is receiving under a 1998 national settlement with tobacco companies.

Council President Myrtle Cole said boosting coverage in neglected areas of the city is more important than a hangar for helicopters.

With the increasing number of fires and emergencies, it is important that our communities have equity in service, she said.

Fire Chief Brian Fennessy said fire stations remain the highest priority for the city, but that the tobacco money must be spent within three years and the hangar is the only shovel-ready project the department has right now.

A fire station planned for Fairmount Avenue near City Heights, the citys highest priority station, cant be built that quickly because of environmental hurdles on land the city recently bought for the station, he said.

The chief also emphasized that the hangar is a crucial project.

Aside from the new helicopter, Ive got $16 million worth of aircraft sitting out in the weather, said Fennessy, referring to the two choppers the city already owns. This is a citywide response vehicle that needs to be housed.

Councilman Scott Sherman agreed, saying it would be shortsighted not to properly house the $20 million helicopter.

To me, that would be like going down to a car lot and buying a Lamborghini and taking it home and throwing it out on a dirt lot, Sherman said.

The council voted 7-2 in favor of funding the hangar project, but added stipulations that city officials create a timeline for new fire stations by January and a funding plan for the Fairmount station by February.

Fennessy said having three choppers instead of two would ensure the city has at least two available at all times, explaining that the choppers are frequently out of service for maintenance and repairs.

The new helicopter is called a Firehawk, which Fennessy said is quickly becoming the standard for attacking wildfires.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department owns three and is buying two more, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection agreed last week to buy 12, he said.

In addition to dumping water on wildfires, it can conduct hoistair rescues, shoreline rescues, swiftwater rescues, night vision goggle operations, patient transports, vehicle rescues, large animal rescues and infrared detection.

Fennessy said the city needed to upgrade its choppers in the face of greater wildfire danger.

Climate change is causing year-round fire seasons, he said. Fires are spreading more rapidly and becoming larger, and were seeing greater loss of life and structures than weve ever seen before.

The citys existing firefighting helicopters are made by Bell.

The first was manufactured in 1980 and bought by the city in 2005, just over a year after the notorious 2003 Cedar Fire made clear the region lacked adequate resources to fight wildfires.

The second was bought new in 2008, shortly after the 2007 Witch Fire. Fennessy said its more effective and reliable and gets much more use by firefighters than the 1980 model, but noted it has the same water capacity  375 gallons.

The city will pay $9.8 million of the choppers $20 million purchase price up front and finance the balance.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher has called on San Diego labor leader Mickey Kasparian to resign his position with the county Democratic Party and various community organizations.

Its a public split between a politician and playmaker who have not only been important factors in their mutual successes, but worked together in leadership positions at the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council and in their advocacy for working families from the picket lines to Sacramento.

Gonzalez Fletchers demand came a day after news broke that Kasparian, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, was sued by Melody Godinez, an activist in the labor community who said that Kasparian forced himself onto her in his office and groped her several times. Kasparian denies Godinezs accusations, as well as claims other women made in separate lawsuits.

Advertisement

I have remained publicly quiet during our local drama regarding Mickey Kasparian, Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, said in a message posted to Facebook on Friday afternoon. Many of you understand that my long history with all those involved kept me from getting into it publicly. Nonetheless, given the latest allegations, I have asked Mickey to resign from the positions of power and influence he holds, while he fights these allegations in court.

I believe in due process, but I am disturbed that a string of Latina women from my district have felt so threatened by one person, Gonzalez Fletcher continued. Ultimately, it is up to the members of UFCW whether to retain him as their leader. Nonetheless, Mickey should step down from his alternate position on Central Committee and on community boards to ensure no women feel unsafe during the litigation of these accusations.

Gonzalez Flethers social media post did not specifically call on the UFCW to remove Kasparian from his job as president of that organization, which pays a salary of $209,000. She also did not specifically call for his removal as president of the San Diego Working Families Council, a coalition of labor unions.

Gonzalez Fletchers spokesman did not respond to an email requesting an interview, while Kasparian did not immediately return a text message requesting comment. Jessica Hayes, the head of the local Democratic party, did not return a voicemail message.

Dan Gilleon, the attorney representing the three women who have sued Kasparian, said Gonzalez Fletchers demand fits into the ongoing national discussion about sexual harassment against women and an increasing unwillingness to tolerate bad behavior from powerful men against women.

I think this is consistent with the larger political story unfolding across the country. A year ago when there were three women complaining, the Democratic Party here in San Diego was largely moot regarding Kasparian stepping down. Now, post-MeToo, politicians are calling for resignations for the same conduct, he wrote in an email

While Democrats on the national level have excised members accused of mistreating women  Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., resigned from his seat and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., announced hell soon leave the Senate  with few exceptions, current and former San Diego Democrats in elected offices havent made similar demands.

Former San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye and Irene McCormack Jackson, the former communications director for disgraced ex-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner and the first woman to step forward and accuse him of sexual harassment, called on Kasparian to resign before the new lawsuit filed this week.

Other Democrats, including Gonzalez Fletchers brother, Marco Gonzalez, said in a February letter to Local 135, the Labor Council, and the state and local Democratic Parties, that Kasparian should be suspended from his posts and called for those organizations to investigate the labor leader.

While Gonzalez Fletcher and Kasparian worked together on the Labor Council  she was the CEO and secretary-treasurer and he was its president  a rift developed in 2014 during the election for San Diegos mayor. Kasparian backed San Diego Councilman David Alvarez while Gonzalez Fetcher backed former Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, who is now her husband.

Kasparian later dropped his support for Alvarez, and Alvarez has been one of Kasparians biggest critics through the allegations. He praised Gonzalez Fletcher in a tweet.

Welcome. Now prepare for the wrath of Mickey. Ill stand with you when he retaliates, because he will. Other elected Dems joining us? Alvarez said.

Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841
The concepts of transparency, confidentiality and secrecy are colliding as two major San Diego institutions are working to fill a couple of the regions most vital jobs.

The city of San Diego is conducting a search for a new police chief and San Diego State University is looking for a president.

They arent telling the public whos applying and the finalists wont ever be revealed. The university and city plan to announce the sole selection for president and chief early next year.

Advertisement

Both say a open search can hurt applicants in their current jobs and thus limits the number and quality of candidates who apply.

But from there, the paths SDSU and the city take diverge, triggering a debate  at least on the city side  about secrecy.

SDSUs advisory committee members  faculty, students, CSU officials, alumni and community members  are listed publicly. They have held two forums seeking input on what they should be looking for in a new president to follow Sally Roush. She is serving as an interim until a permanent replacement is chosen for Elliot Hirshman, whose six-year tenure as president ended in June. That decision will be made by the California State University Board of Trustees, with input from the committee.

Who is on the citys police chief advisory committee is being kept private for now. The reasoning is that panelists, if known, could be subject to pressure from interest groups as well as candidates seeking to replace Chief Shelley Zimmerman, who retires in March.

In the face of some criticism, Mayor Kevin Faulconers administration says this is a transparent process and heres why: Community groups are being asked to name a representative to the advisory committee. The city will publicly name those groups before the candidate vetting gets underway, but will not name the individuals until later, according to Ron Villa, the citys deputy chief operating officer.

This gives the public an idea of those involved without exposing individual members.

All 24 panel positions will be filled by members of community groups throughout the City, including representatives from several of the Citys boards and commissions, Katie Keach, the citys communications director, said in an email.

City officials and a contracted executive search firm, Roseville-based Bob Murray & Associates, will weed out unlikely candidates early on and bring the pool down to a manageable size. The advisory committee will look at that group and make recommendations to a smaller panel of law enforcement experts who will zero in on the candidates records, experience and managerial abilities, according to Villa.

Recommendations then go to the mayor to make a selection. Faulconer will send his nomination to the City Council for a confirmation hearing, where members can question the candidate and make comments. There will be a public comment period as well.

Sometime before that meeting, but after their work is done, advisory committee members will be identified, Villa said.

Earlier, the city held several public forums on what qualities people want in a police chief. That information was gathered and will be forwarded to the advisory committee. Villa says this process, worked out in consultation with management firms, avoids the potential of a volatile public process that tends to discourage applicants.

We want to get the most qualified applicants interested in the city of San Diego process, he said.

The application period closed last Friday, and while he didnt have numbers, Villa said theres a broad spectrum of candidates. The plan is to have a new chief hired by the time Zimmerman steps down.

From the citys perspective, a chief of police is a contentious position  not that there isnt politics in higher education  and demands a protected search. Officer-involved shootings, racial profiling concerns, body camera use and other matters roil the public and can make an open process more difficult.

I certainly understand the citys position, said Trevor Blair, principal and founder of Blair Search Partners, which is not involved in San Diegos police chief search. These flash-point issues can really turn the selection process into a lightning rod.

Other cities have had a more open process, including public knowledge of who the police chief applicants are, or the finalists. Some critics have said San Diego should follow that route or at least reveal whos on the advisory panel up front.

Donna Frye, past president of the open government group California Aware, said she doesnt have a problem with keeping applicants confidential.

There has to be some ability for people to look for other jobs without that becoming a piece of public information, said Frye, a former San Diego City Council member.

But she insists that its wrong not to be open about the advisory committee membership.

What is the point of that? She said. You have no way of holding these people accountable The whole idea is to influence their decision. That is not a bad thing.

She argued that the current set-up does not eliminate the potential for influence, but limits it to certain people, such as the mayors inner circle.

At the end of the day, she said, a mayor can still do his or her thing.
A 19-year-old man and a juvenile were arrested Thursday night in connection with a robbery at a cafe in Carlsbad where the assailants tried to steal a tip jar, police said.

Police were called to Vinaka Cafe on Carlsbad Village Drive near Washington Street about 7 p.m. after receiving a report that a man had used a weapon to try to steal from the business.

When officers arrived, they found several people attempting to hold down two people who appeared to be combative, according to Lt. Jeffery Smith.

Advertisement

An investigation revealed that employees at the cafe had seen the two suspects take the tip jar. They confronted the thieves and an argument ensued, during which one of the suspects pulled out what looked like a firearm.

Police determined later that the weapon was an Airsoft-type pellet gun.

After the initial altercation inside the cafe, the 19-year-old assaulted a woman by hitting her in the face, damaging her cellphone and pointing the pellet gun at her.

Witnesses intervened and detained the two suspects until police arrived.

Both suspects were arrested. The adult was booked into the Vista jail on suspicion of robbery, assault, brandishing a weapon and drug charges. The younger suspect was taken to Juvenile Hall.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
A dog that appeared to be suffering from extreme starvation was found in Logan Heights last week, and county authorities are asking for the publics help to find the animals owner.

The dog, which appeared to be a Cane Corso, was found Dec. 6, according to the county Department of Animal Services. Someone in the neighborhood spotted the dog, which looked to have been abused, and brought it to the county shelter on Gaines Street.

The dog looked to be about 5 years old and was so thin that its ribs and spine were visible. It weighed just under 63 lbs.

Advertisement

Normally, county authorities said, a dog of that breed and age would weigh more than 100 lbs., authorities said.

There is absolutely no excuse for this poor dog to be in such horrific condition, said Dan DeSousa, director of county Animal Services, in a statement. Blood tests show nothing out of the ordinary to explain why this dog is so emaciated. The only reason left is that someone starved this dog.

Now named Bruno, the dog has been under the care of the countys veterinary staff since it was brought to the shelter and has been gaining weight, authorities said. As of Friday, he weighed a little over 73 lbs.

Staffers described Bruno as an extremely friendly dog.

According to county authorities, the dog has a condition knows as happy tail and has wagged his tail so much that he accidentally hit some hard objects and injured it. Veterinarians may have to amputate the tail, which is now bandaged, if the condition does not improve.

The dogs owner could face animal cruelty charges if found. Anyone with information is asked to call San Diego County Animal Services at (619) 767-2740.

While Bruno is recovering, the county has begun accepting applications to adopt him. Those who are interested have to fill out and submit an application by Wednesday, Dec. 20.

Applications can be dropped off at any of the countys three shelters  5480 Gaines St. in San Diego, 2481 Palomar Airport Rd. in Carlsbad, and 5821 Sweetwater Rd. in Bonita  or emailed to dasinfo@sdcounty.ca.gov.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
San Diego police homicide investigators have arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting of a man in Linda Vista more than a year ago.

Orlando Javier Sanchez, 31, of San Diego, was jailed Wednesday on a murder charge in the death of 23-year-old Jordy Lopez, homicide unit Lt. Todd Griffin said.

Sanchez was walking down Comstock Street near Linda Vista Drive about 4 a.m. on Oct. 15, 2016, when someone in a passing vehicle threw a beer bottle at him, police said. Then someone in the same vehicle shot Lopez in the torso. A witness had heard the gunshots and called police.

Advertisement

Lopez died four hours later at a trauma center.

Griffin said investigators identified Sanchez as a suspect in the killing, but did not say what the relationship was between the two men.

Investigators obtained a warrant for Sanchezs arrest and took him into custody on Wednesday.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
A former Marine who served two tours in Iraq was sentenced Thursday to 16 years to life in prison for stabbing a friend to death in the friends Oceanside home as the victims two toddlers slept.

Last month, a North County jury convicted David Anthony Strouth, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, of second-degree murder for killing Brad Garner, 49, while the two were hanging out in Garners garage.

Inside the home, a babysitter was with Garners sons, then ages 2 and 3, who were sleeping on the couch.

Advertisement

Before sentencing Strouth, Vista Superior Court Judge K. Michael Kirkman denied a request from Strouths attorney to reduce the jurys verdict to manslaughter.

There was no dispute at trial that Strouth, who was living in Oceanside after spending 10 years in the Marine Corps, had PTSD. Doctors on both sides of the case said that he suffered from the disorder.

As a Marine, Strouth served a five-month tour in Iraq and returned stateside in spring 2007. He returned to Iraq in December of that year for an 11-month tour.

Strouth was honorably discharged as a corporal in 2014. According to a trial brief filed by the prosecution shortly before trial, a depressed Strouth was going through a divorce in the spring of 2015.

Sometime before 9:30 p.m. on April 24, as Garners toddlers slept on the couch, their babysitter heard a loud crash in the garage. Strouth entered the home shortly thereafter, and the sitter asked him if something had fallen.

Hell fell, was part of his reply. He returned to the garage.

Strouth soon stumbled back inside, according to the brief. He told the sitter that Garner was the devil, but that he had slayed the beast.

The woman fled the home, but returned with two neighbors who had armed themselves to protect the sleeping toddlers.

Strouth, who had started cutting himself, asked the neighbors and responding police to kill him, according to the prosecutions filing.

Police found Strouths bloody K-bar knife  with the inscription Operation Iraqi Freedom  in the garage.

At trial, Strouth testified that it had been self-defense, telling the jury that Garner had come at him with the knife, and they struggled, but Strouth won control of it.

Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza said Friday he was pleased with the outcome of the case. He said in October that the verdict demonstrated that PTSD may explain but does not excuse an unprovoked killing.

Strouths attorney, Sloan Ostbye, had argued that Strouth could not have had the state of mind to form malice  a required element to find a person guilty of murder  because of the PTSD.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
San Diego police arrested two people after a reported home invasion robbery in Pacific Beach on Thursday night.

The incident started about 9:10 p.m., when a 40-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walked into a residence where the door was already open, San Diego police Officer Robert Heims said.

The pair demanded money from a woman inside. Heims said the two suspects took property from the home and took off.

Advertisement

Police arrested a male suspect first. After a search, they found and arrested a female suspect as well.

.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
People living in poverty in San Diego County are under-enrolled in government benefit programs, causing the local economy to miss out on $1 billion of economic activity each year, according to a study released Wednesday.

Besides depriving tens of thousands of families of adequate nutrition and services they need, the continuing low enrollment leaves federal and state money on the table year after year. These funds could greatly boost local businesses and the regional economy, says the report from the Center on Policy Initiatives, a nonprofit research group that focuses on economic issues for working families and communities.

The study focused on the states food stamp program CalFresh, short-term cash and assistance program CalWORKs, and Medi-Cal, the states version of Medicaid. The report says 14.7 percent of the countys residents live below the federal poverty level and are eligible for at least one of these benefits.

Advertisement

Between the three programs, financially eligible county residents miss out on $714 million in direct assistance per year. If that money had ended up in their homes, it would have created $905 million in economic activity and supported 6,450 new jobs, according to the report.

The county said enrollment has increased in each of the three programs since 2007. CalFresh had nearly 92,000 enrolled in March, 2007, now it has just a few hundred shy of 300,000 in September. CalWORKS went from 60,000 to nearly 70,000. Medi-Cal had around 265,000, but increased to nearly 723,000 recipients.

The county said it works with community organizations to increase enrollment and promote awareness of benefit programs. Applicants can enroll online, by phone and mail, and oftentimes receive personal assistance with the sign-up process.

The report recommend that the county commits to enrolling every eligible resident into benefit programs by 2020. It should increase outreach to find and educate eligible residents, and partner with groups that work with underrepresented communities. The county also should spend more money to hire a culturally and linguistically diverse staff to help with outreach and enrollment.

The county has 1,463 health and human services specialists, up from 1,044 in 2010 and 2011. It doesnt have an application backlog and it meets state-mandated processing deadlines with time to spare, the county said in a statement.

These three programs are paid for with state and federal money, and the county is largely reimbursed for the administrative costs of enrollment and running the program, the report said.

The county has tried to increase enrollment but participation rates remain low, the report said.

The study, which relied on government data and reports from universities and think tanks for its analysis, says that San Diego County is one of the worse jurisdictions in the state and country when it comes to benefit enrollments.

The biggest loss comes from under-enrollment in CalFresh, a program that helps beneficiaries buy food. Only 49.5 percent of of eligible residents are enrolled, leaving $394 million in benefits on the table, the report says. San Diego County county ranks 9th in a ranking of the 10 most populous counties in California. County residents could also realize another $155 million from CalWORKs, and $165 million from Medi-Cal, the report says.

The enrollment rates are troubling, the report says, because county has a $2.6 billion reserve. Spending some of this money on signing people up for benefits would have paid for itself in economic development and could have lessened the effects of the recession, the report said.

The county said that some of this reserve, by law is obligated to other expenses.

Without a doubt, the choice not to use these reserves to aggressively respond to the economic recession contributed to and prolonged the suffering of some of San Diegos most vulnerable residents, the study said. That choice has also hurt the San Diego economy overall, which means it impacted business owners and unemployed and underemployed residents who were adversely impacted by the slow recovery from the recession.
Eric Hildebrandt first raised the red flag in an annual report written in 2015 for his bosses overseeing Californias electricity market. He raised the same issue in a 2016 report. And he is raising it again in a recently released 2017 report.

The warning to the California Independent System Operator: Trading by speculators and other investors in an obscure financial instrument pegged to electricity transmission is costing the states electricity customers an average of $76 million a year, contributing to higher rates. From 2009 to 2017, Hildebrandt reported to the state, California ratepayers lost almost $700 million, and the tab keeps growing.

While generating profits for investors with returns averaging 146% a year, the trading serves little purpose for energy users and shouldnt cost consumers a dime, his reports have concluded. Hildebrandt recommends the trading  also cited for its vulnerability to market manipulation akin to the Enron scandal  be terminated.

Its not needed, said Hildebrandt, director of Cal-ISOs market monitoring division. Stop subsidizing a free market. Dont expose the ratepayers to the losses.

Despite the warnings, the trading has continued with minor modifications. Although the losses over time have narrowed somewhat, the $49 million in losses so far in 2017 already have exceeded last years total by nearly $2 million through the end of October.

Advertisement

Lax oversight of trading in energy markets, critics contend, is another example of how the states regulatory bodies have failed Californias electricity users. Rather than protecting consumers from extreme fluctuations in energy prices when demand spikes, regulations have burdened them with paying for the profits Wall Street collects.

This has added to the cost of electricity, which is already rising rapidly because the state has allowed more power plants to be built than are needed while failing to coordinate the expansion of renewable energy sources. As a result, California consumers are paying 50% more for electricity than the average user in other states  $6.8 billion a year more than just under a decade ago, even though theyre using less electricity.

Critics of Californias energy market say the burden on consumers will only get worse if Cal-ISOs authority is expanded. Currently, Cal-ISO controls Californias electric grid, but it has proposed broadening its jurisdiction across almost a dozen Western states with eyes toward parts of Canada and Mexico.

 Searchable speadsheet of FERC civil penalties

Hildebrandts concerns are bolstered, those critics say, by recurring attempts at market manipulation by investors. Federal regulators have assessed $1.6 billion in penalties against traders, banks, utilities, power producers and grid operators for various violations since anti-manipulation laws were enacted by Congress in 2005, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found.

More than a third of the assessed penalties have been tied to Californias energy market.

In some ways, banks, financial traders and others have ripped pages from the Enron-era playbook, creating variations on the electricity trading strategies used during the California energy crisis, when schemes named Get Shorty and Death Star contributed to rolling blackouts.

The biggest penalties involved JP Morgan and Barclays. Federal regulators assessed those two banks more than a half-billion dollars, including a $105-million settlement last month with Barclays for alleged trading violations that occurred from 2006 to 2008. The majority of the assessed penalties go into federal coffers, though some fines are awarded to consumers for harm they suffered.

Jon Wellinghoff, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said he believes the system has improved over the last 10 years with increased federal enforcement and stiff penalties.

I think the banks understood pretty quickly that they couldnt engage in those kinds of practices, Wellinghoff said.

But other market players not accused of wrongdoing have tapped high-risk investment opportunities such as the one Hildebrandt is protesting.

Cal-ISOs transmission-related investment vehicle was created as a hedge against unexpected fluctuations in electricity prices.

In this case, it involves the cost of transmitting electricity over power lines, which is one component in the overall price of electricity. For example, when demand increases dramatically, it can at times lead to congestion on a particular power line, requiring power producers to send electricity a more circuitous  and potentially expensive  route.

Basic economics kicks in: The price of energy rises with increased demand for a power line, like a toll road where fees rise and fall depending on traffic.

By trading something known as congestion revenue rights, power plant owners can try to offset, or hedge, against transmission price surges, which ultimately the ratepayer must bear. Financial institutions also jumped in when they realized they could make money. In fact, their participation in the program has increased more than that of any other group.

Investors make money when utilities need to push more electricity than expected through the power-line location where investors have purchased congestion rights.

Energy markets in other areas of the country have faced criticism for similar practices that cost consumers.

Keith Casey, Cal-ISOs vice president for market and infrastructure development, said Cal-ISO, which recently released a report on the program, is reviewing it and hopes to enact a new policy next year.

Casey said the trading is an important tool that provides protection against soaring electricity prices. Losses to consumers, he said, are a small fraction of the annual cost of Californias $8-billion energy market.

Any draconian change or abolishing [the investment] altogether could have big ramifications, Casey said.

But critics such as Hildebrandt argue that the only real danger of ending the program is the threat to Wall Street profits that consumers keeping funding.

Although the program was supposed to pay for itself, investors kept winning big. One reason why is because they were allowed to purchase the congestion rights at very low prices. Hildebrandts latest report found that ratepayers lost 48 cents per dollar on each transaction.

That has led to the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, all shouldered by California consumers.

And thats not the only problem, critics note  the investment programs have been vulnerable to manipulation by market players.

Michael Rosenberg became a high-stakes gambler in Cal-ISOs electricity market when he began buying congestion revenue rights almost a decade ago.

Rosenberg, a physicist, benefited from his knowledge of the energy world. He had worked for several power and gas companies, including New Englands electricity grid manager and California shareholder-owned utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

In spring 2011, about a decade after the California energy crisis had ended, regulators say, Rosenberg and his then-3-year-old Etracom were losing money on the congestion investment.

Then Rosenberg changed his approach.

Rosenberg bet on electricity flow at the New Melones connection in Northern California, roughly between Stockton and Yosemite National Park. When electricity failed to move in the direction of his bet, Rosenberg, federal investigators say, worked to reroute the flow of electricity, like setting up roadblocks and detour signs to redirect traffic.

Rosenberg fostered the change in power-flow direction by offering to acquire and sell electricity to wholesale users at below-market prices, investigators said.

He lost money selling cheap electricity but made far more from the transmission through New Melones.

Etracom realized exponential growth in revenue, swinging from losses of $2 per megawatt to earnings of $35 a megawatt.

Rosenberg blamed Cal-ISOs market design and software errors that allowed for his strategy, an argument that regulators rejected.

Market design flaws do not excuse manipulative conduct and sometimes provide the context for it, investigators concluded.

Federal regulators have imposed $2.5 million in penalties against Etracom and $100,000 against Rosenberg. They also ordered more than $315,000 in profits returned to consumers.

Rosenberg continues to dispute the penalties.

Were confident that well be able to show we didnt violate any laws, said Robert S. Fleishman, Rosenbergs lawyer, declining to discuss the case further because of the pending litigation.

The penalties are part of more than $1.6 billion in fines that federal regulators have assessed banks, traders, utilities and even electricity grid operators such as Cal-ISO. The penalties reflect the higher scrutiny given to the nations energy markets after manipulation of Californias electricity system during the Enron scandal.

Larry Parkinson, director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions enforcement division, said his department is 10 times larger than it was during the days of Enron, which has enabled better policing of manipulation. In addition, technology has led to tools that investigators didnt have in the past.

But Parkinson added that bad actors always attempt to abuse the complex system  something he does not see going away anytime soon.

Carrie Bentley, a consultant for the Western Power Trading Forum, an association of energy industry participants, said the Cal-ISO Department of Market Monitoring  of which she was once an employee  is being overly aggressive in attacking the congestion revenue rights problem.

She said eliminating the program would jeopardize the stability of the energy market. The financial support the investments provide, Bentley said, helps ensure that there is sufficient funding to keep plants in operation and consumers lights on while preventing wild spikes in electricity prices.

Dont throw out the baby, Bentley said.

Instead of scaling back programs, defenders of Cal-ISOs operations argue, they should grow. They say that expanding Cal-ISOs programs and operations will improve management of excess solar and wind power and that reducing use of fossil fuels requires the ability to share resources between states. They argue that the larger system will save $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year by 2030.

Ralph Cavanagh, a program co-director at the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of the leading proponents of a single Western grid manager, said that a unified electricity grid operation would bring with it increased scrutiny and, as a result, better transparency and less market manipulation. He said with multiple states involved, there would be more people to review the organization than there are with Cal-ISO today.

Cavanagh said he sees opportunities to create more consumer choice, increase clean energy and cut costs if Cal-ISO expands across the West. Such an expansion could help resolve some of the problems with power line congestion, he said.

Yes, there are significant congestion issues across the grid right now, Cavanagh said. But with an expanded Cal-ISO, we would be paying less for congestion.

Powerlines run near CA-50 on the east side of Sacramento. (David Butow/For The Times)

Critics dont see it that way. And some, such as Parkinson of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, go as far as to say that a larger operation invites more potential problems.

I think almost by definition, the more market participants you have, the more likely it is that some of them may be folks that are trying to exploit loopholes or vulnerabilities in those markets, Parkinson said.

Banks, investors and power companies, said Tyson Slocum, of Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen.

That would also likely result in more trading pegged to such physical operations as electricity transmission  and potentially even higher trading losses paid at ratepayers expense, Slocum said. Those risks should be enough to prompt policy changes and avoid a regional system thats already proved problematic in the Midwest and the East.

All of them have poor track records when it comes to transparency, public accountability and ensuring in a transparent process that all stakeholders have equal representation, Slocum said. As long as the electricity markets are going to be run by private entities, expanding that is a huge gamble for consumers.

Los Angeles Times Data Editor Ben Welsh contributed to this story.

The data analysis has been published as open-source software.
The Democratic Party is the party of womens rights. We defend the right to choose. We fight for equal pay for equal work. We demand equality in access to healthcare.

So in recent months as sexual harassment revelations have reverberated nationwide, the Democratic Party has taken swift, unequivocal action to support the brave women breaking the silence on sexual harassment in the workplace and halls of power.

Related: How San Diego could have been spared a Mayor Filner

Advertisement

Related: Warning signs of sexual harassment cant be ignored like Filner was

The Democratic Party here in California has joined the #MeToo and #WeSaidEnough movements to demand immediate reforms in the State Capitol and Congress to shine a light on harassment, hold perpetrators accountable and protect victims. That includes much-needed reforms including a confidential hotline to report harassment, independent investigations to review allegations and full public disclosure of all claims and settlements paid for with taxpayer dollars.

The Democratic Party has not equivocated in speaking truth to power and calling on elected Democrats accused of sexual harassment to step down from office. Party leaders have stood up to state legislators accused of harassment and called for their resignations.

It was Democrats in Washington who rightly forced Al Franken and John Conyers to leave office. We will not tolerate any double standards.

Of course, San Diego Democrats have unique experience with this issue. As past chair of the San Diego Democratic Party, I spoke out and backed the victims calls for Bob Filners resignation after shocking revelations of Filners harassment and abuse surfaced in 2013.

Democratic leaders acted swiftly to demand Filners resignation after victims came forward. Soon after the first formal complaints, the Democratic Party voted to call for Filners ouster.

Democrats took prompt action against harassment then and are continuing to do so now because we refuse to be complicit.

Unfortunately, now there are those who are trying to rewrite history to suit their own political interests.

Former Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, currently raising money for her latest political campaign, claims to have alerted the Democratic Party about Filner, but Saldana herself was complicit in covering up Bob Filners sexual abuse.

During Filners mayoral campaign, Saldana, while claiming to have been a whistleblower, in fact did not provide any actionable information to me or others about Bob Filners behavior. Then, Saldana, as a central committee member sat silent while the party endorsed Filner and then personally endorsed and supported him despite her claims of firsthand knowledge of Filners reprehensible record of sexual harassment and abuse.

Now Saldana is cynically exploiting victims of sexual harassment in an effort to gain political traction, even though when women needed her most, Lori Saldana sided with Bob Filner.

These attacks against the Democratic Party cannot go unanswered. Because if theres one lesson the silence breakers courageous action demands we learn, it is that silence enables the abuse to continue. And all of us have a responsibility to stand up, speak out and break the silence.

Democrats are fighting to advance legal reforms in Sacramento and Washington to strengthen whistleblower protections and prevent retaliation against victims.

At the local level, including here in San Diego, the Democratic Party is pushing to expose harassment, reform policies at local agencies that keep abuse under wraps and do everything within our power to express solidarity with the silence breakers who are fighting for justice for women that is long overdue.

The reckoning on sexual harassment in America has forced all of us to confront a harsh reality that far too many women have lived with for far too long.

The pain, shame and terror perpetrators force upon their victims creates a vicious cycle of abuse where women are afraid to come forward and abusers are not held accountable. Its time to put an end to it.

Thats why the Democratic Party is demanding systemic reforms in government to end the culture of sexual harassment, expose harassers and predators in positions of power and always show our solidarity with victims who come forward to face down their perpetrators.

The Democratic Party has always been the party of womens rights. Now, we must be the party that stands with women to break the silence once and for all.

Durfee, former chairman of the San Diego Democratic Party, is chair of the Western Region Caucus of the Democratic National Committee.
Red flags about Bob Filners inappropriate behavior and abuse of power were well known for years. Incidents like a 2003 episode at an El Centro immigration detention center when Filner pushed past an immigration officer to go into a restricted area, proclaiming, Im a congressman, I can do whatever I want.

Or when he shoved a female airport baggage claim employee at Washington Dulles International Airport, which resulted in his arrest and eventually a no contest plea, generating embarrassing national headlines.

Related: How San Diego could have been spared a Mayor Filner

Advertisement

Related: True Democrats side with sexual harassment silence breakers

But there was a different kind of abuse that while not known to the public, was well-known among Democratic Party leaders and insiders  and ignored. In 2012, with Filner positioned to win the San Diego mayors race, the first time a Democrat would be San Diego mayor in 20 years, party leaders ignored the warning signs of sexual harassment, eager to have one of their own controlling City Hall. This could happen again, and with either party; we must learn from this debacle and more carefully vet the character of our candidates.

As a congressman for two decades, Filner spent most of his time in Washington and most San Diego voters were unaware of his behavior. Its easier to get away with bad actions as one of 435 members in the U.S. House of Representatives  its much harder when you are the chief executive of the eighth largest city in America.

But where was the watchdog media in all of this? Even while rumors persisted during the campaign about Filners sexually abusive behavior, there was little effort from the press to investigate.

Filner was victorious, but in July 2013, as the talk of his sexual harassment increased, former Democratic Councilwoman Donna Frye demanded his resignation and triggered a cascade of civic leaders calls for him to step down. Former Assemblywoman Lori Saldana came forward and revealed that she had warned party leadership about Filner in 2011 but that those leaders ignored the warnings, preferring political advantage over the protection of innocent women.

Understandably, women who were victimized by Filner were reluctant to come forward but as the first few did, many more found the courage to share their stories. It is unfortunate that in todays politics, the thirst for power obscures the obligation to protect the people we represent.

In October 2012, after running unsuccessfully against him in the mayors race, I criticized Filner for his disruptive, disrespectful and demeaning actions, especially to women. And I pointed out the challenge these women face in the Voice of San Diego: Women dont want to step forward because they are afraid of his vindictive nature.

Ironically, Filner pointed to his support from female elected officials and womens organizations, and called my comments a personal attack. Others called my comments purely political. My warnings, like Lori Saldanas, were dismissed and Filners behavior persisted. Several women who defended him have since apologized to me, and Im sure others regret their complicity in his abuse.

For several weeks now, weve had daily reminders of how pervasive this kind of behavior is among the powerful. Through the #MeToo campaign, women are finding their courage, finding their voices, and sharing their stories and their pain. And for the first time, finding justice through public awareness and support.

Sexual harassment and assault are about power and control, which is the very thing that prevents victims from coming forward. Their fear of loss of career and public humiliation make them vulnerable; the abuser counts on their silence.

We can no longer allow political power or expediency to justify silence. It is more important than ever that we hold our candidates  and ourselves  to a higher standard. Just because a candidate can win for a party doesnt mean that person deserves to be in office.

Just because someone is a champion of civil rights, womens rights, veterans rights, tax reform or any issue that is our common cause, we shouldnt tolerate behavior that compromises anyones rights.

Around the country, from powerful Hollywood producers like Harvey Weinstein, to media personalities like Matt Lauer, to politicians from both parties like Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, abusers are being exposed. As a society, we not only need to learn from it  we need to make sure it never happens again.

Dumanis, former San Diego County district attorney, is a candidate for county supervisor.
As voters watch the lists of men resigning from elected office grow longer, and allegations of sexual harassment stretch from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento, its time to develop an objective, nonpartisan, transparent process to investigate misconduct complaints before people are elected to office.

Currently, research is typically done by political operatives who dig up dirt on opponents. Whats needed is an independent, nonpartisan investigative body to thoroughly vet complaints against candidates during elections.

Related: True Democrats side with sexual harassment silence breakers

Advertisement

Related: Warning signs of sexual harassment cant be ignored like Filner was

I propose this after serving on the Assembly Ethics Committee, where I reviewed complaints against colleagues accused of illegal or unethical behavior, and after considering how allegations of sexual harassment were handled very differently in two recent San Diego elections: the 2012 mayoral election, and the 2014 52nd congressional district race.

In the first case, while teaching in the Womens Studies Department at San Diego State University, I began having conversations with women who knew and worked with then-Congressman Bob Filner. I heard consistent, credible accounts of Filner verbally and/or sexually harassing women in the workplace, at social events and during meetings. These reports came from elected officials, educators, lobbyists and businesswomen.

However, the women refused to file complaints. They risked retaliation, loss of access to Filners office and loss of political support if they spoke up. Their jobs and political futures required they maintain a professional relationship with the congressman and his staff  so they remained silent.

I took their reports seriously. They were consistent with my own experiences with the congressman. I had first met Filner in 1995, while chairing the board of a local nonprofit organization. I visited his Washington office as President Bill Clintons appointee to a U.S.-Mexico environmental commission and met with him as a California assemblywoman.

But he was often rude and verbally insulting, and once, during a private dinner, he described congresswomen he served with in derogatory, sexist terms.

So in August 2011, I called Jess Durfee, then-chairman of the San Diego County Democratic Party, and told him I was concerned about Filners behavior. I advised him to meet with the congressman and investigate these incidents before they became a more serious problem. Two other women shared similar stories with Durfee: a vice chair in the San Diego County Democratic Party and a city councilwoman.

But Filner told Durfee that no one has filed a complaint. Durfee dismissed our concerns, and supported Filners election. In August 2013, Filner was forced to resign in disgrace for abusive behavior towards women.

Filners statement was not surprising. Filing a formal complaint against a congressman is time-consuming, and often career-ending. And Durfees rationale was political: His job as a party official was to elect Democrats, no matter how flawed or abusive they were toward women.

What happened next was also not surprising: Durfee told others of my comments. Filners supporters accused me of undermining his campaign. From their perspective, the problem was not that Filner was harassing women.

The problem was women were not remaining silent and tolerating his behavior.

Contrast this reaction to Durfees response in 2014, when Democrat Scott Peters ran for re-election against Republican Carl DeMaio. In June, a former DeMaio campaign employee  Todd Bosnich  accused DeMaio of sexual misconduct. Despite Bosnichs inconsistencies during police interviews, Jess Durfee and Scott Peters used the allegations to discredit DeMaio. Durfee organized a protest outside a DeMaio campaign event, and carried a sign claiming, I stand with Todd Bosnich.

But in 2015, Bosnich pleaded guilty in federal court to obstructing justice, lying to investigators and interfering with a federal election.

Considering how similar allegations in these two elections were treated very differently by Durfee and others, resulting in politically motivated reactions, shows why an independent, nonpartisan agency could be a better way to investigate candidates and officeholders accused of sexual harassment and abuse. It could offer anonymity and support to those who file complaints, who may be fearful of going public with their experiences.

With an objective review, political parties wont protect abusers to win elections, or use false allegations of sexual harassment as a political tactic rather than a criminal violation that requires investigation and accountability.

Ideally, their findings will prevent voters from electing another person to office who  like Bob Filner  is unsuited for the job.

Saldana is a former state assemblywoman, former San Diego mayoral candidate and a business information technology professor with the San Diego Community College District. She is running for county supervisor.
In an age of hyperbole, Democrat Doug Jones narrow victory over Republican Roy Moore in Tuesdays special election for an Alabama Senate seat was truly remarkable. As recently as 2014, Republicans were so dominant in Alabama that then-Sen. Jeff Sessions didnt even draw a re-election challenger. So was Moores loss a one-off because of his ugly baggage  allegations from nine women that he had molested or harassed them when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers? Or was it a referendum on President Donald Trump and a sign of a pending tsunami for Democrats in 2018?

The persuasive case made by The New York Times conservative columnist Ross Douthat, Politico analysts John Bresnahan and Elana Schor, and others is that its mostly about Trump. They draw parallels between Jones win and Republican Scott Browns shocking defeat of Democrat Martha Coakley in the Senates 2010 special election in deeply liberal Massachusetts. They are both stark repudiations, wrote Douthat, of a first-term president, foreshadowing a larger repudiation soon to come.

Ten months after Browns surprise win, Republicans added 63 House seats and six Senate seats, driven by voter anger over the adoption of an unpopular Affordable Care Act. So will voter anger over Trumps serial transgressions and a GOP Congress pursuit of unpopular, bold initiatives lead to a 2010-style tidal wave that benefits Democrats 11 months after Jones surprise win? Can the 239-193 Republican edge in the House and the 51-49 edge in the Senate be wiped out?

Advertisement

Americans are going to find out because there is little reason to think Republicans will change course  and there is no reason to think the president will change his ways. The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board hopes November 2018 is a referendum on the president because of his corrosive effect on long-held American principles. The primary reason that Trump is reaching record lows in his approval ratings in recent weeks is not because of fake news. Its because the longer Trump is in the White House, the plainer his unfitness becomes.

It took the tidal wave of sexual harassment allegations triggered by revelations about Harvey Weinstein to remind Americans that we have a president who is accused of  and has boasted of  worse offenses than those that have led many politicians, journalists and executives to lose jobs. Nearly every day on Twitter, Americans are reminded that we have a president who is no more than a nasty bully. The defense offered for the presidents Tuesday tweet about Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, in which he wrote she would do anything for campaign donations, was that critics were seeing sexual innuendo where none existed. But nothing in Trumps history suggests he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Ask Megyn Kelly. His crude putdowns are a matter of public record.

Meanwhile, heavily sourced accounts of Trumps behavior at the White House dash this editorial boards dwindling hope he might become a decent president. A stunning story in The Washington Post based on 50-plus interviews and posted Thursday detailed how, no matter how often top aides talked about Russian interference in the 2016 election and the urgent need for a U.S. response, Trump would reject their findings because they made his rise to power about Vladimir Putin  not Trump.

A commander-in-chief who rejects crucial facts related to national security because of his personal insecurities is unworthy of the job. If dozens of Republican lawmakers are ousted next fall because of guilt by association, their party has it coming.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
The U-Ts story San Diego City College languishes despite $460 million makeover (Dec. 10) presents an unfair and incorrect assessment.

The article implies that the $400 million-plus in bond funds the San Diego Community College District allocated to construction projects at City College were poorly spent since enrollment did not increase. The fact is the bond projects were replacements designed to improve facilities and equipment for existing programs in order to enhance educational quality.

Currently, most community colleges and districts are facing enrollment challenges. The SDCCD is one of the few that is actually experiencing enrollment growth and City College is well ahead for the forthcoming intersession. A big reason for this is City Colleges dynamic new president, Dr. Ricky Shabazz.

Advertisement

We hope the newspaper will focus on the facts and give this flagship institution a chance to realize the outcomes of its plans.

Maria Nieto Senour

President

San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees

Constance M. Carroll

Chancellor

San Diego Community College District

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
The extended Cal Fire family on Thursday mourned the loss of Cory Iverson, a San Diego-area fire engineer. He became the first state firefighter to be killed fighting the ferocious Thomas fire that has burned since Dec. 4 in the Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and is now the fourth-largest in state history.

Iverson, 32, had been with Cal Fire since 2009 and is survived by his wife and a 2-year-old daughter, officials said at a press conference.

Update: Those looking to make donations to a fund for Iverson and his family may do so at this GoFundMe page or at the Cal Fire San Diego County Firefighters Benevolent Fund.

Authorities did not specify how Iverson died, but Cal Fire deputy chief Scott McLean said something did happen and that the agency was in the fact-finding phase at the moment, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

In a statement, the agencys director chief Ken Pimlott asked the public to keeping our fallen firefighter and his loved ones in your prayers.

Gov. Jerry Brown said he and his wife Anne were saddened by Iversons tragic death.

His bravery and years of committed service to the people of California will never be forgotten, Brown said.

As the sad news spread, San Diegans offered their condolences to the agency and its firefighters. California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, called the loss devastating.

Cal Fire headquarters in Rancho San Diego put its flags at half staff.

Across the state, there was an enormous outpouring of support.

A long procession of fire engines and law enforcement vehicles was underway in Fillmore, where smoke from the Thomas fire was still visible. Journalists on the scene posted some of those images on social media.

As of Thursday, the Thomas fire, one of several wildfires plaguing California this month, had burned 242,500 acres. The Thomas fire has destroyed more than 900 homes in populated areas of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and authorities have said that full containment is not expected until Jan. 7.

If you have thoughts to share about the firefighters risking their lives to put out the fire, share them with us or email us.

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.
Personal information of at least 19 million California registered voters  pretty much every voter in the state  ended up in the hands of hackers who apparently held it for ransom payable in Bitcoin earlier this year, researchers at a German digital security firm reported Friday.

It remained unclear Friday whether someone paid the ransom and whether hackers deleted the data, but researchers at the Kromtech Security Center said the Secretary of State of California was aware of the leak and that it was looking into it.

In a statement to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the office of the Secretary of State said there was no evidence that any of the Secretary of States systems have been hacked or breached.

We are looking into unconfirmed reports that a third party may have uploaded some California voter information in an unsecure location online. We take any allegation of improper use of voter data very seriously, and have enlisted the support of law enforcement. There is no evidence that any of the Secretary of States systems have been hacked or breached or that any confidential information such as social security numbers, drivers license numbers, state ID numbers, or voter signatures were disclosed. Under state law, limited voter data is made available for restricted use by campaigns, journalists, and academic researchers. It is illegal under state law to share or obtain this data without authorization.

Heres what we know about this hack:

What voter information was stolen?

Cyber criminals appeared to have accessed the data of 19,264,123 California registered voters. The type of information stolen included each persons full name, home address, emails, phone number, gender, date of birth and precinct information.

The data did not appear to include social security numbers.

How much were cyber criminals asking for the data?

The data was apparently held at ransom for 0.2 Bitcoin, which was valuated Friday at roughly $3,500.

When was this data stolen?

Kromtech researchers discovered the breach in early December, it said on its blog post, but the data appear to have been taken some time earlier this year.

The exact time frame when the data was taken remains unclear but Kromtech researchers say the extract date was May 31, 2017.

How did this happen?

Unlike the typical targeted breach by hackers, this data appear to have been part of the more than 32,000 MongoDB databases left exposed due to a vulnerability in January. Databases containing California voter information may have belonged to a third party, such as a political action committee or a campaign.

Hackers then presented the owners of those databases with a demand for ransom, but its unclear if anyone paid it.

Who stole this data?

It remains unclear who exactly is behind this breach, but Kromtech identified a hacker group called Harak1r1 as a potential suspect in a mass breach of MongoDB databases. A second group, own3d, was also identified as another suspect.

Why is this breach significant?

Kromtech says that, at worse, deleting parts of the data could affect Californias voting process. At minimum, the data could end up for sale on the Dark Web, it said.

Bob Diachenko, head of communications at Kromtech, explained that the breach underscores the need for states to beef up their cyber security measures to keep voter data safe.

This is a massive amount of data and a wake up call for millions citizens of California who have done nothing more than fulfil the civic duty to vote, Diachenko said.

This discovery highlights how a simple human error of failing to enact the basic security measures can result in a serious risk to stored data. The MongoDB was left publically available and was later discovered by cyber criminals who seemed to steal the data, which origin is still unknown.

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.
Weekly Newsletter The best of The Saturday Evening Post in your inbox! Join

A communitys moniker can be a source of pride and a manifestation of its heritage, but sometimes its just a fluke. These American towns stand out on the map due to their unusual names, and behind each one is a story.

1. Nothing, Arizona

It should come as no surprise that Nothing, Arizona is a ghost town. In 1977, Nothing was founded in the form of a convenience store for motorists travelling from Phoenix to Las Vegas on U.S. Route 93. The site was abandoned in 2005, but other entrepreneurs have taken interest in the desert property. In 2016, Century 21 launched a campaign to lease out the property as a Fathers Day gift for  you guessed it  free, so that sons and daughters could give the gift of Nothing to their wise-cracking dads.

2. Experiment, Georgia

Subscribe and get unlimited access to our online magazine archive. Subscribe Today

The small Spalding County town of Experiment, Georgia was named after the Georgia Experiment Station, a state agricultural project launched in 1888 for testing crop varieties and growing practices. The lab pioneered methods for growing oats and cotton, feeding livestock, and controlling pests in the warm Georgia climate. The University of Georgia now runs the experiment station, studying agriculture as well as water quality and genetics.

3. Rough and Ready, California

The small gold mining town was named after President Zachary Rough and Ready Taylor when it was founded in 1849. Ironically, the next year, Rough and Ready, California voted to secede from the Union to become The Great Republic of Rough and Ready because of taxes on gold mining. The town reportedly rescinded its decision after three months when nearby towns refused to sell the foreigners liquor.

4. What Cheer, Iowa

The unique town of What Cheer, Iowa was originally called Petersburg. The town post office rejected the hasty, derivative name, however, and in 1879 a new one was needed for the bustling coal community. The old English greeting What cheer with you? was most likely the basis of the new name, put forth by a local businessman. Another theory is that a miner exclaimed What cheer! when discovering coal in the area. What Cheers population has shrunk significantly since the decline of coal mines in the area at the turn of the century, but its historic opera house remains.

5. Monkeys Eyebrow, Kentucky

Monkeys arent native to Kentucky, but someone looked down on this rural area of western Kentucky and thought the Ohio River carved it into a topographical depiction of a monkeys profile. Monkeys Eyebrow, unsurprisingly, sits where that feature would be. Citizens of Paducah should consider themselves lucky to have dodged the name Monkeys Hunch.

6. Accident, Maryland

Right before the American Revolution, two surveyors were working in western Maryland under the direction of Lord Baltimore to measure tracts of land. When they found themselves surveying the same area, they heartily agreed to call it the Accident Tract. Since land was plentiful, it wasnt worth fighting over, and the land wasnt used anyway until after the war. The Accident Tract later became the town of Accident, now home to about 300 people.

7. Embarrass, Minnesota

French fur traders settled the region of present-day Embarrass, and they found the Riviere dEmbarras (River of Obstacles) to be a difficult one for canoes. The Finnish immigrants who came along at the turn of the century named a town after the river with little regard to the language implications, and the community of Embarrass was born. There is certainly no shame in calling Embarrass, Minnesota home, since one would have to brave the 50 degrees-below-Fahrenheit temperatures to do so.

8. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

The town of Hot Springs, New Mexico wanted a catchier title to attract tourists to its bath houses and hot mineral springs. It received its chance when Ralph Edwards, the producer of the radio quiz show Truth or Consequences, set out on a publicity stunt to find a town that would change its name in honor of the program. After the citizens of Hot Springs voted 1,294 to 295 in favor of the new name in 1950, Edwards and the crew travelled to the newly-dubbed Truth or Consequences, New Mexico to tape an episode the very next day.

9. Intercourse, Pennsylvania

Despite its seemingly suggestive name, Intercourse, Pennsylvania is a quiet Amish hamlet. They take advantage of their sexy handle to attract tourists, but no one is sure about the origin of the name. It could have come from Entercourse, the entrance to an old racetrack nearby, or the named might have stemmed from the intersection of Old Kings Highway and the Wilmington-Erie route. Another possibility is the use of intercourse to refer to fellowship and community. Whatever the reasoning might have been, the town found a mate in 1840 in Intercourse, Alabama.

10. Cut and Shoot, Texas

It doesnt take a Texan to figure out that Cut and Shoot probably wasnt named after moviemaking. In 1912 the tiny community was divided over whether or not to let Apostolics use their Baptist- and Methodist-built community center. The dispute came to a head one day, and, amidst knife-wielding and gun-toting members of both sides, a young boy cried out, Im scared! Im going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute! Despite the high tensions, the violence was avoided by a compromise: the Apostolics preached outside on the lawn.
Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- Global Argan Oil Market: Snapshot



With developing interest for non-timber timberland items (NTFP), there has been expanded slant of neighborhood preservationists to protect such plants, of which argan oil has increased noteworthy footing. Moreover, purchaser slant towards home grown and natural fixings in various items going from restorative, sustenance to therapeutic items is probably going to fuel the argan oil market development. This is further prompting commercialisation of argan oil over the globe. As a sustenance fixing, argan oil goes about as vitality supporter with purchasers experiencing vitamin insufficiency, heart issues, and constrained ability to burn calories.



Additionally, restorative makers are utilizing argan oil in excellence items for saturating and against maturing impacts. Argan oil displays properties, for example, against oxidants, unsaturated fats, and the linoleic acids, which help in battling issues, for example, barely recognizable differences, aggravation, skin inflammation, scars, and extend marks. Besides, pharmacological and appetizing properties of argan oil are contributing towards expanded interest for argan oil over the globe. Expanding appropriation of argan oil in restorative and culinary application have driven organizations to create details utilizing argan oil. This has additionally prompted developing commitment from international, domestic, and nongovernmental associations related with argan oil basically in Morocco.



Request A Sample Of This Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22517



Global Argan Oil Market: Trends and Prospects



The argan oil market is fuelled by expanding interest for characteristic based fixings, particularly in restorative and hair mind items. Besides, expanding client mindfulness about argan oil's advantages is foreseen to fuel argan oil market development in the pending years. Mass promoting and worldwide infiltration methodology combined with the online accessibility of item are key procedures received by organizations in the argan oil market. Other development animating components of argan oil market incorporate change in the extraction procedure of argan oil, expanded creation limit, and environmental change.



Moreover, developing interest for improved supplements and vitamins among customers in items going from sustenance and refreshments to individual care items is expected to empower the argan oil market development sooner rather than later. Notwithstanding, horticultural misuse, non-accessibility on retail locations, and high costs of argan oil when contrasted with other accessible oils are confining the general argan oil market development. Albeit, high-cost of argan oil limits its selection among purchasers, enhancements in argan oil extraction and enhanced creation limit by the argan oil makers is expected to offer manageable development to the argan oil market amid the conjecture time frame.



View Report - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/argan-oil-market.html



Global Argan Oil Market: Regional Overview



The worldwide argan oil market is isolated into seven regions, in particular Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Japan, North America, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). When contrasted with different districts Middle East and Africa ruled the argan oil generation. Expanded client mindfulness with respect to normal fixings particularly in nations, for example, India, Brazil and China is relied upon to fuel the argan oil market development in the pending years. Asia Pacific is relied upon to develop as a potential region for worldwide and provincial players putting resources into the argan oil market. This is additionally upheld by broad innovative work combined with developing utilization of argan oil in restorative and sustenance industry.



Global Argan Oil Market: Vendor Landscape



The core players operating in the market are OLVEA Morocco, ARGANisme Cosmetics S.A.R.L, Zineglo, Saadia Organics, Essence Of Argan, Biopur, Argan Diva, Josie Maran Cosmetics, Argan Liquid Gold, and Nadifi Argan.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/12/2017 -- According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research "Global Market Study on Bulletproof Security Glass Market - Middle East & Africa to Witness Highest Growth by 2021", the global bulletproof security glass market was valued at USD 2,395.7million in 2015 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2015 to 2021, to reach USD 3972.5 million by 2021.



Bulletproof glass also known as bullet-resistant glass, transparent armor, and ballistic glass is made up of transparent materials that can resist any damage from small projectiles and bullets. It is usually made with an arrangement of two or more types of glass, one hard and one soft. The glass product is produced using ballistic materials such as polycarbonate, acrylic, glass-clad polycarbonate, and thermoplastic that can withstand any damage from small projectiles and bullets.



Request For Report Sample: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3701



Conversely, proposed changes and regulative guidelines by green councils and energy cost involved in manufacturing processes for bulletproof security glass are perceived as minor growth restraints. In addition, rising cost of raw materials such as polycarbonate could pose a challenge to market growth in the near future. The global bulletproof security glass market is anticipated to grow from an estimated USD 2,395.7million in 2015 to USD 3972.5 million by 2021 at a CAGR of 8.8% during the forecast period.



Amongst various security systems, the bulletproof glass is a majorly demanded system in the recent time due to the increasing security concerns following the increasing terror attacks and crime rates. In order to fulfill the increasing security needs the market is expected to witness a significant increase in the next five to six years.



Growth of the bulletproof security glass market has been increasingly driven by growing automotive industry globally. Growing automotive industry coupled with increasing demand for value-added automobile products from tech-savvy consumers is expected to further boost the demand for bulletproof security glass in the automotive industry segment. The revenue from expanding financial industry is expected to dominate owing to increasing expansion of financial institutions and services in developing countries due to growing need for capital.



Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/3701



North America is expected to represent the largest market in 2015, accounting for 26.66% of the total market share. However, The Middle East & Africa is expected to record the highest growth during the forecast period due to increasing infrastructural development in the Middle East.



Asahi Glass co.Ltd, China Glass Holdings Limited, Nippon Sheet Glass, Saint-Gobain S.A., China Glass Specialty AG, PPG Industries Inc., Taiwan Glass Ind. Corp., Apogee Enterprises Corp., Sisecam, Guardian Industries are some of the leading players in the bulletproof security glass market. Other major players of the market include Qufu Shenglu Bulletproof Glass Engineering, Guangzhou Sky Tiger Tempered Glass, Nanjing Xinfurui Glass Industry, Jiangsu Yongxiang Glass etc.

You can now buy a single user license of the report : https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/checkout/3701
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Chad's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.21% from it's 2015 level of XAF 6474.07 billion and reach XAF 8074.34 billion by 2022.



Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It shares its borders with Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest and Niger to the west. Chad is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world; most inhabitants live in poverty as subsistence herders and farmers. Since 2003, crude oil has become the country's primary source of export earnings, superseding the traditional cotton industry.



Chad had estimated population of 11.855 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 13.45 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 2.18.



Chads real gross domestic product (GDP) was around XAF 5231.46 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was XAF 5987.90 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 114.459. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 852.159 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 2445.18.



In 2016, Chad governments revenue was XAF 777.448 billions whereas the expenditure was XAF 853.665 billions. This resulted Chad governments net lending / borrowing negative in 2016 at XAF 76.217 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Chad was estimated to be negative at USD 0.885 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decrease at a CAGR of 11.41% and reach USD 0.577 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Chad is a net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Chad PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Chad.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Chad.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Chad.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Chad.



For more information and to purchase Chad PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/chad-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Chad SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/chad-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Chad Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/chad-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Czech Republic's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.96% from it's 2015 level of CZK 4554.62 billion and reach CZK 5976.82 billion by 2022.



The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Czech Republic to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakiato the east and Poland to the north. Its capital and largest city, with 1.3 million inhabitants, is Prague. The nation and its economy, however, are expected to ride through the rough patch on the virtue of its pace of economic growth and huge potential in sectors such as energy, automotive, and retail. Rebound in the growth of exports will further sustain economic growth.



Czech Republics had estimated population of 10.554 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 10.688 million by 2022. Czech Republics 5.118 million population was employed in 2016 and the unemployment rate was 4% of total labor force.



Czech Republics real gross domestic product (GDP) was around CZK 4377.83 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was CZK 4716.14 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 107.728. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 18286.33 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 33231.52.



In 2016, Czech Republic governments revenue was CZK 1926.86 billions whereas the expenditure was CZK 1918.82 billions. This resulted German governments net lending / borrowing at CZK 8.031 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Czech Republic was estimated to be at USD 2.152 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 202.65% and reach USD 2.02 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Czech Republic by 2022 will become is net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Czech Republic PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Czech Republic.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Czech Republic.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Czech Republic.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Czech Republic.



For more information and to purchase Czech Republic PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/czech-republic-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Czech Republic SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/czech-republic-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Czech Republic Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/czech-republic-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Kiev, Ukraine -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- Zeng LianBin graduated from the Zhongnan University and became Doctor of Science in the field of cartography and geographic information technology. The key area of his activities is working with graphs and Big Data. In 2011 he participated in the project of research and application of the new model of the GIS database and was awarded a prize for the scientific and technical progress of geoinformation in China. Zeng LianBin wrote many scientific articles in the sphere of graphics and processing of Big Data. Has realized visualization of the forecast of the stock market tendencies.



Huang DaoLin is the chairman of the board of the Shenzhen DaoLin company, research supervisor of graduate students of the Shenzhen University. He is a special guest on Phoenix TV station, the Hubei television, the Shenzhen TV channel of finance and economy, the central Chinese television of CCTV and other TV programs and media. Since 1996 Huang DaoLin works in the sphere of securities, an expert in trend analytics, respects three theories of investment (a hot spot, a point of purchase and a point of sale).



Expert in live shows of financial and economic channel Tencent (the Chinese telecommunication company QQ, Weixin). Author of the book "Logic of Investment of One Director on Private Placement of Securities".



We are happy to welcome these awesome experts in the DataTrading team!



DataTrading has already gathered almost 920 000 USD during a pre-sale, which was running from 11.20.2017 until 11.30.2017 and granted all participants 30% bonus.



DataTrading plans to run 2 rounds of token sale - Round A, for the eastern region 12.18.201701.08.2018 and Round B, for the western region 02.01.201802.22.2018.



Get and use your DTT tokens today!



Click here for further information.
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- Summary: "Ethiopia Upstream Fiscal and Regulatory Report - World Bank Review Recommends Policy Revisions, but Likelihood of Implementation Unclear", presents the essential information relating to the terms which govern investment into Ethiopia's upstream oil and gas sector. The report sets out in detail the contractual framework under which firms must operate in the industry, clearly defining factors affecting profitability and quantifying the state's take from hydrocarbon production. Considering political, economic and industry specific variables, the report also analyses future trends for Ethiopia's upstream oil and gas investment climate.



GET SAMPLE REPORT @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2575140-ethiopia-upstream-fiscal-and-regulatory-report-world-bank-review-recommends-policy



Scope

- Overview of current fiscal terms governing upstream oil and gas operations in Ethiopia

- Assessment of the current fiscal regime's state take and attractiveness to investors

- Charts illustrating the regime structure, and legal and institutional frameworks

- Detail on legal framework and governing bodies administering the industry

- Levels of upfront payments and taxation applicable to oil and gas production

- Information on application of fiscal and regulatory terms to specific licenses

- Outlook on future of fiscal and regulatory terms in Ethiopia



Reasons to buy

- Understand the complex regulations and contractual requirements applicable to Ethiopia's upstream oil and gas sector

- Evaluate factors determining profit levels in the industry

- Identify potential regulatory issues facing investors in the country's upstream sector

- Utilize considered insight on future trends to inform decision-making



Table of Content: Key Points

1 Table of Contents 1

1.1. List of Tables 2

1.2. List of Figures 2

2. Regime Overview 3

3. State Take Assessment 5

4. Key Fiscal Terms 6

4.1. Royalties, Bonuses and Fees 6

4.1.1. Bonuses 6

4.1.2. Rental Fees 6

4.1.3. Training and Community DevelopmentContributions 6

4.1.4. Royalties 6

4.2. Cost Recovery 8

4.2.1. Limit on Recovery 8

4.2.2. Recoverable Costs 8

4.3. Profit Sharing 8

4.4. Direct Taxation 9

4.4.1. Petroleum Income Tax 9

4.4.2. Deductions and Depreciation 9

4.4.3. Withholding Tax 9

4.5. Indirect Taxation 10

4.5.1. Value Added Tax 10

4.5.2. Customs Duties 10

4.6. State Participation 10

4.7. Fiscal Stability Provisions 10

5. Regulation and Licensing 11

5.1. Legal Framework 11

5.1.1. Governing Law 11

5.1.2. Contract Type 11

5.1.3. Title to Hydrocarbons 11

5.2. Institutional Framework 12

5.2.1. Licensing Authority 12

5.2.2. Regulatory Agency 12

5.2.3. National Oil Company 12

5.3. Licensing Process 13

5.4. License Terms 13

5.4.1. Duration and Relinquishments 13

5.4.2. Work Obligations 13

5.5. Local Content 13

6. Outlook 14

Continued



ACCESS REPORT @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/2575140-ethiopia-upstream-fiscal-and-regulatory-report-world-bank-review-recommends-policy



Get in touch:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/4828928

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WiseGuyReports

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wiseguyreports-1009007869213183/?fref=ts
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) France's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.98% from it's 2015 level of Euro 2181.06 billion and reach Euro 2678.54 billion by 2022.



France is the largest country in the EU, stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. The landscape is diverse, with mountains in the east and south, including the Alpine peak of Mont Blanc (4 810 m) which is Western Europe's highest point. Lowland France consists of four river basins, the Seine in the north, the Loire and the Garonne flowing westwards and the Rhone, which flows from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea.



France had population of 64.605 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 66.399 million by 2022. Frances 25.092% population was employed in 2016 and the unemployment rate was 10.042% of total labor force.



Frances real gross domestic product (GDP) was around Euro 2120.39 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was Euro 2225.92 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 104.977. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 38127.65 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 42313.99.The output gap for France in 2016 was negative at 2.185% of the potential GDP.



In 2016, France governments revenue was Euro 1184.41 billions whereas the expenditure was Euro 1257.41 billions. This resulted France governments net lending / borrowing negative at Euro 72.997 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for France was negative at USD 26.864 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 215.22% and reach USD 13.026 by 2022. In future Frances current deficit is expected to improve allowing France to lend money to other countries.



Scope of the France PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for France.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for France.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for France.

- These reports provide risk analysis for France.



For more information and to purchase France PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/france-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase France SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/france-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase France Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/france-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Ghana's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.53% from it's 2015 level of GHS 138.748 billion and reach GHS 381.088 billion by 2022.



Ghana, officially called the Republic of Ghana, is a sovereign state and unitary presidential constitutional republic, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in West Africa. The country is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east and the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean in the south.



Ghana had estimated population of 27.573 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 32.082 million by 2022. Which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.56%.



Ghana's real gross domestic product (GDP) was around GHS 36.242 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was GHS 169.216 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 466.901. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 1569.04 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 4411.93.



In 2016, Ghana government's revenue was GHS 28.865 billions whereas the expenditure was GHS 42.92 billions. This resulted Ghana government's net lending / borrowing negative at GHS 14.055 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Ghana was estimated to be negative at USD 2.784 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decrease at a CAGR of 1.33% and reach USD 2.615 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Ghana is net borrower to the whole world.



Scope of the Ghana PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Ghana.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Ghana.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Ghana.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Ghana.



For more information and to purchase Ghana PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ghana-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Ghana SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ghana-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Ghana Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ghana-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- Global Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market 2017 presents a far reaching and basic investigation of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) business along the edge of the examination of subjective angles that is ready to exhibit key business bits of knowledge to the perusers. world Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market 2017 investigation report offers the diagnostic peruse of the business by learning fluctuated factors like Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market development, utilization volume, advertise patterns and Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) business value structures all through the conjecture sum from 2017 to 2022.



The Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market studies the competitive landscape browse of the business. The Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) report put together includes development plans and policies at the side of producing processes. the foremost regions concerned in Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) open-air market live (United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, India).



Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:https://www.qyresearchgroup.com/market-analysis/global-thermoplastic-polyester-elastomer-tpee-market-2017-trends.html#request-sample



Leading makers Analysis in Global Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market 2017:



DuPont

DSM

Toyobo

Taiwan Changchun

Jiangyin Hetron

Celanese

SK Chemicals

LG Chem

SABIC

Mitsubishi Chemical



The Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) report will the thorough study of the key business players to grasp their business ways in which, annual revenue, company profile and their contribution to the world Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market share. varied factors of the Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) business like the availability chain state of affairs, business standards, import/export details area unit mentioned in world Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market 2017 report.



Key Highlights of the Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market:



- a clear understanding of the Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market supported growth, constraints, opportunities, utility study.



- telegraphic Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Market study supported major nation-states.



- Analysis of evolving market segments to boot as a full study of existing Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market segments.



Browse Complete Report With TOC @:https://www.qyresearchgroup.com/market-analysis/global-thermoplastic-polyester-elastomer-tpee-market-2017-trends.html



There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market



Chapter 1, Definition, Specifications and Classification of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) , Applications of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) , Market Segment by Regions;



Chapter 2, The Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;



Chapter 3, The Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;



Chapter 4, The Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);



Chapter 5 and 6, Regional Market Analysis that includes North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India, Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Segment Market Analysis (by Type);



Chapter 7 and 8, the Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) ;



Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type



Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;



Chapter 11, The Consumers Analysis of Global Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) ;



Chapter 12, Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;



Chapter 13, 14 and 15, Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.



For More Inquiry Feel Free to Contact Us @:https://www.qyresearchgroup.com/market-analysis/global-thermoplastic-polyester-elastomer-tpee-market-2017-trends.html#inquiry-for-buying



Furthermore, distinct aspects of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market like the technological development, economic factors, opportunities and threats to the expansion of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) open-air market live coated thorough throughout this report. The performance of Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market throughout 2017 to 2022 is being forecasted throughout this report.



In conclusion, world Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) market 2017 report presents the descriptive analysis of the parent market supported elite players, present, past and front information that's able to operate a profitable guide for all the Thermoplastic Polyester Elastomer (TPEE) business competitors



About QYResearch Group

QYResearch Group is a single destination for all the industry, company and country reports. QYResearch Group also carries the capability to assist you with your customized market research requirements including in-depth market surveys, primary interviews, competitive landscaping, and company profiles. We feature large repository of latest industry reports, leading and niche company profiles, and market statistics. QYResearch Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.



Contact US:



Joel John

3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,

Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,

United States

Tel: +1-386-310-3803

GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714

USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651

Web: http://www.qyresearchgroup.com

Email: sales@qyresearchgroup.com
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Hungary's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.99% from it's 2015 level of HUF 33999.01 billion and reach HUF 47803.10 billion by 2022.



Hungary is a landlocked state with many neighbours Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. It is mostly flat, with low mountains in the north. Lake Balaton, a popular tourist centre, is the largest lake in central Europe. The capital city, Budapest, was originally was two separate cities: Buda and Pest. It straddles the River Danube, is rich in history and culture and famed for its curative springs. Hungary has a single-chamber parliament or national assembly whose 386 members are elected by voters every four years.



Hungary had estimated population of 9.835 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 9.71 million by 2022. Hungarys unemployment rate was 4.883% of total labor force.



Hungarys real gross domestic product (GDP) was around HUF 24897.02 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was HUF 35372.57 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 142.076. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 12778.29 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 27481.79.



In 2016, Hungary governments revenue was HUF 16202.36 billions whereas the expenditure was HUF 16844.50 billions. This resulted Hungary governments net lending / borrowing negative at HUF 642.145 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Hungary was estimated to be at USD 5.434 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 12.89% and reach USD 1.569 by 2022. This positive current account balance indicates the Hungary is net lender to the whole world.



Scope of the Hungary PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Hungary.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Hungary.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Hungary.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Hungary.



For more information and to purchase Hungary PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/hungary-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Hungary SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/hungary-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Hungary Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/hungary-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Iran's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.62% from it's 2015 level of IRR 11096456.611 billion and reach IRR 28849243.817 billion by 2022.



Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, with Kazakhstan and Russia across the Caspian Sea; on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; on the west by Iraq; and on the northwest by Turkey.



Iran had estimated population of 80.46 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 85.808 million by 2022. Iran's unemployment rate was 12.45% of total labor force in the same year, which is further expected to reach to 12.053 by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 1.31%.



Iran's real gross domestic product (GDP) was around IRR 2169734.961 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was IRR 13047038.642 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 601.319. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 4682.51 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 18077.47.



In 2016, Iran government's revenue was IRR 1972621.059 billions whereas the expenditure was IRR 2335293.773 billions. This resulted Iran government's net lending / borrowing negative at IRR 362672.714 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Iran was estimated to be at USD 23.566 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.48% and reach USD 14 by 2022. This positive current account balance indicates the Iran is net lender to the whole world.



Scope of the Iran PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Iran.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Iran.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Iran.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Iran.



For more information and to purchase Iran PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iran-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Iran SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iran-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Iran Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iran-riskl-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Iraq's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.97% from it's 2015 level of IQD 209685.162 billion and reach IQD 294423.334 billion by 2022.



Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in Western Asia encompassing the Mesopotamian alluvial plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Iraq borders Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest, and Syria to the west.



Iraq had estimated population of 36.067 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 42.014 million by 2022, which is expected to increase at a CAGR of 2.58%.

Iraqs real gross domestic product (GDP) was around IQD 203474.6 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was IQD 197118.525 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 96.876. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 4630.96whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 17943.71.



In 2016, Iraq governments revenue was IQD 66480.18 billions whereas the expenditure was IQD 82763.40 billions. This resulted Iraq governments net lending / borrowing negative at IQD 16283.219 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Iraq was estimated to be at USD 12.198 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 20.26% and reach USD 2.385 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Iraq is net a borrower to the whole world.



Scope of the Iraq PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Iraq.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Iraq.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Iraq.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Iraq.



For more information and to purchase Iraq PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iraq-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Iraq SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iraq-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Iraq Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/iraq-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Ivory Coast's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.86% from it's 2015 level of XOF 19368.48 billion and reach XOF 35088.79 billion by 2022.



Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire), officially the Republic of Ivory Coast, is a country in West Africa. It shares its borders with the countries such as Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana, its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.



Cote d'Ivoire had estimated population of 24.327 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 28.378 million by 2022, which will grow at a CAGR of 2.60%.



Cote d'Ivoire's real gross domestic product (GDP) was around XOF 17181.64 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was XOF 21036.78 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 122.438. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 1458.83 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 3609.03.



In 2016, Cote d'Ivoire government's revenue was XOF 4176.62 billions whereas the expenditure was XOF 5014.75 billions. This resulted Cote d'Ivoire government's net lending / borrowing negative at XOF 838.131 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Cote d'Ivoire was estimated to be negative at USD 0.774 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 18.31% and reach USD 1.048 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Cote d'Ivoire is net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Ivory Coast PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Ivory Coast.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Ivory Coast.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Ivory Coast.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Ivory Coast.



For more information and to purchase Ivory Coast PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ivory-coast-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Ivory Coast SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ivory-coast-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Ivory Coast Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/ivory-coast-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kuwait's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.29% from it's 2015 level of KWD 34.315 billion and reach KWD 52.578 billion by 2022.



Kuwait's small and open economy is undiversified and almost fully based on the oil sector, which is a source of financial strength, but also a severe structural weakness. Kuwait holds the sixth-largest proven oil reserves in the world, enough to sustain current production of 3m bpd for 90 years. Kuwait is the world's eighth-largest oil producer.



Kuwait had estimated population of 4.225 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 4.982 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 2.79%. Kuwait's unemployment rate was estimated to be 2.072% of total labor force which is expected to remain same till 2022.



Kuwait's real gross domestic product (GDP) was around KWD 41.795 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was KWD 33.342 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 79.776. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 26004.71 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 71887.33.



In 2016, Kuwait government's revenue was KWD 17.301 billions whereas the expenditure was KWD 18.508 billions. This resulted Kuwait government's net lending / borrowing negative at KWD 1.206 billion in 2016.



The current account balance for Kuwait was estimated to be at USD 2.977 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.62% and reach USD 8.757 by 2022. This positive current account balance indicates the Kuwait is net lender to the whole world.



Scope of the Kuwait PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Kuwait.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Kuwait.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Kuwait.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Kuwait.



For more information and to purchase Kuwait PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/kuwait-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Kuwait SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/kuwait-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Kuwait Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/kuwait-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Namibia's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.53% from it's 2015 level of NAD 146.619 billion and reach NAD 277.355 billion by 2022.



Namibia, located on the western coast of Southern Africa, is bordered by Angola to the north, Botswana to the east, South Africa to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Namibia gained its independence on 1 March 1990. Namibia's capital is Windhoek. English is the official language of Namibia, and the currency is the Namibian dollar (NAD).



Namibia had estimated population of 2.281 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 2.417 million by 2022, registering an average growth rate of 0.83%.



Namibias real gross domestic product (GDP) was around NAD 52.687 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was NAD 156.639 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 297.301. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 4629.53 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 11289.73.



In 2016, Namibia governments revenue was NAD 50.575 billions whereas the expenditure was NAD 63.136 billions. This resulted Namibia governments net lending / borrowing negative at NAD 12.561 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Namibia was estimated to be negative at USD 1.189 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 7.41% and reach USD 0.852 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates that the Namibia is a net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Namibia PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Namibia.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Namibia.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Namibia.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Namibia.



For more information and to purchase Namibia PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/namibia-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Namibia SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/namibia-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Namibia Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/namibia-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2017 -- Ferrochromium, also known as Ferrochrome, is an alloy of iron and chromium containing 50 to 70% of chromium. It is produced by electric arc melting of chromium ore and chromite. Ferrochromium is consumed extensively in the manufacturing of steel to achieve the qualities such as corrosion resistance, tensile strength, heat resistance and yield strength. The global ferrochromium market is anticipated to be in deficit to cater the increasing global steel market in near future. Ferrochromium is mostly produced in India, China, South Africa and Kazakhstan because of large chromite resources found in these countries. The global ferrochromium market is witnessing a modest single digit CAGR growth up till now and is expected to continue in future.



Request For Report Sample: https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10046



Ferrochromium is having its maximum share of consumption in steel industry and due to the ever increasing construction and demand of steel the global ferrochromium market is forecasted to flourish. In order to get a continuous supply of raw material for ferrochrome, China has established its operations in the countries like Turkey, South Africa, Philippines and Zimbabwe which would boost the global ferrochromium market in future. Due to the favourable conditions like lower electricity price and lower labour cost in upcoming markets like China, the production cost reduces comparatively. This will boost the production of ferrochrome to suffice its increasing demand and will contribute in global ferrochromium market.



The global ferrochromium market can get hampered because of the increase in the export tax and fixed export quotas imposed by South Africa on chrome ore, owing to the concern of losing ferrochromium market to China. South Africa is having a significant market share in global ferrochromium market but there are concerns of power supply and higher production cost which would lead to the closure of small competitors and is estimated to slowdown the global ferrochromium market.



Based on the carbon percentage, the global ferrochromium market is segmented as -



Extra low carbon ferrochromium powder

Low carbon ferrochromium powder

High carbon ferrochromium powder

Extra high carbon ferrochromium powder

Based in the available form, the global ferrochromium market is segmented as 



Ferrochromium slag

Ferrochromium powder

Based on the application, the global ferrochromium market is segmented as 



Ball bearing steels

Acid resistant steels

Cast irons

Powder metallurgy

Others (civil engineering, refractory materials)

The global ferrochromium market can be divided into five regions, namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. Asia Pacific is having the maximum market share in global ferrochromium market, China and India are the countries having an excellent steel market, so these countries are significant in the consumption of ferrochrome. China is expanding its capacity to import chrome ore for the production of ferrochrome from the countries like South Africa, Turkey, Zimbabwe. Middle East and Africa are also marking a significant growth in the global ferrochromium market, Especially South Africa is having plenty of chromite resources for the production of ferrochrome. Europe is an emerging market in the field of ferrochrome and is anticipated to have a considerable market in future due to the flourishing automobile sector in the region. North America and Latin America is at a nascent stage in the global ferrochromium market.



Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/10046



Some of the key players in global ferrochromium market are, Nava Bharat Ventures Limited, VISA STEEL, Balasore Alloys Limited, Aarti Steels Ltd, SR Group, Vyankatesh Metals & Alloys Pvt. Ltd
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/13/2017 -- Summary: "Payments Landscape in New Zealand: Opportunities and Risks to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in New Zealand's cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, direct debit, payment cards, and cheques during the review-period (2012-16e).



The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, transaction values and volumes during the review-period and over the forecast-period (2016-20f). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.



GET SAMPLE REPORT @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2575116-payments-landscape-in-new-zealand-opportunities-and-risks-to-2020



The report brings together modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.



This report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into New Zealand's cards and payments industry, including -

- Current and forecast values for each market in New Zealand's cards and payments industry, including debit, credit, and charge cards.

- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, direct debit, cheques, and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.

- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.

- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing New Zealand's cards and payments industry.

- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit, and charge cards.



Scope

- Alternative payments are gaining traction among New Zealanders with the emergence of a number of payment options, with the most notable launches being Apple Pay in October 2016 and Android Pay in December 2016. Apple Pay enables users to make contactless in-store, in-app, and browser payments. In October 2017, BNZ collaborated with Apple to become the second bank (after ANZ) to offer Apple Pay to its customers. In December 2015, Visa launched its Visa Checkout online payment service in New Zealand, allowing consumers to make payments using just a username and password, without the need to disclose card details for each transaction. Other prominent payment solutions - including PayPal, POLi, and Masterpass - are also available in New Zealand.

- New Zealand's central bank and commercial banks are taking steps to offer faster payments. In April 2016 the Reserve Bank of New Zealand signed an agreement with Italian payment processor SIA to implement a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), which is now in the developmental phase. And in October 2017 Westpac collaborated with real-time electronic payment and banking solutions provider ACI Worldwide to offer real-time payments in New Zealand. With the help of ACI's UP Immediate Payments solution Westpac revamped its retail banking payment system, moving payments from end-of-day batch settlement to real-time, instant clearing.

- To capitalize on the growth in e-commerce transactions in New Zealand, in July 2017 Co-operative Bank launched Online EFTPOS for its internet and mobile app users. The service enables consumers to pay for online transactions through their bank account by selecting the Online EFTPOS payment method. Once the user confirms the payment they receive an authorization message on their mobile banking app or internet banking.



Reasons to buy

- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to New Zealand's cards and payments industry and each market within it.

- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in New Zealand's cards and payments industry.

- Assess the competitive dynamics in New Zealand's cards and payments industry.

- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in New Zealand.

- Gain insights into key regulations governing New Zealand's cards and payments industry.



Table of Content: Key Points

Market Overview

Executive Summary

Card-based Payments

E-commerce Payments

Alternative Payments

Payments Infrastructure & Regulation

Appendix

Continued



ACCESS REPORT @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/2575116-payments-landscape-in-new-zealand-opportunities-and-risks-to-2020



Get in touch:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/4828928

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WiseGuyReports

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wiseguyreports-1009007869213183/?fref=ts
New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/13/2017 -- Recombinant DNA (rDNA) Technology Industry



Description



According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Recombinant DNA (rDNA) Technology Market is accounted for $499.8 million in 2016 and expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9% to reach $799.9 million by 2023. Factors influencing the market growth are rise in Genetically Modified (GM) crop, development of biofuel and biopesticides, presence of biopharmaceuticals pipeline and production of various therapeutic proteins. Lack of government funding for research and development in emerging economies, risks involved in usage of genetically modified food and regulatory & ethical challenges associated with gene therapy are hampering the market growth.



Based on component, the Expression systems are used for the production of protein from recombinant DNA molecules. Majorly used expression systems are mammalian, bacterial, insects, and yeast. Development of cell lines such as HEK293 and Chinese Hamster Ovarian (CHO) has contributed to the significant share of mammalian expression system. Further, , ongoing research to explore the prospective of plant as expression system are expected to underpin the adoption of plans expression system for Genetically Modified product development in the future. Furthermore, more than 3000 scientific studies have been carried out to assess the GM products safety in context to its impact on human health and environment.



Based on application, Agricultural plants are one of the most frequently cited cases of genetically modified organisms. Some benefits of genetic engineering in agriculture are increased crop yields, reduces cost for food or drug production, limited need for pesticides, enhanced nutrient composition and food quality, resistance to pests and disease, with enormous food security, and medical benefits. The advantage of recombinant DNA technology is that new combinations of genes are determined in the forefront. GE has also been used against crop pathogens. One of the first and most successful genetically modified crops was a papaya with resistance to ringspot virus. Another example includes the development of bananas resistant to wilt in Uganda.



Request for Sample Report @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2448291-recombinant-dna-rdna-technology-global-market-outlook-2017-2023



North America accounted for the maximum share of the market which attributes to a affluent number of biopharmaceutical manufacturing companies are situated in the U.S. In July 2017, U.S witnessed the 1st FDA approval for gene therapy treatment. The treatment was developed for leukemia disorder, in conjugation between the University of Pennsylvania and Novartis Corp. This, in turn, furtherance the enact of rDNA techniques in the region. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market. Clinical trials in Asian countries such as India and China are less expensive compared to other regions which made migration of several biopharmaceutical developers towards this region.



Some of the key players in Global Recombinant DNA (rDNA) Technology market are



F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Monsanto Company, Amgen Inc, Biocon, Biogen, Eli Lilly and Company, GenScript, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Horizon Discovery Group PLC, Merck & Co, New England Biolabs., Novartis AG, Novo Nordisk A/S, Pfizer Inc and Profacgen.



Components Covered:

- Cloning Vector

o Phage

o Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC)

o Human Artificial Chromosome (HAC)

o Yeast Artificial Chromosome (YAC)

o Cosmid

o Plasmid

- Expression System

o Baculovirus/Insect

o Bacteria

o Mammalian

o Yeast

o Other Expression System



Products Covered:

- Non-medical

o Specialty Chemicals

o Biotech Crops

o Other Non-Medical Technology

- Medical

o Human Protein

o Therapeutic Agent

o Vaccine



Applications Covered:

- Health & Disease

o Human

o Animal

- Food & Agriculture

- Environment

- Other Applications



Leave a Query @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/2448291-recombinant-dna-rdna-technology-global-market-outlook-2017-2023



End Users Covered:

- Academic & Research Institutes

- Pharmaceutical & Biotech Entities

- Other End Users



Regions Covered:

- North America

o US

o Canada

o Mexico

- Europe

o Germany

o UK

o Italy

o France

o Spain

o Rest of Europe

- Asia Pacific

o Japan

o China

o India

o Australia

o New Zealand

o South Korea

o Rest of Asia Pacific

- South America

o Argentina

o Brazil

o Chile

o Rest of South America

- Middle East & Africa

o Saudi Arabia

o UAE

o Qatar

o South Africa

o Rest of Middle East & Africa



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 advancements



Buy Now @ https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=2448291



Continued...



Contact Us: Sales@Wiseguyreports.Com Ph: +1-646-845-9349 (Us) Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (Uk)
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Switzerland's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.21% from it's 2015 level of CHF 645.427 billion and reach CHF 751.999 billion by 2022.



Switzerland, officially Swiss Confederation, is a federal parliamentary republic. It is situated in Western and Central Europe, and shares its borders with Switzerland to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Since it is situated in the western and central part of Europe, it doesn't share any sea or ocean cover on any side and it is completely landlocked geographically. Switzerland's geographic factor is that it is divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura which span across roughly 16,000 square miles. Zurich and Geneva, Bern are global cities and are economic centers for various industries. Major economic contributing factors and industries in Switzerland are Tourism, Military and Defense, Pharmaceutics, Agriculture, Banking, Watches, Wine, Chocolate, Fashion Accessories, and many others.



Switzerland had population of 8.327 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 8.936 million by 2022. Switzerlands around 5.047 million was employed in 2016 and the unemployment rate was 3.323% of total labor force.



Switzerlands real gross domestic product (GDP) was CHF 661.401 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was CHF 650.11 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 98.293. Per capita GDP was USD 79242.28 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 48110.85.



In 2016, Switzerland governments revenue was estimated to be at CHF 212.551 billions whereas the expenditure was expected to be at CHF 213.1 billions. This resulted Switzerland governments net lending / borrowing negative at CHF 0.549 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Switzerland was USD 294.78.93 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 2.43% and reach USD 65.055 by 2022. This positive current account balance indicates the Switzerland is net lender to the whole world.



Scope of the Switzerlands PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Switzerlands.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Switzerlands.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Switzerlands.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Switzerlands.



For more information and to purchase Switzerlands PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/switzerland-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Switzerlands SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/switzerland-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Switzerlands Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/switzerland-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Uganda's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.9% from it's 2015 level of UGX 81375.98 billion and reach UGX 178823.58 billion by 2022.



Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania. Uganda is the second most populous landlocked country. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania, situating the country in the African Great Lakes region. Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally equatorial climate.



Uganda had estimated population of 41.087 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 49.059 million by 2022, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3%.



Ugandas real gross domestic product (GDP) was around UGX 56751.83 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was UGX 89590.80 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 157.864. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 637.568 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 2068.23.



In 2016, Uganda governments revenue was UGX 12921.54 billions whereas the expenditure was UGX 16148.83 billions. This resulted Uganda governments net lending / borrowing negative at UGX 3227.29 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Uganda was estimated to be negative at USD 1.544 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 9.67% and reach USD 3.184 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Uganda is a net borrower to the whole world.



Scope of the Uganda PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Uganda.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Uganda.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Uganda.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Uganda.



For more information and to purchase Uganda PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/uganda-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Uganda SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/uganda-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Uganda Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/uganda-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Yemen's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.03% from it's 2015 level of YER 8108.64 billion and reach YER 26289.37 billion by 2022.



Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is an Arab country in Western Asia, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is the second largest country in the peninsula, occupying 203,850 square miles. The coastline stretches for about 1,200 miles, and it is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea to the south, and Oman to the east. Its capital and largest city is Sana'a.



Yemen had estimated population of 28.284 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 34.082 million by 2022 it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.70%.



Yemen's real gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated to be around YER 236.555 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP expected to be YER 7648.93 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 3233.47. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 937.712 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 2374.86.



In 2016, Yemen government's revenue was estimated to be at YER 827.442 billions whereas the expenditure was estimated to be at YER 1862.99 billions. This resulted Yemen government's net lending / borrowing negative at YER 1035.55 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Yemen was negative and estimated to be at USD 1.532 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 6.41% and reach USD 1.304 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Yemen is net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Yemen PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Yemen.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Yemen.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Yemen.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Yemen.



For more information and to purchase Yemen PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/yemen-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Yemen SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/yemen-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Yemen Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/yemen-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
Lewes, DE -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/15/2017 -- As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) Zimbabwe's nominal gross domestic product is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5% from it's 2015 level of ZWD 14.171 billion and reach ZWD 19.945 billion by 2022.



Zimbabwe, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Mozambique to the east, South Africa to the south, and Botswana to the southwest. Zimbabwe, which the United Kingdom annexed as Southern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Company in 1923, obtained its independence in 1980. It is divided into eight provinces and two cities with provincial status. Zimbabwe's capital is Harare, and the official languages are English, Shona, and Ndebele.



Zimbabwe had estimated population of 14.501 million in the year 2016 and expected to reach 16.908 million by 2022, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.59%.



Zimbabwes real gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to be around ZWD 12.397 billions in 2016 whereas the nominal GDP was expected to be at ZWD 14.174 billions. This resulted in GDP deflator 114.333. Per capita GDP was estimated at USD 977.444 whereas purchasing power parity (PPP) based per capita GDP was estimated to be at USD 1970.26.



In 2016, Zimbabwe governments revenue was expected to bet at ZWD 3.502 billions whereas the expenditure was expected to be at ZWD 4.955 billions. This resulted Zimbabwe governments net lending / borrowing negative at ZWD 1.452 billion in 2016 indicating that enough financial resources were not made available by the government to boost economic growth.



The current account balance for Zimbabwe was estimated to be negative at USD 0.234 billions for the year 2016 and is expected to decline at a CAGR of 42.27% and reach USD 0.025 by 2022. This negative current account balance indicates the Zimbabwe is a net borrower from the whole world.



Scope of the Zimbabwe PESTEL Analysis, SWOT Analysis and Risk Analysis Market Research Reports

- These reports provide information about key macroeconomic indicators for Zimbabwe.

- These reports provide PESTELE (political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal) analysis for Zimbabwe.

- These reports provide SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis for Zimbabwe.

- These reports provide risk analysis for Zimbabwe.



For more information and to purchase Zimbabwe PESTEL Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/zimbabwe-pestel-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Zimbabwe SWOT Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/zimbabwe-swot-analysis-market-research-report



For more information and to purchase Zimbabwe Risk Analysis Market Research Report please visit: https://www.marketresearchreports.com/market-research-reports-inc/zimbabwe-risk-analysis-market-research-report



About Market Research Reports, Inc.

Market Research Reports Inc. is world's largest store offering quality market research, SWOT analysis, competitive intelligence and industry reports. We help Fortune 500 to Start-Ups with the latest market research reports on global ional markets which comprise key industries, leading market players, new products and latest industry analysis & trends.



Contact us for your market research requirements: http://www.marketresearchreports.com/contact
A distinctive new species of antbird has been discovered in the humid montane forests of the San Martin region in north-central Peru.

The antbirds are a large family of insect-eating passerine birds, Thamnophilidae, known for habitually following columns of marching ants.

There are more than 210 species in roughly 45 genera, known variously as antshrikes, antwrens, antvireos, fire-eyes, bare-eyes and bushbirds. They are found across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina.

The antbirds are highly diverse; all are of small to medium size (between 4 and 14 inches, or 9.5-37 cm).

The newly-discovered species, named the Cordillera Azul antbird (Myrmoderus eowilsoni), is typically 5.5-6 inches (14-15 cm) long, has a wingspan of 8.7 inches (22 cm), and weighs 27 g.

The songs of both males and female Cordillera Azul antbirds are distinguished from those of other members of the Thamnophilidae family by a combination of a clear whistled quality, few notes, and a simple pattern.

The species is restricted to tall, montane, evergreen forest with intact understory characterized by small trees and ferns, many moss-covered logs, and extensive dead leaf matter on the ground.

We observed Cordillera Azul antbirds only within 3.3 feet (1 m) of the ground, and individuals typically moved by short, low flights and by walking slowly along the ground, said Andre Moncrieff from the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science and co-authors.

Walking involved deliberate steps accompanied by a jerking, dove-like head bob, with the tail held straight out behind.

The Cordillera Azul antbird inhabits forests surrounding the small coffee-growing town of Flor de Cafe, previously called Plataforma, at 5,250 feet (1,600 m) above sea level in the western Cordillera Azul.

We believe it is very likely that this species is found on additional ridges within the Cordillera Azul, and it should be looked for farther afield, perhaps as far as the Cordillera El Sira, the ornithologists said.

The species has an estimated population of 7,000-34,000 individuals and is threatened by clearance of forest.

Human colonists from other parts of Peru are rapidly clearing forest in the area and may soon eliminate much of the remaining forest around Flor de Cafe, Moncrief and colleagues said.

Chainsaws were an overwhelming component of the soundscape around town. We even asked some locals to delay cutting activities so that we could get better voice recordings of the antbird.

Sun-coffee farming, which necessitates clear-cutting, is the main source of income for the residents of Flor de Cafe. By contrast, birding ecotourism benefits only a few residents, leading to some unfortunate and ongoing tensions within the town. There is clearly a great need for environmental education and conservation work in the region.

According to the team, survey work is urgently needed to determine the full distribution of the Cordillera Azul antbird, to assess territory size and occupancy, and to improve estimates of population size.

Despite the restricted distribution and habitat loss in the immediate vicinity of the type locality, we consider an IUCN Red List status of Data Deficient as most appropriate until the distribution and population trends can be further evaluated, the scientists said.

Details of the birds discovery are published in the journal Auk.

_____

Andre E. Moncrieff et al. 2018. A new species of antbird (Passeriformes: Thamnophilidae) from the Cordillera Azul, San Martin, Peru. The Auk 135 (1): 114-126; doi: 10.1642/AUK-17-97.1
Now that the #MeToo movement has received its richly deserved recognition through Time magazine's Person of the Year selection, I hope Tarana Burke is not erased from the movement to which she gave its name.

Since 1927, Time editors annually have recognized people who have most influenced the news during the previous year, for better or for worse. This year the magazine named "The Silence Breakers," women who have spoken out against sexual harassment and assault.

First there was the Women's March on Washington in January that dwarfed the size of Trump's inauguration crowd the day before, despite Trump's claims to the contrary (I've got pictures to prove it).

After allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse and harassment broke in October, actor Alyssa Milano urged women to post #MeToo on social media if they'd experienced sexual harassment or assault. The movement went viral, with more than 12 million people responding in its first 24 hours, the Associated Press reported.

Since then, at least 80 public figures by Time's count, posted on their website, have since faced accusations.

Yet unknown to Milano at the time of her first #MeToo post, another similar movement with the same slogan had been formed 10 years earlier by Tarana Burke, with much less fanfare or exposure. The name came from a troubling conversation the Philadelphia activist had had several years earlier with a 13-year-old girl at a summer camp for disadvantaged teens where Burke was working as a counselor.

The girl's personal story of "monstrous" sexual abuse by her mother's boyfriend horrified Burke so much, she later wrote in an online essay, that "right in the middle of her sharing her pain with me, I cut her off and immediately directed her to another female counselor who could 'help her better.' "

"I didn't have a response or a way to help her in that moment," Burke wrote, "and I couldn't even say 'me too.' "

From those sentiments, she says, the "Me Too" movement was born. But after Alyssa Milano began to receive widespread credit for launching the #MeToo hashtag, Burke and her allies feared her name and efforts might be erased from the same national conversation  and history.

Fortunately, Milano soon shared the national stage with Burke. Burke was not included in Time's cover photo of "Silence Breakers," for some reason, but she is profiled inside.

Since Burke is African-American, such black-oriented websites as The Root and Ebony complained about her possibly being pushed to the backseat of history, along with the disadvantaged communities in which she has worked for years.

That's a legitimate concern. Most of the news coverage and national chatter since the Weinstein scandal has centered on the sort of powerful men who walk the corridors of power in Hollywood, Washington and major news media as varied as Fox News, NBC and NPR.

But what about the other victims, overwhelmingly women, who do not have celebrity jobs or ritzy status to draw attention to their complaints?

That's the next big arena into which the "Me Too" movement and its many allies, regardless of gender, needs to expand. Burke says so, too. Working-class women in such unglamorous jobs as farm workers and hotel housekeepers need sympathetic ears  and action  too.

Such ears too often are hard to find, but that is changing. For example, in a Chicago survey of 500 hotel workers by the Unite Here hospitality union, more than half said they had been sexually harassed by a guest, and 49 percent said they had experienced guests answering the door naked or otherwise exposing themselves.

The city passed a measure in October that requires hotels to provide panic buttons and sexual harassment-related training. New York earlier included panic buttons in a collective bargaining agreement with hotel unions.

Yet in Seattle, opposition from the hotel industry has stalled enforcement of a similar panic-button measure that voters approved in a referendum. As many wonder what's next for "#MeToo" and its allies, I say we should look away from the celebrities and toward the less fortunate and most vulnerable. They, too, are saying "Me, too."
P&O Cruises Australias Pacific Explorer and Pacific Jewel and Princess Cruises Sea Princess will be moored alongside within the APEC security zones to assist with accommodating an estimated 10,000 delegates and officials.

The one-day forum will take place on November 18, 2018, with major economic sessions being held on either side of that date.



Carnival Australia executive chairman Ann Sherry said the company is pleased to be playing a part in the successful delivery of Papua New Guineas first hosting of an APEC Summit, which will attract the presidents and prime ministers of member nations with thousands of delegates and observers.



Carnival Australia has established a strong relationship with the government of Papua New Guinea and is proud to have included nine destinations in Papua New Guinea on its itineraries from Australian-based ships since 2013, Sherry said.



Supporting Papua New Guinea in the hosting of the APEC Summit in November next year is an extension of our relationship. We look forward to continuing to work with the Papua New Guinea government and the APEC organising committee over the next 12 months to play our role in making the 2018 APEC Summit a success.
We are proud to have been part of building a leading quality assurance and risk management company over the past eleven years, said Gunter Herz of German holding group Mayfair, announcing the sale.

Since we invested in Germanischer Lloyd in 2006, the company has expanded its position, and through the merger with Det Norske Veritas became a world market leader in its industries. The integration is now complete.

Det Norske Veritas Foundation said it was thrilled to be assuming full ownership of DNV GL and pledged to retain 100% of the cash generated by the sale within the Group to support further development and positioning of DNV GL globally.

Moving forward with one strong owner with a long-term view and a fully aligned purpose will be good for DNV GLs customers and employees, said Remi Eriksen (pictured), Group president and ceo.

The corporate strategy of Leading towards a digital, agile and efficient future would remain unaltered, he added, with no changes to the management, organization, name or branding, and the Maritime business remaining headquartered in Hamburg.
Press Release

December 15, 2017 De Lima seeks probe into cop's tampering with evidence during Tondo bloody raid Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima today urged her Senate colleagues to investigate the suspicious circumstances behind the bloody police raid in Tondo, Manila, which appears as another summary execution disguised as legitimate law enforcement. De Lima, a known human rights defender, filed Senate Resolution (SR) No. 566 directing the appropriate Senate committee to look into Reuters' reports showing the arresting officer readily undermining eyewitness testimonies and video evidence during a violent raid that killed three suspected drug offenders. "There is an imperative need to ensure that killings are seriously investigated, prosecuted and punished, especially by ensuring that victims, witnesses and victims' families are not discouraged from coming forward," she said. "It is also important that an investigation by an independent body is immediately and automatically launched every time there are serious injuries and casualties resulting from law enforcement operations, which body will automatically preserve the evidence, including eyewitness testimonies," she added. In a special report last Nov. 27, Reuters, a London-based news agency, showed a security camera footage of the raid taken on Oct. 11 in Bgy. 19, Tondo, Manila, which resulted in the fatal shooting of three suspected drug offenders, to wit: Rolando Campo, Sherwin Bitas, and Ronnie Cerbito, by members of the anti-drug unit from Police Station 2. The footage obtained by Reuters shows the police officers, led by Station Commander Santiago Pascual, clearing out the alley as they ordered potential witnesses to desert the area where the bloody operation would eventually take place. The video also shows a victim's body falling off the ground before Pascual turned away the video that recorded the incident. The next scene shows the police officers loading Campo, Bitas and Cerbito into pedicabs to rush them to the hospital. Reuters further reported that an eyewitness account sheds further light into the incident, stating that she witnessed the police detaining the unarmed men in the alley next to her house and asked for an ID of Bitas. After one was produced, a police officer allegedly shouted "Positive! Positive!" and the officers opened fired on Bitas. "It's disturbing that the same Station Commander, as reported, even had the temerity to go so far as defending the act of tampering with surveillance cameras as being done for a 'valid security reason' and to ensure the operation wasn't compromised, which raises more questions about, if not outrightly invalidating, the claimed legitimacy of the operations," De Lima said. "It is even more disturbing considering that eyewitnesses and victims' families are being discouraged from coming forward and pressing charges, being told by police officers that 'it was useless to complain [because it's] the government you will be fighting against,' and that the police 'are just following orders," she added. As such, De Lima called on her Senate colleagues to urge the Philippine National Police (PNP) to publicly condemn and censure the acts of Santiago of trying to conceal incident of EJK by tampering with evidence. She likewise pointed out the need to discourage pronouncements by law enforcement agents that readily discredit eyewitness testimonies that allege abuses on the part of government authorities. "This is to prevent a chilling effect on those who have information about such abuses," she noted. De Lima noted it is the government's duty to enact stronger measures that will ensure that police officers are conducting their operations with due respect for human rights and assurance that operations are properly planned to prevent casualties. "There is a need for measure ensuring that operations are planned in such a way to prevent casualties as far as possible with use of deadly force employed as a last, not as the first or only resort; "And with sufficient protocols for timely calling in emergency and medical support services where the need is reasonably anticipated or thereafter becomes necessary, so that on-site care can be readily administered and police officers have no excuse for sending dead bodies to hospitals via pedicabs," she added. Under Article XI, Section 1 of the Constitution, it states that "public office is a public trust" and that "public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice..." Last Dec. 7, President Duterte reportedly brought the PNP back to his anti-narcotics campaign to actively support the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), who continues to lead the drug war.
Press Release

December 15, 2017 Las Pinas holds 12th Parol Festival WITH only a few days left before Christmas, Las Pinas residents once again showcasedtheir creative whiz with their amazing giant lanterns for the 12th Parol Festival, now an annual event in the city and eagerly participated in by Las Pineros. Participating parols in the festival were made with recycled materials and followed the required 8 ft x 8 ft size. The Parol Festival was a brainchild of Sen. Cynthia A. Villar when she was still Las Pinas congresswoman in a bid to boost the city's parol-making industry by organizing the "Samahang Magpaparol ng Las Pinas" and the Las Pinas Parol Center which has since served as the training area for lantern makers. "It felt right at that time to help my constituents to provide them with the venue not only to showcase their talents but to also encourage residents, especially promising entrepreneurs, to venture into parol making which is a highly lucrative industry. And 12 years today, we have given birth to hundreds of creative parol makers in Las Pinas adding another revenue stream for our Las Pinas residents,' Villar said. Villar shared that her family looks forward to this annual festival, always eager to see what the parol makers have prepared. Villar, along with husband former Senate President Manny Villar and Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, led the festivities which was held at the Villar SIPAG, where the competing lanterns from 16 parol makers have been on display since December 1 whenthey were submitted. Lighting of the lanterns and judging were done last December 4. The criteria for judging for the 12th Parol Festival are Ingenuity & Resourcefulness-30%;Creativity-25%; Audience Impact-30%; and Technical Skills-15%. Aside from their designs, lanterns will also be judged on how creatively parol makers included recycled materials such as plastic, shampoo and soap covers, straw, pet bottles, CDs, cartons, cans, and shells like tahong and tulya, and indigenous materials like coconut husk, dried leaves, feathers, shells etc. in their finished products. 'We must always be highly conscious on how we can help protect and preserve Mother Nature. Using indigenous and recycled materials for our lanterns brings attention to this noble and important goal,' Villar said. Parol maker Andrew Flores took home the first prize pot of P20,000.The second prize of P15,000 was given to Rogelio Apuli while Luzviminda Gallardo tookhome the third prize award of P10,000. Participants to the 11th Las Pinas Parol Festival were Maximo Guevarra; Josefa Advincula, Dionisia Aliparo, Andrew Flores, Lea Esguerra, Percival Santos, Edelfonso Esguerra, Rogelio Apuli, Crisanto Cabasal, Lucila Cabasal, Margarita Manlangit, Emeterio Cabasal, Jr., Joel Quinano, Segundina Flores, Alicia Bencio and Luzviminda Gallardo. Each participating parol-maker was given a subsidy of P2,000. Simultaneous with the Parol Festival was a street dance competition, with the theme "Paskong Las Pineros: , was also held among elementary school students was also held during the festival. Participating groups had a maximum of 50 elementary students all currently enrolled in Las Pinas City. Their costumes had parols/lanterns and recycled and indigenous materials as their main component. Each participating group was given a subsidy of 25,000 for their costumes, props and other equipment. The criteria for judging for the street dance competition are Interpretation and Concept, 40%; Choreography (Mastery, Execution and Synchronization, 30%; and Costume and Props, 30%. Winners in the street dance competition are the following: 4th Group (CAA Elem. School,CAA Elementary-Annex and Gatchalian Elem. School) P50,000 (grand champion); 3rd Group (Almanza Elem. School, Almanza Elementary School-Annex and Pilar Village Elem. School) P30,000 (1st runner up); 1st Group (Pamplona Elem. School, Pamplona Elem. School Unit 1, Zapote Elem. School and Talon 3 Annex) P20,000 (2nd runner up).
JUMP TO RECIPE

Why It Works Bright and fruity aji amarillo paste brings both heat and acidity to this rich braise.

Slightly sweet and fatty coconut milk balances the chile's heat.

Searing the chicken on the stove first gives you crispy skin, while finishing in the oven makes the thighs fall-apart tender.

Bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs offer up more flavor to the dish.

Having a well-stocked pantry has many benefits since a couple of special ingredients can be all you need to transform a simple weeknight meal into a complex and flavorful dish. There is, however, a dark side to always having the goods to make mole poblano or papri chaat at the drop of a hat. Our closet has become a refuge for several varieties of rice and dried chiles, while the sock drawer is stuffed with spices, leaving clothes to lurk in every dark corner of the apartment. When youre married to someone who also works in food, theres no voice of reason telling you not to buy a five-pound bag of black cocoa. But hey, at least we eat well. This braised chicken dish utilizes two staples that my kitchen is never without: aji amarillo paste, a fruity Peruvian chile paste that my husbands grandmother mails us by the case, and canned coconut milk.

Aji amarillo is a bright orange chile native to Peru that tastes as radiant as it looks. Former Serious Eats editor Max Falkowitz described it best when he said, "If there were a chile to taste like sunshine, this would be it." In terms of heat, its about as spicy as cayenne pepper, but it doesnt seem nearly as fiery, thanks to plenty of fruity and floral notes to balance out the heat. Unlike the grassy, stinging aroma of jalapenos or Thai chiles, aji amarillo smells round and full, with notes of tropical fruit. Its ubiquitous throughout Peru and much of South America in dishes such as papas a la huancaina (potatoes smothered in a sauce of aji amarillo and queso fresco) and aji de gallina (shredded chicken in a rich sauce of aji amarillo, walnuts, cheese, and milk).

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

If you're not lucky enough to regularly receive chile pepper care packages from a Bolivian grandmother, aji amarillo is readily available from Peruvian and Mexican grocery stores, as well as online. Its sold in several forms, from frozen to dried ormy favoriteas a paste. Aji amarillo paste can easily be stirred into sauces, tossed with roasted vegetables, or served with eggs for a change of pace from Tabasco.

Coconut and aji amarillo often find themselves together in ceviche, but in the dead of winter, this combination also makes for a rich and cheerful-looking braise. The technique I use for it is exactly like the one Kenji outlines for crispy and tender chicken thighs, made just a little bit saucier with the addition of coconut milk.



Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

I start by seasoning bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs with kosher salt. Whenever Im trying to highlight a particular chile, I abstain from using black pepper, so that the two peppers dont compete for piquant dominance. I then sear the thighs, skin side first, in a hot Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot. If youve got coconut oil on hand, this is a great opportunity to double down on that tropical flavor, but any neutral oil works well, too.

After searing the chicken, I remove it from the pan and drain off any excess fat before adding the onion and garlic, cooking until both are wilted and tender. Then I add coconut milk and the star attraction, the aji amarillo paste. I like to use a generous half cup of the pepper paste for a particularly fierce flavor, but feel free to adjust to your taste. Just keep in mind that the heat will significantly mellow as everything stews together.

Dont fret if you cant find aji amarillo paste. Coconut milk is the perfect canvas for all kinds of chile spices, so this recipe will work just as well to highlight any other pepper or chile paste you have, allowing you to finally finish off that can of chipotles thats been languishing in the back of your fridge.

Next, I add sweet butternut squash to the coconut and aji amarillo base, then return the chicken thighs to the pan. The squash gives the thighs a raft to float on, so the skin stays crisp as the chicken braises in the sauce. Hearty winter squash and root vegetables pair notably well with aji amarillo, balancing the chile's high notes.

I cook it all in the oven, uncovered, until the chicken has cooked through, the butternut has become creamy and tender, and the sauce has reduced slightly. I like to complete the dish with a handful of peas and roughly chopped cilantro, for more pops of sweetness and a fresh finish. I serve the chicken with ladlefuls of emerald-speckled sauce and fluffy boiled yuca on the side to sop up every sunny drop.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Days after London Breed took over as San Franciscos acting mayor, her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors were already talking about appointing someone else to the position.

Breed, who is also the boards president, was long seen as a contender to succeed Ed Lee in 2019. Lees unexpected death Tuesday vaulted her into the citys top office, and if she can keep the high-profile job, shell have a big advantage in the June 5 election to finish the rest of his term.

But several supervisors and legislative aides are scrambling to block Breed. Two supervisors, Mark Farrell and Jane Kim, may challenge her for the seat in June, and four others  Aaron Peskin, Sandra Lee Fewer, Ahsha Safai and Norman Yee  have endorsed Mark Leno for mayor.

Obviously, this is on everybodys minds, said Peskin, a progressive who is close to Breed despite supporting Leno in the mayors race.

He and Supervisor Hillary Ronen are raising concerns about maintaining appropriate checks and balances in city government if Breed were to continue to serve simultaneously as acting mayor and board president. The dual role allows her to vote on legislation and then veto it.

The board has the choice of allowing her to remain acting mayor until the June election or appointing an interim mayor until then. If the supervisors were to choose from among themselves, that person  Breed included  would have to resign from the board.

If Breed were to continue as mayor in either capacity, shed set the citys policy agenda for six months, dominate news headlines and position herself not only to win in June but to clinch two additional terms and be at the top of city government for the next 10 years.

That worries City Hall insiders and politicians who are leery of repeating the history of 2011, when Lee, a former city administrator, was appointed to be a caretaker mayor, after some deft behind-the-scenes machinations by power brokers Willie Brown, the former mayor, and Rose Pak, who had ruled politics in Chinatown and died last year.

Lee was elected that November and re-elected in 2015, serving until his death Tuesday.

There was no way Lee would have won that race in 2011 without having been an incumbent, said former Supervisor Chris Daly, an outspoken progressive who was angered by Lees appointment.

Its unclear whether the current board will rally behind a true caretaker mayor  someone qualified to keep the city running for six months who wont seek the office in June. The deadline to file for the June election is Jan. 9.

Most names that have been floated so far are elder statesmen and women who are still part of the city family: former Mayors Brown and Art Agnos, former Supervisor and state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano and retired City Controller Ed Harrington, who was also the general manager of the Public Utilities Commission.

Others under consideration are high-level bureaucrats who have years of experience running departments, such as City Administrator Naomi Kelly and City Controller Ben Rosenfield. Whoever serves as mayor between January and June will have to handle labor negotiations with unions and oversee a complex budget-making process.

Brant Ward / The Chronicle 2016

Its unlikely that any supervisor would be able to amass six votes to get the interim seat, considering the 6-5 split between moderates and progressives on the board, and given that supervisors are barred from voting for themselves.

Brown, who is now a Chronicle columnist, scoffed at the idea that he could be appointed for his old job in City Hall.

Im not qualified, he snapped. Jurassic Park is where I now live, and they dont let people like me out of Jurassic Park.

Instead, he threw support behind Breed, whom he painted as a potential disciple to former Mayor Dianne Feinstein, now a U.S. senator.

Im betting she (Breed) will repeat what Feinstein did in 1978 when (George) Moscone was assassinated, Brown said. Feinstein went on to become a fabulous mayor ... ultimately emerging as a senior senator from California.

Kelly resisted questions about a potential appointment Thursday.

I frankly believe this is an inappropriate question at this time, as I am mourning the loss of my good friend Mayor Edwin Lee, she said in an emailed statement. I am focused on getting the city through this transition. ... I am focused on making sure the city continues to function appropriately and will continue to support the mayor and Board of Supervisors during this difficult time.

Other power brokers, including veteran political strategist P.J. Johnston, touted Breed. Johnston called her an incredibly capable person.

While I know shes in a state of shock, it hasnt diminished her capacity to lead, Johnston said.

It appears the citys moderate political establishment has coalesced behind Breed, who was already making public appearances as mayor Wednesday  her second day in office. That day she faced a throng of reporters at a news conference to promote a gun buyback program in the South of Market neighborhood.

On Thursday, she planned to join a holiday toy wrapping party at the African American Art & Culture Complex on Fulton Street. Her schedule of events this week seemed to build on the theme of helping out San Franciscos disenfranchised communities  a fitting platform for a mayor who often stresses that she grew up in public housing in the Western Addition.

The longer she stays in the job, the more likely shell edge out potential moderate opponents, such as Farrell and Assemblyman David Chiu, and the greater threat she poses to Leno, a former state assemblyman and senator who entered the mayors race in May and has already raised $400,000.

But if some of Breeds peers are intent on appointing someone else, others in City Hall say it would be a major political blunder to undercut San Franciscos first female African American mayor.

I think the womens community will be watching, said Deborah Mesloh, president of San Franciscos Commission on the Status of Women, who has worked on campaigns for U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

At this cultural moment in time, when theres a revolution around equity for women, I cant imagine an argument for London not to serve as mayor, she said.

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan

Public services

Friday: Mayor Ed Lee will lie in state from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the City Hall rotunda.

Sunday: A memorial celebration will be held at 3 p.m. in the City Hall rotunda.
Mark Leno, a veteran San Francisco Democrat who rose from the Board of Supervisors to serve 14 years in the state Capitol, on Thursday became the first major candidate to enter the mayors race to be decided in June.

Leno, who pulled his candidates papers Thursday, had already spent much of the year fundraising and appearing at political events after announcing in May his bid for the 2019 election. What would have been a protracted two-year campaign suddenly became a six-month sprint following Mayor Ed Lees unexpected death on Tuesday.

The pool of candidates appears to have grown smaller, and Leno will probably face competition from Supervisor Mark Farrell, Assemblyman David Chiu  who would have to give up his re-election campaign to run for mayor  and acting Mayor London Breed, who was thrown into the citys top job overnight. Supervisor Jane Kim, who will be termed out next year, also is seen as a potential contender.

On Friday, Leno was sanguine about his odds. During the past several months, hes built a platform around the quality-of-life issues that San Francisco voters seem to care about most: homelessness, the scarcity of affordable housing, public transportation and traffic congestion.

Ive already done well over a dozen house parties and fundraisers, he said.

If elected, Leno would be the citys first openly gay mayor. He has fervent support among progressives in what is expected to be a tightly contested race. Members of the city family with ties to former Mayor Willie Brown are already coalescing around Breed. Some highlight the cultural importance of having an African American woman in the citys top seat, considering the momentum building around civil rights and womens equality in the era of President Trump.

Chiu, who is also a former supervisor, could be a formidable challenger to Leno if he decides to run.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Leno has already raised about $400,000 and clinched endorsements from four supervisors  Ahsha Safai, Aaron Peskin, Sandra Lee Fewer and Norman Yee  as well as state Sen. Scott Wiener, who was at one point considered a potential mayoral candidate but said this week that he will not run.

 Rachel Swan

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cityinsider@sfchronicle.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Khizr Khan loves to remind young people  or, as he calls them, our future leaders and heroes  that children have played an important role in his unexpected 18-month journey from being a reticent and apolitical father of a fallen U.S. soldier to a household name.

Ever since he fixed his gaze at the camera at the Democratic National Convention in July 2016, speaking directly to candidate Donald Trump and electrifying the nation, Khan  whose middle son, Capt. Humayun Khan, died in 2004 protecting his men from a suicide bomber in Baquba, Iraq  has been a global symbol of speaking up to denounce bigotry.

Interviewed last week at Dominican College, Khan recalled that when he was invited by Hillary Clintons campaign team to speak as a representative Gold Star father on the last night of the convention, he and his wife, Ghazala, spent days mulling over the offer at home in Charlottesville, Va.

We are humble, modest people. This felt too big for us, said Khan, a Pakistani-born, Harvard-educated lawyer who became an American citizen in 1986.

Our sons Shaharyar and Omer advised us, Please dont go, youll regret this, said Khan, 67. He was in the Bay Area to promote his two newly published books: a captivating and very personal memoir, An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice, and This Is Our Constitution, an accessible, nonpartisan primer on Americas founding documents written for middle school readers.

We had decided not to accept, Khan said. He walked to his mailbox that same afternoon and found a hand-delivered envelope with no stamp, addressed in a childs writing. It read: You are a lawyer. Can you please not let them deport Maria? She is in the fifth grade. She is our friend.

Khan had been fielding similarly fearful questions from his Muslim and Hispanic neighbors (anyone with different skin, he said), whose children worried about deportation ever since Trumps incendiary statement in December 2015 vowing to ban all Muslims from the United States.

I would hearten them by reading the 14th Amendment, Section I, about equal protection and due process, said Khan, who fell in love with the U.S. Constitution as a young law student in Lahore in 1972. But the children were still scared, asking, Are we going to be thrown out?

We were thinking of them when we called the Clinton people back to accept.

And the rest is history.

With Ghazala by his side, Khan pulled his $1 pocket Constitution from his blazer and said these now-famous words: Donald Trump, youre asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.

Kahn says the dramatic flourish was ad-libbed after he felt his beloved Constitution in his pocket while in a cab headed to Philadelphias Wells Fargo Center. Hed carried it for years, heavily underlined with quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Justice Antonin Scalia tucked inside. (His original copy now resides in the Virginia Historical Society.) We practiced how I should pull it out of my pocket, with the cabbie watching, he said with a laugh.

So, you see, I stand here because of you, Khan told an all-school assembly at Hall Middle School in Larkspur on a recent morning. It was your peers who sent us to speak on your behalf. See the power your words can have.

Khan describes himself as a naturally private person who misses being home with his grandchildren, but believes a time comes in everyones life to speak out when democratic virtues are being trampled. Khans Marin school visit was his 176th appearance since the convention. Book Passage in Corte Madera (which hosted Khans Dominican event) has seen a substantial increase in their sale of pocket-size Constitutions ever since Khan held up his own at the convention.

Wearing a dark suit and his gold star lapel pin, Khan kept the packed gym, including numerous Marin County parents eager to see him in person, rapt as he made his plea for civic engagement as an antidote to todays rancorous political climate.

The oldest of 10 children raised on a small farm without electricity in Punjab Province, Khan told the Hall students that I remain in awe of the Bill of Rights, which I call the Bill of Human Dignities, because I have lived twice under martial law. Please remember that some parts of the world do not have these rights  of equality and fairness, even the right to assemble and to speak freely.

Always remember this word: civility. It must be our motto, he said. We may disagree, and in democracy there are always two sides to an issue, but the sides must talk to each other with dignity.

The adults in attendance caught Khans unspoken reference to the backlash he and Ghazala experienced when Trump fired back at them on Twitter after the convention.

We were saddened, but not surprised, he told The Chronicle. We knew his mentality, and his lack of empathy was well known.

In person, as well as in An American Family  which is both a personal history of the Khan family and an emblematic story of immigrant struggle and ambition  Khan stresses the importance of his outsiders perspective. As someone who first learned of Americas democratic virtues as faraway abstract ideals, he only discovered later, as a U.S. citizen himself, that the durability of these freedoms is perennially tested.

I can perhaps see more clearly the blessings of America because they were once new to me, he writes near the end of his memoir. I am an American patriot not because I was born here but because I was not.

As a new immigrant, Khan was in awe of the many small indicators of what he calls the 14th Amendments equal protections put into practice: city buses running on time, house numbers at every address, even the slow, egalitarian crawl at the DMV (where we all take a number and wait, regardless of status).

Khan reminds every audience that as a student at the University of Virginia, his son Humayun wrote an essay entitled Democracy Requires Vigilance and Sacrifice. The vigilance part is my mission now.

As students filed out of the gym and back to class, a few hung back hoping to shake hands with Khan.

It was so inspirational hearing him, said seventh-grader Kourosh Vafaie, 12. He made us all feel that were connected, no matter how different we are. Hes kind of the opposite of Trump.

I cant believe we got the opportunity to meet him, said Trent Carrade, 12, of Larkspur, who had watched Khans convention speech in his history class. He has a simple message, but its really inspiring. Everyone, all of us, have equal rights, and we shouldnt take that for granted.

I am often asked what I would add if I could write a new constitutional amendment, Khan said at the end of his remarks.

I would add Amendment No. 28, stating that every American must read the countrys founding documents. We can only protect these liberties after we become aware of what they truly mean.

Jessica Zack is a freelance writer who covers art, film and books for The San Francisco Chronicle. Twitter: @jwzack
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to repeal Obama-era net neutrality regulations that guaranteed equal access to the Internet, a controversial reversal that drew swift rebuke by companies and politicians in the Bay Area, where many advocates for the rules said they counted on them to protect Internet users and foster the growth of startups.

The FCCs 3-2 decision, with the panels Republican members outvoting its Democrats, was hailed by big Internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast.

But state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, immediately vowed to introduce a bill in the Legislature next year that would require net neutrality for any Internet service provider to operate in California. In an interview, Wiener said California is already battling the Trump administration on issues like climate change, and he wants to add net neutrality to that list.

Ive been closely following the train wreck at the FCC, Wiener said. We need to stay focused on pushing back wherever we can, and protecting a free and open and democratic Internet is definitely worth the fight.

The vote overturned 2015 regulations designed to prevent Internet service providers from favoring some sites and apps over others. Net neutrality proponents said the rules were needed to ensure that smaller sites had the same access as larger, wealthier entities, but critics said the regulations were unnecessary.

David Cohen, Comcast senior executive vice president, said in a statement that the repeal eliminates burdensome regulations and opens the door for increased investment and digital innovation. Todays action does not mark the end of the Internet as we know it; rather it heralds in a new era of light regulation that will benefit consumers.

Verizon said it fully supports the open Internet, and we will continue to do so. Our customers demand it and our business depends on it.

In a blog post, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President Bob Quinn said: The Internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has. He also said the company wont block, censor or slow traffic to websites based on content, nor unfairly discriminate in our treatment of Internet traffic.

But Netflix, one of the worlds most popular Internet services and a proponent of net neutrality, ripped the FCCs decision as misguided.

Were disappointed in the FCCs decision to gut the net neutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity and civic engagement, the Los Gatos company said. Todays decision is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix will stand with innovators, large and small, to oppose this misguided FCC order.

Emmett Shear, CEO of the popular San Francisco video game streaming company Twitch, now owned by Amazon.com, said startups like his prospered because of net neutrality.

Without it, we might not be here today, and our streamers might not be here tomorrow, Shear said in a blog post written in anticipation of the FCCs reversal.

More on Net Neutrality Net neutrality hits a nerve, eliciting intense reactions

Because our streamer community  many of which are small business owners  depend on their viewers having easy access to their channels and reliable quality of service, repealing net neutrality will erode the power of the Internet to enable and create these types of jobs, Shear said. This is why we are lending our voice to championing a free and open Internet.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky tweeted that the repeal was wrong and disappointing. A free and open internet is critical to innovation, an open society, and widespread access to economic empowerment.

Airbnb is an example of a startup that benefited from an open Internet, said Tara Sharp, chief marketing officer of Sonic, a small Internet service provider based in Santa Rosa whose founder, Dane Jasper, has long been a vocal proponent of net neutrality.

At one time, they were a small business and they wouldnt have been able to afford to pay AT&T and Comcast for Internet fast lanes, Sharp said in an interview. Their business wouldnt have taken off. Their customers would have gotten frustrated because their orders would have timed out.

Sonic has recently seen an increase in customers who wanted to switch from a larger provider because of the FCCs impending vote, she said. But in San Francisco, were lucky because we have a lot of options, Sharp said. The further we get out of the Bay Area, the fewer your options are.

Jaime Fink, co-founder of Mimosa Networks, a Santa Clara wireless Internet company, said lack of competition causes the biggest harm to the Internet today.

Although the FCCs vote will be scrutinized, it is crucial that the tech industry quickly unites and adopts new tactics to overcome Americas broadband problems and elevate the digital economy, Fink said in a statement. Without any competition and no guarantee of net neutrality, there is little pressure on the mega-ISPs to compete on price, improve their networks and ensure fair treatment to all types of traffic. This must change.

San Franciscos Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a tweet that the FCC's decision to abandon its traditional role in protecting an open and free Internet will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in Internet policy history. We will fight in the courts, in the states, and in Congress to restore #NetNeutrality.

Wiener said he is exploring options with the foundation and the ACLU to draft a bill in time for the Legislatures next session that would use Californias regulatory powers to force Internet providers to adhere to net neutrality practices. That might include adding net neutrality as a requirement in cable franchise agreements, state contracts or as a condition of using public right-of-way.

There could be multiple approaches, he said. Well spend the next 60 days figuring out what works best.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, said the FCCs vote was short-sighted and will severely undermine the ability of small businesses to compete in the digital sphere.

If you hate cable, youre going to really hate the FCCs repeal of our net neutrality rules, Speier said in a statement. Net neutrality is the backbone of a free and open Internet.

Twilio, a cloud communications service company, also called on Congress to take action to force the FCC to protect consumers Internet access.

Todays vote to roll back net neutrality protections is a clear indication the FCC is moving away from its role to protect consumers, said Twilio general counsel Karyn Smith in a statement.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also decried the decision. Today, the FCC failed to do what is right, he said in a statement. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office plans to sue to block the repeal, citing problems with the commissions process for soliciting comments from the public. Becerra and Schneiderman, along with 16 other state attorneys general, sent FCC Chairman Ajit Pai a letter Wednesday outlining their concerns.

Barbara van Schewick, a Stanford law professor, said she expects the FCCs order to be overturned in the courts.

Todays vote is a stain on the FCC, van Schewick said in a statement. For decades, the FCC prided itself on being careful, deliberate and transparent in its mission to keep the Internet open for free speech, commerce and innovation, while maintaining incentives for broadband providers to invest. This FCC has failed to live up to that standard.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Wendy Lee and Carolyn Said contributed to this report.

Benny Evangelista is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: bevangelista@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChronicleBenny

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers treat all Web traffic equally, and its pretty much how the Internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and Internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the Internet  blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example.

Net neutrality advocates say undoing these rules makes it harder for the government to crack down on Internet providers who act against consumer interests and will harm innovation. Those who criticize the rules say undoing them is good for investment in broadband networks.

What big Internet providers want

Big telecom companies hate the stricter regulation that came with net neutrality rules passed in 2015 and have fought them fiercely in court. They say the regulations imposed uncertainty on what business practices are acceptable.

What Silicon Valley wants

Internet companies such as Google have strongly backed net neutrality, but many tech firms have been more muted in their activism this year. Netflix, which had been vocal in support of the rules in 2015, said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldnt hurt it because its now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere.

 Associated Press
Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Foreigners can apply to stay in the United States under a federal rule aimed at smoothing the path for entrepreneurs, immigration officials said Thursday.

This move comes a few weeks after a judge ruled in favor of a group of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and companies led by the National Venture Capital Association, which sued the federal government for its unlawful delay of the International Entrepreneur Rule. In his decision, the judge wrote that the government must begin implementing the rule.
The Trump administration has published plans to stop issuing work permits for spouses of H-1B holders.

This confirms a report by The Chronicle last month that said the administration intended to overturn a 2015 rule that allowed the government to grant work permits to spouses of H-1B holders. Thousands of foreigners currently in the United States already have the permits.

About 130,000 spouses and children of H-1B visa holders came to the U.S. on H-4 visas last year. Before President Barack Obama created a work permit for certain H-4 visa holders in 2015, these foreigners  often women  were not allowed to hold a job here or be issued a Social Security number.

The notice  titled Removing H-4 Dependent Spouses from the Class of Aliens Eligible for Employment Authorization  was recently published in the Unified Agenda, which is a semi-annual list of regulations under development by the federal agencies. It is published in the spring and fall.

The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing the H-4 work authorization in light of President Trumps Buy American, Hire American executive order, according to the notice. The administration plans to propose an official rule in the Federal Register by February, although that timing is subject to change.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadni
Uber should have given Waymo an inflammatory letter written by a lawyer for one of its former security managers as part of the discovery process in Waymos trade-secret lawsuit against the ride-hailing company, according to a legal report filed on Friday.

Waymo is the self-driving car unit of Alphabet, Googles parent company.

The letter claimed that the ride-hailing company secretly spied on rivals, took steps to cover its tracks from investigators and engaged in illegal behavior. Many of its explosive allegations were read aloud during hearings late last month in the Waymo vs. Uber case.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who is presiding over the lawsuit, asked special master John Cooper to determine whether Uber had erred by not submitting the letter. Coopers report filed Friday said that it had.

Alsup had said that if Cooper determined Uber was culpable for the omission, he might inform the jury in the case that Uber had deliberately withheld evidence.

Waymo has sued Uber for allegedly stealing its proprietary designs for lidar sensors, which help self-driving cars see the world around them. Waymo claims that its former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded 14,000 files before he left Waymo, started a new company and sold it to Uber for $680 million  bringing the intellectual property with him. Uber denies the allegations and fired Levandowski this year for refusing to cooperate with its investigation of the matter. Levandowski has asserted his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The letter written by Ric Jacobs lawyer came to light when the U.S. attorneys office for the Northern District of California took the highly unusual step of forwarding it to Alsup on Nov. 22. The U.S. attorneys cover letter, which was unsealed earlier this week, confirmed that it was pursuing a criminal investigation of Uber.

Uber deputy general counsel Angela Padilla, the letters recipient, testified last month that its fantastical accusations were the work of an extortionist. However, Uber has paid Jacobs $4.5 million and his lawyer another $3 million. Jacobs, whom Uber said was caught downloading confidential files on the day he quit, portrayed himself to Uber as a whistle-blower, other Uber employees testified.

Although Padilla said ex-CEO Travis Kalanick and many board members saw the letter, Uber did not turn it over as part of discovery in the Waymo lawsuit. That omission outraged Alsup, who berated Ubers lawyers  who said they were unaware of the letter  for withholding evidence. He postponed the planned jury trial to Feb. 5, a two-month delay, to allow time for further discovery about the letters explosive allegations.

Alsup then asked Cooper, to determine whether Uber was at fault for failing to produce the letter, as well as Jacobs resignation email and his settlement agreement with Uber. In a scathing report, Cooper noted that Padilla, board members and top executives were well aware of Jacobs letter, and said Uber should have given it to Waymo. However, he said Jacobs resignation email and settlement with Uber did not need to be produced.

Mr. Jacobs correspondence alleged systemic, institutionalized, and criminal efforts by Uber to conceal evidence and steal trade secrets, not just as a general matter but also specifically involving the evidence and trade secrets at issue in this case  maybe the largest and most significant lawsuit Uber has ever faced, Cooper wrote.

The 37-page letter was expected to be unsealed later Friday with some redactions.

Jacobs himself, who is now working for Uber as a $1 million-a-year consultant, walked back some of the letters bombshell accusations in court last month, saying he had only hastily reviewed it before his lawyer sent it. Besides Padilla, two Uber security managers testified that the letters allegations were false, and portrayed Jacobs as an incompetent employee.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
Alicia Cho

Blue Bottle Coffee, the Oakland specialty coffee brand with dreams of global expansion, is now selling coffee grown in California.

The company on Thursday unveiled its first California-grown coffee: a Gesha and Caturra blend produced by Frinj Coffee, the new business from Good Land Organics in Goleta. Blue Bottle is selling the beans in 100-gram containers priced at $65.
This is A Million Plates, the Chronicle's regular column about immigrant food in the Bay Area, centered around the theory that there are a million different plates of food eaten every day in this region. See prior installments: Gabi Lustosa, Manish Tyagi.

The only thing Daniel Situs Lower Pac Heights kitchen has in common with the kitchens of his immigrant family are Cantonese ingredients. All of the family kitchens, whether in the city or on the Peninsula, are stocked with fragrant star anise and meaty Maggi seasoning sauce, dry Shaoxing rice wine and bing tong, a brown rock sugar with a caramelized taste that melts into sauces and braises. But thats where the similarities end.

As a kid, Situs paternal grandmother would cook entire meals in her tiny Chinatown apartment kitchen using only a hot plate with a pan attachment on the floor. Even though his parents worked in the restaurant industry, their Millbrae kitchen has just two cleavers and some pots and pans. (The oven is just a glorified drying rack, Situ says.)

In contrast, the 28-year-old Situ, who works by day as an optometrist, has a kitchen filled with a sous vide machine, Vitamix blender, Le Creuset Dutch oven and a Japanese chefs knife.

His kitchen is a place where old-school Chinese food memories meet western techniques and technology. Its the perfect representation of a second-generation immigrant whose grandmother and parents immigrated from China to San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s to find a better life for their kids.

His food is the same  a mix of the simple Cantonese food he learned to make as a kid mingled with a culinary curiosity from growing up in the American melting pot. His comfort food is a braised dish he learned from his father called aomei, which is Cantonese for oxtail.

Dads version was nothing fancy, but it was a luxury to us growing up, Situ says. He learned his fathers recipe, then researched similar ones online and began experimenting. He tried pressure cooking and sous-viding the meat, but in the end, he discovered that he prefers to let it braise on the stove top like his father did, albeit using a Dutch oven instead of a clay pot.

Situs grandma was the first to move to San Francisco in the 1970s with his dads younger brother. They came from Kaiping in southern China. She didnt speak English, so she mainly did janitorial work. She sponsored Situs parents to come to San Francisco in 1987, where they both worked in restaurant kitchens. His sister was born that year, but was shipped back to China to live with her maternal grandmother because her parents had to work. Two years later, Daniel was born, and his sister joined them in San Francisco.

Situ grew up with his parents and older sister in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Hayes Valley, where they insisted on eating together as a family. They mainly ate poor mans food  very simple Cantonese dishes like whole steamed fish with bok choy or gai lan (Chinese broccoli), and steamed pork patties with salted egg.

Situ says his parents have always stressed the importance of being able to whip yourself a meal, along with being able to do other chores around the house. As kids, his sister cooked dinner because their parents worked. He started to learn to cook around age 9 just by watching. Once, when the siblings were in middle school, his parents left them to fend for themselves for two weeks while they flew to Portland, Ore., to help his aunt open a Chinese restaurant. They expected a lot out of us kids, he says, although it also awakened a love of cooking in him.

Situ now looks forward to cooking dinner at the end of a long day because it takes his mind off everything else. As he starts to build his braising liquid, he reveals how he deviates from his fathers recipe, using more ingredients to make a complex sauce, like chicken stock and oyster sauce. He also adds more accompaniments, like dried Chinese mushrooms, carrot and celery (nontraditional, but he loves the flavor they add). Even the oxtails are cooked differently. His dad likes the meat a little bouncy, while Situ wants it falling-off-the-bone tender.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Chinese culture played a huge part in Situs life growing up in San Francisco, where the Chinese population is the largest ethnic minority group in the city. For nine years, his parents sent him to Chinese school, where he learned to write and read Cantonese after school. He didnt enjoy it at the time, but years later, he is grateful to be bilingual and have that connection to his culture.

His elementary school was a block away from his grandmothers apartment in Chinatown, and shed watch him while his parents worked. Hed walk there after school to find homemade snacks, typically a soup she called macaroni (made with chicken stock, frozen peas and corn, macaroni and a slice of Spam) or stir-fried noodles. He calls her food ugly beautiful (a term coined by restaurateur David Chang), meaning it looked awful but tasted delicious. He fondly remembers shopping in Chinatown to get the freshest ingredients and then watching her cook. Hed get splashed by the fish at the fish market, and help her buy a live chicken, which she would later kill, scald and pluck in her apartment before cooking it.

His culture still plays an important role. He lives with his girlfriend, who is also Cantonese, and it means a lot that she understands and loves the food he ate growing up. They get most of their Cantonese ingredients from their parents (who often shop in Chinatown) and his favorite Asian store, New May Wah in the Richmond District, which has spices, produce and a butcher/fish market. He loves going to Cantonese restaurants with her, especially New D & A Cafe in the Richmond. Its a hole in the wall restaurant, the best kind, that serves Hong Kong-style food with great happy-hour specials, he says.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

When the braise is done, he serves me a huge oxtail on top of white jasmine rice, topped with cilantro and extra braising sauce. The meat falls off the bone at first tug, and the sauce is rich and full of umami with a hint of star anise and earthy white pepper. Its the kind of food thats balm for a cold, wintry Bay Area day.

Situs dad isnt a fan of his version of aomei, but hes proud of his sons passion for food. He encouraged me after grad school to go to culinary school, Situ says. He hopes to one day, when hes more financially secure.

Leena Trivedi-Grenier is a freelance writer in the Bay Area. Twitter: @Leena_Eats. Email: food@sfchronicle.com
Bill and Sarah Niles have been thinking about their San Francisco exit strategy for three years.

Sarah has been the sommelier at Outerlands for a couple years now, and before that, ran the wine programs at Commonwealth and St. Vincent in the Mission District. Bill is most recently the co-chef at Tartine Manufactory, and made his name before that as the chef at St. Vincent. By most measures, they have successful careers in the restaurant industry.

But they were having that discussion a lot, the one that begins If we left this town where else would we live? and circles around and around until everyone grows maudlin. We wanted something we can build upon and not fight against, which is what it feels like in San Francisco, Bill says.

Then two events happened, almost simultaneously. The first was that some friends  set designer Lauren Heanes and Waine Longwell, who owns a Brooklyn bar called Alameda  suggested Livermore, Heanes hometown.

The Niles visited. Livermore suited them. It has a built-in population, so we wouldnt rely on destination diners, he says. Its not so far away from the Bay that I cant do what I already do, which is rely on the Bay for inspiration and product. And its a wine region, for Sarah.

Then reason number two appeared: their daughter, who is now almost 2 years old.

Eighteen months ago, the couple arranged to take over the lease of Charlottes Web, a longtime head shop. Its one of just a few brick buildings in Livermores downtown, and dates back to the 19th century. As they were negotiating the transition, Heanes parents decided to buy the building, and Heanes and Longwell, to move west.

Since then, the partners been emptying the interior of everything but its brick walls and building out a kitchen and dining room. The remodel is now close enough to completion that the couple moved to Livermore last week. In the process the two quit their jobs. (Christa Chase, Bills former co-chef at Tartine Manufactory, will now be the restaurants sole executive chef.)

Range Life, the Niles new restaurant, is named after a Pavement song but also the rangy swells of grass and scrub that begin at the edge of town. The opening, the four partners hope, will be early next year, perhaps as soon as February.

Range Life will be open for lunch and dinner, probably six nights a week, and will include a full bar, overseen by Longwell. In addition to the 50-seat dining room, it will have a market stocked with wines curated by Sarah Niles, some housewares, and food and bar goods made in house.

After working at Tartine for a few years, Bill Niles says he will start baking bread as well.The menu will be fairly traditional in terms of format, continuing his transition as chef from hearty and experimental fare at St. Vincent to lighter dishes more focused on vegetables. This will be the first kitchen he has run that will be entirely his own. I dont know that Ill cook as out there as I did (before), or tried to stretch myself so far as I did, but the freedom to do whatever is appealing, he says.

Range Life: 2160 Railroad Ave., Livermore

Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jonkauffman
Call Me by Your Name is an emphatic celebration of the mystery and power of sexuality, and all its attendant danger, exaltation and tenderness. Here in a small Italian town, close to the sea  where Hellenic statues have a way of washing up onshore  the sun, the water and the surrounding beauty reinforce lust and longing; and everything is suffused with a charged, pagan innocence.

Its the least Puritan of movies, pre-Christian in its sensibility, and will perhaps seem jarring, arriving at this curious time in our cultural life. Based on the novel of the same name by Andre Aciman, Call Me by Your Name is the story of a 17-year-old boy named Elio, who becomes attracted to a graduate student, a visiting American scholar staying at the villa owned by the boys parents.

Luca Guadagnino directs the film with a sense of languor, as though the heat or the beauty of the surroundings were persuading him to slow down and take it all in. He propels the action, not through quick cutting, but through Timothee Chalamets remarkably sure-footed performance in the central role. Elio is a gifted young composer and musician, and the movie suggests that his ability to be crazy in love and in pursuit of this somewhat older guy is an offshoot of his talent, of the frequency of his vibration toward life itself.

Its a performance of unexpected authority, the spectacle of someone ready to pounce on these new sensations and experiences. He prowls the villa, almost jumping out of his own skin with an awareness that this is his prime moment in life. We sense that, despite his being little more than a kid, he may never be this powerful, whether creatively, emotionally or sexually. And we sense that he knows it, too, and that he is, in this way, superior to every adult he encounters.

This authority of drive makes him very much the equal of the older man, Oliver (Armie Hammer). Elio may have the vulnerability of being young and defenseless against his own desire, but Oliver has the vulnerability of knowing he has already moved out of that golden aura of Eros that Elio inhabits. And so they approach each other, warily, neither admitting whats going on, while beneath the surface, everything is happening.

Call Me by Your Name is transcendent in its first hour, communicating much through the cameras evocation of nature and the screenplays clear yet subtle dialogue. Likewise, Hammers performance is a brilliant exercise in subtlety, suggesting a genial yet inappropriate space-taking, the carelessness of the beautiful. He lets you feel Olivers awareness of Elio even as hes playing his concealment of it. Oliver is so deft and so unapologetic in his signaling that, only when its acknowledged later, we think, yes, of course, thats exactly what we saw.

The movie reaches a climax of sorts in its scene of the two men circling a World War I memorial, one of the many such monuments commemorating the young men from a particular town who were killed. That is civilization  the death and mutilation of young men  while Call Me by Your Name is about something outside of that, something elemental. Even once all the cards are on the table, the movie maintains most of its velocity, exploring Elios pansexual impulses toward the girls his own age.

Where the movie falters is in the portrayal of Elios bathetic and tiresome parents  played by Amira Casar and Michael Stuhlbarg  who cosset him and flatter him in a way that feels not only untrue to life but a means of stifling the movies anarchy. Stuhlbarg is a particular offender, in that he approaches every scene as if playing one action, which is to beg for love, both from the other characters and the audience.

This problem doesnt go away but blossoms to destructive effect in one of the most cloying screen moments since Anne Hathaway sobbed through I Dreamed a Dream in Les Miserables. With a tear and a smile, the father reveals his own youthful longings. But no, the intimate history of some cuddly, neutered, pajama-bear dad simply has no business in the world this movie evokes.

The effect of Dads speech is to take the outlaw, the unapologetically dangerous and glorious and make it palatable  as if we wouldnt find it palatable without the sanction of the father and, in a larger sense, the patriarchy. Its to take something huge and vital between two specific people and domesticate it as one more thing in a cycle of endless and common recurrence.

The life, the true life and vitality of Call Me by Your Name, is a lust-ridden boy putting a mans underwear over his head and breathing it in. Its a 17-year-old kid, crazed by hormones, masturbating into a peach. Its shocking and honest transgression, and to bring in some wistful old dad giving his blessing brings us back to middle-class, happy-liberal safety. It to take a beautiful Greek statue and sink it right back into the sea.

And yet ... Call Me by Your Name is so brave for so long that despite this glaring flaw, it must be counted among the years important movies. Venus de Milo has her arms missing  we take what we can get.

Mick LaSalle is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MickLaSalle

Call Me By Your Name

Drama. Starring Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer. Directed by Luca Guadagnino. (R. 132 minutes.)
Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

Covered California is extending its deadline to Dec. 22 to enroll in health plans that take effect Jan. 1, the agency announced Thursday.

The deadline had previously been Friday. Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said the extension is meant to give consumers more time, as some have not been able to get an appointment with an agent to help them enroll in a plan.
Two men will face trial on 36 counts each of involuntary manslaughter in the Ghost Ship fire after an Alameda County Superior Court judge determined Thursday that there was sufficient evidence in the case.

Prosecutors say Max Harris and Derick Almena created a firetrap at the Ghost Ship warehouse in Oaklands Fruitvale district. The men, prosecutors allege, rented the space for an electronic music show on Dec. 2, 2016, that drew dozens of partygoers  36 died in the burning building, which was not permitted for shows or residency and had no sprinklers, fire escapes or marked exits.

Witnesses told the court that Almena laughed off suggestions to bring the place up to code. They described how, on the night of the fire, passageways were blocked by piano benches and an inflatable screen. They also described a makeshift stairway that bottlenecked when people tried to flee from the second floor as flames spread.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Ben Margot / Ben Margot / Associated Press Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Show More Show Less





I find that that there is sufficient cause to believe that both defendants are legally responsible for what happened on that terrible, terrible night, and are legally responsible for the deaths of 36 individuals, said Judge Jeffrey Horner on Thursday after a two-week preliminary hearing.

In closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Autrey James said Almena and Harris were criminally negligent" in their maintenance of Ghost Ship.

They absolutely failed in their duty to protect the people who came into that particular building on Dec. 2, 2016, James told the court. Im not saying that Mr. Harris or Mr. Almena meant for people to die.

Tyler Smith, an attorney representing Harris, said the trial could begin in six to eight months.

The governments evidence is weak, Smith said. We are confident theyre going to find Max not guilty.

Horners decision to hold Harris and Almena for trial came after the last witness in the preliminary hearing, a fire official, testified that the city had no records of any complaint about dangers at the warehouse prior to the fire.

Fire Marshal Miguel Trujillos testimony came two days after Oakland Fire Captain George Freelen testified that he sent a one-page report to the departments Fire Prevention Bureau in 2014 to get clarity on what the building was supposed to be used for after he and three other firefighters visited Ghost Ship in 2014 and grew concerned about the high fire load of material stocked inside the artist collective.

Trujillo told the court that, after the fire, the first thing that we did in our office was to check to see whether anyone had alerted Fire Prevention to problems inside Ghost Ship.

The warehouse had violated multiple fire codes when people began living there despite its classification as an S2 building under the fire code  which is a space allowed to store various commodities where people are not allowed to reside.

As the occupant load increases, there are additional requirements for fire safety at a building, Trujillo testified. Under Oaklands fire code, a live/work space is required to have sprinklers, an automatic fire system, illuminated exit signs, and backup power in case of a blackout. The warehouse had not complied with these regulations, Trujillo said.

The defense sought to establish whether it was the owners or occupants responsibility to make necessary changes as the usage of the warehouse changed.

Can you agree with me that under the code  thats the responsibility of the owner? Tony Serra, an attorney representing Almena, asked Trujillo.

We consider multiple responsible parties, Trujillo said, adding that occupants and others are included.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno
Dear Santa,

I know most letters you get are from kids. So let me start by saying there is no toy that I need.

But there is something I want for Christmas  not for myself but for my state.

What does California really need? Were a rich place with nearly 40 million residents, which should be more than enough people. Except that its not.

The statistics show that California faces shortages of the kinds of people its future requires: children, skilled workers, farmworkers, construction workers, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, engineers and college graduates. (This is only a partial list. Still, check it twice.)

The fastest way to address these shortages is by attracting more immigrants. While more than one-quarter of Californians are foreign-born, weve had so little immigration over the past decade that we face a shortage of new immigrants, too.

And its getting harder to attract more. Even though California is nice to immigrants, our federal government naughtily spreads anti-immigrant bigotry, makes it difficult for immigrants to enter the country, and engages in mass deportation of current immigrants.

Which is why I turn to you, St. Nick. With your high-volume delivery system and uncanny ability to slip unnoticed past U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Santa Claus is our last, best hope for getting the immigrants California needs.

Can you send a million? Or 2 million?

I know you read in the papers that politicians blame our countrys economic problems on excessive immigration. But thats fake news.

We actually need many more immigrants. Nationally, the number of job openings is at an all-time record. In California, some employers are so desperate for workers that they are considering moving out of state.

This is the nasty paradox of Californias success: Growth has made it hard for people to stay. The high cost of living has created a consistent out-migration of residents, with 50,000-plus more people leaving California each year than arriving from other states. This domestic out-migration is pronounced among the younger working-class people who should be the backbone of the states future.

The result: lack of workers. With immigrations decline, most California construction firms report shortages of workers, which  in a vicious cycle  cause costly delays that make building more expensive. The lack of immigrants has decimated the agricultural workforce, which consists primarily of foreign-born workers. And because so many California entrepreneurs are immigrants (40 percent of Los Angeles business owners are foreign-born), its unsurprising that the states rate of business formation has slowed in the past decade.

In the long term, the shortage of workers is most worrisome in health care as there arent enough people to take care of Californias two fastest-growing demographics  the disabled and the old. All California regions except the Bay Area and Sacramento face doctor shortages, particularly in primary care. What looks like a medical shortage is really an immigrant shortage, because more than one-third of our doctors are foreign-born. The same dynamic holds in Californias science and engineering sectors, in which 42 percent of workers are immigrants.

The Public Policy Institute of California has estimated that by 2030 the state will have 1.1 million fewer college graduates than its economic needs will require. The current immigration levels arent high enough to make up the difference.

Much larger increases in international migration will be necessary for the supply of highly educated workers to meet the demand, the PPIC concluded.

If not for the immigrants we already have, these shortages would be much worse.

Californias most reliable method for producing more people  having more babies  isnt working well. The birth rate in the state is below the replacement rate, and major coastal counties have seen steep declines in their number of children. Attracting more immigrants would help reverse that.

Now, I know that Santa tries not to get involved in policy or politics. And, yes, Californians need to invest more in our current residents. But that takes time and money, and the problems Im talking about are in the here and now. Im sure you see the shortages  everywhere I go in California now, youre there, talking to average people.

Kris, I realize that your pack of gifts is heavy, and that you cant overtax your renewable fuel source, those eight tiny reindeer. But remember the story of Christmas. If you can find room on your sleigh for the people our state needs, we should make sure theres room for them in the Hotel California.

Feliz Navidad,

Joe Mathews

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, who died early Tuesday morning, spent his final days pushing hard for badly needed homeless facilities. In a vote that mirrors many of the frustrations of governing in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors passed half of his request.

The board approved a measure to declare a citywide homeless shelter emergency. Lee had proposed this because it will speed the construction bidding process, allowing San Francisco to build new homeless facilities faster.

The measure is important and necessary. Lees goal, to get 1,000 more people off the streets this winter, was a salutary one. It wont happen without more shelter facilities  and they need to be built fast.

Yet one of Lees other requests, to add showers and laundry facilities at the citys Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, was met with conflict and delay at the board.

Supervisor Jane Kim, whose district includes the city department building near the Tenderloin, said the plan to add showers and laundry didnt qualify as an emergency. She also noted that neighborhood residents are objecting to the plan  on the basis that the neighborhood already had too many homeless services.

On one point, Kim is correct. A handful of neighborhoods in San Francisco, including the Tenderloin and the Mission, have taken on a disproportionate burden of providing homeless services. Other San Francisco districts have fought expanding homeless services to their neighborhoods, and these districts need to step up and do far more. It will be impossible for San Francisco to improve its intractable homeless problem if they dont.

Yet Kim must also lead by example. And there are few better locations for homeless people to access showers and laundry facilities than the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

The mayors final request deserves to be honored as soon as possible.

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.
If theres one glimmer of a silver lining in this challenging and tumultuous year, its the fact that more people are becoming aware of the inequities and abusive power dynamics felt by women in so many professional, social and cultural circles.

This growing awareness has exposed the as a father of daughters syndrome. Youve seen it: A man speaks up against sexual misconduct by saying he cant keep quiet as a father of daughters. The implication is that he wouldnt have spoken up ... if he didnt have daughters.

Now, this is a totally natural human reaction. To name just one personal example, Im embarrassed that I didnt pay nearly enough attention to disability rights until it affected someone close to me. But while it might be natural, this syndrome demonstrates how limited our empathy can be and how short term our frame of reference tends to be. As Morgan Housel, finanicial journalist and venture capitalist, recently wrote, Seven billion people on this planet share a flaw: Theyre out of touch with almost everyone else.

So, how do we make sure that the effect of this moment doesnt fall into the short-term camp and disappear after a few more news cycles? If you arent the parent of a daughter and dont have a #metoo moment to relate to (though I know very few women in this camp), why should this matter to you? And what can you do?

A group of economists recently released a paper addressing the Lost Einsteins  individuals from the groups that together make up the majority of the American population (women, African Americans, Latinos, Southerners and low- and middle-income children) who are far less likely to grow up to become patent holders and inventors. Were missing out on their potential for a myriad of reasons  lack of access to resources and opportunities, lack of examples and mentors, the economic necessity to pursue different paths, discrimination. But were not missing out because they dont have aptitude.

Behind the #metoo movement is that same loss.

For all of the brave women who have spoken out  after either staying in roles where they were subject to harassment and abuse or moving to other roles to escape it  so many others have left the workforce, shifted to female-dominated service industries to their own economic disadvantage, given up on pitching their great new startup for funding or stopped pursuing their talent or creating their art.

As an investor focused on undervalued opportunities  but living in San Francisco, a market that can be an echo chamber and is home to many overvalued companies  Ive been encouraging others in my field to think about investing based on the solutions and innovations we cant afford to lose rather than just what we have to gain. Our brains are wired this way, anyway: Humans are more averse to losses than we are eager for gains.

Maybe the #metoo movement has resonated with you because you have a daughter. But even if you dont, can you instead be motivated by the belief that we cant afford to lose out on 50 percent of the worlds talent and potential? McKinsey Global Institute estimates that if women attain full gender equality, the United States could add up to $4.3 trillion in annual gross domestic product by 2025. Bringing sexual harassment to light and working to eliminate it is just one small but completely necessary step making this progress on gender parity. Can we afford not to add up to 13 percent to our GDP?

Im part of the 8 percent of female general partners in venture capital. Ive stayed in spite of all of the daily microaggressions that women encounter (and count myself lucky that I have not been the victim of serious sexual harassment). As a recent commonplace example, a co-investor asked me if I was going to stand in for his wife in a meeting with a portfolio company. I had to remind him that the only reason he was invited to the meeting was me  because the fund I co-founded had invested in the company. His wife was pretty irrelevant to the meeting.

When you look back on your career, will you have helped realize some of the $4.3 trillion that our economy is currently on track to lose because of gender inequity? And if you had a hypothetical daughter holding you accountable for her future, would you make the same decisions today?

Victoria Fram is a co-founder and the managing director at VilCap Investments, an investment fund of Village Capital. She is a venture capitalist focused on funding startups that address social and environmental challenges.

Take action

The data are clear: Diversity and inclusion yield better results  in public companies, on boards, in private companies. If you havent felt a personal effect of #metoo, then there is still plenty you can do:

Hire and promote women.

Have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment.

Call out bad behavior and sexism  whether its conscious or unconscious  so its not tolerated.
Whimsy, burgers and balloons set the scene at Gotts Roadside in the Ferry Building in late September, where Alexis Swanson Traina invited family and friends to celebrate the launch of her first book, From Napa With Love (Abrams; 272 pages; $24.99).

The colorful pages (playfully designed by graphic artist Alyssa Warnock) highlight creative Wine Country impresarios  from sommeliers, chefs and designers to artists and bohemian bon vivants.

But 11 days later, the newly minted authors bubble burst as four major wildfires engulfed the region, killing 44 people and destroying thousands of homes, structures and businesses.

For almost 10 days, the valleys ridge perimeters were ablaze, recalls Traina, whose family moved from Naples, Fla., to San Francisco and established their Swanson Vineyards winery in Oakville. I basically abandoned promoting the book. It was possibly the worst-case launch scenario in publishing history.

So Traina, who spends weekends at her Oakville home, was astounded when, in mid-November, her editor called with news that the book is in its second printing.

Napa and Sonoma remain bucket-list destinations and could not be more relevant now, she said. Ninety-nine percent of the wineries and restaurants we all love are intact and open for business. Now were about recovery. My hope is the book reinforces Napas magic, created by the personalities and talents who make Napa so special.

Prior to the sale of her familys winery in 2015, Traina served as creative director and blogger, chronicling vibrant valley characters. Her book continues that conversation as a longer love letter with deeper perspective on modern-era Napa  one that moves far beyond wine into a world now brimming with food and design.

Whether its Howard Backens distinctive Napa architecture or the modern winemaking perspective of Carlo Mondavi, and chef Thomas Keller, Traina said, these are wildly eclectic, creative fingerprints that define Napa now.

Most of these fingerprints featured in Napa With Love live within a mile of the fire sites, so none were immune from fire danger. Many evacuated, not knowing the fate of their properties. Others were inspired to jump into action to support less-fortunate neighbors.

Style caught up with a couple of the Napa denizens featured in the book.

Artist Ira Yeager: I have two studios: one near Mount Saint Helena where, amazingly, the winds shifted and the fire passed by. My painting studio, filled with large in-process canvases, is on Mountain Home Ranch Road in the Calistoga hills. We evacuated to San Francisco, on pins and needles by reports that (the) entire area burned. But my wonderful neighbor, Don Fowler, a volunteer firefighter, got on a tractor and worked 11 hours with Cal Fire creating a firebreak to save the studio and prevent the fire from spreading further. When I returned, three dusty faces in yellow slickers knocked on my studio door, saying they heard a famous artist lived here. They were Red Bluff firefighters, who I invited in and we all hugged and cried. I was so humbled  by the fire, and how everyone responded. In town, Solage and other Calistoga hotels gave rooms to first responders. I feel very lucky, very blessed  and live in gratitude.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Vintner Jean-Charles Boisset: My wife, Gina (Gallo), and I were celebrating friends at our Wappo Hill home and had set out a cake with lots of candles when my phone rang. It was Tim Mondavi, who lives down the hill. I said, Youve seen our lights, come on up. Tim warned me to look over at Stags Leap mountain  which was engulfed in flames. We got our girls, grabbed some photos, jewelry and passports and left in five minutes. We evacuated to our Raymond Winery, managing to finish fermentation without electricity. Over in Sonoma, Buena Vista Winery (Californias oldest) was threatened. But first responders thankfully stopped that fire  just 6 feet from the building and museum. Theres so much damage in Sonoma, yet many people dont have fire insurance.

During the fires, Napa looked like a war zone. So our team of chefs jumped into action serving 1,500 daily meals at shelters and Napa Airport for firefighters. Harvest was almost done but some of our staff volunteered to assist other wineries finish theirs. ... In October, chef Bob Hurley and I hosted a winemakers dinner to raise relief funds. With Festival Napa Valley, we hosted Wine Country Strong, a concert-picnic honoring first responders. Then, in just two days, we created 300 cases of Honoris, a 50-50 blend of Napa and Sonoma cabernet at $75 each. And all proceeds benefit Napa and Sonoma relief.

Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicles society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com Instagram: @missbigelow

From Napa With Love is available at Copperfields Books in Napa, Barnes & Noble in Santa Rosa, and online at Amazon and Target.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall  those are the marching orders of a typical Beijing itinerary. But before reconnoitering the Terracotta Army in Xian, plot a day exploring more contemporary art in the Chinese capital.

The distinctively readapted settings of many studios and galleries  including a decommissioned weapons factory complex  as much as the artists perspectives provide a unique window into modern Beijing.

 Jeanne Cooper

Morning

Although the Chinese governments relentless urban renewal projects recently struck the suburban Songzhuang and Caochangdi art colonies, the greater Chaoyang District (pop. 3.5 million) still offers opportunities to meet resilient artists like Gao Xiaowu, who already knows that his new studio in a former furniture factory will be demolished in three years.

A widely imitated, internationally collected sculptor of closed-eye, bowing figures and giant babies  said to be a critique of Chinas materialism and a call for compassion, respectively  Gao is one of several artists who open their studios to private tours arranged by the Peninsula Beijing, a centrally located luxury hotel just outside Chaoyang. Chauffeur and tour guide prices vary, but its free to observe Gaos obsequious Standard Age figures in the hotel vestibule, or to peruse the current retrospective of his work in the hotels large gallery on the third floor.

Midday

In the 1950s, East Germans helped the Chinese create a military-industrial compound of light-filled, Bauhaus-style brick factories that spread over 148 acres in Chaoyangs Dashanzi area. Known today as the 798 Art District, after one of the original numbered factories, the complex gained fame as an art enclave in the early 2000s, after the arms race had slowed.

The disused buildings high arched ceilings proved a draw first for art studios and galleries, later followed by design-oriented shops and Western-style cafes along the districts leafy main streets and quaint alleys. Besides the surprisingly gritty murals, graffiti and outdoor installations, check out the latest cutting-edge exhibitions at powerhouses such as the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, the newly relocated Red Gate Gallery or the Beijing branch of international Pace Gallery. Paces most recent show, The Living Digital Forest, prompted numerous selfies of visitors covered in virtual blooms, randomly generated and projected to dreamy synthesizer music.

For a lunch break, drop into Timezone 8, an art bookstore and gallery opened by American publisher Robert Bernell in 2001 that also includes a chic cafe with a Japanese and American menu. (Not to mention Western-style toilets, for those seeking a pit stop.)

Afternoon

The 798 Arts District can also provide intriguing souvenirs. The Dulton Shop features a quirky mix of retro metal housewares made by Japanese-based Dulton, original pieces by local artists and vintage bric-a-brac; the store at UCCA offers more of the same, plus items reflecting renowned painter Zeng Fanzhis Parcours retrospective and gold tchotchkes from Italian design firm Seletti.

Jeanne Cooper/Special to The Chronicle

Wearable art isnt lost in translation here: Shop Design & Lifestyle offers felted wool caps, chunky stone jewelry, chic leather purses and art prints. Across the street, M. Design Scarves specializes in colorfully printed wraps ideal for Beijings chilly days.

To warm up further, head back to central Beijing for tea at the Opposite House, which also hosts revolving and permanent exhibitions by leading Chinese artists. Li XiaoFeng used shards of porcelain from the Qing and Ming dynasties to create the life-sized mannequins Beijing Memory 1 and Beijing Memory 2. Youll feel less shattered after downing pastries inspired by Roberto Cavalli (Versace and Jo Malone previously gave their imprimatur).

Evening

An hours drive from the city center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Beijing may be too far to go for all but the most ardent art lovers. Returning to the Peninsula Hotel, however, will allow a closer look at its art gallery, curated by the museums executive director, Michael Suh. Take time to admire Zhang Dus enormous bronze sculptures of tea drinkers before eating something more substantial at artful, sustainably sourced Jing restaurant.

If you go

798 Art District: No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Dashanzi, Chaoyang District. www.798district.com. Most businesses are closed Monday.

Opposite House: Taikoo Li Sanlitun North, No. 11 Sanlitun Road, Chaoyang District. www.theoppositehouse.com. Afternoon tea at Sureno, $40 for two.

Peninsula Beijing: 8 Goldfish Lane, Wangfujing. http://beijing.peninsula.com. 230 suites, from $245. Jing restaurant entrees, from $38.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

It was easy to forgive the scarlet macaws on a high branch making me feel severely under-dressed, and the spider monkeys tossing sticks at me. I had not expected, however, a long-billed bird intent on inciting anger issues.

That sound you hear, guide Luis Vega told us, is a toucan trying to make us mad because we can hear him but not see him.

Sometimes, its difficult to not take the jungle personally.

Although when youre with a small group in a big forest, and theres less of a buffer between you and the place, taking it personally becomes kind of the point.

The hike was part of a weeklong voyage exploring Panama and Costa Rica aboard the Safari Voyager, a 62-passenger excursion vessel built to provide more personal experiences not typically available on mainstream trips aboard mega-ships. The plan included kayaking around tiny islands, trekking into remote jungle preserves, snorkeling quiet blue-green waters and, especially on this trip, spotting the winged wildlife so plentiful here (even the ones with issues).

I had taken big-ship cruises before, but was eager to find out whether size matters  smaller boat, smaller ports, smaller tours  especially in Central America, where the flora, fauna and culture seem better suited to be experienced up close and, well, personal.

Id been weighing a Costa Rica visit for the better part of a decade, but the big vessels transiting the Panama Canal generally offer no more than a single stop in the country. So when small-ship company UnCruise Adventures said it planned to sail Safari Voyager along a route that included a Panama Canal passage and a run up the Pacific coast to Costa Rica, my family signed up, not knowing quite what to expect.

On our first full day aboard the Safari Voyager, a new acquaintance said this was the third sailing he and his wife had taken with Seattle-based UnCruise.

Weve done the big party ships a bunch of times, but were done with that, said Dan Close, a San Diego forensic accountant. We want to be active. We want a more intimate experience. And were willing to pay more because its worth it.

The passengers on our voyage appeared to be in their 60s, with a few exceptions  including a handful of twentysomethings and our near-teen daughter, Sophia  and, in general, reasonably fit. Some passengers preferred slower walks or had physical limitations. The common motivation among those we talked to: to see and learn about wildlife, in the forest and the ocean. Most sought the personal attention that comes with a higher ratio of crew to passenger. We were eager to walk, kayak and snorkel.

Not a priority: dress-up dinners, buffet lines, the march of the baked Alaskas and art auctions.

After transiting the canals massive locks and Lake Gatun, we woke up to a flat horizon of water, with the canal far behind us and no land in sight. After breakfast the expedition leader, Chris Mata, discussed planned afternoon skiff tours around the Iguana Island wildlife refuge. Jenna, the onboard masseuse, warned that anyone who had overindulged on the cocktails (included in the fare) should consider postponing their massage (also included).

Which prompted a passengers question: What is too many cocktails?

Despite its name, Iguana Islands most visible inhabitants  at least from a skiff circling the shore  are the magnificent frigatebirds circling lazily overhead and perched on the rocks. The females are black and white; males distinguish themselves by proudly inflating a brilliant red sac on the lower neck to attract females.

Pelicans and crabs foraged, and we spotted an osprey ferrying its catch back to the nest. A pair of American oystercatchers delicately pranced on the rocks with bright red bills open, searching for a meal.

Our initial foray into the life of birds and other wildlife established the routine for the trips remainder: a patter of questions from passengers (usually What is that?), followed by identification and explanation from the guides, who were well versed in the relevant facts about the flying fauna.

This particular weeks sailing was designed for bird enthusiasts and included lectures and guided walks with Karen Leavelle, a researcher and conservationist who lives and works on southwest Costa Ricas Osa Peninsula.

One morning, she led a small group of us on a walking exploration of Isla Coiba, an uninhabited volcanic island that holds the distinction of being Central Americas largest island, a national park and a longtime penal colony.

No sooner did our skiff reach shore than we were admiring a pair of bare-throated tiger herons  the name fully captures the expanse of bright yellow on their graceful necks  preening and nuzzling in a palm tree. They were followed in quick succession by a pair of green mealy parrots whizzing by in flight, a red-legged honey creeper, golden-naped woodpecker and other birds with names as colorful as their plumage.

It was a far cry from the overrun cruise ports in the Caribbean, where wildlife often relies more on Jell-O shots.

That afternoon found us moored at the nearby crescent of white sand known as Granito de Oro  literally granule of gold in Spanish. After a morning of looking upward for birds, this islet, populated by hermit crabs by the thousands and shaded by a pocket of palm trees, was a welcome and well-suited spot for looking down for sea life.

In the waters around the islet, we snorkeled among the blue-barred parrotfish, yellow puffer fish and striped Moorish idols that darted through the coral beds. Later, aboard standup paddle boards, my daughter Sophia and I raced alongside a green sea turtle until it submerged from view.

Welcome to Costa Rica! the ships loudspeaker blared at us on Tuesday morning. After a breakfast of a broccoli-and-cheese souffle and fruit, we watched pods of spotted dolphins racing the ship as we motored toward the Saladero Ecolodge, set on 480 acres of rainforest and accessible only by boat.

Vega, one of the ships guides, accompanied us on a leisurely shoreline kayak paddle, where we spotted a snowy egret walking, stilt-like, beside mangroves. Roaring howler monkeys serenaded us but kept out of sight.

Later, in a walk through the trees, we saw a variety of birds: Cherries tanagers with their bright splash of crimson against black, tiny common tody-flycatchers with yellow breasts, and an almost neon-green pair of orange-chinned parakeets.

One morning near dawn, Vega led us on a birding hike in the Campanario Reserve on the Osa Peninsula. (It turned out I had left my camera battery in the stateroom, but Vega radioed the ship and, five minutes later, one of the skiff pilots handed me the battery  an unlikely bit of service on one of the big ships.)

The hike led us to a waterfall, but once again it was the forest residents rather than the forest itself that captured our attention: a pig-like tapir sleeping under a tree, the angry spider monkeys jabbering and tossing sticks, and, from an unseen hideout, the toucan with issues.

After lunch on board, we moored off of nearby San Josecito, where we opted for a brief self-guided beach walk. My wife and I followed the beach trail through sparse foliage, then heard screeching and saw flashes of red and blue tearing through the branches just ahead.

And there they were: a magnificent pair of scarlet macaws perched on a limb, offering a private show. A highly personal touch.

Friday marked our last full day with the Safari Voyager and its crew. Our last stop before the trip concluded in Caldera was the Curu Wildlife Refuge, a privately owned parcel on the Nicoya Peninsula.

After six days exploring, it felt like Id seen just about every species the dense forest canopy was willing to reveal, from glacial-paced sloths to white-faced capuchin monkeys, who alternated between sleepy indifference and outrage (some hurled coconuts). Yet there, on our last hike, something unexpected inched toward us, a gray-green species known as pickupus Nissanus.

In laymans terms, a truck.

We havent seen one of those all week, one hiker observed.

It was true. We had walked, kayaked and snorkeled, instead of boarding buses. Shrinking the ship seemed to have expanded the horizon  or at least reduced some of the buffer between us and the place. Because of the difference, its a place worth taking personally.

Alex Pulaski is a former travel editor for the Oregonian in Portland. Email: travel@sfchronicle.com

If you go

Getting there

A half-dozen airlines offer one-stop service between San Francisco and San Jose, Costa Rica, and Panama City.

The cruise

UnCruise Adventures: (888) 862-8881, www.uncruise.com. For 2017-18, the line has added a day (for a total of eight) to the cruise we took in April 2017, and renamed it Unveiled Wonders  Costa Rica & Panama Canal. The San Jose-Panama City route (or reverse) runs primarily November through April, and starts at $3,795 per person, double occupancy, not including flights.
California workplace safety regulators fined three contractors nearly $150,000 for their role in a harrowing construction accident in Oakland in which 13 workers tumbled two stories into freshly poured concrete, agency officials said Thursday.

On May 26, workers at 3039 Broadway, a 435-unit mixed-use project in Oaklands burgeoning Auto Row neighborhood, were pouring concrete into elevated formwork when the shoring system supporting a temporary mold collapsed.

The workers plummeted some 20 feet along with wet concrete, reinforcing steel, timber framework, tools and equipment. One workers injuries required surgery.

An investigation by Cal/OSHA found that the formwork and vertical shoring system were improperly designed, installed or inspected.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Jim Stone/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 3 KPIX-TV Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Significant safety lapses caused injuries that could have been much worse if the workers hadnt landed in freshly poured concrete, said Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum. Employers must identify, evaluate and correct unsafe working conditions and follow all requirements to prevent employee injuries and illnesses.

The agency issued citations to subcontractors Largo Concrete and NMN Construction, both of Tustin (Orange County), for $73,365 and $70,320, respectively, for allegedly failing to ensure that the formwork and shoring were designed to safely withstand all intended loads; failing to have calculations and drawings approved by a state-registered civil engineer; and failing to ensure the shoring supports were erected on a stable base.

General citations were issued to the general contractor, Johnstone Moyer of San Carlos, for $3,630 in proposed penalties.

Kyle Ishimaru, an official at MNM Construction, declined to comment Thursday. Messages left with Largo Concrete and Johnstone Moyer were not immediately returned.

The fines were imposed on Nov. 22, and none of the contractors appealed within a 15-day window for contesting the penalties that ended Wednesday, Cal/OSHA said.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen
A person was taken to a hospital in serious condition Thursday after being bitten by a sea lion while swimming at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, officials said.

The San Francisco Police Departments Marine Unit pulled the injured swimmer out of the water around 2 p.m., according to authorities.
As they did for Thanksgiving, Waze and AAA are back to advise San Francisco locals on the best times to drive around or leave the city ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Traffic will almost certainly be bad anyway  that's the new normal for the Bay Area  but both companies have looked through their data to discern the worst days to be driving around based on the previous year's traffic.
Teva Pharmaceuticals, the worlds biggest maker of generic drugs, said Thursday that it would cut about a quarter of its workforce, or 14,000 jobs, close manufacturing and research facilities, and suspend its dividend as it seeks to simplify its structure and reduce its debt.

The Israeli company has been squeezed by increased competition and lower prices in a challenging U.S market environment. It cut its full-year forecast after it reported disappointing results in the third quarter this year as revenue from its U.S. generics business fell sharply.

The massive reshaping of Teva came just over two years after it agreed to buy the generic drug business of Allergan for $40.5 billion amid a rush of consolidation in the pharmaceuticals industry. The Allergan deal closed last year.

Health care

State adds

time to enroll

Covered California is extending its deadline to Dec. 22 to enroll in health plans that take effect Jan. 1, the agency announced Thursday.

The deadline had previously been Friday. Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said the extension is meant to give consumers more time, as some have not been able to get an appointment with an agent to help them enroll in a plan.

We do not want to leave anyone behind, Lee said in a statement. People will still be able to enroll until Jan. 31, but those plans wont take effect until Feb. 1 at the earliest.

The Covered California exchange, created by the Affordable Care Act and in its fifth enrollment season, enables residents who do not get insurance through their employers or Medi-Cal to buy coverage.

As of Thursday, about 182,000 people had signed up for coverage since open enrollment began Nov. 1  a 17 percent increase from the 156,000 who signed up at this point last year.

Californias open enrollment runs twice as long as open enrollment for the 39 states that use the federal insurance exchange HealthCare.gov. For those states, open enrollment ends Friday.

Earnings

Oracle has

slight stumble

Oracle Corp. reported quarterly cloud-computing sales that missed some analysts estimates, a setback in the Redwood City companys effort to remake itself around Internet products.

Adjusted revenue rose 6.5 percent to $9.62 billion in the period ended Nov. 30, with cloud revenue gaining 44 percent to $1.52 billion, Oracle said Thursday. John DiFucci, an analyst at Jefferies, was among those who projected stronger growth in Oracles cloud sales, with his estimate of $1.55 billion.

Oracle, a mainstay of traditional corporate computing software, is taking on established leaders in the newer cloud market including Amazon and Microsoft. The company has been hiring engineers to build products that let customers rent software and computing power from Oracle, and adding sales reps to transition businesses to the new offerings. Oracle has also been making acquisitions like last years $9 billion purchase of NetSuite to add cloud clients and programs.

Adobe profit

tops estimates

Adobe Systems had a fourth-quarter profit of $501.5 million, the Associated Press reported. The San Jose companys earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were $1.26 per share. Analysts had expected $1.15.

Travel

AAA: Lots of

holiday trips

Comforted by a strong economy, more Americans than ever are expected to travel over the Christmas and New Years holidays.

AAA said Thursday that 107 million people will travel between Dec. 23 and Jan. 1, a 3.1 percent increase over last year. Its the ninth straight increase in Christmas travel, according to AAA.

Most will travel by car  about 97 million  despite higher gasoline prices. More than 6 million are expected to fly, and AAA says nearly 4 million will take trains, buses or cruise ships.

While the national average gas price of $2.47 is 28 cents higher than last December, airfares and midrange hotels are cheaper.

Housing

Mortgage

rates ease

The rate on 30-year fixed-rate U.S. mortgages slipped to 3.93 percent this week.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the benchmark 30-year home loan rate was down from 3.94 percent last week and 4.16 percent a year ago.

The rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular with those refinancing their homes, was unchanged this week at 3.36 percent.

The rate on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages rose to 3.36 percent from 3.35 percent last week.

Chronicle News Services
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

DALLAS  Consumer advocacy groups are raising concerns about the U.S. Department of Transportations decision not to pursue regulations that could have increased transparency of airline baggage fees and other add-on charges.

The federal agency announced this month it is withdrawing two notices of proposed rule stating that it is investigating possible regulations requiring airlines to disclose bag fees earlier in the booking process and provide more detailed reporting about the fees they collect.

While the rule-making processes wouldnt have necessarily resulted in regulations, consumer advocacy groups said the Department of Transportations action is the latest in a string of decisions that have leaned in airlines favor. Its also another sign of a light-touch regulatory approach that has marked President Trumps first year in office.

What theyre doing now is stepping back from that kind of (consumer) protection, said Charlie Leocha, president of Travelers United, one of several groups that have criticized the decision. Its like the police department deciding theyre not going to investigate a crime.

Leocha said the decision is especially worrisome because it cut short processes to study the new rules, one of which had been taking place for more than five years, before a conclusion could be reached one way or the other.

It also comes as the department has delayed, suspended or not acted on other consumer-centric efforts.

That includes a March decision giving airlines an extra year to comply with new reporting requirements meant to more accurately capture how many bags are lost or mishandled that were set to take effect Jan. 1.

The department has also not put in place rules allowing families with children younger than 13 to book seats next to each other without paying additional fees, despite Congress approving the change over a year ago.

For its part, the airline industry cheered the decision, with trade group Airlines for America commending the department for ushering in a new era of smarter regulation.

Airlines, like all other businesses, need the freedom to determine which third parties they do business with, how best to market, display and sell their products, spokesman Todd Burke said in a statement. We continue to believe that dictating to the airline industry distribution and commercial practices would only benefit those third parties who distribute tickets, not the flying public.

The decision targeted a pair of potential new rules.

One would have required airlines and travel agents to more clearly disclose fees for checked bags and carry-ons wherever fare and schedule information is shown. That would have given consumers the information earlier in their flight search, rather than having to advance through several steps of the booking process to find out what the total cost would be.

The other proposed rule would have required airlines to report more detailed information about ancillary fees they collect  whether for baggage, changed flights, seating assignments, early boarding or any other add-on  to the federal government.

We respect airlines right to charge whatever they want, but we feel it should be out in the open and not in a way that deceives consumers, said Kurt Ebonhoch, executive director of the Air Travel Fairness Coalition. It makes it difficult for consumers to understand what the bottom-line price theyre going to pay is.

In its justifications, the department said the rules could prove overly burdensome on the industry and suggested existing regulations already provide consumers with fee information. Both decisions also cited a January executive order from Trump requiring federal agencies get rid of two regulations for every one that is added.

Ebonhoch said increased transparency is especially important as airlines introduce new types of fares, such as the no-frills basic economy offerings from major carriers that often dont include carry-on bags.

His group, which is backed by an array of travel groups, including online travel agencies and global distribution systems, is also pushing the department to restart a regulatory process it paused earlier this year that would look at how widely available fare and schedule data is and which travel websites are allowed to display it.

Leocha said the issue isnt specific to just the current administration, with a number of proposed rules, including one of the two that was just withdrawn, making little progress during the tail end of the Obama administration.

We were in a situation where nothing happened.  They were studying it to death, he said. Maybe the silver lining is theyre being honest with us. Were not going to do it instead of leading us on for years.

Conor Shine is a Dallas Morning News writer.
Net neutrality regulations, designed to prevent Internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter from favoring some sites and apps over others, were repealed Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission in a 3-2 vote. Heres a look at what the developments mean for consumers and companies.

What is net neutrality?

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers treat all Web traffic equally, and its pretty much how the Internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and Internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the Internet  blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example.

What did the government do about it?

The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies dont manipulate traffic. With them in place, a provider such as Comcast cant charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down.

The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that werent explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that zero rating practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Under current chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely.

A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued.

What telcos want

Big telecom companies hate the stricter regulation that comes with the net neutrality rules and have fought them fiercely in court. They say the regulations can undermine investment in broadband and introduced uncertainty about what were acceptable business practices. There were concerns about potential price regulation, even though the FCC had said it wont set prices for consumer Internet service.

What Silicon Valley wants

Internet companies such as Google have strongly backed net neutrality, but many tech firms have been more muted in their activism this year. Netflix, which had been vocal in support of the rules in 2015, said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldnt hurt it because its now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere.

What happens next

In the long run, net-neutrality advocates say undoing these rules makes it harder for the government to crack down on Internet providers who act against consumer interests and will harm innovation. Those who criticize the rules say undoing them is good for investment in broadband networks.

But advocates arent sitting still. Some groups plan lawsuits to challenge the FCCs move, and Democrats  energized by public protests in support of net neutrality  think it might be a winning political issue for them in 2018 congressional elections.

 Associated Press
We value your privacy.

Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy.
Shervin Pishevar stepped down from the venture capital firm he co-founded after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

The move follows his decision last week to take a leave of absence from his duties at the venture firm, Sherpa Capital; transportation startup Virgin Hyperloop One, where he served as co-executive chairman; and other corporate boards. Pishevar, known for his early investment in Uber Technologies and political connections, denied all allegations of inappropriate conduct.

I plan to focus now on the appropriate ongoing legal actions against those who are unjustly orchestrating the smear campaign against me, he wrote in a statement Thursday. My truculent opponents are out to settle scores that have nothing to do with Sherpa, and I refuse to allow my enemies to drag my Sherpa family into their fight with me.

In May, Pishevar was arrested in London after a woman accused him of raping her. Police said Pishevar was released under investigation and never charged. Pishevar denied the assault allegation and later sued a corporate research firm, claiming it was spreading false information about him. The firm, Definers Public Affairs, said it had never done work regarding Pishevar and accused him of a cynical ploy to use the court system to deflect attention.

Last month, Bloomberg reported on allegations of sexual harassment or assault involving six women. Days later, two prominent Democratic senators, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, said they donated political contributions from Pishevar to charity. Another woman later came forward with allegations against Pishevar to news site Axios.

We thank Shervin for his contributions and service in co-founding Sherpa Capital, a spokeswoman for the venture capital firm wrote in an email. We are deeply committed to our culture of integrity, inclusion, and respect and will continue to put these values into action through all of Sherpa Capitals activities, including the founders and companies we support.

Sherpa Capitals investments include Virgin Hyperloop One, food-delivery company Munchery and health startup Cue.

Before the misconduct claims, Pishevar had gained attention for his colorful defenses of Travis Kalanick, the former Uber CEO who was ousted by other shareholders. In a letter he published in August, Pishevar wrote that Kalanick was under attack from sanctimonious hypocrites and their perfidious greed.

Pishevar concluded his resignation statement Thursday with a quotation from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the author of the The Jungle Book and other works. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; ... Or being lied about, dont deal in lies.

Sarah McBride is a Bloomberg writer. Email: smcbride24@bloomberg.net
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The man who was convicted of carrying a gun but acquitted of murder in the shooting of Kate Steinle on a San Francisco Bay pier never actually possessed the weapon in a legal sense and should be given a new trial on that count, the public defenders office said Thursday.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, a 45-year-old homeless undocumented immigrant whose release from city jail before the shooting intensified a debate over sanctuary policies, was found guilty Nov. 30 of being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection with Steinles death on July 1, 2015.

Garcia Zarate was acquitted of murder, manslaughter and assault charges after defense attorneys asserted that the gun went off accidentally after he found it wrapped in a rag on the pier. The pistol had been stolen four days earlier from the nearby parked car of a federal ranger.

The verdict shocked many observers, and President Trump called it disgraceful. But defense attorneys said their client should have been fully acquitted if jurors found credence in the argument that the shooting wasnt intentional.

Now Playing: San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon today defended the work of prosecutors following last week's acquittal of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the man charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, and said the blame for any failure in Video: KTVU

The motion filed Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court stated that Judge Samuel Feng failed to, among other things, explain to the jury that momentary possession of a weapon is not necessarily a crime if a person only seeks to dispose of it and does not intend to keep law enforcement from seizing it.

The court has misdirected the jury in a matter of law, wrote lead defense attorney Matt Gonzalez.

Steinle, 32, was killed by a bullet that ricocheted off the piers concrete walkway and struck her in the back, piercing her heart. She died in the arms of her father. Prosecutors argued that the defendant intentionally fired the pistol, and that the Sig Sauer model cannot be discharged unless somebody firmly pulls the trigger. Prosecutors also suggested Garcia Zarate threw away the gun in an effort to avoid detection.

Defense attorneys conceded that Garcia Zarate tossed the gun in the bay after the shooting, but said he had thrown it away to stop it from continuing to shoot.

Alex Bastian, an assistant district attorney and office spokesman, said Thursday that District Attorney George Gascon had not yet reviewed the motion and could not comment on its substance.

We will review the basis for the motion and respond accordingly, Bastian said.

Motions for new trials are routinely filed after convictions. If Judge Feng agrees with the defense, Garcia Zarate could be retried on the possession charge alone. Jurors did not publicly explain their decision on that charge, and generally cannot be asked about their deliberations to settle conflicts during appeals.

Garcia Zarate, who remains in San Francisco jail, is scheduled to return to court Jan. 5, when the judge will rule on the motion. If a new trial is denied, the defendant will be sentenced to up to three years in state prison on the gun-possession charge. He has already satisfied most, if not all, of that term since his arrest. But his legal problems are not over.

A federal grand jury recently indicted Garcia Zarate on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and of being an undocumented immigrant in possession of a gun and ammunition. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison before his potential sixth deportation.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @pfimrite
A Contra Costa County jury convicted a Martinez pastor of 23 counts of child sexual abuse days after he failed to show up at his trial and apparently fled to Mexico with his wife and children  jumping $1.29 million in bail secured by relatives, prosecutors said Thursday.

Fernando Maldonado, 37, faces up to 34 years in state prison for crimes ranging from committing lewd acts upon a child to unlawful sexual intercourse and sodomy of a person under the age of 18.

A jury convicted him on all charges Wednesday after deliberating for 2 hours. But the defendant was not present when the panel announced its decision.

A bench warrant was issued for him when he failed to show up for his trial on Monday. Maldonado was last spotted driving south on Interstate 5 near San Diego on Sunday, said Jordan Sanders, a Contra Costa County deputy district attorney.

Based on this information, I am comfortable assuming he is driving to Mexico with his wife and children, Sanders said.

Shortly after his arrest in April 2016, Maldonado was released on $1.29 million bail secured by six relatives who put up to their properties as collateral.

Prosecutors said Maldonado had a sexual relationship between 2012 and 2016 with a young girl, beginning when she was 13 years old and while he was a minister at Morello Baptist Church in Martinez. The victim, whose name was not released, was a church parishioner, said Sanders.

Their relationship continued until the victim ended it in December 2014 when she was about 16 years old, Sanders said.

At the time, he was married and had a newborn baby, Sanders said, adding that Maldonado was also a minister at Grace Bible Church in Pleasant Hill.

The victim testified against Maldonado on Thursday and Friday, before he decided to flee, Sanders said.

Sanders said that during the trial he played the jury a recorded phone call, in which the victim confronted Maldonado about the sex abuse.

Additionally, a criminalist testified that Maldonados semen was found on a church couch, corroborating the victims testimony that they had sex inside the church, Sanders said.

On Monday, the judge issued a no-bail bench warrant for Maldonado and the trial proceeded without him in the courtroom.

Since the trial concluded and the jury returned a verdict, my office and the local police departments have diligently been researching his location, Sanders said. We checked on his residence multiple times Monday afternoon and throughout the week with no results.

He said the search will continue. Maldonado is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

If and when we locate him, Sanders said, justice will be served and he will be sentenced.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
NEWTOWN, Conn.  Out of a senseless tragedy, they have sought ways to find meaning in advocacy.

Many relatives of the 26 children and educators killed five years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School have dedicated themselves to charity, activism and other efforts to channel their grief and, in many cases, to help prevent violence.

You have two choices, said Rebecca Kowalski, whose 7-year-old son, Chase, died in Newtown. I could be in the bottom of a bottle; I could not get out of my bed. Or, I could do whats making us heal a little bit every day.

Some organizations, like the Kowalskis youth triathlon program, honor the passions of the children who were lost on Dec. 14, 2012.

Others have jumped into the policy fray to lobby for gun control or improved mental health care. In some cases, they have traveled the country, and even the world, as recognized experts in their fields, such as Jeremy Richman, a scientist whose Avielle Foundation for the study of brain health is named for his slain daughter.

The Sandy Hook families have created a website to share each of their stories and information about the various projects they have started in memory of their family members.

A look at some of them:

Alissa Parker had Michele Gays phone number on her refrigerator because Parkers daughter, Emilie, had been invited to a birthday party for Gays daughter, Josephine.

The day before the party was to be held, both children were killed.

Parker, who had lived in Newtown less than a year and didnt know many other parents, called Gay. The two bonded over their shared loss and eventually teamed to form Safe and Sound Schools, a foundation that provides information and resources about school safety.

Kowalski said her healing has come by organizing a childrens triathlon program, Race4Chase , in memory of their son, who loved to race and had competed in a similar event the summer before the shooting.

While some in Newtown avoid speaking the name of the shooter, Adam Lanza, but Nelba Marquez-Greene freely discusses the social and emotional problems of the man who killed her 6-year-old daughter, Ana Grace.

I want people to remember that Adam, the person who did this, was also once 6 and in a first-grade classroom and that if we had reached out earlier, then maybe this could have changed, Marquez-Greene said.

Marquez-Greenes Ana Grace Project works with schools in New Britain, a city just west of Hartford, to teach empathy, combat bullying and help socially isolated children.

Pat Eaton-Robb is an Associated Press writer.
The editor in chief of Christianity Today did not have to wait for the votes to be counted to publish his essay Tuesday bemoaning what the Alabama Senate race had wrought.

Whoever wins, there is already one loser: Christian faith, wrote Mark Galli, whose publication, the flagship of American evangelicalism, was founded 61 years ago by the Rev. Billy Graham. No one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation. Christianitys integrity is severely tarnished.

The sight of white evangelical voters in Alabama giving their overwhelming support to Roy Moore, the Republican candidate, despite accusations of racial and religious bigotry, misogyny and assaults on teenage girls, has deeply troubled many conservative Christians, who fear that association with the likes of Moore is giving their faith a bad name. The angst has grown so deep, Galli said, that he knows of many card-carrying evangelicals who are ready to disavow the label.

The evangelical brand is definitely tarnished by politicization from whatever side, Galli said last week. No question about it.

He said that his readers seemed to agree with the thrust of his essay. The main criticism he received, he said, was one he agreed with: that he should have made it clearer that he was referring not to all Christians, but to evangelicals in particular.

The bloc that has marched under the banner of the Moral Majority and values voters has now been tagged as the most reliable base of support for both Moore and President Trump, two politicians who are known for fanning racial and religious prejudices and who stand accused of sexual harassment by numerous women  accusations that each man denies. White evangelicals across the country delivered 81 percent of their votes to Trump last year, according to exit poll data, and backed Moore in Alabama by the same percentage Tuesday.

It grieves me, said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical school in Illinois. I dont want evangelical to mean people who supported candidates with significant and credible accusations against them. If evangelical means that, it has serious ramifications for the work of Christians and churches.

That notion is bewildering to evangelical leaders who see Trump as their champion. They say that Trump has given them more access than any president in recent memory, and has done more to advance their agenda, by appointing judges who are likely to rule against abortion and gay rights; by channeling government funds to private religious schools; by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and by calling for the elimination of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches and charitable groups from endorsing political candidates.

I believe that God answered our prayers in a way we didnt expect, for a person we didnt even necessarily like, said Stephen Strang, author of God and Donald Trump, and founder of Charisma Media, a Christian publishing house.

Christians believe in redemption and forgiveness, so theyre willing to give Donald Trump a chance, said Strang, a member of the presidents informal council of evangelical advisers. If he turns out to be a lecher like Bill Clinton, or dishonest in some kind of way, in a way thats proven, youll see the support fade as quick as it came.

Strang said that those who talk about Trump tarnishing the evangelical brand are not really believers  theyre not with us, anyway.

Evangelicals, often known as born-again Christians, belong to many denominations of churches, but they share some basic tenets: Believers must accept Jesus as a personal savior, spread the Gospel, and regard the Bible as the ultimate authority and the sacrifice of Jesus as necessary for the salvation of humanity.

When it comes to politics, however, the evangelical bloc is not rock solid, and the past year and a half has brought the cracks to the surface. There are evangelicals who took to Trump early on, evangelicals who were gradually won over, and evangelicals who were and proudly remain #NeverTrump, as some proclaim online.

There are young evangelicals who are disavowing their elders. There are Latino, Asian, black and American Indian evangelicals who are outraged at white believers for allying with a president they regard as racist and hostile to immigrants. Black hip-hop artist LeCrae made waves when he recently gave an interview announcing that he had divorced himself from white evangelicalism.

Jemar Tisby, president of The Witness, a black Christian collective, a faith-based media company that provides commentary on race, religion and culture, said that while Trump was running, we were saying, this man is promoting bigotry, white supremacists find an ally in him and this is going to be bad for us.

And not only did they vote for him, Tisby continued, they voted for him in slightly higher numbers than they did for Mitt Romney. It was a sense of betrayal.

Tisby, who co-hosts the podcast Pass the Mic, said that many blacks who hold evangelical beliefs have been reluctant to identify themselves as evangelicals, and that reluctance was growing.

Its counterproductive to identify as evangelical, he said. Whats happened with evangelicalism is, it has become so conflated with Republican politics, that you cant tell where Christianity ends and partisanship begins.

There are signs that evangelicals have begun to drift away from their solid support for Trump. A poll conducted from Nov. 29 to Dec. 4 by the Pew Research Center found that the presidents job approval among white evangelical Protestants had fallen to 61 percent, from 78 percent in February.

The association with Moore troubled some female evangelicals who found his accusers to be credible. Two women said he had sexually molested them when they were teenagers, and others said that he had taken them out on dates or hounded them at work, accusations that Moore denies.

Some female evangelicals said on social media that they stayed home rather than vote for either Moore or his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, whose views on issues like abortion are distant from their own.

Many women have expressed the broader concern that overlooking accusations of sexual misconduct against favored politicians sends a dangerous message that women who come forward can be dismissed in the service of a political agenda.

Weve let evil overtake the entire reputation of Evangelicalism, one prominent evangelical author, Beth Moore, wrote on Twitter the day before the election. The lust for power is nauseating. Racism, appalling. The arrogance, terrifying. The misogyny so far from Christlikeness, it cant be Christianity.

People have had the impulse to jettison the evangelical label before, according to Stetzer of Wheaton College. It came up after the televangelist scandals involving Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart in the 1980s. But the idea received new attention and momentum soon after Trump was elected.

Galli, the magazine editor, said he had recently brainstormed a list of 50 to 100 words, looking for a suitable substitute term. Among them: neo-evangelical, Gospel Christian, Followers of Jesus.

Purple-cow Christianity, he said. It doesnt really matter. Its the reality underneath that we affirm.

Laurie Goodstein is a New York Times writer.
LOS ANGELES  As part of the crew digging a subway extension under the streets of Los Angeles, Ashley Leger always keeps her safety gear close by.

When her phone buzzes, she quickly dons a neon vest, hard hat and goggles before climbing deep down into a massive construction site beneath a boulevard east of downtown.

Earthmovers are diverted, and Leger gets on her hands and knees and gently brushes the dirt from a spot pointed out by a member of her team. Her heart beats faster because theres a chance shell uncover what she calls the big find.

Leger is a paleontologist who digs for fossils in the middle of a city rather than an open plain or desert. She works for a company contracted by Los Angeles transportation officials to keep paleontologists on hand as workers extend a subway line to the citys west side.

Theyre making sure that theyre recovering every single fossil that could possibly show up, Leger said of her team of monitors. They call me anytime things are large and we need to lead an excavation.

Since work on the extension began in 2014, fossilized remains have routinely turned up from creatures that roamed the grasslands and forests that covered the region during the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago.

They include a partial rabbit jaw, mastodon tooth, camel foreleg, bison vertebrae and a tooth and ankle bone from a horse.

But the discovery that still makes Leger shake her head in disbelief came about a year ago, shortly after construction began on the projects second phase. She was at home getting ready for bed when a call came in from one of her monitors.

It looks big, he told her.

The next morning, Leger knelt at the site and recognized what appeared to be a partial elephant skull.

It turned out to be much more. After 15 hours of painstaking excavation, the team uncovered an intact skull of a juvenile mammoth.

Its an absolute dream come true for me, said Leger, who spent the previous decade at a South Dakota mammoth site with no discoveries even close to the size of the one in Los Angeles. Its the one fossil you always want to find in your career.

Californias stringent environmental laws require scientists to be on hand at certain construction sites.

Paleontologists have staffed all L.A. subway digs beginning in the 1990s, when work started on the citys inaugural line, said Dave Sotero, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Paying for the paleontologist staff from Cogstone Resource Management is factored into the projects cost, he said. When scientists are brought in to see what crews might have unearthed, work on the project continues, albeit in a different location.

Our crews try to be as mindful as possible to help them do their jobs. We get out of their way, Sotero said, adding that when the mammoth skull was uncovered, construction workers helped deliver it to the mouth of the site.

From there, the skull was hauled a mile or so to Los Angeles La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, home to one of Americas most fossil-rich sites.

Assistant curator Dr. Emily Lindsey called it a pretty remarkable find, noting that while thousands of dire wolf and saber-toothed cat remains have been uncovered in L.A., there have been only about 30 mammoths.

A few hundred pounds and the size of an easy chair, the skull is especially rare because both tusks were attached. Its being studied and is available for public viewing inside the museums glass-walled Fossil Lab.

With a nod to Hollywood, the 8- to 12-year-old Colombian mammoth was named Hayden, for the actress Hayden Panettiere, featured in the TV series Nashville and Heroes.

The Cogstone monitor at the construction site had been watching her on television before spotting the speck of bone that turned out to be the intact skull.

Similar endeavors have turned up treasures during digs in other cities.

Workers at a San Diego construction site found fossils including parts of a mammoth and a gray whale and multiple layers of ancient seashells.

Last year, crews working on a development near Bostons seaport uncovered a 50-foot wooden boat possibly dating to the late 18th century.

Lindsey praised Californias efforts to ensure science and urban development overlap, while bemoaning what bygone treasures may have been lost before the regulations went into place in the early 1970s.

Most of the past is below the ground, so youre only going to find it when you dig, she said. As the city grows, Im sure well find more exciting fossil material.

Christopher Weber is an Associated Press writer.
WASHINGTON  House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday he had secured three changes in the $1.5 trillion tax bill that would help California as Republicans worked on last-minute revisions to the legislation scheduled for final votes in the Senate and House next week.

There were three things I requested, the Bakersfield Republican said, ticking off the inclusion of state income taxes along with property taxes in the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, a higher $750,000 limit on home mortgage deductions and the lowering of the top income-tax rate to 37 percent.

The original bills were criticized in California as particularly unfair to homeowners in the state for allowing only a deduction for property taxes, which are suppressed by Proposition 13. Meanwhile, the House bill capped the mortgage deduction at $500,000, well below the price of an average starter home in the Bay Area.

The new proposed 37 percent top income-tax rate, which is lower than the current 39.6 percent rate and the top rates in each of the original House and Senate bills, came after complaints that some high-income earners could see a tax increase as a result of changes elsewhere in the legislation. The lower rate, lawmakers believe, would help offset the loss of state and local tax deductions for high earners in California and other high-cost states.

As the final votes approaches, the focus is on the 11 California Republicans who voted for the House bill last month, providing the margin of victory. Their votes are viewed as essential for passage of the revised version in the House next week.

Other changes made during negotiations to reconcile the two tax plans could also help the state, including dropping a provision to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles and wind energy and jettisoning taxes on the tuition breaks that graduate students receive for teaching or conducting research.

But these and other revisions being negotiated in private by GOP leaders would raise the bills cost above the $1.5 trillion that Republicans established as the limit that the legislation could increase the deficit over the next decade. The expansion of the deduction for state income taxes would cost an estimated $100 billion.

With a self-imposed Christmas Day deadline to get a bill to President Trumps desk for signature, Republicans are scrambling to come up with at least $200 billion in additional revenue, possibly by raising the one-time tax on foreign earnings that U.S. multinationals would pay on the estimated $3.1 trillion they have parked overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. The original bills offered a tax holiday as an incentive for those corporations to bring that money back to the U.S.

GOP leaders also mentioned ending the tax cuts for individuals in 2024, a year earlier than in the original Senate bill. Although this would tilt the legislation even more heavily toward the wealthy and corporations, Republicans lawmakers have argued that a future Congress is likely to renew the individual tax cuts. If those cuts are eventually extended, however, the deficit increase would rise to $2 trillion, excluding interest costs, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a watchdog group.

Californias congressional Republicans from rural districts welcomed the changes and appeared prepared to vote for the final bill, but the states Democrats said the modifications would do little to help their constituents in high-cost districts like San Francisco where combined property and state and local income taxes far exceed the proposed $10,000 cap on deductions.

I expect this bill to go through, and the lump of coal that every Californian is going to receive is thanks in large part to the 11 Republicans from California, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. In my district, the average household has $36,000 in deductions from state and local property taxes, she said.

The proposed tax bill offers a minimum of a $10,000 increase in their taxes, Speier said.

She said home values in her district seldom dip below $1 million. The changes are better, certainly, but its the personal income tax and its the property taxes that are killers.

But Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale (Butte County), said, My district will be helped just fine.

Were a lot of middle-income folks. Home values aren't through the roof like they are in the urban areas that the state Legislature tends to cater to anyway. So I think, by and large, the plan that is coming forward is going to be very beneficial to my constituents, but also the vast majority of Americans.

LaMalfa said Gov. Jerry Browns description of Republicans as Mafia thugs targeting prosperous states in the tax legislation is better applied to Brown and Democrats in Sacramento.

Im Sicilian. I know more about that than him by far, LaMalfa said. Theyve been doing Mafia hits on people who produce things in my state ever since Ive been around this ball game. He cited a gas tax, a car tax, a cap-and-trade tax and talk of a new vehicle mileage tax.

Why should the rest of the country have to try to fix up Californias irresponsibility? he said.

LaMalfa said by bumping up the home mortgage deduction limit and adding state income taxes to the property-tax exclusion, negotiators were trying to find that level where it isn't a complete concession to high-tax, irresponsible states but finds that happy medium that doesn't completely distort that for the rest of the country that has lower taxes, lower-cost homes.

Three California Republicans  Darrell Issa of Vista (San Diego County), Tom McClintock of Elk Grove (Sacramento County) and Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa (Orange County)  voted against the original House bill last month on the grounds it would harm their constituents. House Republicans are expected to be briefed by leadership on the final package Friday afternoon.

Bigger hurdles lie in the Senate, where Republicans hold only a 52-48 majority and can afford to lose only two votes, with Vice President Mike Pence standing by to break a potential tie. The Senate is expected to vote first, taking the bill up Monday with a vote on passage Tuesday. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., was the lone Republican to vote against the original Senate bill, citing deficit concerns, the substance of which havent changed.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Thursday he will vote no unless he secures a larger child tax credit than is currently in the plan. His demand would force GOP leaders to find more money elsewhere.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine voted for the original bill on the promise she secured from GOP leaders to block cuts to Medicare and back legislation to stabilize individual health insurance markets. She has not yet said how she will vote on the new version.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suffering from aggressive brain cancer, has become visibly frail and has missed recent votes. McCain was hospitalized Thursday due to the side effects of cancer treatment. If McCain is unable to vote, Republicans could afford to lose no more than Corker to pass the bill.

McCains office released a statement Thursday saying the senator is currently receiving treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center for normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy. ... Sen. McCain looks forward to returning to work as soon as possible.

Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@

sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
FRANKFORT, Ky.  The wife of a Kentucky lawmaker who killed himself after a sexual assault allegation surfaced this week defended her husband Thursday and said she will run for his seat because these high-tech lynchings based on lies and half-truths cant be allowed to win the day.

In a statement a day after Republican state Rep. Dan Johnsons suicide, Rebecca Johnson said she has been fighting behind her husband for 30 years and his fight will go on.

Dan is gone but the story of his life is far from over, she said.

Johnson shot himself Wednesday night near a road in a secluded area. Two days earlier, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published a story detailing allegations that he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl in his basement in 2013. The story prompted state leaders of both major political parties to call for his resignation, and authorities reopened the investigation that had been closed without charges.

Johnson, who pastored a church in Louisville, held a news conference from his pulpit on Tuesday, defiantly denying the allegations. Rebecca Johnson was by her husbands side during that news conference, which the pastor began by leading friends and family in singing a portion of the Christmas carol O Come All Ye Faithful.

The 57-year-old said the allegations against him were totally false and part of a nationwide strategy of defeating conservative Republicans. He referenced Republican Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, who faces accusations of sexual misconduct from multiple women.

David Adams, a political operative who worked with Dan Johnson, said Rebecca Johnson was unavailable for a phone interview because she was at a funeral home.

Earlier Thursday, a sheriff said an ominous Facebook post that Dan Johnson made Wednesday night is part of what prompted his family to report him missing.

In the post, he asked for people to take care of his wife and wrote that post-traumatic stress disorder is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer. It has won this life, BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.

Adam Beam is an Associated Press writer.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon said Thursday that he has asked his colleague and ex-roommate, Sen. Tony Mendoza, to take a leave of absence as investigators probe allegations that Mendoza sexually harassed several women.

I believe it is the right thing to do at this time, de Leon said.

But Mendoza, D-Artesia (Los Angeles County), hasnt stepped away, and critics quickly lambasted de Leon, a Los Angeles Democrat, saying his asking for a leave isnt enough.

Many of us have been waiting for Sen. Mendoza to do the right thing and resign, but that has not happened, said Andy Vidak, R-Hanford (Kings County). The Senate Democrat leadership has failed in their responsibility to request that Mendoza resign.

De Leon, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in next years Senate race, called for Mendoza to step down as a coalition of women is accusing lawmakers of fostering a culture of sexual harassment  in part by making it difficult for women to complain without being subjected to retaliation.

Two assemblymen  Matt Dababneh and Raul Bocanegra, both Democrats from Los Angeles County  have stepped down in recent weeks amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that a 26-year-old woman has filed a police report alleging that Dababneh had sex with her without her consent several times in 2014, a charge Dababneh denied.

On Thursday, de Leon took steps to help the Senate gain the confidence of women who want to file complaints.

The state Senate hired a pair of California law firms to independently investigate allegations of sexual misconduct and to host a confidential hot line for victims and tipsters, de Leon announced.

The senators also hired a rape crisis group to support victims within the Senate and to educate Senate staff about sexual misconduct.

The Senate will work with the Assembly to ensure that all legislative employees have the protections they need to feel safe and respected in their workplace, de Leon said. This is just the beginning of a long road to overhaul to the way the California Legislature handles complaints of sexual harassment.

The move comes amid increasing pressure to expel Mendoza, after three women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Mendoza, including a Sacramento State University fellow who asked the senator for a job and instead received repeated invitations to visit him at home.

Mendoza has denied wrongdoing.

On Thursday, Vidak unveiled a lengthy resolution hed drafted to oust Mendoza.

A simple suspension, with or without pay, is not an enough, Vidak said.

De Leon shared a Sacramento apartment with Mendoza until last month, when he moved out and removed Mendoza from committees he served on, including the chairmanship of the powerful Insurance, Banking and Financial Institutions Committee.

De Leon said he has asked Mendoza to take a leave of absence pending the outcome of a Senate investigation that began in October. But that internal process  in which lawmakers can investigate and discipline their colleagues  has been widely criticized as a conflict of interest that has allowed a culture of sexual misconduct to fester for years. Numerous women working in both the state Senate and the Assembly have come forward this fall with allegations of sexual misconduct against lawmakers and other men who work in and around the Capitol.

The Senate has transferred the Mendoza investigation to an independent outside investigator.

Last month, de Leon and other state senators revised Senate rules so that the lawmakers can no longer review complaints of sexual harassment against themselves or their staff.

That change prompted a bipartisan panel of senators to hire the law firms to conduct independent investigations on contract for two years.

They are Van Dermyden Maddux, which investigates workplace misconduct, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which specializes in internal investigations.

Heading the team of lawyers will be Benjamin Wagner, the managing partner of Gibson, Dunn & Crutchers Palo Alto office and a former federal prosecutor in Sacramento, and Deborah Maddux, a former attorney for the University of California and the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

I personally have conducted hundreds and hundreds of investigations, Maddux said. Many times I have sustained those claims. Many times I have not. We will conduct thorough, fair and impartial investigation.

Maddux announced a confidential hot line, (800) 729-1443, for victims of sexual harassment or assault within the Senate, or anyone who has information about it.

The Senate also hired Weave Inc., a Sacramento nonprofit that provides crisis intervention services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Sacramento County.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The holidays can be a stressful time of year in the Bay Area as those barely making ends meet are faced with the challenge of buying gifts, decorating and often entertaining out-of-town loved ones.

And while it's easy to conflate all of these responsibilities into a knotted ball of impending dread, take a breath, step back and focus on the big picture. Traditions exist for a reason  they bring people together and create memories.

Now Playing: The area on Market Street between Powell and Montgomery stations is idea for taking in a free holiday music show. Powell Station itself can also become a hidden underground symphony. Video: Ted Andersen, SFGATE

But instead of going crazy trying to satisfy all your holiday chores while jealously eyeing the Jones's, consider going against the grain this year and creating your own take on some old traditions.

As a Bay Area resident, you have everything you need for a holiday holiday season at your fingertips, but leveraging this with limited time and money can require forethought. Even though San Francisco is one of the most expensive places on the planet, there is always a cheaper or faster way to get around overpriced and overcrowded holiday mainstays.

For example, instead of going broke to impress someone at the San Francisco Symphony, try heading to Market Street between Powell and Montgomery around sunset to hear the city's best street music. Or, instead of paying $125 for Teddy Bear Tea at the Ritz Carlton for your 2-year-old, try heading to the Fairmont's life-size gingerbread house for free.

Whether it's a tree, a show or just a great place to take grandma and grandpa for food, you can escape the pitfalls of holiday gouging and tourists with a little deftness in your planning.

Click through the slideshow above for some of our insider tips for a cheaper Bay Area holiday.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The six Garrett + Moulton company dancers might have been shot out of a circus cannon the way they zoomed and caromed around the ODC Theater stage in designer Julienne Westons gaudy striped and checked and polka-dotted getups. There was good reason for all the exuberant clowning around in Zingo. It was the first of three world premieres marking the 15th anniversary season of choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moultons ingratiating troupe.

Seen at the opening on Thursday, Dec. 14, the three pieces on the bill stood in high contrast to each other. After Zingo, which featured internal shifts from high-voltage passages set to antic Romanian band tunes to near still-life interludes with Erik Satie on the soundtrack, came the elaborate geometries of The Mozart.

Last but certainly not least was Crystal Anniversary Ball Passing, a work of such captivating wit and organic eloquence a viewer almost forgot that the dancers  18 strong, with a dozen guest artists as reinforcements  remain seated throughout on riser-like platforms.

Even as the program changed gears so decisively, a distinctive style and sensibility kept bubbling through. It had to do with a flowing release and exchange of energy, as the dancers bodies would compress with hunched shoulders, sunken necks and sharply angled elbows, then burst and flower open to connect with each other in feverishly inventive ways  hooked ankles, a head gripped and rolled in someone elses hands, fluttering finger holds.

Or they exulted in the liberation of unhindered open space. David Robertsons modulated lighting made the atmosphere in which they moved especially charged and activated.

In the Romanian stretches of Zingo, the Garrett + Moulton dynamic played out in comical acrobatics that were by quick turns rubbery and rachety, all of it perpetual, unpredictable motion. The Satie passages, which incorporated balloons and flower petals, seemed a little too studied, more coy than droll. But it was clear the panting dancers needed a break.

The Mozart, on a sequence of the composers solo piano extracts, was busy and eventful, perhaps to a fault, and hard to take in on a first encounter. A set of variations provided welcome solo showcases for each of the six impressively self-possessed dancers  Carolina Czechowska, Michael Galloway, Gretchen LaWall, Nol Simonse, Haiou Wang and Miche Wong.

Hard as it is to play favorites, Wang stood out for his transitions from tensile compactness to an eloquent limberness that seemed to flow from his flexible torso out to his mobile limbs and serene but expressive face.

While this version of Ball Passing was listed as a company premiere, the evenings final piece was a reprise of something thats been done many times, by as many as 68 performers.

The 18 on hand here were more than enough to create the utterly absorbing impression of some ethereal blue-shirted cheerleading team whose exchanges of soft rubber balls merged mind-bending assembly-line precision with sudden effusions of sheer exhilaration, their arms raised and undulating like long grasses bending in a breeze. It was one of those spine-shivering celebrations that seemed simultaneously to be about everything and only the movement happening at that very instant.

Steven Winn is the San Francisco Chronicles former arts and culture critic.

Garret + Moulton Productions: 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 16. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., San Francisco. $25-$60. (415) 863-9834, www.garrettmoulton.org.
Flying the coop was once a young adult rite of passage, but according to a new report, many Americans are returning home to roost or seeking roommates.

Thirty percent of working-age adults  those aged 23 to 65  live in "doubled-up households," according to the report from real estate site Zillow. That number is a 9 percentage point jump from a low of 21 percent in 2005.
Scanners have so far found no sign of life on the first interstellar visitor ever seen in the Solar System.

An elongated asteroid resembling a huge marijuana joint passed Earth two months ago as it careened toward Jupiter at speeds approaching 200,000 mph.

Because of its trajectory, which indicated that it came from another solar system, and its odd spearhead shape, scientists speculated that it could be an alien spacecraft cleverly disguised as a rock.

Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million venture searching for intelligent life in the universe, is trying to determine if the 400-meter-long asteroid, dubbed Oumuamua, could have artificial origins. The initiative is backed by British physicist Stephen Hawking, Russian digital tech mogul Yuri Milner and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.

According to a statement from Breakthrough, the project's team listened across four radio bands that spanned billions of individual channels Wednesday, using an instrument on the 330-foot Green Bank radio telescope dish in West Virginia. The initial block of data (the first of a planned four blocks) detected no unusual signals.

Because of the size of the observation blocks, it will take Breakthrough Listen "some time to complete" the investigation, project representatives said.

Scientists at the SETI Institute in Mountain View have already searched for signals coming from the asteroid using the Allen Telescope Array, a few hundred miles north of San Francisco.

So far, no sign of E.T.s.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip  Four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire and dozens more wounded along with an Israeli officer in clashes across the West Bank and near Gazas border on Friday as the fallout continued over President Trumps announcement last week recognizing Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Protests in response to Trumps announcement, which departed from decades of U.S. policy that the fate of Jerusalem should be decided through negotiations, have yet to relent across various Arab and Muslim countries.

Following Friday prayers, Palestinians in the West Bank and along the Gaza border set fire to tires and threw rocks at Israeli troops who responded with tear gas and live fire.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said two Palestinians were killed from gunshots to the head. He identified one of the men as Ibrahim Abu Thraya, 29, a disabled man who had both legs amputated. He had taken part in several border skirmishes recently, images on social media show him carrying a Palestinian flag.

Another 82 Palestinians were injured in clashes in several locations along Gazas border with Israel, at least five of whom were seriously wounded, he said.

Another Palestinian died later from wounds sustained in clashes near Jerusalem, the health ministry said.

Fridays deaths put to eight the number of Palestinians killed since Trumps declaration on Dec. 6.

The Israeli military said thousands of Palestinian rioters rolled burning tires and hurled firebombs and rocks at security forces, who responded with tear gas and also fired selectively toward main instigators.

The Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza has called for a new armed uprising against Israel in response to Trumps declaration.

East Jerusalem is home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites and the fate of the territory is an emotionally charged issue at the heart of the conflict. The Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war from Jordan, as the capital of their hoped-for state. Israel says the entire city, including east Jerusalem, is its eternal capital.

Palestinians were infuriated by Trumps announcement because they saw it as siding with Israel on the most sensitive issue in the conflict. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said Trumps move disqualified the U.S. from continuing in its role as the traditional mediator of peace talks.

Trump said his decision merely recognizes the reality that Jerusalem already serves as Israels capital and is not meant to prejudge the final borders of the city.

Vice President Mike Pence was forced to delay a trip to the Middle East amid the outcry over Trumps decision. Aides to Abbas said that the Palestinian president would not meet with Pence, who is now scheduled to arrive in Israel from Egypt on Wednesday.

Fares Akram is an Associated Press writer.
CANBERRA, Australia  An Australian inquiry into child abuse recommended Friday that the Catholic Church lift its demand of celibacy from clergy and that priests be prosecuted for failing to report evidence of pedophilia heard in the confessional.

Australias Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its final 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation. Australias longest-running royal commission  which is the countrys highest form of inquiry  has been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The report heard evidence from more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse. Of those who were abused in religious institutions, 62 percent were Catholics.

We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades, the report said.

Recommendations include that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request that the Vatican consider introducing voluntary celibacy for clergy.

It said the bishops body should also request clarity on whether information received in the confessional that a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy and whether absolution of a perpetrator should be withdrawn until the perpetrator confesses to police.

Catholic clerics who testified to the royal commission gave varying opinions about what if anything a priest could divulge about what was said in a confessional about child abuse.

The commissions recommendations include making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offense. Clerics would not be exempt from being charged.

The Vatican didnt respond to the specific recommendations in a statement Friday, though Catholic officials have previously rejected any link between celibacy and abuse and have reaffirmed the sanctity of the confessional.

In the statement, the Vatican said the commissions report was thorough and deserved to be studied seriously. And it said it was committed to helping the Australian church accompany victims in finding healing and justice.

The commission found that celibacy was not a direct cause of child sexual abuse but was a contributing factor.

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said many of the commissions recommendations would have significant impact on the way the Catholic Church and others operate in Australia.

Rod McGuirk is an Associated Press writer.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

ASUNCION, Paraguay  Mariana Sepulveda has been stabbed on the street, detained by police and expelled from her high school  all for being transgender in Paraguay, one of the most sexually conservative countries in Latin America.

Ive felt hate for not being heterosexual, said Sepulveda, 32, who now works for an advocacy group. Raising a family, having a partner, adopting children seems out of reach because there are no legal conditions for us in Paraguay.

A lack of legal protections and prevalent macho attitudes have long stoked discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the poor, mostly Roman Catholic country. Advocacy groups fear the stigma and attacks on the LGBT community could get worse now that the education minister has banned classes about sexual diversity in schools and even volunteered to help burn all books related to the subject.

The ban was implemented in October after schools began using a U.N. Childrens Fund guidebook for teachers on avoiding discrimination between girls and boys and achieving gender equality.

Were not going to promote gender ideology, Education Minister Enrique Riera told local media this year. Were going to base ourselves on what is expressed in the constitution, which says that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Gay rights groups say the ban goes against Paraguays Constitution because it is discriminatory and ignores the recommendations by UNICEF and other international organizations.

Were living a sad time of religious fundamentalism, intolerance and hate that places this country as the most homophobic one of the region, Somos Gay, a Paraguayan gay rights group, said in a statement. It added that this situation has an impact on human lives. Hate crimes, bullying and violence are the disastrous consequences of this encouragement of homophobia.

Attitudes about LGBT rights in Paraguay stand in sharp contrast to other countries in the region.

Neighboring Argentina lets people change their legal and physical gender identity without having to undergo judicial, psychiatric and medical procedures and has appointed its first transgender police chief. Uruguays first transgender senator assumed her seat in October. In Chile, the center-left government also has been pushing measures giving greater acceptance for transgender people in general and children in particular.

But conservative institutions such as the Catholic Church retain a strong influence in Paraguay.

Theres the indifference of the state toward sexual minorities to avoid confronting the church, said Ramon Corvalan, a Paraguayan anthropologist. The lay state thing is just a statement in the constitution. The church is still strong here.

He said that homophobia in Paraguay has a cultural origin based in male chauvinism that dates back to wars that shaped the country.

Nearly 2 of every 3 Paraguayans died in a disastrous war against Argentina and Brazil in 1865-70. The victorious 1932-35 Chaco War with Bolivia was also devastating. Both left a heavy imbalance between the male and female populations.

There was an availability of many women for the men who had survived the wars in an effort to repopulate the country, Corvalan said.

This year, the U.N. Human Rights Council recommended Paraguay pass a law to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but it has not done so.

Perhaps international organizations like the U.N. and its agencies are worried about this issue of rejection for non-heterosexuals, but in Paraguay its not a key issue, said political analyst Ignacio Martinez.

President Horacio Cartes has also been criticized for his attitudes toward the LGBT community. Just months before he was elected in 2013, he compared gay people to monkeys and said he would rather shoot himself in the testicles before his son married a man. Cartes later apologized, but the comments have not seemed to hurt his political career.

The ban on teaching about sexual diversity may further stall Paraguays embrace of LGBT rights.

At a school on the outskirts of Asuncion, students wrote a report seeking to prove that homosexuality is a social problem. After it went viral on social media, the school principal, Margarita Aquino, apologized and acknowledged that in Paraguays public schools, sexual education doesnt exist.

But the leaders of some communities say they prefer it this way.

We dont support same-sex marriage because its not natural, and we oppose that in our schools they teach our boys and girls that being gay, trans or lesbian is a choice, said Carolina Aranda, mayor of the city of Mariano Roque Alonso. Im not homophobic; I have gay friends. But I dont want them to teach kids things that are not normal.

Pedro Servin is an Associated Press writer.
BAGHDAD  Iraqs top Shiite cleric on Friday called on the powerful Shiite militias that helped conquer the Islamic States territory to choose between politics and arms, backing a key demand of the prime minister.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani stopped short, however, of rescinding a religious edict he made in June 2014 urging Iraqi citizens to join security forces at a time when the Islamic State was sweeping through the country, eventually taking over about one-third of Iraqs territory.

Instead, he said all weapons should be under the control of the state and that armed groups should steer clear of political participation  marking a significant step in Iraqs demobilization from a war footing now that major combat against the Islamic State has ended.

Sistanis call, made during a weekly Friday prayer sermon delivered by a representative of the reclusive cleric, comes ahead of elections next spring in which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is expected to face challenges from leaders of Shiite militias  many of whom are backed by Iran  and whose influence and visibility have grown during the three-year battle against the militants of Islamic State.

Maintaining Abadis hold on power is a major priority of the United States, which partnered closely with the Iraqi prime minister in the war. Abadi is seen by Washington and many Iraqis as a reliable check on Iranian influence in Iraq and a figure who could lead a national reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites.

Sistanis comments are likely to bolster Abadi, who has said reining in the many armed Shiite militias is an immediate imperative to stabilize the country as it copes with the physical and social damage of the Islamic State occupation. In an interview with the Washington Post in October, Abadi said the militias must either join the formal Iraqi security forces or disband and separate their political and military activities. He warned that those who refuse, will become outlaws.

On Friday, Sistani did not call out the militias by name but hewed to Abadis line, creating the possibility that the militias could lose popular support if they disobey him. He said Iraq still needs the manpower of the volunteers but exclusively within Iraqs regular security forces.

It is necessary to make continued use of this important energy within the constitutional and legal frameworks that restrict arms to the state, Sistanis representative said.

He added that the volunteers, known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, earned a reputation that exceeded any political force in Iraq and using their popularity for political purposes would sully their holy status.

Sistanis words resonate deeply in majority Shiite Iraq. His 2014 edict provoked a stampede of men joining Iraqs security forces. Though he had urged them to sign up for Iraqs police and army, the majority raced to join established and newly formed militias that were hungrily recruiting under a banner of religious obligation.

Tamer El-Ghobashy and Mustafa Salim are Washington Post writers.
1 Clash over Syria: A pair of U.S. jets intercepted two Russian fighter aircraft over Syria on Tuesday, the Pentagon said, the kind of highly dangerous yet common encounter thats occurring with more regularity despite agreements between the countries to avoid potentially deadly mistakes. Two F-22A Raptors were diverted from supporting ground operations against Islamic State militants and intercepted the Russian Su-25s aircraft after they crossed into U.S. coalition airspace east of the Euphrates River near Abu Kamal, a key city on the border of Iraq and the region where militants have congregated following defeat in Raqqa. Multiple calls to the emergency channel established to avoid such issues were made during the 40-minute encounter, a Pentagon spokesman said, culminating in a tense moment when one of the F-22s shadowed its Russian counterpart. The Syrian skies have become another contested battle space between old adversaries.

2 Migrants rescued: Dozens of migrants were rescued by the Turkish coast guard Thursday after their rubber dinghy snagged on a rocky outcropping off Turkeys Aegean coast. In a rescue recorded by Turkish authorities, a helicopter winched people to safety near Bademli, near the island of Lesbos, Greece. A partly deflated dinghy could be seen on the rocks. Fifty-one people, including 15 children, were rescued, six by helicopter and the rest by fishermen who transferred them to coast guard vessels, according to a statement from the coast guard. The nationalities of the rescued migrants were not immediately clear. The route across the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece has often been deadly. Dozens of migrants have drowned attempting the Aegean crossing this year. The perils were seared into the worlds consciousness in September 2015 by a photograph of a young Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body had washed up on a Syrian beach.
Opposition lawmakers began an effort to oust Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski from office after he rebuffed calls to resign over his ties to companies that received payments from disgraced Brazilian builder Odebrecht.

Lawmakers from three parties on Friday signed a motion seeking to remove the center-right president from his post on the grounds of moral incapacity. Members of the Popular Force party, which has a majority in the unicameral Congress, are among the signatories.

Kuczynski, a 79-year-old veteran of Wall Street, could be forced out after only 16 months heading one of Latin Americas fastest-growing economies. Since Brazil-based Odebrecht admitted bribing officials in several nations in the so-called Carwash case, a corruption investigation has rocked Perus establishment.

The probe has implicated former presidents, government officials and businessmen, and prosecutors are looking into Kuczynskis role in a highway contract awarded to Odebrecht when he was a government minister.

Facing calls to resign, Kuczynski took to state television late Thursday to deny claims by opposition lawmakers that he received payments. He promised to allow investigators to examine his bank accounts.

He had an opportunity to resign, and we see that hes not capable of doing that. He wants to cling onto power, Hector Becerril, an opposition lawmaker, told the Lima-based Canal N television network. His Popular Force party will seek a consensus in Congress to take the decision that Peru requires for its growth and development.

Given the strength of the opposition, the president could be removed within weeks, said Fernando Rospigliosi, who served under Kuczynski in the 2001-06 government of Alejandro Toledo. Theres no way he can survive this crisis, he predicted.

In the event Kuczynski is unseated, he would be replaced by one of two vice presidents: Martin Vizcarra, the ambassador in Canada, or Mercedes Araoz, the Cabinet chief.

The crisis escalated rapidly after the committee said this week it obtained information from Odebrecht showing it made payments to a consultancy set up by Kuczynski more than a decade ago. Kuczynski, a former central banker and finance minister, said he had no involvement in the firm while he held public office.

Im an honest man and have been all my life. Im prepared to defend the truth before the Carwash committee and the Attorney Generals Office, Kuczynski said, a reference to the congressional panel investigating corruption.

John Quigley is a Bloomberg News writer.
JERUSALEM  Pedestrians walk on a thick layer of soot from tires set ablaze in frequent clashes with Israeli troops. Cars navigate around potholes in streets littered with garbage. Motorists honk in a traffic jam near an Israeli checkpoint that is framed by the towering cement slabs of Israels separation barrier.

Its morning rush hour in Ras Khamis, a neglected, restive Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem where President Trumps recent recognition of the contested city as Israels capital has been met by cynicism, defiance and new fears that Palestinians will increasingly be marginalized.

Trumps pivot on Jerusalem is regrettable, saddening and unfair, said Yasser Khatib, 42, who runs a supermarket across the street from the barrier that separates several Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem from the rest of the city.

Khatib said he has strong religious ties to the city and that his familys roots go back generations. We have no life without Jerusalem, he said as he sold snacks to schoolchildren. Trump can say whatever he wants.

Palestinians make up 37 percent of Jerusalems population of 866,000, up from 26 percent in 1967 when Israel captured east Jerusalem, expanded the citys boundaries into the West Bank and annexed the enlarged municipal area to its capital.

The international community says east Jerusalem is occupied territory and that the citys fate must be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians who seek a capital in the eastern sector.

Trump couched his Jerusalem comments  viewed in the Arab world as a show of pro-Israel bias  by saying he is not taking a position on the boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in the city.

Yet he made no specific mention of the citys large Palestinian population, which could reach 44 percent by 2040, according to the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research think tank.

Despite Israels portrayal of Jerusalem as united, there are stark differences between Arab and Jewish areas after what critics say is half a century of neglect and discrimination.

On the ground, Israel is not investing much in developing the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, said Yitzhak Reiter, in charge of the Jerusalem Institutes mapping of the physical and social infrastructure of Arab neighborhoods.

In many spheres, the city is still divided, with two different transport systems, two different policies on building and construction.

Israel would have to invest billions of dollars in Arab areas to reach parity with Jewish neighborhoods, he said.

For now, 79 percent of Arab residents fall below the poverty line, compared with 27 percent of Jews, according to Jerusalem Institute figures.

Welfare services maintain four offices in the Arab east, compared with 19 offices in Jewish areas, said the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Arab schools have a shortage of hundreds of classrooms, ACRI said. The west has 34 post offices, compared with nine in the east.

Mayor Nir Barkats office said he developed a plan unprecedented in scope and budget allocation to reduce gaps in east Jerusalem and made progress in alleviating 50 years of neglect inherited from predecessors. Among other things, the city opened more than 800 classrooms in Arab schools, with 1,000 more in the pipeline, the statement said.

ACRI said the added classrooms included many spaces rented in existing residential buildings.

Jerusalem is the largest mixed city in the Holy Land, and Arabs and Jews interact in daily life, including in malls and hospitals. Many Palestinians work in shops and restaurants in west Jerusalem, typically earning more there than on the east side.

Yet east-west infrastructure gaps remain wide.

Israel may be unwilling to invest heavily in areas that could one day come under Palestinian rule, said Reiter, adding that efforts to maintain a strong Jewish majority may also play a role.

Palestinians say Israel is trying to drive Arabs out of Jerusalem.

Ziad Hammouri, a community organizer, said Trumps new position on Jerusalem boosts Israels attempts to control east Jerusalem and to exclude Palestinians from Jerusalem.

One plan floated by a Cabinet minister  and opposed by Barkat  would place tens of thousands of Palestinians who live inside the municipal boundaries but beyond the separation barrier under a new Israeli-run municipality, thus sharply reducing the number of Palestinians counted as Jerusalemites.

These areas, including Ras Khamis, have seen apartment towers rise in recent years as Israel stopped enforcing building restrictions there.

East Jerusalemites desperate for housing moved there in large numbers, despite fears that they would eventually be zoned out of Jerusalem.

On the Jerusalem side of the barrier, its difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits, because of lack of outline plans or discriminatory zoning, said Israeli rights groups. Many Palestinians built without permits, and 88 homes were demolished in 2016, the most in a decade, ACRI said.

Barkats office said a low share of permit application come from Arab neighborhoods, and that a high percentage of those are approved.

Since 1967, Israel has built large neighborhoods for Jews in the annexed east, now home to 212,000 Israelis.

Palestinian Ismail Siam said a one-story home he built on his land for two adult children was demolished by Israel twice in 14 months, on grounds that he did not have a building permit.

They want to expel us from the city, said Siam, 54, standing near patches of floor tiles left from the demolished house.

The plot faces large construction sites for Jewish neighborhoods across a ravine.

Most Palestinians in Jerusalem have residency status.

After 1967, most Palestinians didnt consider the more secure citizenship option, which would have meant recognizing Israeli rule. In recent years, growing numbers have applied, but increasingly encountered bureaucratic hurdles.

Prolonged absence can put Palestinian residents at risk of expulsion; close to 15,000 have been stripped of residency rights since 1967.

Palestinians in the city can vote in local elections, but have largely refrained from doing so, to avoid the perception that they accept Israeli rule.

East Jerusalem residents also feel increasingly abandoned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas West Bank self-rule government. Israel clamps down on Palestinian Authority activities in Jerusalem, limiting Abbas influence in the city.

The leadership vacuum was briefly filled over the summer when Muslim clerics led a successful grassroots campaign against metal detectors Israel had installed at east Jerusalems Al Aqsa Mosque compound. Islams third-holiest shrine, built on the remnants of Judaisms holiest site, is a frequent flash point of violence.

After Trumps decision, city residents mounted only small protests, compared with larger marches in the West Bank and elsewhere.

Activist Yara Hawari said rallying large crowds is difficult when there is no narrow objective, such as removing the metal detectors.

What we are asking is simple, an end to colonization, she said. But its not as tangible.

Karin Laub is an Associated Press writer.
Australian investment firm Pemba Capital Partners won't go ahead with plans to buy payment terminal provider Smartpay Holdings for $40.4 million after wrapping up due diligence.

The Sydney-based firm put forward an indicative offer of 23.5 cents a share in August and was granted due diligence access last month, but today ended its pursuit of the payments company. The shares dropped 8.7 percent, or 2 cents, to 21 cents.

"For Smartpay it is very much business as usual, with no change to our strategy, as the company looks to continue to deliver on value creation opportunities in front of us," chair Greg Barclay said in a statement.

Last month Smartpay reported a first-half profit of $900,000 as lower wages offset a drop in sales when its development focused on internal projects rather than external products that could then be sold.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

November 18th Morning Report

CHI - 2023 Guidance Update

TRA - Weblink for Turners Half Year FY23 Results Presentation

General Capital (GEN:NZ) Concludes Goodwill Discussions

General Capital (GEN:NZ) Announces Discussions on Goodwill

KMD - Trading Update

NZME updates investors on strategic progress

IPL - Interim Results HY23

NPH - 2022 Full Year Results

November 17th Morning Report


To activate the text-to-speech service, please first agree to the privacy policy below.

Hanoi, Vietnam, Dec. 15 (CNA) Vietnam has demanded a speedy investigation by Taiwan's authorities into the cause of a recent fire that killed six Vietnamese workers at a factory in Taoyuan, after its Foreign Ministry on Friday listed the names of the people believed to have died and injured in the fire.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A jury convicted an Eltingville resident Thursday of luring a teenage girl into his car in New Jersey and forcing her to touch him more than three years ago.

The panel took only 25 minutes to convict 48-year-old Vincent O'Leary of the inappropriate actions with the girl, who was 14 when the incident happened in October 2014, according to a media release from the Office of the Union County Prosecutor.

O'Leary came across the child when she was walking through a parking lot in Elizabeth, N.J., and offered her a ride, according to the release. Prosecutors said the girl accepted the offer because she was running late for an after-school program.

O'Leary proceeded to ask the girl a series of sexually charged questions, and requested that she engage in sexual contact with him, according to the release. When the girl refused, he forced her to touch him inappropriately, the release stated.

He dropped off the girl without further incident, but was arrested after a three-week investigation, according to the release.

The jury convicted him of second-degree luring, third-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact.

O'Leary had a prior conviction for a similar incident in New York in 2002, according to the release.

Advance records indicate that in September 2002, O'Leary lured a 14-year-old girl into his car in front of Port Richmond High School, gave her rum and drove her to a Mariners Harbor street corner, according to officials.

Authorities said O'Leary then took off the girl's pants and sodomized her in his car, which was parked near the corner of Roxbury and Grandview avenues.

Two weeks later, after the girl contacted police, O'Leary was arrested when he arrived at a predetermined meeting spot with the girl, police said at the time.

O'Leary is facing five to 10 years in New Jersey state prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 2.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Flamboyant lawyer Richard Luthmann may fancy himself a champion of the little guy, but federal prosecutors say he is little more than a "violent criminal and fraudster" who, along with accomplices, bilked customers in a scrap-metal business they had formed, had a victim threatened at gunpoint, and took advantage of a blind client in a bid to hide their scheme.

Luthmann, 38, who two years ago famously sought to resolve a civil lawsuit through "trial by combat," was arrested Friday morning by the FBI on a slew of charges, including kidnapping, kidnapping conspiracy, money laundering, brandishing a firearm to commit a crime, aggravated identity theft and extortion conspiracy.

The scam was launched in the summer of 2015, between Luthmann, co-defendant George Padula III, 29, of Staten Island, and an unidentified co-conspirator, who sold scrap metals to overseas clients, said an indictment filed in Brooklyn federal court.

Initially, the defendants schemed to defraud victims by contracting to ship them valuable scrap metals but not sending anything in return, the indictment said.

When one victim threatened to press criminal charges, Luthmann allegedly said to refund his money.

At that point, the defendants decided they would pad the weight of the containers with cheap filler materials beneath the valuable scrap metal, the indictment said.

In one instance, they filled a container mainly with concrete blocks to a customer who had contracted to buy electric motors, said the indictment.

MOB TIES CLAIMED

Luthmann encouraged the co-conspirator to involve Padula, who claimed to have organized crime connections which they could use to settle disputes, said officials.

A third defendant, Stephen (Coty) Cotogno, 48, of Holmdel, N.J., rented Luthmann, Padulla and the co-conspirator warehouse space on Staten Island to store the materials, said the indictment. Cotogna charged them above-market prices, because he was aware of the scheme, officials said.

Luthmann registered two phony companies - Commercial Metals NY Corp. and Omni Metals Corporation with the New York Secretary of State, the indictment said.

The registered addresses for both companies was the same as Luthmann's Castleton Corners law firm, said the indictment.

Luthmann recruited a blind client of his who was living on public assistance to pose as president of Omni, said the indictment.

When that person balked about possibly losing his financial aid if involved in the scheme, Luthmann assured him the government wouldn't find out, said the complaint.

To aid the scheme, Luthmann and his accomplices had the man open bank accounts between October and December 2015, the indictment said

Victims allegedly wired more than $500,000 into those accounts.

Luthmann and the co-conspirator transferred the money from those accounts into bank accounts they controlled, including Luthmann's attorney trust account, said the indictment.

They withdrew some of the cash and split it among themselves, the indictment said.

CHINESE ORGANIZED CRIME

In August 2016, Luthmann told the co-conspirator that members of Chinese organized crime had visited his office looking for Omni.

Luthmann and Padula told the man that another defendant, Michael Beck, 59, of Staten Island, who they described as an organized-crime enforcer, had resolved the matter.

The man gave Luthmann and Padula $23,000 at their direction to give to Beck, and they said they would each give Beck $20,000.

Things took a violent turn on Dec. 5, 2016.

Luthmann arranged for the co-conspirator to come to his office under the guise of signing some paperwork, said the complaint.

Luthmann wasn't there, and when the man contacted him, the attorney told him to wait inside a conference room.

Padula and Beck entered the room and when the co-conspirator tried to run out the door, Beck pushed him into a seat, said the indictment.

Beck told the man he owed Beck $10,000

Beck pointed a gun at the man's head and knee, the indictment said. Beck then gave the gun to Padula, and left the room, telling Padaula to shoot the man in the knee, said the complaint.

Padula removed the bullets, told the man Beck was serious and walked him out of the office, instructing him not to go to police, the indictment said.

If convicted, Luthmann, Padula and Beck each face up to life imprisonment, said authorities.

Cotogno faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of wire fraud.

They were scheduled to be arraigned Friday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court.

"As alleged, Richard Luthmann crossed the line from attorney to violent criminal fraudster," said Bridget M. Rhode, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. "Luthmann and his co-conspirators cheated scrap metal customers in order to make easy money for themselves, took advantage of a disabled man to conceal their fraud, and used gunpoint extortion to collect a purported debt."

Luthmann is reportedly the subject of a separate state investigation by a special prosecutor requested by Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon.

In August, a Staten Island justice assigned a special prosecutor to probe allegations of criminal impersonation, forgery and falsifying business records made by one or more persons against an individual, who sources have identified as Luthmann.

According to media reports, Luthmann has been accused of creating false Facebook pages attacking McMahon and other political figures.

The judge's order does not specifically name Luthmann as the target.

It refers to three different "John Doe" matters; however, it is unclear whether the probe entails complaints made by three different complaining witnesses or multiple complaints made by one person.

The order cites "a potential grand-jury investigation into possible criminal activity," and empowers special prosecutor Thomas A. Tormey Jr. to explore "allegations of violations of criminal impersonation in the second degree, forgery in the third degree and falsifying business records in the second degree."

All of those charges are misdemeanors.

McMahon's application for the special prosecutor, originally filed in 2016, has been sealed.

Tormey has declined comment on the case.

In a prior Facebook post, Luthmann denied any wrongdoing, alleging anything he might have done was "political in nature" and "protected speech."

Luthmann, a Game of Thrones fan, gained instant notoriety two years ago, when he asked a judge to sanction a trial by combat to resolve a civil suit against him as well as a countersuit he filed against his adversaries in that case.

State Supreme Court Justice Philip G. Minardo denied that request, and the cases latter settled with the terms kept confidential.

In late 2015, Luthmann wrote a Brooklyn federal court judge saying he thought mobsters might have been after him and John Gulino, chairman of the Staten Island Democratic Party, may have knowledge of such actions.

Luthman wrote the letter to Judge Kiyo Matsumoto to explain his tardiness in submitting motion papers in a $20 million discrimination suit brought by his client, Lawrence Gilder, against Gulino and others.

Luthmann has failed in attempts to remove Gulino from power.

Gulino's lawyer had flatly denied the allegations, calling them "baseless," and the case was dismissed in September 2016, online federal court records show.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD reached out on social media for tips to locate a man missing from West Brighton.

The man is identified as Shankar Bhattacharjee, 67, of the 1000 block of Castleton Avenue, according to spokesman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The man suffers from schizophrenia and has gone missing in the past, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

A group home is located at the address supplied by police.

He was last seen at his residence at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, according to a police spokesman.

The man has a medium build, wears glasses over his brown eyes, has black hair and a mustache, according to a post on the NYPD Missing Persons Twitter feed.

He was seen wearing a green hat with the word, "Ireland," on it and also a black jacket, sweater and shirt with green pants.

NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline is 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS) or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
UPDATE: CHARGES INCLUDE KIDNAPPING, FRAUD

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Richard Luthmann, the controversial lawyer who once challenged a legal adversary to a trial by combat and is currently sparring with the Staten Island district attorney and his wife, the borough's former administrative judge, was arrested Friday morning by FBI agents, according to U.S. Department of Justice.

Luthmann, 38, is scheduled to be arraigned at 2 p.m. in Brooklyn federal court when an indictment, detailing charges against him, will be unsealed.

Sources said the charges stem from some type of business dealing, although the exact nature of the business or the charges was not immediately known.

At least one other person may also be charged, said sources.

A spokesman for the FBI did not immediately return a phone call Friday morning.

A spokesman for Brooklyn federal prosecutors declined comment.

Luthmann could nit immediately be reached for comment.

Luthmann, whose local office is based on Victory Boulevard in Castleton Corners, is reportedly the subject of a separate state investigation by a special prosecutor requested by Staten Island District Attorney Michael E. McMahon.

In August, a Staten Island justice assigned a special prosecutor to probe allegations of criminal impersonation, forgery and falsifying business records made by one or more persons against an individual, who sources have identified as Luthmann.

According to media reports, Luthmann has been accused of creating false Facebook pages attacking McMahon and other political figures.

The judge's order does not specifically name Luthmann as the target.

It refers to three different "John Doe" matters; however, it is unclear whether the probe entails complaints made by three different complaining witnesses or multiple complaints made by one person.

The order cites "a potential grand-jury investigation into possible criminal activity," and empowers special prosecutor Thomas A. Tormey Jr. to explore "allegations of violations of criminal impersonation in the second degree, forgery in the third degree and falsifying business records in the second degree."

All of those charges are misdemeanors.

McMahon's application for the special prosecutor, originally filed in 2016, has been sealed.

Tormey has declined comment on the case.

Luthmann took a swipe at McMahon and his wife, Justice Judith N. McMahon, in a Facebook post after the assignment of the special prosecutor.

He wrote: "Richmond Count District Attorney ... is trying to set up a Special Prosecutor against me from an adjoining county to bring baseless 'harassment' or 'identity theft' charges. Any alleged activity is denied for the reasons previously stated. Moreover, any alleged activity is, arguendo, POLITICAL in nature and is PROTECTED SPEECH, at least in America and New York."

Earlier this week, Luthmann moved to quash a grand-jury subpoena he said was issued in state Supreme Court, St. George, to Facebook seeking information from his Facebook account.

He also sought a letter from prosecutors advising if he is the target of the investigation.

Luthmann's motion is on the court's calendar for Tuesday.

Luthmann represents Michael Pulizotto, the whistleblower who secretly recorded conversations of Justice McMahon, who was Staten Island's former administrative judge, other jurists and court personnel.

On Tuesday, Pulizotto filed a $2.9 million lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleging Justice McMahon and personnel from the state Office of Court Administration and the New York State Court Officers Association bullied and harassed him while running the Staten Island Courthouse as a "fiefdom for their own personal and political gain."

In particular, Justice McMahon overstepped her authority on multiple occasions to aid her spouse, the district attorney, by conspiring with him to steer cases away from "defense-oriented judges," the complaint alleges.

John P. Connors Jr., Justice McMahon's lawyer has called the allegations "frivolous" and "baseless."

On learning of Luthmann's arrest on Friday, Connors said, "The arrest of Richard Luthmann by the FBI and the charges brought against him by the United States of America comes just three days after the filing of his baseless complaint against Judge McMahon. Judge McMahon remains confident that the system of justice to which she has dedicated her professional life will exonerate her and give Mr. Luthmann the justice he deserves."

A spokesman for the district attorney dismissed Pulizotto's suit as "the claims of a disgruntled and bitter ex-employee."

Pulizotto's federal suit comes on the heels of a $25-million slander lawsuit he filed in October in Manhattan state Supreme Court against Dennis Quirk, the head of the court officers'association.

According to that suit's civil complaint, Quirk cursed Pulizotto and denounced him as a "low-life rat" In a confrontation witnessed by several court officers outside the Staten Island Courthouse on Sept. 5.

Quirk told Pulizotto he knew Pulizotto had tape-recorded conversations with court personnel and given them to OCA's inspector general, alleges the complaint.

Quirk, the suit alleges, "has a strong political connection with" the McMahons.

Bruce Baron, Quirk's lawyer, has denounced the suit, calling it "as bogus as it gets" and said his client looks forward to his day in court.

While that suit only names Quirk as a defendant, it also targets the McMahons with allegations similar to those contained in the federal lawsuit.

Luthmann, a Game of Thrones fan, gained instant notoriety two years ago, when he asked a judge to sanction a trial by combat to resolve a civil suit against him as well as a countersuit he filed against his adversaries in that case.

State Supreme Court Justice Philip G. Minardo denied that request, and the cases later settled with the terms kept confidential.

In late 2015, Luthmann wrote a Brooklyn federal court judge saying he thought mobsters might have been after him and John Gulino, chairman of the Staten Island Democratic Party, may have knowledge of such actions.

Luthman wrote the letter to Judge Kiyo Matsumoto to explain his tardiness in submitting motion papers in a $20 million discrimination suit brought by his client, Lawrence Gilder, against Gulino and others.

Luthmann has failed in attempts to remove Gulino from power.

Gulino's lawyer had flatly denied the allegations, calling them "baseless," and the case was dismissed in September 2016, online federal court records show.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Here's a problem that New York shares with a lot of states around the country: Not enough budget money to fix and improve infrastructure.

It doesn't matter if you're talking about roads, mass transit or bridges and tunnels. The costs are skyrocketing, and the money just isn't there.

In New York City, for example, we need big money to upgrade our antiquated subways, to modernize a signal system that has been in place since the beginning of the last century. Never mind the billions that would be needed to expand the system and add new service.

It's no wonder that the North Shore Bus Rapid Transit line and a West Shore light rail line seem so out of reach sometimes.

In New York, we're beginning to take a hard look at congestion pricing as a way to generate funds. Among the key questions is whether there really is enough political will to put tolls on the East River bridges, which today are free. What lawmaker wants to sell that to their constituents?

Failing that, Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a tax on millionaires. There doesn't seem to be much support for that, and there's even less with a federal tax package that includes the elimination of state and local tax deductions, as well as caps on property tax deductions. The appetite for more tax increases in big-tax states like New York isn't going to be there. We may have to, gasp, cut some stuff.

But California, that haven of taxes, is looking at another way to raise money for road infrastructure: A vehicle miles traveled tax or VMT.

That's right, folks. In addition to mass transit fares, bridge and tunnel tolls, and highways that are already tolled, California drivers would be charged for the use of all roads everywhere.

California started a pilot program in 2016, and recommendations are due at the end of this year. Knowing tax-loving California, you can bet the state will move ahead with the program.

Oregon is also testing ways to tax drivers for using the road.

There are a few ways to do this. Your odometer can be scanned and you can be charged every time you pull up to the gas pump or the car-charging station. Or you can have a device installed in your car that would track your mileage as you go. Talk about invasive.

Here's how we got into this fix: Gas taxes alone aren't enough to help fund road building and repair projects. One reason is the fact that people are driving less in recent decades. In addition, hybrid and other more-fuel-efficient cars use less gas. Then there are electric cars, which don't use any gas at all. All this has led to a drop in gas taxes.

That's right, conscientious consumers. You solved an environmental problem by buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle, but you contributed to an economic crisis. And on top of that, greenies, your green car won't save you from having to pay a VMT tax. Everybody's going to have to contribute. After all, we all use the same roads.

Not hard to imagine New York looking at this kind of option should the congestion pricing effort fail. Or to hold this out as a worse alternative and thereby make congestion pricing seem like the lesser of two evils. After all, you can avoid congestion pricing fees by not driving into the areas where the fees will be charged. A vehicle miles traveled tax kicks in the second you pull away from the curb.

How this will continue to generate money if people are totally discouraged from driving and start leaving their cars home is another matter.

And of course, this doesn't guarantee that other tolls, fees, fares and taxes won't keep going up.

Hey, you're from New York. You've never been ripped off before?
By

,

NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The MLB Winter Meetings are over, but the Yankees offseason is far from finished.

Even after acquiring top slugger Giancarlo Stanton in a blockbuster trade with the Miami Marlins, the Yankees have been involved in rumors for Orioles star Manny Machado and every high-profile young pitching star on the market.

The latest: Discussions with the Pittsburgh Pirates about top-of-the-rotation arm Gerrit Cole.

Per George King of the New York Post, the Yankees and Pirates have discussed a deal that could include outfielder Clint Frazier.

According to a person with knowledge of the situation, the Yankees and Pirates are discussing a deal that would bring right-hander Gerrit Cole from Pittsburgh and possibly would include outfielder Clint Frazier leaving The Bronx.

The Pirates are expected to deal outfielder Andrew McCutchen, so they are looking for an outfielder who has power. While Frazier may not qualify as a legitimate power threat, hitting gurus believe his bat speed -- which Cashman labeled "legendary'' when acquiring the 23-year-old from the Indians in 2016 -- will lead to more homers with regular playing time.

Frazier posted a .715 OPS across 142 plate appearances in the majors last season. The right-handed hitting outfielder has been a top-50 prospect for the last three seasons. New York originally acquired Frazier from the Cleveland Indians for Andrew Miller in 2016.

Cole--one of the big-name pitchers often rumored to be headed to the Yankees--has two years left before being eligible for free agency.

Cole, 27, owns a 3.50 ERA across 127 career starts. The Pirates righty posted the following numbers in 2017: 33 starts, 203 innings, 4.08 FIP and 3.56 SO/BB.

Along with the potential for stardom, Cole brings durability to the rotation. Last season, Cole was just one of 15 big league starters to log at least 200 innings pitched. He was one of only 12 to make at least 33 starts.

Joe Giglio may be reached at jgiglio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Page Content

On the initiative of Minister of Justice, Raphael A. Boasman, officials of the Ministry of Justice of St. Maarten joined the more than 150 representatives of governments and criminal justice authorities of the 34 countries and territories of the Americas, private sector and international organizations to participate in the Hemispheric Forum on International Cooperation against Cybercrime in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, from the 5th to the 7th of December 2017.

Participating countries and territories included Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Uruguay and USA.

The Forum was aimed at permitting participating countries to make better use of capacity building programs of international organizations, to enhance cooperation and synergies between International organizations and initiatives, and to share experience on the strengthening of capacity building for criminal justice authorities.

Cybercrime is a fast-growing area of crime. More and more criminals are exploiting the speed, convenience and anonymity of the Internet to commit a diverse range of criminal activities that know no borders, either physical or virtual, cause serious harm and pose very real threats to victims worldwide.

In accordance with different worldwide sources, cybercrime is costing the world economy up to US $500 billion a year. Cybercrime and issues related to electronic evidence undermine the social and economic development opportunities of information technologies as well as human rights, democracy and the rule of law. A more effective criminal justice response and cooperation at all levels are needed.

Legislation on cybercrime and electronic evidence is the basis for such a response. An increasing number of countries in the Americas have adopted or, like St. Maarten, are in the process of adopting domestic legislation, using the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime as a guideline. This Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe is the only binding international instrument on this issue. Its main objective is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation. The Convention serves as a guideline for any country developing comprehensive national legislation against Cybercrime and as a framework for international cooperation between State Parties to this treaty. It is the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Also, with the growing relevance of information and communication technologies for societies around the world and thus their vulnerability to threats such as cybercrime a major capacity building effort is required to enable criminal justice authorities to investigate, prosecute and adjudicate offences against and by means of computers as well as other offences entailing electronic evidence.

Capacity building is an effective way to permit countries strengthen legislation, institutional capacities and cooperation at all levels. An example of good practice and offer of further support is the project of the European Union and the Council of Europe on Global Action on Cybercrime Extended (GLACY+).

The several workshops of the Council of Europe, OAS, US Department of Justice, Interpol and other International/regional organizations and other countries focused on a wide range of topics, i.a.:

Capacity building and obligatory certification of police officers in digital evidence and cybercrime investigations;

TOR, The Dark Web and Bitcoin: The technical background needed and an example of a successful investigation and prosecution;

Access to evidence in the cloud;

Procedural and Substantive Laws: how courts evaluate admissibility of digital evidence;

International community in the fight against cybercrime;

It should be recognized that combating cybercrime is not a sole responsibility of the public sector but also of the private sector. It is important to promote a platform for high levels of cooperation between the private and public sectors. Currently, geopolitical changes, the acceleration of technological developments and the evolution of attacks have caused a response gap between policies and real-time effective execution. All parties will need to participate in the creation of a pragmatic legal framework that will permit law enforcement to perform their duties while protecting individual privacy and facilitate cooperation between countries. INTERPOL is focusing resources to expand its information sharing agreements with private

sector to produce actionable intelligence for member countries. Participating countries to the Cyber Surge urged INTERPOL to continue producing and disseminating intelligence through its official channels.

Cybercrime related cases are complicated and require tenacity, resources, intelligence, patience by the investigators, and coordination between the different governmental institutions. This will seek to ensure the success of tracking, investigating, capturing, and processing of criminals. Occasionally, criminals make mistakes. Those mistakes in turn can be used for the investigation and prosecution of said criminals and bring them to justice.

International cooperation in cyber related cases is very important for the exchange of experiences and technical assistance. In particular, in cases that have not been encountered before.

It is the responsibility of investigators and prosecutors to explain the technical aspects of complex issues in clear and simple terms to judges and juries.

As electronic evidence is increasingly stored on servers in the cloud, specific measures are needed to secure such evidence for criminal justice purposes. The work of the Cybercrime Convention Committee within the framework of the Budapest Convention is noted, including the negotiation of a Protocol on access to evidence in the cloud which started in September 2017. It is also noted that private sector entities are prepared to cooperate with public

authorities. Governments may consider following the work of the Cybercrime Convention Committee on a Protocol to the Budapest Convention and accession to this treaty.

Cooperation between international organizations The developments of an international and national level call of consciousness are the grounds

for effective actions. There is a need to reassess and renew the current international legal frameworks, to offer a forum for broader international discussion expressing an outlook towards increasing and advancing international law-enforcement and judicial cooperation among the national authorities and between international and regional organizations. These developments should consider the influences of new and emerging issues in respect of international law-enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, alongside with recommendations on capacity-building. These recommendations should show an equal concern for the situation in countries at different stages of development in order to avoid a chaotic future.

In terms of the way ahead:

States should adopt appropriate domestic legal frameworks on cybercrime and electronic evidence, in line with international standards, such as the Budapest Convention;

States - with the support of international organizations - should continue to build capacities and skills of law enforcement agencies, prosecution services, and judiciary;

Criminal justice authorities should strengthen cooperation with the private sector that will enable timely access to data;

Streamline procedures involved in the processing of mutual legal assistance requests. States may consider accession to the Budapest Convention as a framework for international cooperation;

International organizations should further enhance their cooperation with each other and seek synergies in capacity building activities.

Speakers repeatedly emphasized the importance of communication and cooperation between governments and the private sector, particularly in the case of countries that do not yet have firmly established relationships with common providers.

There was an agreement among the participants on the need to work on capacity building strategies for operators of the criminal justice system about the challenges of computer-related crime and digital evidence. To promote interdisciplinary courses of legal and technical content. To promote "training of trainers" in the different countries of the region and to promote a better use of the resources for international cooperation.

Acknowledgement of the importance of the creation of special prosecution offices to deal with cybercrime and to promote joint activities and links among special prosecutors' units at a regional level.

It was also acknowledged the need of new criminal procedure laws regarding digital evidence and the creation of procedural powers. It is recommended the use of the Budapest Convention as a guideline.

It was accepted the urgent need to work on new rules (at the international and national level) regarding trans-border access to data and data in the cloud. Further, it was considered important the inclusion of an additional protocol to the Budapest convention regarding: data preservation,

production search and seizure orders when data is in another jurisdiction.


Vitale on location (Photos courtesy of Ami Vitale/National Geographic) Vitale on location (Photos courtesy of Ami Vitale/National Geographic)

by Sanjna Selva '21



National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale recently made Skidmore her destination, to show slides and share anecdotes in a talk titled "Rhinos, Rickshaws and Revolutions." In her earlier career as a war correspondent, she realized she was covering only the most violent and sensationalized aspects of humanity. A near-death experience on assignment in Gaza sparked a fire within her to challenge the notion that the most powerful stories had to be grounded in death and suffering. She explained, "I had to ask myself, was I telling only one half of the story, which was incomplete at best and maybe even dishonest at worst?"



Vitale saw moments of profound beauty and hope embedded even in the most gruesome, bleak conditions. She began telling those stories, photographing everyday life in parts of the world that weren't always given due attention. Living among the Fulani people in rural Guinea-Bissau for half a year, she discovered simplicity and joy-and showed those other realities beyond the famine and war portrayed by the media.



In 2009, after shooting a story on one the world's last northern white rhinoceroses, Vitale shifted her focus to wildlife and environmental stories. "Nature is really the biggest story out there," she said. "All of my stories about nature and wildlife are really stories about people, and vice versa. I came to that understanding after years spent covering conflicts that were often about resources and the natural world. "



During her Skidmore talk, Vitale captivated the audience with images of giant pandas in China's Wolong Nature Reserve-pictures that brimmed with hope, of baby pandas taking their first steps and 2-year-olds being reintroduced into the wild. Vitale was a serene presence throughout the evening, despite battling a wave of jet lag: She had just flown in from Dubai, where she was on the judging panel at a prestigious photography competition. Her excitement was evident as she expressed her passion for her work and her social initiatives, such as wildlife conservation efforts at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya.

"Photography transcends language. It gives people a voice," she said. In her travels, she is often the only woman on the job, and she likes to use photography to tell the stories of women she interacts with around the world. She is a member of Ripple Effect Images, bringing together renowned female scientists, writers, photographers and filmmakers to create stories that shed light on the hardships faced by women in developing countries and on the programs that can help them.

Asked for advice to give aspiring photographers, she replied good-naturedly, "It's not all glamorous. One percent of my job is about taking photos. The rest is sheer hard work. The trick is to get access to places that no one else can get to, and the secret to this is to know your subject better than anyone else. You don't need to travel abroad. What you do need to do, however, is tell a story better than anyone else can, using your own unique perspective. If you find your own story and show complete and utter dedication to it, then you will find a way to carve out a successful career."



After her talk, Vitale joined a session of the English course "Tribe," taught by Barbara Black. Starting from the premise that "As humans, we long to belong; community is something we crave," Black says the course uses widely varied readings as it examines "nations, generations, homes, the politics of war" and other ways of belonging. With Vitale, the class engaged in discussion about what unites us all as individuals around the globe.



Vitale concluded, "The world is a beautiful place, and we need to celebrate the goodness. It's everywhere."
By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent.

Agree
Best Canadian Blog

2004, 2005, 2006, 2007

About Kate

Why this blog?

Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me "what Canadians think". In all that time they never once asked.

This is just the voice of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio - "You don't speak for me."

(goes to a private mailserver in Europe) I can't answer or use every tip, but all are appreciated!



Katewerk Art

Support SDA

I am not a registered charity. I cannot issue tax receipts.



Want lies?

Hire a regular consultant.

Want truth?

Hire an asshole.





The Proper Procedure



Poor Richard's Retirement



Polar Bear Facts & Myths



Polar Bears: Outstanding

Survivors of Climate Change.



Pilgrim's Progress



Trump The Establishment

Weather Shop

Click to inquire about rates.

Dow Jones

What They Say About SDA

"Smalldeadanimals doesn't speak for the people of Saskatchewan" Former Sask Premier Lorne Calvert

"I got so much traffic after your post my web host asked me to buy a larger traffic allowance." Dr.Ross McKitrick

Holy hell, woman. When you send someone traffic, you send someone TRAFFIC. My hosting provider thought I was being DDoSed. - Sean McCormick

"The New York Times link to me yesterday [...] generated one-fifth of the traffic I normally get from a link from Small Dead Animals." Kathy Shaidle

"Thank you for your link. A wave of your Canadian readers came to my blog! Really impressive." Juan Giner - INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group

I got links from the Weekly Standard, Hot Air and Instapundit yesterday - but SDA was running at least equal to those in visitors clicking through to my blog. Jeff Dobbs

"You may be a nasty right winger, but you're not nasty all the time!" Warren Kinsella

"Go back to collecting your welfare livelihood."Michael E. Zilkowsky

Intelliweather

Seismic Map

Comments Policy

Read this

Best Of SDA

Hide The Decline

The Bottle Genie

(ClimateGate links)

You Might Be A Liberal

Uncrossing The Line

Bob Fife: Knuckledragger

A Modest Proposal (NP)

Settled Science Series

Y2Kyoto Series

SDA: Reader Occupation Survey

Brett Lamb Sheltered Workshop

Flakes On A Plane

All Your Weather Are Belong To Us

Song Of The Sled

The Raise A Flag Debacle

(Now on Youtube!)

(.mwv Video)

Abuse Ruins Life Of Girl

Trudeaupiate

Kleptocrat Jeans

Child Labour

I Concede

Small Dead Feminist

Protein Hoser: THK Interview

The Werewolf Extinction

Dear Laura (VRWC)

We Wait

Blogging The Oscars

Jackson Converts To Islam

Just Shut The HELL Up

Manipulating Condi

Gay Equality Rights


Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal.

Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.



We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.



A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02d9f38)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f030a578)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612f02d9f38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f030a578)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efe87a30)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f030a578)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f030a578)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e2499848)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02938e8)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f02938e8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 125 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efefdf70)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efe7ce28)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612efefdf70)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efe7ce28)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x5612eff02030)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efe7ce28)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612efe7ce28)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e249a3b8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612efebd528)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612efebd528)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
The trailblazing feminist behind Australia's sex discrimination laws says she is deeply distressed by the "epidemic" of sexual harassment faced by working women today.

Former ACT senator Susan Ryan has called on women to stand together against sexual harassment and assault, urging senior staff to look out for their younger peers and hold powerful, predatory colleagues to account.

Former senator, education minister, and Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan after being awarded an honorary doctorate by ANU on Friday. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

Ms Ryan, the first woman to hold a cabinet position in a Labor government, said she falsely believed that by introducing the pioneering Sex Discrimination Act 1984 that women would feel comfortable making complaints against badly behaved male colleagues.

"But of course we see that in many cases women haven't felt able to take redress and many men have not taken any notice of the fact that their actions are unlawful," the former Education Minister said.
A Canberra father who trafficked ice and heroin has been sentenced to five years' jail after a judge found he sold the drugs for profit and not merely to fund his own habit.

Lei Zhao, 40, pleaded guilty to four charges shortly before his ACT Supreme Court trial was set to start in August this year.

Lei Zhao, 40, will be eligible for parole in July 2019.

He was arrested after police phone intercepts and a tracking device fixed to his car revealed he had a hand in a string of drug deals between April and July in 2016.

Court documents said Zhao and his buyers often spoke in code, using the phrases "a beer", "half an hour" or "an hour" to refer to amounts of methylamphetamine, or ice.
A Canberra campaigner says Australians should question why Catholic organisations are allowed to run schools if they won't commit to reporting child sex abuse revealed during confession.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr did not rule out examining Catholic school registration as part of Canberra's response to the issues uncovered during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse over the past five years.

Child abuse campaigner and former Marist student Damian De Marco in 2016. Credit:Melissa Adams

The findings of the royal commission were handed down on Friday. One of the 189 recommendations was that a national memorial should be built in Canberra for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

Two Canberra schools with claims of historic sexual abuse wrote to parents on Friday to apologise for past failings and assure current processes made their colleges safe for today's students.
Police want the public's help to identify two men they believe could have information about a 356kg haul of MDMA destined for Canberra.

AFP officers intercepted an airfreight consignment from Germany in May 2017 destined for a Fyshwick address.

The consignment contained 144 buckets labelled as chlorine, concealing bags of a white crystal substance, later found ot be 356kg of MDMA.

Investigations by the AFP, ACT Policing and Border Force last week resulted in the arrest of a 23-year-old Canberra man.

He faced the ACT Magistrates Court, charged with importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug.
A group of protesters marched to the US Embassy protesting Donald Trump's move to acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The interfaith protesters say they are disappointed the US embassy did not accept their letter, instead instructing them to post it.

Community members from mixed faiths rally in front of the US embassy in Canberra to protest US President Donald Trump's decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Photo: Sitthixay Ditthavong Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

About 100 protesters marched from Yarralumla Mosque to the US Embassy gates, chanting pro Palestine slogans and holding signs decrying President Trump.

Representatives from Muslim, Christian and Jewish backgrounds spoke in condemnation of the decision.
Braun Buffel Festive Sale 

Braun Buffel Malaysia is offering Festive Sale. Go visit your nearest Braun Buffel now to enjoy special discount. Promotion is valid from now until 1 January 2018. Applicable at all Bruan Buffel outlets in Malaysia. Terms and conditions apply. While stock last.



*

Complete Online Survey and Get Paid in CASH



Braun Buffel

After more than 100 years building upon the founding principles of excellence in craftsmanship and design, Braun Buffel now possesses a global reputation for superior quality leather goods. The symbol of the Bull, Buffel, was chosen as a representation of the solidness and strength, durability and dependability of the brand name and quality.

Today, Braun Buffel has expanded from its original product lines to encompass a range of premium leather products for men and women. From briefcases, belts and travel bags to handbags, purses, wallets and key cases, Braun Buffel complements the professional wardrobe with a contemporary and sophisticated flair.

Other Ongoing FREE Samples Giveaway
A magistrate on Friday refused bail for two brothers and another man accused of involvement in drug trafficking.

The men were arrested on Thursday as part of ACT Policing's Operation Tribulation, a eight-month-long investigation into drug importation and trafficking in the territory.

A substance suspected to be cocaine was among those seized by police in Canberra. Credit:Canberra Times

During the past two and a half weeks, police raided a series of properties across the capital.

In a statement outside court, ACT Policing said during the raids officers had seized a firearm, more than $31,000 in cash, 1.3 kilograms of suspected dibutylone, 39 grams of suspected cocaine, and a small quantity of MDMA.
National Australia Bank chairman Ken Henry has characterised the bank's disclosure of "issues" in its anti-money laundering compliance as a cautious step, saying it does not expect to face any significant problems with Austrac, the financial intelligence regulator.

Dr Henry, a former treasury secretary, also explained the bank's backflip on the case for a royal commission, saying the fierce scrutiny of banks was undermining confidence in the financial sector.

Credit:jonesphoto.com.au

As Commonwealth Bank is embroiled in fresh allegations of serious breaches, NAB's annual report last month included a contingent liability for potential costs from a project that has been in train since July last year to "strengthen" its program for complying with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws.

NAB has been unable to put a potential figure on what the "issues" may cost the bank. The annual report pointed to shortcomings in its systems for checking customers' identities, and monitoring of transactions, and chief executive Andrew Thorburn declined to provide further details at the bank's annual general meeting on Friday. But Dr Henry said the disclosure was part of its "conservative approach".
A two-week waterfront picket line at Melbourne's Webb Dock, which has been blockading the gates to a major container terminal and holding up delivery of millions of dollars of cargo, has been called off.

Unionists and their supporters have maintained an around-the-clock presence outside Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT), preventing trucks from accessing more than 1000 stranded shipping containers carrying products including Christmas retail goods, fresh food and medicine, since the start of December.

Union members from across Melbourne marched on Webb Dock on Friday. Credit:AAP

The picket line was formed in response to the axing of a casual wharf employee who had been leading a union campaign in the workplace.

The company, VICT, said the man had been identified as ineligible for a security clearance required to work at the docks, while the union believed he had been targeted as part of a "union-busting" strategy.
Never underestimate the impact of supermodels. Aside from the excuse it provides to use photographs of Jennifer Hawkins on otherwise colourless business pages, how else to explain our fascination with miserable Myer?

It happened again Thursday  a Christmas sales downgrade, another chapter in the saga of Myer disappointments received major coverage.

Myer's retail share might be shrinking, but the department store chain still has Jennifer Hawkins.

The implication in some quarters was that the formerly important department store chain represented the state of Australian retailing, which in turn meant the health of the Australian consumer. Its a mindset thats stuck in the last century.

To put Myer in context, department stores make up the smallest of the Australian Bureau of Statistics six categories of retail sales.
Jakarta: Indonesia and Freeport-McMoRan may sign a new agreement as soon as this weekend that will lay out a road-map for the transfer of majority ownership of the giant Grasberg copper and gold mine to a local firm, according to people familiar with the proposal.

The nation's government, state-owned PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium - known as Inalum, and Phoenix-based Freeport are set to back a so-called transaction completion agreement as early as Sunday, the people said. Under the new deal, Inalum will seek to acquire London-based Rio Tinto's joint venture interest in Grasberg by March, and subsequently aim to convert the interest into an equity stake, two of the people said.

A ship is loaded with copper-gold concentrate from Freeport McMoRan Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua province, Indonesia. Credit:Dadang Tri

Freeport, Indonesia and others will soon sign an agreement that will include a target to finalise the planned transfer of control of Grasberg in the first three months of next year, the country's State-Owned Enterprises deputy minister Fajar Harry Sampurno said in a text message. He declined to elaborate.

Local ownership of Grasberg will rise to 51 per cent under a framework deal agreed in August that will see the US miner divest a majority stake in local unit PT Freeport Indonesia - of which Freeport owns 91 per cent. In return, Freeport would be authorised to continue to operate the project through 2041. That pact also set out plans for investment of as much as $US20 billion through 2031 to further develop the mine.
Defence is investigating claims an Australian government official misappropriated money during the construction of the highly secure offices in France where the nation's new submarines will be designed.

The revelations came after senator Rex Patrick of the Nick Xenophon Team asked about the claims during a Senate estimates hearing on Friday.

Defence officials initially looked poker-faced but eventually acknowledged an investigation was underway, though they insisted they had no concerns about the security of the new building at Cherbourg on the west coast of France.

"Defence is conducting an investigation into some allegations in relation to financial management around aspects of that," Defence Department head Greg Moriarty said.
Because Smith's is a private member's bill, his office is responsible for all the administrative details of debating and voting on it. Since only 15 private bills have actually passed into Australian law since 1901, it's fair to say nobody's feeling entirely up to speed with this process. "Normally, when a minister introduces legislation, he's got, like, 20 staff," explains electorate officer Regan, who is in his 20s, with Clark Kent glasses and a subversive Lincolnshire accent. "Actually, a minister's got a whole department: thousands of people. Plus advisors. Dean's got, well, Kell and me." Kelli Orrell, Smith's parliamentary research officer, is a small, dark-haired woman in her 40s, with a gentle face and a do-not-mess-with-me air. She has already taken 17 calls about senators who want to speak in the chamber on the bill, and it's not yet 9am. "It's ridiculous," she says. "Everyone wants to go at the end of the list." Speaking later is seen to be better strategically. She consults her sheet of paper. "If [Sam] Dastyari wants to speak, he could go here. And [Barry] O'Sullivan wants to be here." She looks up as the phone rings. "That'll be another one." "It could be worse," says Regan. "It could be that crazy guy." Since the mid-November postal survey result, people have been calling the office every day to scream abuse. Smith comes through. "How's it going?" he asks. "Everybody wants to go at the end!" says Orrell.

Dean has, through a long and politically difficult process, displayed abundant tenacity and conspicuous moral courage. Attorney-General George Brandis "If everybody goes at the end, there is no end. Tell them to go through me," Smith offers. "No, I'll deal with them," says Orrell, squaring her shoulders. "Remember Kell, you're the point of the sword," says Regan. I ask Smith how he's feeling. "A little anxious," he admits. "I've got to remember that it's not personal. The measure of success is not whether 100 per cent of my bill goes through. It's whether the bill most accurately reflects the views of the 76 senators."

In front of him, Regan picks up the ringing phone, listens for a minute, and hangs up. "Crazy guy," he nods. Smith smiles. "Not personal." Smith's staff members, Kelli Orrell and Kyle Regan, at their office at Parliament House. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Now that the deed is done, it's easy to say the zeitgeist was in favour of marriage equality, that the political tide had turned thanks to the sweeping yes vote  that any bill would have served the purpose. But of course, as usual in politics, things were more complicated than that. The final defeat of the government push in the Senate for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage created political turmoil for the Coalition: insistence by the conservative right that the issue was off the table, pushback from moderates who weren't prepared to let it go. Earlier this year, five "rebel" Liberal MPs  four of them gay (Dean Smith, Trent Zimmerman, Trevor Evans and Tim Wilson), plus the resolutely non-gay Warren Entsch  threatened to cross the floor if same-sex marriage wasn't addressed by a free vote in Parliament. At a Liberal party room meeting in August, however, their proposal was roundly defeated. Instead, the postal survey was announced  with the tacit understanding that, if the result was yes, a private member's bill could be brought. So, on November 15, the day of the survey result, Smith introduced his bill.

Why was it Smith who took the lead, and not someone better known or more powerful? Well, earlier in the year, he was part of a Senate select committee that investigated same-sex marriage and produced a rare consensus report. Smith was the only person who took this report and  in his own time and without encouragement from the broader Liberal Party  went to the trouble of drafting a bill, taking care to ensure it was moderate enough to attract cross-party support. Through this process, it became widely acknowledged that Smith had carriage of the issue; that he cared enough to stick with it. It suited senior Coalition members, too, to let a lowly backbencher take the heat from the conservative right: Turnbull, for instance, maintained a hands-off position, barely speaking to Smith between the announcement of the postal survey and the debate of his bill in Parliament. There's one other reason Smith has become the unlikely hero in the same-sex-marriage story. Not political, but personal: the relationships he built with perhaps the two most significant cross-party senators on the issue, the Opposition's leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, and Greens Senator Janet Rice. "With Dean there were no political machinations, which is incredibly rare," says Rice. "We were able to be open and honest and upfront. You can't do that with many politicians because you just can't trust them. But I feel I could ask Dean's personal opinion on any issue, and I would trust it." Wong echoes these words. "He has been utterly trustworthy. Through a very long process, only some of which has been public, he has always behaved with dignity and absolute integrity." Labor sources say that over the past year Smith had become one of the "very, very few" people Wong would deal with on marriage equality. Such confidence is all the more remarkable because, on the face of it, Smith has almost no "successful politician" qualities. Parliament is a place that rewards big personalities: the pompous self-satisfaction of Attorney-General George Brandis; the super-wealthy assurance of Malcolm Turnbull (rather less evident in recent times, admittedly); even the macho posturing of former prime minister Tony Abbott. Smith is shy and self-critical. He describes himself as a "trundler", working away in obscurity. But perhaps this is the point. As Rice puts it: "If it had been Brandis  who has been a champion, in his way, for equality  leading the charge, we would not have got there."

Senator Dean Smith and Attorney-General George Brandis during the Senate debate of Smith's bill. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen No one should underestimate the difficulties of getting there. In 2004, then prime minister Howard pushed through changes to the Marriage Act specifically stating that same-sex unions "must not be recognised as marriage in Australia". Twenty-two attempts at legislation since have tried to reverse these changes. All have failed. So how does a gay, Christian, monarchist, working-class, Liberal backbencher become the kind of man who can make the 23rd attempt stick? Dean Smith grew up in a close, loving family in Nollamara, Perth. Mum Judy stayed at home with Dean and his two younger siblings, while his dad, Alan, who fought in Vietnam, spent more than three decades as a police officer. As a child, Smith was deeply affected by his father's anger over Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam's attitude towards Vietnam veterans, and later by the scandals of the WA Inc era under Labor premier Brian Burke. Instead, Smith was drawn to classical conservative values: the belief that institutions and traditions form the bedrock of a well-ordered civic society. His great political hero is George VI, he of The King's Speech fame. He joined the Liberal Party at 17, on his first day at the University of Western Australia. It took him three months to work up the courage to attend a meeting, but once he got there he loved it, beavering away as a Young Liberal, winning awards like Best Branch President (1991), of which he's still proud. Bound up in his love for conservatism is what he calls his "political birthmark": his belief in integrity. "I think you must act on your principles, regardless of consequence," he says. "I realise that isn't a very good career move, or a very effective way of doing things sometimes, because it's not transactional. But that is who I am." He was the only Liberal MP to publicly oppose the same-sex marriage plebiscite and refuse to vote for it, and the Coalition's most vocal critic of the postal survey. "Parliament's essential function is to make decisions on behalf of the Australians who have elected them," he says. "It's like saying that an institution which has served the nation well for 115 years is suddenly, on one issue alone, not up to the job."

In his personal life, Smith describes himself as "single, but aspirational". He had no idea he was gay until after university. He'd never had a gay experience. "We never discussed anything like that in my family, so I had absolutely no reference points. "There was a boy at high school a year ahead of me, but the way I understood it was that I admired people, I didn't find them attractive." He smiles. "I have learnt slowly over life, you can't be there just for the conversation." He came out at 24, having had an epiphany while listening to, of all people, Rod Stewart on his car radio. "I know! It just hit me. It was The Killing of Georgie [a song about the death of a young gay man]." He told his parents after a family dinner soon afterwards. "They had asked me if everything was okay. Eventually I remember Dad saying, 'Are you homosexual?' which made me laugh, because it sounded so clinical. But I said, 'Yes. I didn't want to hurt you or make you worried.' And they never wavered. They showed me unconditional love." Smith was the first openly gay Liberal senator in Australian history. But his journey to same-sex marriage has been slow. In 2012, he voted against it in the Senate, based on his conservative belief in marriage as an institution "laden with cultural meaning and values" that didn't need to include same-sex marriage. In 2013, he criticised then governor-general Quentin Bryce for using her position to support same-sex marriage in the Boyer Lectures. Over time, however, he thought more about the issue. "I began to think, 'Here is this cherished institution: how are you destroying or diminishing it by allowing more people to embrace it?' " He raises his hands. "That actually sustains and protects it."

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place in 2015, during a flight between Perth and Albany, in Western Australia's far south-west. "I was thinking about Tori Johnson, who lost his life in [Sydney's December 2014] Lindt cafe siege," he recalls. "He had a male partner of 14 years. Of course I have no idea whether he wanted to get married, but I realised that if he had, we had denied him that right. And that seemed wrong." And so Smith became an unlikely campaigner for same-sex marriage: initially for others, but perhaps, increasingly hopefully, for himself. "I've been single since entering Parliament," he says. "I never thought marriage was for me. But having seen the excitement and joy in others over the past few weeks, I could be convinced." Back in 2015, however, such joy seemed a long way away. There is a quote usually attributed to Edmund Burke, the famous 18th-century conservative political theorist whom Smith has always admired: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." When the moment of marriage-equality truth arrived, Smith was not prepared to do nothing. Within Parliament House's countless kilometres of corridors, the Senate chamber is close to Smith's office: a few minutes' slog down one very long corridor. Smith's seat in the chamber is surrounded by those of marriage-equality opponents, because they are, by and large, members of his own party: Liberals Eric Abetz, David Fawcett, Zed Seselja, and Nationals Matthew Canavan and Barry O'Sullivan. All are religious; all are self-proclaimed defenders of traditional values. Opposite are the bulk of his supporters: mostly the serried ranks of Labor, including Senator Wong, who has a long-term female partner, Sophie Allouache, and two daughters. There's also Louise Pratt, an openly gay woman and mother of a little boy she co-parents with her former partner (a trans man) and two gay friends, one of whom is the biological father. In a little wedge in the corner sit the Greens leader Richard Di Natale in his rainbow sneakers and Janet Rice, whose partner, Penny, is a trans woman. The pair married as husband and wife more than three decades ago, and have two grown children. They've lived in legal limbo since Penny transitioned. Down and across the aisle is Justice Party Senator Derryn Hinch, resplendent on this late November day in a rainbow scarf.

Justice Party Senator Derryn Hinch speaks during the debate. Credit:AAP A fortnight previously, Hinch was one of eight co-sponsors of Smith's bill  along with Wong, Pratt, Rice, Di Natale, former Nick Xenophon Team Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore (who has since resigned over citizenship issues), and Liberals Jane Hume and Linda Reynolds. That such a politically diverse group came together was thanks to Smith's bill's compromise position. It does not allow for conscientious objection, which means the infamous "bakers and florists" cannot refuse service to same-sex couples, which pleased the Greens and Labor. And it does allow ministers of religion and religious organisations  plus a new group of religious celebrants  to refuse to marry same-sex couples (or rent them a church hall, for instance), if doing so is against their beliefs. This, in turn, mollified the Coalition. "It's not a bill that's going to appeal to either extreme," Smith explains to me. "It's a sensible, centrist, compromise bill." Wong recalls signing Smith's bill on November 14, the day before it was introduced in the Senate. She had never co-sponsored a marriage equality bill before. "I didn't want to be part of a bill that was a political stunt. I took a view some years ago that I would only sponsor a bill that had a good chance of passing." She pauses. "Success has many fathers, and mothers. And there are a few people now who are wanting to be parents. But there are some people who were critical. Dean was one of them." "Lovely Dean," recalls Senator Hinch's personal assistant Annette Philpott. "He kept popping in on the 14th, asking for Derryn, and I kept saying, 'Is it something I can help you with?' And he was like, 'Oh no, that's fine, I'll come back.' And then of course it was the bill! Would Derryn sign it? And Derryn was like, 'Of course I bloody will, mate!' "

ALP Senator Penny Wong celebrates with colleagues after the Senate passes the bill. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "That's right," says the ever-ebullient Hinch. "Last year when he was under so much pressure  huge  from the right wing of his party, to delay, delay, drop the whole thing, I said, 'If you want to go it alone, and you need a co-sponsor, I'll do it. I was thrilled to do it.' " Hinch's office is right next door to Smith's, and the pair see each other often. "There were times when he was almost shaking from the stress of it," Hinch explains. "He's very self-effacing. He doesn't come across as a guy who's going to be a braveheart, or a guy with a cudgel. But he's a guy whose time has come. This is his issue, and he's holding firm." He sits back in his chair. "That takes guts." Back in the chamber in the late afternoon of November 28, the second day of Senate debate, proposed amendments to Smith's bill are voted down one by one. Apart from some minor technical points, it hasn't had a single substantive change made to it. Even Smith could not have foreseen this outcome. For the past six months, on this issue at least, he's existed in a strange world of unlikely external allies  Wong, Rice et al  and internal attacks. His opponents have used the media to savage him; they've made thinly veiled suggestions that his stance is career-limiting, and even criticised him to his face. After his crushing party room defeat in August, for instance, things were so bad that one Liberal colleague actually sent him a condolence note. "Dear Dean. Just a short note after party room to say how much I respect you for putting the case in the way you did  I know what it is to be in the minority in the party room. It is no fun. I especially think some of the attacks and threats against you have been appalling and un-Australian." There is a sense during the Senate debate, however, of the tide turning. Towards the end of the second day of debate, George Brandis, leader of the government in the Senate, delivers a barnstorming speech.

"The bill we are debating tonight is the work of many hands," he proclaims. "But it is our colleague Dean Smith who was the author of the final version. Dean has, through a long and politically difficult process, displayed abundant tenacity and conspicuous moral courage. I was privileged to have been Dean's confidante at critical times in the last several weeks, and I know better than most the burdens of stress, of loneliness and of hurt he endured to make Australia a better place for countless others. "Whatever else he may achieve in what has already been a significant political career, Dean Smith will always be remembered for this." Senators Louise Pratt, Janet Rice, Dean Smith, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, Penny Wong and Derryn Hinch celebrate the passing of the marriage equality bill in the Senate. Credit:Andrew Meares The next day, Smith and his staff are in the office by 7am (again). It seems increasingly likely that his bill will be voted on today. Regan and Orrell are both dressed in pink. Orrell is printing yet another list; Regan is on the phone. "Yes," he's saying. "We were pretty busy with the speakers' lists  but it looks like the vote will be today. Kelli's nearly had a heart attack a couple of times. She's lucky I'm a first-aid officer." He pauses, listening. "Yes, it's true. I might have to save her life." "In that case, I think I'd rather not survive," says Orrell from the printer.

Smith comes out of his office. He didn't sleep much last night. "I woke up feeling as if I'd had a few drinks, which I certainly hadn't." He had an emergency gall bladder operation a fortnight ago, leaving hospital after only three days to appear on TV to talk about his bill. He's barely eating  yesterday his total food consumption consisted of one apple. He looks like a man who needs to sit down. Instead he stands, holding his right side with one hand, his double espresso with the other. "Nearly there," he says. When the day begins in the Senate chamber, nobody wants to sit down, either. Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald goes berserk about Hinch's rainbow scarf being in contravention of Senate dress code; Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson claims that "if Senator Hinch has to remove his scarf, Senator [Sarah] Hanson-Young will have to remove her dress". Arch-conservative Liberal Senator Eric Abetz sympathises with the "many gay people" who voted no; Senator Louise Pratt heaves a theatrical sigh. Through it all, Smith sits quietly, leafing through his notes. Above the senators, the public galleries are filling with spectators: a baby with his father, waving his tiny arms; an old man with a hat and a long grey beard. Wong arrives wearing black and white (no rainbows), and moves the third reading. One of the most touching final speeches comes from Linda Reynolds, one of Smith's rare Liberal supporters. She stands, turns to Smith, and says simply, "I've never been prouder to stand up in this place than I have been to stand with you, Dean." Smith, who has been organising his papers into a neat rectangle, bows his head. When he stands to speak, he chokes over the names of these internal allies, and has to pause. Watching him, both Reynolds and fellow Liberal Jane Hume are in tears. "There have been times when it has been tough to not be part of the majority of my party on this issue," he says finally. "I had to find my place where my conscience and my duty could be reconciled. So I say to all in this chamber: be kind to those who, in following their conscience, chose a different path. They have my respect, and I ask you to give them yours." When he sits down, Wong looks over. "Well done," she mouths.
Kim Kardashian West has issued a call for "all woman over the age of 18" to model for the new KKW Beauty campaign.

In the tweet, which she retweeted from the Twitter for KKW Beauty, the 37 year old reality television star and entrepreneur specified that there is no maximum age limit for the campaign.

Kim Kardashian has dyed her naturally dark hair silver. Credit:Alexandra Moore

While it would be naive to suggest that the Kardashians are ageing without a little help from the cosmetic enhancement industry (let's be honest, who isn't?), the premise remains: the natural ageing process is preventing women from getting jobs in Hollywood and modelling.

Earlier this year, actress Jamie Denbo came out on Twitter to raise awareness about ageism in casting. In the tweet, the woman wrote "I was just informed that at the age of 43, I am TOO OLD to play the wife of a 57 year old."
More than 80 per cent of Queensland year 12 OP students have achieved an OP 1-15 this year, according to Education Minister Grace Grace.

Individual results were released overnight with more OP1s having been achieved this year compared to 2016 and more students having completed year 12.

The 2017 year 12 cohort was 1485 students bigger compared to last year. Credit:Fairfax Media

There were more year 12 students in this year's cohort, with 53,098 teenagers starting their final year of schooling compared to 51,613 last year.

About 93 per cent of year 12 students have passed their studies and have earned their Queensland Certificate of Education, with these numbers on par with last year.
Confidential documents drafted by a senior defence department investigator reveal allegations of systemic fraud spanning several years inside the government's biggest spender.

Fairfax Media has previously reported on one aspect of the allegations, which involved defence staffers colluding with contracting companies to design handsomely-paid jobs with requirements tailored to their own experience.

An internal audit probed allegations of "systemic" procurement breaches inside the Department of Defence. Credit:Glenn Campbell

But a confidential minute written by the head of the department's internal audit division described how the allegations also related to breaches of procurement practice and "maladministration" over several years.

One of the most concerning aspects involved the department awarding companies contracts without a competitive tender process and only a flimsy justification they met "value for money" requirements.
It was cold, gray and blustery on Monday, but the atmosphere inside the Dodge County Courtroom was warm.

This would be a life-changing day for Cassie and Kyle McAuliffe of Fremont and the three children they were going to adopt.

There were tears, gifts, cake and picture-taking as Crystal, 17, Victor, 9, and Marcus, 6, officially became the McCauliffes children.

This is the best day of my life, said Marcus, outfitted with his own little bow tie.

Victor hugged his dads neck and Crystal, the artist of the group, fought tears when she, like her siblings, each received a colorful canvas with their birth date, the day they moved in with the McAuliffes, and Mondays court date  now known as Forever Family Day for them.

What did their forever parents think?

Its wonderful, Kyle McAuliffe, 27, said. Ive got three kids.

Prior to the court date, Cassie, also 27, described being able to adopt the children as the best Christmas gift ever.

This will be the highlight present of my life, she said.

The McAuliffes journey toward becoming a family began about two years ago. Thats when the couple, whove struggled to get pregnant, started providing respite care for foster families.

If the family is going out of town and cant take the kids with them or the foster family just needs a break, the kids will stay at least two nights at another foster home, Cassie said.

The McAuliffes began providing respite care of Crystal, Victor and Marcus in December 2015 and became friends with the childrens foster parents, Ron and Kelly Patton of Omaha.

A bond began growing between the McAuliffes and the children.

Theyre so incredibly smart, Cassie said. Marcus is my little cuddle bug. Victor is a wealth of knowledge about many things. Crystal is a fantastic artist.

Crystal, who will be a senior at Elkhorn High School, has been accepted to the University of Nebraska at Omaha on a full-ride scholarship based on her academics.

Theyre all so sweet and kind, Cassie added.

Why would the siblings want the couple to adopt them?

I guess were fun, Cassie said. We do fun things. We went camping to South Dakota this summer. We went to Adventureland and to the water park here in town. We do a bunch of fun things together.

Last December, the siblings learned they were going to be adopted.

The kids asked the McAuliffes to adopt them, but the couple wasnt sure at that time if the State of Nebraska would move forward with the biological parents termination of rights.

That was really heartbreaking, Cassie said.

But in January 2017, the first termination hearing took place and the McAuliffes learned the State had chosen them as the adoptive parents. More time passed.

You have to wait six months to file the adoption petitions and you have to sign a whole packet per child, Cassie said. We had to fill out an application out for their new birth certificates since were changing their names.

There have been meetings with a Department of Health and Human Services caseworker and Lutheran Family Services foster care specialist.

The children moved in with the McAuliffes on May 30.

Im so excited about the adoption, Victor told his mom. I cant wait.

Last week, the McAuliffes bought dressy clothes for the children.

The boys were excited about their bow ties.

And although Marcus had a white shirt and a black vest and pants with no jacket, the boy kept telling everyone he had a tuxedo.

The adoptive parents look forward to the times ahead.

Weve already seen them grow in the last six months, Cassie said. Were just excited to see where their future is going to take them.

Cassie encourages others to become foster parents and respite caregivers.

She sees the situation differently from some potential foster parents, worried about becoming attached to children, who then might return to their families.

You have to be selfless, Cassie said. You have to think  theres a 6-, 7-, or 8-year-old, who has been removed from their family, and how scary is that?

Its no longer about you, she continued. Its about these kids.

Where does someone get that depth?

Cassie credits her own mother, Diane Braun, for being a great person to look up to and for teaching her a lot about life.

Braun was a single mom, who put herself through college while working full time, and now has a double masters degree. Shes a clinical supervisor for the substance abuse program with Lutheran Family Services.

Cassie worked through college and graduated from Midland University in 2014 with a bachelors degree. She is a para-professional at Grant Elementary School, an independent Mary Kay beauty consultant, and works for Home Instead Senior Care, assisting senior citizens in their homes. Kyle is employed at Hormel Foods Corp.

The family already has begun making good holiday memories.

Last weekend, we put up our Christmas tree and all the kids were involved and everybody helped out and I went over to my husband and I said, This is what Christmas is about  seeing the kids get excited and working together and spending time together, Cassie said.

Family and friends made more memories as they gathered in the Dodge County Courtroom on Monday.

Im very proud of her (Cassie) and her husband, Braun said. They have lots of love to give.

The McAuliffes pastor, the Rev. Roger Luiken of Liberty Baptist Church, and his wife, Wanda, smiled continuously.

Its going to be a nice family, the local pastor said. Were so excited for the kids.

We think its wonderful, Wanda Luiken said. Theyre smart kids. Cassie and Kyle have wanted kids for a long time and they love doing all the fun things with them.

Dodge County Judge Ken Vampola asked each of the children if they knew why they were in the courtroom and if they wanted the McAuliffes to adopt them  which they all did.

Let the record reflect that the court is signing the adoption degrees, Vampola said, before the children received their special canvasses.

Vampola passed out tissues to teary-eyed family members, before letting Victor and Marcus sit in the judges chair. The boys got to take turns wearing the judges robe, while having their photos taken.

Family photos followed.

Adoptions are the best thing a county judge gets to do, because so many court proceedings are negative and conflicted, and adoptions are pure joy, Vampola said.

Attorney Leta Fornoff, the childrens guardian ad litem, smiled a lot.

I think they (the children) touched the hearts of everyone theyve come in contact with, because of who they are and how theyve handled everything  everything theyve gone through in their young lives, Fornoff said.

After the proceedings, Victor and Marcus played with toys that had been atop the cakes. Victor isnt sure what he wants to be when he grows up, but Crystal said Marcus has talked about becoming a NASCAR driver.

Crystal, who will be an arts major at UNO, dreams of working for Disney.

Im extremely happy, the teen said of the adoption. Its been such a long journey that Im glad its ending in such a positive way.

And although skies outside were gray, if courtroom indications were any prediction of the future, the three children and their parents have many sunny days ahead.

We still plan to foster more kids, Cassie said. And if God has for us to adopt more kids or to have our own biologically, well just keep going.
VTAC adjusts the study scores for each study to take account of how strong the students were in the study and how difficult it was to achieve the middle ranking. The strength of competition in each study is measured by how well the students performed in all their other studies.

In each study, the study scores are adjusted so that the overall level of scores in that study matches the scores obtained by the same group of students in all of their studies.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

For example, in Australian Politics in 2016, the average study score was 30, but the students who took Australian Politics averaged 31 for all their studies (including Australian Politics). This shows that the students who did Australian Politics in 2016 were of above average strength in their other studies. Therefore, the scaling process adjusted the study scores upwards so that the average VTAC scaled study score for Australian Politics was set at 31.

The 2016 Business Management students averaged 26 in all their studies (including Business Management). So, the scaling process adjusted the study scores downwards so that the average VTAC scaled study score for Business Management was 26.
Derek Barrett has been sentenced to a maximum of 46 years behind bars for the "sadistic" stabbing murder of his niece in April 2016.

University student Mengmei Leng - also known as Michelle - was tied up and killed by Barrett, her aunt's husband, at the home they all shared at Campsie in Sydney's west.

Two days later, her naked body was driven more than 100 kilometres away and thrown off a cliff into a blowhole at Snapper Point on the Central Coast. It was spotted by tourists hours later.

On Friday, Justice Helen Wilson sentenced Barrett, 29, to at least 34 years and six months in prison for his crime, with a maximum of 46 years. He will be eligible for parole in 2050.
"There have been too many suicides unaccounted for that are linked to child sexual abuse by clergy. "At last, I feel that the law has caught up with the culprits and they're finally being held accountable." Often, he said, the stories of other survivors were so gut-wrenchingly similar, it was as if they were each holding a mirror to one another. "I look into their eyes and see myself years ago," he said. "I was on the brink of suicide. There are people still coming to terms with happened and those survivors and their families support but there is hope, it can get better, when you reach out for help."

Phil Nagle, Ballarat 'This is validation for them', said Phil Nagle of his 12 dead schoolmates. Credit:Jason South It's been a harrowing journey for Ballarat clergy sexual abuse survivor Philip Nagle who praised the commission with vindicating victims and finally holding institutions to account for their crimes against children. Mr Nagle was repeatedly sexually assaulted by disgraced Christian Brother Stephen Farrell while he was a grade five pupil at St Alipius Christian Brothers Primary School. As the commission handed down its final report Mr Nagle was thinking of his 12 fellow schoolmates who have killed themselves or died prematurely from substance abuse  out of a class of 33.

"I think my classmates would be very proud of me for speaking out," Mr Nagle said. "They aren't here to see this, but this is validation for them. "We all suffered at the hands of these men and their deaths have only made me fight harder to stop these crimes and ensure all victims of sexual abuse are given the compassion and support they need, to stop the deaths." Mr Nagle said it was now incumbent upon the federal government and the Catholic Church to ensure each recommendation of the royal commission is implemented. "This is not about compensation, this is about stopping crimes against children," he said.

"The church have known about this for hundreds of years but they've done nothing to stop it. The pain stops here." Rhonda Janetzki, Wodonga Rhonda Janetzki says it's up to the government to "ensure we aren't forgotten about again". Rhonda Janetzki was sexually, physically and psychologically abused during her time at the long-closed Albury St John's Orphanage, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy. Ms Janetzki said fast-tracking national redress of all victims of sexual abuse was critical and must include counselling as well as comprehensive healthcare subsidies and a Medicare "gold card".

"We've finally been given a voice but it's up to the government to ensure we aren't forgotten about again," she said. Ms Janetzki said she still often wondered how her life would have turned out had her childhood been different. "We were abused and dragged through orphanages without ever being taught the basics like learning to read or write," she said. "For the rest of our lives we've struggled, we've been treated like the lowest common denominator. It all has to change."

Leonie Sheedy from Care Leavers' Australasia Network said the inquiry had been "world-class," but now the all findings must be acted upon. "We feel elated and encouraged that those commissioners have carried the weight of our abuse and neglect," Ms Sheedy said. "They've listened, believed, validated, and acknowledged what happened to us "The commissioners will hold a very special place in our hearts until the day we die. "The commission has carried the burden of our stories now that burden has shifted to the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

It is now up to him and the federal government to act." Survivors' lawyer and advocate Judy Courtin praised the commission's recommendations including a national approach to child safety, an independent legal service for victims and equal access to the civil courts. But she said that victims were anxious that they might have to to fight again to get the inquiry recommendations put into law. "We have reached the end of part one of the journey," she said. "Part two is now about putting extraordinary pressure on federal, state and territories and institutions to commit to implementing every single recommendation.

"Institutions need to start putting their money with their mouth is. The Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive Francis Sullivan called on the Prime Minister and state premiers to immediately set up a committee to implement the inquiry's recommendations. "What now needs to be made clear by the Church leadership is that they take these recommendations and findings seriously and that they are willing to act swiftly in implementing the findings," he said. National Children's Commissioner Megan Mitchell said the lasting legacy of the commission must be to protect the rights of children and place their safety at the heart of decision making. "We know that some lost their lives before their stories were heard," Ms Mitchell said.
Victorian jails will receive $345 million to build more cells in an effort to cope with the state's increasing prison population.

Over the next three years about 470 new beds will be opened in prisons across the state as the Andrews government tries to manage the system's rapid growth.

One of the cells in the Metropolitan Remand Centre. Credit:Craig Abraham

Corrections Minister Gayle Tierney said the expansions would ensure prisons were well-equipped to "meet demand and keep Victorians safe".

"Victoria's prison population has grown significantly in recent years, so these new beds will ensure our prison system remains safe and effective," she said.
The man who fatally 'coward punched' a stranger at a Mandurah pub has been jailed for seven years, but with time already served and parole, he could be out in four.

Jake Raymond Mosley, 28, struck chef Jason Goodwin, 27, at the Silver Sands Tavern about 4pm on September 20, 2016.

Jake Raymond Mosley pleaded guilty to manslaughter earlier this year.

Both Mosley and Mr Goodwin, who were not known to each other, had been playing pool at the Mandurah pub.

Without provocation, Mosley punched Mr Goodwin in a sudden attack that left the young man dead.
Jailed drug mule Cassie Sainsbury will marry her fiance Scott Broadbridge in jail in a 2018 ceremony that the couple's celebrity agent said would be "lavish" and "great exposure".

Sainsbury, 22, is serving a six-year sentence in Colombia's El Buen Pastor prison for trying to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of cocaine out of Bogota airport hidden in packages of headphones.

Broadbridge, who was not with Sainsbury in Colombia, was engaged to her when she was caught. He had maintained that he would stand by her "no matter how long it takes".

Sainsbury was recently granted permission to hold her nuptials behind bars and the traditional ceremony is expected to take place in the middle of next year.
"How does that feel? When you give them that $1000, do they feel respected or do they feel humiliated? That's not the $1000, that's the way you do it, the framing around it," he says. "In that difference is whether you are back at war in five years' time or whether you've found 100 years of peace." Again and again, his team finds that the way you deliver a message is just as important as the message itself. The phrasing of a letter from the government  or even the images used on it  can influence people to dismiss it or take it seriously. And they are seeing big results. A recent British success, which Halpern says may also work in Australia, used mobile phone messaging to send parents texts about what their child was doing at school: it improved pass rates for maths and English by about 28 per cent. "Early on people would sort of snigger  [say] 'nudge, haha'  literally they would do this thing with their elbow," Halpern says. But in October the Nobel Prize in Economics went to Richard Thaler, the American economist who almost single-handedly founded the field that Halpern is now so richly tilling.

Thaler's breakthrough was to force economics to face human psychology, with all its failings, inconsistencies and hypocrisies. His work showed how, for example, people value something they own over an identical thing that they don't, how consumers demand fairness beyond their own benefit, how a lack of self-control often leads to irrational choices. On the latter, Thaler demonstrated that "nudging"  a term he coined  may help push people back into more beneficial habits. "[The Nobel award] gives that extra layer of legitimacy or respectability," Halpern says. "This isn't crazy any more, this should be mainstream and normal. "Governments across the world are waking up to [the fact that] you get better policy outcomes if you build your policy around more realistic models of human behaviour." To be fair it's a long time since Halpern had problems with closed doors in Westminster. Our chat is cut short because he's due at the Cabinet Office.

But he says there's a corollary to his field's new respectability: "We should be upping our game on the challenges." For example, he wants Behavioural Insights to tackle terrorism, "whether directly or indirectly. What pulls societies apart is people don't get along with each other." Not all their ideas work. Halpern says it shows they're doing science: they have a theory, test it, and if it doesn't work, they move on. One recent example, he says, was an intervention to see if they could encourage male managers in the public sector to be more sensitive to women who might be going on maternity leave. "The managers themselves thought it had worked pretty well, but if you asked the women it didn't seem to do anything at all; if anything they thought it had maybe got worse," Halpern says.

"People often in policy say 'we've got to change people's attitudes' but  if there's a strong bias actually that doesn't do it. You have to change people's behaviours or the processes, and then their attitudes move behind it. "Awareness training is very widely used across the world, they're very popular and generally our conclusion is they don't work very well." Halpern is also interested in the problem of "fake news". Political science has been "sharpened", he says. His company isn't involved in that kind of work but he recognises that "behavioural science like any other area of technology can be used for good or for bad". He's been thinking about whether his company's ideas could be used defensively, to help people resist bad arguments or subtle propaganda.
Mr Aldridge said he was sending the money on the request of his girlfriend, Nancy Jones, who told him it was being used to pay death duties on her parents' estate "so that he could jointly benefit from her inheritance and the two of them could live together," Mr Kahlbetzer's court papers say. They say he has never met Ms Jones and hasn't provided any proof of her existence.

Mr Aldridge's court papers say he "is also a victim of the fraudsters, who have tricked him" into letting his account be used to defraud Mr Kahlbetzer. The evidence doesn't show that he knew he was assisting a fraudster, they say, and he "had no idea" that a fraud was being committed against Mr Kahlbetzer.

Mr Aldridge was "entitled to the belief that he was dealing with an honest person" because Ms Jones was his girlfriend of four years, his court filings say. Ms Jones has written poetry to Mr Aldridge "and has on many occasions told him she loves him".

Mr Aldridge's lawyer, Nicholas Towers, told a London court that he thought by transferring the money he was taking steps that would allow them to "properly be together" and "effectively live happy ever after".

Like Ms Campbell, Mr Aldridge "followed instructions from someone he had known for many years and whom he trusted," his court papers say. They say that if the judge finds he's liable for $1 million and Mr Kahlbetzer's legal costs "then he will be even more of a victim" than Mr Kahlbetzer.
London: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have announced the date for their spring wedding.

The British royal and American actor will marry on May 19 at the historic St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace announced on Friday in London.

Harry, 33, Queen Elizabeth's grandson and fifth in line to the British throne, and Markle, 36, best known for her role in the US TV legal drama Suits, got engaged last month in London.

Harry and Markle, who is a divorcee, met in July 2016 after they were introduced through friends.
~ Jacinth Hunkins ranks first in region ~

CUL DE SAC:--- St. Maarten Academy continues to celebrate the successes at this years May/June examination with the revelation that two of its candidates made the regional merit list for Music at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

Emerging number one in the region was Jacinth Hunkins, who entered St. Maarten Academy five years ago as a freshman. Her older sister, who too is gifted musically and already a graduate of the University of St. Martin, requested to pursue her CXC Music certification through Academy and ranked seventh place. Both sisters copped Grade 1 pass in Music with a straight A profile.

This is the second time in three years that Academy, and by extension St. Maarten, has made it into the top ten for Music from among 19 Participating and External Territories offering the subject through the regional examining body, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC).

Hunkins will on Monday evening be honoured for her achievements when the school hosts its annual commencement ceremony at the Belair Community Center. Of the 11 subjects Hunkins wrote, she secured grade I passes in eight subjects (English A, Human and Social Biology, Information Technology, Mathematics, Music, Physics, Social Studies, and Spanish), grade II in Chemistry, and grade III passes in Biology and English B. She also received a B in Cambridge Dutch.

These achievements were by no means solo efforts; rather, they were the end result of concerted efforts of parents, students, and tutors.This is an achievement well-deserved, as students and teacher gave up not only Saturdays, but Sundays, and sleepless nights.It is a proud moment for all of us, said Principal drs. Tallulah Baly-Vanterpool on the candidatesoutstanding performance.Congratulations to all, especially those who contributed to their success.

The administration and Management Team of the St. Maarten Academy are especially grateful to Music educator, Mrs. Daphne Jacobs-Richardson for her commitment and passion, who, beginning in December 2016, travelled every Friday from Anguilla to ensure that students were suitably prepared in the five-month period leading up to the May/June sitting of the examination.

She expressed her pleasure, as the students performance came as no surprise to the proud tutor.

The students were committed to the task and eager to learn, she stated. Candidates from St. Maarten Academy were not the only students to thrive under Mrs. Jacobs-Robinsons tutelage, however. Remarkably, five of the 10 students with whom she worked between St. Maarten and Anguilla earned coveted spots on the CSEC Merit list.

The performances of our musical ingenues again remind us of what can be accomplished when students take to heart our schools ethos, and captured in our school song, Caring, Learning, Achieving, Excelling and spreading our fame!

St. Maarten Academy Press Release
Residents will be collecting signatures for the citizens petition to put Costco on the May 2018 ballot from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Barnard Park, Military Avenue and Clarkson Street, in Fremont.

The purpose of the petition is to find out whether or not citizens support Costco locating their large chicken processing plant in Fremont, and if the Fremont City Council has been listening to its constituents.
Hoping to reduce the monster crowds at the popular Pier event

Really, you can blame Khalid for this one. After 60,000 people came to see Khalid perform on June 22, 2017, the rapper tweeted:

"Around 60,000 people came out to Santa Monica to see me last night at the free show. The Staples Center holds 21,000 people. Holy f*ck."

Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks apparently said pretty much the same thing. She (and others) complained to the Staff and Council and it was decided that something must be done.

Seabrooks estimated that the full pier deck (which has a near-7,500 person capacity depending on configuration), combined with some 40,000 to 50,000 attendees on the surrounding beach, meant Thursday's concert was a record crowd.

"With 50,000 people in a small footprint, it only takes one person to do something sideways that has the ability to impact the city of Santa Monica and the surrounding community for years to come," Seabrooks told the Daily Press. "I am concerned in my professional capacity, this has gone way beyond the capabilities of Santa Monica Police Department and its law enforcement partners and EMS partners..."

Los Angeles County has ten million people. When an event is free and accessible by public transport, it's common for it to be overwhelmed like this. In 2014, the Santa Monica City Council began raising concerns about the series' growing crowd size.

"As the spillover crowds from the TCS grew in size on Santa Monica State Beach, so did the related public safety and maintenance issues," a 2014 motion states. "Concert budgets included additional private security and a limited number of Police Officers to manage the crowds on the beach. As the numbers averaged about 15,000 per event in 2013, with single events as high as 20,000 to 30,000, and approximately 2/3 of concert attendees on the beach south of the Pier, it became apparent that more public safety personnel and more infrastructure was needed."

Anyway, the City issued this press release 12/13/17:

Council Directs Santa Monica Pier Corporation to Move Twilight Concert Series to Fall 2018

Council asks Pier Corporation to move series to after Labor Day to reduce crowd size and work with City staff on improving public safety

SANTA MONICA, Calif.  On December 12, 2017, the Santa Monica City Council directed the Santa Monica Pier Corporation move the Twilight Concert Series to after Labor Day in 2018 and take other measures to reduce crowd size. After 33 years of free summer concerts at the Santa Monica Pier, the Twilight Concert Series has grown significantly bringing crowds of tens of thousands and filling the beach below the pier deck.

"The Twilight Concert Series is without a doubt one of the most admired events in Santa Monica, but we need to re-imagine it to ensure the safety of those attending," said Mayor Ted Winterer. "The Council supports the continuation of the Twilight Concerts if the Pier Corporation is able to reduce crowd size."

Council directed the Santa Monica Pier Corporation to collaborate with City staff with the following motion that was approved in a 7-0 vote:

Retain the original spirit of the Twilight Concert Series by limiting attendance to primarily the Pier Deck through a re-imagined, cultural-oriented series of no more than six events starting after Labor Day.

Give City Staff authority to achieve these goals through consideration of the options outlined in the Staff Report, including: add a no-fee ticketing system to prevent overcrowding and provide a more accurate count of expected attendees; remove all speakers that project towards the beach; reduce the size and prominence of the stage; relocate the stage so it is not visible from the beach; change the day of the week the series is held; book performers whose draw aligns with a small-sized venue; screen the Newcomb lot on the south side of the Pier to remove views from the sand; among other ideas the Pier Corporation may define.

Limit public safety costs to no more than $400,000 for public safety for the 2018 events, with the authority to suspend the series if this allocation is exhausted prior to the conclusion of the series of events.

Additionally, staff is directed to engage outside resources to develop an assessment, drawing on other places that host larger scale beach events, including exploring fixed infrastructure needed to provide security for larger scale events.

Council voted to approve the Santa Monica Pier Corporation's FY 2017-18 Budget and Work Plan by a 7-0 vote and approved the update to the Pier Corporation's bylaws by a 7-0 vote. The work plan includes continuation of several other marquee programs at the Santa Monica Pier, including Front Porch Cinema, Paddleboard Race & Ocean Festival, STEAM Machines, LA Opera, among other arts and education programming. The Pier Corporation also plans to collaborate with the City's Office of Pier Management and Office of Emergency Management to update the existing Emergency Action Plan for the Pier.

Twitter Crowd of 60,000 at the SM Pier Twilight Concert Series on June 22, 2017

"We can have safe, inclusive, diverse events on the Pier, but we can't do it when it spills out over the beach at night," said City Manager Rick Cole. "We look forward to working with the Pier Corporation's new executive director as a partner in reimagining the scale and scope of Twilight Concerts," said City Manager Rick Cole.

According to a December 12, 2017 Staff Report on the Twilight Concert Series and Pier Corporation Budget, Work Plan, and Bylaws, the City's costs for the 2017 Twilight Concert Series were in excess of $1 million, primarily for public safety personnel and staffing. The size of the crowds on the beach required the assistance of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, as well as other allied agencies to fully staff each concert, and exceeded the allocated budget from City Council by $400,000.
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2016 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement
The student loan debt plan is on hold, again, and no one knows when (or if) it's coming. What could this mean for you?

Host Teri Barr is talking with Cecilia Clark, a Student Loans Expert with Nerd Wallet, to learn why this newest hold on the program, could take awhile, the 3 things you need to know about and prepare for right now, including making your loan payments again in the New Year.

The latest from Cecilia at NerdWallet:

More episodes on debt:

Support the show: https://omny.fm/shows/pennywise

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Optimization

Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should?

Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools.
You can still live large in a small town.

A new report from an Iowa State University sociologist identifies a dozen Iowa towns where residents believe quality of life in their community is improving at the same time the population is shrinking.

North Iowa towns on the list include Elma in Howard County and Bancroft in Kossuth County. Others on the list: Allerton, Correctionville, Elk Horn, Everly, Grand Mound, Hamburg, Mediapolis, Pacific Junction, Radcliffe and Sac City.

David Peters, an associate professor of sociology and author of the report, said these towns, described in the report as shrink-smart communities, show that a smaller population doesnt necessarily denote a withering community, according to an Extension news release.

People tend to think of rural America as declining. They equate decreases in population with overall decline in quality of life, Peters said. We wanted to ask if thats really true, and we found that it doesnt have to be.

Peters drew on U.S. census data as well as responses from the Iowa Small Town Poll, a regular ISU survey of rural Iowa communities currently led by Peters. He compared changes in population with survey data regarding attitudes toward jobs, local government, schools, medical services, housing, childcare services and elderly care.

The report looked at small towns with populations between 500 and 10,000 with populations that declined between 1994 and 2014.

The survey data showed 12 Iowa towns fitting those parameters where citizens reported improved quality of life at the same time the populations decreased.

What did those 12 towns have in common?

Socially involved citizens

Peters said the survey results showed a focus on social interactions within those communities. The towns labeled shrink-smart in the report demonstrate high levels of local involvement, such as volunteering in community organizations. Peters called this bridging social capital, a sociology term describing diverse and inclusive networks that tie residents together across demographic and economic lines.

He also noted that economic factors, such as income and poverty rates, were not significantly different from the 12 shrink-smart towns and towns that showed declining quality of life and shrinking populations, a result that surprised Peters.

He said the results in the report may empower rural communities across the state because the data show that social interactions playing a major role in attitudes regarding quality of life can be improved quickly and cheaply.

Peters said some communities view population declines as a major problem that can be solved only through major investments in infrastructure or by attracting new employers.

His report suggests encouraging a more open and welcoming atmosphere in a community may go a long way toward boosting quality of life, regardless of potentially expensive new investments.

Jobs that fit the market

The data also show shrink-smart towns tended to demonstrate growth in goods-producing jobs such as construction and manufacturing. These jobs provide good wages and benefits while also requiring some training or education beyond high school but not a college degree, a fit for the labor markets of rural Iowa communities, Peters said.

Peters said he intends to work with officials in the 12 shrink-smart towns identified in his report to determine what strategies the communities implemented regarding community involvement and quality of life. From there, he hopes to formulate best practices that can be transferred to other rural towns across the state.

Peters research is part of a National Science Foundation project on shrink-smart towns led by the ISU College of Design.

We found that you can live in a thriving community even with a population in decline, Peters said. Towns can control their own quality of life without requiring a lot of money or time, and we think thats a very empowering message for Iowas rural residents.
Elyakim comes from a country where the threat of terrorism exists every day. Everyone in Israel is at risk of being affected by violence and people are prepared for it. But the thought that he might encounter terrorism in Germany had never crossed his mind. He considered the country to be one of the safest in the world. But now, the Elyakims find themselves wondering exactly what steps the German authorities are taking to protect people.

The family is in touch with relatives of other victims through a WhatsApp group where they share links to stories about the failures of investigators. They don't understand everything in the stories from Germany, but they find what they do understand to be incomprehensible. An Islamist who had been free to wander around with 14 assumed identities? "Something like that wouldn't even be possible in Israel," Elyakim says. "They would have put him jail or, at the very least, monitored his every step." He refuses to utter the perpetrator's name.

Elyakim says he thinks Germany needs to become more like Israel when it comes to defending itself against terrorism. He says the security agencies should be strengthened, that bollards should be placed on street corners and that people entering Germany should be screened more carefully. And that the government needs to take more responsibility for the victims.

He says that a representative of the German government promised him at his hospital bed that he would be taken care of. But so far, he and his children have received very little support -- at least not enough to live in dignity, he believes.

Elyakim has since been recognized by the Israeli government as a victim of terrorism. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, even changed the law on his behalf. Previously, assistance had only been given to victims of terrorist attacks abroad if Israelis or Jews had been targeted. Elyakim says he's very grateful to the Israeli government for its help, but that he also believes it is the Germans who should be assisting him.

Anger

There's a thick binder on the table at the home of Sigrid and Hans-Georg Rheinsberg, and two others are lying on the floor. The binders contain all the newspaper clippings they have collected since the death of their daughter, Dorit Krebs.

Their anger grows with each new sheet of paper they read.

"Someone should have been there for us from the beginning -- for all of us," says Sigrid. Her husband adds, "Nothing came -- no letter, nothing."

Sigrid says that the "government also shares responsibility. It wasn't the perpetrator, but it did share responsibility."

She adds that Merkel had taken refugees in under her arm but, when it came to the victims of the terrorist attack, she did nothing.

"That's perhaps a bit strong. But Ms. Merkel treated us badly."

"Totally ignored us," her husband says.

The Rheinsbergs live in the Havelland region, west of the German capital. But their granddaughter, who moved into the home of her deceased mother near Berlin, is more open about the family's outrage. She requested that her name not be revealed.

She says that her experiences in the days immediately following the attack still upset her today. She first found out the next morning that her mother had been at the Christmas market. When she called the police hotline, she was told that she shouldn't worry, that her mother had only been injured and was in the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital in question, the daughter was told that no patient with that name had been admitted.

She then attempted to get more information at a police station, where she also filed a missing persons report. She drove from hospital to hospital, asking if her mother might be there, but she didn't get any concrete information. At the hotline, she says the person sounded annoyed: You're calling about Ms. Krebs again?

Then, the Berlin Office of Criminal Investigation got in touch with her, requesting that she bring in an item for DNA comparison. She brought along a toothbrush. She didn't have any certainty until three days after the terrorist attack. When she later inquired about her mother's personal belongings, a blood-smeared bag was simply pressed into her hands.

"Everything just kept getting pushed back and forth, and nobody knew what the other was doing, and in many places, there was simply a lack of humaneness," she says.

Berlin police have addressed the mistakes made after the attack in an internal report. It states that the care provided to the victims and their families had been "insufficient." It also states that people tried contacting many places to find out about their loved ones but were provided with "no information whatsoever." Due to incompatibilities between IT systems, hospitals had to fax the names of the injured to the police, where officials in turn entered the data by hand into their system.

Bothered by the way she had been treated, Dorit Krebs' daughter wrote an email to German Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere one month after the attack. She wrote that the state had failed and that the families had been poorly treated by the government. De Maiziere answered in February and promised improvement.

Hope

On Feb. 20, 2017, Kurt Beck's mobile phone rang. Beck had been participating in a conference about Africa in Kenya as the chairman of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, an organization strongly aligned with the center-left Social Democratic Party, which Beck once led. The call came from German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who asked Beck if he could imagine becoming the government's special commissioner for the victims and families left behind by the deaths in the Breitscheidplatz attack. "I'll have to think it over a bit," Beck said. He called back an hour later and agreed.

Beck is 68 years old and he has already had a number of roles in his life: head of the SPD party, a state governor, but in the months after that call he also learned a lot of new things -- including about himself. In March, three months after the attack, he wrote to the victims' families and also to everyone who had been injured in the attack. He also met with almost all of them.

Beck is sitting in a sparse office inside the Justice Ministry; darkness has already fallen outside. Beck tries to be particularly matter-of-fact when discussing his role, saying he faced a "package of tasks" when he began and referring to deaths as casualties." He says he knew the position would be emotionally taxing and that some of the meetings he had had distressed him to the point that he had to walk around his home twice at night before he could even manage to sit down. On many nights, he still had trouble sleeping.

There are many surviving family members who describe their meetings with Beck as having been positive -- finally, they say, a representative of the government had done something. In February, then-German President Joachim Gauck had invited victims' families to his office to lend them an ear and they were also pleased by that. But the families involved say they were aware there wasn't much he could do for them.

Beck helped them by applying pressure on the authorities and ensuring that their various requests were processed quickly or by helping them to find the right person to talk to. For one young woman who had lost both of her parents in the attack, he helped find a donor who could jump in and help her with the costs of her university studies.

But surviving family members and victims also say that Beck started his job too late and that months had already passed by the time he contacted them. They say that the lost time lost could no longer be made up. Some of this resentment will remain, and Beck is fully aware of this. The report he plans to release as the government's commissioner for victims on the anniversary of the attack will include a number of government failures -- things that, in his view, need to be changed in the future in order to improve the way victims of terrorist attacks are treated. He also conducted research abroad in other countries that have been the targets of terrorist attacks, including Spain, France and Belgium, to see what lessons could be applied to Germany.

One of the things Beck is calling for is the creation of a prominent commissioner for victims at the government level who would step in after terrorist attacks and other "events that inflict great damage," with a permanent office located inside the Justice Ministry. He also wants to set up an online portal that would inform families about where they can find information and where and how they can apply for assistance. And he is calling for ways of identifying the dead that will be less burdensome to families. In his report, Beck writes that such measures would make a lot of things easier for families.

The only problem is that this will all come too late for the families whose loved ones were lost or injured in the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack.

Worry

Dec. 19, 2016, left behind a riddle for Hartmut Husges. When the semi-truck came to a stop that night, Husges and his husband Sascha remained unscathed. Husgen's husband said at the time, "Look after the dog and I will see if there is any way I can help." He returned a short time later ashen-faced. Something, perhaps a piece of a Christmas market stand, must have fallen on his head. The doctors at a local hospital diagnosed him with serious brain hemorrhaging. Sascha was put into an induced coma and underwent surgery.

He has spent nearly a year in hospitals and rehabilitation clinics since then and hasn't returned home. Nor has he been able to speak a word since that day and he has also been unable to move on his own. Husges has no idea what is going on inside his partner's head because Sascha is only able to blink his eyes and move his left hand a bit. The rest of his body is paralyzed.

"His life has been wrecked," says Husges.

Husges is 61 years old and works as a senior official in the German Finance Ministry, where he is responsible for the country's annual tax forecast. He's not the kind of person who protests over things just to make himself feel a little better. Once he went to a meeting with other victims, but he never went again because the evening had been too emotional for him. He's not fond of crying.

Husges says he quickly came to understand it was unlikely his husband would ever return to his old self and that he would likely require care for the rest of his life. Husges has already begun preparing for the future.

He purchased a home, which he plans to move into with his husband at some point. It's a rambler, which is important because Sascha will no longer be able to climb any stairs, and it is now being remodeled to make it handicap-accessible. Husges also bought a car that has been equipped for wheelchair transport and he plans to hire nurses to provide care for his husband.

Husges estimates this will all cost around 750,000 euros - most of which will never be reimbursed.

Many of the victims' families have stories to tell pertaining to money. There are different sources of funding available to victims in Germany, but the families say that weeks passed before they had a good overview of them. The German parliament's research service was tasked with drafting an overview in the spring and the ensuing document it produced had over 27 pages.

After the attack, it was even unclear initially who was responsible for compensation -- the government, under its victims' compensation law, or a fund maintained by private car insurance companies. The law says that the state is not responsible for damages "caused by an attacker through the use of a motor vehicle." It was only through a hectically arranged order that both funds could be accessed -- a decision that was helpful to the victims and their families, but also extremely complicated given that one fund is managed by the state of Berlin and the other by the German Insurance Association. There are also so-called hardship payments for the victims of criminal terrorist acts administered by the Federal Office of Justice in Bonn. A different application has to be completed for each different fund.

Many of those affected described the quest for reimbursement as a degrading process in which they felt a bit like beggars -- at least initially. Sometimes they had to wait weeks for an answer, cover the costs themselves, borrow money or take out a loan.

So far, around 2 million euros has been paid out to 132 victims and surviving family members, an average of 15,000 euros per person. These sums will likely increase significantly in the coming months. Eighteen of the surviving victims were recently granted social security payments. Nonetheless, it's still worth drawing a comparison: The government has promised 40 million euros to cover damages caused by the riots surrounding the G-20 summit in Hamburg.

Husges, the official from the Finance Ministry, isn't officially counted as a victim because he remained uninjured. He says that for him it's not about money. He claims he doesn't, as is normal in the United States, want to receive millions of dollars in damages. "There can be no compensation for Sascha's life anyway," he says. "One-hundred million can't make a difference there." Husges only wants to have the costs reimbursed that he wouldn't have accrued had it not been for the terrorist attack.

He looked up the pertinent sections of the federal budget. The pot of money dedicated to such damages, he says, has been pathetically endowed. "The federal department that is responsible could have stocked it up from one day to the next," Husges argues.

Kurt Beck will also recommend in his report that compensation for terror victims should be increased considerably. He believes the 10,000 euros generally paid to surviving relatives is too low, and that payments to those who are injured could also be higher. But he can only make a recommendation-- the actual decision must be made by politicians.

Husges says he had always looked forward to his future, but now it's something he views with concern. He continues to carry the burden of two lives. He still wears his wedding ring on the ring finger on his left hand, and that of his husband on his right one.

Gratitude

When one asks the people affected by the Breitscheidplatz attack if they experienced anything positive amid their suffering, if there are quiet heroes, they name people that nobody knows. Clerks in government offices who truly make an effort. People who helped them, police officers, paramedics, employees of the Weisser Ring, an organization that assists crime victims, and first responders. They often mention Pelsin Bars.

The doctor from Turkey was on Breitscheidplatz with friends the evening of the attack when she suddenly saw people running toward her. Bars rushed in the other direction -- toward the injured. She is only 28 years old, but in eastern Turkey she had already had to treat the victims of a bomb attack. She says that might have been why she didn't panic, and instead calmly and carefully cared for the injured -- first the serious cases, then the less serious ones. She did this for two hours, perhaps three. "For me, people like her are the hidden heroes of this day," says one of the people affected by the attack.

Bars said she had only been doing her job. A few days ago, she received her German license to practice medicine. She can now also work as a doctor here, and her first choice is Berlin.

Future

On a Monday in November, everything looks like it always did -- the stalls, the tower of the Memorial Church that was destroyed in the war, the lights. Breitscheidplatz is surrounded by traffic like an island is by the sea. Of course, not everything looks as it always did, and, after a few seconds, one notices the concrete bollards, the police officers and the camera teams asking the people drinking mulled wine why they are there and if they are afraid. It's the first day since the reopening this year of the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz.

Rene Kochel says he set out in totally normal fashion that morning, expecting only to need a bit more time than usual. For over 20 years, Kochel has worked at Christmas markets across Germany. On Dec. 19 of last year, he was standing in front of a stall that was completely destroyed by the attacker's truck. His right foot was shattered, his left leg broken, he had bruises on his entire body and a traumatic brain injury.

Since then, he has had difficulty walking. For one year, he couldn't work. The construction of the stalls on Breitscheidplatz this year were his first job.

Kochel says he's the kind of person who doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about things that can't be changed. He says he is simply who he is, and that he needs to look forward.

Only one thing occupies him.

He recalls seeing Angela Merkel standing, in 2015, after the attack in Paris, among statesmen. In Germany, she was only seen mourning once after the attack: during a remembrance service in the Memorial Church, barely 22 hours after the terrorist struck. At that point, though, Kochel says, he and most of the victims were still in the hospital. Many victims were fighting for their lives, and many people didn't know yet if their relatives were among the dead. The memorial service, some of the people affected say, wasn't for the victims.

For one year, they have been waiting for Merkel to express her sympathy personally. The relatives of the 12 victims write in their letter that that "is, of course, self-evident."

It appears that message has been registered by the government. In response to a query, a government spokesman said that the chancellor "wishes that the people affected not be left alone in their situation and to express her sympathy." Merkel then visited the Christmas market earlier this week and she also plans to attend the opening of a memorial dedicated to the memory of the victims of the attack on Breitscheidplatz on Dec. 19. And, last week, relatives of the victims received a letter from the Chancellery for the first time. Merkel is to meet with the survivors and surviving relatives the day before the memorial opening. In the invitation, Merkel says she wants to speak about "how they and their family are now doing today."
Then there is a third group, including the party's left wing, that has thrown its support behind an experimental form of government participation. One idea circulating is that of a "Cooperation Coalition," quaintly abbreviated to "KoKo" in German. The idea is that the coalition agreement would only formalize the alliance on a handful of core political projects while the parties would be allowed to work against each other on other issues. KoKo fans within the SPD believe the arrangement would give the party a bit more distance from Merkel and her conservatives. But the concept seems to ignore the fact that the SPD would find it virtually impossible to push proposals through parliament in opposition to the CDU and CSU. Even if the SPD were to have the support of the Greens and the Left Party, they still wouldn't have a majority.

Everybody in SPD leadership is clear that the party must present a more united front at its January congress than it did during its congress from last week. In order to avoid a rupture, leaders must arrive at a clear position supported by all of the top brass: Either in favor of forming a government or opposed. And it seems clear that Schulz will only be given a green light to proceed if he can credibly claim that a renewed alliance with Merkel will lead to far-reaching health care reform, billions of investments in education and progress on other key Social Democrat demands.

Much will depend on the state SPD chapter in North Rhine-Westphalia, which has traditionally been extremely skeptical of an alliance with the Christian Democrats. With the state being Germany's most populous, the SPD chapter there will send 150 delegates to the party congress, roughly a quarter of the total. And it won't be easy to control them. Everybody at SPD headquarters in Berlin knows that if the North Rhine-Westphalia SPD doesn't support a grand coalition, it won't happen.

Signs of Torpor in Berlin

And state SPD leader Michael Groschek is extremely skeptical. "There is much currently being said about the SPD's shared sovereign responsibility," he says. But the SPD's primary responsibility is to "once again become large and strong enough that the people of our country see it as a real alternative when it comes to choosing our country's chancellor," he continues. "If we get used to being the junior partner, we'll end up as lackeys."

Groschek warns the SPD and conservatives against making any quick assumptions about the potential success of renewed grand coalition talks. "Nobody should fall prey to illusions that the grand coalition will become an inevitability just because of a few nice headlines coming out of the preliminary talks," he says. "We're not drawing any red lines, but without concrete improvements in the areas of labor market policy, pensions and health care, it is unthinkable that the party congress will give a green light to further talks."

The consequences aren't difficult to predict. If SPD negotiators want to be able to present concrete agreements to party congress delegates and, later, to grassroots Social Democrats, they will have to wrestle with conservatives over every single detail. And that will make coalition negotiations even more drawn-out.

Meanwhile, the world is not standing still. German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks was confronted with that fact at COP23, the recent global climate change conference in Bonn. Under the leadership of Canada and Britain, an international alliance was formed for the phase-out of coal -- and Hendricks had to stand by and watch. Until a new government is formed, after all, she is only leading the portfolio in a caretaker capacity.

But it is in Brussels where Germany's absence has been particularly noticeable . Diplomats there emphasize with barely concealed delight that work is continuing on virtually all issues despite the lack of a government in Berlin.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, for example, recently presented an ambitious plan for electromobility. "France plans to end the sale of automobiles with internal combustion engines in the year 2040," Philippe wrote, adding that he hopes other EU countries will emulate the pledge. The letter hasn't yet been published, but it is nothing short of an open challenge to Berlin. And Germany's caretaker government isn't in a position to defend itself. Indeed, the outgoing grand coalition had failed in recent months to agree on a clear policy on electromobility.

Protracted Even Further

Berlin also remains on the sidelines in terms of reforming the EU, likely to be the most important political issue facing Europe in the coming months. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker presented his vision for the EU's future a few days ago, an answer to the laundry list of proposals French President Emmanuel Macron delivered two days after the German general election. But it remains unclear what Germany wants. The last meaningful proposal coming from Berlin originated with then-Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, who has been president of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, since late October.

When Merkel flew to Brussels on Thursday for a meeting of the European Council, she brought along a dossier regarding Juncker's proposals. But the paper ended with the conclusion that little could be done until Germany formed a new government.

Given Germany's traditional role as the most powerful voice when it comes to the direction taken by the EU, the delay is becoming a problem. European Council President Donald Tusk had hoped to come up with an agreement on the way forward by the middle of next year. But thanks to the slow process of assembling a government in Berlin, that timeline is beginning to look unrealistic. And with European elections looming in 2019, the delay could be protracted even further.

Even those who aren't generally known for showing nerves are becoming nervous, people like Gunther Krichbaum, a CDU parliamentarian who is the long-serving chair of the European Affairs Committee in the German parliament. He generally doesn't demand the floor during meetings of the conservative caucus, but when Merkel on Monday evening only briefly mentioned the upcoming European Council meeting ("... and then there's the summit"), he'd had enough. Germany, he called out, has to be careful that it doesn't completely lose its influence in Europe. German interests, he said, are in danger of disappearing under the radar. Gunther Oettinger, Germany's representative on the European Commission, likewise complained recently in an interview with DER SPIEGEL that Germany's influence on important issues in Brussels had gone missing.

Like the issue of money, for example. Oettinger, the commissioner for budget and human resources, is currently compiling a draft budget for EU spending from 2021 to 2027. For Germany, billions in agricultural subsidies and regional assistance programs are at stake while Merkel would like to shift large chunks of EU spending to education, refugee policy and technology.

Delayed Decisions

Another controversial issue is how to compensate for the 10 billion euros per year that will be lost once Britain leaves the EU. Many EU member states have a clear idea of who should jump into that gap: namely, Germany.

Berlin's ongoing inability to assemble a stable government is far from being a crisis of state. At first glance, political administration is continuing as it should while in the Bundestag, committees have been formed and debates are being held. But at second glance, things are in fact stalled throughout the political machinery.

It begins with minor formalities: The personnel department in the Justice Ministry, for example, isn't sure what to do because some employee contracts there contain a provision saying that the contractual relationship comes to an end two months after the minister's departure. Now, lawyers are trying to figure out whether a caretaker minister has actually "departed" in a legal sense.

Every office head at the moment must decide for him- or herself how to proceed on important issues and personnel questions: Either delay vital decisions or just charge ahead. Delay is possible, if difficult, in some cases -- such as two senior vacancies in the Justice Ministry caused by retirements. Because acting minister Heiko Maas doesn't know who might be taking over the ministry, or whether he might actually remain in his current position, he doesn't feel able to hire replacements.

But there are certain issues on which decisions must be made immediately. One of those is the diesel problem. In late February, the Federal Administrative Court will render a judgment on whether diesel-fueled vehicles can be banned from the centers of some cities. In an effort to satisfy the court's concerns, Merkel had pledged 1 billion euros in immediate aid for programs aimed at, for example, modifying aging diesel buses. But funding cannot be made available without a budget and a budget cannot be passed without a government.

A Boon for the Populists

Because the clock is ticking ahead of the verdict, the government is trying to divert money to the programs from other existing projects within the Environment Ministry and Transport Ministry that are somehow related to clean air. But it's far from sufficient, leading officials to nab a half-billion euros from the country's climate fund, which is supposed to provide resources to projects combatting climate change.

The winner of the ongoing governmental stalemate in Berlin is likely to be the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party. Should negotiations for a renewed grand coalition succeed, the AfD would become the largest opposition party. If they don't succeed, the AfD could continue to decry the failures of Germany's big-tent parties. And continue to pose as the true representatives of "the people."

During the first round of coalition negotiations between the conservatives, the FDP and the Greens, the AfD had a "dispatch" delivered to Angela Merkel at the site of the talks. "We are following the exploratory talks with great concern," the missive read. "We have gained the impression that these negotiations are not adequately addressing the problems facing our country."

It seems likely that once preliminary talks begin for a re-run of the grand coalition, leaders from the SPD and CDU can expect to receive a similar message.

By Melanie Amann, Veit Medick, Peter Muller, Ralf Neukirch, Michael Sauga, Christoph Schult and Gerald Traufetter
Subject to expected changes to EU CAP regulations, the move follows this weeks draft Budget and will result in more than 11,000 farmers and crofters receiving their full grant rather than a 2018 parachute payment worth 80% as was previously announced.

LFASS provides hill farmers and crofters in Scotlands most fragile and remote areas essential income support to their farming business.

Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said:

LFASS is vital for our rural economy and remote communities, so I am delighted to confirm that hill farmers and crofters can expect to receive 100% of their entitlement for 2018 LFASS  rather than the previously announced 80%.

Unlike England, who discontinued their equivalent scheme some years ago, Scotland continues to operate this key measure to compensate for the extra costs incurred by farmers in our most remote and challenging areas.

I continue to press the UK Government for a clear statement about what is guaranteed post-Brexit to support our rural economy. While committing to the same cash total in funds for farm support during of this Parliament, they have given no detail of what this actually means.

With 85% of Scotlands agricultural area classed as less favoured, future support for farmers and crofters is crucial to ensure the economic viability and sustainability of these remote areas.
With applications for the Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant opening on the 2nd of January 2018, farmers and landowners should start to develop their applications early to maximise the potential for grant approval. This is the message from Mike Dyke, H&H Land and Propertys Environment & Woodland Advisor.

The Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant allows farmers and land owners to apply for up to 6,800 of capital works funding per hectare, to include tree protection item (tubes), deer fencing, wall-top-wiring and of course the trees themselves. This year will also see the introduction of an addition to the scheme, which covers up to 40% of woodland infrastructure costs. This is an excellent new opportunity to improve the future management prospects of new woodland through the construction of forest roads, gateways, stacking areas and turning heads; making the scheme yet more attractive. When planning new woodland there is much to consider to ensure you meet the schemes criteria, but more importantly that the woodland provides the products and services you wish to produce.

Mike, who specialises in woodland advice and grant applications, says:

This is a very welcome grant that covers the cost of establishing the woodland  as well as now making significant contributions to some of the infrastructure costs. However, it is a competitive process and the application can be complicated, so it is imperative that you have a strong and robust application that fits with the priorities of the scheme and can stand up to scrutiny. My advice to any farmer or landowner looking to create woodland of any size is that it is paramount that they look at the opportunities afforded by this grant as soon as possible.

The Woodland Creation Grant is a standalone capital grant under Countryside Stewardship, and is designed to facilitate and encourage the planting of woodland that will improve biodiversity and/or help to reduce the risk of flooding/ diffuse pollution. Applicants may also apply for annual maintenance payments of 200/ha for 10 further years following a successful WCG application and in many circumstances, would not negatively impact on the ability to continue claiming Basic Payment on the planted land.

Carlisle based H&H Land and Property, Chartered Surveyors, are eager to ensure that Cumbrian farmers and landowners do not miss this excellent opportunity for grant funding which will, in the long term, enhance the rural environment as well as boosting timber production and the Cumbrian economy.
It got to the point where Eric Jiaju Lee just wasnt feeling it. Although he had practiced tai chi since he was a child, it didnt quite jive with his life as an American teenager.

I just didnt want to do it anymore, the Greenwich artist says of the ancient Chinese martial art form he had learned from his paternal grandparents, both masters of the practice. It was the late 1980s and centuries-old traditions took a back seat to the music and art Lee wanted to create. A talented musician and artist, he graduated from Brunswick School in 1989, and headed off to pursue a career in art. Interestingly, it brought him back home.

From his Greenwich studio, Lee incorporates ancient traditions into modern works, many of which can be found in residential and private collections. Its a style born of Western study, Eastern thought and singular experiences abroad and on home turf.

Many artists are trying to be original, he says on a recent morning. I feel if you work through your particular dialogue and influences, then you will come out on the other side. The artist Richard Serra says an artists goal, in relation to the history of art, is to mock it or extend it. So, you have a lot of irony, but that doesnt work for me. I feel I have to extend it. I have to work through a tradition to do that.

On this morning, he is standing on the bottom floor of Hastens, the Swedish bedmakers Greenwich location, where his work soon will come down off the walls. The pieces are part of a show for hurricane relief efforts. It is one of many spots where Lee has shown his work.

This is all part of a journey that began after high school, when he headed off to City College of New York and, later, in 1999, earned a masters of fine arts degree from Hunter College in New York City. Five years later, after his father had returned to China to retire and teach at Peking University, and Lees brother had put down roots in China to open a tech company, Lee arrived at a most opportune time  the contemporary Chinese art market was about to bloom.

For the next four years, he established a following in Beijing, becoming involved with the international residency program at Red Gate Gallery, Chinas first contemporary art gallery. He established a studio in the 798 Art District, an international artists community. Any cultural constraints that had held back more innovative approaches in China eased, and a contemporary market flourished, which continues today. The Guggenheim Museum, for instance, is hosting the largest exhibition of contemporary art from China held in North America, Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, through Jan. 7.

In 2008, Lee moved to Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., joining other artists who were beginning to build a new art scene. About four years ago, Lee and his family moved to Greenwich.

His abstract renderings can look like murky, beautiful underwater scenes, or air pockets trapped under the ice. Similarly to the Chinese landscape masters centuries ago, Lee is inspired by nature and takes pains to depict it not as an illustration or representation, but more of an abstract feeling  a resonance of what it has made him feel. Lee sees his art at the intersection of modern abstraction and traditional Chinese painting  at times appropriating surfaces associated with traditional Chinese painting, such as circular or fan-shaped canvases to hold his organic forms.

Last summer, during an artists residency in Lake George, N.Y., he often found himself immersed in the very material he used to create his art.

Id go for a swim and then carry buckets of lake water up to my outdoor studio, he says, as he stands near the works that benefited from his labors, Blue Rain and Glacier. Mixing the water with acrylic paint, he filled small plastic bottles that he poured over the canvas, allowing it to puddle and pool. His modern approach reflects the fluid, calligraphic strokes of ancient Chinese artists that came to represent mountains, valleys and flora, yet his colors and technique are centuries away from the blurry and misty scenes typically associated with Chinese landscapes. Lees works are not so much a depiction of landscape as his response to what he has seen  nature in its purest essence, nature as he has experienced it.

The movements are similar to tai chi, he says. Especially when I am pouring, you are tilting and moving the canvas, and, honestly, I didnt realize the movements had come back until I was doing it. Its all very fluid and natural, and tai chi is modeled after movements in nature.

A sense of fluidity runs through his work; not every inch of the canvas is covered with his organic forms, suggesting there might be something there not depicted. Recently, he began working with two Yale professors, a physicist and the director of the dance program, and will be doing illustrations for their book. Working in Chinese ink and brush, he will create drawings that combine elements of figurative drawing with scientific diagrams.

Just as nature evolves, so too does Lees approach. As an artist, at a certain point, you create your own rules. Its almost like a game. Once you gain mastery of the rules, you get to change them.

chennessy@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @xtinahennessy
STAMFORD  In the early days of the internet, Geoff Alswanger worked in the technology field and his primary role was pitching this concept to companies that might want to invest in it.

This was before the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.

Now it seems unreal to imagine a time when the internet would actually need to be sold to a company, especially when conversations surrounding net neutrality are at a critical fervor.

Similarly, its like a distant memory to think of Alswanger, 51, as someone who spent two decades working in that world. As the level-headed, modest leader of Stamfords Board of Education for four out of the last five years, Alswanger steered the board out of a time of turmoil.

He gained unrelenting respect as their leader, as evidenced by the board members expressed gratitude during Alswangers final meeting last month.

Alswanger did not seek re-election this year, ending a seven-year run and handing the board off to new leadership. Newly selected president David Mannis said he hopes to maintain the same standards Alswanger set.

In the last two years, the board experienced a complete  and very positive  turn-around under the leadership of Geoff Alswanger, said Mannis, the boards former vice president. My No. 1 goal is to assure that we remain a cooperative, effective and nonpartisan board Stamford can be proud of.

Aside from his college years in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied economics, Alswanger is a lifelong Stamford resident. After leaving the technology field, he took over the Stamford business his parents started 57 years ago: Long Ridge Day Camp.

His job as a camp director and having his two children in Stamford Public Schools spurred Alswangers initial run for Board of Education in 2010. Alswanger said he was also motivated because the lone parent on the board was not seeking re-election.

He had never run for a political office before, but was very invested in the education of my children and other children.

The board was very different back then, he said. It was one of conflict and, later, controversy.

That controversy began in 2014, when a Stamford High School English teacher was accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. The then-principal and assistant principal were also arrested for failing to report the incident. The ensuing legal drama plummeted the Board of Education into a scandal that took years to dig out from.

In addition to the stress he faced, Alswanger said he realized the pressure it puts on the board members' own children.

Its very hard on the kids to have a parent whos a Board of Ed member, Alswanger said. Theyre put under a lot of scrutiny.

Alswangers children have since graduated from the district, but he says thats not why he didnt run again. His time was just up.

Seven years is a long time, he said.

But it was a tough decision to step away. The board in recent years has grown past the distress. On the back of the name plates in the boards conference room, he said they read: #BestBoardEver.

There have been great board members all along the way, even in the earliest days, he said. But two years ago, we had to chart a new path and do it together. That doesnt mean we cant disagree, but when we disagree, that doesnt mean we have to be disagreeable.

He feels this was his defining accomplishment as the boards leader. When he was first elected, he said members yelled at each other constantly. He said they needed a camp director. Now, with a board that seems to avoid much public controversy, he said its time to let others grow.

Alswanger said hes also encouraged by the larger focus now placed on mental health services in the school district, which has been rocked by student suicides in recent years: two in 2013 and one in 2016. There is now at least one social worker in every school and programs that help students cope with anxiety and trauma.

Ill never say its an achievement, because theres always more to do, he said. But weve definitely increased awareness.

Alswanger said over-crowding is one particular area that needs to be addressed. The new Strawberry Hill School has helped, but he said more needs to be done.

For now, though, Alswangers role in solving this and other issues is on hold. He said he wouldnt rule out running again, but it was important to take a step back now.

From a schools perspective, its important to let others learn and let them emerge, Alswanger said. Things are positioned really well. I know its in good hands, and now the key is to execute.

tclark@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2265; @TravClark2
WESTPORT  Neighbors whose property surrounds the site of a controversial water tank project on North Avenue met with state and local politicians, as well as representatives from the water company in an event that prompted more questions than answers.

The meeting, which took place at Staples High School Wednesday night, was the first public meeting of its kind between neighbors, who appealed the water tanks; elected officials and Aquarion, which has filed a motion to dismiss the neighbors appeal with the Public Utilities Regulatory Agency.

On Sept. 7, the Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved Aquarions request to build two new water tanks at its North Avenue property, which the company said were necessary to replace the one nearly 70-year-old tank which sits on the property and is apparently beyond its useful life. Aquarion said new, larger tanks are needed to meet Westports growing water demands and meet fire protection standards.

The current tank is 12 feet above ground and holds 1.5 million gallons of water. The two proposed tanks would both reach nearly 40 feet above ground and hold a collective 4.3 million gallons.

Neighbors surrounding the property where Aquarion plans to place the tanks say they were not adequately notified of the project or included in the planning process. Moreover, neighbors say the planned tank construction poses a traffic and safety hazard to the surrounding area, which includes four Westport public schools, and does not match the character and aesthetics of the residential neighborhood.

Westport residents, and especially those abutting the Aquarion property, voiced concern about noise and vibrations coming from the property and contested the size and height of the tanks Aquarion plans to begin constructing next spring.

You guys have shown us your numbers, and we dont understand, said Stefanie Lemcke, of 66 North Ave.

She went on referencing the new two-day a week irrigation policy, which First Selectman Jim Marpe described in a press release sent out to residents this week as an Aquarion-mandated, permanent two-day per week water consumption limit on the use and in-ground irrigation systems and above-ground sprinklers in Westport, set to take effect durring the 2018 watering season.

Were reducing the irrigation and there is almost no population growth. We simply want to understand how this calculation fits.

Candace Banks, of 3 Tulip Lane, expressed similar confusion about the water capacity Aquarion says is necessary for the new tanks. We have one 1.5 million-gallon tank and youre basically doubling something on top of it and then adding another tank, but thats still not enough: Youre going even higher. It doesnt make sense. Youre increasing the capacity 186 percent.

Banks and Lemcke called on Aquarion to pay for an independent water study to verify the water capacity numbers and proposed a fiber tank, which they said can sustain a lower height than the concrete tanks Aquarion plans to build.

Representatives from Aquarion said Westports is part of a pass-through system that transports water from Bridgeport all the way to Greenwich and larger tanks are necessary to allow for an increased water to flow to Westport and down to other communities in lower Fairfield County.

Dan Lawrence, Aquarions director of engineering and planning, explained the demands of the pass-through system in periods of drought. Part of the problem this summer is that Westport didnt have enough water. We dont have the ability to move water at certain times of the year out into other communities. What we need is for Westport to be able to have a tank large enough to be self-sustaining so we can move water for every community, Lawrence said.

Neighbors and politicians alike appeared surprised, some letting out gasps, by the revelation that the tanks are necessary not just for Westport, but to meet the water demands of other communities whose water passes through Westports tanks.

Resident Jennifer Johnson, a former Representative Town Meeting member, said, The bottom line is that this information about pass-through has never and was never presented to the P&Z when they reviewed this. This is fundamental to the information the P&Z should have had when they reviewed that, and many people, on reasons like that, and other reasons like the fact that not all the property owners were notified and the notice actually only went in the Norwalk Hour, is reason to validly consider that the P&Z resolution should be voided and we should have the opportunity to continue this.

Johnsons statement garnered loud claps from the more than 50 residents who attended the meeting.

John Walsh, Aquarions vice president for operations in Connecticut, attempted to appease attendees frustration about the pass-through system, saying, If Westport was not part of a larger system, this is still the volume of tanks we would need.

State Sen. Tony Hwang said the revelations of Westports role in the pass-through adds a new element to the conversation.

It came as a surprise to me that we may potentially be increasing the capacity and the height of the tower, to handle holding water for pass-through for the rest of Fairfield County. If thats indeed the case and thats indeed the process, let us be familiar and know about it so we can make some determinations, Hwang said.

Is there the possibility of looking at other locations as you go through the pass-through that could handle the additional capacity?, Hwang asked. These are questions, and Id like to have the clarification and answers for all of us.

Aquarion representatives, neighbors and elected officials promised to come back with harder data on the pass-through system and to meet in smaller working groups to continue discussing the water tank issue.
AMES  The office space is smaller. The staff is nearly non-existent. There are no contracts going out for new research projects. But despite all that, the work continues at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.

It has been almost eight months since the Iowa legislature shocked many sustainable farming advocates by suddenly eliminating all state funding for the Leopold Center. Gov. Terry Branstad did use his veto power to cut language that would have made sure the center ceased to exist, but he did not restore the funding.

And so the staff who remain have spent the past half a year shutting down some operations, transferring many research projects and trying to determine where things go from here.

I would hope they would just leave us alone now, says center director Mark Rasmussen, an animal scientist who has headed operations since 2012.

Some center supporters would like to push the legislature to reinstate funding. Undoubtedly, some critics would like to finish the job of closing it down, Rasmussen says.

But he says that since no state money is going to the center and closing it would mean the university would likely not be able to use the income from its approximately $5.2 million endowment, such a move wouldnt make much economic sense.

It would be a matter of pure vengeance, he says.

For Rasmussen, the year has been a bit surreal. Twelve months ago he headed a nationally lauded center on campus that was nearing its 30th anniversary. Created as part of land-mark legislation in 1987, the center began operations in 1988.

Over the years, it conducted early groundbreaking research in such areas as cover crops and hoop buildings. But some critics attacked it as nothing more than a use of agribusiness-generated funds to support organic farming or anti-commodity agriculture goals.

Rasmussen says only a small amount of the research done here had much to do with organic farming.

There was a degree of misinformation out there, he says.

Since lawmakers pushed the measure through the legislature in April, the office space has been reduced and most of the staff laid off or transferred to other jobs at the university. Rasmussen remains on staff as director, largely because he is a tenured member of the faculty. He also still teaches. Former director Fred Kirschenmann remains on a part-time basis as a distinguished fellow.

Many of the research projects have been transferred. Meetings have been held as the center looks to determine what its future should be.

I have my points of optimism, Rasmussen says, explaining that the centers advisory board is working to re-focus the smaller organization that Rasmussen describes as being unshackled from past constraints. That may free the center to take more of a long-term outlook  to focus on Iowa agriculture 20 or 30 years down the road.

The organization gets a little bit of annual funding from its endowment, and it may look at ways of partnering or fundraising to expand that financial base, he says. But the rules regarding the endowment mean they can only use the income from it, not the total cash amount, so the legislative argument that the center didnt require state funding for the work it had been doing simply wasnt true, he says.

As for the research projects that were on-going, Rasmussen says many were transferred to the Iowa Nutrient Research Center at ISU. Several projects were already scheduled to end this year. New projects that had not yet begun were canceled.

One or two projects were continued by the center. Several projects that were not completed were canceled. And several were deemed important enough to be funded either through the center or through other places at ISU.

There were a number of items considered when making those project-by-project determinations, Rasmussen says. Some were deemed important and come under the umbrella of the nutrient program. Others came with legal obligations.
LE MARS | Authorities say they're investigating a suspicious death after finding a 57-year-old Le Mars man deceased in his home who they believe died several days prior due to unknown causes.

According to a news release from the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office, shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, the Plymouth County 911 Center received a call from a man stating his father had been found deceased in the kitchen area of his residence at 34782 Highway 3 in Le Mars.

Emergency personnel found a male subject deceased on the kitchen floor. He was identified as 57-year-old John Peter Koley, a resident of that address.

Officers determined the death occurred several days prior and were unable to immediately determine the manner of death. The body has been sent to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Ankeny, Iowa, for a Friday morning autopsy, the release said.

The death is being investigated as suspicious, according to the release, and homicide, suicide and accidental or natural causes are not being ruled out.

The crime scene investigation unit from the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office has begun processing potential evidence, and the scene will remain secure until preliminary autopsy reports are complete.
CEDAR RAPIDS | A long shot win by an Alabama Democrat is good news for the nation and Iowa Democrats hoping to flip control of the Iowa House in 2018, according to a legislative leader.

I think this is good news for our country, House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, said about Doug Jones victory over Alabama Republican Roy Moore. It was the first time since 1992 that Alabamians have elected a Democrat to the senate  and that senator, Richard Shelby, became a Republican after going to Washington. I think its a demonstration that common sense rules the day.

Smith is predicting similar outcomes in Iowa House races next year.

Well go into this election with the intention of taking the majority, Smith said, adding that picking up 10 seats needed to become majority leader in 2019 has been done in one election cycle in the past.

Democrats had a trifecta  control the governors office, the House and Senate starting in 2007. In 2010, control of the House flipped from 56-44 in favor of Democrats to a 60-40 Republican majority.

The GOP has a 59-41 advantage in the House. One GOP member is expected to resign because he has been elected to the state Senate.

Millers optimism stems from Democratic wins in Iowa special elections as well as others around the country. Win or lose, he added, Democrats have overperformed.

We had a great win in Fairfield in a district that Donald Trump won with 58 percent of the vote and (Democrat) Phil Miller won with 54 percent of the vote, he said. That election to fill a vacancy created by the death of Democratic Rep. Curt Hanson. In 2014, the last time he had a challenger, Hanson won 52 percent to 48 percent.

Republican Party of Iowa spokesman Carlos Cruz was not as impressed.

After years of losing elections under Mark Smiths leadership, I can appreciate that Democrats dont know how to react to winning a Fairfield House seat thats been held by a Democrat since 1996, Cruz said.

Tuesday, a Democrat running in a special election in Plymouth and Woodbury counties, lost 54 percent to 46 percent despite Republicans having about twice as many registered voters in the northwest Iowa district.

Similarly, Democrats have held seats in special elections in the Quad Cities.

Smith chalks that up to hard work.

We knocked the doors. We pounded the pavement. We conveyed the message of being pragmatic and solving Iowas problems, he said. Thats what we will do across the state in 2018.

Its not that simple, according to the GOPs Cruz.

Iowas always been a purple state, he said. Our success at the ballot box has always been reflection that Republicans have been better at recruiting good candidates with a vision for a better Iowa.
GERING  Bob Hastings, superintendent of Gering Public Schools, is among candidates being considered for the administrator position at Education Service Unit 10 in Kearney.

The current administrator, Wayne Bell, is retiring after many years of service.

Its something weve kind of looked at as a family, Hastings said about why he submitted his name for consideration and is looking at the move. Its an interesting opportunity and something we felt like we needed to explore a little more.

He said he and his family really like Gering.

We certainly arent looking to leave Gering, that was not our intent, Hastings said. But this would give us an opportunity to be a little closer to where our kids are going to be.

Hastings daughter Jenna is a senior at Gering High School. She will graduate in May 2018.

Kearney is one of the places shes looking at for college. My son goes to school in Omaha, Hastings said. Its a nice central location thats still close enough to here, but also close enough to there that we can go and see everybody.

If Hastings gets the job, he will leave Gering Public Schools at the end of June 2018.

Hastings said he had been keeping an eye on ESU 10 and saw his opportunity when Bell announced his retirement.

I talked with some people who know about the position, who I trust. They have helped by giving me guidance along the way as well and advice, Hastings said. Ive just been working through those steps and waiting to see what happens. I dont know what will happen.

If Hastings leaves Gering, the school board would begin a statewide or even nationwide search process for a new superintendent.

Thats something the board of education would definitely be talking about during their meetings over the next weeks and months as they work through that process and I would be there to support in any way that I could, Hastings said.
SCOTTSBLUFF - First State Bank presents Holiday Wild Lights 2017 is hosting its final weekend of the year.

Visit the zoo on Dec. 15 and 16 from 5-7 p.m., for the final weekend of holiday lights, a visit from Santa, hot chocolate, childrens activities and much more.

Admission is $7 per person and under 2 is free.

For more information, contact the zoo at 308-630-6236.
Scott County Attorney Mike Walton said Thursday that two Davenport officers use of force that left a 26-year-old man dead last month was reasonable and justified.

In my opinion, based on what Ive seen, Id go beyond that and Id say that the actions of these officers were heroic, Walton said of Officers Justin King and Brenda Waline. They were in a position where that if either one of them had given up or let up, that they very likely would be dead, at least one or the other. They did not do that, they fought through it, they relied on their training. Unfortunately, sometimes heroic actions have tragic outcomes and it resulted in the death of Matthew Tobin.

During an hour-long news briefing at the Scott County Courthouse, Walton laid out a summary of the events of what Scott County sheriffs investigators believe led up to the shooting on Nov. 19.

According to Walton:

At 5:13 a.m. King and Waline were dispatched to a report of a possible burglary in progress at an apartment in the 400 block of East 12th Street.

The call came from a downstairs neighbor who said the apartment should be vacant. The landlord evicted the tenant in that apartment a week earlier and had changed the locks, Walton said.

However, someone had placed a refrigerator at the back door to try and secure it.

Once inside the second-floor apartment, the officers encountered two women who claimed they had permission to be there and they were retrieving property from the previous tenant. They also said there was no one else in the apartment.

King then heard someone in the back room and the officers discovered that Tobin was in the apartment. He initially gave officers false names and incorrect birth dates. King continued to be evasive and refused Kings order to remove his hands from his pockets.

Tobin then tried to run for the back door and punched Waline several times as she tried to stop him. King and Tobin struggled and continued to move around the kitchen and eventually wound up in a narrow hallway on the floor with King on top of Tobin.

King saw Tobin with a gun and alerted Waline; Tobin fired three times and struck King in the right ear.

King remained on top of Tobin and struggled to get control of the handgun. Waline was on top of both of them. It was later discovered that Waline had a bullet hole through the right sleeve of her uniform.

King told Waline that he had been shot and was losing consciousness. Waline shot Tobin twice but he continued to struggle.

During the struggle, her gun jammed and she had to reset it by ejecting a live round and chambering a new round.

King again told Waline that he is losing consciousness and says to hit him again. Waline then shot Tobin for the third and final time.

One of the women who was inside the apartment confirmed that Tobin continued to fight until he was shot the third time. The struggle lasted approximately two minutes.

Numerous officers responded to the scene. King was found unconscious on top of Tobin and he was removed by the first responding officers. Tobin was handcuffed as a precaution.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police found a .380-caliber handgun near Tobin. Kings 9mm Sig Sauer handgun was holstered and was never fired in the incident.

Tobin was shot in the upper left shoulder, lower left flank and center chest. King, aside from the gunshot wound to his ear, had bruises and abrasions to his face and head.

Waline also had abrasions from the incident, according to Walton.

He said police also discovered that Tobin was in possession of 49 grams of crystal ice methamphetamine, packaging materials and cash. In addition, he had been wanted since Sept. 11 on a parole violation.

Tobin had previously been convicted and sentenced to prison on felony drug charges out of Cerro Gordo County.

Walton said it appears that these are the reasons Tobin chose to attempt to kill the officers, rather than be arrested.

He said during the struggle, one of the women had run to the bathroom and the other women had run to another part of the apartment.

There is no evidence that they broke into the apartment to commit a theft or an assault, Walton said and added they will not face charges in the incident.

From my standpoint in looking at what their charges would be versus the totality of what occurred later on, it just doesnt seem like an efficient use of resources to pursue criminal charges against the two females, Walton said.

He added they were interviewed and their accounts of the events were consistent with each other and the officers, and with physical evidence collected at the scene. In addition, they were cooperating with the officers before the shooting and had Mr. Tobin not been there, they probably would have been told to leave.

Walton said it has not yet been determined whether Tobin was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident.

He said investigators are waiting on forensic evidence, such as a toxicology report, and gun analysis by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation before the investigation is officially closed.

However, Walton said while the results of those tests are nice to know, they likely wont change the outcome of what we know occurred.

Davenport Police Chief Paul Sikorski said King and Waline are doing well both physically and emotionally, but its going to be some time before they come back to work.

We are going to let them process through this life-altering incident that happened to them, he said. Not only them, but their families as well.

Both remain on injury leave, he said. The department is in the early stages of conducting an internal review of the incident, Sikorski said.
SCOTTSBLUFF  Western Nebraska Community College students in the Applied Agriculture Technologies Program sat down with kindergartners from Longfellow Elementary Thursday morning to read Before We Eat by Pat Brisson as part of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Foundations Agriculture Reading Hour.

As part of the Agriculture Reading Hour, volunteers across the state read agriculture-themed books to children in their communities, and in turn, donate the book to the classroom or school on behalf of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Foundation. The programs mission is to increase student knowledge about the importance of agriculture in their daily lives.

The student volunteers in the WNCC Farm Bureau Collegiate Club are able to share their firsthand knowledge about farming. This years book shows workers both on and off the farm, illustrating to children the number of people and hard work it takes to provide the food on their plate.

According to Applied Agriculture Instructor, Lex Larsen, the reading hour program provides an opportunity to advocate for agriculture and answer questions that younger kids have about what happens on a farm or ranch.

After the story and questions, Larsen and his students remind the class to always thank a farmer.

The club hopes to read to several kindergarten through third grade classes in the Nebraska Panhandle to share what they are learning in the Applied Agriculture Program.

For more information, contact Larsen at larsenl1@wncc.edu or 308-635-6130.
Nebraska Democrats will field a seasoned political figure in the state's 2018 gubernatorial race, party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb said Thursday  even if she has to put her own name on the ballot.

Her decision comes after party leaders considered not recruiting a Democrat in an effort to help State Sen. Bob Krist, an independent, in his bid to unseat Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Kleeb said the Democratic Party will not support Krist, officially or unofficially.

Its not my job to make sure Krist has a path to beat Ricketts, Kleeb said. Im not the chair of his unnamed party. If he wants to become a Democrat, our door is wide open.

Kleeb said she has been in talks with a potential candidate and expects to have an announcement soon.

If the party cant recruit an experienced candidate, Kleeb said she would put her own name on the ballot as a sort of placeholder.

I think all of the party leaders, all of the Democratic leaders are doing everything we can to make sure our entire ballot is full of strong Democrats that are really going to represent working-class families, she said.

Kleeb, who made a name for herself by organizing the Nebraska opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, said shes not interested in becoming an elected official. She said if her name appears on the ballot, she wouldnt mount a serious campaign but instead would support other Democrats running for office.

University of Nebraska at Omaha political science professor Paul Landow is of the contingent who believes the party should back Krist. He called Kleebs plan a ridiculous idea that destroys the credibility of the Democratic Party.

The smart thing to do is to support the person whos considerably closer to your own social and political values even if that person isnt formally a Democrat, Landow said.

Krist said in a statement: Nebraskans are telling me they want an independent approach to government....Regardless of the Party Bosses, I welcome Democrats, Republicans and Independents to join our effort to unite all Nebraskans.

Ricketts campaign said it had no comment about Kleebs plan.
This set of statistics has been discontinued. New data are no longer produced from the statistics.

This page is archived.

Published: 15 December 2017

Net income from financial operations of banks operating in Finland grew, but operating profit decreased in the third quarter of 2017

In the third quarter of 2017, the net income from financial operations of credit institutions engaged in banking in Finland amounted to EUR 630 million and their operating profit was EUR 451 million. The net income from financial operations went up by EUR 17 million and the operating profit declined by EUR 155 million from one year ago. These data derive from Statistics Finlands financial statement statistics on credit institutions.

Net income from financial operations and operating profit of banks operating in Finland, 3rd quarter 2005 to 2017, EUR million

Interest income and expenses

Credit institutions engaged in banking in Finland accumulated EUR 1.3 billion in interest income in the third quarter, which was EUR 118 million more than one year previously. Interest expenses, in turn, increased by EUR 101 million year-on-year to EUR 650 million. Thus the net income from financial operations calculated as the difference between interest income and expenses grew by EUR 17 million or around three per cent. Measured in percentages, interest income grew by 10 per cent and expenses by 18 per cent.

Administrative expenses

Administrative expenses are the single largest expenditure item of banks operating in Finland. In the third quarter, banks had EUR 672 million in administrative expenses, which was EUR 13 million more than in the year before. Wages and salaries represented 45.8 per cent of administrative expenses. Compared to the third quarter of 2016, total wages and salaries decreased by EUR 20 million to EUR 307 million.

Operating profit

The operating profit, or profit from continuing operations before taxes, was EUR 451 million. Compared with the EUR 606 million last year, the operating profit decreased by EUR 155 million or 26 per cent. In particular, clearly decreased gains on financial assets and liabilities held for trading explain the drop in the operating profit. Fluctuations in the operating profit by quarter can be large.

Balance sheet

The aggregate value of the balance sheets was EUR 372 billion. The balance sheet was 33.2 per cent down from one year ago. The share of own equity in the total of the balance sheets was 4.6 per cent or around EUR 17 billion. Banks own equity declined by EUR 10 billion year-on-year.

A company restructuring made in the Finnish banking sector in the first quarter of 2017 explains a majority of the unexceptionally large changes in the balance sheets and, in particular, in equity.

Source: Credit institutions' annual accounts, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Jarkko Kaunisto 029 551 3551, Pekka Tamminen 029 551 2460, rahoitusmarkkinat@stat.fi

Director in charge: Ville Vertanen

Publication in pdf-format (267.6 kB)

Updated 15.12.2017

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Financial statement statistics on credit institutions [e-publication].

ISSN=2342-5180. 3rd quarter 2017. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 18.11.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/llai/2017/03/llai_2017_03_2017-12-15_tie_001_en.html
WATERLOO  A probe into a ring that brought meth to Waterloo, Dubuque and Marshalltown and laundered money back to Mexico has resulted in more than 20 convictions, bringing prison time ranging from 30 years to two years in prison, according to information released Friday.

The operation, dubbed Ice Pirates, culminated in May 2016 with 29 raids in Iowa and Wisconsin that turned up 6 pounds of meth, more than $250,000 in cash and 14 guns. Over the summer and fall of 2017 those arrested have been sentenced to prison on various drug charges.

A Marshalltown resident, 23-year-old Aldo Omar Lopez Martinez, landed the largest sentence with 30 years behind bars, according to the United State Attorneys Office for Iowas Northern District. He was convicted of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering following a March 2017 trial.

The second largest sentence went to Michael Vincent Woodbury Bent, 38, of Dubuque, who received 25 years in prison.

Others sentenced include:

Jay Seehase, 38, of Waterloo, 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Adan Sanchez-Chavez, 26, of Marshalltown, 20 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Jacob Burton, 36, Waterloo, 12 years and 10 months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Michael Corwin, 31, of Marshalltown, 12 years and seven months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Chad Ellis Weyland, 38, Waterloo, 12 years and three months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Isaias Lopez Martinez, 40, of Marshalltown, 12 years and three months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Dennis Sharkey II, 51, of Dubuque, 11 years and eight months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Alfredo Morales, 26, of Des Moines, 10 years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Zach Miller, 28, of Waterloo, seven years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Chris Nauman, 31, of Dubuque, seven years and one month in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Deis Ray, 41, of Waterloo, six years and eight months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Kevin Hemmer, 42, of Waterloo, six years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Ashley Marie Dean, 30, of Waterloo, five years and five months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Adam Fullbright, 38, of Dubuque, four years and 10 months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Edward Behrens, 52, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, four years and five months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Roque Rodriguez Arellano, 33, of Marshalltown, four years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Alejandro Hernandez, 39, of Marshalltown, three years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Heather Harris, 38, of Waterloo, three years and six months in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

John Husemann, 52, of Dubuque, two years in prison, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Susana Martinez Arreola, 30, of Marshalltown, received a 24-month prison term after a December 20, 2016, guilty plea to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Blog Archive Apr 2010 (22) May 2010 (25) Jun 2010 (8) Jul 2010 (12) Aug 2010 (18) Sep 2010 (19) Oct 2010 (29) Nov 2010 (30) Dec 2010 (18) Jan 2011 (13) Feb 2011 (21) Mar 2011 (23) Apr 2011 (19) May 2011 (31) Jun 2011 (36) Jul 2011 (46) Aug 2011 (26) Sep 2011 (12) Oct 2011 (15) Nov 2011 (17) Dec 2011 (7) Jan 2012 (18) Feb 2012 (4) Mar 2012 (12) Apr 2012 (18) May 2012 (10) Jun 2012 (21) Jul 2012 (8) Aug 2012 (15) Sep 2012 (7) Oct 2012 (17) Nov 2012 (20) Dec 2012 (10) Jan 2013 (58) Feb 2013 (59) Mar 2013 (60) Apr 2013 (98) May 2013 (134) Jun 2013 (204) Jul 2013 (293) Aug 2013 (351) Sep 2013 (363) Oct 2013 (347) Nov 2013 (374) Dec 2013 (440) Jan 2014 (544) Feb 2014 (475) Mar 2014 (525) Apr 2014 (527) May 2014 (470) Jun 2014 (408) Jul 2014 (472) Aug 2014 (522) Sep 2014 (441) Oct 2014 (471) Nov 2014 (496) Dec 2014 (535) Jan 2015 (535) Feb 2015 (520) Mar 2015 (579) Apr 2015 (657) May 2015 (679) Jun 2015 (673) Jul 2015 (728) Aug 2015 (803) Sep 2015 (923) Oct 2015 (921) Nov 2015 (801) Dec 2015 (791) Jan 2016 (782) Feb 2016 (835) Mar 2016 (929) Apr 2016 (864) May 2016 (946) Jun 2016 (1044) Jul 2016 (882) Aug 2016 (1035) Sep 2016 (966) Oct 2016 (918) Nov 2016 (854) Dec 2016 (885) Jan 2017 (879) Feb 2017 (777) Mar 2017 (896) Apr 2017 (872) May 2017 (850) Jun 2017 (851) Jul 2017 (971) Aug 2017 (1040) Sep 2017 (998) Oct 2017 (1144) Nov 2017 (1046) Dec 2017 (838) Jan 2018 (873) Feb 2018 (769) Mar 2018 (885) Apr 2018 (808) May 2018 (827) Jun 2018 (820) Jul 2018 (840) Aug 2018 (854) Sep 2018 (844) Oct 2018 (851) Nov 2018 (870) Dec 2018 (912) Jan 2019 (919) Feb 2019 (827) Mar 2019 (957) Apr 2019 (913) May 2019 (1007) Jun 2019 (934) Jul 2019 (949) Aug 2019 (936) Sep 2019 (910) Oct 2019 (920) Nov 2019 (874) Dec 2019 (908) Jan 2020 (941) Feb 2020 (848) Mar 2020 (898) Apr 2020 (848) May 2020 (822) Jun 2020 (787) Jul 2020 (819) Aug 2020 (858) Sep 2020 (841) Oct 2020 (873) Nov 2020 (811) Dec 2020 (780) Jan 2021 (765) Feb 2021 (716) Mar 2021 (819) Apr 2021 (805) May 2021 (815) Jun 2021 (824) Jul 2021 (830) Aug 2021 (832) Sep 2021 (791) Oct 2021 (754) Nov 2021 (683) Dec 2021 (693) Jan 2022 (694) Feb 2022 (654) Mar 2022 (740) Apr 2022 (745) May 2022 (748) Jun 2022 (701) Jul 2022 (704) Aug 2022 (702) Sep 2022 (699) Oct 2022 (737) Nov 2022 (396)
WATERLOO | A Waterloo man who allegedly fired a gun at a fraternity party at a Cedar Falls church building in January has been sentenced to prison.

Judge Linda Reade sentenced Darius Devon Nickelous, 23, to the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for a charge of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

Nickelous had been found guilty of the charge in June following trial. His prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.

Nickelous fired a revolver several times inside the Wesley Foundation Church building on the University of Northern Iowa campus on Jan. 14, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Iowa. There were about 150 people attending the event at the time of the shooting, court records indicate.

He then fled the building and was detained by Cedar Falls police as he attempted to hide the .38-caliber revolver near a parked vehicle.

Nickelous had a wound to arm that appeared to be a bullet graze, but it wasnt clear how the injury occurred.

Authorities said Nickelous is prohibited from handling firearms because of prior felony and domestic abuse convictions and because he was using drugs.
MASON CITY | The Iowa Attorney General's office has filed a motion resisting Tawny Symonds' request to have her sentencing hearing closed next month.

Scott Brown, an assistant attorney general, told the Globe Gazette by phone Friday morning that he hoped to file that motion later Friday or Monday. According to court documents, it was filed early Friday afternoon.

He said he has recently been assigned to the case because Denise Timmins, another assistant attorney general, was reassigned to another case in central Iowa on a speedy trial request.

"Someone had to pick it up," Brown said. "It had nothing to do with anyone's ability ... it was just a scheduling thing."

Brown said he could not comment on how the plea agreement was reached, citing that Symonds still has to be sentenced next month.

He did, however, cite two prior cases in Iowa as reason for why the state would be resisting the motion to close the sentencing hearing.

In one of those cases, State v. Farnum, the Iowa Supreme Court determined that Orley Ivan Farnum could not close his trial to the public. Farnum had appealed after he had been found guilty of three counts of felony second-degree sexual abuse, among other charges.

"The justification for denying access to a trial must be a weighty one ... The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to exclude spectators from the courtroom and close the trial," the court's opinion read.

A ruling has not been issued in regards to whether the hearing will be closed. If Symonds' hearing were to be closed, her sentence would still be public record.

Symonds, 31, of Charles City, was initially charged with assault, felony second-degree sex abuse and child endangerment in December of last year, for allegedly victimizing a child at her home-run day care in Mason City.

Earlier this week, she submitted an Alford plea to the child endangerment charge. The court agreed to drop the two more serious charges, causing an uproar on social media.

According to court documents, the former prosecutor in the case, Assistant Cerro Gordo County Attorney Gina Jorgensen, withdrew Dec. 4. Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen replaced her.

Jorgensen submitted a letter of resignation to Dalen on Nov. 21, and her last day of work was Dec. 5. Symonds submitted her Alford plea Dec. 11.

Symonds' sentencing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Jan. 28, 2018, at the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse.
Bombardier Inc., a crown jewel of Canadian manufacturing, is billing itself as a major U.S. employer in a bitter trade fight with Boeing that has profits, diplomatic ties and the future of a fledgling aircraft on the line.

The maker of the narrow-body jet at the heart of the dispute has assembled an influential group of U.S. politicians, vendors and customers to back its side in a case brought by Boeing, which reaches a critical hearing next week in Washington. Bombardier says more than half of its all-new CSeries aircraft are made in U.S. factories even though final assembly takes place near Montreal.

The U.S. International Trade Commission is slated to hear arguments Monday on whether American industry was harmed by Bombardiers sale of its jet to Delta Air Lines at what Boeing calls an unfairly low price  enabled in part by subsidies in Canada. The Commerce Department sided with Boeing in a preliminary ruling in October and ordered tariffs of about 300 percent. Delta has vowed not to pay.

While President Donald Trump likely wont intervene directly in the case, the dispute is a test of his pledge to enforce U.S. trade laws more strictly while also encouraging foreign investment.

Companies in other industries will be watching closely. A U.S. solar-panel maker is pushing for import tariffs, while steel producers are calling for a crackdown on shipments from China. The U.S. must also decide on washing-machine tariffs after a complaint brought by Whirlpool against Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

The Bombardier case has already bruised U.S. relations with Canada and heightened tension in the talks to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has aggressively defended Bombardier and discussed the matter with Trump, this week scrapped the planned purchase of 18 St. Louis-made Super Hornets because of the dispute.

The British government warned Boeing it could lose defense contracts. Prime Minister Theresa May said she was bitterly disappointed by the tariffs, which threaten about 1,000 jobs in Northern Ireland.

For Montreal-based Bombardier, a loss would make other U.S. carriers hesitant about buying the CSeries and could potentially prompt Delta to drop the order, said Addison Schonland, a partner at consultant AirInsight.

The ITC ruling, expected in late January, is also critical to the companys medium-term profitability as it prepares to deliver planes to Delta. In April 2016, the No. 2 U.S. airline ordered 75 of Bombardiers CS100 jets, which carry fewer passengers than Boeings smallest aircraft, and secured options for 50 more CSeries planes.

The order has a list value of $5.6 billion before customary discounts. Bombardier hasnt disclosed the price agreed to with Delta, nor has it revealed its unit costs in building the CSeries.

Bombardier will need all the help it can get in challenging the worlds largest aerospace company, which has developed a strong relationship with Trump. Bombardier argues that more than half of the aircrafts content is sourced from U.S.-based suppliers, including engine maker United Technologies. Bombardier employs about 7,000 in 17 American states, while Chicago-based Boeing has 142,000 workers in all 50 states.

The nationality of the CSeries became even more complex after Boeing filed its complaint in April. Thats because its chief rival, Europes Airbus, announced plans in October to acquire a controlling stake in the program, throw its marketing heft behind the program and eventually open a second assembly line in Alabama.

Its a huge victory for President Trump and all that he has been trying to do to bring more foreign investment and jobs to America, said Rep. Bradley Byrne, whose Alabama district stands to gain 400 to 500 Bombardier jobs. This is not anti-Boeing. Its pro-American.

Boeing, a major campaign donor, has a wealth of friends of its own in Congress. It also spent $13 million to lobby in Washington during the first three quarters of 2017, compared with $1.1 million by Bombardier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

Still, Bombardier has won plenty of support from politicians, including members of Congress from both parties, who have company employees in their states or districts.
The fate of a century-old downtown brick warehouse depends, in part, on the ability of developers of a proposed 33-story apartment tower to line up financing and show they can get the project done.

They do have a proven track record, even in the face of strong opposition.

The development team behind the proposed 33-story apartment tower at 300 South Broadway downtown is the same as the one behind the recently completed Two Twelve apartment tower in downtown Clayton.

The project is being led by Jack Holleran, president of Chesterfield-based HDA Architects, who is also a partner in the development team. The firm released new details on the proposal Thursday.

Joining Holleran are White Oak Realty Partners and CA Ventures, both of Chicago. The team was behind the new 26-story, 250-unit apartment tower at 212 South Meramec Avenue. It just opened despite being slowed by a lawsuit from Clayton residents opposed to the amount of tax breaks provided to the project.

Now, Holleran and his co-developers hope to build a $100 million, 265-unit apartment tower across Broadway from Busch Stadium and start leasing by 2020, HDA said Thursday.

First, they will need to win approval from the St. Louis Preservation Board to tear down a six-story brick warehouse and office building constructed in the mid-1890s.

The structure currently houses the administrative offices of St. Louis Community College, which has said for months it plans to sell the building and move staff there to its campuses.

The citys Cultural Resources staff says the building would be eligible to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, though it is currently only under review because it is within a preservation review district. It was designed by prominent St. Louis architect Isaac Taylor, who supervised the design and construction of major buildings in the 1904 Worlds Fair and also designed the citys former Municipal Courts building on Market Street.

City staff believes the existing structure at 300 South Broadway is a high merit building, so it recommends allowing its demolition only when a building permit for the new structure is issued.

The unusual circumstances that justify the demolition of the 300 South Broadway building are that the new construction is a major investment with a bold design that provides additional residential units in the Central Business District, city staff says in its report.

The Preservation Board meets at 4 p.m. Monday at 1520 Market Street.

The citys economic development chief, Otis Williams, said Wednesday his office is in discussions with the developers about incentives but an amount hasnt been determined.

The proposal comes just as the St. Louis Cardinals and co-developer The Cordish Cos. are starting construction on the second phase of Ballpark Village just across the street. Included in that development, which officially broke ground Thursday, is a 297-unit apartment tower.
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

On the day of a hastily called Missouri Veterans Commission meeting last week, Rick Stream sent an ominous text message to state Sen. Dan Doc Brown, R-Rolla.

Stream, a former state representative who currently heads the St. Louis County Board of Elections, wanted his fellow Republican to know that the veterans commission leadership team problems were deeper than just one person.

There was no way, Stream told Brown, who sits on the commission, that there could have been three separate investigations that found no problems at the St. Louis Veterans Home unless the commissions executive director, Gen. Larry Kay, and his key deputies were all involved in a massive cover-up.

On Wednesday, in a closed meeting, Brown and his fellow commissioners  five of them appointed by Gov. Eric Greitens two days earlier  voted to accept Kays resignation.

If they want to improve care for veterans in St. Louis and at the other six state-run veterans homes, Stream doesnt believe the commissioners should stop there.

With Kays key allies still in place  including deputy director Bryan Hunt, veterans homes director Kim Packard, and Patty Faenger, the assistant director of the homes program  attempts to turn around the care at the St. Louis Veterans Home will fail, Stream says.

They are all part of the massive cover-up, Stream says. They intimidated, they bullied, they put people on leave and they fired them.

Stream became involved in the effort to investigate complaints by family members of shoddy and abusive care at the home in north St. Louis County at the request of his friend, Dory Poholsky. The two both live in Kirkwood. For months, they met with veterans at the home, their families and employees, who complained of poor leadership from administrator Rolando Carter. Their meetings led to a report that they delivered to Greitens in July.

Thats when the investigations started, four of them in all.

The first three, Stream says, were meaningless.

In late July, during the first investigation, led by Kay, Stream remembers meeting with Kay and his leadership team. They basically told me that everything we had put in that report was not to be believed. I left that meeting thinking that these people are more interested in protecting their jobs than caring for veterans.

Next came an investigation by Drew Juden, director of the Department of Public Safety.

He, too, found no problems. But it wasnt much of an investigation.

None of the people in our report even talked to Drew Juden or anybody from public safety, Stream says.

Then, in an annual survey in which Carter had advance notice, federal Veterans Affairs officials gave the home a clean bill of health.

It wasnt that difficult to see what was happening at the home, Stream says. For some reason, they didnt want to do a serious investigation.

The outside investigation sought by two U.S. senators and Lt. Gov. Mike Parson, and ordered by Greitens, validated everything Stream and Poholsky knew to be true. Before its results were even known, Carter was put on leave. Two days after it was released, Kay was gone.

Now Stream wants to see another investigation.

He believes Brown and his fellow lawmakers should hold hearings to get to the bottom of how state officials allowed the mistreatment of veterans, their families and the employees paid to care for them to go on for months.

When lawmakers return to Jefferson City in a couple of weeks, the veterans saga is sure to be discussed. Some senators are angry with Greitens over his recent penchant for mass appointments to state commissions  veterans, education and housing development  by which hand-picked supporters made massive changes to state policies. Some lawmakers have promised a bumpy ride for Greitens if he wants his appointees confirmed.

Then theres the issue of the budget, which in the Senate, Brown oversees.

Part of the challenge with the St. Louis Veterans Home is that Missouri state employees are the lowest paid in the nation. It is difficult to attract quality workers in such an environment.

With Carter on leave and Kay out of the picture, there has been progress made in caring for St. Louis veterans, Stream says.

But Hunt  who tried to brush off family members complaints as racist, even though many of the veterans and employees in question are black  is still the deputy director. And Faenger is operating the St. Louis home in the absence of Carter.

Families and employees are still worried.

They are all part of the massive cover-up, Stream says of Kays former employees. The reign of terror continues.
MASON CITY | Police in Mason City are warning business owners again about scammers pretending to be from a local utility company.

On Wednesday, Mason City Police took two reports of attempted utility scams involving local businesses.

The caller alleged to be the City of Mason City utilities or Alliant Energy. In both cases the businesses were told that unless they paid past dues balances immediately, utilities would be shut off.

Neither call was legitimate, police said in a release Thursday. This is a scam.

A similar scam was reported last winter. In 2015, businesses lost at least $8,000 to a similar ruse.

Anyone who receives unsolicited contact from a utility company, or even a bank, should write down the name and contact information of the caller and follow-up with their local business.

Police say people should not give out personal information, credit card information or wire anyone money without first verifying who the person is through a local contact.

Those who believe they might have been a victim of a scam should call local law enforcement. For Mason City Police Department, call 641-421-3636.

 Courtney Fiorini
ST. LOUIS  In a forum routinely punctuated with protest, six finalists vying to be the citys police chief spoke about how they would address the strained relationship between St. Louis police and the people they serve.

That strain was evident in the crowd gathered in a St. Louis University Law School classroom on Thursday night, where citizens vented their frustrations over Interim Police Chief Lawrence OToole being included on the shortlist for the job. He has come under fire for his leadership during the protests over the acquittal of former Officer Jason Stockley.

OToole is one of three finalists who come from within the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Maj. John Hayden, who commands the departments North Patrol Division, and Capt. Mary Edwards-Fears, from the Bureau of Professional Standards, are also seeking the job.

All six finalists have at least 10 years of experience at the rank of captain or higher, a requirement from the city. Its the first time in modern history that city leaders will consider an external candidate. The department had been under state control before 2013, and state law forbade the department from hiring a chief outside of its own ranks.

Three candidates hail from police departments out of state: Maj. Stephen Max Geron, of the Dallas Police Department; Norman, Okla., Police Chief Keith Humphrey; and Chief Patrick Melvin of the Port Arthur Police Department in Texas.

The identities of the six finalists were announced about 15 minutes before they were to appear at the forum. Originally, city officials planned to reveal the names about an hour before the meeting, but errors on score sheets caused unexpected delays, said Personnel Director Richard Frank.

The questions asked at the forum were submitted ahead of the event, and a moderator asked the candidates the questions that were posed the most. Each had two minutes to answer.

Asked about rebuilding trust with St. Louisans, the finalists offered ideas on how to reach out to hear their concerns. OToole said hed put out a community survey. Melvin suggested a series of listening sessions, and said he would make an effort to reach out to clergy and speak at local places of worship. Hayden said hed stress community policing, while Geron pledged to meet with the most vocal critics of the department.

Edwards-Fears said she would focus on constitutional issues.

Were going to make sure everyones civil rights are recognized, she said.

Humphrey promised to make an effort to educate the public and his officers on citizens rights. I dont want a community that feels like theyre dehumanized, he said.

In the two-hour forum, all six candidates expressed openness to a third party investigating officer-involved shootings. Most also stressed the need to treat equally the St. Louis Police Officers Association, the union representing most of the citys rank-and-file officers, and the Ethical Society of Police, representing officers of color.

With an even split of external and internal candidates, those from within the department highlighted their knowledge of St. Louis and the relationships theyve already built with the officers who protect it.

I know this city. I never left, Hayden said.

Out-of-state finalists, meanwhile, pushed the need for an unbiased, fresh leader to bring new ideas into a department that has faced multiple lawsuits this year, with plaintiffs alleging heavy-handed tactics being used by law enforcement officers tasked with containing recent unrest.

Geron said he believed the support for the special sales tax measure known as Prop P, which authorized raises for police officers, in communities north of Delmar Boulevard showed a willingness of city residents to work with police to reduce violence.

But for many attendees, that willingness is contingent on a change in leadership.

Some at the forum argued that OTooles presence was proof the selection process for the new chief  a national search, vetting by a citizen advisory committee and a series of public meetings  was a sham.

Protesters have called for OToole, a 33-year veteran of the department, to be fired following his remark that city police owned the night during the early days of Stockley demonstrations.

We asked the city to terminate Chief OToole, not give him a promotion, shouted activist Elizabeth Vega, who repeatedly raised her voice in protest whenever OToole came to the mic.

Most of her comments were met with applause, and as the crowd got riled up, others joined in her call for OToole to be disqualified, or take himself out of the running voluntarily.

But the local candidates, including OToole, will have an edge in the process, said Frank, the personnel director.

There is a distinct advantage to being local, Frank said, explaining that internal candidates will be given at least five points toward a maximum of 100 should they live in St. Louis.

Following Thursdays town hall, the candidates will undergo final interviews with Director of Public Safety Jimmie Edwards and St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson. Edwards appoints the police chief, but Krewson is planning to have some say in the final decision, mayoral spokesman Koran Addo has said.

Edwards has said he hopes to choose a new chief before the end of the year.

Christine Byers of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY  A student at Hazelwood West High School has been charged in connection with bringing a loaded gun into the school on Wednesday, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office said.

Reginald Moorehead, 17, of the 7600 block of Sunset Drive, was arrested at the school. He was charged with unlawful use of a weapon for carrying a loaded weapon into a school, bus, premises, a felony.

Moorehead was accused of selling narcotics and he was brought to the principal's office, Hazelwood police said. While there, he was searched and a loaded firearm was discovered in a bag around his waist. The firearm was seized and Moorehead was arrested.

The gun was a Phoenix Arms .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol, according to court records.

He is being held at the St. Louis County Justice Center in lieu of $10,000 bail. He had not posted bail as of Friday.
MASON CITY | The Mason City man accused of fatally shooting a 19-year-old woman will head to trial Monday, facing a second-degree murder charge.

Larry Whaley, 61, allegedly shot Samantha Teeter in the head through his apartment door at 116 17th St. S.E. on Dec. 2, 2016. Teeter died two days later in the hospital.

Last month, Judge Christopher C. Foy determined Whaley was competent to stand trial for first-degree murder, after Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen submitted two medical reports by neuropsychologist John Bayless and psychiatrist Arnold Andersen, both based in Iowa City.

Since that competency hearing, Whaley's charge dropped from first to second-degree murder, according to court documents. Dalen declined to comment on the decision last month, citing the pending trial.

Whaley has continuously written letters to Judge Foy complaining that evidence has been tampered in his case, and that he will not be able to receive a fair trial in Cerro Gordo County because he is black.

If convicted, he faces up to 50 years in prison, including a mandatory minimum of 35 years, according to state law.

Whaley's trial is scheduled to begin Monday at 9 a.m. in the Cerro Gordo County Courthouse.
MASON CITY | Two Mason City men charged in a September 2016 double robbery in an alley pleaded guilty to lesser charges, with one receiving a deferred judgment.

Armando Ismeal Ramon, 18, and Gunnar Demetrius Flores, 18, both pleaded guilty to an amended charged of felony first-degree theft. The two were initially charged with two counts each of felony second-degree robbery.

Ramon and Flores allegedly assaulted two people in the 700 block of North Commercial Alley in Mason City in September 2016, causing serious injury, according to court documents.

They were also accused of stealing $3,500 in cash and a wallet from one person, and $600 in cash, a wallet, cell phone and a belt from a second person, police said.

Flores was released from custody on Nov. 1 after pleading guilty to theft.

On Monday, Flores received a deferred judgement on the theft charge. The second count of second-degree robbery was dismissed as part of the plea agreement, according to court documents.

Flores was placed on probation for five years and is required to submit to a substance abuse and mental health evaluation. A $1,000 civil penalty was suspended.

Ramon, who is still in the Cerro Gordo County Jail filed a written plea of guilty Thursday.

No sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Ramon. The second-degree robbery charge had not been dropped as of Friday.
Sophie Clausen (on left) and Manuela Perteghella

A radical initiative to help heal the wounds inflicted by last years EU referendum will be launched today (Friday).

If theres one thing that can build bridges between leavers and remainers, its a cup of tea, at least thats the belief of the organisers of Stratfords Brexit Cafe, which will run at the Townhouse in Stratford from 10.30am.

The aim is to bring both sides together to engage in constrictive dialogue, listening and reaching an understanding of each others point of view.

The idea has been developed by Stratford residents Sophie Clausen and Manuela Perteghella, both originally from Europe, but have settled in Stratford to bring up their families.

The Brexit Cafe will provide an unthreatening environment where people can open up about their fears and put forward their views without the risk of being misunderstood or shouted down.

Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi, who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU last year, is expected to attend the event.

Entrance to the first Brexit Cafe is by invitation early, though Sophie and Manuela are hoping it will pop up on a regular basis around the town in the New Year, when everyone can attend.

Sophie said: Brexit has been very hurtful and frightening for me personally, so the Brexit Cafe is a way to reach out and talk to people who have different views to me.

I want to try and understand why people voted Leave by talking to them face to face in a friendly way, and not by reading the news, which fills me with fear and perplexity. From all my years of living in this country, I know that British people are caring and kind, and this is what I want to hold on to. I don't want to be swayed by anxiety and uncertainty.

Manuela added: Both leavers and remainers still have two very important things in common: their love for this beautiful country, and their wish to secure the best future for the United Kingdom."

The event is being supported by Stratford4Europe, a local, cross-party, grass-roots organisation campaigning for Britain to play a leading role within a strong and united European Union.

Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi said: "The decision on whether or not the UK should remain a part of the EU has of course already been taken.

"Nonetheless I remain happy to engage with and talk to those on all sides of the Brexit debate and Fridays cafe will provide a good opportunity to do this in a relaxed and friendly setting. I am very much looking forward to it."
MASON CITY | Employees of a machine shop in downtown Mason City were able to evacuate safely when a fire broke out Friday afternoon, according to the owner.

"Everybody got out," said Ron Lukes, who owns Lukes Central Machine & Parts.

The fire was reported about 12:40 p.m. at the shop, 360 N. Delaware Ave.

Lukes was standing in the parking lot south of the building, watching smoke billow out of an upstairs window while firefighters checked for hot spots and cut into siding and a charred garage door on the north side of the building.

"I think it's not going to be as bad as it looks," Lukes said of the damage at his shop, which opened at its downtown location in 2001.

He believes the fire started when a fuel canister somehow caught fire.

"We were changing a fuel pump in a Suburban," Lukes said. "Somehow the fuel ignited."

He said they had removed the fuel from the vehicle and had it in a canister when it caught fire. No one was in the room when the fire began, according to Lukes.

Though it was windy and temperatures were hovering around freezing, Lukes, who was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, continued to chat with bystanders outside, claiming he was still warm from the fire.

Lukes remembers the explosion and fire that destroyed Charlie's Auto Repair on South Federal Avenue in 2016. He is optimistic about rebounding from this fire.

"I hope we'll be back at work next week," Lukes said.

Police blocked off roads around the area, including a portion of North Delaware Avenue.

Mason City Fire Department was still fighting hot spots at 2 p.m. through a hole in the north side of the roof.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more details.

Previous story:

MASON CITY | First responders are at the scene of a fire at a machine shop in downtown Mason City.

A fire was reported at Lukes Central Machine & Parts, 360 N. Delaware Ave., about 12:40 p.m.

Thick smoke was billowing from the roof of the building when the Mason City Fire Department arrived, according to a Globe Gazette reporter on the scene.

Police are blocking off roads around the area, including a portion of North Delaware Avenue.

This is a developing story. Check back later for more details.
DES MOINES | Mason City will have to wait another month to secure as much as $10 million in state financial assistance toward its downtown renovation project.

A contingent of roughly a dozen city officials, project developers and community supporters traveled to Des Moines for Friday mornings state economic development board meeting, at which they hoped to receive approval for between $7 million and $10 million in state financial assistance through a reinvestment program.

But after hearing from city officials and developers, the board, citing a need for a few loose ends to be tied up, tabled the matter until next months meeting.

The board desires a signed development agreement, a commitment from the bank that will finance the project, and dismissal of the lawsuit between the project developer and the city, board member Chris Murray told the Mason City contingent.

Weve been at this same spot one other time with you guys, Murray said. We have some questions because we have two key items (the development agreement and financing commitment) that arent completed.

Mason City seeks up to $10 million in state funding through the Iowa Reinvestment Act to help leverage a $38 million downtown renovation plan that includes the hotel, a conference center in The Music Man Square, a performing arts pavilion and an ice arena and multipurpose center.

The board gave a preliminary award of $7 million for the project, which could ultimately receive up to $10 million after more state funds became available when another project shuttered.

Outgoing mayor Eric Bookmeyer and a representative for the project developer said they are confident the boards requests can be fulfilled before its January meeting, at which time - they hope - the project would get final approval.

The two requests that theyre asking for are completely reasonable, Bookmeyer said. I have no reason to believe that they wont be (done by next month).

The development agreement will receive a public hearing on Dec. 28, after which Bookmeyer can sign it. He said it likely will be one of his last official acts.

Steve Noto, president of HPI Hospitality which operates the Historic Park Inn, spoke on behalf of G8, the developer for the downtown hotel. He said once the development agreement is signed, the lawsuit will be released.

Im very confident were going to get this deal done for Mason City, Noto said.

Through the delays and hurdles, the city has spent more than $700,000 on the project so far.
Innovative ovens for fish-smoking improve Batti lives View(s):

The traditional method of fish-smoking in Unnichchai, a small fishing community in the Batticaloa district sees women spending many hours tending to fish laid out on mesh over smoking coals. Health hazards from smoke inhalation are high, while the output from such intensive labour is often low. That is now changing with the introduction of new smoking ovens pioneered by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) under a programme funded by the European Union (EU), a joint media release said.

The first thing I noticed was that the new technology helps me save time,said Kopalapillai Theivarmallar who makes her living from fish-smoking to provide for her three daughters. Before, I spent a total of 12 hours on two consecutive days drying and smoking the fish, and I used the old method of iron mesh. Now, 6 to 7 hours are enough to finish one smoking. It gives me plenty of time to take care of my children and do household chores, she said.

Since 2008 FAO has worked on developing the FTT-Thiaroye, an improved fish smoking and drying oven technology. The oven can be purpose built, or the smoke-capturing chimney, oil-catching trays and other elements can be added to an existing oven. It is designed to improve fuel-efficiency in fish-smoking by encapsulating heat and smoke. It also addresses health hazards suffered by small-scale fish dryers  the vast majority of whom are women.

In the Batticaloa district, around 150 families are engaged in fish-smoking activities. The traditional smoking method is done in the open, making the fish prone to spoilage from rain and external contamination. Strong winds can lengthen the process and often results in lesser-quality fish that sell at lower prices.

With the method of iron mesh, our smoked fish is of poor quality, they are sold at 600 to 750 rupees per kilo. This is a very low price. The money we earn is not even enough to send our children to school, said Fransis Devamalar, a fish smoker who heads her family of four children.

The FAO technology was first introduced in Africa, where 12 countries have now adopted it. Women using old methods of fish-smoking over an open fire often suffer eye and skin irritations and respiratory disease from the smoke. However, African women who have adopted the new method have improved their health, significantly increased their income, reduced their costs, cut down on losses, improved the quality and safety of their smoked fish, and were able to improve their familys food security and nutrition.
MASON CITY | When Ernie Martinez sees dozens of volunteers helping less fortunate children by offering toys and free Christmas meals, he can't help but smile at the efforts of the local community.

Perhaps more importantly, he wants people to know that some people just need some extra help during the holiday season.

"Marines have been doing this since 1947," said Martinez, 67, a Marine veteran and member of the North Iowa Marine Corps League No. 859, which helps run the Toys for Tots program for 12 local counties. "And we want people to know this isn't a handout, but a hand up."

Dozens of people were bustling inside the Salvation Army building in Mason City Thursday morning, organizing toys and food to be distributed to people throughout North Iowa.

Tracy Hedegard-Stump, the social services director of the Salvation Army, said each family in need receives a book, game, stocking-stuffers, clothes and a food box with a Christmas meal.

She said the Toys for Tots program has grown in recent years, and commended everyone who helps, ranging from high school students to former Marines.

"We're very blessed to have great volunteers," said Hedegard-Stump, 46. "People start calling in October and say they want to help."

Along with those volunteers, Martinez commended local businesses for donating bins of toys for the cause, and urged more local establisments to get involved. He added 97 cents of every dollar donated is used toward toys for the program.

One of the high school students who volunteered Thursday was Miranda Crabtree, a senior at Nashua-Plainfield. Crabtree, 17, said the work is part of the Husky Leadership Team, which consists of students throughout her district participating in volunteer work.

"It makes me happy to see how people can come together to help the community," she said.
Nongfu Spring has welcomed the Bay of Plenty Regional Councils decision to publicly notify its consent applications to expand the Otakiri Springs water bottling plant

The company says it looks forward to talking and listening to the community about the merits of its proposal.

The private, family-owned company also has consent applications lodged with the Whakatane District Council, but not publicly notified, and has now formally requested these matters be dealt with together in a combined hearing in order to reduce costs for participants and make the process more accessible and efficient.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council consents relate to the expansion and operation of the Otakiri Spring water bottling facility, while the Whakatane District Council consents concern land use activities related to developing the plant.

Nongfu Spring recognises the strong public interest in commercial water use and the sustainable management of the community resource, says Michael Gleissner, director of Nongfu Springs subsidiary, Creswell New Zealand.

He says the consenting process will help people better understand the complexities of the water allocation system and the benefits and value water bottling brings to the wider community.

As weve said before, were prepared to pay a royalty on the commercial use of water, should the Government decide to impose one, provided it is fair and equitable, he says.

We also believe the proceeds from any royalty should be invested back into the Eastern Bay community.

He says Nongfu Spring has invested considerable time and funds in supporting the local community, including providing water in the wake of the Edgecumbe floods.

If consent is granted, we will create real local jobs for local people, particularly Maori, he says.

When completed, the plant will employ 60 staff (up from eight staff currently) and will deliver considerable benefits to the communities of Te Teko, Kawerau and Whakatane.

Most of the positions have been earmarked for local Maori as was promised by Nongfu Springs Chairman Zhong during meetings with iwi last December, he adds.

The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has accepted findings from economic research consultancy BERL, which estimates the new jobs and downstream economic impacts of the proposal will add $8.59 million to the regional economy.

Michael says the publicly notified consent hearing will allow Nongfu Spring to speak directly to the community about the job creation, economic benefits and present scientific evidence showing the proposed water take is sustainable and well within the limits set by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

Nongfu Spring supports the Council proposal to restrict the water take from the aquifer to not more than 35 per cent of the average annual recharge rate as this will ensure there will always be water in the aquifer for future generations, he says.

Nongfu Spring is committing to the community for the long-term and to the sustainable management of the artesian water resource and looks forward to engaging and supporting the next generations of whanau from Te Teko, Kawerau and Whakatane, says Michael.
Omanu lifeguard Haven Bellamy has achieved the highest award when it comes to lifeguarding in New Zealand.

The-25 year-old gained his Advanced Lifeguard Award while attending Surf Life Saving

New Zealands National Lifeguard School in Taranaki last weekend.

Of the 19 lifeguards who took part, Haven gained the top candidate award for the school.

He was presented with a plaque on behalf of the 21 Club from Todd Velvin and a rescue tube by Surf Life Saving New Zealand president Brian Velvin.

Haven says he found the course really pushed him out of his comfort zone, not just physically but mentally as well.

I really enjoyed being at a different beach with people I had never met or worked with before. My team and I became quite a tightknit unit by the end even though we started off as complete strangers.

"It was a great networking experience and I truly have made friends for life; we constantly shared stories and experiences which was really eye opening as we all come from different backgrounds, he says.

One of his highlights for the weekend was the advanced Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) training, learning to navigate around rocks in quite a different environment to what hes used to at Omanu Beach, along with the rescue helicopter work.

Earning the honour of top candidate means a lot not just to him, but his club too, he says.



I am honoured to receive this award and it will inspire the next generation of lifeguards from my club who follow on behind me. Im very proud of my achievement and I will definitely not be stopping here, he says.

Surf Life Saving New Zealand member development manager Belinda Slement says

Haven demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, team work, IRB driving and rock rescue skills, general fitness and showed a positive attitude throughout the three day school.

We had 19 of New Zealands best lifeguards taking part this year. They all have to be at a really high level just to be selected for National Lifeguard School so topping the list is an outstanding achievement that Haven should be incredibly proud of, she says.

Throughout the weekend they were tested both mentally and physically on a number of tasks from advanced IRB training, rock swimming, helicopter jumps, search and rescue and patrol scenarios.

Belinda says Fitzroy was a fantastic location to host the school, providing many opportunities for learning and development both in and out of the water.

We had hot sunny weather all weekend and observed all of the candidates working hard to challenge themselves and develop their lifeguarding skills, she says.

Part of Surf Life Savings partnership with Zespri, which was formed last year, sees a number of scholarships available for the annual National Lifeguard School to cover the user-pays component of the course cost for Eastern Region candidates.

This year, eight of the 19 candidates came from Surf Life Savings Eastern Region.

Zespri General Manager Grower & External Relations Dave Courtney says theyre proud to support this years candidates including Haven, Donal Boyle, Liam McGovern and Gabriel Puckey-Brockelsby from Omanu, Xavier Murphy and Nicholas Bodenstein from Pauanui, Joanne Parry from Pukehina and Nick Wagstaff from Waihi Beach.

"Providing free training for local lifeguards is our way of recognising the everyday heroes who do so much for our communities, keeping our beaches safer for everyone to enjoy."

Pauanuis Xavier Murphy says National Lifeguard School was amazing and it pushed the candidates to challenge not only what they think but also how they lifeguard through a mixture of theory and practical sessions.

My highlight was getting to jump out of the rescue helicopter- it was the most exciting thing Ive done through surf lifesaving, he says.

Xavier says being one of the Zespri scholarship recipients was an honour.

It made me feel stoked that they were willing to support me to train at what I love to do so I am able to be more effective at saving lives on the beach, he says.
The health warning issued last week for parts of Lake Taupo has now been lifted by the Medical Officer of Health.

Observation and water testing by Waikato Regional Council and Taupo District Council confirm that the algal bloom has dispersed in the affected areas of the lake for the time being.

Gene testing of samples collected last Friday indicates the algae was not producing toxin then.

The Medical Officer of Health, Dr Jim Miller, advises caution when enjoying any lake or river this summer.

The current warm conditions may encourage algae growth, so it is always safest to check the water before you get in. Look before you leap; if the water looks discoloured, smells unusual, if there is scum on the surface, or the water has green or brown particles suspended in it  then it is best to avoid contact with the water and swim or play somewhere else.

Waikato Regional Council senior water scientist, Bill Vant, says staff will be collecting samples from 12 of the lakes bathing beaches weekly, and conducting visual inspections for signs of algal bloom, as part of a wider monitoring programme.

With hot, calm conditions and the presence of plant nutrients, phosphorus and nitrogen in water, the conditions are right for blooms to occur in our regions waterways over summer. They can develop rapidly and unpredictably and in some cases can produce toxins that are harmful for people as well as animals.

So we have staff on standby over the Christmas-New Year period to respond to any reports from the public of algal blooms in our regions waterways. People who see what they think are algal blooms can report sightings to 0800 800 401.

Well also be continuing to work closely with our colleagues at Toi Te Ora Public Health, Taupo District Council and Tuwharetoa, he says.

Topia Rameka, Tuwharetoa Maori Trust Board chief executive, says he is very pleased with the latest results. It is good things can now return to normal and our whanau and community can continue to enjoy our moana.

He adds, It is also a timely reminder that Lake Taupo is a dynamic environment. The quality of our wai is paramount and we need to continue to look at ways to enhance and safeguard this precious resource.

Taupo District Council will continue monitoring its water supply intakes as part of its annual summer testing programme.

Private water supplies can also be reinstated now the warning has been lifted.

Up-to-date information on health warnings for the Bay of Plenty and Lakes districts is available through these channels:
Omanawa Falls Power Station Reserve is one step closer to a proposed upgrade that would enable public access.

The reserve, which is owned by Tauranga City Council, has always been closed to the public after several health and safety risks.

In spite of the no entry and warning signs, people continue to access the site, often leading to injury.

In March 2013, a 17-year-old girl fell and received pelvic injuries. In April 2013, a 20-year-old woman received head injuries after falling.

A 38-year-old father received serious back and shoulder injuries and his 12-year-old son received serious leg injuries in January 2015.

A 36-year-old French tourist had to be rescued after falling 10m off a cliff in October 2016, and in February this year another person was rescued after being injured in a fall.

In October, Councils Economic Development and Investment Committee discussed the possiblitly of new tracks and stairs.

They recommended that an upgrade of the reserve be funded through a mix of the 2018-2028 Long Term Plan and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employments Tourism Infrastructure Fund.

MBIE has now committed $1 million towards making the reserve a safe destination for locals and visitors, with the total cost of the improvements estimated at $2.7 million.

The next step is for Council to decide on whether the remaining $1.7 million should be included in the draft Long Term Plan. Then the plan will go to consultation, says Parks and Recreation manager Mark Smith.

If it does make it into the Long Term Plan, this hidden gem could be open by summer 2019.

The proposed project includes:
Lurrsens construction is world-renowned as an exercise in precision and skill across the largest yachts on the water, and Martha Ann is just one of many examples of this. An ocean-going giant with huge onboard spaces, this is an opportunity for 12 guests to explore the Caribbean on a timeless superyacht with relaxation and adventure at its core.

Once on board, the daunting profile becomes a home with expansive decks with a 12.8-metre beam providing cavernous interiors and open areas to gather both family and friends. Martha Ann is a five-star experience, with ample chance to enjoy breakfast on the aft deck, all the way to cocktails in the swim-up bar and dinner on the sundeck as the light hangs low over your chosen Caribbean backdrop.

Moving inside and Francois Zurettis style becomes just as part of the first impression as the looming, sleek and stylish profile of the yacht itself. Martha Ann was brought to life with classic appeal, with gold accents adorning seamless woodwork with marble flooring and onyx countertops creating an atmosphere of sophistication throughout.

While the large Martha Ann offers endless lifestyle elements on board - such as cinema rooms, jacuzzis, pools, gym and split-level Master Suite with private observation deck - the cruising opportunity across the Caribbean is engineered to work with the environment to enhance time on board.

The wealth of tenders and toys means guests can venture to nearby islands in style, break waves with jetskis and dive to the depths with SeaBobs, scuba gear and more. The huge beach club - mixed with the open sun deck - is the ideal space for sun-worshippers and guests looking to relax by the water.

Available for charter with IYC, this is one of the most reputable charter yachts across the huge fleet in the tropics this winter and easily makes our Caribbean Charter Special series for the myriad elements on board. Stay tuned for more top picks as the Antigua Charter Show reaches its peak this week.
Wednesday, 13 December, marked the 35th anniversary of a landmark event in Gibraltar, the opening of the border with Spain after a blockade imposed by General Franco in 1969 which lasted for 13 years.

Although Franco died in 1975, it was not until 1982 that the Spanish government, led by the PSOE socialist party, took the decision to reopen the border. This was described as a 'humanitarian gesture', although it was closely linked to Spain's desire to join the EEC, which it did in 1986. The border was opened to pedestrians at first and then, two years later, to traffic as well, on a 24-hour basis.

In a statement to mark the anniversary, the Gibraltar government stressed that people both sides of the border are resolved to work together for mutual benefit.
An old Spanish saying goes Donde hay grasas, mejor te lo pasas which roughly means that where there's fat you'll enjoy it more. This was reiterated by television chef Enrique Sanchez at the XV Feria de Chacina in Benaojan last weekend.

Benaojan is well known for its cold meats; in a town with just under 1,500 inhabitants there are 11 factories producing pork loin, chorizo, jamon and other cured products. Some of them have been in operation for over a hundred years.

Sanchez was nominated Benaojan's ambassador and following tradition was weighed on antique scales. His weight (93 kilos) in meat products were then donated to the NGO Los Angeles Malaguenos de la Noche (Malaga Angels of the Night), which provides food for the homeless and needy. Local journalist, Eski Macias, was nominated as 'Ambassador of the Zurrapa' (zurrapa is a meaty pork pate topped with a layer of white lard).

Elias Bendodo, president of the provincial government, Monsalud Bautista, tourism delegate for the Junta de Andalucia, and the town mayor Soraya Garcia, attended the inauguration ceremony.

Hundreds of visitors took advantage of the two bank holidays (Dia de la Constitucion and Dia de la Inmaculada Concepcion) to fill their larders and in preparation for the upcoming Christmas break.

Besides the cooked and cured meats there were traditional cakes, sweets, honey and a variety of breads to purchase and to taste. There were also demonstrations on how to make chorizo and the best way to fry sliced pork loin.
They originally intended to film in the Caribbean, but the recent hurricanes made that inadvisable so they decided on the Mediterranean instead.

The first option they considered was Barcelona as the location for the next season of the American series 'Snatch', featuring a group of young and ambitious British gangsters, but then Fresco Film, a company from Malaga, which produced Game of Thrones in Spain, suggested the Costa del Sol instead.

The destination fitted the script perfectly, because Malaga province receives more than a million British tourists a year. Why not bring them a group of hustlers? The proposal finally convinced those in charge of making the decision, and they opted for Malaga instead of Barcelona.

The political situation regarding independence for Catalonia was one of the factors they took into account, although the producer of Fresco Film, Peter Welter Soler, makes it clear that it wasn't relevant to the final decision.

Barcelona is a major audiovisual market, so what we had to do was show that Malaga has the industry and the professionals with the ability to make an international production of this type, he said earlier this week, and he also explained that the locations on the Costa del Sol are better suited to the needs of the production.

That's important because not only is the whole series going to be filmed in the province, but Malaga will also be the scenario for the plot, said Welter about this series, which will be filmed for four months from 23 January.

Heading this unusual group of criminals in 'Snatch' once again will be British actor Rupert Grint (redheaded Ron, inseparable friend of Harry Potter in the film saga), who flees with his gang to Malaga, where they continue with their frauds, robberies and other criminal activities.

From Marbella to Nerja, the whole Costa del Sol will be the setting for the new series, which will have ten episodes in total.

The series is set in the underworld and its tone could be described as halfway between a thriller and black humour.

It is an adaptation of Guy Ritchie's cult film 'Snatch', starring Brad Pitt and Benicio del Toro. The American producer Sony turned it into one of its most popular of series, and it proved so successful that it has led to this second season, which will have a striking change of scene and bring a British ambience to the light and warmth of Andalucia.

Casting for extras

There will be a casting for extras this weekend (Friday 15th and Saturday 16th, from 10am to 6pm) at the Polo de Contenido Digital, the digital content hub in the old tobacco factory in Malaga.

A wide variety of extras will be needed because of the number of episodes and the different scenes, but they are looking especially for unusual faces, says the director of Modexpor Casting, Rafael Guadamuro. The age range of the aspiring extras is from 18 to 70.

They are also looking for specific types of character, such as sea fishermen, boxers, crossfit experts, young women and people of African and gypsy origin.

The extras will need to be available for the whole period of filming, from 23 January to 15 May. The series, which was created by Alex de Rafkoff, can be seen on Crackle, Sony's streaming platform which is similar to Netflix and Amazon. It made its debut in the States in March, and has not yet been shown in Spain.

In the first season, 'Snatch' features a gang of young hustlers who become involved in a spiral of criminal activity after discovering a truckload of stolen gold bullion. As well as Rupert Grint, it features Luke Pasqualino ('Skins') and Ed Westwick ('Gossip Girl').
I was searching for a Christmas writing or story that would continue to change this heart of stone into a heart of flesh. For this is the time and season for such miracles to happen, a la Mr. Scrooge. But I had read Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" many times.

I did find a short story written by Oscar Wilde entitled "The Happy Prince."

The prince had lived his life behind great walls of a palace where no sorrow was allowed to enter. Even now he was a great statue, overlaid with gold, two eyes of rare sapphires and a great ruby inlaid in the pommel of his sword.

Set upon a great pedestal, he looked down upon the city. But often tears were seen running down the prince's cheeks. For now, he did see all the misery and poverty and war in the world that he had not seen while alive in the flesh.

He convinced a swallow to peck out the ruby and sapphires and gold flecks, and give them away to those in great need. In the end, his statue became so ugly the city fathers took down the lump of lead that remained.

I would not give the ending away if others also would like to read it. But what a meaningful story for this Christmas season.

Steve Russell, Clear Lake
Following years of negotiations between Spain's newly elected socialist party and Margaret Thatcher's conservative government, Spain finally lifted its blockade of Gibraltar on Wednesday 15 December 1982. The heavy black iron gates that separated the rock from mainland Spain were opened at midnight to a stream of tearful relatives, many of whom were looking forward to being reunited with family and friends at Christmas for the first time in 13 years.

About 1,000 people stood on each side of the border, which Franco sealed in 1969, as the Spanish civil guard unceremoniously unlocked the gates.

Spain's new socialist government decided to open the border as a &ldquohumanitarian gesture&rdquo for those families separated by the blockade. The opening of the border brought to an end a period of isolation begun by General Francisco Franco. The British government considered the Spanish restrictions to be unjustifiable and claimed it was inconceivable that the frontier should remain closed in an enlarged European Community, describing the restrictions as an act of hostility.

Before 1969, thousands of Spanish workers made their living in Gibraltar and a lively trade existed between La Linea and the Rock. When the gate was shut almost half the population of La Linea lost their jobs and Gibraltar looked to Morocco to supplement its workforce.

The British colony was relieved that the isolation was finally coming to an end; the Gibraltarians would no longer have to ask the Spanish authorities for permission to cross the border.

In January 1981, hopes were growing that the Spanish government would be able to present the case for opening the frontier in a favourable light to the Spanish public. A meeting between the prime ministers of the UK and Spain in early 1982 resulted in the reopening of the border on 15 December of that year.

However, despite the goodwill gesture by the Spanish authorities, the frontier was opened under tight restrictions, which only allowed access to Spanish citizens and inhabitants of Gibraltar. It banned any British or foreign tourists, as well as cars and commercial vehicles crossing from Gibraltar to Spain.

The government of Gibraltar reacted angrily to the restrictions and threatened to retaliate. The ruling council of ministers voted not to keep the Gibraltar side of the border open 24 hours a day like the Spaniards, deciding instead to close it from 1am to 6am. However, this was overruled by the British Foreign Office.

It would take another two years of patient negotiations before restrictions were finally lifted on 5 February 1985, allowing free movement between Spain and Gibraltar.
Local and foreign-resident journalists and media professionals look forward to working together following the recent signing of a cooperation agreement between the Costa Press Club and its Spanish counterpart the 'Asociacion de la Prensa de Malaga y el Colegio de Periodistas en Malaga'. Professional training and employment opportunities are among areas where the two organisations hope to collaborate.

The Costa Press Club, which is the voice of foreign-resident journalism, was represented at the meeting in Malaga by the club's president, Jesper Sander Pedersen, and secretary Joanna Styles, while the agreement was signed for the association representing Spanish media professionals by its president Rafael Salas and vice president Carlos Perez Ariza.

Sander Pedersen said that in the international environment all media professionals work in, it is particularly important to maintain strong links and exchange information and experience.

Salas emphasised the essential role of the foreign media not only in communicating with foreign residents, but also in taking the image of Spain abroad.
The city's parks have been home to non-native species of birds for several years now and the colony of Monk parakeets, which are everywhere, continues to grow. Now a pair of Scaly-headed parakeets (Pionus Maximiliani) have been spotted flitting through the trees and they have a chick in their nest.

They were discovered by Antonio Roman, an ornithologist and lecturer in the Animal Biology Department of Malaga university. The Scaly-headed parrot originates from South America and the discovery, according to the expert, is extremely important as this is the first time that the parrot has been found living wild outside of its native environment. It is usually found in Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil.

We were able to watch the adults feeding the chick during a field trip with a group of students, explained Roman.

Including this new find, there are now four species of parrot breeding in Malaga city. The most numerous is the Monk parakeet, with more than 4,000 examples. Next is the Rose-ringed parakeet but with a lot fewer examples (between 130 and 140). Both species are considered invasive and it is illegal to sell them commercially here. The third most common species seen in Malaga is the Senegal parrot (very attractive with a deep yellow stomach). It is harder to spot as it usually stays hidden in the vegetation. It too nests in the city-centre park but up until now only five specimens have been seen. Now the Scaly-headed parrot has arrived and its numbers are expected to increase given the abundance of food available.

There are also up to eleven different species of individual parrots loose in the capital and at least one hybrid between the Rose-ringed and an Alexandrine parakeet.

Malaga is ideal for exotic birds, the large number of rubber trees (ficus) and Erythrinas (whose flowers the birds feed on) offer an endless supply of food, said Roman. Lentils and rice are given to them by locals and the parrots compete with the pigeons for food from the bins.

Although the invaders can be a nuisance and noisy, the disadvantages are compensated by the beauty of these birds and the attraction for tourists. Roman admits that this is fine as long as the birds do not venture out of the city into agricultural areas.

Monk parakeet Over 4,000.

Rose-ringed parakeet 130-140.

Senegal parrot At least five.

Scaly-headed parrot At least four.

11 other species Not breeding at the moment.
The high profile defendants in the ERE case filed into a Seville court on Wednesday for the first day of a trial that is expected to go on for several months.

Among the accused are two former presidents of the Socialist-run Junta de Andalucia, Manuel Chaves and Jose Antonio Grinan, as well as 20 former officials at the regional government, among them six ex-ministers.

The trial will scrutinise the alleged corrupt practice and embezzlement within the regional authority over almost an entire decade between 2001 and 2010.

The case broke into the headlines in 2013 when several arrests were made in connection with an investigation into irregularities concerning the granting of subsidies to help struggling businesses.

False redundancies

Most of the grants under scrutiny were to help firms pay redundancy and early retirement packages in order to reduce their workforces and stay in business.

The case got its name from the acronym ERE (which stands for 'expedientes de regulacion de empleo') used in cases of mass redundancies.

The investigation revealed years of apparent abuse of the system: numerous names that appeared on the lists of employees to be paid off belonged to people who had never worked for the firms applying for the funds, and some of the firms had been set up with the sole aim of receiving the subsidies.

The suspects arrested included Francisco Javier Guerrero, former director general of Employment, and his driver who allegedly received benefits through firms created for the purpose and spent the money on cocaine and parties. Another branch of the case involved over-inflated commissions for insurers and intermediaries.

Manuel Chaves, who was president of the Junta de Andalucia between 1990 and 2009, is among the seven defendants accused of corrupt practice. The prosecution believes that he was aware of the opaque system being run by the agency IFA-IDEA responsible for processing the subsidy claims. Magdalena Alvarez, Andalusian minister for Finance between 1994 and 2004, who, like Chaves, went on to become a central government minister in Madrid in the cabinet of Socialist prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, is among this group of seven who face a ten-year ban on holding public office - the penalty called for by the public prosecution - or a two-year prison sentence called for by the PP party's prosecution case.

Embezzlement by omission

Chaves' successor, Jose Antonio Grinan, faces charges of embezzlement as well as corrupt practice. Grinan was regional finance minister between 2004 and 2009 and president from 2009 to 2013. The prosecutor believes that he not only knew about the system but also failed to act on warnings from auditors about the inappropriate use of funds. This, says the prosecution, amounts to embezzlement by omission. Grinan faces a six-year prison sentence and a 30-year ban on public office. The 14 others accused of the same two offences face between six and eight years in prison.

This is not the first time that former presidents of a Spanish region and officials have been on trial for a criminal offence, however it is the first time that the high profile defendants are not accused of increasing their own personal wealth through an illegal system.

Wednesday's court session involved the prosecutors reading out their accusations, calling for a total of 114 years in prison for the defendants. Thursday saw the defence lawyers laying down their case. The representatives of the two former presidents stated that their clients neither took part in the awarding of the subsidies nor knew about the irregularities.
Political parties in Catalonia are in the final stages of campaigning for the election to the regional parliament next Thursday, 21 December.

Recent opinion polls have shown that the combined votes of the pro-independence parties would give them the largest bloc of MPs but just short of an overall majority.

The regional election was called after the national government intervened in October when regional MPs in the last parliament passed an illegal declaration of independence.

None of the pro-independence parties have formed a political coalition this time round, and are fighting the campaign separately.

The polls seemed to show support for the left-wing republican ERC party declining and growing for the Junts per Catalunya candidacy of the ousted former president, Carles Puigdemont. Puigdemont remains in Belgium with four ex-ministers and it isn't clear when he will return to Spain.

The largest of the unionist parties looks set to be Ciudadanos, who have widened their campaigning out of the larger cities into smaller towns in pro-independence areas.

Another police raid

The campaign has been livened up this week by a further raid linked to the illegal independence referendum on 1 October. On Thursday police entered the offices of a courier and postal company in Hospitalet.

The final return of some 40 religious artworks from a Catalan museum to a monastery in Sijena, in neighbouring Aragon, also caused upset among separatist supporters. A court has ordered that they had been sold to Catalonia illegally.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who travelled to Brussels yesterday, Thursday, for a dinner with the 27 other EU leaders, did so on the back of a setback for her Brexit agenda in the House of Commons.

MPs, including 11 Tory rebels, backed an amendment giving them a legal guarantee of a vote on the final Brexit deal.

In theory this gives Parliament the final say on a deal and could therefore force ministers to adopt a 'softer' Brexit to avoid delays in negotiations and the final implementation.
After making such a grand entrance to the polling station on his gallant steed Tuesday, how sad to watch Roy Moore slowly ride into the sunset, slumped in the saddle, his hat pulled low over his face, a rolled cigarette dangling from his dry cracked lips. Even the so-called President of the United States could not salvage a Senate victory for him in a redneck state.

The tide is starting to flow from the sandy shore into the dark abyss of certain political collapse for Trump the Tweet Twerp. I dislike being disrespectful to the so-called president, but he deserves no respect because he has earned none.

Shame on the Republican Party and blind-sided moronic voters believing his constant lying and gloating about himself. He has accomplished nothing to make this country better, only to divide us and try to destroy much of what President Obama accomplished. I am more than sick and tired of his giving himself credit for what Obama accomplished to put the country on the right path.

Bush W. put tax cuts together with a 10-year unjust war that nearly collapsed the U.S. and world economy. The war destabilized the Middle East and let in Al-Qaeda and gave rise to ISIS. Obama inherited the war and a deeply failing economy on the verge of collapse.

By the end of Obama's terms the jobless rate had dropped from 10.5 percent to 4.7 percent, the stock market had tripled, the wars were drawing down, health care had been reformed, big banks regulated, the Iran Nuclear deal made, and B.O. saved the auto industry along with many other major achievements.

Trump is taking credit for Obama's legacy. The Russian investigation will clean house and bring back respect for our great country.

Steve Epperly, Mason City
An 18-year-old Marion Senior High School student is being held without bond at the regional jail in Abingdon following an investigation into a Wednesday afternoon bomb threat at MSHS, said Smyth County Sheriff Chip Shuler.

Shuler said Austin Taylor Shepherd's arrest came after his office received tips that Shepherd was involved. Shuler said investigators later obtained a confession from Shepherd in an interview.

The Smyth County Sheriff's Office and Smyth County School system offered a $500 cash reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the responsible party.

Shepherd is charged with communicating a bomb threat.

Shuler said Thursday that he will ask Smyth County Commonwealth's Attorney Roy Evans to make civil restitution part of any plea agreements for this and future cases of this nature.

Shuler said he hopes the investigation and subsequent arrest will send a strong message to students.
A local group formed earlier this year is working toward safe, accessible, affordable housing in Floyd County. In partnership with the faith-based community, business leaders, non-profit organizations, government agencies and individuals, FISH (Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing) has already made a difference in three homes.

In late 2016, as part of its annual assessment, New River Community Action found there was a lack of available housing for families and individuals on restricted income. NRCA made a call to action to the community, and a first meeting with agencies and others groups was held on March 2017; represented were the Floyd County Board of Supervisors and county administration, Habitat for Humanity, New River Valley Home Consortium, NRCA, Plenty!, New River Valley Regional Commission, and the faith-based community. At the meeting, three areas of focus were identified: home repairs and renovations; education; and future housing.

There are 400 vacant houses in this county, based on the 2015 census, Susan Icove of NRCA commented. Those structures could be potential homes.

The cost of housing here is high, she added, and the income base is low.

Supervisor Linda DeVito Kuchenbuch, who is a realtor, said, Some people are renting their homes out to keep their mortgages, but they cant rent for any less.

She said there is a need to assist with aging in place homes and also those families with two incomes with an income level that disqualifies them for assistance.

Help is needed for people who are trapped (with inadequate housing) and cannot move, said Icove, stating that she had seen a mobile home being heated by an oven, homes with water being carried from the next mobile home, and homes with holes in the ceiling. Were trying to get people in safe, dry places, but they are stuck because there is no safe place to move to.

Kuchenbuch stated their real estate office gets five calls a week with requests for rental housing. There is no rental stock. She said she is glad FISH is working on solutions to the problem and is happy she is involved with the group. This has allowed me in my role as a public servant to forge a real bond between the public and private sector, and those who come to the table also share in that feeling.

Our group realizes that many in our faith community have had this stewardship in place, Kuchenbuch said, and we will reach out to the many churches that want to be part of the FISH mission.

FISH projects this year have included assistance in a single mothers home. Icove explained there was leak and water damage that had to be repaired. The floor was fixed, and the front of a bathtub was repaired; a new kitchen counter and backsplash and fan for the stove were added. The work, accomplished with volunteer labor and $1,200 in materials and donated supplies from Joe Gallimore of Wills Ridge, was completed in 2 days. In another home of a disabled individual, there were holes in the ceiling and the homeowner was using buckets to catch the water, Icove said. We gave them a whole new roof in 2 days. The work was completed with professional volunteers from Omnibuild and their equipment working with other volunteers. Wills Ridge also contributed materials to that project, which cost $1,500, with $500 of that amount given by the family. The third project for 2017 included work for an aging in place individual. Icove said the man was using 2 ramps for his wheelchair. FISH volunteers made him a solid ramp. We also rebuilt the threshold into his house so he could drive forward instead of backing in the house.They also installed a new comfort height toilet and added a restored storm door from Habitat for Humanity.

Bennie Sullivan from Omnibuild guided two of the projects. He moved to Floyd 5 years ago and feels like FISH has been a deeply satisfying venue that demonstrates a strong sense of community. I feel honored and grateful to be a part of this team, and look forward doing more good work in the future! EVERYONE deserves a safe affordable place to live.

As FISH goes into the New Year, it will be in a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, Icove noted. We will be the FISH Chapter of New River Valley Habitat for Humanity. With the partnership, FISH will have access to a network already set up for volunteer registrations and donations.

For 2018, FISH would like to identify 6-8 repair projects. Icove commented that FISH wants to help housing situations that will last. Needed are more skilled construction laborers and volunteers; visit safehousingfloyd@gmail.com. Volunteer coordinator is Rebecca Shannon.

Donations, which are tax deductible, are also being accepted. Please write checks out to Habitat for Humanity and note in memo line: for Floyd FISH. Checks may be mailed to Habitat for Humanity NRV, 675 N Franklin St., Christiansburg, VA 24073.

You may also donate online. 1. Donate button is on the Habitat for Humanity of the New River Valley website http://www.habitatnrv.org/ - go to donate page and select the box that says Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing (FISH). 2. Use this link: https://connect.clickandpledge.com/w/Form/e338909b-60df-4924-8ca9-8f6e9cc7f6d7 Again check the box that says Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing (FISH)

Follow the group on Facebook at Floyd Initiative for Safe Housing.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trinidad Drilling Ltd. (TSX:TDG) ("Trinidad" or "the Company") announces its 2018 capital spending budget of approximately $40 million, comprised largely of maintenance capital to be spent on its North American fleet. In addition, Trinidad has been awarded a contract in Bahrain with operations expected to start in early 2018.



Our 2018 capital budget is mainly focused on maintenance capital that allows existing rigs to continue working and enables additional rigs to go back to work. This type of capital spending provides additional operating days for our rigs and enhances returns for our investors, said Brent Conway, Trinidads President and Chief Executive Officer. Our 2017 upgrade program is largely complete and these rigs are now working in the field at improved dayrates. We expect activity levels to be higher in 2018, driven by a full-year contribution of these rigs and improved year-over-year industry conditions.

Trinidads 2018 capital spending budget, including Trinidad Drilling International (TDI) and an earnout payment relating to Trinidads 2017 acquisition of RigMinder, is as follows:

$ million Maintenance capital 38.0 Growth capital 2.0 Trinidad 2018 capital spending budget 40.0 TDI capital (Trinidads 60% share) 1.5 2018 capital budget including TDI 41.5 RigMinder acquisition earnout payment (US$10 million) 12.5

Maintenance capital included in the 2018 budget is expected to be split evenly between the Companys US and Canadian fleet, while the upgrade capital will be spent on adding generators and upgrading pressure pumping systems on rigs in the US fleet.

TDI was recently awarded a contract for one rig to work in Bahrain. Minor upgrades will be made to a rig currently located in Saudi Arabia and the rig will be moved, at the customers expense, to Bahrain in early 2018. Drilling operations are expected to start early in the second quarter of 2018 and operate for approximately 18 months. TDI expects to spend approximately $1.5 million on upgrades to this rig which will be funded from TDIs existing cash balances. Given the appealing cost structure in Bahrain, TDI anticipates this rig generating attractive contributions. Trinidad is currently reviewing additional opportunities for its international operations and expects to be able to provide further clarity on these opportunities in the first half of 2018.

An earnout payment relating to the RigMinder acquisition of US$10 million is also expected to be paid in 2018. This earnout payment is contingent on RigMinder reaching specific deployment milestones in 2018, which based on positive customer feedback on its technologies, Trinidad expects to be met.

In 2018, Trinidad expects general and administrative costs (excluding share-based payment expenses and third party recoverable costs) to be approximately $53 million, a reduction of 9% from the 2017 expected level of $58 million. Trinidad remains focused on cost control and continues to monitor its costs closely.

Trinidad is an industry-leading contract driller, providing safe, reliable, expertly-designed equipment operated by well-trained and experienced personnel. Trinidad's drilling fleet is one of the most adaptable, technologically advanced and competitive in the industry. Trinidad provides contract drilling and related services in Canada, the US, Middle East and Mexico.

Trinidad is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Companys common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol TDG. For more information, please visit www.trinidaddrilling.com.

For further information, please contact:

Brent Conway

President and Chief Executive Officer

403.265.6525

Lesley Bolster

Chief Financial Officer

403.265.6525

Lisa Ottmann

Vice President, Investor Relations

403.294.4401

email: investors@trinidaddrilling.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This document contains certain forward-looking statements relating to Trinidads plans, strategies, objectives, expectations and intentions. The use of any of the words "expect", "anticipate", "contingent", "continue", "estimate", "objective", "ongoing", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe", "plans", "intends", "confident", "might" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information or statements. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking statements throughout this document. The forward-looking information and statements included in this document are not guarantees of future performance and should not be unduly relied upon. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections that involve a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated and described in the forward-looking statements. In particular, but without limiting the foregoing, this document may contain forward-looking information and statements pertaining to:

the assumption that Trinidad's customers will honour their long-term contracts, and Trinidad's ability to sign future long-term contracts;

future liquidity levels;

fluctuations in the demand for Trinidads services;

the ability for Trinidad to attract and retain qualified personnel, in particular field staff to crew the Companys rigs;

the existence of competitors, technological changes and developments in the oilfield services industry;

the existence of operating risks inherent in the oilfield services industry;

assumptions respecting internal capital expenditure programs and expenditures by oil and gas exploration and production companies;

assumptions regarding commodity prices, in particular oil and natural gas;

assumptions respecting supply and demand for commodities, in particular oil and natural gas;

assumptions regarding Trinidads future capital expenditure budget;

assumptions regarding Trinidads future activity levels;

assumptions regarding Trinidads ability to generate returns and contributions;

assumptions regarding TDIs ability to fund upgrades from its cash balances;

assumptions regarding timing of future operations and updates on Trinidads international opportunities;

assumptions regarding foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates;

assumptions around future general & administrative cost levels;

the existence of regulatory and legislative uncertainties;

the possibility of changes in tax laws; and general economic conditions including the capital and credit markets;

assumptions made about our future banking covenants and liquidity; and

assumptions made about future performance and operations of joint ventures and partnership arrangements.

Trinidad cautions that the foregoing list of assumptions, risks and uncertainties is not exhaustive. Additional information on these and other factors that could affect Trinidads business, operations or financial results are described in reports filed with securities regulatory authorities, accessible through the SEDAR website (www.sedar.com) including but not limited to Trinidads annual management discussion and analysis, financial statements, Annual Information Form and Management Information Circular. The forward-looking information and statements contained in this document speak only as of the date of this document and Trinidad assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as may be required pursuant to applicable securities laws.
State College, PA, Dec. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EnergyCAP, Inc., developer of the widely known EnergyCAP utility bill and energy management software, is pleased to announce that it has been honored as the Technology Company of the Year by the Chamber of Business & Industry of Centre County (CBICC).



Awards were presented during the CBICCs 2017 Excellence In Business Awards banquet held December 7. Approximately 250 local business leaders attended the event, which is held annually to recognize the top performers within Centre Countys business and entrepreneurial community. The award was provided to EnergyCAP in recognition of the companys long-term success and dedication to its Four Pillars of Success:

Product Leadership

Operational Excellence

Customer Intimacy

Good Stewardship

Steve Heinz, EnergyCAPs Founder and CEO, accepted the award, stating We are truly grateful to the CBICC and the Centre County business community for honoring EnergyCAP as a leader among an impressive group of nominees. Many local technology companies trace their origins to Penn State University and Pennsylvania technology incubators, so were honored to be the 2017 award winner. Technology is both exasperating and exhilarating! On the exasperating side, were currently working on the seventh major generation and 26th major release of our software since 1982. The pace of technology advances keeps our outstanding team challenged. But its also exhilaratingtechnology advances allow us to offer ever more power, more intelligence and more money-saving features to our 2,000 major clients."

EnergyCAP was one of eight companies nominated for the Tech Company of the Year award and follows in the footsteps of long-term partner, AccuWeather, Inc., the 2016 award recipient. Over its 37-year history, EnergyCAP has received numerous awards and recognitions:

Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies (Five times)

ENERGY STAR Partner of Year (Five times)

Environmental Leader s Product of the Year (2015)

s Product of the Year (2015) Pennsylvania Business Central s Top 100 Organizations

s Top 100 Organizations Steve Heinz, CEO, International Energy Engineer of the Year from Association of Energy Engineers (2013)

Top Adoption-Friendly Workplace (2 times)

Stevie Awards for Sales & Marketing (2 times)

Certified Veteran-Owned Small Business

EnergyCAP, Inc. provides tailored energy information management solutions to public schools, higher education, government, and commercial organizations. At the core of each ECI implementation is the award-winning EnergyCAP software. Since 1982, EnergyCAP has helped more than 10,000 energy and facilities managers in 3,000 organizations derive value from their utility bills and energy data.

About EnergyCAP, Inc.

EnergyCAP, Inc. publishes industry-leading software tools that help organizations derive value from utility bills. For more than 35 years, the award-winning EnergyCAP software has helped more than 10,000 energy managers across 3,000 organizations to track 35 million utility bills and document $5 billion in energy savings. Learn more about EnergyCAP at http://www.energycap.com. Their Canadian representative is Gerald Rubenovitch at EnergyCAP Canada Inc., 416-362-8999, www.EnergyCAP.ca.
This page no longer exists or may have been moved.If you believe this is a mistake please email
IMO outlines next five years

The IMO assembly has adopted its strategic plan for 2018-2023.

This included seven newly-identified strategic directions for the organisation, in order to support the implementation of the UNs sustainable development goals and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. The seven were: *Improve implementation  ensuring regulations are effectively, efficiently and consistently implemented and enforced. *Integrate new and advancing technologies in the regulatory framework - balancing the benefits derived from new and advancing technologies against safety and security concerns, the impact on the environment and on international trade facilitation, the potential costs to the industry, and their impact on personnel, both on board and ashore. *Respond to climate change - developing appropriate, ambitious and realistic solutions to minimise shipping's contribution to air pollution and its impact on climate change. *Engage in ocean governance  engaging in the processes and mechanisms by which the use of the oceans and their resources are regulated and controlled. *Enhance global facilitation and security of international trade - addressing things like arrival and departure formalities, documentation and certification, and generally reducing the administrative burdens that surround ship operation. *Ensure regulatory effectiveness - improving the actual process of developing regulations, to make them more effective; gathering more data, and being better and smarter at using it to make decisions; getting better feedback from member states and the industry and improving the way IMO learns from experience and feeds those lessons back into the regulatory process. *Ensure organisational effectiveness - increasing the overall effectiveness of IMO, including the member states, non-governmental organisations, donors, the secretariat all the many stakeholders in the organisation as a whole. Among other resolutions, the IMO adopted revised procedures for Port State Control (PSC). This resolution contains a comprehensive compilation of guidelines relevant to PSC, updating the previous procedures adopted in 2011 (resolution A.1052(27)). The revisions include, in particular, guidelines on the ISM Code; the certification of seafarers, hours of rest and manning; and procedures regarding voluntary early implementation of amendments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention and related mandatory instruments. Also adopted was a resolution calling on states to consider ratifying a key treaty, which will provide a global regime for liability and compensation in the event of an incident involving the international or domestic carriage by sea of hazardous and noxious substances (HNS), such as chemicals, LPG and LNG. The assembly adopted a resolution to allow for the delegation of authority to issue certificates of insurance under the International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, 1992 (the 1992 Civil Liability Convention) and the 2010 HNS Convention. Unlike the Bunkers Convention 2001, the 2002 Athens Convention and the 2007 Nairobi Wreck Removal Convention, the 1992 Civil Liability Convention and the 2010 HNS Convention do not provide an explicit framework for the delegation of authority to issue certificates of insurance. This resolution confirmed that a state party to the 1992 Civil Liability Convention or the 2010 HNS Convention can authorise an institution or an organisation recognised by it to issue the certificates of insurance or other financial security required by these Conventions. At the meeting, the 40-member IMO Council was elected for the next biennium - 2018 to 2019.




At Marintec, MAN Diesel & Turbo (MDT) extended its technical co-operation framework agreement with the China Classification Society (CCS).

This update strengthens the co-operation between the two companies in the areas of ship design, ship-type research & development, ship power, ship automation, environmental protection, intelligent ship and battery solutions.

The original agreement was signed in 2013.

Jeffrey Ang, MDT vice president, head of engine and marine systems Asia/Pacific and Sun Feng CCS vice president, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective companies.

Ang said: This agreement represents a new start in our collaboration with CCS, one which I am certain will bring us more opportunities and successes. China is one of the most important markets for us already, accounting for more than 12% of our total revenue. And we see great growth opportunities here and want to deepen our partnership with the Chinese economy.

CCS and MAN had a very good co-operation in the past years. And we believe the agreement will help us to explore and carry out collaboration within the areas of common advantages, said Sun Feng at the signing ceremony.

In April, 2015, CCS awarded MDTs entire 4-stroke engine portfolio the worlds first SCR IMO Tier III Approval in Principle, which represented an important milestone in their collaboration, the engine manufacturer said.
ShipServ monitors supplier performance

E-procurement platform, ShipServ has launched the Supplier Performance Report, the latest addition to its monitoring and analytics tools.

This report provides shipowners and managers using ShipServ with a host of key data on the procurement performance of every supplier used, enabling them to analyse trends, and identify where improvements can be made, enabling relationships with suppliers can be enhanced and fully optimised. It brings together a host of procurement data on every supplier that a shipowner or manager has traded with through ShipServ over a specific period, from 12 weeks to three years. This includes transaction totals, quote, and win rates, response times, through to price and time sensitivity analysis, most commonly bought items and spend history, as well as the quality level, and payment terms that have been quoted. This data is installed in an easy-to-use, online report, which is updated daily. Unique to ShipServ, the tool shows procurement teams two benchmarks - an individual supplier against the average of all suppliers trading with them, and also against an average of all suppliers trading on ShipServ. The data highlights key procurement trends, and indicates where improvements can be made to create a better and more effective working relationship between the buyer and the supplier. For example, slow response times or high quote variances could be due to poor data or catalogue management, which, once identified, can be positively addressed to drive improvements. The Supplier Performance Report provides shipowners and managers with real knowledge and intelligence on key dimensions of the relationship with their suppliers so they can have more informed discussions and further develop and enhance their working relationship, said Kim Skaarup, ShipServ CEO. Its the latest step in our ongoing mission of providing insights to maximise the positive collaboration and information exchange between buyers and suppliers. We are investing heavily in new reporting tools for buyers. Our sweet spot is in spend analysis and benchmarking and in the near future you will see us launching new analysis and insight tools specifically aimed at C-level executives and procurement directors, he said. In addition to the report, ShipServ has launched its IMPA spend tracker and price benchmark tool. This provides shipowners and managers with an online view of all the IMPA coded products that they have purchased, instantly showing the quantity, average unit price, and total spend. It also has the capability to analyse the benchmark unit price of a product, which is the average unit price from all the buyers using ShipServ. Procurement managers can then compare the benchmark price of a product against the actual price that they have paid, and calculate the total potential overspend or underspend.




US crude exports overtakes products exports

Since the US lifted its ban on crude oil exports in December, 2015, in September and October, this year, increased demand from Asia and Europe caused US seaborne crude oil exports to surpass the export of oil products in terms of bill tonne/miles.

This is due to US crude oil being shipped twice the distance of products, BIMCO said in a recent report. In October, seaborne crude oil exports amounted to 46 bill tonne/miles, whereas US products exports was equivalent to 43 bill tonne/miles. Despite crude oil exports being half the amount of product exports in October, 2017 (in terms of volume) it is now more important to the tanker sector. This is due to the average sailing distance per exported tonne of crude oil being more than double the distance of the exported oil products. BIMCOs chief shipping analyst, Peter Sand, commented: The increased US crude oil exports during 2017 benefits the crude oil tanker shipping industry. The demand on that trade is up by 151%, compared to last year. Not only are the volumes more than doubling, the sailing distances are also increasing as well. US crude oil exports are now more important to shipping than US oil product exports. Asia and Europe are the importers demanding most US crude oil in 2017. With Asia in particular being responsible for the longer sailing distances, Sand explained. For the first 10 months of 2017, the US crude oil exports by sea increased 151%, compared to the same period last year. This amounts to an additional 20 mill tonnes of crude oil being available to the shipping market, equivalent to an extra 7.5 VLCC cargoes being exported per month, compared to 2016. While the average distance per exported tonne of US crude oil for the first 10 months of 2016 was 4,277 nautical miles, for the same period this year, the distance was 7,090 nautical miles. In October alone, Europe took an amount of crude oil similar to the amount imported in each of the previous quarters of 2017. The average sailing distance dropped slightly from 3Q17, but still remained above 7,000 nautical miles. In terms of volume, the three largest importers of US seaborne crude oil this year were China, Canada and the UK. China is by far the main player, importing 25% of total exports, while Canada imported 15% and the UK 9%. Despite Canada being one of the largest importers in terms of volumes, this generates low tonne/miles, due to the close geographical proximity to the US. BIMCOs recent report covering Chinese oil imports showed that the Middle Eastern countries share of Chinese crude oil import declined three years in a row. China imported 55% from the Middle East in 2015, whilst importing 45% during the first 10 months of 2017. Countries, such as the US, Angola, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and UK all experienced rising Chinese imports. China is diversifying their crude oil supplier portfolio by shifting away from being too dependent on Middle Eastern crude oil. China sourcing more crude oil from the US instead of the Middle East benefits the crude oil tanker industry with longer distances. As 97% of all seaborne US crude oil is exported from the US Gulf, the sailing distance to China is double the distance of Middle Eastern exports to China and thereby tonnage is tied up for longer periods, benefiting crude oil tanker demand, Sand explained. Texas based ports market share of exports has surged. Some 79% of all US crude exported via sea was loaded in Texas during the first 10 months of 2017, up from 69% for the same period in 2016. In terms of volume, the Texas loading area has ramped up its export of crude oil by 186% for the first 10 months of 2017, compared to the same period in 2016. This amounts to an additional export of 17.3 mill tonnes, 85% of the total increase in US seaborne crude oil exports. The most influential ports are Corpus Christi, Beaumont, Houston and Gramercy, exporting 33%, 21%, 15% and 14% of US crude oil, respectively. The four ports accounted for 83% of the total US seaborne crude exports. Since 2016, when Corpus Christi exported 24% of US seaborne crude oil, the port has developed into by far the largest crude oil export port in the US. The port will have VLCC loading terminals by the end of 2018. Therefore, crude oil destined for China will travel 15,000 nautical miles instead of 10,000. This will bring considerable extra tonne/miles to the crude tanker shipping industry, BIMCO concluded.




Thank you for reading!

Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue.
Washington, D.C., Dec. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) applauds the FCCs decision to roll back outdated and burdensome regulations and approve the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

Javier Palomarez, President & CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), issued the following statement following the official announcement of the FCC decision: We at the USHCC applaud Chairman Pais leadership at the FCC and commend his decision to overturn intrusive internet regulations. As a member of the FCCs advisory committee on diversity and digital empowerment, I remain committed to ensuring everyone throughout our community has the opportunity to thrive in a 21st century economy and stand behind the Chairmans decision. Moving forward, the USHCC will continue to encourage Congress to make certain the internet remains free and open for everyone and consumers are protected.

About the USHCC

The USHCC actively promotes the economic growth, development and interests of more than 4.4 million Hispanic-owned businesses, that combined, contribute over $700 billion to the American economy every year. It also advocates on behalf of 260 major American corporations and serves as the umbrella organization for more than 200 local chambers and business associations nationwide. For more information, visit ushcc.com. Follow us on Twitter @USHCC.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b8e9fb33-b4cc-467f-a7c2-497426c6862e
Authorities arrest a Texas woman for felon injury to a child, after she subjected her son to 323 hospital visits and 13 major surgeries.

The child is now eight years old and between 2009 and 2016, he's been in and out of the hospital because his mother insisted that he was severely ill. 34-year-old Kaylene Bowen, suspected to suffer from Munchausen by Proxy, repeatedly convinced doctors that her son needed several medical procedures that were in fact unnecessary.

Munchausen By Proxy

Caregivers with the mental disorder called Munchausen by Proxy often make up an injury or an illness to get medical care for a person close to them, in this case, Bowen's son. Doctor Marc Feldman, an MSBP expert, notes that people with MSBP frequently shop for doctors and hospitals, visiting many emergency rooms within a large area, pleading for medical care. Since they often switch doctors and hospitals, one doctor may not even be aware of the diagnostic tests or procedures already conducted on the patient elsewhere, so they have to perform them again themselves.

According to Feldman, MSBP is among the deadliest forms of child abuse, with a nine percent mortality rate among reported cases. Mothers with MSBP are typically master manipulators and liars, managing to successfully deceive others into believing them.

Texas Mom Arrested

Bowen started taking her son, Christopher, to doctors early on, soon after his birth. Court documents showed that the child has gone through several surgeries and invasive procedures including a feeding tube. His mother even tried to get him on the list for a lung transplant and even signed a Do Not Resuscitate order when he was five.

Doctors eventually started questioning how sick Christopher really was and reported the case to Child Protective Services. After an investigation last month, CPS concluded that Christopher was not ill. The child went through all of those procedures, surgeries, tests, and hospital visits for nothing as he was healthy.

Father Blames Faulty System

Ryan Crawford, Christopher's father, has been trying to get custody of his son and stop this madness but had no success. He failed to convince judges that Bowen was the sick one and not Christopher and he even lost visitation rights because a judge believed the mother.

Crawford said he tried to convince family court judges in Dallas County that his son was fine, but Bowen kept lamenting that Christopher was dying and his father was simply in denial. The father feels the system failed him and allowed this situation to go on for years.

Crawford met Bowen about 10 years ago and they dated on and off for roughly two years, during which Bowen got pregnant. The man says that Bowen started showing signs of MSBP early on, and it only got worse in time. According to him, Bowen acted oddly even during the pregnancy, calling at night pretending that she was in the hospital when in fact she was not. She gave birth to Christopher prematurely, but otherwise, the newborn was healthy.

Crawford adds that Bowen would constantly claim that Christopher would either refuse to drink his milk or would throw it up when he did drink it. In time, the mother's claims regarding her son's health escalated and the alleged illnesses were increasingly severe. She even claimed that her son had terminal cancer, and raised money through crowdfunding pages, claiming that her son needs a lung transplant, leg braces, and heart surgery.

Bowen was arrested last week and her bail is set to $150,000. Christopher is currently in foster care until CPS sorts this out. A hearing will take place next week.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
At an event in San Francisco, Microsoft announced a slew of improvements coming to Bing, including AI-powered features and Reddit integration.

What these updates aim to achieve is to yield better search results and offer an easy way to comb through thousands of subreddits.

Intelligent Search

First off, Microsoft is highlighting Intelligent Search, and according to the company, it allows users to interact with Bing more naturally and get comprehensive answers.

For starters, there's the feature called Intelligent Answers, and it's running with "state-of-the-art" machine reading. That means the search engine can parse text and glean meaning from various content.

As an example, Bing will now provide more than one reputable source to validate its answers so that users can have more confidence in their authenticity.

More than that, it will even offer different perspectives on certain topics in a neat manner. For instance, a search for "Is coffee good for you?" will yield a comparison between the benefits and negative effects of the subject. It's not limited to products either, as an inquiry for "Pilates vs Yoga" will yield a table that summarizes the factors that differentiate one subject from the other.

In event that there are multiple answers to a question, it'll yield a carousel of answers instead to give users all the info they need concerning the topic.

Microsoft is also throwing in a feature that makes search results more digestible by providing an analogy for them.

That way, when a user searches for "How big is Afghanistan?" they'll get not only the measurement of the country but also something that'll put things into perspective. In this case, Bing will inform the user that Afghanistan is 251,827 square miles and that it's about equal to the size of Texas.

"We want to reduce the number of times that people read a number and can't make sense of it. And we want to do that by providing some context, or an analogy, or perspective, that puts it in more familiar terms usually related to their everyday experience," Jake Hofman, a researcher at Microsoft's New York lab, said.

In addition, users can refine search results if they need help to zero in on certain answers, as Bing will now ask clarifying questions. There's also the advanced image search features that leverages object recognition, meaning that users can search images or within images. Microsoft's example of this is, if the user wants to search for a fashion item or home furniture in a picture, they can isolate it and get more information about it.

Reddit Search

The search engine on Reddit isn't exactly the best out there, and Bing could be just the thing to solve the issue.

Now users can search for specific topics or subreddits, such as /r/AskReddit or /r/funny, and get a sneak peek of the top conversations and threads.

They can also search for general things affixed with the tag "reddit," and if there are relevant Reddit conversations, answers from various Reddit users will pop up in the form of a snippet.

Those who want to stay on top of the AMA (ask me anything) sessions of celebrities on Reddit can also use Bing to find out the schedules of upcoming ones or get links to those that are already over. All they have to do is search for a celebrity's name or "Reddit AMAs" to get a carousel of some of the most popular AMA sessions.

The Reddit integration is now live. Some of Bing's answers are available already too, while others will be available over the next week in the United States, which are set to expand to other markets in the foreseeable future.

It's also worth mentioning that Microsoft unveiled AI features for Cortana and Office 365 at the event as well.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A surgeon has admitted to signing his initials on the livers of two patients while they were undergoing transplant surgery.

What are the effects of branding internal organs, and will it make you mad if it happened to you?

Surgeon Brands Patients' Livers

Simon Bramhall, a 53-year-old surgeon who worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, United Kingdom, signed his initials "SB" on the livers of patients during surgeries conducted on Feb. 9 and Aug. 21, 2013. He was suspended in December of that year after a colleague spotted the signature during a follow-up procedure, and then later resigned from the hospital in May 2014.

In a hearing at the Birmingham Crown Court, Bramhall pleaded guilty to two counts of assault related to the signed livers. To carve his initials, the surgeon used an argon beam, which is a tool for stopping livers from bleeding during operations and for highlighting areas that the procedure will focus on.

Prosecutors said that Bramhall's actions abused the trust that patients placed on him. The surgeon, at the time of his resignation from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, admitted that what he did was a mistake.

Effects Of Signed Livers On Patients' Health

The brandings that Bramhall made on the livers, however, are usually not harmful and normally disappear after a while. The marks left behind by the argon beam will not impair the function of the liver.

However, the signature that Bramhall left behind in one of his male patients did not heal over, allowing it to be discovered by a colleague. An investigation revealed that Bramhall did the same thing on a female patient.

It appears that even if Bramhall did sign his initials on the liver of his patients, he was not doing any harm. A former patient, Tracy Scriven, even told the Birmingham Mail in early 2014 that it was wrong to suspend Bramhall.

"Even if he did put his initials on a transplanted liver, is it really that bad?," Scriven asked. "I wouldn't have cared if he did it to me. The man saved my life," she added.

If your surgeon did something like this to you, would you be mad? If you think the case is too farfetched to happen to anyone else, think again. In 2000, a doctor in New York was said to have etched his initials into the abdomen of a woman he performed a C-section on, and in 2010, a gynecologist in California branded the name of a woman on her uterus.

Bramhall is currently out on bail, with his sentence to be served at the Birmingham Crown Court on Jan. 12. The type of sentence that the surgeon is facing, however, is currently unknown.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
There might finally be some evidence toward fracking being directly linked to health hazards.

Pregnant women who reside near fracking sites are 25 percent more likely to give birth to children that are underweight, or less than what's considered as a healthy weight for a newborn.

Exactly why this phenomenon occurs remains a mystery, but the researchers behind the study speculate that it roots from environmental pollution, which may be negatively affecting pregnancies.

What Is Fracking?

For the uninitiated, fracking is the process of drilling down into the Earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. It's a technique designed to extract gas and oil from shale rock, and it's become quite controversial among environmentalists, who say that fracking may cause carcinogenic chemicals to escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking site. Yet, proponents of fracking argue that bad practice is what's causing pollution, not the act of fracking itself.

Fracking Causes Underweight Babies

The researchers analyzed over 1 million births in Pennsylvania spanning 2004 through 2013, before and after fracking began. Pregnant women who lived nearest to a fracking site had the largest impacts, as detailed in the paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday, Dec. 13, as "Hydraulic Fracturing and Infant Health: New Evidence from Pennsylvania."

Infants born within a kilometer (0.64 miles) of a fracking site were 25 percent more likely have low birth weights than those born 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) away from a site, the study found  less than 5.5 pounds, or around 2.5 kilograms.

Low birth weight is a cause for concern because it has many negative outcomes, including infant mortality, deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma, lower test scores, lower schooling attainment, and many others, the researchers noted.

The Princeton University, University of Chicago, and University of California, Los Angeles researchers found little evidence of health effects for babies born beyond distances of 3 kilometers, which might suggest that fracking effects are highly local.

Other Effects Of Fracking

Previous studies have shown other harmful effects of fracking, with some suggesting that the practice causes air pollution that are hazardous to babies, and that residing nearby fracking sites is linked to premature births. The latest study in question adds to the growing evidence that fracking potentially triggers some serious human health hazards.

In 2014, a study showed that pregnant women who live near fracking sites give birth to children who may have a higher risk of developing heart defects.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Key Highlights:



Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Votorantim Energia announce that they have signed agreements to form a new joint venture that will focus on investments in Brazils power generation sector.

The joint venture is initially acquiring two operational wind parks in Northeastern Brazil with a combined generation capacity of 565 megawatts.

TORONTO and SAO PAULO, Brazil , Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), a professional investment management organization, and Votorantim Energia, the energy subsidiary of Brazils Votorantim Group, today announced that they have signed agreements to form a new joint venture focusing on investments and developments in the Brazilian power generation sector. The joint venture is initially acquiring two operational wind parks in Northeastern Brazil: Ventos do Araripe III (Ventos III) from Brazilian project developer Casa dos Ventos, and Ventos do Piaui I (Piaui I), contributed by Votorantim Energia into the joint venture. As part of the transaction, CPPIB is initially contributing approximately R$ 690 million (C$272 million) in equity. Over time, the joint venture expects to invest more than R$ 3 billion in operational and development assets in this sector in Brazil.

Ventos do Piaui I is located in the state of Piaui, and has a generating capacity of approximately 206 megawatts of power with committed investments of R$ 1.2 billion. Ventos III, located in the state of Piaui and Pernambuco, has an installed capacity of approximately 359 megawatts with committed investments of R$ 1.8 billion. Together, the wind parks will have 565 megawatts of installed capacity, with almost all of their entire production contracted in the regulated market. The acquisitions are subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

This transaction enables CPPIB to establish a footprint in the attractive Brazilian power generation market, which fits well with our overall power and renewables strategy and further diversifies the CPP Fund, said Bruce Hogg, Managing Director, Head of Power and Renewables, CPPIB. Brazil is considered among the top renewable energy markets in the world, and as demand in the country grows, wind energy is expected to be one of the largest contributors to this new supply. We look forward to building a long-term partnership with Votorantim, a best-in-class local operator, to expand our joint venture. As power demand grows worldwide and with a focus on accelerating the energy transition, CPPIB will continue to seek opportunities to expand our power and renewables portfolio globally.

We are very enthusiastic to partner with CPPIB, a reputable investor that shares our long-term vision for the sector and the prospects for the joint venture. This reinforces our commitment to the power sector in Brazil, where we have been investors for almost 100 years, said Joao Miranda, CEO of Votorantim.

The renewable energy sector is an attractive, expanding market that will require major investments from the private sector now and in the coming decades. By joining with a strong partner such as CPPIB, we have expanded our capacity and accelerated our growth plan in this segment with an investor that shares our vision for the business, said Fabio Zanfelice, president of Votorantim Energia.

The joint venture will actively pursue power generation investments and acquisitions across Brazil.

About CPPIB

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is a professional investment management organization that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) to pay current benefits on behalf of 20 million contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build a diversified portfolio of CPP assets, CPPIB invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income instruments. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Mumbai, New York City, Sao Paulo and Sydney, CPPIB is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments. At September 30, 2017, the CPP Fund totalled C$328.2 billion. For more information about CPPIB, please visit www.cppib.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

About Votorantim

Votorantim is a family owned long-term investor in various industries. Votorantim investee companies operate in 23 countries and employs over 44,000 people, in core industry sectors such as cement, mining, pulp and in the financial segment. In 2016, Votorantims net revenues totaled R$ 26.7 billion (US$8.2 billion) and adjusted EBITDA amounted to R$ 4.3 billion (US$1.3 billion). Votorantim will celebrate its 100th-year anniversary in 2018. Votorantim Energia, wholly owned by Votorantim, is the second-largest energy trading company in Brazil and operates 23 hydro power plants, 7 wind farms, and has partnerships in 9 consortiums, with total installed capacity of 2.2 GW.

For More Information:

CPPIB:

Mei Mavin

Director, Global Corporate Communications

T: +1 646 564 4920

mmavin@cppib.com

Dan Madge

Senior Manager, Media Relations

T: +1 416 868 8629

dmadge@cppib.com Votorantim Energia:

Fabio Lopes

Tel .: +55 (11) 3185 9946

fabio.lopes@fleishman.com.br

FleishmanHillard Brasil

Nathalia Padilha

Tel .: +55 (11) 3185 9916

nathalia.padilha@fleishman.com.br




Vanellope Hope Wilkins, who was born three weeks ago with her heart outside her chest, has defied all the odds and is still alive.

Doctors thought that it was almost impossible for the baby to survive, but her parents decided that Vanellope Hope at least needed a chance.

The Baby Born With Her Heart Outside Her Body

In a press release, the University Hospitals of Leicester narrated the events surrounding Vanellope Hope, the baby that was born with her heart outside her body.

Vanellope Hope was supposed to be born on Christmas Eve to her parents Naomi Findlay and Dean Wilkins. However, a scan while she was nine weeks old revealed that her heart was growing outside her body, in a rare and often fatal condition known as Ectopia cordis. Doctors advised the expecting parents that their unborn daughter had "next to zero" chances of surviving, with a recommendation for abortion.

It was also thought that Vanellope Hope would also have other chromosomal abnormalities, as Ectopia cordis is often accompanied by other such defects. However, a special blood test revealed that there was a low risk for the baby for these abnormalities, making the case even more rare. At that point, Naomi and Dean decided that they would fight to give their daughter the best chance to survive.

However, Vanellope Hope's chances of survival were very slim. Naomi said that she even brought an outfit to the hospital that the baby would wear in case she did not make it.

Baby Vanellope Hope's Chance For Survival Improves

On Nov. 22, a team of about 50 clinical staff at the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester delivered baby Vanellope Hope through a caesarean section, looking to reduce the risk of infection and injuring her heart.

Since then, Vanellope Hope has had three surgeries. The first surgery happened after just 50 minutes of being born after she was found to be stable enough, and it was the first step in a long journey for the baby's survival. Two other surgeries have since been done on Vanellope Hope.

Her heart is now covered, and while there is still the major risk of infection, the baby's chances that she will survive through the ordeal have vastly been improved.

"This is only the second case in 30 years that I've seen this particular condition, it's extremely rare," said Dr. Frances Bu'Lock, a pediatric cardiology consultant at Glenfield Hospital. "Vanellope is the first baby to survive this operation in the UK."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Microsoft's Seeing AI app for iOS is empowering the blind and the visually impaired to decipher the world around them, and it's now getting better.

Seeing AI now boasts more features, including handwriting recognition, and it's widening its reach. While it's still not available for Android, the iOS app is now available in 35 countries worldwide, including countries in the European Union.

Microsoft AI Focus

Microsoft held an AI Summit on Wednesday in San Francisco, where it unveiled its latest efforts to integrate artificial intelligence deep into its apps and services. The company announced AI features for Bing, Office 365, and more, aiming to improve the experience on all fronts.

"AI has come a long way in the ability to find information, but making sense of that information is the real challenge," says Kristina Behr of Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence and Research group.

"AI has really been integrated into society for many years," adds Jordi Ribas, Microsoft corporate vice president, who is leading AI products. "Sometimes, people have been using AI for a long time and they don't even realize it."

Microsoft Seeing AI Features

The Seeing AI app for iOS is getting smarter as well, tapping computer vision technology to help the blind and visually impaired make sense of what's going on around them. The app launched earlier this year in the United States and saw 100,000 downloads since then, helping users with more than three million tasks, so Microsoft decided to expand its availability and offer it in 35 countries in total.

In addition to wider availability, Seeing AI is also boasting several new features to improve the whole experience and be even more helpful. First of all, the app can now recognize more currencies including U.S. dollars, Canadian dollars, British pounds, and Euros, which should significantly increase its usefulness. The app can now recognize handwriting as well, rather than just printed text, and it can also discern the color of various objects, such as clothes.

"When we first released this, we launched with features such as the ability to hear what a product is via audibly locating the barcode, describing images, text, and faces of friends and family as they come into view," Microsoft recalls. "Today, we're excited to announce new features coming to the app that will build on these early results, provide new user experiences and allow us to continue to learn and innovate."

Microsoft has also added a light detector, which enables the app to inform the user when the light is switched on. This feature aims to save users from having to check themselves by touching a hot light bulb, for instance. When the user enters a room where the light is on, the Seeing AI app will play an audible tone.

Lastly, users can now customize the voice and the speed that Seeing AI uses to talk. Seeing AI is available in Apple's App Store in 35 countries and users will be alerted to new features when they first launch the updated app.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A national survey has found that drug abuse among teens is at historic lows, but they still smoke pot and vape, with or without nicotine.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has been conducting an annual Monitoring the Future Survey since 1975, measuring alcohol, cigarette, and drug use among teens nationwide. As part of the study, teens who participated had to report their drug-related behaviors across three categories: during their lifetime, in the past year, and in the past month.

The University of Michigan conducted the study, and NIDA, which is part of the National Institute of Health, funded it. For the 2017 Monitoring the Future Survey, 43,703 students from 360 different private and public schools reported on their drug use behavior.

Teens Love To Vape

According to the survey, nearly one in three 12th grade students admitted to using some kind of vaping device in the past year. The vaping content ranges from simple nicotine-free flavors to e-liquids with nicotine and even pot. The study notes that many teens may not even know what they are actually vaping and whether it contains nicotine or not. Smoking regular cigarettes and using hookahs, meanwhile, has apparently declined.

The study found that 27.8 percent of seniors in high school have vaped in 2016. Of those, 51.8 percent of 12th graders said they only vaped flavors, 32.8 percent said the liquid also contained nicotine, while 11.1 percent have vaped "hash oil" or marijuana. When asked about specific substances, one in 10 12th graders said they vaped nicotine, while one in 20 vaped marijuana.

Opioid Misuse Drops

Compared to a decade ago, the survey found that teens nowadays no longer misuse opioid-based pain relievers as much. In fact, the rates are now at historic lows with some of the most common pain medications. Among adults, however, opioid overdose rates are still high.

According to the survey, Vicodin misuse among high school seniors has declined to the lowest rate since 2002, when the survey first started measuring it. Vicodin is an opioid pain medication, and the current abuse rates are at just 2 percent, down from 2.9 percent last year and a worrisome 10.5 percent in 2003.

The survey also measured the use, or rather misuse, of narcotics besides heroin and found that misuse in the past year has notably declined among 12th graders, reaching 4.2 percent, compared to the peak rate of 9.5 percent back in 2004. In 2010, more than 54 percent of 12th graders said that such drugs were easy to obtain, while this year, only 35.8 percent said so.

"The decline in both the misuse and perceived availability of opioid medications may reflect recent public health initiatives to discourage opioid misuse to address this crisis," says NIDA director Nora D. Volkow.





 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
As more Samsung Galaxy S9 rumors surface, the smartphone is looking more like a small update to its predecessor, especially after the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ introduced the groundbreaking Infinity Display feature.

The Galaxy S9 was expected to come with upgrades in the form of thinner bezels and a dual rear camera setup. However, reports claim that these features will not be present in the upcoming smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Will Not Have Thinner Bezels

With the popularity of the iPhone X, many expected Samsung to trim down the bezels of the Galaxy S9 even further to provide a better challenge against rival Apple's smartphone. However, according to prolific leaker Ice Universe, Samsung has decided to cancel the plan to reduce the Galaxy S9 bezel. The smartphone will instead look very similar to the Galaxy S8.

To make the bezels of the iPhone X very minimal, Apple folded its display, ironically manufactured by Samsung, underneath themselves at the bottom potion of the smartphone. This allows the display controller to be hidden behind the display itself, making a very minimal bottom bezel possible.

Ice Universe claims that Samsung will not copy Apple's solution, though there is no explanation on why the company will not do so.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Will Not Have A Dual Rear Camera

Meanwhile, a new set of high-resolution renders from Steve Hemmerstoffer, or better known as the insider OnLeaks, revealed that the Galaxy S9 will only have a single rear camera.

The renders, created by OnLeaks and 91mobiles, are said to be based on factory CAD images that allegedly come from Samsung itself. Arguably, the biggest takeaway from the render is that there will be no dual rear camera setup for the Galaxy S9, following previous rumors that only the Galaxy S9+ will get it.

One notable change, however, is the fingerprint sensor, which was located beside the Galaxy S8 rear camera. The Galaxy S9 will have the security component placed below its rear camera.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Will be Unveiled At CES 2018

Samsung fans will know whether or not the Galaxy S9 will be a boring update to the Galaxy S8 once the smartphone is unveiled early next year.

The latest news is that the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will be officially unveiled in late February next year at the Mobile World Congress. This follows the recent report debunking rumors that the Galaxy S9 will make its first public appearance as early as January at CES 2018 in Las Vegas.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Between Amazon and Google, things haven't been going great lately. Amazon stopped selling Chromecast and Nest products on its website, while Google removed YouTube from the Echo Show and eventually the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick.

However, the tide is about to change, as the two are reportedly in "productive discussions," plus the listings for Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra are back up over at Amazon.

Amazon, Google Discuss Matters

A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the company is in talks with Amazon, aiming for "an agreement for the benefit of our mutual customers."

This comes at a time when Amazon is putting up product pages of the Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra on its website again, along with the Apple TV and two models of the Apple TV 4K.

"I can confirm that we are assorting Apple TV and Chromecast," an Amazon spokesperson told CNET.

To put two and two together, this seems to be the retailer's way of playing nice with Google, a move that benefits all three companies involved, one of which is Apple.

In turn, Google is open to discussions in terms of retaining YouTube on the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, and perhaps there's a possibility for the video streaming platform to make a return to the Echo Show, even after it has been removed from the device twice already.

The Tech Feud

Back in 2015, Amazon took down product listings of the Chromecast and the Apple TV, claiming that it was just to "avoid customer confusion." Now Google recently announced that YouTube was no longer going to support the Fire TV because of a "lack of reciprocity."

Arguably, these are business moves. Both companies are starting to tread on each other's turfs, Amazon with online advertising and Google with smart speakers, which may be significant factors that sparked the ongoing feud between the two.

In short, Amazon and Google are turning into direct rivals in more ways than one, and the measures they have taken  removing Chromecast from its website in the former's case and pulling out YouTube on the Echo Show in the latter's  led to this conflict.

Fast-forward to today, the two are working things out to ease the tension. That means Chromecast and Chromecast Ultra, along with the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K, might be going back up on Amazon soon, while YouTube could stick around the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick and maybe make a comeback to the Echo Show.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Lithuanian English

Following the successful merger of different communication and information technologies, Telia Lietuva continues its business consolidation strategy and its quest to improve customer experience, combining business transformation, customers operations, risk management and security activities.

On Thursday, the Board of Telia Lietuva approved new governing structure where Competitive Customer Operation and Risk units are merged into a new Operational Excellence unit. From 15 December 2017, it will be led by Vytautas Bucinskas, who until now was responsible for the Companys risk management. Andrius Byckovas, Head of Competitive Customer Operations, will act as consultant at Operational Excellence unit until 12 January 2018.

We are moving to another model of more efficient business creation, a model that will involve improvements in all fundamental activities  customer operations, processes, revenue assurance and management of all risks in general. One of the most important indicator of our successful operations is the continuous increase in our customers satisfaction, therefore weve made the decision to improve our consumer and businesses experience through digitalisation of processes, said Kestutis Sliuzas, CEO of Telia Lietuva.

V. Bucinskas, the appointed Head of Operational Excellence, stressed that a new structure will enable to manage business processes more simply and faster. We have a clear goal  to improve customer experience by employing the potential of the latest technologies and transformation, and without digitalisation it is not achievable.

Having worked in various units of the Company (earlier known as Teo LT, AB) since 1995, V. Bucinskas has accumulated a vast experience in risk management, cyber security, technology, customer operations, quality as well as process management and sales.

At the beginning of August, Telia Lietuva announced that it would concentrate corporate communication, brand and marketing competences into a new single unit.
English Danish

Bagsvrd, Denmark, 15 December 2017 - Novo Nordisk today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) under the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion, recommending marketing authorisation for Ozempic (semaglutide) for the treatment of adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

The CHMP recommends Ozempic, the intended brand name for once-weekly semaglutide, to be indicated as monotherapy when metformin no longer provides sufficient treatment or is contraindicated and as an addition to other medicinal products for the treatment of diabetes. The indication also refers to specific sections of the label for study results with respect to combination with other diabetes medications, effects on glycaemic control, cardiovascular events and the populations studied. The label furthermore reflects the superior reduction in body weight achieved with Ozempic relative to comparator treatments and the statistically significant reduction in diabetic nephropathy with Ozempic relative to standard of care.

As an integral part of the approval, Novo Nordisk has committed to conduct post-approval safety studies including a long-term diabetic retinopathy outcome study. Furthermore, as required for all long-acting GLP-1 products approved in the EU, Ozempic will be enrolled in the data collection for the registry of medullary thyroid carcinoma.

"We are very excited about the positive opinion for Ozempic for treatment of people with type 2 diabetes in Europe, many of whom are still looking for new and more efficacious solutions to better manage their disease," said Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, executive vice president and chief science officer. "We believe Ozempic, with its unique clinical profile, has the potential to set a new standard for treatment of type 2 diabetes."

Novo Nordisk expects to receive final marketing authorisation from the European Commission in the first quarter of 2018.

About Ozempic

Ozempic (semaglutide) is a once-weekly analogue of human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that has been developed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The review of Ozempic is based on the SUSTAIN programme, a global clinical development programme that comprises eight phase 3a trials, encompassing more than 8,000 adults with type 2 diabetes. The phase 3a programme involves a broad range of people with type 2 diabetes, including some individuals with high cardiovascular risk profiles and people with and without renal disease.

Ozempic was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and is currently under review by several regulatory agencies, including the Japanese Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency.

Further information

Media: Katrine Sperling +45 4442 6718 krsp@novonordisk.com Ken Inchausti (US) +1 609 786 8316 kiau@novonordisk.com Investors: Peter Hugreffe Ankersen +45 3075 9085 phak@novonordisk.com Hanna Ogren +45 3079 8519 haoe@novonordisk.com Anders Mikkelsen +45 3079 4461 armk@novonordisk.com Christina Kjr +45 3079 3009 cnje@novonordisk.com Kasper Veje (US) +1 609 235 8567 kpvj@novonordisk.com

Company announcement No 92 / 2017
FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Majedie Asset Management Limited (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):



The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:



Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree



TESCO PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:



For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 14 December 2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?



If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" No





2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



ORD 5P



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 303,001,555 3.70 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL:



303,001,555



3.70

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit ORD 5P Sale 2,023,321 207.6000

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. CFD Nature of dealing



e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type



e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing



e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:



Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:



(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or



(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:



If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 15 December 2017 Contact name: Matthew Hambly Telephone number: 0207 618 3900

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.




WASHINGTON  Sen. John Kennedy hammered one of President Donald Trumps nominees for a federal judgeship with a probing, five-minute series of questions this week, with video of the uncomfortable exchange garnering millions of views online.

The questions highlighted Matthew Spencer Petersens lack of courtroom experience. Pressed by Kennedy, Petersen acknowledged having never made arguments in a courtroom nor having tried a case  and then struggled to define a series of legal terms, several of which legal experts described as fairly basic.

Can't see video below? Click here.

---

Petersen, whos currently a member of the Federal Election Commission, was nominated by Trump for a district court judgeship in the District of Columbia.

Kennedys grilling of Petersen  who likely wont face a committee vote until next year  went viral Thursday night after Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and fellow member of the Judiciary Committee, posted the video to Twitter.

Hoo-boy, Whitehouse wrote.

A White House spokesperson told CNN, "it is no surprise the Presidents opponents keep trying to distract from the record-setting success the President has had on judicial nominations."

In a statement to The Advocate, Kennedy noted he "enthusiastically supported" Trump during the campaign and continues to back the president. According to FiveThirtyEight, Kennedy has voted in line with Trump about 93 percent of the time. Kennedy, a Republican at the end of his first year representing Louisiana in the Senate, has so far voted for all but one of Trump's nominees.

Petersen worked as a junior associate at a major Washington law firm for three years after graduating law school in 1999. He then worked on political campaigns and as a staff attorney to congressional committees until President George W. Bush appointed Petersen to the FEC in 2008.

Petersen didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent Friday through the FEC's press office.

Kennedy drilled into Petersen's credentials with a pointed series of questions. Petersen acknowledged that he's never tried a case or argued a motion in court. He also said he hasn't participated in a deposition in years and pegged the total number of depositions he's been involved with at around five.

"I understand the challenge that would be ahead of me if I were fortunate enough to become a district court judge," Petersen told Kennedy. "I understand that the path that many successful district court judges have taken is different than I have taken."

Petersen pointed to his involvement in hundreds of FEC enforcement actions as well as his oversight role for FEC litigation as valuable experience for a potential judge.

But it was Petersen's failure to answer Kennedy's questions about a handful of legal terms that stunned attorneys and law professors.

"I was so shocked and appalled I couldn't believe it," said Joel Friedman, a law professor at Tulane University, of Petersen's fumbling answers.

Petersen's "complete lack of any legal knowledge was, to me, embarrassing, shocking and disqualifying," added Friedman, who's helped instruct nearly every newly confirmed federal district judge in the country over the last 30 years. "I say this not for any political purpose  the president is entitled to reasonable deference to his appointments  but this is ridiculous."

+2 John Kennedy votes against Trump judge nominee, blasts another as 'embarrassing' WASHINGTON  Louisiana U.S. Sen. John Kennedy lambasted several of the Trump administration's picks for the federal judiciary, calling one nom

Several of the terms Kennedy asked about are "basic legal terms" that any law school graduate should be able to define in at least rough terms, Friedman said.

"A 'motion in limine'  thats just basic, thats the meat and potatoes of what a trial judge does," said Dane Ciolino, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, referring to a legal move to exclude evidence that Petersen wasn't familiar with. "Thats like a surgeon not knowing what a scalpel is, its that basic."

Kennedy has built a reputation as a particularly probing and aggressive questioner during his time on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel tasked with reviewing President Donald Trumps nominees for federal judgeships.

Kennedys been an outspoken critic of White House Counsel Don McGahn, the Trump administration official charged with reviewing federal judicial nominations, whom Kennedy accused of offering some very, very bad advice and failing to respond to concerns from lawmakers.

Kennedy is also the only Republican senator to have voted against a Trump judicial nominee, having cast a no vote on Gregory Katsas nomination for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He was eventually confirmed.

Katsas had worked as deputy White House counsel to Trump before being confirmed. Kennedy said that creates a clear conflict of interest, as matters involving the president frequently make their way to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on which Katsas now sits.

"In the past year, I have supported nearly every one of President Trumps picks," Kennedy said on Friday on his questioning of judicial nominees, "but I dont blindly support them. I ask questions that I expect them to be able to answer.

"In doing so, Im just doing my job," Kennedy said. "Thats why we have a Madisonian-inspired separation of powers. We need checks and balances so that we can serve the American people well."

Ciolino said many of the questions posed by senators at confirmation amount to partisan puffery and political grandstanding. But Kennedy, Ciolino said, has found an effective way of drilling into a nominee's competence for the judge "in a fair and relevant way."

"Hes drawing attention to himself," Ciolino said, "but by asking questions that really need to be asked."

Kennedy hasn't said how he'll end up voting on Petersen's nomination.

Earlier this week, the White House yanked the judicial nominations of two others that Kennedy had helped put in his crosshairs. Brett Talley, a Justice Department attorney tapped by Trump for a federal judgeship in Alabama, was unanimously rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association and came under withering criticism from Kennedy and others.

+2 John Kennedy votes against Trump judge nominee, blasts another as 'embarrassing' WASHINGTON  Louisiana U.S. Sen. John Kennedy lambasted several of the Trump administration's picks for the federal judiciary, calling one nom

Kennedy said Talley failed to disclose that his wife works as chief of staff to McGahn, the administration official tasked with reviewing judicial nominees. Kennedy also lambasted Talley over his lack of courtroom experience and prolific posts to an online message board, including some defending the early Klu Klux Klan.

Kennedy called Talleys nomination embarrassing and said hed vote against him in a heartbeat  twice, if I can.

The nomination of Jeff Mateer for a Texas judgeship was also dropped this week. Mateer had come under criticism for his extreme views on transgender children, including a 2015 speech in which he said transgender children are a sign of "Satan's plan.

Kennedy never attacked Mateer by name but appeared to criticize those views by posing a series of yes or no questions to other judicial nominees.

During at least two other confirmation hearings, Kennedy asked groups of would-be judges if they'd ever "described a child as part of Satan's plan?"

The White House yanked the nominations for Talley and Mateer after Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, warned Trump that neither were likely to be confirmed by the Senate.

At Wednesday's hearing, Kennedy wrapped up by asking Petersen and four other nominees a final question that came across as a parting shot at Talley.

"Any of you blog? Any of you ever blog in support of the Klu Klux Klan?" Kennedy asked to shaking heads.

"Let the record reflect everybody said 'no.'"
An Albany man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for a February attack on a Baton Rouge police officer who credited a good Samaritan with saving the officer's life.

Thomas M. Bennett, 29, pleaded guilty in August to disarming a police officer, aggravated battery and cocaine possession, as well as an unrelated burglary charge.

Cpl. Billy Aime was conducting a stop Feb. 19 after he observed drug paraphernalia in a parked vehicle where Bennett was sleeping. Bennett became aggressive with Aime after getting out of his car, grabbing the officer's baton and hitting him repeatedly on the head, a police report states. Bennett also bit one of the officer's fingers.

Bennett was reaching for Aime's holstered gun when 56-year-old Vickie Williams-Tillman drove by and noticed the officer struggling with the man on Harry Drive. She sprang into action, taking Bennett's hand off the weapon and jumping on his back, police have said.

Before intervening, Williams-Tillman rolled down her window to ask Aime if he needed help but she could not hear him respond. But she did make eye contact with him,

"I could see in his eyes he needed help," Williams-Tillman said after the incident. "You don't have time to think about it. I did what God needed me to do."

Bennett was finally detained after he was hit by a stun gun fired by another officer.

Then-Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie and East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome praised Williams-Tillman's actions after the incident.

The Union of Baton Rouge Police also gave special recognition and thanks to Williams-Tillman in March, presenting her with a limited edition police union watch and a commemorative coin.

The Louisiana House of Representatives approved a resolution noting her "tremendous personal sacrifice to come to the physical aid of one's fellow man."

State District Judge Richard Anderson on Wednesday sentenced Bennett to concurrent prison terms of eight years on the aggravated battery count, five years each on the disarming an officer and drug charges, and four years on the burglary count.

Prosecutor Steve Danielson said it was noted in court that Bennett, who did not have a significant criminal history prior to the incident involving Aime, was under the influence of drugs at the time.
A Connecticut man accused in a nationwide scheme involving hundreds of stolen identities and millions of dollars in counterfeit checks was convicted Friday by a Baton Rouge federal court jury, acting U.S. Attorney Corey Amundson said.

Walter Glenn, 40, of Hartford, and others obtained the personal identifying information of 400-plus victims and used the information to create fraudulent identification cards and counterfeit checks that allowed them to engage in fraudulent transactions at retailers, Amundson stated.

Glenn and others traveled across the country in rental vehicles between January 2014 and August 2015 and attempted to cash nearly $2 million in bogus checks, defrauding retailers out of roughly $1 million, he said.

The case originated with a traffic stop in West Baton Rouge Parish, federal prosecutors said previously.

Traffic stop in West Baton Rouge Parish leads to federal indictment of three men in identity theft case Three out-of-state men are facing federal charges in Baton Rouge in an ongoing probe into a nationwide scheme involving millions of dollars in

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson will sentence Glenn on April 6. He remains in federal custody.

Glenn's co-conspirator, Thomas James, 57, of Union, South Carolina, pleaded guilty in the case earlier in the week.

The fraudulent scheme cost Walmart stores in Louisiana, including Port Allen, and several other states more than $1.2 million, according to an indictment returned by a Baton Rouge federal grand jury in 2015.
A woman who was living with alleged East Feliciana serial killer Ryan Sharpe was arrested last week in the theft of at least $14,500 from his safe.

Robin Linder, 54, was booked Dec. 8 into East Feliciana Parish Jail on a count of felony theft, according to East Feliciana Parish Clerk of Court records. Her listed address matches that of Sharpe, at 14277 La. 959.

Sheriff Jeff Travis said Linder broke into the safe to steal several thousand dollars from Sharpe, 36. However, Travis emphasized that investigators do not believe Linder is connected in any way to the four shootings, three of which were fatal, that authorities have linked to Sharpe.

Sharpe has been accused in the string of shootings within a 25-mile radius over a four-month period earlier this year. Travis said Linder and Sharpe had previously been dating, but he did not know if they are still together.

+13 Alleged East Feliciana serial killer pleads not guilty Tuesday to charges in two of four shootings Clinton  Suspected serial killer Ryan Sharpe, who's been accused of a string of four shootings within a 25-mile radius, pleaded not guilty Tu

During a six-hour search of Sharpe's house on Oct. 11, the same day he was arrested, investigators counted $27,000 in cash inside Sharpe's safe before returning the money and locking the safe, according to Linder's arrest report. Five days later, Sharpe's father, William Sharpe, called deputies to report that when he went to his son's house to move the safe, he saw that someone had broken into it by cutting it on all sides.

He told deputies that Linder was the only person who was supposed to be at the home.

When investigators contacted Linder at the home, she had cuts on her arms, which she said happened when she cut open the safe, according to the report. Linder then turned over $14,500 dollars she said she took from the safe, but told deputies she didn't have the other $12,500 and suggested that maybe William Sharpe took it, according to the report.

William Sharpe and the deputy then went to the safe and they saw it was empty.

Ryan Sharpe gave a statement on Oct. 18 when he was booked into East Feliciana jail that while Linder was staying at his house, she cut into his safe and took about $12,000 without his permission. Sharpe said he wanted to file charges against Linder.

Linder remained in jail Thursday with bail set at $20,000, according to Clerk of Court records.

In East Feliciana Parish, Sharpe was charged with second-degree murder in the July 8 shooting death of Tommy Bass, 62, who was killed outside his house on La. 960; attempted first-degree murder in the Sept. 12 non-fatal shooting of 47-year-old Buck Hornsby, who was struck by dozens of shotgun pellets in front of his residence; and first-degree murder in the Oct. 9 slaying of 48-year-old Brad DeFranceschi, who was shot and killed outside his house near the side of La. 63.

Sharpe has pleaded not guilty in the first two shootings. He has not yet been arraigned in the DeFranceschi case.

Sharpe also faces a first-degree murder count in East Baton Rouge in the Sept. 19 drive-by shooting of Carroll Breeden, 66, who was out spraying weeds in his front yard when he was fatally attacked. This shooting happened over the parish line.

Sharpe, who has not yet been charged in that incident, remains held without bail in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on the first-degree murder count in Carroll's killing, according to online booking records.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Investview Corporation (OTCQB: INVU) is pleased to announce that it has entered into multiple definitive funding agreements with an institutional investment fund managed by Yorkville Advisors Global LP and Delta Beta Advisors LLC based in Mountainside, NJ which will include a $5,000,000 line of credit along with a direct purchase of $650,000 of common stock.



The Standby Equity Distribution Agreement (SEDA) with YAII PN enables the purchase of up to $5,000,000 of our common stock at our request during the 36 months following the date of the agreement entered on December 6th, 2017. The shares would be purchased at 87.5% of the market price and would be subject to certain limitations, including that YAII PN could not purchase any shares that would result in it owning more than 4.99% of our common stock.

The Securities Purchase Agreement (stock purchase) with D-Beta One EQ, facilitates the purchase of 20,000,000 shares of our common stock for $650,000. Ten million shares were delivered at closing for $325,000, with the other ten million to be delivered when we file the necessary registration statement. Please refer to our 8K filing for the full details on both agreements.

Mario Romano, Director of Finance for Investview Corporation said, As a publicly traded company, we desired to establish prudent institutional funding arrangements for the growth of our wholly owned subsidiary Wealth Generators. Our relationship with Yorkville Advisors and Delta Beta Advisors LLC and the closing of the $650,000 provides us immediate capital to support our international expansion that has been underway since this past summer. See press release International Double-Digit Growth Continues, August 22, 2017 and press release Wealth Generators and Hodo Combine Forces, October 26, 2017. The additional five-million-dollar equity line being made available can be used to take advantage of timely acquisitions without the lengthy process of engaging a broker to raise capital. In addition, these arrangements do not prohibit us from implementing traditional offerings, if needed, providing us a full range of solutions for all our capital needs.

These agreements establish a direct relationship with an institutional investor and long-term partner to fund the growth of the company. The equity line is available, at our discretion providing us with both immediate and the precise amount of capital potentially needed in the future. This enables substantially less dilution when compared to convertible transactions or direct loan agreements.

About Wealth Generators

Wealth Generators provides financial technology, education, and research to individuals to enable them to Find, Grow, and Keep their money. We are best described as a financial fitness company providing our customers the tools and information that can improve their financial situation.

Wealth Generators products are distributed through a direct sales model. Our products are offered to individuals on a monthly subscription basis. Wealth Generators is classified as a publisher of financial research and information and exempt from securities registration. This is an exemption provided in the U.S. Securities Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

Wealth Generators is not a brokerage firm or Registered Investment Advisor. We do not execute trades or take possession of clients brokerage accounts. Our customers may cancel their subscription at any time and execute trades at their own discretion. www.wealthgenerators.com

About Investview, Inc.

Investview, Inc. is a diversified financial technology organization. The Company operates primarily through its wholly- and majority-owned subsidiaries, to provide financial products and services to accredited investors, self-directed investors and select financial institutions. www.investview.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. When the words believes, expects, plans, projects, estimates, and similar expressions are used, they identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Managements current beliefs and assumptions and information currently available to Management and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Information concerning factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found in our periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly release revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances or reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.




U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor, has sought to distinguish himself in Congress by focusing on medical issues. So it's probably fitting that his lawyer colleague, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, is building himself a reputation on legal matters.

While he's generally a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, the freshman Republican is emerging as a tough questioner of the administration's nominees for judicial posts, and of the White House office in charge of them. For months now, Kennedy has used his seat on the Judiciary Committee to highlight some candidates' weaknesses or bad past behavior, even as he's mostly voted the party line in favor of these potential judges.

But he's taken things up a notch recently by actually casting the first Republican "no" vote against a nominee for the appeals court in Washington, DC. He also withheld  and then granted  support for a nominee to sit on the appeals court in New Orleans, successfully led the charge to derail an epically problematic district court nominee from Alabama, and openly criticized White House Counsel Don McGhan.

This week, in a five-minute interview that has rocketed around the internet, Kennedy destroyed a nominee for a judgeship in Washington, Federal Election Commissioner Matthew Spencer Peterson. Actually, he let Peterson destroy himself by leading him through a series of questions that exposed a shocking lack of both relevant experience and basic knowledge of what happens in federal court.

Whether Kennedy will follow through with more "no" votes remains to be seen, but his work this week led to a rare moment of bipartisan praise. One of Kennedy's Democratic colleagues, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, sent the video of the spectacular exchange out on Twitter.

"MUST WATCH," wrote Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney. "Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrumps US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he cant answer a single one. Hoo-boy."

Can't see video below? Click here
Laura Haworth was 23 when she went missing. She would now be 33. Credit:Richard Briggs RCB "It takes a lot of courage and effort on my part to pick it up each time and it is incredibly draining emotionally and I was just hoping to get some support from someone else, in working with the police." Ms Cassilles said it was difficult for historical missing person cases to compete against more urgent crimes such as murder when the same finite policing resources were assigned to investigate both. A past flyer about the disappearance of Laura Haworth. Her mother Beth Cassilles says police do not have enough resources to devote to long-term missing person cases. She had no issue with individual police officers who were well-meaning but instead with the level of resourcing available to long-term missing persons cases.

"The case is never closed," she said. Laura Haworth's red Mazda 121 was found on January 19, 2008 at the Kanangra Court car park in Reid, two weeks after her disappearance. There was no sign of her. Credit:Richard Briggs RCB "They were quite active in the first few years and in more recent years they have been saying they don't have the resources to put to it because any time there's a homicide in Canberra, they need to put their resources into that instead of a missing person. "So the cycle I'm on with them is, I don't hear from them for a long time. I ring up and find out who the case officer of the day is. They don't know much about the case, they get themselves across the case and come and visit me and say, 'We're going to do this, that and the other. We're reviewing the whole thing and we'll finish the review in three months and get back in touch'. And then they don't get back in touch. "Then I'll ring them up again and I'll be given a new officer who will say the same thing, 'We're going to do a review'."

ACT Policing was asked to comment on those claims. A spokesperson said police were investigating eight long-term missing people. "The ACT Policing investigation into the disappearance of Laura Haworth remains open and urge the community to crime stoppers on 1800 33 00 if they have any information regarding Laura," a statement read. Ms Cassilles said she did not understand why a coronial inquest had not been held into her daughter's disappearance. "Usually a long-term missing person's case would go before the coroner well before this," she said. "That can often trigger more information and give the police more power to do something. It's not something I particularly want to go through but I think it could help."

ACT Attorney-General Gordon Ramsay said there was no time period that would trigger an inquest into a missing person's case. "I understand and sympathise with the family and their desire for answers. This is an open investigation, and for that reason the government cannot comment further at this time," he said. "The coroner has jurisdiction to hold an inquest into a suspected death under the Coroners Act 1997, but there is no specific number of years or particular circumstance in relation to missing people that means an inquest must be held. "Each case is assessed on its own merits and where there is a suspected death, an inquest may be held." Ms Cassilles said her daughter was leaving a house in Queanbeyan where she had been staying when she disappeared. The last person to see her was a male friend. Her children, who are now 13 and 14, had not been living with her, but instead with relatives.

Her red Mazda 121 was found two weeks later on January 19, 2008 at the Kanangra Court car park in Reid. There was no sign of her. Her phone and handbag were missing. Ms Cassilles said Laura had been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder just before she disappeared but her family felt nothing was untoward. "We didn't think anything was particularly wrong at the time," she said. Summernats was on at the time, an avenue of investigation police had considered, her mother said. "There was one theory a person from out of town had taken her," she said.
Canberra man Jason Hollingshed was on the ground in a pool of blood when his killer confronted police and asked if "the maggot" was dead.

"I f---ing stabbed him," Scott Jamie Cole, 42, said outside the neighbours' units at Stuart Flats in Griffith. "I hope he's dead."

Police at the Stuart Flats in Griffith after Jason Hollingshed was found dead. Credit:Melissa Adams

Mr Hollingshed, 46, suffered knife wounds to his face, neck, arms and torso in the deadly confrontation on the afternoon of February 29, 2016.

Cole had plunged the knife with such force it went through Mr Hollingshed's neck, exposed his trachea, and nicked the tiled floor beneath him. He died of acute blood loss.
A man who lit fireworks in two Canberra nightclubs some seven years ago was jailed on Thursday for the crimes.

Scott Wyatt, 32, handed himself into police earlier this year and confessed to the two counts of arson.

Scott Wyatt has been jailed for lighting fireworks in nightclubs. Credit:Paul Miller

The man was a suspect at the time, but he denied the acts in a police interview and was never prosecuted.

In June, a judge granted Wyatt bail to go to the Karralika rehabilitation program.
Magistrate McLennan's explanation and justification for her sentence is worth a read. She says Gillespie was "relatively young" at the time of the offences  he was 30  and had no criminal history either prior to the "incident" or post committing the "offences". She said his career had been forged in financial planning, a career that he subsequently lost for life when he got caught and was then banned for life from that profession by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. "That is a significant penalty that he has already endured." She said she also took into account that there had been media attention  it was Fairfax Media that first brought Gillespie to public attention in 2013  and that there had been some "difficulty in obtaining employment", even though he now had employment. If a crime has been committed and guilt proven then why wasn't a conviction recorded? Leonie Crowe

The magistrate noted he now had a family and "recording a conviction will pose difficulties in obtaining further employment. So I certainly take that into account. " But mostly she felt that the forgery wasn't done for personal financial benefit. "There is no allegation that is the result of these  this forgery, he financially benefited, unless I take into account the fact that he was receiving a wage from his employer." Leonie and Peter Crowe were victims of Ricky Gillespie and the CBA. They went to the bank in 2007 and invested $1 million of savings that they had accrued through hard work. Within two years of receiving advice from Gillespie they had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bank told them it was due to the global financial crisis.

They would later discover that their signatures had been forged. Crowe says after reading the judgment, which included 33 offences involving 18 clients, she wondered if that included them because they identified over 20 documents alone. "I don't know exactly how many there were in our file because the bank wasn't forthcoming with that exact info. They sent us a selection of docs," she says. Crowe says forging signatures was only part of the complaints made to the state manager at CBA. It would take years of battling the CBA before the Crowes finally received compensation and start getting on with their lives.

According to the judgment, forging signatures was motivated by a need to cut corners. "The defendant was primarily motivated by an intention to cover up his failures to comply with the Commonwealth Financial Planning compliance policies and avoid disciplinary action or dismissal." CBA was forced to pay out more than $2 million in compensation to 33 affected clients of Gillespie and refund $88,000 for ongoing advice fees and interest, to 22 of his clients. Gillespie was one of a number of planners in CBA's Commonwealth Financial Planning division that would be banned after Jeff Morris blew the whistle to ASIC in October 2008. He and other planners, including "dodgy" Don Nguyen, hit the headlines in June 2013 when Fairfax Media launched a series of stories into a scandal and cover-up at CBA's financial planning arm and the failure of ASIC to act promptly.

It resulted in a Senate inquiry that recommended a royal commission. Internal memos obtained by Fairfax showed that CBA had become aware of the forgery allegations at least nine months before allowing him to resign and cite personal reasons. A resignation instead of termination enabled him to go and work for two other financial planning operations before ASIC banned him in November 2012, almost four years after he was caught red-handed forging signatures. A compliance report on Gillespie dated October 16, 2008 advised "issues of suspected irregularities" in the signatures of four of Gillespie's clients. Another document revealed another 10 signatures had been identified as possibly fraudulent. In one case, the forged signature was used to obtain a one-off commission and create an ongoing fee of 0.83 per cent of the value of an investment portfolio, documents show. Planners were indoctrinated to focus on sales and fees at any cost. It was about targets and statistics and increasing revenue. Planners also benefited as the more products they sold, the more commissions they were paid.

ASIC banned Gillespie for life in 2012 on the grounds he had forged clients' signatures, engaged in deceptive and misleading conduct and had overcharged clients. In 2013 Fairfax Media tracked down Gillespie in Queensland, where he denied he had forged signatures, or charged excessive fees or offered inappropriate advice. "There is no smoking gun here," he said. "It was templated models created by Colonial First State. Not by me personally." Gillespie was right. There was a boiler room culture and targets set. But at the end of the day advisers who sold more products earned more commissions. Leonie Crowe poses an interesting question.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- QMC Quantum Minerals Corp., (TSXV:QMC) (FRANKFURT:3LQ) (OTC PINK:QMCQF) (QMC or "the Company"), has closed its previously announced financing for gross proceeds of $1,625,000 through the issuance of 2.5-million units of the company at a price of 65 cents per unit. Each unit will consist of one common share and one-half of a common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to acquire one additional common share at an exercise price of 80 cents for a period of 18 months from closing of each tranche of the financing. All securities issued pursuant to this private placement will be subject to a four-month plus one-day hold period from the issuance date. The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the private placement for working capital, expediting its work program, begin drilling (once drilling permits are in place), potentially produce a bulk-sample, and general corporate purposes.



As per Multilateral Instrument 61-101, one insider of the Company purchased 100,000 units in the private placement.

In connection with the private placement, the Company paid finders fees to arms length third parties consisting of $74,490 cash and 114,600 brokers options, which allow the holder to acquire for 65 cents per option, one common shares and one common share purchase warrant exercisable at 80 cents per warrant for a period of 18 months.

The Company may accelerate the expiry date of the $0.80 warrants, in the event that the closing price of the Companys shares as quoted on the TSXV exceeds $1.00 per share for ten consecutive days by giving notice to the holders, within five days of such event, thereof, and in such case, the warrants will expire on the 30th day after the date on which such notice is given by the Company.

About the Company

QMC is a British Columbia based company engaged in the business of acquisition, exploration and development of resource properties. Its objective is to locate and develop economic precious, base metal and resource properties of merit. The Companys properties include the Irgon Lithium Mine project, two VMS properties, the Rocky Lake and Rocky-Namew known collectively as the Namew Lake District Project. Currently, all of the companys properties are located in Manitoba.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of

QMC QUANTUM MINERALS CORP.

Balraj Mann

Balraj Mann

President and Chief Executive Officer

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Tel: (604) 601-2018

email: info@qmcminerals.com

web: www.qmcminerals.com
Singtel Optus is being taken to court by the competition regulator over allegations the provider misled 20,000 customers by telling some they needed to switch to the national broadband network sooner than required and creating the impression it was the only provider able to deliver the NBN.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission claims Optus wrote to thousands of customers using pay TV cables, known as Hybrid Fibre Co-Axial (HFC), telling them it would disconnect their service within a certain time period as the NBN would be coming to the area.

Optus is being taken to court by the competition regulator over allegations the provider misled 20,000 customers by telling some they needed to switch to the national broadband network sooner than required. Credit:Bloomberg

The time frames provided to customers were earlier than it was contractually able to cancel the services within.

The letters were sent to customers between October 2015 and March 2017.
The final piece of the Barangaroo dining precinct has been completed, with restaurateurs and hoteliers Solotel, run by Matt Moran and Bruce Solomon, opening the door to what they call ''fun dining''.

Known as the treehouse, Barangaroo House is located at the southern end of the sprawling $6 billion Barangaroo site. The tri-level food and drink emporium will feature Sydney's latest roof top bar, called Smoke.

Having signed the lease three years ago and spent a rumoured $13 million on the interior, Mr Moran and Mr Solomon served the first patrons on Friday, in time for Christmas parties.

Designed in collaboration by local firms Collins and Turner, H&E Architects & Etic, it will have 900 seats across three levels and features Noma's former head chef Corey Campbell serving up home made pita bread and kebabs as well as kangaroo, native fruit munthari and blueberriess.
All this stuff about Sam Dastyari - but what about poor Huang Xiangmo?

Bloke turns up here, observes how business has been traditionally done, pulls out the cheque book and finds himself painted as a cross between Karla and Blofeld with a touch of KAOS and Yellow Peril thrown in.

All this stuff about Sam Dastyari - what about poor Huang Xiangmo? Credit:James Brickwood

Thats the problem of working in a foreign language  certain subtleties can be lost in translation.

It is standard procedure for business types the world over to, er, influence politicians but it has to be done within accepted ways and means. And you must be considered the right sort of person to be doing the influencing.
The scenario is of course academic because, as we all know, it would never happen. The reason it wouldn't happen is because as a result of the uproar that would ensue the responsible Minister would likely be forced to resign, the senior responsible officer could expect, at best, to be transferred and the government would probably lose office.

Imagine for a moment the response in any community on mainland Australia if the government announced that all local breast screen machines had broken down and the closest alternative service, until further notice, was 2600 kilometres away, say in Port Moresby, and could only be accessed by air at a cost of $2000.

When the machine broke down in September last year the women of Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were told by Commonwealth officers to travel to Perth, a distance of more than 2600 kilometres and at a round trip cost (with accommodation in Perth) of about $2000, if they wanted to have their breasts screened for cancer. Most women living in the two territories are working class and of Chinese and Malaysian heritage. Many do not speak English. Suffice to say most could not afford the trip and have not undergone breast screening for upwards of two years.

A new breast screen machine is currently being installed on Christmas Island. The old one broke down 15 months ago and it has taken the Commonwealth until now to get around to replacing it.

The reason that the women of Christmas and the Cocos Islands have been treated with such apparent contempt is that as non-self-governing territories the people are denied the right to self-determination and those who administer and are responsible for the governance of the Islands neither live there or are accountable or answerable in any way to the local community. There is no democracy and there are no consequences for bad behaviour.

I can attest as a past administrator of Christmas and the Cocos islands that the cavalier and non-caring response of the Commonwealth to the absence of a breast screening service is consistent with the general attitude to the administration of the territories. To be blunt, I never found anyone from the Commonwealth with responsibility for the administration of Christmas or the Cocos Islands who I thought genuinely cared about the rights of the people who lived there.

That Christmas and the Cocos Islands come within the definition of "colony" employed by the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation should, I would have thought, have encouraged the Commonwealth to act as a model government for the territories.

As jaundiced as my experience in the Indian Ocean territories has made me I was still shocked by the decision by the Commonwealth to abolish self-government on Norfolk Island and to reduce it to the colonial status of the Indian Ocean territories. The residents of Norfolk Island, like those of Christmas Island, now have no say in or control over the decisions relevant to their day to day lives.

I was particularly disappointed that the push to abolish self-government on Norfolk Island, without exploring any alternatives, received strong support from my federal Labor Party colleagues including from the Northern Territory and the ACT. I know my disappointment is shared by many on Norfolk Island who, having regard to the leading and public role which the Labor Member for Canberra, Gai Brodtmann, had in advocating for the abolition of self-government, wonder, like me, how the decision of the ALP to support the cancellation of the democratic rights of Australian citizens living on Norfolk Island is consistent with the party platform or the core values of the party.
As offences go, it's one of your more peculiar. Not very rock'n'roll at all in fact.

Joanne Catherall of synth pop band Human League has been, er, booted out of a Qantas business lounge. No, she hadn't necked 17 midori and lemonades and abused a fellow traveller, or belted out a karaoke version of Don't You Want Me while standing on the dining table. Her crime? Wearing Ugg boots.

A thing of beauty? Or a piece of sleepwear that should never leave the house? Credit:Louise Kennerley

Apparently the national carrier still considers Ugg boots sleepwear.

In the middle of the band's tour of Australia, Catherall was waiting for a flight in Melbourne when she was bailed up by one of the airline's staff, told of her breach of their rules and politely ejected from the business lounge.
As entrees arrive  Tasmanian oysters for him, crab ceviche for me  Brandis is on a roll about the intersection between philosophers Immanuel Kant, Isaiah Berlin and Michael Oakeshott. It reminds me of an observation by one of his colleagues that Brandis is one of the few Liberals in Parliament who could deliver a lecture on the philosophy of the Liberal Party. The government would lose a chunk of its "intellectual heft" if it lost Brandis, the colleague lamented. Some MPs say it's unfortunate Brandis is finding his voice toward the end of his career rather than the beginning. They point to his powerful, impromptu dressing-down of Pauline Hanson after she entered the Senate wearing a burqa, his passionate speeches on marriage equality and his apparent swipe at Peter Dutton in defence of the legal profession. But Brandis rejects the idea he is swinging freely into the sunset, or that he has reinvented himself as a quasi-leftie. "I haven't deliberately reinvented anything," he says. "I am what I am. I hate the idea of people being picked on. Gay kids, Muslim migrants who might be bullied  I think that's horrible. And I do think  and this is not an ideological or philosophical view, it's a view based on decency  politicians should always stand up for the person who is most vulnerable." He says he has never cultivated a particular image. He has knocked back several invitations to appear on Annabel Crabb's Kitchen Cabinet, and doesn't mix the private with the public. "I have not tried to be a celebrity the way that some politicians try to be a celebrity," he says. "I don't merchandise my children in the way some do. I wanted to achieve a few things, marriage equality being one of them  I don't need to tell everybody what my favourite colour is or what the name of my dog is to achieve what I want to achieve."

By this stage we're tucking into mains of Atlantic salmon and "excellent" Queensland barramundi. It seems like the right time to ask about Brandis' potential departure from politics, a rumour that has percolated for more than a year, seemingly fuelled by enemies within. But with marriage equality done, some of his responsibilities being lost to Dutton's new Home Affairs department and the government heading for likely defeat at the election, according to the polls, this is surely an opportune moment to cut the cord. But Brandis won't be drawn. "The idea that you write off the government is wrong, it's unhistorical," he says. "There is a belief that we can win and that we will win, and that belief is partly a function of the Prime Minister's self-belief, which is a great asset to the government." He says Turnbull has "grown in stature" and is "looking more and more like John Howard every day". That comparison may come as a surprise to those who remember Brandis from his days as a thorn-in-the-side backbencher under Howard, whom Brandis memorably dubbed "the rodent". But Brandis' affection for Turnbull is genuine  not just pollie-to-pollie, but lawyer-to-lawyer. And the two have recently spent much time buried in legalese, alongside solicitor-general Stephen Donaghue, navigating a path through the dual citizenship fiasco. "He's very engaged in legal issues in a way that Tony Abbott, who never practised as a lawyer, wasn't," says Brandis. And then there is their ideological compatibility. "I am a reasonably cautious, reasonably conservative classical liberal with a very deep belief in the rule of law. And life is friendlier in the Turnbull government for people of that mind than it was in the Abbott government." Still, both governments have at times tested the Attorney-General on his job of administering the rule of law. He insisted the A-G retain power over issuing ASIO warrants under the Home Affairs administration. Notably, he argued in cabinet against extra-judicial measures preventing registered child sex offenders travelling overseas  laws which came into effect this week. "I haven't had to make the point very often," says Brandis. "But when it has had to be made, I've made it."

Sometimes his virulent defence of the law has come at a political cost - Brandis was widely chastised, amid the debate about changing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, for saying that "people do have the right to be bigots". He is unrelenting on that point. "That was an offhand remark about the state of the law," he says. "If you're going to be an honest politician, you have to be willing to say things that are unattractive to people but are nevertheless true." Brandis has also been at the centre of some spectacular personality clashes, notably with former solicitor-general Justin Gleeson and former Human Rights Commission boss Gillian Triggs. Gleeson was "impossible to work with", he says, while Triggs was a decent person who "made some catastrophic errors of judgment" and lost the government's trust and respect. Loading Those battles  along with other gaffes such as his notorious metadata interview on Sky News, or his boom mic moment calling the Queensland LNP "very, very mediocre"  are now firmly in the past.
Close to 200 refugees on Manus Island and Nauru have been accepted for resettlement in the United States in a significant progression of the deal struck by Malcolm Turnbull and former US President Barack Obama.

Fairfax Media understands about 130 people on Nauru, including families, and about 60 men on Manus Island, have received final approval to go to the US. Refugee advocates expect the refugees to fly out in January.

Refugees on Manus Island were engaged in a protest at the old detention centre last month. About 60 men have been approved to go the the US in January. Credit:Refugee Action Coalition

They would be the first refugees to leave Manus Island and Nauru for the US since an initial group of 54 flew out in late September.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul, who maintains direct contact with people on both islands, said it was "pretty clear there'll be about 130 on Nauru" who will be accepted in this round. However, they would need to undergo a second round of medical checks because the previous ones had expired, he said.
Education editor Alexandra Smith reports.

As many as 25,000 HSC students are this year expected to change their university preferences once they have a "more realistic idea of the course they can get into", according to the body responsible for admissions.

The University Admissions Centre (UAC) will for the first time release a round of offers just five days after ATARs are released and six days after students learn their HSC results, in a bid to end the month-long wait students used to endure before finding out their university options.

According to the most recent data, 70,178 people have applied through UAC for study in 2018, with 42,430 of those current NSW year 12 students.

More than 4800 UAC applications are from International Baccalaureate students from NSW and interstate and 20,719 are from non-year 12 students.

But Western Sydney University education academic, Katrina Barker, said students should remember that university is not "the be all and end all" and may not be suited to everyone.

Dr Barker, who is an expert in second chance education, said that there were many pathways for students other than traditional university entry.

Tertiary preparation certificates completed at TAFE can be a good option for students who are disappointed with their HSC mark, or a course at a private college, she said.

"There are so many alternate pathways to ensure students keep moving forward and don't stagnate," Dr Barker said.

"My advice is always to persist and don't give up in the face of initial challenges."

Dr Barker said a disappointing HSC result does not always mean a student will not do well at university and many often excel once they find a course they love.

Read the full story here.
Their approach has paid off. The school has leapt ahead 18 places to make its first appearance in the top 20 of best performing maths schools.

Teachers focus on giving regular feedback, maths is applied to real-life scenarios and assessments are thorough and challenging from day one.

At Clancy Catholic College in Hoxton Park, students start preparing for HSC maths the day they start year 7.

Matthew Arena from Clancy Catholic College helped his school climb the maths rankings.

The maths co-ordinator at Clancy College, Greg Georgiou, said the school took a "less traditional" approach to maths teaching.

"For me, the HSC starts the day they walk in year 7," Mr Georgiou said.

"It is important to us that it is about the type of thinking students do; not just about exam questions."

There is a drop-in maths centre before school for extra tuition for senior students, there are holiday classes and teachers hosted a pizza night before the trial HSC exams to be on hand to help students.
Danish English

Company Announcement

Copenhagen, 15 December 2017



As notified by company announcement of 27 November 2017, an extraordinary general meeting in Copenhagen Airports A/S will be held on 19 December 2017 in order to elect two new members of the Board of Directors, including a Deputy Chairman.

As mentioned in the convening notice to the extraordinary general meeting, the Board of Directors proposes that Ulrik Dan Weuder is elected as new Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors in addition to the company's other Deputy Chairman for the period until the next annual general meeting of the company.

At the time of the publication of the convening notice to the general meeting, the process of finding a candidate for the vacant post as an ordinary member of the Board of Directors was not yet completed. However, the Board of Directors now proposes the election of Annemette Moesgaard as member of the Company's Board of Directors for the period until the next annual general meeting of the company.

Annemette Moesgaard is Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer in charge of Corporate Communications at ATP. She is, among other things, responsible for the relationship with the press and with partners, strategic communication as well as internal and external communication. Annemette Moesgaard is a member of the group management of ATP.

Annemette Moesgaard joined ATP in 2012. Before that, she worked for Georg Jensen, most recently as Vice President, Corporate Communication. In the period 2000-2005, Annemette Moesgaard was employed as Head of Communications at Dansk Shell, responsible, among other things, for the Scandinavian countries. In the period 1996-2000, she worked as Information Manager in Scleroseforeningen (The Danish Multiple Sclerosis Society). Moreover, she has been self-employed with her own communication company and has worked as journalist at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Thus, Annemette Moesgaard has more than 20 years of management experience from both Danish and global companies as well as from NGOs, and has been in charge of all aspects of companies' communications operations, including strategic communication, handling of the media, public affairs and stakeholder management.

Annemette Moesgaard is a Danish citizen, born in 1966 and she lives in Valby. She is a qualified journalist, graduated in 1996 from the Danish School of Media and Journalism.

COPENHAGEN AIRPORTS A/S

P.O. Box 74

Lufthavnsboulevarden 6

DK-2770 Kastrup

Telefon: +45 32313231

E-mail: cphweb@cph.dk

www.cph.dk



CVR no. 14 70 72 04

http://prlibrary-eu.nasdaq.com/Resource/Download/9ad3840e-6d69-4cfd-8a3b-f61bd251ee03
The government's multibillion dollar spend on contractors will come under the scrutiny of a new parliamentary probe after the national auditor found massive growth in work going to consultancy firms since 2012-13.

Following an auditor-general's report that estimated the government poured $47 billion into contracts last year, a parliamentary committee will look at the volume and value of the spend and the way agencies conducted procurement.

An inquiry will probe the government's multibillion dollar spending on contracts. Credit:Ryan Stuart

Chair of the public accounts committee and Liberal senator Dean Smith said government contracting was an area of spending that deserved close and constant scrutiny.
The LNP's frontbench has been unveiled - and there is no room for former leader Tim Nicholls.

Mr Nicholls was at the helm when the party was defeated at last month's election and he decided not to recontest the leadership, with his deputy Deb Frecklington winning the job this week.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington says she and her deputy Tim Mander have drawn a line in the sand. Credit:AAP

Ms Frecklington did not directly answer a question about whether the decision was made to distance the party from the past.

Instead she said she would recommend Mr Nicholls as chairman of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commission.
A jury direction described as the kiss of death for prosecutions should be scrapped from state laws, the child sex abuse royal commission has recommended.

The report called for a range of reforms to the way judges instructed juries in sexual abuse trials, including the removal of two long-standing instructions only remaining in Queensland and one other state.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan (left) and the Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove at the signing ceremony and the release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

One such piece of advice, the Longman direction, is to be given when a significant length of time has elapsed between the alleged incident and its reporting

A judge is supposed to warn it would be be dangerous to convict a defendant on the basis of the alleged victims testimony alone, because a delay in reporting means the evidence could not be properly assessed.
Apple customers seem to be opting for cheaper models of the iPhone, analyst research shows, suggesting that the company failed to cram enough new technologies into the iPhone X to justify the $1,579 price tag.

Waiting times to order the flagship smartphone in the US, Apple's biggest market, have shortened to a few days from the five to six weeks that were typical immediately after it was released in November, Cowen and Co. analyst Karl Ackerman said in a note to clients.

"Some investors may conclude this relates to better sales momentum for the X, but we are increasingly concerned that demand has been below initial expectations as users appear to have gravitated toward the previous iPhone models,'' Ackerman wrote.

Sales of the models released this year are "good, but not yet indicative of a 'super cycle'."
Alleged killer Borce Ristevski has been bashed on his first day in prison after being charged with the murder of his wife, Karen.

Multiple sources confirmed the 53-year-old was assaulted while he was in the yard of the Melbourne Assessment Prison yesterday afternoon.

It is understood the bashing was not severe, and was described as a "welcome" by one source.

A Corrections Victoria spokeswoman said a 53-year-old prisoner was treated for minor injuries.
In a development that heralds the future of astronomy, an Australian mathematician has discovered two new alien worlds while working on a hobby project to develop artificial intelligence.

Christopher Shallue's AI only needed to look at 670 stars before spotting the new planets, which had eluded detection by human astronomers. As it starts to study the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy it is likely to discover many more new worlds.

At a news conference on Friday morning local time, NASA revealed the existence of the two new planets.

One of them, Kepler-90i, a scorched rocky world 2545 light-years from Earth, is the eighth planet spotted in the Kepler 90 system. That ties it with our own solar system for the most known planets orbiting a star.
A Blairgowrie beach will remain closed for several weeks after authorities fear a whale carcass that washed up on the Mornington Peninsula will attract sharks.

Beachgoers have been warned to be careful as the Victorian Fisheries Authority helps wildlife officers and park rangers with the management of a dead whale at Jubilee Point, Blairgowrie.

A whale carcass beached at Jubilee Point in Sorrento, in Melbourne in November. A shark warning has been issued for a popular beach on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula after a whale carcass was spotted in nearby waters. Credit:Wayne Taylor

A Victorian Fisheries Authority spokeswoman said the carcass was sitting under a rock shelf and its position could be affected by the movement of the tide.

"We expect it to be there for several more weeks," she said.
Myki fares will rise almost five per cent on New Years Day, in the biggest increase in three years.

Fares will rise by an average 4.7 per cent on January 1, the Andrews government has confirmed.

Fares will rise 4.7 per cent on January 1. Credit:Wayne Taylor

A full-fare two hour trip will rise from $4.10 to $4.30 and a daily full fare from $8.20 to $8.60.

Public Transport Users Association president Tony Morton said the fare rise was not surprising but unwelcome.
Victoria's Department of Justice has been fined $300,000 for failing to keep almost 200 of its staff safe during the biggest prison riot in the state's history.

The violent protest against a cigarette ban by 400 inmates at the Melbourne Remand Centre on June 30, 2015  when they lit fires, smashed in doors and windows and ripped down fencing  left the Ravenhall facility with a $13 million damage bill, Melbourne Magistrates Court heard on Friday.

The scene at the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall during the riot in 2015. Credit:Channel Seven

Thirty-six prison officers were injured, the Community and Public Sector Union said, and many of those staff were left traumatised and unable to work.

WorkSafe, Victoria's workplace regulator, charged the department last year with breaches of workplace health and safety laws, and the department on Friday formally pleaded guilty to one count failing to provide a safe working environment and risking the health of staff. Other charges were withdrawn.
The Extraordinary General Meeting of Vopak held on 15 December 2017, has passed the sole resolution on the agenda to appoint Gerard Paulides as member of the Executive Board and CFO as per 1 February 2018 for a term of 4 years.



Gerard Paulides (54) has experience as Executive Vice President Investor Relations at Royal Dutch Shell and as member of the Board of Directors of Shell Midstream Partners. He has a strong track record as CFO and successfully fulfilled several finance and mergers & acquisitions leadership roles in the gas, chemicals and oil industry including leading the Royal Dutch Shell / BG Group transaction completed in 2016.

His broad, international experience and deep understanding of the energy industry makes him very well qualified to serve as CFO of Royal Vopak and he will contribute greatly to realize Vopak's ambition for further growth and continued service & operational leadership.

Gerard Paulides will succeed Jack de Kreij who has decided in November 2016 to step down per 1 February 2018. Link to related press release

This press release contains inside information as meant in clause 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation.

Profile Vopak

Royal Vopak is the world's leading independent tank storage company. Vopak operates a global network of terminals located at strategic locations along major trade routes. With a 400-year history and a strong focus on safety and sustainability, Vopak ensures efficient, safe and clean storage and handling of bulk liquid products and gases for its customers. By doing so, Vopak enables the delivery of products that are vital to our economy and daily lives, ranging from oil, chemicals, gases and LNG to biofuels and vegoils. Vopak is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange and is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Including its joint ventures and associates, Vopak employs an international workforce of over 5,500 people. As of 15 December 2017, Vopak operates 66 terminals in 25 countries with a combined storage capacity of 35.9 million cbm, with another 3.2 million cbm under development, to be added before the end of 2019. www.vopak.com



For further information please contact:

Vopak Press

Liesbeth Lans, Manager External Communication

Telephone: +31 (0)10 4002777

email: global.communication@vopak.com





Vopak Analysts and Investors

Anil Acardag, Manager Investor Relations

Telephone: +31 (0)10 4002770

email: investor.relations@vopak.com
Three people have been charged after police seized more than 800 cannabis plants and a gun in raids on alleged crop houses in Melbourne.

Melton Crime Investigation Unit detectives arrested two men and a woman during the week-long operation.

Police found more than 800 cannabis plants in the crop houses across Melburne during raid. Credit:VICTORIA POLICE MEDIA

Police executed search warrants at eight homes in the Brookfield, Melton West, Rockbank, Caroline Springs and Burnside Heights areas, as part of Operation Neckties, between Monday and Friday, seizing 837 cannabis plants and a gun.

A 53-year-old Melton West woman was arrested at a Melton West house on Wednesday.
Mr Barnett was re-elected as the member of Cottesloe, and he said he felt an obligation to see out the rest of the year as a backbencher. "I am not the sort of person to cut and run and I felt an obligation after the election, as harsh as the Liberal defeat was, I was going back to parliament and face the music," he said. "I felt very much like the elephant in the room. I felt a responsibility to stay and face the music, and I've done that. "I have no regrets. It is just time to move on."

A by-election will be held for the blue-ribbon seat of Cottesloe following Mr Barnett's departure. Senior lawyer Emma Roberts has emerged as a front-runner for the WA Liberal Party's pre-selection. Ms Roberts recently met with Mr Barnett to discuss the role, and on Friday, Mr Barnett said she would be a competent replacement. "But there will be other highly competent people," he said. "If I anoint anyone it would be the kiss of death."

Only four people have served as WA premier for longer than Mr Barnett. Prior to serving as premier, Mr Barnett was deputy Liberal leader and a senior minister in the Court government from 1993 to 2001. In his time as premier, from 2008 to 2017, the state saw rapid growth in the mining industry before slipping into an economic downturn in later years. "I know I am seen as an economic guy," Mr Barnett said. "Hopefully it will be remembered that I was also involved in social and education policies, building hospitals, caring for people with disabilities and rebuilding the City of Perth.

"Perth had fallen a long way behind other Australian cities." Mr Barnett's Liberal-National alliance government invested heavily in infrastructure, spending billions on new hospitals across the state. His government also focused on big capital works to change the face of the city such as Perth Stadium, Elizabeth Quay and the City Link projects. At 67 years of age, Mr Barnett said he had enjoyed a long career and, despite becoming known as 'The Emperor' during his long reign as WA leader, he insisted he was not pre-occupied with his legacy. He had been frustrated at being perceived as a leader who looked after big projects but not much else.

"I am genuinely not about legacies," he said. Mr Barnett said he was "satisfied in my own heart and soul" about the changes his government had made in all areas. But opponents criticised him for the multi-billion-dollar deficit left behind after he left office. Mr Barnett said the pressure of public life was a heavy burden to bear. "Politics can take a toll. You are in a very public position," he said.

"It was only more recently that my boys said 'you don't know how tough it was for us at school when you were in a controversial situation'." The Cottesloe MLA recognised that most political careers ended in tears, and abruptly. Mr Barnett admitted his second term had been a very turbulent time, with big issues to deal with such as the unsuccessful shark cull during which the wrong type of shark was caught, and the collapse of the state's GST revenue. He understood many people thought he overstayed his welcome as Liberal leader but now life had changed dramatically. "I walk down the street now and people look at me - who is that guy?" he said.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe says the Catholic Church in WA "must act" in order to address concerns of child sex abuse within its institutions after the Royal Commission handed down its final report on Friday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered its report to the Governor General of Australia and made 198 recommendations aimed at better protecting children from sexual abuse in Australia.

Timothy John Costelloe SDB, an Australian metropolitan bishop, is the ninth Roman Catholic Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Perth, Western Australia. Credit:Darbs Darby (Andrew Darby)

Archbishop Costelloe told Radio 6PR it was to his "great shame and horror" the Catholic Church featured heavily in the investigations.

"Speaking for myself, the main feeling that I have this morning is one of enormous gratitude to the Royal Commission," he said.
Tip of the Week: Opening of Demersal season!

December 16 is the opening of the Demersal season which means it's time to go out and try get a nice Dhui or Snapper for Christmas.

If you are looking for Dhuis around some of the inshore metro reefs look for high relief reefs and caves. On your sounder caves will read quite distinctly from other bottom, so once you work out how to find these you are well on your way to finding Dhuis.

If you are fishing in deeper offshore reefs then you don't need to look for as much structure and Dhuis can be caught from patches of reef that many fishers will ignore.

Snapper will turn up on the same ground as Dhuis but move around much more and where you find them and what you catch them on depends largely on the time of day and prevailing weather conditions. Remember Cockburn and Warnbro Sounds are still closed to Snapper fishing to protect spawning Snapper.
It's the 'invisible' disease nobody wants to talk about, and few know how to treat, but sufferers of a debilitating and often misunderstood condition have found some hope in the federal government's announcement of a National Action Plan for Endometriosis.

Perth sufferer Joanne McCormick co-runs a "sisterhood of support" group on Facebook, and said she "bawled her eyes out" when Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the plan which will seek to improve the treatment and awareness of endometriosis.

Endometriosis sufferers Joanne McCormick and Monique Alva run a support group for Perth women. Credit:Kate Hedley.

"I was elated," Joanne said.

"To get that validation on a federal level made the last four years of sacrifice involved in running a support group and pushing to create awareness worth it.
The evangelical brand "is definitely tarnished" by politicisation from whatever side, Galli said Wednesday. "No question about it."

The sight of white evangelical voters in Alabama giving their overwhelming support to Roy Moore, the Republican candidate, despite accusations of racial and religious bigotry, misogyny and assaults on teenage girls, has deeply troubled many conservative Christians, who fear that association with the likes of Moore is giving their faith a bad name. The angst has grown so deep, Galli said, that he knows of "many card-carrying evangelicals" who are ready to disavow the label.

Whoever wins, "there is already one loser: Christian faith," wrote Mark Galli, whose publication, the flagship of American evangelicalism, was founded 61 years ago by the Reverend Billy Graham. "No one will believe a word we say, perhaps for a generation. Christianity's integrity is severely tarnished."

The editor-in-chief of Christianity Today did not have to wait for the votes to be counted to publish his essay bemoaning what the Alabama Senate race had wrought.

Many conservative Christians fear association with the likes of Roy Moore is giving their faith a bad name. Credit:LUKE SHARRETT

He said that his readers seemed to agree with the thrust of his essay. The main criticism he received, he said, was one he agreed with: that he should have made it clearer that he was referring not to all Christians, but to evangelicals in particular.

The bloc that has marched under the banner of the "Moral Majority" and "values voters" has now been tagged as the most reliable base of support for both Moore and US President Donald Trump, two politicians who are known for fanning racial and religious prejudices and who stand accused of sexual harassment by numerous women  accusations that each man denies. White evangelicals across the country delivered 81 per cent of their votes to Trump last year, according to exit poll data, and backed Moore in Alabama by the same percentage on Tuesday.

"It grieves me," said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical school in Illinois. "I don't want 'evangelical' to mean people who supported candidates with significant and credible accusations against them. If evangelical means that, it has serious ramifications for the work of Christians and churches."

That notion is bewildering to evangelical leaders who see Trump as their champion. They say that Trump has given them more access than any president in recent memory, and has done more to advance their agenda, by appointing judges who are likely to rule against abortion and gay rights; by channelling government funds to private religious schools; by recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and by calling for the elimination of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches and charitable groups from endorsing political candidates.
Bangkok: China has been busy building military infrastructure in the South China Sea while the United States and its key allies, including Australia, have been distracted by the North Korean nuclear crisis.

New satellite images show China's military has built high frequency radar and other facilities on islands it occupies, even as Beijing was signalling its willingness to pursue protracted negotiations on a "code of conduct" with other claimants to the flashpoint waters.

A satellite image of Woody Island in the Paracel island chain in the South China Sea showing two Chinese Y-8 military transport aircraft. Credit:AP

The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, which closely tracks developments in the South China Sea, said China has been constructing hangers, underground storage bunkers, missile shelters, radar arrays and domes and other facilities that cover 28 hectares.

The revelation comes as China's naval chief Shen Jinlong told his Australian counterpart, Vice Admiral Tim Barrett that Canberra's actions in the South China Sea run counter to the general trend of peace and stability in one of the world's most important shipping lanes.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Goldrea Resources Corp. (Goldrea or the Company) (CSE:GOR) (Frankfurt:GOJ) (Pink Sheets:GORAF) has signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Tabu Equity Investments Inc. (Tabu), a Canadian company with interests in the marijuana industry. Further details will follow as the Company conducts due diligence on Tabu and progress towards executing a binding agreement.

For more information, please contact:

James Elbert, President and CEO

Telephone: (604) 559-7230

Email: jelbert@goldrea.com

The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements, which are statements about the future based on current expectations or beliefs. For this purpose, statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements by their nature involve risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate or true. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law.
TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Polydex Pharmaceuticals Limited (OTC Pink:POLXF) is pleased to provide 3rd quarter financial results. Overcoming sales and production challenges, the Order Book remains robust and strong sales are anticipated for the 4th quarter.



Financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2018, including the three-month and nine-month periods ended October 31, 2017, are shown together with comparative figures from the same periods in the previous fiscal year, and reported in U.S. dollars. The full quarterly report is available on the Company website. www.Polydex.com

3 months ended

October 31, 2017 3 months ended

October 31, 2016 9 months ended

October 31, 2017 9 months ended

October 31, 2016 Sales $ 1,434,587 $ 1,447,510 $ 3,969,294 $ 4,642,861 Net Income 233,731 244,256 362,795 601,000 Income per Common Share Basic 0.07 0.07 0.11 0.18 Diluted 0.07 0.07 0.10 0.17 Weighted average # Common Shares Basic 3,399,978 3,380,478 3,399,978 3,380,478 Diluted 3,486,590 3,518,681 3,501,355 3,530,419

Sales are now resuming to normal levels and are expected to return to higher levels of prior years despite being impacted in the 3rd quarter by predatory pricing in the market for the companys higher margin liquid product.

Additionally, production levels are also returning to normal levels after being impacted by the failure of the main boiler. During this time, shipping of previously inventoried product was maintained, and the boiler was replaced with a far more energy-efficient model which will result in significant savings of utility costs.

Year to date EBITDA, as of October 31, 2017 is $603,122.

In the last few months we have made major improvements to the production equipment, including a new boiler, re-tubing of the existing boiler, and several other implementations as part of our investment into the future, says George Usher, President and CEO of Polydex. He continued, Although production was temporarily impacted by this major upgrade, our engineers have advised us that we may be able to anticipate a 12% savings in utility costs, as well as the added benefit of going green by reducing wastewater. Looking forward, our primary goal continues to be to maintain profitability and aim for increased production and sales.

The Companys publicly traded shares continue to be quoted on the OTC Pink platform (www.otcmarkets.com/stock/POLXF/quote)

Polydex Pharmaceuticals Limited, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, manufactures bulk pharmaceutical intermediates for the worldwide veterinary pharmaceutical industry and also is engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of biotechnology-based products for the human pharmaceutical market. Company website: www.Polydex.com

Note: This press release may contain forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, regarding Polydex Pharmaceuticals Limited, including, without limitation, statements regarding expectations about future revenues or business opportunities or potential research projects. These statements are typically identified by use of words like may, could, might, expect, anticipate, believe, or similar words. Actual events or results may differ materially from the Companys expectations, which are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties including but not limited to changing market conditions, future actions by the United States Food and Drug Administration or equivalent foreign regulatory authorities. Other risk factors discussed in the Companys financial reports may also affect the actual results achieved by the Company.

Contact:

Investor Relations: North Arm Capital Services, Linda Hughes, 1-877-945-1621, PolydexIR@gmail.com
MOSCOW, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mechel PAO (MOEX:MTLR) (NYSE:MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, reports signing a protocol of intent on development of ties between Mechel-Steel Management Company OOO and Kyrgyzstans National Company Kyrgyz Temir Zholu.



The protocol was signed in Bishkek on the sidelines of the Sixth Russian-Kyrgyz Inter-Region Conference for a term of five years, in the presence of the co-chairmen of the Intergovernment Russian-Kyrgyz Commission on Trade, Economic, Science, Technical and Humanitarian Cooperation, Russias Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich and Kyrgyzstans Deputy Prime Minister Tolkunbek Abdygulov.

According to this protocol, the signatories will aim at building systematic cooperation, including product information exchange, as well as cooperation in steel rolls supplies, including those of broad-gauge rails.

We are interested in developing partner ties and expanding the market for our rails. We sincerely hope that signing this protocol of intent will start a long-term and mutually beneficial cooperation with Kyrgyz Temir Zholu, Mechel-Steel Management Company OOOs Chief Executive Officer Andrey Ponomarev commented.

Mechel PAO

Ekaterina Videman

Tel: + 7 495 221 88 88

ekaterina.videman@mechel.com

Mechel is an international mining and steel company. Its products are marketed in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa. Mechel unites producers of coal, iron ore concentrate, steel, rolled products, ferroalloys, heat and electric power. All of its enterprises work in a single production chain, from raw materials to high value-added products.

Some of the information in this press release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of Mechel, as defined in the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. We do not intend to update these statements. We refer you to the documents Mechel files from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Form 20-F. These documents contain and identify important factors, including those contained in the section captioned Risk Factors and Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in our Form 20-F, that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements, including, among others, the achievement of anticipated levels of profitability, growth, cost and synergy of our recent acquisitions, the impact of competitive pricing, the ability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals and licenses, the impact of developments in the Russian economic, political and legal environment, volatility in stock markets or in the price of our shares or ADRs, financial risk management and the impact of general business and global economic conditions.
Molson Coors to distribute Snow beer

Molson Coors UK and Ireland has announced an agreement with Chinese brewer China Resources Snow Beer (CRSB).

Molson Coors UK will get the exclusive rights in the on- and off-trade to the sales, distribution and customer marketing of Snow.

Snow first entered the Chinese market in 1994 at the Shenyang Brewery in the north eastern Chinese province of Liaoning.

As Molson Coors first Chinese brand partner, Snow will compliment Molson Coors other World Beers that include Cobra, Singha, Staropramen, Pravha, Grolsch and Blue Moon.

Phil Whitehead, managing director, Molson Coors UK & Ireland says: Consumers tastes are continuing to diversify which makes the beer market more exciting than ever. As drinkers become increasingly knowledgeable about beer, they demand greater choice to allow them to explore a range of flavours and styles. At Molson Coors, we believe this is a reflection of the general societal shift towards spending on experiences and, in part, the continued food revolution that has been taking place in the UK over the past 10-15 years.

Snow, is a 5.0% ABV lager and is available in a 330ml bottle. To mark its entry into the UK market, Snow has had a labelling refresh developed in collaboration with CRSB. The label features traditional Chinese characters and imagery and is designed to make a strong visual impact on shelves and in fridges.

The distribution deal applies to the UK and Ireland. Snow will continue to be brewed in China and imported to the UK to ensure consumers enjoy the exact same premium beer that is so popular in China.

15 December 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
Prosecutors and the defense rested their cases Thursday afternoon after calling a combined 22 witnesses to testify over the three-day trial of a College Station man accused of killing a Blinn College student at a graduation party in May 2015.

Ronald McNeil, 42, is charged with murder in the shooting death of Lacie LaRose, a 19-year-old Blinn student, at a graduation party at a College Station home in the 900 block of San Benito Drive on May 3, 2015. An arrest report states LaRose died after McNeil fired gunshots at partygoers that night. Prior testimony from people who had been at the party that night revealed McNeil and Charles Williams Jr., both of whom are black, were called racial slurs during a game of beer pong at the party earlier in the night, a gathering the two men had been invited to. Before McNeil and Williams left the party, witnesses testified, Landon Duke, a white partygoer, punched Williams in the face, knocking him on the ground. Brazos County First Assistant District Attorney Brian Baker said during the testimony of one witness Wednesday that misdemeanor assault charges had been filed against Duke.

Cameron Bayne, who had been attending Blinn at the time of the shooting and had been at the party, estimated that there were about 30 people in the backyard when the shooting started. Bayne said when the firing began, there had been, "one person shooting, one person standing off to the side."

The shooter, Bayne said, was heavier, while the person standing to the side was "more of a slim build." Previous testimony described McNeil as "heavyset" and Williams as slim.

Baker and Assistant District Attorney John Brick called three witnesses Thursday morning before resting their case. Brit Lopez, a trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety who was an officer with College Station Police Department at the time of the shooting, said he responded to a noise complaint at the house shortly before the shooting started. While responding to a text message as he sat in his vehicle, Lopez heard about five "extremely rapid" gunshots and saw muzzle flashes tracking from the east to west side of the house.

Lopez also said Williams could have fired shots of his own, which is at odds with other testimony throughout the trial; multiple witnesses have described a "heavyset" man as the shooter that night, not Williams, who has consistently been described as thinner than McNeil. Reading Lopez's report from that night during cross-examination, Matthew Brown, McNeil's attorney, said Lopez had not reported before that Williams could have been a shooter.

Williams did not testify in the trial.

While questioning Lopez, Baker noted that authorities found 11 .40-caliber cartridges on the east side of the house, but none on the west. Under questioning from Brown, Lopez said he did not recall telling his brother, who is also an officer, that he'd found bullet casings on the house's west side.

Lopez was the first witness Brown called to testify after prosecutors rested their case. After playing a recording from an officer's body camera, Brown asked Lopez to confirm that he had said there were casings on the west side of the house. Lopez said this quote was taken out of context, clarifying that he had said investigators should find casings, not that they had been found. In his description of the shooting, Lopez had said he had seen muzzle flashes from the west side of the house, which would mean casings would also be on the west side.

Brown said in his opening statement Tuesday that the college students getting shot at that night had reached for their weapons and returned fire, and that one of the bullets from their weapons could have struck LaRose. Brown also said Tuesday that none of the partygoers who had fled the shooting had been tested for gunshot residue.

The second witness Brown called to testify, Cody Osborne, a College Station police officer who responded to the shooting, said he spoke with a person shortly after the shooting who had not been "completely truthful" and who had told an inconsistent story; Osborne said the "college-aged" man had said, "I don't want to be convicted of murder" before admitting he had known about the shooting. He said he let the man go without testing him for gunshot residue.

Prosecutors called Austin Wheat, the man who spoke with Osborne, to testify late Thursday. Wheat said he had been heavily intoxicated that night and that he had been underage in May 2015, so he had been worried about getting arrested when he spoke with authorities.

Osborne testified that he had not found a firearm in Wheat's possession and that he did not think Wheat had been involved in the shooting.

If convicted of murder, McNeil faces between 15 and 99 years in prison, an enhanced minimum punishment because of a prior felony conviction. He has been held in the Brazos County jail on a $500,000 bond since his arrest on May 3, 2015, according to jail records.

Attorneys will present their closing arguments this morning after 85th District Court Judge Kyle Hawthorne reads jurors the charge at 8:30 a.m. Jurors should begin their deliberations before lunchtime today.
The College Station City Council unanimously approved a $6 million construction contract Thursday for pedestrian improvements to University Drive.

The second phase of improvements to the notoriously busy and hazardous roadway will focus on the stretch between College Main, near the Dixie Chicken, to South College Avenue and Bizzell Street. The contract awarded to Larry Young Paving is focused on improving pedestrian safety and mobility by widening sidewalks, constructing median islands, replacing traffic signals and more.

The sidewalks along the north side of University Drive will be widened to between 14 and 18 feet, Public Works Director Donald Harmon told the City Council. The opposite side of the road on the Texas A&M campus will have 10- to 12-foot sidewalks, too, he said.

"It's gonna be a much safer environment on both sides of the roadway," Harmon said, adding that the project will enhance the crossings and pedestrian signal timings to more effectively move students across the road in a safe manner.

City officials have long been working to implement changes to improve safety along University Drive, especially as foot and vehicle traffic increases with each new housing development built on the north side of the road. In October 2015, Conroe residents Daisy Estrada, 19, and Brian Gonzalez, 20, were killed after they were hit by a truck passing through a green light on University at the intersection with Boyett Street. Witnesses said the two were attempting to dart across the busy Northgate traffic after a game day.

Harmon said the pedestrian signal at Spence Street will be moved to Church Avenue, which he said will make for a safer crossing for pedestrians from campus and will redirect them to either the South College Avenue or Church Avenue intersections. A raised barrier with plantings will also be put in the median at Spence Street to further discourage pedestrians from crossing in that location and encourage them to follow the sidewalks.

A mill and overlay of the asphalt in this entire section of University Drive is also planned, as well as the replacement of some traffic signals, enhanced pedestrian timings, lighting improvements, pavement markings and signage.

Harmon said work will begin on the project "very quickly," and that there will only be minor disruption to pedestrians during construction.
Harvey Road in College Station was temporarily closed Thursday after a car crashed into a pole supporting Suddenlink communication lines.

According to College Station police, a bystander contacted police Thursday to report a car had crashed into a pole and left the scene. The pole was broken and wires were splayed across the road.

All lanes of the 300 block of Harvey Road were closed while authorities investigated. Police said the wires belonged to Suddenlink.

Lanes were reopened by 3:30 p.m., though repairs to the line continued through the evening. Authorities say they have not found the vehicle that hit the pole.
Look closely at the big picture of Alabamas stunning senatorial election. Its a paint-by-the-numbers political portrait that reveals new insights into Tuesday nights biggest winner  and how the race really was won.

While Democrats sure deserve to be whooping and high-fiving in celebration of Doug Jones longest of longshot victories, perpetually Republican Alabamas Democratic senator-elect may not have been the biggest winner, after all.

History may look back and judge that Tuesdays biggest winner in Alabama was: decency.

Alabama, a state with a history of harsh politics, may have gifted America with a return of Decency in politics. (We are talking here about relative decency, since we all know decency and politics co-exist like dogs cuddling with cats. Google proves it happens; so were moving on.) We have seen decency increasingly trashed  replaced by a mean-spirited, hate-based, name-calling form of campaigning. And we know why that has been happening: Because it works. Works for the trash-talking campaigners, because we allow it and reward it with our votes.

Pundits and analysts now call it populism  but thats not what it really has been. Its populist in its appeal to ordinary folks. But this eras so-called populism is hyped by a politics of divide and demonize. Dont merely defeat  destroy!

If you think we are talking here about Donald Trump, well, you are right. Remember how he campaigned by name-calling Republican primary opponents: Lyin Ted Cruz, Little Marco Rubio, Low-energy Jeb Bush. Audiences laughed, cheered, voted; and the field thinned. Trump crudely insulted the attractiveness of Cruzs wife, lamely linked Cruzs father to the assassination of John F. Kennedy (with no proof!); and lo, Cruz endorsed Trump. Then Trump targeted Crooked Hillary, incited chants of Lock her up! And what I consider his worst offense of all  his soulless cruel public mimicking of a physically handicapped reporter.

So it was no surprise that Trump plunged in bigtime to urge Alabamans to elect the ever-controversial, fringe-rightwing Republican Roy Moore, who had been twice elected chief justice of Alabamas Supreme Court, and twice removed from the bench due to improprieties. Trump endorsed Moore despite the fact that the Alabaman was accused repeatedly of having pursued and dated girls who were as young as 14 when he was in his 30s.

This week, when Moore lost, Trump of course became a huge Tuesday loser. And so did the Republican National Committee, which dutifully funded Moores campaign.

But were not talking about losers, here. Were focusing on winners. And the big picture numbers in Tuesdays big picture election make unmistakably clear the decisive role Decency played in Democrat Jones victory. The combination of Moore plus Trump motivated Alabamas black voters to turn out massively (in Obama-era numbers) to vote against Moore and for Jones. But even that might not have been enough  if there had been no outbreak of unaccustomed decency in Republican Alabama.

Consider Tuesdays numbers:

Jones received 671,151 votes  49.9 percent of the total votes cast.

Moore received 650,436 votes  48.4 percent of the total votes cast.

But there were also 22,819 write-in votes cast  a mere 1.7 percent of the total votes cast. Yet, it was that smallest number of write-ins that gave Jones his victory.

Heres why: Most if not all those write-in votes were cast by Republicans who were disillusioned and disgusted with Moores past. They spurned Trumps pleas and followed the leadership of Alabamas conservative Republican icon, Sen. Richard Shelby.

Sunday, on CNNs State of the Union, Shelby publicly shared his disgust with Moore, but made it clear that, rather than vote for a Democrat, he just wrote in a Republicans name on his absentee ballot. Shelby told the world he thought Moores female accusers were believable, adding: The state of Alabama deserves better.

Now ask yourself: What would have happened if Shelby had been unprincipled, lacked decency and urged everyone to vote for even the very flawed Republican Moore?

Add those write-in vote totals to Moores: The highly objectionable Republican would have won with 673,255 votes  50.1 percent of the total votes cast.

And we wouldnt be talking today about the unforeseeable possibility that the unlikeliest state  Alabama!  may have shown America that a return of relative decency and civility still may happen in Americas politics.

Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Email him at martin.schram@gmail.com.
Montreal, Quebec, December 5, 2017 - SEMAFO Inc. (TSX, OMX: SMF) is pleased to announce the appointment of John Jentz, (CA, CPA) as Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations, effective December 4, 2017. Mr. Jentz will report directly to Benoit Desormeaux, the Corporation's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Jentz will be responsible for communicating the Corporation's growth strategy in addition to leading its ongoing business development efforts. He will be based in Toronto.

Mr. Jentz is a financial professional with over 20 years' experience in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions mostly within the mining sector. He has worked at a variety of global, national and independent investment banking firms. Mr. Jentz has an MBA and an undergraduate degree in actuarial science.

Mr. Jentz succeeds Robert LaValliere, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs, who will retire at the end of this year after heading up SEMAFO's Investor Relations department since 2012. During his tenure, Robert was instrumental in developing the Corporation's program of transparent communication with the investment community, which helped propel SEMAFO along its growth path. We thank him for his contribution over the past five years and wish him a happy and healthy retirement.

About SEMAFO

SEMAFO is a Canadian-based mining company with gold production and exploration activities in West Africa. The Corporation operates the Mana Mine in Burkina Faso, which includes the high-grade satellite deposit of Siou, and is targeting production start-up of the Boungou Mine in the third quarter of 2018. SEMAFO's strategic focus is to maximize shareholder value by effectively managing its existing assets as well as pursuing organic and strategic growth opportunities.

The information in this release is subject to the disclosure requirements of SEMAFO under the Swedish Securities Market Act and/or the Swedish Financial Instruments Trading Act. This information was publicly communicated on December 5, 2017 at 7:00 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.

For more information, contact:

SEMAFO

Robert LaValliere

Vice-President, Corporate Affairs & Investor Relations

E-mail: Robert.Lavalliere@semafo.com

Cell: +1 (514) 240 2780

Ruth Hanna

Analyst, Investor Relations

E-mail: Ruth.Hanna@semafo.com

Tel. local & overseas: +1 (514) 744 4408

North America Toll-Free: 1 (888) 744 4408

Website: www.semafo.com

Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dab0e3ca-4c41-4938-9c19-17453af5248f
Jurors took less than 90 minutes to convict a 42-year-old College Station man in the shooting death of a Blinn College student during a graduation party two years ago.

Ronald McNeil, 42, is on trial for the murder of Lacie LaRose, a 19-year-old who was shot while standing the back yard of a home in the 900 block of San Benito Drive on May 3, 2015.

Testimony from the 22 witnesses prosecutors and the defense suggested McNeil and Charles Williams Jr., both of whom are black, were called racial slurs by white partygoers before they left the house late that night.

Witnesses testified Landon Duke, who is white, punched Williams in the face and knocked him to the ground before the two black men left. McNeil lived on the same street with his girlfriend and was invited to the party.

Duke was indicted in July 2015 for a misdemeanor assault in connection with the case, according to court records. His next scheduled appearance in court is Jan. 17, 2018.

"Landon Dukes case is not for today," Brazos County First Assistant District Attorney Brian Baker said of Dukes alleged striking Williams in the garage. "Hell be held responsible for hitting a man in the face. Because that was ridiculous, and hateful."

Testifying Thursday, Brit Lopez, a trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety who in May 2015 was an officer with College Station Police Department, said he responded to a noise complaint at the house shortly before the shooting. Later, while responding to a text message in his vehicle, which was parked down the street from the house in the 900 block of San Benito Drive, Lopez heard gunshots and saw muzzle flashes. Contradicting previous courtroom testimony that described the "heavy-set" McNeil as the shooter, not Williams, who was thinner than McNeil, Lopez said he may have seen a "skinny black guy" fire a weapon, too.

"Im here to tell you that story is a fantasy, that he never saw a skinny black guy" run around the house and fire shots of his own, said Matthew Brown, McNeils attorney.

Brown noted during Lopezs testimony that his initial report did not include the observation that Williams had been a shooter that night, and said in his closing argument that Lopez had either not told his superiors this detail, or had disclosed this observation and police had decided not to arrest Williams.

In their closing arguments Friday morning, Baker and Assistant District Attorney John Brick said McNeil and Williams returned to the house that night to get revenge on the partiers. Baker said Williams and McNeil tried to corral the partygoers in the backyard, leaving them trapped.

"It all boils down to they were angry, hurt, enraged," Brick said.

Brick and Baker argued LaRose was hit within the first five shots fired that night, based on a witnesss prior testimony that she had seen LaRose fall during the first round of gun fire. They also argued there were no casings recovered at the scene that were from another persons gun.

Brown argued one of the college students had retrieved their own gun and returned fire after the shooting broke out, and that one of those shots could have been that one that caused LaRoses death. Based on the medical examiners testimony from earlier in the trial, Brown said LaRose had been hit by a gun positioned closer to the ground, not fired around chest-level by a standing shooter.

He also said there were doubts about his clients anger that night, referring to previous testimony that Williams and McNeil had left the party without fighting back after Williams had been punched.

"Was Mr. McNeil really that angry that suddenly he becomes a murderous monster? Thats a really, really long leap from a guy who just picked up his cousin [after the fight] and walked away."

A major part of Browns argument was that the partygoers who fled the shooting were not tested for gunshot residue, and many were not questioned before police let them go. Brown also questioned the partygoers testimony, questioning their level of inebriation and because, "memories get changed... they fade without us even knowing."

The last lawyer who argued Friday morning, Baker said that in a community like Brazos County - which includes Blinn College and Texas A&M University - students are out partying in a backyard every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Showing pictures of LaRose and the people who testified in the trial who had been at the party at the time of the shooting, Baker said, "none of them deserve to be put in a kill-box."

Jurors left the courtroom at 10 a.m. Friday morning. McNeil faces between 15 and 99 years in prison, an enhanced minimum punishment because of a prior felony conviction.

* Reporter Kelan Lyon's live blog can be read here.
Incoming freshmen headed to Aggieland who were affected by Hurricane Harvey will have access to a new scholarship created in partnership between the Texas A&M Foundation and The Association of Former Students.

The university announced the Texas A&M Resilience Scholarship will benefit 400 qualifying students -- selected with a priority placed on need -- set to begin their studies in the fall 2018 semester with a one-year, $2,500 scholarship. The scholarship will be funded equally by the Texas A&M Foundation and The Association of Former Students.

A&M Vice President for Enrollment and Academic Services Joe Pettibon said in a statement Thursday he is proud of the university community for creating this opportunity.

"Our hearts go out to those families who've lost homes, businesses and personal possessions in the storm," Pettibon said. "It is our fervent wish that this program provides hope and help to those hardest hit. I'd like to thank the Texas A&M Foundation, The Association of Former Students and all those who have helped make this program possible."

Among the criteria necessary for acceptance into the scholarship include that the student must be a first-generation college student who has never attended college and has an annual gross family income of less than $80,000. Qualification for the scholarship will also require that students be a permanent resident of one of the 41 Texas counties FEMA has identified for individual assistance. A full list of those counties can be found at fema.gov/disaster/4332.

Students must also complete the FASFA or TASFA aid application with the university's scholarship and financial aid office to be considered. University officials said students who have already applied for admission in the fall of 2018 will also be considered along the same criteria.

Texas A&M Foundation President Tyson Voelkel said in a statement he views the scholarship as an investment in the futures of students who may have otherwise not been financially able to pursue an education at the university.

"No student should be denied their chance at a higher education due to a natural disaster," Voelkel said. "Helping those affected to attend Texas A&M will be a phenomenal return on investment for the university and the state of Texas."

Porter Garner, president and CEO of The Association, said in a statement that he hopes the scholarship will be able to help in continuing A&M's legacy of serving as a "launching pad" for first-generation students.

"Throughout our 139 years of support to Texas A&M, The Association of Former Students has willingly stepped in when needed to help support unexpected needs of our university and students," Garner said. "We're proud to welcome these students into the Aggie Network and provide this additional financial assistance to these students as they rebound from the impacts of Hurricane Harvey."

To help students, who might not have otherwise applied, achieve acceptance into Texas A&M, the university has extended its fall 2018 application deadline to Jan. 2.
American Legion Post 111 of Rocky Mount will sponsor bringing The Moving Wall to the county next year.

The Moving Wall is a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., which is one of the most visited attractions in the nations capital.

The memorial is a black granite wall with the names of 58,286 Americans who were killed or went missing during the Vietnam conflict. Names are listed in order based on when the casualty took place, with an alphabetical directory to help visitors locate specific names.

John Devitt was so moved by The Wall he decided that he would share that experience with everyone, even those that may not be able to make it to Washington, and The Wall has been touring the country for more than 30 years since its dedication in 1982.

Devitt, Norris Shears, Gerry Haver and other Vietnam veterans built the replica, and it made its first appearance in October 1984 in Tyler, Texas.

There are currently two structures of The Moving Wall that travel over the United States from April to November. Each location houses the structure for about one week.

Franklin Countys Franklin Rec Park on Sontag Road will host the statue for five days: Sept. 27, 2018 to Oct. 2, 2018.

The event is free to the community and open 24 hour each day, and it is expected that more than 25,000 people will come to witness the monument to honor Vietnam veterans. There will be people who can help visitors find certain names.

To me this is such a wonderful thing when something like this comes to the area, said Andre Peery, vice commander and program coordinator of the American Legion Post 111. When you see this wall, you are literally touching the same thing that they have in Washington, D.C. The feel of this place that we are going to create will have the same majesty, and people will feel that when they come to this wall, if they dont do anything else but come.

American Legion Post 111 is currently seeking sponsorship to help spread the word, gain volunteers and make the event a success.

There are four sponsorship levels: Patrons ($20 to $99), Bronze ($100 to $499), Silver ($500 to $999) and Gold ($1,000 and over).

Donations can be made by check; they will also be setting up a PayPal account. Patron sponsors and above will have their names printed in a program that will be passed out for those who attend.

For more information contact Peery at 540-521-0503 or Larry Moore at 540-493-1596.
WASHINGTON - On the eve of a historic vote at the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Ajit Pai starred in an eccentric video that featured him dressed as Santa, wielding a lightsaber and clutching a fidget spinner to defend his contentious move to repeal net neutrality and mock the criticism against it.

In a so-called public service announcement laced with pop culture references and internet iconography, Pai listed the "7 things you can still do on the internet after net neutrality." He moved through each sarcasm-soaked segment with props and costumes. In the first scene, "You can still gram your food," Pai took a selfie with a bowl topped with Cheetos and drenched in sriracha. Later, dressed in a Santa suit and holding a rotating fidget spinner, he demonstrated how people could still shop for their Christmas presents online. In another bit, titled "You can still stay part of your fave fandom," Pai, in a fitted black hoodie, cocked his shoulders back and raised his elbows as he brandished a blue lightsaber. To bring it all home, the last segment, "You can still ruin memes," was its own version of a Harlem Shake video; Pai gyrated to music along with four other people.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Alex Wong/Getty Images Show More Show Less 2 of 5 BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Alex Wong/Getty Images Show More Show Less 5 of 5









Pai's video came just a day before the commission voted in a 3-2 party-line vote to repeal net neutrality rules set in 2015. Under Pai's new plan, internet providers would be allowed to speed up service for some apps and websites and block or slow others.

Published by conservative news site the Daily Caller and pushed on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the video speaks to Pai's quirky sense of humor and his belief that the internet and the public's relationship to it won't be harmed after net neutrality rules are dismantled.

"Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the internet for most of its existence," he said in comments leading up to the FCC vote Thursday.

The absurdist video seized on the widespread outcry against Pai's moves, portraying the concerns of many consumers, technology companies and civil society groups as doomsday hysteria. But Pai's critics, including two of his fellow commissioners, see the repeal as an affront to free expression and a vibrant internet marketplace. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel described the process leading up to the vote as "corrupt," adding, "I dissent from the contempt this agency has shown our citizens in pursuing this path today."

Now Playing: KTVU's Tom Vacar takes a look at the impact of the net neutrality decision. Video: KTVU

Pai has not shied away from controversy. Since President Donald Trump elevated him to lead the commission earlier this year, he's moved swiftly to deregulate internet service providers and squash rules designed to limit the reach and power of broadcasting companies, which experts say may lead to greater consolidation.

Pai was first appointed to the FCC by President Obama in 2011. Before that, he was a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block and held several positions as a staffer at the FCC, including deputy general counsel. In the early 2000s, he worked as a senior counsel at the Department of Justice, deputy chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was a lawyer for Verizon. Pai's parents immigrated from India. He was raised in Kansas.

Pai's tongue-in-cheek video stands in stark contrast to the often testy give-and-take that has surrounded much of the net neutrality debate. In recent weeks, as a vote approached, Pai and his family even became targets of harassment. In one incident, cardboard signs naming his two children were left outside of his home in Arlington, Virginia. "They will come to know the truth. Dad murdered Democracy in cold blood," one sign read. A spokesperson for the FCC said that Pai's family has received many threats, and that his wife has been receiving harassing emails at work.

The tone of the video should not have come as a surprise. People who know Pai describe him as an ebullient presence, given to occasional cornball humor. As a policymaker, he has consistently championed the same views he held when Democrats controlled the commission, in the pre-Trump era.

"People have known what is coming and what he cares about by watching what he cared about as a minority commissioner, when he had little power to direct the agency," said Joshua Wright, a law professor at George Mason University and a former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission.

Like Pai, Wright was appointed by Obama to hold a post reserved for the GOP, and the two became friends inside Democratically controlled agencies. Wright described Pai as generous and principled, and a person willing to engage with his critics. Whether people are upset by Pai's actions as chairman or are drawn to him because of it, his effectiveness can't be denied, he said. "I can't think of a more effective regulatory commissioner than Ajit Pai."

Others say Pai's pleasant demeanor can mask destructive policy views. "His general friendliness can sometimes cover up an agenda that harms consumers," said Chris Lewis, the vice president of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group. Lewis said that he doesn't know Pai well, but he would occasionally exchange greetings with him in the hallways of the FCC, when they were both staffers.

"He's the type of guy you'd want to sit down and have a beer with, but not the type you'd want to run the Federal Communications Commission," he said.

- - -

Video link:

https://youtu.be/LFhT6H6pRWg
With each turn of Lola Chens hand, she shows fourth-grader Ava Rose Herbstreith how the colonists got it done when it came to cooking.

Dont smash it, grind it, she says, passing a mortar and pestle to Ava Rose who will then reduce whole cloves into a fine powder. At another table, second-grader Olivia Edwards grates some nutmeg.

Such is the life of modern-day aspiring cooks, as they turn back the clock to learn techniques of their colonial-day counterparts. On this morning, about a dozen girls are whipping up batches of plum pudding, a Christmas dish that originated in 14th century Britain. Every month, Chen, the Wilton Historical Societys museum educator, holds a Colonial Cookery and Customs workshop in Abbott Barn, where gems such as this traditional dish are re-created.

Each cooking class introduces ingredients that have fallen out of favor and techniques that have been co-opted by modern appliances. She also shares the struggles of the colonists as they sought needed ingredients, which may have been too costly or simply not available. American cuisine has long been an amalgamation of who arrived here and started cooking. Chen relishes the opportunity to get back to where it all started  the establishment of a unique cuisine that gave way to regional specialities.

Tastes change, but they largely stay the same. It is an evolution. Older dishes have evolved into newer dishes, says Chen, who has led a varied career. Many years ago, she completed a certificate course at the French Culinary Institute.

She offered a dish that is, well, as American as one can get  apple pie. Before vanilla became easier to access in the late 1800s, rosewater imparted some of the pies depth of flavor, as found in the recipe, or receipt, as they were called, in American Cookery (1796), by Amelia Simmons, the first cookbook written by an American using ingredients found in America. Chen says she once served a pie with rosewater, but the taste threw off a few people. Vanilla and sugar, for instance, were once dear ingredients.

More Information New Year's Cake 1 pound butter 1 pint sifted flour 3 eggs 1 pint honey 1 grated nutmeg 2 tablespoons caraway seeds 1 teacup cider 1 teaspoon baking soda and a bit of alum Sifted flour Rub a pound of butter into a pint of sifted flour, and add three eggs well beaten; then stir in a pint of honey, a grated nutmeg, two tablespoons of caraway seeds, a teacup of cider (in which is dissolved a teaspoon of baking soda and a small bit of alum) and sifted flour enough to make a stiff dough. Roll it thin, cut it into circular shapes and bake it on a buttered cookie sheet for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. They come out as a flat "cake-shaped" cookie. You can cut back on the caraway seed s for taste. See More Collapse

You would not have kept it in the cupboard, Chen says of sugar. You would have set it out on the mantle for all to see.

For those who think colonial cooking is about as exciting as a pot of beans boiling over an open fire or a plate of cornmeal cakes should think again, says chef Walter Staib, host of the Emmy award-winning PBS show, A Taste of History.

After landing in the new world, colonists followed English recipes by using what they had on hand. Once native inhabitants shared their knowledge, colonists began using the flora and fauna of their adopted home, and the cuisine largely became more diverse, particularly for those on the East Coast or near a bustling port.

The foundation of American cuisine came out as the early colonists found their way, Staib says in a recent telephone interview. Some find early American cuisine bland or not imaginative, but that was not so at all.

In Simmons cookbook, she lays down a recipe for stuffing a turkey (thyme, marjoram and wine are among the ingredients), establishing a precedent for what home cooks did around the country several weeks ago. New England clam chowder was first stirred by the colonists, for instance, and slaves introduced Hoppin John, a popular rice-and-peas dish.

Staib runs Philadelphias City Tavern, which is on National Park Service property. He offers foods the movers and shakers in the late 18th century ate, such as venison, oysters, turkey and rabbit dishes. In a place such as Philadelphia, with its wealth of wild fowl on the Delaware River and oysters along its depths, plus ships bringing spices and products from tropical locales, it was a cosmopolitan buffet.

It was like a McDonalds on every corner, he says, as the ancestors of todays food truck operators began serving oysters in all manner, such as dipping them in cornmeal, and serving them to passersby.

When up against such culinary trends as Asian fusion and the farm-to-table movement that have spread across the country, the colonial-cuisine revival is a slow mover. Interest, however, in tracing culinary foodways are bringing foodies back to the beginning. Staib says he has been busy ever since taking over operations in 1994. (The Tavern was built in 1773 and rebuilt in 1976). In 2015, the restaurant Loyal Nine opened in Cambridge, Mass., with the intent of preserving New England culinary traditions. At about the same time, NPR reported that lamb ham, which landed on the tables of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, was making a comeback. It features preserving methods dating back to the colonial era. Chen says the cooking workshops are a popular draw every month.

In the end, the food has to be good, and the colonial aspirants of 2017 proved it so as they gobbled down an apple cake from a previous cooking session (the plum pudding had to sit awhile before baking).

I hope they get from the experience a sense of the hard work and the intrinsic value of completing something from start to finish, Chen says. It is about nourishment. It is literal nourishment, but then there is that nourishment that comes with spending time with family and enjoying traditions. These food customs continually nourish that.
NORWALK  A Norwalk man who was charged in October with larceny on allegations that he sold a wood chipper that did not belong to him had his case dismissed last week.

Bill Afentoulides, 41, of Summit Avenue, was arrested on a warrant on Oct. 25 and charged with third-degree larceny following allegations that he sold an $8,000 wood chipper without the owners permission.

Afentoulidess attorney, Michael Corsello, said the court dismissed the charges against his client after the state entered a nolle. Corsello said that Afentoulides was able to disprove the allegations against him and was able to vindicate himself.

Police had said Afentoulides was in the process of purchasing a property on which the owner had allowed a friend to store the wood chipper. According to police, someone noticed Afentoulides on the property and he was told not to remove anything. On Sept. 10, the complainant called police to say the item was missing.

Afentoulides was able to demonstrate that he was not about to purchase the property, but in fact, purchased the property several weeks prior to the sale, Corsello said. My client was able to demonstrate through photographs and affidavits from third parties that the machinery had no identifying information on it, other than a license plate.

Police said Afentoulides told them he attempted to contact Norwalk police to determine ownership, but police said there is no record such contact was made. Police said the equipment had identifying information on it.

Afentoulides was able to demonstrate that he contacted police in an effort to ascertain the equipments owner through its license plate, and further, that he had his real estate attorney contact the attorney for the previous owner of the property in an effort to determine the ownership status of the wood chipper, Corsello said.

Corsello provided the court with copies of cell phone records in which his client apparently called the Norwalk Police Department on Aug. 20 three times in calls that lasted under two minutes each. Corsello also sent copies of email correspondence in which the house sellers attorney said he assumed that the wood chipper had been abandoned.

Afentoulides never had any desire to take anyone elses property, but simply to remove various items which were obstructing his ability to use his property, Corsello said.

Lt. Terry Blake, a police spokesman, said he was unable to comment on the case, as the reports were erased with the court dismissed the charges against Afentoulides.
NORWALK  A shakeup is underway within the Norwalk Economic Development Office.

Liz will be leaving the employment of the city, and were looking at how were going to move the economic development process forward and figuring out what would be the most effective way of doing that, Mayor Harry Rilling said Thursday evening when asked about the employment status of Elisabeth Stocker. We want to continue the economic development process that is in the best interest of bringing businesses to Norwalk and providing for development that will be consistent with our POCD (master plan).

Rilling would not elaborate on the circumstances behind Stockers departure. She served as Norwalks economic development director for three years.

Stocker, who worked in Rillings office under the Norwalk Redevelopment Agency, could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon. She has not been seen at City Hall for nearly two weeks, and her voicemail directs callers elsewhere.

You have reached the voicemail for the Norwalk Economic Development Office, Stocker said in the voicemail on her work telephone. No one is monitoring this message so please call another number, either the mayors office or the Norwalk redevelopment agency. Thank you.

Stocker became Norwalks economic development director in July 2014, filling a position that had been vacant for more than a half-year. At a press conference announcing Stockers appointment at that time, Rilling described her as head and shoulders above other applications for the roughly $91,000-a-year position.

Before coming to Norwalk, Stocker was director of economic and community development for Newtown. From 1985 until 1990, she worked as assistant planner for Norwalk. She holds a master's degree in urban planning from New York University and a bachelor's of science degree in natural resources conservation from the University of Connecticut.

Stocker is a past president of the Connecticut Economic Development Association and chaired the board of directors of the Housatonic Industrial Development Corp., according to her resume as presented upon her appointment as Norwalk economic development director.

She was among more than a dozen regional officials who went to Manhattan on Nov. 2 as part of a Fairfield County Five effort aimed at drawing New York City-based businesses to southwestern Connecticut.

In September 2015, Stocker and Rilling unveiled an Economic Development Action Plan whose goals included rebranding the city, establishing a business retention and expansion program, and streamlining the permitting and approval process.
There is universal agreement that the Federal Communication Commission's repeal of the net neutrality rule the agency adopted in 2015 is a very big deal, but there's not much agreement about what specifically the future holds for internet users.

Presuming the repeal stays on the books, legions of opponents say it could mean higher internet prices, blazing speed for content from wealthy sources and carrier-pigeon speed for everyone else, preferential treatment for certain content and obscurity, or outright banning, of disfavored content (such as from an ISP's competitor). Proponents of the repeal, a group not much larger than the ISPs, say "light touch" regulation will spur innovation and investment (a claim mocked hilariously by The Onion).

Michael Powell, a former FCC commissioner turned CEO of NCTA -- The Internet & Television Association, ridiculed repeal opponents as "new-age Nostradamuses [who] predict the internet will stop working, democracy will collapse, plague will ensue and locusts will cover the land." Powell predicted repeal of net neutrality will return the nation to the pre-2015 era when "we saw tremendous innovation on the web and a network that grew faster than any technology in history.''

Related: How Changes to Net Neutrality Laws Could Affect Small Businesses

Others, particularly those without financial ties to ISPs, say it is impossible to know in detail how repealing net neutrality will play out, but it clearly gives ISPs the legal right to play favorites with content. Comcast has pledged, on Twitter at least, to "not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content."

That pledge, to some, including Tim Wu, the Columbia University professor who coined the term "net neutrality,'' simply underscores the point that ISPs will no longer be barred from doing any of that. Wu noted to The New York Times that what the FCC is voting on goes further than simply repealing the net neutrality rule by explicitly granting ISPs authority to block content.

"An allowance of blocking is really pretty shocking," Wu told the Times.

Related: Here Are the Rules the Government Just Proposed to End Net Neutrality

In a scathing open letter to congressional leaders with oversight of the FCC, 21 internet pioneers including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said what the FCC is voting on today does much more than simply return to the regulatory system in place prior to net neutrality rule. The "technically incorrect proposed Order dismantles 15 years of targeted oversight from both Republican and Democratic FCC chairs, who understood the threats that internet access providers could pose to open markets on the internet," they wrote.

Roger L. Kay, a technology analyst, was quoted in The New York Times as saying that repealing the rule will allow online firms with the most money and largest need for broadband -- think Netflix, Amazon, Facebook etc. -- to simply pay for the speed they require and pass those costs, directly or indirectly, onto consumers who "will end up paying higher prices for essentially the same service.''

Whatever occurs in the long term, the short-term prospect is for litigation, civil and perhaps criminal, legislation at least at the state level and likely continuing debate in the midterm elections next year.

Related: The FCC Took the First Step to Dismantle Net Neutrality. Your Dreams of Success Are Now on Life Support.

Opponents of the rule repeal are already preparing to challenge the action in federal court as "arbitrary and capricious," reasoning the FCC that successfully defended the rule against challenges from ISPs cannot, in less than two years, reverse all its reasoning. Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, told Reuters, "As an FCC lawyer, I would be kind of red-faced going to court and saying, 'You know what? We want to overturn that (the 2015 rules we just defended).''

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is conducting a criminal investigation that he claims has uncovered 2 million fake comments supporting repeal of net neutrality submitted under stolen identities. Schneiderman's office has confirmed more than 5,000 stolen identities and suspects there are hundreds of thousands more. The FCC has refused nine requests from Schneiderman to cooperate in the investigation.

"Millions of fake comments have corrupted the FCC public process -- including 2 million that stole the identities of real people, a crime under New York law," Schneiderman said in a press release. "Yet the FCC is moving full steam ahead with a vote based on this corrupted process, while refusing to cooperate with an investigation."

Politically, the broad unpopularity of the FCC action seems certain to inject the issue into the elections next year. Thirty-nine senators, all Democrats except for two independents who caucus with Democrats, wrote a blistering letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to "abandon your reckless plan to radically alter the free and open internet as we know it."

Among the signatories is every Democratic senator believed to be a presidential candidate in 2020.

The letter explicitly criticizes the pending FCC action for making "sure that no other state or local government can fill this gaping consumer protection void by preempting them from adopting their own open internet consumer protections.''

The FCC's effort to stop any future action by states to pass their own net neutrality laws is certain to be challenged. Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat whose name has been floated as a 2020 presidential candidate, has announced he will pursue legislation in his state to protect net neutrality there.

The FCC's decision is final, but not much else is.

Related:

The FCC Has Repealed Net Neutrality, But Nobody Is Certain What Happens Next

The FCC's Looming Repeal of Net Neutrality Is an Assault on Entrepreneurship

Here Are the Rules the Government Just Proposed to End Net Neutrality



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Datametrex AI Limited (the Company or Datametrex) (TSXV:DM) (FSE:D4G) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter of intent (LOI) to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Ronin Blockchain Corp.(Ronin), a global industrial scale Blockchain platform with specific focus in mining cryptocurrencies (the Transaction)

Pursuant to the terms of the LOI, the proposed consideration for the Transaction is an aggregate amount of CAD $10.0 million payable in common shares (Shares) in the capital of the Corporation as follows;

$7.5MM of Shares will be issued on the closing of the Transaction at a deem price of $.25 per Share, of which 50% of this amount will be issued to Ronin on the closing of the Transaction, 25% of this amount will be issued to Ronin within 3 months from the closing date of the Transaction and the remaining 25% will be issued to Ronin within 6 months from the closing date of the Transaction;

$2.5MM of Shares will be issued on the first anniversary from the closing date of the Transaction and these Shares will be issued at a price per Share equal to the volume weighted average price of the common shares of Datametrex on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX V) for the twenty (20) days prior to the first anniversary of the closing date of the Transaction.

The Transaction is anticipated to close on or before January 12, 2018 with a definitive purchase agreement being entered into on or before January 9, 2018. The Transaction is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and certain conditions pursuant to the terms of the LOI, including satisfactory due diligence.

We are thrilled to enter into this agreement with Ronin and their World class team of Directors, Officers and Advisors. We look forward to adding a cryptocurrency mining vertical to complement our existing solutions of Data collection, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies, said Andrew Ryu, CEO and Chairman.

About Ronin Blockchain Corp.

Ronin is a private company located in Vancouver B.C. Ronins objective is to become a large player in the industrial Blockchain mining sector through a concentrated focus on scale, innovative technologies and low cost energy supply.

Ronins business model is based on an industrial scale Blockchain mining platform, which enables the company to access and manage global cryptocurrency mining infrastructure. Ronin will provide state of the art industrial mining capability across the world and utilize its industrial scale, beginning in China, to optimize efficiency and profitability of the arbitrage opportunities on a GPU based mining infrastructure.

Ronin has entered into a binding a Memorandum of Understanding with GoSun Group (GoSun). GoSun founded in 2006 is one of Chinas largest infrastructure and networking companies with over 90 operating data centers in China.

The Memorandum of Understanding outlines the following key points:

An opportunity to gain access, for the purposes of crypto mining to 10 GoSun data centers by January 1st, 2018, with a minimum of 20 racks per data center.



Access to at least 15 additional data centers per quarter for MaaS starting in Q1 2018.



Access to all 90 data centers by Q3 2019.



Most favored nation pricing for all electricity and flow through pricing if the provider reduces any costs related to electricity.

The GoSun partnership provides Ronin access to the worlds largest Blockchain mining market with the previously discussed fundamental drivers for success; fast internet connections, low cost energy delivery, proximity to miners and equipment producers.

The following are directors, officers and advisors to Ronin:

Darcy Taylor, CEO & Director

Darcy has over 20+ years in senior leadership roles and a proven track record across multiple industries spanning, Asia, Europe and North America. A Blockchain technology enthusiast since 2013, his pan Asian experience while residing in Seoul, Korea exposed him to the potential for the technology to disrupt a multitude of industries. Prior to his international experience, Darcy was CEO of MASEV Communications Inc., that was successfully acquired by IMG Canada.

Mike Edwards, Director

A lifelong entrepreneur, Mike Edwards has started and invested in technology companies for over 20 years. Mike is actively involved in growing and supporting the crypto currency startup community and connecting local entrepreneurs with the right investors, mentors and influencers in Silicon Valley, New York, Europe and Asia.

Jonathan Bixby, Director

Jonathan Bixby is a serial entrepreneur, active investor, board member, and speaker. Jonathan has helped raise over $100M in venture capital and has been involved in over 10 successful exits. In addition to his investing efforts, Jonathan has been active in the crypto world since 2012 as an investor and entrepreneur.

The company is proud to announce an elite Blockchain advisory board unrivaled in Canada as follows:

Gil Penchina

Cryptocurrency expert, known worldwide for his involvement and leadership in the cryptocurrency industry. Two successful ICOs in Brave (BAT) and Ripple (XRP), running the largest syndicate on AngelList and an early investor in LinkedIn, Blockstream, UXPin.

Rohan Gharegozlou

Founder and CEO of CryptoKitties, the world's most successful Blockchain game. He is also the CEO of Axiom Zen an award-winning venture studio that specializes in applying emerging Blockchain technologies to unsolved business problems. Rohan has been working with bitcoin and various forms of Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies since 2014.

Thomas Kineshanko

An investor in cryptocurrency and ICOs since their early days in 2012. Prior to co-founding Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management, Tom has been a Founder and General Partner of First Block Capital, Canadas first regulated crypto investment firm, since March 2017. Tom also co-founded Fintech Enterprises Inc., one of the first North American buy/hold Bitcoin and Ether funds, as well as the Blockchain platform Walter.ai.

Dean Sutton

Always focused on emerging technology, he has been in the digital asset industry since 2012 when he started in digital mining and working with teams to develop decentralized technologies. Currently he is a sought after Blockchain industry thought leader, investor and speaker, advisor to the Blockchain Association of Canada, and founder of BlockTech Ventures Inc.

Kyle Campbell

A respected crypto software engineer. He sold his first company to Zillow Group after only 8 months. He is now working on his second company; Hack Capital, maker of CTO.ai - an intelligence product that helps any company build high performing engineering teams focusing on the Blockchain and Crypto Mining Optimization.

Visit Ronin at: www.roninblockchain.com

About Datametrex AI Limited

Datametrex AI is focused on the collection of retail sales data, providing government agencies and Fortune 500 corporations with artificial intelligence technology and implementing blockchain solutions for secure data transfers. The company is planning on integrating the DataTap environment to decentralized blockchains to further authenticate and validate the data collected.

Visit Datametrex at: www.datametrex.com

For further information, please contact:

Jeffrey Stevens  President & COO

Phone: (647) 400-8494

Email: jstevens@datametrex.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking information and statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company`s belief regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Companys control.

Generally, such forward-looking information or statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or may contain statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, will continue, will occur or will be achieved.

The forward-looking information contained herein includes, but is not limited to, information with respect to prospective financial performance, anticipated capital funding and sources, proposed or potential acquisitions, estimated operating and sales costs, estimated market drivers and demand, business prospects and strategy, new markets for growth and financial position. By identifying such information and statements in this manner, the Company is alerting the reader that such information and statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such information and statements.

Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking information or statements contained in this press release.

The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date hereof, and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information that is contained or referenced herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All subsequent written and oral forward looking information and statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice.
Last year, ahead of the release of the "Star Wars" film "Rogue One," Disney chief executive Bob Iger made an emphatic claim when asked about the movie's message: "Frankly, this is a film that the world should enjoy. It is not a film that is, in any way, a political film," he told the Hollywood Reporter, speaking about what was then the latest addition to the sprawling sci-fi saga. "There are no political statements in it, at all."

Iger was reacting to controversy over (quickly deleted) tweets from two of the film's writers. Chris Weitz had observed that the series' Galactic Empire represented "a white supremacist organization." It was "opposed," commented his colleague Gary Whitta, "by a multicultural group led by brave women." Just weeks after the election of President Donald Trump and the culmination of an acrimonious, racially charged political campaign, the film was hailed by some as "anti-Trumpian" - and subject to boycotts by irate members of the alt-right, a coterie of white nationalists who were upset about the film's supposed liberal bent.

There seems to be less hubbub as the newest film in the franchise, "The Last Jedi," opens around the world this weekend. (We have not seen the film yet and you will find no spoilers below.) But that doesn't mean there are no politics in the Star Wars franchise. Quite the contrary, authors of science-fiction and fantasy often stuff their stories with parables for contemporary times. And a legion of Star Wars aficionados have thought deeply - perhaps too deeply - about this fictional universe for decades, drawing all sorts of meaning from its lightsaber-wielding heroes and planet-destroying orbs.

Hollywood Reporter tweeted "Friday was @StarWars night on #Kimmel, and @JimmyKimmel decided to use a Darth Vader analogy to illustrate the relationship between Trump and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn"

It's a testament to the franchise that both liberals and conservatives derive happy metaphors from the story. Earlier this year, Craig Shirley, a biographer of Ronald Reagan, wrote a column for The Washington Post on how the first movie in the franchise, "Star Wars" presented the "ultimate conservative morality tale." Shirley argued that the film, released 40 years ago, highlighted "a young group of independent rebels fighting against an oppressive, collectivist empire for the freedom of the galaxy."

No credit for guessing who Shirley thinks the story's bad guys are: "The militarized Galactic Empire was ruled with an iron fist by a Politburo and an emperor," he explained, gesturing to the Soviet Union. "Its main tactics for unity and stability were enslavement, fear, death and destruction, especially with its new planet-killing weapon. Its uniforms of masked, bright-white armor destroyed any sense of identity; a soldier was simply a number."

In contrast, the "Force" - the cosmic power harnessed by the Jedi, a kind of monastic tribe of galactic knights - "is a hint of Judeo-Christianity as a unifying agent for goodness," while the rebels they assist are anti-Soviet renegades. "They were a small, motivated force who learned they could defeat a large, unmotivated force," wrote Shirley, who then badly mixed historical metaphors. "It was George Washington against the British Empire."

George Lucas, the guy who invented the whole thing, actually had something quite different in mind. The great political narrative of "Star Wars" is rooted in ancient history (one familiar to readers of this column): How a republic, beset by complacency, naivete and quite a few wars, withers away into tyranny. Lucas was animated not by the Soviet Union, but something far closer to home. "It was really about the Vietnam War, and that was the period where [President Richard] Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships?" Lucas told the Chicago Tribune in 2005. "Because the democracies aren't overthrown; they're given away."

Lucas rolled out his much-maligned "prequel" Star Wars trilogy around the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. In one installment, he even had the future Darth Vader declare "if you are not with us, you are my enemy," echoing the "with us or against us" rhetoric of then-President George W. Bush. It seemed Lucas was aligning the imperial impulse in American politics with the evil Sith, the anti-Jedi of his story.

"I know that's the line that George Bush said, but many other people who have run countries have said it before him," said Ian McDiarmid, the actor who played Chancellor Palpatine, the figure who morphs into the evil Emperor. "That really is a great Sith line."

Lucas went even further with the New York Times: "George Bush is Darth Vader. [Vice President Dick] Cheney is the Emperor," he said.

Curiously, in recent years, a slew of right-wing critics have embraced the cause of the bad guys in Star Wars films. They see the Empire's brute actions - like the obliteration of a planet to terrorize a rebellion - as the necessary means of executing a just war against insurgents. The Republic, meanwhile, is an insufferable European Union in space, a confederacy of preening elites barely less contemptible than the militaristic Empire.

"The Jedi - as portrayed in the movies and in many of the books of the expanded universe - are basically the lightsaber-wielding jihadists of an intergalactic bureaucratic caliphate," wrote David French two years ago in the right-wing National Review. "The Galactic Republic is the Hotel California of interstellar governance. You can check out, but you can never leave - at least not if you want to keep your head on your shoulders."

The new trilogy, including the film coming out this weekend, also revolves around contemporary political themes: How great moments of hope are fleeting, how old orders are difficult to dislodge, how powerful regimes can so easily turn to a kind of paranoid fascism. But it also grapples with the role and power of the Jedi, an unaccountable order whose fate, after a series of missteps and many bruising battles, hangs in the balance.

Dan Drezner, a veteran Star Wars philosopher and a professor who writes for The Post, is one of many fans who have noted how the ostensible heroes of the saga and their ideology look evermore fallible. If a generation (or two) has looked forward to the Jedi's inevitable return to power - bending the moral arc of the galaxy back toward their brand of justice - perhaps we've all been learning the wrong lessons.
WILTON  Several town departments are working with the Toys for Tots Marine Corps League to make sure children in need receive gifts this holiday season.

On Sunday, the Wilton Police Department and Wilton Fire Department will partner with The Toy Chest for their Stuff-a-Cruiser event, from 10 a.m. to 3p.m., to benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. A 10 percent discount will be given to anyone who shops at The Toy Chest at 5 River Road.

The effort is also an opportunity to support local businesses such as The Toy Chest, which has partnered with the police department for its Stuff-a-Cruiser event for several years now, Officer Shawn Frendt said.

What it does it helps kids who maybe will not normally get a toy on Christmas the opportunity to experience Christmas, said Frendt, who has helped out with the overall Toys for Tots Program for more than 10 years. And all the toys we do collect, they stay within the community.

Earlier this month, the Wilton Social Services received toys for its clients from the Toys for Tots Marine Corps League on Dec. 8.

Wilton Social Services Director Sarah Heath said the donations reflect the towns commitment to helping those in need.

We are thrilled to have a wonderful selection of toys for our clients to choose from for their children for the upcoming holidays, Heath said.

While many individuals and organizations in town have already donated items to be given to Wilton Social Services clients this holiday season, the department is still accepting donations of gift cards or toys for children. Those interested in making a donation should contact Lauren Hughes, senior and family services coordinator at Wilton Social Services at 203-834-6238 or lauren.hughes@wiltonct.org. Donations may also be dropped off at the Wilton Social Services office at Comstock Community Center, 180 School Road. Office hours are Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

In 2016, 18 million toys were distributed to 7 million children in 792 communities across the U.S. The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is the fundraising, funding and support organization for the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program, which it has supported since 1991. The Foundation shares the same mission as the overall Toys for Tots Program: to deliver a message of hope, through a new Christmas toy, to less fortunate children.

For more information about either charities, visit toysfortots.org.

skim@hearstmediact.com; 203-842-2568; @stephaniehnkim
CAIRO  A fire ignited in a Cairo home Thursday afternoon.

Cairo Fire Chief Steve Oseka said Cairo and Wood River departments responded to the fire at 604 N. Sycamore St. The call came in at 1:14 p.m. and 16 firefighters and EMS responded.

Oseka said the resident came home around lunch time and called to report a fire. There were no injuries.

The American Red Cross also responded to assist the residents.

Oseka said the cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation by the Nebraska state fire marshal.
Devin Petersen held the lucky key Thursday night at Tom Dinsdale Automotive and Heartland United Ways 12 Keys of Christmas Car Giveaway event.

Petersen, who works in the ammunition department at Hornady, graduated from Aurora Public Schools and now lives in Giltner. He said he was nervous standing up front as different numbers were called out: and then there were two.

The winner of the car is awarded by process of elimination. United Way donors who donated $270 or more to the campaign earned a chance to win the new 2017 Chevy Cruze. Twelve donors were randomly selected and had a one in twelve chance to win the car. The eleven others didnt walk away empty-handed, though.

Tom Dinsdale randomly picked a ping pong ball and stuffed it in his pocket. Then, the twelve donors picked a box off the crimson Cruze that contained a numbered key inside of it. The remaining numbered ping pong balls were drawn to match the numbered keys. Whomevers number wasnt called would eventually reveal the winner and number in Dinsdales pocket.

The prizes donated by sponsors in finishing place order were as follows:

12  $100 American Airlines gift card; Tom Dinsdale Automotive, Tom and Kim Dinsdale

11  10 free car washes; Kermits Super Wash, Alan Usher

10  $100 HyVee gift card; Grand Island HyVee

9  $100 gift certificates; Necropolis Group, Brent Lindner

8  $100 Visa gift card; Gary Thompson Agency, Krae Dutoit and Ryan Hansen

7  $100 gift card to Bosselman Pump and Pantry; Charlie Bosselman & Brian Fausch

6  10 free car washes; Kermits Super Wash

5  $100 HyVee gift card

4  $100 gift certificates for Necropolis Group

3  $100 Visa gift card; Gary Thompson Agency

2  $100 gift card to Bosselman Pump and Pantry

It all came down to Bradley Bell of Great Western Bank and Petersen. Once Bells number was called to win the $100 Pump and Pantry gift card, the men shook hands, both with wide smiles.

This is the biggest thing I ever won, Petersen said, seemingly still in shock.

Petersen said he didnt know what his next plans are with his smooth ride. I havent thought that far ahead, he said. All Petersen could think about was calling his wife to share the exciting news.

Karen Rathke, President of the Heartland United Way, thanked everyone for contributing to the campaign.

All of you play a special part in Hall, Hamilton and Merrick Counties, Rathke said.

Tom Gdowski, a campaign chair for Hall County this year, announced the total raised in the campaign for the community. The campaign total was $1,403,769, which doesnt include donations from Go Big Give.

Petersen may have been the big winner Thursday night, but he knows the whole community wins from campaigns the Heartland United Way does. He said he gives to help his community. Though he may not know specifically what organization each of his specific dollars go to, he thinks its great because the Heartland United Way disperses the money to local organizations.

I think its important just to give back, Petersen said. And they (the Heartland United Way and Tom Dinsdale Automotive) have given back in a big way.
Stuhr Museums Railroad Town has been named the Best Preserved Pioneer Town  Re-Created for 2018 by True West Magazine.

This is the second time Railroad Town, Stuhrs 1890s living history community, has won this recognition from True West.

This award is a testament to the hard work and tenacity it takes to be The Best in your field and it is recognized by people who love the West as much as you do, according to the press release. On behalf of the staff of True West Magazine, we salute you for representing, preserving and celebrating the American West.

Railroad Town at Stuhr Museum contains historic homes and businesses recreated to represent the first communities founded in Nebraska. The town is open from May 1 to Labor Day, and is staffed by costumed interpreters. Railroad Town is also the site of many events throughout the year, including Memorial Day and Fourth of July celebrations and the recently completed Christmas Past & Present.

Stuhr officials said they are proud to receive this recognition and the staff works hard throughout the year to maintain, preserve and continue the growth of its living history community. For more information on the award, visit www.stuhrmuseum.org or call the museum at (308) 385-5316.
Police/Sheriff

Anyone with information about any crime in the state may call the Grand Island-Hall County Crime Stoppers, (308) 381-8822. Callers will remain anonymous.

A reward of up to $1,000 will be paid after law enforcement agencies have determined the seriousness of the crime and the usefulness of the information.

Inmate custody status can be obtained by calling the VINE hotline at (877) NE 4 VINE or by visiting www.vinelink.com. Information is available 24 hours a day.

If you see a crime happening, call the Grand Island-Hall County Emergency Center  911.

Grand Island Police

The following felonies were reported:

- Cara Harder reported that $4,000 worth of clothing was stolen from the residence it was being stored in, at 1014 Nebraska Ave., between Sunday and Wednesday.

- Interconnection System reported a theft of money from the business at 3207 Knights Road between Oct. 6 and Wednesday.

- Lorey Gosch and a 17-year-old male reported that while in the area of Monroe and First streets early Thursday morning, a vehicle drove by and pointed a handgun with a red laser at them, causing both to feel fear.

Hall County Sheriff

Law enforcement arrested five people on warrants in five cases. There were 27 calls for service.

For more information visit www.hallcountyne.gov and click on the sheriff link.

Court report

Hall County District Court

- Pamela P. Johnson, 52, Grand Island, had her probation revoked (original offense driving while revoked from DUI/refusal), 90 days in jail with credit for 20 days served, license revoked 15 years, four years probation, required to pay $1,200 probation fee.

- Oniel Benitez, 39, Grand Island, seven counts of first-degree forgery. On first count, 30 days in jail with credit for 18 days served, 48 months probation, $1,200 probation fee, ordered to pay $1,428.97 restitution. On each of the other counts, the sentence is 48 months probation.

- Regina Hicks, 48, Grand Island, possession of a controlled substance, four years probation and $1,200 probation fee. Also guilty of attempt of a Class 2 felony, four years probation and $1,200 probation fee.

- Juan Merida, 22, Grand Island, domestic assault-third degree/prior, 24 months probation, 10 days in jail with credit for two days served, $600 probation fee.

- Dallas Fairbanks, 42, Grand Island, violation of the Sex Offender Registration Act, five years probation, 90 days in jail with credit for 90 days, ordered to pay $1,500 probation fee. Also guilty of failing to report every 12 months, five years probation, and failure to appear when on bail for a felony, 90 days in jail with credit for 90 days, five years probation and $1,500 probation fee.

- Christopher Godel, 24, Grand Island, possession of a controlled substance, four years probation, $1,200 probation fee, and resisting arrest-second or subsequent offense, four years probation. Also guilty of possession of a controlled substance, four years probation and $1,200 probation fee, and possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person, four years probation and $1,200 probation fee,

Hall County Court

- Benjamin D. Brownstone, 35, Salem, Ore., was charged with possession of more than a pound of marijuana and having no drug tax stamp, both on Wednesday. Preliminary hearing set for 9:30 a.m. Jan. 30.

Driving Under the Influence  Andrew Neil Coles, 25. Grand Island, DUI-blood, first offense, $500 fine, six months probation, drivers license revoked 60 days. Also guilty of having no operators license/non-waiverable, $75 fine, six months probation, and possession of 1 oz. or less of marijuana, first offense, $300 fine, six months probation.
One year ago this week, President Obama signed into law one of the most consequential bills passed by the 114th Congress: the landmark, bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act. He took the occasion of his final public bill-signing to praise the measure as a prime example of how important legislation should be passed: through consultation with stakeholders, deliberation, hearings featuring expert testimony, drafting and redrafting, and a spirit of collegiality and compromise.

When we started the process of crafting 21st Century Cures  or Cures  four years ago, we began with one goal in mind: helping patients and their families. We were both inspired to act after hearing from folks in the research community as well as patients, families and advocates who all told us about the need for modernization and more resources at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration so that the United States could remain the worldwide leader in medical innovation and find the next generation of medical cures and clues.

We heard these stakeholders loud and clear. Cures provides the NIH and FDA with billions of dollars in much-needed resources so that our nations best and brightest can work on finding cures for diseases that impact virtually every family.

More specifically, Cures boosts four major innovative initiatives at the NIH: the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, which works to accelerate progress in cancer prevention and screening; the Precision Medicine Initiative, which is a long-term research endeavor aimed at understanding how a persons genetics, environment and lifestyle can help determine the best approach to prevent or treat disease; the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which supports a more dynamic understanding of brain functions; and the Regenerative Medicine Innovation Project, which aims to accelerate the field of stem cell science.

Cures also provides the FDA new authorities and established an FDA Innovation Account so officials can concentrate on a broad range of goals, including incorporating patients perspectives through patient-focused drug development, advancing new therapies to transform the way drugs are developed, modernizing drug-testing trial design and developing methodology to use real-world evidence in the process.

It focuses on reforming our nations mental health system, which is why we worked so hard to include the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Reform Act in the bill.

And most critically amid our countrys ongoing opioids crisis, Cures provided $1 billion for states to fight the epidemic at the local level through the end of 2018. Were now focused on ensuring that this funding continues, and more.

When FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and NIH Director Francis Collins testified before the Subcommittee on Health earlier this month on the implementation of this law, they told us that Cures is already having a monumental impact at these vital government agencies. We are following through to ensure that in spite of proposed budget cuts, the programs supported through our bill, with widespread support in both chambers of Congress, can continue to do their vital work.

Cures was a truly bipartisan effort from start to finish. Today is a day to reflect on how far we have come, but also a reminder that we have much work left to do. Patients and their families are counting on us. We both look forward to continuing the work that Cures started.
French English

Regulated Information - Inside Information - 15 December 2017 - 4:45 pm CET

NOT FOR PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN, SOUTH AFRICA OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH IT WOULD BE UNLAWFUL TO DO SO

Bone Therapeutics Provides Update on Equity Placement

Gosselies, Belgium, 15 December 2017, 4:45 pm CET - Bone Therapeutics (Euronext Brussels and Paris: BOTHE), the bone cell therapy company addressing high unmet medical needs in orthopaedics and bone diseases (the "Company"), announces that it has cancelled its private placement to raise funds via an accelerated bookbuild offering (the "Offering") despite strong investor interest.

Pharmstandard International S.A., a fully owned subsidiary of Pharmstandard, JSC and the investment arm of a group of companies which includes Cellthera Pharm LLC had publicly expressed its intention to participate in the Offering. However, this intention was unexpectedly withdrawn at short notice. As the Company had previously announced the intention of Pharmstandard International S.A. to participate, the terms of the transaction as communicated by the Company are no longer valid. As a consequence, the Company has also decided to cease discussions with Cellthera Pharm LLC with regards to a potential collaboration.

Bone Therapeutics is encouraged by the level of interest in the Offering with both existing shareholders and international and local new investors.

The Company remains focused on meeting its financial needs in order to achieve its strategic goals.

About Bone Therapeutics

Bone Therapeutics is a leading cell therapy company addressing high unmet needs in orthopaedics and bone diseases. Based in Gosselies, Belgium, the Company has a broad, diversified portfolio of bone cell therapy products in clinical development across a number of disease areas targeting markets with large unmet medical needs and limited innovation.

Our technology is based on a unique, proprietary approach to bone regeneration which turns undifferentiated stem cells into "osteoblastic", or bone-forming cells. These cells can be administered via a minimally invasive procedure, avoiding the need for invasive surgery.

Our primary clinical focus is ALLOB, an allogeneic "off-the-shelf" cell therapy product derived from stem cells of healthy donors, which is in Phase II studies for the treatment of delayed-union fractures and spinal fusion. The Company also has an autologous bone cell therapy product, PREOB, obtained from patient`s own bone marrow and currently in Phase III development for osteonecrosis of the hip.

Bone Therapeutics` cell therapy products are manufactured to the highest GMP standards and are protected by a rich IP estate covering nine patent families. Further information is available at: www.bonetherapeutics.com.

Contacts

Bone Therapeutics SA

Thomas Lienard, Chief Executive Officer

Jean-Luc Vandebroek, Chief Financial Officer

Tel: +32 (0)2 529 59 90

investorrelations@bonetherapeutics.com

For Belgium and International Media Enquiries:

Consilium Strategic Communications

Amber Fennell, Jessica Hodgson and Hendrik Thys

Tel: +44 (0) 20 3709 5701

bonetherapeutics@consilium-comms.com

For French Media and Investor Enquiries:

NewCap Investor Relations & Financial Communications

Pierre Laurent, Louis-Victor Delouvrier and Nicolas Merigeau

Tel: + 33 (0)1 44 71 94 94

bone@newcap.eu

Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company or, as appropriate, the Company directors' current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such person's officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

No communication and no information in respect of the Offering may be distributed to the public in any jurisdiction where a registration or approval is required. No steps have been or will be taken in any jurisdiction where such steps would be required. The Offering may be subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. Bone Therapeutics SA, Bryan, Garnier & Co. and KBC Securities NV take no responsibility for any violation of any such restrictions by any person. Any persons reading this announcement should inform themselves of and observe any such restrictions.

This announcement is not for release, publication or distribution, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States (including its territories and dependencies, any State of the United States and the District of Columbia), Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa or any jurisdiction into which the publication or distribution would be unlawful. This announcement is for information purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or issue or the solicitation of an offer to buy or acquire shares in the capital of Bone Therapeutics SA in the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa or any jurisdiction in which such offer or solicitation would be unlawful or require preparation of any prospectus or other offer documentation or would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of such jurisdictions. The shares that are to be sold in the Offering (the "Sale Shares") have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") and may not be offered, sold or transferred, directly or indirectly, within the United States except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act and the securities laws of any state or other jurisdiction of the United States. No public offering of the Sale Shares referred to in this announcement is being made in the United States or elsewhere.

This announcement is not a prospectus within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC, as implemented in each member state of the European Economic Area, and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU to the extent implemented in the relevant member State of the European Economic Area (together, the "Prospectus Directive") nor within the meaning of Regulation EU 2017/1129 on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading on a regulated market, and repealing Directive 2003/71/CE (the "Prospectus Regulation").

This announcement does not, and shall not, in any circumstances, constitute a public offering, nor a public offer to sell or to subscribe for, nor a public solicitation to offer to purchase or to subscribe for, securities in any jurisdiction. No action has been taken by Bone Therapeutics SA, Bryan, Garnier & Co. or KBC Securities NV or any of their respective affiliates to permit a public offering of the securities described in this announcement or possession or distribution of this announcement in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required.

With respect to the member states of the European Economic Area which have implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a "Relevant Member State"), no action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make an offer to the public of the shares of Bone Therapeutics SA requiring a publication of a prospectus in any Relevant Member State. As a consequence, the shares of Bone Therapeutics SA may only be offered or sold in any Relevant Member State pursuant to an exemption under the Prospectus Directive.

This announcement does not constitute a public offering of securities in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, this document is directed only at Qualified Investors, being persons who (i) are investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Financial Promotion Order"), (ii) "high net worth entities", "unincorporated associations" and to other persons to whom it may otherwise be lawfully communicated under Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Financial Promotion Order and (iii) to other persons to whom this announcement may be lawfully communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). In the United Kingdom, any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this announcement or any of its contents. In any EEA state other than the United Kingdom, this announcement should be relied upon only by Qualified Investors. Any investment or investment activity to which this announcement relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons.

Bryan, Garnier & Co. Ltd. which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority in the UK, and KBC Securities NV which is authorised by and under the supervision of the National Bank of Belgium and under the supervision on investor and consumer protection of the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority, are acting exclusively for the Company and no one else in connection with the Offering. In connection with such matters, the Joint Bookrunners, their affiliates and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents will not regard any other person as their client, nor will they be responsible to any other person for providing the protections afforded to their clients or for providing advice in relation to the Offering or any other matters referred to in this announcement.
The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness

By John Prados

New Press. 446 pp. $28.95

---

The CIA has long tried to recruit young people by offering them career opportunities with the promise of excitement, intrigue and patriotism. "Be accountable to the President, Congress, and the American public," reads one recent announcement directed at students at Brigham Young University. "Strengthen national security and foreign policy objectives through the clandestine collection of human intelligence ... and by conducting Covert Action ... this is what you'll do in the CIA's Directorate of Operations."

It's nice to know that graduates can work off their college debt as spies, but as the CIA marks its 70th birthday this year, its help-wanted ads extol an accountability more imagined than real. Just a few months ago, two psychologists whom the CIA had paid more than $80 million to develop "enhanced interrogation" techniques settled a lawsuit brought on behalf of three victims of the alleged torture. After the CIA failed to sanction those involved in the case or, with few exceptions, others similarly accused, it took the threat of civil litigation to finally obtain some measure of justice on the eve of a trial likely to have embarrassed the two defendants and the agency that enriched them. How's that for CIA accountability?

Or what about the official CIA Accountability Board that overruled the agency's inspector general? The inspector general had determined that five employees were improperly involved in breaking into computers used by Senate staffers investigating allegations of CIA torture. Three of them displayed a "lack of candor" in response to the probe, the inspector general found. But the Accountability Board recommended that no one be punished, declaring that all had told the truth and their lapses did not involve bad faith.

It may be all too easy to second-guess much of what the CIA does. As former director Michael Hayden argued this year when explaining his decision not to discipline a subordinate, "The one message I could not afford to send ... was 'Take hard jobs and make tough choices, but if you f--- up, we're coming after you.'"

During his confirmation as director in 2006, Hayden claimed that "the best way to strengthen the trust of the American people [in the CIA] is to earn it by obeying the law and showing what is best about America."Other CIA directors have expressed equally noble sentiments, only to be undercut when the agency's actions were later exposed.

In "The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness," longtime agency critic John Prados, a senior fellow at the National Security Archive, explores this terrain across decades of the institution's history. The ghosts of Prados' title form the undead legacy of a succession of CIA directors, managers and legal counselors whose "operations, especially the failed ones, have driven the spies to contrive arguments and explanations they have relied upon - repeatedly - to escape from criticism and accountability."

It never seems to end. Prados' conclusion is that, after decades of skirmishing with Congress, the courts and the media, the CIA has "finally decoupled itself - from government accountability." This, he argues, is not just bad for America but also gravely undermines the interests of the CIA itself, where zealotry and concealment trump the need to anchor its legitimacy in American democracy. As a result, he contends, the CIA is sowing the "seeds of its coming failure."

Given that the phenomenon Prados describes has been going on for years, it's unclear why continuing on the same path is now any more likely to trigger a grand reckoning than before. That said, the appearance of an accountability deficit at the CIA and elsewhere in the intelligence community has contributed to a proliferation of leaks, whistleblower claims, aggressive press coverage and efforts to obtain CIA documents under the Freedom of Information Act (a specialty of Prados and the National Security Archive that employs him). The spectacle of CIA directors testifying before Congress to explain away intelligence failures and deny facts about torture, renditions and other unsavory practices has fueled calls for more oversight.

"The Ghosts of Langley" offers a detail-rich, often relentless litany of CIA scandals and mini-scandals, with a focus on operations. Along the way, Prados features the agency's heroes, patriots and schemers, including legendary early directors Walter Bedell Smith and Allen Dulles. It is an account that relies notably on documents including those released by the CIA itself, as detailed in 22 pages of endnotes.

While acknowledging CIA successes such as the U2 and subsequent spy plane programs, Prados' principal theme is the recurring refusal to publicly acknowledge error or penalize those responsible. At one point he resurrects a quote from Iran-contra-era director William Casey's top legal adviser, Stanley Sporkin, who recalls how his boss would demand: "Don't tell me it can't be done legally. Find me a legal way to do it." Prados notes that more recently, as CIA leadership passed from George Tenet to Porter Goss, Hayden, David Petraeus, Leon Panetta and then John Brennan, successive directors found reasons to continue the obfuscation.

Enter Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director. Purportedly a favorite of President Trump's, the former tea party congressman from Kansas arrived in office too late for more than a mention in the "The Ghosts of Langley." But given Trump's penchant for rough tactics and willingness to bring back waterboarding "and a hell of a lot worse," as candidate Trump declared, Pompeo must hope that the president will have the agency's back in the event of renewed scandal.

In the end, "The Ghosts of Langley" can be read as a tartly worded, at times garrulous prayer that the CIA learn from and publicly admit its mistakes, rather than perpetuate them in an atmosphere of denial and impunity. To do so would properly pay tribute to the sacrifices of CIA employees and their families and begin to expel malevolent spirits from the agency's haunted mansion. It is not a prayer likely to be answered anytime soon.

---

Zagorin is a writer on national security and a former senior correspondent at Time magazine.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 08:18 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d804d6 4 Editorial #Editorial,LGBT,premarital-sex,Constitutional-Court,#ConstitutionalCourt Free

The nation would be a much safer place to raise children if people could be prosecuted for consensual premarital and homosexual sex, according to supporters of the plaintiffs who sought a judicial review of the Criminal Code (KUHP). But on Thursday, the Constitutional Court (MK) rejected the request filed by members of the Family Love Alliance (AILA).

Even though the plaintiffs had raised their concerns over the safety of their children and grandchildren because of the legal vacuum regarding adultery and homosexual relations, we applaud the ruling that curbs the long arm of the law from reaching into the sphere of morality. That should be left to educators, parents and clerics.

There have been too many instances where various laws have been used to justify vigilante attacks on individuals accused of committing immoral acts, the latest incident of which involved a couple in Tangerang, Banten. The couple was beaten, stripped and paraded around the neighborhood after being accused of having premarital sex.

We disagree with the four dissenting justices out of the nine-strong panel, who said vigilantism precisely occurs because religious values and living law in Indonesian society does not have proportional space in Indonesias criminal law. Therefore, improving the law to better suit the nations godly constitution should lead to a better legal culture, they said.

Yet civility and restraint from committing acts of violence  clearly a crime that often takes place under the nose of the police  is missing amid the dangerous tendency to attack weaker community members in the name of morality and religion. Thursdays ruling rightly said that even if the law clamped down on devious behavior, the presumably superior social order would be artificial.

Building the argument that arranging social order by forcing members of society engaged in devious behavior with the threat of the law, particularly criminal law, is tantamount to stating that social order can only be established by force, reads the 467-page verdict.

The ruling was thus a landmark in todays battle pitting religion against state, with each side rallying to be the constitutional protection of citizens.

But justices were of the opinion that the request to expand the definition of adultery in the Criminal Code to all free sex relations among adults, should be proposed to the ongoing amendment of the Criminal Code.

The battle will thus continue at the House of Representatives, where the plaintiffs concerns over the dangers to the family will attract the attention of politicians eyeing the upcoming local and general elections.

Rising instances of prostitution, free sex and same sex relations, they said, have resulted in scores of unwanted pregnancies and fatal abortions.

The plaintiffs cited the abandonment of women and infants as a result of premarital sex. But apart from further marginalizing sexual minorities, criminalizing consensual sexual relations among adults carries the greater risk of dragging Indonesia closer to a theocracy.

Citizens would be hard pressed to resist powerful parties claiming divine authority, as residents in Aceh, the only province entitled to sharia bylaws, have found. Nosy relatives and neighbors are adequately effective, yet annoying, guardians of morality.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo  Fri, December 15, 2017 16:05 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d940d5 2 Lifestyle Bitcoin,Japan,salary Free

A Japanese company will start paying part of its employees' salaries in bitcoin, as it aims to get better understanding of the virtual currency, a spokesman said on Friday.

GMO Internet, which operates a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising and internet infrastructure, will start paying up to 100,000 yen (US$892) monthly by bitcoin to its employees in Japan from February next year.

"Employees can receive salaries by bitcoin if they want to," company spokesman Harumi Ishii told AFP.

"We hope to improve our own literacy of virtual currency by actually using it," she said.

Read also: Bitcoin rises in debut as SEC warns on digital money

The offer will be open to around 4,000 employees of the GMO group in Japan, she said.

The company started a bitcoin trading and exchange business in May.

And next month, it will join the so-called "bitcoin mining" business - gaining the right to receive new bitcoins as a reward for helping to keep the network secure by approving transactions.

World bitcoin prices have surged globally this year, soaring from less than US$1,000 in January to US$17,000 this week.

Topics : Bitcoin Japan salary
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) New York, United States  Fri, December 15, 2017 18:37 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da2100 2 Lifestyle New-York-Times,newspaper Free

New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr announced on Thursday that he was stepping down after 25 years at the helm of the renowned newspaper and handing over to his son.

Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, 37, known as A.G., will take over as publisher on January 1, 2018, the New York Times Co. said in a statement.

A.G. Sulzberger will be the sixth member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to serve as publisher since Adolph Ochs bought the newspaper in 1896.

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, 66, who took over as publisher in 1992, will remain as chairman of the board of directors of the company, the Times said.

"This isn't a goodbye," Arthur Sulzberger said in a note to Times staff. "But, beginning in the new year, the grand ship that is The Times will be A.G.'s to steer."

Arthur Sulzberger said he was stepping down "prouder than I have ever been of the strength, independence and integrity of this institution."

Read also: Time is running out for BuzzFeed, Mashable

A.G. Sulzberger praised his father's tenure, saying he had made "bold bets" which included "embracing the Internet."

"Arthur is the only publisher of his generation who took over a great news organization and left it better than he found it," he said.

"My focus as publisher will be on ensuring the continued journalistic excellence and commercial success of The Times through a period of transformation for the news industry," he added.

The Times, which President Donald Trump considers a nemesis and frequently derides as "failing," announced recently that it now has a record 3.5 million paid subscribers, both digital and print.

A.G. Sulzberger, a graduate of Brown University, worked as a reporter at The Providence Journal in Rhode Island and The Oregonian before joining the metro desk of the Times in 2009.

He notably authored the newspaper's 2014 Innovation Report, which looked at ways to grow the online audience in an era of shrinking print sales and advertising.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rob Lever (Agence France-Presse) Washington  Fri, December 15, 2017 15:06 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d90c6d 2 Science & Tech united-states,net-neutrality,Internet Free

US regulators voted Thursday to roll back so-called "net neutrality" rules which required internet providers to treat all traffic equally, in the latest twist to an acrimonious debate over online freedom.

The Federal Communications Commission, in a three-to-two vote, adopted a proposal by Republican appointed chairman Ajit Pai, who said his plan would scrap "heavy-handed" rules adopted in 2015 which he argued discouraged investment and innovation.

The vote capped a heated partisan debate and is just the latest in a battle over more than a decade on rules governing internet service providers in the courts and the FCC.

Democratic member Mignon Clyburn, one of the two dissenters, charged that the agency was "handing the keys to the internet" to "a handful of multibillion dollar corporations."

Immediately following the vote, officials from two states and others vowed to challenge the FCC action in court.

Net neutrality activists have staged a series of protests in cities around the US and online, amid fears that dominant broadband providers could change how the internet works.

"Chairman Pai has given internet service providers an explicit license to block, slow, or levy tolls on content," said Ferras Vinh of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a digital rights group.

Vinh said internet providers "will now have even greater power to shape the online experiences of internet users, at the expense of consumers and small companies."

Net neutrality backers have argued that clear rules are needed to prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling services or websites for competitive reasons.

Critics of the 2015 rule counter that it was based on utility-style regulation designed for 1930s telephone companies, not a dynamic internet market.

Read also: Activists urge govt to ensure net neutrality in Indonesia

Not a water pipe

Pai said ahead of the vote that his plan would restore "light-touch" rules which allowed the internet to flourish, and promote investments to enable new and emerging services.

"The digital world bears no resemblance to a water pipe or electric line or sewer," Pai said in a session briefly halted over an undisclosed security threat.

"Entrepreneurs and innovators guided the internet far better than the heavy hand of government."

Pai said removing neutrality rules is key to investment to develop newer "next generation" services such as telemedicine or autonomous driving.

"When there's less investment, that means fewer next-generation networks are built," he said. "And that means more Americans are left on the wrong side of the digital divide."

But dissenting FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said: "Net neutrality is internet freedom. I support that freedom," she said.

"This decision puts the Federal Communications Commission on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American public."

Appointed by President Donald Trump, Pai was a fierce critic of the neutrality rules adopted under former president Barack Obama in 2015 and earlier this month unveiled his plan named the "Restoring Internet Freedom" order.

Many Republican lawmakers backed Pai, although a few had urged the FCC to delay the vote to allow Congress time to consider legislation.

Read also: Telkom vs Netflix and the network neutrality debate

More court challenges

Within minutes of the vote, the attorneys general of New York State and Washington State vowed to challenge the FCC in court.

"The FCC just gave Big Telecom an early Christmas present, by giving internet service providers yet another way to put corporate profits over consumers," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.

Others planned legal challenges including the consumer activist group Free Press.

"We'll have plenty to say in court about the legal mistakes littered throughout this decision," said Free Press spokesman Matt Wood.

Democratic Senator Ed Markey said he would ask lawmakers for a regulatory review to overturn what he called the FCC's "misguided and partisan decision" in order to "keep the internet in the hands of the people."

Pai and internet firms have maintained that internet users will see no difference once the new rules are implemented.

Commission member Michael O'Rielly dismissed "fear-mongering" by neutrality backers.

"The internet has functioned without net neutrality rules far longer than with them," he said.

Michael Powell, a former FCC chair under Republican president George W. Bush who now heads a lobby group for major internet firms, cautioned against panic.

"Time will prove that the FCC did not destroy the internet, and our digital lives will go on just as they have for years," said Powell of the NCTA - The Internet & Television Association.

But Ed Black of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents major tech firms such as Google and Facebook, said internet users should be wary of such promises.

"It's not realistic to think that these companies would spend many millions lobbying for the FCC to agree to abdicate its authority to protect open internet rules -- and then not use their market power to recoup that money from customers," Black said.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 18:45 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da2f68 1 City djakarta-warehouse-project,police,security Free

Police are tightening security at JIExpo Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, for the Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP) on Friday and Saturday, following complaints raised by several hard-line religious groups that have rejected the electronic music festival.

According to Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono, some 1,000 police officers will be deployed to guard the annual event, touted as Asias largest celebration of electronic dance music (EDM).

At least 100 protestors were also expected to stage a rally to protest DWP on Friday evening, but the festival will continue as planned, he added.

We are ready to guard [the event], Argo said.

The DWP is currently in its ninth year, and as in previous editions, it is expected to attract both local and foreign fans of EDM.

Last years festival entertained some 90,000 revelers, 30 percent of whom were foreign attendees.

Despite having been around for nearly a decade, it drew the ire of hard-line religious groups this year, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), who have deemed it immoral.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 22:11 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da62ef 1 Politics KPU,KPUD,2019-elections,election,elections,2019-legislative-election,2019-presidential-election Free

The General Elections Commission (KPU) said on Friday that 12 out of 14 political parties attending administrative assessments for their participation in the 2019 presidential and legislative elections had been selected to enter the factual verification stage.

Meanwhile, two other parties, namely the Berkarya Party and the Garuda Party, failed in the administrative assessments. The Berkarya Party was initiated by the son of former president Soeharto, Hutomo Tommy Mandala Putra.

KPU commissioner Hasyim Azhari said the Berkarya Party and the Garuda Party were unable to proceed to the next selection process because they failed to fulfill the minimum member requirement of party memberships in regencies and municipalities.

According to the 2017 General Elections Law, a political party aiming to participate in the elections must have at least one member in every 1,000 people.

They failed to fulfill the minimum party membership requirement, said Hasyim as quoted by kompas.com during a press conference at the KPU headquarters in Central Jakarta on Thursday.

He further explained there were two types of documents they must fulfill to be considered eligible to proceed to the factual verification stage. The documents must be handed over to the KPU headquarters in Jakarta and KPU local offices (KPUD).

The documents are related to party leaderships, female representatives, offices, bank accounts and party memberships. (ami/ebf)
LAS VEGAS, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Michael Hu, President of 2050 Motors, Inc. (US OTC:ETFM), is proud to announce the completion of a successful trip to Yancheng, China, to complete the timetable to begin assembly of the all carbon fiber body electric automobile called the e-Go EV.

Michael Hu stated that 2050 Motors engineering team was accompanied by a senior official of the Las Vegas Development Authority who returned with impressive videos and pictures of the extensive manufacturing facilities that Aoxin Automobile, 2050 Motors manufacturing partner, has completed in Yancheng.

Only a few photographs are available to be reviewed by the public due to the proprietary nature of the high-tech carbon fiber production equipment. Please see photographs http://www.2050motors.com/yancheng.html

As a result of this trip, Aoxin Automobile signed an extension to the original contract, signed in 2012 by 2050 Motors and Aoxin Automobile, throwing full support behind 2050 Motors for the e-Go EV assembly plant in the United States.

The contract will be in full force as soon as 2050 Motors signs a lease for the facility in Las Vegas, Nevada, to start assembly. This lease is expected to be signed very soon because 2050 Motors has been negotiating for a significant period of time with the City of Las Vegas, which owns the property.

Mr. Hu stated that managerial planning work is underway to coordinate industrial complexities associated with a United States assembly plant for the very unique carbon fiber electric vehicle to include packaging of parts in China, export/import paperwork to the USA, training of personnel, quality control of the assembly parts, compliance with US laws including crash test standards and other safety requirements, etc.

2050 Motors is now reviewing management resumes with the goal of bringing automobile assembly expertise to spearhead our own organization.

About 2050 Motors, Inc.

2050 Motors, Inc. (http://www.2050motors.com and http://www.etfm.com), is a publicly traded company incorporated in Nevada in 2012. 2050 Motors was founded to develop and produce the next generation of clean, lightweight, efficient vehicles and their associated technologies. Some of these technologies include alternative renewable fuels, hybrid electric vehicles, advanced graphene lithium batteries and low-cost carbon fiber vehicles. 2050 Motors has been successful in forming long-term relationships and exclusive contracts for a variety of game-changing technologies. 2050 Motors entered into an agreement with Jiangsu Aoxin New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., located in Jiangsu, China, for the distribution in the United States of a new electric automobile, known as the e-Go EV (electric vehicle). The e-Go EV is a revolutionary new concept in the ever-evolving world of electric vehicles. It will be the only production line electric car with a carbon fiber body and parts manufactured by a new process using robotic machines which significantly reduces the fabrication time and cost of carbon fiber components. The e-Go EV will seat four passengers, have advanced lithium batteries, and high energy efficiency rating of up to 150+ MPG-E energy equivalent in urban driving due to the light weight of the vehicle. See videos of completion of the e-Go EV manufacturing plant at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wih8_xxZNgA and the unveiling of the e-Go EV at the 2014 Shanghai Auto Show http://www.2050motors.com/shanghaishow.html. 2050 Motors will start assembling and selling the e-Go EV as a low-speed neighborhood electric vehicle while the Company is completing the crash test sequence and other requirements to sell the e-Go EV as a highway-capable vehicle (please see four-minute video illustrating the successful frontal crash test of the e-Go and additionally the amazing impact durability testing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeCpds1J9TE). The Company is fully reporting under the SEC EDGAR system.

Disclosure Statement

Statements in this press release about our future expectations, including without limitation, the likelihood that 2050 Motors will be able to leverage capital markets to execute its growth strategy, meet US DOT requirements, meet minimum sales expectations, will be successful and profitable in the US market, and will bring significant value to 2050 Motors' stockholders, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and as that term is defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, and our actual results could differ materially from expected results. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this statement or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.

CONTACT:

George Hedrick

VP North American Operations

2050 Motors, Inc.

(702) 591-6029

info@2050motors.com

INVESTOR INQUIRIES:

Tim Connor

Benchmark Advisory Partners LLC

(866) 703-4778 Toll Free
The newly appointed chairman of the Golkar Party, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto, is gearing up to face significant challenges, not only on the electoral front but perhaps more importantly in internal party matters.

He said his highest priority in reforming Golkar was ensuring party unity, and that he would not rock the boat to immediately root out the bad apples in the party.

Golkar consists of diverse interests. My priority is to unite all elements in the party at a time when our electability, based on recent surveys, is alarmingly low at 11 to 12 percent, he said on Thursday evening.

Despite being the second-largest party in the House of Representatives, Golkars popularity among voters has nose-dived recently, mainly as a result of the involvement of former chairman Setya Novanto in the highprofile e-ID corruption case for which he is currently standing trial.

During Wednesdays late-night plenary meeting, Golkar decided to appoint Airlangga as party chairman and remove Setya. The party will inaugurate Airlangga in an extraordinary congress on Dec. 19 and 20 in Jakarta.

Airlangga said the unity of Golkar would again be tested during the upcoming congress. I am not sure whether all elements in Golkar are firmly behind me. The outcome of the congress will serve as confirmation of the level of support and unity in the party, he said.

The congress will mark the second time the party has appointed its chairman by acclamation, following the acclamation of Aburizal Bakrie in 2014. Aburizals appointment then led to a prolonged internal conflict that divided the party, with rival camps claiming Aburizal and Agung Laksono as party chairman.

Airlanggas appointment did not run smoothly. There were concerns that leading party officials would oppose the plenary meetings decision and demand a vote to elect the chairman as several other senior members had previously expressed a desire to run for the chairmanship.

Senior lawmaker and Setya loyalist Aziz Syamsuddin had stated his readiness to be a chairman candidate. Secretary-general Idrus Marham and Siti Hedijati Titiek Soeharto, the daughter of former president Soeharto, also planned to throw their hats in the ring. Several party executives confirmed that Aziz was backed by Aburizal, who would use Aziz as his tool to withdraw Golkars support for President Joko Jokowi Widodo. However, they all stepped back in the last minutes preceding the plenary meeting after lobbying by Airlangga, a top party member said.

Believed to be close to Jokowi, Airlangga has guaranteed Golkars support for the Jokowi administration and has committed to endorsing Jokowi for re-election in the 2019 presidential election. He has ordered all party members to abide by this commitment.

I demand all Golkar members follow the mandate [supporting Jokowi]. Going forward, [there should be] no more factions in the party, Airlangga said, adding that he would make the party more transparent.

My other priority is to eliminate the brokerage practices that are deep-rooted in the party. We will make a system in which candidates for local leadership will no longer deal with middlemen to get on the tickets. We should also ensure that Golkar will not be a family-run party; we are a publicly listed party so we should not allow any room for this to flourish, he said.

Airlangga is likely to reorganize the central board and put in people he can trust.

Golkar executive chief Nurdin Halid said such an arrangement would be on the agenda of the congress.

After the inauguration of the new chairman, we will continue with the selection and appointment of new board members and then inaugurate them, he said after the congress organizing committee meeting. Should any member raise any objection in the congress, he or she can be dismissed [from the party].

Airlangga will need executives who will support his political direction.

Airlangga has a tagline of Golkar Bersih [Clean Golkar]. Did the previous [leaders] have that kind of spirit? Golkar deputy secretary-general Ace Hasan Syadzily said.

Idrus, however, demanded that Airlangga accommodate all members. Power sharing is important  we have to consider those party members who have the skills for that [holding positions on the executive board].
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Kerry Sheridan (AFP) Miami, United States  Fri, December 15, 2017 07:45 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d7ebbf 2 World NASA,Kepler-space-telescope,artificial-intelligence,US-space-agency,planet,solar-system Free

A solar system with as many planets as our own has been discovered with the help of NASA's Kepler space telescope and artificial intelligence, the US space agency said Thursday.

"Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star," NASA said in a statement.

However, none of the planets are expected to be hospitable to life.

The eight-planet system -- the largest known outside of ours -- orbits a star called Kepler 90 some 2,545 light-years away.

"The Kepler-90 star system is like a mini version of our solar system," said Andrew Vanderburg, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin.

"You have small planets inside and big planets outside, but everything is scrunched in much closer."

The newly identified planet, Kepler-90i, is a rocky planet like Earth, but orbits its star once every 14.4 days, meaning a full year there is the same as two weeks on Earth.

"Kepler-90i is not a place I'd like to go visit, though," said Vanderburg.

"Its surface is likely far too hot."

NASA calculated its average temperature at about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426 Celsius) -- as hot as Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.

- Artificial intelligence -

Scientists found it by using machine learning from Google.

The process involved teaching a computer to scan a trove of 35,000 possible planetary signals collected from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope for search for signs of planetary transits.

Transits are the dimming of light when planets pass in front of a star.

The Kepler Space Telescope launched in 2009, and has scanned some 150,000 stars.

Astronomers have already confirmed the existence of some 2,500 far-away worlds using Kepler data.

"I became interested in applying neural networks to astronomy when I learned that the Kepler mission had collected so much data that it was impossible for scientists to examine it all manually," said Christopher Shallue, a senior software engineer with Google's research team.

"Instead scientists selected the strongest signals, which are the most likely to be actual planets, to receive the most attention."

Shallue likened this process to "looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Machine learning really shines when there is too much data for humans to examine for themselves."

More planets are expected to be found, because researchers plan to apply their neural network to Kepler's full set of more than 150,000 stars.

"There is a lot of unexplored real estate in the Kepler 90 system," said Vanderburg.

"It would almost be surprising to me if there weren't any more planets in around that star."

One day, artificial intelligence might even be used to search specifically for more Earth-like planets, which have proven difficult to pin down.

"For the first time since our solar system planets were discovered thousands of years ago, we know for sure that the solar system is not the sole record holder for the most planets, and we have just scratched the surface," Vanderburg added.

"Maybe there are systems out there with so many planets that they make our eight-planet solar system seem ordinary."

The findings are published in The Astronomical Journal. (**)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung, West Java  Fri, December 15, 2017 11:54 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d89a2c 1 National BioFarma,Bio-Farma,diphtheria,vaccine,vaccines,ORI,outbreak,bacterial-infection Free

State pharmaceutical company Bio Farma has increased the supply of diphtheria vaccines in Banten, Jakarta and West Java, following the implementation of the governments Outbreak Response Immunization (ORI) program to tackle the spread of the bacterial infection in the three areas.

The delivery of the vaccines will be conducted in three stages, starting from December and later in January and June next year.

Bio Farma corporate secretary Bambang Heriyanto said the company had provided an additional 137,000 vials of vaccines for the ORI program in December. These comprised 35,000 vials of DT 10ds vaccines and 102,000 vials of Td 10ds vaccines, he said in Bandung on Thursday.

DT 10ds means this diphtheria tetanus vaccine consists of 10 dosages. So each vial can be used for 10 children.

The Health Ministry needs at least 130,000 vials of DT 10ds vaccines, 760,000 vials of Td vaccines and 1.4 million vials of DTP-Hb-Hib for the ORI program in December this year.

Of that amount, Bio Farma can provide 35,000 vials of DT 10ds vaccines and 102,000 vials of Td 10ds vaccines while for DTP-HB-Hib, the government still has an adequate stock, said Bambang.

Meanwhile, for 2018, Bio Farma will provide an additional 12.2 million vials of vaccines that contain diphtheria components. These comprise 1.2 million vials of DT 10ds, seven million vials of Td 10ds vaccines, and four million vials of DTP-Hb-Hib vaccines.

This does not include vaccines supplied for the governments national immunization program, Bambang said. (ebf)

State pharmaceutical company Bio Farma provides an additional 35,000 vials of DT 10ds vaccines and 102,000 vials of Td 10ds vaccines for the government's Outbreak Response Immunization (ORI) program in December this year. (JP/Arya Dipa)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 14:10 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d8e6ce 1 City Christmas,Monas Free

The Jakarta administration will assume the expenses of an upcoming Christmas celebration at the National Monument (Monas), Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno has said.



This [Christmas celebration] is our event, this is our idea, we will cover the expenses, Sandiaga said on Thursday night, adding that Christian representatives who attended a meeting at City Hall to discuss the event said the idea was a first for the city administration.

However, Sandiaga did not elaborate on whether the funds for the event would come from the regional budget or from sponsors.

It depends on the organizers preparations. We expect the participation [of sponsors], but with or without a sponsor, the administration will make sure the event is a success, he said.

Sandiaga said Christian representatives who attended the meeting at City Hall said they expected 12,000 attendees to participate in the celebration.

Earlier this month, Governor Anies Baswedan announced the plan to organize the Christmas celebration.

The Monas Park became a spot for religious activities with Islamic groups holding events there on Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and Dec. 2. Anies previously revised a gubernatorial regulation, which stipulated that Monas should be a neutral venue and banned people from holding religious and cultural ceremonies in the park. (gis)

Topics : Christmas Monas
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Damon Wake (AFP) Brussels, Belgium  Fri, December 15, 2017 08:15 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d7fc01 2 World EU,European-Union,defense,EU-President-Donald-Tusk,PESCO,defence-cooperation,Russia,crimea Free

Flanked by soldiers in combat dress, European leaders inaugurated on Thursday a landmark defence cooperation pact that EU President Donald Tusk said was "bad news for our enemies".

Twenty-five countries -- all of the EU member states except Denmark, Malta and Britain, which is leaving the bloc -- are joining the so-called permanent structured cooperation on defence, or PESCO.

It aims to get EU states to work more closely and spend money more effectively on defence projects, including the development of new weapons.

After half a century of frustrated efforts to integrate European defence capabilities, Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and claims of state-sponsored cyberattacks gave the idea fresh impetus.

"For many years the strongest argument against PESCO had been the fear that it would lead to the weakening of NATO," Tusk said at the launch at a summit in Brussels.

"But it is quite the opposite -- strong European defence naturally strengthens NATO," he said.

"This is why PESCO is not only good news for us, but it is also good news for our allies and bad news for our enemies."

- Independence from US -

The EU's diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, who helped bring the French- and German-backed plan to fruition, hailed the agreement as a "historic decision that turns the EU into a credible security provider globally".

A host of policy differences with Washington and US President Donald Trump's repeated complaints about Europe not spending enough on its own defence spurred EU leaders to move quickly.

Fears have grown that the US would not honor its longstanding commitment to come to Europe's aid, and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has said the bloc "cannot and should not outsource our security and defence".

"We see that around the world there is a strong need for the EU to be active as a point of reference, as a player, as others are taking different directions," Mogherini said Thursday in an apparent swipe at Trump's "America first" approach.

But a question mark hangs over the funding for PESCO, with the 1.5 billion euro a year European Defence Fund still awaiting final approval.

Mogherini said she would press EU leaders to include funding for defence in the bloc's budget "so that this Europe of security and defence is financed at an adequate level".

A first batch of 17 projects includes a Belgian-led effort to develop submarine drones to tackle mines at sea.

Other proposals include a German-led "crisis response operation core" aimed at speeding up the deployment of troops to emergency situations, though initially this will begin with a low-key implementation study.

Past efforts to integrate EU defence have been frustrated -- first by French reluctance and later by fierce British opposition to anything resembling a "European army".

- NATO backing -

The initiative has the backing of NATO, in part because it requires countries to increase their spending on defence, a priority for the US-led alliance.

"I welcome the initiative to strengthen European defence because I believe that will be good for the European Union, for Europe and for NATO," the alliance's chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said.

But he warned that PESCO projects must work in harmony with NATO.

"We cannot risk ending up with conflicting requirements from EU and from NATO to the same nations," Stoltenberg said as he arrived at the summit.

And with one eye on Brexit, he cautioned that non-EU allies must be as fully involved in PESCO as possible.

When Britain quits the bloc in 2019, 80 percent of NATO's defence expenditure will come from non-EU states, he said, highlighting the importance of cooperation rather than competition.

Under PESCO statutes, as a non-EU state Britain will be able to take part in specific missions but will have no decision-making role. (**)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Danny Kemp and Alice Ritchie (AFP) Brussels, Belgium  Fri, December 15, 2017 08:15 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d7efe6 2 World EU,European-Union,Brexit,Theresa-May,Angela-Merkel,AngelaMerkel Free

EU leaders voiced support for embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May at a summit on Thursday but warned there was work to do on the next phase of Brexit talks.

Her 27 colleagues applauded her after she addressed them over dinner, a day after a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy in which members of her own party rebelled.

The rest of the EU leaders are expected to open the next phase of Brexit talks at the summit on Friday, which will focus on a transition period and future trade ties.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the interim deal Britain struck with the EU a week ago on making "sufficient progress" on key divorce issues including the exit bill, the Irish border and expatriates rights.

"Theresa May has made good offers that imply that the 27 will see sufficient progress tomorrow. But there remain many issues to be solved and we don't have much time," Merkel said.

May told reporters as she left that "we've had very good discussions. I'm looking forward to discussions on the future trade relationship and security relationship."

A British official said May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible" when she spoke to the other leaders, telling them she wanted to approach the next phase with "ambition and creativity".

- 'Personal efforts' -

Several leaders gave their backing to May over the question of whether she would be strong enough domestically to push through a Brexit deal after Wednesday's humiliating vote.

"Everybody appreciated her personal efforts and engagement," Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said after the talks. "That is just an internal discussion within Britain (about her future), but not here in the European Union."

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said earlier that May still had "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

But while Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite agreed that leaders were "satisfied" talks could move to the second round, she said that it was not really important who was in charge in Britain.

"We need to have an agreement no matter who is negotiating, we need to do the job, so we are happy the first stage is gone," she said.

May said earlier she was "disappointed" at the parliamentary setback, which saw 11 MPs from her Conservative party rebel to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

- Tortuous negotiations -

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union is unrealistic.

EU President Donald Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland

Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated Thursday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed." (**)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 13:19 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d8d7cd 1 Politics Agusta-Westland,Air-Force,corruption,graft,KPK,Agus-Supriatna Free

Former Air Force chief of staff Marshal (Ret.) Agus Supriatna failed to appear at the Corruption Eradication Commissions (KPK) office for questioning on Friday.

Agus is accused of being involved in a graft case related to the procurement of a helicopter from Italian-British manufacturing company Agusta Westland.

Agus lawyer, Pahrozi, said his client was still in Saudi Arabia on an umrah (minor haj). The KPK previously summoned Agus on Nov.27 for questioning, however, he failed to fulfill the summons for the same reason.

I confirmed that with my clients family last night. They told me Pak Agus was still in Mecca, he said, adding that Agus 30-day visa would expire on Dec.22.

Pahrozi said he would make sure his client visited the KPK after returning from abroad.

The KPK has named five suspects in the case, including three personnel from the Air Force. The five suspects are accused of collaborating to proceed with the chopper purchase, despite President Joko Jokowi Widodo having ordered the cancellation of the project.

According to the KPK, the three Air Force personnel could be charged with committing insubordination, misuse of authority and embezzlement. The graft case has reportedly caused Rp 224 billion (US$ 16 million) in state losses. (vla/ebf)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Winda A. Charmila (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15 2017

Graffiti may be perceived as a form of vandalism to some people, but residents living in a dense, crammed alley in South Jakarta have a different perspective.

Walls along community unit (RW) 03 on Jl. Jatayu in Kebayoran Lama are graffitied with dozens of images by local and foreign artists invited by Jakarta-based graffiti community Gardu House for its Project Kampung.

to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content

e-Post daily digital newspaper

No advertisements, no interruptions

Privileged access to our events and programs

Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Fathiya Dahrul and David Stringer (Bloomberg) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 16:33 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d95f31 2 Business Freeport-Indonesia,copper,Grasberg Free

Indonesia and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. may sign a new agreement as soon as this weekend that will lay out a road-map for the transfer of majority ownership of the giant Grasberg copper and gold mine to a local firm, according to people familiar with the proposal.

The nations government, state-owned PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium -- known as Inalum, and Phoenix-based Freeport are set to back a so-called transaction completion agreement as early as Sunday, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the details are private. Under the new deal, Inalum will seek to acquire London-based Rio Tinto Groups joint venture interest in Grasberg by March, and subsequently aim to convert the interest into an equity stake, two of the people said.

Eric Kinneberg, a spokesman for Freeport-McMoRan, declined to comment. Rio Tinto declined to comment in an email. Ricky Gunawan, Inalums corporate secretary, didnt immediately respond to calls and text messages requesting comments.

Freeport, Indonesia and others will soon sign an agreement that will include a target to finalize the planned transfer of control of Grasberg in the first three months of next year, the countrys State-Owned Enterprises deputy minister Fajar Harry Sampurno said in a text message. He declined to elaborate.

Tensions Eased

Local ownership of Grasberg will rise to 51 percent under a framework deal agreed in August that will see the U.S. miner divest a majority stake in local unit PT Freeport Indonesia -- of which Freeport currently owns 91 percent. In return, Freeport would be authorized to continue to operate the project through 2041. That pact also set out plans for investment of as much as $20 billion through 2031 to further develop the mine.

The new plan will include a schedule to settle issues on a mining license and the planned construction of a smelter, according to the people.

A fresh agreement comes amid an easing of tensions between key parties after Freeport in September rejected Indonesias proposals on the valuation and planned method of divestment of the miners local unit. Since then, talks involving the two sides, and Rio, have shown progress, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno said last month in an interview.

Rio has held direct talks with Inalum about a potential exit from Grasberg, people with knowledge of the matter said in October. Under a joint venture arrangement, the worlds No. 2 miner is entitled to cash flows on a 40 percent share of production above specific levels until about 2021 -- though that date is subject to potential delays, and on 40 percent of all production thereafter.

A deal for Rio to sell its interest in Grasberg could be structured so that Freeports obligation to divest its own stake in the mine would be reduced, Christopher LaFemina, an analyst with Jefferies LLC in New York, said in a note this month. The plan would allow for an elegant solution to a complex problem, according to LaFemina.

--With assistance from Danielle Bochove Tassia Sipahutar Yoga Rusmana and Eko Listiyorini
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rachmadea Aisyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 10:34 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d874f3 1 Business robert-pakpahan,World-Bank,comments,tax-revenue Free

The World Bank (WB) has said newly appointed Director General of Taxation Robert Pakpahan, who assumed office on Dec. 1, needs to create programs to draw more taxpayers in trying to boost the countrys tax revenue.

Speaking during the launch of the World Banks December edition of the Indonesia Economic Quarterly, WB Indonesia lead economist Frederico Gil Sander said the government should be able to address tax compliance in upper-middle income households.

Approximately 20 percent of citizens are high income households. They contribute 47 percent of the consumption figure, Sander said in Jakarta on Thursday, stressing that they were huge potential as taxpayers.

Roberts predecessor, Ken Dwijugiasteadi, said only 78 percent of the targeted tax revenue of Rp 1.28 quadrillion (US$89.85 billion) had been collected as of November.

Meanwhile, WB country director for Indonesia Rodrigo A. Chaves said Robert should be able to raise the tax income ratio in the coming years. Pak Robert Pakpahan should be able to improve[Indonesias] tax revenue, said Chaves. (bbn)
TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Questrade president and CEO, Edward Kholodenko presented a donation of the equivalent of 150,000 meals to Food Banks Canada on behalf of all of Questrades customers and employees in the spirit of the holidays, to help families across the country in need. Mr. Kholodenko and Mimi Lowi-Young, executive director, Food Banks Canada, help sort donations at a local food bank.



Questrade has been a wonderful partner of Food Banks Canada over the last couple of years helping to provide the equivalent of more than 400,000 meals to Canadians struggling with hunger since the start of our partnership, said Ms. Lowi-Young.

This donation follows an earlier donation of 150,000 meals made in July to recognize Canada Day and the countrys 150th birthday. As a proudly Canadian company with a longstanding commitment to philanthropy, Questrade is choosing to embody the greatest value of its home country: caring for one another. In support of this initiative, Questrade is also encouraging Canadians to join them in donating to their local food bank at www.foodbankscanada.ca.

While we recognize that food security is a year-round issue for many, and as we close the 150th celebration year of our country, we feel the need to again draw attention to the fact that many need our help to meet their basic daily needs, explained Mr. Kholodenko. We strongly believe in supporting our fellow citizens, neighbours and friends and upholding our mission to improve the lives of Canadians. We are humbled to support the more than 850,000 individuals and families who turn to a food bank each month -- one third of whom are children in our community -- both during this season of giving and more importantly, year-round.

About Food Banks Canada

Food Banks Canada supports a unique network of over 3,000 food-related organizations in every province and territory that assists more than 800,000 Canadians each month. Together our network shares over 200 million pounds of essential, safe, quality food annually, provides social programs that help to foster self-sufficiency, and advocates for policy change that will help create a Canada where no one goes hungry. For more information visit www.foodbankscanada.ca. Follow Food Banks Canada at Facebook.com/FoodBanksCanada and Twitter @FoodBanksCanada.

About Questrade

Questrade (www.questrade.com) is Canadas fastest growing online brokerage that is changing the Canadian financial services industry by leveraging technology to lower fees, and providing a viable alternative to traditional financial investment options, thereby allowing Canadians to keep more of their money. As a leader and innovator in fintech, Questrade is a trusted ally that advocates for consumers, focused on improving value. With 18 years of challenging status quo as Canada's fastest-growing online brokerage, over $6 billion in assets and more than 30,000 accounts opened every year, Questrade and its companies provide financial products and services: securities, foreign currency investment, and online wealth management. Questrade has been named one of Canadas Best Managed Companies for six years in a row. For more information visit www.questrade.com or follow on Facebook and Twitter @Questrade.

For more information, visuals, or to arrange an interview with Questrade president and CEO, Edward Kholodenko, or a representative at Food Banks Canada please contact Susan Willemsen, Ruth Colapinto or Briana LeGoiax at The Siren Group Inc.

Tel: 416-461-5270. Email: susan@thesirengroup.com, ruth@thesirengroup.com or briana@thesirengroup.com. Visit www.thesirengroup.com and connect on Twitter or Instagram @TheSirenGroup.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4f46e049-5139-4c71-82ae-1c4627e0b2ef
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 11:01 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d88b66 1 Business fatty-alcohols,exports,EU,anti-dumping,Indonesia,victory Free

Indonesia has won a dispute regarding antidumping duties on fatty alcohol exports with the European Union, based on a World Trade Organizations (WTO) Appellate Body decision.

The Trade Ministrys foreign trade director general, Oke Nurman, said in Jakarta on Thursday that the victory would help the product regain its competitiveness in the European Union market.

The export will be back on fire and obviously it will be in line with WTO regulation, he said.

In 2011, the EU applied a dumping measure against the fatty alcohol exports, ranging from 45.63 euros to 80.34 euros per metric ton, causing the export to fall 45 percent to only about US$81 million annually in the last five years, according to Central Statistics Agency (BPS) data.

The value of Indonesias export of the product reached $148 million before the dumping measure was imposed against Indonesia. The government expects 52 percent annual growth in the products export, or worth about $285 million in 2019.

I hope Indonesian producers and exporters will seize the chance to boost the export and improve their competitiveness in the European market, said Oke. (sha/bbn)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Thomas Watkins and Carole Landry (AFP) Washington/United Nations  Fri, December 15, 2017 09:00 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d810a4 2 World Iran,Yemen,rebels,United-Nations,Huthi,Huthi-rebels,Tehran,ballistic-missiles Free

US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presented what she called "undeniable" evidence Thursday that a ballistic missile fired by Huthi rebels in Yemen at Saudi Arabia last month was Iranian-made, a charge Tehran immediately denied.

Haley accused Tehran of a "blatant violation" of UN Security Council obligations designed to rein in its missile activity, further stepping up the rhetoric towards Iran which Washington accuses of going against the spirit of a historic nuclear accord.

Standing in a warehouse at a Washington military base in front of recovered pieces of two missiles, Haley said Iranian fingerprints were all over the weapons, one of which she said was fired at Riyadh's airport on November 4.

"It was made in Iran then sent to Huthi militants in Yemen," Haley said.

"From there it was fired at a civilian airport with the potential to kill hundreds of innocent civilians in Saudi Arabia."

She charged that the 2015 nuclear deal to curb Iran's nuclear program had "done nothing to moderate the regime's conduct in other areas," and accused Tehran of "fanning the flames" of regional conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif posted on Twitter a photo of Haley juxtaposed with a well-known image of former secretary of state Colin Powell appearing before the Security Council, where he provided intelligence in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war that was later found to be false.

"When I was based at the UN, I saw this show and what it begat...," Zarif wrote.

The Iranian mission said the accusations leveled by Haley were intended to divert attention from the devastating war in Yemen being led by Saudi Arabia, a key US ally.

- Tougher stance -

A confidential report to the council says UN officials had examined debris from missiles fired at Saudi Arabia which pointed to a "common origin" but there was no firm conclusion as to whether they came from an Iranian supplier.

Haley said the missiles were Iranian Qiam-class short-range ballistic rockets and pointed to valves that she said proved their origin. The Qiam-1 is based on a modified Scud design.

Haley showed other pieces of military material she said were provided by Iran, and after her announcement officials showed journalists pieces of an anti-tank missile, an explosive boat, drones and other gear.

"The evidence is undeniable. The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers all over it," Haley said.

Haley has called on the Security Council to take a tougher stance toward Iran, accusing Tehran of making illegal arms deals in Yemen, Lebanon and Syria.

Asked about Haley's claims that the evidence that Iran had supplied the missile was irrefutable, Sweden's UN Ambassador Olof Skoog said "she may be in possession of evidence that I have not seen. The information that I have up to now is less clear."

Haley did not discuss the timeline of when Iran is supposed to have provided the weapons, or whether this may have happened before the nuclear deal was signed.

In a statement, the Saudi embassy in Washington welcomed Haley's remarks and "US condemnation of Iran's hostile activities that support and arm terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Huthi terrorist militias."

- 'Bleeding Saudi Arabia of money' -

However, the report from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, obtained by AFP, said officials were still analyzing the information.

A separate team of UN experts who inspected the missile fragments during a visit to Riyadh last month found a possible link to an Iranian manufacturer, the Shahid Bagheri Industrial Group, which is on the UN sanctions blacklist.

The experts, who report to the sanctions committee, found a component marked by a logo similar to that of the banned group, which is a subsidiary of the Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior Iran analyst for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told AFP that Iran's apparent willingness to risk transferring missiles to the Huthis indicates the Yemeni conflict "may not be as peripheral to Tehran as previously assumed."

"Bleeding Saudi Arabia of money and men is a clear goal for Iran as it continues its war in Yemen," he said in an email.

Aside from leading a military campaign in Yemen, Saudi Arabia has deployed expensive Patriot missiles at home to guard against incoming rockets.

Recent Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations they violate the spirit of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

"Today's revelations proved yet again that Iran's dangerous presence in the Middle East is only growing despite their attempts to deceive the world," Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said.

A Saudi-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen imposed a blockade of Yemen's air and sea ports and borders after the missile was fired at Riyadh, citing concerns that weapons were being smuggled into Yemen. (**)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 17:49 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d9cc4e 1 City market,Christmas,New-Year,StapleFood Free

The Jakarta Police, in collaboration with the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), is conducting a market operation to maintain price stability and availability of basic commodities in Jakarta for Christmas and New Year. The operation will last for eight days, running from Dec. 14 until Dec. 21.

"The market operation is aimed at maintaining the supply of basic commodities as well as tackling wrongdoings in the market that can disrupt price stability, such as food hoarding. We will help Bulog and the Jakarta provincial administration strictly handle those problems, said Jakarta Police deputy chief Brig. Gen. Purwadi on Thursday.

The market operation is being conducted at traditional markets across the capital city, such as at Pademangan and Warakas markets in North Jakarta, as well as at Menteng Tenggulun and Kemayoran markets in Central Jakarta.

Additionally, the Jakarta Police and Bulog team will go to residential areas and low-cost apartment buildings (rusunawa) to sell low-priced staple foods. They have been scheduled to go to several rusunawa, such as Petamburan in Central Jakarta, Muara Angke in North Jakarta and Rawa Bebek in East Jakarta.

Under the market operation, the Jakarta Police and Bulog will provide sugar, rice and palm oil at affordable prices. Five kilograms of rice will be sold for Rp 40,000 (US$3), one liter of palm oil for Rp 11,000 and one kg of sugar for Rp 12,000. (roi)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 15:02 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d900f5 1 City floods,victim,jakarta Free

Flooding in Jakarta over the week claimed the life of 4-year-old Raffa Fadhilla, whose body was found floating in the Jembatan Merah sluice gate in Central Jakarta on Thursday after having gone missing for two days.

At around 2 p.m. on Tuesday when the city was hit by heavy rain, Raffa reportedly fell into the Ciliwung River in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta and was swept away by floodwaters. The boy had been playing with his friends.

Nine officials from the Jakarta Fire and Rescue Agency, with the help of two fire trucks and one inflatable boat, went to the site to find the victim, but to no avail.

The search continued for two days until the childs dead body was found floating in the Jembatan Merah sluice gate at around 9 a.m. on Thursday.

Tebet Police chief Comr. Maulana Jali Karepesina confirmed in a written statement that the body had been identified. The corpse was taken to Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital for an autopsy, Maulana said as quoted by tempo.co. (vny)

Topics : floods victim jakarta
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 16:47 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d9a32a 4 Business Greater-Jakarta,commuter-line,double-track,bogor,sukabumi,Jokowi Free

President Joko Jokowi Widodo attended on Friday the groundbreaking ceremony of the construction of a double-track railway connecting two cities in West Java -- Bogor and Sukabumi -- to expand the Greater Jakarta commuter train service.

Currently, the double-track railway from Jakarta stops in Bogor, while the Bogor-Sukabuwi route is served by only a single-track service.

The operation of the Bogor-Sukabumi double-track service will significantly decrease traffic congestion along the roads between the two cities, Jokowi said.

Currently, the commuter train can only transport 3,000 people per day. When the project is complete, it will transport about 11,000 people, said Jokowi in his remarks during the groundbreaking ceremony in Benda village, Sukabumi as reported by Antara.

Although the 30.5-kilometer railway project is targeted for completion in 2020, a 26-km section between Bogor and Cicurug is expected to be in operation in 2019.

Commenting on Greater Jakarta's traffic jam problems, Jokowi said that, before he became President, he had to travel for six hours to reach Sukabumi from Bogor. How do the people here, who have to travel every day, [cope]? he added.

In addition to the construction of the double-track railway, the government is also constructing a toll road -- the Bocini toll road -- from Ciawi, Bogor, to Sukabumi.

The Bocini toll road is expected to be completed in October 2019. I have ordered the Public Works and Public Housing Minister [Basuki Hadimuljono] to instruct that workers work day and night, he added. (bbn)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 18:19 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da06ec 1 Business Krakatau-Steel,Sango-Corporation,automotive,spare-parts,local-contents Free

Japanese automotive spare parts producer Sango Corporation has agreed to use products of state-owned steelmaker Krakatau Steel as part of Sangos efforts to increase local content.

Under the agreement, Krakatau Steel will process raw materials imported by Sango to become wire rods that will be used by Sango to produce automotive spare parts in its factory in Karawang, West Java.

"Through the cooperation, Krakatau Steel will produce 40,000 tons of wire rods a year. Production will start early next year," Krakatau Steel president director Mas Wigrantoro Roes Setyadi told reporters in Jakarta on Monday.

The Indonesian automotive sector uses about 150,000 tons of wire rods a year, mostly imported.

Meanwhile, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto welcomed the agreement, saying it would increase local content in the automotive industry in the country. The cooperation will set a milestone in Indonesias automotive industry, the ministry added.

George Halasi, president director of TSIG Holding Pty Ltd, a Sango subsidiary, said his company had invested US$40 million, but the total investment was projected to reach $95 million.

However, Halasi said the investment projection relied on the ministerial regulation and the market prospect of automotive spare parts.

The local content of its products will initially be at about 30 percent and will be gradually increased to 60 percent, he added. (fny/bbn)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 21:18 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da5b23 1 Politics KPU,Arief-Budiman,2019-elections,2019-legislative-election,2019-presidential-election Free

General Elections Commission (KPU) chairman Arief Budiman confirmed on Friday that Home Affairs Minister secretary-general Hadi Prabowo and Foreign Deputy Minister AM Fachir had given data on potential voters (DP4) that would participate in the 2019 presidential and legislative elections to the commission.

The KPU received access to their citizen data servers yesterday. We now have a better citizen database inside and outside our country, preventing the potential of conflict from erupting, Arief said as quoted by Antara.

Hadi said the 2019 general elections needed the DP4. We have given the aggregate data of populations per district [DAK2] for legislative elections on Nov. 27, he said.

Hadi further said the data would be forwarded to regencies and municipalities, and then to polling committees before the voters list was finalized.

Hadi said the Home Ministry recorded a total of 261 million individuals for the Indonesian population, 189 million of whom must register for e-ID cards.

He said retinal and fingerprint records in population data would reduce the potential of duplicate voters.

Meanwhile, Fachir said recorded data on Indonesian citizens abroad tended to grow in every general election. Indonesian citizens abroad are usually hampered by a lack of access to embassies or consulates to record their data.

Data for Indonesian citizens abroad is important to make sure they can channel their aspirations in general elections. The ministry will invest in building a database of Indonesian citizens living abroad, Fachir said. (ami/ebf)
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Ivany Atina Arbi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 19:39 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2da4981 1 City Sandiaga-Uno,diphtheria,vaccination Free

Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno received a diphtheria vaccination on Friday, saying he wanted to set a good example for city residents, some of whom refused vaccinations for their kids due to religious concerns, even though the outbreak of the disease has killed 32 people nationwide.

Witnessed by dozens of journalists who recorded the procedure, Sandiaga was seen smiling when the needle pierced his skin.

I want to be an example [for Jakarta citizens]. The outbreak can be very dangerous if [the patient] does not receive treatment in two to three days, as it can lead to death, Sandiaga said, adding that he would make all of his subordinates receive similar vaccination.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan has previously said the city needed Rp 70 billion (US$4.9 million) to purchase the diphtheria vaccine.

Diphtheria is a bacterial infection that clogs the patients airways. The Corynebacterium diphtheria bacterium also releases toxins that can disrupt heart function. The outbreak can spread from person to person through the air when the host coughs or sneezes.

A large number of antivaxxers has hampered the governments aim to vaccinate 100 percent of children nationwide.

Jakarta Health Agency head Koesmedi Priharto previously called the current diphtheria outbreak in the capital an extraordinary occurrence, as the number of reported cases had more than doubled, from 17 infections and one fatality in 2016 to 25 infections and two casualties this year.
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, December 15, 2017 16:08 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d944b7 1 City Christmas,Tangerang,security Free

Tangerang regency police are set to deploy 922 personnel comprising police and military officers to provide security for Christmas celebrations at 78 churches and six tourist spots across the area, the police chief has said.

The police held a meeting to discuss the planned security measures with military officers, a representative from the religious ministry, members of the Tangerang Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI) and the Nahdlatul Ulama Tangerang chapter at Graha Pemuda Tigaraksa building on Friday

During the meeting, Tangerang Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Sabilul Alif said the police would set up metal detectors at the churches to prevent terror attacks.

The security officers will ensure that no one brings explosive substances or anything else prohibited by law to the sites, Sabilul said on Friday.

Several conflicts over religious differences have previously occurred in Tangerang regency.

Last week, a copy of a draft regulation on limiting non-Muslim worship in Rajeg sub-district was circulated widely on the internet.

The draft stipulated that residents of minority religions would be permitted to use their homes as places of worship only if they did not invite other people or clerics from outside their housing complex. The use of amplifiers when performing rituals would also be prohibited.

In October, the construction of a Catholic school in Cikupa was hampered by the spread of fake news that the largest church in South East Asia was being built.

The hoax snowballed into a protest on Oct. 4, which saw 500 people gather around the construction site to demand the project's termination.

Topics : Christmas Tangerang security
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Rizal Harahap (The Jakarta Post) Pekanbaru, Riau  Fri, December 15, 2017 13:57 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d8e664 1 National drugs,narcotics,crystal-methamphetamine,EcstasyPills,Pekanbaru,Riau Free

Three members of a drug syndicate accused of smuggling 40 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 7,720 ecstasy pills into Indonesia were sentenced to death in two separate hearings in Pekanbaru, Riau.

Heri Kusnadi alias Ery Jack, who is reportedly affiliated with an international syndicate in Malaysia, was sentenced to death by the Bengkalis District Court, on Thursday. Meanwhile, Aldino Kofardo and Zulfadli, who were found to have acted as couriers for Ery, were given the death sentence in a hearing at the Siak District Court, on Wednesday.

During the hearing in Bengkalis, a panel of judges led by Sutarno declared Ery guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing a conspiracy to distribute type-1 drugs and narcotics.

According to witnesses, the defendant had smuggled crystal meth and ecstasy pills from Malaysia into Indonesia six times.

He smuggled 86-kg of crystal meth and 150,000 ecstasy pills into Indonesia via sea routes, the witnesses said in their testimonies.

He has been proven guilty of violating articles 114 [2] and 132 [1] of Law No.35/2009 on narcotics, Sutarno said.

Ery was also declared guilty of violating Article 112 (2) of the 2009 Narcotics Law. He has [violated the law] by having been in possession of 11 grams of crystal meth. The evidence was confiscated by Riau Police personnel during a raid of his home, said Sutarno.

Ery was arrested after the police apprehended Zulfadli and Aldino on a highway with 40- kg of crystal meth and thousands of ecstasy pills in April. During interrogation, they mentioned Erys name. (ebf)
TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grenville Strategic Royalty Corp. (TSX-V:GRC) (Grenville or the Company) today announced that it has signed an agreement, alongside SQN Venture Partners (SQN), to provide growth capital to Boardwalktech, Inc. (Boardwalktech).

Based in Cupertino, California, Boardwalktech has developed a patented digital ledger technology that allows for multi-party collaboration and verification on a trusted, shared, secure, and private information cloud. Their data management platform allows rapid blockchain application development on any platform or user interface, supporting both on/off-chain smart contract business logic and blockchain data. The Boardwalktech Application Engine (BAE) Platform acts as the data management engine enabling enterprises to build enterprise-quality applications.

Grenville CEO Steve Parry commented: Our Boardwalktech investment demonstrates the value of Grenvilles business model for evaluating and participating in emerging exponential markets like blockchain. Boardwalktech is a pioneer in digital ledger technology, with patents, Fortune 100 customers and significant revenues based on delivering applications that enable the blockchain environment to generate tangible return on investment to customers in mission-critical applications. Our royalty product is an excellent match for the rapid revenue growth that these companies experience. We have an established pipeline of new deals in the blockchain space and are devoting additional resources to sourcing more. We hope that Boardwalktech will be the first of many in this space.

Boardwalktech CEO Andrew Duncan commented: We are very pleased to include Grenville as a financial partner alongside of SQN. These two firms have provided our founding investors the ability to delay significant dilution of ownership while we developed our customer base. Now, with the explosion of interest in the blockchain environment, we are in an ideal place to realize significant shareholder value.

As part of the growth capital facility, Grenville invested US $425,000.

About Boardwalktech, Inc.

Based in Cupertino, California, Boardwalktech has developed a patented digital ledger technology that allows for multi-party collaboration and verification on a trusted, shared, secure, and private information cloud. Their data management platform allows rapid blockchain application development on any platform or user interface, supporting both on/off-chain smart contract business logic and blockchain data. Founded in 2005, Boardwalktech is primarily employee-owned.

About Grenville

Based in Toronto, Grenville Strategic Royalty Corp. is a publicly-traded royalty company that makes investments in established businesses with revenues of up to $50 million dollars. Grenville generates revenues from royalty payments and buyouts from contracts. The non-dilutive royalty financing structure offered by Grenville competes directly with traditional equity to meet the long-term financing needs of companies on more attractive commercial terms.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Grenville Strategic Royalty Corp.:

Steven Parry

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: (416) 777-0383
Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Nina Larson and Paul Raymond (AFP) Geneva, Switzerland  Fri, December 15, 2017 10:00 1798 1f87594453bb792833e1ece3a2d84df8 2 World Syria,Damascus,UN,United-Nations,peace-talks,terrorism Free

The UN envoy for Syria acknowledged Thursday that the latest round of peace talks for the war-ravaged country had failed, and blamed Damascus for the "golden opportunity missed".

Staffan de Mistura told reporters that "we did not have real negotiations, blaming in particular the government delegation's apparent lack of interest in discussing anything besides the fight against "terrorism".

His statement came at the end of the eighth round of indirect talks in Geneva between delegations representing Damascus and the opposition in Syria's brutal, nearly seven-year war.

Seven previous rounds of talks mediated by De Mistura have also gone nowhere -- and the rival sides have not yet met face-to-face.

The UN mediator, who has described himself as a "chronic optimist" and highlights incremental progress where others see stalemate, had voiced hope that the eighth round that opened on November 28, would mark the first "real negotiation".

- 'Disappointed' -

But as the round fizzled out Thursday, he acknowledged he was "disappointed."

"In spite of lots of efforts of my whole team, we did not have real negotiations," he told reporters.

While the opposition, which was united in one delegation for the first time, had seriously engaged in all subjects on the table, he said "the government engaged sadly only on one subject... terrorism."

Asked about the next steps, De Mistura said he would discuss the matter with UN chief Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council, but that he hoped to organize a new round of talks next month.

"We are not going to give up," he said, stressing the need to find a political solution to the conflict that has killed more than 340,000 people since March 2011.

Talks this month have snagged on the issue of President Bashar al-Assad's future, with the opposition delegation defying calls to give up its demand that the president must go as part of any peace deal.

The Syrian government's top negotiator, Bashar al-Jaafari, slammed the opposition for "placing preconditions for the Geneva talks", and flatly rejected their call for direct negotiations until they dropped the demand.

"We don't have a partner," head of the opposition delegation Nasr al-Hariri complained to reporters.

A parallel process organized by Moscow and including fellow government ally Iran and rebel backer Turkey, is set to resume next week in Astana, Kazakhstan.

De Mistura said he planned to attend that meeting.

The Kremlin also hopes to convene a political congress in the Black Sea resort of Sochi which would bring together regime officials and the opposition to reinvigorate a hobbled peace process.

The opposition and Western diplomats are concerned that the Sochi meeting might be part of an effort by Moscow to circumvent the UN talks and impose a solution favorable to Assad.

De Mistura said he did not yet have enough information about the Sochi event to voice an opinion.

But he warned that "if the government is not willing to meet anyone who seems to have any type of different opinion and is not willing to discuss constitution and elections... I would be very concerned if I were those organizing Sochi or any other initiatives."

- UN mediator 'undermined' -

Jaafari meanwhile harshly criticized De Mistura, insisting he had "undermined" his position as mediator when he publicly appealed to Moscow to push for new Syrian elections.

"His statement undermined his mandate as a facilitator of the talks, which will affect the entire Geneva process," Jaafari said.

In the interview with Swiss public broadcaster RTS late Wednesday, the UN mediator said that Damascus's apparent military victory in Syria's nearly seven year war was not enough for President Bashar al-Assad and that new elections were needed for him to "win the peace".

He called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "convince the (Syrian) government that there's no time to lose" and to "push the government to accept" new elections, which such a vote should be monitored by the UN.

Russia intervened in Syria's devastating conflict in 2015, providing aerial and ground support for government forces, ostensibly to combat advances by what Moscow and Damascus term "terrorist" groups.

On Tuesday, the first Russian troops began returning home after Putin ordered a pullout, saying their mission had been largely completed.

Jaafari emphasized that while Syria's government may have "allies, friends and people who fight with us on the ground," it enjoys "the highest possible degree of sovereignty".

"Therefore nobody can influence us," he said. (**)
WEST KELOWNA, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Colorado Resources Ltd. (Colorado) (TSX-V:CXO) and DAMARA GOLD CORP. (TSX-V:DMR) (Damara") announce that, further to their joint news release of November 20, 2017, the parties have mutually agreed to terminate the letter agreement (the Agreement) whereby Colorado granted Damara the option to acquire a 100% interest (the Transaction) in Colorados Kinaskan-Castle project (the K-C Property) located in the Liard Mining Division within the Golden Triangle Area of northwestern British Columbia.



As described in the news release of November 20, 2016, Colorado had initiated a preliminary exploration program on the K-C Property, which includes the collection of 859 soil and 201 rock samples, 10 km2 of geological mapping, an 11-line km I.P. survey and a 150-line km airborne magnetic survey, and will release the results of this work program once integrated into the geological, geochemical and geophysical databases and approved by Colorado's board of directors.

About Damara

Damara Gold Corp. is a TSX Venture listed Canadian public company with a Board of Directors seasoned in the mineral exploration industry and with a record of mineral deposit discovery worldwide

About Colorado

Colorado Resources Ltd. is currently engaged in the business of mineral exploration for the purpose of acquiring and advancing mineral properties located in the Golden Triangle British Columbia and holds approximately 1,200km2 of mineral claims in the Golden Triangle. The Companys main exploration projects within British Columbia include KSP and North ROK. Additionally the Company holds an option to acquire a 100% interest in the Greensprings project located in Nevada.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF DAMARA ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF COLORADO "William Yeomans" Adam Travis William Yeomans Adam Travis Director President and Chief Executive Officer For additional information see For additional information see Damara's website www.damaragoldcorp.com Colorado's website www.coloradoresources.com or contact: or contact: Damara Gold Corp. Colorado Resources Ltd. William Yeomans Adam Travis Ph: (250-768-1168) Ph: (250-768-1511)

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.



Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking information is identified by words such as estimates, intends, expects, believes, may, will and include, without limitation, statements regarding the Colorados or Damara's plans or business operations (including plans for progressing assets), estimates regarding mineral resources, projections regarding mineralization and projected expenditures. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, among others, metal prices, risks inherent in the mining industry, financing risks, labour risks, uncertainty of mineral resource estimates, equipment and supply risks, title disputes, regulatory risks and environmental concerns. Most of these factors are outside the control of Colorado and Damara. Investors are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. Except as otherwise required by applicable securities statutes or regulation, Colorado and Damara expressly disclaim any intent or obligation to update publicly forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Hollywood star Anna Kendrick says she gets notes from the top encouraging her to show more skin.

The Hollywood actress, 32, reprises her role as Beca in Pitch Perfect 3, the new instalment in the musical comedy film franchise.

She told Harpers Bazaar: Its funny  whenever we do the wardrobe fittings I feel like we get notes from the top saying they should be tighter and sexier and show more skin.

And Im like, thats not why people are coming to see the movie. They definitely arent showing up because of our sex appeal.

She said of the film franchise: Its nice that audiences are interested in seeing a movie of misfits and girls of different shapes and sizes.

Kendrick has previously complained about inequality in the film industry, saying that she had to wait for all the male roles to be cast before I can even become a part of the conversation.

But she told Harpers Bazaar that things could be changing, saying: This year Ive done a bunch of movies where I was the first person cast  even if I wasnt the lead character and there was a male lead which was a bigger role  its just anecdotal, and just this year, but it was nice.
The vote to repeal rules on net neutrality in the US could lead to a similar decision in Europe and the UK, a digital rights group has warned.

On Thursday, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to end rules that prevent internet service providers from choosing to speed up or slow down access to certain websites or apps, charging customers for the services they use.

Service providers would have to disclose if and when they chose to do this, having argued that net neutrality has stifled innovation in their industry.

But Jim Killock from the Open Rights Group said the change could be a threat to internet freedom in the UK.

If the USA removes protection for net neutrality, Europe will be next, he said.

European net neutrality protections are already insufficiently strong, and are already being abused by mobile providers selling data packages that favour sites like Facebook over their competitors.

Facebook and Google dont need extra help to dominate the market. The EU and UK need to step up and protect values of openness and competition that Trumps government are busy abandoning.

(Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Net neutrality is active in British law through the EUs rules on open internet access, which says there can be no discrimination of online content, with all traffic treated equally.

But Mr Killock points to deals from some mobile operators which offer users paid-for passes for unlimited streaming of some music and video platforms, or unlimited data on messaging services such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp, as a sign net neutrality is being eroded in the UK.

These packages are permitted under EU law as users choose to buy such passes and data is not being sped up or slowed down as part of the process.

However, it has been argued that greater choice and competition in the UK among service providers means it is less of an issue in this country, with the pressure among providers to offer appealing services higher.

This is in stark contrast to the US, where an FCC report from 2016 found that more than 50 million homes in the US had only one choice of internet provider if they wanted faster broadband.

Andrew Glover, chairman of the UK Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA) Council said the existing rules also secured net neutrality in the UK.

The changes to net neutrality rules in the US do not have an impact on customers of UK ISPs, he said.

For a long time, UK providers have been committed to preserving an open internet through a voluntary code.

More recently, strict EU rules have come into force which clearly state that providers of internet access services shall treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference.

Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, recently assessed the compliance of UK ISPs with these rules and found that there are no major concerns regarding the openness of the internet in the UK.
A six-year-old has received a handwritten letter from Sir David Attenborough encouraging her in her quest to protect the worlds seas from harmful plastics.

Ella Turns wrote a letter to the 91-year-old broadcaster telling him of her love of his Blue Planet II series on the BBC and her local Plastic Clever campaign  an initiative she formed with her mother Anna in September to reform plastic use in her area of Salcombe, Devon.

Ellas letter (Anna Turns)

Sir Davids response (Anna Turns)

Thank you for your letter, wrote Sir David in reply. Good luck with your project to help with the plastic problem.

Anna, 37, told the Press Association Ella was surprised by Sir Davids swift response  with just over a week between the two letters  and plans to frame the letter on her bedroom wall.

Ellas initiative calls for individuals and businesses to cut down on single-use plastics  such as carrier bags, straws and drinks bottles.

Animals and fish that eat microplastics (these are much smaller than my fingernail) can die, and eventually microplastics could even end up on our dinner plates, Ella said. To protect the ocean, people can use metal straws, paper or cloth bags, and reusable coffee cups.

Eight million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the sea every year, and there are concerns that more than a million birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die each year from eating and getting tangled in plastic waste.

Ella said she wants to become a scientist when she grows up to help protect the oceans and called for people to be more sensible about their use of plastic and to look after our planet.

We should all ask the prime minister in charge to ban some single-use plastics, she said. I would feel really sad if the ocean wasnt looked after  dolphins are my favourite animal and Id feel awful if they disappeared.

Ellas mother Anna, who is a journalist specialising in sustainability, said their campaign is all about encouragement.

So far we have awarded a dozen local businesses with Plastic Clever awards as part of the national Kids Against Plastic campaign, she said.

Ella giving an award to the Salcombe Harbour Hotel (Anna Turns)

The more people become aware of the need to act now, the sooner we can reduce marine plastics in and around our local estuary and beyond, said Anna.

Ella and Annas initiative echoes Sir Davids call to protect the worlds oceans in Blue Planet II  where he told viewers the future of humanity, and indeed all life on Earth, now depends on us.
BALTIMORE, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Algeco/Scotsman Holding S.a r.l. (together with its subsidiaries, the Algeco Group) today announced the successful closing of the acquisition by the Algeco Groups subsidiary, Target Logistics Management, LLC (Target Logistics), of Iron Horse Ranch from funds managed by TDR Capital LLP (TDR).



The acquisition solidifies Target Logistics position as the single largest provider of turnkey workforce housing in the U.S., including a network of eight lodges and 2,119 beds in the Permian Basin. With the acquisition, Target Logistics Permian Basin lodge network now includes Texas lodges in Pecos, Mentone, San Angelo and two in Odessa, along with two lodges in Carlsbad and Lovington, New Mexico. Additionally, Target Logistics adds Eagle Ford lodges in Cameron and Yorktown, Texas.

Diarmuid Cummins, CEO Algeco Scotsman: Today we announce the completion of the second of two strategic acquisitions which we flagged earlier in the year as important steps forward for the Algeco Group. This transaction materially enhances our leading position in the Permian Basin and expands our presence in the Eagle Ford Basin.

Brad Archer, CEO Target Logistics: We are proud to officially welcome Iron Horse Ranch to our team as part of our continued effort to build on our extensive network of turnkey workforce lodges in the United States. Iron Horse Ranch not only complements our existing footprint in the Permian Basin, but also shares our commitment to helping customers realize their full potential by providing a safe and comfortable environment away from the job site.

Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws of certain applicable jurisdictions, which reflect the Algeco Groups expectations regarding its future operational and financial performance. By their nature, the forward-looking events described in this press release may not be accurate or occur at all. In particular, we may not be able to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition of Iron Horse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which the statements were made. Although any forward-looking statements contained in this press release reflect managements current beliefs based upon information currently available to management and upon assumptions which management believes to be reasonable, actual results may differ materially from those stated in or implied by these forward-looking statements. A number of factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation, and specifically decline any obligation, to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Algeco Scotsman

Algeco Scotsman is the leading global business services provider focused on modular space, secure portable storage solutions, and remote workforce accommodation management. Headquartered in Baltimore, Algeco Scotsman has operations in 24 countries with a modular fleet of approximately 245,000 units and 11,400 remote accommodations rooms. The company operates as Target Logistics in North America, Algeco in Europe, Elliott in the United Kingdom, Ausco in Australia, Portacom in New Zealand, and Algeco Chengdong in China.

About Target Logistics

Target Logistics, an Algeco Scotsman company, is one of the largest providers of turnkey housing solutions in North America. It operates globally in some of the most remote environments, supporting oil, gas and mining with workforce housing, mobile crew camps and extended-stay hotels; government departments and organizations with temporary lodging and refugee integration; and capital projects. Target Logistics was named by Inc. magazine in 2012 and 2013 as one of Americas Fastest Growing Private Companies. Visit www.TargetLogistics.net or call (800) 832-4242.

About Iron Horse Ranch

Iron Horse Ranch is an industry leader in workforce housing for the Oil, Gas and Construction industries. Iron Horse Ranch specializes in turn-key remote camp installation, operation, project management and land acquisition. Iron Horse Ranch has one of the highest standards in workforce and temporary housing, winning awards for Service, Quality and Operational Excellence. Iron Horse Ranch operates 6 workforce lodging facilities in North America with over 1000 beds. For more information on Iron Horse Ranch, please visit http://www.ironhorseranch.com.

Investor Relations Contact:

Scott Shaughnessy

Vice President, Finance

Algeco Scotsman

410-933-5921

Scott.Shaughnessy@as.willscot.com
Tentang Situs Slot Online Resmi MGS88 Nama Situs  MGS88 Minimal Deposit  Rp. 10.000,- (Sepuluh Ribu Rupiah) Proses Deposit   2 Menit Metode Deposit  Bank Transfer,  Pulsa,  E-Wallet Judi Online Terbaik  Slot Online,  Judi Bola,  Casino Online,  Togel Online,  Tembak Ikan Provider Slot Gacor Mudah Maxwin  Pragmatic Play,  PGSoft,  MicroGaming,  Habanero Slot Gacor Gampang Menang  Gates of Olympus,  Sweet Bonanza,  Wild West Gold,  Starlight Princess Win Rate 98%

RTP Live Slot Gacor Tertinggi Hari Ini Terbaru Terlengkap

Selamat datang di halaman RTP live dan informasi soal slot gacor hari ini dari situs MGS88 yang setiap hari selalu update. Berdasarkan RTP Live MGS88, Anda bisa mendapatkan informasi tentang slot online yang saat ini yang sedang Gacor atau onfire dengan persentase yang terbukti akurat, ini bisa menjadi rekomendasi anda sebelum memilih permainan slot online di situs MGS88. Cek RTP Slot sekarang juga bosku

Klik Provider Slot Untuk Mengetahui RTP Slot Secara Real Time

Selamat datang bagi kalian yang sedang mencari situs RTP Live terlengkap dan terkini hari ini. Sangat sesuai jika Anda mengunjungi website MGS88 RTP live untuk informasi tentang permainan slot yang lagi gacor dengan slot RTP yang terupdate. Persentase kemenangan yang kami berikan tentunya diambil dengan data yang sangat valid dan hanya untuk permainan slot yang tersedia di situs MGS88. RTP yang tersedia juga akan selalu diperbarui setiap hari berdasarkan level kemenangan yang diberikan kepada member kami.

Memang sih untuk bermain slot itu tergantung hoki dari setiap pemain, Namun RTP live atau bocoran slot dari yang kami sediakan ini adalah data autentik dari banyaknya pemain yang telah bermain dan mencapai kemenangan tinggi. Sederhananya, kalau banyak pemain yang menang di dalam 1 permainan slot, karena itu permainan slot tersebut akan mempunyai persentase RTP yang sangat tinggi.

Namun kami tegaskan sekali lagi, ini bukan sebuah paksaan kami situs MGS88 untuk anda bermain di game slot yang mana. Ini bisa dijadikan sebagai referensi atau tolok ukur, boleh dicoba kalau anda mempunyai feel yang kuat dalam memainkan permainan game slot. Anda dapat mengakses kapan saja dan di mana saja selama anda siap bermain. Jangan ragu untuk bertanya ya seputar pola putaran terhadap kami, sebab kami juga menyediakannya loh.

Apa itu RTP Live?

RTP Live ialah informasi mengenai persentase tertinggi saat ini dari hasil RTP Live dengan bocoran kemenangan pemain saat ini. RTP Live merupakan singkatan dari Return To Play atau bisa juga diartikan sebagai Return to Player. Karena itu, para pemain slot sekarang jika ingin mengetahui seberapa besar kemenangannya, bisa dengan memainkan permainan yang akan dimainkannya dan bisa untung dengan mudah dan tentunya maksimal.

Apa itu RTP Slot?

RTP Slot juga dikenal sebagai return to player atau pengembalian ke Pemain. RTP slot ialah persentase dari nilai pengembalian semua uang yang dipertaruhkan pemain dari waktu ke waktu. Dengan kata lain, RTP juga dianggap sebagai salah satu fitur slot yang mengembalikan uang pemain saat pemain kalah.

Persentase digunakan untuk menghitung RTP dalam permainan slot. Misalnya, jika slot memiliki RTP 97%, itu berarti untuk setiap 100.000 koin yang hilang di slot, slot dapat mengembalikan 97.000. Jika Anda mengetahui RTP sebuah permainan slot, Anda dapat memutuskan permainan slot mana yang akan dimainkan tanpa kerugian besar.

Apakah Angka Persentase RTP Slot Itu Penting?

Biasanya pemain slot itu tidak memperhatikan RTP dalam permainan yang akan dimainkan, biasanya setelah anda mengisi saldo utama anda akan langsung buru-buru memainkannya. Yang terakhir 90-96% mempengaruhi jumlah kemenangan. Semakin tinggi jumlah RTP yang digunakan, semakin luas peluang untuk mendapatkan keuntungan.

Akan namun itu segala tak secara 100% menjamin kemenangan kau dalam bermain, RTP itu cuma sebagai kalkulasi pengeluaran anda saja selama bermain slot.Dengan adanya RTP, kau dapat mengerjakan pengaturan atas uang yang akan kau pertaruhkan nanti pada ketika bermain.Untuk itu pada ketika kau bermain slot dan telah mengalami banyak kekalahan di satu permainan, direkomendasikan kau pindah ke permainan slot lainnya yang RTP nya lebih tinggi dari permainan yang tadi kau mainkan.

Keuntungan Menggunakan Bocoran RTP Slot Hari Ini

Situs MGS88 Akan dengan senang hati akan beberapa keuntungan yang didapatkan jika anda bermain slot dengan menggunakan RTP Live yang telah disediakan. Berikut Keuntungannya :

Peluang Kemenangan Meningkat Tentu saja, saat bermain slot online, menang adalah hal yang paling penting. Di sinilah RTP berperan sebagai metode atau metode baru yang akan membantu Anda memilih permainan slot persentase tinggi. Mendapat variasi dalam Memainkan Game Slot Pastinya banyak pemain slot online yang hanya memainkan 3-5 permainan slot saja. Namun dengan RTP Live slot akan memberikan banyak game slot lain yang bisa anda coba. Tentunya semua permainan slot memiliki potensi kemenangan yang besar, jadi jangan hanya mengandalkan beberapa permainan saja. Menambah Pengalaman Dalam Bermain Slot Keuntungan terakhir adalah Anda tentu saja menambah pengalaman dan keahlian dalam permainan slot online. Dengan berbagai macam permainan slot yang dimainkan, Anda pasti mengetahui karakteristik dari setiap permainan slot yang Anda mainkan. Akibatnya, Anda pasti bisa dianggap sebagai pemain slot yang andal, yang pasti akan meningkatkan peluang Anda untuk menang besar menggunakan RTP.

Daftar 8 Situs Dengan RTP Slot Live Tertinggi Hari Ini

Ada banyak penyedia mesin slot online di internet. Tetapi tidak semuanya memiliki peluang tinggi atau RTP Live Slot yang sangat tinggi. Tapi jangan khawatir, berikut ini adalah situs slot gacor yang akan memberikan bocoran slot dengan RTP Live Tertinggi:

RTP Live Slot Pragmatic Play (RTP Slot 97.85%) RTP Live Slot PG Soft (RTP Live 96.15%) RTP Live Slot Habanero (RTP Slot 95.89%) RTP Live Slot CQ9 (RTP Live 98.83%) RTP Live Slot Spade Gaming (RTP Live 94.99%) RTP Live Slot Micro Gaming (RTP Slot 95.39%) RTP Slot Live Top Trend Gaming (RTP Live 96.14%) RTP Slot Live JOKER123 (RTP Live 97.45%)

Itulah Daftar 8 Provider Slot Gacor dengan RTP Live teratas diatas tentunya kami analisa terlebih dahulu. Anda bisa membuktikannya langsung dengan mengklik banner atau meprovider game slot yang sudah tersedia di atas. Saran kami yaitu Anda harus memainkan semua penyedia slot di atas untuk mencapai peluang kemenangan terbaik.

Daftar Slot RTP Live Tertinggi Sering Kasih Jackpot

Selain mempertimbangkan RTP Slot Gacor yang ada, sebenarnya ada banyak faktor penting untuk menang dalam permainan judi online. Sebab ada banyak game yang memiliki fitur dan mekanisme unik dan bisa membantu anda meraih Jackpot yang sangat besar.

Berikut ini akan kami ulas daftar 5 game slot paling populer karena sering memberikan jackpot:

RTP Live Gates of Olympus Gates of Olympus adalah game slot teraneh dan terbaik di Indonesia. Karena permainan mesin slot ini paling populer karena kakek Zeus dapat mengizinkan pengganda x500. Selain itu, fitur dan mekanik Gates of Olympus juga sangat menguntungkan untuk memenangkan Grand Jackpot. Secara teoritis, RTP slot langsung Gates of Olympus bernilai 96,50%, yang berarti peluang Anda untuk memenangkan MaxWin cukup tinggi. RTP live Sweet Bonanza Sweet Bonanza adalah permainan slot terpopuler kedua. Game slot bertema buah dan permen yang lezat ini sepertinya akan menarik banyak perhatian karena tergolong slot gacor yang mudah menang. Secara teoritis, slot Sweet Bonanza RTP bernilai 96,48%, yang berarti peluang Anda cukup tinggi untuk memenangkan jackpot. RTP Live Wild West Gold Wild West Gold adalah permainan slot bertema koboi yang juga populer di kalangan penggemar konspirasi. Permainan slot Wild West Gold sendiri kerap menawarkan kejutan jackpot bagi para pemainnya. Selain itu, nilai RTP Live Slot menunjukkan indeks tertinggi hari ini, yang berarti sangat layak dan sangat direkomendasikan. RTP Live Starlight Princess Slot Starlight Princess ini memiliki gaya dan fitur yang mirip dengan Gates of Olympus. Perbedaannya hanya pada desain dan karakter gamenya saja, karena memiliki fitur dan mekanik yang sama tentunya RTP slot teoritis pada game slot ini sama yaitu 96,50%. RTP Live Cash Elevator Mungkin sebagian dari Anda baru mengenal slot Cash Elevator. Namun dari data benchmark yang diungkap, ternyata banyak sekali yang menikmati permainan slot ini. Dengan fitur dan mekanisme unik seperti Lift up and down asli, slot ini juga memiliki slot RTP Live dasar 96,64% yang juga memiliki mekanisme yang sangat menguntungkan untuk memperlancar tingkat kemenangan besar.

Bocoran Jam Main Slot Gacor Hari Ini

Dalam bermain permainan slot online itu tidak bisa dilakukan dengan sembarangan yah. Jadi, Jika anda bermain pada waktu tertentu seperti yang akan kita bahas sesaat lagi, ada kemungkinan anda untuk mendapatkan kemenangan lebih tinggi. Jam RTP Slot Gacor merupakan bocoran jam main slot yang akan memberikan anda kapan waktu yang pas dalam bermain game slot.

Tentu saja seluruh provider slot online memiliki jam tertentu dalam memberikan peluang kepada para pemainnya untuk mendapatkan kemenangan. Disini kami akan memberikan anda Bocoran Jam Slot Gacor yang Paling Akurat Hari ini:

Jam Slot Gacor Pragmatic Play 02:30 WIB - Jam 05:25 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Habanero 14:26 WIB - Jam 17:38 WIB Jam Slot Gacor CQ9 00:45 WIB - Jam 05:53 WIB Jam Slot Gacor PG SOFT 14:25 WIB - Jam 17:35 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Joker123 17:41 WIB - Jam 20:42 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Microgaming 22:30 WIB - Jam 00:35 WIB

MGS88: Situs Judi Slot Online Gacor Pay4D Resmi dan Terpercaya

MGS88 adalah situs game slot online Gacor terbaru yang bermitra dengan Pay4D, Pay4D sendiri merupakan daftar situs game slot online terpercaya dengan berbagai macam permainan judi yang mudah dimenangkan seperti Game Bola, Casino Online, Slot Pay4D, Tembak Ikan dan Pay4D Online Permainan togel seperti Singapura, Hongkong, Sydney dan lain-lain. Tujuan utama kami adalah menjadi situs judi online Pay4D yang menyediakan layanan judi online terbaik di Indonesia.

Kami juga salah satu situs resmi PAY4D di Indonesia yang pasti akan membayarkan semua kemenangan kepada semua member kami, karena kepercayaan dari semua member kami adalah prioritas utama kami sebagai mesin slot 4d Asia terbaik di Asia, khususnya di Indonesia.

Dalam melakukan sistem transaksi sistem simpanan dapat dilakukan dengan mudah melalui mobile banking dan electronic banking berupa bank BCA, BSI, BRI, BNI, Cimb Niaga, Permata dan Mandiri. Selain itu, transaksi e-wallet juga tersedia melalui Dana, Gopay, LinkAja dan Ovo serta dapat digunakan untuk pulsa tanpa dipotong.

Untuk mempermudah dan kenyamanan dalam melakukan registrasi atau melakukan setiap transaksi, MGS88 menyediakan layanan live chat dan Whatsapp terhubung langsung dengan customer service online 24 jam.

Mengenal Istilah Dalam RTP SLOT

Di slot RTP Live Anda akan melihat berbagai fitur yang mungkin tidak Anda pahami masing-masing. Namun jangan khawatir, disini sebagai situs slot gacor MGS88 kami akan memberikan penjelasan lengkap mengenai tentang istilah yang ada di RTP SLOT dibawah ini.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mobetize Corp. (OTCQB:MPAY), a provider of mobile financial services (MFS) technology for the multi-billion dollar business to business (B2B) segment of the Fintech as a Service (FaaS) sector has added smartMortgage to its suite of fintech products. smartMortgage is an innovative product creating another revenue stream for Mobetize by licensing the product to financial institutions, who will offer a simplified, fully digital mortgage application process for their customers.



Mobetize will deploy smartMortgage with financial institutions, enabling homebuyers and refinancing homeowners to verify assets, employment and income with a simple omni-channel user experience. smartMortgage will also be made available through an Application Program Interface (API) integrating with any User Experience Platform (UXP) such as Backbase or Temenos edgeConnect. Mobetize is presently in discussions with a Beta Deployment Partner.

smartMortgage

Mobetize smartMortgage solves a number of key issues challenging lenders and consumers today, including the customer experience, asset quality and risk, regulatory compliance, efficiency and cost containment. Mobetize smartMortgage provides the financial institutions with:

An omni-channel and simplified user experience to speed up mortgage decisions and funding

Digitized back office processes and interoperability

Rapid launch of configurable and adjudication rules

Leverage of automated insurance and appraisal processes

Effective capability to address security and regulatory requirements

Automated back office legal processes

The mortgage industry is on the cusp of a major digital revolution to flush out the significant inefficiency in the traditional models. Industry leaders will be financial institutions that can set a course away from those traditional models, embracing a digital path. Combined with organizational agility and nimble operability, they will be well positioned to meet the expectations of todays borrowers. smartMortgage was engineered with a flexible architecture, data and analytical capabilities, and process engineering that redefines customer convenience, said Mobetize CEO Ajay Hans.

About Mobetize Corp.

Mobetize Corp. (OTCQB:MPAY) has developed a global B2B Fintech as a Service (FaaS) Supermarket by digitizing bricks and mortar financial services to deliver mobile money services to leading telecommunications companies and financial institutions. Mobetize ensures end-to-end integration for services such as prepaid air-time top ups, data gifting, mobile lending, international money transfers, P2P transfers, Visa/MasterCard programs and mobile bill payments. Mobetize seamlessly integrates and white labels its secure mobile money platform services for customers who then offer the services to millions of users. Mobetize experts help telecom and banking providers discover new revenues, new customer relationships and to navigate the emerging Fintech ecosystem. For more information, visit http://www.mobetize.com

Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes statements that are not historical in nature and may be characterized as "forward-looking statements," including those related to future financial and operating results, benefits, and synergies of the combined companies, statements concerning Mobetize's outlook, pricing trends, and forces within the industry, the completion dates of capital projects, expected sales growth, cost reduction strategies, and their results, long-term goals of Mobetize and other statements of expectations, beliefs, future plans and strategies, anticipated events or trends, and similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. All predictions as to future results contain a measure of uncertainty and, accordingly, actual results could differ materially. Among the factors which could cause a difference are: changes in the general economy; changes in demand for Mobetize's products or in the supplier costs; the actions of its competitors; the success of our customers; technological change; changes in employee relations; government regulations; litigation, including its inherent uncertainty; difficulties in plant operations and materials; transportation, environmental matters; and other unforeseen circumstances. A number of these factors are discussed in Mobetize's previous filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mobetize disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.

Investor Relations: 778-588-5563

info@mobetize.com




French English

RICHMOND HILL, Ontario , Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lysander Funds Limited (Lysander) announced today a reduction in the risk ratings of eight of its mutual funds and a change in the distribution frequency of one of its mutual funds.



In accordance with the new standardized methodology for classifying fund volatility mandated by the Canadian Securities Administrators, Lysander has lowered the investment risk rating of certain of its funds, as follows:

Fund Previous Risk Rating New Risk Rating Lysander-Canso Corporate Value Bond Fund Low-to-Medium Low Lysander-Canso U.S. Credit Fund Low-to-Medium Low Lysander-Canso Broad Corporate Bond Fund Low-to-Medium Low Lysander-Canso Balanced Fund Medium Low-to-Medium Lysander-Slater Preferred Share Dividend Fund Medium Low-to-Medium Lysander-Roundtable Low Volatility Equity Fund Medium Low-to-Medium Lysander-Fulcra Corporate Securities Fund Medium Low-to-Medium Lysander-Canso Equity Fund Medium-to-High Medium

In addition, Lysander has amended the frequency of distributions of Lysander-Roundtable Low Volatility Equity Fund to annually from monthly.

No changes have been made to the investment objectives, investment strategies or management of any of the funds.

Lysander is the trustee and investment fund manager of the funds noted above. The head office of the Manager is located at 100 York Blvd., Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1J8.



For further information on Lysander, please visit www.lysanderfunds.com or manager@lysanderfunds.com or you can reach Lysander at 1-877-308-6979.

Richard Usher-Jones

President

Lysander Funds Limited

Tel. No. 416-640-4275

Fax No. 905-764-0000
Newmarket, Ontario, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- December 15, 2017, Newmarket, Ontario  Curtiss-Wright has been supporting the nuclear industry in Canada since 1980, but it was only shortly after Ontario Power Generation confirmed plans to refurbish its reactors at Darlington Nuclear that the international company established a division in Newmarket, Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada to better serve its clients.

With 55 years of experience supporting the industry in both the U.S and Canada, Curtiss-Wright has established a strong reputation for offering a comprehensive range of products and services that help sustain the safe and reliable operation of nuclear plants throughout the world.

Curtiss-Wright supports OPGs Darlington Refurbishment project by providing testing to ensure equipment and components to be installed in the station meet seismic and environmental qualifications; and tests OPG-procured commercial grade components to certify them as nuclear grade, thereby ensuring they meet rigorous industry standards. Recently Curtiss-Wright secured a $2.5 million contract for new nuclear grade valves that will be used in the refurbishment of OPGs Darlington station.

In addition to supporting OPG directly, Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada works with other organizations providing components to the refurbishment project by conducting quality testing on those components to ensure theyre ready for installation at Darlington. Beyond the refurbishment project, Curtiss-Wright has worked with OPG on Darlington site safety and infrastructure projects. With a commitment to post-secondary education in nuclear technology, Curtiss-Wright and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) are partnering on seismic research projects related to CANDU nuclear station safety.

Ontario is embarking on a massive nuclear refurbishment program that will see 8,000 jobs created in the province, to add to the 12,000 Ontarians currently employed in the sector. The refurbishment of Ontario Power Generations Darlington Nuclear Station is underway and home to over 5,000 additional workers. Of the $25 billion planned investment in plants at Bruce and at Ontario Power Generations Darlington Nuclear Station, over 90 percent will be spent with Ontario-based suppliers, creating further jobs and opportunities for small- and medium-sized companies across the province.

OPGs Darlington Refurbishment project is Canadas largest clean energy project, generating thousands of jobs and environmental benefits for Ontarians. Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada is one of 200 companies located across the province who are supporting this 10-year venture.

Quotes:

"The work that Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada is doing at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station is a great addition to Ontarios fight against climate change. By providing low-carbon and low-cost electricity for Ontario families and businesses, this facility is creating important jobs in the energy sector and helping move our province towards a strong, low-carbon economy."

Hon. Chris Ballard, MPP Newmarket  Aurora and Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Newmarket is proud to be the home of a network of advanced, innovative companies like Curtiss-Wright. On behalf of the Town of Newmarket, I would like to thank Curtiss-Wright for their continued investment in our community and commitment to clean energy.

Mayor Tony Van Bynen, Town of Newmarket

"We are proud to have a company of international stature like Curtiss Wright invest here in Ontario to support our nuclear industry while creating high value and sustainable jobs.

Dr. Ron Oberth, President and CEO, OCNI

In the big picture, the Darlington Refurbishment project is certainly a flagship opportunity for Curtiss-Wright. On a micro-level, the project has given us the opportunity to learn and improve our processes by working with a large, complex organization like OPG. Weve transitioned a lot in the last five years, and thats in large part because of our work on the Darlington Refurbishment project.

Chris Mitchell, Director, Business Segment, Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada

Curtiss-Wright is a great example of the key work being completed through expert suppliers in support of the Darlington Nuclear Refurbishment Project.

John M. Beck, President and Chief Executive Officer, Aecon Group Inc.

Curtiss-Wright has been engaged, and entrusted, to supply critical safety related valves on a number of our key projects, including Darlington Retube & Feeder Replacement. Our continued relationship with them is a testament to their commitment to quality, innovation and the nuclear industry in general.

Preston Swafford, Chief Nuclear Officer and Executive Vice-President, Nuclear, SNC-Lavalin

Refurbishing Darlington Nuclear is Canada's largest clean energy project. It's an investment in clean air, lower energy prices and it creates thousands of high skilled jobs that will drive Ontario's economy. The Darlington Refurbishment project is boosting Ontario's Gross Domestic Product by $15 billion and is having significant impacts on the local economies across the province including Newmarket. Ontario Power Generation and our suppliers and partners are working as one team to deliver the project safely, on time and on budget."

Ted Gruetzner, Vice President, Corporate Relations and Communications, Ontario Power Generation

Curtiss-Wright Nuclear Canada offers a comprehensive range of products and services that support the nuclear power industry. CNWC advanced technologies and innovative solutions have been used in operating reactors for over 55 years, sustaining the safe and reliable operation of nuclear plants throughout the world. For over 30 years, Curtiss-Wright has supplied safety related equipment and services to the international fleet of CANDU utilities by providing engineered solutions for a wide variety of nuclear safety systems.

Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries (OCNI) is an association of more than 200 Canadian suppliers to the nuclear industry that employ more than 12,000 highly skilled and specialized engineers, technologists, and trades people. OCNI companies design reactors, manufacture major equipment and components, and provide engineering services and support to CANDU nuclear power plants in Canada as well as to CANDU and Light Water Reactor (LWR) plants in offshore markets.

-30-

For Further Information Contact:

Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries: Ron Oberth, President and CEO

Tel: (905) 839 -0073 or (647) 407-6081, ron.oberth@ocni.ca

www.ocni.ca

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/93e8fdea-3c7f-46a1-908a-b27088b1de23

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6fb2a641-2220-4777-be5a-b391e4c52d62
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canada House Wellness Group Inc. (CSE:CHV) (Canada House or the Company) is pleased to announce a limited time incentive program (the Incentive Program) applicable to holders of 1,275,000 common share purchase warrants issued by the Company on November 7, 2016 as part of convertible debenture units (the 2016 CD Warrants) and to holders of 3,558,482 common share purchase warrants issued by the Company on February 24, 2015 (the 2015 Warrants and, together with the 2016 CD Warrants, the Eligible Warrants). Holders of Eligible Warrants (Warrant Holders) who opt to take part in the Incentive Program will be able to exercise each Eligible Warrant for one common share (each a "Common Share") of the Company at a price of $0.30 per Common Share. The exercise price of the 2015 Warrants and the 2016 CD Warrants, without giving effect to the Incentive Program, is $0.375 per Common Share and $0.40 per Common Share, respectively.



The Incentive Program commences immediately and expires at 5:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on January 5, 2018 (the Expiry Time).

The incentive program is not available to holders of common share purchase warrants issued by the Company on November 7, 2016 as part of equity units or to holders of any other common share purchase warrants of the Company aside from the Eligible Warrants.

To the extent that holders of Eligible Warrants take advantage of the opportunity to exercise their Eligible Warrants early, the proceeds from such exercises will fund working capital purposes. Eligible Warrants that remain unexercised following the Expiry Time will continue to be exercisable for Common Shares on their original terms.

Depending upon the number of Eligible Warrants exercised pursuant to the Incentive Program, the Company may:

receive gross proceeds of up to $1,450,044.60; and

issue up to 4,833,482 Common Shares.

The terms and conditions of the Incentive Program and the method of exercising Eligible Warrants pursuant to the Incentive Program are set forth in a letter and warrant exercise form which is being delivered to the registered address of each Warrant Holder. Warrant Holders who wish to participate in the Incentive Program will agree to exercise their Eligible Warrants and deliver the cash payment in respect thereof and other necessary documents as described in the letter to Warrant Holders. Warrant Holders who wish to receive a copy of the letter and warrant exercise form regarding the Incentive Program may do so by email to ir@canadahouse.ca or by phone at 1 844 638 8387.

The Incentive Program is subject to the Company effecting all filings required by securities regulatory authorities and the Canadian Securities Exchange.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, and these securities will not be offered or sold in any jurisdiction in which their offer or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the 1933 Act), or any state securities laws of the United States. Accordingly, these securities will not be offered or sold to persons within the United States unless an exemption from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act and applicable state securities laws is available.

Canada House Wellness Group Inc.

Canada House is the parent company of Marijuana for Trauma Inc., Knalysis Technologies and Abba Medix Corp. The Company's goal is to become a marketplace leader through strategic partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions to create a fully integrated cannabis therapy company. For more information please visit http://www.canadahouse.ca. or www.sedar.com

For further information, please contact:

Boom Capital Markets

Steve Low

647-620-5101

steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com

Canada House Wellness Group, Inc.

Riley McGee

780-267-3325

riley@mftgroup.ca

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information. Certain statements within this news release pertaining to the Company constitute forwardlooking statements, within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, business plans and/or objectives, sales programs, forecasts and projections, assumptions, expectations, and/or beliefs of future performance, are forwardlooking statements. Such forwardlooking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forwardlooking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the anticipated effects of the financing, regulatory changes, timeliness of government approvals for the granting of permits and licenses, changes in medical marijuana prices, actual operating performance of facilities, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the medical marijuana industry generally, including those set out in the Companys public disclosure record. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forwardlooking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law.

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
The extension of deadline for linking Aadhaar with mobile connections to March 31, 2018, provides an immediate relief to both telecom operators and consumers, industry body COAI said on Friday,

We are pleased that the timeline has been extended. We were facing challenges in complying with the earlier deadline given the volume (of telecom subscribers), COAI Director General Rajan Mathews told PTI.

The extension will be good news also for consumers as it will provide them more time for compliance.

The Supreme Court today extended the deadline for linking of Aadhaar with various schemes and welfare measures, up to March 31 next year.

The deadline of February 6, 2018, for linking the biometric identifier with mobile connections also stands extended up to March 31, 2018.

Mathews said the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) will be in constant touch with the telecom department on nuances of compliance with the March 31 deadline.
Armed with Intelligent Cloud and Edge capabilities, Microsoft will give a renewed thrust to nurturing unicorn firms and the start-up community in India next year, Anant Maheshwari, the companys India President, said here on Thursday.

For us, the growth verticals will clearly be banking and finance, manufacturing and IT/ITeS sectors. But the next goal we have added to our focus areas for 2018 is to empower unicorn companies and the start-up community, Maheshwari told IANS.

A Unicorn, a term coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, is a start-up company valued at over $1 billion.

Microsoft currently caters to nearly 5,000 tech start-ups and over 200,000 large and small-and-medium businesses (SMBs) in India.

Microsoft Accelerator programme is helping start-ups help boost their enterprise readiness and go-to-market (GTM) activities.

We have seen a fundamental change in India in the last 12 months when it comes to connectivity. So the focus in 2018 will also be on over 50 million SMBs who are increasingly using Cloud solutions, while adopting digital payments and GST, Maheshwari emphasised.

Microsoft globally, including in India, has been uniquely positioned and has done a lot of work over the last 40 years to build a massive partner eco-system that is serving SMBs.

According to a recent ASSOCHAM-Deloitte joint study, adoption of advanced business digital technologies can lead to increase in revenues by up to 27 per cent, increase in employment by up to 84 per cent, and enhanced access to international markets by up to 65 per cent for SMBs in India.

According to the apex IT industry body Nasscom, Indias growing SMB segment is set to spend big to upgrade their digital infrastructure in the next few years.

For Microsoft India, the coming year will again be about skilling more people on disrupting technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) so that the country can have a talent pool to realise its Intelligent Cloud and Edge dreams.

India now offers a $100 billion opportunity if we can leverage Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge solutions across industries.

The largest Intelligent Edge market today is the mobility market. Cloud is now connected to Edge devices. There is not just one device that is smartphone but everything  from airplanes to cars  is now being connected in the age of Internet of Things (IoT), the Microsoft India head told IANS.

For us, the word Intelligent is not an accident but a movement to take India from a mobile-first country to an Intelligent Edge-first country, Maheshwari said.

AI is getting democratised, becoming more inclusive from agriculture to healthcare. We look at AI not just as a product that you switch on but something that is embedded in whatever we do and develop, added Maheshwari, who completed a year at Microsoft India in September.

Having set up India operations in 1990, Microsoft currently employs more than 8,000 people in the country.

With a modern workplace, business apps, the AI infrastructure and Cloud coming together, it becomes an end-to-end play for SMBs to become truly software firms of the future.

Modern workplace is soon going to be all around us and Microsoft looks forward to enable enterprises own their New-Age workplaces by providing them Intelligent Cloud and Edge capabilities, Maheshwari said
Industrial conglomerates GE and the Tata Group have entered into a pact to manufacture CFM International LEAP engine components in India, for the global supply chain, a company statement said on Thursday.

According to the statement, the two companies also evinced their intention to jointly pursue military engine and aircraft system opportunities for the India market.

We look forward to working with GE to build more expertise and strengthen Indias defence manufacturing capabilities, said N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons.

Tata groups partnership with GE will help drive synergies in defence manufacturing and focus on innovation to support our armed forces, he added.

The strategic partnership envisages GE Aviation and Tata Sons subsidiary, Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), to join forces for manufacturing, assembling, integration and testing of aircraft components.

Accordingly, a new Centre of Excellence will be established to help develop a robust ecosystem for aircraft engine manufacturing in India and build related capabilities.

Tata Group is a leader in the Indian defence and aerospace sector, and we look forward to working together to meet the growing demand for LEAP engines. Our collaboration in building innovative technologies will support the Make in India vision of the Indian government, said John L. Flannery, Chairman and CEO of GE.

The LEAP is one of the worlds leading jet engines known for its technological superiority, efficient fuel consumption and performance for powering single-aisle commercial jets. It is a product of CFM International, a 50/50 joint company of GE and Safran Aircraft Engines.

Traditionally, GE military engines have had a strong history in India. The company currently provides jet engines and marine gas turbines for many Indian military applications including the Light Combat Aircraft-Tejas Mk 1, Indian Navy P-8I aircraft and the P-17 Shivalik class frigates. Several military programmes under development that include the Light Combat Aircraft-Tejas Mk 2, P-17A & P-71 ships, and the AH-64 attack helicopters will be powered by GE engines.

On the other hand, TASL is focused on providing integrated solutions for aerospace, defence and homeland security.

Telangana Industry Minister K. T. Rama Rao, who had called on GE Chairman and CEO in Delhi on Wednesday, said he was excited over the announcement.

He said Hyderabad had attracted another major investment in defence and aerospace and hoped that this would give further boost to the sector.
CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Peyto Exploration & Development Corp. (TSX:PEY) ("Peyto") confirms that the monthly dividend with respect to December 2017 of $0.11 per common share is to be paid on January 15, 2018, for shareholders of record on December 31, 2017. The ex-dividend date is December 28, 2017.



Dividends paid by Peyto to Canadian residents are eligible dividends for Canadian income tax purposes.

Shareholders and interested investors are encouraged to visit the Peyto website at www.peyto.com to learn more about what makes Peyto one of North Americas most exciting energy companies. The website also includes the Presidents monthly report, which discusses various topics chosen by the President and includes estimates of monthly capital expenditures and production. For further information please contact:

Darren Gee

President and Chief Executive Officer

Phone: (403) 237-8911

Fax: (403) 451-4100

Certain information set forth in this document, including management's assessment of Peyto's future plans and operations, contains forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond these parties' control, including the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, volatility of commodity prices, currency fluctuations, imprecision of reserve estimates, environmental risks, competition from other industry participants, the lack of availability of qualified personnel or management, stock market volatility and ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources. 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. Peyto's actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements and, accordingly, no assurance 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 benefits that Peyto will derive therefrom. The Toronto Stock Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the information contained herein.
A sensational case has come to the light wherein a man murdered his wife in New Delhi and carried the body all the way to Mussoorie for disposal. The semi-decomposed body of the woman was recovered from a khud at Hathipaon in Mussoorie on Friday .

Thirty-five year old Shilpi was married to Lalit, a resident of Pritampura in New Delhi. Taking inspiration from Hindi movies, the husband, with the help of two others, allegedly murdered her in Delhi on 3 December. The husband then filed a missing person report at the Rani Bagh police station on 8 December, it is learnt.

According to the police, the missing theory failed to convince the police and Lalit confessed to the crime when questioned. He also named his associates in the crime.

Mussoorie Polices sub inspector RN Purohit said, We have recovered the body and sending it for the postmortem to Dehradun.

A team of Delhi Police had arrived with the main accused Lalit in Mussoorie on Thursday . The Delhi Police team remained tight-lipped and did not interact with the media.
The Allahabad High Court (HC) on Thursday made a damning remark on the bureaucracy, saying government officials have only mislead people in the last 70 years.

The observation came from Justice S.P. Kesharwani while hearing the case of one Dulari Devi, who has been fighting her case for the last 19 years.

Rapping the bureaucracy for delay in implementation of the Uttar Pradesh Public Interest Guarantee Act 2011, the court said the laws for curbing graft were deliberately made complicated so that accountability of the corrupt officials could not be fixed.

Justice Keshwarwani observed that in case one wanted to procure an income certificate, as per rule it should be done in two days, and if it was not disposed of within two days, the application would automatically stand cancelled.

There is a provision of first appeal against non-issuance of the certificate, and if not satisfied, the petitioner could make a second appeal, after which a penalty could be slapped on the callous official.

To implement this, the high court said appellate authorities should be constituted in all government departments, but this had not happened even after six years. And to add to this, rules were being framed to make the legal battle of the petitioner more complicated, the court observed.

So finally, the petitioner decides to pay the suvidha shulk (bribe), the court said.

The judge also noted that the RTI had become hugely successful as the rules there were clear cut.

The state government counsel sought time from the high court to get back on the matter. The hearing would continue on Friday.
The Punjab Election Commission (EC) on Friday said that the civic polls would be held in 222 out of 225 wards of three Municipal Corporations and 327 wards of the 29 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats on 17 December.

With regard to the 90 wards, the candidates have won unopposed and out of these three candidates belong to the Patiala Municipal Corporation and 87 to the Municipal Councils and the Nagar Panchayats. An official spokesperson said there would be a total of 873 polling stations in the state having 1,938 polling booths. A total of 8,000 election staff and 15,500 police personnel would perform duties at these polling stations.

Elaborating more, the spokesperson said that 413 candidates are in the fray in 85 wards of Amritsar where 7,69,153 voter would exercise their franchise. Out of these 4,08,231 are male while 3,60,922 are female.

The spokesperson also said that 3,000 officials would perform duties as electoral staff at 366 booths and 4,686 police personnel would perform various security related tasks.

A total of 305 candidates are in the fray from 80 wards of Jalandhar where 5,60,261 voters would cast their votes including 2,90,617 male and 2,69,644 females. There would be 262 polling stations and 554 polling booths in Jalandhar where 2,300 electoral staff and 2,355 police personnel would be deployed.

Similarly, the polls would be conducted in 57 out of total 60 wards of Municipal Corporation Patiala and 245 polling booths have been established in 68 polling stations. A total of 1016 electoral staff and 1,711 police personnel would be deployed and 2,60,664 voters would cast their vote including 1,35,487 male and 1,25,177 females.

Divulging further, the spokesperson said that the polls are also being conducted in 29 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats having total 327 wards. There are 2,68,909 voters which include 1,39,695 male and 1,29,214 females.

A total of 1,350 electoral staff apart from 6,500 police personnel would perform duty in these polls.
A sensational case of a man murdering his wife in Delhi and carrying the body to dispose of in Mussoorie has created shockwaves in the hill station.

The semi-decomposed body of the married woman was recovered from a Khud at Hathipaon in Mussoorie on Friday.

Thirty five-year-old Shilpi was married to Lalit, a resident of Pritampura in New Delhi. Taking inspiration from Hindi movies the husband with two others brutally murdered the woman in Delhi on 3 December.

To cheat the police the husband filed a missing report at the Rani Bagh police station on 8 December.

According to police, the missing theory failed to convince them and when they applied force then Lalit admitted the crime. He also disclosed the names of two other associates in the murder. Mussoorie Polices sub inspector RN Purohit said, We have recovered the body and sent it for postmortem to Dehradun.

A team of Delhi Police had arrived with the main accused Lalit in Mussoorie on late Thursday.

The Delhi Police team remained tight-lipped and did not interacted with the media. On Friday morning, the Delhi Police team accompanied by Mussoorie Police headed for Hathipaon.

Lalit showed the spot from where he and other accused had rolled down the body.

The body wrapped in a bed-sheet was recovered from a Khud near the Nag Mandir.

The daring act involves committing the crime in Delhi, crossing border of different states to reach Mussoorie and rolling it down in a Khud.
A day after exits polls predicted clear victory for the BhartiyaJanata Party (BJP) in the Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh,Haryana chief minister (CM), Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday said people are fed up with the ideology of the Congress.

Speaking to reporters before boarding a bus to Parwanoo in HP for the three-day brainstorming session, the CM said people of the country have full faith in welfare policies of BJP and as a result of this, BJP has formed governments in maximum states of the country.

The lotus would also blossom in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, where the election results are going to be declared on December 18,he added when asked to comment on the exit poll results for both the states.

Khattar said it had already been visible even before the polls that people have fed up with the ideology with which the Congress is working and have made their minds in favour of the BJP.
Two criminals, involved in over 11 cases of robbery, attempt to murder, snatching as well as under the Arms Act, have been arrested, police said on Thursday.

Shahid, 40, and his accomplice, Govind, 24, were active robbers in south Delhis Kalkaji and Okhla areas, police said.

The two were arrested on Tuesday night when a police team was checking vehicles in Okhla Phase 3. They were riding a bike but after spotting police, ran towards a forest area. They were chased and nabbed, Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal said.

A country-made pistol has been recovered from their possession, he said.

Govind told police that the two met inside Tihar Jail and became good friends four years ago. He said he was inspired by Shahid who had been an active criminal in south Delhi for the last 21 years. They started committing crime together after coming out of jail, Biswal said.

He said they were heading to rob someone on Tuesday night when they were arrested, he added.

The two are residents of Govindpuri and Sriniwaspuri in south Delhi. Shahid was first arrested on charges of assault in 1996. Since then he continued to commit crimes and was arrested on many occasions.

They used to target daily wage labourers and middle class people on gun point, Biswal added.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday slammed the opposition for disrupting the proceedings of the Assembly.

He said the government was willing to hold discussions on the issue of hike in power tariff but the opposition was shying away from the same as the misdeeds of the previous regimes would come to light.

The opposition did not want the correct picture to emerge before the people . He said the constant disruption was indicative of the anti- people and anti- farmer face of the opposition.

The CM stood up to speak following the constant anti- government sloganeering by the Samajwadi Party MLAs in the well of the House. Those of the Congress and the BSP also participated in the din, though while remaining in their seats.

Referring to the Samajwadi Party MLAs, Yogi Adityanath said 47 people could not be allowed to hold 355 duly elected people as hostage. It would have been good if the 47 MLAs had held discussion on the power tariff hike.

But they want to run away from the truth as the questionable decisions and actions taken by the previous regime would come to light, the chief minister said.

The CM said the hike in the price of electricity was from the existing 80 paisa per unit to Rs 1.10 paisa per unit.

A farmer who earlier spent Rs 24 on diesel for one unit was now spending just Rs 1.25 paisa for the use of his pumping set.

The districts were getting 22 hour power supply. He said by constantly disrupting the proceedings, the SP was showing its anti farmer face. Yogi said the chair would have to take cognizance if such disruptions and take requisite steps.

Earlier, as soon as the House assembled the SP and Congress legislators were up on their feet demanding a roll back in the electricity rate hike. The SP MLAs trooped into the well of the House and raised anti- government slogans. Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit repeatedly adjourned the House.

When the House reassembled, Parliamentary Affairs minister Suresh Khanna said the ruling party was ready for a discussion on the issue but it appeared the SP was not willing for the same.

He said it was a betrayal of the people of the state.

Energy minister Shrikant Sharma said under the Yogi government the underlying line was minimal rise in power rates coupled with maximum power supply.

UPs identity has now become synonymous with ujala (light). He added this was in marked departure from the previous regime when uninterrupted power supply was given to just four districts.
Hedge funds and some of the worlds biggest banks have embraced the predictive properties of machine learning to spot patterns and guide their investment decisions. Could this branch of artificial intelligence be used to divine the vagaries of the art market? A New York start-up says it can.

Arthena analyses hundreds of thousands of data points on artworks -artist, style, medium, size and so forth. Adding a touch of human insight, the company picks pieces it says will generate handsome returns for investors. Arthena manages several funds, ranging from low-risk ones that invest in modern art to higher-risk funds that buy works from emerging artists.

Valuing art is inherently subjective, and many experts are sceptical that it can be profitably bought and sold by the numbers. But Arthena co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Madelaine dAngelo said, Arthena could shed light on a market where deals are often done privately, lower the barriers to entry and help democratise art investing.

Most people in the art world dont like what were doing, DAngelo said, noting that shes been accused of stealing the soul from art investing. Were not advocating that art shouldnt exist for arts sake, or that people should stop building collections, but we want to make it more widely available as an asset class and investment opportunity.

Arthenas pitch coincides with a surge of interest in art investing. Many investors are seeking to diversify their portfolios amid low bond yields and what some consider a frothy equities market. Sales at the big auction houses have jumped 18 percent in the first half of 2017, according to Deloittes latest Art & Finance report, and well-known works are fetching record prices.

Art funds are another way to get into the market, but these are usually sold to high net-worth individuals or family offices and managed by professional experts with connections in the art world. Arthena wants to make art investing accessible to more people and attract the next generation of art enthusiasts, including data-obsessed millennials.

What you see with a lot of innovation happening in art and technology and finance, is that its the same repackaged product continued to be sold to the same pool of investors without bringing in a wider audience, said DAngelo, 30. What we are asking is what can we do to make that happen?

DAngelo, who has a masters degree in museum studies from Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian, founded Arthena in 2013 with her brother Michael, 27, chief technology officer, who studied computational and mathematical engineering at Stanford. Their company also has an office in San Francisco and is opening one in Luxembourg, the centre of the art investing world. Backed by Foundation Capital, Beamonte Investments and Y Combinator, the company recently teamed with brokerage Charles Schwab, which offers a suite of alternative investment offerings.

Investing in art is a daunting prospect for most people because there is little available data. Thats changing thanks to the likes of Magnus, a start-up with ambitions to catalogue the existence and price of every artwork and to make that information publicly available; another start-up, Artsy, streams auctions on smartphones and tablets and lists inventory from a global network of galleries.

Arthena is talking to investors in their own language  math. DAngelo said her team of data scientists uses the same rigorous data-driven approach that fund managers apply to any financial product. Among them: prices at public auctions, the number of gallery or museum exhibits an artist has had, how often an artists name comes up in data bases or social media, and works collectors already own of a given artist.

DAngelo said her company can spot trends across more dimensions and a broader body of work than a team of human analysts or advisers could do, though art experts review the algorithms findings. Arthena targets works below one million US dollars and said pieces selling for less than 50,000 dollars are the most liquid. For now, only wealthy investors accredited by the Securities and Exchange Commission  generally individuals with annual incomes of 200,000 dollars (or 300,000 dollars for a couple), or one million dollars in assets  can put money in an Arthena fund. The amount invested varies based on the fund and the managers needs but is typically about 10,000 dollars. The company said it has tens of millions of dollars in commitments so far and hopes to generate 12.5 percent to 15.5 percent annual returns. Investors wont know how theyve done until the company sells its first artworks in a year or so.

Adam Goldstein, who co-founded the travel site Hipmunk, made a small investment in an Arthena fund. To find an asset class thats this different; those dont come along very often, he said. If Arthena succeeds, he adds, it could help make art a more widely accepted asset for a diversified portfolio.

Data has already had a huge effect on the art market, lowering prices and improving transparency, said Evan Beard, an art services executive at US Trust, the private bank owned by Bank of America Corp. While the personal touch will probably never go away, Arthenas data-first approach could appeal to a new generation of art aficionados. Phillip Ashley Klein, who runs Deloitte Consultings US Art & Finance team, said a massive transfer of wealth is underway from boomers to millennials, who want a more personal experience and more contextual transparency.
In a fresh twist to the Aarushi murder case, wife of Hemraj  the domestic help who was one of the two victims in the twin murder  has moved the Supreme Court, challenging Allahabad High Courts clean chit to Rajesh Talwar and Nupur Talwar.

On October 8, the Allahabad High Court had reversed the decision of the CBI Court which had given the couple life imprisonment in the case.

The High Court gave the Talwars benefit of the doubt as there was insufficient evidence to convict the couple and also pointed out that there were loopholes in the CBI investigation.

Talwars lawyer Rebecca John said the evidence presented by the CBI did not stand judicial scrutiny and that is the end of it. The couple was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court bench of Justices BK Narayana and AK Mishra.

Pinaki Misra, another defence counsel, said the judgment of the CBI court was absolutely perverse and the High Court has set it aside correctly.

Serving a life sentence for murdering their daughter, Aarushi and domestic help, Hemraj, dentist couple  Rajesh and Nupur Talwars fate was decided by the Allahabad High Court on Thursday, nine years after the horrific incident shook the nation.

Although, a special CBI court had found Aarushis parents guilty in 2012, the dentist couple decided to appeal against the order at the Allahabad High Court.

Earlier, a division bench of the court, comprising justices BK Narayana and AK Mishra had reserved its judgment on September 7 on an appeal filed by Talwars and fixed October 12as the date for the verdict.

As per reports, the court is likely to re-evaluate the testimony of key witnesses after the defence had accused the prosecution of tutoring them.

On the night of 16 May 2008, Aarushi was found dead with her throat slit in the bedroom of her Noida home. On May 17, the body of Hemraj was found on the terrace.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the people of the state should not fall prey to the BJP, who she claimed, was trying to capture power with mischievous attempts.

Addressing a public meeting here in Bankura district, she criticised the way the BJP leaders and workers were spreading canards to divide people on the basis of caste or religious lines.

West Bengal is a different place, where people of all states, creed, culture, religion and political beliefs live together peacefully, without having any ill-feeling or hatred against each other, Banerjee said.

The chief minister said no external power would be able to change peoples belief, mindset and sense of togetherness in Bengal.

Dont believe the BJP. They are trying to capture power with their mischievous attempts, she alleged.

Banerjee said minorities never face any discrimination or humiliation in Bengal as it happens in some BJP-ruled states.

We dont differentiate between Dalits, minorities or other communities. The way the labourer from Bengal, Afrazul, was burnt to death, never happened in Bengal, she asserted.

Afrazul, a labourer from Malda district, was recently allegedly hacked and burnt to death in Rajasthan.

The Trinamool Congress chief also said her government restored peace and stability in the Jungalmahal area  comprising forested areas of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia districts  once synonymous with Maoist violence.

Banerjee said more development work for tribals in the area will soon be undertaken in the form of a tourism circuit, home-stays and other schemes to elevate peoples standard of living.

The Centre has stopped giving funds to a number of projects, while funds were curtailed in various other schemes.

But we will continue with all these programmes with our own money. We will not tolerate anyones accusations, she added.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Starcore International Mines Ltd. (TSX:SAM) (the Company) has filed the results for the second quarter ended October 31, 2017 for the Company and its mining operations in Queretaro, Mexico and toll processing operations in Matehuala, Mexico. All financial information is prepared in accordance with IFRS and all dollar amounts are expressed in thousands of Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.



We have reported the lowest production and earnings over the last two quarters in the ten years that we have operated San Martin mine, reported Robert Eadie, President of the Company. The San Martin mine has gone through a transition period where we experienced a lack of developed ore and capex investment during the change in management and introduction of the CIL plant. Our priorities going forward remain focused on exploration in areas that are open at depth, developing a mine plan that addresses our previous undeveloped ore stopes, and continuing with our strategy to carry out cost efficient mining.

Financial Highlights for the three-month period ended October 31, 2017 (unaudited):

Cash and short-term investments on hand is $5.1 million at October 31, 2017;

Gold and silver sales of $6.4 million;

Loss of $1.945 million, or $(0.04) per share;

EBITDA(1) for the 6 month period ended October 31, 2017 in a loss of $1,146;

The following table contains selected highlights from the Companys unaudited consolidated statement of operations for the three and six months ended October 31, 2017 and 2016:

(in thousands of Canadian dollars)

(Unaudited) Three Months ended

October 31, Six Months ended

October 31, 2017

2016

2017

2016

Revenues $ 6,407 $ 7,061 $ 14,502 $ 14,249 Cost of Sales (7,761 ) (5,792 ) (16,235 ) (11,832 ) Earnings (Loss) from mining operations (1,354 ) 1,269 (1,733 ) 2,417 Administrative expenses (1,311 ) (1,230 ) (1,831 ) (2,087 ) Income tax recovery 720 148 1,405 343 Net income (Loss) $ (1,945 ) $ 187 $ (2,159 ) $ 673 (i) Income (Loss) per share  basic (0.04 ) 0.00 $ (0.04 ) $ 0.01 (ii) Income (Loss) per share  diluted (0.04 ) 0.00 $ (0.04 ) $ 0.01





Reconciliation of Net income to EBITDA(1) For the six months ended October 31, 2017

2016 Net income (Loss) $ (2,159) $ 673 Income tax recovery (1,405) (343) Interest - 320 Depreciation and depletion 2,418 2,795 EBITDA $ (1,146) $ 3,445 EBITDA MARGIN(2) (7.90%) 24.18%

(1) EBITDA (Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is a non-GAAP financial performance measure with no standard definition under IFRS. It is therefore possible that this measure could not be comparable with a similar measure of another Corporation. The Corporation uses this non-GAAP measure which can also be helpful to investors as it provides a result which can be compared with the Corporations market share price.

(2) EBITDA MARGIN is a measurement of a companys operating profitability calculated as EBITDA divided by total revenue. EBITDA MARGIN is a non-GAAP financial performance measure with no standard definition under IFRS. It is therefore possible that this measure could not be comparable with a similar measure of another Corporation. The Corporation uses this non-GAAP measure which can also be helpful to investors as it provides a result which can be compared with the Corporations market share price.

Production Highlights for the three month period ended October 31, 2017:

Equivalent gold production of 2,739 ounces;

Mine operating cash cost of US$1,457/EqOz;

All-in sustaining costs of US$1,558/EqOz;

Actual Results for Unit of measure 3 months ended

October 31,

2017 6 months ended

October 31,

2017 12 months ended

April 30, 2017 Mine Production of Gold in Dore thousand ounces 2.5 6.2 14.2 Mine Production of Silver in Dore thousand ounces 14.8 30.0 66.1 Gold equivalent ounces thousand ounces 2.7 6.6 15.2 Silver to Gold equivalency ratio 75.6 75.3 70.2 Mine Gold grade grams/tonne 1.56 1.78 1.97 Mine Silver grade grams/tonne 13.6 13.1 16.1 Mine Gold recovery percent 80.9% 83.3% 81.5% Mine Silver recovery percent 54.0% 52.7% 46.5% Milled thousands of tonnes 62.4 132.1 275.1 Mine operating cash cost per tonne milled US dollars 64 61 53 Mine operating cash cost per equivalent ounce US dollars 1,457 1,220 969

The full version of the Company's Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis can be viewed on the Company's website at www.starcore.com, or SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About Starcore

Starcore is engaged in exploring, extracting and processing gold and silver through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Compania Minera Pena de Bernal, S.A. de C.V., which owns the San Martin mine in Queretaro, Mexico, and Altiplano Gold Silver, S.A. de C.V., which operates the newly commissioned Altiplano Concentrate Processing Plant located in Matehuala, Mexico. The Company is a public reporting issuer on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Company is also engaged in owning, acquiring, exploiting, exploring and evaluating mineral properties, and either joint venturing or developing these properties further. The Company has interests in properties which are exclusively located in North America.

ON BEHALF OF STARCORE INTERNATIONAL

MINES LTD.

Signed Gary Arca

Gary Arca, Chief Financial Officer and Director

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

GARY ARCA

Telephone: (604) 602-4935

Facsimile: 1-604-602-4936

EVAN EADIE

Investor Relations

Telephone: (416) 640-1936

Toll Free: 1-866-602-4935

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements may reflect managements current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Companys control. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed nor does it accept responsibility

for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
Rubbishing the exit polls which predicted a clean sweep for the BJP in both the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress on Thursday said they were done under pressure from the BJP and were absolutely wrong.

Exit poll came in Bihar, Goa, Punjab and Delhi as well. This is the same kind of exit poll, which has been shown under pressure from the BJP, Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki told IANS.

As the elections were conducted under pressure from the BJP government in Gujarat, likewise the exit poll was also done under pressure, he added.

Solanki said the Bharatiya Janata Party will be washed out in Gujarat. The exit polls are absolutely wrong. We will win 120-125 seats.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday said the country will progress faster if more opportunities are provided to girls in the field of education.

Addressing the 7th convocation of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) in Lucknow, Kovind said: The country will progress faster if we provide more opportunities to our daughters when it comes to education.

However, there was much more to be done to deal with social and economic challenges as well as in the areas of science and technology, said Kovind who is on a two-day visit to Uttar Pradeshs Lucknow and Allahabad.

When the country moves forward, he said, every citizen benefits and gets opportunities for personal development, said the president.

Kovind further called upon the students to be entrepreneurs  becoming job creators rather than just job seekers.

He advised them to follow the path of ethics and principles to attain true success in whichever walk of life they chose.

He said there could be no ambiguity or scope for argument on ethics, quoting a line to say: Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

Kovind noted with satisfaction the rapid progress the country was making and also inaugurated Ambedkar Bhawan on the University campus.

Established on January 10, 1996, BBAU is one of the premier central Universities in the country and has jurisdiction over the entire state of Uttar Pradesh.
The outcome of the assembly election in Gujarat is not only being waited anxiously in India but also in neighbouring China if media reports from Beijing are to be believed.

Observers in China are watching the outcome of the assembly poll closely since it was a litmus test of Indian voters attitude towards Prime Minister Narendra Modis reforms agenda, according to leading Chinese daily, The Global Times, which invariably reflects the views of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

The daily said Modis economic agenda was an issue of deep concern to China because of the countrys growing economic interaction with India. If the BJP wins an overwhelming victory in Gujarat, the Modi administration may take more radical approaches to economic reform. Chinas companies will feel the changes no later than Indias, it added.

China is witnessing a boom in outbound investment, with direct investment to India in 2016 reportedly many times higher than the year before. The outlook for Indias economic reforms is deeply related to a good number of Chinese companies doing business in India such as Xiaomi and OPPO, the daily said.

However, if viewed from another angle, a loss for the BJP in Gujarat would be the biggest setback yet for the economic reforms initiated by the Modi administration. Its possible that voters in other Indian states might be influenced by a BJP loss in Gujarat and Modis economic reforms might then be abandoned halfway due to a possible domino effect.

The commentary said,Modis reforms have drawn fierce opposition from other parties and some economists, but those most qualified to evaluate the Gujarat model are the people of Gujarat.

Whatever the election result is, it will have a great impact on the public opinion environment for the implementation of the rest of Modis reform agenda, it said.

The paper said China should take a close look at the BJPs Gujarat campaign.

Companies doing business in India should prepare for possible changes in economic policy over the long run and possible volatility in Indias financial markets next week after the results are announced, it concluded.
The Union Home Ministry is constituting an inter ministerial central committee for the spot assessment of damage and admissibility of claims of the states hit by Cyclone Ockhi, an official said on Thursday.

The committee will visit the spot and submit a detailed report to the Ministry within certain period about the loss of property caused by Ockhi that hit Tamil Nadu and Kerala on November 30.

The Home Ministry official said that Tamil Nadu and Kerala were in the process of preparing memorandum of seeking central assistance.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Wednesday that his government has sought Rs 1,843 crore from the Central government to mitigate the damage caused by Cyclone Ockhi. Kerala has also demanded Rs 300 crore for immediate relief.

Cyclone Ockhi, which in Bengali means eye, went on make landfall in Lakshadweep on December 2 and caused extensive damages to houses, power lines and other infrastructure in the islands and coastal areas of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

It dissipated near the south coast of Gujarat on December 6.

The Home Ministry official said that thousands of houses and large areas of standing crops were damaged due to the cyclone.

He also said over 2,391 people from Tamil Nadu and 8,566 from Kerala had been evacuated far while over 600 fishermen of both the states are still missing after the cyclone rampaged through parts of south and western India.

As many as 433 fishermen from Tamil Nadu and 186 from Kerala were yet to be traced, the official said, adding that that house-to-house verification process was going on and a final figure of the missing fishermen would be known once the process was over.

Several fishermen had ventured into the sea in boats and small crafts before Ockhi approached the coastal region, authorities say. The anxiety is about the people who had gone in such small vessels.

As of now, 63 people have lost their lives in Kerala and 14 in Tamil Nadu during the cyclone.
As a belligerent Opposition looks to corner the government in Parliament on the first day of Winter Session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he was looking forward to a constructive session with healthy, positive debates.

Speaking to media outside Parliament, Modi sought cooperation of the Opposition to pass key bills in the house in a bid to strengthen democracy and to ensure nations growth.

The Winter Session of Parliament is starting and I am confident that it will be productive session. I hope there is constructive debate and we come up with innovative solutions to our nations problems, Modi said.

I hope all members will utilise Parliament time for discussing important issues. At yesterdays all-party meeting, we all were clear that we need to take the country ahead and this session should be used positively to achieve that, he added.

May this Parliament Session contribute to the nations growth, he said further.

The Winter Session of Parliament will continue till January 5. The 21-day session is scheduled to have 14 sittings of both Houses of Parliament.

The session is likely to be stormy with the Opposition led by Congress determined to corner the Modi government on a host of issues even as the ruling BJP hopes to get key bills passed.

A total of 25 Bills are listed in the Lok Sabha and 39 Bills are pending in the Rajya Sabha.

The most important business would be the Supplementary Demands for Grants, which is the first one after the implementation of GST; the 123rd Constitutional Amendment for setting up of National Commission for Backward Classes as a constitutional body; and the Bill against triple talaq.

However, the opposition is all set to attack the government on Modis allegations against Manmohan Singh, former Vice President Hamid Ansari and others, as also the disqualification from Rajya Sabha of veteran socialist leader Sharad Yadav and Ali
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his 67th death anniversary and said that every Indian was indebted to the Iron Man of India for his for his monumental service to the nation.

We remember the great Sardar Patel on his Punya Tithi (death anniversary). Every Indian is indebted to Sardar Patel for his monumental service to our nation, Modi tweeted.

We remember the great Sardar Patel on his Punya Tithi. Every Indian is indebted to Sardar Patel for his monumental service to our nation.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 15, 2017

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was born on October 31, 1875 in Nadiad, a small village in Gujarat. He was popularly known as the Iron Man of India.

Sardar Patel played an instrumental role in uniting the country through merger of small princely states. He was conferred with the highest civilian honour, Bharat Ratna, in 1991 for his services to the nation.

He died on December 15, 1950 after suffering a heart attack in Mumbai.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally dedicate the 60 MW Tuirial Hydro Electric Power Project (HEPP) in Mizoram to the nation tomorrow.

PM Modi will also launch MyDoNER App and will distribute cheques to the Start-up Entrepreneurs Aizawl tomorrow.

PM Modi along with Governor of Mizoram, Lt Gen.(Retd.) Nirbhay Sharma, Chief Minister of Mizoram, Lal Thanhawla, Minister of State (IC) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy R.K. Singh and other government officers will grace the event.

The Tuirial HEPP has been constructed as a Central Sector Project and implemented by North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO), under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power, government of India.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) cleared the Project for implementation in July 1998 with commissioning scheduled in July 2006. After completion of about 30% of the project activities, the works were totally suspended in 2004 due to local agitation.

With sustained efforts by NEEPCO and with active support of Ministry of Power and Ministry of DoNER, government of India and government of Mizoram, the stalled works of the project were resumed in January 2011.

However, the project works were completed successfully, leading to commissioning of Unit-I on 25-08-2017 and Unit-II on 28-11-2017.

The project is the biggest power-project located in Mizoram and will feed the entire energy to be generated to the home state.

The states current demand of electricity is only 87 MW and this is being met by states mini power projects and availability of its share of power from central sector projects.

With the additional 60 MW of electricity from the project, Mizoram will now be the third power-surplus state in north-east India after Sikkim and Tripura.

Apart from attaining self-sufficiency in electric power, the project will fetch other spin-off benefits to the state of Mizoram like employment generation, navigation, water supply, pisciculture and wild life conservation, tourism.
The Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) rejected the bail plea of the Pradyuman murder case accused on Friday.

The Class 11 student of Ryan International School in Bhondsi, accused of murdering Class 2 student of Pradyuman Thakur of the same school, was sent to juvenile home for 14 days by the the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) on 22 November.

According to media reports, the board will rule on 20 December if the juvenile will be tried as an adult or not.

On 8 September, Class II student Pradyuman Thakur was found with his throat slit in a bathroom of Ryan International School.

Ashok Kumar, the bus conductor who was initially accused of murdering Class 2 student Pradyuman Thakur of Ryan International School in Gurugram, was released from the Bhondsi jail on 22 November. The 35-year-old, father of two, was lodged in jail for two months.

Earlier, Punjab and Haryana High Court had granted conditional anticipatory bail to the Pinto family, owners of Ryan International schools, in the Pradyuman murder case.

Justice Surender Gupta directed the Pinto family to join investigations in the case. The court barred them from leaving the country without permission.

In the previous hearing, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had opposed the bail pleas of Ryan owners Augustine and Grace Pinto and group CEO Ryan Pinto.

Earlier, CBI had made prima facie assertions that Ryan Augustine Pinto, chief executive officer (CEO) of Ryan group of Institution, may be involved in the in abetment or in a conspiracy behind the murder of seven-year-old student Pradyuman.

The CBI had earlier said in Punjab and Haryana Court that Possibility of him ( Ryan Pinto ) being member of the conspiracy behind murder of master Pradyumn in the washroom of Ryan International school, Bhondi, Gurugram on September 8 and its abetment, destruction of the evidence by him cannot be ruled out.

Damage and removal of evidence cannot be disregarded, said CBI.

The Supreme Court issued notices to the Pintos and the CBI on October 13. The apex court later asked the Punjab and Haryana High Court to decide on the bail pleas of Pintos within 10 days, or November 16.

(With agency inputs)
The Rajya Sabha was on Friday adjourned till 2.30 p.m. soon after it met for Question Hour after a short adjournment, amidst heated exchanges between the opposition and government over the allegations levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi against his predecessor Manmohan Singh.

The Upper House of Parliament was earlier adjourned briefly after the opposition parties led by Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad protested against suspension of JD-U leader Sharad Yadav.

However, soon after the House met again for the Question Hour, Azad and other opposition leaders protested against Prime Minister Modis attacks on his predecessor over an alleged meeting with senior Pakistani officials.

Modi had claimed that during a meeting at Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyars house, guests including Manmohan Singh, discussed the Gujarat polls with Pakistans High Commissioner to India and former Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.
The Supreme Court will on Friday pronounce its order on the plea for interim relief on a batch of petitions seeking stay of various Central and state government notifications mandating the linking of Aadhaar with various schemes including taking exam by the students, availing scholarship, cremation and treatment of HIV positive patients.

The government has already issued 139 notifications mandating the linking of Unique Identification Number with various schemes including rural job guarantee, old age pensions, provident fund and the Jan Dhan Yojana.

Reserving the order after the hearing spread over three and half hours on Thursday, the five judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said that the regular hearing on the batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar being violative of right to privacy would commence on January 10, 2018.

Besides Chief Justice Misra, other judges on the constitution bench are Justice A.K.Sikri, Justice A.M.Khanwilkar, Justice D.Y, Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan.

The court indicated that it will address the government plea for mandatory linking of Aadhaar with the opening of new bank accounts in its order to be pronounced on Friday.

As Attorney General K.K.Venugopal insisted that this should be allowed, the counsel for petitioners said that if in the last seven decades, the system of introduction by an existing account holder has worked, heavens would not fall if it continues for another three months.

The court is also likely to pass order extending February 6 deadline for the linking of mobile numbers with Aadhaar to March 31.

The government has already extended December 31 deadline on the linking Aadhaar with the existing bank accounts till March 31.

Giving the chronology of the different orders passed by the Supreme Court since 2012, senior counsel Shyam Divan, at the outset of the hearing, said that the top court injunction that Aadhaar is voluntary stands as there is no variation of this injunction by the court despite several attempts by the government to dilute them.

Pointing to the ways that the government was flouting the top courts orders by issuing notifications and circulars making Aadhaar mandatory for so many things, he asked the court to protect the institution first before protecting the citizens.

As Divan  appearing for former Karnataka High Court judge Justice K.S.Puttuswamy  made his impassioned plea, Chief Justice Misra said: You are on rhetoric and hyperbole.

Justice Sikri said that his argument is that because this court has passed interim orders, the government had to come to the court before issuing circulars, while Justice Chandrachud said what he was saying concerns reasonableness of the actions but the court was on the validity of the Aadhaar Act.

Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for another petitioner, argued on the paramouncy of the top court and its orders passed by it, saying that the manner in which the government, despite the apex court orders, had issued notifications and circulars, amounted to an encroachment on judicial powers.

Other senior counsel K.V.Vishvanathan, Meenakshi Arora, and Prashant Bhushan too argued for the strict enforcement of the top courts orders.

The Attorney General K.K.Venugopal however said that the notifications were issued on the strength of Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act  a point that was contested by the petitioners.

Senior counsel C.A. Sundaram and Rakesh Dwivedi too defended the action of the government and its various agencies in issuing circulars for linking Aadhaar to various schemes.

Dwivedi said that because of the Aadhar linking, about 2.2 lakh fake accounts have been discovered, while 85 crore bank accounts have been linked to Aadhaar, but Bhushan countered that compared to 85 crore bank accounts, 2.2 lakh fake accounts were a minuscule percentage.

At this, Chief Justice Misra said that it was not the percentage but the impact of the numbers that matters. He said in a town of 20,000 people, 200 anti-social elements can bring a bad name and affect the life of the other people.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWS WIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Squire Mining Ltd. (Squire or the Company) (CSE:SQR) announces it has received subscriptions for a total of 10,133,333 units (the Units) at a price of $0.06 per Unit for gross proceeds of $608,000 pursuant to its non-brokered private placement announced on November 20, 2017 (the Financing). Each Unit consists of one common share and one transferable share purchase warrant to purchase an additional share at a price of $0.08 for a period of two years. The net proceeds of the Financing will be used to, among other things, fund the Phase 1 work program on the Companys Star property in central British Columbia and the purchase price for a 18% minority interest in a telecommunications technology license for the mining resource industry as announced on December 6, 2017, fill key executive roles, investigate new business opportunities and for general corporate and working capital purposes.



The Company has agreed to pay a finders fee consisting of 560,000 Units to an arms length third party in connection with the Financing.

Closing of the Financing is scheduled to occur following the close of market today and all securities issued in connection with the Financing will be subject to a hold period of four months and a day.

Further to the Companys news release dated July 26, 2017, the Company announces that assignees of Ore Capital Partners Ltd. have exercised the option (the Purchase Option) to acquire a total of 11,000,000 common shares of the Company from certain directors and insiders of the Company for an aggregate purchase price of $210,000. Closing of the Purchase Option is expected to take place early next week.

For further information contact: Kevin R. Hanson, Chief Financial Officer

Telephone: (604) 929-0900

The Canadian Securities Exchange accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forward-looking information, as such term is defined under applicable securities legislation. The forward looking information includes statements about the Financing and the proposed use of proceeds therefrom and the closing of the Purchase Option, as applicable. Such forward looking information relates to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that such forward looking information is neither a promise nor guarantee, and is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. Accordingly, actual future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. All of the forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by these cautionary statements and those in our continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The forward-looking information is made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances save as required by applicable law.

THIS NEWS RELEASE, REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE CANADIAN LAWS, IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL SECURITIES AND SQUIRE MINING LTD. IS NOT SOLICITING AN OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN. THESE SECURITIES HAVE NOT BEEN REGISTERED UNDER THE UNITED STATES SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AS AMENDED, OR ANY STATE SECURITIES LAWS, AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS UNLESS REGISTERED OR EXEMPT THEREFROM.
Despite the current low in India-Pakistan relations, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is continuing with her policy of helping Pakistani nationals who need visas to visit India for medical treatment.

On Thursday, she granted visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children  Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years).

We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India, Swaraj tweeted. She also announced accepting request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too, Swaraj tweeted.

I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery, she added.

Early this year, India had decided against issuing medical visa to Pakistani nationals without a letter of recommendation from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry.

However, Swaraj amended the decision on the eve of Diwali after a torrent of requests from the relatives of Pakistani patients needing treatment in India.

In a major humanitarian move, she announced that India would grant medical visas in all deserving cases to those desperately ill Pakistanis needing urgent treatment in India.
While inaugurating the world conference on Vedas in New Delhi on Friday, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said that the Vedas preach world peace, universal brotherhood and welfare of all.

At the Vishwa Ved Sammelan, Naidu said that the Vedas have great relevance to humanity and quoted the Rigveda, Verse 5.60.5, to highlight that no individual in the society is either big or small, according to Vedas.

Naidu said, the Yajurveda mentions that the knowledge of Vedas is meant for the well-being of the entire humanity. The Vedas do not refer to any caste or community, he added.

Underlining that the Vedas are the earliest works of ancient knowledge and philosophy in India, Naidu said our civilisation, culture, thoughts and philosophy are rooted in the Vedas.

Naidu said the Vedas are the source of knowledge and guide us to advance in economic, social, educational and political fields, while helping us maintain a high moral and ethical standards.

He said that the Vedic philosophy states that truth, non-violence, patience, penance and spiritual uplift are the foundations of a human life. Vedas convey the message of religious harmony, equality and nations progress.

Naidu said Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati, the builder of modern India and founder of Arya Samaj, had given the message Back to the Vedas to the world, which has been en endorsed by the renowned philosophers all over the world.
Alabama is a place with an awful lot of history. Its known as a state that was at the centre of the slave trade, which fought a bloody civil war to try and keep hold of it, and even when it was gone, it long pushed for a system of segregation between the races and discrimination against black people. At the State Capitol in Montgomery, just yards from where Roy Moores supporters gathered, Governor George Wallace notoriously declared at his 1963 inauguration: I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

But it is also a place of hard-won political change. Down the hill is a memorial for Rosa Parks, who in December 1955 refused to give up her seat for a white passenger and sit in the so-called coloured section of a bus. It was to Montgomery that Martin Luther King led the marchers from Selma, a bloody and lethal endeavour that helped persuade President Lyndon Johnson to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

It would be offensive and wrong to equate the struggles of the civil rights era with Doug Jones stunning victory on Tuesday night in the Alabama Senate race. But Jones win over Moore carried with it no small burden of unlikeliness and effort.

I have always believed that the people of Alabama have more in common than divides us, Jones told his supporters in Birmingham, while Moore sulked and refused to concede defeat.

We have shown, not just around the state of Alabama, but we have shown the country the way  that we can be unified.

The night before, at his final rally, Jones was joined on stage by Randall Woodfin, the recently elected mayor of Birmingham, who had overcome the odds to beat the long-term incumbent, William Bell.

I know what its like to climb an uphill battle against people telling you, You cant win, he said. Let me be the first to tell you: It can be done.

And so it was. While Moore was still claiming he could seek a recount if the result was within less than half-a-per-cent, a tally collated by the New York Times showed Jones had won 671,151 votes to Moores 650,436, giving the Democrat a 49.9-48.4 victory.

There are several takeaways from this weeks result. It was a humiliation for Donald Trump, who had endorsed Moore and mocked Jones. It also raises questions about the viability of Steve Bannons push for so-called insurgent candidates in the 2018 elections. He had hoped a win here would give momentum to that plan, in which he intended to target the Republican leadership of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. With Republicans already blaming Bannon for losing one of the safest seats in the country, that may now come to little.

Democrats ought not to read too much into the victory. Not every candidate they encounter in 2018 will be facing multiple allegations of child sexual assault and abuse (accusations Moore strongly denies). And they would be wise not to start making too many assumptions about 2020.

Despite what Hillary Clinton claimed, just because Jones won in Alabama, it does not mean Democrats are going to win everywhere. There are an awful lot of red conservative states, and, as a result of Moores defeat, there are likely to be fewer hardcore candidates than Bannon would have wished to see.

Yet for progressives and Democrats, for those still licking their wounds from Trumps defeat over Clinton, the drama in this southern state, where Trump trounced Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, has given them something finally to cheer, a really staggering and surprising win. For many, it has provided hope. Sweet hope Alabama.
It may have been sheer coincidence, but coming soon after a Bench of the Supreme Court reaffirmed a point earlier made by the Law Commission that the exorbitant fees charged by top lawyers resulted in the poor being denied adequate legal representation in courts, a study by the National Law University questioning the quality of what was made available through the legal aid system only underscored the point that had been made a few days earlier by Jusices Adarsh K Goel and UU Lalit. The study had involved soliciting the views of a number of former judges ~ they were not named lest that divert attention away from what they said ~ and a common opinion was that the system of free legal aid hardly served the interests of justice. One judge said the system only helped briefless lawyers, another said it was a farce.

None of the judges interviewed during the study found the system satisfactory. The right to a fair trial becomes almost illusory when the quality of legal representation depends on the litigants economic means, the study emphasised. In practice, the aid was for the lawyer and not the accused as it ensured an income for briefless lawyers, said a judge who had earlier served as the advocate-general to a state government. Distinct frustration was evident when another former judge lamented what else can be done. And that pointed to a collective failure of the system to ensure the citizens fundamental right to be defended by a counsel of their choice since they might not be able to afford counsel of requisite ability. The lawyers appointed by the courts were those who did not have much practice, worse they took limited interest in the cases handed out to them.

It is disappointing that the National Law University did not attempt to ease the serious situation it had identified. Maybe it could consider asking leading students to take up such cases for a token fee, the rules could be amended if they came in the way of students appearing in court. That would give the student hands-on experience, maybe a method could be devised by which good work by a student could be rewarded in terms of marks or grades. The Supreme and High Courts could persuade their Bar associations to ask top lawyers to accept a certain number of pro bono assignments ~ merely calling for remedial measures is not good enough. True that the law ministry could play a major role, alas little that is sarkari inspires confidence. Yet the prevailing situation cannot be permitted to persist, and it would be unfair to assume all top lawyers are too mercenary to help address the problem. The common impression that only the rich get a fair deal in court actually militates against a cardinal principle of justice.
Diplomat-turned-politician Hardeep Singh Puri, who was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers in September, has had a distinguished career and brings his rich experience to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs where he has been actively involved in implementing three flagship programmes of the government.

Puri, a student of history at Delhi Universitys Hindu College, also taught at St Stephens College. He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1974. During a career spanning 39 years, he served in senior positions in the Ministries of External Affairs and Defence, held ambassadorial level posts in the United Kingdom, Brazil and served as Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, both in Geneva and New York. He had earlier served in Indias Missions in Tokyo and Colombo.

Puri took over as Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on 4 September. In a wide-ranging interview to SRI KRISHNA, he spoke of the various initiatives of his ministry and the three flagship programmes he has been focusing on to ensure speedy implementation. Excerpts:

Q: As a diplomat you would have visited many cities around the world. So what do you think needs to be done to make Indias urban centres as well developed?

A: The problems of Indian cities are different because there is rapid urbanisation and we are a fast growing economy ~ I dont like to use the term emerging economy. As a civilization, we emerged almost 5,000 years ago before most other countries did. When the Industrial Revolution was starting in the United Kingdom, between 1750 to 1850, India was a highly advanced economy. In many respects the industrialisation of the West was anchored in the de-industrialisation of India. We had a massive developmental lag because the country that colonised us decided to view India as a country which was providing inputs for its own industrialisation.

The 2011 census noted that 17 per cent of India in 1947 lived in the urban areas out of a population of 300 million whilst showing that the population in urban areas has now gone up to 30 per cent and that on a population base of 1.25 billion. This will go up to 40 per cent by 2030 on an increasing population base and by 2040 to 50 per cent. So, most Indian urban areas are reeling under pressure from rapid and autonomous urbanisation because though the bulk of the population still lives in rural areas it accounts for only 16 per cent of the GDP. Now for 16 per cent to sustain 70 per cent of the population is difficult and that is why Indian cities are under greater pressure than those in the so-called developed West. You can compare the problems of Indian cities with other megapolises and other developing countries.

Q: There are almost a dozen projects under your ministry. What will your focus areas be?

A: The priorities of the ministry are very well established. I have come into a situation where we are three years into our first term as the government and the major priorities at this point of time are the three flagship programmes of the Prime Minister which are anchored in this ministry. These are the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or affordable housing and the Smart Cities project and these are at different stages of completion.

The Swachh Bharat Mission launched by the prime minister from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15 August 2014, has a five-year completion date in 2019 when we will be celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Our intention is to complete the programme well before that and it will be done.

The second is the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana which has a completion date of 2022. This project that started in May 2015 has three segments ~ the economically weaker sections, lower income group and the middle income group section. Initially it was confined to EWS and lower income group. On 31 December 2016, the PM added the middle income group but it began in right earnest only in May 2017. It is a very bold and ambitious scheme. At the heart of the scheme is the objective that every Indian citizen, irrespective of where he or she comes from or their economic background, should be able to own a home by 2022. We have already spent a considerable amount of money for the EWS and LIG segment and for the MIG scheme we have taken decisions to make it more attractive. We have increased the carpet area of MIG-1 and MIG-2. Earlier it was 90 square metres and 110 square metres and now we have raised it to 120 square metres and 150 square metres respectively.

Q: How has progress of the Smart Cities been and plans for 2018?

A: The Smart Cities programme appears a bit slow but we have already done contracting in 765 projects spread over 90 cities and I think by next year you will see the outlines of some of the features of what smart cities look like. In the first phase of Smart Cities we have a target of 100 out of which 90 have already been selected and work is on.

Q: The Prime Minister has been stressing on Swachh Bharat and on doing away with open defecation. Targets have been set for construction of toilets at individual, community and public levels. How much has been achieved?

A: As far as physical targets go, I am concerned with the urban part. There are two key objectives. One is total elimination of open defecation and 100 per cent scientific management of municipal solid waste.The number of toilets to be constructed will be completed. Getting rid of open defecation would clearly require a change in mind-set and a lifestyle change which is not something I can guarantee. Even the Prime Minister said that it would require 1,000 Modis to do this. But the good news is there is an awakening and we now need to build on that.

On waste management, let me be very clear that we are processing only 23 per cent of the waste though we have several programmes which would raise it further. There must be consciousness among people as also awareness to segregate the waste at the point of production. Secondly, have the waste collected and taken to the dhalaos and then transport and use it for making compost and energy. Work is in progress and I am reasonably optimistic.

Q: Has using actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Vidya Balan as brand ambassadors for Swachh Bharat been successful? What feedback do you have?

A: Three years after the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched, we have declared 1,789 cities as open defecation free (ODF). These include urban areas of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar and Dadra Nagar Haveli. There is a realisation among people that it is not hygienic and that you would have to pay more money in medical treatment. We welcome the initiative by well-meaning citizens. I am aware of some of the hurdles they are facing as there are criminal elements. I would like to take the campaign to a level where I could declare that the impediments would classify as criminal activity.

Q: You have been in the Ministry for about three months. What do you feel about the work done?

A: I have come into a ministry where a lot of work has already been done. The machine is moving at a fast pace and in some respects I will have to get to know its functioning. I have learnt a lot in the three months that I have been in this ministry.

Q: The issue of hike in fares of Delhi Metro has kicked up a controversy. As a long-time resident of Delhi what do you feel?

A: This is a false controversy. When once you have declared having a metro, it is a capital intensive project. If you have your own money than spend it but if you have borrowed money and you dont pay it back, no one else in the country is going to pay it. If the metro fare is high, then somebody should be willing to subsidise it. The people who are making the most amount of noise are the ones who are not willing even to do a little bit for the metro.

Q: The Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Ordinance have come into effect. How far would these help people who are suffering at the hands of builders having invested money for flats?

A: We are facing a situation of crony capitalism where a lot of people have milked the system through contacts with the government and collusion and borrowed money from the banks and not paid back. Seventy years after independence we are getting a regulator. So, various measures such as RERA, Bankruptcy and Insolvency Ordinance, demonetisation, GST and fiscal incentives will be able to clean up the system. There will be blood on the floor because in the initial stages when you introduce reforms there are bound to be problems. Some people tweaked the system and the ongoing projects in order not to address the issue.
The biennial conclave of the World Trade Organization in Buenos Aires has followed the distressing course of serial stalemates. Wednesdays fizzle, therefore, was hardly surprising. Indeed, the relevance of global trade negotiations in the era of e-commerce is now open to question. The latest round has floundered on the rock of the US refusal to grant India and certain other countries a permanent waiver from WTO rules for its domestic programmes. Given the expansion of digital protectionism, a forbidding challenge confronts the WTO, most particularly its failure to adjust with a changing global economy. While that must be the larger perspective of international trade, the 11th ministerial talks have collapsed in the face of the US refusal to cooperate with the entity ~ an anathema, if not an anachronism, to the likes of Donald Trump.

Indeed, WTO is said to be facing an existential assault from the Trump administration. It is painful to reflect that the talks have collapsed over one of lifes essentials ~ food ~ with the US reneging on its commitment to find a permanent solution to the public food stockpile issue. Small wonder that the developing bloc, pre-eminently India, is deeply disappointed. With the member-nations having failed to break the deadlock during the final session of the ministerial jaw-jaw, the impasse might persist for some time yet. The fact that there was no customary declaration at the conclusion of the Buenos Aires round is testament to the breakdown, one that is embedded in Americas disengagement.

From climate-change to food stockpile, Trumps America is proceeding at a tangent. While the World Bank has been assertive on the issue of environment, there has been more of tinkering rather than assertion on the other subject that is no less close to the bone. For India, its failure to successfully push the food security issue was a disappointment, but officials have reportedly drawn comfort from the fact that the country did not yield any ground on other issues and kept its defensive interests in various fields intact. The fact remains that the delegation had to play on the backfoot on quite the most critical issue.

The fate of the conference was sealed when the US team informed the meeting that a permanent solution to the food stockholding issue was not acceptable to America. Having failed to dictate its foreign policy to the comity of nations, the US is intent on setting its agenda on the import and export of food, indeed a facet of contemporary economic history. Sad to reflect, Americas robust position against agricultural reform, based on current WTO certitudes, has resulted in a deadlock without any outcome on agriculture or even a work-programme for the next two years. In the immediate aftermath of its failure in Alabama, the Trump administration has had its way in Buenos Aires though the two are radically different issues.
Chinas island province of Hainan has unveiled a satellite launch plan to assist remote sensing coverage over the South China Sea, authorities said on Friday.

The Sanyan Institute of Remote Sensing said the mission would start in 2019, when it would launch three optical satellites, reports Xinhua news agency.

It will also add another three optical satellites, two hyperspectral satellites and two SAR satellites to complete the Satellite Constellation Programme by 2021, for conducting round-the-clock remote-sensing over the tropical sea area.

Yang Tianliang, director of the institute, said that the network was calculated to broadly cover the area between 30 degrees north and south of the equator.

Yang said the programme would provide scientific support for Chinas initiative of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and emergency response efforts at sea.
British Prime Minister Theresa May urged EU leaders at a summit on Friday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EUs negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britains goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and festive log with a twist, May was clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible, a British official said.

May told them she makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity, adding that a particular priority should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was disappointed at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: Were on course to deliver Brexit.

Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was not making her life easier.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a formidable stature in Brussels, saying that last weeks hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal showed you should not underestimate her.

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still outstanding questions.

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britains withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britains financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britains membership of the EUs single market and customs union is unrealistic.

Im looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future, May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesdays vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the blocs own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks, Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a lack of unity is very visible on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a furious race against time to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London  at Dublins request  that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

Daviss comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated yesterday: We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed.
An Indian engineer in Singapore has been jailed for three weeks for molesting a woman last year.

Prabu Natarajan, 33, admitted to rubbing his thigh against the 23-year-old, a part-time tutor, several times along Choa Chu Kang Loop on November 21 last year, the Strait Times reported on Friday.

The court on Thursday heard that Natarajan molested the woman in a bus while he was seated with her.

They got down at the same bus stop and he followed her into the lift at Block 290 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3 and rubbed her arm up and down.

Natarajan was also fined 2,500 Singapore dollars for house trespass in 2012 in Choa Chu Kang Street 52.

He had inserted his hand into the flat through an open window with intent to annoy a then 23-year-old who was sleeping, the daily reported.

Seeking at least three weeks jail for the outrage of modesty, Deputy Public Prosecutor Chee Ee Ling said the offence occurred on public transport, the touch was a prolonged and persistent rub and the victim was trapped by Natarajan at the window seat while he persisted in molesting her.

This charge and a public nuisance offence were considered in the Indian mans sentencing.

Natarajan could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment for molestation.
US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation, talking about how to resolve the situation in North Korea, the White House has said.

Russia said Trump initiated the phone call to thank Putin for his favourable assessment of his work, USA Today reported.

The two sides sent out only bare-bones summaries of the afternoon phone call, but the White House version of the call noted that Trump thanked Putin for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day, at his annual freewheeling press conference, Putin remarked on the booming US stock market  a regular Trump talking point  and said it was a sign that investors trust in what President Trump has been doing in this field.

Speaking about his assessment of Trumps first year in office, Putin in Moscow said that he found some major achievements in the White House.

In response to Putins remarks, Trump thanked the Russian leader for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance.

The two presidents discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea, Efe quoted the White House statement as saying on Thursday.

Putin at the presser also said he wanted to normalise relations with Washington, and stressed that there were many issues on which both the countries could join forces, including the fight against international terrorism.

When asked about the personal relationship with his US counterpart, Putin assured that they have been in contact.
PLYMOUTH, Minn., Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TruStone Financial Federal Credit Union, the TruStone Financial Foundation and Mortgage Lending Services recently donated hundreds of toys and a check for $2,000 to Toys for Tots Twin Cities. Donations of new, unwrapped toys were gathered at four of the credit unions branch locations with a fifth donation bin in the Mortgage Lending Services corporate office in Plymouth, MN.

To deepen the drives impact, TruStone Financial and Mortgage Lending Services employees were encouraged to donate toys or money to the organization through their December Charity Casual Day, a program where employees have the opportunity to wear jeans on a designated Friday in exchange for a donation to a designated cause. Monetary donations were matched by the TruStone Financial Foundation to total $2,000.

As a United States Marine Corps veteran and passionate community volunteer, Mortgage Lending Services employee Justin Hebner helped coordinate the companies joint donation efforts. I always strive to help those in need. That was my major driver when joining the Marine Corps and why I enjoy my role at Mortgage Lending Services, said Hebner. It means so much to see my fellow employees and community members donating what they can to bring joy to thousands of children. On December 12, Hebner presented toy donations and the $2,000 check to Marine Corps Sergeant Jared VonBargen.

Toys for Tots Twin Cities brings holiday joy to children whose families may not be able to afford gifts. In 2016, the organization donated over 248,739 gifts to 163,271 children. We are proud to support such a wide-reaching organization, said Steve Steen, TruStone Financials Chief Business Officer. We hope our members generous donations, along with our Foundation and employees contributions, will bring holiday cheer to local children this season.

About TruStone Financial

TruStone Financial is one of the fastest growing credit unions in the Midwest with assets of $1.24 billion and exceeding 108,100 members. There are 14 branches across Minnesota and Wisconsin. The credit union is headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota. For more information and full membership criteria, visit TruStoneFinancial.org.

About the TruStone Financial Foundation

The TruStone Financial Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2009 by TruStone Financial Federal Credit Union. The TruStone Financial Foundation primarily supports financial education and programs through scholarships and outreach, while also engaging in general charitable giving in the communities served by the credit union. Learn more about the TruStone Financial Foundation at www.TruStoneFoundation.org.

About Mortgage Lending Services

Mortgage Lending Services, LLC., to be known as TruStone Home Mortgage on January 2, 2018, is a TruStone Financial company dedicated to providing mortgage financing throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin. Mortgage Lending Services, LLC. was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota. To learn more about the mortgage products and services offered, visit www.MLServices.com.

About Toys for Tots Twin Cities

The mission of Marine Toys for Tots Foundation is to assist the U.S. Marine Corps in providing a tangible sign of hope to economically disadvantaged children during the holidays. This assistance includes supporting the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program by raising funds to provide toys to supplement the collections of local Toys for Tots campaigns, to provide promotional and support material and defray the costs of conducting annual Toys for Tots campaigns. To learn more, visit ToysforTots.org.

Contact: Katie Grindeland, Senior Vice President, Director of Marketing

Phone: 763.595.4002 Katie.Grindeland@TruStoneFinancial.org

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/195a6160-3b9a-408d-814f-8755e7e8713c
US President Donald Trump on Friday thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance, the White House said.

The phone call between the two leaders came after Putin s annual press conference in which he praised Trump.

President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging Americas strong economic performance in his annual press conference, the White House said in a readout of the call.

During the phone call, the two presidents also discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea, the White House said.

Citing the markets and consumer confidence, Putin said Trump had some quite serious achievements to his credit in the short time that he has been the president of the United States.
A woman from New York tried to fund the Islamic State (IS) terror group through Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, 27, conned financial institutions of about $85,000, including about $60,000 in Bitcoin, to help fund the terror group, the New York Daily News quoted the prosecutors as saying on Thursday.

She wired more than $150,000 to shell entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey with the intention of helping IS.

Shahnaz allegedly got the $85,000 by making misrepresentations to get a $22,500 bank loan and by applying for six credit cards.

She converted the credit card funds to buy more than $60,000 in Bitcoins and other digital currencies, the prosecutors said.

The Brentwood resident faces up to 20 years on charges that include bank fraud and money laundering to support a foreign terrorist organisation, reports the New York Daily News.

She was also allegedly planning to travel to Syria. Federal agents intercepted her at the JFK Airport ahead of a July flight to Islamabad with a layover in Turkey.

She was carrying $9,500 in cash and gave vague answers on her travel plans, according to court papers. She was let go after the questioning and subsequently arrested on Wednesday.

She was intending to put thousands of dollars into the coffers of terrorists, acting Brooklyn US Attorney Bridget Rohde said.
Job Title: Collaboration and Outreach Assistant

Organisation: Panagora Group



Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About US:

Panagora Group is a woman-owned small business providing novel and

integrated solutions in global health and international development. They are

anticipating to implementing a new USAID/Uganda activity.

Job Summary: The

Collaboration and Outreach Assistant will support learning, communications, and

knowledge management activities on this mission-support contract. We seek

innovation and highly motivated individuals to work on our team.



Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Support collaborating, learning, and

adapting (CLA) activities among USAID, implementing partners, and other

Ugandan stakeholders

Support the Learning team in facilitating

trainings

The jobholder will also finalize reports and

format content for learning events, e.g., webinars, PowerPoint, workshops,

etc.

Strengthen and add value to existing

practices and processes

Support other tasks as the Learning team

requests











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate must hold a bachelors

degree or higher in communication, journalism, international development,

or a related field

At least three years of experience in

communication, training and facilitation, and/or project coordination,

preferably in health sector

Prior experience in working with USAID

preferred

Excellent communications and interpersonal

skills

Fluency in written and spoken English

How to Apply:

All candidates are encouraged to send an updated CV and cover letter to

connect@panagoragroup.net with Collaboration and Outreach Assistant  Uganda

in the subject line.

th

January 2018 Deadline: 15January 2018



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




VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V:MTB) (Frankfurt:M9U) is pleased to announce that Mr. Lawrence Roulston and Mr. Mark T. Brown have been appointed to the Board of the Company effective today. The Board has also appointed Mark T. Brown as President & CEO, and Winnie Wong, as CFO and Corporate Secretary.



The Board has also accepted the resignations of Mr. Edward Kruchkowski and Mr. Randy Kassum and wishes to thank them both for their valuable services to the company for many years. Mr. Kassum and Mr. Kruchkowski have helped to build and guide the Company for many years and will continue to advise Mountain Boy in non-board roles as the Company seeks to advance its gold and base metals exploration projects in the Golden Triangle of British Columbia.

Mr. Roulston is a well-known mining industry executive with over 35 years of diverse experience in the mining industry. Mr. Roulston is currently the managing director of WestBay Capital Advisors which provides business advisory and capital markets expertise to the mining industry. Mr. Roulston is frequently asked to speak at mining industry conferences to provide his views on industry issues. Mr. Roulston has previously worked with major and junior mining companies in British Columbia with a focus on exploration. He has graduate-level training in business and holds a BSc in geology. Mr. Roulston is also a director and advisor to a group of select resource companies.

Mr. Brown is a mining industry financial executive with over 25 years of financial and mining experience. Mr. Brown is a Chartered Professional Accountant, CA, and qualified at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Vancouver BC. Mr. Brown founded Rare Element Resources Ltd. and built it into a $500 million company, listing it on the NYSE Amex Stock Exchange. Mr. Brown has also been active in the several successful exploration companies and invests actively in companies with his team at Pacific Opportunity Capital Ltd.

Ms. Wong is also a mining industry financial executive and acts at the Chief Financial Officer and Director of select mining industry companies. Ms. Wong is also a Chartered Professional Accountant, CA, and qualified while working with Deloittes. Ms. Wong is also Vice President of Pacific Opportunity Capital Ltd. based in Vancouver BC.

Mr. Rene Bernard, Director of Mountain Boy, commented that We have been seeking a group to assist in growing the Company and the financial and operational discipline that Lawrence, Mark and Winnie will bring to the Company, along with their industry experience and contacts, will help take Mountain Boy to the next level."

Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd. is a Canadian based mineral exploration company with diverse property and resource holdings within the Stewart region located in the very prolific area of British Columbias Golden Triangle. It owns 20% of the Silver Coin project, a gold-silver-base metals project that has a 43-101 compliant resource calculated. The Company is also exploring silver-base metals on its American Creek and Bear Valley properties as well as copper-gold on their Stewart area claims. For a complete listing of the Company assets and developments, visit the Company website at www.mountainboyminerals.ca. For investor information please call Sandrine Lam 604-687-3520.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

Rene Bernard

Rene Bernard, Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United.
Job Title: Driver

Organisation: United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Position No.: 10027574

Vacancy Notice No.: 032/2017



Duty Station: Mbarara, Uganda

Reports to:

Administrative/Finance Associate

Position Grade: GL5

About UNHCR:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was

established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly.

UNHCRs mandate under the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees is to lead and co-ordinate action for international

protection to refugees; seek permanent solutions for the problems of refugees

and safeguard refugee rights and well-being. UNHCR has an additional mandate

concerning issues of statelessness, as it is given a designated role under

Article 11 of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

Job Summary: The Driver is

primarily responsible for up keep and maintenance of the assigned UNHCR

vehicle(s) as per technical guidance and specifications established by the

organisation. He/She will be required to follow strict instructions and

security guidance provided by the supervisor. While the basic function of a

driver is to drive the official vehicles of UNHCR, he/she may be called upon to

perform minor maintenance and repair of UNHCR vehicles. The incumbent has

regular contacts with staff within UNHCR office and with service providers

outside UNHCR involving a limited exchange of information

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

The incumbent will drive UNHCR vehicles

for the transport of authorized passengers and delivery and collection of

mail, documents, UNHCR pouch and other items.

The jobholder will also meet official

personnel at the airport and facilitate immigration and customs

formalities as required.

Carry out the day-to-day maintenance of

the assigned vehicles; check oil, water, battery, brakes, tires, etc. and

ensure that the assigned UNHCR vehicles are road worthy and maintained up

to the established security standards.

Perform minor repairs and arrange for

other repairs and ensure that the vehicle is kept clean.

The Driver will ensure that the steps

required by rules and regulations are taken in case of involvement in

accident.

Log official trips, daily mileage, gas

consumption, oil changes, greasing, etc.

Perform other related duties as required.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

Assigned UNHCR vehicles are properly

maintained and equipped as per technical guidance and specifications

established by the Organisation.

Local traffic rules and regulations are

strictly observed. -Instructions and security guidance provided by the

supervisor and security focal point are strictly followed by the Driver

and the passengers during the journey



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate for the United Nations

UNHCR Driver job opportunity should have completed Primary Education or

equivalent technical or commercial school.

At least two years of previous job

experience relevant to the function.

Possess a valid Driving licence, knowledge

of driving rules and regulations and skills in minor vehicle repair.

Good mechanical skills.

Ability to work in remote areas.

How to Apply:

All interested Ugandan nationals who wish to join the United Nations

High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the aforementioned capacity are

encouraged to click on the link below and follow the application instructions

after reviewing the job details.

Deadline: 18th December 2017
Job Title: Grants Coordinator

Organization: CARE

International

Duty Station: Uganda

About CARE:

CARE International is a leading global development and humanitarian

organization. In 2014, CARE worked in 90 countries around the world, supporting

880 poverty-fighting development and humanitarian aid projects, reaching more

than 72 million people. CARE International in Uganda (CARE) works with others

to make a sustainable improvement in the lives of the very poor, with a focus

on women and girls. Our current program focuses on women and girls economic

rights, particularly financial inclusion and governance of natural resources

women and girls depend upon, and on their sexual and reproductive health

rights, including a life free of violence. Our programming is guided by our

core values of excellence, accountability, respect, integrity and transparency.

Job Summary: The Grants

Coordinator is to ensure the programmes appropriate grant management, both the

donor contract management and compliance (ensuring donor rules are applied and

respected, donor reports are prepared and submitted timely and with the needed

accuracy, other donor requirements are met, etc) and the sub grants management

and oversight, as per CARE relevant policies. The staff will work with

respective CARE units both in CARE Uganda, Regional Management Unit (RMU) as well

as CARE USA headquarters and other CARE International Member Partners (CMPs).

The job holder will support assigned initiatives to run an efficient budget

management and guide the programme staff and finance on donor

requirements/guidelines and rules of managing donor Grants.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The applicant for the Care International

Grants Coordinator job placement should preferably hold a bachelors

degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting or BCOM and/ or

Professional Accounting qualification like CPA, CIMA, and ACCA Level.

At least three years of experience from

financial management of development projects or at a middle or senior

management level in accounting, auditing and grant management.

Previous experience in working in a

partnership approach and supporting civil society.

How to Apply:

All applicants are encouraged to send their application letters clearly

articulating alignment with the above profile and an updated detailed (CV)

giving day time telephone contacts and names and addresses of 3 (three) work

related referees to ugarecruitment@care.org

st

December 2017 Deadline: 21December 2017
Organisation: Vision Group

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Senior Producer

About Us:

The Vision Group incorporated as the New Vision Printing &

Publishing Company Limited (NVPPCL), started business in March 1986. It is a

multimedia business housing newspaper, magazines, internet publishing,

television, radio broadcasting, commercial printing, advertising and

distribution services. NVPPCL is listed on the Uganda Stock Exchange, with an

expected turnover of over UGX 60 billion (FY 2010/2011).

Job Summary: The News

Producer, Bukedde TV will ensure production and airing of timely daily

bulletins that will attract and retain audiences.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Ensure production of timely daily news bulletins to attract and retain

audiences by;

Holding deployment meetings with

reporters.

Attending daily handover meetings.

Monitoring reporters while in the field.

Editing scripts submitted by reporters.

Designing a docket or running order and

submit for approval.

Monitoring production of footage and

approve stories before they go on air.

Briefing the news anchors on the items in

the days bulletin.

Coordinating live studio broadcasts.

Anchoring the news when required.

Line Manage subordinates to ensure a

highly productive team by;

Participating in recruitment exercises for

your team.

Carrying out performance management for

the team (Reporters, Anchors and Video Editors).

Train and coach subordinates.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The ideal candidate for the Vision Group

News Producer, Bukedde TV job placement must hold a Diploma in Journalism

from a recognized institution.

Two years experience in News production

Must know how to operate a professional

camera

Must possess production skills

Must have an eye for a good story.

Excellent reading and writing skills in

English and Luganda.

Team Leader

Pays attention to detail

Flexible

Must be able to relate well with people

Excellent communication skills

Proactive

How to Apply:

All those reeling to work in Ugandas leading media house, Vision

Group, should send applications and updated CVs to: Chief Human Resources

Officer, The New Vision Printing and Publishing Company Ltd. P.O. Box 9815,

Kampala, Uganda

th

December 2017 Deadline: 18December 2017
Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
At a time when several large default cases are being fought in the various benches of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), lenders are getting ready to initiate insolvency proceedings against a fresh set of defaulters.

The RBI had first sent a list of 12 large defaulters lenders in June and subsequently, a second list of 28 defaulters was sent late August. These 28 companies account for around Rs 1.5 lakh crore of bad loans in the system. The central bank had set a deadline of December 13 for banks to find a resolution for these accounts or else, insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings would have to be initiated against them.

The second list of accounts includes Castex Technologies, IVRCL, Orchid Pharma, Soma Enterprises, SEL Manufacturing, Jaiprakash Associates, Anrak Aluminium, Jayaswal Neco Industries, Ruchi Soya Industries, Monnet Power, Jai Balaji Industries, and East Coast Energy among others.

Of the 28 accounts, almost 22-23 are likely to be referred to the NCLT, with no resolution in sight.

A news agency quoting an unnamed banker said that except for Anrak Aluminium, Jayaswal Neco, Soma Enterprises and Jaiprakash Associates, the others would be taken to the NCLT.

Jayaswal Neco has already been undergoing a restructuring and the company's board this week approved issue of equity shares on a preferential basis to lenders under the debt restructuring plan.

Jaiprakash Associates too is not being taken to the NCLT since it has already undertaken several initiatives to reduce its debt, and has sold its cement assets this year.

Of the original list of 12 large accounts, which accounted for a quarter of the total bad loans in the system, 11 cases are already under the NCLT.

The decision to initiate action against more accounts comes at a time banks are under pressure to clean up their bank balance sheets. The total non-performing assets in the system are estimated to be over Rs 8 lakh crore.

RBI had asked banks to make higher provisions to the accounts that would be referred under the IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) and wants banks to make extensive use of the IBC in future.

Going forward, the Reserve Bank hopes that banks utilise the IBC extensively and file for insolvency proceedings on their own without waiting for regulatory directions...Once a default happens, the IBC allows for filing for insolvency proceedings, time-bound restructuring, and failing that, liquidation. This would provide the sanctity that the payment due date deserves and improve credit discipline all around, from bank supply as well as borrower demand standpoints, as borrowers might lose control in IBC to competing bidders, Viral Acharya, deputy governor of RBI said in a recent speech.

Government, bankers and experts, meanwhile remain divided on whether existing promoters should be allowed to re-bid for some of the assets that are going under the hammer once the IBC process has been initiated.

The cabinet last month approved promulgation of an ordinance to amend the IBC and bar wilful defaulters from buying back their stressed assets.

Some experts feel that genuine promoters, who may have only defaulted due to business conditions, should be allowed to bid again. There is also an argument that the recent amendment to the IBC will also depress valuations.

Lets look at genuine promoters...If you have a promoter backed by a large private equity firm, they would have done the diligence, they won't have a fraud promoter to back. I think, such cases, where there are small promoters or small scale industries, you have to make some provisions, so that it can go ahead, Ajay Piramal, chairman of Piramal Enterprises, said at an event organised by the National Stock Exchange and NYU late on Thursday.

Siby Antony, MD of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company said while it was fine to ban wilful defaulters, decision about whether existing promoters could bid again for their assets, should be best left to the committee of creditors.

M.S. Sahoo, chairman of The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, however, begs to differ. He said, that the amendment did not debate on promoters versus non-promoters, but the idea was to get more bidders who were not tainted.

He says that the focus should now be on how a market can be created so that more people can participate and where it will become easy for a resolution professional to raise interim finance to keep the company going and then look at the best way for liquidation of assets to get value.

All the changes that have been made (to the IBC) in recent past, including ordinance, is only for the purpose of maximising the value of assets of the corporate debtor. The objective is that we want the corporate debtor, if there is some enterprise value, which is higher than the liquidation value, let us make all possible efforts to resurrect it. That can happen only if we can have the right kind of people, who can be entrusted with a distressed corporate entity for revival, he said.
A stitch in time saves nine. That is exactly what India failed to do. The deadlock over a permanent solution to the issue of public procurement of food is the outcome of repeatedly postponing a legal protection measure that India needed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to put its stamp on.

If only India had actedwhen it was required to actthere would have been no room for any deep disappointment at this stage.

At the root lies the temporary reprieve granted under the Peace Clause provision that restricts any country to challenge Indias procurement of staple foods for its food insecure population. The Peace Clause that was affirmed in July 2014 does provide India an exemption for all times to come, but will for all practical purposes ensure that a sword of Damocles keeps on hanging for perpetuity. Finding a permanent solution to the critical issue was therefore a necessity.

The United States has refused to oblige. It is increasingly under pressure from its 30 farm commodity export groups, which have time and again, expressed concerns at Indias price support programmes that have more to do with boosting farm incomes and increasing production than feeding the poor. The US is, therefore, keen to see that India dismantles its food procurement operations or is forced to freeze the procurement prices so as to keep it within the prescribed limits. A low price to Indian farmers will be a serious disincentive resulting in a short-fall in domestic production. The US farm export groups see a huge market here. The US has nothing against feeding the poor under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) but want India to source supplies from the US instead.

In other words, it takes away Indias right to buy food for the disadvantageous populations from its own resource poor small and marginal farmers at the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Nearly 99.15 per cent of Indias 600 million farmers fall in the category of resource poor.

Since India has already exceeded the limit prescribed under the Aggregate Measurement of Support (AMS) for developing countries that treats the procurement price beyond the permissible de minimis level of 10 per cent of the total value of production as agricultural subsidy, India is under pressure to prune its procurement prices. Although India claims that it is still far away from breaching the 10 per cent level, when it computes the agricultural subsidy in the terms of US dollars, the US also knows that when presented in terms of Indian rupees, India has already breached the de minimis level by a whopping 24 per cent in case of paddy and is fast inching the threshold level for wheat.

These US farm commodity export groups, which ironically receives monumental federal support every year, have questioned the need to provide any relaxation in current discipline even on a temporary basis. Accordingly, such an exemption will result in more subsidy outgo and result in further damage to US trade interests. There is no denying that the US had more than doubled its subsidy from $61 billion to $130 billion between 1995 and 2010. Further, the US-based Environmental Working Group has worked out that the US paid a quarter of a trillion dollars in subsidy support between 1995 and 2009. These subsidies have not been reduced in the subsequent farm bills, which every five years makes a budgetary provision for farm support programme. Most of these subsidies are presented under the Green Box in WTO parlance that does not require any cuts to be made. Indias food procurement comes under the amber box provisions and requires to be drastically pruned.

This was of course well-known. But at the Bali WTO Ministerial in 2013, the then Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma initially had insisted that the Trade Facilitation Agreement, a treaty that the developed countries were pushing aggressively, be taken simultaneously with public stockholding of food in India (along with some other developing countries under the G-33 banner).

No trade facilitation without food security proposal. But at the final stages, for some strange reasons, Anand Sharma softened his stand and agreed to support the demand for trade facilitation. Although the WTO director general Roberto Azevedo had appreciated Indias position on food security and had agreed to work out a permanent solution in the next four years, by the XI WTO Ministerial in Buenos Aires in Dec 2017, I see no reason why India should have given up so easily.

Anand Sharma had made the right noises in the media but when the final moment came, he readily signed the trade facilitation agreement. All he could wrest in the bargain was a four year 'Peace Clause' for the food subsidy issue that is crucial for not only India's food security but also food self-sufficiency.

The deadline for bringing each member country on board for a Trade Facilitation Agreement was July 31, 2014. The NDA government had taken over, and like it always has been, India made the right kind of noises but at the end signed on the dotted line.

India has made it clear that state-funded welfare schemes for the poor are non-negotiable, and it is willing to take the blame for delaying WTOs Trade Facilitation Agreement rather than hurt the interests of small farmers, the Hindustan Times (July 21, 2014) reported. India, in fact, was threatening to stretch the deadline for launching a new trade facilitation treaty to December 31, 2014, extending it by six months so as to seek an early solution to Indias food security needs in the meantime. Nothing like that happened. Empty warnings remained unheeded.

Indian trade officials knew this was the only way to seek a permanent solution. In the same news report, trade officials were quoted as saying: Indias concern is that once TFA is implemented, none of the developed countries is likely to come back to the negotiating table to discuss food subsidy or any other non-binding outcome of the Bali Ministerial, Hindustan Times reported.

Indian went to the Nairobi WTO Ministerial 2015, led by the then Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, affirming to seek a permanent solution for public stockholding programmes and a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to protect small farmers from import surges. Again, loud noises before the conference, but at the end failing miserably to emerge out with some concrete outcomes. A news report in Mint (December 21, 2015) summed up the disappointment: In the final analysis, it is clear that India failed in its objectives to secure credible outcomes on its demands for SSM, permanent solution for public stockholding programmes for food security... Perhaps this is the first time that India left a WTO ministerial meeting so diminished.

I am, therefore, not surprised to see India returning back from the XI WTO Ministerial empty handed, without a permanent solution for the critical issue of food security.

It has all been the outcome of Indias own doing.

(The author is a food policy analyst)
The Supreme Court today rejected pleas of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband against freezing of their bank accounts in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds received by their NGOs for the 2002 Gujarat riot victims.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the pleas are dismissed.

Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their two NGOsSabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peacehad challenged the October 7, 2015 verdict of the Gujarat High Court rejecting their pleas of defreezing of their personal bank accounts.

While reserving the verdict on July 5, the top court had questioned the source of money in the bank accounts of Setalvad and others which were frozen by the Ahmedabad Police in 2015 after allegations of misappropriation surfaced.

The Gujarat government had alleged that the activist couple had siphoned the money collected in the name of victims for "personal use" like wining and dining and the activist had claimed that the action against them was "completely malafide".

The state govt had alleged that they had spent the money received in the name of victims in "liquor, movies, food, personal items and Blackberry phones".

The activist couple had countered the charges and said the money spent does not belong to the government and there was no complainant who had said he or she has been cheated.

One of the residents of Gulberg society, Firoz Khan Pathan, had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at Gulberg Society in the memory of 69 people killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

The freezing of the accounts by Ahmedabad Police had come soon after its crime branch had started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society into a museum.

The high court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point in the alleged case of Gulbarg society fund embezzlement.

Besides the fund embezzlement case against the couple, the Gujarat police had also lodged another case of FCRA violation against them.
A bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq among Muslims and providing for a three-year jail term was cleared by the Union cabinet on Friday. Government said the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill was aimed at protecting the dignity and security of women in the community.

Major highlights of the bill

 The new bill was introduced as the practice of talaq-e- biddat or instant triple talaq still continued despite a Supreme Court order striking down the practice.

 Instant triple talaq will attract a jail term of three years for the husband.

 The husband could also be fined and the quantum of fine would be decided by the magistrate hearing the case.

 The law gives power to the victim to approach a magistrate seeking "subsistence allowance" for herself and minor children.

 The woman, who has been given triple talaq, can seek the custody of her minor children from the magistrate who will take a final call on the issue.

 Under the draft law, triple talaq in any formspoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsAppwould be illegal and void.

 As per the law, instant triple talaq would be a non-bailable, cognisable offence.

 The proposed law would be applicable to the entire country except Jammu and Kashmir.

 The bill is expected to be introduced during the winter session of Parliament that commenced on Friday.

 As of now, the draft law is prospective in nature. But if Parliament feels, it can be implemented retrospectively once it is passed. It will allow women, who have been given triple talaq before the proposed law comes into force, to seek custody of minor children and subsistence allowance.

Why the law

A government official told news agency PTI that the practice was found continuing despite the Supreme Court order prompting the Centre to introduce a law. Provisions of the Domestic Violence Act were found to be of little help in such cases even as the government and the Prime Minister's Office were receiving complaints from women. As of now, even police are helpless as no action can be taken against the husband in the absence of punitive provisions in the law.

What the SC had said

On August 22, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court by 3:2 majority struck down triple talaq practice as unconstitutional. The top court ruling held the practice to be violative of the fundamental right under Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution of India.
A team of 20 specialists doctors of Indian army, based in the Congo, is working relentlessly to save the lives of their counterparts of the Tanzanian army, who sustained severe injuries in one of the worst attacks on United Nation peacekeepers in the African nation. They have even managed to save the lives of at least 38 Tanzanian army personnel so far.

Indian army, also posted in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for peacekeeing measures, sprung into action after heavily armed militants killed at least 15 peacekeepers and five soldiers in an attack on their convoy on December 7.

More than 50 peacekeepers were left wounded after fighters from a local Islamist extremist group overran a remote base in the east of the vast central African country after hours of fighting.

Though none of the Indian peacekeepers was injured in the attack, doctors from the Indian army came forward for the aid.

Since Indian army has a brigade of about 3,500 soldiers posted in the area on UN peacekeeping duty, an Indian level-III hospital is also functional there at Goma.

"Our Indian army doctors have operated 32 major and minor surgeries on the 38 injured Tanzanian army personnel. Earlier in the same month, the hospital had provided similar medical assistance to 18 Tanzanian and eight Malawian soldiers on two separate instances," a senior Indian army official told THE WEEK, while describing about the hospital, which has been serving the UN since February 2005 and its efforts are widely recognised not just in Congo but across the entire UN.

The hospital, which has a staff of 90 personnel including specialists capable of carrying out life and limb saving surgeries, has been providing yeoman service not only to UN peacekeepers but also to the Congolese national army and even to locals.

India's UN peacekeeping force is presently deployed in the most unstable provinces of Congo. An Indian brigade commonly known as NKB is deployed in the restive North Kivu province and covers an area of 43,700 sq km having 948 villages. The brigade, besides protecting civilians, assists in operations against illegal armed groups.

Indian peacekeepers have been tirelessly working towards establishing peace in DRC, a country marred by active presence of hundreds of armed groups and recurring inter-ethnic clashes. It is also increasingly being pushed into the spiral of violence by electoral politics.

"Till date lives of 110 UN peacekeepers deployed in MONUSCO, the UN mission in DRC, have been lost. They include Indian bravehearts such as Capt G.S. Salaria, who was later awarded Param Vir Chakra," an official said. The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO, an acronym based on its French name is a United Nations peacekeeping force in DRC.

Officials claim that in this continued violence, certain armed groups have, off late, targeted the UN peacekeepers in order to retain control of areas and to pursue illegal exploitation of resources of this mineral rich nation.

In one such attack on October 9 by a Ugandan-linked armed group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), 26 civilians were massacred while two UN personnel and five soldiers of the Congolese National Army laid down their lives. The ADF again carried out an attack on UN peacekeepers at Semuliki on December 7, inflicting almost 70 causalities, the highest for UN peacekeepers in recent times.

The Congolese army has also been frequently targeted by these Illegal armed groups and casualties continue.

According to an official, following intelligence inputs of threat, towards south in areas held by an Indian army brigade, a proactive deployment and domination strategy was adopted. In addition, Nepalese and Uruguan forces placed under operational control of the Indian army have also been put on high alert.

A number of similar attacks by ADF and Mai Mai (local armed groups) in recent months have been effectively repulsed by the Indian troops.
Even as Shambhulal Regar, the accused in the gruesome murder of a Muslim man, was being interrogated by the Rajasthan police over his alleged links with any hardline outfits, marches were organised by some Hindu fringe groups in support of him. Several policemen were injured as some people tried to carry out a march in neighbouring Udaipur on Thursday and Friday.

Police had already clamped down internet services and imposed prohibitory orders in both Udaipur and Rajsamand as the marches in favour of the accused threatened to escalate.

Regar allegedly hacked Afrajul Khan and set him on fire as he suspected him of love-jihad. He even made his teenage nephew to record the act on the mobile phone. The accused then put the video on social media saying he has sent a message to Islamic jihadists.

This is a message to Islamic Jihadists who are propagating love-jihad, Shambhu ranted in the video shot by his 15-year-old nephew.

Ironically, the initial police investigations revealed that Afrajul's killing could be a case of mistaken identity, as Regar was looking for some other person whom he had never met.

But what startled the police was the gravity of the crime and articulation of the accused in the name of religion. Was he a lone ranger impacted by hate messages and provocative videos on the social media or a part of any hardline Hindutva group?

He is being interrogated to check if he was part of any group. He has articulated his message in video well, despite being a school dropout, Ram Sumer Meena, investigating officer of the case had told THE WEEK.

Rajsamand, known for its marble trade, has been a peaceful town without any history of communal violence. Regar's house is next to the Muslim populated neighbourhood. He chose a migrant Bengali mason to carry out his heinous act.

As the investigation revealed that the entire case was triggered by provocative and communally charged messages on the social media, there have been attempts to fan the tension after the incident.

Bank details of Regar's wife were posted online asking people to help her. As news reports revealed that several people even donated money forcing the police to freeze the account.

As Rajasthan had faced many communal instances in the recent past, an attempt is being made to turn Regar into a poster boy.

Police has registered a case of murder, destruction of evidence, hurting religious feelings, creating ill will, criminal conspiracy under sections 302, 201, 153A, 153B, 295, 505 and 120B of the IPC and Sector 84C of The IT Act. Regars nephew, a juvenile, also been booked under these sections and is likely to face a trial under the juvenile law.
Mukul Roy has sought permission from the BJP's central leadership to take out a rally in West Bengal in the name, 'Paribartan of Paribartan' (lets change the changed).

Paribartan was the clarion call of Mamata Banerjee before 2011 election, which brought her back to power.

Roy has coined the new slogan for the BJP and reportedly asked party president Amit Shah to take out a rally across the state.

However, West Bengal BJP president and former RSS member, Dilip Ghosh, wants to turn the event to an entire BJP affair, not a rally by Roy alone. Ghosh also gave it a nameJana Jagaran Yatrainstead of what Roy had named.

Amid this, Roy has reportedly sought the intervention of central leadership to sort the matter out.

It was well known that the band of leaders from Bengal had tried to block the entry of Roy into BJP. But even after they allowed him to come in, Roy is facing issues while trying to operate on his own.

Mukul Da, however, has been given full power by the central leadership including our president Amit ji. So, he would succeed in turning the table in West Bengal, said a leader close to Roy.

Roy, however, is trying not to make a public issue.

There is no misunderstanding between me and party. Everything will be sorted out, said Roy.

Meanwhile, Roy, for the first time, lashed out at Mamata Banerjee by calling her corrupt. Earlier he concentrated on attacking his nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, also an MP.

Roy said, CM is surrounded by corrupt men but she says she is honest. This government has corruption cases of thousands of crores in its kitty. Everything will be exposed at the proper time.

CPI(M) said it would wait for more revelation from Roy.

She had created a Frankenstein who will make her life miserable in the coming days. We will wait and watch, Gautam Deb, central committee member of CPI(M), told THE WEEK.

Calling Mamata as Jayalalitha of Bengal, Deb said, Like the former Tamil Nadu leader, our chief minister is putting her picture on every government product or materials. She is truly the Jayalalitha of Bengal.

Deb, however, feels that despite Roy joining BJP it won't be easy for BJP to come to power in Bengal.

Even today we have a massive party structure and members all over the state. West Bengal would not accept BJP. Only possibility left is, it can replace Trinamool Congress in Bengal, he said.
The bitter Gujarat poll campaign is set to cast its shadow over Parliament's winter session starting today with the Congress yesterday insisting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's apology for his claim that his predecessor Manmohan Singh colluded with Pakistan to influence the election.

Congress leaders raised the issue at an all party meeting held on the session eve during which Modi, who joined the deliberations later, sought opposition parties' cooperation for a meaningful session and also asked them to evolve a consensus on holding simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar later told reporters that the government was willing to debate all issues raised by the opposition and added that the latter should also help it in conducting its business, including passage of key bills.

The government is expected to table 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including a bill providing Muslim women the right to seek maintenance in case of triple talaq.

Another key bill will be granting constitutional status to the backward castes commission. The bill was stalled in the Rajya Sabha by the opposition in the last session.

With both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha likely to be adjourned today till Monday after paying tributes to their members who passed away during the inter-session period, the results of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh poll results could have a bearing on the session.

The results are scheduled to be announced on Monday.

A respectable performance by the Congress will energise opposition ranks and embolden it in its fight against the BJP, which may be left dispirited by any poor show in Modi's and its chief Amit Shah's home turf.

However, a favourable outcome for the BJP will blunt whatever strategy its rival may plan against it in Parliament and encourage the saffron party to turn the heat on the Congress and other opposition parties.

Congress leaders, however, insisted that they will corner the government over a host of issues "irrespective" of the results.

Its leader in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad told reporters that his party will raise the issue of Modi's attack on Singh besides the short tenure of the session which will have 14 sittings. The winter session in 2016 had 21 work days.

"We will be satisfied with nothing short of an apology," his Rajya Sabha colleague Anand Sharma told reporters after the all party meeting.

Azad said the government should either show evidence to support Modi's charge against Singh or action should be taken against the prime minister for levelling false allegations. The Congress had spoken to other opposition parties over the issue as well, he said.

Kumar parried queries on the demand made by the Congress and insisted that the government was willing to debate all matters raised by opposition parties.

"Running House is their (opposition) responsibility too," he said.

"We have appealed for their cooperation. Parliament's productivity has risen in the last three-and-a-half years and it should continue," he said.

Opposition members, who outnumber the BJP-led NDA alliance in the Rajya Sabha, may also find the going harder for them in the Upper House as its Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu has made his displeasure clear with raucous protests it often witnesses. Naidu will preside over the Rajya Sabha for the first time after being elected as Vice President in August.

He had recently pitched for "automatic suspension" of members who rush to the well of the House to disrupt proceedings and said their names should be put in the public domain.
With Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh governments going back on the MoU signed between the two states in 2005, a new agreement will be signed after the two states raising various objections.

The first phase of Rs 16,000 crore Ken-Betwa Rivel Linking Project (KBRL) had hit a road block after Uttar Pradesh demanded expansion of irrigation area while Madhya Pradesh asked for inclusion of Kotha Barrage, Bina Complex and Lower Orr Dam in the first phase.

With the objections coming from both sides and cost escalating due to new proposals of state, it had become mandatory to sign a new memorandum and start the scheme afresh. The environmental clearance has already been acquired, a source in Madhya Pradesh government said.

Earlier Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti was relived of the charge of the ministry after allegations of delay in the project. Later Nitin Gadkari, the new minister, had announced that first phase of the project will begin by the year end. However, with the demands of states, the water resource ministry is reworking the proposal for extra funding from the finance ministry. The project is being financed by Union and state governments in the ratio of 90:10. In the new proposal the first and second will be clubbed to accommodate the demands of two states.

A major opposition for the KBRL was from the people of Panna in Bundelkhand who objected to the dam being made by submerging the land of tiger reserve. The 230-km long Ken-Betwa river linking (KBRL) has been mired in controversy from the very beginning. Previous water resources minister Uma Bharti was unable to find out an amicable solution even after an ultimatum given by the Prime Minister Office.

The concrete canal project was supposed to irrigate the parched land of Bundelkhand. According to original agreement singed in 2004 between then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gour and then UP chief minister Mulyam Singh, Uttar Pradesh would get 1,700 million cusec of water. However, now Shivraj Singh says that UP should get only 700 million cusec of water as Madhya Pradesh is sacrificing a lot. His argument is that the 543 sq km Panna National Park is getting submerged in the project dam while thousands of MP farmers will be displaced due to canal. However after 13 years of the agreement Uttar Pradesh, too, wants a bigger share of 2,200 million cusec water against its share of 1,700.

The first of its kind river linking project at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 was initiated in 2005 by the then UPA government. It was conceptualised by its predecessor NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. An agreement between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh was signed in August 2005.

The KBRL is a part of ambitious project of Government of India to link the 14 Himalayan and 16 peninsular rivers by 30 canals and 3,000 reservoirs to irrigate 87 million hectares of parched land in various parts of the country.

The project is supposed to irrigate 6.35 lakh hectares in six of parched Bundelkhand region. Some 78 megawatts of power will also be produced from the project. Technically the Ken-Betwa link project is to divert the surplus waters of Ken basin to water deficit Betwa basin.

The dam is vehemently being opposed by the people of Panna where 90 square km of land including 61 sq km of core tiger habitat in the 543 sq km Panna Tiger Reserve will be submerged. An estimated 2.3 million trees have to be felled when the project is completed. The environmental clearance to the project was being opposed by forest authorities. Panna Tiger Reserve has been in news for a few years back when most of the tigers died in the protected areas like Sariska sanctuary in Rajasthan.

Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh (home district of Uma Bharti and Mahoba) Jhansi and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh will get water for irrigation and drinking. Approximately, 14 lakh people in the region will be directly benefitted. A huge 73 metre earthen dam on river Ken in Panna will facilitate water in the canal to join with Betwa river near Jhansi (Lok Sabha constituency of Uma Bharti).

According to the government sources, the only solution to recurring droughts in Bundelkhand is to link the two rivers in Madhya Pradesh and divert water to Mahoba, Banda and Jhansi of Uttar Pradesh through canals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modis mighty ride on a seaplane during the election campaign in Gujarat has generated immense interest about seaplanes. It is not possible to make airports everywhere. We are going to start 106 waterways, said Modi after the ride. Seaplanes, or flying boats, depending on how it is made, is operational in countries like Canada, Japan, the US and Maldives. In India, it will be thrown open to the public soon. Viability testing is on the cards. The ministries of civil aviation and water resources and road transport are holding discussions on when exactly to launch seaplanes for the public and to decide which ministry gets to control it.

The Union government is in talks with Japans Setouchi Holdingswhich runs flights using Kodiak 100 amphibious aircrafts produced by US-based Quest Aircraftto purchase many amphibious planes in the next three months. SpiceJet has apparently shown interest in buying amphibious planes and has even conducted trial flights with Setouchis ten-seater some days ago.

Said Mansukh Mandaviya, Union minister of state for road transport and water resources, to THE WEEK, I can safely say that the wait for seaplanes for the public is less than a year away. Roughly six to seven months away. Talks are on at various levels. Mandaviya said there are some places in the country which cannot afford airports. But they have good inland water system in place. Seaplanes will become functional in such places and help boost tourism. We will come up with the list of locations where seaplanes would be used. A place like Somnath in Gujarat, for instance, doesn't have an airport. But it is close to the sea and seaplanes can be used to ferry devotees, said Mandaviya.

Mandaviya said seaplanes would start plying in sea and inland waters like the Ganges and Kaveri, thereby connecting important locations in the country. He said the Union government will not give preferential treatment to Gujarat when it comes to seaplanes. We want every part of the country to get developed in an equal way. It is wrong to think that we focus only on Gujarat and states where the BJP is in power. Seaplanes will thrive across the length and breadth of the country. Just wait and see, said Mandaviya.

He said seaplanes would become Indias favourite mode of transport in a few years.

According to sources in the ministry of civil aviation, all the norms for seaplanes would be completed in two to three months. The government is likely to buy as many amphibious flights in the days to come from Setouchi Holdings. Spicejet, most likely, would be operating seaplanes in the country, which will be an extension of the governments Udan scheme that aims to better regional connectivity and make air travel cheaper.

Modis recent jaunt has revived seaplane hopes in Kerala. Kerala Seaplane, a commercial service promoted by Kerala Tourism Infrastructure Limited, was launched in Kollam in southern Kerala in 2013, with the first flight being operated by a company called Kairali Aviation. But seaplanes could not be launched for tourists as the fishermen community in the state opposed it. As a result of protests, destinations of seaplanes in the state had to be changed. The government then constituted a committee to study the effects of seaplane operations on the sustenance of the fishing community in the state. The report is still awaited. A seaplane, that was stationed in Kochi, has remained grounded since then because of uncertainty. Apart from connecting important places in the state, the company also had plans to ferry passengers from Kochi to Lakshadweep. The necessary clearances from the civil aviation ministry are also awaited. Seaplanes have a huge potential in a state like Kerala, which is filled with beautiful backwaters, said Mathew T. Thomas, Keralas minister for water resources, to THE WEEK, With all the talk of seaplanes now, I hope seaplanes will become a reality in Kerala.

Seaplanes can carry from nine to fourteen passengers on board, depending on the model. It can fly up to 11,000 feet above the ground, though the usual cruise in most cases is around 2,000 feet above the ground. The speed of a seaplane varies from 600 to 1,000 kilometres per hour. The American seaplane fighter, Sea Dart, is the fastest seaplane that travels at 1,328km per hour.

Seaplanes were used by the British navy in World War I and World War II. The first successful seaplane trip was in 1910. Prominent seaplane operators in the world include Tropic Oceans Airways, Seawings Venice and Harbour Air Seaplanes.
Rahul Gandhi would on Saturday take charge as the new Congress president, and handing over the reins to him would be his mother Sonia. However, by all indications, Sonia is not retiring from the political front.

My role now is to retire, Sonia told a TV channel in Parliament House. The question put to her was whether she would continue in the role of leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. This immediately resulted in intense speculation on whether the 71-year-old leader had stated that she was retiring from political life.

Friday was the first day of the winter session of Parliament, and alongside Sonia was Rahul, the Congress' president-elect, when she answered the question. The remark came a day ahead of Rahul taking charge as Congress president.

Soon enough, the Congress clarified that Sonia was not retiring from politics. Smt Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics, tweeted Randeep Surjewala, head of the AICC Media Department.

Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light, he said.

As Sonia hands over the reins of the Congress to son Rahul, it will bring an end to her presidentship of the party that lasted close to 20 years. For over three years now, she had taken the backseat, primarily due to ill health, and it was Rahul who was taking all decisions in the party. However, party leaders say she will continue in a mentor-like role, and is also expected to reach out to allies. It is still not clear whether she will give up her position as head of the CPP, which decides the day-to-day strategy of the party in Parliament.

Meanwhile, the AICC headquarters is getting ready for the formal taking over of the party's presidentship by Rahul. A huge pandal has been erected in the lawns of the party office, where a formal function will be held to hand over to Rahul a certificate of election as Congress president. Senior party leaders, including Sonia, chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, PCC presidents, MPs and MLAs will be present on the occasion. Thousands of Congress workers are expected to descend on the 24, Akbar Road party office.

There is a lot of interest in what Rahul would say in his acceptance speech since he would be outlining his plan of action for the Congress and would give an indication as to what his ideas are for reviving the sagging fortunes of the party.
Alphabet Incs X research division said on Thursday that the Andhra Pradesh state government would buy its newly developed technology that has the potential to provide high-speed wireless internet to millions of people without laying cable.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the agreement, which begins next year, would see 2,000 boxes installed as far as 20 kilometres (12 miles) apart on posts and roofs to bring a fast internet connection to populated areas. The idea is to create a new backbone to supply service to cellphone towers and Wi-Fi hotspots, endpoints that users would then access.

The agreement is an outgrowth of Xs Project Loon, which on several occasions has beamed cellphone service to Earth from a network of large balloons. The balloons link directly to smartphones but are meant for rural areas with a low population density, according to X.

Alphabet, which owns Google, and other online service providers view increasing internet accessibility in developing countries as crucial to maintaining their fast-growing businesses.

Andhra Pradesh, a state with 53 million people, had nearly 15 million high-speed internet subscribers as of last December, according to a report by TRAI. The state wants to connect an additional 12 million households by 2019, Alphabet said.

X plans to deploy free space optical technology, which transmits data through light beams at up to 20 GB per second between the rooftop boxes. There would be enough bandwidth for thousands of people to browse the Web simultaneously through the same cellphone tower, X said.

Researchers have said such systems hold promise in areas where linking cellphone towers to a wired connection is expensive and difficult. But the technology has not taken off because poor weather or misalignment between the boxes can weaken the connection.

Baris Erkmen, who is leading the effort inside X, said his team is piloting a new approach to overcome the challenges, but he did not specify the software and hardware advancements.

X plans to have a small team based in Andhra Pradesh next year to help roll out the technology.

Reuters
European Union leaders locked horns at a summit in Brussels over the divisive issue of hosting refugees who reach Europe, reopening a two-year-old dispute that has shaken the bloc.

Talks begun over dinner stretched into the early part of Friday as they put forward opposing views, diplomats said.

A mass influx of migrants from the Middle East in 2015 created deep divisions in the EU and members are still feuding over how to share the burden of caring for asylum seekers.

The row pits frontline Mediterranean countries Italy and Greece, and rich destination countries like Germany and Sweden, against four ex-communist states on the EUs eastern edgePoland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. These have refused to welcome refugees in any significant numbers.

Arriving at their first summit of EU leaders, the new Polish and Czech prime ministers vowed not to give ground.

They felt emboldened by a pre-summit note to the leaders by Council chair Donald Tusk, a former Polish premier, who indicated that mandatory quotas for countries to take in asylum seekers relocated from frontline states did not work. That irked other governments and the executive European Commission.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, which is heading towards elections probably in March, told a commitment on the relocation of refugees is needed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned what she called selective solidarity, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, We cannot have a system in which countries shop for those things they like from the European Union, not willing to deliver the necessary solidarity.

After criticism from Germany and Belgium among others, Tusk had to redraft his pre-summit note.

The four eastern prime ministers offered 35 million euros to Italy on Thursday to support EU-backed migration projects in Libya aimed at curbing immigration to Europe.

They want to help by providing money, equipment and personnel to further tighten the EUs external borders but not host any refugees, especially Muslims from the Middle East and Africa, who they say would compromise their national security.

No decisions are expected on Thursday night and the blocs ambition to have a deal on reforming their common systems by June looks in doubt. One French official source said the controversy would take a lot of time to untangle.

Germany and other proponents of the quotas warn they could force the waverers to accept refugees in a majority vote if no compromise is found.

That would further deepen divisions as the 27 states try to maintain a united front in Brexit negotiations with London.

Italy and other net contributors to the EU budget have also threatened to punish the easterners by depriving them of some of the generous EU handouts they provide to help their ex-communist peers catch up on development.

Reuters
A Russian court sentenced ex-economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev to eight years in prison on Friday after finding him guilty of taking a $2 million bribe from Igor Sechin, the CEO of oil giant Rosneft.

Ulyukayev was found guilty of demanding and accepting the bribe on November 14 last year.

State prosecutors had said that Ulyukayev had asked for the bribe in exchange for approving the sale of the state-controlled oil company Bashneft to Rosneft. The case has shone a rare light on infighting among the Russian elite.

Ulyukayev had denied the charges, and said that he had thought the bag holding the bribe was a gift of expensive alcohol. In a final hearing before the verdict, Ulyukayev said he was the victim of a monstrous and cruel provocation.

Court bailiffs put handcuffs on Ulyukayev and escorted him to a cage in the courtroom after the presiding judge, Larisa Semyonova, had pronounced the sentence.

The court also ruled that Ulyukayev must pay a fine of more than 130 million roubles ($2.21 million).
One of the world leaders who heaved a sigh of relief when US President Donald Trump announced his decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was Turkish president Erdogan. The Turkish leader was facing an unprecedented political crisis battling charges of corruption in an Iran sanctions case, being prosecuted in a Manhattan federal court. The FBI had cut a deal with Reza Zarrab, a gold smuggler who was charged with violating sanctions against Iran by facilitating the sale of Iranian oil through shell companies. Zarrab, who cut a deal with the FBI, apparently told the prosecutors that the deal was approved by Erdogan. Trump dropped the Jerusalem bomb just in time.

Erdogan swung into action immediately. With Turkey presently holding the chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, he convened an emergency session of the OIC on December 13 in Istanbul to discuss the issue. Meanwhile, he escalated the rhetoric against Israel, calling it a terrorist state and threatening to cut off diplomatic ties. The emergency meeting was attended among others by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan. The summit described the move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as null and void and said the decision marked the end of the US as an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli peace process. We shall not accept any role for the United states in the peace process, said Abbas. They have proven their full bias for Israel.

The meeting declared occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and called on the international community to do the same. Two days later, on December 15, the Turkish government announced that it would open an embassy in East Jerusalem for the Palestinians, while maintaining the embassy in Tel Aviv for Israel. Turkey already has a consulate in Jerusalem, which has been there since the days when the Ottomans were the overlords of Palestine. Lebanon has also indicated that it would follow Turkey in opening an embassy in East Jerusalem.

Interestingly, in a sign of things that the Palestinian issue could be slipping out of the Arab hands and being taken over by non-Arab nations like Turkey and Iran, the Istanbul summit was largely ignored by Saudi Arabia and its allies. There were unconfirmed reports that Saudi Arabia tried to persuade Abbas and Abdullah from travelling to Istanbul. Saudi Arabia sent its minister of religious affairs to the summit, while the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt sent ministerial level representatives. Iran, however, was represented by its president. Qatar and Kuwait were also represented by their heads of state.

'Some Arab countries have shown very weak responses on jerusalem, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. It seems some countries are scared of the United States. Turkey has been deepening its engagement with Russia and Iran on a range of critical issues in the Middle East such as Syria and Yemen. Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Ankara on December 11. Standing next to Erdogan, Putin said Trump's Jerusalem decision finished the prospects for peace in the Middle East. He said the final status of Jerusalem should only be decided by talks between Israelis and Palestinians in line with UN resolutions.

The Jerusalem issue has thus revealed the emerging geopolitical realignments in the Middle East where a Russia-backed Iran-Turkey axis is challenging the Saudi-Egypt-UAE bloc, which has the support of the United States.
Two jets: Former General Electric boss Jeff Immelt

General Electric is investigating former boss Jeff Immelt after it emerged that during his 17-year tenure he traversed the globe with a spare private jet in tow.

The saga is providing plenty of laughs on Wall Street, if not with shareholders, though is sadly indicative of the once-mighty firm's rapid decline.

It was once ranked as the fourth-largest company in the world. Incidentally, silver fox Immelt, 61, is gracious enough to acknowledge that the two-plane arrangement was 'a terrible idea'.

Businessman Robin Birley, whose Mayfair haunt, 5 Hertford Street, is a mecca for City types, wants to open a members' club in Manhattan.

I hear that Birley is close to signing a deal on a property around Union Square, with plans to spend at least a week a month in New York.

Presumably without his beloved whippets, which are habitually splayed across his lap whenever he's in Hertford.

Redoubtable art dealer Louise Blouin has sold her West Village penthouse for $23.7million (17.6million).

Glamourpuss Louise, 59, a flame-haired temptress, has been subject to unflattering press this year over claims that she had failed to reimburse freelancers  not the first time her judgment has been called into question.

She once dated Buckingham Palace's 'entrepreneur-in-residence' Prince Andrew.

Vogue publisher Conde Nast's board convenes next week, its first meeting since company patriarch Si Newhouse passed away in October.

Chief executive Bob Sauerberg has been tasked with coming up with 74million in savings next year.

Rumours of a sale abound. It's not just this biting wind currently blowing off the Hudson River that is sending icy chills through Vogue HQ.

Bitcoin is all anyone's talking about in the financial district, as the weird crypto-currency looks set to break the $20,000 mark.

Overheard on the train to Brooklyn this week: 'When I sell my apartment, I'm only takin' bitcoin. Crypto's where it's at, baby, where it's at.'
My sister moved into my parents' home nine years ago to help my mum care for my dad. My dad has dementia, Alzheimers and Parkinson's.

My mum sadly passed away last December, which left only my sister (and her two daughters) to look after dad.

My dad has since (due to gangrene) has had his left leg amputated. He now needs 24 hours' care and has to be put into a residential care home.

My dad has no savings but owns his own house. Will we have to sell the house to pay for his care or does my sister have any rights as she will be homeless if we would have to sell? We are in Essex.

Care costs: When do you have to sell a house to pay for residential care? (Stock image)

Tanya Jefferies, of This is Money, replies: I am very sorry to hear about your dad's poor health, and your sister's situation.

Your local authority should give you detailed information on what might happen to your parents' home under these circumstances. Essex County Council explains charges for social care and what people are expected to contribute towards them here.

We asked Age UK to explain how local authorities generally handle family situations like yours, and its reply is below.

How people should pay for social care became a contentious issue in the last election. The Tories were forced to retreat on a key manifesto pledge after an outcry against its plan to deplete an individual's assets - including their home - down to a 100,000 floor, no matter whether they need care in their own home or in a residential home.

The Government is expected to launch a social care consultation next summer, and we asked Aegon's pensions director Steven Cameron to explain where matters currently stand and what people trying to plan to pay care costs should do now.

Michael Roche: 'Under normal circumstances, your fathers house would be included in the assessment of his assets'

Michael Roche, technical advice support officer for social care at Age UK, replies: Under normal circumstances, your fathers house would be included in the assessment of his assets as part of his means test for social care in light of a permanent move into residential care.

There are certain situations where the council must discount a property as an asset, known as mandatory disregards. These apply if another person living in your fathers house is:

* A relative or member of his family who is: aged 60 or over; a child of his aged under 18; incapacitated

* A partner, former partner or civil partner, except where the couple is estranged

* A lone parent who is the estranged or divorced partner of the property owner.

If your sister meets any of these criteria, the mandatory disregard applies.

However, if she does not, local authorities can still make individual exceptions at their discretion, and must give this full consideration if your sister requests a discretionary disregard.

The guidance to local authorities on how they should apply this discretion includes examples that have similarities to your sisters situation.

If the local authority decides not to use their discretion to disregard they must explain why they have made this decision in your familys case.

If your family is not satisfied with the decision you can make a formal complaint through the local authority complaints procedure.

Alternatively your father, or someone who is permitted to act on his behalf, can ask for a deferred payment.

This means that the costs of care will be met by the local authority, in line with your fathers care arrangements, as a loan secured against the house.

This will be repaid from the proceeds of the house sale after they have passed away (with some additional administration fees and interest payments). In this situation the house would not need to be sold immediately.

Age UKs factsheet 'Property and paying for residential care' explains in more detail how property is treated by the local authority with regards to full time residential care. You can download the factsheet from Age UKs website www.ageuk.org.uk or order a free copy from the Charitys advice line, free of charge, on 0800 169 6565.

Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, says: Social care funding turned out to be one of the thorniest issues of the election campaign with opposing views on how to solve the growing crisis of an ageing society.

The Conservative Manifesto proposed individuals would have to pay for their own care until their assets including their house had fallen to 100,000.

Steven Cameron: 'Social care funding turned out to be one of the thorniest issues of the election campaign'

This proposal received little support, with the opposition calling it a dementia tax, despite the current system being worse for many as it can mean individuals are paying their own way until their assets fall to 23,250.

The Conservatives later announced there would be a cap on the maximum someone would have to pay.

Labours Manifesto talked of aiming for cross-party consensus while exploring a range of Government led funding options including a wealth tax, an employer care contribution and a new social care levy.

We had expected the government by now to have launched a wide consultation looking at a variety of social care funding proposals but frustratingly, it recently confirmed this wont happen till next summer.

In the meantime, it is consulting privately with experts in this field, but this debate has been ongoing for many years and the public also deserve to have their say on whats fair regarding sharing costs between individuals and the state.

Individuals who want to start planning ahead now for possible social care costs in later life have been left in limbo.

One option is to seek advice on building this into broader retirement planning. The new pension freedoms grant those with defined contribution pensions complete flexibility on how much income to take from their pension year on year, and also remove previous tax penalties if funds are left unused on death.

Individuals could consider setting aside part of their retirement pot so its there if needed to pay for care later. But this does mean pension funds will need to stretch further.

Its possible that the Governments consultation will offer up other possible solutions. In this complex area, we strongly recommend people always seek advice.
Miner Lonmin has been led for years by controversial businessman Tiny Rowland

Troubled miner Lonmin is being bought by South African rival Sibanye-Stillwater for 285million.

The world's third-biggest platinum producer, led for years by controversial businessman Tiny Rowland, has seen shares plunge more than 90 per cent over the past five years as it battled a 45 per cent crunch in platinum prices and soaring operating costs.

Chief executive Ben Megara said yesterday the firm still had great assets and workforce but had been hamstrung by its finances.

Shareholders in the 108-year-old business, originally formed as Lonrho, will get 0.967 Sibanye-Stillwater shares for each Lonmin share, and hold about 11.3 per cent of the enlarged group.

Rowland became chief executive in 1961 and turned Lonrho into a global conglomerate, buying The Observer newspaper in 1981, before splitting in 1998 to form Lonmin.
Online supermarket Ocado has had to shell out more money on delivery drivers after a shortage in the run-up to Christmas pushed up demand and wages.

Ocado said a lack of drivers in the South East and London hit sales growth in the 14 weeks to December 3.

However, it added that the issue was now mostly rectified. Half of its 12,000 staff are drivers.

Booming demand in the UK for online groceries and internet deliveries has caused a surge in demand for drivers. Many are making as much as 250 a day across the festive season, according to recruitment company Manpower.

Bonanza: Drivers can make 250 a day in the Christmas run-up

Company sales grew by 11.6 per cent, but chief financial officer Duncan Tatton-Brown said growth would have been closer to 13 per cent were it not for the hiccup.

I dont think this is a unique problem to Ocado, he said.

Its pretty clear that employment levels in London and the South East are pretty high and theres a lot of growth in ecommerce and delivery generally.

Tim Steiner, chief executive at Ocado, added: While this driver shortage has now been largely resolved, there was some short-term impact on average orders per week over the period.

But some commentators were unconvinced by the reasoning for the sales slowdown.

Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyn said: Management blame the slowdown largely on a lack of drivers in certain locations, but we cant see that causing such a large drop-off in orders per week growth.

Ocado began trading as a business partner with Waitrose in 2002, packaging and delivering the supermarkets online orders, and in 2014 it secured a similar deal with Morrisons supermarkets.

Until last month, the shareholders had been losing patience with the company as they waited for it to fulfil plans to sell its online technology to an overseas firm.

But Ocado redeemed itself with investors after it secured a deal with French supermarket chain Groupe Casino.

It will provide Groupe Casino with the same technology used in its own warehouse in Andover, where customer orders are prepared and stock is managed using robots.

Ocados shares soared by more than 33 per cent following the announcement.

In order to maintain its market cap of more than 2billion, analysts said Ocado will need to secure similar deals.

Steiner said that he was confident that Ocado would be able to secure more contracts, but has remained tight-lipped on any potential partners.

George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: While Ocado has always been confident of getting partners to sign on the dotted line, up until recently the investment case relied more on wishful thinking than we might have liked.

However, the agreements with Groupe Casino and an as yet unnamed European partner have lent more substance to the story.

Hopefully Mr Steiner can pull more rabbits from the hat in the coming months.
The Daily Mirror's publisher has said that it is making 'good progress' in its bid to acquire the Express titles from Northern & Shell.

Trinity Mirror announced earlier this year that it had ceased discussions to acquire a minority stake and is instead in talks to buy 100 per cent of Northern & Shell's publishing assets, which also include the Daily Star.

However, it also warned in a trading update alongside the announcement that like-for-like revenue was expected to fall by nine per cent after its print operations continued to decline.

Making headway: The Daily Mirror's publisher has said that it is making 'good progress' in its bid to acquire the Express titles from Northern & Shell

'We continue to make good progress with the proposed acquisition of 100 per cent of the publishing assets of Northern & Shell,' Trinity said.

'Further updates will be provided as and when appropriate.'

Northern & Shell is owned by Richard Desmond, who acquired the Express titles for 125million in 2000, although it is unclear how much a deal would be worth today.

The print media industry is grappling with a decline in print advertising and any combination could herald cost savings and a shared cut of a larger advertising pool.

Despite improving trends in digital publishing revenues, which are expected to grow by 20 per cent in the period, Trinity said that this was offset by declines in print advertising and circulation revenue of 21 per cent and seven per cent respectively.

Media baron: Northern & Shell is owned by Richard Desmond, who acquired the Express titles for 125m in 2000

The group added that classified publishing digital revenue remains 'under pressure' and will mean a reduction in expected publishing digital revenue growth for the quarter to ten per cent.

Nevertheless, it said that the board expects performance for the full year to be in line with expectations.

The group said earlier this year that it would increase its pension contributions by 8m a year to 44m for ten years from 2018, following its latest triennial pension funding valuation and discussions with the retirement scheme's trustees.

However, the effect of its acquisition of Northern & Shell's publishing assets on the firms' retirement schemes has come under scrutiny from the Pensions Regulator.
MBABANE  Dining on the high table with Major One, Prophet Shepherd Bushiri is worth E25 000.



The Enlightened Church of God (ECG) in Pretoria, South Africa, under the prophet will be hosting a gala dinner at the showgrounds & Hall Centre on December 23. Men of God in the country feel there is nothing wrong with paying for sitting and sharing a table with a highly anointed prophet.



According to the men of God, the money was too little as people were going to tap into the prophets anointing. They said it was high time that the things of God were paid for, as they were looked down upon, yet spending for other events was not an issue.



Founder of the Chosen Family Church at Bethany, Apostle Simon Ngwenya, said a gala dinner was different as the people were going to sit and share a table with the man of God, which was something special and there was no amount to substantiate it as the anointing was just too much. As children of God, we have to set standards as the world has standards too, said Apostle Ngwenya.



He said the amount was worth it, as people needed to offer something and pay for tapping direct into the prophets anointing. Reverend Johannes Mazibuko of the Mbabane Alliance Church, said everyone on earth had a product to sell and it depended if people were interested in the product or not. If they are not interested, they can leave it and if they are attracted to the product, they can take it, Reverend Mazibuko said.



He said a gala dinner was different from a church setting and, therefore, there were standards. During a gala dinner, Reverend Mazibuko said there was a special product which was aimed at being marketed. According him it was only going to be a problem if it was a church setting.
LOBAMBA  Foreign nationals who already hold licences for the 32 businesses reserved for locals are not yet off the hook.



The Deputy Senate President, Ngomuyayona Gamedze, submitted that the regulations should stipulate a cut off date for permits not to be renewed for all current holders. Gamedze made this submission in Senate during the tabling of the Report of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade or Business for Swazi Citizens, Regulations, 2017.



Gamedze said it would defeat the regulations purpose not to have a cut off date. Without being specific to a certain nationality, he submitted that some foreign nationals used technology to their advantage, as they were able to use the same licence for different business owners. He made an example that the regulations should state that by 2022, things should be a certain way and the foreign nationals be given a grace period until 2019.



Gamedze warned that not having a cut off period posed danger, in that they would continue operating the reserved businesses forever. He stated that the cut off period would be the only measure that would ensure that the regulations would benefit locals. He said that the foreign nationals were located in all corners of the country and he was worried about that some were able to manufacture local documents.

Sebatsatsa nema-signature lesiwasabako langatsatfwa, noma ungusidlani ngeke udlalele kuwo kodvwa bona bayakwati kudlalela kuwo, submitted the shocked Gamedze.
MATSAPHA  The Mozambican national who allegedly drove negligently, did car spinning stunts and knocked four textile workers, killing one and seriously injuring two, will be spending the rest of the year in custody.



The accused, Semisidine Sebestiao Latia (21), who resides at Mangozeni, yesterday appeared before Magistrate Mthokozisi Dlamini after he was arrested and charged with five traffic offences.



Accompanied by family members, Latia was informed by the prosecution that his bail request was opposed. this was because as a foreign national, he would easily evade remand hearings and also trial. In his first count, the charge sheet stated that Latia drove his vehicle, a VW sedan negligently and knocked a pedestrian, one Nokuthula Dlamini (33) of Lushikishini, who was certified dead upon arrival at RFM hospital.



In the second count, he allegedly drove negligently and knocked down two pedestrians, Lungile Mamba (29) of Mahlabatsini and Sifiso Nzima (33) of Logoba. Both pedestrians sustained serious injuries and were admitted to the RFM Hospital. Latia is alleged to have driven his vehicle without due care and attention and drove at a high speed, disregarding the high volume of pedestrians.

He also overtook on a solid line where the road was taking a bend to the right and further failed to avoid an accident which a reasonable driver would have avoided.



Latia was also slapped with an offence of driving his vehicle while he was unlicensed to drive any class and while the vehicle was unlicensed too. It was also gathered in court that the accused drove the vehicle which had allegedly been taken to the garage where he is employed without the owners consent.
SITEKI  Police were roped in to perform customs duties at Mhlumeni border gate yesterday amid the strike by Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) employees.



Officers from Mhlumeni Police Post abandoned their official duties to do the jobs of SRA employees in an attempt to keep the border operating smoothly despite the strike.



A motorist, who went through the border, said he saw police officers processing documents for vehicles and goods that were coming into or leaving the country through the border.



Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba, confirmed that Mhlumeni police performed duties of customs officials yesterday.



However, he clarified that the officers were not officially engaged by SRA but they voluntarily offered their services.

As police officers, we have a responsibility to intervene and assist where there is a need in society. We took it upon ourselves to assist so that there could be a free flow of traffic at the border. We have not taken over the jobs of SRA employees, said Superintendent Mamba.



He said the officers were assisting the SRA officials who have been deployed to the border gate as substitutes for the striking workers.

SRAs Director of Communications Vusi Dlamini was unavailable for comment as his mobile phone rang unanswered when called yesterday afternoon.


WASHINGTON  Republicans on Capitol Hill are throwing in some last-minute sweeteners to win votes for their long-cherished tax bill, but Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and fellow Democrats in Congress insist its too little, too late.

``Its the same rushed, awful process as before, and it can only result in mistakes and unintended consequences that could wreak havoc on the economy, Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday. ``Why are our Republican colleagues rushing this bill through? I think they are ashamed of it. Every day, the more people know about the bill, the more they dont like it.

Although most details of the amalgamated version of already-passed House and Senate tax bills remain under wraps, news reports say the version to be voted on next week  the last stop before President Donald Trumps desk  contains refinements both major and minor.

Among them are:

Compromising on the mortgage-interest deduction. The House bill capped it at $500,000 on new loans, a home-buyer disincentive in parts of New York where property can easily reach the upper six and lower seven figures. The Senate bill kept it at its current $1 million. The final bill splits the difference at $750,000.

Dropping the Obamacare mandate that all must have health insurance or face a tax penalty.

Restoration of the $250 deduction for teachers who buy school supplies out of pocket.

Restoration of the tax-free status of Personal Activity Bonds, much relied upon by affordable housing advocates in urbanized parts of the Capital Region.

Elimination of a plan to drop tuition credits for grad students, a boon to places like RPI. But a new tax on major university endowments still appears to be in place. Depending on the endowment dollars-per-student ratio in the final bill, the 1.4-percent tax might affect RPI as well as Skidmore and Union colleges in the Capital Region.

Of major importance to high-tax, high-cost states like New York, GOP negotiators tweaked plans to curtail or drop state-and-local tax deductions for property, sales and state income taxes  SALT, for short.

Both House and Senate bills dropped the income-tax deduction and capped the property tax deduction at $10,000. Under the new version, taxpayers may mix and match income, property and sales tax deductions up to the $10,000 limit.

The final bill dropped the top rate for wealthier taxpayers to 37 percent, down from the 39.6 percent in the Senate bill and 38.5 percent in the House version. The cut in part appears to be aimed at high earners in places like New York who would pay higher taxes without full SALT deductions.

Schumer and other New York Democrats on Capitol Hill are not voting for the bill in any case.

Among Republican House members, Reps. John Faso of Kinderhook and Elise Stefanik of Willsboro joined three other New York Republicans  Reps. Lee Zeldin and Peter King of Long Island, and Dan Donovan of Staten Island  in voting against the bill last month.

Both Faso and Stefanik cited cutbacks on the SALT deductions in voting ``no.

On Thursday, Fasos spokesman Joe Gierut said the first-term Hudson Valley lawmaker is ``waiting to review all the details but is still likely a no on this bill.

But Stefanik appeared to be nearing a decision to vote for the final bill. Stefanik, in her second term representing the North Country, ``is pleased it's moving in a positive direction, including greater flexibility on the state income-tax deduction and the $750,000 mortgage-interest deduction on new loans, said her spokesman, Tom Flanagin.

``Congresswoman Stefanik continues to work to ensure a final tax package provides real relief for North Country families and businesses, Flanagin said.

The Republicans last major hurdle in passing the final bill  the conference report, in Capitol Hill parlance  may come from within their own party. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said on Thursday he would not vote for the bill unless it upped the child tax credit. Rubio had introduced an amendment to the Senate bill to do just that, but it was defeated.

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennesssee, the only Republican to vote ``no in the Senate, said his concerns about the bill adding to the deficit have not been addressed, signaling he is a likely ``no the second time around.

At the White House, President Trump did not seem too concerned about a Rubio defection. ``I think that Sen. Rubio will be there very shortly, he said.

Another possible roadblock might be the bills ultimate price tag. Under a Senate agreement, the tax cuts can amount to no more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years in order to pass on 51 votes. With the Senate divided 52-48 in Republicans favor  51-49 after Alabama special election winner Doug Jones, a Democrat, gets sworn in  Republicans cannot afford to lose more than two votes.

If the bill is found to be over $1.5 trillion by a nonpartisan entity like the Congressional Budget Office, it would require a 60-vote threshold to pass. With all Democrats opposed, the entire measure would go down in flames.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Walmart and a book distributor distanced themselves from Tavis Smiley on Thursday after PBS said an investigation found "troubling allegations" of sexual misconduct by the radio and TV host.

The moves came a day after PBS said it was suspending Smiley following an independent investigation by a law firm. PBS said the firm uncovered "multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS." His show's page at PBS was scrubbed on Thursday.

Smiley has denied any wrongdoing.

Walmart, which had been a sponsor of Smiley's talk show and an upcoming touring theatrical show, cut ties with him. "We take these issues very seriously and are troubled by the recent allegations," the retail giant said in a statement. "As a result, we are suspending our relationship with Mr. Smiley, pending the outcome of the PBS investigation."

Hay House, which distributes the Smiley Books imprint, said all Smiley projects were "on hold" pending an internal review. Smiley had planned in September to release "Leading by Listening: Connecting through Conversation to Transform Your Relationships and Your Business."

Smiley responded to the allegations on Facebook, saying PBS "overreacted" and called it "a rush to judgment." He said he has never harassed anyone and claimed one relationship the network uncovered was consensual.

PBS responded to Smiley's accusations by saying it stands by the integrity of the investigation. "The totality of the investigation, which included Mr. Smiley, revealed a pattern of multiple relationships with subordinates over many years," a PBS spokesperson said.

The ouster comes weeks after PBS cut ties with anchor and talk show host Charlie Rose, citing "extremely disturbing and intolerable behavior" by him toward women at his PBS talk show.

 Associated Press

Omarosa to tell all about White House

Former "Apprentice" star Omarosa is putting the White House on notice as she makes her exit: She has "quite a story to tell" about her time in President Donald Trump's administration and "the world will want to hear it."

Accustomed to the spotlight, Omarosa Manigault Newman appeared on national television Thursday to push back against reports that she was fired from her job as a Trump assistant and director of communications for a White House office that deals with constituent groups.

She also denied reports that she made a spectacle of herself while being escorted from the White House grounds, calling the stories "100 percent false."

Better known by just her first name, Manigault Newman told ABC's "Good Morning America" that she resigned this week after discussing some of her concerns with White House chief of staff John Kelly.

The Secret Service said it had deactivated a pass granting her access to the White House complex, though White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Manigault Newman would be on staff through the administration's one-year mark.

Before her resignation, Kelly had advised Manigault Newman that changes were forthcoming  including her dismissal, according to two White House officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters.

Manigault Newman was also expected to be at the White House on Thursday, Huckabee Sanders said. She declined to say for what purpose or to explain why the former reality TV contestant will collect a salary through Jan. 20, citing a policy of declining extensive comment on personnel matters.

 Associated Press

Ruffalo 'disgusted' by monument change

Actor Mark Ruffalo says he is disgusted with President Donald Trump's plan to shrink two sprawling Utah national monuments by nearly two-thirds.

The "Avengers" star told The Associated Press in a recent interview that Trump's decision was a "slap in the face" to Native Americans.

Last week, the president signed two proclamations to reduce the Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 85 percent and cut Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half.

Ruffalo says Trump's decision is an effort to cater to a group of wealthy people. The Oscar-nominated actor made his remarks before he was honored at the Captain Planet Foundation gala in Atlanta.

 Associated Press
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

New York students who are homeless are half as likely to meet state standards in reading and math compared to their peers who have never been homeless, a new analysis published this week found.

But the effects of homelessness don't end there. Even after these students find a home, the analysis shows they are just as likely to underperform as before.

"We need to act with urgency to ensure that schools better serve these vulnerable students and provide them with the supports they need to succeed academically," said Ian Rosenblum, executive director of The Education Trust-New York, whose group published a report on the findings Monday, along with a coalition of civil rights, education, parent and business organizations.

Looking at unpublished data from the state's 2016 reading and math exams, which are taken each year by students in third through eighth grade, the analysis found that just 20 percent of homeless students were proficient in English language arts, compared to 40 percent of their peers who had never experienced homelessness. In math, just 19 percent of homeless students were proficient, compared to 42 percent of students who were never homeless.

That's perhaps not so surprising, the report notes, since students who lack permanent housing experience trauma and stress that can affect the way they perform academically.

But the results were equally as bad for students who had once been homeless but had since found permanent housing  again, just 20 percent were proficient in English language arts and 19 percent in math  suggesting supports and services may still be needed even after a student finds a home.

"This is particularly important because there are nearly as many formerly homeless assessed students as currently homeless assessed students  yet they may regularly be denied attention and support because there are no systemic requirements to address their needs as a group," the report says.

The groups are hoping that will change under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which passed in late 2015 and requires states to start collecting and reporting academic outcomes for homeless students. States have long been required to disaggregate data in this way for gender, race, ethnicity, language and disability status, among other things.

The idea is that such reporting allows officials to clearly identify trends or gaps, and then target supports or services where problems exist.

New York school districts reported that 148,215 students were homeless last school year, a number that is widely regarded as too low but only because identifying a student as homeless is challenging.

Under federal law, a student can be considered homeless if they are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings or similar settings, but also if they are "doubled up" with other people due to loss of housing or economic hardship, living in motels, hotels, trailer parks or campgrounds, or living in emergency or transitional shelters.

In the Capital Region, school districts in Troy, Lansingburgh, Menands and Corinth had the highest share of homeless test-takers among their student bodies in 2015-16, according to data provided to the Times Union.

In Troy, for example, 107 students or 7 percent who took the state reading test were identified as homeless. Just 4 percent of them passed, compared to 26 percent of their peers who were never homeless. Meanwhile, 212 students or 14 percent identified as having once been homeless and just 9 percent of them passed the test.

There are some outliers, the analysis notes, suggesting some districts may be using support strategies that are worth replicating statewide. The policy brief urges the state to look to these districts, and research potential best practices.

"Temporary housing shouldn't equal diminished education opportunities for tens of thousands of children, but unfortunately too often it does," said Stephen Sigmund, executive director of High Achievement New York, a group that promotes high learning standards statewide and signed on to the brief.

New York has an opportunity to go further than the federal law requires when it comes to serving homeless students, the brief notes.

As the findings published this week indicate there is still work to be done once a child finds housing, so the state should track outcomes for students who have previously experienced homelessness as well as those who are currently homeless, the brief urges.

It should also disaggregate its data by the type of homelessness a student has experienced  students in shelters, students who are doubled up, unaccompanied youth, and so on  in an attempt to drill deeper into the data.
TROY  Troy schools won a $7 million grant to provide afterschool programs at each of the district's five elementary schools.

The Empire State After School grant will enable the schools to offer dinner each night, academic support, and mindfulness and enrichment activities to students in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to a news release. The Troy YMCA, Troy Boys and Girls Club, and the Albany Jewish Community Center will partner with the district to provide the services.
Friends and colleagues of missing Tipperary man Will Tiernan have appealed for help in tracing his whereabouts after he was last seen in Limerick city in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Mr Tiernan, from Coolbawn, Nenagh, was last seen at around 2.20am on CCTV in John's Square area of Limerick city on Tuesday 12 December following a night out with work colleagues.

The 44 year old, who works as a psychiatric nurse with the HSE, was with friends at the Icon nightclub on Monday night. He was later spotted on CCTV outside Nancy Blakes on Denmark Street at around 1.10am and then at the Johns Square area in the city at around 2.20am.

He was wearing jeans and a navy and cream jumper when last seen. He is described as being 1.72m (5'8") tall, and of slight build. He has blue eyes and brown hair.

Friends and work colleagues of the popular nurse have described his disappearance as completely out of character and have launched a wide scale social media campaign in the hopes of tracing him.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Henry Street Garda Station on 061 212400.
[December 15, 2017] Drone Delivery Canada Achieves Compliant UAV Status with Transport Canada for Its Sparrow Cargo Delivery Drone

TORONTO, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Drone Delivery Canada 'DDC or the Company' (CSE:FLT OTC:TAKOF) is pleased to announce that Transport Canada has accepted the Company's Declaration of Compliance for the X1000 Sparrow cargo delivery drone. This unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is now compliant with the Transport Canada UAS standard. The Sparrow is the first cargo delivery drone of its kind to be accepted under the Transport Canada, Compliant UAS program. A Compliant UAS is the first of three regulatory components to the Transport Canada Compliant UAS Operator program, and mandatory for a Compliant UAS Operator Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC). This milestone allows DDC to move forward to becoming a Compliant UAS Operator with the anticipation for the balance of the other two of three approvals in early Q1, 2018. DDC has submitted the required documentation and is confident of its approval in the remaining steps. "Achieving Compliant UAV Status is thefirst of three very critical steps in DDC achieving its Compliant Operator Status Certificate. We anticipate obtaining the balance of the approvals in early Q1 2018," commented Tony Di Benedetto, CEO. "We are very thankful to the efforts of the Canadian Government and Transport Canada in creating a favourable environment to grow innovative technology and position Canada as a leader in commercial drone delivery technology on a global scale."



Achieving Compliant UAS Operator status is also the first requirement for being permitted to conduct Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight operations. This achievement moves DDC to the forefront to conduct safe and effective Drone Deliveries in Canada. During recent research and development flights, the X1000 (The Sparrow) has demonstrated a history of safe operation in some of the harshest environmental conditions in Canada's north.

Drone Delivery Canada appreciates the efforts of Transport Canada in creating a favourable environment to grow innovative technology. For more information, please visit www.dronedeliverycanada.com About Drone Delivery Canada Drone Delivery Canada is a drone technology company focused on the design, development and implementation of its proprietary logistics software platform, using drones. The Company's platform will be used as Software as a Service (SaaS) for government and corporate organizations. Drone Delivery Canada Corp. is a publicly listed company trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol FLT, on the U.S. OTC Q B market under the symbol TAKOF and on the Frankfurt exchange in Germany under the symbol A2AMGZ. SOURCE Drone Delivery Canada

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Government of Canada announces funding for energy efficiency and climate action in Ontario

KITCHENER, ON, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada is committed to working with provinces and territories to grow the economy while meeting our climate commitments and creating good jobs in communities across the country. Today, the Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism, and Daiene Vernile, MPP from the Government of Ontario, announced the province will receive almost $420 million through the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund for programs that help Ontarians save money and energy, while supporting the province's climate objectives. The funding is a component of the Low Carbon Economy Fund, designed to spur clean growth and cut carbon pollution while promoting innovative climate solutions. The Government of Canada's Low Carbon Economy Fund will create jobs, support healthier communities, and help Canadians save money. By building on provincial and territorial leadership, the Low Carbon Economy Fund will help meet Canada's commitment under the Paris Agreement and achieve our 2030 national climate target. Ontario is eligible for the funding as a signatory to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Today's announcement at the Reep House for Sustainable Living in Kitchener demonstrates the types of projects the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund will support. The Government of Canada will work with Ontario to focus on helping Ontarians use less energy and save money with energy efficient building retrofits and helping farmers reduce carbon pollution from their operations. In addition to Ontario, the Government of Canada is also making announcements today regarding the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund with the Provines of British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Additional announcements with other provinces will follow as project proposals are finalized.



Quotes "Investing in climate solutions and clean growth is a critical part of our made-in-Canada climate plan. The projects we are supporting through this funding will build on Ontario's climate leadership to make a real difference in the lives of Ontarians. This funding will create good jobs, spark clean economic development and help Ontarians save money on energy and fight climate change in their own communities."

 Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change

"Canadians expect their government to grow the economy and take action on climate change. This is exactly what the Low Carbon Economy Fund delivers. Today's historic investment in sustainability initiatives across Ontario will help improve the energy efficiency of our homes and buildings and help Ontarians save money, as it creates good jobs and opportunities for the middle class."

 The Honourable Bardish Chagger, Minister of Small Business and Tourism "Ontario is proud to stand as a partner with Canada in supporting innovative climate change-fighting actions through the Low Carbon Economy Fund. Collaborative investments such as this signal a pan-Canadian commitment to a cleaner, healthier future for people across the country. This fund is an investment in a stronger economy and a better environment for generations to come."

 Chris Ballard, Ontario's Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Quick Facts The Government of Canada's Low Carbon Economy Fund supports implementation of the Pan-Canadian climate plan by investing in projects that will generate clean growth and reduce carbon pollution. These investments support Canada's Paris Agreement commitment and align with the 2030 national climate target.

Low Carbon Economy Fund supports implementation of the Pan-Canadian climate plan by investing in projects that will generate clean growth and reduce carbon pollution. These investments support Paris Agreement commitment and align with the 2030 national climate target. The Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund will help Ontarians save energy and money on their electricity bills. Additional details on how the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund will benefit Ontarians will be announced as projects are confirmed and the funding agreement is finalized. Associated Links Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund

The Low Carbon Economy Fund

Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change Environment and Climate Change Canada's Twitter page Environment and Natural Resources in Canada's Facebook page SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Government of Canada announces funding for energy efficiency and climate action in Alberta

CALGARY, Dec. 15, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada is committed to working with provinces and territories to grow the economy while meeting our climate commitments and creating good jobs in communities across the country. Today, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities and the Honourable Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks from the Government of Alberta, announced the province will receive nearly $150 million through the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund for programs that help Albertans save money and energy, while supporting the province's climate objectives. The funding is a component of the Low Carbon Economy Fund, designed to spur clean growth and cut carbon pollution while promoting innovative climate solutions. The Government of Canada's Low Carbon Economy Fund will create jobs, support healthier communities, and help Canadians save money. By building on provincial and territorial leadership, the Low Carbon Economy Fund will help meet Canada's commitment under the Paris Agreement and achieve our 2030 national climate target. Alberta is eligible for the funding as a signatory to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Today's announcement at The Bow building in Calgary demonstrates the types of projects that the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund will support. The Government of Canada will work with Alberta to focus on helping Albertans use less energy and save money through energy efficiency retrofits. The Leadership Fund will also support the province's work with Indigenous communities to install renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions. Money will also be invested in restoring forests affected by wildfire. In addition to Alberta, the Government of Canada is also making announcements today regarding the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund with the Provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Additioal announcements with other provinces will follow as project proposals are finalized.



Quotes "Investing in climate solutions and clean growth is a critical part of our made-in-Canada climate plan. The projects we are supporting through this funding will build on Alberta's climate leadership to make a real difference in the lives of Albertans. This funding will create good jobs, spark clean economic development and help Albertans save money on energy and fight climate change in their own communities."

 The Hon. Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change "Our government is working with provinces and territories to implement our plan for clean growth and climate change. As part of the plan, the Low Carbon Economy Fund will help to deliver clean, sustained economic growth for years to come by supporting provincial and territorial leadership in sustainability and innovation. I'm proud to see Albertans taking the lead in making our communities healthier, more resilient, and more prosperous."  The Hon. Kent Hehr, Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities "Investing in a diversified, low carbon economy creates jobs, economic growth, and helps Canadians from coast to coast explore ways to reduce emissions and cut costs. From supporting renewables in Indigenous communities to improving energy efficiency, Low Carbon Economy Leadership funding is just one more tool in working to make life better for Albertans and delivering on the priorities set out in our made-in-Alberta Climate Leadership Plan."  The Hon. Shannon Phillips, Alberta Minister of Environment & Parks Quick Facts The Government of Canada's Low Carbon Economy Fund supports implementation of the Pan-Canadian climate plan by investing in projects that will generate clean growth and reduce carbon pollution. These investments support Canada's Paris Agreement commitment and align with the 2030 national climate target.

Low Carbon Economy Fund supports implementation of the Pan-Canadian climate plan by investing in projects that will generate clean growth and reduce carbon pollution. These investments support Paris Agreement commitment and align with the 2030 national climate target. The Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund will benefit Albertans by funding projects to:

Provide cost-sharing grants for agricultural producers to buy energy-saving equipment and upgrade facilities to reduce energy waste



Support industry in upgrading facilities and equipment to improve energy efficiency, reduce operating costs and improve competitiveness



Provide support to reduce energy use for buildings that low-income Albertans call home



Expand the scope of existing energy efficiency rebates available to Albertans



Reforest Alberta land affected by wildfire and other natural disturbances



Expand existing programs for solar PV and energy efficiency retrofits in Indigenous communities. Associated Links Backgrounder  Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund

Web site  Low Carbon Economy Fund

Web site  The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change Environment and Climate Change Canada's Twitter page Environment and Natural Resources in Canada's Facebook page SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Siemens Healthineers Announces Acquisition of Fast Track Diagnostics

Siemens (News - Alert) Healthineers has signed an agreement to acquire Luxembourg-based Fast Track Diagnostics (FTD), a global supplier of diagnostics tests that, unlike a clinical examination alone, can distinguish between viral, bacterial, or other infections in one test. By introducing FTD products to its molecular diagnostics portfolio, Siemens Healthineers is further investing in precision medicine and better patient experience through solutions that eliminate the need for repeat diagnostic testing, reducing time and improving patient outcomes. The acquisition of FTD increases the menu of the Siemens Healthineers VERSANT kPCR Molecular System1 by over 80 assays and syndromic panels, transforming care delivery for its customers with a comprehensive solution for molecular testing of infectious diseases. In addition, FTD's platform-agnostic menu allows Siemens Healthineers to effectively serve a broader customer base. "By integrating the high-quality and cost effective solutions of Fast Track Diagnostics into our own cutting-edge molecular diagnostics portfolio, Siemens Healthineers continues to strengthen and expand its presence in the field of molecular testing and precision medicine," says Fernando Beils, Head of Molecular Diagnostics, Siemens Healthineers. "We are excited to introduce both FTD's products and world-class team to the Siemens Healthineers family." FTD's tests are real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR (News - Alert)) kits, allowing for both singleplex and syndromic testing. PCR is a technique used to amplify nucleic acids ( RNA and DNA) in laboratory samples, allowing clinicians to diagnose infections with just a small sample from patients. The tests target conditions such as respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, meningitis, hepatitis, infections of the immunosuppressed, tropical diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, and early childood diseases, and can detect over 140 viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi. By consolidating testing for the infectious disease spectrum into a single molecular ecosystem and virtually open platform, Siemens Healthineers ensures leading-edge performance from extraction through detection, as well as increased workflow efficiency for molecular labs of all sizes.



"Combining FTD's wide range of assays with the Siemens Healthineers portfolio means great things for all of our customers globally," says Bill Carman, CEO of Fast Track Diagnostics. "In merging our efforts, we're enabling healthcare providers to meet their current challenges and deliver better outcomes for patients." "In addressing the evolving needs of our customers and the molecular testing market, we enable them to provide more efficient and more effective care for their patients," confirms Dr. David Stein, Head of Strategy & Innovation, Siemens Healthineers. "This exciting step forward, alongside our newest team members from FTD, is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to our molecular diagnostics customers and their patients."

Through the acquisition, Siemens Healthineers will now include FTD's sites in Luxembourg, Malta, and India, as well as its workforce of about 80 employees. FTD will continue to operate under the brand name Fast Track Diagnostics throughout the world. This press release is available at: http://www.siemens.com/press/PR2017120115HCEN 1The products/features (mentioned herein) are not commercially available in all countries. Product availability may vary from country to country and is subject to varying regulatory requirements. Please contact your local representative for availability. Please contact your local Siemens Healthineers organization for further details. Siemens Healthineers is the separately managed healthcare business of Siemens AG (News - Alert) enabling healthcare providers worldwide to achieve better outcomes at lower costs by empowering them on their journey towards expanding precision medicine, transforming care delivery, improving patient experience and digitalizing healthcare. A leader in medical technology, Siemens Healthineers is constantly innovating its portfolio of products and services in its core areas of diagnostic and therapeutic imaging and in laboratory diagnostics and molecular medicine. Siemens Healthineers is also actively developing its digital health services and enterprise services. In fiscal 2017, which ended on September 30, 2017, Siemens Healthineers generated revenue of 13.8 billion and profit of 2.5 billion and has about 48,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available at www.siemens.com/healthineers. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005043/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 14, 2017] ATALIAN Acquires St. Louis-Based Centaur Building Services Extending Its Presence to the Midwest and Southern States

ATALIAN Global Services, Inc. announced today that Centaur Building Services, a family owned facility services company headquartered in St. Louis, MO, will be joining its growing presence in the US. Christophe Jeusse, CEO North America, ATALIAN Global Services, said that the addition of Centaur, with its established presence in 8 states in the Midwest and the south, provides the necessary local presence and expertise to its ever-growing client portfolio. "I am especially pleased with this merger, as Centaur has solid relationships with its client base from which we, as a Group, can learn and extend to our other clients locally, nationally and globally", he stated. Janine Joubert-Dulay, President, Centaur Building Servics, said that she is especially pleased with ATALIAN's acquisition since it has a great many of the qualities that Centaur has practiced since its inception which will help the integration with the Company for the benefit of its clients and employees alike. Janine added "we are looking forward to a prosperous future for us and our clients by this merger through the extended services and resources of this global organization and, of course, the value we can bring to all."



ATALIAN Global Services, Inc. is the US division of ATALIAN Group, a leading international provider of facility services to public and private organizations in 30 countries on four continents. Based in Paris, ATALIAN Group is a family-owned company that has more than 100,000 employees with over 25,000 customers and a global annual revenue of $2.2 billion. Its wide range of services allows customers to outsource most management of support functions, such as facilities management, cleaning, technical maintenance and energy management, security, reception and landscaping.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171214006456/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 14, 2017] EnergyCAP, Inc. Receives Tech Company of Year Award

State College, PA, Dec. 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EnergyCAP, Inc., developer of the widely known EnergyCAP utility bill and energy management software, is pleased to announce that it has been honored as the Technology Company of the Year by the Chamber of Business & Industry of Centre County (CBICC).

Awards were presented during the CBICCs 2017 Excellence In Business Awards banquet held December 7. Approximately 250 local business leaders attended the event, which is held annually to recognize the top performers within Centre Countys business and entrepreneurial community. The award was provided to EnergyCAP in recognition of the companys long-term success and dedication to its Four Pillars of Success: Product Leadership

Operational Excellence

Customer Intimacy

Good Stewardship Steve Heinz, EnergyCAPs Founder and CEO, accepted the award, stating We are truly grateful to the CBICC and the Centre County business community for honoring EnergyCAP as a leader among an impressive group of nominees. Many local technology companies trace their origins to Penn State University and Pennsylvania technology incubators, so were honored to be the 2017 award winner. Technology is both exasperating and exhilarating! On the exasperating side, were currently working on the seventh major generation and 26th major release ofour software since 1982. The pace of technology advances keeps our outstanding team challenged. But its also exhilaratingtechnology advances allow us to offer ever more power, more intelligence and more money-saving features to our 2,000 major clients."



EnergyCAP was one of eight companies nominated for the Tech Company of the Year award and follows in the footsteps of long-term partner, AccuWeather, Inc., the 2016 award recipient. Over its 37-year history, EnergyCAP has received numerous awards and recognitions: Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies (Five times)

ENERGY STAR Partner of Year (Five times)

Environmental Leader s Product of the Year (2015)

s Product of the Year (2015) Pennsylvania Business Central s Top 100 Organizations

s Top 100 Organizations Steve Heinz, CEO, International Energy Engineer of the Year from Association of Energy Engineers (2013)

Top Adoption-Friendly Workplace (2 times)

Stevie Awards for Sales & Marketing (2 times)

Certified Veteran-Owned Small Business EnergyCAP, Inc. provides tailored energy information management solutions to public schools, higher education, government, and commercial organizations. At the core of each ECI implementation is the award-winning EnergyCAP software. Since 1982, EnergyCAP has helped more than 10,000 energy and facilities managers in 3,000 organizations derive value from their utility bills and energy data.

About EnergyCAP, Inc. EnergyCAP, Inc. publishes industry-leading software tools that help organizations derive value from utility bills. For more than 35 years, the award-winning EnergyCAP software has helped more than 10,000 energy managers across 3,000 organizations to track 35 million utility bills and document $5 billion in energy savings. Learn more about EnergyCAP at http://www.energycap.com. Their Canadian representative is Gerald Rubenovitch at EnergyCAP Canada Inc., 416-362-8999, www.EnergyCAP.ca. Blaine Clapper EnergyCAP, Inc. 814-237-3744 x38 [email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Indian buyers will visit TPF 2018

SHANGHAI, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 9th Shanghai International Digital Printing Industry Fair (TPF 2018, www.cstpf.com), will be held grandly in Shanghai New International Expo Centre from 19th to 21st April, 2018. TPF 2018 is organized by UBM China and SUNEXPO, with more than 23,000 m2 exhibiting area. As one of the most influential digital printing fairs in Asia, TPF 2018 will have more than 9,500 visitors across the globe with over 16,000 visits. The visitors will come from over 50 countries including India, Japan, South Korea, America, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Italy, Turkey, Brazil, etc. Along with the world-famous trade media Fibre2Fashion (F2F), TPF 2018 will increase its awareness in some top textile producing countries, like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Myanmar and so on. F2F's headquarter is in India, therefore the promotion of TPF 2018 has taken place in India first. Main textile producing and printing areas are including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, etc. Furthermore, the Indian buyers organized by F2F will visit TPF 2018, providing the exhibitors with the opportunities to communicate face-to-face with the qualified buyers from India.



"India is a country of diversities. It is rich in various embroidery techniques and printing techniques. In ancient times, the art of weaving and dyeing on cotton had been well developed, but it developed on silk later. Many kind of printing techniques are there, among which screen printing is important one. The main benefit of screen printing is that it is cost-effective and large-scale production is possible with it. Screen printing is more advantageous than dye sublimation and inkjet printing. Hand-block printing is a reputed art and it has been handed down through generations. Ahmedabad in Gujarat is a very important centre for trade of this kind of printed textiles. The South region also has several centers which are well known for prints on cotton. Printing and dyeing were earlier developed in Rajasthan. In Gujarat, wooden block printing was more common. Block printing is rich in vibrant colors, so it became more popular. The processes of creating colors were very simple. Madhya Pradesh also has a different style of printing, which reflects its culture," quoting from F2F. With the introduction and development of digital printing in India, some changes in the printing market can be noticed gradually.

The Belt and Road Initiative and Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor will stimulate the joint development of economy in South Asia, South-east Asia and East Asia. South-west China, East India, Bangladesh and Myanmar are relatively less developed and show less willingness to cooperate together. While making the economic corridor a policy of a country can help drive the united development in the most important economic sectors in Asia. The domestic enterprises have been actively responding to The Belt and Road Initiative, investing more to expand oversea market and to make "made in china" more internationally accepted. With an extensive sense, TPF 2018 has taken advantages of multiple oversea media and channels from UBM to bring more qualified buyers abroad to China, creating opportunities for exhibitors and buyers from various countries to communicate face-to-face and make a deal without going abroad. TPF 2018 will also organize business matchmaking to build a one-on-one platform for exhibitors and visitors to have in-depth communication. And thus help the exhibitors understand the real needs of different buyers to add more value within. About UBM UBM Asia is affiliated to UBM plc listed on the London Stock Exchange, which is the largest B2B event organizer in Asia. It has 35 offices and 1600 employees. Every year, UBM Asia organizes over 290 trade events and activities across 26 major cities in Asia, helping business worldwide to explore the new business opportunities in Asia. UBM China owns 12 offices in the major cities in mainland China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Guzhen and Shenzhen. UBM China organizes 90 trade events and activities. For more information, please visit www.ubm.com. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171215/2015607-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171215/2015607-1-b

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171215/2015607-1-c

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20171215/2015607-1-d SOURCE UBM China

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Wipro Partners with and Invests in Headspin to Deliver Next-Generation Mobility Quality Solutions & Services

Wipro (News - Alert) Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced a partnership with Headspin, a San Francisco-based powerful, easy-to-use mobile experience platform, to offer next-generation mobility quality engineering and testing solutions on global mobile networks. Wipro Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Wipro Limited that is focused on investing in early- to mid-stage startups, made an investment in Headspin in October 2017. This partnership will leverage Headspin's network of 22,000 mobile devices deployed in carrier networks across 150 locations and Wipro's industry leading quality assurance capabilities to bring significant value to customers by validating their mobile applications, devices and networks under real life conditions. The joint offering will enable continuous monitoring of applications, identification of performance bottlenecks and rectification of inefficient content delivery to ensure a seamless application experience for end users, across geographies. "In today's world, mobile is a critical channel for doing business and hence, the reliability and performance of mobile devices and applications are key to enabling a superior customer experience. This partnership will augment Wipro's mobility-related quality engineering and testing services capabilities," said Hiral Chandrana, Senior Vice President, Business Application Services, Wipro Limited. "We are excited to partner with Wipro, a global leader in IT and consulting services, and offer our next-generation mobile experience platform (MEP) to Wipro's customer base. We are confident that our partnership with Wipro will help accelerate the adoption of our inovative solution by some of the largest enterprises in the world. In addition, Wipro's investment in Headspin will give an impetus to our ongoing efforts in the mobile quality engineering space," said Manish Lachwani, CEO & Co-founder of Headspin.



About Wipro Limited Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company. We harness the power of cognitive computing, hyper-automation, robotics, cloud, analytics and emerging technologies to help our clients adapt to the digital world and make them successful. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, we have over 160,000 dedicated employees serving clients across six continents. Together, we discover ideas and connect the dots to build a better and a bold new future.

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005360/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Sense Releases Version 1.0 of their Home Energy Monitoring Web App

BOSTON, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sense, the energy intelligence platform for homeowners, today released the Sense Home Energy Monitor Web App. Building on the success of its mobile apps, the new Sense web interface provides homeowners with information and energy saving insights by displaying real-time and historical consumption, solar production, and energy costs.

Sense's web, iOS and Android apps are powered by the Sense Home Energy Monitor, a $299 high-resolution power monitor that installs inside a homes electrical panel and measures current and power one million times per second. By analyzing this data with advanced machine learning algorithms, the Sense monitor isolates the electrical signatures of individual devices within a home, such as a microwave or garage door opener, to provide homeowners with real-time device-level monitoring. The monitor connects to the cloud via Wi-Fi so each homeowner can monitor their power use from their phone, tablet, and now any modern web browser. This is just the beginning, said Chris Micali, VP of product and co-founder of Sense. With this new web interface, weve opened the door o many exciting new features well be developing throughout 2018 that can connect homeowners with their energy use and home activity in new ways. We now have a platform that can facilitate future functionality like data exports, while giving our customers a new way to interact with the data coming from their Sense monitor on a big screen.



Sense monitors have been in installed across the US since 2015, and helped homeowners keep tabs on their homes, identify energy hogs, and improve their efficiency while saving thousands of dollars. 2017 has seen a number of important developments for Sense, including integrations with IFTTT and Amazons Alexa, availability in Canada and on Amazon.com, and a featured segment on PBS Ask This Old House. The web app can be accessed by all Sense users at home.sense.com. To learn more about how Sense works and to get Sense for your own home, please visit sense.com.

About Sense

Sense's mission is to make all homes intelligent by keeping people informed about what's happening in their homes, and helping to make them safer, more efficient, and more reliable. Founded in 2013 by pioneers in speech recognition, Sense uses machine learning technology to provide real-time insights on device behavior, even for those devices that are not "smart." Customers rely on Sense for a wide range of uses including checking what time their kids get home, monitoring their home appliances, determining whether they left appliances running or doors open and identifying how to reduce their energy costs. Sense is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. To make sense of your energy use, visit: https://sense.com. Contact Information

Sense Labs Inc

[email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] ForeSight Medical proves dedication to data security; Completes second SOC 2 Type 2 examination

TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ForeSight Medical, a national leader in controlling costs of surgical implants in the workers compensation arena, has demonstrated its commitment to data security and privacy by completing a meticulous outside audit of its Service Organization Controls 2 (Type 2) standards.

The rigorous examinations that led to the achievement were administered by the IT assurance and compliance staff at 360 Advanced, a respected national Qualified Security Assessor, HITRUST CSF Assessor and CPA firm based in St. Petersburg, FL.

The SOC 2 Type 2, developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), is the most widely recognized authoritative guidance that provides service organizations a uniform method for disclosing independently assessed information about the design and operation of internal controls.

Achieving he successful completion of this SOC 2 Type 2 for the second year in a row is a great accomplishment for ForeSight, said Alisa Lewis, CHC, Director of Regulatory Compliance at ForeSight Medical, Surgical Management Solutions. ForeSights dedication to the security and confidentiality of our clients data is evidenced by our adherence to not only the SOC 2 Trust Service Principles and Criteria, but also to HIPAA, Hi-Tech and ISO 27001 standards. The integrity and confidentiality of personal health information and information security are of extreme importance to ForeSight and is deep-rooted in our company culture.



ABOUT FORESIGHT MEDICAL Founded by a team of healthcare executives with decades of experience in purchasing, billing, and supply chain management in the surgical implant sector, ForeSight develops analytic and defensible solutions to control the rapidly growing costs of surgical implants in workers compensation. Based in Tampa, FL, ForeSight serves clients nationally and can be reached at 855-481-1205 or via www.ForesightMedical.com.



ABOUT 360 ADVANCED

A respected CPA firm with demonstrated proficiencies in the SOC series of examinations, 360 Advanced is an Authorized HITRUST CSF Assessor with General Data Protection Regulation capabilities. 360 Advanced assists large service providers in more than 30 U.S. states, Europe, South and Central America and the Pacific Rim as their independent IT assurance and compliance assessor. Services provided by 360 Advanced include HITRUST CSF, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, PCI DSS, HIPAA Security/HITECH, Microsoft Vendor Policy and other security and compliance services.

For an initial consultation, please contact Eric Ratcliffe at [email protected]

News release services provided by Clearview Communications + PR Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Collegis Education Honored as One of Chicago Tribune's Top Workplaces 2017

CHICAGO, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Collegis Education, a higher education-focused marketing and technology solutions provider, is pleased to announce it has been recognized as one of Chicago's most dynamic and supportive local businesses as part of the Chicago Tribune's Top Workplaces 2017 program. Collegis was officially recognized alongside 138 other companies with employees in the Chicago area during an annual award ceremony Nov. 9 held at Soldier Field. Companies were selected from employee surveys conducted by WorkplaceDynamics, now called Energage. The surveys measured key qualities of a company such as leadership, communication, career opportunities, working environment, managerial skills, pay and benefits. "We are extremely proud and honored to be named one of Chicago Tribune's Top Workplaces 2017. As a reltively new company that has experienced significant growth over the past year, we are pleased to see strong survey results and positive feedback from our Chicago employees," said Patrick D. Branham, executive vice president and chief administrative officer. "Approximately 75 percent of our employees completed the Energage survey and shared their views of Collegis. We have already used survey results to make improvements across our organization and will continue to do so to make Collegis an even better place to work."



Collegis Education is dedicated to changing lives through education and has helped a diverse range of schools across the U.S. thrive in today's competitive higher education landscape. To learn more about Collegis Education, visit www.CollegisEducation.com or follow Collegis on Twitter: @CollegisEdu. ABOUT COLLEGIS EDUCATION:

Collegis Education is an integrated enrollment growth management company that helps colleges and universities attract, enroll and engage students through customized marketing and technology solutions. With more than two decades of experience in higher education, the Collegis team develops industry-leading strategies that enable institutions to achieve long-term, sustainable enrollment growth. From portfolio marketing services to technology solutions, enrollment growth management as a system has helped more than 75 percent of Collegis partners across the country achieve double-digit rates of enrollment growth. For more information about Collegis Education, please visit www.CollegisEducation.com.

Contact: Molly Andersen

Phone: 952-844-5647

Mobile: 903-920-4366

Email: [email protected] View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/collegis-education-honored-as-one-of-chicago-tribunes-top-workplaces-2017-300572068.html SOURCE Collegis Education

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
[December 15, 2017] Slybroadcast Launches Business App for Sending Ringless Voicemails

BOSTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Slybroadcast, the service that enables businesses and professionals to send direct to voicemail messages to multiple contacts at once, today announced the launch of its new app for iOS and Android mobile devices. The new apps extend slybroadcast's mission to help businesses communicate with their customers, colleagues, and contact lists efficiently and at scale, while maintaining valued personal connections. With the slybroadcast app, businesses can create campaigns and choose to immediately send or schedule future voicemail deliveries to contact lists. The app can also be used to pause or cancel campaigns, and check the status of existing campaigns. A built-in record feature can be used to create new audio recordings. "Slybroadcast is a productivity tool for businesses that care about maintaining a respectful and personal connection with their contacts. When a small company's bandwidth is low, having the ability to send out voicemails is appreciated and valuable to both parties," said slybroadcast founder and CEO Toufic Mobarak. "Our customers are primarily small businesses, sole proprietors and nonprofits; we've designed our service and our new apps t support their efforts and increase their productivity while remaining respectful of their customers ."



To send ringless voicemails, slybroadcast and its new apps use patented technology developed by parent company MobileSphere, which also operates the very popular consumer-focused app and straight to voicemail service slydial. The slybroadcast service is used by over 20,000 businesses and supports voicemail deliveries to mobile phones and landlines in the United States and in Canada.

To get the app, visit the iTunes App Store or the Google Play Store. The apps are free to download but require a slybroadcast account for use. To learn more about slybroadcast, visit https://www.slybroadcast.com. About slybroadcast

Slybroadcast is the productivity tool that businesses and professionals use to send straight to voicemail audio messages to multiple phone numbers at once. Slybroadcast is used primarily by sales, marketing, customer service, nonprofit and executive leaders. The service is owned by MobileSphere, based in Boston, MA. About MobileSphere

MobileSphere is a leading provider of messaging services solutions and the inventor and patent holder for the technology that sends audio messages directly to voicemail on mobile and landline phones. MobileSphere was founded in 2003 and its suite of products includes slydial, slybroadcast, Joopz, and CellularLD. Media Contact:

Amelia Randall

[email protected]

617-399-9980 View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/slybroadcast-launches-business-app-for-sending-ringless-voicemails-300572194.html SOURCE slybroadcast

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Levi & Korsinsky, LLP Notifies Investors of an Investigation Involving Possible Securities Fraud Violations by the Board of Directors of AmerisourceBergen Corporation

Levi & Korsinsky announces it has commenced an investigation of AmerisourceBergen Corporation (NYSE:ABC) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws. To obtain additional information, go to:

http://www.zlkdocs.com/ABC-Info-Request-Form-6298







or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. either via email at [email protected] or by telephone at (212) 363-7500, toll-free: (877) 363-5972.

Levi & Korsinsky is a national firm with offices in New York, California, Connecticut and Washington D.C. The firm's attorneys have extensive expertise in prosecuting securities litigation involving financial fraud, representing investors throughout the nation in securities and shareholder lawsuits. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005784/en/
By Trend





Turkmenistan is globally recognized as a major producer of energy resources, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said in an address on occasion of the professional holiday of workers of the oil and gas industry and geology.

Turkmenistans recognition as a major producer of energy resources is clearly demonstrated by major projects implemented in the oil and gas sector, as well as targeted programs, reads the address.

Implementation of new projects to lay gas pipelines will remain a priority of our state policy, Berdimuhamedov noted. That is why we pay special attention to development of the oil and gas sector, which is one of the leading sectors of the economy.

According to BP, Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of natural gas reserves.

Turkmenistan sells gas through pipelines to China and Iran.
By Trend





Turkey is not a transit country for migrants, the countrys Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, the Turkish media reported on December 15.

Turkey has already become an asylum for migrants, and they are not seeking refuge anywhere else, he said.

The prime minister noted that unlike European countries, Turkey perceives the problem of migrants and refugees as a humanitarian issue.

Yildirim also noted that Turkey created all the necessary conditions for the living of Syrian refugees.

More than three million Syrian refugees live in Turkey, and the country spent about $30 billion on their upkeep.

Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has claimed more than 500,000 lives.

Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The Islamic State, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.
UPCOMING EVENTS

Brain health workshop upcoming

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. Nanette Holmes facilitates. Bring a brown bag lunch. Beverages will be provided. Cranium Cafe is free, however nonperishables for Helena Food Share are suggested. Cranium Cafe begins at noon on Wednesday, Dec. 20. Check out www.bridgeshcc.org for greater detail. Cranium Cafe is a program of Helena Community Connections. Nearly all programs are offered at Covenant United Methodist Church, 2330 E. Broadway. All programs are located in handicapped accessible facilities.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Gianforte releases military academy nominations

Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte has announced his nominations for 31 students applying for enrollment into the U.S. military academies.

A service academy nomination from Gianforte meets an admittance requirement for Montanans seeking officer training in one of the nations four military academies: the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York; the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado; the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland; or the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York.

Montana students interested in applying to a U.S. military academy are encouraged to contact Gianforte at his Billings District Office at 406-969-1736 or visit his congressional website at gianforte.house.gov/services.

Helena-area students receiving academy nominations:

Claudia Downing : U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and the U.S. Naval Academy

: U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and the U.S. Naval Academy Kamrin Rosling: U.S. Military Academy

U.S. Military Academy Maggie Smiedala: U.S. Military Academy

U.S. Military Academy Taylor Sullivan : U.S. Military Academy

: U.S. Military Academy Grayson Weber: U.S. Naval Academy

***

Study abroad opportunities available

Qualified high school students are offered an opportunity to spend an academic year, semester or summer holiday in Europe, Asia, North or South America, Australia or South Africa as part of the ASSE International Student Exchange Program.

Students, 15 to 18 years old, qualify on the basis of academic performance, character references and a genuine desire to experience life abroad with a volunteer host family.

Families abroad are carefully screened to provide a caring environment in which students can learn the language and culture of their host country. Students do not need to know the language of the host country prior to departure but will acquire the language skills through experiencing the day to day culture of their host country. ASSE students attend regular high school classes along with their new teenage friends.

ASSE also provides international opportunities for families to host students from Spain, Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Thailand, Japan and many more. These carefully screened and selected students are 15 to 18 years old and will attend the local American high school for an academic year.

Students or families interested in learning more about becoming the program can call 1-800-733-2773; or visit asse.com, host.asse.com; or email asseusawest@asse.com.

EMPTY STOCKINGS

CASA seeks gift cards for families

For several years CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) has chosen a family in need of help for Christmas. However, this year there are so many children in care and so many families that need help. This year we are asking for the community to help with gift cards where families can get food, necessities and a toy or two for their children. Any amount is welcome.

CASA is serving more than 200 children in foster care and/or kinship care due to child abuse and neglect. This is the highest caseload of children CASA has seen in 19 years of advocating in Helena. The majority of our children are coming from drug addicted parents. Please know that if you donate a gift card for a family, the card will be given to the childs appointed CASA to shop for or with the child in foster care.

Your donations make it possible for families in need to celebrate during the holidays.

CASA provides trained advocates for abused and neglected children in Lewis and Clark and Broadwater counties subject to District Court jurisdiction. CASA provides any and all activities necessary to promote the health, safety and welfare of children in dependent neglect cases.

For more information, call 457-0797 or e-mail Pamela Young at pyoung@helenacasa.org or Elene Bunge at ebunge@helenacasa.org.
Authorities are seeking information on a convicted robber, arsonist and thief who reportedly walked away from the Helena Pre-Release Center.

Robert Bruce Scollard, 46, is described as a 5-foot-9, 135-pound white man with brown hair and eyes and a slender build. He has mobility issues and uses a quad cane.

Scollard was sentenced for robbery and attempted robbery in 2014, and arson, theft and forgery in 2001, all in Yellowstone County.

Anyone who knows his whereabouts is encouraged to notify local law enforcement. The Helena Police Department can be reached at 406-442-3233.
"Unlike, stupid balloon vigils, foolish crosses to represent murder victims & useless surveys about murders activist, Alonzo Washington actually generates tips that helps various police agencies solve crimes. Just like the Precious Doe case that Alonzo Washington solved with tips he generated he recently did the same thing with tips he generated in the Frank Davila/Frankie D murder case . . . Note to news producers: this is something none the lame so called activists you all cover could ever do."

Behind the scenes, Activist Alonzo Washington is working on helping police solve another local homicide case and plans to release more details today.In the meantime, check this section of anote he recently sent to local media . . .With thousands of followers, Mr. Washington is keeping his social media outlets private for the holiday season but supporters can still check his GOFUNDME and help fund his expanded efforts against increasing local crime.Developing . . .
"Mike Shanin interviews Managing Director at Armada Corporate Intelligence Chris Kuehl to get his economic forecast for 2018. Jon Stephens, Laura McConwell, Shawn Saving and Woody Cozad discuss the early frontrunners in the Kansas City, MO Mayor's race, the expanding field in the race to become Kansas Governor and the results and fallout from the Roy Moore defeat in Alabama."

An important discussion this evening from theOF Kansas City discourse that looks forward at the political contests ahead . . .You decide . . .
NO Votes: Barnes, Canady, Fowler, Hall, Loar, Lucas, McManus, Taylor, Wagner.





Yes Votes: James, Justus, Reid, Shields

THE EDGEMOOR PLAN IS HISTORY AS COUNCIL SKEPTICISM ABOUT A SHADY PLAN WAS DEFEATED!!!

REALITY CHECK: THE EPIC VOTE FOR THE NEW AIRPORT IS NOW IN QUESTION!!!

TKC EXCLUSIVE: BURNS & MAC IS BACK IN COMPETITION FOR NEW AIRPORT WORK BUT FINANCING WILL HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT AND KC TAXPAYERS ARE NOW ON THE HOOK!!!

"A supermajority of Council thought we have more work to do to ensure the best project and value for the regional flying public. We remain committed to an outstanding project on schedule. We'll accomplish that goal. #BetterKCI #KCI"

EDGEMOOR PUBLIC MEETING SHUT DOWN AFTER COUNCIL VOTE!!!









Biz Journal: Councilman Lee Barnes, Jr., who initially moved for immediate adoption on his resolution, agreed to amend it such that it will be discussed in committee. Mayor Sly James said he had not yet decided which committee to assign the resolution to. But Councilwoman Heather Hall suggested it be the Committee of the Whole in order to avoid the same type of transparency concerns that arose after just two members of the City Council  Jermaine Reed and Jolie Justus  were named to the six-person selection committee that recommended Edgemoor's selection.

The vote was 9-4 and the debate was intense amid doubts about financing and the plan overall.Vote breakdown . . .Accordingly and because. . .And then . . .One more . . .Yeah, yeah, we got your comments and the ruckus over the MBE/WBE freebies is a nice cover story as ouraway from more serious questions about how KCMO is going to pay for this thing.There is ongoing debate about the implications of this news butandnew airport campaign threatens the local electorate.Link Update After TKC:Developing . . .
Last Monday December 11, 2017, the 19th Annual Capital Link Invest in Greece Forum concluded with an Official Dinner presenting the 2017 Hellenic Capital Link Leadership Award.

The keynote Speaker at the event was Jonathan R. Cohen, Deputy Assistant Secretary European and Eurasian Affairs U.S. Department of State while Dimitris Papadimitriou, Greek Minister of Economy and Development, also made brief remarks.

Haris Lalacos, Ambassador of Greece in the USA, presented the 2017 Hellenic Capital Link Leadership Award to Andre Calantzopoulos, CEO  Philip Morris International honouring him for his exceptional contribution to Greece.

In the meanwhile, ANA reports that a joint Greek-U.S. committee tasked with working on economic and investment issues in Athens will include high-level Commerce Department officials who will participate through teleconference in its meetings, Economy Minister Dimitri Papadimitriou and the U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross agreed during in a meeting in Washington.

The meetings of this Economic Cooperation Committee are held between officials from the Greek economy ministry and the American embassy in Athens and discussed issues relating to investments and intellectual property rights (IPRs) and agreed to intensify the committee's meetings, whose work has already started in Athens at a technical level.

Ross also repeated his intention to attend the opening of the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) in 2018 where the United States is the honourary country.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Source: greekreporter.com
Destinations around the world welcomed 1.1 billion international tourists between January and October 2017, according to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer. This represents a 7% increase on the same period of last year, or 70 million more international arrivals. Strong demand for international tourism across world regions reflects the global economic upswing.

The strong tourism demand of the earlier months of 2017, including the Northern Hemisphere summer peak season, was maintained through October. Destinations worldwide received a total of 1,127 million (+7%) international tourist arrivals (overnight visitors) in the first ten months of the year, 70 million more than in the same period of 2016. Results were driven by sustained growth in many destinations and a firm recovery in those that experienced declines last year.

In particular, destinations in Southern and Mediterranean Europe, North Africa and the Middle East showed extraordinary strength. Growth in international arrivals exceeded 7% in all destinations of Southern and Mediterranean Europe, with a rapid recovery seen in Turkey and double-digit increases for most of the region's other destinations. In North Africa and the Middle East, Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine rebounded strongly from previous years declines, while Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman and the United Arab Emirate of Dubai all continued to report sustained growth.

These robust results, the best we have seen in many years, reflect the sustained demand for travel around the world, in line with the improved global economy and the rebound of destinations that suffered declines in previous years, said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai at the 2nd UNWTO/UNESCO Conference on Tourism and Culture, held on 11-12 December in Oman.

As we gather in Oman for this important event, we must acknowledge the strong resilience of tourism reflected in the continuous growth in many destinations of the Middle East, and the rapid recovery in others. Tourism brings benefits to local communities and visitors through the promotion of peace and mutual understanding and, as this event highlights, respect for cultural heritage and values. Mr. Rifai added.

Regional Results

, driven by remarkable results in Southern and Mediterranean Europe (+13%). Western Europe (+7%) rebounded from weaker results last year, while Northern Europe (+6%) enjoyed ongoing solid growth. Arrivals in Central and Eastern Europe grew 4% between January and October 2017.

Africa (+8%) was the second fastest-growing region over this period, thanks to a strong recovery in North Africa (+13%) and the sound results of Sub-Saharan Africa (+5%).

In Asia and the Pacific (+5%) results were led by South Asia (+10%), with South-East Asia (+8%) and Oceania (+7%) also enjoying a robust increase in arrivals. North East Asia (+3%) recorded more mixed results, with some destinations reporting double-digit increases, and others, declines.

South America (+7%) continues to lead growth in the Americas, where arrivals overall increased by 3%. Central America and the Caribbean both grew 4%, with the latter showing clear signs of recovery in October in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. In North America (+2%), robust results in Mexico and Canada contrast with a decrease in the United States, the regions largest destination.

Results in the Middle East (+5%) through October were mixed, with some destinations rebounding strongly and others continuing to report sustained growth, but the regional average was weighed down partly by a few that showed declines.

Strong recovery of outbound tourism demand from Brazil and Russia

As for outbound markets, 2017 is marked by a strong pickup of expenditure on international tourism in Brazil (+33%) and the Russian Federation (+27%) after some years of declines.

Most of the other source markets continued to grow at a sustained pace. Among the top 10 source markets, China (+19%), the Republic of Korea (+11%), the United States and Canada (both +9%), and Italy (+7%) reported the fastest growth in international tourism expenditure. Expenditure from Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong (China) and France grew between 2% and 5%.

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Nzeemin License: CC-BY-SA

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
On Thursday Gov. Steve Bullock and Attorney General Tim Fox announced an advisory group to develop and plan for addressing the economic impact of the closures of the Colstrip power plant in southeastern Montana.

The group will help Colstrip develop a community impact plan guiding disbursement of economic impact funds provided by owners of the Colstrip Generating Facility.

The Colstrip Community Impact Advisory Group will use the $10 million in impact funds committed by Puget Sound Energy through a rate case settlement agreement recently approved by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Committee.

Group members include:

Co-chair Adam Schafer, from the governors office.

Co-chair Jon Bennion, from the Attorney Generals office.

A Puget Sound Energy representative.

John Williams, Colstrip mayor.

Doug Martens, Rosebud County commissioner.

State Sen. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip.

State Rep. Geraldine Custer, R-Forsyth.

Jim Atchison, Southeastern Montana Development Corporation.

State Sen. Jason Small, R-Busby, who is also president of Boilermakers 11 at Colstrip.

Stacey Yates, business manager for IBEW 1638 at Colstrip.

Wally McRae, Colstrip area rancher.

Pam Haxby-Cote, or designee, director of Montana Department of Commerce.

Tom Livers, or designee, director of Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

Galen Hollenbaugh, or designee, commissioner of Montana Department of Labor and Industry.
Greece's steady and harmonious relations with its creditors are very critical for the recovery of its crisis stricken economy as well as the further promotion of its booming tourist industry

An appellate-level prosecutor in Athens on Wednesday again recommended that six former members of Greece's privatization fund (HRADF), who served between 2013 and 2014, be tried for not "beneficially exploiting" 28 public properties - a development expected to rekindle strong criticism by the country's institutional creditors.

The latter, including the IMF and the EU Commission, have previously and very publicly condemned an ongoing legal saga that has implicated three technocrats sent by creditors to help the bailout-dependent country in exploiting its assets, replete with indictments, appeals, summary acquittals, appeals by prosecutors and hearings by top courts.

The latest legal twist on Wednesday is the prosecutor's recommendation - the second by the same judicial official, Andreas Karaflos - to a council of appellate justices, namely, that all six individuals be tried for felony breach of faith.

A supreme court decision merely returned the indictment to the appellate level prosecutor's office several months ago. The chief of the prosecutor's office then again appointed the same prosecutor to submit a new proposal / recommendation so that the case can be re-examined, anew.

Besides institutional creditors, three EU member-states from where the trio of Commission technocrats hail from, Italy, Spain and Slovakia, respectively, have also lodged complaints with the leftist-rightist coalition government in Greece.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Source: naftemporiki.gr
Dubai Carbon has announced its first carbon credit transaction, with the sale of the resulting Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) from Dewa Chiller Station L Project through adopting the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to Farnek Total Facility Management.



This initial sale paves the way for expansion of the green economy in Dubai, inviting further investment in CDM projects in the Emirate. This inaugural sale of locally issued CERs contributes to the growth of green projects, and is a breakthrough in Dubai Carbons efforts as a green economy enabler.



The sale which depends on locally produced CERs enhances the development of Green Projects in Dubai, since it is considered as a major achievement in invest in CDM in the Emirate.



The sale will also aid the efforts of Carbon Dubai in reducing the greenhouse gas emission footprint, and augment Dubais green economy ambition, as it reflects the growing demand for CERs in a diligent pursuit of sustainable development.



The project contributes to the isolation of 1,000 CERs (equal to 1,000 tonnes of CO2) achieving Farnek Total Facility Managements emission reduction targets, highlighting the organisations commitment to social and environmental projects in Dubai.



Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) said: Dewa is committed to support the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and the Dubai Clean Energy 2050 strategy, and Dubai 2021 plan, to make Dubai a smart environmentally clean sustainably healthy city, and for that, we support CDM projects.



Our environmental strategy focuses on reducing carbon emissions based on the best integrated green practices at all levels of our operations to ensure protection of natural resources, and creating a sustainable carbon market is an important part of our vision, which is to build sustainable financing for green projects, and bring best practices into the market.



We are pleased that Farnek was able to offset their CO2 emissions through our Chiller Station L Project and wish them success for further adoption of clean and renewable energy sources in the future. We are confident that Farnek will benefit from these units to reduce the effects of global warming on our planet for future generations, Al Tayer added.



Dewa is a key supporter of carbon reduction programs and is constantly recording new CDM projects with Dubai Carbon to reduce carbon emissions. The Chiller Station L Project , which is the source of the sale of recently sold CERs, also records high rates of reduction of 26,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, one of the few CDM projects in the Gulf region producing carbon credit units, where 95,197 carbon credit units have been issued so far.



Farnek chose to invest in the local economy in line with their corporate culture and expertise, thus aligning themselves to the country vision and ambition, said Waleed Salman, chairman of Dubai Carbon. We hope this will inspire other organisations in the Emirates to follow suit to mitigate the negative impacts on the environment.



Markus Oberlin, CEO, Farnek, said: Being a leader in providing innovative and bespoke solutions in the facility management sector, we are keen to invest in offsetting our emission footprint and reducing the impact of our businesses on the environment. We are proud to be the first to purchase CERs from the maiden project generating carbon credits in the GCC. It also gives us the opportunity to support the efforts of the Dubai Government in creating an environmentally responsible economy.- TradeArabia News Service
A delegation from the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) concluded its participation in the Seatrade Middle East Cruise Forum, a leading trade event for the cruise ship sector, which took place on December 12 and 13 in Dubai.



The event, held on the sidelines of the Dubai Maritime Week, brought together experts and decision-makers from the region with an aim of providing the necessary platform to enhance business with owners, operators, managers and professionals engaged in procurement, equipment and services in the cruise ship sector. A range of topics and themes related to the status and future of the maritime sector in the Middle East was also discussed.



Speaking at during a panel discussion held on the sidelines of the event, director of Marketing and Tourism Promotions at BTEA, Yousuf Al Khan, said that extending the cruise season for two months before and after the current date would have a positive impact on the national economy.



"We are delighted to have successfully participated in the event, which comes as part of the authority's efforts to strengthen the kingdom's tourism status regionally and internationally. We have always been keen to participate in all regional and international exhibitions and events, which is an excellent opportunity to meet with other major companies operating in the tourism sector and government agencies to discuss the latest developments. We aim to attract investment and increase the number of visitors to the kingdom, he added.



Seatrade Middle East Cruise Forum is one of the most important international cruise events and is the ideal platform to enhance Bahrain's position as a leading tourism destination among international exhibitors. The BTEAs participation in the event aims to promote the kingdom of Bahrain as a destination for tourist vessels in line with its tourism strategy "Ours Yours" which was launched by the authority in cooperation with the Economic Development Board. The aim of the tourism strategy is to increase the number of visitors to the kingdom and to increase the contribution of the tourism sector to the economy.



Since its launch in 2011, Seatrade Middle East has become one of the leading events in the region, making it the perfect platform to highlight the kingdom's distinctive tourism features and to promote them among the most important stakeholders, institutions and companies operating in the cruise ship industry. - TradeArabia News Service


Defining the FX Flash Crash

Pragma Securities (Pragma), a multi-asset quantitative trading technology provider, has published new research exploring the phenomenon of flash crashes in the foreign exchange (FX) market.

Flash crashes  sudden and dramatic v-shaped price changes  have broken into the public consciousness over the past few years, with high profile events including the aftermath of Swiss National Bank unpegging the Swiss franc (CHF) in January 2015 and the sell-off in sterling (GBP) in October 2016.

Pragmas research paper, entitled Defining a flash crash provides a clear, objective definition and identifies the characteristics of a flash crash. Its criterion includes a large price move, strong reversion, and widening spreads. Using this definition and tick-by-tick analysis of data from 11 currency pairs, the paper identified more than 97 similar, albeit smaller, events during 2015 and 2016.

The note asserts that flash crashes are usually triggered when liquidity providers cant keep up with sudden demands of heavy but informationless directional volume. By contrast, market moving news and events may cause sudden changes in price, and spikes in volatility and spreads, but they should not considered to be a flash crash. In such events, the price generally does not revert but converges to a new level, reflecting the new information absorbed by the market.

David Mechner, CEO of Pragma Securities, comments, This note is part of our ongoing research effort. We use quantitative tools to understand market microstructure, both to help us deliver the highest quality trading tools to our clients, and to contribute to industry dialog about market structure.

Writing on flash crashes in FX has, to date, tended to the anecdotal, looking at individual events in isolation. We took a more systematic approach, and came up with an index that could help regulators, trading institutions and individual market participants track market quality.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
You can opt out of certain types of cookies (e.g. those used in social media sharing) by choosing "I do not accept". The website will still largely function well, but with slightly less functionality in places. To manage your cookie preferences in future, visit the "Cookie Statement" link at the bottom of any page.
The Monterey County Fair announced that the theme for the Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 2018, event will be Shake Your Tail Feathers.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - December 15th, 2017 - Monterey, CA, Dec 14 , 2017  The Monterey County Fair announced that the theme for the Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 2018, event will be Shake Your Tail Feathers.

The fair also unveiled its official poster for this year's event, featuring chickens in Mardi Gras-style beads, masks and hats and two chickens enjoying a Ferris wheel ride.

We are very excited about the 2018 Monterey County Fair theme and dedicate it to our feathered friends at the Fair, says Kelly Violini, Monterey County Fair CEO. We hope that everyone can come out and join us in Shaking a Tail Feather!

The artists and graphic designers who collaborated on the poster are Olivia Trinidad and Arnold Ramos of OT Graphic Design of Monterey, which has been doing graphic art and design work for the Monterey County Fair since 2008, including all official posters for the fair since then.

They just wanted it to be colorful and fun, with chickens and roosters having fun at the Fair, says Trinidad, who has 20 years of experience in graphic design, about the poster assignment. Its great to be able to do a poster on our own. Usually we work with art we are given, but this time it was my artwork, so we were able to play with it. It was fun and easy.

The Monterey County Fair will run from Thursday, Aug. 30-Monday, Sept. 3, 2018, at the Monterey County Fair & Event Center, 2004 Fairground Road, in Monterey.

About the Monterey County Fair & Event Center

The Monterey County Fair & Event Center is a premier event center set on 22 oak-studded acres with ample parking. It is a state-owned multi-use facility that features four large banquet rooms, two outdoor concert venues, and a variety of outdoor and indoor cost-effective sites ideal for all types of events. It is home of the annual award-winning Monterey County Fair, host to many major and private events on the Central Coast, and the site of the Monterey Bay Race Place, a Satellite Wagering Facility.

For more information, contact the Fair Administration Office, at 2004 Fairground Road in Monterey, by calling (831) 372-5863 or go to www.montereycountyfair.com for more information.

Monterey County Fair & Event Center

2004 Fairground Road, Monterey, CA 93940

www.montereycountyfair.com

montereyfairpr@gmail.com

(831) 372-5863

OT Graphic Design

PO Box 2454

Monterey CA 93942

Phone: (831) 402-7946

E-mail: olivia@otgraphicdesign.com

otgraphicdesign.com

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

http://www.montereycountyfair.com

###
Once again, Creta Maris Beach Resort stood out among the very best in tourism sector and was awarded with the Treasures of Greek Tourism 2017 award, at the event of Excellence of Greek Tourist Enterprises, held by the New Times Publishing on December 7th at King George Hotel.



(TRAVPR.COM) GREECE - December 15th, 2017 - The Treasures of Greek Tourism 2017 award was given to the most important Greek tourism companies, which promote the positive image of Greece abroad, thereby, boosting the country's economy, the local market and offering a considerable number of jobs positions during a changeling economic period in Greece. The evaluation procedure was conducted according to specific economic indicators and criteria including profitability, borrowing, financial liquidity, the companies relationship to foreign capital, and factors such as the capital invested by companies, their human resources policy and corporate and social responsibility policy.

Mr. Nikos Vlassiadis, the General Manager of Creta Maris Beach Resort was delighted and honored to receive this award from Mr. Antonis Avdelas, the Sales & Marketing Manager of Sani Resort.

About Creta Maris Beach Resort:

Creta Maris Beach Resort belongs to Metaxas Group of Companies and has been operating since 1975. It has a capacity of 680 rooms, suites and bungalows, 6 restaurants, 7 bars, 7 swimming pools, gym, Hammam spa, Asterias Childrens Club, and a great space for outdoor and indoor activities.

Please find pictures on high resolution on the below link:

https://we.tl/y0jcvqDEPG

Please find pictures of Creta Maris Beach Resort on high resolution on our site:

http://www.maris.gr/media/image-library.aspx

###
President Donald Trump recently unleashed an assault on two national monuments in Utah. He signed a proclamation slashing the size of Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent, from 1.35 million to 201,397 acres, and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by half, from nearly 1.9 million to 997,490 acres. Apparently, he isnt done. He will be signing more proclamations stripping protection from some of our most outstanding public lands.

These actions taken against our national monuments will go down in American history as perhaps the single biggest attack on our public lands ever conducted by the federal government. As President Trump admits, they serve to aid those who have actively been trying to sell off our public lands, most notably Utah Congressman Rob Bishop.

Containing one of the greatest concentrations of archaeological sites in the world, Bears Ears was designated a national monument in response to a national groundswell led by five sovereign Indian nations in the Four Corners region, people who consider this area sacred. Those tribes, along with a host of conservation groups, have already brought a legal challenge to this proclamation, as they should. One-hundred-and-twenty-one law professors agree that this proclamation wont stand up in court, primarily because the Antiquities Act, which was used to create these monuments, contains no language allowing presidents to shrink or eliminate national monuments.

But the Presidents proclamation stripping protection from millions of acres of some of the most beautiful and cultural significant places in our country could be enacted with the help of Congressman Greg Gianforte.

Earlier this year, Rep. Gianforte voted for a bill written by Rep. Bishop. The dishonestly-named National Monument Creation and Protection Act (H.R. 3990) would enable presidents to shrink and eliminate national monuments that previous presidents have created. If this bill passes, it would basically codify President Trumps anti-national monument proclamations and open all national monuments created by the Antiquities Act  including Montanas Upper Missouri River Breaks and Pompeys Pillar  to the same fate as Bears Ear and Grand-Staircase. It would render national monument protection virtually meaningless, prone to the whims of future presidents.

In voting for this bill, Rep. Gianforte blatantly ignored 2.7 million Americans, including 24,000 Montanans, who submitted comments to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke urging him to maintain all existing national monuments. Sec. Zinke recommended shrinking several national monuments, but kept his hands off Upper Missouri River Breaks after facing a backlash in his home state.

Rep. Gianforte, however, put the Upper Missouri River Breaks right back on the chopping block when he voted for Rep. Bishops bill in the House Natural Resources Committee. If it passes Congress, Rep. Gianforte will be guilty of dismantling the central pillar of Theodore Roosevelts conservation legacy and destroying the most effective tool we have for safeguarding public lands with significant natural, cultural, historical, and scientific value.

During the past 110 years, 16 presidents  eight Democrats and eight Republicans  have used the Antiquities Act to designate 157 national monuments. I grew up in Crow Agency just outside one of Montanas national monuments, the Little Bighorn Battlefield. This is a sacred site for numerous Plains Indian tribes, including my own. Its status as a national monument has enabled the descendants of those who fought in this battle to gather, tell stories, and begin healing from a traumatic history that includes this battle. That status would be put in jeopardy with Bishops bill.

The Antiquities Act is one of the best tools we have for preserving, protecting, and perpetuating the heritage we share as Montanans and Americans. Call Rep. Gianfortes office at 202-225-3211 and tell him to respect that heritage by withdrawing his support of H.R. 3990.
DECATUR  The Macon County State's Attorney's Office will shift the head of the office's drug unit to a newly created role dedicated to opioid cases, state's attorney Jay Scott said Thursday.

The Macon County Board unanimously approved the plan for the opioid prosecutor without discussion during its Thursday meeting. Assistant State's Attorney Lindsey Shelton, who heads the drug unit, will take on the role of opioid prosecutor.

Were getting these cases all the time," Scott said. "It used to be rare, and now were seeing it every week.

The office also has two open attorney positions, which Scott hopes to fill "as soon as possible."

The position is being funded by Macon County Sheriff Howard Buffett through his private foundation, which is providing a three-year, $180,000 grant that will also cover a paralegal to do paperwork for forfeitures and investigations. The grant was received in one lump-sum amount of $540,000 and is not expected to be renewed. Both Buffett and Scott said they do not believe there is a conflict of interest in the funding arrangement.

Shelton started the position on Dec. 1, which was the date the boards resolution retroactively took effect. Shelton will remain the head of the drug unit, but Scott said assistant State's Attorney David Perry will handle other drug cases under Shelton's supervision.

He said that Shelton will specifically go after dealers and those higher in the drug trade, not the everyday user.

I think shes going to do a fantastic job, Scott said, adding his office just filed charges of a drug-induced homicide that Shelton will handle.

Buffett has said he thought the prosecutor would be a way for the Scotts office to directly address the opioid epidemic.

It is unknown how many cases Shelton will handle, as Scott said the office has never kept track of the number of opioid cases it has processed. He said they will start to keep track along with the new position.

Data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows an increasing number of people in Macon County have died of opioid overdoses over the past four years. Six deaths were reported in 2013, and 14 were reported in 2016. Stateside, nearly 1,950 people died from opioid overdoses last year.

This year alone has seen 164 Macon County emergency calls where Naloxone, a drug used to treat a narcotics overdose in an emergency situation, was used as of the end of October.

The restructuring comes as state and national government leaders are also grappling with how to tamp down opioid addiction and overdoses, which President Donald Trump earlier this year called a public health emergency. Gov. Bruce Rauner earlier this year created an Opioid Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force, which aims to reduce the number of opioid-related deaths by one-third in three years.

The task force has held hearings around the state, including in Decatur in November. Earlier this month, it announced the creation of a new helpline that has trained specialists who can connect callers with treatment and recovery-support services. Funded through a federal grant, the helpline is available at 1-833-2FINDHELP.

On Wednesday, the governor signed legislation aimed at combating fraudulent opioid prescriptions by requiring drug prescribers to use a database containing patient prescription histories.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
DECATUR  The legions of fans descending on the latest "Star Wars" film this weekend will include a three-generation family from Decatur who have shared their love for the franchise since its first run in 1977.

That's when Vicki Hill took her daughter, Lori, to the Rogers Theater on East Wood Street to see it. She's a huge fan, too, said Lori Allen, now grown and married with a son, Zachary, who also took took a liking to the iconic story. All three will attend the most recent release in the franchise, The Last Jedi, today at the Avon Theatre.

I like the nostalgia of the Avon, Allen said.

So did a number of other people on Thursday night, when a 7 p.m. debut showing of the film drew a crowd. The movie was also shown at AMC Classic Decatur 10 and AMC Classic Hickory Point 12 in Forsyth.

Among the audience at the Avon was lifelong fan Colten Scheibly, 20, who was surprised the line wasn't longer. The line for the Thursday night sneak preview of "It" stretched all the way down the street, the Niantic resident said.

It was warmer weather then, and patrons on Thursday were being admitted to the theater well before 6 p.m. for the 7 p.m. showing so they wouldn't have to wait outside in the cold.

Scheibly was excited to see the new film. "It's 'Star Wars,'" he said. His favorite film is the original 1977 "Star Wars: A New Hope," and his favorite character is bounty hunter Boba Fett.

"The new one ('The Force Awakens') is not as good as the old ones," he said.

The "old ones" have an honored place in the collection of Zachary Allen, 16, who inherited his mother's posters and memorabilia along with her love of the films. He has quite an extensive collection of his own. His favorite character is also Boba Fett.

I got him interested when he was really little, Allen said. We started with 'A New Hope' (what the original film is known as now) and he was hooked from then on.

Zachary collects the 12-inch action figures and even from the time he was a tot, has kept them untouched in their original boxes. Now, they fill his closet three deep. He gets them for birthdays and Christmas.

His whole room is Star Wars, Allen said.

Zachary has dressed up as Star Wars characters for many Halloweens, and Allen said she'd like to throw a Star Wars-themed party, where everyone would dress as their favorite character.

In May 1999, when The Phantom Menace was released, Allen spoke to the Herald & Review about her years of devotion to the Skywalker saga and showed off her poster collection, which belongs to Zachary now.

She told the H&R that Star Wars isn't just for guys. Plenty of girls and women love the films, too. She still feels that way, she said.

Her favorite scene is the medal ceremony at the end of the 1977 film, when Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca walk through a crowd of Rebels toward a dais, where Princess Leia waits to recognize them for their part in destroying the Death Star. Robots C3P0 and the freshly repaired R2D2, who suffered serious damage in the mission, are on the dais with her.

As Han and Luke wait for Leia to hang their medals around their neck (but not Chewie's  why didn't Chewbacca get a medal?), the stirring music by John Williams gives her goosebumps. On the screen, Han and Luke can't remain solemn and formal and break out into delighted grins, which Leia returns.

All three generations remain fans to this day, Allen said, and she hopes that someday they can make a four-generation trip to a Star Wars movie premiere, though she's in no hurry.

After Zachary grows up, she said with a chuckle. When he's much older.

Love of the franchise is a family affair for many. Among those in line at the Avon on Thursday night was Tom Ness, who brought nine people with him, including three of his kids.

"I've got my kids into Star Wars," he said. As for seeing it early, "It's one of those things, I don't want it to get spoiled by all those things that come out on the internet."

Ness wanted to see what happened to Luke Skywalker, who made only a brief appearance in "The Force Awakens" and whose red-tinted photos on the movie posters seem to suggest at least a chance of his allegiance to the Dark Side of the Force. Ness was also interested in how the film would handle the December 2016 death of Carrie Fisher, whose character, Leia, was supposed to have a prominent role in the next film after this one.

"I'm curious to see how they kill off Leia," he said. "Since Carrie Fisher passed on, it'll be interesting to see how they kill off Leia. I know Kylo Ren gets a bad rap, but I love the character, I love the mask, I love it all." He said he believes Kylo Ren is not all bad, since his parents are Han Solo and Leia, who are "good guy" characters.

Ness has seen all of the films. He saw "Return of the Jedi" in the theater, and after that, saw all of them as they were released.

"I've been a Star Wars fan since I can remember," he said.
Suresh Dharur

Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, December 15

Telangana has got aerospace boost with Tata Group and General Electric Co. (GE) signing an agreement to build a new factory in Hyderabad to make engine parts for passenger jets. GE Aviation and Tata Sons subsidiary Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL), based in Hyderabad, will work together in manufacturing, assembling, integration and testing of aircraft components. The two companies signed an agreement here in the presence of the state IT Minister KT Rama Rao to manufacture CFM International LEAP engine components in India for the global supply chain. The components made here will go into the LEAP engine, used in the new fuel-efficient Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX planes.

The two companies also intend to jointly pursue military engine and aircraft system opportunities for the Indian market. A new Centre of Excellence (COE) will be established to help develop a robust ecosystem for aircraft engine manufacturing in India and build related capabilities.

We look forward to working with GE to build more expertise and strengthen Indias defence manufacturing capabilities, said N. Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons. Tata groups partnership with GE will help drive synergies in defence manufacturing and focus on innovation to support our armed forces. At its aerospace hub in Hyderabad, Tata Group already builds aero-structures for Sikorsky helicopters, Pilatus trainers and the Lockheed Martin C-130 tail. Aircraft maker Boeing Co. is in the process of shifting its Apache attack helicopter manufacturing to TASL from its current supplier Korean Aerospace in South Korea.\

To power LEAP engine
Russels, December 15

Uber's food-delivery business will begin offering an insurance package to its couriers in Europe, a move to address the conditions of "gig economy" workers.

Riders for food-delivery companies such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are typically self-employed and the firms have come under fire for how they treat their workers.

Uber Eats said on Friday it would start offering all its couriers in Europe an insurance package with AXA with coverage for personal accidents, cash benefits for hospitalisation, property damage and cover for third-party injury.

"Uber Eats couriers can now enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working on their own schedule with the peace of mind provided by additional security and protection," said Filip Nuytemans, Uber Eats general manager for Europe.

The couriers will be able to benefit from the policy whether they are fully independent or employed via a third party, and the company will pay for the insurance.

Uber Eats currently operates in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain. The plan will be introduced January 8 next year, the company said.

The gig economy, where individuals work for multiple employers day-to-day without having a fixed contract, has expanded with the arrival of apps such as Uber and Deliveroo, who say their workers have the full flexibility to work when they want and for how long they want.

But companies in the gig economy come under fire from unions and politicians for what they call exploitative practices and riders for Deliveroo have gone to court in the UK to seek employment rights such as the minimum wage.

Two drivers for Uber's ride-hailing app successfully argued at a tribunal in London that the San Francisco company had responsibilities in terms of workers' rights.

The plan offered by Uber Eats will reimburse couriers up to 7,500 euros ($8,847.75) for medical expenses from an accident that results in hospitalisation or 3,000 euros if the hospitalisation is for three consecutive nights or more.

Couriers will also get cash benefits for severe sickness or injury and cover for third party bodily injuries and property damage.  Reuters.
Pavneet Singh Chadha

Tribune News Service

Mohali, December 15

Same city and different water tariff! Yes, this is true.

The 12,000-odd consumers living in Sector 66 to 69 and 76 to 80, Aero City and Eco City are in a state of shock after receiving water tariff bills up to 5.5 times of what they used to pay till September this year. The bills, which were issued this week, are for three months from September-November.

The consumers whose water bill till August used to range between Rs 350 and Rs 400 now have to pay between Rs 1,500 and Rs 2,000.

However, the rest of Mohali residents are still being charged the old water tariff at a flat rate of Rs 1.8 per kl.

The new tariff is even more than that being charged in Chandigarh. The residents of the areas where the new tariff is applicable get water supply from GMADA, which had in September hiked the tariff from Rs 1.8 per kl to up to Rs 10 per kl.

Ironically, this area also falls under the Municipal Corporation (MC) limits. However, water supply and sewerage there are still maintained by GMADA.

What is our fault? Are we being penalised for GMADA supplies water to our localities? asked many consumers living in the 9 sectors and two townships.

Dr Pawan Kumar Jain, a former MC Commissioner, said this was probably the first-of-its-kind case in the country where different water tariff was being charged in the same city and that too with a difference of up to 5.5 times.

How can you charge a resident of Sector 69 at the rate of Rs 10 per kl and those living across the road in Phase VII Rs 1.8 per kl, Dr Jain argued.

The social activist has also urged the Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who approved the hike being the GMADA Chairman, to reconsider the decision and not to make the essential commodity a source of income for any government body.

Parminder Singh, a local resident said, Earlier I was paying Rs 250, but I was surprised to see the recent bill of Rs 925. A hike of 10-20 per cent is acceptable, but this is extortion. Karam Singh Mavi, general secretary, RWA, Sector 69, said, We get limited water supply here, especially in summers, and that too from tubewells. Residents here do not get water from canals. Instead of providing proper water supply, GMADA has decided to charge us more. Satvir Singh Dhanoa, who represents Sector 69 residents in the MC House, said the decision was irrational considering the scarcity of water in the area. We have submitted a letter to GMADA requesting for a rollback of the new tariff.
S Nihal Singh

S Nihal Singh

THE roles of a Prime Minister and the rabble-rouser in state assembly elections do not mix. Although Mr Narendra Modi had given us a foretaste of it by discarding convention and practice that the person holding the highest political office in the land does not do politicking at the state level, Mr Modi was single-minded in his devotion to collect votes with crowd-pleasing themes and scorn for the Opposition.

Mr Modis extravagances were bound to descend to the depth of low politics, and an address of his at a Gujarat election rally was so shocking that it demeaned the office of Prime Minister and shook the country to its foundation.

Mr Modi insinuated that his predecessor and a number of other notables, including the former Vice-President and Army Chief, had a private dinner with Pakistani officials in Delhi to help plot Pakistans efforts to defeat the BJP in the Gujarat election.

The charge was so ridiculous that Mr Modi should have been red-faced and although Dr Manmohan Singh was sharp in his response, many Opposition parties condemned this election rhetoric as a new low. Government spokesmens efforts to answer the near universal condemnation were feeble and unconvincing.

Is there a method to stooping so low to conquer? It would seem so. Basically, the Sangh Parivar wants to outflank the middle class and concentrate on the masses, usually swayed by emotion and religiosity. The governments ultimate aim is to build a Hindu rashtra to transform the country into a majoritarian state and it is imperative for the BJP to win votes, from Parliament and state assemblies to panchayats, to be able to alter the Constitution.

The BJPs eyes are fixed on the 2019 general election and all efforts are concentrated on how to undercut Opposition-ruled states either through subversion or by forming coalitions of convenience. Present efforts are concentrated on West Bengal, Karnataka and Kerala although Odisha is claiming some attention.

What is the Opposition doing in the face of the BJPs assault to alter the countrys moorings from secularism to majoritarian rule? Changes are already being made at the fringes to signify the primacy of Hinduism. After all, the Parivars attempt is to marry nationalism with Hinduism much like Israel runs the Jewish state by excluding non-Jews from citizen rights.

As usual, the Opposition is divided. The Congress remains the only party with countrywide support, greatly diminished as it is. With Mr Rahul Gandhi taking over the party from his mother, his task is to form a priority-related programme with an energetic set of workers. Whatever the result of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections, Mr Gandhi has been learning on the job with quick repartees and giving selfies to members of the public.

It would be too optimistic to believe that the Opposition parties will come together like a happy family. The splintering of parties in Indian politics is often determined by leaders seeking greater honours. Second, the tendency of opposition members to gravitate towards the ruling party for the loaves and fishes of office is common.

For ideological parties of the Left, the end of the heyday of Communism has presented problems, like in the rest of the developing world. There was for a time the Russian and Chinese models to choose from, with Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union living through the chaotic era of nationalism, with Yeltsin passing the baton to Mr Vladimir Putin who retained the one-party Communist structure while marrying it to Orthodox Christianity.

The Chinese have climbed on the bandwagon of economic capitalism while maintaining tight state control of key economic sectors. Their goal has been to take over advanced technological innovations by buying them or copying them or simply stealing them. They have been singularly successful in their endeavours and are now the largest exporters of solar equipment, to give one example. But the Chinese have married their Communism to ultra-nationalism.

The short point is that Indian Communists, like their brethren in the rest of the developing world, have to fend for themselves. The CPM might still fly the flag of Marx and Engels but no one, including its followers, take these symbols seriously notwithstanding their rhetoric. The sooner the Left parties behaved like other organisations the better.

It is up to Mr Gandhi to get all Opposition parties together to work out a basis of fighting the general election instead of waiting till the last minute for seat adjustment. Pulls and pressures for the number of seats is par for the course but the Congress leadership must persuade others of the benefits of a rational approach.

The first-past-the-post system of parliamentary democracy would seem to favour the populist and rabble-rouser, but any system can be subverted, given determination and money. The BJP and the larger Parivar have both these assets in ample measure.

Obviously, the country wanted a change when the BJP won the last general election under its own steam. In Mr Modi the RSS saw a leader with wile and determination to change the countrys direction and plumbed for him, instead of relying on senior leaders like Mr LK Advani who are past their prime. Thus far, Mr Modi has served the cause dear to them well to the extent of partially ruining the rural economy in Uttar Pradesh in particular. And the Prime Minister had to eat his words when reprimanded by the RSS on the number of cow vigilantes operating in the country.

Mr Modis election rhetoric will make his task of wooing the middle class that much more difficult. Many of the extravagances of poll rhetoric are taken as fair game. But the charge that a man of the stature of Dr Manmohan Singh is plotting against his country in league with Pakistan is preposterous and must be addressed by the Prime Minister after the results are out.

It is a sad moment for Indian democracy that we should be discussing such insulting language of abuse and charges just to win votes.
Washington: An Indian-origin man has been killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the US. Karunakar Karengle, 53, was working last Monday at the Jiffy Convenience Mart on Camelot Drive when two men came in with a firearm around 10 pm, police said. Police said Karengle died of his injuries on Friday. His identity had been withheld until his family in India was notified, Journal News reported. No arrests have been made, making nearby businesses and employees a bit uneasy. The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months. Earlier this month, a 30-year-old Indian national pursuing his Masters in Chicago was seriously injured after he was shot in his right cheek by an unidentified assailant. Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a software engineer from India, was fatally shot in Olathe, Kansas, in February by a US navy veteran. Weeks later, a Sikh man was shot in his arm in his driveway in Kent, Washington state, by a masked man. pti
Washington, December 15

An Indian-origin man has been killed during a robbery by two hooded attackers in Ohio, becoming one of the latest victims of gun violence in the US.

Karunakar Karengle, 53, was working last Monday at the Jiffy Convenience Mart on Camelot Drive when two men came in with a firearm around 10 pm, police said.

Fairfield Fire Department first responders arrived and brought Karengle to UC West Chester Hospital.

Police said that Karengle died of his injuries on Friday.

Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

His identity had been withheld until his family in India was notified, Journal News reported.

No arrests have been made, making nearby businesses and employees a bit uneasy.

Fairfield police Lt Ken Gerold said they believe Karengle did not have relatives that lived in the area.

A description of the suspects was unavailable, police said, except that they both wore hoodies covering most of their faces. One wore a dark jacket while the other wore a light coloured jacket.

"I'm sorry that it happened," Kim Cannon said. Cannon works across the street from Jiffy Mart at Laundry Station.

"It scares me even more knowing that the guys, or whoever it was, were parked behind our building and I was working that night and could have walked out.

"It was shocking to hear that somebody was actually killed," Cannon said.

The shooting comes amidst growing attacks on Indians and Americans of Indian descent in recent months.

Earlier this month, a 30-year-old Indian national pursuing his masters in Chicago has been seriously injured after he was shot in his right cheek by an unidentified assailant.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a software engineer from India, was fatally shot in Olathe, Kansas, in February by a US navy veteran who had told him and his friend at a bar to go back to their country.

Weeks later, a Sikh man was shot in his arm in his driveway in Kent, Washington state, by a masked man who had told him go back to his "own country".

There were 58,491 incidents of gun violence across the country in 2017 in which 14,763 people were killed and 29,888 others injured, according to Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a not for profit corporation providing public access to gun-related violence. PTI
Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 15

Private hospitals and clinics across the state remained closed today in protest against the state governments plan to implement the Clinical Establishment Act even as the government has invited representatives of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) for talks on December 21.

Amit Jha, Principal Secretary, Health, confirms that a meeting has been fixed with the state unit of the IMA on December 21 to discuss the modalities for implementation of the Act.

The same day, another meeting has been fixed with representatives of big hospitals such as Fortis, Max and Medanta etc, he says.

The government, it is learnt, wants to implement the Act in such a manner to safeguard the interests of common people without putting doctors in hardship.

Sources say that the government may agree to keep hospitals and clinics up to a certain number of beds out of the purview of the Act.

The sources say that the state government is yet to decide whether to implement the Haryana Clinical Establishment Act, 2014, after suitable amendments that address the concerns of the IMA or go for the central Clinical Establishment Act, 2010.

The Central Act has its advantages, since the Centre already has a website, a dedicated IT support for registration of hospitals and nursing homes, a complete data of hospitals registered in each state, standard treatment guidelines for 227 diseases coming under 35 specialities, minimum standards of hospitals, cost regulations etc. Besides, the Central Government provides technical and training support and provides two people at the state level and one at the district level for its implementation, said the sources.

The Haryana chapter of the IMA, however, is not agreeable to the Central Act.

The draconian central Clinical Establishment Act is not appropriate considering the socio-economic condition of the population of Haryana. Nearly 30,000 trained nurses and compounders working in over 3,500 hospitals and clinics in the state will be rendered jobless, says Dr Atam Prakash Setia, state president of the IMA.

Doctors march towards mini-sectt in Panipat

Panipat: Around 125 private hospitals in the district remained closed. As many as 430 doctors gathered at Haryana tourism resort Sky Lark and marched in a procession towards the mini-secretariat.

A delegation led by Dr Shyam Kalra, president of the IMA district unit, submitted a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister, to ADC Rajiv Mehta.

Dr Sant Lal Verma, Civil Surgeon, said, All doctors in the general hospital were put on alert due to the strike of private hospitals. Besides, three more doctors were put on emergency duty, he added.

Heavy rush of patients at Kaithal civil hospital

Kaithal: All private hospitals and clinics in the district remained closed, causing inconvenience to a large number of patients. The patients had to rush to the local civil hospital where they had to wait for a long time for a doctor to see them. A woman from Songri Guliana village said that she visited a local private hospital but its gates were locked due to the strike. Another women from a village near Pundri said that she had come for treatment in Kaithal but found all local hospitals and nursing homes closed. Earlier doctors under the banner of the IMA assembled at Pehowa Chowk and from there moved in a procession towards the mini-secretariat. They handed over a memorandum to Deputy Commissioner Sunita Verma. Dr Vijay Kumar, president of the district IMA unit, Dr MS Shah, Dr Naveen Bansal, Dr Deepak, Dr RP Mann and Dr Raj Rani Garg said that the government should review its decision to enforce the Central Act as it would cause difficulties to doctors and patients as well and make treatment costlier. Meanwhile, CMO Dr Ashok Chaudhary said that the Government Hospital staff worked overtime to attend to a large number of patients.OC
Gurgaon, December 15

The Juvenile Justice Board on Friday rejected the bail plea of a teenager accused of killing seven-year-old Pradhuman Thakur on the premises of Ryan International School here.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Board, however, reserved its decision till December 20 on whether the accused should be tried as an adult or as a juvenile.

The Board had earlier set up a committee comprising a psychologist from PGI, Rohtak, seeking an expert opinion in the matter. The panel submitted its report in two envelops which were opened inside the court room today.

Lawyer of Pradhumans father, Sushil Tekriwal, said the report was based on behavioural, sociological and psychological aspects of the juvenile.

We have seen the report and given our submission, he said.

According to Tekriwal, the report said the accused should be treated as an adult and it suggested that he was an abnormal child with a hyper-aggressive streak to his personality.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) contended that the probe was under way and they were still interrogating the accused.

An intense argument took place among the CBI counsel, Thakurs lawyer and the defence lawyer for three hours but eventually the Board rejected the juveniles plea for bail on basis of the reports.

The Juvenile Justice Board noted that the accused was mature enough to recognise the consequences of his actions. PTI
New Delhi, December 15

Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MP Dushyant Chautala rode a tractor to Parliament on Friday.

Riding a polished green tractor, the Hisar MP reached Parliament in style to attend the Winter Session.

The Lok Sabha was adjourned till December 18 after paying tribute to Parliament's current and former members, who have passed away recently.

The session, which began on Friday, more than a month after its schedule, will end on January 5, 2018.

This session would have 14 sittings. Legislations on triple talaq and granting constitutional status to the Backward Class Commission are among the important bills, which will be tabled for discussion and passage. ANI
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 15

With no major breakthrough in the Kotkhai minor rape and murder case, the CBI today announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for providing information about the case.

The agency has announced to give a reward of Rs10 lakh to anyone providing credible information related to the case.

The 16-year-old victim was returning home from school on July 4 at 4.30 pm when she was brutally raped and murdered.

Her body was found in the forest of Haliala in Kotkhai two days later. The gory incident sparked protests which intensified after the postmortem report confirmed rape and murder on July 7.

The information can be given to the CBI over telephone and mobile numbers 91-9650394782, 8219885920, 8219893590 (local numbers of Himachal Pradesh), landline numbers 011-24368637, 24368640 (Delhi numbers), mobile number 9870530011 and email spscu2del@cbi.gov.in. The name and details of the informer will be kept a secret, the CBI said.

The CBI had registered the case under Sections 302, 376 of the IPC and Section 4 of the POCSO Act on July 19. The twin cases of Kotkhai minor rape and murder and custodial death were handed over to the CBI after Suraj, one of the six accused in the Gudiya case, was killed in the lock-up at the Kotkhai police station.

The CBI had submitted a chargesheet in the custodial death case and arrested nine police officials, including an IG, SP and DSP, who are in judicial custody. Despite questioning a number of suspects and taking blood samples of over 50 persons for DNA matching, the police have failed to reach a breakthrough.

However, the CBI had maintained that Suraj, Rajinder, Deepu, Chotu and Subash, who were arrested in the case by a special investigation team, were not the real accused after their brain mapping, narco and other scientific test proved their innocence.
Monica Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 14

Wondering where the states leaders have been since the polling for the Assembly elections in Himachal on November 9? Well, the 39-day gap till the counting of votes on December 18 has given them the much-needed time to relax, be with their families and rejuvenate.

A few leaders The Tribune spoke to mentioned about their excursion, what they gained and how much it was needed after months of hectic electioneering.

Though having divergent ideologies politically, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his predecessor Prem Kumar Dhumals choice was strikingly similar when it came to holidaying  Kerala. Chief ministerial nominees of the Congress and the BJP, the two stalwarts proceeded to the southern state along with a select entourage, after having finished their poll arithmetic on who would reign supreme on the counting day.

Six-time CM Virbhadra Singh, who was accompanied on the 10-day trip by his wife Pratibha Singh, is confident of retaining power and scripting history in a state that has mostly witnessed a government by alternating parties. He gives the party 40-plus seats.

Over phone, Dhumal says he spent 12 days in Kerala studying the minutes of ayurveda and panchkarma.

I wanted to know why more and more people are going in for these treatments and how best can these be replicated in Himachal the hotels there were mostly packed with 90 per cent of the occupants being foreigners, says the two-time former Chief Minister, unwilling to quote any figure, but confident of forming the next government with a thumping majority.

Denying any anxiety, Dhumal says he, in fact, has been enjoying meeting people and listening to their stories since the voting day.

Kaul Singh says he specially visited Kerala for panchkarma treatment. Since my return, I have been busy meeting my supporters and visiting temples, he says, predicting a comfortable victory for the Congress.

BJP state president Satpal Satti preferred going to Bengaluru where he stayed at the Art of Living ashram for four days. Accompanied by party nominee from Nadaun Vijay Agnihotri, he also visited Mysuru and some other parts of the Karnataka capital in the remaining part of his eight-day trip. After a long time, I got a chance to attend a few weddings of some relatives and family friends, says Satti, not ready to divulge any figures, but waiting anxiously to form the next government.

Congress state president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, on the other hand, says he didnt prefer going outside Himachal. I will visit the party offices daily and meet workers to gather feedback. The Congress is set to create history by repeating the government, says Sukhu, giving the Congress, like Virbhadra with whom he initially had some friction over controlling the party reins, 40-plus seats.

Former BJP state president and Seraj MLA Jai Ram Thakur, who was being seen in the reckoning for the CMs post until the party placed its bet on Dhumal, says he had planned a holiday, but couldnt make it as he was down with viral. I got ample time to spend with my family, particularly our elder daughter who was with us after a long time. I took out two days to meet my friends in Delhi, says Jai Ram, who believes the party will get close to 50 seats.

Transport Minister GS Bali spent six days helping his party candidates in Rajkot, Gujarat. Rest, he says, he remained busy meeting people in his constituency.

A few BJP contestants, including Kirpal Parmar (Fatehpur constituency), Rakesh Pathania (Nurpur) and Rajesh Thakur (Gagret), too, were assigned a tour to poll-bound Gujarat, the fate of candidates where, like in Himachal, will be decided in another four days.

Where they went
Tribune News Service

Jammu, December 15

Chief Minister Mehbooba Muftis brother Tassduq Hussain Mufti resigned from the position of Coordinator J&K Chief Ministers Grievance Cell on Friday.

The decision seems to have been taken in run-up to the growing speculations of his induction into Muftis state cabinet as tourism minister.

Tassaduq joined the PDP last year on the first death anniversary of his father, former chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed.

Sources said Tassduq would be nominated to J&K Legislative Council into a seat that was vacated by Vikramaditya Singh, the grandson of the last Dogra ruler Maharaja Hari Singh, who resigned from the PDP and the Legislative Council.

Tassduqs induction comes less than 10 days after Mehbooba Mufti was reelected the partys president for the sixth term, and appears to be a move to consolidate her position further.
Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 15

A march called by the separatists was foiled and dozens of areas in Srinagar and in south Kashmirs Anantnag district, the venue of the rally, were sealed off on Friday as the police aborted the mobilisation attempt by separatists.

The march to Anantnag was called by three key separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Yasin Malik and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who refer to themselves as Joint Resistance Leadership. The trio were already under detention.

The separatists had said that they aimed to achieve several goals at the rally, including highlighting the miseries and hardships faced by the people of Kashmir at the hands of oppressive forces. It will also be a show of solidarity with the people of south Kashmir, the separatists had said in the statements urging people to reach Anantnag district.

The authorities, however, imposed a series of preventive measures to foil any attempt by the separatists or their sympathisers to hold the march. The mobile internet services were shut down across the Kashmir valley last evening and dozens of areas were placed under restrictions.

In several volatile localities of Srinagar, the police and paramilitary forces were deployed in large numbers to impose restrictions on civilian movement and seal off roads.

A senior police officer said restrictions were imposed in most areas falling under the jurisdiction of the Nowhatta and MR Gunj police stations. The midday congregational prayers were also barred at Jamia Masjid, the political stronghold of the Mirwaiz family.

Mirwaiz, who was under detention at his Srinagar house, was taken into custody by the police when he attempted to defy the detention and march towards Anantnag.

In south Kashmir, roads leading to Anantnag district  the proposed venue of the separatist march and rally - were sealed off and residents of the district were barred from organising any gathering. The Srinagar-Jammu highway, which passes through Anantnag district, was also sealed off and entry to the district was restricted.

Despite their repeated calls for marches and rallies, separatists have not been able to organise any march or rally in the past five years due to strict preventive measures imposed by the authorities.

The separatist group Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front in its statement lashed out at the state government and said the foiling of the rally at Anantnag has once again proven that the government has no guts to compete with the resistance camp on the political front.

The JKLF said several of its members were arrested during nocturnal raids last night and a few of its activists who had managed to reach Anantnag were arrested today.
New Delhi, December 15

An alleged stone pelter, arrested by the NIA in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and separatist activities in Kashmir Valley, on Friday moved a court here seeking bail.

District judge Poonam A Bamba sought a response from the National Investigating Agency (NIA) by January 18 on the application moved by 24-year-old Javed Ahmed Bhat, claiming that he was wrongly implicated in the case.

The NIA arrested Bhat on September 5 for his alleged involvement in stone pelting and organising groups of youths who would throw stones at the security personnel involved in counter-insurgency operations.

In his bail application moved through advocate M S Khan, Bhat claimed that he neither indulged in any anti-national activity, nor was associated with any organisation or participated in stone pelting.

He (Bhat) is having clean antecedents and there is no material of any nature connecting him with the incidents of stone pelting in any manner whatsoever. He is a permanent resident of Kashmir, having roots in the society and a wife and a child to look after, the application said.

The NIA arrested Bhat, a Kulgam resident, and a freelance photo-journalist for their alleged involvement in stone pelting and mobilising support against security personnel through social media in the Valley.

The arrest were made after filing a case earlier on May 30 in which the leader of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Saeed, was named as an accused.

Bhat was also involved in circulating on social networking sites pictures and videos that sparked widespread rumours in the Valley, the NIA alleged.

The NIA had earlier arrested seven people in the case of alleged funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley to fuel unrest there.

The case was registered on issues of raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala channels, for funding such activities. PTI
CHAMPAIGN  A 20-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to 69 years in prison for fatally shooting a man who was walking past a party near the University of Illinois.

Robbie Patton of Champaign was convicted in September of first-degree murder in the 2016 killing of 22-year-old George Korchev and aggravated battery with a firearm for wounding three others. Police said the shooting happened during a fight at the party in Champaign.

Korchev and the three other victims  Moses Lopez, Erik Lasaine and Robert Shepard  were not involved in the fight but were walking through the parking lot outside of the party when they were shot, the Champaign News-Gazette reported.

Patton was sentenced Thursday.

Assistant State's Attorney Scott Larson had requested a 115-year sentence, noting a pattern of wrongdoing, including his guilty plea to an aggravated discharge of a firearm charge when he was a minor.

Defense attorney Tony Allegretti asked for 51 years, saying Patton hadn't planned the shooting and is young.
Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 15

Two gangsters were killed and another was injured in an encounter at Gulabgarh village when a police team cornered five of them after they had snatched a Toyota Fortuner from a person at Bhucho Khurd village here today.

The remaining two were nabbed from a government school that they had entered in a bid to dodge the police.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The accused, said to be aides of gangster Vicky Gounder, snatched the Fortuner, following which the Bucho police gave them a chase. When they saw them heading towards Gulabgarh, the police sounded a CIA team patrolling nearby.

The police claimed the team blocked the way of the gangsters near the school after which the accused opened fire, inviting retaliation.

This incident took place around 11.30 am. Three persons injured in the incident were taken to the Civil Hospital, where Manpreet Manna and Prabhdeep Singh died. Accomplice Amritpal is still admitted there.

Those arrested were identified as Harvinder Singh (alias Bhinda) and Gurvinder Singh (alias Ginda). No policeman was injured.

Bathinda zone IGP Mukhwinder Singh Chinna, who reached the spot, said the gangsters came in a Scorpio bearing a fake number plate (PB-02-CX-8395). A 9-mm pistol and .32-bore and .315-bore pistols were seized from them.

Their affiliation was, however, not immediately known, he added.

Gangster Amritpal Singh, facing trial in a murder case, had escaped from police custody from the Abohar court complex on September 27, 2017, with the help of gangsters Manna and Prabhdeep.

Other gangsters are also habitual criminals who face various cases in Punjab and Rajasthan. Harvinder is the first cousin of Shera Khuban, who was killed in police encounter in Bathinda in 2012.

According to initial investigation, the IGP said, the gangsters first parked a Brezza car bearing a fake number plate at car bazaar in Malout town. They then boarded a bus and reached Bathinda, where they got a Scorpio car that was snatched at gunpoint in Rajasthan. A Bathinda police team has taken the Brezza into its possession.
New Delhi, December 15

The acquittal of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the 2008 twin murder case of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The plea, filed by Hemrajs wife, is the first petition in the top court against the Allahabad High Court verdict of October 12 this year acquitting the couple.

The high court had freed them of the charges on the ground that they could not be held guilty on the basis of the evidence on record.

A CBI court at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh had sentenced the Talwars to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013, in connection with the case.

Before the high courts order came, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were serving their life sentence in Ghaziabads Dasna jail.

Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found dead inside her room in the Talwars Noida residence with her throat slit in May 2008. The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.

As the Uttar Pradesh Police drew flak over a shoddy probe into the case which was making national headlines, then chief minister Mayawati had recommended a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The case was handed over to the CBI. PTI
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 15

A Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today cleared an ambitious Bill replacing Indias apex medical education regulator, the Medical Council of India, with a new and transparent body called the National Medical Commission (NMC).

The National Medical Commission Bill 2017 seeks to revolutionise the sector in many ways and proposes for the first time an exit exam for MBBS graduates who would have to clear this test to get practicing licences. There is no cap proposed on how many times a graduate can take the exam.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Bill further proposes to end MCI-style annual inspections of colleges and will leave medical colleges free to add MBBS and PG seats after prescribing minimum standards expected of institutions.

The institutions will be required to show compliance on their websites as the Bill seeks to move away from the process and infrastructure-based monitoring of medical colleges to an outcome-based monitoring by way of the MBBS exit exam. This exit test will serve the purpose of actual inspection. If a college is not teaching well, its MBBS graduates will fail the exit test and must reappear by improving their standards. For the first time in history, the outcome of the medical graduates will be tested and automatically the quality of the college the graduates are attending, the concept note of the Bill says.

This means medical education sector will open up rapidly with major incentive for private investors to set up more institutions with many more MBBS and PG seats in near future and reduced cost of healthcare in far future.

It is reliably learnt that medical colleges wont need recurring renewals as was required under MCI regime. Number of inspections will reduce, drastically hitting at the root of medical corruption. The Bill also gives powers to NMC to regulate fees in 40 per cent of the seats in private medical colleges. This is to ensure equitable availability of medical education. The MCI under Indian Medical Council Act of 1956 never had fee-regulation powers.

The MBBS exit exam will serve two more purposesentrance exam for PG admissions and foreign medical graduate exam. Anyone wanting to practise in India, whether holding an Indian or foreign medical UG degree, would have to clear the exit exam, the Bill says.

The NMC Bill says the exit exam must be rolled out within three years of notification of the NMC Act. The Bill will be introduced in the ongoing session of Parliament and faced tremendous resistance from politicians since it was first conceived. A Group of Ministers earlier approved it.

How new panel will function
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 15

The winter session of Parliament was off to a stormy start today with the Congress-led Opposition forcing three adjournments of Rajya Sabha over Prime Minister Narendra Modis disparaging remarks against predecessor Manmohan Singh.

Moments after Modi urged the Opposition for constructive discussions, the Opposition flagged his recent insinuations that Singh conspired with Pakistan to impact the Gujarat election. We demand an apology from the PM, Leader of Opposition in RS Ghulam Nabi Azad said even as House Chairperson M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed adjournment notices to discuss the matter.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar clarified that the PM wont apologise and in fact asked the Congress to say sorry for secretly meeting Pakistan dignitaries on the eve of the Gujarat election.

The governments position set the tone for continuing uproar in Parliament, with the Opposition forcing Rajya Sabha to wrap up after three adjournments today.

Opposition MPs, led by SPs Naresh Agarwal, were equally exercised about Naidu illegally expelling JD-U rebels Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar from the Rajya Sabha.

The Lok Sabha, meanwhile, adjourned for the day after Modi introduced new members of his Council of Ministers and Speaker Sumitra Mahajan paid homage to departed members, besides introducing Usha Srivastava, the first woman LS Secretary General.

Earlier today, the PM said, The government will bring many issues with far-reaching consequences. We expect a constructive session and innovative suggestions to enhance national good.

He also spoke of the way global warming had affected seasons. We still cant feel the chill due to climate change and global warming but the winter session is starting. We hope it will prove productive for the country.

The LS Speaker earlier read out obituary references for sitting MPs Sultan Ahmed, Tasleemuddin and Chand Nath and ex-MPs Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, Vikram Mahajan, PC Burman, Amal Datta, Ram Singh, R Kishing and Dhanraj Singh.
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 15



Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he was hoping for a constructive winter session of Parliament starting on Friday and appealed to the opposition to engage with the Government on important issues concerning public good.

The Government will bring to Parliament many issues with far-reaching consequences. We expect a constructive session and innovative suggestions to enhance national good, Modi said in his customary speech at the start of the session.

The PM earlier spoke of the ill-effects of global warming and climate change which had pushed the winters behind. We still cant feel the winter due to climate change and global warming but the winter session is starting. We hope this session starting in 2017 and ending in 2018 will prove productive for the country, and discussions will be such as would strengthen democracy and aid the well-being of common people, said the PM with the Congress-led opposition gunning for him for alleged disparaging remarks against ex-PM Manmohan Singh whom Modi had accused of conspiring with Pakistan to impact Gujarat results.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Congress has demanded an apology from the PM but the Government is in no mood to relent and has said it will present facts.

The Lok Sabha, meanwhile, was adjourned for the day after the PM introduced his new cabinet and council of ministers and after obituary references by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in memory of sitting and ex-MPs who passed away in the inter-session period.

Obituaries were read for sitting members Sultan Ahmed, Tasleemuddin and Chand Nath and ex-members Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, Vikram Mahajan, PC Burman, Amal Datta, Ram Singh, R Kishing and Dhanraj Singh.

Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi and outgoing Congress chief Sonia Gandhi attended the proceedings.
Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 14

No automated teller machine (ATM) will be refilled with cash after 9 pm in cities, 6 pm in rural areas and 4 pm in Naxal-hit areas, as the government today finalised a set of model rules under Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2005 to regulate operation of cash vans by agencies hired by banks and other financial institutions.

The move is seen as measures to contain recent spike in the incidents of attack on cash vans, particularly after the governments decision on demonetisation.

As about 8,000 cash vans are currently doing the job of loading currency notes worth Rs 15,000 crore on a daily basis, several cases of attack and heist have been reported in recent times. Keeping this in mind, Home Minister Rajnath Singh today held a high-level review meeting in which model rules for operating cash vans and ATMs have been finalised, said a senior Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) official.

According to the rules finalised today, the official said, the states have been advised to enforce agencies and banks dealing with cash to carry money in specially designed vans, which should be fitted with CCTVs and GPS, and for each trip the vehicle should not carry more than Rs 5 crore. Two armed guards and a driver in each van must be trained to disengage with the situation and drive vehicle to safety in case of an attack, he said.

It is, however, learnt that after finalising the model rules the MHA has sent the proposal to the Ministry of Law and Justice for its formal vetting, as it required a few law points to be clarified before they are being sent to states for implementation.

The government has proposed that for replenishment in ATMs, cash transportation agencies must collect cash from the bank in the first half of the day and cash loading of the ATMs or cash movement should be done before 9 pm in urban centers and 6 pm in rural areas across the country, the official said, adding in case of Naxal-affected districts the exercise should be completed before 4 pm.

The model rules also stipulate mandatory training of operational staff members, who carry cash and replenish ATMs after their antecedent checks have been done.

State controlling authorities for Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2005, have been advised to enforce the above guidelines on all cash van agencies and review compliance from time to time.
Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, December 15

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was embarrassed in the state legislature on Friday following revelations that farm loan waivers were extended to people who had not even applied for it.



Shiv Sena MLA from Kolhapur Prakash Abitkar told Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in the ongoing Winter Session in Napgur that he was among those listed as beneficiaries despite not even applying for it. Abitkar produced a document, which he said was put out by the Kolhapur District Co-operative Bank, under which his loan of Rs 25,000 was waived off.



The MLA went on to say that state government employees, teachers and pensioners who were excluded from the state farm loan waiver scheme have benefited from it. "I did not apply for either the waiver of loans or the incentives available for those paying on time, Abitkar said while demanding a detailed inquiry into the matter. He alleged that there was a big scam in the programme.



The MLA further added that the authorities received 80,000 applications for the farm loan waiver on Thursday alone. Abitkar added the entire list was cleared by the authorities in just a few hours. Most of those who have applied are fake beneficiaries,

Abitkar added.



The MLA then mentioned the names of some ineligible beneficiaries like local teachers Deepak Mahadev More and Bhimrao Tukaram Shinde, Prakash Pandurang Bhat an officer of the state electricity board and retired principal Pandurang Dandev Parit.



On Thursday, the Shiv Sena had joined the opposition in taking on the state government over the implementation of the farm loan waiver scheme. A defensive Fadnavis apologised before the house for the mistakes made by his government in implementing the waiver.



The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Shetkari Sanmaj Yojana (CSMSSY), as the farm loan waiver programme has been called, has been riddled with controversies. Attempts to link the beneficiaries with their Aadhar numbers were given up after multiple applicants were found under one number. Since there have been technical errors which have slowed down

the waiver of farm loans.
Muzaffarnagar, December 15

Family members of an 18-year -old girl, who was hacked to death by a jilted lover, on Friday staged a protest in their village before cremating her, police said.

The spurned lover, Amarpal, had on Wednesday killed the Class 12 student using a sickle at Ghar Shayam village in the Kandhla police station area of Shamli district.

Three other people were with Amarpal when he attacked the girl. Tension prevailed in the village as the girl and the accused belonged to different communities, police said.

On Friday, when her body was handed over to the family after post mortem, they refused to cremate it till all the accused were arrested and stern action was taken against them, Circle Officer Rajesh Tiwari said.

Sub Divisional Magistrate Vinod Kumar rushed to the spot and pacified the family by promising strict action against the accused and monetary help.

Tiwari said Amarpal had been arrested and weapon used in the crime seized.  PTI.
Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 14

An astounding 81.52 per cent of the free farm electricity beneficiaries in Punjab are medium and large farmers, and only 18.48 per cent are small and marginal farmers (having landholding of less than 5 acres), a study has revealed.

Conducted by eminent economist RS Ghumman, professor at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), it has brought to light how the untargeted free power has failed to achieve its objective of alleviating the lot of distressed small and marginal farmers.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The study reveals that of the 13.51 lakh (electricity operated) tubewells, only 89,212 (6.6 per cent) are with marginal farmers (having less than 2.5 acres) and 1,60,581 (11.88 per cent) are with small farmers. About 95 per cent of suicide victims amongst debt-ridden farmers are from this category. The operational landholdings of these farmers are over 34.19 per cent.

This shows that mainly large farmers are enjoying the benefit of free power subsidy. This year, Rs 7,700 crore is expected to go towards it  to over 80 per cent beneficiaries who are in no need for this dole. Thus, the CMs initiative asking the big farmers to give up free power has a lot of substance, Ghumman told The Tribune.

The study goes on to establish that if free power is withdrawn from the medium and large farmers (having over 10 acres), who have 7.59 lakh tubewell connections, the state exchequer would save Rs 4,000 crore during 2017-18.

Initially, free power, when it was introduced in January 1997, was meant only for farmers having over 7 acres land. But the very next month this facility was extended to all agricultural power consumers. History has proved that political parties (both Congress and Akali Dal) have not been saved from being ousted from power even after they extended this subsidy, says the economist.

The study drives home the point that the money saved on withdrawing free power to medium and large farmers could not just be used to fund the loan waiver, but also help create enough corpus to improve rural education, health, sanitation and other infrastructure in villages, which as of now is in a shambles.
SPRINGFIELD  In a rare move, the Illinois Supreme Court has reversed a recent ruling and decided to consider Alan's Beaman's appeal in his lawsuit against the Town of Normal and three former Normal police officers.

Beaman is seeking damages against the town and the ex-officers for their alleged participation in an improper investigation that led to his wrongful conviction on murder charges. Beaman served more than 12 years in prison before the Illinois Supreme Court reversed his conviction for the death of Illlnois State University student Jennifer Lockmiller of Decatur in 1993.

Beaman, now 45 and living in Rockford, sued the town and former officer Dave Warner, Frank Zayas, and Tim Freesmeyer for wrongful prosecution. The 2016 dismissal of the lawsuit was upheld by the Fourth District Appellate Court earlier this year.

The Illinois Supreme Court denied Beaman's request to appeal his case on Nov. 22 but on Thursday, the high reversed that decision and granted a petition to consider arguments in the case.

"Were pleased that the Supreme Court has decided to hear this important case about a travesty of justice that robbed Alan Beaman of his liberty and youth. Alans heroic fight will now continue in the highest court of this state," David Shapiro, one of Beaman's lawyers, said Thursday.

In court filings, Beaman's legal team claims that Beaman, an Illinois Wesleyan University student when he was accused of killing his former girlfriend, was targeted early on in the police investigation and arrested "without any probative evidence."

The appellate court ruled the police officers are immune from malicious prosecution because their actions did not play "a significant role in commencing or continuing the prosecution." The town has claimed the decision to file charges was made solely by prosecutors.

In their recent petition to the Supreme Court, Beaman's lawyers said the appellate court's interprtation "frees malicious police officers to skew their investigations in order to frame innocent people like Alan Beaman."

Thomas DiCianni, lawyer for the Town of Normal and the former officers said, "We're puzzled by the Supreme Court decision, but we're confident the Supreme Court is not going to see this any differently than the five courts" that have previously rejected the lawsuit.

In its 2008 reversal of Beaman's 1994 conviction, the Supreme Court found the evidence against Beaman was less than convincing. Police time trials of how long it would have taken Beaman to drive from his home in Rockford to Lockmiller's Normal apartment, kill her and return home before his mother arrived were manipulated to discredit Beaman, according to his lawyers.

The lack of serious scrutiny given by police to other potential suspects, including a man who had dated Lockmiller, provided her with drugs and abused women, also is a factor that contributed to Beaman's conviction, according to his lawyers.
Chandigarh, December 15

President of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee and Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar today took the oath as the Lok Sabha member on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament. He took the oath in Punjabi.

After taking the oath, Jakhar questioned the decision of the Union Government to declare farmers tractor a commercial vehicle. He further demanded an exemption to tractor of the farmer from taxes to carry foodgrain of FCI and other governments foodgrain procurement agencies so that his income could be enhanced.

The PPCC chief said any such decision of the Centre against the interest of the farmers would be strongly opposed in the Lok Sabha.

On the objections of Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal regarding Bathinda AIIMS, Jakhar slammed her for misleading the people. He said the NOC in this regard was delayed due to the issue created by the previous SAD-BJP government in the state.

Congress MLAs Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Harpartap Singh Ajnala and Youth Congress leader Ranjam Kamra met Jakhar in Delhi.  TNS
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 15

Signing off the first Military Literature Festival (MLF) held here last week, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh yesterday called for making the event more holistic through the participation of authors and veterans from other nations, including Pakistan.

It would be interesting, for instance, to see the 1965 war veterans from India and Pakistan come face to face to share their experiences in a new environment, the CM said while addressing a gathering.

Tracing the journey of the festival from its conception to its eventual conduct, Capt Amarinder said the event proved to be an exciting platform to promote understanding and awareness among the people, especially youth, about Indias defence forces. He hoped the festival would imbibe a spirit of nationalism among youth and encourage them to join the defence forces.

Being part of the armed forces is a matter of pride for every Indian and this festival would go a long way in strengthening that feeling among youngsters, he said while extending his governments support to scale up the event.

Lt Gen TS Shergill (retd), senior adviser to the CM, said the Military Literature Festival Society had been set up as a permanent body and would continue to initiate various activities to promote exchange of ideas and experiences in this field.
Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, December 15

Two gangsters were killed and one was gravely wounded in a shootout near a government school in the district's Gulabgarh village on Friday, police said.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Police claimed the suspects  five in total  had taken a vehicle at gunpoint at Bucho Khurd. The suspects then raced to Tungwali, and police asked a Crime Investigation Agency team patrolling near Gulabgarh village for assistance.

The team then blocked the suspects way, resulting a shootout. The gangsters identified as Manpreet Manna, Prabhdeep have been killed while Amritpal, Gurvinder Singh alias Ginda and Harwinder Singh alisa Binda have been arrested. Amritpal is currently undergoing treatment for his wounds.



A 9-mm pistol, .32-bore pistol and a .315-bore pistol were seized from the suspects, Inspector General of Police Mukhwinder Singh Chinna said. Police later said that all five were part of gangster Vicky Gounder's gang.

Sources in police said that a suspect had admitted that they took a vehicle to Malout town, where they boarded a bus to Bathinda, then arranged for another vehicle to take them to Bucho Khurd.

A police team found the suspects vehicle parked near a grain market in Malout town, the sources said, adding that they were now investigating if the vehicles registration number was legitimate.
London

Geologists exploring volcanic rocks on Scotland's Isle of Skye have found ejecta from a previously unknown 60 million-year-old meteorite impact.

The discovery, the first meteorite impact described within the British Paleogene Igneous Province (BPIP), raises questions about the impact and its possible connection to Paleogene volcanic activity across the North Atlantic.

Simon Drake, an associate lecturer in geology at Birkbeck University of London, zeroed in on a meter-thick layer at the base of a 60.0 million-year-old lava flow.

"We thought it was an ignimbrite (a volcanic flow deposit)," said Drake.

However, when researchers analysed the rock using an electron microprobe, they discovered that it contained rare minerals straight from outer space: vanadium-rich and niobium-rich osbornite.

These mineral forms have never been reported on Earth.

They have, however, been collected by NASA's Stardust Comet Sample Return Mission as space dust in the wake of the Wild 2 comet, researchers said.

What is more, the osbornite is unmelted, suggesting that it was an original piece of the meteorite.

The team also identified reidite, an extremely high pressure form of zircon which is only ever associated in nature with impacts, along with native iron and other exotic mineralogy linked to impacts such as barringerite.

A second site, seven kilometres away, proved to be a two-meter-thick ejecta layer with the same strange mineralogy.

In the research published in the journal Geology, the researchers pin the impact to sometime between 60 million and 61.4 million years ago (Ma), constrained by a 60 Ma radiometric age for the overlying lava flow, and 61.4 Ma for a basalt clast embedded within the ejecta layer.

So far, Drake has collected samples from another site on Skye that also yield strange mineralogy, including another mineral strikingly similar to one found in comet dust.

He said that it was surprising that the ejecta layer had not been identified before, as the Isle of Skye is famously well-trampled by geologists. PTI
THE Indian Social Reformer says that the Government of Bombay has refused permission to the Presidency Social Reform Association to present a memorial to the Secretary of State on the subject of constitutional reforms affecting the social progress of the progress. It is not known what were the reasons for this refusal, but we are sure that was nothing in the drafting of the memorial itself to which Government could have been taken exception. The Secretary of State and the Viceroy have jointly received many deputations and heard a great many suggestions for reforms, some of which are even fantastic. The memorial of the Bombay Social Reform Association did not contain either fantastic or objectionable suggestions.
Millas, December 15

French authorities were investigating today how a train was able to smash into a school bus, killing six children and ripping their vehicle in half in an accident that has stunned the local community.

Four teenagers died on Thursday in the collision at a level crossing in the village of Millas near the southern city of Perpignan, with the toll rising today when two 11-year-old girls succumbed to injuries.

Fourteen other children were injured when the bus was torn in two and the train pulled off its rails, in the worst accident involving a school bus in France for three decades.

Investigators only finished identifying the dead teenagers overnight due to the severity of their injuries, with the mayor of the neighbouring village describing the scene as a vision of horror.

The accident site was sealed off as police examined whether a technical or human error was to blame.

It has not been confirmed whether the automatic barriers were open at the time of the crash, though national rail operator SNCF said the crossing was functioning normally, citing witnesses.

The families of those caught up in the accident are going through something absolutely terrible, said Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who visited Millas on Thursday.

Most of the students were from the local Christian Bourquin junior high school, where pupils were in shock as they headed in today morning. I went to sleep at two or three in the morning. I was watching the news, I wasnt able to sleep, said teenager Lorena Garcies, dressed in black.

Her cousin and another friend were on the bus, but escaped with broken bones and trauma. The woman driver of the bus was among the injured and has not yet been questioned, but Perpignan prosecutor Jean- Jacques Fagni said investigators had spoken to the train driver.  AFP
Moscow, December 15

A Russian court on Friday sentenced former economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev to eight years in a penal colony for taking a USD 2-million bribe from an ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Ulyukayev is the highest-ranking official arrested in Putins 17 years in power.

The Moscow court ruled he must also pay a fine of 130 million roubles (USD 2.2 million) for taking for taking the bribe from Igor Sechin, head of the state oil giant Rosneft, in a sting operation.

Judge Larisa Semyonova said the eight years would be served in a harsh regime colony in a sentence which was slightly below the 10 years demanded by prosecutors.

Ulyukayev said the sentence was unjust and vowed to appeal.

Before the ruling he made an effort to appear upbeat with reporters, saying he was expecting a fair hearing and gesturing only to a briefcase of documents when asked if he had brought any belongings with him.

Earlier he said a long sentence in a harsh-regime colony, most of which are in remote locations and offer prisoners little contact with families, would effectively be a death sentence.

Ulyukayev, who became economic development minister in 2013, was arrested at Rosnefts headquarters last year after being handed a bag containing USD 2 million by Sechin, who had asked security forces to set up a sting.

Sechin told investigators that Ulyukayev had demanded the bribe in return for backing a controversial deal in which Rosneft acquired a stake in Bashneft, another state-run oil group.

Ulyukayev had originally opposed the sale of the stake to Rosneft but later endorsed it after Putin said it would help fill state coffers.

Ulyukayev denied the charge, saying that he believed the bag contained expensive wines that Sechin had promised him to celebrate the deal.

The prosecution did not provide any proof that Ulyukayev opened the bag of marked notes and therefore knew he was receiving a bribe.

Sechin has failed to attend court hearings despite being summoned as a witness.

Ulyukayev has lost a striking amount of weight while under house arrest and has calmly read books by Chekhov and Kafka, as well as Platos Apology of Socrates, during the trial.

In his closing speech last week, he asked forgiveness from Russians for ignoring the injustices of the countrys political system while in power and focusing on building his network and advancing his career.

When everything is good, you shamefully turn away from peoples grief. Forgive me for that, people, Ulyukayev told the court, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.  AFP
Tokyo, December 15

Japan said on Friday that it had added 19 more entities to its list of organisations and individuals targeted by asset-freeze sanctions on North Korea.

The sanctions list now comprises 103 entities and 108 individuals in total, including seven Chinese entities, five Chinese individuals, one Singaporean entity and two Namibian entities, it said.

They include organisations involved in financial services, coal and minerals trading, transportation and sending North Korean labourers abroad, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Japan has already imposed strict sanctions on North Korea, including a blanket ban on trade and port calls.

Top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said: North Korea launched an ICBM ballistic missile that landed in our exclusive economic zone and continues to repeat provocative commentaries.

In light of this, as we host a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council on December 15, we have decided on the asset freeze in order to further increase pressure on the reclusive state. AFP
Washington, December 15

US regulators voted to rollback net neutrality rules that require Internet providers to treat all traffic equally. The Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-2 vote, adopted a proposal by Republican appointed chairman Indian-American Ajit Pai.

By doing so, the Republican-majority commission has reversed the 2015 net-neutrality ruled of the previous Obama Administration, which mandated upon all Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally, without blocking or showing content.

The decision restores the longstanding, bipartisan light-touch regulatory framework that has fostered rapid Internet growth, openness, and freedom for nearly 20 years, the FCC said in a statement after the voting.

Pai and others in favour of the decision argued the deregulation of the internet would spur innovation, and that the Federal Trade Commission would have the authority to sue providers who abuse competition on the web.

The critics say the move is against the interest of the consumers and favours big corporate companies. Technology firms and consumer advocacy groups in the US are planning to challenge telecom regulators decision on Obama-era net neutrality rules.

It will take weeks for the repeal to go into effect, but the political and legal fight started immediately. Numerous Democrats called for a Bill that would re-establish the rules, and several Democratic state attorneys general said they would file a suit to stop the change.

Several public interest groups, including Public Knowledge and the National Hispanic Media Coalition, also promised to file a suit. The Internet Association, the trade group that represents big tech firms such as Google and Facebook, said it also was considering legal action.

The @FCCs vote to gut #NetNeutrality rules is a body blow to innovation and free expression, Twitter Public Policy said in a tweet.  PTI

How key players are placed in net web

There are three major players caught in net neutralitys web: Tech companies, ISPs and consumers. The first two groups have the same goal: make money. The final group, consumers, has a rival goal: save money. And even though tech companies and ISPs both dream of the same conclusion, they have disparate views on net neutrality.

Now that net neutrality rules have been dismantled, the Internet monolith faces the possibility of paying higher fees to access high-speed lanes. This is one reason Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and other major companies have been so loudly opposed to the destruction of net neutrality

ISPs, on the other hand, want the ability to charge these higher fees. Not only does the FCCs ruling open the path for ISPs to institute multiple Internet speed lanes, but it also allows them to engage in previously banned practices like throttling, blocking and paid prioritisation

Repeal gives Dems fresh way to reach millennials
This has been a refreshing year to observe the manner and the volume with which our citizenry is engaging with public officials and entities.

This year's Decatur mayoral, city council and school board elections brought new faces among the candidates and each candidate's passionate constituency. Illinois' budget issues resulted in voters putting enough pressure on elected officials so the embarrassment of the state's era without a budget could come to some sort of conclusion. And as our citizenry showed again, certain rezoning conversations have the capability of raising involvement.

Those are just three groups of examples of voters becoming more engaged in the process. That tendency has grown nationally as well, for better or worse. At least in Central Illinois, when passions run high during a debate about public policy, there haven't been flurries of punches thrown, or even more dramatic and traumatic violence, as we've also seen this year around the country.

Perhaps more of us are realizing that in order for our voice to be heard, we have to speak. Your rights to discourse and to persuade someone to your point of view can only be exercised when we actually attempt to communicate with one another.

As much as some of our friends and acquaintances want to argue sometimes, things can be changed. Two years ago, the neighborhood members opposed to the Ash Ave./U.S. 51 rezoning convinced enough elected officials to reject the proposal.

But as if to show we must always be vigilant, those same neighborhood members have been forced to engage again this year. They're in the exact same situation as two years ago, and the additional twist this time around is two new city council members.

The city council is expected to take up the rezoning issue in a January meeting.

Those neighborhood members showed up at an informational meeting, and at the Decatur City Plan Commission. In force.

But the Decatur City Plan Commission makes important decisions about zoning all the time. How many of us should have been at the last meeting where the Ash Ave. rezoning was discussed? How many of us should have been at a meeting for a zoning decision in our neighborhood?

Some state politicians saw their careers conclude, or chose to conclude their careers, as the Illinois budget issue bumpily came to its long-awaited and long-overdue conclusion. Certainly no one got everything they wanted as the dust settled. But the settlement, and the opportunity to go ahead with discussions about actual issues, remains a relief.

Discussion leading up to the mayor, council and school board election this year was spirited. Public debates were well-attended, discussions focused on issues over personalities, and mandates appeared to be delivered with clarity. As we move forward, the voters will find out more clearly who and what they elected. But the electorate spoke.

Or at least a portion of it did. After the millions of words spoken among thousands of people leading up to that April vote, after being ceaselessly reminded of the importance of this election and how the results would shape Decatur's future, a mere 22.4 percent of potential voters bothered to cast ballots. That was consistent with the historical standard average of 20 to 25 percent in a municipal election.

Surely more than 22.4 percent of the Decatur electorate cares about what's happening in the city. Surely more than the dozens who might show up at a council or commission meeting have an active interest in the decisions being made.

We all pay attention in our own way. Perhaps some of the people who choose to watch the city council television broadcasts are more interested and more well-informed than many of the people in the room.

Maybe you can be thoroughly involved despite apparent activity. Experience has not shown us this result, but maybe it's possible.

Your voice can make a difference may be one of our country's most drone-like bromides. But just because it's said repeatedly doesn't make it any less important. The only way your concerns and ideas can reach anyone else is for them to be communicated.

The rising amount of interaction locally throughout this year has been encouraging and useful. The important next step is to move forward and involve more people.

Decatur is changing. Those with interest in its direction are duty-bound now more than ever to make sure their voices are heard.
Owasson BriAnne Walton may be an ordinary citizen, but her courageous spirit in the midst of hardship can serve as an inspiration to many.

The 37-year-old grew up in Owasso and went to Oklahoma State University where she earned both her bachelors degree in nutrition and her masters degree in healthcare administration.

Career-driven and eager to pursue her field, Walton soon joined the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa and worked as a cancer program coordinator over the next four years.

There, she brought her passion for helping others into the workplace, where she worked closely with the physicians, handled the quality committee for the hospital and managed several different tumor boards.

Our goal was to make sure the quality of care for our patients was at the highest standard, she said. I just like knowing that we were doing our best for people; it wasnt just going in there and doing a job.

It wasnt until 2016, however, when her life took a turn after going through a difficult divorce and being laid off from the hospital. Walton is now temporarily out of work and raising two 13-month-old twins by herself.

Its just kind of put me in a spot  thats been going on for a little bit of time now, she said. Hit a little bump in the road and just trying to get back up on my feet through that.

Waltons family has helped her stay afloat over the last year, making house and utility payments and taking care of her and her childrens basic needs, but they have no extra funds to buy Christmas gifts for her kids.

Not that the babies would remember a Christmas without gifts at their young age, but, for me as a loving and caring mother, I would remember, she said.

Thats where Owasso Community Resources (OCR) has stepped in to help her through its annual Giving Tree program, in which the organization adopts local families in need and provides them with donated food and toys.

OCR Executive Director Randy Cowling said Walton reached out to his team about receiving help in light of her situation, at which point they signed her up to be one of their adopted recipients.

When a mother or father goes through a divorce and they have limited options to regain their footing, during the holiday season, they face an emotional rollercoaster, he said. Owasso Community Resources helps them discover footholds that can help them get through their crisis.

Cowling said Walton is among the 2,383 single-parent families that have received assistance this year. Likewise, he said OCR has seen a significant spike  a 56-percent increase  in the number of new families seeking help for food, utility and rent assistance over last year.

But those numbers are no match for places like OCR, and on Friday, Walton stopped by the facility, located at 109 N. Birch St., to pick up presents for her children. She received some stuffed animals, a play set and a few others toys, as well as some wrapping paper.

I never really saw myself in a situation like this, she said, but theyre just so kind to reach out to me in my time of need to help provide a good Christmas for my kids  it was just very thoughtful of them.

Now with new Christmas presents to give her kids  and possibly a new outlook on life  Walton can rest assured knowing she has the grateful citizens of Owasso to support her. Whats more, she wants to bless others with that same compassion shes received.

I have young children, so Ive been able to donate their clothing and other baby items to Pregnancy Resource Center here in Owasso, she said. So Im not just receiving; I want to be able to give, and that to me has been a huge blessing.
OKLAHOMA CITY  State Auditor Gary Jones on Thursday used a portion of his time before a legislative panel probing the Oklahoma State Department of Health to ask for more money and power.

The House Special Investigation Committee is investigating alleged financial mismanagement at the Department of Health. Testimony before the panel began Monday with appearances from key aides to Gov. Mary Fallin: Preston Doerflinger, acting director of the Department of Health and current Finance Secretary; Denise Northrup, acting director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services; and Chris Benge, Fallins chief of staff and a past Oklahoma House speaker.

In the two days of testimony, various attempts were made to assign blame for the fact the mismanagement at the agency wasnt detected for years.

Jones said if his agency had been able to do performance audits, the financial problems at the Department of Health would have been uncovered sooner. He pointed to cuts in funding and said his office has felt like it had a choke chain on and was not allowed to do the job that needed to be done.

In 2007, his office had 153 employees and a $5.8 million appropriation, Jones said. It currently has 109 employees and a $2.9 million appropriation, so we had to do everything we can to be as efficient and effective.

Doerflinger on Monday said Jones was the one who alerted officials to a financial mismanagement scandal at the Department of Health that led to the resignation of top agency staff and resulted in a $30 million cash infusion from lawmakers during a special session.

The mismanagement had been going on undetected for years after the agency provided inaccurate information to oversight entities, including the Office of Management and Enterprise Services and Board of Health, testimony indicated.

Jones told the committee that while his office was doing yearly auditing work at the agency, auditors were notified that health department employees wanted to revise statements they made about not knowing anything about fraud.

They met with a member of Jones staff on Aug. 1 and brought many concerns to the offices attention, Jones said.

On Sept. 1, Jones texted Doerflinger that there might be problems at the health department. The two talked, and then met on Sept. 7 regarding financial concerns at the agency.

On Oct. 30, officials including Fallin met to discuss the problems.

The Oklahoma multi-county grand jury is looking at the scandal. Jones is also performing an audit.

Rep. Josh Cockroft, R-Wanette, chairs the panel.

We will have future discussions about where to go next, Cockroft said. I do not have a meeting planned at this time. However, keep your calendars open.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner was able to encapsulate the Alice in Wonderland ecosystem of Illinois politics in a few terse sentences.

After a state Farm Bureau conference, Rauner, as he does, came out swinging against his arch-nemesis, the longtime Democrat House Speaker Michael Madigan, of Chicago. According to the Chicago Tribune, a reporter asked him that "if the speaker has been around for more than three decades, hasnt the governor been in charge for the last three years?"

Rather than spinning that pointed question, the governor entered what could only be described as a Zen moment, with a dose of patented Rauner-style simmering frustration.

I wish I had. We would have our problems fixed. Illinois would be on a great future, Rauner said. Wed have 200,000 more jobs in this state, we would have lower property taxes in this state, we would have term limits in this state, if I was in charge. I am not in charge. Im trying to get to be in charge.

Whoa.

Lets review what just happened there:

 Rauner has been chief executive for three years.

 Rauner is running for re-election.

 Rauner said hes not in charge.

The wisdom of articulating such a comment in this moment in time  one could hear the ominous attack ads firing up now  is up for debate. Yet Rauner is not wrong in what he said. And that what makes his apparently off-the-cuff (or maybe brilliantly calculating?) remarks ring true.

Elected in 1971, Madigan has been speaker for all but a couple years since the early 1980s, corralling votes and endorsing or ceasing legislation as he sees fit.

Madigan is powerful. Too powerful. State government is a complex machine, and theres plenty of blame to go around between the executive and legislative branches for the dysfunction in Illinois, but Madigans sheer tenure means hes been in the middle of most it since the Nixon administration.

Now 75, Madigan is undeniably unpopular, especially downstate, and has no signs of slowing. The one clear goal lately is to simply block the Rauner agenda. Solutions about how to fix our state have been limited, to say the least. It is a poisonous relationship.

Rauner deserves credit for pushing on pension reform, trying to fix workers compensation, lower property taxes and seeking term limits, with very limited engagement from the legislature and the speaker. He also happened to oversee a government that didnt have a budget for years and amassed $16 billion in unpaid bills. The conservative National Review magazine called him "The Worst Republican Governor in America.

Rauner faces a primary challenger in House Rep. Jeanne Ives, of Wheaton, and massive spending on the Democratic side, where seven are in the race. The not in charge comments, emotional as they were, will almost certainly became fodder for both sides.

But lets not forget: No government should be controlled by one person. Thats why we have the separation of powers.

If Rauner loses in November, hell have to work with  or not work with  his sixth governor since ascending to power. Until something changes, the Madigan era continues.
BROKEN ARROW  The annual Wreaths Across America remembrance ceremony will return to Floral Haven Cemetery on Saturday.

This year, more than 1,300 wreaths will be laid on graves in the cemeterys Veterans Field of Honor as part of the event, a partnership with the area Civil Air Patrols Starbase Composite Squadron, organizers said.

Included will be specially designated wreaths for the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine and POW/MIA, to be placed by a representative of each group.

The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at the cemetery, 6500 S. 129th East Ave., after which volunteers will begin placing the wreaths.

Speakers will include Broken Arrow City Councilor Johnnie Parks, and representatives from the local chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution.

JROTC cadets from Union High School and Daniel Webster High School have volunteered to assist in the wreath-laying. The public is also invited to help.

Annually, more than 1,000 locations nationwide participate in Wreaths Across America. The projects mission, organizers say, is to honor the sacrifices of men and women who served, while teaching younger generations about the value and cost of freedom.

Wreaths will be placed in all 50 states this year, as well as at 24 national cemeteries in other countries.

Wreaths Across America began more than 20 years ago when the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, Maine, started donating and placing wreaths on the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery.
This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon!

Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page?
| By Mary T. Phelan

Maryland has made significant progress in combating human trafficking, but there is much more work to be done, according to experts and panelists who attended a recent conference hosted by the University of Maryland School of Social Work (UM SSW).

We need to make sure that you all know more about what is going on with human trafficking in our state so that you all can start to respond and spread the word about what needs to be done, UM SSW Research Assistant Professor, Nadine Finigan-Carr, PhD, told an audience of 350 at the Maryland Child Trafficking Conference: Moving from Awareness to Response, held Dec. 4 at Towson University. UM SSW hosted the statewide conference in collaboration with the Governors Office of Crime Control and Prevention and the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force (MHTTF).

The title of this conference was not chosen lightly, continued Finigan-Carr, who is also director, Prevention of Adolescent Risks Initiative, and assistant director, Ruth H. Young Center for Families and Children. Moving from awareness to response is really what we want. We need to do more than know human trafficking exists. We need to be able to respond, because the children that we serve, the youth that we serve, the citizens here in our state deserve us to be better, to do better.

Speaking at the Maryland Child Trafficking Conference, from left: Amelia Rubenstein, Nadine Finigan-Carr, both of the University of Maryland School of Social Work; Maryland Assistant U.S. Attorney Ayn Ducao, victim advocate and keynote speaker Sunny Slaughter; and Justice Schisler, chief of planning and implementation for the Governor's Office of Crime Control & Prevention.

Since UM SSWs founding 56 years ago, its faculty has been applying science and practice to understand and redress social problems, UM SSW Dean Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW, said in his welcoming remarks. None of our work is more important or innovative than our work on human trafficking, which is taking shape in three ways, he said. The schools initiatives have led to:

Partnering with the MHTTF and the Maryland Human Trafficking Initiative.

Receiving an award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Childrens Bureaus Administration on Children and Families to develop strategies to reduce incidences of the trafficking of youths in foster care.

Support of the University of Maryland Support Advocacy, Freedom and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors, which is a direct services, research, and advocacy center on human trafficking, created as result of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State initiative.

A 2016 study by the Center for Court Innovation estimated between 4,457 and 20,995 13- to 17-year-olds are involved in the sex trade in the United States. In Maryland, between July 2013 and June 2017, more than 350 cases of suspected child sex trafficking were reported by local departments of social services statewide.

In recent years, the general public has become more aware of human trafficking because of popular movies and television shows such as Taken, Law and Order, and American Crime, Finigan-Carr said. However, for those of us who work with children and youth who have been victimized by trafficking, we know that the issue is much more insidious than the glitz and glamour of Hollywood paints it to be, she said.

Child victims of trafficking are recruited, transported, transferred, harbored, or received for the purpose of exploitation, Finigan-Carr continued, noting they may be forced to work in sweatshops, on farms, in traveling sales crews, in restaurants, hotels, brothels, or strip clubs, or for escort or massage services.

In Maryland, after nearly a decade of hard work, there is more work still to be done, Finigan-Carr said. Child and youth victims are often misidentified or not identified at all. They encounter professionals lacking knowledge about human trafficking and who are unable to access specialized services. This conference is one step toward changing this.

Amelia Rubenstein, MSW, LCSW-C, clinical research specialist and coordinator for the Child Sex Trafficking Victims Initiative at UM SSW, presided over a panel that included law enforcement representatives.

These are the people who are doing the very difficult work on the ground every single day, so their insight to you is invaluable, she told conference attendees.

Other speakers included Maryland Assistant U.S. Attorney Ayn Ducao, who chairs the MHTTF and said when she started prosecuting human trafficking cases, she focused on the wrong questions.

I focused on the question of Why does the victim stay? Why didnt she leave? Why doesnt she seek help?'  Ducao said. In her first human trafficking case, the "she" was a 14-year-old sex trafficking victim.

I came to realize those are the wrong questions to be asking, she said. You dont ask a robbery victim, 'Why did she let herself get mugged? We shouldnt be asking the human trafficking victim. 'Why do you let yourself get trafficked?' as if that victimization was her choice."

Ducao recalled a domestic violence awareness poster she had once seen in college with the message, The question is not why does she stay? The question is why doesnt he go?

What I have come to realize is that victims of human trafficking dont let themselves be trafficked, she said. Its the trafficker that preys on the vulnerabilities of that victim, be it drug addiction or fear of being deported or a prior history of abuse and leverage those vulnerabilities into trafficking, she said.

The 14-year-old victim is now a human trafficking survivor enrolled in college.

I think we have done much in Maryland to be proud of in terms of the work that weve been doing to combat human trafficking, Ducao said. But of course there is so much more work to be done. Lets go to work.
Children at the Wadajir pre-school in Ali Addeh refugee camp. Eight-year-old Omoulgire Aden Abdi (middle) was born in the camp and has never been to Somalia.  UNHCR/Petterik Wiggers

ALI ADDEH, Djibouti  Hundreds of excited refugees welcomed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, today as he arrived at the dusty, remote Ali Addeh refugee camp in the desert of southern Djibouti.

The camp, established at the start of the Somalia conflict in 1992, is home to more than 15,000 Somali refugees, many of whom were born there.

Life in the camp is very tough and it is difficult to find enough water and food for my family, said Amina Ahmed Ali told Grandi, seated in her basic one-room hut lined with mattresses but no furniture. Seven children share the space with Amina and her husband: three of their own, plus four others they foster. Planting is impossible in the dry, saline soil, and she has to rely on monthly World Food Programme rations and some occasional additions bought with her small salary from her social work in the camp.

UN refugee chief praises Djibouti's progressive refugee policies (Arnold Temple, camera-editor / Dana Hughes, producer)

The High Commissioner praised Djiboutis generosity in taking in over 27,000 refugees from four neighbouring countries. He applauded the governments announcement yesterday that all refugee camps in the country will now be considered villages.

This is extremely important as it means that refugees will have freedom of movement and can access public services and whenever possible, jobs, said Grandi. Djibouti has always been a very open country, but the fact that they announced it and this follows some very progressive legislation that the country has been issuing in the last few months, is extraordinary.

Education is ... also an instrument of dignity and identity."

Yesterday, the High Commissioner attended the Regional Education Conference hosted by the eight Eastern Horn African countries in a body called the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). At the conference, the countries, including Djibouti, agreed to integrate refugees into national education systems and let them earn certificates that are recognized throughout the region.

This is so important because it recognizes that education is not just a right, said Grandi, but also an instrument of dignity and identity and also a very important investment to the future.

The Government of Djibouti has already introduced a new education system that will allow refugees to study in English and adapt quickly to the Djiboutian curriculum. In Ali Addeh, students in grade one are already learning the new syllabus.

Angosom Tesfu, who teaches maths and English to grade one students at Wadajir pre-primary school, echoed the High Commissioners sentiments. He noted that the new curriculum is a progressive strategy that will create opportunities for refugees in Djibouti.

Education is the key for everything."

Education is the key for everything especially in the era we live in today, he said. As long as these children are living here, it is important that they learn the Djiboutian curriculum as one day they can get valid certificates.

Grandi also commended Djibouti for honouring pledges he made at a Leaders Summit at the UN last year and for taking the part in the so-called Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework by passing progressive laws.

Djibouti currently hosts over 27,000 refugees, the majority of whom are Somali.

Djibouti is one of the smallest countries in Africa, said High Commissioner Grandi. Its a country that has very limited resources, but is an example of generosity of visionary policies, and good management of refugee influxes. It is an example to the world."
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a complex and challenging humanitarian situation, with multiple conflicts affecting several parts of its vast territory.

Hopes soared after a long and costly civil war was brought to an end in 2003, but the nation has instead seen sporadic waves of fighting  especially in the Eastern parts of the country. Since 2016, a new wave of violence also affected the DRCs Kasai region, a vast area in the south and center of the country.

Now, thousands of civilians are struggling for survival.

Although many people have returned to areas in the Kasai region and elsewhere, they have often found their property, businesses and schools in ruins, and family members killed. Human rights violations are still widespread, including physical mutilation, killings, sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention in inhumane conditions.

Armed men killed my wife and three of our children. I dont know why. Kadima Kabenge, mine worker who fled attacks in Kasai Province

While these conflicts have forced many Congolese to flee their homes, the country also hosts over half a million refugees from neighbouring countries. It continues to see new arrivals from Burundi, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The risk of further displacement is high, as conflicts affect many areas. Protection needs, particularly for the most vulnerable, are enormous, and the challenges of getting aid to those in need are increasing. Strengthening public health, sanitation and water supplies to prevent diseases remains vital.

What is UNHCR doing to help?

UNHCR is assisting people displaced inside the DRC through activities aimed at strengthening the protection of vulnerable people, including women and children.

It also provide shelter materials and cash grants to the most vulnerable among the displaced and returnees. We strengthen community-based organisations that work for peaceful coexistence, while working towards solutions to displacement.

UNHCR is working with the International Organization for Migration to lead the coordination and management of sites hosting internally displaced people (IDPs) in North Kivu and Tanganyika provinces.

We also provide protection and assistance to Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries, in collaboration with authorities and partners, including those forced to flee during the most recent surge of violence.

Refugees, mainly women and children, from countries like the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Burundi, who have sought refuge in the DRC, also receive life-saving support and international protection through UNHCR and its partners, notably the National Refugee Commission, UNHCRs Government partner. Most of these refugees settle in local Congolese communities and many can become self-reliant with some support. UNHCR is actively seeking durable solutions for these refugees, by developing strategic partnerships with other UN agencies, as well as by looking to reduce environmental impacts, notably deforestation, in refugee-hosting areas.

Despite the enormous needs, UNHCR has only received 67% of the US$156 million required in 2019 to provide life-saving assistance and protection to refugees, IDPs and other vulnerable people in the DRC. More support is urgently needed. Please help now.

Reports and Links
UNHCR staff consult with community leaders and local authorities in the Dharawan settlement for internally displaced people in the outskirts of Sana'a, Yemen.  UNHCR/Shabia Mantoo

UNHCR is bracing for further displacement and a spike in humanitarian needs as hostilities intensify in frontline areas on Yemens west coast. This follows the recent fighting in the capital, Sanaa, and neighbouring governorates.

Over the past few days, UNHCR has received reports of new displacement from Hudaydah and Taizz governorates. UNHCR and partners are still assessing the situation, but initial reports are that more than 1,400 people have fled from Taizz and Hudaydah to the Ash Shamateen district in Southern Taizz, and Al Fayoosh district in Lahj. With numbers expected to rise further, UNHCR is working with partners to be in position to support and help those fleeing.

To date we have deployed emergency relief items for 2,000 families in Hudaydah, and a further 2,000 aid kits are on their way along with 2,000 emergency shelter kits. As the port of Hudaydah remains closed an additional 43 containers with emergency, shelter and household aid, including plastic tarpaulins and blankets for more than 20,000 families had to be diverted to Aden.

Of particular concern to UNHCR is the fate of 1,460 Eritrean refugees as well as Yemeni civilians in the Al Khawkah area, 117 kilometres south of Al Hudaydah City. The area has been declared a military zone. We are arranging for emergency cash assistance to be sent to this vulnerable community, which is facing difficulties in accessing food due to the hostilities.

The situation in Sanaa itself has now returned to relative calm following days of ground fighting, aerial bombardment and shelling in urban areas. As of this week, UNHCR premises in Sana'a reopened, and we are working with partners to resume humanitarian operations that had been halted since the beginning of the month. We are also restoring services and resuming assistance for the most vulnerable.

The blockade of Yemen, which has yet to be fully eased, has also resulted in scarcities and subsequent price increases for fuel, water and essential commodities, including food and vital medicines. This has hit many displaced and local Yemenis as well as refugees.

Restrictions on both commercial and humanitarian goods reaching Yemen are still in place. New procedures for clearances including at Aden Port are also resulting in delays for the offloading of cargo, including humanitarian cargo. Vessels are facing delays and, as result of these new clearance processes, there is currently no more space at the port. UNHCR has asked the authorities to expedite clearances for humanitarian cargo, especially perishable goods such as medicines.

Assistance and services for conflict-affected and displaced communities across Yemen have also been interrupted. UNHCRs financial assistance programme, which is intended to benefit more than 17,000 vulnerable displaced families with winter assistance grants, has been postponed for the time being due to delays in funds being released from financial service providers and families themselves struggling to access financial assistance.

For Somali refugees hoping to escape Yemen and return to Somalia, through an Assisted Spontaneous Return programme supported by UNHCR and IOM, three boat departures from the Port of Aden to Berbera in Somalia were postponed in the last fortnight as clearances from relevant authorities were pending. A fourth vessel, chartered as part of the programme, was finally able to set sail with 108 Somali refugees on board.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
A returning refugee steps off an aircraft in Darfur, Sudan, after a flight from the Central African Republic.  UNHCR

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, this week started the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees from a camp in Bambari, in the Central African Republic, or CAR.

More than 230 refugees have arrived at Sudans Nyala airport since the returns began on Tuesday. Sixty-six UNHCR chartered flights are scheduled to bring some 1,500 refugees home before the end of the year.

Nearly 3,500 refugees had fled from South Darfur to CAR in 2007 during the conflict between the Sudanese forces and armed groups. Refugees were being hosted in Pladama Ouaka camp, near Bambari.

In late November, refugees expressed their intention to return. The decision comes after improvement in the security situation and the disarmament of armed groups in the areas of origin. Returning refugees are currently being hosted in a transit centre in the capital of South Darfur State and will subsequently be returning to their home villages in Dafag, South Darfur  located at some 350 kilometres from Nyala.

UNHCR is working with the governments of Sudan and CAR in assisting the returnees with air and land transportation and return packages. Returning refugees will also have access to land. We are working with government authorities and other partners to enhance service provision in the return area. Sudan has pledged to implement international standards governing refugee returns - including the benefit of amnesties, as well as UNHCRs role in monitoring the returns.

The war in the Darfur region of Sudan broke out in February 2003, when rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan. The ensuing conflict killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people within Sudan and over its borders.

Sudans Darfur region has witnessed a growing trend of refugees and IDPs returning spontaneously in the last few years. This is in part due to gradual security improvements, as a result of signed peace agreements between the governments of some armed groups, as well as the efforts of the peacekeeping mission led by the United Nations-African Union hybrid force. Many areas have also become more conducive for displaced people to return due to a growing number of early recovery and development initiatives.

Around two million people are currently displaced inside the country, while more than 650,000 Sudanese refugees live in the neighbouring countries - including Chad and South Sudan.

For more information on this topic, please contact:
Halima Ibrahim and her family are among the first 45 Sudanese refugees who return to Sudan after ten years of exile in Central African Republic.  UNHCR/Ahmed Dotum

SOUTH DARFUR, Sudan  Mother of six Hamila fled insecurity in Darfur a decade ago, seeking safety in the neighbouring Central African Republic, or CAR.

But this week, she was among more than 230 former refugees returning home on a UNHCR flights from a camp near Bambari.

"I am so happy for the chance to return to Sudan, especially for my children, said Hamila, who had four more children while in exile. Even if we face challenges at least we will be in our home country, among our relatives."

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, this week started the voluntary repatriation of Sudanese refugees from a camp in Bambari, in the Central African Republic, or CAR.

The repatriation flights began on December 12. Before the end of the year, 66 UN Refugee Agency chartered flights are scheduled to bring some 1,500 refugees home.

Nearly 3,500 refugees had fled from South Darfur to CAR in 2007 during the conflict between the Sudanese forces and armed groups. Refugees were being hosted in Pladama Ouaka camp, close Bambari, a town of 40,000 people on the Ouaka River.

In late November, refugees expressed their intention to return. The decision followed an improvement in the security situation and the disarmament of armed groups in Darfur.

"I am so happy for the chance to return. Even if we face challenges at least we will be in our home country, among our relatives."

Returning refugees are currently being hosted in a transit centre in the capital of South Darfur State and will subsequently be returning to their home villages in Dafag, South Darfur  located at some 350 kilometres from Nyala.

UNHCR is working with the governments of Sudan and CAR in assisting the returnees with air and land transportation and return packages. Returning refugees will also have access to land.

We are working with government authorities and other partners to enhance service provision in the return area, UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told reporters at a news briefing in Geneva today.

Sudan has pledged to implement international standards governing refugee returns - including the benefit of amnesties, as well as UNHCRs role in monitoring the returns, he added.

The war in the Darfur region of Sudan broke out in February 2003, when rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan. The ensuing conflict killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people within Sudan and over its borders.

A growing number of refugees and internally displaced people have been returning spontaneously to South Darfur in the last few years, Baloch told reporters at the Palais des Nations.

This is in part due to gradual security improvements, as a result of signed peace agreements between the governments of some armed groups, as well as the efforts of the peacekeeping mission led by the United Nations-African Union hybrid force.

Around two million people are currently displaced inside the country, while more than 650,000 Sudanese refugees live in the neighbouring countries - including Chad and South Sudan.

Many areas in South Darfur have also become more welcoming for those returning, due to a growing number of early recovery and development initiatives.
While studying in London, Irina Ghaplanyan remembers the following memorable line uttered by one of her lecturers - Remember that diplomacy happens between protocol and alcohol.

Ghaplanyan has taken the advice to heart, combining her skills as a student of diplomacy with her passion for wine and promoting Armenia as a destination for wine enthusiasts.

She has been engaged in winemaking for several years in Armenia, arguing its equally important to know the basics of diplomacy and the science of setting a table.

While studying political science in London in 2005, Irina worked in a catering company, getting a chance to meet knowledgeable chefs and try exceptional wines. It was then that she got interested in winemaking and enrolled at the Washington Wine Academy, receiving an international professional certificate.

Returning to Armenia in 2011, she explored different aspects of post-Soviet Armenian politics for her thesis. She then met Vahe Keushguerian, who besides being the manager of the Tierras de Armenia company, producing Karas wines, had founded Semina Consulting CJSC, engaged in viticulture and winemaking.

"I continued my research in Armenia. My husband moved to Armenia, too. Vahe offered me a job in Semina. I worked for two years and gained great experience. Vahe always asked if I wanted to try my hand in winemaking. In Semina, there is a factory with all the necessary equipment, where you can work as a beginner winemaker or somebody who has a small project in winemaking. You get the grapes on your own, and the whole process of winemaking is ensured by Semina. They provide services from harvesting to bottling and even exporting. The team of this organization is the best in Armenia with its skills, expertise and professionalism, says Irina Ghaplanyan.

That's how Zabel wine was born. The brand is named after the prominent novelist, translator and literature professor Zabel Yesayan. Irina adds that there was also Queen Zabel of Cilicia in Armenian history.

"Zabel Yesayan represents an outstanding image of a woman in Armenian history. She is one of the strongest characters in modern history. I always talk about her at my lectures. It might sound rude, but the market is a bigger platform than university classrooms, " Irina says. (Irina also teaches gender subjects at the American University of Armenia)

Irina now studies the history of Zabel Yesayan's last years and the circumstances of her death during the Stalinist persecutions. In the Armenian National Archive, Irina has examined declassified documents and hopes to publish the findings of her research in the next few months.

Zabel wine has been produced since 2015 (the first harvest was in 2014). The grape is from Armenias Vayots Dzor Province and Artsakh.

Irina says the wines philosophy is to understand and present Armenian terroir - the soil, climatic conditions, location, and human factor. Irina says Armenian grapes grow on the plateau, which gives the drink more expressive aroma and taste.

This year, they started making new sorts of wine from white grape Chilar and Garandmak species, as well as pinot noir species of red grapes. The latter is a classic French species. Only a few barrels are harvested and aged for four years.

Irina says traditional grape species are sensitive, possibly resulting in lessened crop sizes. In the Soviet era, however, quantity was stressed and a program of introducing hybrid species, such as Haghtanak and Kangun, was implemented.

Irina says that today you can find old historic grape species in Armenia. Zabel aims at restoring these species, by finding a few tons, preparing and presenting to the consumer.

According to Irina, there are noticeable developments in Armenia's winemaking sector over the past few years, but the Armenian consumer still has a way to go. For example, according to the data in 2014, 1.2 liters of wine are consumed per person per year in Armenia, 8 liters in Georgia, 40 liters - in France or Italy.

"We have to grow in producing and consuming. I think we need to develop our internal market, to increase both quality and consumption, because if we look at our history, winemaking has been a part of the culture for thousands of years, says Zabel's founder.

Zabel's business card is ideology. By using micro-vinification, to restore historic forgotten grape varieties, to introduce consumers to interesting combinations and make Armenian consumers choose wine as the best beverage to combine with food, and restore our centuries-old traditions," says Ghaplanyan.
For information only - not an official document

UNIS/OS/491

14 December 2017

UNOOSA and UNDP sign Memorandum of Understanding

VIENNA/NEW YORK, 14 December (United Nations Information Service) - The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have committed to work more closely together in the use of space technology for development around the world. On 6 December UNOOSA Director Simonetta Di Pippo and UNDP Director of the Bureau for Management Services' Office of Operations, Legal and Technology Services Bruce McCarron signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for this increased cooperation.

Under the MOU, UNOOSA and UNDP have agreed to focus on cooperation in the use of geo-spatial and space-based technologies for UNDP's activities, as well as coordination in activating emergency response mechanisms for the benefit of United Nations Member States. UNOOSA will work to provide UNDP with access to satellite imagery and analysis, and leverage UNDP's global user network to deliver space-based solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals. UNOOSA and UNDP have also undertaken to jointly organize annual outreach events and activities, such as conferences, seminars and workshops.

"The Office for Outer Space Affairs works closely with other United Nations entities to ensure that the benefits of space reach everyone, everywhere. We have had great success supporting UNDP in a pilot project to use satellite imagery to support reconstruction in Mali, and I am pleased that our partnership is being strengthened and formalized through this MOU. This is also a great example of Sustainable Development Goal 17 "Partnerships for the Goals", and of improving efficiencies and cooperation within the United Nations system," said Ms. Di Pippo.

"Within a year, more than 25 UNDP Country Offices used satellite technologies, sometimes in collaboration with other agencies. We look forward to further collaborate with UNOOSA and scale them up to all our projects in the field," said Susan McDade, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UNDP's Bureau for Management Services.

The MOU was signed during the UNOOSA-UNDP Discovery Day on Geospatial Solutions for Sustainable Development. The Discovery Day, held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 6 December, brought together stakeholders from space agencies, private sector, educational institutes and United Nations entities to consider geospatial solutions that can aid the United Nations to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals.

The MOU between UNOOSA and UNDP entered into effect on 6 December 2017 and will remain in force until 31 December 2022.

* *** *

For more information, please contact:

Daria Brankin

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)

Telephone: (+43 699) 1459 8718

Email: daria.brankin[at]un.org

Maria Drago

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Telephone: (+1-212) 906 6383

Email: maria.drago[at]undp.org

Reconstruction of a public health center in Douentza, Mali
UW Cybersecurity Center Ramps Up

UW Professor of Practice Mike Borowczak instructs students in a computer science class in 2017. (UW Photo)

Efforts to improve cybersecurity throughout Wyoming have picked up steam over the past few months, thanks to the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Wyoming.

UWs Cybersecurity Education and Research (CEDAR) center was brought online in summer 2017. It provides centralized resources and communication to university, government, community and industry partners in all aspects relating to cybersecurity. CEDAR's primary objective is the development and support of cybersecurity education, research and outreach at UW, with specific emphasis on undergraduate education and research.

Mike Borowczak was hired in January 2017 as the director of CEDAR and as a professor of practice in computer science. He has been busy since coming aboard, speaking at several conferences, publishing papers and increasing department outreach.

A popular initiative from the CEDAR center has been a series of Lunch and Learn presentations with professionals from the field. One included UW alumna Caitlin Long, CEO of Symbiont, who discussed blockchain and the birth of bitcoin.

CEDARs goal is to provide high-quality education, materials and support to advance Wyomings cybersecurity capabilities; thus, Borowczak has geared his curriculum to serving those goals. Topics covered in the department include cutting-edge trends in cybersecurity in the computing domain, data mining and the upcoming Rock the Blockchain Vote, a project-based systems course to develop a voting mechanism using blockchain. The class will send 15 students to the annual Developers Week Conference in San Francisco in February 2018.

A computer science student group, the Defense Against the Dark Arts, sent eight student to Defcon 2017, one of the worlds largest hacker conventions. CEDAR also has formed partnerships with Made Safe in Wyoming and the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition.

CEDARs 18-month objectives include graduating at least five computer science majors with a concentration in cybersecurity; establishing a cutting-edge virtualized cybersecurity lab; and achieving a National Security Agency/Department of Homeland Security Center of Academic Excellence designation.

I am quite pleased with the progress were making, Borowczak says. Currently, we have three graduate students, and another who will start in January, who are working in the lab. We used CEDAR capabilities in the Introduction to Computer Science class for research presentations, so freshmen and sophomore students became familiar with something that gets used in cybersecurity every day.

Thats the reach of CEDAR. It goes beyond abstract idea of just a research center, and the whole idea is to incorporate it into the curriculum.

Borowczak has applied for national grants in the hope of hosting free cybersecurity summer camps for middle and high school teachers across the state, and increase engagement between undergraduate students and current UW faculty to promote active learning in classrooms.

The overall goal of what were doing is to increase the pipeline of students and teachers who are familiar with computer science, he says. Exposure to the field for elementary and junior high students and teachers can help influence choices down the road.

Im happy with where were at. Weve gotten support from everywhere at the university, in the college and in the department, because this center wouldnt exist without it.

For more information, go to www.uwyo.edu/cedar/.
On Wednesday, Madison announced the creation of The Progress Center for Black Women, an organization that will put her current projects under one roof and allow her to expand her efforts to empower African-American women and families.


Last night (Dec. 13, 2017), Pittsburgh Penguins standouts Kris Letang, Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves were spotted attending the hit show Absinthe at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas (Pictured: Kris Letang, Ian Cole and Ryan Reaves at Absinthe  Photo credit: Joseph Sanders/Spiegelworld).

Experiencing the city before their face-off against the Vegas Golden Knights tonight, the back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions were seen taking in Absinthes outlandish acts and hilarious antics during the 8 p.m. performance.

After the show, they went backstage for a photo with The Gazillionaire and to express their enjoyment of the performance.
Check-in desks of airline Niki are seen at the Vienna International Airport (VIC) in Schwechat, Austria. (GEORG HOCHMUTH/APA/AFP)

Niki, whose roughly 20 planes served resorts in southern Europe and north Africa, ceased operations late Wednesday after applying to open insolvency proceedings.

This followed Germany's Lufthansa dropping its interest in buying Niki together with large parts of Air Berlin because of EU competition concerns.

Air Berlin triggered bankruptcy proceedings in August after losing a cash lifeline from its biggest shareholder, Etihad Airways, and was grounded in October.

The European Commission said on Wednesday that Lufthansa's move was "regrettable".

But it said that its offer to buy of 81 aircraft from Air Berlin's 140-plane fleet plus Niki for 210 million (US$250 million) posed "clear risks to Austrian, German and Swiss consumers and to effective competition".

Lufthansa had already offered to give up many of the precious takeoff and landing slots it originally wanted under the deal, but Brussels saw this as "unsatisfactory", the airline said.

Niki's founder Niki Lauda, the Austrian former Formula One champion, said on Thursday he was potentially interested in acquiring again the airline he sold to Air Berlin in 2011.

However the 68-year-old told Oe1 public radio, from his car, that the situation was "complicated".

Earlier this year he made an offer for Niki together with Condor, part of Britain's Thomas Cook, but he said on Thursday that he would now operate alone.

Wolfgang Katzian from trade union GPA told public radio that there were "three to four" other potential interested buyers for Niki, which employs some 1,000 people including 210 in Germany.

Thomas Cook indicated Thursday its possible interest in "some of the Niki assets". This could include "people needed to operate those assets," a spokesman said.

Irish low-cost giant Ryanair is meanwhile eyeing some of Niki's slots, Bloomberg News reported.

10 MILLION A WEEK

Lufthansa has been keeping Niki in the air with around 10 million euros per week.

Austria's Transport Minister Joerg Leichtfried said on Thursday that up to 10,000 passengers could be stranded over the next two weeks but a spokesman later put the number at just over 5,000.

An insolvency administrator appointed by a Berlin court to handle the case said on Thursday that 40,000 people had been due to fly home with Niki over the next two weeks.

Until its grounding, the airline flew mostly out of Austria but also from Germany and Switzerland, with the Balearic Island of Mallorca a major destination.

Efforts were underway Thursday to find space on existing flights operated by other airlines, and additional charter flights would then be organised if needed, the Austrian ministry spokesman told the Austria Press Agency.

Leichtfried, the transport minister, said on Thursday that the government was considering providing "interim financing" for Niki.

Niki is just the latest European carrier to fall out of a tough market in recent years.

As well as Air Berlin, in October Monarch Airlines became Britain's biggest airline to fail, stranding some 110,000 holidaymakers abroad.
The Ministry of Construction is planning to significantly simplify construction regulations. - VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

Tong Thi Hanh, director of the ministrys Legal Department, said at a conference held on Wednesday that the ministry was compiling a law which would amend several points of four existing laws, including the Law on Construction 2014, the Law on Housing 2014, the Law on Real Estate Business 2014 and the Law on Urban Planning 2009.

Hanh said that it was critical to amend the shortcomings in these laws. For example, the procedures for granting construction permits remained complicated and time-consuming, causing problems for firms.

The recent issuance of new laws such as the Law on Planning also required amendments to the legal framework in the construction and real estate business sector to ensure consistency in the legal system, Hanh said.

In addition, a decree would be compiled to remove 41.3 per cent of the existing construction business prerequisites while simplifying another 43.7 per cent.

Hanh said that all the changes would aim to create favourable conditions for construction and real estate businesses.

The ministry planned to propose the draft law to the Government in March 2018 and bring it to the National Assembly for discussion in May and October.

The ministry expected that the proposed law would be passed and come into effect from the beginning of 2019.

According to Nguyen Quoc Hiep, chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Construction Contractors, the draft amendments must be given careful consideration because regulations in the construction sector were causing problems for firms.

Hiep said that it took his company three months to get the construction permit for a project of 42 townhouses due to the lack of clarity over whether district or provincial authorities had jurisdiction to grant the permit.

In addition, small changes in construction plans should not require a new permit, Hiep said.

Simplifying administrative procedures in construction and real estate sector is really urgent, Hiep said.
Baton up: French conductor Nathalie Marin will lead the Viet Nam Symphony Orchestra at a concert at Ha Noi Opera House. - Photo organisation board

Under the baton of conductor Marin, musicians from the Viet Nam National Symphony and Orchestra (VNSO) will play Concerto for Violin by Jean Sibelius; The Girl from Arless Suite No1 and No2 by Georges Bizet and A Day in Ciboure by Eric Dartel.

The piece by French composer Dartel will be premiering at the concert. The composer finished the piece a few months ago to commemorate composer Maurice Ravel, who was born in the city of Ciboure in southwestern France.

"It is very important to play music by a living composer," said conductor Marin. "Dartel sent me his new piece some time ago. I immediately liked it and I proposed it for this concert."

This will be Marins first time conducting an orchestra in Vietnam, and her first visit to the country as well.

"I appreciate it very much, she said. We are working very well with the musicians of VNSO."

Marin is one of only a few female conductors in the world. She has dreamed of becoming a conductor since she was a child. She obtained her conducting Masters degree at the Danish Royal Academy in Copenhagen where she was assistant conductor to Michel Tabachnik.

She has been artistic director for orchestras and music festivals such as the National Symphonic Orchestra of Ecuador and the French Ensemble Orchestra de IIsere. As guest conductor she has performed with many orchestras in the world, such as the Brussels Philharmonic; Rudolstadt Symphony Orchestra and Voralberg Symphony Orchestra at theatres La Fenice in Venice and Bregenz Festspielhaus, Austria.

Under Marins baton, violinist Chuong will perform Concerto for Violin, which has been recorded over 50 times since the beginning of the 21st century. Chuong is Doctor of Musical Arts and the concertmaster of the San Angelo Symphony Orchestra.

Praised for his "exquitise playing" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Yehudi Wyner, Chuong has been a soloist and orchestra member in North and South America, Europe and Asia with a wide ranging repertoire that spans from early baroque to modern music.

He is currently artistic director of Viet Nam Connection Music Festival and the Dallas-based International Chamber Players.

VNSOs subscription concert will begin at 8pm.
Workers process high-tech electronics accessories at Nidec Sankyo Vietnam Co Ltds plant in HCM City. - VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Vu

The four issues include foreign workers compulsory social insurance participation, waste treatment regulations in the draft Law on Environmental Protection, regulations on the import of used machinery and equipment, and the import of automobiles regulated by the Governments Decree 116/2017/ND-CP.

Chairman of the Japan Business Association in Viet Nam (JBAV) Hiroshi Karashima suggested the Vietnamese Government revise regulations on compulsory social insurance for foreign employees.

The purpose of the insurance scheme is to prevent employees from avoiding taking part in the social insurance, but this regulation forces many foreign workers to pay insurance premiums twice, in both their home country and in Viet Nam, Hiroshi said.

He called on the Government to allow exemptions for people that have paid compulsory insurance in Japan.

The mandatory insurance participation reduces the attractiveness of the country as an investment destination, the chairman highlighted.

In response to this recommendation, a representative of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) said that the payment of social insurance premiums is meant to protect the legitimate rights and interests of workers in Viet Nam.

Many countries have a similar issue and the common solution is to negotiate bilaterally, the representative said.

Importing used machinery

Many Japanese firms are concerned of the provision of Circular 23/2015/TT-BKHCN relating to the import of secondhand machinery.

Satoru Wachi, head of the group dealing with the issue, said that when Japanese enterprises relocate their production facilities overseas, they will also move their machines and equipment to the host country in order to shorten the time it takes to begin production.

According to Satoru, Vietnamese supporting industries are not as strong as Japans small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), so Japanese companies must assist with production in Viet Nam.

Restrictions on importing old machinery could hinder large investment flow into Viet Nam by Japanese SMEs.

The Japanese business association suggested that machinery and equipment imported for Japanese production activities should not be restricted in terms of the age of the equipment and should not be subject to the import regulations.

Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Pham Quy Duong said that Circular 23 was formulated with the main purpose of limiting the import of old machines to ensure quality and productivity and to avoid the energy waste caused by the use of old machinery.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has recognised firms difficulties with Circular 23 and made amendments, Duong said.

He said that the Law on Foreign Trade Management will come into force on January 1. Article 9 of the decree guiding this laws implementation will have regulations related to the age of machinery and equipment imported into Viet Nam and the process for special cases.

The deputy minister insisted that imported equipment must meet the standards of safety, energy efficiency and environmental protection in accordance with standards of Viet Nam and some G7 countries.

Decree 116

Decree 116/2017/ND-CP on automobile production, assembly and import and maintenance services for automobiles causes problems for importers, said Toru Kinoshita, a member of JBAV. The decree requires some certificates provided by foreign authorised agencies.

However, in practice, the government of each country only tests and certifies according to that countrys regulations for domestic use. Vehicles manufactured for export are beyond their scope, he said.

Toru said that the decree also requires exhaust emission testing and technical quality assurance for each batch of completely built up (CBU) vehicles, but each test takes about two months and costs up to US$10,000. If car importers comply with this rule, they will waste a lot of time and money.

The association recommends that the Government apply only the model test for each vehicle type of the first shipment and accept the test report for subsequent shipments over a six-month period.

Minister and head of Government Office Mai Tien Dung, who is also Chairman of the Advisory Council for Administrative Procedure Reform, explained that the Decree 116 is intended to protect producers and consumers.

The minister said it is important to inspect each batch of goods to assess compliance with the law.

However, Dung asked the Ministry of Transport to cooperate with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to revise the regulations.

Minister Dung affirmed that the recommendations and questions from the Japanese enterprises will be considered by Viet Nams authorised agencies.

The Government official emphasised that the Vietnamese Government will continue to create a clear business environment for foreign investors.
Gerbang Alaf, the local operator of McDonald's Malaysia, said it had the right to seek compensation from boycotters as a result of the financial and business opportunity losses incurred. (Photo: AFP/Karen Bleier)

Gerbang Alaf, the local operator of McDonald's Malaysia, said on Thursday (Dec 14) that the report was lodged primarily to protect the livelihood of 12,000 employees and safeguard against a possible threat of damage to the companys property.

Gerbang Alaf added that it also had the right to seek compensation from boycotters as a result of the financial and business opportunity losses incurred.

Managing director and operating partner Azmir Jaafar said the police report, which was lodged on Wednesday, was made against those who had spread baseless accusations about the fast food giant on social media and other platforms.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, he said that an official complaint has also been lodged with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and that it was now up to the authorities to investigate.

He added that Gerbang Alaf has also sought the counsel of the federal territorys mufti office, who said that the call for a compulsory boycott was only valid if issued by a religious figurehead or leader of the nation, and that the individuals or NGOs involved in the boycott should retract their statements and accusations.

Azmir said: No leaders or religious figureheads have called for any boycott of McDonald's Malaysia. In fact, any call for such a boycott would be wrong in the eyes of Islam.

Azmir said one of the accusations concerned contributions made by McDonalds United States to the Jewish United Fund (JUF) through the Matching Gift programme.

He denied the involvement of McDonalds Malaysia and added that such programmes were widespread in the United States and common among Fortune 500 companies. He added that the objective of the Matching Gift programme was to encourage employees to contribute to charity and that the JUF was only one beneficiary among many other potential recipients.

Azmir also denied that McDonalds Malaysia had channelled a portion of its profits back to the United States, saying that these were royalty payments on the McDonalds brand.

On Wednesday, the Malaysian Peoples Economic Party (PEKIRA) said it planned to launch a campaign to urge businesses and the public to boycott products with links to Israel, in light of the United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital. Coca-Cola and McDonald's were among the brands cited.

McDonald's Malaysia had previously issued a statement on Dec 8 emphasising that the company is 100 per cent owned local and its largest shareholder is Muslim.
An ATM booth in HCM City. - VNS File Photo

An investigation showed that Elmer Eduardo Nunez Correa, 44, and a group of friends went to Viet Nam as tourists on August 2014.

From October 2014 to December 2015, Correa and his two accomplices, all Peruvians, conducted four robberies in HCM City, Khanh Hoa and ong Nai provinces, mostly at ATMs.

On October 15, 2014, Correa and his gang broke into Maximark supermarket in Tan Binh District, HCM City. They took away jewellery, including diamonds and pearls, and VN32 million in cash from ATM machines.

On February 25, 2015, the group broke an ATM of Agribank Bac Sai Gon Branch in District 12, stealing nearly VN1 billion.

Using the same method, they continued to rob VN1.5 billion from two ATMs in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa in March and nearly VN900 million from an ATM in the southern province of ong Nai in December 2015.

Correa was the only one arrested by the police, as his accomplices have fled the country to escape convictions.
Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels. (JOHN THYS/AFP)

May said she was "disappointed" that members of her Conservative party had rebelled late Wednesday to demand parliament has the final say on the separation, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

The other 27 EU leaders are expected to use the two-day summit to endorse a deal struck last week on the key Brexit separation issues after months of torturous negotiations.

Several leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote in the House of Commons, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned: "It's not making her life easier."

May has struggled to assert her authority since losing her parliamentary majority in a June vote, and the latest setback will renew fears about her mandate for negotiations on the second phase.

Pro-European MPs declared they had taken back control of Brexit after amending a landmark piece of legislation to ensure that they must approve the final divorce deal.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature", saying the agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

TEST OF EU UNITY

After a deal covering Britain's financial settlement, the Irish border and expatriate rights, the next stage on talks will cover future trade relations and a post-Brexit transition.

EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the negotiations would also be a test for the bloc's own unity, as it tries to push through a host of reforms after Britain's departure.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

'GIVE AND TAKE'

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May on Brexit separation issues on Dec 8, saying Britain had made "sufficient progress" to move the talks onto trade.

May will tell leaders over dinner on Thursday that the agreement "required give and take by both sides, but a fair outcome has been achieved", a senior British government official said.

She told reporters on arriving: "I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future."

But Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach a deal before Britain leaves the bloc on Mar 29, 2019.

The EU guidelines that leaders will approve on Friday say they will start talks on the transition in January but will not begin discussions on trade until March as it needs more clarity on Britain's goals, while security and defence will be covered later next year.

Questions also linger over the deal struck last week, after British Brexit minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about London's guarantee there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland, after the UK leaves the EU's single market and customs union.

Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated on Thursday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

'DIVISIVE' MIGRANT QUOTAS

Elsewhere, the thorny subject of migration is set to dominate the summit, amid a row over Tusk's comments that quotas for sharing out refugees around the bloc to ease the burden on frontline states were "ineffective" and "highly divisive".

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose country was worst-hit by the crisis, said the remarks were "aimless, ill-timed and pointless".

Germany, Sweden and Italy are also big supporters of the mandatory quotas. Eastern European states like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, whose leaders met separately ahead of the summit, are strongly opposed.
Vladimir Putin acknowledged that doping violations took place but claimed that the scandal was politically motivated. (Photo: AFP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Russia has been banned from next year's Winter Olympics over state-sponsored doping but the International Olympic Committee said Russian athletes would still be able to compete under a neutral flag.

"How will we build up relations with WADA and the IOC? I hope constructively," Putin said at his annual news conference.

"We will calmly work with them, removing those problems we do have, but of course working to defend the interests of our athletes, including in civil courts," Putin said.

"I know that many international officials don't want that, but what can we do? We will be forced to help our athletes to stand up for their honour and dignity in civil courts."

Putin acknowledged that doping violations took place but claimed that the scandal was politically motivated.

"It's obvious that the scandal is being blown up in the run-up to Russia's domestic political calendar," Putin said, apparently referring to March 2018 presidential elections.

"Whatever they say, I am convinced, I just know that's the case," Putin said.

He complained that other countries also had doping problems without prompting the same "political furore."

Nevertheless he acknowledged Russia's role, saying "we ourselves are guilty of this, we gave a pretext for this because incidents of the use of doping really have been identified."
Taiwanese Hsu Ming Jung stands trial in Hanoi on December 13, 2017

Hsu Ming Jung, a.k.a. Saga, 42, stood trial before a Hanoi court on December 13 for the fraudulent appropriation of assets connected with the Khai Thai investment consulting firm, of which he was the founder and general director.

According to his indictment, Hsu hired several Vietnamese nationals in 2011 to work as directors of Khai Thai and serve as a cover for the companys real business of mobilizing gold and cash from the public in the form of entrusted investments.

The company was also found to be running illegal gold and foreign currency trading under the guise of an investment consulting firm.

Gold investment accounts are not recognized in Vietnam and, contradictory to advertisements, Khai Thai did not have a single business connection with any trading floor anywhere in the world.

Despite the fact, the company led investors into believing that it was a major gold investment account company in China with profitable businesses based in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

In reality, the firm operated by taking one investors money to pay for another, according to the indictment.

Employing this fraudulent tactic, Hsu and his accessories were able to con 724 people out of nearly VND270 billion (US$11.89 million) between 2012 and 2014.

Hsu was found to be the mastermind behind the organization while his six Vietnamese accomplices acted as legal representatives and paper pushers for Khai Thai.

The Peoples Procuracy of Hanoi at December 13s hearing proposed that the Taiwanese man be sentenced to life imprisonment while his Vietnamese partners receive between three and 20 years behind bars, considering the fact that the defendants actions were of especially dangerous nature and that a large sum of money was involved.
Big shot Hanoi buyers are looking to spread the wealth to the provinces

A range of real estate projects have been introduced to Hanois market from Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Danang and Nha Trang. The projects include The Charm, Sunrise City, Ocean Villas, Hyatt Regency, Olalani, Fusion Alya, Azura and Blooming Park.

Talking with VIR at a recent road show to introduce Sunrise City, located in Ho Chi Minh, in Hanoi, Novaland Joint Stock Company marketing deputy director Huynh Du An said many units were sold to Hanoians and those from northern provinces.

Meanwhile, a range of other central and southern projects have been rushing into Hanoi. Setia Becamex launched Binh Duong provinces Ecolakes My Phuoc in the capital late last week, a week before TD Group introduced the Costa Nha Trang to Hanoians. This week Singapores Guoco Lands Canary, located at the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park in Binh Duong province, will be unveiled to northern customers.

Bringing Ecolakes My Phuoc to Hanois market is one of our key marketing strategies. Hanoians are paying more attention to higher standards of living and are interested in ecological housing, said Khoo Teck Chong, general director of Setia Becamex.

VIR was told that for many projects in the central and southern parts, roughly 70 per cent of customers were from Hanoi and other northern provinces.

Matthew Koziora, sales director of VinaCapital - developer of the Azura in Danang, said the first 60 units, out of 225, were launched in Hanoi recently.

Out of the 40 units sold, 90 per cent of the buyers had come from Hanoi.

Hanoi has, according to Koziora, proven itself to be a key market for most new projects in Vietnam, given the demographics of these immediate catchments.

While condominium offerings will always be available in Hanoi due to previous pent-up demands, we can see that not all projects will enjoy a healthy sell-through, as was seen 12 months ago.

We do see, however, given the price differentials between house and land packages in Hanoi versus Ho Chi Minh City, that this market will be better received in the current marketplace and over the next six months as opposed to condominium project offerings at this time, Koziora said

Ngo Huu Truong, managing director of a real estate agency in Ho Chi Minh City, said many customers from Hanoi and Haiphong had come to Ho Chi Minh City to find out information about new projects there.

Demand is real and many projects investors have realised this trend and they are coming to Hanoi to promote their projects, Truong said.

He also said the jury was still out on how effective the promotions were.

I think that these developers [who bring their projects to Hanoi] have at least seen their target to raise their image and brand names in northern customers, Truong said.
The World Bank, in partnership with the Ministry of Finance (MoF), launched the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) in accounting and auditing at a ceremony in Ha Noi on December 14. Photo thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn

The report aims to assist the development of a sound financial reporting institutional framework by improving understanding of the need for such a framework.

It is a joint World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) initiative that helps member countries strengthen their financial system by enhancing compliance with internationally recognised standards and codes.

The report recommends Viet Nam simplify the Accounting Law and the Law on Independent Audit so that it states general principles rather than detailed requirements. It also recommends the country fully adopt International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and the related International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee (IFRIC) interpretations in full for public interest entities (PIEs).

It also suggested general-purpose financial statements should be prepared in full compliance with Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS) developed in line with IFRS. Viet Nam should minimise the instances in which instructions and regulations override VAS in the short to medium term while developing a strong and independent valuation profession to support the implementation of the Vietnam Financial Reporting Standards, it said.

Opening the ceremony, Director of the MoFs Accounting and Auditing Policies Department Vu Duc Chinh thanked the World Bank in Viet Nam and relevant agencies for surveying the current context of accounting and audit in the country and make recommendations. Viet Nam is making efforts to improve its legal basis for accounting and auditing, and increase the transparency and honesty of financial statements in Viet Nam, he added.

WB Director in Viet Nam Ousmane Dione, for his part, said as part of the World Bank Groups support for Viet Nams vision towards 2030, the ROSC in accounting and auditing will contribute to the successful implementation of the countrys Everyones Involved  Sustainable Development Strategy.
Tokyo-based manufacturer Kitan Club fueled the craze for capsule toys when it launched a special figurine of a woman wearing a typical office worker's clothes, whose arms or legs were designed to hang over the edge of a glass. (Photo: AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)

The industry is now worth an estimated 30 billion (US$265 million), with the fastidious attention to detail in the toys appealing to the Japanese sense of precision along with a well-documented love of all things "kawaii" or cute. One store, in Tokyo's famous Akihabara electronics district, is crammed with around 500 capsule toy vending machines stretching out as far as the eye can see.

"When I see something I want, I keep on turning the crank until I get it," said Shota Makita, a 23-year-old careworker on the hunt for a fun toy.

"There's a sense of excitement about not knowing what I'll get," said Makita, one of a growing number of adult consumers of capsule toys, known as "gachagacha" or "gachapon" in Japanese after the cranking sound.

Store manager Yo Kono says the customer base has changed in the 16 years the shop has been open.

"At the beginning, visitors were mainly male anime fans ... but recently the number of customers is growing with more female visitors and foreign tourists," Kono said.

'CHEAP AND INSTAGRAM-WORTHY'

Capsule toys have been around for more than 40 years but the craze really took off in 2012 when Tokyo-based manufacturer Kitan Club launched its "Koppu no Fuchico" ("Fuchico at the edge of a glass") product.

This figurine of a woman wearing a typical office worker's clothes, whose arms or legs were designed to hang over the edge of a glass, became an instant hit with adults.

"We never thought of targeting children. Their numbers are dwindling and adults have more money," said spokesman Seita Shiki.

Shiki chalks up the Fuchico capsule's success to the fact it is "cheap and Instagram-worthy."

Fans have been sharing photos of Fuchico on social media, which helped boost its popularity without the company even needing to advertise, he boasted.

"Fuchico was launched just as social media started to be used widely. It fitted with the times."

Kitan Club, which makes various kinds of capsule toys, saw its sales grow from 800 million to 1.2 billion after the launch of the Fuchico series.

The capsule toy became so popular that the company was asked to create a pop-up shop at the cult Paris concept store Colette and to hold an exhibition in Taiwan.

'VERY JAPANESE'

Now many manufacturers are making capsule toys to appeal to adult consumers, helping to expand the market to around 100 new items each month.

Manufacturer Bandai, which occupies around 70 per cent of the capsule toy market, said the products sell well because they are expertly made and they come in huge varieties.

When Bandai began making capsule toys exactly 40 years ago in 1977, the majority of them were cheap, sold mostly at 20, and were of poor quality, general manager Toshikazu Saita said.

"A wide variety of quality products are available at only 200 or 300. I think that's a reason why they're so popular now," said Saita.

He said the quality of the products was down to specialists who "hand-carve prototypes by paying attention to angles and colours."

"The attention to detail is very Japanese," he said.

But to keep costs down, the actual toys are manufactured in China using the Japanese design as a prototype.

Shiki of Kitan Club agreed that attention to detail was what set Japanese capsule toys apart.

"For example, Fuchico's knees and elbows are slightly sprayed with red paint to make them look real," he explained. "This adds one extra step but we feel we have to do this" even if it adds to the cost, he added.

It certainly appeals to Nana Sakuma, 26, who snapped up four capsule toys in the shape of Japanese food stalls from machines in the Akihabara store.

She said: "I'm really happy to find toys that are so real. When I see real things turned into miniatures, I find them irresistibly cute. I cannot help but buy them.
VisitingNewEngland.com/The Abbey Restaurant Small Business Partnership - Local Small Business Stories

Finding the Perfect Burger, Brew at The Abbey in Providence, Rhode Island









Share this New England travel article with your friends ...

Burger joints have been popping up all over the place as of late, but often served with sides of attitude, entitlement, trendiness and high prices.



On the other hand, there's The Abbey in Providence, R.I., that got burgers and the neighborhood restaurant and bar concept right the first time. The Abbey opened in 2001, quickly gaining a legendary local reputation for serving exactly what the customer wanted -- that is, juicy, substantial mouthwatering burgers cooked exactly to specification and ice cold beer at low prices within an unpretentious, cozy neighborhood setting. Very little has changed since then, thus sticking to the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."









At first sight, The Abbey looks like many other local bars with its small, plain-looking facade. Once inside, however, a totally different story evolves with a surprisingly spacious, family-friendly dining area, an attractive long bar, 30 burger options (many you will find no where else), an extensive comfort foods menu and an astonishing 100 beers from around the world. Jennifer Ricci, general manager of The Abbey, likes to keep things simple at the restaurant by displaying drink and food advertisements on the wall, while also showcasing a thoughtfully-designed menu that makes it easy to navigate the many choices of burgers, as well as recommendations for the perfect beer pairings.





Dining and bar area at The Abbey.





Menu shows how to best order a burger and brew.



"We never are frozen," said Ricci, of the burgers. "We have literally tasted a 1,000 different blends and have gone to great lengths to get the flavor done right. We have a real gas grill for the perfect markings and taste."





The breads for the burgers are well-bred, too (sorry for the bad pun), brought in locally from Calise Bakery in Lincoln, R.I. The Abbey also partners with the Wisconsin Cheese Board where third and fourth generation cheese makers create what is regarded as some of the best tasting cheeses in the country. The fresh, full-bodied taste of the cheeses clearly go beyond the norm and wonderfully complement the incredible, mouthwatering flavor of the burgers.



Even with the clearly-written sections of the menu to assist with burger selections, it's hard to know what to order as virtually everything seems like a "must-try" selection. For starters, The Lumberjack stands as a top choice for those with big appetites. This colossal burger with two patties comes with Wisconsin Swiss and cheddar cheeses, pickles, yellow mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, sliced white onions and iceberg lettuce on three thick slices of grilled Texas toast.





The humongous Lumberjack burger from The Abbey. Photo source: www.92beers.com.



Another favorite: the Couch Potato, a 10 oz. seasoned burger with

Wisconsin bleu cheese,

thick cut potato chips, BBQ pulled pork, sauteed onions and garlic mayonnaise on a grilled sourdough bun. One of Ricci's personal favorites is The Highwayman, a 10 oz. patty with Wisconsin brick and cheddar cheeses, fried ham and egg, onion rings and barbecue sauce on two halves of a grilled knot bun. Many love The Honky Tonk with Wisconsin brick cheese, barbecue sauce, pulled pork and fried onion rings on a grilled sesame bun. A side of perfectly-formed sweet potato fries makes a great dish even better!





The Honky Tonk burger from the Abbey.



"The burgers are huge and cooked exactly to specification," said Ricci. "Employees go through lots of training to get it right. Also, we don't use a press unless requested. It's important to leave the flavor in. All the juice is there."







Located in a solid working class section of Providence near Providence College, The Abbey not only brings in regulars from Providence College and local neighborhoods, but all of Rhode Island and many towns and cities in Massachusetts -- even as far away as Boston (an hour away). For a small restaurant, it is astounding that an average of 900 customers arrive every week with approximately 600 burgers created in that time span. Forty percent of those customers come in from Providence College.





Providence College alumni and faculty meet at The Abbey. Photo credit: Jennifer Ricci.





If not in the mood for burgers, the rest of the menu will more than suffice with its impressive offerings of appetizers, soups and salads, sandwiches, flatbread pizzas and other entrees. The Meatloafer features a huge block of homemade meatloaf, Wisconsin American cheese, and house-made ketchup on a bulkie roll. The Porky Pig Grilled Cheese has pulled pork, tater tots, and cheddar and jack cheeses on Texas toast. The Tender and We Mean Tender, Tip Sandwich features house marinated steak tips, sauteed mushrooms, onions and melted provolone cheese on a warm, baked hoagie roll. The Cajun Fish Sammie offers fried Cajun white fish, lettuce, tomato, and spicy mayo with tangy red cabbage cole slaw. One of the current lunch specials: The Billy-Bob that combines pulled pork rib meat and barbecue sauce on a hoagie roll.





Hearty soups include New England clam chowder, baked onion, and baked chili, while tempting appetizers like homemade potato chips, loaded nachos, fried dough and the marinated and skewered honey cured bacon are hard for many customers to resist despite the huge main course servings on the way.





While the mouthwatering burgers often take center stage, the beer selection proves to be no slouch, either. The Abbey is named, after all, in honor of Abbeys (Christian monasteries). Short history lesson: Many Abbeys relied, partially, on Trappist Monks to create beers in order to survive monetarily. The first Trappist beer was actually created in 1152 A.D.! While clearly no Trappist Monk beer production sightings exist at The Abbey, Ricci and staff bring an almost spiritual beer experience to the bar and restaurant through knowledge, recommendations and a keen eye for the latest quality brews.



Perhaps something the Trappist Monks of yesteryear might have found simultaneously amusing and ambitious: The Abbey in Providence promises not to serve the same "crap on tap." Check here for the extensive beer selection at The Abbey.



"We were the only place in (Rhode Island) that had 92 beers, but now we are over 100," said Ricci. "We have everything from the unique to old standbys like Narragansett."



Much of The Abbey's success can be traced to passionate and dedicated long-time owners, management and staff. Jay and Michelle Hoff have served as the owners from the beginning. Ricci, a Providence native, has assumed daily operation responsibilities over the past five years as general manager. With a family background in the restaurant industry, Ricci knows every job responsibility (including the ability and talent to cook). Kevin Grant is a master chef with extensive restaurant experience including the highly-regarded Tavern From Tower Square in Plainville, Mass., while chef Mark Brito once worked at the Rhode Island-based Chello's Hometown Bar and Grille. Grant has worked at The Abbey for 12 years, Brito six.



"I know the front and back of the house," said Ricci, of The Abbey. "We are a small group of employees that have all been together for a long time and together have a great time making The Abbey a special place. We also have a great relationship with Providence College. We are like one big family."



"I love my job here," said Grant. "I think what makes The Abbey so good is the quality of the employees. We will never put a burger out until it is done right. Another great thing is once a month, we try different burger trends with our specials."



As the list of burger joints grow seemingly by the month, the irony is that it makes the choice easier to frequent more places like The Abbey. While some of the newer burger places do a fine job, none that I have tried even come close to the burger quality of The Abbey. What's equally important is the sense of neighborhood and the chance to get to know the staff -- very important elements in a world that increasingly seems to be more impersonal. So many high profile burger places have high turnover employee rates and a distant, contrived vibe that almost feels more like show than substance. The Abbey remains true to form -- that is, genuine, neighborly and with time-tested proof of consistently great burgers. That combination is the greatest recipe any restaurant could ever give its customers!





The Abbey is located at 686 Admiral St. in Providence, RI. Tel. 401-351-4346. Web site: http://www.92beers.com . Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/abbeyprovidence . The Abbey is open for lunch and dinner, year-round.







Interested in your local business becoming part of our New England community? VisitingNewEngland business partnerships differ than feature articles previously posted on VisitingNewEngland. Businesses pay a small, one-time fee to have pages like this appear, and first must be accepted by VisitingNewEngland.com editor and publisher, Eric Hurwitz, as a business he approves as part of "real New England travel" to keep the integrity of the site. Businesses that sign up for business partnerships receive priority by receiving more social media exposure and link placement on VisitingNewEngland.com. Contact Eric if interested in forming a business partnership.









Explore Massachusetts travel! Read the Massachusetts Town Greens book -- Discover New England's first travel attractions: town commons. Includes chapters on nearby Attleboro, Wrentham, Mansfield and Foxboro!









Please share the graphic below on Pinterest. Thanks!









The Abbey in Providence, R.I.Story and photos, unless otherwise noted, by Eric Hurwitz. Article created on 12/12/17.

If you enjoyed this article, please share through any of the social media buttons below -- thanks!





Related article:

A visit to the historic Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley, Mass.







Stay connected with VisitingNewEngland at Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google+





FREE SUBSCRIPTION
Our great country was forged in the fires of a revolution to overthrow the rule of a tyrant, by a free people who understood the fundamental truth that liberty is best secured when the states power is carefully limited. From the Declaration of Independence, to the Constitution, and through the Bill of Rights, our country and our people have always known the true, God-given nature of liberty and the ability of law to safeguard it against the state. For 226 years, the final piece of this freedom-sustaining bulwark  the Bill of Rights  has formed the bedrock of the constitutional protections every American holds dear as their birthright.

On Bill of Rights Day, we recognize the importance of the first 10 Amendments to our Constitution to protecting our liberty and freedom against the inevitable encroachment of government. Our Founding Fathers understood the threat of expansive, omnipresent government. From the beginning of our republic, therefore, they endeavored to enhance the Constitution with a bill of rights, a specific enumeration of fundamental rights that would prevail even against a future government inclined to abuse the power it has over the lives of citizens.

On June 8, 1789, James Madison, originally skeptical of the need for a bill of rights, introduced in the Congress several amendments to the Constitution that would eventually form the Bill of Rights. During the ensuing debates, Madison told the Congress that because all power is subject to abuse it was worth taking steps to ensure that such abuse may be guarded against in a more secure manner. Many of the rights set forth in the amendments Madison introduced that day are quite familiar to us as Americans: the right to worship as we please; the right to speak our minds and consciences; the right to firearms to protect ourselves and our loved ones; the right to be free from unwarranted government searches and seizures; the right to a jury of our fellow citizens when accused of legal wrongdoing. Others  like the right to object to housing troops in our homes during peacetime  are often thought of as relics of a bygone era. Regardless of their familiarity or applicability to our daily lives, however, each clause of the Bill of Rights addresses profound and real abuses the Founders faced and each is crafted and locked into law to protect us and future generations from their repetition.

Since its adoption, the reach of the Bill of Rights has spread far beyond Americas shores. As George Washington rightfully said: Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. For example, in the wake of the devastation of World War II, the spirit of the Bill of Rights inspired the United Nations General Assembly to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Just like the Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is grounded in the recognition that just governments must respect the fundamental liberty and dignity of their people. By enumerating core rights that should be immune from government encroachment, both the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have helped fuel remarkable prosperity and achievement around the world.

During Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week, we rededicate ourselves to steadfastly and faithfully defending the Bill of Rights and human rights. Our God-given, fundamental rights are soon overcome if not safeguarded by the people. We, therefore, also reflect upon the many individuals who are unable to enjoy the God-given rights that we as Americans know are secure. We remember those suffering under the yolk of authoritarianism and extremism for doing nothing more than standing up to injustice or daring to profess or practice their religion, and we acknowledge those imprisoned or in peril simply because of their political views or their sex.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 10, 2017, as Human Rights Day; December 15, 2017, as Bill of Rights Day; and the week beginning December 10, 2017, as Human Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United States to mark this observance with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.
Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

A petition containing over 11,000 signatures has surfaced demanding that the Metropolitan Museum of Art remove a painting by the famous French artist known as Balthus from public display. The Met is standing by the painting. It should.

Made in 1938 and titled Therese Dreaming, the painting is creepy. A young woman lounges, leaning backward, one foot on the ground, another raised on a stool so as to hike her skirt high enough to glimpse her underwear. Nearby a cat laps a bowl of milk. Some have suggested the folds of fabric are labia. Others that a man should never make this kind of work, so sexually uncomfortable. The petition states Given the current climate around sexual assault and allegations that become more public each day, in showcasing this work for the masses, The Met is romanticizing voyeurism and the objectification of children. The petitions author, Mia Merrill, goes on to propose that the work be replaced with another by a female artist of the same period.

Balthus has long been singled out for protest. The Guitar Lesson, a painting of a clothed woman with one breast exposed seeming to strum a splayed-legged naked young girls exposed vulva was shown, covered, for 15 days in 1934 in Paris at Galerie Pierre. It appeared for a month at Pierre Matisses 57th Street gallery. It has never publicly been exhibited again.

Of course, Balthus is not alone in this. Modiglianis nudes were similarly singled out for protest in the teens; his only solo exhibition caused a scandal for its depiction of female pubic hair. The great outsider visionary Henry Darger has given us his world of Vivian Girls  many naked, most sporting penises. To say nothing of Picassos vivisections of female forms where anus, breast, eyes, mouth, vulva, and face is seen all at the same time, all on the same plane.

But Balthuss Therese Dreaming is somehow even more complicated  it places us at the nexus between banality, innocence, nascent sexuality, guttural taboo, flinching recognition, and something more than casual. We do live in a culture that sexualizes young women; a man did make this; and the work can be read as titillation. But so can many other similar images of young people, including many that we now view as so canonized they may even bore us. For centuries the explicitness pictured in Michelangelos tremendous Sistine Chapel was painted over and censors more than once tried to paint over it completely. Caravaggios naked young man Cupid looks directly at us with an invitation to pleasure. Bernini portrays rape and female masturbation; Degas gives us unprotected teenage ballerinas totally exposed, dressed so that the structures between their legs become the foci of paintings  to say nothing of his portrayals of young girls in bordellos. The most famous painting of the 20th century, Picassos Les Demoiselles dAvignon, portrays five naked prostitutes blatantly offering themselves.

It is true that all of these works were rendered by men  who until the last century were virtually the only ones allowed to practice art  and as such all may be called privileged, chauvinistic, and even one-sided. And protest of art should come as no surprise; in many ways it is a sign of arts complexity that it generates a wide variety of responses. In fact, the disinclination, distrust, fear, offense, or even hatred of images, words, and ideas is as old as art itself. People have been burned at the stake for it. Botticelli paintings were deemed too pleasurable and went up in Savonarolas bonfire of the vanities in 1497. Countless naked statues have been smashed to smithereens over the centuries. Especially in the West, sex has been highly charged contested territory since the fourth century after Christ. (Although this is not to say that protest is always the bourgeois against the libertine  there have been protests against the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, rap, rock-and-roll, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Andres Serrano, or Chris Ofilis Holy Virgin Mary.)

Balthus is a tricky artist. And in our particular time, more unsettling. But I dont think that is enough. Ive written that Balthus can be obnoxious, cheesy, and stiff. His surrealism implies sadomasochism and erotica. Personally, I dont love Balthuss work. But I grant that his art is Modern without being abstract and that its charged with some half-human hair-raising overweening need, rage, frustration, and restraint. What makes a work like Therese Dreaming worth defending is that every person brings something different to it at a different time and that theres no one correct read of it, no matter the current climate. Like all good art, Therese Dreaming presents a paradox; it is about more than one thing at the same time. Even in our rush to protect the innocent, curtail creeps, and assume the moral high ground, art can never abandon paradox. Unlike pornography, which we know it when we see it, Balthus throws us into a nether region of being unsure of what were seeing at all. Even if its only coy, thats still not all that it is.

And in the long run, if we remove the Balthus because it offends in the current climate, we pretty much have to remove whole wings of art from the Met. The art of India, Greece, Rome, and Africa is rife with bestiality, orgies, blatant nakedness, and sex. Much of the art of Oceania depicts exaggerated phalluses and vulva. Japanese art flagrantly breaks every taboo. Numberless Rococo paintings give us masturbation, exhibitionism, voyeurism, young girls using dogs in suggestive ways, trysts with every age. Titians ravaging masterpiece Venus of Urbino (1534) depicts a young woman wearing nothing, immodestly looking at us, her hand creeping toward her sex. Goya portrayed full-frontal nakedness with pubic hair, executions, the rape of children, and cannibalism. Van Gogh and Gauguins teenage nudes, most of Impressionism, German Expressionism, Klimt, Munch, Egon Schiele, and much of Picasso and Matisse would fall under suspicion. All of this art can be read as sexually transgressive. One of the things that makes art so rich, infinite, and all-embracing is that theres always something to offend someone somewhere sometime. When that ends, so will art.
Charli XCX. Photo: Getty Images

Im not saying this to be a cop out, but pop music is in a good place, Charli XCX says from her bed in Los Angeles, having just woken up from what must feel like a prolonged haze on tour with Halsey. Reflecting on the year in music, she struggles to find a pop trend shed wish for 2017 to keep. Im really happy that EDM is pretty much over, she offers. Charlis optimism about pop comes from firsthand experience: Shes long been a secret weapon of the genre, penning hits for Iggy Azalea, Selena Gomez, and for herself as a solo artist with two albums to her name. This year, the 25-year-old Brit broadened her resume with a sugary PC Musicstyle experimentation in her overlooked March mixtape, Number 1 Angel, the natural progression from her work with Sophie. Then she directed a few dozen famous boys in the music video for Boys.

Now shes back with Pop 2, another mixtape that sees Charli chuck the pop rule book with manic production, cocksure one-liners (Go fuck your prototype, Im an upgrade of your stereotype), and a guest list including Carly Rae Jepsen, Tove Lo, Caroline Polachek, Cupcakke, Mykki Blanco, Jay Park, M, and a handful more. Its what the roster of a Charli-operated record label might resemble. Its also the latest project thats had Charli questioning the shelf life of a multi-hyphenate creator, and why shes been putting off her long-delayed third album.

Vulture spoke with Charli about artists versus songwriters, getting drunk with Carly Rae Jepsen, what she wishes she had asked Lorde, and her emotional year.

What was the origin of this mixtape? Id like to get a better understanding of which projects youre working on and when, between this, the album, and Number 1 Angel.

First of all, with the album, I dont really know when Im gonna put it out. Or even if Im gonna put out an album. I just dont know. And I think thats what leads me toward making mixtapes. The way that I work and write is so fast, and releasing these mixtapes is very beneficial to that. I get so frustrated having to sit on music. Ive been sitting on music for my album for so long now that people hacked me and leaked some music. For me to keep on being creative, doing these mixtapes is good. Generally, I dont even really tell people when Im working on it. It just happens. Ill tell fans the week before the release, and Ill tell the label two months before.

This one started happening just before I went on tour with Halsey when I was in London. Me and [producer] A.G. Cook do so much work together now and hes so fast, so we were just like, Fuck, we should do another mixtape. We had this studio session where we made a few ideas, and then we went out and partied at this PC Music night. We didnt do anymore work, but we knew we had some good ideas and we should probably finish them. He flew over to New York for these really hectic, mental four or five days where we would stay in the studio until 4 a.m., and then we finalized everything. It was all being done while I was still on tour. In total, it took maybe two weeks. I would go into studios in L.A., Boston, Chicago, Austin, wherever and cut vocals. At the same time, I was sending shit to other artists asking them to jump on songs. I guess it was a longer period than No. 1 Angel just because there are more features. Honestly, I feel really sorry for A.G. He kept killing himself trying to finish this shit back in London, staying up for 24 hours for a week. Hes really the hero of this mixtape.

Does it take a lot to convince Atlantic to let you release music this way? Fans and the industry expect mixtapes from rappers, but not pop stars.

The route that Im going to take isnt going to be completely mixtape-focused. Thats just now, just this year. But there will be an album of sorts [where] the main focus, the end goal, is this project or whatever. I think fans need that as well. Theres still this nostalgic want for an album. So I will put something out; I just dont know if itll be ten songs with two lead singles. Or if itll be 20 songs, or a whole visual album, or four EPs, or a constant flow of demos done in a structured way. You know, I make pop music, and I have a fan base that wants that from me. Something will happen, I just dont know what the fuck it will be right now. But the label is chill. They understand that the music landscape has changed so much. For some artists, albums work. Im trying to figure out whether thats me or whether I could do something different.

Tell me the story of how you connected with Carly Rae Jepsen.

I met Carly through [PC Musics] Danny L Harle because they did a song together. We were in L.A. and they had this PC Music night, which was pretty wild, actually. But Carly came with her parents [laughs], so we were all watching the show together. It was funny: Carly and her parents at this one table, me and all my friends at one table, then Tinashe and all her friends at another table. We were a gang. But I met Carly and her parents, and they were so sweet and obviously Id been a fan. I have a lot of friends whove worked with her  Rostam, Ariel [Rechtshaid]  and since then, we kept bumping into each other. My friend and close collaborating partner Noonie Bao had been writing with her a lot and Patrick Berger as well, who I work with a lot. I went over to Carlys house for some party that she had and we just connected.

We spoke about this tweet that had gone viral of a picture of me, her, and Lorde. Our fans wanted us to make a song together. Then we got drunk and spoke about all these ideas we had about making a whole album together. One day, she was in the studio with my friend Justin Raisen, and I went down there. They had been partying and we were just gonna have a jam session, but shes really fun as a person, and she has so many ideas and is a really creative and wonderful songwriter. So when I did this mixtape, I hit her up, saying, Is this the time? And she said yes, so I sent her the song [Backseat] and she was into it, wrote her verse, came back to me, and I loved it.

Are you involved in her next album?

I went to one session, but I got there really late at midnight, and I guess everyone had been partying. So I wasnt really on their wavelength. We recorded vocals for like an hour, just a constant flow of craziness. I dont think shes gonna use that publicly, but it was fun. I would love to work on stuff for her.

In a typical month, roughly how many songs are you pitching to artists? I have this idea of you slipping in and out of those mysterious writing camps.

Im always pitching. But I dont do it personally unless I happen to be in the same room as an artist. If theres a good song, I always will have someone out there pitching it [for me]. But recently, honestly, the songs Ive been writing Ive been keeping for myself. In January and February, Im gonna write for a whole two months. Thats when other artists will hear more shit from me and will be pitched. But I have done the camps, just not recently because Ive been on tour for three months. But Im in L.A. writing this week. Its beginning again. This is what I feel most comfortable doing.

Sometimes I wonder: Should I just not be an artist and be a songwriter? Its a constant conversation thats going on in my head. I feel most comfortable in the studio. You dont have to put makeup on, you dont have to dress up, or think or care about what anyone thinks of you. You can just go. I can literally go downstairs right now in what Im wearing and record, then come back to bed. I wouldnt even have to shower. I would, but just saying.

What does your songwriting bucket list look like? Im still waiting for your Rihanna moment.

Same, dude. When I was making the mixtape, I was thinking about so many people who I wanted to reach out to, but I ended up not having the right song or the time or whatever. Carly and Ella [Lorde] and I spoke about doing something together and that would still be cool. I didnt ask her because even though I know Ella, I thought shed say no. But maybe I shouldve fucking asked! I would still really love to. Id also love to work with Yung Lean and Robyn. I dont see collaborations as this sacred thing that you do once a year. I wanna do them all the time. Thats why this mixtape is so overflowing with collaborations because A.G. and I said, Fuck it, lets do as many as we can without imploding. It makes the whole process more fun for me. Youre letting everyone be the star. The older I get, the more I want to fade away into the background and disappear. So this is a nice way of me getting to do that.

You tweeted the other day about this year being emotional for you. What has made it that way?

I meant it just for everyone. This year has been  fucking crazy. I was doing an interview yesterday with Ezra [Koenig] for [his Beats 1 radio show] Time Crisis and he said something that I thought was really interesting: This year has been the planet getting us back. This is what happens when you fuck with the planet. Whilst I dont feel like the world is gonna end just yet, I do feel like this year has been so extreme. From all of the crazy natural disasters happening, the fires in L.A. right now, then Trump and all this sexual-harassment stuff, and slavery being alive in Libya. I wonder: Is it all so crazy because Im getting older and paying more attention, or is this a particularly bad year? I dont know the answer. But it just feels crazy.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
Peter Sarsgaard as Frank Olson in Wormwood. Photo: Netflix

Errol Morris has been one of the most influential American documentary filmmakers since the release of his 1988 film The Thin Blue Line, which combined old-fashioned interviews and detective work with highly stylized dramatic scenes to prove that Randall Dale Adams, a death-row inmate convicted of murder, was actually innocent. He has only become more formally restless in the decades since, and his latest project, the six-part Netflix series Wormwood  a conspiratorial mystery which tells of a shadowy death in the 1950s  might be his most ambitious work yet, blending visually fragmented interviews and lavishly produced, period-accurate scripted scenes with actors like Peter Sarsgaard and Molly Parker. Morriss main subject in Wormwood is Eric Olson, a 70-something man who believes that his father committed suicide after the CIA forced him to ingest LSD. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Earlier this week, Vulture talked to Morris about Wormwood, his evolving aesthetic, his interactions with former secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert S. McNamara, what he thinks of fake news, and whether its possible to ever really know the truth about anything.

How did you first become aware of Eric Olsons story?

Well, this story is a pretty expansive thing. I became aware of Frank and Eric Olson pretty early on. There are pretty clear assumptions you make at the very beginning. I mean, I need an interview subject, and Eric was ideal. Just talking to him once was enough.

Whats your definition of an ideal interview subject?

Someone who talks a lot and is smart.

When was your first meeting with him, outside of the actual filmed interview?

Our first meeting was the filmed interview.

Really? So you dont do a preliminary thing where you meet somewhere before you shoot anything?

No, I avoid it! I avoid it like the plague.

Whats the thought behind jumping right into it?

Because you dont ever want to ask people to repeat anything. You know, I sometimes say that lack of variety, or repetition, is the spice of life. But it isnt the spice of a good interview, or a good performance from actors.

It was interesting, we were talking yesterday with three of the actors  Christian Camargo, Molly Parker, Peter Sarsgaard  and one of the things Ive learned, and maybe I learned it the hard way over the years doing so many commercials  I have done so, so many commercials, maybe over 1,000 of them over the years  is that the client will see on a casting tape a performance that they like, and then they will ask the actor to replicate what they did on the casting tape. This is always, always a prescription for disaster, for many, many, many reasons. A good performance doesnt come from imitating something external to yourself, even if its your own performance on some other occasion. It comes from something inside, of bringing something inside of yourself forward.

And interviews are performances. Making this film, I thought quite often about the relationship between a performance and an interview, and a performance by an actor on set where admittedly theres a script that theyre following. Its trying to create an element of spontaneity. I sometimes try to distinguish it from, say, taxidermy, where everything is dead  its stuffed, its mounted on a wall, versus something that has some kind of life to it.

Is your goal to get past the performance? Or do you simply let the subject perform?

I would say the latter.

Why?

Because its all performance.

How do you mean?

Doing a lot of commercials, theres buzzwords you hear again and again. I dont want to make fun of them because I kind of believe in them, at least in part. One of them is authenticity. People in recent years love to use the word authenticity. They like something thats authentic, whatever that means. It could mean, God knows, a lot of different things. Do they mean believable? Ingenuous? Take your pick.

I hear that word a lot in terms of a successful social-media presence, which seems strange to me considering that one of the components of a successful social-media presence is that youre creating a character whos either a heightened version of you or maybe bears no relation to you at all.

Well, it probably bears some relationship to you, because youre doing it.

Authentic doesnt necessarily mean true or factually accurate, though.

Of course not. To me, its one of the deep mysteries about what I do. Im supposed to be working in the truth department, wherever that is.

The Department of Truth?

Yeah, somewhere above Mens Hosiery. But truth is this all-important notion  God knows Ive thought enough about it over the years. I have a book coming out, by the way, from the University of Chicago press early next year called The Ashtray. Its really about the denial of truth, and the importance of truth.

I have to say, your approach as an interviewer and a documentary filmmaker is quite different than what I was taught in journalism school.

Good!

For one thing, and I think this came out particularly in criticisms of The Fog of War and The Unknown Known 

And The Thin Blue Line.

To some degree, yes, its a criticism of everything youve done in the nonfiction field, that youre not trying to get at the real person. You sort of take the subject at face value. I dont mean that you believe everything they tell you. But I dont see you constantly trying to break through the facade and find the real them, whatever that means.

I dont know. A friend of mine who I was in graduate school with years and years ago at Berkeley said, You can never trust someone who doesnt talk a lot, because how else would you know what theyre thinking? Id even call it The Myth of the Real You  that somehow lurking inside of you is the real you, and that its my job to expose, reveal, elucidate The Real You.

To take one good example, Donald Rumsfeld. Now, my movie about him, The Unknown Known, was criticized by a lot of people because they thought it should be a different kind of movie. They think I shouldve gone after him, hammer and tongs. How dare you do this! How dare you do that! I remember having this conversation with Maureen Dowd, of all people, [and she wanted to know], How come Rumsfeld wasnt blunt, like [Vietnam War-era Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara? This was an ongoing complaint about the film. I said, You make a movie with the secretary of Defense you have, not the secretary of Defense you want to have.

But as to the question, wheres the real Rumsfeld? I think the real Rumsfeld is there. It may not be entirely appetizing to people, but it is there: the self-satisfaction, the unbelievable obtuseness, the arrogance.

More so than many people youve interviewed as subjects of your movies, I was conscious of Rumsfeld having created a persona for himself, complete with little aphorisms.

Yes. When I set out to make a movie, I always lay down a set of principles. I have this stupid definition of art, but I kind of like it. I know it sounds pretentious, but I dont think it is. My theory of art is to set up a series of arbitrary rules, and follow them slavishly. For The Unknown Known, I knew Rumsfeld had produced acres of memos. During the Ford administration they were called Yellow Perils; during the Bush administration they were called Snowflakes. I thought, lets base the whole movie on Yellow Perils and Snowflakes. Well have Rumsfeld read a memo and then contextualize and explain it to us. Thats the movie!

Like a short-story author commenting on their own work.

Indeed  and it has that ironic quality as well.

You did a series years ago called First Person. What was the arbitrary rule for that?

The idea was, I only interview one person per program, hence the idea of First Person. The idea was, Ive seen thousands upon thousands of documentaries where they interview mom, sis, brother, friends, the manager at the bank. Well, why do I have to do that? I thought it would be interesting to just simply say, No, Im not going to do that, and you cant make me. Ill interview one person, and itll be about one person alone!

Thats an arbitrary rule Ive set down for a number of films Ive made and then I slavishly follow! When I had fulfilled my contract with First Person, I had some money left over to do another interview. There was someone Id always wanted to interview, and I hadnt dared approach him about an interview, and that was Robert S. McNamara. That movie [Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara] came out of the series First Person, from the heart of that idea. I said, Im not going to interview anyone else. Im going to interview Robert S. McNamara. Period. Done.

Well, easier said than done, because I called him on the phone and he thought, clearly, that I was part of his book tour. Hed just written Wilsons Ghost, I was part of the book tour, he was going to appear because hes coming to Cambridge anyway, I live in Cambridge and hell talk to me about Wilsons Ghost. And at a certain point, hed been talking to other people and he realized this might be about something other than the book, although I really liked the book. Its a very interesting, semiautobiographical book.

Most books are.

Yes! His books even more so than most. So I got a call from him two days before the interview, and he tells me hes been speaking to friends and theyve told him, You dont want to talk to this guy, this is a real bad idea, you should cancel this interview.

What did they warn him about?

Im not sure. I was an anti-Vietnam demonstrator years ago. Ill fess up to that! If anything, I wish Id demonstrated more, not less. Anyway, McNamara went on at such enormous length, explaining to me why he wasnt going to be interviewed by me. And early on, I assumed, Okay, thats done with, thats over. And then at the end of the conversation he says to me, I said Ill do it, so Ill do it. Ill give you ten minutes. He comes in and sees my Interrotron  I know were not talking about Wormwood, and were supposed to. My apologies!

Thats quite all right. Well get to it.

Anyway, McNamara sees my Interrotron and says, WHATS THAT? and I say, Well, sir, thats my Interrotron. Thats my interviewing machine. I DONT CARE WHAT YOU CALL IT, I DONT LIKE IT!

For the benefit of readers who are not familiar with the Interrotron, can you describe it?

Everybody has seen film interviews. Its a staple of TV. When you watch Charlie Rose  well, you cant watch Charlie Rose anymore, but if you could  youd see theres a table and two people sitting there and a camera somewhere else filming those two people talking. The camera is an observer. Like the camera is sitting at the table with them. Well, from the very beginning of making films since Gates of Heaven, I kept having this fantasy  what if people were looking directly into my eyes, and I was looking directly into theirs?

You cant do that directly because the cameras in the way. But you can do that if you use teleprompters. Teleprompters are almost always used to put text on a half-silvered mirror in front of the camera, so if youre a politician or newscaster, you can read copy. My idea was to have two prompters and two cameras. If my camera, the A camera, is on you, I take the video feed of that camera and put it on the B prompter, so Im looking at that video image of you, live, looking directly into the lens of the camera. I am also looking directly into the lens of the camera, and the B camera feeds that to the A prompter. So were both looking at each others live video images, and at the same time, we are staring directly down the lens of our respective cameras.

Are you both in the same room?

Dont have to be. Sometimes Im in a different room. It really depends. If its a big studio, Im usually in the same room. If Im in a house, like the one I was shooting in in L.A. a week ago, Im in a different room.

By the way, people always say Im screaming at McNamara in Fog of War, but Im only doing it because hes pretty far away from me! Im in the Interrotron, hes hard of hearing, and you dont want to leave an open mic on set because that creates all kinds of difficulties in and of itself, so Im only screaming at him in order for him to hear me!

Some would argue, and Id imagine some have argued with you, about the whole idea of using the Interrotron. It does give you this sense that youre looking directly into the persons eyes 

And you are! Its video images youre looking at, but yes, you are looking into the persons eyes, and vice versa.

 but its not what you and I are doing right now, here, in this room.

Yes. God knows what you and I are doing.

My point is, compared to the two us sitting in chairs near each other, what youre doing when you use the Interrotron is artificial.

Its all artificial, please! [Laughs.] Oh, I got so tired of people criticizing that.

What else are you tired of hearing?

I hated the term, and still hate the term reenactment. Would you say there are reenactments in Rashomon? I dont think so. Hes showing you alternative versions of what people say happened.

But Rashomon is an entirely scripted, fictional story.

Well, I noticed that even with the scripted elements of Wormwood, people call them reenactments, but theyre not reenacting anything, properly speaking. I got so tired of it that. First of all, reenactments came out of a sort of see-and-say type of stuff. Youd have an interview, the person would go, Blah blah blah, and then youd illustrate them with the subsequent reenactment.

On the night of June 4, 1973, I went to the store and bought a pack of cigarettes, and you cut to an actor in a wide-lapel shirt and bell bottoms walking into a store and buying a pack of cigarettes.

Thats correct. So I pointed out like, What exactly am I reenacting? Am I reenacting truth? No. Am I reenacting belief? More often than not, Im reenacting claims of what people saw or didnt see. A version of events, a belief about what transpired, rather than what actually transpired. And I got in the habit  out of annoyance, I would say  of pointing out how consciousness is a reenactment of reality inside of our skulls. This idea that we have some immediate and privileged access to the world around us? Excuuuse me! We do not!

Errol Morris. Photo: Zach Dilgard/Netflix

The older I get, the more struck I am by the sheer amount of self-justifying bullshit that every single person indulges in every single minute of every single day.

Tell me about it!

When you have an argument with someone, and you come away from it and you tell a third person about it, what is the nature of the story? Its usually about how you won the argument, and how you were the smart, rational person in the room and everyone else was an idiot and wouldnt listen to your wisdom. Its very rarely about how you could have done it differently, how humiliated you feel, and what mistakes you made. I think thats why cell phones were invented, so people can instantly share bullshit accounts of their arguments with third parties.

Technology changes, of course, but it doesnt make it less communicative. It just changes the parameters. Things happen in phone calls that would never happen with us sitting and looking at each other in a room. Things happen on the Interrotron that would never happen with us just sitting and looking at each other in a room. Its not meant to replace us sitting across from each other in a room, its meant to create something new that has its own set of constraints and limitations, but that also has its own set of possibilities that you would not have otherwise.

Before I watched Wormwood, I had it described to me by a number of people as a fact-fiction hybrid, or something along those lines. But I dont think you ever described it that way yourself, did you?

No. I wouldnt do that. I wouldnt call it a fact-fiction hybrid. Theres this kind of nutty idea of documentary, fact, drama, fiction. First of all, theres a completely different set of rules. There is no such thing as presenting truth, whatever you think it is, in a movie theater. I have always bristled at the idea that style guarantees truth, that if I have a handheld camera, available light, and I dont move anything on a set, that somehow thats [acceptable], and somehow, all the rest is not. I think, no! Truth is a quest! Its a pursuit!

So Frederick Wisemans detached way of shooting things is not innately more truthful than, say, Jonathan Caouette in Tarnation, which has a style thats very subjective and emotional?

No! No! Fred Wiseman! I made a pilgrimage up to Cambridge, Massachusetts  I lived in New York at the time  to meet him, because he was one of my heroes, and hes still, 40 years later, one of my heroes. He said to me once, How can you like my films? Theyre all wobbly-scope. He calls his handheld camera wobbly-scope. Now, everything he does, or almost everything, is mounted on a tripod. But in those days, it was all handheld cinematography, available light. How does he deal with the question of filming people? Hell create a situation where you and I are talking and then he is observing us, off to the side.

Fred would ask me, How is it possible that you like my films? and I say, Are you kidding me? I wrote a piece about Freds films for [the Museum of Modern Art] that was reprinted in The Paris Review that Im quite proud of. For me, Fred is a surrealist working in reality. We may have different interpretations of his work, which I think is interesting in and of itself. I keep calling him the king of misanthropic cinema, and he calls me the king of misanthropic cinema, and then we get into some kind of argument about it! [Laughs.]

The late Albert Maysles gave me some very complimentary quotes about Fred Wiseman for a piece I wrote about 15 years ago, but he was quite critical of him for that reason. He said Wiseman didnt like people very much. But how can you spend weeks or months photographing a particular institution if you dont like people?

Thats possible, but lets say for a moment that Fred Wiseman didnt like people. Say, for the sake of argument, that being a social worker at heart is not a required condition of being a documentary filmmaker. I mean, I dont see myself as a thinly disguised humanitarian or social worker.

I do like my subjects most of the time! I really do! Ive interviewed mass murderers, psychos of every stripe and description, but Ive also interviewed friends of mine. Ive almost liked every single one of them, maybe even loved them. I had a hard time with Donald Rumsfeld, but maybe thats me. And I guess Al [Maysles] wouldnt have approved! How dare you speak to someone you dont love? HOW DARE YOU! Really!

[Laughs.] We really should talk about Wormwood a little.

I hope Im not ruining this interview!

Often, when people become preoccupied with form and the theory behind how stories are told, as you very clearly are, they lose the emotional impact of the story. How do you prevent that from happening?

I guess you make certain stylistic decisions. It sounds pretentious, but Im always thinking about how a story is presented. Why is there no Interrotron in Wormwood? Because its not a first-person story. It is Erics story, to a large degree, but there are other characters in it.

Whats up with all the mosaic editing, where youre putting four, six, ten images on the screen at the same time?

I liked that whole set of metaphors that emerged from Erics work. His collage theory, the idea of detective work, reflections, mirrors, collages  all those are very important. And the use of all of these different genres and forms is very, very important.

Heres my line, for what its worth: The best nonfiction asks us to examine the relationship between what were seeing on the screen and the real world. It makes us think about that. It doesnt lull us into some kind of acquiescence or blind acceptance. It makes us think about how stories are constructed, how theyre put together. Napoleon had this really cynical line, which I disagree with. The line was, What is history but a collection of agreed-upon lies? Whats interesting is that so much of history is an agreed-upon lie, but still, history stands outside of us, in that sense that something happened in the real world, and just mere agreement between men and women will not make it so.

Someone asked me if truth is damaged in the modern world, with people screaming about fake news and alternative facts. Is it alternative or alternate? Whatever it is, whatever Kellyanne Conway came up with, the truth is in great shape. You can deny truth, but that doesnt mean its gonna go away. It has a kind of permanence, and whats great about us, if there is anything great about us as a species, is that we pursue truth. We understand its value. We see it as a search. Its not something thats handed over. Its a quest.

Erics quest in Wormwood, my quest in Wormwood is to find out how and why his father died. If he was killed  and it seemed he was not only killed, but executed by the CIA  why was he killed? What are the details of it? Something happened in that room.

All of Trumps courtiers cant change the truth. You can have 100 million people saying that a triangle has four sides, and it aint gonna make it so.

Is one of the takeaways from Wormwood that there are some stories where you can never know the truth?

You can always know the truth.

But almost everyone involved in the story that Eric Olson is telling in Wormwood is dead.

Well, thats the problem.

Once you get beyond a certain point, everyone who was involved in it will be dead. And all their children will be dead, too.

And no one will care.

And no one will care.

Thats a real possibility. But in principle, you can always know the truth.

Let me put it in a Donald Rumsfeld-like way: Are you telling me that the truth is always knowable, but we cant always know the truth?

I think thats correct. It may not always be knowable in the sense that  well, the way I think about it, if history is perishable, theres an expiration date. Youve left it in the fridge too long and theres mold on it.

You gotta make that goulash by Wednesday, otherwise 

Youre outta luck! Wormwood, though, is not just about the fact that history is perishable  of course its perishable; people die, documents are destroyed or lost or adulterated, and on and on  but that there are cadres of people interested in effacing history, covering it up, altering it, disguising it.

I like the incompetence theory of history  most major historical events occur out of some kind of stupidity, incompetence, inadvertence. The common history of both Frank Olsons story and the [John F. Kennedy] assassination is the governments repeated attempt to misdirect and confuse.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Photo: Suzanne Tenner/SHOWTIME

The Film Society of Lincoln Center unofficially declared December 14 Laura Dern Day, marking the occasion with screenings of some of her wide-ranging roles  Smooth Talk (1985), Citizen Ruth (1996), and Wild at Heart (1990)  followed by a wildly entertaining conversation between Dern and Dennis Lim, director of programming at the Film Society.

Since Lim is also author of David Lynch: The Man From Another Place, it was no surprise that the talk was kicked off with a scene from Lynchs Blue Velvet, where Dern describes to Kyle MacLachlan her dream of robins that represent love. (Youre a neat girl, is MacLachlans square reply to her bizarre monologue.) While Dern wittily deflected Lims prompts to analyze her craft, she was quick to share stories of Lynch, ranging from this first collaboration to Lynch recently sending her a Diane meme (the one with her Twin Peaks: The Return character as Times Person of the Year, with the headline: Fuck You Time).

Here are five of Laura Derns best David Lynch stories:

 One of my favorite memories around Blue Velvet was it went to Telluride to premiere, and Kyle and I sat with David in the back of the theater to watch the movie. Once you dive in with David you learn his sensibility quite quickly, and his brilliance, his beauty, and his simplicity in what he wants. And I remember at moments that were so poignant to him, people [were] laughing, and him being struck that people were laughing. And at the horrifying moments, or insane absurd moments, he was like a giddy child who was on a ride at Disneyland. And he asked, Why is no one laughing? And I thought, I have to work with this man for the rest of my life.

 Dern said her grandmother also had an affinity for Lynch: My mothers mother, who raised me while my parents worked, is a sweet little beautiful Catholic lady from Alabama. She came to the premiere of Wild at Heart and sat between me and David. When the film ended, my grandma turned to David and put her arm around him and said, That film was so cute! And you know Nic [Cage] sounds just like Elvis!

 David is just so particular, because he knows me so well and he only gives one-word directions. He would kill me if I tried to have a conversation about the character. Hes like, I need wind. I need bubble gum. And thats pretty much our relationship.

 Regarding the shared trust between her and Lynch in making the experimental Inland Empire: A memory came to mind of being at California and Vine at three oclock in the morning and [Lynch] wanting me to lay on my belly, on the stars, face down, in a traumatized state. And Jim [Taylor] and Alexander [Payne] had wanted me to do this in a prison cell in Omaha [for Citizen Ruth], as well. Both times I had to turn to these gentlemen and say, I smell urine. These guys [Taylor and Payne] actually brought in bleach and a mop. I think Davids quote was, Stop complaining.

 Even when asked about her role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Dern responded with a Lynch story: I can say how lucky I am to have found David Lynch at 17. Because when I first met him and had to do press differently for him than other directors preceding that, he said, Your job is to tell them nothing! So it was a seamless transition to a Star Wars movie.
Photo: Lucasfilm

In the lead-up to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, we look back at the first Jedi (narratively speaking) with a series of stories about the much-beloved and never-disparaged prequel trilogy.

There are certain criticisms of Star Wars:Episodes I, II, and III that have been repeated so often, theyre basically accepted as part of Star Wars mythology.

Things like: The prequels were CGId to death. Midi-Chlorians are an abomination. Jar Jar Binks is the absolute worst. Also: Hayden Christensen is a bad actor, based on his performances in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

Say what you will about the CGI, the Midi-Chlorians, or Jar Jar, whose intolerability has not lessened with the passage of time. But Christensen? That guy deserves a break for a whole bunch of reasons.

I spent some time this week revisiting both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith  youre welcome, America  and was reminded again of those films flaws, which include performances (and not just from Christensen) that often, though by no means always, feel stilted.

Clones is the most blatant offender in this area, which is why I believe Christensen has taken such an unfair brunt of prequel blame. Unlike his co-stars Natalie Portman or Ewan McGregor, audiences barely knew who Christensen was when he snapped on Anakin Skywalkers Padawan ponytail. His most notable credit prior to Star Wars was the small film Life As a House, which I think its fair to say that large swaths of the fan base did not see.

Related Stories Every Star Wars Movie, Ranked

Episode II marked Christensens introduction to movie audiences in general, and to the Jedi realm, where he was finally showing us what Darth Vader, one of the great all-time movie villains, looked like in grown-up form, before he became Darth Vader. Even if he hadnt gone to the dark side yet in Clones, one expected pre-Darth to have a powerful, teasingly sinister presence. Instead he is pouty, petulant, overcome by love for Amidala (Portman), and, perhaps most surprisingly, operating on a mostly low key throughout the movie. Seeing The Last Jedi and then going back to watch Attack of the Clones is like going from a Tesla driving at 150 miles per hour to an old Cadillac that can barely climb a hill where the speed limit is 25. Christensens performance is representative of the films excessive formality and deliberate pacing. But that formality and slowness is also what George Lucas was going for as a director.

I made the film in a 1930s style, Lucas told the Guardian in 2002, as Clones was on the verge of its premiere. Its based on a Saturday matinee serial from the 1930s, so the acting style is very 30s, very theatrical, very old-fashioned. Method acting came in in the 1950s and is very predominant today. I prefer to use the old style.

Christensen, a young actor in his first exceedingly major motion picture, was simply trying to give his legendary director what he wanted. Because you are cast as this character that is the connective tissue to someone who represents all that is evil  your natural instinct is to try to take him there, Christensen told ThoughtCo. in 2005. George [Lucas] was constantly asking me to pull back from that and to make him someone who is struggling and someone who allows his frustrations to present themselves in ways that arent necessarily perceived as evil but may be in other ways. And to keep it at that and to not really show any sort of a character arc in Episode II because it was more about who he was at that time in his life.

In short, Christensen kept his emotions dialed down on purpose, in ways that may have been detrimental to the film, depending on your perspective, but that matched his directors vision. That vision also includes some of the worst dialogue in the entire Star Wars canon. Theres Anakins dreadful I hate sand monologue, and his profession of love for Amidala that includes the sentence, Im haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. And yet: Go back and watch that haunted by the kiss confession scene in Clones again. The words are still cringe-y, but Christensen delivers them with such sincerity that he almost  almost!  overcomes them.

In between Clones and Sith, another, much less high-profile film starring Christensen was released: Shattered Glass, a tick-tock tracking of the self-imposed destruction of the serial fabricator/journalist Stephen Glass. Its an excellent movie, one worth revisiting at a time when the term fake news is used so casually and inaccurately. It also features a terrific performance by Christensen as Glass, who is persuasively likable, weak, arrogant, and panicked, often in the same scene. Critics at the time uniformly praised his work in the movie. The New York Times A.O. Scott said Christensen found the perfect balance between creepiness and charm, while David Edelstein, then writing for Slate, wrote, The performances of Christensen, [Chloe] Sevigny, [Hank] Azaria, and especially Peter Sarsgaard as a prissy yet achingly vulnerable Chuck Lane are so good that for long stretches the artifice drops away and you think youre watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Shattered Glass is 95 minutes worth of proof that Hayden Christensen can, in fact, act.

Id also say that Revenge of the Sith provides much more solid proof of that as well, in part because its a better movie than Attack of the Clones and finally allows Anakin (and Christensen) to lean hard into that dark side transition. Christensen seems to have his bearings to a greater degree in it, perhaps because he went through the Jedi training Clones provided. Hes more confident, and his scenes with Portman feel more natural than the ones in Episode II. Hes also able to rattle loose more emotion in this chapter of the narrative, which surely must have been a relief after reigning it in during Episode II. Is Sith a perfect movie? No, not at all. But its certainly the best of the prequel trilogy, largely because it finally delivers what we sat through hours of Jedi council meetings to see: Anakin finally putting on that iconic mask and becoming the mouth-breathing bad guy with the voice of James Earl Jones. Christensen deserves at least some credit for making that transition credible.

Related Stories 11 Star Wars Prequel Ideas Abandoned by George Lucas

So is the upshot of this piece that Christensen isnt to blame for his performance because its all George Lucass fault? I mean  sort of? But its also become so easy to dump on Lucas for the prequels shortcomings, and his frequently noted issues with the acting side of directing, that it feels both cliche and reductive to leave it there. The fact is that Lucas made exactly the movies he wanted to make in The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, and told a story that sounded worthy of telling: what turns a Jedi into a dark lord. I completely understand why Lucas wanted to explore that terrain and why, if you remember 1999 and early 2000s, fans were genuinely excited to see that story play out, even, I might add, after Jar Jar Binks meesa yousad his way into the public consciousness.

The problem with that arc is that it requires audiences to absorb six-plus hours of movie, only to watch the protagonist travel down the worst possible path. We dont go to the movies to see happy endings all the time time necessarily. But I would argue that we do go to Star Wars movies for uplift, something the original trilogy and the more recent films have provided in spades because its baked into their stories of rebellion and hope, and overcoming those who seek to stanch both. This is something that the universes creator, who was looking to the 30s serials that inspired him when he was young, cant necessarily grasp in the same way that filmmakers like J.J. Abrams or Rian Johnson can, who are inspired not by serials, but by A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, two of which were not directed by Lucas.

In The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, Adam Driver is essentially playing another version of Anakin in the form of Kylo Ren, and hes electrifying to watch, especially in Last Jedi. He may be a better actor than Christensen  hes certainly had more and better opportunities to prove that  but he also is playing someone who, while conflicted, has already proven himself to be potentially evil. Both Abrams and Johnson have allowed him to embrace that in a way that Christensen could never fully do until the final act of Sith. While that doesnt excuse every off Anakin moment in, say, Attack of the Clones  Im sorry, the thing with the sand is still bad on every level  it does help to explain it. Most actors, even accomplished ones like Leonardo DiCaprio, who Lucas approached about playing Anakin, would have had a hard time bringing that character to life within the framework necessitated by that story and the way Lucas wanted to tell it. Perhaps thats why DiCaprio passed on the project.

Hayden Christensen is still a working actor, though none of his recent credits are particularly notable. The cloud that hangs over the prequels no doubt still hangs over him every time he expresses interest in or auditions for a part. Which is a lie about his potential as an actor  not one thats quite as egregious as the ones Stephen Glass told at the New Republic, but a lie nonetheless. What the Force gave to Hayden Christensen nearly 20 years ago, it also took away.
Christian Bale in Hostiles. Photo: Yellow Hawk, Inc.

The American West of Hostiles is depressed. Early in the film, Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) sits down for a nightcap with his second-in-command, Metz (Rory Cochrane), who tells him that he has the melancholia and may have to quit the military. From the look of him: slumped, mumbling, booze-soaked, we have no reason not to believe him. But Joe insists hes fine; such a condition doesnt even exist. The film proves him wrong over its hefty run time: By the end of the film not only are we more than certain that melancholia is real, but were pretty sure weve caught it too, and that it is inextricable from the very soil of this country. All this is pretty apparent about an hour out from the end credits, but nevertheless director Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Crazy Heart) presses on, his parade of endemic violence dragging by as slowly as humanly possible.

The year is 1892, which we realize with a start isnt all that long ago for the foundation of Maslows hierarchy of needs to be so shaky in our proud republic. The conflict between the Native tribes of New Mexico and the Union settlers is being solved mostly via murder and mass imprisonment of the former. When Joe gets an assignment to transport one such prisoner, a chief named Yellow Hawk, back to his native land in Montana with his family, he looks close to nauseated with rage, and its not just his hangover. Yellow Hawk murdered several of his friends a while back; its all he can do every day not to kill him in his paddock in revenge. Bale is exceedingly well-cast as a man who holds onto his anger like a security blanket, who has become a junkie for violence.

More questionably cast is Rosamund Pike as Rosalie Quaid, a traumatized widow whom Joe and his crew encounter en route to Montana. Pike made a name for herself as Amazing Amy Dunne in 2014s Gone Girl as a fraudster, and its been hard for me to believe her in any subsequent performance. Shes uniquely ridiculous here, a collection of post-traumatic damaged-woman tics in lieu of a character, flailing her body and wailing as she digs the graves for her children by hand. Shes taken in by the party and makes the journey with them, and her needs and tics are attended to with far more understanding than that of the Natives. The film is inevitably plodding toward a third act in which the hypocrisy of this is laid bare and Joe finds redemption, but there is much more quaking and keening to get through before we get there.

Hostiles is a brutal if well-intentioned film that doesnt help its cause with its lack of development of its Native characters. The depression of its West is only articulated through its white characters, just as mental illness at large is still mostly just a subject for white film characters to struggle through. It does this well enough, but how many more nouveau Westerns will we have to slog through until the trauma of white male violence on white males is fully excavated and picked through, and we can finally move on to how it affected everyone else?
Photo: Amy Graves/Getty Images

Yesterday the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times published investigative reports in which a total of nine women accused Russell Simmons of sexual misconduct ranging from harassment to rape that spanned 30 years. After speaking to an anonymous source at the NYPD, the L.A. Times is reporting that detectives are beginning to contact the women who have accused Simmons. One of those women, Sherri Hines, who alleges that Simmons raped her in the early 1980s, told the Los Angeles paper that police had made contact with her earlier today. In addition to the nine women whose stories were published yesterday, model Keri Claussen Khalighi and screenwriter Jenny Lumet have also publicly accused Simmons of assault, bringing the total to 11 accusers. The NYPD contact told the L.A. Times, We were made aware of the alleged crime through the media, and we anticipate there will be more who come forward. The source added, Were in the process of setting up interviews and if any victims want to come forward, they should contact us. The majority of the alleged crimes are said to have taken place in New York City, where Simmons lives.

Simmons did not respond to a request for comment from the Times, but in the past month he has denied any accusations of unlawful behavior, and said this morning in an Instagram post that he will now start to properly defend himself, and prove without any doubt that I am innocent of all rape charges. The main image of the post was simply a large text block that read #NotMe.
Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for TNT

Girls Trip didnt receive a single Golden Globe nomination on Monday, and Jada Pinkett Smith is still wondering how the years breakout R-rated comedy was snubbed. In a series of tweets earlier this week, Smith slammed the Globes for denying Tiffany Haddish a nomination. Today, she elaborates to Vanity Fair in a new interview. Pinkett Smith says that she and her publicist personally appealed to Hollywood Foreign Press Association members, asking them to see the film. Only two members showed up, Pinkett Smith says, and one left midway through. Later, a member revealed in confidence that there was low interest in the film. Why isnt there any interest? Pinkett Smith asked VF. Its their responsibility to look at the cinematic landscape  in regards to drama, comedy, and musicals. What is the criteria that would suggest Girls Trip doesnt deserve a screening  a proper screening? Then, to put things in perspective, the actress referenced another raunchy R-rated female comedy that got plenty of Golden Globes attention. Tell me why Bridesmaids got a seat at the table? Pinkett Smith said she asked the HFPA member that spoke with her. I feel as though African-American women have to achieve five times as much as anyone else to get even a little bit of something.
Photo: Web Entertainment

What youre looking at is the Unsigned Hype column from the March 1998 edition of The Source. Its difficult to overstate the power The Source wielded through the turn of the century; this column alone helped launch the careers of the Notorious B.I.G., Saafir, Common, and Capone-N-Noreaga, and was early to the party on everyone from avant heroes like Thirstin Howl III to DMX, who, in March of 98, was about to embark on one of the greatest 12-month tears ever recorded. Cordoned off at the bottom of the same page is the magazines Fat Tape feature, which earmarked songs by Mia X and Mac, Mase with 8Ball & MJG, Big Pun, Goodie Mob, Cappadonna, and so on. In the 19 years since this issue ran, Big Pun passed away and Cappadonna spent time driving a cab. Mac has spent more than 15 years in prison for a crime he more than likely didnt commit, and Mia X is battling cancer. Mase left rap to be a pastor in Atlanta, came back to rap, left again, and then came back again. Meanwhile, the subject of this particular Unsigned Hype column went on to become one of the most famous artists in the history of popular music.

Eminem (as in the popular candy) had just released The Slim Shady EP, an at the time little-heard, six-song tape that nevertheless served its purpose when it made its way into the hands of an Interscope employee in Los Angeles. But it wasnt really his first record. Back in 1996, while he was working a series of dead-end dishwashing jobs around Detroit and struggling to raise a young daughter, he had cut an album called Infinite with Mark and Jeff Bass, producers who ran a small label of their own. (Later, when Em was signed to Interscope and Dr. Dres Aftermath, he was rumored to have bought up every unsold copy of Infinite to keep it out of circulation.)

Infinite was clearly made with a lot of forethought; its carefully sequenced and musically balanced, each song more or less explores one rigid theme, from having faith in your artistic potential to dodging AIDS. Its also reverent to a fault. Ems style on it often mirrors AZ and Nas, but only early Nas  you can imagine him walking into a record store and reaching right past It Was Written to grab De La Souls Stakes Is High. He says uncharacteristic things like in the midst of this insanity I found my Christianity. The tonal contrast with Slim Shady, which came out just a year later, is absurd.

The easy way to read this transition is to say that Eminem adopted a new persona to indulge fantasies and create an identity that might be more successful. (Infinite failed to make a significant dent in Detroit, and made virtually none on a national level.) But the idea that Infinite was more true to the real Marshall Mathers seems dubious. Its pretty clean as far as formative efforts go  Em could always rap, even when he got too obsessed with counting syllables  but was carbon-copying styles from New York.

But on The Slim Shady EP, something changed. Ems delivery was still acrobatic, but it was more forceful and dynamic too, drawling here and pounding there, his voice full of poison and swagger. And even when he foregrounded bank robberies and murder scenes, he was starting to construct an identity that was fuller and more original than what hed showcased previously. Infinites rote financial complaints morphed into If I Had , where he ran down a list of almost 40 perfectly specific grievances: you see his Monte Carlo, tank on empty, hear his boss barking over the details of a job that pays $5.50 an hour. Im tired of faking knots with a stack of ones, he rapped, having a lack of funds and resorting back to guns. Its songwriting that cuts to the bone. And its worth noting that, for all the lengths Em goes to in the EPs first few minutes to establish Slim Shady as a new and terrifying alter ego, he introduces If I Had  as a song about life, by Marshall Mathers.

One of the other complaints Em registered on that song was that he was tired of people saying theyre tired of hearing me rap about drugs. That echoes the first song, the extraordinary Low Down, Dirty, where a kid tells his interested mom: Slim Shady, his tape is dope, I dug it / Its rugged, but he needs to quit talking all that drug shit. By all accounts, the time between records was unbearably bleak in Matherss life. At some point in 1997, he attempted suicide. That was also the year he fell in with the Outsidaz, the New Jersey group led by Young Zee and Pacewon, who were then best known, at least in Detroit, for their guest turn on the Fugees album The Score. The Outsidaz pushed Ems style to its venomous fringes. And so he learned to mine his inner life for questions. On Low Down, Dirty, he asks Which drug will I end up dead from? and then that question rattles around in your brain for hours afterward.

After the EP made its way to Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, Em got to work expanding it into a proper debut album. Two songs made the jump alongside If I Had  Just Dont Give a Fuck, became one of his signature songs: witty, irreverent, and deeply impressed with its own wit and irreverence. The other, Just the Two of Us (retitled 97 Bonnie and Clyde for The Slim Shady LP) was cartoonishly evil. In the song, Em explains to his daughter, with kid-friendly euphemisms, that hes just killed her mother and dumped her body underwater.

At his commercial peak, Eminem and his defenders liked to cast him as a free-speech advocate; it helped avoid the difficult conversations around songs like Just the Two of Us, which isnt even the most famous or grotesque song about killing his childs mother in his catalogue. In the white-hot run that began his national career (three albums in four years, plus a movie and a record with his group, D12), his villainous persona proved tough to wrangle. Sometimes, the calibration would flip from off to on within a single verse: The Marshall Mathers LP opens with a verse where, at times, hes banally gross (Just bend over and take it like a slut  okay, Ma?) and others hes playful and self-aware (Oh, now hes raping his own mother / Abusing a whore, snorting coke, and we gave him the Rolling Stone cover?).

Marshall Mathers was at its most potent when Em peered through the fourth wall and prodded at the nature of his fame; it became one of the best-selling and most talked about records of the century, both for its base provocations and for its headier elements. Twenty years and hundreds of millions of dollars after The Slim Shady EP, Eminem is the beneficiary of a vast and sophisticated record-industry machinery, emerging from hiding every few years to dominate pop charts and provoke presidents. None of it would have been possible without Marshall Matherss decision, in 1997, to make a hard, maybe desperate left turn into new creative territory.

The six-song EP that resulted was a proof of concept so strong that it has survived sea changes in rap and in American life, and has kept its creator, improbably, near the top of the food chain in each. In the first half of his career, it also inoculated Eminem against trends in commercial hip-hop, hermetically sealing him in a bubble of chain saws and picket lines. All of which makes his newer, earnest engagement with the outside world  see the triplet flow he clumsily deploys at one point on his new album, Revival so jarring, like when you were a kid and saw your teacher at the grocery store. But revisited today, The Slim Shady EP holds up as a radical leap in style and ambition, a formative work for one of musics most consequential stars.
Photo: Vulture and A24

Over the next few weeks, Vulture will be publishing our critics year-end lists. Today, were looking at the best movies thatll make you want to call your mom.

Theres a particular rhythm to the way mothers and daughters relate to one another: How you can love your mother but not like her, how its possible to desperately need her as you fantasize about living without her. A significant number of 2017s movies get that rhythm exactly right. Lady Bird gets at that teenage ambivalence, the kind that makes you fuss and throw tantrums one week and crawl onto the couch, resting your head on her lap the next. Three Billboards tells the other side of the story, the one where a mothers whole life  and ferocious anger  is shaped by her daughters absence. I, Tonya bubbles with maternal cruelty and sarcasm. The Big Sick and The Florida Project both feature tough, challenging moms at their center, to wildly different results. And Call Me by Your Names summer romance ends with a mother gently whispering her sons name, beckoning him to their dinner table.

The first time I saw Lady Bird, I called my mom. Then I texted my favorite aunt. That weekend, I dialed up both my grandmas too  just to be safe. The third time I saw Lady Bird, I called my mom again, and she sighed, Girl. Again? Rather than continue to stalk my family members, Ive channeled those feelings into the below list: 2017s most mom-heavy movies, ranked by how much theyll leave you wanting to call your own mom. The criteria is simple: movies ranked by how totally grateful they make you feel about being gifted (or cursed) with a passionate, glorious, complicated mother.

Mother!

Darren Aronofskys bacchanalia of biblical references begins with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem, a married couple renovating a mansion far removed from the bustle of the outside world. Hes a famous writer; shes a dutiful housewife, pregnant with their first child, tending to their home. Things go south in their two-story paradise when uninvited guests arrive  among them, an amiable Ed Harris, icy Michelle Pfeiffer, and loosey-goosey Kristen Wiig  and J.Laws painstakingly built idyll is desecrated.

Theres no mother-child tension in Mother! (just tension between literally every other character). But something horrible happens to a baby (youll have to see the movie to figure out exactly what), and, according to Aronofsky, the entire film is about what happens when we take our Mother Earth for granted. Mother! is such a wild fever dream that youll leave with your head spinning, wondering what, exactly, Darren Aronofsky had been smoking in 2016. It wont have you phoning your mom for life advice or to reminisce on your childhood, but itll have youll waking her up in the middle of night just to talk about what the hell you just watched  and how to figure out if your sink is braced, because thats definitely something shell know.

Read full review

Girls Trip

The Flosse Posse  Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, and Tiffany Haddish  are making their pilgrimage to the Essence Fest, part family reunion and part wild spring break. The women arent as close as they were in college, so the trip is their big chance to reconnect.

These arent 20-somethings or frat boys having the fun: Theyre black women over 35, some of them moms. But instead of falling into the stereotypes about what kind of fun moms over 35 have  bingo and a glass of Prosecco before bed  Girls Trip is endlessly surprising, inspiring belly laughs from the first time Haddish blesses your ears with her pronunciation of bootyhole.

Remember on Atlanta, when Lakeith Stanfield said, Moms need to enjoy rap, too? These women let loose, talk about breakups and (fruit-assisted) blow jobs, get blackout drunk, hit on celebrities  the works. Youll want to call your mom after watching this, but instead, let her have fun and laugh at Tiffany Haddish in peace.

Read full review

Landline

Its the 1990s in New York City, and Alan Jacobs (John Turturro) has secretly been cheating on his wife, using the familys desktop to write love poems to his girlfriend. One of his two daughters finds out his secret: Ali (Abby Quinn), the younger one, an angsty teen who sneaks out at night and talks back to her mother, Pat (Edie Falco). Meanwhile, Dana (Jenny Slate), the older one, finds herself disenchanted with her job and boyfriend (Jay Duplass), going through a bit of a quarter-life crisis.

Landline is best when the Jacobs family women are together, plotting their next move. When the daughters are together, combing over evidence of Dads affair, they get too drunk and air out their commitment phobias. When the duo plus Pat collapse on the family apartment bathroom floor at the end, theyre puffing cigarettes and putting Alans affair and their own foibles back into perspective. These women fight and love cynically and fiercely, and theyve learned it all from each other. Landline demonstrates, empathetically, that moms arent always on-time superwomen in yoga pants and sensible shoes  they take on different roles for everyone, all while dealing with their own shit. When was the last time you or anybody in this house even looked at me? Pat asks her husband in a particularly tragic moment. Suddenly, her strain snaps into focus: She doesnt get to flail or have a crisis of confidence, because no one elses life works without her effort. This one will make you want to call your mom and ask her about her day  and about her life. (And maybe give her some alone time, too.)

Read full review

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Resplendent in a revenge onesie and an undercut, Frances McDormand is Mildred Hayes, an understandably enraged woman trying to push the police to find her daughters murderer. Raped While Dying, And Still No Arrests? How Come, Chief Willoughby? read the dramas titular billboards, purchased and put up by Mildred in a moment of sheer desperation. And yet, a single flashback shows us what kind of mother Mildred was during her daughter Angelas life: They fought bitterly, with Mildred sneering disses about Angela staying out too late, and both calling the other cunt and bitch.(White people talk to their parents so crazy.)

Soon, its clear that Three Billboards protagonists obsession with finding the guilty party is a coping mechanism meant to offset her deep grief. Youre not trying to make me believe in reincarnation, are you? Mildred says when a deer approaches her as she tends to flowers under the billboards. Because youre pretty, but you aint her. This one will make you call your mom and apologize for all that back talk  and maybe buy her a kickass jumpsuit.

Read full review

Mudbound

The first half of Dee Reess sprawling southern epic tells the story of two mothers: Laura McAllan (Carey Mulligan) and Florence Jackson (Mary J. Blige). The Jacksons are tenant farmers on the McAllans muddy land, two families stranded on the outskirts of town, their fates intertwined. Life in the country is relentless, and for the Jacksons  who are trying to save enough money to buy their own land in the racist South  getting ahead feels impossible. When Lauras daughters come down with whooping cough, she invites Florence to work for her during the day, helping her with the girls and around the house.

Florences husband, Hap (Rob Morgan), is hyperaware of how one setback can slip his family into indentured servitude, and doesnt like his wife working for Laura. But theres an important kinship between these women as mothers. Its Florences little sacrifices that will have you texting your mom with your Netflix password: The way she prays steadfastly for her son away at war; the way she worries about his future, wondering if hes hanging around the family farm for his fathers benefit and not his own; how she gave up time with her own children to make money raising someone elses. This is stuff moms literally do all the time  call yours, because shes doing a lot of shit that you never see.

Read full review

I, Tonya

But I dont have a wholesome American family, Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) admits to a figure-skating judge, after he explains that her working-class image is stopping her from winning the gold medal her skating deserves. Instead, Tonya has LaVona (Allison Janney), a mother more threatening than nurturing  a boozed-up, chain-smoking terror. She barks criticisms from the skating-rink bleachers, and nearly skips her daughters wedding. Shes the most obvious example of why Tonyas future was compromised long before Nancy Kerrigans kneecaps were busted.

LaVona and Tonyas relationship is devastatingly dysfunctional, a millennials Mommie Dearest: LaVona sneers at her daughter, makes her pee on the ice, sticks her with a steak knife during dinner. Even still, Tonya loves her mother and seeks her approval. Allison Janneys performance is good, but the mother-daughter resentment feels particularly real  sometimes that love is prickly and laced with condemnation and bitterness. But I, Tonya will make you want to call your mom immediately, with gratitude that those hateful spells rarely last  because she couldve really messed you up.

Read full review

The Big Sick

Holly Hunter doesnt even hiss a hello when she meets Kumail Nanjiani in The Big Sick. Instead, she offers an icy we know who you are to the guy who broke her daughters heart. Emilys (Zoe Kazan) medically induced coma means that Kumail, his ex, and Emilys parents Terry (Ray Romano) and Beth (Hunter) are stuck on a merry-go-round of waiting rooms and doctor consultations, waiting for Emilys life-threatening infection to heal. And where Terry is the goofily out-of-touch dad, Beth is the ferocious mama bear: No, Kumail cant sit with them; no, he cant wait with them; wouldnt it be better if the Uber-driving comedian that lied to her daughter for all those months just went home?

Beths frostiness thaws when a racist heckler interrupts Kumails stand-up set. Her brow furrows as the douche yells something racist and she springs into action. She falls into mothering Kumail like its a habit. This is her default mode, where she feels most comfortable. Beth is so used to this advice-giving and nurturing that it becomes its own salve. She lashes out and fidgets, giving us a moving vision of a mothers worry. Call your mom, because she fights with you and for you  and doesnt take anyones shit.

Read full review

The Florida Project

The Florida Projects vivid, cotton-candy-colored world doesnt give us a sense of where its mother and daughter called home before they ended up in one of the motels at Disney Worlds outskirts. Moonee and Halley (Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite) are almost exactly alike, running wild, reckless in different ways. The 6-year-old outruns her friends more strict mothers, and Halley avoids hotel manager Bobbys (Willem Dafoe) well-meaning glare. Sometimes it seems like theyre two girls, raising one another: Even when she doesnt know who to trust or what to do, Moonee can sense when something isnt quite right; Halley rams headfirst into the most minor conflicts  badgering Bobby for counting her rent money, picking a fight with her best friend  just to feel a little more in control.

Most times Halley is wildly irresponsible. But theres a sense that shes nurturing Moonee in the only way she knows how: with pancakes and pizza and dollar-store shopping trips she cant afford. Shes an awkward, unreliable mother, but its not up to The Florida Project to decide whether shes unfit. Her mothering involves nodding at Moonees wild, 6-year-old ramblings and taking the heat for her daughters hijinks. Friendly reminder: Your mom did that stuff, too.

Read full review

Call Me by Your Name

True to the adaptation of Andre Acimans novel, Call Me by Your Name is mostly a story of men: the kinship between male lovers, the romantic narcissism of gay men, and in one final moving monologue, advice from fathers to son. But its also a subtle love letter to maternal empathy.

Elio (Timothee Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) fall in summer love somewhere in Italy in the early 1980s, and their summer of languorous bliss comes to an inevitable end. After Oliver departs for his return to America, Elio hangs around the train station until he can no longer sit with his own heartbreak. Amira Casar, playing Elios mother, doesnt get the third-act monologue like Michael Stuhlbarg does. But shes who Elio calls when he cant hold back his tears. He cant bear to wait for the next bus or train to deliver him back home, so he ducks into a phone booth and dials his house number. Mom? he whimpers Italian. Can you come pick me up? When he asks, he breaks into sobs.

Cut to their drive home, a small scene of nothing short of the gentlest kind of rescue mission. Elio cries in the front seat. His mom gently rubs his shoulder, not enough to signal that she knows something, but enough to show she cares. Once Elio gets home, he and his dad talk over his buoyant romance, and Call Me by Your Name winds down with an idea thats tough for anyone, much less a 17-year-old, to wrap their minds around: the idea that their parents have vibrant, interesting inner lives. This one will make you want to call both parents and ask about things theyve never told you.

Read full review

Lady Bird

Christine Lady Bird McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) spar viciously through Lady Bird. Out of fear and frustration, they fall into one endless argument about the kind of future Lady Bird will have. Marion is worried her flighty, neurotic daughter will waste the life her parents have slaved to provide; Lady Bird is terrified shes doomed to live in the mediocre Midwest forever.

Gerwig said some moneymen were surprised by the mother-daughter squabbling: I was talking to different financiers about putting money into the film and making it. And most of those people are men. And if they were raised with sisters or if they had daughters, they knew what it was, she told Terry Gross. But if they didnt, they had no idea that that was how women fought  and how they loved, too. I think it was kind of like they were getting to look into a world that they didnt know existed. Girl, does it ever. Lady Bird is unapologetically girly, and concerned about girlhood, which comes part and parcel with slamming doors and rolling your eyes and fighting with your mom.

But by the time Lady Bird jets off to NYU, the movies final, heartwarming conclusion absolutely demands that you call your mother. Call your mom and tell her youre sorry  for being a brat, or for not coming home enough. Call your mom and thank for every second she put up with you as a rebellious, angsty teen. Apologize for that time you resented her for not being as cool as that other kids mom, all those time you borrowed her keys, or lost her favorite gloves. Call your mom and thank her for building a whole luminous life in a beautiful, imperfect place, and then thank her again for raising you in it. And, if you need to, call your mom and tell her you forgive her for when she gave you the silent treatment, when she snapped at you because she was afraid for you, or when she doubted you. Or just put it the same way Lady Bird does, when she finally makes this call herself: I love you. Thank you.

Read full review
A very sexy Oscar Isaac. Photo: Lucasfilm

Beware of very sexy spoilers below.

There are nine Star Wars films, but not many of them fuck. Outside of a few scattered moments here and there in the original trilogy, there hasnt been much sexual heat in outer space, and when George Lucas tried to tackle straight-up romance in Attack of the Clones, it came off like Steve Carell describing breasts in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Its said that the Jedi are supposed to remain chaste, and frequently, their movies follow suit.

But not the new one. Not Star Wars: The Last Jedi. This is, by far, the years horniest space opera.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi definitely fucks.

Search your heart, you know it to be true! Somehow, this PG-13 movie with only one kiss is still a kinky thrill ride that implies all sorts of sex stuff is going on in between the space battles. Here are ten of the lustiest moments.

1. Kylo Ren takes his shirt off

Like I wasnt going to start with this? Adam Driver as Kylo Ren gamely serves up the most Star Wars beefcake since Luke went sleeveless on Dagobah, and even Rey is rattled. She forgot to force-knock before barging in on the dude, and heres Kylo Ren alone in his room, stripped to the waist, boasting sweaty pecs that look like he sliced Alderaan in half and glued the remainders to his chest. Its a lot! Finally, even people who dont subscribe to HBO can wonder, Shit, am I attracted to Adam Driver?

2. Kylo and Reys whole thing

Many weirdos shipped these two characters after The Force Awakens, and now I kinda get it. Kylo and Rey never make out, but they still share The Last Jedis sexiest scenes as well as a telepathic connection fostered by sinister voyeur Snoke, the galaxys mightiest cuck. And how about that moment where Kylo kills his mentor  its always hot when a space goth murders a lazy magician  and then flips sides with Rey to kill off a straggling crew of ruby-red stormtroopers? If watching seven seasons of Buffy has taught me anything, its that there is no sex sign more unequivocal than teaming up with your sworn enemy to throw stage punches.

3. All the sexual height differences

We all know that flirting in the workplace is a fraught endeavor, so I respect Oscar Isaacs Poe Dameron and Laura Derns Admiral Holdo for keeping it classy. However, their height difference, where Holdo towers over Poe while belittling him as a trigger-happy flyboy, is among the most sexually charged things in this movie. Come to think of it, there are several of these sexual height differences in The Last Jedi, including the Finn-Phasma face-off where, like Poe with Holdo, the shorter male protagonist tries just about everything to get the advantage over his morally questionable, much taller female superior. Im not sure what the space version of a Freudian would be  maybe a Droidian?  but there sure seems to be a lot to unpack there.

4. When Rose kisses Finn

Get it, girl! Who among us has not dreamt of space-ramming our space-sidepiece in an attempt to keep him from space-suiciding, then going in for the smooch just before a dramatic collapse? I am signing up for Rose Ticos Master Class videos as soon as those things go online, because I am ready to be taught.

5. Maz Kanata fucks?

Lupita Nyongos CGI character, a frog version of Edna Mode, appears in The Last Jedi just long enough to make sure they all learn she fucks. Yes, taking the time to relay this information may get her killed during a dramatic space battle, but Maz banged a hot human hacker and she is not going to go to her grave without making you wonder how thats anatomically possible. When the goggles are on the door, you dont want to know more!

5. Kylo Ren convincing Rey to jump into an evil water vagina on Ach-To

This was a really nasty metaphor that truly could have used Tiffany Haddishs sideline commentary.

6. Kylo Rens daddy issues

This emo goof has only been in two Star Wars movies, yet improbably, he has already found the time to get mad at three separate space daddies. Han, Luke, Snoke  the boy is greedy and not at all good at breakups.

7. Finn, naked, leaking?

If you ship Poe and Finn, director Rian Johnson sees you. Hes not giving you much, but what you get is worth parsing: Poe running to Finns aid when BB-8 tells him his buddy is naked and leaking (!), and Poe running to Finns aid after an explosion, which necessitates Oscar Isaac placing one hand on John Boyegas stomach to, uh, comfort him. This is Poes signature move, as well see in our next bit of business 

8. Poe rubbing BB-8s tummy

Im not sure where BB-8s stomach would be, technically, but Im sure that if the little droid has his way, he would let it be wherever Oscar Isaac decides to scratch. When the two are reunite after BB-8s sojourn with Dark Oscar Isaac (played by Benicio del Toro), our favorite flyboy can hardly contain himself, rushing through the crowd to caress BB-8 on the big ball and coo, Buddy, Im so glad to see you. Did the person sitting next to you reply, Im glad to see you, too? Im sorry for doing that, I never talk during movies.

9. Poe and Leia

Truly, this entire list could be comprised of things Oscar Isaac has chemistry with, because hes got some sort of vibe happening with just about every costar in The Last Jedi. (Its better off for both him and the Porgs that they are kept separate.) When Leia demotes Poe and tells him to get your head out of your cockpit, its wonderful because that sounds like a line Carrie Fisher would have improvised and also sad because I really, really want to read the book she would have written about Oscar Isaac.

10. Poe and Rey

The biggest hold up moment in The Last Jedi comes near the end, when Rey returns to the resistance and Poe  introduces himself to her? Thats right: Somehow, two of our main three good guys had not even met each other until this trilogy was already two-thirds of the way through. Now that theyve made each others acquaintance, though, Poe will finally have another character to aim his chemistry beams at, since both he and Rey have spent most of their Star Wars time alongside people who are now either deceased or otherwise occupied. Hey, girl. Got any plans for Episode IX?
Its Amy Farrah Fowlers birthday, and shell hurl if she wants to.

The bad news is that its a gift from Sheldon that leads Amy to spend her birthday eve giving her regards to ol Broadway, if you know what we mean. The good news is his intentions are thoughtful and completely unselfish, sentiments that cannot always be ascribed to Sheldon.

In honor of Amys love of Little House on the Prairie, he whips up an authentic frontier meal, complete with home-churned butter, freshly baked biscuits, and dining by candlelight. Amy is giddy when she comes home to her surprise old- (old, old) school dinner, and after supping, she and Sheldon retire to the sofa, where he says its time to pitch some woo.

But thanks to the vagaries of the authentic preparation of either boiled pork fat, chewable tree sap, or something Sheldon calls frontier scallops, he and the future missus start feeling some rumbling in their tummies. He tries to dismiss it at first as the first sharp cramps of arousal, but soon any thoughts of their traditional annual birthday coitus go right down the toilet, along with  everything else.

Amys not the only birthday girl spending her big day spitting up: Halley Wolowitz turns 1 year old, and bedridden, pregnant Bernadette assumes her hubby has the party preparations under control. In fact, hes done nothing, including finding any playmates for Halley, because hes been taking her to see movies he wants to see instead of going to the Daddy & Me classes hes been telling everyone theyre attending. He turns to Stuart for help, which is fruitless since Stuart, the Eeyore of the group, says hes never even invited to parties, let alone in the habit of planning them. Plus, theres an opening for a colonoscopy at the free clinic, and hows he gonna pass that up?

That leaves Howard no choice but to turn to Raj, the BFF hes fighting with, the one he rudely didnt invite to Halleys party even though Raj is her godfather.

Raj pitches a fit, but then he caves and pitches a bouncy castle for Halley, along with a backyard full of pink balloons and decorations. To say he and Howard ultimately make up is an overstatement; they share some pushing, shoving, and seat drops in the knockoff Wonder Woman bouncy castle, but the tension and hurt feelings remain. Has their relationship changed forever? Will it simply take more time for them to forgive each other and maybe begin to treat each other with more respect? Or will this whole blow-up blow over by the next episode? Heres hoping its option No. 2. If Sheldon can evolve to put his propensity for selfishness aside to create a special, Amy-centric day to celebrate her birthday, shouldnt Howard and Raj have the chance to show maturity in their relationship, too?

Meanwhile, in the Hofstadter homestead, Leonard is freaking out because he and Penny receive his brothers annual Christmas newsletter, and his siblings many impressive accomplishments (dude built a hospital in Rwanda!) leave Leonard feeling lame in comparison. He and Penny havent taken any trips  they thought about going to the beach one day, and the mountains another day  or made any major moves forward. The best they come up with as fodder for their own Christmas letter: Theyre both still employed and still married, and Leonard built an Ikea desk.

Its no Rwandan hospital, but sometimes those instructions are confusing, and theres a screw missing.

THEOR-EMS

 Howard on Halleys big first birthday: Were not doing anything big. Shes  Bernadettes on bedrest, and Im  lazy. And, at least, honest.

 Sheldon is excited to see The Last Jedi for a second time. Itll be nice to see the parts I missed while I was blinking.

 Leonards feeling pretty proud of his joke about Sheldons plans for birthday coitus, which, like authentic prairie life, he guesses will be exhausting and short. Youre exhausting and short, Sheldon replies, a burn so on the money that even Penny has to laugh.

 Her birthday dinner is happening on her birthday eve, and Amy says shes so excited about Sheldons efforts that she doesnt know if she can wait until midnight for birthday coitus. Well, youll be glad you did, Sheldon says. Everyone knows the best foreplay is rigid adherence to a strict schedule.

 The beginning of the 19th-century bawdy limerick Sheldon reads to Amy: There once was a priest from Terre Haute, who purchased a sheep and a goat  He was interrupted by sudden-onset stomach distress for Amy, and it feels like a win that we were spared whatever bawdy destination began with a goat.

 Sheldons summation of Amys birthday dinner: Those books should have been called Little Outhouse on the Prairie.
John Heffernan as Lord Altrincham (left), the real Lord Altrincham (right). Photo: Netflix/Getty

One of The Crowns strengths is the way it seamlessly shifts between stories of major international prominence and political intrigue  the palace visit of the Kennedys or the Suez Crisis, for instance  and humanistic ones that people dont seem to know much about. In the first season, the best example of this revolved around the power dynamic shared between Winston Churchill and his portrait artist, Graham Sutherland. This time around, its the tale of an amiable chap named Lord Altrincham.

When we first meet Altrincham (John Heffernan) leaving a London television studio with a smug look on his face, hes painted as an easy villain: He just insulted Queen Elizabeth in print and on TV! He got punched in the face and deserved it, damn it! Yet as the story progresses in season twos fifth episode, Marionettes, its clear that Lord Altrincham is not only justified in his astute criticisms of Queen Elizabeth and the royal family  her speech at the car factory really was that terrible  but his advice will eventually be needed for the sake of the greater good.

In the end, almost all of Lord Altrinchams proposed changes to the monarchy were implemented, the closing credits of the episode tell us. The palace later conceded that Lord Altrincham did as much as anyone in the 20th century to help the monarchy. So, who exactly is this fellow we should thank for keeping the lights of Buckingham Palace on? And why didnt we hear of him sooner? The Crown likes to take creative liberties with its narratives, of course, so with that in mind, heres what you need to know about the real Lord Altrincham.

Were Lord Altrinchams attacks on the Queen really a national sensation?

Indeed so. As the show depicts, in August 1957, he wrote an extremely critical article about the royal familys struggles in the National and English Review, a publication that he edited. (His father was the previous owner and editor.) Lord Altrincham  a well-educated man who studied at Eton and Oxford  believed the criticisms were of constructive nature, although the public was split on how mean-spirited they seemed. Among other sentiments, he wrote the Queens speaking style was a pain in the neck; that she was incapable of original thought, thanks to the constant presence of her tweedy courtiers; and that she had the personality of a priggish school girl. To lessen the blow, he added that he had no intention other than to serve the monarchy, to strengthen it and to enable it to survive, summing up his thoughts as such: It is too precious an institution to be neglected. And I regard servile acceptance of its faults as a form of neglect.

How did things play out after it was published?

That infamous ITV television interview occurred just as The Crown showcased, during which Lord Altrincham articulately elaborated his thoughts on the royal family and didnt repent his criticisms. (Perhaps the most prominent burn at the time: The Archbishop of Canterbury called him very silly.) Im quite sure this needed saying, he said in the interview, noting that the letters he received were three to one in his favor. The Queens speech, I feel, her own natural self is not allowed to come through. Its a sort of synthetic creature that speaks. Not the Queen as she really is. If she herself would be allowed to speak, the effect would be wonderful. He was also slapped by a member of the League of Empire Loyalists while exiting the studio, who shouted, Take that! Sadly, no footage of that exists.

Did he actually have a meeting with the Queen?

Theres no public record of a meeting ever taking place, as juicy as the show made it out to be. However, in the biography Monarch: The Life and Reign of Elizabeth II, author Robert Lacey confirmed that Lord Altrincham met with another prominent palace insider instead.

Inside the palace, some people realized there was truth in what Altrincham said. Within two days of the furore, the outspoken peer had been contacted through a mutual friend to arrange a private meeting with Martin Charteris, the queens assistant private secretary. Thirty years later, in the course of a political meeting at Eton, Charteris told Altrincham, You did great service to the monarchy and Im glad to say so publicly.

Two of Lord Altrinchams recommendations to improve the monarchy  having the Queen broadcast her annual Christmas message on a television, and eliminating the social lopsidedness of debutante balls  were eventually implemented. Just a few months after publishing his criticism, 1957 introduced the tradition of televised messages, and debutante parties were cancelled the following year. (As opposed to becoming a more informal event that The Crown concluded with.) We actually delayed cancelling the [debutante] presentation parties for a year, a couturier at the time recalled in Monarch, owing to the fact the Queen didnt want to be seen jumping to Lord Altrinchams command.

Did he generate controversy like this ever again?

Not really, but he lived a very interesting life. As The Crown noted, he eventually disclaimed his title when it became legal to do so under the Royal Assent in 1963, deciding to use his birth name, John Grigg, instead. Griggs obituary in the Telegraph  he died on New Years Eve in 2001 at the age of 77  reported that he continued to be a respected writer, journalist, and biographer for numerous British publications until his health deteriorated in his later years. (His three-part biography of David Lloyd George was particularly revered.) In fact, in the subsequent days after Princess Dianas death, Grigg praised the Queens divisive televised broadcast as the best I have ever heard from her. A family man, he also adopted two children with his wife, Patsy.
Photo: David James/Lucasfilm

Five years ago, after Rian Johnson directed the sci-fi drama Looper with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I sat down with him and asked why he hadnt been seduced into making a big franchise movie. A director like Johnson, who had previously shown off real chops in his films Brick and The Brothers Bloom and directed some of the most acclaimed Breaking Bad episodes of all time, would certainly be number one on any studios must-poach list. How had he resisted the siren song of making action tentpoles and Marvel movies?

Theres always conversations, he admitted to me then. Its flattering to be in that circle of people who are thought about for those things, and Im a big fan of those movies, so its fun to talk about them. Right now, Im focusing on writing my next film, and its an original thing Im working on. Not that Id shut down the possibility in the future, but Im in this spot right now where I can get these original movies made, and thats not going to last forever. As long as thats happening, I want to get as many of my own things made as possible.

Two weeks ago, as we met in Los Angeles to discuss Johnsons new film Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I read that quote back to him. He laughed.

Wise man, he said.

How did Johnson get from there to here, and what was it about Star Wars that convinced him to leap onto a studio franchise for the first time? The first thing was how much Star Wars had meant to me, said Johnson. Its been a big part of my life. But the decision to direct The Last Jedi was not easily arrived at, he told me: Oh, I took some time.

Related Stories Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is Shockingly Good

After Looper came out to critical acclaim, Johnson had indeed tried to get another original project off the ground. It was a script that I kind of ended up going down the rabbit hole with, spending a lot of time on that I wasnt able to crack, said Johnson. So I started another script. Meanwhile, I had been approached to do bigger stuff, and I had just gotten in the habit of saying no and giving an answer similar to the one I gave you. And thats when Star Wars came around.

Not that Johnson knew that, at first. He had met many times with producer Kathleen Kennedy over the years, even before she took the reins at Lucasfilm in 2012. We call them water-bottle meetings, because you collect water bottles as you go around town just getting to know folks, Johnson said. They were very general meetings, never specifically discussing anything. Then, in 2014, as director J.J. Abrams was still toiling on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Kennedy called Johnson in to chat. He had no idea that Kennedy was searching for someone to helm the sequel to the new trilogy that Abrams had kicked off, a set of films that would introduce new characters like Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) while also bringing back original Star Wars icons Luke (Mark Hamill) and Leia (Carrie Fisher). At that point, nobody knew that J.J. wasnt coming back for the next one, Johnson said. I had just assumed that J.J. would do all of them.

Expecting another general meeting with Kennedy, then, Johnson said he was blindsided when he walked in and found himself surrounded by Lucasfilm executives: It was like, Come in, shut the door, and lets get right down to it. With little preamble, Kennedy then offered Johnson the film that would become The Last Jedi. Its not like they were going out to a group of people, its not like they were talking to a lot of folks, recalled Johnson. It was her saying, Is this something youd be interested in doing?

So how did he react? I went numb from the eyes down, Johnson said. Somehow, I managed to ask if I could think about it.

As Johnson left the meeting, wobbly, he called his longtime producing partner Ram Bergman, who advised him to take several days to mull the offer. I thought it was going to be an intellectual process of pros and cons, said Johnson, and it just ended up being me realizing, This is gonna make me really happy. But there were still some sticking points for Johnson before he would commit.

First, he wanted to read the script that Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan had written for The Force Awakens. The thing that popped off the page were the new characters, who all felt so vibrant, he said. And then once I started watching the dailies of what they were shooting in London, and started seeing Daisy and Adam and John  John just jumping off the screen as Finn  thats when I started rubbing my hands together.

Johnson also needed room to craft the sequel in the way he wanted, hoping to tweak certain hold-overs from The Force Awakens (say good-bye to Kylo Rens mask) and take bold steps into the future of the franchise. The fact that I would basically be able to write it from scratch in a way  obviously by continuing on from The Force Awakens but getting to find my own story and write and direct it  was important, he said. I know its Star Wars, it fits into a bigger picture. But it also feels as personal to me as any of the other films Ive made. He was convinced Lucasfilm would say no to his ideas: It was one thing for them to pitch the movie to him, but now that he had to sell his invented story back to them, surely theyd change their minds, right? That was scary, he admitted. I felt a little bit like I was lucid-dreaming: Am I really here? This cant really be happening. Im gonna blow this and not get this job anyway, so Im just going to come into this and have fun.

To his surprise, Kennedy signed off on his pitch, and from then on, Johnson proved to be a comfortable fit on a franchise that has sometimes had a rocky road with its directors. Johnson said that while on set, he drew inspiration from Kelly Marie Tran, a franchise newbie that he cast in the pivotal role of resistance fighter Rose.

She jumped into it like it was a sandbox for her to play in, he said. She was poking her head into all the different departments, just wandering around the studio. Even I didnt feel the gumption to do that! Shed go around the creature department and help them feather the Porgs with goose feathers, or go to the costume department and ask, What are you guys doing? She treated it like a big episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, basically. And I saw that and thought, This is how we should all be treating this. This is a once-in-a-lifetime playdate, and we should be soaking this up.

For Johnson, though, there will be more playdates to come. Now that hes opening The Last Jedi to great reviews, hes decided to stay in the family, planning a whole new Star Wars trilogy that will follow completely different characters.

Really, it came from the fact that wed had such a good experience with Kathy and the folks at Disney, a really good collaboration, Johnson said. So it came from a conversation about, How do we keep working together? It means he likely wont have much time for the original projects he was once set on making, but to hear Johnson tell it, the sky is still the limit when youre dealing with outer space. We can go new places, meet new people within the Star Wars universe, he said. The notion of being able to create something epic and really special with that  I think the possibilities of that seem so exciting.
For many tourists coming to shop in Waco, the view of Webster Avenue west of the Magnolia Silos makes a lousy first impression.

Visitors to the Silos and other nearby retail destinations routinely park along that stretch between Seventh and 11th streets. But city officials say those visitors tend to walk in the street rather than on the weedy, broken sidewalks.

Im not even sure you can call these sidewalks, said Jim Reed, a city capital improvement manager who gave the downtown Tax Increment Financing Zone board a tour of the area Thursday.

The TIF board voted afterward to spend $1.3 million to extend lighted, landscaped sidewalks down four blocks of Webster and a block of Ninth Street.

Once completed in June 2019, the project will make a dent in the long list of downtown sidewalks that need to be replaced.

Like other the sidewalks the TIF has funded over the years, these will be enhanced with antique-style lamp posts, street trees and accessibility ramps. The sidewalks along both sides of Webster will be 9 to 10 feet wide, while the block of Ninth Street between Webster and Clay will have a standard 6-foot sidewalk, Reed said.

The project will also include building new curbs, gutters and drains. Reed said officials are also talking to local utility companies about possibly burying overhead wires to reduce the visual clutter and the guy wires that create a tripping hazard.

He said the sudden emergence of the Silos as one of the states biggest tourist attractions has caused city officials to scramble to upgrade pedestrian facilities.

We think its a very important project, he said. Things have accelerated in that area faster than we had the money and time to address it.

Earlier this year, Magnolia used TIF funds to build more than two blocks of lighted sidewalk down Sixth Street, connecting it to Mary Avenue Market and other new downtown businesses.

Reed said the new sidewalk will benefit not only Magnolia shoppers but those visiting The Findery and the Backyard.

We want to take this opportunity to welcome people to Waco, whether theyre going to the Yoga Bar, The Findery, Balcones or the Backyard, Reed said.

The sidewalk on the block of Ninth Street will serve as a dropoff point for local and out-of-town buses carrying visitors to the Silo district, he said.

Elm Avenue project

The TIF board on Thursday also pitched in more money for another major pedestrian project across the river.

The board recommended increasing the TIFs commitment toward the Elm Avenue streetscape project from $956,200 to almost $1.3 million.

The Texas Department of Transportation committed this fall to fund the majority of the $3.8 million project, which will create new lighted, landscaped sidewalks and bike lanes on both sides of Elm Avenue.

But that local match was calculated based on McLennan Countys official status as an economically disadvantaged county. In September, the county lost that status because of improvements in property values and employment.

That change in status lost the city $334,800 in state and federal funds.

Economic development director Melett Harrison urged the TIF board to approve the additional money, noting that state and federal governments are still paying for 66 percent of the project.

This is a much-needed project, and the neighborhood is really excited about it, Harrison said.

The TIF board voted unanimously to recommend the funding, which must be approved by the Waco City Council.
A man arrested by local authorities late last month was has been indicted on federal felony charges alleging he transported a woman from Mississippi to Texas in order for her to engage in prostitution.

A judge signed two federal indictments Dec. 4 charging Donquell James Allen, 30, of Dallas, with violation of the Mann Act and Travel Act. The indictments stem from a McLennan County Sheriffs Office undercover prostitution sting conducted last month, the indictments state.

Local authorities arrested Allen Nov. 28 on a state charge of second-degree felony trafficking of persons when detectives were investigating prostitution advertisements in and around Waco. While conducting surveillance on a motel room, investigators saw Allen leave a room and wait for a man to meet the woman to engage in sex for a fee, officials said at the time.

The woman was detained, and investigators learned she was communicating with Allen during the undercover operation, court documents state.

Detectives learned Allen was previously arrested in Mississippi and Louisiana on similar prostitution charges.

According to the federal indictments, Allen transported the woman from Mississippi to Texas for the purpose of prostitution. While he was in custody in McLennan County, a phone call between Allen and the woman was recorded in which he arranging for the woman to engage in prostitution in order to obtain money for his bond, court records state.

Allen remained in McLennan County Jail until he was served with the federal charges. He was transferred to Jack Harwell Detention Center, where he remained Thursday with a no-bond hold.

A federal arraignment for Allen is scheduled Tuesday afternoon.
Superintendent A. Marcus Nelson plans to recommend that Waco Independent School District form an in-district charter system with the local nonprofit Prosper Waco come Jan. 25 in an effort to stave off the possibility of closure for five of the districts struggling campuses, he announced at Thursday nights board meeting.

News also came Thursday that the district is one of seven on a preliminary list of recipients for a $450,000 Texas Education Agency grant that would help the district through the planning process for the potential partnership.

Waco ISD applied for the grant Nov. 30, and TEA Deputy Commissioner of Governance A.J. Crabill made the announcement to district officials during Thursdays meeting.

While the announcement is preliminary, there are still numerous details to be negotiated with the Texas Education Agency, Nelson said. This is an important development in our work to ensure that Alta Vista, Brook Avenue, J.H. Hines Elementary School, G.W. Carver and Indian Spring remain open.

Each campus has failed state academic standards for five consecutive years or more, which leaves them open to closure by the state if they do not pass this year. But a law passed this year allows the district to come up with an alternative plan, like partnering with a nonprofit to operate the campuses. If the schools fail again but the plan is approved, the partnership could keep the doors open an additional two years, pending improvement, Nelson said.

Since the first day of school, Ive been pretty clear that I firmly believe all five of these schools can meet state standards this year, Nelson said. Were improving the quality of instruction daily. Were holding adults accountable for change and were raising expectations for principals, teachers, staff and most importantly, our students. Make no mistakes though, this is very complex work.

It might take more than one year for all of our schools to get there. If that happens, and one of these five schools needs more time, were going to make sure theyll have the time to accomplish our goals.

But if the district does not show it is coming up with an alternative solution, and one of the schools still fails to meet state standards with ratings come out in August, TEA will either close the school or the school board will be replaced with an appointed board of managers, Nelson said, repeating a point he made during community meetings held in October. Students complete state exams in May, and if the schools pass, the alternative plan wont be necessary.

No official decision will be made until the Jan. 25 board meeting about the possibility of negotiating a contract with Prosper Waco to oversee operations of the five schools, Nelson said. The district will host several town hall meetings with Prosper Waco to hear resident feedback before Jan. 25, Nelson said. Dates for the town hall meetings are still being determined, Waco ISD spokesperson Kyle DeBeer said.

The district must submit its plan to the state for final approval by March 1.

If our negotiations with the TEA are successful, the grant will provide funding as we plan to implement that partnership and other reform ideas, Nelson said. Theres an incredible network of nonprofit organizations here in Texas, and Ive been humbled by how many organizations have stepped forward to offer their resources, expertise and ideas in support of our beloved students.

The district wants a partner that can coordinate wrap-around services provided by a variety of organizations, he said. Prosper Waco might be the best fit because of the its model of addressing issues in education, health and financial security through a collaborative effort with other organizations, Nelson said.

For too many of our students, food insecurity, inadequate housing, lack of transportation and access to health care have become barriers to their learning, Nelson said. We want to be focused on being diagnostic and prescriptive for every student we have as we address and seek and ultimately obtain all of our academic goals.

More than 80 percent of the districts students are economically disadvantaged, and Prosper Waco already has several initiatives established addressing ongoing needs, according to its website. Executive director Matthew Polk said in an email to the Tribune-Herald last month the nonprofit is ready and willing to help if asked.

Our board has told Dr. Nelson that were ready to step up that partnership however needed to serve students on the campuses that could be closed if they fail to meet state standards this school year, Polk wrote.

Nelson met with Prosper Wacos executive committee about the idea Thursday morning, he said. But he emphasized Prosper Wacos own board of directors must also approve the idea before the district can move forward. Waco ISD board President Pat Atkins is also president of Prosper Wacos board, and Nelson is a member of Prosper Wacos board, according to the nonprofits website.

Two thoughts. No 1. is in reference to the transformation zone grant. I know most of the leadership team and cabinet is here. That was a very short turnaround, and each of you is to be commended, along with the grants department for getting that amount of detail to the TEA where we were one of seven districts selected to move onto this next step, Atkins said. Secondly, I want to commend you, Dr. Nelson, for your leadership and being responsive to the concerns we heard from the community and from this board in trying to come up with a plan, first and foremost, to keep these schools open and secondly, to keep these schools under local leadership, local control, so this community has a say in the direction and action of these public schools. I look forward to your next report on your negotiations with Prosper Waco.
The Trump administration is guaranteeing Texas $135 million to continue helping more than 450,000 uninsured children and pregnant women if Congress doesnt renew authorization the Childrens Health Insurance Program.

More than 3,300 children in McLennan County rely on the program.

Charles Smith, executive commissioner for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday saying the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is giving the state funding to continue the program through February.

Given this assurance, we do not intend to initiate steps to terminate CHIP this month, Smith said. I am confident that the state will receive sufficient federal funding to continue the program through February 2018.

The letter comes after more than two months of fear among families who rely on the program that children in Texas and beyond would lose their health insurance benefits for checkups and treatments. The program expired Sept. 30 after Congress failed to renew funding.

Texas Health and Human Services Commission officials submitted a request with the federal government on Nov. 16 for an extra $90 million to support CHIP in the state until February.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, tweeted Friday afternoon that Congress will pass a long term CHIP bill next week. U.S. Rep. Bill Flores, R-Bryan, has urged the Senate to take such action.

Under CHIP, the uninsured rate among children across the country has dropped from 15 percent in 1997 to 5 percent in 2015. The program also offers prenatal care to about 36,000 pregnant women in Texas. About 394,000 Texan children ineligible for Medicaid are covered under CHIP, and another 249,000 Texan children on Medicaid benefit from CHIPs 92 percent matching rate. Together, Medicaid and CHIP cover about 45 percent of all children in the state.

Wacos Family Health Center serves about 4,000 children who use CHIP, FHC president Dr. Roland Goertz told the Tribune-Herald this month.

Republican Texas House Speaker Joe Straus said in a statement that the children who benefit from this program should never have been put in a position where they might lose care.

The written assurances from the administration will provide some short-term certainty for the program, and thats important, Straus said. But the need for Congress to act quickly has not diminished, and I hope Congress will reauthorize the program soon in order to provide the longer-term certainty that working families in Texas need.

Tribune-Herald staff writer Phillip Ericksen contributed to this report.
WAHOO  The Saunders County Board of Supervisors will continue the conversation Dec. 19 regarding the potential move of the Saunders County Public Defenders Office from an elected position to an appointed one.

A public hearing on the matter has been scheduled for 9:15 a.m.

Saunders County Supervisor David Lutton said the move to an appointed position would save the county money.

Lutton said the public defenders office has spent money on additional services, including attorneys outside the public defender for representation.

The move would also remove the financial obligation to pay rent on a building, he added.

The approved budget for the pubic defenders office for the 2016-2017 fiscal year is $246,700.

The elected position is not required to handle juvenile cases, but the appointed position would handle juvenile cases in addition to felonies and misdemeanors, Lutton said.

Public Defender Tom Klein does handle juvenile cases now.

Moving to an appointed position could also allow the county board leeway to say who is appointed, Lutton said.

Currently, the voters of Saunders County have that say.

Last week, Klein said he would file and run for office if it stayed as an elected position.

His biggest concern was that the change might affect benefits to the employees in his office.

The position was changed from part-time to full-time at the Nov. 28 Saunders County Board of Supervisors meeting due to the increased caseload the office has seen over the last few years.

Counties with population under 35,000 residents are not required to have the public defender be an elected position.

The public hearing on Dec. 19 will not only allow for public notification, but will allow the community to voice concerns and approvals, Lutton said.
LINCOLN  Kyle Hauschild recently graduated from the seventh class of the Nebraska Water Leaders Academy, a one-year program that provides leadership training and educates participants about the vital role rivers, streams and aquifers play in the economic sustainability of the state.

Hauschild, a storm water/floodplain specialist with the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District in Lincoln, is a graduate of Ashland-Greenwood High School. He received a bachelors degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the son of Terry (deceased) and Delise Hauschild of Ashland.

A project of the Water Futures Partnership-Nebraska, academy sessions feature classroom as well as field trip experiences presented by acknowledged experts in leadership and natural resource topics held at locations across the state.

The Water Leaders Academy is partially funded through a grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust and more than 25 other organizations and individuals.
MORSE BLUFF  Morse Bluff Volunteer Fire Department has upgraded its fleet.

Since October, Truck No. 21 has been in service.

Morse Bluff Fire Chief Eric Chvatal said that the truck was ordered late last year from the Nebraska Forest Service Fire Shop near Ithaca, through the U.S. Federal Excess Personal Property Program (FEPP).

As part of the program, he said, the U.S. Forest Service lends excess federal and military vehicles to cooperating rural fire departments.

Its a really neat deal, Chvatal said.

After the vehicle was brought to Morse Bluff in March, Morse Bluff Assistant Fire Chief Brent Zakovec said members of the Morse Bluff Fire Department went to work rebuilding the truck for its new line of duty. The work included painting, mounting a skid unit (the vehicles firefighting apparatus), adding guardrails, installing the radio and sirens and repainting.

Finding time to do it was the main thing, he said.

Zakovec added that the process took about six months. Most of the work was done in the shops of Morse Bluff firefighters in order to cut costs, with the exception of the skid unit built by Danko Emergency Equipment in Snyder for $18,000.

We saved a lot of money, he said.

But, he would not disclose the total cost of the truck.

Truck No. 21 was taken on its first mission Dec. 4 to assist Cedar Bluffs Fire Department in extinguishing a field fire near County roads X and 20.

Everything went well, he said.

Truck No. 21 is not the only vehicle to recently join Morse Bluffs fleet.

Zakovec said the department purchased in November

a new Smeal Spartan fire engine, Truck No. 30, from Danko for $365,000, which it paid for through bonded debt.

Because the engine had served as a demo vehicle for Danko, he said, the department was able to get a $40,000 discount off the purchase.

The department also went through the Nebraska Forest Service Fire Shop on Dec. 7 to repurpose a 2004 Chevy pickup, replacing its 1995 pickup. Conversion work will soon be underway.

Chvatal said that by taking advantage of these opportunities to upgrade, the fire department can better serve Morse Bluff and other area communities in times of emergency.

Were sitting pretty good as a fire department as a whole, he said.

Zakovec said that with fire calls to Morse Bluff increasing in recent years, the upgrades in vehicles are crucial to the departments goal of protecting taxpayers lives and property.

Its essential to have equipment we can trust, he said. It takes a lot to keep a department up and running.
WAVERLY  When descendants of the Walker family gathered to clean out some boxes, they ran across a photo album that included pictures of their grandfather.

There were a few more too, all from the Waverly High School class of 1919.

We really didnt know what to do with them, so we called your high school and talked to (Principal) Ryan Ricenbaw to see if the school wanted them, said Sonya Mikkelsen, a Walker descendant. They did.

The album was full of sepia tone pictures of each senior who graduated that year with names on the back.

We also found a graduation program from that year, so sent that to the school as well, Mikkelsen said.

The Walker family has a long history with the Waverly community.

Their father, Frank, wanted to own the farm that he was renting near Waverly. To raise enough money he and his brother, Bert went to western Nebraska and ranched for several years, she said.

When Frank Walker had enough money to buy the farm, he returned his family to the Waverly area.

Another reason was he wanted his children to have a good education and he knew Waverly was it, she said. And he wanted them to attend college.

And his children did.

They all graduated from Waverly and went on to college with the two boys attending the University of Nebraska and the two girls attending Nebraska Wesleyan, she said. That is because he thought the two girls could attend college for two years and then teach which they both did. They earned their own money to complete their degrees later on.

Mikkelsen said that she returns to Waverly twice a year to visit graves at Rosehill Cemetery.

My mother taught us that it was important to visit the graves, she said.

One of the headstones has a story to it as well, she said.

Its a metal tombstone and during the prohibition period it was used to hide contraband liquor in, she said.

The cemetery at that time was considered outside of the city limits.

That story has always been around the family, whether it was true or not, she laughed.

She said she hoped that the school would display the pictures.

I dont know what they plan to do with them, but the family felt they should be returned to the school. They are in good shape and the photography was really good, she said. I hope the school can display them."
Melbourne players sought counsel from the AFL Players' Association to have their pre-Christmas gruelling training camp called off.

Players cited injury concerns after last year's corresponding camp saw Christian Salem concussed and Dom Tyson injure his knee.

Christian Salem fights for the ball with Dylan Shiel of the Giants. Credit:AAP

Fairfax Media understands that Melbourne players met with the AFLPA to seek guidance on how to approach the situation with the club.

Last year's camp became infamous for how physically and mentally hard it was.
"The BCA was a new idea; [it was about] blue sky policy making," says University of Queensland's Stephen Bell, professor of political economy and a long-time BCA watcher. "They wanted to set the policy agenda, rather than just react to it." Paying attention: Bob Hawke and Paul Keating listen to Sir Arvi Parbo, of the Business Council of Australia, address the tax summit in Canberra in July 1985. But times change. Listed company bosses no longer get about town in chauffeured limousines; the Regent's glitz has been refurbished and rebranded into history. The reform push of the 1980s has receded in the national memory, and the BCA is no longer regularly described  as it was throughout the 1980s and 1990s  as "influential" and "powerful". Australia's peak business groups are confronting a challenging new reality, as old certainties of corporate life fall away. It is a world of deep public cynicism about big business and its motives, where a populist backlash has emerged against the economic agendas popular with think tanks and business lobby groups.

The impression lately is that federal governments aren't all that interested in what peak bodies think Stephen Bell, professor of political economy at the University of Queensland Corporate spending on items such as business associations is under scrutiny from investors. Companies can now communicate directly with customers, shareholders and other public "stakeholders" in ways unimagined just a decade ago. Within days, mining giant BHP will publish a long-awaited review of its membership of industry bodies, following a shareholder resolution at its annual meeting last month calling for it to quit groups where there was a "manifest inconsistency" between their policies and those of BHP. BHP Chairman Ken MacKenzie (left) and chief executive Andrew Mackenzie faced pressure at the company's AGM. Credit:Joe Castro This resolution, lodged by NGO the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), chiefly targeted the Minerals Council of Australia. Feared and respected for its devastating 2010 campaign against the mining tax, the MCA has had a horror run of late, with its chief executive departing in September, reportedly at BHP's behest.

Iluka Resources has departed the MCA, citing cost-cutting. And Wesfarmers  an MCA member through its Queensland coal mining outfit Curragh  confirmed to Fairfax Media this week that it would end its MCA membership at the end of the year, a move it said was due to reasons of "value". The BCA has seen its membership ranks and revenue slip, and has weathered near-constant criticism from long-time foes and one-time friends alike. Disunity has bubbled to the surface at several business associations. At the Australian Bankers Association (ABA) there was a reported  and denied  split during the year between the big and second-tier banks as calls for a royal commission gathered pace. There was fresh attention on AGL's departure not only from the MCA but also from the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA)  which AGL said was for climate change policy reasons. This came as an apparent surprise to APPEA. Last week, the Financial Services Council's (FSC) former policy director, Andrew Bragg, detailed the conflict within that body's membership over the totemic issue of independent directors on super fund boards.

Andrew Bragg claims there was division at the Financial Services Council. Credit:SMH With progressives attacking their policies and fiscal conservatives their inability to sell them, one thing all sides agree on is that key business lobby groups are struggling to connect with the public and are failing to inspire governments. Keating used a speech last month to attack the BCA's advocacy of corporate tax cuts and lower penalty rates. "The limitedness of it is remarkable  the laziness and backwardness of it, profound." The year before, the Liberal Party's Victorian president, Michael Kroger, was scathing of the BCA for failing to be vocal enough on tax cuts at the 2016 election.

Politicians still show up to give speeches at business association dinners, and their leaders are constant fixtures in the media. The groups dutifully file submissions on all manner of inquiries and consultation forums. But the big question now is whether anyone is listening. Have the peak business bodies, well, peaked? "The impression lately is that federal governments aren't all that interested in what peak bodies think  in terms of general commentary and policy input," Bell says. "That's the general observation, and that's certainly different to what it used to be." Salad days gone

The BCA's chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, and president, Grant King, were unavailable to speak with Fairfax Media for this story. BCA president Grant King and chief executive Jennifer Westacott at the group's annual dinner. Credit:Brook_Mitchell In a statement, the BCA said: "Business Council advocacy on matters of reform can and does help shape the nation's policy agenda  from company tax, to our recent advocacy for policy stability in the energy sector and on skills and education." Former Transfield Services chairman Tony Shepherd, who led the BCA from 2011 to 2014, argues that the BCA is still turning out "good quality" policy work. "Whether it's having the impact that it might have done in the past is questionable, and I think the the swing towards populism probably counts against that [sort of] intelligent research," says Shepherd, who led the Abbott government's contentious 2013 commission of audit.

"I think it's fair to say the BCA and the other business lobby groups still have an impact directly on government  in terms of bringing the wider society with them, I think that's a challenge. "I think the modern politician is more likely to take the community view on an issue on something that affects business, rather than the business view." Former BCA boss Tony Shepherd says the organisation's impact has waned. Credit:Ben Searcy Before the Hawke era, the business lobby scene was disorganised and divided; government consultation with business was ad hoc and informal, comprised of quiet chats with a chosen few chosen. The Hawke-Keating years would see the creation or dramatic reworking of lobby groups, as industry scrambled to keep up with Labor's reformist agenda.

After the BCA in 1983, the ABA was relaunched in 1985; the Australian Investment Managers Association, a forerunner of the FSC, landed in 1990. And in 1995, the old Australian Mining Industry Council was killed off, and the Minerals Council was born in its place. Today, a host of business associations  big and small, prominent and obscure  populate the ecosystem. The BCA has long been the most high-profile; its structure where the chief executives are the members, not the companies, gives it an added layer of prestige. But with its members coming from all corners of the Australian economy  from fast-food giants to miners, from management consultants to corporate law firms  policy consensus is a constant challenge. One chief executives of a major private company argues that the BCA's impact is undermined by its need to cater to the conflicting interests of its membership  one of the reasons he had chosen not to join. Bell has published a series of academic papers about the influence and membership of the BCA and other bodies. His research suggests that the BCA's influence has waned over time, in part due to "declining" commitment from its chief executive members - due in part to the shorter tenure of chief executives, and increasing globalisation.

Its latest accounts, lodged with the corporate regulator in October, show its membership numbers and revenue have recently slipped from 135 to 129 at June 30, 2017 (this week, the BCA said its membership tally was back up to 130, not including five associate members, and that its membership had grown by 12 since 2012). Its membership revenues declined from about $8.64 million to $8.26 million. It reported an operating deficit of $627,367  an amount inflated by a drawdown of more than $840,000 on its special projects fund, which it spent on its "advocacy and campaigning strategy". Few issues have riven the BCA like climate change and the environment, as seen in 2003, when the BCA was forced to publicly  and humiliatingly  announce that it had failed to come to an agreement on the Kyoto Protocol due to "strongly held differences of opinion". The problem, says John Hewson  economist, company director and former federal Liberal leader  is that "you can't get an agreed decision because you can't get agreement from all the vested interests, [especially on] climate change  so they make a mealy-mouthed statement, if they make any statement at all. And it adds to the decline in their credibility." John Hewson says there are too many vested interests. Credit:ABC Q&A

The BCA publicly supported the Finkel review's Clean Energy Target and has now thrown its weight behind the Turnbull government's National Energy Guarantee. But behind the scenes, members are said to have clashed on the issue. Shepherd says divisions within these groups are inevitable, suggesting the way forward was to focus on issues where there was strong agreement. "When I was president, there were 120 members and there was some issues where, it would be fair to say, the membership was divided on the best policy solution," he says. "That would create tension. The thing that really works is when you are all together and you agree on something  it becomes a lot more powerful." Rocky road In Shepherd's view, the MCA's 2010 mining tax campaign shows peak bodies at their best - what can be achieved with unity of purpose.

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart at a mining tax protest. Credit:Tony Ashby "If we take the Minerals Council, when they bonded together and fought the mining tax, [they had] a very common purpose and clear engagement with their employees, and that was enormously powerful, and very successful." But Hewson argues that while the mining tax campaign was devastatingly effective at the time, it cost the MCA credibility. "The MCA has always been much more overtly about the interest of miners at the expense of everything else," he says. "That came to a head in the mining tax debate and since then their significance has dwindled  they killed off their credibility to be objective." This year, amid agonising national debates about energy and climate change, the MCA was outspoken in its promotion of new coal-fired power stations as part of Australia's future energy mix, and a champion of its member Adani's proposed Carmichael coal mine.

Its ability to mount an effective campaign against political targets appeared undiminished, with its triumph in taking up arms against the new mining tax flagged by former WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls in the state's March election. The Coalition lost government, and Grylls lost his seat. But after this flush of success, the MCA's year turned sour. Brendan Pearson left his position as chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia Credit:Alex Ellinghausen In September BHP's move to review its memberships, and release details of "material" policy differences on climate change caught many by surprise. The MCA's chief executive, Brendan Pearson, departed shortly after  reportedly at the behest of BHP. And in November, reports surfaced that BHP had distanced itself from the MCA over draft laws seeking to crimp political activities by environmental groups.

The MCA was quiet in the weeks following the ACCR's resolution and Pearson's departure. But in late November, it wrote a four-page letter to selected not-for-profits, labelling the ACCR's statements as "inaccurate". The letter said that the MCA had a long-standing policy acknowledging that "sustained global action is required to reduce the scale of human-induced climate change". David Byers, the interim CEO of the MCA, was not available for an interview. But in a statement, he said that the body advocated a "technology-neutral policy approach that delivers low-cost, secure and reliable power while reducing emissions". "Australia is facing a fundamental challenge with the provision of affordable and reliable energy. The MCA will continue to advocate for policies which reduce the cost of energy, enhance reliability and reduce emissions. Our approach is consistent with public opinion."

On Pearson's departure, he said: "Recently the Board and Brendan agreed that it was time for a change of leadership." The BHP events brought attention to the move by AGL to leave the MCA, a decision it made on climate change policy grounds. Two other ASX-listed companies - Iluka and Wesfarmers - have, or are about to, leave, however both were adamant that MCA policies were not a factor in their decisions. "Iluka's decision not to renew its membership of the MCA for 2017 was taken in light of cost," a spokesman said. Wesfarmers described its move as a "value-based" decision, saying Curragh was a relatively small voice in the coal industry and the MCA was dominated by larger players. "Additionally, the coal industry has relatively low representation within the MCA, relative to other commodities." Wesfarmers remained a member of the Queensland Resources Council, "which we believe delivers better value and representation." Wesfarmers also pointed to its strategic review of its resources business, which may end in the sale of the assets.

"Companies join and depart industry associations for their own reason", Byers said, adding that the MCA continued to actively recruit new members, "including those from new and developing parts of the industry". The MCA's most recent accounts, which (unlike the BCA) it publishes on its website, show its 2015-16 revenue dropped from $14.1 million the year before to $12.5 million. Full disclosure A significant development is a move by institutional investors to push big listed companies to be more transparent about their business lobby memberships; not only on what the memberships cost, but also what value they deliver and whether such memberships do "align" with shareholders' interests  particularly on climate change.



The ACCR, whose resolution at BHP attracted votes in favour of about 10 per cent,

confirmed to Fairfax Media that it planned to approach with Rio Tinto about its disclosure and membership of peak business bodies, and would lodge a resolution at its annual meeting "depending on how that engagement goes". "Shareholders have an interest and an expectation of transparency around these issues," says ACCR executive director Brynn O'Brien. The ACCR's moves follow similar efforts by institutional investors offshore. In Europe, investors have called on companies including BP and Glencore, Statoil and Procter and Gamble to review their membership of lobbying groups that "undermine" EU climate policies AGL is one company that has dramatically ramped up its transparency around peak business body memberships, a move it said was made "to build trust with the communities in which we operate". AGL chief executive Andy Vesey has led the company out of lobby groups. Credit:Louie Douvis

AGL disclosed not only which bodies it belongs to, but also how much it pays for the privilege: $65,000 for the BCA, $65,121 for the Clean Energy Council, and $13,700 for the Corporate Tax Association, to name a few. Disclosing such fees inevitably leads to questions about whether the cost is justified. "Cash is tight," Hewson says. "If you are on a public company board you say, 'what benefit do we really get out of being part of these talkfests?'" A Rio Tinto spokesman said the company was a member of many associations. "Each association is different  they represent a different mix of members and organisations and often cover multiple issues," he said. "On some of these issues we may disagree with associations, on others we may be more aligned."

Peak toil Former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan  who has history with the MCA  has lately been among the peak bodies' most vociferous critics, particularly on the BCA's "dogged defence" of corporate tax cuts. "What they're trying to sell to the people has been rejected by most of them," he says. "They can see right through their self-interest, which constantly dominates the national interest." Labor MP for Lilley and former Treasurer Wayne Swan has lashed lobby groups. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Last month, when the BCA's chairman, Grant King, took to the stage at the body's annual dinner, he spoke of the "loss of trust in business and of course most other traditional institutions". The BCA, he said, planned to recognise and act on "lightning rod" issues that could damage the legitimacy of big businesses. It would, he said, communicate more effectively with the community. "Business is responsible for issues that affect its collective reputation and we are responding to them." This week, the BCA told Fairfax Media that next year it would continue to advocate its positions "through channels people relate to and with messages they can understand".

The BCA's Twitter feed has lately sprung to life, engaging in debates and posting a string of slick videos, memes and links. In August, the BCA hired Bragg  the former FSC policy director who is also a former Liberal Party federal acting director  as executive director, members. Bragg has repeatedly urged Australia's business community to be more outspoken on its own behalf. Last year, while at the Liberal-linked Menzies Research Centre, he penned a cutting critique of "timid" business advocacy  arguing that many CEOs did not advocate in public because they feared a backlash from unions, and were "bashful" with social media. "There is currently no counterbalance to groups such as GetUp who argue trade is bad, companies pay no tax and the taxpayers should fund car making." Shepherd says the fact that "business is a bit on the nose" offers peak bodies an opportunity to sell the message that "business is not evil".

"It's very easy for some people to come out and demonise business," he adds. "It's an easy free kick  but in the end does that help a society where all of the wealth is generated by business, whether it's a corner shop or BHP? It's also easy to demonise welfare recipients or unions. But is that a constructive way forward?" Shepherd underscores the importance of engaging with the public  and taking their "heartfelt" concerns into account. "My impression is that the community is really worried about the cost of living. So what is a policy that would help them deal with significant increases in energy costs, transport costs, housing and childcare costs? It's no good coming out with policies that would exacerbate these problems." Last month, Australia saw a preview of the change to be wreaked by automation, when National Australia Bank announced that 6000 jobs would go over three years. More is likely to come from sectors all over the economy, with a 2015 study from the Office of the Chief Economist found that 44 per cent of Australian jobs were highly susceptible to automation. This process threatens to worsen inequality, hollowing out the labour market and particularly impacting the incomes of low and middle income earners. Worsening income inequality lowers demand, thus impacting growth overall, as the International Monetary Fund pointed out last year.
Myth 2: Shark nets work Advocates of shark nets like to highlight that of the 47 deaths from shark bites in the past 50 years in Australian waters, all but two were at beaches without mesh. A dead dusky whaler shark entangled in nets off Seven Mile Beach in Lennox Head. Credit:SEA SHEPHERD But drawing a causal connection between the two is fraught. In his submission, Chris Pepin-Neff from the University of Sydney noted it is impossible to prove a snared shark would have bitten a human. In fact, the data suggests otherwise, with most sharks caught during periods when, historically, there were the fewest fatalities.

100 million-plus beach visits each year in Australia - and fewer than one death from shark bites. Credit:Ben Rushton Dr Pepin-Neff also noted that 40 per cent of sharks were caught on the beach side of the nets. Netted beaches in NSW, including those dating back to the 1930s in Sydney, have recorded 29 shark bite incidents. Better access to medical care compared to remote beaches may explain why fatalities at such locations are relatively few. One of five rays caught this week in shark net at Seven Mile Beach off the north coast of NSW Credit:SEA SHEPHERD Unless bays are enclosed, sharks can swim around, under or over nets. The northern coast of NSW, the centre of net controversy in the past year or so, also has nets on only about 1 kilometre of the 30-plus kilometres of beaches around Ballina.

Bycatch is one certainty, as shown by this week's snaring of non-target rays and a shark at nets near Ballina. Chasing shadows: sharks can swim great distances so identifying "rogue" animals after a shark bite is probably pointless. Credit:Twitter/SharkSmart Myth 3: Sharks make beach activities dangerous According to the Taronga shark attack file, visits to Australia's beaches number at least 100 million a year. In 2017, it counted 17 unprovoked or two provoked attacks, with one fatality, in Western Australia. By contrast, 116 people drowned along Australia's coasts during the year to June 30, the federal government said on Thursday. That rough 100-1 ratio of drownings to shark-bite fatalities is also noted in the inquiry report.

Smart drumlines allow for key shark species to be tagged, boosting researchers' understanding about the apex predators. Credit:Department of Primary Industries Lifesavers rescued almost 11,000 people during the year. Rob Brander, from the University of NSW, noted three people had drowned in rips in the past 10 days alone. Not kids play: a juvenile great white shark at Fairy Bower pool, near Manly. Credit:James Brickwood "In the grand scheme of things, it's massive," Associate Professor Brander said.

If more money were spent on lifesavers and patrols, "you'd probably save more lives than are killed by sharks", he said. Emergency crews at Lighthouse Beach, near Port Macquarie, searching for a boy swept out by a rip this week while swimming. Credit:Port Macquarie News Myth 4: Shark populations are exploding Nature imposes limits on the ability of apex predators  except humans  to reproduce. Two decades of Commonwealth protection of great whites are unlikely to have resulted in a jump in numbers.

White sharks only reach sexual maturity at 17 to 20 years of age, and have just one or two offspring every couple of years, Professor Jessica Meeuwig of the University of Western Australia told the inquiry. Quite why there are clusters of shark bites  such as off the north coast of NSW a couple of years back  remains unclear. One reason may be changes in prey distribution. Whale numbers, for instance, are clearly rising as species recover after the steep reduction in whaling. But a WA study found little evidence of shark movements changing to follow whale migration. Myth 5: Politicians need to respond to shark bites With so many people entering the water, encounters with wildlife are inevitable unless we want to swim in marine deserts.

When somebody does get bitten, the media will typically grab stock Jaws-like pictures of sharks to sensationalise the tragic event in ways that are rarely mimicked for other unfortunate deaths. Research published this week in Marine Policy by Dr Pepin-Neff and Thomas Wynter argues the public may be less anxious for action than politicians assume. "The phrase 'shark attack' is intent-laden so it produces a narrative that increases fear even if there is no injury," Dr Pepin-Neff said. Loading "Politicians are responding to preconceived notions that the small sections of the public will be outraged  'something must be done,'" he said.
A Perth-based building company has been forced to cut a clause prohibiting negative online reviews from unhappy customers from its contracts.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission stepped in when it found that 101 Residential's contracts contained non-disparagement clauses which prevented customers from publishing any unapproved information about the company.

Perth-based builder 101 Residential has landed in hot water. Credit:James Davies

Under contracts between October 2014 and August 2017, the company was able to remove negative online reviews, suspend work on the customer's construction site and even terminate building contracts.

ACCC Deputy Chair Michael Schaper said customers should be free to have their say.
The State of Western Australia has been ordered to pay $600,000 to barrister Lloyd Rayney for the personal hurt, distress and damage to his reputation caused when a senior WA Police officer named him as the "prime" and "only" suspect in the search for his wife's killer.

The decision to award Mr Rayney $600,000 was handed down in the WA Supreme Court on Friday after a long defamation trial.

Mr Rayney sued the West Australian government for being named as the prime and only suspect in the murder of his wife Corryn. Credit:AAP

On Wednesday next week the judge will reveal a decision on what Mr Rayney will receive for economic loss through damage to his career.

Mr Rayney was caught up in one of WA's most intriguing unsolved criminal cases in September 2007, over a month after his wife Corryn went missing, when Major Crime Squad Inspector Jack Lee told a media conference Mr Rayney was the "prime" and "only" suspect in the investigation into her murder.
Beijing/Taipei: Taiwan will fail to get foreign support for its cause, the Chinese government said on Wednesday after a Chinese diplomat threatened the self-ruled island with attack, while Taiwan said it was committed to peace.

China considers Taiwan to be a wayward province and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is its main source of arms.

Beijing regularly calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue between it and the United States. In September, the US Congress passed the National Defence Authorisation Act for the 2018 fiscal year, which authorises mutual visits by navy vessels between Taiwan and the United States.

That prompted a senior US.-based Chinese diplomat to say last week that China would attack Taiwan the instant any US navy vessel visited the island.
Chances are good youre familiar with the mask.

The white face, with its pronounced cheekbones and pointed chin, accentuated by a thin line of a black goatee, adorned with arched eyebrows, a devilish grin and mustache that turns up at its ends, has been synonymous with the hacktivist group Anonymous, used in the Occupy movements, and generally appropriated by protesters of oppressive entities.

Its a Guy Fawkes mask, introduced into popular culture by the authors of the V for Vendetta graphic novel series in the 1980s, later brought to life on the big screen in the movie of the same name starring Natalie Portman as Evey, the young protege to Hugo Weavings mask-wearing anarchist revolutionary, V.

But this Guy Fawkes fellow? Hes a real dude, with a day named after him  the fifth of November  though that day has had several names since its first commemoration in 1605. It began as a day of thanksgiving for the survival of the king, marked by bonfires and public drinking and celebrations. Later known as Gunpowder Treason Day, then Bonfire Night, it was ultimately dubbed Guy Fawkes Day (or Night) in the late 1700s, thanks in large part to the practice of burning effigies of Fawkes during the festivities.

And who was this Fawkes fellow? Well, his notoriety dates back to the early 1600s in England, when James I assumed the throne after the death of Elizabeth I. James fostered an extremely anti-Catholic reign, torturing priests and persecuting practicing Catholics and taking their property.

A plot was hatched by a fellow named Robert Catesby to blow up the House of Lords, killing the king and installing a Catholic head of state. The plan failed; an anonymous letter tipped off the authorities, and the cache of gunpowder was discovered. And Guy Fawkes? A conspirator who joined Catesbys plot, he was the poor soul who was caught guarding the gunpowder beneath the House of Lords. That the day carries his name is really just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time  or right time, in terms of historical notoriety.

So what does this little history lesson have to do with anything? Starting Monday on HBO, a three-night miniseries titled Gunpowder peels back the details on the Gunpowder Plot, as it came to be known, largely from the perspective of Catesby. Kit Harrington (most familiar as Jon Snow of Game of Thrones) plays Catesby, and the production follows his formation of the plot, assembling his collaborators, and amassing the materials. All the while, the crew is dodging the kings spy network, led by Robert Cecil (Mark Gatiss, also on Game of Thrones), tasked to hunt down Catholics throughout the country.

That Guy Fawkes Day is named after the guy who was caught guarding the gunpowder and not the plot master himself is only one oddity of the annual observance. Others include that its named after the would-be assassin, somehow making him more notable than his failure, and that celebrations involve the very thing that was central to the plot  gunpowder  in its fireworks and bonfire displays. Nevertheless, it may be a nice break from holiday fare. The three-part Gunpowder, which originally aired on the BBC, airs Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Games night: Ellen DeGeneres wants you to play, and in a big way. Shes host of her new primetime show, Ellens Game of Games, which incorporates super-size versions of games she plays on her daytime talk show. (Its safe to say this game bears little resemblance to Chardee MacDennis Game of Games from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia; there will be no eating the ingredients for a cake while locked in a dog crate here.) The series doesnt officially start until January, but Mondays sneak preview has players competing in the Dizzy Dash, Tuba Toothpaste, Scary Go Round and Aw Snap. Winners of each round advance to Know or Go, and the winner of that plays Hot Hands for a cash prize. Itll keep you guessing  and laughing  as the contestants face unexpected twists along the way. Ellens Game of Games airs at 9 p.m. Monday on Ch.15.

More movie nights: Pop the corn, heat the cocoa, and enjoy a movie night or two. Friday, its a holiday classic double feature with The Shop Around the Corner, starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, at 7 p.m.; and Holiday Affair, with Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum, at 9 p.m., both on TCM. Sunday, its Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and the threat of Nazis in The Sound of Music, 6 p.m. on Ch. 27. And tune in for Pitch Perfect, starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson, at 8 p.m. on Ch. 15. (Then go back in time and catch Pitch Perfect 2, 7 p.m. Monday on FX. Or just record it.)

No rest for the festive: The lesser-known Peanuts special, I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown!, featuring the seldom-seen ReRun, younger brother of Linus and Lucy, and Spike, brother of Snoopy, airs at 7 p.m. Saturday on Ch. 27. Foxs performance of A Christmas Story Live!, starring Maya Rudolph, Matthew Broderick, Jane Krakowski and Ana Gasteyer, airs at 7 p.m. Sunday on Ch. 47. New special Olafs Frozen Adventure, featuring your favorite characters (and voices) from the Disney movie, airs Tuesday at 7 p.m., followed by Prep & Landing at 7:30 p.m., both on Ch. 27. Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Adventure comes along Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 47. And just in case you missed it the first time, A Charlie Brown Christmas returns Thursday at 7 p.m. on Ch. 27. Finish out the week with A Saturday Night Live Christmas Special, reliving your favorite holiday moments from the past 40-plus seasons, Thursday at 8 p.m. on Ch.15.
Dili, 6-15 November 2017

The WCO worked with counterparts in Timor-Leste Customs Service to conduct an assessment to assist TLCS with migration from HS 2012 to HS 2017 for Classification. This technical assistance was provided in response to a specific request from the countrys Fiscal Reform Board, and following the coming into force in October of a new Customs Code and restructuring with the Customs Service.

Funded by the WCO-Norad Customs Capacity Building Project, the Experts worked with TLCS senior managers and operational staff involved in Classification to conduct the assessment and provide recommendations in line with regional systems (ASEAN). This joint effort complemented previous interventions under the WCO-Norad Customs Capacity Building Project that has developed Classification capacity within the Customs Service through training of officers as well as a new core training team within the Service itself.

The WCO-Norad Customs Capacity Building Project 2012-17 aims at delivering technical assistance to seven countries: Timor-Leste, Liberia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam. For more information, please contact the Project Manager, Ms. Andrea Hampton (Andrea.Hampton@wcoomd.org)
Managua, 23-17 October 2017

At the request of Nicaragua Customs Administration the WCO organized a 5 day workshop on the Time Release Study (TRS) methodology. Approximately 40 participants attended the program in representation of the national trade community involved in the flow process of cargo subject to international trade, including Customs, ISAP and the national policy. During the official opening, by Director of Operations, Ms. Johanna Torres, the importance of TRS to Nicaragua was noted in light of Customs recently launched reform and modernization programme.

As part of the workshop, the Experts and Participants visited one of the Nicaragua Customs operation stations which handles the operation of cargo arriving in Nicaragua by air as mode of Transport. In general terms, with the visit participants arrive to the conclusion that TRS can potential be a value added to further improve the situation in respect of those procedures not only related to the Customs by to the other trade stakeholders as well.

Towards the end of the workshop, the participants drafted two important documents, namely a tentative TRS action plan for which will be used by future national TRS Working Group and a report of the work done during the workshop. As per the Action Plan. Participants envisaged that Nicaragua is likely to conduct a TRS next year with involvement of relevant trade stakeholders.

The workshop was funded as a complementary activity to the WCO-Norad Customs Capacity Building Project 2012-17, which has been supporting the implementation of a Pilot AEO Programme in Nicaragua. The Project aims at delivering technical assistance to seven countries: Timor-Leste, Liberia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam. For more information, please contact the Project Manager, Ms. Andrea Hampton (Andrea.Hampton@wcoomd.org)
Following a request of the Burundi Revenue Authority (OBR) the World Customs Organization (WCO) organized a diagnostic mission on Single Window in Bujumbura and two Border Crossing Posts (BCP) in Burundi from 20 to 24 November 2017.

The diagnostic mission was performed with the financial support of the Finnish funded WCO-ESA Project To progress the TF agenda, within the framework of the WCO Mercator Programme 2016  2019.

The mission took into account previous efforts in the field of Single Window in Burundi. The Single Window initiative had started in 2015. The scope of this diagnostic mission was to determine how the WCO could assist Burundi in reactivating the initiative and determining the support needed for future steps. The WCOs Single Window Functional Assessment tool was used throughout the diagnostic mission.

During the mission, the experts had extensive discussions with several other stakeholders covering topics related to immigration, agricultural products, health, standards, private sector involvement, as well as all relevant departments and units of the Burundi Revenue Authority. Based on the discussions a clearer picture of the overall situation can be drafted and future steps planned accordingly.

Two site visits took also place during the mission. The visit to the KoberoKabanga One Stop Border Post (OSBP) on the border between Burundi and Tanzania, inside the East African Community (EAC), highlighted actions that need to be implemented and revealed some potential obstacles that need to be dealt with prior to activating the Single Window environment. The team also visited the GatumbaKavimvira border post at the Burundi - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) border. The two site visits at the BCPs were extremely useful in order to differentiate the EAC border functions and procedures at the OSBP in Kobero from the ones at Gatumba on the DRC border.

The next steps after the diagnostic mission have been agreed. A Single Window and Coordinated Border Management workshop will be organized in February 2018 in cooperation with the OBR. Representatives of all relevant stakeholders will be invited to attend this workshop to learn, discuss and further enhance cooperation and to ensure the successful future implementation of Coordinated Border Management and the National Single Window in Burundi. The workshop will also be financed by the Finnish funded WCO ESA-Project.

For further information please contact facilitation@wcoomd.org.
The Madison Police Department is far from a Department in crisis,  and its use of force is limited in volume and primarily minor in nature, according to a consultant hired to do a top-to-bottom review of the department in the wake of a spate of deadly police shootings over the last five years.

At the same time, police officials can be defensive when questioned about their actions and too quick to dismiss critics as anti-police, the OIR Group found in its 243-page report, released Thursday. The department also needs to create a strategic plan, the consultant said, and doesnt adequately track how officers implement the departments community-policing approach.

Among its 146 recommendations, the report says the city should hire an independent auditor to oversee the department and that the department needs to strengthen its internal investigation of officer-involved shootings. OIR also recommends the city craft a body camera policy with input from the community prior to committing to purchasing body cameras, but does not provide a definitive recommendation on whether the technology should be pursued.

The citys Police Department Policy and Procedure Review Ad Hoc Committee met Thursday evening to hear from three representatives of OIR, but members provided only cursory thoughts as the dense report was received just hours before the meeting.

We are on the eve of the next turning point in our community conversation about policing and about what community oversight of the police should look like, City Council President Marsha Rummel wrote in an email to fellow council members before the report came out.

The lead-up

The roots of the police review lie in the 2013 Race to Equity report, which detailed disparities in income, employment, the criminal justice system and elsewhere between whites and people of color in Madison; national concern over the use of police force in black communities; and the 2015 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Tony Robinson, who was black, by a Madison police officer, according to Rummel.

At that time, the Common Council recognized that while many residents are satisfied with MPD and proud of their progressive law enforcement legacy of community oriented policing, there is a significant sector of the community that does not trust the police, Rummel wrote.

The officer who shot Robinson was later cleared of wrongdoing, but the citys insurer paid a $3.35 million settlement in a civil rights case brought by Robinsons family.

The City Council initially allocated $50,000 for the ad hoc committees work. But at a heated meeting in June of last year, the council added $350,000 to that after it became apparent to the committee that more money would be needed to hire a consultant.

In a blog post prior to the council approving the extra funds, Police Chief Mike Koval blasted what he saw as the councils poor support for a generally well-regarded police department.

The city will go into (its) financial reserve fund for $400,000 for an assessment of a department that has been recognized by the Police Executive Research Forum as a shining light of progressive community-based policing?! he wrote.

You are being watched, he wrote. And be on notice: this is a pre-emptive first strike from me to you. I am going to push back hard when MPD is constantly used as a political punching bag and you are nowhere to be found.

In May, the City Council adopted 13 policy recommendations put together by a subcommittee of the council called the Presidents Work Group on Police and Community Relations.

They included direction to police to emphasize the preservation of life in its standard operating procedures and to develop programming to promote officer mental health.

Suggested changes

One of the key areas of OIRs recommendations involves community policing and problem-oriented policing.

While OIR lauded the departments commitment to those policing practices, the report suggests additional data be collected on how long and how often officers use community-policing practices, such as de-escalating situations and other resolutions that dont result in arrests.

We think the department could do better at capturing that activity, said Michael Gennaco, founding principal of OIR Group.

Another recommendation is to create a formal evaluation process for all department personnel, including the chief, where information on communit- policing practices could help factor into rank and promotion, Gennaco said.

M Adams, a community organizer and co-executive director of Freedom Inc., said she envisions allowing neighborhoods of people of similar races and income levels to fire officers, control police budgets and determine police priorities and policies.

We know that the solution is community control over police, she said.

In the case of high-profile and controversial incidents, such as officer-involved shootings, OIR is recommending the department hold listening sessions following the incident and after external and internal investigations have been completed.

In this day and age, its probably not good enough to just simply have the (district attorney) decline the case and have the leadership of the department say, We found the shooting met constitutional standards and policies,  Gennaco said. I think the community wants to know more and is entitled to know more.

Ald. Maurice Cheeks, 10th District, noted the department has in the past held such listening sessions, but Gennaco said policies could be changed to make them mandatory.

As with body cameras, OIR didnt provide a definitive recommendation on the use of Educational Resource Officers  police officers who exclusively serve Madisons four main public high schools  which has become a contentious issue for the Madison School Board.

The report does provide suggestions for those officers, such as letting the community have broader input on who fills the roles and closely reviewing arrest and citation statistics to make sure juveniles arent unnecessarily being put into the criminal justice system.

Whats to follow

Ultimately, the ad hoc committee will form its own recommendations based on the OIR report and other information it has received. Those recommendations are due to the City Council by July so council members can discuss and act on potential changes.

We dont want to rubber stamp OIRs report. We want to digest it, consume it, get input from the community, said ad hoc committee co-chair Christian Albouras.

Next, the City Council and ad hoc committee will hold a joint meeting with OIR representatives on Jan. 11. The police department plans to submit a formal response to the recommendations by Jan. 31.

In a blog post Thursday before the reports release, Koval said the department has cooperated fully with OIR and that OIR has been granted unfettered access to people, products and processes.
A Juneau County deputy who hit a deer early Thursday morning was able to get out of the way when the squad car was hit by a truck driven by an alleged drunken driver.

The crashes happened at about 1:45 a.m. on Highway 12 and 16 in the town of Lisbon, the Sheriff's Office said.

Claine Clements, 26, of New Lisbon, arrested for drunken driving. Nobody was hurt.

The Sheriff's Office said the deputy was heading to an emergency call when the squad car hit a deer. The squad was disabled and the deputy pulled it over to the side of the road, with the emergency lights activated.

"While the deputy was assessing the front end damage, the deputy noticed an oncoming truck coming toward the squad," said Sheriff Brent Oleson. "The deputy was able to get out of the way before the truck hit the squad, causing severe damage to the rear of the squad."

Clements tried to back up and leave, but the truck was heavily damaged as well and he couldn't leave.
Kentucky will try to keep top-ranked Georgia from a perfect SEC finish
By West Kentucky Star Staff Dec. 14, 2017 | 05:49 PM | PADUCAH, KY





Stolen firearms have been recovered in a theft investigation that has already led to the arrests of two western Kentuckians in Louisiana.The McCracken County Sheriff's Department says detectives have been working with detectives from the Jackson, Tennessee Police Department and Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, Sheriffs Office, since the arrests last week of Sarah Young of Ledbetter and 31-year-old Johnathan Coates of West Paducah. They face charges related to the theft of a vehicle and guns from a home on Bethel Church Road on December 1.Based on information shared between the agencies, Jackson Police Detectives were able to recover three stolen firearms related to this case.Detectives also learned that the McCracken County victim had three weapons stolen instead of four, which was initially reported. This means all of the victim's property has been recovered.McCracken County Sheriff's Department thanked law enforcement from Louisiana and Tennessee for their cooperation and assistance in solving the case.

On the Net:
Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required.

Your Full Name: (optional)

Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required.
By The Associated Press/Kentucky News Network Dec. 15, 2017 | 04:25 PM | FRANKFORT, KY









The wife of a Republican lawmaker in Kentucky who killed himself after accusations he sexually assaulted a teenage girl says she will seek to replace him in the state legislature.Rebecca Johnson made the announcement in a news release sent to The Associated Press. Dan Johnson killed himself Wednesday night. David Adams, a political operative who worked for Dan Johnson, confirmed Rebecca Johnson's intentions.In the release, Rebecca Johnson referred to her husband's death as a "high-tech lynching based on lies and half-truths."Speaking to the Today Show on NBC, Rebecca Johnson called out the journalist who published the story, saying, "I am confident if that little greasy reporter had not done what he did, my husband would be alive right now."The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published a story earlier this week detailing accusations that Johnson sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl in 2013. Police had investigated the matter but did not file charges. The story prompted police to re-open the investigation.Dan Johnson had called the accusations "totally false." The next day he took his own life.KyCIR is part of Louisville Public Media, and its President, Michael Skoler expressed condolences for Johnsons friends and family after his death.All of us at Louisville Public Media are deeply sad to hear that State Representative Dan Johnson has died, apparently of suicide. We grieve for his family, friends, church community and constituents. Our Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting released a report on Johnson this week. Our aim, as always, is to provide the public with fact-based, unbiased reporting and hold public officials accountable for their actions. As part of our process, we reached out to Representative Johnson numerous times over the course of a seven-month investigation. He declined requests to talk about our findings.
Proponents of a state bill that would require local governments to pass a referendum before imposing a vehicle registration fee say it puts decisions in the hands of the taxpayers, but opponents say it takes away one of the few tools local governments have to fund projects.

The state Assembly Committee on Ways and Means heard testimony for and against the bill (AB 361) Thursday from its author, Rep. Michael Schraa, R-Oshkosh, city council members and county supervisors from around the state.

Under current state law, municipal and county governments can impose a registration fee, known as a wheel tax, with all funds gained from the fee going toward transportation-related purposes. The bill would still allow those fees and keep the mandate that the money go toward transportation, but a community must approve the fee in a referendum at a regularly scheduled election.

Its not news that Wisconsin has faced tremendous challenges in transportation funding and that some areas are still hard-pressed to fill the potholes, despite significant reforms from this administration, Schraa said, maintaining that past mismanagement of the Department of Transportation budget was a factor.

Schraa introduced the bill to the Assembly in June, and Sen. Stephen Nass introduced a companion bill (SB 625) this month.

The bill would also affect local governments that have already passed a wheel tax. Counties and municipalities that have such a fee would have to hold a referendum within 18 months of the bills effective date.

Dane County recently passed a $28 registration fee as part of its 2018 budget. Milwaukee County, Janesville and Appleton are among several others that already have such fees.

Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, a committee member, questioned the constitutionality of the bills retroactivity. Principal attorney Scott Grosz told the committee that the legislative council did not have a conclusive answer on its constitutionality and that it would be looked into.

Some opponents, including Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, called the bill hypocritical since the state does not hold a referendum when increasing the vehicle registration fee.

If were going to do this, lets have a referendum for every fee the state Legislature imposes, Parisi told the Wisconsin State Journal.

Parisi said the vehicle registration fee will allow Dane County to spend about $12 million on transportation matters such as snow removal, road maintenance and road-expansion projects. He said those needs are vital, and if the $12 million couldnt be collected through a wheel tax, it would have to be reallocated from services related to cleaning the countys lakes and helping people with mental illness.

He said he expects that the countys residents would pass the registration fee in a referendum if it were required.

Nobody likes to pass taxes or fees, but they do want to have their roads maintained, Parisi said.

Schraa said the onus is on the local government to educate voters before a referendum, but that measures were taken in the bill to address financial concerns. The referendum would be required to be listed on the ballot of a regularly scheduled election to save costly resources associated with special elections.

Schraa likened the process to that of a school district referendum.

If the municipality or county wants to impose a wheel tax, it is up to them to do a good job to educate the taxpayers, Schraa said.
MOBILE, Ala.  The franchise is a formidable weapon. Thats why it is despised by dictators, authoritarians and anti-democrats the world over: It is the one instrument that can reliably subvert their intentions, drain their power, interfere with their plans.

Just look at my home state of Alabama, which stunned the nation (and me) the other day by electing a Democrat to the U.S. Senate. Alabama is among the reddest of the red states. Yet, the combination of a deeply flawed Republican candidate  former jurist Roy Moore  and energized progressive voters, especially black voters, was enough to propel attorney Doug Jones to victory.

While many political prognosticators had cast doubt on black voters interest in a special election for a U.S. Senate seat, they turned out in huge numbers, accounting for about 30 percent of the electorate. There had not been so enthusiastic a showing of black voters since Barack Obama ran for president in 2008.

And they supported Jones. According to exit polls, the Birmingham attorney pulled 95 percent of black votes cast. Ninety-eight percent of black women voted for Jones, compared to 37 percent of white women.

That triumph is an inspiration, a testimony to the powerful legacy of the civil rights warriors who put their lives on the line to ensure the franchise for every citizen. It ought to make every American proud to live in a democracy that takes its creed seriously.

Yet, the outcome of the Alabama Senate race is likely to be read differently in some quarters. Among the despots and authoritarians who run the Republican Party, it is likely to be seen as evidence of their failure to effectively block the ballot.

The GOP has given up trying to attract a diverse coalition to its narrow tent. Instead, it has staked its future on resentful whites who are uncomfortable with cultural change. With Donald Trump as president, the party is led by a man who bashes Mexicans, denounces Muslims and portrays black neighborhoods as crime-ridden, poverty-stricken dystopias. There is no way that party can attract voters of color.

So the GOP has spent the past several years engaged in an energetic campaign to keep those voters from exercising the franchise. Jones victory wont discourage such tactics; instead, it will likely re-energize them.

After all, Jones margin of victory was razor-thin. Even running against a man weighed down by credible accusations of molestation, a racist homophobe who was twice thrown off the states highest court for flouting the U.S. Constitution, Jones managed to win by only a little more than 20,000 votes.

For Republicans determined to win at any cost, Moores loss simply means that more obstacles should be thrown in front of voters who are likely to support Democrats. If they could shave off a few thousand more ballots, they could ensure victory for even the most troubled  and troubling  candidates.

Their support for strict voter identification laws disproportionately affects black and brown voters, who are less likely to have drivers licenses. (In some states, the GOP has ruled college IDs as invalid for voting; thats because younger voters tend to support Democrats.) And GOP-controlled state legislatures have also cut back early voting and Sunday voting, which had become popular with voters of color.

While Republicans insist they are protecting against voter fraud, thats simply not true. There is virtually no in-person fraud of the sort that strict voter IDs laws are ostensibly guarding against. Have you ever heard of a voter showing up pretending to be someone else?

Civil rights groups and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union have waged a courageous battle against those voter suppression laws, challenging the rules in court, pouring money into efforts to secure voter IDs for the poor and engaging in old-fashioned get-out-the-vote efforts. They have also started to rally former felons to restore their voting rights.

Those groups will have to redouble their efforts because Republicans are not going to give up on voter suppression. They have nothing to offer except a white nationalism that attempts to disguise their giveaways to the rich, and thats not a winning formula.
IRVINE, Calif. -- Is the Supreme Court about to cause great political upheaval by getting into the business of policing the worst partisan gerrymanders? Recent signs suggest that it well might.

At the very beginning of its term back in October, the court heard oral arguments in Gill vs. Whitford, a case challenging Wisconsins plan for drawing districts for its state Assembly. Republican legislators drew the lines to give them a great advantage in these elections. Even when Democrats won more than a majority of votes cast in the Assembly elections, Republicans controlled about 60 percent of the seats.

The court has for many years refused to police such gerrymandering. Conservative justices suggested that the question was nonjusticiable (meaning the cases could not be heard by the courts) because there were no permissible standards for determining when partisanship in drawing district lines went too far. Liberals came forward with a variety of tests. And Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stood in the middle, as he often does. He argued that all the tests liberals proposed didnt work, while trying to keep the courthouse door open for new tests.

Gill offers one: Its called the efficiency gap and it measures wasted votes, or votes cast that do not contribute to victory. (The more of these a party has to swallow, the less likely it is to win.) People reading the tea leaves during Gill oral arguments seemed to think that Kennedy was sympathetic to the Wisconsin challengers.

So far there has been no word on the outcome from the court, which issues decisions in its hardest cases as late as the end of June. There was, however, a tantalizing development just over a week ago when the court agreed to hear a gerrymandering case out of Maryland this term. Benisek vs. Lamone involves a single congressional district drawn by Democrats to make it harder for Republicans to elect a member of Congress.

Setting a case like this for full argument is unusual. Ordinarily, when a second case presents an issue similar to one the court is already considering, the justices hold the second until the first has been decided, and then send it back to the lower court for further proceedings.

So whats going on?

Maybe there is some technical problem with the Gill case  such as a lack of standing for the plaintiffs  that would prevent the court from deciding it on the merits. Maybe the court will rule that these cases must be decided on a district-by-district basis (as in Benisek) rather than on a statewide basis (as in Gill). Maybe the court does not like the efficiency-gap theory, and prefers the 1st Amendment argument offered in Benisek. (In brief, the theory is that when a legislature draws lines to minimize a political partys voting strength, it interferes with the associational rights of the partys voters, discriminating against them simply because they are Republicans or Democrats.)

After I posted my speculation on Twitter last week, a reader weighed in with another theory, one that I think may be the best of all: Maybe they want to hear a challenge to a Democratic gerrymander in addition to the Wisconsin Republican gerrymander?

The tweet reminded me of what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said during the Gill oral arguments about being forced into the business of choosing Democrats or Republicans. He said that if the intelligent man on the street sees the court siding with Democrats in one of these disputes, it must be because the Supreme Court preferred the Democrats over the Republicans. And thats going to come out one case after another as these cases are brought in every state. And that is going to cause very serious harm to the status and integrity of the decisions of this court in the eyes of the country.

When the chief justice made these statements, I was skeptical of his sincerity. After all, the court prefers one party or another all the time, down to resolving the 2000 presidential election by taking Republican George W. Bushs side in the Florida recount.

But suppose that internally the court has already decided that the plaintiffs in Gill will win, which would mean the court prefers Democrats in that case. I could certainly see Roberts, who cares more than the average justice about the institutional legitimacy of the court, agreeing to vote with the majority only so long as he can also prefer Republicans at the same time, in Benisek. Deciding Gill and Benisek together would allow the court, in announcing a new partisan-gerrymandering rule, to say that sometimes the rule favors one party and sometimes it favors the other.

We may have to wait until June to find out if this theory is correct. If it is, thats good news not only for those who oppose hyperpartisan gerrymandering, but also those concerned about the courts legitimacy in a hyperpolarized political environment.
. 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.
Watching the honor guards and troops file by on Inauguration Day 1981, Reagan, hand on his heart, was tersely told by the General to his right that it is not appropriate for the president to return the salute unless his head is covered. Turning to his longtime aide and friend, Mike Deaver, Reagan said, I feel very uncomfortable just standing here, not acknowledging their salutes. Deaver, whispering into the new presidents ear said, You can do whatever the hell you want  youre the commander in chief! Reagans eyes lit up. After a deliberate pause, Reagan raised his hand slowly to his forehead, and completed a salute with such perfection that many military men would blush with envy. He did it with such zeal, I think he even made the attending general proud, Deaver recalled.

There are many books on Reagan written by admirers and detractors alike. Unfortunately, it is often the case that when you finish them you fail to come away with a real sense of who he was as a person. Reagan had few close friends. Not that he longed for such companionship, he had Nancy, and that was all he needed.

Apart from Nancy, it is unlikely Reagan let his guard down with anyone else to the degree he did with Mike Deaver, author of A Different Drummer. Deaver met Reagan in the California governors office, where, being placed as deputy chief of staff, he wrong-footed himself twice in his first two interactions with Reagan. First by arranging to rig the selection of questions for a Chamber of Commerce Luncheon to ensure only pre-selected ones. Next in a cringe-inducing manner by attempting to micromanage an interview with a young Tom Brokaw to the minute including at 9:07, hed take his jacket off and sling it over his right shoulder, just the way Jack Kennedy showed us all how to do it. Reagan, of course, let Deaver down easy. And over the coming years, both Reagans grew to trust and depend on him as an advisor and as a friend.

Reagans good humor, his fundamental decency and his love of Nancy form the backbone of this work.

After his assassination attempt, Deaver told the president during a hospital visit, The White House is running like a well-oiled machine in your absence. To which Reagan replied, What makes you think Id be happy to hear that? Immediately after the assassination he quipped, Id like to do that scene again, starting at the hotel.

Deavers closeness to the President, permits readers a glimpse of life inside the Reagan orbit. We learn, for instance, that Reagan never used makeup, but would occasionally have one glass of red wine to add a little color to his features before some of his most famous speeches. Or that he and Nancy were the biggest pajama fans this side of Hugh Hefner. Marrying Nancy Davis introduced Reagan to Nancys father, the renowned Dr. Loyal Davis. Reagan picked up a thing or two from the brilliant doc and would often regale companions with a detailed explanation of how to perform a tracheotomy.

Deaver gives us many vignettes into Reagans character from throughout his life that warm the heart. When Deaver learned he was going to be a father, Reagan told him, Pray for a girl. What about Ron? Deaver asked. Oh, I love Ron, Reagan said, but having a little girl is like seeing your wife grow up all over again. During the 1980 campaign, ultra liberal Eugene McCarthy wanted to endorse Governor Reagan. Puzzled, Deaver asked him why. Ill tell you why, he said without smiling but loud enough to make sure I took it all in. Its because he is the only man since Harry Truman who wont confuse the job with the man. McCarthy knew that Reagan understood the enormity of the office he sought, that it was bigger than any one man.

Another tale involves Inauguration Day. Just before his speech, intelligence was indicating the release of the hostages in Iran was imminent. Reagan told Deaver, If it happens, even during my Inaugural Address, I want you to tell me. Slip me a note. Interrupt me. Because if it happens, I want to bring Carter up to the platform. No country should embarrass and humiliate any president of the United States.

During his time as governor Reagan would occasionally covertly slink away in the middle of the day to perform errands. These involved favors large and small for Californians who had reached out to him. One man serving in Vietnam asked the Governor to call his wife on their anniversary to make sure she was ok. Reagan went to the womans house personally and brought her a dozen roses on behalf of her husband serving overseas. In another instance, an eighty-year-old man sent a letter telling Reagan he was getting married and wanted to look his best, noting he had seen the governor on tv a few times and thought they were the same size. Upon checking, he discovered that they were. Reagan shipped off one of his suits to the man costing in excess of two thousand dollars. Deaver protested, telling Reagan to send him something from JC Penny, but Reagan would have none of it.

On the phone with Nancy, neither she nor Reagan wanted to be the last to say goodbye so their conversations would end with the president in hushed tones repeatedly whispering goodbye to his wife as the phone got closer to the cradle. When Nancy was away, his friends would find ways of cheering him up with old movies or other diversions. When flying somewhere without her, he prayed that God would look after her if something were to happen to him. But it is Nancys love for her husband that shines through the final pages as she soldiered on through the ravages of his awful disease. When we said for better or for worse we meant it, she would say.

Deavers book is a treasure and a reminder of how fortunate our country was to have Reagan, not only for what he did, but also for who he was.
The Buffalo City Council passed a 2018 budget package that raised municipal taxes 3.39 percent.

Property tax levied for city government operations was set at $265,143, an increase of $8,686.

The citys adopted budget was $563,811, which included Buffalo Citys share of Tri-Community Fire Dept. buying a new firetruck.

The fire department services Buffalo City, Cochrane and the Town of Belvidere. Buffalo Citys share of a 2018 firetruck purchase is $94,200.

Buffalo City Clerk Jenny Ehlenfeldt said money for a firetruck would come out of a designated savings fund the city has set up for that purpose.

Cost of a firetruck shows up in the citys public safety budget of $128,400, up from $33,200 for 2017.

The citys 2018 budget also reflects a change in budget accounting of public cemetery funds.

Ehlenfeldt said the city council approved dissolving a separate cemetery account and including cemetery expenses in the citys general budget.

A summary of other budgeted 2018 expenses included general government operations, $92,920, public works, $137,983, health & human services, $28,400, culture & recreation, $31,700, capital improvement outlay, $15,250, and debt payments, $129,158.

Among revenues other than property tax levy were intergovernmental revenue, which includes the firetruck money, $204,224, licenses & permits, $30,950, public charges for services, $29,400, and assorted other revenues, $34,094.
Paul E. Martin, 57, of St. Paul, pleaded guilty to possession of THC and drug paraphernalia. Martin was sentenced to 28 days in jail and two years of probation with orders to obtain counseling, avoid alcohol and taverns and pay $443 in court costs. Martin entered a two-year deferred prosecution/sentencing agreement on a felony charge of possessing methamphetamine.

Kenneth Curtis-Simon Gady, 24, of Houston, Minn., pleaded guilty to a felony charge of being party to burglary of a cabin along the river in rural Fountain City in November of 2016. Sentencing was scheduled for Feb. 28. A charge of theft was dismissed.

Michael E. Hadaway, 54, of Winona, Minn., court hearing adjourned to Dec. 20 on a traffic charge accusing him of second offense operating while intoxicated and county ordinance offense accusing him of possessing drug paraphernalia. A misdemeanor charge accusing him of possessing drug paraphernalia was dismissed on prosecutors motion.

Tammy K. Hollister, 49, of Durand, was bound over for trial on a felony charge accusing her of fourth offense operating while intoxicated. Arraignment hearing scheduled on Jan. 19. Hollister also is accused of operating while license revoked and refusal to take a test for intoxication after arrest.

Kari J. Sell, 34, of Alma, court hearing adjourned to Dec. 20 on charges accusing her of thirdrd offense operating while intoxicated, operating while license revoked, failure to keep vehicle under control, ignition interlock device violation and possession of THC and drug paraphernalia.

Dayne M. Kuri, 33, of Galesville, pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of second offense possession of THC, possession of narcotics, and possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. A case status hearing was set for Jan. 19.

Robert G. Brantner, 27, of Buffalo City, court hearing adjourned to Jan. 19 on charges accusing him of contributing to delinquency of a child, neglecting a child, operating with restricted controlled substance and manufacture/delivery of up to 200 grams of THC.

Mykel L. Carpenter, 20, of Winona, was bound over for trial on a felony charge accusing him of 2nd offense possession of THC. An arraignment hearing was set for Jan. 19. Carpenter also is accused of misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Wyatt D. Thrasher, 40, of St. Paul, case status conference scheduled Jan. 17 on drug charges accusing him of possession with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of amphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. Thrasher has pleaded not guilty.

Michelle L. Wallentine, 42, of Mondovi, pleaded not guilty to drug charges accusing her of possessing methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. A case status hearing was set for Feb. 1.

James A. Guenther, 46, of Peterson, Minn., arraignment hearing scheduled Jan. 19 on charges accusing him of felony fifth offense operating with restricted controlled substance, possession of methamphetamine and possession of THC.

James B. Smith, 45, of La Crosse, arrest warrant issued Dec. 6 for failure to appear in court as scheduled on charges accusing him of theft in a business setting and theft by false representation. Smith pleaded not guilty in August.

Faithe A. Sweeney, 33, of Fountain City, court hearing adjourned to Dec. 20 on charges accusing her of possessing methamphetamine, second offense possession of THC and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Margarito Castillo Duenas, 58, of Mondovi, arrest warrant issued Dec. 7 for failure to appear in court as scheduled on a misdemeanor traffic charge accusing him of second offense operating while intoxicated.

Richard S. Wilson, 54, of Bloomington, Minn., court hearing adjourned to Dec. 20 on a misdemeanor traffic charge accusing him of third offense operating while intoxicated.

Jeffery J. Rothering, 48, of Winona, Minn., court hearing adjourned to Dec. 20 on charges accusing him of second offense possession of THC and operating a vehicle with restricted controlled substance.

Makwon D. Thompson Davis, 20, of Minneapolis, pleaded guilty to county ordinance possession of THC and was ordered to pay fine and costs of $519.

Anthony T. Shannon, 33, of Taylor, charge accusing him of disorderly conduct was dismissed on motion by prosecutor.
Winonas plans for a coworking space are taking shape following the tentative approval of a loan from the citys Port Authority.

A loan of up to $40,000 was approved, pending the later approval of the funding source by the City Council.

Much of the loan would go towards renovation of part of the 78 E. Third St. building as a space for the organization, wherein entrepreneurs could rent office space.

The spot proposed has an entrance facing Lafayette Street and was most recently used by River Quest Games.

In the agreement, an estimated $25,000 to $30,000 would be used for building improvements, $5,000 for initial payments to the managers or operators and around $5,000 for startup and contingency costs.

The Port Authority, Winona Chamber of Commerce, WSU School of Business and Saint Marys Kabara Institute would partner in the business and share in paying the $1,000 per month rent for two years.

The organization itself is likely to be an LLC with a board of directors composed of members of the partner organizations.

Myron White, Winona development coordinator, said the group would want to move quickly and bring back the organizational plans for approval at the next Port Authority meeting.

White noted that there are successful coworking spaces in Rochester, Red Wing and La Crosse, and a space for entrepreneurs would go a long way towards retaining them in the community as they form businesses.

Winona has a storied history when it comes to entrepreneurship, White said. We want to do what we can to keep that alive.

The goal is to provide a cost-effective but professional space with good internet access, conference rooms and quality copying and printing technology.

They estimate it would need to establish around a $3,700 per month revenue once operational to maintain itself, which would hopefully be through rent and sponsorships from other private sector businesses.

Winona City Manager Steve Sarvi, who introduced the idea last year, said that once it starts, there would be data available so that the Port Authority and its partners can monitor it  from people coming and going daily and the rental numbers, to what programs and events they have.

Those would all become reportable, Sarvi said. And wed want to share those successes with the whole community.

The money which would be used in a deal is part of $250,000 the Port Authority unanimously freed from state regulations on its use, which will be subject to City Council approval at a later date.

In the last legislative session lawmakers approved a one-time change which will allow cities to use local revolving loan funds financed by the states Minnesota Investment Funds for a wider range of economic projects.

The cities would be able to keep 80 percent of the chosen money and return 20 percent to the state, and then that money would not be subject to the states MIF re-use policies.

In this case, the Port Authority proposal would use $250,000 of its Non-Federal Revolving Loan Fund, which currently has a balance of $325,000.

The state would have $50,000 returned while the city keeps $200,000, in hopes that it would increase the flexibility and use of the money for things like this coworking project loan, which wouldnt have previously fit.

Port Authority president Mike Cichanowski said the idea was worth supporting in its efforts to foster businesses in the area.

Youve got to try things and this is a good try, Cichanowski It sounds like an exciting thing.
Israel has a valid claim to Jerusalem

In reference to Mary Jo Klinker and her views on Jerusalem.

Although the Middle East is a discussion where its common for entrenched opinions, I want to point out the validity of Israels claim to Jerusalem as its capital goes back thousands of years. Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama all stated they would move the embassy to Jerusalem, but did not follow through.

After the Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948 they claimed the Old City and restricted worship for only Muslims, demolishing Jewish and Christian holy sites. When Israeli forces reclaimed the Old City during the 1967 war, IDF leader Moshe Dayan ordered to Israeli flag removed from the Temple Mount and generously offered Muslims back their holy site where they continue to bar other religions. Since 1967 the Old City has been open to all faiths, except for the Muslim controlled Temple Mount.

I am sorry for all the misfortune you report. Ive heard horror stories from victims of Palastinian random terrorist attacks on innocent civilians. Its all so very sad. Still, Israel is the only free and open society in the Middle East, recognizing all faiths, races, sexual preferences, and other human rights.

History shows the Palestinians do not have a very good record on human rights (Gay rights in Gaza?). But this is ignored by the political left because it doesnt fit the Palastinian victim narrative required for condemning Israel.

Paul Wildes, San Francisco, Calif.

A tribute to Grandma

Goodview School has recently been saddened by the passing of a former staff member, dedicated volunteer and friend. Most knew her as Bernetta Kouba or Red. At Goodview School, we all just called her Grandma.

Grandma made her first connection with Goodview School when her grandkids attended the school. For more than 20 of her golden years, she gave her willing assistance to the students of the school. I remember well her last year of service.

Grandma, at age 87, would arrive at school around 10 a.m. and greet and chat with the office staff. She then proceeded to wash the cafeteria tables to be sure they were spotlessly clean for lunch time. Playground and lunchroom duty came next. Here Grandma conversed with the children, assisted in solving playground problems, opened milk cartons, wiped up spills, and dished out kind words and hugs. In the afternoon, Grandma moved on to Mrs. Weavers first grade classroom. She enjoyed listening to the students read. She kept notes on each of them and praised their progress. She gave assistance wherever needed and special care to any struggling student.

Grandmas goodness was recognized throughout the school. The staff enjoyed the sweets she brought to share especially her angel food cake. Students were often rewarded with a sticker or small treat. At the end of the school year, all students were given a warm, fuzzy puffball with the expressed wish for a fun-filled, safe vacation. What an amazing lady!

Grandma would have celebrated her birthday of 91 years on December 15. During this holiday season, we can all learn lessons from how she lived her life. Every day has a purpose. Be kind. Do what you can to help. Be willing to offer a smile or a hug. Care about others. As a role model, Grandma was an inspiration, and she demonstrated so well that the littlest things in life can make the biggest difference.

Happy Birthday, Grandma! We miss you! God bless you!

Mary Yahnke, retired Goodview School teacher
One of Wisconsins only exclusively vegan restaurants is opening for business in downtown Baraboo this weekend.

The Cheeze Factory Restaurant will hold a grand opening for its new Oak Street location on Saturday, serving a variety of plant-based, non-GMO dishes. The vegan eatery was open Wednesday and Thursday, and is also open Friday for special preview service.

Were happy to be in Baraboo, thats for sure, said founder and head chef Sage-Louise. If the local people like us, hopefully well see them often, get to know them and vice versa.

The Cheeze Factory is known for its decadent vegan desserts, along with its unique selection of plant-based foods, all of which are made from scratch. Sage-Louise said she takes pride in creating dishes that receive positive feedback from people who have never tried vegan options or are new to the vegan lifestyle.

I love the fact that we can do what we love to do, and have people come in and taste the food and say, Wow, this is great without even knowing that its plant based, she said. That gives folks an opportunity to discover that you dont have to eat meat and dairy to enjoy delicious food.

The vegan restaurant relocated from Lake Delton to Baraboo after the lease on its former location expired in September. Cheeze Factory owners completely renovated the former Invictus Voices building on Oak Street after securing the site in May.

We still have the same menu, and the kitchen turned out great, Sage-Louise said. Everything is brand new.

The Cheeze Factory was founded 25 years ago as a vegetarian restaurant by members of the Course in Miracles Academy. The Academy is a spiritual group based in Wisconsin Dells that studies religious scriptures from around the world, with a primary focus on the Bibles New Testament and A Course in Miracles. Cheeze Factory staff is made up of former and current Academy members.

The group opened the restaurant in a former cheese factory off Wisconsin Dells Parkway South as a way to reach out to the community. Academy members were practicing vegetarians at the time, so they created a menu without meats.

The restaurant went on to become a premier vegetarian restaurant in the heart of Americans Dairyland. The establishment remained vegetarian until 2013, when Cheeze Factory leaders ramped up efforts to minimize animal suffering by transitioning to a completely plant-based menu.

Sage-Louise said restaurant leaders are excited to be in downtown Baraboo, which offers potential for more walk-in customers than its previous location. She said she hopes the Baraboo community will come out to support the new restaurant, regardless of whether or not theyve tried vegan cuisine.

Its not coming from a place of trying to prove anything to anyone, Sage-Louise said. This is a great way to offer people an experience with something that maybe theyve been reluctant to try in the past.
JUNEAU  A 46-year-old Mayville man was given an 11-year prison sentence Thursday for having child pornography on his computer.

Marlon Kegel was found guilty Sept. 19 of three felony counts of possession of child pornography.

Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Steven Bauer sentenced Kegel to four years of initial incarceration and a seven-year extended sentence. He must pay court costs and supervision fees. Restitution will be determined March 2.

According to the criminal complaint, the Wisconsin Department of Justice obtained a warrant to search a residence on Donald Street in Mayville.

When the warrant was executed Feb. 7, officers made contact with Kegel.

Officers confiscated multiple USB drives, external hard drives, multiple laptops, a PlayStation 3, assorted cellphones and a digital camera. The items were reviewed by the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, which found 10 images of child pornography.

According to the criminal complaint, when Kegel was questioned by officers, he said that he may have downloaded something but that the images he downloaded were mislabeled. Kegel allegedly told officers he did not like viewing child pornography and would delete the files within two hours of downloading them.

Kegel later admitted to officers that he would intentionally search for child pornography and had been viewing it for three to five years. Kegel said he viewed the images out of curiosity and was interested in images specifically depicting females from the ages of 10 to 13.
Mauston dog park visitors will soon have a new place to sit down and take a break.

The 1.6 acre dog park at Oakridge Park received a donation for a new bench from Mauston locals Jack and Marlene Pelton.

The Peltons dog, Penny, recently passed away. The Peltons were recognized at the Mauston Common Council meeting Dec. 12.

At the meeting, Public Works Director Rob Nelson thanked the Peltons for their donation. I just want to make note of the generous donation we got from Jack and Marlene Pelton for the dog park, Nelson said. They donated a bench in memory of the friendly spaniel.

Jack called wondering how much it cost and they bought the whole bench, Nelson said.

The Peltons donated bench is the first in the dog park. Mauston officials hope to see future donations for additional benches to complete the park.

Nelson said he believes most people can sympathize with the Peltons because they know what it is like to lose a pet.

Water main changes approved

The Mauston council voted unanimously to approve a water main in an amount not to exceed $5,000 near the Super 8 and Quality Inn.

In that area, there was a lack of hydrants, Nelson said.

The problem became evident during preplanning by the Mauston fire department. Preplanning is used to prepare for the possibility of an emergency in any given area. For the area by the hotels, it became clear that there would not be sufficient water supply in the event of a fire. We started measuring distances and it came to light, Nelson said. Thats a long distance.

Mauston Fire Department Captain Jim Allaby agreed. There was nowhere near sufficient water if something big happened.

The cost of the project is estimated to be about $5,000.

Other Business

The common council approved vouchers in the amount of $981,675.80

Mauston Mayor Brian McGuire expressed satisfaction with the turnout for the 19th annual Canadian Pacific Holiday Train. The holiday train was a huge success, McGuire said. Ive heard estimates of 2,000 people.

The council canceled the Dec. 26 council meeting.
Students in Lewiston and Endeavor might tell their parents they traveled all over the state of Wisconsin without leaving school.

Its not hands-on. Its feet-on, Randy Colton said about his large plastic map that elementary students stepped across Wednesday.

The retired Wausau educator has been traveling across the state to teach map skills to third- and fourth-grade students. The map  21 by 17 feet  gave the students an interactive experience, he said.

The map even has a name  Brie.

About two years ago, National Geographic donated large maps to various alliances across the U.S., including the Wisconsin Geographic Alliance, which Colton represents. Each state has two maps. He said the other map used in Wisconsin is named Colby.

Who doesnt want to play on a big map? said Sharon Kibby, third- and fourth grade teacher at Lewiston. Her students had been studying Wisconsin  its borders and geographic features  prior to Wednesdays activity.

The project is based on National Geographic research that shows the effectiveness of such activities. Its value is simple. It engages them in learning, Colton said.

Students learned cardinal directions and map coordinates, each of them moving, at times, according to latitude and longitude. They learned that all maps have T.O.A.D.S.  Title, Orientation, Author, Date and Symbols. They learned about Wisconsins water networks  or, the ways of getting around before road systems and railroads, Colton said. The students used plastic chains to link routes, and at the end of his lesson, they did a scavenger hunt for cities.

Its pretty cool, said Fritz Hammer, Endeavor fourth- and fifth-grade teacher. This (teaches) all the landforms of Wisconsin, its highest points, the major lakes, major rivers, major cities.

They learn things even as simple as the size of a city.

You know, we remember our field trips, and this is an in-house field trip, Colton said of the big map. Recently hes been to schools in Prairie du Chien, Lancaster, Minocqua, Waunakee and Milwaukee, among others.

All told, the project has reached about 2,000 students in 40 schools in Wisconsin, he estimated.

I tell them, Mom and Dad might ask you what you did at school today, and I say, dont say nothing. Never say nothing.

Say, today, I waked all around the state, for hundreds of miles.

Being on the map, I hope this is something theyll remember.


Although not required by law, Colorado teen moms are paged out of class to breastfeed

SPRINGFIELD - State lawmakers voted this year to make Illinois the second state after California to require public schools to provide accommodations for lactating students. The law will go into effect January 1.

Breastfeeding provides health benefits for babies and long-term preventative effects for mothers, including an earlier return to pre-pregnancy weight and a reduced risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer and osteoporosis.
W&M scholarship offers new path for high-ability, low-income Richard Bland transfers

Graves Award winner Bev Sher was awarded the Thomas Graves, Jr. Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching during Commencement 2017. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Promise Scholars The program will provide William & Mary courses and faculty at Richard Bland, scholarship funds, guaranteed housing, peer-to-peer support and mentorship to high-achieving, low-income students who have committed to transferring to W&M. Photo by Robin Deutsch

Promise Scholars: The program will provide William & Mary courses and faculty at Richard Bland, scholarship funds, guaranteed housing, peer-to-peer support and mentorship to high-achieving, low-income students who have committed to transferring to W&M. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption

Promise Scholars program eases transfer for Pell Grant recipients

A new scholarship established by William & Mary and Richard Bland College will ease transfer from Richard Bland while making entry to William & Mary more affordable for high-ability, low-income students.

Beginning in the spring of 2018, the two schools, each of which is governed by William & Marys Board of Visitors, have agreed to establish the Promise Scholars program. The new transfer program was announced today by the presidents of both institutions at an event at Richard Bland College.

This initiative has real potential, said William & Mary President Taylor Reveley. The Promise Scholars program provides an opportunity for a very able cohort of students to begin their William & Mary education while enrolled at Richard Bland.

The program will provide William & Mary courses and faculty at Richard Bland, scholarship funds, guaranteed housing, peer-to-peer support and mentorship to high-achieving, low-income students who have committed to transferring to W&M.

Partnerships that create pathways to high-demand baccalaureate degrees are central to fulfilling Richard Blands mission, said Richard Bland President Debbie Sydow. This new pathway to William & Mary is going to be a game changer for deserving Richard Bland students.

This spring, Richard Bland will select and provide merit-based scholarships to the inaugural cohort of up to 15 first-year, in-state students who are eligible for federal Pell Grants. Promise Scholars will receive a $2,000 merit scholarship in their second year at Richard Bland and receive guaranteed housing designated for Promise Scholars to foster community and peer-to-peer support. Beginning next fall, Richard Bland also will begin awarding a new scholarship of the same amount to first-year students selected for the program.

William & Mary will select two faculty members as Promise Fellows who will travel to the Richard Bland campus to teach a general education course, beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year, to give the students selected as Promise Scholars the opportunity to experience William & Mary while at Richard Bland.

In partnership with Richard Bland Learner Mentors, the William & Mary Faculty Fellows will serve as academic advisors to the Richard Bland students, continuing to provide support to each cohort after they transfer to William & Mary.

What excites me about the Promise Scholars program is that it will give talented Richard Bland students a more affordable path to a William & Mary education, said Virginia Del. Kirk Cox, an alumnus of Richard Bland College and speaker-designee for the House of Delegates, the first public school teacher to ascend to that position.

Once the scholars transfer to William & Mary, they will receive annual $3,500 scholarships to offset student loans during their last two years. The scholarships will be in addition to any financial aid for which the students qualify, which will equate to a no-loan, all-grant financial aid package, enabling these students to finish their degrees at William & Mary without student debt. The Scholars also will be guaranteed on-campus housing their junior year.

The Promise Scholars program comes in addition to guaranteed admission and co-enrollment tracks, two longstanding transfer agreements between Richard Bland and William & Mary, but it aims specifically to facilitate higher rates of transfer for high-ability, low-income students.

The fact that Richard Bland and William & Mary share a Board of Visitors makes this level of collaboration easier, said John Littel, chair of the Richard Bland Committee of the William & Mary Board of Visitors. We hope this can be a model program for others, and we believe that giving talented Richard Bland students a direct academic experience with William & Mary before they formally matriculate will improve their success.

Promoting an economically diverse undergraduate student body is one of William & Marys goals. In addition to year-over-year increases in Pell Grant-eligible students, by 2020 William & Mary aims to increase by 50 percent the number of admitted in-state students from families with annual incomes of $60,000 or less.

This fall, William & Mary saw a 20 percent increase in Pell-eligible new students  both freshmen and transfers  as compared to last year, and a 30 percent increase compared to three years ago. There was also an 11 percent increase in first-generation college students in the new class.

While the progress indicates that William & Mary is doing a better job in communicating its affordability to high school seniors, Littel said its just as important to make sure that Virginias junior and community college students recognize the opportunity and affordability the university offers.

William & Mary was recognized by the New York Times in 2017 as being among the nations leading colleges and universities in commitment to access and affordability for low- and middle-income students, and the No. 1 public university in Virginia. The Times report considered the percentage of students qualifying for Pell Grants, graduation rates and the net price for low- and middle-income students.




China News on Women





Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page
Gov. Gina Raimondo, left, chooses Hasbro toys for a foster family with Foster Forward Board President Jerry Perez, former senior vice president at Hasbro, during Hasbros 5th Annual Global Day of Joy at the Foster Forward storefront in Pawtucket Thursday.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
UK ABWR executives chart path ahead for Horizon

15 December 2017

Share

Successful completion of the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process for Hitachi-GE's UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (UK ABWR) is a "huge step forward" for Hitachi's UK subsidiary Horizon Nuclear Power, two senior executives said this week.

Hitachi-GE Regulatory Advisor Dave Watson and Horizon Technical Director Mark Lunn spoke to World Nuclear News as the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) and the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales announced yesterday they had awarded the UK ABWR a Design Acceptance Confirmation (DAC) and a Statement of Design Acceptability (SoDA).

Lunn said: "It's a huge step forwards for us with the project because it shows an ability to deliver to schedule. The number of the assessment findings that we'd consider to be technically challenging is also significantly lower than what previous GDAs have seen. That shows how mature the ABWR design is and so this will show the market what a good product we have in the ABWR. To achieve a clean DAC with minimal assessment findings is a testament to the quality of the design that we have."

Straight to full DAC

Hitachi-GE is the third company to complete the GDA process, which it began in April 2013. The first reactor design to receive a DAC and SoDA was Areva's European Pressurised Reactor in December 2012. This was followed by the Westinghouse AP1000 in March this year. The Hualong One design that General Nuclear Services - a subsidiary of EDF and China General Nuclear - began the GDA process in January.

Watson highlighted that Hitachi-GE is the only company to date that did not require an interim DAC and interim SoDA stage during the GDA process, thanks to regulatory confidence in the reactor design and the company's approach to its GDA application.

He said: "What a significant achievement it is to have completed GDA and to get the regulatory approvals on schedule and as planned. It's the third reactor to achieve GDA and the first one to have achieved it straight to a full DAC and SoDA, without the interim stage, which demonstrates that the regulator has confidence in the ABWR design for the UK. It brings the reality of a nuclear power plant in the UK one step closer which will create thousands of jobs in north Wales, where it will produce enough electricity for five million homes. It is a huge step for Hitachi globally and also for Wylfa Newydd in particular."

GDA is "clearly the critical milestone" for the UK ABWR this year, Lunn said.

"The next major milestone will be the submission of the development consent order applications. We have already made the EPRSR [environmental permit radioactive substances regulation] application this year. We also have in parallel the Article 37 and Article 41 terminations, which are part of the Euratom Treaty submissions that the government makes to support the DCO [development consent order]," he said.

Watson added: "Delivery of the GDA on top of the completion of the licence application shows really strong progress for the Horizon project, and builds on the fact that these reactors have been successfully delivered before, and this creates a huge opportunity for Anglesey and the wider region in Wales."

Different cultures

The ABWR design is already licensed in Japan and the USA. Four units have been built in Japan, where there more are under construction. Horizon Nuclear Power hopes to build two ABWR units at Wylfa Newydd site on the island of Anglesey in north Wales and start them up in around 2025. The units would be the first commercial boiling water reactors in the UK. Horizon also plans two UK ABWR units for its site in Oldbury, South Gloucestershire.

Watson noted the challenge for Hitachi-GE to adapt from the prescriptive approach to reactor design regulation in Japan to the non-prescriptive approach in the UK.

He said: "Demonstration of ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Practicable) was very challenging. So, Hitachi-GE had to listen, learn and adapt, and receiving the positive GDA result shows that we were successful in doing that. Having the right people in the right roles was important as well; Hitachi has world-class nuclear knowhow and is famous for the quality of its engineering and on-time delivery. UK project management capability and the UK safety case expertise helped guide that Hitachi knowledge and expertise in the right direction."

Hitachi has a reputation for delivery on schedule for ABWRs built in Japan, but the GDA is a tough and rigorous process, he added.

"We had to submit about 6000 documents and there were thousands of questions from the regulator and there were technical meetings. It was about taking the expertise and Hitachi engineering style and adding UK project management and safety experts to help manage this process across different continents and time zones, and also getting input from Horizon on operational experience."

The UK regulatory process is "quite tough", he said, and Hitachi-GE "had to have humility" to understand some weaknesses in how it had needed to change the way it presented information on the reactor design for a UK, rather than Japanese regulator.

On the relationships between Hitachi-GE and Horizon, Lunn said they had been working very closely together since the start of GDA, in particular since the start of Step 3.

"My team have been working very closely and attending all of the GDA meetings with respect to licensing. Initially, helping very much with our knowledge transfer from the Hitachi-GE team to the Horizon team, but also to make sure the licensing experience of my team was able to support and influence GDA discussions. The design team from Hitachi-GE and the Horizon team are fairly well connected and work well together, and we've also looked for a number of Hitachi-GE staff to augment us, particularly in the project management safety case, so the same project managers who delivered the instrumentation and control throughout GDA will deliver that for the site-specific solution," he said.

Regulatory Issues

Hitachi-GE received two Regulatory Issues during the GDA process.

Watson said: "The UK regulation has a tiered approach to questioning. At the lower level, there are Regulatory Queries and we received 1519 of those. At the next level are Regulatory Observations and we had 82. And then, at the highest level, there are Regulatory Issues and we had two - the first related to reactor chemistry and source terms (the radioactivity that's present potentially within the reactor design); and the other one was about the probabilistic safety analysis. These issues were really about how this information was being presented and not about weaknesses in the design. Hitachi had to adapt in how they presented that information. The regulator said that what had been put together originally was not adequate and so Hitachi put together some targeted and specific teams in the UK and Japan, as well as have input from GE-Hitachi in the US, to target those particular topics to understand what the shortfalls were and how they could be addressed."

For example, with the probabilistic safety analysis (PSA), Hitachi-GE had to demonstrate how it calculated risks.

"A modern standard PSA to the best international standards now has to be very wide ranging and include all the operational stages, from operation, shutdowns and outages, and refuelling," Watson said. "It also has to consider normal operations, plus internal hazards, like fire, and external hazards, like seismic events, and to pull together all of that information in a very transparent way, so that the regulator gets the confidence that all these aspects have been considered appropriately. In the original PSA, the regulator felt that transparency was not sufficient or of a wide enough range of events and different scenarios."

Design changes

Asked about the design changes agreed in GDA versus the reference design, Watson stressed that the ABWR is a "well-established Gen III+ reactor that is already in operation".

He said: "It's evolved and will continue to do so. As part of that process, changes had been made to the design, from lessons learned from Fukushima, general international improvements in good practice and standards over time, and then some UK-specific changes.

"The Fukushima changes included additional electrical systems and cooling systems to provide diversity, and the back-up building, which is located in a separate area at elevation on the site. On international standards, for example, theres been a process since 9/11 for aircraft protection.

"The UK-specific changes were introduced because of a specific regulatory expectation in the UK, relating, for example, to diversity and segregation in the Control & Instrumentation system; to provide clear evidence of that and modifications were made to the C&I system at a very early stage in the GDA. Equally, the approach to protection against hazards -internal barriers against fire; the emergency diesel generators were relocated from inside the reactor building to a separate building outside of the reactor building. Some of the UK-specific changes were introduced at an early stage in the GDA process, so there was some degree of learning from the previous GDAs [on other reactors designs]."

Timeline

In terms of a project timeline, Lunn noted that Horizon had already made its EPRSR [environmental permit radioactive substances regulation] and Nuclear Site Licence applications and is now preparing its DCO. This will be our next major application", he said. "The other permits are associated with that; so, we are preparing those as well. We're looking at the end of the first quarter of next year to make those submissions."

The next steps in permits and permissions for the Wylfa Newydd site are, Lunn said, "to go through all of the assessment findings and agree resolution plans of how we plan to resolve those with regulators."

He added: "We've already agreed with the regulators our programme for developing site-specific chapters that aren't in GDA and we'll go through a number of changes and developments to the site-specific PCSR [Pre-Construction Safety Report] to support our construction schedule. At the same time, we made our site licence application. Were looking at how we maximise value in the PCSR. We're very pleased with the quality of the documentation coming out of GDA; there are 4000 documents that make up a significant element of the site-specific case, along with the Resolution Findings and our site-specific programme, which will enable a very clear scope of work in the project delivery team to follow what weve learned in GDA into site-specific delivery, so we have the certainty of delivering to schedule."

On translating the Generic PCSR into a site-specific PCSR, Lunn said: "We've looked at each of chapters in the GDA and graded them into which are unchanged through to the other extreme where, for example, the construction elements, which aren't included in the GDA. We've graded each of the chapters as to how much of PCSR is unchanged and the same with the supporting documents for the safety case and topic reports."

He added: "We're looking at which can be used in their entirety, which don't exist or need to be completely revisited, which are a relatively small amount. The aim is to use the GDA as a corner-stone for the site-specific safety case. An example of a chapter that needs to be established is the operation and maintenance section doesnt cover the maintenance justification to a very high level. Also, the construction chapter is to a very high level in the GDA than in the PCSR."

Investment

Asked about attracting investment to the project, Lunn said the GDA demonstrated that the ABWR is a "mature design".

"Whilst we've modified it for the UK market, it's not first-of-a-kind, but is an nth-of-a-kind, design, which I think gives a lot of assurance that the product is a first- class reactor design that has stood the test of GDA and come out of it very strongly," he said.

Asked about the strike price Horizon would seek to agree with the government for the Wylfa Newydd project, Lunn said: "We are actively developing our project for the lowest strike price that we can, but that's subject to negotiation."

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topics
Employees of a Manhattan hospital are shocked to learn that their colleague funded the ISIS terror group and tried to join them to kill Americas, according to police in New York.

A five-count indictment was unsealed in federal court in Central Islip, charging 27-year-old Zoobia Shahnaz with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and three substantive counts of money laundering.

As alleged in the indictment and court filings, Shahnaz defrauded numerous financial institutions and obtained over $85,000 in illicit proceeds, which she converted to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

She then laundered and transferred the funds out of the country to support the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (aISISa), which has been designated by the U.S. Secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organization.

After consummating the scheme, Shahnaz attempted to leave the United States and travel to Syria.

Shahnaz, a U.S. citizen, was arrested, and her initial arraignment was scheduled before United States Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson.

Tomlinson ordered Shahnaz held without bail for being an extreme danger to the community.

She was also deemed to be a flight risk.

Shahnaz engaged in a bank fraud scheme, purchased Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and laundered money overseas, intending to put thousands of dollars into the coffers of terrorists.

The court was told that Shahnaz obtained a loan for approximately $22,500 by way of materially false representations.

She also fraudulently applied for over a dozen credit cards, which she used to purchase approximately $62,000 in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

She then engaged in a pattern of financial activity, culminating in several wire transactions, totaling over $150,000, to individuals and apparent shell entities in Pakistan, China, and Turkey.

These transactions were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements, conceal the identity, source, and destination of the illicitly obtained monies, and, ultimately, benefit ISIS.

After conducting these financial transactions, the defendant sought to travel to Syria herself.

She was questioned by law enforcement at John F. Kennedy International Airport when she attempted to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan.

Her itinerary included a multi-day layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals traveling from Western countries to join ISIS in Syria.

If convicted, Shahnaz faces a maximum of 30 years for the bank fraud charge and 20 years on each count money laundering.

Shahnaz recently quit her job as a lab assistant at a Manhattan hospital.

Shahnazs attorney denied all the allegations, saying that his client simply wanted to help Syrian refugees.
Wrexham Council to remove burial and cremation fees for under 18s

This article is old - Published: Friday, Dec 15th, 2017

Wrexham Council are to remove burial and cremation fees for children under the age of 18 in the county borough.

In November 2017 the Welsh Government announced a Wales-wide agreement to scrap burial and cremation fees for children under the age of 18 had been reached.

The agreement has come into place with immediate effect, with the Welsh Government making 1.5m available to local authorities and other providers of cemeteries and crematoriums across Wales.

Currently Wrexham Council does not charge for the cremation or burial of a child aged 13 years and under. There is a charge for the Exclusive Right of Burial where the grave is purchased.

To bring the policy in-line with the new Welsh Government policy, Executive Board members were this week asked to approve proposals to amend Wrexham County Borough Councils burial and cremation charges.

The report also featured proposed changes to the traditional burial site Plas Acton Road Cemetery in Pandy.

The cemetery is divided into five sections, the Infant Section, Cremated Remains, Traditional Section, Lawned Section and Casket Section.

However it has now been proposed that once all the grave space has been used in the traditional burial section, then the remainder of the cemetery in respect of full graves (excluding the cremated remains and casket section) will be maintained as a lawned cemetery.

The traditional section is close to completion with only a few graves still available. Details in the report presented to councillors this week, explained: The traditional section has caused operational issues, particularly when graves are reopened for new burials, due to the fencing around the graves causing problems of access for staff and the public for the new burials.

Maintaining a traditional cemetery is far more difficult and labour intensive. Traditional cemeteries also have a lower capacity than lawned cemeteries.

Speaking at this weeks Executive Board meeting, Lead Member for Environment, Cllr David A Bithell, said: The Welsh Government has supported a new standard for child funerals as currently variations across Wales.

The change is that local authorities to agree and to stop charging for the burial and Exclusive Right of burial for cremation for children under the age of 18.

The second aspect of report is to change the management of Plas Acton Cemetery. Plas Acton Cemetery holds a traditional sections for burials where headstone, fencing and surfacing of the graves are permitted.

Proposals outlined is once that is completed to return to a lawned cemetery area.

The report was seconded by Cllr Joan Lowe, who said: I think it is really good that Welsh Government have come up with the criteria and that all counties of Wales will adhere to the same and that it is standardised. These are very difficult times for families when they lose a young one.

The reports recommendations were backed unanimously by members of the Executive Board.
Bertil Lintner has a formidable reputation as a journalist who has extensively explored what Nari Rustomji called our enchanted frontiers-our northeastern borderlands. His observations of the region are informative and balanced.

His latest book, titled China's India War, is partly a riposte to Neville Maxwell's infamous (for most Indians) India's China War, a work published in 1970. Maxwell's work is known for its pro-China interpretation of events surrounding the 1962 conflict. Lintner rightly debunks the whole 'Forward Policy' theory advanced by Maxwell as being responsible for the Chinese offensive of 1962. In fact, by 1959, after the upheavals in Tibet and the flight of the Dalai Lama, the Chinese leadership was clear that accounts would be settled with India, and cold, careful planning was involved in achieving this goal.

advertisement

Lintner is discerning about the still-classified Henderson Brooks-Bhagat Report that was made public by Maxwell in 2014. The report is often imagined as the last word on the 1962 conflict, a kind of philosopher's stone on how bluster and braggadocio lost us the war, even listing a national rogues' gallery in this regard. Far from it. Lintner says rightly, "The question of who attacked whom, or determining who was responsible? was not even within the scope of the enquiry, which had been set up to look into four specific aspects: possible shortcomings in training and equipment; the system of command; the physical fitness of the troops; and the capacity of commanders at all levels to influence their subordinates."

But beyond Maxwell, Lintner is a scholar of the strategic knot of borderlands that link South, Southeast and East Asia.

He is acutely conscious of the rivalry and competition between India and China both in this region and in the vast maritime space of the India-Pacific. It is a rivalry that runs along the spine of the continent, as journalist Frank Moraes quoting Jawaharlal Nehru said in 1952.

Today, the relationship between these two giant neighbours in Asia has entered an uncertain phase. Lintner's book certainly places matters in perspective. Between the two countries, there is a 'New Great Game' "founded on historic mistrust and current competition". China's conflict, or war, with India is a long one: from the direct contest of 1962, it is now a proxy war: a jockeying for space along the disputed frontier, cross-border insurgencies, the sharing of water resources, a jousting for strategic influence and political weight in Nepal, in Myanmar and in the ports and seaways of the Indian Ocean. This is an adversarial relationship where the two countries literally shadow each other.

The book is not based on new archival research. It is more an analysis that draws on published works. However, this should not detract from its comprehensive sweep and the fact that Lintner's time-tested knowledge of the vital issues involved merits our serious reflection.

advertisement

Nirupama Rao is a former foreign secretary and ambassador

--- ENDS ---
Prime Minister Theresa May dined with the leaders of the 27 European Union member states last night, prior to todays discussionsheld in her absenceat the EU Summit in Brussels.

May arrived after suffering a humiliating parliamentary defeat Wednesday due to a rebellion by 11 Conservative MPs.

Todays talks are to ratify the deal reached with European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker agreeing that discussions on Britains exit from the EU have made sufficient progress to proceed to the next stage involving future trade relations.

But Mays hard Brexit stancethreatening to walk away if a satisfactory agreement is not reachedunited dissident Tory MPs with the Labour Party, Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party behind an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill guaranteeing parliamentary approval of any Brexit agreement.

May lost by four votes, 309 to 305, in her first defeat as prime minister, after Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to back Amendment Seven proposed by ex-Conservative attorney general, Dominic Grieve.

The 11 pro-Remain Conservatives voting with the opposition were Grieve, Heidi Allen, Ken Clarke, Jonathan Djanogly, Stephen Hammond, Sir Oliver Heald, Nicky Morgan, Bob Neill, Antoinette Sandbach, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston. John Stevenson actively abstained by voting both for and against the amendment.

According to the fanatically pro-Brexit Daily Mail, another three Tory MPs are thought to have abstainedEd Vaizey, who declared himself to be hurt, bitter, thoroughly p****d off by Brexit: George Freeman, who resigned from May's backbench policy board, and Paul Masterton. Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, who has had the party whip withdrawn over unspecified allegations of sexual misconduct, also abstained.

Just two of 10 pro-Brexit Labour MPsFrank Field and Kate Hoeyvoted with the Conservatives and the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs on whom May has so far depended for a majority.

The government previously made a vague promise of a meaningful vote for MPs on the final Brexit deal, but this would be on a take it or leave it basis with ministers retaining Henry VIII powers to enact any deal without Parliaments permission. This week Brexit Secretary David Davis wrote to MPs promising a number of votes for Parliament on the final deal we strike with the EU to no avail. The amendment means that the terms of any Brexit deal must be approved with a full Act of Parliament.

There are threats of a second rebellion against fixing March 29, 2019 as the day Article 50 beginning the Brexit process is enacted. Grieve said he was sure the government would be defeated again next Wednesday if the amendment went to a vote.

What Corbyn has described as a humiliating loss of authority for May was hailed by numerous commentators as proof of a parliamentary majority for soft Brexitpreserving at all costs full access to the Single European Marketand by some as the basis for overturning Brexit.

In the Guardian, Polly Toynbee made a pitch to dissident Tories, urging, Lets hope others in their party are inspired by them to grow a backbone on future crucial votes. Fellow columnist Rafael Behr made his appeal to Labour, urging the party to abandon its fuzzy position and come out against Brexit to fulfil its duty to the country.

Moulding Labour as a declared opponent of Brexit is becoming a serious consideration within ruling circles, given that divisions within the Tory party are tearing it apart. Scenes in Parliament during the vote and the reaction in its aftermath confirm how dysfunctional the Tories have becomeraising again the possibility of a snap election.

Whips applied heavy pressure, with rebel Anna Soubry telling the Evening Standard she had found a woman MP upset and shaken  bullying, reducing colleagues to tears and making them shake is not acceptable. It has got to stop. We are the Conservative party, not [Labours pro-Corbyn pressure group] Momentum thugs.

Reports suggest that Tory chief whip Julian Smith has threatened to sue anyone making such accusations.

Sir Desmond Swayne MP trumped Soubrys reference to Momentum, describing rebels as those who comrade Lenin would have properly referred to as useful idiots.

In the final 15 minutes, Justice minister Dominic Raab offered last-minute verbal assurances that swayed at least two Tory rebels, Vicky Ford and Paul Masterton. But others shouted, Too late! Chancellor Phillip Hammond took Ford by the arm by and led her into the no lobby.

The Brexit rebel Stephen Hammond has now been sacked by May as a party vice chairman.

The Daily Mail published mugshots of the rebels on its front page under the headline: Proud of yourselves? Summing up the febrile atmosphere in ruling circles, the Mails overline stated that 11 self-consumed malcontents had increased the possibility of a Marxist in Number 10.

Pro-Brexit MP Nadine Dorries accused the rebels of putting a spring in Labours step.  They should be deselected and never allowed to stand as a Tory MP, ever again.

Grieve has said he has received death threats.

The government has all but spelled out that it will seek to undo the vote later in the legislative process. Answering questions in the Commons yesterday, Davis said, We will have to decide how we respond to it.

The rebellion has left May desperately stalling for time, according to the Financial Times. We asked the European side to leave it open for now, said one of Mrs. Mays allies. We didnt want them setting down at this European Council what exactly the parameters of a deal might be.

The EU has made clear that it will exploit Mays weakness. The European Parliaments chief Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt tweeted in response to Wednesdays upset, British Parliament takes back control.  Interests of the citizens will prevail over narrow party politics. A good day for democracy.

The EU is already demanding more detail from the government before starting talks on future relations, including trade. ITV reported that a leaked draft of the text to be considered by the EU27 leaders today suggests that trade talks may not start until after a subsequent summit in March.

Davis had already made things difficult for the government after remarking on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show Sunday that the deal struck by May with Juncker to progress talks was only a statement of intent and had no legal status.

The EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned, We will have a final agreement only if the final commitments taken by Theresa May and the British government  are respected.

He rejected Daviss claim that a future trade treaty could be signed in March, immediately after the UKs EU exit. Only a political declaration on the future relationship was possible, he said. In technical, legal terms it simply is not possible to do anything else. And David Davis knows that full well.

Manfred Weber, the German head of the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, tweeted, By downgrading this agreement to a statement of intent, the UK government is putting our trust at risk.

Verhofstadt stated that Daviss comments were unacceptable and would provoke a wider hardening of the EUs positions.

The wording under consideration today states that negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully in legal terms as quickly as possible.
A recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) investigation has drawn attention to the high number of workplace-related fatalities and the impunity that Canadas employers enjoy when workers die on the job.

Published at the end of November, the investigation highlights that in over 250 cases of worker deaths on the job since 2007, only five jail sentences were handed out with a maximum of 120 days behind bars. The median fine for fatality-related cases was just $97,500.

Statistics for 2015, the most recent available, show that there were 852 workplace-related deaths in Canada that year, the majority being the result of job-related disease. This represents a decline from previous years, but still represents a death toll of almost four workers per day based on a 230 day work-year.

In an accompanying article titled The price of death, a CBC reporting team looked in detail at the cases of seven Canadians who were killed on the job. From a 22-year-old killed on her second day at work at a quarry to a 65-year-old killed just 13 days before his retirement, the article puts a human face on the ongoing loss of life that is all too common in the workplace in Canada, the US and around the world.

Referring to the $120,000 fine levied against a New Brunswick Walmart outlet for the electrocution of his son, Patrick Desjardins stated, Walmart can earn $120,000 in 15 seconds. Its trying to put a price tag on my son and you cant do it  Those fines should be increased, big time.

In a separate article, University of Ottawa criminologist Steve Bittle condemned the hollowness of changes made to the criminal code following the 1992 Westray mine explosion in Nova Scotia in which 26 miners were killed. These changes provide for the prosecution of employers and managers for criminal negligence in workplace accidents. Hailed at its passage in 2004 as a landmark reform to government occupational health and safety regimes, the Westray law has changed nothing. Looking at the record since then, according to Bittle, merely exposes the woeful state of health and safety regulation overall.

After inquiries made to the Department of Justice, the CBC learned that the federal government is planning to spend $13 million over five years to improve compliance and enforcement of the Westray law by the provincial bodies that are largely responsible for the regulation of occupational health and safety. Not only is this tantamount to an admission that employers have being allowed to escape prosecution and punishment for even fatal health and safety violations. Given the token amount being investedlittle more $2.5 million per yearit effectively ensures that the industrial slaughter will continue.

This is in keeping with the policies of successive federal and provincial governments, which have sought to create the conditions for maximizing corporate profits. Workplace regulations have been systematically eviscerated and the public bodies charged with overseeing them starved of cash, as part of a general ruling-class assault on worker rights and public services. Social inequality has risen to unprecedented levels, with the average earnings of the top 100 CEOs being close to 200 times that of an average worker. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau never tires of boasting to wealthy corporate audiences about Canadas stable business environment.

The CBC investigation compiled its statistics through mining data from individual provinces whose time frames varied. The data shows a wide variation in how penalties for workplace fatalities are handed out across the country. For example, the median penalty in British Columbiawhere industries with high accident rates such as lumber, mining, fishing and construction are all major employerswas $26,563, while in Alberta it was $275,000, the highest in the country. Quebec was the only province that could not provide statistics on penalties for workplace deaths. Its laws provide the countrys lowest financial penalties for health and safety violations and it is also the only province that does not allow for jail time in such cases.

The wide discrepancies in provincial legislation and enforcement have produced a regulatory patchwork, which has proven virtually worthless for workers in every region. Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia and Alberta are the only provinces where an employer has been sent to jail in relation to workplace fatalities, while Nunavut and the Northwest Territories do not have even a single conviction for workplace fatalities. In all but one case the sentence given out was 60 days behind bars or less and it is noted that even among these, none were criminal convictions for what could be termed an actual occupational-related charge.

The CBC notes that while some provinces have recently increased the maximum penalties for violations of occupational health and safety laws, the maximums are almost never levied. Referring to the attitudes of companies involved, Katherine Lippel, the Canada Research Chair on occupational health and safety, said, Its just the cost of doing business. And for families, she added, There is no justice being done in the sense that the company is not being hurt the way their son or their daughter or their father has been hurt.

Provincial regulators raise various economic concerns in justifying lax enforcement, all of which only demonstrate the subservience of the capitalist state to the interests of the corporate elite. In economically vulnerable regions such as New Brunswick, officials have raised the fear of bankrupting employers, while authorities in BC claim that basing administrative penalties on an employers payroll may account for the traditionally lower fines levied in that province.

The CBC report claimed that trade union officials have for years been vigorously pressing employers and governments to improve occupational health and safety. This is a lie. As part of their transformation into appendages of corporate management and the state, the trade unions have collaborated in the imposition of devastating attacks on wages and working conditions, including in some of the most physically demanding and dangerous industries, such as auto and steel.

Nor does the CBC account address the unions political support for pro-big business parties like the Liberals and New Democrats, all of whom have been complicit in the attack on worker rights, including workplace regulations, the slashing of public spending, and maintenance of a low-tax regime for the corporate elite.

The CBC investigation follows a Globe and Mail report last month that detailed the woeful lack of available data on workplace fatalities and disease in Canada. The Globe noted that unlike the US, Australia, and Britain, Canada has no national source of information on the rate of on-the-job deaths. The lack of reliable data on workplace casualties hampers the tracking of safety trends and the effectiveness of accident prevention in various industries.

Statistics Canada has not carried out a national analysis in over 20 years and even available data must be purchased by anyone wanting to know the relative dangers of various occupations. The Globe reporters were obliged to sift the data to produce their report on the most dangerous industries. They put fisheries and forestry at the top of the list.

The figures produced by CBC are almost certainly an underestimation of the scale of the problem. Its investigation noted that the 232,629 claims the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada recorded in 2015 for work-related injury or disease only include those that were accepted by the board. They further noted that the various statistics dont show the adverse health impacts suffered by the families and loved ones of injured and killed workers.

Reports like that of the CBC, while valuable in exposing the dangerous state of the workplace in one of the most advanced economies in the world, have themselves become something of a safety valve for popular anger and concern over these issues. The reality is that this slaughter will continue as long as workers health and safety is subordinated to profit interests and the capitalist governments that serve them.
Ron Chernow: Grant, Penguin Press: New York 2017.

Ron Chernows new biography of Ulysses S. Grant is an account and analysis of the life of the Civil War general, two-time US president and memoirist.

Chernows task in writing Grants biography was complicated. Not only did his life span hairpin turns in American social and political history, but Grant was, and continues to be, one of the most unfairly calumniated individuals in American politics.

To make things more difficult, Grant was a unique personality: A general who hated the sight of blood, an abstemious alcoholic, an eloquent writer famous for his silence, a morally upright man who spent his last decades surrounded by corruption.

It is a testament to the success of Chernows book that out of this mass of political, historical and personal complexities an integral picture of Grant and his age emerges. Chernows biography serves as a complement to Grants memoirs, helping to provide political and personal context to Grants firsthand account of the Civil War.

Asked how he intended to write the biography of a man who has already written a very highly regarded autobiography, Chernow replied that he chose to zero in on the silences. To anyone already familiar with Grants career and writings, this approach is very engaging, adding a great deal of the human factor to Grants sparse and stoical prose.

Chernows research is meticulous, and his wealth of anecdotes and small details brings the characters of Grants story to life. But he does not let the sweep of history get lost in minutia and keeps his narrative centered on broad historical themes.

The book reflects renewed historical interest in Grant following Ronald C. Whites American Ulysses released last year, and preceding an annotated re-release of his memoirs by Harvard University.

Among the most striking features of Grants life is that he seemed to be almost a different person at different times. Here was a man who had seen years of failure and despair in the period following the Mexican war, yet within a matter of years was elevated to a place in world history almost as indispensable to the success of the Union war effort as Abraham Lincoln himself.

During Grants two terms as president, even as he struggled desperately to hold onto his principles, his name was sullied by the corruption that pervaded Americas gilded age, with its railroad swindles, filthy financial frauds and despoiling and genocide against the Indians.

He was a man of his time, but not one who rose above it. When dominant sections of the American bourgeoisie lifted themselves to heroism in the Civil War, he was their greatest hero. When they plumbed the moral and political depths, he sank with them.

Born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, Grant was the son of a socially aspiring Methodist tanner and abolitionist who was able to secure a place for him at the US Military Academy at West Point, over the young mans objections. At West Point, Grant had a middling record, despite his proficiency in mathematics and extraordinary gifts at horsemanship.

Upon graduation, Grant married Julia Dent, a scion of St. Louis slaveholders, who would be his lifelong companion.

Despite his desire to serve in the cavalry, Grant was assigned to an infantry regiment as quartermaster before the outbreak of the Mexican War, where he served with distinction.

In his memoirs, Grant recalled his opposition to the Mexican War. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. He later argued that it led to the expansion of slave-holding territory in the United States and was a direct cause of the Civil War.

The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican War, he wrote. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.

After the conclusion of the Mexican War, Grant was stationed in the Pacific Northwest, where, isolated from his family and burdened by his meager army pay, he invested in several failed business ventures before resigning from the army in 1854.

His resignation marked the beginning of a low point in Grants life. Although Grant excises his personal tribulations from his memoirs, Chernows biography makes clear that Grant suffered from depression and alcoholism, both of which he succeeded in vanquishing in later years.

Over the next several years, Grant struggled as a farmer in Kentucky, Missouri and Illinois. He came to rely on assistance from his slave-owning father-in-law. The future president worked alongside his wifes slaves and hauled and hawked firewood on the St. Louis streets. While temperamentally adverse to slavery, Grant voted for Democrat James Buchanan in the 1856 election. However, he came to support Lincoln in the 1860 election, though he was unable to vote due to residency restrictions.

The outbreak of the war led to a head-spinning reversal in his fortunes, bringing out his latent talents. Grant, appointed to lead recruitment efforts in his town of Galena, Illinois, quickly raised and trained a company. He was promoted to brigadier general on the strength of his military experience, his competence and the support of his patron Elihu B. Washburne.

After opening up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers to Union traffic through bold combined offensives in the battles of Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson, Grant found himself uncharacteristically on the defensive when his command, consisting mostly of raw troops, was surprised by a Confederate attack in the Battle of Shiloh, fought April 67, 1862.

At the end of the first day of fighting, Grants Army of Tennessee had lost ground and abandoned its camps and provisions. Despite what looked like a crushing defeat, and though he spent the night under an oak tree in the pouring rain, Grant maintained his mental clarity and indefatigable optimism.

Chernow writes:

Wrapped in his greatcoat, Grant returned to the haven of the nearby oak tree with its spreading canopy of branches. Sherman found him standing there, streaming with rain, hat pulled low over his face, collar upturned, holding a lantern and chewing a cigar. Well, Grant, weve had the devils own day, havent we? Sherman remarked. Yes, replied Grant with a drag on his cigar. Lick em tomorrow though. The statement expressed Grants intestinal fortitude, which communicated itself to his officers. He had already told Sherman that when both sides seem defeated in battle, the first to assume the offensive would surely win.

Armed with this indomitable spirit, Grant and Sherman rallied the Union troops, greatly strengthened by overnight reinforcements, and secured a victory in the second day of fighting, though at horrendous cost.

Chernow writes:

Everyone was stunned by the scale of carnage at Shiloh, which posted a new benchmark for mass slaughter Men who survived it could never scrub its harrowing imagery from their memories. Americans found it hard to comprehend the dimensions of the losses, which were beyond any historical precedent. Of more than one hundred thousand soldiers who pitched into the fray, twenty-four thousand had been killed or woundeda casualty count dwarfing that of the battle of Waterloo. Shilohs casualties eclipsed the total of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War combined.

After Shiloh, Grant secured a series of triumphs in the Western theater, culminating in the tactically masterful victories at Vicksburg, which gave the North control of the Mississippi River, and Chattanooga, which secured control of Tennessee.

Lincolns issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation clarified the political aims of the war: it was to be henceforward explicitly a conflict to decide the fate of slavery in the United States. This political turning point set the stage for a re-shuffling of the armys command structure.

Grants victory at Vicksburg, coming at approximately the same time as General Meades victory at Gettysburg, marked a turning point in the Union war effort, which had heretofore been hamstrung by ineffective generalship, personified by the Democrat George B. McClellan.

Grants extraordinary successes gave Lincoln the opportunity to place a political ally at the head of the Union army. Grant saw eye to eye with Lincoln on emancipation and the use of African-American troops to fight the South, and opposed any talk of an early peace.

So complete was their unanimity on fundamental political issues that when one interlocutor asked Lincoln about the chances of Grant running to oppose him on the Republican ticket, the latter replied, He is fully committed to the policy of emancipation and employing Negro soldiers; and with this policy faithfully carried out, it will not make much difference who is president.

With the substantial leeway given to Grant by Lincoln, the newly appointed lieutenant general was able to assemble the team of military leaders who won the war, including the brilliant William Tecumseh Sherman and the cavalry officer Philip Sheridan, both of whom shared Grants penchant for bold offensive operations.

The personnel shake-up allowed Grant to pursue, for the first time, an integrated strategy for the entire Northern war effort. While he and Meade pushed back and pinned down Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia, Sherman and Sheridan were able to cut off vast swaths of Southern territory, destroying the logistical basis of Lees army and slowly strangling it, leading Lees army to surrender on April 9, 1865.

While the Union victory seems, in hindsight, to be a strategic masterstroke, up close it looked like one great horrible slaughter. Grant was valued by Lincoln because he, unlike other generals, was willing to fight grueling offensive operations. He led a campaign of total war, including economic war against the civilian population of the South.

As Sherman and Sheridan ravaged Georgia and the Carolinas, requisitioning, burning and destroying anything of substantial economic value, Grant pushed Lee back, mile by mile, toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, at the cost of rivers of blood and piles of corpses.

But all of it was entirely justified. Lincoln, the politician who waged the deadliest war in American history, is warmly remembered as the president who freed the slaves, and valued as Americas most humane leader.

The anti-democratic political movement that expressed itself in Southern secession did not surrender with Lee. Rather, it took a different form, manifesting itself in a wave of violence against the Republican Party and freed blacks. Among the most monstrous of these actions was the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, but it also took the form of murderous rampages by the newly formed Ku Klux Klan, aimed at terrorizing and disenfranchising freed slaves.

The shocking extent of Klan violence in the post-Civil War period is rarely taught in schools. As Chernow writes, Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grants presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klans ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known than its brutal aftermath.

Lincolns assassination left Andrew Johnson in the White House, who quickly moved to conciliate the South by turning a blind eye to the lynching of freed slaves and Southern Republicans. This set the stage for his impeachment by the House of Representatives and the Senates failure to convict him. The Republican Party, under Grant, won the presidency in 1868.

Grant pursued a muscular policy of defending freed blacks, including passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, granting blacks equal protection under the law and the right to vote, and the enforcement of these amendments by federal troops.

This policy won Grant the praise of his political ally, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who called him the vigilant, firm, impartial, and wise protector of my race.

But even as Grant firmly pursued racial equality, support for his policy was being undermined by dramatic changes in American society. Propelled by the massive development of industry and a speculative boom that followed the war, inequality was soaring amid a mass of ill-gotten wealth in what Mark Twain christened the Gilded Age.

As the railroads raced toward Americas West Coast, together with the mining and heavy industry that accompanied them, the Republican Party became ever more directly the party of Wall Street and the railroads. Despite Grants personal respect for and defense of the American Indians, US industry demanded their expulsion and extermination. Figures such as Sherman, whose troops sang John Browns Body as they marched through the South freeing slaves during the Civil War, now argued openly for genocide against the Indians.

The working class, meanwhile, emerged onto the scene with a series of militant strikes. While Grant showed an admirable tenacity in the defense of black civil rights, and sought to pursue a policy of peace toward American Indians, he consistently took the side of business in regard to labor struggles. Commenting from abroad about the 1877 railroad strike, Grant wrote, My judgment is that it should have been put down with a strong hand and so summarily as to prevent a like occurrence for a generation.

As the class struggle grew red hot, the great majority of the American bourgeoisie realized that, in their conflict with their mortal class enemy, the democratic ideals, including racial equality which animated the Civil War, would have to go. It was the peculiarity of Unconditional Surrender Grant to have held on to the egalitarian ideals in relationship to slavery and the freed slavesfor which he had fought far longer than his contemporariesand for this he was viciously denounced by them.

The general corruption of American society and government manifested itself repeatedly within Grants cabinet, a fact that was not helped by Grants relative political inexperience and his overly trusting character, leading to a succession of scandals. Grants Democratic and Liberal Republican opponents would use these corruption scandals to implicitly criticize what they thought was his unjustified concern with the murder of Southern blacks and Republicans by the KKK.

Allegations of corruption became a dog-whistle summons to attack Reconstruction, extrapolating on the lie that the Northern occupation of the South was aimed at enriching corrupt Yankee carpetbaggers. By the end of his second term in office, Grant was tormented by his inability to defend Southern blacks from violence, resulting from the fact that support for such a policy had simply evaporated within the Republican Party.

Chernow writes:

Grants personal tragedy was simultaneously an American tragedy.  Grant reflected on the deep changes wrought in northern Republican circles. He predicted  that the northern retreat from Reconstruction would lead to Democrats recapturing power in the South as well as future mischief of a very serious nature.  It requires no prophet to foresee that the national government will soon be at a great disadvantage and that the results of the war of the rebellion will have been in a large measure lost.  I do not wish to create unnecessary alarm, nor to be looked upon as a prophet of evil, but it is impossible for me to close my eyes in the face of things that are as plain to me as the noonday sun. This wasnt a minor statement: the victorious Union general of the Civil War was saying that terror tactics perpetrated by southern whites had nullified the outcome of the rebellion. All those hundreds of thousands dead, the millions maimed and wounded, the mourning of widows and orphansall that suffering, all that tumult, on some level, had been for naught. Slavery had been abolished, but it had been replaced by a caste-ridden form of second-class citizenship for southern blacks, and that counted as a national shame.

He adds:

Once Reconstruction collapsed, it left southern blacks for eighty years at the mercy of Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics designed to segregate them from whites and deny them the vote. Black sharecroppers would be degraded to the level of debt-ridden serfs, bound to their former plantation owners. After 1877, the black community in the South steadily lost ground until a rigid apartheid separated the races completely, a terrible state of affairs that would not be fixed until the rise of the civil rights movement after World War II.

At the same time, historians of the lost cause school engaged in apologias for the Souths conduct in the Civil War. They argued that the cause of the war was states rights, not slavery, built up Robert E. Lee to superhuman status and heaped scorn on Grant as a drunken butcher. These lies were embraced even in the North and remain a major influence in history textbooks to this day.

Following the end of his second term, Grant embarked upon a world tour that left him one of the most well traveled and cosmopolitan men of his generation. Upset in his hopes for a third term, Grant retreated to private life, where his entire fortune was swindled away by a Gilded Age Bernie Madoff named Ferdinand Ward, who traded on Grants prestige to set up a massive Ponzi scheme. That year, Grant developed throat cancer. Sherman, his friend, declared that Wall Street killed him.

And yet, on his death bed, Grant succeeded in writing a great piece of American prose in the form of his memoirs. His aim was to earn enough from their publication to support his beloved family.

Published by his friend Mark Twain, his memoirs were a massive literary and financial success. Twain ranked them with Julius Caesars commentaries, praising Grants clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, unpretentiousness, manifest truthfulness, and his fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike.

In his memoirs, Grant gave one of the clearest summations of the causes of the Civil War ever written, of which the following is only a sample:

The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United State will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that A state half slave and half free cannot exist. All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs and steamboatsin a word, rapid transit of any sortthe States were each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country grew, rapid transit was established, and trade and commerce between the States got to be so much greater than before that the power of the National government became more felt and recognized and, therefore, had to be enlisted in the cause of this institution.

Upon Grants death, Frederick Douglass eulogized, In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.

The great tragedy of Grants life, as Chernow points out, is that he could not hold out alone against his age. It was during Grants post-war lifetime that the anti-democratic and reactionary character of the capitalist system and the bourgeois class, which had already made itself so plainly manifest throughout Europe in the crushing of the 1848 uprisings, made itself undeniably manifest in America.

Thenceforward, the cause of social progress in America would be associated with the struggle against capitalism and led by the working class.
Late last month, Carl Delaney, a 56 year-old father of two, was killed in the Northern Territory (NT) when he fell into a cryogenic tank containing Perlite insulation, a white granular material made of volcanic glass. He was working at the massive INPEX Ichthys LNG Project construction site at Bladin Point near Darwin.

Delaney was pulled from the tank alive and treated by a medical unit onsite but died before an ambulance arrived on the scene. In its official statement INPEX said that the construction worker had been in a confined space installing insulation in a cryogenic liquefied natural gas tank.

Delaney was employed by Whittens, a contracting agency for Kawasaki Heavy Industry, part of JKC Australia, which won a $125 million contract to complete the 47-metre high cryogenic tanks.

While the circumstances surrounding the November 29 accident are not yet clear, media reports suggest the mans safety harness may have broken or was not properly secured.

Last months tragedy, however, is just one of many serious safety incidents that have occurred at the site. According to the Thomson Reuters news agency, the project, which had 8,500 workers on site in 2016, is more than a year behind schedule and running 10 percent over budget.

Such is the pressure at the project that eight fly-in fly-out (FIFO) employees committed suicide between 2012 and 2016.

Delaneys co-workers immediately walked off the job following the accident and donated a days pay to assist his wife and family.

Construction workers told the Northern Territory News that the death was only a matter of time and that safety standards had dropped massively.

When the project started, the motto was you could stop the job if something wasnt right, he said. That has slowly declined to the point where no one wants to speak up. If you dont work your arse off, youre pushed to the side and the train just keeps on going. Now, I never feel 100 percent safe going to work.

Another worker told the newspaper that management was covering up the real situation on the project and that only 5 percent of all the injuries at the site were made public.

In March 2016, 450 workers marched in Darwin over the dangerous lack of safety at the INPEX project.

In March this year, an electrician was hospitalised after a compressor hose broke free and punctured his leg. A day later, 11 workers were exposed to ammonia vapour. In October, a four-wheel drive and two INPEX transport buses collided at 6 a.m. on Channel Island Road, near the project.

And in November, a few weeks before Delaney lost his life, another construction worker narrowly escaped death after a safety rail on a 30-metre high cryogenic tank collapsed and he fell through scaffolding. He was pulled to safety by fellow workers.

Attempting to placate growing anger among workers on the project, INPEX and JKC suspended work on the site following Delaneys death, declaring that operations would resume after a review of all work areas, safety measures and procedures.

The Electrical Trades Union (ETU), however, said that a full site audit had not been carried out and that the only area sealed off was where the fatality occurred.

While the unions issue occasional statements about work safety, they have all worked hand-in-glove with management to drive up productivity, increasing working hours, and undermining basic safety.

In the aftermath of Delaneys death, an unnamed Construction, Forestry, Mining and Engineering Union official on ABC Radio in Darwin attempted to blame workers for the unsafe conditions.

When a fatality occurs at a construction site, or in any situation in the workplace, people ring in stating Ive known about this for weeks and months but they ring in too bloody late, he said Its natural for human beings to say that theyve called us and been complaining to the company that things are wrong 

In February 2012, the construction unions endorsed the Ichthys Onshore Construction Greenfields Agreement that contains clauses that allow management to avoid being held fully accountable for workplace accidents and which shift responsibility onto workers.

The agreement states: Each Employee is accountable to establish and maintain a safe and healthy work area, ensure safe and healthy work practices are followed at all times and within their duty of care, take responsibility for their personal safety and the safety of other Employees.

It also states that workers are required to raise any personal concern or issue directly with their immediate team leader or supervisor thereby providing the employer with an opportunity to resolve or assist the concern.

The reality is, however, that workers who raise safety concerns fear that they face harassment, being blacklisted or sacked on the spot if they are still within their six-month probation period.

The unions, which control industry superannuation funds and building investment, have a vested interest in driving up productivity and ensuring that ever-tighter completion deadlines are met.

In October this year, the multi-million dollar superannuation building industry fund CBUS, which has construction union representatives on its board, declared that it had been servicing the INPEX project and assisting the company.

The Ichthys Gas Project channels gas via an 890-kilometre pipeline from the Browse Basin off Australias North-West coast to the onshore processing facility in Darwin. When completed, the project will boost the Northern Territorys gas exports and increase the Territorys economy by 15 percent.

Carl Delaneys death is not an aberration but part of a rising industrial death toll across all industrial sectors in Australia. Just one week after he was killed two other workers died in separate workplace accidents.

On December 7, Michael Stinson died after becoming trapped in an ink vat whilst carrying out maintenance at DIC Australia, in Sydneys west. Two other workers were injured in the incident. In Queensland, a 22-year old worker was killed after suffering critical chest and abdominal injuries when operating a cherry picker at the Spectrapave construction site in Yatala.

According to SafeWork Australia, 354 construction workers were killed between 2007 and 2016 and 29 killed in the industry so far this year.

Overall there have been 165 workplace deaths in 2017, the majority occurring in the transport, postal and warehousing, and agriculture industries. In 2016, 25 people were killed in workplace falls, accounting for 14 percent of all industrial fatalities for that year.

The author also recommends:

Australia: Worker killed at Sydney harbour building site

[27 March 2017]

Teenager killed on Australian building site

[17 January 2017]

Part Four: The CFMEUs training organisations and charities

[6 June 2016]
Mudbound, directed by Dee Rees, screenplay by Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the novel by Hillary Jordan; The Disaster Artist, directed by James Franco, screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber

Mudbound

Dee Reess Mudbound, a Netflix original movie, centers on two families, one black and one white, in rural Mississippi immediately following World War II. Based on the 2008 novel of the same title by Hillary Jordan, the film attempts to make sense of the tormented social and personal relationships that existed in the Jim Crow Deep South during this period.

In the movies prologue, two brothers dig a grave for their father during a torrential downpour. To their horror, they discover the remains of a slaves grave. The film then jumps back to 1939 when Laura (Carey Mulligan), a cultured woman from Memphis Tennessee, is courted by and marries Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke), one of the two brothers in the opening sequence.

From Lauras point of view, the union is primarily based on concerns about her advancing age31 places her on the cusp of spinsterhoodrather than on love. Eventually, Henry brings Laura and their two daughters to his muddy Mississippi Delta cotton farm (Henrys version of paradise), where Hap Jackson (Rob Morgan) is a black tenant.

Also a preacher, Hap sermonizes about the futility of the poor tenant farmers dream of ever owning land:

What good is a deed? asks Hap rhetorically. My grandfathers and great uncles, grandmothers and great aunts, father and mother, broke, tilled, thawed, planted, plucked, raised, burned, broke again. Worked this land all their life, this land that would never be theirs.  All their deeds undone. Yet this man, this law, this place, say you need a deed.  One morningwere going to break the chains around our feet.

The other McAllan brother, the charming and handsome Jamie (Garrett Hedlund), and Laura have a more enlightened view of race relations than do Henry and the McAllan patriarch, Pappy (Jonathan Banks), a Ku Klux Klan supporter.

Pearl Harbor changes everything: Jamie goes off to become a bomber pilot and Haps son, Ronsel (Jason Mitchell), ends up a sergeant fighting under General George S. Patton. While in Germany, Ronsel falls in love with a white German woman. A little too symmetrically, Jamies life is saved by a black pilot.

At the end of the war, both decorated veterans return to MississippiJamie suffers from post traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism, while Ronsel experiences a newfound sense of pride and confidence. The two war heroes develop a friendship, a bulwark against the communitys backwardness and prejudice that helps them adjust to their depressing lives (Ronsel: Over there [in Europe], I was a liberator, here Im just another nigger pushing a plow).

Laura is also frustrated. She thinks of the farm as mud and crust and knees and hair, marching in boot shaped patches across the floor  I dream in brown. In fact, one of the farms principal luxury items is a rudimentary shower built by Jamie that consists of an enclosure and a hanging bucket.

Some of the white men in town, including Pappy, are unnerved by Ronsel and his uppity attitude. When they see him riding in Jamies truck, the KKK goes on the warpath. Matters only get worse when they find a photo of Ronsels German girlfriend and a childRonselsleft behind in the truck. In a shocking scene, Pappy and some white sheets string up Ronsel and torture Jamie until he is forced to make the decision as to whether Ronsel should be blinded, have his tongue cut out or be castrated. But a slaves grave may well be Pappys final destination.

Director Rees, to her credit, has created a work that largely eschews the current obsession with racialist politics. Although a bit schematic and formulaic, Mudbound has its heart in the right place. Moreover, it shows that the white McAllans are only marginally less poor than the black Jacksons, that the social differentiation between the two families is paper thin. The friendship between Jamie and Ronsel is moving and further cuts through structural racism.

Mudbound is set in an era when the Jim Crow system remained in place, but had been undermined by powerful economic and social forces. Between 1940 and 1950, 1.5 million African Americans left the South. They were escaping racism, but economic processes, including mechanization, had transformed agriculture, and industrial jobs in the North were drawing them. Racist violence in states like Mississippi endured as a means of maintaining extreme labor exploitation and dividing poor African Americans and whites, as well as shoring up the one-party monopoly of the Democratic Party.

The intuitions of the novelist and filmmaker are important and valuable. However, without a somewhat broader view of the history of social relations in America, it is difficult to go far beyond the surface. This may help account for the fact that Mudbound tends to deal in abstract and unchanging human types, either good or evil.

On the positive side, Mudbound portrays the acute misery of both the black and white populations. This must be fed by present-day conditions, where the impoverishment of every section of the working class is a palpable fact of life. One feels that the filmmakers were correctly looking at the past through the prism of the present.

The Disaster Artist

James Franco is a very busy man. The Disaster Artist is the latest in a cluster of movies he has either directed or starred in, or both. His new effort is a comedy based on the true story of the 2003 production of The Room, the self-financed vanity project of a foolish individual, Polish-born Tommy Wiseau, and a film so terrible it has managed to achieve cult status.

Franco, a talented performer, plays Tommy, the disastrously eccentric director of a work that in 2003 various critics described as an unforgettable collision of demented ambition and utter incompetence, a hodgepodge of hideousness, and a movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back.

However, unfortunately, The Disaster Artist is also something of a vanity project for Franco, and a bit too much of an in-joke.

There are some amusing moments, the funniest being an audition in which Tommy performs the iconic scene from Tennessee Williams 1947 play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by writhing and screaming Stella! over nearly every inch of the stage and its surrounding walls.

Francos film would have more happily satisfied its ambitions if it had been distilled into a 20-minute skit. In fact, viewing these two trailers may prove the point.
The plea, filed by Hemraj's wife, is the first petition in the top court against the Allahabad High Court verdict of October 12, 2017 acquitting the couple.

By PTI: The acquittal of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the 2008 twin murder case of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj has been challenged in the Supreme Court.

The plea, filed by Hemraj's wife, is the first petition in the top court against the Allahabad High Court verdict of October 12, 2017 acquitting the couple.

The high court had freed them of the charges on the ground that they could not be held guilty on the basis of the evidence on record.

advertisement

A CBI court at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh had sentenced the Talwars to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013 in connection with the case.

Before the HC's order came, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were serving their life sentence in Ghaziabads Dasna jail.

Fourteen-year-old Aarushi was found dead inside her room in the Talwars Noida residence with her throat slit in May 2008. The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.

As the Uttar Pradesh Police drew flak over a shoddy probe into the case which was making national headlines, then chief minister Mayawati had recommended a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The case was handed over to the CBI.

--- ENDS ---
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to overturn rules, known as net neutrality, that required internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all data on the internet the same and prohibited them from limiting or blocking users access to web sites and services.

The ruling heralds a new age in internet communications, where giant internet and technology monopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast regulate what information people have access to.

Since the emergence of broadband internet, the Federal Communications Commission had de facto operated under net neutrality principles, including a 2005 declaration that consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice and that consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice.

In 2015, the FCC formalized these rules, classifying broadband access as a telecommunications service and declaring that A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, and that ISPs shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content.

Thursdays ruling eliminates these so-called bright-line rules against censorship and sends a clear message to internet service providers that they are free to block and degrade the distribution of internet content at will.

It is difficult to overstate the momentous implications of the ruling. It allows a small cabal of home internet service providers and mobile data carriers to operate a blacklist of oppositional web sites and services, effectively blocking access to them for nearly all Americans.

In Thursdays hearing, FCC officials light-mindedly downplayed such a scenario, declaring that the laws of the free market would not allow egregious blacklisting, and that customers could simply switch services if ISPs engaged in censorship. Their specious and self-interested arguments ignored the fact that, for most Americans, internet service is not a free market, with 50 million having only one broadband provider to choose from, and most of the rest having only two.

Just as ominously, the ending of net neutrality opens a new era of class discrimination. As the internet monopolies raise rates, they will introduce multiple tiers of service, with most users forced, through economic pressure, into service plans offering only highly restricted content. The free and open exchange of ideas, to the extent that it exists, will be the exclusive purview of the rich.

The ending of net neutrality is of a piece with the entire policy of the Trump administration, which has moved to immensely strengthen the power of the corporate and financial oligarchy through deregulation, tax cuts and other right-wing measures.

While some Democrats have postured as defenders of net neutrality, the Democratic Party has been at the forefront of the attack on freedom of expression on the internet. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who is leading the offensive against net neutrality, was first appointed to the FCC board by President Obama. The NSA and CIA, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, have worked with the giant ISPs to monitor the communications and internet activity of individuals all over the world.

Moreover, the Democrats, together with the New York Times and Jeff Bezoss Washington Post and the major broadcast TV networks, are spearheading a campaign against freedom of expression on the internet, under the pretense of fighting fake news and foreign meddling.

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have hired tens of thousands of censors to ban and block offensive and fake content, while Google, the worlds largest search engine, initiated changes to its search algorithm to block left-wing web sites, principally the World Socialist Web Site, from appearing in tens of thousands of key search results.

The Democrats nominal opposition to the moves to end net neutrality are in large part bound up with the interests of the giant internet companies like Google and Facebook, which are concerned they may have to pay ISPs for premium speeds. However, these companies have shown that they are perfectly willing to forge deals with the ISPs when it is in their interests.

In 2010, Google worked with Verizon on a deal to privilege its own content (including from Google-owned YouTube), which it can now do with the abolition of net neutrality. Such an arrangement would feed on Googles own efforts to censor the internet through the manipulation of its search results.

In the new age of censorship, the economic interests of the major corporations and the political aims of social reaction increasingly become one and the same. The leading advocates of censorship have been the major newspapers and TV broadcasters, who have seen a massive decline in readers and viewers as users have sought alternatives to their banal state-sponsored propaganda. The media conglomerates see in internet censorship not only a means to claw back market share, but to regain control of the political narrative, which they have lost to internet publications.

The ending of net neutrality has provoked widespread opposition among workers and young people. This opposition, driven by fears of what is to come, will solidify into social protest once the reality of censorship makes itself felt.

In the struggles ahead, one thing must be made clear: Censorship is the inevitable outgrowth of the capitalist system, which sets as its goal not freedom, but domination. It is the corollary of unprecedented social inequality and the drive of the ruling class toward world war.

The fight to defend the free and open internet is the fight to abolish the domination of the corporate and financial oligarchy over society and politics. The telecommunications monopolies, along with the giant banks and corporations, must be turned into public utilities, run on the basis of social need, not private profit. Internet access is a basic social right, which must be freely available to all, without the interference of corporations or the state.

The social force capable of defending a free internet is the working class. The basic aim of internet censorship is to prevent or suppress the emergence of working class opposition to the policies of the oligarchy. Opposition to the imposition of corporate-state control must be connected to the fight against social inequality, poverty, unemployment and war.

The World Socialist Web Site has been the first to ring the alarm over Googles censorship of the internet. It will continue to be at the forefront of the fight for freedom of expression on the internet, which is inseparable from the struggle to end capitalism and replace it with socialism.
The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, toured Southern California last week as part of a two-week tour to investigate the economic condition of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the US. Alston is to share preliminary remarks at the conclusion of his tour on the December 15, and is to release a final report next spring.

Explaining the motivation for his probe, he said, Some might ask why a UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights would visit a country as rich as the United States. But despite great wealth in the US, there also exists great poverty and inequality. This much is incontrovertible andto vast swathes of the American working classobvious.

Initial accounts indicate that his time in Los Angeles was spent primarily in the impoverished area known as Skid Row, a neighborhood infamous for its homelessness, drug abuse, and police brutality. Alston also spoke with representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union who wrote to him in October of anti-camping ordinances that criminalize homelessness by punishing sleeping in public places. According to the ACLU, they constitute a violation of human rights under international law.

Alston commented at a town hall in Skid Row last Wednesday that I think its [the poverty in Skid Row] on a scale I hadnt anticipated, block after block of people.  When you see how concentrated it is, its more shocking.

The conditions in Skid Row are indeed shocking. Estimates for median income fall between $13,000 and $17,000, depending on how borders are drawn, with about two thirds of the area living below the poverty level. Just several blocks away, in the steadily gentrifying downtown, rent bottoms out at around $1,800 per month. Homelessness in the area saw an increase of 20 percent over last year, to almost 2,000 people within the 0.4 square mile neighborhood.

A shortage of public bathrooms has resulted in a public health disaster. In May 2012, the LA County Department of Public Health sent a report to LA City Hall noting an Immediate Threat to Public Health. It elaborated: Survey teams observed small piles of feces and/or urine on the sidewalks and grass areas of the majority of the streets surveyed (i.e., 8 of the 10 blocks surveyed). Additionally, teams observed an accumulation of feces/urine in two storm drains, no soap in one of the City maintained automatic public toilets, and trash and debris in another public toilet.

Reverend Andy Bales of the Union Rescue Mission, the largest homeless shelter in the United States, has had to undergo amputations because of this. He told the Guardian in June, I lost my leg because I got E coli and staph and strep from the sidewalk because of feces being present. These conditions are a health risk not only to the homeless, but to anyone in the area.

Drug use and mental disabilities are also significant problems here. The same 2012 county report found 13 discarded hypodermic needles in the 10 blocks they surveyed. Four out of 10 homeless people in the US have a serious drug addiction or are severely mentally ill.

Then there is the matter of the police violence. There have been several attempts over the last few decades, particularly in 1987 and 2002, to remove the homeless by means of aggressively enforcing anti-camping ordinances. However, given their sheer number, arresting or relocating the homeless all proved too difficult, and the efforts were dropped. Nonetheless, such efforts have been marked by police violence, and there have been several attempts to resuscitate these orinances. In 2015, a video went viral of the police murder of a homeless man known by the name Africa. He was killed by police who were part of the Safer Cities initiative, which itself was part of renewed drive towards gentrification.

As grievous as conditions in Skid Row are, however, they are only a more concentrated expression of the same basic issues that permeate the rest of American society. There has at no point in history been a greater chasm between the elite and the working class and the conditions in Skid Row differ from those facing the rest of the working class in concentration only, not in kind.

In the sphere of public health, the ruling class has Medicare and Medicaid in their sights. With the passage of the Trump tax plan, the consequent tax deficit can be used to provide a readymade excuse to defund them.

The substance abuse in Skid Row is paralleled by the growing nationwide opioid epidemic, driven simultaneously by the general distress on the part of workers, which compels the more desperate and vulnerable toward drugs, and the indifference or outright malice on the part of the elite and drug companies.

Police brutality has reached such dimensions that a few workers are killed virtually every day by police, be they homeless, unemployed or working.

The political establishment does not only ignore such miseries, but intensifies them. The Trump administration and the Republicans are moving to pass the most reactionary tax bill in decades, in which essentially everyone earning less than $75,000 will pay more taxes by 2027.

But the chief political responsibility for the plight of those living in the poorest areas of Los Angeles lies with the Democrats, who have held political power in the city since 2001. They are more directly responsible for the continuous police repression, the inordinately high rent, and the consequent homelessness here. SNAP (food stamps) funding has been cut under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The basic interests of the working class find no expression within the political establishment. Whatever Alstons recommendations to the UNitself a body of capitalist nationsthe conditions of the working class can be nowhere improved without a political struggle against the two big business parties that support the profit system.
Tensions between Washington and Moscow have escalated again following claims by Pentagon officials that two US F-22 stealth fighters confronted two Russian Su-25 close air support jets Wednesday in the skies over Syrias Euphrates River Valley.

According to the US militarys account, the US fighter planes fired warning flares at the Russian jets and one of the US F-22s flew close enough to a Russian plane that it was forced to aggressively maneuver to avoid a midair collision.

The alleged incident follows charges last week by the US air command based in Qatar that in the month of November, Russian planes had been violating six to eight times a day a supposed deconfliction line corresponding to the Euphrates River and restricting Russian air operations to the west of the river and US operations to the east.

In its statement to the media last week, the Pentagon warned that Russian pilots could be deliberatelybaiting us into reacting, and that this could result in a shootdown of a Russian jet, an action that could trigger a direct military confrontation between the worlds two largest nuclear powers.

Russias Defense Ministry denied the US account of the incident, which closely resembled the account that Moscow had given of a previous confrontation that took place on November 23, with a US F-22 firing flares at a Russian Su-25.

The ministry issued a statement that said: On December 13, a pair of Su-25 attack aircraft escorted a humanitarian convoy near Mayadin [on the western bank of the Euphrates River] at an altitude of 3,300 meters. They were approached by a US F-22 fighter jet on the east side of the river. By firing off decoy flares, the F-22 interfered with the flight of a pair of Russian Su-25s. A Russian Su-35 fighter jet, performing an air cover mission at an altitude of 10,000 meters, swiftly approached the F-22 from the rear, forcing the American aircraft to leave the area.

While Moscow insists in this instance that the Russian planes were flying west of the Euphrates, the Defense Ministry last week called into question Washingtons claim to control the airspace east of the river, calling it puzzling. It pointed out that the US intervention in Syria has not been authorized by the United Nations and is opposed by the Syrian government. A spokesman suggested that the US military should concentrate on the elimination of terrorists in Iraq, rather than provoke air incidents [in Syria].

Russia has accused the US of deliberately intervening to prevent Russian planes from striking targets linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Euphrates River valley.

Both the Russian and Syrian governments have charged the US military and its proxy ground forces organized in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is comprised largely of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, of intervening to protect and evacuate ISIS from besieged Syrian towns. These charges have been substantiated by a BBC investigative report, which confirmed that some 4,000 ISIS fighters and family members, along with tons of arms and ammunition, were bused out of the city of Raqqa in a four-mile-long convoy at the end of October. The former chief spokesman of the SDF, Talal Silo, who defected to Turkey at the end of November, also testified to this evacuation, stressing that of the 4,000 evacuated from Raqqa, all but about 500 were ISIS fighters.

The Syrian government addressed two letters to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres Thursday, denouncing the US military for protecting and transporting ISIS and other Islamist militias from one part of Syria to another and condemning Washington for carrying out air strikes that have claimed a large number of civilian lives.

Just the day before, a predawn air strike in the village of al-Jurze Sharqi on the eastern bank of the Euphrates killed 23 civilians. According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the dead included at least eight children and six women.

While the Iraqi, Syrian and Russian governments have all declared victory over ISIS, the Pentagon issued a statement Wednesday insisting that it is still a threat and that terrorists are lurking in the Euphrates River valley.

The reality is that Washington is already shifting to a post-ISIS intervention in Syria. As Defense Secretary James Mad Dog Mattis made clear recently, the US has no intention of withdrawing the more than 2,000 troops it now has on the ground in the country.

In the first instance, this strategy appears aimed at countering the influence of Iran, which Washington views as a principal obstacle to its quest to assert US hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

As the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing senior administration officials, US officials are wrestling with where and how to repel what they describe as a significant Iranian military expansion across the region, a development of increasing concern in Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trumps national security advisor, is considering delivering a speech early next year announcing the new strategy, according to the Journal report, which added that the key question was whether to make confronting Iran an explicit new goal for the more than 2,000 American forces currently in Syria.

McMaster made clear the virulently anti-Iranian character of US foreign policy during an appearance together with his British counterpart Mark Sedwill at a conference Tuesday hosted by the UK think tank Policy Exchange. Outlining US imperialisms war aims, the active-duty Army general labeled Russia and China as revisionist powers seeking to subvert the Washington-dominated international order, while lumping Iran together with North Korea as rogue regimes that support terror and are seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Significantly, he also condemned both Turkey and Qatarthe first, a NATO ally, and the second, the site of the headquarters of the US Central Commandas principal promoters of Islamist extremism, which is obviously a grave threat to all civilized people. He acknowledged that Saudi Arabia had previously been guilty of the same offense, but now gave the House of Saud a clean bill of health.

The cynicism is breathtaking. Turkey and Qatar are now singled out because they have failed to line up with the anti-Iranian axis being forged by US imperialism, together with the Saudi monarchy and Israel. The truth is that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the CIA itself were all sponsors of the Islamist extremist groups that were used as proxy forces in the wars for regime change in both Libya and Syria. And there is little doubt that Washington will make use of the ISIS forces that it rescued and evacuated in Syria, turning them once again against the Syrian government and Iran.

In a further ratcheting up of US provocations against Iran, Washingtons ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, staged a press conference Thursday at a military base outside the US capital in front of singed wreckage she claimed was proof that Iran had supplied a missile fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen against Saudi Arabia. Its hard to find a conflict or a terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Irans fingerprints all over it, Haley declared.

Iran denounced the stunt as irresponsible, provocative and destructive, comparing the evidence to similar claims made about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the 2003 US invasion.

These accusations seek also to cover up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, with US complicity, and divert international and regional attention from the stalemate war of aggression against the Yemenis that has so far killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced three million, crippled Yemens infrastructure and health system, and pushed the country to the brink of the largest famine the world has seen for decades, the Iranian mission to the UN said in a statement.

Haleys unfounded claims about Iranian terrorist ties were also undercut by the release of a study by Conflict Armament Research, funded by the European Union and Germany, proving that weaponry funneled by the CIA into Syria, supposedly to arm antigovernment rebels, had significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to [ISIS] forces.
Turmoil appears to be mounting in the leadership of the United Auto Workers union in the face of mounting rank-and-file opposition and an ongoing corruption probe of the UAW targeting top officials.

On Wednesday, General Motors reported that Joe Ashton, a former UAW vice president and top negotiator, had resigned from the company board of directors. Ashton had been appointed to the GM board in 2014 as the UAW representative for the multibillion-dollar retiree health benefit trust fund. The UAW-controlled trust fund had been assigned one board seat under terms agreed during the 2009 GM bankruptcy in exchange for the UAW imposing massive concessions. No replacement for Ashton has yet been announced.

Ashton is reportedly a target of a probe by the FBI into possible illegal payouts by the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources. Cindy Estrada, who succeeded Ashton as UAW vice president in charge of the GM department, is also under investigation in relation to illegal payouts.

The departure of Ashton follows the announcement by UAW Vice President for Fiat Chrysler Norwood Jewell, age 59, of his early retirement effective January 1, 2018. His term ran through June 2018. Jewell was the recipient of a $2,180 shotgun purchased illegally with funds from the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center.

One former senior UAW official and two Fiat Chrysler executives have already pled guilty in the illegal diversion of $4.5 million in joint training center funds that was used for expensive purchases of items such as designer clothes and jewelry. The payouts were intended, as one Fiat Chrysler executive commented, to keep the union, fat, dumb and happy.

Earlier the UAW administration announced its nominations for the leading union posts ahead of the 2018 Constitutional Convention in Detroit. The convention is essentially a rubber stamp for the picks of the incumbent UAW leadership, since rank-and-file workers are not permitted to vote in the selection of the president and executive board members, and undemocratic rules make floor challenges virtually impossible.

Gary Jones, director of UAW Region 5 covering 17 western states, is slated to be the next UAW president. Jones is a career union bureaucrat and certified public accountant who joined the international staff in 1990. In 1995 Jones was appointed top administrative assistant to UAW Secretary Treasurer Roy Wyse, and continued in that post under the next administration. In 2004, he was appointed assistant Region 5 director, where he helped preside over a series of plant closures, including the shutdown of the NUMMI plant in California in 2010.

The nomination of Jones appears to be a desperate attempt by the UAW to find a figure not tainted by scandal. Typically, the UAW chooses the head of one of its Big Three automotive departments for the union presidency. However, the corruption investigation has caught up the leading UAW officials at Ford, Fiat Chrysler and GM.

Estrada from GM had long been considered the most likely candidate to replace UAW President Dennis Williams, who, according to UAW rules, must retire at the end of his current term. However, Estrada is deeply discredited, not only by her naming in relation to the FBI probe, but in her role, along with Jewell and UAW Vice President for Ford Jimmy Settles, in ramming through the sellout 2015 national contract agreement against stiff rank-and-file opposition.

Estrada was viciously hostile to those exposing the details of the 2015 sellout and in one Facebook post claimed the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter was backed by Right-to-Work Republicans. This from a woman who draws close to a $200,000 a year annual salary from the UAW in addition to undisclosed income as director of the UAW-GM Human Resource Center, along with a post on the board of the retiree healthcare trust fund.

For his part Jewell evoked outrage on the part of Fiat Chrysler workers for his intransigent defense of the hated two-tier wage system, telling Jeep workers in Toledo that they were misinformed about what the 2015 contract contained. He arrogantly told workers that nothing would change if they voted down the deal. The money is the money he insisted.

UAW Vice President for Ford Jimmy Settles is no less hated. While not yet named in the FBI probe, he became notorious in 2015 for engineering the narrow ratification of the sellout Ford deal, evoking allegations of vote rigging and ballot stuffing. Settles orchestrated a last-minute postponement of the vote for UAW Local 600 covering Ford operations in Dearborn when the national contract looked like it was heading for defeat. He then called a press conference, from which WSWS Autoworker Newsletter reporters were barred, to browbeat workers into voting yes in a ballot marked by numerous reports of irregularities.

Another top UAW official, Secretary Treasurer Gary Casteel, who is also director of the UAW transnational department, oversaw the humiliating failure to win union recognition at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. Despite an intense campaign by the UAW, workers voted by a 2-1 margin against union certification. The rout at Nissan was followed by similar lopsided vote by workers at Fuyao Glass America near Dayton, Ohio, a former center of the GM manufacturing empire that had been previously heavily unionized. After decades of deindustrialization, aided and abetted by the UAW, Dayton and surrounding Montgomery County are now the center of the opioid crisis in the US.

Nearly forty years of betrayals by the UAW have transformed this organization into a corrupt tool of management, which no reshuffling of the leadership can conceal. This has been further demonstrated by the response by the union to the recent deaths of young temporary part-time (TPT) Ford worker Jacoby Hennings and Ivan Bridgewater, an electrician at Fords Kentucky Truck Plant killed in an industrial accident on December 9.

The UAW attacked Hennings, who apparently committed suicide on October 20 under still unexplained circumstances, claiming he appeared to be on drugsan assertion that has now been disproven by the release of the autopsy report. In the case of Bridgewater, the UAW officials are actively working to protect Ford and conceal its own role.

The 2015 UAW Big Three contract sanctioned the increased use of part-time temporary workers, who earn lower pay and few benefits with no job protections. Hennings was working at both Ford and Fiat Chrysler at the time of his death, and was reportedly upset about the refusal of management to upgrade him to full-time status. He apparently shot himself in desperation after meeting for an hour with UAW officials at the plant.

In the case of Bridgewater, the UAW has worked with management to drive up production, sacrificing the safety and health of workers in the process. No worker can expect a serious investigation into the conditions surrounding Bridgewaters death given that the UAW and management operate a joint safety committee. These joint committees offer cushy jobs to union officials while seeking to reduce the exposure of management to fines and citations and covering up unsafe conditions.

The complete discrediting of the UAW has created a mood of angry opposition in the auto factories. This was expressed in the near walkout by Fiat Chrysler workers at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit on December 2 after workers were sickened by gas fumes. The UAW acted as an enforcer for the company, keeping workers on the job while joining with management to cover up the seriousness of the incident.

The author also recommends:

Ford Workers Speak on Kentucky Truck workers death

[14 December 2017]

The death toll behind Americas record profits

[12 December 2017]
A petition alleged that developers would not hand over the required portion back to the authority all across Mumbai especially in south Mumbai.

By Vidya : Bombay High Court asked Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to come up with a procedure to prevent developers from defaulting on handing over part of the building back to them after redevelopment.

The court was hearing a criminal public interest litigation filed by Kamlakar Shenoy which alleged that developers redeveloping cessed buildings under development control rules are bound to surrender part of the redeveloped property, in set percentage to MHADA before obtaining Occupation Certificate from Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

advertisement

The petition had alleged that inspite of tall promises, the developers would not hand over the required portion back to the authority all across Mumbai especially in south Mumbai. The petition further alleged that this was causing a loss of Rs 14,000 crore to MHADA due to "deliberate inaction" by its officials.

"What steps will MHADA take in such cases in the future where there is negligence. MHADA should be worried if it is not getting its share. If such practice is not curtailed then it will be repeated. Some procedure will have to be worked out,"said Justice Naresh Patil while hearing the petition.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) filed an affidavit as well stating that five FIRs had been filed against various developers in such cases in 2017. However EOW on its part said that the allegations by the petition were "vague and exaggerated."Referring to communications between EOW and MHADA, the affidavit stated that there are a total of 457 projects approved under DCR rules under which MHADA is supposed to get an area of 1,98,646.45 sqm from developers. Out of these, 149 projects are complete.

"Further substantial portion of total promised area 1,41,803.29 sqm is from 260 projects which are are either ongoing or stalled due to some exigencies," states the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, developers of remaining 48 projects have defaulted over 14,021.99 sqm of area .

The authority has issued notices in 29 cases and recovered 6,376.12 sqm.

"This prima facie shows that MHADA has also initated civil proceedings against errant developers," said the affidavit.

After going through the affidavit, the court asked MHADA to file an affidavit specifying how many projects have been completed and how many remain to be completed.

The court has also asked the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit in this matter and has kept the matter for further hearing on Wednesday.

--- ENDS ---
Actor Adil Hussain isn't one to go after big-name directors. He's looking for the right role, and his doors are open.

Actor Adil Hussain is a die-hard optimist. Every time he opens an e-mail with a script attached, he is looking for a chance to examine the nuances of life-spurring personal as well as professional growth.

His role in Mukti Bhawan - where his performance as a son watching his father prepare for death in Benares won him a special jury prize at the National Film Awards - was one such opportunity. And he's hopeful his next role will be as well received, he said following a screening of his latest film, Iram Haq's What Will People Say, at the Dharamshala International Film Festival in early November.

advertisement

Focusing more on making artistic films (though he has also appeared in commercial movies like Robot 2), this National School of Drama-trained actor laments that the Indian roles he's offered rarely have multiple layers. The unspoken, unconscious and subterranean don't find a voice in the characters. "For me, cinema has to ascertain emotional evolution, not just for the audience but myself too," he says.

With more than 55 films under his belt in the last eight years, Hussain has had the luxury to reject 15 films this year. He's looking for the right role, not a big name director, he says. "Most of the work I get is through Facebook and Twitter. There is no agent. I don't want anyone to come in between the newcomer and me. Believe me, they offer me the most challenging parts." Shubhashish Bhutiani, who directed Mukti Bhawan, is 26 years old. Iram Haq is 41. "Look at the range. Their vision starts from where the horizon ends for many," he says.

--- ENDS ---
The United States of America, under President Donald Trump, has repealed Barack Obama-era net neutrality rules, sparking a row that has an Indian-American at the centre of it.

Ajit Pai is a son of a doctor couple who migrated to the US and is a graduate of the Harvard University (Reuters file photo)

By Santosh Chaubey: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the telecom regulator of the United States of America, has repealed a landmark law the country passed in 2015 to ensure net neutrality in the US and Ajit Pai, a son of immigrant Indians, is at the centre of the debate. He heads the US FCC.

Pai is a Republican, the same party as American President Donald J Trump, and was made the FCC chief in January 2017, the same month the Trump administration took over the White House.

advertisement

The FCC, the US equivalent of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has voted in favour of repealing a 2015 law enacted by itself under the Barack Obama government. The FCC is overseen by the US Congressional chairs and currently, like the US Congress (the American equivalent of Parliament), the Republicans are in majority in the FCC, a fact that helped the proposal moved by Pai score a 3-2 victory. Incidentally, Ajit Pai was appointed a commissioner in the FCC in 2012 by then president Barack Obama.

The move by Pai, whose FCC bio states that "consumers benefit most from competition, not pre-emptive regulation and regulators should be skeptical (sic) of pleas to regulate rivals", has sharply divided America with critics saying repealing the net neutrality law will kill the spirit of free internet.

Critics argue that the repeal plan will benefit only few big telecom players who wield immense power over the flow of internet and telecommunication channels. Opponents of the repeal bill, named Restoring Internet Freedom Order, say it will effectively shut down or marginalise small players and will start a rush of predatory discriminating practices where one telecom company will try all to disadvantage a rival company's data flowing through its cables.

And above all, internet users will be the ultimate losers with their freedom to get unrestrained access to all content and data gone, the critics add. Net neutrality, they say, ensures that no service provider will speed up or throttle a particular service because of its business interests.

This is the right call by @AjitPaiFCC and the @FCC. The way to keep the internet free and open and protect consumers is to crack down on internet service providers that would abuse open access. https://t.co/5kxwSZGJzt pic.twitter.com/oIiwSvKqbh- Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) December 14, 2017

IN INDIA

India has also been through this important debate. The country saw a major controversy over services such as Facebook's Free Basics and Airtel Zero plans. These differential pricing plans were alleged to be discriminatory in nature as they would have given preferential treatment to content and data of a particiular telecom company or internet service provider (ISP).

advertisement

Citizens here were up in arms over this and a public outcry forced the government and the TRAI to initiate consultations on building a framework to ensure net neutrality in the Indian market. And, its outcome has been positive so far with TRAI vouching to uphold the principles of net neutrality in recommendations it released last month.

Ajit Pai's move is threatening to undo that in America, the world's largest free market for the internet. Pai's move has also unnerved the internet's founding fathers Tim Berners-Lee and Vinton Cerf and many other internet pioneers including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Mozilla's Mitchell Baker.

They wrote an open letter to US Congress calling on it to cancel the proposed vote yesterday. They called the repeal plan flawed and an imminent threat to the internet.

But Pai was unnerved. He tweeted this morning to let the world know that there would be no change in his plans, "U.S. @SenateMajLdr supports @FCC plan to restore Internet freedom, saying our Internet economy is the "direct result of a bipartisan desire to create an environment of advancement-one that utilized a light regulatory touch."

advertisement

Ajit Pai's parents were doctors. His mother was from Karnataka and father from Andhra Pradesh. They migrated to America where Pai was born in 1973 in Buffalo, New York.

A graduate from Harvard and University of Chicago Law School, Pai's law career includes assignments mostly with the US judicial services and the US Congress in difference capacities as well as stints with private corporations like Verizon Jenner & Block.

WATCH | Centre asks Internet, social media giants to remove all links to Blue Whale game immediately

--- ENDS ---
MIDWAY, Fla. (WTXL) - The Georgia Association of Educators says testing, funding, and class size are issues schools are facing in the peach state.

Dr. Sid Chapman, the president of the association, says in some classrooms there's one teacher to every 30 to 35 children.

He says they also have to deal with a large amount of paperwork.

Chapman believes teachers aren't paid nearly enough which makes it difficult to recruit and retain them.

Chapman also discussed serving on the advisory committee for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which took the place of No Child Left Behind.

He says it's meant to reduce the amount of standardized testing, but the governor requested to expand it.

Chapman also says schools are not adequately funded and that schools in rural areas have a more difficult time especially since the tax base is lower.
MIDWAY, Fla. (WTXL) - Three Midway city officials are the subjects of recent complaints filed with the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Last week the commission dismissed five complaints by two residents, including former Police Chief Tom Murray.

WTXL ABC 27's Stephen Jiwanmall explains what several residents say are misuse of public position.

Despite the State Ethics Commission dismissing these complaints, residents say they'll do whatever it takes to hold their elected officials accountable.

We spoke to former Police Chief Tom Murray in June 2017, who had just gotten his job back as Midway police chief after threatening to sue the city when he was let go a few months earlier for insubordination.

But Murray says he was forced to resign in August by City Manager Leslie Steele.

In October, Murray filed complaints against Steele and Mayor Wanda Range regarding his resignation.

He says the mayor "coerced" him to resign and he was taken "by surprise."

Murray told us over the phone he doesn't want to comment on the complaints right now.

Nandrycka King Albert filed complaints against Steele and Councilman Samuel Stevens.

Her complaints revolve around using the city's fire station for unsanctioned activities. She claims private parties have been held there and city officials have kept their personal vehicles there.

MOBILE USERS: Download our WTXL news app on your Apple and Android devices for the latest from South Georgia and North Florida. Also, download our WTXL Weather Now app for Apple and Android devices to get the latest local weather wherever you go.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for additional local news and hourly updates.

Copyright 2017 WTXL via Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- Net neutrality is a very important and one of the least understood issues.

Thursday, the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, which could change the face of the internet as we know it.

The Obama administration started net neutrality as a way to have internet providers treat everyone equally. The Trump administration thought that net neutrality had too much government regulation and asked the FCC to repeal it.

The commission, consisting of five people, voted along party lines, with three republicans voting to repeal net neutrality. This means that internet providers can decide what content we see and how much we see of it...from streaming video sites, to online news outlets, and everything in between.

Thursday's vote is just the first step in drastically changing the face of the internet.

"If there's sufficient outcry, then yes it will go to congress," says Richard Murgo, the Social Sciences Dean at Tallahassee Community College. "Certainly, regardless of outcry, it'll go to the courts for sure. This is basically, and you attributed it correctly, this is just the first stop."

This fight over net neutrality and who controls the internet will continue as the economic and political stakes are so high.
Two years of hard work later, he unveiled a prototype of his device earlier this year, winning recognition from the President of India.

Akash Manoj had not heard of 'silent' heart attacks till his grandfather passed away. He vowed to invent a device that would help people at risk.

Two years of hard work later, he unveiled a prototype of his device earlier this year, winning recognition from the President of India.

The standard 11 student from Hosur, Tamil Nadu, has caught the imagination of the medical world as his device can non-invasively detect the risk of a heart attack, at least six hours in advance.

advertisement

"My grandfather's death bothered me a lot because he was hale and hearty," he says. "Silent heart attacks have become common. It is worrying because people don't get to know even if on the verge of it."

Manoj read up extensively on the internet and found out that specific cardiac biomarkers (proteins in blood acting as signals) were at higher levels before the onset of a heart attack. Tracing these markers, he felt, required a sensor that was inexpensive, wearable and non-invasive.

FABP3-a negatively charged protein that is released by the heart during an attack-was one such biomarker. Manoj spent 23 months perfecting the procedure to detect the marker. His device-a skin patch-releases a positive charge, which attracts the negatively charged FABP3. The higher the FABP3 level, the greater the risk of a heart attack.

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, checked Manoj's device and agreed to incubate his project. Manoj also took assistance from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

"I am collaborating with the Union ministry for health and family welfare to develop this product. I intend to commercialise the product by the end of 2018," says Manoj.

Despite tempting proposals from private companies, Manoj is keen on pursuing his idea by himself. He has already presented his device before international audiences, and wants to do research in cardiology in the future.

--- ENDS ---
York Police Department

 Wednesday at 7:29 a.m., report of a juvenile-related incident on E. 14th St.

 Wednesday at 10:39 a.m., report of a dog running loose on E. 11th St.

 Wednesday at 10:47 a.m., report of a medical emergency on N. Lincoln Ave.

 Wednesday at 10:56 a.m., report that someone was driving while under revocation.

 Wednesday at 2:55 p.m., report of a traffic-related incident on W. Second St.

 Wednesday at 4:32 p.m., report of an accident on E. Seventh St.

 Wednesday at 4:36 p.m., report of a juvenile-related incident on N. Nebraska Ave.

 Wednesday at 4:57 p.m., assisted an outside agency in the York area.

 Wednesday at 5:27 p.m., report of a medical emergency on E. Ninth St.

 Wednesday at 10:48 p.m., report that someone was suicidal on N. Mayhew Ave.

York County Sheriffs Department

 Wednesday at 1:33 a.m., report of a fire in the York area.

 Wednesday at 5:15 a.m., report of an assault.

 Wednesday at 6:50 a.m., report of an accident in the Waco area.

 Wednesday at 11:19 a.m., report of a fire in the Bradshaw area.

 Wednesday at 11:22 a.m., report of a ditch fire in the Henderson area.

 Wednesday at 2:04 p.m., report of telephone offenses.

 Wednesday at 2:16 p.m., report of a medical emergency in the Henderson area.

 Wednesday at 2:56 p.m., report of traffic offenses in the York area.

 Wednesday at 5:18 p.m., report that cattle were running loose in the York area.

 Wednesday at 6:45 p.m., report of traffic offenses in the Gresham area.

 Wednesday at 7:25 p.m., report of a medical emergency in the Henderson area.

 Wednesday at 9:52 p.m., report of trespassing in the York area.

 Wednesday at 10:23 p.m., report of traffic offenses in the Utica area.

 Wednesday at 10:44 p.m., report of a medical emergency in the York area.
YORK  Probation has been granted in a drug case that started as a felony and was later reduced to a misdemeanor.

Kimberly Sprau, 42, of Eustis, was sentenced this week in York County District Court by Judge James Stecker.

She and her husband, Donnie Sprau, 47, were both originally charged with Class 4 felonies, according to court documents, after they were stopped by a trooper with the Nebraska State Patrol on Interstate 80.

The Spraus had an expired license plate, the trooper said, and a stop was initiated. The trooper said he could smell marijuana coming from the vehicle.

A probable cause search was conducted and troopers found two methamphetamine pipes with residue in a backpack and two more in the front console. They also found 30 grams of marijuana.

They also found there was a full extradition warrant issued for Donnie Sprau in Iowa.

This week, Kimberly Sprau was sentenced to two years of traditional probation. Part of that sentence includes three 30-day stints in jail which can be waived if Sprau is in full compliance with the terms of her probation.
While presenting the projects in college, their ideas were constantly being pulled down by the faculty, saying something like this could never work.

The idea behind 'Backyard' stemmed from the thesis projects in their final year at School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University.

Akshaya's thesis, 'Musings of the Mind' was a concept to create a space that provoked co-ideation and collaboration amongst various art forms, while Nithya's, 'Where Worlds Collide', dealt with designing environments that triggered storytelling.

While presenting the projects in college, their ideas were constantly being pulled down by the faculty, saying something like this could never work.

advertisement

That pushed the duo to get more insight, do more research, ultimately proving why a city like Chennai desperately needed spaces like this through surveys, interviews and design strategies.

After graduating, they started thinking, 'Why not try and take our theses forward?' It was a slow process that began with a lot of brainstorming on how to make the two ideas sync.

They kept going at it, grabbing ideas that they knew would click and keeping others on hold. Finally, Backyard was born, and right now, they feel it's exactly as they had envisioned it. Right from designing the furniture to painting it, handpicking the fabric to leaving tiny messages in chai glasses, every detail has been thought through.

Backyard is essentially an 'anti-cafe', where people pay for the time they spend, and are provided unlimited coffee, tea and wi-fi. The space hosts a bunch of start-ups, freelancers, students, musicians, dancers and actors who need a rehearsal space. The idea is to get people out of a conditioned environment, provide a space where people can learn from each other.

The space also behaves as a pivot, displaying art, literature, photography and design. Events hosted include open mic nights, music gigs, storytelling sessions, TEDx discussions, pop philosophy workshops, art camps, drag queen shows and more.

Since they started off with no savings whatsoever, they designed the place on a tight budget, designed and made new furniture and found different uses for old furniture. There was a tonne of mental and physical work, but in the end, it turned out to be worth it.

--- ENDS ---
Border News

Arivaca, Arizona - Border Patrol agents assigned to the Tucson Station apprehended a Guatemalan national Saturday afternoon in the mountains west of Arivaca after he illegally entered the United States.

While processing 42-year-old Artemio Raul Escobar-Ramirez agents discovered he had been convicted in Tennessee for rape of a child in 2006, and aggravated sexual battery in 2008.

Records indicate Escobar has extensive criminal history in the United States and was previously removed from the country in 2014 after incarceration for his crimes. He will be held in federal custody pending prosecution for criminal immigration violations, and re-entry of an aggravated felon.

All individuals apprehended by the Border Patrol undergo criminal history checks using biometrics to ensure illegal immigrants with criminal histories are positively identified.

Federal law allows agents to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows the filing of charges for criminal activity without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless and until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials welcome assistance from the community. Citizens can report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol and remain anonymous by calling 1-877-872-7435 toll free. Reporting illicit activity could result in saving someones life.
Border News

Tombstone, Arizona - Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents assigned to the Willcox Station arrested two Tucson men east of Tombstone who tossed multiple bundles of marijuana from their Dodge Charger while attempting to flee from agents on Sunday night.

When agents attempted to stop the vehicle south of Pearce, Arizona, the driver fled toward Tombstone while bundles of marijuana were being tossed from the vehicle. Agents working in Tombstone also responded.

The suspects stopped the car to flee on foot and were later arrested and identified as U.S. citizens ages 23 and 25. Agents recovered more than 200 pounds of marijuana, valued in excess of $100,000. The suspects and marijuana will be processed in accordance with Tucson Sector guidelines.
Border News

Nogales, Arizona - Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizonas Port of Nogales apprehended two U.S. citizens and a Mexican national during separate attempts to smuggle more than $693,000 worth of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine Monday evening.

Officers working at the Dennis DeConcini crossing referred a 17-year-old Rio Rico teen for further inspection of his Mazda sedan as he attempted to cross into the U. S. A CBP narcotics-detection canine subsequently alerted to the vehicle trunk where officers found more than 57 pounds of meth, worth in excess of $171,000.

At about the same time, DeConcini officers referred a 22-year-old Mexican man for a secondary inspection of his Chrysler sedan. Once again, a CBP canine alerted to the vehicles trunk where officers found more than 10 pounds of cocaine, worth close to $119,000.

A few hours later, officers at the Mariposa crossing discovered almost $400,000 worth of hard drugs within the spare tire and rear seat of a Tucson womans Lincoln SUV. Seized drugs included more than a pound of fentanyl, nearly 2 pounds of cocaine, almost 10 pounds of heroin and close to 67 pounds of meth.

Officers arrested all three subjects for narcotics smuggling and seized their vehicles, along with the drugs. The subjects were then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations.
Border News

Ajo, Arizona - Tucson Sector Border Patrol Agents assigned to the Mobile Response Team foiled a substantial drug smuggling event seizing 224 pounds of marijuana, and nearly 9 pounds of meth east of Ajo, Monday.

MRT and canine agents patrolling a remote mountain pass detected and tracked a group of suspects carrying large bundles, leading to the discovery of marijuana and a backpack full of methamphetamines. A 32-year-old male Mexican national was arrested for smuggling and others in the group are still being pursued.

He was taken with the items seized to the Ajo Station for processing per Tucson Sector guidelines, where his case was referred to Homeland Security Investigations, Sells for further investigation. The confiscated items were tested and confirmed to be marijuana and meth.
Latest News

Washington, DC - On December 12, U.S. citizen Joshua Holt was charged after more than 17 months of detention. U.S. Embassy personnel were not permitted to observe Mr. Holts court hearing on December 12.

The United States remains extremely concerned for Mr. Holts health and welfare, which continues to deteriorate under the custody of SEBIN, the Venezuelan intelligence agency. The Embassy has repeatedly requested consular access pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Venezuela is legally obligated in accordance with the Convention to permit U.S. consular officers to visit U.S. citizens detained there. Too often, access is only belatedly granted, only to be canceled, withdrawn, or simply ignored, as was the case on December 12. We call on the Venezuelan government to grant immediate consular access to Mr. Holt. We remind the Venezuelan government that pursuant to its international obligations, Venezuela must grant Mr. Holt fair trial guarantees. His life should not be jeopardized under SEBINs custody. Therefore we renew our call for Mr. Holts immediate release on humanitarian grounds.
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - This morning, at about 11:41 a.m. Yuma Police Officers responded to the area of South Frontage Road and Avenue 9E for a vehicle versus motorcycle collision.

The initial investigation revealed a Hyundai Santa Fe was stopped on Avenue 9E at the intersection of South Frontage Road. The Hyundai failed to yield while attempting to make a left hand turn from Avenue 9E onto South Frontage Road and collided with a Harley Davidson motorcycle was traveling east bound on South Frontage Road.

The motorcycle rider, 51 year old male, was taken to Yuma Regional Medical Center and later flown to a Phoenix Hospital with serious injuries. There were no reported injuries from the driver of the Hyundai.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please call the Yuma Police Department at (928) 373-4700 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
By India Today Web Desk: BJP president Amit Shah made his debut in Parliament today. He was elected as the member of the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in August this year.

Amit Shah has been allotted a front row seat of the treasury benches in the Rajya Sabha along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Amit Shah will be occupying the seat held by M Venkaiah Naidu till he was elected as the Vice-President.

advertisement

The notification for the new seating arrangements has been issued by the Rajya Sabha secretariat for new members. Amit Shah's seat is on the other side of the aisle from Prime Minister Modi and BJP's leader of the house, Arun Jaitley.

Amit Shah's entry in the Rajya Sabha strengthens the BJP's voice in Parliament but the Opposition will miss the presence of powerful speakers like Sitaram Yechury of the CPI(M) and Sharad Yadav, who was disqualified after the JD(U) petitioned to the Rajya Sabha Chairman.

Yechury's front row seat has been allotted to his partyman TK Rangarajan.

Another powerful Opposition leader Mayawati will not be seen in the Rajya Sabha as she resigned during the last session of Parliament in July this year. She alleged that her voice was being muzzled in the House. Following her resignation, her front row seat was occupied by BSP leader Satish Mishra.

--- ENDS ---
Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - This morning, at about 11:27 a.m. Yuma Police Officers responded to the area of Avenue B and 3rd Street for a vehicle collision.

The initial investigation revealed a 1991 white Winnebago motorhome was on 3rd Street stopped at Avenue B. A 2011 Chevy Silverado was north bound on Avenue B. The Winnebago failed to yield and pulled out in front of the Silverado while making a right hand turn onto Avenue B. The Silverado collided with the Winnebago causing it to roll over.

The driver of the Chevy Silverado was transported to Yuma Regional Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. There were no other reported injuries.

The Yuma Police Department encourages anyone with any information about this case to please call the Yuma Police Department at (928) 373-4700 or 78-Crime at (928) 782-7463 to remain anonymous.
Kolkata: Bangladesh wants Myanmar to take back the Rohingya refugees and it expects India to move a resolution in the United Nations for the same, Bangladesh minister Mosharraf Hossain said on Friday.

It is not sustainable for a poor country like Bangladesh to carry on feeding the huge number of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar for a very long time, he said.

"We would like India to move a resolution in the United Nations to call on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas from Bangladesh as we cannot keep them lifelong with our limited resources," the Bangladesh minister for Housing and Public Works said.

Hossain said it was due to humanitarian reasons that Bangladesh decided to give shelter to the Rohingyas.

"Had we pushed them back, they would have been killed," he said.

An estimated 6,20,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh following an Army crackdown on rebels in Myanmar.

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the first month of a crackdown that started in August in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, according to an estimate released by Doctors Without Borders.

An international humanitarian NGO, Doctors Without Borders is best known for its work in war-torn regions and developing countries affected by endemic diseases.

Asked about terrorist outfits using Bangladesh soil for nefarious activities, the minister said, "We have a zero- tolerance policy towards terrorism."

Bangladesh acts very strongly against any terrorist act on its soil, he said.

The minister is leading a 72-member delegation from his country to celebrate India's victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war and the subsequent liberation of Bangladesh on December 16.

A Mukti Joddha (freedom fighter), Hossain actively participated in the Liberation War for his country and had blown up a crucial bridge during the 1971 conflict, affecting supplies to the Pakistan Army in the eastern theatre, a defence official said.
NEW DELHI: The city police on Friday received a bomb threat call in Khan Market area.

The incident took place in the early morning hours.

#Delhi Police received a bomb threat call in Khan Market area in the early morning hours, dog squad and bomb disposal squad at the spot. Nothing suspicious found yet. pic.twitter.com/UydaVHf1Ez  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Dog squad and bomb disposal squad have reached the spot.

Reports suggest that there has nothing suspicious been found yet.
New Delhi: India's exports recorded a robust growth of 30.55 percent to USD 26.19 billion in November, mainly on account of rise in shipments of engineering, chemicals, and petroleum products, government data showed on Friday.

Imports too rose by 19.61 percent to USD 40.02 billion in November from USD 33.46 billion in the year-ago month, according to the data released by the Commerce Ministry.

The trade deficit widened to USD 13.82 billion in the month under review from USD 13.39 billion in November 2016. It was at three-year high of USD 14 billion in October.

Oil and non-oil imports grew by 39.14 percent and 14.57 percent to USD 9.55 billion and USD 30.47 billion, respectively in November.

Gold imports dropped by 25.96 percent to USD 3.26 billion last month.

Cumulative exports during April-September 2017-18 increased by 12.01 percent to USD 196.48 billion, while imports grew by 25.08 percent to USD 296.45 billion, leaving a trade deficit of USD 99.97 billion.

"Exports during November 2017 have exhibited high positive growth of 30.55 percent in dollar terms. This is on the pattern of positive growth in exports in last thirteen months with a dip of 1.12 percent in October 2017, " the Ministry said in a statement.

India's exports had entered the negative terrain after over an year, contracting 1.12 percent in October primarily due to liquidity problem being faced by exporters following rollout of the Goods and Services Tax.
In 2007, on a rainy night in her village, as children poured out of homes to save a girl targeted by traffickers for the second time, Anoyara, just 14, wished to join in.

Anoyara Khatun was trafficked from her village Choto Asgara in West Bengal at the age of 12 and escaped to start her mission of saving children from the region.

In 2007, on a rainy night in her village, as children poured out of homes to save a girl targeted by traffickers for the second time, Anoyara, just 14, wished to join in.

advertisement

Stopped by her mother, she asked, "Would you like the same thing to happen to me?" And then, she walked out.

Anoyara was trafficked to New Delhi and forced to work as a maid. She escaped in six months, returned to her village in Bengal's North 24 Parganas district, where she was introduced to a children's group, 'Ajker Surja', by the NGO Save the Children.

"The group identifies dropouts and brings them back to schools. I knew I would not be simply a member and gradually started moving to other villages mobilising children. Now, I have the support of 80 children's groups comprising over 1,500 young people," she says.

So far, Anoyara has prevented at least 135 trafficking attempts, reunited more than 180 trafficked children with their families and prevented 50 early marriages.

She is the youngest recipient of the Nari Shakti Award (in 2017) and was India's representative in the UN General Assembly in 2015 and 2016, and is considered by many as India's Malala.

"I dream of a world without fear for children, a better world where we can have our rights and are not forced to leave home because of poverty," she says.

--- ENDS ---
Panaji: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said she was nostalgic about the time when she would bunk college as a youngster and watched films in Srinagar.



She said that youngsters living in Srinagar today do not know about the joys of watching films in cinema halls, because of bans by militants on cinema halls in the troubled state.



"I have grown up bunking my classes and going to cinema halls. I would love to do it anytime. I feel Jammu and Kashmir students are deprived of something so joyful. We would bunk our class in college and go and see a movie somewhere," she recalled while speaking at India Ideas Conclave.



"They (youngsters in J&K) can't do it. They don't know what is it sitting having pop corn in a cinema hall and watching a movie there. I would love to do that. But I cannot say for now," she said.


NEW DELHI: The strategy maker behind Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) successes in the recent past, party chief Amit Shah made his debut in Rajya Sabha on Friday.

He has been allotted a front row seat of the treasury bench and will be seated on the aisle seat right next to the two-seat block were Leader of the House and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sit. The seat was earlier occupied by Venkaiah Naidu who is now the Vice-President of the country.

He was felicitated by BJP members upon his arrival in Parliament on Friday. Members of the treasury benches, including several ministers, stood up to welcome him. Some thumped desks and others clapped as a smiling Shah greeted them with folded hands.

Shah was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in August this year. Modi had then hoped that Shah's presence in the House will help in bringing order among BJP members of the House.

With the BJP lacking a majority in the upper house, Shah's entry into Rajya Sabha is likely to give a boost to the party. The BJP president has, however, maintained that though he is joining the Rajya Sabha he will not take up any official position in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Saying that he was "happy" handling party affairs, he asserted there is no question of him quitting as party president to join the Modi cabinet. "I have the responsibility of running the party. I am happy, satisfied and am working wholeheartedly," Shah had said.

Amit Shah had contested on one of the three vacant Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat. Union Minister Smriti Irani and former Balwantsinh Rajput were the two other BJP members to have contested on the vacant seats. Both Shah and Irani easily won the elections bagging 46 votes and 45 votes respectively, Balwantsinh had lost to Congress leader Ahmed Patel.
New Delhi: In yet another twist to the sensational Aarushi Talwar murder case, the wife of Hemraj - the domestic help of Dr Rajesh and Nupur Talwar - on Friday challenged their acquittal by the Allahabad High Court recently.

According to reports, she has moved the Supreme Court against Talwars' acquittal in the sensational Noida double murder case.

Khumkala Banjade, widow of Hemraj, was reportedly upset with the Allahabad High Court ruling setting the Talwars freed.

The 50-year-old woman was of the view that the courts and investigations are tilted towards the rich and influential, the Talwars in this case.

Senior lawyer KTS Tulsi will be representing Hemrajs wife in the case, according to reports.

The Allahabad High Court had on October 12 acquitted Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in connection with the murder of their teenage daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj in 2008, setting aside the 2013 verdict by a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ghaziabad.

The couple was awarded life sentence by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad on 26 November 2013, a day after their conviction.

The Allahabad High Court had accepted their plea and granted relief to the Talwars.

The Talwars had been given the benefit of the doubt and were acquitted in the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder case.

On May 16, 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found dead with her throat slit in her bedroom at her house in Noida.

The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45- year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.

As the Uttar Pradesh Police drew flak over a shoddy investigation into the case which was making national headlines, the then chief minister Mayawati handed over the probe to the CBI.
Hyderabad: All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has opposed the bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq.

He has said that it would have severe consequences on rule of law and social cohesion in the country.



In a letter to Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, he voiced concern over the attempt to table the bill in Parliament without consultation.



Owaisi demanded that the government hold consultation with All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on the bill as it was the main party in the batch of writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court on triple talaq.



He said that the government`s attempt to expedite the introduction of the bill without any effort to appreciate the legal nuances involved is of deep concern.

The Hyderabad MP described it as an attempt to demonise the Muslim community in the garb of "saving" and "protecting" Muslim women.



"It is regrettable that a constitutional value as important as gender justice is being used to merely further cynical political goals," he wrote, IANS reported.



Owaisi said it was absurd that a special law was being considered when existing legislation sufficiently provides appropriate remedies to Muslim women who are at receiving end of triple talaq.



A bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq among Muslims and providing for a three-year jail term was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday.



The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 got the Cabinet nod at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad refused to give details of the Bill at a media briefing on the ground that Parliament was in session. He merely said many state governments, to whom the draft of the bill was sent, had supported the Bill.

He said it was designed to shield the helpless victims of triple talaq and to give them dignity and security.

"Cabinet has taken historic decisions today which will have a long-term impact in the growth of the country... because Parliament session is on, I cannot give details of the Bill," Prasad said.



"We approved The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, which is to protect victims of triple talaq," he added.



According to the draft bill sent out to states earlier this month, it was proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence that would attract a jail term of three years.

The draft law was prepared in the backdrop of the August 22 verdict of the SC striking down the practice of "instant" triple talaq as illegal.



The court had also held that triple talaq was not integral to Islam.



The bill is expected to be introduced during the Winter Session of Parliament that commenced on Friday.



(With IANS inputs)
New Delhi: A bill seeking to criminalise instant triple talaq among Muslims and providing for a three-year jail term was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Friday.



The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 got the Cabinet nod at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad refused to give details of the bill at a media briefing on the ground that Parliament was in session. He merely said many state governments, to whom the draft of the bill was sent, had supported the bill.

Following are the top developments:



- According to the draft Bill sent out to states earlier this month, it was proposed that triple talaq be made a cognisable and non-bailable offence that would attract a jail term of three years.

- The draft law was prepared in the backdrop of the August 22 verdict of the Supreme Court striking down the practice of "instant" triple talaq as illegal.



- However, it is understood that the Bill provides for a three-year imprisonment and fine to a Muslim man if he resorts to the practice of instant divorce, which a five-judge bench of the SC had held as "unconstitutional and arbitrary". The court had also held that triple talaq was not integral to Islam.



- The bill, while making instant divorce a cognisable and non-bailable offence, also seeks to give the affected women right to seek maintenance.

- It is expected to be introduced during the Winter Session of Parliament that commenced on Friday.



- The Cabinet clearance was criticised by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board as a direct attack on the religious freedom of the Muslim community, while women activists sought the collective support of political parties in converting the Bill into law.



- Opposing the bill, AIMPLB member Maulana Khalid Rashid said, "As far as the compensation for the rehabilitation of the women is concerned, they are already being given by the Muslim community. So, the triple talaq bill, we consider as a direct interference in the religious matters of the largest community. It is an attack on religious freedom. Women are not being tortured in the name of triple talaq. Muslim women have said they do not want change in the personal law including the law of triple talaq. If certain people are misusing certain laws it doesn't mean that you will completely finish that law. It is part of our 'sharia'. The government should at least have consulted Muslim organisations before making any such law."



- Activist Zakir Soman said the Muslim Personal Law Board and the Muslim community are not taking proper care of triple talaq victims, and such women should be given justice as per law. "If the community and the Personal Law Board was doing enough why would be the women (triple talaq victims) be coming to women's organisation?" asked Soman.

- Another women activist Hina Zaheer said, "According to the Quran, there is no provision for instant talaq... So, it should not be the matter of ego for the Muslim Personal Law Board. The board should have solved it by themselves. They haven't solved it, that is why lot of politics is being done over the issue."

(With IANS inputs)


NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday extended the ban on crackers in Punjab and Haryana during Christmas, New Year and weddings to be held till January.

The apex court declined to lift the stay on the blanket ban and said that it will hear the matter again on January 5.

However, the cities and towns under the National Capital Region have been reportedly kept out of the ban.

The Haryana High Court had in October restricted the bursting of crackers on Diwali owing to the rising pollution levels and poor air quality.

The restrictions on Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh had been issued shortly after a firecracker ban in Delhi NCR.
The Gujarat unit of the Congress party has moved the Supreme Court over its allegation of rigging of EVMs and VVPATs. The top court is slated to take up the matter for hearing later on Friday.

Veteran Congress leaders and senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi are likely to argue for their party in the top court.

Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee has filed a petition with the Supreme Court, seeking direction to the Election Commission to count and cross-verify at least 25% of the VVPAT paper trail votes with the EVM votes on counting day. pic.twitter.com/fmVCDF6jbe  Congress (@INCIndia) December 15, 2017

The Gujarat unit of the Congress party had raised concerns over allegations of EVM tampering but the Election Commission had rejected the charges.

There were complaints of Bluetooth devices being connected to EVMs. Senior Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia had complained that three EVMs were seen connected to Bluetooth devices and he sent the complaint to the ECI along with screenshots backing his complaint.

Responding to the allegations, the Election Commission had said they were looking into the complaints. A team of Election Commission visited a polling booth in Thakkar Plot in Porbandar to find out if there was some malfunctioning.

Modhvadia had said they detected EVMs at three polling booths at Memanwada are connected to external devices through Bluetooth. "When the bluetooth of a mobile phone is turned on, a device named 'ECO 105' is shown as available. This clearly means that the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) can be tampered with using the device via bluetooth," he alleged.

"The chips fitted in the EVMs appear to be programmable using bluetooth, and this raises the possibility of tampering. The voting system should be immune to such connectivity to external devices," he said.

The ruling BJP, however, had maintained that the allegations by Congress showed they were in "search for an excuse" as it knew that it would bite dust in the election.

"Members of the Congress are saying there is a defect in the EVMs. The EC would respond to it. But we can say that the Congress is searching for an excuse even before the results are out, as it stares at a loss in the elections. They are trying to hide behind the EVMs," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had said.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Teesta Setalvad's petition seeking to defreeze her personal bank accounts in Gulbarg Society fund embezzlement case.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra dismissed the pleas of Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and her two NGOs  Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace.

The activist had challenged the Gujarat High Court's order that rejected their pleas for de-freezing of their personal bank accounts in the alleged misappropriation of funds received by their NGOs for Gujarat riot victims of 2002.

Following allegations of embezzlement, the Supreme Court in 2015 questioned the source of money in the bank accounts of Setalvad and others which were frozen by the Ahmedabad Police.

One of the residents of Gulberg society, Firoz Khan Pathan, had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at Gulberg Society in the memory of 69 people killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

Ahmedabad Police had immediately come soon after its crime branch had started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society into a museum.

With agency inputs
KOLKATA: Spiritual guru and Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar once again tried to mediate in the ongoing Babri Masjid  Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in Ayodhya.

The spiritual teacher on Friday asked Hindus and Muslims to come together and solve the centuries-old dispute.

I am speaking to many stakeholders. Both the communities should come together. Out of court settlement is the best, said Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Kolkata on Friday.

The spiritual guru's attempt for an out-of-court settlement in the Ayodhya dispute has been opposed from various counters.

While the Babri Action Committee asked Sri Sri to stay away from Ayodhya dispute, former BJP MP Ram Vilas Vedanti also rejected his offer to mediate.

Sri Sri, on the other hand, claimed that most Muslims are not opposing the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya. "I know some may not agree with this, but Muslims by and large are not opposing the Ram temple," he said, further adding that a solution may sometimes seem impossible "but our people, youth and leaders of both communities can make it possible."

The Supreme Court began the final hearing in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case on December 5, 2017.

With ANI inputs
Outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday told mediapersons ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament that she will now retire from politics.

This comes a day before her son Rahul Gandhi is slated to officially take over as the Congress president.

The Congress president made the remark while responding to a question on Rahul Gandhi becoming the party chief.

Sonia Gandhi, who turned 71 on December 9, remained Congress president for 19 years, and was even termed as super prime minister by the opposition owing to her influence on the previous UPA government led by former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

After her husband Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, Sonia refused to take over and the party settled on the choice of PV Narasimha Rao, who became the leader and subsequently PM.

Later, the Congress lost the 1996 elections and several senior leaders such as Madhavrao Sindhia, Rajesh Pilot, Narayan Dutt Tiwari, Arjun Singh, P Chidambaram and Jayanthi Natarajan revolted openly against the then party president, Sitaram Kesri.

Following this, in an effort to revive the party's sagging fortunes, Sonia joined the Congress as a primary member in the Calcutta Plenary Session in 1997 and became party chief in 1998.

At that time, a fragmented Congress had just lost the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Mizoram and Nagaland. It had 141 members in the Lok Sabha.

In May 1999, three senior leaders of the party, Sharad Pawar, PA Sangma, and Tariq Anwar challenged her right to try to become India's PM citing her foreign origins.

Following this. Sonia offered to resign as party leader. This resulted in an outpouring of support and the expulsion of the three rebels from the party. They went on to form the Nationalist Congress Party.

She contested Lok Sabha elections from Bellary, Karnataka and Amethi, Uttar Pradesh in 1999 and won both seats. However, Sonia chose to represent Amethi.

In Bellary, she had defeated BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj.

Sonia was elected the Leader of the Opposition of the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 when the BJP-led NDA formed government at Centre under Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

As Leader of Opposition, she had called a no-confidence motion against the Vajpayee government in 2003.

Taking on the BJP, Sonia launched a nationwide campaign countering the NDA government's 'India Shining' slogan.

The Congress on its own won 206 seats in the Lok Sabha seats, which was then the highest total by any party since 1991.

Sonia was re-elected to a third term as MP from Rae Bareli.

Following the unexpected defeat of the NDA, she was unanimously chosen to lead a 15-party coalition government with the support of the Left, which was named the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).

The BJP protested at Sonia becoming PM due to her 'foreign origin'. Swaraj threatened to shave her head and "sleep on the ground" should Sonia become PM. The BJP also claimed that there were legal reasons that barred her from becoming India's PM.

Subsequently, Sonia recommended Manmohan Singh as her choice as PM. Congress leaders and party workers compared it to the Indian tradition of renunciation.
The app locates and tracks school buses in real time, serving as a guide to parents out to drop or pick up their children.

Locatera is my humble attempt to 'Uber-ise' school transport management systems," says its developer Arjun S., a student at the Velammal Vidhyashram School in Chennai.

"It is also an attempt to democratise the traditional tools and technologies being used in tracking systems around the world."

The app locates and tracks school buses in real time, serving as a guide to parents out to drop or pick up their children. It also sends alerts to parents when their children have boarded or deboarded the bus and even tracks the distance of the bus from the boarding point and the time it will take to reach the drop-off point.

advertisement

Arjun hit upon the idea when he reached home very late from school one rainy day and saw his parents worried.

He developed a mobile twin-app solution-Ez School Bus Locator, which won him the first prize in the App Inventor contest conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2013. The app is now on Google Play Store.

Researching about school bus trackers, Arjun had found the existing products "too complex, inflexible and expensive" as they were using RFID Reader, RFID Writer, GPS, and GPRS, which, according to him, are "very heavy, expensive and rigid".

Many schools were struggling with the complexities of such products. Arjun developed Locatera as an alternative that was simple to operate and worked fine with even a cheap smartphone. It can be used even with a normal mobile phone, through a missed call function.

As of date, pilots of the Locatera app are being tested in India, US, South America and the UAE. Arjun hopes to connect all schools in India to the app and then diversify into wider markets, like corporates and public transport.

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: On the fifth anniversary of Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create a stringent law to punish rapists.

Seeking death penalty for rapists, DCW chief Swati Jai Hind said, "At least when minor girls are raped there should be a law in this country in which such rapists should be punished and given death penalty within six months. This should be done in all the cases and we are requesting the Prime Minister to create a law which is there for the entire country in this regard."

Maliwal further averred that even after five years of Nirbhaya`s death nothing has actually changed.

"It`s the fifth death anniversary of Nirbhaya and the fact is that nothing has changed in this country. Everyday girls and women are being brutally raped in this country. We are having six rapes every day", added Swati Maliwal.

Earlier in the day, the commission had also written a letter to the Prime Minister raising issues related to women safety in the national capital.
NEW DELHI: Parliament winter session is all set to begin today on Friday. Nearly 25 pending bills and 14 new ones, including Goods and Services Tax (GST) and Muslim women rights, will be picked up in the session spread over 22 days.

"Main issues in the session will be supplementary demand for grants, Constitutional amendment Article 123 (Constitutional status to backward classes), Muslim women Right on Marriage 2017 bill. We will also discuss three ordinances including GST compensation to states," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Thursday.

Among the 25 Bills, few crucial Bills expected to be taken up are:

1. The Goods & Services Tax (Compensation to States) Ordinance, 2017

2. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill

3. Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017

4. Indian Forest (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017

5. Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016

6. Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2013

7. Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2016.

The Opposition has been claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre delayed the Winter Session to avoid raking up key including GST ahead of the Gujarat and Himachal Assembly polls.

Gujarat polls were held in two phases on December 9 and 14, Himachal elections on November 9. The counting for both the states will be held on December 18.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired an all-party meet to chalk out the strategy of the winter session of Parliament. He requested for cooperation by all parties in order to make the Parliament session a fruitful one.

"The Prime Minister appealed to everyone for a successful Parliament winter session. He also appealed to everyone for a peaceful session following the high-pitched election," Kumar added.

Parliament Winter Session which will start from December 15, 2017, and last till January 5, 2018, is expected to witness heavy fireworks as the Congress would try to corner Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government over a range of issues.

Earlier, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge had asserted that the Congress party would raise various issues in the Parliament session including Goods and Services Tax (GST), demonetisation, Rafael deal and economic condition.
Jaipur: Mobile Internet services in Udaipur were suspended for another 24 hours as a precautionary measure amid apprehensions of communal tension, police said today.

The services were suspended on Wednesday night for 24 hours after some groups announced to take out processions in support of Shambhulal Regar, who is in custody for hacking a Muslim migrant labourer to death, burning the body and filming the barbaric act in Rajsamand, police said.

"As a preventive measure, mobile Internet services were further suspended for 24 hours in Udaipur. Section 144 of the CrPC remains imposed," SP Udaipur Rajendra Prasad said.

Police yesterday detained more than 200 people and cane-charged a mob that tried to take out a rally in support of Regar in Udaipur.

They arrested one Updesh Rana who had in a social media post announced to take out the rally.

At least 30 policemen, including a few senior police officers, were injured in stone pelting by the mob, the SP said.

The situation is under control now, he said.

Regar, 36, had hacked Mohammed Afrazul to death and burnt the body on December 6.

Afrazul had migrated to Rajsamand from West Bengal for work.

Regar had roped in his 14-year-old nephew to film the killing.

After the barbaric act, Regar posted videos of the killing with inflammatory and communal comments to defend the act.


NEW DELHI: In a big jolt to the Congress, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the party's plea seeking verification of VVPAT paper trail with EVM votes. The Congress had approached the Supreme Court urging it to direct the Election Commission to count and cross verify at least 25% of VVPAT paper trail with EVM votes.

The apex court had said that it finds no merit in the plea filed by Congress. Dismissing the petition, the court told the Gujarat Congress that it should rather approach the SC by filing a writ petition seeking electoral reforms.

The court also observed that cannot interfere with the Election Commission's exercise of power. "The electoral process in a democracy is of utmost importance and it can't interfere only to allay apprehension of a party.

The Gujarat unit of the Congress party had raised concerns over allegations of EVM tampering. They had also complained of Bluetooth devices being connected to EVMs.

Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee has filed a petition with the Supreme Court, seeking direction to the Election Commission to count and cross-verify at least 25% of the VVPAT paper trail votes with the EVM votes on counting day. pic.twitter.com/fmVCDF6jbe  Congress (@INCIndia) December 15, 2017

The ruling BJP, however, had maintained that the allegations by Congress showed they were in "search for an excuse" as it knew that it would bite the dust in the election.

"Members of the Congress are saying there is a defect in the EVMs. The EC would respond to it. But we can say that the Congress is searching for an excuse even before the results are out, as it stares at a loss in the elections. They are trying to hide behind the EVMs," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had said.
NEW DELHI: A day before Rahul Gandhi takes over as Congress President, veteran party leader Sonia Gandhi asserted that her "job is to retire". However, Congress clarified that she is only retiring from her position as the party president and not from politics.

"Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," Congress spokesperson Randeep S Surjewala tweeted.

Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos.



Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light.  Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 15, 2017

Sonia had made the remark hinting at her retirement on Friday ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament. She even added that her son Rahul has been playing an active role in the last three years.

The 71-year-old leader has been the Congress president for the past 19 years. She was even termed as the super prime minister by opposition owing to her influence on the previous UPA government led by former prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Giving up her position as the chief, Sonia will hand over the reigns of the party to Rahul on Saturday. Rahul was elected as Congress President unopposed on Monday.
New Delhi: A day ahead of Rahul Gandhi's formal elevation as Congress president tomorrow, the mood is upbeat among the party workers and supporters, and wide-spread celebrations have begun outside the party headquarters here.

According to ANI, the party workers were seen distributing sweets and various stalls distributing badges and key-chains having Rahul Gandhi's photo have been set up outside the Congress party headquarters.

Sweets being distributed at Congress HQ in Delhi, stall selling badges, key chains etc with Rahul Gandhi's photos also set up outside, in view of him taking over as Party President tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/VDrYtwR3sD  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

A large number of party workers and supporters have gathered outside the party headquarters in view of Rahul Gandhi's formal elevation as Congress president on Saturday.

Similar celebrations were also reported at the Indian Youth Congress office here.

Celebration at Indian Youth Congress office in Delhi, in view of Rahul Gandhi taking over as Congress Party President tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/kN3lqoPj7G  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Rahul Gandhi, who was elected the Congress president last week, had said that it was an honour for him to work for the ideals of the party and through it for the country.

"A heartfelt thank you to everyone for the tremendous support and good wishes you have showered on me. It is an honour for me to work for the ideals of the Congress party and through it for our great country," the official account of the office of Rahul Gandhi had tweeted.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many top political leaders had congratulated Rahul Gandhi on his elevation as Congress president and wished him a fruitful tenure.

I congratulate Rahul Ji on his election as Congress President. My best wishes for a fruitful tenure. @OfficeOfRG  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 11, 2017

Thank you for your good wishes Modi ji. @narendramodi December 11, 2017

Rahul is set to take over the reins of the country's oldest party from his mother Sonia Gandhi, who also holds the record of being the longest-serving president of the party  for nearly 19 years in the 132-year-old history of Congress.

Mullappally Ramachandran, the chief of the Congress's central election authority, had announced the Gandhi scion's election on the day when the 47-year- old leader was busy canvassing for the party in Gujarat. Rahul was elected unopposed as the Congress chief, party's central election authority head Ramachandran said.

Altogether 89 sets of nominations were filed for the election to the top post and all were on behalf of Rahul.

His elevation comes close to five years after he was appointed party vice president in January 2013.

Before Rahul, other members of the family who occupied the post of Congress president were Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia.

The family was at the helm of the Congress's affairs after independence for at least 38 years - Jawaharlal Nehru for more than three years, his daughter Indira and her son Rajiv for eight years each, and Sonia for 19 years.
NEW DELHI: Triple talaq - the practice of Muslim men uttering talaq three times for an instant divorce - is worse than murder, said BJP minister Giriraj Singh on Friday. His statement came minutes after both upper and lower houses of the Parliament was adjourned.

Speaking to Zee News, Singh said, This practice of teen talaq is worse than murdering someone.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, also known as the Triple Talaq bill, will be picked up in the winter session of the Parliament which began on Friday.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling in August, declared said the practice of Muslim men uttering "talaq" three times or triple talaq for an instant divorce is unconstitutional.



Singh, the Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, has been vocal about his views on Hindus and Muslims.

Earlier in November, the union minister had claimed democracy will be "safe" in the country (India) as long as Hindus remain in the majority.

Democracy is safe in the country as long as majority (Hindu) population is there. The day the population of the majority community starts decreasing, the democracy, development and social harmony will be in danger...Hindu population has dipped in 54 districts in states like Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, besides some other states. These districts are Muslim majority and this demographic change is a threat to the unity and integrity of the country," the BJP leader said.
There was a rare display of bonhomie between Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Thursday. The two leaders, who have always been vocal against each other, were photographed holding hands in the UP Assembly.

This happened on the first day of the Winter Session of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

They were accompanied with other leaders, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suresh Kumar Khanna.

When mediapersons spotted the two leaders walking hand-in-hand in the corridors of the UP Assembly, they requested them to pose for photographs.

According to reports, Yogi Adityanath and Azam Khan reached the assembly at the same time and met each other before entering the corridors. They shared greetings and walked inside holding hands, which caught the attention of mediapersons.

However, the bonhomie did not last long. As the session began, the Samajwadi Party leader continued his attack on the Adityanath government. He even sat on a dharna inside the Assembly.

Azam Khan's son Abdullah is also seen in the picture.

The development inside the UP Assembly was indeed rare, considering the rivalry between the two political opponents. Earlier this year when Adityanath said that Namaz and Surya Namaskar were similar, Azam Khan had asked him if he would "prefer to offer Namaz" instead of going for Surya Namaskar.

"Since you find similarities between surya namaskar and namaz, will you prefer to offer namaz?" he had asked the chief minister.

The SP general secretary had also said he could not comprehend how the prayers offered by Muslims were similar to the sun salutation and questioned Adityanath's intention behind the comment.

Khan said no one would "restrain Adityanath from offering namaz".

This was in reaction of the UP Chief Minister's statement on Namaz. He had said, "All asanas (postures) in surya namaskar, pranayama activities are similar to the way namaz is offered by our Muslim brothers. But nobody ever tried to bring them together because few people were interested only in 'bhoga' not yoga."
NEW DELHI: Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj on Friday assured all help to Mohammadi Begum, a Hyderabadi woman has been in Pakistan for the past 21 years and has not been allowed to meet her parents in India.

"She is India's daughter. If ticket is a problem, we will provide the ticket to Mohammadi Begum for her return from Pakistan," she tweeted on Friday.

She is India's daughter. If ticket is a problem, we will provide the ticket to Mohammadi Begum for her return from Pakistan. @IndiainPakistan https://t.co/t7bvz2MMm3  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 15, 2017

A Hyderabad man has made a heartfelt appeal to the Centre and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to help him in the release of his allegedly-abducted daughter from Pakistan.

Akbar, the father of Mohammadi, had appealed to Swaraj to help her in getting her visa. On Swaraj's order, she was granted a visa by Pakistan for 30 days in November.

Akbar approached Swaraj again seeking help to arrange the tickets for his daughter as only three days are left for her visa to expire. He stated that he did not have enough money to buy the tickets.

"The visa is about to expire in three days. Eight days back, my daughter's husband called me and asked me to arrange the tickets. I don't have that amount of money to arrange the tickets for her," he said on Wednesday.

Mohammadi Begum got married to Mohd Younus in 1996, over the phone. Younus purported himself to be a resident of Oman, but when Mohammadi went to live him she came to know that he was a resident of Pakistan and was faking his identity.

Younus later took Mohammadi to Pakistan, where she was not allowed to contact her parents and was allegedly tortured.
JAIPUR: The Rajasthan High Court has ruled that submission of documents to the district collector prior to an interfaith marriage and religious conversion is mandatory.

Additional Advocate General Shivkumar Vyas said that a Rajasthan high court bench has issued guidelines on submitting documents prior to marriage and religion conversion.

The development comes after a migrant labourer from West Bengal was hacked to death in Rajasthan early this month over 'love jihad', which refers to religious conversion by feigning love by one of the partners.

Besides announcing a Rs 5 lakh compensation to the family of the victim, the Vasundhara Raje government had also set up a SIT team to probe the killing and find out if there was any communal angle linked to it.

The incident came to light after a horrifying video emerged showing a man, identified as Afrajul from West Bengal, being brutally hacked to death and set on fire in Rajasamand district, for allegedly committing 'love jihad'.

The issue of 'love jihad' has been in the news of late. While some have raised serious concern, others have decided to take the matter to courts.

In another case of 'love jihad', the Supreme Court had recently ordered an NIA probe in a case of religious conversion of a Kerala woman after marriage.

The matter had landed in court after the father alleged that his daughter was converted to Islam through 'love jihad' following her marriage.

Ordering the probe, the apex court directed the authorities to investigate whether there was a pattern of love jihad in the case.

Hadiya Shefin, 25 years old and a homeopathic doctor, had converted to Islam last year after marrying Shafin Jahan, who is accused of having terror links.

Shefin was put in the protective custody of her parents after the Kerala High Court annulled her marriage on charges of 'love jihad'.
Aruvi directed by debutant director Arun Prabu is in theatres this week and here is our Aruvi movie review.

By Kirubhakar Purushothaman : Aruvi, directed by Arun Prabhu, is th ebig Tamil release this week. Here is our Aruvi movie review.

Aruvi Cast: Aditi Balan, Lakshmi Gopalaswami, Muhammad Ali Baig, Anajali Varathan

Aruvi Director: Arun Prabu Purushothaman

Aruvi Rating: (3.5/5)

Aruvi (Waterfall) is of course about the heroine who lends her name to the film. Aditi Balan is in the eponymous role in Aruvi, but the name also stands as metaphor for the story itself. Like a waterfall - it gushes with force, hits the ground exploding at the interval, and flows fading away into nothingness in the climax.

advertisement

When the film starts, a young lady, hurt, and oozing blood, is being interrogated by a police officer. She seems to have done something terrible. The media has gone into a frenzy suspecting she is a terrorist; maybe a Naxalite. However, when her parents and friends are brought in for questioning, they paint a totally different picture of Aruvi; a normal one.

Aruvi poster Aruvi poster

When each person opens up about Aruvi, the film resorts to beautifully-made montages. And nothing is said about Aruvi, everything is shown - she likes pomegranate, she reads classical literature, she is not ready to lend a napkin to her schoolmate, she is the centre of attention in school, she takes pride in her grandpa's gun and it is reinstated more than once that she is a playful person. Some of these establishments will reason out why Aruvi does what she does later: this is what makes director Arun Prabhu's writing extraordinary.

Aruvi is the proverbial girl next door, until a small misunderstanding (as Aruvi herself puts it) topples her life and throws her into the streets for the bad dogs to feed on. Her life hits rock bottom, and she decides to make the people who wronged her... wait for it... say 'sorry'.

She takes her issues to the TV channel, which makes the programme 'Solvathellam Sathiyam'. It is easy to guess who is the butt of the jokes now. From here on, the film takes a brilliant satirical tone. We get to see an entire episode of Solvathellam Sathiyam along with its making.

Three wrongdoers of Aruvi are brought to the 'sofa', where only truth should be spoken. And right there, Aditi makes an explosive revelation. The waterfall hits the ground!

Post interval, the trajectory of the film seems to dip a bit; however, the genuine comedy bits, directed at Tamil cinema, KS Ravikumar and Gautham Menon, seem to make up for it. These self-referential jokes about Tamil cinema, even in an intense movie like this one, remind you of another filmmaker - Karthik Subbaraj. But unlike Karthik, Arun doesn't hesitate to turn preachy and resort to long monologues.

Aditi Balan in Aruvi Aditi Balan in Aruvi

advertisement

Aditi Balan is undoubtedly the best find of 2017 in Tamil cinema. From being the jubilant school girl to becoming a worn-out dying lady, she looks pretty convincing, and more importantly, never boring. The rest of the cast, mostly new faces, don't remain the same when the film ends. The film is very much human, which even treats the 'extras' with respect. But after a point, the humanity becomes a bit unsettling.

After Theeran Adhigaram Ondru and Managaram, Aruvi is the new excellent movie from producer SR Prabhu's stable.

ALSO WATCH | Vishwaroopam 2 to 2.0: Get ready for some action in 2018

--- ENDS ---
Panaji: Underlining the plight of children blinded due to pellet gun injuries in Jammu and Kashmir, state's Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said Kashmiris need to be reached out to and that "bulldozing" them will not resolve the crisis.



Mufti, who is in Goa to attend the "India Ideas Conclave" that got underway on Friday, said Jammu and Kashmir could serve as the country's gateway to Central Asia and that India should tap the state's strategic potential.



"Some days back, I called these pellet victims and it was really heartbreaking when I saw some of them have lost both eyes. Now 14-year-old, who were just 13 last year, what do they know? How does he know why I am pelting a stone? It's in the rush of things (that they indulged in stone-pelting). And I saw both their eyes are gone," Mufti said.



"I wanted to give them some kind of rehabilitation. Though I tried to help them financially, but you can't rehabilitate a 14-year-old child, you can just try to give them some education. You can't give him a job at this age," she said, adding that it was the duty of the country to ensure that the residents of her state were alleviated from the present situation.



She said there was a need for those responsible to reach out to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir and that "bulldozing" them would just not help resolve the issues.



"People have to mould them, reach out to them. It doesn't happen by bulldozing them," Mufti said.



The Chief Minister also said that India should tap the potential which the northern state presents in terms of strategic geographic importance.



"Jammu Kashmir has the potential to become a gateway to Central Asia. Why can't our country take advantage of that? Kashmir is our's is what Parliament has already said, but we still have Aksai Chin which is with China. It is still there," she said.



She said the government's decision to appoint an interlocutor to speak to stakeholders in the region was a positive sign.



"I feel with these things, there is already a political process. The government of India has nominated a representative who has set the ball rolling..." she added.


SRINAGAR: Tasaduq Mufti, the younger brother of Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehboobah Mufti and a top Bollywood cinematographer, resigned on Friday from the post of coordinator of the CM's grievances cell.

The chief minister is reportedly keen to nominate him as a member of the legislative council. The proposal has been reportedly circulated among the cabinet members and after its nod, it will be sent to the Governor for his assent.

Tasaduq has reportedly resigned from the post with immediate effect.

Unlike his elder sister, who has been in the thick-and-thin of state politics spanning several decades, Tasaduq has been considered a reluctant politician.

However, he decided to join her as a coordinator of the grievances cell after the death of his father and former chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.

Their father's demise brought Tasaduq close to his sister who had broken down after the loss and needed the family's emotional support.

Most of them (Cabinet members) have already given their nod to it, and it would be now sent to Governor NN Vohra for approval, a media report quoted a source as saying.
SRINAGAR: Hours before a proposed separatist rally by Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), several separatist leaders and activists were detained by the police on Friday. The state further imposed restrictions in many parts of Srinagar and Anantnag to prevent the rally.

"Restrictions have been imposed under section 144 CrPc in Anantnag and six police stations areas of Srinagar district to maintain law and order," a police officer said.

"Restrictions will remain in force in areas falling under the jurisdiction of Rainawari, Nowhatta, M.R. Gunj, Safa Kadal and partially in Maisuma and Kralkhud police stations in Srinagar," the police officer said.

JRL, a separatist outfit headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, had called massive public gathering at Anantnag's Lal Chowk as part of its public outreach programme.

Geelani is currently under house arrest while Mirwaiz has been confined to his house and Malik in central jail Srinagar after his arrest by the police recently.

The police also reportedly detained Hurriyat leaders and activists including Bilal Sidiqee, Molvi Bashir Irfani, Muhammad Yasin Ataie and Syed Imtiyaz Hyder.

Senior leaders Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai and Muhammad Ashraf Laya have been put under house arrest.

An official said that the movement of people and traffic will be restricted in areas falling under the jurisdiction of seven police stations of Srinagar on Friday. These include Nowhatta, MR Gunj, Rainawari, Khanyar, Safakadal and parts of Masisuma and Kralkhud, he said.

Authorities have also suspended train services from Kashmir Valley to Bannihal in Jammu region as a precautionary measure.

Condemning police action, a release from the Hurriyat spokesperson said, Such coercive measures and repression wont break our resolve as many of the leaders and activists have already succeeded in reaching Anantnag.

He appealed to the people in southern areas of Kashmir to participate in the rally aimed at showing solidarity with the people there.

For the past several years, southern areas of Kashmir have been on the forefront of militancy and anti-government protests. Dozens of cordon-and-search operations have been conducted by forces in Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag and Kulgam districts this year. Peoples participation in the solidarity rally will convey a message to the occupiers and their stooges that despite the use of their military might, harassment, detentions and killing people, the freedom sentiment is at its peak and alive, the spokesman said in a statement.

The board of school education has postponed exams scheduled in Kashmir Valley on Friday.

Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been deployed in strength in areas placed under restrictions and in other sensitive areas in Srinagar, Anantnag and other districts of Kashmir Valley.

With agency inputs
LUCKNOW: Be it sending an ambulance or attending patients on time, government hospitals in India are on a splurge of denial.

An Uttar Pradesh woman on Thursday gave birth to a child in an e-rickshaw on her way to the hospital.

Lucknow: Woman gave birth in e-rickshaw while on her way to the hospital yesterday, reached hospital on the same vehicle allegedly after ambulance didn't reach her after delivery pic.twitter.com/xCPv66yEJT  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) December 15, 2017

Post delivery, she reached the hospital boarding the same vehicle as the ambulance allegedly did not reach on time.
Satna: The authorities in Madhya Pradesh on Friday arrested a group of Catholic priests in connection with the alleged forced conversion of some Hindus to Christianity in a village here.

According to ANI, the police later detained at least 40 persons for allegedly attacking the Catholic priests outside a police station in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh.

The attack on Catholic priests over the alleged forced conversion of Hindus to Christianity took place last night.

Satna(Madhya Pradesh): Catholic priest arrested, 40 others detained for alleged forced conversion of a group of people from Hinduism to Christianity pic.twitter.com/71eA8AOMvm  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Those detained are believed to be members of right-wing group Bajrang Dal, according to PTI.

The reports claimed that several members of the right-wing outfit thrashed some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district.

Satna(MP): The Catholic priest and others who were detained for alleged forced conversion also filed complaint that their vehicles were set ablaze by Bajrang Dal workers pic.twitter.com/7r1zibwQDK  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines Police Station said that a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle. However, she denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident.

Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for the priesthood.

Father M Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, was quoted as saying by PTI that some young men stormed the venue of a pre- Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 last night and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After getting information, the police came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am.

They agreed to visit the police station today morning, Rony said.

"As promised, they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not a single person there had been converted to Christianity.

"We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked today for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

One of the locals, who was being allegedly converted, claimed the Catholic priests asked them to take holy dips in the pond and embrace Christianity.
Mumbai: NDA constituent and BJP's estranged ally Shiv Sena on Friday warned that its relationship with the party ruling at the Centre are not good at the moment and it could have serious consequences on the alliance.

The warning came from Shiv Sena's Youth wing chief Aaditya Thackeray, who is also the son of party president Uddhav Thackeray.

Aaditya Thackeray had on Thursday criticised the Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP dispensation and said that his party would walk out of the Maharashtra Government within a year.

"We will leave the government in a year and will come to power on our own. Party workers should start their preparations from now itself," Aaditya Thackeray said while addressing a party event in Ahmednagar.

"Political temperatures are high in Maharashtra. I don't know when elections will be held, but it looks like they'll be held in a year," the young Shiv Sena leader said.

Endorsing his views, senior party leader and MP Sanjay Raut today said that Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray, in his remark on the alliance with BJP, has tried to convey that if the Devendra Fadnavis-led government was not doing any work in the interest of Maharashtra, then it was of no use.

"Things Aaditya Thackeray has said, have also been highlighted by Uddhav Thackeray earlier. There is no doubt that relations between the two parties are not fine. If in the interest of state and nation, the government is not doing any work then it is of no use. This is what Aaditya Thackeray has tried to convey," the Shiv Sena leader told ANI.

This is not the first time when the Shiv Sena has issued such a remark against its oldest ally - BJP.

Earlier in September, the Sena hinted towards parting ways with the BJP in the state, citing it did not want to be blamed for people's suffering due to price hike and other reasons.

(With ANI Inputs)
Mumbai: The country's foreign exchange reserves declined by USD 1.044 billion to USD 400.897 billion in the week to December 8 due to a steep fall in foreign currency assets, the Reserve Bank said on Friday.

In the previous week, the reserves had increased by USD 1.2 billion to USD 401.942 billion.

The foreign currency reserves, a major component of the overall reserves, declined by USD 1.028 billion to USD 376.428 billion, according to the RBI data.

Expressed in the US dollar terms, foreign currency assets include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of the non-US currencies such as the euro, the pound and the yen held in the reserves.

However, the gold reserves remained unchanged at USD 20.703 billion, unlike in the last reporting week when it had risen by a tad.

The special drawing rights with the International Monetary Fund fell by USD 5.3 million to USD 1.497 billion.

The country's reserve position with the International Monetary Fund also declined by USD 11 million to USD 2.269 billion, the Reserve Bank of India said.
Mumbai: An under-renovation building in Zaveri Bazaar here collapsed on Friday afternoon, trapping 10 workers who were present at the time. Of them, seven have been rescued and search for the others is currently underway.

The four-storey building's back portion collapsed at a time when the entire structure was being repaired. Four fire tenders and police officials reached the spot and rescue operations were started immediately.

There have been no reports of any serious injuries so far.

(This is a developing story. More details will be added)
LUCKNOW: A minor girl in Manipur was on Friday set afire after being allegedly gang-raped by three men.

The girl was set ablaze because she complained to the police against the culprits.

According to the victim's family members, the three accused were troubling her for the last 3-4 months.

Meanwhile, an FIR has been lodged and the investigation is underway, police said.

Last week, a 15-year-old cancer survivor was allegedly gang-raped by two youths in Sarojini Nagar area. She was again raped by one person whom she asked for help.

Confirming the incident police said the incident took place on December 8 when the girl had gone out to meet an acquaintance.
New Delhi: There were reports floating around that actress Mallika Sherawat had been asked to vacate an apartment in Paris after she failed to pay her rent.

The actress, has now responded to the rumours and said that she never owned an apartment!

The 'Double Dhamaal' actress took to Twitter and wrote-

'Some in the media think I hv an apartment in Paris !! Its absolutely Not True , if someone has donated one to me, pls send me the address :)'

Some in the media think I hv an apartment in Paris !! Its absolutely Not True , if someone has donated one to me, pls send me the address :) https://t.co/ScDyL3Abt8 December 14, 2017

Mallika has been living in Paris for the last few years, reports suggest.

The apartment in question is located in the 16th Arrondissement where Mallika and her French beau Cyrille Auxenfans were rumored to be living. There were reports that the couple was attacked and robbed last year in the same apartment. The amount of rent was said to be Rs 64 Lakh.

The actress attends the Cannes Film Festival regularly and will next be seen in the movie Zeenat. The movie is helmed by Saandesh Nayak and is expected to release in 2018.

Other films in which Mallika has worked include Hiss, Welcome, Ugly Aur Pagli and Thank You.
Hyderabad MP and India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has opposed the bill cleared by the Narendra Modi Cabinet, which makes instant triple talaq illegal.

By Ashish Pandey: Hyderabad MP and India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has opposed the bill cleared by the Narendra Modi Cabinet, which makes instant triple talaq illegal .

The bill will be tabled during the Winter Session of Parliament, which began today.

Owaisi has sent a letter to Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad opposing the move of the government.

advertisement

In his letter, Owaisi has termed the move of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government "regrettable" and alleged that 'a constitutional value as important as gender justice' is being used to merely further "cynical political goals".

"It is my duty to oppose such an initiative that will have severe consequences on rule of law and social cohesion in the country," said Asaduddin Owaisi.

The MP of Hyderabad also asked the Central govt to hold consultation with The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to take their opinions and suggestions on the proposed legislation.

"The proposed legislation clearly reflects deafness to cultural norms within various Muslim communities," pointed out Owaisi, in his letter to Union law minister.

Owaisi also asked the government to clear the doubts over the legislation and said, "It must be clarified at the outset as to how this law seeks to enforce imprisonment & provisions of equal maintenance in tandem."

"It is a fair assumption to make that an individual who is imprisoned cannot provide maintenance who is victim of talaq," added Owaisi, while pointing out that in the absence of any contextual understanding of laws existing that ensure maintenance while providing penal remedies on behalf of the government.

"Such legislative proposals are not surprising yet discomforting," added Owaisi over the triple talaq move of the government.

--- ENDS ---
Mumbai: Bollywood composers Vishal-Shekhar have been entrusted with the task of treating Hollywood star Will Smith to a musical evening during his India visit next week.

Smith will be flying down to Mumbai to promote his latest Netflix film 'Bright'. He will be arriving with co-stars Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace and director David Ayer. Netflix is set to create the 'Bright' experience exclusively for fans here.

The team will be meeting and greeting their fans at High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, prior to the screening on Monday afternoon. The screening will be held at PVR Phoenix, Lower Parel, on Monday night and fans will have to register at brightmumbai.eventbrite.com or bright@publicisconsultants-asia.com, read a statement.

Bani Judge, Rannvijay Singha, Prayag Mehta and Rishabh Joshi of DJ duo Lost Stories, Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani will be performing before Smith takes the stage.

'Bright' is an action-thriller that takes place in an alternate present-day South Los Angeles.

The action-thriller, which will launch around the world on December 22, is about two LAPD officers, played by Smith and Edgerton, who work to keep the streets of an alternate-reality Los Angeles safe from a sinister, dark underworld. Earlier this year, Netflix had brought Brad Pitt to India too to promote his film 'War Machine'.
Los Angeles: Three more women, including a high school friend of his daughter, have come forward to accuse veteran Hollywood star Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment.

In an account published by Variety, Cori Thomas said she was a minor when Hoffman exposed himself to her.

Thomas said she spent a Sunday afternoon with Hoffman and his daughter in 1980 when she was a 16-year-old student at the elite United Nations International School in New York, Variety reported.

She has alleged that she was left alone in Hoffman's hotel room after dinner as she waited for her mother to collect her. Thomas said the actor disappeared into the bathroom before coming back and "standing there naked."

She said Hoffman took his time in picking up the towel from the floor and then asked her to massage his feet, which she did.

Thomas said she was 'saved' by her mother arriving downstairs. "I was humiliated. I was so mortified, I never said anything."

Melissa Kester said she was a recent college graduate when Hoffman allegedly sexually assaulted her while recording audio for the film 'Ishtar'.

Kester said, ''I sat in the bathroom crying. I thought, oh my god! I felt like I'd been raped. There was no warning."

A third woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Hoffman assaulted her in the back of a station wagon and manipulated her into a subsequent sexual encounter that left her traumatised, the trade magazine reported.

She said she was an extra when Hoffman offered to give her a ride home after a wrap party.

The new claims by the three women take the number of women who have accused the 80-year-old Oscar winner of sexual harassment to six.

Hoffman's lawyer has denied the claims, calling them 'defamatory falsehoods'.

The actor had offered an apology to the first woman, who interned on the set of his 1985 TV film 'Death of a Salesman'.

In a statement, he said the behaviour was 'not reflective of who I am'.

But he has not commented on the other accusations.

British comedian John Oliver recently grilled Hoffman on stage at a panel discussion where he angrily defended himself.

The expose on Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's three decades of sexual abuse has opened a floodgate in Hollywood, media and politics ending the career of many powerful men.
Washington: In a lengthy statement released by Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul has finally responded to Hayek's allegations of sexual misconduct.The movie mogul has spoken out after the 51-year-old actress accused the producer of sexually harassing her a number of times after she struck a deal to work with him on the 2002 movie, 'Frida,' and also claimed that he "demanded" she do a "full-frontal nudity" sex scene for the film.

Weinstein, through a representative, has denied all accusations of non-consensual sex and in this latest statement he also denied Hayek's claims of sexual misconduct and said that he "doesn't recall" forcing her to do the sex scene with 'Frida' co-star Ashley Judd, reports Deadline.The statement read, "Mr. Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female co-star and he was not there for the filming. However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms. Hayek with Geoffrey Rush.

"All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who have witnessed the event have a different account of what transpired. By Mr. Weinstein`s own admission, his boorish behaviour following a screening of 'Frida' was prompted by his disappointment in the cut of the movie - and a reason he took a firm hand in the final edit, alongside the very skilled director Julie Taymor," the statement continued.

In an op-ed published by The New York Times, the actress had described Weinstein as a rage-filled "monster" and claimed that he made several inappropriate sexual demands on the set of their 2002 Oscar-winning film Frida. According to Hayek, she repeatedly refused his sexual advances.Salma has also alleged she was forced to turn down offers for a number of scenarios Harvey allegedly asked her to be involved in, including "letting him give her a massage" and "letting him give her oral sex".She wrote, "I was so excited to work with him and that company. In my naivete, I thought my dream had come true. He had validated the last 14 years of my life. He had taken a chance on me - a nobody. He had said yes. Little did I know it would become my turn to say no. No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn't even involved with. No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman. No, no, no, no, no."More than 70 women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose McGowan and Angelina Jolie have accused the former studio head of sexual harassment or assault.

In the wake of the allegations, Weinstein was fired from his own company and expelled by the Television Academy, and his wife of 10 years, Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman, announced she was leaving him.Weinstein, who denied all allegations of rape against him, checked into a treatment center, but left after one week.
New Delhi: To encourage widespread usage of digital payments, the government on Friday said no Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges will be levied on debit card transactions of up to Rs 2,000.

Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card/BHIM UPI/ AePS transactions up to and including a value of Rs 2000 will be be borne by government for 2 years with effect from 1 January, 2018 by reimbursing same to the banks, decides Union Cabinet on Friday.

Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card/BHIM UPI/ AePS transactions up to and including a value of Rs. 2000 to be borne by Government for 2 years with effect from 1 January, 2018 by reimbursing same to the banks, decides Union Cabinet  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

MDR is the rate charged to a merchant by a bank for providing debit and credit card services.

In order to promote digital payments, the Reserve Bank has earlier come out with differentiated merchant discount rates (MDR) for debit card transactions, prescribing separate caps for small and large traders.

As per the latest notification, MDR charges for small merchants with an annual turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh has been fixed at 0.40 per cent with a cap of Rs 200 per transaction by debit cards through Point of Sale (PoS) machines or online transactions.

For accepting payments via QR (quick response) code based transactions, the charge will be 0.30 per cent subject to a cap of Rs 200 per transaction.

In case the annual turnover of a merchant is over Rs 20 lakh, the MDR charges would be 0.90 per cent with a cap of Rs 1,000 per transaction. If transaction is through QR code, the charges will be 0.80 per cent with a similar cap.

These directions will come into effect from January 1, RBI said, adding it would be the duty of the banks to ensure the MDR levied on the merchant does not exceed the prescribed cap.
New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will on Friday pronounce its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking an interim stay on the Centre's decision on mandatory linking of Aadhaar with various government schemes and welfare measures.

The pleas includes various schemes including taking exam by the students, availing scholarship, cremation and treatment of HIV positive patients.

In a related case, the bench yesterday reserved its judgement on pleas seeking interim relief against the Centre's decision on linking of Aadhaar with various schemes.

The Centre had on Wednesday extended by three months till March 31, 2018 the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar and PAN for all bank accounts and certain financial transactions.

The government had made quoting of the 12-digit biometric identifier Aadhaar mandatory for old and new bank accounts as well as for any financial transaction of Rs 50,000 and above.

The previous deadline was December 31, 2017.

Recently, a nine-judge Constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners, challenging the validity of Aadhaar, had claimed that the Centre's order violated privacy rights.

The Centre had on October 25 told the top court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive benefits of government schemes has been extended till March 31, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enrol for it.

The Attorney General had told the court that no coercive action would be taken against those who do not have the Aadhaar card but are willing to enrol for. He had said such people would not be denied the benefits of social welfare schemes till March 31.

Some petitioners in the top court have termed the linking of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) number with bank accounts and mobile numbers as "illegal and unconstitutional".

With Agency Inputs
SHIMLA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday announced a reward of Rs. 10 lakh for "credible information" in a gangrape-murder case of a schoolgirl in Kotkhai area of Himachal Pradesh four months ago.

The 16-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped and killed in Kotkhai area of Shimla district while she was returning home from school on July 2 this year.

The accused had lured her into the vehicle by offering a lift. They then took turns to rape her before the murder. Her body was found at a nearby forest two days later. Police have arrested all six people involved in the crime.

The accused were farm labourers, aged between 19 and 42 years, and settled in Kotkhai area. The police described the crime as a blind rape-murder case.

In the absence of witness and CCTV footage of the crime scene, the police had to rely on other sources to nab the culprits. However, they still have to produce concrete evidence in court to prosecute them.

IG Zahur H. Zaidi, who is heading the SIT team probing the case, had said that most of the evidence at the crime scene was washed away by rains. The accused, who were drunk at the time of the crime, were arrested on the basis of circumstantial and confessional evidence.

The arrested accused were identified as Rajinder Singh, the prime accused who offered her lift, Ashish Chauhan, Subhash Bisht, Deepak Kumar, Surat Singh and Lokjan. Bisht and Kumar belong to Uttarakhand while Surat Singh and Lokjan are from Nepal.
New Delhi: After scuttling several earlier attempts this month, California-based space company SpaceX is all set to launch its 13th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA on Friday.

The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft face a 90 percent chance of favourable weather, as predicted by meteorologists.

The launch will take place from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Carrying about 4,800 pounds of cargo including critical science and research equipment, the Dragon spacecraft will spend a month attached to the space station.

The mission will carry investigation that could help lower the risk to human life and critical hardware by orbital debris, NASA said.

It will also deliver crew supplies, equipment and other scientific research to crew members living and working aboard the station.

One such investigation will attempt to pull fiber optic wire from ZBLAN, a heavy metal fluoride glass commonly used to make fiber optic glass.

(With IANS inputs)
CHENNAI: The Supreme Court on Friday directed M Natarajan, husband of jailed AIADMK leader VK Sasikala, to surrender in connection with illegal import of a luxury car from the UK.

Along with Natarajan, his nephew V Bhaskaran has also been asked to surrender in the Lexus car case.

Following the surrender, they, however, can appeal for bail by paying Rs 25 lacs as surety.

Last month, the Madras High Court had confirmed the two-year jail term awarded to Natarajan for evasion of customs duty.

The court had also confirmed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Court 2010 ruling of two-year jail for three others in the case.

In 1994, Natarajan had imported a new Lexus car forging the papers to show that it made in 1993 and thus evaded a duty of over Rs 1.6 crore.

The CBI had registered a case against Natarajan, Baskaran, Balakrishnan, his son Yogesh Balakrishnan and two officials of the Indian Bank, of which one turned approver.

With Balakrishnan on the run, the case proceeded against the remaining four who were convicted by the CBI court. They moved the Madras High Court against it.

(With IANS inputs)
Mumbai: Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif look incredibly gorgeous together both off and on screen. They share a beautiful equation in real life and belong to the mutual admiration club. The two actors are busy promoting their next  Tiger Zinda Hai - these days and had recently visited the sets of Zee TVs Dance India Dance season 6.

Katrina, who is a fabulous dancer herself, replicated Salmans moves brilliantly. She danced to one of Salmans most popular songs  OO Jaane Jaana  and you will be amazed to see how beautifully she apes his dancing style.

The video embedded below is solid proof:

The episode with Salman and Katrina on board will be aired this weekend.

For the uninitiated, Tiger Zinda Hai directed by Ali Abbas Zafar is a sequel to 2012 blockbuster Ek Tha Tiger helmed by Kabir Khan. Salman and Katrina had set the silverscreen ablaze with their sizzling hot chemistry in Ek Tha Tiger in 2012. And now, they are gearing up to spin the same magic.

Dil Diyan Gallan, the latest track from Tiger Zinda Hai was unveiled just a few days back and we cant stop going gaga over it. Both Salman and Katrina look gorgeous together and no wonder why they make fans go crazy.

The film has passed the Censor Board test and has been given a UA certificate. Tiger Zinda Hai will release on December 22 as per schedule. However, the film has been denied NOC for import by Pakistan`s Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage. The films prequel Ek Tha Tiger helmed by Kabir Khan in 2012, too was not allowed to be screened in theatres across the border.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) The Assam government today offered to provide Rs 100 crore for expansion of air connectivity in the state under the centrally-sponsored scheme UDAN.

This was announced by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal at a meeting held here with captains of aviation industry, a state government official said.

The state government has proposed to provide Rs 100 crore as viability gap funding towards extension of regional air connectivity scheme UDAN for international air connectivity from Guwahati, the official said.

advertisement

Sonowal said with six operational airports - in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Lilabari, Silchar and Tezpur - and a number of other airfields which can be developed, the state has the basic ingredients to become the next connectivity hub.

He said Assam now offers great opportunities for the aviation industry and the Guwahati airport is one of the busiest airports with tremendous increase in flights in last one year.

"The industry should also look at providing seamless connectivity between airports in the Northeast and other destinations in India, neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and ASEAN countries," he said.

The UDAN "Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik" scheme is aimed at making flying affordable to the common man even in small towns.

The scheme ensures affordability, connectivity, growth and development. It would provide a win-win situation for all stakeholders ? citizens would get the benefit of affordability, connectivity and more jobs.

Those who participated the meeting included representatives from Jet Airways, SpiceJet, Air Vistara, Air India and Fly Dubai.

Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey, who attended the meeting, thanked the Assam government for taking the initiative for expansion of regional connectivity. PTI ACB ZMN

--- ENDS ---
Washington: US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation, talking about how to resolve the situation in North Korea, the White House has said.



Russia said Trump initiated the phone call to thank Putin for his favourable assessment of his work, USA Today reported.



The two sides sent out only bare-bones summaries of the afternoon phone call, but the White House version of the call noted that Trump "thanked Putin for acknowledging America`s strong economic performance" earlier in the day.



Earlier in the day, at his annual freewheeling press conference, Putin remarked on the booming US stock market -- a regular Trump talking point -- and said it was a sign that investors "trust in what President Trump has been doing in this field".



Speaking about his assessment of Trump`s first year in office, Putin in Moscow said that he found "some major achievements in the White House".



In response to Putin`s remarks, Trump thanked the Russian leader "for acknowledging America`s strong economic performance".



The two presidents "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea," Efe quoted the White House statement as saying on Thursday.



Putin at the presser also said he wanted to normalise relations with Washington, and stressed that there were many issues on which both the countries could join forces, including the fight against international terrorism.



When asked about the personal relationship with his US counterpart, Putin assured that they have been in contact.


The HAGUE: Dutch military police on Friday opened fire on a man armed with a knife at Amsterdam`s busy Schiphol airport, they said.

"Man at Schiphol shot at by the military police, after he made threats with a knife. Situation safe," the military police said in a tweet. A second tweet said the "suspect had been overpowered and arrested."
Cairo: Islamic State (IS) threatened attacks on US soil in retaliation for the Trump administration`s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, one of the group`s social media accounts reported on Thursday without giving any details.

In a message on one of its accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service titled "Wait for us" and "ISIS in Manhattan", the group said it would carry out operations and showed images of New York`s Times Square and what appeared to be an explosive bomb belt and detonator.

"We will do more ops in your land, until the final hour and we will burn you with the flames of war which you started in Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Syria and Afghan. Just you wait," it said.

"The recognition of your dog `Trump` (sic) Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will make us recognize explosives as the capital of your country."

Washington triggered widespread anger and protests across the Arab world with its decision on Jerusalem. The disputed city is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and is home to Islam`s third holiest site. It has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades.

Islamic State was driven out of its Iraqi and Syrian capitals this year and squeezed into a shrinking pocket of desert straddling the border between the two countries.

The forces fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare there. Militants including people claiming allegiance to Islamic State have carried out scores of deadly attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the United States over the past two years.
A key member of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-uns inner circle has reportedly been executed. Hwang Pyong-so, a powerful military figure in the North Korean regime mysteriously went missing from public life, leading to speculations over his execution.

According to reports, Hwang held the senior most position, after the supreme commander, in the isolated countrys military.

Hwang went missing on October 13 amid reports of allegations of bribery against him. His deputy, Kim Won-hong, has also reportedly been sent to prison by the dictator.

Apart from Hwang, the North Korean dictator has ordered as many as seven executions/killings since 2014. Kim Jong-uns half brother Kim Jong-nam was also assassinated in Malaysia reportedly on the dictators order.

According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea's spy agency reported Hwang and his deputy, Kim Won-hong, were expelled from the military's General Politico Bureau and "punished."

The agency added it was looking into details about their punishment.The news agency reported that Kim Won-hong was sentenced to one of North Korea's prison camps.

As for Hwang, reports said that Jong-un has indeed killed him.Kim has previously killed his enemies via a variety of gruesome methods, including shooting them with anti-aircraft weaponry at a close distance and feeding them to a pack of ravenous dogs.

(With ANI inputs)
Washington: Pakistan must tender an unconditional apology to Bangladesh for the "genocide" committed by its troops during the 1971 war, a group claiming to speak for refugees has demanded.

In a memorandum submitted to the Pakistani Embassy here, the World Muhajir Congress (WMC) also demanded that the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh be repatriated to Pakistan with dignity and honour.

The memorandum was submitted on Wednesday, the 45th Anniversary of the 'Fall of Dhaka' -- when Bangladesh emerged as a new country.

Muhajir is an Arabic-origin term used in Pakistan to describe Muslim immigrants, of multi-ethnic origin, and their descendants, who migrated from India after the Partition.

The group strongly condemned the atrocities and brutal military action by the Pakistan Army against Bengalis in East Pakistan during the 1971 civil war.

"It is very sad that till today none of the subsequent governments or institutions in Pakistan have accepted the reasons or responsibility for events in the former East Pakistan as well as for humiliating defeat in December 1971 that resulted in Pakistan losing its half territory and majority population," it said.

The WMC said it demands that the Pakistani government and authorities not only tender an unconditional apology to Bangladesh government and acknowledgement of the genocide committed in 1971 but also make Hamoodur Rahman Commission report public besides holding accountable and punishing those responsible for the "war crimes" committed in the then East Pakistan.
United Nations: North Korea must "earn its way back" to the negotiating table, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the UN Security Council on Friday, backtracking on an earlier offer of unconditional talks over Pyongyang`s nuclear and missile programs.

Tillerson said a "sustained cessation of North Korea`s threatening behavior must occur before talks can begin," though he insisted the lines of communication remain open.

Earlier this week, Tillerson set off speculation that Washington was seeking a diplomatic opening for negotiations with North Korea when he offered to hold "talks with no preconditions."

The White House however said there was no change in US policy and Tillerson did not repeat the offer at the council meeting.

"North Korea must earn its way back to the table," he said. "The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved."

"We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open."

Tillerson repeated that "we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea."

"The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution."North Korea`s UN ambassador Ja Song-Nam made a rare appearance at the council meeting chaired by Japan, which announced new targeted sanctions on Chinese entities, among others.

Singling out China, Pyongyang`s sole ally, and Russia, Tillerson urged Beijing and Moscow to take unilateral steps that go beyond the current tough UN sanctions resolutions.

"Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slave-like conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russia`s dedication as a partner for peace," he said.

The United States has called on China to cut off oil supplies to North Korea, a move that would deal a crippling blow to its economy.

In Washington, US President Donald Trump criticized Russia for not doing enough to pressure North Korea to change course.

"China is helping. Russia is not helping. We would like to have Russia`s help," said Trump, who discussed North Korea by phone with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.Pyongyang has carried out its sixth nuclear test and conducted a series of missile launches including its first tests of two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) this year.

In his address to the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged diplomatic engagement with North Korea and said the United Nations could play a role to promote contacts.

"We must do everything we can to reach that objective -- and avoid a level of danger that would be unpredictable in its trajectory and catastrophic in its consequences," said Guterres.

The UN`s political affairs chief, Jeffrey Feltman, returned at the weekend from talks in Pyongyang -- the first visit to the North by a high-ranking UN official since 2011.

While Feltman received no firm commitment from North Korea to open talks, he has said the visit is "just the beginning" of his push for "talks about talks."

Since late 2016, the council has slapped three rounds of sanctions aimed at choking off revenue to Pyongyang`s weapons program, which the United Nations has described as the most dangerous security issue in the world today.

China and Russia argue that sanctions alone will not compel North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to change course and want to step up diplomatic efforts to achieve a solution.

Tillerson appeared to dismiss concerns that UN sanctions are having an impact on North Korea`s humanitarian crisis, saying Pyongyang "hypocritically spends billions" on its military programs "while its own people suffer great poverty."

In Tokyo, the government said it had added 19 more entities to its sanctions blacklists including seven from China, one from Singapore and two from Namibia.

"The international community must continue to coordinate and apply pressure until North Korea changes its policies and seeks negotiations," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.
In a stern message to Pakistan, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he has warned authorities in Islamabad that terrorists given safe heaven might one day shift their attention to acquiring Pakistani territory.

Tillerson has been critical of Pakistan's reluctance in cracking down on home-grown terrorists and has repeatedly conveyed US President Donald Trump's message of stronger action against Haqqanis and other terror groups. Earlier this week, he issued an advice at a Washington think-tank in which he said Islamabad could become a primary target for terrorists in the future. "Pakistan has allowed so many terrorist organisations to find safe haven within its territories, and these organisations are growing in size and influence, that at some point I have said to the leadership of Pakistan, you may be the target, and they turn their attention from Kabul and decide they like Islamabad as a target better," he said.

Tillerson was in Pakistan late October and had received a rather frosty welcome in Islamabad. There, he had asked for decisive action against terrorism. A day later, he landed in New Delhi and in a joint-statement with Sushma Swaraj, once again showed a firm commitment towards battling terrorism.

The top US diplomat has appeared tough on Pakistan but has also clarified that Washington wants to work closely with Pakistan in combating threats emerging from the region. However, all has not been well between the two countries with Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif saying last month that his country needs to look beyond the US and foster even closer ties with China and Russia.
PARIS: Six adolescents were killed when a train smashed into a school bus on a level crossing outside the town of Perpignan in southwestern France on Thursday.

Images from the scene showed the bus split in two, with a long line of emergency vehicles on an approach to the crossing.

Another 20 people were injured in the crash, 11 of them seriously, according to French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who travelled immediately to the scene. Most of the injured were schoolchildren aboard the bus, aged 13-17.

Philippe told reporters the authorities were focused on getting accurate information to families, a process "made difficult by the question of identification of those who have died and some of the injured."

A crisis coordination centre has been set up at Millas town hall on Perpignan`s western outskirts, about 850 kilometres (530 miles) from Paris. According to local media reports, the bus was transporting pupils from the town`s Christian Bourquin college.

"All my thoughts (are with) the victims and their families," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter.

Toutes mes pensees pour les victimes de ce terrible accident dun bus scolaire et pour leurs familles. La mobilisation de lEtat est totale pour leur porter secours.  Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) December 14, 2017

The causes of the crash are unknown, pending a full investigation, officials said. The bus and train drivers both survived and will be interviewed by police.

The train was carrying 25 passengers and travelling at 80 kmh, the regulatory speed for the section of track where the collision occurred, a spokeswoman for the national SNCF railway told Reuters. Three train passengers sustained relatively minor injuries, according to the interior ministry.

Witnesses had reported that the barriers of the crossing were down at the moment of impact, the SNCF spokeswoman said, adding that all such preliminary information was "subject to confirmation" by investigators.

France has suffered several serious rail accidents in recent decades. One of the deadliest was in 1988, when a commuter train heading into Paris` Gare de Lyon crashed into a stationary train, killing 56 people, after its brakes failed.
ISTANBUL: The decision by US President Donald Trump to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel is a "bomb" thrown at the entire Middle East, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.

Erdogan, who has sought to steer often disunited Muslim nations into a coordinated response on the issue, said Muslims would never accept the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The US step is a "new bomb thrown into the lap of the Middle East," Erdogan said in an address marking the opening of a new metro line in Istanbul.

Reaffirming his past accusations that Israel is a "terror state" because of its treatment of the Palestinians, Erdogan added: "Trying to make Jerusalem capital of a terror state is not a situation that can be accepted by Muslims."

On Wednesday, Erdogan chaired a summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) where leaders declared East Jerusalem -- which most countries consider to be under Israeli occupation -- to be the capital of a Palestinian state.
UNITED NATIONS: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday that the US government has demanded the release of two Reuters reporters being held in Myanmar.

"Our local representatives at the mission in Myanmar, at the embassy, are expressing our concerns over the detention of individuals, demanding their immediate release or information as to the circumstances around their disappearance," Tillerson told reporters.

Myanmar`s information ministry said on Wednesday that the reporters faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act, though officials have since said they have not been charged.
Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh said that the Christians were out carol singing and Bajrang Dal activists had turned it into an issue of religious conversion.

By Hemender Sharma: In what appears to be a classic case of the police taking orders from the Bajrang Dal, six Christians have been booked for illegal religious conversion in Satna.

The six Christians participating in a religious activity in Bhoomkhar village, about 15 km from Satna district headquarters, were booked on Thursday evening after Bajrang Dal activists created a ruckus at the civil lines police station and presented one man, identified as Dharmendra Dohar, as the one who had been converted to Christianity.

Satna(Madhya Pradesh): Catholic priest arrested, 40 others detained for alleged forced conversion of a group of people from Hinduism to Christianity pic.twitter.com/71eA8AOMvm- ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

advertisement

Dohar was even made to give a bite to the TC news crews in which he explained how he was made to take a dip in a pond before being told he had forsaken his parents and family and adopted a new faith.

All this, however, turned out to be a lie minutes after Bajrang Dal activists left the police station on Friday afternoon and Dohar was questioned by the media.

Satna(MP): One of the locals who was being allegedly converted claims the Catholic priest asked them to take holy dips in the pond and embrace Christianity pic.twitter.com/zgbCUeCpFL- ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Dohar in his interaction accepted that he in fact was a Bajrang Dal member for the past one year and had complained against the Christians under directions from his seniors.

On Whether he was converted to Christianity, Dohar said, "I will be trapped if I reveal the truth now. Because they will say that earlier you said something else and now you are saying this."

Dohar was upset with the fact that his family members had to come to the police station and his partners in crime had left him alone.

Bajrang Dal activists first created a ruckus at Bhoomkahar village about 15 km from Satna late on Thursday night alleging Christian missionaries were converting people at an event that had been going on in the village for the past several days.

The Bajrang Dal activists also forcefully took 42 people to the Civil Lines police station demanding that a case be registered for religious conversion against them.

A car was also allegedly set on fire by the agitating Bajrang Dal activists.

Satna(MP): The Catholic priest and others who were detained for alleged forced conversion also filed complaint that their vehicles were set ablaze by Bajrang Dal workers pic.twitter.com/7r1zibwQDK- ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

Police kept these 42 people in custody till Friday morning and registered a case of religious conversion against six of them.

advertisement

None of these 42 people were allowed to speak while Dharmendra Dohar was allowed to speak to the media who alleged he was being coerced to change his religion.

Madhya Pradesh leader of opposition Ajay Singh too raised questions over functioning of the police.

"It is Christmas time and the Christians were taking out a procession and singing carols. The Bajrang Dal made it an issue of conversion and we have sent a delegation to the administration asking them if they want the Bajrang Dal to run the district," he said.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Kolkata, Dec 15 (PTI) Bangladesh wants Myanmar to take back the Rohingya refugees and it expects India to move a resolution in the United Nations for the same, Bangladesh minister Mosharraf Hossain said here today.

It is not sustainable for a poor country like Bangladesh to carry on feeding the huge number of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar for a very long time, he said.

advertisement

"We would like India to move a resolution in the United Nations to call on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas from Bangladesh as we cannot keep them lifelong with our limited resources," the Bangladesh minister for Housing and Public Works said.

Hossain said it was due to humanitarian reasons that Bangladesh decided to give shelter to the Rohingyas.

"Had we pushed them back, they would have been killed," he said.

An estimated 6,20,000 Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh following an Army crackdown on rebels in Myanmar.

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the first month of a crackdown that started in August in Myanmars northern Rakhine state, according to an estimate released by Doctors Without Borders.

An international humanitarian NGO, Doctors Without Borders is best known for its work in war-torn regions and developing countries affected by endemic diseases.

Asked about terrorist outfits using Bangladesh soil for nefarious activities, the minister said, "We have a zero- tolerance policy towards terrorism."

Bangladesh acts very strongly against any terrorist act on its soil, he said.

The minister is leading a 72-member delegation from his country to celebrate Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war and the subsequent liberation of Bangladesh on December 16.

A Mukti Joddha (freedom fighter), Hossain actively participated in the Liberation War for his country and had blown up a crucial bridge during the 1971 conflict, affecting supplies to the Pakistan Army in the eastern theatre, a defence official said. PTI AMR RMS AAR

--- ENDS ---
" " Yellowstone National Park is stunning in the winter months; here bison are seen grazing near Midway Geyser Basin. Jim Peaco/NPS

Many outdoors lovers take snowflakes as a cue to pack away their hiking boots and start a Netflix binge that lasts until spring. But just because it's winter doesn't mean you should give up on visiting America's national parks. Some of their best nature dishes doesn't emerge until the frost sets in. And with smaller crowds, you'll be more likely to see the beauty that Mother Nature is displaying.

The first national park in the United States  and in the world  Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, was created in 1872 when Civil War hero and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act. The act jumpstarted a trend  there are now 58 national parks (and hundreds of memorials, rivers and related sites) scattered throughout America. Visitor numbers are booming, and in 2016, the National Park Service logged 331 million recreation visits, a second straight record-breaking year for visits [source: National Park Service].

Advertisement

The vast majority of visitors hit the parks during the peak summer months when school is out and weather is more accommodating. Then, minivans, tour buses and RVs pack park roads and campgrounds by the millions.

But some of America's parks are just as amazing  sometimes even more incredible  in the winter months. Sure, in some places, the off season means some areas may be inaccessible due to snow. But you may find that winter unleashes an entirely new personality in the parks you love. Here are 10 worth visiting in the colder months.
December 12, 2017

Irans former Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani, reacting to Iranian-Turkish tycoon Reza Zarrabs recent statements in a US court, says he never met with Zarrab.

In his testimony in a New York trial, Zarrab, who was arrested in the United States on March 19, 2016, explained how he helped Iran bypass US sanctions. He said he had meetings with Bahmani and had ties with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

During Ahmadinejads 2005-2013 presidency, Iran was under heavy sanctions over its nuclear program. Following the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were lifted.

In an interview with the semi-official ISNA news agency Dec. 12, Bahmani said he had had no meetings with Zarrab.

I emphasize that I neither had a meeting nor any ties with him. I also dont think that Mr. Ahmadinejad had a meeting with him either, said Bahmani, adding, Mr. Zarrab has just claimed that he had meetings with a number of people to bypass the sanctions; he didnt say these meetings were for private purposes or the financial [issues Iran was facing].

In response to a question about Zarrab's having said he has an audio file of his meeting with Bahmani, the former top Iranian banker stated, I had no meeting with Reza Zarrab. Suppose that I had such a meeting, holding a meeting is part of my job. The head of the Central Bank can have a meeting with anyone all over the world, but it is important what decisions are taken.

Bahmani continued, Zarrab's only claim is that we arranged a meeting with him to bypass the sanctions. I didnt bypass the sanctions; I managed them, and Im proud that I managed the sanctions.

Bahmani said Ahmadinejads government had developed a plan to have major amounts of gold on hand to help keep the country running in the event of a war between Tehran and the West. We anticipated [a war]; this explains why we stored a few hundred tons of gold in the treasury. However, I dont want to say how we imported that gold. I label this action 'managing the crisis and sanctions.' It is possible that someone calls that 'bypassing the sanctions,' but I dont care about this rhetoric."

Asked about his ties with Zarrab, Bahmani responded, Zarrab has explained that he had been in coordination with Turkish President [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] or, for instance, Iran to bypass the Iran sanctions, and even has claimed that he had a meeting with me. But Im saying that I had no meeting with Reza Zarrab.

Bahmani also said that during the global recession of 2007-2012, the United States and Europe invited him to present them with possible solutions to the crisis. He said such solutions were offered in 2008 and these countries came out of recession through our plan.
The Canadian port will invest $400 million in a new container handling terminal along the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes Trade Corridor as part of Quebecs Beauport 2020 investment project.



The Quebec Port Authority (QPA) announced its plan to build a container terminal at the site of the Beauport 2020 project as part of a greater initiative by QPA to identify the best solutions for economic development in the area.

The project is estimated to be a $400 million investment and will feature a 610-meter extension of the wharf line, the development of 17-hectare area behind the wharf and the terminal will link-up with existing rail and road networks, QPA said in a statement. The port utilized multiple technical and commercial studies to conclude that building a container terminal at the Beauport 2020 site would be the best way to leverage the space.

The Port of Quebec features a water depth of 49 feet and full intermodality along the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes Trade Corridor, said port president and CEO Mario Girard in a speech to the Quebec City Chamber of Commerce and Industry. A terminal also brings the potential for a new international economic hub geared toward logistics, distribution centers, and new businesses.

Weve got a tremendous opportunity here and we have all we need to succeed. Our vision is simple and strategic: make Quebec City a hub for maritime logistics on the continent. Well succeed by rallying around this promising project. And in this vein, Im reaching out to all stakeholders in the St. Lawrence so we can all work together to promote the St. Lawrence. More than ever, we must join forces to make the St. Lawrence more competitive, said Girard.

Girard said that the opening of the new 15-meter-deep (49 feet) Panama Canal in 2016 and the emergence of next-generation ships requiring deep-water ports is completely changing the landscape of commercial shipping. This new 15-meter standard makes it harder for the St. Lawrence, as it currently stands, to compete with American ports in the container market.

Quebec is a city whose history and development are closely tied to maritime economic activity, said Quebec City mayor Regis Labeaume in comments on Beauport 2020. Developing the Port of Quebec and improving the existing facilities are priorities for the region. Building a container terminal as part of the Beauport 2020 expansion project will have a major impact on the economy by creating a new continental deep-water logistics hub, which will be a major asset for the Port. The governments of Quebec and Canada must offer their unmitigated support for the project so that Quebec and Eastern Canada can compete with big U.S. ports and to make the Port of Quebec Europes gateway to trade in North America.

The Quebec Port Authority is an autonomous federal agency constituted under the Canada Maritime Act and generates over 8,000 direct and indirect jobs in the Quebec City area according to recent studies. The Beauport 2020 project entails a five-year redevelopment of the Beauport area, requiring $190 million in investments, with roughly 70 percent coming from the private sector. The project aims to extend the wharf line, develop an area behind the wharf and rebuild and redesign the beach, among other rail, port and commercial service enhancements.

QPA noted that additional private investment of $250 million to $400 million may be obtained for the development of additional facilities, such as for the terminal.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan says its not right to consider the signing of the new agreement with the European Union under the formulations of concession or mutual concession, reports Armenpress.

In an interview to ARMENIA TV, the President said Armenia has never considered the dialogue at eastern and western directions as a contradiction. Its not right to consider the signing of the new agreement with the EU under the formulations of concession, mutual concession. This is my belief. I think the healthy logic really won, and if any side signs an agreement this means that the sides reached at least the minimum they want in terms of that agreement. Thus, how we have reached the signing of the agreement, its just a negotiation process. We have never considered the dialogue at western and eastern directions as a contradiction. We were always convinced that its necessary to cooperate, hold dialogue both with the West, the East, although its difficult to call Russia as the East, concretely with Russia, the President said.

He added that this is a good chance to brief on the history of talks because many people, who had different opinions before the signing of the agreement, just didnt made effort to go back and start from the roots.

If you remember, the EU announced the Eastern Partnership program in 2010 and starting from this period we were holding talks aimed at using the results of this program, as well as signing an agreement. And if you remember, during this period, maybe earlier, integration processes were taking place in the CIS space. If we were starting the first round of talks with the European Union, we honestly told our European partners that Russia is our ally, sincere friend of our people and our economy is first of all linked with the economies of Russia and the remaining CIS states. And we cannot hold talks on an agreement which can undermine our economic ties. Our European partners gladly listened to this, accepted it and we were negotiating for a long time. But there was a moment when the negotiator put conditions and stated that the provisions of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) contradict to the provisions of our agreement. In other words, we had to choose between the two, so-called, economic markets. We had to remind that in 2010 we have agreed in this way, and if you think that this is an obstacle, we cannot take a step which involves risks. If you remember, we made this transparently repeatedly stating that this Eastern Partnership program, the Association agreement do not contradict to participation in other integration processes, the Armenian President said.

Commenting on the view that Europeans were stubborn at the beginning of talks, the Armenian President said they were stubborn not at the beginning, but during the talks before Armenias membership to the Eurasian Economic Union.

I am saying the reason of the decision. When people say that I made a decision in a night, its just ridiculous for me since public speeches exist and there cannot be any other opinion, the President clarified.

President Sargsyan reaffirmed that he informed the EU partners about joining the EAEU 4 months before it, but added that the talk is not only about that, but also about the public speeches.

In any case the negotiations continued. They continued under new principles, and this mainly happened during the Riga summit in 2015. The Riga summit is a historical event in this sense and a decision was made there that there is a need to show a differentiated approaches to the Eastern Partnership countries since in all cases a common thing unites all of us, being as post-Soviet states, but Armenia significantly differs both from Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. The negotiations continued already with this spirit, and I am happy that it became really possible to sign the agreement. As I said, I consider it a victory of healthy logic demonstrated by both our EU partners and us. Here the problem is something else: if we think about contradictions that one day there can be a contradiction, we are obliged to think someway, and we link our actions only by this, we will not achieve many things. Finally, the EU has a big market, the Customs Union has a huge market and our goal should be boosting the export and it is so. In other words, we need to produce and export more products, and now it depends on us how our economy will grow, how many products we can export, and these products can be equally exported to the EAEU and the EU markets just as it is now. 28% share of our exports goes to the EU market, a bit less to the EAEU market. Of course, there is a difference in terms of structure, but in any case the volume is such, President Sargsyan said.

He emphasized that Armenia should always act by combining the interests, rather than to try to play on contradictions. According to him, those who try to play on contractions, always have a lot of problems.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan has presented his vision regarding the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

In an interview with ARMENIA TV, the president stressed that there must be calm in the line of contact. Causalities must be ruled out.

This manhunt which exists today must be ruled out. It will create certain atmosphere and mutual trust. Where does mutual trust come from? Mutual trust comes when you begin implementing the agreements which you achieved recently. If you fail to implement the agreements once, the worm of distrust begins to gnaw. One after one and this is how an atmosphere of distrust appears. This must be eliminated, so that after this the negotiations continue in a calm atmosphere, he said.

The president mentioned that at this moment negotiations over specific points of settlement are not proceeding, however he mentioned that this is natural  taking into account the developments of the past two years. During the last two years we had meetings in Vienna, St. Petersburg, weve had agreements, and now one can say the process is proceeding in two directions. The first direction is that the tension must be eased, investigative mechanisms must be created, which will bring to a certain atmosphere of mutual trust, and after which it will be possible to go deeper over the provisions of the document. Ive said this once, and I will repeat it again  it is impossible to negotiate with one hand and shoot with the other. Negotiations dont like gunfire. And it is impossible to achieve agreement in this kind of conditions. Gunfire always disturb, human losses are always painful and bring a nervous atmosphere in the negotiations process. Each word, each provision must be weighed in a calm atmosphere, in order to be able to reach agreement, the Armenian President said.

The president also mentioned that Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov did not present any conceptual or new proposal regarding the NK conflict settlement during his latest regional visit. According to the president, the Armenian-Russian relations agenda is so rich that solely the NK issue is not discussed during the visits of high level officials.

In terms of Karabakh, I say again, Lavrov said everything at the press conference. The Russian FM is convinced that this conflict is possible to be settled within the OSCE Minsk Group and the proposed principles are the ones which enable to solve the conflict, he said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The 4 million population bar is the pre-condition of normal development of Armenia and President Serzh Sargsyan finds it realistic to reach by 2040.

In an interview to ARMENIA TV, the president said that although a specific action plan doesnt exist yet, a task force has been created after his speech which is dealing with this issue.

He stressed that the country must create possibilities for immigration during that period of time, by focusing on healthcare issues, families, social conditions, employment of the youth and other issues.

I find this to be very realistic, because many many people who had migrated Armenia didnt find what they were looking for. And it is possible to bring these people back, the president said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The number of people visiting the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts  Matenadaran, in 2017 was more than 100.000. Last year this number was 93.000, and in 2015 it was 87.000.

Acting director of the Matenadaran Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan told Armenpress that every year the number of people increases by several thousand.

This year the tourism season started earlier. Probably, it will continue until the end of the year. Here I want to state two factors. The first one is that the number of people visiting Armenia increased, and the second factor is that we had several new exhibitions during the year, Vahan Ter-Ghevondyan said. The exhibition halls this year were upgraded and new exhibitions were held.

An exhibition was held in Amsterdam dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the Armenian edition of the Bible published by Voskan Yerevantsi. Ancient, valuable books were presented. This year another exhibition was held dedicated to the Lazarian family. It especially created a great interest among Russian visitors. This year marked the 300th anniversary of the Mekhitarist Congregation of Venice. On this occasion an exhibition was organized in the Matenadaran during which ancient books, valuable photos were displayed.

Most of people visiting Matenadaran are from Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Poland and Iran. There are also visitors from Philippines, Korea and China. There are tour guides speaking in 7 languages in the Matenadaran, he said.

The collection of manuscripts is more than 20.000. 17.000 of them are in Armenian, and the rest in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Greek and etc.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Foreign minister of the Republic of Artsakh Masis Mayilyan gave an interview to ARMENPRESS talking about Artsakhs foreign policy agenda, the negotiation process over the Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict and Artsakh-EU cooperation.

-Mr. Mayilyan, what are the main issues of Artsakhs foreign policy agenda and your priorities as the new foreign minister of Artsakh on solving the problems existing in the field?

-In October 2017 Artsakhs political and socio-economic development program was presented by President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan which also has a reference to the priority directions of the Artsakh foreign policy agenda.

The efforts of the foreign ministry will be mostly directed towards developing and strengthening the existing positive trends in the process of international recognition of Artsakhs independence and ensuring its irreversibility. In particular, steps will be taken aimed at expanding the geography of Artsakhs recognition and establishing a bilateral cooperation with subjects that recognized us. The development of ties at decentralized cooperation formats will enable to implement different programs in the fields of culture, education, sports, economy and local self-governance.

The foreign ministry of Artsakh will continue the consistent works on recognizing the right to self-determination exercised by Artsakh as a base for the peaceful settlement of the Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict. Resisting the Azerbaijani attempts to isolate Artsakh is especially significant on the background of Azerbaijans unconstructive stance on the conflict settlement. Creation of external favorable conditions for the Republics economic development and attracting investments is one of our priorities. In order to solve this problem the Artsakh foreign ministry closely cooperates with the countrys ministries and structures responsible for the economic bloc.

One of the key directions of the Artsakh foreign policy agenda is also the further expansion and deepening of the Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora cooperation. We highly appreciate the Diasporas contribution to development and strengthening of Artsakh and protection of its interests abroad, and at the same time, we consider important Artsakhs participation in the process of preservation of the Armenian identity in the Diaspora.

One of the main components of the countrys foreign political activity is to make the international community informed about the Artsakh issues and maintain the countrys positive image. In this sense the foreign ministry plays a key role, and we will continue the active works on this path. Artsakhs diplomatic service is engaged in the implementation of the mentioned issues, programs and other foreign policy initiatives.

-On October 16 the meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents was held, but before this period and following it, the border tension again increased, there were shots and casualties. Thereafter, the co-chairs meeting with the foreign ministries of the two countries was held. In future as well meetings are expected. In the context of these border incidents how do you assess the effectiveness of such meetings?

-The meetings of Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents and foreign ministers are important in terms of reducting the tension in the conflict zone. The restoration of the negotiation process in full format is possible only in case of stability. Thus, at this stage the issue of irreversibility of the peace process is important for which the 1994 and 1995 agreements should be strictly maintained, as well as the agreements reached during the negotiations should be implemente, which mainly relate to the installation of investment mechanisms of incidents, expanding the Office of the personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and increasing his monitoring capacities. The implementation of these actions will create a constructive environment to continue the negotiations.

-The issue of bringing Artsakh to the negotiation table has repeatedly voiced. Will Artsakhs involvement solve any issue in case when one of the main factors hindering the progress of negotiations is that Azerbaijan refuses to implement the agreements reached previously aimed at forming trust between the sides, installing investigative mechanisms in the line of contact?

-Artsakhs return to the negotiation table derives from the logic of the conflict settlement. Being as one of the main sides of the conflict recognized by the OSCE documents Artsakh should be directly involved in the negotiation process. I want to remind that the main achievements in the settlement process were recorded during the period when Artsakh was directly involved in the negotiations. In particular, the 1994 trilateral ceasefire agreement remains the only tangible achievement of the peaceful settlement process of the Karabakh conflict.

Azerbaijans refusal from the negotiations involving Artsakh is one of the components of Bakus policy directed for the failure of the settlement process. The restoration of trilateral negotiations will demonstrate the political will and honest interest of the Azerbaijani leadership aimed at reaching the final settlement of the conflict. The return of the Artsakh delegation to the negotiation table will not only restore the disrupted format of the dialogue, but also will increase the effectiveness of the peace process. Artsakhs full participation in all rounds of negotiations is important for the sides in terms of sharing the responsibility for the results of the peace process. The Artsakh authorities continue acting in support of the full participation in the process and are ready to de-jure take their share of responsibility for regional peace and the regions fate in general.

-I would like you to comment on the meeting of Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs which was held in Ankara on November 29. The Turkish FM posted on Twitter expressing support to the Minsk process. Turkey regularly takes steps to intervene in the negotiation process. How would you comment on this? To what extent is it realistic?

-The mediation in the negotiation is possible, if the potential mediator has an impartial and neutral attitude towards all sides of the conflict, and the sides agree to accept its mediation services. Thats why Ankaras attempts to act as a mediator are absolutely without any prospect. Its known that Turkey has adopted a biased stance and completely supports one of the conflicting sides, Azerbaijan. Turkey is perhaps the only country which in 2016 publicly supported Azerbaijans April aggression against Artsakh, in case when the entire world and famous international structures supported ceasing the military operations as soon as possible. The only agreed format having an international mandate to conduct a mediation activity in the conflict settlement remains the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, in the face of Russia, US and France.

-In Artsakh during the years of independence a generation grew up that exercised its right to self-determination and seeks to live in an independent country. In this regard how do you see the conflict settlement, which principles should be a priority and which fundamental rights should be laid in the basis of the conflict settlement?

-We think that the lasting settlement of the conflict is possible if the sides and international mediators accept the results of the Artsakh peoples exercise of the right to self-determination as a base for the settlement. 26 years ago, on December 10, the independence referendum was held in Artsakh during which the Artsakh people determined their development path. The choice of living in an independent state was twice affirmed during the 2006 and 2016 referendums. The independence of Artsakh is an irreversible reality and an exceptional value which is not subject to bargaining.

-During one of the discussions on EU-Artsakh cooperation in Brussels you announced that the EU-Artsakh cooperation will play a stabilizing role and will be an important contribution to establishing a lasting peace in South Caucasus. What steps are being taken to promote this cooperation?

-The cooperation supposes steps towards each other. We have repeatedly expressed our readiness to cooperate with the EU. During the Presidential delegations visit to Brussels a number of fields were outlined where the Artsakh-EU cooperation can be maximally depoliticized. Such spheres are development of civil society institutions and independent journalism, assistance to improving judiciary, healthcare and education. Another prospective field of cooperation can be the assistance to improving the local self-governance. In fact, the EU cooperation with Artsakh will contribute to strengthening peace and stability in our region. It will also help overcoming the feeling that political calculations and considerations have started to dominate the idea of promoting democratic values and human rights.



Interview by Syuzi Muradyan


By PTI: (Eds: Updating with additional inputs)

Kolkata, Dec 15 (PTI) Bangladesh wants Myanmar to take back Rohingya refugees and it expects India to move a resolution in the United Nations for the same, Bangladesh minister Mosharraf Hossain said here today.

It is not sustainable for a poor country like Bangladesh to carry on feeding the huge number of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar for a very long time, he said.

advertisement

"We would like India to move a resolution in the United Nations to call on Myanmar to take back the Rohingya from Bangladesh as we cannot keep them lifelong with our limited resources," the Bangladesh minister for housing and public works said.

Hossain said it was due to humanitarian reasons that Bangladesh decided to give shelter to the Rohingya.

"Had we pushed them back, they would have been killed," he said.

The Bangladesh minister likened the situation in his country with the one India faced in 1971, when lakhs of people crossed over to India to escape the Pakistan Armys brutality.

"Had India pushed us back then, we would have been killed," Hossain said.

Thousands of people mainly Bengali speaking were massacred by the Pakistan Army during the liberation movement in 1971.

An estimated 6,20,000 Rohingya refugees have entered Bangladesh following an army crackdown on rebels in Myanmar.

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the first month of the crackdown that started in August in Myanmars northern Rakhine state, according to Doctors Without Borders.

An international humanitarian NGO, Doctors Without Borders, is known for its work in war-torn regions and developing countries affected by endemic diseases.

Asked about terrorist outfits using the Bangladeshi soil, the minister said: "We have a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism."

Bangladesh acts very strongly against any terrorism- related actvities on its soil, he said.

The minister is leading a 72-member delegation from his country to celebrate Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war and the subsequent liberation of Bangladesh on December 16.

A Mukti Joddha (freedom fighter), Hossain actively participated in the Liberation War for his country and had blown up a crucial bridge during the 1971 conflict, hitting the supply lines of the Pakistan Army in the eastern theatre, a defence official said. PTI AMR RMS RG ABH

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The initiative to create free economic zone in Meghri region is an important step for Armenia, expert on Iranian studies Vardan Voskanyan told Armenpress.

According to him, the quick and qualified launch of the Meghri FEZ will contribute to expanding the bilateral economic relations, as well as the trade turnover volume between Armenia and Iran. It can become a serious platform in the context of Iran-EAEU relations, and taking into account the fact that Armenia recently signed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the European Union, also in the context of Iran-EU relations. Thus, this program is really important for us especially from economic perspective. But this doesnt mean that the program has no political component since by such measures Armenia tries to somehow overcome the blockade which has been imposed on us by hostile countries like Turkey and Azerbaijan. And considering these issues we should not forget about the geopolitical component, Vardan Voskanyan said.

According to the expert on Iranian studies, everything depends on the works conducted by Armenia and Iran to fully utilize the opportunities of the free economic zone. The program can have a good future, of course, if intensive works continue within its framework, he said.

The opening of the Meghri FEZ is expected to be held on December 15.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by the Vice President of the National Assembly of Armenia Eduard Sharmazanov comprised of MPs Samvel Farmanyan and Suren Manukyan, met with the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia Andrejs Pildegovics. The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Armenia to Latvia Tigran Mkrtchyan also attended the meeting.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the parliament of Armenia, in the course of the meeting issues regarding the development of the Armenian-Latvian parliamentary relations and the continuous cooperation of Armenia with the European Union were discussed.

The Vice President of the Armenian parliament touched upon the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement signed in Brussels on November 24, underlining that it opens a new page in the history of the Armenia-EU relations. In his word, Armenia has always stated that the close cooperation with the EU is one of the prior directions of the country.

During the meeting the sides also discussed issues relating to the regional security. Mr Sharmazanov considered inadmissible the closing of the border with Armenia by Turkey, underlining that that state had made a step backward after the Zurich protocols and put preconditions in the settlement process of the relations which is also inadmissible.

With regards to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh problem, Eduard Sharmazanov noted that in this issue the viewpoint of Armenia is consonance with the EU official position. As the Minsk Group, the European Union, so the Republic of Armenia is for the settlement of the problem exclusively through peaceful negotiations, on the basis of the three well-known principles, meanwhile Azerbaijan, distorting the reality, makes efforts to distinguish the territorial integrity. It is dubious and non-understandable that some EU member countries, including Latvia has signed a declaration on strategic cooperation, where the territorial integrity is distinguished from the three well-known principles. This contradicts both the Minsk Group and the EU official position which once again confirmed the EU on November 24, Sharmazanov said.

Other issues of bilateral interest were also discussed.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan signed several bills into law on December 15.

The laws, which were adopted by the Parliament, include ratification of the protocol between Armenia and the EU on readmission and ratification of the agreement on the Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Presidents Office said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The Parliamentary Supervision for Armed Forces international seminar has kicked off in the Armenian Parliament.

The seminar is organized by the defense and security affairs committee of the Parliament, and is held as part of the NATO Week in Armenia.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) is in Lebanon with a business mission, where around 40 businessmen, government officials and representatives of business support organizations have gathered around the common platform. The Armenian delegation was welcomed by the Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade Raed Khoury, and the Minister of Tourism Avedis Guidanian. Armenian Ambassador to Lebanon Samvel Mkrtchyan greatly contributed to the organization of the business mission, the DFA told Armenpress.

On the first day of the business mission, the DFA gathered 13 Armenian representatives of IT, textile, food industry, banking, insurance, cosmetic products, silkworks, and 35 representatives of Lebanon's major trading networks and distributing companies, covering the Middle East and a number of African markets.

The DFA CEO Armen Avak Avakian made a presentation on "Select Armenia" representing the advantages of doing business in our country. Armenia is the only country in the world that has privileged trade conditions with the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union at the same time. This makes launching business in Armenia more profitable and promising. In addition, we have a number of success stories in Lebanese business, particularly in jewelry and tourism. With our business mission, we aim to present local entrepreneurs the benefits of doing business in Armenia. I think for our economy, we need to maximize all the opportunities of this target market, especially considering the strong Armenian diaspora in Lebanon, Armen Avak Avakian said.

During the business mission, B2B meetings and visits to Lebanese companies, business support structures are planned.The memorandums of cooperation with Lebanese business support organizations were signed.

Meetings with representatives of Lebanese companies and business support organizations were organized in partnership with Management Mix consulting firm.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. There is no change in Armenias position regarding the Armenian-Turkish relations, Tigran Balayan  Armenian foreign ministry spokesman, told ARMENPRESS commenting on the Turkish foreign ministrys statement on the Armenian-Turkish protocols.

Armenias stance on the Armenian-Turkish relations has been repeatedly expressed, and the last time it was expressed two days ago in Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandians speech in Athens. It didnt undergo any change, the MFA spokesperson said.

Speaking about the Armenian-Turkish relations in the Greek foreign ministry, Armenian FM Nalbandian reminded that it was the initiative of the President of Armenia to start the normalization process with Turkey that resulted in the conclusion of the Zurich protocols in October 2009. However, the minister said up to now, those documents have not been ratified, since Turkey came up with groundless preconditions that run counter to the letter and spirit of the Protocols. These documents cannot be held hostage forever and that is why the President of Armenia declared in September from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly that Armenia will declare the Protocols null and void since they continuously lacked any positive progress towards their implementation and we will enter the spring of 2018 without those Protocols, Nalbandian said.

The Turkish foreign ministry commented on Nalbandians statement, accusing the Armenian side of not ratifying the protocols.

Despite Armenias negative stance Turkey is committed to the main provisions of the protocols. The protocols remain in the agenda of the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish parliament, the existence of favorable political environment and peace in South Caucasus are important for ratifying them, the Turkish foreign ministry said, once again groundlessly linking the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations with the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenia will launch the dialogue with the European Union over visa liberalization in the first half of 2018, President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview to ARMENIA TV.

I think in the first half of the next year or before that, although it is a thankless work to make a statement on any timetable, but I think we will launch the dialogue during that period. Here as well there are a lot of issues, and it is a long process. If we work hard, I think, we will reach the final goal in 2-3 years, the President said.

President Serzh Sargsyan said the new agreement is a separate process, and the visa liberalization is another. According to him, they, of course, most likely are linked with each other, but signing a new agreement doesnt mean that the visa liberalization process also has launched. Yes, there was an opinion during the summit that its necessary to launch the dialogue on this matter, the President added.

He also talked about the GSP+ regime with the EU, as well as the opportunities of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement signed with the Union and the observation that few use the GSP+ regime.

Firstly, I wouldnt say that few are using the regime. 40% of our exports is being carried out by this system. Yes, the product types are a lot, if I am not mistaken, we have privileged terms in the EU for 6200 types of products, this means that they undergo customs clearance at 0 or a very low rate. Of course, the agreement creates more favorable conditions, but the important is the production of goods. We should be able to produce many and high-quality competitive goods, and in this case there will be no obstacle for exporters. Today also there is no obstacle, who exports competitive, quality products, he sells that products in the EU market and the EAEU market, as well as in other markets. Therefore, this system is very useful for us, it is this system that enables us to have such volume, 1/3 of trade turnover in the EU demand market, the President stated.

On November 24 Armenia and the European Union signed the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in Brussels.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Trade turnover volumes between Armenia and Iran grew in the 10 months of the current year.

The national statistical service of Armenia reported that the turnover amounted 211,4 million dollars  against 2016s 199,4 million dollars.

In terms of exports and imports, 66,9 million dollars worth products have been exported to Iran from Armenia in the reporting period, which is a 2,3% growth compared to last year.

Products made in third countries worth 138,9 million dollars were imported from Iran to Armenia, while imports of Iranian made products comprised 144,4 million dollars. Both indicators have grown by 12,2% and 7,8% respectively.

The first quarter data of 2017 shows that over 90% of the amount volume in exports is energy. In addition, meat, paper, steal, mechanic equipment, medical equipment, coffee and mineral water is exported to Iran from Armenia.

Natural gas, bitumen, oil, petroleum products, household products, fertilizers, glass, fruits and vegetables are imported from Iran.

The number of Iranian tourists also grew by 27%. 15,7% of overall tourists who visit Armenia were Iranians.

In terms of bilateral economic relations, the talks, which were initiated by Armenia with the EEU and the creation of a FEZ with Iran are also important.

The Meghri FEZ will be opened on December 15.

Cooperation is expected with the Iranian Aras FEZ.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. 2018 will be full of large scale events in Armenia.

In an interview to ARMENIA TV, President Serzh Sargsyan mentioned that the Francophonie Summit will take place October 11-12, Yerevans 2800th anniversary will be marked almost in the same period, and the 100th anniversary of the first Republic in May.

These are major events and numerous guests will participate. Particularly the La Francophonie Summit is the largest event ever held in Armenia in terms of participation of foreign delegations and especially heads of state. We dont have such experience. This requires hard work, accurate calculations and great discipline of performance. We will do everything in order to succeed honorably, it is both a chance and a challenge. It is a challenge because we must be able to truly hold it on the highest level, and it is a chance because if we succeed holding such big forum once, the subsequent ones will follow shortly, he said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. One of Armenias key achievements of this year is the signing of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), Giro Manoyan - Director of the International Secretariat of the ARF Bureau, told reporters on December 15.

Armenia signed this agreement as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). This is unique since an EAEU member state signed such agreement with the European Union. Both the EU and EAEU, as well as Iran have great expectations from the signing of the Armenia-EU agreement, he said.

According to Giro Manoyan, Armenia never had a goal to be in one camp against another camp.

Having good relations with all Armenia has tried to act a bridge. I think this agreement will provide that opportunity, Manoyan said.
After winning the luxury budget task as a team, Shilpa, Arshi, Vikas and Luv just can't seem to reach a consensus on the contenders.

By India Today Web Desk: Temperatures in the Bigg Boss 11 house have soared after the CP Plus task where the housemates got to see what others have been talking about them behind their back through a bunch of videos. Hina Khan is mighty upset after seeing the footage of Shilpa mocking her emotional meltdown after Rocky's visit. She will express her anguish tonight in front of the housemates saying she has lost all respect for Shilpa. Arshi on the other hand will question Hina for making indecent comments about her clothes in front of four people.

There is chaos in the #BB11 house after the @cpplusglobal task! Catch all the action tonight at 10:30 PM. #BBSneakPeek pic.twitter.com/R3edVBELMn- COLORS (@ColorsTV) December 15, 2017

advertisement

Vikas will confront Priyank over bitching about him behind his back. The latter will say that he was just taking out his frustration. Akash, Priyank and Hiten have been sent to kaalkothari for being the worst performers in the previous task and it's time for the new captain to take over the responsibilities of the house. Bigg Boss will ask the winning team to elect, with mutual consent, two contenders for captaincy. However Shilpa, Arshi, Vikas and Luv will face a difficult time zeroing in on the contenders

Captaincy bani Shilpa Shinde aur Arshi Khan ke beech jhagde ka kaaran! Kaun banega davedaar? Jaan ne ke liye dekhiye #BB11 aaj raat 10:30 PM. #BBSneakPeek pic.twitter.com/JdumSqBBnL- COLORS (@ColorsTV) December 15, 2017

While the queen of controversy, Arshi Khan will insist on retaining her captaincy as she worked hard in the task and felt she truly deserved the post this time. Shilpa on the other hand is determined to fight for captaincy, as she has till date sacrificed the position for the inmates in the house. Shilpa and Arshi will fight bitterly over this and do not seem to be reaching a conclusion. Vikas on the other hand is willing to sacrifice and suggests Arshi and Shilpa's names. Luv does not think Arshi is capable enough to retain her captaincy. He either wants himself or Shilpa to be the contenders.

All of them rule out Puneesh, the moderator as a contender.

Who will be the next captain among the five?

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The Meghri Free Economic Zone launched its activity on December 15 at the presence of Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, reports Armenpress.

The opening ceremony was attended by minister of economic development and investments Suren Karayan, Syunik governor Vahe Hakobyan, Irans Ambassador to Armenia Seyed Kazem Sadjadi, as well as a group of businessmen.

Minister Suren Karayan said the Economic Zone is expected to be constructed at two stages. At the first stage the minimum necessary infrastructures and preconditions have been created for launching the works of the FEZ and organizing the activity of companies that want to operate here, the minister said.

According to him, at the second stage it is planned to expand the necessary infrastructures and the space by additional 70 hectares creating preconditions to run a profitable business. It is planned to attract 50-70 operating companies in the upcoming years which will make nearly 100-130 million USD investments, will create 1500 new jobs and will export goods and services worth 250 million USD, the minister said.

He said there are already companies which want to conduct an activity in the Meghri Free Economic Zone, and agreements will be signed with 5 of them in the upcoming days. The minister also highlighted the fact that the newly-opened Meghri FEZ and Irans Aras free trade zone have already signed a memorandum of cooperation which will contribute to developing the bilateral economic cooperation and increasing the trade turnover volumes.

Suren Karayan informed that European, Russian and Iranian companies are also interested in conducting an activity in the Meghri FEZ.

The companies operating in the Meghri FEZ will be exempt from profit tax, value added tax, excise tax and customs fees, paying only the income tax.

The fields of agriculture, processing industry, trade, transportation and storage economy, tourism will be presented in the FEZ.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Andrey Babko, Russias Commercial Representative to Armenia, reassured that Russian companies are greatly interested in the Meghri Free Economic Zone.

We will soon carry out wide exchange of information and will attempt to involve Russian companies who are interested in the Iranian market. We only need specific programs and concrete agreements to advance the process, he said.

Babko says the Iranian market is rather wide, therefore interesting projects can be implemented for being involved there. Babko also said the Meghri FEZ is promising for strengthening EEU and Iran economic ties.

The Meghri FEZ can have important role in terms of deepening relations between the EEU and Iran, especially in case of the signing of the free trade agreement, Babko said.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Trade turnover between Armenia and China in January-October of 2017 grew by 27%, deputy FM Robert Harutyunyan said during a discussion in the foreign ministry on the possibilities of expanding the Armenian-Chinese economic cooperation.

Growth has been recorded both in terms of exports and imports. Particularly, exports volumes grew by 18,8% - comprising 100 million dollars. We must definitely think about diversifying exports, because we mostly export mining raw materials, copper, gold, gemstones and metals, while we import various products  from household items to furniture and others, he said, adding that there is no obstacle for exporting brandy and wine.

He said that Armenia will re-launch exporting honey, which was suspended due to certain restrictions.

We were exporting in 2015, although on small volumes  nearly 90 thousand dollars. And after working with relevant Chinese structures an agreement was initialed, he said. Nevertheless, investments from China in 2017 was rather small, nearly 1 million dollars.

Harutyunyan also said that negotiations are underway on having direct flights with China.

This certainly requires work, because it is impossible to organize in one day, but in addition the economic profitability of the issue must be confirmed, he said, adding that he is hopeful that flights will be carried out more easily between Armenia and China in 2018.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Eduard Sharmazanov, comprised of MPs Samvel Farmanyan and Suren Manukyan met with the Deputy Speaker of the Saeima of Latvia Inese Libina-Egnere.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the parliament of Armenia, during the meeting the sides highlighted the further development and deepening of the Armenian-Latvian friendly relations and the activation of the mutual visits.

The Deputy Speaker of the Armenian parliament touched upon the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the denial policy of Turkey, noting that after 100 years the authorities of Turkey continue to pursue the deconstructive and denial policy, keeps under blockade Armenia which is inadmissible. Eduard Sharmazanov expressed hope that Latvia bearing democratic values and being an EU member would recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide.

Talking about the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, Sharmazanov expressed conviction that Armenia could be a reliable bridge between the EEU and EU member countries. He expressed hope that the parliament of Latvia would ratify the document as quick as possible.

Talking about the Nagorno Karabakh problem settlement process, Eduard Sharmazanov touched upon the bellicose rhetoric and false campaign of Azerbaijan. There are countries which fall into the trap of Azerbaijan's false campaign, and among is also Latvia. Some high ranking officials of Latvia make statements which do not emanate from the peaceful settlement of the problem. I call on you not to yield to Azerbaijani false anti-campaign and not to fall into their trap and not make any statements in Artsakh problem which contradict the official positions of the Minsk Group and the EU, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia noted.

The Deputy Speaker of the Saeima of Latvia Inese Libina-Egnere noted that in the Artsakh issue they support the Minsk Group Co-Chairs efforts and the principles.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ambassador to Georgia Ruben Sadoyan on December 15 met with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, the Armenian foreign ministry told Armenpress.

The Georgian PM congratulated the Ambassador on his appointment, wished him a productive work, stating that the Ambassador during his tenure will always feel the assistance of the Georgian authorities.

Talking about the bilateral relations PM Kvirikashvili highlighted the importance of bilateral traditional friendly relations, adding that there are great prospects for mutual cooperation between the two countries. In this context the Georgian PM expressed satisfaction over the progress recorded in the recent period.

The PM also attached importance to the warm relations between the leaders of the two countries which greatly contributes to deepening the mutually beneficial cooperation.

In his turn the Armenian Ambassador thanked for the warm reception and said he plans to make great efforts to further deepen the friendly relations of the two countries.

The sides agreed that the upcoming bilateral high-level visits will further strengthen the relations of the two countries.

At the end of the meeting the Armenian Ambassador thanked the Georgian authorities for the attitude towards the Armenian community.


YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian delivered speech at the session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the ministry told Armenpress.

Armenpress presents the full text of his speech:

Mr. Chairman,

Secretary General,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to thank the Ukrainian Chairmanship for hosting the Ministerial Council Meeting.

Being committed to the strategic objectives of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Armenia reiterates its support to the economic-oriented agenda of the Organization aimed at the enhancement of the mutual regional cooperation, which derives from the statutory objectives, and the very essence of the BSEC. It goes without saying that strengthening the effectiveness of BSEC depends on the commitment of its Member States to act in this spirit.

The same approaches should be in the core of the reform processes of the BSEC, which does not mean rewriting the essence of the Organization. It is our conviction that at this stage BSEC needs practical and realistic measures towards carrying out its main mission. We believe that the Organization is able to enhance its effectiveness through strict fulfillment of resolutions and decisions approved by the Council of Ministers. Therefore, during the Chairmanship we will concentrate on the implementation of the commitments and will focus on the substance of our activities.

Persistent attempts by some Member States to politicize the activities of the BSEC not only affect the multilateral economic cooperation in the region but also the very foundations of the Organisation, its basic objectives and question the credibility of the BSEC as an effective regional economic Organization.

Mr. Chairman,

Armenia attaches special importance to its chairmanship of the Organisation and within the next six months in the capacity of the Chairman-in-Office will lead the Organization with a focus on enhancement of the economic cooperation in the BSEC region, mainstreaming the project-targeted agenda through the existing structures.

Armenia has a considerable potential in the field of Information Technologies and being a hub for software development, as the Chairman-in-Office and as the coordinator of the BSEC ICT Working Group, will focus its efforts on result-oriented collaboration in the fields of Information and Communication Technologies, Science, Technology and Innovations.

Few days ago Armenia also assumed the chairmanship of the Ministerial Conference of the International Organisation of La Francophonie, which unites 84 countries, including member states of the BSEC and will have the honor of hosting its Summit next October in Yerevan. We intend to organize in its framework a business forum of the Francophone area and would like to draw the attention of the business circles of BSEC to this event. The Francophonie Numerique will be one of the main topics of the upcoming Summit in Yerevan.

I would like also to mention that Armenia will host in 2019 the World Congress on Information Technologies.

On November 24th Armenia signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the European Union. Being an active member of the Eurasian Economic Union, Armenia develops its relations also with other integration formats. We hope that such pragmatic and result oriented dialogue will be the driving force of the economic cooperation that will make full use of the possibilities provided by the integration frameworks, including in the BSEC region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are convinced that the productive interaction with the BSEC-related bodies, observers and sectoral dialogue partners is very important.

In this regard I would like to stress that some unreasonable attempts within the BSEC Parliamentary Assembly to engage in activities separate from the Organisation under the cover of reforms are in contradiction to the Organizations charter, PABSEC objectives and rules of procedure and affect the integrity of the organization. The Parliamentary Assembly has to support the core goals of the Organisation rather than to engage in parallel endeavours independently from the BSEC activities.

Mr. Chairman,

I already had an opportunity to highlight that those who misuse this platform to advance their narrow political objectives at the expense of the economic cooperation not just contradict the goals and essence of the Organization but impede inclusive regional economic partnership within the BSEC. This fully applies to Azerbaijan which again abused this Ministerial to voice its groundless allegations in a sheer disrespect to its objectives that have nothing to do with the conflict resolution. We could hardly anticipate any achievements in our cooperation within the BSEC framework if it continues to be exploited for propaganda purposes.

On December 7th at the OSCE Ministerial Council I made a detailed speech on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. I outlined reasons, which vividly demonstrate that the uncompromising and maximalist stance of Azerbaijan, its refusal to accept the proposals of the mediator countries, the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group, hinders the resolution of the conflict and threatens the security, stability and the inclusive economic cooperation of the region.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are convinced that an inclusive regional cooperation remain the main prerequisite for the development of the regional cooperation and economic connectivity.

Armenia will rely during its upcoming Chairmanship on the joint efforts aimed at achieving the results that we all aspire for. I can assure you that Armenia is fully committed to that decent goal.

Thank you.
YEREVAN, 15 DECEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 15 December, USD exchange rate down by 0.38 drams to 482.36 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 1.66 drams to 568.99 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.05 drams to 8.19 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 1.57 drams to 647.76 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price up by 114.31 drams to 19400.8 drams. Silver price up by 4.54 drams to 248.29 drams. Platinum price up by 20.31 drams to 13631.74 drams.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ara Babloyan received on December 15 the Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece Terence Nicholas Quick.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the National Assembly of Armenia, greeting the guest, Ara Babloyan spoke about the centuries-old friendship between the Armenian and Greek people and the common historical past.

The President of the parliament of Armenia expressed gratitude to the Greek people for giving shelter to the Armenian Genocide survivors, and later adopting the resolution criminalizing the Armenian Genocide denial.

The President of the National Assembly of Armenia referred to the strengthening of the existing relations between Armenia and Greece and expansion of cooperation spheres.

Ara Babloyan highlighted the role of parliamentary diplomacy in deepening the relations, as well as referred to the necessity to deepen cooperation of the parliamentary delegations of the two countries in international organizations.

The President of the parliament touched upon the incidents that occurred during the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Parliamentary Assembly and expressed concern over the position towards the Armenian delegation.

Referring to the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the EU Ara Babloyan noted that it will foster the reform process in Armenia in the spheres of strengthening democratic institutions in Armenia, human rights and rule of law.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece Terence Nicholas Quick thanked for the reception and referred to the great role of the Greek- Armenian community in the social-political life of Greece.

Referring to the existing conflicts in the world, the Greek Deputy FM reaffirmed the position of his country to solve them through peaceful means.

Terence Nicholas Quick also spoke about parliamentary diplomacy, stressing the importance of deepening inter-parliamentary cooperation and the importance of mutual support on international platforms. He suggested discussing the opportunity of organizing a meeting of the heads of parliaments of Armenia, Greece and Cyprus.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan held a meeting on December 15 with the Republic of Armenia Premier Karen Karapetyan and the governmental delegation headed by him that has arrived in Artsakh on a working visit.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of Artsakh Presidents Office, a broad spectrum of issues relating to the economic cooperation between the two Armenian states was on the discussion agenda.

President Sahakyan underlined that high-level economic cooperation with Armenia was one of the most important pillars of the Artsakh Republic development and progress, adding that no effort would be spared for further deepening and enhancing bilateral ties on a consistent basis.

State minister Arayik Haroutyunyan and other officials took part in the meeting.
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Starting from the next year steps will be taken to implement the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement signed between Armenia and the EU in November, 2017, ARMENPRESS reports Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of Armenia Garegin Melkonyan said during the second summit of the European Business Association. Following the entry into force of the Armenia-EU agreement large-scale works must be done, and here the European Business Association can help Armenia, the Deputy Minister said. He added that Armenia attaches great importance to the application of the huge knowledge and experience of the EU in Armenia.

Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Switalski noted that during the two years of its operation the European Business Association has managed to fulfill a great job. Particularly, it has presented a range of proposals aimed at improving Armenias business environment. Business environment is of key importance for Armenia and thats why it is important for us to support particularly the development of small business in Armenia. Armenia needs to create new jobs, ensure economic growth and the young Armenians must see that there is future, opportunities and potential and that they can achieve their goals here. And we will continue our support to Armenia, Piotr Switalski said.

According to Business Development Manager at the European Business Association Garegin Galustov, they cooperate with over 160 European and local companies. We consistently study the business environment in Armenia, document the obstacles. Soon we will publish the research that shows the existing problems in the business environment in Armenia, Galustov said. Referring to the problems raised by businessmen in the sidelines of the research of the previous year, the representative of the European Business Association noted that they include 5 main spheres - tax, customs, judicial, public procurement and fair competition. I can say that due to our cooperation with customs bodies, we have recorded a positive move in the sphere, he said. Next year the association plans to inform the business circles about the opportunities stemming from the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement.

The European Business Association was established in 2015 with the support of the EU Delegation to Armenia.
By India Today Web Desk: In last night's episode, Arshi Khan told Hina that Shilpa uses tap water for cooking, and the Miss Always Right decided to dole out her gyaan to Shilpa. Hina walked up to Shilpa and firmly told her to only use RO water for cooking. The latter got upset about the knit picking and asked Hina to keep the filtered water ready in the morning for her to cook food.

advertisement

But Hina being Hina passed on the responsibility to Shilpa saying it was the duty of the cook to ensure the food is hygienic and sternly told her to cook food using only filtered water.

Shilpa lost her cool at this point and announced it was her last day in the kitchen and she won't enter the kitchen next day onwards.

Twitterati has come out in support of Maa Shilpa and that includes former Bigg Boss contestant Suyyash Rai.

Suyyash blasted Hina for her lack of gratitude for Shilpa and said that she could have said that politely.

"Everytime I try not to think anything negative about Hina she does something. Shilpa ji kitchen chodd kyu nai deti...Jab banaana padega khaana tab pata chalega. How can one be sooo thankless towards the person who has been cooking for you everyday...really bad," wrote Suyyash.

"Hina easilyyyyyyy easilyyyyyy could have done this in a nicer way and said the same thing in a polite manner if not sweetly. What she is saying is not wrong...the way she is saying is bad," he added.

TV actress Sneha Wagh has also supported Shilpa Shinde.

Meanwhile, this meme where the hygiene conscious Hina is seen resting in the bed with her shoes on is going viral.

Well!

--- ENDS ---
CYBERSPACEWithin minutes of a party-line Federal Communications Commission vote to repeal rules protecting net neutrality, at least three states announced measures to keep the rulesset up to guarantee a level playing field for internet consumers, users and businessesin place. New York, California and Washington quickly outlined a mixture of legal actions and legislative moves to keep net neutrality in place, which more than a dozen states expected to follow.

Whether the states can succeed in stopping the Donald Trump-era elimination of the Barack Obama-era net neutrality requirements is of special interest to adult content providers and consumers, because porn appears likely to be among the hardest hit of all industries affected by the rollback.

Why? Because porn comprises about one third of all internet traffic, and there are an estimated 800 million pages of porn on the World Wide Web, meaning that the giant corporations that now control internet access for most Americans will envision almost unimaginable profits to be reaped from slapping users with extra fees to access their favorite adult content.

Net neutrality re fers to the practice of internet service providers treating all online services equally. In other words, massive sites such as Facebook and Google have the same access to broadband pipes as any small businessor adult content provider. Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the FCC put rules in place to enforce net neutrality in 2015.

But just two years later and with a new Republican majority on the five-member FCC board, those rules are now lifted with the FCCs 3-2 vote on Thursday. Without those rules, giant corporate ISPs such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon are free to block or slow down connections to adult sitesor any sites. They could also increase their profits by selling separate packages for specific internet services.

For example, rather than flat monthly rate to access the full internet including porn and everything else, ISPs could now charge an additional monthly fee for a package of adult sites, or for a social media package that would include Facebook and Twitteror any price they want for access to anything they ISPs choose.

But porn sites appear among the most likely to be targeted for additional fees by companies hungry to inflate their profits, simply because the demand for adult content is extremely high.

Porn, according to various studies, accounts for anywhere from 30 percent to 37 percent of all data on the internet, making it a potential goldmine for ISPs who decide to package access to adult sites at premium prices.

The free porn mega-site Pornhub, alone, is estimated to pull in 75 million visitors each day. Even if ISPs charged users an extra $1 per day, or $30 per month, to access Pornhub, the pool of cash to be divided among the small number of major ISPs would add up to more than $25 billion each year.

Another free porn streaming mega-site, YouPornowned by MindGeek, also the parent company of Pornhubwas estimated in 2012 to transmit 28 million gigabytes of data per month.

Though the net neutrality rules were repealed on Thursday, there is no set date for when internet users may see the effects of the rollback, and find themselves faced with tightly restricted online access. With the attorneys general of both New York and Washington announcing plans to sue the FCC, courts could grant injunctions against lifting the rules until the cases are decided.

California State Senator Scott Wiener, however, says that his state will battle the rollback by passing its own, state-level net neutrality rules.

"California can regulate business practices to require net neutrality, condition state contracts on adhering to net neutrality, and require net neutrality as part of cable franchise agreements, as a condition to using the public right-of-way for internet infrastructure, and in broadband packages," Wiener said on Thursday.

But any new state laws requiring net neutrality are sure to spark new legal battles, because the measures passed by the FCC board on Thursday prohibit states from putting their own net neutrality regulations in place, and in a statement accompanying Thursdays vote, Republican FCC Commission member Michael O'Rielly said that the FCC will take an aggressive approach to crushing state-level attempts to keep net neutrality rules in place.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif.Fist-It, a new collection of lubricants, is now available from Shots America.

Produced in-house by Shots subsidiary PharmQuests, the collection features five formulas: water-based, extra-thick, silicone, strawberry flavor and submerge. The submerge formula can be used under water without the lube washing off.

The First-It lubes are solely available through Shots Europe.

Almost all formulas are available in a 500ml or 1000ml packaging and the FistIt are designed to be wide enough to put a fist in, for easy access and use.

Based on the success of the lubes, a Fist-It toy line was created. An assortment of nine high-quality products, all fisting-related, are now available. Ranging from an anal douche to rubber fists, silicone plugs, latex fisting shorts and fisting gloves, there is something available for any fisting-aficionado.

For extra sensitivity and pleasure, fisting gloves with texture are on sale, and, if you want to keep things clean, an inflatable play-sheet is available with included in the package a bottle of highly concentrated fisting-lube for 5 liters of slippery pleasure.

The concept, marketing, packaging and POS are rough and ready, making Fist-It an eye-catcher in every shop because of its dark and dangerous appearance.

Fist-It toys are in stock and available since August 2017 and the production has been raised several already to fulfill the demand.

All toys can be ordered through Shots Europe (shots.nl) and Shots America (shotsamerica.com), or through your favorite distributor.
I didnt know much about vampires until my sister became one, says Shyla Jennings as a blind girl from Boston fending off the undead in sunny California. Thats a great kickoff to this five-part mini-series from writer-director Stills By Alan and producer Bree Mills. Its inventive, entertaining and very well made.

In Part 1, we meet stepsisters Shyla and Abigail Mac. Abigail goes to visit Willow (Melissa Moore), who tells her, My family doesnt exactly sleep at night. Her sistersCarter Cruise and Georgia Joneswant Abby to stay. Melissa explains that they arent really a family. Jelena Jensen (stunning, with purple hair and lips) is the mother in command.

Carter, Georgia and Abigail get it on, with Jelena and Melissa soon joining in. In no time they form a pussy-eating chain. Great group sex action. And, sorry Dracula fans, but there are no fangs or neck-biting on view. These sexy ghouls blow blue smoke into each others mouthssomething about their vampiric essence. Thats the way Abigail is transformed.

In Part 2: Sisters, Shyla is attacked by Abby after shes been vampirized but they have a tender sex scene.

Abby is contacted by vampire hunter Serena Blair, who warns the sisters that the vampires are on the way to get them. She takes them to her house, which is festooned with garlic and crucifixes. After much back and forth they decide to fuck. Very tasty multi-orgasmic three-way action with Serena and the stepsisters.

Part 4, The Showdown, introduces the vampire Angelica, played to perfection by Angela White. She is Mothers favorite pet and hitwoman. Serena launches her invasion of the vampire lair by sending in Abigail as the first shock troop. Angela easily dominates hershes mean and hot and hyper-aggressive. Mother Jelena joins in the ravaging of their newest vampire.

Meanwhile Serena manages to set the house on fire with a cigarette lighter. Away from the blaze, Shyla and Abigail are pursued by the vengeful Mother Jelena. It would hardly be a spoiler to reveal that sex does ensue and that all the good gals eventually emerge triumphant.
Legislative oversight committee grills Cohen on possible legal actions against state's largest behavioral services provider

Angry lawmakers Tuesday advocated civil and possibly criminal action against former executives of Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions, the state's largest behavioral health network. The state wants to recoup $3.8 million in severance pay to the ousted managers.Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen told the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services that lawyers are reviewing agency emails and other material, deciding how to act against Cardinal.Cardinal is one of seven geographically located Local Management Entities/Managed Care Organizations providing services to clients with mental health and substance abuse issues, and intellectual and developmental disabilities.Cohen disbanded the previous Cardinal board of directors and management team Nov. 27, citing theirShe said Cardinal repeatedly failed to comply with DHHS warning and demand letters.said state Sen. Tamara Barringer, R-Wake. She pressed Cohen if DHHS is investigating whether executives and board members breached fiduciary obligations, "the highest duty of loyalty" to the people served.Cohen said, but DHHS lawyers should answer lawmakers' legal questions. She said DHHS needs to look back at what happened but also must look forward to implementing a corrective action plan and implement a culture change at Cardinal.Barringer said.She said shareholders of a for-profit organization can ask a court to look into whether board members and other organization officials breached fiduciary obligations.She asked if Cardinal could face similar scrutiny. The misspent funds should go to services for some of the state's most vulnerable Medicaid recipients, Barringer said.County commissioners in Cardinal's 20-county service area Thursday will seat a new governing board for Cardinal, which serves hundreds of thousands of clients.But DHHS will maintain control of Cardinal for a few months as the new directors are trained, Cohen said.When the state took over Cardinal, DHHS officials escorted CEO Richard Topping from the premises and took out a temporary restraining order against the former board to prevent it from interfering. Cardinal paid Topping a $1.7 million severance. Three other dismissed executives received large severance packages, one as high as $740,000.Although DHHS told Cardinal it would claw back that money, Dave Richard, deputy secretary for medical assistance, said Cardinal interim CEO Trey Sutten offered an alternative plan. He wants payback to come from the agency's administrative budget and plowed back into client services.said Sen. Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg. DHHS has a supervisory responsibility over Cardinal, which includes authority to recover misspent funds. If this were a private business,Bishop urged DHHS to be more aggressive.Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, said Cardinal's plan to give its executives huge payouts was well-known, even published in press accounts.Dollar said. Every effort should be made to recover the moneyDollar worries DHHS will have less ability to recover money once it enters contracts with nongovernmental agencies after the Medicaid managed care transformation occurs.Cohen said DHHS new contracts will have more enforcement provisions, including potential sanctions, the ability to withhold funding, and termination clauses. Officials will check with other states using Medicaid managed care for recommendations.An internal DHHS audit and a blistering state performance audit found Cardinal built a large pool of cash reserves rather than providing client services, and $1.2 million in improper executive salaries. Cardinal paid excessive bonuses, held expensive staff events, rented high-end office space, purchased alcohol, and booked charter jet flights for in-state meetings.Cardinal paid Topping a $617,526 annual salary, about 3 1/2 times more than any other LME/MCO boss. The state ordered a pay cut, and Cardinal sued. The agency later backed down and reduced Topping's salary to $204,195, the maximum allowed under state law.As a state-created entity, Cardinal is a political subdivision of the state. The deposed board had moved to act as an independent contractor as the state switches to a Medicaid managed care format.
"The people who support more government control of what we can eat, drink, and smoke today think that their judgment is superior to ours and that the government should be on hand to enforce their judgment on all of us.

"When your job is to study potential health threats from alcohol ... you don't spend a lot of time collecting stories about how fun, relationships, and good times are also part of the equation.

"The people who make a ruckus are the ones who are going to get heard. If the only people out there complaining are the ones who think drinking a glass of whiskey and eating a steak are backward, neanderthal behaviors that need to be stamped out, then things are going to get a lot more expensive and annoying for whiskey-drinking carnivores."

The misguided and ultimately debilitating and tragic ban of alcohol that we called Prohibition was, at its core, about control.Control of our time, our choices, and our habits. Control of our money and our freedom to live and to prosper as we saw fit.Lawmakers and bureaucrats use and abuse the word, sometimes in an almost flippant manner. As N.C. Senate Bill 155 bumped along to passage, one lawmaker bemoaned government's impending loss of "control," which is so much a part of our alcohol culture in North Carolina, i.e., Alcoholic Beverage Control. John Locke Foundation President Kory Swanson and I traveled Dec. 5 to Washington, D.C., and the Competitive Enterprise Institute to celebrate Repeal Day - the end of Prohibition. The program included a panel discussion, including CEI president Kent Lassman, and Richard Morrison , executive producer of the wonderful short film, " I, Whiskey ," which is part of a CEI film series. The series began with "I, Pencil," a classic autobiography of a simple writing tool, Lassman said.CEI and Passing Lane Films producedsaid Lassman,Slick and well-done, the captivating and thirst-provoking film is entertaining and inspirational, an ode to America's indomitable spirit and taste for ingenuity and entrepreneurship.The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1919, made producing, selling, transporting, and importing liquor a crime. But, as I wrote in Still & Barrel: Craft Spirits in the Old North State , North Carolina had jumped on the Prohibition wagon much sooner.A referendum vote on May 26, 1908, made it the first state in the South to ban alcohol. Even when nationwide Prohibition ended with the 21st Amendment's passage in 1933, North Carolina failed to ratify the amendment. It wasn't until 1937, when the Alcoholic Beverage Control system was set up to sell alcohol in North Carolina counties, that Prohibition officially ended in the state.The state allowed breweries and wineries to operate shortly after Prohibition, but North Carolina lawmakers didn't lift the ban on making liquor until 1979.Keith Nordan of Carolina Distillery in Lenoir told me.All that knowledge, skill and expertise. That passion and those ideas. That aspect of the free market. Legally gone for some 80 years.Swanson spoke about the rich history of making liquor in North Carolina. Of Junior Johnson running from revenuers and of the roots of NASCAR. Of state imposition and control.Swanson said.Considering the disaster that was Prohibition, one would think we might have learned our lesson. To never again disavow a free market or to clear a dirty path for unscrupulous producers of toxic liquor and violent criminals like Al Capone.Apparently not. Again, refer to the arguments against S.B. 155 as exhibit A.said Morrison,Consider the effort to outlaw and restrict soda and snack foods, small toys, and even bottled water because the bottles aren't biodegradable.The scare stories have changed, Morrison said, but the goal is still largely the same.Stand up for your right to have fun, he said. Stand up for your freedom to choose and for individual liberty.There's that word again.
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what so called "Democracy" does exists.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to spend money on higher education, to give or lend students money for it, to direct how colleges will function, or anything else. By far the best course of action would be for Congress to dismantle the Department of Education and repeal all U.S. statutes pertaining to education.But since that is not going to happen in the foreseeable future, it is worth considering how the feds might do less harm or even improve higher education. The latter is not a null set.In 2008, Congress passed and President Bush signed Public Law 315 . It added a section to the Higher Education Act authorizing American History for Freedom (AHF) grants. The relevant language in Sec. 805 authorizes the secretary of education to approve grants "to establish or strengthen postsecondary academic programs or centers that promote and impart knowledge of (1) traditional American history; (2) the history and nature of, and threats to, free institutions; or (3) the history and achievements of Western civilization."In short, the Education Department could spend money to expand intellectual diversity in American higher education-a worthwhile goal.Here's the background on the AHF program.In 2002, the National Association of Scholars developed the idea that federal grants could be used to help offset the heavy progressive/statist tilt found in most of our colleges and universities by jump-starting a movement to restore intellectual pluralism. A bill to bring this concept to reality was drafted and found support in the House and Senate. When Congress finally got around to reauthorizing the Higher Education Act in 2008, it was included.The promising idea of using federal money to seed college programs that would educate students on the American Founding, our constitutional history, Western civilization and its institutions, and so forth was, however, sidelined by the election of Barack Obama. AHF's supporters knew that Obama's Education Department would not make good use of funds for the purposes they envisioned and therefore never sought any appropriation to cover Section 805. That remains the case to this day.But now circumstances have changed. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would no doubt sympathize with the goals of AHF and make beneficial grants if the funds were appropriated for them.If Congress were to appropriate a fairly small (by the standards of Uncle Sam, anyway) amount such as $100 million, that money would have a huge impact as it would be used to catalyze new programs and expand existing ones.In this piece , NAS president Peter Wood likens AHF to the old Radio Free Europe program, arguing that our campuses need something similar-Radio Free America on campus. The Left, Wood explains, gained control over our colleges beginning with the advent of politically charged "studies" programs in the 1960s, specifically black studies, women's studies, and environmental studies. "Each had its own agenda but those agendas overlapped in their disdain for America and in their rejection of the university as a place reserved for open-minded inquiry," he writes.From those outposts of politicized study, determined "progressives" spread outward to the point where departments free of ideology are the exception. In most humanities and social science departments, students now "marinate in the story that they are hapless victims of hateful oppressors," as Wood puts it.To be sure, there are islands of serious academic study where the conclusions don't have to perfectly align with leftist theory. For example, at UCLA, there is the Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions . Colgate University hosts the Center for Freedom and Western Civilization . At Wake Forest, Professor James Otteson has managed to launch his Eudaimonia Institute - despite furious opposition from faculty leftists who can't stand that funds from the Koch Foundation are involved. (You can read more about that in this Martin Center article by Professor Robert Whaples.)The problem is that the number of programs that view America and the world through a classical-liberal lens is tiny compared to the number that employ Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and so on. At many schools, non-leftist teaching and scholarship have almost no presence.That is not just a problem for students who might never encounter a professor who is skeptical about, say, minimum wage laws, the claims from the "sustainability" crowd, or the idea that America is shot through with institutional racism. It is also a problem for the faculty. When scholars never encounter intellectual pushback within their departments, a rigidity sets in that prevents them from contemplating ideas outside their comfort zone. That is the case, for instance, in social psychology, as Professor Richard Redding argued in this piece Dozens of new programs could be seeded with AHF grants-programs that would at least somewhat restore intellectual balance on our campuses and improve the chances that students will learn anything about the values and institutions that made the United States successful.Of course, there are some objections to funding AHF.One is that more spending adds to the national debt. To that argument, the response is two-fold. First, Congress could cut the $100 million from other programs (I'd suggest starting with the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights), and second, even adding a tiny bit to our prodigious debt would be worth it to get this improvement in our educational infrastructure.Another is that some of the money might fall into "enemy hands." It's possible that a grant proposal flying under a false flag might get approved. I think that unlikely, given the careful analysis AHF proposals are certain to receive from Department of Education officials, but even if a small number were approved, the overall balance would still be greatly in favor of programs with the envisioned focus.A third objection might be that even if much college teaching and scholarship favor left/progressive thinking, the kinds of programs funded through AHF grants would amount to "conservative indoctrination." The trouble with that argument is that there is no evidence that any of the existing conservative/libertarian programs engage in the sort of "Here's what to believe and if you don't, get out" approach that students often encounter in "studies" courses. And if any AHF program were to prove not to be intellectually rigorous, its grant would be canceled.The window of opportunity to fund AHF grants may not remain open for long, so Congress should dispatch the funding while it still can.
Robeson Should Welcome Help from NC's Innovative School District

Earlier this year, the N.C. State Board of Education and Superintendent of Public Instruction launched the Innovative School District (ISD), an entity created by the General Assembly in 2016 to coordinate academic improvement in up to five low-performing elementary schools. State education officials selected Dr. Eric Hall, an experienced and highly-regarded school reformer , to be the superintendent of the ISD. Dr. Hall will oversee the transfer of school operations to a third-party operator for five years and closely monitor their progress.Starting with a list of 48 qualifying schools and 21 corresponding school districts, Dr. Hall recommended that Southside Ashpole Elementary in Robeson County become the first ISD school in the state. The State Board of Education agreed. Local leaders were not pleased.Hall has been honest and gracious throughout, answering difficult questions and addressing the concerns of elected officials, community leaders, and families. Despite these efforts, the Robeson County school board unanimously approved a resolution opposing the takeover of Southside Ashpole, one of 41 schools operated by the school district. Members of the Board of Commissioners have conveyed a range of opinions about the plan.The editorial board of The Robesonian rightfully blasted the resolution and conduct of the school board, writing that they wereAs the editorial points out, they have two options - allow the ISD to operate the school or close it permanently. The editors believe that the school board and county commission will choose the former.It's not difficult to understand why Southside Ashpole Elementary School was selected in the first place. Student performance has been dismal. The school earned an F in each of the last three years and met performance growth expectations in only one. Only around 14 percent of students scored at or above grade level in math, while 19 percent scored at or above grade level in reading. Both were far below Robeson County and state averages. A shocking 40 percent of Southside Ashpole third-graders were required to repeat the grade for failing to meet Read to Achieve literacy standards. Last year, the state average retention rate was 14 percent.So, what's the problem? There are no easy answers.Resources appear to be adequate. While the county provides less per student funding than any district in North Carolina, state and federal dollars allow the Public Schools of Robeson Schools to have an average per student expenditure ($9,407) that is slightly above the state average ($9,172). It is not known, however, how these dollars are deployed in the district and subsequently used in each school. School districts have a great deal of flexibility in distributing local and state dollars, so it's possible that Southside Ashpole spends more, on a per-student basis than the district average. Even if we knew how much they spent, we would have few specifics on how they spent it.School districts and allied advocacy groups complain that public schools do not have the resources to obtain the technology and books that they need. State data suggests otherwise. Southside Ashpole students have sufficient access to Internet-connected devices, wireless access points, and books. There is around one internet-connected device per student, one wireless access point per classroom, and a whopping 41 book titles per student.It is worth noting that Southside Ashpole employs a higher percentage of teachers with 0 to 3 years of experience than the district and state average. The teacher turnover rate is comparable to the state average. Without a doubt, inexperience and turnover may impede the process of raising student achievement, but neither are insurmountable challenges. Teacher working conditions play a larger role than both.Results from the 2016 Teacher Working Conditions Survey indicate that only around half of Southside Ashpole teachers surveyed believe that their school leadership cultivates an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect or recognizes their achievements. Around the same percentage believe that parents and community members support teachers or contribute to their success with students. These survey results suggest that there is a lingering disconnect, perhaps better described as distrust, between teachers and leadership, parents, and the community.Restoring these relationships, undoubtedly a key component to the ISD's work, would be the first step toward formulating athat has eluded Southside Ashpole and many other schools in the district for years. The truth is the district has failed to deliver the high-quality education that Southside Ashpole children deserve. Perhaps the ISD will lay the groundwork for them to do so in the years ahead. If the children are worth the effort, then the ISD is worth a try.
By PTI: cabinet nod

New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) A draft law which seeks to make the practice of instant triple talaq "illegal and void" and provides for a jail term for the husband was today cleared by the union cabinet.

The nod paves the way for its introduction in Parliament during the Winter session which began today.

advertisement

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed that the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill has been approved but refused to share details as Parliament is in session.

According to the draft law prepared by an inter- ministerial group headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, giving instant triple talaq will be "illegal and void" and will attract a jail term of three years for the husband.

The husband could also be fined and the quantum of fine would be decided by the magistrate hearing the case.

The bill is being introduced as the practice still continued despite the Supreme Court striking down talaq-e- biddat (instant triple talaq).

The proposed law would only be applicable on instant triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat and it would give power to the victim to approach a magistrate seeking "subsistence allowance" for herself and minor children.

The woman can also seek the custody of her minor children from the magistrate who will take a final call on the issue.

Under the draft law, triple talaq in any form -- spoken, in writing or by electronic means such as email, SMS and WhatsApp -- would be bad or illegal and void.

"The provision of subsistence allowance and custody has been made to ensure that in case the husband asks the wife to leave the house she should have legal protection," a government functionary said.

According to the draft law, which would be applicable to the entire country except Jammu and Kashmir, giving instant talaq would attract a jail term of three years and a fine. It would be a non-bailable, cognisable offence.

The functionary pointed out that after the Supreme Court order, the government was of the view that the practice would end.

"But it continues. There have been 177 reported cases of instant talaq before the judgement and 66 after the order this year... Uttar Pradesh tops the list. Hence, the government planned a law," he explained.

He said the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act were found to be of little help in such cases even as the government and the Prime Ministers Office were receiving complaints from women.

advertisement

As of now, the draft law is prospective in nature. But if Parliament feels, it can be implemented retrospectively once it is passed and gets the Presidents nod, he said.

Perhaps women who have been given triple talaq before the proposed law comes into force can also seek custody of minor children and subsistence allowance using its provisions, another official said.

As the law stands today, a victim of talaq-e-biddat or instant triple talaq would have no option but to approach the police for redressal of her grievance as a Muslim clergy would be of no assistance to her.

Even police are helpless as no action can be taken against the husband in the absence of punitive provisions in the law, they explained.

In August, the Supreme Court struck down the controversial Islamic practice of instant divorce or talaq- e-biddat as arbitrary and unconstitutional.

But there have been reports of a number of divorces by way of talaq-e-biddat even after the judgement, the functionaries said.

Despite advisories being issued to the members of the community against the archaic practice, there seemed to be no decline in the cases of divorce by talaq-e-biddat, they claimed.

advertisement

In a recent case of talaq-e-biddat, a man working with a leading educational institution divorced his wife through WhatsApp and SMS, the functionary said quoting media reports. PTI NAB ZMN

--- ENDS ---
The following is a statement from President Donald Trump on the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act FOR 2018.Today, I have signed into law H.R. 2810, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018." This Act authorizes fiscal year 2018 appropriations for critical Department of Defense (DOD) national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing military operations around the globe. I am very appreciative that the Congress has passed this bill to provide the DOD with the resources it needs to support our Armed Forces and keep America safe. I note, however, that the bill includes several provisions that raise constitutional concerns.Several provisions of the bill, including sections 1046, 1664, 1680, and 1682, purport to restrict the President's authority to control the personnel and materiel the President believes is necessary or advisable for the successful conduct of military missions. Additionally, section 1601 provides that the Commander of Air Force Space Command, a military officer subordinate to the civilian leadership of the President as the Commander in Chief, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the Air Force, has "sole authority" over certain matters. While I share the objectives of the Congress with respect to maintaining the strength and security of the United States, my Administration will treat these provisions consistent with the President's authority as Commander in Chief.Certain other provisions of the bill, including sections 350, 1011, 1041, 1202, and 1227, purport to require that the Congress receive advance notice before the President directs certain military actions. I reiterate the longstanding understanding of the executive branch that these types of provisions encompass only military actions for which such advance notice is feasible and consistent with the President's constitutional authority and duty as Commander in Chief to protect the national security of the United States.Sections 1033 and 1035 restrict transfers of detainees held at the United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay. I fully intend to keep open that detention facility and to use it for detention operations. Consistent with the statement I issued in signing H.R. 244, I reiterate the longstanding position of the executive branch that, under certain circumstances, restrictions on the President's authority to transfer detainees would violate constitutional separation-of-powers principles, including the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief. Additionally, section 1035 could, in some circumstances, interfere with the ability of the United States to transfer a detainee who has been granted a writ of habeas corpus.I also strongly object to section 1633, which threatens to undermine the effective operation of the Executive Office of the President by making full funding for the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) contingent upon the submission of a report on a national policy for cyberspace, cybersecurity, and cyberwarfare. I take cyberrelated issues very seriously, as demonstrated by Executive Order 13800, which has initiated strategic actions across executive departments and agencies that will improve the Nation's cyber-related capabilities. Among other things, WHCA plays a critical role in providing secure communications to the President and his staff. The Congress should not hold hostage the President's ability to communicate in furtherance of the Nation's security and foreign policy. I look forward to working with the Congress to address, as quickly as possible, this unprecedented and dangerous funding restriction.Several provisions of the bill, including sections 1069, 1231, 1232, 1239, 1239A, 1258, 1259, 1263, 1271, 1279A, and 1607, could potentially dictate the position of the United States in external military and foreign affairs and, in certain instances, direct the conduct of international diplomacy. My Administration will treat these provisions consistent with the President's exclusive constitutional authorities as Commander in Chief and as the sole representative of the Nation in foreign affairs to determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign sovereigns and conduct the Nation's diplomacy.Section 1244(b) purports to limit certain expenditures unless, under section 1244(c), the President submits to the Congress a plan to impose sanctions -- including asset blocking, exclusion from the United States, and procurement bans -- on certain persons for failing to comply with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. My Administration will apply these provisions consistent with the President's constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations, including the President's authority under Article II, section 3 of the Constitution to "receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers." Section 1245 purports to direct the United States Government to consider the RS-26 ballistic missile to be a breach of the INF Treaty "for purposes of all policies and decisions," if the President, with the concurrence of certain other executive branch officials, were to make certain legal and factual determinations. My Administration will apply this provision consistent with the President's constitutional authority to identify breaches of international agreements by counterparties.Section 910 purports to elevate the current Deputy Chief Management Officer of the DOD to the position of Chief Management Officer, which would result in an expansion of duties, along with an increase in both responsibility and pay. While my Administration supports the policy of section 910, the provision raises constitutional concerns related to the President's appointment authority. My Administration will devise a plan to treat this provision in a manner that mitigates the constitutional concerns, while adhering closely to the intent of the Congress.Section 1097 purports to reauthorize the Office of Special Counsel, including by continuing the existing tenure protections for the Special Counsel. The Special Counsel is a principal officer of the United States who performs executive functions, and has both broad authority and long tenure insulated from the President's removal authority. I reiterate the longstanding position of the executive branch that such insulation of a principal officer like the Special Counsel raises serious constitutional concerns.Section 1653 purports to require the Nuclear Weapons Council to make an assessment and provide a report to the congressional defense committees in response to legislative activity by a single house of Congress. To direct the Council's operations in this manner, the Congress must act in accord with the requirements of bicameralism and presentment prescribed in Article I, section 7 of the Constitution. Accordingly, my Administration will treat section 1653 as non-binding, and I will instruct the Council to take action in response to this provision only as an exercise of inter-branch comity -- i.e., only insofar as such action would be practicable and consistent with the Council's existing legal responsibilities.Several provisions of the bill, including sections 737, 1097, 1244, 1631, 1632, and 1669, as well as language in the classified annex to the joint explanatory statement of the committee of conference, purport to mandate or regulate the submission to the Congress of information -- such as deliberative process and national security information -- protected by executive privilege. My Administration will treat these provisions consistent with the President's constitutional authority to withhold information, the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative processes of the executive branch, or the performance of the President's constitutional duties. Additionally, I note that conditions in the classified annex to the joint explanatory statement of the committee of conference are not part of the text of the bill and do not carry the force of law.Several provisions of the bill, including sections 513, 572, 807, 1648, 1676, 1696, 2878, and 3117, purport to require executive branch officials under the President's supervision to recommend certain legislative measures to the Congress. My Administration will treat those provisions consistent with Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, which provides the President the discretion to recommend to the Congress onlyWhite House 
President Donald J. Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is implementing the energy independence priorities laid out in the Executive Order, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. On March 28, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order 13783 on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. On October 25, 2017, the EPA released a report on how it is implementing the President's Executive Order to curb regulatory burdens to promote energy production and economic growth. The report included four initiatives started by the EPA to implement Executive Order 13783. EPA is creating a task force dedicated to reviewing and simplifying the New Source Review application and permit process. EPA is streamlining the National Ambient Air Quality Standards State Implementation Plan approval process. EPA will conduct evaluations of the potential employment effects that may result from the implementation of five environmental statutes. These evaluations had not been conducted historically, despite being mandated by the five statutes.Following the principles established by the President's Executive Order on Energy Independence, EPA has proposed the repeal of the "Clean Power Plan." Repealing the Clean Power Plan will allow for the development of critical United States energy sources. The Administration estimates that repealing the Clean Power Plan could eliminate up to $33 billion in compliance costs in 2030. The proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan respects the limits of the EPA's authority. The Clean Power Plan was originally issued under an expansive and legally dubious view of the EPA's authority under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. The Plan authorized EPA to dictate the content of the Nation's energy portfolio, a power well outside its authority under the Clean Air Act. It also severely restricted States' long-held authority to make choices about energy production and use within their borders. Public hearings were held for the proposed repeal on November 28th and 29th. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has announced three additional public listening sessions to be held in California, Wyoming, and Missouri.EPA Administrator Pruitt launched a task force to provide recommendations on how to streamline and improve the Superfund program, which is responsible for cleaning up land contaminated by hazardous waste. In May, EPA Administrator Pruitt announced the creation of a Superfund task force to look at ways to streamline and improve the Superfund program. The Superfund task force released 42 detailed recommendations with five goals in mind. Expediting cleanup and remediation Re-invigorating responsible party cleanup and reuse Encouraging private investment Promoting redevelopment and community revitalization Engaging partners and stakeholdersEPA has re-launched launched the Smart Sectors Program to partner with the private sector to achieve better environmental outcomes. The Smart Sectors Program uses a sector-based, collaborative approach to consider forward-thinking ways to protect the environment. EPA officials who oversee and regulate a wide range of industry sectors will serve as ombudsmen within the EPA, conduct educational site tours, host roundtables, and provide advice on forward-thinking approaches to environmental improvement. Smart Sectors will also help streamline internal operations at EPA.White House 
Executive Director Julie Peller worked as the director of federal policy for Lumina and as the deputy staff director for the Committee on Education and the Workforce in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Policy and Advocacy Director Emily Bouck worked under Senator Marco Rubio as his deputy legislative director, designing higher education proposals.

Board member Margaret Spellings served as the secretary of education under George W. Bush where she oversaw implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act and ran the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. She now serves as the president of the University of North Carolina system.

Board member George Miller was a leading Democratic Congressman on higher education from California, the "go-to person" for higher education in Congress who had "unmatched" connections and cheered on President Obama's education policies.

Board member Dr. Kim Hunter Reed was the undersecretary of education during the Obama administration and now directs the Colorado Department of Higher Education, intent on improving degree completion.

"Reform" is an appealing word, suggesting change intended for the better. It is frequently used in discussions of higher education. Critics, especially conservative ones, point out visible cracks in the Ivory Tower and demand that they be "reformed." Politicians do the same. And deep-pocketed donors have their own ideas of what higher education should be, and many of those ideas get labeled as reform.But there is a troubling dynamic accompanying much of this so-called reform: If the representatives of the status quo demand change that looks like more of the same, is it really reform?Consider a new entrant into the world of higher education policy: a non-profit organization called Higher Learning Advocates. It is primarily supported by the Lumina Foundation, the largest private nonprofit donor focused on higher education. Higher Learning Advocates also receives funding from the other private behemoth in education policy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-whose policy goals closely match those of Lumina.As can be expected, Higher Learning Advocates' policies are also aligned with Lumina's. With its $1.4 billion endowment, Lumina's " overarching goal is to increase the higher education attainment rate of the United States to 60 percent by 2025." Grants issued by the foundation focus on advancing state and federal policy to increase degree attainment, create new models for student financial support and business and finance models, and increasing "student success" as the foundation defines it.Historically, Lumina's strategy has been one of "grant action" where it provides funding to organizations that work to advance Lumina's goals. Grant action means working with federal and state policymakers and various nonprofit groups, such as think tanks in higher education, rather than directly funding colleges and universities (though that may happen too). Inside Higher Ed called this an "advocacy" approach, where a group engages in policy analysis and advises policymakers.The advocacy approach can manifest as funding journalism that focuses on higher education , giving to university-focused foundations to improve credential attainment building new credentialing systems , improving how student records are kept, and many other projects.Lumina's activities are so numerous and influential that there is a "discomfort that some people in higher education feel about the foundations wielding such power in influencing public policy with comparatively little oversight and external accountability," according to Inside Higher Ed. The "outsized influence" Lumina (and the Gates Foundation as well) carries in higher education means that some critics may stay silent or water down reform ideas for fear of losing funding.And now there is one more voice joining the Lumina chorus that seems to drown out all other reformers. This is not to say that all policies favored by Lumina are bad, of course. And Higher Learning Advocates has some good ideas . They seem intent on better government data on colleges, for instance, which is crucial for evaluating institutions according to how well they prepare students for the future.Higher Learning Advocates' policy prescriptions also address the current trend in which the typical student is more likely to be working, attending school part-time, and older than the traditional college age. Most importantly, HLA incorporates the reality that students go to college to get a job into their policy analyses, and they argue for success in a broad sense that includes a variety of credentials and certificates, not just a singular focus on a bachelor's degree.If Higher Learning Advocates could succeed in improving affordability, incentivizing quality programs, and updating old regulations, their entry into the policy would be valuable.Those improvements, however, already seem to be on their way without Higher Learning Advocates. Many of the policy proposals have gained traction, such as improving data collection and availability. U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Mark Warner, and Ron Wyden, for example , introduced legislation last month, called the "Student Right to Know Before You Go Act," that would provide information on educational outcomes to the public and make it easier to know the true costs of a college degree.Other Congressional leaders have pushed a bill that would track employment and graduation outcomes together, though that has hit opposition due to privacy concerns. In North Carolina, the legislature passed a "Students Know Before You Go" law in 2016 to provide data on college completion as well as the employment needs of the state. That follows the actions of a handful of other states that have provided prospective students more information on the costs and benefits of college.Additionally, awareness has been growing about alternative vocational education without Higher Learning Advocates' help. New Jersey, for instance, has partnered with a Lumina-funded non-profit called Credential Engine to build a registry that allows students to compare certificates and degrees by their use in different jobs and industries, the time and money cost to earn them, and other relevant information. The project has more than 1,500 credentialed programs listed so far. In Virginia, officials are scrutinizing the state's community colleges for failing to get enough students prepared for jobs that are in high demand. The growing interest among elected officials in ensuring students have the right skill set seems to be a response to economic pressures that higher education officials have not anticipated.With governments already adopting Lumina's policies, Higher Learning Advocates' purpose is redundant. One journalist, after covering the organization's first event, noted thatAdditionally, how much real innovation can be expected to come from Higher Learning Associates when the people involved with the organization are firmly planted in past Lumina projects or in the higher education status quo elsewhere? Key personnel include:Such a cast of lead characters suggests that the establishment has returned to fix the establishment. That is, Higher Learning Advocates will likely promote "reform" that encourages more students to enroll in college, improving degree and certificate attainment goals, and more funding on the state and federal levels to support the effort. With many of the policies Higher Learning Advocates champions already being put into practice by state legislatures and governors, its entry into the policy discussion seems irrelevant. Policymakers are showing results without the need for another higher education group telling them what to do.Furthermore, Higher Learning Advocates are not likely to stray too far from academia's overall goals in the future; instead, they are more likely to prop up an unstable Ivory Tower than promote substantive repairs. One thing Higher Learning Associates may do is to help drown out the voices of reformers who do not toe the Lumina and Gates line and offer innovative and alternative perspectives instead. Indeed, non-establishment critics introduced many of the reforms that Lumina and its surrogates now champion-years ago.Outside analysts of higher education have been fighting for a long time for a seat at the policy table; most likely the seat they have coveted will be instead offered to this more compliant newcomer.
2018 County Tier Designations

Litter Cleanup in Currituck, Dare, Hyde Counties

North Carolina Ranks No. 1 in Forbes' & Pew Charitable Trusts Rankings

Golden LEAF for Beaufort County & Town of Hertford

NCDOT approves $1.1 million in state funds for Pitt-Greenville Airport

Contact: Bill Cook

Bill Cook bill.cook@ncleg.net

Last month, the N.C. Dept. Commerce released the county tier designations for 2018. The designations play a role in several programs that assist in economic development. Likewise, N.C. Commerce gathers required statistics for each of North Carolina's 100 counties, applies the formula and required adjustments, and assigns a tier designation ranking from one to three. Tier 1 counties are generally the most economically distressed and Tier 3 counties are generally the least economically distressed. The rankings are based on an assessment of each county's unemployment rate, median household income, population growth, and assessed property value per capita. In addition, any county with a population of less than 12,000 or a county with a population of fewer than 50,000 residents with 19 percent or more of those people living below the federal poverty level are automatically classified as Tier 1. The law calls for 40 counties to be designated as Tier 1, 40 counties to be designated as Tier 2, and 20 counties to be designated Tier 3. Of the one hundred counties in North Carolina, six counties will change tier designations for 2018 - two of which are in Senate District 1. Perquimans County will shift from a Tier 2 to a Tier 1 ranking while Beaufort County will move from Tier 1 to Tier 2 status.In looking after our environment, the N.C. General Assembly during this year's legislative session established a new Roadside Environmental Fund, which provides dedicated funding for vegetation management, mowing, litter prevention and removal, beautification efforts, rest areas, and guardrail replacements. During 2016, N.C. Dept. of Transportation (NCDOT) spent $19.5 million and over 2,650,215 pounds (1,325 tons) of litter was collected. Moreover, this does not include other statewide litter prevention programs within N.C. Dept. of Public Safety, N.C. Dept. of Environmental Quality, and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Since repealing the eight year unconstitutional plastic bag ban in parts the Outer Banks counties of Currituck, Dare, and Hyde, I thought it would be beneficial to provide a summary of NCDOT's litter removal efforts (see graph below). In essence, approximately $639,245 has been spent and roughly 227,520 pounds (114 tons) of litter removed in those three counties since 2009. In fact, under the previous Democrat administration, NCDOT did fund any litter removal for Dare or Hyde counties in 2009, which was the same year that the now repealed plastic bag ban went into effect. Lastly, a 2016 recap of statewide littering charges by offense code and by law enforcement agencies, the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts shows there were 3,479 charges and 1,262 convictions in 2016.Recently published in the Carolina Journal , North Carolina is the only state meeting all of the Pew Charitable Trusts best or good practices in taking care of its "rainy day" reserves. The 2017 Appropriations Act earmarked $263 million of the unreserved fund balance to the savings reserve, bringing the total in the reserve to just under $1.84 billion, or about 8.2% of the prior year net General Fund operating budget, the largest total since inception of the reserve.Prior to the Republicans taking control of the legislature in 2011, North Carolina had no reserve savings under Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue and Democratic majorities in the state General Assembly in 2009. Under Democratic control the state was also billions of dollars in debt to the federal government for unemployment insurance liabilities. The debt of $2.8 billion of unemployment insurance was paid off to the federal government in May 2015. Had the debt not been paid by November 2015, employers in our state would have been subjected to an additional $282 million in additional FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax Act) penalties.North Carolina local governments are required to maintain an adequate fund balance of at least 8% to have sufficient funds to quickly respond to emergencies and other unforeseen circumstances. Thus, so should the State of North Carolina, so we can be able to handle the financial implications of a storm, such as Hurricane Matthew, or any other potential loss of revenues.As a result of our conservative reforms, North Carolina's expanding economy has positioned it as one of the fastest growing states in the nation. According to Forbes' 2017 economic climate rankings, North Carolina is the Best State for Business and the only state to place among the top 20 in all six categories. Click here to review Forbes' recent announcement.Last Thursday, the Golden LEAF Board of Directors voted to provide $450,000 in disaster recovery grant funding to Beaufort County. The grant funds will support installation of backup generators at two critical water facilities on the northside of the county. Hurricane Matthew contributed to power outages that resulted in depletion of available water in the rural areas of the county. These generators will help ensure the availability of water in a future disaster event. Additionally, the Golden LEAF Board of Directors voted to provide $637,094 in disaster recovery grant funding to the Town of Hertford in Perquimans County. Hurricane Matthew impacted the Town's sewer system and caused severe pipe separation, erosion, and groundwater to enter the system. Golden LEAF grant funds will support replacement of the failed sewer infrastructure. Both of these grants are funded by the Disaster Recovery Act of 2017 appropriation to Golden LEAF.Earlier in the month, the N.C. Dept. of Transportation's Division of Aviation approved state funding for 11 airports, for a total investment of nearly $4.7 million, including $1,100,070 for taxiway pavement rehabilitation at the Pitt-Greenville Airport. The State Appropriations Act of 2017 included an additional $40 million in FY 2017-18 and $75 million in FY 2018-19 to fund capital improvement projects at the State's 10 commercial airports in order to increase their economic competitiveness.
Action now shifts to the House, where an identical companion bill has an eye-popping 262 cosponsors and broad bipartisan support, and is ready for final action. Photo by iStockphoto

23.4K shares







[Update (11/25/2019): The PACT Act is signed into law]

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, S. 654, this evening, getting us dramatically closer to the day when the nation has a federal anti-cruelty statute that allows the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on malicious cruelty and also the sexual exploitation of innocent creatures. The PACT Act was led by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., with 34 cosponsors. Action now shifts to the House, where an identical companion bill introduced by Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Ted Deutch, D-Fla., has an eye-popping 262 cosponsors and broad bipartisan support, and is ready for final action.

As the first-ever general federal animal cruelty bill, the PACT Act builds on the federal animal crush video law enacted in 2010, which banned the creation, sale, and distribution of obscene videos that show animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or subjected to other forms of heinous cruelty. The PACT Act will prohibit those same extreme acts of animal cruelty when they occur in interstate or foreign commerce, regardless of whether a video is produced, and those convicted of such abuse will face federal felony charges, fines, and up to seven years in prison.

This legislation is also endorsed by more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the country.

The PACT Act would enable the federal government to prosecute malicious acts of animal cruelty on federal property such as military bases, federal prisons, airports, and national parks. It would also enable federal authorities to crack down on the practice of bestiality, which like animal fighting and the crush video trade, involves a national subculture where animals are often moved across state lines and where information is exchanged on websites to enable this exploitation to happen.

Such websites are gathering places for people with deviant sexual behavior. One site with more than a million registered users, for example, hosts thousands of advertisements, categorized by state, from people seeking animals to sexually abuse. Craigslist is another online forum used to facilitate bestiality. During any one week, a states Craigslist page has dozens of ads from people soliciting or offering animals for sex, often to be transported across state lines. There are still five states that do not prohibit bestiality  Hawaii, Kentucky, New Mexico, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Bestiality is also associated with child pornography and other sexual crimes against humans. During the course of child exploitation investigations, for example, detectives commonly find sexual predators in possession of bestiality materials. In fact, in a study of more than 44,000 adult males evaluated for sexual misconduct, researchers concluded that bestiality is the number one risk factor and the strongest predictor of increased risk of sexual abuse of a child. A study from the University of Tennessee determined that human sex offenders were eight times more likely than the general population to have a history of bestiality.

Sexual predators move their animal victims across state lines to abuse them and there is a predictive association of this behavior with human-to-human sexual abuse. We have federal laws to stop specific acts of cruelty, such as injuring Tennessee walking horses or staging animal fights, so its fitting to have a federal statute on core animal cruelty issues and bestiality.

The Senate has unanimously passed this important legislation tonight, and now its up to the House to do so, and send the bill on to President Trump for his signature. Almost two-thirds of lawmakers in the House have cosponsored the legislation. There is plenty of support  we just need House leaders to bring up the bill for a vote.

Animal crushing is absolutely disgusting and there is no place for this behavior in our society, said Sen. Toomey in a statement. It is long past time this abhorrent practice came to an end and I am glad the Senate once again took the next step towards advancing that goal. I am hopeful that this bipartisan bill will pass the House and finally get enacted into law.

This bipartisan measure finally prohibits a heinous, inhumane practice  stating emphatically once and for all that there is no place in a civilized society for the maiming and torturing of animals. Thanks to the long overdue action of the Senate, the barbaric individuals who commit these crimes will no longer walk free. I call on the House to pass this important legislation immediately, Sen. Blumenthal said in a statement.

In 2014, South Dakota became the 50th state to adopt felony-level penalties for malicious cruelty. The nation is waking up to cruelty as an indicator of social pathology. First offenders typically start on animals, and then turn their violent instincts to people. Congress should act on this legislation now. Theres no excuse for a delay. As a society, we have an unspoken pact with vulnerable creatures to protect them from needless and malicious violence, and the PACT Act is part of any good plan to act on that principle.
It's well known that the CIA would dose unwitting, innocent people with LSD to see how they would react. Filmmaker Errol Morris has a new docudrama series on Netflix called Wormwood about a Frank Olson, who was given LSD by the CIA without being told, and suffered so badly from it that he jumped out of a window to his death.

Directed by boundary-breaking filmmaker Errol Morris, Wormwood explores the limits of knowledge about the past and the lengths we'll go in our search for the truth. A twisting, evolving story of one man's sixty-year quest to identify the circumstances of his father's mysterious death. Combining a virtuosic performance by Peter Sarsgaard with Morris' legendary interview style, Wormwood examines this case from every possible angle, bringing the viewer face-to-face with some of the United States' darkest secrets. Wormwood sets a new standard for nonfiction filmmaking and finds Morris working on his grandest canvas yet.

Wormwood  a Netflix original story told in 6 chapters  is produced in association with Fourth Floor Productions and Moxie Pictures.
Derek Yach, president of The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, sent a letter to 344 public health researchers and groups inviting them to bid for grants from a $1b fund set up by tobacco giant  the list was a roster of Yach's former colleagues from his stint at the World Health Organization.



The WHO has condemned Yach's use of this list, and Yach's own protestations that his group is not beholden to the tobacco industry are belied by other leaked emails from Yach's account, which shows that he was in ongoing communications with Philip Morris employees about the grants.





Yach's group has been blacklisted by the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which warned participants that associating themselves with the Philip Morris-backed foundation would disqualify them from participation in the FCTC, which considers actions by the foundation to be "tobacco industry interference."

Yach, who worked for Pepsico after his stint at the WHO, has been condemned by the WHO secretariat for implying that he is still affiliated with the WHO.

Philip Morris is one of the tobacco giants that was convicted of fraud by the US DoJ for deliberately undermining the science linking tobacco use to cancer, resulting in millions of deaths. The company has used global trade deals to force governments to reverse laws that limit tobacco sales and require warning labels and plain packaging for cigarettes and loose tobacco.



Yach's email is addressed: "Dear Colleagues," and was sent from his own email account. He invited the 344 addressees to submit their letters of intent for the foundation's "early scoping grants." He says the projects will ensure "effective and innovative approaches to reduce health impacts and deaths from smoking." The email went out just two days before the application for this grant closed on December 11 and says that the foundation has received "numerous submissions and collective input." "Please encourage your network to contribute as well," says his email, which he ends with thanking everyone for their "continued support." Some find it strange that Yach revealed his contact-list in this email. "Some might start to wonder who on the list are actual supporters. It may aim to create a climate of suspicion and divide in the tobacco control community," says Franklin Apfel, former head of communications for WHO Regional Office for Europe from 1995 to 2002. Apfel was not on Yach's mailing list but has been involved in tobacco control including in the 'Tobacco Kills-Don't be Duped' project. Perhaps the open mailing list was to show that "there is nothing to be ashamed of here," says Apfel.



Exclusive: Philip Morris Funded Anti-Smoking Foundation Targeting Public Health Leaders With Grants [Anoo Bhuyan/The Wire]

(via Naked Capitalism)
Matt Taibbi is one of the best political writers working in the USA today, someone who can use the small, novelistic details of individuals' lives illuminate the vast, systemic problems that poison our lives and shame our honor; his 2014 book The Divide conducts a wide-ranging inquiry into the impunity of corporate criminals and the kafkaesque injustices visited on the poor people they victimize; in I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street , Taibbi narrows his focus to the police murder of Eric Garner, a Staten Island fixture and father, and the system that put murderers in uniform in his path.

Taibbi opens the book with a masterful, novelistic account of the racial divide in Staten Island, the brutal impunity of the NYPD, the lives of the people they stalk, humiliate, beat, and frame. He introduces us to Tomkins Park, the neighborhood where Eric Garner was a fixture, selling untaxed cigarettes he brought in from out of state, and to Garner himself, a complicated, funny, bright, unlucky, likable man whose bad luck and bad choices had put him on that corner, selling smokes to keep his family fed, clothed and sheltered.





As Taibbi unravels the story of Garner, the circumstances that led to him being choked to death by a group of police officers who went on to terrorize Garner's friend for recording a video of the murder and releasing it, who faced no meaningful penalties  and who, we learn, had long rapsheets for brutal, sadistic policing, he weaves the long history and diverse social and political circumstances that led to that moment.

Taibbi's book is part history lesson, part political science, part biography (of several people, not all of them very nice), part on-the-scene reporting, part lawsplainer. He ranges over statistical models for predictive policing, the realpolitik of New York, where Democrats and Republicans alike have been critical to turning the city into a laboratory for testing and refining racist policing, housing, incarceration, and harassment policies.

Taibbi is a synthesist, able to dig into the personal history of the fathers of "broken windows policing," of rival black activist groups, of Garner and his family, tell their stories, show where they fit in a much larger, systemic analysis of how the nuts-and-bolts of institutional racism and police impunity.





In building understanding, Taibbi is always explaining, but never excusing. Just because Taibbi explains how the quota systems and official stonewalling creates a hospitable climate for sadistic, murdering rapists  just because he shows that ultimately, these bad cops are taking the rap for an even worse system  it doesn't follow that he's asking us to shed a tear for the poor cops who choked Eric Garner to death on a city street.

Taibbi's analysis also ranges over the explosion of anti-police-violence demonstrations that occurred in the wake of the Garner killing, after the deaths of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and so many other black men and women who were murdered by police officers who nearly never, ever paid any consequences for it. He places the murder of Eric Garner in the context of the election of an openly white supremacist president, and the rage and outrage that followed that election.





All this makes for a book that's as riveting as any novel, and as educational as any manifesto. Like The Divide, it is essential reading that captures a moment that the whole nation is wrestling with, and whose consequences could not be more important to us all.





One note on Taibbi himself: a few months ago, he was embroiled in a scandal of his own when passages from The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia, a book he co-authored in 2000, were reprinted. The book is a memoir of Taibbi's tenure as a gonzo editor in post-Soviet Russia, co-written with his co-editor, Mark Ames, and it is a gross, tasteless  and, it turns out, largely fictional  tale.





The passages that made headlines were ones in which Taibbi and Ames detail subjecting female subordinates to cruel and degrading sexual harassment. When they broke, Taibbi explained that these passages had been written by Ames and were fictional. This struck many people as lame and not-very-credible excuses, but it appears they were true  journalists who tracked down the co-workers in the book confirmed with them that none of the lurid, awful activities took place.





Which doesn't let Taibbi off the hook: his transgression isn't subjecting women to sexual violence and harassment: it's thinking that making up "gonzo" stories about this kind of thing was funny (rather than offensive and harmful in their own right), and co-signing his name to a published volume of these tales.





This isn't a good thing to have done, but it's also not in the same universe as committing actual sexual assaults. It definitely lowered my opinion of Taibbi, but I feel like making stupid, shitty "jokes" is ultimately a forgivable sin, and the kind of thing that Taibbi has made substantial amends for.

I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street [Matt Taibbi/Random House]
FCC Votes To Kill Net Neutrality

Trending News: What Killing Net Neutrality Means For You

Long Story Short

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to kill net neutrality, enshrined by the Obama administration in 2014. Now

Long Story

We're all f*cked. OK, maybe not, but that's what you've surely been told on your newsfeeds since yesterday's unsurprising 3-2 vote to give Internet Service Providers (ISPs) villainous power over our internet. But what does killing net neutrality mean for you? (Be sure to check out PCMag's thorough explainer for what went down on Thursday).

When people say net neutrality, they mean the same internet for you, me and that guy over there staring at his iPhone while picking his nose. Currently, you can get on any site with a domain and use the site for as long as you want  that's the open internet.

What killing net neutrality does is it makes it so ISPs can limit what you watch and even prevent you from visiting certain sites. It essentially turns your internet into your electricity or your water, charging you  or the sites itself  more per use than before.

So is this the end of the internet? No. Is this the end of the internet as we know it? Yes.

We don't know how each ISP will approach this, and the rules won't take effect for weeks, but there's certainly reason to be concerned. We know that the Verizons and Comcasts of the world are not going to treat all traffic equally. So watching Stranger Things might cost end up costing you more than scrolling through your favorite blog. Or Amazon might be faster than another site because Jeff Bezos and co. will pay more for that service.

You could even end up buying packages that gives you just Netflix and HBO or just Facebook and Twitter. We really don't know exactly what will be blocked, throttled or given a faster speed (a.k.a. fast lane) at this point, but that's now up to your ISP to decide.

And it's not like you can up and switch your ISP if you don't like it. According to new data from Ookla Speedtest Intelligence and PCMag, most Americans have two or fewer choices. And 70% of the Zip codes studied showed speeds of less than 25mbps.

"Anything less than real competition at 25Mbps is sentencing Americans to second-class internet services," writes Sascha Segan of PCMag.

Tack on the fact that the average American home also consumes more than 190GB of data per month and we all could end up paying a lot for crappy service.

But this fight isn't over, yet. Congress can still use the Congressional Review Act to block the FCC's resolution and there will surely be lawsuits. And heck, it's possible the ISPs aren't evil overlords and will just leave things the way they are. Ehh, probably not.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

What will the ISPs do with their newfound powers?

Drop This Fact

One of the main uses of the internet is also likely to take a huge hit with net neutrality. Yep, ISPs can now discriminate on what you watch so some people are writing obits for free porn like Pornhub (queue the 'nooooooos').
THURSDAY, Dec. 14, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Sales of antibiotics for use in U.S. livestock fell in recent years but still remain too high, according to the National Resources Defense Council.

In the livestock industry, the nonprofit council said, it's common to put antibiotics in livestock feed or water to promote growth and prevent illness. However, overuse of antibiotics in livestock contributes to the growing problem of drug-resistant infections in people.

The council reported that sales to the livestock industry of antibiotics that play an important role in human medicine declined 14 percent from 2015 to 2016, based on newly released U.S. Food and Drug Administration data.

However, the use of antibiotics in livestock is still much higher than 2009 levels, the council said.

About 50 percent of the chicken industry has made some level of commitment to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use, the council said. It urged the pork and beef industries to follow the chicken industry's lead in cutting antibiotic use.

The National Livestock Producers Association did not respond to HealthDay's request for comment on the report.

The new data do provide "a glimmer of hope that we can beat the growing epidemic of drug-resistant infections," said Avinash Kar, senior attorney for the council.

"The progress is no doubt influenced by the groundswell of change we've seen in the chicken industry in the past few years -- but beef and pork are lagging behind. It will take all hands on deck to keep our miracle drugs working when sick people and animals need them," Kar said in a news release from the group.

Last year, the council joined with other groups in petitioning the FDA to take a tougher stance against the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals. That petition is still pending, according to the council.

The World Health Organization has recommended a halt to the use of medically important antibiotics in animals that are not sick.

At least 2 million Americans develop antibiotic-resistant infections every year, and at least 23,000 die from such infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on antibiotic resistance and food.
Agra MP Ram Shankar Katheriya stages a sit-in for condition of a school to get improved. Denies it later on saying he was talking to kids sitting on the floor.

By Siraj Qureshi: Former Union MoS for HRD and presently Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Ram Shankar Katheriya created ripples in the political circles, when he staged a sit-in against his own party's government, at a school in Agra, demanding better facilities for kids at government schools within 15 days.

Although Katheriya later denied having staged a sit-in, claiming that he had merely sat on the floor with the school kids to talk to them regarding the problems they were facing at the school.

advertisement

Katheriya, who is also the Agra MP, had been visiting a government school in the Jagdishpura area of Agra. Seeing the condition of the school building and the pathetic conditions in which the students were being forced to study at the school, Katheriya sat on the ground and demanded that the Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) be called to the school to give explanation.

Arriving at the school, the BSA Archana Gupta tried to calm down Katheriya by telling him that the school was running in a rented building and any repairs or modifications to the building could only be made with the permission of the landlord. However, Katheriya refused to back off from his stand and warned that if the conditions did not improve within 15 days, he will take strict action.

When India Today talked to Katheriya about his sit-in at the school against his own party's government, he said that he was not staging a sit-in and was just trying to understand the conditions in which the students were studying in that particular school. He said that the school was in a 'Dalit-majority' area of Agra and had been running for the past 50 years, but the condition of the building was very bad. The school did not even have a toilet and classrooms were being used to store chemical drums, while the students were studying in the open under a tree. During the rains, the school had to be closed, so he had given the BSA an ultimatum to get the school building repaired within 15 days.

Following Katheriya's sit-in attempt, the opposition openly criticized the state government and Katheriya. Samajwadi Party City President Raisuddin said that Katheriya was himself an HRD minister previously, but he couldn't even improve the conditions in the University where he studied. To see him staging a sit-in at a government school appears nothing more than a well-orchestrated drama of the MP to gain some brownie points among the people of Agra before the 2019 parliamentary elections. He said that if Katheriya really wanted these schools to function properly, he could get them developed with his own MP funds.

advertisement

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Digamber Singh Dhakrey told India Today that Katheriya has been Agra MP for the past 9 years and there are 9 MLAs of the BJP in Agra. Recently, the BJP also captured the Agra Municipal Corporation, and yet the MP is staging such sit-in dramas as if someone else has to get these schools developed. He demanded to know why the BJP MP didn't think about these schools in the past 9 years since he was representing Agra and said that this school visit was just a political stunt on the part of Katheriya.

--- ENDS ---
THURSDAY, Dec. 14, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly 20 percent of older people who've sought care for chronic illness say they experienced discrimination in the U.S. health system, a new study reports.

Racial discrimination was the most common kind, but the study also revealed discrimination based on ancestry, gender, age, religion, weight or physical appearance, physical disability, sexual orientation and financial status.

"If people believe they have received unfair treatment in the health care setting, that experience could negatively affect their experience with their providers, their willingness to go to their providers, and their adherence with their treatment, and thereby affect their health," said the study's first author, Thu Nguyen. She is a researcher at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

"It's still very common, and there's a long way to go," Nguyen said in a UCSF news release.

For the study, the researchers looked specifically at reports of discrimination people experienced between 2008 and 2014. The reports came from a national survey of nearly 14,000 people aged 54 and older. All had a chronic disease, such as diabetes, cancer or high blood pressure.

People in all of the groups analyzed -- including blacks, whites and Hispanics -- said they had experienced discrimination.

Discrimination in health care has been linked to poor health and less use of health care services, according to the researchers.

The findings showed that discrimination reported by black patients declined over the six-year study period.

In 2008, when the survey began, 27 percent of black respondents reported discrimination. About 48 percent reported that it was based on race or ancestry, 29 percent reported age discrimination, and 20 percent reported discrimination based on income.

By 2014, however, the number of black survey participants reporting discrimination had fallen to 20 percent, about the same level as among whites. The researchers said they didn't know why this drop happened. Levels of discrimination among whites and Hispanics did not change significantly during that time period.

Among white survey participants, the most common reasons for reported discrimination were age (29 percent), weight or physical appearance (16 percent), gender (10 percent) and income (10 percent).

The most common type of discrimination reported by Hispanic participants was age (27 percent), followed by race or ancestry (23 percent), weight or physical appearance (14 percent) and income (14 percent).

The investigators also found that wealthier whites reported less discrimination, while wealthier blacks reported more.

The study's senior author, Amani Nuru-Jeter, said, "This finding is useful for continued efforts to improve health care experiences and suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice." She's an associate professor of epidemiology and community health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Providers should be aware that a large fraction of patients will have experienced some form of discrimination in a health care setting," Nuru-Jeter noted. "Just by recognizing how common these experiences are for patients, clinicians may be able to offer better care."

The study was published Dec. 14 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

More information

A joint statement from the World Health Organization and the United Nations discusses ending health care discrimination.
Exercise Ekuverin 2017: India-Maldives bilateral military exercise held in Belagavi

Published: December 15, 2017

The eight edition of India, Maldives bilateral military exercise EKUVERIN 2017 was held in India in Belagavi, Karnataka. The aim of the exercise was to conduct military training between armies of both countries with emphasis on counter insurgency, counter terrorism operations (CICT Ops).

Key Facts

The focus of exercise was to acquaint both armies with each others operating procedures in backdrop of CICT Ops in urban or semi-urban environment under United Nations charter. It was aimed at enhancing interoperability between two armies as contingents hone their tactical and technical skills. The exercise provided opportunity for two armies to activate Joint Operations Centre at Belagavi.

In this edition of exercise, Maldivian team was represented by two officers and 43 other ranks, while Indian Army was represented by three officers, three Junior Commissioned Officers and 39 other ranks belonging to Gorkha Rifles Battalion (Sirmoor Rifles).

Background

Indian Army and Maldives National Defence Force have been holding Exercise Ekuverin (meaning friends in the Maldivian language) since 2009 on alternate years in their countries. The last one was held at Kaddhoo in the Lammu Atol of Maldives. It had conducted military training between armies of both countries with emphasis on amphibious & CICT Ops.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2017

Category: Defence Current Affairs

Topics: Defence  EKUVERIN 2017  India-Maldives  Indian Military Exercises  Karnataka  Military Exercises

Latest E-Books
India, Morocco ink agreements for cooperation in Water Resources, Road and Marine Sectors

Published: December 15, 2017

India and Morocco have signed four agreements for cooperation in Water Resources, Road and Marine Sectors. They were signed after Moroccos Minister for Equipment, Transport, Logistics and Water meet Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping in New Delhi.

Both sides discussed matters relating to India-Morocco bilateral cooperation in road transport, water resources and the marine sector.

MoUs /Agreements signed are

MoU on cooperation in the field of Water Resources;

Agreement to establish cooperation between Indian Maritime University (IMU) and Higher Institute of Maritime Studies (ISEM) of Morocco.

Framework Agreement for Cooperation in Training between National Ports Agency (NPA) of Morocco and Indian Maritime University (IMU).

Cooperation Framework Agreement between Institute of Training in Engines and Road Maintenance of Morocco (IFEER) and Indian Academy of Highway Engineers (IAHE).

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2017

Topics: India-Morocco  Marine Sectors  National  Road Sector  Water Resources Sector

Latest E-Books
NITI Aayog launches ATL Community Day

Published: December 15, 2017

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayogs Atal Innovation Mission launched the Atal Tinkering Labs Community Day in New Delhi.

The day marks Community Drive Initiative in which 25 young Mentors engaged with more than 200 students who are not enrolled in formal education system. These mentors will visit four locations in New Delhi to conduct brief sessions with children from various NGOs, on how innovations can help resolve problems in the communities.

Atal Tinkering Lab Community Drive Initiative

The initiative is aimed at maximizing impact of Atal Tinkering Labs by extending innovation to children in community who do not have access to formal educational institutions. Its purpose is to provide these children with same educational tools as the students in Atal Tinkering Labs to enable them to become problem solvers. The NGOs participating in it include organizations working with disabled children, street and working children, and girls from the weaker sections of society.

Atal Innovation Mission

NITI Aayogs Atal Innovation Mission is among one of flagship programs of Government to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in country and to set up Atal Tinkering Labs across the country. It aims to give substantial boost to the innovation ecosystem and to catalyze the entrepreneurial spirit in the country.

It prime objective is to provide an innovation promotion platform involving academics, researchers and entrepreneurs, drawing upon national and international experiences to foster a culture of innovation in India. It will also promote a network of world-class innovation hubs, Start-up businesses and other selfemployment activities, particularly in technology driven areas.

NITI Aayog

NITI Aayog is the premier policy Think Tank of the Union Government, providing both directional and policy inputs. It is essentially an advisory body that seeks to provide critical directional and strategic inputs across spectrum of key elements of policy to the centre.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2017

Topics: atal innovation mission  Atal Tinkering Lab  ATL Community Day  National  New Delhi  NITI Aayog

Latest E-Books
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- For the first time in Fresno County Superior Court history, a defense attorney has filed a rare motion, arguing a death penalty qualification on a jury panel for an African American defendant will deprive them of equal protection.





Attorney David Mugridge's client, Leroy Johnson spent almost nine years in jail on murder charges.





Mugridge says studies show most African Americans are against the death penalty and he is worried those jurors will be disqualified based on their predisposition toward life rather than death.





He argues his client will not receive the right to a fair and equal sampling of all races.





"Theoretically as a defense attorney I'd love to have everybody on the jury be opposed to the death penalty, the people have the right to a fair and balanced jury just as much as the defendant does and I just want to make sure it ends up being fair and trial for both sides," said Mugridge.





Johnson's trial was supposed to start in January, but it could be postponed.





Mugridge also says this has only been done in the State of California once before.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!





"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
By PTI: to media

Panaji, Dec 15 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today asked the media to get Kashmiris closer to the rest of India rather than adding "fuel to the fire".

She was speaking at the three-day-long "India Ideas Conclave 2017" organised by the India Foundation here.

She said the media kept abusing and accusing separatists but at the same time kept getting them on television giving them TV time to spew venom.

advertisement

"I don?t know why do they do it. Is it because of TRPs? Media should help us to get Kashmir out of the present situation and not add fuel to the fire," she said.

She said that some sections of the media pick up the "most rotten" person from the state who speaks against the country.

"They pick up a guy who is not known to anyone, no Kashmiri knows him. They put him on television and then they get someone to combat him. They give him that kind of space on television," she said.

"And these two are fighting and Kashmiris and other countrymen watch them. The other countrymen feel that this Kashmiri is talking bad about the country so Kashmiris are bad. And the Kashmiris feel that other fellow is accusing Kashmir," she said.

"Media should play a role in bringing Kashmiris and the rest of the country closer to each other. They should pick up people who talk nice things about the country," she added.

She said that Kashmiriyat is reflected in the acts of the people of Kashmir. "You can get the proof of Kashmiriyat in the acts of people who rushed to help Amarnath yatris (when they were attacked)," she said.

"That time large number of people went to hospital to donate blood. Last year when there was an accident, people took passengers to their houses. This is what Kashmiris are basically," she said.

The three-day conclave was inaugurated in presence of former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Union minister of state for external Affairs M J Akbar, Minister of State from the United Arab Emirates Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh and Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. PTI RPS BNM TIR

--- ENDS ---
Javier Leon generally dedicates no more than two and a half years to a company or a project. After that its back to Cadiz, if he can, for a change of pace.

Considered one of the worlds greatest digital artists, this 3D animation expert is well aware that the industrys big guns are in the US, but he cant cut himself adrift from the salty waters of the Bay of Cadiz, or from the tranquility of southern Spain, at least not for long.

From the ground floor of an old house in the center of San Fernando de Cadiz, the 44-year-old runs Leon Studio, an animation company that makes 3D images for big-brand advertising, special effects for films such as Agora by Alejandro Amenabar, and graphics for video games.

Javier Leon works out of Cadiz, where he has three clocks on the wall telling him the time in Madrid, New York and LA, where most of his clients are based. Marcelo del Pozo

His latest triumph has been the images that go with the opening credits of The Crown, the Netflix drama series about Queen Elizabeth II. They show a piece of gold melting into the shape of a crown to represent the British monarchy, work that has earned him his first Emmy nomination..

It came about through some work I put up on my webpage, says Leon. He calls up the image of a dark-skinned woman whose head is encased within a golden helmet and whose naked torso is crawling with cockroaches. She doesnt exist, he explains. Shes made on the computer, as are the insects. And the bugs usually trigger either repulsion or fascination. The effect on The Crown director Patrick Clair was fascination, and he called Leon to see if they could develop the concept.

A naval engineer

Before becoming a master of digital illusion, Leon was studying to become a naval engineer at his fathers behest. But during his third year at university, he wandered off course. The fact is, I never liked it, he confesses. That year he discovered a multimedia department at Cadiz University that developed computer programs for businesses, and he decided to explore the concept. When I told him [his father] I wanted to get into videogames, he took it really badly, but I was adamant, he says.

Javier Leon uses photogrammetry to make 3D images. Marcelo del Pozo

During his military service he claimed conscientious objection and taught computing to youngsters from San Fernando. Once he had done his stint, his father said he would help him with his final engineering project, but Leon wasnt about to capitulate. His response was to find work with a programming company in Pontevedra, around 1,000 km from home.

Shortly afterwards, he got a call from Pyro Studios  the company behind Commandos, which became the biggest-selling Spanish videogame in history  and moved to Madrid. I was involved in the second part; we created the scenes and thats where I learned about all the 3D animation tools, he says.

Subsequently, he received an offer from Toby Gard, who made Tomb Raider and Lara Croft, and Leon set off for Bristol in the UK. In this line of work, its more about the work itself than your academic diplomas, and my work was getting better all the time, he says. Two years later, he was working with another company on Worms, another famous videogame involving military strategy.

Movie memorabilia at the office. Marcelo del Pozo

And then he discovered the world of advertising. And I didnt want to do anything else, he says. Im very obsessive. He moved to Barcelona and made ads for ONCE and Cruzcampo. Eventually, he ended up back in San Fernando.

Family-work balance

His longest-running project has been his marriage to high school sweetheart Maria Jesus Garcia. Shes the first person to see my designs and she is in charge of administrative work at Leon Studio, he says.

The couples two daughters are now at the same school they themselves went to, which is just across from the studio. Judging by the peal of church bells, it is 2 pm. Theyll be coming out of class now and Maria will pick them up and take them home for lunch, says Leon.

The image that inspired the backdrop to The Crown credits which earned Leon an Emmy nomination. Marcelo del Pozo

The bustle on the street is evident from the windows of an open-plan and somewhat chaotic office that brings to mind Silicon Valley. You might find yourself standing on a Pikachu stuffed toy, for example, or leaning on a Yoda cushion, or finding an enormous Playmobil figure sitting on your desk.

Despite the time, Javier presses on with his team. Some of them will go home for lunch shortly. Others will warm up their food in in the microwave and eat at the studio. They have to send a project to a US client by 7 pm. Three clocks on the wall show the time in Spain, New York and L.A. How do we manage to work successfully with the big 3D animation producers from Cadiz? he says. Because we do our own projects and I have good contacts.

But why not cross to the other side of the Atlantic? Ive already lived in New York, he says. Its good for a while, but I want to be my own boss and have my own company. And San Fernando offers a much better standard of living.

English version by Heather Galloway.
Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy. RICCARDO PAREGGIANI (EFE)

The outcome of the December 21 election in Catalonia cannot be manipulated, because the Spanish electoral system is based on a manual ballot count carried out in front of election officials and party representatives. In the event of a complaint, there can be a recount.

But its another story when it comes to the preliminary results announced on election night. Any interference with these figures would not change the official outcome, but it would create confusion and damage the public trust in the democratic system.

Cyberactivists with Anonymous have reactivated their pro-independence campaign

The Spanish government has drafted a plan to prevent such a situation.

The goal of disinformation campaigns is not to secure a specific outcome [at elections], but to undermine trust in the same, warned Janis Sarts, director of NATOs Strategic Communications Center, on Thursday.

Despite the fact that the Spanish voting system has safeguards against fraud, emotions are running high and social media platforms are awash with messages posted by pro-secession users suggesting the possibility of vote-rigging on December 21.

The pro-independence association ANP and the far-left CUP party have even announced a parallel recount of their own using an app.

Government sources have admitted that the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Ciudadanos, their main allies in the activation of Article 155 of the Constitution, have urged them to develop a plan to counter the smear campaigns against Spanish democracy.

A DoS attack by Anonymous.

The government has set up a working group to guarantee that nothing will alter the normal operation of election procedures. Members include representatives from the Interior Ministry, the Public Administration Secretary of States Office, the National Cryptologic Center (CCN) and the Office of the Secretary of State for Communications, in partnership with the Center for Communications and Information Technology (CCTI) and the Center for Information Security of Catalonia (Cesicat), both of which answer to the Catalan government.

Their tasks include supervising the work of Indra, the company that is in charge of the preliminary vote count.

The biggest concern involves the period of time from 8pm, when the polling stations close, until the official count is over and the outcome is announced, three to six days after election day.

The Socialist Party and Ciudadanos have urged the government to develop a plan to counter smear campaigns against Spanish democracy

The working team has assessed the risks, which would chiefly take the form of cyberattacks: one possibility is a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the website that will publish the provisional results, and another that this website could be replicated to show fake results.

Both scenarios would create considerable concern in a country accustomed to having reliable data just a few hours after polling stations close.

Cyberactivists with the Anonymous group have reactivated their pro-independence campaign, and boast about having infiltrated Indras network for 20 days in order to show its vulnerability. The company admits the attack took place, but denies that client information has been compromised, or that the count on December 21 could be affected.

Then there is the issue of how to combat fake news, a task that will fall to the Office of the Secretary of State for Communications. The government has consulted with countries that have dealt with this type of interference during their own elections. Spain lacks specific legislation on the matter, and many of these attacks originate abroad, which makes it harder to go after the perpetrators.

Still, NATO expert Janis Sarts notes that a governments lack of credibility is its greatest vulnerability.

English version by Susana Urra.
Venezuelan state oil firm (PDVSA) workers show support for Hugo Chavez in May 2011. LEO RAMIREZ/ AFP/ Getty Images

The Venezuelan businessman Diego Salazar had a weakness: the French wine Chateau Petrus from the year 1990, which has a price tag of 5,560 per bottle. In December 2012, Salazar snapped up almost 700 bottles of the vintage alongside other items such as Dom Perignon champagne. The total bill for his purchases at the Lavinia wine shop in Paris was 493,573.

This extravagant outlay is just one example of the luxury spending by Salazar, his cousin Luis Mariano Rodriguez and the former Venezuelan vice-minister for energy and oil Nervis Villalobos. The three are part of an alleged corruption ring involving high-ranking politicians and businessmen close to the government of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The group is believed to have hidden 2 billion in accounts in the principality of Andorra, a microstate between France and Spain.

Bill for 40 tins of Beluga cavier paid for by alleged member of the Venezuelan corruption ring Luis Mariano Rodriguez.

The three men spent some 10 million on luxury goods, including extravagant spending on third parties, according to bills seen by EL PAIS.

Salazar and Ramirez spent 3.4 million on jewelry, 2 million on artwork, 1 million on wine and 516,012 on helicopter hire. Other bills included 953,000 on tailormade suits and 125,000 on items including caviar and Spanish jamon (ham).

The payments covering the period 20072012 were funneled through a network of 37 accounts at the Banca Privada dAndorra (BPA) bank  a network allegedly managed by the corruption ring. Andorran judge Canolic Mingorance is investigating whether the members of the ring used this web of accounts to stash away illegal commissions for facilitating contracts with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.

In jewelry alone  the most ostentatious spending category  bills reveal that 109 luxury watches, including timepieces made by Rolex and Cartier, were purchased in 2011 for 1.7 million. The purchase was carried out by a Panamanian firm controlled by Salazar, the cousin of former PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez, who was also the Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations until a fortnight ago. Salazar also spent 1 million on watches and gold and diamond chains at a Caracas jewelry shop.

Venezuelan prosecutors believe the corruption ring illegally earned more than 3.5 billion through pillaging the state oil firm

Venezuelan authorities arrested Salazar last week for his alleged involvement in the corruption network, and prosecutors announced they were investigating Ramirez, a strongman of Hugo Chavez.

Another Panamanian firm, Josland Investments, spent 90,500 on items including Rolex white gold time pieces in 2011. The name of Nervis Villalobos, Venezuelan vice-minister for energy from 2004 to 2006, shows up in connection with this purchase. Villalobos was arrested in Madrid in October over a different case, and his lawyers have declined to answer queries from this paper.

Among other costs racked up by alleged members of the corruption ring are the 575,000 spent by Salazar for accommodation at the Ritz hotel in Paris over a period of 10 years, and the 6,223 tab he ran up at the hotels Hemingway Bar.

A 340,000 bill for eight luxury watches paid for by former Venezuelan vice-minister for oil and energy Nervis Villalobos. EL PAIS

Salazar is also linked to payment of a 412,302 bill with a private airline firm, with trips made to destinations including Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. His cousin Luis Mariano Rodriguez authorized BPA to make a transfer of 470,000 for the payment of suits bought in France.

The corruption network is suspected of using BPA to launder its illegal profits. In 2015, authorities in Andorra  which had banking secrecy laws until last year  took control of the lender after US authorities said it was being used by criminal groups for money laundering purposes.

Venezuelan prosecutors believe the corruption ring illegally earned more than 3.5 billion through its pillaging of the state oil firm, and announced recently that a search of Salazars home in Caracas had turned up documents implicating Rafael Ramirez, Chavezs right-hand man who ran the PDSVA for 12 years.

English version by George Mills.
A new poll commissioned by EL PAIS has indicated that it is still unclear whether pro-independence parties or the so-called constitutional parties  which are against independence  will triumph at the Catalan regional elections on December 21.

Ciudadanos leads the poll with 25.2% of the vote

The poll comes just a week before the vote, which was called by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy using emergency powers under Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution  a move that came in response to the passing of a unilateral declaration of independence in the regional parliament on October 27.

The tightly-contested election will pit parties determined to push ahead with secessionist plans against those want to protect Spanish unity and revive the regional economy which has been hit hard by the political crisis.

There are 135 seats in the Catalan parliament, meaning a party or bloc must win at least 68 to hold the majority. But the new poll by Metroscopia has indicated that it is not clear which party or group of parties will be able to reach a majority.

The voter intention survey shows that, for the first time, ballots cast for the constitutionalist bloc (44.9%) will outnumber those going to pro-independence parties (43.8%). However, the pro-secession parties are still ahead in terms of likely number of seats won. And with neither bloc looking set to achieve a majority, the Catalunya en ComuPodem coalition, formed by the party of Barcelona mayor Ada Colau and the Catalan branch of Spains anti-austerity party Podemos, looks set to play a key role in the formation of any government.

On party-by-party basis, leading the poll is the constitutional party Ciudadanos with 25.2% of the vote. This would give the party, which was founded in Catalonia, between 35 and 36 seats  10 more than they have today. Ciudadanos candidate Ines Arrimadas has taken a strong stand against the secessionist push, capturing voters who want a resolution to a crisis that has seen the region stripped of its autonomous powers.

The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), which is strongly pro-independence, is close behind with 23.1% of the predicted vote and 33 seats, according to the Metroscopia poll. ERC is led by Oriol Junqueras who is currently in pre-trial detention facing possible charges of rebellion for his involvement in the unilateral declaration of independence. This is the first time a poll has placed ERC ahead of the other pro-independence parties in Catalan elections, but expectations are still a long way short of six months ago when the secession movement was full of optimism.

Fellow pro-independence party Junts per Cataluna, headed by ousted Catalan premier Carlos Puigdemont, who is no longer the target of a European arrest warrant, is in third place in the poll with 14.3% of the vote and an estimated 22 seats. Following the unilateral declaration of independence, Puigdemont fled to Belgium where he has maintained his commitment to the secessionist push.

In the constitutional bloc, the Catalan branch of Spains Socialists (PSC) could win 14.3% of the vote, which would give them up to 20 seats, according to the poll. Miquel Iceta, the candidate for the anti-independence party, has focused his campaign on job creation and economic growth.

A record-high turnout of 85% is predicted for the pill  a figure that could be crucial in the outcome

In fifth place is Catalunya en ComuPodem, which is opposed to both the application of Article 155 and any universal declaration of independence in the region.

According to the poll, the coalition could win 9.5% of the vote, allowing them to maintain the 11 seats they currently hold in the Catalan parliament.

The radical anti-austerity party CUP, which supports independence, is predicted to take 6.4% of the vote and eight to nine seats. And in last place is the anti-independence Popular Party (PP) with 5.4% which could lose up six seats and be left with just five representatives.

The poll results paint a picture of more political uncertainty with neither group set to win an overall majority. If all the parties in favor of independence were to join forces, they would still only reach 63 seats  five short of an absolute majority. The constitutional parties would be left with 61. Catalunya en ComuPodem has said it will not support either camp, leaving the political future of the region in doubt.

With record-high turnout of up to 82% predicted by the poll, the vote is tipped to be a divisive referendum on whether Catalans want to pursue independence.

EL PAIS has applied its own model to determine the outcome of the elections. This model averages out the results of dozens of polls, estimates the distribution of those votes according to each region and calibrates for typical errors. The model was applied 10,000 times in each province to ensure greater accuracy.

The results from this process give Ciudadanos the lead with 22.4% of the vote, followed by ERC with 21.7%, Junts per Catalunya with 18.5%, PSC with 5.8%, Catalunya en ComuPodem with 8.1%, CUP with 6.2% and PP with 6%.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) The Cabinet today approved signing of an agreement between India and Colombia in the field of agriculture and fisheries.

"The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Colombia in the field of agriculture and fisheries," an official statement said.

advertisement

Under the MoU, a joint-working group (JWG) will be constituted to prepare/finalise the work plan for the next two years.

The MoU will be initially valid for five years and would be automatically extended for a subsequent period of five years unless either party expresses its desire to terminate it.

The co-operation would be in the areas of innovative agricultural practices/approaches, new agricultural mechanisations and successful models of agricultural marketing.

The two countries would also co-operate to develop projects in association with agricultural companies for production of seeds, among others. PTI MJH ABM

--- ENDS ---
Alleged attacker Rodrigo Lanza (center) in 2014. Massimiliano Minocri

Victor Lainez was kicked in the head as he laid dying on the footpath, according to an autopsy report released by Zaragoza magistrate Natividad Rapun.

The report into the death of Lainez, who was brutally beaten outside a small bar in Zaragoza, states that the victim died for legitimately exercising his personal freedom to wear suspenders with the colors of the Spanish flag.

Lanza, who has been identified by the owner of the bar, says he attacked Lainez in self-defense

According to the report, Lainez was hit from behind and had no possible defense against his alleged attacker  33-year-old Rodrigo Lanza. The Chilean suspect allegedly used an object large enough to cause a bone fracture against Lainez, who fell to the floor and suffered a brain hemorrhage.

The report found that once Lainez was on the ground his attacker dealt strong blows to the head, perhaps kicks, which broke the bones in his nose and adjacent areas. The judge condemned the severity of the trauma, explaining how Lainez suffered injuries to both the front and back parts of the head, without his body showing any signs of reaction or defense.

Rapun said there was no doubt Lanza was responsible for the vicious attack and has sentenced the anti-establishment Chilean to preventive prison without bail.

Lanza, who has been identified by the owner of the bar, five clients and three people who were with him that night, has said he attacked Lainez in self-defense. According to a statement, published by his mother Mariana Huidobro on Twitter, the 55-year-old victim threatened Lanza with a knife. The judge however, has said no knife has been found.

The statement adds that when Lanza and his friends entered the bar Lainez gestured to Lanza to come over. According to the statement, Lainez asked Lanza where he was from and when he answered Chile, Lainez replied: Piece of shit, go back to your country.

According to the autopsy report, Lainez was hit from behind and had no possible defense

When the group finished their drinks and left the bar, Lainez approached them with a knife, the statement says, forcing Lanza to hit him in defense. The statement also maintains that Lainez was wearing a black jacket which hid the contentious suspenders. But witnesses from the night said that Lanza and his friends had called Lainez a facha, short for fascist, because of the red and yellow stripes on his suspenders.

Lanza has already served a five-year sentence for assaulting a local police officer in the Catalan capital; that victim has been a quadriplegic since 2006. The alleged attacker comes from an upper middle class family in Chile and is the grandson of Sergio Huidobro, an admiral who was very close to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

English version by George Mills.
Next years budget bill, submitted by President Hassan Rouhani to the Iranian Parliament on Sunday, shows hundreds of millions of dollars will be allocated to the clergy and the institutions under their control.

While the government will significantly cut spending for infrastructure projects and cash subsidies, allocations for religious seminaries and similar entities will increase by double digits.

The theocratic regime of Iran considers such institutions vital for its survival. Through propaganda at the national and international level, they recruit and train new supporters for the regime.

The following are some of the examples of funds allocated to ideological entities:

$110 million for the High Council of Religious Seminaries, which oversees all religious seminaries in the country and issues permits for the establishment of new schools, among other things. Its budget shows an increase of more than 16 percent compared to the previous year.

$105 million for supporting religious seminaries. From that amount, $88 million will be allocated to training male clergymen and $16 million for cultural and promotional activities by male students of religious seminaries.

$5 million for supporting religious research activities by seminary students.

$150 million for the Service Center for Religious Seminaries, a welfare institution that provides support to retired and disabled clergymen and the families of deceased clergy. The institution also pays scholarships for religious seminaries and funds cultural and sports activities for students.

$29 million for the Council for Planning and Management of Religious Seminaries in Khorasan Province.

$64 million for the Policy Making Council for Womens Religious Seminaries.

$75 million for Al-Mustafa International University, an umbrella organization for religious seminaries providing education to foreign students within and outside of Iran. This institution is also used for expanding influence abroad. It is worth mentioning that the budget allocated to Al-Mustafa University is much higher than the fund provided to some of the major regular universities, like Amir Kabir University in Tehran with $63 million, and Tabriz University with $64 million.

$23 million for the supreme leaders representative in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The fund will be spent on deploying preachers, overseeing the compatibility of IRGC rules and regulations with Islam, spiritual ceremonies, and guiding and promoting political vision.

$17 million for maintaining the mausoleum and residence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Irans Islamic Republic, and for protecting his ideological heritage by publishing books and holding commemorations and conferences.

It should also be noted that funds from the government budget are only a part of the income for influential clergymen and the religious institutions they control.

Citizens and businesses also donate tens of millions of dollars to ayatollahs, shrines, and related small and large religious networks. In addition, senior ayatollahs control foundations that are huge economic empires, with real estate holdings and industries.

For example, Astan-e Qods Razavi, the foundation controlling a huge Shiite shrine in Mashhad, is the biggest landowner, owning more than 43 percent of the city. Its income was estimated at $150 million annually a decade ago.
All people accused of looting a credit and financial institution in Iran have been freed on bail, a justice department official announced in Tehran.

Samen al-Hojaj is a bankrupt credit and financial institution that was taken over by the private Parsian Bank.

According to an outspoken conservative figure and former MP, Ahmad Tavakkoli, most of Samen al-Hojaj customers - who borrowed huge sums of money from it and never paid back - are veteran judges and the children of prominent political and clergy figures.

Tavakkoli had threatened on November 28 to publicly disclose the names of the borrowers if the debts were not repaid.

The managing director of Samen al-Hojaj has a lot of influence. Hes so powerful that he even managed to get an arrest warrant for the Central Bank of Iran's former governor, Mahmoud Bahmani (2008-2013), Tavakkoli told reporters.

Corrupt individuals attract and multiply people of their caliber, the former MP remarked.

In the last decade, many credit unions or associations have sprung up in Iran, some without a banking license and proper supervision, promising high interests to people and attracting a lot of deposits.

The managing director of Samen al-Hojaj [bankrupt credit institution] has a lot of influence. Hes so powerful that he even managed to get an arrest warrant for the Central Bank of Iran's former governor.

Many of these financial institutions reach insolvency, either through reckless investments or handing out huge loans, often under suspicious circumstances.

More than two weeks after Tavakkolis threatening comments, Tehrans Penal Courts deputy announced on Wednesday, December 14, that all the accused have been freed, on bail.

Tasnim News Agency, run by the Islamic Revolution Guardian Corps (IRGC), cited Mohsen Eftekhari as saying, The time for their trial has not been set, yet. The investigative procedure on the case against Samen al-Hojaj borrowers is currently underway.

If what Tavakkoli says is true about the strong connections the accused have, it is not certain that the legal case will proceed in a timely fashion and will have a clear conclusion.

Nearly fifty complainants have already registered their names for a part of the case, while other related parts are still under initial investigation, Eftekhari said without further elaboration.

However, since some of Samen al-Hojaj depositors have received their capital and interest, it is highly unlikely to see the number of the complainants grow, Eftekhari maintained.

The bankrupt credit institutions caretaker, Parsian Bank had earlier announced in a statement that it is set to repay the depositors of the insolvent lender by prioritizing small depositors on a timetable designed for the purpose.

Samen al-Hojaj was launched in 2001 under the name of Samen al-Hojaj Cooperative for the Educated and soon expanded into a financial empire.

It began operations as a credit institution in 2007. The private institution had 550 branches across the country, twice the number of an average Iranian private commercial bank. There was no information on the companys stakeholders on its website.

However, according to the Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), Samen al-Hojaj went bankrupt after heavily investing in the housing market that soon suffered from stagnation.

The managing director of the institution, Abolfazl Mir-Ali, held membership on the boards of directors at the Iran National Oil Company and a gas and petrochemical company where former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Mohammad Hassan Khamenei, one of the brothers of the Islamic republics Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have seats.

Earlier, several conservatives close to Khamenei had accused Hassan Rouhanis presidential campaign of borrowing money from Samen al-Hojaj.

Samen al-Hojaj is reportedly the second big-name quasi-lender to collapse in Iran, triggering new difficulties for the regulator and the banking industry already struggling under the heavy burden of soured and restructured loans, Financial Tribune reported.

A significant number of financial and credit institutions have recently gone bankrupt in Iran, forcing depositors to hold protest rallies demanding their money back.

Most of these gatherings are staged by people who claim they are victims of systematic deception and fraud by these credit institutions. They say their assets have been either plundered or they have received no interest for their deposits as promised by these institutions.
Iranian police have admitted for the first time that many of the so-called industrial narcotics distributed in Iran are homemade.

Citing the commander of Irans Anti-Drugs Police Force (IADPF), Mehr News Agency reported on December 13, Today, most of the new addictive drugs distributed in Iran are of an industrial type.

IADPF head Mohammad Massoud Zahedian said that the drugs on todays market are not necessarily imports. Even if Afghanistan were incapable of producing addictive drugs and all our borders totally closed, we would have been unable to stop producing and distributing narcotics.

Our schoolchildren today are incapable of saying no!

Referring to the lucrative business of drug dealing, he said, Many people benefit from the drug business. Therefore, the drugs market is flourishing, and many [drug dealers] are looking for new customers.

Dealers take advantage of the Internet to promote narcotics. Drug distributers safely lurk in the corners of the labyrinths of cyberspace to trap their young victims and promote their lethal products, Zahedian said.

The average age for narcotic use in Iran has become significantly lower in recent years. Our schoolchildren today are incapable of saying no. Even our youth, for different reasons, think smoking is a sign of being counted as an adult, he said.

Zahedian also insisted that fighting drugs needs education, otherwise even 1,000 police cannot stop an adolescent from falling into a drug dealers traps.

The commanders remarks come at a time when, according Irans Legal Medical Organization (LMO), during the first six months of the current Iranian year (strting 21st of March) 1,337 persons died of drug overdoses and 190 of using stimulant drugs.

Totally, 1,451 men and 153 women have died as a result of using narcotics and stimulant drugs in the same period in Iran, LMO has announced.

Based on an LMO report, the number of narcotics-related deaths in Iran dropped between 2007 and 2013 but has significantly increased again from 2014 onward.

The total number of narcotics victims in Iran currently shows an annual 1 percent rise while the rate for women is up 28.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the fact that crystal meth, called sheesheh in Persian, has recently become Irans second-most-popular drug, instantly after opium, has alarmed society.

Both methamphetamine production and abuse are skyrocketing in Iran because of the country's proximity to the regions top drug exporter, Afghanistan, according to the Associated Press. Iranian dealers are raking in profits, primarily from students and the exhausted working class. In Iran, those caught producing, selling, or using sheesheh face potentially lethal criminal penalties.

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime says Iran is suffering from one of the gravest addiction crises in the world. Health Ministry officials have estimated there are 2.2 million addicts in the country of more than 80 million, or roughly 2.75 percent of the population, but many NGOs believe the actual figures are much higher.

In July, Iran seemed poised to totally review its drug-related policies. A new plan was designed to greenlight state institutions to distribute drugs, mainly opium, among the addicted.

Saeed Sefatian, head of the working group on drug demand reduction in the Council for the Discernment of the Expediency of the State, said the plan would significantly reduce the volume of dirty money as well as money laundering.

The spokesman for the parliamentary Judicial and Legal Commission, Hassan Norouzi, said allowing the government to distribute opium among adults is reminiscent of what was successfully done before the Islamic Revolution, during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The plan was immediately shelved after conservative close allies of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, including Zahedian, categorically dismissed it as irrelevant.
Dec 15 (Reuters) - An Iranian blogger granted asylum in Israel has been questioned by its Shin Bet internal security service on suspicion of illegal communication with Iran, an Israeli official said on Friday.

Israel admitted Neda Amin, who was previously based in Turkey, on humanitarian grounds in August, saying that she faced forced repatriation to Iran and would be at risk given her writings for an Israeli news site.

Amin is of part-Jewish origin. Israel and Iran are enemies. As home to thousands of Iranian Jewish immigrants, Israel has in the past allowed such citizens to visit or correspond with relatives in Iran.

But Israeli law bars contact with Tehran's military or similar state agencies. A Shin Bet statement said that, after moving to Israel, Amin communicated with "Iranian representatives" and was questioned about this by the security service, whose responsibilities include counter-espionage.

The statement used a Hebrew term for Amin's alleged Iranian contacts that can also translate as "agents" or "officials". Asked by Reuters for clarification, an Israeli security official said only that the people with whom Amin was accused of communicating were not her relatives, and were inside Iran.

Amin was not under arrest, said the Israeli official, who requested anonymity, adding: "Whether there is a (criminal) case here is still being investigated." Reached by telephone, Amin declined to discuss the matter.

"I'm okay. I'm free, and I'm at the home of a friend," she said. "I don't want to speak about this topic now." Amin, originally from Tehran, added that her father was Jewish and mother Muslim. "My idea and my belief is that I am Jewish," she said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Office in Azerbaijan and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Country Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia headquartered in Moscow, signed a Letter of Intent with the Azerbaijani Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population.

The document aims at enhancing joint efforts to strengthen employment opportunities and the national labor market in Azerbaijan, the UN Baku office reported.

At the signing ceremony, UNDP Resident Representative Ghulam Isaczai and Director of the ILO Country Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Olga Koulaeva expressed their gratitude to Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Salim Muslumov for taking the lead in the implementation of the National Employment Strategy of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Isaczai emphasized that UNDP sees the signing of the Letter of Intent as the start of a substantially larger engagement by UN organisations in supporting Azerbaijan in enhancing job creation and active labour market measures.

UNDP and ILO have committed to supporting the Ministry in the implementation of two pilot programmes for employment of people with disabilities and for formalisation of informal businesses. Both institutions will support the Government of Azerbaijan in promoting integrated solutions to inclusive employment as a platform for the accelerated achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Azercell Telecom continues its activities directed to support the education in Azerbaijan.

The company has been cooperating with the universities, strengthening their material and technical base and carrying out programs aimed for the development of students in the country. The representatives of the company hold regular meetings with the students at the universities. The next meeting of similar nature took place on December, 14 at Baku Engineering University. Thus, Vahid Mursaliyev, CEO of Azercell Telecom, met with the university chancellor Havar Mammadov and the students. The meeting discussed the new perspectives for cooperation with the university. Mr. Mursaliyev stated that Azercell is interested in cooperation with the higher educational institutions and willing to support the projects aimed to boost the development of education in the country. 

Azercell has provided its support to the youth and students since the beginning of its operation. We have conducted bursary and internship programs aimed at professional development of students in technical fields and encouraging them towards entrepreneurship and business. We have also entered into cooperation programs with a number of universities in Baku and regions, Azercell CEO noted. He also added that Azercell will continue to support the students in the future and wished success in their studies and career.

Mr. Mursaliyev informed students about his career path and the operation of Azercell over past 21 years.

It should be noted that Azercell is in close cooperation with educational institutions of Azerbaijan. Azercell has signed memorandums of cooperation with Baku State University, Khazar University, Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry, Azerbaijan Technological University in Ganja and Lankaran State University. The company carries out various projects aimed for professional development of students, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship among them, as well as development of scientific-technical and educational base of the universities in the framework of these cooperation.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

The leader of the mobile communication industry, the largest taxpayer and the biggest investor of the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile telecom market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory (excluding 20% of the occupied territories) and 99.8% of population of the country.

Currently, 4.5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, mobile internet services, Metro coverage, 24/7 call centre service, 7 day/week Front Office service, M2M services, one-stop-shopping approach Azercell Express offices, Online Customer Care and Social Media Customer Care services, Mobile Customer Care office, mobile e-signature service ASAN Imza etc. Azercell deployed first 4G  LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 14

Trend:

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has met with a delegation led by Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion of the United Kingdom, co-chair of Joint Intergovernmental Commission Baroness Rona Fairhead.

Mehriban Aliyeva noted that Rona Fairheads visit to the country contributes to the development of bilateral relations. Saying that Azerbaijan established cooperation with the United Kingdom in many areas after restoring its independence, Mehriban Aliyeva highlighted relations in oil and gas field and noted the role of cooperation with BP in these relations. Mehriban Aliyeva said BP has operated in Azerbaijan for more than 20 years. Mehriban Aliyeva said this cooperation is highly appreciated in Azerbaijan. Mehriban Aliyeva noted that the new phase of Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli started, the new contract was signed this year, adding that this demonstrates that the ongoing cooperation serves interests of both the United Kingdom and Azerbaijan. Saying BP is the main investor in Shah Deniz-2 project and that TANAP project will be finished next year, Mehriban Aliyeva noted that Azerbaijan contributes to Europes energy security with these projects.

Stressing the importance of establishing broad and successful cooperation in other areas of economy in the future, including non-oil sector, Mehriban Aliyeva pointed out great prospects for increasing trade turnover, expanding cooperation in the areas of tourism, agriculture, high technologies, transport. Mehriban Aliyeva expressed her confidence that this visit will create new opportunities for cooperation.

Emphasizing the significance of humanitarian cooperation for the two nations` better knowing each other, Mehriban Aliyeva pointed out the expansion of Azerbaijan-UK relations in the field of education in recent years. The First Vice-President said there are 16 English language-schools in Azerbaijan and hundreds of Azerbaijanis study in the United Kingdom.

Saying there are ample opportunities for cooperation in the field of culture, Mehriban Aliyeva stressed high-level relations between Azerbaijans Ministry of Education and the University of Oxford. I highly appreciate our bilateral relations, said Mehriban Aliyeva, expressing her confidence that this cooperation will expand based on the mutual interests.

Rona Fairhead thanked for the hospitality extended to her in Azerbaijan. Baroness Rona Fairhead spoke of the meetings she held in Azerbaijan, noting the importance of the discussions in terms of expanding and strengthening bilateral relations.
By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Dec 15 (PTI) US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today said that a sustained cessation of threatening behaviour from North Korea is essential for any peace talks with Pyongyang.

The US will not allow the nuclear-armed North Korean regime to hold the world hostage, he said.

"A sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behaviour must occur before talks can begin. Apart from that step, there are no preconditions for talks, nor will we accept pre-conditions from North Korea or others," Tillerson said in his address to the Security Council on North Korea.

advertisement

"We will continue to hold North Korea accountable for its reckless and threatening behavior today and in the future. We ask every nation here to join us in exerting sovereignty to protect all of our people," Tillerson said.

As such he asked all member State to fully implement all existing UN Security Council Resolutions.

"For those nations who have not done so, or who have been slow to enforce Security Council resolutions, your hesitation calls into question whether your vote is a commitment to words only, but not actions," he said.

Tillerson said after its ICBM launch on November 29, the North Korean government claimed that it now possessed the capability to strike any location in the continental US.

"North Koreas growing capabilities reflect a direct threat to our security and the security of the entire world. We do not regard this claim as an empty threat," he said.

"The North Korean regimes continuing unlawful missile launches and testing activities signal its contempt for the United States, its neighbours in Asia, and all members of the United Nations," Tillerson said in his address to the Security Council meeting, which was chaired by his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono.

Japan holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council for the month of December.

Earlier US President Donald Trump said that while China is helping the US on North Korea, Russia is not.

Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a day earlier on North Korea.

"The primary point was to talk about North Korea, because we would love to have his help on North Korea. Chinas helping. Russias not helping. Wed like to have Russias help. Very important," Trump said. PTI LKJ KUN

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.15

Trend:

NATO is grateful for Azerbaijans continued commitment to the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan with troops, transit and financial support, a NATO official told Azernews and Trend.

We strongly welcome the strengthened support from all allies and partners including from Azerbaijan. This remains critical to our progress, and to our objective of bringing peace to Afghanistan, the official noted.

Last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference that NATO is grateful for Azerbaijans decision to increase its troop contribution to the Resolute Support Mission next year.

The peacekeeping contingent of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces has been serving in Afghanistan since November 20, 2002. Currently, 90 servicemen, two medical officers and two engineer sappers of Azerbaijani Armed Forces are participating in the mission.

Azerbaijan has several times made substantial donations to the Afghan National Army (ANA) Trust Fund. Moreover, Azerbaijan supports Afghanistan on its path of reforms towards integrating into regional and global economy.

Furthermore, Azerbaijan allowed the NATO planes carrying non-combat loads for a mission in Afghanistan to fly through Azerbaijans airspace and to use the countrys airports. About 40 percent of all cargo destined for the NATO mission in Afghanistan pass through Baku.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev visited Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park where he viewed work done and attended groundbreaking and opening ceremonies of new facilities Dec. 15.

Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev informed the president of the work done in the park. The project was implemented in accordance with President Aliyev`s decree signed in 2011. Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park occupies a total area of 505.64 hectares.

Facilities in the park include a number of STP LLC-owned plants, Alco Lubricant Company, MST Engineering Services LLC, Baku Non Ferrous and Foundry LLC, Azerbaijan Fibro Cement LLC, and others.

President Aliyev laid a foundation stone for a float glass factory of AzerFloat CJSC. The factory will be supplied with German HORN Glass Industries AG companys latest equipment. The facility will have an annual production capacity of 8 million square meters of a wide range of glass sheets. The factory will create 180 jobs.

President Aliyev then laid a foundation stone for a spinning and dyeing factory of Azerkhalcha OJSC. The facility will create 100 jobs.

The president then attended the launch of the first phase of Aqrokimya Azerbaycan LLC pesticide plant owned by Gilan Industrial Group. The plant occupies a total area of 18.3 hectares. It will have an annual production capacity of 57,000 tons of liquid pesticide and 1,000 tons of powdered pesticide. The plant created 100 jobs.

The president launched the facility.

President Aliyev then attended the inauguration of Data Processing, Registration and Transmission Center of STDC LLC. The center created 100 jobs.

The president met with staff of the center, and posed for photographs together with them.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended the inauguration of Flag Museum in Sumgayit.

The head of state cut the ribbon symbolizing the opening of the museum.

Construction of the Flag Museum started in February and ended this September. The three-story museum has two exhibition halls and a number of other rooms.

The museums collection features the map and flags of the khanate period in Azerbaijan, medieval warriors clothing, coats of arms of the Azerbaijani cities dating back to the 19th century, ancient coins, constitutions, emblems, flags, postage stamps, orders and medals relating to Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Azerbaijan SSR and independent Republic of Azerbaijan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has viewed conditions created at the Ludwigshafen Park in the city of Sumgayit after major overhaul.

The head of state was informed of the renovation work carried out in the area of the park, which saw extensive landscaping, creation of green areas and installation of benches.

The park was constructed in honor of the German city of Ludwigshafen, with which Sumgayit are sister cities.

There is a similar park named Sumgayit in Ludwigshafen, which was built in 1997 to mark the 20th anniversary of sistership relations between the two cities.
Details added (first version posted on 11:41)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev visited Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park where he viewed work done and attended groundbreaking and opening ceremonies of new facilities Dec. 15.

Minister of Economy Shahin Mustafayev informed the president of the work done in the park. The project was implemented in accordance with President Aliyev`s decree signed in 2011. Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park occupies a total area of 505.64 hectares.

Facilities in the park include a number of STP LLC-owned plants, Alco Lubricant Company, MST Engineering Services LLC, Baku Non Ferrous and Foundry LLC, Azerbaijan Fibro Cement LLC, and others.

President Aliyev laid a foundation stone for a float glass factory of AzerFloat CJSC. The factory will be supplied with German HORN Glass Industries AG companys latest equipment. The facility will have an annual production capacity of 8 million square meters of a wide range of glass sheets. The factory will create 180 jobs.

President Aliyev then laid a foundation stone for a spinning and dyeing factory of Azerkhalcha OJSC. The facility will create 100 jobs.

The president then attended the launch of the first phase of Aqrokimya Azerbaycan LLC pesticide plant owned by Gilan Industrial Group. The plant occupies a total area of 18.3 hectares. It will have an annual production capacity of 57,000 tons of liquid pesticide and 1,000 tons of powdered pesticide. The plant created 100 jobs.

The president launched the facility.

President Aliyev then attended the inauguration of Data Processing, Registration and Transmission Center of STDC LLC. The center created 100 jobs.

The president met with staff of the center, and posed for photographs together with them.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening ceremony of the Sumgait Tube Rolling Plant of Baku Steel Company LLC after the reconstruction Dec. 15.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Baku Steel Company LLC Rasim Mammadov informed the president about the work done there.

President Aliyev launched the plant.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Trainings are underway with participation of the command staff of Azerbaijans Armed Forces, the press service of the Defense Ministry reported Dec. 15.

The military personnel was reviewed before the beginning of the trainings with participation of deputy ministers of defense, commanders of all kinds of troops of the Armed Forces, chiefs of the main departments and services of the ministry, commanders of units, chiefs of staff and other officers.

Minister of Defense, Colonel General Zakir Hasanov brought to the attention of the participants the tasks assigned to the army by Azerbaijani President, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev, and gave general instructions on trainings and set tasks in the main activity areas.

Knowledge about the military regulations, guidance documents and other normative and legal acts, as well as the level of physical training of the military personnel were checked.
(UPDATE)

Details added (first version posted on 16:22)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Azerbaijan's policy and investor confidence in the country stand in core of the speedy industrialization process in Azerbaijan, President Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with the staff of the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park after attending a groundbreaking ceremony for new facilities.

Thats because investments are attracted only to stable countries, he said. Azerbaijan is one of the countries with excellent international reputation. Azerbaijan is successfully developing from an economic point of view.

Ilham Aliyev added that Azerbaijan ranked 35th in the Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The beginning of operation of seven facilities in Sumgait city today, on Dec. 15, as well as the launch of substations supplying electricity to these facilities, once again demonstrates our successful policy, and we are successfully completing the year 2017, he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

BP and the ADA University have finished a project on creation of Azerbaijan's first Big Data Research Center.

This was announced during the presentation of the project on Dec. 15.

The project, which started last year, is part of BPs and its co-ventures commitment to supporting the development of education and capacity-building in Azerbaijan.

The Center is based in the ADA University where a new Masters Degree program in Big Data Analytics and Data Sciences will commence to help meet the countrys needs for data scientists and big data analysts. The Center will also have a wider impact - it will be open to public institutions and private sector providing them access to its resources.

Over the past year, a library on data analytics has been established, all equipment and resources, including hardware and software and 30 workstations have been installed, staff has been trained, and the Center is now ready to start functioning.

The one-year project started in October 2016 and is implemented by the ADA University. The value of the project is $410,000.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Elchin Mammadov, Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Azerbaijans Chamber of Accounts revealed violations when checking the process of compensation payments by the countrys Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) to clients of two liquidated banks, Vugar Gulmammadov, chairman of the Chamber of Accounts, told reporters in Baku Dec. 15.

We have finished checking the process of compensation payments regarding two banks, Gulmammadov noted. As a result of the inspections, financial and legal violations were revealed. It was decided to file the relevant documents to law enforcement agencies.

He said that at present, the audit of ADIF's work continues.

Eleven banks were announced bankrupt in Azerbaijan last year. The clients of these banks were paid compensations worth 750 million manats, according to the ADIF.

(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on Dec. 15)
John Scheinfeld's documentary on jazz legend John Coltrane, Chasing Trane (newly released on Netflix), is a must-watch for jazz fans. But be prepared to cringe a bit at Scheinfeld's clumsy filmmaking along this revelatory journey about one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. The film starts with the horribly cheesy graphics, perhaps hoping to win over young viewers with cut-price psychedelic and 'cosmic' effects. Then Scheinfeld jumps to the middle of Coltrane's career, just before his great and extremely short-lived solo career takes off.

Interviews, archival photos and film footage evoke the turbulent and fecund American jazz scene of the mid-1950s. Coltrane is at this point a great side-man, a much sought after accompanist to various band leaders who are shaping modern jazz as we know it, fingering and plucking different paths away from the lush easy-listening of the Big Band era that ruled from the second half of the 1920s to the 1940s. In the '50s, 'Trane', as he is called, plays with many of the greats including Dizzy Gillespie and his own near contemporaries Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. The music that comes out is varied and superb but Coltrane's heroin addiction and heavy drinking get him kicked out of the great ensembles again and again.

advertisement

In another irritating misstep, Scheinfeld's camera then pans across luridly over coloured paintings and graphics to return to Trane's early life in segregated North Carolina-where he develops from adolescent church musician to aspiring jazzman before being drafted into the navy. There is an interesting (as in unexpected) bit where a segment is played from a navy band recording, with people coming on camera saying "Listening to that, you wouldn't imagine this was a precocious new talent".

But when Trane gets ashore, he breaks through his cocoon into the world of jazz. On tour in the early '50s, like so many other jazzmen, he picks up the heroin habit to accompany the hard drinking nights. At a critical juncture, he breaks the habit, goes cold turkey on the needle and cuts down his drinking. But one addiction is ever-present: in every photograph or clip where Coltrane doesn't have a horn in his mouth, he's smoking a cigarette.

Though predictable and overwritten, lovely clips of Coltrane soloing for Miles Davis and his band, home movies of Trane playing with his children and a great side story about a Coltrane devotee from Nagasaki make it worth watching with a forgiving eye. That, and the fact that it showers the viewer with Coltrane's amazing music.

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Azerbaijans Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FIMSA) will strengthen measures to ensure information and cyber security, combat cybercrime and raise the level of knowledge of employees engaged in the sphere of information security of financial markets, the FIMSA said in a message Dec. 15.

This is stipulated by the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the FIMSA and the State Agency for Special Communications and Information Security of Special State Protection Service of Azerbaijan.

The document was signed by FIMSA Executive Director Ibrahim Alishov and Deputy Head of the State Agency Azer Ahadov.

As part of the cooperation, the State Agency will provide the FIMSA with technical assistance in the field of ensuring information security, formation of internal policy on information security, holding training in this direction and other issues.

Thanks to the mentioned measures, participants of financial markets will be able to receive permanent protection against possible threats and as a result, security of services rendered to citizens will be ensured, Alishov added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

The US will assist Uzbekistan in joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan said in a message.

On Dec. 14, the ministry hosted a meeting with Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Central Asian Affairs Mark Linscott, and the sides discussed issues of Uzbekistans accession to the WTO.

In addition, the issues related to Uzbekistans membership in the US Generalized System of Preferences and legal protection of intellectual property were discussed in detail.

Agreements were reached, in particular, on the US technical assistance to Uzbekistan in the process of the countrys accession to the WTO, the ministry said. In order to promote these issues, permanent contacts will be established among officials of the Ministry of Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan and the office of the US trade mission.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) held the 10th ICAO Air Services Negotiation Event (ICAN 2017) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the press service of State Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan reported Dec. 15.

In total, 426 delegates from 66 states and one international organization took part in the event. During five days, 456 negotiations and meetings were held, 420 bilateral documents were signed and initialed.

The delegation of Azerbaijans State Civil Aviation Administration, headed by Director of the Administration Arif Mammadov, held talks with the civil aviation delegations of 15 countries. Texts of intergovernmental air service deals were agreed upon with delegations of Australia, Kenya, New Zealand, Thailand and the Seychelless.

Negotiations on operation of air transport were held with delegations representing Turkey, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

From the Azerbaijani side, an official of the Foreign Ministry also took part in the negotiations.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 9

By Ali Mustafayev  Trend:

Uzbekistan, one the richest Central Asian countries, has recently began to expand its interaction with its regional neighbors- Iran and Turkey.

Uzbekistan signed package of agreements with both of them in a wide range of areas, including trade, agriculture and transport. The historic milestone was visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Turkey, following which the sides signed trade agreements worth more than $3.5 billion.

"The improvement in relations fueled partly by changes in Uzbekistans policies, Chinas Belt and Road initiative, the inauguration of the Indian backed port of Chabahar in Iran, as well as transportation links in the Caucasus like Baku-Tbilisi-Kars rail line," political analyst, senior fellow at Singapores Nanyang Technological University James M. Dorsey told Trend.

The Chabahar sea port will serve as a new trade link between Iran and its Central Asian partners, according to expert.

As for the ties with Turkey, Dorsey stressed that the Baku  Tbilisi  Kars rail road will allow Uzbekistan, as well as other Central Asian countries to take advantage of new economic opportunities, including short and cheaper way of goods transportation to Turkey and further.

"It will allow them to figure more prominently in the various infrastructure and transport schemes given the centrality of Central Asia in Eurasia. The trick will be to ensure that pursuing economic growth and development does not involve falling into debt traps and/or losing control of key assets," said Dorsey.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

It is planned to create 30 carpet factories in Azerbaijan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said.

The president made the remarks at a meeting with the staff of the Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park after attending a groundbreaking ceremony for new enterprises.

The head of the state noted that a great attention is paid to the development of carpet weaving in recent years, and ten carpet factories opened in a short period of time.

"Ten more factories will be opened next year and we plan to create thirty carpet factories. Of course, local raw materials needed for successful activity of these factories and the foundation of the spinning and dyeing factory has been laid. This enterprise will be created through public investment. So, we will provide all carpet weavers, who work at these factories, as well as individually working carpet masters with raw material," the president said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Azerbaijan's cargo airline Silk Way West Airlines carried out the first direct flight from Baku to Sao Paulo (Brazil).

A 15-hour flight from Heydar Aliyev International Airport to Viracopos International Airport on the modern Boeing 747-8F aircraft became the longest one in the history of the airline.

A cargo in the amount of 36 tons was dispatched from the People's Republic of China to car manufacturing company in Brazil.

Silk Way West Airlines started its activity on June 19, 2012, since the date of issuance of the Operator Certificate by the Civil Aviation Administration of Azerbaijan. Currently, Silk Way West Airlines fleet consists of Boeing 747-8F and Boeing 747-400F aircrafts.

Silk Way West Airlines operates regular flights to various regions of the world  Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, using the Heydar Aliyev International Airport as a transit hub, connecting the continents with one another.
Details added (first version posted on 16:22)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Azerbaijan's policy and investor confidence stand at the core of speedy industrialization process in the country, President Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with the staff of the Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park after attending groundbreaking ceremonies for new facilities.

The president said that today Sumgait is the second biggest industrial city in the South Caucasus after Baku.

"Industrial enterprises meeting the highest standards are being established here, which means the creation of new jobs," the president said. I have been informed that at present more than 8,000 people are involved in construction and management of enterprises in the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park.

In future this figure will grow even more, President Aliyev said. It means all the issues related to unemployment in Sumgait will be resolved. We will continue to support Sumgait's comprehensive development."

As for creation of industrial zones, President Aliyev said this process has become large-scale in the country.

"The Neftchala industrial district has begun to operate, the president said. Similar zones are being created in the countrys Hajigabul, Masalli, Sabirabad districts."

President Aliyev said the first big factory is planned to be opened in Mingachevir light industry park in early 2018, that is, industrialization is being carried out rapidly in Azerbaijan.

The president said Azerbaijan's policy, foreign and local investor confidence in the country stand at the core of the speedy industrialization process.

That is because investments are attracted only to stable countries, he said. Azerbaijan is one of the countries with excellent international reputation. Azerbaijan is successfully developing from an economic point of view.

Ilham Aliyev added that Azerbaijan ranked 35th in the Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The beginning of operation of seven facilities in Sumgayit today as well as the launch of substations supplying electricity to these facilities once again demonstrate our successful policy, and we are successfully completing the year 2017, he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Nigar Guliyeva - Trend

The most pressing challenge facing Azerbaijan is to address the vulnerabilities in the banking sector and to restart the credit intermediation process.

Chief of the International Monetary Funds (IMF) Mission to Azerbaijan Mohammed El Qorchi announced about this following the completion of the visit to the country.

To that end, according to Qorchi, the authorities should fully recognize the bad assets that are burdening Azerbaijans financial system.

The prompt implementation of adequate solutions in this regard will contribute to economic growth. They have attempted to strengthen banking supervision and bank resolution with a view toward promoting financial stability. The authorities also agree that regulatory forbearance in the banking system should be removed in the near term, and reporting of banks financial data strengthened, he said.

An IMF team led by Mohammed El Qorchi visited Baku from November 30 to December 14 to hold discussions in the context of the 2018 Article IV Consultation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

Tabletka.az - Azerbaijani online medicine-searching portal will soon have a mobile application, that has been developed, the project's manager Emin Sultanov, told Trend Dec 15

He pointed out that the app will become available via Google Playmarket until the end of January 2018.

The functionality of the application will allow to search for medicine, get information about the cost, nearest location, a drugstore's working hours, and so on.

Users will also be able to take a picture of a prescription and send it to the pharmacy directly, and then establish direct contact with the staff.

Another important addition to the app is the "My therapist" module, which will allow to set reminders on time for taking medications, Sultanov said.

Speaking long-term, Sultanov said the the distribution will be supplemented with new features that will appear in new app updates. Among the possible innovations is a direct patient-doctor contact.

Also, patients with chronic diseases will be offered the possibility of subscribing to the service of delivering the medication for example, once a month, said Sultanov, thus patients will no longer have to go to pharmacies and look for necessary medications.

The portal's database currently includes around 100,000 registered drugs, and other medicine-related products. The database also includes around 70 drugstores operating in Baku and the regions of the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

Implementation of measures reflected in the Strategic Road Map for the development of information and communication technologies in Azerbaijan will make it possible to increase the countrys GDP volume by 235 million manats until 2020, Vusal Gasimli, CEO of the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication, told reporters in Baku Dec. 15.

He said that it is planned to create 1,450 new jobs in the ICT sphere.

Implementation of the set tasks will make it possible to attract large amounts of investments to the country, apply new digital technologies in the education, banking sphere, etc., Gasimli said. The Digital Trade Hub created by Azerbaijan will play an important role in the mutual recognition of e-signatures among various countries. Serious results have been already achieved in this direction. This will make it possible for Azerbaijan to preserve leadership in the digitization sphere not only inside the country, but also beyond.

Gasimli also reminded that the World Bank (WB) included Azerbaijan in the top 10 countries on the prospects for development of the ICT sphere.

(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on Dec. 15)
On December 8, the Chinese embassy in Islamabad issued a public warning, saying "terrorists are planning a series of attacks targeting Chinese organisations and people in Pakistan".

Beijing's mandarins like to describe relations with Pakistan as "all-weather". But in recent weeks, the sunny forecast has turned to a rare bout of stormy weather. On December 8, the Chinese embassy in Islamabad issued a public warning, saying "terrorists are planning a series of attacks targeting Chinese organisations and people in Pakistan". The warning, covered widely in the Chinese media, led an expert in Shanghai to say "the attacks could threaten Chinese investment in Pakistan".

The subtext, according to two Asian diplomats in Beijing, is a growing Chinese discomfort over both security and other arrangements for ongoing projects under the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a network of roads and power projects running from Kashgar to the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, running through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

advertisement

In May, two young Chinese were abducted and murdered in Quetta. Pakistan accused them of illegally preaching for South Korean missionaries, and Beijing duly limited media coverage at home over their deaths.

Perhaps the bigger concern for Beijing is differences over several CPEC projects. First, Pakistan surprised Beijing by announcing days before a CPEC planning meeting that it had withdrawn the $14 billion Diamer Bhasha hydel project because of "strict" Chinese financing conditions that were "against our [Pakistan's] interests".

Then, a Chinese company all but stopped work on the $2 billion Lahore-Matiari transmission line because of "differences with the government" over setting up a revolving fund, reported Pakistani newspaper Dawn, which also claimed that at the November planning meeting, Beijing conveyed it would stop funding for three major road projects as well because of corruption concerns. Chinese officials, however, insist the meeting went smoothly. "We commend Pakistan for attaching high importance to both the project and safety of Chinese citizens," foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said on December 11.

The view among some scholars in Beijing is that CPEC's long-term viability is uncertain unless it can be linked up with other regional projects under the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) plan. Some officials say this would require bringing on board India, which is the region's biggest market but opposed OBOR as its flagship corridor violates India's sovereignty in PoK. Curiously, China's envoy to India, Luo Zhaohui, last month again revived his offer to rename CPEC to acknowledge India's concerns. Luo was speaking at Delhi's JNU, but whether he had Beijing's backing remains unclear as the Chinese foreign ministry declined to endorse his offer.

Indian officials believe the likelihood of China renaming CPEC or, as Luo suggested, building an alternative corridor to J&K, remains remote, considering China's general deference to Pakistani sensitivities. Whether the gathering of storm clouds over the "all-weather" relationship will alter that equation still remains unclear.

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

The Baku Transport Agency (BTA) has allocated more than five million manats to improve the video wall system and to create mobile applications on iOS and Android platforms, the tender commission said on Dec.15.

The provider of services to improve the system of wall video monitors is Fors Development Center. The two signed the contract worth 4.98 million manats on Dec.12.

Services for creating mobile applications will be provided by Adventa. The contract between the parties was also signed on Dec.12. The cost of services is estimated at 48,000 manats.

The official exchange rate for Dec. 15 is 1,7001 AZN / USD.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

Trend:

Several draft laws in the innovations sphere are being prepared in Azerbaijan, Elmir Valizade, the countrys deputy minister of transport, communication and high technologies, said.

He was speaking at the conference titled Technologies and Innovations: Prospects of Economic Reforms and Development in Baku Dec. 15.

He noted that at present, the work is underway regarding venture capital financing, increasing investment flow to Azerbaijan and development of innovation activity.

We think that all this in general will contribute to the development of innovation activity in Azerbaijan, he said. A lot will depend on the business sector, and the Azerbaijani state is ready to provide the necessary support in this issue.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

PayPal online payment system may become fully operational in Azerbaijan, Zaur Gardashov, head of azexport.az portal, said at the conference titled Technologies and Innovations: Prospects of Economic Reforms and Development in Baku Dec. 15.

He noted that the relevant talks are being held with the PayPal Moscow office.

Besides, he added that PayPal representatives will visit Baku in the coming days.

In Azerbaijan, PayPal users can only make purchases or send money via the system, but not sell anything or receive payments, he said. In general, payment technologies constantly develop and the services offered by PayPal gradually become outdated. In cooperation with Amazon, we use another newly created payment technology by Payoneer, which makes it possible to carry out both sales and purchases online.

Negotiations with PayPal intensified after the azexport.az portal was created, he added.

Previously, the PayPal office in Turkey was in charge of the systems operation in Azerbaijan, but in January 2017, Turkey terminated its contract with PayPal, Gardashov said. PayPal suspended its activity in Turkey and the companys representative was recalled. So we started negotiations with the Paypal Moscow office. We did it because there are startups in Azerbaijan that need this payment system.
Details added (first version posted on 12:48)

Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

PayPal online payment system may become fully operational in Azerbaijan, Zaur Gardashov, head of azexport.az portal, said at the conference titled Technologies and Innovations: Prospects of Economic Reforms and Development in Baku Dec. 15.

He noted that the relevant talks are being held with the PayPal Moscow office.

Besides, he added that PayPal representatives will visit Baku in the coming days.

In Azerbaijan, PayPal users can only make purchases or send money via the system, but not sell anything or receive payments, he said. In general, payment technologies constantly develop and the services offered by PayPal gradually become outdated. In cooperation with Amazon, we use another newly created payment technology by Payoneer, which makes it possible to carry out both sales and purchases online.

Negotiations with PayPal intensified after the azexport.az portal was created, he added.

Previously, the PayPal office in Turkey was in charge of the systems operation in Azerbaijan, but in January 2017, Turkey terminated its contract with PayPal, Gardashov said. PayPal suspended its activity in Turkey and the companys representative was recalled. So we started negotiations with the Paypal Moscow office. We did it because there are startups in Azerbaijan that need this payment system.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Nigar Guliyeva  Trend:

The South Kazakhstan branch of "The National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan" is looking to purchase insurance services (voluntary) of fixed assets via requesting price proposals.

The cost of the services: 1,406,051 tenge, excluding VAT

The required terms for the provision of services: until 00:00 on Dec.31, 2018, including 24 hours a day.

The proposals accepted from Dec.15- to Dec.26.

A potential supplier should include in the price proposal all costs associated with the provision of services.

Address: The South Kazakhstan branch of "The National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan" , 160012, Shymkent city. Torekulova, 2 Streer, Administrative and economic department, Cabinet No. 100, 1st floor.

The official exchange rate on Dec. 15 is 334.92 KZT / USD.
Russia is ready in the coming months to form joint projects with Kyrgyzstan in the field of digital technologies, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government Arkady Dvorkovich at the 6th Kyrgyz-Russian Interregional Conference "Eurasian Integration as the Basis for the Development of Kyrgyz-Russian Foreign Economic Relations.", Kabar News Agency reports.

He said that, Russia adopted a program of digital economy. Now we plan the creation of a legal framework, infrastructure, training and implementation of specific projects.

"We have already adopted such projects as digital healthcare, digital education, smart cities. This also means ensuring cybersecurity. We are ready to do this together. We are ready to form joint projects in the coming months," he said.

Dvorkovich said that it is important in this regard to develop common standards of action.

"If we do not come to common on general common standards in the development of digital technologies, we will not be able to connect our countries. And trade and logistics in the coming years will be different. Only by creating such technologies, we can continue cooperation," he said and added that the Russian side is counting on Kyrgyzstan.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Dec. 15

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Ashgabat hosted a regular meeting of the US-Turkmenistan Business Council, Turkmenistan State News Agency reported Dec. 15.

Representatives of such US companies as Westport Trading Europe Limited, Oxbow Sulfur, General Electric, Elizarov Consulting Group, CNH Industrial N.V., John Deere, Boeing took part in the meeting.

Fuel and energy sector was one of the main topics of the meeting. For Turkmenistan, diversification of transport infrastructure that can ensure delivery of energy resources through the creation of a branched network of a multivariate pipeline system is the strategic priority of ensuring energy security, according to the report.

Participants of the meeting were informed on projects being implemented in this direction and prospects for business partnership, said the report.

Representatives of the US business circles stressed readiness to offer their solutions for implementing joint projects in strategic spheres.

At the meeting, the parties also exchanged views on the transport and communication sector. Turkmenistan is striving to form modern logistics centers and optimize transport flows in the Eurasian space.

Particular attention was paid to partnership in the financial and banking sector, chemical industry, construction, energy, agriculture, food industry.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 12

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

In recent months, Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the administration increased domestic output of cigarettes, decreasing the dependency on imports.

The Iranian administration seriously follows a plan to domestically produce foreign cigarette brands in order to cut down the imports. Over 80 percent of the tobacco, used in Irans cigarette factories is supplied through imports.

About 55 billion cigarettes are smoked in the country annually. Over 90 percent of the cigarette smoked in the country is planned to be supplied by domestic producers during the current fiscal year (to end March 2018).

The latest statistics indicate that Tehran has decreased cigarette imports by 43 percent to 1.97 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year (started March 2017), while the countrys 12 cigarette plants produced 30.53 billion cigarettes in the eight-month period, 10 percent more year-on-year.

The Iranian officials also estimate that over 1.34 billion cigarettes were smuggled into Iran during the same time span, registering a 23-percent yearly fall.

Meanwhile, the statistics by other entities, including Customs Administration, reveal that Irans cigarette producing sector is dependent upon imported raw materials, including rolling paper, used for making cigarettes, and tobacco.

About 6,000 hectares of land in Iran is under tobacco cultivation and annually 9,000 tons of tobacco is harvested in Iran, while the countrys cigarette producing companies need at least 40,000 tons of tobacco.

According to Irans Customs Administration, Iran has imported over 2,854 tons of rolling paper, worth $9.204 million, from 17 countries during the eight-month period of the current fiscal year.

Austria was the main exporter of cigarette paper to Iran in terms of value. The country exported 394 tons of rolling paper, worth $2.299 million, in the eight-month period.

Spain (662 tons, worth $2.125 million), China (736 tons, worth $1.754 million), the UAE (442 tons, worth $1.501 million) and Germany (319 tons, $526,170) were other top cigarette paper exporters to Iran during the period.

The figures unveil that the Iranian cigarette factories actually import the main part of their demand in order to meet the countrys cigarette consumption.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Six years after inking a major deal with Baghdad, Iran launched export of its gas to Iraq on June 21.

Irans daily gas export to Iraq over the past months has doubled to reach 14 million cubic meters.

However, the two neighboring countries plan to increase the volume of gas trade to 35 million cubic meters per day within the coming weeks following the inauguration of Irans sixth cross-country pipeline.

ISNA news agency has described the pipeline as strategic, adding that its construction is going through the final phases and it is expected to be inaugurated in late December.

The 1,200-kilometer pipeline is meant to daily transport 110 million cubic meters of gas from Irans southern field of Asaluyeh to the western and northwestern provinces of the Islamic Republic.

The 56-inch pipeline will also facilitate Irans gas export to its western neighbor through Shalamcheh and Naftshahr routs.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 13

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with French company Beicip-Franlab for boosting cooperation.

The deal envisages cooperation between the two parties for studying Homa gas field, Touraj Behrouz, head of Reservoir Studies and Field Development Division of RIPI, said, the Iranian institutes official website reported.

Iranian Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC) has handed over the comprehensive studies for the fields development to RIPI, Behrouz said, adding that the Iranian institute singed the deal with Beicip-Franlab for providing the fields development plan and know-how exchange on advanced upstream processes.

The French firm will transfer technology to Iran, Behrouz said.

Homa field contains 4.74 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves and 58 million barrels of gas liquids.

Homas development is among the projects offered to foreigners by ICOFC within the framework of newly designed contracts, called Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC). The field has 16 wells and jointly with Shanoul gas field produces 22 million cubic meters of gas per day.
By PTI: By K J M Varma

Beijing, Dec 15 (PTI) A Chinese man has been sentenced to one year in jail by a court in the Inner Mongolia for destroying a portrait of the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan and inciting hatred.

The man, identified by his surname Luo, had shared a video of him stomping on a portrait of the Mongol warlord in May on a popular video-sharing platform Kuaishou.

advertisement

He was charged with inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination and disturbing social stability by the prosecutors in Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia, after a video of him stomping the picture of the founder of Mongol empire went viral, a media report said today.

He pleaded guilty and said he would not appeal when appearing at Ejin Horo Peoples Court in Inner Mongolia on last Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The video was shot in a Mongolian yurt (tent) in Yinchuan, capital of north western Chinas Ningxia province, and went viral on social media in the following days, it said.

Police in Inner Mongolia said that they had received complaints from residents and deemed the video had caused disruption to society.

Mongol Empire founder Genghis Khan remains a revered figure among many ethnic Mongols.

He had united the warring Mongol tribes before establishing an empire by conquering large areas of China and central Asia.

His conquests also laid the foundation for Chinas Yuan dynasty (1271?1368) founded by his grandson Kublai Khan. PTI KJV SMJ AKJ SMJ

--- ENDS ---
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Gulgiz Muradova - Trend:

More actions and fewer words are needed from the European Union leadership to guarantee the complete territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, said Peter Tase, a political analyst and international relations expert at the Milwaukee-based Marquette University.

Tase made the remark when commenting on the newly-approved report on "Common Foreign and Security Policy", which for the first time reaffirmed EU's commitments to support the territorial integrity of all Eastern Partnership countries within their internationally recognized borders.

The expert said that this is one of many official documents approved by the European Parliament member countries in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Despite the fact that European Parliament's recent action is an important step forward, it is critical to have the European Union institutions and leadership to show political and tangible support towards Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven districts, and denounce the Armenian economic blockade imposed against the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan for almost thirty years, he said.

Indeed, Tase continued, he expected detailed information on the destruction committed by the Armenian government and its Armed Forces in the territory of the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, that are part of the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan.

The European Parliaments leadership must be aware of the daily suffering and infinite hardships that Azerbaijani IDPs and citizens of Nakhchivan are going through, due to the belligerent attitude of Armenian fascist government and invasion by the Armenian Armed Forces for almost three decades. The European Parliament leadership must take real actions and impose political - economic pressure upon Yerevan until the latter has withdrawn its Armed Forces from every inch of Azerbaijani sovereign territory, as well as lifted the cruel economic blockade against Nakhchivan, he said.

Emphasizing that Europe has paid an ambiguous attention towards resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict, he said that more actions and fewer words are needed from the European Union leadership in order to guarantee the complete territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Tase stressed that members of the European Parliament must become more engaged and active towards solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This conflict is a bleeding wound for Europe and the world, it deeply affects the regional security in the Caucasus and harms economic development in South East Europe and beyond, he concluded.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Gulgiz Muradova - Trend

The European Parliament's newly-approved report on the "Common Foreign and Security Policy" can be crucial for finding a long-anticipated solution for conflicts in Europe.

Amanda Paul, Senior Policy Analyst at European Policy Centre (EPC), regarded the newly signed document as a step in the right direction.

It would be a positive development if the language used in this report was replicated in other EU documents related to the region, she underscored.

Paul was commenting on the newly-approved "Common Foreign and Security Policy", which for the first time reaffirmed EU's commitments to support the territorial integrity of all Eastern Partnership countries within their internationally recognized borders.

As far as I am aware it is the first time language regarding internationally recognized borders for all EaP states was included, she added.

Paul stressed that the EU should only have one approach towards supporting the territorial integrity of the Eastern Partnership countries, but historically this has not always been the case.

Nevertheless, Paul believes that it is unlikely to see any change of approach from the EU in terms of its policy on the conflict resolution in the Eastern Partnership countries, especially on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Historically EU-28 has had a policy based on supporting the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, and of maintaining a balanced approach towards Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is unlikely to change and neither is the conflict resolution process," she said.

Paul reminded that the EU has emphasized many times that it views resolution of the protracted conflicts in the EaP neighbourhood a priority but obviously this is easier said than done because nearly all these conflicts are nearly 30 years old.

"History has shown that the more time that passes the more difficult it become to resolve conflicts," she said.
Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar, known for his early bet on Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL], said on Thursday that he would sever ties with his venture capital company, Sherpa Capital, after being accused of sexual misconduct, Reuters reported.

Pishevar, who has denied the accusations, said in a statement provided by his lawyer that he was voluntarily leaving Sherpa Capital, which he co-founded, because of ongoing untruthful attacks against him.

Bloomberg reported in November that five women accused Pishevar of exploiting a professional connection or the prospect of a job, mentorship or investment to make unwanted sexual advances.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the accusations.

I refuse to allow my enemies to drag my Sherpa family into their fight with me, Pishevar said in the statement. That is why I have decided on my own accord to end my association with Sherpa Capital, effective immediately.

In a statement, Sherpa Capital thanked Pishevar for his contributions to the firm and said it was deeply committed to our culture of integrity, inclusion, and respect.

The firm previously said it had never received any sexual harassment complaint but was nevertheless launching an independent internal review to ensure its practices and operations continue to reflect the highest professional and ethical standards.
Europes plane giant Airbus has confirmed a shake-up of top management, announcing the departure of two senior executives, Euronews reported.

It follows weeks of speculation about potential changes amid turmoil at the planemaker, which is facing corruption allegations and investigations in several countries, including France, Germany, the UK and the US.

The chief operating officer and planemaking chief Fabrice Bregier is to step down in February 2018, while chief executive Tom Enders will not seek a new mandate when his term expires in 2019, the company said.

A statement on Airbus website says that Bregier is to be replaced by Guillaume Faury, currently CEO of Airbus Helicopters.

Enders successor will be determined in good time for confirmation at the 2019 AGM after an assessment of potential candidates next year, the statement says.

The overhaul comes amid ongoing bribery investigations concerning middlemen in sales of military and commercial aircraft. Enders has been trying to persuade investigators in France and the UK that Airbus is serious about tackling abnormalities, warning that inquiries could lead to significant penalties.

There have also been reports of rivalries at the planemaker. Bregier hinted at a long-running battle with Enders over status and responsibility which company insiders say contributed to his unscheduled departure, listing various titles he had held while running the planes unit.
A UN official who just returned from Pyongyang, where he spent several days speaking with North Korean officials, has said he is "really worried about an accidental move toward conflict.", CNN reports.

Jeffrey Feltman, an American who is the United Nations undersecretary-general for political affairs, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he is concerned about a "lack of communication" and the "high risk of some kind of miscalculation."

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have risen markedly in the past year. Pyongyang's weapons programs have passed critical thresholds this year, to the point where many in Washington consider North Korea's nuclear capability an imminent threat.

Feltman is the highest-level UN official to visit Pyongyang since 2011. He spent more than 15 hours speaking with North Korean officials, he said, including the foreign minister. Feltman has previously served as an American assistant secretary of state.

"The lack of trust in their mind meant that they had to rely on deterrence -- meaning military deterrence -- rather than on diplomatic dialogue in the short term."

In the long-term, he said they understood the need for diplomacy.

"I think that at least in terms of long-term aspirations, they understand that there has to be peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, that there has to be some kind of arrangement that's based on a diplomatic solution."

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he was open to sitting down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but since his election his tone has been more confrontational.

Previous attempts to find a diplomatic solution to stymie North Korea's nuclear aspirations have failed. Policy makers in Washington have appeared reticent to start a new round of negotiations until Kim's regime makes some sort of effort to show it will negotiate in good faith, and not cheat on its agreements. What that signal is, and whether there are any preconditions that must be met before talks begin, has been the subject of open debate. The White House and the State Department appear to be at odds over the issue.

A North Korean official, however, told CNN in October that "before we can engage in diplomacy with the Trump administration, we want to send a clear message that the DPRK has a reliable defensive and offensive capability to counter any aggression from the United States."
NATO allies on Friday publicly raised concern about a Russian cruise missile system that the alliance says may break a Cold War-era pact banning such weapons, in a show of support for Washington, Reuters reports.

The United States believes Russia is developing a ground-launched cruise missile system with a range that is prohibited by a 1987 treaty, which could give Russia the ability to launch a nuclear strike on Europe on short notice.

Allies have identified a Russian missile system that raises serious concerns, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation said in a statement. NATO urges Russia to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States.

In a separate statement, the U.S. envoy to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, said: Russias behavior raises serious concerns.

U.S.-led NATOs concerns are likely to further strain relations between Moscow and the West that are already at a low over Russias 2014 seizure of Crimea, Western sanctions on the Russian economy and U.S. accusations that Moscow used computer hackers to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Moscow denies that it interfered in the election.

The NATO statement follows a meeting between Russia and the United States in Geneva this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.

According to an April U.S. State Department report, Washington determined in 2016 that Russia was in violation of its treaty obligations not to possess, produce, or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km (310-3,417 miles), or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.

Last week, the State Department said it is reviewing military options, including new intermediate-range cruise missile systems, the first response by U.S. President Donald Trumps administration to the U.S. charges.

The Russian foreign ministry said last week it was ready for talks with the United States to try to preserve the treaty and would comply with its obligations if the United States did.

In a statement marking the 30th anniversary of the IMF treaty last week, the Russian foreign ministry said Moscow considered the language of ultimatums and sanctions unacceptable.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The Turkish Air Force attacked the positions of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists in northern Iraq, the Turkish General Staff said in a message Dec. 14.

According to the message, air operations were held in Khakurk, zap and Avashin region in northern Iraq.

During the operations, PKK strongholds were destroyed and 5 terrorists were killed.

The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for more than 30 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

The UN and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Air service between Moscow and Cairo will resume from February 1, 2018, Egypts Civil Aviation Ministry reported on Friday, TASS reports.



"During the visit of the head of the Ministry of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi to Moscow, a special protocol was signed on the resumption of air traffic. At the meeting, the governments of the two countries agreed to the green light "to airlines to fly between Moscow and Cairo from February 1," the ministry said in a press release.

Earlier on Friday, Russias Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said that the air service between the two countries might be resumed in February 2018.

The move will put an end to the long-lasting negotiations between Russia and Egypt, which have been underway since late 2015. Moscow suspended air service with Cairo in November 2015 following a terrorist attack on board a Russian A321 passenger jet that was en route from Egypts Sharm el-Sheikh to Russias St. Petersburg. The airliner crashed over the Sinai Peninsula early on October 31, 2015 killing all 224 people onboard.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump discussed bilateral relations and situation in the Korean Peninsula during a telephone call, the Kremlin said in a statement early on Friday, Reuters reported.

Both leaders agreed to continue contacts, the Kremlin added, but did not provide further details.
Four Hydro One employees died when their helicopter crashed on a rural property in eastern Ontario Thursday afternoon, CBC reported.

The one pilot and three crew members were part of a crew performing routine maintenance work on a hydro line and at a hydro tower on a property in the municipality of Tweed, Ont., when the aircraft went down, Hydro One spokesperson Ferio Pugliese confirmed.

Hydro One has not released the names of the victims pending the notification of next of kin, but Pugliese said they were based in different regions from across the province.

The crash happened shortly before noon ET on Kim Clayton's property on Upper Flinton Road.

Clayton said workers had been working on a hydro tower all week, with helicopters going back and forth, and sometimes landing on a field on the property or dropping workers off at the tower.

She was inside her home when she heard the crash and felt her house shake.

She looked outside to see other hydro workers running toward the tree line. She couldn't see the helicopter, nor could she see any smoke or fire, but she said she saw what looked like a piece of the helicopter in one of the trees.

It took ambulances about 15 minutes to arrive at the remote rural location, about 40 kilometres north of Belleville.
The Supreme Court turned down the Congress's plea seeking that the Election Commission be directed to count 25 per cent of votes cast in the Gujarat election with VVPAT slips.

By India Today Web Desk: Just two days before the Election Commission counts the votes cast in the Gujarat Assembly election, the Congress approached the Supreme Court praying that the poll body be directed to tally 25 per cent of all ballots in Gujarat with voter slips printed by the Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines.

The apex court, however, turned down the plea, refusing to interefere in the Gujart election. Senior Congress leaders and lawyers Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kapil Sibal represented the Congress at the court.

advertisement

This comes a day after the Congress launched an unprecedented attack on the Election Commission, accusing it of being a "puppet" of the Prime Minister's Office. The Congress's accusations were in reference to its allegations that PM Narendra Modi violated the model code of conduct by conducting a roadshow outside the Ahmedabad polling centre where he voted yesterday's in Gujarat second phase of voting.

The poll body had earlier directed its Chief Electoral Officer in Gujarat to take action over an interview Congress vice-president gave to a Gujarati media channel. Allegations were raised that Gandhi's interview, which aired after campaigning deadline for the Gujarat polls ended, was a violation of the model code of conduct.

VVPAT machines print a paper slip that shows the voter whom she cast the ballot for. While the voter can observe the slip in the polling booth, she cannot take it away from the voting centre. The slip is instead stored in a compartment.

The Election Commission, if it chooses to, can then tally the slips from a particular Electronic Voting Machine's (EVM's) compartment and tally the paper records with the votes cast in the machine.

First introduced in a civic election in Maharashtra, VVPATs were deployed in each and every voting centre in Gujarat as well as Himachal Pradesh, which too went to the poll in this cycle of state elections. In September this year, the Election Commission announced its decision to conduct all future elections with the EVM-VVPAT combination. This was in response to allegations of EVM tampering that were raised in the days following the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.

The Congress's plea in unprecedented since the use of VVPAT in an entire state election is happening only for the second time in India. The first time was during the Goa Assembly election earlier this year.

Complete Gujarat Assembly Election 2017 coverage

(This story has been updated with background details and the news of Supreme Court rejecting Congress's plea)

WATCH | Gujarat Exit Polls: BJP may sweep away Rahul Gandhi's grand comeback dreams

--- ENDS ---
During two stabbing incidents in Maastricht, in the southern Dutch province of Limburg, one person was killed and several injured, local media reported on Thursday, according to Sputnik.

One person was stabbed to death at around 9 p.m. local time at the Botsaart street in the Malpertuis district, while the second stabbing took place a few hundred meters away at the Joseph Postme street in the Caberg district, newspaper De Limburger reported.

The police did not find out yet if there is a connection between the two incidents. Both crime locations are investigated by the police.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The capital of Thailand, Bangkok, will host a Conference on Interreligious Dialogue in South and Southeast Asia Dec.18-20, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) told Trend Dec. 15.

The OIC said that it will participate in the conference.

Diplomats from the US, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Bangladesh and a number of Arab countries will take part in the conference.

Establishment of a dialogue between Muslims and Buddhists will be the main topic of the conference.

The conference will be organized by the OIC in partnership with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID).
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Holding of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), during which it was decided to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, shouldnt be perceived as a response to the US decision on Jerusalem, Ibrahim Kalin, special adviser and spokesperson of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Dec. 15, the countrys media outlets reported.

Kalin noted that most Muslim countries, including Turkey, recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

He noted that the Consulate General of Turkey also operates in East Jerusalem.

On Dec. 13, East Jerusalem was declared the capital of Palestine in a resolution adopted following the OIC emergency summit in Istanbul.

The OIC also urged all countries to condemn the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Previously, US President Donald Trump proclaimed that the US recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its capital after the end of the War of Independence in 1949. In 1967, after the Six Days War, it seized East Jerusalem and united it with the West Jerusalem, but the UN did not recognize this. Embassies of countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel are located mainly in Tel Aviv, Herzliya and Ramat Gan.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey and Iran have signed an agreement on joint fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, the Turkish media outlets reported Dec. 15.

The relevant agreements were reached in Ankara within the framework of the meeting of Turkeys Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu and Irans Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement Hossein Zolfaghari.

Earlier, Turkey and Iran discussed security issues within Soylus visit to Tehran.

The sides also discussed joint fight against terrorism in the region.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The metro line, through which self-driving trains are running, opened for the first time in Istanbul, the Turkish media reported Dec. 15.

The length of that metro line is 10.5 kilometers. At the first stage, such trains will run on the line of the Istanbul subway, which has nine stations. During 2018, self-driving trains will gradually run on the whole Istanbul subway.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim attended the opening ceremony of the "metro without a train driver".

At present, Istanbuls metro consists of eight lines, six of which are in the European part of the city. There are about 70 stations in Istanbul metro, the length of its lines is 122 kilometers.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
KYODO NEWS - Dec 15, 2017 - 13:46 | All, World

The Japanese government decided Friday to freeze the assets of 19 more North Korean companies as part of its unilateral sanctions in response to the North's repeated defiance of a U.N. ban on nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The 19 firms deal in financial services, trade in coal and oil, shipping and the dispatch of workers overseas, according to the Foreign Ministry.

After a roughly two-month hiatus in launches, North Korea fired a missile on Nov. 29 that it said was a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting any target on the U.S. mainland.

The Japanese government's top spokesman said the expanded sanctions, effective Friday, are in response to that launch, North Korea's continued "provocative words and actions," and a "lack of concrete progress" on the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North in the 1970s and 1980s.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said the move is timed to coincide with a U.N. Security Council ministerial meeting on North Korea's nuclear program, to be chaired by Foreign Minister Taro Kono in New York later in the day.

Separately in Tokyo on Friday, Japan's minister for the abduction issue, Katsunobu Kato, urged the visiting U.N. special rapporteur on North Korean human rights to work for the prompt resolution of the matter.

Tomas Ojea Quintana replied at the outset of their talks that he will continue to focus on the abduction issue and mention it in his report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

According to a Foreign Ministry official, all the newly sanctioned companies are already subject to U.S. sanctions, starting from January last year.

Among them is Korean Computer Center, which the ministry said is involved in dispatching workers and has a presence in Germany, China, Syria, India and the United Arab Emirates.

The official was unable to confirm which countries are destinations for workers from the four companies involved in dispatching.

He also said the expanded sanctions are not directly linked to the U.S. decision last month to return North Korea to its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The new additions bring the total subject to Japan's unilateral sanctions to 56 companies or groups and 62 individuals, some of which are also covered by U.N. Security Council resolutions, the official said.
By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: Sachin Pilot, the Pradesh Congress Committee Chief, while speaking with India Today, mentioned that the BJP is a rich party and should sponsor the events meant to mark the anniversary and not spend taxpayers' money on them.

"These four years have been a spectacular failure. I think the fact that she is trying to 'celebrate her fourth anniversary', it defies logic because the number of rapes that are happening, atrocities against Dalits, the kind of killings that we are seeing, the law and order is collapsing, farmers are committing suicides. What is she celebrating, we don't understand," said Sachin Pilot.

advertisement

"All the promises remain unfulfilled. You know, if they want to celebrate, they should, BJP is a rich party and they should sponsor these events. Why should the taxpayers' hard earned money be spent just to pat the government on its back?" he added.

"So, it's absolutely wrong and she should introspect, the Chief Minister, she must apologize for bringing a gag order which no other state in India has ever done. Every year, they are celebrating their anniversary. It is absolutely wrong," said Pilot to India Today.

Elections in Rajasthan are not too far away. And Vasundhara Raje led BJP seems to be preparing for it. Ministers in the Rajasthan government have been involved in several outreach programmes as the Vasundhara Raje led dispensation completed four years in office on December 13.

The Vasundhara Raje led BJP government in the state has announced a slew of measures and sops. Upper age limit for applying for government jobs has been raised from 35 to 40 years. The government has also announced free angiography for patients in government hospitals, more than one lakh government jobs and loans to farmers at a reduced rate.

Rajendra Rathore, a senior minister in the Vasundhara Raje government and considered a close confidante of hers, defended the state government.

"See, this is not a celebration. This is an act of presenting a report system of development of every district before the people. This is an occasion to provide a platform to those people who we had benefitted from individual beneficiary scheme, so that if there are any lacunae in there, they can say that to us on that platform, it is an occasion for that," Rathore said.

"Congress is calling it a failure because Congress has nothing to do with development. They have not seen development, that is why they do not have experience of development," he added.

ALSO WATCH | Man burnt to death to 'save girl from love jihad' in Rajasthan

--- ENDS ---

advertisement
President Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that his tax cut is all about helping the middle class even as Republican leaders formed a last-minute plan to cut the top rate paid by million-dollar earners.

The plan has ruffled some feathers in the GOP.

Two Republican senators have criticized tax cuts for the highest earners: Susan Collins of Maine and Marco Rubio of Florida. Together, their opposition could kill the billthough its by no means clear that either would withhold support over the latest plan for high-end rate relief. Still, as GOP leaders hustle to fashion compromise legislation for votes next week, Collins and Rubio may provide some drama.

Read: Europe Is Also Cautioning Against the GOP Tax Plan. Both of Them

Rubio has made no secret of his displeasure, decrying his party for prioritizing the wealthy over working families. Earlier this month, hed sought to expand the child tax credit to benefit working familiesand pay for it by bumping the proposed corporate tax rate up less than 1 percentage point. His colleagues rejected the provisionand Rubio eventually voted for the Senate tax bill without it.

This week, though, he tweeted: 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 $1 million is fine? In a follow-up tweet, he shared an opinion article that decried his partys decision as A Slap in the Face to Families.

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

Rubios office didnt respond when asked how hed vote on the bill.

Collins said in an interview with Bloomberg News in October that she doesnt favor a rate cut at the top end of the income scale. I do not believe the top rate should be lowered for individuals who are making more than $1 million a year, she said. This week, she said she will wait to decide her vote until after a final bill is made public. That may happen as soon as Friday.

Story continues

Trumps Speech

GOP leaders are working on melding different bills that passed the House and the Senate in one final compromise package. This week, details of their provisions have begun leakingincluding a plan to cut the top individual income tax rate to 37% from 39.6%, a move that would benefit those with incomes above $470,000 a year.

GOP lawmakers confirmed that plan just before Trump made his closing argument for the tax plan by once again emphasizing its benefits for working class people. This is for the people of middle income, Trump said during a White House speech.

Read: Apple to Save an Astounding $47 Billion Under Tax Reform, Report Finds

The change in the top rate was among a flurry of revisions that emerged Wednesday as GOP leaders scurried to finalize tax legislation in time for Trump to sign it next weekpart of an effort to secure a signature legislative victory before the end of 2017. The changes included proposing a new corporate tax rate of 21%one percentage point higher than Trump and congressional leaders had proposed this fall, but still far lower than the current 35%.

In Good Shape

Congressional leaders said they hope to release final legislative text by the end of this week and pass their compromise legislation by the middle of next week. The Senate is likely to act firsta vote that could come as early as Tuesday.

I think were in good shape, said GOP Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who has been a key tax negotiator throughout the debate.

Success hinges on holding 50 of the 51 GOP senators who voted to approve the Senate version of the tax bill earlier this month; all 48 Democrats voted no.

The lone Republican who voted no on Dec. 2, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, also hasnt disclosed how hed vote on final legislation. But Corkerwho has cited his concern that the $1.4 trillion tax cut would increase federal deficitssaid Wednesday that he saw no new developments to address that issue.

That makes the votes of both Collins and Rubio critical.

Rubio met Wednesday afternoon with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but there was no indication that GOP leaders would adopt his proposal to make the child tax credit refundable against income and payroll taxes.

Very Confident

Collins has conditioned her support for the tax bill on various items with unclear fatesincluding the passage of Obamacare stabilization measures by the end of the year.

I think she will be happy with the way it turns out, said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican. One of Collinss goalspreserving and temporarily enhancing a medical-expense deduction for individualswill be part of the compromise legislation, according to senior congressional aides.

Collins spokeswoman Annie Clark said the senator is waiting to see the final version of the bill before deciding how shell vote. She remains very confident that the promises to pass the two health care bills she wants by the end of the year are going to be kept, Clark said.

Another wild card is GOP Senator John McCain, whose office announced that he is currently away receiving treatment as he battles brain cancer and looks forward to returning to work as soon as possible. Its not clear when thatll be.

After more than a week of secret discussions in which House and Senate negotiators sought to resolve differences between their tax bills, details began emerging Wednesdayjust before the only public meeting of a House-Senate conference committee thats officially charged with arriving at a compromise.

Alabama Election

Democrats called that meeting a farce. Republicans shot down their motions to delay action on taxes until the swearing in of Democratic Senator-elect Doug Jones, who defeated Republican Roy Moore in a state where Democrats havent won a Senate race since 1992. Before the results came in Tuesday, McConnell said the victor wont be sworn in before the end of the 2017 session, leaving outgoing Senator Luther Strange, a reliable GOP vote, in the seat.

The emerging House-Senate Republican pact would repeal the corporate alternative minimum tax, allow a 20% deduction for pass-through entities, limit state and local deductions for income and property taxes to $10,000 and restrict mortgage interest deductions to loans worth less than $750,000.

The allowance for state income tax deductibility will help in the House, particularly among California GOP members. The leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus offered a warm reception to the new details Wednesday.

We are still reviewing the parameters of the deal but the details reported so far are an encouraging direction towards a ultimate solution, said Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
There are a few specific characteristics to look for if you want stocks that you could hold for decades. For example, you want companies with a strong track record of success, bulletproof balance sheets, and a sustainable competitive advantage. While it's not possible to say with 100% certainty that any stock will be a great investment for decades, here's why our contributors think Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL), Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD), and Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) all have the makings of "forever stocks."

Don't miss the sale

Reuben Gregg Brewer (Hormel Foods Corp.): In late November, Hormel announced its 52nd annual dividend increase, upping the yearly payout by 10%. That's reason No. 1 to buy and hold Hormel for decades.

A couple happily looking over paperwork.

Image source: Getty Images.

That said, the stock has rallied pretty dramatically over the last month or so, rising by around 15%. But the yield, at around 2%, is still toward the high end of its historical range. I wouldn't call Hormel cheap, and it's clearly not as good a deal as it was just a short time ago, but it's still fairly priced. A great company at a fair price is still a pretty good opportunity in my book.

What makes this a great company? There's the more than 50 years of annual dividend hikes, of course. However, it's really what has to happen to create a streak like this that's most important. For one, Hormel has the No. 1 or 2 position in 35 different grocery categories, spread across the entire store. The company has a goal of generating 15% of revenue from newly introduced products, pushing itself on the innovation front to remain a leader in the food industry.

And while it's a conservatively run company, it isn't afraid to make notable moves to adjust along with its end markets. Most recently, that's included building a new production facility in China, expanding for the first time into South America, and extending its portfolio with bolt-on acquisitions in the retail and foodservice spaces. There's still time to get a good deal on Hormel, but you'll have to hurry.

Story continues

Brewing up long-term profits

Sean O'Reilly (AB InBev): To own a stock for decades, the company in question needs an edge. Its business has to be one that an investor can be sure can make it through anything as the years go by. That's why, when asking myself what stock might fulfill this lofty requirement, I immediately thought of Anheuser-Busch InBev.

AB InBev is the world's largest beer brewer. As the owner of 500 beer brands sold in 150 countries, it's hard to go anywhere and not feel AB InBev's influence.

Its status as the world's largest beer brewer (with over 25% global market share) was cemented with its 2015 of South African megabrewer SAB Miller.

Top brands include Budweiser, Corona, Stella Artois, Beck's, and countless others.

The exact reason to consider picking up a few shares of AB InBev and holding on for the ultra-long term is its market share in dozens of countries.

Take Brazil, for example. Home to over 200 million people, AB InBev, controls over 75% of the beer market here, led by its Skol beer and 36 brewing plants across the country. This tale repeats in numerous nations, including the United States where BUD's brands command 45% of the beer market.

Bottom line: AB InBev has a business built to last. The company has dozens of "mini-monopolies" across the globe that generate billions in profits. As if this weren't enough to consider picking up shares, these profits are shared with AB InBev's owners via its dividend (currently yielding 5%).

For a bulletproof stock you can own for decades, consider pouring yourself a draft of AB InBev stock.

Data storage needs will grow for decades to come

Matt Frankel (Digital Realty Trust): Digital Realty Trust is a real estate investment trust that invests in data center properties all over the world. As of the end of the third quarter, Digital Realty owns 182 data centers located in a dozen countries all over the world.

If you're not familiar, data centers are buildings that are specifically designed to provide a reliable and secure environment for servers and network equipment. Companies rent space in Digital Realty's properties in order to house servers and other equipment they own, and the tenant list reads like a who's who of major tech and financial firms. IBM, Facebook, Oracle, AT&T, and JPMorgan Chase are all among Digital Realty's top 20 tenants, just to name a few.

Real estate can be a lucrative long-term investment, especially if it's a property type for which demand is expected to grow rapidly, and that's certainly the case here. Global data center traffic is expected to grow at a 27% annualized rate through 2020, according to Cisco, and mobile data traffic is expected to grow even faster.

This growth trend is illustrated by the fundamentals of some of Digital Realty's key markets. For instance, the massive Northern Virginia data center market is 95% occupied, and the area is absorbing inventory at three times the rate at which it's being constructed. In other words, demand is growing faster than supply, and there is no reason to believe this will change anytime soon.

More From The Motley Fool

Matthew Frankel owns shares of AT&T; and Digital Realty Trust. Reuben Gregg Brewer owns shares of Hormel Foods and IBM. Sean O'Reilly owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) on Thursday confirmed an order for 100 Airbus (: ) A321neo narrow-body jets, a major win for the European plane maker as one of the largest airlines revitalizes its fleet. The airline has options for up to 100 additional jets, Delta said, ahead of its investor day presentation. It is also a win for United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) unit Pratt & Whitney as the carrier had selected the engine maker to power its new planes. "This is the right transaction at the right time for our customers, our employees and our shareholders," said Delta CEO Ed Bastian.The airline said it will start taking deliveries of the plane in 2020. The Airbus deal is a loss for rival airplane maker Boeing (NYSE: BA) whose new 737 planes compete with the European plane makers' model. A Boeing spokesman said, "Delta remains a valued customer, and we'll continue exploring ways to best meet their needs in the future."Boeing "competed with a strong but disciplined offer in the Delta campaign," Doug Alder said. "While Delta has chosen to go with Airbus and Bombardier in recent single aisle campaigns, we are proud of the 737 MAX family's superior value and performance." The decision on the Airbus planes, which was reported Wednesday , comes as Delta is in the middle of a snowballing trade dispute between Boeing and Canadian plane maker Bombardier (Toronto Stock Exchange: BBD.B-CA) , which Boeing alleges sold planes to Delta below the cost of production and received unfair government subsidies. The U.S. Commerce Department recommended a 300 percent duty on those Bombardier jets earlier this year. Delta has repeatedly said it does not plan to pay those proposed tariffs. In a surprise move, Airbus, Boeing's archrival, swooped in to take a majority stake in the contested Bombardier C-Series jet program in October. Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) on Thursday confirmed an order for 100 Airbus (: ) A321neo narrow-body jets, a major win for the European plane maker as one of the largest airlines revitalizes its fleet. The airline has options for up to 100 additional jets, Delta said, ahead of its investor day presentation. It is also a win for United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) unit Pratt & Whitney as the carrier had selected the engine maker to power its new planes. "This is the right transaction at the right time for our customers, our employees and our shareholders," said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. The airline said it will start taking deliveries of the plane in 2020. The Airbus deal is a loss for rival airplane maker Boeing (NYSE: BA) whose new 737 planes compete with the European plane makers' model. A Boeing spokesman said, "Delta remains a valued customer, and we'll continue exploring ways to best meet their needs in the future." Boeing "competed with a strong but disciplined offer in the Delta campaign," Doug Alder said. "While Delta has chosen to go with Airbus and Bombardier in recent single aisle campaigns, we are proud of the 737 MAX family's superior value and performance." The decision on the Airbus planes, which was reported Wednesday , comes as Delta is in the middle of a snowballing trade dispute between Boeing and Canadian plane maker Bombardier (Toronto Stock Exchange: BBD.B-CA) , which Boeing alleges sold planes to Delta below the cost of production and received unfair government subsidies. The U.S. Commerce Department recommended a 300 percent duty on those Bombardier jets earlier this year. Delta has repeatedly said it does not plan to pay those proposed tariffs. In a surprise move, Airbus, Boeing's archrival, swooped in to take a majority stake in the contested Bombardier C-Series jet program in October.



More From CNBC


Shares of Cisco Systems Inc.CSCO rallied to a 52-week high of $38.37, eventually closing a bit lower at $38.15 on Dec 13. Notably, the stock has returned 26.3% year to date, outperforming the industrys gain of 25%.



Cisco is benefiting from its expanding footprint in the rapidly growing security market. Additionally, partnerships with Telenor, Apple, IBM and Microsoft are positives in our view.



Additionally, the companys Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) solution is currently used by more than 4K customers. The ACI solution was recently enhanced with new features that have aided growth.



Further, the planned acquisition of Broadsoft will boost company's recurring revenue base.





Acquisitions, Partnerships and Initiatives Drive Stock



Acquisitions have played an important part in Ciscos growth trajectory. The companys planned acquisition of Broadsoft will deliver integrated mobile, video, voice and various other digital communication services to enterprise customers, thereby boosting the companys collaboration business.



Ciscos successful launch of The Network Intuitive, the companys new intent-based networking solutions, has accelerated innovation throughout Ciscos product portfolio, thus raising software and subscription revenues.

Cisco Systems, Inc. Revenue (TTM)

Cisco Systems, Inc. Revenue (TTM) | Cisco Systems, Inc. Quote

Cisco also entered into a partnership with International Business Machines Corporation IBM to create cyber security applications. This partnership comes at an opportune time as the cyber security market is experiencing rapid growth driven by higher spending from enterprises focused on eliminating vulnerabilities from their systems.



Cisco also announced a billion dollar initiative to fund smart cities globally, which will eventually expand the companys global presence and boost top-line growth.



Moreover, the company's collaboration with Google Cloud to offer hybrid cloud solution is a key catalyst.



Positive Estimate Revisions



The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2018 earnings has increased 1.7% to $2.46 over the last 30days. Moreover, the consensus estimate for fiscal 2019 has increased1.6% to $2.58 over the same time frame.



Zacks Rank &Stocks to Consider



Cisco carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).



A couple of better-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector include Intel Corporation INTC and Lam Research Corporation LRCX. Both sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Long-term earnings growth rate for Intel and Lam Research is projected to be 8.42% and 14.85%, respectively.



Zacks Editor-in-Chief Goes "All In" on This Stock



Full disclosure, Kevin Matras now has more of his own money in one particular stock than in any other. He believes in its short-term profit potential and also in its prospects to more than double by 2019. Today he reveals and explains his surprising move in a new Special Report.



Download it free >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Lam Research Corporation (LRCX) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Update: The tax bill includes a tax on institutions with endowments larger than $500,000 per student. The grad student tuition waiver tax is not present. Student loan interest deduction still present as well.

As the GOP tax bills passed by the House and Senate coalesce into one, destined for President Trumps desk, the highest echelon of the academic community is prepared for a broadside on their endowments.

Though it is still unclear what the final terms will look like, the legislation would impose a 1.4% tax on investment earned by private colleges that have endowments of over $500,000 or more per student. Thirty-two institutions stand to be affected  including many colleges from the Ivy League and NESCAC in the North East, and other blue chip universities around the country. The colleges say this will decrease access for lower-income students as endowments have enormous earmarked funds for financial aid.

Institutions have been hesitant to speak out about the bill for fear of putting a target on their back in the form of a tweet from the president himself. But it is widely suspected that the legislation was put forth by certain members of Congress as punishment for perceived political bias in higher education.

Instead of venting in the public square, universities are hard at work focusing efforts via government relations officials, leveraging alumni who might have influence  especially in Congress. So far, the bill has changed at least five times.

Harvard Universitys $38 billion endowment is in the crosshairs of the GOP tax bill. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Officials from affected universities have spoken out in muted terms. Cornells president, Martha Pollack, summed up the consensus in a recent interview in which she stressed that the proposal would hurt higher ed without any clear policy purpose. Pollack also questioned whether this hypothetical  she is careful to say  punishment would affect any change.

In the colleges view, the move would yield lots of downside for little upside. The tax on endowments would contribute to offsetting the $1.5 trillion cost of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, but by a negligible amount, as the tax would raise around $3 billion (0.2% of the $1.5 trillion). And since large portions of many endowments are restricted for financial aid, money for the tax bill would be money not going to financial aid, hurting affordability.

Story continues

Universities have also pointed out that the measure would repurpose donations intended for financial aid to paying down the debt of the federal government, something that could discourage donations.

Revenge and a slippery slope, colleges say

Across the board, universities are privately condemning the bill as a punitive measure. One official for an institution that stands to be affected told Yahoo Finance that its widely understood that this is punishment by certain Republican lawmakers who have it in for higher ed for political reasons. The official, like others consulted for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid public controversy that has plagued many university leaders this year.

Generally speaking, the academic community skews Democrat and liberal rather than Republican and conservative, and the political right has censured student movements.

Its mean-spirited, Karin Johns, tax director for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, told Yahoo Finance. Congress views our sector as universally liberal, elite, and not doing enough to help students. None of which is true. They feel we align with a certain political mindset and theyre going to punish us for that.

One college official told Yahoo Finance that its not even about the money per se, but the principle of taxing nonprofits by the federal government. Johns echoed that official point, noting that its a slippery slope: Whats next? Churches? Soup kitchens?

Johns noted that this proposal did not come from any lobbyist, but rather leaders of the Ways and Means Committee.

High executive pay and affordability in play

Of all lawmakers, Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) has arguably pushed the hardest for the provision, having worked on similar legislation over the years.

Nora Retana, a spokesperson for Reed, said she had heard the punishment argument and rejected it.

Its absolutely not a punishment. Reed has made a comprehensive push for college cost reform and thats ultimately his goal, said Retana. She admitted that this specific bill didnt address college cost, but said that its more about challenging the tax-exempt label of wealthy colleges that pay millions to executives and outside fund managers. President James Wagner of Emory, for example, makes $3.5 million a year.

Theyre tax-exempt but paying presidents millions, said Retana, who also noted that the endowment managers take in enormous salaries. If you want to operate as a business, be a business. This is not not about all endowments, its about reining in ones that take advantage of that.

An official from a college affected by this legislation dismissed this in an interview with Yahoo Finance, noting that an enormous complex institution like a university pays its leaders based on industry benchmarks. They also noted that high-cost investment management pays for itself and that low-cost options would mean smaller returns. The official also noted that the schools affected have some of the most generous financial aid in the academic community.

Reed says endowments should be put more towards education, but the schools say thats already their main purpose. Many Ivy League schools and other prestigious institutions like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford dont expect students from families making less than $65,000 to pay anything.

American competitiveness may be at stake

In a recent article in the Harvard Gazette, President Drew Faust noted that the taxs impact on financial aid would weaken the nations strongest contributors to medical cures, economic innovation, job creation, scholarship, and access to higher education for students of all economic backgrounds who will shape our future.

The American workers competitiveness in specialized fields has been called to question as many companies have a hard time finding workers with the proper education. One measure of the tax bill in particular may make that even worse: the taxing of tuition waivers as income  another provision universities see as an attack on education.

Tuition waivers are like financial aid for graduate students, and should they be taxed as income, many students wont be able to afford to pay their tax bills and may be forced to drop out. A growing number of GOP lawmakers, however, are opposing it, and an official at one school told Yahoo Finance it would likely be out of the final bill.

In a Politico op-ed, Yale trustee Douglas Warner III 68, a former chair of JP Morgan (JPM), expressed concern that competitiveness deficiencies could torpedo the goal of the tax bill. It seems odd that a tax bill purporting to boost economic growth would take resources away from the institutions most vital to promoting it, he wrote. I know that the way out of the jobs dilemma in America is education and research. Americas global competitiveness depends on both.

A workable alternative?

Democratic lawmakers and a handful of Republicans led by Sen. Lamar Smith of Texas  a Yale alum  are looking to kill this measure. But if a tax cannot be written out, universities are pushing for a tax credit that might offset it, earmarked specifically for financial aid. While it would still tax an institution unless the credit covered the entire tax bill, it would at least keep aid money going to students.

Even if the measures dont pass, though, the academic community is concerned about a growing trend that seems to be devaluing higher education. These issues, one university official told Yahoo Finance, may not be going away. State governments, too, have shown an interest in the massive endowments. In 2016, Connecticut thought about taxing Yales endowment, prompting Florida Gov. Rick Scott to invite the university to move to the famously low-tax Sunshine State.

Schools that stand to be affected:

Amherst

Baylor College of Medicine

Bowdoin

Bryn Mawr

CIT

Claremont McKenna

Cooper Union

Dartmouth

Emory

Grinnell

Harvard

Icahn School of Medicine

MIT

Medical College of Wisconsin

Pomona

Princeton

Princeton Theological

Rice

Smith

Stanford

Swarthmore

Julliard

Trinity TX

U of Chicago

Notre Dame

U of Richmond

Washington and Lee

Wash U

Wellesley

Williams

Yale

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Confidential tip line: FinanceTips[at]oath[.com].

Read More:

American Airlines just resolved its 15,000 flight fiasco

The phone industrys clever plan to stop robocalls

Jack Dorsey on bitcoin and cryptocurrency

How cutting the 401(k) limit would affect peoples saving

Former ambassador: Mexico has moved on from NAFTA

Big bitcoin-friendly companies like Microsoft and Expedia hedge their bet

The real reason Mexico will never pay for the Trumps wall: Itd be treason

How Waffle Houses hurricane response team prepares for disaster

Trump weighs slashing one of the most popular tax deductions
Five years ago, we were no different than any other family preparing for Christmas. Little did we know that the unthinkable was about to happen and instead of writing holiday cards, we would be forced to write our daughters obituary. You see, five years ago on December 14, 2012, our daughter, Catherine Violet Hubbard, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in one of the worst mass shootings in our countrys history.

After the tragedy in Newtown, we asked people to honor Catherines life by supporting the animals she loved. Animals were her passion and caring for them was her mission. We had no idea a simple ask would put so much into motion. In the following weeks, donations poured in from across the country and around the globe to help the creatures our daughter cherished. So much so, that we made a decision that would change our lives forever: to create the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary, a place where all creatures would know that they are safe and people are kind, just as Catherine would have wanted.

Many have joined us in our quest for a kinder world and have rallied around our daughters pure and innocent dream. In 2013, the ASPCA not only honored Catherine posthumously with its Tommy P. Monahan Kid of the Year award, but also launched our building campaign by granting the sanctuary $50,000 toward the creation of the veterinary intake facility. Just a year later, the state of Connecticut voted unanimously to convey 34 acres in the heart of Newtown for the site of the sanctuary.

Since then, we have developed programming that teaches stewardship of animals and caring for their habitats, even bringing these lessons into the Newtown Public Schools K-4 classrooms. Our in-school and Sundays at the Sanctuary workshops reach over 400 people every month. Through our Senior Paw Project and work with 19 rescues from the tri-state area, we continue to honor Catherines mission of caring for animals. Specifically, our annual Butterfly Party welcomes over 3,000 people and last year, found homes for 55 animals.

Five years ago, our family lost so much. But in that loss we eventually found much. We found love, kindness, and a hope. We found that we are not divided by our hardships, but united in our compassion for one another. Through people weve encountered and opportunities we have been afforded, we have seen Catherines spirit live on in the values and generosity of so many. In the smiles of the children who attend our workshops and the animals that have found their forever homes through our programs, we see Catherines joy; in the gentle breeze that seems to always grace the sanctuary, we hear her whispers of appreciation.

The Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary is our daughters dream realizeda safe haven of healing and compassion for all beings. In a hurting world, maybe this place will be an instrument of change in the trajectory of someones life. Maybejust maybea family celebrating the holidays will not be faced with the reality of which we were faced five years ago. And if we can do that, we have honored Catherines message of kindness and acceptance for all.

Jennifer Hubbard is president of the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation.
The Lok Sabha, meeting after a long delay due to the Gujarat Assembly election, was adjourned 20 minutes into the start of business after the Speaker's address and obituary references.

By India Today Web Desk: The Lok Sabha was adjourned around 20 minutes into the start of the delayed winter session. With Parliament opening for business on a Friday, the adjournment did not really come as a surprise.

The only business conducted in the Lower House today was Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's address and the Members of Parliament paying tributes to MPs who had died when the Lok Sabha was not in session.

advertisement

The Lok Sabha will now take a weekend break and return for business on Monday, which incidentally is when results for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections will be announced.

Meanwhile Rajya Sabha was adjourned till 2.30 pm as Opposition MPs took to the well amid slogan shouting. The protests are linked to the disqualification of Sharad yadav and Ali Anwar.

Earlier, the Congress said it would corner the Modi government in Parliament over the Prime Minister's 'Pakistan' comment that target former PM Manmohan Singh.

The Congress has been demanding an apology from PM Modi for alleging that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Congress leaders held a "secret meeting" with Pakistani representatives to influence Gujarat polls.

Senior Congress member and party's deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma said, "Either the government prove the claim or the PM apologise. Nothing short of an apology will satisfy us."

Lok Sabha Speaker Smt. @S_MahajanLS being welcomed by Smt. @SnehlataShriva2 Secretary-General Lok Sabha, on the first day of the thirteenth session of Sixteenth Lok Sabha in Parliament House. pic.twitter.com/fR0rkd9HXa- LOK SABHA (@LokSabhaSectt) December 15, 2017

On the other hand, PM Modi said, "The Winter Session of Parliament is starting and I am confident that it will be productive session. I hope there is constructive debate and we come up with innovative solutions to our nation's problems."

"Generally winter starts with Diwali. But due to global warming winter has not come in full force. But winter session has started now and I hope that country would be benefited from fruitful 2017-2018 winter session in Parliament. I hope for positive and innovative arguments," Modi further said.

The winter session of Parliament that began today is expected to take up altogether 39 Bills including 14 new ones.

VIDEO | India Today-Axis exit poll Gujarat 2017: BJP set to win for sixth consecutive time

--- ENDS ---
February West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures are under pressure on Thursday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) increased its forecast for U.S. oil output growth in 2018, raising the prospect of excess supply.

The Paris-based IEA said U.S. crude output next year would climb by 870,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from its November forecast of 790,000 bpd.

This news may drive the hedge funds to liquidate some of their massive holdings of WTI futures contracts.

Daily February West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil

Daily Technical Analysis

The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade though $55.88 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. This could drop prices to $55.15.

The three main tops at $58.60, $58.90 and $58.99 are a wall of solid resistance.

The short-term range is $55.15 to $58.99. The market is trading on the weak side of its retracement zone at $57.07 to $56.62, helping to give it a downside bias.

The main range is $49.92 to $58.99. If the selling pressure continues, we could see an eventual break into its retracement zone at $54.46 to $53.38.

Daily February West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (Close-Up)

Daily Technical Forecast

Based on the early price action, the direction of the WTI crude oil market today is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the short-term Fibonacci level at $56.62.

A sustained move under $56.62 will signal the presence of sellers. This could drive the market into a support cluster formed by the main bottom at $55.88 and the uptrending Gann angle at $55.80. We could see a technical bounce on the first test of this area, but if it fails then look for an acceleration into $55.15, followed by $54.46.

Overcoming $56.62 will indicate the return of buyers. This may lead to a test of $57.07.

The news is bearish so were essentially looking for the place on the chart that will trigger a massive hedge fund liquidation. Once one starts selling, the herd will follow, sending prices sharply lower over the near-term.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
This is no Mickey Mouse deal: Disney is buying Rupert Murdochs 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion, including its Hollywood film studio and properties such as The Simpsons, The X-Men, and Avatar. Not included: Fox News.

The deal marks a major retreat for Murdoch, whose sprawling media empire was forced to split into two pieces after a British hacking scandal a few years back. NPR notes that he reached the remarkable conclusion that his $60 billion company just wasnt big enough.

For Disney, the deal is a strike against the growing dominance of Netflix and the other upstarts of streaming, and set itself up to populate its own streaming channel with high-quality content to compete in that landscape. The deal gives Disney control of some of few remaining pop-culture jewels that it doesnt already own the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, for example, and the rights to original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Disney will also acquire a controlling stake in the streaming service Hulu, the cable network FX, and a soon-to-be controlling stake in satellite broadcaster Skyassuming the deal receives approval from antitrust regulators in the US and elsewhere.

That could take a while: The deal would reshape Hollywood by removing one of its major studios, reducing television and movie production capacity. It doesnt bode well that the Justice Departments antitrust division is suing to block AT&Ts proposed $85-billion takeover of Time Warner. But Murdoch might have some reason for optimism: His ties to and friendship with US president Donald Trump go back decades, in what the Guardian recently called a billionaire bromance.

The remnants of 21st Century Fox not bought by Disney will consist of Fox Newsthe conservative news network hobbled by sexual harassment scandals but still a massive money-making machinealong with the Fox broadcast channel and a few other, smaller properties.

Story continues

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

More stories from Quartz:
At a valuation of $66.1 billion, including assumption of debt, the Disney-Fox combination announced today is certainly a major disruption of the media business status quo. But it is not the richest media deal ever  nor is it a sure thing to work out well, despite all of the blue-skying in some quarters. Looking back on the priciest media deals of the past  and a caveat should be issued here that this is a selective list that omits some telecom or digital deals  the realization dawns that the road to success seldom travels in a straight line.

Below is a brief walk down media memory lane, with dates, valuations and outcomes of the biggest all-time deals. (Disney-Fox could shake out at No. 3 in our rankings when all is said and done):

AOL-Time Warner (2000)

$162 billion

Where to begin with this catastrophe? Conceived with all of the tie-less boosterism of the first dotcom boom, the massive transaction married the chatroom-and-dial-up might of America Online with the traditional-media foundation of Time Warner. And at the time, Time Warner had many more legacy parts than it does today, with book and magazine publishing, music and a stake in Time Warner Cable.

The collapse of the ISP business  and the bursting of the tech bubble just months after the deal was announced  doomed the deal, as did a complete lack of coordination between the staid tech troops in suburban Virginia and the Burbank-Manhattan set. Things limped along until 2009, when the divorce was finalized with a spinoff. AOL eventually became a division of Verizon, which bought it for $4.2 billion in 2015.

AT&T-Time Warner (announced in 2016)

$85 billion

The Department of Justice has sued to block the combination of AT&Ts distribution muscle with Time Warners content clout. With the outcome not expected until April at the earliest, media watchers and Wall Street are left to speculate that President Donald Trumps animus toward CNN jammed up the deal.

Story continues

Regulators insist the transaction would hurt both consumers and rivals. AT&T execs insist the opposite, pointing to the growth of Internet pay-TV bundle DirecTV Now, which has already hit 1 million subscribers and discounts elements like Time Warner-owned HBO.

Comcast-AT&T Broadband (2001)

$72 billion

The Philadelphia cable companys deal in 2011 to buy 51% of NBCUniversal for $6.5B (with full control coming in 2013) was a milestone not only in the media game but for regulators still haunted by the 150-plus behavioral remedies it imposed. Some have said angst over the approval has driven the governments lawsuit to block AT&T-Time Warner.

A far bigger and more transformative deal for Comcast was its 2001 purchase of AT&T Broadband (during one of the low moments for the telco, which has been reincarnated multiple times over the past century). The AT&T acquisition gave the combined company 22 million subscribers in 41 states across cable, phone and Internet, and set the template for Comcasts current cable and broadband portfolio. No AT&T Broadband, no NBCUniversal.

Although, hows this for a flashback? Comcast CEO Brian Roberts was most excited about a component of the deal that now seems as relevant as CD-ROMs: telephony.

Charter-Time Warner Cable-Bright House (2016)

$65.5 billion

John Malone, one of the media games preeminent dealmakers, pounced on the opportunity to engineer a play for Time Warner Cable once Comcast hit a wall of regulatory interference and abandoned its bid. Charter, of which Malone now owns 27%, also rolled up Southeastern player Bright House to create the No. 2 U.S. cable operator.

Results have so far been positive, though existential questions remain about the role of cable operators in a re-bundling media landscape. One clear beneficiary from the merger, aside from Malone, has been Charter CEO Tom Rutledge. The longtime deputy of James Dolan during his long run at Cablevision made an eye-popping $98.5 million in 2016, more than quadruple his 2015 pay and tops of any American CEO across the board.

Viacom-CBS (2000)

$35.6 billion

The combination of Sumner Redstones hard-won studio and cable asset with the Tiffany Network and its media holdings made industry heads spin when it was announced near the peak of the 1990s bull market and just before the rise of digital players.

The companies separated again just seven years later, with then-chairman Redstone insisting that size wasnt all. Calls for reunification  a scenario recently explored by Shari Redstone  have grown louder lately and will likely resume now that two of its biggest peers have joined forces. At 94 years old, it appears likely that the elder Redstone doesnt have another mega-deal left in him.

Related stories

Donald Trump Oddly Tells FBI Grads "90 Percent" Of Their Families Support Them

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Awakens To Early $61M Overseas; $106M WW - International Box Office

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Thursday Night Previews Hit $45M
Disney and 21st Century Foxs mega-merger was the talk of Tinseltown and Twitter on Thursday.

Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, whose character could possibly team up with Marvel superheroes under the new deal, posted a photo of his irreverent Merc With a Mouth being escorted out of Disneyland by a security guard with the caption apparently you cant actually blow the Matterhorn.

The Simpsons creator James L. Brooks tweeted, Simpsons say hi to Mickey with respect (hes a lot older than we are), along with a picture of Homer strangling the iconic Disney mascot, reminiscent of classic shots of him choking Bart.

James Gunn, who wrote and directed Disney-Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy films, said, while there are many aspects to Disneys acquisition of 21st Century Foxs assets, I am personally incredibly happy about it, for obvious reason. Welcome home, old friends.

Story continues

While there are many aspects to Disneys acquisition of 21st Century Foxs assets, I am personally incredibly happy about it, for obvious reason. Welcome home, old friends. https://t.co/MpQHEnOTVL  James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 14, 2017

Comedian George Wallace wrote, I love how Disney said to Fox, Well take ALL of it Except for Fox News thats some dog s right there.

I love how Disney said to Fox, "We'll take ALL of it Except for Fox News that's some dog shit right there."  George Wallace (@MrGeorgeWallace) December 14, 2017

Judd Apatow also chimed in, stating that he was happy about the merger because Fox will no longer be owned by the Murdochs who are toxic to our country and government because they are part of a propaganda arm which has no interest in anything but making them richer. Hopefully, overall, less movies wont be made.

Heres why I am happy about it the studio will no longer be owned by the Murdochs who are toxic to our country and government because they are part of a propaganda arm which has no interest in anything but making them richer. Hopefully, overall, less movies wont be made. https://t.co/58oeBuUmQS  Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) December 14, 2017

Related stories

Writers Guild of America West Blasts Disney-Fox Deal as 'Relentless Drive to Eliminate Competition'

Disney-Fox Deal: Bob Iger, Rupert Murdoch Find Common Ground as Their Mogul Paths Diverge

'The Simpsons' Predicted Disney's Acquisition of Fox Almost 20 Years Ago

Subscribe to Variety Newsletters and Email Alerts!
Disney will be adding a little more Vice into its life.

The media conglomerate will obtain 21st Century Foxs $70 million stake in Vice Media under the mammoth asset deal Disney and Fox announced Thursday, a rep for 21st Century Fox confirmed to Variety.

Thats on top of the stake in Vice that Disney already owns, after investing $400 million in the company in 2015. Fox had purchased its stake in the Brooklyn-based media company in 2013.

The transfer of Foxs Vice ownership stake wasnt disclosed by Disney or 21st Century Fox in their public announcements or regulatory filings. Frankly, its kind of small potatoes in the context of the $52.4 billion deal under which Disney will absorb the 20th Century Fox studio and Foxs cable networks.

The other point to note: Disneys acquisition of Foxs stake in Vice wont change anything about Vices corporate governance. The Disney investment in Vice gave it about a 10% ownership stake at the time, while 21st Century Fox held 5%. Earlier this year, Vice received a $450 million infusion from private-equity firm TPG, which would have diluted the stakes held by both Disney and Fox. (A Vice rep, asked for details of the ownership positions of its investors, was unable to provide any info.)

Still, as Disney ups its stake in Vice, the question becomes whether its actually a beneficial investment.

Disneys family-friendly brand always seemed an odd fit with Vice, which targets a millennial-skewing audience with gritty, no-holds-barred content and an editorial ethos celebrating drug lifestyles and other subcultures.

The main strategic intersection of Disney and Vice has been through A+E Networks, a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst. In the U.S., Vice converted A+Es H2 cable channel into Viceland. For Vice, the cable affiliate fees have represented guaranteed revenue, diversifying its businesses, and the company has planned international rollout of Viceland.

Story continues

But Vices push into cable TV seemed counterintuitive, as pay TV suffers the slings and arrows of cord-cutting and skinny bundles. Mainly, Viceland has turned what had been a very low-rated network (H2) into a slightly less-watched network.

Theres reportedly trouble at Viceland Canada: The cable network there is losing the backing of partner Rogers Communications, because of low ratings and financial losses, according to a report last month by Torontos Globe and Mail. In 2014, Vice and Rogers formed a three-year JV with a $100 million (Canadian) investment, under which the parties created a multimedia production studio and launched Viceland Canada in 2016. Both Rogers and Vice declined to comment on the report. A source familiar with the deal said no decisions have been made about the future of Viceland Canada.

On the digital side of the business, Vice also is likely suffering from the tough advertising environment that has inflicted pain across the sector. In recent weeks, BuzzFeed, Mashable and Refinery29 have each conducted layoffs amid declining revenue outlooks.

In July, Vice laid off about 60 staffers, representing 2% of its total workforce. The company positioned it as reallocating resources to video production and international expansion. But it was a sign that Vice wasnt exactly rolling in dough, and the IPO that CEO Shane Smith suggested would happen in 2017 never came to pass.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the personnel front, Vice in the last few weeks has been forced to confront allegations of harassment and other misconduct by employees.

Two weeks ago, Vice fired three employees for violations of its HR policies, including Jason Mojica, head of its documentary film unit. That came after an internal investigation, prompted by a Daily Beast report describing Vice as having a pervasive corporate culture that was hostile to women, including allegations by a former employee that she was the target of sexual harassment.

On Friday, news broke that Andy Capper, who produced several Vice documentaries and was the longtime global editor-in-chief of Vice magazine, is leaving the company. The circumstances of his departure are unclear at this point.

Related stories

Disney's Advertising Empire Could Get More High-Tech After Fox Purchase

Trump Has Some Words of Praise for Disney-Fox Deal

Could Fox Acquisition Finally Make Disney an Awards Power Player?

Subscribe to Variety Newsletters and Email Alerts!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress reached a deal this week on a final version of their debt-financed legislation to cut taxes for businesses and wealthy Americans, with House and Senate votes expected early next week. Republicans control both chambers but have only a 52-to-48 Senate majority, meaning they can lose no more than two votes and still pass their tax bill, which Democrats oppose. The following are the Republican lawmakers to watch: MARCO RUBIO The Florida senator and former presidential contender said on Thursday he will vote against the tax plan if its proposed refundable amount for the child tax credit is not increased. Rubio told reporters that tax negotiators have made many changes to the legislation, including lowering the top rate paid by wealthy individuals. "My concern is that if you found the money to lower the top rate ... you can't find a little bit to at least somewhat increase the refundable portion of it?" Rubio asked. MIKE LEE The Utah senator also is unhappy with the legislation's child tax credit approach and "undecided" on whether he will vote for the measure if there are no changes, his spokesman has told Reuters. Lee and Rubio are in negotiations aimed at making more of the tax credit refundable so more low-income families can benefit from it, his office said on Thursday. SUSAN COLLINS The Maine moderate has said she cannot say whether she will be supportive "until I see the bill." Republican leaders persuaded Collins' to support the Senate's version of the bill earlier this month by promising to take up two healthcare provisions before the end of the year that would help mitigate her concerns about repealing Obamacare's "individual mandate." Republican tax writers also included amendments offered by Collins to woo her support. One preserves the deductibility of property-tax payments at a cap of $10,000. The final bill goes further by preserving the same deduction for state and local income-tax payments. BOB CORKER Corker, a deficit hawk from Tennessee, stalled momentum on the Senate tax bill earlier this month, then ended up voting against it due to its expansion of the federal deficit. Nonpartisan government estimates have shown the Republican tax bill will expand the deficit by about $1.5 trillion in a decade, or $1 trillion after accounting for economic growth. Corker has said this week of the compromise bill: "My deficit concerns have not been alleviated." JEFF FLAKE The Arizona conservative voted for the Senate tax bill earlier this month after announcing he had succeeded in eliminating an $85 billion expensing "budget gimmick." Flake also got a commitment from Senate leaders and the Trump administration to work on permanent protections for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Flake has not yet said whether he will support the compromise bill and was not specific about his hesitation in brief hallway remarks to reporters this week. JOHN MCCAIN The Arizona senator, war hero and former presidential nominee voted for the Senate bill but his office said this week he is undergoing treatment for side effects of cancer therapy at a military hospital outside Washington. McCain, 81, missed non-tax votes this week. His office said he "looks forward to returning to work as soon as possible." THAD COCHRAN The Mississippi senator, who also voted for the Senate bill, was absent from Capitol Hill for nearly a month earlier this year and has missed votes in recent weeks. Cochran's office said the 80-year-old senator is in Washington and expects to vote for tax legislation next week. MIKE PENCE Vice President Mike Pence has delayed a planned trip to the Middle East in case his vote is needed to break a tie on the final tax bill. Pence has played the role of dealmaker during Senate negotiations, assuring both Collins and Flake their concerns about the legislation would be addressed. RON JOHNSON Johnson endorsed the Senate bill after getting a 23 percent tax deduction for pass-through business income. The Wisconsin senator has said he is encouraged by the compromise bill, which has a 20 percent tax deduction for pass-through business income, and a lower top individual rate of 37 percent. (Reporting by Amanda Becker, Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Amanda Becker; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Bill Trott)
During the Trump Administration, we will shift from playing defense at the FCC to going on offense, Ajit Pai said in December last year, a month before president-elect Donald Trump appointed him as the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He wasnt kidding.

Pai is at the center of the U.S.s net neutrality storm. He took his post promising to gut the rulewhich forbids broadband providers from favoring certain web services over othersand he seems likely to get his wish. The FCCs leadership is dominated by Republicans, and on Thursday they will vote on Pais proposal to rescind the Obama-era classification of broadband firms as common carriers with neutrality obligations.

But who is Ajit Pai?

A lawyer, Pai has shuttled between government and private-sector jobs for the past two decades. From 1998 to 2001, he worked for the Department of Justices antitrust division, focusing on the telecommunications sector. Then, in 2001, he took what has now proved to be a contentious general counsel role at Verizon vz .

Verizon is of course one of the internet providers that has long been pushing for an end to net neutrality. In 2014, long after Pai stopped working for the company, it was Verizon that successfully won a battle against the FCCs 2010 attempt to introduce net neutrality via an open internet order. By that point, Pai was an FCC commissioner.

After his stint at Verizon, Pai had gone to work in various roles at the Senate judiciary committee (advising Jeff Sessions and Sam Brownback) and at the justice department, before becoming FCC deputy general counsel in 2007.

In 2011 he went to work for law firm Jenner & Block, which specializes in representing telecommunications firms, but the following year Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell recommended to president Obama that Pai would make a good FCC commissioner. Obama appointed him.

Thats not to say Obama shared Pais viewsrather, the president was abiding by the convention that the minority party gets to nominate two appointees to the five-seat commission. The other three seats were taken by Democrats.

Story continues

After Verizon beat the FCC in court in 2014, then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler turned to Title II of the 1934 Communications Act to achieve his goal of mandating net neutrality (the court had said that, without broadband providers being classified as common carriers, the FCC did not have the authority to force them to maintain an open internet).

In his dissenting opinion, Pai arguedas he does todaythat the FCC was trying to replace internet freedom with government control.

[Today the FCC] seizes unilateral authority to regulate internet conduct, to direct where internet service providers put their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public, Pai thundered, claiming that Obama had told the commission to do so.

Obama did indeed ask the FCC to reclassify internet service providers under Title II, though as the agency is independent, he did not order it to do so.

When Trump was elected, it was clear which way the wind would blow. The president-elect had tweeted in 2014 that Obamas support for net neutrality was a top down power grab that would somehow target conservative mediathere is no basis to this assertion, as net neutrality does not allow anyone to target any particular online service or media outlet; thats the point.

Obamas attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2014

Pai, in his December 2016 speech, argued that Title II classification was unnecessary as there is no evidence of systemic failure in the internet marketplace.

Im hopeful that beginning next year, our general regulatory approach will be a more sober one that is guided by evidence, sound economic analysis, and a good dose of humility, he said, predicting that the orders days are numbered.

Now, with his wish set to come true, Pai has been running a victory lap. Facing opposition from internet pioneers, online companies, members of Congress and the vast majority of Americansall of whom are worried about broadband providers offering cut-down packages of services rather than the full internethe released a jokey video scoffing at their dire predictions. (Bonus fact: In the video, Pai does the Harlem Shake with Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Martina Markota, who is smoking a cigarette for good measure.)

You can still post photos of cute animals like puppies, he chuckled. You can still binge-watch your favorite shows. You can still stay part of your favorite fan kingdom. You can still drive memes right into the ground. And everything else you ever did on the internet.

Pai probably didnt mean to imply that Americans general online activities would be driven into the ground. For the sake of the online ecosystem, if Thursdays vote does go his way as predicted, lets hope that doesnt turn out to be the result.
A police constable was arrested after he pointed his rifle at Congress leader Kamal Nath at Chhindwara, Madhya Pradesh.

By India Today Web Desk: In another turn of events a policeman was arrested after he pointed his gun at Congress leader Kamal Nath in Chhindwara of Madhya Pradesh today evening. The incident took place at a small airport at around 5pm when Nath was travelling.

Nath was about to fly from Imli Khera to Delhi, when constable Ratnesh Pawar pointed his rifle towards the plane. The constable's suspicious move was evaded soon after other policemen at the spot noticed it and intervened.

advertisement

"The incident took place when Nath was about to board a chartered plane for Delhi," additional superintendent of police Neeraj Soni said.

Ratnesh Pawar allegedly took aim at Nath with his service rifle but the security guards of the nine-time MP from Chhindwara promptly overpowered him.

In view of the incident, Pawar was suspended soon after. Pawar who joined the police force in 2008 had served across several police stations in the state.

Nath, in the meantime, had boarded the aircraft. Pawar was suspended and SP (city) asked to conduct an inquiry into the incident, Soni said.

Soon after the incident, Rajya Sabha member and Madhya Pradesh's former Advocate General Vivek Trikha took to Twitter to express displeasure over the incident. On Twitter he asked if the incident was an instance of politics of hatred.

A Police man loads his rifle to fire at Kamal Nath ji in Chhindwara airstrip. Is this politics of hatred. Should be condemned in strongest terms.- Vivek Tankha (@VTankha) December 15, 2017

--- ENDS ---
Recent undervalued companies based on their current market price include Playtech and Billington Holdings. Investors can profit from the difference by investing in these stocks as the current market prices should eventually move towards their true values. If capital gains are what youre after in your next investment, Ive put together a list of undervalued stocks you may be interested in, based on the latest financial data from each company.

Playtech plc (LSE:PTEC)

Playtech plc engages in the development and licensing of software products for the online and land-based gambling industries. Formed in 1999, and now led by CEO Mor Weizer, the company currently employs 5,000 people and with the stocks market cap sitting at GBP 2.66B, it comes under the mid-cap category.

PTECs stock is now trading at -36% lower than its true value of 13.46, at the market price of 8.55, based on my discounted cash flow model. The discrepancy signals an opportunity to buy low. Also, PTECs PE ratio stands at around 13x relative to its software peer level of 34x, suggesting that relative to other stocks in the industry, PTEC can be bought at a cheaper price right now. PTEC is also strong financially, as current assets can cover liabilities in the near term and over the long run. The stocks debt-to equity ratio of 43% has for the last couple of years revealing its capacity

LSE:PTEC PE PEG Gauge Dec 14th 17

Billington Holdings Plc (AIM:BILN)

Billington Holdings Plc, through its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and installs structural steelworks in the United Kingdom and rest of Europe. Founded in 1989, and currently headed by CEO Mark Smith, the company size now stands at 361 people and with the stocks market cap sitting at GBP 35.24M, it comes under the small-cap stocks category.

BILNs shares are now hovering at around -46% less than its value of 5.33, at a price of 2.88, according to my discounted cash flow model. signalling an opportunity to buy the stock at a low price. In terms of relative valuation, BILNs PE ratio is around 10.1x relative to its construction peer level of 19.2x, meaning that relative to its comparable company group, we can purchase BILNs shares for cheaper. BILN is also robust in terms of financial health, with near-term assets able to cover upcoming and long-term liabilities. Finally, its debt relative to equity is 12%, which has for the past few years revealing BILNs capability

Story continues

AIM:BILN PE PEG Gauge Dec 14th 17

Maintel Holdings Plc (AIM:MAI)

Maintel Holdings Plc, through its subsidiaries, provides managed communications services for the private and public sectors in the United Kingdom and internationally. Started in 1991, and currently headed by CEO Edward Buxton, the company provides employment to 631 people and has a market cap of GBP 90.84M, putting it in the small-cap category.

MAIs stock is now floating at around -71% less than its intrinsic value of 21.46, at a price of 6.28, based on my discounted cash flow model. This mismatch indicates a potential opportunity to buy low. In addition to this, MAIs PE ratio is around 15.7x relative to its commercial services peer level of 13.6x, meaning that relative to its competitors, MAIs shares can be purchased for a lower price. MAI is also strong in terms of its financial health, with current assets covering liabilities in the near term and over the long run. The stocks debt-to equity ratio of 87% has for the past few years showing MAIs capability

AIM:MAI PE PEG Gauge Dec 14th 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.
Will Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) build the next-generation Fusion sedan in China?

That possibility was raised by a surprising report on Wednesday. Ford responded with a carefully parsed Ford denial that didn't quite deny that something drastic is in the works for the upcoming all-new Fusion.

Here's what we know, and what Ford might actually have in mind.

What we know about Ford's plans for making the next Fusion

Before we get into the details, a note to avoid confusion: The midsize sedan that Americans know as the Ford Fusion actually has two names. In many markets outside of North America, including Europe and China, it's known as the Ford Mondeo. The Fusion and Mondeo have small differences, but from Ford's perspective, they're the same product.

A red Ford Mondeo, a midsize sedan, with a European license plate. It looks nearly identical to a Ford Fusion.

In other parts of the world, the Ford Fusion is known as the Ford Mondeo. The Fusion and Mondeo have small differences, but the thing to remember is that from Ford's perspective, they're the same product. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

Right now, Fusions sold in North America are made in Ford's factory in Hermosillo, Mexico. Mondeo sedans for the European market are made at Ford's facility in Valencia, Spain. Ford also builds and sells the Mondeo in China.

Got it? Now for the report: Ford has told suppliers that it's planning to shift production of the Fusion and Mondeo sedans out of Mexico and Spain and move it to China when the next-generation Fusion and Mondeo are launched in late 2020. That's according to a Reuters report that cites three unnamed sources.

Doesn't that mean Ford will export the Fusion and Mondeo from China to North America and Europe? It sure sounds that way, and that's how Reuters initially reported the story. But it updated the article to step back from that conclusion after Ford's PR folks pushed back on the initial report with this statement:

We have no plans to export the next-generation Fusion/Mondeo from China to North America and Europe. Fusion/Mondeo are an important part of the Ford car lineup. We will have more information to share about the next Fusion/Mondeo at a later date.

Story continues

So, what's going on, here? Let's look a little deeper.

Why Ford might do something like this -- and why it might not

Here's something else we know: Fusion and Mondeo sales are down big this year. Through November, U.S. sales of the Fusion are down 22%, and Mondeo sales in Europe are down 21%. Those declines are consistent with an industrywide trend that has been unfolding for several years now: More buyers are choosing crossover SUVs over traditional sedans.

Automakers (not just Ford) are responding to that trend by boosting investment in crossover models and reducing investments in sedans. General Motors (NYSE: GM) has said that the next-generation versions of its compact Chevrolet Cruze and midsize Chevrolet Malibu sedans will reuse the vehicles' current architectures, making their revamps much less expensive than the traditional all-new models. And Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (NYSE: FCAU) has completely discontinued production of its compact Dodge Dart and midsize Chrysler 200 sedans, revamping the cars' assembly lines to build SUVs and trucks instead.

Likewise, Ford has made some sedan-related cost-cutting moves of its own. It's reducing the number of possible order combinations on models like the Fusion and compact Focus in order to reduce manufacturing costs. It has confirmed that the next-generation Focus will be built in China and exported from there to North America, and signs suggest it is discontinuing the subcompact Fiesta altogether in the United States. (Ford launched an all-new Fiesta in Europe earlier this year; the Fiesta is Ford's best-selling vehicle in Europe, but the new little hatchback doesn't seem to be headed here.)

Partially-completed Mondeo sedans are shown in cradles, several feet above the factory floor, with workers underneath.

Ford Mondeos move down the assembly line at Ford's factory in Valencia, Spain. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

Given all of that, it would make a lot of sense for Ford to centralize global production of the Fusion and Mondeo on one big assembly line, and for Ford to put that line in a factory where its costs are lower. But it's unlikely to be Mexico, given that the Trump administration may tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement. That could greatly complicate the now-common practice of building vehicles in Mexico for the U.S. market (and not just for Ford).

There's a good reason, other than Ford's denial, to think that Ford won't choose China for that big factory. The Ford factory in China that would be likely to build the Fusion and Mondeo is owned by a 50-50 joint venture between Ford and Chinese automaker Chongqing Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. ("Changan Auto"). If Ford built all of its Fusions and Mondeos at that factory, it would have to split the revenue 50-50 with Changan Auto.

Ford is apparently willing to do that with the lower-margin Focus. But I don't see it happening with the more profitable Fusion and Mondeo.

Here's what might really be going on, here

Taking Ford's statement at its word, there seem to be only two possible conclusions: Either Ford is planning to drop the Fusion from its U.S. lineup entirely, or it's planning to build Fusions for North America (and Mondeos for Europe) somewhere other than China, Mexico, or Spain.

Where might that be? Here's one more thing we know: Ford has two underutilized factories in India, and it has said in the past that it might use those plants to make products for export. At the current rate of sales, Ford would need something like 300,000 total Fusions and Mondeos a year to supply North America and Europe; that would require expanding one of the plants somewhat, but it's not at all an unreasonable number.

Is it possible that Ford's real plan is to produce the next-generation Fusion and Mondeo for North America and Europe in India, rather than China? Stay tuned.

More From The Motley Fool

John Rosevear owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
OAKVILLE, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Dec 7, 2017) - Giyani Metals Corporation (TSX VENTURE:WDG)(KT9.F) ("Giyani" or the "Company") has received positive metallurgical testing results, performed by Dalhousie Minerals Engineering Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, from the manganese oxide bearing rocks sampled at the K.Hill Prospect, the first of three potential deposits within the Kanye Manganese Project in Botswana.

Of significance, manganese nodule type material, abundant at K.Hill, can be easily treated using a trammel/gravity/washing process. Manganese found in staining and veins environments suggest only a light grind is required making it physically amenable to hydrometallurgical processes. Hydrometallurgical processing takes the product to a grade higher than 99.7% manganese in the form of electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD) suitable for the battery industry.

Robin Birchall CEO of Giyani said, "I am very pleased with the results of these tests. They vindicate the approach the Company has taken to pursue the high value battery market. We look forward to continuing our exploration and test work in Botswana at our deposits and hope to have further supportive good news in the near future".

In detail, the results indicate manganese minerals at K.Hill occur in three forms:

Staining on the silicates, iron oxides and themselves.

Small veins, as manganese oxides deposited on each other

Nodules wherein the manganese has built-up into botrydal masses that may contain other minerals

This supergene mineralogy is complex as there are many oxidation states of manganese and a variety of other metals are present.

These results, however, are positive indications that the percentage of deleterious elements in the rock does not affect quality or recovery. For example, Kaolin is present in one layer of the manganese bearing rock tested. This mineral has a smaller particles size and is found in veins; thus, should not present a problem during processing. Iron oxides are also found which is normal in manganese ores.

It is recommended that additional testing be performed to determine the recovery of manganese nodules through a screening, washing and/or gravity separation system and that the remainder of the manganese be tested for recovery and purity using hydrometallurgical processes.

Story continues

Dump Material: hydrometallurgy tests to determine potential recovery. It is unlikely that grinding will be required on this material. However, grinding should be done on a second iteration of these tests to determine if recoveries can be improved.

Manganese-Iron Altered Shales: Size reduction to the range of 100-300 micrometers followed by hydrometallurgical testing to determine potential recovery of the manganese.

Manganese Shales with Kaolin: this material is similar to the Manganese-Iron altered shales with the potential of a smaller required grind size and the presence of Kaolin. If Kaolin is detrimental to the hydrometallurgy a course grind should be performed at sizes larger than a millimeter, followed by a washing to remove the kaolin prior to size reduction to the 100 - 300 micrometers final size.

Manganese altered Silicates: This has a low grade of manganese. However, some of the manganese occurs in larger veins and could be separated with a course grind followed by leaching and hydrometallurgy.

Examples of the manganese minerals found in the samples are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Manganese minerals identified in the K.Hill samples

Name Lustre Colour Hardness Tenacity Density MnO Grade Cryptomelane Earthy Brown-gray 5-6.5 Brittle 4.17-4.41 60% Hausmannite Resinous Brown-black 5.5 Brittle 4.83-4.85 72% Hollandite Metallic Silver-Black 4-6 Brittle 4.95 52.8% Psilomelane submetallic Iron black 5-6 Brittle 4.7 48.8% Pyrolusite Varies Black-gray 2-6.5 Brittle 5.04-5.08 63.2% Jacobsite Resinous Brown-Black 5.5-6.5 Brittle 4.76 23.8% Coronadite Varies Gray-Black 4.5-5 Brittle 4.2-4.5 48.7%

The Bond Work Index for power requirements, to crush and grind manganese ore, ranges from 12 to 16 kWhr/tonne, but when grinding only to exposure can be as low as 6 kWhr/tonne. This is an approximation of the power required to break the rock from an infinite size to 100 micrometers.

Metallurgical testing was performed on samples collected from the K.Hill Prospect in Botswana in August and September of 2017 by Dr. Ian M. Flint, Ph.D., P.Eng. These samples were shipped to Dalhousie university in Nova Scotia, Canada, where sectioned mineralogy work was done on thin sections randomly taken from the samples using an electron microprobe and an optical mineralogical microscope. Dr. Flint supervised each stage of the work, including from the site, and ensured the chain of custody of the samples.

Ian Flint, Ph.D., P.Eng, is the qualified person, as that term is defined by National Instrument 43-101, on behalf of the Company and has approved the scientific and technical content contained in this press release.

Additional information and corporate documents may be found on www.sedar.com and on Giyani Metals Corp. website: http://giyanimetals.com/.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Giyani Metals Corp.

Duane Parnham, Executive Chairman

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 news release.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, the financial picture of the Company etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statement.
Staff of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva gather outside its plant in Ne'ot Hovav, near Beersheba, on December 14, 2017, as management prepares to announce massive job cuts (AFP Photo/MENAHEM KAHANA)

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva announced Thursday it plans 14,000 job cuts globally over two years as the ailing firm unveiled sweeping restructuring plans while facing low prices for generic drugs and heavy debt.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world's largest producer of generic drugs, said its reductions would be across-the-board and in all its locations.

Its job cuts would amount to more than one quarter of Teva's global workforce of over 55,000.

Closures or divestments of manufacturing plants were planned for the United States, Europe, Israel and elsewhere.

"There's not any function where we don't have a reduction," Kare Schultz, who took over as Teva president and chief executive in November, said during a conference call to discuss the restructuring.

"Geographically, it's everywhere. So it's a very broad set of actions we're taking."

Teva also said it was suspending dividends on ordinary shares and its annual bonus for 2017 will not be paid "due to the fact that the company's financial results are significantly below our original guidance for the year."

Teva has been saddled with debt after its $40 billion acquisition of the generics arm of rival Allergan was completed last year.

The acquisition has been accompanied by low prices for generics, particularly in the United States, a major market.

Teva expects to save $3 billion by the end of 2019 with the two-year restructuring plan.

There has been deep concern over job cuts in Israel, where the company employs some 7,000 people and receives generous tax breaks.

On Wednesday, Israel's powerful Histadrut trade union confederation called a nationwide strike for Sunday following reports of the job cuts.

Teva factory workers on Thursday walked off the job and protested, including by blocking roads.

- 'Pay the price' -

According to Histadrut head Avi Nissenkorn, some 1,750 workers will be laid off in Israel.

Story continues

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement he had spoken with Schultz and asked that Teva do what it could to diminish the damage to employees in Israel.

Netanyahu also told Schultz he must do whatever possible to retain Teva's identity as an Israeli company, and Schultz said he would, a statement from Netanyahu's office read.

According to Nissenkorn, Teva has received $6.2 billion in tax reductions since 2006.

"I think their plan is exaggerated," he said.

"The number of workers set to be sent home should be reduced, and not less importantly, all the factories in Israel should be saved."

Teva has faced a convergence of factors that have put it in difficulty.

Beyond low prices for generics in the United States, its multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone is facing competition after US regulators approved a generic version of it.

While Teva has focused on generics, it also produces speciality drugs.

Its restructuring will include evaluating products to determine whether they should be discontinued, the firm said.

Schultz, who is Danish, has sought to turn around the fortunes of a company that in the past represented more than one percent of Israel's gross domestic product.

In late November, the company announced a new organisational and leadership structure, including combining its speciality and generics commercial businesses into one.

But the cutbacks have led to strong criticism in Israel.

"Teva is giving us a painful lesson in ingratitude and rudeness," Israeli Labour party lawmaker Itzik Shmuli said.

"After having benefited from billions in tax breaks, they are laying off. The crisis is real, and it is mostly due to mindless management. Now they want workers to pay the price."
Two Republican senators are holding out from voting for the GOP tax plan as written, adding uncertainty to the party's push to overhaul the U.S. tax system ahead of an expected vote next week. Sen. Marco Rubio , R-Fla., opposes the current legislation unless the GOP expands the proposed child tax credit, spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas confirmed Thursday. Rubio informed Senate leaders of his stance, The Washington Post first reported . "Consistently, throughout this process, I've outlined the need to increase the refundable part of the child tax credit," Rubio told reporters later Thursday. Sen. Mike Lee , R-Utah, is currently undecided on the bill and also wants to expand the credit, spokesman Conn Carroll said. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., opposed the Senate version of the plan and has not committed to backing a joint House and Senate bill. If both Corker and Rubio vote against the tax proposal, one more GOP senator opposing it would sink the bill.Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has not yet said she will back the legislation, either. The stances of both Rubio and Lee could change if Republican leaders make tweaks to the bill. They aim to boost the refundability level of the credit and effectively make more families eligible for it. The bill that passed the Senate would increase the child tax credit to $2,000 per child, refundable up to $1,100. The credit is currently $1,000. Rubio and Lee pushed Senate negotiators to increase the child tax credit to that level from an initially proposed $1,650. They still want to expand the measure to allow more working families to qualify for it."As it's currently structured, it's only $1,100, which means a lot of people making 35, 40, 25 thousand dollars working are not going to be able to utilize as much of the credit as they need. And so what I've asked is that $1,100 be raised," Rubio told reporters Thursday."Unless they can figure out a way to add to the $1,100 figure I won't support the bill," he added.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told Bloomberg later Thursday that he did not know what Senate leadership would do to appease Rubio. He told the news outlet that Republicans "probably" can approve the legislation even if Rubio votes against it.Kapur tweet House and Senate negotiators are hammering out a deal on a final tax bill that both chambers hope to pass next week and send to President Donald Trump for his signature. Passing a tax bill by the end of the year is a key goal for Republicans, who want a legislative achievement to promote ahead of next year's midterm elections. Complicating matters is the health of GOP Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who have missed votes this week. McCain is undergoing treatments related to brain cancer. Cochran reportedly had a nonmelanoma lesion removed from his nose but is available for votes next week. Vice President Mike Pence has delayed a planned Middle East trip amid the Senate's push to pass the tax legislation . He could have to vote to break a tie in the Senate if two Republicans vote against the plan. Two Republican senators are holding out from voting for the GOP tax plan as written, adding uncertainty to the party's push to overhaul the U.S. tax system ahead of an expected vote next week. Sen. Marco Rubio , R-Fla., opposes the current legislation unless the GOP expands the proposed child tax credit, spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas confirmed Thursday. Rubio informed Senate leaders of his stance, The Washington Post first reported . "Consistently, throughout this process, I've outlined the need to increase the refundable part of the child tax credit," Rubio told reporters later Thursday. Sen. Mike Lee , R-Utah, is currently undecided on the bill and also wants to expand the credit, spokesman Conn Carroll said. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., opposed the Senate version of the plan and has not committed to backing a joint House and Senate bill. If both Corker and Rubio vote against the tax proposal, one more GOP senator opposing it would sink the bill. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has not yet said she will back the legislation, either. The stances of both Rubio and Lee could change if Republican leaders make tweaks to the bill. They aim to boost the refundability level of the credit and effectively make more families eligible for it. The bill that passed the Senate would increase the child tax credit to $2,000 per child, refundable up to $1,100. The credit is currently $1,000. Rubio and Lee pushed Senate negotiators to increase the child tax credit to that level from an initially proposed $1,650. They still want to expand the measure to allow more working families to qualify for it. "As it's currently structured, it's only $1,100, which means a lot of people making 35, 40, 25 thousand dollars working are not going to be able to utilize as much of the credit as they need. And so what I've asked is that $1,100 be raised," Rubio told reporters Thursday. "Unless they can figure out a way to add to the $1,100 figure I won't support the bill," he added. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told Bloomberg later Thursday that he did not know what Senate leadership would do to appease Rubio. He told the news outlet that Republicans "probably" can approve the legislation even if Rubio votes against it. Kapur tweet House and Senate negotiators are hammering out a deal on a final tax bill that both chambers hope to pass next week and send to President Donald Trump for his signature. Passing a tax bill by the end of the year is a key goal for Republicans, who want a legislative achievement to promote ahead of next year's midterm elections. Complicating matters is the health of GOP Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who have missed votes this week. McCain is undergoing treatments related to brain cancer. Cochran reportedly had a nonmelanoma lesion removed from his nose but is available for votes next week. Vice President Mike Pence has delayed a planned Middle East trip amid the Senate's push to pass the tax legislation . He could have to vote to break a tie in the Senate if two Republicans vote against the plan.



More From CNBC


By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) Consumer electronics and appliance makers today welcomed governments decision to hike import duty on electronics items like smartphones and television, saying the move will boost domestic manufacturing industry and give a push to the Make in India initiative.

The government today hiked import duty on smartphones, television sets, microwave, LED lamps and some other electronic items in a bid to protect domestic manufacturers.

advertisement

Customs duty on television sets has been doubled to 20 per cent as also on LED lamps.

"This is a significant step as it will boost the domestic manufacturing industry and give a fillip to the governments Make in India initiative," Videocon Chief Manufacturing Officer Abhijit Kotnis said.

He further said this will also encourage foreign consumer durables companies to manufacture products in India rather than importing them.

The tax on import of microwave ovens too has been doubled to 20 per cent, the Finance Ministry said in a notification.

CEAMA President Manish Sharma said: "We have been pushing the government to increase the basic customs duty for CBUs imported into the country which in turn will benefit the overall domestic ACE industry."

Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) is an all India industry body in the consumer electronics and durables sector.

Customs duty on video recording equipment as well as TV cameras has been increased to 15 per cent from current 10 per cent. Imported smartphones will cost more with customs duty on them being increased to 15 per cent from nil now.

Sharma, who is also the President and CEO of Panasonic India and South Asia said: "Further to this significant development, local manufacturing will grow, giving the much- needed impetus to the governments Make-in-India vision."

Godrej Appliances Business Head and EVP Kamal Nandi: "This will benefit and promote domestic manufacturing of microwave ovens, supporting governments initiative of Make In India."

Import duty on set top boxes has been doubled to 20 per cent. Also, customs duty on lamps and lighting fittings including search lights and chandeliers has been doubled to 20 per cent while the same on electricity meters increased from 10 per cent to 15 per cent, the notification said. PTI PRJ MR

--- ENDS ---
Wall Street tax expert Robert Willens, president of Robert Willens LLC, has never heard more discussion from wealthy New Yorkers about relocating to another state with a more favorable tax environment until now because of the GOP tax plan.

Everybody I speak to brings this up. Every NYC resident I speak to asks about the feasibility involved in doing it, Willens, who regularly advises hedge fund clients on tax matters as it relates to investing, told Yahoo Finance. Ive been doing this more than 40 years, and never heard more discussion about relocating than recently.

The tax plan Congress seems likely to pass soon would severely curtail the deduction for state and local taxes, known as the SALT provision, which about one-third of all taxpayers claim when they file their federal income taxes. In the 43 states with an income tax, the more you earn, the more this tax break is worth, since it lets you lower your taxable income at the federal level by the amount of taxes you pay to the state. Since it also includes property taxes, it also disproportionately benefits people with expensive real estate.

Swap snowy sidewalks and higher taxes for lower taxes and a sunny stroll along Ocean Ave. in Palm Beach, Florida. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Some wealthy people in states such as New York can easily use the deduction to lower their federal taxable income by $100,000 or more. Congress, however, is poised to cap the total amount of state and local deductions at a mere $10,000. That would push taxable income, or the amount subject to federal tax, way up for people who typically claim a large SALT deduction.

A recent encounter that former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, a Democrat and supporter of the Buffett rule, had with a hedge fund manager summed up the dismay felt by some in the hedge fund community. Tilson recalled it in an email blast he distributed to his readers.

I assumed that all of my rich Republican friends would be doing handsprings over this tax plan (every study shows that corporations and one-percenters will benefit in a hugely disproportionate way; see here, here and here), especially since the outrageous carried interest loophole (which Trump pledged to close) is maintained, so I was shocked when I ran into an extremely wealthy NYC-based hedge fund manager on Monday and he, unprompted, started railing against it for at least 10 minutes, Tilson wrote in the email.

Story continues

Tilson continued: He believes it will devastate NY (and, to a lesser extent, CA), primarily by ending or severely limiting the deduction of the very high state and local taxes. He estimated that his tax rate (and others [similarly] situated) will go from mid-30% to 56%, which will trigger a massive exodus from NY to places like Florida, which will crush the NYC (and therefore state) economy.

According to Tilson, this hedge fund manager said that many of his Republican friends are even more outraged.

Interestingly, he blames NY Sen. Chuck Schumer for whats about to happen to NY because he didnt cut a deal with Trump, which I think strains credulity given that Republicans are jamming this through despite vociferous, unified opposition from every Democrat in Congress, Tilson wrote.

New York City is currently home to 82 billionaires, according to a tally on Forbes annual rich list. New York state has a population of 9,530 people who are classified as ultra-high-net-worth individuals with assets of at least $30 million, according to Wealth-X.

Very serious inquiries about moving to Palm Beach

Some might be serious about making a move, though.

Kelly Smallridge, the president and CEO of Palm Beach Countys Business Development Board, has seen an uptick in activity from CEOs looking to explore Florida since theres no state tax on personal income.

The vast majority of inquiries are coming from the financial service industry such as hedge funds, private equity, and family offices, Smallridge told Yahoo Finance.

Smallridge said she noticed the spike in interest in the last two months. She estimated that she has personally received 20 to 30 very serious inquiries. The move from the northeast to Florida has been somewhat of a trend in recent years. In the last five years, 60 financial services firms have relocated to the Palm Beach area, Smallridge noted.

In anticipation of possible relocations, Smallridge said that they tailored their services to meet frequently asked questions such as office space with water views, how to legally domicile in Florida, private schools for young children, direct flights to the Northeast, residential communities, and introductions to country clubs.

Its tough to prove youve moved if your business dealings are in New York

Willens, however, expects a lot more talk than action.

I think people definitely entertain that possibility. And I dont know if we are at the point where they will actually act on that. A lot more talk than actual action, I have to say, he said, adding, When you tell people that their effective tax rates all in will be well over 50%, it does tend to get their attention.

Theres certainly much more favorable tax environments in other states such as Florida. Plus, its possible to work remotely without much disruption. The problem, however, is that its not so easy to eliminate your New York state residency.

You have to prove that youve actually changed your domicile to wherever it is that you would like to move to. Its up to you to affirmatively establish that you have done that, Willens said. If you maintain ties to New York  weve had cases on this through the years involving prominent people who have tried to do this  if you maintain any ties to New York, even though you might have moved to Florida or Texas, its going to be hard to prove to New York that you actually changed your domiciles, particularly if your business is centered in New York. It might be almost impossible.

He added that an individual might wind up physically relocating to Florida, but New York state will continue to argue, and probably successfully, that the person is still a New York resident.

Even if you take the steps to do it, you still have to confront New York and their need for tax revenues, and their aggressive posture regarding your domiciles, Willens said. Its a tough thing to prove. It probably isnt going to deter New York from saying that you havent abandoned your domiciles. It might help a little. Theyre going to look at the fact that you have business ties and business dealings in New York and they are going to rely on that factor.

For many wealthy New Yorkers, the tax plan is seen as a double-whammy. In addition to capping the SALT deduction, the other issue is not allowing people that conduct a service business through pass-through entities to take advantage of the lower rate. Many businesses in New York such as law firms, architecture firms, health companies, investment management firms are considered pass-through entities, he added.

[The bill] really favors people in low tax states that conduct business where tangible assets are sold, Willens said, noting that its a great thing to benefit people who manufacture goods. That said, the bill penalizes new economy businesses where services and other intangible assets are sold.

Willens said that the GOP has not been selling the bill very well. Its still seen as a giveaway to the upper-income group.

Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
Apple isnt able to meet iPhone X demand, as the phone remains sold out around the world, but theres already talk about next years iPhones.

Apple will ready three iPhones for September 2018, reports say, and all of them are supposed to have the same basic design as the iPhone X, Face ID camera notch included. A new report also reveals what may seem like a tiny detail about the near future of the smartphone business, but its a crucial one for the iPhone vs. Android competition.

Don't Miss: Its not too late to get a Super NES Classic in time for Christmas

Qualcomm and MediaTek are yet to advance to 7nm nodes for mobile processors Dititimes says, which isnt a detail most smartphone buyers will care about.

The report says that only two companies in the world can really afford to move to 7nm chips as soon as next year, and thats Apple and Samsung. That means future flagships, including 2018 iPhone X and Galaxy models may sport 7nm chips inside. These processors will be even more efficient than the 10nm chips that power this years hottest mobile phones. When it comes to performance, the report notes that theres little difference between 7nm and 10nm, which is why some smartphone makers wont be ready to make the jump to 7nm chips yet.

However, well point out the fact that Samsungs first flagship of the year, the Galaxy S9, is likely to use a beefed up 10nm chip. Samsung is making Exynos 9810 and Snapdragon 845 on the improved 10nm node, even though it announced a few weeks ago that its also ready to mass-produce 8nm chips.

Apple, meanwhile, is working with TSMC, on 7nm chips that may be found inside all 2018 iPhones and iPads.

The report notes that a smartphone chip maker needs to ship 120 to 150 million 7nm chips a year to turn a profit. Thats the kind of volume that can only be achieved by a few companies out there, including Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek.

From the looks of it, only Apple may move to 7nm chips next year, which may turn out to be a major advantage over almost every Android flagship launched by competitors.

Story continues

BGR Top Deals:

Trending Right Now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai will likely succeed in his long-lasting quest to repeal net neutrality. On Thursday, the FCC will vote on net neutrality repeal, and the Republican-dominated commission is expected to pass the reversal of Obama-era regulations meant to curb the creation of Internet fast lanes which may throttle online access to certain companies and users. (UPDATE: The FCC voted on party lines to repeal net neutrality rules on Thursday.) The repeal, embraced by telecom giants like Comcast but opposed by tech critics like Google and Netflix, could have downstream consequences for a number of industriesincluding medical research and health care services.

Theres quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding just how wide of an effect net neutrality repeal would have on consumers. Pai has insisted that few would see major changes; but some scientific journals like the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and Nature suggest it could make all kinds of scientific research more cumbersome, especially the kind that requires collaboration between scientists across multiple countries that would be playing by different sets of Internet rules.

Click here to subscribe to Brainstorm Health Daily, our brand new newsletter about health innovations.

The changes could affect traffic that routes through the United States, which includes plenty from South America, Central America and the Caribbean. So, in theory, terabytes of data sent from telescope arrays in Chile to physicists in Europe could be stuck in the digital slow lane as ISPs prioritize advertising-heavy social-media messages, wrote Nature in a net neutrality editorial this week. Or universities and students, especially those in poorer countries, could face prohibitive access and download fees. The publication went on to note the very principle of the unencumbered exchange of information is also important to preserve.

Net neutrality repeal proponents retort that allowing faster Internet lanes for certain organizationsfor instance, hospitalswould actually benefit consumers. Thats a point thats also been made by billionaire Mark Cuban. Pai argues that paid prioritization could expand access to telemedicine services.

But critics point out that only bigger, more lucrative medical companies would be able to afford taking advantage of those fast lanes. And low-income Americans suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes may actually wind up having fewer options for health care services or be forced to rely on more expensive companies that conduct remote health monitoring and online doctor visits.
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2017 / Pelangio Exploration Inc. (TSX-V: PX; OTC PINK: PGXPF) (''Pelangio'' or the ''Company'') announces a non-brokered private placement of up to 24,000,000 units of the Company at a price of $0.05 per unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,200,000 (the ''Private Placement''). Each unit consists of one common share of the Company (a ''Common Share'') and one Common Share purchase warrant (''Warrant''). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one Common Share at a price of $0.07 for a period of three years from the initial closing date of the Private Placement (each closing date, a ''Closing Date'').

The closing of the Private Placement may occur in one or more tranches, with the initial Closing Date of the Private Placement expected to occur on or before December 15, 2017, and is not subject to receipt of a minimum amount of gross proceeds. The Company may pay finder's fees of 8% cash and 8% warrants to certain introducing parties in respect of the Private Placement, subject to compliance with applicable securities legislation and TSX Venture Exchange policies. Closing is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement, will be subject to a four-month hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws.

Appointment of David K. Paxton

Pelangio is also pleased to announce the appointment of David K. Paxton to the Board of Directors. The appointment is effective December 4, 2017.

Mr. Paxton brings over 30 years of combined experience in the mining industry and capital markets. Mr. Paxton currently serves on the boards of two companies in the natural resource sector and has had extensive exposure to financial markets. David has recently held positions as Chief Executive Officer of Vatukoula Gold Mines, a publically listed gold mining company with operations in Fiji, and Chief Executive Officer of Sumin Resources, a private gold exploration company operating in Suriname, South America. Mr. Paxton is a mining engineer and holds a South African Mine Managers Certificate. David has gained vast experience in overseeing mining operations during his involvement in the South African and international mining industry. David's cumulative experience as a Senior Mining Analyst for a Hichens Harrison & Co. PLC, and other significant roles at Union Capital Markets, Sectram Limited PLC, C.M. Oliver (UK) Ltd, Yorkton Securities Inc., and Ed Hern, Rudolf Inc., has proven successful to numerous financings for junior mining companies, both Canadian and United Kingdom based. David is currently a non-executive director of Kalahari Copper Ltd.

Story continues

''David brings to Pelangio demonstrated mining operations experience and vast knowledge of the natural resource capital markets. We believe his combined experience will support our planned $2 million drill program at our Manfo Property, the first phase of which is currently underway'' commented Pelangio Exploration's President and Chief Executive Officer, Ingrid Hibbard.

Also, Pelangio reports that Mr. Philip Olson has stepped down as a director of the Company, effective immediately and will continue to provide valuable advice and guidance as a member of the Company's Advisory Committee. Mr Olson has been an independent director and a member of the Company's Audit and Compensation Committees since February 2008. Kevin Thomson a director of the Company, will replace Mr. Olson as a member of the Audit Committee and Compensation Committees.

Ingrid Hibbard also remarked, ''On behalf of the Board and management of the Company, I would like express our gratitude to Philip for his valuable contributions and dedication to Pelangio. We look forward to an ongoing relationship with him and appreciate his continued support through the Advisory Committee.''

Manfo Drilling Program

Pelangio also reports that the reconnaissance portion of the initial phase of the exploration program announced on October 11, 2017, is underway.

The full exploration program is a $2,000,000 multi-phase exploration program targeting the existing mineralized structures and the newly identified belt bounding structures. The objectives of this program are to locate new mineralized zones, follow up on discovery areas, as well as some limited resource development. This program is expected to test approximately 40 target areas utilizing air core (''AC''), rotary air blast (''RAB''), reverse circulation drilling (''RC''), and diamond drilling as funds become available.

Seven AC drill fences have been completed to date. The first 5 of 15 AC drill fences were designed to test the belt bounding structure called the Eastern Trend, located some 2 km to the east of the main gold bearing zones. Targets on the untested Eastern Trend were to test strong magnetic lows with coincident pole-dipole IP response, well outside the known mineralized zones. Assays from five fences returned no significant results, with assays for the other two fences forthcoming. The next AC fences will be near the southern property boundary where recent unregulated artisanal disturbed rock and soil spoils are currently being sampled. The next phase of AC drilling and RC drilling will concentrate on the Nkansu area and the Pokukrom East area (host of the maiden mineral resource estimate).

RosCan Agreement

An extension of the terms of the earn-in agreement to jointly advance Pelangio's Dormaa property has been granted by Pelangio to RosCan Minerals Corporation. The 3,000 metre RC/AC drill program has been delayed by the continuing engagement program with the traditional authorities and all appropriate government officials. RosCan's remaining payments pursuant to the agreement have been extended and are now as follows:

(a) fund $1,700,000 in exploration expenditures, as follows: Amount Due Date $700,000 By June 5, 2018; and, $1,000,000 By June 5, 2019. (b) pay to Pelangio an aggregate of $150,000, as follows: Amount Due Date $50,000 On June 5, 2018; and, $100,000 On June 5, 2019

About Pelangio

Pelangio successfully acquires and explores camp-sized land packages in world-class gold belts. The Company primarily operates in Ghana, West Africa, an English-speaking, common law jurisdiction that is consistently ranked amongst the most favourable mining jurisdictions in Africa. The Company is exploring three 100%-owned camp-sized properties: the 100 km2 Manfo Property, the site of seven recent near-surface gold discoveries, the 264 km2 Obuasi Property, located 4 km on strike and adjacent to AngloGold Ashanti's prolific high-grade Obuasi Mine and the early-stage 159 km2 Akroma Properties, which includes the Dormaa and Wamfie concessions.

Qualified Person

The foregoing scientific and technical disclosure in this news release has been prepared and approved by Mr. Warren Bates, P.Geo., (APGO #0211), a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

For additional information, please visit our website at www.pelangio.com or contact:

Ingrid Hibbard, President and CEO or

Warren Bates, Senior Vice President Exploration

Tel: 905-336-3828

Toll-free: 1-877-746-1632 Email: info@pelangio.com

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements herein may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements or information appear in a number of places and can be identified by the use of words such as ''plans,'' ''expects'' or ''does not expect,'' ''is expected,'' ''budget,'' ''scheduled,'' ''estimates,'' ''forecasts,'' ''intends,'' ''anticipates'' or ''does not anticipate'' or ''believes'' or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results ''may,'' ''could,'' ''would,'' ''might'' or ''will'' be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements and information include statements regarding the Private Placement generally, the proposed use of proceeds and the Company's exploration plans and drill program. With respect to forward-looking statements and information contained herein, we have made numerous assumptions, including assumptions about our ability to obtain the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and close the Private Placement in a timely manner, the anticipated closing thereof, the state of the equity markets, and our ability to conduct our exploration programs as planned. Such forward-looking statements and information are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Such risks include the ability of the Company to meet the conditions of closing, changes in equity markets, share price volatility, volatility of global and local economic climate, gold price volatility, political developments in Ghana, increases in costs, exchange rate fluctuations, unforeseen circumstances that would cause delays in executing our planned exploration program, labour shortages, speculative nature of gold exploration and other risks involved in the gold exploration industry. See the Company's annual and quarterly financial statements and management's discussion and analysis for additional information on risks and uncertainties relating to the forward-looking statement and information. There can be no assurance that a forward- looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Also, many of the factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. All forward-looking statements and information herein are qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE: Pelangio Exploration Inc.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told an annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday that he will run for president in early 2018 as an independent candidate. At the question and answer session with Russian and foreign media in Moscow, the president was asked by a journalist from the Kommersant newspaper whom he was running with for president in March 2018."I will run on my own behalf," Putin said. "Definitely, I hope that I will be supported by some popular movements, parties or any other groups that share my views and that endorse my views so I really rely on broad support from our people."Putin's comments signaled a break with the United Russia party, which has been associated with him since its formation in 2001.Although Putin has always run as a candidate for the ruling United Russia in previous elections, he did not expand on the reasons for running as an independent. A possible explanation could be that United Russia's popularity ratings lag those of Putin and that the president wants to distance himself from an unpopular ruling party. Data from the independent Russian polling center Levada showed that Putin's approval rating in November stood at 81 percent  by contrast, the approval rating of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was just 44 percent  and approval of the Russian government, dominated by United Russia, was only 42 percent.During the press conference, a reporter from Russia's Life news agency asked the president why, over the 20 or so years of Putin being in power, there had not been an influential political opposition in Russia."Should I train contenders for myself?" Putin replied, adding that he wanted to see a more competitive political environment in Russia nonetheless."Our political system, just like our economic system, should be a competitive one, and that is my goal. I'd like to have a balanced political system, and competition is vital. We don't have high-profile opposition figures, and they can't compete with those in power," he said.Kicking off the press conference, a journalist from radio station Govorit Moskva (Moscow is Speaking) asked Putin what his priorities were for Russia if he were re-elected as president. Putin was first elected president in 2000, and has been the dominant figure in Russia since then, including when he was prime minister.Putin responded that he would focus on developing the country's infrastructure, health care, education and economy."Our ultimate goal should be to increase the income of our people," he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin told an annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday that he will run for president in early 2018 as an independent candidate. At the question and answer session with Russian and foreign media in Moscow, the president was asked by a journalist from the Kommersant newspaper whom he was running with for president in March 2018. "I will run on my own behalf," Putin said. "Definitely, I hope that I will be supported by some popular movements, parties or any other groups that share my views and that endorse my views so I really rely on broad support from our people." Putin's comments signaled a break with the United Russia party, which has been associated with him since its formation in 2001. Although Putin has always run as a candidate for the ruling United Russia in previous elections, he did not expand on the reasons for running as an independent. A possible explanation could be that United Russia's popularity ratings lag those of Putin and that the president wants to distance himself from an unpopular ruling party. Data from the independent Russian polling center Levada showed that Putin's approval rating in November stood at 81 percent  by contrast, the approval rating of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was just 44 percent  and approval of the Russian government, dominated by United Russia, was only 42 percent. During the press conference, a reporter from Russia's Life news agency asked the president why, over the 20 or so years of Putin being in power, there had not been an influential political opposition in Russia. "Should I train contenders for myself?" Putin replied, adding that he wanted to see a more competitive political environment in Russia nonetheless. "Our political system, just like our economic system, should be a competitive one, and that is my goal. I'd like to have a balanced political system, and competition is vital. We don't have high-profile opposition figures, and they can't compete with those in power," he said. Kicking off the press conference, a journalist from radio station Govorit Moskva (Moscow is Speaking) asked Putin what his priorities were for Russia if he were re-elected as president. Putin was first elected president in 2000, and has been the dominant figure in Russia since then, including when he was prime minister. Putin responded that he would focus on developing the country's infrastructure, health care, education and economy. "Our ultimate goal should be to increase the income of our people," he said.



More From CNBC


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Mike Lee has not decided whether to support a Republican tax bill and wants changes to the child tax credit, an aide to the lawmaker said on Thursday. Both Lee and Republican Senator Marco Rubio want more of the proposed child tax credit to be refundable, Conn Carroll, Lee's communications director said, adding Lee is "undecided on the tax bill as currently written." The sweeping tax bill needs a simple majority to pass in the Senate, in which Republicans hold 52 of the 100 seats and no Democrats are expected to support it. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Writing by Eric Walsh; Editing by Chris Reese)
(WASHINGTON)  Congressional Republicans on Tuesday rushed toward a deal on a massive tax package that would reduce the top tax rate for wealthy Americans to 37 percent and slash the corporate rate to a level slightly higher than what businesses and conservatives wanted.

In a flurry of last-minute changes that could profoundly affect the pocketbooks of millions of Americans, House and Senate negotiators agreed to expand a deduction for state and local taxes to allow individuals to deduct income taxes as well as property taxes. The deduction is valuable to residents in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

Negotiators also agreed to set the corporate income tax rate at 21 percent, said two congressional aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private negotiations. Both the House bill and the Senate bill would have lowered the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.

Business and conservative groups lobbied hard for the 20 percent corporate rate. Negotiators agreed to bump it up to 21 percent to help offset revenue losses from other tax breaks, the aides said.

As the final parameters of the bill took shape, negotiators agreed to cut the top tax rate for individuals from 39.6 percent to 37 percent in a windfall for the richest Americans. The reduction is certain to provide ammunition for Democrats who complain that the tax package is a massive giveaway to corporations and the rich.

Under current law, the top tax rate applies to income above $470,000 for married couples, though lawmakers are completely reworking the tax brackets.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has previously expressed opposition to reducing the rate for the wealthiest earners, acknowledged Tuesday that the negotiators appear to have agreed on the move. I dont think lowering the top rate is a good idea, Collins said.

She didnt threaten to vote against the final bill, however, if it included a lower rate, saying Im going to wait and look at the entire conference report and see what all the provisions are.

Story continues

Among the other tax breaks, negotiators agreed to eliminate the alternative minimum tax for corporations, a big sticking point for the business community, the aides said. They also agreed to let homeowners deduct interest on the first $750,000 of a new mortgage, down from the current limit of $1 million.

The GOP goal is to deliver to President Donald Trump the first major rewrite of the U.S. tax system in more than 30 years, pushing into every corner of the American economy and society. Lawmakers hope to finalize a bill no later than Friday, vote next week and deliver the package of steep tax cuts for corporations and more modest cuts for families to the presidents desk before Christmas.

Republican lawmakers were optimistic Tuesday that a deal was imminent. The total amount of tax breaks cannot exceed $1.5 trillion over the next decade, under budget rules adopted by both the House and Senate.

Lawmakers and aides were working to blend separate tax bills that were passed by the House and Senate.

The Senates No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said an agreement in principle on a final package could come as soon as Tuesday. I think it could and I hope it is, he said.

Lawmakers said workers could start seeing changes in the amount of taxes withheld from their paychecks early next year. However, taxpayers wont file their 2018 tax returns until the following year.

Both the House and Senate bills would scale back the deduction for state and local taxes, limiting it to $10,000 in property taxes. California Republicans have pushed to amend the bill to enable individuals to deduct state and local income taxes as well as property taxes. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said there is an agreement on how to address the issue, though he wasnt specific.

Its a huge issue in districts and theres an agreement about how they are going to approach it and I just want to see that issue taken care of, said Sessions, chairman of the House Rules Committee. Once again, were in negotiation, and sometimes when you negotiate you have to decide what youre willing to fight for and we need to fight for that.

The House bill would limit the mortgage interest deduction to the first $500,000 of a new mortgage, while the Senate bill would keep the current limit of $1 million. Two congressional aides said negotiators have agreed to split the difference.

The provision would not affect current mortgages.

The housing industry lobbied hard against changes to the deduction, arguing it would hurt home values.

For corporations, the House-passed bill would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, but the Senate bill would retain it. The tax was meant to ensure that corporations pay at least some tax.

Republican lawmakers from both the House and Senate said retaining the tax would limit the ability of corporations to take advantage of popular tax credits, including one for research and development.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has come out in favor of repealing the corporate AMT, giving the proposal momentum.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said he talked with GOP leaders about setting the corporate tax rate at 21 percent. Meadows, who chairs the conservative Freedom Caucus, said he prefers a 20 percent corporate rate. When asked whether the higher rate is a deal-breaker, Meadows said it depends on what else is in the bill.

Trump will try on Wednesday to sell the American people on a GOP tax overhaul that is unpopular with many. His pitch: The plan will lift all economic boats, bringing a brighter future for taxpayers and their families, according to spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.

Both the House and Senate bills would cut taxes by about $1.5 trillion over the next decade while adding billions to the deficit.

___

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Rio Tinto (RIO.AX)(RIO.L) is not expected until 2022 to relinquish its interest in the giant Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia operated by the local unit of Freeport McMoRan Inc(FCX.N), a government official said on Friday.

"In 2022 it will automatically convert to a shareholding," the official said, referring to Rio's 40 percent participating interest in Grasberg under a joint venture with PT Freeport Indonesia.

(Reporting by Fergus Jensen)
By PTI: Jalpaiguri (West Bengal), Dec 15 (PTI) The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR), popularly known as the toy train, resumed its full operations today, chugging its way to the Queen of the Hills from the New Jalpaiguri station, after 188 days of service suspension due to Gorkhaland agitation.

The toy train covered the entire route, spanning 90 kilometre, today but there were barely any passengers, the traffic in-charge of DHR, SK Ghosh, said.

advertisement

He hoped that in the coming days, the service will pick up pace and make up for the losses it incurred during the Gorkha unrest.

"People are still skeptical about visiting the hill town. Only a few passengers had boarded the train today. I hope the crisis will be over in a few days and the service will make up for the losses it incurred in the past few months," he said.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had called for an indefinite shutdown in the hills in June, demanding a separate state. The bandh that lasted for 104 days was lifted after home minister Rajnath Singh made an appeal to the Bimal-Gurung-led party to end the agitation.

A part of the hill track, between Siliguri and Darjeeling, was made operational on October 15 but the trains could not run the full distance back then as landslides triggered by heavy showers had blocked the route, New Jalpaiguri station manager Tapan Saha said.

The toy train service, which earned UNESCO World Heritage tag in 1999, has always been a big attraction for tourists visiting this eastern hill town. PTI COR RMS

--- ENDS ---
As evidenced by a nearly five-minute video clip released Wednesday evening, Republican candidate Roy Moore is not planning on conceding the Alabama Senate race any time soon. Even though results showed his Democratic opponent Doug Jones defeated him by 1.5 percentage points, Moore said he was awaiting certification of the final votes, declining to rule out the possibility he would request a recount.

Theres just one problem  his campaign may not be unable to afford one.

As of right now, any recount would need to be financed by Moore or his campaign. However, the Alabama Secretary of State is currently in the process of certifying the votes, which the office estimates will happen between Dec. 26 and Jan. 3. Moore has 48 hours after the votes certification to request a recount, the office said. And if his margin of loss stays over half a percentage point, he or his campaign will have to finance the recount.

Moore said in his video statement that the current vote count does not include military and provisional ballots, and that is why he is waiting on the certification of the votes from Alabamas Secretary of State. But Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told Fortune it was highly unlikely that counting these ballots would result in a change.

There are a lot of votes that would need to be thrown out for that to occur, Merrill said.

In the small chance it does happen, Moore would then have to deal with the issue of funding, which Merrill estimated could be between $1 million and $1.5 million. The total amount has to be put up when the request is made. As of November 22, the last time a filing was made publicly available, Moores campaign only had $636,046 in cash on hand. That means Moore would have to finance the rest of the recount himself, paying as much as $863,000.

It is possible, however, that he could raise the money through something like a GoFundMe, or receive a personal donation; Alabama law maintains that someone with current standing has to request the recount. The Secretary of States office said at this point, Moore, his campaign, or the Alabama Republican party counts as a person of standing, although there is potential for that definition to be hashed out in court. And the state party doesnt seem on board. Alabama Republican Party Chairman Terry Lathan put out a statement Wednesday morning explicitly stating that the race has ended. Lathan did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Merrill acknowledged the financial hill was steep for Moore. I am not sure where Judge Moore would receive the funds, he said.

Moores campaign representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment, either about how much money the campaign currently has or how they would finance the recount should they request one.
huawei mate 9 1

Business Insider/Jeff Dunn

Chinese smartphone manufacturers Xiaomi and Huawei have undercut Apple's iPhone in their home country.

Those manufacturers are reportedly in talks with US carriers to have them sell their phones.

If they're able to strike deals with the US carriers, Xiaomi and Huawei could pose a threat to Apple's leadership in the US smartphone market.



Apple may soon face the same problem on its home turf that's hampered its ambitions in China.

While the company's iPhone has been a big success in many countries around the world, it's struggled in China. Sales there have been undercut by cheap and powerful Android phones from Chinese manufacturers Xiaomi and Huawei.

Now those companies are looking to bring the battle to the United States. Huawei and Xiaomi are in talks with American carriers including Verizon and AT&T to have them resell their smartphones, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The talks haven't been finalized and the deals might fail to materialize for either company, Bloomberg noted.

Neither Xiaomi nor Huawei responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Should either company strike a deal, it would allow the company to more easily market its phones to American consumers  and put pressure on Apple.

Huawei already sells its phones in the United States, but you can only buy them through retailers such as Amazon. While Xiaomi sells fitness trackers, robot vacuums, and some of its other consumer products in the US via online retailers, it has yet to offer a smartphone in the American market.

Apple continues to bet big on expensive smartphones. The iPhone X, its current top-of-the-line model, starts at $999. By contrast, the flagship Huawei Mate 9 is on sale at Amazon for $400. Earlier this year, Business Insider called the Mate 9 "the best smartphone you've never heard of."

By striking deals with carriers, Xiaomi and Huawei would be able to offer their phones in those companies' retail stores and through their websites. They'd also potentially have their phones included in the carriers' marketing campaigns. Such developments could give them a lot more momentum in the American market than merely selling online.

Story continues

Even so, it's not certain those companies' phones would be able to claim a significant portion of US sales. Despite its hefty price, the iPhone X seems to be off to a hot start, outpacing sales of Apple's less expensive iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Meanwhile, despite its struggles in China, the country still represents Apple's third-largest market by sales.

NOW WATCH: Steve Jobs and Apple learned a huge lesson from the failure of the original Macintosh

See Also:

SEE ALSO: As Apple's third largest market by sales, China is an attractive growth opportunity

SEE ALSO: DON'T MISS:
By Alana Wise

NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Southwest Airlines Co would use savings from a potential cut to the U.S. corporate tax rate to buy new planes and fund share buybacks, Chief Executive Gary Kelly said on Thursday.

Republicans in the U.S. Congress reached a deal this week on a final version of their debt-financed legislation to cut taxes for businesses and wealthy Americans, with House and Senate votes expected early next week.

"We're trying to grow and at the same time keep our costs low and manage the risks of growth, and this is very welcomed," Kelly said.

"We'll have more money to invest in airplanes, add jobs, share with our current employees and also take good care of our shareholders as well," he added.

Kelly said that savings would also help Southwest, which built its reputation as a low-cost airline, keep it's fares low.

The tax bill, if passed, would cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. The bill hit potential obstacles on Thursday as two more Republican senators joined a list of lawmakers whose support is uncertain.

Kelly said that even if a windfall did not translate into more Southwest jobs "it'd be more jobs with Boeing to build more airplanes".

Southwest's entire fleet is comprised of Boeing 737 jets.

Rival Delta Air Lines has also said that the carrier would use a windfall to buy equipment, but Chief Executive Ed Bastian said the money would not go back to investors in the form of share repurchases.

(Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by Susan Thomas)
IN THE NEWS TODAY House and Senate negotiators, which have scrambled to push a major tax plan, have reached a deal. The two chambers hope to pass a joint plan and send it to President Donald Trump's desk before Christmas. (CNBC) * Trump: Americans will see 'bigger paychecks beginning in February' if GOP finishes tax bill by Christmas (CNBC) The Federal Communications Commission is due to vote today on net neutrality rules despite an outcry. The rules barred broadband providers from blocking or slowing down access to content or charging consumers more for certain content. (Reuters) * Net neutrality rules are likely doomed, but the debate isn't going away (CNBC) Sen. John McCain has been hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center where he's being treated for "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy." McCain, who missed votes on Monday and Tuesday, plans to return to work "as soon as possible," a statement said. (USA Today) GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore released a video message on YouTube in which he appeared to refuse to admit defeat and railed against "immorality" in the nation. Moore, who has denied multiple sexual assault allegations, looks to have lost the Alabama Senate election race. (CNBC) * Trump's unexpected reaction after Alabama loss: Magnanimity (Politico) * Why black voters backed Jones: 'It's a matter of character' (NY Times) PBS has announced it is "indefinitely" suspending distribution of the late-night talk show "Tavis Smiley" amid sexual misconduct allegations. Smiley says he was shocked and plans to "fight back." (Washington Post) * Music Mogul Russell Simmons Is Accused of Rape by 3 Women (NY Times) * Harvey Weinstein responds to Salma Hayek calling him her 'monster' (USA Today) Russian President Vladimir Putin said today he will run for president in early 2018 as an independent candidate , breaking with the United Russia party. He did not expand on the reasons for running as an independent. (CNBC) Fire lines have been established around nearly a third of one of the largest wildfires in California history, but danger remains. The National Weather Service extended warnings through Friday of extreme fire danger conditions throughout much of Southern California. (AP) Wells Fargo (WFC) has reportedly laid off about 60 employees in its mortgage division. The big bank's cuts came as it continues to reshuffle parts of its business after regulatory scrutiny about its practices. (WSJ) Target (TGT) is planning to acquire same-day delivery service platform Shipt , a rival to Instacart, for $550 million in cash. Shipt will continue to work with other retailers despite being owned by Target. (CNBC) Instead of waiting two weeks between paychecks, Walmart (WMT) workers can now use an app to access a portion of wages for hours they have already worked. (NY Times) T-Mobile (TMUS) is making a foray into television, announcing it is acquiring Layer3 TV. CEO John Legere says the company is going to "fix the pain points" of television "and bring real choice to consumers across the country." (CNBC) Federal investigators are pursuing at least one criminal investigation into ride-hailing giant Uber, according to court documents. (NY Times) STOCKS TO WATCHPier 1 Imports (PIR), a shadow of its former glory, was losing more than a quarter of its stock market value this morning. The retailer reported quarterly profit of 9 cents per share, 2 cents below estimates. Revenue did beat forecasts, but Pier 1 gave weaker than expected current quarter guidance. CEO Alasdair James said November sales momentum has been fading this month.Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) will cut its workforce by more than a quarter, give up many of its manufacturing plants, and suspend its dividend on ordinary shares in a much-anticipated overhaul to help pay back its massive debt. The stock was up about 12 percent in premarket trading.Nordson (NDSN) came in five cents above estimates, reporting adjusted quarterly profit of $1.38 per share, with revenue also beating forecasts. The industrial equipment manufacturer also forecast a sales increase of 30 to 34 percent for the first quarter of 2018.Delta Air Lines (DAL) announced an order for 100 Airbus A321neo jets, with an option for 100 more. It's a deal seen as a major win for Europe's Airbus and a loss for U.S. rival Boeing (BA).WATERCOOLER Beginning tomorrow, Cheetos-flavored popcorn mixed with crunchy Cheetos pieces will now be available at select Regal Cinemas nationwide. The bright-orange, crunchy, puffed corn snack will comes in a giant 32-ounce container. (TODAY) A one bedroom penthouse condo is for sale in Miami, and the seller will only accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin. It's the first property that's listed for sale where the seller only wants cryptocurrency, according to Redfin. (CNBC) IN THE NEWS TODAY House and Senate negotiators, which have scrambled to push a major tax plan, have reached a deal. The two chambers hope to pass a joint plan and send it to President Donald Trump's desk before Christmas. (CNBC) * Trump: Americans will see 'bigger paychecks beginning in February' if GOP finishes tax bill by Christmas (CNBC) The Federal Communications Commission is due to vote today on net neutrality rules despite an outcry. The rules barred broadband providers from blocking or slowing down access to content or charging consumers more for certain content. (Reuters) * Net neutrality rules are likely doomed, but the debate isn't going away (CNBC) Sen. John McCain has been hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center where he's being treated for "normal side effects of his ongoing cancer therapy." McCain, who missed votes on Monday and Tuesday, plans to return to work "as soon as possible," a statement said. (USA Today) GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore released a video message on YouTube in which he appeared to refuse to admit defeat and railed against "immorality" in the nation. Moore, who has denied multiple sexual assault allegations, looks to have lost the Alabama Senate election race. (CNBC) * Trump's unexpected reaction after Alabama loss: Magnanimity (Politico) * Why black voters backed Jones: 'It's a matter of character' (NY Times) PBS has announced it is "indefinitely" suspending distribution of the late-night talk show "Tavis Smiley" amid sexual misconduct allegations. Smiley says he was shocked and plans to "fight back." (Washington Post) * Music Mogul Russell Simmons Is Accused of Rape by 3 Women (NY Times) * Harvey Weinstein responds to Salma Hayek calling him her 'monster' (USA Today) Russian President Vladimir Putin said today he will run for president in early 2018 as an independent candidate , breaking with the United Russia party. He did not expand on the reasons for running as an independent. (CNBC) Fire lines have been established around nearly a third of one of the largest wildfires in California history, but danger remains. The National Weather Service extended warnings through Friday of extreme fire danger conditions throughout much of Southern California. (AP) Wells Fargo (WFC) has reportedly laid off about 60 employees in its mortgage division. The big bank's cuts came as it continues to reshuffle parts of its business after regulatory scrutiny about its practices. (WSJ) Target (TGT) is planning to acquire same-day delivery service platform Shipt , a rival to Instacart, for $550 million in cash. Shipt will continue to work with other retailers despite being owned by Target. (CNBC) Instead of waiting two weeks between paychecks, Walmart (WMT) workers can now use an app to access a portion of wages for hours they have already worked. (NY Times) T-Mobile (TMUS) is making a foray into television, announcing it is acquiring Layer3 TV. CEO John Legere says the company is going to "fix the pain points" of television "and bring real choice to consumers across the country." (CNBC) Federal investigators are pursuing at least one criminal investigation into ride-hailing giant Uber, according to court documents. (NY Times) STOCKS TO WATCH Pier 1 Imports (PIR), a shadow of its former glory, was losing more than a quarter of its stock market value this morning. The retailer reported quarterly profit of 9 cents per share, 2 cents below estimates. Revenue did beat forecasts, but Pier 1 gave weaker than expected current quarter guidance. CEO Alasdair James said November sales momentum has been fading this month. Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) will cut its workforce by more than a quarter, give up many of its manufacturing plants, and suspend its dividend on ordinary shares in a much-anticipated overhaul to help pay back its massive debt. The stock was up about 12 percent in premarket trading. Nordson (NDSN) came in five cents above estimates, reporting adjusted quarterly profit of $1.38 per share, with revenue also beating forecasts. The industrial equipment manufacturer also forecast a sales increase of 30 to 34 percent for the first quarter of 2018. Delta Air Lines (DAL) announced an order for 100 Airbus A321neo jets, with an option for 100 more. It's a deal seen as a major win for Europe's Airbus and a loss for U.S. rival Boeing (BA). WATERCOOLER Beginning tomorrow, Cheetos-flavored popcorn mixed with crunchy Cheetos pieces will now be available at select Regal Cinemas nationwide. The bright-orange, crunchy, puffed corn snack will comes in a giant 32-ounce container. (TODAY) A one bedroom penthouse condo is for sale in Miami, and the seller will only accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin. It's the first property that's listed for sale where the seller only wants cryptocurrency, according to Redfin. (CNBC)



More From CNBC



Top News and Analysis



Latest News Video



Personal Finance


The incoming publisher of the New York Times Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger and his father Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. (L) pose for pictures on the 16th floor of the New York Times building in New York, U.S. on December 12, 2017. Courtesy Damon Winter/The New York Times/Handout via REUTERS

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times on Thursday named a new publisher in 37-year-old A.G. Sulzberger, a fifth-generation descendant of Times leaders whose internal report on innovation has guided a newspaper known as "The Gray Lady" into the digital era.

His father, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., 66, will retire as publisher on Dec. 31 but remain chairman of the board, the New York Times Co said.

The younger Sulzberger will also join the board at a time of disruption in the media business, when the newspaper faces frequent criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump against the "failing @nytimes" on Twitter.

The company's 2016 revenue of $1.5 billion was less than half of what it had been a decade before, largely due to the decline in print, but its rapidly growing digital revenue has become an industry model.

Into that crucible steps Sulzberger, who has long been groomed for a major role at a business his family has owned since 1896.

"I am an unapologetic champion for this institution and its journalistic mission," Sulzberger said in the Times' news report on his ascension. "And I'll continue to be that as publisher."

He also pledged stability in the early stages of the transition, saying, "I don't expect there to be some flurry of change."

The elder Sulzberger joined The Times in 1978 as a correspondent, and his son, too, was assigned to the newsroom.

A.G. Sulzberger worked as a reporter at The Providence Journal and The Oregonian before joining The Times' metro desk in 2009.

He compiled more than 160 bylines on the Metro desk and another 170 as a national correspondent based in Kansas City, according a 2016 New York Times profile when he had been named deputy publisher.

"But perhaps the most important piece of writing that A.G. Sulzberger did for The New York Times before Wednesday  when he was named deputy publisher  was not an article and was not published in The Times, but was all about The Times," the paper wrote, citing a so-called innovation report released in May 2014.

Story continues

Sulzberger led a committee to produce the in-depth analysis that said The Times risked losing its stature as a media leader unless it made sweeping changes.

"It's fair to say that of all the legacy publishing companies, the digital efforts of The New York Times have been far and way the most successful," said Doug Arthur, an analyst at Huber Research Partners who covers The New York Times Co. "Digital subscription revenues will overtake print advertising as a percentage of revenues this quarter."

In the third quarter, the company added about 154,000 subscribers to various websites, boosting its online subscribers base to 2.5 million.

Digital advertising revenue rose 11 percent to $49.2 million in the third quarter, accounting for about 43 percent of its total advertising revenue. Times said its executives were expecting at least $800 million in digital revenue by 2020, which would double what the company earned in 2014.

Sulzberger Jr. has been publisher of The Times since 1992 and chairman of the board since 1997. He led the transition into a digital media company, taking the newspaper online in 1996. The print addition has about 600,000 subscribers during the week and 1.1 million on Sunday.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Additional reporting by Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru and Sheila Dang in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
[caption id="attachment_4307" align="aligncenter" width="620"]

FCC Building. Photo credit: Diego Radzinschi/ALM. [/caption] The day has arrived for the Federal Communications Commission vote on its controversial plan to repeal net neutrality, an Obama-era regulation that requires internet service providers to treat all content equally without blocking or slowing down access to specific sites. Tech companies such as Facebook and Netflix spoke out last month when the FCC announced it would move to reverse the 2015 Open Internet Order, expressing disappointment and concern. On Nov. 21, CEO Michael Beckerman of the lobbying group the Internet Association, which counts some of the biggest tech companies as members, issued a statement saying the group will continue our work to ensure net neutrality protections remain the law of the land, but did not clarify how it would do so. This sense of concern from tech could be channeled into a challenge to the net neutrality rollback in the courts, experts told Corporate Counsel, but legal action would probably come from industry groups, not individual companies. They also said that, if individual companies' general counsel are willing to step up and make their voices heard, they can make a world of difference.

The Case Against the Rollback

Some experts say that if the Internet Association and other net neutrality supporters chose to pursue legal action against the FCC, theyd have a decent case. Jessica Gonzalez, an in-house attorney at the pro-net neutrality nonprofit Free Press, says there are a number of grounds on which net neutrality supporters could sue, should the rollback pass. "If the vote does move forward on Dec. 14, we will appeal that decision with the courts," she said. "We feel we have a strong case. There are procedural irregularities that raise serious concerns." She says that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who floated the rollback plan, hasnt produced enough factual reasoning for the proposed change, which doesnt comply with the Data Quality Act. The act states federal agencies must ensure the data and information they disseminate is ethical and high-quality. Pai has partly justified repealing net neutrality by claiming that 2015 net neutrality regulations decreased investment in internet service providers. But Gonzalez says this is simply not true. She pointed to research from Free Press that indicates there has actually been a boost in ISP investment. She also said a repeal could violate the Administrative Procedures Act, which says a change in policy cannot be arbitrary and capricious. Legal teams could argue this in court if they can prove that theres strong public support for net neutrality and significant consumer harm should it be repealed, Gonzalez explained.

Who Will Rise to the Challenge?

It's likely that pro-net neutrality companies will take legal actionthough probably not on an individual basis, says one FCC and telecom legal expert who asked to remain anonymous due to considerations around their current job. In the last battle for net neutrality, the expert said, a few companies, including Verizon, which fought against net neutrality, did file their own petitions. Verizon and other ISP companies could also take legal action if they are not satisfied with the new FCC regulations, as they've done since 2015. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to file your own petition unless you have a side that is so unique that your needs have to be represented," the FCC and telecom expert said. "Trade associations create an opportunity for sharing of the cost of litigation. It's a long process and can be many, many, many thousands of dollars." So GCs on a budget, even a large one, may be financially better off pooling resources for outside counsel. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't play an active role. An active GC, who asked to remain anonymous to preserve work relationships, said in-house counsel can actually make all the difference in net neutrality casesin a sea full of lobbyists, a passionate, present general counsel stands out. "The GC is a big role," the in-house legal leader said. "So if the GC goes to D.C. and talks to congressmen, that sends a much stronger signal, versus the telecom companies that have 400 lobbyists." The current general counsel pointed to a previous net neutrality case in which GCs helped move the needle. In 2015, Ari Shahdadi, then general counsel of Tumblr, helped spark a conversation and movement that in part led to the passing of the Open Communications Act. Shahdadi, who is now the senior vice president of business development at Buzzfeed, spoke personally with people in D.C. and called on Tumblr users to make their voices heard in government. Eventually, even former President Barack Obama got on board. Shahdadi admits that for general counsel, especially those not wearing policy hats too, advocacy can be complicated. GCs' hands are tied, he said, if the company CEO doesn't want them publicly speaking against or for a policy. But he also notes that with the Open Communications Act, the presence and persistence of himself and other non-lobbyists is what made the difference. If companies are serious about wanting net neutrality to stay, corporate leaders need to do more than sign a vague statement letter from the Internet Association, he said, they need to speak out.
By Tova Cohen TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Reports that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries is planning a restructuring involving mass layoffs in Israel sparked calls on Wednesday for a half-day general strike to be held in protest. The plan includes closing Teva's research and development center in the coastal city of Netanya, selling its logistics center in Shoham and cutting 3,300 jobs out of 6,430 nation-wide, the Israeli financial news website Calcalist reported. Teva , the world's largest generic drug maker which employs more than 56,000 people, did not comment on the details of the report. But it confirmed there was a restructuring plan that it would discuss in a 1300 GMT conference call on Thursday. Saddled with nearly $35 billion in debt since acquiring Allergan's Actavis generic drug business for $40.5 billion, Teva made a series of changes after Kare Schultz joined as its new chief executive on Nov. 1. Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said only that he was following the situation closely. Avi Nissenkorn, chief of the Histadrut labor federation, declared a half-day general strike for Sunday, the beginning of the Israeli work week. "The entire economy - from the (Ben Gurion) airport to the banks to the seaports to the municipalities to the government service to the health clinics - will stand until noon on Sunday in solidarity with Teva's employees," Nissenkorn told reporters. He predicted mass layoffs under the Teva restructuring plan, which he described as "ruinous" for a company that was long a symbol of Israeli enterprise. One of the plants earmarked for sale, Calcalist said, is the Teva Tech factory in Israel's southern Negev desert. It produces raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry and employs 870 workers, according to Teva's website. "This is a young plant ... and hundreds of millions of shekels of Israeli government money were invested here," Meir Babayoff, chairman of the Negev region in the Histadrut, told Israel Radio. He vowed to stop any layoffs and called on Israel's government "to wake up". Last week Bloomberg reported that the firm was considering cutting up to 10,000 jobs to reduce costs by $1.5 billion to $2 billion in the next two years. Teva said on Tuesday that Yitzhak Peterburg, who previously served as its chairman and interim CEO, had resigned from its board with immediate effect. Schultz ousted top division heads last month and said he would combine the firms generic and specialty drug businesses. He had also said Teva was working on a detailed restructuring plan to be unveiled in mid-December. (Refiles to modify headline) (Additional reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Alexander Smith, Greg Mahlich)
Shares of Texas Instruments, Inc. TXN touched a 52-week high of $100.54, eventually closing a bit lower at $100.25 on Dec 14. The stock has gained 37.4% year to date, substantially outperforming the 19.3% rally of the S&P 500.



The outperformance can be attributed to Texas Instruments solid presence in its end markets, stable revenue stream and rising demand for its products. The key catalyst was the companys steady growth in Industrial and Automotive markets, which is driven by increasing requirement of semiconductor content in these markets.



Whats Driving the Stock?



Texas Instruments has a stable revenue stream owing to its huge customer base and it serves diverse end markets. Also, no customer accounted for more than 10% of sales. All of this makes its revenue stream relatively steady despite the dynamism in each of the markets served.



The company is witnessing strong demand in the fast-growing automotive market, which is expected to witness CAGR of 5.8% between 2016 and 2022, per marketsandmarkets.com. Texas Instruments focuses on infotainment, safety and ADAS, body electronics (including lighting), hybrid electric vehicle and powertrain segments of the automotive market. The company has made significant progress on the ADAS side, shipping millions of chips to this market. Demand for electronic content in cars is expected to grow in the future and this will support the top line of the company.



Texas Instruments is also focused on Internet of Things (IoT). The scope for IoT is tremendous for semiconductor companies, since it connects every conceivable electronic device. Much of the growth in the embedded business comes from microcontrollers, which are the enabling products. Independent research firms, Gartner and IDC project steady growth in IoT-related spending through 2020.



Moreover, TI also launched a partnership program, IoT Cloud ecosystem. As part of it, the company entered into partnerships with companies like 2lemetry, ARM, Arrayent, Exosite, IBM, LogMeIn, Spark, and Thingsquare to provide software, hardware or cloud-based services to support platforms based on TI technology. Such a program is expected to back the top line of the company in the long run.

Story continues

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider



Texas Instruments carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).



Intel Corporation INTC, STMicroelectronics N.V. STM and NVIDIA Corporation NVDA are some of the better-ranked stocks in the same industry. All of them sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



Long-term earnings growth for Intel, STMicroelectronics and NVIDIA is currently projected to be 8.4%, 5% and 10.3%, respectively.

Investor Alert: Breakthroughs Pending



A medical advance is now at the flashpoint between theory and realization. Billions of dollars in research have poured into it. Companies are already generating substantial revenue, and even more wondrous products are in the pipeline.



Cures for a variety of deadly diseases are in sight, and so are big potential profits for early investors. Zacks names 5 stocks to buy now.



Click here to see them >>





Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



STMicroelectronics N.V. (STM) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Intel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Texas Instruments Incorporated (TXN) : Free Stock Analysis Report



NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment Research
Shares of CSX (CSX) are plunging, down about 8%, after the railroad companys CEO is taking an unexpected leave of absence due to health issues. CSX is still up about 48% for the year.

Costco (COST) shares are rallying after it beat earnings expectations. The warehouse club proved its holding its own in the food price wars, with same store sales growing nearly 8%.

Hess (HES) is once again under pressure from activist hedge fund Elliott Management, which reportedly called for the removal of the CEO or a sale of part or all of the company. Elliott Management also wants the energy giant to cut its dividend to fund stock buybacks.

Upgrades and downgrades
By PTI: (Eds: Updating with background)

New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) The Supreme Court today rejected pleas of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband against freezing of their bank accounts in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds received by their NGOs for the 2002 Gujarat riot victims.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar said the pleas are dismissed.

advertisement

Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their two NGOs -- Sabrang Trust and Citizens for Justice and Peace -- had challenged the October 7, 2015 verdict of the Gujarat High Court rejecting their pleas of defreezing of their personal bank accounts.

While reserving the verdict on July 5, the top court had questioned the source of money in the bank accounts of Setalvad and others which were frozen by the Ahmedabad Police in 2015 after allegations of misappropriation surfaced.

The Gujarat government had alleged that the activist couple had siphoned the money collected in the name of victims for "personal use" like wining and dining and the activist had claimed that the action against them was "completely malafide".

The state govt had alleged that they had spent the money received in the name of victims in "liquor, movies, food, personal items and Blackberry phones".

The activist couple had countered the charges and said the money spent does not belong to the government and there was no complainant who had said he or she has been cheated.

One of the residents of Gulberg society, Firoz Khan Pathan, had filed a complaint against Setalvad and others alleging that money was raised to make a museum at Gulberg Society in the memory of 69 people killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, but it had not been utilised for the purpose.

The freezing of the accounts by Ahmedabad Police had come soon after its crime branch had started probing a case in which Setalvad and others were accused of embezzling Rs 1.51 crore collected to convert Gulbarg Society into a museum.

The high court had upheld the verdict of a lower court in this regard observing that the probe was at a serious point in the alleged case of Gulbarg society fund embezzlement.

Besides the fund embezzlement case against the couple, the Gujarat police had also lodged another case of FCRA violation against them. PTI MNL ABA SJK RKS AG DV

--- ENDS ---
Net neutrality advocates rally in front of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ahead of Thursday's expected FCC vote repealing so-called net neutrality rules in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines on Thursday to repeal landmark 2015 rules aimed at ensuring a free and open internet, setting up a court fight over a move that could recast the digital landscape.

The approval of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's proposal in a 3-2 vote marked a victory for internet service providers such as AT&T Inc (T.N), Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) and Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and hands them power over what content consumers can access. It also is the biggest win for Pai in his sweeping effort to undo many telecommunications regulations since taking over at the agency in January.

Democrats, Hollywood and companies such as Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) had urged Pai, a Republican appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump, to keep the Obama-era rules barring service providers from blocking, slowing access to or charging more for certain content. The new rules give internet service providers sweeping powers to change how consumers access the internet but must have new transparency requirements that will require them to disclose any changes to consumers.

The meeting, held amid protests online and in front of the FCC headquarters in Washington, was evacuated before the vote for about 10 minutes due to an unspecified security threat, and resumed after law enforcement with sniffer dogs checked the room.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters the administration "supports the FCCs efforts. At the same time, the White House certainly has and always will support a free and fair internet."

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, said in a statement he will lead a multi-state lawsuit to challenge the reversal. [nL1N1OE26U]

Shares of Alphabet, Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) moved lower after the vote. [nL4N1OE5GG]

The FCC said the rules would take effect in a few months after the White House Office of Management and Budget formally approves them.

Story continues

Pai has argued that the 2015 rules were heavy handed and stifled competition and innovation among service providers.

"The internet wasn't broken in 2015. We weren't living in a digital dystopia," he said on Thursday.

NEXT STEPS

Consumers are unlikely to see immediate changes but smaller startups worry the lack of restrictions could drive up costs or lead to their content being blocked.

Internet service providers say they will not block or throttle legal content but may engage in paid prioritisation. They argue that the largely unregulated internet functioned well in the two decades before the 2015 order.

Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly noted that self-driving vehicles and remotely monitored medical procedures may require internet service and that their needs could be given priority "over cat videos."

O'Rielly said it is unlikely any internet provider would voluntarily submit to a "PR nightmare" by "attempting to engage in blocking, throttling or improper discrimination. It is simply not worth the reputation cost."

Still, Democrats have pointed to polls showing a repeal is deeply unpopular and say they will prevail in protecting the rules, either in the courts or in U.S. Congress.

Immediately after the vote, Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat, said he and 15 other senators planned to introduce a resolution to undo the FCC action and restore the net neutrality rules.

FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said in a written dissent released on Thursday that the decision grants internet providers "extraordinary new power" from the FCC.

"They have the technical ability and business incentive to discriminate and manipulate your internet traffic," she said. "And now this agency gives them the legal green light to go ahead."

Several state attorneys general said before the vote they would oppose the ruling, citing issues with the public comment period. Other critics have said they will consider challenging what they see as weaker enforcement.

The 2015 rules were intended to give consumers equal access to web content and prevent broadband providers from favouring their own content. Those practices are now allowed as long as they are disclosed.

The broadband industry cheered the move. USTelecom, a lobbying group representing internet providers and broadband companies said after the vote they had "renewed confidence" to make network investments, particularly in rural communities.

On the other side, the trade group Internet Association, whose members include content providers Alphabet, Facebook and Pandora Media Inc (P.N), said "the fight isn't over" and that it was weighing legal options in a lawsuit against the FCC order.

A University of Maryland poll had found more than 80 percent of respondents opposed a repeal. The survey of 1,077 registered voters was conducted online by the Program for Public Consultation from Dec. 6-8.

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Diane Bartz, Katanga Johnson; Writing by Chris Sanders; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Bill Trott)
Florida Senator Marco Rubio (blue tie) says he will vote yes on the Republican tax plan after winning concessions on a child tax credit (AFP Photo/CHIP SOMODEVILLA) (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File)

Washington (AFP) - A major tax cut promised by US President Donald Trump was on track for final passage next week, after two previous holdouts in his Republican party said Friday they would vote yes on the legislation.

Republicans in both houses of the US Congress, where they hold majorities, each adopted their own versions of the controversial tax code overhaul, and the final compromise text was released late Friday.

"By lowering tax rates, simplifying the rigged and burdensome tax code, and repealing the failed tax on lower- and middle-income households known as the Obamacare individual mandate, this legislation will grow our economy, raise wages and promote economic competitiveness," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

Trump "looks forward to fulfilling the promise he made to the American people to give them a tax cut by the end of the year," she added in a statement.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had imperiled the legislation this week when he said he would not vote in favor of the sweeping bill unless some changes were made.

Rubio had been demanding a doubling of the child tax credit to $2,000. His spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that Rubio had moved to the "yes" camp after he got an increase in the refundable portion of the credit, which will help lower-income families.

Bob Corker of Tennessee, a fiscal conservative who had been the only Senate Republican to vote against the chamber's initial tax proposal, also said he would vote for the bill, despite reservations over the likelihood that the reforms would substantially increase the national debt.

"I know every bill we consider is imperfect and the question becomes is our country better off with or without this piece of legislation," Corker said in a statement.

"I think we are better off with it. I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make."

- Wall Street records -

Story continues

Wall Street stocks surged to fresh records following the news that Rubio and Corker were on board with the reform, pushing the long-awaited measure closer to the finish line.

Under the legislation, the federal corporate tax would fall from 35 percent to 21 percent -- a notch up from the 20 percent in previous versions -- and the maximum income tax rate would drop from 39.6 percent to 37 percent.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, and could have only afforded two defectors, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a deciding vote in case of a deadlock.

No Democrats support the measure.

Each Republican member therefore has considerable power, especially with Senator John McCain hospitalized as he fights an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Trump was optimistic about his party's chances of passing tax reform, which would be a massive win for the leader who has yet to notch any major legislative victory after nearly a year in office.

"I think we are going to be in a position to pass something as early as next week, which will be monumental," he said.

Trump has promised Americans that the sweeping reform would pass before Christmas, so that it would take effect from the beginning of 2018.
WASHINGTON -- Pakistans Peshawar High Court ruled on December 13 that Ehsanullah Ehsan, the former spokesman of U.S.-designated terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), be kept in captivity.

The ruling came after concerns that Pakistani authorities might release Ehsan as part of a deal with TTP's commander. The court asked the state to continue the investigation of Ehsan.

In a detailed response to the court, the government said it would continue to keep him under custody and investigation.

Ehsan was captured by Pakistani authorities in April. The government has reportedly been questioning him about TTP.

The Provincial Court issued its verdict following a petition filed by a resident of Peshawar who lost his son in the 2014 Army Public School massacre that claimed more than 130 lives, mostly children.

TTP claimed responsibility for the attack. Ehsan was the groups spokesman at the time.

Who Is Ehsan?

Liaqat Ali, commonly known as Ehsanullah Ehsan, hails from the Mohmand Agency of the northwestern tribal region of Pakistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan.

Ehsan reportedly joined TTP during college in 2008, where his role was to be the groups mouthpiece for the Mohmand Agency. He subsequently became TTPs main spokesman.

When a faction of TTP parted ways with the terrorist organization and established Jammat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) in 2014, Ehsan became that newly created groups spokesman.

JuA has claimed responsibility for numerous deadly terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide bombing in Lahore Park during Easter last year that killed at least 70 people, the majority of them Christians.

JuA also claimed responsibility for a series of deadly bombings across Pakistan earlier this year.

The United States placed JuA on a list of specially designated global terrorist organizations last year.

Blame Game

In April 2017, Pakistan's military announced the capture of Ehsan.

At the time, the military declared the arrest of Ehsan -- who was allegedly operating out of the northwestern tribal region -- to be a major success in the countrys counterterrorism efforts.

In a confession recorded on video and released shortly after his arrest, Ehsan is heard revealing that TTP and JuA have connections with Afghan and Indian spy agencies.

Ehsan accused Afghanistan and India of supporting TTP and JuA in their terrorist attacks on Pakistani soil.

Both Kabul and New Delhi denied Ehsans allegations and accused Islamabad of orchestrating Ehsans confession in an effort to shift the blame of militancy to Afghanistan and India.

A senior Afghan security official told Reuters in April that Ehsans comments are just a planned distraction by Pakistan, which is accused of providing safe havens to the Afghan Taliban on its soil.

Pakistan has always been pushing this narrative of being a victim of terrorism, while the fact is it sponsors and supports terrorist activities in Afghanistan and India," the Afghan security official said.

Now, Pakistan is under enormous pressure from the international community to crack down on extremists, and it is trying to evade responsibility by playing victim once again, he added.

-- By Voice Of America
Pakistan's Supreme Court has rejected a bid to disqualify opposition politician Imran Khan for concealing his financial assets, a charge that could have barred him from holding public office.

The three-judge bench said it found no evidence that Khan had contravened the law, although the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to investigate whether Khan's Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party had received funding from abroad.

The court disqualified one of Khans closest aides, Jahangir Tareen, as a lawmaker because of corruption charges during the same hearing on December 15.

Khan was accused of concealing his financial assets, owning offshore companies, and heading a foreign-aided party.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party filed the petition seeking charges against Khan in November 2016.

The Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from office in July over the concealment of financial assets, forcing him to step down. He has denied any wrongdoing.

If he was found guilty, Khan would have been barred from holding public office, disqualified from upcoming general elections in 2018, and stripped of his membership in the National Assembly. He could also have been banned from leading the PTI.

With reporting by Dawn and Geo TV
German English

Basel, December 15, 2017 - Novartis announced today that Bruno Strigini, CEO Novartis Oncology has decided to retire from Novartis and the industry for personal reasons.

Joseph Jimenez, CEO of Novartis, said: "I'd like to thank Bruno Strigini for his contributions and achievements. He has navigated the business unit through the Gleevec patent expiration and has led the successful integration of the GSK Oncology Product Portfolio acquired in 2015. I wish him the best for his future."

Bruno Strigini will step back from the Executive Committee of Novartis by December 31, 2017 and will fully handover in early 2018. Novartis will announce his successor in due time.

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which can generally be identified by words such as "to retire," "will," or similar expressions. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of the Group regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that Novartis will be commercially successful in the future, or achieve any particular financial results. In particular, our expectations could be affected by, among other things, the risks and factors referred to in the Risk Factors section of 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

# # #

Novartis Media Relations

Central media line: +41 61 324 2200

E-mail: media.relations@novartis.com

Paul Barrett

Novartis Global Media Relations

+41 61 324 7999 (direct)

+41 79 797 8137 (mobile)

paul.barrett@novartis.com



Eric Althoff

Novartis Global Media Relations

+41 61 324 7999 (direct)

+41 79 593 4202 (mobile)

eric.althoff@novartis.com



Antonio Ligi

Novartis Global Media Relations

+41 61 324 1374 (direct)

+41 79 723 3681 (mobile)

antonio.ligi@novartis.com Markus Jaggi

Novartis Media Relations Switzerland

+41 61 324 9577 (direct)

+41 79 673 7433 (mobile)

markus.jaggi@novartis.com



Satoshi Sugimoto

Novartis Media Relations Switzerland

+41 61 324 6129

+41 79 619 2035

satoshi_jean.sugimoto@novartis.com





Novartis Investor Relations

Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944

E-mail: investor.relations@novartis.com
LakerFan24 wrote:

I think its important to organize & summarize the passage (as below)

Dominant view (of property rights for Algonquian family territories): family hunting territories (form of private landownership) were found AFTER contact w/ Europeans.



Another view (of property rights for Algonquian family territories): family hunting territories (form of private landownership) PREDATE contact w/ Europeans.



Recent Fieldwork: New system conflicts w/ European concepts of private property. Debatable whether Algonquian family hunting territories ever were/were becoming, a kind of private property system



A. provide an explanation for an unexpected phenomenon



B. suggest that a particular question has yet to be answered



C. present a new perspective on an issue



D. defend a traditional view from attack



E. reconcile opposing sides of an argument



A. They evolved from multifamilial hunting territories.



B. They are an outgrowth of reciprocal land-use practices.



C. They are based on certain spiritual beliefs.



D. They developed as a result of contact with Europeans.



E. They developed as a result of trade with non-Algonquian Indian tribes.



A. They are a form of private landownership.



B. They are a form of community, rather than individual, landownership.



C. They were a form of private landownership prior to contact with Europeans.



D. They became a form of private landownership due to contact with Europeans.



E. They have replaced reciprocal practices relating to land use in Algonquian society



What kinds of property rights apply to Algonquian family hunting territories, and how did they come to be? The dominant view in recent decades has been that family hunting territories, like other forms of private landownership, were not found among Algonquians (a group of North American Indian tribes) before contact with Europeans but are the result of changes in Algonquian society brought about by the European-Algonquian fur trade, in combination with other factors such as ecological changes and consequent shifts in wildlife harvesting patterns. Another view claims that Algonquian family hunting territories predate contact with Europeans and are forms of private landownership by individuals and families. More recent fieldwork, however, has shown that individual and family rights to hunting territories form part of a larger land-use system of multifamilial hunting groups, that rights to hunting territories at this larger community level take precedence over those at the individual or family level, and that this system reflects a concept of spiritual and social reciprocity that conflicts with European concepts of private property. In short, there are now strong reasons to think that it was erroneous to claim that Algonquian family hunting territories ever were, or were becoming, a kind of private property system.-----1. The primary purpose of the passage is to- what unexpected phenomenon? where is the explanation for this said phenomenon?- what question has yet to be answered?- yes. the new perspective is: was this land ever private?- there are multiple views, none really being attacked. 2 are introduced and 1 is said to question both those concepts.- not attempting to reconcile opposing sides of an argument...instead, suggesting something else entirely.-----2. It can be inferred from the passage that proponents of the view mentioned in the first highlighted text believe which of the following about the origin of Algonquian family hunting territories?- wrong. not mentioned until later.- same as "A".- same as "A"- yes, first highlighted text = dominant view which says exactly this.- never said in passage.-----3. According to the passage, proponents of the view mentioned in the first highlighted portion of text and proponents of the view mentioned in the second highlighted portion of text ( see in "Another view claims...") both believe which of the following about Algonquian family hunting territories?- both only differ WHEN private landownership was actually "a thing" (before or after Europeans came into contact with them)- neither view agrees with this- only one view agrees with this- only one view agrees with this (opposite group who agrees with C)- never mentioned in the passageKudos please if you find this helpful
Coming across women, who are financially proactive and run their household, is what provoked him to ask everyone he met what they had learned from life.

"My mother was pulled out of school in grade five by her grandmother, who didn't want any of the daughters in the house, especially the eldest one, to study with boys or to study at all," says Deepak Ramola.

Coming across women, who are financially proactive and run their household, is what provoked him to ask everyone he met what they had learned from life. He'd note the answers down and found himself referring to them every time he needed advice.

advertisement

In 2014, the Dehradun boy turned this into a full-time project called FUEL, or Forward the Understanding of Every Life-Lesson.

"Through Project FUEL, I seek to build a community of people who live, learn and share in order to make meaningful psycho-social and emotional contribution to themselves and the society at large," he says.

The workshops create participatory activities and engaging exercises to impart basic life lessons.

"Since 2014, we have worked with over 70,000 people-from human trafficking survivors in Nepal to middle-school students in Afghanistan, to villagers from a village in India to even Syrian refugees in Europe," says Ramola.

"In June 2017, through our Wise Wall Project, we painted the world's first 'Village of Life Lessons' in Saur, a 600-year-old Tehri Garhwal village with only 12 families and conducted workshops there."

Ramola worries that the focus of "building great entrepreneurs and employees has overshadowed the need of building great human beings". FUEL aims to change that.

--- ENDS ---
RaviChandra wrote:

Mayor of Plainsville : In order to help the economy of Plainsville, I am using some of our tax revenues to help bring a major highway through the town and thereby attract new business to Plainsville.



Citizens group : You must have interests other than our economy in mind. If you were really interested in helping our economy, you would instead allocate the revenues to building a new business park, since it would bring in twice the business that your highway would.



The argument by the citizens group relies on which one of the following assumptions?



(A) Plainsville presently has no major highways running through it.

(B) The mayor accepts that a new business park would bring in more new business than would the new highway.

(C) The new highway would have no benefits for Plainsville other than attracting new business.

(D) The mayor is required to get approval for all tax revenue allocation plans from the city council.

(E) Plainsvilles economy will not be helped unless a new business park of the sort envisioned by the citizens group is built.



Hello I chose C for this question. Can someone explain why is it wrong .



Owner of Angles and Arguments





Check out my Blog Posts here: Blog

For Individual GMAT Study Modules, check

For Private Tutoring, check KarishmaOwner of Angles and ArgumentsFor Individual GMAT Study Modules, check Study Modules For Private Tutoring, check Private Tutoring Signature Read More

Argument:Mayor: Use tax revenue to bring a major highway to increase business.Citizens: You have other interests. Otherwise you would have made the business park which brings in much more business.It is an assumption question. How do we figure out the assumption? We look for the option which is NECESSARY for the conclusion to hold. The conclusion of the argument of the citizens' group is this: You must have interests other than our economy in mind.We need to find the option that is necessary for the citizens to arrive at this conclusion. To charge the mayor with "other interests", the citizens must assume that the mayor knows that/agrees that the business park will get more business than the highway.Let's try to negate (B)Let's look at the other four options first.(B) The mayor does not accept that a new business park would bring in more new business than would the new highway.If this is true, can the citizens still say that he must have other interests? No, if he thinks that the highway would bring in same or more business, the citizens cannot say that he must have other interests. He is, apparently, working toward improving the economy only.Hence, (B) is an assumption of the argument.Now look at the other options:(A) Plainsville presently has no major highways running through it.This strengthens the mayor's perspective, not the citizens'. It is not as assumption made by the citizens.(C) The new highway would have no benefits for Plainsville other than attracting new business.The citizens are not assuming this. Whether the new highway or the business park would have other benefits, is irrelevant. They say that if attracting business was your aim, then you would made the business park. The crux of the argument is which of the two have more economic benefit and hence which should have been chosen for the sake of improving economy.(D) The mayor is required to get approval for all tax revenue allocation plans from the city council.Irrelevant(E) Plainsvilles economy will not be helped unless a new business park of the sort envisioned by the citizens group is built.Again, not an assumption made by citizens. All they are saying is that it will be helped more by a business park than by the highway.Answer (B)_________________
The Delhi police had earlier informed court that the procurement process for the purchase of 1.4 lakh cameras is underway with 30 days of recording facility.

By Sneha Agrawal: Following the landmark judgement of the Supreme Court, the Delhi Police will now have to install 10 CCTV cameras each in 192 police stations.

The spots in buildings where CCTV cameras will be installed have been decided keeping in view places where policepublic interface takes place and other sensitive parts like corridors. The police said in a status report that the work is likely to be completed in six to eight weeks.

advertisement

To prevent custodial torture, harassment to the complainants and corruption charges, the Supreme Court in its judgment had directed the Centre and state governments to put police stations and interrogation rooms under surveillance of CCTV cameras.

The Delhi police listed the locations in a status report that was submitted to the Delhi high court on Thursday which has taken a suo moto cognisance of the reports of crime against women in the Capital.

At the same time, it is also hearing a petition on custodial deaths in police station. The spots that will have cameras are duty officer room, lock-up, office of the station house officer, malkhana and kot (room for ammunitions), visitor room, front/side at the perimeter of the police station building and the corridor on the ground floor as well as the first floor of the building.

The Delhi police had earlier informed court that the procurement process for the purchase of 1.4 lakh cameras is underway with 30 days of recording facility.

Justices Ravindra Bhat and Sanjeev Sachdeva in the previous hearing were also of the opinion that while at the stage of procurement and operationalisation, the Delhi Police should also ensure that CCTV footage of the cameras installed in these police stations is saved with reasonable archivable time of one to three months.

The report filed through Delhi Police's additional standing counsel Rajesh Mahajan said locations of CCTV cameras to be installed in the police stations have been discussed by the committee of senior officers.

Mail Today had earlier reported an RTI reply in which the Delhi Police had claimed that most of the CCTV cameras installed inside police stations were not in working condition and had become obsolete and beyond repair.

The court listed the matter for January 31 for filing of an action taken report.

--- ENDS ---
Gurugram, Dec 15 (IBNS) : The bail plea of the Ryan International School student, arrested in connection with the murder of a seven-year-old boy, Pradyuman Thakur, was on Friday rejected by a court, reports said.

The arrested juvenile is a class eleven student.

The juvenile's family has been claiming that their child is being framed to hide the real conspiracy behind the matter.

Opposing the bail plea on behalf of the juvenile, the CBI contended that the probe is still on and they are still interrogating to find the details of the murder.

Pradyuman Thakur, a class two student of the same school, was found with his throat slit in the washroom of the institute building on September 8.

According to the CBI, the accused committed the crime to create a situation that would lead to the postponement of the upcoming examinations.

Earlier, the Haryana police had arrested Ashok Kummar, a conductor of school bus, who was later released after the CBI revelation.
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): As the brutal conflict in South Sudan enters its fifth year, the United Nations Security Council on Thursday said it remains deeply concerned over the situation there, and expressed strong support for a regional initiative aimed at salvaging a 2015 peace deal.

In a presidential statement, the 15-member Council said it is deeply concerned about the actions of all parties to the conflict that are perpetuating this, with 7.6 million people now in need of aid, four million displaced, and six million lacking enough food to feed themselves.

The worlds youngest country, South Sudan has spent much of its short life mired in conflict, riven by a political face-off between President Salva Kiir and his then former Vice-President Riek Machar that erupted into full-blown war late in 2013.

The Council also took note of the September 2017 mid-term report of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) and its findings that the parties to the conflict have failed to implement substantive elements of the 2015 peace agreement, which sought to end the fighting that broke out in December 2013.

The Council expressed its strong support for the Intergovernmental Authority on Developments (IGAD) High-Level Revitalization Forum, which was established to revitalize efforts to implement the 2015 peace agreement, adding that it looks forward to the convening of a fully inclusive Forum and substantive progress on the initiative by the end of December.

IGAD is a regional mechanism in Eastern Africa consisting of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

The Council strongly urged all parties to engage constructively in the process to revitalize the 2015 peace agreement, underlining that no party should set pre-conditions for participation.

The Council noted with deep concern the continuing obstacles that hinder the delivery of vital lifesaving assistance to the South Sudanese people, condemning attacks on national and international humanitarian personnel and compounds.

The Council reiterated that perpetrators of violations of international humanitarian law and violations and abuses of human rights must be held accountable, to break the prevailing cycle of impunity.

Photo: UNICEF/Holt (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
It is alleged that she covered up Irans role in a deadly terrorist attack involving Iranian-backed Hezbollah, when an operative, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center, known as AMIA, on July 18th, 1994. At least 300 Argentines were wounded, and 85 were killed. It is believed to be the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentinas history.

Prosecutor Alberto Nisman worked tirelessly from 2004 until 2015 to prove that the attack was an Iranian-planned operation. He also discovered that Ms. Kirchner was behind a cover-up designed to whitewash Irans role.

Ms. Kirchner was formally charged in the crime when federal judge Claudio Bonadio handed down the 491-page indictment against her; her foreign minister, Hector Timerman; her handpicked intelligence chief; her top legal adviser; two pro-Iran activists; and 10 others.

In trying to determine Ms. Kirchners motives, one looks to Argentinas economic problems at that time, as well as her governments a populist ties to Iran and the Bolivarian bloc of nations led by Venezuela.

Judge Bonadio called the attack on the Jewish community center an act of war by Iran, and accused Ms. Kirchner of covering up the role of senior Iranian leaders and their Hezbollah proxies in exchange for a trade deal.

Alberto Nisman, however, didnt live to see justice served. He was set to testify to the countrys Congress three years ago, regarding Ms. Kirchners role in the cover up. He was found dead in his apartment in Buenos Aires, with a bullet in his head, on the day before his testimony, despite the 10-man security detail who were there to protect him.

Ms. Kirchner quickly announced that Mr. Nisman had committed suicide. She claimed his death was part of a lovers spat. Later, she claimed that his death may have been the result of rogue intelligence operatives.

While Mr. Nisman investigated this case, he received death threats against him and his children. Still, he didnt let it stop him. Mr. Nisman fearlessly led his team and determined that former Iranian and Hezbollah officials had planned the AMIA attack. He showed that the plan included Irans former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; its minister of intelligence; its foreign minister; the head of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the head of the corps elite Quds force; the Iranian cultural attache in Argentina; and the third secretary at Irans Embassy in Buenos Aires, as well as the former head of Hezbollahs external security.

Nismans investigation led Interpol to issue red notices against six of the perpetrators. Argentina issued arrest warrants for Rafsanjani and then-foreign minister, Ali Akbar Velayati, which Iran disregarded.

Nisman released a 500-page indictment in May 2013, that outlined the way Iran had penetrated not just Argentina, but also Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Guyana, Paraguay, Trinidad, Tobago and Suriname. He showed how mosques, social service organizations and its own embassies were used to radicalize and recruit terrorists.

Nisman also shared information that helped American authorities determine that Mohsen Rabbani, Iranian embassy cultural attache, and one of the AMIA bombing masterminds, helped four men plot to blow up the fuel lines at Kennedy International Airport in New York. Nismans murder investigation was stymied for years,

but three months ago, under Argentinas new president, Mauricio Macri, a fresh investigation by the Argentine national police began. They found that Nisman had been drugged with Ketamine, a drug used to sedate animals, then brutally beaten before he was shot in the head.

More than 40,000 legal wiretaps and other evidence, much of it collected by Nisman, sealed the case against Kirchner, and reveals a secret backchannel between her government and Iran. It is apparent that Kirchner and her allies went to great lengths to establish this backchannel. In 2011, Ms. Kirchners foreign minister made a secret trip to Syria to iron out the plan with Ali Akbar Salehi, who was then Irans foreign minister, former Argentine ambassador to Syria revealed earlier this year in court testimony. A voice recording further implicates Ms. Kirchner in the bombing.

The judge in the case has asked the Argentine Congress to strip Kirchner of immunity, so that she can be arrested and tried. Additionally, President Macri supports an independent investigation to identify the person(s) responsible for ordering Alberto Nismans death.

What ever happens next, it is clear, as Mr. Nisman documented, Iran and Hezbollah have penetrated Latin America.
Djalali was a visiting professor at Belgiums Vrije University when Iranian authorities detained him during a visit in April, when he had traveled to Iran to attend a scientific workshop based on an official invitation from an Iranian university. He was accused of passing information to Israels Mossad intelligence service during the negotiations that led to Irans nuclear deal in 2015. Djalali claims he is being punished for refusing to spy for Iran while working in Europe.

Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnestys internal deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa declared, This is not only a shocking assault on the right to a fair trial but is also in utter disregard for Ahmadreza Djalalis right to life. She called on the Iranian authorities to quash the sentence and grant him a meaningful appeal. Amnesty alleges that Djalalis lawyers repeatedly contacted the Supreme Court to present their submissions over the past month, but were stonewalled.

Claiming that the evidence in his initial trial was gathered under duress, Djalalis lawyers said no evidence has been produced to substantiate the allegations. Amnesty argues that Irans courts have run roughshod over the rule of law.

When the sentence was announced in October, Tehrans prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said, One of the actions of the convict was revealing the location of and some information on 30 outstanding individuals engaged in military and nuclear research projects. He claimed further that the information led to the assassination of two Iranian nuclear scientists, Majid Shahriari and Masoud Alimohammadi, who were killed in bomb blasts in 2010 at the height of tensions over the countrys atomic program.

Five Iranian scientists, four of whom were involved in the countrys nuclear program, were murdered in bomb and gun attacks in Tehran between 2010 and 2012. Iran accused the US and Israel of killing its scientists.

Shahriari was a key member of Irans Atomic Energy Organization, and Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was a deputy director of the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. In 2012, Majid Jamali Fashi was convicted for working for Mossad and assassinating Alimohammadi, and executed. Also hanged for working for Israel and the US were three others, including nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri.
The equipment was deemed relevant to the November 4 missile launch by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. On that occasion, the weapon was shot down over King Khaled International Airport, outside of the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. As such, it represented the deepest penetration into Saudi territory by the Houthi  a feat that was beyond the reach of Yemeni missiles prior to the outbreak of civil war in 2015. Many experts concluded that this expansion in the Yemeni missile range could only have been accomplished either by directly adopting Iranian weapons or by using Iranian know-how and equipment to upgrade existing arsenals.

Another Houthi strike, on July 22, targeted the Saudi town of Yanbu, and this missile was reportedly put on display at Haleys presentation in Washington near the Defensive Intelligence Agency. The previous day, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres presented the latest report on the implementation of the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. According to the Los Angeles Times, Guterres specifically addressed both the July and November missile strikes, acknowledging that the UN was looking into the possibility that these attacks involved weapons provided by Iran.

Such an action by the Islamic Republic would constitute a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which was passed to mark implementation of the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The resolution is technically separate from the JCPOA and includes some provisions that were left out of the nuclear deal over the objections of many critics of the Islamic Republic.

Apart reiterating bans on weapons transfers, Resolution 2231 calls upon the Iranians to avoid work on weapons that are designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. However, the language of this provision has left room for debate about its reach, and so Tehran has carried out more than a dozen tests of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. The Trump administration has long maintained that these tests, alongside other provocative moves by the Iranian regime, constitute violations of the spirit of the JCPOA. These issues were accordingly cited when the US president withheld certification of Irans compliance with the JCPOA.

The international community has resisted this line, and the UNs latest report once again declares that Iran is living up to its defined obligations under the nuclear deal. However, the LA Times indicates that Guterres recognized that Iran may be flouting its international responsibilities in other areas. This is arguably a sign of progress in the White Houses outreach to the world community, especially coming as it did before Haley gave her presentation at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling on Thursday.

In that presentation, the ambassador specifically said that the US was working to build a coalition to really push back against Iran and what theyre doing. And what they are doing, according to Haley, entails ongoing escalation of provocative and destabilizing activities that were already unacceptable before the JCPOAs implementation and the outbreak of the Yemeni Civil War. Its ballistic missiles and advanced weapons are turning up in war zones across the region, she said, as reported by NBC News. She later added, The undeniable fact is that that the Iranian behavior is growing worse.

Predictably, Iranian officials rejected the UN ambassadors assessment and the declassified intelligence underlying them. Despite the display of equipment at Haleys presentation, Gholamali Khoshroo, Irans own ambassador to the UN described the US as peddling baseless accusations, in a statement that was published on the website of the Islamic Republic News Agency. In discussing the November missile strike in particular, Khoshroo called accounts of Iranian involvement unfounded and, at the same time, irresponsible, provocative and destructive.

In this way, the Islamic Republic is evidently working to build this weeks developments into its generalized anti-American rhetoric. In portraying the US as inherently belligerent, the Iranians have sought to broaden the gulf between current American and European policies toward the Islamic Republic. Under President Trump, the US has apparently begun to look for ways to extricate itself from the JCPOA, or to strengthen that agreement. European partners, on the other hand, remain overwhelmingly committed to it.

But until recently, this commitment has seemingly coincided with European reluctance to put pressure on Iran over other issues when that pressure might have carried a risk of encouraging Iran to walk away from the nuclear deal. Many observers have suggested that this dynamic is shifting, perhaps because of efforts by the White House to publicize instances of Iranian misbehavior and perhaps simply because that misbehavior has continued throughout the nearly two years since the JCPOA was implemented.

On Thursday, Forbes published an editorial that touched upon this notion. Following the recent missile launch from Yemen targeting Riyadh, and evidence showing the missile being of Iranian origin, it explained, France and other European countries have voiced positions far different from their stereotype calls for engagement with Tehran.

This is made arguably more significant by the fact that those revised positions, like the Guterres report, began to emerge before the US presented the full range of explicit evidence for Irans provision of missiles to the Houthi and others. In a segment of Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC declared that Western governments in general had been aware of these Iranian activities for a long time, but that Haleys presentation took the significant step of making them more concrete.

Analyst Jeremy Bash even went as far as to say that the event highlighted the idea that the US is already engaged in a proxy war with Iran, and that it promised to serve as the precursor to a year in which tensions with the Islamic Republic would escalate even further. If this turns out to be true, crucial questions will revolve around the extent of European involvement in that situation. MSNBC also indicated that Haleys presentation was clearly part of an ongoing effort to build international consensus on Iran policy among UN member states and particularly the European countries that have sought to benefit from the implementation and preservation of the JCPOA.

Whatever the answer to those questions may be, it is presently clear that the Europeans have a long way to go to catch up to American assertiveness in this area, even if they have already begun trending in that direction. Forbes points out that President Trump is scheduled to outline his National Security Strategy in the coming week, at which point he will likely formalize a plan to confront and counteract Iranian influence in the broader Middle East. This should give a clearer indication of both where the US stands and exactly what changes it will seek to promote in European policy.

One probable aspect of the emerging US strategy will be to create international backing for new sanctions that would put pressure on Iran without directly undermining the JCPOA. This is already something that some members of Congress are pursuing, as the National Council of Resistance of Iran reported on Tuesday. The Iranian opposition group notes that two Republican representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Ted Poe of Texas, have introduced a bill that would sanctions Iran for its support of the Houthi in Yemen. Two other sanctions bills were previously introduced which sought to address Irans ballistic missile program and its potential purchase of commercial aircraft from the West.

By specifically targeting Iranian influence in Yemen, the latest proposed measure could help to advance a broader strategy that was recommended by the above-mentioned Forbes editorial. That article speculates that recent Iranian setbacks in Yemen could lead to more of the same throughout the region. In fact, the article concludes, a strong stance in Yemen and liberating this country from the Houthis should be used as a launching pad by the international community to begin reigning in Irans expansionist policy across the Middle East.

The recent focus on Houthi missiles may suggest that the White House sees the situation in a similar light and is now making a concerted effort to develop international backing for a strategy that will undercut the Iranian support network for the Yemeni rebels.
This bill must still clear the Senate before President Trump can sign it into law, but it appears to benefit Iranian dissidents against the regime, by providing insight into the financial dealings of top officials.

Upon introducing the legislation, Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, said, Irans top regime leaders  the Supreme Leader and the countrys top political and military brass  have amassed huge wealth through their tyrannical rule and corrupt and covert structure. He added, Reports have indicated these funds are being used to support and sponsor terrorism around the region and to undermine our own national security interests. Iran, the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism, cannot be trusted and its important for the security of the region and for the United States for these secret funds to be exposed publicly to the world.

Poliquins bill has previously cleared the House, receiving 280 votes at the time, with just 42 Democrats supporting. On Wednesday, the legislation gained 56 Democratic votes.

California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters warned that the legislation might undermine by the Iran nuclear deal. The true purpose of this legislation is to create reputational risk for companies that might seek to do legitimate business with Iran, she said. For this reason, the bill would be a strategic mistake, as its report would undoubtedly be seized upon by Iran as an intentional effort to discourage international investment by Iran, which would be viewed y Iran  and likely by the major world powers who joined us in the JCPOA as well  as a violation of the express U.S. commitment under the nuclear deal not to interfere with the full realization of the relief provided to Iran under the accord.

In response to Waters objection, Poliquin said, There are approximately 70 to 80 top political and military leaders in Iran who control about one-third of their domestic economy. While the corruption has grown in Iran, the average citizen there earns the equivalent of $15,000 dollars per year. Mr. Speaker, the citizens of Iran and the people of this world should know how much wealth has been accumulated by those that sponsor terrorism and what that money, sir, is being used for. And companies across the globe that are looking to do business with the world should understand what they might be getting into.

Under Poliquins bill, the Treasury Departments report must be published in Irans three main languages. A House Republican aide said, I think with social media and with the networks of Iranian opposition groups, here in the states and there, I think they will be able to see it.
Irans history of cyberspace operations began with hackers. Reportedly, Irans government not only recruits hackers into its cyber forces but supports their independent operations.

By the mid-2000s, Irans hackers had begun to take over websites worldwide and post messages on them, a practice called defacing. Although it was often just for fun, some hackers, like Iran Hackers Sabotage, aimed to show the world that Iranian hackers have something to say in the worldwide security.

While this groups website alleged to provide vulnerability testing and secure hosting services, it was said to be responsible for Web defacements. Allegedly, it replaced the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo homepage with one defending Muslims and condemning terrorists in 2005. One of its defacements proclaimed Atomic energy is our right. By early 2008, the Zone-H defacement archive listed 3,763 Web defacements for the group, which has since disbanded.

Ashiyane Digital Security Team was another prominent group who ran a website offering free hacking tools and tutorials. 11,503 members were claimed by the site, in May of 2006. Ashiyane also claimed to provide security services, but its members were believed to deface websites with images such as a map of Iran and a reminder that The correct name is Persian Gulf for what some Arab states have called the Arabian Gulf.

In 2009, during the Israeli incursion into Gaza, Ashiyane reportedly defaced 500 websites  and in 2010, 1,000 sites in the U.S., United Kingdom, and France, for supporting what they called, anti-Iranian terrorist groups. Zone-H recorded 23,532 defacements by the group by May of 2011. Behrouz Kamalian, the groups leader, said while they operated independently and spontaneously, they also cooperated with the Iranian military.

The Iranian Cyber Army has been implicated in several website attacks, including one against Twitter in 2009, and the Voice of America in 2011. The Iranian Cyber Army is said by some cybersecurity researchers to operate on behalf of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who run a cyberwarfare program that in 2008 was estimated to employ about 2,400 professionals.

A group that called itself the Cutting Sword of Justice launched cyberattacks against the Saudi Aramco oil company in 2012, claiming to protest Saudi oppression and corruption financed by oil. More than 30,000 computers were rendered inoperable at Saudi Aramco and Qatars RasGas. U.S. intelligence officials blamed Iran for the attacks.

In the 2014 an attack against the Las Vegas Sands Corporation was launched. It was thought to be a response to remarks made by Sheldon Adelson, the companys largest shareholder, who had suggested setting off a bomb in an Iranian desert to persuade the country to abandon nuclear weapons.

In 2016, the Shamoon malware resurfaced, wiping data from thousands of computers in Saudi Arabias civil aviation agency.

As well, Iranian hackers have also conducted massive distributed denial-of-service attacks, rendering sites inaccessible. Attacks like these occurred from 2012 to 2013, by a group calling itself the Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, who launched a series of denial-of-service attacks against major U.S. banks.

The U.S. indicted seven Iranian hackers in absentia in 2016. They were accused of working on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards to conduct those bank attacks, which were said to have caused tens of millions of dollars in losses. One of the seven indictments was of a man who allegedly obtained access to the computer control system for the Bowman Avenue Dam in New York state. The access would have allowed the intruder to operate and manipulate one of the dams gates, had it not been offline for maintenance.

Cyber warfare can be used as a means of overcoming Irans military disadvantages. Containing its cyber warfare program may be more challenging than containing its nuclear program. It is extremely difficult to enforce controls placed on cyberweapons. Americas best options to defend itself against the Irans cyberthreat are cybersecurity and cyberdeterrence.
Husband and in-laws of a 36-year-old woman were arrested today after they murdered her and dumped her body in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand.

By India Today Web Desk: A marital discord ended in the tragic murder of a 36-year-old woman from Harsh Vihar locality of New Delhi.

The cinematic plot of the murder has even intrigued the Delhi Police who today arrested five persons including the woman's husband, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and father-in law.

Lalit Jain, a property dealer, on December 11, filed a missing persons complaint at the Rani Bagh Police Station of Delhi. Jain told the police that his wife Silky has been missing for some days.

advertisement

Investigations have revealed chilling details of the murder. Jain admitted that he strangled Silky and later bludgeoned her with a hammer.

He later told the police that he and his family packed her mangled body in a gunny sack and flung it into the ravines of Mussoorie in Uttarakhand.

The police grew suspicious after Silky's parents alleged that Lalit got into frequent quarrels and fights with her. Silky's family told the police that she was murdered by the Jain family.

Based on the allegation the police later probed further and detained Jain. He admitted to committing the crime during an extensive interrogation.

Jain had narrated the entire trajectory to the police, following which the police undertook the mission to identify and locate Silky's body.

The police even sought the help of the Indo Tibetan Border Police Force to recover the body.

VIDEO | Hyderabad: Wife kills husband, pours acid on lover's face to pass him off as hubby

--- ENDS ---
In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask you enter in the text you see in the image below so we can confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.




Yixuan Hao is sitting in a classroom in the Burgundy area of France, with a glass of red wine in her hand.

She examines the wine as she slowly moves the glass around. Next, she takes a small taste. Then, she smells it.

Yixuan has been tasting and smelling wines all afternoon. They were produced in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and California.

One day, students who come to France to study wine may be tasting vintages from another producer: China.

Yixuan, who is 23 years old, comes from Xinjiang, a large, dry area in northwest China. Xinjiang is the countrys biggest producer of wine grapes.

Yixuan says she has come to France to, in her words, learn from others who know better.

Were trying to develop our own style, rather than copy the Bordeaux and the Burgundies."

Yixuan is a student at the School of Wine and Spirits Business in Dijon. It is a program within the Burgundy School of Business.

Nearly one-third of the students here come from China.

The country that dominates manufacturing products from wind turbine technology to smart phones is now turning its attention to oenology, the study of wine. And it is training a new generation of Chinese students in the field.

Many Chinese come to Burgundys winemaking country. Here, small farms, ancient villages and rolling green hills have come together to form a love of terroir. This term, which describes a particular land, climate and soil, helps define the identity of every wine.

Jerome Gallo is the wine schools director. He says the Chinese students hope to return home with the tools to produce the best wines they can.

Most of them go back to China after the program, Gallo says. Because its their home country and because there are a lot of things to develop there.

The schools one-year masters program teaches the workings of the wine trade, from finance and business management, to marketing and sales. The school urges its students to serve as volunteer interns in France or other countries. And even with students sometimes paying more than $15,000 to attend the school, there is no shortage of Chinese applicants.

Learning the trade

During a class on New World wines, students study the taste and intensity of a large number of vintages.

You can smell blackberry, apple, orange, says 21-year-old Lei Shi from northern China. Its magic.

Shi hopes to fine a job as an international wine buyer for a Chinese company one day. But he says that many Chinese need to develop a deeper wine knowledge.

The wine culture in China now is not very good because most people, they dont know how to taste the wines. So we still have a long way to do to teach the Chinese people how to taste the wines, how to enjoy our wines.

But China has most of what it needs. It grows more grapes than any country other than Spain. While most of the farming is for the fruit itself, Chinas wine industry is growing quickly.

By 2020, China is expected to become the worlds second-biggest wine market, after the United States.

The majority of wine consumed in China is also produced there. Yet China is turning into a major importer of wine.

Yixuan says, "The new generation is more open to French culture and French wines than the old generation. Middle and upper classes want to consume wines from different regions, like Italy. For them, she notes, its a sign of wealth.

Huge French-and Italian-style properties are being built in many parts of China. A wine theme park opened in southeast China earlier this year.

At a store called La Route des Vins in central Dijon, Adrien Tirelli describes Chinese visitors as coming with guide books in hand.

"Chinese people, like all the new consumer, just learn in the guide and then they come with the books, and they tell me, 'I want this one, this one, this one...'"

Liu Yan is a Burgundy wine expert and Chinese tour guide. She arrived in Burgundy to study wine more than 10 years ago. Unlike most other Chinese students, she stayed.

"I love Burgundy, the simplicity of the people who are intense about their work," she says. "And especially this love of the land, people dont want to lose it.

Yan believes that China will someday be among the worlds major wine producers. But it cannot compete with Burgundy, she says.

Every wine represents a terroir, she says. The land isnt the same. The environment, the earth, all that doesnt produce the same kind of wine.

Im John Russell.

And Im Ashley Thompson.

VOA's Lisa Bryant reported this story from Dijon, France. Ashley Thompson adapted her report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

Does your country produce wine? We want to hear from you. Describe the wine industry where you live in the comments section.

_________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

afternoon - n.  the middle part of the day : the part of the day between noon and evening

vintage - n. the grapes or wine produced during one season

style - n. a particular way in which something is done, created, or performed

dominate - v. to be much more powerful or successful than others in a game, competition, etc.

applicant - n. someone who formally asks for something (such as a job or admission to a college) : someone who applies for something

consume - v. to eat or drink (something)

theme park - n. an amusement park where the rides and attractions are based on a particular theme
By India Today Web Desk: Russian presidential election slated for March 18, Putin expected to win fourth term

Russian presidential election slated for March 18, Putin expected to win fourth term

Has Maldives slipped out of India's grip? China steals another ally?

India was taken by surprise with the FTA signed between Maldives and China. The pact was signed with such stealth that it raises strategic concerns for India.

advertisement

Ajinkya Rahane's father arrested after his car ran over 67-year-old woman in Kolhapur

Ajinkya Rahane's family was on its way on a vacation when their car hit a 67-year-old woman in Kolhapur. She later succumbed to her injuries.

Virat-Anushka receive a special wedding gift from Ranveer-Deepika

Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone have sent Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma a bouquet of flowers along with a handwritten note.

--- ENDS ---
The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.

Read More
Your Ultimate Investing Toolkit

Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools:

Portfolio Monitoring

Top Stock Lists

Premium Reports

Stock Screeners

Live News Feed

Premium Support

Free for your first month.
The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen France SAS, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Suzhou Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel Ireland Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Brooks Instrument Shanghai Co. Ltd, Buell Industries Inc., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS Australia Pty Limited, CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures Australasia S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Coeur Shanghai Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Denison Mayes Group Limited, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., E2M Production B.V.., E2M Technologies B.V.., E2M Technologies Inc.., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO Holding AG, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, Exhibit 21, FEG Investments L.L.C., Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Filtertek SAS, GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech Taicang Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Belgium B.V., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart International Singapore Pte. Ltd., Hobart Japan K.K., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components Chongqing Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components Langfang Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium B.V., ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS UK Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW China Investment Company Limited, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Construction Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Services Manila Inc., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Contamination Control Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Deutschland GmbH, ITW Diagraph GmbH, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW EU Holdings Ltd., ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.L., ITW European Finance Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Thailand Ltd., ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France Luxembourg S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW Materials Technology Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Ningbo Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology China Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion Shenzhen Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Illinois Tool Works Chile Limitada, Illinois Tool Works ITW Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Inc., Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, Instron Shanghai Ltd., Instron Thailand Limited, International Leasing Company LLC, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., Itw Spraytec, KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems Canada Inc., Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MTS 2 LLC., MTS 3 LLC., MTS China Holdings LLC, MTS Europe Holdings LLC, MTS Holdings France S.a.r.l., MTS Japan Ltd.., MTS Korea Inc.., MTS Systems China Co. Ltd., MTS Systems Corporation, MTS Systems Danmark ApS., MTS Systems Europe B.V., MTS Systems Finance C.V.., MTS Systems Germany GmbH, MTS Systems Holding B.V.., MTS Systems Hong Kong Incorporated, MTS Systems Limited, MTS Systems Norden Aktiebolag, MTS Systems S.r.l, MTS Systems., MTS Systems.., MTS Sytems Do Brazil, MTS Testing Solutions India Private Limited., MTS Testing Systems Canada Ltd., Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology Suzhou Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited Enping, Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners Shanghai Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., R&D Engineering A/S., R&D Prague s.r.o., R&D Steel ApS., R&D Test Systems A/S., R&D Tools and Structures A/S., RDGDK Engineering Private Limited, Ramset Fasteners Hong Kong Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco Japan Inc., Simco Nederland B.V., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques  SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes B.V., Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Hong Kong Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Shanghai Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stokvis Tapes Taiwan Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Tianjin Co. Ltd., Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Subsidiaries, Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek China Limited, Teknek Japan Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Kunshan Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta Global Limited, Vesta Guangzhou Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil South Africa Pty Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, and Zip-Pak International B.V..

Read More
The Progressive Corporation, an insurance holding company, provides personal and commercial auto, personal residential and commercial property, general liability, and other specialty property-casualty insurance products and related services in the United States. It operates in three segments: Personal Lines, Commercial Lines, and Property. The Personal Lines segment writes insurance for personal autos and recreational vehicles (RV). This segment's products include personal auto insurance; and special lines products, including insurance for motorcycles, ATVs, RVs, watercrafts, snowmobiles, and related products. The Commercial Lines segment provides auto-related primary liability and physical damage insurance, and business-related general liability and property insurance for autos, vans, pick-up trucks, and dump trucks used by small businesses; tractors, trailers, and straight trucks primarily used by regional general freight and expeditor-type businesses, and long-haul operators; dump trucks, log trucks, and garbage trucks used by dirt, sand and gravel, logging, and coal-type businesses; and tow trucks and wreckers used in towing services and gas/service station businesses; as well as non-fleet and airport taxis, and black-car services. The Property segment writes residential property insurance for homeowners, other property owners, and renters, as well as offers personal umbrella insurance, and primary and excess flood insurance. The company also offers policy issuance and claims adjusting services; and acts as an agent to homeowner general liability, workers' compensation insurance, and other products. In addition, it provides reinsurance services. The company sells its products through independent insurance agencies, as well as directly on Internet through mobile devices, and over the phone. The Progressive Corporation was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Mayfield, Ohio.
By PTI: Bengaluru, Dec 14 (PTI) Prohibitory orders were today clamped in violence-hit Honnavar in coastal Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka after a knife attack on a school girl by two persons, police said.

The incident occurred at a time when Honnavar was showing signs of returning to normalcy after violence early this week over the mysterious death of a 19-year-old man, into which the state government yesterday announced a CBI probe.

advertisement

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said there was no link between the attack on the girl and the recent incidents.

Officials said the girl, a Class 9 student, was going to school when she was attacked with knife by two persons, injuring her hand. The two fled the scene.

The girl was admitted to a hospital where her condition was stated to be stable, they said.

With an intention to stall any attempt to give the incident a communal colour and keeping the recent violence in the district in mind, prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been promulgated in Honnavar for 24 hours from 11 am today, a senior district administration official said.

Police said they were investigating the incident.

Honnavar and Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district were hit by violence over the death of Mesta, hailing from the fishermen community, whose body was found near a lake two days after he was reported missing on December 6.

Conceding the demand of the family and the BJP, the Karnataka government had yesterday decided to hand over the case to the CBI.

The BJP has alleged that Mesta was killed byA "jihadi elements". A A

Siddaramaiah told reporters in Kushtagi that the attack on the girl had "noArelation" to the recent incidents. A

"I also appeal to the people not to pay attention to rumours. The situation is peaceful," he said. A A

Accusing the BJP of using Mestas death for political gains,Ahe said, "They want to polarise votes (for 2018 state assemblyAelections), it is not possible."

The BJP has already rejected the charge of fomenting communal trouble in the coastal district. PTI KSU RA VS GVS

--- ENDS ---
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.

Read More
The Sherwin-Williams Company develops, manufactures, distributes, and sells paints, coatings, and related products to professional, industrial, commercial, and retail customers. It operates through three segments: The Americas Group, Consumer Brands Group, and Performance Coatings Group. The Americas Group segment offers architectural paints and coatings, and protective and marine products, as well as OEM product finishes and related products for architectural and industrial paint contractors, and do-it-yourself homeowners. The Consumer Brands Group segment supplies a portfolio of branded and private-label architectural paints, stains, varnishes, industrial products, wood finishes products, wood preservatives, applicators, corrosion inhibitors, aerosols, caulks, and adhesives to retailers and distributors. The Performance Coatings Group segment develops and sells industrial coatings for wood finishing and general industrial applications, automotive refinish products, protective and marine coatings, coil coatings, packaging coatings, and performance-based resins and colorants. It serves retailers, dealers, jobbers, licensees, and other third-party distributors through its branches and direct sales staff, as well as through outside sales representatives. The company has operations primarily in the North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, and Australia. As of February 17, 2022, it operated approximately 5,000 company-operated stores and facilities. The Sherwin-Williams Company was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.
If BJP wins in Gujarat election it will be "an issue of deep concern to China because of its increasing economic interaction with India."

By Ananth Krishnan: The Gujarat election is being seen in China as "a litmus test" for how the Indian public sees Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reforms agenda, which a Beijing media report said "is an issue of deep concern to China because of its increasing economic interaction with India."

"If the BJP wins an overwhelming victory in Gujarat , the Modi administration may take more radical approaches to economic reform. China's companies will feel the changes no later than India's," said a commentary in the Global Times.

advertisement

"China is witnessing a boom in outbound investment, with direct investment to India in 2016 reportedly many times higher than the year before. The outlook for India's economic reforms is deeply related to a good number of Chinese companies doing business in India such as Xiaomi and OPPO.

However, if viewed from another angle, a loss for the BJP in Gujarat would be the biggest setback yet for the economic reforms initiated by the Modi administration. It's possible that voters in other Indian states might be influenced by a BJP loss in Gujarat and Modi's economic reforms might then be abandoned halfway due to a possible domino effect."

The commentary noted that "Modi's reforms have drawn fierce opposition from other parties and some economists, but those most qualified to evaluate the "Gujarat model" are the people of Gujarat."

"Whatever the election result is, it will have a great impact on the public opinion environment for the implementation of the rest of Modi's reform agenda," it said.

The paper said "China should take a close look at the BJP's Gujarat campaign."

"Companies doing business in India should prepare for possible changes in economic policy over the long run and possible volatility in India's financial markets next week after the results are announced," it concluded.

ALSO WATCH | Gujarat Exit Poll: India Today-Axis survey says BJP set to win for 6th straight term

--- ENDS ---
Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
Anima (Macau) president Albano Martins is planning, along with international animal rights organizations, to continually pressure the citys government and authorities regarding the status of the greyhounds after the Macau (Yat Yuen) Canidrome closes in July 2018.

In a press conference held yesterday at Anima, Martins revealed that it had sent several emails to the government and related authorities requesting a dialogue and that to date he had not received a reply.

According to Animas data, there were a total of 605 active greyhounds, while 66 are inactive  a contradiction to Canidromes figures of 301 active racing dogs and 66 inactive.

Currently, 44 owners own the greyhounds, a figure lower compared to the 66 owners last year.

Martins lamented that Anima has sent letters to the Chief Executive, lawmaker Angela Leong, and just a few weeks ago to the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, without receiving a reply from any of the parties.

Martins also asked Stanley Lei, executive director of the Canidrome, for a public debate on TV regarding its capabilities to handle the greyhounds when it closes next year.

Martins letter, sent on November 30, read, if you still think that you can handle them better than us, and your project for those greyhounds still alive is better than ours, why do we not discuss this subject in a public debate in English language.

Martins remarked that there has been no progress since 2012. We are still exactly in the same position of asking the government to give the greyhounds to us, he said.

Anima is asking the government and the Canidrome to grant them the greyhounds when it closes in July. They have pledged that they will facilitate and complete the adoption process in one year.

Currently, Martins revealed that there are 37 international associations, willing to assist Anima in the adoption process by finding adopting homes.

Around 317 homes from 15 countries and regions have already signed up to adopt these greyhounds.

According to our sources, since 1963 to 2017, only eight dogs went out alive and were all adopted, Martins told the press, fearing, left under the control of the Canidrome, only a few will only be adopted by next year.

The animal rights group president again criticized lawmaker Angela Leong for planning to establish a new animal rights association called the Macau General Association for Animal Protection, which would contact private owners concerning their greyhounds retirement  a move he slammed, as it will only delay the rehoming of the greyhounds.

Angela Leong previously questioned why Anima is so insistent in wanting to assume responsibility for the greyhounds once the Canidrome closes in July 2018. In October, she said that Canidrome will take responsibility of the dogs and is discussing the possibility of sending some to New Zealand or Australia if needed.

Martins argued yesterday that plans need to be made in advance, because it will take some time to transport these greyhounds to respective countries.

Greyhounds are required to undergo medical tests three months before they depart a city, he argued, noting that because of this, Anima needed to know whether or not they will receive the greyhounds.

One year is the only time Im asking. They have to make public tenders, make plans, how long will that take? Its impossible to finish it by one year, he said.

This week, Martins revealed, Anima facilitated the sending of two greyhounds to France, while another one was adopted in the region. Were working in advance to save as many greyhounds as possible, he said.
Five people died in an east Beijing fire, underscoring the challenges for the Chinese capital as it struggles to balance building safety with providing housing for its poor.

Local media reported that the residents of Chaoyang district died before dawn Wednesday after electric bike batteries plugged into a home-rigged charging system caught fire and belched noxious fumes into a three-story apartment building. The accident came a month after an inferno killed 19 in south Beijings Daxing district, prompting a controversial safety campaign that included the sudden eviction of thousands of migrant workers from unregulated slums.

A spate of deadly fires  and the authorities response  have generated an unusually intense debate in China about class, safety regulations and the Communist Partys heavy-handed leadership.

Beijing officials argue the mass evictions are a precautionary measure to protect migrants and have razed vast tenements in a matter of weeks. But the campaign has drawn widespread condemnation on social media from laborers as well as Chinas middle class, who say it is part of a longstanding government plan to control Beijings ballooning population by thinning out the so-called low-end socio-economic class.

Even before the fires this year, Beijing officials had been shuttering many working-class small businesses, citing building code violations and forcing migrant workers to go back to rural China.

But the sweeping fire safety campaign has become a flashpoint. Hundreds of migrant workers held a rare protest on Sunday against what they said were violent evictions, while scores of academics and white-collar Beijingers have signed an open letter expressing sympathy for the laborers cast into the winter cold with just days notice.

Beijing Communist Party boss Cai Qi appeared to double down on his safety campaign on Wednesday as he visited the scene of the latest fire. The state-run Beijing News quoted him as saying that the fire was a reminder that safety work must not be stopped for a moment.

Faced with popular criticism, the government launched a propaganda counteroffensive this week with Cai going on a talking tour to visit delivery boys and sanitation workers and thank them for their sweat and contributions to the capitals prosperity.

We need to give these workers respect and show even more care and love for them, he was quoted by the Beijing News as saying.

Authorities have tightly controlled domestic reporting on the Beijing fires, censored some search results and pursued activists and artists who have shared videos of razed migrant worker villages on social media.

During a recent visit to the razed Xinjian village in southern Beijing where 19 died, police patrols were seen blanketing the site and shooing away any visitors taking photographs.

Still, news reports of deadly fires have surfaced on a nearly weekly basis across the country. Apartment fires this month in Tianjin and Guangdong province killed 10 and eight people, respectively, while workers have perished in factories.

There were 15,000 Chinese workplace fires in the first 10 months of 2017, said Keegan Elmer, researcher at China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group. He said knee-jerk measures such as mass evictions will prove ineffective without better day-to-day fire safety oversight. Gerry Shih, Beijing, AP
One of the key power generation system components of Unit 1 of Taishan nuclear power plant cracked during an earlier pre-production test, according to a report by FactWire News Agency.

A boiler in Unit 1 appeared to have cracked during functional testing and must be replaced, according to a nuclear plant employee, the FactWire News Agency report reads.

He also told FactWire undercover reporters when they visited the site last month that representatives from Harbin Electric, the Chinese manufacturer of the boiler, came to the plant for a week in late October to discuss with the plant operator, Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture, a plan to replace the faulty boiler, according to FactWire.

Taishan Nuclear Power plant is being made by the joint venture between the China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), which is a China state-owned company, and the French electricity company Electricite de France.

CGN, in a reply to Fact Wire News Agency, said the Unit 1 of of Taishan nuclear power plant has already completed the cold functional and thermal functional tests. The test results were in line with design requirements. The deaerator is a common equipment of a conventional island thermal system, [] it does not belong to the nuclear safety related system.

China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), the developer of the Taishan nuclear project, said on Tuesday afternoon that there were partial defects in the welding of the deaerator in question, but insisted replacement work was near completion, FactWire News Agency writes.

CGNs official document says that the deaerator of Taishan Unit 1 is 46.6 meters long and 4.76 meters in diameter.

Last week, a Dongfang Electric engineer also confirmed to FactWire that the deaerator was supplied by Harbin Electric and the welding on the deaerator was problematic, the FactWire News Agency report reads.

Dongfang Electric is also co-responsible for manufacturing components for the Taishan nuclear power Unit 1.

The power plant is located 67 kilometers from Macau and 130 kilometers from Hong Kong, and is still under construction.

Safety concerns were raised last year after components of the nuclear plant were discovered to have been made in mainland China, not in France as previously thought.

According to FactWire, China had been hoping to launch Unit 1 this year, whereas French engineers who were sent to Taishan for the project, told FactWire that it could only be launched in 2018 at the earliest.

The National Nuclear Safety Administration of China stipulates that a nuclear plant must seek permission from the agency before loading fuel assemblies to conduct tests. But public records show that Taishan Unit 1 has yet to have received such a permit, FactWire reported.

Last year, members of the civil society had asked the MSAR government to clarify both issues related to the emergency plan and possible risks posed by the nuclear plant to Macaus population. A local delegation visited the nuclear plant to check the safety of the infrastructure.

The head of the Security Forces Coordination Office, Choi Lai Hang, led the local delegation and explained that Macau would not require protective measures, even in the event of a very serious nuclear incident (level 7) at the Taishan nuclear power plant.
The University of Macau (UM) recently received approval from the Office of Chinese Language Council International to establish a Confucius Institute. The institute is expected to become operational in early 2018.

According to a statement issued by the UM yesterday, the move is a response to the Macau SAR governments effort to participate in Chinas One Belt One Road initiative and to develop Macau into an international platform for Chinese language education, for overseas countries, and in particular Portuguese-speaking countries.

UM Rector Wei Zhao and Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FAH) Dean Hong Gang Jin recently attended the 12th Confucius Institute Assembly held in Xian. At the opening ceremony, Zhao and Jin received a plaque inscribed with Confucius Institute from Liu Yandong, vice premier of the State Council and council chair of the headquarters of the Confucius Institute.

UMs Confucius Institute, which will be under the FAH, will be located on the ground floor of E34 and is currently in the design and construction process. UM will establish a temporary office in early 2018 to carry out the work plan of the institute. FAHs Dean, Jin, and Associate Dean Shi Jianguo will serve as the director and deputy director of the institute, respectively.

According to the UM statement, the institute will make good use of Macaus unique status as a special administrative region, its advantageous geographic location, as well as its cultural and linguistic diversity to develop into an international platform for Chinese language teaching, training, and exchange for students from Portuguese-

speaking countries and countries with relations with Macau.

Courses in Chinese as a foreign language, offered by the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, will make up the core of the programs offered by the institute. In addition, teaching and research resources both inside and outside the university will be integrated, for example, the Department of Portuguese, also within the FAH, will be involved. The institute will carry out various training and research activities, cultural exchange activities, as well as Chinese language proficiency examinations.

The Confucius Institute is an important platform to promote the study the Chinese language. 525 branches have been established in 146 countries and regions since 2004, when the first Confucius Institute was founded.
Two local models were awarded at the Best Global Model 2017 held in November in the Azores, Portugal.

The annual competition gathers models from different countries to compete for a contract with a modeling agency in Portugal.

Representing Macau in the competition, Sam Lam and Annabelle Lin were awarded with Best Catwalk 2017 and 2017 Best Global Award  Photogenic, respectively.

The two models, each with a few years of experience, were selected to represent Macau by the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) and in cooperation with the Macau Productivity and Technology Transfer Center (CPTTM).

For the final selections, the bureaus held a mini modeling competition in a bid to review the candidates and select the best to travel to the Azores.

According to Lam, the mini contest attracted around a dozen local models.

Lam, who has been modeling in Macau for two years, said that the contest was the first competition he had joined, since the region does not have a platform for careers like his.

In Macau, I joined many fashion shows but it wasnt really professional. So when I went to the Azores, I met professional models who are top models from their respective countries so I learned a lot from them, Lam told the Times.

Lam says, he aims to continue to introduce Macau to modeling competitions as he had a hard time introducing where Macau is to his fellow models in the competition.

The male model also expressed his hope that Macau would create a platform for them to showcase their talents by holding competitions and through participating in global modeling contests.

He said he is interested in cooperating with relevant departments to assist other models like him who want to train and compete across the globe and represent the region, and also to promote local models in Macau.

There arent many chances for us, even for fashion designers, he shared.

Currently, there are only a few modeling agencies in Macau which assist models to search for designer clothes, accessories and contracts with brands.

Meanwhile, Lam also plans to join a modelling competition in Taiwan to help improve his skills.

Maybe its a chance for me and chance for Macaus models. When they go out of Macau and compete elsewhere, they will think that Macaus models have potential, so I want it to start from me, he shared.

Lam was invited to sign a contract with a modeling agency in Milan, who discovered him during the Best Global Model 2017.

According to him, it is likely that he will sign the contract before the year ends. LV
International aid group Doctors Without Borders said its field survey has found at least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed between August and September in a crackdown by Myanmars security forces.

The group, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement made available yesterday that it had conducted the survey in refugee camps in Bangladesh and estimated that at least 9,000 Rohingya died in Myanmars Rakhine state between Aug. 25 and Sept. 24. About 630,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar into Bangladesh to escape what the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

The estimate of the number of deaths announced by the group compares to Myanmars government figure of 400 in September as a result of attacks on police posts by Rohingya militants.

According to MSF, the dead included at least 730 children younger than 5.

Myanmars Information Ministry had said that most of the 400 dead were extremist terrorists who died during the militarys clearance operations. International aid and rights groups have accused the military of arson, killings and rapes of Rohingya villagers. Myanmar authorities blamed Rohingya militants for the violence.

Though more than 1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims have lived in the country for generations, they were stripped of their citizenship, denied almost all rights and labeled stateless.

The peak in deaths coincides with the launch of the latest clearance operations by Myanmar security forces in the last week of August, MSF Medical Director Sidney Wong in a statement.

She said the findings were staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member dead as a result of violence and horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured.

MSF said that among children below the age of 5, more than 59 percent who were killed during that period were reportedly shot, 15 percent burnt to death in their homes, 7 percent beaten to death and 2 percent died due to land mine blasts.

Since the Myanmars military conducted operations against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine state, the civilian government has barred most journalists, international observers and humanitarian aid workers from independently traveling to the region.

MSF said the numbers of deaths are likely to be an underestimation as we have not surveyed all refugee resettlements in Bangladesh because the surveys dont account for the families who never made it out of Myanmar. AP

Reuters demands release of two journalists

Reuters news agency called on Myanmar to immediately release its two journalists who were arrested for possessing important secret papers obtained from two policemen who had worked in Rakhine state, where violence widely blamed on security forces has forced more than 625,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. The Ministry of Information said Wednesday the journalists and policemen will be charged under the countrys colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries penalties of up to 14 years in prison. Reuters said Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been missing since Tuesday night. Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been reporting on events of global importance in Myanmar, and we learned today that they have been arrested in connection with their work, Stephen J. Adler, president and editor in chief of Reuters, said in a statement. We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom. We call for authorities to release them immediately, he said. The ministry posted a photo [below] of the two journalists in handcuffs, standing behind a table bearing documents, cellphones and currency.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping yesterday on a visit to Beijing aimed at repairing ties frayed by a dispute over the deployment of an anti-missile system.

The two leaders were to preside over a document signing ceremony following their talks, although there was no indication they would be issuing statements. While the visit is a sign of progress toward resolving the more than one-year-old dispute, China continues to demand the removal of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, saying it allows South Korea and its U.S. ally to spy on military activity in northeastern China.

South Korean businesses in China have suffered as a result of the dispute. China suspended group tours to South Korea that are a mainstay of the local tourism industry, pulled South Korean soap operas off television and banned the countrys popular K-Pop stars from visiting.

South Koreas Lotte business group, which provided the land for the missile-defense system, had to suspend business amid the anti-South Korea sentiments.

Moon has strived to balance South Koreas close political and military ties with the U.S. with its economic dependency on the Chinese market. While South Korea has resisted Chinas demands to withdraw THAAD, which it says is needed to counter the threat of North Korean missiles, Beijing has said it approves of a pledge from Seoul not to expand it.

That set the stage for a visit by South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha to Beijing last month at which she and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi affirmed their commitment to repair relations.

Beijing is North Koreas most important political and economic partner, but has enforced increasingly strict United Nations sanctions against its neighbor while seeking to persuade all parties to return to denuclearization talks.

A visit to Pyongyang by Chinese special envoy Song Tao last month appears to have created no breakthroughs. Song visited as part of a tradition of exchanges between the ruling parties of the two countries, but left apparently without meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. AP
The United Nations independent investigator on human rights in North Korea said yesterday he plans to examine North Korean claims that South Korea abducted 12 North Korean women.

Tomas Ojea Quintana said he raised the issue in a meeting with South Koreas vice foreign minister and requested that his government set up a meeting with the women, who had worked at a North Korean- run restaurant in China before coming to the South in April last year.

While North Korea regularly accuses South Korea of abducting or enticing its citizens to defect, Quintana said he was obliged to look into the case because his office has been gathering what seemed to be conflicting accounts of what happened. He didnt elaborate on the accounts.

He said he needed to be exactly precise about the womens situation and whether they decided to come to South Korea according to their own will.

Parents of these women living in North Korea are claiming that their daughters were abducted, so all these factors oblige me to pay attention to the case and understand exactly what happened, Quintana said at a news conference in Seoul as he wrapped up a four-day visit to South Korea.

In response to Quintanas comments, South Koreas Foreign Ministry said the government had sufficiently confirmed the workers free will in escaping from North Korea and resettling in the South. It wasnt immediately clear whether South Korea would allow Quintana to meet the workers.

The South Korean government has kept the workers location secret and prevented the media from contacting them.

North Korea, which often makes extreme claims about defectors, insists that the workers were abducted by South Korean spies and has repeatedly demanded their return. South Korea denies the accusation, saying the workers chose to resettle in South Korea on their own. South Korea also rejected a highly unusual overture by North Korea last year to temporarily send the workers relatives to the South to meet with them.

It was the largest group defection by North Koreans to the South since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2011, according to South Koreas government.

South Korean officials earlier said North Korean- run restaurants overseas have been suffering economically because of strengthened sanctions in response to the countrys nuclear weapons program. The workers who defected last year said their restaurant was struggling to meet demands from North Korean authorities for foreign currency earnings, South Korean officials said.

More than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to the South Korean government.Kim Tong-Hyung, Seoul, AP
Voting is over in the Gujarat election, and the exit poll results are in. How will Narendra Modi's BJP and Rahul Gandhi's Congress fare? As you wait for the Gujarat election result, we give you the best and worst case scenarios for both parties.

A woman gets an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) painted in her hair at a parlor to promote voting ahead of Gujarat state assembly election in Ahmedabad (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: Counting of votes in the year's biggest electoral battle - the Gujarat election - is just a couple of days away. Save the date: December 18.

While you wait for the results, we've broken down the results of the Gujarat exit polls for you.

The India Today-Axis My India poll predicts that BJP will comfortably win the home game in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state - and upset the Congress' applecart in Himachal Pradesh.

advertisement

But what are the best and worst case Gujarat election result scenarios for the BJP and the Congress? We've analysed our own data, and exit poll results put out by other channels, and broken down the numbers for you.

Remember, the finishing line in the Gujarat election is 92 (91 + 1) seats (in a legislature with 182)

BJP's BEST CASE SCENARIO: 128 seats

News Nation's Gujarat exit poll says Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party will bag as many as 128 seats - more than a two-thirds majority. If this turns out to be the case, it will be a body blow for the Congress. While it's not the 150 seat-tally that BJP President Amit Shah targeted, it's eight more seats than the party currently has in the Gujarat Assembly.

BJP'S WORST CASE SCENARIO

Now here's a statistic should please the BJP top brass: There isn't a single Gujarat exit poll that predicts a BJP loss. The least impressive projection comes from the India Today-Axis My India poll, which says 99 is the lowest number of seats the saffron party will get. That's seven more than the majority mark.

CONGRESS' BEST CASE SCENARIO

While all the Gujarat exit polls suggest that the Congress' prospects are rather gloomy, president-elect Rahul Gandhi can take heart from one statistic: Every single Gujarat exit poll predicts that the Grand Old Party's seat share will rise. The Congress currently has 43 seats in the state assembly. How many seats will the party add to that number after this Gujarat election? The India Today-Axis My India exit poll brings the gladdest tidings: It predicts a best-case tally of 82 seats - an increase of 39.

CONGRESS' WORST CASE SCENARIO

None of the Gujarat exit polls expects the Congress to get less than 52 seats - that's News Nation's worst-case projection.

AND IF WE AVERAGE ALL THE EXIT POLL RESULTS...?

...the BJP still wins comfortably, with 111 seats. The Congress gets 70 seats.

advertisement

Here's a graphic with all the information you need.

In the run-up to the Gujarat election, there was talk of a possible upset. Speculation focused on resentment in Gujarat's Patidar community, on the Hardik Patel factor, on the influence of Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh Thakor, on traders and GST...but it looks like Narendra Modi's BJP is all set to govern Gujarat for a sixth consecutive term.

For all Gujarat election news from India Today, click here. To read highlights from our Gujarat exit poll broadcast, click here.

WATCH | Gujarat Assembly elections: Results of the India Today Axis-My India exit poll 2017

--- ENDS ---
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning that Iran may be defying a U.N. call to halt ballistic missile development even as it complies with the nuclear deal with six world powers.

The U.N. chief says in a report to the Security Council that the United Nations is investigating Irans possible transfer of ballistic missiles to Houthi Shiite rebels in Yemen that may have been used in launches aimed at Saudi Arabia on July 22 and Nov. 4.

The report on implementation of a U.N. resolution that endorsed the July 2015 nuclear agreement was obtained yesterday [Macau time] by The Associated Press. The U.S. Mission to the United Nations said Ambassador Nikki Haley would hold a news conference today in Washington to highlight its findings as well as Irans destabilizing activities in the Middle East region and elsewhere in the world.

In the report, Guterres stressed that the nuclear deal remains the best way to ensure the exclusively peaceful nature of Irans nuclear program.

He said President Donald Trumps Oct. 13 decision not to certify the agreement under U.S. law created considerable uncertainty about its future. But, he added, I am reassured that the United States has expressed its commitment to stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for now.

Trump, however, has left open the possibility of pulling out of the nuclear deal.

Guterres welcomed support for the treaty from its other parties  China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, the European Union and numerous other countries.

I encourage the United States to maintain its commitments to the plan and to consider the broader implications for the region before taking any further steps, he said. Similarly, I encourage the Islamic Republic of Iran to carefully consider the concerns raised by other participants in the plan.

Trump has called the agreement a bad deal, and the U.S. has focused especially on its time limits and a provision in the Security Council resolution that calls on Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Guterres said the U.N. is studying debris from missiles fired at Yanbu in Saudi Arabia on July 22 and at the capital of Riyadh on Nov. 4 and also is reviewing other information.

He said France, Germany, Britain and the United States sent a letter saying the Simorgh Space Launch Vehicle that Iran launched on July 27, if configured as a ballistic missile, is inherently capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

But Guterres said Russia, an ally of Iran, sent a letter Aug. 16 that the Security Council resolution contains only a call for Iran to forgo missile work  not a prohibition. He said Iran says the launch vehicle was part of a scientific and technological activity related to the use of space technology that it is determined to pursue.

The Security Council discussed the launch on Sept. 8, and there was no consensus among council members on how it related to the 2015 resolution, Guterres said.

He said Israel protested that Irans test of a Qiam ballistic missile on Nov. 15, 2016 used a Star of David as the intended target, and citied other ballistic missiles it reportedly launched at targets in Syria on June 18-19. France, Germany, Britain and the U.S. also raised these tests as well as the test of a medium-range missile July 4.

The secretary-general said Iran called Israels claim of a specifically marked target a sheer falsehood. Iran also said its military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, have not been designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons and thus are outside the purview of the Security Council resolution, Guterres said. Edith M. Lederer, United Nations, AP
Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pledged $100 million and $30 million respectively in support of the special counter-terrorism force deployed by five African countries- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger (known as G5-Sahel).

The announcement was made by French President Emmanuel Macron at a meeting held in Paris Wednesday to drum up support for the G5 Force..

The leaders of the five nations, which are among the worlds poorest, joined Macron and other leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the talks at a chateau in La Celle-Saint-Cloud outside Paris.

We must win this battle against terrorism in the Sahel, Macron said at a press conference after the meeting. There are attacks every day and states are under threat. We must intensify efforts.

The force also aims at countering radicalization and human trafficking, two major threats to stability and security in the impoverished Sahel region, where Al Qaeda and associated groups have a significant presence, while the Islamic State terror group (ISIS) also appears to be staking a claim in the volatile region.

The European Union has promised a 50 million support for the G5 force, with diplomacy chief Federica Mogherini citing stability of the Sahel region as crucial not only for Africa but also for Europe.

The US for its part pledged $60 million in support of the UN-backed counterterrorism force which has 5000 soldiers with a command in Mali.

Each African country has pledged 10 million euros, France promised 8 million and the Netherlands pledged 5 million.

The force needs 250 million euros to get going, with the cost eventually rising to 400 million, French officials say.
Credit: American Heart Association

On the first Christmas after she suffered a major stroke, Chris Richards was determined to craft her traditional family celebration at their home in Laramie, Wyoming, rising at 5 a.m. for a day of baking, cooking and wrapping presents.

"I was trying to prove I could still do it all myself," Chris said.

"Everyone was trying to help, but pretty soon she was shooing everybody out of the kitchen," said Loren, her husband. "We weren't doing it the way she would be doing it."

That night Chris wound up in the emergency room, exhausted, suffering chest pain and fearful she was having a heart attack.

She wasn't, but the Richards family learned a lesson that everyone with cardiac or stroke issues should heed during the holidays: "You can still have your traditions, but things are going to change," said her daughter, Brittany Board. "There's going to be a new normal."

That's the message that Melissa Carry, M.D., emphasizes this time of year. Carry, a cardiologist at the Baylor Jack and Jane Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital in Dallas, said many of her patients have already made lifestyle changes to protect their health, but need a reminder when the holidays come around.

"I tell them when you start thinking about what you're going to do for the holidays, it's not about being perfect," she said. "You have to try to tone it down."

That means limiting stress by not overbooking too many holiday events, Carry said. It means not comparing yourself to Martha Stewart when you prepare your holiday home. And perhaps most of all, it means thinking twice, and maybe a third time, at the dinner table and the bar.

Disregarding the advice invites many health consequences.

Carry said the body responds to stress by producing adrenaline, a hormone that increases strength and awareness to help deal with a crisis. But too much adrenaline over an extended period causes problems ranging from anxiety to headaches to heart disease.

"As adrenaline levels go up, blood pressure goes up," she said. "Then you add a bunch of fatty food on top of it and your arteries become unstable. You can have a heart attack. This is our busiest time of the year because people don't handle the stress of the holidays well."

Alcohol, meanwhile, "is actually a toxin to the heart," Carry said. "You can drink too much and go into atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat that increases the risk for stroke). We call it 'holiday heart syndrome' and we see it a lot around Christmas."

Carry has always told her patients not to overeat or drink to excess during the holiday season, and to work in some exercise to relieve stress. In these hyper-partisan times, she has another recommendation to bring to the dinner table.

"I'm going to start telling them, here are some safe topics to talk about," she joked. "No politics, no religion. Let's not get upset."

But the responsibility doesn't just rest with people who have health issues. Carry said family, friends and caregivers need to pay attention as well.

"Someone who's had a stroke or a heart attack that weakened their heart or impaired their abilities may try to do what they did in the past, and they're frustrated because they're not able to," she said. "I have to remind them, 'You've already done this for 40 years. It's time for somebody else to step up and do it.'"

The Richards family said they tried that first year after Chris's stroke, but gave in too easily. They haven't made the same mistake since.

"Before the stroke we'd sit on the couch and ask if she needed something and she'd say, 'No I have it,'" Brittany said. "Now we don't ask. We all pitch in a lot more. You have to stay aware as a caregiver, making sure they don't overdo it."

The result, she said, is a better Christmas.

"It's made us closer," Brittany said. "We're able to step back and say we're having another holiday together and that's what matters. In 2014 (when Chris suffered the stroke), we weren't sure if we ever would."

Loren agrees, with one wry addendum. "Everybody pitches in," he said. "But we still do it her way."
Catherine Cutter, professor of food science and assistant director of food safety and quality programs for Penn State Extension, talks to Armenien students. She believes internationalization of the state university extension system, which has been vital to establishing food safety in the United States, would greatly benefit the world. Credit: Penn State

Food safety practices that Americans take for grantedwashing hands with soap, refrigeration, and not cutting raw meat and vegetables on the same surface without disinfectionare not widely practiced in other places around the world, and researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences want to change that.

The World Health Organization estimates that every year, 600 million people, almost one in every 10 people in the world, get sick after eating contaminated food every year. As a result, 420,000 die annually from foodborne illness. The lack of general food-safety knowledge and poor food-handling practices result in the deaths of approximately 125,000 children under the age of five every year, the international group estimates.

Foodborne illness is a global health challenge, where some diseases are controlled and others evolve as new threats. This danger is especially significant with the increase in international trade of food and food-related commodities.

Food safety has become a global concern that is no longer an isolated threat, according to Catherine Cutter, professor of food science and assistant director of food safety and quality programs for Penn State Extension. She believes internationalization of the state university extension system, which has been vital to establishing food safety in the United States, would greatly benefit the world.

As a first step, Cutter's Penn State research group in 2016 offered a Food Safety System Management curriculum at the Agribusiness Teaching Center of the National Agrarian University in Yerevan, Armeniaand then studied its effectiveness. The training, which was based on a Penn State Extension food-safety certificate program, was part of the wider Innovation for Agricultural Training and Education program, a joint venture of Penn State, Virginia Tech, Tuskegee University and the University of Florida.

"Internationalization of extension programs not only benefits the targeted audience but also provides extension specialists and educators with opportunities to incorporate international perspectives into their programs," she said. "Increasingly, diverse clientele would benefit from global extension programs and help to promote a safer food supply."

Researchers presented the food safety system management curriculum to fourth-year agribusiness students. Prior to beginning the program, demographic data was collected and a pretest was administered to gauge the food-safety knowledge, behavior and attitude of participants.

At the end of the program, students' food safety attitudes, skills, knowledge and behavior were judged to have improved significantly, and a follow-up survey of food safety attitude and behavior done three months later suggested the training had made a lasting difference. Credit: Penn State

The participants' hand-washing techniques were videotaped and scored before the program commenced. Immediately after completion of the entire curriculum, a post-test with identical questions for food-safety knowledge, behavior and attitude was administered, and hand-washing skills were again assessed. Throughout the program, students also were given tours of food businesses that employ food safety best practices.

At the end of the program, students' food-safety attitudes, hand-washing skills, knowledge and behavior were judged to have improved significantly, and a follow-up survey of food-safety attitude and behavior done three months later was consistent with the post-test survey results. These results suggest that the training is making a lasting impression.

Information from the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Food Science Education, will be of interest to education experts, extension professionals, food-industry personnel and regulatory agencies as they develop and disseminate an international food-safety program, Cutter pointed out.

While the research findings may seem obvious to many Americanswho take for granted food-safety techniques uniformly required and practiced in this countryfood handlers in some countries need rudimentary training, explained lead researcher Siroj Pokharel, a postdoctoral scholar in Cutter's research group.

"There are places where people do not have that basic knowledge of how to prepare food in a safe way and prevent foodborne illness, and there was a low level of food-safety knowledge initially among the students we worked with in Armenia," Pokharel said.

"But at the end of the training we measured a significant improvement in the students' knowledge, behavior and attitude toward food safety," he added. "This was the Food Science Department's first attempt to launch an extension food-safety program internationally, and we believe it was a success."

Cutter has plans to replicate the program in Ukraine next year and in Africa and Latin America after that. "The bottom line is that food safety is a global issue and Penn State can make a big difference in the world," she said. "We are talking to a number of different countries about extending extension food-safety programs."
Resistance threat looms. Credit: University of Queensland

Australia's rising number of gonorrhoea cases has been described as a potential 'perfect storm', with the emergence of extensively drug resistant strains overseas.

University of Queensland researchers are leading a clinical study determining the most appropriate treatment for patients by analysing drug resistance from the DNA of the organism causing the infection.

Associate Professor David Whiley said this would enable the most powerful antibiotics to be preserved for cases that would not respond to other drugs.

"We know the antibiotic pipeline is wearing thin, so we're using the molecular test to identify gonorrhoea that would be susceptible to older drugs like ciprofloxacin," Dr Whiley said.

"Ciprofloxacin would not be recommended for general use but could be effective for many patients, instead of our really precious drugs that we need to protect."

There were about 20,000 cases of gonorrhoea in Australia last year, with the highest incidences among men who have sex with men in urban areas, and among people living in remote Indigenous communities.

"Numbers have increased dramatically in the past five to 10 years, and we are actually getting up to rates which are similar to the pre-1980s HIV/AIDS campaigns around safe sex.

"We are losing the battle to control gonorrhoea even though we have organisms that are still very susceptible to our current drugs."

Credit: University of Queensland

The World Health Organization has recently warned about sporadic incidences  including one case in Australia  of gonorrhoea resistant to all current antibiotics.

"That was a tourist who appears to have been infected by a fellow tourist somewhere in Australia and left the country, and we haven't been able to find that strain since," Dr Whiley said.

"The key thing is for GPs and sexual health clinicians to ring all the alarm bells if someone appears to have failed treatment, particularly if it's our current first-line dual therapy of the antibiotics ceftriaxone and azithromycin.

"We really want to know about that, and fortunately that message is getting out there.

"But really, in Australia at the moment we have a control issue rather than a treatment issue."

Dr Whiley said he would not currently expect patients who walk through the clinic door to have their treatment fail in Australia.

"If we were to suddenly have gonorrhoea organisms that are very difficult to treat, that's almost the perfect stormwe definitely don't want that."

The molecular methods of detecting resistance will offer improved ability to detect the emergence of drug-resistant strains, and for the first time will be fast enough to directly guide individual patient treatment.
Most people who board this blue-and-white MD-10 cargo plane will never leave the groundinstead, they'll take a different type of journey.

When they step inside the aircraft, they are blind or have vision impairments that keep them from living productive lives.

When they disembark, they can see.

It's the high-tech facility inside the airplane, which was on display at Moffett Field over the weekend, that allows for that transformation. Behind the cockpit, the plane, known as the "Flying Eye Hospital," is equipped with exam equipment, an operating room and a recovery room that fits up to three patients. With support from local doctors and universities, and donations from California tech companies, the flying hospital lands in developing countries around the world, treats patients suffering from eye diseases that are considered curable in the U.S., trains the region's local doctors, and then flies off to the next location. It's a unique approach to bringing sight to the world, both because of the physical shape of the hospital itself and because of the program's emphasis on training.

"There's no way that an individual doctor or an individual organization can take care of all of the blindness and vision impairment themselves," said Dr.. Doug Fredrick, a pediatric ophthalmologist at Stanford Children's Hospital who volunteers aboard the plane. "However, if you are able to train the local physicians to care for these patients, that's something that will be sustainable."

The flying hospital, run by global nonprofit Orbis, was in the Bay Area to restock its supplies, check its equipment and hobnob with potential donors in cash-flush, tech-savvy Silicon Valley. It's the plane's second trip hereit was last at Moffett Field in the summer of 2016. From here, the flying hospital will head to Arizona for maintenance and then to Florida to visit Orbis supporters before jetting off to Peru early next year.

Why build a hospital on a plane?

"You can go wherever there's a runway," said Orbis president and CEO Bob Ranck. "We can go into the mountains of Peru. We can go into the inner countries of Africa."

When Dr.. Doug Fredrick, pediatric ophthalmologist at Stanford Children'sHospital, returned to Burma in 1999 with eye care nonprofit Orbis, he saw a little boy he'd operated on the year before. To say "thank you" for restoring the boy's sight, the boy's father presented Fredrick with this carving as a gift. (Courtesy of Dr.. Doug Fredrick)

When Dr.. Doug Fredrick, pediatric ophthalmologist at Stanford Children's Hospital, returned to Burma in 1999 with eye care nonprofit Orbis, he saw a little boy he'd operated on the year before. To say "thank you" for restoring the boy's sight, the boy's father presented Fredrick with this carving as a gift. (Courtesy of Dr.. Doug Fredrick)

Fredrick, who traveled to China and India with Orbis this year, says those trips give him an adrenaline boost that keeps him going during his day-to-day life. He's been doing at least one mission a year since 1998, when he and a nurse went to Burma (now Myanmar). During that trip, they treated a 3-month-old baby who was blind due to cataracts in both eyes. They operated on the child, who they took to calling "baby green pants" because his parents always dressed him in green pants. The surgeries went well, and the child was sent home.

A year later, Fredrick returned to Burma. There was "baby green pantsstill wearing green pantsbut now he was running around and playing just like any other sighted toddler.

To show his gratitude for his son's vision, the child's father presented Fredrick with a wood carving of a baby cradled by a hand, topped with an eye.

"I've got that statue sitting in my office, and I look at it frequently," Fredrick said. "It was very emotional."

The Orbis team sees a range of eye problems including cataracts, retinopathy (an eye disease caused by diabetes) and glaucoma, and trains a region's local doctors to treat these conditions themselves, so patients can continue to receive care long after Orbis has packed up and left. The plane is equipped with high-tech teaching simulators where trainees can poke and prod fake eyeballs inside a mannequin head, watching their work through a microscope. To upgrade its equipment, Orbis soon will receive a new simulator from UC Davis.

Every surgery that doctors perform aboard the plane is broadcast to a television in the front of the aircraft, where trainees can sit and watch the procedure, and ask the surgeon questions in real-time. The surgeries also are live-streamed for training doctors to watch around the world.

The operating room and recovery room look more like they're inside a hospital than on board a plane. But performing surgery inside an aircraft has its challenges. Windy days, for example, can be difficult.

"When we were in Mongolia, the entire plane would shift and you felt a bit seasick," said Dr.. Hunter Cherwek, Orbis' deputy chief of clinical services.

Another detail you won't find in a typical hospitalall the nurses are trained flight attendants and know how to evacuate the aircraft in case of an emergency.

The team sees a lot of childrenas evidenced by the many teddy bears, some of which wear eye patches, on board the plane.

Monelle Ross, an Orbis staff nurse from Canada, remembers a teenage boy who boarded the plane in Cameroon this past fall. He'd been blinded in an accident and needed retina surgeries on both eyes. After the first surgery, Ross asked him "can you see me?" He said yes, and with that simple answer, reminded Ross of why she does this work.

"To be able to see the eyes focus on you because they're seeing you," she said, "it's such a great feeling."

2017 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Maria Barocio, 45, who has early-onset Alzheimers, walks with her doctor, Freddi Segal-Gidan, at the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center. Credit: USC Photo/Gus Ruelas

Freddi Segal-Gidan, known as "Dr. Freddi" to her patients, talks softly as she walks with an Alzheimer's patient.

As it turns out, the doctor's patient is just 45 years old.

"Maria has four children, and the youngest is only 3," Segal-Gidan said. "Her husband can't work because he's a full-time caregiver."

Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease began showing when Maria Barocio was in her early 40s. She has what's known as the Jalisco gene mutation, which causes early-onset Alzheimer's. Maria is among the 1 percent of Alzheimer's patients who have genetic mutations known to cause the disease.

Segal-Gidan is ana ssociate professor of clinical neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Together with USC neurologist Helena Chang Chui, she directs the Geriatric Nuerobehavior and Alzheimer's Center at Rancho Los Amigos in Downey, where they care for about a dozen families affected by the Jalisco gene mutation.

"It's heartrending when we see these patients going through Alzheimer's at age 40," Chui said. "Their children are still in school and they have to watch their father or mother go through this decline."

Superstitions and misdiagnosis

Jalisco gene patients are descended from a common ancestor, and they have roots in Mexico's state of Jalisco. The mutation, identified in 2006, spread through generations of large families and a limited gene pool.

"In small villages, when someone suffers from dementia in their early 40s, it's taboo," Segal-Gidan said. "There is a belief they were cursed in some way."

Physicians aren't usually looking for Alzheimer's in a 40-year-old patient, and they sometimes initially misdiagnose Jalisco patients as schizophrenic.

Debilitating stiffness in the limbs, common in Jalisco patients, can mislead doctors to incorrectly conclude that multiple sclerosis is the cause.

Patients with the Jalisco mutation are descended from a common ancestor in Mexico and have a high incidence of Alzheimers. Credit: USC Photo/Gus Ruelas

The next generation

Sons and daughters of Jalisco patients are faced with stark choices. They have a 50 percent chance of carrying the mutation, which can be determined with a blood test. A positive result brings the prognosis of early-onset Alzheimer's and the risk of passing on the mutation to children.

"Some decide not to get tested," Chui said. "They don't want to know. For those who do, we have a genetic counselor ready in case they get a positive result."

Pre-symptomatic Jalisco carriers face decisions about whether to get married and have children. They can also consider in-vitro testing for the mutation during pregnancy, and plan career and life choices with the knowledge they will develop the Alzheimer's relatively early.

"I hope we can stop the spread of this mutation by educating the families so they can speak honestly with their children," Segal-Gidan said. "We want them to understand they have some control of their own destiny, and make decisions about being tested and procreating."

A rare opportunity for research

Chui and Segal-Gidan refer some patients and their families to John Ringman, a USC researcher who's been studying the Jalisco mutation for almost two decades. A number of Ringman's patients travel to California, where he hopes to extend research and education efforts.

"I saw my first Jalisco patient in 1999," Ringman said. "I wasn't particularly interested in dementia at the beginning of my career. Then I saw these families getting Alzheimer's in their 40s. This isn't a phenomenon of aging, and I thought if we can learn to prevent this, my life's work will be accomplished."

Jalisco mutation carriers give researchers like Ringman an unusual edge in the fight against Alzheimer's. The timeline of their disease development is pre-set. Biological changes that accompany Alzheimer's can be monitored before symptoms surface, and medications can be tested to see if they slow or mitigate the disease.

"If we ever find an effective medication, I'll be out of a joband I'd love that," he said.

Connecting with care

"Some of our patients can't work. They were fired," Segal-Gidan said. "They've paid into the system and they should have access to disability, but they need help navigating the process. Some have even faced deportation because they weren't able to pass a citizenship test."

At Rancho Los Amigos, Jalisco patients and their families are connected with social services and support networks. Clinicians and social workers assist with applications for in-home services, insurance coverage and emotional support. Medication is monitored and adjusted to help patients with symptoms like depression.

"We can also adjust medication to make some of our patients easier to care for," Segal-Gidan said. "We want to keep these families together and keep our patients at home as long as they can be there. That's really my hope."
(HealthDay)Requiring insurers that participate in Medicare or Medicaid to also participate in Marketplaces in the same geographic area could improve access to insurance, according to a study published in the December issue of Health Affairs.

Noting that the five largest U.S. commercial health insurance companies together enroll 43 percent of the country's insured population, Cathy Schoen, from the New York Academy of Medicine, and Sara R. Collins, Ph.D., from the Commonwealth Fund, both in New York City, examined the public policy implications of membership and financial trends among the big five health insurers.

The researchers note that the five largest insurers have remained profitable since the passage of the Affordable Care Act due to profits in market segments other than the Marketplaces, which have experienced losses. Companies with significant Medicare or Medicaid enrollment still insure beneficiaries in states in which insurers do not participate in Marketplaces. If federal or state governments, or both, required insurers that participate in Medicare or Medicaid to also participate in the Marketplaces in the same geographic area, there would be potential to improve access. These requirements could guarantee more viable and less volatile insurance.

"The interdependence of public programs and private insurers offers the potential to address the instability of individual insurance markets," the authors write.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Despite the removal of many logistical/professional obstacles, and clear guidance from national bodies, UK child organ donation rates remain lower than in other comparable countries, say experts in a leading article published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Many families of dying children are simply not even given the chance to consider the option, and potentially save another child's life, they argue.

Over the past several years, national drives have cleared the way for organ donation to be made easier, with the appointment of specialist staff and the establishment of organ donation committees in every acute hospital and health board. And guidance on donations specifically from children has been published by national bodies.

Yet the overall rise in UK donation rates has not been replicated in children, where rates haven't budged and are lower than elsewhere, say the authors.

There are wide variations in organ donation rates among children's units across the UK, little research on the topic, and performance and other issues at each stage of the donation processfrom identification of a potential donor through to recovery of the organ(s)all of which compromise the numbers of potential donors, they say.

The latest available audit of organ donation from children's intensive care units in 2015-16 shows that in around one in four cases a child wasn't referred to the specialist donation team because they weren't even identified as a potential donor, and/or the option was not even raised with families.

But in around one in five cases "no persuasive or legitimate reason could be identified," say the authors.

Although there are some signs of change, the full potential of organ donation from among newborns and infants has yet to be realised, despite clarification in 2015 on the diagnosis of brain death in this group of children, they contend.

While NHS Blood and Transplant audits the potential for organ donation from all adult intensive care units, emergency care departments, and all 27 children's intensive care units in the UK, it doesn't audit neonatal intensive care units, they point out.

These audits, which are carried out by specialists nurses, pinpoint where in the process the potential for donation was lost or whether donation was even considered at all, and the data from each hospital fed back to trusts and health boards every six months, and published on the NHS Blood and Transplant website.

Family refusal remains a major obstacle to organ donation from children, emphasise the authors, but that is where trained staff are key, as they can ensure that "families are given the chance to consider donation, and that it is broached at the most appropriate time by the most appropriate person, and in the most appropriate way," say the authors.

Immediate focus should be given to consent rates and supporting family decision-making, they urge.

And they call for public debate on the acceptability of interventions before the death of a child donor and the development of technologies to enable the retrieval of hearts.

"Many formal professional obstructions to child donation have been removed over the past 5 years in the UK, but [variations in] individual practice still leaves the families of dying children without the opportunity to consider donation," write the authors.

"Addressing this and considering those issues around poor donation consent rates compared with other countries...remain the key next steps in UK child donation."

More information: Current status of paediatric and neonatal organ donation in the UK, Archives of Disease in Childhood (2017). Journal information: Archives of Disease in Childhood Current status of paediatric and neonatal organ donation in the UK,(2017). DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2017-313466
As the health care community moves on multiple fronts to address the opioid crisis, one area that holds promise is in litigation against those who manufacture and distribute prescription opioid drugs, according to a University of Michigan researcher.

In a new article published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Rebecca Haffajee of the U-M School of Public Health, along with Michelle Mello of Stanford University, analyzed the history of litigation efforts to hold those parties accountable.

To date, lawsuits have enjoyed limited success, at best settling for amounts not likely to financially harm manufacturers and distributors in the $13 billion-a-year industry enough to prompt change, said Haffajee, assistant professor of health management and policy and an attorney. She also is affiliated with the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

"Early litigation brought by individuals harmed by prescription opioids against drug companies was minimally effective at mitigating the epidemic, in terms of guilty verdicts, large payouts or industry changes in behavior," she said. "However, in more recent years, litigation holds greater promise to succeed and reduce public health opioid harms, thanks to the large numbers of suits waged by governments and innovative legal theories they employ."

Haffajee said there have been more than 100 cases filed by state and local governments, and more are in the pipeline.

Opioids are a class of drugs that includes prescription pain pills and illicitly manufactured substances like heroin and fentanyl. According to the authors, more than 300,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses since 2000, and it's expected another half million lives will be lost in the next decade. Health professionals across the country are attempting to slow the epidemic by encouraging physicians to prescribe fewer of the medications and raising awareness about the dangers with the public.

In the piece, the authors note that opioid lawsuits bear similarities to tobacco litigation, in that the suits involve addictive substances and are being brought by classes of similarly situate individuals and by governments. Some of the legal arguments are also similar: that the companies were fraudulent in how they represented the harms of these products and promoted product use in a manner that enabled unjust enrichmentor company profiting at the expense of the government.

"But prescription opioids differ from tobacco, in that they are FDA-approved substances," Haffajee said. "So many claims around defective design and failure to warn (such as on packaging) are less credible for opioids than they were for tobacco."

Add to this that individuals harmed by opioids often did not take them as prescribed and doctors overprescribed them, and company liability is a bit more difficult to establish, she said.

"The most promising legal claims are those that avoid plausible opioid company defensessuch as that the products were FDA-approved, or that individuals and physicians misused or misprescribed the drugs," she said. "So government claims of fraud, misbranding, public nuisance, unjust enrichment and failure to maintain effective controls (under the Controlled Substances Act) stand the best chance of success."
As you wait for the Gujarat election result, here are photos that capture the colours and thrills of what was perhaps the most widely-anticipated electoral contest of the year.

Will the BJP win 150 seats in the Gujarat election? That's what Amit Shah wanted, but exit polls made more conservative predictions (Photo: Reuters)

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the undisputed star of the Gujarat election, called it "a festival of democracy." With counting day just around the corner, 182 constituencies in Gujarat - a Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stronghold for 22 years - are waiting with bated breath to see if the lotus will remain in bloom.

The campaign for the Gujarat elections 2017 was bitterly contested. The Congress, buoyed by the influence of Patidar leader Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani, fought tooth and nail. While all Gujarat exit polls point to a comfortable win for Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, the voters' verdict will be made public on Monday.

advertisement

If you didn't get to experience the emotion of the Gujarat elections, don't worry. We've compiled photographs that capture the spirit of this pulsating electoral campaign, just for you. As you wait for the Gujarat election result, take a lot at these pictures.

A CITIZEN'S DUTY, AN INDIAN'S PRIDE: On each of the two polling days in the Gujarat elections, Narendra Modi asked residents of his home state to come out and vote in record numbers. His mother Heeraben, who's in her nineties, was among those who headed to a polling booth to cast their vote. The PM himself got in line to vote in Ahmedabad, as rapturous crowds waited outside the booth (picture below). One of the most remarkable stories from this year's Gujarat elections was about a Mandvi groom who voted on his wedding day, bedecked in finery.

The first photo below tells a story just as inspiring - an elderly woman being carried in a blanket after voting.

An elderly woman is carried in a blanket after casting her vote at a polling station during the last phase of Gujarat elections 2017 in Ahmedabad (Photo: Reuters)

A woman gets an Electronic Voting Machine painted in her hair at a parlor to promote voting (Photo: Reuters)

In Ahmedabad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shows his supporters that he's just voted (Photo: Reuters)

MODI MANIA: As India Today Consulting Editor Rajdeep Sardesai has noted, the Gujarat election was fought on Narendra Modi's "personal charisma." These photos show how much adulation the former Gujarat chief minister continues to enjoy on his home turf. To learn more about the prime minister's efforts to lead his party to victory, read Uday Mahurkar's piece in our magazine.

A supporter holds up a cut-out of a lotus, the election symbol of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), with an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: Reuters) A supporter holds up a cut-out of a lotus, the election symbol of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), with an image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Photo: Reuters)

Modi, Modi, Modi: Gujarat's mantra (Photo: AP)

A motorcyclist carries life size cut-outs of Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah (Photo: AP)

RAHUL'S TIME TO SHINE: However, Modi and the BJP found a worthy opponent in Rahul Gandhi, who is all set to take over as Congress president tomorrow. Until now, Rahul's party has managed only two major electoral triumphs this year: the Punjab election win, and Ahmed Patel's victory in another Gujarat election - the Rajya Sabha election that saw BJP president Amit Shah become an MP. But what about the election to the state legislature? Exit polls predict a loss for the Congress, but there's one silver lining - all of them say that party will increase its seat share in the Gujarat Assembly.

Rahul Gandhi at the Somnath temple (Photo: PTI) Rahul Gandhi at the Somnath temple (Photo: PTI)

advertisement

Three men - the charismatic Hardik Patel, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor, and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani - were key components of the Congress' strategy for the Gujarat elections. Hardik, who is infuential in the electorally powerful Patidar community, allied with the Congress after the party promised reservations. Alpesh joined the Congress. Jignesh contested as an independent, and no INC leader ran against him.

But when the Gujarat election result is announced, will the troika's charge have mattered? We'll find out Monday

Hardik Patel addresses a rally (Photo: Twitter/@HardikPatel_)

Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani (Photo: Twitter/@jigneshmevani80)

OBC leader Alpesh Thakor (Photo: @AlpeshThakor_)

advertisement

To read highlights from our Gujarat exit poll broadcast,click here.

WATCH | Gujarat Assembly elections: Results of the India Today Axis-My India exit poll 2017

--- ENDS ---
(HealthDay)Before the #MeToo movement and the fall of numerous powerful men accused of sexual harassment, researchers surveyed thousands of women and found the problem to be widespread.

The poll, conducted last winter by Harvard researchers, found those women most likely to report sexual harassment were young and college-educated.

Among women 18 to 29 years old, 60 percent said they or a female family member had been sexually harassed.

For women 30 to 64, that number hovered around 40 percent. For those 65 and older, 17 percent said they or a female family member had been sexually harassed.

When the researchers looked at the findings based on education, they found that 50 percent of college-educated women said they or a female family member had been sexually harassed. For women with a high school education, that number was just 23 percent.

Does that mean that young, college-educated women are experiencing more sexual harassmentor are they just more willing to speak out about it?

"I believe that the best interpretation is that it shows that women who are younger are more likely to label their experiences as sexual harassmentnot that they are more likely to have experienced sexual harassment," said John Pryor, a professor of psychology at Illinois State University.

"Younger women may be more familiar with what specific behaviors constitute sexual harassment than older women," he said. "This might be especially true of more educated women."

Hillary Haldane, program director of anthropology at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said she thinks that two federal policies have really shaped awareness of gender-based violence and harassment in younger people.

"Young women in college now were all born near or after the signing of the Violence Against Women Act, and they've always had Title IX, which more recently has been used as a bulwark against gender violence on college campuses," she said.

"During their formative years, they've heard public service announcements, and services have always been provided to them. Plus, there are documentaries and social media," Haldane added.

"They're not necessarily experiencing more sexual harassmentthey're just far more aware of how they can come forward," Haldane suggested.

Pryor said that decades of research on sexual harassment fairly consistently finds that about 42 percent of working women report experiencing sexually harassing behavior. Higher rates can be found in the military and in more male-dominated jobs, he noted.

Both experts said that workplaces will likely be changing, and Haldane expressed hope that those changes will be positive for women.

"More women are in the workplace, and more women are in managerial positions. As the hierarchy becomes more diverse in gender and in race, the momentum will build toward equity," she said.

"We're going to have to have difficult conversations, but I think this really is a moment for transformative cultural change," Haldane said.

Pryor agreed. "I think we're certainly at a game-changing moment in some way," he said. "I think we'll see more reporting. The #MeToo movement has removed some stigma."

It's not yet clear, though, how companies and their human resources (HR) departments will respond. Both experts said that, typically, HR works to protect companies against liability.

But Haldane pointed out that an HR department that helps its employees can actually improve the company's brand and reputation.

As harassment accusations have become increasingly public, some men have expressed concern about what's considered OK and what's not.

"Lines are being drawn differently now," Pryor said, "but if you have to ask yourself if you're stepping over a line, you probably shouldn't go there."

The survey was done from late January through early April 2017. It included a nationally representative sample of nearly 3,500 adults.

More information: Hillary Haldane, Ph.D., associate professor and program director, anthropology, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, Conn.; John Pryor, Ph.D., professor, psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.; "Discrimination in America" survey, 2017, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, National Public Radio and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Hillary Haldane, Ph.D., associate professor and program director, anthropology, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, Conn.; John Pryor, Ph.D., professor, psychology, Illinois State University, Normal, Ill.; "Discrimination in America" survey, 2017, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, National Public Radio and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Learn more about sexual harassment at work from EqualRights.org.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Labels that warn people about the risks of drinking soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages can lower obesity and overweight prevalence, suggests a new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study.

The study used computer modeling to simulate daily activities like food and beverage shopping of the populations of three U.S. cities  Baltimore, San Francisco and Philadelphia. It found that warning labels in locations that sell sugary drinks, including grocery and corner stores, reduced both obesity and overweight prevalence in the three cities, declines that the authors say were attributable to the reduced caloric intake. The virtual warning labels contained messaging noting how added sugar contributes to tooth decay, obesity and diabetes.

The findings, which will be published online December 14 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, demonstrates how warning labels can result in modest but statistically significant reductions in sugary drink consumption and obesity and overweight prevalence. Study results show a reduction in obesity prevalence by 1.69 percent and overweight prevalence by 1.39 percent in Baltimore, 4.08 percent and 3.1 percent in San Francisco and 2.17 percent and 0.36 percent in Philadelphia. Variations between cities may be in part due to the different proportion of obese and overweight inhabitants in the cities as well as different distributions of BMI (body mass index), the researchers say. While this intervention has a positive impact on obesity and overweight prevalence, it is not the sole solution to the obesity epidemic, as addressing many other factors is key.

"We found that sugary-drink warning labels may help decrease obesity and overweight prevalence across a wide variety of circumstances," says Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, lead author and executive director of the Bloomberg School's Global Obesity Prevention Center. "A warning label is able to decrease a person's chance of purchasing a sugary beverage by 4 percent, when nearly half of children cannot read the labels or when many people replace drinking soda with eating more."

Research suggests that sugary-drink consumption contributes to the rising obesity epidemic, especially among children. Sugary drinks can be a source of empty calories, calories that do not provide much nutritional value. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 1988-1994 and 1999-2004, daily calories consumed from sugary beverages increased by 20 percent among 6- to 11-year-olds during those time periods.

Cities have been looking for ways to reduce sugary-drink consumption. In the spring of 2015, San Francisco passed an ordinance mandating the placement of sugary-drink warning labels in locations that sell sugary beverages. Other municipalities, including Baltimore, have considered passing similar ordinances.

For the study, a research team from the Global Obesity Prevention Center and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center developed detailed computational simulation models, called Virtual Populations for Obesity Prevention of three cities: Baltimore, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Like the computer game "SimCity," these models included virtual representations of each person, the combined populations of the three cities and each potential major food and beverage source (e.g., grocery stores, corner stores, convenience stores and schools) in the given city.

Over the course of a simulated day, the different virtual people in the models would go about their daily business, periodically stopping at different food and beverage locations. At a given location, a person could either purchase a sugary drink or an alternative unsweetened drink such as water. Data for this model came from various sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and ReferenceUSA.

Experiments then explored the effects of placing warning labels at different locations that sell sugary beverages, such as supermarkets, corner stores and restaurants. Study researchers tested warning labels that would change the virtual customer's decision to purchase a non-sugary beverage instead of a sugary beverage between 4 percent and 12 percent of the time. Even when labels were 4 percent effective, they reduced obesity prevalence by 1.08 percent in Baltimore. Scenarios reducing the proportion of literate adolescents in Baltimore to 51 percent continued to demonstrate health benefits  when labels were effective 8 percent of the time, there was a 0.95 percent reduction in obesity prevalence. Scenarios also simulated lower label effectiveness among low-income populations and continued to see benefits of the warning label.

Results from the study showed that the implementation of sugary-drink warning labels at all retailers significantly lowered obesity prevalence among adolescents in all three cities.

"This study also highlights the importance of warning label design," says Marie C. Ferguson, MSPH, research associate at the GOPC. "Efforts to increase readability and incorporate memorable visuals may increase warning-label efficacy and ultimately promote an even greater impact."

Results from this study could help policymakers and other decisionmakers understand the potential effects of implementing sugary-drink warning labels. Computer modeling helps to design and test sustainable interventions and policies with the "safety" of a computer before rolling them out in real life, thus saving considerable time, money and effort. Given that a city has a limited budget or are only able to implement the policy in certain locations, results from the study suggest that they ought to target supermarkets. At 8 percent warning-label efficacy, the intervention implemented only at supermarkets reduced overweight and obesity prevalence by 0.94 percent in Baltimore, 0.41 percent in San Francisco and 0.85 percent in Philadelphia. When the intervention only targets small grocers, the overweight and obesity prevalence reduction is less: 0.73 percent in Baltimore, 0.29 percent in San Francisco and 0.57 percent in Philadelphia.

"A single intervention or single policy is not going to be enough to curb the obesity epidemic or the childhood obesity epidemic," says Lee. "Combinations of different policies and interventions will be necessary. Our results suggest that SSB warning labels could be a helpful part of these combinations."

More information: Bruce Y. Lee et al. Simulating the Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Warning Labels in Three Cities, American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2017). Journal information: American Journal of Preventive Medicine Bruce Y. Lee et al. Simulating the Impact of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Warning Labels in Three Cities,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2017.11.003
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, with more than 230,000 women diagnosed annually. (Skin cancer remains the most common.) Patients often describe the process of making a treatment decision as worrisome, so one research team wanted to explore how these patients became informed about their treatment options, and why some women might feel less than completely informed.

The researchers found that the majority of women who had breast cancer operations reported not feeling completely informed about their treatment options. In a separate study, another research team found a possible solution: using a web-based decision aid tool, which improved patients' knowledge of treatment options more than standard cancer websites. Patients using the decision aid were more likely to recognize that waiting a few weeks to make a decision regarding their breast cancer operations would not negatively impact survival. Results from both studies appear on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website as "articles in press" ahead of print publication.

"We were really interested in providing the patient perspective," said Sunny Mitchell, MD, a breast surgeon in Stratford, CT, and the lead author of the first study, based on a nationwide survey that found the majority of women did not feel completely informed about their treatment options before undergoing breast cancer surgery. "On top of exploring how women become informed about their treatment options, we also wanted to identify any opportunities for improvement," Dr. Mitchell said.

The study, designed as a post-treatment survey, was administered by an independent public opinion research firm and completed via the Internet in June 2016. Participants were recruited from health advocacy groups, clinics, and other health-related organizations, and were eligible to take the survey if they were female, ages 18-99, received a breast cancer diagnosis, and had undergone lumpectomy, mastectomy, or both procedures. There were 487 respondents who completed the survey.

When asked if researching all their options or making a quick decision was a priority, 35 percent of the lumpectomy-only patients, 31 percent of the mastectomy-only patients, and 22 percent of the group of patients who had both operations, said that making a quick decision was more important. When asked how strongly patients agreed or disagreed that they wished they had more time to explore different breast cancer surgery options, the majority of all three groups agreed somewhat or strongly that they wished they had more time.

The survey also asked participants how informed or uninformed they felt about treatment options before undergoing breast cancer operations. The authors found that, among lumpectomy patients, only 47 percent said they felt completely informed. Among mastectomy patients, 67 percent said they felt completely informed. Among patients who had both operations, only 28 percent said they felt completely informed.

Dr. Mitchell said she was "definitely surprised by the large percentage of women who reported not feeling completely informed." In order to address this deficiency, Dr. Mitchell said that future studies could focus on providing consistent, reliable information in a variety of formats, and measuring which ones are the most effective. Formats could include brochures, decision aids, and videos to ensure that patients have enough information to make advance treatment decisions.

While many patients will make efforts to educate themselves on their own, the authors wrote, "it is unrealistic to expect that the majority of patients have sufficient health literacy, research skills, information access, and clarity of mind to inform themselves" about all treatment options, and to make the best decision. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the physician to educate the patient about treatment options and to ensure she's sufficiently informed to make a decision. In addition to providing the information, Dr. Mitchell noted that physicians should also reassure patients. Although timely treatment should be initiated, she said, patients do actually have more time than they think to make a treatment decision.

Like Dr. Mitchell's team, the second research team was also interested in how patients received information about treatment options. These researchers studied decision aids and found that these materials were more effective in informing patients when compared with standard cancer information websites. During their initial surgical consultations, breast cancer patients who used the web-based decision aid tools were more engaged, better able to articulate their concerns, and quicker to voice their opinions, said lead study author Heather Neuman, MD, MS, FACS, an associate professor in the department of surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

From April 2014 to June 2016, the research team randomized women newly diagnosed with stages 0 to III breast cancer who were considering an operation within the UW breast program by sending them a web link via email. The link took patients to either a web-based decision aid or to standard cancer websites, including breastcancer.org, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute. The decision aid utilizes static, didactic information written for an eighth grade reading level and video clinical vignettes.

"In addition to providing information, the decision aid allows patients to compare choices by presenting the information in a parallel way," Dr. Neuman said. "It includes extra pieces of information that prompt patients to think about their values and preferences."

After receiving the links and reviewing the information, patients received a questionnaire in the clinic prior to their first surgical consultation. Researchers measured patient knowledge, the primary outcome, using a breast cancer decision quality instrument. The instrument presented five items to assess knowledge on key concepts relevant to decision making for a breast cancer operation.

The authors found that patients who received links to the decision aid demonstrated higher overall knowledge (median score of 80 percent on the questionnaire) compared with patients who received links to the standard websites (median score of 66 percent). Additionally, 72 percent of patients who received the decision aid recognized that waiting a few weeks to make a decision about their breast cancer operations would not negatively impact survival, compared with 54 percent of patients who received links to standard websites.

"Patients come in with this urgency, and this finding tells them they can slow down. They don't need to have that anxiety," Dr. Neuman said, adding that her team plans to conduct a similar study on the use of decision aids in an underserved community in Memphis, Tenn.

Decreasing the urgency surrounding the decision-making process may in turn increase the quality of the surgeon-patient consultation, the authors wrote, as patients may be more open to hearing the options and better prepared to consider them. Dr. Neuman emphasized that patients

receiving information in any form from a physicianrather than having to search for things online themselvesis very helpful.

"This process of sending something by email works, and for a general surgeon in a more rural area, that's something they could do to improve care," she said.

More information: How Well Informed Do Patients Feel About Their Breast Cancer Surgery Options: Findings from a Nationwide Survey of Women after Lumpectomy and/or Mastectomy. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. How Well Informed Do Patients Feel About Their Breast Cancer Surgery Options: Findings from a Nationwide Survey of Women after Lumpectomy and/or Mastectomy. A randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of web-based information on breast cancer patients' knowledge of surgical treatment options. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Journal information: Journal of the American College of Surgeons
MultiChoice has launched a full-scale investigation after claims emerged this week that a female employee had been raped by colleagues in 2014.

The company said it noted with grave concern very serious allegations made on social media after a hashtag started circulating along with the name of the victim and that of one of the alleged rapists.

In a statement, MultiChoice said the incident occurred in 2014 and that a case had been opened with the police, which resulted in the conviction of one of the accused.

The company has provided this employee with support since this traumatic incident and will continue to do so, said a company representative who did not wish to be identified.

The accused staff member identified on social media denies the allegations.

The company was criticised on social media, where the #OccupyMultiChoice hashtag has been doing the rounds, for not having done enough to protect the victim.

The representative said the company was aware of the planned protest and would make sure there are appropriate security measures in place.

Allegations being taken seriously

This employee reported an incident to us in 2014 in which she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted. No allegation of the involvement of co-employees was made at that time.

Weve recently learned of these further allegations involving our employees, which is why weve launched an immediate and a full-scale investigation to get to the bottom of this matter, as we take these allegations very seriously, the company said.

It noted with caution that the woman had not laid any criminal charges against the accused staff member.

MultiChoice described the event as tragic and said it had provided the employee with support over the past three years.

This includes helping her find accommodation, getting her counselling, giving her time off to attend the court case, and granting her extended medical leave, the representative said.

MultiChoice said its general manager for HR reached out to the employee this week to find out if the company could provide further support.

Police were not able to comment without information about where the case was opened or a case number.

News24

Now read: MultiChoice launching investigation into ANN7 deal
Prime Minister of Finland: Europe is now too reliant on Chinese technology

Turkey to require insurance from oil tankers when passing through its waters

EU to provide Ukraine with generators and kits to repair power grids

Turkey sentences sect founder to 8,658 years in prison

Xi Jinping urges world to abandon any Cold War mentality

Aliyev rules out talks with Artsakh State Minister

FP: Ukraine's appetite for weapons depletes Western stocks

Putin and Aliyev discuss energy cooperation

Armenian financial technologies to enter international market: VISA and Idram sign memorandum in Yerevan

Incident in Poland causes disagreement between Kyiv and West

Mark Milley urges Kyiv and Moscow to find political solution: Chances of military victory are unlikely

New NATO Secretary General to be announced at Vilnius summit in 2023

Finnish Defense Ministry announces largest batch of military aid to Ukraine

Pashinyan receives Ukrainian businessmen of Armenian origin

Armenian soldier wounded in Azerbaijani shooting

Erdogan: Turkey-Israel relations entered a new phase of development

Mishustin: Cooperation between Moscow and Baku has become truly strategic and allied

Igor Khovaev to visit Baku

Mishustin arrives in Baku

Russian Foreign Ministry: South Caucasus is a strategic transport hub for Eurasia

U.S. general lays flowers at eternal flame at Armenian Genocide memorial

Republicans stand for same-sex marriage rights

Pallone says US State Department should not hesitate to speak about Azerbaijani aggression

Aliyev refuses to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh and threatens Armenia with new aggression

Greek minister doesn't get off plane to meet head of Libya's presidential council

Sergey Lavrov to visit Yerevan

Lebanese parliament fails to elect president of country

Kremlin on Zelenskyy's proposal to hold 'public' talks

National Assembly Speaker: Armenia is extremely interested in establishing strategic relations with Georgia

Canada provides additional military aid to Ukraine

Representatives of defense agencies of CSTO countries discuss crisis response issues

Armenian Defense Minister and American General discuss defense cooperation

Tehran accuses Israel and West of trying to organize civil war in Iran

Oppositionist: No guarantees that war with Azerbaijan can be avoided

Issue of biometric passports to Armenian citizens is temporarily suspended

Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement to be signed till end of year? Pashinyan's associate voices conditions

Erdogan says Russia and US agreed to refrain from using nuclear weapons

Azerbaijani oppositionist complains of torture by police

Kyaram Sloyan and Andranik Zohrabyan posthumously bestowed 'Hero of Artsakh' title

UN Secretary General Guterres welcomes parties' agreement on renewal of food deal

Eurasian Development Bank: Armenia is the leader among EEU countries in terms of economic growth

Greece promises to continue military support to Ukraine

Number of appeals from Azerbaijan to ECHR is growing

Pashinyan: The wheel of processes related to confiscation of illegal property is spinning

Fire hits Baghdad airport

North Korea fires ballistic missile towards Sea of Japan

Istanbul agrees to extend 'grain initiative' for another 120 days

'Hayastan' Fund to build 6 residential houses in Nerkin Khndzoresk village

Vocal as Russophobic propaganda: Azerbaijani singer sings about 'disgusting peacekeepers'

Biden congratulates Republicans on winning majority in House of Representatives

14 freight cars derailed in Kazakhstan, train traffic suspended

Newspaper: Ruben Vardanyan does not hurry to make changes in composition of Karabakh government

Russia attacks Ukraine with missiles in morning: Explosions heard in Dnieper, air defense works in Kyiv region

U.S. National Security Council: It is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia

Gold prices decline

Russian Trade Representative to Armenia: Situation at Upper Lars checkpoint is not related to geopolitical issues

Trade Representative of Russia: Trade turnover with Armenia sets new record

Copper falls in price

Gas explodes in Fatih district of Istanbul, 10 people injured

Oil prices go down

Meteorite that fell in Britain contains key information about how oceans and life formed on Earth

Gamer drinks 12 energy drinks in ten minutes and ends up in hospital

Chinese customs officers accidentally find cockroach unknown to science

Man removes cobra's teeth with manicure pliers and gets arrested

Sweden to provide Ukraine with new military aid worth $287 million

Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania meet conditions for joining Schengen zone

Oil prices may reach $120 a barrel and stay at this level for 2 years

Zelenskyy receives 'signals' that Putin wants direct talks

Security Service of Ukraine puts Ramzan Kadyrov on wanted list

Unidentified men open fire at market in Izeh city in southwestern Iran

Karen Donfried tries to explain State Department's decision to exempt Azerbaijan from 907th Amendment

Philip Reeker says U.S. administration representatives have no access to Nagorno-Karabakh

Rimac Nevera sets speed record for production electric cars

Reeker: Pace and depth of current talks between Yerevan and Baku demonstrate potential to resolve conflict

FBI director considers TikTok threat to US National Security

Bob Menendez says Ukraine supplies Azerbaijan with phosphorus bombs it used in Karabakh

Delegation headed by Speaker of Armenian Parliament is in Tbilisi

Austin: U.S. intends to continue supplying weapons and aid to Ukraine during winter

Armenian politician charged with abuse of office, money laundering

Donfried says Armenia and Azerbaijan have historic opportunity to establish lasting peace

Bob Menendez: How on earth can we justify sending any support, security or otherwise, to the regime in Baku?

Azerbaijan fires at residents of Sarushen village of Artsakh

Head of Portugal's Finance Ministry: EU countries must work faster on energy intervention

Kuwait executes 7 prisoners

Czech Republic plans to train up to 4,000 Ukrainian servicemen next year

Ukraine once again asks US for powerful drones

Belarusian border guards shoot down drone intruding into airspace from Ukraine

Armenian Deputy PM: Regional electricity export opportunities significantly increased

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
Oscar-winning lyricist Gulzar talks to India Today about his new book, translations and the Partition's wounds.

Gulzar on his new book, translations and Partition's wounds

Q You translated your most recent novel, Two, into English. Is translation really possible? You say you are not at ease with it.

A It is not easy. It is not just about the meaning but the nuances and the sense it brings. Translations can't be perfect or correct. A writer feels uneasy and uncomfortable because in translation there is a 'generation' loss.

advertisement

Q The novel deals with Partition - a topic with enduring relevance today. Who is a refugee? Are you a refugee?

A "Yehi ek baat toh takleef deti hai." A migrant is an accepted reality. A refugee status is temporary. We have come to our own country and you call us "sharnarthi". It is not by choice that one becomes a refugee.

Q What do you remember of Partition?

A I remember my father roaming around the refugee camps. They would say, "Qayamat aa gayi hai..." he would look for people, relatives, neighbours, anybody to bring home. We lived in Old Delhi, near Ghanta Ghar. Each time I read the news about some event like in Syria, those memories come back.

Q Why did you write this novel?

A Things have still not settled down. Our partition is still hurting us. There was so much of it within me that I had to bring out a longer version. Although I had written short stories and poems, I was still not over it... it is permanent.

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN.  Meghri Free Economic Zone is opening on December 15.

The economic zone will be opened by Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, the Armenian News-NEWS.am correspondent reports from Meghri.

Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan noted that the goal of the free economic zone is to attract foreign direct investment, to increase the country's investment attractiveness, stimulate export-oriented activities, to increase exports, create new jobs and promote sustainable economic development.

According to him, free economic zone will develop in two stages. At the final stage, the territory of the zone will be 70 hectares. In the coming years, it is planned to attract 50 to 70 companies with investments totaling around $130-150 million as well as to create about 1,500 new jobs. The volume of exports will amount to 350 million, while the period of validity of the free economic zone is 50 years.

The Armenian government founded Meghri Free Economic Zone CJSC, a 100% stake in which is managed by All-Armenian Fund, the company of closed non-public contractual investment fund.
Members of the Federation Council approved the decision on holding the presidential elections in Russia on March 18, 2018.

Overall, 60 senators voted for this decision, RBK reports.

The upper house committee on constitutional legislation supported the election day decision the day before.

According to the head of the Central Electoral Commission Ella Pamfilova, at the moment, 23 people have already expressed their will to run for the president of the Russian Federation, and their number is likely to grow.



Last week, the acting president Vladimir Putin announced his intention to run for another term. Pamfilova said that there will be no indulgence for Putin, and the signatures in his support will be carefully checked by the commission.

The leader of the People's Democratic Republic Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the politician Alexei Navalny (the head of the Central Electoral Committee Ella Pamfilova stated that he is not eligible to run for president because of his criminal conviction), Ksenia Sobchak, Grigory Yavlinsky, TV presenter Yekaterina Gordon and businessman Sergey Polonsky announced their intention to run for presidency.
YEREVAN.  I would like to welcome the New Year with a good, positive mood; but I dont have to.

Armenian capital city Yerevan former Mayor, opposition Armenian National Congress member, economist Vahagn Khachatryan, said the abovementioned at a press conference on Friday.

As per Khachatryan, this is due to the fact that Prime Minister Karen Karapetyans government has not really offered new ideas and radical new approaches that would change the quality of life of Armenias population.

As per the opposition politician, the main factor standing in the way of Armenias development and economic growth is the countrys current economic model which, in his view, has exhausted itself.

According to Khachatryan, even if there is positive economic growth in Armenia, it is largely due to the situation in the Russian market, and the overall situation in Russia.

But economic growth is not expected in the near future in Russia, he added. And thats apparent, since the standard of living of the citizens of the given country continues to fall.

The noted circumstance cannot but affect Armenia.
In Latvia, the Republic of Armenia National Assembly (RA NA) delegation, led by Vice Chairman Eduard Sharmazanov, on Friday met with Lolita Cigane, Chairperson of the European Affairs Committee of the Latvian Parliament.

The RA NA deputy speaker stressed that Armenia is ready to resume the political dialogue with the EU countries. Touching upon the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement signed on November 24, he noted that this document outlines the significant developments and steps of the RA-EU cooperation, assuring that Armenia will continue with the development of democracy. Also, the RA NA vice chairman expressed the hope that Latvia will ratify this agreement in a very short period.

Speaking about the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, the RA NA deputy speaker reaffirmed the Armenian sides position of resolve this conflict solely through peace talks, and added: The complete exercise of the Artsakh peoples right to self-determination is irrevocable

The parliamentarians cooperation within international platforms also was referred to at the meeting. In this context, Eduard Sharmazanov noted: In the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, we expect the Latvian sides balanced position, which will not contradict the official position of the [OSCE] Minsk Group and the European Union.
Opening a free economic zone (FEZ) is not even half of the work; it requires consistent work.

Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on Friday told the aforementioned to reporters, at the official opening of the Meghri FEZ in Agarak village of the Syunik Province.

Our intentions and mood are quite serious, he stressed. Because we are confident that the conditions that will be created at the Meghri Free Economic Zone, and the opportunities that our country hasI mean the economic regimes that we have with the Eurasian Economic Union [(EAEU)], with the European [(EU)] Union, with our neighbor Iran, with other countriesis a very good platform for business to grow.

In the Armenian PMs words, at this FEZ they plan to intensify border trade and tourism with Iran, and they expect the Iranian partners to establish themselves there to be able to enter the EU and the EAEU markets, alike.

We also expect that our partners will come, and we have preliminary arrangement that they establish themselves here, so that they go to Iran, work, Karapetyan added. Im confident that the free economic zone has very good prospects.

Also, the PM noted that he is very pleased with the work done.

Now, the minister of economy and his team will be under a very pleasing target, Karen Karapetyan concluded.
Some unreasonable attempts within the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Parliamentary Assembly (PABSEC) to engage in activities separate from the Organisation under the cover of reforms are in contradiction to the Organizations charter, PABSEC objectives and rules of procedure and affect the integrity of the organization.

Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian on Friday stated the aforementioned at the 37th meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv.

Also at this event, Armenia assumed the chairmanship of this organization.

Being committed to the strategic objectives of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Armenia reiterates its support to the economic-oriented agenda of the Organization aimed at the enhancement of the mutual regional cooperation, which derives from the statutory objectives, and the very essence of the BSEC, said Nalbandian, in particular.

Reflecting on Armenia assuming the BSEC chairmanship, the FM noted that, Within the next six months in the capacity of the Chairman-in-Office, [it] will lead the Organization with a focus on enhancement of the economic cooperation in the BSEC region, mainstreaming the project-targeted agenda through the existing structures.

In connection with the reforms process within this organization, Edward Nalbandian expressed a conviction that, At this stage BSEC needs practical and realistic measures towards carrying out its main mission. We believe that the Organization is able to enhance its effectiveness through strict fulfillment of resolutions and decisions approved by the Council of Ministers.

Also, the Armenian FM stressed that, Persistent attempts by some Member States to politicize the activities of the BSEC not only affect the multilateral economic cooperation in the region but also the very foundations of the Organisation, its basic objectives and question the credibility of the BSEC as an effective regional economic Organization.

FM Nalbandian added that, Some unreasonable attempts within the BSEC Parliamentary Assembly to engage in activities separate from the Organisation under the cover of reforms are in contradiction to the Organizations charter, PABSEC objectives and rules of procedure and affect the integrity of the organization.

Responding to the address by the head of the Azerbaijani delegation, the FM of Armenia noted that the Azerbaijani attempts to misuse this platform to advance their narrow political objectives obstruct the BSEC cooperation, and we could hardly anticipate any achievements in our cooperation within the BSEC framework if it continues to be exploited for propaganda purposes.

And in closing, FM Edward Nalbandian of Armenia stressed that, An inclusive regional cooperation remain the main prerequisite for the development of the regional cooperation and economic connectivity. Armenia will rely during its upcoming Chairmanship on the joint efforts aimed at achieving the results that we all aspire for.

I already had an opportunity to highlight that those who misuse this platform to advance their narrow political objectives at the expense of the economic cooperation not just contradict the goals and essence of the Organization but impede inclusive regional economic partnership within the BSEC. This fully applies to Azerbaijan which again abused this Ministerial to voice its groundless allegations in a sheer disrespect to its objectives that have nothing to do with the conflict resolution. We could hardly anticipate any achievements in our cooperation within the BSEC framework if it continues to be exploited for propaganda purposes.

On December 7th at the OSCE Ministerial Council I made a detailed speech on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. I outlined reasons, which vividly demonstrate that the uncompromising and maximalist stance of Azerbaijan, its refusal to accept the proposals of the mediator countries, the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group, hinders the resolution of the conflict and threatens the security, stability and the inclusive economic cooperation of the region, Nalbandian said.
India was taken by surprise with the FTA signed between Maldives and China. The pact was signed with such stealth that it raises strategic concerns for India.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Diplomatic script seems to have changed between India and Maldives in two years. Maldives had plunged into a severe water crisis exactly two years ago following a massive fire that burnt the generator of its largest water treatment plant in capital Male.

On the wintry night of December 2015, the then Maldives foreign minister Dunya Maumoon made frantic calls to several of her counterparts including India, USA, Sri Lanka and China requesting them to rescue the country from acute water crisis.

advertisement

About 1.5 lakh residents of Male had gone waterless and crowds become restive standing in queues for potable water.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received the distress call around 10 pm. By early morning, the Indian Air Force had landed five planeloads of drinking water in Male. A huge turmoil was averted.

CHINA'S DIPLOMATIC BURGLARY

Two winters later, Maldives approved of a Free Trade Agreement with China in total stealth. The negotiations were being held since 2014 between China and Maldives.

On November 29, President Abdulla Yameen's government brought a Bill in Maldives' Majlis (parliament), which approved it at midnight. The approval was given even without having requisite majority in the 85-member Majlis.

Only 33 ruling coalition members were present in Majlis while the Opposition cried foul saying it got less than 10 minutes to read and debate 1000-plus pages of the draft.

A week later, on December 7 - when Indian government was focused on Nepal parliamentary elections - Maldives President Yameen signed the FTA with China on his maiden visit to Beijing. Indian establishment was so much surprised with the move that it took about a week before it could air its concerns over the matter.

India was among the first to recognise Maldives after its independence in 1965 and to establish diplomatic relations with the country. India established its mission at Male in 1972. India has quelled a few rebellions against the ruling coalitions in Male.

However, Yameen administration seems to be giving preference to China over India. Recently, Maldives fisheries minister Mohamed Shainee, during his Colombo visit, expressed unhappiness over the way FTA with India has worked. Under such circumstances, China did a sort of diplomatic coup in Maldives by getting it sign FTA without India having faintest of idea.

WHY SHOULD INDIA BE CONCERNED?

Maldives is the second country in India's neighbourhood where China has been successful in showing its economic muscle. After Pakistan, Maldives is second country to have signed FTA with China.

China has been aggressively pushing for FTA with all the neighbours of India. Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are on the Chinese list.

advertisement

Nepal has now elected a pro-Chinese Left bloc government. Parliamentary elections are due in Bangladesh in about a year's time when pro-India Sheikh Hasina will be fighting to beat two-term anti-incumbency against anti-India Khalida Zia's party.

In Sri Lanka, China has increased its strategic stake by acquiring Hambantotal port on lease for 99 years. With its Belt and Road Initiative, China is further ramping up its economic ties with South Asian countries. Its massive economy seems to be dictating the new terms of engagement.

CHINA REIGNS SUPREME IN MALDIVES

China already has elbowed India out on two major infrastructure projects. Yameen government preferred China to India in giving contracts for development of till uninhabited island Hulhule, USD 400 million international airport porject and another for building "Friendhsip Bridge" connecting it to capital Male.

China has significant presence at Gwadar port in Pakistan and opened its military base in Djibouti only recently. Though Yameen has stated that Maldives will remain a demilitarised zone, China may push for docking facilities for its naval ships on the islands to meet services requirements at Hambantota, Djibouti and Gwadar. In August, three Chinese ships docked at harbour in Male as "goodwill visit".

advertisement

Tourism and fisheries export are the two main constituents of about USD 3 billion economy of Maldives. China has emerged as the largest importer products from Maldives. Chinese imports from Maldives stood at USD 360 million in 2016.

With FTA, Maldives expects to increase the volume and worth of exports to China. Further, Beijing sends the maximum number of tourists to Maldives. The Chinese travelers are encouraged by Beijing to visit Maldives giving a boost to the booming industry of the island nation.

With China going aggressive in India neighbourhood flexing its military as well as economic muscle, New Delhi is bound to be concerned even if Indo-Maldives joint military exercise, Ekuverin (meaning friends) begins tomorrow at Belagavi in Karnataka.

--- ENDS ---
Ankara will appeal to the UN to annul US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, said Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Anadolu reported.

According to the source, Turkish leader made a statement via teleconference to crowds gathered in Konya province.

We will work for the annulment of this unjust decision firstly at the UN Security Council, and if a veto comes from there, at the General Assembly, said Erdogan.

Palestine is recognized as a country by 137 nations, said Erdogan, adding that Islamic countries will create new funds to help Palestinian families.

Last week, US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital. The US decision was positively received in Israel and prompted negative reaction by many countries. People have started protesting all over the Muslim world, also in Israel.

As reported earlier, President Recep Erdogan called Israel a terrorist state and proposed to proclaim Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine in response to the US decision on Jerusalem.
The leaders of the EU countries at the summit in Brussels for the first time decided to extend sanctions against the Russian Federation without discussion and arguments. President of the European Council Donald Tusk said after the meeting, TASS reported.

"It is interesting but this time the leaders made a decision on sanctions without any discussion or arguments," he said.

A source in the European Union told TASS, that on Thursday night that "the leaders heard a report by the Normandy format participants by Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and President of France Emmanuel Macron on the implementation of the Minsk agreements."

According to the source, the summit "noted the lack of progress on the Minsk agreements, which means green light for the extension of sanctions."

In March 2015, EU leaders linked decision to abolish economic sanctions against Russia with full implementation of the Minsk agreements.

The EU began imposing sanctions against Russia in connection with the events in Ukraine, which started in March 2014. On Thursday, on the sidelines of the EU summit, President of the European Council Donald Tusk said that the leaders of the community are united in their intention to renew the anti-Russian sanctions. A European diplomatic source explained to TASS that this means there are no objections to the automatic extension of restrictive measures, which would be made within the next week.

The EUs economic sectoral sanctions against Russia are in effect until the end of January 2018. Thus, next week EU permanent representatives will extend them until July 31. These measures include financial restrictions on Russias leading defense and energy companies, as well as large banks with state participation. In addition, they imply a ban on imports of military and energy technology and high-tech equipment to Russia.

Sectoral measures are one of three sanctions packages adopted by the European Union against Russia. The other two are the blacklist of Russian individuals and legal entities, in force until March 2018, and a set of targeted sanctions (in force until June) in relation to Crimea, forbidding European businesses from maintain any connections with it. Each of these blocks will be extended independently.
By PTI: Panaji, Dec 15 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said that there was a sense of helplessness but not hopelessness in the minds of people in her state.

She was speaking at the ongoing three-day India Ideas Conclave 2017? organised by India Foundation in Goa.

"Idea of India is not separate from idea of Jammu and Kashmir because it is the oneness between both. We have had problems in Kashmir for last so many years. We have the baggage of history but to me, having seen Jammu and Kashmir so closely for so many years, there is (a sense of) helplessness but not hopelessness," the chief minister said.

advertisement

"We have to have a different approach with the people who are with us and majority of the people are with us," she added.

She said that Jammu and Kashmir at present is under siege with several uncertainties plaguing the life of the people.

"There is mental siege, emotional siege, economic siege, Kashmir is under all kind of siege. You never know there will be a shutdown call followed by curfew and then there will be protest calls," she said.

She said that "when we think of Pakistan we should not think of Kashmir. When we think of Kashmir we should not think of Pakistan because Kashmir is ours."

She said that strategically Jammu and Kashmir is placed in a position whereby using "our geography, whereby restoring our roots to the outside world, we can write a different history."

"Maybe there is a percentage of people who are pro- Pakistan, there is a percentage of people who are pro-azadi. But majority of the people in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are with the idea of Kashmir as an idea within India," the chief minister said.

She hailed the efforts by the Modi government to ease the tension with Pakistan. She claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted the same policy when he visited Lahore as adopted by former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

"People keep on telling that he went uninvited. Yes he did that but heAdid it for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, for the part of his body which is hurting for so many years. Unfortunately, it was followed by a terror attack," she said.

Laying her hopes on the Modi-led government to restore normalcy in the valley, she said, "When we were in the process of forming the (coalition) government (in J&K), many of my colleagues were asking me what are you doing? It is suicide."

The chief minister, however, said the BJP at this point of time is a party which "if you are able to convince that Jammu and Kashmir can be saved like this, then they will listen".

advertisement

"That is what Modiji did. He went to Lahore, nobody else would have done that. It was really statesman-like. The BJP being a nationalist party can do anything and everything to get Kashmir out of this mess in which we are," she commented. PTI RPS BNM TIR

--- ENDS ---
We are witnessing the rise of Takfiri Hindutva, and escalation of Hindutva terrorism cannot be far behind. In the name of fragile faithThe political class is guilty of acquiescing.

The brutal killing of Afrajul Khan by Shambhunath Raigar at Rajsamand, Rajasthan, recorded by his nephew and advertised on social media with pride by the perpetrators, raises certain fundamental questions. Had identities been reversed, had the killer been a Muslim and the victim a Hindu, and had the justification been to "protect the honour of Muslims", we would have been fairly confident in the assertion that this was an act of Islamist terrorism. There might have been some debate over whether this could be dismissed as 'lone wolf' terrorism, or whether the perpetrators drew 'inspiration' from a radicalising preacher on the electronic media or from the Internet, and whether this demanded a deeper investigation into such 'linkages'. However, the fact of Islamist terrorism is unlikely to have been brought into significant question.

So is Shambhunath Raigar the beginning of Hindutva terrorism? The answer must clearly be in the negative.

advertisement

Hindutva terrorism long predates Raigar. The first incident documented by the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM) was in December 2002, when an improvised explosive device was found at the Bhopal railway station, evidently intended to target Muslims arriving in the city to attend a Tablighi Jamaat gathering. At least 18 incidents, resulting in 137 fatalities, including eight Hindutva extremists, have been listed by the ICM since. In some of these instances, investigators insisted their cases were watertight as long as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power but, since the change of regime, are now in enthusiastic agreement with the courts that the evidence is not quite so sound (it is useful to remind ourselves that Pakistani investigators and courts are equally at a loss to find any credible evidence against Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his co-conspirators in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks case).

These are, of course, small beginnings, and cannot in fairness be compared with the high tide of Islamist terrorism across the globe. Raigar's act, moreover, fits into a model of savage communal violence that we have witnessed again and again, across India, and across communities-which we have not seen fit to describe as terrorism in the past. And Raigar is, in any event, in jail and likely far too insignificant for anyone to care enough to interfere with the processes of law.

These past, no doubt occasional, incidents, nevertheless, fall into a pattern that feeds off, and will increase with, the rise of fringe Hindutva extremist provocation, open calls to arms, death threats to adversaries who question the new catechisms, or to those who are arbitrarily deemed to have 'insulted the honour' of the Faith. In a Faith that embraced the most extraordinary plurality and permitted limitless challenges, not only of doctrine but of value and practice, the notion of a core and unquestionable dogma, of blasphemy and sacrilege-the legacy of Semitic religions, including Islam-is being entrenched. We are witnessing the rise of Takfiri Hindutva, and the escalation of Hindutva terrorism cannot be far behind. The principal dynamic of this escalation flows from collusion, on a wink and a nod from those in power, on the sustained effort-not unique to the present regime but now somewhat more blatant-to calibrate violence for partisan political gains. As the state continues to make every action or movement that claims a 'religious' motive an exception to the imperatives of the rule of law, there will be no escape from a coming anarchy. Pakistan's history is a cautionary tale on the outcome of such a pattern. As Primo Levi observed: "It is impossible to calibrate levels of brutality."

advertisement

More and more Indians are being drawn into the regressive magnetism of an imagined past, ignorant of their scriptures and traditions, as of science and reason, seduced by a strident gospel of purifying violence, unmindful of the infinite complexity and terrifying fragility of the world they live in. This is not the profile of an emerging great power.

Ajai Sahni is executive director, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi

--- ENDS ---
At a time when Mukul Roy is finding it difficult to come to terms with the West Bengal unit of the BJP, he is waiting for Gujarat Assembly results to turn the tide in his favour.

By Romita Datta Sengupta: In less than 72 hours, the Gujarat election results will be out. But, the exit polls results have already set off the celebrations in the BJP.

The first person who jumped in the ring announcing a big dawwat without even waiting for the exit poll results was Mukul Roy, the new entrant in the BJP. Roy has publicly declared to host a dinner at his residence in New Delhi to celebrate the victory of the BJP in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

advertisement

Though he was not part of the campaign team in Gujarat, Mukul Roy visited the state when the poll fever was picking up. Now, he predicts at least 120 seats to his party.

After his return from Gujarat, Mukul Roy was busy finalising the guest list, which interestingly includes all of Trinamool Congress MPs - "friends" from his previous party. But, Roy has ensured that the BJP members are not outnumbered by the TMC MPs at the dinner party.

MUKUL ROY'S 'PROMISE'

Mukul Roy's planned dinner party is being seen as the BJP's attempt to reach out to Mamata Banerjee-led TMC MPs, who have been opposing the government's policies tooth and nail. Roy's idea is to present an opportunity to both the BJP and TMC leaders to mingle with one another informally.

The dinner invitation to TMC MPs gains significance in the view of his reported promise that he could impress upon over a dozen TMC MLAs and half-a-dozen MPs. However, no other big player from the TMC has switched sides after Roy joined the BJP last month.

Speculations are, meanwhile, rife that a few heavyweight ministers in the Mamata Banerjee's West Bengal cabinet and TMC MPs are in touch with Mukul Roy. They may join the BJP if they find enough tilt towards the party in West Bengal ahead of panchayat elections scheduled for next year.

WHAT IS AT STAKE FOR ROY?

As per his own claims, Mukul Roy has enough clout among the Trinamool Congress leaders to influence their association with the ruling party of West Bengal. But, Roy has failed to make any gain for the BJP in West Bengal politics.

The BJP is, however, banking on him for his thorough homework of the constituencies of West Bengal and his reach at the local grass root level. The BJP is not so convinced that there will be a major exodus from Trinamool Congress considering Mamata Banerjee's control over the party.

The West Bengal BJP unit has yet to match its frequency with Mukul Roy, against whom the party leaders went berserk not long ago. The state leaders also did not give their nod for Mukul Roy's state-wide yatra to mobilise support in BJP's favour.

advertisement

The BJP state unit has now planned a Sanhati Yatra to be carried out by a dedicated team under party leaders like Dilip Ghosh, Rahul sinha and Roopa Ganguly. Mukul Roy is also part of that team.

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Chandigarh, Dec 15 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh signed off the first Military Literature Festival (MLF) here saying authors and veterans from other nations, including Pakistan, should be invited to participate in it.

Addressing a small gathering here last evening, the chief minister said it would be interesting, for instance, to have the 1965 war veterans from India and Pakistan come face-to- face and share their experiences.

advertisement

Singh had invited the team behind the first-of-its-kind festival for dinner as a token of appreciation, an official release said today, adding that each member was presented with a memento.

Amarinder said the event proved to be an exciting platform to promote understanding and awareness, especially among the youth, about Indias defence forces.

The chief minister hoped the festival would imbibe in the youth a spirit of nationalism, and encourage them to join the defence forces.

Thanking Amarinder for his support and participation in the event, Lt Gen. TS Shergill (retd), senior adviser to the CM, said the Military Literature Festival Society had been set up as a permanent body and would continue to initiate activities promoting the exchange of ideas and experiences in this field. PTI SUN IJT

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Agartala, Dec 15 (PTI) The neighbourly relations between Bangladesh and India have reached their peak now and are better than before, a Bangladesh minister said today.

This view was expressed by Bangladesh Health Minister Muhammad Nasim who was here to address a programme on the eve of the Victory Day which commemorates the liberation of Bangladesh.

He also expressed his gratitude to India for supporting his nation during the 1971 Liberation War.

advertisement

"We want to further develop this friendly and cordial relation for the interest of both the countries," Nasim told reporters at the Akhaura checkpost here.

A cultural team of Bangladesh has arrived here to perform tomorrow.

"India gave shelter and food to our people and provided military assistance during the Liberation War. Indian soldiers also laid down their lives to make our country free which we can never forget," he said.

The minister said the two countries could resolve many of their difficult issues through negotiations.

"When issues such as the land boundary problem could be solved through negotiation, we hope all other issues can be resolved through negotiation," he added.

The minister said Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were sincerely working towards economic cooperation between the two countries and work was in progress in the areas of communication, transit and rail connectivity. PTI JOY SNS AAR

--- ENDS ---
Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- President Donald Trump on Friday morning said people are "very, very angry" with the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Department of Justice about what he sees as revelations of political bias in its ranks, just before he boarded a helicopter headed for Quantico.



"It's very sad when you look at the documents, and how they have done that is really disgraceful," the president said, apparently referring to a batch of text messages critical of Trump between a former agent and FBI lawyer involved with the Mueller investigation released this week.



"You have a lot of angry people seeing it. It's a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that. I am going today on behalf of the FBI, their new building, and when everybody  not me, everybody, the level of anger, and what they have been witnessing with respect to the FBI, it's certainly very sad," Trump said.



"I can say this, when you look at what has gone on with the FBI and the Justice Department, people are very, very angry," Trump told reporters.



Trump's visit to the academy comes amid heightened tensions with the bureau, whose reputation he recently described as "in tatters," and its standing as the "worst in history."



"It's a shame what happened with the FBI, but we are going to rebuild the FBI and it will be bigger and better than ever," Trump said.



But the president took on a more supportive tone when delivering remarks to law enforcement officers from other agencies in Quantico. He pledged: "The president of the United States has your back 100 percent."



"I will fight for you and I will never let you down, ever," he said.



The academy, according to the FBI's website, is a "professional course of study" open to U.S. and international law enforcement managers of all stripes.



In May, Trump was expected to visit the FBI headquarters in Quantico but the trip was notably scrapped following mounting backlash over his controversial firing of then-FBI Director Jim Comey.



Since then, the president has taken to publicly deriding the FBI's reputation amid its investigation into his campaign's alleged ties to Russia and its interference in the 2016 election.



He has vented on Twitter about whether its investigation is politically motivated, and whether his former opponent Hillary Clinton escaped conviction in the investigation of her use of a private email server because of agency's political bias.



Just last week, Trump said the FBI's reputation was "in Tatters - worst in History!"

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
By PTI: Bengaluru, Dec 15 (PTI) The Karnataka government today decided not to permit Bollywood actress Sunny Leones New Year eve show here and elsewhere in the state following protests from Kannada outfits.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedike and some other organisations have been opposing the proposed event on December 31 alleging that the invitation to Sunny Leone will be an "assault" on the citys culture.

advertisement

For the past one week, the KRV members have been agitating in the city, taking out rallies and burning effigies of Sunny Leone.

"I have instructed (authorities) not to allow such events. Dont bring her (Leone) here. People are opposed to the event. Let them (organisers) organise events related to Kannada culture and literature, which is our heritage," Karnataka Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy told PTI.

KRV office-bearer Harish welcomed the government decision.

"It is a victory for us. Government has cancelled the programme. Had it happened here, we would have brought activists from 20 districts to Bengaluru and held a mega protest here." PTI GMS RA BN

--- ENDS ---
Kashish had come to SBT as a 'vulnerable child' at the tender age of six, referred by a grassroots organisation.

Kumari Kashish switched off the lights in her dormitory and sat in silence conjuring up Rozy, the character she was going to play in Sheroes, the annual play by Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) that won her the Rashtrapati Award for acting this year.

Kashish had come to SBT as a 'vulnerable child' at the tender age of six, referred by a grassroots organisation.

advertisement

At eight, she auditioned along with other children at SBT for Mike Cahill's film I Origins, where she played a wandering orphan child named Salomina.

A student of Class 7 at the Birla Arya Secondary School, she lives with 80 other girls at Udaan, the SBT shelter home in Delhi's Kamala Nagar locality.

"I don't know how I came here, but I like living here. I don't know my mother's name. She comes to meet me sometimes," she says. Kashish has been trying to call her mother to share the news about her award, but finds her phone switched off. "When my mother comes, she can throw a little party for my friends," she says.

Rozy is the story of a young girl who stands up for the rights of others and thinks the world is a good place, but finds it difficult to fight for herself. A monologue towards the end, where she recites a few lines by Pash, the revolutionary poet from Punjab, is the defining moment-it conveys that a woman's biggest strength is her voice, and she must never stay silent.

"Since Kashish was a child, she had been interested in theatre," says Pankaj, director of the theatre course at SBT. Inspired, Kashish wants to continue acting and raise awareness about issues concerning girls.

Her eyes are brimming with hope for the future. "I want to act because it makes me understand more about this world," she says. "With the kind of plays we make, I get to understand the nature of men. I get confidence. It makes me brave."

--- ENDS ---
Lalu Prasad Yadav attacked Nitish Kumar and his ongoing yatra calling it a scam worth crores. The RJD chief dismissed Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh exit polls results and is confident that the Congress would form government in both the states.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Slamming Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his ongoing Vikas Samiksha Yatra, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has alleged that the yatra is itself is a scam. Recently, Lalu Prasad's son and Bihar's former deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav too called Nitish's yatra 'jhansa yatra' which smells of deception.

Lalu called CM's Vikas Samiksha Yatra a scam where an amount as big as Rs 10 crore was being spent in every district being visited by Nitish Kumar.

advertisement

RJD supremo termed it as 'Vikas Samiksha Yatra Scam' and he added that the yatra was not generating desired response from the people because of which the Nitish government was spending money to bring the crowd to his political meetings.

"All the district magistrates have been asked by the government senior officials to bring at least 4,000 women to the public meeting of the Chief Minister. Every day Rs 10 crore is being spent on the public meetings, bringing in people in buses, medicines for the people, etc. It's a big scam and must be investigated," Lalu Prasad Yadav, national president of RJD said.

It was also noted that Nitish government was paying Rs 75 for every woman being brought for his public meeting. The amount was being spent on breakfast, lunch , water and medicines.

Speaking to reporters in Patna, Lalu also dismissed the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh exit polls results asserting that the media was sold out to the BJP government at the Centre, Lalu said that Congress would be forming government in both the states.

"All the exit polls are wrong. Media has been sold out to the BJP. I am confident that Congress party will perform well and would form the government in both Gujarat and Himachal," RJD chief said.

--- ENDS ---
Eggs of whipworm intestinal parasites from ancient Greek samples analysed in the study. Credit: Elsevier

Ancient faeces from prehistoric burials on the Greek island of Kea have provided the first archaeological evidence for the parasitic worms described 2,500 years ago in the writings of Hippocrates - the most influential works of classical medicine.

University of Cambridge researchers Evilena Anastasiou and Piers Mitchell used microscopy to study soil formed from decomposed faeces recovered from the surface of pelvic bones of skeletons buried in the Neolithic (4th millennium BC), Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) and Roman periods (146 BC - 330 AD).

The Cambridge team worked on this project with Anastasia Papathanasiou and Lynne Schepartz, who are experts in the archaeology and anthropology of ancient Greece, and were based in Athens.

They found that eggs from two species of parasitic worm (helminths) were present: whipworm (Trichuris trichiura), and roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides). Whipworm was present from the Neolithic, and roundworm from the Bronze Age.

Hippocrates was a medical practitioner from the Greek island of Cos, who lived in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. He became famous for developing the concept of humoural theory to explain why people became ill.

This theory - in which a healthy body has a balance of four 'humours': black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm - remained the accepted explanation for disease followed by doctors in Europe until the 17th century, over 2,000 years later.

The excavation of the site of Ayia Irini on the island of Kea, where the samples used in the study were found. Credit: Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati.

Hippocrates and his students described many diseases in their medical texts, and historians have been trying to work out which diseases they were. Until now, they had to rely on the original written descriptions of intestinal worms to estimate which parasites may have infected the ancient Greeks. The Hippocratic texts called these intestinal worms Helmins strongyle, Ascaris, and Helmins plateia.

The researchers say that this new archaeological evidence identifies beyond doubt some of the species of parasites that infected people in the region. The findings are published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

"The Helmins strongyle worm in the ancient Greek texts is likely to have referred to roundworm, as found at Kea. The Ascaris worm described in the ancient medical texts may well have referred to two parasites, pinworm and whipworm, with the latter being found at Kea," said study leader Piers Mitchell, from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology.

"Until now we only had estimates from historians as to what kinds of parasites were described in the ancient Greek medical texts. Our research confirms some aspects of what the historians thought, but also adds new information that the historians did not expect, such as that whipworm was present".

The mention of infections by these parasites in the Hippocratic Corpus includes symptoms of vomiting up worms, diarrhoea, fevers and shivers, heartburn, weakness, and swelling of the abdomen.

Roundworm egg taken from faeces excavated at Kea. Credit: Piers Mitchell/ Elsevier.

Descriptions of treatment for intestinal worms in the Corpus were mainly through medicines, such as the crushed root of the wild herb seseli mixed with water and honey taken as a drink.

"Finding the eggs of intestinal parasites as early as the Neolithic period in Greece is a key advance in our field," said Evilena Anastasiou, one of the study's authors. "This provides the earliest evidence for parasitic worms in ancient Greece."

"This research shows how we can bring together archaeology and history to help us better understand the discoveries of key early medical practitioners and scientists," added Mitchell.

More information: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.11.006
A large fuel reduction burn off on Hobarts eastern shore. Credit: Flickr/Mike Rowe, CC BY-NC

California is burning  a sentence we've heard far too often this year. Sydney is currently on bushfire alert, as firefighters battle a fire in the Hunter Valley region and temperatures are set to top 40.

A cocktail of factors, from climate change to centuries of ignoring indigenous burning practises, means that catastrophic fires are likely to become more common.

One of Australia's favourite fire prevention measures is prescribed burning  using carefully controlled fires to clear out flammable materials. We're almost obsessed with it. Indeed, it seems the outcome of every major inquiry is that we need to do more of it.

The Royal Commission inquiry that followed Victoria's 2009 Black Saturday fires recommended that 5% of all public land in Victoria be treated per year  a doctrine that was subsequently dropped due to impracticality.

Yet our research, published today in the International Journal of Wildland Fire, modelled thousands of fires in Tasmania and found that nearly a third of the state would have to be burned to effectively lower the risk of bushfires.

The question of how much to burn and where is a puzzle we must solve, especially given the inherent risk, issues caused by smoke smoke and shrinking weather windows for safe burning due to climate change.

Why use computer simulations?

The major problem fire science faces is gathering data. Landscape-scale experiments involving extreme fire are rare, for obvious reasons of risk and cost. When a major bushfire happens, all the resources go into putting it out and protecting people. Nobody has the time to painstakingly collect data on how fast it is moving and what it is burning. We are therefore restricted to a few limited data sources to reconstruct the behaviour and impact of fire: we can analyse the scar on the landscape after a fire, look at case studies, or run simulations of computer models.

Most research on the effectiveness of prescribed burning has been at a local scale. We need to start thinking bigger: how can we mitigate the effect of multiple large fires in a region like Tasmania or Southeastern Australia? What is the cumulative effect of different prescribed burning strategies?

To answer these questions, we create models using mathematical equations to simulate the behaviour of fires across actual landscapes. These models include the effects of vegetation type, terrain and fuel loads, under specific weather conditions. If we simulate thousands of these fires we can get an idea of where fire risk is the highest, and how effective prescribed burning is at reducing that risk.

The island of Tasmania offers the perfect study system. Self-contained, with a wide array of vegetation types and fire regimes, it offers an ideal opportunity to see how fire behaves across a diverse landscape. Perhaps more interestingly, the island contains large areas of flammable landscape surrounding globally unique ecosystems and numerous towns and villages. Obviously, we cannot set fire to all of Tasmania in real life, but computer simulations make it possible!

So, encouraged by the Tasmanian Fire Service, who initiated our research, we simulated tens of thousands of fires across Tasmania under a range of prescribed burning scenarios.

Prescribed fire can be effective, in theory

The first scenario we looked at was the best-case scenario: what happens if we perform prescribed burning on all the vegetation that can handle it, given theoretically unlimited resources? It is possible this approximates the sustained and skillful burning by Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples.

Wildfire simulations following this scenario suggested that such an approach would be extremely effective. Importantly, we saw significant reductions in fire activity even in areas where prescribed burning is impossible (for example, due to the presence of people).

Unfortunately, this best-case approach, while interesting from a theoretical perspective, would require prescribed burning over more than 30% of Tasmania in one year.

We also analysed the effects of 12 more realistic scenarios. These realistic plans were less than half as efficient as the best-case scenario at reducing fire activity.

On average, 3 hectares of prescribed burning would reduce wildfire extent by roughly 1ha in grasslands and dry forests.

In other flammable Tasmanian vegetation types like buttongrass sedgelands and heathlands, the reduction in wildfire was even smaller. This is obviously better than no prescribed burning, but it highlights the fact that this is a relatively inefficient tool, and given the costs and potential drawbacks, should be used only where it is most needed.

This is a fundamental conundrum of prescribed burning: though it is quite effective in theory, the extent to which we would need to implement it to affect fire behaviour across the entire state is completely unachievable.

Therefore, it is imperative that we not just blindly burn a pre-ordained fraction of the landscape. Rather, we must carefully design localised prescribed burning interventions to reduce risk to communities.

We need a multi-tool approach

Our study has shown that while prescribed burning can be quite effective in certain scenarios, it has serious constraints. Additionally, while we analysed these scenarios under bad fire weather, we were not able to analyse the kind of catastrophic days in which the effect of prescribed burning is seriously reduced, with howling dry winds and stupefying heat.

Unfortunately, due to climate change, we are going to see a lot more catastrophic days in the future in Tasmania and indeed globally.

In Hobart this is of particular concern, as the city is surrounded by tall, wet eucalypt forests that have had fifty years grow dense understoreys since the 1967 Black Tuesday fires. These have the potential to cause some of the most intense fires on the planet should conditions get dry enough. Prescribed burning is impossible in these forests.

To combat fire risk we must take a multi-pronged approach that includes innovative strategies, such as designing new spatial patterns for prescribed burning, manually removing fuels from areas in which prescribed burning is not possible, improving the standards for buildings and defensible spaces, and most importantly, engaging the community in all of this.

Only by attacking this problem from multiple angles, and through close collaboration with the community and all levels of government, can we effectively face our fiery future.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Betsy Stover was 17 when her mother asked her to help fax strangers, hawking a service that had the markings of a pyramid scheme.

"I always felt like a creep sending unsolicited faxes," said Stover, who hated the chore, but knew the work required cold calls to succeed.

Stover, now a 38-year-old comedian based in Los Angeles, had largely forgotten about the experience until about three years ago. That's when her Facebook feed started filling up with new direct sales posts touting cosmetics, jewelry and leggings.

Friends Stover hadn't seen in years had added her to private Facebook groups promoting body oils and makeup. She had little interest. It felt too similar to her mother's get-rich-quick schemes, which had more to do with recruiting new distributors than selling actual products.

"It was super awkward," said Stover, who discreetly left the groups. "With these people, there was always a looming sales pitch in the background."

Unsolicited calls and face-to-face pitches once defined multilevel marketinga $35-billion industry that recruits an ever expanding network of independent distributors to sell their products rather than rely on bricks-and-mortar stores.

Instead, today's generation of multilevel marketing brands including Rodan + Fields, Stella & Dot and LipSense are often discovered on social media platforms such as Facebook, which gives distributors instant access to a vast network of potential customers and recruits with the swipe of a finger.

Rather than suffer the humiliation of cold calling, adherents can blast sales pitches and promote their brands online with little effort, attracting increasingly distant acquaintances who would have been previously unreachable.

It's why many women such as Stover have seen their news feeds transformed from a place to keep up with friends and family into a clutter of livestreamed sales events, invitations to trunk shows and incessant promotional threads about moisturizers and lipsticks.

"This is what multilevel marketing has always done," said Richard FitzPatrick, president of watchdog group Pyramid Scheme Alert. "It is the only business that ignores the boundaries of private life and professional life. It simply follows where people are gathered, and now that people communicate on digital forums like Facebook, it has invaded social networks."

No recent company exemplifies the industry's shift more fittinglyand controversiallythan LuLaRoe, a Corona multilevel marketing brand that through Facebook developed a cult-like following for its patterned leggings and is now the target of five class-action lawsuits.

One of those suits, filed in October, seeks $1 billion in damages and alleges LuLaRoe operated a pyramid scheme, enriching itself by primarily selling inventory to its distributors, or sales consultants, rather than its customers.

The plaintiffs say the company did this by using social media to lure a sales force mostly made up of stay-at-home mothers into paying thousands of dollars to become consultants with dim hopes of turning a profit.

"Defendants achieved such rapid growth by enticing consultants with social media posts boasting large bonus checks and other lavish material possessions," the suit says. Those rewards were celebrated with the hashtag #becauseofLLR.

Another popular social media slogan, "Part-time work for full time pay," has been chided by critics as mostly untrue except for those lucky enough to get in on the business early.

LuLaRoe, which was founded in 2012 and surpassed $2 billion in annual sales this year, called the lawsuits baseless. The company said it has given thousands of consultants the opportunity to earn income. And it rejected allegations it was a pyramid scheme, explaining it does not reward consultants for simply signing up new sellers, but instead offers bonuses based on a cut of retail sales achieved by a consultant's recruits.

Only 27 percent of LuLaRoe's consultants received such bonus payments last year, which means about a quarter of the company's consultants were involved in recruiting and maintaining a sales teamthe multilevel part of multilevel marketing.

"LuLaRoe has grown exponentially over the last four years. Our success has made us the target of orchestrated competitive attacks and predatory litigation. We take all litigationregardless of its lack of meritseriously," the company said in a statement.

In addition to the pyramid scheme claims, LuLaRoe has been saddled with complaints about shoddy merchandise, an unfair return policy and unsympathetic leadership (consultants say the company pressured mothers to sell their breast milk to pay for more inventory).

"It was an endless chain. They always wanted you to buy more," said Pamela Winkelman, a Minnesota consultant who was introduced to LuLaRoe over Facebook and is a member of the $1-billion class action.

Before the lawsuits, LuLaRoe had built an ultra-loyal following thanks to its buttery soft leggings. The company's embrace of all body types positioned it as something of an anti-Lululemon, the maker of pricey yoga pants whose former chief executive once suggested its clothes weren't appropriate for bigger women.

By 2015, LuLaRoe had become a social media sensation. Its clothes couldn't be found at stores or e-commerce sites. Instead, women had to join private Facebook groups run by the company's consultants.

Once in, they had to hope the seller had their size and patternnot an easy task because consultants had no say over what pieces LuLaRoe would give them to sell.

Those restrictions on supply sparked a frenzy. Women joined multiple Facebook groups scavenging for rare leggingsknown as unicornswith playful prints such as purple dragons or the solar system. Eventually, unicorns would show-up on EBay for double or triple their typical $25 sticker price.

2017 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Members of the U.S. Coast Guard assist residents in a flooded Houston neighborhood on August 30, 2017. Scientists predict flooding in the Texas Gulf region to become more variable because of increased urbanization. Credit: Coast Guard News

The frequency of flooding in the continental U.S. is increasing, and seasonality of floods is shifting, according to new research.

Flooding causes several million dollars' worth of damage every year in the U.S. Hurricane Harvey alone caused unprecedented flooding for the city of Houston in August of this year, dumping over 50 inches of rain in less than four days. Being able to accurately predict flooding events can help preparation efforts be more effective, but flood models have a lot of uncertainty, according to Xiuyuan Li, a hydrologist and data scientist at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania who presented the new research this week at the 2017 American Geophysical Union Meeting in New Orleans.

Li and her colleague Tara Troy, an environmental engineer at Lehigh University, wanted to improve flooding predictions by examining trends in historical data. In the new research, they used data collected by 3,250 flood gauges from 1950 to 2010 to analyze and map the annual occurrence of floods across all 18 U.S. Geological Survey water regions of the continental U.S. They looked at how stream flow, precipitation, soil moisture and snow changed during this time period.

The researchers found strong seasonality associated with floods in the western U.S., with the vast majority of floods occurring in December or January. In Utah, Idaho and Western Montana, flood seasonality is strong, with most floods occurring during May and June. The north-central U.S. experiences modest flood seasonality from April to June, while the South and East Coast don't experience strong seasonality with their floods  they can happen any time of the year.

To see if flood seasonality has shifted in recent years, the researchers further analyzed data collected from the regions that experience strong flood seasonality and gauges that recorded over 40 flood events during the flood season. This analysis revealed that most regions with strong flood seasonality are seeing floods happen one to five days earlier on average. The exception is Southern California and a few spots in the central U.S. where flooding is instead occurring 1 to 5 days later on average.

Houston experienced record rainfall last August when Hurricane Harvey stalled over the upper Texas coast for nearly four days. Flooding in the U.S. has been happening with more frequency and less seasonality. Credit: Tom Fitzpatrick

In regions such as the Great Lakes, the researchers suspect floods are occurring earlier because of earlier snow melt. For some regions, like the Upper Colorado River, they found no clear environmental factor could explain the flood events. "We don't have a very obvious reason [for floods in this region], so we need further analysis to dig into this," Li said.

The researchers also found an increasing trend of out of season floods occurring in the Great Lakes, Tennessee, Upper and Lower Mississippi River and Texas Gulf regions. The team predicts this trend of more frequent non-seasonal floods to continue because of increased urbanization or other human influences, Li said.

Having such a large-scale data set is valuable for understanding factors causing environmental changes, said Dai Yamazaki, a global hydrologist at the University of Tokyo who was not involved in this study.

"We need to analyze as many data as possible to see whether the changes [in flooding trends] are caused by a climate impact or other impact," he said. Yamazaki said he was excited to see Li and Troy's first large-scale analysis of flood data.

Li said she plans to further examine how urbanization and other potential human factors affect flooding occurrence. "We really need to look at spots case by case, to see what the [flood] drivers are," she said.

This story is republished courtesy of AGU Blogs (http://blogs.agu.org), a community of Earth and space science blogs, hosted by the American Geophysical Union. Read the original story here.
Online advertising agency AdTrader has sued Google in federal court, accusing it of fraud and deceit for not refunding or crediting advertisers whose ads were targeted in scams.

The agency claims Google made "fraudulent promises" of refunds, while the company just kept the money.

None of the claims have been proven. Google said the company had not reviewed the lawsuit.

AdTrader claims that after Google withheld almost $500,000 it owed the ad agency over fraudulent ad traffic, Google responded the same way it has to hundreds of thousands of publishers for many yearsthat it wouldn't pay the money because it had already given it to the affected advertisers.

"What Google apparently forgot, however, was that AdTrader also helps companies place online advertisements on various advertising platforms," says the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California. "AdTrader and its advertising clients, using a Google product called DoubleClick Bid Manager, had placed some of the ... advertisements that ran on the websites of AdTrader's publishers.

"Thus, Google's explanation that it had refunded all of AdTrader's withheld earnings back to Google's advertisers rang false, because neither AdTrader nor its advertising clients received any refunds."

AdTrader is seeking unspecified damages.

Google said it had recently announced that its policy of refunding advertisers for invalid traffic "is currently being expanded to include ads purchased via DoubleClick Bid Manager."

2017 The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The airplane in which Flagship researchers performed experiment in microgravity. Operated by Novespace, the plane makes special manoeuvres to create zero gravit conditions inside the plane Credit: Graphene Flagship

In a successful collaboration between the Graphene Flagship and the European Space Agency, experiments testing graphene for two different space-related applications have shown extremely promising results. Based on these results, the Flagship are continuing to develop graphene devices for use in space.

"Graphene as we know has a lot of opportunities. One of them, recognised early on, is space applications, and this is the first time that graphene has been tested in space-like applications, worldwide," said Prof. Andrea Ferrari (University of Cambridge, UK), Science and Technology Officer of the Graphene Flagship.

Graphene's excellent thermal properties are promising for improving the performance of loop heat pipes, thermal management systems used in aerospace and satellite applications. Graphene could also have a use in space propulsion, due to its lightness and strong interaction with light. The Graphene Flagship tested both these applications in recent experiments in November and December 2017.

The main element of the loop heat pipe is the metallic wick, where heat is transferred from a hot object into a fluid, which cools the system. Two different types of graphene were tested in a collaboration between the Microgravity Research Centre, Universite libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; the Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, UK; the Institute for Organic Synthesis and Photoreactivity and the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems, both at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Italy; and industry partner Leonardo Spa, Italy, a global leader in aerospace, operating in space systems and high-tech instrument manufacturing and in the management of launch and in-orbit services and satellite services.

"We are aiming at an increased lifetime and an improved autonomy of the satellites and space probes. By adding graphene, we will have a more reliable loop heat pipe, capable to operate autonomously in space," said Dr Marco Molina, Chief Technical Officer of Leonardo's space line of business.

After excellent results in laboratory tests, the wicks for the loop heat pipes were tested in two ESA parabolic flight campaigns in November and December. "We have good tests done on earth in the lab, and now of course because the applications will be in satellites, we needed to see how the wicks perform in low gravity conditions and also in hypergravity conditions, to simulate a satellite launch," added Prof Ferrari.

"It was amazing, the feeling is incredible and its extremely interesting to do experiments in these kinds of conditions but also to enjoy the free-floating zone. The whole experience was really great," said Vanja Miskovic, a student at Universite libre de Bruxelles who performed the experiment in microgravity during a parabolic flight operated by Novespace.

The results of the parabolic flight confirm the improvements to the wick, and the Flagship will continue to develop the graphene-based heat pipes towards a commercial product. "I think this is a very nice example of how the Flagship is working. Bringing together three academic partners and one big industry with a clearly defined goal for an application," said Vincenzo Palermo (CNR), Vice-Director of the Graphene Flagship. "At the moment, we have tested the principle and the core of the device. The next step will be to optimise the whole device, and have a full heat pipe that can go in a satellite."

Testing graphene space-propulsion potential, a team of PhD students from Delft Technical University (TU Delft), Netherlands participated in ESA's Drop Your Thesis! campaign, which offers students the chance to perform an experiment in microgravity at the ZARM Drop Tower in Bremen, Germany. To create extreme microgravity conditions, down to one millionth of the Earth's gravitational force, a capsule containing the experiment is catapulted up and down the 146 metre tower, leading to 9.3 seconds of weightlessness. The TU Delft Space Institute, Netherlands, also provided support to the GrapheneX project.

The team - named GrapheneX - designed and built an experiment to test graphene for use in solar sails, using free-floating graphene membranes provided by Flagship partner Graphenea. The idea was to test how the graphene membranes would behave under radiation pressure from lasers. In total, the experiment ran five times over 13-17 November 2017.

"Our experiment is like a complex 'clockwork' where every component has to go off seamlessly at the right time" said Rocco Gaudenzi, a member of the GrapheneX team. "It does not often happen that you have to build up such a clockwork from scratch, and you cannot test it in real conditions but during the launch itself."

The team worked hard to make the experiment successful. "Despite the initial technical difficulties, we managed to quickly figure out what was going on, fix the issues and get back on track. We are very happy with the results of the experiment as we observed laser-induced motion of a graphene light sail, and most importantly we had a great experience!" said Davide Stefani, GrapheneX team member.

Santiago J. Cartamil-Bueno, GrapheneX team leader, expressed that both the experience and the results were valuable to the team. "The most important lesson is that always something will happen, and you need to be ready to adapt or to change," he said. "I think at the end of the day, it's about the experience; you just need to create new challenges and learn from them, and be ready to grab more experience and go to the next level."

Though the GrapheneX experiment is now finished, the team is considering further tests as part of a new and ambitious research project, to continue exploring the influence of radiation pressure on graphene light sails.

The results of the two projects demonstrate graphene's versatility and are the first step towards expanding the frontiers of graphene research.

Provided by Graphene Flagship
Credit: Witan hexateuch via Wikimedia Commons

The idea that there is a common Anglo-Saxon ancestry based on biology is gaining currency among some right-wing and religious groups in the UK and US.

In the UK, the new leader of the UK Independence Party, Henry Bolton, suggested in a radio interview in October that "in certain communities the indigenous Anglo-Saxon population is nowhere to be seen."

In August, a religious group called the Odinist Fellowship wrote to the Church of England demanding two churches as reparations for a "spiritual genocide" which it claims began in the seventh century AD.

The Odinists use old Icelandic texts to reconstruct the "indigenous" religion of the Anglo-Saxons which they claim was oppressed with the arrival of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxons are commonly believed to have migrated into Briton in the fifth and sixth century AD. Iceland by contrast was inhabited in the ninth century by Viking settlers. In the US, this mixed up medievalism is associated with the white supremacist alt-right who use Anglo-Saxon and Viking motifs.

But archaeological research, which examines ancient DNA and artefacts to explore who these "indigenous" Anglo-Saxons were, shows that the people of fifth and sixth century England had a mixed heritage and did not base their identity on a biological legacy. The very idea of the Anglo-Saxon ancestor is a more recent invention linked closely with the English establishment.

What DNA evidence shows

For decades, archaeologists and geneticists have sought to identify Anglo-Saxons in England. An early attempt in 2002 relied on modern DNA with a study of the male Y chromosome suggesting there had been a 95% population replacement of Britons by the Anglo-Saxons, comprised of different people from Northern Europe. But another study, based on mitochondrial DNA which is inherited from the mother, found no evidence of significant post-Roman migration into England. A third paper suggested that the genetic contribution of the Anglo-Saxons in south-eastern England was under 50%.

The discrepancies between the findings are because these three papers used modern DNA and worked backwards. Work my colleagues and I have undertaken looked at the question from the other direction  by working with ancient DNA.

The results from our recent study were published in Nature Communications and included evidence from an Anglo-Saxon site I excavated in Oakington, Cambridgeshire. In total ten skeletons where investigated. These included seven early medieval graves dating to between the fifth and eighth century  four from Oakington and three from Hinxton  and three earlier Iron Age graves from Cambridgeshire, dating to between the second century BC and the first century AD, to provide the genome of the antecedent inhabitants of Briton.

We used a novel method called "rarecoal" to look at ancestry based on the sharing of rare alleles, which are the building blocks of genes. Our research concluded that migrants during what's now thought of as the Anglo-Saxon period were most closely related to the modern Dutch and Danish  and that the modern East English population derived 38% of its ancestry from these incomers. The rest of Britain, including today's Scottish and Welsh, share 30% of their DNA with these migrants.

The analysis of DNA of four individuals from the Oakington Anglo-Saxon cemetery identified that one of them was a match with the Iron Age genome, two were closest to modern Dutch genomes, and one was a hybrid of the two. Each of these burials was culturally Anglo-Saxon because they were buried in the same way, in the same cemetery. In fact, the richest assemblage of Anglo-Saxon artefacts came from the individual with the match for Iron Age genetic ancestry, and so was not a migrant at all.

Excavating at Oakington. Credit: Duncan Sayer

It shows that these ancient people did not distinguish biological heritage from cultural association. In other words, someone who lived and died in the fifth or sixth century Anglo-Saxon village of Oakington could have been biologically related to an earlier inhabitant of England, a recent migrant from continental Europe or a descendent of either or both  they were all treated the same in death.

Writing Anglo-Saxons into history

Biologically then these people were a mixed group who shared what we consider Anglo-Saxon culture. But they did not think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons.

The idea of the Anglo-Saxon is a romanticised and heavily politicised notion. When Gildas, a sixth century Monk wrote De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) he referred only to Saxons. Writing 200 years later, the Venerable Bede used the word "Anglorum" in his ecclesiastical history to describe a people unified under the church. In the ninth century, Alfred the Great used the term Anglo-Saxon to describe the extent of his realm  but this description did not persist.

It was not until the 16th century that pre-Norman people were consistently described as Anglo-Saxons. Previously, stories like the 1485 Le Morte d'Arthur, by Thomas Malory, romanticised Arthurian antagonists who defended Britain from invading Saxons. This origin story was important enough to late medieval Englishness that Henry VIII installed a round table in Winchester castle.

It was not until the 19th century that Anglo-Saxon poems such as Beowulf the Seafarer and the Wanderer were translated into English as interest in Anglo-Saxons grew. In London's National Portrait Gallery, there is a statue of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha dressed as Anglo-Saxon monarchy  a commission that equated their Germanic descent with that of their subjects. This Anglo-Saxon origin story has its roots in politics, downplayed when anti-German sentiment during World War I prompted the royals to change their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor in 1917.

A convenient, but inaccurate label

The people of the fifth, sixth and seventh century certainly did not think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons and would not have understood the description. Migration into the UK took place in deep prehistory, throughout the Roman and post-Roman periods  a fact which the Classicist Mary Beard was lambasted for defending on Twitter in August.

Migration then continued with Viking settlement in the ninth and eleventh centuries. Dutch and European migration into England was present throughout the middle ages and particularly pronounced in the 16th and 17th century as Flemish weavers fled religious persecution.

Today, the term Anglo-Saxon is a convenient label for those opposed to future immigration. While it collectively describes some post-Roman and early medieval culture, it has never accurately described a biological ethnicity nor an indigenous people. The DNA evidence points to an integrated people of mixed ancestry who lived side by side.

Anglo-Saxon ancestry is a modern English myth  the English are not descended from one group of people, but from many and that persists in our culture and in our genes.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Dushyant Chautala, Member of Parliament and the youngest MP in the history of Parliament, attended the winter session like a boss.

By India Today Web Desk: The youngest MP in the history of Parliament of India, Dushayant Chautala of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), attended the winter session of Parliament today.

But, his mode of transport was not something that you see every day.

Photo: ANI

Chautala rode a tractor to Parliament.

Yes, a tractor!

The MP hit a roadblock with the officials saying tractors are not allowed inside Parliament premises.

Photo: ANI

advertisement

Chautala later informed the officials that he had applied for a special permission two days in advance. The MP was allowed by the officials later.

Well, it was indeed, a very unusual sight.

Also watch: Image of the day: PM Modi courts controversy with ink show

--- ENDS ---
Map of Kisar Island. Credit: ANU

A tiny Indonesian island, previously unexplored by archaeologists, has been found to be unusually rich in ancient cave paintings following a study by researchers from The Australian National University (ANU).

The team uncovered a total of 28 rock art sites dating from at least 2,500 years ago on the island of Kisar which measures just 81 square kilometres and lies north of Timor-Leste.

Lead archaeologist, Distinguished Professor Sue O'Connor from the School of Culture, History and Language, said the paintings help tell the story of the region's history of trade and culture.

"Archeologically, no one has ever explored this small island before," Professor O'Connor said.

"These Indonesian islands were the heart of the spice trade going back for thousands of years.

"The paintings we found depict boats, dogs, horses and people often holding what look like shields.

"Other scenes show people playing drums perhaps performing ceremonies."

Professor O'Connor said the discovery pointed to a stronger shared history with the neighbouring island of Timor than had previously been known.

"The Kisar paintings include images which are remarkably similar to those in the east end of Timor-Leste," she said.

"A distinctive feature of the art in both islands is the exceptionally small size of the human and animal figures, most being less than 10 centimetres.

People depicted gesturing in Kisar Island rock art. Credit: ANU

"Despite their size, however, they are remarkably dynamic."

Professor O'Connor said the relationship between the two islands likely extends back to the Neolithic period 3,500 years ago, which saw an influx of Austronesian settlers who introduced domestic animals, such as the dog, and perhaps cereal crops.

However, the close parallels between some of the painted figures and images cast on metal drums that began to be produced in northern Vietnam and southwest China about 2,500 years ago and traded throughout the region, indicate a more recent date for some of the paintings.

"These paintings perhaps herald the introduction of a new symbolic system established about two thousand years ago, following on the exchange of prestige goods and the beginning of hierarchical societies" she said.

Boat figures depicted in Kisar Island rock art Credit: ANU

A paper describing rock paintings at five of the discovered sites has been published in the Cambridge Journal of Archaeology.

Credit: ANU

Credit: ANU

More information: Sue O'Connor et al, Ideology, Ritual Performance and Its Manifestations in the Rock Art of Timor-Leste and Kisar Island, Island Southeast Asia, Cambridge Archaeological Journal (2017). DOI: 10.1017/S0959774317000816
The lush equatorial ecosystem of the late Permian, about 260 milion years ago, as reconstructed in the Dolomites region, Northern Italy. Credit: Drawing by Davide Bonadonna.

A whopping two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, Earth was crawling with bizarre animals, including dinosaur cousins resembling Komodo dragons and bulky early mammal-relatives, millions of years before dinosaurs even existed. New research shows us that the Permian equator was both a literal and figurative hotspot: it was, for the most part, a scorching hot desert, on top of having a concentration of unique animals. Here, you could find ancient crocodile-sized amphibians right next to newly evolved dinosaur and croc relatives. Many of these species were wiped out after an extinction which changed life on the planet forever.

In a paper published in Earth-Science Reviews, paleontologists studied fossil sites all over the world from the late Permian to get an idea of what lived where. They found an unusual assortment of species near the equator, and one that is comparable to the modern tropicsexcept that the array of large, carnivorous reptiles would look very out of place anywhere on Earth today.

"The tropics act as a diversity centerstuff that has gone extinct elsewhere is still alive there, and there's new stuff evolving," explains Postdoctoral Researcher Brandon Peecook, co-author of the paper. While it makes sense that the warm, wet rainforests we see now have incredible diversity, it seems counterintuitive that these fiery, hot deserts were home to an exceptional range of species, especially because diversity at the equator fluctuates so much historically.

"The tropics were a breeding ground for biodiversity, in the distant Permian as well as today," says the study's lead author Massimo Bernardi of MUSE - Museo delle Scienze in Trento, Italy.

The research team at the Bletterbach paloentological site, Dolomites, Northern Italy. Credit: Christian Weber.

The foundation of the research was observations made during fieldwork in Bletterbach Valley in northern Italy, which was located near the equator in the Permian. As Evelyn Kustatscher of the Museum of Nature South Tyrol explains: "The Bletterbach is a unique place because of the array of different species present. It's not that there were more individual species present than normal, but that the species that were there were really diverse and represented very different groups in the animal kingdom."

These findings about the late Permian beg the question, "Why are we seeing so much biodiversity at the equator?" This is something scientists have yet to answer, but it shows us that biodiversity at the tropics isn't intuitive, and isn't consistent. What scientists know for sure is that regardless of desert or rainforest, climate change negatively impacts living things.

This unequaled comparison of Permian climate and species distribution to modern events shows us that while many changes are natural and we see them throughout our planet's history, drastic changes like this can be triggered by something much largervolcanic activity likely caused this in the Permian, and human activity is the suspected culprit today. After the Permian extinction, "it was almost as though the slate had been wiped clean, and all the ecosystems had to rebuild," says Peecook. This event altered life permanently and while new animals evolved and thrived, the process of recovery took millions of years, and the animals that were lost never returned.

This map of Pangea shows the distribution of life during the late Permian period. Many species exclusively thrived near the equator, including early amphibian tetrapods and early crocodiles and dinosaurs, while animals like dicynodonts (early mammal-relatives) were in greater abundance farther north and south. Credit: Created by Brandon Peecook, The Field Museum, using images from Wikimedia Commons.

"If we want to know how Earth's systems work, what's expected and what's normal, we need to look to the past," and the fossil record is the best measure of ecosystem stability. As we already begin to face extinctions and carbon levels similar to those before the Permian extinction, examining these patterns over time gives us the evidence we need to measure and minimize our impact on climate, preventing further permanent damage to our planet's ecosystems and animals.
Legalising the trade of rhino horns has long been thought of as the solution to the poaching problem. Credit: Shutterstock

Between 2008 and 2016, poachers killed more than 7100 rhinos in Africa. South Africa, which has nearly 80% of Africa's rhinos, was the worst affected country, with more than 1000 rhinos killed each year over the last four years.

In 2015 and 2016, the total number of rhinos poached represented almost 6% of South Africa's rhinos (if white and black rhinos are added up together), which is similar to the estimated population growth rate. This suggests that the situation is close to a tipping point where rhino deaths exceed births.

Statistics for 2017 haven't been tallied, but the numbers are likely to be high again. Before 2008, South Africa was losing fewer than 25 rhinos to poaching per year. There is no consensus about the reasons for the increase in poaching.

Rhinos are killed for their horns, which fetch high prices on the black market. There are suggestions from 2012 that end user prices were as high as USD$65000/kg. Most poached rhino horns are smuggled to Asia, where their uses range from traditional or modern medicine to making ornaments. It's also speculated that criminal syndicates store some in stockpiles in the belief that prices will increase in future.

In an attempt to stop the poaching, South Africa has developed a multi-sectoral approach that includes state and private entities and combines law enforcement with interventions like translocations. The poaching rate appears to have levelled, but this strategy hasn't reduced killings to sustainable levels  or prevented the involvement of organised crime in rhino poaching.

Since limiting the supply of horn to the market has not succeeded, another strategy is to consider the opposite: increasing the supply by legalising trade.

A group of South African conservation biologists recently estimated how much horn could be supplied if this happened. The paper looked at the amount of rhino horn that could be produced in South Africa in one year. The horn could come from rhinos that die of natural causes, live rhinos dehorned on private properties and stockpiles. Trophy hunted rhinos were also considered, although this would be a highly contentious source of horn for legal trade. Trophy hunting of rhinos is legal in South Africa under highly regulated conditions.

The paper estimated a minimum production of 5319 kg horn over one year and a maximum of 13 356 kg. In comparison, the amount of horn thought to be entering the illegal markets is around 5346 kg/year.

The scientists did not think there was enough information to assess whether this would be enough to satisfy the demand in Asia. Markets are complex and it's hard to predict what would happen if more rhino horn became available. A number of factors need to be taken into account, including the unknown impact of having separate markets for legal and illegal horn, uncertainty about prices, the possibility of laundering illegal horn through legal markets, and relaxing of the stigma of buying horn.

As a result, caution is needed before unleashing unpredictable market forces on a threatened species.

Contrasting approaches

In theory, rhino poaching could be made less financially rewarding in two ways.

One is to reduce demand: to discourage people from buying rhino horn. So far, there is no credible evidence that this approach will work.

Another is to make trade legal. Here, the goal is to attract buyers away from the illegal market and to use the income from legal trade to protect rhinos. This approach has never been tried because a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES ban on international trade has been in place since the 1970s.

There are strongly opposing views on the likely outcome of legalising trade, and no credible evidence to support the theory.

Traditional economic theory suggests that the price of horn would drop if it were readily available through legitimate channels. This would lead to lower profits for criminals and a subsequent reduction in poaching. It also suggests that prohibiting the sale of horn increases its scarcity and leads to increased prices. Confiscating horn may cause increased poaching to meet demand.

The theory, however, assumes that legal and illegal horns are interchangeable in a single market. This would not be true if there were separate legal and illegal markets with different prices.

It's not clear, either, how an increased supply of horn would affect market prices. And legalising trade might reduce the stigma of buying rhino horn, stimulating demand for legal horn among law-abiding people. If demand exceeded legal supply, poaching might increase. The number of potential law abiding users of rhino horn is unknown.

These unknowns point to the need for policymakers to proceed with caution. The potential for unintended consequences resulting from boosting the supply of rhino horn make legalising trade a high risk strategy.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The crest-tailed mulgara was once widely distributed across sandy deserts in inland Australia. Credit: Reece Pedler

A crest-tailed mulgara, a small carnivorous marsupial known only from fossilised bone fragments and presumed extinct in NSW for more than century, has been discovered in Sturt National Park north-west of Tibooburra.

A team from the UNSW Sydney's Wild Deserts project made the unexpected discovery during recent scientific monitoring.

UNSW scientist and wild deserts ecologist Dr Rebecca West says it is particularly exciting to find a crest-tailed mulgara alive for the first time in NSW.

"The crest-tailed mulgara was once widely distributed across sandy desert environments in inland Australia, but declined due to the effects of rabbits, cats and foxes," West says.

"The species weighs around 150 grams and has pale blonde fur and a thick tail with a distinctive black crest."

The discovery comes at a great time, according to UNSW scientist and Wild Deserts project coordinator Reece Pedler.

"Next year we are due to begin introduced predator and rabbit eradication from a large area, which will no doubt help the Mulgara," Pedler says.

National Parks and Wildlife Service area manager Jaymie Norris says the Wild Deserts project is contributing to the NSW Government's Saving our Species conservation program (SOS).

"The aim of this project is to return mammal species not seen in their natural habitat for over 90 years in Sturt National Park," he says.

Reduced rabbit populations over the past 20 years are thought to have benefited the species. Credit: Katherine Moseby

"Rabbits, cats and foxes will be eradicated from two 20-square-kilometre fenced exclosures in Sturt National Park, before locally extinct mammals are reintroduced.

"Reintroduced native mammal species will include greater bilby, burrowing bettong, western quoll and western barred bandicoot."

The Wild Deserts project is a partnership between UNSW and Ecological Horizons, in collaboration with Taronga Conservation Society Australia.

Wild Deserts has been contracted by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to restore and promote desert ecosystems in Sturt National Park.

Previous work in South Australia by Wild Deserts team members suggests that the crest-tailed mulgara has been recovering in numbers and expanding its range.

Reduced rabbit populations during the past 20 years due to release of rabbit calicivirus is thought to have benefited the species by leading to increases in ground cover.

Reductions in populations of introduced predators such as cats and foxes has also increased the numbers of small rodents for mulgara to prey on.

In recent years, crest-tailed mulgara have expanded their distribution in the Strzelecki Desert over the border in South Australia.
This plot shows a thin slice through a mock galaxies catalog. The blue and green points are bright and faint galaxies simulated for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instruments Bright Galaxy Survey, and the red points show galaxies that are brighter than the magnitude limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a predecessor sky survey. Credit: Alex Smith/Durham University

Seeing is believing, or so the saying goes.

And in some cases, a world of make-believe can help you realize what you're actually seeing, too.

Scientists are creating simulated universes, for example  complete with dark matter mock-ups, computer-generated galaxies, quasi quasars, and pseudo supernovae  to better understand real-world observations.

Their aim is to envision how new Earth-based and space-based sky surveys will see the universe, and to help analyze and interpret the vast treasure troves of data that these surveys will amass.

"We want to be able to hit the ground running once we get real data," said Stephen Bailey, a physicist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who is the technical lead and manager of data systems for a 3-D sky-mapping project known as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI, that is slated to begin observing in 2019.

Several DESI teams are building out separate simulations populated with the many types of objects DESI will encounter. "What is this going to look like for DESI?" Bailey asked. "What is the actual spectra, or light signature, that DESI is going to observe? We have to make sure the mock objects have the right colors and chemical abundances."

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), shown in this illustration, will be mounted on the 4-meter Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. It will collect data on light from 35 million galaxies and quasars to make the biggest 3-D map of the universe ever. Credit: R. Lafever, J. Moustakas/DESI Collaboration

John Moustakas, an assistant professor of physics at Siena College in New York who is also working on the simulations for DESI, added, "And that's challenging because nothing like DESI exists."

The computerized models are informed by observations from previous surveys and by large-scale simulations of the universe that account for complex physics including dark matter, an unknown form of matter that, together with dark energy, makes up about 95 percent of the total mass and energy in the universe.

"To the greatest extent possible, the simulations are based on models of real objects  from pulling out all of these pieces from other surveys," Moustakas said. "Perhaps in a perfect world these would be purely theoretical models, but we don't understand galaxies well enough to be able to do that."

And even though there is data from previous surveys, DESI will see the sky in a different way. "You have to extract out all the instrument parts of all these other surveys to get to: 'This is what other galaxies look like, intrinsically,'" he said. Next, he said, scientists must figure out how DESI's unique set of instruments will see them.

The simulated objects and universes created and refined using powerful supercomputers, including Berkeley Lab's National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), must ultimately take into account the Earth's atmospheric noise, and weather and lighting conditions including the phases of the moon, which all affect observations.

DESI will operate from the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-Meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. It will measure the light from tens of millions of galaxies and other objects with a carefully choreographed array of 5,000 swiveling robots  each pointing a fiber-optic cable at a targeted space object. The robotic array will cycle through a sequence of objects, peering up to 11 billion years back in the history of our universe.

This animation shows a zooming view of the dark matter distribution in the universe in the present, based on the Millennium Simulation. The simulation extends from scales of several billion parsecs to fewer than 10,000 parsecs. A parsec equals 3.3 light-years. Credit: Springel et al., 2005; Millennium Simulation

The light captured by DESI will provide precise measurements that will help scientists to retrace the evolution of the universe and learn more about dark energy, which is responsible for the universe's mysterious, accelerating expansion. Berkeley Lab is the lead lab for the DESI project, and the collaboration now involves about 200 scientists at 40 institutions.

Alex Smith, a graduate student at Durham University in England and a DESI collaboration member, worked with a team to develop a mock catalog of galaxies for DESI that taps into a powerful simulation of how the universe's matter has evolved over the past 13 billion years.

Carried out at the Julich Supercomputer Center in Germany, this Millennium-XXL simulation used 12,000 computer cores  the equivalent to about 300 years' worth of computer processing time. It generated about 100 terabytes of data, which is nearly as much data as the Hubble Space Telescope transmitted in space images during its first 24 years of operation.

The mock galaxy catalog that Smith's team developed focused on the same one-third of the sky that DESI will survey. The catalog shows how galaxies' clustering and 'redshift'  the color based on their distance and movement away from us  changes over time and will likely appear to DESI.

Due to cosmic expansion, very distant objects appear redder and fainter. Earlier mock catalogs had not accounted for these changes in redshift, Smith said.

"It's important to have mock catalogs that have realistic properties  that look similar to how we think the actual survey is going to look," he added.

The predicted galaxy distribution in the Millennium XXL simulation. Each galaxy is represented by a sphere whose intensity and size are related to the expected total mass in stars and the size of its cold gas disk. Credit: Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics

His team's survey used a method known as halo occupation distribution, or HOD, to model the average number of galaxies and their brightness based on the Millennium-XXL survey's detailed simulations of the distribution of dark matter. In dark matter models, matter forms within clumps of dark matter known as halos, and galaxies are enveloped by these halos.

Smith noted that the distribution of galaxies within these halos, and other properties incorporated in the latest catalog, are taken from data collected in past surveys, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Galaxy and Mass Assembly Survey.

The galaxies in the catalog are simplified to their brightness, as it will appear in one of the wavelength bands that DESI will be scanning. The mock catalog is also intended to simulate the type of galaxies that will be targeted during sky conditions that favor brighter objects, such as those that exist around the times of sunrises and sunsets, or when the moon is brighter in the sky, for example. Separate simulations will account for darker viewing conditions.

"The mock catalog I created assumes you can observe everything with perfect precision," Smith noted, so additional properties will need to be added to simulate weather and other effects. The DESI collaboration has access to a decade of weather statistics collected at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, Bailey said.

Even after the start of DESI's survey, collaboration scientists will continue to adapt and improve the models.

"There is a learning component to it," Moustakas said. "As we start to observe things, we will then use those targeted objects to build better models of what those objects are."

A view of some candidate targets for DESI obervations is shown here, along with overlay images showing mock spectra, or light signatures, generated in the planning stages for DESI. Credit: legacysurvey.org, John Moustakas, DESI collaboration

Relying too much on simulations can also be a problem, DESI scientists noted, so observations will provide a needed reality check. For example, superbright objects called quasars, which are among the targets for DESI, have been particularly difficult to simulate.

"You don't want to believe your simulations too much, because nature is much harsher," Moustakas said.

Bailey added, "We are currently bootstrapping off other experiments; then we'll be bootstrapping off ourselves."

Smith noted that to prepare for ever-larger surveys, there will be a need for more detailed and accurate models to home in on the nature of dark energy and gravity, for example.

"To be able to make cosmological measurements at the required high precision to be able to tell all of these viable models apart, it's really important to have more and more realistic mock catalogs," he said.
The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak on Dec. 14 at 12:11 p.m. EST (1711 UTC). Coldest cloud tops and strongest storms appear in purple. Credit: NASA JPL/Ed Olsen

NASA's Aqua satellite provided infrared imagery of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak that revealed the western side of storm had moved into the southern and central Philippines. Infrared data revealed very cold cloud top temperatures with the potential for heavy rainfall.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak on Dec. 14 at 12:11 p.m. EST (1711 UTC). Infrared data provides cloud top temperatures and the coldest cloud tops and strongest storms were blanketing the southern and central Philippines. Infrared data showed persistent central cold cover obscuring the low-level circulation center where cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 115.6 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 82 degrees Celsius. NASA research has shown that storms with cloud tops that cold have the potential to generate heavy rainfall.

On Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. EST (1500 UTC) the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported that Tropical storm Kai-tak, known as Urduja in the Philippines had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kph). The storm had slowed to a crawl, moving west at just 2 knots (2.3 mph/3.7 kph). When a tropical cyclone slows over land, it increases the likelihood for inland flooding.

Kai-Tak was centered near 11.6 degrees north latitude and 127.6 degrees east longitude, just east of the Eastern Visayas region and about 436 miles east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.

On Dec. 15, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issued Heavy Rainfall Warning No.17 at 8:40 p.m. local time on Friday, December 15, 2017. PAGASA issued orange and yellow level warnings.

There is an Orange Warning Level for Eastern Samar and Samar, where flooding is threatening in low-lying areas and landslides in mountainous areas. There is a Yellow Warning Level for Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Negros Oriental where flooding is possible in low-lying areas and landslides in mountainous areas.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Kai-tak to continue moving westward through the Philippine archipelago, while intensifying slightly. After landfall in the Eastern Visayas region, the storm will weaken and turn to the southwest where it is expected to track into the South China Sea by Dec. 18.

For updated forecasts and warnings from PAGASA, visit: https://www1.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/
A team of international researchers headed by scientists from the University of Tubingen has deciphered the workings of a cytolytic toxin, which is produced by some of the world's most devastating crop diseases. The Cytolysin is manufactured by pathogens such as bacteria and fungi and can wipe out entire harvests if chemical protection is not used. The studyby researchers from Tubingen and their partner institutions in Berkeley, Bordeaux, Ljubljana, Liege, and Wako in Japan, as well as Gottingen in Germanymay lead to ways of better protecting crops from such pathogens in the future. The study has been published in the latest edition of Science.

The Great Famine in Ireland claimed around one million lives and forced more than a million people to emigrate. It began in 1845 with the failure of potato crops in that and the following years due to the potato blight, caused by an oomycete called Phytophthora infestans. It quickly kills the infected plant and spoils the potato tubers.

"This pathogenic organism produces Cytolysin, a veritable killer toxin," says Dr... Isabell Albert of Tubingen's Center for Plant Molecular Biology. The organism's goal is to kill the plant cells so that it can feed on the dead tissue." To this end, the Cytolysin perforates the plant cell membrane, damaging it beyond repair. The affected cells die.

Phytophthora infestans is not the only pathogen to use this tactic, Albert explains. So does Pectobacterium carotovorum, which primarily attacks roots; it is also the preferred mode of attack by the Botrytis fungus, which ruins fruit and vegetable crops. What was not understood until now was why these Cytolysins severely damage some plant species while not affecting others. "For example, cells of all kinds of cereals remain undestroyed by the toxin," says Albert, "Pathogens such as the potato blight therefore do not harm cereals."

The researchers have now shown that sensitivity to the Cytolysin is dependent on a receptor in the plant cell which is significantly different in different types of plants. In both cases it is a molecule chain of sugar residues and fatsbut in plants such as potatoes and tomatoes the chain is short, while cereals have a much longer molecule chain. "This longer receptor apparently means that the Cytolysin can connect with the receptor in wheat or barley, but cannot reach the cell membraneand therefore cannot have its deadly effect," Albert reports.

As Professor Thorsten Nurnberger, who headed the study, explained, the characteristics of the different toxin receptors offer a significant potential application: "The plants which are sensitive to the Cytolysin due to their receptor include a lot of weeds." This opens up the possiblity of developing a natural herbicide on the basis of a microbial toxin which would act very selectivelyand therefore in a much more environmentally-friendly way than common herbicides today such as Glyphosate.

Another prospect arising from the study, Nurnberger said, was the development of new kinds of biological plant-protective chemicals. He says it is conceivable that special sugar molecules could be used to block the Cytolysin toxin, preventing it from docking onto vulnerable plant cells. That could enable effective protection from attack by a range of deadly plant diseases, Nurnberger says.

More information: Tea Lenarcic et al. Eudicot plant-specific sphingolipids determine host selectivity of microbial NLP cytolysins, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aan6874 Journal information: Science
Credit: Utrecht University Faculty of Science

Using fluorescence microscopy, Ph.D. Candidate Frank Hendriks has studied the accessibility, structure and reactivity of individual catalyst particles. His work has resulted in several technological breakthroughs, as well as two important publications. Hendriks will defend his dissertation in the University Hall on 20 December.

"In my first project, I studied a complete catalyst particle with a microscope and used fluorescence in order to follow a single specific type of molecule with a high degree of precision," Hendriks explains. He followed the molecule's movements through the network of pores in a single catalyst particle. "You can really follow an individual molecule," he adds. "That's extremely special, but it's also extremely difficult. This was the first time that the technology was used on a real catalyst, instead of a model system. It shows how complex the catalyst's 'road map' really is. There are many roads that can lead to Rome, or the catalytically active location."

Mountain of information

After two weeks of experiments, Hendriks started working on the resulting data. "That was a whole mountain of information; a total of 60,000 video frames. Gigabytes of data. It was tough to turn all that into a good story." After two years spent analysing the data, Hendriks was able to draw connections between the movement of the molecules and the network of pores in the catalyst particles.

In model systems, the molecules that are observed often display only small variations in speed, because they are located in a simple network of pores. "In the complex network of our catalyst particle, things looked quite a bit different," says Hendriks. "We saw a wide variety of speeds, because the molecules moved through differently sized pores." The results of this study, a collaborative effort by Utrecht University and the University of Leuven, were published last summer in the influential Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Extremely high resolution

In the second half of his Ph.D. studies, Hendriks examined the relationship between the structure of a catalyst and its reactivity. To do so, he used a new method for cutting the catalyst material into thin slices, which allowed him to observe for the first time both the structure and activity of the catalyst at extremely high resolution. The results showed that not all of the zeolites in the catalyst particles are equally active, even though they had similar structures.

In contrast to his first experiment, most of his work involved getting the unique test installation working, rather than analysing the results. "It was a challenge just to be able to conduct measurements. For this experiment, we actually combined two different types of equipment, one of which only works in a vacuum. It took a year before we could get the combination working at all." The analysis of the data for this experiment, which resulted in a publication in the leading journal Angewandte Chemie, took six months to complete.

Hendriks didn't mind that it took him so long to get the test installation working. "Getting something to work is a very concrete puzzle. The fact that it was so difficult to analyse the data from my first experiment was more frustrating, because I didn't know what it would turn up, or if it would even turn up any results at all. With a test installation, you immediately know if it works or not."

More information: Integrated Transmission Electron and Single-Molecule Fluorescence Microscopy Correlates Reactivity with Ultrastructure in a Single Catalyst Particle

Frank C. Hendriks, Sajjad Mohammadian, Zoran Ristanovic, Sam Kalirai, Florian Meirer, Eelco T. C. Vogt, Pieter C.A. Bruijnincx, Hans C. Gerritsen, Bert M. Weckhuysen

Angewandte Chemie, 20 november 2017, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201709723 Single-Molecule Fluorescence Microscopy Reveals Local Diffusion Coefficients in the Pore Network of an Individual Catalyst Particle

Frank C. Hendriks*, Florian Meirer*, Alexey V. Kubarev, Zoran Ristanovic*, Maarten B. J. Roeffaers, Eelco T. C. Vogt*, Pieter C.A. Bruijnincx*, and Bert M. Weckhuysen*

Journal of the American Chemical Society, 13 september 2017, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b07139 Journal information: Journal of the American Chemical Society , Angewandte Chemie
By limiting the number of homes that property owners can operate as short-term rentals for visitors, can Seattle preserve its housing stock for locals?

The City Council decided to try the strategy Monday, voting 7-0 to enact new regulations for short-term rentals, including those listed on platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway.

Council members said they want to rein in a rapidly growing industry that caters to tourists and other out-of-towners looking for alternatives to hotels.

With rents and home prices rising and affordable housing in short supply, Seattle can't afford to lose permanent units, council members said.

"I'm proud of where we've gone today," Councilmember Mike O'Brien said. "I think we've created a path for people to continue to operate successful businesses. There will be some changes, for sure, and I think those changes overall will be better for the community."

The regulations, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2019, will require all operators of short-term rentals to obtain licenses and will limit new operators to listing their primary residence and one additional unit. Existing operators across most of the city will be limited to renting out two units (three if adding their primary residence at a later date).

Only existing operators with short-term rentals in the downtown core andin small buildings constructed after 2012 on First Hill and Capitol Hill will be grandfathered in. They'll be allowed to continue listing as many units as they do now, plus their primary residence and one additional unit.

The new limits won't affect mom-and-pop operators using their own homes to make ends meet, council members said. They said the limits are meant to prevent business people from taking large numbers of units off the housing market and from converting neighborhood apartment buildings into de-facto hotels.

The regulations, which Seattle officials began working on about two years ago, garnered support Monday from a variety of interested parties.

Representatives for Puget Sound Sage, a nonprofit organization concerned about short-term rentals contributing to gentrification, urged the council to take action.

The city has lost more than 2,000 housing units to the short-term rental market in recent years, according to the organization. People of color are hurt the most and benefit the least because they're less likely to own property, said Yolanda Matthews, an organizer with the group.

Though online platforms are challenging the traditional hospitality industry, both Airbnb and the Seattle Hotel Association praised the regulations.

Laura Spanjian, Airbnb's Northwest public-policy director, called them a "landmark win," because most of the company's hosts list only one or a small number of units.

And Shannon Sheron, president of Seattle Hotel Association, said the group is pleased short-term rental operators will now be licensed.

The council recently passed separate pieces of legislation defining short-term rentals as certain units offered for fewer than 30 consecutive nights and adopting a tax on short-term rentals of $14 a night for entire homes and $8 a night for rooms.

The council did also hear from critics of the regulations Monday, as some short-term rental operators who own or lease many units warned the new limits would result in lost jobs, many of them held by women and people of color.

Some began operating short-term rentals legally and paying taxes long before Airbnb used technology to become a key player in the industry, they said.

The most controversial question Monday was where in the city to grandfather in existing operators, with Belltown becoming a battleground for the debate.

A council committee last week recommended a version of the regulations that would have given the special deal to operators in Belltown, Uptown, South Lake Union, Pioneer Square and part of the Chinatown International District, in addition to those in the downtown core.

The deal was initially put together in exchange for some operators agreeing to drop legal challenges against the regulations.

But Councilmember Sally Bagshaw-responding to complaints from some Belltown condominium residents about invading tourists-championed an amendment Monday to cut the additional neighborhoods out of the deal.

Bagshaw said she wants to increase the number of units available for Seattle families to live in. But many of the Belltown units now used as short-term rentals are high-end homes unlikely to become affordable options for locals, some critics replied.

The council voted 5-2 to approve the change. Council President Bruce Harrell and council members Mike O'Brien, Teresa Mosqueda and Lisa Herbold joined Bagshaw in supporting it, while M. Lorena Gonzalez and Rob Johnson opposed it.

Short-term rental operators and platforms will pay fees to cover the administrative costs of the regulations.

2017 The Seattle Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Artist's impression of UNSW's complete silicon quantum computer chip in operation. Credit: Tony Melov/UNSW

Research teams all over the world are exploring different ways to design a working computing chip that can integrate quantum interactions. Now, UNSW engineers believe they have cracked the problem, reimagining the silicon microprocessors we know to create a complete design for a quantum computer chip that can be manufactured using mostly standard industry processes and components.

The new chip design, published in the journal Nature Communications, details a novel architecture that allows quantum calculations to be performed using existing semiconductor components, known as CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) - the basis for all modern chips.

It was devised by Andrew Dzurak, director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and Dr Menno Veldhorst, lead author of the paper who was a research fellow at UNSW when the conceptual work was done.

"We often think of landing on the Moon as humanity's greatest technological marvel," said Dzurak, who is also a Program Leader at Australia's famed Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T). "But creating a microprocessor chip with a billion operating devices integrated together to work like a symphony - that you can carry in your pocket! - is an astounding technical achievement, and one that's revolutionised modern life.

"With quantum computing, we are on the verge of another technological leap that could be as deep and transformative. But a complete engineering design to realise this on a single chip has been elusive. I think what we have developed at UNSW now makes that possible. And most importantly, it can be made in a modern semiconductor manufacturing plant," he added.

Veldhorst, now a team leader in quantum technology at QuTech - a collaboration between Delft University of Technology and TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research - said the power of the new design is that, for the first time, it charts a conceivable engineering pathway toward creating millions of quantum bits, or qubits.

"Remarkable as they are, today's computer chips cannot harness the quantum effects needed to solve the really important problems that quantum computers will. To solve problems that address major global challenges - like climate change or complex diseases like cancer - it's generally accepted we will need millions of qubits working in tandem. To do that, we will need to pack qubits together and integrate them, like we do with modern microprocessor chips. That's what this new design aims to achieve.

"Our design incorporates conventional silicon transistor switches to 'turn on' operations between qubits in a vast two-dimensional array, using a grid-based 'word' and 'bit' select protocol similar to that used to select bits in a conventional computer memory chip," he added. "By selecting electrodes above a qubit, we can control a qubit's spin, which stores the quantum binary code of a 0 or 1. And by selecting electrodes between the qubits, two-qubit logic interactions, or calculations, can be performed between qubits."

Silicon quantum computer chip from below, showing the qubits interacting with the CMOS architecture above. Credit: Tony Melov/UNSW

A quantum computer exponentially expands the vocabulary of binary code used in modern computers by using two spooky principles of quantum physics - namely, 'entanglement' and 'superposition'. Qubits can store a 0, a 1, or an arbitrary combination of 0 and 1 at the same time. And just as a quantum computer can store multiple values at once, so it can process them simultaneously, doing multiple operations at once.

This would allow a universal quantum computer to be millions of times faster than any conventional computer when solving a range of important problems.

But to solve complex problems, a useful universal quantum computer will need a large number of qubits, possibly millions, because all types of qubits we know are fragile, and even tiny errors can be quickly amplified into wrong answers.

"So we need to use error-correcting codes which employ multiple qubits to store a single piece of data," said Dzurak. "Our chip blueprint incorporates a new type of error-correcting code designed specifically for spin qubits, and involves a sophisticated protocol of operations across the millions of qubits. It's the first attempt to integrate into a single chip all of the conventional silicon circuitry needed to control and read the millions of qubits needed for quantum computing."

"We expect that there will still be modifications required to this design as we move towards manufacture, but all of the key components that are needed for quantum computing are here in one chip. And that's what will be needed if we are to make quantum computers a workhorse for calculations that are well beyond today's computers," Dzurak added. "It shows how to integrate the millions of qubits needed to realise the true promise of quantum computing."

Building such a universal quantum computer has been called the 'space race of the 21st century'. For a range of calculations, they will be much faster than existing computers, and for some challenging problems they could find solutions in days, maybe even hours, when today's best supercomputers would take millions of years.

There are at least five major quantum computing approaches being explored worldwide: silicon spin qubits, ion traps, superconducting loops, diamond vacancies and topological qubits; UNSW's design is based on silicon spin qubits. The main problem with all of these approaches is that there is no clear pathway to scaling the number of quantum bits up to the millions needed without the computer becoming huge a system requiring bulky supporting equipment and costly infrastructure.

That's why UNSW's new design is so exciting: relying on its silicon spin qubit approach - which already mimics much of the solid-state devices in silicon that are the heart of the US$380 billion global semiconductor industry - it shows how to dovetail spin qubit error correcting code into existing chip designs, enabling true universal quantum computation.

Unlike almost every other major group elsewhere, CQC2T's quantum computing effort is obsessively focused on creating solid-state devices in silicon, from which all of the world's computer chips are made. And they're not just creating ornate designs to show off how many qubits can be packed together, but aiming to build qubits that could one day be easily fabricated - and scaled up.

"It's kind of swept under the carpet a bit, but for large-scale quantum computing, we are going to need millions of qubits," said Dzurak. "Here, we show a way that spin qubits can be scaled up massively. And that's the key."

The design is a leap forward in silicon spin qubits; it was only two years ago, in a paper in Nature, that Dzurak and Veldhorst showed, for the first time, how quantum logic calculations could be done in a real silicon device, with the creation of a two-qubit logic gate - the central building block of a quantum computer.

"Those were the first baby steps, the first demonstrations of how to turn this radical quantum computing concept into a practical device using components that underpin all modern computing," said Mark Hoffman, UNSW's Dean of Engineering. "Our team now has a blueprint for scaling that up dramatically.

"We've been testing elements of this design in the lab, with very positive results. We just need to keep building on that - which is still a hell of a challenge, but the groundwork is there, and it's very encouraging. It will still take great engineering to bring quantum computing to commercial reality, but clearly the work we see from this extraordinary team at CQC2T puts Australia in the driver's seat," he added.

Other CQC2T researchers involved in the design published in the Nature Communications paper were Henry Yang and Gertjan Eenink, the latter of whom has since joined Veldhorst at QuTech.

The UNSW team has struck a A$83 million deal between UNSW, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank and the Australian and New South Wales governments to develop, by 2022, a 10-qubit prototype silicon quantum integrated circuit - the first step in building the world's first quantum computer in silicon.

In August, the partners launched Silicon Quantum Computing Pty Ltd, Australia's first quantum computing company, to advance the development and commercialisation of the team's unique technologies. The NSW Government pledged A$8.7 million, UNSW A$25 million, the Commonwealth Bank A$14 million, Telstra A$10 million and the Australian Government A$25 million.

More information: M. Veldhorst et al, Silicon CMOS architecture for a spin-based quantum computer, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01905-6 Journal information: Nature Communications
Mallika Sherawat has claimed that she and her French boyfriend do not have an apartment in Paris.

By India Today Web Desk: Last evening, news broke that Mallika Sherawat was being kicked out of her plush Paris apartment for not paying rent. A BBC report said that Mallika and her French boyfriend Cyrille Auxenfans are yet to pay 80,000 euros in rent for the apartment that the two live in, in the French capital.

Now, Mallika has claimed that she does not even have an apartment in Paris, let alone being kicked out of one.

advertisement

The actress, best known for her 2004 film Murder, took to Twitter to clear her side of the story, "Some in the media think I hv an apartment in Paris !! It's absolutely Not True , if someone has donated one to me, pls send me the address :) (sic)"

It was courtesy the news of her being attacked by three masked assailants last year, that we found out that Mallika Sherawat had moved bag and baggage to Paris.

Yesterday's report in BBC mentioned that the actress and her French beau, Cyrille Auxenfans, faced eviction from their Paris apartment for non-payment of rent.

According the report, Mallika and her boyfriend are yet to shell out the nearly 80,000 euros (around Rs 64 lakh) that is due.

The couple's lawyer was quoted as saying that the couple did not pay rent to "show their annoyance" after they were tear-gassed and beaten up by three masked men in their Paris apartment block in November 2016. He also said that Mallika and Cyrille were facing "temporary financial difficulties". However, their landlord's lawyer, Olivier Mayrand told Francetvinfo that the couple could easily afford to pay the rent.

The apartment in discussion is a 350sq-m one that sits in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, which is the one of the most favoured places of residence for the city's most affluent.

From the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball, to the controversial 1972 film Last Tango in Paris, top Hollywood films have been shot in the area, which is a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower.

On the work front, the 40-year-old actress, who is best known for films like Murder, Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Welcome, was last seen on the big screen in the Chinese fantasy-action-adventure film Time Raiders, in 2016.

ALSO WATCH: India is regressive for women, says Mallika Sherawat

--- ENDS ---
The ongoing battle between start-up traffic ticket website TIKD.com, the Florida Bar and The Ticket Clinic has gotten the green light to go to the Florida Supreme Court.

This week, the Board of Governors of the Florida Bar accepted a recommendation from a Florida Bar committee that believes Coral Gables start-up TIKD is violating Florida law by practicing law without a license or providing false or misleading information to its customers. The Florida Supreme Court will be tasked with making a final decision.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed in November by TIKD, an Uber-like company that fights traffic tickets on behalf of its customers through a web application, and promises its clients they will get no points on their record. The company, which began operating early this year, sued the Ticket Clinic and the Florida Bar in federal court, alleging the two are conspiring to drive it out of business.

TIKD claims The Ticket Clinic and the Florida Bar are "conspiring" to reduce competition and threatening TIKD lawyers, leading to at least $3.8 million in lost revenue for the start-up. TIKD is seeking $11.4 million in damages and injunctions against anti-competitive practices.

For its part, the Ticket Clinic, a private ticket-defense law firm, has filed complaints with the Florida Bar claiming that TIKD is practicing law without a license, and has filed grievances against lawyers who have represented TIKD customers, threatening to have them disbarred.

In a news release, Ticket Clinic founder Mark S. Gold alleged that TIKD's website "is replete with legal advice, which not only constitutes the unauthorized practice of law, but is false and misleading."

"If allowed, TIKD is the first of many non-lawyers attempting to cash in on the legal profession, without the supervision required by the Florida Bar," Gold said.

2017 Miami Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Petra Axolotl knew her chances of getting an H-1B visa were slim. She had an MBA from Wharton and a job offer at Twitter, but luck would decide the Dutch data scientist's fateand in 2016, it did not fall in her favor.

Axolotl missed out in the lottery for the coveted visa but remained determined to work in Silicon Valley, a place she considered the global capital of tech innovation. The plan was to reapply this year.

Then Donald Trump became president, and she found herself preparing to move somewhere else entirely: Canada.

Unlike many liberal-leaning technology workers in Silicon Valley, Axolotl doesn't consider herself "anti-Trump." But the new administration's position on immigrationthe unexpected travel bans, the anti-immigration rhetoric, the president's tweets about scrapping entire visa categoriesmade her question whether the U.S. was the right country for her.

"Trump seemed too unpredictable," she said. She was preparing to start a family with her partner, and "let's say something happens in the U.S. and I cannot stayit will be more complicated when you have a child. I could have handled this kind of unpredictability two years ago. But now? Not anymore."

Uncertainty in the United States has been a boon to Canada, which since the election has had a surge in immigration and interest from tech workers and entrepreneurs.

Inquiries to the Vancouver Economic Commission, an agency in British Columbia that helps entrepreneurs and companies set up in the region, have increased 400 percent this year, said Ian McKay, chief executive of the commission. The number of tech workers from around the world migrating to Canada is on track to beat 2016's total by 18 percent, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Though election-related calls to move to Canada aren't unusualactress Susan Sarandon said in 2008 she'd move to Canada if John McCain won; performer Cher pledged in 2015 she'd move to Jupiter if Donald Trump wonsurveys of tech workers in the U.S. suggest some are seriously considering making the move. In a survey of its job-search startup Hired's users, 40 percent of respondents said they had thought about leaving the U.S. since the 2016 election, of which 32 percent said Canada was their top choice.

Hired didn't ask respondents their reasons for considering a move.

Canada's sudden desirability is a confluence of several factors, said Bill Tam, former president of the British Columbia Tech Association. Its proximity to the U.S. helps, and similarities in culture, language and quality of life make for an easier transition. But cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal have also become tech hubs in their own right, and over the past decade have fostered homegrown success stories such as Slack, Shopify and Hootsuite. Major game development companies such as Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Bioware have studios in Vancouver, Edmonton and Montreal.

The Canadian government has also laid the groundwork to make the region more tech-friendly, Tam said. There are tax incentives for companies that invest in research and development. Students who study at public Canadian universities are offered a path to permanent residency. And a new, fast-tracked worker's visa established this summer allows companies to bring foreign talent to the country without having to go through the rigmarole of a lottery.

"When the government launched that program and said we'll help you get an overseas employee to Canada in two to three weeks, I was like, come on, there's no way," said Yishay Waxman, founder of Toronto startup Platterz, which hired Axolotl this year.

Applying for a U.S. H-1B visa can be a months-long process, and the path to permanent residency can take years. For Waxman and his foreign hires, though, "from the day we filled out the forms to the day my three engineers were in the country, it was about 10 days."

It's not just startups that are making the most of Canada's immigration programs. A growing number of established technology companies eager to capitalize on the talent graduating from Canadian colleges, such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Uber, have set up shop up north. And one of the upsides to having a presence in Canada, according to immigration attorneys, is that American companies wanting to attract and retain foreign talent can offer their Canadian locations as friendlier, more stable alternatives to the U.S.

"The company is happy because they're saving this highly skilled worker, and the highly skilled worker is happy because in Canada there's a pathway to get immigration," said Stephen Green, an immigration attorney with Green and Spiegel in Toronto. "It's considered 'on-shoring' because we're so close to the U.S."

Silicon Valley isn't yet panicking about the politics-driven brain drain, though. In a Bay Area Council poll released this year, 40 percent of Bay Area residents said they want to move away from the region within the next few yearsup from 33 percent last year. But the key motivating factors were cost of living, traffic and housing, with only 5 percent saying the Trump administration was "the worst problem facing the Bay Area."

U.S. tech companies aren't exactly hurting either under the Trump administration. Silicon Valley giants have continued to reap enormous profits and increase their market values. Facebook's market capitalization rose 51 percent this year, Google's by 30 percent, and Apple's by 66 percent.

Facebook declined to comment on whether its recruitment efforts in the U.S. have been affected by the political climate. Google did not respond to a request for comment.

And while H-1B visa demand declined for the first time since 2014, the number of applicants seeking visas remains almost triple the available supply.

Recruiters from Canada say Silicon Valley has lost some of its shine over the last year among workers from outside the United States. Foreign-born tech workers once adamant about going to or staying in the Bay Area are now more receptive to job offers from Canada, they say. And investors are also more willing to consider Canada than in the past, according to startup founders.

2017 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Birch Aquarium teams up with the UC San Diego Librarys Digital Media Lab to 3-D print a brace for its loggerhead sea turtle. Credit: UC San Diego Library

Birch Aquarium has teamed up with UC San Diego Library's Digital Media Lab to create what is believed to be the first 3-D-printed brace for a sea turtle's shell.

The loggerhead sea turtle was rescued from a New Jersey power plant in 2013 with a large gap in the bottom right part of her shell. This gap, along with an abnormal curve of her spine and paralysis of her back flippers, is likely due to trauma experienced in the wild before she was rescued.

When she arrived at Birch Aquarium in 2014, the juvenile loggerhead sea turtle weighed just 74.5 pounds. She has since thrived, gaining more than 130 pounds.

"That growth has really exacerbated her condition. Without our intervention, the sea turtle could have gastro-intestinal and urogenital systems complications," said Jenn Nero Moffatt, senior director of animal care, science and conservation for the aquarium. "We teamed up with the Digital Media Lab at Geisel Library to create a brace that will prevent the shell from curving further downward and will promote more normal growth. It's our goal to prevent further complications and keep her as healthy and happy as possible."

The perfect fit

The juvenile female loggerhead sea turtle was CT scanned at UC San Diego's Thornton Hospital two times since her arrival to monitor the changes in her shell. Using a combination of the CT scans and their own 3-D scanning techniques, the team was able to design and fit a brace that is a perfect fit to her shell, so it will not encumber the sea turtle.

"It's amazing that our library can now provide these kinds of services. 3-D technology is getting so powerful and accessible, the possibilities seem endless," said Scott McAvoy, Digital Media Lab manager at the UC San Diego Library.

The brace is made of a rigid white plastic that was 3-D printed to fit the turtle's shell precisely. There is a ratcheting plastic cable that attaches to two fasteners to provide strength, support and pressure as needed to allow flexibility as she grows. A velcro neoprene weight pocket is also attached, separately, to help provide neutral buoyancy while she rests. All of the equipment used was adhered with a safe, two-part marine epoxy. The sea turtle, which could grow to as much as 250 poundswill eventually outgrow the brace and have to be fit for a new one.

"This is truly an ocean rehabilitation success story," said Moffatt. "As a member of the AZA, Birch Aquarium is committed to conserving, rehabilitating and protecting animals in threat of extinction. It's exciting that we are able to use technology in this unique way so our loggerhead sea turtle can continue her role as ambassador for ocean conservation, greeting more than 450,000 visitors each year."

Year-round, the loggerhead sea turtle lives in Birch Aquarium's Hall of Fishes' Magdalena Bay habitat. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:30 p.m., visitors can see the animal training and feedings required to help with her ongoing health care. For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit aquarium.ucsd.edu or call (858) 534-FISH.
One of the five portraits found of Manaku chitrakar, a great master of the Pahari school of miniature paintings of 18th century India, now hangs at the National Museum, New Delhi.

A painter at work: he is sitting on the floor, a brush poised over a bare sheet of wasli paper, propped up on a knee. There's no colour anywhere in the canvas, except his full black beard and plain white clothes. Who is he? Right above him in Devanagari words announce in red ink: 'Manaku chitrakar'. Manaku, the painter of eminence.

That painted sketch is now at the National Museum, New Delhi. One of the five portraits found of Manaku, a great master of the Pahari school of miniature paintings of 18th century India. Salvaged from oblivion in 20th century, his paintings are now preserved in museums and collections across the world and fabulously priced at international auctions. But the problem is the artist himself: each of his portraits is slightly different from the others. His work exhibits complete change in styles between folios. He has left no signatures, titles, dates, comments and not a word about himself-throwing the world of art historians, conservators and curators into intense controversy: who was Manaku of Guler? Did he even exist?

advertisement

An 84-year-old art historian, considered the last word on miniature art in India, B.N. Goswamy has put together pieces of this incredibly complex jigsaw puzzle in his new book, Manaku of Guler: The Life and Work of Another Great Indian Painter from a Small Hill State. We now know that Manaku belonged to a talented family of artists. Pandit Seu of Guler in Himachal and his two sons Manaku and Nainsukh may have been carpenters once, but they led the most romantic movement in fine arts in India, known for its rich decorative brilliance. With Mughal power in decline from the late 17th century, three generations of the family flourished under the patronage of the princely states of Pahari, from 1658 to the end of the 19th century.

Moving back and forth through every single folio that has survived, Goswamy has decoded Manaku's hallmark stylistic devices. From slivers of information ("one-and-a-half line written in his own hand") and fragments of records ("genealogy registers at Haridwar"), he has uncovered the journey of this "thinking" artist-be it the sacred imageries of Bhagavat Purana or the sensuous vibrations of Jayadeva's Geeta Govinda.

It's a really fine illustrated book, with close to 500 stunning paintings. Publisher Niyogi Books also deserves credit for bringing to light a fascinating figure of Indian art, who might otherwise have been forgotten.

--- ENDS ---
KIBALE NATIONAL PARK, Uganda - One morning seven years ago, Tony Goldberg was working in the tropical forests of Ugandas Kibale National Park, when a colleague arrived at his research station with two students in tow. They were searching for bats.

Goldberg, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of epidemiology, had been visiting the station for several years, long enough to have noticed the jet-black figures that fluttered away from the kitchen building whenever he disturbed their daytime sleep.

Sure enough, with a few swooshes from a net, his colleague, Ugandan researcher Robert Kityo, trapped several bats. But as Goldberg watched one of them, he saw something strange crawl out of its fur.

It was really big, he recalled. It looked like a spider, long legs, fat body, blackish-gray color.

It was a bat fly. I hadnt even known there was such a thing, Goldberg said. I asked Robert if he wouldnt mind taking samples of the flies. Maybe theyd come in handy in the future.

In fact, the discovery would show why Goldberg and other researchers return to Kibale year after year, seeking knowledge that will help science fight the rising tide of zoonotic diseases, those that pass from animals to people.

Using tweezers, Kityo removed several of the odd-looking flies; they were eyeless and wingless. The group also took samples from the bats: blood and swabs from their mouths and urinary and genital organs. All were placed in a freezer at the station.

And there they stayed. For six years.

In 2016, during a kind of scientific spring-cleaning at the station he calls Mango Palace, Goldberg came upon a freezer bag labeled Kityo bat samples. The samples were well preserved, and when he examined their genetic code he got a surprise.

The bats genetic code didnt match that of any other bat on file in research databases.

Nor did the bat flys genetic code match that of any known bat fly.

Then there was perhaps the most compelling discovery, a virus lurking inside the bat fly  it too was unlike any other hed seen.

There is no evidence that this virus is harmful to people, Goldberg said. But its related to viruses that are known to cause diseases in people.

Dubbed Kanyawara virus after the location of Goldbergs research station, the potentially new pathogen belongs to the rhabdovirus family. Other members of the family include species that cause rabies and the fish disease viral hemorrhagic septicemia.

Genetic information from the bat, the bat fly and the virus still must be compared with data from samples in museum collections. But it is entirely possible that not far from the building where Goldberg slept, lay three previously undiscovered species: bat, bat fly and virus.

Mark Hoffman and Gilles San Martin A fruit bat hangs upside down (left) in the building that houses the kitchen used by researchers inside Kibale National Park in Uganda. These bats have been found to carry a previously undiscovered species of bat fly. Bat flies, such as the parasitic fly of the family Nycteribiidae (right), have also been found to carry unidentified viruses.

A transcendent moment nears upon the world for a microbial perfect storm, the nonprofit Institute of Medicine warned in 2003. Unlike the meteorological perfect storm  happening just once in a century  the microbial perfect storm will be a recurrent event.

The report on infectious diseases listed numerous factors edging the world toward this perfect storm: changing climate; the fast pace of global travel; increased trade in food and livestock; greater human migration due to war and poverty; and surging land development resulting in more frequent contact between humans and animals.

Today those pressures show no signs of abating. Since 2009, the global health landscape has been reshaped by the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, major outbreaks of the Ebola and Zika viruses, and the mass migration of 5 million refugees from the Syrian War.

For the last three decades, emerging infectious diseases have continued to rise; more than 70% of them zoonotic.

The cost of zoonotic illnesses The last 30 years have seen a rising tide of infectious diseases around the globe; 70% of them zoonotic, illnesses that can pass from animals to humans. These diseases have taken a significant toll in both animal and human illnesses and deaths.

But the outbreaks have come with a heavy economic cost as well, as a 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences illustrated. Heres a look at some of the outbreaks it cited, and the cost associated with each:

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease): United Kingdom, 1986 to 2009. The disease, thought to be caused by misfolded proteins called prions, is found in cows but also resulted in 168 cases of the disease in humans, 164 of them fatal. The disease killed 214,305 cows and caused an economic impact of approximately $936 million each year from 1986 through 1996 and about $858 million each year between 1997 and 2000.

Plague: India, August to November 1994. Plague is caused by a zoonotic bacteria found in rodents, small mammals and their fleas. This outbreak sickened 693 people, killing 52. The estimated economic impact: Between $600 million and $2 billion.

Nipah virus encephalitis: Malaysia, September 1998 to April 1999. The disease, which causes encephalitis and respiratory illness, is found in swine, dogs and fruit bats. This specific outbreak sickened about 265 people, including 105 fatalities. The outbreak also killed 1.1 million swine and caused an estimated economic impact of $617 million.

West Nile virus fever: United States, January 1999 to December 2008. The virus, which causes symptoms ranging from fever to coma and paralysis, is carried by birds and mosquitoes. During this outbreak the U.S. recorded 28,975 cases, including 1,124 fatalities. Economic damage was estimated at about $400 million between 1999 and 2007.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS): China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nov. 1, 2002, to July 31, 2003. This respiratory disease, which has been found in civets, a cat-like or fox-like animal found in Asia and Africa, sickened 7,667 people, killing 718. The estimated economic impact was about $13 billion. Canada was also affected by the outbreak, recording 251 cases, including 43 fatalities. The estimated economic impact there was about $1.5 billion in Canadian dollars. (at the time, the U.S. dollar was worth about $1.4 Canadian dollars).

Highly pathogenic avian influenza: Asia, Jan. 24, 2004, to Jan. 7, 2009. Known as bird flu, the illness is carried by birds, wild fowl and some mammals. This outbreak resulted in 337 human cases, including 222 fatalities. An estimated 250 million birds died during the outbreak. The economic cost totaled about $10 billion from December 2003 to February 2006. Africa also recorded about 56 human cases, including 26 fatalities. Economic impact: Unknown.

Rift Valley fever: Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. Nov. 30, 2006, to May 3, 2007. This fever-causing viral illness is carried by sheep, water buffalo, goats and mosquitoes. The outbreak sickened about 1,062 and killed 315. Economic impact: Unknown. Show More

At present, there are about 4,400 known viruses, including some 220 that can infect humans. Three to four human viruses are discovered each year.

But those numbers are dwarfed by the estimated 320,000 mammalian viruses that have yet to be discovered, according to a 2013 paper in the American Society for Microbiology journal mBio. The papers authors focused on a single species, the Indian Flying Fox, conducting tests and estimating that it hosted about 58 viruses, a number they then multiplied by the total number of mammalian species.

The authors estimated it would cost about $6 billion to find all of these unknown viruses, though much of the expense would be required to track down the rarest ones. For about $1.4 billion, the authors wrote, scientists could find about 85% of the undiscovered ones.

Many of these viruses may end up never crossing over into humans, said Charles Chiu, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco, who has done fieldwork in Mexico, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But theres always the worry that there are additional viruses that have the capacity to jump.

Such threats to human health often emerge from places where humans and animals are in contact. They come from crowded Third World slums where impoverished families live side by side with the animals they keep.

They also come from rural areas where contact is less frequent, where wildlife may harbor pathogens for years before the microorganisms jump to humans and take off. An example is Zika virus. Discovered in a Ugandan forest in 1947, the virus barely appeared on the medical radar until February 2015 when it swept through Brazil, causing babies to be born with underdeveloped brains and other birth defects.

There is an additional layer of complexity in this hunt. Many viruses have different versions, or strains. Each strain is distinguished by its own genetic and clinical characteristics. One version of a virus may be harmless to humans, another deadly.

Identifying the different strains can tell scientists how the virus evolved and how the lethal versions emerged. Also, weak strains may be used to develop vaccines, which cause little or no harm, but train our immune system to deal with the full strength virus.

The ultimate goal of identifying viruses and their strains is to spot potential threats early, before they ignite in a heavily populated area, before they cross continents via global trade and travel.

So, where does a scientist go to find new viruses, or new strains?

In the future, diseases are going to emerge from remote areas into remote populations more often. And the reason we know that to be true is because the frequency of emerging diseases is increasing over time, explained Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based organization that researches matters of global health, conservation and international development.

The risk of emergence is increasing exponentially, the risk of becoming pandemic is increasing exponentially, and the cost to our global economy is increasing.

As the human population grows, people are venturing into remote jungles and forests with greater frequency seeking food, timber, land for crops, even attractions for tourism. Scientists look for new pathogens in rural areas, said Chiu, because youre right at the human-animal interface.

Thats why scientists come to places like Manu National Park in southern Peru; Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve in the Mexican state of Veracruz; and the island of Borneo in between Malaysia and Indonesia.

And Kibale.

Goldberg returns to the park in southern Uganda year after year because it stands at a crossroads of biodiversity. Kibales 300 square miles bring together the biologies of East Africa (the great savanna systems and the patchy forests of the Serengeti) and Central Africa (the dark, humid lowland rainforests).

Some nights, the air around Mango Palace is alive with the distant trumpeting of elephants and the sounds of nearby villagers banging pots to scare them away from their crops.

The park is home to 70 mammal species, from bush pigs and forest antelopes to red colobus monkeys and a dozen other species of primates. Kibale also draws 375 species of birds.

Then there are the hitchhikers that birds and mammals bring with them: their parasites, bacteria and viruses. Some of these animal pathogens can jump to humans, but the reverse can happen as well. Animals sometimes fall ill and die from human pathogens.

Such are the possibilities on display at Kibale.

Its a mixing zone, Goldberg said, and one of the best-studied areas  Its a living laboratory where I go to test fundamental ideas about how ecology affects viral transmission.

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel UW-Madison scientist Tony Goldberg (right) processes filtered air samples taken from a tree where bats live in Kibale National Park in Uganda. The sample was to be analyzed for pathogens. At the left is veterinarian and PhD candidate David Hyeroba.

The questions he asks include how viruses percolate in populations  sometimes for decades  before suddenly spreading quickly and extensively.

We believe there are pre-emergent pathogens in the world, he said. Pre-emergent pathogens are disease-causing microorganisms that are currently rare but have a high potential for epidemic spread.

Goldberg wonders, too, about the role animal behavior plays in the spread of disease. We know animals spread viruses through fighting, biting and sex. Rabies is the classic example of a virus spread through aggressive behavior.

But trips to Kibale often yield surprises, humbling reminders that we have much to learn about animals and the diseases they carry.

January 2017. A strange respiratory disease was spreading through the chimpanzees in Kibale.

Researchers wondered if the disease was something new  the kind of discovery that lures Goldberg back to the spartan research station a mile above sea level. In past years, he and his colleagues discovered a new bat disease and new strains of simian hemorrhagic fever, a disease that strikes Asian macaques and is almost always fatal.

When the respiratory illness emerged in early 2017, an outbreak of skin disease was already underway among the parks red colobus monkeys, eroding the faces of the infected until it was possible to see inside their sinuses.

As researchers tracked the respiratory disease, an extraordinary scene played out, involving one of the female chimpanzees, Rwanda. She had been coughing for days, possibly from the respiratory illness. Then, in full view of fieldworkers, a group of six male chimpanzees savagely beat her.

Chimpanzee society can be harsh. Males bite, grab, beat and stomp each other in fights over territory. Some males will kill the infant of a female if they believe a rival to be the father. But it is unusual for male chimpanzees to gang up on a female from their own social group.

In this case, most of the males departed after the attack, leaving the female barely alive. A lone male remained behind guarding her body for hours before she died.

That researchers were present when the attack occurred was no accident. Scientists have been following the same chimpanzee communities at Kibale for decades, naming the individuals and cataloging their behavior in detail.

From close observation, they knew the approximate chronology of Rwandas death. She began coughing around Jan. 3., was attacked Jan. 11 and remained motionless all day on Jan. 12, the day researchers believe she died. The presence of carrion flies signaled death. On the morning of Jan. 13, observers examined her body. The flies were right.

The fieldworkers who witnessed the attack and Rwandas subsequent death were required to follow a cardinal rule of primate research: They could watch, but they could not intervene.

You cant watch dispassionately, Goldberg said. You get really involved in the lives of these animals, but you have to hold back.

Only officials of the Ugandan Wildlife Authority may intervene, and then only under certain conditions  for example, if a chimpanzee is caught in a snare.

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Click on the images above to see more from Uganda's Kibale National Park.

However, researchers can perform an autopsy after a chimpanzee has died, and that is what Goldberg and his Ugandan colleagues did with Rwanda. Not surprisingly they found that she died from the beating. She had also been suffering from severe chronic pleurisy pneumonia; it was unclear if she had the mysterious respiratory disease.

In the months following the autopsy, the case churned through Goldbergs mind.

As far as Rwanda goes, he said almost a year later, I've been second guessing myself. Because of the coughing, we were looking hard for lung disease. But, she wasn't as fresh as we would have liked.

So, it could have been post-mortem changes, rather than pneumonia. The only thing we know for sure is that the males beat her hard and then she died a day later.

Researchers at Kibale knew of one other possible factor: Rwanda had given birth to several babies that did not survive. Maybe it was this inability to enlarge her community with new offspring that angered the males.

The incident and its elusive meaning underscored one of the frustrations for scientists investigating diseases in Kibale and similar places. Answers often take years.

Just this month, Goldberg and his colleagues published their investigation into a respiratory illness that afflicted one of Kibales chimpanzee communities in February 2013. Their paper, published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, reported a remarkable culprit for the illness that killed five of the communitys 56 chimpanzees; a human common cold virus known as rhinovirus C.

Prior to this discovery, we did not know that rhinovirus C could infect anything other than humans, let alone potentially cause a lethal infection, Goldberg said. That was surprising.

One reason investigations often take years is that while some labs in Uganda are extremely adept at molecular biology, few routinely do the kind of broad analysis necessary for virus-hunting research. Moreover, the process of gaining approval to ship samples out of African countries and into the U.S. is lengthy and time-consuming.

Goldberg has been trying to develop ways for researchers to conduct analysis in the field so that it will no longer be necessary to go through the lengthy permitting process.

For now, the 2017 investigation is on hold. Goldberg said he may perform additional testing when he returns to Uganda in March.

Its really frustrating, he said. From a selfish perspective, I really cant stand not knowing. But theres also a decent chance that if we did know, we could help the chimps in real time.

For the scientists at Kibale and elsewhere, the search for new viruses has its perils.

When studying bats, researchers must often squeeze into hollow trees and stare up maybe 30 to 40 feet to locate the colonys roost. They must cover their mouths and noses with airtight face masks and avoid breathing in spores from a fungus that grows on bat guano.

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel UW-Madison scientist Tony Goldberg peers inside a tree where bats live and where filtered air samples were taken in Kibale National Park in Uganda. The samples were to be analyzed for pathogens.

Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel UW-Madison scientist Tony Goldberg peers inside a tree where bats live and where filtered air samples were taken in Kibale National Park in Uganda. The samples were to be analyzed for pathogens.

One family of scientists who peered inside a bat tree without masks, Goldberg said, came down with histoplasmosis, a severe, sometimes deadly respiratory disease also found in the U.S., and sometimes known as cave disease.

So, on a day last January, a colleague of Goldbergs, Swaibu Katusabe, strapped on a mask before slipping inside a tree thick with bats. Inside the tree he placed a canister  actually a used paper towel holder  containing an electronic air sampler with a filter small enough to trap viruses.



Katusabe has been studying a coronavirus found in all of the Kibale bats. He took control air samples from other nearby areas to determine whether the virus is present all over the forest and not just in bats. Coronaviruses belong to the viral family responsible for the common cold, pneumonia and the sometimes fatal illness Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Goldberg peaked inside the tree his colleague had just sampled and said, I can hear them. Shining a flashlight up the tree, he saw eyes twinkling in the darkness and the gray outline of fist-sized shapes.

We can study these diseases because of conservation, he said, emerging from the tree. But we dont want people to think these bats and monkeys are horrible bags of germs.

Certain bats eat the insects that infest local crops. Others are important in the dispersal of seeds, or pollination of flowers.

Still, some studies suggest that bats carry more than 60 diseases that can spread to humans.

Its not known precisely why bats carry so many diseases, though their nature suggests some possible explanations. They have been around for at least 52 million years and include more than 1,200 species.

They interact with both humans and livestock. They live in large colonies and their ability to fly allows them to cover greater distances and therefore spread diseases more widely than other mammals.

There is also the fact that human settlements keep drawing closer to the forests where many bats live, increasing the likelihood of human-bat contact.

Diseases may be following another route on their way between animals and humans.

David Hyeroba, another member of Goldbergs team, has been studying the dogs that live in villages at the edge of the park. The relationship between the dogs and the humans they live with differs greatly from that in the U.S.

In the villages around Kibale, dogs are adopted by families, largely for protection. They roam freely day and night. At times, baboons and other wildlife attack the dogs, and villagers have told Goldberg that on other occasions the dogs chase and catch monkeys.

Two of the most common causes of death for the dogs near Kibale are infectious diseases and baboon attacks. A third is death by human hand  often a farmer who has caught a dog killing his chickens or goats.

In theory, the dogs may spread diseases when they return from the forest simply by licking peoples hands, though its not known if diseases have spread this way.

There is precedent, however, for a dog disease jumping to other animals. In 1994, the Serengetis lion population was decimated by canine distemper; one-third of the lions died, about 1,000 animals.

In fact, canine distemper may be one of the most prolific diseases when it comes to jumping from one animal to another. The long list of animals known to have been infected by canine distemper includes rhesus monkeys, pandas, American black bears, South American jaguars and even seals.

Humans have also caught canine distemper, a disease closely related to measles, though people rarely show any symptoms.

The jumping of diseases from species to species, known as spillover, is more likely to happen in places that have a great diversity of species, such as Kibale. Some researchers believe this process can occur slowly and tentatively, a phenomenon known as viral chatter. In such cases, a virus or pathogen doesnt rush all at once into a new species, but makes forays here and there, possibly mixing with pathogens already in the new species and mutating.

The fear is that something completely new will come into people and no one will have immunity to deal with it, Goldberg said.
News

Windows 10 Insider Release Includes OpenSSH Preview

A recent Windows 10 test release includes an open source Secure Shell (OpenSSH) preview, according to a press account.

A December Serve The Home article includes a demo on how to install this OpenSSH preview, which is part of a recent Windows 10 "Windows Insider Program" test release. OpenSSH is typically used for establishing secure remote connections to Linux or Unix machines, but Microsoft has been working over the past couple of years on supporting OpenSSH in the Windows client and server operating systems, too.

Microsoft had announced in 2015 that it was accepted as an OpenSSH contributor to the OpenBSD Foundation, which steers the development of the OpenSSH protocol. Microsoft's aim in doing so is to support two-way remote management from Windows to Linux systems, and vice versa, along with supporting OpenSSH in PowerShell. In May of this year, Microsoft indicated that it was nearing completion for integrating OpenSSH in the Win32 version of Windows. Back then, Microsoft had indicated that it still had some testing work to do that would be completed in the next couple of months.

Microsoft regularly keeps Windows Insider Program participants apprised about coming Windows 10 features. However, the availability of an OpenSSH preview apparently wasn't mentioned.

Possibly, only some users got to see the OpenSSH preview in Windows 10. Last month, Microsoft announced it was starting a "controlled studies" approach with its Windows Insider Program releases where certain features might not arrive for all program participants.

"This means that a smaller percentage of you will initially get certain new features in builds and others may not get these new features for a while, as we compare the usage and satisfaction of these features versus people who don't," wrote Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider Program, in an announcement. "Eventually everyone will get these features -- but it just could be awhile."

Microsoft had promised in late November that a preview of a Timeline feature would appear in the next Windows Insider release. Timeline permits users to find files, applications and Web sites that were accessed at an earlier date. Another coming feature, tentatively called "Sets," was promised. Sets is a service for Office 365 users that's designed to let users pick up from what they doing last when they closed a Windows session, according to a Microsoft video.

Sarkar indicated in a Twitter post that there won't be a new test release of Windows 10 on Thursday for Windows Insider Program participants. More info will be coming next week, she indicated.
Latin America  December 15, 2017  Jennifer Moore and Laura Carlsen

In the chaos following national elections in Honduras on November 26, Canadian authorities must take a strong public stand and forcibly denounce evidence of electoral fraud and violent repression of public protests. Across Honduras, tens of thousands of people have been demonstrating their discontent over evidence of electoral fraud by the government-controlled electoral tribunal. As widely reported, while early trends in the vote count indicated that opposition presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla was on track to win, delays, irregularities and evidence of vote-rigging since then favour the incumbent National Party candidate, Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH).

Even prior to the November 26 vote, Hernandez attempt at reelection in the face of Honduras single-term limit had been challenged as unconstitutional. When former President Mel Zelaya was ousted in a military-backed coup in June 2009 he was accused of trying to seek reelection. Since that time Honduras has become one of the most dangerous places in the hemisphere to fight for protections of land, environment and just about every individual or collective human right.

The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) has reported that at least 14 people have been killed as a result of violent state repression against protests, most by Military Police. As well, there have been 51 wounded, 7 seriously, and 844 detained in the first five days while the Honduran government suspended constitutional guarantees across the country starting December 1.

In this context, it is vital that Canada take steps to halt its support, political and economic, to the Hernandez regime.

Providing Legitimacy

The ongoing debacle of the investigation into the murder of world-renowned Indigenous leader Berta Caceres, in which representatives of a hydroelectric company, soldiers, and other state actors are implicated, has shown that Honduran authorities derive considerable sense of legitimacy from the international community, including the U.S., the EU, and Canada. When an Al Jazeera documentary maker questioned the Honduran Attorney Generals Office about why it refused to agree to a truly independent investigation into Bertas murder, the official replied:

Many governments do trust the work that were doing. The EU trusts us, the U.S. trusts us, Canada trusts us. Theyre supporting us in the technical parts of the investigation and with funds. So we believe that if all these governments and agencies believe in us, its because were doing things well.

This is undoubtedly also related to the importance of Canadas bilateral relationship with Honduras, as one of the key international players that has helped to legitimize and prop up corrupt and repressive National Party-led regimes in the country since the military-backed coup of June 2009. Between 2009-2013, the Canadian government lobbied for and helped to finance technical support for a new mining law that favours foreign investment in the sector, as well as signing the Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement.

Canadian mining companies are very active in Honduras and enjoy extensive support from the Canadian government.

As such, it is notable then that in her December 2 and 10 statements, Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland did not attribute escalating tension and violence or deaths and injuries to the Honduran state forces.

While the tension and violence persists, Reuters reports that the U.S. has certified Honduras for making progress in the areas of corruption and human rights in order to ensure that millions of U.S. dollars will continue flowing to this country. It is important that Canada not follow suit, but take an aggressive stand against corruption and human rights violations.

Canada should suspend its political support to the Honduran government, as the NDP has already called for, as well as any funding that it is providing to security forces and the related apparatus in the country until the Honduran government can verifiably demonstrate that constitutional and human rights of the Honduran people are respected.

While the state of emergency has been lifted across most of the country, it is also urgent that the Canadian government publicly and vociferously call for a full restitution of constitutional rights and clearly denounce police and military repression and criminalization of anti-electoral fraud protesters and all citizens, as well as efforts to silence the press. Finally, it is vital that Canada make clear that it will refuse to recognize any regime that is imposed on the Honduran people against their will, and call for a full and impartial investigation into the manipulation of the electoral process and related violence. 

This article was first published at Mining Watch  Canada .

Fraud in Honduras and the Future of Fair Elections

On Sunday night (December 3), one week after the Honduran presidential elections, the streets ring with the clatter of pots and pans and cries of Out with the dictatorship! Some groups dare to disobey the governments curfew and create highway blockades. Among the few allowed out are the soldiers, who patrol the streets with tanks, rifles and tear gas.

Also exempt from the illegal state of siege are the members of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, who have been conspicuous for their absence over the past week. Twice theyve shut down and frozen the vote count. Since the elections on November 26, theyve hidden behind their own implausible numbers and discredited procedures. After noting an irreversible five-point advantage for Salvador Nasralla, the candidate of the opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship, the tribunal ceased reporting the night of the elections with 57 per cent of the votes counted, and then returned 36 hours later to announce that, miraculously, President Juan Orlando Hernandez had taken a narrow lead.

The majority of the population that voted to remove the incumbent from office took to the streets. On Friday, the Tribunal again shut down preliminary results, with Hernandez maintaining the edge. On December 3 the head of the Tribunal David Matamoros announced the final count of 42.98% for the current president and 41.39% for Nasralla, after examining a little over a thousand counts from polling places. The Tribunal still has not declared a winner, saying it has yet to review disputed ballots.

But analysis of the figures reported on the Tribunals own website indicates that the irregularities and manipulation go far beyond these 1,000 tallies. The opposition demands an examination of more than 5,000 tally sheets tabulated when the system for reporting preliminary results was supposedly down. International observers from the Organization of American States and the European Union support the demand.

Suspect Elections

The problem of the legitimacy of the Honduran presidential elections began before voters even went to the polls. The Honduran Constitution prohibits re-election in an immutable article, that is, it is not subject to legislative or judicial modification. However, Hernandez justified his candidacy based on a decision by the court that attempted to supersede the constitution and lacked any type of legal consensus.

Other reports revealed that failure was not an option for JOH, as he is referred to in the Honduran press. The staunch U.S. ally reportedly had a Plan B in case his candidacy faltered at the polls. An investigation by The Economist revealed a tape of a training session before the elections led by members of Hernandez National Party that included inflating his vote, canceling opposition votes and manipulating poll watchers.

The obvious violations of the law and authoritarian control over electoral rules and bodies led to a debate on the Honduran left, with one side  among them the LIBRE party led by former president Mel Zelaya  participating actively in the elections by forming a coalition to run a centrist candidate, and the other side calling to abstain so as not to legitimate the process. That debate fell by the wayside with the surprise triumph of Nasralla (pollsters, many likely part of the machinations, predicted a handy win for Hernandez). Now demonstrations of tens of thousands of Hondurans demand respect for the vote and the departure of Hernandez. But the president, in the context of a political crisis that could unseat him, has been actively earning his epithet of dictator. The dusk-to-dawn curfew, the military occupation of the country since well before the voting, and repression in San Pedro Sula, Villanueva and other places expose the character of a despot willing to do anything to prevent an electoral defeat he thought he had prevented.

Honduran human rights organizations have issued a flurry of increasingly urgent declarations. Honduran society has changed since the coup detat in 2009, when, ironically, the military broke the constitutional order with the pretext of preventing then-President Zelaya from holding a referendum to consider, among other issues, the possibility of legalizing re-election. The double standard of the right was lost on no one when the post-coup government went up for re-election.

Eight years later, Honduran society is more organized, more unified and more savvy than before. Grassroots and human rights organizations have organized coalitions, many of which have taken leading roles in the current crisis. The Platform of Social and Popular Movements of Honduras declared its absolute and categorical rejection of the fraudulent electoral process that seeks to legitimize the continuity of the model of repression and death, led by Juan Orlando Hernandez. The Platform called for all organizations, villages, communities and municipalities to mobilize against the imposition and the illegal re-election of the military-civil dictatorship headed by JOH. It also told its communities to be on the alert to defend their territory against militarization and repression, in fear of land grabs amid the chaos.

The National Human Rights Round Table warned, Honduras is currently experiencing serious democratic setbacks and human rights violations, due to the manipulation of the electoral results of November 26, and denounced that the excessive use of force has moved on to terrorism of state with attacks on peaceful protesters, journalists and media.

One of the questions now is whether the armed forces will turn their rifles against their own people. Doing so in the coup was costly in political terms, although the U.S. government directly rewarded them with millions of dollars in foreign military aid, nearly triple the funds in military aid with respect to the same period before the coup. The role the Trump government is playing is another incognito. The State Department has maintained silence around the crisis in this country that became a strategic ally after the illegal ousting of the elected president in 2009. The U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa has remained rudderless since June when the ambassador left. In a recent interview, Mel Zelaya stated that the reins of U.S. policy in Honduras are held by the Southern Command, which has been carrying out a Plan Colombia 2.

Honduran security forces created and trained by the U.S.  among them, Los Tigres, identified by the human rights organizations as responsible for acts of repression that have left several demonstrators dead, and hundreds wounded and imprisoned.

Prominent Jesuit priest and activist, Ismael Moreno, tweeted, I directly accuse the Embassy of the United States for using its position to support this illegal and fraudulent process. Whatever might happen against our lives and our work to defend human rights will be in large part responsibility of the alliance between the Embassy and the dictatorship that arises.

The OAS, which sent official observers to the elections, has said very little. In a statement on Sunday, December 3 the organization supported the proposal for a special scrutiny of the thousand ballots and also of the 5000 in dispute. There is strong evidence that members of the OAS delegation witnessed irregularities and instances of fraud, however, they have not issued any statement about the process.

If fraud in Honduras is consummated with the use of the Armed Forces, the support of the Trump government and the silence of international organizations, what can we expect in the future? Honduras already taught us the negative lesson that a coup detat will be tolerated in the 21st Century world system.

Democracy is not a linear progression. It is an aspiration that requires constant work, and is shaped by advances and setbacks. If we allow this setback in Honduras, not only will the Honduran people suffer, it will embolden anti-democratic forces around the world. With key elections coming up next year in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, its vitally important not to allow the right to establish a precedent of successful fraud in this Central American nation that has already suffered too much. 
The ice cathedral in the High Tatras will be open during the whole winter season.

Font size: A - | A +

The ice cathedral at Hrebienok is now a part of the winter season in the High Tatras. It took several weeks for Slovak, Czech and Spanish sculptors to complete the structure.

The dome, with a special cooling system, contains 190 tons of ice in 1,440 ice blocks. Adam Bakos and his team were in charge of building the ice cathedral with the theme of Sagrada Familia Gaudi, specified Veronika Littvova, head of the tourism organization for the Vysoke Tatry region, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement

The original piece of ice art is supplemented by artistic panels of Achilleas Sdoukos, glassmaker and designer of Slovak-Greek origin. The entrance wall is inspired by Gaudis Park Guell in Barcelona.

The main altar is dedicated to this years topic  a tribute to family. Inside the cathedral stands a statue of a family 4.5 metres high. There are eight towers located at the sides of the cathedral with a height of 9.5 metres. The cathedral is larger than it has been in past years.

On the outside of the cathedral there are three Tatra peaks, with bears sculpted on the side of the entrance and chamois on the opposite side of the cathedral. On the facade, there are honeycombs motifs. Instead of saints, visitors will find motifs of Tatra animals and flowers.

On the side nave are rosettes like the ones in Sagrada Familia, carved from ice.

Admission to the ice cathedral is free. It is open everyday from 9:00 to 16:30, and opening hours will be prolonged during the holidays. There will be concerts every Sunday at 15:30.
By PTI: Agartala, Dec 15 (PTI) A park, commemorating Indian soldiers and Bangladeshi freedom fighters who lost their lives during the 1971 Liberation war, would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar here tomorrow.

The massive park has been built at Chottakhola, a border village, about 130 km from Agartala.

The foundation stone for the 20.20 hectare park, which encompasses seven hillocks and a lake near the Trishna wild life sanctuary, was laid by the then Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni in November 2010.

advertisement

Two statues of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and former Prime Minister of India, India Gandhi, were put up in the park which was earlier a base for Mukti Joddhas (Bangladeshi freedom fighters) from where they launched operations against the Pakistani army in Noakhali, Feni and parts of Comilla district of Bangladesh.

A 57 feet tower was constructed at the park from where parts of Noakhali and Feni districts in neighbouring Bangladesh are visible.

"A museum, which is under constructions at the park, would display arms and ammunition used in the war, old photographs and newspaper clippings," local MLA, Sudhan Das told reporters.

PWD Minister Badal Choudhury said the Tripura government built the park at a cost of Rs 7 crore with contributions from different government departments.

?We have a shared history with Banfladesh and we have lingual and cultural affinity. It is a milestone of our friendship with Bangladesh. So, we have named it Bangladesh-Bharat Moitree Udyaan (Bangladesh-India friendship park)?, Chowdhury, who hails from South Tripura district, told reporters.

He hoped that the park will become a new address for tourists both from within India as well as Bangladesh.

?During the Liberation War, I joined the Mukti Joddhas after a short training and fought against the Pakistani army in the Comilla sector,? former deputy speaker and a prominent leader of the ruling CPI(M) Subol Rudra recalled.

Former Congress minister and now BJP leader, Jawhar Saha said, ?I was also a member of the Mukti Fauj. When the Indian army was combating the Pakistani army, our duty was to attack the Rajakars or the collaborators of the Pakistani army,"

State PWD Minister, Badal Chowdhury, Forest Minister Naresh Jamatiya, Drinking Water Supply Minister Ratan Bhowmick, Lok Sabha MPs ? Jitendra Chowdhury and Shankar Prasad Datta and local MLA, Sudhan are among other dignitaries would attend the inaugural ceremony. PTI CORR JOY JM PS

--- ENDS ---
The vehicle will also be tested in Finland in extreme winter conditions.

Font size: A - | A +

Defense Ministry specialists from the Military Technical and Testing Institute, Zahorie, have started tests of the prototype of the 8x8 combat vehicle, which is the result of Slovak-Finnish development. Tests will run until mid-January 2018.

Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement

They will be followed by army trials until March, as part of which the vehicle will be tested in Finland in extreme winter conditions, said Danka Capakova, the spokeswoman for the Defense Ministry, as cited by the SITA newswire.

The Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic, according to Capakova, are planning to test the prototype of the vehicle for 28 days nonstop in the framework of army testing.

After the tests, technical and organisational measures will be taken to resolve potential technical and structural changes, said Capakova.

The general contractor of the prototype vehicle research and development project is the Slovak company Konstrukta Defence.

Read also:

Read also: The army showcases the vehicles it plans to buy Read more

Defence Minister Peter Gajdos, nominee of the Slovak National Party (SNS), informed in November that the Defence Ministry is planning to obtain up to 81 8x8 armoured vehicles and up to 404 4x4 vehicles.
Harley-Davidson, Inc. manufactures and sells motorcycles. The company operates in two segments, Motorcycles and Related Products and Financial Services. The Motorcycles and Related Products segment designs, manufactures, and sells Harley-Davidson motorcycles, including cruiser, touring, standard, sportbike, and dual models, as well as motorcycle parts, accessories, apparel, and related services. This segment sells its products to retail customers through a network of independent dealers, as well as e-commerce channels in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. The Financial Services segment provides wholesale financing services, such as floorplan and open account financing of motorcycles, and parts and accessories; and retail financing services, including installment lending for the purchase of new and used Harley-Davidson motorcycles, as well as point-of-sale protection products comprising motorcycle insurance, extended service contracts, and motorcycle maintenance protection. This segment also licenses third-party financial institutions that issue credit cards bearing the Harley-Davidson brand. Harley-Davidson, Inc. was founded in 1903 and is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Rosa Bertoli was born in Udine, Italy, and now lives in London. Since 2014, she has been the Design Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees design content for the print and online editions, as well as special editorial projects. Through her role at Wallpaper*, she has written extensively about all areas of design. Rosa has been speaker and moderator for various design talks and conferences including London Craft Week, Maison & Objet, The Italian Cultural Institute (London), Clippings, Zaha Hadid Design, Kartell and Frieze Art Fair. Rosa has been on judging panels for the Chart Architecture Award, the Dutch Design Awards and the DesignGuild Marks. She has written for numerous English and Italian language publications, and worked as a content and communication consultant for fashion and design brands.
By PTI: in place in Udaipur

Jaipur, Dec 15 (PTI) Mobile Internet services in Udaipur were suspended for another 24 hours as a precautionary measure amid apprehensions of communal tension, police said today.

The services were suspended on Wednesday night for 24 hours after some groups announced to take out processions in support of Shambhulal Regar, who is in custody for hacking a Muslim migrant labourer to death, burning the body and filming the barbaric act in Rajsamand, police said.

advertisement

"As a preventive measure, mobile Internet services were further suspended for 24 hours in Udaipur. Section 144 of the CrPC remains imposed," SP Udaipur Rajendra Prasad said.

Police yesterday detained more than 200 people and cane- charged a mob that tried to take out a rally in support of Regar in Udaipur.

They arrested one Updesh Rana who had in a social media post announced to take out the rally.

At least 30 policemen, including a few senior police officers, were injured in stone pelting by the mob, the SP said.

The situation is under control now, he said.

Regar, 36, had hacked Mohammed Afrazul to death and burnt the body on December 6.

Afrazul had migrated to Rajsamand from West Bengal for work.

Regar had roped in his 14-year-old nephew to film the killing.

After the barbaric act, Regar posted videos of the killing with inflammatory and communal comments to defend the act. PTI AG GVS

--- ENDS ---
Policy

Net Neutrality Vote Heavy Hit to Schools and Districts

Now that the rules that govern net neutrality have been peeled away, the reins to the internet have been handed back to service providers such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast to manage access to websites and web-based services. In a 3-2 vote along party lines, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded regulations put in place in 2015 that treated the internet as a utility. The same vote also transferred oversight of consumer complaints to the Federal Trade Commission to handle in cases where broadband providers "engage in anticompetitive, unfair or deceptive acts or practices."

Proponents of the move said the "light-touch regulatory framework" backed by FCC Chairman Ajit Paid and adopted this week will restore "a favorable climate for network investment." Opponents, such as FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who voted against the measure, believe the decision will give broadband providers "extraordinary new power ... to block websites, throttle services and censor online content."

The big worry: Because ISPs will no longer have to treat online traffic equally, they will choose to prioritize traffic based primarily on financial considerations. In fact, stated FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, who voted for the new order, in a world in which data usage online is growing exponentially, "It is hard to imagine that some prioritization of traffic will not be necessary."

Education organizations have uniformly expressed disappointment about the outcome of the vote as well as concerns that the "light-touch" regulatory approach to internet governance will end up weighing heavily on schools and districts.

"Today's vote, led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, is disappointing and concerning to CoSN and our members," said Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, in a prepared statement. "Absent the net neutrality guardrails, school systems will now face a bleak reality: reduced choices, higher prices and fewer innovative tools."

Suggesting that the decision by the FCC has left communities "with more questions and worry in its wake," Krueger added that "the Internet has long been a linchpin in educational innovation, cultivating unlimited ideas for using broadband networks in new, exciting ways. Today's decision hobbles the Internet's promise  with unexpected consequences to come."

"Absolutely no one  besides massive corporations and their lobbyists  asked for this change," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, asserting that university faculty and graduate employees would be "denied access to non-commercial research" and teachers would lose out on "access to free lesson sites like Share My Lesson that help kids."

John Harrington, CEO of Funds For Learning, a company that works with districts in developing their E-rate plans, said the vote would "initially impact consumers more than schools and libraries." However, he noted, "the debate about equitable access to the internet, especially in rural schools, will continue."

In an interview with NPR earlier this week, Richard Culatta, CEO for the International Society for Technology in Education, said ISPs were bound to "prioritize paid content over freely available content," putting schools "at risk." While access to high-speed internet connections levels the playing field for schools, enabling them to access experts and quality resources, he said, "as soon as that goes away, we're back to where we were before, where students are getting shortchanged based on the zip code they live in or ... the socioeconomic status of their community because they aren't able to pay for those resources."

Culatta worried that assurances made by broadband companies will eventually ring hollow. "The catch at the end of the day is, who are those companies answering to, right? They're not answering to my kids' teacher in their school. They're answering to shareholders."
A company has been offering to lease land plots at an industrial cluster it claims to be the developing, despite the fact that the projects proposal has yet to be approved.

NTD Co. chose not wait until authorities in the south-central province of Binh Thuan responded to their proposal to develop the Dong Ha Industrial Cluster in Duc Linh District before distributing land-for-lease ads for the project.

According to the developer, the project will cost some US$141 million and generate more than 50,000 jobs.

NTD Co. also claims in the adverts that 50 percent of the land plots available at the park are already spoken for, that dozens of partners have already closed land leasing contracts with [us], and that many more companies are waiting to do so.

However, the project in question has yet to be backed by Binh Thuan authorities and NTD itself has yet to be named as its developer.

False claims

Do Minh Kinh, director of the Binh Thuan Department of Industry and Trade, confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that claims that the available land for lease at Dong Ha Industrial Cluster is 50 percent occupied is false.

In reality, Kinh said, the Dong Ha project is only a proposal made by NTD, adding that whether it is approved and allowed to move forward is still quite a way down the road.

The proposal must be assessed by local authorities before being submitted to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which will then decide whether or not to incorporate the project into its umbrella plan for industrial parks in Binh Thuan, he elaborated.

A man is seen next to sign indicating that a land plot is already leased, within the piece of land where NTD has proposed developing an industrial cluster. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Kinh added that a developer is only allowed to offer leases for land plots in industrial parks and clusters if it has already completed infrastructure development.

Any company claiming to be the developer of an undeveloped industrial cluster in order to sign contracts with other businesses is against the law, he concluded.

Binh Thuan authorities assert that the piece of land NTD has been using to lure investors is still classified as agricultural land.

Who is NTD?

According to data obtained by Tuoi Tre, NTD was originally registered as NTD Starch Co. Ltd. before being renamed as NTD Industrial Park Co. Ltd. It also owns a subsidy called Dong Ha Korea Industrial Park Co. Ltd.

According to documents the company has submitted to local authorities, Bui Canh Trung Son, a South Korean with Vietnamese citizenship, serves as NTDs legal representative.

The submitted documents claim that NTD has decades-long experience and currently has 13 total subsidiaries operating between four different industries.

However, according to data in the business registry run by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, NTD Starch Co. Ltd. was actually founded in April 2017 with a total registered capital of VND20 billion ($881,057).

The company was later renamed NTD Industrial Park Co. Ltd. The Dong Ha Korea Industrial Park Co. Ltd. was set up in September, with a total registered capital of VND110 billion ($4.85 million).

Son and another individual are the only two shareholders of the organization.

The entrance to the piece of land where NTD Co. has proposed developing an industrial cluster. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Unverified capacity

Huynh Van Tinh, deputy chairman of Duc Linh District, said local authorities were happy to see NTD proposal to develop an industrial cluster in their locale, a mountainous area.

Tinh admitted that there is no other proof of the developers capabilities, such as audit reports or bank assessments, aside from documents prepared and submitted by the company.

Son defended that NTD has yet to prove its financial capacity to Duc Linh authorities because [we] are still working with the provincial authorities.

He added that the company never claimed that half of the available land plots have been leased. Maybe the press misunderstood my statement, he said.

Luong Van Hai, deputy chairman of the Binh Thuan administration, has confirmed that no license has been issued for the development of the Dong Ha Industrial Cluster.

He also reminded NTD to publicize accurate information about the legality of the project in order to avoid misunderstandings that might affect the provinces investment environment.
Vietnam's coffee supply was steady as good weather supported harvesting but trading was thin, while Indonesian markets were also subdued due to low stocks, traders said on Thursday.

Farmers in Vietnam's main coffee-growing province Daklak sold coffee beans at 36,000-37,000 dong ($1.58-$1.63) per kg, lower than last week's range of 37,300-37,600 dong, and tracking a decline in London prices, traders said.

The London ICE March futures contract fell as low as $1,686 a tonne on Tuesday, the weakest for the third position since June 2016.

Traders said 5 percent black and broken grade 2 robusta was quoted at a discount of $50-$75 per tonne to the ICE March futures contract , compared to a discount of $65-$75 per tonne a week earlier.

Weather is supporting the current harvest in Vietnam's coffee belt region of Central Highlands, ensuring supply, but falling prices discouraged farmers and exporters from selling too many beans, while buyers were also not keen, traders said.

Earlier this month, the United States Department of Agriculture revised up its forecast for Vietnam's 2017/2018 coffee crop output, including a small amount of arabica, to 29.9 million bags from a previous estimate of 28.6 million bags.

The USDA expects Vietnam's robusta output to reach 28.6 million bags for the 2017/2018 crop and exports to hit 25.5 million bags, both were adjusted higher from previous estimates.

Vietnam's coffee exports in November was revised up from a previous government estimate to 100,000 tonnes, or 1.67 million 60-kg bags, customs data showed. Rabobank expects Vietnam's production in 2018/2019 to climb to 29.4 million bags, from 28.7 million bags in 2017/2018, while CoffeeNetwork sees a global coffee surplus of 3.7 million bags in 2018/2019, up from an anticipated 0.9 million in the prior season.

In Indonesia, the grade 4 defect 80 robusta was set with a $130 a tonne premium to the January contract , compared to a $110-$120 premium last week, a Lampung-based trader said.

Traders are only fulfilling previous contracts, the trader said, adding he expects activity to remain thin through the new year holidays as traders await the harvest season.
An environmental police officer in the southern Vietnamese province of Dong Nai was caught red-handed accepting a VND50 million (US$2,202) bribe from a local truck driver earlier this week.

Officers from the provincial Department of Police caught Lieutenant T. accepting the money from a tanker truck driver, a source close to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper confirmed on Thursday.

Lt. T. was an officer with the environmental crime division under the police department in Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province before authorities took him into custody.

According to the Tuoi Tre source, T. and his team spotted the tanker truck dumping waste collected from a local cesspool directly into the environment.

The driver then contacted Lt. T., asking that the officer let the case go so that he could avoid the VND100 million ($4,404) fine.

T. rejected the request and instead offered to sweep the case under the rug if the driver agreed to pay half the fine directly to him.

The two arranged to meet at a seafood restaurant on Vo Thi Sau Street in Bien Hoa to make the trade where local authorities caught the officer red-handed as he was receiving the money.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Residents in some districts of Ho Chi Minh City will suffer from water outage this weekend as the Saigon Water Corporation (Sawaco) is scheduled to maintain one of their underground water plants.

The outage will last from 10:00 pm on Saturday until 7:00 pm on Sunday in some parts of Tan Binh District, District 6, Tan Phu District and District 11, according to a Sawaco announcement.

Within District 6, residents in Ward 14 will have their water supply cut off entirely during the period, while those in Ward 9 will experience low water pressure.

Meanwhile, low water pressure will be experienced across Tan Binh Districts wards of 9, 10, 11 and 14.

People living in the wards of Hoa Thanh, Hiep Tan, Tan Thoi Hoa, Phu Tho Hoa and Phu Trung in Tan Phu District will suffer from water outage during the period.

In District 11, low water pressure is to be expected in Wards 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14.

During the period of maintenance, Sawaco will mobilize water trucks to supply water to administrative offices, hospitals and other crucial buildings in the affected area.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
By PTI: station

Bhopal, Dec 15 (PTI) Suspected Bajrang Dal activists were claimed to have beaten up some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh last night over alleged conversion of Hindus to Christianity.

Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines police station said a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle, but denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident. Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

advertisement

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for priesthood.

Father M. Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, told PTI that some young men stormed the venue of a pre- Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 last night and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After police got information, they came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am. They agreed to visit the police station today morning, Rony said.

"As promised they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not a single person there had converted to Christianity. "We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked today for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

advertisement

Satna superintendent of police Rajesh Hingankar could not be reached for comments despite repeated calls. PTI LAL MAS KRK SK

--- ENDS ---
The new government could accelerate the re-privatisation of Lloyds Banking Group and scrap George Osbornes plan for a sale to retail investors, senior financiers believe. While Mr Osborne wanted to make a profit on every share in the bank, only selling when the price stood at above the bailout level of 73.6p, new Chancellor Philip Hammond may want to sell the bank more quickly, raising cash and removing one painful hangover from the financial crisis, banking sources believe. - Sunday Telegraph

Theresa May's rapid rise to prime minister will help the UK economy to skirt a recession following the Brexit vote, even as growth slows to the weakest pace since the financial crisis. The EY ITEM Club said the political stability brought by Ms May and a new cabinet would boost confidence, though it warned that the decision to leave the EU would mark the end of a five year jobs boom and push down house prices. - Sunday Telegraph

Whitehall is trying to lure the Citys top talent to its Brexit team to build a 300-strong army of trade experts by the end of the year. In an admission of the governments yawning skills gap, officials have turned to law firms and consultancies such as Linklaters and McKinsey for talent to handle the complex task of leaving the EU and inking new deals. - Sunday Times

Australia has called for a free-trade deal with Britain as soon as possible, in a boost for the newly appointed prime minister, Theresa May. In a phone call on Saturday, May spoke to her Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, who expressed his desire to open up trading between the two countries as a matter of urgency. - Guardian

The Italian government is working on plans to set up a 50bn bad bank which would aim to clean up the countrys beleaguered lenders. It is understood that 10bn of public money could be used to buy bad loans at a knock-down price, taking assets with a face value of 50bn off the banks hands, allowing them to start giving out more good loans instead. - Sunday Telegraph

New Chancellor Philip Hammond has been forced to renew a battle to stop the EU from poaching the clearing market from London. The European Central Bank has previously tried to force the flow of euro-based transactions out of London and into the eurozone, resulting in a legal challenge that the UK won in 2015 after arguing for four years that the UK should have an equal right to host clearing houses as it was part of the EUs single market. - Sunday Telegraph

Some recruiters have reported demand for new staff has flourished since the referendum, with 150,000 more jobs added to Reed Group's website in the past three weeks compared with the same period last year. James Reed, chairman of the 1 billion-plus turnover group, said the 8 per cent increase was a sign that it was business as usual despite fears that job vacancies could drop. - Mail on Sundy

BAE Systems and Rolls-Royces ability to deliver the new Successor nuclear missile submarines to replace the ageing Trident fleet faces fresh doubts ahead of a crucial vote on the huge project. On Monday MPs will decide on whether to press ahead with the programme - the biggest UK defence deal for decades with a 30bn price tag and 10bn contingency fund to deal with snags - with major worries about their record for building submarines. - Sunday Telegraph

Two activist hedge funds have now built stakes in SAB Miller, cranking up pressure on the brewer to revise the terms of its 77bn sale to the owner of Budweiser. Following steak-building by US activist Elliott Management last week, the Childrens Investment Fund (TCI) has also now acquired the stake through derivatives  believed to be just under 1%  and it is understood that manager Sir Chris Hohn has met SABs management to discuss the structure of its deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev. - Sunday Times

BT faces pressure to offer a discount internet service to pensioners and families on low incomes as part of major reforms to the telecoms market. The former state monopoly has called on Ofcom to allow it to decommission its costly traditional telecoms network by 2025 as voice calls are increasingly carried over broadband. - Sunday Telegraph

The platinum giant Lonmin will sit down for crunch talks with unions this week after they demanded a 56% pay rise. The London-listed company, which employs more than 24,000 people in South Africa, pulled off a $373m (282m) rights issue in December that rescued it from insolvency but wiped out many investors. - Sunday Times

Uber, the company behind the taxi hailing app, faces its first legal action in the UK this week over whether its drivers are workers or self-employed. The US-owned firm will appear in a case brought by law firm Leigh Day, supported by the GMB union, at the Central London Employment Tribunal on Wednesday. - Mail on Sunday

The future is Brexit and amid the uncertainty one sector has not only welcomed the prospect, but predicts that business will rocket as a result. Britains leisure industry  which was already on a roll having welcomed record numbers of foreign and domestic tourists last year  is expecting to reach new heights in 2016 as the falling pound makes the UK great value for overseas visitors. - Mail on Sunday

The boss of the worlds biggest defence company and supplier of Britains new F-35 fighter jets said the fallout from the Brexit vote could tempt it to invest more here. Marillyn Hewson, chief executive of Lockheed Martin, said exporting from Britain could become more attractive, aided by the slump in sterling. Lockheed builds gun turrets for Britains Ajax and Warrior tanks at its Ampthill factory in Bedfordshire, and hopes to export the kit to Qatar and other countries. - Sunday Times

Britain could become a haven for genetically modified crops after leaving the EU, with Monsanto set to lead the GM charge. A potential relaxation in policy on designer seeds has caught the attention of the US agricultural giant, which intends to seek talks with the government on ways it can expand its presence in Britain. - Sunday Times

Some of Britains largest supermarket chains have been referred to trading standards for using fake farm branding to pass off produce as British when it may actually have come from abroad. The National Farmers Union has formally complained to National Trading Standards over the use of fictitious brands that it claims could mislead consumers. - Guardian

A European Union nation who is boss of one of Britains biggest companies sought advice about officially obtaining permanent residence in the UK in the run-up to last months referendum vote. Permanent residence status is a prerequisite to applying for British citizenship. Business advisory firm KPMG said it had helped the unnamed chief executive of a FTSE 100 blue-chip business in a case which is the most high-profile example of anxiety among EU workers about their rights to stay and work in the UK following the referendum. - Mail on Sunday

The American media giant Time is exploring a bid for the Radio Times. Immediate Media, which owns the news-stand staple and is one of Britains biggest magazine publishers, has been put up for sale by its private equity owner Exponent. - Sunday Times
Fred C. Lee has been named a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow for 2018. Lee is the third NAI Fellow from Virginia Tech since its inception. He joins X.J. Meng, a University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Virology, and President Tim Sands as NAI Fellows at Virginia Tech.

Lee retired in September 2017 from Virginia Tech after 40 years. He was named a University Distinguished Professor in 1998 and founded the Center for Power Electronics Systems, a preeminent academic center in power electronics research at Virginia Tech. Lee received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan in 1968, and his master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Duke University in 1972 and 1974, respectively.

After 40 years at the university, Lee, who is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, has made immeasurable contributions to the field of power electronics. These include:

Earning more than $100 million in research funding

Supervising 84 Ph.D. students and 93 masters students to completion

Filing 104 patents (82 of which so far have been awarded, with the rest pending)

Becoming one of the top three most-cited engineering authors out of over 1 million, according to the Microsoft H index



Publishing more than 290 journal papers and 710 referred conference papers.

Lee will be formally inducted as a Fellow at the NAI's 7th Annual Conference in April in Washington, D.C.


In the fourth grade, Lindsey Dove was asked to draw of photo of what she wanted to be when she grew up. She drew a doctor, and in particular, a plastic surgeon.

While plastic surgery may not be her future specialty, Dove is on a path to her childhood dream of becoming a physician as a second-year student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.

Knowing early on her desire to become a doctor, Dove took steps to acclimate herself to the field and make herself a competitive applicant to medical school. In ninth grade, she started volunteering at her hometown hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, a small town about 45 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

For a couple of years, she volunteered at the hospitals front desk, but once 16, she was able to move into the emergency room. Just being in the medical environment reinforced for me that this was the path I wanted to go into. I was always so excited to go, Dove said. It is a small hospital with about eight emergency room beds, so nothing really serious ever came in there, but the experience was still invaluable.

When she went to school at Washington and Jefferson College, Dove went into a premed curriculum and volunteered at the hospital there, which was a little larger than the one in her hometown, exposing her to more serious cases. I got to interact with a woman whose husband had just died. I never saw that in my hospital at home, Dove said. Im interested in the science and medicine, but also being able to talk with patients and try to help them deal and cope with whatever had just happened. Thats the other side of medicine that Im really interested in.

When Dove began applying to medical schools, she cast a wide net and received a big response, with interviews at about 10 medical schools. Virginia Tech Carilion was my very first interview. It wowed me from the first time I saw campus, Dove said. Every other school I went to, I was comparing it and seeing if it lived up to the VTC standards. To me, nothing was quite as awesome as this place, so thats why I chose to come here.

Now, a year-and-a-half into school, Dove is still pleased with her choice to come to the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. In the first two years of the curriculum, students learn basic science concepts through the lens of real patient experiences, picking apart a new case each week. At the end of the week, students meet the patient, doctors, and loved ones. Its a highlight for Dove.

Actually getting to meet the patient  that human contact  and see the person and not just the disease is really important, Dove said. Hearing their story is something you cant write down in a case. Youd never get that just reading a case. Listening to their stories and emotions helps us remember the humanity of medicine, I think.

Dove has also valued her Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experience (LACE). The program pairs up a Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine student with a faculty member in a local outpatient care center. They visit the clinic each month through the first two years of the curriculum to practice their clinical skills with real patients, guided by a faculty mentor.

My faculty mentor allows me a lot of time to go into the patient room on my own, which at first really puts you out of your comfort zone. Especially as a first-year student to go into a room alone with a real live patient with a real live problem; its scary at first, Dove said. I always learn so much when Im there. Its a great real-world, real-medicine experience.

Now, years have passed since her childhood dream of becoming a plastic surgeon. While Dove is on the way to becoming a physician, she believes she will go a different route, such as primary care in an underserved area.

Im from a rural area in Southwest Pennsylvania, so Ive grown up with that, and that is what Im used to. Its the kind of people Im used to and enjoy working with, Dove said.

Dove also believes her desire to work in underserved areas reflects on her experience as an undergraduate when she lived on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico for a month. Staying for that amount of time instead of a quick tourist stop, I got to see the ins and outs of their lives  from what their houses looked like to some of their terrible battles with addiction. Theres nowhere to escape it  there is nowhere for them to go, Dove said. It is the type of population where Id like to be able to make a difference.

Dove is one of two recent recipients of the Sam and Priscilla McCall VTC School of Medicine Scholarship.

The late Sam McCall was raised in Richlands, Virginia, and studied for a year in business administration at Virginia Tech with the Class of 1958. He moved away from the area to Texas, but his family that remained in rural Southwest Virginia faced limited access to health care. Sam and his wife Priscilla, who now serves on the VTCSOM Deans Council on Advancement, created the scholarship with the hopes that some graduates would stay to practice in the area or other underserved communities.

I would like for whatever field of medicine I go into, I would like to live in more of a rural area and serve that population, Dove said.
The Art of Living founder said he will continue to mediate with various stakeholders in the matter in his own personal capacity.

By Indrajit Kundu: Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has taken a personal interest in mediating on the Ayodhya dispute, has said he has received positive feedback from several quarters and will continue to engage with the various stakeholders on the matter.

Speaking on the sidelines of an interactive session in Kolkata, the Art of Living founder said, "We have received positive feedback and shall continue with the process. What one can achieve through mutual agreement can never be achieved through confrontation."

advertisement

"I would like to speak to more people. I have been speaking to all stakeholders and want to ensure that both communities come together. Out of court settlement is the best," he added.

Last month, the spiritual leader had met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and visited Ayodhya to pitch for an out-of-court settlement in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute.

"I know some may not agree with this, but Muslims by and large are not opposing the Ram temple," the Art of Living founder had said then.

With questions being raised by both the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on his offer to mediate in the dispute, Ravishankar said, "Whatever I do, I am doing in my personal capacity."

With the Parliament set to take up the triple talaq issue in the winter session beginning from Friday, the spiritual guru stressed on the need for gender equality in India.

"We are living in the 21st century where gender equality must be honoured. We should be at par with what the world is doing. Women and men should have equal rights," he said.

--- ENDS ---
Banco Santander-Chile, together with its subsidiaries, provides commercial and retail banking products and services in Chile. It operates through Retail Banking, Middle-Market, Corporate Investment Banking, and Corporate Activities segments. The company offers debit and credit cards, checking accounts, and savings products; consumer, automobile, commercial, mortgage, and government-guaranteed loans; and Chilean peso and foreign currency denominated loans to finance various commercial transactions, trade, foreign currency forward contracts, and credit lines, as well as mortgage financing services. It also provides mutual funds, insurance and securities brokerage, foreign exchange, financial leasing, factoring, financial consulting and advisory, investment management, foreign trade, treasury, and transactional services, as well as specialized services to finance projects for the real estate industry. In addition, the company offers short-term financing and fund raising, and brokerage services, as well as derivatives, securitization, and other tailor-made products. It serves individuals, small to middle-sized entities, companies, and large corporations, as well as universities, government entities, and local and regional governments. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 326 branches, which include 220 under the Santander brand name, 14 under the Select brand name, 7 specialized branches for the middle market, and 22 as auxiliary and payment centers, as well as 1,338 ATMs, including depository ATMs. Banco Santander-Chile was incorporated in 1977 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile.
The Bank of Nova Scotia provides various banking products and services in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, the Caribbean and Central America, and internationally. It operates in four segments: Canadian Banking, International Banking, Global Wealth Management, and Global Banking and Markets. The company offers financial advice and solutions, and day-to-day banking products, including debit and credit cards, chequing and saving accounts, investments, mortgages, loans, and insurance to individuals; and business banking solutions comprising lending, deposit, cash management, and trade finance solutions to small, medium, and large businesses, including automotive financing solutions to dealers and their customers. It also provides wealth management advice and solutions, including online brokerage, mobile investment, full-service brokerage, trust, private banking, and private investment counsel services; and retail mutual funds, exchange traded funds, liquid alternative funds, and institutional funds. In addition, the company offers international banking services for retail, corporate, and commercial customers; and lending and transaction, investment banking advisory, and capital markets access services to corporate customers. Further, it provides online, mobile, and telephone banking services. The company operates a network of 954 branches and approximately 3,766 automated banking machines in Canada; and approximately 1,300 branches and a network of contact and support center internationally. The Bank of Nova Scotia was founded in 1832 and is headquartered in Halifax, Canada.
Dril-Quip, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, sells, and services engineered drilling and production equipment for use in deepwater, harsh environment, and severe service applications worldwide. The company's principal products include subsea and surface wellheads, subsea and surface production trees, mudline hanger systems, specialty connectors and associated pipes, drilling and production riser systems, liner hangers, wellhead connectors, diverters, and safety valves, as well as downhole tools. It also provides technical advisory services, and rework and reconditioning services, as well as rental and purchase of running tools for use in the installation and retrieval of its products; and downhole tools comprise of liner hangers, production packers, safety valves, and specialty downhole tools that are used to hang-off and seal casing into a previously installed casing string in the well bore. The company's products are used to explore for oil and gas from offshore drilling rigs, such as floating rigs and jack-up rigs; and for drilling and production of oil and gas wells on offshore platforms, tension leg platforms, and Spars, as well as moored vessels, such as floating production, storage, and offloading monohull moored vessels. It sells its products directly through its sales personnel, independent sales agents, and representatives to integrated, independent, and foreign national oil and gas companies, as well as drilling contractors, and engineering and construction companies. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. operates as a diversified financial services company in the United States. The company's Retail Banking segment offers checking, savings, and money market accounts, as well as certificates of deposit; residential mortgages, home equity loans and lines of credit, auto loans, credit cards, education loans, and personal and small business loans and lines of credit; and brokerage, insurance, and investment and cash management services. This segment serves consumer and small business customers through a network of branches, ATMs, call centers, and online and mobile banking channels. Its Corporate & Institutional Banking segment provides secured and unsecured loans, letters of credit, and equipment leases; cash and investment management services, receivables and disbursement management services, funds transfer services, international payment services, and access to online/mobile information management and reporting; foreign exchange, derivatives, fixed income, securities underwriting, loan syndications, and mergers and acquisitions and equity capital markets advisory related services; and commercial loan servicing and technology solutions. It serves mid-sized and large corporations, and government and not-for-profit entities. The company's Asset Management Group segment offers investment and retirement planning, customized investment management, credit and cash management solutions, and trust management and administration services for high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals, and their families; and multi-generational family planning services for ultra high net worth individuals and their families. It also provides outsourced chief investment officer, custody, private real estate, cash and fixed income client solutions, and fiduciary retirement advisory services for institutional clients. The company has 2,591 branches and 9,502 ATMs. The company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Matador Resources Company, an independent energy company, engages in the exploration, development, production, and acquisition of oil and natural gas resources in the United States. It operates through two segments, Exploration and Production; and Midstream. The company primarily holds interests in the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring plays in the Delaware Basin in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas. It also operates the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas; and the Haynesville shale and Cotton Valley plays in Northwest Louisiana. In addition, the company conducts midstream operations in support of its exploration, development, and production operations; provides natural gas processing and oil transportation services; and offers oil, natural gas, and produced water gathering services, as well as produced water disposal services to third parties. As of December 31, 2021, its estimated total proved oil and natural gas reserves were 323.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, including 181.3 million stock tank barrels of oil and 852.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The company was formerly known as Matador Holdco, Inc. and changed its name to Matador Resources Company in August 2011. Matador Resources Company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
One of the candidates who was interviewed for the position of vice-chancellor said that the person who was selected for the post was awarded marks illegally.

The score card shows that the selected candidate was given at least 6 marks illegally for Academic Record performance. (Photo courtesy: P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan)

By P S Gopikrishnan Unnithan: A protest march carried out by the CPI (M) students' wing seeking to remove the Kerala University Vice Chancellor turned violent in the state capital.

The protesters managed to break a police blockade and stormed into the university administration building.

The scuffle between the protesters and police personnel turned into a clash as protesters tried to attack the police vehicle.

advertisement

The police resorted to water cannons to disperse the agitated mob. Four police men and two SFI activists sustained injuries in the incident.

VICE-CHANCELLOR IN EYE OF THE STORM

The recent posting in Kerala University's education department has landed the insititution in trouble for alleged nepotism.

The issue surfaced after one of the candidates alleged that the one who got selected was awarded extra marks, which went against UGC norms.

The candidate who came second has now approached the Kerala High Court seeking judicial intervention.

In June 2011, Kerala University issued a notification for various teaching vacancies in different departments.

The Department of Education had three vacancies. One each from Muslim, Ezhava and General categories.

Nearly 200 candidates were called for interviews following tight scrutiny of thousands of applications in 2017.

After four days of interviews, three candidates were selected by the high profile interview board which was chaired by the university's vice-chancellor professor PK Radhakrishnan.

Lali S, a candidate under the Ezhava category - who scored 40 out of 80 marks for academic record and domain knowledge - was hopeful she would be selected.

However things turned upside down in the personal interview as Lali managed to get only 6 out of 20.

She was overcome by Divya C Senan who scored 19 out of 20 despite scoring only 30 for academic research and domain knowledge.

Divya Senan was also served an appointment order by the university.

Just when everyone thought the selection process was fair and neat, a detailed scoresheet of the selected candidate emerged.

The score card shows that the selected candidate was given at least 6 marks illegally for Academic Record performance.

The UGC has laid down detailed specifications for awarding each and every mark in a selection process to ensure that the best among the best

gets selected.

Still the concerned people managed to overrule the system in the most shocking manner. Here is how it was done.

advertisement

ONE POINT FOR ADDITIONAL PG DEGREE

According to the selection procedure, a candidate can get one point for additional postgraduate degree. This means a post graduation that is obtained apart from the essential qualification.

In Divya Senan's application, the candidate only mentioned MSc Physics and Med which are essential qualification for the prescribed post and not additional ones.

THREE POINTS FOR AWARDS OF REPUTE

The selection committee awarded the candidate three points for achievements in International Fellowships, Young Scientist Award or National Award. However, no where in the application has the candidate stated any such award. Where these additional marks came from is still a msytery.

This by far is the most shocking element in the score sheet. In the application, the candidate has stated that she only submitted her PhD thesis and had not been awarded a doctorate at the time of the application.

However the selection committee was generous enough to grant the candidate two marks for Post Doctoral Research experience.

In the very same page it has been mentioned that only post PhD experience should be counted as post doctoral research.

Professor Mohana Krishnan, a retired faculty and former syndicate member of the University, said there is clear evidence to prove nepotism in this case by the chairman of the selection committee, Vice Chancellor.

advertisement

The candidate who has been selected has been given undue and illegal marks for the qualifications that she has not poccessed at the time of application.

In this case it's also important to note that the Chancellor's (Governor) nominee was also part of the Interview board which puts chancellor's office under the shadow, Krishnan alleged.

The Kerala University vice-chancellor who was approached for a comment on these allegations refused to respond, citing that the issue is subjudice.

Amidst fuming debates in the university syndicate it has been learned that the vice chancellor continues to claim himself free of any wrongdoing.

--- ENDS ---
Keith Carradine, 68, who broke out as the star of the LBJ-teasing 1967 hippie musical Hair, grew up to earn an Oscar, an Emmy nomination and the job of President Conrad Dalton on CBSs hit Madam Secretary. He tells AARP what its like to run the world.

Is Madam Secretary set in an alternate universe, like The West Wing?

The conceit is that were maybe five years ahead of where we are right now as a country. However, a lot of issues we deal with are current, both socially and geopolitically.

So how does it feel to step into Martin Sheens shoes?

Ha ha ha! Im a huge fan. Marty is a friend, but whats required of me is different. Were not about the West Wing, were looking at Washington from the point of view of the secretary of state [Tea Leoni]. But we like to present ourselves as aspirational. This is how things ought to be. We like to believe that everything is dealt with by rational, reasonable adults.

From left: Keith Carradine as President Conrad Dalton, Zeljko Ivanek as Russell Jackson and Tea Leoni as Elizabeth McCord in "Madam Secretary" CBS

Our 38 million AARP readers include conservatives, liberals and independents. What is President Dalton?

Weve never labeled him. I dont think weve ever used the words Democrat or Republican.

But whats his ideological niche?

Id say hes either a RINO [Republican in name only] or a Blue Dog Democrat ... somewhere in the middle. He has a sense of tolerance regarding social issues, probably a fiscal conservative, advocating for a strong military. Having been director of the CIA, all of that fits into who he is.

What is his demon? What drives him? He reminds me of the British leader in Yes, Minister, always trying to do stuff, but things get in the way.

Well, thats the world, isnt it? He wants to make the country a better place, encourage the citizenry to look to their better angels, as Lincoln said. Yeah, youre cloaked with immense power, but youre surrounded by all these checks and balances. Theres an overall thrust behind our show: Were all in this together, we need to reach across the aisle to have a conversation and not just keep labeling each other. Because you get nowhere doing that. In every national disaster, nobody stops to ask, Who did you vote for? before they pull you into the lifeboat. Thats just not who we are. Daltons biggest frustration is that hes often thwarted by raw partisanship and all the worst aspects of the culture of D.C.
Rules that provide equal access to the internet were repealed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday, setting off protests from consumer advocates and likely legal challenges.

The FCCs decision to scrap so-called net neutrality rules is expected to transform the way that people use the internet by allowing major broadband providers  such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon  to potentially block or slow down competing services and to charge more for certain content. It also bars states from imposing their own internet regulations. The 3-2 FCC vote was along party lines, with Republicans in the majority.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, said the repeal of net neutrality rules will help avoid heavy-handed government regulation of the phenomenal development of the internet. "Quite simply, we are restoring the light-touch framework that has governed the internet for most of its existence, Pai added. The sky is not falling, consumers will remain protected, and the internet will continue to thrive."

But Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat, warned that the outcome will harm individual users, small businesses and marginalized populations while giving control to "a handful of multibillion-dollar corporations."

The FCC ruling could affect millions of older Americans who go online for research, banking, shopping, news coverage and social-media engagement.

The widespread availability of high quality and affordable broadband connections  both fixed and mobile  will enable new applications and services that can enhance older Americans quality of life, including new methods of delivering health care and support for independent living, noted AARP in its comments to the FCC opposing the rule change. Policies to promote a vibrant and competitive internet ecosystem are essential for the continuation of this success.

When the Pew Research Center began tracking internet use in 2000, just 14 percent of adults 65 or older said they went online. By May 2017, 67 percent were surfing the Net, Pew found.

Protests against the rollback include expected legal challenges. New York states attorney general plans to lead a multistate lawsuit to block the FCC decision. And the issue will likely become a flashpoint during political debates in upcoming election campaigns. The issue already has sparked hundreds of thousands of calls to Congress.

Some consumer groups also are targeting the FCC decision, warning that it could force people to pay more for what they do online while discouraging startup operations that may face higher costs from the major broadband companies to provide services.

"This gives free rein to broadband providers to block or throttle your broadband service as long as they inform you of it," says Chris Lewis, vice president at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit organization that supports an open internet.

The broadband industry lobbied for the net neutrality repeal, saying it would not significantly change the consumers internet experience. They say that the change will allow them to invest more in the development of broadband.

"The internet will continue to work tomorrow just as it always has," Bob Quinn, AT&T senior executive vice president, said in a blog post.
Age discrimination, just like discrimination based on race or gender, is illegal. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, prohibits discriminating against workers age 40 and over during all stages of employment, including hiring and layoffs. Despite that law, however, it can be difficult to win age discrimination cases in court. Here are five things you should know.

1. Age discrimination can be hard to prove, so be sure to keep careful notes of any evidence.

According to a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision, plaintiffs must meet a higher burden of proof for age discrimination than for other types of discrimination. The clearest indicator of intentional discrimination is when an employee demonstrates that an employer is acting because of a belief that a worker has diminished capacity because of the worker's age, says Patricia Barnes, an employment discrimination expert and author of Overcoming Age Discrimination in Employment.

Another strong sign is if a supervisor makes comments about age or sends younger workers to a training course but not older workers, Barnes says. "I always advise keeping some kind of notebook about each incident, who was there and how it made you feel," she suggests. Then, it's easier to demonstrate a pattern in court.

2. Pull in professionals.

Human resources officers are trained to recognize age discrimination, but it's also important to remember that they work for your employer, not for you. You can lodge a complaint with your HR department, which might then investigate or talk to your supervisor. You might also want to consult with a lawyer to see if you have a case to pursue in court. In addition, you can contact your local Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) office to discuss how to file a charge and for help resolving the charge with your employer.

3. Winning an age discrimination case might be hard, but it's not impossible.

One of the largest age-discrimination cases in recent history involved a then-64-year-old Staples employee in Los Angeles who was called an "old goat" in staff meetings and eventually was fired. A jury awarded the man $26 million. A reduced payment of $16 million was upheld on an appeal. Currently, AARP Foundation is supporting multiple age-discrimination cases, including ones against Spirit AeroSystems and PwC, aka PricewaterhouseCoopers, both of which are pending. "We are hopeful that our participation and success in these cases will send a message to employers that age discrimination is unacceptable and will not go unchallenged," says Laurie McCann, senior attorney with AARP Foundation Litigation.
Youre middle-aged and looking for a job. Half of the help-wanted ads you see say theres no need to apply if youre age 55 or older. Many other postings  25 percent, in fact  actually ban applications from anyone over age 45.

Such was the case in 1965, according to a Labor Department report produced during the era of civil rights legislation. Lawmakers at that time were wondering whether age deserved the same anti-discrimination protections given to race and sex in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The unemployment level for older adults was 27 percent that year. So Congress stepped in and passed the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed on Dec. 15, 1967.

Flowers & Gifts Proflowers 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items View Details See All Benefits See more Flowers & Gifts offers > {"hideCategory":false,"useAlternateLanguage":false,"headlineIconAltText":"","listItems":[{"categoryTitle":"Flowers \u0026 Gifts","categoryUrl":"/benefits-discounts/?category\u003dshoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts","categoryDeeplinkParam":"shoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts","isLimitedTimeOffer":false,"offerJson":{"offer_id":"","offer_title":"25% Off Flowers, Plants \u0026 Gifts","offer_short_title":"","offer_short_description":"25% off sitewide and 30% off select items","featured_offer":"","last_updated_by":"","offer_description":"\u003cp\u003eAs an AARP member, you automatically save 25% sitewide or you can save 30% on select items with promo code AARP30. No minimum purchase amount is required.\u003c/p\u003e","redemption_type":"","created_by":"","country_code":"","tab_label_offer_details":"Details","tab_label_restrictions":"Disclosures","restrictions_label":"Disclosures","restrictions":"\u003cp\u003eAARP commercial member benefits are provided by third parties, not by AARP or its affiliates. Providers pay a royalty fee to AARP for the use of its intellectual property. These fees are used for the general purposes of AARP. Some provider offers are subject to change and may have restrictions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 25% discount is applied to the standard retail prices set forth on the PROFLOWERS.COM website. The 30% discount applies to any item in the AARP Choice Collection. Enter promo code AARP30 to receive 30% discount on AARP Choice Collection items at checkout. Discounts are applied to the standard retail prices set forth on the PROFLOWERS.COM website (standard retail prices shall not include sale prices) and are not available on: (a) product customizations including vases or product add-ons, or (b) service, shipping, delivery, care and handling fees (collectively, Service Fees), or any other fees and applicable taxes. The discount is available online and through the special toll-free number. Discounts cannot be combined. Quantities may be limited. Delivery for Floral and Gifting Items: For each item delivered by a local florist or shipped direct, a standard Service Fee will apply (the standard Service Fee is waived for ProPerks Icon members). Service Fees may be higher based on day of delivery or product type, or during high volume holiday periods. If an item is not available, a comparable substitute may be provided. Due to the perishable nature of our products, please make any customer service inquiries within 7 days of delivery. For items delivered by a local florist, same day delivery is available in many locations if order is placed before 2 p.m. in recipient\u0027s time zone. For more information on our delivery policies for these items, see \u003ca data-overlay-msg\u003d\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,\u0027\u0027,/mnt/overlay/wcm/core/content/sites/properties.html,\u0027\u0027,\u0027You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.\u0027);return false;\" data-default-element-msg\u003d\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,\u0027\u0027,/mnt/overlay/wcm/core/content/sites/properties.html,\u0027\u0027,\u0027You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.\u0027);return false;\" data-displayoverlay\u003d\"displayOverlay\" title\u003d\"Proflowers Delivery Policy\" rel\u003d\"noreferrer\" href\u003d\"https://www.proflowers.com/delivery-policy\" target\u003d\"_blank\"\u003ewww.proflowers.com/delivery-policy\u003c/a\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e","offer_status":"","national_offer_flag":"","language_code":"","offer_type":"EverGreen","asi_category":"ASI Shopping","line_of_business":"ASI discounts","merchant_name":"","marketing_details":"","member_exclusive_flag":"no","parent_brand":"FTD","source_name":"Proflowers","alternate_source_name":"","business_id":"","offer_video_thumbnail":"","image_url":"/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/1140x641-proflowers-iris-bouquet-cake-pops-sep-2022.jpg","vertical_image_url":"/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/258x334-proflowers-iris-bouquet-cake-pops-sep-2022.jpg","provider_image":"","provider_logo":"/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/450x450-proflowers-logo.png","offer_video_path":"","offer_copy_video_path":"","interstitial_title":"","interstitial_desc":"You\u0027ll leave AARP.org and go to the website of a trusted provider. The provider\u0027s terms, conditions, and policies apply.","created_user_role":"","is_no_end_date":"","advertisement_flag":"","advertisement_sort_order":"","disclaimer_label":"","disclaimer":"","merchant_logo":"","show_phone_number_above_cta":false,"merchant_phone_label":"or, call Proflowers at","merchant_phone":"1-800-315-7527","howto_redeem_label":"How to Access","howto_redeem_expired":"Renew to Learn More","howto_redeem_expired_2":"Renew to Learn More","howto_redeem_expired_link":"https://appsec.aarp.org/mem/renew","howto_redeem_expired_link_2":"https://appsec.aarp.org/mem/renew","howto_redeem_non_member":"Join to Learn More","howto_redeem_non_member_2":"Join to Learn More","howto_redeem_non_member_link":"https://secure.aarp.org/applications/membershipChallenge/showChallengeForm.action?appName\u003daccount","howto_redeem_non_member_link_2":"https://secure.aarp.org/applications/membershipChallenge/showChallengeForm.action?appName\u003daccount","howto_redeem_anonymous":"Join to Learn More","howto_redeem_anonymous_2":"Join to Learn More","howto_redeem_anonymous_link":"https://appsec.aarp.org/mem/join?campaignid\u003dUASMBP1\u0026intcmp\u003dEWHERE-MBCHAE-LP-MMA-JOIN","howto_redeem_anonymous_link_2":"https://appsec.aarp.org/mem/join?campaignid\u003dUASMBP1\u0026intcmp\u003dEWHERE-MBCHAE-LP-MMA-JOIN","howto_redeem_already_registered_anon_label":"Already a member?","howto_redeem_already_registered_anon":"Login now.","howto_redeem_already_registered_nonmember_label":"Already a member?","howto_redeem_already_registered_nonmember":"Link your membership","howto_redeem_already_registered_nonmember_link":"https://secure.aarp.org/applications/membershipChallenge/showChallengeForm.action?appName\u003daccount","howto_redeem_already_registered_anon_link":"https://login.aarp.org/online-community/loginform.action","howto_redeem":"Learn More","howto_redeem_2":"Learn More","howto_redeem_url":"https://www.proflowers.com/aarp","howto_redeem_url_2":"","show_redeem_cta_2":false,"howto_redeem_desc":"The 25% discount is applied automatically. Enter promo code AARP30 to save 30% on select items.","is_redeemable_in_person":"","howto_redeem_in_person":"","howto_redeem_cta_phone":"","howto_redeem_phone_instructions":"","howto_redeem_online_instructions":"","show_state_availability":"","state_availability_text":"SEE AVAILABILITY IN YOUR STATE","cardlinked_flag":"","ty_interstitialText":"Thanks for visiting aarp.org! Come back again to check out all of the AARP Member Benefits and unlock the full power of membership.","ty_ctaText":"Continue","ty_socialMissionFlag":"","hideRestrictionsTab":"","hideLeavingAARP":"false","hide_lto":"","lto_model_heading":"Limited Time Member Offers","lto_model_heading_spanish":"Ofertas para socios por tiempo limitado","lto_advertisement":"Member Exclusive Advertisement","lto_advertisement_spanish":"Anuncios publicitarios exclusivos para socios","lto_daysleft":"Days Left","lto_daysleft_spanish":"Dias restantes","geoloc_experience_type":"full_location","geoloc_tab_label":"Locations","geoloc_tab_label_spanish":"Ubicaciones","geoloc_hide_tab":"true","geoloc_find_location_label":"Find a Location","geoloc_find_location_label_spanish":"Encuentre una ubicacion","geoloc_tab_hint_text":"Enter an address, city, or ZIP","geoloc_tab_hint_text_spanish":"Ingresa tu direccion, ciudad o codigo postal","geoloc_search_icon":"","geoloc_total_results_label":"Result(s)","geoloc_total_results_label_spanish":"Resultado(s)","geoloc_see_more_button_text":"See More","geoloc_see_more_button_text_spanish":"Ver mas","geoloc_see_more_label_text":"See More","geoloc_see_more_label_text_spanish":"Ver mas","geoloc_see_more_limit_option":"","geoloc_provider_link_cta":"Learn more about this benefit by visiting the provider website","geoloc_provider_link_cta_spanish":"Obtenga mas informacion sobre este beneficio visitando el sitio web del proveedor","geoloc_provider_link_cta_url":"","geoloc_provider_legal_info":"You will leave AARP.org and go to the website of a trusted provider. The providers terms, conditions, and policies apply.","geoloc_provider_legal_info_spanish":"Dejaras el sitio de AARP y accederas al de un proveedor confiable. Aplican los terminos, las condiciones y politicas del proveedor. Este sitio web podria no estar disponible en espanol.","geoloc_no_results_view_message":"There are no locations within a 100 mile radius. Please try another location","geoloc_no_results_view_message_spanish":"No hay ubicaciones dentro de un radio de 100 millas. Intenta con otra ubicacion","geoloc_mobile_list_cta":"LIST VIEW","geoloc_mobile_list_cta_spanish":"VISTA DE LA LISTA","geoloc_mobile_list_cta_url":"","geoloc_mobile_map_cta":"MAP VIEW","geoloc_mobile_map_cta_spanish":"VISTA DEL MAPA","geoloc_mobile_map_cta_url":"","geoloc_mobile_button_cta":"VIEW MORE","geoloc_mobile_button_cta_spanish":"VER MAS","geoloc_mobile_button_cta_url":"","geoloc_show_results_within_label_text":"Show results within","geoloc_show_results_within_label_text_spanish":"Mostrar resultados dentro","geoloc_miles_label_text":"Miles","geoloc_miles_label_text_spanish":"Millas","geoloc_hide_see_more_button":"false","geoloc_hide_see_more_button_spanish":"false","rewardId":"","hide_r4g_badge":"","redemption_content":"","authentication_code_provider":"","authentication_code_provider_2":"","pixel_view_offer_value":"","pixel_learn_more_value":"","is_redeemable_only_in_person":false,"offer_keywords":["aarp discounts","aarp benefits","flower deals","plant savings","gift discounts"],"deeplink_url":"/benefits-discounts/?offer\u003dproflowers","deeplink_param_value":"proflowers","offer_page_path":"/benefits-discounts/all/proflowers/","offer_page_data":"/content/aarpe/en/home/benefits-discounts/all/proflowers/_jcr_content/.dataview.json","offer_page_modal":"/benefits-discounts/all/proflowers.modalview/","evol_offer_page_path":"/membership/benefits/shopping/proflowers/","evol_offer_page_modal":"/membership/benefits/shopping/proflowers.modalview/","dbr_offer_id":"54a1e51ec32c758b0ef69f44cfac6d5c","image_alt_text":"iris bouquet cake pops orange table and background","vertical_image_alt_text":"iris bouquet cake pops orange table and background","provider_logo_alt_text":"Proflowers logo","provider_image_alt_text":"","offer_date_status":"n/a","image_url_width":"1140","image_url_height":"641","image_cdn_uri":"https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/1140x641-proflowers-iris-bouquet-cake-pops-sep-2022.imgcache.rev744229eebc085190a68816d0783a0dd4.jpg","vertical_image_cdn_uri":"https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/258x334-proflowers-iris-bouquet-cake-pops-sep-2022.imgcache.rev9722cbef42ab238485056a9a9c13ef02.jpg","vertical_image_url_width":"258","vertical_image_url_height":"334","provider_image_cdn_uri":"","provider_logo_cdn_uri":"https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/providers/ftd/450x450-proflowers-logo.imgcache.rev198b42372f4faa150bb5ef89485f37cc.png","provider_image_width":"","provider_image_height":"","provider_logo_width":"450","provider_logo_height":"450","authentication_code_provider_url":"","authentication_code_provider_2_url":"","tags":[{"tagID":"dbr:shoppingandgroceries","title":"Shopping \u0026 Groceries","svgPathCdn":"https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarp/benefits_discounts/icons/icon-shopping_2 e681.imgcache.rev7ca4d43f2010b4279414ebc6e9fc9dea.svg","name":"shoppingandgroceries","deeplink_url":"/benefits-discounts/?category\u003dshoppingandgroceries","deeplink_param_value":"shoppingandgroceries","get_offers_url":"/etc/aarp/dbr/ws.api/offers/shoppingandgroceries.json","sub_tags":[{"tagID":"dbr:shoppingandgroceries/flowersandgifts","title":"Flowers \u0026 Gifts","name":"flowersandgifts","deeplink_url":"/benefits-discounts/?category\u003dshoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts","deeplink_param_value":"shoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts","get_offers_url":"/etc/aarp/dbr/ws.api/offers/shoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts.json"}]}],"ltos":[],"lto_daysleft_start_control":30,"master_brand":"proflowers","analytics_brand":"FTD | Proflowers","analytics_offerid":"proflowers","category_list":"shoppingandgroceries","subcategory_list":"shoppingandgroceries-flowersandgifts","dbr_offer_type":"discount","offer_timing":"anytime","parent_offer_page_path":"","append_aid_paramter":"","enable_utm_parameters":"false","taxonomy_general_category":"","taxonomy_level_1":""},"parentOfferJson":{}}]}

For 50 years, the ADEA has been the main bulwark protecting the rights of workers over the age of 40. But several Supreme Court rulings have eroded its basic safeguards. For example, in 2009 the court ruled that workers have to prove that age was the primary reason they were dismissed or demoted, a different standard than had previously been used for ADEA cases and one that makes it much more difficult for workers to prevail.

The laws other shortcomings have become increasingly clear in recent years. For example, some employers have found ways to get around the laws restrictions regarding hiring practices. Recruiters are not allowed to ask a job seekers age, so instead some online applications require applicants to state the year of their high school or college graduation in order to submit the form  and those details, of course, reveal age. Other digital applications have dropdown menus for graduation dates that dont go back beyond a certain year, implying anyone who graduated before then need not apply.

Victims of age-based workplace harassment  such as comments that are demeaning but dont cause clear financial harm  often decide not to file lawsuits because the limitations on damages make pursuing a case economically unfeasible. And in some professions older workers are still being forced into mandatory retirement, despite the ADEAs ban on this practice.
Noem tells NYT former President Trump doesn't offer 'best chance' for GOP

In an interview with The New York Times, Gov. Kristi Noem spoke about her reservations about former President Donald Trump announcing his bid for re-election.
Shelley Morningsong enjoys telling stories through music.

And shes good at it.

In 2016, Morningsong was awarded artist of the year at the Native American Music Awards.

Morningsong (Northern Cheyenne/Dutch) has recorded five contemporary Native American albums.

She will be performing at Erna Fergusson Library on Monday, Dec. 18, and Lomas Tramway Library on Tuesday, Dec. 19.

This will be her first time performing in the venues.

Im excited and dont know what to expect, she says in a recent phone interview. It will be nice to get into a different setting.

Morningsong has toured the country, as well as Germany.

She plays the Native flute, while her husband dances to the music. He also plays traditional drums and does an education portion to the show.

I present my music within the show, she says. I always try to include positive messages in my music. I want to bring people together and show how connected we are. Its important for the positivity to remain in my music.

As far as her influences go, she and her husband live in the village of Zuni, where he is from.

Theres a lot of inspiration there, she says. Sometimes on the reservation, theres a lot of sadness. I see this life and write about the positive things. Ill put melodies together for the songs. Its a great process.

One would think making music would be enough, yet Morningsong has begun to branch out into video production.

Although most of her music videos have been done by fans, she is beginning to learn about filmmaking.

Im trying to train myself, she says with a laugh. Its difficult now. But I would like to do this medium because it would give me another outlet for my creativity. Making music videos is also part of the storytelling.

Morningsong is looking forward to putting on a show for a different audience.

She regularly plays at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Performing is part of my life, she says. I grew up in a very musical family. Im trying to carry on the traditions that I grew up with, only in a contemporary way. Its always fun to get on stage and share it with my husband.

Shelley Morningsong

WHEN AND WHERE: Noon Monday, Dec. 18, Erna Fergusson Library, 3700 San Mateo NE; Noon Tuesday, Dec. 19, Lomas Tramway Library, 908 Eastridge NE

HOW MUCH: Free but reservations suggested at ampconcerts.org
Landon Liboiron is all about taking chances.

Which is why he landed in the New Mexico-filmed Burning Bodhi a few years ago.

Its is also why he played Peter Rumancek in Netflixs Hemlock Grove.

Now the actor is back at home with Netflix for the series Frontier, in which he plays Michael Smyth. The six-episode season is currently streaming.

The world in this series is very interesting in the time and history, he says. We havent seen a lot in film and TV. Theres a thing I really like about Michael in the show. Hes not a brute in any sense. He has to use his creativeness to get his way. Hes sort of a con man for the good of his people.

The series, now in its second season, follows Declan Harp, played by Jason Momoa  a part-Irish, part-Cree outlaw who is campaigning to breach the Hudsons Bay Co.s monopoly on the fur trade in Canada during the 18th century.

In the second season, the series expands with spectacular new views of the northern wilderness, and new players entering the ruthless game in the quest for power and wealth  pushing everyone to either embrace unknown alliances or arm themselves against them.

Fort James is left in chaos after Michael Smyth, played by Liboiron; Sokanon, played by Jessica Matten; and Grace Emberly, played by Zoe Boyle, detonated a munitions magazine, leaving Declan Harp, played by Momoa, to slip through the hangmans noose.

With Harp gone, the Black Wolf Co. is fractured and no one knows whether Harp survived  but Lord Bento, played by Alun Armstrong, is not taking any chances; he offers a dead-or-alive bounty for Harp, unleashing a threat to Harp and his allies.

Meanwhile, in the burgeoning city of Montreal, the power dynamic of the trade is in flux, as battle lines are drawn between Elizabeth Carruthers, played by Katie McGrath, and Samuel Grant, played by Shawn Doyle.

Michael is reeling from the loss of Declen, he says. They arent sure what to do, and they decide to keep the company going and keeping the Black Wolf Co. strong.

Liboiron says that filming in rigorous conditions for the series, hes learned that he wouldnt like to have lived during that time.

I wouldnt survive, he says. The beauty about my job is that Im challenged to transform into a different character. Whether it is for Frontier or when I played Dylan back in New Mexico on Burning Bodhi, Im always looking to challenge myself.

SEND ME YOUR TIPS: If you know of a movie filming in the state, or are curious about one, email film@ABQjournal.com. Follow me on Twitter @agomezART.
By PTI: Mumbai, Dec 15 (PTI) Nissan India has appointed Hardeep Singh Brar as the director for sales and network.

Brar will be responsible for accelerating sales of both Nissan and Datsun products in the country, Nissan said in a statement.

"Nissan is committed to play a significant role in the transformational journey of the automobile sector in the country. With our exciting product offerings and huge focus on network expansion and customer satisfaction, we are growing steadily in the market," said Jerome Saigot, managing director--marketing & sales at Nissan Motor India.

advertisement

Brar has over two decades in the automotive industry, having held senior leadership across sales, network and rural marketing functions at Maruti Suzuki, Volkswagen and General Motors. ***************** UpGrad,IMT Ghaziabad tie-up to train over 2 m professionals

Online education company UpGrad has collaborated with Institute of Management Technology Ghaziabad-(IMT-G) to re- skill over 2 million marketing and sales professionals.

The 10-month course is designed for professional who intend to accelerate their career growth and are planning a smooth transition into leadership roles within the sales and marketing domain, a release said.

"The digital industry is endlessly evolving and it is essential to keep our digital game strong. We are proud to collaborate with IMTG as they are one of the leading B-Schools in India. Their expertise have helped us create a strong curriculum for this program which will help professionals, ace relevant skills for their performance," UpGrad co-founder Ronnie Screwvala said. PTI BEN SM BEN BEN

--- ENDS ---
Woody Allens latest production, Wonder Wheel, is a compelling modern Greek tragedy full of characters flawed to the point of self-destruction played out against a backdrop that flows from nostalgic realism to stagelike appearance. It is the best and most emotionally complex work from Allen since his 2013 Oscar-nominated Blue Jasmine.

Theres a complexity to the characters that ebbs and flows like the surf off the Coney Island amusement park that serves as the locale, starting from the welcoming role of Mickey (Justin Timberlake) as the narrator of the prologue that explains the drama to come in typical Greek tragedy fashion playing out in three distinct threads.

The first thread is the physical relationship Mickey, a local lifeguard (and would-be writer) watching over the sun worshippers who visit the seaside attraction during the 50s, has with Ginny (Kate Winslet), a waitress who spends every waking moment trying to escape her joyless life. Ginny longs for the excitement she once felt as a working actor but gave it all up because of a tendency to find a way to destroy anything in her life that brushes up against being good.

Second, theres Humpty (Jim Belushi), an alcoholic whose marriage to Ginny is strained even more by the arrival of his estranged daughter, Carolina (Juno Temple). Father and daughter havent spoken in five years, but Carolina seeks sanctuary with her father because shes been made the target of a mob hit after revealing too much information to the police about her husbands business practices. The combination of resentment and resolve they face is fascinating.

Tying the threads together is the final part of the triangle with Carolina and Mickey. Ginnys overwhelming jealousy coupled with Mickeys romanticizing the world around him makes them mismatched lovers. By the definition of a tragedy, their life together is ill-fated.

Wonder Wheel finds strength in Allens writing that weaves all of the stories together into a beautiful blanket of pain, love, hope, despair, destruction, loss and desperation. His tale is so tightly written and presented with such intelligence that Wonder Wheel should earn Allen another Academy Award nomination for writing.

Most of bringing the words to life comes through Ginny, who is part working class stiff and part Norma Desmond. Winslet plays Ginny in a constant frantic state of emotion that slows only when she begins to reminisce about what could have been but never will be.

Allens direction often makes Wonder Wheel come across like a stage production with small controlled sets as a setting where the action is presented through a minimal use of camera movement and editing. The camera often lingers on the players as they struggle to stay above the emotional floodwaters pulling them down. Thats possible when all of the players have faces so interesting.

Wonder Wheel is, at its heart, a four-person play wherein all of the participants act and interact with one another. Winslet and Belushi always bring a sense of failure to every scene through their tortured characters. Its the kind of work to be expected of Winslet, but Belushi rises to the challenge as he makes Humpty both a villain and a victim in this tale.

Balancing that are the characters played by Temple and Timberlake. Both have not followed the life paths they wanted, but that has not taken the hope out of their approach. They bring so much energy to their work that its not diminished, even when they are paired with the life-drained roles played by Winslet and Belushi.

And Allen smartly turns to Timberlakes narration to keep the audience updated on how this tragic tale is unfolding. His direct talks to camera are just another way Wonder Wheel often feels more like its taking place on a stage rather than a movie set world.

Greek tragedies often feature a song performed by the chorus throughout the production to provide more information. In the case of Wonder Wheel, Allen turned to one of his favorite filmmaking tools: music. His choice of a soundtrack of tunes from the 50 adds another level to the production.

Allen uses light  particularly floods of reds or blue  as a way to change the look of a scene without stopping the cameras. His use of light is also a powerful tool in getting across the emotions being displayed on screen. Even the way he lights the background continuously shifts the film from the real world look of an expansive boardwalk to a less obtrusive design when the key is to focus on what the players are saying and not where they are saying it.

The slight hiccup in the tale is Ginnys son, Richie (Jack Gore). The youngster is so emotionally and psychologically broken by his mothers failed marriage and the abuse he gets from his stepfather that he is looking for an escape. That his efforts often take the form of arson does not fit with the main narrative and ends up being little more than just a way to give the tragedy a proper exodus.

But overall, Allen has given his players plenty to say, uses a shooting style that pays deep respect to the players and has put together a cast that handles the dark tragedies with powerful results. The real tragedy is that not every film from Allen is as good as Wonder Wheel.
Ceekay Jones has a symbiotic relationship with New Mexico.

Its not only home for the musician, but its a point of inspiration for him.

Being back home allows me to meet new people, he says. Its been cool to see the local music scene thriving.

Jones, who was raised in Taos, left for California more than a decade ago.

He has been successful in his music career.

And the change of pace is a welcome one.

Im back in my roots, he says. I feel myself growing as an artist. My older brother has joined me for a couple shows, and eventually Ill make my way to having a full band.

In addition to playing local gigs, Jones is preparing a new album to be released on Feb. 28.

The third single, I Dont Know, was released in the past two weeks.

Jones will perform at Duel Brewing in Downtown Albuquerque tonight.

With the holiday season upon us, staff writer Rozanna M. Martinez has the details on some fun events coming up.

The first is the Pueblo Gingerbread House Contest at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Visitors can view the creative treats through the new year.

Martinez also has details on the Adult Coloring Night with local artists Jon Sanchez and Jeremy Montoya on Wednesday, Dec. 20. The two created some art for eventgoers to color.

On Saturday, Dec. 16, theres a chance to see local musicians coming together for to benefit Albuquerque. The Howlin Holiday Jam will feature the likes of Red Light Cameras. I caught up with guest artist Kebbi Williams of Atlanta on why he flies into the city to play the show annually.

Of course, its mid-December, and fans have been waiting for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which opens today nationwide.
David Ley has built a career out of sex.

The Albuquerque therapist started his career talking about sex behind closed doors, then in the pages of an award-winning book and finally he found himself on the national stage.

Several national talk shows, including Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Anderson Cooper, have had Ley on their shows as an expert. Ley gained attention after stating he doesnt believe sexual addiction is real. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is the reference guide for mental illnesses published by the American Psychiatric Association, does not recognize sex addiction. This is something Ley often points out but it hasnt quelled his critics. In the media, he has been accused of not understanding the true nature of addiction and other therapists have written articles disputing his claims.

When you have a set belief system and someone like me challenges the status quo, it gets attention, he said. Mental health can be quite conservative and traditional.

Ley said he believes there are unhealthy behaviors associated with sex but instead of treating patients for sex addiction, he advocates helping them develop a healthy sexuality, which contains six components: honesty, negotiation, mutuality, shared values, safety and consent.

The recent scandals in Hollywood and elsewhere have thrust Ley into an even brighter spotlight. The New York Times published an article in early October detailing a decade of sexual harassment by producer Harvey Weinstein. Numerous well-known women have come forward with stories about Weinsteins inappropriate sexual behavior. Shortly after being exposed, Weinstein claimed he was battling a sex addiction and checked himself into rehab.

As soon as he said he was a sex addict, Ley said, my phone started ringing off the hook.

Invaluable resource

While the talk about sex addiction is the most sensational and controversial part of his work, its not the only part. Ley is a well-respected therapist in the citys mental health community. He serves on the Mental Health Response Advisory Committee, which assists the Albuquerque Police Department on mental health issues, and on the Board of Directors of Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless. Hes the executive director of New Mexico Solutions, an outpatient mental health and substance abuse program with 75 providers throughout the city.

Jenny Metzler, executive director of Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless, met Ley approximately eight years ago when the two were often at the same meetings. She said he has an uncanny ability to stay up-to-date on current trends and information.

Ill just be getting an email about something, she said. Hes already read it, analyzed it and is thinking about the implications of it.

She said his ability to listen and see the bigger picture make him an invaluable source, as does his sense of humor.

Hell throw something out there that will just make me laugh out loud, she said. He keeps us all from taking ourselves too seriously.

Sense of humor

Ley learned early not to take himself or life too seriously. He was born with one hand. He had to spend a week in the hospital after his birth and during that time his parents went home and practiced doing everything with one hand. They decided, he said, the message they wanted to send to their son was you can do things other people can. You just have to do them a different way. Ley also experienced bullying for being different when he was younger.

Im a man with one hand, he said. That affected me in different ways.

Ley met his best friend Alfredo Aragon when the two were enrolled in the clinical psychology Ph.D. program at the University of New Mexico. Aragon, a neuropsychologist at the University of New Mexico Hospital, said the two immediately became close friends. Aragon describes Ley as a genuine, smart person he can always turn to for professional and personal advice. Aragon said the two share the same sense of humor, which is mostly making fun of themselves.

Hes really funny and kinda nutty,' Aragon said. Certainly funnier than me, but I dont let him know that. I let him believe Im funnier.

In college, the two liked playing practical jokes on each other. One time, Ley purchased an exhaust car whistle and secretly placed it in Aragons exhaust pipe. By the time Aragon got to school, he was convinced his car was going to explode until he saw Ley waiting for him and laughing hysterically.

Ley never planned to make sex addiction his expertise or to become a national speaker on the topic. He was counseling couples who were living what some would consider an alternative sexual lifestyle by either swinging, watching porn together or inviting other people into their relationship. He decided to write a book, Insatiable Wives: Women Who Stray and the Men Who Love Them. The book won a Silver Medal in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year contest for 2009.

The couples I met were really healthy and I had to confront my own bias, he said. In the book I said, I dont think anything they are doing is wrong or unhealthy and heres why.

Ley offhandedly mentioned in the book that he didnt believe in sex addiction. That comment, although not the focus of the book, touched a nerve and he started getting requests to be a guest speaker on talk shows. He followed that book in 2012 with The Myth of Sex Addiction.

Ley said his work has enriched his own relationship with his wife Roxanne, a science teacher, whom he met in 1996 while walking along Central. The two married in 1999.

She has always been my best supporter, he said. She helped me heal from my own personal scars.

The couple have two children. Their youngest, Samantha Ley, is a junior in high school. Her parents were always very open with her about sex and her fathers job but she said its still a bit awkward that her father goes on television or on stage and talks about sex.

She said as a father hes incredibly supportive, a good person, very trusting, the king of dad jokes and the two practice martial arts together. She said Ley hasnt let all the national attention go to his head and still enjoys a good joke, even at his expense.

In the Brazilian Jujitsu community, she said, he is known as the one-handed ninja.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Two city councilors plan to propose a new ordinance that would require employers with 50 or more workers to provide them with up to 40 hours of paid sick leave a year.

Council President Ken Sanchez, a Democrat, and Councilor Don Harris, a Republican, announced their intention to introduce the ordinance in a news release late Thursday.

I think this bill represents a fair and equitable balance between the needs of employees and the needs of businesses, Sanchez said in the release. Sick leave is critical to the health of our workforce, but it has got to be done in a way that doesnt hurt the very businesses that provide the jobs in the first place.

He called the ordinance being introduced an excellent starting point for a much longer discussion.

The proposal comes 10 weeks after voters narrowly rejected a sick leave ballot initiative that many Albuquerque business owners and groups warned would impose onerous regulations and hurt the local economy. The so-called Healthy Workforce Ordinance was defeated by fewer than 800 votes in the Oct. 3 municipal election.

Unlike the ordinance that was voted down, the proposed sick leave ordinance wouldnt apply to businesses with fewer than 50 employees, nor would it apply to temporary workers. It also leaves out the rebuttable presumption that any adverse action against an employee taken within 90 days of the employee being out sick is retaliation.

I think its important for the city that councilors and the business community and the people representing working families (come) together on a bill thats going to protect employees and the economy, Harris told the Journal.

Elizabeth Wagoner, with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said in a statement that she had not yet seen the proposed ordinance, but we look forward to the conversation. Wagoner was one of the primary proponents of the defeated sick leave initiative.

Any proposed law must cover all Albuquerque workers, not just a small fraction, she added. Everyone gets sick, and everyone needs the right to earn sick leave to care for themselves and their families.

The new bill will be introduced during Mondays City Council meeting and will then likely be referred to the councils Finance & Government Operations Committee.

I dont expect (the bill) to sail through without amendments, Harris said.

In the release, Harris said the Healthy Workforce Ordinance would have been harmful to Albuquerque businesses if it had been approved by voters, but he added that its clear that Albuquerques citizens want action on sick leave.

The City Council needs to be proactive to ensure that any sick leave ordinance protects employees but also provides employers with a predictable and realistic process to administer, he added.

Under the proposed ordinance:

 One hour of paid sick leave would be provided for each 40 hours worked by an employee, up to a maximum of 40 sick leave hours per calendar year.

 Employees would be able to carry over up to 40 hours of unused sick leave they have earned to the next calendar year.

 Workers would be allowed to use their sick leave for medical care for themselves, their spouses or family, or if the employee is a victim of family violence.

 Employees would be able to begin using earned sick leave after working 720 hours.

 Employees who work an average of at least 20 hours a week would be covered.

 Employers that already have an existing sick leave/paid time off program in place that meets or exceeds the requirements of the ordinance would be exempt.

 Any collective bargaining agreement effective before Jan. 1, 2019, wouldnt be affected.

Mayor Tim Kellers office said he had not seen the proposed ordinance.

The sponsors failed to notify the Mayors Office before the proposed ordinance was released, said Alicia Manzano, Kellers interim communications director. We will review the legislation to give it the careful consideration it deserves.
Why, I am often asked, do media cover President Donald Trump so much? For one thing, the answer is in the question: Hes the president. Presidents get covered a lot because what they say  even coughs, sneezes and harrumphs  matters. More important, this president offers us an abundance of stuff to talk about.

Much of that talk of late has zoomed in on whether the president is coming unglued.

Speculation has run vigorously through mainstream media in recent days that Trump has been behaving and speaking strangely, even for President Trump.

A recent report in the New York Times, for example, said that shortly before his inauguration, Trump told a Republican senator that he wanted to investigate the Access Hollywood recording that had him boasting about grabbing womens genitals.

Even though he formally apologized for it last year, the Times quotes three unnamed people close to the president as saying Trump has continued to suggest that the voice on the tape was not actually his. He needs to make up his mind.

Other sources cited by the Times say he continues to boast of winning districts he did not and claims a majority of the womens vote, though he won less than half.

He has even clung to his doubts, says the Times, of the authenticity of former president Barack Obamas birth certificate, despite his announcement to the contrary last year after five years of promoting the bizarre conspiracy theory.

More recently the worst job in Washington continues to be the translation of Trumps odd outbursts to make him sound like he really knows what hes doing. That task fell on White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders last Thursday when she was asked about the presidents re-tweeting of three inflammatory anti-Muslim videos from Britain First.

Did the president think his re-tweets, rebuked by British Prime Minister Theresa May, had served to elevate the conversation about the issues of extreme violence and terrorism? Sanders was asked.

I think what hes done is elevate the conversation to talk about a real issue and a real threat, she said. Thats extreme violence and extreme terrorism, something that we know to be very real and something the president feels strongly about talking about and bringing up.

If Trumps remarks are his idea of elevation, to borrow an old blues lyric, weve sunk so low that bottom looks like up.

Is Trump losing touch with reality? My initial reaction was Dorothy Parkers response to news former president Calvin Coolidge had died: How can they tell?

Every time I think Trump has gone off the deep end, he manages to pull himself back by saying something sensible, even if such moments dont last long enough to make me completely comfortable with, for example, his access to the nuclear codes.

But maybe keeping us on edge is precisely what he wants. He likes to keep his critics and often his allies off-balance, not quite knowing what to expect from him next. Chaos candidate is how one of his opponents branded him during the Republican primaries. He seems to wear the tag of chaos president with a smirking pride.

We have long been accustomed to Trumps freewheeling use of alternative facts, as another of his spokeswomen, Kellyanne Conway, famously declared. He also has been accused by various critics of gaslighting, a term borrowed from an old stage play and two movies called Gas Light, to describe the manipulation of others to sow seeds of doubt about their own memory or sanity.

Could Trump be practicing a version of that on his fellow Americans? Im sure Trump gets a kick out of being chaos president, pleasing his conservative base by gaslighting those who care about quaint qualities facts and consistency.

Our challenge? To keep an eye on him without flattering his inflated ego and without sounding as crazy as he often does.

E-mail cpage@chicagotribune.com.
Foot-dragging by former Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden and former District Attorney Kari Brandenburg has let former APD Lt. Greg Brachle  who shot his colleague, Detective Jacob Grant, eight times during a botched drug bust in January 2015  skate on any serious repercussions for his actions.

In fact, the only potential sanction Brachle could now face would be a refusal by the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy Board to re-certify him as a law enforcement officer in the unlikely event he would apply. Brachle retired from APD days before the city Police Oversight Board announced its recommendation he be fired for violating numerous policies, and he gave the state Attorney Generals Office a sworn affidavit his law enforcement certification had expired and he did not plan to apply for recertification.

Eden, who retired Nov. 30, never sent APDs investigation to the Law Enforcement Academy Board for review, according to interim APD Police Chief Mike Geier, who said that should have occurred. Geier plans to forward the investigation to the board on the outside chance Brachle changes his mind about working in N.M. law enforcement again.

Brachle will not face any potential criminal charges either because, by the time former DA Brandenburg sent the case to the AGs office in August 2016, the statute of limitations for negligent use of a firearm had already expired.

Grant has paid a far higher price for his colleagues astonishing errors during the $60 drug bust outside a McDonalds in NE Albuquerque. Most of Grants vital organs were damaged, and he has gone through more than a dozen surgeries. Taxpayers paid, too. To settle a lawsuit, the city agreed to pay Grant $6.5 million. He is also receiving lifetime medical coverage and disability retirement pay  as he should.

It may be a futile act, but Geier and the 10-member Law Enforcement Academy Board should follow through and review this horrific incident, albeit late, and let the pubic know what it finds. If nothing else, it might discourage future foot-dragging by public officials on police shootings.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
A first visit to Opuntia Cafe can be a little bewildering when you walk into the light-saturated space in the Baca Street Railyard district. No one greets you at the door and offers seating, yet the lack of a big blackboard with a menu doesnt offer the clue that youre supposed to order at the counter.

A bustling employee, though, was happy to give the lay of the land, instructing us to order at the register  written menus are on hand for consultation  and seat ourselves.

All tables are considered community tables, she said, so diners are welcome to ask others if they can join them. A good way to meet new people, but not the best choice for personal conversation, so my guest and I opted to take seats at the counter.

That has its positive and negative points: The plus is that we could easily nab a worker for a question, but the downside was that our counter also was shared by workers folding forks, spoons and knives into napkins, cutting down on the sense of privacy.

There also was a comfy space with stuffed seating around a coffee table, something that might not work too well for a meal, but would be perfect for lounging with a hot drink.

And in this case, the hot drink to savor would be tea. Opuntia prides itself on offering a curated list of fine teas, with a few selections from the categories of black, green, white, oolong and pu-erh. And yeah, theres herbal, too, but why fritter away your chance to taste a true, loose-leafed tea the way its supposed to be prepared?

Tea is my caffeinated drink of choice, with its roots in my childhood when a cup of Liptons with lemon was the treatment for a cold or other respiratory illness. Since I thought of it as medicinal, I figured it was supposed to taste bitter and never added sugar. Since then, Ive expanded my explorations to a range of tea types and flavors, but I confess 99 percent of my tea-drinking still involves splashing boiling water over a bag in mug.

It was a revelation, then, to experience the complexity of flavors revealed with my choice of Maidens Ecstasy ($4.50) from the smoky, earthy pu-erh family of teas. I didnt quite reach the heights enacted by Meg Ryan in her deli scene from When Harry Met Sally, but was quite satisfied. The tea is served in a glass pot for the diner to pour into a small cup. The tea also got a thumbs-up from my guest, who didnt order one herself, but sipped a sampling of mine.

The food also was pleasing, but perhaps less interesting. My guest ordered the Turkish chicken salad ($9), which consisted of roasted chicken, red onion, celery, walnut-tahini dressing, toasted walnuts, watercress, Persian cucumber, and lemon aioli, according to the menu. She found it a tad dull, speculating that it might have been spiced up with a little more onion. I was less critical, enjoying the interplay of flavors and textures.

I decided to try a cup of the Kabocha squash soup ($3), which was delicious! A helpful worker informed me that, besides the squash, the ingredients included red curry, roasted pepper and carrots, leading to a subtle spiciness and rich flavor. Unfortunately, both the soup and entree were served together, making it a challenge to enjoy both at their proper temperatures.

Since Im a mushroom-lover, my entree choice was the mushroom tartine ($8.50), with kale, roasted garlic, aioli and two cheeses  fontal and reggiano  joining the fungi atop a countrywhite toast. It was very tasty, but I did notice a salty aftertaste lingering on my palate for a couple of hours after the meal.

I would be interested in going back to try the Japanese bowl or polenta bowl, or the much-buzzed-about avocado toast. Or perhaps I could just linger over a pot of one of the many intriguing teas on the menu.

Besides the food and tea, Opuntia also has items for sale, including many small plants, particularly succulents, that lined a shelf along the wall of windows at the north side of the cafe.

That explains why the business is open for a few hours after the kitchen closes. The plant theme is carried out in the cafes name, which is a genus of cactus including prickly pear and many others.

Opuntia Cafe

3 stars

LOCATION: 922 Shoofly St.

HOURS: 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; kitchen closes at 3 p.m.

FOOD: Toasts, salads, sandwiches, bowls

ATMOSPHERE: Bright industrial

SERVICE: Good, but order at counter

No alcohol
The U.S. Department of Energy is uncertain whether plutonium components for renovation of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile should be manufactured at the Los Alamos National Laboratory or moved to another DOE site.

The uncertainty stems primarily from a long series of major project failures at LANL.

Several decades ago, LANL successfully built a modern plutonium facility at TA-55. A highly competent laboratory project team, working closely with DOE headquarters and field office personnel, completed the project ahead of schedule and under budget

Now, the laboratory appears to be incapable of managing significant projects.

What happened? Several things happened  all of them bad.

Internally, the lab continued to employ outstanding scientists, but the same cannot be said for management in some of the support divisions.

Managers of support divisions were selected for a variety of reasons, not necessarily including merit. The process of selecting managers included such nefarious criteria as church affiliation. Occasional meddling by DOE field office managers also influenced poor selections.

It will take time and a commitment for the lab to eradicate this malignant legacy.

Externally, disastrous DOE policy and organizational changes occurred. Less than a decade after the highly successful TA-55 project, an inscrutable reorganization of the DOE was executed.

Perhaps well-intentioned, but seriously misguided, these changes were imposed by Congress in collusion with senior DOE managers.

The reorganization involved creation of an agency within the DOE bureaucracy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, along with creation of a totalitarian Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board supported by hundreds of martinets running amok in DOE facilities.

Additionally, an irrational regulatory process lacking risk perspective was established whereby contractors who are hired, directed and paid by the DOE are subjected to legalistic rule-making as if they were in the private commercial sector.

This convoluted DOE bureaucracy has taken the art of bungling to a new level. The result has been dozens of project failures and hundreds of billions of wasted tax dollars throughout the DOE, and most notably at Los Alamos.

The DOE bureaucratic blockade can never be circumvented. Congress must rescind the legislation that unduly encumbers the activities of LANL and the rest of the nuclear weapons complex.

The onerous regulatory system and the totalitarian Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board should both be abolished.

These improvident schemes should be replaced with an intelligent, efficient and effective risk management process as recommended decades ago by the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Facility Safety.

Risk management would increase the chances of success for nuclear projects while providing improved safety and security with lower cost to the taxpayers.

A time-honored project management aphorism contends that once a project is fouled up, anything done to fix it will only make it worse. This has been the case throughout the history of the DOE.

Congress must admit their mistakes and undo the damage that produced this mess; otherwise, all hope is lost.

Members of the U.S. Senates Armed Forces Committee have raised a concern about long-term delays in renovation of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile.

This concern is justified. In the DOE, a light year is defined as the time it takes the DOE to change a light bulb.

Schinkle lives in Los Lunas.
Dont be intimidated, voters. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is nothing to be afraid of.

Thats the message the city wants to communicate in advance of the 2018 municipal election, which  barring a reversal by the state Supreme Court of a district court judges order  will be the first municipal election in state history to be decided by the ranked-choice method of voting.

Once people learn about the system, its not as intimidating as it sounds, said Matt Ross, the citys public information officer, who will be leading the citys effort to education voters about RCV, sometimes called instant runoff.

RCV comes into play only when there are more than two candidates in a race. Voters are asked to rank their candidate choices in order of preference. If after an initial vote tally, no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second choices of those who voted for the last-place candidate are counted as votes for the remaining candidates. If the top vote-getter still doesnt have a majority, the process is repeated until someone tops 50 percent of votes counted.

Proponents say RCV guarantees the winner has support from most voters, serves to prevent underdog candidates from being spoilers, keeps voters from having to choose between the lesser of two evils and discourages negative campaigning.

But theres much public confusion over RCV, some of it self-inflicted as a divided City Council is appealing a judges order to implement ranked-choice for the 2018 election based on constitutional and other grounds.

Yet it was the City Council that placed a proposal to switch to RCV on the ballot for the 2008 municipal election, where it was approved by the electorate by a wide margin. It hasnt been used in city elections since then because the software to tabulate votes wasnt certified by the Secretary of States office until two months ago.

Further complicating the matter, the City Council on Wednesday approved publishing notice of a public hearing on Jan. 10 to consider what the city attorney called a contingency plan that would require a separate, old-fashioned, two-candidate runoff election should no candidate receive a majority of RCV votes.

In some cases in other cities where RCV has been used, no candidate ends up with a majority of all votes cast. That can happen when some voters dont rank any candidate besides their first choice, meaning there arent second-choice or lower votes to distribute to other candidates if their first choice loses out. The majority in this case is of all votes counted in the last round.

Putting all the legal and procedural machinations aside, the city is focusing on getting word out to the public about the new voting method and is allocating $150,000 for public outreach. As City Councilor Ron Trujillo said during Wednesdays meeting, the city doesnt want voters to say, were not going to do this (vote), its too hard.

Trujillo is one of three city councilors  Peter Ives and Joseph Maestas are the others  whose name will be on the ballot for the mayoral election. Also running for mayor are former city employee and current school board member Kate Noble, and entrepreneur Alan Webber, who ran in the Democratic primary for governor in 2014.

Not only would the mayoral race be decided by RCV, but so would city council races in districts 2 and 4, each with three candidates seeking those seats.

The 2018 election will likely be the most expensive in city history. In addition to the $150,000 put toward the public education campaign, City Clerk Yolanda Vigil said during Wednesdays meeting that her office expects to spend $200,000 on the election. The cost of past municipal elections has approached $100,000, not counting money given to candidates under the citys public campaign finance program.

Campaign veteran

Ross, who will be heading up the public education outreach campaign for the city, said its not too different from the work he did prior to becoming public information officer after Gonzales was elected mayor in 2014. A founding partner of Albuquerque-based political consulting firm Bosque Strategies, he worked on Gonzales 2014 mayoral campaign, as well as his successful run as state Democratic Party chairman in 2010. He has also been part of campaigns for former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, New Mexico Congressman Martin Heinrich and former state Land Commissioner Ray Powell.

He said those experiences translate well to his new task. But instead of advocating for a specific candidate, hell promote a public outreach campaign, he said. Ill be calling on a lot of skills and techniques for public outreach Ive used in the past. Those skills will come in handy, for sure, he said.

Some of that will involve media buys for print and radio advertising, developing campaign literature and informational videos, creating a website dedicated exclusively to the citys voter education efforts and staging public forums  a whole range of outreach.

The website is expected to be up by the end of the calendar year, with links prominently positioned on the city website. It wont go up until some time after a special meeting of the City Council on Dec. 20, when the governing body will finalize rules for an RCV election.

Well use every tool available and work as closely as we can with community organizations to get the word out, he said.

He said the city will be in touch with groups like FairVote New Mexico, which advocates for RCV and has been the citys opponent in the court fight over implementing RCV in 2018, and Common Cause New Mexico, a nonpartisan lobbying group that advocates for open and transparent government, which seems willing to assist with the outreach. The city will coordinate closely with those groups and others so everyone is singing the same tune, he said.

The outreach will also include several public meetings to be held at various locations, where people will have a chance to practice voting using the RCV method. There may even be tables set up at public libraries, community centers and in front of grocery stores, he said. We want to meet people where they are, Ross said.

Ross acknowledged a tight time frame. While the public education campaign will continue right up to the March 6 election, early voting begins Jan. 30.

But Ross said the city is going to do everything it can to get voters to feel comfortable, and not intimidated, about voting in a RCV election. Our goal is to make sure every citizen knows when to vote, where to vote and how to vote during this election, he said.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Alicia Stewart began to display extraordinary artistic talent at a young age, with her haunting images of young women shown in galleries when she was 12 or 13, but her life was cut short two months ago when she died at a young age from an epileptic seizure.

Now, her father, Geoffrey Stewart, 61, is asking for the dismissal of several criminal charges alleging sex crimes committed against Alicia, starting when she was just 3 years old.

His lawyer, Ray Twohig argues that since Alicia  his accuser  has died, Stewart now wont be afforded his constitutional right to confront her.

Twohig maintains that his client is innocent, in any case. A motion hearing is scheduled for Monday in Santa Fe District Court.

Alicia, a graduate of the New Mexico School for the Arts in Santa Fe, died at age 18 from an epileptic seizure in her college dorm room in Baltimore on Oct. 2.

In February 2016, Stewart had been indicted on five counts of criminal sexual penetration, one count of sexual criminal contact of a minor and one count of bribery of a witness for allegedly raping Alicia several times since her early childhood.

Though Stewart was charged last year, State Police undertook additional investigation after Alicias friends scoured her room in Santa Fe for keepsakes following her death and found her journals. One contained an unsigned handwritten confession from someone about assaulting Alicia.

That development prompted officers to execute a search warrant on Stewarts home and seize some of his own journals, in which he wrote that he was innocent. Stewart is the owner of the Crystal Dragon jewelry shop in Madrid and an artist himself.

Impressive talent

Alicia began getting noticed for her paintings when she was just a kid.

Cassidy Watt, owner of the Metallo Gallery in Madrid, said Alicia came to him with some paintings when she was 12 or 13 and asked that they be entered in one of his shows. They sold out on the exhibitions opening night, Watt said, so he asked her to bring him more. Those sold out, as well.

I mean, the talent almost speaks for itself, Watt said. Ive always been so impressed.

I didnt put her paintings in the show because I knew her. I put them in because they were good enough to be in the show.

Watt said he was heartbroken when he heard of her death. I was devastated, he said. I watched her grow up. It was hard.

In addition to painting, Alicias personal website says she also liked to make films, which she uses to accompany her paintings and narrate the story of the girls, often disturbed, she carefully depicts.

Investigation begins

State Police began investigating Geoffrey Stewart in February 2015 after Alicia went to a school counselor at the School for the Arts and reported the alleged rapes.

The counselor told Officer Frank Concha that Alicia, 16 at the time, told her that the sexual assaults occurred between the ages of 3 and 7. Concha wrote in his report that Alicia had said she was worried that her younger brother would be sexually assaulted, as well.

The counselor said Alicia was seeking long-term counseling from the school because she was struggling with her classes and was traumatized by the past events. She also said her entire family was living together at the time.

A state Children, Youth and Families Department employee, Gary Ritter, met with Alicia that same day for an interview, where she repeated the allegations against her father.

Ritter told Concha that Alicia hadnt grasped the definition of sexual assault until she was in 8th grade. Conchas report says Alicia at one point sent a text message to her mother, Tamara Stewart, about the rapes. Its unclear from the report when that took place.

Ritter interviewed Alicias younger brother later that day and the boy said Geoffrey Stewart never touched him inappropriately.

Concha interviewed Geoffrey Stewart on Feb. 26, 2015. Stewart said he was unaware of Alicias accusations. He described their relationship in recent times as distant.

The officer then interviewed Tamara Stewart on April 8, 2015. I asked Ms. (Tamara) Stewart if she was aware of the allegations against Mr. Stewart; she replied yes, Conchas report states.

Tamara Stewart said she sat down with Alicia and talked about the situation, but that Alicia didnt feel comfortable discussing it with her, according to the officers report.

Tamara Stewart said several times during the interview that her husband never told her about Alicias allegations against him. She also said her husband had moved out of the house and was living in his business.

Two days later, Tamara Stewart called Concha and said her husband had in fact admitted to Alicias allegations. She further stated that she did (not) disclose this information (in the previous interview) in fear that Mr. Stewart would fatally harm himself in fear of going to jail, Concha wrote.

Stewart was indicted the following February. He was never arrested and is currently out on a $10,000 appearance bond, court records indicate. He was also not supposed to have any contact with his daughter.

Probe reopens

Prosecutor Kevin Nault, of the Santa Fe District Attorneys Office, told the State Police on Nov. 2 that Alicia had passed away in Baltimore a month before.

Nault also informed officers that information had been passed along indicating there was a letter from the father Geoffrey Stewart confessing he had sexually molested his daughter. State Police Agent Andrew Jorgenson then reopened the criminal investigation.

On Oct. 4, two of Alicias friends were allowed by Tamara Stewart to go through Alicias bedroom in Santa Fe and collect keepsakes of her. The girls gathered her journal, sketches and various papers, Jorgenson wrote in a report.

One of the friends found a handwritten letter that the friend said Alicia had described as written by Stewart.

The unsigned letter contained phrases like cant explain how sorry I am in words and I want to apologize for being way too insistent on being sexual with me, Jorgenson wrote.

The mother of one of the girls was interviewed Nov. 3. The mother said Alicia told her in 2012 or 2013 that Stewart had sex with her multiple times when she was young. Alicia said the acts would take place in the family house, Stewarts shop and at Cochiti Lake.

Jorgenson looked through Alicias journal, which had entries on how she had to prepare for trial and entries about how her mother did not believe her that Geoffrey raped her when she was younger.

Officers later searched Stewarts house in Cerrillos, and seized his journals and notepads. His journals said he was innocent and had never sexually abused Alicia, Jorgenson wrote.

Tamara Stewart was interviewed again Nov. 15 and said that in February 2015, Alicia told her that when she was 3 Stewart inappropriately touched her several times.

Alicia did not go into detail to what Geoffrey did to her, but said it was more than just touching, Jorgenson wrote. Tamara confronted Geoffrey about him touching Alicia and Geoffrey admitted to touching Alicia, but denied any type of penetration.  Once Alicia passed away, she (Tamara) was contacted by Geoffreys lawyer asking the case against Geoffrey to be dropped. Tamara refused and informed me she is willing to testify against Geoffrey in court.

Motion to dismiss

Twohig, Stewarts lawyer, filed an emergency motion to dismiss the charges on Oct. 24.

While her (Alicias) prior statements may be admissible under hearsay exceptions if the objection were hearsay alone, the right to confrontation prevents their admissibility irrespective of those hearsay exceptions, the motion states.  Without the inadmissible statements of the deceased, there is insufficient evidence to proceed to a jury verdict in this case, and dismissal prior to trial is appropriate.

Stewart didnt want to comment to Journal North, but Twohig said Stewart will continue to fight the charges.

Hes innocent and if hes forced to try the case, he will, Twohig said. The tragic death of his daughter should mean the case should be dismissed.

Tamara Stewart, who filed for divorce the same day her husband was indicted, did not return messages from the Journal seeking comment.

Watt said he took down all of Alicias pieces at his Madrid gallery after he heard of her death so her mother could decide if they were still for sale or not.

Art collectors from all over the county have purchased Alicias work, he said, and people who would frequent his gallery were looking forward to what Alicia could do in the future with all her talent.

Everyone was so excited about what was coming next, Watt said. We were all excited to be along for the ride.
By PTI: Patna, Dec 15 (PTI) Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad today attacked Chief Minister Nitish Kumar over his ongoing Vikas Samiksha Yatra, saying it was a "scam" wherein crores of rupees from the public exchequer was being splurged on an image-building exercise.

He claimed that for every district covered under the yatra, Rs 10 crore was spent from the public exchequer.

advertisement

However, the ruling Janata Dal (United) dismissed the charge as "sheer frustration" of the RJD supremo, who is facing trial in several corruption cases and convicted in one.

Addressing a press conference, Prasad distributed copies of a purported order issued by an official of Jeevika, a state government project for providing employment to rural women.

As per the order, "4,000 women would participate in every public meeting of the CM during Vikas Samiksha Yatra and would be paid Rs 75 each apart from the conveyance.

"This is in addition to expenditure incurred on security arrangements, allowances to officers, arrangements for public meetings etc.," Prasad, who was accompanied by senior party leader Shivanand Tiwary, claimed.

"This is turning out to be Vikas Samiksha Yatra ghotala (scam). At least Rs 10 crore is being spent in every district during CMs Samiksha yatra," he alleged.

"If the yatra was so indispensable, the CM should have taken only security personnel along," Prasad said, wondering why review meetings were being held in districts, away from the state capital.

He also alleged that flags of the JD(U), of which Kumar is the national president, were being displayed at the public meetings funded by the state.

"There should be a probe into how much money has been spent on the CMs yatra," Prasad said.

Kumar is on a state-wide Vikas Samiksha Yatra since December 12 to take a first-hand account and review the progress made in various districts on development schemes launched by his government over the years.

Prasad also reiterated his earlier claim that Kumars standing in his own government has diminished and JD(U)s junior ally, the BJP, was establishing a "firm grip on the government and administration".

JD(U) chief spokesman and MLC Sanjay Kumar Singh, however, said, "It is sheer frustration of Lalu Prasad...a person, who is convicted in a corruption case, is levelling charges against a man known for his honesty and probity".

Prasad also dismissed exit polls predicting a BJP victory in Gujarat and claimed that the Congress would form government in the state and "all the exit polls will prove to be wrong like they did in Bihar in 2015".

advertisement

On Sonia Gandhis "retirement", he said, "She may not hold a post but will continue to give her guidance."

The RJD chief also added that Rahul Gandhis elevation as the Congress president will "strengthen the Grand Alliance".

He also opined against the draft law banning instant triple talaq with provision of of three years imprisonment for violations, saying "the Centre is behaving like an autocrat, taking steps as per whims and fancies". PTI AR NAC SNS TIR

--- ENDS ---
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

GUADALUPITA  All land belongs to God, says Guadalupita resident Donald Laran, but to him that belief has more meaning in certain places.

One of those spots is a small, grassy island where the historic villages Catholic church once stood. The lifelong resident, who lives across the street from the tract with dirt roads as boundaries, still has childhood photos taken back when the church remained on what was the villages central plaza. A picture from Larans First Communion is from May 1955, in the decade before the church came down.

During a visit earlier this week, the only sign of what used to be was a headstone of a villager who had been buried next to the church.

As Laran and Joe Chavez, his neighbor and cousin, walked the old church site, which amounts only to just more than a half-acre in all, they went past a run-down fence that used to border the church. Soon after, with a Journal reporter and photographer looking on, a Mora County deputy arrived and told them their neighbor had called with claims of trespassing.

Laran and Chavez say this kind of tense interaction  this weeks ended with the deputy telling them to leave the property for now  is not unusual these days.

Two of their neighbors, father and son Jacob Regensberg and Jacob Jude Regensberg, have claimed the north half of the small tract as their own.

While the Regensbergs have a survey they say proves ownership, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe says it was deeded the entirety of the teardrop-shaped island back in 1861, when the Guadalupita church was built. Other residents say the small plot has always been community space.

Its not clear whether the Regensbergs or anyone else uses the disputed territory for anything in particular these days, but the ownership dispute over what Chavez calls holy land has ended up in court.

Residents siding with the archdiocese say they believe relatives may be buried on the contested land. A Save the Original Guadalupita Church and Cemetery Site Facebook page seeks information on possible gravesites. Guadalupita is part of a larger, rural historic district as recognized by both the state and federal governments.

Jacob Regensberg, meanwhile, says he has seen no proof he owns a graveyard.

The Regensbergs, lifelong residents of Guadalupita and part of a well-known political family, filed suit in July over 0.3 acres of the site. The case is set to go to trial in April.

Squatters rights

The Regensbergs say a 2013 survey based on their property deed indicates that a section of the former church site is their property. The original court complaint says the two own the land based on their deed, as well as adverse possession, also known as squatters rights or acquiring ownership based on long-term use.

Jacob Regensberg, 72, is a former Mora County Commissioner and father of former state Rep. Benjie Regensberg. He told the Journal the land has been in his family since 1881.

According to his court affidavit, he officially acquired the property in 1988. He sold it in 2000, but it remained in the family until he and his son bought it back in May.

The Archdiocese cannot prove ownership, he said, because its deed is not accompanied by a survey. If you dont have a survey coinciding with your papers, papers dont mean nothing, he said.

Tom Macken, the Archdioceses chancellor, property manager and attorney, said that even though the land wasnt surveyed back in the mid-19th century  surveys werent used back then, he said  the entire plot is historically known to belong to the church. Historical maps show the entire teardrop as one property, said Macken, and the county Assessors Office lists the island as church land with no record of taxation.

The Archdiocese is exempt from taxation. In order to claim adverse possession, Macken said, the Regensbergs would need to have paid taxes on the land.

A court affidavit by Jacob Regensberg states that he paid property taxes in good faith, believing the taxes were counting toward all of his property near the old church site, including the disputed area. Jude Regensbergs affidavit states the Assessors Office is unreliable because it uses decades-old photos and maps rather than surveys.

County Assessor Paul Duran says he identifies and taxes land based on available information, which can sometimes be murky because of issues like vague deeds. As far as (it) overlapping or not, were not surveyors, Duran said .

Thats when (residents) do end up going to court and disputing things like this, he said.

Macken said that no matter what the Regensbergs deed states, the Archdioceses was created first. A predecessor cant give something they dont own, he said. If we own it first, theyre out of luck.

The Regensbergs survey, conducted when Jacobs brother owned the property, describes the spot as a possible conflict area. The surveyor was Jude Regensberg, which many on the other side point out as suspect.

Jude Regensberg, who owns a surveying business, did not answer calls for comment. The legal assistant for the Regensbergs attorney, Kelan Emery, said Emery would not comment. After an initial interview last week, Jacob Regensberg said his lawyer advised him not to comment any further.

Jacob Regensberg pointed out there is nothing historical on the land any more and says he has been using the land for decades with no complaints until the suit. He had stopped commenting when the Journal wanted to ask about what he has used the property for.

Laran said the grassy spot was never disputed as anything other than community space until recently.

It doesnt belong to me; it doesnt belong to him, he said. It belongs to the people and the Archdiocese.

Possible burial site

Moras Board of County Commissioners and four private landowners, including Laran, are involved in the suit because of easements and a county road surrounding the land. Residents say they want it to stay in the hands of the church, not only out of principle and historical significance, but also because the tract is believed to be an old cemetery site.

Several locals and people with ancestral ties to Guadalupita say theyve heard anecdotally about late residents being buried on the land that the Regensbergs are claiming.

Laran told the Journal he found a headstone there dating back to the late 1880s, which he removed for the Archdiocese as evidence. Macken said the archdiocese also believes there are burials on the site, but hasnt confirmed whose they might be. He declined to provide photos of the removed headstone.

The Save the Original Guadalupita Church and Cemetery Site Facebook page was started by Jesse Williams-Chavez of Las Cruces, who has family from Guadalupita. He said hes been told about members of the Coca family who may be buried there.

Jacob Regensberg said he has seen no proof of the small plot being a grave site. So now, they have to prove (it) to me, he said. He said hes requested names from relatives of people supposedly interred there.

The archdioceses Macken said he is also reaching out to people about possible burials.

In some sense, it doesnt matter, Macken said. Its our property, whatever we have on it, we have on it.

150 years of history

The Guadalupita/Coyote Historic District, a large rural area, was listed on New Mexicos Register of Cultural Properties in 2011 and the National Register of Historic Places this June. Guadalupita, which the County Managers office said likely has about 250 residents, was centered around the church, according to a report from local historian and register applicant Malcolm Ebright. Ebright said it was torn down in the 1960s due to major structural damage.

Because old villages like this and their use of common spaces change over the years, overlapping land claims with private owners are not unusual, said Paula Garcia, chair of the Mora County Commission.

While she trusts the court to fairly assess ownership, Garcia said Moras main interest is its constituents. In this case, she has received several calls from Guadalupita residents worried about losing access, especially if it is also a final resting place.

Theres a sentiment of what spaces in villages should be still considered common, said Garcia. Even if the church isnt there, people still feel that attachment.

Laran said he thinks the areas declining population  due to many older neighbors passing away  may cause the Regensbergs to think no one cares if they claim this property.

But theres still us that care, he said. My generation  we all care what happens. Just leave it alone, to us.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

LAS CRUCES  Nine suspected members of the notorious Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang filled a heavily guarded federal courtroom this week for a pretrial hearing about evidence in a federal racketeering case.

The pretrial hearing sets the stage for the complex trials to come in a case that involved allegations that the gang ordered the assassination of a former state corrections secretary.

The hearing Wednesday included testimony about secret recordings of inmates discussing the gangs violent crimes in and outside prison walls.

Rudy Perez, aka Ru-Dog, who is heard on recordings made secretly by gang-member-turned-FBI-informant Billy Cordoba, denied in court knowing details about the murder of SNM gang member Javier Molina in 2014.

Perez, responding to questions from federal prosecutor Rudy Castellano about the recorded conversation, repeatedly said, I lied.

When asked whether the shank used to kill Molina was made from a piece of his walker, Perez said, Again, I lied.

He also said he was taking the painkillers Gabapentin and Tramadol at the time of the murder, and I didnt know nothing. I just got out of the hospital.

Perez is among a dozen defendants going to trial who have been indicted on racketeering charges for running a violent criminal enterprise, including murder.

The defendants  many with shaved heads and tattoos on their necks, faces and back of their heads, and wearing prison jumpsuits  were strategically spaced out in the courtroom. A dozen guards stood watch during the hearing. Those near the courtroom entrance were heavily armed.

The alleged SNM gang members are represented by some of the best-known criminal defense attorneys in Albuquerque serving as public defenders in the high-profile case.

Amy Sirignano is representing defendant Christopher Garcia, also known as Critter, and Billy R. Blackburn is representing Arturo Garcia, also known as Shotgun.

During the hearing, attorneys asked to suppress evidence that includes the prison recordings made by the informant. They also asked to introduce an expert witness on prison gang behavior.

Among the issues: the voluntariness of recorded statements made by Rudy Perez to the informant.

On Tuesday, defense attorneys questioned alleged SNM gang member Cordoba about how the FBI directed him to make recordings.

Sirignano, in a motion filed in February, said some of the cooperating witnesses faced threats by law enforcement that they would be included in the racketeering prosecution if they didnt cooperate.

There is a great risk that these coercive police tactics will produce involuntary statements, she stated in the motion.

Defense attorneys are asking for a weeks advance notice of witnesses before they testify, but prosecutors in a filed a response to the motion Thursday said that would jeopardize the safety of the witnesses.

The defendants and many of the cooperators in this case remain in prison, the motion states. As seen in the facts of this case, the SNM gang calls for the abuse and murder of individuals if they plan to testify or cooperate with the government.

The FBI in 2015 began investigating an alleged plot by an SNM gang leader to kill New Mexico Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel that involved gang members who had been released from prison. The investigation led to an indictment of 25 gang members.

The pretrial hearing continues next week. The first of two trials is set for late January 2018.
SANTA FE  Its been exactly one year since former New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla resigned after state investigators raided the agency she headed in search of tax documents connected to Padilla and her husband.

But no charges have been filed by Attorney General Hector Balderas office, which has been tight-lipped about the case.

This remains a highly active, ongoing investigation, and we cannot provide any other details at this time, Matt Baca, senior counsel at the Attorney Generals Office, told the Journal on Thursday.

Padilla, who was one of Gov. Susana Martinezs first Cabinet appointees after Martinez was elected in 2010, initially denied allegations that she pressured department employees to give preferential treatment to a former client of hers, telling the Journal in July 2015 that the allegations were just a bump in the road.

However, Padilla resigned abruptly after a search warrant affidavit filed in December 2016 by the Attorney Generals Office indicated that she could be under scrutiny for multiple potential criminal acts, including tax evasion and embezzlement.

The office first received a referral about possible criminal activity on the part of Padilla in July 2015 from then-state Auditor Tim Keller, who is now Albuquerques mayor.

Much of the attorney generals early investigation into Padillas actions appeared to center on payments made to Padilla and her husband during a roughly 14-month period  from December 2011 until February 2013  by a Bernalillo-area trucking company.

A company official said Padilla handled the companys financial affairs until February 2013  when she was already a Cabinet secretary  but that she was fired after unauthorized transactions were noticed, according to the search warrant affidavit.

Since resigning as taxation and revenue secretary, Padilla seems to have kept a low profile.

Her attorney, Paul Kennedy of Albuquerque, declined to comment this week when asked about Padilla and the cases status.

Meanwhile, its not unusual for state investigations into public officials  both elected and appointed  to require extended amounts of time.

For instance, the Attorney Generals Office did not file public corruption charges against former state Sen. Phil Griego, a Democrat, until February 2016. That was nearly a year after he had resigned from the Senate instead of facing possible disciplinary action and 19 months after the Santa Fe Reporter published a story that raised questions about Griegos conduct.
BANGKOK  The U.S. special envoy for North Korea on Friday expressed hope that Pyongyang would accept Secretary of State Rex Tillersons diplomatic offer of unconditional talks, although the overture has already been contradicted by the White House.

Joseph Yun told reporters in Bangkok that the talks could take place without preconditions and would serve Washingtons dual approach of pressure and engagement on Pyongyang over its nuclear program.

Yun acknowledged its unclear whether North Korea would be willing to talk following a period of accelerated nuclear activity, saying its very hard to discern what their intent is without having real dialogue.

I think what Secretary Tillerson spoke to was we want to have a dialogue with them. We are open to dialogue and we hope they will agree to have a dialogue, said Yun at the end of a two-nation tour that also included a stop in Tokyo.

Lets see how they respond  I am very hopeful that diplomacy has a long way to go before any next steps are considered.

Its unclear how U.S. officials would set up the talks with North Korea. While Yuns stay in Thailand overlapped with visits by North Korean officials to the northern city of Chiang Mai for a meeting, he said this was purely a coincidence and that he didnt meet them. Yun said he didnt meet any North Korean representatives in Tokyo either.

In a speech in Washington on Tuesday, Tillerson said the United States will be willing to start diplomatic talks with North Korea without preconditions. This led to questions on whether the Trump administration was exploring a new policy on North Korea after previously stating it wouldnt negotiate with North Korean officials unless they were willing to discuss curbing their nuclear weapons and missiles program.

However, the White House was quick to contradict Tillersons offer. A National Security Council spokesperson said Wednesday that North Korea must not only first refrain from provocations but take sincere and meaningful actions toward denuclearization. The spokesperson, who was not authorized to be quoted by name and requested anonymity, said that given North Koreas most recent missile test, now was not the time for talks.
TOKYO  Japan froze the assets of 19 companies on Friday to step up pressure on North Korea to return Japanese citizens that it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s and to halt its nuclear weapons and missile development.

The companies, which have already been sanctioned by the United States, deal in finance, coal and minerals, transport including shipping and the sending of North Korean workers overseas.

A Foreign Ministry official said the unilateral move shows Japans commitment to sanctions ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York later Friday to discuss the North Korea situation.

Japan has now frozen the assets of 103 companies and organizations and 108 individuals under either its own sanctions or Security Council resolutions. Of those, 56 groups and 62 individuals were unilateral.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan will continue to put pressure on North Korea to seek a resolution to both the abductee and nuclear and missile issues.

North Korean agents abducted Japanese citizens to train spies to pass as Japanese.

Later Friday, the United Nations independent investigator on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, met with the families of abducted Japanese citizens.

Quintana arrived in Tokyo on Thursday to discuss the issue with Japanese officials after a visit earlier this week to South Korea, where he investigated North Korean allegations that Seoul abducted 12 North Korean women from China.

Japans abduction issues minister, Katsunobu Kato, asked Quintana for his support, saying there is little time left for the aging families of the victims.

Japan says North Korea snatched at least 17 people in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea has acknowledged abducting 13 and allowed five of them to visit Japan in 2002. All five stayed instead of returning to North Korea. The North says the other eight have died, without providing convincing proof, and their families have not given up hope.

Many of the families are getting old and are desperately seeking outside help to bring their loved ones home. This week, Nobuko Masumoto, whose daughter Rumiko was abducted with her boyfriend from Japans southern coast in 1978, died at the age of 90.

U.S. President Donald Trumps meeting with families of abductees in November during a visit to Japan raised their hope for more public awareness and international support.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu contributed to this report.

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Find her work at https://www.apnews.com/search/mari%20yamaguchi
MOSCOW  Russia and Egypt signed a deal on Friday to resume flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo starting from February, after more than a two-year break, officials announced.

Moscow suspended flights to Egypt after a bomb by the local Islamic State affiliate brought down a Russian airliner over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board.

The attack decimated Egypts vital tourism industry. Egyptian authorities have since spent millions of dollars to upgrade security at its airports, hoping to get Moscow to change its mind.

Russian Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov said he and Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi signed a protocol on security cooperation that would allow direct flights between Moscow and Cairo to resume, starting from February.

Russia, however, is not yet talking about resuming charter flights to Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea, once a popular destination for Russian tourists, Sokolov said, adding that this would be the next stage of negotiations.

President Vladimir Putin on a visit to Cairo on Monday said the deal on the resumption of flights could be signed in the nearest time and praised Egypts efforts to boost security at its airports.

In the wake of the IS bombing, Britain, another major source of visitors to Egypt, suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort in Sinai from which the doomed Russian airliner took off.

Putins visit to Egypt was part of the Russian presidents blitz day-trip to the region that kicked off with a visit to a Russian air base in Syria, then to Cairo and concluded with a stop in Turkey. It was his second visit to Egypt in as many years, and Putin and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi appeared keen to cement their countries ties, which have deepened in recent years as Moscow has expanded its reach across the region.

El-Sissi, who has visited Russia twice since taking office in 2014, has signed deals to buy billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons, including fighter jets and assault helicopters. Last month, Russia approved a draft agreement with Egypt to allow Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.

On Thursday, Fathi headed to Moscow to finalize the agreement on the resumption of flights.

Later Friday, Egypts civil aviation ministry said in a statement that the two sides will hold talks in April on the resumption of Russian flights to Egyptian resorts.

___

Associated Press writers Menna Zaki in Cairo and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
LAS CRUCES  The Las Cruces Police Department released several photos and Las Cruces Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $1,000, which officials hope will spur tips that help identify the person whose remains were found Sunday off Rinconada Boulevard.

LCPD released the photos of several pieces of evidence found near the remains. Investigators hope someone will recognize the items collected that, in turn, will help identify the remains. The items include five pieces of jewelry, the label from a coat and a pair of sunglasses. Investigators are also releasing the image of a small piece of paper with the hopes someone might recognize the handwriting.

The human remains were found Sunday in an undeveloped area off Rinconada Boulevard. The remains were sent to the New Mexico medical investigators office but have yet to be positively identified. Investigators have also not been able to determine the gender or approximate age of the individual.

It is unknown if foul play is involved or how long the remains had been in the undeveloped area thats west of the intersection of Rinconada and Sonoma Ranch boulevards, police said.

At about 10 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 10, a hiker was walking his dog when he spotted something unusual. Upon further investigation, the hiker determined that what he discovered were human remains. He called 911 and directed responding officers to the site.

Investigators combed through the surrounding area throughout Sunday and most of Monday, searching for evidence that may be relevant to this case.

Anyone with information that can help identify any of the evidence is asked to call Las Cruces Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. Individuals can remain anonymous by calling the Crime Stoppers number.

The Crime Stoppers number is operational 24 hours a day and you do not have to give your name to collect a reward.



2017 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

_____
DOUGLAS, Ariz.  The Border Patrol has helped arrest five people involved in a human smuggling attempt in Douglas.

Agents from the Douglas Station assisted Douglas police after a car was stopped for a traffic violation Tuesday night.

They noticed two men prone in the back seat and two others in the vehicles trunk.

All four passengers were identified as citizens of Guatemala and in the U.S. illegally.

They were arrested for immigration violations.

Border Patrol officials say a 52-year-old Douglas man was driving the car and taken into custody for human smuggling.

The names of the five men havent been released.
PHOENIX  An Arizona jury has refused to award damages against former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a civil trial for bringing a since-dismissed criminal case against one of Sen. Jeff Flakes sons in the heat-exhaustion deaths of 21 dogs.

Jurors deliberated nearly an hour before ruling late Thursday against Austin Flake and his then-wife Logan Brown in their malicious-prosecution lawsuit stemming from Arpaios investigation into the heat-exhaustion deaths of 21 dogs at a kennel operated by Flakes in-laws.

Flake and Brown, who were in college at the time, were caring for the dogs while the in-laws were out of town.

Stephen Montoya, the couples attorney, said his clients disagree with the verdict said that they were grateful for the opportunity to force former Sheriff Arpaio and his subordinates at Maricopa County to account for their indisputably reckless conduct.

The struggle to hold government officials accountable has always required a steep, perilous climb, Montoya said in a statement.

Montoya said the federal judge in the case said during the trial he wouldnt enter a final judgment until lawyers for Arpaio and the county explain a failure to turn over documents in the case. We will assess our future options in this fight when the county complies with the courts order, Montoya said.

Jeffrey Leonard, an attorney representing Arpaio and the county, didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

The criminal case against the Flakes was dismissed at the request of prosecutors  and the kennel owners later pleaded guilty to animal cruelty charges  after an expert determined the facilitys air conditioner failed because the operators didnt properly maintain it. The judge presiding over the civil trial had told jurors that authorities didnt have probable cause to charge the Flakes.

The couple alleged in their lawsuit that Arpaio brought the case against them to garner publicity for himself and to do political damage to Flakes father.

Their lawyers said the senator drew Arpaios ire by disagreeing with the sheriff over immigration and criticizing the movement that questioned the authenticity of then-President Barack Obamas birth certificate.

Arpaio, also a Republican, was known for carrying out dozens of large-scale immigration crackdowns and conducting a five-year investigation of Obamas birth record.

The couple contended the charges caused them emotional distress, contributed to the demise of their marriage and led the senators son to being suspended from college for an honor-code violation.

During his testimony, Arpaio had said he was confident in his officers work on the case, but was unable to cite any evidence to back up the charges against Flake and Brown.

The media-savvy lawman was grilled about his motivations in publicizing the investigation, saying he spoke out about the dog deaths because it was a serious matter and reporters were asking about the case. He downplayed the number of news conferences he called to discuss the case.

The prosecutor who handled the criminal case maintained that she wasnt pressured by Arpaios office to file charges. The Maricopa County Attorneys Office wasnt a party to the lawsuit.

The case against Austin Flake wasnt the first time Arpaio had been accused of trumping up charges in an animal cruelty case.

He launched an investigation against a police officer from the Phoenix suburb of Chandler over the 2007 death of a police dog that was left in a hot vehicle for 12 hours in blistering summer heat.

The officer was charged with animal abuse but eventually acquitted. He filed a lawsuit alleging Arpaio brought the criminal case so the sheriff could exploit the publicity.

Taxpayers paid $775,000 to the officer to settle the case.

__

Associated Press writer Paul Davenport contributed. Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/jacques%20billeaud.
WASHINGTON  A federal appeals court has sided with reporters in a court fight over documents that began after an FBI agent pretended to be an Associated Press journalist while investigating bomb threats at a Washington state high school.

When the ruse became public in 2014, the AP and a press freedom organization attempted to get government records about the case and any other times FBI agents have impersonated journalists. After initially getting no records from the FBI, the AP and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued. Though some documents were produced, the organizations argued that the agencys response was inadequate.

In an opinion issued Friday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. Judge David Tatel wrote for himself and colleagues Brett Kavanaugh and Laurence Silberman that the FBI failed to demonstrate that it conducted a search for the requested records, using methods which can be reasonably expected to produce the information requested. The opinion reverses a lower court ruling in favor of the government that the FBI had conducted a good-faith, reasonable search.

The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court. The FBI will have to search for additional records located in the office of the FBIs director and better explain how it conducted its overall document search, said Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lawyer Katie Townsend. She said her organization was obviously really pleased with the decision.

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The lawsuit stems from a 2007 investigation into bomb threats emailed to Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, which is near the state capital of Olympia. As part of the investigation, an FBI agent communicating with a suspect in the case portrayed himself as an AP reporter. The agent sent the suspect a link to a fabricated AP news article, a link that when clicked allowed the FBI to pinpoint the suspects location.

After the FBIs actions came to light in 2014, resulting in an outcry from the AP and other news organizations, both the AP and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press submitted records requests to the government under the Freedom of Information Act. The organizations asked for additional information about the Timberline High School incident, information about other instances where the FBI impersonated a member of the news media, and information about policies or guidelines governing the FBIs impersonation of members of the media.

After getting no records, the organizations sued in 2015. The government ultimately turned over about 190 pages of records, more than half of those pages with redactions.

___

Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko
Some experts also say the North may have been even trying to create super-germs in its labs using advanced genetic engineering.

By Santosh Chaubey: An increasingly belligerent North Korean propaganda has gone a step ahead.

The country's state-run newspaper Minju Choson - published by the North Korean cabinet - has written in a commentary that fearful of the North Korean might, the fate of America is in hands of its supreme leader Kim Jong-un.

Blaming the US President Donald Trump's ignorance about North Korea, the commentary says the US tactics of nuclear blackmail and threat will no longer work "whether the US likes or not and wants or not", adding that "the status of the standoff between the DPRK and US has come under the control of the faith and will of the North Korea which is holding the initiative."

advertisement

Claiming that North Korea has always emerged victorious, Minju Choson further writes that Trump is still in deep sleep not realizing the imminent danger he has put America in.

"The Trump group is attempting to seek a way out by pursuing a policy of military confrontation. This is nothing but a deathbed struggle by those alarmed by the might of North Korea."

Warning the US to become prudent and think twice, the newspaper says the recent annual defence conference of the country under the guidance of their supreme leader Kim Jong-un has filled the North Korean people and its Army with iron faith and if the Americans try to annoy this valorous spirit, they will be forced to go for military confrontation which will ultimately result in victory and glory for North Korea and humiliating defeat for Trump and the US.

Though North Korean propaganda may say the US is blackmailing it, but the recent advances made by the country in acquiring lethal weapons and strategic capabilities, the nuclear capable inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can reach to the parts of America, a series of successful missile launches in recent months and a claimed detonation of hydrogen bomb, has emboldened its war rhetoric to unprecedented levels.

And unlike in past, the world has taken these military claims seriously, increasing manifold the threat perception about the isolated nation.

The most recent development has only added to it.

According to American and Asian intelligence officials, North Korea may have acquired capacity to produce biological weapons on military scale and in fact, the world has no way to find if the rogue nation has already begun it, as such facilities are concealed in its civilian factories.

Some experts also say the North may have been even trying to create super-germs in its labs using advanced genetic engineering.

That is why the world is giving dialogue a chance with no one in favour of direct military confrontation in spite of tough warnings and harsh war rhetoric from Trump and his administration.

advertisement

World leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the United Nations have preferred diplomacy, dialogues and sanctions over a possibility of war or military confrontation to deal with North Korea, a stand that has forced even Trump and his team to take a soft approach hinting at dialogue.

The call for dialogue and diplomatic efforts was best summed up by United Nations chief Antonio Guterres yesterday when he warned that "the worst possible thing that could happen would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances."

--- ENDS ---
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  With the Roundhouse reverberating from recent sexual misconduct allegations, a group of lawmakers on Friday unveiled a draft of proposed changes to the Legislatures harassment policy that would set up a new process for filing complaints against sitting legislators.

However, some critics pointed out that such complaints would be handled in-house  via an internal committee  under a largely secretive process thats already used for other types of ethics complaints, including allegations of lawmakers using their elected position to enrich themselves.

I do not believe we should be policing ourselves, said Rep. Kelly Fajardo, R-Belen, who has called for the Legislature to hire outside experts to investigate sexual harassment complaints.

The Friday meeting of the Legislative Council was the first public forum for legislators, lobbyists and advocates to weigh in on the Legislatures no harassment policy since a spate of recent sexual harassment allegations ignited a discussion of policies, training and culture in the Roundhouse and in statehouses around the country.

Several lobbyists testified about negative experiences theyve endured in Santa Fe.

Miranda Viscoli, who has pushed for legislation to tighten New Mexicos gun ownership laws, said there is a problem with the culture of this building, though she described most legislators as honorable.

There is no place to report (harassment claims) and the sad reality is it is political suicide if you do, Viscoli said.

Another lobbyist, Vanessa Alarid, said its imperative that an individual or body with no ties to the Legislature be given the authority to investigate complaints against lawmakers.

Alarid, who is married to state Rep. Antonio Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, recently went public with claims that former state Rep. Thomas Garcia, D-Ocate, wanted sex in exchange for a yes vote on a high-profile 2009 bill she was lobbying for.

Garcia has flatly denied the allegations, but two other former legislators have said Alarid told them about the incident at the time.

Existing policy

The Legislatures current no harassment policy has not been revised since 2008 and calls for complaints to be handled in-house by top legislative staffers. Complaints against legislators, lobbyists and other individuals are all treated the same under the policy.

Specifically, the existing policy encourages those who are harassed or who witness offensive behavior to approach the perpetrator and request that it stop. If theyre not comfortable doing that, it says, complaints should be directed to the head of a legislative agency.

But some lawmakers have pointed out that those agency directors can be hired and fired by top legislative panels, which could make it tricky for them to investigate allegations involving legislators.

In an attempt to improve the policy, leading lawmakers recently appointed an eight-member working group to study other states policies and recommend potential changes. The group, which includes four senators and four representatives, met earlier this week and plans to meet at least one more time before lawmakers convene next month for the start of a 30-day legislative session.

Rep. Jim Dines, R-Albuquerque, a retired attorney and member of the working group, said its important from a transparency standpoint that all sexual harassment complaints be filed in one place.

We need a central repository of all complaints, Dines told the Journal.

He also said the working group has reached out to Laura Schauer Ives, an attorney who previously worked as the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in New Mexico, for advice on how to craft its new policy.

Public comments on the proposed changes to the Legislatures harassment policy will be accepted through Jan. 8. A revised policy is then expected to be approved before next years session starts on Jan. 16.

Recent allegations

Several New Mexico lawmakers  current and former  have come under scrutiny in recent weeks for alleged sexual misconduct.

In addition to the allegations against former representative Garcia, Senate Majority Whip Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, recently dropped out of next years lieutenant governors race due to criticism about decade-old sexual harassment allegations that stem from a previous job.

Padilla has disputed the allegations, but Senate Democrats will discuss today whether to strip him of his leadership post.

In comments Friday, Padilla did not address the past allegations against him but said hes worried about whether the Legislature is adequately staffed to handle future harassment complaints internally.

Meanwhile, Fajardo and other lawmakers voiced concern about how top legislative staffers have handled complaints in the past.

The Legislative Council Service, the Legislatures administrative arm, recently refused to release records related to two sexual harassment complaints involving maintenance staff at the state Capitol, claiming the documents are exempt from disclosure under state law.

The recent sexual misconduct allegations have sparked dialogue and changes in other parts of state government, too.

Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver recently announced her office will offer voluntary sexual harassment training for lobbyists, and the state Democratic Party said Friday that it will require similar training for candidates.

House Speaker Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said during Fridays hearing that women have endured unacceptable harassment and abuse in the Roundhouse and elsewhere.

The policy thats in place has flaws, Egolf said. We want to have a world-class policy thats the gold standard  and were working to get it done as quickly as we can.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is one step closer to being released from house arrest after putting up enough property to satisfy a $10 million bond.

Barring a paperwork issue, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson says she will allow Manaforts release from his home in Virginia where hes been confined since his Oct. 30 arrest.

Manafort and longtime associate Rick Gates face several felony charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. The charges stem from their political consulting work in Ukraine

The judge is allowing Manafort to live in his home in Florida and come and go while he awaits trial. He will remain on GPS monitoring and have to get court permission to travel outside two south Florida counties. He also will have a curfew.
BEAUMONT, Texas  Two men have been sentenced to federal prison in a scheme to catch alligator snapping turtles in Texas and sell the rare reptiles for up to $1,000 apiece.

Prosecutors in Beaumont say Travis Leger of Sulphur, Louisiana, was sentenced Friday to 21 months. His half brother, Jason Leckelt of Wilburton, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 16 months.

Both men, plus Rickey Paul Simon of Sulphur, Louisiana, earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to illegally traffic the turtles. Simon received probation.

Alligator snapping turtles are the largest freshwater turtles in the world, can weigh 200 pounds and live up to 100 years.

Authorities believe dozens of turtles were caught in Texas and transported to Louisiana. Both states have laws protecting alligator snapping turtles.

Investigators recovered about 30 of the turtles from ponds in Sulphur.
SANTA FE, N.M.  New Mexicos attorney general is joining top prosecutors in other states suing the Federal Communications Commission for repealing net neutrality rules.

Democratic Attorney General Hector Balderas on Friday called the FCC decision an un-American attack on a free and open internet that will harm New Mexico consumers and families.

Foes worry companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon will either charge for fast service or cut speeds for content they dont earn money from. The companies say that wont happen.

The planned lawsuit will be led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The Republican-controlled FCC voted Thursday to scrap an Obama-era rule that guaranteed equal access to the internet. Chairman Ajit Pai says his plan eliminates unnecessary regulation.
An icon, a legend and an actor whose skills can only be described as effortlessly incredible, Shashi Kapoors humble soul always stood miles above his familys legacy winning the hearts of audiences across the world. Taking viewers on a captivating journey through his life from being a child artiste to a Dada Saheb Phalke Award and National Award winner will be storyteller par excellence, Javed Akhtar in the penultimate episode of Classic Legends Season 4. This weekend, Zee Classic, with its proposition Woh Zamana Kare Deewana will pay its respects to one of Indias greatest entertainers through many untold tales and glimpses of Late Shashi Kapoors personal and professional life. The finale episode of Classic Legends Season 4 will air on Sunday, 17th December at 7:00 PM will highlight the enigma that was Shashi Kapoor and what made him one of the most loved actors of his generation.

Belonging to Bollywoods first family, the Kapoor khandaan, Shashi Kapoor was not only the youngest but also the most pampered and most mischievous of three brothers. And, much like rest of the family, his love for food was endless! Javed Akhtar recalls, Shashi Kapoor was, once, sent to a hostel where he did not like the food. Almost immediately, he got in touch with his family and used many pressure tactics to take him back home.

Shashi Kapoors Bollywood debut at the tender age of 6 with the movie Shakuntala, kick-started a long and illustrious journey to becoming an actor. Javed Akhtar revealed, Shashi Kapoor gave up his education in his early teens and joined Mumbai's Prithvi Theatre. Few years later, when he travelled with his theatre group to Kolkata, his eyes fell upon a beautiful young lady who was a part of the theatre group Shakespeareana. Coincidentally, her play was being showcased at the same venue where Shashi Kapoors play was scheduled for. This was when Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendals love story started.

Coming from two contrasting family backgrounds with opposing views, Jennifer and Shashi Kapoor found it difficult to stay in touch. To maintain the sanctity of their love, his older brother Shammi Kapoor stepped in and sponsored Shashi Kapoors travels so that he could meet his lady love.

What were some of Shashi Kapoors biggest pranks? And, what were the secrets of Jennifer and Shashi Kapoors life?

To know all this and more, dont miss the finale episode of Classic Legends Season 4 with Javed Akhtar on Sunday, 17th December 2017 at 7:00 PM only on Zee Classic!
Lokmat, Maharashtra & Goas leading newspaper, launched its New Delhi edition yesterday in New Delhi at a special inauguration attended by the political glitterati in presence of M Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India; Dr Manmohan Singh, MP & Former Prime Minister of India; Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Chief Minister; Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road, Transport & Highways, Shipping & Water Resources; Prakash Javedkar, Union HRD Minister; Ravi Prasad, Union Minister of IT; Chowdhury Birender Singh, Minister of Steel; and PJ Kurian, Rajya Sabha Vice Chairman. Later, the evening was attended by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Speaking at the launch, Vijay Darda, Chairman, Lokmat Media Group, said, It is a moment of immense pride for all of us at Lokmat Media Group, we thank our readers as we step into our Centenary Year. Rooted in nationalism, Lokmat has always stood by values, fearless journalism and its people. We thank our readers who have made us No. 1 Marathi daily of the country and hope to continue our legacy in New Delhi as well.

Stressing on the use of regional language, Venkaiah Naidu said, Families must converse in their own regional language at home. Language and emotions move together better when conversed in the mother tongue. I was educated in the regional medium and I am very proud of it and I feel one should respect - Mother who has given you birth, Motherland - place where you are born, Mother tongue, the country to which you belong to.

He further affirmed, Information with confirmation is very important - Views and news must not be mixed together. Sensationalism should end, nationalism must be given the importance. News is public good, use the power to influence wisely - use it get to the truth. Satyam - Truth, Shivam - for the greater good - Sunderam - in a beautiful manner.

Dr Manmohan Singh added here, Media has a great role to play in our democracy especially in these times where there are forces that always want to curb the role of media. The task of the media should be such that facts are stated and opinions are free. My prayer is that Lokmat Group of newspapers will live up to this very important maxim.

Welcoming the Lokmat Group to Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal said, I am very happy that Marathi people in Delhi can read Lokmat now and get news in their language. I am confident that Lokmat will combat all challenges and bring out the truth in front of people. I pray that Lokmat makes a mark of honest and true journalism across all cities in India.

Nitin Gadkari remarked, Lokmat has always ensured that democracy has been made successful by picking up issues that affect the society. Lokmat has always ensured that the flag of honest journalism is always held high. This a great start to get the Marathi paper and news to Marathi people in Delhi. I wish Lokmat all the best.
iProspect has released their third annual 2018 Future Focus whitepaper, which is geared to examine how machines and technology are impacting marketing and advertising in the year ahead. The paper takes a look at how brands can make the most of machines in 2018, from facilitating seamless consumer experiences to delivering greater efficiencies.

iProspect interviewed 250 of their global clients, including FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, and used the real-time feedback to outline key insights and priorities necessary for businesses to thrive in our fast moving, high expectation digital economy.

Feedback shows that the transformative impact of Voice, AI, and Machine Learning is being felt across the entire business landscape, with 55 per cent of marketers surveyed agreeing that Machine Learning will allow them to make better decisions in 2018. 56 per cent of the marketers surveyed highlighted effectively managing large data sets to deliver personalisation and relevant one-to-one experience as their main priority in 2018.

Advances in Machine Learning will allow for greater effectiveness and efficiency in marketing communications, freeing both marketers and agencies to focus on adding strategic value, said Shenda Loughnane, Global Chief Strategy Officer, iProspect. Brands will need to understand how to balance the human vs. machine elements of their business in order to leverage the full value of both.

In an increasingly complex digital economy, Machine Learning is set to play a pivotal role in our ecosystem. In India, we are already feeling these forces of change  driving better data understanding, enabling personalised conversation at scale and delivering greater efficiencies. We are at an inflection point where brands need to learn how to marry human capital and machines in order to succeed in the transformation that lies ahead, said Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect India.

Building on iProspects 2017 research looking at business growth in the digital economy, the 2018 Future Focus whitepaper discusses the new machine rules, including:

Enhanced Customer Experience: Closing the gap between consumer expectation and brand reality.

Digital Assistants are the New Gatekeepers: The dynamic between brands and digital assistants.

AI & Machine Learning Transform Marketing: The powerful impact that can be unlocked by brands who have effectively leveraged joint human and machines strategies.

Commerce Everywhere: The shrinking distance between inspiration and conversion, and the shift from discovery to transaction.

The Rise of Amazon, the Everything Store: Mastering the new marketplace to stand out.

In this latest edition, iProspect share their perspective on how brands can make the most of machines in 2018, driving improved commerce results as well as accuracy and efficiency.
Uttar Pradesh election lands at number four on Google's list of ten most-searched elections in the world in 2017. There was another Indian election on the list, but even that was not Gujarat.

Uttar Pradesh saw a massive seven-phase election for its assembly where the BJP came to power following a staggering win (Reuters photo)

By Dev Goswami: In India right now, all eyes are on whether the Bharatiya Janata Party can beat a 22-year incumbency to protect its bastion of Gujarat. Exit polls suggest it will be able to even though the party may lose a few seats.

The world, however, had more interest in the election held for the Uttar Pradesh, that is according to search 2017 search trends reported by Google. Uttar Pradesh, where Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister after a mammoth BJP victory, was the most-searched election after the French, German and UK national polls.

advertisement

Uttar Pradesh's rise up the list of most-searched election was also helped by the recently held municipal polls in the state. Google's 'search interest over time' graph shows two blips as far as UP polls are concerned - one between late February and mid March and the latter between mid November and early December.

The two blips coincide with the two elections held in the state - results for the seven-phase assembly polls were announced on March 11 and UP civic polls on December 1. In the former, the BJP registered a staggering three-fourths victory while in the latter, the party swept the mayoral seats.

Click here to Enlarge Google search interest in the Uttar Pradesh election was the fourt-highest of all elections in the world (Photo: Google Trends)

There is another Indian election on Google's ten most searched elections of 2017 list: the polls for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Mumbai's civic body. Held in February, that election saw the BJP make gains as Shiv Sena, which seemingly shares a love-hate relationship with Amit Shah's party, lost ground in its traditional bastion.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Google data is that after India, search interest for the Uttar Pradesh election was highest in the United Arab Emirates. UAE got a search interest rating of 45 (100 being the highest), ten points higher than Kuwait. India, obviously, was 100.

Middle Eastern countries, in general, had great interest in knowing who would win Uttar Pradesh. Oman and Saudi Arabia too were on the list of regions that showed interest in the state's election.

The story was similar with Mumbai's BMC election. After India, again at 100, search interest was highest in the UAE, followed by Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Overall, the French election in which Emmanuel Macron beat his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, was the most searched election, worldwide, of 2017. On second place was Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel clinched a fourth term, while third was the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Theresa May's early polls gambit backfired, with her party losing its majority in the parliament.

WATCH | Gujarat Assembly elections: Results of the India Today Axis-My India exit poll 2017

--- ENDS ---
To capture this passion, in 2016, Scarecrow crafted the positioning "Rag rag mein daude city". And now in 2017, they decided to take this thought to the next level. The new campaign tells us that if a city runs through our veins, then we can see and experience the city even with our eyes closed. (Jinki rag rag mein city daudti ho na, woh aankhon se hi nahin, saanson se, zubaan se aur kaano se bhi city dekh lete hain.). The film Taxi Driver, is based on this emotion. To make this idea more experiential, the thought will be adapted in Print, On-Air, digital and on-ground.

Commenting on the launch of the brand campaign, Mr. Abraham Thomas, CEO, Radio City said, The new brand campaign is an attempt to highlight the power of radio as an experiential medium building a very strong imagery in the minds of the consumer. The campaign also showcases that radio is a theatre of the mind that transcends beyond being just a mere audio medium. The campaign seamlessly resonates what our brand stands for and we are hopeful that it will further help drive synergies in every city we are present in.

City connoisseurs can be anyone - a dabbawaala, a postman, or even a food delivery guy. In this film, the story is about a taxi driver of Mumbai. The protagonists role is played by Mr. Surendra Rajan, the incredible actor who immortalised the dialogue "Bas kar pagle rulayega kya" in Munnabhai MBBS. He has also worked in memorable ads like Hostel |Holi (Eye bank Association of India) and Respect the National Anthem.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomes the United Nations' report, which stressed that Iran's hostile interferences- as well as, its support to Houthi terrorist militias with advanced and dangerous missile capabilities- threatens the security and stability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the region. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also welcomes the US stance announced by the US Ambassador to the United Nations, as well as, the US condemnation of Iran's hostile activities that support and arm terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Houthi terrorist militias.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia renews its condemnation of the Iranian regime for supporting its affiliated Houthi terrorist militias in:

their aggressive and terrorist practices

their coup against legitimacy

their destruction of state institutions

their brutal suppression of the brotherly Yemeni people

their plunder of the Yemeni people's resources including humanitarian aid

their seizure of oil imports to support and finance their terrorist campaign

their threat to the security of sea lanes

their attack on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's territory

territory their launch of ballistic missiles on populated cities with the support of Iran .

Iran's support for Houthi terrorist militias constitutes a flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2216 and No. 2231, and has disrupted the political process and prolonged the crisis in Yemen.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also condemns the Iranian regime for its flagrant violations of the international resolutions and norms, including UN Security Council Resolutions No. 1559 and No. 1701, which prohibit arming any extra-state militias in Lebanon (under Chapter VII), as well as, UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2231 and No. 2216.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia calls upon the international community to take immediate action to implement the above-mentioned UN Security Council resolutions and to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its aggressive actions. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reiterates the need to tighten the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) to prevent smuggling.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia affirms its commitment to support the efforts of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, aimed at finding a political solution in addition to supporting all relief and humanitarian operations aimed at alleviating the suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-welcomes-un-report-and-us-stance-on-irans-hostile-interferences-and-support-for-houthi-terrorist-militias-300572152.html

SOURCE Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information Office
Check Presentation, 1:30 p.m., December 20

Fifteen Houston small business owners were helped in their post-Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts by a total of $200,000 in Small Business Recovery grants from Texas Capital Bank and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas). Each business received up to $15,000 to aid in their repair and/or rebuilding efforts.

These grants are part of $6.7 million in grants offered by FHLB Dallas, including more than $2.25 million to assist small businesses in their recovery efforts. Texas Capital Bank, an FHLB Dallas member institution, awards Small Business Recovery grants to help qualified small business owners in counties that have been designated for Individual Assistance by FEMA.

The media is invited to attend a check presentation at 1:00 p.m. on December 20 at The Green Bone, a doggy day care in Houston, and one of the grant recipients. In addition to The Green Bone, 14 other Small Business Recovery grant recipients have been invited to attend.

WHAT: Check Presentation WHEN: 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, December 20 WHO: Bill Wilson, Chairman, Houston Region, Texas Capital Bank Effie Dennison, SVP, Community Development and Corporate Responsibility, Texas Capital Bank Jennifer Leighton-Guzman, AVP, Community Development, Texas Capital Bank Grant Recipients Greg Hettrick, Vice President, Director of Community Investment, FHLB Dallas Jaime Jordan, Vice President, Director of Corporate Communications, FHLB Dallas WHERE: The Green Bone 2901 Rusk Street Houston, Texas 77003

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171215005716/en/

Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas

Corporate Communications, 214-441-8445

fhlb.com
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.
Photographer Christian Rodriguez, the son of a teenage mother, earned praise and awards with his series Teen Mom, which looked at teenage pregnancy in Mexico, Brazil, and his native Uruguay. Rodriguezs new project, titled Leo, follows his cousin as he immigrates from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. I 
U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson, Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman and Trey Gowdy, all South Carolina Republicans, are among more than 100 members of Congress who encouraged the recent repeal of net neutrality.

A one-page letter, sent Wednesday to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, details their take on the matter and contains their signatures.

The letter was released by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the communications and technology subcommittee.

"We write today in support of the Federal Communications Commission's plan to restore internet freedom by reversing the prior Commission's decision to regulate broadband internet service under Title II of the Communications Act, a statutory scheme created for the monopoly telephone carriers of a bygone era," the letter reads.

An amended Title II (PDF) was approved in 2015 and gave the FCC the authority to stop companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from interfering with internet traffic and access.

Letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai The letter, signed by more than 100 members of Congress, was released by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Political action committees and related individuals of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have contributed a total of more than $16,000 to the four congressmen's respective 2017-18 campaign committees, according to Federal Election Commission data collated by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Dec. 13 letter states that repealing net neutrality  as the FCC did by a party-lines 3-2 vote Thursday afternoon  would be a "major step forward." The letter says a repeal would generate the investment needed to upgrade the current "internet architecture."

Critics of the repeal warn that not having net neutrality grants internet service providers control  via speed throttling, charging more for specific access or all together blocking access to certain sites and apps  over what internet users do and where they go.

Pai, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, has said the direct opposite: The chairman believes less government control means more competition and a greater selection of services for the American people. Pai first outlined his anti-neutrality beliefs earlier this year, drumming up protests.

The letter reinforces Pai's perspective. It describes the repeal as a restoration, as a return to the internet's "rightful regulatory home."

Critics of the repeal have cited a lack of provider competition in certain markets, which they say encourages monopoly tactics: predatory or discriminatory pricing and one-way dealing.

Internet users in Aiken  depending on exact location  have access to AT&T, Atlantic Broadband and Comcast services.
Keeping up the Congress party's attack on the EC, Opposition leaders will continue to raise questions on the 'double standards' of the body while conducting the Gujarat polls.

By Sweta dutta: The winter session of Parliament is set to see Opposition parties throwing their weight behind Congress and taking on the BJP for allegedly 'manipulating' and 'controlling' the Election Commission (EC) during the Gujarat assembly polls.

At the all Opposition parties meet on Thursday evening headed by Rajya Sabha leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, it was also decided that the ruling BJP and PM Narendra Modi will be taken head-on for his allegations against former PM Manmohan Singh of 'colluding' with Pakistan to swing a victory for Congress in Gujarat.

advertisement

"The way the Gujarat polls have been conducted and the level of the political discourse over the past few weeks have been abominable. Some things have to be condemned on the floor of the House.

We will not ignore such transgressions that hurt the dignity of the PM's post. Never before has another PM spoken so loosely about a former PM," a senior Opposition leader, who attended the meet, told Mail Today.

Keeping up the Congress party's attack on the EC, Opposition leaders will continue to raise questions on the 'double standards' of the body while conducting the Gujarat polls.

"The incidents of the past two days with respect to notices issued to the Congress but a free hand given to the BJP, has shown blatant misuse of power by the ruling BJP dispensation," said a senior Rajya Sabha leader.

The Opposition will also protest against the 'unlawful' suspensions of JD (U) Rajya Sabha MPs Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar from the party.

While earlier this month, Yadav's membership from Upper House of Parliament was terminated by Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu following a petition from the JD(U), Anwar was 'disqualified' from the party in August for indulging in 'anti-party activities'.

Farmers' distress, the Rafale deal and slow disbursal of special package for Andhra Pradesh are some of the other issues that are expected to keep the winter session stormy. The recent resignation of BJP MP Nana Patole from Lok Sabha citing the BJP government's 'indifference' towards farmers is set to the give the Opposition much ammunition to corner the BJP.

VIDEO | India Today-Axis exit poll Gujarat 2017: BJP set to win for sixth consecutive time

--- ENDS ---
The United States yesterday announced plan to donate new MD 530G light attack helicopters to Lebanon, the US Embassy in Beirut released. "With General Votel, we discussed with the Prime Minister and earlier today with the Army Commander, three new U.S. Department of Defense programs that we are announcing today," declared US Ambassador in Lebanon Elizabeth Richard and Commander of the U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel on December 13, 2017.





"This advanced equipment will help the Army build on its steady strong capability to conduct border security and counterterrorism operations and importantly to defend the country and the people of Lebanon," the Embassy added.



The United States has given the Lebanese Armed Forces more than $1.5 billion in assistance over the past ten years, the Embassy has said previously. In 2017, Lebanon received the first batch of six A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft from the US, which also announced it would deliver 32 M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to the LAF.



The six MD 530Gs will give Lebanon its first first attack helicopters. They will bolster the Lebanese Air Force's close air support, precision targeting, surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities.



The MD 530G is the latest addition to the MD 500 family of military helicopters. The MD 530G incorporates the FN Herstal Heavy Machine Gun Pod (HMP) housing a 12.7 mm (.50 caliber) FN M3P machine gun, Dillon Aero M134D-H Gatling Gun, and Raytheon TALON 2.75-inch (70 mm) Laser-Guided Rocket. It is also fitted with L-3 Wescam MX-10 series sensor and LASER designator. These systems  valued at more than $120 million  include six new MD 530G light attack helicopters , six new Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles, and leading edge communication and night vision devices."This advanced equipment will help the Army build on its steady strong capability to conduct border security and counterterrorism operations and importantly to defend the country and the people of Lebanon," the Embassy added.The United States has given the Lebanese Armed Forces more than $1.5 billion in assistance over the past ten years, the Embassy has said previously. In 2017, Lebanon received the first batch of six A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft from the US, which also announced it would deliver 32 M2A2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to the LAF.The six MD 530Gs will give Lebanon its first first attack helicopters. They will bolster the Lebanese Air Force's close air support, precision targeting, surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities.The MD 530G is the latest addition to the MD 500 family of military helicopters. The MD 530G incorporates the FN Herstal Heavy Machine Gun Pod (HMP) housing a 12.7 mm (.50 caliber) FN M3P machine gun, Dillon Aero M134D-H Gatling Gun, and Raytheon TALON 2.75-inch (70 mm) Laser-Guided Rocket. It is also fitted with L-3 Wescam MX-10 series sensor and LASER designator.
Oxford dictionaries has named 'youthquake' its word of the year. Have you ever heard it? If not, find out here.

By AP: You might not have heard of the word 'youthquake' but according to Oxford lexicographers there is a fivefold increase in use of the term between 2016 and 2017.

And that is why, Oxford Dictionaries has named 'youthquake' 2017's word of the year.

FYI: It means "a significant cultural, political, or social change arising from the actions or influence of young people."

advertisement

The word, coined almost 50 years ago by then-Vogue editor Diana Vreeland, has been used to describe phenomena including surging youth support for Britain's Labour Party and the election of 30-something leaders in France and New Zealand.

Oxford Dictionaries recognised the power of the millennial generation with its 2017 word of the year. Each year, Oxford University Press tracks how the English language is changing and chooses a word that reflects the annual mood.

Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl said youthquake has "yet to land firmly on American soil, but strong evidence in the UK calls it out as a word on the move."

Runners-up included broflake - a man who is readily upset or offended by progressive attitudes that conflict with his views- and kompromat, a Russian term for compromising information collected for political leverage.

Oxford Dictionaries consultant Susie Dent said many of the year's standout words "speak to fractured times of mistrust and frustration."

"In 'youthquake' we find some hope in the power to change things, and had a little bit of linguistic fun along the way," she said. "It feels like the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year."

Last year's word of the year was "post-truth."

--- ENDS ---
December 13, 2017

Trying to jump-start discussions with Iraq's central government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil recently announced it will respect the Iraqi Federal Court's ecision that the KRG independence referendum was unconstitutional. But Baghdad has amplified its demands for opening a dialogue, which makes negotiations unlikely to happen anytime soon.

The Kurdish independence referendum, which voters overwhelmingly approved in September, greatly escalated problems between Baghdad and the KRG. However, both sides have called for negotiations to resolve the issues based on the Iraqi Constitution. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said Baghdad is continuing to work toward putting into effect some articles of the constitution that have never been implemented and would benefit the Kurds, while at the same time returning federal sovereignty to all areas of Iraq.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson touched on the subject this week during a speech at the Atlantic Council-Korea Foundation Forum in Washington DC, saying the United States will help officials implement the Iraqi Constitution completely.

"We have said well stand with the Kurds to support them in the full implementation of the Iraqi Constitution  which, when it is fully implemented, will address a number of grievances that the Kurdish people have had for some time and we hope will lead to that unified Iraq," Tillerson said at the Dec. 12 meeting.

An Iraqi parliamentary source told Al-Monitor, on condition of anonymity, Baghdad's five recent conditions for opening negotiations.

The first condition, he said, is that the KRG should officially announce its commitment to the Iraqi Federal Court decision on nullifying all the outcomes of the referendum vote. He said the Iraqi government wants an official statement in which the KRG nullifies the referendum outcomes as per the Iraqi Federal Court decision  not just 'respecting' the decision.

The KRG has refused to nullify the referendum results thus far. KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and his deputy, Qubad Talabani, would have complied completely with the court's ruling, the source said, but former KRG President Massoud Barzani and his son, Masrour Barzani, chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, are the main obstacles; they insist "the people's vote will only be nullified by another public vote." Baghdad wants a guarantee that the KRG will not seek independence in the future.

The Iraqi government also demands the KRG turn over all future federal revenues, including those from oil sales and customs. Baghdad has clearly said that it won't receive any Kurdish delegations that don't include representatives of all five political parties with factions in the Iraqi parliament. Those groups are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Gorran party (Movement for Change), the Kurdistan Islamic Union, and the Kurdistan Islamic Group. According to the source, the KRG is likely to accept these two conditions; however, the remaining two conditions will deepen the chasm between Baghdad and Erbil.

The Iraqi government also calls for handing over all the border crossings, including Peshkhabour [Faysh Khabur] and Ibrahim Khalil. Finally, the Iraqi government also is not willing to pay the KRG's $5.5 billion in debts  $4 billion to Turkey and $1.5 billion to [Russian gas company] Rosneft. The KRG must pay its debts, the source said.

The KRG  in particular, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) side  is unlikely to hand over the Peshkhabour border crossing willingly and allow Iraqi forces to deploy there, as this area has become the lifeline of KDP financing and reaching the outside world. The KDP also uses the crossing as leverage against its main rivals, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Rojava administration (the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria).

Currently, the KRG is struggling just to pay its public servants, who haven't yet received their September salaries. At a Dec. 11 meeting, the KRG Cabinet concluded the government can only pay public servants half their salaries every 60 days. The KRG also cannot pay its debts to Turkey and Russia.

As relations between Erbil and Baghdad have always been delicate, any simple disagreement can quickly become complicated. For example, in a Dec. 9 speech, Abadi praised Iraqi forces' victory over the Islamic State but avoided mentioning the sacrifices of the Kurdistan peshmerga forces  earning him so much criticism that the speech was later amended to include the peshmerga. It seems that despite pressure from the United Nations, the United States and the EU on the Iraqi government and the KRG, Erbil-Baghdad negotiations are unlikely to happen until Iraqi elections are held in May. And, of course, while commencing negotiations and constructive dialogue is incredibly complicated, reaching an agreement on prolonged disputes and issues will be even more so.
December 14, 2017

The House passed a bill today that could inhibit the sale of commercial aircraft to Iran, potentially running afoul of the landmark 2015 nuclear accord.

A total of 23 Democrats joined their Republican counterparts to pass the bill from Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, 252-167. But the bills future is unclear in the Senate, where final passage would be contingent on the support of Democrats who have resisted Republican efforts to alter or withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Republicans need the support of at least eight Democrats to get the bill through the Senates 60-vote threshold. Theyve already lost a key supporter in Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Sen. Cardin is not supportive of legislation that would violate the United States obligations under the JCPOA, which this bill would appear to do since the civilian aircraft issue was specifically called for in the agreement, Sean Bartlett, a spokesman for Cardin, told Al-Monitor. Though he opposed the original agreement, since it was entered into he has repeatedly called for rigorous US oversight and compliance.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., introduced identical legislation in the Senate at the end of last month. However, Senate leadership has made no guarantees that the bill will make it to the floor, and the Senate Banking Committee has yet to commit to advancing the bill.

Were continuing to press the issue with our colleagues, Cruz told Al-Monitor.

Proponents of the bill reject the assertion that the legislation constitutes a violation of the nuclear deal.

"This doesn't keep anybody from selling anything," Rep. Williams told Al-Monitor. "Its not going to stop the sale. Its just going to make it jump through another hoop, maybe because Iran is the enemy, and I just think its bad business to be able to do business with them.

While the bill does not explicitly prevent the sale of civilian aircraft to Iran, a November Congressional Research Service report noted that some experts argue that the bill might potentially act as a brake on the willingness of the Treasury Department to license aircraft sales to Iran and in doing so possibly cause Iran to accuse the United States of breaching its JCPOA commitment for the United States to sell such aircraft to Iran.

The JCPOA explicitly allows US companies to sell civilian airliners to Iranian firms. The sales were a key incentive for Iran to sign onto the deal because Tehran is eager to replenish its civilian airliner fleet, which has been decimated by decades of sanctions.

The legislation directs the secretary of the Treasury to certify to Congress that its licenses for commercial aircraft sales to Iran do not pose a money-laundering or terrorism risk. The House also passed an amendment requiring certification that the sale does not benefit anyone who has knowingly transported items used to establish in Syria a permanent military presence of either Iranian military forces or Iranian backed militia.

To make the certification, the Treasury Department must also verify that sales dont benefit any Iranian person who knowingly provided transportation services or material support for Iranian individuals designated under US sanctions.

Advocates of the deal fear that this broad certification requirement would make it politically unfeasible for the Treasury Department to issue licenses for Iranian civilian aircraft sales, since the department would have to certify that no sanctioned Iranian individual flew on a commercial airline. And issuing a license without the accompanying certification could trigger congressional blowback.

Ryan Costello, the assistant policy director at the pro-JCPOA National Iranian American Council-Action advocay group, accused lawmakers of pushing the Treasury Department to suspend or revoke the licenses.

The authors of the legislation know that the [Treasury] secretary would likely be unable to make that certification, Costello told Al-Monitor. Their clear intention is to cancel the sales, even though doing so would harm American security and jobs.

The Treasury Department has already licensed a $17 billion sale of 30 Boeing 777s to Iran Air, an agreement finalized in December 2016. The Barack Obama administration had sanctioned the state-owned airline in 2011 for shipping military equipment to Syria to support Bashar al-Assads regime but removed the designation as part of the JCPOA. Mahan Air, a privately owned Iranian airline, remains under US sanctions for similar alleged activity.

Boeing also agreed to sell 30 Boeing MAX aircraft to Irans Aseman Airlines in April but is still waiting on the Donald Trump administration to issue a license.

Allowing the sale of aircraft also allows our manufacturers to compete for more than $35 billion in new businesses that can support American jobs, Rep. Danny Heck, D-Wash., said ahead of the vote. Boeing operates a large manufacturing site in Hecks home state.

The Treasury Department also must issue licenses for foreign aircraft manufacturers, such as the European firm Airbus, to sell aircraft to Iran if their planes use US parts. In June, Airbus agreed to sell 45 aircraft to Irans Airtour Airline and another 28 to Zagros Airlines.

If we block them, Heck argued, we hand that market to foreign competitors who can restructure their production lines easily to circumvent US regulation and lose the extra insurance weve received from having Americans provide the maintenance and support on those planes.

To date, the Trump administration has yet to issue new licenses for any of the civilian aircraft sales agreed to this year. Furthermore, the legislation would also require the Treasury Department to retroactively certify licenses issued under the Obama administration, prompting the bills opponents to argue that it potentially violates a constitutional provision against retroactively applying a new law to prior activity.

Earlier this year, the House passed an amendment to an annual House spending bill that would outright ban the sale of civilian aircraft to Iran. However, the provision is not in the Senate appropriations bill and its final passage is tenuous as Republicans and Democrats must still agree upon a final spending deal for 2018.

Another Iran bill, which the House passed 289-135 on Wednesday, also garnered substantial Democratic opposition and faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

The Iranian Leadership Asset Transparency Act, introduced by Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, would require the Treasury Department to publicly report on the assets and money-laundering activities of sanctioned Iranian officials and post its findings in Farsi, Azeri, Arabic and English. The House passed a similar bill last year, prompting the Obama White House to issue a veto threat. The Senate, however, did not advance that bill.

The true purpose of this legislation is to create reputational risk for companies that might seek to do legitimate business with Iran, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, argued ahead of the vote. For this reason, the bill would be a strategic mistake as its report would undoubtedly be seized upon by Iran as an international effort to discourage international investment.
December 13, 2017

Despite financial difficulties, lack of staff and government support, the BuSSy (Look) art performance project has been encouraging Egyptian women and men to tell their experiences of gender-related issues, abuse and sexual harassment on stage. Storytelling workshops, performances and social activities have been organized across the country since the project started in 2006.

BuSSy seeks to resist social restraints through theater by giving people from different backgrounds and ages the opportunity to share their stories without fear of stereotyping or criticism. The project organizes storytelling workshops where participants are trained on how to tell their stories. Then they go on stage and do just that.

The participants do not act. They are real people with real stories and all they do is tell their stories openly on stage, Sondos Shabayek, BuSSy's project director, told Al-Monitor.

The topics that BuSSy has tackled so far vary from sexual harassment, rape, honor crimes, manhood to forced marriages, female genital mutilation, domestic violence and child abuse.

Shabayek said that the idea of launching the project goes back to 2005, after a performance of The Vagina Monologues, an award-winning play by Eve Ensler, at the American University in Cairo. The audience thought that the show was bold but believed it did not truly reflect what Egyptian women face in society. This reaction, Shabayek said, prompted the birth of the BuSSy project.

In 2006, a group of students initiated the BuSSy project, an annual show of real stories by Egyptian women and girls. The first show included a collection of stories submitted by Egyptian women in response to an announcement by the projects founders that read, If you have a story about yourself or a woman that you know, please grab a form and share the story.

The monologues written and narrated by the women tell real stories and challenge what Egyptian society has refused to recognize.

In 2010, the project expanded to include stories by both women and men who were encouraged to speak about their personal experiences in storytelling workshops, and later on stage.

The main aim of the project is to expose to society the real problems that are going on and reflect what is really happening in Egypt in terms of social issues, Shabayek said.

In 2012, the BuSSy project held workshops and shows in different theaters around the capital instead of only one annual show. In 2013-14, the projects founders traveled to different cities across Egypt to hold storytelling workshops and special shows. The BuSSy team has also organized shows in seven governorates, including Cairo, Alexandria and Minya. In addition, workshops and performances have been organized abroad, including in Jordan, Lebanon, France, Sweden, India and the United Kingdom.

Shabayek said that since 2006 more than 56 performances and 20 workshops have taken place as well as the documentation of over 1,000 stories.

During the United Nations campaign "16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence" (Nov. 25-Dec. 10), BuSSy chose to tackle the subject of domestic violence with a one-off show called In_Her_Home with women and men sharing dozens of stories.

The project is expanding although the challenges are growing. Sometimes we do not find places where we can hold our performances as some theaters refuse to schedule our shows. At other times we do not have enough people who can perform, Shabayek said.

BuSSy gave me the opportunity to confront myself and be more courageous and frank. I learned from the project that I have to share my suffering, sadness and pain just like I share my happiness with other people, Omar Hisham, one of the storytellers, told Al-Monitor.

Hisham said that BuSSys workshops, performances and stories are the only place that makes me feel alive. BuSSy helped me accept myself, accept others and love them despite their differences. The project changed me and my life, the young radio announcer said.

Hisham added that during the workshops he managed to tell stories he never thought he could tell. I had different feelings. I never thought that I would tell any of my stories in front of other people whom I do not know and even in front of people I do know, he added.

Maryam Hegab, a trainee and volunteer at BuSSy, said that she has wanted to take part in the BuSSy project for a long time. Now that I have done it, I am happy because I am supporting a place that allows people to express themselves freely, she told Al-Monitor.

Randa Fakhr El Deen, the executive director of Union Against Harmful Practices on Women and Children, said that having spaces where women and men can speak openly about their sufferings and horrible experiences can be of great help to them.

The BuSSy project can have a very positive psychological effect on the people who chose to participate in it and have the guts to stand on stage and fearlessly tell their stories. This can be a kind of psychological therapy, Fakhr El Deen told Al-Monitor.

She also expressed hope that the project expands further with more workshops and performances in Upper Egypt  the southern region of the country where people often hold conservative views about gender and religion. Projects like these can be one of the solutions to the many gender problems in Egyptian society, she added.
December 14, 2017

Just before the 2009 election, the Labor Party candidate for prime minister, Ehud Barak, considered focusing his campaign on the fight against government corruption. These were the final days of the Kadima government led by Ehud Olmert. Olmert would soon be forced to resign because of the criminal investigations into his affairs.

Barak himself led the successful political maneuvering that resulted in Olmert's resignation. It was why he believed that he had a winning campaign. The problem was that in-depth polling showed that government corruption was not a priority for Israeli voters. The truth is that Barak didn't need any polls to reach this conclusion. In 2003, the country voted overwhelmingly for the Likud headed by Ariel Sharon (38 seats), despite the serious criminal cases associated with him, such as the Greek island affair and the Cyril Kern loan. Regardless, people believed that Sharon was the person best suited to steer the country through the security challenges posed by the second intifada (2000-2005). Criminal scandals were not enough to prevent his election.

Now, with 2018 right around the corner, it looks like government corruption, which has popped up everywhere, is the ace that will win the next election. A partial list of the ongoing scandals would include the criminal investigations against the prime minister, but also against other senior Likud members, including Coalition Chairman David Bitan and Welfare Minister Haim Katz. Then there is the criminal investigation into Interior Minister Aryeh Deri of Shas, and reports of the allegedly corrupt political network created by Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, at the taxpayer's expense.

The protests against Netanyahu's corruption have gathered momentum in the last two weeks, ever since they were moved from the sleepy town of Petah Tikva to the heart of Tel Aviv. They are creating the sense that the country is just moments away from the collapse of a corrupt government. The fact that tens of thousands of people have joined these demonstrations testifies to a high level of public involvement. Nevertheless, they draw mainly from the center-left, or what is called, the "anti-Netanyahu" camp. Netanyahu claims that these are actually demonstrations by the left, which wants to bring down his right-wing coalition, and not through the ballot box either. While this is a populist claim, for Netanyahu's voters at least, it is in no way disconnected from reality.

Netanyahu is still seen as the responsible adult in the room, especially after President Donald Trump's declaration concerning Jerusalem.

As of now, the protests against corruption have failed to break through the barrier of political allegiance, at least not according to the polls. They still say that Netanyahu and the Likud will be able to put together the next government. When pollsters ask about Netanyahu's suitability to serve as prime minister, compared with center-left leaders Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid and Avi Gabbay of the Zionist Camp, the results are unequivocal. Despite the criminal investigation and the allegations that he received bribes, Netanyahu has an enormous advantage over both of them. The reasons for this are his considerable political and diplomatic experience, and the relative trust he enjoys for his handling of foreign affairs and security issues. In other words, Netanyahu is still seen as the responsible adult in the room, especially after President Donald Trump's declaration concerning Jerusalem.

Obviously, Gabbay and Lapid, as well as Meretz Chair Zehava Gal-On, are doing what they should as opposition leaders. They are putting up a mirror before the public in an attempt to tell the story of record-breaking government corruption, including attempts to pass laws that would weaken the country's gatekeepers, including the Recommendations Law (preventing police from recommending indictment), and a law to limit the power of the state comptroller.

In the last week, Gabbay, Lapid and Gal-On have shifted gears in their war against corruption. On Dec. 13, for example, Gabbay launched his "State without Corruption" campaign in the Knesset. It is the Zionist Camp's plan to eliminate corruption from politics.

Gabbay's campaign was reminiscent of Lapid's "Nachshon Plan," launched in April to fight public corruption and bolster law enforcement. The Nachshon plan was developed by former police commander Yoav Segalovich (ret.), who led the investigation of Avigdor Liberman when Liberman was foreign minister. Segalovich joined Yesh Atid a year and a half ago and became a prominent symbol of its fight against corruption. To Lapid's credit, it should be pointed out that corruption has long been a core issue for him. Nevertheless, when Gabbay was elected head of the Labor Party in July, Lapid's poll numbers plummeted. In other words, the people would not reward him for his war against corruption. Instead, he was abandoned for the one man who looked like he could bring down Netanyahu, at least at the time.

Lapid has since managed to recover, but not because of his campaign against corruption. Rather, he has Gabbay to thank. The Labor Party leader's mistakes and misstatements caused him considerable harm with his voter base.

Another demonstration against corruption is scheduled for Dec. 16 in Tel Aviv. Judging only on the basis of the previous demonstrations, it should be huge, with the Hanukkah holiday contributing to that as well.

The recent demonstrations are trying to recreate the mood of the "Crooked Politicians: We're Sick of You!" campaign, which led to the fall of the Likud government in 1992 and the election of Yitzhak Rabin. While this is the narrative remembered by the public, it misses the point of what really happened. The government was replaced because Rabin, the candidate of the left, was an experienced security hawk, who offered a diplomatic alternative to (Likud) Yitzhak Shamir's refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians.

At the time, voters, including those on the soft right, trusted Rabin's ability to deal with security matters, but it also connected with him emotionally. The "Crooked Politicians: We're Sick of You!" campaign may have contributed to the mood across the country and the desire for political change, but people also thought that Rabin really was the candidate best suited for the job. Without that, there would never have been a government turnover.

Netanyahu and other senior Likud officials, such as the Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan and former Minister Gideon Saar, have been attacking Gabbay for the last few days over his assertion that the Likud is a corrupt party. Netanyahu, Erdan and Saar know their voters well. Erdan called Gabbay "the head of the movement that invented political corruption: the old Mapai party." He went on to remind everyone that the police interrogated Gabbay under warning as well, and that when he served as general manager of Bezek, he was held under house arrest while the police investigated criminal wrongdoing in the company.

The fight over corruption has yet to break through the barriers of political allegiances, too. Within the Likud and the right, the problem is considered marginal, compared to the possibility of it bringing down the right-wing government. As long as Gabbay and Lapid fail to break past Netanyahu in polls measuring public conceptions of their suitability to serve as prime minister, simply focusing their campaign on government corruption will not be enough.
December 13, 2017

AMMAN, Jordan  Iranian Ambassador to Jordan Mojtaba Ferdosipour has chosen the map of Palestine as a centerpiece for his office, along with a Dome of the Rock miniature. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Ferdosipour said he believes Palestine represents a compass for regional issues, all of which should point toward one enemy, Israel.

Yet, Ferdosipour said, this compass has lost its bearings in recent years, after Arab governments replaced Israel with Iran as their enemy. He also asserted that many Arab peoples do not agree with their leaders in terms of discarding this compass and normalizing relations with Israel.

Iran does not want to take control of the Arab capitals, he said, dismissing the Nov. 19 Arab League foreign ministers meeting, which concluded that Iran's missiles are threatening Arab capitals. The Arab League conclusion was in response to the Houthis launching ballistic missiles at Riyadh on Nov. 4. Ferdosipour denied allegations that Iran was supporting Houthis in Sanaa and supplying them with missiles, but on the other hand said Iran is proud of its support for Lebanese Hezbollah in confronting Israel.

Ferdosipour previously served as director of the Foreign Ministry's Middle East Department and as charge d'affaires in Amman. He also served in the latter capacity in Beirut prior to assuming his current post, in August 2014.

The ambassador said that rumors about his mandate coming to an end were simply that, adding that the Council of Ministers needs to approve any extension of his mandate.

Al-Monitor interviewed Ferdosipour Nov. 22 at his office in Amman and followed up by phone. A transcript of that interview, slightly edited for clarity, follows.

Al-Monitor: Do you expect the Sochi summit, which brought together Iran, Turkey and Russia on Nov. 22, to produce progress in the negotiations on the conflict in Syria?

Ferdosipour: The Sochi summit came against the backdrop of a previous agreement between Russia, Turkey and Iran to find solutions to the Syrian crisis, which established the course of the Astana negotiations. The Sochi summit follows the same course and aims to harvest the fruits of the efforts put into anti-terrorism operations, particularly in Abu Kamal and other areas plagued by terrorists and the Islamic State (IS). This is the beginning of a new chapter for the political solution and the start of joint negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition.

Al-Monitor: Why were countries like the US, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which are actively involved in the Syrian crisis, absent from the Sochi summit?

Ferdosipour: The summit came after a tripartite agreement was reached [in December 2016] between Russia, Turkey and Iran in Moscow [to sponsor an agreement between the Syrian regime and the opposition]. If some parties were not present, this does not mean they are absent from the consensus. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to leaders from Egypt, the US and Saudi Arabia over the phone. Communication channels are always open between all parties when it comes to reaching political solutions after military operations.

Al-Monitor: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri returned to Lebanon on Nov. 21 after announcing his resignation [as prime minister] from Saudi Arabia, accusing Iran of spreading violence in the region. However, reports suggested that Saudi Arabia had forced Hariri to resign after his rapprochement with Iran. What do you think about this?

Ferdosipour: The media highlighted the fact that Hariri's resignation was forced upon him by Saudi Arabia. What we heard during the resignation speech were either forced or politicized words. It is important for us to hear the right words without any kind of coercion.

It is our policy in Lebanon to communicate with all parties. When the senior adviser to the supreme leader on international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, last visited Lebanon, on Nov. 3, he held a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hariri at the presidential palace, during which many common issues were put forward. Hariri himself was even supportive of the Iranian ideas regarding a solution for the Syrian crisis. This seems to have upset some parties, and Hariri was indeed forced into resigning because of a political stance and not because of financial corruption, as some reported.

Over the past decades we have tried to keep our relationship with all parties in Lebanon flexible, and we have always believed that supporting security and stability in Lebanon can only be achieved by supporting all parties in the political arena, without leaving out any religion or sect, or else we would be making a big mistake.

Those who think that Hezbollah should be pushed out of the [Lebanese] political arena and marginalized are mistaken. We advise all regional parties to realize that maintaining Lebanon's security and stability can only happen if all concerned parties reach a single vision and cooperate to strengthen their relations. All foreign parties need to support this idea.

"Iran's presence and its support for the resistance in the region aim to maintain Arab security, threatened by the common enemy. We are all in the same boat when it comes to confronting the Israeli enemy."

Al-Monitor: How do you perceive the Arab Leagues position regarding Iran's missiles, how they pose a threat to Arab capitals and support terrorist groups?

Ferdosipour: This is neither accurate nor worthwhile. The Arab League meeting hinted at Iran wanting to occupy and control Arab capitals, but we completely reject all allegations regarding missiles. Iran does not support the Houthis and Ansar Allah in Sanaa. There is no way to reach Sanaa, and even if there were, Iran would only bring food to support the people of Yemen, but there is no outlet to deliver food and aid. So how were we supposed to give Ansar Allah large quantities of missiles?

Those missiles are locally manufactured by the Yemeni army, and Iran has nothing to do with them. Tittle-tattle about exporting Iranian ballistic missiles and weapons to Ansar Allah to strike Saudi Arabia is a lie.

The Yemeni crisis must be resolved through a political solution. The military solution is utterly unacceptable here. All Yemeni parties should hold negotiations supervised by the United Nations in order to resolve their internal problems. We have spoken to the UN secretary-general in this regard, and we have repeatedly declared initiatives for a cease-fire, humanitarian aid for Yemen and a joint political dialogue to legitimize the Yemeni government without interference from outside parties.

Al-Monitor: Lets go back to Hezbollah. Who would benefit from disbanding this party?

Ferdosipour: Israel would benefit the most. There is no doubt about it. We have heard Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah say that Hezbollah did not send weapons to any Arab country except to the Palestinians in Gaza to support them in their wars against the Israelis. He also stressed that his movement has never supported the Yemenis, but participated in the fight against terrorism in Syria, which comes in the context of maintaining Lebanons security and stability, since IS made its way to the Lebanese border. Everyone agrees on the need to fight terrorism and eliminate IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, since both groups are on the UNs blacklist.

Al-Monitor: But there is a difference over the definition of terrorism. Is there anyone who fears the presence of Iranian forces and Shiite militias in Syria? How strong is the Iranian presence in Syria?

Ferdosipour: Iran has a legitimate presence in both Iraq and Syria. Iranian military advisers only intervene at the request of the legitimate regime and government. When the Iraqi and Syrian legitimate regimes tell us to leave, we will, no questions asked. We have proudly supported the Syrian and Iraqi armies in fighting terrorism, and we never took this issue lightly. Other parties were not quite honest in their actions. Unfortunately, whenever IS was besieged in the Syrian regions, the US would come in and safely move the group to other areas.

Al-Monitor: There are Jordanian and Arab concerns about a route connecting Tehran to Beirut through Iraq and Damascus. Is Iran really working on this route?

Ferdosipour: We have put a lot of money toward fighting the common enemy of the Arab Islamic world, Israel. Iran's presence and its support for the resistance in the region aim to maintain Arab security, threatened by the common enemy. We are all in the same boat when it comes to confronting the Israeli enemy. So why are there concerns about our presence? We have always insisted that our enemy is the Zionist entity, represented by the brutal occupation of Palestine.

We are not afraid to say that we support Hezbollah toward the liberation of Palestine, especially since Hezbollah succeeded in liberating Lebanese territories in the south in 2000 with Iranian support.

We are not ashamed of supporting Hezbollah in fighting Israel. Why does Iran need this route? To support Hezbollah in order to combat the Israeli occupation. We are proud of this because it does not target any Arab country or people, because we have always opposed the interference of foreign parties in Arab affairs.

Al-Monitor: We are seeing a rapprochement, albeit unpublicized, between Saudi Arabia and Israel. How do you view this?

Ferdosipour: Instead of [Arab countries] treating Israel as the enemy, Iran is taking the blow. Many peoples do not agree with their leaders in this regard. The decisions to normalize relations with the Israelis are made by governments and palaces and not by the people themselves.

Al-Monitor: Is this Israeli-Saudi rapprochement an attempt to confront Iran?

Ferdosipour: No, this is not true. Israel is afraid of going to war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. So how will it fight Iran? Most recently, the Israeli chief of staff, Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, said, on Nov. 16, that Saudi Arabia will not nag us into a war with Iran and will not wage proxy wars. If Israel cant even attack Hezbollah and fears its capacities, how could it wage war on Iran? War will not stop at the border. It will extend beyond the settlements.

In the end, if Israel does not want to engage in a war with Iran, how can Saudi Arabia want otherwise? This is mere media buzz.

Al-Monitor: Jordanian-Iranian relations are not at their best currently. Has Iran tried to reopen communication channels with Jordan?

Ferdosipour: We do not beg to rebuild relations. When the doors to promote and consolidate economic relations open, for example, between Iran and Jordan, the Jordanian side will benefit the most. The Iranian market consists of 80 million people while the Jordanian market comprises about 9 million people. In addition, the quality provided by the industrial sector in Jordan does not compare with that available in Iran.

When I took office in 2014, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani asked me to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries. It is necessary to move in this right direction, since Jordan's security is important for Irans security and vice versa.

There should be joint political committees between the two parties. We honestly hope to strengthen our economic relations as well. After the fight against terrorism, we must focus on the stability of the region by establishing a joint economic committee, especially since [the region] is suffering under terrorism as well as intellectual and economic extremism. The financial and intellectual resources of terrorism must be drained, as much as we must fight poverty and unemployment by strengthening economic relations.

For instance, we should find a common railway. There are over 350 million Muslims in Central Asia and the Caucasus, along with Turkey and Iraq, which means there is half a billion people, 1 billion of whom will need transportation to perform the umrah and hajj. Iran has extended a railway to southern Iraq, and it can be connected to the holy city through the Tarbil or Aqaba crossings. This will help toward the problem of unemployment, as the railway will require a significant labor force.

There is also a second project that consists of an electrical line connecting Central Asia, the Caucasus, China and the Arab world, after which we can consider an oil and gas project, in order to eventually overcome all obstacles.

However, some countries are preventing the Jordanian government from having ties with Iran. I have information that the Jordanian government began economic cooperation by forming economic committees between Iraq and Jordan. In 2015, Iran and Jordan agreed to form joint economic committees, but after Saudi-Iranian ties went up in flames, the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was shut down, and the Jordanian ambassador to Tehran was summoned in 2016, the committees suspended their work.

Al-Monitor: Jordan fears the presence of Iranian forces and Hezbollah near the Jordanian border. How do you view this concern?

Ferdosipour: We have always stayed in touch with the Kingdom of Jordan, and we have supported it in Astana in order for it to become an observer member. The Jordanians attended the seven rounds of negotiations, and the issue of borders was on the table. Even when the tripartite agreement between Russia, the US and Jordan, began to reduce the escalation in southern Syria, we supported this idea. So I do not understand where such concerns might come from. We need to sit down and have a closed-door dialogue instead of allowing media rumors to influence us.

Al-Monitor: What is Irans take on the US presidents decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and to move the US Embassy there?

Ferdosipour: Iran strongly condemned Trumps Jerusalem move and announced that this decision violates all international conventions issued by the United Nations on Palestine and Jerusalem. As soon as the US decision was announced, thousands of people across Iran gathered in support of the Palestinian cause and of Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine, while denouncing the US policies.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit held in Turkey Dec. 13 that the US recognition proves to those who believe in the US positive role to solve the Palestinian crisis that the US only thinks about the interests of the Zionist entity and does not respect the legitimate rights of the Palestinians.

Rouhani further stressed during the summit the importance of the Palestinian causes return to the scene as a central issue in the region, especially after IS was defeated in Iraq and Syria. He also emphasized the need for the UN Security Council and General Assembly to reject Trumps decision.
December 14, 2017

ALEPPO, Syria  On Dec. 1, the military council of the town of Marea  located in an Euphrates Shield area in the northern Aleppo countryside  opened the Towayhina business crossing, near Towayhina village. The crossing links areas held by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces southeast of the city.

Merchants in Euphrates Shield areas were satisfied with the decision to inaugurate the Towayhina crossing, given its central location, proximity to the regime-held areas in Aleppo and trade convoys easy access to Aleppo's western countryside areas and Idlib both of which are under the oppositions control. Also, the tariffs imposed on goods are lower than those imposed at other crossings in the Euphrates Shield areas, such as Em Jlud crossing, south of Ghandoura town, and Al-Shat crossing, west of Azaz city.

The Marea military council  which supervises the management of the crossing  is composed of several Free Syrian Army (FSA) factions, namely Al-Jabha al-Shamiya, Al-Mutasim Brigade, the Mustapha Regiment, and Al-Safwa Islamic Battalion. Mareas city council also takes part in crossings management, and both councils agreed that financial revenues obtained from tariffs imposed on goods at the Towayhina crossing be divided between them. The local council plans to use its share of the funds to implement service projects in the city, while FSA factions will spend their share to pay the salaries of more than 100 militants affiliated with Mareas military council and who are in charge of securing and managing the traffic at the crossing.

Al-Monitor made a visit to the Towayhina crossing and met with Faisal Abdul Rahman, a member of the crossing supervisory authority  which is affiliated with both councils and includes representatives of the military councils factions. He said, Although it has been only a few days since the inauguration of the crossing, separating the Euphrates Shield areas in the Aleppo countryside from SDF-held areas, southeast of Marea, a good number of trade convoys are using the crossing in both directions. Fuel derivatives, diesel, gasoline and crude oil are brought from SDF areas to Euphrates Shield areas, while food, clothing, cement, iron and industrial machinery enter SDF areas from Euphrates Shield areas, mostly originally brought from Turkey through the Bab al-Salameh crossing.

He anticipated that the flow of trade will increase in the future, given the facilities provided at the crossing. He said, Modest tariffs are imposed on goods and commodities passing through the crossing, and fees imposed on trucks carrying food are not that high. [For instance], a fee of around $100 is imposed on a vehicle driving towards the SDF areas and carrying 20 tons, while $200 is imposed on trucks coming from the SDF areas and carrying not more than 20 tons in fuel products. Such amounts, equal to half the sum imposed by other crossings in the Euphrates Shield area, are suitable for traders.

Al-Monitor also spoke to Mahmoud Shami near the crossing. Shami, who has a truck full of food items, namely ghee, sunflower oil, olive oil, sugar and biscuits, was waiting for his turn to enter through the crossing. He said, I am heading to Raqqa, carrying a heavy load of food products. It is going to be a short and easy trip. Now, I do not have to enter the city of Afrin, and unload the truck to have the goods inspected as happens every time at Al-Shat crossing, west of Azaz city. Things are different at the Towayhina crossing. I don't have to pass through the large cities and nearby checkpoints; I will be avoiding the long lines caused by the inspections and security measures.

The inauguration of additional business crossings in the Euphrates Shield areas could promote further competition among FSA factions that seek to obtain financial gains from these crossings to promote their influence in these areas and pay their fighters their salaries. Nevertheless, the Towayhina crossing administration told Al-Monitor that this crossing is different, as the largest share of revenues will be used to provide services to citizens in Marea city and nearby small villages, under the local councils supervision. Addtionally, FSA factions will only receive a small share to pay the factions for the security measures and for regulating the work at the crossing.

Abdel Fattah Nasser, a member of the local councils media office, told Al-Monitor that the crossings daily revenues do not exceed $5,000. He said, The daily financial revenues will hopefully grow bigger in the future to reach $20,000. Mareas local council intends to implement a series of projects designed to provide services, such as paving roads within the city, repairing sewer networks, expanding potable water supply network, and renovating schools and bakeries.

Will Mareas military council fulfill the promise of having the largest share of the Towayhina crossings financial revenues used in the provision of public services to citizens? Will the new crossing continue to skip out on rivalries among the factions? Knowingly, the crossings were one of the reasons behind earlier fighting between FSA factions in the Euphrates Shield area.

The Euphrates Shield areas' citizens do not believe that the FSA factions are serious about usng revenues for the provision of services. They argue that Marea military council seeks to grant the crossing more legitimacy via such promises. Many citizens also perceive that the FSA seeks to inaugurate additional business crossings to obtain more funds and avoid any collapse in case the Military Operation Room suspended its financial support.
December 14, 2017

Without knowing or planning it, the decision by US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has resulted in renewed interest in Palestine and brought back to the top of the agenda the question of Jerusalem.

George Irani, a social science professor at the American University of Kuwait, told Al-Monitor that Trumps decision helped bring the world to Palestine's side. With his foolish decision, Trump has rallied the global community with Palestinians.

Khaled Abu Arafeh, a former minister of Jerusalem Affairs during the short-lived Ismail Haniyeh government in 2006, told Al-Monitor that because Palestine is the weak party in the conflict, it needs to find ways to keep its struggle alive. Because of our weakness, we need to always find ways to sustain our just cause through adherence to international law.

Abu Arafeh believes that what is required is a continuous effort in various formats to keep public opinion informed and active. Our cause is historically and religiously just. So when our just cause is violated, we need to make sure local, regional and international public is constantly made aware of this injustice.

Botrus Mansour, a Palestinian lawyer and citizen of Israel, told Al-Monitor that through his declaration, Trump did put the Palestinian issue in the news again" after the Syrian, Iranian, North Korean matters had been in the forefront earlier. However, Mansour, who is the director of the Nazareth Baptist School, questioned whether Palestinians can use this to their advantage. The question is whether Palestinians will be able to leverage this opportunity, which I doubt, in light of the current political balance of power in the region.

Dozens of protests took place in Jordan when Deputy Prime Minister Mamdouh al-Abadi said Dec. 7 that people should go out in the streets to demonstrate, and the Jordanian parliament took the unusual step of revisiting agreements with Israel that had been untouchable before.

Millions of posts such as Arab Jerusalem and hashtags such as #JerusalemIsTheCapitalofPalestine have been trending on social media in English and Arabic. Protests have erupted in faraway locations and have included people from different walks of life.

The unexpected nature of this gift from Washington has been reflected in many ways. Local, regional and international demonstrations have taken place, and emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have been held. In a number of locations, it appears that both the governments and the public at large are acting in unison. When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke forcefully against the US move, local religious and political leaders in Bethlehem announced that they will not welcome visiting US Vice President Mike Pence.

The decision to boycott Pence, who stood behind Trump when he made his statement on Jerusalem, started in Ramallah and spread to Bethlehem and Cairo with Coptic Pope Tawadros II and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb publicly saying they will not meet with Pence during his upcoming visit to the region.

But while the powerful reaction has been heartwarming to Palestinians, many concede that it produced higher media attention but are not sure that it should be called a gift.

The Rev. Rifat Bader, director of the Catholic Center for Studies and Media in Jordan, told Al-Monitor that Trumps Jerusalem statement is not a gift even if it has had positive results. This is not a gift, although God can produce good out of evil.

Bader conceded that by crossing the red line of Jerusalems status, the US president has failed to understand the importance of Jerusalem. It is true that by his decision, the US president has revived the Palestinian cause and has helped prove its importance. It has united the world, including Muslims and Christians.

Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, is not that impressed with the public attention given to the issue of Jerusalem since Trumps declaration. I dont consider that Trump gave Palestinian a gift at least, not unless Palestinians and other parties take very active steps to turn Trumps decision into a real opportunity to wholly restructure the peace process.

Sayigh believes that what Palestinians need is a serious strategy and not just an emotional response. My main focus is on the Palestinian need for a political strategy, not just short-term responses. I dont see a strategy emerging  that is why I see little hope.

Mahdi Abdul Hadi, founder of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem, is also concerned about how the Palestinian leadership will leverage the current situation. President Abbas has now some breathing room, but this will not last long. We cant survive just on speeches and strong words. We need strong political will, plans, strategies and budgets.

Abdul Hadi is concerned that there is now a generational gap, with young people constituting a majority and having different outlooks and goals. The youth, who constitute 60% of our society, today are leaning toward a post-national approach. They dont care anymore about one state or two states. They just want their rights; they want to live in dignity.

Abdul Hadi believes that while Palestinians appreciate the public attention and solidarity, they are concerned about how all this will affect the future. Yes, Palestinians are very angry and appreciate the solidarity of the world, but [they] are aware that the day after, they will be left alone and will have to continue the struggle daily, challenging the Israeli colonization of their homeland.

Palestinians and their supporters have clearly put aside, temporarily, their differences to stand up for Jerusalem. The big question that remains is whether this is a temporary emotional outburst or whether it can be leveraged to improve the lot of Jerusalemites and improve the Palestinian negotiating position.
December 15, 2017

MOSCOW  Mohammed Siyala, the foreign minister of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), came to Moscow this week for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. While Syria has been occupying center stage of Russias Middle East agenda, Moscow has never ceased its activities in Libya since it became involved in the peace process in mid-2014 and began building contacts with multiple Libyan factions.

The Lavrov-Siyala meeting Dec. 12 focused on prospects for resolving the disputes of rival factions in Libya under the UN action plan. They also discussed the prospects of Russia shortly reopening/returning its embassy to Tripoli. The ministers expressed interest in restoring full trade and economic partnerships as the situation in the country normalizes.

Before Moammar Gadhafi was toppled, Russian companies had lucrative energy contracts in Libya. Moscow wants those back, while Libyan authorities see Russian businesses as key to restoring the country. Some Russian companies, such as oil giant Rosneft, have already received permission to operate in Libya. Speaking to Kommersant newspaper, Siyala said the GNAs newly formed Presidential Guard is prepared to guarantee the safety of such companies employees. He also mentioned that Libyans expect Russia to finish construction of the $4 billion, 500-kilometer (311-mile) railroad connecting Sirte and Benghazi, and that the line might even be extended both to the east, to Egypt, and west, to Tunisia.

Moscow is still concerned about two Russian sailors  members of the international crew of the Temeteron tanker detained in Libya in June 2016  who remain in custody on charges of oil smuggling. Siyala promised to expedite legal proceedings but said the rest will fall under a courts jurisdiction.

In March, the Libyan Coast Guard captured the Russian MV Merle bulk carrier suspected of being involved in smuggling scrap metal. Proceedings necessary to return the ship to its Russian owner are underway.

It was the capture of the Russian Mikhail Chebotarev tanker in September 2015 that caused Moscow to form the Russian Contact Group on Libya  a joint initiative by the Foreign Ministry and the State Duma. The group is composed of military experts and parliament members and is broadly supported by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. The groups activity is directed by Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Adam Delimkhanov, Chechnyas representative in parliament.

The contact group, led by Lev Dengov, who in his current role is also an adviser to Kadyrov, has become Russias primary political tool in working on Libyan issues. The group organized visits to Russia for all major figures in the Libyan conflict.

Siyalas trip was yet another step by Moscow to build further ties with the Tripoli-based GNA while continuing to preserve balanced partnerships with other major parties.

Following the Lavrov-Siyala meeting, Dengov told Al-Monitor that Russia currently has no timeline for its Libya policies except for implementing the Skhirat agreement, a UN-backed pact signed Dec. 17, 2015, in Skhirat, Morocco, to form the GNA.

Theres simply no alternative to the pact, said Dengov. All of our activity in Libya is meant to demonstrate we are ready to contribute to the settlement process in this country. We welcome efforts by the UN envoy on Libya, Ghassan Salame, who is working hard [and has taken] some critical steps toward the settlement process. His action plan was adopted by the UN Security Council, including Russia. Its now our major objective to help the parties settle their disagreements, ensure implementation of the Skhirat agreements and negotiate the issue of holding elections, he added.

Asked about Russias own interest and stake in the process, Dengov said Libya is a vital strategic point for Africa, for the Middle East, for Europe and for Eurasia.

Europe, especially its Mediterranean part, has been suffering from mass flows of illegal immigrants and from the emergence of new terrorist epicenters. So the [goals] of nipping the terrorist threat in the bud and putting a cap over the migration flow are two of our priorities. Today, the migrants from this region arent posing a direct threat to Russia, but you never know how the migration flows and trends may shift in the near future  they could start heading toward our borders.

Russia has been engaging with southern tribes as a potential way to halt migrants in their tracks. Asked whether this effort has had any success, Dengov said, By now, Russians have established contacts with virtually all southern tribes, with their elders and representatives.

He added, They welcome our outreach to them and they have been incredibly instrumental in the intra-national peace process. What we really want in this kind of work is to avoid an impression of encroaching on their sovereignty. We arent imposing ourselves; we are just offering our ideas. If all the parties welcome us, we are ready to further interact with them all, to facilitate their own interaction among themselves. And such an approach is also helpful in putting a cap on the flows of migrants.

When speaking of the terrorist threat to Libya and the prospects of the Islamic State (IS) relocating there, Dengov voiced his personal opinion that this prospect is unlikely in the immediate term.

There are many other countries  and Im not saying which they are  that are more benevolent for [IS]. Because of its instability, Libya is a desired place for groups like IS, but I dont see it as a threat as of today. The geography and logistics are simply such that its complicated for [IS] to move to Libya that easily.

Despite Rosnefts contract with Libyas National Oil Corp. and purchases of Libyan oil to re-sell, Dengov denied energy resources are a primary incentive.

Russia is a country rich in natural resources and there are countries around Libya that have a far greater need for Libyan oil. Yet its important for Russia to maintain our contacts in energy cooperation because it would ultimately work to strengthen Russia-Libyan relations, he said.

As for what Libya wants from Russia, Dengov insisted that the two major resources Libyans need from us are honesty and fairness.

They have a real deficit in honest partners whose actions speak louder than words. Russia has established such a reputation. They want us to be a guarantor in the structure that they are forming today  the structure of their state, the structure of their power. We could become such a guarantor by providing security and giving them hope for the future.

Dengov also dismissed the presence of Russian private military contractors (PMCs) in the country. Earlier this year there were reports that Russia had deployed special forces to an air base in western Egypt near the border with Libya, a move the United States deemed as an attempt to support Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the commander of the Libyan National Army.

Indeed, the RSB-Group has been present in Benghazi on demand from a private European company to do mine clearing at a cement factory there. But its not a PMC; neither are there other PMCs or Spetsnaz [special forces] military units, Dengov claimed.

We remain committed to all respective UN resolutions. The same is true for the arms embargo. We are coming to believe that until the Skhirat agreements enter into force, any moves by any [external] party that can lead to dominance of one Libyan group over another can destabilize the situation. We are maintaining [a level] approach to the warring parties, to not tip the fragile balance. In Libya, we dont want to be associated with one party. There are enough conflicts between parties in Libya today to set the country on fire again, so we walk incredibly cautiously.

Dengov said the role of Chechnya and Kadyrov had a special place in the Russian approach to Libya. He reiterated GNA Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeqs September statement about Chechnya being the region whose experience in dealing with terrorism and post-conflict restoration deserves attention.

Kadyrov is a Sunni Muslim who has been rescuing Russian citizens in Libya, Syria and Iraq. He has the experience and he cares for Muslims around the world, defending them from different threats. Libyans see this, they appreciate it and they reach to him. He has been very helpful to the policies of the Russian state there.

Speaking of Russias assessments of the prospects for the Libyan settlement, Dengov concluded, Moscow can make the best of its interaction with all parties, but first and foremost, the Skhirat agreements should be implemented, with whatever modifications the sides deem necessary.

We are being watchful that no one imposes forms or formats that would pressure the parties; they have to agree with one another willingly. But if Russia could help the parties in any way and they call on us to do so, wed be happy to deliver, he concluded.
December 15, 2017

Since the outbreak of war in Syria, Turkeys predicaments have forced it to turn a number of its red lines to yellow lines. Now, Turkey seems to be taking a step back on the Kurdish issue.

A sensitive topic these days is whether the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)  the prime mover behind the push for democratic autonomy in northern Syria  will be invited to the Syrian National Dialogue Congress that Russia is organizing in Sochi. In return for cooperating with Moscow and Tehran in the Astana process, Ankara wants to get dividends on the Kurdish issue. Ankara's two critical demands are known: a green light for a military move on Afrin to uproot affiliates of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the PYDs exclusion from the Sochi congress.

On Dec. 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the seventh time this year, flying to Ankara in a whirlwind regional tour, which also included a visit to Syria's Khmeimim air base, where he ordered the Russian military to begin its withdrawal from the country. According to Deutsche Welles Turkish service, Erdogan reiterated his objections to PYD attendance in Sochi. Putin responded with a proposal for the participation of non-PYD Kurds. Erdogan reportedly raised no objections to this formula. Diplomatic sources who closely followed the meeting say Erdogan and Putin agreed that the Syrian National Dialogue Congress can convene with the participation of Kurds other than the PYD, according to the report.

The two leaders shared few details about their talks in remarks to the press after the meeting. Erdogan spoke of discussions on additional steps in Syria. We will contribute to the Geneva process with the aim of finding a permanent solution in Syria, he said.

Putin said, During the trilateral meeting of the Russian, Iranian and Turkish presidents on Nov. 22 [in Sochi], we reached certain agreements concerning [political settlement in Syria]. Now it is important to go through with them. In particular, we continue to work together on preparations for the Syrian National Dialogue Congress to be held early next year. The plan is for the congress participants to analyze issues  such as future state structure, adopting a constitution and holding constitution-based elections under the supervision of the United Nations.

Referring to the Astana process, Putin added, We continue to maintain the cease-fire and ensure stability in the de-escalation zones and to increase trust between the conflicting parties.  I would like to note the positive contribution of the Turkish Republic and President Erdogan to the reconciliation between the parties.

Russias initial invite list for Sochi included 33 parties and groups. It had extended two invitations to the PYD in terms of separate delegations from Qamishli and Kobani. The Kurds have now changed their approach  both because of the prospect that the PYD would be unable to attend under its own banner and because of its desire to have the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria included as a whole. Members of the self-rule administration are now seeking ways to get around Turkey's objections and ensure the participation of all ethnic elements involved in the autonomy movement, and not only the Kurds. To do so, they have drawn up a list of numerous figures and groups involved in the Democratic Federation rather than institutional parties.

Due to Turkeys reservations, the congress has been twice postponed. Originally scheduled to take place in November, the congress was then postponed to December and now January. The Kurds have adopted a flexible approach that could facilitate Putins efforts.

Abdul Karim Omar, a top foreign relations official in the Jazeera canton, attended the Kurds Dec. 3 meeting with Russian generals in Deir ez-Zor. He told Al-Monitor that the Kurds gave the Russians a list of 140 names representing all communities in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, including Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Chechens and Turkmens. After the initial invitation to the congress in November, he said, officials from Russia's Foreign and Defense ministries visited the region to discuss the issue.

The invitation we received was on the behalf of all communities in the democratic self-rule administration and northern Syria, Omar said. The PYD is only one of the parties in this structure. All meetings, visits and contacts abroad are taking place on the behalf of the democratic self-rule administration.

Underscoring that the self-rule administration comprises various ethnic groups, he added, We have no fixation on attending [the Sochi congress] under the PYD name. We are seeking to attend all international meetings under the name of the self-rule administration.

All 140 people on the list would go to Sochi on behalf of the Democratic Federation, he said, adding that they would seek to attend the Geneva talks and other future meetings as either the self-rule administration or the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.

Asked about any contacts with Damascus on participation in Sochi and Geneva, Omar said, We have absolutely no communication with the regime regarding [any] settlement. Late last year, we had a meeting with the regime at Khmeimim through the mediation of the Russians. The regime, however, was not ready for any settlement. Since then, we have had no meeting with them on a political solution.

The new formula designed for Sochi offers Turkey a dignified, honorable exit as it keeps the PYD away from the spotlight. Yet Ankaras essential aim is to prevent any pro-PKK, self-rule administration from maturing and gaining a de jure status across its border. This, in fact, is what Turkey expects as an end result from its partnership with Russia. At the same time, however, Turkey is aware that a solution excluding actors who control one-third of Syrias territory (under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces) cannot be a real solution and could also pave the way for US entrenchment in the region. This awareness appears to be producing some flexibility.

Meanwhile, one peculiar expectation seems to be softening Ankara. Although the democratic self-rule project has advanced from Iraqi Kurdistan to the western banks of the Euphrates, Ankara has focused its objection on Afrin, as if things will let up once the PYD flag comes down in this particular area. The talk in Ankara is about a scenario in which Damascus takes over Afrin. It may sound like black humor, but a Turkish official knowledgeable on the issue  quoted last week by Haberturk columnist Muharrem Sarikaya  believes that Afrin could change hands overnight. They could suddenly go away one night. The PYD and PKK armed forces could be gone, bag and baggage, with only the local population left, the official said. According to the official, Damascus  with Russias help  would let the PYD know that it wants to take control of Afrin and would appoint its own local administrator. Thus, someone appointed by Damascus would govern Afrin.

One must be quite detached from reality to argue that the PYD or its armed wing, the Peoples Protection Units, could vanish overnight from Afrin. Still, the comments offer an important hint of what Ankara has in mind for a face-saving exit from Syria. There is no doubt that what actually happens in the north will be decided through negotiations. Still, flying the Syrian flag at the border, along with some other symbolic steps, could serve the Kurds as well as the Syrian government, since both of them want Turkey to withdraw all the elements it has thrust into Syria. Having failed to achieve its goals, Ankara could see a surgical operation in Afrin as the way to make an honorable exit from Syria and start rebuilding bridges with Damascus.
December 15, 2017

Nothing could better represent how Turkeys pro-government elements see the result of the extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that convened in Istanbul on Dec. 13 than the impassioned editor-in-chief of pro-government daily Yeni Safak, Ibrahim Karagul.

In his assessment of the summit, he wrote: The US greatest outburst aimed at the region was thwarted by Turkey, with a major reaction rising from Istanbul, displaying a defiance. The Jerusalem crisis is no longer a crisis between Turkey and Israel, but has turned into a show of force between Turkey and the US. This is a geopolitical showdown. In this aspect, the matter, the fight is not limited to Jerusalem. It is the signal of new activity aimed at the entire region.

This is a historic attitude, a stance, an identity and an investment in regional resistance. The summit and the decision taken on Jerusalem is the harshest and most determined response to the US and Israels attempt to take the region hostage through the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, Karagul added.

While Karagul does not have a reputation for accuracy of his reports or analyses, he is known as one of the most passionate supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and is seen as accurately reflecting the feelings of Erdogan supporters.

Karagul is not the only one who saw a stunning foreign policy success for Erdogan. Though much more reserved in their assessment, many other Turkish columnists hailed the importance of the OICs final communique after the Istanbul summit. The leaders recognized East Jerusalem as Palestines capital. These columnists also emphasized the last-minute endorsement of Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, who was not present in Istanbul but represented by a junior minister.

For anybody who is knowledgeable about the Palestinian problem and Middle East politics, all such reactions show the poor quality of Turkish journalism when it comes to international politics. President Donald Trumps decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem can be seen as a provocative foreign policy blunder or, to say the least, an ill-advised foreign policy decision. However, by itself it does not preclude a two-state solution, which, if ever reached, entails an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In this respect, no resolution speaking of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state is a heavy blow to US policy. As much as Trumps policy lacks ingredients to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital remains fictitious.

In regard to Salmans endorsement of the resolution, the Arab Peace Plan of 2002 to which the Arab world still subscribes carries the stamp and signature of Saudi Arabia. Thus, there is nothing extraordinary in Salmans endorsement of the OICs final communique that did not go beyond the Saudi-sponsored Arab Peace Plan of 2002.

To assess the impact of the OICs Istanbul gathering and thereby the influence of Erdogan, the level of participation could serve as a better measure. Among the 56 member states of the OIC (Syria was expelled), 16 were represented by their heads of state.

It is hard to describe this picture as an impressive display of Islamic solidarity on the Jerusalem move.

Moreover, the presence of two figures captured the attention of the international media: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The former is wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Court. This was the first time he had appeared in Turkey since 2009. Erdogan had defended Bashir against the charges in 2009, saying that a Muslim could not commit genocide.

Apart from the problematic presence of the Sudanese president, Maduros presence could be seen as Erdogan's snubbing the United States.

A more interesting development was US National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMasters remarks on Turkey, which cast a shadow on Turkeys display of influence at the Istanbul summit.

Speaking about radical Islamist ideology at a meeting in Washington with the British think tank Policy Exchange, McMaster said, We didnt pay enough attention to how its [radical Islamist ideology] being advanced through charities, madrassas [Muslim schools] and other social organizations.  [It] is now done more by Qatar, and by Turkey." He also claimed Turkey's growing problems with the West were largely a result of the rise of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

As important as the substance of what he said, it is noteworthy that those words came from McMaster, who is seen as the sober mind of the current American administration.

In the same speech, McMaster announced that Trump will roll out a new national security strategy Dec. 18 and that it will be based on four vital strategic interests for the United States.

His remarks drew an immediate response from the Turkish Foreign Ministry. "National Security Adviser McMaster's baseless claims are far beyond reality, astonishing and unacceptable," said the ministry's statement.

According to the pro-government Daily Sabah, the US National Security Council, apparently in an attempt to do damage control and to assuage Ankaras anger, reiterated its commitment to a strategic partnership with Turkey. The U.S. said Wednesday [Dec. 13] it is committed to its strategic partnership with Turkey to bring stability to the region and defeat terrorism in all its forms amid a row sparked by comments from a senior Trump administration official, the report said.

A National Security Council spokesman told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity, "We appreciate Turkey's efforts to increase its border security, stem the flow of foreign fighters through its territory and fight on the ground to clear [the Islamic State] from key towns in Syria,"

However, considering Turkeys performance during the OIC Istanbul summit and McMasters recent remarks, a train crash between Ankara and Washington is more likely than the two erstwhile but estranged allies' cementing their strategic partnership.
By PTI: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Dec 15 (PTI) The Pakistani Army is the arsonist in Afghanistan which also wants to be part of the fire brigade, a former top Pakistani diplomat has said.

The remarks by Husain Haqqani, Pakistans former Ambassador to the US, came as several American experts highlighted the role of the Army in the countrys decision.

advertisement

Haqqani said Pakistan was an ally of convenience during the Cold War, but Pakistans main objective to compete with India has never been an American objective.

"Therefore, American and Pakistani interests in the region dont really coincide," Haqqani said.

"Another objective gets undermined as well, and that is that America, at some point, wants to leave that region, and it wants to hand over authority to a strong and stable Afghanistan government, which is not constantly confronted by the Taliban on a daily basis," he told Cipher Brief.

"The problem is that the Pakistani military also sustains the very Taliban who it tells the Americans it will help fight. They are the arsonist and also want to be part of the fire brigade. That is the real complication," he said.

According to Bill Milam, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, for almost the entire period of Pakistan?s independence, the Army has been a significant factor in its political life.

"In recent years, the Pakistani military has used a variety of methods to squeeze the operating space of the civilian governments," said Dan Markey from the Johns Hopkins University. PTI LKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---
December 14, 2017

Standing in a US military air hangar amid a tableau of alleged Iranian missile parts, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called out Tehran in strong terms today for destabilizing behavior throughout the Middle East but provided little clarity on how Washington would respond.

The announcement drew together missile fuselages allegedly fired on Saudi Arabia in July and November by the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen, combined with diagrams and markings that US officials said confirmed their Iranian origin. Haley said the decision to declassify the evidence came as part of the Donald Trump administrations effort to call out Irans support for proxies across the region.

We did this for a single urgent purpose, because Irans regime cannot be allowed to engage in this lawless behavior anymore, Haley said.

US officials believe that the Houthis used a type of missile to target Saudi Arabia in November not yet seen in the yearslong conflict. The Saudi air force used US-built Patriot missile batteries to shoot down the alleged Iranian Qiam-1 missile over King Fahd International Airport, near Dammam, a major oil production center. US officials said that the weapons displayed today were missing large stabilizer fins that are present on other short-range ballistic missiles.

While Haley called for UN action to disrupt the alleged Iranian weapons pipeline to Yemen, she provided reporters with no new information that indicated how the missiles got into the country despite an ongoing Saudi-led embargo.

Previously, Houthi forces, which are believed by the United States to receive training and equipment from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), used Scud-B and Scud-C missiles to attempt to strike Riyadh.

Todays announcement comes on the heels of a UN report that indicates Iran could be violating a handful of Security Council resolutions by trafficking arms near the Gulf of Oman and allowing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGCs Quds Force, to travel to the battlefield in Iraq and Syria. The report also found that Iran had possibly participated in the transfer of ballistic missile parts to Houthi rebels in Yemen. Those findings served as a key basis of Haleys presentation.

Though the nuclear deal, signed under the Barack Obama administration, did not explicitly cover Irans ballistic missile program or alleged support for terrorist groups, the UN Security Council resolution endorsing the pact does call upon Iran to end those activities.

"When the president said that there were problems, these are the problems that he was talking about, Haley said. Its hard to find a conflict or a terrorist group in the Middle East that doesnt have Irans fingerprints all over it.

She indicated that the Pentagon also planned to declassify Iranian-marked weapons used in conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Yet beyond accounting for alleged evidence of Iranian malfeasance, Haley did not make clear how the Trump administration would respond. International delegations and members of Congress will soon view the missile fragments, and Haley cited Trumps October decision to kick the nuclear deal back to Congress, and the UN report on the Yemen projectiles, as evidence that the United States was preparing a tougher response.

Its not clear when that will be coming. Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in October that Irans supply of missiles to the Shiite rebels in the conflict could constitute direct military aggression on par with an act of war, but Pentagon officials have not indicated that Washington is preparing to respond to the November attack.

Earlier this week, Congress missed a key deadline to easily reimpose sanctions frozen under the nuclear deal. Speaking at a Washington conference this week, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster called Tehran a rogue regime and said the United States will need to counter destabilizing activity, especially in Syria.
Android 8.0 Oreo will soon be hitting Motorolas Moto X4 in the form of an over-the-air update, with its changelog leaking online earlier today, having originally been obtained by TechDroider. According to the Lenovo-owned companys release notes, the next OTA package for the Moto X4 will debut the latest major iteration of Googles operating system and the December security patch. The changelog itself only appears to pertain to the regular Moto X4, whereas the Moto X4 Android One is supported separately of this particular model. The existence of what appear to be finalized release notes suggests the launch of Android 8.0 Oreo for the Moto X4 is imminent and the phone maker is likely to share more details on the matter in the coming days.

Motorola has a somewhat inconsistent track record when it comes to updating its contemporary devices but has been working to improve this aspect of its operations, with the Moto X4 being set to become one of the first devices to make a jump to Android 8.0 Oreo. Likewise, the handset will also run Android P before most of its alternatives, largely thanks to Motorolas collaboration with Google that resulted in the Moto X4 launching as part of the Android One initiative. Googles has been promoting its pure Android program in a more aggressive manner in recent times but has only now started a more serious push in the West, with Motorolas mid-ranger being one of the most attractive Android One devices stateside consumers can presently purchase.

The jump to Android 8.0 Oreo will allow the Moto X4 to take advantage of a variety of new features like notification dots, full-fledged picture-in-picture mode, and a robust system for granular control of notifications. Minor user interface tweaks and performance optimizations are also part of the package, as are a built-in autofill framework, new emoji, improved boot speeds, and enhanced Instant Apps support, with this particular functionality now being enabled by default. Google just recently wrapped up the development of Android 8.1 Oreo that was pushed to all four Pixel smartphones and eligible Nexus-branded devices, though the majority of third-party handsets and tablets are likely to circumvent this incremental OS upgrade.
Huawei and Xiaomi are presently negotiating smartphone retail partnerships with a number of U.S. wireless carriers including Verizon and AT&T, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the discussions. The two Chinese original equipment manufacturers are said to be primarily interested in launching their Android flagships in the country and are hoping to do so next year. Mid-range and entry-level offerings arent part of the talks and the focus on premium devices is likely related to the fact that the U.S. is the largest flagship market on the planet. The negotiations are still in an early phase and no concrete agreements have yet been reached, sources claim, adding that the Chinese phone makers may still fail to find enough common ground with mobile service providers.

Huawei already launched its 2016 Mate 9 flagship through Amazon in the United States and is likely to do the same with the recently announced Mate 10 next year, yet the company must win support from national wireless carriers if it hopes to gain a remotely significant share of the market. While phone subsidies have been eroding in the U.S. wireless industry over the years, telecoms are still offering two-year financing plans and are hence selling much more mobile devices than retailers, with only a minority of American consumers paying full phone prices upfront. Huawei and AT&T were already in talks over selling the Mate 10 in the U.S. earlier this year, according to previous reports, but its currently unclear whether the scope of their discussions expanded because of Xiaomis strengthening interest in the same market or another reason.

Huawei and Xiaomis ambitions to gain a significant stateside foothold may initially be hampered by the general lack of their brand awareness in the country but that state of affairs isnt likely to discourage the two tech giants who are aiming for long-term profits. While the Trump administrations protectionist policy created an economic climate that isnt conducive to foreign companies successfully entering the United States, both are believed to be willing to risk doing so. In Xiaomis case, a major U.S. entry would likely help propel its rumored IPO even further, while Huawei must establish itself in the country if it hopes to realize its often repeated aspiration to become the worlds largest smartphone manufacturer, i.e. surpass Apple and Samsung in terms of mobile device sales and shipments.
Huaweis P11 Android flagship is likely to launch in the first quarter of the year, industry insider Roland Quandt said earlier this week, citing a German division of the company that said its preparing to launch exciting new products in early 2018, adding that its offerings will be specifically focused on artificial intelligence technologies and mobile photography. With the P10 and P10 Plus being introduced at Mobile World Congress 2017, their successors may follow suit and also make their premiere appearance at the next iteration of the Barcelona, Spain-based trade show which is starting on February 26th.

Huaweis upcoming flagship duo is likely to succeed the relatively bezel-less aesthetic of the Mate 10 series that the Chinese tech giant introduced this fall but is also said to debut some changes in the photography department, with recent rumors pointing to an unconventional triple-camera setup. The Shenzhen-based original equipment manufacturer is said to have opted for a 40-megapixel main sensor and an iPhone X-like notch, though the reports about the device are still scarce, with their reliability hence remaining dubious. Basic specs of the Huawei P11 are yet to be leaked but shouldnt be difficult to guess, with the company traditionally equipping its P-series devices as smaller but equally capable alternatives to their most recent Mate-branded counterparts. Assuming Huaweis product strategy remains unchanged, the P11 and P11 Plus will be powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 970 and up to 6GB of RAM, with their base models presumably starting at 64GB of internal flash memory expandable with a microSD card.

The Kirin 970 is the most advanced chip ever produced by Huaweis subsidiary and its first silicon to feature a Neural Processing Unit solely dedicated to AI applications. The Mate 10 lineup already debuted a number of such services encompassing everything from advanced imaging capabilities to intelligent battery optimization and the P11 series should at the very list come with support for the same solutions, though its likely to expand on them. While the P11 Lite is also expected to be released at some point next year, its currently unclear whether its meant to debut alongside its flagship siblings in Q1 2018 or launch at a later date.
Samsung and LG are planning to debut new entry-level and mid-range offerings at the upcoming iteration of Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show, ET News reported on Friday, without citing any specific sources. The worlds largest phone maker is reportedly planning to use CES 2018 to showcase the Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8 Plus, its widely reported successors to the Galaxy A5 (2017) and Galaxy A7 (2017). LG is bringing its new entry-level models to the trade show and will present them as the latest additions to the LG K lineup which will be marketed as the LG X series in South Korea and be released in late January, insiders say.

The Galaxy A8 and Galaxy A8 Plus are both set to succeed the bezel-free design of Samsungs recently released flagships but will feature an Infinity Display with an 18:9 aspect ratio instead of an even taller 18.5:9 one. Bixby support is also rumored to be part of the package, together with a physical button solely dedicated to activating Samsungs artificial intelligence assistant. Sources claim Samsungs prototypes wont support Bixby Voice at the trade show, though that particular functionality should be implemented by the time theyre released given how Samsung already debuted the English version of the voice-enabled service. The bezel-less aesthetic resulted in the removal of a physical Home button from Samsungs new mid-rangers and prompted the company to equip them with rear-mounted fingerprint readers. The new Galaxy-branded Android phones will both support Samsung Pay and feature a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as a USB-C port and a 6.0-inch Super AMOLED display panel with an FHD+ resolution, according to previous reports. The devices should be released in Samsungs home country shortly after CES but arent likely to make their way to the West before late winter.

The main addition to LGs K series is reportedly called the K10 (2018), a handset with a 5.3-inch FHD screen and 3GB of RAM which is powered by an unspecified processor that may be made by MediaTek. The Android device is said to sport 32GB of storage space expandable via a microSD card and will primarily be targeted at select Asian countries and South America. India should also receive the LG K10 (2018) by spring but its pricing details remain unknown.
By PTI: By Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Dec 15 (PTI) Amid growing demand for Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deubas resignation following the partys "humiliating" poll defeat, senior leader Prakash Man Singh today said top leadership should quit if the party lost elections.

Without naming Deuba, he also said the party chief should take the responsibility for such a "humiliating" defeat.

advertisement

The Nepali Congress (NC)had emerged as the largest party in the 2013 Constituent Assembly elections by winning 105 seats under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

It faced a humiliating defeat in this historic parliamentary and provincial assembly polls by winning just 23 seats out of a total 165 seats under FPTP.

An alliance of left parties -- the CPN-UML and the CPM- Maoist Centre -- has won a total of 116 seats.

Following the stinging defeat in parliamentary and provincial elections, demands are being raised within the NC for resignation of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and handing over of the helm of the grand old party to a new leader.

"There is a practice in democratic countries that the leadership should resign from the key post if the party loses election," Singh said, addressing a programme organised here.

"The NC, which had played a lead role in promulgating the Constitution as well as implementing it by conducting elections, should not have faced such a defeat without the weakness of the leadership," he said.

"If the leadership does not resign, then we will take measures, whatever we can, under the partys legal framework," the former Deputy Prime Minister said, in an apparent reference to the convening of a special assembly in case of any emergency situation to discuss the matter.

Singh also said that the NC will accept the peoples verdict and sit in the opposition and "play the role of a constructive opposition".

He also said that the NC would not tolerate any effort to impose authoritarian rule, by the Communist government, in Nepal by neglecting the countrys Constitution.

"We will not keep quiet if the country is turned into a communist state within ten years, as claimed by some communist leaders," Singh said.

Meanwhile, senior CPN-UML leader and former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal today ruled out the possibility of Nepal turning into a communist state, after Left alliance coming to power.

"There is no point in imposing a dictatorial system in the country following the victory of the Left alliance. The people have chosen the Left parties for political stability and development in the country," he said.

advertisement

He also said that the Left alliance will maintain cordial relations with the opposition and seek their cooperation in taking forward the country towards prosperity. PTI SBP SMJ AKJ SMJ

--- ENDS ---
Macedonian government has decided to increase the defense budget by 15 percent, Macedonian defense minister Radmila Sekerinska told reporters Monday, December 11,2017, while presenting military budget for 2018.



Macedonian soldier during training military exercise EUBG 2014.

The defense budget for 2018 is estimated for a total of 6.4 billion denars (123.3 million U.S. dollars). "By boosting the budget for the military spending, we are yet again affirming our dedication to meeting our strategic goal -- NATO accession," said Sekerinska.

The minister explained that one of the main priorities of the 2018 budget would be focused on raising the salaries of the entire military structure by 9 percent."About 3.7 billion denars (around 71.3 million U.S. dollars) are planned for salaries and compensations, including pay increase in the entire military," Sekerinska told reporters.

The other part of the budget is expected to be used for goods and services, in order to meet some elementary needs of the army, such as uniforms, boots, spare parts to maintain military equipment, the minister explained.



Macedonia is on the process to integrate NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the EU and want to modernize its armed forces. Since 2005 the army is composed entirely of professionals and volunteer soldiers, fully transformed into a professional army according to the NATO standards.
The Djibouti Logistic Support Base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army conducted a live-fire exercise with combat vehicles including the ZTL-11 fire support armoured vehicle and ZBL-09 wheeled IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). Several wheeled tank destroyers and infantry fighting vehicles from the base in the Horn of Africa took part in the military exercise at a local shooting range and fired dozens of ammunition.



Chinese army performs live firing exercise with ZTL-11 105mm fire support vehicle near its military base in Djibouti.(Source picture Chinese MoD)

Infantry units from the Chinese army practiced assault maneuvers with armored vehicles. It quoted Senior Captain Liang Yang, commander of the base, as saying that the move was intended to verify the combat capability of troops and their weapons and to improve their adaptability in the local environment.

The PLA established its Djibouti Logistic Support Base, the first of its kind for the Chinese military, on July 11 and put it into formal operation on August 1.

Located in Djibouti City, the African nation's capital, the base will support the Chinese military's naval escort, peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Africa and western Asia, the Navy said. It will also help China improve its capabilities in international military cooperation, joint exercises, emergency evacuations and overseas rescue.

The ZTL-11 is a combat vehicle based on a 8x8 military chassis. The vehicle is also referred as ZTL-09, a fire support vehicle which is fitted with a two man turret armed with a 105mm cannon. It has a crew of four, including commander, driver, gunner and loader.

The ZBL-09 is a wheeled infantry armoured fighting vehicle designed and manufactured by the Chinese Defense Company NORINCO China North Industries Corp. The ZBD-09 is fitted with a two man turret, armed with an Ukrainian modified 30 mm automatic gun. A 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun is fitted to the left side of the 30 mm gun. To each side of the turret is mounted a launcher system, for the wire-guided Hong Jian-73C anti-tank guided missiles.
Now you can!

The press conference on the plans for The Broad, has occurred, and more information is now available on the Broad Art Foundations website about the project.

If you have claustrophobia, please take the elevator, rather than the escalator-tunnel leading up to the vast skylit gallery space. Ive experienced the architectural gambit of compression and release, but this ones a bit extreme:

Wait a minute! That huge, columnless gallery seen in the video has no art in it! Whats more, its mesh-like walls dont appear to be at all hospitable to hammers and nails.

Heres an image of what the gallery will look like once it harbors some paintings, instead of mere earthlings gazing off into galactic space:

Considering that mega-collector/philanthropist Eli Broad had insisted that the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (BCAM) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) be streamlined to provide as much space for the art as possible, why are the outer walls around the perimeter in his personal museum devoid of art, with paintings relegated to temporary, freestanding slabs?

Heres the explanation I received from Karen Denne, chief communications officer for the Broad Foundations:

The free-span third-floor gallery can be shaped and divided into a variety of configurations, according to the curatorial needs of each installation or exhibition.

All right. Still, thats a lot of lost wall space that would ordinarily have been used for display. Whats more, how can light-sensitive works be shown under a ceiling thats one vast skylight?

Karen explains:

Part of the design process for the skylights in the coming months will be to devise the right system for closing or filtering some of the individual skylights to darken certain areas. Another option is to include opaque or light-filtering ceilings or scrims in those galleries where light-sensitive works are being displayed.

As I remember, Broad had complained about the expense of Renzo Pianos elaborate skylight systems during the planning of LACMAs BCAM. This one doesnt sound like it will come cheap. Maybe thats part of why The Broads cost estimate has increased from $80-100 million at the time of the August announcement to $130 million now.

Art critic Christopher Knight argued yesterday in his LA Times appraisal of The Broad that skylights might be unnecessary or even inappropriate for display of contemporary art. But the exteriors mesh cladding (reminiscent, to me, of the exterior of the Sanaa-designed New Museum in New York), which architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have dubbed the veil, is the most distinctive part of the design.

What we all really want to know is: Why was the drive-through museum (mercifully) eliminated? (The initial design called for visitors to come face-to-face, as they entered the lobby, with cars driving through the garage.)

Denne told me:

While that feature was an imaginative idea for the competition, it did not fit into the final design that had to incorporate all of the museums needs.

While we wait for the physical Broad to materialize, lets go back to the ethereal renderings (with their see-through, ghostly visitors). As Banksy might say, lets exit through the giftshop (in the lobby) and peruse the offerings:
Smokers Are Less Attractive, According To Science

Trending News: Science Confirms That Smoking Makes You Less Attractive

Long Story Short

Not that you needed another reason but you really, really need to give up smoking. Seriously.

Long Story

Lets face it. If youre still sneaking out from work (or the restaurant, or the club) for a cigarette in 2017, youre already not doing yourself any favors. Still, the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom has just delivered another reason you need to give up smoking.

In a new study conducted by the university, researchers found that people find smokers less attractive. The paper involved over 500 participants examining the faces of 23 sets of identical twins, plus a male and a female prototype. It had two aims: to see if people could determine if someone was a smoker based on their facial features, and whether it impacted their attractiveness.

Enlisting the identical twins was designed to give the researchers the control they needed for accurate results, eliminating differences in age, sex, appearance and environment. The prototype faces, created by averaging out all the real faces in the experiment, made things even more accurate, getting rid of the slightest potential differences in expression, pose or lighting.

And the results of the experiment were conclusive, to say the least. 70% of people could identify which twin was a smoker, and then 70% again picked the non-smoker as the more attractive looking.

Telling stuff, and it proves all those terrible smoking makes you look bad, kids ads werent half wrong. Its young people the researchers have in mind with these results.

Young people are particularly sensitive to the potential negative effects smoking has on their attractiveness as they age, they wrote in the paper. The findings, particularly those for the prototypes that represent the characteristic facial features of smokers and non-smokers, have the potential to be of utility in developing and improving smoking behaviour change interventions.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

So what about vaping? Does it have the same effect on looks?

Drop This Fact

In the UK, 15.5% of adults over 18 currently smoke, down from 19.9% in 2010.
Free newsletter

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter service and well keep you up-to-date with the latest breaking news, cutting edge opinion, and expert analysis affecting both your business and the industry as whole.

Please enter your email address below and click on Sign Up for daily newsletters from Australasian Lawyer.
SUV

Until we find out what the actual badge of the Roller crossover is, we've brought along a piece of spy footage that shows the Cullinan testing. Thewas spotted doing in thing in the company of multiple RR and BMW models, which range from the Phantom VIII to the F90 M5. We'll remind you that we've already delivered spy material showing a more advanced testing stage and we've added the images to the gallery above.Speaking of the 2018 Phantom , the SUV is set to share most of its technical side with the lavish sedan. For one thing, the all-aluminum architecture that made its debut on the Phantom will also serve the newcomer, albeit with the obvious modifications.As such, the go-anywhere RR is expected to also borrow the luxury saloon's 6.75-liter twin-turbo V12 motor. The engine offers assets such as low-end torque, as well as the kind of silence that might just convince one that he or she is dealing with an electric motor. The ZF-sourced eight-speed transmission is also on the menu.The high-sided all-terrain vehicle, which is how Goodwood refers to the machine, aims to redefine the segment. Keep in mind that we're talking about a part of the automotive realm that is currently welcoming one superlative vehicle after another, with the recent arrival of the Lamborghini Urus being an example as good as any.As far as the cabin is concerned, the Cullinan will offer a premium in the headroom and luggage capacity departments, thus amplifying the practical side of the Spirit of Ecstasy.
SUV

Let's start with the pice of footage at the bottom of the page. This shows the 650 hp crossover doing its things on the streets of Sant'Agata Bolognese, the Italian automotive producer's home town.Sure, the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 heart of the Lambo wasn't exactly put to work, but we can get a small taste of its aural might.The clip we're talking about also allows you to check out the people's reaction to the LM002 successor and you don't need to be an automotive expert to figure out that the newcomer has an attention magnet effect.Now that the standard incarnation of the Lamborghini Urus, if we may call it so, has made its debut, it's time to talk about what lies ahead for theFor one thing, the Urus is set to receive a plug-in hybrid setup. We're expecting this to borrow its tech side from the current Panamera range topper. We're talking about a Turbo S E-Hybrid, with the badge also set to land on the third-generation Porsche Cayenne.In its current form, the gas-electric powertrain delivers 680 hp and 850 Nm of torque. The said output comes from a mix involving a TT 4.0-liter V8 (a more efficiency-focused version of the standard car's engine) and electric power.Nevertheless, the Italian automotive producer could also be targeting an ever spicier incarnation of the Urus. So far, we've shown you two renderings of the sort, which gifted the SUV with the SV and the Performante treatment.However, should such a velocity behemoth make it into production, it could get a different nameplate.P.S.: This episode reminds us of the time when the Terzo Millennio hit the streets of Sant'Agata Bolognese.
For the past few months, however, the production difficulties of the company have been all over the news, with some reports suggesting extreme measures such as resorting to manual labor. With 260 units produced and 220 delivered by the end of the third quarter, Tesla found itself 1,240 short of its target and continuing to struggle.One collateral victim of the whole situation was the launch of the Semi electric truck, which got pushed back twice from the end of September to November 16. Musk said it was needed so the company could focus all its resources on sorting out the "bottlenecks" that were holding back the Model 3 production.Another promise the company wasn't able to keep - though it wasn't necessarily blamed on the production problems; in fact, it wasn't blamed on anything, just swept under the rug completely instead - was the coast-to-coast completely autonomous ride in a Tesla that Musk promised by the end of the year. With two weeks left in 2017, we doubt that's still on.However, the sun seems to be rising again on Tesla's street as rumors of the Model 3 production reaching the magical number of 5,000 units per week (20,000 per month) before Christmas are beginning to show up. They're not so much rumors as reports from the Taiwanese media claiming that local suppliers are sending Tesla the number of parts corresponding to a 5,000 units a week assembly rate.According to the website (via Electrek ), one supplier (responsible for gears and axles) even had to work overtime to match the bump in demand, with some parts being sent by plane instead of the usual maritime routes.Considering Tesla has come this far in such a short interval while also having to deal with major manufacturing issues makes the 10,000 units a week by March next year deadline seem totally feasible. 40k Model 3s per month would put Tesla at its projected 500,000 cars annual production, assuming it can keep up the pace constantly after that.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to the countrys first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on his death anniversary today, saying every Indian is indebted to him for his monumental service to the nation.

Patel, who was also the first deputy prime minister of India, died on December 15 1950, three years after Independence, at the age of 75.

advertisement

"We remember the great Sardar Patel on his Punya Tithi. Every Indian is indebted to Sardar Patel for his monumental service to our nation," Modi tweeted.

Known as the "Iron Man" of India, Patel was instrumental in uniting the country through merger of small princely states. PTI ENM GVS

--- ENDS ---
North America is one of the markets that made the Corolla the bestseller it is today, with the Japanese automaker opening a dedicated production facility in Mississippi in 2011 to support local demand. In December 2017, the North American plant celebrates the one-millionth Corolla manufactured, the red-painted example featured in the storys main photo.To think this all started with one - one team member, one team, one car, and now the one-millionth Corolla is rolling off our line  is incredible, declared Sean Suggs, vice president of manufacturing. This is another feather in the cap of Toyotas 1,500 team members who come together each day to produce ever-better Corollas. The latter statement is no coincidence, for the Corolla prepares to be completely overhauled in 2019.Priced at $18,550 before destination and available in seven trim levels (L, LE, LE Eco, SE, SE 6MT, XLE, XSE), the 2018 Corolla is exclusively available with a 1.8-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine in the United States Mated to either a continuously variable transmission or a six-speed manual in the case of the SE 6MT, the 1.8er develops 132 horsepower and 128 pound-feet of torque. The LE Eco is the most fuel-efficient of all models, being EPA-rated 30 mpg city and 40 mpg highway.Standard features are aplenty for a vehicle of this size and price, with the entry-level L coming with bi-LED headlights, LED daytime running lights, rearview parking camera, Entune Audio, and Toyota Safety Sense P.On that note, the next-generation Corolla promises more of everything, from improved comfort to superior safety, thanks to the adoption of Toyotas New Global Platform.
NASA says its engineers reached a major milestone this week, successfully testing the battery system that will power the all-electric X-plane expected to take flight next year. This was an extremely critical milestone for the overall project, said Tom Rigney, project manager for the X-57 Maxwell. Without a safe battery system, we wouldnt be able to execute our objectives. This test truly ensures a safe environment for the pilot and the test program. The testing validated that the battery system can safely power the X-57 for an entire flight profile. The team is working toward a flight duration of at least 45 minutes to an hour, NASA spokesman Matt Kamlet told AVweb.

We exposed the battery to the conditions of an X-57 flight, based on current expected flight profiles, to make sure the capacity and thermal conditions stayed within safe limits, said NASA Glenns Dionne Hernandez-Lugo, battery development lead for the project. We were able to see how the battery behaves throughout the flight, as well as the overall capacity. The battery passed. The test also confirmed the battery designs ability to isolate potential overheating issues to single battery cells, preventing unsafe conditions from spreading to the rest of the battery system. The X-57 project aims to demonstrate a significant increase in efficiency at high-speed cruise compared to aircraft propelled by traditional systems, NASA says. The technology would result in lower operating costs, as well as lower carbon emissions.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the only holdout on the Senate's initial tax bill, announced Friday that he will vote "yes" on the GOP's tax cuts bill, less than an hour after Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he will also vote yes.

Why it matters: Corker's vote essentially cements the tax bill's passage before the Christmas deadline.

His statement:

"After many conversations over the past several days with individuals from both sides of the aisle across Tennessee and around the country  including business owners, farmers, chambers of commerce and economic development leaders  I have decided to support the tax reform package we will vote on next week.

"This bill is far from perfect, and left to my own accord, we would have reached bipartisan consensus on legislation that avoided any chance of adding to the deficit and far less would have been done on the individual side with items that do not generate economic growth.

"But after great though and consideration, I believe that this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make U.S. businesses domestically more productive and internationally more competitive is one we should not miss. While many project that it is very possible over the next ten years we could be at least $500 billion short on a $43 trillion policy baseline, I believe this bill accompanied with the significant regulatory changes that are underway, and hopefully, future pro-growth oriented policies relative to trade and immigration , could have significant positive impact on the well-being of Americans and help drive additional foreign direct investment in Tennessee.

"In the end, after 11 years in the Senate, I know every bill we consider is imperfect and the questions becomes is our country better off with or without this piece of legislation. I think we are better off with it. I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make."
The House Ethics Committee announced today that it has opened an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen of Nevada. A female staffer claimed earlier this month that Kihuen made inappropriate advances toward her during his 2016 House campaign.

Go deeper: The full story on the allegations against Kihuen.
Security firm FireEye disclosed some details Thursday of a recent attack on a critical infrastructure provider by what appears to be either a state actor or state-sponsored actors.

While it isn't sharing most of the details, FireEye is drawing attention to one key element unique to this attack. In this case, the malware in question was successful at defeating two systems, but in doing so appeared to inadvertently trip up another system, causing at least some interruption of service.

Why it matters: In many cases, nations may be trying to infiltrate key infrastructure to have a way in should they wish to attack, but aren't necessarily looking to do damage now. This incident shows in some cases they may be doing damage nonetheless.

"This proves getting into these systems can cause very real disruptions, even accidentally," said FireEye Director of Intelligence analysis John Hultquist. "This activity could be construed as sabotage by an adversary or even a military act of war. It could be completely unintentional."

The attack was against Triconex Safety Instrumented Systems, made by Schneider Electric, which also confirmed the issue, according to Reuters, which said the equipment is widely used in the energy industry, including at nuclear and oil and gas facilities.

What's not being shared: FireEye isn't saying what type of infrastructure was attacked, or even in which country it was located. (Reuters reported that two other security firms say the target firm was in the Middle East, with one saying Saudi Arabia.)
A senior White House official told reporters today that the Trump administration believes the Western Wall in East Jerusalem will remain part of Israel in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians. The issue came up during a briefing to reporters on Vice President Mike Pence's upcoming visit to Israel.

Why it matters: The statement risks further infuriating the Palestinians at a time when the administration is trying to cool down the crisis created by President Trump's Jerusalem speech. The Western wall was occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and was never recognized as part of Israel by any country around the world.

Context: During previous negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the U.S. supported the Israeli position that the Western Wall should stay part of Israel, but it was never articulated publicly.

What to watch: The official said Pence will visit the Western Wall during his trip to Israel, and he will do it as the vice president and not as a private citizen. "We cannot envision any situation under which the Western Wall would not [be] part of Israel," the official said. "But as the president said, the specific boundaries of sovereignty of Israel are going to be part of the final status agreement."

The bottom line: After the briefing ended, the White House official noted that the U.S. "cannot imagine Israel would sign a peace agreement that didnt include the Western Wall."

What's next: In the meantime, White House special envoy Jason Greenblatt will arrive in Israel early next week. It is unclear whether Greenblatt is going to meet any Palestinian officials. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas announced he does not see the U.S. as an honest broker and said the Palestinians will not meet with Pence during his visit.

While in Israel, Greenblatt will meet Fernando Gentilini, European Union envoy for Middle East peace. The 28 leaders of EU member states announced yesterday they see Jerusalem as the shared capital of both Israel and Palestine  pushing back against Trump's announcement that the U.S. recognizes it as the capital of Israel.

The White House official added that given the timing, Greenblatt will stay on for Pences visit to provide any relevant support.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged, for the second time this week, that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons and enter into negotiations with the U.S. and others, leaving room for a diplomatic solution.

Why it matters: Tillerson's rhetoric doesn't line up with the official position of the White House. President Trump has made clear that he doesn't think negotiations are a viable option in dealing with Pyongyang, and has instead focused on drawing attention to the strength of the U.S. military.

Tillerson's message to North Korea, made during a speech at a UN Security Council meeting Friday:

We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation, but we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea, he said. The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution.

"Our communication channels remain open. North Korea knows they're open. They know where the door is. They know where to walk through that door when they want to talk."

It can reverse course, give up its unlawful nuclear weapons programs, and join the community of nations, or it can continue to condemn its people to poverty and isolation.

Go deeper: Trump's gamble on North Korea
15 December 2017 10:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia must be held accountable for the crimes committed in Azerbaijans Khojaly town, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on December 14 in response to a recent statement of the Armenian Foreign Ministry regarding the Armenian-Turkish protocols.

Armenia must immediately withdraw from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, and instead of making claims against Turkey on genocide [the so-called Armenian genocide], Armenia must be held accountable for the crimes committed in Khojaly, the ministry said.

The Turkish MFA also noted that the signing of the Armenian-Turkish protocols was aimed at achieving peace and stability in the South Caucasus and ensuring the liberation of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

The Foreign Ministers of Turkey and Armenia signed protocols on the normalization of relations between the two states in October 2009, but they were never ratified.

The Turkish MFA noted that the country condemns the statement of the Armenian FM on the Armenian-Turkish protocols, since such statements are aimed at distorting the true essence and purpose of these documents.

The Armenian-Turkish protocols were signed to normalize relations between the two countries, however the Constitutional Court of Armenia on January 12, 2010, put forward a number of conditions that contradicted the text and purposes of the protocols, the ministry said.

Turkey and Armenia severed diplomatic relations in 1993 due to occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenian Armed Forces and Yerevans claims over recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide. Borders between Turkey and Armenia are still closed.

Turkey has always supported the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict based on Azerbaijans territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of the country's internationally recognized borders.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 10:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 128 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said on December 15.

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.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 13:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Azerbaijani serviceman, who was killed by the Armenian Armed Forces, was buried in Azerbaijans Shabran region, Report informed on December 15.

Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported on December 14 that the serviceman Fizuli Salahov was killed as a result of the ceasefire violation from the Armenian side and expressed deep condolences to his relatives.

The serviceman was buried in the Gendov village of Shabran. Representatives of the Executive Power of the region, the Ministry of Defense and the State Service for Mobilization and Conscription as well as representatives of the regions public attended the funeral of the martyr.

In far 1994, after the most intensive military activities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a ceasefire and signed the relevant document. Unfortunately, time has shown that the agreement does not present any significance for the Armenian side.

Constant ceasefire violations and provocations that the Armenian side commits every day on the frontline are the clear evidence of that. Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces, using large-caliber machine guns, have 128 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By India Today Web Desk: Priyanka Chopra may be our 'desi girl', but these days, she is busy taking Hollywood by storm. However, there is reason for Priyanka's fans back home to rejoice. The actress is all set to groove to her hit numbers at an award show that will take place this month.

If a report in Mid-Day is anything to go by, Priyanka will be paid a staggering sum of around Rs 4-5 crore for a five-minute performance at the upcoming Zee Cine Awards. A source told the publication, "Priyanka's act will be about five-minute long. Since she is so much in demand, the organisers did not negotiate on the price her team quoted, despite it coming to almost a-crore-a-minute."

advertisement

The organisers of the award show intend to highlight Priyanka's performance as one of the biggest attractions, given that she is returning to home ground after almost two years. "Since Priyanka's last performance was at the Producer's Guild Awards in 2016, the team has planned a routine that will be the highlight of this award season. She will be dancing to a medley of her chartbusters," the insider added.

Incidentally, Priyanka was said to be in talks to perform at the IIFA Awards this year. However, it fizzled out because the organisers did not want to shell out the remuneration that she demanded, but were willing to pay an astronomical figure to a "male superstar", rumoured to be Salman Khan, just show up at the event.

ALSO WATCH: I wanted to be seen as a modern actor, says Priyanka Chopra

--- ENDS ---
15 December 2017 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Samuele Furfari

How the world uses energy is a hot topic for a warming planet, and fears of pollution and resource strain have produced a virtual arms race of energy-efficiency strategies. From the European Union to China, economies are vowing to reduce their energy intensity with the help of technological innovations and legislative changes.

Yet, despite these promises, consumer demand for energy is forecast by the International Energy Agency to rise until at least 2040. With the worlds energy needs growing, how can policymakers guarantee supply?

To put it bluntly, the world has nothing to worry about when it comes to reserves. After 40 years of fearing energy shortages, we have entered an era of abundance. We need to guard against false narratives, not scarce resources.

The culprit of this storyline is the Club of Rome, a global think-tank that, in the 1970s, spurred energy anxiety with its absurd prophecies derived from questionable models. As devoted followers of Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich, the club argued that bad things come from exponential growth, and good things from linear growth. This idea fueled the prediction that the world would run out of oil by 2000.

By adopting this nonsense dogma, developed countries enabled resource-rich authoritarian leaders like Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Iran, to use their oil reserves as tools to oppose the West  and particularly its support for Israel. This contributed to the oil shocks of the 1970s, and reinforced the erroneous perception that hydrocarbon reserves were even more limited, and largely confined to the Middle East.

Rapid advances in technology, particularly in the field of exploration and the ability to extract hydrocarbons in new places, eventually upended such narratives. Todays energy crisis stems not from shortages, but from anxiety over pollution.

But this anxiety has not slowed our exploration habits. On the contrary, politics and international law, like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, have been adapted to enable discovery. Consider, for example, the Rovuma gas field off the coast of Mozambique. Today, a consortium of international companies from countries including Italy and China is preparing production, and one of Africas poorest countries is set to reap huge rewards.

Similarly, Israel, once thought to be the only place in the Middle East without hydrocarbons, is sitting on 800 billion cubic meters of offshore gas reserves, more than 130 years of the countrys current annual gas consumption. Once a net energy importer, Israel today faces the very real challenge of exporting its gas bonanza.

But perhaps the biggest technology-driven upheaval for global energy markets in recent years has come from shale gas and shale oil production in the United States. At 8.8 million barrels per day, US oil production is now higher than that of Iraq and Iran combined. US shale gas is being delivered to Asia, Latin America, and parts of Europe. These markets were long locked up by Qatar, Russia, and Australia, but now the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, like the oil market, has entered a period of overproduction.

Taken together, these developments have contributed to lower energy prices, and reduced the strength of OPEC. Furthermore, because LNG is favored by the transport sector (particularly freight and maritime shippers) for environmental reasons, the ability to use oil as a geopolitical weapon has disappeared. Iran was so desperate to ramp up its oil exports that it agreed to abandon its nuclear program (strikingly, the Iran nuclear deal mentions the word oil 65 times).

Wind and solar are often presented as alternatives to oil and gas, but they cannot compete with traditional sources for electricity generation. If they could, there would be no reason for the EU to support renewable energy production through legislation. Moreover, while wind and solar technologies generate electricity, the biggest energy demand comes from heating. In the EU, for example, electricity represents only 22% of final energy demand, while heating and cooling represents 45%; transportation accounts for the remaining 33%.

All of these factors help explain why fossil fuels, which currently meet more than 80% of the worlds energy needs, will remain the backbone of global energy production for the foreseeable future. This may not come as welcome news to those pushing for an immediate phase-out of hydrocarbons. But perhaps some solace can be gained from the fact that technological innovation will also play a key role in reducing the negative impacts on air and water quality.

Amid the global conversation about climate change, it is understandable that developed economies would promise significant gains in energy efficiency. But while the EU may be committed to reducing CO2emissions, other signatories of the 2015 Paris climate agreement do not seem as resolute. It would not be surprising if most of the signatories actually raised their energy consumption in coming years, turning to fossil fuels because they cannot afford any other option.

Energy policy will remain on the agenda for advanced economies for many years to come. But as countries work to balance security of supply with environmental goals, they must also commit to getting their facts straight.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: The myth of a fossil fuel phase-out

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 13:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Keiko Honda, executive vice president and CEO of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA, part of the World Bank Group) will visit Baku Dec. 18, the WB Baku office told Trend on December 15.

Honda will meet with partners of the World Bank Group in Azerbaijan and discuss general cooperation issues, current projects and other issues within the framework of her visit.

Azerbaijan joined the World Bank Group in 1992.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 15:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan and Georgia discussed the issue of carrying goods across the customs border without any obstacles, during the 131st session of the Customs Cooperation Council on December 14 in Brussels, Belgium.

During the session, the head of the Azerbaijani delegation Javad Gasimov and Deputy Finance Minister of Georgia Vakhtang Lashkaradze held a meeting.

The sides stressed that relations between the two countries are based on the principles of strategic partnership and these relations are developing.

It also was noted that mutual cooperation in the customs sphere is at a high level.

The parties exchanged views on the timely elimination of density, which can result from excessive traffic of people at border points between the two countries because of holidays.

Earlier, Aydin Aliyev, the head of the State Customs Committee said that Georgia and Azerbaijan with the support of the European Union (EU) are working to improve the customs checkpoint Red Bridge on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border.

The project has started in March 2017 and will be completed by the end of 2017. The project costs Azerbaijan $1.3 million. The total cost of the project is 3 million euro.

The total length of the Georgian-Azerbaijani border is 480 kilometers. In addition to the Red Bridge, Georgia and Azerbaijan are connected with the customs checkpoints Gardabani, Mtkvari, Lagodekhi and Samtatskaro.

Diplomatic ties between Azerbaijan and Georgia were established on November 18, 1992.

The two countries broadly cooperate in regional energy development, transportation and economic partnership projects such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway, the TRACECA, the BSEC.

Georgian exports to Azerbaijan include cement, locomotives and other railway vehicles, mineral and chemical fertilizers, mineral waters, strong drinks, glass and glass wares, and pharmaceuticals, among other things.

Azerbaijani mainly exports to Georgia oil and petroleum products, natural gas, plastic wares, furniture and building constructions.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Georgia amounted to $7.56 billion in January-September 2017.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 15:56 (UTC+04:00)

By Aygul Salmanova

The Ministry of Transport, Communication and High Technologies and the Center for Economic Reforms and Communications of the Republic of Azerbaijan held a joint conference on "Technologies and Innovations: Economic Reforms and Prospects for Development".

While addressing the event, Elmir Valizade, the countrys deputy minister of transport, communication and high technologies, noted that deveral draft laws in the innovations sphere are being prepared in Azerbaijan.

He said that at present, the work is underway regarding venture capital financing, increasing investment flow to Azerbaijan and development of innovation activity.

We think that all this in general will contribute to the development of innovation activity in Azerbaijan, he said. A lot will depend on the business sector, and the Azerbaijani state is ready to provide the necessary support in this issue.

The electronic payment system PayPal can start functioning in Azerbaijan, Zaur Gardashov, the head of the Azexport portal, said at the conference.

Gardashov noted that currently, negotiations with the Moscow office of PayPal are under way. In addition, he said that representatives of PayPal will visit Baku in the coming days.

"Azerbaijan is among 168 countries where the system operates, both unilaterally and bilaterally. In Azerbaijan, the system operates unilaterally, which has both objective and subjective reasons. In general, payment technologies do not stand still and the services offered by PayPal are gradually moving to the background and are considered obsolete. In cooperation with Amazon, we use another newly created payment technology Pioneer, via which you can conduct both sales and purchase. There are many alternatives for e-commerce today, including Visa, MasterCard and AmericanExpress," Gardashov said.

Negotiations with PayPal, as noted by Gardashov, went into the active phase since the creation of the Azexport portal.

Previously, the Azerbaijani market was supervised through Turkey, which terminated the contract with PayPal in January of this year. As a result, PayPal suspended its activities in Turkey and the company representative was recalled back. Accordingly, we began negotiations with the Moscow office of the company. In the coming days, PayPal representatives are expected to visit Azerbaijan. We do this, in particular, because there are startups in the country that need the functionality of this payment system," Gardashov said.

Being one of the worlds largest online payment companies the PayPal system is also considered to be one of the most useful and fast among the other systems of e-payment. One of the other advantages of the system is law tariffs, which makes the system very attractive for the customers.

Full deployment of the system will allow Azerbaijanis to sell goods in international internet shopping services such as Amazon, E-bay, and Etsy.

Speaking at the conference, the representative of "Microsoft Azerbaijan" Emin Akhundov said that education and training system needs to be changed in Azerbaijan.

"As a result of negotiations with universities for a long time, we have reached agreement with two universities. According to the agreement, if the student comes with a Microsoft certificate, and if some of the lessons coincide with our trainings, then the student will receive additional points," he said.

Vusal Gasimli, CEO of the Center for Analysis of Economic reforms and Communication, told reporters that implementation of measures reflected in the Strategic Road Map for the development of information and communication technologies in Azerbaijan will make it possible to increase the countrys GDP volume by 235 million manats ($139 million) by 2020.

He said that it is planned to create 1,450 new jobs in the ICT sphere.

Implementation of the set tasks will make it possible to attract large amounts of investments to the country, apply new digital technologies in the education, banking sphere, etc., Gasimli said. The Digital Trade Hub created by Azerbaijan will play an important role in the mutual recognition of e-signatures among various countries. Serious results have been already achieved in this direction. This will make it possible for Azerbaijan to preserve leadership in the digitization sphere not only inside the country, but also beyond.

CEO also reminded that the World Bank (WB) included Azerbaijan in the top 10 countries on the prospects for development of the ICT sphere.

Overall, the ICT sector has intensively developed in the country over the past years. Creating and developing of the e-government system, expanding the broadband internet services, launching the telecommunication and low-orbit satellites, and many other steps are the evidence of Azerbaijans success in this sphere.

In 2016, the country announced Strategic Road Map for development of various areas of economy including telecommunication and information technologies. Additionally, a special Fund under the Ministry  State Fund for Development of Information Technologies operates in the country.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 17:02 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijans Chamber of Accounts revealed violations when checking the process of compensation payments by the countrys Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) to clients of two liquidated banks, Vugar Gulmammadov, chairman of the Chamber of Accounts, told reporters in Baku on December 15.

We have finished checking the process of compensation payments regarding two banks, Gulmammadov noted. As a result of the inspections, financial and legal violations were revealed. It was decided to file the relevant documents to law enforcement agencies.

He said that at present, the audit of ADIF's work continues.

Eleven banks were announced bankrupt in Azerbaijan last year. The clients of these banks were paid compensations worth 750 million manats, according to the ADIF.

(1.7001 manats = 1 USD on December 15)

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 19:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) held the 10th Conference on Air Services Negotiation (ICAN/2017) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the State Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) of Azerbaijan reported on December 15.

As many as 426 delegates from 66 states and one international organization took part in the conference. Within five days, they held 456 negotiations and meetings, where 420 bilateral documents were signed and initialed.

The delegation of Azerbaijans CAA, headed by its Director Arif Mammadov, held negotiations with the delegations of civil aviation from 15 countries. The texts of intergovernmental agreements on air services were agreed at the level of civil aviation experts with the delegations of Australia, Kenya, New Zealand, Thailand and the Seychelles.

Azerbaijans CAA also held negotiations with delegations representing Turkey, Belarus and Kazakhstan on the operation of air transport.

The International Civil Aviation Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.

The ICAO Council adopts standards and recommended practices concerning air navigation, its infrastructure, flight inspection, prevention of unlawful interference, and facilitation of border-crossing procedures for international civil aviation.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 17:55 (UTC+04:00)

Azercell Telecom continues its activities directed to support the education in Azerbaijan.

The company has been cooperating with the universities, strengthening their material and technical base and carrying out programs aimed for the development of students in the country. The representatives of the company hold regular meetings with the students at the universities. The next meeting of similar nature took place on December, 14 at Baku Engineering University. Thus, Vahid Mursaliyev, CEO of Azercell Telecom, met with the university chancellor Havar Mammadov and the students. The meeting discussed the new perspectives for cooperation with the university. Mr. Mursaliyev stated that Azercell is interested in cooperation with the higher educational institutions and willing to support the projects aimed to boost the development of education in the country. 

Azercell has provided its support to the youth and students since the beginning of its operation. We have conducted bursary and internship programs aimed at professional development of students in technical fields and encouraging them towards entrepreneurship and business. We have also entered into cooperation programs with a number of universities in Baku and regions, Azercell CEO noted. He also added that Azercell will continue to support the students in the future and wished success in their studies and career.

Mr. Mursaliyev informed students about his career path and the operation of Azercell over past 21 years.

It should be noted that Azercell is in close cooperation with educational institutions of Azerbaijan. Azercell has signed memorandums of cooperation with Baku State University, Khazar University, Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry, Azerbaijan Technological University in Ganja and Lankaran State University. The company carries out various projects aimed for professional development of students, encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship among them, as well as development of scientific-technical and educational base of the universities in the framework of these cooperation.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

The leader of the mobile communication industry, the largest taxpayer and the biggest investor of the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile telecom market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory (excluding 20% of the occupied territories) and 99.8% of population of the country.

Currently, 4.5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, mobile internet services, Metro coverage, 24/7 call centre service, 7 day/week Front Office service, M2M services, one-stop-shopping approach Azercell Express offices, Online Customer Care and Social Media Customer Care services, Mobile Customer Care office, mobile e-signature service ASAN Imza etc. Azercell deployed first 4G  LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 11:19 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have once again visited Azerbaijani hostages, who were detained during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, spokeswoman for the ICRC Baku office Ilaha Huseynova said on December 14.

She said the Committee representatives visited the Azerbaijani hostages in December.

During the visit, the conditions of detention and treatment of detainees were monitored, Huseynova added.

Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev were detained by the Armenian armed forces in July 2014 while visiting their native places and graves of loved ones in the occupied Azerbaijani Kalbajar region. Moreover, Armenian forces killed the third captivated Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov.

Later, Guliyev and Asgarov were judged illegally by the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. Following an expedited judicial process in December 2015, Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years. Attempts of Azerbaijan to provide justice and to free the hostages are still unsuccessful.

Azerbaijans State Committee on Affairs of Refugees and IDPs, the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons and other agencies have repeatedly urged international organizations, including the ICRC, to assist in release of Guliyev and Asgarov, whilst the problem remains topical yet.

Moreover, Armenian armed forces took hostage an Azerbaijani citizen Elnur Huseynzade under unknown circumstances in the direction of Talysh village in February this year.

Azerbaijan, whose over 4,000 citizens were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, has repeatedly declared its readiness to begin negotiations with Armenia to free the captives and resolve the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However, the Armenian side keeps ignoring all attempts of Azerbaijan and international organizations, thereby disrespecting the international law and hindering the settlement of the conflict.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 10:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

NATO has hailed the strengthened support from Azerbaijan, which is serving within Turkey's contingent in the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan.

We strongly welcome the strengthened support from all Allies and partners including from Azerbaijan," a NATO official told Azernews on December 14. "This remains critical to our progress, and to our objective of bringing peace to Afghanistan.

NATO thanked Azerbaijan for continued commitment to the Resolute Support Mission with troops, transit and financial support.

Last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference that NATO is grateful for Azerbaijans decision to increase its troop contribution to the Resolute Support Mission next year.

Speaking about the current situation in Afghanistan the NATO official praised the propgress made afghan forces.

Afghan forces are making progress, even though the situation remains challenging. Afghan Special Forces have conducted 80 percent of their operations independently, using their own assets and the Afghan Air Force has conducted 500 more air missions this year than last year, he added.

More than 13,000 troops from 39 countries now serve in the Resolute Support Mission. The U.S. is increasing its troop contribution and twenty-seven other nations are also committed to increase troop numbers in the coming months.

NATO remains fully committed to Afghanistan. There is no end-date to our Resolute Support Mission, the official noted, adding NATO remains focused on its implementation.

Resolute Support is a NATO-led training, advisory, assistance, and counter-terror mission in Afghanistan, which began in January 2015. It is a follow-on mission to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was completed in December 2014.

The peacekeeping contingent of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces has been serving in Afghanistan since November 20, 2002. Currently, 90 servicemen, two medical officers and two engineer sappers of Azerbaijani Armed Forces are participating in the mission.

Azerbaijan has several times made substantial donations to the Afghan National Army (ANA) Trust Fund. Moreover, Azerbaijan supports Afghanistan on its path of reforms towards integrating into regional and global economy. Furthermore, Azerbaijan allowed the NATO planes carrying non-combat loads for a mission in Afghanistan to fly through Azerbaijans airspace and to use the countrys airports. About 40 percent of all cargo destined for the NATO mission in Afghanistan pass through Baku.

With reagrds to the increasing terror threats in Afghanistan the NATO official said "NATO takes it very seriously".

The Afghan security forces have proven that they can deal with this challenge, the message says.

The interlocutor added that Afghan security forces are continuing their fight against terror, by taking decisive action and applying relentless pressure.

We are now increasing our commitment to the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan by stepping up our train, advise and assist efforts in support to the Afghan security forces and institutions, NATO official noted, adding that a special focus is put on the further development of combat capabilities so that Afghanistan does not become again a safe haven for terrorist attacks against our countries.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 10:28 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Europe is now realizing the importance of expressing a decisive support for territorial integrity after it has faced the threat to territorial integrity, Deputy Speaker of the Azerbaijani Parliament Bahar Muradova said.

Muradova made the remarks commenting on the EU Resolution on Foreign Policy and Security in Baku on December 14.

"Unfortunately, the importance of stance for territorial integrity is being realized now, she said. Of course, the reason is that the number of separatist attempts aimed at violating territorial integrity is gradually increasing in different countries.

The European Parliament adopted the EU Resolution on Foreign and Security Policy, which for the first time confirms the EUs adherence to its commitments of supporting the territorial integrity of the Eastern Partnership countries within their internationally recognized borders. This document is of fundamental importance in terms of expressing the EU's attitude to the conflicts related to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Today, the EU, other European organizations think it necessary to make official statements in connection with this issue based on the principles of international law," Muradova said. "For many years Azerbaijan has been doing everything for this issue to be the number one issue on the international agenda. But, unfortunately, Europe started to express its attitude to this problem only after it itself faced this threat.

But I think such statements are very important for eliminating conflict hotbeds, Muradova said. Not only statements must be made; we expect the EU and other international organizations to take concrete actions.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Paul has got over 16,000 followers in the two years since she set up ArtWhoring.

Artwhoring, Priyanka Paul's immensely popular Instagram account, is about "starting and perpetuating discussions through art". The illustrator, poet and social media influencer says it is through art that she best expresses herself, especially on themes such as feminism, sexual liberation, menstruation and body shaming.

Also an avid poet, she uses a combination of the written word and her drawings to start conversations and engage the extremely interactive audience she finds on social media.

advertisement

"I believe art's supposed to rile you up, make you rethink everything, even the norms of patriarchy. So that's exactly what I do with my art," she says.

Paul, who says she's been doodling from the time she could hold a pencil, began taking art seriously when she was introduced to subjects like sociology and political science at St Xavier's College in Mumbai. Her exposure and the various perspectives she sees in class influenced how she saw the world around her.

Two years ago, she set up an Instagram page to share her work. "What I love about social media is that it's a two-way conversation. I get a lot of feedback and I'm always learning from the audience," she says.

One of her first posts dealt with body shaming. She has since covered a wide range of themes, challenging social norms and traditional gender roles.

"When I choose a particular theme, be menstruation or about goddesses, I'm not judgemental. I'm trying to learn. I'm open to different points of view, and in some cases inculcate these in my art too. I'm learning that I need to extend the boundaries of what I'm talking about. Take the term feminism itself. I've realised it's not intersectional yet and leaves out issues of caste and so on," says the artist.

Paul has got over 16,000 followers in the two years since she set up ArtWhoring.

"It's been increasing organically and gradually over the years," she says. But last year in May, when her 'Goddess' series went viral, she was featured across a number of media sites, and her following surged considerably. The popularity of the series took Paul by surprise.

"It was inspired by my friend, poet Harnidh Kaur's 'Pantheon', which speaks about goddesses from different cultures fighting for feminist and sexual liberation. I created the illustrations just to show her how much I appreciate her words," she says.

According to Paul, people feel more about something when it is presented in a visually appealing way. And so, when there's something in the news that affects her, Paul makes sure to air her views on ArtWhoring.

advertisement

"That's what is brilliant about social media-everyone has a voice and everyone can be heard," she says. Paul finds her biggest inspiration in poetry. Through her illustrations, she says she's attempting "visual poetry".

--- ENDS ---
15 December 2017 13:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

It was suggested to monitor the application of certain laws, including the recently adopted law "On Restriction of the Use of Tobacco Products".

Member of the Parliament of the Committee on Labor and Social Policy Ilham Mammadov proposed it at a meeting of the committee, held on December 14.

He added that the law "On Restriction of the Use of Tobacco Products" is the result of many years of work.

Mammadov believes that monitoring will help to make the law even more effective.

In accordance with the law, smoking is forbidden throughout the territory of various educational institutions, in hotels, health care facilities, rehabilitation centers, health resorts, social facilities, theaters and cinemas, at exhibitions, reading rooms, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions, in underground and overground crossings, buses (including intercity and international), taxis, metro, air, railway, sea and river transport, bus stops, railway stations, river and sea ports, airports, elevators, common areas of multi-apartment buildings, in buildings and enterprises where flammable substances are stored, on playgrounds, beaches, workplaces of organizations, enterprises, offices, regardless of organizational and legal form and ownership.

Allocation of places for smoking will be transferred to the discretion of employers. In addition, municipalities are given new powers to take action against the use of tobacco products. They will take steps to restrict the use of tobacco products.

Smoking is being prohibited as it is decreed that smokers habits are setting a bad example to others, particularly children. Also, active smokers can estimate the harm of tobacco on their health and decide whether to smoke or not, but those who are passive smokers had no choice here and passive smoking is more harmful for human body than active smoking.

Smoking is recognized as a chronic disease and included in the "International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems". There are more than 25 diseases that develop or their course worsens under the influence of smoking.

Such prohibitions already exist in such countries as the U.S., Finland, Ukraine, Great Britain, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Syria, Egypt, etc.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 14:12 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has viewed conditions created at the Ludwigshafen Park in the city of Sumgayit after major overhaul.

The head of state was informed of the renovation work carried out in the area of the park, which saw extensive landscaping, creation of green areas and installation of benches.

The park was constructed in honor of the German city of Ludwigshafen, with which Sumgayit are sister cities.

There is a similar park named Sumgayit in Ludwigshafen, which was built in 1997 to mark the 20th anniversary of sistership relations between the two cities.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 17:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Azerbaijani Armed Forces are conducting training with the participation of the command staff of the Armed Forces, Defense Ministry reported on December 15.

Deputy Ministers of Defense, commanders of all types and branches of the Armed Forces, chiefs of the main departments and services of the ministry, commanders of formations, chiefs of staff, and other officers participate in the training.

Before the beginning of the training, review of the military personnel was held, the ministry notes.

Then, Defense Minister Colonel General Zakir Hasanov brought to the attention of the participants the tasks assigned to the army by President of Azerbaijan, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev, and gave general instructions on holding training as well as determined activities on the main areas.

The military personnel passed tests for knowledge of military regulations, guidelines and other normative legal acts as well as the level of physical training. The servicemen also carried out shootings from the regular weapons of armored vehicles and small arms at training sites in the field conditions.

The Azerbaijani Army, which today is considered the most modern army in the Caucasus, consists of Air Force and Air Defense Forces, the Navy, and the Land Forces.

The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the countrys Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The Azerbaijani army is supplied with modern weapons and technical equipment for maintaining a high level of combat capability.

The army building process is of particular importance for Azerbaijan, as twenty percent of the country's territory is under Armenian occupation and the country is in a state of war with Armenia.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 16:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening ceremony of the Sumgait Tube Rolling Plant of Baku Steel Company LLC after the reconstruction on December 15.

Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Baku Steel Company LLC Rasim Mammadov informed the president about the work done there.

President Aliyev launched the plant.

Story still developing

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 17:45 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The foundation of the tobacco factory has been laid today and the factory has also great significance, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the meeting with the staff of the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park on December 15.

"The foundation of the tobacco factory has been laid today, President Aliyev said. This factory has also great significance. At present, we depend on cigarette imports. Of course, we all want the consumption of cigarettes to decrease in Azerbaijan and people to abandon this bad habit. But so far it is not happening."

Of course, domestic production must replace foreign production, the president said. The products to be produced at this factory will cover 50 percent of total domestic demand. I am sure that in the future we will fully cover domestic demand and at the same time, we will export cigarettes to the world markets."

President Aliyev said that today tobacco growing is developing in Azerbaijan very rapidly.

"Of course, the production of cigarettes, which are the end product of tobacco growing, is also being established in Azerbaijan," the president said.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 15:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The British government supports the early completion of the Southern Gas Corridor project, which involves the transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, said Baroness Rona Fairhead, UK Minister of State for Trade and Export Promotion who is on a visit to Baku.

The baroness, who is also the co-chairman of the Azerbaijani-British intergovernmental commission, made the remarks at a meeting with Azerbaijani Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov on December 15.

The sides discussed the energy vector of the relations between the two countries as well as prospects for cooperation not only in the oil and gas sphere, but also in the field of renewable energy.

Shahbazov noted the long-standing leading positions of the oil and gas sector in the Azerbaijans economy and said that reforms are currently under way to diversify the economy and develop the non-oil sector.

The minister highly appreciated the activity of Great Britain as a partner of Azerbaijan and the main investor in its energy sector from the first years of the countrys independence, and noted the model of successful cooperation on the example of BP company.

The implementation of the Shah Deniz-2 project and the signing of a new agreement on the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli block will ensure the interests of both countries in the long term, Shahbazov said.

Baroness Fairhead, in turn, assured that the British government supports the energy projects of Azerbaijan implemented with the participation of BP as well as the completion of the Southern Gas Corridor project.

The Southern Gas Corridor, worth $41.5 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

Baroness Fairhead has earlier met with President Ilham Aliyev, First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva and signed with Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev a protocol following the second joint meeting of the Azerbaijan-UK intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation. In the protocol, the sides agreed to further expand cooperation in economy, trade, investments, industry, tourism, energy, education, culture and other spheres.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 11:04 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Iran could release crypto currencies backed by oil and gas, instead of using bitcoin, Sam Barden, Director of SBI Markets, an international commodity trading and advisory company, told Trend.

The expert believes that there is absolutely no point in Iran pursuing any policy which relies on the use of US dollar.

"Bitcoin would be secure, have intrinsic value, unlike the USD, and create direct trade between partners without the need for third party settlement. This would also drastically reduce the cost per transaction, making a more efficient, modern, peaceful, real time trading market," said Barden, adding that however, use of bitcoin is also inexpedient for Iran.

"I think the first thing to note is that the crypto currency bitcoin is in a huge speculative bubble right now, which means it is very volatile. I do not think bitcoin would be suitable or good for Iran to settle oil trades. However, blockchain, the technology which underlies bitcoin, would be good. Iran could create its own crypto currency, linked to energy," said the expert.

Barden pointed out that rather than have a totally speculative instrument such as bitcoin, Iran could release crypto currencies backed by oil and gas.

"It could be called "energy coin" for example, and each coin could be related to a barrel of oil or mmtu of gas. Coins could trade on an exchange, such as the Iran Oil Bourse on Kish Island, and Iran could settle all their energy trades in "energy coin". Iran could then use "energy coins" for international trade with its partners," said the expert.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and worldwide payment system. It is the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central bank or single administrator. The network is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly through the use of cryptography, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in an immutable public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 12:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

A new scheme for selling cotton to textile enterprises will appear in Uzbekistan starting from next year.

The corresponding decree was signed by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, podrobno.uz reported.

Starting with the harvest of raw cotton in 2018, as an experiment, the system of ordering and advancing the production of raw cotton directly from farms and other agricultural producers by domestic textile enterprises will be introduced, the presidential decree said.

Over the years, enterprises purchased raw materials from the monopoly supplier Uzpahtasanoatexport.

According to the new order, textile enterprises will finance the basic costs of farming to grow raw cotton by advancing at least 60 percent of the contracts value.

All delivered raw cotton should be used only for further deep processing and production of finished competitive products, the document noted.

The price for raw cotton purchased by enterprises will be established on a contractual basis based on an analysis of actual costs and profitability of farms.

At the same time, it should not be lower than the cost of cotton purchased for state needs. Therefore, the president instructed the government to establish government procurement prices for the white gold harvest of 2018 until January 15, 2018.

Enterprises of the textile industry sell cotton seeds to fat-and-oil enterprises, additional products -- to other consumers through exchange trades. This year Uzbekistan collected more than 2.9 million tons of raw cotton.

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev also signed a decree on liquidation of the Uzbekengilsanoat joint-stock company.

Thus, the head of state supported the proposal of the textile industry enterprises, the shareholders of the Uzbekengilsanoat JSC and a number of other departments on the establishment of the Uztekstilprom Association. At the same time Uzbekengilsanoat JSC, which combined state regulatory and economic functions, is liquidated.

As indicated in the document, the current system of management of the industry does not meet the current trends in the development of the textile industry and is not capable of supporting producers.

Uzbekengilsanoat includes 436 enterprises, which makes up only 6 percent of their total number. The activities of this society basically comes down to collecting statistics, holding various meetings, organizing exhibitions. Its organizational form also does not correspond to the legal status of the joint-stock company.

The experience of foreign countries has shown that one of the most effective forms of development of the textile industry is the creation of clusters. This model implies the organization of a single production cycle, which includes the cultivation of raw cotton, primary processing, further processing at cotton ginning enterprises and the production of final textile products with high added value.

Proceeding from this, the special Working Commission was entrusted to develop a draft Concept of development of cotton-textile clusters for the medium-term perspective, taking into account the results of the organization of similar clusters in the Bukhara and Navoi regions.

Along with this decree, measures to support textile industry enterprises, including the provision of privileges for customs payments are envisaged.

For the first time, an advisory body, the Council of the enterprises of the textile and apparel and knitted industries, will appear in the structure of organization. It is interesting that all enterprises included in the association will be obliged to export products with the unified marking Uztextile.

The president also provided members of the Uztekstilprom Association with a number of privileges and preferences. Among them are exemption from payment of customs fees for imported cotton, artificial and synthetic fiber, wool, raw materials and other materials necessary for the production of textile products until January 1, 2021.

Currently, Uzbekistan is the worlds sixth-largest cotton producer among 90 cotton-growing countries. The country exports cotton mainly to China, Bangladesh, Korea and Russia.

Uzbekistan is expected to achieve full processing of cotton fiber in 2021. By 2020, the capacity of local enterprises will ensure the full processing of cotton produced in Uzbekistan, which can lead to a significant decrease in the export supplies of this crop. Only in 2017, the country intends to bring internal processing of cotton fiber to 70 percent.

At the same time, by 2021 the production of textile and clothing and knitted products will increase by 2.2 times compared to 2016, including ready-made fabrics - 2.7 times, knitted fabrics - 3 times, knitted goods  3.4 times, hosiery  3.7 times. It is planned to increase the export of products by 2 times.

One of the policy priorities of Uzbekistan, the worlds fifth-largest cotton exporter, is further development of its textile industry. Annually, the country grows about 3.5 million tons of raw cotton, produces 1.1 million tons of cotton fiber.

Uzbekistan takes consistent steps to increase the volume of cotton fiber processing. In particular, it is planned to create 112 modern, high-tech industrial factories, expand, modernize and technologically upgrade 20 operating capacities. All this will increase the export potential of the industry up to $2.5 billion a year and create more than 25,000 jobs.

In the period 2010-2014, the textile industry of Uzbekistan received and spent foreign investments worth $785 million while 147 new textile enterprises with participation of investors from Germany, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, the U.S., Turkey and other countries were commissioned. Export potential of these enterprises amounted to $670 millions.

Currently, Uzbekistan continues to attract foreign investments for construction of textile enterprises in the country.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 16:06 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The United States will assist Uzbekistan in its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Trade reported.

A meeting with the assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative for Central and South Asia, Mark Linscott, was held at the ministry, during which the parties discussed issues of Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO.

In addition, the issues related to Uzbekistan's membership in the general system of U.S. tariff preferences and legal protection of intellectual property was considered in detail.

Agreements on the assistance of the American side, including the technical one, in the process of Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO were reached. In order to promote these issues in practice, permanent contacts between the responsible officials of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the office of the U.S. trade mission will be established, the ministry noted.

During his recent trip to South Korea, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced that Uzbekistan is renewing its work on WTO accession.

A memorandum and a road map have been signed between the governments of the two countries on Koreas assistance to Uzbekistan in the matters of joining this organization, including by assessing the consequences of entry, examination of national legislation in accordance with the requirements of WTO agreements, as well as technical, consultative and expert support to the ministries and departments concerned.

There are 164 members of the World Trade Organization. That's 84 percent of the 196 countries in the world.

They enjoy the privileges that other member-countries give to them and the security that the trading rules provide. In return, they had to make commitments to open their markets and to abide by the rules  those commitments were the result of the membership (or accession) negotiations.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
15 December 2017 18:13 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Chinese Wanbang will invest $500 million to implement projects in the agriculture sector of Uzbekistan.

To this end, the sides signed an agreement within the framework of the visit of the Chinese delegation to the republic held recently.

The document was signed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources and Uzbekkozovaktovholding company.

The agreements envisage the joint implementation of more than 15 projects in such areas as the production, processing and packaging of agricultural products, including livestock products, as well as the export, import and re-export of finished products.

The parties plan to create logistics centers and facilities for processing agricultural products in the free economic zones of Uzbekistan on an area of 10,000 hectares. In addition, it is planned to supply 100,000 tons of Uzbek masha to the Middle Kingdom.

During the visit, representatives of the company visited Tashkent, Samarkand, Djizzak, Syrdarya regions and expressed a desire to develop long-term partnership with the country.

China is a key investor in Central Asian region. Today, Wanbang cooperates with more than 50 countries of the world and occupies 37 percent of the total food market of China.

Uzbekistan's economy depends heavily on agricultural production. Last year the volume of gross agricultural production in Uzbekistan reached 47.4 trillion soums. As of January 1, 2017, the number of operating farms exceeded 132,000 and dekhkan farms - 4.7 million.

In total, 8.2 million tons of grain, 2.9 million tons of potatoes, 11.2 million tons of vegetables, over 3 million tons of fruits and berries, 1.7 million tons of grapes, 2 million tons of melons and 2.9 million tons of raw cotton were produced in the country last year.

Because of the risks associated with a one-crop economy as well as from considerations of food security for the population, Uzbekistan has been trying to diversify its production of other agricultural products, while reducing cotton production.

The Central Asian nation intends to decrease production and public procurement of raw cotton up to 3 million tons by 2020.

Thus, Uzbekistan aims to increase production of grain crops up to 8.5 million tons with the growth rate of 16.4 percent by 2020 due to optimization of lands and introduction of modern agriculture technologies. It is also planned to increase production of potatoes by 35 percent, other vegetables by 30 percent, fruits and grapes 21.5 percent, meat by 26.2 percent, milk by 47.3 percent, eggs by 74.5 percent and fish by 2.5 times.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Over the last year, Punjabi rapper Prabh Deep Sagar, 23, has emerged as the most distinctive voice in Delhi's hip-hop scene. His accounts of the real-life street thuggery, drug addiction and unemployment that pervade his middle-class neighbourhood of Tilak Nagar made his debut album Class-Sikh one of the best Indian independent releases of the year.

Featuring beats by collaborator and close friend Sez aka Sajeel Kapoor, the album showcases a rapper with admirable range in both subject matter and rhyming style. It distinguishes him not only from commercially-oriented counterparts such as Badshah and Honey Singh but also his indie contemporaries. For instance, the vulnerability he portrays on 'Kal', in which he describes a confrontation with local goons, is contrasted by the aggression of 'G Maane', an expletive-filled indictment of the music industry's treatment of upcoming artists.

advertisement

"I've been listening to Punjabi rap [since] the days of (Pakistani-American rapper) Bohemia. When I heard Prabh, it was the first time I heard another Punjabi MC that really delivered both vocally and lyrically," says Mo Joshi, co-founder of independent label Azadi Records, which represents the rapper.

Class-Sikh and the singles that preceded it have received near universal acclaim, earning the rapper endorsement deals with sneaker brand Puma and beer maker Bira 91, which recently launched FreeFlow, a platform to promote hip-hop in India. As part of the campaign, Prabh Deep finished a three-city tour and this month will release the first in a series of music videos.

Starting out as a b-boy when he was still in school and later competing in freestyle battles, he spent years working the Delhi hip-hop scene before making it big. But Prabh Deep isn't overwhelmed by his recent triumphs. "I knew this day would come," he says. "But definitely, it feels good when I roam around my gullies and kids come and say 'Bhaiya aap ka gaana suna'."

He also has no qualms about celebrating his status as his city's leading MC. "I'm number one in Delhi," he says, "I can say it proudly." But he's well aware that artists can get caught up "in their own hype". Citing the example of Bohemia, whose more mainstream efforts could not match up to his ground-breaking 2002 debut Vich Pardesan De, Prabh Deep says his top priority is "to be known as a good lyricist". "That's what I'm aiming for," he says. "I've always been a fan of messages, metaphors and some kind of story in songs."

--- ENDS ---
15 December 2017 18:20 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The U.S. and Turkey now have one more point of disagreement following the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as a capital of the Jewish state.

Turkey will make efforts to abolish U.S. President Donald Trump's decision on Jerusalem, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Turkish media reported on December 15.

The issue of U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel will be submitted to the UN Security Council for discussion, according to the Turkish leader.

Recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is illegal, and we believe that the U.S. will cancel its decision, he said.

The summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on the Jerusalem issue was held in Istanbul on December 13.

According to the resolution adopted at the end of the summit, East Jerusalem was declared the capital of Palestine.

OIC also called on all countries to condemn the U.S. decision.

Earlier, Turkish presidential press secretary Ibrahim Kalyn said that OIC summits resolution should not be viewed as a response to the U.S. decision on Jerusalem.

Kalyn noted that most Muslim countries, including Turkey, recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

Trump announced the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and signed a document on the transfer of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on December 6.

This move caused great concern of the international community.

Israel, whose ministries, Supreme Court and parliament are in Jerusalem, has long demanded international recognition of its sovereignty over a unified Jerusalem. Israel calls Jerusalem its single and indivisible capital, including its eastern districts and historic center, repulsed half a century ago from Jordan and later annexed.

Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its capital after the end of the War of Independence in 1949. In 1967, after the Six-Day War, it seized East Jerusalem and united it with the Western, but the UN did not recognize this. Embassies of countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel are located mainly in Tel Aviv, Ramat-Gan and Herzliya.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Stephen Kyosung Kim, MD, an anesthesiologist, was charged with murder after allegedly administering a lethal dose of Demerol to a patient postoperatively, according to CBS News.

Here are five things to know:

1. Dr. Kim was the anesthesiologist during a procedure at Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center performed on another physician, Mark Greenspan, MD. Dr. Kim allegedly administered sedatives before surgery and then Demerol while Dr. Greenspan was in the recovery room; Dr. Greenspan suffered cardiac arrest soon after receiving the Demerol.

2. Dr. Kim pleaded not guilty to murder yesterday at his arraignment at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. He posted bail and remains free at the time of this report.

3. The District Attorney's office alleges during the procedure, Dr. Kim injected himself with an "unknown drug" before administering the fatal dose of Demerol.

4. Dr. Kim's next hearing is on Jan. 25, 2018, and he faces 25 years to life in prison if he is convicted, according to the report.

5. Dr. Greenspan was an orthopedic surgeon who treated patients in California.
Twenty children met with a special visitor through telemedicine video equipment at Erie (Pa.) Shriners Ambulatory Surgery Center and Erie (Pa.) Outpatient Specialty Care Center, GoErie.com reports.

Here's what you should know:

1. Santa Claus, visiting a Shriners facility in Philadelphia, used the facility's telemedicine equipment to meet with the children in Erie.

2. ASC officials set up a special room for the childrens' visits with Santa. Each child spoke with the man in red for five minutes before being presented a gift.

3. The ASC also had games, crafts and two live reindeer for the children to interact with.

Erie Shriners Public and Donor Relations Specialist Michael Widrig said the facility wanted to give the pediatric patients a chance for holiday memories.
An audit of financially struggling Nashville (Tenn.) General Hospital found the city's safety-net facility has been grappling with bookkeeping and accounting issues, although improvements have been made in more recent months, according to The Tennessean.

Here are seven things to know.

1. Auditors from Crosslin reviewed Nashville General's finances for the fiscal year ended June 30.

2.They ultimately determined hospital management did not have proper oversight of transactions or activity of hospital accounts, according to the report.

3. The Tennessean reports auditors said that issue resulted "material misstatements" in financial numbers for accounts such as patient payments and lease payments.

4. The auditors stated, "Without continued improvements in the processes and controls around the hospital's financial statements, management will be unable to provide accurate and appropriate financial statements for the hospital on a timely basis."

5. The audit released Wednesday revealed similar issues found in an audit released Jan. 12. That audit determined the hospital did not accurately monitor finances during fiscal year 2016. At the time, Nashville General CFO Geoff Blomeley placed partial blame on his decision to require management to generate monthly reports, which moved focus to managing cash rather than annual accounting practices. Mr. Blomeley has since left, and Bruce Naremore now serves as CFO.

6. Although audits of fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 revealed similar bookkeeping and accounting issues, auditors acknowledged the hospital has made some basic improvements to accounting so far in fiscal year 2018. They noted in the report any improvements won't be completely reflected until the next audit.

7. In the meantime, the future of the hospital remains unclear. The Tennessean reports Nashville Mayor Megan Barry and leaders at Nashville-based Meharry Medical College are considering a proposal to stop inpatient services at Nashville General.

Read the full report here.
Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, one of the nation's leading patient safety experts, will leave his posts at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to take a position with UnitedHealthcare, according to an announcement made by the patient safety expert via Twitter on Thursday.

Here are seven things to know.

1. Pronovost will step away from his roles as senior vice president for patient safety and quality at John Hopkins Medicine and director of Hopkins' Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality in mid-January, according to a report from the Baltimore Sun.

2. In February, Dr. Pronovost will become the senior vice president for clinical strategy at UnitedHealthcare. In his tweet, Dr. Pronovost described the move as a "great opportunity to help improve care for millions."

3. Pronovost has been at the forefront of quality and patient safety improvement initiatives that have influenced how the nation's providers deliver care. He is the developer of a checklist protocol to reduce infections associated with central line catheters. These protocols led to an 80 percent drop in such infections nationwide, according to the Baltimore Sun.

4. In 2008, Time magazine named Dr. Pronovost one of the 100 most influential people in the world, describing the physician as having "saved more lives than any laboratory scientist in the past decade by relying on a wonderfully simple tool: a checklist." Dr. Pronovost took the helm of the Armstrong Institute in 2011, where his work earned him a MacArthur Fellowship.

5. "Beyond any question, under Peter's stewardship the Armstrong Institute has emerged as a leader in helping to reduce errors, improve clinical outcomes and experiences, and reduce waste in healthcare delivery at Johns Hopkins and throughout the world," said Johns Hopkins leadership in an email to those in the Hopkins community, according to the Baltimore Sun.

6. In a welcoming statement, UnitedHealthcare said, "Dr. Pronovost's patient-centered approach to care and deep clinical expertise will help bring a provider point-of-view deeper into UnitedHealthcare and improve how payers and care providers work together to share best practices, build appropriate value-based incentives, and effectively use data to improve the patient experience."

7. In the internal email, Johns Hopkins leaders said there will be a search for Dr. Pronovost's successor and that they will announce interim measures soon.

More articles on executive moves:

St. Vincent Hospital Support appoints Peter Bastone CEO: 5 points

Fremont Health chief nursing executive retires: 3 takeaways

Medical City Arlington names 3 new VPs
CMS' move to cancel major bundled payment initiatives, the unexpected closure of a Dallas hospital and President Donald Trump's ACA executive order were among the news stories that most captured Becker's Hospital Review readers this year.

Here are 17 of the most-read stories published by Becker's in 2017.



1. 14 hospitals with the most ER visits | 2017

Here are the 14 hospitals in America with the most annual emergency room visits for fiscal year 2016. Totals represent the amount of emergency room visits tallied for a single facility, rather than total ER visits for a whole health system.

2. CMS will cancel major bundled payment initiatives

CMS has proposed canceling the cardiac and expanded joint replacement bundled payment models.

3. CRNA average hourly wage & salary for all 50 states  Montana tops the list at $243k

On average, certified registered nurse anesthetists in the U.S. make $160,250 annually, but CRNAs in some states make much more than the mean annual wage, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.



4. Dallas hospital unexpectedly closes

Walnut Hill Medical Center, a for-profit 100-bed hospital in Dallas, closed in June.

5. These 53 hospitals have the best organ transplant outcomes

The number of organ transplants performed in the U.S. hit a record high in 2016, with 33,606 transplants performed, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. But not all transplant centers were created equal  some have much better patient outcomes than others.

6. Trump's executive order on the ACA: 5 things to know

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January aimed at immediately lessening the economic burden of the ACA as Republican lawmakers work on a repeal and replacement plan.

7. Hospital industry's highest-paid CEO made more than $51M in 2016

King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services Chairman and CEO Alan Miller made more than $51.3 million last year, according to the company's annual proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

8. HCA to change its name  again

Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Holdings' board of directors voted last week to rework the company's name, CEO Milton Johnson said on an earnings call in May.

9. 8 things to know about nurse bullying

The nursing profession has consistently ranked No. 1 in Gallup's annual poll of Honesty and Ethical Standards in Professions for the past 15 years  which makes the rampant bullying and hazing that persists among nurses that much more surprising.



10. Health system CEO pulls out $6M check to pay debts during budget hearing

Daniel Snyder, CEO of Shreveport, La.-based University Health System, stunned senators in May when he brought a check for $6.2 million to a budget hearing to pay debts owed to Baton Rouge-based Louisiana State University.

11. Cleveland Clinic's operating income plummets 71%

Cleveland Clinic saw revenues increase in 2016, but higher labor, supplies and pharmaceutical costs dragged down the 14-hospital system's operating income.

12. Which states will have the biggest nursing shortages by 2025?

In 2025, states on the East and West coasts will likely have nursing shortages, while states in the middle of the country will have a surplus of nurses, according to Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies.

13. CHS to sell 25 hospitals as net loss swells to $1.7B in 2016

Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems continued selling off hospitals this year after ending 2016 with a net loss.

14. Hospitals face unprecedented turnover, attrition rates: 4 survey findings

Hospitals today are facing higher turnover and attrition rates than ever before, according to a survey report from Leaders for Today, a hospital management staffing firm. What's more, increasing turnover isn't limited to certain healthcare jobs  it is affecting every role from the C-suite to the front desk and the front lines.

15. Trump appoints nurse to serve as acting surgeon general

Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-Adams, PhD, RN, was installed as acting surgeon general in April after the Trump administration asked Vivek Murthy, MD, to resign.

16. Amazon reportedly launched a secret healthcare team called 1492

Amazon reportedly has a secret healthcare team exploring new technology opportunities in healthcare, including both hardware and software projects.

17. US News releases 2017-18 Best Hospitals rankings

Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic earned the top spot on U.S. News & World Report's 2017-18 Best Hospitals rankings for the second year in a row.
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Broward Health board members had planned to interview finalists for the position of CEO on Jan. 22. However, that process may be disrupted, as board chairman Rocky Rodriguez and four current and former leaders of the health system are scheduled to be arraigned on criminal charges that day, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

The state attorney's office served summonses Tuesday on Broward Health Interim President and CEO Beverly Capasso, General Counsel Lynn Barrett, board chairman Rocky Rodriguez, board member Christopher T. Ure and former board member Linda Robison. The summonses were issued after a grand jury returned an indictment against them. The leaders are accused of holding private meetings at which they decided to oust former Interim CEO Pauline Grant.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott appointed all the board members, and he has not decided whether to suspend them due to the criminal charges. If the governor does suspend the two current board members who face criminal charges, the board would be left with three members, which is fewer than the minimum number of members legally required to do business, according to the report.

Former Florida Rep. Gwyndolen Clarke-Reed, who represented part of northern Broward County, told the Sun-Sentinel the governor needs to replace the two board members. "I think they need to follow through with removing them from their positions and replacing them with competent people who can be trusted to do the right thing," she said.

More articles on leadership and management:

Remember this during your next earnings call: Lie detectors are on the line

Why CEOs must be their organization's chief mental health officers

New Jersey health system lays off 50 employees, consolidates services
Stephen Kyosung Kim, MD, a 53-year-old anesthesiologist, was charged with murder Wednesday after a patient under his care suffered a fatal overdose.

According to prosecutors, Dr. Kim administered medicine to sedate 71-year-old Mark Greenspan, MD, who was undergoing a procedure at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills, Calif, on Sept. 26. After the procedure, Dr. Kim allegedly gave Dr. Greenspan a lethal dose of the narcotic Demerol while the patient was in the recovery room. Soon after being administered that dose, prosecutors allege Dr. Greenspan went into cardiac arrest and died, according to CBS News.

Dr. Kim is also accused of injecting himself with drugs during Dr. Greenspan's procedure. Although police declined to identify the type of drugs, Beverly Hills police Lt. Elisabeth Albanese told the Los Angeles Times detectives determined Dr. Kim was under the influence of narcotics at the time of Dr. Greenspan's surgery.

Dr. Kim pleaded not guilty to one count of murder at his arraignment Thursday. He is out on bail, and his next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 25, 2018. Dr. Kim faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

More articles on healthcare industry lawsuits:

Whistle-blower: Johns Hopkins prioritizes out-of-state patients to boost revenue

5 Broward Health leaders indicted on criminal charges: 7 things to know

Owner of home health company sentenced to 80 years in prison for Medicare fraud
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which is grappling with $35 billion of debt, announced plans Thursday to cut 14,000 jobs worldwide and consolidate six of its seven U.S. sites into one location, according to USA Today.

The job cuts and consolidation efforts are expected to save the debt-ridden drugmaker $3 billion in annual costs, after an upfront charge of $700 million in severance expenses and facility closures.

Its U.S. consolidation efforts will include closing sites in Cambridge, Mass., Washington, D.C., Horsham, Pa., and New York City. In addition, some other sites may be sold to competitors, according to the report.

The company has yet to decide the location of its consolidated U.S. site.

The announcement comes after Teva lost a lawsuit Monday that attempted to block Mylan's generic multiple sclerosis drug from entering the U.S. market.
Two months following the FDA's approval of Gilead Science's breakthrough lymphoma treatment, only five patients have received the expensive therapy, according to Bloomberg.

While only a handful of patients received the $373,000 treatment, called Yescarta, waiting lists have grown to at least 200 people.

Physicians at the 15 cancer hospitals authorized to administer the treatment blame the growing waitlist on holdups with insurance coverage.

"The biggest issue has been insurance, particularly with Medicare and Medicaid," Michael Bishop, MD, director of the cellular therapy program at the University of Chicago Medicine, one of the hospitals authorized to administer Yescarta, told Bloomberg. "There's no billing codes for this. It's been difficult, to be very blunt."

The payment delays are forcing hospitals to make the decision of putting millions of dollars at risk or asking dying patients to keep waiting.

Yescarta belongs to a class of medications called CAR-T cell therapies, which genetically alter patients' immune cells to attack cancer.
By Ajit Kumar Dubey: The government is getting battle-ready to combat an aggressive Opposition in the Parliament this winter session as it expects turbulence in proceedings over the Rs 59,000-crore Rafale aircraft deal.

More than five MPs have submitted written questions on the deal for the Parliament session starting on Friday and want to know whether the right procedures have been followed or not, sources told Mail Today.

advertisement

In the last fortnight, the bureaucracy and the Indian Air Force officials have been going through documents of the agreement and preparing the ammunition for answering questions of opposition members to assert that there was no wrongdoing, sources said.

Led by its new chief Rahul Gandhi, the Congress has been levelling allegations on the NDA government about a scam in the aircraft deal, saying the price of the planes was highly inflated compared to what the UPA government had been negotiating from 2004 to 2014.

However, the government is also still deciding whether it can go against the contractual obligations or not under which it is bound not to disclose the price of the deal with French company.

"This is something which the government has to decide about as under the contractual obligations, the price of the planes cannot be divulged openly. However, there are ways of communicating that how the deal done by the NDA government is much better than the MMRCA contract that was being negotiated for, but could not be completed by the UPA establishment," a source has said.

As per the comparisons drawn by the government officials on the cost of the flyaway aircraft (planes ready for immediate flight), the NDA government has saved around 1.4 billion euros (Rs 12,000 crore) in the deal as the tender issued during the UPA era had envisaged importing 18 aircraft in flyaway conditions while the NDA government has done a deal for 36 aircraft in flyaway conditions.

However, there are many elements in the NDA deal which cannot be quantified in monetary terms like the mandatory requirement for the French side to maintain 75 per cent availability of the 36 aircraft at any point of time as this would ensure that more aircraft are available for operations, said sources.

At present, the Air Force has in general 55-60 per cent availability of the other fleets including the Su-30MKI which now forms the bulk of the strength.

The Air Force has also got a better deal in terms of air-to-air missiles including the MICA and the Meteor which would give it an edge over adversaries in times of war as they come with far greater striking ranges than what are available right now, officials say.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala has alleged that the Modi government violated the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) and bypassed the interests of public sector firm Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The Congress leader claimed that while the UPA government had signed the Rafale deal as a joint venture between its French maker, Dassault Aviation, and India's HAL, the Modi government cancelled the entire process on July 30, 2015.

advertisement

Rafale row: Antony didn't understand process, messed up deal, says former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar

--- ENDS ---
According to reports, a 33-year old Indian engineer has been jailed in Singapore for three weeks for molesting a woman last year. The accused Prabu Natarajan admitted his crime against the women who works as a part-time tutor. Reportedly, he molested her when he was seated near her in a bus and also followed her into the lift of her apartment.
Northern Ireland firms are selling more of their goods at home and a slump in sterling has also helped sales overseas, according to the latest figures.

The Broad Economy Sales and Exports Statistics for 2016 showed that sales to customers at home hit 44.7bn. That was growth of 829m, or 1.9%, bringing Northern Ireland sales to their highest level since 2011.

Sales to Great Britain, meanwhile, increased by 2%, or 281m, to hit 14bn - also the highest level since the survey began in 2011. External sales, which include exports as well as sales to GB, were up 4.2% to 24.1bn, again the highest since 2011. The 2016 rate of increase in external sales compared to 2.2% a year earlier.

Exports beyond the UK had stronger growth at 7.3% to 10.1bn, up 686m. That followed a fall of 1.6% in exports in 2015.

Exports to the Republic grew by 73m, or 2.2%, but growth in EU markets other than the Republic was even stronger, up 9.4% to 2.3bn. However, the strongest export growth was to all countries outside the EU, which increased by 10.4% to 4.4bn.

The number of businesses selling to destinations outside Northern Ireland also rose.

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of trade group Manufacturing NI, said: "Export sales are up as sterling has slumped, but this has also meant a big increase in input costs. A much smaller amount of firms export than those who sell in domestic markets or in Great Britain, so these costs are either passed on to consumers or impacting on profitability.

"Brexit will only really be visible if we leave the EU without a deal which sees businesses able to trade as we do today.

"Outside of the EU there will be significantly more cost and complexity, even with a good deal, so we need to ensure we have a cost base from which our manufacturers can compete in external markets."

Dr Esmond Birnie, senior economist at the Ulster University Economic Policy Centre, added: "This is a very creditable performance by Northern Ireland.

"Many of the numbers are going in the right direction - some of this probably caused by the exchange rate devaluation in mid-2016 - but it remains to be the seen if the scale of improvement is commensurate with the challenges which lie ahead.

"Exports to the EU beyond the Republic grew by 9% and exports to the world beyond EU by 10%.

"There is some sign we are diversifying (even if slowly) from our traditional dependence on GB and the Republic of Ireland."
Over winter there is nothing quite like a cosy pub to snuggle into, with a drink in hand, good atmosphere and a place beside the fire.

After a long walk or afternoon of shopping, a pub will be a welcome respite for any tired feet or weary shoppers this time of year.

Of course, Northern Ireland is swarming with decent pubs, but if for youre looking for one with that cosy edge (or that might get you out of washing dishes over the festive season) then below are some of the best pubs to warm up in this winter.

Whites Tavern, Belfast

Tucked away behind Belfasts busy high street, along one of Belfasts Entries, Whites Tavern is a welcome haven this time of year with its open fire and selection of beers, wines and spirits.

The historic pub also has a great food menu that includes some homely comforts such as Irish stew, soups and sandwiches.

The wooden furnishing and classic paintings add to the pubs warm atmosphere and, should you bag yourself a seat by the fire, it would be rude not to settle in for the night.

For more information, visit www.whitesbelfast.com

Expand Close Whites Tavern / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Whites Tavern

Atlantic Bar, Portrush

Although not the most well-known pub along the north coast, The Atlantic bar and its open fires are a welcome retreat from the wild winds and icy temperatures.

The back bar, accessed along Atlantic Avenue, is the cosiest part of this local favourite and, once settled by the fire with a pint, you will not want to move a muscle (unless its to move upstairs for live music and to sit by another cosy fire).

For more information, visit www.atlanticbarportrush.com

The Crosskeys Inn, Antrim

One of the oldest thatched pubs in Ireland, The Crosskeys Inn in Antrim is a gem of a place.

Voted BBC Countryfile Pub of the Year in 2017 and with various other impressive accolades, the quaint pub is overflowing with charm with its stone walls and memorabilia gracing the walls.

The pub is also renowned for its traditional Irish music sessions and storytelling events that are run almost every night of the week.

For more information, visit www.crosskeys-inn.com

The Anchor Bar, Portstewart

After a long walk along Portstewarts beautiful strand, promenade or cliff walk, The Anchor is a solid place to warm up and while away a few hours.

As soon as you walk through the pubs front doors youll be hit by a warm, open fire and, on most evenings, the sound of traditional music or an open mic session will be heard.

The pub also has some classic pub grub if youre feeling peckish and a great hot toddy to keep you feeling toasty.

For more information, visit www.theanchorbar.co.uk

The Dirty Onion, Belfast

Come winter, The Dirty Onions back bar has a roaring open fire and a long list of hot drinks to warm you up, including its Dirty Onion Hot Toddy, Hot Apple Brandy or a Hot Buttered Rum.

The bar also hosts an eclectic mix of live music most nights and has regular bodhran lessons for those keen on brushing up on their musical skills during the quieter winter months.

For more information, visit www.thedirtyonion.com

Bushmills Inn, Bushmills

The Bushmills Inn has plenty of cosy snugs where the towns famous whiskey can be sipped on whilst sitting in front of one of its cosy peat fire.

On most evenings there is also live music, with locals and tourists piling in for the atmosphere and craic.

If youre really wanting to go all out, the Inn has an impressive menu to feast on, that includes oysters and Irish tapas  all washed down with a glass or two of champers, of course!

For more information, visit www.bushmillsinn.com/restaurant-and-bar
Fransen described the charges against her as "nonsense"

Two leaders of the far-right Britain First group have been charged over offences in Northern Ireland.

Paul Golding, 35, was accused of using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour during a speech he made in Belfast last summer.

His deputy, Jayda Fransen, 31, appeared in court on Thursday on hate charges related to remarks she made at the same Northern Ireland Against Terrorism rally in the city in August.

She was re-arrested shortly after the legal proceedings over fresh comments made earlier this week beside a wall dividing Catholics from Protestants in the city to prevent violence during the Troubles. She was later charged with threatening behaviour.

The comments were posted on social media on Wednesday.

The message said it was shot in the staunchly unionist Shankill area of west Belfast. During the video post she criticised Islam.

She is due to appear in court in Belfast again on Friday morning.

Golding was bailed to appear in the same court next month.

Britain First has enjoyed added prominence after US President Donald Trump re-tweeted three unrelated anti-Muslim videos posted by Fransen.

Two featured violent scenes, including someone being pushed off a roof and another person being assaulted.

The group has since boasted it received hundreds of new membership applications and said its Facebook posts were reaching hundreds of thousands more users.

Its leaders face separate legal action in England.

Fransen was detained minutes after appearing before a district judge accused of behaviour intended or likely to stir up hatred arising from her speech in the summer.

The accused, from Anerley in south east London, was before Belfast Magistrates' Court charged with using words which were threatening, abusive or insulting during her address in August .

Police in court sought curbs on her ability to participate in future rallies in Northern Ireland as well as her social media use.

She took to Twitter within minutes of her release on bail and said it was a "nonsense charge".

"I criticise Islam and now they want to send me to prison for two years," she said.

The court ordered her not to go within 500 metres of any demonstration or parade in Northern Ireland as a condition of her release on bail.

The PSNI officer said she was seeking conditions on the accused's bail because of a planned rally - Free Speech For Jayda - on December 10 in Belfast, which was postponed due to snow.

She added: "We were concerned that there would be further offences."

Fransen's barrister Richard McConkey branded the curbs on her freedom of speech disproportionate and said his client was pleading not guilty.

He accused police of trying to use the court to censor a politician.

"This lady is as entitled to free expression within the law as anyone else.

"If there is an offence she will be arrested like everyone else."

District judge Fiona Bagnall said she was not stopping the accused from speaking, rather preventing her from reoffending.

The court was told most of the evidence involved video footage.

Fransen is on bail facing trial over four unrelated charges of causing religiously aggravated harassment as part of a Kent Police investigation into the distribution of leaflets and the posting of online videos during a trial held at Canterbury Crown Court in May.

She will go on trial at Folkestone Magistrates' Court on January 29 alongside Golding, who faces three similar charges.

Her first Belfast case is expected to be mentioned again in the city on January 9.
A service marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of a Christian missionary from Northern Ireland takes place this weekend.

Amy Carmichael was born in December 1867 in Millisle, Co Down.

She established the Welcome Church in Belfast before moving to Japan and then to India to serve as a missionary where, in 1901, she set up the Dohnavur Fellowship to provide a safe home for young girls.

She never returned to Northern Ireland again and died in India on January 18, 1951.

An event marking her life will be held on Sunday at 6.30pm at Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church in Bangor.

The story of Amy's life will be told through words and music in a new work written for the occasion by Etta Halliday, with a closing reflection from Jonathan Clarke - pastor of the Welcome Evangelical Church - on the legacy of Amy Carmichael today.

The congregation will also see a new bronze sculpture of Amy by artist Ross Wilson.

Tom Clarke, Clerk of Session in Hamilton Road Church, said: "Amy was and still is an inspiration to those who want to serve God in other parts of the world.

"Her tireless obedience to God's call remains an example to follow as new generations read her inspirational writings and the work she began continues through the Dohnavur Fellowship today.

"It is fitting that this December we pause to remember her birth and the remarkable legacy she has left."
South Eastern Regional College has been slammed over its job form

A Co Down college has been slammed for asking job applicants to state which political party they support.

All job application forms posted on the South Eastern Regional College (SERC) website ask prospective employees to submit their political opinion.

The question states: "Please indicate from the list below the political party that best represents your current political opinion." This is followed by a checklist with eight options, including Northern Ireland's five main political parties.

They can alternatively choose 'no political party', 'I prefer not to say' and 'other' on the Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form.

Green Party representative Hannah McNamara described the question as "redundant".

Miss McNamara, who graduated from the college in 2014, said: "I have to admit I have never seen any employer ask for this kind of information.

"It concerns me that SERC is gathering information on what is a very sensitive subject, especially when it is already gathering the usual information on religious denomination, sexual orientation, ethnic background, nationality and disability status.

"Gathering this additional information seems rather redundant.

"We are living in a post-Troubles world where people are rightly able to cast their vote with total anonymity and any suggestion that this information could be placed in a database will set alarm bells ringing.

"Quite apart from that, this checklist is a blunt instrument which excludes four of the party denominations found in the Assembly parties, including the Green Party.

"The Equality Commission has told me that this is an unusual question to include in an Equality Monitoring Form and that they do not regard it as an example of best practice.

"They have told me that they do not recommend that employers include this question.

"I will be writing to SERC asking them to reconsider the gathering of this highly sensitive material."

A spokeswoman for the college said the monitoring document was agreed and developed in "consultation" with the Equality Commission Northern Ireland.

The spokeswoman said: "As a public body we must comply with Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 which requires the college to monitor all nine equality categories, of which political opinion is one.

"The act places a clear onus on public authorities to put in place systems to collect relevant information and to make use of that information for assessing and monitoring the impact of their policies on the promotion of equality of opportunity.

"The best way of determining a person's sexual orientation, religious belief, political opinion, marital status, and so on, is to ask the person directly to classify themselves.

"For that reason, self-classification is the preferred method for collecting information on an individual's personal characteristics for the purpose of monitoring equality of opportunity.

"The college is also cognisance of the sensitive nature of this question and therefore provides applicants with an option for 'prefer not to say'."

An Equality Commission spokeswoman said: "The Northern Ireland Act does not define political opinion and the commission does not recommend a particular question as this is a matter for each public authority.

"Completion of these monitoring questions is not compulsory for applicants."
A Northern Ireland woman described as a "feisty, beautiful mum" has died after she was struck by a car in Scotland.

Jogger Sharon Baines (53), formerly of Carrickfergus, died following an incident involving a Ford Fiesta at Dalkeith Country Park near Edinburgh early on Tuesday.

She was taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for treatment, but died in hospital later that day.

In a statement issued through Police Scotland, Mrs Baines' family said yesterday: "Sharon went out for a run as she did every morning.

"She never came home, as she was terribly taken from us.

"She was a feisty, beautiful mum for whom family was more important than anything.

"Her two children and husband are devastated that she is no longer here."

The Lothians and Scottish Borders police are investigating the incident, and a report will be sent to Scotland's Procurator Fiscal.

Mrs Baines worked as a campus financial controller at the University of Edinburgh.

Her daughter Megan, a veterinary medicine student at the same university, appealed through social media for anyone who witnessed the fatal incident to come forward.

Placing an image of a broken heart on her Twitter feed, she posted: "Please - if anyone saw anything or knows anyone who did, we would really appreciate it."

Sergeant Gary Taylor of the Lothians and Scottish Borders Road Policing Unit said: "Our thoughts are with Sharon's family as they come to terms with their tragic loss.

"Inquiries into the full circumstances are ongoing. I'm appealing for anyone who may have witnessed this collision, or has any other information that can help with our investigation, to get in touch with us as soon as possible."

Mrs Baines was originally from Davy's Street in the Co Antrim town.

She was the daughter of Margaret and the late Jackie McClean.

A funeral notice for the mother-of-two has been placed in today's Belfast Telegraph by her heartbroken brothers, sisters-in-law and their families.

"May the winds of love blow softly and whisper in your ear, that we will always love you and wish that you were here.

"God bless Sharon," it reads.

Tributes were paid to Mrs Baines in the Facebook page of the Lothians and Borders police.

Lee Allan wrote: "Rest in peace Sharon.

"I saw this lady run every day on the way to work, thought she was amazing to be out doing it every morning and in all weather.

"My thoughts are with all her family and friends. So, so sad."

A friend of Mrs Baines' children, Fiona Thomson, wrote: "So sorry. RIP. Sharon was a lovely and very caring person and will be greatly missed .

"Sending lots of hugs to Megan and Alistair."

Local woman Kirsten Adamson said: "I used to see her (Sharon) run every morning on my commute and we often passed each other when I was on my bike.

"This is very sad news, my sincere condolences to her family."

No details of Mrs Baines' funeral arrangements have yet been released.
Rahul Gandhi met families of fishermen who went missing due to Cyclone Ockhi and assured all help.

By India Today Web Desk: Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi, on his first visit to Kerala after being elected as the Congress president, visited areas in south Tamil Nadu and Kerala affected by the Ockhi cyclone yesterday.

Rahul met families of missing fishermen and assured them that Congress would raise the issue in the winter session of Parliament.

Gandhi told the people in despair that Congress, in its capability as the Opposition party both in Kerala and the Centre, will force the government to declare Cyclone Ockhi as a national disaster.

advertisement

Addressing crowds after meeting families of missing fishermen in Kanyakumari's Thoothur, Rahul Gandhi was quoted in a New Indian Express report as saying, "I wanted to come here earlier but there Gujarat election campaign delayed my visit. I apologise for not coming sooner. The cyclone has wrought tragedy on many. The entire fishing community is suffering."

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was seen with Rahul Gandhi during his visit.

SEPARATE MINISTRY FOR FISHERMEN

Rahul Gandhi, while addressing thousands of people, said that it is "high time" that a separate ministry dedicated to fishermen be created.

A report in The Hindu quoted Rahul Gandhi as saying, "The condition of fishermen is very similar to that of farmers in the country, both sections faced very difficult times. It is high time that we create a Ministry for the fishermen to look after their interests and make sure that they are protected in the future."

Gandhi said that both the central and state governments should 'learn' from the tragedy and take necessary measures to prevent loss of lives in the future.

WATCH | 'Rahul raj' in Congress: Gandhi scion elected president of Grand Old Party

--- ENDS ---
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has spoken of the suffering of Arlene Foster's family at a commemoration event for an IRA volunteer.

Speaking at the Louis Leonard commemorative lecture, Mr Adams also reflected on losses suffered by his own family.

"The family of Arlene Foster have suffered in the course of the conflict," he said.

"My family have also suffered. Two family members were killed. One, an IRA volunteer Patrick Mulvenna was killed by the British Army. The other Ciaran Murphy, a young man whose main interest was in traditional music, was abducted and killed by unionist paramilitaries."

Arlene Foster had two first-hand encounters with IRA violence as a child.

When she was eight her father, policeman John Kelly, survived being shot by the IRA.

When the DUP leader was 16 a school bus she was travelling on was bombed by the IRA in an attempt to kill the the driver, a part-time UDR soldier.

In his speech, the Sinn Fein president focused on reconciliation, saying that while people "dont have to forget what happened or indeed to forgive", political leaders "have to do all that we possibly can to build a future based on respect, tolerance and equality".

Mr Adams also described being interrogated during the 1970s, and how he later met with one of the men involved in beating him.

"Forgiveness is also an important element in all of this. Many years ago during the 1970s I was arrested and taken for interrogation by the British Army and RUC," he said.

"British soldiers beat me unconscious several times in the course of this. On one occasion a British Army doctor came in to see if I was fit for the beatings to continue.

"Many years later I was in Parliament Buildings when this wee man came up to me and said: I used to be a British soldier and I battered you when you were arrested and Im sorry.

"I said: Do you promise not to do it again? We shook hands and he went off happy and so did I.

Responding to the Sinn Fein president's comments, the DUPs South Antrim MP Paul Girvan said: "Of course Mr Adams still justifies the targeting of Mrs Fosters father and the man driving her school bus.

"This says it all about Gerry Adams belief in reconciliation. Both acts were an act of terrorism and utterly unjustified. Sinn Fein on an almost weekly basis celebrates and glories in acts of terror."

Louis Leonard was a member of the IRA killed after being shot by loyalists in his butcher's shop in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh.
A man caught leaving a north Belfast park with wraps of heroin has been jailed for a year

A man caught leaving a north Belfast park with wraps of heroin has been jailed for a year.

Street dealer Robertas Valincius (49), of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty at Belfast Crown Court to possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply.

Prosecutor Simon Jenkins told the court that in April this year police were conducting a search of Cavehill Country Park for drugs.

As officers were about to leave, the defendant emerged from the park and walked quickly past their vehicles and out onto the Antrim Road.

Mr Jenkins said police then stopped the Lithuanian national and when he was told that he was going to be searched he emptied his pockets and handed over an egg-shaped container.

When police searched the container, they found a total of 40 wraps of heroin. The drugs weighed 8.82 grams and were of 36% purity, but police put no value on them.

Judge Patricia Smyth was told that the defendant had no previous drugs record, however he had 12 previous convictions in Lithuania for various non-drug offences.

Defence barrister Michael Boyd told the court that the father-of-four had come to Northern Ireland to seek work and provide for his family back home, but the contact who had promised him a job "left him on his own with no work, no money and no accommodation".

He added: "He fell in with Lithuanian people who offered him 10 a day to sell the drugs. He felt he had no choice but to take part.

"He was not a major player, but rather at the bottom end of the chain.''

Passing sentence, Judge Smyth told the defendant: "You have a significant record in Lithuania for other offences. You were a small-time dealer here.

"I am told that once you serve this prison sentence you will be deported to Lithuania. In light of your record, that is a good thing.''

The judge said she was imposing a sentence of two years, with half to be spent in custody and half on supervised licence following his release from prison.

Judge Smyth also ordered the destruction of the seized heroin wraps.
The PSNI have arrested a 24-year-old man following a number of raids in connection with the activity of the West Belfast UDA.

The PSNI have arrested a 24-year-old man following a number of raids in connection with the activity of the west Belfast UDA.

The officers from the Paramilitary Crime Taskforce carried out a number of searches in Belfast and Newtownabbey on Thursday.

Police are currently holding the man in custody at Musgrave Police Station where he is helping officers with their enquiries.

He is being held on suspicion of possession of class A drugs and possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.

Detective Inspector Heather Whoriskey said: The arrest follows the search of a house in the north Belfast area, on Thursday evening, (December 14) in which suspected cocaine and other drugs paraphernalia were recovered.

Further searches were carried out on Thursday at homes and commercial properties across north Belfast and Newtownabbey in relation to the ongoing investigation into the activities of the West Belfast UDA. A number of items were seized as a result of these searches, however, no arrests were made. Our enquiries are continuing.

The Paramilitary Crime Taskforce is a joint agency made up of representatives from the PSNI, HM Revenue & Customs and the National Crime Agency and is aimed at tackling criminality linked to paramiliitarism.
Northern Ireland's police chief has delivered a stark message to the Government on stalled proposals to deal with the legacy of the Troubles - "stop prevaricating and get on with it".

George Hamilton told the Press Association he was growing increasingly frustrated that three years on from a political deal on a series of mechanisms to address unresolved conflict cases, the plan is not "one further inch forward".

He said if local parties were unable to overcome the impasse blocking implementation of the Stormont House Agreement, then London needed to step up and deliver.

Mr Hamilton said the delays were exacerbating the hurt of victims and leaving police to "soak up" issues that should be dealt with through the new mechanisms.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland's top officer said this was taking a heavy toll on his service, both in terms of costs and public confidence.

The chief constable said he felt in an "impossible" situation.

"Three years has come and gone and they are actually not one further inch forward, they are still waiting to finalise the deal and to do consultations and all the rest of it - I've been getting told that for three years now," he told PA.

"The whole thing is borne out of a sense of 'can you just get on with this please'.

"And actually if Sinn Fein and the DUP and the political parties here can't get to a consensus to drive it forward in a devolved space, then London need to just get on with it."

He added: "It's almost as if in the absence of politicians doing anything about this, letting it trundle along, the police are having to soak all this up both financially and in terms of public confidence.

"And I suppose I am really saying to them, 'how high a price are you willing to pay?'.

"Because it is policing that is actually paying that cost at the moment in terms of public confidence and also the financial aspect of it."

The Stormont House proposals, including a new independent investigatory unit, a truth recovery body and an oral archive, are on ice due to a small number of outstanding disputes.

Amid the political impasse on setting up the new structures, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire has proposed conducting a consultation exercise to establish the wider public's view - but that has yet to materialise.

Mr Hamilton said he had the utmost sympathy for all relatives bereaved in the Troubles.

"For three years now it's been 'wait and see, we're trying, we're nudging, we're close to agreement' - well, actually, all the time of this prevarication the people who are being most disadvantaged is, first of all, the families, who aren't getting the answers," he said.

"Their frustrations and their grief and their hurt is being exacerbated and the cost of all of that negative feeling is being borne by the police, both in financial terms, but more importantly in terms of confidence of those elements of the community who have that frustration, that grief and that anger."

Mr Hamilton's robust remarks came after he wrote an open letter to elected representatives stressing the need for progress.

The police chief was prompted to write the letter after facing intense criticism from families bereaved by the Ulster Volunteer Force's notorious Glenanne gang.

They had urged him not to appeal against a High Court decision that had compelled the PSNI to complete a thematic investigation into the murderous activities of a gang that counted rogue members of the security forces among its members.

Confirming his intent to appeal, Mr Hamilton said the Glenanne case highlighted his difficulties - noting that he was being told he was legally obliged to conduct a probe yet was also being warned his service was not independent enough to do so.
Keen sailor Michael Beattie drowned after falling from his yacht into the freezing waters of Lough Erne

Tributes have been paid to a passionate sailor who drowned after slipping on the icy steps of his luxury yacht and falling into the freezing waters of Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh.

Michael Beattie (55), who recently moved from Moira to be with his partner Janice in Conlig, fell into Lough Erne at around 11pm on Monday when temperatures had plummeted well below zero.

Concerned friends found his unlocked boat with the lights still on, early on Tuesday morning.

It prompted an RNLI search for the missing father-of-one.

They discovered his body on the shore of Gublusk Bay at around 11am - 12 hours after he went missing.

A fellow sailor, and friend of more than 20 years, Adrian Lindsay (62), said the tragedy has left everyone in shock.

"We are completely devastated," he said.

"We are all dumbfounded that a man of such boating experience has come to such a tragic end.

"Michael knew every stone and ripple of that lough, but between hypothermia and drowning he didn't have a chance. It was just too cold."

Mr Lindsay said Michael will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him.

"He was extremely popular and would have done anything for anyone," he added.

"Boating was his passion and he reached the pinnacle when he bought his latest vessel in 2015 - it was beautiful.

"He lived, loved and laughed, that was Michael - he will be talked about for many years."

Mr Beattie, who shared a passion for boats with his late father Ian, only bought the luxury Sealine F43 in 2015.

Rev Andrew Rawding said Michael "achieved one of his dreams" when he bought 43ft-long vessel.

He spent "every possible minute" on the boat with his partner Janice, who he first met at the Culky jetty in Lough Erne.

"They loved their boating life together and were a real team with Michael at the helm and Janice on rope duties - it was their second home," he added.

"Michael made Janice very happy, he was her world and she was his. They had many happy years together, full of wonderful memories."

Michael was one of the few all-year-round boaters at Lough Erne Yacht Club, where he once served as commodore.

The competent swimmer, who was originally from Coalisland, had no need to pull his new boat out of the water in the colder months because it was equipped with special heating equipment.

Club director, Neil Ireland, offered his "heartfelt condolences" to Michael's loved ones following the freak accident.

"The freezing water would have deprived anyone of their strength very quickly," he said.

"Unfortunately very few people are around at night over the winter months - it was just an extremely tragic set of circumstances."

Mr Ireland also paid tribute to a man who was always "the life and soul of the party".

"He put a smile on so many faces and will be sorely missed," he said.

Michael's body will be laid to rest alongside those of his parents following a funeral service in Brackaville Parish Church, Coalisland at 2pm today.
The cross-party commission was established by Jo Cox when she was Labour MP for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox Foundation)

The social epidemic of loneliness needs to be tackled by a combination of government intervention and every single one of us playing our part, according to the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox.

Kim Leadbeater was speaking after a commission set up by Mrs Cox before her death recommended that the UK needs a government-led national strategy to combat a problem which affects millions of people.

The final report of the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission found that nine million adults in the UK are often or always lonely and that loneliness is as harmful to health as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

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

And it detailed how three-quarters of GPs say they see up to five patients every day who are lonely and that loneliness is estimated to cost employers 2.5 billion every year.

Ms Leadbeater said: Yes, government has got to play a part, thats where policies are made and thats where some of the moneys going to come from. But the great thing about this issue is that we can all make a difference.

We can all go out tomorrow and knock on somebodys door, catch up with a friend weve not seen for a while who might be having a tough time and we can all make a little bit of difference.

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

Speaking following the report launch in Batley, West Yorkshire, Ms Leadbeater said: On a day-to-day basis it needs to come from us  every single one of us.

Im really embarrassed that I didnt know my neighbours until Jo got killed.

And I know everybody on my street now. Because what they did, they scooped me up and looked after me when I needed it, and that just shows you the power of community.

Ms Leadbeater said her sister developed an interest in loneliness when she found herself feeling alone as a student at Cambridge University.

She said: We all have this outside persona that everythings great and were having this fantastic time but often its not like that.

Jo and I were really close when we were growing up  we did everything together as kids.

When she went away to university, she entered this world of Cambridge, which was a very intimidating place for a working class northern girl.

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

But Ms Leadbeater said her sister would have wanted the report to move from words to action.

Talking about things is fantastic but lets get on with it, she said.

The cross-party commission was established by Mrs Cox when she was Labour MP for Batley and Spen.

Its work, supported by 13 charities and businesses, was carried forward after she was murdered outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire, in June 2016.

The final report was presented in the constituency on Friday by Ms Leadbeater along with the joint commission chairs, the Labour MP for Leeds West, Rachel Reeves, and Seema Kennedy, the Conservative MP for South Ribble.

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

Earlier this week, Ms Reeves described loneliness as having escalated from personal misfortune into a social epidemic.

The report calls for a government UK-wide strategy for loneliness across all ages with a lead minister appointed to drive action.

A Government spokeswoman said: We welcome the work of the Jo Cox Commission and its ambition to combat loneliness. Tackling social isolation and loneliness is of huge importance to the Government.

A number of Government initiatives already help to reduce loneliness, such as improved mental health support and funding to create new green spaces for communities, but we are committed to doing more and look forward to setting out plans in the New Year.

The Royal Voluntary Service (RVS), the charity Jo Coxs family chose to receive funding to continue her legacy after she was murdered, is launching three new projects in her former constituency to help reduce loneliness and isolation, particularly amongst older people.

RVS Chief Executive Catherine Johnstone said: As Jo Cox said loneliness doesnt discriminate and over the course of the last year we have had our eyes opened to just how many of us are affected. We welcome the commissions manifesto and agree that whilst the government has a role to play, tackling loneliness is the responsibility of all of us.
Bereaved families and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire stood together in a moment of reflection, holding aloft pictures of lost loved ones, at the end of an emotional memorial service at St Pauls.

Hundreds of mourners gathered outside the historic cathedral clutching white roses and comforting each other beneath a banner with Grenfell inside a green heart.

The Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry were among the high-profile guests who attended to pay their respects, six months on from the fire.

Also present was Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Prime Minister Theresa May, who entered through a side door, rather than the main entrance.

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

Harry comforted one bereaved woman as she broke down at the end of the service. He told Fatima Jafari, 78, that she must have been very proud of her daughter, who read out a poem during the ceremony.

Maria Jafari, 38, lost her 82-year-old father Ali Yawar Jafari in the fire. Mr Jafari, who had a heart condition, was pulled from the building by firefighters but died at the scene.

Expand Close Kate, William and Harry leaving St Paul's Cathedral after the service (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Kate, William and Harry leaving St Paul's Cathedral after the service (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

As Mrs Jafari began sobbing for her husband, the prince said to an interpreter: Just tell her I am so incredibly sorry for her loss.

Her daughter said: Its very, very hard. Still she (my mother) cries, every day, every second when we are talking about our father, all the memories come out again. Its six months and its still very hard for us.

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

As Mr Corbyn left the ceremony he was surrounded by a crowd of mourners begging him for justice.

He hugged one woman tightly as she shared her experiences and said he found the emotionally-charged encounter very moving.

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

He told the Press Association: People are very angry and I understand that, Im here to listen to them. Im here to work and Im here to try and change things.

Dr David Ison, Dean of St Pauls, welcomed more than 1,500 guests to the service, extending his words to those painfully affected who could not face such a public event, those who would have liked to be here in solidarity and those watching on television.

Expand Close Relatives of victims of the Grenfell Tower outside St Paul's Cathedral (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Relatives of victims of the Grenfell Tower outside St Paul's Cathedral (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

Notably absent was leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) council, Elizabeth Campbell, who stayed away at the request of families.

The Dean led the congregation in a minutes silence, which the council observed separately at the town hall.

The Bishop of Kensington, the Right Reverend Graham Tomlin, said he hoped the service would reassure those present that they were not forgotten by the nation, and that it would signify the start of a change.

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

He said: As we come to the end of this difficult year, as we celebrate Christmas, as we move into a new year, nothing can remove the memory of that night  nor do we want to forget those dearly loved people who were lost.

And yet my hope and prayer is that this new year can bring new hope of a future, a vision of a city where we lose our self-obsession and listen and learn from places and people that we wouldnt normally think of reaching out to.

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

As the St Pauls Cathedral choir sang, local schoolchildren scattered small hand-made green hearts, carried in brown wicker baskets, across the front of the Dome dais.

An audio montage of voices from the Grenfell area was played to the congregation.

The Ebony Steel Band, frequent performers at the Notting Hill Carnival, were also present, playing a verse of Leonard Cohens Hallelujah.

A silent march is planned around the site of the fire in North Kensington on Thursday evening.
Ryanair has agreed to recognise pilots unions in a bid to stave off a potentially-crippling strike in the days before Christmas, the airline said.

But the offer from the boss of the low-cost carrier, Michael OLeary, calls for staff representative bodies in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal to set up special committees to deal with issues related to the airline.

Ryanair said it was changing its longstanding policy of not recognising unions to avoid the threat of disruption to customers.

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

One day of industrial action had been planned for Wednesday December 20 and would have mostly involved captains.

Mr OLeary said the pilots should call off the threat.

Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week, he said.

If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so, and we have written today to these unions inviting them to talks to recognise them and calling on them to cancel the threatened industrial action planned for Christmas week.

The strike threat in Ireland was issued through Impact, which the Irish Airline Pilots Association (Ialpa) is affiliated to.

Expand Close Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary (Niall Carson/PA)

It warned Mr OLeary that the action would either ground flights or generate substantial losses for the company.

In response the airline boss said recognising unions would be a significant change for Ryanair.

But we have delivered radical change before, Mr OLeary said.

Putting the needs of our customers first, and avoiding disruption to their Christmas flights, is the reason why we will now deal with our pilots through recognised national union structures and we hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the New Year.

In a letter to the Impact trade union in Dublin, Ryanair offered to sit down with Ialpa.

It had been expected that the number of Ryanair employees involved in next Wednesdays planned strike would be fewer than the total number of Irish-based Ryanair pilots.

But because it primarily involved captains it had the potential to cause severe disruption as planes cannot legally or safely fly without the senior pilot.

A spokesman for the Impact trade union said it had not yet received any correspondence from Ryanair with the offer.

Obviously, when we do we will be giving it full consideration, he said.
Rahul Gandhi will take over as the next Congress president tomorrow around 11 am at the party headquarters.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: As the countdown begins for Rahul Gandhi to officially take over as the next Congress president, celebrations also begin. Halwais from Chandni Chowk will be coming to the Youth Congress headquarters in Delhi and prepare sweets like laddoos and jalebis, which will be distributed to all on Saturday.

But the Youth Congress headquarters in Delhi will be abuzz with celebrations from today itself. Local musicians are being roped in to play classical music on the occasion as well.

advertisement

Sonia Gandhi who led the party for 19 years, will pass on the reins of the party to Rahul on Saturday. The event is said to start around 11 in the morning. After which Rahul will meet leaders from across the country at the Congress headquarters on Akbar Road in Delhi, say party sources.

After the organisational poll process, Rahul Gandhi was declared the party's president-elect on December 11 . However, at that time the Amethi MP wasn't present in the national capital as he was busy campaigning in Gujarat. Results for the elections will be out on December 18.

On December 16, the Gandhi scion will be handed a certificate formalising his takeover in the presence of his mother and outgoing Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior leaders and about 3,000 party delegates.

While talking to the media in Ahmedabad on December 12, Rahul Gandhi had already made it clear that his top priority is to strengthen Congress and change the nature of political discourse.

ALSO WATCH: 'Rahul raj' in Congress: Gandhi scion elected president of Grand Old Party

--- ENDS ---
Temperatures are falling below zero, and its the time of year homelessness comes to the fore. But what do you do when you see someone who appears to be sleeping rough during the cold weather?

The initial answer is the same wherever you are. Having a chat with them, if you feel comfortable doing so, can go a long way. Without being intrusive, you might want to ask their name, who they are and what their situation is.

What is somewhat harder is working out what to do next  and this depends on the situation. Here are a few things to consider.

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

Ask yourself, does the person need emergency help?

1. If the person in question is underage or is sleeping rough with a child in their care, this is a matter to refer to the police immediately as local authorities have a legal obligation to provide shelter to children.



2. If the person is in need of urgent medical attention, for example if they have an open wound or appear to be seriously ill, calling 999 for an ambulance will get them professional help, and quickly.

3. Another immediate concern, especially in cold conditions, is where the person is set to spend the upcoming hours. Day shelters offering food and clothing and  usually during the winter months  night shelters that offer safe, warm sleeping areas, are in operation in many areas, so Google those running in your area.

Expand Close MONEY Homeless Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp MONEY Homeless

Will they be outside in sub-zero temperatures?

During the extremely cold weather  specifically, when temperatures fall to zero degrees or lower for three days  special measures come into action with the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP).

When this comes into force, the local authority and other organisations in the area will work to offer extra temporary accommodation where possible. Your local authoritys housing options number  usually easy to find online  can give you more information on whether SWEP is in place and what local shelter options are available.

How do I alert the local authority?



Assuming none of the above applies, and no immediate shelter is available, you can still help a rough sleeper get on the path to engaging with services  usually through their local authority. It is important, if you have been able to speak to them, that you get their consent to do this.

One option available for members of the public in England and Wales is StreetLink  a service that centralises reporting of rough sleepers.

A call or online referral to StreetLink will, where appropriate, be passed to the relevant local services  usually local authority outreach teams who operate at night.

Each councils team has a different timetable dependent on demand, but they typically aim to reach a rough sleeper in one-to-three nights and offer support. Sending an alert about a rough sleeper when SWEP provision is in place will ensure local services are aware of the individual and can refer them to this emergency accommodation.

Over the first nine months of 2017, the public have already sent over 21,000 alerts to StreetLink, the charity says, connecting thousands of rough sleepers to accommodation and support services.

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

Now that winter has set in, were asking people to download the app onto their phones, send an alert when they are concerned about someone sleeping rough and tell their friends and colleagues about StreetLink, so that together we can help support vulnerable people to get their lives back on track, says Matt Harrison, director of StreetLink.

Due to the high volume of calls, StreetLink advises the best method to refer rough sleepers is via the website or app.

What if I live outside England and Wales?

There is no equivalent centralised service for referring rough sleepers in Scotland or Northern Ireland. In Scotland, Shelter Scotland can offer help and advice, while people in Northern Ireland are advised to refer rough sleepers to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive as a first port of call.

What information do I need to give?

Local outreach teams will welcome as much of the following information as possible in order to locate a rough sleeper:

Night-time sleep location: this is absolutely key in many cases, as this is when most outreach teams operate. If you have this information, be as precise as possible.

A physical description: For obvious reasons, this can go a long way to helping outreach workers find someone who is rough sleeping.

Any particular concerns: Health issues (whether the rough sleeper has medication that requires refrigeration, for example), or other concerns workers should be aware of if and when they meet the rough sleeper.

Expand Close POLITICS Homeless Press Association Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp POLITICS Homeless

Should I give my own money?

Many have different views and feelings about giving money to people they meet on the street, and there isnt any right answer to this issue.

Some feel more comfortable donating to housing or homelessness charities  of which there are a number  to help tackle the issue.

However, if you are unable to help in any other way, theres certainly no harm in offering someone a warm drink, some food or a blanket  or even just someone to talk to for a while.
Zimbabwe's ruling party has sealed the fate of ousted president Robert Mugabe amid cheers and singing at a Zanu-PF party congress.

It officially endorsed its Central Committee's decision to replace Mugabe with Emmerson Mnangagwa as its leader and endorsed Mr Mnangagwa as its candidate for the 2018 elections.

He was inaugurated as the country's new president last month, with the immediate challenge of reviving a shattered economy and removing himself from his mentor's shadow.

Mugabe was revered for decades but removed from power in dramatic scenes last month.

Friday's meeting was the final step in his fall from grace after the military put him under house arrest, hundreds of thousands rallied in the streets and politicians began impeachment proceedings.

Under the growing pressure, the 93-year-old who had vowed to rule for life finally resigned.

He had led the party since 1975 and the country since independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Images of Mugabe's face, usually plastered on delegates' dress and other paraphernalia, were conspicuously missing from the congress.

Mugabe himself flew to Malaysia and Singapore earlier this week to visit family and seek medical treatment in his first overseas trip since last month's events.

The 75-year-old Mr Mnangagwa at his inauguration described Mugabe as a "father, comrade-in-arms and my leader".

That is despite his firing by Mugabe as vice president early last month that set events in motion amid concerns that unpopular first lady Grace Mugabe might succeed him.

Mugabe's time was up the moment he surrendered power to his wife, some ruling party delegates said.

The congress endorsed Mrs Mugabe being fired from the party.

Now Mr Mnangagwa must find a way to revive the severely weakened economy and win over voters ahead of elections that according to the constitution should be held in July or August.

He told the congress gathering that the vote will be held as scheduled, without mentioning a date.

The opposition, shut out of Mr Mnangagwa's Cabinet in favour of military and ruling party members, has joined the United States and others in the international community in urging Zimbabwe's new government to make sure the elections are democratic.

Mr Mnangagwa, sanctioned by the US years ago for his activities as a top Mugabe aide, said again that the government will do all in its power to make sure the elections are "credible, free and fair".

On Thursday, he called for long standing sanctions to be lifted to ease foreign investment and promised measures to make the once-prosperous southern African nation "a place where capital feels safe".

AP
Rapper Nelly will not face charges after being accused of rape (AP)

A rape case against rapper Nelly has been dropped by prosecutors in Washington state because the accuser has refused to cooperate.

The woman said Nelly raped her on his tour bus in October in a Seattle suburb.

Auburn police arrested Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Iral Haynes Jr, in his tour bus at a Walmart on suspicion of second-degree rape and later released.

Shortly afterwards, the woman said she wanted to stop the investigation.

King County prosecutors said that they have reviewed the investigation but without the woman's help they cannot "proceed or fully assess the merits of the case".

Nelly's attorney Scott Rosenblum had called the rape claim a "completely fabricated allegation".

AP
ein Google-Unternehmen

Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben

Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen

Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. Mit den gewonnenen Informationen mochten wir verstehen, wie unsere Dienste verwendet werden, und die Qualitat dieser Dienste verbessern.

neue Dienste zu entwickeln und zu verbessern

Werbung auszuliefern und ihre Wirkung zu messen

personalisierte Inhalte anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen

personalisierte Werbung anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen

Wenn Sie Alle ablehnen auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies nicht fur diese zusatzlichen Zwecke.

Nicht personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung werden u. a. von Inhalten, die Sie sich gerade ansehen, und Ihrem Standort beeinflusst (welche Werbung Sie sehen, basiert auf Ihrem ungefahren Standort). Personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung konnen auch Videoempfehlungen, eine individuelle YouTube-Startseite und individuelle Werbung enthalten, die auf fruheren Aktivitaten wie auf YouTube angesehenen Videos und Suchanfragen auf YouTube beruhen. Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten.

Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen.
The contest was organised by Canada's Idoodle Learning in association with NASA.

History was in the making as six science students, all part of Chennai-based organisation Space Kidz India, which works to provide Indian students international exposure in space science, participated in the Cubes in Space global contest earlier this year.

The contest was organised by Canada's Idoodle Learning in association with NASA.

The challenge was to build a payload that can be used for space operations in future. For Rifath Shaarook and team (Gobi Nath, Tanishq Dwivedi, Abdul Kashif, Yagna Sai and Vinay Bharadwaj), it was the opportunity they were seeking.

advertisement

"We were asked to make a payload that could fit into a four centimetre cube, but instead we decided to make the four centimetre cube itself into a complete satellite," says Shaarook, the project lead.

The team christened the satellite KalamSat, after the former Indian president. Arguably the world's tiniest and lightest satellite-just 64 grams-KalamSat is made entirely with reinforced carbon fibre polymer using 3-D printing technology.

Shaarook hopes their work will open up space exploration opportunities for several more students.

"People at NASA and Idoodle were extremely supportive and amazed by our petite and innovative creation," he says.

On June 22, KalamSat was fired into sub-orbital space by a NASA rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

It was recovered last month and sent back to the team for collecting the retrieved data.

Shaarook's biggest learning from the project has been building team synergy. Now, the six young innovators are looking forward to more such path-breaking endeavours that challenge the tried and tested.

--- ENDS ---
[Based on Matthew 2:1-12]

An ancient superstition was current

in the East, that out of Judea at this time

would come one of the rulers of the world.

Suetonius

It has been roughly two and a half years since the close of Matthew 1. After that chapter of the story of Jesus, recorded for us in Luke 2, the author of Matthew takes up the thread of Jesus life.

It is roughly the last year of Herod the Greats tumultuous reign. He is sickly, dying of gonorrhea and possibly also cancer. He has spent his entire reign protecting his precarious throne. His appointment first came in 40 B.C. through his patron Mark Antony. He weathered the split between Antony and Augustus and was able to deftly change sides and preserve his power. In time he would build temples and name cities for Caesar, further cementing his title as rex socius (a client king).

In the latter years of his reign, their relationship will begin to break down. At one point Augustus said of Herod, It is better to be Herods pig than Herods son, owing to the fact that Herod had killed so many of his own but maintained the appearance of keeping kosher. He barely survived a plot by none other than Queen Cleopatra of Egypt to seduce and blackmail him. He executed his beloved wife, Mariamne, and her mother, Alexandra, as well as his three older sons. As he lay dying in Jericho in 4 B.C., he ordered a number of well-loved Jewish leaders to be held in the hippodrome in Jericho to be executed upon his death so that there would be mourning in Israel. His tomb in the Herodium has only recently been discovered by archaeologists.

That the magi come from the East would have been interpreted as a particular threat. Herod had built several fortresses along his eastern borders in anticipation of a threat coming from Persia. Masada is the best known and most imposing of these forts. He also constructed the fortresses known as the Herodium and Machaerus, where John would later be beheaded by Herods son, Antipas.

Herod had degenerated into a sickly, spent force. Driven mad by decades of stress, not to mention the long-term neurological effects of gonorrhea, he was pathologically paranoid. With this as background, we can begin to imagine the impact the magis message would have had on the fragile king. The greatest threat he could imagine had reared its head once more, only this was a very real threat, not an imagined one.

The bearers of the message of the newborn king represented an even greater threat to Herod. The magi were an elite political and spiritual force that had exercised authority since before the time of Daniel, who was appointed as one of their number (Dan 2:48; 5:11). They were the interpreters of dreams (Dan 2:2; 4:7) and possessors of secret knowledge of the planets and the stars (see Esther 1:13). Owing to the presence of the exiled Jewish community in Babylon during the captivity, the Jewish Scriptures had become part of the magis vast accumulation of knowledge. Though the passage is not quoted, the most likely reason for their journey was the prophecy of the wicked prophet Balaam in Numbers 24:17:

I see him, but not now;

I perceive him, but not near.

A star will come from Jacob,

and a scepter will arise from Israel.

The magi appear from the East, presumably with their entourage of Persian cavalry announcing they have come to worship the newborn king of the Jews. The word describing Herods response can also be translated terrified, troubled, or even intimidated. From what we know of Herod the Great, he most likely experienced this entire range of emotions.

The two groups of advisers he calls togetherthe chief priests and the teachers of the lawrepresent the two groups that will in time band together in an attempt to destroy the newborn king. The chief priests were primarily Sadducees, and the teachers of the law were mostly Pharisees. It seems common enough knowledge, from Micah 5:2, that the king will be born in the city of Davids birth: Bethlehem. Just why the magi didnt notice the passage before we are left to wonder.

Herods secret meeting with them to determine the exact time of the guiding stars appearance is actually a ruse to allow him to calculate the age range of the boys in Bethlehem he will order to be executed (see Mt 2:16). This number also indicates the probable length of their journey, two years.

As they resumed their journey, the star reappears and guides the weary troop to a house where the young child is waiting. Their joy at seeing the familiar star once more and finding the goal of their long trek is difficult for us to imagine. What, to me, is most significant about the magi occurs in Matthew 2:11. There is a doubled statement: they fall to their knees and worship him. When we take into consideration the vast knowledge base possessed by the magi, and the fact that they were willing to undertake such a long journey, indicates one simple startling fact: in all their sacred wisdom, in all their vast learning, they had not yet found the wisdom their hearts were longing for. Why else would they have taken such an arduous trip if not for an aching need to satisfy a hunger that all of the worlds wisdom had not yet satisfied?

We must rid ourselves of the notion that because there were three gifts, there must have been only three magi. Perhaps there were dozens of them. Gold is a gift for kings. Frankincense was the only incense allowed on the altar in the temple (Ex 30:9, 34-38). Myrrh was primarily used as a perfume but also in the process of embalming (Jn 19:39). They were the perfect gifts for a king who was also a priest who had come to die.

The simple fact that they worshiped the toddler king indicates that in him they apparently found all they had been looking for. This wordless one, who was the Word, was at the same time the wisdom of God. The wisest men in the world recognize it and fall to their knees.

The Persian dreamers are warned by one final dream to go home by another route, to avoid the insane Herod, who by this time was surely furious.

Taken from Matthew: The Gospel of Identity by Michael Card. Copyright(c) 2013 by Michael Card. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com

Matthew writes his Gospel to help his readers define their new identity as followers of Jesus the Messiah. Michael Card unpacks how Matthews emphasis on fulfillment confirms their Jewish connection to the Torah, while his focus on the kingdom helps them understand their new identities in Christ. Matthew presents this process of redefinition as an exercise of the imagination, in which Jesus reshapes who we are in light of who he is.
Mitch McConnell selected to lead the Senate Republicans, 40-percent of households pay nothing to the IRS, 75-percent of workers need a second job to offset inflation, food prices hit a record high.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is AMR Modern-day FRANKENSTEINS MONSTER?

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) continues to pose a significant public health problem in terms of mortality and economic loss. The rising AMR is a matter of huge concern that needs to be tactfully handled and health authorities of several countries, including India, have formulated action plans for its containment. Significant efforts by the government, an active involvement of startups and diagnostic players is a good start. The question remains, whether this will be enough.

For Feedback, please email us at: communications@mmactiv.com
The upper house of the Russian parliament voted on Friday to set March 18 as the date of next year's presidential election. Vladimir Putin is expected to win his fourth term.

By India Today Web Desk: On Friday, the upper house of parliament or the Russian Federation Council set the country's presidential elections for March 18, 2018.

The decision was approved by the Russian senators unanimously, speaker Valentina Matvienko said after the vote.

A resolution to set the date will effectively give a start to the election campaign, chairman of the Federation Council's Constitutional Legislation Committee Andrei Klishas said in a statement.

advertisement

According to Xinhua new agency, President Vladimir Putin will participate in the race as an independent candidate and Putin is widely expected to win his fourth term.

The latest public opinion poll by government-owned research centre VTSIOM showed that Putin's approval rating stood at 53.5 per cent as of December 10, up from 53 per cent a week earlier, leaving all possible rivals quite far behind in the race.

Reuters: Russian President Vladimir Putin

If one wishes to register as an independent candidate, he or she has to collect at least 3,00,000 signatures of voters on their behalf by February 1, 2018.

If a candidate wishes to run within the framework of a political party, this party will have to collect no less than 1,00,000 signatures on the candidate's behalf.

In the presidential election race is Russia's newest presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak who once was a TV star and is often described as Russia's Paris Hilton.

Reuters: Russian TV personality and opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak Reuters: Russian TV personality and opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak

According to an Independent report, in 2011-2012, she became a political journalist and a symbol of the protest movement which displayed signs of future potential.

According to several people, she has seen Russia changing and her stance was digested not so well by Putin. In June 2012, armed officers came to her home in a demonstrative dawn raid, seizing 2m euro (Rs 15 crore approximately) in cash.

However, the money was later returned.

Ksenia Sobchak is the daughter of Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak. Anatoly was the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg and was Vladimir Putin's political mentor.

Reuters: Anatoly Sobchak, a leading Soviet-era reformer and former mayor of St Petersburg

The Russian presidential election was planned for March 11 but later it was postponed to March 18. On this day, Russia celebrates the Day of Incorporation of Crimea.

Crimea, which is a peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, joined Russia in 2014 following a local referendum, which Western countries did not recognise as legitimate.

A law was too adopted in 2015 declaring a national holiday in Russia.

(With inputs from IANS)

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: (Eds: Recasting intro and updating with background)

By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Dec 15 (PTI) Demonetisation caused some temporary disruptions in Indias economic activity due to cash shortages, but the effects are dissipating, the IMF has said.

"We see salutary benefits from the demonetisation that took place a year ago. And there are potential benefits going forward," William Murray, Deputy Spokesman, IMF Communications Department, told reporters.

advertisement

Murray said the demonetisation did cause some temporary disruptions in economic activity, primarily, private consumption and small businesses due to cash shortages.

"(But) the effects are dissipating," he said in response to a question.

"In the medium term, demonetisation could have possible effects, including through greater formalisation of and the information on economic activities and a more efficient payment system with a greater use of the banking system and digital payments," Murry said.

The Indian government on November 8 last year decided to scrap of all Rs 500 and 1,000 banknotes in an efforts to curb black money and corruption.

The IMF is slated to come out with an update of its projections of India?s growth rate along with the rest of the world in January. PTI LKJ NSA

--- ENDS ---
Spike Lee's remake of his first film as a Netflix series is perfectly suited to the zeitgeist - coming in the midst of a slew of revelations about sexual assault in the supposedly post-empowerment West.

The She's Gotta Have It series centres, as the 1986 film did, on Nola Darling, a talented and very attractive black woman artist in Brooklyn, New York. It's structured like a memoir, chronicling her polyamorous life, which is split between three very different lovers - a stable banker, a narcissistic photographer and a gold-toothed biker. The narrative shifts between vignettes from Nola's life and her pieces to camera, in which she sees herself and the way others see her equally lucidly.

advertisement

But the sense of deliberateness in each frame and every line of dialogue that redefined (if controversially) the representation of blackness on screen in Lee's debut film just doesn't work in the series.

Sure, a black woman protagonist rejecting and reversing the male gaze and appropriation of her body and her sexuality still rings true, 20 years after the She's Gotta Have It movie. But DeWanda Wise, in the hyper aware, 'hippy imperialism' of millennial Brooklyn, is too perfect a protagonist to inspire much empathy, and her beef with the world just isn't sharp enough. She's a deeply intelligent and introspective woman. She has liberal artist parents, a gorgeous apartment, a sex-and-the-city style set of four girlfriends with their own problems, and she teaches art to 'at risk' black kids in a ghetto school. On the insistence of one friend, she agrees to go to a therapist, after she's harassed on the street by a strange man. This only serves to give her more gratingly articulate things to say to us-about not being anyone's property, being a work in progress, and trusting her instincts rather than her impulses.

Nola Darling is a cinephile, but Lee also overdoes it with the constant references to films-often in the most intense moments and conversations. Only the kids from the 'projects' she teaches are able to bring edginess and honesty to the screenplay: "I know that women like Amber Rose and Nicki Minaj are playing a role, I'm not stupid," says one student. "?Being a 'ho can be a great business? that's what works for them, that's not what works for me."

One expected more savvy and craft from Lee. As countless women are breaking the silence around sexuality, assault and consent, She's Gotta Have It might have created a new language for our highly expressive times. Sadly, it doesn't manage to give us anything new.

--- ENDS ---
Shiv Yin is a first of its kind dance performance featuring Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Tai Chi and contemporary Chinese dance, choreographed and performed by an India-China collective.

It took just one performance of the Beijing Contemporary Dance Company (BCDC) in Delhi to convince Rukmini Chatterjee, a dancer and choreographer of 27 years' experience, that the future lies in India and China.

"The power of their art forms, the expressions not just of their bodies but of their faces, it was so similar to our own Kathak and Bharatanatyam," recalls Chatterjee, who decided to travel to China to see what would happen when two ancient art forms are brought together.

advertisement

The result is Shiv Yin, a first of its kind dance performance featuring Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Tai Chi and contemporary Chinese dance, choreographed and performed by an India-China collective, including Chatterjee, Chinese choreographer Teng Aimin, Kathak dancer Kantika Mishra, Bharatanatyam dancer Souraja Tagore and dancers from the BCDC.

Shiv Yin debuted to a curious Beijing audience in November. Chatterjee is pleased with the experiment, but says this is just the first step. "What I'd like to do in my own small way is sow the seeds of understanding and help foster closeness when it comes to creativity between India and China," she says. "This is a beautiful love story that traverses the emotions of love, anger, jealousy and ultimate union, through a vibrant interpretation of classical Indian and contemporary Chinese dance forms."

It explores the concept of male and female, of yin and yang, from the point of view of two traditions, drawing on classical Indian and Chinese poetry as well.

Chatterjee says her time in Beijing working on the performance was eye-opening. She was impressed by the Chinese desire to learn Indian art forms, and found Chinese dancers in some ways more receptive to new ideas than dancers she has worked with in India and Europe. Despite the gaps in culture and language, there was also a surprising familiarity, she says. "At our first recital of Vedic mantras," she recalls, "there was an immediate connection to Buddhist sutras."

After touring China in November, Shiv Yin will travel to India in December, and will be performed on December 16 and 17 at the Serendipity Festival, Goa; December 19 at Alliance Francaise, Hyderabad; and December 22 at Shri Ram Centre, New Delhi.

--- ENDS ---
Update 6.01pm:Gene Mealy has today retired from his position as SIPTU Vice President, following a meeting of the unions National Executive Council.

The decision follows confirmation that Jack OConnor will step down as SIPTU General President.

Following the meeting, the outgoing SIPTU Vice President thanked the many SIPTU members, activists and staff from across the private, public and community sector with whom he has worked over the course of his career.

During the unions restructuring, Gene emphasised the central role of shop stewards, activists and members and other colleagues with whom he has worked in the wider trade union movement.

A new national executive officer board led by SIPTU General Secretary, Joe OFlynn and including General Secretary Designate, Joe Cunningham, Deputy General Secretary for the Private Sector, Gerry McCormack, Deputy General Secretary for the Public Service, John King and Deputy General Secretary for Organising and Membership Development, Ethel Buckley have now assumed the leadership of the union.

Earlier: ack OConnor will step down as SIPTU General President today, the union has confirmed.

The decision was made following a meeting of the Unions National Executive Council.

Mr OConnor has been in the role for 14 and a half years and has served three consecutive six-year terms as a National Executive Officer.

Although he is stepping down from his current role as SIPTU President, Mr OConnor is not retiring and will continue to work for the union in a different capacity.

From mid-2007 until mid-2011, Mr OConnor was Vice President and then President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Joe Cunningham who was recently elected General Secretary Designate will be SIPTUs spokesperson on General Policy.

Prior to his election to this role, he was Head of the Unions Organising Department since 2010.

He previously held the role of Regional Secretary for the west of Ireland.
President Donald Trump supports the deal that Walt Disney has struck to buy film, television and international businesses from Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox, the White House said on Thursday.

"I know that the president spoke with Rupert Murdoch earlier today, congratulated him on the deal and thinks that, to use one of the president's favourite words, that this could be a great thing for jobs and certainly looks forward to and hoping to see a lot more of those," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger, when asked about possible job cuts in an interview on Bloomberg TV, acknowledged that he will be looking at areas where the two companies overlap.

"There are synergies, and we will take a look at the overlap between businesses that are similar and look for efficiencies there," Iger said.
When the HSC school rankings were published on Thursday, a wave of excitement rippled through the class of 2017, their parents and old boys and girls around Sydney.

Despite many protests from schools about the publishing of league tables, the Herald's list had recorded nearly half a million searches between 12pm Thursday and 9am Friday.

An analysis of the data shows the top 10 most searched schools have been dominated by private boys' schools. With the exception of co-educational independent school Barker College, the other most searched for schools are all single-sex boys' schools.

Knox is at the top, followed by Barker, SHORE, Scots' and The King's School. The first girls' school, at number 8, is Loreto Kirribilli.
Unfortunately, our return to work following the Christmas period is known by many lawyers as Divorce Day.

When a family law firms doors reopen there is usually an increase in people wanting to know their rights upon separation or divorce after a not so festive season.

Some practical tips to think about before you separate:
VTAC administers the course application, selection and offer processes, and provides applicant information (including VCE and VCAL results) to tertiary institution selection officers. When selecting students, selection officers largely use information about each applicant's VCE performance. The information used, and how it is used, varies between institutions and courses.

First, an applicant must meet minimum tertiary entrance requirements. For higher education courses this is usually satisfactory completion of the VCE, which includes the completion of units 3 and 4 in one of the VCE English studies in the one year. The same minimum requirement applies for most Vocational and Education Training (VET) courses; however, it does vary between institutions. For more information about minimum tertiary entrance requirements please see the VTAC website.

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

Second, an applicant must meet any VCE prerequisites for the course. Students who don't satisfy the prerequisites are generally not considered for the course.

The third factor used in selection is an overall measure of how well an applicant performed in their VCE studies compared with all other VCE students. This measure is called the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) and was developed solely for the purpose of tertiary selection. The ATAR is only calculated for students who have completed their VCE and have met tertiary entrance requirements.
My role now is to retire, Congress's longest-serving president said in New Delhi as her son and party vice-president waits to take over the party at a grand ceremony tomorrow.

Rahul Gandhi will take over the Congress party from his mother Sonia on December 16 (Reuters file photo)

By India Today Web Desk: With son Rahul Gandhi set to take over the Congress party, mother Sonia is looking to "retire".

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament in New Delhi, Sonia broke her silence over her future in the Grand Old Party, which she has led as president for nearly 20 years.

My role now is to retire, Sonia, who is the Congress's longest-serving president, said as Parliament met to begin its winter session.

advertisement

The party, however, suggested that Sonia wasn't leaving politics entirely. "Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light," Congress national spokesperson Randeep Surjewala tweeted.

Rahul, who was recently elected Congress president, will formally take over tomorrow with the party organising a grand celebration in the national capital.

Would sincerely request friends in the media to not rely upon innuendos. Smt. Sonia Gandhi has retired as President of Indian National Congress and not from politics. Her blessings, wisdom and innate commitment to Congress ideology shall always be our guiding light.- Randeep S Surjewala (@rssurjewala) December 15, 2017

Rahul's rise up to the top of Congress, though long-expected, is closely watched. He gave a brief glimpse into how a Congress under might look during the recently concluded Gujarat Assembly election, where a combative Rahul gave the Bharatiya Janata Party a run for its money. (Exit polls predict a Congress loss in Gujarat, though we will know the results only on Monday).

The Gandhi scion will formally take over at an event at Congress's Akbar Road headquarters in New Delhi. He was declared the winner of the party's presidential poll on December 11. Some 3,000 senior party leaders and delegates will be present at the function where Rahul will be handed a certificate formalising his takeover.

My job now is to retire says Sonia Gandhi when asked in Parliament about what will be her role once @OfficeOfRG takes over as Congress President. pic.twitter.com/oImB90ZOGq- Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) December 15, 2017

Rahul Gandhi, 47, has been the Congress vice-president for around four years, serving as his mother's right-hand in the Grand Old Party. However, off late, especially in the last few months, Rahul took on a more visible role in the party. The most notable example of this was during the Gujarat election campaign where he addressed rallies on a near-daily basis.

Sonia, on the other hand, was not seen on the campaign trail. She leaves behind a 19-year legacy. She became Congress president when was a 52-year-old political novice.

From India Today magazine | Rahul takes over Congress, but will he fit the cap?

WATCH | So Sorry: Rahul Gandhi ki aandhi in Congress party

advertisement

--- ENDS ---
What is the ATAR?

The ATAR is the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank, which is a tool designed to assist tertiary institutions when selecting students for courses. It provides an overall measure of a student's relative performance in their VCE studies.

The ATAR is created by the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) using the results from a student's successful completion of the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education), as assessed and administered by the VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority).

Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

VCE students will receive a study score from the VCAA for each study they complete, which reflects their relative performance in that study only. So that institutions can fairly compare students who have chosen different subject combinations, VTAC applies a process of scaling to each study score before it is used in the calculation of the ATAR.
Running the gauntlet: John Alexander and Kristina Keneally hand out how-to-vote cards at Epping station on Friday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Australia has developed in a free society a cohesion that Saudi Arabia and other countries try to achieve through repression. And, overall, we've put it all together pretty well for a former convict colony. Yet again and again we surrender to a complacency that delivers mediocrity. Or worse. How otherwise to explain a global energy superpower with the most expensive electricity in the world? A vast "land of sweeping plains" with a sparser population than Iceland yet with real estate so expensive that the younger generation has been priced out of the housing market? Australia is one of the world's top three exporters of high-quality education. So how can it allow its own children's reading and writing abilities to remain in a relentless slide towards illiteracy, a dismal annual ratings ritual the country bemoans yet cannot escape? And how to explain perhaps the ultimate paradox - one of the freest peoples that has ever existed, ranked by American institutions to be freer than Americans themselves, has a growing portion of the population saying they'd prefer to live under a dictator?

A Japanese diplomat stationed in Australia in recent years told me that he perceived Australia as "a man lying on a bed of treasure". A country that can't be troubled to develop its full potential, in other words. Why is this so? Partly it's the treasure itself. Rich resource endowments are usually a blight on a society, not a blessing. In most countries founded on underground wealth, the society tears itself apart in a competition for the spoils. Civil war and corruption keep Africa's resource-rich nations in perpetual poverty, for instance. The only societies that have discovered mineral wealth and been able to turn it into national wealth are Britain's offspring societies - Australia, Canada, the US, for instance - where strong independent institutions have prevailed over the temptation to warlordism. Other countries that have tapped resource riches successfully, like Norway, discovered them when they had already achieved the status of a developed democracy. Yet the resources curse has visited Australia in a different form, in the guise of national complacency. The most recent mining boom was the last lament of Donald Horne, author of the 1964 national psychological diagnosis titled The Lucky Country. "It's quite appalling to discover people saying today that Australia is still the lucky country because of all these minerals," he told me in 2005 in his final interview. "There's still a bloody lucky-country mentality!"

It's an extension of the cargo cult, the World War II phenomenon among some Pacific islanders who'd seen American or Japanese military supplies arrive out of the blue on their islands. Lacking any better explanation, they imagined that it was divine largesse. If only they kept on praying and looking skyward, another delivery of riches would parachute upon them. This idea, that the answer lay outside our own society, was central to Horne's entire thesis of Australian neuralgia. At core, it was, as he put it, a "derivatve-society thesis - the essential thing in the writing of The Lucky Country was derivativeness". It was a country that was suspicious of original talent, lived on "other people's ideas", and was in perpetual hope of salvation from abroad. This syndrome remains central to Australian attitudes, despite all of the country's many successes. On a minor scale as well as a major one. Why did Australians remain slavishly devoted to European food fashions for centuries, scorning unique native ingredients and flavours, until a foreigner arrived and told us they were, actually, pretty marvellous? It was a Dane, Rene Redzipi of Noma, who arrived in Sydney and started selling us our own native foods at tremendously inflated prices. Why did Australians bin or burn Aboriginal art until American and European collectors told us that it was actually quite fascinating? The indigenous art wing was the very last part of the National Gallery of Australia to be built, a 2010 afterthought.

And on the bigger scale, Australians have been stubbornly resistant to the idea of homegrown economic success. The national sense of inadequacy has led Australians to consider that if there is any economic salvation, it must be delivered from abroad. Australia's economic rejuvenation under the Hawke and Keating governments, with some finishing touches from Howard and Costello, gave it an exceptionally flexible new structure. In the last quarter-century, Australia has grown undisturbed by the great traumas of our age - the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 2001 US recession, the 2008-09 global financial crisis. And, of course, most Australians will tell you that our contemporary prosperity is the result of the mining boom. A boom that arrived from abroad. A boom that came along after Australia had already enjoyed its longest economic expansion, a dozen years of booming conditions and counting. In fact, while the mining boom was important to help Australian economic resilience during the global crisis, good bank regulation and well-timed fiscal policy were equally important, perhaps more so. And the mining boom carried its inevitable cost - the revival of complacency, as Horne lamented. Australia entered the mining boom with no national debt. It ended the mining boom with chronic debt and deficit. And a panic gripped the country - what will we do when the boom ends?

Well the boom has ended. In Australian history, the end of a mining boom inevitably brought bust. This time, for the first time, the economy adjusted pretty readily. Courtesy of the same flexibility that allowed Australia to ride out the Asian and American and global crises. The Reserve Bank tells us that the end of the boom imposed a cost of about 1 per cent of economic contraction per year over the past few years, but that that effect has now worked its way through the system. And now the new panic. And, once again, it's a panic that assumes Australia's success is entirely a gift from abroad. Be nice to the Chinese Communist Party or they will cancel our economic growth! "By far the biggest single factor that has driven Australian prosperity over the last two decades has been the rise of China and we ignore that at our peril," intones the former Victorian premier and chairman of the Australia China Business Council, John Brumby. "We are concerned about anything which may harm our bilateral relationship." He's flat wrong. The biggest factor driving Australia's prosperity has been no single country or industry. It's been Australia's economic structure and good policy. Yet the cargo cult lives on. "The Chinese government can quite easily turn off the Australia tap," panics the former Hawke government minister Graham Richardson. "The US won't rescue us in that event and neither will Britain or America." Richardson was very close to the rejuvenation project yet has failed to comprehend it. Centuries after European settlement, Australians are yet to appreciate their own surroundings, their own gifts, and, as Bob Zoellick discovered, their own successes.

While all of this was going on, Australia's voters decided that economic prosperity had nothing to do with the federal government. When Australia casually dismissed the Howard government, it was the first time postwar that a government had been voted out at a time of unambiguous economic growth. The voters had stopped giving the politicians credit for economic performance. The political class found this liberating. Both sides of politics then plunged into a frenzy of self-indulgence. Personal ambition broke all restraints as Labor descended into the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fratricide, to be followed by the Turnbull-Abbott mayhem. Australia burned through prime ministers faster than Italy. To the dismay of the voters, Canberra became the coup capital of the Western world. In the latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll, an overwhelming 71 per cent of voters said that they wanted a serving prime minister to be allowed to serve his full term, even when the prime minister himself was unpopular. So Australia's frustrating inability to realise its potential is partly to do with the bed of treasure, but it's also to do with the man lying on it. The complacent man is not a metaphor for the Australian workforce, which is among the hardest working and most creative on earth. It's the political class and the political parties. Australia's vast resources - physical, intellectual and social - can only be fully mobilised by good policy. And that means that the policy-making mechanism has to work properly. The policy-making mechanism is also the problem-solving mechanism. It's called national politics.
This week's revelation a Chinese county bordering North Korea is spending millions of Yuan on a network of special camps that would only be used in the event of a massive influx of refugees across the border is a timely reminder 2017's most urgent crisis remains unresolved.

That is, of course, the simmering conflict between US president, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-un, the self-proclaimed God king of North Korea.

While the underlying causes of the tension between the two nations have been around for decades, dating back to well before the end of World War 2, the situation has escalated markedly since Mr Trump entered the White House and Kim Jong-un ramped up his country's nuclear missile program.

Unlike his predecessors, who have generally been willing to follow the advice of the State Department, the intelligence services and the subject matter specialists who have devoted years to studying the peninsula, Mr Trump has literally taken control of the issue into his own hands.
Los Angeles: A top US judge is to be investigated after six of his former staff accused him of sexually harassing them, US media reports.

The women accused US Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski of subjecting them to a range of inappropriate conduct, including inviting two of them to watch pornography on his computer, according to a report in the Washington Post last week.

Alex Kozinski poses for a portrait. Credit:J. DAVID AKE

The chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Sidney Thomas, requested the investigation "to ensure confidence" in the judiciary's "ability to redress misconduct," Thomas said in a statement cited by the Los Angeles Times.

Any new complaints against Kozinski will also be covered by the investigation.
Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams

It was massive menorah madness!

Brooklynites across the borough rung in the first night of Hanukkah around menorahs that towered over locals who gathered to kick-off the Jewish festival of lights, including one gigantic candelabra that drew an equally large crowd, according to the rabbi who erected it.

We had around 2,000 people, and estimate it was the largest public menorah lighting ever in New York City, said Moshe Hecht, a Jewish scholar from Park Slope and the executive coordinator of the largest menorah. We kicked off Hanukkah the New York way.

Revelers from as far as Israel packed into Grand Army Plaza on Tuesday to watch organizers light the more than 32-foot candleholder on the inaugural night of the eight-day celebration, according to Hecht, who said the huge menorah  which lit up the plaza for its 33rd year  uplifts those who pass by it.

The idea to put the menorah in a public place inspires people, he said. It gives them hope that they pass along to their family and friends.

And last years rabbinical court ruling that prohibited organizers from claiming the gargantuan menorah is the largest in the world in no way dampened the holiday spirit, according to the rabbi.

The event was fantastic, Hecht said. There was great music, hot latkes, and people really got involved.

Leaders of a Coney Island congregation ushered in Hanukkah with a bash that boasted its own colossal candelabra  allegedly Southern Brooklyns largest  which attracted a crowd of locals and pols including Councilman Mark Treyger (DConey Island), who spoke at the event, according to its host.

The councilman was on target with his speech, said Rabbi David Okunov of the Warbasse Jewish Heritage Congregation. He talked passionately about preserving Jewish holidays.

The rabbi said this years festival of lights began even more cheerfully because of President Trumps recent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The return of Jerusalem is something weve always felt and prayed for, he said. For the United States to recognize it as the undivided capital before Hanukkah added a dimension.

The story of Hanukkah dates back to the second-century BC, when a Jewish army called the Maccabees defeated the Seleucid Empire and took control of Jerusalem, after which they went to light the menorah in the citys temple. And even though they only had enough oil for the candle to burn for one night, it burned for eight, leading people to call it a miracle.
Over 70 farmers and agri-businesses attended the Ulster Bank Building Capabilities event in Innishannon House Hotel in West Cork today. The seminar was led by a panel of speakers including Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed along with Dr Ailish Byrne (Senior Agriculture Manager, Ulster Bank), Professor Thia Hennessy (Chair of Agri-food Business, Department of Food Business and Development, Cork University Business School), Ann Moore (Dairy Farmer, Midleton) and Pat Smyth (Dairy Farmer, Mallow).



A lively discussion took place with Minister Creed updating farmers on Brexit and CAP reform. The Minister restated the ambition of FoodWise 2025 to deliver jobs, maximise farm incomes and protect and enhance the rural environment by working together and developing sustainable farm production models.

Panellists also discussed strategies to build capabilities and manage change on farms, funding for growth plans and how to improve work-life balance. The group heard from Ulster Bank Community Banker Donal Cronin on how farmers can protect themselves from fraud and improve their digital banking skills.



Speaking at the Ulster Bank event, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed said, "Its a challenging time for the agriculture industry with issues like Brexit and CAP reform and thats why this event is so important, so we can discuss not only these challenges but also the opportunities we face and how we can achieve them together."



Senior Agricultural Manager at Ulster Bank, Dr. Ailish Byrne added, "We know that farmers are planning for 2018 and beyond and managing change is an important part of that planning. Were delighted to offer support through our Building Capabilities event and provide the opportunity to debate issues, share information and ultimately solve problems."



Source: www.businessworld.ie
European Union leaders will focus on trying to complete a banking union and expanding the job of the euro zone bailout fund when they discuss priorities for euro zone integration on Friday, putting off contentious issues such as a budget for the currency area.

Leaders of the 27 countries that will remain in the EU after Britain leaves in 2019 are discussing ways to deepen euro zone integration, to give direction to six months of more detailed work by finance ministers.

The aim is to better protect the 19 countries using the euro from financial crises and help rally the EU around it.

But the main players in the debate -- French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker -- have widely differing views on what form greater integration should take.

One of the reform ideas that appears to have the broadest support is further strengthening the euro zone's banking sector by gradually introducing a pan-European scheme to protect bank deposits across borders.

"A big part of what we're going to discuss today is the whole idea of a banking union and guaranteeing people's savings and deposits across the European Union," Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told reporters on entering the talks.

"If a bank runs into trouble or a bank collapses in one European country, we'll all stand together to protect the savings of the people who put their money into it."

But Germany and the Netherlands insist that the deposit guarantees can only become reality when risks in the banking sector are substantially reduced.

This should be done through cutting the number of bad loans banks have and adjusting the risk weighting on government bonds to better reflect the likelihood of sovereign default.

"It's a fact that not all government bonds are created equal. The associated risk needs to be reflected on balance sheets," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

The chairman of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, has said there is "broad convergence" on the idea of transforming the euro zone bailout fund, the ESM, into a European Monetary Fund and making it an emergency backstop for the euro zone's bank resolution fund -- an idea that has been on the cards since 2013.

The new fund, whose final name has yet to be decided, would handle all future bailouts, cutting out the International Monetary Fund, which has clashed with euro zone governments over debt relief for Greece in connection with its latest bailout.

But at the heart of the debate are more contentious issues, such as creating a post of finance minister and a budget for the euro zone and simplifying EU budget rules.

Paris wants a euro zone budget of several hundred billion euros, while Berlin wants no budget at all. The Commission is proposing a euro zone line in the existing EU budget.

Officials also talk of a "rainy day fund," an unemployment insurance scheme and a fund to support investment in crisis.

Rutte said healthy national finances were the best protection against external economic shocks and that there was no need for a special euro zone budget.

"I am not in favor of one big European shock absorption fund, but 19 smaller ones. These being the countries themselves and their ability to deal with crises individually," Rutte said.

Macron would also like to see a euro zone finance minister in charge of the euro budget and the bailout fund. Germany is skeptical, unsure what powers such a position would carry.

The Commission is proposing a third option - a European Minister of Economy and Finance who would be a senior Commission official in charge of all EU money, bailout fund included, and accountable to the European Parliament.

This is anathema to euro zone governments, which see it as a power grab by EU institutions. Euro zone ministers say the 500 billion euro lending capacity of the bailout fund is ultimately backed by their national budgets, so it cannot be EU money.

Rutte on Friday backed expanding the responsibilities of the bailout fund, but said it must remain government-controlled, and that strengthening the banking sector was a more pressing need than any new additions to the euro zone set-up.

Rutte, like Germany and Slovakia, is pushing to introduce a sovereign insolvency mechanism, which would put market pressure on governments to conduct prudent fiscal policy. Countries with huge public debts, like Italy, are against. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ie
It was announced today that a global provider of personalised marketing merchandise will be creating 250 jobs over the next five years.

National Pen established its International Headquarters in Dundalk in 1987, comprising a manufacturing plant which personalises promotional products, and a contact centre which supports corporate functions including Finance, HR, Recruitment, IT, E-commerce and other support functions.

The new expansion will be supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland. The company markets and sells its products in 24 countries globally. The company provides an end-to-end personalized service for its customers by meeting their promotional product needs. The Dundalk operation alone sold more than 130 million personalised promotional products into its markets in 2016.

Speaking this week, Minister for Business, Enterprise & Innovation, Heather Humphreys said, "This is a huge milestone for National Pen, 30 years in Dundalk. You have constantly evolved as a business to suit your clients needs and in doing so secured your own survival. I welcome the additional 250 jobs which will provide a further boost to the local economy. Your ongoing innovation will ensure your continued growth in the years ahead."

National Pens CEO, Peter Kelly added, "It is with great pride that we celebrate our 30 years anniversary in Dundalk. Over the past 10 years the company has grown significantly to now over 1000 employees. It is truly down to the entire team across National Pen that we have developed and cultivated our success. We manifest a culture of opportunity, hard work, autonomy and respect."

Source: www.businessworld.ie
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge runs for 55 kilometers (34 miles) and is designed to put the three cities within an hour commute of each other. Photo: Visual China

Chinas project to build the worlds longest bridge linking Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai in the Pearl River Delta economic hub is also running up a long tab  $1.5 billion more than expected.

A revised budget approved by the central governments Ministry of Transport (MOT) for the main bridge of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge project totals 48.07 billion yuan, compared with the original plan of 38 billion yuan, the Hong Kong Department of Transport and Housing said earlier this week.

The cost overruns will be shared by the governments of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong, based on previously agreed-upon portions.

The Hong Kong department said contractors have demanded more money due to complicated construction conditions, rising labor and material costs, and revisions to construction plans.

The 55-kilometer (34 miles) bridge is part of a broader push by the mainland government to integrate the Pearl River Delta region. The bridge will put the three cities of Zhuhai, Macau and Hong Kong within an hours commute of each other. It currently takes four hours to travel by ferry between Hong Kong on the eastern side of the Delta and Zhuhai on the western bank.





Under the original budget plan, the three local governments were to provide a combined 42% of the total construction costs while the remaining part is being funded by bank loans. The Guangdong provincial government, which oversees Zhuhai, covers 44.5% of the government part of costs, while Hong Kong and Macau authorities provide 42.9% and 12.6% of the costs, respectively.

The budget overrun will cause an extra 4.6 billion yuan for the governments, including 2 billion yuan to be paid by Hong Kong, according to the citys transport and housing department. The department said it would ask the legislature for additional funding.

The Macau authority said on Tuesday that its share would be 590 million yuan for the extra costs.

Construction of the bridge, including a bridge and an undersea tunnel, started in December 2009. The Hong Kong department said in late November that it expects the construction of main structures to be completed by the end of this year. It is unclear when the bridge will actually open.

The project has experienced a series of delays, including earlier budget overruns and a corruption investigation.

Earlier this month, the project was in the spotlight after the Guangdong government proposed to charge private cars 150 yuan (nearly $23) to use the main 29.6-kilometer link between Macau and Lantau Island in Hong Kong. The proposal sparked heated debate, as many people suggested use of the bridge should be free.

Nevertheless, only a limited number of private cars will be allowed to use the bridge because it will require special cross-border license plates.

The Guangdong authorities will hold a public hearing later this month with representatives from the three cities to discuss the toll. A final decision is expected next year.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com)
A test kitchen at Hatcherys outlet in Dongsi that allows aspiring chefs to try out their new food ideas. Photo: Hatchery

Chinas obsession with food makes it a particularly appetizing destination for aspiring restaurant owners. Although it has a huge consumer base and many discerning pallets in big cities are turning to international or fusion cuisine, the market is also fraught potential pitfalls.

Some successful foreign brands have had to close shop after an year in business, even after spending millions of dollars on their launch because theyve failed to understand local tastes, which change at lightning speed, said Hatchery co-founder Stew Johnson.

Hatchery is Beijings first dedicated incubator for food startups that helps aspiring chefs or restaurant owners to test their ideas at a low cost and get real consumer feedback and advice from veterans in the field. It also helps those with creative ideas connect with potential investors.

Johnson and his co-founder stumbled on the idea of creating a place to test drive new restaurant ideas, while helping a classmate at Tsinghua university introduce Peruvian food to Beijing.

He didnt know how to touch consumers, have the products tested, and navigate the legal framework or find suppliers, said Johnson. Over the past two years, the hatchery has served as a launch pad for several ventures that have changed the citys foodscape.

What are some of Beijings current big food fads? The Beijing palette at the moment is loving natural flavors and healthy ingredients, but also likes to indulge from time to time!, said Johnson. Concepts that leverage imported, fresh seafood and natural fats (butter, cheese and cream) are hot, along with concepts that are offering affordable health and taste.

Johnson sat down with Caixin to talk about the craziest fusion food hes had, how to survive in Beijings cut-throat restaurant industry and how to tackle food safety issues.

Stew Johnson (pictured) and his co-founder stumbled on the idea of creating a place to test drive new restaurant ideas while helping a classmate at Tsinghua University introduce Peruvian food to Beijing.

Stew Johnson Our culinary/food incubator is a new platform that helps validate food ideas quickly through an accelerator process we call HatchTrack. The idea behind Hatchery is that we help food entrepreneurs and companies alike to test their food business ideas at Hatchery in front of a real community of Chinese millennial. The bad ideas get sifted out quickly, whilst the great food ideas move through HatchTrack and then leave Hatchery with a validated business model and brand, performance metrics and customer following. With the onus then on growing the concepts, Hatchery as a platform helps connect the validated/accelerated food ideas with growth partners and investors (including crowd funding) to scale in China and abroad. We evolved from doing pop-ups in Beijing to realizing that there are a lot of market efficiencies surrounding F&B and we could help solve some of the bigger problems by setting up an incubator model like Hatchery. We hope to have our incubators across 15 city hubs in China and Asia Pacific in the next 8 years to help more entrepreneurs and good food ideas to grow.

How competitive is beings restaurant scene? Can you throw in some numbers to compare it with other major destinations in Asia or elsewhere?

Beijing like any mega city has a thriving, highly competitive F&B scene. This said, there are lots of opportunity for new brands (whether local, from across China or abroad) to position themselves in Beijing, particularly in front of 15-35 year olds with higher disposable incomes and insatiable appetites for new ideas and delicious food. We have been watching the mall-trends closely (Swire, HKL, China World etc.) and F&B revenue is becoming much more important for developers to attract and keep malls busy. Average F&B revenue for Tier 1 malls is expected to increase from 13-17% to 20-25% - allowing for new opportunities for food entrepreneurs to position their foods offline (and then to channel that interest and following online). Another thing to watch is the online food delivery models cannibalizing offline food experiences, we are seeing some of this given the large amounts ele.ma and others have raised from VCs (venture capitalists) to subsidize online purchases. We expect this to stabilize once an online winner declares itself, and it provides interesting opportunity for delivery-only food models from centralized kitchens. We want to support both offline and online concepts at Hatchery, and to support the latter we are launching a centralized, delivery model-only food kitchen in the Guomao central business district early 2019.

Whats your favorite restaurant in the city and why?

ZhangMama is a team favorite for quintessential Sichuan heat and brilliant, bold flavors; Taco Bar and Bottega for well executed, consistent foreign concepts; TRB for its location and timeless elegance, and Migas for its Nali rooftop on a spring, good air day!

We rely on our HatchTrack process to flesh out and validate whether an assumed good food idea is actually any good! At the origination stage (the first stage of the accelerator process) we rely on our food and marketing teams to regularly share local and international F&B insights and trends, and then we have a vetting system that funnels ideas into a gate. We then hold pop-ups and focus groups to validate whether the food ideas are any good  and the good ones then pass through into our second validation stage. Its important to note that we rely heavily on our communitys interest (as they are the paying customer!) to know whether we are onto a good food ideas or not, and validate this demand through actual sales. We dont believe in free product or experiences to gauge demand as this distorts the data and final assessment of whether an idea is any good. This is quite closely aligned to design thinking principles promoted in other industries and by other tech incubators. Once its passed Hatcherys incubator and ready for growth, we know we have a good, validated food idea on our hands ready for funding and growth! A good restaurant in Beijing requires a clear, differentiated concept with a good team, location and understanding of what your customer wants from you. Once youve dialed the menu and concept offering, and backed that up with offering a consistent, good experience and understanding of costs and margin, the focus turns to training and marketing to grow your audience offline and online. Dont overlook Dianping and deliveries either!

How open is the Chinese market to diverse food tastes? What does the Chinese palette crave for?

Shanghai is very open to diverse food tastes, Beijing followed by Chengdu and Shenzhen increasingly so. The Beijing palette at the moment is loving natural flavors and healthy ingredients, but also likes to indulge from time to time! Concepts that leverage imported, fresh seafood and natural fats (butter, cheese and cream) are hot, along with concepts that are offering affordable health and taste E.g the rise of salad and whole food delivery concepts like Canteen, which just launched from our incubator in December.

Baozza (Italian baozi), Yeyo coconut-based yoghurt and the Impossible Foods plant-based protein burger. All very delicious and innovative.

We have raised 4 million yuan to date and require another 3.5 million yuan to close our Pre-A round. This will help us set up in Shanghai (to validate Beijing and Shanghai food insights in realtime!) and then we plan to do a bigger Series A (over 30 million yuan) to ramp up our incubator locations in China and elsewhere, as well as build up our data and analytics software, and take more positions in some of the great concepts coming off Hatchery with our community and partners. Chengdu, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Jakarta, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Sydney, LA are all interesting markets we're looking at across the APAC region.

Build up your licensing and regulatory understanding; things always change so build a business model that leverages change; local partners are key but not essential at the start; dont forget to trademark before the going gets good!

Controlling food quality is all about trust and going as vertical as possible between customer and source. Blockchain-based food-tracing solutions will be a great help in the near future to help ensure food safety, and in the meantime its all about understanding avoiding any shortcuts and having a plan/mitigation for any risk. Training, education and working with good people and partners across the food supply chain is a key to ensuring food safety from farm to fork. Dont let it be about price, and any issue is costly in the long term.
Suresh began operating computers when she was four and would make pictures on Microsoft Paint.

Sreelakshmi Suresh was introduced to the digital world when she was a child, and founded her company, Edesign Technologies, when she was just 10, becoming one of the youngest CEOs in the world.

Today, her company has more than 300 clients the world over. Suresh began operating computers when she was four and would make pictures on Microsoft Paint.

By eight, she had mastered web designing. By the time she got to standard four, Suresh had designed her school's website, presntationhss.com.

advertisement

"It was a great recognition to be asked to design my school website. My teachers and friends motivated me to excel," she recalls.

A year later, Suresh won the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement in 2008, presented by Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi.

"I'm lucky to have my parents who inspire me to do better. They never discouraged me. When I told them I want toset up a company at the age of 10, they asked me to go ahead. I was not aware of the complexities of running a company, but decided to give it a try," she says.

Suresh, who is studying business administration at St Joseph's College in Kozhikode, was honoured by the American Webmasters Association with the Gold Web Award, their highest recognition for excellence in web designing. She is the only member of the association in the under-18 bracket.

"Only through determination, hard work and by chasing dreams can we can achieve excellence. If you follow your dreams, you will beat others one day," she says.

Today, Suresh's portfolio includes the website of the Bar Council of Kerala, which lists the profiles of 40,000 practising lawyers from the state, and other global clients. Over the years, Suresh has also learnt how to run a company successfully.

Her biggest dream is to build a user-friendly operating system different from Microsoft Windows. "One day I will be able to do it," she asserts.

--- ENDS ---
Please enable JavaScript in order to get the best experience when using this site.
Published On Dec 15, 2017 03:59 PM By Raunak for Volkswagen T-Cross

Volkswagen India may launch the upcoming T-Cross in the country to fend off the Hyundai Creta in the compact SUV space

Volkswagens upcoming compact SUV, the T-Cross, was recently caught undergoing winter testing in Finland. Last month, the South American media released a picture of a camouflaged test mule. The T-Cross is part of 19 SUVs and crossovers that the VW Group, which includes Skoda and Seat among others, plans on introducing in various markets by 2020. Some of these SUVs are likely to make a landfall in India as well and the T-Cross could very well be a part of it.

Although VW India recently told us that its planning on introducing the T-Cross in the country, there is no clarity on its arrival here. But since it will go on sale in major markets next year, we believe it could be launched here by 2019. If launched, the T-Cross will take on the Hyundai Creta, Renault Captur as well as the upcoming thoroughly updated Renault Duster, the Mahindra S201 and the MG Zs, which is likely to be launched in 2018.

The Volkswagen T-Cross, which is based on the new sixth-gen Polo, is expected to make its world premiere next year. Like the new Polo, the Virtus (second-gen VW Vento), the Seat Ibiza (premium hatchback) and the Seat Arona (compact SUV), the T-Cross too will be built on the smallest version of VW Groups MQB (Modularer Quer Baukasten a.k.a Modular Transverse Matrix) platform.

The compact SUV will borrow styling cues for the 2016 T-Cross concept as well as the T-Roc mid-size SUV. It wont be surprising if it takes design inspiration from the new Polo as well. In fact, the geometric LED graphics in the tail lamps are reminiscent of the Polos.

Pictured: VW T-Roc

Read more about the VW T-Cross expected feature list and engine options along with where it stands against the Hyundai Creta here: VW T-Cross Spied For The First Time

Image Source
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.
The yearly calendar for the UPPSC exam 2018 has been published. Aspirants can now check it out online. The Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) will conduct the UPPSC Combined State/ Upper Subordinate Services preliminary examination 2018 on 24 June 2018 next year.

The UP Judicial Services Civil Judge preliminary exam 2018 will be held on May 13, 2018 while the UPPSC Lecturers in Government Inter College (Screening) exam 2017 will be held on 25 February 2018.

UPPSC Forest Officer Admit Card 2017 Released: Download Now!

UPPSC Exam Calendar 2018

DATE EXAM 24 June 2018 UPPSC Combined State/ Upper Subordinate Services (Prelims) 2018 10 June 2018 UPPSC Additional Private Secretary Exam 2018 13 May 2018 UPPSC UP Judicial Services Civil Judge Prelims 2018 20 May 2018 UPPSC Assistant Forest Conservator / Range Forest Officer Mains Exam 2017 6 May 2018

UPPSC Assistant Lecturer Cadre Exam 2018 15 April 2018 UPPSC Divisional Inspector Exam 2018 8 April 2018 UPPSC Assistant Officer/ Assistant Review Officer Prelims 2018 17 March 2018 UPPSC Combined State/ Upper Subordinate Services Main Exam 2017 11 March 2018 UPPSC Assistant Statistical Officer Screening Exam 2014 25 February 2018 UPPSC Lecturer Government Inter College (Screening) Exam 2017 11 February 2018 UPPSC Additional Private Secretary (Computer knowledge) Exam 2013

Irregularities to be rectified

Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is going to investigate alleged irregularities in the conduct of Uttar Pradesh civil services examinations whose results were declared between April 1, 2012 and March 31, 2017.

Senior officials have said that the Department of Personnel and Training has issued a notification in this regard handing over the probe to the central agency. The government is looking into the conduct of the exam keenly to take actions and make the exam malpractice free.

Uttar Pradesh Board Exam 2018 Centres Published: Check Now!
The results and the marks of the Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur 's LDC recruitment candidates have been published. In a statement, the recruitment board said that the marks obtained by the candidates who qualified for the Computer Test (Speed and Efficiency Test) for Recruitment to the post of LDC for District Court, 2017 has been uploaded on the official website of Rajasthan High Court.

The RHC LDC computer test marks can be accessed from the link "Final Result(Marks) LDC for District Courts, 2017" given on the website. The candidates can download their Statement of Marks by entering Roll Number and Date of Birth.

Rajasthan High Court LDC Result 2017 Released: Download Now!

How to download Rajasthan High Court LDC Recruitment Exam Marks?

In order to download Rajasthan High Court LDC Recruitment Exam Marks, follow the steps given here:

Log on to the official website of Rajasthan High Court

Click on the link "Final Result(Marks) LDC for District Courts, 2017" given on the website.

On the next page, enter your details such as RHC LDC Roll Number and Date of Birth.

Click to submit

The marks will be displayed on the screen

Save it to your computer and take a print out of it for future reference

Recruitment of civil judges

Rajasthan High Court has recently released a notification for recruitment of 35 civil judges. The application process for this recruitment is going on and will end on December 21, 2017.

Selection process

The selection for the post will be through a competitive exam which will be conducted in two stages - Preliminary exam and Main exam.

Rajasthan High Court Recruitment 2017: Apply for Civil Judge Cadre Post!
The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene is determined to not let Sunny Leone perform in Bengaluru.

By Nagarjun Dwarakanath: Pro-Kannada group Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene will protest in 15 districts in the state against Bollywood actor Sunny Leone's participation in a New Year's Eve party called "Sunny Night in Bengaluru NYE 2018".

Yuva Sene is protesting for the second time in the last two weeks against Sunny Leone. The group's General Secretary, Syed Minaj, said that they want to send out a message. "We all know who Sunny Leone is, she is not an Indian or a Kannadiga. We know her history, we don't want her to spoil the culture of the land," said Minaj.

advertisement

However, this is not the first time that Sunny Leone is visiting Bengaluru for an event. In fact, Sunny has done a guest appearance in a Kannada film titled DK in the song 'Sesamma'.

When contacted, the organisers of the party were unavailable for comment.

ALSO WATCH: Sunny Leone's sexy moves

--- ENDS ---
If you have just started your journey in an online casino or are looking for a new site to play,...
HeidelbergCement to sell calcium silicate unit business

15 December 2017

HeidelbergCement has signed an agreement with H+H International A/S and its subsidiary H+H Deutschland GmbH to sell its calcium silicate unit business (HDKS), according to a press release. The transaction has a value of about EUR110m (US$129.6m) and is expected to be completed within the 1Q18.



"HDKS has a strong market position in the North-East and South-West of Germany as well as in Switzerland, but the focus of its product portfolio on calcium silicate units is outside the core businesses of HeidelbergCement," said Dr Bernd Scheifele, CEO of HeidelbergCement.



HDKS is estimated to achieve EUR65m sales in the 2017 period, with an EBITDA margin of approximately 20 per cent.

Published under
Emami Cement orders system from ABB India

15 December 2017

Emami Cement has ordered an automation and electrical system from ABB India for a 2Mta greenfield plant in Odisha, according to moneycontrol.

Emami hopes to meet the rising demand in the country by constructing energy-efficient cement plants. ABB will be helping the company meet that target by installing an ABB Ability Distributed Control System 800xA. The system will maximise plant uptime and optimise the cement production process.

Published under
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have chosen a wedding date and a location for the celebration, and it looks like the headline-making couple made the perfect choice on both counts. As with any wedding, the couple has to take many factors into account when organizing their special day. But the planning already seems to be off to an auspicious start.

Read on to learn why the choice of this particular wedding date and location seems absolutely perfect for this royal couple.

Windsor Castle is the queens favorite weekend residence, and has special significance for the couple

As Kensington Palace announced, the couple will marry on May 19, 2018. The wedding will take place at St. Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle. USA Today reports that Windsor Castle, a 900-year-old castle just a half hour west of London, is the queens favorite weekend residence. In fact, she spends most weekends there when shes in London. But Prince Harry and Meghan Markle didnt just choose it to get the queens approval.

The couple has visited Windsor Castle regularly throughout the course of their relationship. In fact, a statement by Kensington Palace communications secretary Jason Knauf characterized Windsor Castle as a very special place that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle regularly visited during the year and half they dated before their engagement. Knauf also reported that the couple is leading the planning for the royal affair.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle probably want a small wedding

USA Today reports that even before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement, royal correspondents speculated that the couple would want a small wedding  or at least one smaller than that of Harrys brother, who is second in line to the throne. Harry is fifth in line for the throne, and hell be sixth once William and Kates third child is born in April. So the couples choice of a low-key venue  at least by royal standards  doesnt come as a surprise.

Despite its name as a chapel, St. Georges is hardly a tiny venue. It looks more like a small cathedral than a chapel. Nonetheless, with a capacity of 800 people, it isnt quite as spacious as the traditional royal wedding venue, Westminster Abbey. Thats where Prince William married Kate Middleton in front of 2,000 guests in 2011. St. Georges is also not as large as St. Pauls Cathedral, where Harrys father and mother, Princess Diana, tied the knot in 1981.

They decided to break with tradition with their wedding date

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arent exactly the most traditional royal couple. So it makes sense that they would choose to break with tradition when they selected a wedding date. The Mirror reports that royal weddings usually take place on a weekday. But the couple has chosen to say I do over a weekend instead. May 19, 2018, for the record, falls on a Saturday.

Harrys brother William married Kate Middleton on a Friday. And the queen married Prince Philip on a Thursday, the same day of the week on which her parents married. May 19 falls between two bank holiday weekends, one on May 9 and one on May 28. So the country wont celebrate another bank holiday for the royal wedding. Interestingly enough, May 19 also holds a more sinister kind of significance. Its the same day that, in 1536, Ann Boleyn was beheaded.

Religious weddings have to take place at a church

The Archbishop of Canterbury says that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want a religious wedding. And Vogue reports that in the U.K., religious weddings almost always have to take place at a church. (Just add it the list of royal wedding traditions.) Prince Harry and Meghan Markle basically had to choose a church as their wedding location. So it makes sense that they went with St. Georges Chapel, the Anglican church at the Windsor Castle.

The chapel serves as the site of many royal rituals, including weddings, internments, and the annual Order of the Garter ceremony. People reports that the chapel dates back more than 500 years. The first wedding ceremony to take place at the chapel occurred in 1863, when King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra wed. In 2005, it also served as the location for the prayer ceremony at the wedding of Harrys father, Prince Charles, to his second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Kate Middleton will likely be able to attend

Kate Middleton is expecting her third child, and her due date likely played a role in Prince Harry and Meghan Markles choice of wedding date. The royal babys due date falls sometime in April. Due to the unpredictability of pregnancy and childbirth, a wedding earlier in the spring was probably out if the couple wanted to ensure that Middleton would be able to attend.

Second and third children often arrive as much as five to six days before their due date, so even going by the due date doesnt guarantee anything. But a wedding date more than halfway through the month of May likely gives Middleton at least a few weeks to recover after childbirth  and settle into life with a third child  before attending Prince Harry and Meghan Markles wedding.

Their wedding date falls at the end of banana season

You read that right: Prince Harry and Meghan Markles wedding date falls right at the end of the months when bananas are in season in the U.K. Unsure of how that could possibly be relevant to the couples choice of wedding date? As Today reports, the couple reportedly wants to break with fruit-cake-heavy tradition and serve a banana-flavored cake at their wedding in May.

As Today explains, Bananas seem to have played a big part in the whirlwind romance between Markle and her prince. Speculation about a possible connection dates back to an Instagram post that Markle published soon after she met Prince Harry. (The whimsical image showed two bananas, with faces drawn on, cuddling up together.) Harry also has a history of enjoying banana-flavored desserts, including banana flan and banana ice cream.

Theyll probably experience good weather at their most likely honeymoon destinations

Another factor that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry may have considered when they set their wedding date? The kind of honeymoon they want to plan. Lonely Planet reports that though we dont know for sure where the couple will honeymoon, we can guess at the most likely destinations. The couple could return to Africa, most likely Botswana, where theyve traveled in the past. They could also pick Antigua, where theyve been invited to honeymoon. Or, they might choose to travel to the Seychelles, Greece, Canada, or even the United States.

As noted by The Knots guide to best honeymoon destinations by month, most of those places will likely have gorgeous weather in the days following the royal wedding. May signals the start of the dry season in Botswana, and the best months to visit the Seychelles include April and May. Likewise, the ideal time to visit Antigua falls between May and November. And mid-April to mid-June usually make the list of the best times to travel to Greece.

Prince Harry is getting what Prince William wanted

Sibling rivalry never quite goes away, even when everybody grows up. So it wouldnt surprise us if Prince Harry derives at least a little satisfaction from getting the wedding that his older brother, Prince William, initially wanted. William and Kate married at Westminster Abbey. Yet People reports that according to royal historian Hugo Vickers, William would have liked to have married at St. Georges Chapel. Vickers explained, The only reason was that it didnt have a balcony for the newlyweds much photographed kiss.

Nonetheless, youll still see many big differences between Prince Harrys wedding and Prince Williams. William had to adhere to protocol for his wedding day. But Harry can bend the rules a little. For instance, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will invite fewer dignitaries, but likely more celebrities. And the couple wont process through London, or kiss on the balcony at Buckingham Palace.

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!
Race between Boebert, Frisch gets closer on final day of counting

The election is hovering within the threshold for an automatic recount. Here's the latest in the Colorado race between Adam Frisch and Lauren Boebert.
The Modi government had told the Supreme Court that it was ready to extend the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar linking to avail various services and welfare measures to March 31 next year.

The Supreme Court has extended the deadline to link Aadhaar to all services to March 31 next year (Photo for representation: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: Accepting the Centre's stand, the Supreme Court today extended the Aadhar linking deadline for all services including bank accounts, mobile phones, and all government schemes to March 31 next year.

The court said new bank accounts can be opened without Aadhaar, but the applicant needs to submit proof that she has applied for the unique identification card. Similarly, the deadline of February 6 for linking Aadhaar with the mobile services also stands extended up to March 31 with today's order.

advertisement

On Thursday, the top court had reserved its interim order on pleas that sought a stay on the Narendra Modi's governemnt's decision on mandatory Aadhaar linking with several welfare schemes. A Constitution bench on the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, said the final hearing of petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme itself would begin on January 17, 2018.

The Modi government told the Supreme Court that it was ready to extend the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar linking to avail various services and welfare measures to March 31 next year.

The government issued a notification to extend the deadline for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar and Permanent Account Number (PAN) for bank accounts and certain financial transactions, but there was no word about the February 6 deadline for Aadhaar linking with SIM cards.

In the Supreme Court, Attorney General K K Venugopal said the February 6, 2018 deadline was chosen in pursuance of an apex court direction, and that the Constitution bench may consider extending it.

The Centre also told the bench that Aadhaar should remain mandatory for opening new banking accounts.

Recently, a nine-judge constitution bench of the apex court had held that Right to Privacy was a Fundamental Right under the Constitution. Several petitioners challenging the validity of Aadhaar had claimed it violated privacy rights.

The Centre had on October 25 told the top court that the deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar to receive benefits of government schemes has been extended till March 31, 2018 for those who do not have the 12-digit unique biometric identification number and were willing to enrol for it.

The Attorney General had told the court that no coercive action would be taken against those who do not have the Aadhaar card but are willing to enrol for. He had said such people would not be denied the benefits of social welfare schemes till March 31.

(Inputs from PTI)

WATCH | India Today Conclave Next 2017: Govt should have created proper ecosystem for Aadhaar, says Rajeev Chandrashekhar

advertisement

--- ENDS ---
President Trump and his administration have been taking steps to show their support for Israel, but the European Union is not following suit.

As ChristianHeadlines.com previously reported, President Trump announced that the U.S. would recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and that the U.S. was working toward moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

EU leaders do not support Trumps stance and action on Israel and rejected his announcement to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, according to The Times of Israel.

EU leaders reiterate firm commitment to the two-state solution and, in this context, the EU position on Jerusalem remains unchanged, EU President Donald Tusk tweeted after EU leaders from 28 countries discussed the matter at a summit in Brussels.

EU foreign policy leader Federica Mogherini has also warned that Trumps decision could take Arab-Israeli tensions backwards to even darker times.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem and move the U.S. Embassy. I believe that all or most of the European countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem, recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and engage robustly with us for security, prosperity and peace, he said.

But Mogherini said that Netanyahu should keep his expectations for others.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/Jacek-Sopotnicki

Publication date: December 15, 2017
Uzbekistan's authorities continue to punish peaceful religious believers with fines, physical abuse and court-ordered destruction of religious literature, ASSIST News Service reports. Police in eastern Fergana Region allegedly raided the home of a Protestant couple in late July and are preparing an administrative case against them. The police inspector who led the raid said that police found and confiscated banned religious literature. Asked what literature found in their home was banned, he identified the Bible and the New Testament. Also in July, courts in the capital of Tashkent and eastern Syrdarya Region have handed down fines of up to one hundred times the minimum monthly wage to ten Protestants to punish them for unregistered activity. In both cases, the courts ordered that confiscated Christian literature - including Bibles and New Testaments  be destroyed. Another court in central Samarkand Region fined a member of an officially registered Baptist Church for illegal religious teaching.
A Retraction I Am Delighted to Make I am delighted to retract my description of David Berkowitz as "evil."

In yesterday's Daily Article, I made the point that mortality is a fact for us all. Reflecting on stories in the day's news, I stated, "Evil people like the Son of Sam killer can develop heart disease. Heroes like John McCain can develop brain cancer. The death rate is still 100 percent."

John McCain is still a hero and he still has brain cancer. But a kind reader sent me an extraordinary note about the Son of Sam killer that I asked his permission to share with you today.

An amazing story of redemption

Dr. Steve Foster is pastor of Community Bible Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In December 2009, he visited the "Son of Sam," David Berkowitz, in prison.

Thirty years earlier, Berkowitz terrorized New York City, killing six people and wounding seven others. Police mounted the largest manhunt in New York City history, arresting him on August 10, 1977. Berkowitz claimed to have been obeying the orders of a demon manifested in the form of a dog belonging to his neighbor "Sam." He pled guilty to second-degree murder and has been serving six consecutive life sentences.

I remembered his story when reading that Berkowitz has now been hospitalized for a heart problem. What I didn't know was the rest of the story.

Dr. Foster tells it well: While in prison, Berkowitz came to faith in Christ. Such "conversions" are often a play for media attention or sympathy from parole boards, but his has clearly been sincere. For decades, he has been ministering to other prisoners in Jesus' name. He has especially focused on those who are suicidal and emotionally disturbed.

In his blog post, Dr. Foster notes: "It was hard for me to imagine this man as the former Son of Sam. He was humble, gentle, self-effacing." Berkowitz has developed a writing ministry with Christian ministers around the world; his testimony has been used by Prison Fellowship in many of their prison outreaches.

Berkowitz views his imprisonment as just punishment for his crimes and has regularly refused even to attend his parole hearings. He has also issued a public apology, asking for forgiveness from those he has hurt.

Dr. Foster says that he left his meeting with David Berkowitz with Paul's testimony in his mind:

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 1:12-14).

I am delighted to retract my description of David Berkowitz as "evil." He is not who he was. His transformation shows that the gospel that changed Paul's life still changes lives today.

Partner with the God who redeems

How can you and I experience and share this transforming power with our culture? Several personal journal notes I have made in recent days help answer our question.

One: Delight God by depending on him.

I recently read in Psalm 147, "His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love" (vv. 10-11). To "fear" and "hope in" God is to revere and trust him.

God loves you no matter what you do, but he delights in you to the degree that you depend on him.

Two: Go where he sends and say what he says.

Jonah 3 tells the story of the prophet's ministry in Nineveh. This city and its people were bitter enemies of the Jewish nation. Yet, when Jonah warned them of divine judgment, "the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them" (v. 5).

Clearly, the Holy Spirit had been at work in Nineveh before Jonah arrived. I noted in my journal: when we follow God, he leads us where he has already prepared the way for us.

We are like farmers planting seeds in soilwe can go where the ground has already been plowed, or we can try to plow it ourselves. However, only the Holy Spirit can convict of sin and change lives. If he does not convict people, we cannot convince them. Obedience to God is fruitful; disobedience is fruitless.

Three: Submission to God brings peace.

Yesterday's reading in Oswald Chambers's My Utmost for His Highest includes this observation: "Whenever you obey God, His seal is always that of peace, the witness of an unfathomable peace, which is not natural, but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, tarry till it does or find out the reason why it does not."

David Berkowitz has clearly chosen to depend upon the Lord. His ministry from prison is now being used to touch lives around the world. And the peace Dr. Foster witnessed in his countenance is evidence that the Prince of Peace rules his heart.

After his meeting with Berkowitz, Dr. Foster responded in his blog post: "Grace. Abundant grace. Amazing grace. Poured out from God upon those who need it. And all of us need it . . . whether we recognize it or not."

Do you recognize your need of grace today?

Originally posted at the Denison Forum.
Are the Republicans in Big Trouble in 2018? With Donald Trump's approval ratings so low, does this predict a disastrous outcome for Republicans in 2018?

Many media outlets described the defeat of Roy Moore in Alabama as a defeat of President Trump, as if the voters in rejecting Moore were rejecting Trump. And, with Trump's approval ratings so low, does this predict a disastrous outcome for Republicans in 2018?

According to Chris Cilizza on CNN.com, based on his analysis of the exit polls, there are " eight numbers out of Alabama that should terrify Republicans." These are: 1) Moore won only among old(er) voters; 2) Moms walked away from Moore; 3) Moderates fell for Jones; 4) Trump approval was blah; 5) Jones played Moore to a draw on values; 6) The Democratic Party is more popular than the Republican party; 7) Republicans are increasingly only a rural party; 8) Black voters are incredibly energized.

It's certainly possible that Cilizza and others are right and that Republicans are in big trouble. And there's no disputing that the president's approval ratings continue to be very low. But it's also possible that the unique circumstances surrounding Judge Moore were the biggest factor in Alabama and had another Republican candidate one (especially one was that was not so hotly opposed by his own party), that candidate would have won handily.

Also, looking at the exit polls for the Alabama senatorial race, it's interesting to see that, while 51 percent of the voters said that Trump was not a factor in their vote, 27 percent said their vote reflected support for Trump whereas only 17 percent said their reflected opposition to Trump. If this is correct, then Trump gained more votes for Roy Moore than he lost to Doug Jones.

As for Trump's overall approval-disapproval ratings, 89 percent of those who voted for Moore expressed approval while 93 percent of those who voted for Jones expressed disapproval. This is in keeping with what we could expect from partisan voters. And perhaps, had Trump been a strong supporter of Moore from the start, his approval rating would have been higher in the Moore-voter's eyes.

But perhaps a question we should ask is this: If the presidential elections were held today with the same two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, or, if it was Trump vs. a Hillary Clinton type candidate, how would people vote? I decided to ask this question on Twitter on Facebook, using their respective polling options.

On Twitter, you can select four response options, whereas on Facebook, at present, you can select only two. So, on Twitter, I asked, "If the presidential elections were today and Trump was the Republican candidate and he was running against a Hillary Clinton type Democrat, would you vote for Trump? (Please also signify if you voted for him in 2016; that's why there are two options for Yes and No.)"

The choices were: Y (voted for him in 2016); N (voted for him in 2016); Y (didn't vote for him); N (didn't vote for him).

Of the 422 followers who responded, 68 percent had voted for Trump in 2016 and 32 percent had not. Of the former, 95.5 percent said they would vote for him again and 4.5 percent said they would not. Of the latter, 66 percent said they would not vote for him now compared to 34 percent who said they would. So, overall, based on this Twitter response, Trump picked up substantially more voters than he lost.

On Facebook, because there were only two ways that people could respond, I posted two polls, one for those who voted for Trump in 2016 and one for those who did not. And since this was just a test, I didn't do it on my AskDrBrown Facebook page, which has over 550,000 followers, but on my private page, which has the 5,000 friend limit.

Of the 277 who responded, they were almost equally divided between those who voted for Trump in 2016 (144) and those who did not (130). Breaking this down, 87 percent of those who voted for him said they would do so again today if he was running against a Hillary Clinton type candidate. Of those who did not vote for him, 80 percent said they now would. This was even more dramatic than my poll on Twitter in terms of Trump picking up far more voters than he lost.

Of course, this only reflects a tiny sampling of people (under 30,000 on Twitter and just the 5,000 on my personal Facebook page, and presumably, very conservative), but it does indicate that the overwhelming majority of those who voted for Trump would do so again while a substantial number of those who did not vote for him in 2016 would do so today under similar circumstances.

Could it be, then, that Trump's negative approval ratings are not totally reflective of reality? Or is all this irrelevant, since it is not Trump who is running in 2018 but other candidates who will be running? Or should we not try to read too much out of the Alabama race due to the unique nature of Moore's candidacy and the opposition he received from his own party?

Again, it is very possible that Republicans are in big trouble in 2018 and that there are many factors pointing in that direction. And it's very possible that there will be a massive backlash against President Trump and his party at that time, certainly with the help of the perpetually anti-Trump mainstream media.

But things may not be so simple. We shall see.
Dear Silicon Valley: First, Do No Harm The time is now for Silicon Valley to own up to the ancient, and inspired notion that to whom much is given, much is required.

The Director of the FBI recently warned Congress that cell phone encryption is posing a major obstacle to law enforcement. Even though the facts back him up, the technology sector is still digging in. The time is now for Silicon Valley to own up to the ancient, and inspired notion that to whom much is given, much is required. See: Luke 12:48. The posture of the technology sector, refusing to cooperate with the FBI and law enforcement regarding the opening of locked and encrypted cell phones used by evildoers, is not just callous, it is harmful.

This presents the same point I have made on Capitol Hill over the years in public debates on technology issues. Namely, that the clash between the rights of tech giants on the one hand, and the public interest of consumers and citizens on the other, is approaching a collision course. The best way for technology companies to avoid the heavy hand of new regulations, and to serve the public at the same time, is to expand their corporate consciences, and voluntarily elevate their decision-making to a higher, more responsible level.

FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony mirrors what he said back in October to the Association of Chiefs of Police when he made the stunning declaration that half of the thousands of cell phones confiscated from criminals and terrorists cannot be opened and inspected because of sophisticated encryption systems. Recall for a moment the 2015 San Bernardino terror shooting. The shooter's iPhone 5 cell phone couldn't be opened to track down other possible conspirators because it was encrypted. When Apple was asked to help open the phone for inspection of incoming and outgoing calls, it refused. In the end the FBI was forced to pay almost a million dollars to another private tech firm to open the cell phone.

The privacy of cell users is an important right. However, the 4th Amendment still requires legal procedures to be complied with before those privacy rights are compromised. One of those is the necessary showing of probable cause that a crime has been committed. The pretensions of Silicon Valley that they are protectors of the public's privacy ring hollow when the physical safety of the public is so clearly at risk, especially when a cell user at issue is engaged in criminality.

Should Congress pass a law requiring technology companies to de-encrypt the cell phones of lawbreakers and terrorists? Right now, federal legislators have intentionally given tech providers a big pass on that. Not surprisingly, Silicon Valley advocates are vehemently opposed to any change to their favored position. As an example, the Electronic Frontier Foundation takes the position that tech company-created encryption codes are a form of "speech" as well as property, protected under the Constitution. Even if that is true, the Supreme Court has regularly ruled that no single constitutional right is absolute and immutable, and must be balanced against other constitutional rights of citizens, such as the physical safety and security of the public.

The best resolution is for tech giants to voluntarily work out a partnership with law enforcement that gives law abiding citizens assurance that they will not be snooped, violated or hacked by the government, but that also gives policing agencies tools to examine the digital devices of killers. Such a partnership could be arranged on a case-by-case basis, with the government agreeing to protect the propriety information of the tech companies, with harsh penalties for officials who handle such information negligently, and providing not only reasonable compensation to the private companies who cooperate but also carefully and reasonably defined legal immunity if some citizens claim their rights are offended in the process.

Further, a permanent technology commission with a high degree of transparency consisting of government officials, tech leaders and public members needs to be established to provide advisory, non-binding policy oversight not only on this issue, but on other related tech issues as well. This could act as a dynamic check against overexpansion of the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an agency gaining momentum as the official, arguably heavy-handed, and increasingly tech-detailed agency when it comes to technology matters.

If the genius of Silicon Valley can create encryption systems in the first place, it surely must possess the ability to "reason together" with our government officials and public stakeholders in order to solve the problem of criminals exploiting encryption technology.

Craig Parshall is a best-selling fiction author whose novels have often featured technology issues and who serves as Special Counsel to the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington, D.C. His next suspense novel, The Empowered, which touches on the "dark web," is his 13th and will be released by Tyndale Publishing House in January.
Hanukkah Day Four  Rededication As Jews around the world prepare to celebrate Hanukkah this year, let's take a moment to understand what the word actually means and what it tells us about this holiday.

As Jews around the world prepare to celebrate Hanukkah this year, let's take a moment to understand what the word actually means and what it tells us about this holiday.

When we divide the word Hanukkah in half, we get two Hebrew words: Hanu, which means "they rested," and kah, which is composed of the Hebrew letters that correspond to the number 25. The meaning of the word becomes, "They rested on the 25th." Indeed, the war against the Greeks ceased on the 25th day of the Hebrew month Kislev. It was on that day that a major battle was won, and the people finally rested.

It was also on the 25th that the Jews joyfully marched to the recaptured Temple, ready to begin the Temple service again. We can only imagine their disappointment as they opened the Temple doors and saw that the House of God was in shambles. The place of utmost purity was utterly defiled. They realized that the Temple needed more than cleaning; it needed a complete renewal  a rededication.

On the 25th of Kislev, the Jewish people decided to rise up from the ruins and renew all that had been destroyed. They vowed to recommit to their ideals and realign themselves with God. The literal meaning of the word Hanukkah is "dedication;" however, the Temple had already been dedicated once. On this day, the word Hanukkah meant "rededication." It signified a complete renewal.

Psalm 30, which we read on Hanukkah, begins, "A song. For the dedication of the temple. Of David." The word used in the verse for "dedication" is Hanukkah. However, the Jewish sages note that David never dedicated a Temple. It was his son Solomon who built and dedicated the Temple. They explain that perhaps David wrote this psalm for future Temple dedications. However, it could also be that David meant this psalm for himself.

David had just healed from an acute illness when he penned this psalm, so the "temple" of the psalm could be referring to David's body, the home of his godly soul. In this psalm, David was actually rededicating his body after a devastating illness and recommitting to living a godly life. He was renewing his dedication to serving God.

David's rededication can serve as a model for us all. This Hanukkah let's recommit ourselves to our ideals and values. No matter what may have happened in our lives, we can start anew today. We can rededicate ourselves to serving God, even amid the ruins of our lives. We can give ourselves to Him anew, and through God become renewed.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein is the founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which now raises more than $140 million per year, mostly from Christians, to assist Israel and the Jewish people. Since its founding, The Fellowship has raised more than $1.4 billion for this work. The organization has offices in Jerusalem, Chicago, Toronto and Seoul.
'General Hospital' spoilers, plot news: Drew's mission to recover his memories puts himself at risk

Almost nothing can be acquired without a price, and this is certainly the case for Drew (Billy Miller). "General Hospital" spoilers indicate that in an attempt to regain his old memories, Drew might end up having to pay a terrible price.

Drew will continue to be frustrated about why he does not have any recollection of his past life before arriving in Port Charles. Jason (Steve Burton) had a good point in the previous episodes, saying that the memory mapping study would not be able to turn Drew into a duplicate of Jason. Although Drew has Jason's memories, his personality is much different. He also makes choices that are not exactly similar to Jason's perspective.

This might mean that Drew is still in there, the real Drew, that is. It is apparent that the memory imprinting on him was successful, but the erasing of memories was not. There is still a chance for Drew to remember everything as himself and not as Jason. This will result in him making a decision that could have some serious consequences. He will decide to go on a mission, perhaps to trigger a memory or two.

One hint that Drew is still in there was the way he looked at Kim (Tamara Braun), so that can be something he can work with. Drew can try a lot of methods in order to get his memories back. He could give hypnosis a shot, especially when done by a professional. He might even be able to recall some facts about himself. Then again, he could also head to San Diego, and maybe Kim could tag along with him. The two of them can retrace his steps and this could even pave the way for a romance.

But, it is possible that Drew will continue to be unsuccessful. He will likely have to resort to a more scientific way of going about it. Knowing that most of his memories as Drew were wiped from his head, a memory restoration tactic could help. Of course, there is no perfect plan, and if Drew goes about this carelessly, this could only end up messing with his head.

"General Hospital" airs Mondays to Fridays, 2 p.m. EST on ABC.
'Rick and Morty' news: Show's co-creator targeted for an attack at the 2017 Game Awards

Justin Roiland came under the crosshairs of one angry fan during his presentation at the 2017 Game Awards. Roiland, co-creator of "Rick and Morty," was revealing his the debut trailer for his Squanch Games VR effort "Smith & Smitherson Accounting+" on edge since he was apparently the target of a threatening tweet prior to the Awards.

The said tweet, which was shared on the website 4chan, read, "That's the final straw, I am attending this year's video game awards with 3 handguns, 2 smg's a shotgun and a dead man's switch attached to a bomb vest. When this meme f*ck takes the stage, I am going to open fire and take out as many of these (censored) as I can until the police take me down. Also, I am spray pointing '/pol/ told me to do it' on the back of my trenchcoat so I can take down those (censored) as well. Wish me luck."

This threat was spread fast and was even taken seriously enough for The Microsoft Theater to reach out to the authorities, particularly the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on Dec. 6, which was a day before the event. 4chan was also alarmed by the said tweet and had even handed over to the police the internet protocol (IP) address of the account responsible for the comment. Authorities then tracked it back to someone living in the United Kingdom.

The authorities are now trying to locate whoever posted the tweet despite him/her not actually doing anything at the event, simply for the trouble he caused, which may count as an attempted terror attack.

Meanwhile, it was unclear why it was Roiland who was targeted for the attack. This, however, did not prevent him from doing what he planned to on the stage, which is to present his virtual reality (VR) game for the PlayStation. Regardless, Roiland has received no further threats and is now safe, and his game "Smith & Smitherson Accounting+" is set to be released sometime next year.
Samsung releases 2-in-1 Notebook 9 Pen featuring the company's 'largest and most powerful' battery for notebooks

Samsung has recently unveiled the new generation of its Notebook 9 series. The company revealed a new line of laptops and a 2-in1 device that will be launched on the market next year.

The tablet-notebook hybrid is called the Notebook 9 Pen. It is a 2-in-1 computer that is expected to compete with similar devices from known brand names like the Microsoft Surface computers or Apple's MacBook. It comes with a battery-independent stylus called the S Pen.

The Notebook 9 Pen is run by an 8th Generation Core i7 CPU. It also has 16 GB of random access memory (RAM) and boasts a solid-state drive (SSD) storage capacity of 512 GB. The 13.3-inch screen is capped at a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels.

Samsung also utilizes their trademarked material "Metal12" in the design of the tablet. The company claimed that this allows the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen to be both durable and lightweight. The device weighs just about 2.2 pounds.

The company put special attention to the way the stylus works. The S Pen runs without batteries and has a 0.7-millimeter tip that can recognize 4,096 pressure points. It also has tilt detection which makes for a "natural writing and drawing experience."

Meanwhile, the regular Notebook 9 laptops have screen sizes that range from 13.3 to 15 inches, packing the same 1920 by 1080 pixels of resolution. They share processor and RAM specifications with the Notebook 9 Pen, but have SSD storage options of up to 1 terabyte. There is also an option to include an Nvidia MX150 discrete graphics card to the 15-inch model.

As for power and endurance, Samsung installs a 75-watt Hexacell battery for each model. The company claims that this is the "largest and most powerful" battery that they put inside their notebooks. This long-lasting power cell also supports fast charging.
Movement of suspected militants and a wireless message was intercepted on Punjab's Indo-Pak border ahead of the anniversary of 2016 Pathankot terror attack.

By Manjeet Sehgal: After the seizure of three Pakistan boats in Punjab, now two suspicious activities on the international border in Pathankot and Gurdaspur have sent the security agencies into a tizzy.

Movement of suspicious armed men was noticed on the India-Pakistan border on Thursday which has put the security agencies on a high alert, sources told India Today.

Security agencies have also intercepted a wireless message from Pakistan in Bamial sector, in which a handler was heard asking the other man named Iqbal whether the 'guests' have reached who confirms that the guests reached at 5 o' clock.

advertisement

The person on the other side also asked his counterpart to pass on the names of the guests to ADJT. Then he asked the person to reveal how much money was paid and even tells him to disclose the names to Sajid and Bhatti.

The person named Iqbal says that they were out at the same time, with this information the wireless chat came to an end.

After the boats were seized, movement of suspected militants and the wireless message has been intercepted ahead of the second anniversary of Pathankot terror attack, and the agencies are not taking any chances.

Meanwhile, an alert has been sounded on the Indo-Pak border in Punjab which spans over an area of over 500 kilometres and security has also been tightened.

ALSO WATCH | Pathankot terror attack: Airbase officer JS Dhamoon resigns after security lapses exposed

--- ENDS ---
After surrendering to FBI officials early Thursday, a local CEO appeared before a federal judge in Houston three times Thursday to arrange bond on allegations he participated in a $32 million securities and wire fraud scheme.

By the afternoon, Ray Charles Davis, 62, had executed a $50,000 secured bond along with an additional $200,000 unsecured bond. He agreed he would not discuss business matters with two family members who are employees at the company and have been identified as potential witnesses and possibly co-conspirators.

Davis, who was CEO of Behavioral Recognition Systems Inc., a technology company, faces a 21-count indictment handed down by a grand jury Dec. 7, for embezzling money from his company, defrauding people who invested in the Houston firm and leading them to purchase shares based on false and misleading statements.

Specifically, federal prosecutors say he made false statements to investors regarding his salary, how the proceeds of their investments would be used and the financial condition of the company, defrauding his investors of $32 million and unlawfully embezzling more than $11 million from his business.

The company sells the technology behind business security systems, including video monitoring, artificial intelligence, facial recognition software and other products.

At the afternoon bond hearing Davis, who uses a feeding tube and suffers from hypoglycemia, was led into the courtroom by U.S. Marshals wearing ankle cuffs.

Davis pleaded not guilty to the charges and entered into a bond agreement. His wife was going to try to secure $50,000 before the offices shut down for the day. The judge seized his passport, but granted him permission to leave Houston to attend a Miami boat show so that he could attempt to sell an antique boat.

Defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said his client is not guilty of the charges.

"There's a lot more to this than is in the indictment," he said. "We're going to fight this, it's going to take awhile, it's going to be complex."

Davis and his son Charles face an ongoing civil suit over related matters.

Davis appeared in the morning in shackles and handcuffs in a wearing a charcoal business suit and white dress shirt and shoes.

He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on the securities fraud charge and on each of the 20 counts of wire fraud.

The FBI led the investigation along with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Labour shortage pushes Canadian job vacancies to record high, says report Stephen Smith Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

Sans Font Size A

A

Job vacancies in Canadas private sector rose to a record high in the third quarter of 2017, says a new report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

Canadas private sector job vacancy rate stood at 2.8 per cent for the quarter, the report says, noting the last time Canadian employers faced a similar situation was in early 2008.

In raw terms, this represents a record-high 361,700 jobs left unfilled for at least four months because employers have not found suitable candidates, reports the CFIB, a non-profit organization with a membership of more than 109,000 independent businesses across Canada.

The situation was a product of Canadas growing economy and a shortage of skilled labour, says the study, which queried business owner/operators across Canada and was based on 2,033 responses.

Labour shortages are again becoming a major hindrance to businesses across the country, especially small firms, said Ted Mallett, Chief Economist at CFIB. We need government to take action, to find solutions for chronic shortages that inhibit a small business ability to take on new contracts, expand and innovate.

To find out if you are eligible to immigrate to Canada permanently, fill out a free online assessment form.

The findings showed the highest job vacancy rate for the quarter in British Columbia, at 3.4 per cent or 60,100 unfilled jobs.

The job vacancy rate also rose slightly in Quebec (3.1 per cent), Ontario (3 per cent), and Saskatchewan (2.4 per cent) during the quarter. Business owners in Ontario reported 149,600 unfilled jobs while another 85,000 went unfilled in Quebec.

Alberta had a job vacancy rate of 2.2 per cent, or 33,900 unfilled jobs.

The only Canadian provinces to see their job vacancy rates decline over the previous quarter were Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island showed no change in their job vacancy rates between the second and third quarter of 2017.

Vacancies force wages up in affected sectors

Industries facing the greatest labour shortages in the third quarter of 2017 included construction, transportation, enterprise services and personal services, CFIB says.

The rising vacancies also resulted in a jump in wages, with employers with vacancies expecting to push average organization-wide wage levels a full-point higher than those without, according to the report.

The CFIBs findings follow new data from Statistics Canada that showed Canadas unemployment rate reaching a 10-year low in November.

At 5.9 per cent, the national unemployment rate was the lowest it had been since February 2008.

British Columbia led the way in November, posting the lowest unemployment rate in Canada at 4.8 per cent.

That same month saw Quebec post its lowest recorded unemployment rate since January 1976, prompting renewed calls to increase the provinces immigration quotas.

Are you interested in working in Canada? Start researching and applying for positions in your field across Canada today using our Job Search Tool.

To find out if you are eligible to immigrate to Canada permanently, fill out a free online assessment form.

 2017 CICNews All Rights Reserved
Much has been written and said about the antiestablishment, antiglobalization populist surge sweeping the West over the last several years. The most prominent manifestation of this phenomenon, of course, came in November 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency, the most stunning electoral feat in American history; earlier in 2016, Trumps victory was foreshadowed by Britains Brexit vote to leave the European Union, an outcome pushed for years by the countrys nationalist U.K. Independence Party (UKIP). But the United States and Britain are far from alone. Seemingly every major Western nation now has a populist movement and an anointed leader: Marine Le Pen and the Front National in France; Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, which has become the main opposition party in parliament; Austrias Freedom Party (FPO), founded by nostalgic ex-Nazi officers, which missed electing the countrys president by a whisker; and Italys Five Star Movement, led, literally, by a clown, Beppe Grillo, suitably called the clown prince. Even in Denmark, the model of a tolerant liberal democracy, the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples Party is now the second party in parliament. Farther east, Hungary and Poland are today governed by openly nationalist governments.

National differences notwithstanding, election results show that support for and opposition to populist parties break along similar lines. Supporters tend to be older, less educated, blue-collar, white, male, and living predominantly in small towns or rural areas. Everywhere, the voting geography reveals a split between big cities and the rest of the nation. Manhattan voted massively against Trump, London against Brexit, Vienna against the FPO, and Paris against Le Pen; the small-town heartland in each case voted for them. It does not require a sociologist to understand that a similar social divide and mix of concerns are driving populism on both sides of the Atlantic.

One major outlier exists in this Western dynamic, though: Canada. A Western nation by any measure, a child of Britain and France, Canada has so far produced no evident equivalent of Trump, Wilders, or Le Pen, or of the political parties that back them. The revived Conservative Party of Canada, though it has its share of anti-immigrant supporters, has not veered into the kind of angry nativist oratory heard elsewhere. Political discourse in Canada has remained civilized, on the whole.

Populist currents arent completely absent. In my home province, Quebec City has a deserved reputation for radio poubelle (trash radio), where the verbal venom matches anything heard on American airwaves. On January 29, 2017, a young white supremacist, likely an avid listener of radio poubelle, killed six Quebec City Muslims and injured 19 as they were leaving a mosque after evening prayer, the worst such massacre in Canadian history. Less ominous, on October 25, 2010, Torontonians elected Rob Ford mayor of Canadas biggest city. During Fords brief tenure, his crude language and antics made him into an international media star. Fords election was nothing if not a populist revolt of the good people of the suburbs, who voted for him in overwhelming proportion, against the snotty elites of the central city, who opposed him. Overall, however, populism remains a rare and isolated event in the Canadian landscape. The question is, why?

Canada has known populist parties in the past, the best-known example being Social Credit, a quirky political philosophy that saw the printing of money as the solution and banks and plutocrats as the great Satan. The Socreds, as they were called, exploded on the political scene during the 1930s in western Canada, in reaction to the Great Depression, which had devastated the prairie economy. Socially and fiscally conservative, the Socreds became the principal political force in Alberta, where they held power over three decades before being absorbed into the Conservative Party. The Socreds saw a second moment of glory in the 1960s, when les Creditistes (in their French reincarnation) become the voice of protest for many Catholic French Canadians dissatisfied with Quebecs breakneck pace of modernization. Led by Trump-style firebrand Real Caouette, les Creditistes went on to win a third of Quebec seats in the 1962 federal election. The party eventually withered away, as its idiosyncratic mix of conservative Catholicism and supply-side economics became anachronistic in a now thoroughly secular Quebec.

The Canadian history of Social Credit highlights two pillars of populism: economic adversity and cultural discontent. The Socreds in their 1930s prairie incarnation arose in reaction to an economic system perceived as shafting the decent, hardworking farmers of the West, directing its venom toward the Easts unscrupulous bankers and railway barons. In Social Credits second incarnation, in Quebec, the source of discontent was social change imposed on Quebecois by cosmopolitan urban elites, and with it the feared loss of a way of life. Albertas Socreds were absorbed into the political mainstream as the province recovered from the Great Depressionbecoming Canadas richest, thanks to oilwhile Quebecs Creditistes simply became irrelevant, part of the provinces political folklore.

One reason that populism hasnt taken hold in Canada up to now is that it lacks a central target. In both the United States and Europe, the revolt against venal politicians, greedy bankers, big business, and big government has a sharply defined locus for its antagonism: in America, its the federal government in Washington, while in Europe, it is Brussels, headquarters of the European Union (national capitals come in for their share of hostility, too). In Canada, though, Ottawa (the federal capital) does not inspire anything like this level of vitriol. True, Ottawa-bashing is a staple of Canadian politics, especially in the West and in Quebec, and Ottawa politicians, as elsewhere, are not always paragons of virtue, but Canadas political class is not generally viewed as chronically dysfunctional and corrupt. Nor, with some exceptions, is Ottawa seen as particularly intrusive or overbearing. The parliament buildings are imposing, but Ottawa does not exude the aura of imperial power of Washington. If anything, Canadas capital is viewed as a rather sleepy place; no call to drain the swamp is heard.

One reason that populism hasnt taken hold in Canada up to now is that it lacks a central target.

Canada has evolved into a highly decentralized federation. For most things that matter in daily lifeeducation, health, municipal servicesthe real power lies with the provinces. Canada is not a great military power; politicians have much smaller pork-barrel rations to feed on. The majority of the federal budget goes to income transfers. The federal government administers few services directly, with the exception of border control (immigration), national defense, and unemployment insurance. This decentralized structure stems in part from Canadas linguistic duality, in which the French-speaking province of Quebec fiercely defends its sovereignty; in recent years, the Western provinces, notably Alberta, have also become protective of their autonomy. This, in turn, gives rise to exclusively provincial political partiesas the Socreds were in Albertaand, where present, provincial counterparts of national parties that operate largely independently of their national parent. The Conservative Party, for example, has no provincial sister in Quebec and is absent, for all practical purposes, in British Columbia. Canada has no equivalent of Americas institutionalized DemocraticRepublican divide.

Canadas political system and political culture are also part of the story. Its British parliamentary system, in which the party that wins the most seats automatically governs, precludes the executive-legislative standoffs common to the U.S. system. In the first-past-the-post electoral tradition, with only one meaningful legislature (the House of Commons), the winning party generally obtains a majority (or close to it), facilitating governance. The Canadian system is arguably less democratic than the American, but it avoids the kind of dysfunctional gridlock that has recently plagued Washington. Canadian history has also shaped a less antagonistic view of the state. Founded on antirevolutionary principlesPeace, Order and Good Government, as inscribed in the 1867 Constitution ActCanada was settled by Loyalists who fled the American Revolution and, on the French-speaking side, by a population that wished to remain true to its ancestral faith and language. The result is a political culture in which the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitutionthe right to bear armswould be inconceivable, and universal health insurance is regarded as a self-evident obligation of the state. Canada has its small-government proponents, but the intense antistate public sentiment that helped fuel Trumps victory is simply not present.

In recent elections, liberal establishments on both sides of the AtlanticDemocrats in the U.S. and social democrats in Europefound themselves on the wrong side of economic issues, especially as they pertained to globalization and free trade. The Lefts traditional bastionsthe old socialist and Communist strongholds in France and Americas traditionally unionized blue-collar townsswung massively to the populist Right. Here again, though, nothing similar has yet happened in Canada.

Canada is a small nation (population-wise) that depends on free trade, and polls confirm that the majority of Canadians continue to favor free-trade agreementsTrumps antifree trade rhetoric does not harmonize here. And Canada lacks the equivalent of an American Rust Belt or the devastated coal and steel regions of Europe. With its auto plants, southern Ontario (Michigans neighbor) comes closest; like many American manufacturing regions, it has seen some hard times, but nothing on the scale of the U.S. or Europe. Finally, Canada performed surprisingly well during the Great Recession of 200709, emerging largely unscathed, unlike most other Western nations. The country saw no subprime meltdown, no bank failures or bailouts, and no legion of families facing foreclosure as housing prices plummeted. One can see historical vindication in Canadas steady performance: the nations banking system and strict mortgage-lending rules were often mocked as stodgy and risk-averse during boom times. In the end, stodginess paid off.

Economic events in Canada thus have not produced the conditionsa large pool of distressed workers or disgruntled homeownersthat they did elsewhere. The strength of Canadas resource sector (oil, forestry, mining), with its plentiful well-paying blue-collar jobs, also has helped. Canadas generous unemployment insurance and social-welfare programs have doubtless eased economic anxiety as well.

What about the nationalist, and sometimes nativist, strands of American and European populism? True, nationalist groups have suddenly crawled out of the woodwork across Canada. Such movements have not gotten much purchase in the country; all political parties have shunned them. Should Canada see an increase in terrorism, such as the September 30 attack in Edmonton that injured five, such groups might yet build momentum. For now, though, chance and geography have played key roles. Canada has no common border with the Third World, no foreign hordes threatening to engulf us. Getting to Canada takes some doing, unless one lives in the U.S., the only nation with which Canada has a common border.

I worked for four years in the Quebec ministry of immigration, where we had a saying: Anyone who can survive our winter deserves to stay. Geography makes its presence felt in several ways. Winter acts as a sorting mechanism, and Canadas size means that immigrants come from different directions and nations, further reinforced by Canadas linguistic duality. Haitians and North Africans tend to go to Quebec, Asians prefer Vancouver and Toronto, and Latinos settle more broadly. European immigration remains important. Distance and Canadas immigration points system mean that newcomers are not universally poor. (See Why America Cant Lower Child-Poverty Rates.) Distance makes both illegal immigration and cross-border wage competition much less of a factor.

In Canada, the word Immigrant does not conjure up a clear image of a political target, unlike in Europe, where immigrant is associated with North Africans in France, with Turks in Austria, and with Moroccans in Holland (and carries the connotation of potential terrorism, as when Wilders called for fewer Moroccans). As elsewhere in the West, the place of Muslims in society is a subject of public debate in Canada, but less heatedly so than elsewhere.

Finally, owing to its cold climate, which precluded the growth of cotton and other plantation crops, Canada is free of painful legacies of slavery and race as a central feature of political discourse. The potential for a political movement founded on racial anger is weak, at best.

Canada lacks a vast reservoir of voters worried that they are losing their country and their culture to outsiders. This, in the end, is the central difference between Canada, on the one hand, and the U.S. and much of Europe, on the other. So while the country has seen populist movements in the past and could yet see them again, the common ingredients that shape populism are in short supply. Canada remains quietfor now.

Top Photo: Canadian banks, including the Royal Bank of Canada (shown here), did not get swept up in the mortgage-lending mania that helped precipitate the Great Recession in the United States. (NATHAN DENETTE/CANADIAN PRESS/ AP PHOTO)
Happy end of the week dear readers! Christmas continues to descend on us all like a turkey-shaped asteroid filled with tinsel so, unfortunately for you grinches out there, charity festive campaigns have caught Society Diarys attention for the second week running.

First up, congratulations are in order for the UKs first celebrity root vegetable power couple, Kevin and Katie, who have now revealed their children to world, Chantenay, Baby Carrot and Jasper.

Kevin was a huge hit last year fronting Aldis Christmas campaign in his quest to meet Santa Claus. So this year the supermarket brought Kevin back, firstly by trying to find the eligible bachelor a date. It even went to the extent of listing Kevin on dating app, Happn. This is 21st century advertising, guys.

Last month, it launched a new advert with Kevins new love, Katie. As the website shows, Kevin turned down a range of different vegetables including a sexy cabbage, a smouldering garlic bulb and a striking potato before settling for a fellow carrot.

But Diarys favourite of Kevins root vegetable rejects is Oona the Onion from Oldham, a character that is particularly richly drawn. Heres her bio: This vegetable may look firm but as soon as she opens up theres going to be tears, yours and hers. Shes hoping Kevin keeps a pack of tissues handy when they go out and about together.

And now, it has revealed the couples offspring will be joining them for Christmas festivities.

The advert depicts a typical carrot Christmas where Chantenay, Baby Carrot and Jasper all get miniature versions of themselves. Kevin and Katie, meanwhile, get a scarf and a copy of Fifty Shades of Grape respectively.

Diary just hope Oona doesnt turn up on the familys door on Christmas day, demanding maintenance costs for an illegitimate carrot/potato lovechild.

A cynical person might say that this impressively fast-moving plotline is merely an attempt to sell more toy carrots at Aldi. And theyd be right.

It seems to be working though as local newspapers have been filled will reports of shoppers forming scrums in the battle to get their hands on the cuddly characters.

So its a win for Aldi, and root vegetables, but most-importantly the Teenage Cancer Trust, which will receive money from the toys sales.

Rude-dolph

Hyde Park Junior School in Plymouth was forced to apologise after it sent a picture of a lewd Christmas jumper to parents on Monday.

The primary school was informing parents of its plans to take part in Save the Childrens Christmas Jumper Day today, and accidentally illustrated this with a picture of a jumper with reindeers mating on the front.

Headteacher Tina Jackson said: Unfortunately we didnt look closely enough at the picture we used to show our support for Save the Childrens Christmas Jumper Friday.

Were sorry if it has offended anyone and hope it doesnt spoil our good intention of encouraging pupils to support a very worthy cause.

To support the day nationally, Save the Children put a pair of disturbing Boris Johnson and Theresa May waxworks outside Number 10 wearing a two-person jumper saying Christmas means Christmas.

The Mail Online, meanwhile, ran a story about author Nick Fisher, who complained after he was asked by Cancer Research UK to remove references to it in his expletive-laden books.

Fisher gives 50p from each sale of his comedy novels, such as Ho F******* Ho - B******* to Christmas, to the charity, raising 600 so far.

A surprisingly erudite Fisher said: If it's the case that they will accept my donations but they just don't want people to know they are being associated with books of that kind then they are being hypocritical.

And finally...

Diary was delighted to attend NCVOs annual Christmas bash this week, mixing it with the great and the good of the charity sector.

One attendee who turned a few heads was the ghost of Christmas past - former civil society minister Rob Wilson, who has developed an interest in the sector since losing his job in June.

Diary just hopes Wilson maintains this enthusiasm if he is to make a rumoured return to the sector in 2018 as Charity Commission chair.
Thursday night, in a ballroom at the Hilton in midtown, Naomi Tarantal stepped up to the microphone. It was a bit after 6 pm. She had been waiting close to an hour and a half for the opportunity. With equal parts concern and frustration, the lifelong New Yorker and longtime WNYC listener (and sustaining member) expressed her concerns about the organizations handling of harassment allegations against John Hockenberry, the former host of WNYCs The Takeaway, which were reported earlier this month in New York magazines The Cut.

Ive been donating for years and years, she said. I expect better than this.

Tarantal was one of roughly 40 members of the public who showed up to New York Public Radios Board of Trustees meeting, the first since harassment allegations rocked the organization (NYPR is the owner of WNYC and other stations). In her story for The Cut, reporter Suki Kim published her investigation into the alleged sexual harassment and bullying by Hockenberry during his time at The Takeaway. The public radio icon stepped down from his role in August, seemingly on his own terms and with no future plans set in stone. A few days after Kims story broke, WNYC announced that two more hosts, the long-tenured Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz, had been put on immediate leave pending an investigation into unrelated allegations of inappropriate conduct.

ICYMI: Reddit is not messing around right now

WNYCs internal shakeup comes at a time when the so-called Weinstein Effect has breached the media landscape. Within public radio, the catalyst was a Washington Post story in late October about sexual harassment accusations against Michael Oreskes, NPRs former senior vice president of news and editorial director (and also a former CJR board member). His resignation followed, as did a barrage of other investigations into misconduct within public media, some involving high-profile personalities like Garrison Keillor of public radio darling A Prairie Home Companion and Tom Ashbrook of NPRs well-regarded On Point.

Ive been donating for years and years. I expect better than this.

This reckoning isnt unique to public radio. But the fallout from that reckoning is; listeners feel more personally connected to their stations, and so the recent disclosures hit much closer to home. They expect more from the leadership behind their go-to source of news. As one WNYC listener said at last nights board meeting, I think youve forgotten the public in public media.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

Since the Hockenberry news broke, the relationship between New York Public Radio and its listeners has been fraught. Last nights board meeting did nothing to mitigate that. Leading up to the meeting, listeners excoriated the board and management for its handling of harassment in the workplace: Why didnt management address the allegations years ago? How could they do nothing when they knew about it? They tweeted. They commented. They called into the station. Some demanded NYPR CEO and President Laura Walkers resignation; others proposed more transparency about where their dollars are going.

At the public board meeting, a handful of WNYC members voiced many of those same concerns. Dozens of people filed into the hotel ballroom at 4 pm to hear from the board, especially Walker, about their plans. The mostly white, old, and male 39-member board gathered around a large table, as members of the public filed in and took their seats. Board chair Mayo Stuntz was first at the mic: Its up to us, the leadership of NYPR, to ensure that every single member of our community, from host to intern, guest to listener, feels safe, heard, and valued. Full stop. He talked about the importance of inclusion and diversity and safety within the WNYC newsroom, proclaiming that words and promises are not enough. He then deferred to Walker who explained how they would move beyond just words and into action. I want to say how profoundly pained and sorry I am, she told the crowd.

ICYMI: Bad news for Vice, Mashable and BuzzFeed

Walkers arrival at the mic provoked a response from attendees. As she outlined her plan, some hissed and muttered under their breath. Others rolled their eyes and shot knowing glances to their neighbors. There was a soft chorus of sighs strewn throughout her report. They see the plan as a hodgepodge of reactive, bare minimum action items. To start, theyve hired Howard Z. Robbins, an attorney with Proskauer Rose, to re-evaluate human resources policies and procedures within the NYPR ecosystem. Theyve also engaged with Madhulika Sikka, the former Executive Editor of News at NPR and current PBS Public Editor, to examine issues of diversity, inclusion, and representation, among other things, within the WNYC Content division. Walker also cited the launch of a new employee steering committee, as well as the potential hiring of an ombudsman, as part of this strategy.

You should be setting the standard, not following the standard.

Around the 30-minute mark, Walker transitioned the meeting into the private executive session (per standard practice, according to NYPR), and members of the public shuffled out of the ballroom, only to come back an hour-and-a-half later. For many attendees, the meetings structure was a point of contention. It was far from accommodating, with a major gap between the public listening and public comment sections. Some stuck it out at the hotel cafe or nearby restaurants. One woman told me she stopped by the Museum of Modern Art. Others had to leave, instead channeling their complaints into written notes.

ICYMI: NY journalist handcuffed to railing over his head

Tarantal was one of the WNYC supporters who stayed for both sessions. Just past 6:15pm, she and around 30 others returned, slowly forming a queue behind the mic to air their grievances. By then, most of the board members, including Walker, were gone; only 16 members were present (NYPR spokeswoman Jennifer Houlihan Roussel says Walker and two other board members met separately with staff at that time). For the listeners in that room, Walkers absence spoke volumes. Each attendee got two minutes at the mic, with a few returning several times to voice varying concerns, from the use of nondisclosure agreements at WNYC to the lack of transparency involving investigations into Lopate and Schwartz.

One of Tarantals big criticisms was the leaderships use of jargon in their plan: I have no idea what it means when [Walker] used this terminology. An enthusiastic 30-something listener with a scruffy beard begged the board to be bold as they addressed their failures: You should be setting the standard, not following the standard. An older man, Charlie, who described himself as a decadeslong supporter, choked up as he expressed outrage over the use of NDAs and begged the board to go after the bastards who do these things. And Julia Furlan, a former WNYC employee and one of the younger faces in the crowd, criticized the boards attitudes toward modern workplace norms: Id really like if you didnt act like young people have these outsize expectations when all we want is to not get harassed and to get paid fairly.

The board maintained a listen-only decorum and scribbled notes during the public portion of the meeting, despite repeated requests from people to answer questions as straightforward as, How are members of the Board of Trustees selected? When the meeting wrapped up at 7pm, there was an air of disappointment, a cloud of skepticism, and a mist of betrayal as attendees trickled out of the room for the final time that night.

ICYMI: NYTimes editor apologizes after article sparks outrage

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Meg Dalton is a freelance journalist and audio producer based in Connecticut. She's reported and edited for CJR, PBS NewsHour, Energy News Network, Architectural Digest, MediaShift, Hearst Connecticut newspapers, and more. Follow her on Twitter: @megdalts. Find her on Twitter @megdalts.
By PTI: New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today announced granting visa to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

"There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India," Swaraj tweeted.

advertisement

She also announced accepting request for medical visa of two other Pakistani nationals.

"Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too," Swaraj tweeted.

"I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery," she added.

Swaraj has adopted a sympathetic stand on granting medical visas to Pakistani nationals notwithstanding the strained ties between the two countries. PTI MPB UZM

--- ENDS ---
Journalist Simeon Booker consistently broke barriers in a career that spanned more than 60 years. He was the first full-time black reporter for The Washington Post. He was the first black correspondent to cover the Vietnam War. He also covered 10 US presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush (Take note, Jeopardy!). But it was during a five-decade long stint as Washington bureau chief for Jet and Ebony magazine that Booker was, to borrow from the title of his 2013 memoir, Shocking The Conscience of the nationnamely, through courageous field reporting that chronicled the seminal moments of the Civil Rights Movement. Booker died on December 10, in Solomons, Maryland. He was 99.

In hindsight, its easy to forget that the story of systemic racial inequality and oppression had to compete for headlines in the 1950s and 1960s. This was, after all, the era of the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Beatles. The Pill. And so, when it came to the daily reality of Jim Crow-style racism, public attention often waned. But that wasnt so for the black press. In fact, Booker was among a dynamic cadre of unheralded reporters (dispatched by newspapers like The Amsterdam News, The Pittsburgh Courier, and The Chicago Defender) who consistently covered the race beat.

ICYMI: The bombshell Trump story published last summer that everyone missed

Yet it was Bookers weekly dispatchesreporting on everything from the exploits of the Freedom Riders to acts of terror waged against black citizens in cities like Selma, Alabamain the popular, pocket-sized Jet that resonated from the barbershop to the White House.

Today, Booker is rightly being remembered for his audacious coverage of the brutal 1955 lynching of 15-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. It was so monumental, in fact, that other aspects to his remarkable career have been obscured.

Without question, we owe Booker and his peers a debt of gratitude for their service, both to our profession and this country.

To grasp 20th Century America, one has to weigh Bookers work. At a time when black identity was partly forged by visible symbols of those who made it, photographs of Booker quizzing President John F. Kennedy carried their own power. And even though Booker enjoyed widespread respect (counting Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy as close friends), he never hesitated to challenge those in power.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

Richard Nixon would discover that lesson soon after being inaugurated in 1969. Despite a honeymoon with the Washington press corps, Booker called Nixon out for publicly courting the black vote while also waging a Southern Strategy that heightened racial hostility. (You used gimmickry, Booker scolded the incoming President. You have allowed your men to divide.)

Ironically, just a few years later, with America gripped by the Watergate scandalwhich conjured up an endless assortment of charactersBooker chose to keep the spotlight on Frank Wills, the black security guard who discovered the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Even though Im also a journalist (a freelancer with bylines in The Daily Beast and Newsday), I knew nothing of Bookers work for a long time. That all changed some two years ago whenas part of an independent research projectI found myself combing through vintage issues of Jet and Ebony. It occurred to me that Booker, like so many of his colleagues, had been largely overlooked for decades.

Fortunately, I had a chance to correct this historical oversight. As a member of the George Polk committee, which for more than six decades has honored enterprising journalism, I was privileged to have the support of my colleagues in recommending Booker for a career award in 2016. At a New York ceremony, which boasted attendees like Charlayne Hunter-Gaulta pioneering journalist in her own rightBooker received a sustained standing ovation when he appeared on stage. And the sheer magnitude of the moment was lost to no one.

These days, as politicians deploy the term fake news in a clear attempt to intimate, one is reminded of the risks reporters like Booker faced while doing their jobs on American soil. His all-too-real legacy will endure whenever a journalist sheds light on something under-reported or speaks truth to power.

In 1966, when Jet photographer David Jackson died at just 44, Booker offered reflections that had long been true of himself and other pioneering black journalists at the time: None ever won a Pulitzer Prize or got a major award. None ever will be mentioned in Americas journalistic Hall of Fame, he wrote. This group was the forerunner of the tremendous revolution.

And in the decades since, theyve been a source of pride and inspiration for many journalistsmyself included. Without question, we owe Booker and his peers a debt of gratitude for their service, both to our profession and this country.

ICYMI: NYTimes editor apologizes after article sparks outrage

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Curtis Stephen is an award-winning New York-based journalist and an adjunct professor of journalism at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus. He's currently working on a biography about the late New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker, entitled CHIEF ROCKER. Follow him on Twitter @curtisstephen23.
Telangana Prison Department has asked residents of Hyderabad to help them make the city beggar-free. The authorities have asked the residents to inform them when they spot a beggar on the streets and a reward of Rs 500 will be given on Christmas eve.

By Ashish Pandey: Telangana Prison department is all set to act like a Santa during this Christmas but not so secretly. The prison department has launched a drive to make Hyderabad a beggar-free city and have asked the residents to inform them when they spot a beggar on the street and a reward of Rs 500 will be given on Christmas eve.

advertisement

The prison department of the state plans to lift the beggars from the city's streets and shift them to a shelter home called "Anand Ashram", which is an enclosure beside Chanchalaguda central prison in the outskirt of the city.

So all the residents have to do is 'locate', 'inform' and 'win rewards', the prison department said.

The drive had started in the month of October but was briefly stopped during the visit of Ivanka Trump. Now from December 1, it has started again with full swing and aims to clear all beggars from the roads of Hyderabad.

According to the prison department chief VK Singh (DG Prisons and CS), "the department has oriented itself into a high-end social service organisation as it takes care of the last rung of the society i.e. beggars".

At Anand Ashram, currently, 55 male and 24 female beggars are staying while the department had actually lifted 316 male and 144 female beggars. Later, 261 male and 140 female beggars were released after they signed an undertaking from stating that they will not resort to begging again.

"We are hopeful that we will make Hyderabad city beggar-free by December 20, 2017. We intend to declare reward of Rs 500 for any information about beggars on the eve of Christmas", said VK Singh.

The department has launched two numbers 040-24511791/040-24527846 where people can inform about any beggars roaming on the streets.

Earlier in November, during the drive, authorities had witnessed riches to rags stories after they lifted 235 male and over 130 women including 50 year-old-Farzana, an MBA graduate, and 44-year-old Basherra, a green card holder. Farzana and Basherra, both natives of Hyderabad, were caught begging near a Dargah in Langer Houz along with 30 other women and were shifted to Anand Ashram on November 11.

The prison department will take care of the rehabilitation of beggars. Similar to the measures taken for the rehabilitation of prison inmates, the beggars will be given skill development training and jobs according to the qualification of those kept in Anand Ashram.

advertisement

The department has also decided to take care of ill patients who were forced to beg because of their physical inabilities.

Meanwhile, the social media is abuzz with the offer of the prison department and users think that many residents will surely become rich even if Hyderabad does not become beggar-free by December 20.

--- ENDS ---
A South Korean blockchain association announced on Friday measures to boost transparency in trading of cryptocurrencies, agreed by 14 exchanges in the country including the world's busiest virtual currency exchange, Bitthumb.

Digital currencies are very popular across Asia, with many retail investors giving up their daily jobs to trade them full time in countries such as Japan and South Korea, which together make up for more than half the global trading volumes by some estimates.

The Korea Blockchain Industry Association said in a statement users would only be allowed to trade virtual currency through one account after their identity has been confirmed via traditional financial institutions like banks.

The statement added virtual currency exchanges with more than 2 billion won ($1.83 million) worth in assets would be allowed to operate. Measures, which are not mandatory, will start being imposed beginning Jan. 1 next year, the country's only association for virtual currency exchanges said.

"The regulations will ensure the safety of consumers and transparency in trade and are expected to be the strongest and most effective measures (regarding virtual currency exchanges) on a global scale," said the statement.

Kim Jin-hwa, one of the association's leaders, said exchanges would especially work towards identifying account users.

Drawn by bitcoin's explosive surge of more than 15-fold this year, ordinary South Koreans from housewives to college students and office workers have rushed to mobile-app based virtual currency exchanges in hopes of quick profits despite government-issued warnings.

Despite Friday's announcement, analysts were skeptical the measures would impact bitcoin exchange prices to a great extent.

"Today's announcement is unlikely to affect the (bitcoin) price as exchanges can always decide not to follow," said Park Nok-sun, a cryptocurrency analyst at NH Investment & Securities.

"The measures are positive for sure in that they are actually trying to curb recent speculative investments."

South Korea's cryptocurrency-related shares extended gains after the announcement, with Vidente and Omnitel up 10.3 percent and 3.4 percent respectively near midday.
Shares of U.S. rail operator CSX Corp. fell 9 percent in the premarket after the company said CEO and President E. Hunter Harrison has taken medical leave after unexpected complications from a recent illness.

Chief Operating Officer James M. Foote will fill in as as acting CEO for Harrison, who earlier this year left as the head of Canadian Pacific to take the the top job at CSX, the nation's third largest railroad operator.

The company will hold a conference call on Friday morning (Dec. 15) at 7:30 a.m. EST to give updates.
Litecoin Founder Charlie Lee wants people to stop fussing over the gravity-defying rally in the cryptocurrency.

"I would be happy if litecoin stays at around $300 by the end of next year," Lee told CNBC's Squawk Box, as the cryptocurrency surged more than 150 percent in the past week.

Litecoin's rallied almost 8,000 percent this year, making it the world's fifth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of more than $15 billion, according to coinmarketcap.com. On Friday, it traded at $261.94 on Coinbase.

"It's still very surprising how much it has grown this year," Lee said.

"I never like to speculate on prices because I'm always wrong. If I tell you it's going to go up and it doesn't, you'll be upset," he added.

Lee noted that the frenetic growth in cryptocurrency prices was also impeding their wider adoption as most people were using them as a speculative asset rather than using them to make real-world transactions.

"I think we're still maybe five years away before people actually start using bitcoin and litecoin in real world use as a currency."

Calming Nerves

As litecoin surged to new highs in early December, Lee took to Twitter to urge for calm and "rein in the excitement" over its sky high valuations.



"Bitcoin is very volatile, and litecoin is even more volatile that bitcoin," he said.
U.S. Donald President Trump spoke by phone on Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the two leaders "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea," the White House said in a statement.

Trump also thanked Putin "for acknowledging America's strong economic performance in his annual press conference," the statement said. The Kremlin said in an earlier statement that Trump and Putin discussed bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula.






By PTI: plea

New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) An alleged stone pelter, arrested by the NIA in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and separatist activities in Kashmir Valley, today moved a court here seeking bail.

District judge Poonam A Bamba sought a response from the National Investigating Agency (NIA) by January 18 on the application moved by 24-year-old Javed Ahmed Bhat, claiming that he was wrongly implicated in the case.

advertisement

The NIA arrested Bhat on September 5 for his alleged involvement in stone pelting and organising groups of youths who would throw stones at the security personnel involved in counter-insurgency operations.

In his bail application moved through advocate M S Khan, Bhat claimed that he neither indulged in any anti-national activity, nor was associated with any organisation or participated in stone pelting.

"He (Bhat) is having clean antecedents and there is no material of any nature connecting him with the incidents of stone pelting in any manner whatsoever. He is a permanent resident of Kashmir, having roots in the society and a wife and a child to look after," the application said.

The NIA arrested Bhat, a Kulgam resident, and a freelance photo-journalist for their alleged involvement in stone pelting and mobilising support against security personnel through social media in the Valley.

The arrest were made after filing a case earlier on May 30 in which the leader of the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e Taiba, Hafiz Saeed, was named as an accused.

Bhat was also involved in circulating on social networking sites pictures and videos that sparked widespread rumours in the Valley, the NIA alleged.

The NIA had earlier arrested seven people in the case of alleged funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley to fuel unrest there.

The case was registered on issues of raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala channels, for funding such activities. PTI UK AG SMN

--- ENDS ---
AeroVironment's latest product isn't your regular stocking stuffer.

The $16,500 autonomous drone, available on Amazon starting Thursday, is a product for farmers and others in the agricultural industry, AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi told CNBC.

"What we've done is we've taken drones and software analytics and turned it into an app," Nawabi told "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer on Thursday. "If you can turn on a tablet, push go, the drone and the software does all the rest. It's fully automatic: take off vertically and transition to horizontal flight, come back and land on its own while you're having a cup of coffee."

The commercial drone, called the Quantix, comes with a one-year subscription to AeroVironment's decision support software, included in the $16,500 price tag.

The supplemental software allows farmers to monitor their crops in order to detect issues and improve efficiency, according to the company's website.

AeroVironment is a leading manufacturer of defense and commercial drones, electric car solutions and other unmanned systems.

Nawabi took pride in the company's defense solutions, one of which is its 10-year-old Switchblade product, a drone that helps the U.S. military monitor its adversaries and can transform into a missile on command.

But AeroVironment is also a quiet leader in the electric car trend, the CEO said. The company's electric car charging product has forged partnerships with nine of the world's top automakers, he told Cramer.

"This represents a significant, large, multi-billion-dollar opportunity for us globally in the years to come," Nawabi said. "It's small, compact, indoor-outdoor, UL-certified, safe, and we are in the leading position in this market for both residential and commercial applications of electric vehicle charging."
The idea of a giant Pacific trade deal isn't dead yet, even if the United States has turned its back on an agreement.

Members of an 11-nation Pacific trade deal are waiting on Canada to finalize a new pact, the head of New Zealand's government told CNBC on Friday.

President Donald Trump exited the ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) almost immediately after his inauguration in January. But the other original participants have pushed forward without the U.S.

"There's enough motivation for what is now the comprehensive Pacific trade deal, but it will be really a matter of wait and see as to when and where we see that resolution from the likes of Canada," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Throwing a last-minute surprise at member countries last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared more work was needed on the pact  formerly known as the Trans Pacific Partnership  amid concerns about what it would mean for Canadian jobs.

Trudeau's no-show at a meeting of TPP members in Vietnam last month burst rising hopes for a deal, with many analysts blaming Ottawa for throwing the pact's future into doubt.

Ardern, who described the current negotiating process as a "bumpy period," was previously criticized herself for slowing TPP discussions.
Donald Trump was offered a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin about one month after he launched his presidential bid, the Washington Post reported, citing an email that it obtained.

Rob Goldstone, a British music promoter, reportedly said he could arrange the meeting after Trump turned down his invitation to travel to Moscow. Goldstone's client, Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, had wanted Trump to attend his father's birthday celebration.

"Maybe he would welcome a meeting with President Putin," Goldstone wrote in an email dated July 24, 2015 to Trump's personal assistant.

There is no indication Trump or his assistant followed up on the offer, the Post said.

Agalarov's attorney told the Post that the pop star was not aware his publicist dangled the possibility of meeting Putin. Goldstone's attorney declined to comment.

The publicist reportedly reached out several times to Trump's inner circle during the elections.

In early 2016, Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. to discuss possibly setting up a web page for Trump's campaign on VK, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. Later that year, he brokered a meeting between Trump Jr. and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, whom he claimed held incriminating information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Read the full story on the Washington Post here.
Airbus confirmed the departure of planemaking chief Fabrice Bregier as part of a series of board moves on Friday to clear the air over succession plans following weeks of speculation surrounding Europe's largest aerospace firm.

The move gives rival Chief Executive Tom Enders a free hand for the rest of what will now be his last term as CEO, ending in April 2019, but also casts him as a caretaker as Airbus looks for fresh blood to lead it out of a growing corruption scandal.

Confirming details reported by Reuters on Thursday, Airbus said Bregier would be replaced in February as president of the main planemaking division by fellow Frenchman Guillaume Faury, the 49-year-old chief of Airbus Helicopters who has also worked in automobiles.

German-born Enders, who had earlier this year voiced interest in staying beyond 2019, will now step down at the end of his current term, saying in a statement it was time for "fresh minds for the 2020s."

Shares in Airbus remained broadly flat.

"Fabrice ... was very popular with airlines for his rapid response and attention to details. Airbus has a big pool of talent ... and will power on with new leadership," Peter Bellew, chief operations officer at Ryanair (RYA.I) and former CEO of Malaysia Airlines, told Reuters.

Airbus officials sought to dampen speculation that Enders had a hand in his deputy's departure and presented the move as the work of an independent board.

But analysts said the push for a fresh start had curtailed the ambitions of both executives, ending a longstanding but troubled partnership at the helm of Airbus. Even so, many saw Enders as a clear winner.
IAC chairman and senior executive Barry Diller and his wife Diane von Furstenberg are considering funding a $25 million to $30 million gondola that would transport tourists to the Hollywood sign, Variety reports.

The pair donated $35 million to New York's High Line, according to Variety, which transformed an elevated railroad track into a park and walkway in Manhattan. Von Furstenberg's son Alexander, an investor and director of the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, is leading the project, sources familiar with the talks told Variety.

"Mr. von Furstenberg and the Family are interested in a number of projects to make the Hollywood Sign more accessible  in line with our family's interest in public art and public spaces," Diller said in an emailed statement to CNBC.

The project would require approval from David Ryu, the councilman who represents Hollywood. His office has had discussions with representatives of Alexander von Furstenberg and suggested gaining support from nearby neighborhood groups, Variety reports.

"There's nothing definitive at this point. It's just an idea," Leron Gubler, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, told Variety, saying the group supports the idea. "If you had a gondola coupled with a visitor center, we think something like that would truly work to get people out of the neighborhoods."

Read the full Variety story here.
Bitcoin buyers have been issued a "serious warning" from one of Britain's leading financial regulators.

Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), told BBC's "Newsnight" on Thursday, "If you want to invest in bitcoin, be prepared to lose all your money."

Bailey said a lack of backing from governments and central banks for the world's most popular digital currency was evidence that putting money into bictoin was not a secure investment. He also said buying bitcoin was akin to gambling because it had the same level of risk.

Bitcoin's meteoric price rise has stunned critics and enthusiasts alike, leaving investors scrambling to understand the driving factors for the digital currency's runaway rally.

Bitcoin traded at $17,159 on Friday morning, according to CoinDesk's bitcoin price index. The digital currency has a market value of approximately $291 billion  the largest among the cryptocurrencies. A year ago, one bitcoin was worth around $780.

"If you look at what has happened this year, I would caution people  We know relatively little about what informs the price of bitcoin," Bailey told the BBC.
Cboe 's bitcoin futures ended their first week of trading higher on slightly stronger demand.

The futures contract, which trades under the ticker XBT and expires in January, settled up 7.8 percent Friday at $18,105  a 17.1 percent gain in their first week of trading.

Earlier, the futures triggered a two-minute trading halt at 5:37 a.m. ET and the contract had traded more than 1,000 contracts by 8:36 a.m., for an unofficial full-day volume of 1,515 contracts.

Full-day trading volume in the January contract had hovered closer to 1,000 and 1,500 in the last few days after nearly 4,000 contracts on the first day. Total trading volume across all three contracts was 4,127. That's still relatively small compared with futures for the Cboe's volatility index , whose daily trading volume typically ranges from the tens of thousands to more than 100,000.

The Cboe bitcoin futures have had a relatively smooth first week of trading. The futures triggered two brief trading halts Sunday night as prices surged, and triggered another temporary trading halt Wednesday as the futures fell 10 percent. The halts were in accordance with Cboe's trading rules and match similar rules for other market products.

However, investor participation remained light as firms preferred to monitor the first futures contract on an established exchange for a notoriously volatile asset. As of Thursday, major banks such as Goldman Sachs were offering limited to no support for clients to trade bitcoin futures.

Interactive Brokers and Wedbush Futures were among the roughly 20 firms that Cboe said did participate in its bitcoin futures launch. TD Ameritrade announced Friday it would give certain clients access to the Cboe bitcoin futures on Monday.

"From our point of view, the volumes at the CFE today are not reflecting the level of interest that we're seeing. There's a lot of preparation by firms to trade bitcoin one way or the other," Bob Fitzsimmons, head of Wedbush Futures, said in a phone interview Friday.

"We're seeing some digital currency hedge funds and obviously you see an element of retail in this as well, but all relatively sophisticated trading firms," he said.

Bitcoin itself was trading 6 percent higher at $17,469, according to CoinDesk. The digital currency has gained 8.8 percent for the week, 76 percent for December, and more than 1,700 percent for the year, according to CoinDesk.

The world's largest futures exchange, CME , is set to launch its own bitcoin futures contract Sunday evening. Interactive Brokers and Wedbush both plan to allow clients access, while TD Ameritrade initially will not.

Most other digital currencies fell Friday after surging in the last few days to record highs. Ethereum fell 1.7 percent to $684, Ripple, or XRP, traded more than 12.5 percent lower at 75.6 cents, and bitcoin's offshoot bitcoin cash fell 8.1 percent to $ 1,807, according to CoinMarketCap. Litecoin rose 7.4 percent to $300, the website showed.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the January bitcoin futures contract traded nearly 4,000 contracts on its first day. Total trading volume across all contracts was 4,127.
CNBC's Jim Cramer questioned Friday whether Republicans would be able to pass their tax overhaul bill this year  or if concerns from within the party about the legislation would cause them to fall short, like in their attempt to repeal Obamacare.

Cramer spoke just hours before GOP leaders on Capitol Hill were expected to finalize their compromise tax measure. But there were still some holdout and undecided lawmakers ahead of next week's planned vote.

Tax writers on Friday afternoon, according to sources, made tweaks to the child tax credit that turned Republican Sen. Marco Rubio's opposition into support. On Thursday, he had said he would vote "no," unless the proposed refundability to taxpayers of the child credit was expanded. There's been no word yet from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who was undecided on the bill due to the child credit.

Meanwhile, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins has been noncommittal on the bill, while Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., has expressed concerns about expanding the federal deficit.

"We should not rule out the fact that this may not be a done deal," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."

Cramer also asked whether it "could be an ACA," referring to the acronym for the formal name of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. Earlier this year, Republicans were unable to follow through on their yearslong promise to repeal former President Barack Obama's signature health bill.

"Do you think it just suddenly falls apart?" Cramer asked. "Most people felt that ACA was going to pass."
By PTI: Kolkata, Dec 15 (PTI) Terming the FRDI Bill as "draconian", the Trinamool Congress (TMC) today said it will oppose it tooth and nail in the Parliament and launch a massive campaign against it in the state.

TMC chief Mamata Banerjee has already written to the Centre opposing the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI Bill and demanded its withdrawal.

advertisement

"The FRDI Bill is a draconian bill. It is a black law. The TMC will hit the streets against the bill. We will also oppose it in the floor of the Parliament. We will keep opposing until and unless it is withdrawn. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already written a letter to the Centre opppsing it," TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee told reporters after the partys core committee meeting today.

The decision was taken at the partys extended core committee meeting chaired by Banerjee.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that the government is working to protect the interest of bank customers and their deposits, in a bid to scotch rumours regarding the proposed Bill.

Industry body Assocham has also said that experts felt the "bail-in" clause in the draft FRDI Bill, 2017 can potentially harm deposits in savings accounts.

The FRDI Bill proposes to create a framework for overseeing financial institutions such as banks, insurance companies, non-banking financial services companies and stock exchanges in case of insolvency.

The Resolution Corporation, proposed in the draft bill, would look after the process and prevent the banks from going bankrupt. It would do this by "writing down of the liabilities", a phrase some have interpreted as a "bail in".

The draft bill empowers Resolution Corporation to cancel the liability of a failing bank or convert the nature of the liability. PTI PNT JM

--- ENDS ---
Wait times for the federal Obamacare marketplace's call center were already relatively long early Friday, the final day for enrollment in individual health plans in 41 states.

"Like in previous years, we have seen an uptick in the volume of consumers on HealthCare.gov and contacting our call center," said a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs that Obamacare exchange.

"As a result, some callers are being asked to leave their contact information so they do not have to wait. We will call them back to assist them."

All HealthCare.gov customers who leave their contact information will be able to enroll in an Obamacare plan that takes effect Jan. 1, even if the application is not actually completed by Friday.

The HealthCare.gov online enrollment site "is performing well and consumers can easily access enrollment tools to compare plans and prices," said the CMS spokeswoman.

People who do not sign up by the coverage deadlines cannot enroll in an individual health plan during 2018 unless they qualify for certain exemptions. And Americans who lack health insurance risk paying a tax penalty.

Get America Covered, an Obamacare advocacy group, said wait times at the call center became lengthy earlier in the week, as the sign-up deadline approached.

As of 7:45 a.m. Friday, "Waits at call center are over 30 minutes ... which is incredibly long for this early," said Lori Lodes, a former Obama administration health official and one of Get America Covered's founders.

Lodes said that a Google Trends analysis showed that visits to HealthCare.gov's website "exploded" on Thursday, "hitting its highest point at midnight."

Despite that strong demand, many people remain unaware that Friday is the sign-up deadline in the 39 states served by HealthCare.gov, as well as in Idaho and Vermont.

Other states that run their own Obamacare marketplaces have later deadlines this season.

California's exchange, whose final enrollment deadline for 2018 coverage is Jan. 31, on Thursday said it had seen "a strong surge in demand" this week on the marketplace, the largest state-run Obamacare site.

"Over the past three days, Covered California has seen more than 38,000 new consumers sign up for coverage, which means that as of Dec. 13 more than 182,000 new consumers have signed up for coverage since open enrollment began, that marketplace said.

"Compared to the same time last year, when 156,000 had signed up, this enrollment marks an increase of 26,000, or 17 percent."

In response to the demand, Covered California has extended, by one week, its deadline for signing up for a health plan that goes into effect on Jan. 1.

Californians will now have until Dec. 22 to sign up for coverage that starts New Year's Day.
Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to US President Donald Trump, leaves Federal Court December 1, 2017 in Washington, DC.

German lender Deutsche Bank was asked for information about transactions that might be linked to President Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The request was made as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into ties between Trump and the Russian government.

Flynn pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and other foreign officials and has since been cooperating with the special counsel's office.

An attorney for Flynn did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Deutsche Bank, which also did not respond to a request from CNBC, told the Journal that it "takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations into this matter."

A number of news outlets reported Dec. 5 that the special counsel had issued a subpoena to Deutsche Bank related to the president and his associates.

The president's attorney Jay Sekulow denied that any subpoena had been issued related to the president. Handelsblatt, the German newspaper which first broke the news, stood by their story.

Federal and congressional investigators have issued subpoenas to Flynn and his associates for information about his dealings with foreign officials. Flynn is also the subject of a Pentagon probe into an undisclosed trip he took to Russia in 2015.

The special counsel's office declined to comment to CNBC.

Read the full report at The Wall Street Journal.
The Falcon 9's first stage successfully separated from the Dragon capsule  which was also previously flown, on a mission in April 2015. A few minutes later, the booster touched down at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral, gently settling onto the concrete pad.

It is the first time NASA has approved such a mission and the fourth time SpaceX has launched with what it says is a "flight proven" booster. Three commercial missions earlier this year, , have reused Falcon 9 rockets.

The mission, known as Commercial Resupply Services 13 (CRS-13), launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket previously flown for CRS-11 in June this year.

Elon Musk's rocket company made NASA history Friday, as SpaceX became the first company to launch a resupply mission to the International Space Station on a reused rocket.

The mission brings about 2 tons of crew supplies and scientific payloads to the space station. Dragon will travel for two days before it attaches to the orbiting station, returning about one month later to Earth.

NASA officials announced the CRS-13 would be on a previously flown booster, saying in a press conference before the launch that the administration is "very comfortable that the risk posture on this vehicle is not significantly greater than a new booster."

This was the only launch where NASA has approved the use of a previously launched rocket. SpaceX demonstrated thorough readiness for the rocket after NASA participated "in a broad range" of date assessments and inspections of the Falcon 9.

The launch had been delayed multiple times from its original Dec. 8 target, with today marking the last backup opportunity until Dec. 25.

The 45th Space Wing of the U.S. Air Force said in a tweet before the launch that this was the 19th launch from Cape Canaveral's Eastern Range in 2017. This was SpaceX's 17th launch this year, with one more expected on Dec. 22 to launch more Iridium satellites.

Musk's company is at the forefront of a global shift in rocket launches, with this year the first in history that commercial launches will outpace government-sponsored ones.

While SpaceX is the first private company to achieve this milestone, the U.S. government formerly launched astronauts and supplies aboard its space shuttles. The shuttle was a composite of an orbiter, two recoverable solid rocket boosters and an iconic orange external fuel tank. The shuttle program flew 135 missions and ran for nearly 40 years until 2011, when it was retired.
European closed lower on Friday, with sentiment curbed by concerns over plans to overhaul the tax system in the U.S.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed provisionally lower, down almost 0.2 percent, with most sectors and major indexes trading in negative territory. Retail stocks were by far the worst-performing sector, down more than 2 percent, after H&M reported fourth-quarter sales below its own expectations. Shares of the fashion retailer fell almost 13 percent to their lowest level since 2009.

In other stock news, Deutsche Telekom agreed to buy the Dutch business of Tele2 . The latter jumped around 6 percent in early trade but it has since then lost some ground, trading more than 1 percent. Shares of BT were more than 1 percent higher following news that it's agreed a cross supply of TV packages with rival Sky . Sky's stock moved up 2.8 percent on the news.

On Wall Street, stocks opened higher as investors awaited the release of the Republican tax bill.

The chairman of U.K. housebuilder Persimmon , Nicholas Wrigley, is resigning after a dispute over an incentive scheme that lined up a 232 million ($311 million) pay-out to three directors, the Financial Times reported.

Overall, market sentiment was also dragged down by developments in the U.S., where two Republican senators are holding out from voting for the GOP tax plan as written, adding uncertainty to the party's push to overhaul the U.S. tax system. Vice President Mike Pence delayed a trip to the Middle East amid the uncertainty.

In Europe, leaders formally agreed to begin the second phase of Brexit talks. Prime Minister Theresa May told her counterparts she is on track to deliver Brexit. Over the weekend, the U.K.'s Finance Minister Philip Hammond is set to fly to China to seal a billion pounds worth of trade and investment deals, Reuters reported.

In terms of data, euro zone trade balance numbers came in lower than expected with exports dropping 2.4 percent in October.

CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
Representative Brady: Wanted to drive tax relief for everyone 6:12 PM ET Fri, 15 Dec 2017 | 04:47

Republicans on Friday released their final proposal to overhaul the American tax system, which would chop taxes for corporations, trim rates for individuals and tweak tax deductions.

The House and Senate GOP hope to pass the sweeping measure by the middle of next week, hitting a year-end target. The House will vote on the plan on Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement.

Republicans argue that cuts contained in the bill will spark business investment, hiring and wage growth. Democrats call the plan a giveaway to corporations at the expense of the middle class, expressing concerns about the $1 trillion or more it is projected to add to federal budget deficits over a decade.

With two skeptical Republican senators falling in line Friday, the GOP appears set to have the support to push the bill through next week on a party line vote.

Here are some of the provisions the bill contains, according to a Republican summary:
watch now

New York tech investor Steve Schlafman was recently texting old high school friends about a tragedy that has hit his hometown of Swampscott, Massachusetts, and communities like it across the country: the opioid crisis. Schlafman, 38, knows over a dozen people from Swampscott who have overdosed and died from these drugs. A few years ago, while working as a principal at venture capital firm RRE Ventures, he visited more than 10 recovery centers and programs in the U.S. as part of an effort to research treatment options for addicts. related investing news It's 'early innings' in the fertility market. Here's how to play the booming business with under-the-radar names In the process, he discovered a company named Groups, which operates opioid treatment clinics in California, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio. Schlafman combined his passion for the subject with his role as a venture capitalist and led a $4 million financing round in 2015. Bessemer Venture Partners is also a backer. "A lot of these people know that they have a problem, and they want to get off of it," said Schlafman, who has since left RRE and now invests on his own. Groups is an odd choice for venture investors, who typically bet on companies selling software, technology infrastructure and connected devices with the hope of generating outsized returns when those start-ups eventually get acquired or go public.

But Schlafman and other venture investors clearly see an opportunity to make money while simultaneously having a positive impact. Since 2000, more than 300,000 Americans have died from overdoses involving opioids, according to the government. President Donald Trump recently declared opioid abuse a national public health emergency. Headquartered in New York, Groups has 33 clinics and is merging its physical service with digital technology. Patients in rural areas pay $65 a week, which entitles them to resources including group therapy sessions led by licensed addiction counselors. The company keeps in touch with the patients and says it uses "predictive analytics based on clinical information" to determine if someone is relapsing. "Using demographic information, drug testing and subjective questions  such as 'how was your week?'  we can accurately predict relapse and intervene, helping folks when they most need it," said Groups CEO Jeff De Flavio. Tech investors are attacking the market and ongoing opioid crisis in multiple ways. While Groups is focused on a new type of clinic, Boston-based Pear Therapeutics is designing mobile apps to help treat addiction. Pear raised $20 million last year from 5AM Ventures, JAZZ Venture Partners and others to create an app called reSET-O, which is specifically targeting opioid dependence. Patients receive a prescription and a passcode from their health-care providers. They tell the app the strength of their cravings and use a rating system to monitor their anger, pain and loneliness. That data is shared with the provider, who can then help determine proper treatment and ways to avoid turning to drugs.

watch now

"We have randomized clinical trial data showing that reSET-O improves abstinence and retention," said Yuri Maricich, Pear's chief medical officer. He said digital therapy is designed to be used alongside drugs like buprenorphine, which minimizes withdrawal symptoms. Pear is now working with federal regulators to approve reSET-O and hopes to launch it on Apple's App Store and Google Play in 2018. Some technologists are taking a preemptive approach to the problem and aiming to help patients avoid opioids by using virtual reality for pain management. A major cause of opioid abuse is chronic pain that results from cancer treatment and serious injuries. "In hospitals and clinics, especially in the U.S., we are sowing the seeds of opioid addiction by just starting the opioids when they were never needed in the first place," said Brennan Spiegel, director of Cedars-Sinai Health Services Research in Los Angeles. Spiegel has conducted multiple clinical trials to test whether VR headsets can reduce pain in a safer way than drugs. In a recent study, he examined 120 hospitalized patients who suffered daily pain. Half of the patients received an $800 kit with a Samsung headset and Galaxy phone, and three times a day watched VR videos that gave the sensation of swimming in the ocean. The other 60 patients watched calming videos on television. Those using VR reported a 53 percent reduction in pain, four times the rate of people who watched TV. More importantly, Spiegel said the pain relief persisted for hours or even days after the VR sessions concluded. VR works by acting as a distraction, shutting down pain-processing pathways in the central nervous system. "It's almost like the brain is temporarily inoculated against the pain," said Spiegel. Whether venture investors can play a role in developing solutions for the opioid problem while also satisfying their limited partners is very much an open question. But Bessemer partner Stephen Kraus is banking on it.

That's probably better than some of our cloud companies. Steve Kraus partner at Bessemer Venture Partners
Bitcoin: it's electric.



Well, indirectly, anyway. Electricity consumption domestically and around the world is rising on bitcoin mining fervor, according to media reports citing Digiconomist data on bitcoin-related energy consumption.



Investors can capitalize on the surge in electricity consumption by way of bitcoin mining through buying several names in the energy and power space, according to macroeconomic strategist and Bear Traps Report publisher Larry McDonald. Here are his reasons why, and his recommendations to investors.



 Bitcoin is incredibly volatile as an asset and investors are looking to more conservative, long-term ways to play the bitcoin trend than buying the cryptocurrency outright. Through the act of bitcoin mining, electricity is being consumed at a rapid clip.



 Investors can look to one natural gas exchange-traded fund, the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG ), as well as uranium and the Global X Uranium ETF (URA ).



 A liquefied natural gas company, Cheniere Energy (LNG ), would also be a smart play here.



Bottom line: As bitcoin mining consumes more electricity, some energy-related exchange-traded funds are worth a buy, according to McDonald.
A general election in Italy in early 2018 is likely to end in a hung parliament, mimicking the political situation across much of Europe.

The exact date for the election is yet to be confirmed, although the likely date is March 4. An opinion poll by EMG Acqua from early December suggested that no one party would gain a majority of the votes, creating a "hung parliament" situation.

The center-right bloc of Forza Italia, Lega Nord and Fratelli d'Italia, led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, remains the frontrunner with center-right parties seeing a combined popularity of around 35.1 percent.

The anti-establishment, euroskeptic Five Star Movement (M5S) under Luigi Di Maio is second in the polls, with 28.3 percent of the vote.

The center-left is lagging behind with various parties on that side of the political spectrum looking like they could gain a combined 30 percent of the vote, as it stands. The Democratic Party (PD) of former prime minister Matteo Renzi has seen its popularity decline to 25.3 percent, putting it in third place as a sole party.

Lorenzo Codogno, professor at the London School of Economics and founder at LC Macro Advisors, told CNBC on Thursday that the race was between "four major forces: the center-right, the center-left, the left and the Five Star Movement."

However, he said that the most likely scenario "is a hung parliament which effectively means a grand coalition," and that could lead to instability.
CEO James Murdoch is in an advantageous position after the Disney deal, Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg told CNBC on Friday.

Disney announced on Thursday its intention to buy major Fox assets in a transaction worth $52.4 billion in stock. Murdoch, son of Fox chairman and media titan Rupert Murdoch, will help Disney with the transition.

"James is in the catbird seat," said Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks and former Disney studio chairman. "I mean he is one of the smartest, most articulate, most intelligent media executives today."

"He's young, he's bold, he's been an entrepreneur, he's got a bunch of billions of dollars," Katzenberg added in an interview on "Squawk Box." "I mean he's got a heck of a path in front of him."

Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported James Murdoch could be a potential successor to Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger.

But that won't happen anytime soon. As part of the Fox deal announcement, Disney said Iger would remain chairman and CEO of through 2021

In an interview Thursday, Iger said he would be in talks with the younger Murdoch over the next few months and they'll discuss "whether there is a role for him or not at our company."

Katzenberg said Murdoch will likely be successful no matter what he does. "Whether if that's with the Walt Disney company or not  that I think will reveal itself over the next year," he said.

Katzenberg, managing partner of media and tech company WndrCo, was chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994. After leaving Disney, Katzenberg started Dreamworks with music mogul David Geffen and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg. In August 2016, DreamWorks was sold for $3.8 billion to Comcast , owner of CNBC's parent NBCUniversal.
By PTI: Cuddalore (TN), Dec 15 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit today interacted with the general public and held discussions with officials here even as the DMK and the VCK staged demonstrations against the exercise.

This comes weeks after his meeting with officials in Coimbatore and Tirunelveli came in for criticism from the DMK and others who claimed it amounted to interference in the states rights.

advertisement

Purohit today visited a neighbourhood near here and interacted with the residents who listed their grievances and submitted petitions.

The governor had to take another route to visit the neighbourhood in view of the protests by DMK and VCK.

During his meeting with local residents, Purohit stressed the importance of toilets in households, outlining the features of Swachch Bharat campaign.

He also undertook a cleanliness drive by sweeping the road in which local officials participated.

The local residents apprised Purohit of their problems during his visit and sought sites for permanent dwelling units.

Cuddalore district collector Prashant M Wadnere accompanied the governor and briefed him about what the people said.

Purohit later held discussions with officials at the guesthouse and received petitions from the public there.

Opposing the governor meeting the public and receiving petitions, the DMK and the VCK cadres staged protests in which scores of party workers participated.

DMKs Cuddalore strongman and former minister MRK Panneerselvam, leading the protest, said Purohits act went against the spirit of autonomy of states.

He said Tamil Nadu had always fought for states autonomy.

"Manilathil Suyatchi and Madhiyil Kootatchi," is a several decades old slogan of the DMK which means "Autonomy in state and federalism at the Centre."

Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President Su Thirunavukkarasar alleged that the "governor is acting as if this is governors (Presidents rule when governor acts as the de facto head of the executive) rule."

Speaking to reporters at Madurai, he asked if governors in the BJP-ruled states were visiting districts and holding discussions with officials in the absence of ministers or the chief minister.

Purohit has already visited some districts including Coimbatore and Kanyakumari.

A political row erupted last month when he began the exercise. Though ruling AIADMK did not see anything wrong in the governors action, DMK and other opposition parties claimed it amounted to interference in the states rights.

The governors office denied the charges and said the purpose of Purohits meeting in Coimbatore was to seek a first-hand information about various welfare and development schemes and programmes and their implementation.

advertisement

It dismissed as a "figment of imagination" the opposition charge that Purohit was acting at the behest of the Central government and said he would continue such meetings in future. PTI VGN BN ABH

--- ENDS ---
Senior Advisor Jared Kushner waits for a meeting with Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak, US President Donald Trump and others in the Cabinet Room of the White House September 12, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Lawyers for President Donald Trump's senior advisor Jared Kushner have called at least two crisis public relations firms in the past two weeks, according to The Washington Post.

The president's son-in-law has been the subject of enormous amounts of press coverage as congressional and federal investigators ramp up their probes of the president's alleged ties to Russia.



Kushner's attorney Abbe Lowell told the Post that he was seeking a firm that handled high-profile clients that receive press attention, and cited the Post's inquiry as an example of why such a firm is needed.

Kushner is reportedly a subject of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe, though the special counsel's office does not comment about its investigation outside of official court documents.

In one court filing, Mueller alleges that a "very senior" Trump official directed former national security advisor Michael Flynn to contact foreign officials during the Trump transition. NBC News later reported that the senior official was Kushner.

Lowell did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Read the full report at The Washington Post.
It's not often that a homeless person living out of his car can dramatically alter his circumstances and become a billionaire. But John Paul DeJoria  co-founder of hair-care company John Paul Mitchell Systems and high-end Patron Spirits  did just that. The 73-year-old now has a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes. His climb out of poverty reads like a tale from a Charles Dickens' novel.

The onetime door-to-door shampoo and encyclopedia salesman partnered with Paul Mitchell in 1980, and the two turned $700 into one of the most profitable hair-care companies in the world. Not too long after their company took off, Mitchell died of cancer and DeJoria took over. Today the company generates $1 billion in annual revenues. His tequila company is also a megahit. Patron tequila is made in Mexico in a sustainable distilling facility that uses recycled bottles and leftover distilled water to fertilize the land. Now more than 2 million cases are sold each year.

But DeJoria doesn't measure his success in terms of dollars and cents. For the iconic entrepreneur it's not about money and power. As he sums it up: "I have been so down and out in my life. It makes me feel really good to be financially blessed and give back. I get great joy and a great high out of it. It's my way of paying rent on this planet to share with others less fortunate."

More from iCONIC:

The 5 workplace myths this tech CEO busted on the way to $1 billion

The power couple that turned a passion into a $230 million retail empire

This is the No. 1 skill to live the life you want

The billionaire remembers giving a dime to the Salvation Army when he was six years old and living in Los Angeles. His mom told him, 'You may be poor, but there are so many people less fortunate than you, and every little bit helps.'

"Those words have always stuck with me," DeJoria recalls.

That philanthropic passion led DeJoria to sign Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's "The Giving Pledge" in 2011 to give half of his earnings to better the world. In addition, he established JP's Peace Love & Happiness Foundation as a hub for his charitable donations to causes that reflect the core values of his companies: saving the environment, helping the poor and protecting animal rights.
Lockheed Martin , the manufacturer of supersonic fighter jets such as the F-16, wants civilians to fly faster than the speed of sound, too.

The company reached a memorandum of understanding with supersonic Aerion Corp. to explore how to engineer and manufacture a business jet that travels faster than the speed of sound, the companies said jointly Friday.

The agreement gives Aerion another heavyweight partner. It previously had worked with airplane manufacturer Airbus on designs of its business jet, the AS2, and GE Aviation earlier this year announced it would work on an engine for the plane.

Lockheed has been working with NASA to develop a quieter supersonic jet. The rattling sonic booms the supersonic planes produce is a challenge for start-ups that want to revive supersonic passenger travel. A 1973 U.S. law prohibits supersonic overland flights.
As speculative fever for digital currencies surges this year, investors may want to heed the warnings of the most successful investors of our generation.

The biggest names in investing  including Druckenmiller, Dalio, Chanos, Gundlach and Klarman  are all now criticizing bitcoin, saying the pre-eminent cryptocurrency has critical flaws.

Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller told CNBC Tuesday he is skeptical bitcoin can be a viable digital currency.

"What I do know about bitcoin is, the concept it could ever be a medium of exchange has been eliminated because you can't do transactions, particularly retail transactions, with this kind of volatility," he said.

Druckenmiller is chairman and chief executive officer of the Duquesne Family Office. His hedge-fund track record is unparalleled, generating annualized returns of 30 percent during his investment career.

In similar fashion, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, whose firm manages $160 billion, in September questioned bitcoin's ability to be a unit of exchange.

"Bitcoin today, you can't make much transactions in it. You can't spend it very easily," Dalio said. "It's not an effective storehold of wealth because it has volatility to it, unlike gold.  It's a shame, it could be a currency. It could work conceptually, but the amount of speculation that is going on and the lack of transactions [hurts it]."

Bitcoin year to date

Source: CoinDesk

Bitcoin is up more than 2,000 percent in the last year and now trades above $17,000. Bitcoin futures trading launched this week on the Cboe exchange, gaining more than 19 percent Monday in the first full day of trading.

There are now 1,358 cryptocurrencies in existence, according to CoinMarketCap. Other digital currencies such as ethereum are better designed for programmable "smart contracts" and have quicker transaction times versus bitcoin.

Bitcoin's scalability is another issue. There is technical limitation on how many transactions can be processed at the same time. Partly as a result, widespread use of the cryptocurrency for payments has not occurred yet.

So cryptocurrency investors must honestly ask themselves, is bitcoin really changing the world through blockchain technology innovation or is it mainly speculative asset? It's the latter. Kynikos Associates short-seller Jim Chanos, lauded for his prescient negative calls on Enron and Tyco, compared bitcoin to previous fads. Bitcoin "is a speculative mania. It's Beanie Babies," he said at a Schechter event in Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday, referring to the toy craze during the 1990s.



DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach criticized the lack of analytical rigor in the recent "nice round number" $1,000,000 price targets for the bitcoin, which is reminiscent of previous speculative blow-offs. "I have no interest in this type of maniacal type of trading market," he said on CNBC Wednesday. Hedge-fund manager Seth Klarman, the value-investing giant who often draws comparisons to Warren Buffett, wrote in his classic book "Margin of Safety" an illuminating parable warning against speculation: "There is the old story about the market craze in sardine trading when the sardines disappeared from their traditional waters in Monterey, California. The commodity traders bid them up and the price of a can of sardines soared. One day a buyer decided to treat himself to an expensive meal and actually opened a can and started eating. He immediately became ill and told the seller the sardines were no good. The seller said, 'You don't understand. These are not eating sardines, they are trading sardines.'



Like sardine traders, many financial-market participants are attracted to speculation, never bothering to taste the sardines they are trading. ... trading in and of itself can be exciting and, as long as the market is rising, lucrative. But essentially it is speculating, not investing. You may find a buyer at a higher price  a greater fool  or you may not, in which case you yourself are the greater fool." When asked for comment for this column on whether bitcoin is a "trading sardine," Klarman replied: "Yes."
Silicon Valley investor Shervin Pishevar, known for his early bet on Uber Technologies, said on Thursday that he would sever ties with his venture capital company, Sherpa Capital, after being accused of sexual misconduct.

Pishevar, who has denied the accusations, said in a statement provided by his lawyer that he was voluntarily leaving Sherpa Capital, which he co-founded, because of ongoing "untruthful attacks" against him.

Bloomberg reported in November that five women accused Pishevar of exploiting a professional connection or the prospect of a job, mentorship or investment to make unwanted sexual advances.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the accusations.
By PTI: Kolkata, Dec 15 (PTI) Former Delhi University Lecturer S A R Geelani today strongly criticised the proposed law on triple talaq describing it as "politically motivated".

To a question on Kashmir issues, Geelani said, "Neither India nor Pakistan, but the people of Kashmir valley should have the right to decide their own fate."

Speaking at a peoples convention on various human rights here, Geelani, who was arrested on sedition charge in early 2016 in Delhi, said that people should be persuaded first for their acceptance of any law before its legislation.

advertisement

"Even if the legislation against triple talaq is passed in the Parliament, its implementation will be very tough without its acceptance by the Muslim society," he said.

Stating that there are different schools in Islam, Geelani said "you need to pursue people on new legislation first before bringing it to Parliament for legislation."

"Such a legislation is politically motivated and the government must have something in its mind," Geelani observed going against the Centres nod to a draft law against triple talaq to make it a criminal offence.

The Delhi Police had arrested Geelani in connection with the sedition charges slapped on him for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India in the national capital in early 2016.

At the Press Club event on February 10, 2016, in which Geelani was present on the dais along with three other speakers, a group allegedly had shouted slogans hailing Afzal Guru.

Speaking on the occasion, Geelani also condemned capital punishment raising questions on its use. PTI AKB RG

--- ENDS ---
EU leaders have formally agreed Friday to start the second phase of Brexit negotiations, mainly centered around trade talks and a transition period.

"The European Council ... decides that it is sufficient to move to the second phase related to transition and the framework for the future relationship," EU leaders said Friday, following a two-day summit in Brussels.

Both negotiating teams will continue preparatory works and should reconvene in March to detail how their future relationship will work.

British Prime Minister Theresa May received a round of applause from European leaders on Thursday night. At a summit dinner in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday, May made a brief speech emphasizing the need for the U.K. and the EU to move forward together with negotiations. This was met with spontaneous applause from EU leaders.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday that May was applauded because some "thought that indeed she did a big effort" to conclude phase one of the negotiations and "this needs to be recognized."

However, analysts believe May will find future Brexit talks increasingly difficult.

"I expect very, very tough negations," Zsolt Darvas, senior fellow at the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel, told CNBC on Friday.

One of the issues set to dominate talks is the future of the financial services industry. "At the end, I think that access to financial services will be limited for U.K.-based firms and therefore a number of companies will relocate to the continent," Darvas said.
Asked when he knew that his former national security advisor Michael Flynn lied to the FBI, President Donald Trump said Friday: "You know the answer."

"What else is there? You know the answer. How many times has that question been asked," he said.

Flynn pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to lying to the FBI, making him the first Trump White House official to be charged with a crime in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.



Trump fired Flynn only 24 days into his tenure as national security advisor, saying at the time that the dismissal was a result of Flynn's false statements to Vice President Mike Pence.

Following Flynn's charge, however, a tweet sent from the president's account suggested that the president also knew at the time that Flynn had lied to FBI agents, which is a crime.

"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," the Dec. 2 tweet said.

Trump tweet: I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

Trump lawyer John Dowd later said he was the author of the tweet.

If the president knew at the time that Flynn had committed a crime, it could raise questions about whether he obstructed justice, legal experts have said.

Dowd has said that a president cannot obstruct justice. He called that assertion "ignorant and arrogant."

The day after Flynn was fired, the president told FBI Director James Comey that he hoped he could "see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," according to Comey's written testimony to Congress.

"I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador in December," Comey wrote.
President Donald Trump, left, stands with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on December 15, 2017 in Quantico, Virginia, before participating in the FBI National Academy graduation ceremony.

Shortly after blasting the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton probe as "really, really disgraceful," President Donald Trump told an audience at the FBI Academy on Friday that he is more loyal to them "than anyone else could be."

"Anti-police sentiment is wrong and it's dangerous," he told the 200 or so law enforcement officers from different agencies around the country who came to the FBI for a six-week leadership training course.

Trump's remarks at the Quantico, Virginia, center came just about 90 minutes after he told reporters, "it's a shame what's happened with the FBI."

Speaking on the White House South Lawn before departing for Quantico, Trump claimed that the public is "very very angry" at the FBI's handling of the 2016 Clinton email investigation, which found no grounds for a criminal prosecution of the Democratic presidential candidate.

Trump said he was going to the FBI's campus, "on behalf of the FBI ... But when everybody  not me  when everybody  the level of anger at what they've been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad."

By the time the president stepped on stage in Quantico, however, his tenor had changed markedly.

"The president of the United States has your back 100 percent," Trump told the graduates. "I will fight for you and I will never, ever let you down. Ever."

As evidence of his loyalty, Trump touted his decision to allow local law enforcement to access surplus military equipment, and said "anyone who kills a police officer should get the death penalty."

Trump also spoke at length about the "great threats" facing America, including terrorism. Speaking of two recent terror attacks in New York, Trump said the suspects in the two separate attacks were linked by one thing: They both came to the United States "through our dysfunctional immigration system."

Trump then attacked the U.S. green card lottery system using heated rhetoric that was reminiscent of his 2016 campaign rallies. "They give us their worst people. They put them in a bin. But in his hand when he's picking them, is really the worst of the worst. 'Congratulations, you're going to the United States,'" Trump said.

This is not how the Diversity Visa Lottery program works, however. In reality, applicants must meet strict eligibility requirements, which include having no criminal record, before even being admitted to the lottery. Names are then selected electronically, at random, by the State Department.

CNBC reached out to the White House to ask whether the president fully understands how the green card lottery works. And if he does, why Trump would characterize it as a program that operated outside of the United States when it is in fact run by the Trump administration's State Department. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond.

Near the end of his remarks, Trump took a familiar jab at the traveling pool of journalists covering the event. "There's the fake news back there," Trump said, pointing to the press box. "Fake news. No, in fact, some of them are fine people. About 30 percent."

Later in the day, the president was expected to travel to Camp David, Maryland, where he will spend the weekend.
President Donald Trump said Friday he does not want to discuss pardons for his former national security advisor Michael Flynn  "yet."

"We'll see what happens," he told reporters ahead of a speech to FBI's National Academy. "Let's see, I can say this: When you look at what's gone on with the FBI and the Justice Department, people are very, very angry."

Flynn pleaded guilty on Dec. 1 to lying to FBI agents. He is the first Trump White House official to officially get charged with a crime in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort is among those also charged.

"For the record there is no consideration at all for a pardon for Michael Flynn at this time," the president's attorney Ty Cobb told NBC News Friday.

Flynn, who is cooperating with investigators looking into ties between Trump's top advisors and the Kremlin, is the closest link to the president to be flipped by law enforcement.

Trump has touted his ability to pardon aides in the past.

"While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us," he wrote in a July post.

Trump tweet: "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us,"

The Washington Post reported that Trump's lawyers were exploring the limits of the president's pardon authority over the summer. Trump attorney John Dowd called that report "nonsense."
Go-Jek and other motorcycle riders on a street in Jakarta, Indonesia on Monday, March 21, 2016.

Ride-hailing start-up Go-Jek has acquired three financial technology (fintech) start-ups as it looks to dominate Indonesia's digital payments space.

Go-Jek said Friday it had bought offline payments service Kartuku, payment gateway Midtrans and saving and lending firm Mapan for undisclosed amounts.

The firm, which began life as a motorbike and taxi business, has expanded its offering to include food delivery and payments. Go-Jek said the acquisition would be a vital component in its aim to lead Indonesia's payments sector.

"Through the acquisitions announced today, we will be working hand-in-hand with three likeminded companies who share our vision and ethos," Nadiem Makarim, founder and chief executive of Go-Jek, said in a statement. "This marks a significant development in our position at the heart of Indonesia's vibrant fintech industry."

Go-Jek said the acquisition move would bolster its activity in both online and offline payments, as well as increase engagement in the financial services in Indonesia. Go-Jek's mobile payments service Go-Pay is one of the most popular payment platforms in Indonesia.

"The acquisitions will immediately accelerate the acceptance and market leadership of Go-Pay in the offline space through Kartuku, as well as the online space through Midtrans, while also increasing financial inclusion for the unbanked through Mapan," Andre Soelistyo, president at Go-Jek, said.

"This approach to finance, implemented by leading homegrown Indonesian technology businesses within Go-Jek Group, will accelerate financial inclusion for millions of Indonesians and stimulate economic productivity throughout the country."

Financial inclusion refers to fintech solutions that provide more affordable finance alternatives to disadvantage and low-income people. According to World Bank data, an estimated 2 billion adults have no access to formal financial services.
Investors should expect another U.S. stock-market rally if the Republican tax bill passes since the market has not fully baked it in, a strategist at UBS says.

Keith Parker, a strategist at UBS who has a 3,300 target on the S&P 500 for 2018, said only 35-to-45 percent of the tax plan is priced into the market, noting the index's recent gains have been mostly a product of better-than-expected economic data and strong earnings.

The S&P 500 is up 8.1 percent since August and nearly 4 percent since mid-November.

"Many investors point to the rally in US equities since August as evidence that a tax cut is already priced in," said Parker. And while part of those gains are "likely tax-related, past instances in which a tax cut was passed highlight the potential for further gains once the bill gets signed."

The strategist points out that the rose sharply following the last two major overhauls to the tax code. Parker specifically points to Feb. 26, 1964  when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Tax Reduction Act  and to Oct. 22, 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act.

The chart below shows the S&P 500's normalized performance before and after the 1964 and 1986 tax laws were signed:

Stocks have surged in 2017, with the S&P 500 advancing nearly 20 percent to all-time highs as investors await the passing of the new GOP tax plan. If signed into law, the bill  which is expected to be unveiled on Friday  would slash the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.

"As a tax cut gets closer to passage (and assuming it is passed), the potential tailwind to earnings and nominal growth is likely to drive incremental fund flows into US equities," Parker said. "As a result, we're likely to witness a similar influx of funds, albeit potentially more sustained, to what we saw last November immediately following the outcome of the US election and the corresponding spike in confidence."
Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Lacy O'Toole | CNBC

Buying Berkshire Hathaway

In a 2010 interview with Becky Quick on CNBC, Warren Buffett said the dumbest stock he ever bought was  drum roll, please  Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett explained that he first invested in Berkshire Hathaway in 1962 when it was a failing textile company. He thought he would make a profit when more mills closed, so he loaded up on the stock. Later, the firm tried to chisel Buffett out of more money. A spiteful Buffett bought control of the company, fired the manager and tried to keep the textile business running for another 20 years. Buffett estimated that this vindictive move cost him $200 billion. The investment advice here is not to let emotions factor into financial decisions.

Purchasing Waumbec Textile Company

Despite regretting the purchase of failing textile company Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, Buffett did the same thing 13 years later, when he purchased Waumbec Mills  another New England textile company. "The purchase price was a bargain based on the assets we received and the projected synergies with Berkshire's existing textile business," Buffett wrote in his 2014 shareholders letter. Admitting his mistake, Buffett revealed his decision to buy Waumbec was a terrible one, as the mill had to be shuttered not too many years after Berkshire acquired it in 1975. The chief lesson from Buffett's poor investment in Waumbec is to learn from your mistakes. When making investments, if at first, you don't succeed, move on to a new strategy.

Investing in Tesco

Berkshire Hathaway owned 415 million shares of U.K.-based grocer Tesco at the end of 2012. The firm sold some stock but remained heavily invested. In 2014, the grocer overstated its profits and shares tumbled. In his 2014 letter to shareholders, Buffett said concerns about Tesco management motivated his initial sale of stock, which resulted in a $43 million profit. Unfortunately, he didn't move quickly on the rest. "An attentive investor, I'm embarrassed to report, would have sold Tesco shares earlier. I made a big mistake with this investment by dawdling," Buffett wrote. He admitted the move cost the company a $444 million after-tax loss. The lesson from this piece of Warren Buffett history is to make decisions promptly.

Purchasing Dexter Shoe Co.

In 1993, Warren Buffett purchased Dexter Shoe Co. for $433 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock. In his 2007 letter to shareholders, Buffett explained the poor decision, admitting it cost investors $3.5 billion. At the time, this was 1.6 percent of Berkshire Hathaway's net worth. "To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I've made. But I'll make more mistakes in the future  you can bet on that," Buffett wrote. The worst of Warren Buffett's stock picks underscores a key lesson: A company is at its best if it has a viable competitive advantage. If there's no solid reason for customers to continue patronizing a brand, it's likely destined for failure.

Using Berkshire stock to buy Dexter Shoe Co.

Warren Buffett hasn't held back with his regrets over buying Dexter Shoe Co., but in his 2014 letter to shareholders, he expressed frustration over how he paid the $433 million purchase price. Rather than giving the sellers cash, he used Berkshire shares to fund the purchase. At the time he wrote the letter, he revealed that those shares were valued at $5.7 billion. "As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records," he wrote. You're probably not buying and selling million-dollar companies, but you can learn from Buffett's mistake by ensuring your resources are properly allocated. If your current portfolio is performing well, don't pull money from solid investments to take a chance on a wild card.

Taking on debt from energy future holdings

In his 2013 letter to shareholders, Buffett explained his debacle with Energy Future Holdings. The equity owners ponied up $8 billion and borrowed even more. "About $2 billion of the debt was purchased by Berkshire, pursuant to a decision I made without consulting with Charlie," Buffett wrote, referring to Charles Munger, Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman. Buffett correctly predicted Energy Future Holdings would file for bankruptcy. He said Berkshire Hathaway sold its holdings for $259 million in 2013, but not before suffering an $873 million pre-tax loss. The lesson of this Warren Buffett loss is to always run big decisions by a business partner or trusted confidant before diving in headfirst.

Not buying the Dallas-Fort worth NBC station

Not all Warren Buffett advice stems from financial losses. One of his regrets is not buying the Dallas-Fort Worth NBC station for $35 million. In his 2007 letter to shareholders, Buffett explained that he passed up the chance to purchase the station around the time he bought See's Candies in 1972. He turned down the offer despite wholeheartedly trusting the person who made it, knowing there was excellent growth potential and it would require essentially no capital investment. Reminiscing about the missed opportunity, Buffett pointed out that the station earned $73 million pre-tax in 2006, and at the time he wrote the letter, it was valued at $800 million. The moral of the story is to take advantage of an opportunity when it comes knocking.

Issuing extra shares of Berkshire Hathaway to buy General Reinsurance

The 1998 purchase of General Reinsurance (Gen Re) was initially not the best move for Warren Buffett's investment strategy. Buffett turned things around, but he does have some regrets. "After some early problems, General Re has become a fine insurance operation that we prize," wrote Buffett in his 2016 letter to shareholders. "It was, nevertheless, a terrible mistake on my part to issue 272,200 shares of Berkshire in buying General Re, an act that increased our outstanding shares by a whopping 21.8 percent. My error caused Berkshire shareholders to give far more than they received (a practice that  despite the Biblical endorsement  is far from blessed when you are buying businesses)." The lesson here is to fix your mistakes the right way and enjoy the rewards of success.

Not performing proper due diligence when buying General Reinsurance

Multiple investment tips can be garnered from Warren Buffett's acquisition of General Reinsurance. In his 2001 shareholders letter, he offered more insights on the reason Berkshire Hathaway took such a large initial hit on the purchase. This included enduring underwriting losses, overlooking the possibility of terrorist attacks and failing to realize Gen Re didn't have enough in reserve to pay losses from old policies. Berkshire Hathaway realized $800 million in losses from the latter in 2001. The lesson here is to double-check the numbers and run them by several trusted advisors. You should always know what a worst-case scenario could cost you.

Buying a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock

In his 2008 shareholders letter, Buffett wrote, "Without urging from Charlie or anyone else, I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak. I in no way anticipated the dramatic fall in energy prices that occurred in the last half of the year." Buffett spent just over $7 billion on 85 million shares of ConocoPhillips, but its market value at the time of the letter was only about $4.4 billion. Warren Buffett mistakes like this one again emphasize the importance of consulting people you trust before making a major investment. Sometimes, getting a different perspective is the best way to see the big picture.

Failing to dig deep into Lubrizol Corp. stock

In 2011, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway were under fire after it was revealed that David Sokol, then-chairman of several of the firm's subsidiaries, pitched Lubrizol Corp. to Buffett as a potential takeover. The problem was that Sokol owned stock in the chemicals company. Berkshire bought Lubrizol for roughly $9 billion, and Sokol earned a $3 million profit. Since he hadn't disclosed his stock ownership to Buffett, this violated insider-trading rules. Buffett didn't realize his mistake immediately, but at the 2011 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, he admitted that he should have probed deeper with Sokol. The investment advice to follow here is not to be overly trusting. Ask more questions than you think are necessary, because you can't be too careful when your reputation is on the line.

Opting not to buy Amazon stock

In a February 2017 interview with "Squawk Box," Buffett was asked why he'd never bought stock in Amazon. He admitted he didn't have a good answer. "Obviously, I should have bought it long ago, because I admired it long ago," he said. "But I didn't understand the power of the model as I went along. And the price always seemed to more than reflect the power of the model at that time. So, it's one I missed big time." Warren Buffett's investments never include businesses he doesn't understand, which is both good and bad. Backing companies blindly is not a smart move, but shying away from them isn't wise, either. Partnering with someone whose strengths differ from yours can help you avoid missing out on great opportunities.

Purchasing US Airways stock

US Airways didn't join the ranks of failed Warren Buffett stocks, but he does regret his 1989 purchase of $358 million worth of shares in the now-consolidated airline. The shares never appreciated, but after weathering turmoil, Forbes reported that Buffett likely got all his principal and dividends back. Buffett credited the airline's rebound to both his and Munger's exit from the board and the arrival of CEO Stephen Wolf. He praised the latter for saving what could've been a very costly investment. The moral of the story is to research every investment before buying, so you know exactly what you're getting into  whether you're a beginning investor or a longtime pro.

Missing his chance to invest in Google

Warren Buffett's portfolio doesn't include Google stock, and that's something he regrets. At the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, he told investors he made a mistake by not purchasing shares in the tech giant years ago when it was getting $10 per click from Geico  a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire. Buffett has shied away from tech stocks in the past because he didn't understand their models. Still, he said he should have figured them out because he was effectively a client of the Google ad business. What you can learn from this mistake is not to overlook investment opportunities right under your nose.

Overestimating select manufacturing, service and retail investments
[The stream is slated to start at 10:10 a.m., ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

SpaceX is set to launch two previously-flown vehicles on a NASA mission Friday morning out of Cape Canaveral Air Force station in Florida.

This mission is the first time NASA will launch its resupply mission to the International Space Station on a "flight proven" rocket booster. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for this mission, Commercial Resupply Services 13 (CRS-13) was first launched and landed for NASA resupply mission CRS-11 in June this year.

NASA officials announced the CRS-13 would reuse a booster, saying in a press conference before the launch that the administration is "very comfortable that the risk posture on this vehicle is not significantly greater than a new booster."

This is only launch NASA has approved use of a previously launched rocket. Elon Musk's company demonstrated thorough readiness for the rocket after NASA participated "in a broad range" of date assessments and inspections of the Falcon 9.

The launch has been delayed multiples times from its original December 8 target, with Friday marking the last backup opportunity until December 25.
The number of people using ambulances dropped "substantially" in hundreds of U.S. cities after Uber introduced its ride-hailing service to those locales, new research has found.

The findings suggest that UberX's entry into a city can decrease "uncessary ambulance usage"  which in turn could lead to a drop in wait times for ambulances, according to the study's authors.

And it also could provide financial savings for patients, since a trip using Uber costs much less than the typical ambulance ride, a paper on the study noted.

The research was conducted by David Slusky, a University of Kansas economics professor, and Dr. Leon Moskatel of Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego.

Slusky and Moskatel looked at what happened to ambulance usage rates from 2013 to 2015 as the ride-hailing service UberX was rolled out into nearly 800 cities in 43 states.

Before UberX was introduced into a given city, the rate of ambulance usage among residents tended to be fairly constant, according to the authors.

But after Uber was introduced, the authors found "at least a 7 percent decrease in the ambulance rate."

"This decrease likely caused a reduction in wait time for the remaining ambulance volume," they wrote.

"Given that even a reduction of a few minutes can drastically improve survival rates for serious conditions ... this could be associated with substantial welfare improvement."

Earlier this year, the authors noted, separate research found that since the the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, ambulance response times had slowed by 19 percent. Obamacare, as the ACA is formally known, led to the expansion of health coverage to about 20 million Americans.

The authors also noted: "Emergency medical transport in an ambulance can easily exceed over a thousand dollars, usually with great surprise to the patient  and with insurance often only partially covering the expense or outright refusing to pay for transport deemed not medically necessary."
By India Today Web Desk: These days, it is extremely difficult for a film to run in the theatres for two consecutive weeks. Each week, audiences are bombarded with two to three new films, making it difficult for several movies to survive in the business. Of course, there are a few exceptions, and Vikram Vedha is one such film.

advertisement

The cop-gangster thriller is loosely based on Indian folklore; the story of Vikram and Betal. Director duo Pushkar and Gayathri churned out a magnum opus which people celebrated. Recently, the entire crew of Vikram Vedha celebrated its 100-day theatrical run. Congratulatory messages were exchanged and shields were presented to the technicians who toiled hard for the film.

Speaking at the event, Madhavan, who played Vikram in the film, said, "During the press meet of Vikram Vedha (which was held before the release), I had said that I will talk about the film on its 100th day. I had that much confidence in the movie. I learnt a great deal working in this flick. Directors Pushkar and Gayathri are the backbones of this project. They took my inputs because of which the movie did well and they decided not to take many of my suggestions because of which the movie was a blockbuster. Audiences are intellectual these days, and if they like the content of the movie, they celebrate it like anything. I watched nearly 200 reviews and not one let out the core secret of the film. It was overwhelming for me."

Vijay Sethupathi, who was seen as the menacing villain, Vedha, shared, "It has been a long time since a film celebrated its 100-day run. I experienced it with my film Dharmadurai. Everybody has spoken about the success of Vikram Vedha and its characters. My personal gain from this project is that I have earned the love of so many people. I didn't expect that this film would catapult me to a different level. If somebody writes my biopic, I'm sure that this film would have a special place in it."

ALSO WATCH: Mike Tyson wants to watch Bollywood movie Saala Khadoos

--- ENDS ---
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
Iain Dale is Presenter of LBC Drive, Managing Director of Biteback Publishing, a columnist and broadcaster and a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

Its difficult to know what the consequences of Wednesday evenings Government defeat in the Commons will be. It certainly undermines Theresa May as she goes into the next stage of negotiations, and probably means that an agreement needs to be reached a little earlier than before in order to allow time for all the parliamentary processes to be conducted. The European Commission will be licking their lips. Guy Verhofstadts glee on Twitter was barf-inducing. However, these things are rarely as significant as they appear in their immediate aftermath.

The whole process proves what I said recently on The Andrew Marr Show was right. OMG, you called the PM a weeble, texted a friend in Number Ten. And its true  I did. It was meant as a compliment! Those of you of a middle-aged vintage will recall the 1970s childrens toy, which was promoted in an advert by a little ditty which went Weebles wobble, but they dont fall down.

Lets face it: even her most loyal supporter would admit that the Prime Minister has had her odd wobbly moment since April. But no one has yet managed to floor her. She may wobble, but she always comes back to surprise her critics. Her resilience is astounding. Last Friday, she was again mistress of all she surveyed, having managed to get the DUP and her cabinet onside. She pulled victory from last Mondays jaw of defeat. But as ever, this week has been a long time in politics, and she headed off to Brussels yesterday knowing that her EU colleagues would again consider her to be in a weaker position than the last time they saw her.

         

The eleven Conservative rebels will be very conscious of what they did on Wednesday night and wont be allowed to forget it. Id like to think that all eleven of them did what they did for the best of reasons. They say they did it to take back control, and promote the interests of Parliament against the executive.

Im all in favour of the Executive losing some of its grip on the law-making process, and ordinarily Id support any move to do that. However, the suspicion remains that this was less about the interests of Parliament and more about an underhand means of trying to scupper Brexit. Hardline Brexiteers will certainly accuse the eleven of that. I guess well never know the truth.

         

Another measure the Government seems keen on is to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600. This is parliamentary madness. I presume in the end this will come to a Commons vote at some point  and I just cant see turkeys voting for Christmas.

However, if they do they must do it on the condition that the Government reduces the number of ministers, something they have so far refused to commit to. If you get rid of 8.3 per cent of MPs, surely you ought to be obliged to reduce the number of ministers by the same proportion, otherwise the Executive is able to tighten its grip on the parliamentary process. If it happened, there would be eight fewer ministers. The question is: would anyone notice?

         

Steve Baker really does have a fine head of hair, doesnt he? Not that I am at all jealous. Never let it be said.

         

As you read this, Ill be in Brussels for the EU summit. Were doing CNN Talk (on CNN International at noon) from the Commission building, and then Ill be doing my LBC show from there. Its my first visit to Brussels since the early 1990s, when I thought it would be a good idea to go and see what it was like.

I remember attending a meeting of the European Parliaments transport committee and having all my anti-EU prejudices confirmed. It was total chaos. You had lobbyists sitting in amongst the MPs, and chatting to them as the committee proceedings went on. I remember coming back to London and hoping beyond hope that my work wouldnt take me to Brussels ever again. Well, Ive lasted 27 years, and hopefully this visit will be my second and last. Im sure Brussels feels the same.

         

Last Saturday, I wrote an article in the I Newspaper about the declining art of political interviewing. It seems to have caused quite a stir with several journalists getting in touch to ask what I thought of their interviewing style! I deliberately didnt name many names, apart from praising Andrew Neil, who I regard as the best interviewer in the world of political broadcast journalism.

Jeremy Paxman was none too pleased, and got in touch to say he had never said he had in mind while interviewing politicians the phrase why is this bastard lying to me? He said he was quoting someone else.
Who is the voyeur in Voyeur? The obvious answer is Gerald Foos, a Colorado motel-keeper who spent three decades spying on his guests through vents installed expressly for the purpose. But the man we meet first in this Netflix documentary is the celebrated journalist Gay Talese, who tells us: "My life has pretty much been living through other people's experiences? Watching other people."

A parallel is thus drawn between Foos and Talese and their interests in observing, chronicling, hoarding. There is a visual link of sorts, too, between Talese's neatly organized "bunker" - where he keeps everything he published as well as all the notes he ever wrote - and a cute little model of Foos's (now demolished) motel.

advertisement

The two men first crossed paths in 1980, when Foos was inspired by the publicity around Talese's book Thy Neighbor's Wife - about American sexual mores post-WW-II - to contact him with information about his own "research". The two became friends and Talese eventually published a New Yorker article and a book about the self-confessed voyeur before realising that Foos's story had holes larger than the ones he had cut out in the motel's ceiling.

But despite this gripping subject matter, Voyeur is often listless. Perhaps its banality is part of the point, and the film is saying: you want a racy narrative about a man who secretly watched people having sex? Here are two old guys grumbling and pontificating. But important questions remain unaddressed. How did Foos lead a functional life while spending night after night at his watching station? What did his two wives think? And how did a journalist as canny as Talese let himself be misled?

For anyone who has read Talese's article and heard about the subsequent controversies, little here will be new. In fact, the article makes Foos seem more interesting-a melancholy, philosophising scholar manque. The film offers only a mildly intriguing portrait of the contradictions in a man who was both introvert and exhibitionist, who wanted to maintain full control over his private universe but also yearned to share his story with the world. At times, it feels like Foos may have been an apt subject for another recent (and superior) Netflix production, Mindhunter, which is about other types of attention-seeking sociopaths committing much bigger crimes in the same period.

--- ENDS ---
Hi, Im Tom Harwood and Im running to be an NUS delegate again.https://t.co/Jkq6pvCLd4 pic.twitter.com/jjkqXrE6i8  Tom Harwood (@tomhfh) 6 December 2017

Last December, Tom Harwood, a politics student at Durham, pledged to defeat ISIS by means of NUS boycotts, and to construct a 217-foot statue of NUS President Malia Bouattia on top of Durham Cathedral, so people can see how vitally important she is to us.

He also told potential supporters on his campaign video, I pledge to make sweeping agrarian reform a national priority.

These promises formed an enjoyable send-up of the usual NUS campaign, which consists of pledges to carry out actions far beyond the powers of any student politician.

And in Durham, a university more susceptible than most to such reactionary jokes, they were sufficient to get Harwood elected as a delegate to the NUS conference, on an exceptionally high turnout of 10.7 per cent.

Slightly more noticeably, as far as the wider world was concerned, the video helped launch Harwood as a media performer, who has appeared on the BBC, Sky, ITN, LBC and Three Counties Radio, among many other outlets.

For here was an articulate student who was unafraid, indeed eager, to declare the NUS a ridiculous organisation. He became a useful way of spicing up whatever modest degree of coverage that organisation may receive, usually after it has adopted some stance which can be attacked as ridiculous or disreputable.

This month, Harwood returned to the attack, with another video (see above) in which he points out, in a triumphant tone, that ISIS is in retreat; claims the scaffolding which is visible on the top of Durham Cathedral conceals the construction work which has begun on the statue; and also declares: Dont worry  sweeping agrarian reform is still one of my top priorities.

On Wednesday he announced on his Twitter feed that he has again been elected as a Durham delegate at the NUS conference, and a few days ago Nick Boles tweeted: Put this man in charge of @Conservatives digital campaigning!

It is certainly true that the Conservative Partys digital campaigning leaves much to be desired, and would benefit from the sparky irreverence displayed by Harwood.

He has considerable experience as a campaigner, having chaired the student arm of the national Vote Leave campaign, and as a debater, having gained election as president of the Durham Union.

While still at the Perse School in Cambridge, we find him praised for the impassioned closing statement he gave in a mock trial competition at Cambridge Crown Court.

When he stood earlier this year for the presidency of the NUS  a post once held by such luminaries as Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, Trevor Phillips and David Aaronovitch  he received only 35 votes from delegates, compared to 272 for Bouattia, who suffered from repeated allegations of anti-semitism, and 402 for the winner, Shakira Martin.

This suggests there were only 35 Conservatives at the conference where the vote took place. Harwood was about a decade younger than the two women who beat him, and a newcomer.

His declared aim  a laudable one  was to shame the NUS into reforming itself. But to combine satire with politics is difficult. The greatest satirists  one thinks of the late Michael Wharton, author for several decades of the Peter Simple column in the Daily Telegraph  have no political ambitions.

And anyone like Harwood who, while still a student, manages by an audacious performance to attract national media coverage, is bound to irritate quite a few of his or her contemporaries, and may find the early publicity hard to live down. William Hague was for many years known as the precocious schoolboy who at the age of 16 had delivered a well-received speech to the Conservative Conference.

On Sunday, Nick Denys wrote on this site about the contribution made by Momentum to Labours general election campaign, including the provision of large numbers of foot-soldiers, and the development of a social media presence far greater than anything the Conservatives achieved.

But the idea that the Conservative response can simply consist of aping Momentum had in August been exploded by none other than Harwood, also writing on this site. He pointed out that Momentum was born out of a successful and transformative leadership campaign and already had a base of loyal and ideologically driven people, and went on:

Any engaging Conservative movement would need to see itself in its own right, and not simply as an answer to the Labour Party. To this end the problem the Conservative Party faces is not so much a lack of structures, but a lack of vision. Once we recapture a vision of what this country can be, once we have a path and can see light at the end of it, all else will be able to flow from that. For any campaign groups that spring up to be successful, they must stand for something. Its hard to engage people to fight for eternal compromise. To this end, the real saving grace of the Conservative Party has to come from rediscovering our soul and our mission. If the Prime Minister wants to set the party on the best possible footing to win the next election, she should consider promoting potential leadership figures who can offer competing visions of the future, and let the best vision win. Young people wont flock to the party just because we have better graphics, young people will come when we offer solutions.

A generation ago, one might add, conservative or even Conservative tendencies were often encouraged not long after starting work by the act of buying a house. Paying the mortgage was a burden, but obliged one to settle down and become a responsible member of society.

For many people in their twenties, that option no longer exists. Their earnings are consumed in paying rent. So why not give up the job and go travelling for a year instead?

Or why not join Momentum  a curious and probably not very durable alliance between elderly Bennites (to put it politely) and young people who want a different kind of world.

Social media offer a tantalising chance to communicate directly with these young idealists. But it is necessary to have something to say. And as John Rentoul noted on Saturday, there are still Conservatives who can find something to say:

Michael Gove still wants to be prime minister. We know this because this week he supported the reintroduction of beavers in the wild in England. He knows that one of the most important but least reported issues that did for the Conservatives at the election was animal rights. For many consumers of social media, the big election issues were not Brexit, or Theresa Mays mechanical personality, or her dementia tax, or Jeremy Corbyns promise to abolish tuition fees. They were worked up about Mays support for fox hunting and her failure to mention a ban on ivory sales in her manifesto.

Harwood has been good at drawing attention to the absurdities of the NUS. But to beat Labour at the next election, it will not be enough to draw attention to the absurdities of Corbyn and his supporters.

David Cameron recognised the need for Conservatives to offer something more satisfying and constructive than a critique of socialism. His notion of the Big Society never quite met that need, though many of the things his coalition government actually did were admirable, as Oliver Letwin demonstrates in his recent book Hearts and Minds.

But one of Camerons most signal services to the party was to recruit in the decade from 2005 to 2015 a large number of gifted parliamentary candidates. They are now making names for themselves at Westminster, and must not hesitate, if the party is to renew itself while in office and discover worthwhile things to say on social media, to lay out their competing visions of the future.
CORNWALL, Ontario  As a result of an ongoing investigation by the Criminal Investigation Division into an incident that occurred in early December, 2017 where a man suffered a gunshot wound to his arm and was forced from his residence.

Two persons were taken into custody and charged accordingly while a third person remained at large and a Canada-Wide warrant was obtained for his arrest. On Dec. 14, 2017 members of the Cornwall Community Police Service attended Chateauguay, QC as Chateauguay Police Service had the man in custody on the strength of Cornwalls warrant.

Blais Girard, 22, of Valleyfield, QC was taken into custody on the strength of the warrant, transported to Cornwall and held for a bail hearing. Girard is facing the following charges:

Uttering Threats

Break, Enter and Commit

Kidnapping while using a Firearm

Discharge Firearm with Intent

Firearm: Use while committing offence

Firearm: Possession contrary to Prohibition Order

Firearm: Unauthorized PossessionPossession of a Weapon for Dangerous Purpose

Pointing a Firearm

Aggravated Assault

Breach of Probation

THEFT, BREACH

CORNWALL, Ontario  William McDonald, 23, of Cornwall was arrested on Dec. 14, 2017 and charged with theft under $5,000 and breach of two. probation orders and one undertaking for failing to keep the peace. It is alleged while at the Cornwall Square on Dec. 14, 2017 the man selected items from a merchant making no attempt to pay for the items a he left the store. Police were contacted and located the man a short distance away. He was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing.

WARRANT

CORNWALL, Ontario  Derek Richardson, 36, of Cornwall was arrested on Dec. 14, 2017 and charged with breach of undertaking for failing to notify a change of address. It is alleged on Nov. 10, 2017 while investigating an unrelated matter police learned Richardson had moved and failed to report the change of address to police. On Dec. 14, 2017 the man attended police headquarters to deal with the matter. He was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing.

CORNWALL, Ontario  Richard Massia, 28, of Cornwall was arrested on Dec. 15, 2017 on the strength of a warrant and also charged with possession of counterfeit currency. It is alleged on Sept. 1, 2017 the man gave a fraudulent cheque to an acquaintance and police were contacted to investigate. During the investigation a warrant was obtained for his arrest. On Dec. 15, 2017 the man was taken into custody on the strength of the warrant after he was stopped by police for riding a bicycle without a light. During the arrest the man was found to be in possession of a counterfeit $100.00 US currency. He was charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing.

BREACH

CORNWALL, Ontario  A 25-year-old Cornwall man was arrested on Dec. 14, 2017 and charged with breaching two probation orders for failing to notify a change of address, communicating with his ex-girlfriend, being within 500 meters of her and failing to keep the peace. It is alleged while investigating a possible breach complaint police located the man at his ex-girlfriends residence. He was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. His name was not released as it would identify the victim in the matter.

There were 39 calls for service in the City of Cornwall in the last 24 hours (8 a.m. the previous day to 8 a.m. the day of the release). To see whats happening in your neighbourhood visit our Crime Plot Map @ http://www.cornwallpolice.ca/ . CCPS reserves the right not to post all calls for service in order to protect the identity of the victims.
LANCASTER, Ontario  The Township of South Glengarry is pleased to announce that the Old 4th Hop Yard, a local business owned by Ron Brennan and Stephanie Jaworski, has received a Premiers Award for Agri-Food Innovation Excellence.

Ron and Stephanie accepted the award at a ceremony held in Casselman on Friday, December 8th, 2017. The award recognizes the innovative contributions of producers, processors, agri-food organizations and rural communities in Ontario.

As Certified Organic hop producers, Ron and Stephanie understand the importance of keeping detailed records. Their operation, Old 4th Hop Yard, located just outside the village of Williamstown, achieved its Organic Certification in 2013; and, with that, came the requirement of thoroughly documenting all activities occurring in the hop yard. The struggle of keeping paperwork up-to-date during the busy growing season lead Brennan, a former Senior Software Quality Assurance Analyst, to search out a digital tool to assist him. As no current farm log met the needs of Certified Organic production, Brennan developed Hop Logger  a mobile application designed to efficiently track his field activities. Instead of using pen and paper, Brennan can now use his smartphone to collect data directly from the field. Whether its logging soil and water test results, uploading photos from the field or analyzing historical data to better plan for the upcoming season, the time-saving app is a simple, all-in-one data depository. Designed for all hop producers, regardless of size, Brennan is currently expanding the application to cover the needs of all Certified Organic crop and livestock producers.

On behalf of Council, I would like to extend our congratulations to Ron and Stephanie, stated Mayor Ian McLeod, We are thrilled that the province has recognized their achievements in the agricultural community and are proud that they have chosen to both live and locate their business in South Glengarry.

Bryan Brown, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), added, Entrepreneurs like Ron and Stephanie are perfect examples of how business owners in South Glengarry embrace a challenge and turn it into a successful venture.

For more information, please contact Bryan Brown, CAO at (613) 347-1166 ext. 227 or bryan@southglengarry.com.
Nisomar announced it has signed a new services partnership agreement with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings for the 2017-2018 cruise season in Chile.

Following the new agreement, Nisomar South America will provide "launch services" to the companys three brands across ten Chilean ports including pilot embarkation/disembarkation, berthing assistance, liaison with local port authorities and service launches for each visit.

The ports include Arica, Iquique, Coquimbo, San Antonio, Puerto Montt, Puerto Chacabuco, Punta Arenas and Posesion Bay.

Jaime Otero, Regional Managing Director, Nisomar South America, said at the agreement signing: As a new business we are extremely pleased to sign our first launch services agreement with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings - which has such an excellent reputation worldwide and look forward to an extremely successful season.
Princess Cruises today announced its 2019 Canada/New England program, featuring the Regal Princess and Caribbean Princess on the cruise line's largest fall deployment and the opportunity to visit Greenland roundtrip from New York aboard Caribbean Princess, the company said.

The program includes three ships with 16 departures, visiting 16 destinations on seven unique itineraries with three late night ports and two overnight ports with access to four UNESCO World Heritage sites.

"In 2019 we bring three of our ships to Canada & New England, for our guests to experience the brilliant colors of fall foliage, famed destinations and landmarks in this region," said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises and Carnival Australia group president.

The new 16-day Greenland cruise from New York visits three ports in Greenland, as well as three ports in Canada, according to Princess.

There is also a consistent set of Saturday departures from New York on the Regal Princess, and more 10-day departures on the Caribbean Princess, sailing from New York to Quebec.

There are also 13-day and five-day cruises on offer, and a 24-day repositioning cruise on the Sapphire Princess, from Southampton to New York.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

The upset win of Democrat Doug Jones over deeply flawed Republican candidate Roy Moore in the special Senate election in Alabama is the kind to bring out the seismology references in Washington.

Its a political earthquake that has seismically changed the landscape, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, whose graduate training is in the law, not geology. But no matter. Its been a long time since Connecticut Dems felt the political wind at their backs, so its hard to begrudge them their moment of political hyperbole.

The victory of Jones, a former U.S. attorney (like Blumenthal), over former hard-religious-right state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore may have turned on Moores alleged fondness for teenage girls when he was over 30. But in the minds of Connecticut Democrats, adrift at sea amid continuing Republican victories, it shows that, yes, Democrats can run and win anywhere  including bright Red Alabama.

When we compete all across the country, we win, said Sen. Chris Murphy. We stopped doing that for some reasons, and we paid the price.

Of course, as Murphy said, a Connecticut Democrat couldnt win in Alabama, and an Alabama Democrat couldnt win in Connecticut (although you could argue it depends which Republican he or she is facing).

Blumenthal, Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Esty want to see Jones sworn in and seated before the final vote on the GOP tax bill. But dont hold your breath on that one.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Wednesday that GOP negotiators had reached agreement on the final amalgam of already-passed House and Senate bills. So the Republicans long-hoped-for tax measure could easily reach President Donald Trumps desk before Jones books his flight to Washington.

Esty, among others, prefers to look at the big picture, including what she considers to be a decent chance of Democrats taking the House in the 2018 midterm election.

We have fantastic candidates stepping up to run, she said. Im enormously encouraged. And the win yesterday is a shot in the arm.

Calling for an investigation

Speaking of Esty, it will come as no huge surprise that she has had a number of #metoo moments in her life. One of the most egregious was in 1983 when she was a law student at Yale interviewing for a summer job at a New York firm. The interviewer segued into Estys dating life and was not put off by her saying I have a boyfriend.

He was a little too eager, she recalled. Clearly it was inappropriate.

It was the only time in Estys long career she did not get a job offer, she said. The law firm evidently knew the kinds of questions the interviewer was asking, but there was no obvious move to discipline and rectify the situation with Esty.

But its not something she dwells on, especially in comparison to flight attendants and waitresses for whom over-the-line come-ons are part of the job, Esty said.

On Monday, she signed on to a letter from over 50 Democratic lawmakers asking for a House investigation of allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump.

With powerful males from Trump to Harvey Weinstein to Matt Lauer being called to account for boorish behavior toward women, Esty is among those on Capitol Hill seeking a cultural transformation in the way men interact with women in every sector of the social fabric.

Its all about power and sex is the weapon, she said. Its a weapon in service of power, and that needs to stop.

@danfreedma; dan@hearstdc.com
The House voted 275-146 in favor of a CUNA-backed bill Thursday that would provide privacy notice clarity. The Privacy Notice Technical Clarification Act (H.R. 2396) would update the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to update the exception for certain annual notices provided by financial institutions.

This bill would provide credit unions the flexibility they need to ensure members have access to the relevant sections of the credit unions privacy policy, said CUNA Chief Advocacy Officer Ryan Donovan.

CUNA previously saw a victory in 2015 when President Barack Obama signed a highway funding bill into law, a bill that included provisions modernizing privacy notice requirements. H.R. 2396 would provide further clarifications.
Gujarat Assembly election campaign has given enough indications that Rahul Gandhi may emerge as the glue to bind Opposition parties and be the principal challenger to PM Modi in 2019 polls.

By Prabhash K Dutta: The ruling BJP and a hopeful Congress are anxiously waiting for December 18, when the votes will be counted in both Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Stakes are high in Gujarat simply because it has been a result-oriented laboratory of BJP brand of politics for over two decades.

Soon-to-be Congress president Rahul Gandhi left stone unturned in Gujarat to challenge the BJP's organisational might in the state. The Congress has rarely shown such energy and enthusiasm on ground and social media in recent times as was on display during the Gujarat Assembly election.

advertisement

When the election campaign for Gujarat began, Patidar leader Hardik Patel looked as the main challenger to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But, by the time the Gujarat election ended yesterday, Rahul Gandhi nearly established himself as the principal challenger to PM Modi.

WHAT IF CONGRESS WINS GUJARAT

If the Congress succeeds in defeating the BJP in Gujarat, it will definitely be hailed as first real triumph of Rahul Gandhi, who is likely to take over as the party president tomorrow. Rahul Gandhi led the Gujarat campaign from the front.

During the Gujarat election campaign, Rahul Gandhi reached out to wider segments of society. He interacted with farmers, traders, tribals and raised issues that concerned them. His series of questions posed to PM Modi through social media were talked about and set the tone for electioneering.

A Congress win in Gujarat will establish Rahul Gandhi as a mature leader, who has come of age at the time. His position in the Congress will also be strengthened.

WHAT IF CONGRESS LOSES GUJARAT ELECTION

All the exit poll results show that the BJP will return to power in Gujarat for the sixth consecutive time. But, there is a silver lining for the Congress.

As per the exit poll predictions, the Congress has polled more votes compared to 2012 Gujarat election and also reduced the gap with the BJP. In 2012, with about 39 per cent vote share, the Congress got 9 per cent less votes than the BJP.

The India Today-Axis My India exit poll results suggest that the Congress has got 42 per cent vote share in the two-phased Gujarat election. This marks a three per cent rise from 2012 while the BJP has roughly maintained its vote share. The BJP is likely to get 47 per cent vote and the Congress is likely be only 5 per cent behind.

In regions like Saurashtra and north Gujarat, the Congress is likely to be ahead of the BJP both in terms of vote share and the number of seats that the exit polls predict it to win.

advertisement

Rahul Gandhi is the lead factor for this turnaround for the Congress even if it loses the Gujarat election on Monday.

RAHUL ALMOST SCARED BJP IN GUJARAT

Rahul Gandhi's election campaign was so vociferous in Gujarat that the BJP showed signs of nervousness in the state election. Gujarat Assembly election was perhaps the first occasion when the Congress's social media campaigns were more talked about than that of the BJP.

It was more because of Rahul Gandhi's relentless campaigning in Gujarat that PM Narendra Modi was forced to address as many as 34 election rallies in his home state. PM Modi did all the poll optics - from inauguration of hospitals and ferry service to river landing in Sabarmati before winding up his Gujarat election campaign.

Modi had been the chief minister of Gujarat for 12 years before becoming the prime minister. He is called the architect of Gujarat model of development by the BJP. Still, PM Modi had to reach out to his own people to save the BJP from the scare of defeat.

RAHUL PLAYS BJP'S HINDUTVA GAME

Rahul Gandhi faced criticism from the BJP over his frequent visits to temples during Gujarat election campaign. But, Rahul Gandhi kept visiting temples in Gujarat. He made at least 27 temple visits during Gujarat election.

advertisement

His temple visits served as a message that the Congress will not shy away from playing the BJP's game of Hindutva politics - even at the risk of being labeled as "soft Hindutva" politician. Rahul Gandhi did not specifically mentioned about Muslims during his election campaigns dispelling the notion that Congress works for "appeasement of Muslims."

By the end of Gujarat election, Rahul Gandhi got his message across that he is a "devotee of Lord Shiva" and unlike his predecessors in the Congress leadership from his family, he is not the one to be hesitant in displaying it in public. With this, Rahul Gandhi has ended the BJP's exclusive claim on Hindutva.

RAHUL ON ISSUES, AWAY FROM PERSONAL ATTACKS

While the Gujarat Assembly election campaign had been acrimonious with PM Modi launching direct tirade against the Congress and also the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress leaders replying almost in the same coin, Rahul Gandhi personally stayed away from such insinuations.

Reports suggest that once PM Modi responded to the "Vikas Gando Thayo Chhe" (Vikas has gone crazy) saying "Hu Vikas Chhu" (I am Vikas), Rahul Gandhi gave a clear instruction to partymen to dissociate from "anti-Vikas" campaign.

advertisement

Rahul Gandhi made it clear that he would not make personal attack on any leader including PM Modi. Later when Mani Shankar Aiyar made an objectionable comment on PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi did not waste time in cracking the whip. It was also seen as a message to his partymen that the Congress leadership has changed and they needed to do politics with new set of rules.

RAHUL AS ACCOMMODATIVE LEADER

Gujarat Assembly election also presented Rahul Gandhi an opportunity to show that he could be an accommodative leader. In the context of Gujarat politics, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani were essentially pitted against Patidar leader Hardik Patel.

Hardik Patel has been campaigning for a quota for Patidars in Gujarat either under the OBC category or by creating a separate quota. The OBCs are against making such a provision for Patidars as they fear this will affect their chances of employment and education.

Dalits and Patidars have also been seen in conflict at times in Gujarat. But in the run up to the Gujarat election, Rahul Gandhi managed to bring them all together and his own camp. Alpesh joined the Congress and contested on its symbol. Congress did not field candidate against Jignesh while Hardik Patel campaigned for the Congress.

The maturity that Rahul Gandhi showed during the Gujarat polls may go a long way in making him the natural successor of Sonia Gandhi not only in the Congress but also in the Opposition camp. As principal challenger to PM Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi may emerge as the glue for Opposition's unity ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

--- ENDS ---
STORY LINK GBP to JPY Exchange Rate Continues to Tumble as Brexit Concerns Return

GBP Weak as Concerns on Future Brexit Talks Rise

The Pound went from wary to worried this Friday, as investors fretted over the Brexit difficulties that lie ahead.



Time to think it the last thing sterling needs at the moment. Whenever UK investors have a spare second, thoughts tend to turn to the loud tick of the Brexit bomb. And even with the progress seen in the last couple of weeks  and the ...EU formally agreeing to move on to the next phase of negotiations this Friday  theres still not a lot for the Pound to actually be thankful for.

JPY Benefits from Weakness in USD Trade

The data will confirm exports are on a rising trend as the global economy is expanding,



Recent Japanese data has been relatively strong too. A major tankan survey was published during Fridays Asian session and the large manufacturers index beat expectations with a figure of 25.



This was the highest figure for the print in 11 years and indicated that Japans economy was seeing stronger momentum from rising exports and corporate profits.



GBP/JPY Forecast: Brexit News to Remain in Focus

Amid a lack of notable UK ecostats due until next Fridays Q3 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) results, the Pound is likely to react to Brexit news for most of next weeks trade.



If investors are given reason to be more optimistic about the second phase of Brexit negotiations, the Pound could see stronger demand.



However, if concerns about the pace of negotiations or the potential failure of trade talks persist, significant pressure will remain on Sterling trade.



As for the Japanese Yen, major Japanese data and news will come in next week including Novembers trade balance results and Decembers Bank of Japan (BoJ) policy decision.



Analysts expect the BoJ will scrutinise the tankan survey and trade data during its policy decision and the banks outlook on the Japanese economy could influence Japanese Yen trade.



The Yen is also likely to continue to be affected by the strength of the US Dollar (USD), so investors will be watching for US tax bill news too.

Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

TAGS: Pound Yen Forecasts

Concerns that the vital UK-EU Brexit trade talks may not begin until March 2018 have left the Pound unappealing on Friday and the British Pound to Japanese Yen exchange rate fell. The Yen has been benefitting from weaker US Dollar (USD) trade.Since opening the week at the level of 151.85, the GBP/JPY exchange rate has tumbled. On Friday, the pair trended near a weekly low of 149.97.While EU leaders confirmed on Friday that Brexit negotiations had successfully passed the first phase, the Pound saw poor performance and dropped against many major rivals.Despite recent UK ecostats beating expectations, the reality of the Brexit is still sinking in for traders - with the exit date still set for March 2019.Amid news that UK-EU trade talks may not begin until March 2018, this could leave negotiators with less than a year to agree to a vital post-Brexit transition period or trade deal.Connor Campbell from Spreadex explained why Pound investors were gloomy on Friday;Essentially, despite optimism from UK and EU officials, the Brexit process is still happening and there is still high uncertainty about whether or not trade talks will be successful.The Japanese Yen was able to easily gain against the Pound in late-week trade.Markets found the Yen more appealing due to weakness in its rival, the US Dollar (USD).USD has seen weaker performance due to uncertainty and caution from the Federal Reserves latest policy decision, as well as fresh doubts about the potential success of the Republican Partys tax bill plans.US tax plans were previously seen as having a strong chance of passing through Congress, but an unexpected Democrat Party win in an Alabama Senate special election has left the Republican Partys Senate majority weaker.The Yen itself has also been supported by expectations that Japan will see its 12th straight month of rising exports when Japans November trade balance report is published on Monday morning.According to Mana Saito from Dai-ichi Life Research Institute;
Nancy Pelosi's legacy: From passing Obamacare to impeaching Trump

Congressional scholars and modern politicians rate Speaker Nancy Pelosi as one of the most consequential legislative leaders in U.S. and House history.
Last week saw the inauguration of the first phase of the strategic Chabahar port by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the presence of officials from as many as 17 countries. India is central to this port project as it remains keen on opening a trade route to Afghanistan and larger Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan, as part of an agreement signed between India and Iran in May 2016.

Investment

India is to equip and operate two berths in Chabahar Port Phase-I with a capital investment of $85 million (Rs 546 crore) and annual revenue expenditure of $23 million (Rs 147 crore) on a 10-year lease. This will establish a Transit and Transport Corridor among the three countries using Chabahar Port as one of the regional hubs for sea transportation in Iran, besides multi-modal transport of goods and passengers across the three nations. The port is expected to be operational by the end of 2018 with New Delhi committed to developing a free trade area around the port, and finally completing the loop with a $1.6 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) railway line to Zahedan.

India has already sent its first shipment of 15,000 tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar in October which came to Zaranj on November 11. Indias external affairs minister made a stopover at Tehran just a day before the ports inauguration while returning from the Russian city of Sochi after attending the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to assess the project. To underscore the importance of this project for India, Indian minister of state for shipping Pon Radhakrishnan was present at the inauguration ceremony of Phase 1 of the Shahid Beheshti Port at Chabahar.

Given the easy accessibility of the Chabahar port in the Sistan-Balochistan province on Irans southern coast from Indias western coast, many observers view it as a counter to Pakistans Gwadar Port, which is being developed with Chinese investment at distance of around 80km from Chabahar. There may be something to it but there is also a larger dynamic at play here in terms of regional connectivity.

India, Iran and Afghanistan are working towards the integrated development of connectivity infrastructure including ports, road and rail networks to open up greater opportunities for regional market access and integration of their economies. India has already completed the Zaranj-Delaram highway in Afghanistan, which would facilitate the trade to Kabul, and eventually beyond, to Central Asia. At a time when Chinas Belt and Road Initiative is attempting to redraw regional boundaries, India, and other regional players are looking at enhancing their own regional connectivity profiles.

Connectivity

Clearly, alleviating the Pakistani bottleneck in terms of India-Afghan connectivity is central to the project. As the Afghan chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah made it clear, Afghanistan used to rely only on one transit road, which was through Karachi. That is not the case anymore. (Now) its (also) through Chabahar. For Kabul, overcoming its dependence on Islamabad is a key foreign policy priority and for New Delhi, enhancing connectivity with Kabul is key to sustaining its multidimensional engagement in a long-term capacity building in the war-torn nation.

Irans ties with Pakistan have been historically mired in suspicion, though Tehran has assured Islamabad that it would not allow Delhi or any other country to use Chabahar against Pakistan. Iran doesnt want Pakistan to overtly shift to the Saudi Arabia-led regional bloc evolving in the Middle East and it has even dangled the possibility of Pakistan joining the project at some future date.

Development

For Iran, the development of the Chabahar port with international assistance is a highly symbolic move to let the US know that Tehran is no longer isolated. After Tehran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Washington and five other major powers in 2015 to curtail its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from economically debilitating sanction, the Chabahar project gathered pace as it allowed Iran to enter into negotiations with India, China, and Europe on investment and supply of equipment. Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Iran in May 2016 saw the two sides firming up their stakes in the project based on a strict timeline.

The challenge today will be to sustain this momentum in the aftermath of the Trump administrations opposition to the nuclear deal. Geopolitical tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are rising with Tehran being accused of expanding its influence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon through its proxies.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has suggested that Washington does not want to interfere with legitimate business done with Iran, whether they be from Europe, India or agreements that are in place or promote economic development and activity to the benefit of our friends and allies.

But the shadow of shifting American foreign policy priorities will continue to hang on the future of the Chabahar project even as it ambitiously seeks to reshape regional geopolitics.
In what will come as a blow for advocates of net neutrality around the globe, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), on December 14, approved the removal of the tough laws it put in place just two years ago. With a 3-2 vote in favour of rescinding the guidelines it had imposed under Barack Obama administration in 2015, the US telecom regulatory authority has, in one fell swoop, damaged the core idea of the unbiased and non-discriminatory digital space we call the internet.

For us sitting in India, what's more concerning is that this move by the FCC sets a dangerous precedent at a time when most regulatory authorities around the globe are batting for net neutrality  close to home, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recently announced guidelines to strengthen the idea of the internet remaining resource accessible to all, without any discrimination.

With serious doubts being cast over the ability of the internet to remain an unbiased playground for all going forward, the latest development is being termed as the "death of net neutrality" in the US. Here's why:

1. Paid slow and fast lanes

In what could greatly influence the way Americans use the internet, the FCC ruling gives the Internet Service Provider (ISP) the power to create slow and fast lanes on their networks, thus essentially giving them the ability to cap data speeds on certain websites and services.

At its core, the move is highly discriminatory in nature and opens the door for exploitative practices, which could see the performance on certain websites being intentionally throttled for anti-competitive motives. Any such move, coupled with a competitor being afforded a fast lane on the network, will invariably lead to the end user being coerced into moving to the competing website or service.

2. Blocking of apps and services

Yes, it's as sinister as it sounds. Armed with this, telecom operators such as Verizon and AT&T can block any application from running on their networks. This sweeping power also allows them to block any app from their competitors. The implications of this move could be extremely grave as this could create an internet that would be unhealthy and discriminatory in nature.

3. Declassifying ISPs as Title II common carriers

What's worse is that today's ruling also removes the Title II designation previously given to the ISP. This essentially gives them legal backing to carry out unhealthy practices that would make the internet non-neutral. By changing the classification, the FCC also does away with the possibility of putting tough net neutrality rules in place.

FCC makes its stance clear

With the FCC making such sweeping changes to net neutrality rules in the US, and its chairman making the regulatory authority's stance on the issue clear, it looks like those fighting to keep the internet a neutral resource have their work cut out.

Speaking after the vote, the FCC chairman said: "The internet wasn't broken in 2015. We were not living in some digital dystopia... The main problem consumers have with the internet is not and has never been that their internet provider is blocking access to content. It's been that they don't have access at all.

Hope for the future

However, despite the latest move leaving internet users in the US at the mercy of big ISPs, and seriously damaging the core idea behind the world wide web, there still remains hope for net neutrality.

Net neutrality advocates in the US will almost certainly appeal after the commission's ruling in an attempt to invalidate this development and restore the 2015 net neutrality rules. As The Verge explains, "...the commission is allowed to change its mind, it isnt allowed to change rules for 'arbitrary and capricious' reasons."
The following companies are subsidiares of Stanley Black & Decker: 2315708 Ontario Inc., 3-V Fastener Co. Inc., 3xLOGIC Dalian Technology Company Limited, 3xLogic Florida LLC, 3xLogic Inc., 3xLogic Indiana LLC, 8 Commerce Drive LLC, ADT France, ASIA FASTENING (US) INC., Advanced Turf Technologies LTD, AeroFit LLC, AeroScout (US) LLC, AeroScout Industrial, AeroScout LLC, AeroScout Ltd., Aeroscout (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Al Khaja Pimex LLC, Allan Brothers, Automatic Doors Systems, Automatic Entrances of Colorado, Avdel Holding Limited, Avdel Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, Avdel UK Limited, Aven Tools Limited, B&D Holdings Inc., B.B.W. BAYRISCHE BOHRERWERKE GmbH, BD Precision (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou Power Tools (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Xiamen (Hong Kong) Limited, BDB Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda, BDC International Limited, BDK FAUCET HOLDINGS INC., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) POWER TOOLS CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) PRECISION MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 1 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 2 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER DE REYNOSA S. DE R.L. DE C.V., BLACK & DECKER GLOBAL HOLDINGS S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER GROUP LLC, BLACK & DECKER HOLDINGS LLC, BLACK & DECKER INC, BLACK & DECKER INDIA INC., BLACK & DECKER INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS S.A.R.L., BLACK & DECKER INVESTMENT COMPANY LLC, BLACK & DECKER SHELBYVILLE LLC, BLACK & DECKER SSC CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER TRANSASIA S.a.r.l., BLACK AND DECKER S.A. de C.V., Bagley Road LLC, Baltimore Financial Services Company Unlimited Company, Baltimore Insurance Designated Activity Company, Bandhart, Bandhart Overseas, Bed-Check, Belco Investments Company Unlimited Company, Besco Investment Group Co. Ltd., Besco Investment Holdings Ltd., Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Best Lock Corporation, Black & Decker, Black & Decker (Czech) s.r.o., Black & Decker (Ireland) Inc., Black & Decker (OVERSEAS) GmbH, Black & Decker (Thailand) Limited, Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Black & Decker Argentina S.A., Black & Decker Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Black & Decker Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Black & Decker Distribution Pty. Ltd, Black & Decker Europe, Black & Decker Far East Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Finance, Black & Decker Finance (Australia) Ltd., Black & Decker Finance SAS, Black & Decker Funding Corporation, Black & Decker Hardware Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Healthcare Management Inc., Black & Decker Holdings (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Inc., Black & Decker International, Black & Decker International Finance (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Finance 1 Unlimited Company, Black & Decker International Finance 3 Designated Activity Company, Black & Decker International Finance Holdings (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Holdings B.V. & CO. KG, Black & Decker Investments (Australia) Limited, Black & Decker Investments LLC, Black & Decker Limited BV, Black & Decker Luxembourg S.A.R.L., Black & Decker Mexfin LLC, Black & Decker No. 4 Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Puerto Rico Inc., Black & Decker de Colombia S.A.S., Black & Decker de Panama LLC, Black & Decker del Ecuador S.A., Black & Decker del Peru S.A., Black & Decker do Brasil Ltda., Black and Decker de Costa Rica Limitada, Blick Plc, Bostitch-Holding L.L.C., Bristol Industries LLC, Bulldog Barrels LLC, C&C Enterprise Co. Ltd., CAM International Holdings Inc., CAMACC Systems Inc., CONNEXCENTER SA, CPE Acquisition Co., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, CRC-EVANS WELDING SERVICES INC., CRC-Evans B.V., CRC-Evans Canada LTD., CRC-Evans International LLC, CRC-Evans Offshore Limited, CRC-Evans PIH Servios De Tubulao do Brasil Ltda, CRC-Evans Pipeline International Inc., CRC-Evans Pipeline International Sdn Bhd, CWS Industries (Mfg.) Corp., Chesapeake Falls Holdings Company Unlimited Company, Chesapeake Investments Company S.A.R.L., Chicago Steel Tape, Chiro Tools Holdings B.V., Christie Intruder Alarms Limited, Clarke Security Services Incorporated, Columbia Manufacturing Company Incorporated, Compass Corporation, Compass II Co. Ltd., Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing, Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing LLC, Constellation (Luxembourg) Holdings S.a r.l., Contact East, Craftman, Cub Cadet LLC, DADO Inc., DEVILBISS AIR POWER COMPANY, DIYZ LLC, DeWalt Industrial Tools S.p.A., Dewalt Industrial Power Tool Company LTD., Doncasters US Holdings Inc., Dubuis et Cie SAS, E.A. Patten Co. LLC, ELU B.V., ELU Power Tools LTD, EMHART TEKNOLOGIES LLC, Eastern Vault & Security, Emhart Guangzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, Emhart Harttung A/S, Emhart Harttung Inc., Emhart International Holdings Limited, Emhart International Limited, Emhart Teknologies (Thailand) LTD., Excel Industries, Excel Industries Inc., F. Robotics Acquisitions Ltd., Facom, Facom Belgie BV, Fastener Jamher Taiwan Inc., First National AlarmCap LP/Premiere Societe en Commandite Nationale Alarmcap, First National AlarmCap. Trust, Frisco Bay Industries, GDX Technologies, GMT China, GRUPO BLACK & DECKER MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., GUANGZHOU EMHART FASTENING SYSTEM CO. LTD., Gamrie Designated Activity Company, Garden Way LLC, Generale de Protection, HSM Electronic Protection Systems, Hangtech Limited, Hardware City Associates Limited Partnership, Hefei INTACA Science & Technology Development Co. Ltd., Herramientas Stanley S.A. de c.v., Horst Sprenger GmbH Recycling-tools, Hustler Turf Equipment Inc., I.D.L. Techni-Edge LLC, INFASTECH CAMCAR MALAYSIA SDN BHD, INFASTECH DECORAH LLC, ISR Solutions, IguanaFix, Infastech (China) Limited, Infastech (Korea) Limited, Infastech (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech (Mauritius) Limited, Infastech (Shenzhen) Limited, Infastech (Singapore) Pte. Ltd, Infastech Company Limited, Infastech Fastening Systems (Wuxi) Limited, Infastech Holdings (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech Intellectual Properties Pte. Ltd., Infastech Receivables Company Pte. Ltd., Infastech/Tri-Star Limited, InfoLogix, InfoLogix Systems Corporation, Infologix - DDMS Inc., Infologix Inc., Innerspace Products, Interfast B.V., Irwin Industrial Tool Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda., JAFFORD LLC, JRB Attachments LLC, JennCo1 Inc., Jewel Attachments LLC, Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co., Jiangus Guopiang Tools Co. Ltd., Jointech Corporation LTD., K.And.M. Holdco Products Ltd., Kodiak Mfg. Inc., Lista International Corporation, Lux Star International S.a r.l., M. HART DO BRASIL LTDA., M.P.N. HOLDINGS LIMITED, M.T.D. France SAS, MTD Asia Hong Kong Limited, MTD Austria Handelsgesellschaft m.b.H., MTD Consumer Group Inc., MTD Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, MTD Deutschland Verwaltungsgeschellschaft mbH, MTD Europe Holding GmbH, MTD Holdings, MTD Hungaria Kft., MTD International Operations Inc., MTD Investments Australia Pty Ltd., MTD LLC, MTD PRODUCTS ITALIA S.R.L., MTD Poland Sp. z.o.o., MTD Products AG, MTD Products Australia Party LTD, MTD Products Benelux B.V., MTD Products Company, MTD Products Czech Spol. s.r.o., MTD Products Denmark ApS, MTD Products Inc., MTD Products India Private India Limited, MTD Products Limited, MTD Products New Zealand Limited, MTD Products Nordic AB, MTD Products S.A. de C.V., MTD Products Singapore, MTD Schweiz AG, MTD Southwest Inc., Mac Tools Canada Inc., Maquinas y Herramientas Black & Decker de Chile S.A., Microalloying International Inc., Microtec Enterprises, Moeller Manufacturing & Supply LLC, Monarch Mirror Door Co., NEWFREY LLC, NFASTECH COMPANY LIMITED, NIscayah, NSW Fabristeel Netherlands B.V., National Manufacturing, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH & Co. KG, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH Verwaltungs GmbH, Nelson Fastener Systems, Nelson Fastener Systems de Mexico SA de CV, Nelson Saldatura Perni S.r.l., Nelson Soudage de Goujons SAS, Nelson Stud Welding (Tianjin) Company Ltd., Nelson Stud Welding Canada Inc., Nelson Stud Welding Inc., Nelson Stud Welding India Private Limited, Nelson Stud Welding International LLC, New FEP Co. LLC, Newell Brands - Tools Business, Nippon Pop Rivets & Fasteners LTD., Niscayah Asia Limited, Niscayah Group AB, Niscayah Holdings Limited, Niscayah Investments Limited, Niscayah Teknik AB, Novia SWK SAS, OSI Security Devices, Onglin International Limited, P I H Holdings Limited, P&B Re Holdings LLC, PIH Services Limited, PIH Services ME LLC, PIH Services ME Ltd., PIH Services ME W.L.L., PIH U.S. LLC, PIPELINE EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES SARL, PORTER-CABLE ARGENTINA LLC, PT Stanley Black & Decker, Pacom Group AB, Pacom Systems (North America) Inc., Pacom Systems Espana S.L., Pacom Systems Pty Limited, Paladin Brands Group Inc., Paladin Brands Holdings Inc., Paladin Brands International Holdings Inc., Panalok Limited, Pengo Corporation, Pillo Health, Pinnacle Electronic Systems, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Powers Fasteners Australasia Pty Limited, Powers Fasteners Inc., Powers Fasteners Inc. (Panama), Powers Rawl Pty. Ltd., Powers Shanghai Trading Ltd., Precision Hardware, Prikos & Becker LLC, Pro One Finance SAS, QRP Inc, RCTENN LLC, RIGHTCO II LLC, Rawl Australasia Pty. Ltd., Rawlplug Unit Trust, Refal Industria e Comercio de Rebites e Rebitadeiras Ltda., Remington LLC, SBD Cayman LLC, SBD European Investment Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Holdings S.a r.l., SBD European Security International Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Investment Unlimited Company, SBD Holding AB, SBD Insurance Inc., SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings LLC, SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings S.a r.l., SBD Manufacturing Distribution & Global Purchasing Holdings L.P., SBD Niscayah S.a r.l., SBD Property Holdings LLC, SBD UK Canada Holdings Inc., SPIRALOCK GLOBAL VENTURES LIMITED, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER HUNGARY KORALTOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER IBERICA S.L., STANLEY BLACK & DECKER MOROCCO SARL, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS ONE HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S1 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S2 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY ENGINEERED FASTENING EASTERN EUROPE SP.Z O.O., SWK (U.K.) Holding Limited, SWK (UK) Limited, SWK Utensilerie S.r.l., Scan Modul, Security Group, SecurityCo Solutions Inc., Shanghai Emhart Fastening System Co. Ltd., Sidchrome Tool, Sielox Security Systems, Societe Miniere et Commerciale SAS, Sonitrol, Sonitrol Distribution Canada Inc., Sonitrol Security Systems of Buffalo Inc., Southern Monitoring Services Limited, Specialty Bar Products Company, Spiegelberg Manufacturing Inc., Spiralock Corporation, Stanley Access Technologies LLC, Stanley Atlantic Inc., Stanley Black & Decker (Barbados) SRL, Stanley Black & Decker (Hellas) EPE, Stanley Black & Decker Asia Holdings LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Asian Holdings B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Australia Pty Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Austria GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Belgium BV, Stanley Black & Decker CCA S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Canada Corporation, Stanley Black & Decker Cayman Holdings Inc., Stanley Black & Decker Cayman International Financing LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Centroamerica S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Chile L.L.C., Stanley Black & Decker Colombia Services S.A.S., Stanley Black & Decker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Distribution SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 1 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 2 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Finland Oy, Stanley Black & Decker France SAS, Stanley Black & Decker France Services SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Hermosillo S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black & Decker Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Black & Decker Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker IP Holdings Limited, Stanley Black & Decker India Private Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International FZE, Stanley Black & Decker International Fiance 2 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 1 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 2 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 5 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance L.P., Stanley Black & Decker Ireland Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Italia S.r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Holding BV, Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Investment Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Limited Liability Company, Stanley Black & Decker Logistics BV, Stanley Black & Decker MEA FZE, Stanley Black & Decker Manufacturing SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Middle East Trading FZE, Stanley Black & Decker NZ Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Netherlands B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Norway AS, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Polska Sp. z o.o., Stanley Black & Decker Precision Manufacturing (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Romania SRL, Stanley Black & Decker Slovakia s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Sweden AB, Stanley Black & Decker Turkey Alet Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stanley Black & Decker UK Group Limited, Stanley Black & Decker UK Limited, Stanley Black & Decker de Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black and Decker Commercial Private India, Stanley Black and Decker Security Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V. (fka DEWALT INDUSTRIAL TOOLS S.A. DE C.V.), Stanley CLP3, Stanley Canada Holdings L.L.C., Stanley Chiro International Ltd, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Engineered Fastening Benelux B.V., Stanley Engineered Fastening France SAS, Stanley Engineered Fastening India Private Limited, Stanley Engineered Fastening Industrial Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Engineered Fastening Italy S.r.l., Stanley Engineered Fastening Spain S.L.U., Stanley Europe BV, Stanley European Holdings B.V., Stanley European Holdings II B.V., Stanley Fastening Systems Investment (Taiwan) Co., Stanley Fastening Systems L.P., Stanley Fastening Systems Poland Sp. z o.o., Stanley Feinwerktechnik GmbH, Stanley Grundstuecksverwaltungs GmbH, Stanley Healthcare Solutions France Sarl, Stanley Housing Fund Inc., Stanley Industrial & Automotive LLC, Stanley Infrastructure LLC Formerly f/k/a International Equipment Solutions ("IES"), Stanley Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Inspection US L.L.C., Stanley International Holdings Inc., Stanley Israel Investments B.V., Stanley Logistics L.L.C., Stanley Pipeline Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Safety Corporation LLC, Stanley Security AS, Stanley Security Alarmcentrale B.V., Stanley Security B.V., Stanley Security Belgium BV, Stanley Security Canada ULC (fka 3xLogic Holdings Inc.), Stanley Security Denmark ApS, Stanley Security Europe BV, Stanley Security Federal Systema LLC, Stanley Security Holding AS, Stanley Security Limited, Stanley Security Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Stanley Security Nederland B.V., Stanley Security Oy, Stanley Security Singapore Pte. Ltd., Stanley Security Solutions (NI) Limited, Stanley Security Solutions - Europe Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Security Solutions India Private Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Limited, Stanley Security Sverige AB, Stanley Technical Services Ltd., Stanley Tools SAS, Stanley U.K. Holdings Ltd., Stanley UK Acquisition Company Limited, Stanley UK Services Limited, Stanley Works (Europe) GmbH, Stanley Works (India) Private Limited, Stanley Works (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Stanley Works (Wendeng) Tools Co. Ltd., Stanley Works Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Stanley Works China Investments Limited, Stanley Works Holdings B.V., Stanley Works Limited, Stanley-Bostitch S.A. de c.v., Stanley-Bostitch Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Stichting Beheer Intellectuele Eigendomsrechten Blick Benelux B.V., SureHand Inc. f.k.a. SBD Aura Inc., Sweepster Attachments LLC, THE BLACK & DECKER CORPORATION, TOG Holdings Inc., TOG Manufacturing Company Inc., TSI Monitoring LLC, TSI Sales & Installation LLC, The EAP Acquisition Co. LLC, The Farmington River Power Company, The Ferry Cap & Set Screw Company, The Stanley Works (Langfang) Fastening Systems Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Zhongshan) Tool Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works Israel Ltd., The Stanley Works Limited, The Stanley Works Pty. Ltd., Tong Lung Metal Industry, Troy-Bilt LLC, Tucker Fasteners Limited, Tucker GmbH, Tucker S.R.O., Universal Inspection Systems Limited, Venus Enterprise Co. Ltd., Visiocom International Pte Ltd, Voss Industries Inc., Wintech Corporation Limited, XMARK Corporation, XMARK Corporation., Yong Ru Plastics Industry (Suzhou) Co. Ltd, and Zag USA Inc..

Read More
AstraZeneca PLC, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Its marketed products include Calquence, Enhertu, Faslodex, Imfinzi, Iressa, Koselugo, Lumoxiti, Lynparza, Orpathys, Tagrisso, and Zoladex for oncology; Brilinta/Brilique, Bydureon/Byetta, BCise, Byetta, Crestor, Evrenzo, Farxiga/Forxiga, Komboglyze/Kombiglyze XR, Lokelma, Onglyza, Qtern, and Xigduo/Xigduo XR for cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism diseases; Bevespi Aerosphere, Breztri Aerosphere, Daliresp/Daxas, Duaklir Genuair, Fasenra, Pulmicort, Saphnelo, Symbicort, and Tudorza/Eklira/Bretaris for respiratory and immunology; and Andexxa/Ondexxya, Kanuma, Soliris, Strensiq, and Ultomiris for rare diseases. The company's marketed products also comprise Synagis for respiratory syncytial virus; Fluenz Tetra/FluMist Quadrivalent for Influenza; Seroquel IR/Seroquel XR for schizophrenia bipolar disease; Nexium, and Losec/Prilosec for gastroenterology; and Vaxzevria and Evusheld for covid-19. The company serves primary care and specialty care physicians through distributors and local representative offices in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australasia. It has a collaboration agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to research, develop, and commercialize small molecule medicines for obesity; Neurimmune AG to develop and commercialize NI006; Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop eplontersen, a liver-targeted antisense therapy in Phase III development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloidosis; Proteros Biostructures GmbH to jointly discover novel small molecules for the treatment of hematological cancers; Sierra Oncology, Inc. to develop and commercialize AZD5153. The company was formerly known as Zeneca Group PLC and changed its name to AstraZeneca PLC in April 1999. AstraZeneca PLC was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu as the new chairman of Rajya Sabha has got down to bringing about fundamental changes in the functioning of the Upper House from the word go.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Though Venkaiah Naidu was sworn in as Vice-President of India on August 11, it was practically his first day as Chairman of the Rajya Sabha today - the inaugural day of Parliament's winter session.

Earlier, Naidu's predecessor Hamid Ansari was the Rajya Sabha chairman for 10 years. The Upper House has functioned on a set pattern all along.

advertisement

However, Venkaiah Naidu has got down to changing the way the Rajya Sabha has functioned so far.

NOT MONOTONOUS

Venkaiah Naidu is popular for his one-liners. As a BJP leader and Union minister, he would spice up his speeches with the catchy rhymes and phrases.

One was not sure whether as vice-president, and particularly as the Rajya Sabha chairman, Naidu would continue with his one-liners. However, he gave a glimpse of the way he would conduct the house.

There would not be the mundane directions such as "take your seat please", "this is not done", "behave" or "baith jaaiye (sit down)".

Today, the opposition MPs raised a storm over the disqualification of fellow members Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar from the Rajya Sabha. Shouting slogans like "Tanashahi nahin chalegi (dictatorship will not be accepted)", as usual they entered into the well of the house.Quickly came Naidu's one-liner: "All in well, not well," adding some fun to the serious episode.

Again, when an MP sought to raise a 'Point of order' over the duo's disqualification, Naidu turned it down and quipped: "There is neither order nor a point."

Further, on not finding DMK MP Tiruchi Siva in the house, he said, "(Lord) Shiva is everywhere but not here today."

There were many such one-liners in the short duration that business was conducted in the Rajya Sabha today. Due to protests, it repeatedly got adjourned. Hopefully, one would get to hear many such catchy rhymes once the house starts functioning normally from December 18.

UNCONVENTIONAL

Naidu brought about some minor changes in the conduct of the Rajya Sabha today. He asked ministers and MPs not to use colonial terms while laying papers on the table.

He asked them not to use the word "I beg to" while laying papers on the table.

"Just say I raise to lay on the table" the listed papers, he said. "No need to beg... this is independent India."

The chairman, however, added that this was only a suggestion and not an order.

In another change which Naidu brought about as the presiding officer of the Upper House, he stood up while reading out obituary references. His predecessors Hamid Ansari and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat used to read the obituary references while being seated.

advertisement

FAST DECISIONS

The fact that Naidu would bring about some fundamental changes in the manner the Rajya Sabha and its presiding officer functioned was clear at the start of December when he disqualified former JD(U) MPs Sharad Yadav and Anwar Ali.

Naidu set a precedent by taking approximately three months to decide the disqualification of the two rebel JD(U) leaders.

While the JD(U) petition demanding their disqualification was filed before him on September 2, his order came on December 4.

Earlier, such cases would keep pending for years together.

In his order disqualifying Sharad Yadav from the Rajya Sabha, Naidu said, "There has been widespread criticism of some presiding officers, who did not take a decision on the disqualification petitions, under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, within reasonable time."

"It has been noticed that the Supreme Court also expressed its concern about the unnecessary delay in deciding these petitions by the presiding officers of the legislatures."

OPPOSITION'S SAY, GOVERNMENT'S WAY

On the eve of the winter session of Parliament on Thursday, Naidu made it clear that while the Opposition's voice would be heard, the government would have an upper hand.

advertisement

He said the Opposition must always have its say irrespective of its strength in the House. However, the government must have its way in the end, he added.

ADJOURNMENTS

Rajya Sabha has been infamous for the adjournments due to disruptions and pandemonium by the members. It seems Naidu will improve the manner in which hours of business and precious money is wasted due to adjournments.

He has appealed to the political parties to be patient during proceedings to ensure smooth functioning of the House. He has requested the Opposition and the treasury members to ensure that the House runs peacefully and debates are held in a dignified manner.

Signs of change in Rajya Sabha.

--- ENDS ---
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. manufactures, and distributes life science research and clinical diagnostic products in the United States, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America. The company operates through Life Science and Clinical Diagnostics segments. The Life Science segment develops, manufactures, and markets a range of reagents, apparatus, and laboratory instruments that are used in research techniques, biopharmaceutical production processes, and food testing regimes. It focuses on selected segments of the life sciences market in proteomics, genomics, biopharmaceutical production, cellular biology, and food safety. This segment serves universities and medical schools, industrial research organizations, government agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, biotechnology researchers, food producers, and food testing laboratories. The Clinical Diagnostics segment designs, manufactures, sells, and supports test systems, informatics systems, test kits, and specialized quality controls for clinical laboratories in the diagnostics market. This segment offers reagents, instruments, and software, which address specific niches within the in vitro diagnostics test market. It sells its products to reference laboratories, hospital laboratories, state newborn screening facilities, physicians' office laboratories, and transfusion laboratories. In addition, the company offers products and systems to separate complex chemical and biological materials, as well as to identify, analyze, and purify components. The company offers its products through its direct sales force, as well as through distributors, agents, brokers, and resellers. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Hercules, California.
Flowserve Corporation designs, develops, manufactures, distributes, and services industrial flow management equipment in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Flowserve Pump Division (FPD) and Flow Control Division (FCD). The FPD segment offers custom and pre-configured pumps and pump systems, mechanical seals, auxiliary systems, replacement parts, upgrades, and related aftermarket services, including installation and commissioning services, seal systems spare parts, repairs, advanced diagnostics, re-rate and upgrade solutions, retrofit programs, and machining and asset management solutions, as well as manufactures a gas-lubricated mechanical seal for use in high-speed compressors for gas pipelines. The FCD segment provides engineered and industrial valve and automation solutions, including isolation and control valves, actuation, controls, and related equipment, as well as equipment maintenance services for flow control systems, including advanced diagnostics, repair, installation, commissioning, retrofit programs, and field machining capabilities. This segment's products are used to control, direct, and manage the flow of liquids, gases, and fluids. The company primarily serves oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceuticals, power generation, and water management markets, as well as general industries, including mining and ore processing, pulp and paper, food and beverage, and other smaller applications. The company distributes its products through direct sales, distributors, and sales representatives. Flowserve Corporation was incorporated in 1912 and is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
By PTI: Pune, Dec 15 (PTI) A 23-year-old woman was allegedly raped by a rickshaw driver and his friend in Kondhwa area in the city, police said today.

The incident took place on Wednesday night.

Based on the womans complaint, Kondhwa police arrested the rickshaw driver, Balaji Maruti Shinde (31), and his friend, Satish Jaypal Mane (23).

The alleged incident took place after the woman boarded Shindes rickshaw from Kondhwas NIBM Road area.

advertisement

According to police, the woman is a divorcee and she currently stays with her parents in Yerwada area.

On the night of the alleged crime, the woman had gone to Kondhwa to meet her former husband following a fight with her younger brother, a senior police officer said.

"After she failed to meet her husband, she took a rickshaw. In her statement, the woman claimed that Shinde called Mane and informed him that she was alone in the rickshaw. Soon, Mane reached the spot and took her to Siddharth Nagar area, where he raped her," the officer said.

"The woman also said that after Mane, Shinde took her to Hadapsar area, where he raped her. After sexually assaulting her, they called their friend, who molested her in the rickshaw before dropping her near Camp area early on Thursday," the officer said.

Meanwhile, the family member of the woman had approached Yerwada police and registered a missing person report.

Early on Thursday, some policemen spotted her walking alone on the street. When they inquired with her, she narrated the incident to them, following which the accused were held.

The arrested duo have been sent to police custody for seven days and search is on to nab the alleged molester. PTI COR NP

--- ENDS ---
The following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. Lawrie Receivables Financing Ltd, Amberdate Ltd, Anglo Scottish Utilities Partnership 1, Aquilus Ltd, Automobile Association Personal Finance Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services 2 Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 2) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 3) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland)) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 1 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 2 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 3 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 4 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 5 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 6 plc, BOS (USA) Fund Investments Inc., BOS (USA) Inc., BOS Edinburgh No 1 Ltd, BOS Mistral Ltd, BOS Personal Lending Ltd, BOSSAF Rail Ltd, Bank of Scotland (B G S) Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland (Stanlife) London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Branch Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Central Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Edinburgh Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Equipment Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Foundation, Bank of Scotland LNG Leasing (No 1) Ltd, Bank of Scotland London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Nominees (Unit Trusts) Ltd, Bank of Scotland P.E.P. Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Structured Asset Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Transport Finance 1 Ltd, Bank of Scotland plc, Bank of Wales Ltd, Barents Leasing Ltd, Barnwood Mortgages Ltd, Birchcrown Finance Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Financial Services Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Land Development Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services Ltd, Black Horse (TRF) Ltd, Black Horse Executive Mortgages Ltd, Black Horse Finance Holdings Ltd, Black Horse Finance Management Ltd, Black Horse Group Ltd, Black Horse Ltd, Black Horse Offshore Ltd, Black Horse Property Services Ltd, Boltro Nominees Ltd, British Linen Leasing (London) Ltd, British Linen Leasing Ltd, British Linen Shipping Ltd, C.T.S.B. Leasing Ltd, CBRail S.A.R.L., CF Asset Finance Ltd, CF1 Ltd, CM Venture Investments Ltd, Cancara Asset Securitisation Ltd, Capital 1945 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 12 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 3 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 5 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 9 Ltd, Capital Bank Property Investments (3) Ltd, Capital Personal Finance Ltd, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2018-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2019-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Cardnet Merchant Services Ltd, Cashfriday Ltd, Cashpoint Ltd, Caveminster Ltd, Cedar Holdings Ltd, Celsius European Lux 2 S.A.R.L., Central Mortgage Finance Ltd, Chariot Finance Ltd, Cheltenham & Gloucester plc, Cheltenham II Securities 2020 DAC, Cheltenham Securities 2017 Ltd, Chepstow Blue Holdings Ltd, Chepstow Blue plc, Chester Asset Options No.2 Ltd, Chester Asset Options No.3 Ltd, Chester Asset Receivables Dealings Issuer Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings No.2 Ltd, Chiswell Stockbrokers Ltd, Clerical Medical Finance plc, Clerical Medical Financial Services Ltd, Clerical Medical International Holdings B.V., Clerical Medical Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Clerical Medical Managed Funds Ltd, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Spanish Prop Co SL, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Prop Co SA, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Property Company S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Funding S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Investments S.A.R.L., Conquest Securities Ltd, Corbiere Asset Investments Ltd, Create Services Ltd, Credit Card Securitisation Europe Ltd, Dalkeith Corporation, Deva Financing Holdings Ltd, Deva Financing plc, Deva One Ltd, Deva Three Ltd, Deva Two Ltd, Dunstan Investments (UK) Ltd, Edgbaston RMBS 2010-1 plc, Edgbaston RMBS Holdings Ltd, Elland RMBS 2018 plc, Elland RMBS Holdings Ltd, Eurolead Services Holdings Ltd, First Retail Finance (Chester) Ltd, Fontwell Securities 2016 Ltd, Forthright Finance Ltd, France Industrial Premises Holding Company, General Leasing (No. 12) Ltd, General Reversionary and Investment Company, Gresham Nominee 1 Ltd, Gresham Nominee 2 Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 1) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 10) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 11) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 12) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 13) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 14) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 15) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 16) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 19) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 20) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 21) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 22) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 23) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 24) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 25) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 26) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 27) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 28) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 29) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 3) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 30) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 31) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 32) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 33) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 34) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 35) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 36) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 37) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 38) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 39) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 40) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 41) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 44) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 45) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 46) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 47) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 48) UK Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No 3) Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No.11) UK Ltd, HBOS Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS Final Salary Trust Ltd, HBOS Financial Services Ltd, HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Ltd, HBOS International Financial Services Holdings Ltd, HBOS Investment Fund Managers Ltd, HBOS Social Housing Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS UK Ltd, HBOS plc, HSDL Nominees Ltd, HVF Ltd, Halifax Credit Card Ltd, Halifax Financial Brokers Ltd, Halifax Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Halifax Financial Services Ltd, Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, Halifax Group Ltd, Halifax Investment Services Ltd, Halifax Leasing (June) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (March No.2) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (September) Ltd, Halifax Life Ltd, Halifax Loans Ltd, Halifax Ltd, Halifax Mortgage Services Ltd, Halifax Nominees Ltd, Halifax Pension Nominees Ltd, Halifax Premises Ltd, Halifax Share Dealing Ltd, Halifax Vehicle Leasing (1998) Ltd, Heidi Finance Holdings (UK) Ltd, Hill Samuel Bank Ltd, Hill Samuel Finance Ltd, Hill Samuel Leasing Co. Ltd, Home Shopping Personal Finance Ltd, Horizon Capital 2000 Ltd, Housing Association Risk Transfer 2019 DAC, Housing Growth Partnership GP LLP, Housing Growth Partnership LP, Housing Growth Partnership Ltd, Housing Growth Partnership Manager Ltd, Hyundai Car Finance Ltd, IBOS Finance Ltd, ICC Enterprise Partners Ltd, ICC Equity Partners Ltd, ICC Holdings Unlimited Company, Inchcape Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Software Ltd, International Motors Finance Ltd, Kanaalstraat Funding C.V., Katrine Leasing Ltd, LB Healthcare Trustee Ltd, LB Motorent Ltd, LB Quest Ltd, LB Share Schemes Trustees Ltd, LBCF Ltd, LBG Brasil Administracao LTDA, LBG Capital Holdings Ltd, LBG Equity Investments Ltd, LBI Leasing Ltd, LDC (General Partner) Ltd, LDC (Managers) Ltd, LDC (Nominees) Ltd, LDC GP LLP, LDC I LP, LDC II LP, LDC III LP, LDC IV LP, LDC Parallel (Nominees) Ltd, LDC V LP, LDC VI LP, LDC VII LP, LDC VIII LP, LTGP Limited Partnership Incorporated, Legacy Renewal Company Ltd, Leicester Securities 2014 Ltd, Lex Autolease (CH) Ltd, Lex Autolease (VC) Ltd, Lex Autolease Carselect Ltd, Lex Autolease Ltd, Lex Vehicle Finance 2 Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing (Holdings) Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing Ltd, Lime Street (Funding) Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I Holdings Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I plc, Lloyds (Gresham) Ltd, Lloyds (Gresham) No. 1 Ltd, Lloyds (Nimrod) Specialist Finance Ltd, Lloyds America Securities Corporation1, Lloyds Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Branches) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Colonial & Foreign) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (I.D.) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (International Services) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Stock Exchange Branch) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Asset Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Scotland Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (HP) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.4) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (LM) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds LLP, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 7) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 9) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, Lloyds Bank Foundation for the Channel Islands, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Holdings Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 11) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 20) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 5) Ltd, Lloyds Bank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Hill Samuel Holding Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank International Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 6) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 8) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank MTCH Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 10) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 13) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No.16) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Offshore Pension Trust Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 1) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 2) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pensions Property (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Properties Ltd, Lloyds Bank Property Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank S.F. Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Ltd, Lloyds Bank Trustee Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Ltd, Lloyds Capital GP Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Properties Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Property Investments Ltd, Lloyds Corporate Services (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Engine Capital (No.1) U.S LLC, Lloyds Far East S.A.R.L., Lloyds General Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Group Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Hypotheken B.V., Lloyds Industrial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds International Pty Ltd, Lloyds Investment Bonds Ltd, Lloyds Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Lloyds Investment Securities No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Leasing (North Sea Transport) Ltd1, Lloyds Leasing Developments Ltd, Lloyds Nominees (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Offshore Global Services Private Ltd, Lloyds Plant Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Portfolio Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Premises Investments Ltd, Lloyds Project Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 3 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 4 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Secretaries Ltd, Lloyds Securities Inc., Lloyds TSB Pacific Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Rentals Ltd, Lloyds UDT Hiring Ltd, Lloyds UDT Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Ltd, Lloyds Your Tomorrow Trustee Ltd, Loans.co.uk Ltd, London Taxi Finance Ltd, London Uberior (L.A.S. Group) Nominees Ltd, Lotus Finance Ltd, MBNA, MBNA Direct Ltd, MBNA Europe Finance Ltd, MBNA Europe Holdings Ltd, MBNA General Foundation, MBNA Global Services Ltd, MBNA Indian Services Private Ltd, MBNA Ltd, MBNA R & L S.A.R.L., MBNA Receivables Ltd, Mainsearch Company Ltd, Maritime Leasing (No. 19) Ltd, Membership Services Finance Ltd, Mitre Street Funding S.A.R.L., Molineux RMBS 2016-1 plc, Molineux RMBS Holdings Ltd, Moor Lane Holdings Ltd, NFU Mutual Finance Ltd, NWS Trust Ltd, Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, Nordic Leasing Ltd, Ocean Leasing (July) Ltd, Oystercatcher Nominees Ltd, Oystercatcher Residential Ltd, PIPS Asset Investments Ltd, Pacific Leasing Ltd, Penarth Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Penarth Funding 1 Ltd, Penarth Funding 2 Ltd, Penarth Master Issuer plc, Penarth Receivables Trustee Ltd, Pensions Management (S.W.F.) Ltd, Peony Eastern Leasing Ltd, Peony Leasing Ltd, Peony Western Leasing Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 1) Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 2) Ltd, Permanent Holdings Ltd, Permanent Master Issuer plc, Permanent Mortgages Trustee Ltd, Permanent PECOH Holdings Ltd, Permanent PECOH Ltd, Perry Nominees Ltd, Prestonfield Investments Ltd, Proton Finance Ltd, R.F. Spencer And Company Ltd, Ranelagh Nominees Ltd, Retail Revival (Burgess Hill) Investments Ltd, SARL Coliseum, SARL Hiram, SAS Compagnie Fonciere De France, SCI Astoria Invest, SCI De LHorloge, SCI Equinoxe, SCI Rambuteau CFF, SW Funding plc, SW No.1 Ltd, SWAMF (GP) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (1) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (2) Ltd, Saint Michel Holding Company No1, Saint Michel Investment Property, Saint Witz 2 Holding Company No1, Saint Witz 2 Investment Property, Salisbury II Securities 2016 Ltd, Salisbury II-A Securities 2017 Ltd, Salisbury III Securities 2019 DAC, Salisbury Securities 2015 Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 Holdings Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 plc, Sandown Gold 2012-1 Holdings Ltd, Sandown Gold 2012-1 plc, Savban Leasing Ltd, Scotland International Finance B.V., Scottish Widows Administration Services (Nominees) Ltd, Scottish Widows Administration Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Annuities Ltd, Scottish Widows Auto Enrolment Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Europe, Scottish Widows Financial Services Holdings, Scottish Widows Group Ltd, Scottish Widows Industrial Properties Europe B.V., Scottish Widows Ltd, Scottish Widows Pension Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Property Management Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth (ACD) Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Wealth Holdings Ltd, Scottish Widows Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Funds Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Ltd, Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society, Seabreeze Leasing Ltd, Seaspirit Leasing Ltd, Share Dealing Nominees Ltd, Shogun Finance Ltd, Silentdale Ltd, St Andrews Group Ltd, St Andrews Insurance plc, St Andrews Life Assurance plc, St. Marys Court Investments, Standard Property Investment (1987) Ltd, Standard Property Investment Ltd, Sussex County Homes Ltd, Suzuki Financial Services Ltd, Swan Funding 2 Ltd, Syon Securities 2019 DAC, The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Plc, The British Linen Company Ltd, The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, The Mortgage Business plc, Thistle Financing Holdings Ltd, Thistle Investments (AMC) Ltd, Thistle Investments (ERM) Ltd, Thistle Leasing, Three Copthall Avenue Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (10) Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (7) Ltd, Tranquility Leasing Ltd, Trinity Financing plc, UDT Budget Leasing Ltd, UDT Sales Finance Ltd, Uberior (Moorfield) Ltd, Uberior Co-Investments Ltd, Uberior ENA Ltd, Uberior Equity Ltd, Uberior Europe Ltd, Uberior Fund Investments Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments (No.2) Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Uberior Investments Ltd, Uberior Nominees Ltd, Uberior Trading Ltd, Uberior Trustees Ltd, Uberior Ventures Australia Pty Ltd, Uberior Ventures Ltd, United Dominions Leasing Ltd, United Dominions Trust Ltd, Universe The CMI Global Network Fund, Upsaala Ltd, Vine Street IX LP, WCS Ltd, Ward Nominees (Abingdon) Ltd, Ward Nominees (Birmingham) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees (Bristol) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees Ltd 1, Waverley  Fund II Investor LLC, Waverley  Fund III Investor LLC, Waymark Asset Investments Ltd, West Craigs Ltd, Wetherby II Securities 2018 DAC, Wetherby III Securities 2019 DAC, Wetherby Securities 2017 Ltd, Wood Street Leasing Ltd, and Zurich Insurance Group - UK Workplace Pensions and Savings Business.

Read More
Citizens Financial Group, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Citizens Bank, National Association that provides retail and commercial banking products and services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, corporations, and institutions in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Consumer Banking and Commercial Banking. The Consumer Banking segment offers deposit products, mortgage and home equity lending products, credit cards, business loans, wealth management, and investment services; and auto, education, and point-of-sale finance loans, as well as digital deposit products. This segment serves its customers through telephone service centers, as well as through its online and mobile platforms. The Commercial Banking segment provides various financial products and solutions, including lending and leasing, deposit and treasury management services, foreign exchange, and interest rate and commodity risk management solutions, as well as syndicated loans, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and debt and equity capital markets services. This segment serves government banking, not-for-profit, healthcare, technology, professionals, oil and gas, asset finance, franchise finance, asset-based lending, commercial real estate, private equity, and sponsor finance industries. It operates approximately 1,200 branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia; 114 retail and commercial non-branch offices in national markets; and approximately 3,300 automated teller machines. The company was formerly known as RBS Citizens Financial Group, Inc. and changed its name to Citizens Financial Group, Inc. in April 2014. Citizens Financial Group, Inc. was founded in 1828 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.
Allergan plc, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, and commercializes branded pharmaceutical, device, biologic, surgical, and regenerative medicine products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: US Specialized Therapeutics, US General Medicine, and International. It offers a portfolio of products in various therapeutic areas, including medical aesthetics and dermatology, eye care, neuroscience, urology, gastrointestinal, women's health, and anti-infective therapeutic products. The company also offers breast implants and tissue expanders; and RM-131 (relamorelin), a peptide ghrelin agonist for the treatment of diabetic gastroparesis. In addition, it develops medical and cosmetic treatments; therapies for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and other liver diseases; inhibitor for the treatment of psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders; atopic dermatitis drug candidate; peri-ocular rings for extended drug delivery and reducing elevated intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients; and treatments for neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease. Further, the company develops RST-001, a novel gene therapy for the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa; small molecule therapeutics for inflammatory and fibrotic diseases; topical medicines for fat reduction; and delivery system and botulinum toxin-based prescription products. It has collaboration, option, and license agreement with Lyndra, Inc.; and strategic alliance and option agreement with Editas Medicine, Inc. Allergan plc also has licensing agreements with Assembly Biosciences, Inc.; MedImmune; and Heptares Therapeutics, Ltd. The company was formerly known as Actavis plc and changed its name to Allergan plc in June 2015. Allergan plc was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
America Movil, S.A.B. de C.V. provides telecommunications services in Latin America and internationally. The company offers wireless and fixed voice services, including local, domestic, and international long-distance services; and network interconnection services. It also provides data services, such as data centers, data administration, and hosting services to residential and corporate clients; value-added services, including Internet access, messaging, and other wireless entertainment and corporate services; data transmission, email services, instant messaging, content streaming, and interactive applications; and wireless security services, mobile payment solutions, machine-to-machine services, mobile banking, virtual private network services, and video calls and personal communications services. In addition, the company offers residential broadband services; IT solutions for small businesses and large corporations; and cable and satellite pay television subscriptions. Further, it sells equipment, accessories, and computers; and offers telephone directories, wireless security, call center, advertising, media, and software development services. Additionally, the company provides video, audio, and other media content through the Internet directly from the content provider to the end user. It sells its products and services under the Telcel, Telmex Infinitum, and A1 brands through a network of retailers and service centers to retail customers; and through sales force to corporate customers. As of December 31, 2021, the company had approximately 286.5 million wireless voice and data subscribers. America Movil, S.A.B. de C.V. was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Mexico City, Mexico.
The following companies are subsidiares of Johnson & Johnson: 3Dintegrated ApS, ALZA Corporation, AMO (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Beijing Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd Guangzhou Branch, AMO (Shanghai) Medical Devices Trading Co. Ltd., AMO ASIA LIMITED, AMO Asia Limited (Korea Branch), AMO Asia Limited Taiwan Branch (Hong Kong), AMO Australia Pty Limited, AMO Australia Pty Limited (New Zealand Branch), AMO Canada Company, AMO Denmark ApS, AMO Development LLC, AMO France, AMO Germany GmbH, AMO Groningen B.V., AMO International Holdings Unlimited Company, AMO Ireland, AMO Ireland Ireland Branch, AMO Italy SRL, AMO Japan K.K., AMO Manufacturing USA LLC, AMO Netherlands BV, AMO Nominee Holdings LLC, AMO Norway AS, AMO Puerto Rico Manufacturing Inc., AMO Sales and Service Inc., AMO Singapore Pte. Ltd., AMO Spain Holdings LLC, AMO Switzerland GmbH, AMO U.K. Holdings LLC, AMO United Kingdom Ltd., AMO Uppsala AB, AUB Holdings LLC, Abott Medical Optics, Acclarent Inc., Actelion Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Actelion Pharmaceuticals US Inc., Actelion Treasury Unlimited Company, Akros Medical Inc., Albany Street LLC, Alios BioPharma, Alza Land Management Inc., Anakuria Therapeutics Inc., Animas Diabetes Care LLC, Animas LLC, Animas Technologies LLC, AorTx Inc., Apsis, Aragon Pharmaceuticals, Aragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, Atrionix Inc., Auris Health, Auris Health Inc., Backsvalan 2 Aktiebolag, Backsvalan 6 Handelsbolag, Beijing Dabao Cosmetics Co. Ltd., BeneVir BioPharm Inc., Berna Rhein B.V., BioMedical Enterprises Inc., Biosense Webster (Israel) Ltd., Biosense Webster Inc., Branch of Johnson & Johnson LLC (RU) in Kazakhstan, C Consumer Products Denmark ApS, CSATS Inc., Calibra Medical LLC, Campus-Foyer Apotheke GmbH, Carlo Erba OTC S.r.l., Centocor Biologics LLC, Centocor Research & Development Inc., Cerenovus Inc., ChromaGenics B.V., Ci:Labo Customer Marketing Co. Ltd., Ci:Labo USA Inc., Ci:z Holdings, Ci:z. Labo Co. Ltd., Cilag AG, Cilag GmbH International, Cilag Holding AG, Cilag Holding Treasury Unlimited Company, Cilag-Biotech S.L., CoTherix Inc., Coherex Medical Inc., ColBar LifeScience Ltd., Company Store.com Inc., Conor MedSystems, Cordis International Corporation, Cordis de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Corimmun GmbH, DePuy Hellas SA, DePuy International Limited, DePuy Ireland Unlimited Company, DePuy Mexico S.A. de C.V., DePuy Mitek LLC, DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., DePuy Products Inc., DePuy Spine LLC, DePuy Synthes Gorgan Limited, DePuy Synthes Inc., DePuy Synthes Institute LLC, DePuy Synthes Leto SARL, DePuy Synthes Products Inc., DePuy Synthes Sales Inc., Debs-Vogue Corporation (Proprietary) Limited, Dutch Holding LLC, ECL7 LLC, EES Holdings de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., EES S.A. de C.V., EIT Emerging Implant Technologies GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (Europe) GmbH, Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc., Ethicon Endo-Surgery LLC, Ethicon Inc., Ethicon LLC, Ethicon PR Holdings Unlimited Company, Ethicon Sarl, Ethicon US LLC, Ethicon Women's Health & Urology Sarl, Ethnor (Proprietary) Limited, Ethnor Farmaceutica S.A., Ethnor del Istmo S.A., FMS Future Medical System SA, Finsbury (Development) Limited, Finsbury (Instruments) Limited, Finsbury Medical Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics International Limited, Finsbury Orthopaedics Limited, GH Biotech Holdings Limited, GMED Healthcare BV, GMED Healthcare BV (Branch), Global Investment Participation B.V., Guangzhou Bioseal Biotech Co. Ltd., Hansen Medical Deutschland GmbH, Hansen Medical Inc., Hansen Medical International Inc., Hansen Medical UK Limited, Healthcare Services (Shanghai) Ltd., Hickory Merger Sub Inc., I.D. Acquisition Corp., Innomedic Gesellschaft fur innovative Medizintechnik und Informatik mbH, Innovative Surgical Solutions LLC, J & J Company West Africa Limited, J&J Pension Trustees Limited, J-C Health Care Ltd., J.C. General Services BV, JJ Surgical Vision Spain S.L., JJC Acquisition Company B.V., JJHC LLC, JJSV Belgium BV, JJSV Manufacturing Malaysia SDN. BHD., JJSV Norden AB, JJSV Produtos Oticos Ltda., JNJ Global Business Services s.r.o., JNJ Holding EMEA B.V., JNJ International Investment LLC, JOM Pharmaceutical Services Inc., Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy (Holding) Limited, Janssen BioPharma LLC, Janssen Biologics (Ireland) Limited, Janssen Biologics B.V., Janssen Biotech Inc., Janssen Cilag C.A., Janssen Cilag Farmaceutica S.A., Janssen Cilag S.p.A., Janssen Cilag SPA, Janssen Development Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Diagnostics LLC, Janssen Egypt LLC, Janssen Farmaceutica Portugal Lda, Janssen Global Services LLC, Janssen Holding GmbH, Janssen Inc., Janssen Irish Finance Unlimited Company, Janssen Korea Ltd., Janssen Oncology Inc., Janssen Ortho LLC, Janssen Pharmaceutica (Proprietary) Limited, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Janssen Pharmaceutica S.A., Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K., Janssen Pharmaceutical Sciences Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceutical Unlimited Company, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. Japan Branch, Janssen Products LP, Janssen R&D Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Research & Development LLC, Janssen Sciences Ireland Unlimited Company, Janssen Scientific Affairs LLC, Janssen Supply Group LLC, Janssen Vaccines & Prevention B.V., Janssen Vaccines Branch of Cilag GmbH International, Janssen Vaccines Corp., Janssen-Cilag, Janssen-Cilag (New Zealand) Limited, Janssen-Cilag A/S, Janssen-Cilag AG, Janssen-Cilag AS, Janssen-Cilag Aktiebolag, Janssen-Cilag B.V., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Lda., Janssen-Cilag Farmaceutica Ltda., Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Janssen-Cilag International NV, Janssen-Cilag Kft., Janssen-Cilag Kft. Branch Office, Janssen-Cilag Limited, Janssen-Cilag Manufacturing LLC, Janssen-Cilag NV, Janssen-Cilag OY, Janssen-Cilag Pharma GmbH, Janssen-Cilag Pharmaceutical S.A.C.I., Janssen-Cilag Polska Sp. z o.o., Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd, Janssen-Cilag Pty Ltd (Branch), Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A., Janssen-Cilag S.A. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Janssen-Cilag s.r.o., Janssen-Pharma S.L., Jevco Holding Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson (Angola) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (China) Investment Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson (Egypt) S.A.E., Johnson & Johnson (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Ireland) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Jamaica) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Kenya) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (DHCC Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. (JAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Middle East) Inc. Service Center (DAFZA Branch), Johnson & Johnson (Mozambique) Limitada, Johnson & Johnson (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (New Zealand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Philippines) Inc., Johnson & Johnson (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Thailand) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson (Trinidad) Limited, Johnson & Johnson (Vietnam) Co. Ltd, Johnson & Johnson - Societa' Per Azioni, Johnson & Johnson AB, Johnson & Johnson AB Eesti filiaal (Branch), Johnson & Johnson AG, Johnson & Johnson AG (Zuchwil Branch), Johnson & Johnson Belgium Finance Company BV, Johnson & Johnson Bulgaria EOOD, Johnson & Johnson China Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Hong Kong) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer (Thailand) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer B.V., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health Care Switzerland Branch of Janssen-Cilag AG, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Holdings France, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. (Dominican Republic Branch), Johnson & Johnson Consumer NV, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Services EAME Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Del Paraguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson Dominicana S.A.S., Johnson & Johnson Enterprise Innovation Inc., Johnson & Johnson European Treasury Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson Finance Corporation, Johnson & Johnson Finance Limited, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Financial Services GmbH (Branch Office), Johnson & Johnson Gateway LLC, Johnson & Johnson Gesellschaft m.b.H., Johnson & Johnson GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Guatemala S.A., Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc., Johnson & Johnson Health and Wellness Solutions Inc., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Commercial and Industrial S.A., Johnson & Johnson Hellas Consumer Products Commercial Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson Hemisferica S.A., Johnson & Johnson Holding GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Inc., Johnson & Johnson Industrial Ltda., Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC Inc., Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC, Johnson & Johnson Innovation Limited, Johnson & Johnson International, Johnson & Johnson International (Belgian Branch) (European Logistics Center), Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (Branch), Johnson & Johnson International Financial Services Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson K.K., Johnson & Johnson Kft., Johnson & Johnson Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Korea Selling & Distribution LLC, Johnson & Johnson LLC, Johnson & Johnson Lda, Johnson & Johnson Limited, Johnson & Johnson Limited (Sri Lanka Branch), Johnson & Johnson Luxembourg Finance Company Sarl, Johnson & Johnson Management Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Proprietary) Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical (Shanghai) Ltd. Beijing Branch, Johnson & Johnson Medical (Suzhou) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical B.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices & Diagnostics Group - Latin America L.L.C., Johnson & Johnson Medical GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Korea Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medical Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson Medical NV, Johnson & Johnson Medical Products GmbH, Johnson & Johnson Medical Pty Ltd, Johnson & Johnson Medical S.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.C.S., Johnson & Johnson Medical S.p.A., Johnson & Johnson Medical SAS, Johnson & Johnson Medical Saudi Arabia Limited, Johnson & Johnson Medical Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Ankara Branch), Johnson & Johnson Medikal Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi (Izmir Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East - Scientific Office, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ - LLC (Lebanese Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC, Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Ghana Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC (Kenya Branch), Johnson & Johnson Middle East FZ-LLC Branch (TSO) (Saudi Arabia Branch), Johnson & Johnson Morocco Societe Anonyme, Johnson & Johnson NCB (Belgian Branch), Johnson & Johnson Nordic AB, Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pakistan (Private) Limited, Johnson & Johnson Panama S.A., Johnson & Johnson Personal Care (Chile) S.A., Johnson & Johnson Poland Sp. z o.o., Johnson & Johnson Poland sp. z o.o. oddzial w Warszawie "Consumer", Johnson & Johnson Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Pte. Ltd. Korea Branch, Johnson & Johnson Pty. Limited, Johnson & Johnson Romania S.R.L., Johnson & Johnson S.A., Johnson & Johnson S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson S.E. Inc., Johnson & Johnson S.E. d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson SDN. BHD., Johnson & Johnson Sante Beaute France, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision Inc., Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision India Private Limited, Johnson & Johnson Taiwan Ltd., Johnson & Johnson UK Treasury Company Limited, Johnson & Johnson Ukraine LLC, Johnson & Johnson Urban Renewal Associates, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care (Shanghai) Ltd., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc., Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Ireland Unlimited Company, Johnson & Johnson d.o.o., Johnson & Johnson de Argentina S.A.C. e. I., Johnson & Johnson de Chile Limitada, Johnson & Johnson de Chile S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Colombia S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Johnson & Johnson de Uruguay S.A., Johnson & Johnson de Venezuela S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Ecuador S.A., Johnson & Johnson del Peru S.A., Johnson & Johnson do Brasil Industria E Comercio de Produtos Para Saude Ltda., Johnson & Johnson for Export and Import LLC, Johnson & Johnson s.r.o., Johnson Y Johnson de Costa Rica S.A., Johnson and Johnson (Proprietary) Limited, Johnson and Johnson Sihhi Malzeme Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, LTL Management LLC, La Concha Land Investment Corporation, Latam International Investment Company Unlimited Company, Legal Entity Name, MDS Co. Ltd., McNEIL MMP LLC, McNeil AB, McNeil Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co., McNeil Denmark ApS, McNeil Healthcare (Ireland) Limited, McNeil Healthcare (UK) Limited, McNeil Healthcare LLC, McNeil Iberica S.L.U., McNeil LA LLC, McNeil Nutritionals LLC, McNeil Panama LLC, McNeil Products Limited, McNeil Sweden AB, Medical Device Business Services Inc., Medical Devices & Diagnostics Global Services LLC, Medical Devices International LLC, Medos International Sarl, Medos International Sarl succursale de Neuchatel (Branch), Medos Sarl, MegaDyne Medical Products Inc., Menlo Care De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Mentor B.V., Mentor Deutschland GmbH, Mentor Medical Systems B.V., Mentor Partnership Holding Company I LLC, Mentor Texas GP LLC, Mentor Texas L.P., Mentor Worldwide LLC, Micrus Endovascular LLC, Middlesex Assurance Company Limited, Momenta Ireland Limited, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., NeoStrata Company Inc., NeoStrata UG (haftungsbeschrankt), Netherlands Holding Company, NeuWave Medical Inc., Neuravi Limited, Novira Therapeutics, Novira Therapeutics LLC, NuVera Medical Inc., OBTECH Medical Sarl, OGX Beauty Limited, OMJ Holding GmbH, OMJ Ireland Unlimited Company, OMJ Pharmaceuticals Inc., Obtech Medical Mexico S.A. de C.V., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Inc., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd., Omrix Biopharmaceuticals NV, Ortho Biologics LLC, Ortho Biotech Holding LLC, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical LLC, Orthospin Ltd., Orthotaxy, PT Integrated Healthcare Indonesia, PT. Johnson & Johnson Indonesia, Patriot Pharmaceuticals LLC, Peninsula Pharmaceuticals LLC, Pharmadirect Ltd., Pharmedica Laboratories (Proprietary) Limited, Princeton Laboratories Inc., Productos de Cuidado Personal y de La Salud de Bolivia S.R.L., Proleader S.A., Pulsar Vascular Inc., Regency Urban Renewal Associates, RespiVert Ltd., RoC International, Royalty A&M LLC, Rutan Realty LLC, SYNTHES Medical Immobilien GmbH, Scios LLC, Sedona Singapore International Pte. Ltd., Sedona Thai International Co. Ltd., Serhum S.A. de C.V., Shanghai Elsker For Mother & Baby Co. Ltd, Shanghai Elsker Mother & Baby Co. Ltd Minghang Branch, Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Ltd., Shanghai Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Sightbox LLC, Sodiac ESV, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Company, Spectrum Vision Limited Liability Partnership, SterilMed, SterilMed Inc., Surgical Process Institute Deutschland GmbH, Synthes Costa Rica S.C.R. Limitada, Synthes GmbH, Synthes Holding AG, Synthes Holding Limited, Synthes Inc., Synthes Medical Surgical Equipment & Instruments Trading LLC, Synthes Produktions GmbH, Synthes Proprietary Limited, Synthes S.M.P. S. de R.L. de C.V., Synthes Tuttlingen GmbH, Synthes USA LLC, Synthes USA Products LLC, TARIS Biomedical, TARIS Biomedical LLC, TearScience Inc., The Anspach Effort LLC, The Vision Care Institute LLC, Tibotec LLC, Torax Medical Inc., UAB "Johnson & Johnson", UAB Johnson & Johnson Eesti Filiaal (Estonian Branch), Vania Expansion, Verb Surgical, Verb Surgical Inc., Vision Care Finance Unlimited Company, Vogue International, Vogue International LLC, Vogue International Trading Inc., WH4110 Development Company L.L.C., XO1, XO1 Limited, Xian Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd., Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Beijing Branch Office, Xian-Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. Shanghai Branch Office, Zarbee's Inc., and Zarbee's Naturals.

Read More
AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides various specialty insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. It operates through two segments, Insurance and Reinsurance. The Insurance segment offers property insurance products for commercial buildings, residential premises, construction projects, and onshore energy installations; marine insurance products covering offshore energy, cargo, liability, recreational marine, fine art, specie, and hull war; and terrorism, aviation, credit and political risk, and liability insurance products. It also provides professional insurance products that cover directors' and officers' liability, errors and omissions liability, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability, crime, professional indemnity, cyber and privacy, medical malpractice, and other financial insurance related coverages for commercial enterprises, financial institutions, not-for-profit organizations, and other professional service providers. In addition, this segment offers accidental death, travel, and specialty health products for employer and affinity groups. The Reinsurance segment offers reinsurance products to insurance companies, including catastrophe reinsurance products; property reinsurance products covering property damage and related losses resulting from natural and man-made perils; professional lines; credit and surety; and motor liability products. This segment also provides agriculture reinsurance products; coverages for various types of construction risks and risks related to erection, testing, and commissioning of machinery and plants during the construction stage; marine and aviation reinsurance products; and personal accident, specialty health, accidental death, travel, life and disability reinsurance products. The company was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Pembroke, Bermuda.
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.
The Travelers Companies, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United states and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance. The Business Insurance segment offers workers' compensation, commercial automobile and property, general liability, commercial multi-peril, employers' liability, public and product liability, professional indemnity, marine, aviation, onshore and offshore energy, construction, terrorism, personal accident, and kidnap and ransom insurance products. This segment operates through select accounts, which serve small businesses; commercial accounts that serve mid-sized businesses; national accounts, which serve large companies; and national property and other that serve large and mid-sized customers, commercial trucking industry, and agricultural businesses, as well as markets and distributes its products through brokers, wholesale agents, and program managers. The Bond & Specialty Insurance segment provides surety, fidelity, management and professional liability, and other property and casualty coverages and related risk management services through independent agencies and brokers. The Personal Insurance segment offers property and casualty insurance covering personal risks, primarily automobile and homeowners insurance to individuals through independent agencies and brokers. The Travelers Companies, Inc. was founded in 1853 and is based in New York, New York.
Bancolombia S.A. provides banking products and services in Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The company operates through nine segments: Banking Colombia, Banking Panama, Banking El Salvador, Banking Guatemala, Trust, Investment Banking, Brokerage, International Banking, and All Other. It offers checking and savings accounts, fixed term deposits, and investment products; trade financing, loans funded by domestic development banks, working capital loans, credit cards, personal and vehicle loans, payroll loans, and overdrafts; financial support to real estate developers and mortgages for individuals and companies; factoring; and financial and operating leasing services. The company also provides hedging instruments, including futures, forwards, options, and swaps; and brokerage, investment advisory, and private banking services, including selling and distributing equities, futures, foreign currencies, fixed income securities, mutual funds, and structured products. In addition, it offers cash management services; foreign currency transaction services; life, auto, commercial, and homeowner's insurance products; and online and computer banking services. Further, the company provides project and acquisition finance, debt and equity capital markets, principal investments, M&A, hedging strategies, restructurings, and structured financing; money market accounts, mutual and pension funds, private equity funds, payment and corporate trust, and custody; internet-based trading platform; inter-bank lending and repurchase agreements; managing escrow accounts, and investment and real estate funds; and transportation, securities brokerage, maintenance and remodeling, and outsourcing services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 1,015 branches; 28,676 banking correspondents; 529 PAMs; 210 kiosks in El Salvador and 187 in Colombia; and 6,094 ATMs. Bancolombia S.A. was incorporated in 1945 and is headquartered in Medellin, Colombia.
Rheinmetall AG provides technologies to the mobility and security sectors worldwide. The company operates in five segments: Vehicle Systems, Weapon and Ammunition, Electronic Solutions, Sensors and Actuators, and Materials and Trade. The Vehicle Systems segment offers combat, support, logistics, and special vehicles, including armored tracked vehicles, CBRN protection systems, turret systems, and wheeled logistics and tactical vehicles. The Weapon and Ammunition segment provides threat-appropriate, effective and accurate firepower, and protection solutions, such as large and medium-caliber weapons and ammunition, weapon stations, protection systems, and propellants and powders. The Electronic Solutions segment offers a chain of systems network, such as sensors, networking platforms, automated connected effectors for soldiers, and cyberspace protection solutions, and training and simulation solutions. Its products include air defense systems; soldier systems; command, control, and reconnaissance systems; fire control systems; sensors; and simulations for the army, air force, navy, and civil applications. The Sensors and Actuators segment provides a portfolio of products comprising exhaust gas recirculation systems; throttle valves, control dampers, and exhaust flaps for electromotors; solenoid valves; actuators and valve train systems; oil, water, and vacuum pumps for passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and light and heavy-duty off-road applications; and industrial solutions. The Materials and Trade segment focuses on the development of system components for the basic motors, such as engine blocks, structural components, and cylinder heads; plain bearings, and bushes; and replacement parts. It also engages in the aftermarket activities. The company was formerly known as Rheinmetall Berlin AG and changed its name to Rheinmetall AG in 1996. Rheinmetall AG was founded in 1889 and is headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany.
The following companies are subsidiares of DaVita: Aberdeen Dialysis LLC, Accountable Kidney Care LLC, Adair Dialysis LLC, American Fork Dialysis LLC, American Medical Insurance Inc., Animas Dialysis LLC, Arcadia Gardens Dialysis LLC, Ashdow Dialysis LLC, Atlantic Dialysis LLC, Austin Dialysis Centers L.P., Barnell Dialysis LLC, Barrons Dialysis LLC, Barton Dialysis LLC, Bastrop Dialysis LLC, Beachside Dialysis LLC, Beck Dialysis LLC, Bellevue Dialysis LLC, Bemity Dialysis LLC, Beverly Hills Dialysis Partnership, Birch Dialysis LLC, Bladon Dialysis LLC, Bliss Dialysis LLC, Bohama Dialysis LLC, Bowan Dialysis LLC, Braddock Dialysis LLC, Bridges Dialysis LLC, Brimfield Dialysis LLC, Brook Dialysis LLC, Brownsville Kidney Center Ltd., Brownwood Dialysis LLC, Bruno Dialysis LLC, Buckhorn Dialysis LLC, Buford Dialysis LLC, Bullards Dialysis LLC, Bullock Dialysis LLC, Calante Dialysis LLC, Campton Dialysis LLC, Canyon Springs Dialysis LLC, Capes Dialysis LLC, Capital Dialysis Partnership, Capron Dialysis LLC, Carlton Dialysis LLC, Carroll County Dialysis Facility Inc., Carroll County Dialysis Facility Limited Partnership, Cascades Dialysis LLC, Caverns Dialysis LLC, Cedar Dialysis LLC, Centennial LV LLC, Central Carolina Dialysis Centers LLC, Central Georgia Dialysis LLC, Central Iowa Dialysis Partners LLC, Central Kentucky Dialysis Centers LLC, Channel Dialysis LLC, Cheraw Dialysis LLC, Chicago Heights Dialysis LLC, Chipeta Dialysis LLC, Churchill Dialysis LLC, Cinco Rios Dialysis LLC, Clark Dialysis LLC, Clayton Dialysis LLC, Cleburne Dialysis LLC, Clinica Central do Bonfim S.A., Clinton Township Dialysis LLC, Clyfee Dialysis LLC, Columbus-RNA-DaVita LLC, Conconully Dialysis LLC, Continental Dialysis Center Inc., Couer Dialysis LLC, Court Dialysis LLC, Cowell Dialysis LLC, Cowesett Dialysis LLC, Crossings Dialysis LLC, Crystals Dialysis LLC, Cuivre Dialysis LLC, Culbert Dialysis LLC, DC Healthcare International Inc., DNP Management Company LLC, DPS CKD LLC, DV Care Netherlands B.V., DV Care Netherlands C.V., DVA Healthcare - Southwest Ohio LLC, DVA Healthcare Renal Care Inc., DVA Healthcare of Maryland LLC, DVA Healthcare of Massachusetts Inc., DVA Healthcare of New London LLC, DVA Healthcare of Norwich LLC, DVA Healthcare of Pennsylvania LLC, DVA Healthcare of Tuscaloosa LLC, DVA Holdings Pte. Ltd., DVA Laboratory Services Inc., DVA Renal Healthcare Inc., DVA of New York Inc., DaVita - Riverside II LLC, DaVita - Riverside LLC, DaVita - West LLC, DaVita APAC Holding B.V., DaVita Brasil Participacoes e Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita Care (Saudi Arabia), DaVita Dakota Dialysis Center LLC, DaVita Deutschland AG, DaVita Deutschland Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, DaVita El Paso East L.P., DaVita Germany GmbH, DaVita HK Holdings Limited, DaVita HealthCare Brasil Servicos Medicos Ltda., DaVita International Limited, DaVita Nefromed Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita Nephron Care Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita Rien Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita S.A.S., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia Asa Sul Ltda., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia Distrito Federal Ltda., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia Guarulhos Ltda., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia Jardim das Imbuias Ltda., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia Taubate Ltda., DaVita Servicos de Nefrologia de Araraquara Ltda., DaVita Sp. z o.o., DaVita Sud-Niedersachsen GmbH, DaVita Transrim Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita UTR Servicos de Nefrologia Ltda., DaVita VillageHealth Inc., DaVita of New York Inc., Dallas-Fort Worth Nephrology L.P., Damon Dialysis LLC, Dialysis Holdings Inc., Dialysis of Des Moines LLC, Dialysis of Northern Illinois LLC, Dierks Dialysis LLC, Dolores Dialysis LLC, Dome Dialysis LLC, Doves Dialysis LLC, Downriver Centers Inc., EURODIAL - Centro de Nefrologia e Dialise de Leiria S.A., East End Dialysis Center Inc., East Ft. Lauderdale LLC, Ebrea Dialysis LLC, Edisto Dialysis LLC, Eldrist Dialysis LLC, Elgin Dialysis LLC, Elk Grove Dialysis Center LLC, Empire State DC Inc., Etowah Dialysis LLC, Ettleton Dialysis LLC, Eufaula Dialysis LLC, Falcon LLC, Family Health Care of Central Florida, Fanthorp Dialysis LLC, Federal Way Assurance Inc., Fields Dialysis LLC, Five Star Dialysis LLC, Fjords Dialysis LLC, Flagler Dialysis LLC, Flamingo Park Kidney Center Inc., Forester Dialysis LLC, Freehold Artificial Kidney Center L.L.C., Fremont Dialysis LLC, Frontier Dialysis LLC, Fullerton Dialysis Center LLC, GDC International LLC, Gambro Healthcare, Ganois Dialysis LLC, Garner Dialysis LLC, Garrett Dialysis LLC, Gaviota Dialysis LLC, Gebhard Dialysis LLC, Genesis KC Development LLC, GiveLife Dialysis LLC, Glassland Dialysis LLC, Glosser Dialysis LLC, Goliad Dialysis LLC, Grand Home Dialysis LLC, Greater Las Vegas Dialysis LLC, Greater Los Angeles Dialysis Centers LLC, Green Country Dialysis LLC, Green Desert Dialysis LLC, Griffin Dialysis LLC, Groten Dialysis LLC, Harmony Dialysis LLC, Hart Dialysis LLC, Hawn Dialysis LLC, Healthcare Partners, Helmer Dialysis LLC, Hennepin Dialysis LLC, Hewett Dialysis LLC, Hilgards Dialysis LLC, Hochatown Dialysis LLC, Home Kidney Care LLC, Honeyman Dialysis LLC, Houston Kidney Center/Total Renal Care Integrated Service Network Limited Partnership, Hummer Dialysis LLC, Hunter Dialysis LLC, Huntington Artificial Kidney Center Ltd., Hyde Dialysis LLC, IDC -International Dialysis Centers Lda, ISD Bartlett LLC, ISD Corpus Christi LLC, ISD I Holding Company Inc., ISD II Holding Company Inc., ISD Las Vegas LLC, ISD Lees Summit LLC, ISD Renal Inc., ISD Schaumburg LLC, ISD Spring Valley LLC, ISD Summit Renal Care LLC, Iroquois Dialysis LLC, Jacinto Dialysis LLC, Jenness Dialysis LLC, Kamiah Dialysis LLC, Kanika Dialysis LLC, Kavett Dialysis LLC, Kenai Dialysis LLC, Kershaw Dialysis LLC, Kidney Home Center LLC, Kimball Dialysis LLC, Kingston Dialysis LLC, Kinnick Dialysis LLC, Kinter Dialysis LLC, Kiowa Dialysis LLC, Knickerbocker Dialysis Inc., Lakeshore Dialysis LLC, Landing Dialysis LLC, Landor Dialysis LLC, Lassen Dialysis LLC, Leasburg Dialysis LLC, Leawood Dialysis LLC, Lees Dialysis LLC, Legare Development LLC, Liberty RC Inc., Lifeline Pensacola LLC, Lifeline Vascular Center-Albany LLC, Lincoln Park Dialysis Services Inc., Livingston Dialysis LLC, Llano Dialysis LLC, Lofield Dialysis LLC, Logoley Dialysis LLC, Lone Dialysis LLC, Long Beach Dialysis Center LLC, Lord Baltimore Dialysis LLC, Lory Dialysis LLC, Lourdes Dialysis LLC, Lyndale Dialysis LLC, MVZ DaVita Alzey GmbH, MVZ DaVita Aurich GmbH, MVZ DaVita Bad Aibling GmbH, MVZ DaVita Bad Duben GmbH, MVZ DaVita Cardio Centrum Dusseldorf GmbH, MVZ DaVita Dillenburg GmbH, MVZ DaVita Dinkelsbuhl GmbH, MVZ DaVita Dormagen GmbH, MVZ DaVita Duisburg GmbH, MVZ DaVita Elsterland GmbH, MVZ DaVita Emden GmbH, MVZ DaVita Falkensee GmbH, MVZ DaVita Geilenkirchen GmbH, MVZ DaVita Gera GmbH, MVZ DaVita Iserlohn GmbH, MVZ DaVita Monchengladbach GmbH, MVZ DaVita Neuss GmbH, MVZ DaVita Niederrhein GmbH, MVZ DaVita Nierenzentrum Aachen Alsdorf GmbH, MVZ DaVita Nierenzentrum Berlin-Britz GmbH, MVZ DaVita Nierenzentrum Hamm-Ahlen GmbH, MVZ DaVita Prenzlau-Pasewalk GmbH, MVZ DaVita Rhein-Ahr GmbH, MVZ DaVita Rhein-Ruhr GmbH, MVZ DaVita Schwalm-Eder GmbH, MVZ DaVita Viersen GmbH, Madigan Dialysis LLC, Magney Dialysis LLC, Magoffin Dialysis LLC, Makonee Dialysis LLC, Marlton Dialysis Center LLC, Marseille Dialysis LLC, Mason-Dixon Dialysis Facilities Inc., Mazonia Dialysis LLC, Mellen Dialysis LLC, Melnea Dialysis LLC, Memorial Dialysis Center L.P., Meridian Dialysis LLC, Mermet Dialysis LLC, Milltown Dialysis LLC, Minam Dialysis LLC, Minneopa Dialysis LLC, Mountain West Dialysis Services LLC, Mulgee Dialysis LLC, Nansen Dialysis LLC, Natomas Dialysis LLC, Nauvue Dialysis LLC, Navarro Dialysis LLC, Nephrology Medical Associates of Georgia LLC, Nephrology Practice Solutions LLC, New Bay Dialysis LLC, Nicona Dialysis LLC, Norbert Dialysis LLC, Norte Dialysis LLC, North Austin Dialysis LLC, Northwest Physicians Network, Oasis Dialysis LLC, Ohio River Dialysis LLC, Okanogan Dialysis LLC, Olive Dialysis LLC, Ordust Dialysis LLC, Owyhee Dialysis LLC, Palo Dialysis LLC, Palomar Dialysis LLC, Panther Dialysis LLC, Parkside Dialysis LLC, Pattison Dialysis LLC, Patuk Dialysis LLC, Pearl Dialysis LLC, Pendster Dialysis LLC, Percha Dialysis LLC, Pershing Dialysis LLC, Pfeiffer Dialysis LLC, Philadelphia-Camden Integrated Kidney Care LLC, Physicians Choice Dialysis LLC, Physicians Choice Dialysis Of Alabama LLC, Physicians Dialysis Acquisitions Inc., Physicians Dialysis Ventures LLC, Physicians Dialysis of Lancaster LLC, Physicians Management LLC, Pible Dialysis LLC, Pinson Dialysis LLC, Pittsburgh Dialysis Partners LLC, Piute Dialysis LLC, Plaine Dialysis LLC, Platte Dialysis LLC, Pluribus Dialise - Benfica S.A., Pluribus Dialise - Cascais S.A., Pluribus Dialise S.A., Prairie Dialysis LLC, Prineville Dialysis LLC, Purity Dialysis, RMS Lifeline Inc., RNA - DaVita Dialysis LLC, RV Academy LLC, Ramsey Dialysis LLC, Rayburn Dialysis LLC, Red Willow Dialysis LLC, Redcliff Dialysis LLC, Refuge Dialysis LLC, Renal Center of Beaumont LLC, Renal Center of Fort Dodge LLC, Renal Center of Lewisville LLC, Renal Center of Morristown LLC, Renal Center of Newton LLC, Renal Center of Port Arthur LLC, Renal Center of Tyler L.P.L.L.L.P., Renal Center of West Beaumont LLC, Renal Center of the Hills LLC, Renal Life Link Inc., Renal Treatment Centers - California Inc., Renal Treatment Centers - Illinois Inc., Renal Treatment Centers - Mid-Atlantic Inc., Renal Treatment Centers - Northeast Inc., Renal Treatment Centers - Southeast LP, Renal Treatment Centers - West Inc., Renal Treatment Centers Inc., Renal Ventures Management LLC, RenalServ LLC, Riddle Dialysis LLC, River Valley Dialysis LLC, Rocky Mountain Dialysis Services LLC, Rollins Dialysis LLC, Roose Dialysis LLC, Rophets Dialysis LLC, Roushe Dialysis LLC, Routt Dialysis LLC, Royale Dialysis LLC, Rusk Dialysis LLC, Rutland Dialysis LLC, SAKDC-DaVita Dialysis Partners L.P., Saddleback Dialysis LLC, Sahara Dialysis LLC, San Marcos Dialysis LLC, Santiam Dialysis LLC, Sapelo Dialysis LLC, Saunders Dialysis LLC, Seabay Dialysis LLC, Secour Dialysis LLC, Sensiba Dialysis LLC, Shadow Dialysis LLC, Shayano Dialysis LLC, Shelling Dialysis LLC, Sherman Dialysis LLC, Shetek Dialysis LLC, Shining Star Dialysis Inc., Siena Dialysis Center LLC, Simeon Dialysis LLC, Skagit Dialysis LLC, Soledad Dialysis Center LLC, Somerville Dialysis Center LLC, South Central Florida Dialysis Partners LLC, South Fork Dialysis LLC, Southern Hills Dialysis Center LLC, Southlake Dialysis LLC, Southwest Atlanta Dialysis Centers LLC, Sprague Dialysis LLC, Springpond Dialysis LLC, Star Dialysis LLC, Stevenson Dialysis LLC, Stewart Dialysis LLC, Stines Dialysis LLC, Storrie Dialysis LLC, Sugarloaf Dialysis LLC, Sun City Dialysis Center L.L.C., Sunapee Dialysis LLC, Sunset Dialysis LLC, TRC - Indiana LLC, TRC El Paso Limited Partnership, TRC West Inc., TRC of New York Inc., TRC-Georgetown Regional Dialysis LLC, Talimena Dialysis LLC, Terre Dialysis LLC, The Woodlands Dialysis Center LP, Tortugas Dialysis LLC, Total Renal Care Inc., Total Renal Care Texas Limited Partnership, Total Renal Care of North Carolina LLC, Total Renal Laboratories Inc., Total Renal Research Inc., Toulouse Dialysis LLC, Transmountain Dialysis L.P., Tross Dialysis LLC, Tugman Dialysis LLC, Tunnel Dialysis LLC, Turlock Dialysis Center LLC, Tustin Dialysis Center LLC, Twain Dialysis LLC, Tyler Dialysis LLC, USC-DaVita Dialysis Center LLC, Unicoi Dialysis LLC, University Dialysis Center LLC, Upper Valley Dialysis L.P., Valley Springs Dialysis LLC, Victory Dialysis LLC, VillageHealth DM LLC, Villanueva Dialysis LLC, Vively Health LLC, Vogel Dialysis LLC, Volo Dialysis LLC, Waddell Dialysis LLC, Wakoni Dialysis LLC, Walker Dialysis LLC, Walton Dialysis LLC, Watkins Dialysis LLC, Weldon Dialysis LLC, West Elk Grove Dialysis LLC, West Sacramento Dialysis LLC, Weston Dialysis Center LLC, Whitney Dialysis LLC, Willowbrook Dialysis Center L.P., Winds Dialysis LLC, Wood Dialysis LLC, Woodford Dialysis LLC, Wyandotte Central Dialysis LLC, Yards Dialysis LLC, Ybor City Dialysis LLC, Yucaipa Dialysis LLC, and Zephyrhills Dialysis Center LLC.

Read More
The following companies are subsidiares of CVS Health: ACS ACQCO CORP., ADMINCO Inc., AE Fourteen Incorporated, AHP Holdings Inc., AMC - Tennessee LLC, APS Acquisition LLC, ASCO HealthCare LLC, ASI Wings LLC, AUSHC Holdings Inc., Accendo Insurance Company, Accordant Health Services L.L.C., Active Health Management Inc., Administrative Enterprises Inc., AdvancePCS SpecialtyRx LLC, AdvanceRx.com L.L.C., Advanced Care Scripts Inc., Aetna, Aetna (Beijing) Enterprise Management Services Co. Ltd., Aetna (Shanghai) Enterprise Services Co. Ltd., Aetna ACO Holdings Inc., Aetna Asset Advisors LLC, Aetna Behavioral Health LLC, Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Inc., Aetna Better Health Premier Plan MMAI Inc., Aetna Better Health of California Inc., Aetna Better Health of Florida Inc., Aetna Better Health of Illinois Inc., Aetna Better Health of Indiana Inc., Aetna Better Health of Kansas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Missouri LLC, Aetna Better Health of Nevada Inc., Aetna Better Health of North Carolina Inc., Aetna Better Health of Oklahoma Inc., Aetna Better Health of Tennessee Inc., Aetna Better Health of Texas Inc., Aetna Better Health of Washington Inc., Aetna Capital Management LLC, Aetna Card Solutions LLC, Aetna Corporate Services LLC, Aetna Dental Inc., Aetna Dental of California Inc., Aetna Financial Holdings LLC, Aetna Florida Inc., Aetna Global Benefits (Asia Pacific) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Bermuda) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Europe) Limited, Aetna Global Benefits (Middle East) LLC, Aetna Global Benefits (Singapore) PTE. LTD., Aetna Health Holdings LLC, Aetna Health Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Aetna Health Insurance Company, Aetna Health Insurance Company of Europe DAC, Aetna Health Insurance Company of New York, Aetna Health Management LLC, Aetna Health and Life Insurance Company, Aetna Health of California Inc., Aetna Health of Iowa Inc., Aetna Health of Michigan Inc., Aetna Health of Ohio Inc., Aetna Health of Utah Inc., Aetna HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Aetna Holdco (UK) Limited, Aetna Holdings (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Inc., Aetna Insurance (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Aetna Insurance Company Limited, Aetna Insurance Company of Connecticut, Aetna Integrated Informatics Inc., Aetna International Ex Pat LLC, Aetna International LLC, Aetna Ireland Inc., Aetna Life & Casualty (Bermuda) Ltd., Aetna Life Assignment Company, Aetna Life Insurance Company, Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC, Aetna Network Services LLC, Aetna Partners Diversified Fund LLC, Aetna Pharmacy Management Services LLC, Aetna Resources LLC, Aetna Risk Assurance Company of Connecticut Inc., Aetna Rx Home Delivery LLC, Aetna Services (Thailand) Limited, Aetna Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Aetna Student Health Agency Inc., Aetna Ventures LLC, Aetna Workers Comp Access LLC, Alabama CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Alaska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Allina Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Allina Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, American Drug Stores Delaware L.L.C., Arbor Drugs, Arizona CVS Stores L.L.C., Arkansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Badger Acquisition LLC, Badger Acquisition of Kentucky LLC, Badger Acquisition of Minnesota LLC, Badger Acquisition of Ohio LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Company, Banner Health and Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Banner Health and Aetna Health Plan Inc., Beauty Holdings L.L.C., Best Care LTC Acquisition Company LLC, Busse CVS L.L.C., CCI Foreign S.a R.L., CCRx Holdings LLC, CCRx of North Carolina LLC, CHP Acquisition LLC, CP Acquisition LLC, CVS 2948 Henderson L.L.C., CVS 3268 Gilbert L.L.C., CVS 3745 Peoria L.L.C., CVS AL Distribution L.L.C., CVS AOC Corporation, CVS AOC Services L.L.C., CVS Albany L.L.C., CVS Bellmore Avenue L.L.C., CVS Cabot Holdings Inc., CVS Cabot Holdings Inc.  Coram Clinical Trials Inc. 99.72%/Aetna Inc. .28%, CVS Care Concierge LLC, CVS Caremark Advanced Technology Pharmacy L.L.C., CVS Caremark Indemnity Ltd., CVS Caremark Part D Services L.L.C., CVS Caremark TN SUTA LLC, CVS Foreign Inc., CVS Gilbert 3272 L.L.C., CVS Health Applications LLC, CVS Health Solutions LLC, CVS Health Ventures Fund GP LLC, CVS Health Ventures Fund LP, CVS Health Ventures Management LLC, CVS Indiana L.L.C., CVS International L.L.C., CVS Kidney Care Advanced Technologies LLC, CVS Kidney Care Health Services LLC, CVS Kidney Care Home Dialysis LLC, CVS Kidney Care LLC, CVS Management Support LLC, CVS Manchester NH L.L.C., CVS Media Exchange LLC, CVS Michigan L.L.C., CVS Orlando FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS PA Distribution L.L.C., CVS PR Center Inc., CVS Pharmacy Inc., CVS Pharmacy Overseas Online LLC, CVS RS Arizona L.L.C., CVS Rx Services Inc., CVS SC Distribution L.L.C., CVS Shaw Holdings Inc., CVS Shaw Holdings Inc.  Coram Clinical Trials Inc. 99.72%/Aetna Inc. .28%, CVS State Capital L.L.C., CVS TN Distribution L.L.C., CVS Transportation L.L.C., CVS Vero FL Distribution L.L.C., CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Austin LLC, CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Los Angeles LLC, CVS-SHC Kidney Care Home Dialysis of Philadelphia LLC, CVS-SHC Renal Holdings LLC, Campos Medical Pharmacy LLC, Canal Place LLC, Care Pharmaceutical Services LP, CareCenter Pharmacy L.L.C., Carefree Insurance Services Inc., Caremark Arizona Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Arizona Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark California Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Florida Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Florida Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Hawaii Mail Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Hawaii Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark IPA L.L.C., Caremark Illinois Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Illinois Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Irving Resource Center LLC, Caremark Kansas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark L.L.C., Caremark Logistics LLC, Caremark Louisiana Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Maryland Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Massachusetts Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Michigan Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Minnesota Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark New Jersey Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark North Carolina Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ohio Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Pennsylvania Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark PhC L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico L.L.C., Caremark Puerto Rico Specialty Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Redlands Pharmacy L.L.C., Caremark Repack LLC, Caremark Rx L.L.C., Caremark Tennessee Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Mail Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Texas Specialty Pharmacy LLC, Caremark Ulysses Holding Corp., Caremark Washington Specialty Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Alabama Mail Pharmacy LLC, CaremarkPCS Health L.L.C., CaremarkPCS L.L.C., Central Rx Services LLC, Cofinity Inc., Compscript LLC, Connecticut CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Continental Life Insurance Company of Brentwood Tennessee, Continuing Care Rx LLC, Coram Alternate Site Services Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc., Coram Clinical Trials Inc.  CVS Pharmacy Inc. 75%/Aetna Life Insurance Company 25%, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Alabama, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater D.C., Coram Healthcare Corporation of Greater New York, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Indiana, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Massachusetts, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Mississippi, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Nevada, Coram Healthcare Corporation of North Texas, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Northern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern California, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Southern Florida, Coram Healthcare Corporation of Utah, Coram LLC, Coram Rx LLC, Coram Specialty Infusion, Coram Specialty Infusion Services L.L.C., Coventry Consumer Advantage Inc., Coventry Health Care National Accounts Inc., Coventry Health Care National Network Inc., Coventry Health Care of Illinois Inc., Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc., Coventry Health Care of Missouri Inc., Coventry Health Care of Nebraska Inc., Coventry Health Care of Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Care of West Virginia Inc., Coventry Health Plan of Florida Inc., Coventry Health and Life Insurance Company, Coventry HealthCare Management Corporation, Coventry Prescription Management Services Inc., Coventry Transplant Network Inc., Credentials Inc., D & R Pharmaceutical Services LLC, D.A.W. LLC, Delaware CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Delaware Physicians Care Incorporated, District of Columbia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., E.T.B. INC., Echo Merger Sub Inc., Eckerd Corporation of Florida Inc., Employee Assistance Services LLC, Enloe Drugs LLC, Enterprise Patient Safety Organization LLC, EntrustRX, Evergreen Pharmaceutical LLC, Evergreen Pharmaceutical of California LLC, Express Pharmacy Services of PA L.L.C., First Choice of the Midwest LLC, First Health Group Corp., First Health Life & Health Insurance Company, Florida Health Plan Administrators LLC, Garfield Beach CVS L.L.C., Generation Health L.L.C., Geneva Woods Health Services LLC, Geneva Woods LTC Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Management LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Alaska LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Washington LLC, Geneva Woods Pharmacy Wyoming LLC, Geneva Woods Retail Pharmacy LLC, Georgia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., German Dobson CVS L.L.C., Goodhealth Worldwide (Asia) Limited, Goodhealth Worldwide (Global) Limited, Goodyear CVS L.L.C., Grand St. Paul CVS L.L.C., Grandview Pharmacy LLC, Group Dental Service Inc., Health Care Management Co. Ltd., Health Data & Management Solutions Inc., Health Re Inc., Health and Human Resource Center Inc., HealthAssurance Pennsylvania Inc., Highland Park CVS L.L.C., Holiday CVS L.L.C., Home Care Pharmacy LLC, Home Pharmacy Services LLC, Hook-SupeRx L.L.C., Horizon Behavioral Services LLC, Idaho CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., IlliniCare Health, Indian Health Organisation Private Limited, Innovation Health Holdings LLC, Innovation Health Insurance Company, Innovation Health Plan Inc., Interlock Pharmacy Systems LLC, Iowa CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., JHC Acquisition LLC, Kansas CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Kentucky CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., LCPS Acquisition LLC, Langsam Health Services LLC, Lo-Med Prescription Services LLC, Lobos Acquisition LLC, Longs Drug Stores, Longs Drug Stores California L.L.C., Louisiana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., MHHP Acquisition Company LLC, MHNet Specialty Services LLC, MHNet of Florida Inc., Main Street Pharmacy L.L.C., Managed Care Coordinators Inc., Managed Healthcare LLC, Martin Health Services LLC, Maryland CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Med World Acquisition Corp., Medical Arts Health Care LLC, Medical Examinations of New York P.C., Melville Realty Company Inc., MemberHealth LLC, Mental Health Associates Inc., Mental Health Network of New York IPA Inc., Meritain Health Inc., Merwin Long Term Care LLC, Minor Health Enterprise Co Ltd., MinuteClinic, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Alabama L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arizona LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Arkansas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Colorado LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Florida LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Georgia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Hawaii L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Illinois LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Kentucky L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Louisiana L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maine L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Maryland LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Massachusetts LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Nebraska L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Hampshire L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of New Mexico L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Ohio LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oklahoma LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Oregon LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Pennsylvania LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Rhode Island LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of South Carolina L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Texas LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Utah L.L.C., MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Virginia LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Washington LLC, MinuteClinic Diagnostic of Wisconsin L.L.C., MinuteClinic L.L.C., MinuteClinic Online Diagnostic Services LLC, MinuteClinic Physician Practice of Texas, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services LLC, MinuteClinic Telehealth Services of Texas Association, Mississippi CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Missouri CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Montana CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NCS Healthcare of Illinois LLC, NCS Healthcare of Iowa LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kansas LLC, NCS Healthcare of Kentucky LLC, NCS Healthcare of Montana LLC, NCS Healthcare of New Mexico LLC, NCS Healthcare of Ohio LLC, NCS Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, NCS Healthcare of Tennessee LLC, NCS Healthcare of Wisconsin LLC, NIV Acquisition LLC, Navarro Discount Pharmacy, Nebraska CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., NeighborCare Pharmacy Services LLC, NeighborCare of Indiana LLC, NeighborCare of Virginia LLC, New Jersey CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Niagara Re Inc., North Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., North Shore Pharmacy Services LLC, NovoLogix LLC, OCR Services LLC, Ocean Acquisition Sub L.L.C., Ohio CVS Stores L.L.C., Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Omnicare, Omnicare Indiana Partnership Holding Company LLC, Omnicare LLC, Omnicare LLC  Aetna Inc 0.28%/CVS Cabot Holdings Inc. 49.86%/CVS Shaw Holdings Inc. 49.86%, Omnicare Pharmacies of Pennsylvania West LLC, Omnicare Pharmacies of the Great Plains Holding LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy and Supply Services LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of Tennessee LLC, Omnicare Pharmacy of the Midwest LLC, Omnicare Property Management LLC, Omnicare of Nebraska LLC, Omnicare of Nevada LLC, Omnicare of New York LLC, Oregon CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., PE Holdings LLC, PHPSNE Parent Corporation, PP Acquisition Company LLC, PRN Pharmaceutical Services LP, PT Aetna Management Consulting, Pamplona Saude e Beleza LTDA, Part D Holding Company L.L.C., PayFlex Systems USA Inc., Pennsylvania CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Performax Inc., Pharmacy Associates of Glenn Falls LLC, Pharmacy Consultants LLC, Phoenix Data Solutions LLC, Precision Benefit Services Inc., Prime Net Inc., ProCare Pharmacy Direct L.L.C., ProCare Pharmacy L.L.C., Prodigy Health Group Inc., Professional Risk Management Inc., Puerto Rico CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Red Oak Sourcing LLC, Resources for Living LLC, Rhode Island CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Roeschens Healthcare LLC, RxAmerica, Schaller Anderson Medical Administrators Incorporated, Scrip World LLC, Sheffield Avenue CVS L.L.C., Shore Pharmaceutical Providers LLC, Silverscript Insurance Company, Soma Intimates, South Carolina CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., South Wabash CVS L.L.C., Specialized Pharmacy Services LLC, Stadtlander Drug Company, Stadtlander Pharmacy, Sterling Healthcare Services LLC, Superior Care Pharmacy LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Administrative Services LLC, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Company, Sutter Health and Aetna Insurance Holding Company LLC, T2 Medical Inc., TCPI Acquisition LLC, TargetPharmacy, Tennessee CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Company, Texas Health + Aetna Health Insurance Holding Company LLC, Texas Health + Aetna Health Plan Inc., The Vasquez Group Inc., Thomas Phoenix CVS L.L.C., Three Forks Apothecary LLC, U.S Healthcare Holdings LLC, U.S. Healthcare Properties Inc., UAC Holding Inc., UC Acquisition LLC, UNI-Care Health Services of Maine LLC, Universal American - Medicare Part D Business, Utah CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., VAPS Acquisition Company LLC, Value Health Care Services LLC, Vermont CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Virtual Home Healthcare LLC, Warm Springs Road CVS L.L.C., Washington CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Washington Lamb CVS L.L.C., Weber Medical Systems LLC, Wellpartner LLC, West Virginia CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Westhaven Services Co LLC, Williamson Drug Company LLC, Wisconsin CVS Pharmacy L.L.C., Woodward Detroit CVS L.L.C., Work and Family Benefits Inc., ZS Acquisition Company LLC, Zinc Health Services LLC, Zinc Health Ventures LLC, bSwift LLC, and iTriage LLC.

Read More
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
The following companies are subsidiares of General Motors: 2140879 Ontario Inc., ACAR Leasing Ltd., ACF Investment Corp., AFS SenSub Corp., APGO Trust, Adam Opel GmbH, AmeriCredit, AmeriCredit Financial Services Inc., Annunciata Corporation, Argonaut Holdings LLC, Astyx Inc., BOCO (Proprietary) Limited, Banco GM S.A., Boco Trust, BrightDrop LLC, BrightDrop Solutions LLC, BrightDrop Vehicle Distribution LLC, CHEVYPLAN S.A. Sociedad Administradora de Planes de Autofinanciamiento Comercial, Cadillac, Cadillac Europe GmbH, Carve-Out Ownership Cooperative LLC, Chevrolet Deutschland GmbH, Chevrolet Otomotiv Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Chevrolet Sales (Thailand) Limited, Chevrolet Sales India Private Ltd., Chevrolet Sociedad Anonima de Ahorro para Fines Determinados, Controladora General Motors S. de R.L. de C.V., Cruise, Cruise LLC, Cruise Munich GmbH, DCJ1 LLC, DMAX Ltd., Dealership Liquidations Inc., Delphi Energy and Engine Management Systems UK Overseas Corporation, EDS (Electronic Data Systems), GCAR Titling Ltd., GM (UK) Pension Trustees Limited, GM Administradora de Bens Ltda., GM Asia Pacific Regional Headquarters Ltd., GM Components Holdings LLC, GM Corretora de Seguros Ltda., GM Cruise Holdings LLC, GM Defense LLC, GM Eurometals Inc., GM Finance Co. Holdings LLC, GM Financial, GM Financial Bank, GM Financial Canada Leasing Ltd., GM Financial Colombia Holdings LLC, GM Financial Colombia S.A. Compania de Financiamiento, GM Financial Consumer Discount Company, GM Financial Holdings LLC, GM Financial Insurance Company, GM Financial Mexico Holdings LLC, GM Financial de Mexico S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.R., GM Financial del Peru S.A.C, GM Global Technology Operations LLC, GM Global Tooling Company LLC, GM Global Treasury Centre Limited, GM Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, GM Holdings U.K. No.1 Limited, GM Inversiones Santiago Limitada, GM Investment Trustees Limited, GM Korea Company, GM LAAM Holdings LLC, GM Mobility Europe GmbH, GM Personnel Services Inc., GM Philippines Inc., GM Protections LLC, GM Regional Holdings LLC, GM Retirees Pension Trustees Limited, GM Speciality Vehicles UK Limited, GM Subsystems Manufacturing LLC, GM Technical Center Korea Ltd., GM-DI Leasing LLC, GMAC Administradora de Consorcios Ltda., GMAC Prestadora de Servicios de Mao de Obra Ltda., GMCH&SP Private Equity II L.P., GMF Funding Corp., GMF Global Assignment LLC, GMF International LLC, GMF Leasing LLC, GMF Wholesale Receivables LLC, General Motors (China) Investment Company Limited, General Motors - Colmotores S.A., General Motors Advisory Services LLC, General Motors Africa and Middle East FZE, General Motors Asia LLC, General Motors Asia Pacific Holdings LLC, General Motors Asset Management Corporation, General Motors Australia Pty Ltd., General Motors Australia and New Zealand Pty Ltd., General Motors Auto LLC, General Motors Automobiles Philippines Inc., General Motors Automotive Holdings S.L., General Motors Belgique Automobile NV, General Motors Chile Industria Automotriz Limitada, General Motors China LLC, General Motors Daewoo Auto and Technology CIS LLC, General Motors Egypt S.A.E., General Motors Europe Limited, General Motors Financial Chile Limitada, General Motors Financial Chile S.A., General Motors Financial Company Inc., General Motors Financial of Canada Ltd., General Motors Global Service Operations Inc., General Motors Holden Australia NSC Pty Ltd., General Motors Holdings LLC, General Motors IT Services (Ireland) Limited, General Motors India Private Limited, General Motors International Holdings LLC, General Motors International Operations Pte. Ltd., General Motors International Services Company SAS, General Motors International Services LLC, General Motors Investment Limited, General Motors Investment Management Corporation, General Motors Investment Participacoes Ltda., General Motors Investments Pty. Ltd., General Motors Israel Ltd., General Motors Japan Limited, General Motors LLC, General Motors Limited, General Motors New Zealand Limited, General Motors New Zealand Pensions Limited, General Motors Overseas Commercial Vehicle Corporation, General Motors Overseas Corporation, General Motors Overseas Distribution LLC, General Motors Peru S.A., General Motors Research Corporation, General Motors South Africa (Pty) Limited, General Motors Taiwan Ltd., General Motors Technical Centre India Private Limited, General Motors Treasury Center LLC, General Motors Uruguay S.A., General Motors Ventures LLC, General Motors Warehousing and Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., General Motors de Argentina S.r.l., General Motors de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., General Motors del Ecuador S.A., General Motors do Brasil Ltda., General Motors of Canada Company, General Motors-Holden's Sales Pty. Limited, Global Services Detroit LLC, Grand Pointe Holdings Inc., Grand Pointe Park Condominium Association, IBC Pension Trustees Limited, Lease Ownership Cooperative LLC, Lidlington Engineering Company Ltd., Limited Liability Company "General Motors CIS", Maven Drive LLC, Millbrook Pension Management Limited, Monetization of Carve-Out LLC, Motors Holding LLC, Multi-Use Lease Entity Trust, North American New Cars LLC, Omnibus BB Transportes S. A., OnStar Connected Services Srl, OnStar Egypt Limited, OnStar Europe Ltd., OnStar Global Services Corporation, OnStar LLC, OnStar de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., P.T. G M AutoWorld Indonesia, P.T. General Motors Indonesia, PIMS Co., PT. General Motors Indonesia Manufacturing, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center Company Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios GMF Colombia S.A.S., Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, Reliance Motor Car Company, Riverfront Holdings III Inc., Riverfront Holdings Inc., Riverfront Holdings Phase II Inc., SAIC GM (Shenyang) Norsom Motors Co. Ltd., SAIC GM Dong Yue Motors Company Limited, SAIC GM Dong Yue Powertrain Company Limited, SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Company Limited, SAIC General Motors Corporation Limited, SAIC General Motors Sales Company Limited, SAIC-GMAC Automotive Finance Company Limited, SAIC-GMF Leasing Co. Ltd., Servicios GMAC S.A. de C.V., Shanghai OnStar Telematics Co. Ltd., Sidecar Technologies, Ultium Cells LLC, Vehicle Asset Universal Leasing Trust, WRE Inc., and Zona Franca Industrial Colmotores SAS.

Read More
BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. It also provides global risk management and advisory services. The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios. It also launches and manages open-end and closed-end mutual funds, offshore funds, unit trusts, and alternative investment vehicles including structured funds. The firm launches equity, fixed income, balanced, and real estate mutual funds. It also launches equity, fixed income, balanced, currency, commodity, and multi-asset exchange traded funds. The firm also launches and manages hedge funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, currency, commodity, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm primarily invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, SMID-cap, large-cap, and multi-cap companies. It also invests in dividend-paying equity securities. The firm invests in investment grade municipal securities, government securities including securities issued or guaranteed by a government or a government agency or instrumentality, corporate bonds, and asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities. It employs fundamental and quantitative analysis with a focus on bottom-up and top-down approach to make its investments. The firm employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments. In real estate sector, it seeks to invest in Poland and Germany. The firm benchmarks the performance of its portfolios against various S&P, Russell, Barclays, MSCI, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch indices. BlackRock, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is based in New York City with additional offices in Boston, Massachusetts; London, United Kingdom; Gurgaon, India; Hong Kong; Greenwich, Connecticut; Princeton, New Jersey; Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Sydney, Australia; Taipei, Taiwan; Singapore; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Washington, District of Columbia; Toronto, Canada; Wilmington, Delaware; and San Francisco, California.
The following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..

Read More
Morgan Stanley is the 6th largest financial institution in the US. The company is ranked 61st on the Forbes Fortune 500 list and is the 39th largest bank in the world. A financial holding company, Morgan Stanley provides a full range of financial services to clients around the world.

Morgan Stanley was formed in 1935 as a result of the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking in a way that forced the then-largest bank J.P. Morgan & Co to split into two groups. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to retain the commercial side of the business while partners Henry S. Morga, grandson of J.P., and Harold Stanley took the investment end. In its first year, Morgan Stanley did 24% of the IPO business and maintains a lions share of the market to this day.

The original company existed and grew through acquisitions until 1987 when it merged with Dean Witter Discover & Co. The new Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co existed for 14 years until 2001 when the name was shortened back to Morgan Stanley.

The bank is credited in part with both beginning and ending the financial crisis of 2007/2008. The Process Driven Trading unit lost $300 million in one day due to a short-squeeze that popped the bubble in the housing market. After teetering on the brink of failure Morgan Stanley agreed to become a bank holding company regulated by the Federal Reserve, a key factor in the original decision to split from parent J.P. Morgan & Co. Ironically when given the chance, present-day J.P. Morgan refused to buy Morgan Stanley but that was for the better.

Today, Morgan Stanley operates through three segments via offices in 41 countries and employs more than 75,000 people. Revenue in 2021 topped $49 billion and total assets topped $1.15 trillion.

The operating segments are Institutional Securities, Wealth Management, and Investment Management segments. The Institutional Securities segment is by far the largest and most profitable. It offers a range of services and products for businesses, institutions, and entities that include capital raising, strategic advisory, underwriting, advice on M&A, restructuring, and real estate. The Wealth Management segment provides brokerage and investment advisory services for individuals and employers. The services include brokerage, financial planning, company stock-plan administration, insurance, mortgage loans, lines of credit, and retirement planning. The Investment Management segment provides investment products to a range of institutions, organizations, corporations, and governments.
The Mosaic Company, through its subsidiaries, produces and markets concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients in North America and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Phosphates, Potash, and Mosaic Fertilizantes. It owns and operates mines, which produce concentrated phosphate crop nutrients, such as diammonium phosphate, monoammonium phosphate, and ammoniated phosphate products; and phosphate-based animal feed ingredients primarily under the Biofos and Nexfos brand names, as well as produces a double sulfate of potash magnesia product under K-Mag brand name. The company also produces and sells potash for use in the manufacturing of mixed crop nutrients and animal feed ingredients, and for industrial use; and for use in the de-icing and as a water softener regenerant. In addition, it provides nitrogen-based crop nutrients, animal feed ingredients, and other ancillary services; and purchases and sells phosphates, potash, and nitrogen products. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, retail chains, farmers, cooperatives, independent retailers, and national accounts. The Mosaic Company was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Tampa, Florida.
Nucor Corporation manufactures and sells steel and steel products. The company's Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling products; and bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and special bar quality products. It also engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Its Steel Products segment offers hollow structural section steel tubing products, electrical conduits, steel racking, steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel products, cold finished steel products, steel fasteners, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel grating and expanded metal products, and wire and wire mesh products primarily for use in nonresidential construction applications. This segment also engages in the piling distribution business. The company's Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal, as well as engages in the natural gas drilling operations. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It serves agriculture, automotive, construction, energy and transmission, oil and gas, heavy equipment, infrastructure, and transportation industries through its in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was incorporated in 1958 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Everest Re Group, Ltd., through its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance and insurance products in the United States, Bermuda, and internationally. The company operates through Reinsurance Operations and Insurance Operations segments. The Reinsurance Operations segment writes property and casualty reinsurance; and specialty lines of business through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies in the United States, Bermuda, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The Insurance Operations segment writes property and casualty insurance directly, as well as through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents in Bermuda, Canada, Europe, South America, Canada, Chile, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The company also provides treaty and facultative reinsurance products; admitted and non-admitted insurance products; and property and casualty reinsurance and insurance coverages, including marine, aviation, surety, errors and omissions liability, directors' and officers' liability, medical malpractice, mortgage reinsurance, other specialty lines, accident and health, and workers' compensation products. In addition, it offers commercial property and casualty insurance products through wholesale and retail brokers, surplus lines brokers, and program administrators. Everest Re Group, Ltd. was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
The following companies are subsidiares of Abbott Laboratories: 3A Nutrition (Vietnam) Company Limited, ABON Biopharm (Hangzhou) Co. Ltd., AGA Medical Belgium, AGA Medical Corporation, AGA Medical Holdings Inc., ALR Holdings, AML Medical LLC, APK Advanced Medical Technologies LLC, ATS Bermuda Holdings Limited, ATS Laboratories Inc., Abbott, Abbott (Jiaxing) Nutrition Co. Ltd., Abbott (UK) Finance Limited, Abbott (UK) Holdings Limited, Abbott AG, Abbott Asia Holdings Limited, Abbott Asia Investments Limited, Abbott Australasia Holdings Limited, Abbott Australasia Pty Ltd, Abbott B.V., Abbott Bahamas Overseas Businesses Corporation, Abbott Belgian Investments, Abbott Bermuda Holding Ltd., Abbott Biologicals B.V., Abbott Biologicals LLC, Abbott Bulgaria Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Capital India Limited, Abbott Cardiovascular Inc., Abbott Cardiovascular Systems Inc., Abbott Delaware LLC, Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott Diabetes Care Limited, Abbott Diabetes Care Sales Corporation, Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott Diagnostics International Ltd., Abbott Diagnostics Technologies AS, Abbott Doral Investments S.L., Abbott Equity Holdings Unlimited, Abbott Equity Investments LLC, Abbott Established Products Holdings (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Finance Company SA, Abbott Financial Holdings SRL, Abbott France S.A.S., Abbott Fund Tanzania Limited, Abbott Gesellschaft m.b.H., Abbott GmbH & Co. KG, Abbott Health Products LLC, Abbott Healthcare (Puerto Rico) Ltd., Abbott Healthcare B.V., Abbott Healthcare Costa Rica S.A., Abbott Healthcare LLC, Abbott Healthcare Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Healthcare Private Limited, Abbott Healthcare Products B.V., Abbott Healthcare Products Ltd, Abbott Holding (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding GmbH, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited, Abbott Holding Subsidiary (Gibraltar) Limited Luxembourg S.C.S., Abbott Holdings B.V., Abbott Holdings LLC, Abbott Holdings Limited, Abbott Holdings Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Hungary Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Iberian Investments (2) Limited, Abbott Iberian Investments Limited, Abbott India Limited, Abbott Informatics Asia Pacific Limited, Abbott Informatics Canada Inc, Abbott Informatics Corporation, Abbott Informatics Europe Limited, Abbott Informatics France, Abbott Informatics Germany GmbH, Abbott Informatics Netherlands B.V., Abbott Informatics Singapore Pte. Limited, Abbott Informatics Spain S.A., Abbott Informatics Technologies Ltd, Abbott International Corporation, Abbott International Enterprises Ltd., Abbott International Holdings Limited, Abbott International LLC, Abbott International Luxembourg S.ar.l., Abbott Investments Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Ireland, Abbott Ireland Financing Designated Activity Company, Abbott Ireland Limited, Abbott Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Abbott Knoll Investments B.V., Abbott Korea Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Bangladesh) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco (Dos) SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Chile) Holdco SpA, Abbott Laboratories (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Laboratories (Mozambique) Limitada, Abbott Laboratories (Pakistan) Limited, Abbott Laboratories (Philippines), Abbott Laboratories (Puerto Rico) Incorporated, Abbott Laboratories (Singapore) Private Limited, Abbott Laboratories A/S, Abbott Laboratories Argentina Sociedad Anonima, Abbott Laboratories B.V., Abbott Laboratories C.A., Abbott Laboratories Finance B.V., Abbott Laboratories GmbH, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Abbott Laboratories International LLC, Abbott Laboratories Ireland Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited, Abbott Laboratories Limited - Laboratoires Abbott Limitee, Abbott Laboratories NZ Limited, Abbott Laboratories Pacific Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Poland Spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Laboratories Products B.V., Abbott Laboratories Residential Development Fund Inc., Abbott Laboratories S.A., Abbott Laboratories SA, Abbott Laboratories Services Corp., Abbott Laboratories Slovakia s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Laboratories Trustee Company Limited, Abbott Laboratories Uruguay S.A., Abbott Laboratories Vascular Enterprises, Abbott Laboratories d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories de Chile Limitada, Abbott Laboratories de Colombia S.A., Abbott Laboratories de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Abbott Laboratories druzba za farmacijo in diagnostiko d.o.o., Abbott Laboratories s.r.o., Abbott Laboratories(Hellas) Societe Anonyme, Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios S.A., Abbott Laboratorios del Ecuador Cia. Ltda., Abbott Laboratuarlari Ithalat Ihracat ve Ticaret Ltd.Sti, Abbott Laboratorios Lda, Abbott Laboratorios do Brasil Ltda., Abbott Limited Egypt LLC, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Management GmbH, Abbott Management LLC, Abbott Manufacturing Singapore Private Limited, Abbott Mature Products International Unlimited Company, Abbott Mature Products Management Limited, Abbott Medical (Hong Kong) Limited, Abbott Medical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Abbott Medical (Portugal) Distribuicao de Produtos Medicos Lda, Abbott Medical (Schweiz) AG, Abbott Medical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Abbott Medical (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Australia Pty. Ltd., Abbott Medical Austria Ges.m.b.H., Abbott Medical Balkan d.o.o. Beograd (Novi Beograd), Abbott Medical Belgium, Abbott Medical Canada Inc./ Medicale Abbott Canada Inc., Abbott Medical Danmark A/S, Abbott Medical Devices Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Espana S.A., Abbott Medical Estonia OU, Abbott Medical Finland Oy, Abbott Medical France SAS, Abbott Medical GmbH, Abbott Medical Hellas Limited Liability Trading Company, Abbott Medical Ireland Limited, Abbott Medical Italia S.p.A., Abbott Medical Japan Co. Ltd., Abbott Medical Korea Limited, Abbott Medical Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Abbott Medical Laboratories LTD, Abbott Medical Nederland B.V., Abbott Medical New Zealand Limited, Abbott Medical Norway AS, Abbott Medical Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Medical Sweden AB, Abbott Medical Taiwan Co., Abbott Medical U.K. Limited, Abbott Medical spoka z ograniczona odpowiedzialnoscia, Abbott Middle East S.A.R.L., Abbott Molecular Inc., Abbott Morocco SARL, Abbott Nederland C.V., Abbott Nederland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Netherlands Investments B.V., Abbott Norge AS, Abbott Nutrition Limited, Abbott Nutrition Manufacturing Inc., Abbott Operations Singapore Pte. Ltd., Abbott Operations Uruguay S.R.L., Abbott Overseas Cyprus Limited, Abbott Overseas Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Overseas S.A., Abbott Oy, Abbott Point of Care Canada Limited, Abbott Point of Care Inc., Abbott Poland Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Procurement LLC, Abbott Products (Philippines) Inc., Abbott Products (Spain) S.L., Abbott Products Algerie EURL, Abbott Products B.V., Abbott Products Distribution SAS, Abbott Products Egypt LLC, Abbott Products Limited, Abbott Products Limited Liability Company, Abbott Products Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Products Operations AG, Abbott Products Operations LLC, Abbott Products Romania S.R.L., Abbott Products Tunisie S.A.R.L., Abbott Products Unlimited Company, Abbott Resources Inc., Abbott Resources International Inc., Abbott S.r.l., Abbott Saudi Arabia Trading Company, Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, Abbott South Africa Luxembourg S.a r.l., Abbott Strategic Opportunities Limited, Abbott Trading Company Inc., Abbott Universal LLC, Abbott Vascular Devices (2) Limited, Abbott Vascular Devices Limited, Abbott Vascular Inc., Abbott Vascular Instruments Deutschland GmbH, Abbott Vascular International, Abbott Vascular Japan Co. Ltd, Abbott Vascular Limitada, Abbott Vascular Netherlands B.V., Abbott Vascular Solutions Inc., Abbott Ventures Inc., Abbott West Indies Limited, Abbott drustvo sa ogranicenom odgovornoscu za trgovinu i usluge, Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., Alere, Alere (Shanghai) Diagnostics Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Healthcare Management Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Medical Sales Co. Ltd., Alere (Shanghai) Technology Co. Ltd., Alere A/S, Alere AB, Alere AS, Alere AS Holdings Limited, Alere BBI Holdings Limited, Alere Bangladesh Limited, Alere China Co. Ltd., Alere Colombia S.A., Alere Connect LLC, Alere Connected Health Limited, Alere Connected Health Ltd., Alere Diagnostics GmbH, Alere DoA Holding GmbH, Alere GmbH, Alere GmbH (Austria), Alere GmbH (Germany), Alere HK Holdings Ltd., Alere Health B.V., Alere Health BVBA, Alere Health Corp., Alere Health Sdn Bhd, Alere Health Services B.V., Alere Healthcare (Pty) Limited, Alere Healthcare Connections Limited, Alere Healthcare Inc., Alere Healthcare Nigeria Limited, Alere Healthcare S.L., Alere Holdco Inc., Alere Holding GmbH, Alere Holdings Bermuda Limited, Alere Holdings Pty Limited, Alere Home Monitoring Inc., Alere Inc., Alere Informatics Inc., Alere International Holding Corp., Alere International Limited, Alere Lda, Alere Limited, Alere Limited (New Zealand), Alere Medical BVBA, Alere Medical Co. Ltd., Alere Medical Pakistan (Private) Limited, Alere Medical Private Limited, Alere North America LLC, Alere Oy Ab, Alere Philippines Inc., Alere Phoenix ACQ Inc., Alere Pte Ltd, Alere S.A., Alere S.r.l., Alere S/A, Alere SAS, Alere San Diego Inc., Alere Scarborough Inc., Alere Spain S.L., Alere Switzerland GmbH, Alere Technologies GmbH, Alere Technologies Holdings Limited, Alere Technologies Limited, Alere Toxicology AB, Alere Toxicology Inc., Alere Toxicology S.r.l., Alere Toxicology Services Inc., Alere Toxicology plc, Alere UK Holdings Limited, Alere UK Subco Limited, Alere ULC, Alere US Holdings LLC, Alere s.r.o., Alisoc Investment & Co, Amedica Biotech Inc., Ameditech Inc., American Generics S.A.S., American Medical Supplies Inc., American Pharmacist Inc., Antares S.A., Apica Cardiovascular Limited, Aquagestion Capacitacion S.A., Aquagestion S.A., Arriva Medical LLC, Arriva Medical Philippines Inc., Arvis Investments Limited, Atlas Farmaceutica S.A., Avee Laboratories Inc., Axis-Shield AD III AS, Axis-Shield AD IV AS, Axis-Shield AS, Axis-Shield Diagnostics Limited, Axis-Shield Ltd., BBI Animal Health Limited, BBI Diagnostics Group 2 Public Limited Company, Banco de Vida S.A., Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions Inc., Bioalgae S.A., Biohealth LLC, Biosite Incorporated, Bosque Bonito S.A., Branan Medical Corporation, Brandex Europe C.V., British Colloids Limited, CFR Chile S.A., CFR Interamericas EL Salvador Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, CFR Interamericas Nicaragua Sociedad Anonima, CFR Interamericas Panama S.A., CFR Pharmaceuticals, California Property Holdings III LLC, CardioMEMS LLC, Caripharm Inc., Cephea Valve Technologies, Cephea Valve Technologies Inc., Colibri Medical Aktiebolag, Comercializadora y Distribuidora CFR Interamericas Honduras S.A., Concateno South Limited, Concateno UK Limited, Consorcio Tecnologico en Biomedicina Clinico-Molecular S.A., Continuum Services LLC, Cozart Limited, Dextech S.A., Diagnostik Nord GmbH, Distribuciones Uquifa S.A.S., Domesco Medical Import-Export Joint-Stock Corporation, Duphar International Research B.V., Endocardial Solutions, Epocal (US) Inc, Esprit de Vie S.A., European Chemicals & Co, European Drug Testing Service EDTS AB, European Services S.A., Evalve Inc., Evalve International Inc., FARMINDUSTRIA S.A., Fada Pharma Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Fadapharma del Ecuador S.A., Farmaceutica Mont Blanc S.L., Farmacologia Em Aquicultura Veterinaria Ltda., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV Ecuador S.A., Farmacologia en Aquacultura Veterinaria FAV S.A., Fernwood Investment S.A., First Check Diagnostics LLC, Focus Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Forensics Limited, Forestcreek Overseas S.A., Fournier Pharma Corp., Fournier Pharma GmbH, Fournier Pharmaceuticals Limited, Framed B.V., Gabmed GmbH, Garden Hills LLC, Global Analytical Development LLC, Globapharm & CO LP, Glomed Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Golnorth Investments S.A., Gynocare Limited, Gynopharm Sociedad Anonima, Gynopharm de Centroamerica S.A., Gynopharm de Venezuela C.A., Hi-Tronics Designs Inc., IDEV Technologies Inc., IG Innovations Limited, IMTC Finance B.V., IMTC Holdings B.V., IMTC Technologies Inc., Ibis Biosciences LLC, Igloo Zone Chile S.A., Igloo Zone S.L., Inmobiliaria Naknek S.A.C., Innovacon Inc., Instant Tech Subsidiary Acquisition Inc., Instant Technologies Inc., Instituto de Criopreservacion de Chile S.A., Integrated Vascular Systems Inc., Inverness Canadian Acquisition Corporation, Inverness Medical (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Australia Pty Ltd., Inverness Medical Innovations Hong Kong Limited, Inverness Medical Innovations SK LLC, Inverness Medical Investments LLC, Inverness Medical LLC, Inverness Medical Shimla Private Limited, Inversiones K2 SpA, Inversiones Komodo S.R.L., Ionian Technologies LLC, Irvine Biomedical Inc., Kalila Medical, Kangshenyunga S.A., Knoll UK Investments Unlimited, LLC VeroInPharm, Laboratoires Fournier S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano Lafrancol S.A.S., Laboratorio Franco Colombiano del Ecuador S.A., Laboratorio Internacional Argentino S.A., Laboratorio Synthesis S.A.S., Laboratorios Lafi Limitada, Laboratorios Naturmedik S.A.S., Laboratorios Pauly Pharmaceutical S.A.S., Laboratorios Recalcine S.A., Laboratorios Transpharm S.A., Laboratory Specialists of America Inc., Lafrancol Dominicana S.A.S., Lafrancol Guatemala S.A. Sociedad Anonima, Lafrancol Internacional S.A.S, Lafrancol Peru S.R.L, Lake Forest Investments LLC, Lightlab Imaging Inc., Limited Liability Company Abbott Laboratories, Limited Liability Company Abbott Ukraine, Limited Liability Company VEROPHARM, Lung Fung Hong (China) Limited, Mansbridge Pharmaceuticals Limited, MediGuide LLC, MediGuide Ltd., Medscreen Holdings Limited, Metropolitana Farmaceutica S.A., Midwest Properties LLC, Murex Argentina S.A., Murex Biotech Limited, Murex Biotech South Africa, Murex Diagnostics Inc., Murex Diagnostics International Inc., Natural Supplement Association LLC, Negocios Denia Sociedad Anonima, Neosalud S.A.C., Nether Pharma N.P. C.V., NeuroTherm LLC, Normann Pharma-Handels GmbH, North Shore Properties Inc., Novamedi S.A., Novasalud.com S.A., Nutravida S.A., OJSC Voronezhkhimpharm, Omnilab Iberia Sociedad Limitada, OptiMedica, Orgenics France SAS, Orgenics International Holdings B.V., Orgenics Ltd., PBM-Selfcare LLC, PDD II LLC, PDD LLC, PT Alere Health, PT. Abbott Indonesia, PT. Abbott Products Indonesia, Pacesetter Inc., Pantech (RF) (PTY) LTD, Pembrooke Occupational Health Inc., Penagos S.A., Pharma International Sociedad Anonima, Pharmaceutical Technologies (Pharmatech) S.A., Pharmatech Boliviana S.A., Polygon Labs S.A., Quality Assured Services Inc., RF Medical Holdings LLC, RTL Holdings Inc., Ramses Business Corp., Recben Xenerics Farmaceutica Limitada, Redwood Toxicology Laboratory Inc., Rich Horizons International Limited, SC VEROPHARM, SJ Medical Mexico S de R.L. de C.V., SJM International Inc., SJM Thunder Holding Company, SPDH Inc., Saboya Enterprises Corporation, Salviac Limited, Scanax AS, Sealing Solutions Inc., Selfcare Technology Inc., Shandong Abbott Dairy Product Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Medical Devices Science and Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Abbott Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Shanghai Si Fa Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Sinensix & Co., Spinal Modulation LLC, St. Jude Medical, St. Jude Medical AB, St. Jude Medical ATG Inc., St. Jude Medical Argentina S.A., St. Jude Medical Asia Pacific Holdings GK, St. Jude Medical Atrial Fibrillation Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Brasil Ltda., St. Jude Medical Business Services Inc., St. Jude Medical Cardiology Division Inc., St. Jude Medical Colombia Ltda., St. Jude Medical Coordination Center, St. Jude Medical Costa Rica Limitada, St. Jude Medical Europe Inc., St. Jude Medical Export Ges.m.b.H., St. Jude Medical GVA Sarl, St. Jude Medical Holdings B.V., St. Jude Medical India Private Limited, St. Jude Medical International Holding, St. Jude Medical LLC, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings II, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings NT, St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings SMI S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Luxembourg Holdings TC S.a r.l., St. Jude Medical Mexico Business Services S. de R.L. de C.V., St. Jude Medical Middle East DMCC, St. Jude Medical Operations (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., St. Jude Medical Puerto Rico LLC, St. Jude Medical S.C. Inc., St. Jude Medical Systems AB, St. Jude Medical Turkey Medikal Urunler Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Standard Diagnostics Inc., Standing Stone LLC, Swan-Myers Incorporated, TC1 LLC, Tendyne Holdings Inc., Tendyne Medical Inc., Thoratec Delaware LLC, Thoratec Europe Limited, Thoratec LLC, Thoratec Switzerland GmbH, Tobal Products Incorporated, Topera GmbH in Liquidation, Topera Inc., Tremora S.A., Tuenir S.A., TwistDx, UAB Abbott Laboratories, UAB Abbott Medical Lithuania, Union-Madison Realty Company Inc., Unipath Limited (dba Alere International/aka Cranfield), Unipath Management Limited, Unipath Pension Trustee Limited, Veropharm, Veropharm Limited Liability Partnership, Vida Cell Inversiones S.A., Vida Cell S.A., Vivalsol, W&R Pharma Handels GmbH, Western Pharmaceuticals S.A., X Technologies Inc., Yissum Holding Limited, ZonePerfect Nutrition Company, eScreen Canada ULC, eScreen Inc.,      ( ), and Abbott Laboratories Baltics.

Read More
The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan.

Read More
Calgarys mayor, Naheed Nenshi, joined emergency managers, public servants and Dalhousie researchers and students last week for a round table themed Leadership in a Crisis.

The talk was hosted at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance on December 6, the centennial anniversary of the Halifax Explosion.

Speaking to guests via video conference, Nenshi discussed the emergency management challenges that his government faced during the 2013 Alberta floods.

The floods displaced more than 100,000 people and cost over $6 billion in damage losses and recovery costs.

Nenshi stressed the importance of communication, reassurance, and community goodwill during crises like these.

Its our job as public servants, at a time like this, when people feel like theyve lost their entire life, to make sure that were there to remind them that they live in a community, said Nenshi. Were going to help them get back their lives.

The importance of leadership



Attendees at the event included representatives from Halifax Water, The Public Health Agency of Canada, Nova Scotia Health Services Emergency Management, and students from Public Administration, Business, and Environmental Studies.

With many working and studying in the field of emergency management, the need for prepared mayoral leadership was not lost on the audience.

Communication and coordination under good leadership play the key role in reducing damages during an emergency, said Farzana Karim, a Masters student in Environmental Studies and one of the attendees at Wednesdays round table.

The story of the people of Calgarys response and their willingness to help flood-affected people touched my heart, Karim said. I believe that the mechanism that Alberta applied during the 2013 flood and the measures they are working with could be an important lesson for other provinces.

Learning the lessons of the past



With dozens of Halifax Explosion memorials and events taking place this past week in the City of Halifax, organisers at the MacEachen Institute focussed on the need to use these events as learning opportunities.

Our role at the Institute is to bring together policy makers, planners and academics, and provide them with an opportunity to exchange views about complex problems, and hopefully gain insights from each other said Dr. Kevin Quigley, Scholarly Director of the MacEachen Institute. The centennial of the Explosion gives us the opportunity to reflect on important emergency management issues.

Its a sentiment expressed by Nenshi as well.

No matter how much we think we have control over the world in which we live, thats nature said Nenshi. Thats the kind of world that we have to be ready for as public servants, as people who are concerned about emergency preparedness, who are concerned about resiliency, who are concerned about ensuring that we keep our citizens safe every single day.
Visakhapatnam: Few residents approach the consumer forum, district health administration in cases of medical negligence or overcharging. There are only three or four cases related to medical negligence or overcharging out of over 300 cases that the District Consumer Forum receives every year. Most of the other complaints are about insurance, electronic gadgets and other products.

Even as private hospitals are mushrooming in the city, the district health administration is yet to set up any grievance redressal system for patients undergoing treatment there. Voluntary organisations have been demanding a complaints redressal system on the hospital premises.

Patients with grievances would have to approach the police, AP Medical Council or the consumer forum. Hence, despite experiencing negligence in treatment or being charged extra, many are not lodging complaints. The complaint redressal platform should be accessible to the public, an activist said.

Senior advocate and president of Forum of Legal Professional Kuppili Muralidhar, who deals with consumer complaints, said only five per cent of cases being received at the consumer forum comprised those related to medical negligence. Government hospitals do not come under consumer forum but the private ones do. People should not be reluctant to move the forum as more complaints will compel the hospital authorities to think twice before fleecing someone.

He suggested that the health administration should deploy nodal officials to look into medical complaints. A complaint redressal forum must come on the hospital premises so that patients feel comfortable to lodge complaints.
Kochi: The Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court on Thursday sentenced Ameer-ul-Islam, a migrant labourer from Assam, to death for brutally raping and murdering Jisha, 30, a Dalit law student, at her house near Perumbavur in April last year. The court had on Tuesday found him guilty of offences under Sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder), 376A (causing death or resulting in persistent vegetative state of victim), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 449 (house trespass).

Special Judge N. Anil Kumar, while terming the case as rarest of the rare, also awarded him life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 25,000 for the offence under Section 376 A of IPC, 10 years rigorous imprisonment and Rs 25,000 fine under Section 376, seven years RI and Rs 15,000 fine for the offence under Section 449 and one-year RI and Rs 1,000 fine under Section 342.

The court clarified that the death sentence, handed out for enhancing the dignity of women, will be subject to confirmation of the High Court. Other sentences should be served concurrently. Defence counsel B.A. Aloor said he would appeal against the sentence in the High Court. The case pertains to the rape and murder of Jisha at her house at Vattolipadi, Iringo-lkkara, Perumbavur, on April 28, 2016. The semi-naked body of the woman was found lying in a pool of blood in her two-room asbestos house by the side of a canal when her mother returned from work around 8.30 pm.

In a case where there was no direct evidence, the court observed that the pieces of evidence, especially that obtained through DNA technology and call data records submitted by the prosecution, helped in finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt. During the hearing on the sentence, the prosecution had demanded capital punishment to the convict, drawing parallel with the Nirbhaya case. A 25-cm-long knife was inserted into her private parts causing fatal injuries to her internal organs. The barbaric act is similar to the Nirbhaya case. Her vagina being mutilated in itself shows the perversion of the convict. It is only natural that the judicial conscience be satisfied with capital punishment being awarded to the accused Ameerul Islam, special public prosecutor N.K. Unnikrishnan said.

However, the counsel pointed out that there was no eyewitness in the case which is solely based on circumstantial and scientific evidence. According to the police case, Ameer-ul-Islam forcibly entered the house and committed the rape and murder between 5.30 pm and 6 pm that day. The Assamese native stiffened her movements and attacked her with a knife even as she was resisting his attempt to rape her tooth and nail. She finally succumbed to the injuries which included deep wounds at her genitalia.

The court trial lasted for 85 days during which the prosecution examined 100 witnesses, including 15 migrant labourers, after the trial started in April this year. The prosecution also presented 290 documents and 36 pieces of material evidence. Ameer was sent to the Viyyur central prison, Thrissur, where he will remain till he is given capital punishment or the sentence gets commuted or remitted by the appropriate authorities.
VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh bagged a National award under the SDA (State Designated Agency) category for the third consecutive year. A. Chandra Sekhara Reddy, CEO, APSECM (State Energy Conservation Mission), received the award on behalf of the government of Andhra Pradesh. The Union minister of state (independent charge) for power and renewable energy, R.K Singh, presented the National Energy Conservation Awards 2017 at Vignan Bhavan, New Delhi on Thursday, on the occasion of the National Energy Conservation Day.

The Government of India advised all states to emulate Andhra Pradesh model in implementing the energy efficiency and energy conservation programmes, especially in rural areas. Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Secretary of the Ministry of power, Raj Pal, economic adviser, Ministry of power, Abhay Bhakre, director general of BEE, Saurabh Kumar, MD, EESL, Pankaj Kumar, secretary, BEE and other senior officials from MoP, BEE, from various states participated in the awards ceremony.

Union minister, R.K. Singh, pointed out that AP was far ahead of other states in taking advanced steps, even in rural areas, in the LED street lighting programme as well as installation of over 12 lakh energy-efficient agricultural pump sets and 31,000 solar pump sets in a phased manner. He appreciated that it was all because of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidus far-sighted vision.

AP Chief Secretary, Dinesh Kumar and Principal Secretary, Energy, I&I and CRDA Ajay Jain, thanked the Union ministry of power and BEE for selecting the state as the best SDA in the country and conveyed the message of Mr Naidu, expressing happiness over the state winning the National SDA Awards 2017, for the third consecutive year. Kala Venkata Rao, Minister of Energy, AP also expressed his happiness over the E.C. award and congratulated the officials.

Heritage Foods won second prize:

Heritage Foods won the Second Prize at the National Energy Conservation Awards-2017 in the dairy sector. Nara Brahmani, Executive Director - Heritage Foods received the award from Union minister of state (independent charge) for Power and New and Renewable Energy, Raj Kumar Singh on the National Energy Conservation Day. The event was organised by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and ministry of power at Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi on Thursday, After receiving the award, Nara Brahmani said, We are a 25-year-old company and we are taking a lot of initiatives to improve efficiencies of our company.

Renewable energy is our major focus area and in the last ten years, it is the eighth year, Heritage Foods has received the National Energy Conservation Award".

"We are probably the first dairy company to go renewable energy route and have more than 10 MW of solar and wind power as for captive consumption. We are continuously investing in latest technologies and efficiencies to conserve energy. As a result, we could save about 14.5 per cent and 10 per cent when it comes to electrical units and thermal units respectively. With this, we had a yearly savings of `35 lakh, she said. Heritage Foods Limited is one of the leading Dairy brands in India with two business divisions - Dairy and Renewable Energy.
Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth, claimed that he was illegally converted to Christianity on December 10, following which members of the catholic community were booked. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

Bhopal: Suspected Bajrang Dal activists were claimed to have beaten up some Christians, including 10 priests, and torched their car outside a police station in Satna district of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday night over alleged conversion of Hindus to Christianity.

Sub-inspector Mohinee Sharma of Civil Lines police station said a case has been registered against unidentified people for burning the vehicle, but denied claim about members of the Catholic community having been assaulted during the incident.

Nobody has been arrested yet, she added.

"They (members of the Catholic group) may have been manhandled outside the police station premises. If they come to us with a complaint that they were beaten up, we will surely book the accused," the police officer said.

The group comprised ten Catholic priests and 32 others undergoing training for priesthood.

Father M Rony, social work director of Satna diocese, said that some young men stormed the venue of a pre-Christmas function at Bhoomkar village, 15 km from the district headquarters, around 9 pm on Thursday and created a ruckus, alleging that religious conversion was going on there.

The function was organised by Syro-Malabar Church of Northern India for children.

After police got information, they came to the spot and took 32 Catholic brothers (trainee priests) and two priests to the Civil Lines police station, Fr Rony said.

"When they reached the police station, they were beaten up by Bajrang Dal activists on the station campus. Hearing the news, four other priests rushed to the police station, but they were also thrashed and their car was set on fire," he claimed, adding four more priests went to the police station and were assaulted too.

Police let off members of the Catholic group around 3:30 am. They agreed to visit the police station on Friday morning, Rony said.

"As promised they returned in the morning, and right now (around 3:30 pm) they (priests and others) are at the police station," he said.

Rony said the diocese was running a seminary at Barakala village in Satna district for the last 20 years and not asingle person there had converted to Christianity.

"We are being persecuted," he said.

Sub-inspector Sharma said a Catholic priest and five others were booked on Friday for allegedly converting a Hindu man to Christianity using force and allurement at Bhoomkar village.

"We have booked (priest) M George and five others on the complaint of Dharmendra Dohar, a local youth who claimed he was illegally converted on December 10," Sharma said.

Rony said he was not aware of who Dohar was.

Satna superintendent of police Rajesh Hingankar could not be reached for comments despite repeated calls.
MATTOON -- The new Luigi's Italian Ristorante is offering fresh-made pasta, pizza, and more in downtown Mattoon.

Brothers Eddie and Massimo Elezi, both originally from Venice, Italy, opened their restaurant on Saturday at 1610 Broadway Ave., a storefront that was previously home to Bidwell's. They are running the restaurant for their uncle Luigi Puggi, who has Viva Italia restaurants in Hannibal, Mo., and several other locations. The new restaurant is named after their uncle.

"Our recipes are our family recipes. Every dish is made from scratch. We make everything fresh," said Massimo Elezi. He and his brother serve as chefs at Luigi's.

Massimo Elezi said they are particularly proud of their bellissimo special, which is chicken and sausage with bell peppers, ham, black olives and artichoke hearts in a white wine cream sauce with a touch of marinara served over homemade spaghetti. The bellissimo is on the menu among house specialties that also include fettuccini alfredo, chicken cacciatore, pasta primavera, and more.

Eddie Elezi said many of their entrees feature seafood, such as the linguini tuttomare's New Zealand mussels, jumbo shrimp, sea scallops, and baby clams sauteed in white wine, garlic, butter and lemon. The seafood dishes include linguini with clams in red or white sauces, shrimp ravioli, salmon picatta, and scrimp scollapini, as well.

Luigi's also offers chicken or veal parmigiana, marsala and other entrees; spaghetti with a variety of toppings; baked dishes such as lasagna and ziti; and brick oven-style pizza. The pasta sauce options include marinara, alfredo, olive oil with garlic and basil, and alla panna orange sauce that has alfredo with a touch of marinara. Many of the dishes are accompanied by a side salad and home baked Italian rolls.

"We make the rolls fresh every day here. They are very tasty," Eddie Elezi said.

The menu also includes calzones, strombolis and other hot sandwiches; minestrone soup; full size salads; appetizers; and desserts, including cannoli, Italian creme cake and tiramisu. The restaurant serves a children's menu throughout the week; and lunch specials from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Luigi's plans to offer beer and wine.

Massimo Elezi said the opening of Luigi's resulted from Mattoon residents dining at Viva Italia in Hannibal and enjoying the food so much that they suggested Mattoon as a location. Massimo Elezi said his family subsequently visited Mattoon and found a building with the help of Keith Summers, who owns 1610 Broadway. They have converted the former chocolate-making space there into an additional dining room.

"We came here to serve the town and do the best we can," Eddie Elezi said.

Luigi's is open from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday each week. More information is available by calling 217-234-2268.
Hyderabad: The Union home ministry has ruled that TRS Vemulavawada MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh is not an Indian citizen and has dismissed his review application.

Additional secretary B.R. Sharma of the home ministry issued an order dated December 13, dismissing his review application.

The High Court had ruled in 2013 that Mr Ramesh held dual citizenship of India and Germany and declared his election null and void.

He challenged the HC order in the Supreme Court which directed the Union home ministry to inquire into the issue.

The home ministry conducted an inquiry and ruled in August that Mr Ramesh is not an Indian citizen. Mr Ramesh put in a review application, which too has been dismissed now.

The Union home ministry had issued orders that from August 31, 2017, all the benefits and privileges enjoyed by him as a citizen of India shall stand withdrawn.

Mr Ramesh approached the High Court which kept the orders in abeyance in September.

Mr Adi Srinivas, the BJP candidate who lost to Mr Ramesh in 2014, filed the case in court and with the Union home ministry, demanding that Mr Ramesh tender his resignation from membership of the Assembly following the Centre's August 31 order.

During the investigation, it was found that the MLA had German citizenship and had never stayed in India for more than 12 months as required for a foreign national to get Indian citizenship under the Foreigners Act. Mr Ramesh was elected thrice to the Assembly, including in a byelection.

In 2013, the AP High Court quashed his election. Mr Ramesh then approached the Supreme Court and obtained a stay. While the stay order was in operation, he contested the 2014 Assembly election on a TRS ticket and won again. Mr Srinivas then moved the Supreme Court seeking vacation of the stay order.

Mr Ramesh now says he will approach the High Court again against the Union home ministrys latest orders.

He said, I got Indian citizenship on February 3, 2009. But the norm of continuous stay in India for 365 days to be eligible for citizenship came into force on February 25, 2009. So, this norm is not applicable to me. Despite this, the union ministry did not consider my argument and has simply gone by the previous report of the enquiry panel. I will seek justice in the High Court and file a petition soon.
Chennai: Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan appears to stoke a controversy by comparing the ruling AIADMK to a leaning tower and said people of R. K. Nagar should make a wise decision and vote BJP for development. He accused both the AIADMK and opposition DMK of throwing policies to the wind and involving in distributing cash for votes.

People are disheartened at the way in which the Dravidian parties be it the AIADMK, DMK or pressure cooker (T. T. V. Dhinakaran), contesting in the R. K. Nagar by-election, like cobras with raised hoods, are prepared to bite and destroy democracy. They are not prepared to talk about their policies, Mr. Radhakrishnan said while campaigning for his party candidate Karu Nagarajan on Thursday. The distribution of money to voters by those parties, he said, tantamouts to murdering democracy in R. K. Nagar Assembly constituency (facing by-poll on Dec. 21) here.

Earlier this year, in a similar poll campaign for his BJPs then candidate Gangai Amaran, the Minister while pointing out to the rampant distribution of money during the by-election (which was later cancelled) he had said it would be better to auction the seat if the authorities fail to rein in the brazen distribution of money to voters.

It is very shameful that those parties are buying people for votes just as cattle is bought, Mr. Radhakrishnan said and demanded the election officials to contain the money distribution.

Likening the state government to a leaning tower he said its continuance has become a question mark as none can predict when a leaning tower will fall or how long it will remain. The DMK, Mr. Radhakrishnan said, is on the verge of destruction and urged people to ensure a decisive mandate to the BJP for development in the constituency.
Indias immediate geopolitical environment has degraded as the Narendra Modi government remained distracted by the Gujarat Assembly elections. Diplomacy regained attention somewhat with the overlapping visits of Ivanka Trump, daughter of US President Donald Trump, and former US President Barack Obama, who was in India for a lecture. The three notable events impinging on Indian national security interests were the elections in Nepal, Sri Lankas handover of the strategic port of Hambantota to China and a Sino-Maldivian free trade agreement. All three need a closer examination. In Nepal, the victory of the Left forces was inevitable once an alliance was formed by the two biggest Left parties  the Communist Party of Nepal Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist Centre (CPN-MC). The chairman of the former, K.P. Sharma Oli, is all set to lead the government while latters leader, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, would head the new Nepal Communist Party formed after the merger. The success of the Left forces is not surprising as the people of Nepal were fatigued after seeing 10 Prime Ministers in as many years and the governments were thus unable to deliver on development or growth. Mr Olis nationalistic credentials amongst the hill voters also helped. The Nepalese electorate also seems to have retained its ire over the Indian blockade and punished those parties like the Nepal Congress which were seen as not having forthrightly opposed the Indian action. Finally, anti-incumbency hovered over current Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

Considering Prime Minister Narendra Modis two trips to Nepal and Indias serious concern over the growing influence of China, the victory of the Left alliance is not good for India. A strong Opposition has emerged, however, thereby ensuring that the Constitution is not fiddled with by the ruling combine. It is also possible that the alliance will have functional problems over the distribution of goodies between erstwhile rivals. But South Block should be wary about the perceived pro-China orientation of Mr Oli. China may push with greater vigour its Belt and Road Initiative connectivity project which can bring its penetration closer to the heart of India in the vital Indo-Gangetic plains. This assumes importance as so far India is among a diminishing group of countries which continue to oppose the Chinese infrastructure project. Of late even the United States and Japan, which had earlier joined the Indian refrain, have been airing more positive views. Indian diplomacy will therefore face a critical test as New Delhis competition with Beijing for the affection of the rulers in Kathmandu gets renewed.

Trouble, they say, always comes in bundles. The Chinese intrusion into the Indian periphery became more intense with Sri Lanka handing over the port of Hambantota, at the crucial southern tip of the island, to China on a 99-year lease. Although the Sri Lankans have been at great pains to reiterate that China has been told it shall not be used for military purposes, but going by Chinese conduct in the South China Sea, who is to ensure that China does not, at some future date, alter the terms unilaterally to suit itself. In any case, Sri Lanka can hardly ensure that China will not install dual-use facilities that appear to be for monitoring and controlling maritime traffic when they could equally handily be used for military snooping in the Indian Ocean. In retrospect, Indian policymakers in the past erred in not grabbing the opening when, as is speculated, the Sri Lankans were happy to have India develop the port. On the converse side, it can be argued that it may be more useful to now lease Hambantota airport as the port has drawbacks that even the Chinese may find difficult to overcome to make it a money-spinner.

Finally, the Maldives has been allowed since the time of the UPA government to slowly slide towards authoritarian governance and the crushing of nascent democratic forces. Letting an Indian company GMR be ejected from the control of Male airport was diplomatic pusillanimity when the grounds for doing so were very shallow. Now the government sits on its hands as the Maldives government rushes through its parliament with indecent haste a free trade agreement with China. This really smacks of the kind of helplessness that Mr Modi, when seeking power in the run-up to the 2014 election, had alleged was afflicting his predecessor Manmohan Singh in dealing with neighbours. If even the Maldives can start testing the Indian red lines and get away with it, then Indias neighbourhood policy has well and truly begun to collapse.

Aspiring powers have to function on the basis of a clear vision that theatre and power play are two different processes. They may overlap sometimes, but the former cannot substitute the latter. Come Republic Day 2018, a fresh theatre commences. This time it is the fractious 10 nations of Asean that have been invited to the national party. It is part of the Act East slogan of the Modi government. China having already penetrated deeply into Indias immediate periphery, as argued above about the developments in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, India cannot overcome that setback by battling for the affection of its more distant neighbours. It has been rightly said that a great power must not seek to be loved by other nations. It must aim to obtain respect without causing fear, as China does. At the same time the BJP has not invented muscularity in Indian diplomacy. Jawaharlal Nehru helped King Tribhuvan regain his Nepalese throne in 1950. Indira Gandhi had annexed Sikkim, thus eliminating a troublesome buffer with China, in 1975, besides severing Pakistan into two in 1971. The Narendra Modi governments record, despite repeated muscle-flexing, is rather average in handling the nations immediate periphery, where invisible red lines must exist and be enforced.
Indias ties with the Maldives appear to be entering a renewed phase of uncertainty. Its ambassador Akhilesh Mishra has been treated indelicately. Three local government officials who called on him were suspended. The signal appears to be to keep Indias principal envoy in Male at arms length. Orders have been issued to the effect that all contacts with the diplomatic community and NGOs will need official clearance. Perhaps this is just to indicate that India is not being singled out, although it is hard to resist that inference. Barely a week before the Indian ambassador was sought to be indirectly punished for being in touch with local officials  unusual for a country with which long-standing friendship is proclaimed  President Abdulla Yameen signed a free trade agreement with China in Beijing and rammed it through his Parliament without discussion. Details of the agreement are yet to emerge. Until that happens, its hard to say to what extent trade or investment ties with India will be impacted.

New Delhi, meanwhile, is pleading with Male to keep its sensitivities in view.

This is the sense the official spokesman left while briefing journalists recently. This is practically an admission of having little leverage or influence left with the Maldives leadership, a sorry state of affairs for neighbourhood diplomacy which reveals a reversal of close security relations with Male even after the Maumoon Gayoom era had ended in the Maldives. It does appear that New Delhi has been either complacent or negligent. Until not so long back, India had the friendliest of ties with the Maldives, the tiny island group in the Indian Ocean and a Saarc member. But that appears to be a thing of the past. This calls for a look at where things are going wrong and how best to apply correctives. The Maldives are strategically located in the Indian Ocean and its value to an adversary of this country is obvious.

The current goings-on indicate that, within Saarc, the Maldives could be lining up alongside Pakistan in subtle ways, with both acting in concert with China to discomfit India, although at the level of formality the island state continues to proclaim an India First policy. In recent years, religious groups in the Muslim-majority country have been taking inspiration from Pakistan and the more regressive Arab elements. At the political level, they have found continuous support since the constitutionalist coup against former President Mohammed Nasheed, the first head of the country to emerge through a multi-party process and clean elections. Since Mr Nasheeds ouster, ties with India have worn a desultory look, and Male appears to be letting China in to step into the breach. Indias problems will only increase when trade and investment relations are upped to the security domain.
US astronaut Randy Bresnik rests in a chair shortly after he and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy landed in their Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan. Photo: AP

Three astronauts returned to Earth on Thursday after nearly six months aboard the International Space Station, landing on the snow-covered steppes outside of a remote town in Kazakhstan.

A Russian Soyuz capsule with NASA's Randy Bresnik, Russia's Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency descended under a red-and-white parachute and landed on schedule at 2:37 p.m. local time (0837 GMT; 3:37 a.m. EST).

The three were pulled out of the capsule within 20 minutes and appeared to be in good condition.

Bresnik, Ryazansky and Nespoli spent 139 days aboard the orbiting space laboratory. The trio who arrived at the station in July contributed to hundreds of scientific experiments and performed several spacewalks.

They left behind Alexander Misurkin, commander of the crew, and two Americans, Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei.

During their stay at the station, the crew had a phone call with Pope Francis who talked with them about Dante's verses and Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince."

Bresnik, a US Marine who flew combat missions during the Iraq war, told the pope what strikes him is that in space there are "no borders, there is no conflict, it's just peaceful."

Kentucky-born Bresnik also celebrated Thanksgiving in space, feasting on pouches of turkey with his colleagues.

The space station will go back to a six-member crew when NASA's Scott Tingle, Russia's Anton Shkaplerov and Japan's Norishige Kanai take off from Kazakhstan on Sunday.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
He had inserted his hand into the apartment through an open window with the intention to annoy a then 23-year-old woman who was sleeping. (Photo: File/Representational)

Singapore: A 33-year old Indian engineer in Singapore has been sent to prison for three weeks for molesting a woman in 2016.

Prabu Natarajan admitted to rubbing his thigh against a 23-year-old woman, who works as a part-time tutor, several times along Choa Chu Kang Loop in 2016, local daily 'The Straits Times' reported Friday.

According to the daily, Prabu and the part-time tutor boarded the same bus at 5:45 pm on November 21 in 2016.

He molested her when he was seated to her right. They alighted at the same bus stop as he lived in the estate.

He followed her into the lift at Apartment Block 290, Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, and rubbed her arm up and down. Natarajan was also fined SGD 2,500 by the court for a house trespass committed five years ago, on July 4, 2012.

He had inserted his hand into the apartment through an open window with the intention to annoy a then 23-year-old woman who was sleeping.

When she woke up, he fled, according to the Singapore daily.

The public prosecutor sought three weeks' jail for the outrage of modesty, as, the public prosecutor said, the offence occurred on public transport; the touch was a prolonged and persistent rub; and the victim was trapped by Prabu at the window seat while he persisted in molesting her, the newspaper said.

This charge, together with a public nuisance charge, was considered during his sentencing, the newspaper said.

Prabu could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment for molestation.
After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May on outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU.(Photo: File)

Brussels: British Prime Minister Theresa May urged European Union (EU) leaders at a summit on Friday to move Brexit talks onto trade as quickly as possible, as they prepared to sign off on an interim deal on the divorce.

Her 27 counterparts are expected to agree on Friday that sufficient progress has been made on key separation issues including the divorce bill and the Irish border to move the negotiations onto the future relationship.

The EU's negotiating guidelines state they will start talks on a post-Brexit transition in January but will not begin trade talks until March, calling for more clarity about Britain's goals.

Addressing the leaders over a night dinner of roasted langoustines, ballotine of capon and "festive log with a twist", May was "clear about wanting to move onto trade talks as quickly as possible", a British official said.

May told them she "makes no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approach it with ambition and creativity", adding that a "particular priority" should be the transition period.

The British premier had earlier sought to brush off a parliamentary defeat over her Brexit strategy, in which members of her Conservative party rebelled to demand a final vote over the terms of the withdrawal.

May said she was "disappointed" at the setback, which critics warned could undermine her authority to deliver a deal, but stressed: "We're on course to deliver Brexit."

Several other EU leaders sought to play down the impact of the vote, although Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel warned that the domestic opposition was "not making her life easier".

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said May still had a "formidable stature" in Brussels, saying that last week's hard-fought agreement on the divorce deal "showed you should not underestimate her".

However, with British ministers only due to discuss the post-Brexit future next week, he warned that "we need from her to understand how she sees the future relationship".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel added that while progress has been made, there were still "outstanding questions".

After months of tortuous negotiations, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker struck a deal with May last week on the outline terms of Britain's withdrawal from the EU in March 2019.

It covers Britain's financial settlement, the future of the Irish border and expatriate rights, while the next stage will cover trade and a transition period to ease the break.

British officials are hoping for a deal by March on a two-year transition, during which the bilateral relationship would largely stay the same, although Britain would have to follow EU laws.

However, the EU has warned May that her hopes of agreeing a bespoke trade deal before Brexit to replace Britain's membership of the EU's single market and customs union is unrealistic.

"I'm looking forward to discussing that deep and special partnership for the future," May said as she arrived for the summit.

If Wednesday's vote pointed to the battles May still faces at home over Brexit, EU President Donald Tusk acknowledged the bloc's own unity would be tested in the months ahead.

"I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of the Brexit talks," Tusk told reporters as he arrived at the summit.

He said a "lack of unity is very visible" on two key subjects facing the EU after Britain leaves: plans for a way forward on the migration crisis, and proposals for reforms of the eurozone.

However, Tusk warned earlier this week of a "furious race against time" to reach the next stage of negotiations.

Questions still linger over the divorce agreement, after British Brexit Minister David Davis appeared to suggest it was not legally enforceable.

There are particular concerns about the guarantee made by London -- at Dublin's request -- that there will be no frontier checks between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland Davis's comments prompted a warning by the EU that Britain must not backtrack, and Rutte repeated on Thursday: "We cannot have a misunderstanding of what was agreed."
Dust off those fedoras and feathers and get all dolled up and dapper for A Roaring Good Time at the Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner and Awards Ceremony on Saturday, Jan. 27.

It will be the Cats Meow at this annual gala affair which takes place in the Grand Ballroom of the University Union on the campus of Eastern Illinois University.

The presenting sponsor for the evening is Yost Management Services, Inc.

The Grand Ballroom will be transformed into a Roaring 20s Speakeasy with art deco black and gold decorations and lots of feathers and pearls.

The festivities begin at 5 p.m. with a Cocktail Hour and served hors doeuvres. Attendees can strike a pose at the Selfie Station or buy a ticket to select a wrapped bottle of wine from the wine pull. Live music will also be provided by a Jazz Quartet from EIU.

The annual meeting portion of the program will take place at 6:30 p.m. followed by the buffet dinner and more time to network.

After dinner, the program culminates with the presentation of awards. Lawyer-Richie Florist will be honored as the Small Business of the Year and the Outstanding Citizen of the Year Award will be presented to Dee Braden. The Diplomat of the Year will also be announced.

The cash bar will be open all evening. Dressy attire is appropriate for the event.

Table sponsorships are available for tables of eight ($550), tables of ten ($650) or tables of 12 ($750). Individual tickets are $55 per person.

New this year is an After Party hosted by Mothers Bar located at 506 Monroe Ave. in Charleston. Everyone who attend the Annual Dinner is welcome to attend the After Party at no additional cost.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.charlestonchamber.com or by calling 217-345-7041. The deadline for reservations is Jan. 19th at 4 p.m.

Plan now to celebrate the new year in style!
The chief executive of French planemaker Airbus will step down from his position in 2019 as the company announced a major shake-up of its management team.

Tom Enders will not seek another term when the next election takes place the year after next, while chief operating officer Fabrice Bregier will vacate his position in February 2018.

Current CEO of Airbus Helicopters Guillaume Faury will take over as the new president of the firm.

"We are confident we have taken the right decisions to ensure Airbus' long-term stability and future success and we fully support Tom Enders to lead Airbus through this generational handover with our full support," said chairman Denis Ranque.

The changes had been speculated in recent days following a series of scandals amid reports of bribes and corruption at the company.

French president Emmanuel Macron said his government was keeping an eye on the management changes at Airbus.

For Airbus there are decisions on governance which are for the board to take. We are vigilant because we are shareholders, clients and (providers of) export support, Macron said.
The number of fines imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority in 2017 has fallen to the lowest since 2002 when modern regulation of the City was in its infancy.

With a few working days remaining in 2017 the City regulator has imposed 13 fines totalling 229.5m on companies and individuals. Last year the FCA imposed 23 fines valued at 22.2m.

The number of penalties in 2017 is the lowest since the Financial Services Authority imposed nine fines worth a total of 7.4m in 2002  its second year of operation. The FCA replaced the FSA in 2013 when supervision of the banking system was transferred to the Bank of England.

The number of regulatory fines rose steadily from 2002 and peaked at 80 in 2010 as the regulator clamped down on the City after the financial crisis. The number of fines did not fall below 40 between 2008 and 2015.

The number and value of fines have fallen under the leadership of Andrew Bailey, who became the FCA's chief executive in July 2016. He replaced Martin Wheatley, who was sacked by the then chancellor George Osborne after the City objected to his confrontational style.

Bailey has said the FCA has not softened its approach and that it would be odd if the level of penalties remained at post-crisis levels.

Peter Snowdon, a consultant solicitor at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said a fall in the number of fines did not necessarily mean a drop-off in enforcement by the FCA. He also said rules introduced in 2016 holding senior managers of banks and insurers responsible for the conduct of their firms could be delaying settlements.

He said: "Individual cases can take many months to reach a conclusion and a fine in one year may reflect significant activity in a previous year. Under the senior managers regime if a firm settles it can hang out the individual concerned and the process is probably more complicated because the FCA is effectively having to run two cases."

The FCA pointed to comments by Mark Steward, director of enforcement, about its approach to investigations. In September Steward said the FCA had opened 75% more investigations in the past year reflecting stronger market abuse regulations, more active policing of capital markets and criticism of the FSA's failure to investigate the collapse of HBOS.

The amount collected in 2017 is 10 times the figure for 2016 but more than two thirds of the total is covered by a 163m penalty on Deutsche Bank for lax money laundering controls in Russia. The fine, announced in January, was the biggest imposed on a bank in the UK for failure to monitor money laundering.

There is no sign this years bigger haul will benefit charities and other causes the government has passed FCA fines to in the past. The chancellor, Philip Hammond, did not mention FCA fines in his Budget speech, suggesting the fines will go into Treasury coffers. The Treasury did not respond to enquiries about how the fines would be spent.

Total fines have fallen from a peak of 1.5bn in 2014 when the FCA dished out 40 penalties and fined five banks a total of 1.1bn for rigging foreign exchange markets. As recently as 2015 the annual total was 905m.

The FCA fined five companies in 2017 with the remaining eight fines going to individuals for offences such as market abuse and unfair treatment of customers. Some firms were censured but escaped fines, such as Capita last month, which was strong-armed into paying up to 66m to investors who suffered losses due an investment scheme it had operated.

Snowdon said there could be a jump in fines against individuals after bosses of consumer credit companies become responsible for their firms' actions under an extension of the senior managers regime due to be finalised in 2018.

The FCA has stepped up consumer protection efforts by enlisting Arnold Schwarzenegger to encourage claims for PPI mis-selling, forcing hire-purchase retailer BrightHouse to repay 14.8m to vulnerable consumers and proposing measures to help indebted credit card customers.
Recruiter SThree hailed a strong finish to the year on Friday as it said adjusted pre-tax profit is expected to be slightly ahead of current market consensus.

Market expectations are for adjusted profit before tax of between 42m and 45.6m, with a consensus of 43.8m.

In the year to 30 November, gross profit was up 4% at constant currency to 287.6m, with profit in Continental Europe and the US up 9% and 18%, respectively. This helped to offset a 14% drop in the UK and Ireland.

Gross profit in the contract business was up 10% to 203.4m, while profit in the permanent business was 8% lower at 84.2m.

Chief executive Gary Elden said: "We have delivered an encouraging overall result for the year, and now expect full year profit to be slightly ahead of consensus. Strong performances in the USA and Continental Europe, particularly from our market-leading business in the Netherlands and our business in Germany, were key to the delivery of this result. Our contract business continued to perform robustly, with GP increasing by 10% year on year and with contract runners at the period end reaching in excess of ten thousand, a milestone for the group.

"Looking ahead to 2018, the momentum of our contract business and the strength of our performance in the USA and Continental Europe leave us well-positioned for growth.

At 1320 GMT, the shares were flat at 356p.
CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- An ear disorder specialist and Eastern Illinois University alumnus will be speaking to soon-to-be graduates of the university at their Saturday commencement ceremony.

Matthew L. Kircher is currently an assistant professor of otology, neurotology and skull base surgery in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, according to a press release.

Kircher completed his undergraduate work in biology at EIU. The release goes on to mention that he has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. He currently serves on several national ear, nose and throat committees, and is an active member of the American Neurotology Society and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Student speakers Fabian Rempfer, master degree candidate from Heigenbrucken, Germany, and Robbie Nethery of Oblong will be addressing students at the ceremony as well. Rempfer will represent the Graduate School during the 10 a.m. ceremony, and Nethery will represent the School of Continuing Education at the 1 p.m. ceremony.

EIU President David Glassman will preside, with music provided by the EIU Wind Symphony.
Rakuten said on Thursday in a prepared statement it is planning to build a mobile network and hopes to launch services during 2010 and eventually have a minimum of 15 million subscribers.

It is a big bold move by a company that began only 20 years ago with six employees, Rakuten is now an internet giant worth $14 billion that employs over 14,000 people.

Get alerts:

Like Amazon, its counterpart in the U.S., Rakuten is known for the internet shopping portals it has. Run by Hiroshi Mikitani its billionaire founder, Rakuten has its hand in several other services including messaging apps, payment services and video streaming.

The announcement of the wireless ambitions of Rakuten comes during a time when many wireless carriers across the globe are attempting to build their businesses of digital content as they search for alternate revenue streams.

Verizon recently acquired Yahoo, while AT&T is attempting to take over Time Warner. At the same time, one of the top wireless providers in Japan, Softbank is aggressively investing in technology and internet companies across the globe.

Rakuten is attempting to move in the opposite direction.

The company said moving into wireless would give it another engine for more growth and would make it one of just a few businesses worldwide that could provide a comprehensive package of services on internet finance, e-commerce, mobile communications and digital content.

However, Rakuten will be facing stiff competition taking on the likes of Softbank, and two other carriers that dominated the market in Japan, KDDI and NTT DoCoMo.

Those three businesses are far bigger in size than Rakuten, which would have to invest heavily to build out its network across all of Japan.

On Thursday, Rakuten estimated that it would need to borrow up to 600 billion yen equal to $5.3 billion over the coming years so it could pay for the plans.

Investors were unsettled by the Rakuten announcement evidenced by shares dropping close to 5% on Thursday in Tokyo.

The government of Japan and other critics repeatedly have slammed the three big carriers in the country over prices skyrocketing, pressing the three to offer less expensive plans.

Rakuten believes it can be a difference maker if the central government decided to give it a part of the available 4G frequencies.

Rakuten has already had some experience with the industry. It launched in 2015 Rakuten Mobile but it involves renting capacity on the network of DoCoMo and not its own.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska, the state's largest health insurer, said Friday that it is proposing to change its corporate structure.

The company said in a news release that it has applied to the state Department of Insurance to become a mutual insurance holding company.

The proposed change, which will be the subject of a Jan. 22 public hearing by the department, would create a new parent company called GoodLife Partners Inc.

The company is structured as a mutual health insurance company, which means it is owned by its policyholders. Policyholders would still own the newly created holding company, but the health insurance business would be split off from the company's other businesses and become a stock company 100 percent owned by the holding company.

Steve Martin, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraskas president and chief executive officer, said the change in corporate structure will enable the company to pursue new investment opportunities.

By becoming a mutual insurance holding company, we will be able to invest in and acquire companies aimed at making health care services more efficient and less expensive for consumers, Martin said in a news release. Our members will benefit from this new flexibility in investment options.

The change in corporate structure would have no effect on insurance coverage, benefits or premiums, Martin said.

Assuming the proposed change is approved by the Department of Insurance, it will be submitted to policyholders for approval at the company's annual meeting in Omaha on March 26. If approved there, the change would go into effect in July.

The mutual holding company structure is common, especially among smaller insurers. Ameritas and Assurity in Lincoln both are structured as mutual insurance holding companies.
Tata Motors had qualified as an L1 bidder and had to deliver 250 Tigor EVs in the first phase. CEO and MD of Tata Motors, Guenter Butschek handed over the keys of the Tigor EVs to Saurabh Kumar, Managing Director, EESL, accompanied by the senior management teams from both the companies.

The Tigor EV is a pure electric, zero-emission styleback which is built on the existing internal combustion engine model. For ESSL, the Tigor EV will be delivered in three variants - Base, Premium and High and will be available in Pearlescent White' colour with blue decals.

Recommended Video This McLaren 720S Costs Only 30 Bitcoins While Others Cost $285,000

The Tigor EV is equipped with single-speed, automatic transmission. The electric drive systems for the electric vehicle is developed by Electra EV, a company established to develop and supply electric drive systems for the automotive sector.

Butschek said, "With Tigor EV, we have begun our journey in boosting e-mobility and will offer a full range of electric vehicles to the Indian customers. This tender has effectively paved way for connecting our aspirations in the e-mobility space with the vision of the Government."

Tata Motors also stated that the company is fully committed to the government's aim of shifting to pure electric vehicles by 2030 and will work collaboratively for faster adoption of electric vehicles in the country.

DriveSpark Thinks!

Electric vehicles are said to be the future of mobility and India is also planning to adopt the zero-emission vehicles. But the primary challenge for the electric vehicles is the lack of charging infrastructure. We expect the government to act fast to set up charging stations across the country to encourage the use of EVs.
Engineering students take top prize in China

Published On Fri 15 Dec 2017 by Dominic Younger

A team of engineering students from the University of Dundee scooped up first place in a prestigious competition held at Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (SIBET) in China this week.

More than 100 teams from around the world took part in this years biomedical instrumentation innovation competition, which sees teams design new medical devices.

This year saw the competition being opened up to international teams for the first time, with the Dundee team won an award with their design for anti-tremor watch for those living with Parkinsons.



The team, consisting of Masters students Tanatswa Jamera, Charlotte Keatch and Oluwatomilola Adekoya, was one of only two from the UK to be selected to enter the SIBET competition- a team from Cambridge also won a first place prize for their designs.

Tanatswa said, We are absolutely delighted to have won SIBET this year. Our designs for a watch that can detect and mitigate the hand tremors felt by those with Parkinsons is something weve been working on for more than eight weeks so its great to see it all come together. Its a fantastic way to end the year.

For media enquiries contact:

Dominic Glasgow

Media Relations Officer

University of Dundee

Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN

Tel: +44 (0)1382 385131

Email: d.w.glasgow@dundee.ac.uk
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted 3-2 to repeal Obama-era Net neutrality rules that prevented Internet service providers from blocking, throttling or otherwise giving preferential treatment to customers. Backers of the repeal characterized it as promoting greater technological innovation and freedom to conduct business.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who spearheaded the reversal of the Title II Net neutrality regulations, was joined by Commissioners Michael OReilly and Brendan Carr. Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel strongly dissented.

The repeal would restore light touch oversight and open the doors for ISPs and other businesses to give consumers more choice and offer new technologies in a way that has flourished for more than two decades, Pai said in remarks prior to the vote.

It is not the job of the government to pick winners and losers, he told attendees at the meeting.

Chairman Ajit Pais presentation was interrupted briefly when the meeting room was cleared on the advice of security officials, who brought in a canine team to search the area.

The FCCs Wigfield declined to elaborate on what, specifically, prompted the measures.

FTC to Take Over

The reversal of the Title II framework means that broadband Internet service once again will be regulated as an information service rather than as a utility.

The vote also means that the Federal Trade Commission will take the lead in regulating broadband Internet and will be responsible for investigating complaints of unfair, deceptive or anticompetitive business practices.

The new rules will take effect after final clearance by the Office of Management and Budget, which could take months, according to FCC spokesperson Mark Wigfield.

The move to repeal the rules was hotly contested by numerous consumer advocates, Silicon Valley companies, and others who feared the so-called light touch oversight would allow major broadband and telecom providers to limit access to some content providers and potentially force consumers to pay higher fees for faster speeds.

The FTC is ready to resume its role as the cop on the broadband beat, said Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the commission.

Broadband providers will be required to disclose their traffic management practices, she noted.

Net Neutrality Proponents Push Back

A coalition of multiple state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, announced they will file legal action to block the repeal.

The state AGs had requested that the FCC postpone the vote, pending their investigation into charges that as many as 2 million citizen comments regarding the issue were created fraudulently, but the commission rejected that appeal.

The 2 million suspicious comments appeared to be associated with stolen identities, Schneiderman said.

The FCC has given an early Christmas gift to big telecom companies, he commented following the vote.

The new rule will let ISPs charge more for access to social media companies, Schneiderman added, and favor certain viewpoints over others.

Netflix was among the companies that opposed repeal of the rules.

Were disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large & small, to oppose this misguided FCC order.

 Netflix US (@netflix) December 14, 2017

The vote was a historic mistake, said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., as he and 15 cosponsors introduced the Congressional Review Act to the U.S. Senate. The resolution would roll back Thursdays repeal and restore the 2015 Net neutrality rules with a simple majority vote in the U.S. House and Senate.

The rules reversal will favor communications providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, suggested Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.

It will work against the over the top services, he told the E-Commerce Times, unless theyre big enough, like Netflix, to demand a seat at the table.

Users likely will have to pay more, on average, Kay said, adding that vanilla service will be crappy.

Building Blocks

There is a valid argument to be made for the rules repeal, suggested independent analyst Jeff Kagan.

We have to remember if you want companies to make investments in the Internet infrastructure to bring high speed [access] to Americans, they must be profitable, he told the E-Commerce Times. Trying to get companies to bring Internet to America with little or no profitability is a nonstarter.

Although Thursdays vote to repeal Net neutrality will please broadband providers and displease consumers and companies that use the Internet, he said, it wont end the debate.
The pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) faces a looming threat from oil and gas drilling. The little known provision, proposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, was quietly included in the House and Senate Republicans compromise tax bill.

The bill contains the single most important step I believe we can take to strengthen our energy security and create new wealth, Murkowski, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Wednesday at the tax bill conference committee meeting.

We fought long to authorize a program for energy development in Alaskas nonwilderness 1002 area, she said.

The 1002 area is a 1.5-million-acre coastal plain that holds potentially large deposits of oil and gas but also contains crucial wildlife habitats. A new analysis by the Center for American Progress and Conservation Science Partners describes the coastal plain that Sen. Murkowskis rider would auction off for drilling as the biological heart of the Arctic Refuge that hosts one-third of all polar bear denning habitat in the U.S. and one-third of the migratory birds that come to the Arctic Refuge. It is also considered sacred to the indigenous Gwichin people, who sustain themselves from the caribou that migrate there.

Opening up the area to petroleum exploration has been deferred since ANWRs establishment in 1980.

Drilling ANWR would help pay for the Republicans sweeping corporate tax cut plan. Murkowski insisted that her rider would raise more than $1 billion within 10 years and it will likely raise over $100 billion for the federal Treasury over time.

Opponents of ANWR drilling are now racing against time since Republican leaders are hoping to get their tax bill signed by President Donald Trump by Christmas.

Its an underrated aspect of this bill, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told The Hill. This has been a generations-long battle to preserve that refuge, and were going to find out the fate of it next week, so if anyone is not yet mobilized, nows the time.

Environmental groups and Democrats have criticized the GOP for sneaking the backdoor drilling provision through the budget process.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a tax bill negotiator, told The Hill that the ANWR provision is a completely unrelated, unpopular provision that should not be forced through this Congress under these procedures.

Critics also contend that with oil prices below $60 a barrel, its not even certain that oil companies would want to open up one of Earths most remote and harshest areas, nor would drilling raise enough revenue to offset the massive deficit forecasts created by the tax bill.

Its wildly optimistic that because of what happens in the refuge, somehow that is going to offset part of the huge deficit that is being created by this legislation, Grijalva continued. We dont need the oil. Were exporting millions of barrels per day in this country and I hope there is consideration given to that.

A recent survey from Yale Universitys Program on Climate Change Communication found that the majority of voters across the political spectrum oppose drilling in the refuge. Most Democrats (84 percent), Independents (64 percent), and Republicans (52 percent) oppose the policy.

The majority of Americans oppose drilling in the Arctic Refuge, and the numbers dont add up, Lydia Weiss, The Wilderness Societys Government Relations Director, said in a statement. This provision has no place in the budget, and drilling would not offset proposed tax cuts for the rich. Leaders in Congress must respect the will of the people and oppose a tax bill that would drill the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
By John R. Platt

Dont mess with Texas butterflies. They have lawyers.

This week attorneys representing the North American Butterfly Association filed a suit against the Trump administration for its plan to build a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall through a significant portion of the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. The construction plan would cut off the organizations access to no less than two-thirds of the Butterfly Center property just north of the Rio Grande River, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was officially filed Monday against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agencies responsible for building and patrolling the wall.

The filing, provided to The Revelator by the National Butterfly Center, also alleges that the Agencies and their agents and contractors have entered, damaged and destroyed NABAs private property without authorization or permissiondetails The Revelator uncovered when we originally reported on this story last July. At the time Executive Director Marianna Trevino Wright said crews had chopped down dozens, perhaps hundreds, of trees, shrubs and other plants. She captured the damage on video.

As we reported in July, Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted entering the private property but repeatedly denied they had removed any vegetation. After nearly a week of inquiries, Customs officials admitted that the tree-removal had actually taken place.

The unexpected presence of border agents reportedly continues practically to this day. In a phone call on Tuesday, Wright said that a customs agent had been on their property in late November turning visitors away from the area near where the border wall would be built.

That part of their property has been unexpectedly popular lately. All kinds of folks have been coming here, saying they want to see where the wall is going to go, Wright said. People have said they wanted to see this place before the landscape is marred by this atrocity.

What comes next is unclear. Even though the lawsuit has been filed, Wright said she remains worried about how all of this will play out. Shes also concerned that people will stop paying attention. I dont know at what point this becomes old news, she said. I think people are getting sort of tired of these crises. I mean, every day its some new thing with Trump. People are maybe getting desensitized to all of this. But maybe Im wrong.

Reposted with permission from our media associate The Revelator.
By Brett Walton

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pledged that lead regulations will be a prominent feature of the agencys work in 2018but that work will take longer than anticipated.

The agency expects that a revision to federal rules that are designed to reduce the risk of lead in drinking water will be published in draft form in August 2018, a seven-month delay from a timetable announced this summer.

A final rule is not expected until February 2020. This is the second time that the Trump administration has delayed the rules publication.

The announcement follows EPA Administrator Scott Pruitts testimony last week at a congressional hearing that he would introduce an ambitious initiative in 2018 to address lead in drinking water.

The delay in rulemaking was announced in the federal regulatory agenda, a document that is updated twice a year and provides a schedule for all agency rulemaking. Other water-related actions were included in the agenda. The EPAs highest-profile example is redefining which water bodies are protected by the Clean Water Act. The agency expects a draft rule to be published in May 2018.

The lead rule was one of 1,579 rules that were cancelled or delayed in the first 11 months of the Trump administration, a presidential goal that Trump reiterated during a photo op Thursday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Were here today for one single reason: to cut the red tape of regulation, Trump said. He stood next to two piles of printed paper: a smaller one representing federal regulations in 1960 and the other much larger stack encompassing current federal statutes.

The lead and copper rule delay appears to be a result of administrative preference. The agency will meet on Jan. 8, 2018 with more than a dozen national trade groups to discuss the rule. Those groups include water industry mainstays such as the American Water Works Association and the Association of State Drinking Water Agencies, as well as local government groups like the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The association that represents school officials is invited, too.

The extended timeline is also a matter of personnel. The agency has been short-staffed in the first year of the Trump administration. It was only yesterday, Dec. 14, that the Senate confirmed the assistant administrator in charge of the Office of WaterDavid Ross, a Wisconsin lawyer.

For that reason and because of the complexity of the rule, the delay did not surprise Alan Roberson, head of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. Even during a conversation in August he anticipated that the agency would have trouble meeting the January 2018 deadline because of the change in administration.

The EPA press office offered no explanation for the delay.

Action in 2018

In an interview last month with the Washington Post, Pruitt called lead in drinking water one of our greatest challenges in this country. He said that he would approach Congress next year to announce a very strong initiative on a war on lead.

Pruitt discussed the concept during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Dec. 7. But he provided little additional detail, only promising a multi-faceted approach that has the attention of 17 agencies.

Its one of the greatest environmental threats we face as a country, and one of the things I hope I can work with this committee on in 2018 is a strategy over a 10 year period to eradicate those concerns, Pruitt said. Its going to be a very ambitious initiative of our agency and its something we have various offices in the agency working upon.

The most ambitious goal would be to require replacement of the roughly six million to 10 million lead service lines in the country. Its a course of action that health advocates champion. But that is complicated by legal questions about whether the utility or the homeowner is responsible. The cost of such a program, which could reach tens of billions of dollars nationally, is another matter.

When the rule is finalized, it will have made a long journey.

The EPA published the original lead and copper rule in 1991, then made minor revisions in 2007 to the requirements for sampling, public notification and the process for utilities to change water sources.

For more than a decade the EPA has been working on long-term revisionsthose that the agency asserts will require more detailed analysis and consultation. In the spring 2011 regulatory agenda, the EPA anticipated that the draft rule would be published in May 2012, a deadline that is now five and a half years in the rearview mirror.

If it goes as planned, the draft rule will be published more than three years after the mayor of Flint declared a public health emergency in the city that brought the problem of lead in drinking water to the surface again.
A

wind, solar and battery storage plant is being planned for the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which has faced power woes in recent months due to grid failure.

The

renewable energy facility will consist of 120 megawatts of solar, 40 megawatts of wind, 20-40 megawatt-hours of battery backup and will be spread over 1,000 acres in the district of Anantapur.

According to

CleanTechnica, such an installation will be the worlds largest once commissioned.

The estimated $155 million project was jointly developed by Solar Energy Corporation of India, the renewable energy agency of Andhra Pradesh, NREDCAP and Andhra Pradesh Transco.

Significantly, the plant will receive funding through a loan from the

World Bank, which announced this week that it would stop financing oil and gas projects to help the global shift to cleaner energy sources.

As CleanTechnica noted, the banks support is good news for the project:

The fact that the World Bank has agreed to fund the project means that the tariffs would likely be extremely competitive, even with the existing thermal power plants in the country. The World Bank had offered debt funding for a 750 megawatt solar power park in the state of Madhya Pradesh earlier this year. The auction for that solar park broke the record for the lowest solar power tariff in the country at that time.

The developers are planning to tender the new plant by March next year,

PV-Tech reported.

India has seen many ambitious bids from all over the world to build and operate upcoming renewable energy facilities, highlighting the countrys success in expanding its clean power portfolio at a low cost,

The Economic Times pointed out.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal, who has set ambitious renewable energy targets, commented that the record low bids signal a green future for India.
Over the past decade, the most prominent school reform effort has been the development of the Common Core State Standards and their assessments, which were intended to support college and career readiness. However, during that same period, the world of work took a sharp, driverless turn. Start-ups with odd names like Uber and Lyft swiftly accelerated, upending urban transportation, creating millions of new jobs and eliminating others.

Armies of robots, already in factories and warehouses, are preparing to march into offices and hospitals. With artificial intelligence increasingly competing with human intelligence, whats a student to do? And how might educators help them? If these prospects sound dark, perhaps we can light a path forward by studying young people who are already preparing themselves well for this uncertain future.

Commentary Collection In this special collection of Commentary essays, professors, advocates, and futurists challenge us all to deeply consider how schooling must changeand change soonto meet the needs of a future we cannot yet envision. This special section is supported by a grant from the Noyce Foundation . Education Week retained sole editorial control over the content of this package; the opinions expressed are the authors own, however. Read more from the collection.

In 2014, as a fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., I worked on a simple project to interview a small, diverse collection of individuals we called extreme learners. They met a single criterion: They loved to learn. Like extreme athletes, they were passionate and fearless. Instead of letting institutions define what and how they learned, they engineered their own personal ecosystems of learning and connected their learning to earning in creative ways.

The 11 extreme learners we identified were mostly in their teens and 20s and included a few mid-career and experienced professionals. As John Falk, an expert on informal learning at Oregon State University and one of our extreme learners, put it, Everyone on this planet is hard-wired to learn, extremely, all the time. The first advice I give to any learner today is: You must take control over your own learning. The good news is, its easier today than its ever been.

As a group, our extreme learners did not fit conventional definitions of best and brightest, as defined by high GPAs or test scores. Instead, they were opportunistic in finding places and people to learn with, using not only formal schooling but also informal learning centers, such as maker spaces and science centers. They engaged in authentic, experiential, project-based learning.

These extreme learners shared five habits, which can prove instructive as we look to prepare students for an unpredictable future:

1.) They were self-motivated and found connections between their learning and working, both volunteer and paid. Sixteen-year-old Thomas Hunt, for example, left high school after 9th grade and created his own home school, volunteering at an anti-aging center concerned with macular degeneration and atherosclerosis while taking community college classes. Another extreme learner, Lenore Edman turned her interests in paper crafts, sewing, and electronics into an online business.

2.) They maintained a strong sense of curiosity across disciplines, often spanning the arts and the sciences. They asked a lot of questions and volunteered for new experiences. Mollie Cueva-Dabkoski tried several high schools before settling on the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco, where she pursued her interests in Afro-Brazilian dance and creative writing. At the same time, she also worked on a research study with an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences, studying beetles and biodiversity in the high altitudes of Chinas Yunnan Province.

These learners are the type of students prized by many universities and companies: Students interested in a wide range of topics, and deeply knowledgeable in a few topics.

3.) They were networkers. They cultivated role models and mentors through face-to-face and online connections and participated in communities of like-minded individuals. Parents often supported their explorations. As a high school student, New Yorker Nikhil Goyal contacted a global network of mentors through email and Twitter, asking them to advise him on new models of learning. While still in high school, he wrote a book, One Size Does Not Fit All, and become an in-demand keynote speaker at education conferences.

4.) They were technology savants, accessing a vast world of online learning for resources, contacts, courses, platforms, and tools. They were digital producers as well as consumers, sharpening their coding and design skills to create websites, apps, and virtual-reality games. Reflecting on his 16 years of schooling spent feeding facts into his forgetting machine, Nick Winter studied learning theories and created an app for learning Chinese characters. Preetha Ram, a former dean at Emory University, designed a social learning platform where learners pose questions, receive help, and, in turn, help others.

5.) They developed their social-emotional skills, learning to work well in groups and taking on leadership and teaching roles. Faced with challenging personal circumstances, they became more resilient. With a background in computers, Marc Roth moved to San Francisco, but became ill and homeless for six months. At a maker studio space, he took courses, starting with 3-D printing. In turn, he taught others and developed his own three-month program to teach digital fabrication to the homeless, which was praised by then-President Barack Obama at the White House Maker Faire.

These extreme learners had an entrepreneurial spirit. While they may take on jobs in established companies, they will also do well in the gig economy, where self-starters fill in periods of underemployment. They developed that spirit as entrepreneurs of their own learning, seeking out projects, identifying supporters, and applying lessons from one experience to the next.

While todays students will ride in driverless cars, they should begin now to take the steering wheel of their learning lives. The sooner schools and informal learning centers give them more freedom and flexibility to do so, the better their chances for thriving in careers we cannot now imagine.
Cyber crime seems to evolve and innovate as much as the tech industry it seeks to exploit. In recent times, ransomware has become an especially potent tool of cyber criminals looking to exploit compan...
CHICAGO (Dec. 15, 2017): Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, with more than 230,000 women diagnosed annually.* (Skin cancer remains the most common.) Patients often describe the process of making a treatment decision as worrisome, so one research team wanted to explore how these patients became informed about their treatment options, and why some women might feel less than completely informed.



The researchers found that the majority of women who had breast cancer operations reported not feeling completely informed about their treatment options. In a separate study, another research team found a possible solution: using a web-based decision aid tool, which improved patients' knowledge of treatment options more than standard cancer websites. Patients using the decision aid were more likely to recognize that waiting a few weeks to make a decision regarding their breast cancer operations would not negatively impact survival. Results from both studies appear on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website as "articles in press" ahead of print publication.



"We were really interested in providing the patient perspective," said Sunny Mitchell, MD, a breast surgeon in Stratford, CT, and the lead author of the first study, based on a nationwide survey that found the majority of women did not feel completely informed about their treatment options before undergoing breast cancer surgery. "On top of exploring how women become informed about their treatment options, we also wanted to identify any opportunities for improvement," Dr. Mitchell said.



The study, designed as a post-treatment survey, was administered by an independent public opinion research firm and completed via the Internet in June 2016. Participants were recruited from health advocacy groups, clinics, and other health-related organizations, and were eligible to take the survey if they were female, ages 18-99, received a breast cancer diagnosis, and had undergone lumpectomy, mastectomy, or both procedures. There were 487 respondents who completed the survey.



When asked if researching all their options or making a quick decision was a priority, 35 percent of the lumpectomy-only patients, 31 percent of the mastectomy-only patients, and 22 percent of the group of patients who had both operations, said that making a quick decision was more important. When asked how strongly patients agreed or disagreed that they wished they had more time to explore different breast cancer surgery options, the majority of all three groups agreed somewhat or strongly that they wished they had more time.



The survey also asked participants how informed or uninformed they felt about treatment options before undergoing breast cancer operations. The authors found that, among lumpectomy patients, only 47 percent said they felt completely informed. Among mastectomy patients, 67 percent said they felt completely informed. Among patients who had both operations, only 28 percent said they felt completely informed.



Dr. Mitchell said she was "definitely surprised by the large percentage of women who reported not feeling completely informed." In order to address this deficiency, Dr. Mitchell said that future studies could focus on providing consistent, reliable information in a variety of formats, and measuring which ones are the most effective. Formats could include brochures, decision aids, and videos to ensure that patients have enough information to make advance treatment decisions.



While many patients will make efforts to educate themselves on their own, the authors wrote, "it is unrealistic to expect that the majority of patients have sufficient health literacy, research skills, information access, and clarity of mind to inform themselves" about all treatment options, and to make the best decision. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the physician to educate the patient about treatment options and to ensure she's sufficiently informed to make a decision. In addition to providing the information, Dr. Mitchell noted that physicians should also reassure patients. Although timely treatment should be initiated, she said, patients do actually have more time than they think to make a treatment decision.



Like Dr. Mitchell's team, the second research team was also interested in how patients received information about treatment options. These researchers studied decision aids and found that these materials were more effective in informing patients when compared with standard cancer information websites. During their initial surgical consultations, breast cancer patients who used the web-based decision aid tools were more engaged, better able to articulate their concerns, and quicker to voice their opinions, said lead study author Heather Neuman, MD, MS, FACS, an associate professor in the department of surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.



From April 2014 to June 2016, the research team randomized women newly diagnosed with stages 0 to III breast cancer who were considering an operation within the UW breast program by sending them a web link via email. The link took patients to either a web-based decision aid or to standard cancer websites, including breastcancer.org, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute. The decision aid utilizes static, didactic information written for an eighth grade reading level and video clinical vignettes.



"In addition to providing information, the decision aid allows patients to compare choices by presenting the information in a parallel way," Dr. Neuman said. "It includes extra pieces of information that prompt patients to think about their values and preferences."



After receiving the links and reviewing the information, patients received a questionnaire in the clinic prior to their first surgical consultation. Researchers measured patient knowledge, the primary outcome, using a breast cancer decision quality instrument. The instrument presented five items to assess knowledge on key concepts relevant to decision making for a breast cancer operation.



The authors found that patients who received links to the decision aid demonstrated higher overall knowledge (median score of 80 percent on the questionnaire) compared with patients who received links to the standard websites (median score of 66 percent). Additionally, 72 percent of patients who received the decision aid recognized that waiting a few weeks to make a decision about their breast cancer operations would not negatively impact survival, compared with 54 percent of patients who received links to standard websites.



"Patients come in with this urgency, and this finding tells them they can slow down. They don't need to have that anxiety," Dr. Neuman said, adding that her team plans to conduct a similar study on the use of decision aids in an underserved community in Memphis, Tenn.



Decreasing the urgency surrounding the decision-making process may in turn increase the quality of the surgeon-patient consultation, the authors wrote, as patients may be more open to hearing the options and better prepared to consider them. Dr. Neuman emphasized that patients

receiving information in any form from a physician--rather than having to search for things online themselves--is very helpful.



"This process of sending something by email works, and for a general surgeon in a more rural area, that's something they could do to improve care," she said.



###

The coauthors for Dr. Mitchell's study were Jennifer Gass, MD, FACS, Women & Infants Hospital and Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, R.I.; and Michael Hanna, PhD, Mercury Medical Research & Writing, New York, N.Y.



The coauthors for the study led by the University of Wisconsin were Jennifer L. Tucholka, BS, Dou-Yan Yang, PhD, Jessica R. Schumacher, PhD, Caprice C. Greenberg, MD, MPH, FACS, and Lee G. Wilke, MD, FACS, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Jordan G. Bruce, BS, of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo; Nicole M. Steffens, MPH, of Denver Public Health, Colo; and Jennifer Steiman, MD, FACS, of the University of Pittsburgh, Pa.



"FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.



Citation: How Well Informed Do Patients Feel About Their Breast Cancer Surgery Options: Findings from a Nationwide Survey of Women after Lumpectomy and/or Mastectomy. Journal of the American College of Surgeons.



Citation: A randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of web-based information on breast cancer patients' knowledge of surgical treatment options. Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Breast Cancer. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/. Accessed November 16, 2017.

About the American College of Surgeons,/p> The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org .
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, has awarded three approximately $25,000 grants from the Constance A. Howes Women's Health Innovation Research Fund. The research fund, which has raised more than $400,000, was established in 2014 with contributions from more than 150 donors to honor former hospital president Constance A. Howes and to support research studies that advance women's health and gender-based research.

Awardees are Women & Infants researchers Valery Danilack, MPH, PhD, research associate in the Division of Research, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Paul DiSilvestro, MD, director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and Niharika Mehta, MD, obstetric internist in the Center for Obstetric and Consultative Medicine.

The team from Dr. Danilack's proposal, "A Qualitative Study of Experiences and Preferences with Labor Induction," will conduct qualitative interviews of patients and providers to elucidate their experiences and preferences in regard to the labor induction process.

Dr. DiSilvestro's grant will enable him to continue his work, "miRNA Biomarkers for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer." MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent a promising breakthrough in both early detection and targeted treatment in epithelial ovarian cancer, the leading cause of mortality among all gynecologic malignancies.

Dr. Mehta will work with co-primary investigator Isabelle Malhame, MD, obstetric medicine fellow. Their project, "A Risk Assessment Tool for Cardiovascular Severe Maternal Morbidity," aims to develop a risk assessment tool that will allow clinicians to identify those women at highest risk of developing cardiovascular severe maternal morbidity during pregnancy and after delivery.

The three awardees, selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, presented their projects to a Donor Advisory Committee at Women & Infants. The proposals were scored based on the projects' relevance to women's health and gender-based research, the potential for advancing knowledge and care models related to women's health, innovation and creativity, team strength and synergy, and plan and potential for research support from external sponsors.

The overall merit of the research projects was evaluated by a Scientific Advisory Committee and were peer reviewed and scored. Finalists then made a presentation to the Donor Advisory Committee.

Susan Mouradian, chief philanthropy officer at Care New England, said, "The Committee had intended to award two projects, but was so impressed by the innovation and promise of all three projects that donors Anne and Michael Szostak stepped up with a significant gift to ensure that all three projects could be funded this year. Thank you to the Szostaks and to all of the donors to the Constance A. Howes Fund."

###

About Women & Infants Hospital

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation's leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women's medicine, Women & Infants is the ninth largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country and the largest in New England with approximately 8,500 deliveries per year. A Designated Baby-Friendly USA hospital, U.S.News & World Report 2014-15 Best Children's Hospital in Neonatology and a 2014 Leapfrog Top Hospital, in 2009 Women & Infants opened what was at the time the country's largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation's first mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation's only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute's Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Engineers have shown that a widely used method of detecting single photons can also count the presence of at least four photons at a time. The researchers say this discovery will unlock new capabilities in physics labs working in quantum information science around the world, while providing easier paths to developing quantum-based technologies.

The study was a collaboration between Duke University, the Ohio State University and industry partner Quantum Opus, and appeared online on December 14 in the journal Optica.

"Experts in the field were trying to do this more than a decade ago, but their back-of-the-envelope calculations concluded it would be impossible," said Daniel Gauthier, a professor of physics at Ohio State who was formerly the chair of physics at Duke. "They went on to do different things and never revisited it. They had it locked in their mind that it wasn't possible and that it wasn't worth spending time on."

"When we presented our data, world experts were just blown away," continued Jungsang Kim, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke. "It's neat having a group like ours that got started a bit later decide to try something because we didn't have any blinders on."

The discovery deals with a new method for using a photon detector called a superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD).

At the heart of the detector is a superconducting filament. A superconductor is a special material that can carry an electric current forever with zero losses at low temperatures. But just like a normal piece of copper wire, a superconductor can only carry so much electricity at once.

A SNSPD works by charging a looped segment of superconducting wire with an electric current close to its maximum limit. When a photon passes by, it causes that maximum limit in a small portion of the wire to drop, creating a brief loss of superconductivity. That loss, in turn, causes an electrical signal to mark the presence of the photon.

In the new setup, the researchers pay special attention to the specific shape of the initial spike in the electrical signal, and show that they can get enough detail to correctly count at least four photons traveling together in a packet.

"Photon-number-resolution is very useful for a lot of quantum information/communication and quantum optics experiments, but it's not an easy task," said Clinton Cahall, an electrical engineering doctoral student at Duke and first author of the paper. "None of the commercial options are based on superconductors, which provide the best performance. And while other laboratories have built superconducting detectors with this ability, they're rare and lack the ease of our setup as well as its sensitivity in important areas such as counting speed or timing resolution."

For other labs to make use of the discovery, all they would need is a specific type of amplifier for boosting the SNSPD's tiny electrical signal. The amplifier must work at the same low temperatures as the SNSPD -- minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit -- to reduce background noise. It also must have wide bandwidth to avoid distorting the signal. Such amplifiers are already commercially available and many labs have them.

The results will allow researchers around the world working in quantum mechanics to immediately gain new abilities with their existing equipment. As one example, the Duke-Ohio State group also recently reported how using the timing of incoming photons in addition to their quantum states could greatly increase the speed of quantum encryption techniques.

The team is now working to optimize their setup to see just how far they can stretch its abilities. They believe with the right electronics and a bit of practice, they could count 10 or even 20 photons at a time. The group has also filed for a patent to create off-the-shelf devices based on their method.

###

The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-13-1-0627) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NNX13AP35A).

"Multi-Photon Detection using a Conventional Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector." Clinton Cahall, Kathryn L. Nicolich, Nurul T. Islam, Gregory P. Lafyatis, Aaron J. Miller, Daniel J. Gauthier, and Jungsang Kim. Optica, 2017. DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.4.001534
A whopping two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, Earth was crawling with bizarre animals, including dinosaur cousins resembling Komodo dragons and bulky early mammal-relatives, millions of years before dinosaurs even existed. New research shows us that the Permian equator was both a literal and figurative hotspot: it was, for the most part, a scorching hot desert, on top of having a concentration of unique animals. Here, you could find ancient crocodile-sized amphibians right next to newly evolved dinosaur and croc relatives. Many of these species were wiped out after an extinction which changed life on the planet forever.

In a paper published in Earth-Science Reviews, paleontologists studied fossil sites all over the world from the late Permian to get an idea of what lived where. They found an unusual assortment of species near the equator, and one that is comparable to the modern tropics--except that the array of large, carnivorous reptiles would look very out of place anywhere on Earth today.

"The tropics act as a diversity center--stuff that has gone extinct elsewhere is still alive there, and there's new stuff evolving," explains Postdoctoral Researcher Brandon Peecook, co-author of the paper. While it makes sense that the warm, wet rainforests we see now have incredible diversity, it seems counterintuitive that these fiery, hot deserts were home to an exceptional range of species, especially because diversity at the equator fluctuates so much historically.

"The tropics were a breeding ground for biodiversity, in the distant Permian as well as today," says the study's lead author Massimo Bernardi of MUSE - Museo delle Scienze in Trento, Italy.

The foundation of the research was observations made during fieldwork in Bletterbach Valley in northern Italy, which was located near the equator in the Permian. As Evelyn Kustatscher of the Museum of Nature South Tyrol explains: "The Bletterbach is a unique place because of the array of different species present. It's not that there were more individual species present than normal, but that the species that were there were really diverse and represented very different groups in the animal kingdom."

These findings about the late Permian beg the question, "Why are we seeing so much biodiversity at the equator?" This is something scientists have yet to answer, but it shows us that biodiversity at the tropics isn't intuitive, and isn't consistent. What scientists know for sure is that regardless of desert or rainforest, climate change negatively impacts living things.

This unequaled comparison of Permian climate and species distribution to modern events shows us that while many changes are natural and we see them throughout our planet's history, drastic changes like this can be triggered by something much larger--volcanic activity likely caused this in the Permian, and human activity is the suspected culprit today. After the Permian extinction, "it was almost as though the slate had been wiped clean, and all the ecosystems had to rebuild," says Peecook. This event altered life permanently and while new animals evolved and thrived, the process of recovery took millions of years, and the animals that were lost never returned.

"If we want to know how Earth's systems work, what's expected and what's normal, we need to look to the past," and the fossil record is the best measure of ecosystem stability. As we already begin to face extinctions and carbon levels similar to those before the Permian extinction, examining these patterns over time gives us the evidence we need to measure and minimize our impact on climate, preventing further permanent damage to our planet's ecosystems and animals.

###

The study is part of the research project "The end-Permian mass extinction in the Southern and Eastern Alps" developed by the Museum of Nature South Tyrol, Bolzano, Italy, the MUSE Science Museum, Trento, Italy and the Department of Geology of the University of Innsbruck, Austria. The research was also supported by grants from the National Science Foundation: EAR-1337291, EAR-1337569, and DEB-1501097.

The scientific article is freely accessible thanks to funding for scientific publications of the Research and University Service of the Bolzano Province, Italy.
The emerging domain of parallelized quantum information processing opens up new possibilities for precise measurements, communication and imaging. Precise control of multiple stored photons allows efficient handling of this subtle information in large amounts. In the Quantum Memories Laboratory at Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw a group of laser-cooled atoms has been used as a memory which can store simultaneously up to 665 quantum states of light. The experimental results have been published in a prestigious Nature Communications journal.

Every information processing task requires a memory. As any classical computer cannot exist without a RAM memory, quantum computer could not be built without a quantum memory. Quantum memory is a device capable of storage and on demand retrieval of quantum states. The key parameter of such memory is its capacity, in other words the number of qubits (quantum bits) which the memory can effectively process. Simultaneous operation on many qubits is a key to efficient quantum parallel computation, providing new possibilities in the fields on imaging or communication.

Regardless of significant efforts, the on demand generation of many photons remains a key challenge for many experimental groups dealing with quantum information. For a recently widely-used method of multiplexing many single-photon emitters into one network the complexity of experimental systems grows unfavorably with its advantages. Using a quantum memory on the other hand one can generate a group of a dozen photons within seconds rather than years. Among many methods of encoding information about single photons in a quantum memory the spatial multiplexing aided by a single-photon sensitive camera stands out as an effective way to obtain high capacity at low cost.

In the Quantum Memories Laboratory (Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw) such high-capacity memory has been successfully built. The system now holds a world-record of the largest capacity, as other experimentalists can only harness tens of independent states of light. The heart of the constructed setup comprises a so-called magneto-optical trap (MOT): a group of rubidium atoms inside a glass vacuum chamber is trapped and cooled by lasers in the presence of magnetic field to about 20 microkelvins. The memory light-atoms interface is based on off-resonant light scattering. In the write-in process the cloud of atoms is illuminated by a laser beam, resulting in photon scattering. Each scattered photon is emitted in random direction and registered on a sensitive camera. The information about scattered photons is stored inside the atomic ensemble in the form of collective excitations - spin-waves which can be on demand retrieved as another group of photons. By measuring correlations between emission angles of photons created during the write-in and read-out process we certify that the memory is indeed quantum and that the properties of generated state of light fail to be described by classical optics. The prototype quantum memory from Faculty of Physics at University of Warsaw now takes two optical tables and functions with the help of nine lasers and three control computers.

The quantum memory created using the funding of National Science Center (Poland) "PRELUDIUM" and "OPUS" project as well as Ministry of Science and Higher Education "Diamentowy Grant" project stands out for one more reason. The quantum information about all stored photons resides in a single cloud of cold atoms, and each atom takes part in the storage of each photon, making the memory resilient to a decoherence. This has been confirmed by observing quantum interference of two distinct excitations (differing by just a single quantum number). "This will allow even more complex manipulations of the atomic state, finally to prepare quantum states of light with accurately controlled parameters" - explains prof. Wojciech Wasilewski, head of Quantum Memories Laboratory.

###

Movie: A day from Quantum Memories Laboratory

Physics and Astronomy first appeared at the University of Warsaw in 1816, under the then Faculty of Philosophy. In 1825 the Astronomical Observatory was established. Currently, the Faculty of Physics' Institutes include Experimental Physics, Theoretical Physics, Geophysics, Department of Mathematical Methods and an Astronomical Observatory. Research covers almost all areas of modern physics, on scales from the quantum to the cosmological. The Faculty's research and teaching staff includes ca. 200 university teachers, of which 88 are employees with the title of professor. The Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, is attended by ca. 1000 students and more than 170 doctoral students.

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS:

"Wavevector multiplexed atomic quantum memory via spatially-resolved single-photon detection"

M. Parniak, M. Dabrowski, M. Mazelanik, A. Leszczynski, M. Lipka, W. Wasilewski

Nature Communications 8, 2140 (2017); DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02366-7

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02366-7

CONTACTS:

Dr. Wojciech Wasilewski

Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw

tel. +48 22 5532630

email: wojciech.wasilewski@fuw.edu.pl

M. Sc. Michal Parniak

Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw

tel. +48 22 5532629

email: michal.parniak@fuw.edu.pl

M. Sc. Michal Dabrowski

Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw

tel. +48 22 5532629

email: mdabrowski@fuw.edu.pl

RELATED LINKS:

http://www.fuw.edu.pl

Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.

http://psi.fuw.edu.pl/

Quantum Memories Laboratory, Institute of Experimental Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.

http://www.fuw.edu.pl/informacje-prasowe.html

Press Office of the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw.

IMAGES:

FUW171215b_fot01s.jpg

HR: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/press/images/2017/FUW171215b_fot01.jpg

Cooled and trapped cloud of cold atoms used to realize the quantum memory protocol. The atoms reside in the center of the vacuum chamber, around which the magnetic coils necessary to trap the atoms are visible. The blue color is caused by two near-infrared lasers illuminating the atoms and driving a two-photon transition, which results in spontaneous emission of visible blue light.

(Source: FUW, Mateusz Mazelanik)

FUW171215b_fot02s.jpg

HR: http://www.fuw.edu.pl/press/images/2017/FUW171215b_fot02.jpg

Article authors: (first row, from left): M. Parniak, M. Mazelanik, M. Dabrowski, M. Lipka, (second row, from left) A. Leszczynski, W. Wasilewski, along with the setup of cold-atom quantum memory.

Two optical tables with elements used to construct the prototype setup are visible. (Source: FUW, Mateusz Mazelanik)

MOVIES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYhX4Gt3VCw A day from Quantum Memories Laboratory (Source: FUW, Michal Parniak)
Tokyo-Electricity is used to power your car or home, it is also used to power your heart and brain. Batteries in machines or cells in the body conduct electricity by passing ions through liquids. Liquid properties such as viscosity and conductance determine the performance of machines. These properties reflect how ions move in the liquid, but there is poor understanding of how ions move at the atomic level. A new study by researchers at University of Tokyo's Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) reports the first direct observation of gold ions moving in liquid. The study, which can be read in Science Advances, is expected to provide a basis for more energy efficient devices.

IIS Associate Professor Teruyasu Mizoguchi explains that there are multiple ways to study ion movement.

"We model the movement as homogeneous at the macroscopic level. But the movement is very heterogeneous at the atomic level," he says.

This heterogeneity has never been directly observed, but is thought to have a significant impact on the properties of a liquid.

Mizoguchi led a team of researchers to observe gold ions diffusing in an ionic liquid. To do so, they put the liquid into an annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy (ADF-STEM) system which was developed by JEOL Ltd.. In ADF STEM, the brightness of the ion depends on the atomic number, and among metals gold has one of the highest. Also in ADF-STEM, the liquid is placed in a vacuum. Normal liquids evaporate in vacuum, but this is not so for ionic liquids because of their strong electrostatic interactions.

ADF STEM observations revealed that gold ions behave with a distinguishing type of diffusion in liquid.

"We found gold ions were trapped in small spaces or cages. The cages were made by counterionic solvent molecules," said first author Tomohiro Miyata.

These cages would move with gold inside of them, but sometimes the gold would escape to enter another cage through what Miyata describes as a "cage-jump".

"We found heterogeneous dynamics. Ions would sometimes make large displacements. Sometimes they make small jumps", he says.

The different dynamics were likely due to the heterogeneity of the ionic liquid. By tracing the movement of gold ions, the researchers could then quantify fundamental atomic properties of the liquid, including the diffusion coefficient and the activation energy.

"Atomic-scale local dynamics determines macroscopic properties. Using this information, we can improve liquid behavior to build nanoparticles and catalyze chemical reactions," said Mizoguchi.

Understanding the liquid behavior at the atomic level is expected to contribute to the design of batteries with less volatility and flammability along with better conductivity for more energy efficient devices.

###

Research contact:

Professor Teruyasu Mizoguchi

of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

Tel: +81-3-5452-6098 ext.57834

Fax:+81-3-5452-6319

Email: teru@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Press officer contact:

Momoyo Matsuyama

Public Relations Office

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

Tel: +81-3-5452-6738

Fax: +81-3-5452-6746

Email: pro@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

About Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo:

Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), the University of Tokyo is one of the largest university-attached research institutes in Japan. More than 120 research laboratories, each headed by a faculty member, comprise IIS, with more than 1,000 members including approximately 300 staff and 700 students actively engaged in education and research. Our activities cover almost all the areas of engineering disciplines. Since its foundation in 1949, IIS has worked to bridge the huge gaps that exist between academic disciplines and real-world applications.
Look closely at Nates Place menu and it tells a story, beginning with a breakfast entree called 250 Miles from Carhenge.

The menu notes the item  prepared as either a skillet, omelet or scramble  also goes by Denver because it includes the usual ingredients found in a Denver omelet: ham, onion, green pepper and cheese.

Carhenge references Alliance, home to the replica of Englands Stonehenge using gray-painted vintage automobiles. Alliance also where Nates Place owner, Nate Ushio, grew up.

Dig deeper in Nates Places menu and youll find more references to other U.S. destinations: Okie Oats, Seattle Yogurt Parfait and Bama Biscuits and Gravy.

It tells of my journey, said Ushio, who opened Nates Place Nov. 27 at 2701 N.48th St. It took over the corner spot where Northside Cafe used to be.

Ushio returned to open a restaurant in Lincoln, where he attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for three years, before moving to Hawaii, where he earned his bachelors degree in hospitality management.

Since 2012, Ushios lived in Hawaii, Washington, Oklahoma, Alabama and Arkansas, working in food service is many of those stops.

He said it was brothers idea to theme the menu items around those stops.

Hes a pretty creative guy, Ushio said.

With development happening on North 48th Street at Holdrege and Leighton streets, Ushio said he became intrigued by the University Place location.

I thought this might be a good opportunity, he said. I like Lincoln. Its not too big and not too small.

With Nates Place, Ushios offering a fresh local bistro specializing in breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast runs from 7 to 11:30 a.m. and includes a selections of skillets, omelets, scrambles, pancakes and more. The lunch menu kicks in at 10:30 and runs until close, featuring sandwiches, salads, burgers and wraps.

The dinner menu begins at 4 p.m. and features small plates/appetizers ($ to $8.50) to be shared such as sliders, avocado egg rolls and street tacos.

Ushio is hoping to obtain his liquor license soon. He plans to offer a selection of craft beers, novelty drinks (mimosas and sangrias) and wine.

Food

Nates Place offers interesting twists on familiar breakfast and lunch entrees, such as the pancakes my wife, Rebecca, ordered. The Hippie Granny ($8.50) featured nearly three plate-size pancakes stuffed and topped with Granny Smith apples caramelized with brown sugar and cinnamon. The dish was large enough to feed three, which in a way it did. We took home her leftovers and split them the next morning.

Early customer favorites, Ushio said, have included the Pesto Manifesto ($10.50), a pesto-grilled chicken breast sandwich with sun-dried tomatoes and the Run PMC ($9.50), a wrap with diced chicken, pesto aioli and sun-dried tomatoes.

The burger lineup, each pattied to a  pound, includes one (808 Burger, $10) featuring a Honolulu-inspired teriyaki sauce.

Ushio recommends the Rubes Reuben ($11), a corned beef sandwich with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and a homemade Russian dressing on grilled rye bread. The soups, both made in house, are named for his parents: Chucks Chili and Teresas Chicken Noodle.

I envied my wifes selection. During our breakfast visit, I ordered the Woo Pig Sooie omelet ($9.50). Inspired by Ushios time in Arkansas, it featured applewood-smoked bacon, breakfast sausage, onion and cheddar cheese. But the omelet was overcooked and lacking in cheese  a bit of a disappointment for the price and home fries were undercooked. It did come with a toasted sourdough from Le Quartier, so points scored there. Grade: B

Atmosphere

The cafe still looks pretty much the same as it did when it was the Northside Cafe, with two dining areas separated by a half wall and windows shaded by black awnings looking out onto 48th Street and St. Paul Avenue. One of the areas has a bar at the back. Seating is a mix of padded booths and tables. The walls are bare and could use something. The most distinctive feature is the two-tone wood floor beneath table seating. It gives the restaurant a bit of a contemporary feel. Grade: B

Service

We dined mid-morning on a Saturday, finding three other tables occupied. Our experience went well except for the turnaround time from the kitchen. Im used to  as Im sure others are  to breakfast places, unless theyre completely slammed, getting food to tables quickly. In this case, the food arrived about 15 minutes after ordering, with our server stopping by a few minutes beforehand to say it was coming out soon. I think she noticed me getting antsy. Other than that, our server refilled my coffee cup often and even brought my wife fresh cup of brewed tea before she asked for one. Grade: B

Specialty diets

The breakfast and dinner menus feature several vegetarian options, but the lunch menu, other than some of the salads, does not. Nates may want to consider a veggie wrap of some sort for the lunch menu. The dinner menu offers several interesting choices: fried pickles ($4), caprese ($7), fried macaroni and cheese ($7.50), nachos ($8), avocado egg rolls ($7.50) and flatbread ($8). The menu doesnt reference gluten-free dining. Grade: B
The Lomonosov Project is a large-scale scientific and educational space project of Lomonosov Moscow State University aimed at studying space phenomena. In the course of operation of Lomonosov satellite on the orbit the team of Skobeltsyn Scientific and Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, MSU received new data on many understudied physical phenomena both in the Universe and in the atmosphere of the Earth. The results of the studies were published in such high-rating magazines as Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics and Space Science Reviews.

The Lomonosov satellite is the project of Lomonosov Moscow State University launched to commemorate the 360th anniversary of its founder's birth. The satellite entered the orbit of the Earth in April 2016 to study high-energy space rays and high-speed processes in the optic, X-ray, and gamma ray ranges that take place in the Universe and in the upper layers of our planet's atmosphere. The equipment installed on the satellite allowed the scientists to monitor potentially dangerous space objects of natural and anthropogenic origin, such as small celestial bodies, asteroids, and space garbage.

"We've conducted correlated ground and space measurements of a gamma ray burst both in optical and gamma ranges using the satellite and MASTER - the ground network of robotic telescopes operated by MSU. Given the modern level of space research development, ground gamma observatories are very important for high-energy studies and are considered valuable additions to space experiments," said Mikhail Panasiuk, a co-author of the article, doctor of physics and mathematics, and director of Skobeltsyn Scientific and Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, MSU.

Space rays are fluxes of particles (mainly protons) with high energy that fill in the interstellar space. Modern science is especially interested in studying the origins, chemical composition, and energy spectrum of high energy space rays (about 1019 -1020 eV). It is very difficult to measure them from the ground because such particles are very rare: on average, one particle occurs on a 1km2 site once in a hundred years. MSU physicists were the first to conduct experiments to register high-energy rays in the upper layers of Earth atmosphere using a telescope installed on Lomonosov satellite. When entering the atmosphere, high-energy rays react with it and cause air showers (cascades of secondary particles) and strong short-term UV bursts.

TUS (Tracking Device) orbit-based telescope uses the atmosphere of the Earth as a huge target on which the reaction with high-energy space rays takes place. For instance, scientists managed to considerably increase the effective survey area compared to ground installations. TUS registers UV flashes caused by secondary particles in air showers and registers the number of photons based on which the energy of primary particles is calculated. Right now the Russian team is on the stage of analyzing the data collected by the orbit-based telescope within the first several months of its operation. In the future this data will help the scientists understand the nature and mechanisms of acceleration of high-energy particles.

Besides the flashes caused by high-energy space rays the telescope registered other atmospheric events that manifested themselves in the UV range. The most interesting of them are transient light phenomena - short-term (from one to one hundredths of milliseconds) flashes of electromagnetic radiation that are allegedly associated with storm ares in the middle and lower layers of the atmosphere. Due to the dissipation of the radiation along the clouds, transients give a simultaneous UV signal in the whole vision range of TUS.

On the one hand, events like this create disturbances when the telescope is fulfilling its main task, which is the registration of high-energy space rays, On the other hand, they pose an independent topical experimental problem - investigation of the physical nature of transient radiation phenomena and their association with storm electricity.

A set of equipment consisting of three devices (BDRG, SHOK, and UFFO) was installed by the team of researchers on board of Lomonosov spacecraft. The purpose of the equipment was to study gamma-ray bursts. A gamma-ray burst is a short-term expansion of a gamma quantum flux to energies that are equal at least to 109 eV. The amount of energy produced in the course of such bursts is practically the same to that emitted by a supernova explosion, but the burst takes only one second. These phenomena are considered one of the most powerful in the Universe, but they are still understudied.

In order to clearly understand the nature of gamma-ray bursts, observations should be made simultaneously in optic and gamma ranges. However, it is very difficult to register optic radiation at the moment of its occurrence, as no one can predict in which area of the sky it is to take place. The equipment of Lomonosov spacecraft managed to register optic radiation precisely at the moment of gamma-ray bursts for the first time in history.

BDRG (a set of X-ray and gamma-ray detectors) consists of three gamma quantum detectors with perpendicular axes. 3G measurements allow the device to establish precise coordinates of a burst source. When a phenomenon is registered, BDRG send a special trigger signal to wide-angle optic cameras (SHOK). When the signal is registered, the system memorizes the optic image of the space area in which the burst took place, and information is transferred to the global network for ground telescopes to be focused on it.

Another device called UFFO (Ultra Fast Flash Observatory) reacts to the trigger signal by turning on an X-ray telescope to register the burst in the yellow X-ray range. Moreover, it quickly focuses an optic telescope on the location of the phenomenon. Experiments helped the team to reach the record-setting focusing time of about one minute.

Within the period from its launch to August 2017 Lomonosov had registered 20 gamma-ray bursts of space origin as well as the bursts from magnetars (neutron stars with very strong magnetic fields). The data received from the satellite are unique and cover a wide range of wave lengths (optic, X-ray, and gamma). The Russian team believes that this information will help it make a huge step to understanding the understudied phenomenon of gamma-ray bursts.

"Within the framework of Lomonosov project MSU specialists at their own initiative developed and successfully tested Lomonosov spacecraft - a prototype device for the space segment of optic monitoring of potentially dangerous space objects of natural and anthropogenic origin in the near space," added Mikhail Panasiuk.

During the design of equipment and on-board systems for Lomonosov satellite the scientists used cutting-edge developments in electronics, nuclear and physical methodology, optical means of monitoring, and software. Some of these developments are exclusive and have no analogs in the world.

The work on the project was performed by specialists, students, and postgraduates of Skobeltsyn Scientific and Research Institute of Nuclear Physics, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Scientific and Research Institute of Mechanics, Institute of Mathematical Studies of Complex Systems, and the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Lomonosov Moscow State University. They worked in cooperation with scientists from All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Electromechanics Corporation JSC, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Sungkyungkwan University (South Korea), University of California in Los Angeles, and University of Puebla (Mexico).

Based on the experience gained in the course of satellite development and achieved results, the team embarked on the fulfillment of the next project called UNIVERSAT - SOCRAT (alerting system for space radiation, asteroid, and anthropogenic threats). This project provides for the creation of a group of small satellites for monitoring, identification, and immediate forecasting of natural and anthropogenic space threats. It includes monitoring of the radiological situation, electromagnetic transients, and potentially dangerous natural (asteroids, meteors) and anthropogenic (space garbage) objects in the near space in real time.

###
Researchers from Lancaster University are exploring whether technology could be the key to tackling the UK's loneliness epidemic by better connecting older adults with their communities.

Ironically, isolation and loneliness have spread rapidly as communication has become easier - particularly among older adults. According to Age UK, 3.9 million older adults see the TV as their best form of company - an issue that carries serious consequences. Loneliness is said to increase the risk of death by 26% - equivalent to factors such as smoking and obesity - and cost the nation 6,000 per person in health costs and pressure on local services.

In an age when increasing services and information are available online, how can a non-digitalised generation engage with technology to help improve the quality of their lives?

Lancaster University researchers are working on a 2.9 million project involving more than 100 older adults across Europe to co-create apps and digital services to deal with complex social issues such as isolation, exclusion and access to services.

The UK arm of the 'Mobile Age' project, which will culminate in written policy briefs for the EU and UK government, is focused on the South Lakeland area and centres around reducing social isolation and loneliness.

As part of the project, a new app is being co-created with a group of 10 local older adults. Using open data, the app shows users social opportunities available in their chosen area based on their preferences, as well as offering real-time information on factors that research suggests discourage older adults from venturing out - such as weather and levels of daylight. The app will also provide clear information on what the route is like, including its terrain, whether it's walkable, transport services available and toilet facilities along the way.

Professor Niall Hayes from Lancaster University is leading the UK research. He said: "The over 60s constitute a large and ever-growing group of very capable, active people with a will and the time to get involved with their communities - yet loneliness is an issue that affects millions across the country.

"Older adults are a largely untapped source of smart, sociable people but they are at risk of being excluded from the digital age as they often cannot access the information that others have at their fingertips. Rather than isolating them from the digital world, our research looks at co-creating something that works for them - opening up a brand new world of information that should create more social opportunities and a greater feeling of community."

While a large proportion of the community see devices like tablets and smartphones as ways to enhance social circles, research shows older adults don't feel the same way. They haven't grown up with technology and often fear it could replace real, face-to-face social engagement.

Working in conjunction with Lancaster University's Nigel Davis, a professor in Computing and Communications, an app is in its last stages of development and will be rolled out within the UK's chosen pilot community - South Lakeland in Cumbria - in the New Year.

Professor Hayes said: "The app is designed to be intuitive and easy to use but now we need to test it with different community groups. We want to capture the views of as many people as possible before passing on our policy recommendations - which will include the recommendation that large screens are displayed within existing community groups so all attendees get into a routine of accessing information and planning their next participation.

"We are working with local charities, support services and the local council and anticipate that lessons learned in this project will help shape local digital services in the future."

Over the next 12 months, the researchers will also continue to co-create with local participants, this time focusing on the role of carers and volunteers in supporting older people to use the app and access events.

###
Understanding how cancer cells are able to metastasize -- migrate from the primary tumor to distant sites in the body -- and developing therapies to inhibit this process are the focus of many laboratories around the country. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) have identified one mechanism that regulates signaling events leading to cell migration and metastasis. In the October 24, 2017 issue of Science Signaling, they showed that primary cilia act as a focal point to transmit growth signals. Furthermore, they identified a specific ceramide species (produced by ceramide synthase 4 [CerS4]) that disrupts the ability of cells to form this focal point.

"We think this could be one way cancer cells actually migrate from one place to another to induce metastasis," says Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D., senior author for this study, director of the Developmental Cancer Therapeutics Program at the Hollings Cancer Center and professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at MUSC.

The Ogretmen laboratory studies the signaling lipid ceramide and its role in many biological pathways, including cancer biology. Ceramides are made in cells by a family of six ceramide synthase enzymes. To identify how these different enzymes function, the Ogretmen laboratory generated mice that lacked each of these enzymes. Interestingly, mice lacking CerS4 had alopecia, a condition in which hair is lost from some or all parts of the body.

How does hair loss relate to cancer? It turns out that keratinocytes, or skin cells, migrate through the outer skin to maintain hair follicles. In the absence of CerS4, the keratinocytes are hyperactive and migrate too much, thereby disrupting the hair cycle. Ogretmen reasoned that, although this phenotype was unanticipated, the increased migration seen in these keratinocytes may also occur in cancer cells.

"Some unexpected phenotypes in animal models can actually lead to something very important in cancer biology that we didn't expect. In this case, hair loss told us something about cancer metastasis and how that can be regulated," says Ogretmen.

The recent findings from the Ogretmen laboratory indeed showed that ceramide affected cell migration, which is tightly controlled. When the cytokine transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) is sensed by the TGF-beta receptor, the receptor concentrates within the primary cilia of cells. The cell then changes the proteins it makes to allow the cell to migrate. Ceramide produced by CerS4 binds to Smad7, a cellular protein that can bind the TGF-beta receptor. The binding of ceramide to Smad7 prevents the TGF-beta receptor from concentrating in the cilia. Ultimately, ceramide prevents the cell from making the proteins necessary for migration.

Having identified a signaling pathway in cells, the researchers next wanted to determine if this pathway was important in cancer patients. The Ogretmen laboratory screened previously reported microarray data sets of several human tumor tissues (metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, and renal cell carcinoma) and showed that, in these samples, only the levels of CerS4 were significantly decreased. Furthermore, using preclinical models, they showed that tumor cells that lost CerS4 expression had an increased incidence of metastasis to distant organs. This increased metastasis could be mitigated when the cell made more Smad7, which inhibited the TGF-beta receptor.

For many years, it was thought that the breadth of ceramide synthases present in cells represented redundant functions for this family of enzymes. This report suggests that this idea needs reframing, since only the ceramide generated from CerS4 regulates migration that is mediated by the TGF-beta receptor.

Future studies are aimed at developing a better model to study tumor development and metastasis in the context of CerS4. There is a mouse strain that develops primary mammary tumors, but those tumors do not form metastases. By decreasing the expression of CerS4 in these mice, the Ogretmen laboratory hopes to better define the way in which CerS4 regulates cell migration and metastasis. Furthermore, these mice would provide an excellent model to test novel therapies aimed at preventing metastasis.

However, there are several limitations to this approach. Targeting the TGF-beta receptor could have detrimental effects on other tissues of the body. Additionally, Bardet-Biedl syndrome is a metabolic disease in which trafficking of proteins within the cilium is blocked. Therefore, targeting the formation of the cilium could prove problematic. Together, it is critical when treating metastasis that the therapy be as specific as possible.

"Unfortunately, most cancer drugs have targets but those targets might be toxic when you inhibit them in other parts of the body. That's why I think the mechanistic studies are so important to try to only target the TGF-beta receptor signaling in the primary cilia but not in other parts of the body," says Ogretmen.

###

About MUSC

Founded in 1824 in Charleston, The Medical University of South Carolina is the oldest medical school in the South. Today, MUSC continues the tradition of excellence in education, research, and patient care. MUSC educates and trains more than 3,000 students and residents, and has nearly 13,000 employees, including approximately 1,500 faculty members. As the largest non-federal employer in Charleston, the university and its affiliates have collective annual budgets in excess of $2.2 billion. MUSC operates a 750-bed medical center, which includes a nationally recognized Children's Hospital, the Ashley River Tower (cardiovascular, digestive disease, and surgical oncology), Hollings Cancer Center (a National Cancer Institute designated center) Level I Trauma Center, and Institute of Psychiatry. For more information on academic information or clinical services, visit musc.edu. For more information on hospital patient services, visit muschealth.org.

About MUSC Hollings Cancer Center

The Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center and the largest academic-based cancer research program in South Carolina. The cancer center comprises more than 120 faculty cancer scientists with an annual research funding portfolio of $44 million and a dedication to reducing the cancer burden in South Carolina. Hollings offers state-of-the-art diagnostic capabilities, therapies and surgical techniques within multidisciplinary clinics that include surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation therapists, radiologists, pathologists, psychologists and other specialists equipped for the full range of cancer care, including more than 200 clinical trials. For more information, visit http://www.hollingscancercenter.org
Researchers, prospective partners, media professionals, students, and space enthusiasts now have more space station science at their fingertips

Researchers, prospective partners, media professionals, students, and space enthusiasts now have more space station science at their fingertips with Space Station Research Explorer on NASA.gov (SSRE on NASA.gov). The new information exploration tool enables researchers, practiced and amateur alike, to stay up-to-date with the science being conducted aboard the International Space Station.

With just a few clicks, users are granted access to thousands of space station investigations, results summaries, article citations and in-orbit photographs. Designed with ease of use in mind, investigations can be browsed by keyword, expedition, scientific category, publication, international partner, organization or developer.

SSRE on NASA.gov will release in two phases. The current phase of the database features an improved search capability and creates an exclusive environment for space station science. While information about scientific investigations aboard the space station have always been searchable on the main NASA.gov webpage, SSRE on NASA.gov now creates a more tailored experience for the scientifically curious by allowing the research to be accessed through one search field.

Phase one also features a more modernized, sleek look with the ability to share findings on social media, to easily cite investigations or articles and to bookmark favorite investigations or facilities for later use.

Phase two will include smaller, user-satisfaction features based on metrics collected during the initial roll-out of the science database, including more robust search capabilities and more polished user interfaces.

###

For more information about current investigations happening aboard the space station, follow @ISS_Research.
NASA's Aqua satellite provided infrared imagery of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak that revealed the western side of storm had moved into the southern and central Philippines. Infrared data revealed very cold cloud top temperatures with the potential for heavy rainfall.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Kai-Tak on Dec. 14 at 12:11 p.m. EST (1711 UTC). Infrared data provides cloud top temperatures and the coldest cloud tops and strongest storms were blanketing the southern and central Philippines. Infrared data showed persistent central cold cover obscuring the low-level circulation center where cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 115.6 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 82 degrees Celsius. NASA research has shown that storms with cloud tops that cold have the potential to generate heavy rainfall.

On Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. EST (1500 UTC) the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported that Tropical storm Kai-tak, known as Urduja in the Philippines had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kph). The storm had slowed to a crawl, moving west at just 2 knots (2.3 mph/3.7 kph). When a tropical cyclone slows over land, it increases the likelihood for inland flooding.

Kai-Tak was centered near 11.6 degrees north latitude and 127.6 degrees east longitude, just east of the Eastern Visayas region and about 436 miles east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.

On Dec. 15, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) issued Heavy Rainfall Warning No.17 at 8:40 p.m. local time on Friday, December 15, 2017. PAGASA issued orange and yellow level warnings.

There is an Orange Warning Level for Eastern Samar and Samar, where flooding is threatening in low-lying areas and landslides in mountainous areas. There is a Yellow Warning Level for Leyte, Southern Leyte, Biliran, Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor and Negros Oriental where flooding is possible in low-lying areas and landslides in mountainous areas.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center expects Kai-tak to continue moving westward through the Philippine archipelago, while intensifying slightly. After landfall in the Eastern Visayas region, the storm will weaken and turn to the southwest where it is expected to track into the South China Sea by Dec. 18.

For updated forecasts and warnings from PAGASA, visit: https://www1.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/

###
Their research is focused on health, medicinal plants, conservation and human economic behaviour. They have won TWAS prizes for their contributions to science -- and communities -- in the developing world

The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) has named the winners of its major 2017 prizes, led by Argentine geoscientist Victor Alberto Ramos, recipient of the prestigious TWAS-Lenovo Prize. While the winners work in different fields, they have one thing in common: their work contributes significantly to the well-being of human communities in the developing world.

The winners include four men and three women from seven countries. The prizes were announced in December, culminating in the announcement of the winners of the TWAS-Lenovo Prize and the Siwei Cheng Prize in Economic Sciences on Wednesday 13 December at the annual meeting of the TWAS Council, this year in Trieste, Italy.

"Our winners this year reflect the diversity and the highly positive impact of research being conducted today in the developing world, including work by scientists in the Least Developed Countries," said TWAS President Bai Chunli. "Through their commitment to excellence, they have emerged as leaders in global efforts to address many important challenges, and they undoubtedly serve as an inspiration to their colleagues and students."

The 2017 winners:

TWAS-Lenovo Prize: Argentine geoscientist Victor Alberto Ramos was named the winner for his work on the formation of the Andes, both shedding light on the story behind his home continent and revealing the cause of strong earthquakes along the mountain range. Ramos' work has valuable practical applications in fields ranging from copper mining to earthquake preparedness. The TWAS-Lenovo Prize, with an award of USD100,000, is one of the most prestigious honours given to scientists from developing nations.

TWAS-C.N.R. Rao Prize: Kalulu Taba, a 2015 TWAS Fellow and organic chemist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was honoured for his contributions to the knowledge of natural products that help treat malaria and disinfect water. His work tests local herbal medicine traditions, such as those practiced by trusted community members to treat diseases, to scientifically demonstrate their effectiveness so that they can be more broadly used.

TWAS-Fayzah M. Al-Kharafi Prize: Yemeni microbiologist Fathiah Zakham was recognised for efforts to develop faster ways of studying and testing tuberculosis, which can help researchers to track drug-resistance in the disease. With her home country torn by war, Zakham is currently working in Switzerland, she remains focused on conditions at home, researching ways to improve tuberculosis prevention. The annual Al-Kharafi Prize honours exceptional women scientists from scientifically and technologically lagging countries.

TWAS-Atta-ur-Rahman Prize: Chemist Remy Bertrand Teponno won for discovering new compounds from Cameroonian plants and microorganisms that could help treat common diseases or address the rising threat of antibiotic resistance that complicates infectious disease treatment worldwide. The annual Rahman Prize recognises the achievements of a chemist under the age of 40 who has been living and working a science- and technology-lagging country.

TWAS-Samira Omar Innovation for Sustainability Prize: Caroline Asiimwe, a veterinarian and environmental researcher from Uganda, was honoured for her efforts to engage Ugandan refugees and poachers with wildlife conservation. The strategy has fostered an unprecedented exchange of knowledge between scientists and indigenous people. Asiimwe is the first winner of the TWAS-Omar Prize, which honours scientists from Least Developed Countries for achievements in conservation and management of natural resources.

TWAS-Abdool Karim Prize: Barbara Burmen, a Kenyan epidemiologist, was honoured for her innovative approaches to HIV testing in the Kenyan population, for her research on tuberculosis, and for her mentorship activity with younger colleagues. She is the first-ever recipient of the new award, which honours women scientists in Low-Income African countries for their achievements in biological sciences.

TWAS-Siwei Cheng Prize in Economic Sciences: Arunava Sen of India, a pioneer in "game theory', was honoured for developing theories that analyze how institutions function, and how people who govern and operate within those institutions strategize to get the outcomes they desire. He receives the first ever TWAS-Siwei Cheng Prize, honouring the late and renowned Chinese economist Siwei Cheng (1935-2015).

Also Wednesday, the TWAS Council meeting in Trieste, Italy, named the winners of the 2018 TWAS Prizes. The TWAS Prizes honour scientists whose research has a strong and positive impact in the developing world. Among them were scientists researching in nine different fields. They are: Zhang Dabing, China (Agricultural Sciences); Luisa Lina Vila Brazil (Biology); Thalappil Pradeep, India (Chemistry); Zhao Guochun, China and Alejandro Raga, Mexico (Earth, Astronomy and Space Sciences - shared); Tseng Yu-Chee,Taiwan, and Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, India (Engineering Sciences - shared); Ricardo Guillermo Duran, Argentina (Mathematics); Lynn Morris, South Africa and Seza Ozen, Turkey (Medical Sciences - shared); Daniel Mario Ugarte, Brazil (Physics): Alex Chika Ezeh, Kenya and Lui Yansui, China (Social Sciences - shared).

###
More materials for electronic applications could be identified, thanks to the discovery of a new metal-organic framework (MOF) that displays electrical semiconduction with a record high photoresponsivity, by a global research collaboration

More materials for electronic applications could be identified, thanks to the discovery of a new metal-organic framework (MOF) that displays electrical semiconduction with a record high photoresponsivity, by a global research collaboration involving the University of Warwick.

Research published today in Nature Communications shows how high photoconductivity and semiconductor behaviour can be added to MOFs - which already have a huge international focus for their applications in gas storage, sensing and catalysis.

The new work, conducted by Universities in Brazil, the United Kingdom and France - including researchers at Warwick's Department of Chemistry - found that the new MOF has a photoresponsivity of 2.5  105 A.W-1- the highest ever observed.

The MOF has been prepared using cobalt (II) ions and naphthalene diimides and acid as ligands. The structure shows anisotropic redox conduction, according to the directions of the crystal lattice. The conduction mechanism is sensitive to light, and may be modified or modulated according to the incident wavelength.

Photoactive and semiconducting MOFs are rare but desirable for electrical and photoelectrical devices.

These results are the first of this kind concerning MOFs and are the starting point for the possibility of discovery of even more functional materials, displaying properties suitable for practical applications.

The potential for use in electronic components and photoconversion devices, such as solar cells and photocatalysts provides a very exciting future for such materials.

Professor Richard Walton, from Warwick's Department of Chemistry, commented:

"The material we have discovered paves the way for new applications of a topical family of materials in many areas ranging from technology to energy conversion. We illustrate how MOFs that combine organic and inorganic components can produce unique functional materials from readily available chemicals.

"Our work was underpinned by Warwick's strengthening collaborative links with Brazilian universities and our exceptional equipment for materials analysis "

###

The study was carried out with an international collaboration between the University of Warwick (UK), Universidade de Sao Paulo (Brazil), the Advanced Technology Institute at the University of Surrey (UK), and the University of Grenoble-Alpes (France).

Notes to editors:

The research, 'Electrical conduction modulated by light in a cobalt and naphthalene diimide metal-organic framework', is published in Nature Communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02215-7

The collaboration between Universidade de Sao Paulo (Ribeirao Preto) and Warwick was initially funded by a Santander/Warwick Brazil Partnership Project in 2012 and led to a "special visiting researcher" position at Ribeirao Preto for Professor Richard Walton 2014-2018, funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico in Brazil (CNPq) to study the preparation of new functional materials.

This resulted in visits to Warwick by a number of Brazilian research students over the past 4 years, including Evandro Castaldelli, the first author of this paper. The research performed at Warwick made use of state-of-the-art equipment available in the X-ray Diffraction Research Technology Platform (currently directed by Richard Walton), one of eight such facilities to provide underpinning technologies for interdisciplinary research at Warwick to enable world leading research.

The University of Warwick & Brazil:

The University of Warwick has numerous significant links with Brazil - fostering key research collaborations, student recruitment in the country, and study abroad exchange programmes.

Warwick's lead partners in Brazil are the Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP), Universidade Estadual Paulista 'Julio de Mesquita Filho' (UNESP) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) - with the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) providing an opportunity for undergraduates to experience Brazil through Study Aboard.

There is a growing network of around ninety Warwick researchers who are currently engaged in some form of collaboration with Brazilian institutions.
Martti, the robot car developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, is the first automated car to have driven fully autonomously on a real snow-covered road. On top of that, it also succeeded in making a new speed record of 40 km/h on the Aurora E8 intelligent road in Muonio, probably setting a new unofficial world record as well.

Martti is a research vehicle developed on the chassis of Volkswagen Touareg. Like its counterpart Marilyn, it is equipped with cameras, antennas, sensors and laser scanners. The number and placement of sensors differs between the vehicles. For example, Martti has three laser scanners sensing the environment only in front of the car, whereas its spouse Marilyn has two scanners looking forwards and one looking backwards.

"When in spring 2017 we, the researchers, taught the automated car Marilyn to drive, this autumn it has been teaching us on how to make Martti such that it can get along with its spouse, and follow GPS and positioning information on its route. Martti has been designed for demanding weather conditions and Marilyn shines as the queen of urban areas," says project manager Matti Kutila from VTT's RobotCar Crew, describing the couple.

On the intelligent road of Muonio, Martti was also given intensive training. "It clearly has a very determined mindset, and after a persistent 24-hour training session, it started functioning. Earlier, Marilyn required a lot more work, because its control software was created from scratch. Martti uses the same software, which did no longer require more than minor adjustments," says Ari Virtanen, who was in charge of building the car and its equipment.

Martti made its speed record, when it was allowed to pick up speed after having felt its way for a little while. "It probably also made a new world record in fully automated driving, making 40 km/h in a snowfall on snow-covered terrain without lane markings. It could have had even more speed, but in test driving it is programmed not to exceed the limit of 40 km/h," Kutila points out. The amazing drive was implemented by Pasi Pyykonen, Ari Virtanen and Rainer Tappinen.

The next step for VTT's autonomous cars will be changing the wavelengths of the optical components, increasing the resolution of the radar, and building more intelligence in the software monitoring the capabilities of the sensors. These are intended to enhance the vehicle's functioning capacity step by step also on slippery road surfaces, where concealed edge of the road or fog may obstruct visibility.

Different scenarios are added all the time in the development of the autonomous cars (such as cities, main roads, snow, exit ramps) that the car can manage, while increasing the driving speed and managing even demanding weather conditions with intelligence.

Next, Martti will spend a well-deserved Christmas holiday, but Marilyn will be on call between Christmas and New Year, preparing for its first mission abroad, a trip to Germany in May. Before mid-January, Martti will be equipped with communications modules which allow it to communicate with digital transport infrastructure. So far it has been able to communicate with its spouse Marilyn only.

VTT's automated cars are intensely involved in the development of the 5G system, taking advantage of the opportunities it provides for automated driving through, for example, the 5G-SAFE project, which is part of Tekes' Challenge Finland programme. VTT works in close collaboration with the European automotive industry in the development of automation for demanding weather conditions.

"We already have at our disposal an intelligent roadside unit, capable of feeding local information for the insatiable needs of Martti and Marilyn. This cart dubbed MARSU contains measuring devices for friction data and a communications module serving as a base station. Furthermore, next spring one of our vehicles can also be spotted in forest environments, when Marilyn and Martti get a new friend capable of tackling all terrains," Kutila reveals.

###

The Aurora E9 experiments have been conducted as a part of the Arctic Challenge-CAD project as a joint work between Indagon, InfoTripla and Dynniq.

See the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3GgJoVTHSU&feature=youtu.be

Further information:

VTT

Matti Kutila, Senior Scientist, Senior Project Manager

+358408208334

matti.kutila@vtt.fi

Pasi Pyykonen, Research Scientist

+358404860760

pasi.pyykonen@vtt.fi

Further information on VTT:

Tiina Saario-Kuikko

Specialist, external communications

+358 20 722 6745

tiina.saario-kuikko@vtt.fi

http://www.vtt.fi

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is the leading research and technology company in the Nordic countries. We use our research and knowledge to provide expert services for our domestic and international customers and partners, and for both private and public sectors. We use 4,000,000 hours of brainpower a year to develop new technological solutions. VTT in social media: Twitter @VTTFinland, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.
Maunakea, Hawaii - One of the most scientifically productive adaptive optics (AO) systems on Earth is getting a major upgrade, one that will further advance high-impact research on the hunt for habitable exoplanets, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded funding to the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii for a significant enhancement of the performance of the AO system on the Keck II telescope.

"The Keck telescopes were the first large telescopes to be equipped with adaptive optics and subsequently laser guide stars. All major astronomical telescopes now have laser guide star AO systems. Despite this competition, Keck Observatory's AO systems have remained the most scientifically productive in the world. This upgrade will help maintain our science community's competitive advantage," said Principal Investigator Peter Wizinowich, chief of technical development at Keck Observatory.

AO is a technique used to remove the distortions caused by turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. This results in sharper, more detailed astronomical images. This upgrade will further improve the clarity of the images formed by the telescope.

The project will deliver a faster, more flexible real-time controller (RTC), as well as a better, lower noise camera for wavefront sensing. This will reduce the camera readout and computation time between the time that an image is captured and a correction for atmospheric blurring is made.

"Any delay means the correction is applied for atmospheric turbulence that has already started to change. Even if the correction happens in just a few milliseconds, we want to reduce the delay to a minimum. The new RTC computer and camera uses advanced technology to do just that," said Sylvain Cetre, a software engineer at Keck Observatory who plays a lead role in developing the new RTC.

Recognizing this as a valuable STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) opportunity for education and workforce development, Keck Observatory will include a postdoc as well as a Hawaii college student from the summer Akamai Internship Program to work on the development of the project.

"Part of Keck Observatory's mission is to train and prepare future generations so the work continues long after we are gone," said Jason Chin, a senior engineer at Keck Observatory and project manager for the new RTC. "Many of Hawaii's finest students, scientists, and engineers end up working on the mainland away from their families. We want to show them there is a vibrant tech industry in Hawaii. One of the ways we do that is by participating in the Akamai Internship Program, which has one of the highest retention rates for Hawaii college students staying in the STEM field. We are proud that many are working in our local tech industry."

Co-Principal Investigators Andrea Ghez, Director of the UCLA Galactic Center Group, Jessica Lu, Assistant Astronomy Professor at UC Berkeley, Dimitri Mawet, Associate Astronomy Professor at Caltech, and Tommaso Treu, Physics and Astronomy Professor at UCLA, will also involve graduate and postdoc students. Their teams will use the new capabilities of Keck Observatory's AO system to pursue science projects in three fields of study:

Characterizing planets around low mass stars via direct imaging and spectroscopy Testing Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and understanding supermassive black hole interactions at the Galactic Center Constraining Dark Matter, the Hubble constant, and Dark Energy via strong gravitational lensing

"These instrumentation improvements will not only enhance the scientific return of our existing AO system, but it will also provide an excellent platform for future improvements," said Wizinowich. "We were very pleased to learn that our proposal was successful."

The upgrade is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

###

ABOUT ADAPTIVE OPTICS

W. M. Keck Observatory is a distinguished leader in the field of adaptive optics (AO), a breakthrough technology that removes the distortions caused by the turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere. Keck Observatory pioneered the astronomical use of both natural guide star (NGS) and laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) and current systems now deliver images three to four times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Keck AO has imaged the four massive planets orbiting the star HR8799, measured the mass of the giant black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, discovered new supernovae in distant galaxies, and identified the specific stars that were their progenitors.

The original Keck II AO system was built with funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation and NASA. The new RTC will build on a laser guide star facility upgrade completed in 2016 with the generous financial support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, W. M. Keck Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and other Friends of Keck including The Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation, Change Happens Foundation, Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation, and Sanford and Jeanne Robertson.

ABOUT W. M. KECK OBSERVATORY

The W. M. Keck Observatory telescopes are among the most scientifically productive on Earth. The two, 10-meter optical/infrared telescopes on the summit of Maunakea on the Island of Hawaii feature a suite of advanced instruments including imagers, multi-object spectrographs, high-resolution spectrographs, integral-field spectrometers, and world-leading laser guide star adaptive optics systems.

Keck Observatory is a private 501(c) 3 non-profit organization operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

The Keck Observatory community wishes to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain.

For more information, visit http://www.keckobservatory.org.
Welcome to the News Release Wire Selection Control Panel.

Instant News Wire
Friday, December 15, 2017

The Best of Winter Reading, 2017

Books showcase authors' literary talent

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES, December 15, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Award-winning journalist, Fran Briggs has released The Best of Winter Reading, 2017. Ten authors from the U.S.A., Canada, the U. K. and beyond are being recognized as among 'The Best of Winter Reading, 2017.' The literary genres include children's, mystery, paranormal, sci-fi, wit and wisdom. The list puts the spotlight on a group of talented and distinguished authors.

It's a joy to help enthusiastic readers make quality decisions as it pertains to their reading selections--especially considering the innumerable choices available on the market," stated Briggs. "The Best of Winter Reading list is organized by title, publisher, the author's name, a short synopsis of each book, and a link for additional information and purchase. In every case, the pages will turn quickly."

"The Best of Winter Reading, 2017, is neither a rating, nor is it based on traditional criteria. Each book showcases the respective author's literary vision through subject, originality, impact, influence, and quality," she explained.

"This is not a compilation of 'greatest hits,' but rather a collection of among the best of winter reading in 2017. These authors and their sponsors deserve recognition.'

1. Resurrect: A Whitney Steel Novel (KC Publishing) by Kim Cresswell Intrigue and murder reach epidemic proportions when investigative reporter Whitney Steel receives a lead pointing to a biological attack using a new chimera virus. http://kimberleycresswell.wordpress.com

2. 9/11: Official Complicity (Author House) by Michael Rowland (Calls attention to the inconsistencies of the American government's response to 9/11, blending a mix of fact and fiction http://www.Amazon.com

3. With Eyes Turned Skyward (CreateSpace) by Gregory Stravinski After the world has succumbed to global warming and the melting of polar ice, much of the surviving population survives in airborne communities aboard gargantuan zeppelins the size of aircraft http://www.amazon.com

4. Ancestral Journals (CreateSpace) by Lauriel Michele A thought-provoking book of poetry, inspirational writings, modern mythology, short stories and songs http://www.Amazon.com

5. The Reaping Of Righteous Souls (CreateSpace) Dan Collins is approached by a dark natured man named Delano, who calls himself a Reaper who is one of a legion of "harvesters" in the employ the "Creator." http://www.Amazon.com

6. The Tiana and Briana Series. Book 1 of 3: The Problem with Ms. Perfect (CreateSpace) by Doreen Allen In this delightful children's series, you will enter into the world of Tiana and Briana, a set of ten-year-old curious, twins. http://www.doreeneallen.com

7. Sour Pill: A Guide To Surviving In The Dominant Society (CreateSpace) by Darrrell L. Gray Give the political and social climate of the this day and age, it's imperative that the African American nuclear family evolve and advance in a different and more tactical direction than ever before. http://www.Amazon.com

8. P-Whipped: The Emasculation of Humanity (Me Books) by Maya Emmett A stinging, politically-incorrect, in-depth gender study looks at the abuse of aggressive anger toward our perceived enemymenand its all-inclusive malignant effects on our society as a whole http://authormayaemmett.wordpress.com

9. The Final Appearance of America's Favorite Girl Next Door (Shelf Media Group) by Stephen Stark An edgy novel about love, loss and multiple realities http://www.Amazon.com

10. "Tougher Than the Rest" (Avalanche Ranch Press LLC ) by Shirleen Davies A passionate, fast-paced untamed western and historical romance. http://www.amazon.com
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

WASHINGTON  Texas politicians are increasing pressure on President Donald Trump to pull back a federal ethanol mandate created to reduce the nations thirst for oil.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other Republican senators met with President Donald Trump last week to discuss changes, after the Environmental Protection Agency said earlier this year that it would slightly increase the amount biofuel that must be blending into gasoline for 2018 and would not make changes to the program long sought by Republicans from oil-rich states.

In a letter in late October, Cruz and eight other Republican senators, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., asked Trump to meet, so they could discuss a pathway forward toward a mutually agreeable solution on the biofuel mandate, known as the renewable fuel standard.

If your administration does not make adjustments or reforms on matters related to the renewable fuel standard, the senators said in the letter, it will result in a loss of jobs around the country, particularly in our states.

At last weeks meeting were Trump, Chief of Staff John Kelly, EPA chief Scott Pruitt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, as well as 11 senators, including Cruz and Cornyn.

Trump is aware that workers in the refining sector believe the program isnt working as intended, a White House spokesman said. He will listen to the concerns of senators who represent these workers, with the hope of finding common ground.

During the meeting, Trump encouraged senators to find a solution that was win-win for refineries, biofuels producers and consumers, a lobbyist briefed on the meeting said.

We had a productive meeting today with the president to discuss how to fix the compliance problem in a way that protects both refinery workers and corn farmers, Cruz and other senators said in a statement.

An aide to Cornyn said the senator was working hard to unify all stakeholders in a consensus effort to reform the biofuel program.

For Cruz, the debate over ethanol comes as he gears up for next years election, in which he is being challenged by Rep. Beto ORourke, D-El Paso.

Cruz is considered a strong frontrunner in that race, but as he gears up his campaign he has been a more regular presence in Texas, with frequent public events and meetings in recent weeks with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and the Texas Farm Bureau. The meeting at the White House came after Cruz and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., blocked a confirmation vote in the Senate on Bill Northey, Trumps nominee to be a undersecretary of agriculture.

But the White House faces opposing pressure from politicians in the Midwest, a region for which mandate, enacted more than a decade ago, has created an economic boom through increased demand for corn, the principal source of ethanol in this country.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, downplayed the White House meeting with Cruz, telling the Des Moines Register, the president keeps doing what hes told the voters of Iowa, me and Sen. Ernst so many times  that he supports ethanol. (Sen. Joni Ernst is Iowas junior U.S. senator).

Ethanol represents about 10 percent of the nations motor fuel supply, and Texas refiners have long complained not only about the loss of demand for gasoline, but the cost of buying the Renewable Identification Numbers  or RINs  that are required by Washington.

The EPA assigns RINs to individual batches of biofuels, to ensure they are being added to the fuel supply. For those refineries that dont blend ethanol themselves, they must buy RINs, which are traded in financial markets.

Joe Gorder, CEO of San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp., has said Valeros cost of Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, the credits used for compliance, is between $800 million and $1 billion a year. According to Valeros 2016 annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the degree that we are unable to blend biofuels at the required percentage, we must purchase biofuel credits to meet our obligation.

The cost of RINs has fluctuated dramatically in recent years. Earlier this month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote to Pruitt, asking for a waiver from the mandate for Texas. The escalating and unjustified RINs prices are creating a severe economic hardship for refiners, small retailers, consumers, skilled labor and others, Abbott wrote. The strength and resiliency of the industry and by extension, Texas economy  is threatened by a restrictive federal mandate.
Place Your Advert

Register or sign in to advertise your job
Agrochemical giant Bayer has launched a new transparency website designed to enable access to scientific data needed for the evaluation of plant protection products.

Bayer has said the launch of the website is a drive in transparency, while safeguarding the companys confidential product composition and manufacturing process data.

In addition to summaries of safety-related study reports for a significant number of active substances, Bayer will start to enable non-commercial access to the respective safety-related study reports, commencing with reports on imidacloprid.

Background material such as videos and infographics are provided to help put regulatory science into context. The German giant said it wants to foster an "open and transparent" dialog.

As conflicting accounts about the safety of food or technologies are making it difficult for people to separate fact from fiction, this Bayer initiative is an important step towards increased transparency, said Dr. Adrian Percy, global head of Research and Development for the Crop Science Division.

By sharing safety data, which was previously only shared with authorities, we hope to connect the public with our scientific community in a way that builds trust and shows our desire to further create transparency.

We are excited to launch our new website which also aims to support authorities around the globe by providing an alternative tool, other than filing freedom of information requests, for them to obtain the documents which underlie our registration procedures, said Dr Percy.

We want non-commercial interested parties  from a concerned citizen to a member of the scientific community  to be able to access safety-relevant information in a way that is quick and easy to understand, so that they can base their opinions on scientific data.

Bayer's new transparency website will be updated on a regular basis. In the next phase, which is planned for early 2018, non-commercial users will be able to request access to additional full, in-depth safety-related study reports.
Landowners have called for 'much needed' homes to be built in rural areas as local planning authorities are preventing applications, statistics show. .

Latest figures show that 49% of the applications for permitted development rights to convert redundant agricultural buildings into new homes were refused in the last quarter from July to September 2017, according to the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Permitted development rights allow certain types of building work to be undertaken without needing to apply for full planning permission, but new figures show that approvals have dipped by 10% compared to the same period in 2016.

The CLA, which represents landowners, farmers and rural businesses said local councils are still not convinced of the value that converting old farm buildings into residential homes has to help solve the rural housing crisis, despite revised government guidance to boost development.

CLA President Tim Breitmeyer said: These permitted development rights are a vital tool for delivering much needed homes across our countryside.

Of course wildly inappropriate projects should be refused, but with nearly half of these applications being rejected, farmers and landowners have little faith that these rights can deliver.

Rural communities are crying out for more housing of all types and tenures. Over the past 40 years, it has been extremely difficult to deliver new development in the countryside because national planning policy has been focussed on our towns and cities. These areas are being let down.

Without more homes, jobs and the potential for businesses to grow, rural communities are increasingly unsustainable. We want to see these permitted development rights delivered as far as possible across our villages to rebuild these communities and ensure local people have homes to live in.

Mr Breitmeyer called on Housing and Planning Minister Alok Sharma to set out clear guidance for planning authorities so that the delivery of new dwellings is increased in the best interests of people who live and work in rural areas.
Scotland's hill farmers and crofters can now expect to receive 100% of their 2018 Less Favoured Area Support Scheme grant, it has been confirmed.

Subject to expected changes to EU CAP regulations, the move follows this weeks draft Budget and will result in more than 11,000 farmers and crofters receiving their full grant rather than a 2018 parachute payment worth 80% as was previously announced.

LFASS provides hill farmers and crofters in Scotlands most fragile and remote areas essential income support to their farming business.

Scotland's Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said LFASS is "vital" for the rural economy and remote communities.

Mr Ewing said he was "delighted" to confirm that hill farmers and crofters can expect to receive 100% of their entitlement for 2018 LFASS  rather than the previously announced 80%.

Unlike England, who discontinued their equivalent scheme some years ago, Scotland continues to operate this key measure to compensate for the extra costs incurred by farmers in our most remote and challenging areas, Mr Ewing explained.

I continue to press the UK Government for a clear statement about what is guaranteed post-Brexit to support our rural economy. While committing to the same cash total in funds for farm support during of this Parliament, they have given no detail of what this actually means.

With 85% of Scotlands agricultural area classed as less favoured, future support for farmers and crofters is crucial to ensure the economic viability and sustainability of these remote areas.

'Warmly welcomed'

Despite the welcome news, NFU Scotland has said there is still work to be done. The farming union continues to try to find a solution beyond the 2018 LFASS.

The union has been working with the Scottish Government to ensure active farmers and crofters can continue to deliver for local communities, the rural economies, and the habitats, biodiversity and landscapes that are only delivered by extensive, yet active, grazing systems.

NFU Scotland Vice President Martin Kennedy said: NFUS welcomes todays announcement that the 2018 LFASS budget has been re-instated and that the Scottish Government has used the option to defer the use of parachute payments.

Given the financial pressures facing many cattle and sheep producers in the LFA this decision will be warmly welcomed. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government on the arrangements for LFASS 2019 and beyond.

LFASS 2018 payments are anticipated to begin in spring 2019.

The EU CAP regulations did not allow LFASS to continue unchanged in 2018, the options required either a move to Areas of Natural Constraint scheme or to maintain the LFASS scheme paying 80% of LFASS payment rate.

On 25 March, Mr Ewing announced hill farmers and crofters will receive a parachute payment in 2018 of 80% of their LFASS payment rate.

Since then, the EC proposed changes to CAP regulations, which included a delay to LFASS changes until 2019. Following further discussions, these regulations are expected to be adopted by the EU in January 2018.
Ahmedabad Female City Cop

A lady cop from Ahmedabad's Crime branch celebrated her favorite heroes birthday by cutting a cake for him on this special day.

The female cop who is a die-hard Prabhas fan couldn't control her tears speaking about her star boy. It's astonishing to know strong woman cops too are going weak on their knees for our Baahubali superstar.

In Punjab, They Created The Biggest Poster Around 600 Ft

Prabhas is a PAN India star is a well-known fact to all. To prove the same, here is one instance where fans of Prabhas created huge posters and stuck it all over Jalandhar, Punjab to showcase their love for our hero and also to express the excitement they had for the second part of the superhit Baahubali franchise.

Fans Have Named An Eating Thali By The Name 'Baahubali Thali'

We all know how much youngsters these days love food. Rajesh Patel and Manish Patel, owners of Rajwadu, decided on doing something to justify the legacy of Baahubali and of course our very own Prabhas and what better than a thali, dedicated to Baahubali, depicting the grandness of the franchise!

The same has taken place in Pune as well where a big Thali is named as Baahubali thali thanks to its widespread delicious dishes.

Inundated with Marriage Proposals

As the nation knows, Prabhas is one of the most eligible bachelors in our country and it comes as no surprise that Prabhas was inundated with marriage proposals on his birthday from girls all over the nation wanting to marry their prince charming. His social media teams also received several requests from girls asking Prabhas to marry them as it's a dream for them.

Selfie with Baahubali

Recently we saw Baahubali 2: The conclusion's world television premiere and fans couldn't stop uploading selfies of them watching the premiere especially when Prabhas was on screen. They treated the television premiere no less than a festival to make their favorite star feel special.

Prabhas' Ganpati Sculpture From Baahubali

This year Ganesh Chaturthi saw a different enthusiasm all over as we saw an increasing number of Ganesh statues sculpted as Bahubali's famous pose. People couldn't stop gushing over how cute these Ganpati's looked adorning Prabhas' frame.

Baahubali Toys

We also saw a new set of a trend when kids were seen to be playing with Baahubali toys. Small creation of Prabhas's warrior pose was made which was a huge hit among kids & was seen to be much in demand.
Karan Patel

"Arre #MissGrace .. TAP WATER toh #Grace ke saath #Gutter mein hee dala jata #Hyena ... aur woh hi toh kiya  its a lil intelligent taunt, if the #PaidPR fails to understand it, feel free to ask  #BB11 #BigBoss11 pehle #DilKharab phir #ZubaanKharaab aur ab #PetKharaab "

Neha Wagh

"Just because she handles everything in the kitchen so flawlessly doesn't mean you can't help her, she's not your paid help, we don't even command our paid help in this way, treat her with some appreciation #Hinakhan #ShilpaShinde #BB11 #BigBoss11 @ColorsTV Not Done !!!"

Suyyash Rai

"Everytime I try not to think anything negative about Hina she does something  !!! Shilpa ji kitchen chodd kyu nai deti...Jab banaana padega khaana tab pata chalega.l How can one be sooo thankless towards the person who has been cooking for you everyday  really bad #BB11."

Suyyash Wrote Further

"Hina easilyyyyyyy easilyyyyyy could have done this in a nicer way and said the same thing in a polite manner if not sweetly. What she is saying is not wrong...the way she is saying is bad  #BB11."

Kishwer Merchant

"Had I been in place of Hina Khan I wud choose what my so called "friends" talk behind my back not what my enemies have to say coz they even talk like that to my face.. task samaj nahi aaya ya sach nahi dekhna chahti thi Tum akele padh jaane ke Darr se ? #BB11."

Sambhavna Seth

Samhavna supported Hina, "Mera sirf yeh kehna hai ki agar filter water ka option hai toh Tap water kyu..Not pointing a finger at anybdy but lonavla mei we ve experienced tap water ka paani Laal aata hai..just coz u ve ur favourate doesnt mean ki woh hamesha theek hoga..Insaan hi gaya hai bhagwan nahi."

Kushal Tandon

Supporting Hina, Kushal too, shared a note, "Maturing is realising how many things don't require your comments, hence i don't comment on biggboss, having said that... today I had too for human reason.. m not here to judge any body but all those people who saying hina Khan has a huge problem for not using filtered but tap water for food is a big cry cry..."

Kushal Wrote

"Common this was genuine... m sure people who are saying that s not a "big deal" m sure they them self must be washing hands also from a bisleri water from production cost..."

Give Hina, A Break!

"P.s lonawala water is salty and red... so the same water which comes in ur warsh room comes in kitchen too... so guys take a chill pill and give that girl a break."
Tesco has come under fire after a charity, Feedback, found farmers with the same farm names as the retailers fake farm brands.

Britains biggest retailer launched seven fresh food brands in March 2016 with British-sounding farm names. But some of those farms didnt exist, and the ones that did, did not supply the retailer those products.

The supermarket faced fierce criticism at the time from farming groups, farmers and consumers, as well as the national press.

Woodside Farms

Richard Baugh, a Nottinghamshire pig farmer, was contacted by Feedback as his farm, Woodside Farm, mirrors Tescos pork brand Woodside Farms, which sells meat from the UK and other EU countries.

Mr Baugh sells Red Tractor-assured pork direct to customers through a meat box scheme called Bofs Hogs.

He said: When [the Woodside Farms brand] first came out customers were asking all the time whether we were supplying Tesco.

We dont, our pork is free-range and we think its higher welfare and quality than the pork theyre selling, and were proud of that.

See also: Tesco under fire for farm brands which sound British but are imported

Mr Baugh told Farmers Weekly he didnt think Tesco should be putting lower-welfare imported meat in a package with a UK-sounding farm name.

But he said if it had come from a Red Tractor-assured UK farm, then he didnt see such a problem with using the name Woodside Farms, even though it wasnt from a farm of that name.

Letter sent to Tesco

Farmers Weekly understands that Feedback has written to Tesco to raise concern about the use of fictitious farm names on its packaging citing Mr Baughs farm as an example.

In a video on its website, the charity said there was also a Woodside Farm in Kent and one in Ireland.

Mr Baugh said, contrary to several media reports, he is not planning on taking legal action.

Boswell Farm

Another of Tescos fake farm brands, is called Boswell Farms, selling beef.

Roger Sharpley, who owns real-life Boswell Farm, told Feedback: Its an abuse of power. Supermarkets like Tesco have a huge amount of power over producers, especially the smaller ones, and they think they can get away with a trick like this.

Even if it isnt strictly illegal, theyre trying to conjure up an image of something that isnt the reality. And you can bet that if the boot was on the other foot Tescos lawyers would be all over it.

What are Tescos fake farm brands?

In March 2016, Tesco launched seven brands called after farms: Rosedene Farms (fruit), Boswell Farms (beef products), Willow Farms (chicken), Nightingale Farms (salad vegetables), Redmere Farms (field vegetables), Woodside Farms (pigmeat products) and Suntrail Farms (imported fruit such as lemons and oranges).

Products from British suppliers clearly display the Union flag, but the same farm name is being used to sell produce when it is coming from overseas  although the country of origin is marked on packs.

What does Tesco say?

Tesco said its customers really liked the new brands and they appeared in 70% of shoppers baskets.

Back in March 2016, when the new brands hit the shelves, a Tesco spokesman told Farmers Weekly: Weve named the brands after farms to represent the quality specifications that go into every product across the range.

All of our packaging clearly displays the country of origin on the front of pack to help customers make an informed decision on what they wish to buy.

All of our British produce is clearly labelled as such, and greater prominence has been given to the Union Jack on pack.

Feedback could not be reached for a comment.
The Unreal Engine editor is one of the longest-running toolsets in game development history. From 1995 until today, it's been many a game developer's way in to the weird world of making games, and it's set a standard that other tool developers have learned from until now.

Today on the Gamasutra Twitch channel, we were lucky enough to be joined by Ubisoft Technology Group UX director David Lightbown, who's become something of an informal historian of game engines and the programmers who created them. After interviewing John Romero a few months back, Lightbown talked to Epic co-founder Tim Sweeney about the history of the original Unreal Engine, and joined us to dig into several older coding tools that informed the engine's design.

You can (and definitely should) watch the conversation up above if you're making tools for your fellow game developers, but in case you're still on the clock and working on those tools right now, here's a few quick takeaways from our chat with Lightbown.

Unreal is the product of several decades of improving coding tools

While we only spent a few minutes in Unreal proper, much of our time with Lightbown was spent popping open older coding tools and examining how older UX advances helped define what would become Epic's flagship business. Lightbown pointed out that the auto-compiler of Turbo Pascal, the ability to play builds in Epic's ZZT editor, and the double-clicking and drag-and-drop functions of Visual Basic, all inform how modern-day Unreal developers make games.

As we noted during the stream, it was worth revisiting these tools because it's sometimes shocking that as recently as 2 decades ago, basic workflow functions that impact how we organize game files and mechancics just didn't exist, and it took specialized design work to bring them to life.

Stop reinventing the wheel

Before diving into the different tools, Lightbown pontificated on the need to study history so UX designers aren't doomed to repeat it. In his words, there are a lot of 'solved problems' for developers building proprietary tools that are sometimes buried in older software. Since users often have software behaviors they've been building for years with other programs, it's important for tool designers to take note of those behaviors so they don't accidentally demand they learn something new when they don't need to.

Don't build one big tool when smaller specific ones will do

At one point toward the end of our chat, a questioner from the stream queried Lightbown about how tools impact user creativity. What followed was a discussion about how sometimes it's tempting for tool creators to solve user problems by building 1 "do everything" tool when in reality, several more specific tools would do better.

For example, Lightbown talked about how Microsoft Word users sometimes complain they can't add more cells to a grid chart in that program...at which point, instead of trying to make a fix, he'd suggest they boot up Microsoft Excel, which is designed for grid charts. Lightbown conjured the image of a nightmare program called "Microsoft WordExcelPowerpoint," and after pausing for laughs, pointed out that some tools in game development fall into that exact trap, which developers should endeavor to avoid.

For more developer interviews, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel.


Exclusive: Hike to launch Public Group in next two months News oi -Priyanka Hike Messenger app was launched in 2012 and acquired a user-base of over 100 million in January 2016.

After introducing new Social features for Groups, Hike Messenger, India's first homegrown messaging platform is planning to launch new Public Group in next two months.

"The one we are building is new Public Group because its hard to discover groups that are around us like any college, and young professionals in some cases so we are building a new feature to help them," Vishwanath Ramarao, CTO, Hike Messenger told Gizbot in an exclusive interaction.

He said, "We are the coolest messenger out there because we are into fun and social segment and we see a lot of traction in that space," he replied when asked about the difference between their app and other messaging apps.

Further adding more to that, the company's top-man also said that they are very different from other apps and stated that Hike is not only a base-messenger app but also a very feature-rich and capable app.

This Diwali, You Can Play "Teen Patti Nights" on Hike Messenger

While conversing about the numbers, Mr. Ramarao also noted that 90 percent of the people on thier platform are under 32 years of age and thier target audience has always been young India, college goers, and young professionals.

Meanwhile, the instant messaging platform has added new social features for Groups like Vote, Bill Split, Checklists, Events with Reminders and even Teen Patti.

These features will work in the group with up to 1,000 members.

Hike Messenger app was launched in 2012 and acquired a user-base of over 100 million in January 2016. In August 2016, Hike raised its fourth round of funding of $175 million led by Tencent and Foxconn at a valuation of $1.4 billion, making it the fastest company in India to attain a valuation of $1 billion, having reached the milestone in just 3.7 years.

Investors in Hike include Tencent, Foxconn, Tiger Global, Softbank, and Bharti. Apart from these, some of the top tech veterans from the Silicon Valley have also invested in the company and are advisors.

However, the large section of users spread globally contributes to a major apps like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger already making the two apps two of the most used messenger apps. Now with Hike coming up with its aggressive features may likely serve as a rich competition for them soon.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications
Bixby controlled Samsung smart speaker to launch in the first half of 2018 News oi -Chandrika The Bixby powered smart speaker will mainly focus on audio quality and the management of connected home appliances such as lights and locks.

Samsung has reportedly been working on a smart speaker for quite a while now, and Bloomberg reports the company will introduce the device in the first half of 2018. With the launch of its own smart speaker, Samsung will have to compete against the likes of Amazon, Google and Apple.

The device by the South Korean tech giant will mainly focus on audio quality and the management of connected home appliances such as lights and locks, as per the report. As you may have guessed, the smart speaker will be controlled by Bixby, Samsung's voice assistant that rivals Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. It will synchronize with TVs, Galaxy smartphones and other Samsung devices.

Samsung is planning to release the smart speaker in multiple markets, including the US. People familiar with the matter said it will cost around $200 (approximately Rs. 12,830). That being said, the pricing and release plans are still flexible and may change in future considering many factors. As of now, the company is still working on improving the speaker's ability to conduct voice-based web searches.

While Amazon and Google has been in the smart speaker market for sometime now, it is good to see Samsung finally joining the bandwagon. The speakers may not be that popular currently, but the voice assistants as well as the services that are distributed through the devices allow us to take a glimpse in the future of human-computer interaction.

Coming back to Samsung's upcoming smart speaker, one of its prototype versions in testing has the size between Amazon's latest Echo and Apple's HomePod. While the prototype is coated in a Matte Black color, the actual product may be launched in various colors. Initially, Samsung had thought of including a screen in its smart speaker. However, it ditched the idea later on in favor of lights up on top just like the HomePod.

The smart speaker project is being led by an executive named Patrick Chomet, who had joined Samsung last year.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications
How to link Aadhaar card with PAN card was most searched on Google in 2017 News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu

2017 is almost coming to an end and there are several reports those reveal the top search terms and queries in different categories in India.

The search engine giant Google has revealed the top trending search queries for the whole year. In the 'How to' section, it looks like two major questions have been searched by many people. Well, the one that has been made millions of Indians go crazy and hit the web is 'How to link Aadhaar card with PAN card'. This search query has been followed by the none other than 'How to book Jio Phone'. Trailing behind this is the search query 'How to buy bitcoin in India'.

Undoubtedly, with the mandatory requirement for the linking of Aadhaar card with many aspects such as bank account, PAN card and mobile number, many have been rushing towards getting the work done within the deadline. Apparently, it does not come as a big surprise if they have to take to the internet to search for the procedure to do the same.

Talking about the Reliance JioPhone, this is the first 4G VoLTE feature phone to be launched in the country. Also, given its effective price tag and the fact that it is a feature phone, the device is capable of executing voice commands. In the first batch of bookings that debuted on August 24, the JioPhone witnessed over six million bookings and created a record for the same.

It goes without saying that with such a huge number of bookings, many interested consumers took to the internet to learn how to carry on with the booking of the JioPhone, how to check the status of the booking, etc.

Notably, the major attraction is that the JioPhone is effectively priced at Rs. 0. The buyers have to pay a security deposit amount of Rs. 1,500 after three years but the same is refundable on select terms and conditions such as recharging for a minimum of Rs. 1,500 per year for three years. Of this, Rs. 500 was supposed to be paid at the time of the pre-booking and the rest of the Rs. 1,000 was to be paid during the delivery of the device.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications
Microsoft files patent for Surface Phone with self-regulating hinge News oi -Chandrika Rumors have it, Microsoft is working a Surface Phone that would use a Courier-like form factor with connectivity options like LTE.

Microsoft doesn't reveal whether it plans to launch a Surface Phone in future or now, we often come across patents for such kind of devices.

Likewise, a recently discovered patent filed by Microsoft shows a device featuring a so-called self-regulating hinge. This is something the Surface Phone has been rumored to use. With this hinge, two separate displays would seamlessly become one enabling the Surface Phone to do more than just a smartphone. We are not really surprised as this is the main idea that comes behind Microsoft's Surface lineup.

One of the drawings included in the patent document shows the Surface Phone featuring a keyboard so that it can be used like a small-sized notebook. Another image shows an alarm clock kind of form factor that could also function as a tablet.

The patent further describes a "pair of self-regulating hinge assemblies rotatably securing hinge ends of the first and second portions around a first hinge axis associated with the first portion and a second hinge axis associated with the second hinge axis so that an extent of rotation around the first hinge axis corresponds to an extent of rotation around the second hinge axis."

Of course, just because a patent has been filed, it doesn't mean the device will actually see the day light. There has many instances where companies file patents for a particular device or a technology, but forget all about it later on. Also, it doesn't work out the way it was imagined in reality.

That being said, rumors have it, Microsoft is working a Surface Phone that would use a Courier-like form factor with connectivity options like LTE. In any case, if any such phone get launched eventually it would not run Windows 10 as the company has already announced no major updates will be made to the operating system.

Via

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications
Samsung Galaxy S9 / S9+ alleged announcement date leaked online News oi -Samden Sherpa A new report coming out of South Korea states that the new Samsung flagships will be unveiled at MWC 2018.

We are already hearing a lot about Samsung's upcoming flagships the Galaxy S9 and S9+. Several leaks and rumors have been circulating over the internet and we are expecting to see some more.

Well, just as we say this a new report coming out of South Korea states that the new Samsung flagships will be unveiled at MWC 2018. The news comes from a Korean publication "The Bell" which interestingly has also disclosed the exact date for the announcement.

As per the leaked details, Samsung's event will supposedly be held on February 27th during the Mobile World Congress. But it looks like the publication is talking about the launch day in South Korea. For Europe and North American people, the event will likely be held on February 26. The time difference could play a tricky part here.

However, MWC event that will be happening in Barcelona is scheduled to officially start from February 26th and end on March 1st.

Meanwhile, there have been a lot of reports about the launch. There were different timings given. But again with this new report, it looks like the timing is fixed. Besides, Samsung does have a history unveiling its flagships at MWC.

The only time the company missed the announcement was this year 2017, where the tech giant did not reveal Galaxy S8/S8+. The company instead held a separate "Unpacked" event for the launch in April. This was mainly because of the Note 7 debacle. The company was taking necessary precautions to make their device secure.

Samsung hasn't officially confirmed anything about its upcoming flagships or the company's launch plans yet but we should be hearing details about the smartphones in the coming days.

As for the rumors and leaks, they have suggested that Samsung Galaxy S9 duo will feature a bigger Super AMOLED infinity displays, powerful Snapdragon 845 SoC or Exynos 9810 SoC depending on the market, an advanced iris scanner, 3.5mm audio port and a dedicated Bixy button.

Source / Via

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow Notifications
Government launches open and transparent competition to replace Canada's fighter aircraft

December 12, 2017 - Ottawa, Ontario - Government of Canada

Acquiring the aircraft that Canada's military needs to help ensure the safety and security of Canadians, while ensuring economic benefits for Canada, is a top priority for the Government of Canada. The government is delivering on its promise to hold an open and transparent competition to permanently replace Canada's fighter fleet.

As outlined in the Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy, Canada will purchase 88 advanced fighter aircraft. This is the most significant investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in more than 30 years, and is essential for protecting the safety and security of Canadians, and meeting international defence obligations.

Through this competition, the Government of Canada will ensure it gets the right aircraft at the right price, and maximizes economic benefits for Canadians. The government will ensure that the Canadian aerospace and defence industries and manufacturers are consulted and engaged in this process.

Proposals will be rigorously assessed on cost, technical requirements and industrial, technological and economic benefits. As it is important to do business with trusted partners, the evaluation of bids will also include an assessment of bidders' impact on Canada's economic interests.

When bids are assessed, any bidder responsible for harm to Canada's economic interests will be at a distinct disadvantage. This new assessment, as well as guidelines for its application as an ongoing procurement tool, will be developed through appropriate consultations.

In addition, the Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy will apply to this procurement, requiring the winning supplier to make investments in Canada equal to the value of the contract.

Until permanent replacement aircraft are in place and fully operational, Canada must ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces has the equipment it needs to continue to deliver its missions, and meet its international obligations. As such, the Government of Canada will pursue the purchase of 18 supplemental jets from the Australian Government.

Quotes

"As we promised, our government is launching an open and transparent competition to replace our fighter fleet with 88 advanced jets. We are also supplementing our CF-18 fleet by pursuing the purchase of jets from Australia while we complete this important and complex procurement. Today's announcement is about ensuring that our women and men in uniform continue to have the equipment they need to protect Canadians. At the same time, we will use this procurement to strengthen our aerospace and defence industries, create good middle-class jobs and support our economic interests." The Honourable Carla Qualtrough

Minister of Public Services and Procurement

"Our women and men in uniform are entrusted with the enormous responsibility of ensuring the safety of Canadians every day. Today's announcement is a key step toward making sure that they have the equipment they need to fulfill this responsibility and meet our commitments to our partners and allies around the world." The Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan

Minister of National Defence

"This project represents a significant opportunity to support the long-term competitiveness of Canada's aerospace and defence industries, which together contribute more than 240,000 jobs to the Canadian economy. We are committed to leveraging the procurement of the future fleet to support innovation, promote the growth of Canadian suppliers, including small and medium-sized businesses, and create middle-class jobs for Canadians." The Honourable Navdeep Bains

Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development

Quick Facts

Today's announcement marks the official launch of the open, competitive process to replace Canada's fighter jet fleet.

The government will begin by establishing a list of suppliers, comprised of foreign governments and fighter aircraft manufacturers that have demonstrated their ability to meet Canada's needs, as defined in the Suppliers List invitation. All companies are welcome to participate in the process.

Extensive planning and stakeholder engagement will take place throughout 2018 and 2019.

A contract award is anticipated in 2022 and the first replacement aircraft delivered in 2025.

The government will engage with foreign governments, fighter aircraft manufacturers and the Canadian aerospace and defence industries to ensure they are well-positioned to participate.

The purchase of 88 aircraft represents an increase in fleet size of more than a third of what was planned prior to the Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy (65 aircraft).

Together, Canada's aerospace and defence industries contribute over 240,000 quality jobs.

Aerospace is one of the most innovative and export-driven industries in Canada and adds $28 billion annually in gross domestic product to Canada's economy.

The Canadian defence sector includes over 650 firms employing highly skilled workers in high-quality jobs.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Lincoln Completes First F-35 Carrier Qualification

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS171214-12

Release Date: 12/14/2017 12:48:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist Second Class Jessica Paulauskas, USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Public Affairs

ATLANTIC OCEAN (NNS) -- The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) successfully completed Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) Carrier Qualifications for the F-35C Lightning II program, carrier qualifying the first nine fleet aviators in the new aircraft, while underway Dec. 7-11.

Along with Abraham Lincoln, the "Rough Raiders" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 125, the "Grim Reapers" of VFA-101, and VX-9 accomplished many first steps including first-time use of Autonomic Logistic Information System (ALIS) aboard a carrier, and use of the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) in an operational setting.

"Thanks to the tireless work from the VFA-125, VFA-101, VX-9, CVN72, and the Lockheed Team this detachment was able to successfully complete numerous milestones that will set the foundation for the future 5th generation employment of the F-35C into the Carrier Air Wing," said Cmdr. Scott Hulett, VFA-125 executive officer.

One of those milestones achieved was with ALIS, an information infrastructure that allows operators to plan, maintain, and sustain systems over the F-35Cs. The system provides a secure way to transmit up-to-date operations, maintenance, prognostic, support, training and technical data to users and technicians worldwide. According to Lockheed Martin, the developer of the F-35C, ALIS is considered the IT backbone of current and future aircraft throughout the Department of Defense.

Abraham Lincoln operated in inclement weather during portion of the qualification process, which gave the squadrons varying condition to test the new landing system, JPALS. The all-weather system works with the ship's navigation system to provide accurate and reliable guidance for the aircraft. Prior to this underway, F-35Cs only used JPALS for developmental testing.

While the pilots put new systems to the test in the air, Abraham Lincoln Sailors, both on and below deck achieved important milestones. The aircraft intermediate maintenance department performed their first unassisted F-35C tire change. This accomplishment provided proven capabilities that will help ensure full and successful integration of the air wing with Abraham Lincoln.

"We could not have achieved our lofty goals without the dedication and expertise from everyone involved. We look forward to working with the CVN72 team throughout 2018 as we continue to ensure 5th generation power projection from the sea," said Hulett.

By 2025, the Navy's aircraft carrier air wings are forecasted to consist of F-35C, F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers electronic attach aircraft, E-2D Hawkeye battle management and control aircraft, MH-60R/S helicopters and Carrier Onboard Delivery logistics aircraft.

Abraham Lincoln is currently underway conducting carrier qualifications and training.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US F-22 aircraft intercept Russian jets, fire flares at them over Syria

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:32PM

American fighter jets have intercepted Russian military aircraft over Syria, the Pentagon has announced, claiming the Russian pilots were flying over a banned area.

The alleged interception took place on Wednesday, when two US Air Force F-22 Raptors were scrambled to chase two Russian Sukhoi Su-25 Grach bombers out of a coalition-controlled area on the east side of the Euphrates River near the town of Bukamal.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said the Raptors deployed chaff and flares to warn the Russian airmen while one of the US pilots had to "aggressively maneuver" to avoid a midair collision.

"The F-22s conducted multiple maneuvers to persuade the Su-25s to depart our de-conflicted airspace, including the release of chaff and flares in close proximity to the Russian aircraft and placing multiple calls on the emergency channel to convey to the Russian pilots that they needed to depart the area," he added.

The Russian pilots eventually changed course to the western side of the river after about 40 minutes.

Pahon said US commanders had to contact their Russian counterparts over a special hotline in order to calm the situation and avert a "strategic miscalculation."

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a USAF Central Command spokesman, told CNN that an advanced Russian Su-35 "also flew across the river and was shadowed closely by one of the F-22As" during the confrontation.

The Pentagon announced in early November that American and Russian officials had verbally agreed that the US-led coalition controls the airspace over the river's east while Russian forces fly to its west.

Pahon accused Russia of undermining the "de-confliction arrangement" by crossing to the east six to eight times a day.

"It's become increasingly tough for our pilots to discern whether Russian pilots' actions are deliberate or if these are just honest mistakes," Pahon said.

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in early November to continue to support de-confliction efforts after meeting on the sidelines of the APEC conference in Vietnam.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US allegations on Yemen missile 'provocative', 'destructive': Iran

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 06:59PM

Iran's UN mission has categorically dismissed as "unfounded" US Ambassador Nikki Haley's claim that a missile fired at Saudi Arabia from Yemen last month was supplied by the Islamic Republic.

In a statement released on Thursday, the mission denounced the US allegations as "irresponsible, provocative and destructive," saying "this purported evidence ... is as much fabricated as the one presented on some other occasions earlier."

"These accusations seek also to cover up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, with the US complicity, and divert international and regional attention from the stalemate war of aggression against the Yemenis that has so far killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced three million, crippled Yemen's infrastructure and health system and pushed the country to the brink of the largest famine the world has seen for decades, as the UN has warned," the statement read.

It went on to accuse the US government of being "constantly at work to deceive the public into believing the cases they put together" to advance its agenda.

"While Iran has not supplied Yemen with missiles, these hyperboles are also to serve other US agendas in the Middle East, including covering up for its adventurist acts in the region and its unbridled support for the Israeli regime," the statement read.

It also stressed "the Yemenis' right to self-defense" and reiterated that the conflict in the impoverished country had no military solution.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also took to twitter to compare Haley's allegations against Iran to those of former US secretary of defense, Colin Powell, who alleged in 2003 that former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, was hiding weapons of mass destruction in order to make a case for attacking the country.

The anti-Iran accusations come at a time that the US and Saudi Arabia themselves are under fire for secretly providing weapons to the militants fighting the Syrian government.

Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a UK-based organization that monitors the movement of conventional weapons, warned on Thursday that the sophisticated arms given to the so-called Syria militants fell into the hands of the Daesh terrorist group.

The weapons included anti-tank rockets purchased by the US military that ended up in possession of Daesh within two months of leaving the factory, according to the study, which was funded by the European Union and German government.

This came after the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a confidential report obtained by AFP on Monday, December 11, that the world body's team, which visited Riyadh last month to scrutinize the alleged evidence, had not yet established a link between them and the Islamic Republic.

On November 4, a missile fired from Yemen targeted the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, reaching the Saudi capital for the first time.

The Houthi movement, which has been fighting back a Saudi aggression, said it had fired the missile but the Riyadh regime was quick to point the finger at Iran.

Tehran rejected the allegations as "provocative and baseless," saying the Yemenis had shown an "independent" reaction to the Saudi bombing campaign on their country.

Speaking at a press conference at a military base in Washington on Thursday, Haley presented what she claimed to be "undeniable" evidence, including the allegedly recovered pieces of the missile, saying it proved that Iran was violating international law by giving missiles to the Houthis.

"It was made in Iran then sent to Houthi militants in Yemen," she added.

However, a panel appointed by the United Nations Security Council said last month that it had seen no evidence to support Saudi Arabia's claims that missiles had been transferred to Yemen's Houthi fighters by external sources.

The Security Council-appointed panel said in its confidential assessment that it had seen no evidence to back up the Saudi claims that short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) had been transferred to Yemeni fighters in violation of the Resolution 2216.

It said the tightening of the blockade by the Saudi-led coalition and its invoking of Resolution 2216 had been an attempt to merely "obstruct" the delivery of civilian aid.

"The panel finds that imposition of access restrictions is another attempt by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition to use paragraph 14 of resolution 2216 as justification for obstructing the delivery of commodities that are essentially civilian in nature," the assessment read.

The Saudi war since 2015, accompanied by the land, naval, and aerial blockade on Yemen, has killed over 12,000 people so far and led to a humanitarian crisis as well as a deadly cholera epidemic.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war in a bid to crush the Houthi movement and reinstate the former Riyadh-friendly regime, but the kingdom has achieved neither of its goals.

The UN has listed Yemen as the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with 17 million Yemenis in need of food and gripping the country.

The US, which has long been a staunch Saudi ally, signed a deal to sell the kingdom $110 billion in weapons in May.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Putin: Russia vote meddling 'dreamed up' by Trump opponents

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 05:31PM

President Vladimir Putin has renewed Russia's rejection of accusations of interference in last year's presidential election in the US, saying the claims were nothing more than "espionage mania".

Donald Trump's associates have been accused of colluding with Russian operatives during the 2016 US presidential campaign and transition -- a claim the US president fiercely denies.

"All this was made up by people who are opposed to Trump," Putin said at his annual press conference on Thursday in response to a question about allegations of Russian meddling.

Putin said the allegations were nothing more than mere "madness" and "espionage mania", adding they were "dreamed up" by Trump's "delirious" opponents in an effort to discredit the US president.

Such allegations are not only odd and disrespectful to US voters, but also counter-productive in solving the two countries' common issues, he said.

"I find this very odd, frankly speaking. It seems to be done without realizing that, by doing this, people harm the country's domestic political climate and weaken the capabilities of the elected head of state. That means that they have no respect for all those who voted for him (Trump)," Putin said.

He also expressed hope that the Americans would quit making accusations and start cooperating with Russia on major global challenges both countries were facing.

"Americans and Russians face common challenges, including terrorism, environmental issues, battling the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Middle East and tensions on the Korean Peninsula," Putin said.

The Russian leader hoped that possibilities would gradually emerge for Trump to establish contacts with Russia and "embark on a path of his campaign promises and plans."

Trump has repeatedly told Americans that the allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia were not true.

There are currently multiple investigations by US security agencies into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Lebanon, Turkey mull opening embassies in East Jerusalem al-Quds

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 02:14PM

Lebanon and Turkey are considering opening diplomatic missions in the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds in response to US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of the whole city as the "capital" of Israel.

In a post on his official Twitter account, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil described East Jerusalem al-Quds as "the capital of Palestine," saying he had informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of his willingness to establish a Lebanese embassy there.

Bassil also noted that Abbas had promised to provide a piece of land for Lebanon's mission in al-Quds.

The top Lebanese diplomat further pointed out that the embassy plan was expected to be debated during the cabinet meeting later on Thursday.

Separately, Turkey's main opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), called on the government to open the country's embassy in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

"Turkey should immediately, without wasting time, open its embassy to Palestine in East Jerusalem," Engin Altay, CHP's deputy chairman, said on Thursday.

The developments came after the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) declared in a statement that it would recognize "East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine and invite all countries to recognize the State of Palestine and East Jerusalem as its occupied capital."

The statement was issued at the end of an emergency summit of the 57-member organization in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Wednesday.

The event came one week after Trump declared that Washington was recognizing Jerusalem al-Quds as the "capital" of Israel and that he had instructed his administration to begin the process of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city.

The dramatic shift in Washington's Jerusalem al-Quds policy drew fierce criticism from the international community, including Washington's Western allies, and triggered protests against the US and Israel worldwide.

Israel lays claim to the whole Jerusalem al-Quds, but the international community views the ancient city's eastern sector as occupied land and the Palestinians consider it their future capital.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Bomb attack kills 17 at Mogadishu police academy

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:40AM

The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militant group has launched a bombing attack on a police training camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, killing at least 17 officers and injuring 20 others.

The casualties took place on Thursday, when an assailant infiltrated the General Kahiye Police Training Academy during an early morning parade and detonated the explosives strapped around his waist and torso.

"A man wearing an explosive vest entered the camp disguised as a policeman, and blew himself up," police officer Mohamed Abdulle said. "Medical rescuers are still working on evacuating the casualties."

Witnesses said the bomber, in order to inflict maximum damage, targeted a spot where soldiers had gathered to rehearse for Somalia's Police Day celebrations scheduled for December 20.

The Takfiri terrorist group immediately claimed responsibility for the deadly attack but gave a higher death toll.

The General Kahiye Police Training Academy is the biggest training camp for police and security forces in Somalia.

The Horn of Africa nation has been the scene of deadly clashes between government forces and al-Shabab militants since 2006.

The Takfiri militant group was forced out of the capital by African Union troops in 2011 but still controls parts of the countryside and carries out attacks against government, military, and civilian targets in Mogadishu and regional towns.

The extremist group is just one of the challenges facing the new Somali government, which is still struggling to expand its authority beyond the capital and other selected areas.

The Thursday attack comes as the African Union is finalizing plans to trim its peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which was deployed a decade ago to help secure the Somali government.

The force of 22,000 is set to lose 1,000 soldiers this month as part of a long-term plan to withdraw troops from the country and hand security to the Somali army.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Diphtheria spreading in Yemen amid Saudi war: Aid groups

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 09:31AM

Aid officials have warned of the spread of diphtheria in war-torn Yemen, which has already been grappling with a deadly cholera outbreak amid a devastating Saudi war.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday that more than 280 suspected diphtheria cases and 33 associated deaths were reported in Yemen as of Tuesday, many of them children who had not been immunized against the disease.

"Left unchecked, diphtheria can cause devastating epidemics, mainly affecting children," Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman, told Reuters.

WHO and officials with the international medical charity Doctors Without Border, also known by its French acronym MSF, said the diphtheria spread is inevitable in Yemen due to low vaccination rates, lack of access to medical care and so many people moving around and coming in contact with those infected.

According to health officials, diphtheria spreads as easily as the common cold through sneezing, coughing or even talking.

"There is the potential for a larger-scale outbreak of diphtheria, given that not everyone has been vaccinated," MSF's emergency coordinator in Yemen, Marc Poncin said.

Yemen is already battling a cholera epidemic that has infected about one million people. Earlier in October, WHO said that the epidemic, exacerbated by the devastation of the country's health infrastructure, has killed more than 2,000.

"This is undeniably another human-made disease inflicted on a country that has barely recovered from a massive cholera outbreak, which is not even over yet," Poncin said.

According to MSF, diphtheria could be more fatal than cholera, especially among unvaccinated children under 5 years old, saying as many as two in five diphtheria cases end in death.

Caroline Boustany, an aid worker with the International Rescue Committee, called the outbreak as "very worrisome," saying, "We have a spike in cases of a very easily preventable disease."

Diphtheria is a contagious and potentially fatal bacterial infection, mainly characterized by a thick grey membrane at the back of the throat or nose, sore throat and fever. It can be prevented through vaccination.

The United Nations warned on Monday that 8.4 million people in war-torn Yemen are "a step away from famine," as the country faces soaring food prices and fuel shortages duo to a Saudi blockade on the impoverished country.

Saudi Arabia and a group of its allies have been bombing Yemen since 2015 to put its former Riyadh-friendly government back in the saddle. More than 12,000 have died since the war began.

Now, more than eight million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation, making the country the scene of, what the UN calls, the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Meanwhile, the head of the US government's aid agency said on Tuesday that there were no signs that a Saudi blockade of the ports had eased to let in aid consignments.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called last Sunday for an end to the "stupid war," which has also the firm backing of the United States and Britain.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






U.S. Jets Fire Flares In Tense Encounter With Russian Jets Over Syria

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

U.S. and Russian air force jets have had a tense midair encounter in eastern Syria, with the Americans firing flares and deploying chaff in an effort to persuade the Russian jets to leave, the Pentagon says.

Russia's Defense Ministry on December 14 confirmed the confrontation near the Euphrates River, which took place a day earlier, and that the Americans had fired flares to "hinder the Russian jets."

The incident is the latest encounter between the two countries' air forces, who have been operating often in close proximity in Syrian airspace.

The Pentagon said in a statement that two Russian Su-25 fighters flew through an unofficial line along the river and F-22A Raptors launched warning flares and deployed chaff -- used to distract potential incoming missiles.

The flares were fired "in close proximity" to the Russian aircraft and the U.S. pilots also radioed the Russians multiple times on an emergency channel telling them to leave, the Pentagon said.

The Russian ministry said the Su-25 jets remained on the west side of the Euphrates -- as stipulated by an agreement reached with the Americans last month. The ministry said the U.S. jets left the region after another Russian jet, a Su-35C, arrived.

U.S. and Russian commanders have a dedicated hot line, in an effort to prevent the danger of outright hostilities between the military forces, which nominally share a common enemy -- Islamic State (IS) militants.

In fact, however, Russia's military has sought to bolster the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, while U.S. forces have backed antigovernment rebels and Kurdish and Arab militias that have battled IS fighters.

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to a Syrian air base that Russian forces had largely accomplished their goal in the country and ordered the beginning of a withdrawal.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/syria-us-russia-fighter- jets-tense-encounter/28918879.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Report Says Land-Mine Casualties Up In 2016, Record Number Of Child Victims

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

A new report says armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, and Yemen contributed to a second year of "exceptionally high" casualties caused by land mines.

The annual Landmine Monitor report released on December 14 by the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) recorded 8,605 casualties in 2016, of which nearly 2,100 people were killed.

The combined deaths and injuries marked the highest level since the group began gathering data in 1999, and the most child casualties ever recorded.

"A few intense conflicts, where utter disregard for civilian safety persists, have resulted in very high numbers of mine casualties for the second year in a row," Loren Persi, co-editor of Landmine Monitor, said in a statement. "This shows the need for all countries to join the Mine Ban Treaty and for increased levels of assistance to mine victims."

The report said that about three-quarters of known casualties from mines -- as well as improvised explosive devices that act as antipersonnel mines, unexploded cluster munitions, and other remnants of war -- were civilians.

At least 1,544 children were wounded or injured by mines, the highest annual total since 1999, accounting for 42 percent of all civilian casualties.

The production and use of land mines have fallen since the Mine Ban Treaty banning the use, stockpiling, and transfer of weapons that detonate due to human contact became international law in 1999. The international treaty currently has 162 states parties.

Myanmar and Syria, which are not party to the treaty, were the only countries where government forces continued to actively plant antipersonnel mines in the past year, the report said.

Nonstate armed groups also used the weapons, including improvised mines, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ukraine, and at least six other countries.

The report also said that Ukraine is in violation of the Mine Ban Treaty due to missing its deadlines for mine clearance and stockpile destruction.

More positively, states parties destroyed more than 2.2 million stockpiled antipersonnel mines in 2016, and Belarus completed the destruction of its stockpiles in April 2017, the report said.

In 2016, countries reported about 170 square kilometers of land cleared of land mines, and the destruction of more than 232,000 land mines.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 after seeing its campaign efforts boosted by public support from Britain's late Princess Diana.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/landmines-2016-record-child- victims-report/28918246.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






U.S. Envoy: 'Undeniable Evidence' Of Iranian Weapon Supplies to Yemeni Rebels

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

WASHINGTON -- The United States has concrete evidence that Iran was supplying weaponry to the Huthi rebels in Yemen, in violation of United Nations sanctions, the U.S. ambassador to the world body has charged.

At a December 14 news conference held at a Washington-area military warehouse where U.S. defense officials put weapons fragments on display, Nikki Haley also said "the evidence was undeniable."

"The United States is taking a new approach to Iran by focusing on all of the regime's destabilizing behavior. That means we are not just focused on a nuclear program. We are also taking a hard look at Iran's ballistic-missile program, its arms exports, and its support for terrorists, proxy fighters, and dictators," she told reporters.

The weaponry on display included remains of what the U.S. officials said was an Iranian-made short-range ballistic missile that was fired from Yemen last month at the international airport outside Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh. Other equipment on display included a drone and an antitank weapon that officials said was recovered in Yemen by Saudi forces.

"They might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers on them," she said.

The United Nations resolution passed in connection with the landmark nuclear deal prohibited Tehran from supplying, selling, or transferring weapons unless the Security Council approved it. A separate UN resolution bans the supply of any weapons to the Huthi rebel leader in Yemen.

Tehran, which views Saudi Arabia as an enemy and rival for power in the Middle East, has long denied accusations that it was supplying weapons, and called Haley's claim about the November 4 missile attack "irresponsible, provocative, and destructive."

"These accusations seek also to cover up for the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, with the U.S. complicity, and divert international and regional attention from the stalemate war of aggression against the Yemenis," a statement released by Iran's mission to the United Nations said.

Saudi-led forces back the Yemeni government, and have been fighting the Huthis in Yemen's ongoing civil war for more than two years. Saudi Arabia is one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East and Washington is a major supplier of weaponry to the Saudi military.

The announcement came amid reports that a UN investigation into whether Iran supplied the two missiles Yemeni rebels fired at Saudi Arabia this year reached no firm conclusions.

The Associated Press and Agence France-Press have reported that UN officials examined debris from the missiles and said it pointed to a "common origin," but they could not conclude that they came from an Iranian supplier.

With reporting by AP and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/us-envoy-says- has-irrefutable-evidence-iran-violating- un-restrictions/28917379.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Upgrade on Track: F-35s to Get More Missiles, Better Targeting Capabilities

Sputnik News

22:57 14.12.2017(updated 23:05 14.12.2017)

US military engineers are back on track to upgrade the F-35's software package after months of delays, according to a new report.

The jet's avionics systems are receiving faster processors to improve weapons delivery and bring the jet closer to realizing its potential as as a "flying computer." This update, dubbed Block 3F, integrates short-range air-to-air AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles into the jet's weapons suite, Scout Warrior reported December 12.

Block 3F includes a special component known as the advanced memory system (AMS). Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-35 program, awarded Harris Corporation a contract in June for the system, according to multiple published reports. Based on commercial-off-the-shelf technology, AMS "provides solid-state mass storage capability for the F-35 aircraft avionics subsystems," the defense corporation said.

The data storage capability is essential for displaying critical mission data such as the location of the hostile target, according to industry officials. "Instead of having to measure something in megabits or megabytes, we are now talking about terabytes," Brad Truesdell, director of aviation systems at Harris, told Scout Warrior in an article published December 12.

Harris avionics also provide support for the F-22 and F/A-18 airframes.

Lockheed told the Pentagon in July that the Block 3F installation would be complete by the end of the year before switching course in November, when the contractor informed the government the project would not be complete until February 2018, at the earliest, according to a Sputnik News report.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Female Afghan Army Officers to Learn Warfare Tactics in India

Sputnik News

16:43 14.12.2017(updated 17:13 14.12.2017)

As part of Afghanistan's ambitious target of making its armed forces inclusive of at least 10 percent women, a group of freshly recruited women officers of the Afghan Army is learning warfare techniques at India's Officers Training Academy.

New Delhi (Sputnik)  At first, a group of women officers of the Afghan National Army is undergoing warfare training at India's Officers Training Academy. The women officers have been selected from different provinces and represent all the major ethnicities of Afghanistan.

The academy is situated in Chennai, the capital city of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is imparting training on weapons handling and firing, communications skills, warfare tactics, administration and logistics to the women officers. The use of hand grenades, assault rifles including the AK-47, live firing and evaluation is also part of their training module that will conclude on December 24. The 20-day crash course is reported to be a pilot for a full training scheme being planned for next year.

India has so far trained more than 4000 Afghan National Army (ANA)

soldiers but this is the first time that the country is hosting women officers. Currently, women constitute only two percent of security forces in Afghanistan. Under the Taliban's regime (1996-2001)

, women in Afghanistan were banned from education and were not allowed outside unless wearing a burqa and accompanied by a man. After the fall of the regime, changing people's mindset about women and ensuring gender equality has been a challenge for successive governments. The Afghan National Army's effort in recruiting women into different ranks including combat roles is seen as a big leap in this direction and it has enthused women officers of the Indian Army too.

"Yes, I (will) definitely give a big yeswe should be given a fair opportunity in combatall of us feel we could be in the forefront," Major Sanjana JR was quoted as saying by the PTI.

The Indian women officers who are coordinating the training for their Afghani counterparts say they favor women in combat roles.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US Presents 'Undeniable' Evidence Iran Illegally Arming Yemen Rebels

By Margaret Besheer December 14, 2017

A senior U.S. official said Thursday that Washington has "undeniable" evidence that Iran is illegally supplying weapons to rebels in Yemen as part of a "pattern" of bad behavior in the region.

"In this warehouse is concrete evidence of illegal Iranian weapons proliferation, gathered from direct military attacks on our partners in the region," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told a news conference at a military base in Washington.

Haley made her presentation standing in front of large pieces of debris she said were from a short-range missile recently fired by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels based in Yemen into Saudi Arabia that struck a civilian airport. She said the U.S. would invite Congress and members of the U.N. Security Council to inspect the debris.

"All of these weapons include parts made in Iran, some by Iran's government-run defense industry; all are proof that Iran is defying the international community," Haley said. "And not just one time. This evidence demonstrates a pattern of behavior in which Iran sows conflict and extremism in direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions."

She said the missile debris is on loan from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Those two Gulf Arab nations are leading a coalition that has been conducting airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen for nearly four years after they ousted the country's legitimate president. The coalition has also maintained a lengthy blockade on Yemen's air and seaports, hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of starving civilians and putting the country at risk of widespread famine.

"The evidence is undeniable," Haley said, "The weapons might as well have had 'Made in Iran' stickers all over it."

Haley faulted the nuclear deal agreed to in 2015 by the six major powers with Tehran, saying Iran has "hidden behind it," and that "these are the things they are doing while we are all looking the other way."

Iran's U.N. Mission put out a statement immediately after Haley's news conference dismissing the allegations as "unfounded and, at the same time, irresponsible, provocative and destructive."

U.N. report

Haley also welcomed a December 8 report from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal. It includes detailed information from several member states, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, on weapons they have seized that were apparently headed for Yemen. The Saudis also provided debris from missiles and other military hardware that had been launched from Yemen and landed in Saudi territory.

Guterres said his office is still analyzing the information collected and drew no firm conclusions on the origin of the weapons.

In the report, the U.N. chief also urged the United States to maintain its commitments under the nuclear agreement and "consider the broader implications for the region before taking any further steps." He also called on Iran to "carefully consider the concerns raised by other participants in the plan."

Next steps

Haley said Washington would take a new approach to dealing with the global threat posed by Iran and not just focus on the nuclear deal.

"Our new strategy was prompted by the undeniable fact that the Iranian regime's behavior is growing worse," she said. "The nuclear deal has done nothing to moderate the regime's conduct in other areas."

She said she would seek support in the U.N. Security Council and that the president would work with Congress.

"You will see us build a coalition to really push back against Iran and what they are doing," Haley said. "We are not going to sit back and not watch this; we are going to turn around and not only be aggressive about it, we are going to be forceful about it and we are going to let the international community know what a threat this actually is."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN Official: Peacekeepers in South Sudan Not Intervention Force

By John Tanza December 14, 2017

The U.N. Secretary General's Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide Adama Dieng is defending the performance of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS)

Dieng told South Sudan in Focus that there is a need to educate South Sudanese citizens on the mandate of the UNMISS, a 12,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force authorized by the U.N. Security Council to protect civilians following an outbreak of deadly violence in South Sudan's capital in December 2013.

The U.N. diplomat insisted that peacekeepers serving under UNMISS have saved the lives of thousands of civilians trapped in Juba and other towns during fighting between South Sudan army and rebels of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement in opposition (SPLM IO) loyal to former first vice president Riek Machar.

"UNMISS is neither an intervention, nor an interposition force. It can only operate with the consent of the host government," he said.

Responsibility to protect

Dieng said the government of South Sudan should cooperate with UNMISS to allow the men and women in the blue helmets to discharge U.N. Security Council resolution 2327 (2016) that calls on the warring parties to return to the peace process and empowers UNMISS to use necessary tools to protect civilians.

He said the sole responsibility to protect civilians lies with the government of South Sudan, adding that in the event a state fails to protect its civil population, such state should seek assistance from the international community, neighbors and the region to discharge its role of civilian protection.

"It is in this context that the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union, the United Nations, the Troika (Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States) and the international community at large, are assisting South Sudan to end the conflict and protect its citizens,'' he said.

However Dieng said if a state is unwilling to protect its citizens and the state is complicit in committing crimes against humanity, genocide and ethnic cleansing, the international community has the responsibility to protect civilians.

The head of UNMISS, David Shearer, has in the past echoed frustrations from aid agencies who accused the government and rebels of blocking humanitarian workers from reaching families in desperate need of food, health and shelter.

"It is important that the [South Sudan] government guarantees free movement of the peacekeepers and cooperate to enable the development of the additional 4,000 U.N.'s Regional Protection Force (RPF). You cannot blame the U.N. on the ground; they have been doing what they can," he said.

Hybrid court

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) established the Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan as part of its response to the December 2013 crisis in the country and recommended the formation of a hybrid court. U.N. Special Adviser Dieng visited Yei River State in November 2016 and warned of a potential genocide in South Sudan.

"Therefore what is needed today is to make sure that the victims of this conflict in South Sudan get legal redress,'' he said.

Dieng said the IGAD's High Level Revitalization Forum, scheduled to meet next week in Addis Ababa, should pressure the African Union to expedite the formation of the hybrid court as required in the August 2015 peace deal. The court is expected to try individuals who committed crimes during the four years of conflict in South Sudan.

"I should say that [the] African Union has done a lot. But unless the government of South Sudan accepts to cooperate for the implementation of the hybrid court, it will be difficult,'' he said.

Dieng added the African Union should start documenting, collecting and preserving evidence of crimes committed during South Sudan's four years of conflict.

"When I got in Yei [town], I was moved to hear a testimony about an old woman of 84 years, old lady who was raped. I mean, this cannot be tolerated," Dieng exclaimed.

The Troika has issued a warning to warring parties to negotiate in good faith at IGAD's much anticipated High Level Revitalization Forum in Addis Ababa.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Burundi Government Denies Using Constitutional Changes to Cling to Power

By Mohammed Yusuf December 14, 2017

The government of Burundi says a recently launched referendum campaign is aimed at strengthening and advancing the country's laws after more than two years of political violence. But some experts say the government wants to use the referendum campaign to legitimize its rule.

The Burundi government has launched a referendum campaign to change the constitution. The government insists its move is to strengthen current laws and improve others.

Agathon Rwasa, vice president of the National Assembly and a former presidential candidate, says the president wants to stay in power beyond 2020.

"'Til this very minute, the so-called project of amendment of the constitution has been concealed, and I wonder why? Since a constitutional matter is a national one why should President (Pierre) Nkurunziza hide it till this moment. But for the time being it seems that they are in haste, for what purpose I don't know. All that we can see it's clear that Nkurunziza is aiming at remaining in the office for life," said Rwasa.

The government says the draft has about 300 clauses that will be subject to a referendum in 2018.

President Pierre Nkurunziza's deputy spokesman, Alain Diomede, said the controversy surrounding term limits is one of them.

"That has also been thought of because it was very controversial in 2015 because people interpreted some articles of the constitution differently. This time is very clear that term limits cannot be more than two, it means you can only have one term, renewed once. Another thing is its plans to have a term of seven years, not five years, like it was in the 2005 constitution," he said.

The 2005 constitution and Arusha peace agreement brought an end to Burundi's long civil war, which claimed the lives of more than 300,000 people.

Some critics still question the manner in which Nkurunziza contested and won the 2015 elections. His opponents accuse him of violating the constitution and argue the president was not supposed to run in that election.

Attempts to hold talks to end the political crisis have failed several times after the government refused to negotiate with opposition groups they accuse of initiating violence in the country.

It is estimated more than 2,000 people have lost their lives, and more than 300,000 have fled the country since 2015.

Mustafa Ali, a security and conflict resolution expert, said Nkurunziza wants to use the referendum to legitimize his rule.

"If many people vote and the majority vote that he continues staying, it's legitimate. The problem with that legitimacy is, and knowing of many African countries, is that that legitimacy could as well be bought because he is going to use monies that he and his close handlers have looted from the Burundi people to buy their loyalty," said Ali.

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Nkurunziza's favor so that he could run again. He argued in his first term in 2005 that he was elected by parliament, not by voters.

The government says the electoral commission has been given the green light to prepare for the referendum and it will have six months to do so.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Drama, Uncertainty as South Africa's Ruling Party Chooses Leader

By Anita Powell December 14, 2017

South Africa's powerful ruling party is coming together at a time when it has never been more divided. Starting Saturday, 5,000 delegates of the African National Congress will meet in Johannesburg to anoint a successor to party leader and president Jacob Zuma.

For years Zuma wallowed in serious, mounting corruption allegations, and just this week was hit with a stinging blow when the High Court in Pretoria censured him for trying to evade corruption investigations. As a result of that and other scandals, Zuma's status has deeply divided the party, with some top party officials openly calling for him to step down as president.

Two figures are officially in the running to replace Zuma as leader of the African National Congress: Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a party stalwart and experienced diplomat who was once, for 16 years, married to Zuma. But others may emerge when voting begins during the weekend. The ANC has won a majority in every national poll since the beginning of democracy in 1994, meaning the new leader is likely to be a strong presidential candidate in 2019.

VOA has spoken to analysts and experts, and the only thing they have agreed on is this: Anything can happen here. Analyst Ebrahim Fakir says he thinks such uncertainty is a sign of political maturity. He refused to bet on a winner.

"If I knew, I'd be sailing on the Caribbean," he said, with a laugh. "And the uncertainty and the fluidity of it is part of the democratic process. So I think we should accept that because it's a democratic process, because democracy is about contestation, democracy is about competition, because you have competing visions, you have competing candidates, you have competing individuals, the context is fluid, the outcome is uncertain, and that's how it is in a democracy."

President's Pick: A good or a bad thing?

In the past week, South African courts have struck serious blows against the president, ruling against Zuma for his actions in challenging recommendations from the nation's former anti-corruption czar over his alleged corrupt activities. Zuma supports Dlamini-Zuma, and that, says analyst Ralph Mathekga, could cut two ways.

"Whoever is being supported or anointed by President Jacob Zuma to lead the ANC, one way or another, it will contribute in some form to the extension of his legacy," he said. "So members of the ANC will have to reflect on that. The court hearing, from that point of view, would certainly be negative for him. But I do think that upon a very closer observation as to what is happening within the party, there is already a narrative that is said to ignore such kind of decision as the court decision against President Jacob Zuma. "

Mathekga also refused to predict a winner, but said that in a way, the leadership contest is only one of the ANC's worries. The conference has yet to begin, and already, some analysts are predicting that this party schism might cause the event to collapse entirely. Mathekga says the ANC needs to try to avoid that.

"If the ANC cannot hold a conference properly and elect a leader in a free, fair and open manner," he said, "it will be quite difficult to trust the ANC to do the same thing within the country."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Netherlands to Upgrade Avionics on Chinook Heavy Lift Helicopters

Sputnik News

00:00 15.12.2017

The Netherlands Ministry of Defense has contracted with Boeing to upgrade six Chinook heavy lift helicopters with an updated avionics system, Boeing said in a press release.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Boeing said in a press release on Thursday that the Netherlands Ministry of Defense has contracted with the company to upgrade six Chinook heavy lift helicopters with an updated avionics system that will improve interoperability with the US military and allied forces.

"Boeing and the Netherlands Ministry of Defense today signed an agreement that will upgrade six Royal Netherlands Air Force Chinook helicopters to the latest CH-47F model configuration, ensuring commonality of systems for their entire fleet of 20 F-model Chinooks," the release said.

A key feature includes advanced operational capabilities provided by the Common Avionics Architecture System cockpit with an integrated Digital Automatic Flight Control System, the release explained.

Boeing said that the system will improve interoperability between the Netherlands, the US Army and other allies. The Netherlands acquired 14 Chinooks in 2016 under a US Foreign Military Sales program.

In July, Boeing was awarded a more-than $26-million contract to upgrade and manufacture modified Chinook MH-47G heavy lift helicopters for the Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

Chinooks were first used in combat in 1965 during the Vietnam War, according to Boeing. A Chinook can lift and transport a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter weighing roughly 10,000 pounds.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Foreign Ministry Spokesman Warns U.S. and Its Followers against Sea Blockade on DPRK

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK

Date: 14/12/2017

Pyongyang, December 14 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA on Thursday as regards the fact that the U.S. is now talking about a naval blockade against the DPRK:

The gang of Trump, being terrified by our accomplishment of the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, is driving the situation on the Korean peninsula more and more close to the brink of war, acting recklessly without any sense of reason.

Recently, speaking at a gathering in Florida, Trump cried out for the harshest sanctions on our country. Soon after his remarks, Haley, U.S. permanent representative to the UN who is scorned by the world as an evil woman, dared to wag her tongue about further tightening the sanctions against north Korea and utterly destroying it without realizing the meaning of words coming out of her mouth.

Besides, high-ranking officials of the U.S. administration like Tillerson, U.S. secretary of State, and McMaster, national security advisor at the White House, are crying out for sea blockade against our country.

The U.S. is trying to arrange a ministerial-level meeting at the United Nations Security Council on the 15th to cook up another extremely harsh "sanctions resolution" against the DPRK such as enforcing the naval blockade under the excuse of "non-proliferation".

The naval blockade the gang of Trump is trying to pursue is something that was already tried and ended in vain during the collective sanctions campaign against us undertaken by the Bush administration under the signboard of "Proliferation Security Initiative" in the early 2000s.

A naval blockade is an act of wanton violation of the sovereignty and dignity of an independent state and an act of war of aggression which cannot be tolerated.

The gang of Trump is taking extremely dangerous and big step towards the nuclear war by recklessly seeking the naval blockade against our country, neglecting the strategic prestige of our country that has achieved the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force.

Should the U.S. and its followers try to enforce the naval blockade against our country, we will see it as an act of war and respond with merciless self-defensive counter-measures as we have warned repeatedly.

The international society should increase its vigilance on the reckless moves of the U.S. trying to ignite a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula, and if the UNSC does not wish to see the Korean peninsula and the whole world plunging into a nuclear war, it should act properly in accordance with its original mission which is to preserve peace and security of the world. -0-

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






North Korea says any US naval blockade would be 'act of war'

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 03:48PM

North Korea has warned that it would take "merciless self-defensive" measures should the United States enforce a naval blockade against the country.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that Pyongyang would see the siege as "an act of war".

"Should the United States and its followers try to enforce the naval blockade against our country, we will see it as an act of war and respond with merciless self-defensive counter-measures as we have warned repeatedly," the agency said.

The blockade, it added, would be a "wanton violation" of the country's sovereignty and dignity.

The spokesman stated that US President Donald Trump was taking an "extremely dangerous and big step towards the nuclear war" by seeking such a blockade, KCNA said.

The developments came as the US, South Korea and Japan launched rocket tracking drills on Monday aimed at improving detection and monitoring of the North's ballistic missile tests.

Tensions on the peninsula remain high as concerns grow that a miscalculation during training drills on either side could provoke a full-scale conflict.

Independent analysts in South Korea have recently criticized the proposed blockade, saying it would only worsen the situation and that the US Pacific Command was not in a position to seal North Korea's maritime borders.

"If the US goes ahead with the blockade, it will only aggravate the situation by provoking North Korea to conduct more nuclear tests and launch missiles under the banner of self-defense," said Hong Hyun-ik, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, this week.

"Instead of searching for a real solution to the nuclear crisis, which is dialogue with the North, the US is attempting to maintain its hegemony in north-east Asia," he said.

China on Thursday warned against any moves that could trigger a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, saying the current dispute over North Korea's weapons program should only be settled through dialogue.

Pyongyang says its nuclear capability is a deterrent against potential foreign aggression. North Korea claims to have successfully tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, topped with a "super-large heavy warhead," which is capable of striking the US mainland.

Trump has vowed to impose additional "major sanctions" against North Korea which is already under multiple sets of penalties.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN warns against 'sleepwalking' into war with North Korea

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:19AM

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned the international community against the danger of "sleepwalking" into a war with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

"The worst possible thing that could happen, would be for us all to sleepwalk into a war that might have very dramatic circumstances," said the UN chief in a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Thursday.

Guterres' comments came just days after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered to engage in direct negotiations with Pyongyang without pre-conditions.

Apparently contradicting Tillerson, however, the White House said on Wednesday that no talks could be held with the North as long as it did not improve its behavior.

In his presser, Guterres further said, "It is very clear that the Security Council resolutions must be fully implemented first of all by North Korea but by all other countries whose role is crucial to... achieve the result we all aim at, which is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

He added that the unity of the UNSC was also vital "to allow for the possibility of diplomatic engagement" that would allow denuclearization to be carried out.

Premier Abe, for his part, said that Tokyo "fully agreed" that the denuclearization of the volatile Korean Peninsula was "indispensable" for the peace and stability of the region.

Japan blocks North Korea-bound aid

Also on Thursday, Japanese police announced that they had conducted multiple raids, reportedly in connection with alleged shipments of food to the North.

According to local media, security forces raided a Tokyo-based commercial association affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon. The organization, which has close ties with Pyongyang, acts as the de facto North Korean embassy in Japan, as there are no diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang.

Japan justified the raids by saying that the shipments would have contravened international sanctions on North Korea.

North Korea has been under a raft of crippling UN sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear tests as well as multiple rocket and missile launches. Pyongyang has firmly defended its military program as a deterrent against the hostile policies of the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.

Washington has thousands of troops in the region, including in South Korea and Japan, and routinely threatens the North with military action to stop its weapons programs.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






N Korea Says US Naval Blockade Would Be 'Big Step' Towards Nuclear War - Reports

Sputnik News

16:38 14.12.2017(updated 17:43 14.12.2017)

Previously, Pyongyang already slammed a proposed US naval blockade saying such measures will be regarded as "a declaration of war."

The DPRK has warned that possible enforcement of the naval blockade by the US will lead to "merciless self-defensive" measures, North korea's state news agency KCNA reports, citing a foreign ministry spokesperson.

According to KCNA, Pyongyang urged US President Donald Trump to refrain from imposing a maritime blockade, as such move would be an "extremely dangerous and big step towards the nuclear war."

Pyongyang's response comes after US State Secretary Rex Tillerson stated that "the international community must take additional measures to enhance maritime security, including the right to interdict maritime traffic transporting goods to and from" North Korea.

The naval blockade was also pushed for by Washington in September while deciding on sanctions against North Korea, however, the initiative was opposed by China and Russia.

In the wake of the latest missile launch by North Korea, the US together with South Korea and Japan carried out joint military drills aimed at testing their ability to track potential rockets fired from North Korea.

On Thursday, during the annual press conference Russian President Vladimir Putin called on both the United States and North Korea to stop aggravating a crisis, adding that he considers more severe international sanctions against North Korea "counterproductive".

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Iraq's Badr Organization chief places fighters under national army

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 07:11PM

The secretary general of Badr Organization, Iraq's biggest Shia Muslim paramilitary group, has told his fighters to take orders from the national military and sever their relations with the group's political wing, which holds 22 seats in the Iraqi parliament.

Hadi al-Amiri made the request in a speech delivered on Thursday, further calling on his fighters to withdraw from the cities under their control.

"I also call on all my brothers, the commanders of various formations, to clear cities of all signs of militarization," he said.

Badr Organization is the biggest constituent of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Sha'abi, an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 groups, which are mainly Shia Muslims.

The force reportedly numbers more than 100,000 fighters. Iraqi authorities say there are between 25,000 and 30,000 Sunni tribal fighters within its ranks in addition to Kurdish Izadi and Christian units. The fighters have played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas to the south, northeast and north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, ever since the terrorists launched an offensive in the country in 2014.

The move will pave the way for Amiri to stand in parliamentary elections due to be held on May 12, as the PMU members cannot run for office unless they formally resign their posts.

Hashd al-Sha'abi, officially made part of the Iraqi security establishment by law, formally answers to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Amiri is the second top commander of the PMU, who decided to separate the military and political wings of his organization. Qais al-Khazali, commander of Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq volunteer forces of the PMU, announced a similar move On Wednesday, when he said he would place his fighters under Abadi's command.

On Saturday, Abadi declared the end of military operations against Daesh after a three-year hard campaign by government troops and PMU fighters against the terror outfit.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Iraq executes 38 members of Daesh, al-Qaeda over terrorism charges

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 05:53PM

Iraq has executed 38 members of the Daesh and al-Qaeda Takfiri terror groups over terrorism charges in a prison in the southern province of Dhi Qar, provincial authorities say.

According to Dakhel Kazem, a senior official in the provincial council, the executions were carried out in a detention center in provincial capital of Nasiriyah on Thursday.

He further said that the convicts, who had been "accused of terrorist activities," were hanged "in the presence of Justice Minister Haidar al-Zameli." Kazem added that they were all Iraqi nationals but one also had Swedish citizenship.

It was the largest number of executions in the crisis-hit Arab country on a single day since September 25 when 42 terrorists were put to death in the same prison.

The executions were carried out five days after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared declared the end of military operations against Daesh after a three-year hard campaign by government troops and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Hashd al-Sha'abi, to retake territories seized by terrorists, which once held roughly one third of the country's soil.

"Our forces are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border and I therefore announce the end of the war against Daesh," Abadi told a conference in Baghdad on December 9.

Daesh commenced its reign of terror and destruction in Syria and Iraq in 2013 and 2014 respectively. In June 2014, the group declared its so-called "caliphate" in both Arab countries after it seized the Iraqi city of Mosul and pronounced it as the group's de facto capital in the Middle Eastern country. Daesh also made the city of Raqqah as its main stronghold in Syria.

However, Daesh gradually lost the areas it had held, thanks to the efforts made by government and pro-government forces in both countries. In Syria, Daesh now holds just a few decreasing pockets of land.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






6,700 Rohingya killed in Myanmar only in one month: MSF

Iran Press TV

Thu Dec 14, 2017 06:25AM

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders says at least 6,700 members of the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority group were killed in state-sponsored violence in Myanmar only in a period of one month beginning on August 25.

The announcement was made by Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French acronym MSF, on Thursday.

"At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed, including at least 730 children below the age of five years," the aid group said.

The MSF said the figures had come from six surveys of more than 2,434 households in Rohingya refugee camps and covered a period of one month.

"We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh," said the group's medical director, Sidney Wong.

"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured," he added.

The MSF said that gunshot wounds had been the cause of death in 69 percent of the cases after Myanmar's army launched "clearance operations" in Rakhine.

Another nine percent were reported burned alive inside houses, while five percent died from fatal beatings, according to the MSF survey.

The revelation was made as Myanmar's army has so far denied widespread accounts of violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority and has said that only 400 people died in the first few weeks of a new wave of "security operations" that began on August 25.

Separately on Thursday, Myanmar's government announced that it had arrested two journalists over accusations of possessing "important secret papers" related to the widespread violence in the country's western Rakhine State, where the Rohingya are being persecuted.

The Ministry of Information in Myanmar said in a statement that the two journalists, identified as Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, worked for the Reuters news agency and had been detained at a police station on the outskirts of Yangon, the Southeast Asian country's largest city.

The reporters "illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media," said the statement, which was accompanied by a photo of the pair in handcuffs.

The ministry said the journalists obtained the information from two policemen who had worked in Rakhine State, adding that the four would face charges under a section of Myanmar's colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The Reuters news agency said the pair went missing on Tuesday evening after they had been invited to meet the police officials over dinner.

"Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been reporting on events of global importance in Myanmar, and we learned today that they have been arrested in connection with their work," Stephen J. Adler, the president and editor-in-chief of Reuters, said in a statement.

"We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom. We call for authorities to release them immediately," he added.

Myanmar has barred foreign groups and reporters from entering Rakhine, which has been under military siege since late last year and where horrific violence is being reported against the minority Rohingya Muslims.

More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have sought sanctuary in Bangladesh after the military in the mostly-Buddhist Myanmar intensified the crackdown in villages across the northern parts of Rakhine State on August 25, using a number of armed attacks on security checkpoints as a pretext.

Myanmar's officials use the term "Bengali" to refer to the Rohingya. The group, which has lived in Myanmar for decades, has been denied citizenship in both Myanmar and neighboring Bangladesh.

During the past three months, government troops, apart from raping, have been committing killings, making arbitrary arrests, and carrying out mass arson of houses in hundreds of predominantly-Rohingya villages in the restive state.

The United Nations has already described the Rohingya as the most persecuted community in the world, calling the situation in Rakhine similar to "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Pakistan Reports Rare Progress in Tense Ties With Afghanistan

By Ayaz Gul December 14, 2017

Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed for the first time to place "liaison officers" at each other's military headquarters for better security coordination, and Islamabad is awaiting a formal response from Kabul to its proposal for opening a wide-ranging bilateral dialogue.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal, at his weekly news conference on Thursday, discussed the rare progress in a relationship traditionally plagued by suspicion and mistrust.

He revealed the proposal entitled "Afghanistan Pakistan Action Plan for Solidarity" - or APAPS - was shared with Afghan officials on November 25. The document offers a comprehensive plan for "constructive and meaningful" engagement between the two countries through working groups in areas of politics, economy, military, intelligence sharing and refugee issues, explained the spokesman.

"A formal reply from the government of Afghanistan in this context is awaited," said Faisal. He added that the proposal was floated in early October following a meeting between Pakistani military chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.

While the Afghan government has not yet publicly discussed the Pakistani proposal, Faisal welcomed Ghani's recently published comments in which the Afghan leader acknowledged receiving the document and indicating it could provide a basis for bilateral dialogue.

The spokesman also credited Bajwa's visit for groundbreaking talks between top military commanders of the two countries hosted by Pakistan on November 30.

"During that meeting the two sides agreed to place liaison officers at each other's army headquarters and also establish ground coordination centers, or GCCs," Faisal added.

Mutual allegations, mistrust

Afghanistan and Pakistan share a nearly 2,600 kilometer, largely porous border and frequently accuse each other of not preventing militant terrorist activities on their respective soils.

The allegations and counter allegations have led to the deterioration of bilateral relations, causing mutual acrimony and tension, and undermining economic and trade cooperation.

While Kabul says Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistani soil prolong the war in Afghanistan, officials in Islamabad allege anti-Pakistan militants are using bases in Afghan border areas to plan terrorist attacks in the country.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Faisal again expressed concerns about the growing influence of the Islamic State terrorist group across the Afghan border. More than 43 percent of Afghan territory is either out of Kabul's control or is contested, the spokesman said, citing a recent report by the U.S. government agency, SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction).

"Such places in Afghanistan have been instrumental in attracting terrorist groups from all over the world. The presence of such groups not only pose a threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan, but also undermine the security of its neighbors and the region as a whole," Faisal noted.

The spokesman also said Islamabad has not yet decided whether to extend the stay of more than 3 million Afghans in Pakistan, including documented refugees and illegal economic migrants.

"The validity of the current proof of residence cards is due to expire on December 31, 2017. The government is contemplating all options to extend the validity of the cards or not. So far, no decision has been made," he said.

Pakistan blames the refugee population for serving as havens for members of the Afghan Taliban and anti-state militants within the country. Foreign Ministry officials say that without repatriating the displaced families to Afghanistan and strengthening border controls on the Afghan side, terrorist infiltration will keep causing mutual tension.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN Envoy Urges Russia To Prod Syria To Accept Peace Deal

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has urged Russia to convince the Syrian government to reach a peace deal to end the nearly seven-year-old war.

De Mistura, speaking on Swiss television station RTS on December 13, said failure to make peace quickly through United Nations mediation could lead to "a fragmentation of Syria."

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a surprise visit to Russia's Hmeymim air base in Syria on December 11 declared that the work of Russian forces was largely done following the defeat of what he called "the most battle-hardened group of international terrorists."

With Russia signalling its hopes to conclude involvement in the Syrian conflict, De Mistura said Putin must "convince the [Syrian] government that there is no time to lose... You can think you win territory militarily but you have to win the peace.

"And to win the peace, you have to have the courage to push the government to accept that there has to be a new constitution and new elections, through the United Nations," he said.

The nearly seven-year civil war in Syria has killed over 340,000 people and driven more than 11 million from their homes.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have largely ended in failure over the opposition's demand that President Bashar al-Assad leave power, and the latest round due to end on December 14 in Geneva appears to be no exception.

Assad refuses to go, and recently has claimed he is close to military victory in the war, though his troops control only about 55 percent of Syria's territory after some recent gains.

The Kremlin first launched air strikes in Syria in September 2015 in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, turning the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor.

Putin, like Assad, has portrayed their alliance as close to military victory, and Russia has insisted that Assad should be able to run for re-election during any political transition period negotiated by the UN.

Russia has offered to host a separate venue for peace negotiations. A parallel process organized by Moscow, fellow Syria ally Iran, and rebel-backer Turkey, has had limited success establishing cease-fires and is set to resume next week in Astana, Kazakhstan.

But De Mistura in the TV interview said that a lasting political settlement accepted by all sides can only be negotiated through the UN.

As in previous rounds of negotiations, the UN envoy in recent days has conducted shuttle diplomacy between the opposition delegation and the Syrian government delegation led by chief negotiator Bashar al-Ja'afari.

No direct talks between the two sides occurred.

"The opposition told me clearly when they arrived here, and again yesterday and this morning too, that they are ready to meet the government right away to have a hard, difficult discussion," De Mistura said.

"The government is not ready, it has said it is not ready to meet the opposition. That is regrettable but diplomacy has many means," he said.

A senior Western diplomat told Reuters that the government has been refusing to negotiate over a new constitution and elections.

"Clearly they did not have any intention to engage in this political process. And clearly they are not under sufficient pressure to do so," the diplomat told Reuters. "The clear impression is the regime wants to avoid the UN-led political process at any cost."

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/un-special-syria- envoy-de-mistura-says-putin-must-nudge-syria- into-un-peace-deal/28917277.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Moscow Denies Russian Jets Intercepted By US F-22s in Syria

Sputnik News

22:25 14.12.2017(updated 23:11 14.12.2017)

The Russian Defense Ministry released a statement Thursday denying reports of an alleged "intercept" of Russian Su-25s by US F-22 fighter jets in Syria.

"On December 13, a pair of Su-25 attack aircraft escorted a humanitarian convoy near Mayadin [the western bank of the Euphrates River] at an altitude of 3,300 meters. They were approached by a US F-22 fighter jet on the east side of the river. By firing off decoy flares, the F-22 interfered with the flight of a pair of Russian Su-25s," the ministry's statement read. "A Russian Su-35 fighter jet, performing an air cover mission at an altitude of 10,000 meters, swiftly approached the F-22 from the rear, forcing the American aircraft to leave the area."

The incident took place in Syrian airspace east of the Euphrates River.

"Two F-22 went too close to two Russian jets so we had to use the de-confliction channels," a CENTCOM official told Sputnik on Thursday. "This is not something extraordinary It happens sometimes several times a day."

A US official previously indicated that F-22s fired warning flares to chase Russian Su-25s away from the airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry says the US jets attempted to interfere in a Russian mission to provide air cover for a humanitarian aid convoy.

Per Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon, "one Su-25 flew close enough to an F-22A that it had to aggressively maneuver to avoid a midair collision."

"During the incident, a Russian Su-35 also flew across the river and was shadowed closely by one of the F-22As," Pahon added.

Though a verbal agreement last month indicated "that the Russians would remain west of the Euphrates River," according to Pahon, Russian jets have flown into coalition airspace in Syria "on the east side of the river six to eight times per day."

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






'Golden opportunity' missed for progress on intra-Syrian talks, says UN envoy

14 December 2017  A "golden opportunity" has been missed to decide the future of Syria at the end of the latest round of United Nations-supported talks in Geneva, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

Mr. de Mistura was speaking to journalists in the Swiss city where he has been meeting Syrian Government representatives and for the first time  a united opposition delegation.

He added that he was disappointed at the Government's lack of engagement on any issue other than counter-terrorism, before adding that he intended to call a new round of talks in January.

One of the main goals of this eighth round of Intra-Syria talks in Geneva was to get the still-warring parties to consider a new constitution for the war-ravaged country and UN-backed elections.

The opposition delegation had engaged on these issues  and others  with UN negotiator Staffan de Mistura, he told journalists.

But the Syrian Government representatives chose to focus solely on fighting terrorism, prompting the UN envoy to point out: "A big missed opportunity, a golden opportunity at the end of this year, when in fact there is a clear indication from many sides that the military operations are coming to a close, the Da'esh [also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL] territory is reduced to close to zero."

Mr. de Mistura went on to say that at the same time "everybody knows [] that without a clear political process we risk to not have learned the lesson of Mosul, and we risk to not have what should be winning the peace not only winning the war against Da'esh."

While the talks have been taking place in Geneva, the dire humanitarian situation inside parts of Syria has remained unchanged  particularly in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus.

Mr. de Mistura said he had spoken to the Government delegation about the need to evacuate hundreds of sick people from the besieged area on medical grounds, but he failed to get a "satisfactory" answer from them.

While acknowledging that this round of discussions with the parties had not seen the progress he would have liked, the UN envoy insisted that the Geneva talks had given an opportunity to hear from Syrian civil society, including the Women's Advisory Board.

He maintained that his efforts to secure peace in the country will continue, until those with the power to stop the fighting realized that there can be no reconstruction in Syria  devastated as it is by nearly seven years of war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives  without a political process and UN-backed elections.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Western, Gulf Weapons Supplied to Syria Rebels Leaked to Islamic State

By Jamie Dettmer December 14, 2017

A significant quantity of weapons supplied by Western and Gulf states to opposition factions battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian conflict were transferred to the Islamic State, according to a study funded by the European Union and Germany's foreign ministry.

The leakage of the supplies "significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to IS forces -- in numbers far beyond those that would have been available to the group through battlefield capture alone," according to Weapons of the Islamic State, a 202-page study released Wednesday.

Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a Britain-based organization that monitors the movement and diversion of weapons in conflict zones, produced the study.

"The acquisition of weapons by the Islamic State group is classic blowback - 1980s Afghanistan replayed in Syria," says CAR's executive director James Bevan. He adds, "Time and again, states that seek to accomplish short-term political objectives supply weapons to groups over whom they exert little-to-no control. These weapons often gravitate to the most organized and effective rebel and insurgent forces."

CAR researchers say they had the full cooperation of national governments and manufacturers for their three-year investigation, which involved sending teams to cover an unbroken arc of territory extending from the northern Syrian city of Kobane to the south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Western governments furnished lists of brokers and shippers, as well as serial numbers of the exported weapons and ammunition.

That, CAR researchers say, shows the governments' determination "to curb the supply of weapons and associated materiel to unauthorized users." The report notes the governments and manufacturers were not acting unlawfully when dispatching arms and ammunition to the Syrian insurgents, there was no international arms embargo in effect.

Armories looted

CAR field researchers analyzed more than 40,000 items recovered from IS forces between 2014 and 2017. Many of the items originated in shipments that ran into the thousands. IS seized large quantities of weapons in Syria from retreating Assad forces and were able to loot government arsenals.

And in Iraq, there was a large-scale capture of weapons by IS in 2014 as the government's security forces fell back rapidly in the face of the terror group's blitz in Northwest Iraq and Mosul.

But the fact IS often acquired weapons supplied by outside powers within weeks and months of their delivery to opposition factions is less well recognized, says CAR in its study.

It remains unclear how IS secured the weaponry supplied by foreign powers to Syrian rebel groups: some could have been captured or sold by recipient militias, says a European official. Rebel fighters say some weaponry was shared or bartered with jihadist factions which subsequently joined IS.

Western media outlets, including VOA, did report from the frontlines from 2013 onwards that Western and Gulf-supplied weapons were being traded, transferred and sold by opposition fighters and commanders to jihadist groups such as al Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and IS.

In 2013, a senior German diplomat told VOA his government and several other European Union governments were resisting an Anglo-French push for the West to increase the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels for fear the equipment could fall into the hands of jihadist groups.

Those fears were shared by U.S. officials. President Barack Obama refused constant appeals from the rebels and Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to increase arms supplies dramatically. Obama also declined to give the insurgents anti-aircraft missiles, fearing the consequences if any fell into jihadist hands, officials told VOA in 2014 and 2015.

Obama officials put in place various mechanisms to try to track weapons supplied to opposition factions and with TOW missiles they would only provide re-supplies when evidence had been offered by rebel units to show how they had used the missiles. But without military observers, there was an element of trust involved. Video evidence could be doctored, officials admitted to VOA during the conflict.

According to CAR, the arms that fell into the hands had serious impact on the battlefield, and continue to pose a significant threat, especially anti-armor weapons such as the BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles.

The report states, "The weapon was manufactured in the EU, sold to the United States, supplied to a party in the Syrian conflict, transferred to IS forces in Iraq, and documented by a CAR field investigation team following its recovery from IS forces. The full chain of transactions occurred within two months of the weapon's dispatch from the factory."

Many countries involved

Russia and China manufactured more than 50 percent of the weapons and ammunition held by IS forces, CAR calculates. Those arms were captured from Syrian or Iraqi forces.

"Former Warsaw Pact countries that are now EU Member States manufactured a significant proportion of the remaining materiel (more than 30 percent of weapons and 20 percent of ammunition)."

CAR researchers note: "Nearly 40 percent of ... anti-armor rockets deployed by IS forces in Iraq were produced in the past four years. ... EU Member States produced nearly 20 percent of these post-2014-manufactured rockets ... a fact that sits uncomfortably with the EU's parallel efforts to degrade the group's capacity to wage war and terrorism and to mitigate the international effects of the Syrian conflict."

CAR also documented ammunition that came from Eastern European states, exported to the United States and then dispatched to Somalia. Researchers also found matching lot numbers among IS rockets documented by CAR in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Identical weapons deployed by IS forces in Syria, had previously been spotted in circulation with armed groups in South Sudan, supplied illicitly by the Sudanese government.

Also, "A LibyaSyria weapon pipeline has operated since at least 2012" say CAR researchers, but they add that "the precise transfer mechanics are unclear."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US military, govt ties with Taiwan opposed

People's Daily Online

By Luo Wangshu (China Daily) 07:57, December 14, 2017

The Chinese mainland resolutely opposes any exchanges between militaries or government officials of the United States and Taiwan, a Chinese mainland spokesman said on Wednesday.

An Fengshan, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said in response to a recent speech by a Chinese diplomat reiterating that matters involving Taiwan are internal Chinese affairs.

"The day that a US Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung is the day that our People's Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force," Li Kexin, minister counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in the US, said at an embassy event in Washington on Tuesday.

He also said that China would activate its Anti-Secession Law if the US sent warships to Taiwan.

Li's speech stirred heated discussion on the island, with Taiwan media describing it as the "red line" of unification by force.

"Any attempt to undermine the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity is bound to incur the Chinese people's opposition and will not succeed," An said.

He also said the mainland opposes any "Taiwan independence" activities, including public voting.

The mainland will uphold peaceful reunification and the "one country, two systems" principle; and it will promote the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at a news conference earlier this week.

Beijing urged the United States to abide by the one-China policy and the three China-US joint communiques, and cautiously and properly handle the Taiwan issue.

"One country, two systems" and peaceful reunification are the major principles at the heart of Taiwan issues, and peaceful development is the way forward, said Liu Xiangping, professor of Taiwan studies at Nanjing University in Jiangsu province.

Li's speech, he said, was the result of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party recently attempting to bring US forces to Taiwan to back up the notion of "independence". Some forces in the USespecially in the militarythat still hold a Cold War mindset and are attempting to use Taiwan as leverage to obstruct China's peaceful rise, he added.

Li's speech was based on the premise of a US warship's arrival in Taiwan, which would violate the three Sino-US joint communiques, Liu added. The communiques state that the US recognizes one China and would gradually reduce and eventually stop arms sales to Taiwan.

"If the US were to violate the communique, it would violate international law and China would respond intensely," Liu said.

"If Taiwan authorities violate the law to sabotage the status quo, leading to the deterioration of cross-Straits relations, they should swallow the bitter result and be aware of the wrong they've committed," Liu said.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






China Outraged as US Plans Navy Visits to Taiwan

Sputnik News

14:17 14.12.2017(updated 14:23 14.12.2017)

US President Donald Trump has touched another sensitive issue, when he signed a law which de facto paves the way for military cooperation between the US and Taiwanese Navies. The move sparked fury in China, which claims the island is its own territory.

China accused the United States of meddling into its internal affairs on Thursday, adding that it had filed a complaint after President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law on Tuesday, which laid the grounds for future mutual navy visits between Taiwan and the United States.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that the US had violated the so-called "One-China" policy, which implies that the US should have formal ties with China rather than with the "breakaway province."

Earlier this week, Li Kexin, a senior Chinese diplomat, threatened that China would use force on Taiwan, if the US sent its ships to Taiwan's main port.

"The day that a U.S. Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung is the day that our People's Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force," Chinese media quoted Li as saying.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said that Chinese officials "showed a lack of knowledge of how a democratic society worked" despite their desire to "win over hearts" in Taiwan.

According to China Daily, a group of People's Liberation Army Air Force H-6K bombers, accompanied by Su-30 and J-11 fighter jets, conducted drills around Taiwan on Monday, "further improving their ability to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity."

The Trump administration has been strengthening its ties with Taiwan  which it considers a cornerstone in US-China relations. China sees Taiwan as a renegade island that should be brought back, even by use of force. To make matters worse, Taiwan (which officially refers to itself as the Republic of China) claims China as its territory; the ROC was overthrown in Communist mainland China by Mao Zedong in 1949.

Washington, in its turn, expects the "future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means." Despite Trump's agreement to stick to the "One-China" policy, a pro-independence movement in Taiwan seeks to declare the island a sovereign state. Chinese officials have already warned Taipei against relying on foreign powers for its security, having emphasized that Taiwan was an internal matter. Beijing suspects that Taiwan might hold a full-fledged independence referendum next year.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






China Accuses US of Meddling Over Potential US Navy Visits to Taiwan

By VOA News December 14, 2017

China submitted an official protest with the United States Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a measure that could result in U.S. naval warships visiting self-ruled Taiwan.

Trump signed into law Tuesday defense budget legislation that authorizes the possibility of mutual visits by naval ships between Taiwan and the U.S. Should any such visits occur, they would be the first since the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 and established relations with China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing that while sections of the law pertaining to Taiwan were not legally binding, they violate the "One China" policy and "constitute an interference in China's internal affairs."

Lu Kang added Beijing is opposed to any official exchanges, military contact or arms sales between the U.S. and Taiwan.

Tensions in the region escalated in recent days after a senior Chinese diplomat warned that Beijing would invade Taiwan if any U.S. warships visited Taiwan, which China claims as its territory.

Chinese warplanes carried out patrols around Taiwan on Tuesday, with Chinese state media showing images of bombers armed with cruise missiles.

Taiwan's presidential spokesman, Alex Huang, told reporters in Taiwan on Wednesday the defense ministry responded immediately to the patrols. Huang said Taiwan "can ensure there are no concerns at all about national security, and people can rest assured."

Taiwan's well-equipped military is armed with mostly U.S. weapons but has been pushing for more advanced weaponry in response to what it sees as a growing threat from China. The U.S. is obligated by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

Relations between China and Taiwan have deteriorated since the leader of Taiwan's independence-leading Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai Ing-wen, won presidential elections in 2016.

China believes Tsai wants to declare formal independence, a move Beijing would vehemently oppose.

Taiwan separated from China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. While Taiwan considers itself a sovereign country, it has never formally declared independence.

Beijing maintains Taiwan is Chinese territory and has said it will be brought back under Chinese control.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Turkey Summons U.S. FBI Agent Over Testimony In Iran Sanctions Case

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

Turkish police have summoned an FBI official over the testimony of a former Turkish police investigator in a high-profile U.S. court case involving alleged violations of sanctions on Iran, Turkish news agencies reported.

Turkish media reported on December 13 that a Federal Bureau of Investigation representative at the U.S. Embassy in Istanbul was summoned after Huseyin Korkmaz testified on December 11 that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a target in his 2013 investigation into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed on December 13 that an FBI attache at the U.S. Embassy "had been brought in to the Turkish ministry." She provided no details.

Korkmaz told jurors at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan that he led a 2012-2013 investigation into high-level corruption in Turkey that was centered on a scheme to help Iran launder $1 billion in revenues from oil and gas sales through U.S. banks in violation of sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear and missile activities.

He said Erdogan's government eventually closed his investigation and he and other investigators were fired and jailed.

After being released from jail last year, Korkmaz said he fled Turkey with his family and took evidence he had gathered in the case with him. That evidence was later turned over to U.S. prosecutors, he said.

Korkmaz disclosed in testimony on December 13 that he had received $50,000 from the FBI and housing assistance from U.S. prosecutors to help make rent payments, as he has not been employed since arriving in the United States.

The FBI declined to comment.

Korkmaz is testifying for the prosecution at the trial. He told the court this week that his investigation in Turkey originally targeted Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian businessman who prosecutors have described as the mastermind of the sanctions evasion scheme, but it grew to encompass high-level officials in Turkey's government, including Erdogan.

Zarrab was arrested and charged as a co-conspirator in the U.S. case, which largely tracks Kokmaz's earlier investigation. But last month Zarrab secured a plea agreement with prosecutors and he has also appeared as a prosecution witness.

Like Korkmaz, Zarrab last week testified that Erdogan aided the scheme to help Iran evade sanctions

The U.S. indictment named nine co-conspirators in the case, but only Zarrab and Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive at Turkey's state-owned Halkbank, were arrested. Atilla remains the only defendant standing trial. The other suspects, including a former Turkish economy minister, remain at large.

Atilla's lawyers on December 13 asked the New York court to declare a mistrial, arguing that some of Korkmaz's testimony should not have been allowed. Atilla has pleaded not guilty to the charges that he helped launder Iran's money.

Erdogan has not directly responded to the charges against him aired in court, but he has dismissed the case as politically motivated and part of what he says is a conspiracy by his political enemy, the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, to bring down his government.

Erdogan also blames Gulen and his network of followers for last year's failed military coup against him. Gulen has denied Erdogan's accusations.

On December 13, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag denounced what he called "lies and smears" in the New York trial, and said "it is impossible for them to finish a plot in the U.S. that started in Turkey."

With reporting by Reuters, Anadolu Agency, Enter.news, and Hurriyet Daily News

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-summons-us-fbi-agent- testimony-iran-sanctions-case/28917281.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






EU Leaders Agree To Extend Ukraine-Related Sanctions For Six Months

RFE/RL December 14, 2017

BRUSSELS -- European Union leaders have agreed to extend economic sanctions against Russia for six months over Moscow's aggressive actions in Ukraine.

The decision, announced on December 14 at an EU summit, will extend current restrictions against Moscow until July 2018.

The EU measures, which mainly target the Russian banking and energy sectors, were first imposed in the summer of 2014 and have been extended every six months since then.

The EU, along with the United States, imposed the sanctions in retaliation for Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014 and for its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since it began in April 2014.

EU diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL on December 8 that French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would recommend at the EU summit that the sanctions be extended a further six months.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko hailed the EU decision to extend the sanctions.

"[It is] an important political decision by the leaders of the European Union to continue economic sanctions against Russia for violating Ukraine's territorial integrity and unwillingness to stop hybrid aggression against our country," Poroshenko wrote on his official Facebook page.

With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak, dpa, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-russia-ukraine-agree- extend-sanctions/28918851.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.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






- Queensland electric vehicle fast charger manufacturer Tritium has installed all the chargers for the Belgian leg of a pan-European electric vehicle charging network.- Twenty-five Veefil-RT 50kW chargers were installed across Belgium to create a corridor connecting France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Anything That's New Fascinates Naidu!

Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu has a fascination for anything that is new.

Notwithstanding the poor financial status of the state, he announced that he will bring new technologies and new inventions that he comes across to the state, if he feels they would boost his image and prestige.

The other day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled in a seaplane from Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad to Dharoi dam in Mehsana as part of his campaign ahead of the second phase of polling in the Gujarat elections.

The media gave extensive coverage to Modis seaplane travel and some of them described it as the first-ever seaplane trip in the country, though it later turned out to be not exactly true.

Naidu, who saw it in the news, was fascinated by the seaplane and it struck to him as to why he cannot introduce the same in Krishna river in Vijayawada for the sake of tourists.

Within hours, the officials fulfilled his dream and got the seaplane to Gannavaram airport and from there into the Krishna river.

Naidu travelled in the seaplane from Punnami Ghat in Vijayawada to Gananvaram airport.

Took a test flight of Amphibian Aircraft yesterday from Punnami Ghat in Vijayawada and landed at the Gannavaram Airport. The debut flight was an incredible experience, Naidu said in a tweet on Thursday.

He said his government would have a tie-up with the owners of the seaplanes to introduce the same in Krishna river for the sake of tourists.

For the sake of record, prominent aviation company Spicejet introduced the seaplane and conducted trial runs on December 9 at Mumbais Girgaum-Chowpatty in which Union minsters Nitin Gadkari and Ashok Gajapathi Raju travelled.

Spicejet aims to procure 100 such amphibian aircrafts to boost regional connectivity by exploring the transportation potential of waterways, an official said.




Haiti - FLASH : Bac 2016-2017, list of fraudsters and sanctions





Following the announcement in early November by Meniol Jeune, the Director General of the Ministry of National Education of the taking of sanctions against the perpetrators of fraud during the organization of State exams of Bac for the year 2017 and beneficiaries, the Ministry of Education has made available this week the list of candidates and fraudulent institutions.



Download the list of 87 fraudulent candidates, the type of frauds and sanctions taken by the Ministry : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/CAS-DE-FRAUDE-2017.pdf



For frauds such as: takeoff of photo, use of the phone during the passing of the tests, falsification of names and order numbers, introduction of copy in the examination rooms etc... the guilty students were sanctioned by a prohibition of participation for two years in official exams.



Download the list of schools involved in a duplicate fraud : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/LISTE-DES-ECOLES-SANCTION---2014-2015.pdf



This fraud consists of a student who has obtained an average of less than 5, in a school to be admitted to a higher class in another school with an average greater than 5 for the same school year 2014 - 2015. The students involved will be obliged to resume classes for whom the average passage was not obtained if they wish to continue their studies until the end.



The schools concerned, depending on the seriousness of the fault, may have their terminal class prohibited and even the withdrawal of their operating license. He pointed out that the measures against the fraudulent school principals, go from the suspension in the activities of the new state examinations, through the request for a quarterly report on the regular operation of their establishment, until the closing of their philo class for a period of two years from September 2018.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22570-haiti-education-the-ministry-punishes-fraudsters-and-beneficiaries-of-state-exams-2017.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21465-haiti-flash-bac-2017-d-1-disciplinary-instructions-schedules-and-subjects.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21600-haiti-education-state-examinations-fraud-444-cell-phones-seized.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21465-haiti-flash-bac-2017-d-1-disciplinary-instructions-schedules-and-subjects.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Celebrating Bill of Rights Day, Dec 15th





Aaron Zelman, JPFO's late founder, made it one of his many missions to celebrate Bill of Rights Day, ratified December 15, 1791.

The Bill of Rights, still seemingly more and more under attack, defines America. We should celebrate and nurture it.

The Constitution of the United States would never have become the law of the land without the Bill of Rights. Several states refused to join the Union unless there was a Bill of Rights to limit the federal power and protect individual rights.

The Bill of Rights guarantees fundamental civil and human rights: the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion; protections against unreasonable searches and coerced confessions; rights to counsel and a jury trial. For these rights and freedoms people have struggled for centuries. The Bill of Rights remains a beacon to freedom-loving people worldwide.

The Bill of Rights does more: it defines the limits of government power. More directly than any other single document of law, the Bill of Rights stands between tyranny and liberty. Refugees flee to the United States, not for its "three separate branches of government," nor for its arrangement of senators and representatives, but for its liberty. The foundation of that liberty is the Bill of Rights. We should celebrate and nurture it.

Just one day per year, let us fly the flag, put up a poster, and most important of all: read the Bill of Rights. Also read it, to our children, in libraries, in schools, in homes, as well as reminding our representatives in congress of their oath of office, which nowadays seems regarded less and less.

Aaron Zelman, in collaboration with Claire Wolfe and Richard Stevens, over ten years ago wrote "You'll be Freer and Richer in the Bill of Rights Culture" -- a two part treatise on the subject. This is valuable reading.

JPFO has a useful index page of Bill of Rights material. Help keep the Bill alive.

"You don't have to be Jewish to fight by our side."

 2016 JPFO All rights reserved.

jpfo@jpfo.org

1-800-869-1884

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

12500 NE 10th Pl.

Bellevue, WA 98005 USA

"America's most aggressive defender of civil rights"

We make the NRA look like moderates

Join JPFO

Back to Top






Haiti - News : Zapping...





Funeral Service for Manno Charlemagne

On Friday, December 15, 2017, a funeral service will be organized for parents, relatives and fans of Manno Charlemagne at "Pax Villa funeral room".



Hearing of the former PM Garry Conille

Wednesday, as part of the assassination of Alix Gassan following the disappearance of Robert Marcello, former Prime Minister Garry Conille under the Martelly Government, was heard by Judge Morin.



Visit of the construction site of the State University Hospital

Wednesday, Robin Diallo, Charge d'Affaires of the United States Embassy and a delegation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Dominican Republic, visited the work of the State University Hospital of Haiti (HUEH) which could be completed by December 2018. Recall that USAID supports the construction of the HUEH to the tune of 25 millions dollars in collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD) for 26 million the rest being the responsibility of the Government of Haiti.



Education : General mobilization with a view to...

Josue Merilien Coordinator of the National Union of Haitian Normalians (UNNOH) announced a general mobilization from mid-January 2018 to force the Government If it does not meet the demands of teachers among others: the payment of salary arrears before the end of December; a base salary of 75,000 Gdes; health insurance and the application of a salary grid...



Canadian-Haitian Partnership

The Ambassador of Canada to Haiti, Andre Frenette and the Head of Cooperation received this week the Minister of National Education Josue Agenor Cadet and the UNESCO Country Representative Paul Gomis, to discuss Canadian-Haitian partnership and education and training projects.



The DPC initiates one thousand police officers

The Directorate of Civil Protection (DPC) is back at the National Police Academy, for the initiation of a thousand police officers (28th promotion) to the basics of risk reduction and the functioning of the National System Risk Management (SNGRD).



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/12/15 | Source

Added episode 7 captures for the Korean drama "Prison Playbook" (2017)

Advertisement

Directed by Sin Won-ho

Written by Jeong Bo-hoon-I, Lee Woo-jeong-I

Network : tvN

With Park Hae-soo, Jung Kyung-ho, Sung Dong-il, Kim Sung-cheol, Jung Jae-sung, Lee Ho-cheol,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 21:30

Also known as "Wise Prison Life"

Synopsis

Set in a prison, this is a drama about the lives of the prisoners and prison staff.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/11/22

More
Four Seasons wins $750,000 grant for major expansion

Four Seasons Compassion for Life was recently awarded $750,000 from the Duke Endowment to help expand hospice and palliative in rural areas across North Carolina.

Entitled Project ECHO to Expand Palliative Care Access Across the Carolinas, the program is a collaboration of Duke University Medical Center, Delta Care Rx and the ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) Institute. Four Seasons will use the Project ECHO model to train and mentor providers in rural communities across the Carolinas in how to deliver high quality palliative care services.

We are grateful to be recipients of this grant as it furthers our vision of innovating healthcare so that we can influence humanity through trusted care," Four Seasons Chief Executive Officer Millicent Burke-Sinclair said. "Positively impacting the life of every individual we care for through our continuum of care is imperative to us and through this grant we will be able to expand opportunities for our care team to provide excellent co-created care wherever our patients call home.

Palliative care addresses the needs of people living with a serious illness through symptom management, psychosocial, spiritual care, advance care planning and coordination with community-based resources to improve quality of life for both the patient and family. However, geographic barriers and the shortage of palliative care providers results in people not having access to palliative care, and providers struggling to provide care to people, especially in rural areas. Having access to palliative care will allow people living in rural areas to be cared for in their community, without having to travel to an academic or urban area.

Using telehealth, project ECHO links expert specialists with providers through virtual clinics, where the specialists mentor and train the providers to manage a condition that was previously outside their expertise. Started at the University of New Mexico in 2003, Project ECHO began by developing an educational model to train clinicians in rural/underserved areas of New Mexico to care for patients with hepatitis C in their community. For this grant, Four Seasons will use the ECHO model to train providers in rural/underserved areas in the Carolinas to provide palliative care services.

We are grateful to The Duke Endowment for giving us the opportunity to work towards expanding crucial Palliative Care services to underserved areas in the Carolinas," Four Seasons Grant Project Manager Dr. Elizabeth Burpee said. "Palliative Care is a rapidly growing medical field whose approach is team based and is focused on alleviating suffering. I believe that a Four Seasons-Project ECHO collaboration will not only allow providers in the Carolinas to enter and engage in an exciting global learning community, but will also allow us to provide world class care to our local patients and families.

The goals of the grant are 1) To increase the number of providers in the Carolinas with training and mentorship in palliative care. 2) Improve provider knowledge and skills so that they can deliver high quality palliative care. 3) Increase patient access to end-of life-care that will improve patient/caregiver quality of life, lessen symptom burden and improve patient/family satisfaction. 4) To increase hospice utilization in rural communities.



Workforce shortage issues will continue to impede the delivery of community-based palliative care for patients with serious illnesses," said Janet Bull, the chief medical officer at Four Seasons. "Using the ECHO model, we can reach providers in rural areas who need primary palliative skills along with enhancing skills of those advanced practitioners who lack the support of physicians in their service area. My hope is that demonstration of the value of the ECHO model regionally will allow national expansion, and that persons with serious illness in rural settings will have access to high quality palliative care.
Blue Ridge Honor Flight hosts book signing

Blue Ridge Honor Flight will host a book signing with author Jill Tahmooressi, the mother of U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who was jailed in Mexico for 214 days.

In her book, When Light Prevails, Jill shares the actions and emotions she went through to secure her sons release. For Jill, the book serves to recognize and extend gratitude towards the many, big and small alike who reached out to support and help during the tremendously scary and painful ordeal.



For those who followed Andrews fight for freedom back in 2014 on television, radio &/ media outlets or for those just hearing about it now for the first time, the book is intensely riveting and revealing. Her account includes the effort locally led by HonorAir cofounder Jeff Miller to raise awareness of Sgt. Tahmooressi's plight and raise money to hire lawyers.

I am sincerely grateful to the Western Carolina folks who stepped up mightily to help secure Andrews freedom with Jeff Miller championing the collective effort," she said. "The letters the community sent Andrew, as well as the enormous financial support garnered of $20,000 to help with the legal bills will forever be remembered and cherished."

The book signing will take place at the Henderson County Historic Courthouse on Main Street from 4-7pm on Thursday, Dec. 21.

Blue Ridge Honor Flight is honored to now be flying WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam War veterans to their memorials in Washington, DC. The organization is now accepting applications for a April 28 flight from the Greenville Spartanburg Airport in partnership with Honor Flight Upstate. Applications are available at blueridgehonorflight.com. For more information about how to get involved in Blue Ridge Honor Flight, make a donation, or to get a veteran signed up for a flight, please visit the Blue Ridge Honor Flight website at blueridgehonorflight.com.

###
The family of a young Irish teacher, who is on life support in a Dubai hospital after collapsing and hitting her head on the floor, is trying to get her home to Ireland to "get the immediate help she will need".

Aisling Brady (26), from Trim, Co Meath, has been in hospital since November 27 after she fainted in the school where she teaches.

The physics and maths teacher hit her head on the floor and was knocked out for around three minutes.

After being put in an ambulance and quickly transported to hospital, she then suffered three seizures, three cardiac arrests and a stroke.

Aisling's mother, Antoinette Brady, said it was a result of a pulmonary embolism which had formed in her leg over a long period of time, eventually causing clots to travel to her heart, lungs and brain. SPORT Speaking to the Herald, Mrs Brady said every day since then had been a positive as they were initially given "no hope".

"She is the fittest person in the world. She is seriously into her sport, her gym, she plays rugby out there in Dubai and she is a very healthy eater. We think that is what is helping her to keep on fighting," she said.

Mrs Brady said if the ambulance had arrived a minute later, Aisling may not have survived. She is very thankful for the "wonderful" support her daughter has received from her school and the hospital.

Aisling moved to the UAE in 2016 and has travelled on a number of long-haul flights this year, which doctors believe may have worsened the embolism.

The Brady family has so far raised 6,150 of their 80,000 target on their GoFundMe page.
Patrick Rogers became aggressive towards officers when they came to investigate an incident. Stock Photo

A forklift driver threatened to kill gardai and told them they "didn't know what he was capable of" during a drunken city centre disturbance.

Patrick Rogers (31) became aggressive towards officers when they came to investigate an incident in which he had punched a window.

Judge Katherine Hutton put him on a six-month peace bond.

Rogers, of St Brendan's Avenue, Coolock, admitted public intoxication and threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour, as well as threatening to cause damage.

Dublin District Court heard that gardai were on mountain bike patrol on O'Connell Street on November 29.

They saw the accused being restrained by security outside a premises. He was "clearly highly intoxicated" and smelled of alcohol when spoken to.

Rogers was very aggressive to the officers and made "various threats" to them, the court heard.

Punched

He said gardai "didn't know what he was capable of" and that he would kill them.

Security told gardai the accused had punched a window on the premises, attempting to damage it, before the officers arrived. However, no actual damage was caused.

Rogers, who was arrested at the scene, had a number of previous convictions.

He apologised to gardai and court for taking up their time, his lawyer said.

The accused was living at home with his parents, had a forklift licence and hoped to start work in a timber factory in the new year.

He recognised that his behaviour on the night was unacceptable and he was remorseful over what happened.

Judge Hutton put him on a peace bond and granted free legal aid after hearing he was unemployed.

There was no garda objection to legal aid.
A young man has appeared in court charged with possessing child pornography at his home in west Dublin.

Kevin Murphy (26) is facing one count of having images and videos of children involved in sexual activity.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has consented to the case being dealt with at district court level if Mr Murphy pleads guilty.

The case was adjourned at Blanchardstown District Court.

The accused, of Cherrywood Park, Clondalkin, is charged with one count of possessing child pornography at his home.

The offence is alleged to have happened on June 29, 2012, and the charge states that he allegedly had various digital images and videos depicting children involved in various sexual acts.

State solicitor Orla Farrell told the court the DPP had directed summary disposal of the case on a plea of guilty only.

Trial

This means that the case can be heard in the district court on a guilty plea, subject to a judge accepting jurisdiction.

However, if Mr Murphy pleads not guilty he will be sent forward for trial by judge and jury to Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, which has tougher potential sentencing powers on conviction.

Judge McHugh remanded the defendant on continuing bail, to appear in court again on a date early next year.

The judge said he would consider the issue of jurisdiction on the next date.

Mr Murphy, wearing a blue blazer, open-necked blue shirt and dark trousers, remained silent throughout the brief hearing and has not yet indicated how he intends to plead to the charge, which is under Section 6 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act.

The maximum prison sentences on conviction for possession of child pornography are one year in the district court and five years in the circuit court, as well as fines.
A shocking new report on the homelessness crisis in the capital has revealed that 450 families became newly homeless in the first six months of the year.

The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) report, seen by the Herald, also revealed that 96pc of newly homeless families have entered into emergency accommodation related to an inability to secure a rented home or because of family circumstance, according to the findings.

It also revealed that Notices To Quit were issued to 180 families by landlords.

The report found family circumstances - such as relationship breakdowns or overcrowding - were the most common reason for homelessness.

This was followed by forced departure from a tenancy in private rented accommodation.

The DRHE says the busiest month for those presenting as homeless came in January, which is believed to be because many defer from presenting themselves over Christmas.

The figure for January was 87.

However, over the course of the six months, the number of new families only dropped below 65 once, which was in February. LANDLORDS Over the six month period - from the end of December 2016 to June 2017 - the number of families in emergency accommodation in Dublin rose from 1,028 to 1,115.

Of the 180 Notices To Quit given by landlords, reasons were not provided by 114 families, but of those remaining, the bulk of reasons were spread between tenant rent arrears and plans for the property to be sold.

Only two were listed for anti-social behaviour.

Information provided for July and August in a subsequent report indicated similar patterns. Head of the Housing SPC, Daithi Doolan, told the Herald the results of the report banished the myth that if you are homeless you are dysfunctional.

"This reports clearly shows nothing could be further from the truth. The DRHE report demonstrates that family circumstances is the main cause of homelessness today," he said.

"With 49pc of families stating the primary reason for homelessness is overcrowding or family breakdown, this is followed closely at 47pc by forced departure from the private rented sector being the cause of families being made homeless.

"This report needs to be circulated, read and understood by policymakers and department officials. Homelessness will stay with us as long as we have a drought of housing in Dublin.

"This report highlights the urgent need to build adequate council and affordable homes to meet the needs of families across Dublin," he added.

Last month DRHE head Eileen Gleeson was widely criticised after she said that homeless people don't become homeless overnight.

Ms Gleeson also said that "it takes years of bad behaviour" for a person to become homeless.
Fianna Fails Micheal Martin is still considering his own views

As the committee on the Eighth Amendment signed off on its final report proposing a more liberal abortion regime, chairperson Catherine Noone said it is the "Irish people who will ultimately be the decision-makers on this".

While three pro-life members have boycotted the report, the remaining 18 are behind the document.

It recommends a repeal of the Eighth Amendment and unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

Due to be published on Wednesday, its recommendations are set to influence the terms of a referendum that is to be put to the people next year. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar refused to be drawn on whether or not he will campaign in support of the recommendations in a referendum campaign.

Civilised

"That's really to be decided," he said. "I'll be doing my best to make sure the debate that we have is respectful and civilised and I think that's very important."

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said his party will facilitate a referendum on the Eighth Amendment but he is still considering his own views on the issues involved.

He said he believes "there needs be movement on the issue of fatal foetal abnormalities" and victims of rape or incest should not be "forced to proceed with a pregnancy against their will". He said he will "give a more considered view on the committee's recommendations in the new year".

Committee members, Independent Mattie McGrath, Fine Gael's Peter Fitzpatrick and Senator Ronan Mullen are boycotting the report.

They claim the process was "unacceptably flawed" leading to "cruel and unjust recommendations" that strip unborn children of legal protection. They are to publish a minority report.

Sinn Fein's three committee members did sign off on the report, despite abstaining in the vote on the 12-week limit as it goes further than the party's position on the matter.

A party spokesman said they are satisfied the report reflects its policy "insofar as possible" and areas where they don't agree will be noted in the document. Ms Noone said the committee's work had been a "very challenging experience" but it had shown how effective the format could be on "this most divisive issue".

A draft report recommends that the Eighth Amendment be repealed. It recommends that terminations should be lawful where the life of the woman or her health is at risk.

It says that in such cases gestational limits should be guided by medical evidence, with assessments made by at least two specialist doctors.

Due to the difficulty of legislating for cases of rape and incest, the committee's draft recommends that unrestricted access to abortions be allowed up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy.

Sanctions

It also recommends terminations be allowed in cases of fatal foetal abnormality likely to result in death before or shortly after birth, and that there be no criminal sanctions for women who have abortions.

In the Dail, Tanaiste Simon Coveney reiterated the Government's wish to have a referendum as early as May.

Solidarity TD Paul Murphy called the committee's outcome a victory for those who fought for a woman's right to choose. Mr Coveney said it would be helpful if people weren't declaring victories, adding that the debate will "divide households".

It also emerged that GPs will be allowed to opt out of any law introducing unrestricted access to abortion pills in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The proposal would mean that women would be able to go to their GPs for the pills to end their pregnancy.
15 injured in Tanahun bus-micro bus collision

As many as 15 people were injured when a micro bus and a bus collided at Ghansikuwa of Byas Municipality -12 in Tahanu on Friday.
Thanksgiving is going to be expensive. Here's how to save.

With inflation on the rise, supplies for Thanksgiving dinner will be more expensive and harder to find than ever, here's what to know and how to save
21 stranded Nepalis to return home shortly

The first batch of Nepali migrant workers, who have been stranded in Kuwait for months, will be repatriated in the next few days, according to the Nepali Embassy in Kuwait.
70 years of US-Nepal ties celebrated

The US Embassy in Nepal on Wednesday organised a half-day symposium highlighting the role that the US can play in Nepal to strengthen its democracy and help it attain prosperity.
The William Vale, a multiuse destination located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, proudly welcomes David Lemmond as the new General Manager. David brings over 20 years of boutique and lifestyle hotel expertise, previously working on each of Andre Balazs Standard Hotels. He will be responsible in directing the overall day-to-day operations, overseeing the sales and marketing divisions and ensuring that each and every guest experiences a one-of-a-kind, world-class hospitality experience. David began his career in the Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia and from there worked his way across the coast to ultimately coordinate the pre-opening and daily operation of the first Hotel in The Standard brand in West Hollywood. From then on, he fostered the growth of the brand and assisted with other top openings for Andre Balazs Properties including Downtown LA, Miami and the East Village, Manhattan property while running the popular High Line location in New York City. David was responsible for the overall operation, financial performance and cultural integrity of the hotel. He led an executive team of eight and helped bring in nearly $100 million worth of revenue per year. In addition to The Standard Brand, David also worked with, The Highland Dallas and Hotel Vitale, to name a few. He graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor of Arts and has previously been on the Board of Directors for Hospitality Association of North Texas, University Crossing PID, Dallas and Meat Packing Improvement Association, New York.
Buoyed by election results, tourism aims for 5 million arrivals

Nepals tourism industry can look forward to new opportunities following the conclusion of the elections as the new government that will be formed can be expected to bring stability and put an end to the tradition of short-lived governments, government officials and tourism entrepreneurs said on Wednesday.
Hotel Bennett, the grand new luxury hotel under construction on King Street and overlooking Charlestons iconic and historic Marion Square, has announced its opening leadership team. Heidi Nowak has joined as the hotels director of sales and marketing after a distinguished career with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Heidi Nowak arrives at Hotel Bennett after working in leadership roles for 20 years with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, most recently as the director of sales and marketing at the Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman. For the previous seven years, she served as director of sales, marketing, meetings and special events at the Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte, a AAA Five Diamond property. She has also worked in Miami, New York, Detroit and Washington, D.C.
Kellyn Smith Kenny Named Chief Marketing Officer for Hilton

Effective January 29, 2018, Kenny will oversee the enterprise marketing strategy for the hospitality company and its portfolio of 14 brands.

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) today announced the appointment of Kellyn Smith Kenny as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Effective January 29, 2018, Kenny will oversee the enterprise marketing strategy for the hospitality company and its portfolio of 14 brands. She will also lead a high-performing team delivering creative marketing programs focusing on building meaningful relationships with guests.

"The iconic Hilton brand is already recognized globally as the gold standard for hospitality," said Jon Witter, Chief Customer Officer. "With Kellyn as our new marketing leader, we are excited to embark on the next chapter of our journey to build stronger direct relationships with our guests."

Kenny brings to Hilton unique cross-industry and strategic marketing expertise developed in consumer, competitive, and service-focused executive roles. As Vice President, Marketing at Uber, she led interdisciplinary marketing for the company's most significant markets in the U.S. and Canada. As Senior Vice President, Marketing at Capital One, Kenny led marketing and brand strategy for the Consumer Banking division. While at Microsoft, she oversaw consumer-facing and retail marketing efforts in various store, consumer, and B2B roles.

"Hilton's global brand portfolio and strong sense of purpose truly sets the company apart," said Kellyn Smith Kenny. "I am looking forward to being part of the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the success of the business, and am proud to be joining a team of industry-leading marketing professionals. Together, we will bring to life the exceptional experiences being delivered around the world on behalf of Hilton's owners and guests."

Kenny holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and a BA (Economics) from Colgate University. She will be based in Hilton's global headquarters in McLean, Virginia and report directly to Jon Witter, Chief Customer Officer.
TWA Hotel at JFK International Airport Tops Out

Designed by Eero Saarinen in 1962, the TWA Flight Center is on track to reopen in early 2019 as the TWA Hotel, JFKs only on-airport hotel

MCR joined hundreds of construction workers at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday to top out the TWA Hotel's first hotel structure. Once complete, the TWA Hotel will preserve Eero Saarinen's iconic TWA Flight Center, adaptively reusing the terminal as a world class hotel with 505 guestrooms, 50,000 square feet of state of the art meeting and event space, and a variety of high quality food, beverage and retail options.

One of the largest construction projects in New York City, the TWA Hotel will create more than 3,700 permanent and construction union jobs, with approximately 300 union construction workers on-site daily. The TWA Hotel is slated to open in early 2019.

"Since the TWA Hotel groundbreaking with Governor Cuomo less than one year ago, our team has been hard at work breathing new life into Eero Saarinen's TWA Flight Center terminal and developing one of the most iconic hotels in the world," said Tyler Morse, CEO of MCR and Morse Development. "This topping out brings us one step closer to reviving this treasured landmark and reopening it to the public for generations to come. Thank you to all our partners in government, labor, and construction for their support over this past yearwe look forward to welcoming everyone to the TWA Hotel in 2019."

Featuring an off-grid cogeneration plant, the two low-rise hotel structures are set back on either side of the terminal, designed to defer to the historic landmark. Saarinen's TWA Flight Center terminal building will serve as the hotel lobby; at 200,000 square feet the lobby is thought to be the largest hotel lobby in the world. Hotel guests and passengers from every terminal will have easy access to the TWA Hotel via the AirTrain as well as through the famous Saarinen passenger tubes that connect directly to JFK's Terminal 5.

The TWA Hotel will also house a Jet Age and mid-century modern museum that will chronicle the mid-century modern design era and the rise of the Jet Age, exhibiting mid-century furniture, TWA uniforms, David Klein destination posters, inflight amenities and other TWA memorabiliamuch of which has been donated by the TWA employee community.

Advertisement



In September, MCR debuted the TWA lounge located on the 86th floor of One World Trade Center, designed to preview the ethos of the TWA Hotel. Open to the public by appointment, the Lower Manhattan-based marketing and events space features a replica of Eero Saarinen's legendary sunken lounge, the Italian Solari split-flap board, and a growing collection of TWA and mid-century memorabilia.

MCR's redevelopment of the TWA Flight Center, which involves 22 federal, state, and city agencies, is an entirely privately-funded investment.

"We are delighted to see the TWA Hotel coming to life on our doorstep at Kennedy Airport," said Robin Hayes, president and chief executive officer, JetBlue. "This is one of the most highly anticipated hospitality developments in memory and we couldn't be more excited to have JetBlue be part of it in partnership with MCR. Congratulations on this exciting milestone."

"The futuristic TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport set the mid-20th-century jet-age standard for terminal design," said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton. "The TWA Hotel's latest topping-out milestone is an exciting milestone for the project as well as for New York and for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's vision to remake New York's airports into state-of-the-art gateways for national and international travelers."

"JFK Airport's new iconic TWA Hotel is an invaluable investment in the borough of Queens, and the progress in its construction and transformation in just the past year is remarkable," said Melinda Katz, Queens Borough President. "As travelers enter New York City's gateway to the world, they will soon witness the magic of the Jet Age in one of the world's most famous mid-century architectural masterpieces, right here in Queens."

"This milestone development gives New Yorkers and hospitality workers reason to celebrate," said Peter Ward, President of the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council, AFL-CIO. "The TWA Flight Center is an iconic piece of New York City history, and once complete, it will be a boon to the city's hospitality industry."

"The New York Building Congress enthusiastically supports the adaptive reuse of the TWA Flight Center," said Carlo Scissura, President & CEO of the New York Building Congress. "The redevelopment of that space into an on-airport hotel will rectify a major deficiency at JFK, create thousands of jobs, and re-introduce one of the world's most iconic structures to a new generation of New Yorkers and visitors from around the globe."

"This construction milestone for the TWA Flight Center Hotel is made possible in part by the labor of local Queens residents," said Thomas J. Grech, President & Chief Executive Officer, Queens Chamber of Commerce. "This visionary project is providing thousands with good jobs and ensures JFK Airport remains economically competitive for years to come."

"This major milestone shows New York can at once pay homage to its history and lead the world in first-class development," said Bill Rudin, Chair of the Association for a Better New York. "The revitalization of the TWA Flight Center will ensure that our transportation hubs are equipped for the 21st century traveler's needs. JFK airport workers, New York City residents and the millions of tourists passing through the transit hub every year will be able to benefit from this innovative hotel and event space."
Childish Major, like many producers today, is fighting for the credit he deserves. Raised in South Carolina before relocating to the rap hub of Atlanta to pursue a career in music, Childish quickly found a hit in Rocko, Future and Rick Ross UOENO, a hypnotic, soft-focus club record that more than likely had an impact on what the regions music sounds like today. Hes since worked with the likes of J. Cole, Jeezy, A$AP Ferg, EarthGang, J.I.D., Two-9, and many others, but hes still experienced his share of frustrations working in the field, which has brought him to Woo$ah, his debut project as a vocalist, released today.

As Atlanta peer Sonny Digital has pointed out, producers continue to be undervalued in the industry, a view that Childish shares, and one that has partially inspired his new direction. I have a lot of friends that are producers that are realizing that they have a voice, he says. At this point, I feel like a lot of us are just fighting to be taken seriously. We do all this shit for artists, and we know music so well. Why wouldnt we be able to do it too?

As someone who has always had a hand in all factions of the writing process, the step from producer to vocalist was an easy one for Childish. When developing his voice, he discovered that  much like his production  the presence of melody is a constant. As a result, Woo$ah, which features contributions from Cole, SZA, Isaiah Rashad, 6lack, and DRAM, often swings into R&B territory. Its a balance of rapping and singing, but even when I rap, its melodic rap, says Childish. It just feels different. I didnt see it before but I really see it now as far as me listening to myself vs. other peoples stuff. Even when Im rapping and telling a story, it still has a melodic feel to it.

The EP also finds Childish outsourcing some of the production to a range of musicians including SykSense, Frank Dukes, Supah Mario, Lyle Leduff, and once again, J. Cole. It makes for some of his most diverse music to date. I listen to so much music, and I know thats the typical thing to say, man I listen to EVERYTHING, he jokes. But I literally listen to everything, so its like whatever Im feeling in that moment, Ill just kinda go with it and run with it. Ive got Marvin Gaye-inspired songs, Ive got Donnell Jones-inspired songs. The transition seems to be working, as the new music has already earned him an enviable placement in HBOs Insecure season 2 finale. But as Childish makes clear in our discussion, this is just the beginning of the progress hes looking to make.

We spoke to Childish about his very personal approach to collaboration, the loyalty artists must demonstrate to producers, and the importance of taking a breather. Read the conversation below.

-

HNHH: The first time I heard your beats was probably on Rome Fortunes Beautiful Pimp. Was that a big step for you?

Childish Major: Funny enough, I met Rome through working with Two-9. Two-9 was like the first group of people that I started working with before I moved to Atlanta from South Carolina. I was communicating with them through the internet. They were just spreading the word about me and my beats. Rome just ended up coming through one day. He kind of just took me in, kinda just gave me something to do. Before Beautiful Pimp, he was the first person I produced a project for. It was called Voyeur. I did that project and then from there I ended up signing with Hoodrich  DJ Scream and DJ Spinz  as a producer. They found interest in Rome through me, and Rome ended up dealing with Hoodrich as well. Me, C4, Dun Deal, and Spinz were all working on Beautiful Pimp together.

Would you say thats around the time that you started to define your sound?

I would definitely say that. Everybody else was rapping regular and stuff like that, and they were looking for a certain type of track. Rome was someone who let me do whatever I wanted to do, like get as weird as I wanted to. I would say that was kind of like defining my sound and allowing me to do whatever. That was right before UOENO.

When UOENO came out, I feel like your sound took a lot of people by surprise, which is part of the reason why the song took off.

Yeah, but it fit in. If people go back and look at my catalogue from around that time, a lot of stuff I was doing was sounding like that. I may never get credit for it, but I feel like I ushered in a lot of what that music has evolved into right now.

When did you decide to start pursuing a career as a vocalist?

I always used to dabble in writing. It was fun for me. After UOENO, and being in more sessions and how to engineer so that I could run sessions myself with other people, I just started writing for other people more and more. Then I took it upon myself to put my own story in the songs I as writing. I would play it for people, and they enjoyed it.



[My manager,] DaShawn would come in the studio and I would try out records on him a lot. He would give me his honest opinion: some stuff was dope, some stuff wasnt dope. I just kinda learned myself, what my sound is and what are the things that Im gonna talk about. I would just play it for more and more people until it stopped being pressing play like  what do you think of this? Instead of asking that question, its now like Ay check this out! I dont care if you dont like it. This is what Im on right now [laughs]. Its just building the confidence and then playing it for my peers: Isaiah Rashad, SZA, J. Cole, J.I.D, Earth Gang. These are the people who helped me build that confidence, like, okay, yeah, you really got something special here.

How did the collaboration with SZA and Isaiah Rashad come together?

Me and Isaiah, were friends before anything. I met him I think late 2013. It was around the time UOENO was going for me, he had just announced his signing to TDE. We kinda just connected through that, like, youre on the come-up, Im on the come-up too. We built a brotherhood slash friendship. I was sending him ideas I was working on just to pick his brain. He was somebody who really believed in me. I ended up sending him the Happy Birthday record, and he was gonna use it for The Suns Tirade, but my birthday came around the year before last, and I was like ay man, I kinda wanna drop it.

A little bit before that, he ended up having SZA do a bridge. She did it thinking it was gonna be for his project, but I also have a relationship with her too. I did Green Mile on her Z EP. Theres actually a lot of music that we have that hasnt surfaced. I hit her up and got the okay from her. I didnt hit [TDEs] Top [Dawg] or Punch though [laughs]. I ended up getting a couple calls, some folks were a little upset. Me and Punch have a relationship, so he just said You just gotta let me know next time, but youre good, you dont have to take it down. They let me rock, and thats a lot of peoples introduction to me as an artist, which is really dope to be standing next to Isaiah and SZA who are incredible artists.

I Like You is the deepest dive into R&B on the project. DRAM has a very subtle, almost atmospheric presence on it. How did you work him into it?

I had the song done already, and this was my first time meeting DRAM. He came through the studio. This is off of Cha Cha. Were having a conversation, and then he just raps. Hes RAPPING, you know what Im saying? And Im not expecting that, cause Im like bro, Cha Cha is crazy and you got a crazy-ass singing voice. But hes in that bitch freestyling over shit Im playing. Not even recording, just freestyling, having fun.

Yeah, hes a great freestyler from what Ive seen.

That shit is crazy to me. So yeah, were in the studio and I play him the song like, you wanna jump on this? I shit you not, he fuckin freestyles over the WHOLE beat. Maybe one day Ill just drop that shit. So this is where the producer in me comes in handy I guess. There were certain parts of his freestyle that I fucked with the most and I wanted to make them special. You can hear him in the background in the elements, its not like he had a verse or a chorus or bridge, but you can hear him in there.

Whats your process for writing with another artist?

I have to talk to people to write for them. We have to have real conversations. We have to drive and go get some coffee or some shit. Or go get some food and just talk about real life. Then I can take that and kind of put it into the way I would word it I guess. Its kind of hard to make records for people, if you dont know what theyre going through. Especially when its those type of artists. You have artists who will take the hot record that has nothing to do with their life, but a lot of people want stuff that pertains to have their feeling.

Is there a particular conversation that youve had with a collaborator that inspired you?



When I was working with Kelly Rowland, she was just telling me all the stuntin-ass-shit she does for this song we were writing. She was telling me about this diamond face cream. There was this bag she was telling me about. It looks like a regular worn-down leather bag but its like some fly-ass shit on the low. I cant even remember what its called. Oh fuck, shes gonna be mad at me [laughs]. That was a cool moment for me. But just talking to her in general, and us talking about relationships. Her being married and having kids, and growing up. Thats the dope aspect about it. Especially with somebody like her.

Atlanta-based producers like Southside and Sonny Digital that are getting into becoming vocalists. Is there something about Atlanta that pushes producers to take that step?

I dont know if its specifically Atlanta. I have a lot of friends that are producers that are realizing that they have a voice. At this point, I feel like a lot of us are just fighting to be taken seriously. We do all this shit for artists, and we know music so well. Why wouldnt we be able to do it too?

Sonny Digital recently talked about creating a union for producers. Do you think producers deserve a lot more credit and compensation than they get?

Definitely. I understand being an up-and-coming artist and not having the funds to flat-out pay a producer. But even with situations like that, there needs to be some kind of understanding. Once this shit takes off for you, take care of me. Make sure that Im straight. Make sure that as much as theyre saying your name and screaming your name, that youre saying my name and screaming my name too. At the end of the day, it starts with us. Nobodys paying to turn up to your fuckin acapellas.

So you think the first step is for artists to stand up and make sure producers get their shine?

Yeah, especially when these artists are putting their arms around producers like, this my brother and this and that. Then when its time to take off, they forget real quick. I think its super important to just maintain that loyalty.

Woosah is a mantra Martin Lawrences character in Bad Boys II uses to relieve anger and stress. Why did you decide to make it the title of your project?

Cause Im stressed the fuck out [laughs]. Nah, I guess Woo$ah comes from where I was at in life. I dont know if youve heard Mad Hatter or Window Seat, but on a lot of my early shit I was talking about getting paid from artists and the stresses of trying to be the greatest, trying to chase the dream out here. Theres a lot of things that stress you out. A lot of them are money-related, so its Woosah with a dollar sign. Thats pretty much the catch. Its really just taking a breather. Whether it be relationship stuff, stuff you put yourself through, might be money stuff, might be Rick Ross constantly telling you need to boss the fuck up and youre like I dont know how! [laughs]. Just calm down, take a breather, and understand that everything is gonna happen the way that it needs to.

Is that what you want people to take away from listening to the EP?

Thats exactly what I want you to take from it. That its all on Gods time and its gonna happen. I feel like once this project drops, and where they see me take it from here. I think theyll have a greater understanding of the project as time goes on.

Its pretty rare for J. Cole to produce for anyone other than himself these days. Whats the story behind his credit on your track Supply Luh?

My first trip to [Coles North Carolina home studio] The Sheltuh, I already had a project done  I have another project, but thats neither here nor there  so after me playing him beats and him playing me his songs I was like you mind checking out some of my stuff? He sat and listened and gave me feedback. Just giving me advice and stuff. He started going through beats and he let me pick some. He let me take like three or four beats and I started writing to them at The Sheltuh and when I got back to Atlanta I just recorded to them, just kind of sitting on them, not knowing what was gonna happen as far as him clearing me to release these songs. They were super cool about it. He was like, do your thing. I sent him the cover and he signed off on everything. And then the Insecure play came through. It was just perfect timing. I dont know, I just wasnt expecting them to be that cool about allowing us to use it.

Is Cole someone you look up to as a fellow vocalist-producer?

Hes definitely someone I look up to. Even more than that, him being from the Carolinas. Hes from North and Im from South. Even though I think where Im from is probably smaller than where hes from. Hes always been a motivation for me, even being in college and listening to his music, following his story, relating it to myself. He inspired me before I met him.

What was it like to hear yourself on Insecure?

Man that shit was crazy! A lot of songs on there, theyre during scenes and theyre really brief, but they let my shit rock with no dialogue for like a minute! Its like a moment in that episode, so I was geeked. Everybody was calling me, people were sending me videos. We were celebrating for real.

Thats a historic moment. People are going to watch that back years from now.

Thats what Im saying. That show is so important for today, for us. Its so important and we got to be a part of it in a big way.

You mentioned another project.

Theres another project, Im not gonna give you the name. Its that project and then I have videos coming up. Well be doing more shows and jumping on tours. I might come out on J.I.D.s tour. Just being out here and touching the people, thats what Im most excited about to be honest. Ive got a lot of features Ive been doing for other artists and a lot of production. Im excited for all this stuff to come out and people to just see where were taking it.
Today was a major day for anybody who uses the Internet, so basically everyone. The F.C.C. has voted to repeal net neutrality with plans to move Internet away from being a free platform.

This move may leave people having to pay for access to websites like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Soundcloud and lots more. It also puts a negative dent on any upcoming blogs or startups that will get low to zero traffic on their sites. Whether youre for net neutrality or not, the majority of the web have come to the conclusion that they will not stop fighting to have equal access to the Internet. Although the majority of votes (3-2) were to repeal net neutrality, things are still in the early stages and a majority of the population could still make an impact.

Check out some reactions below and tell us what you think.

https://twitter.com/_/status/941434636265238528

https://twitter.com/_/status/941375035318636545



https://twitter.com/_/status/941373853216915456

https://twitter.com/_/status/941393014366146560

https://twitter.com/_/status/941390835031080962

https://twitter.com/_/status/941369419485339656

https://twitter.com/_/status/941370667940884480

https://twitter.com/_/status/941358941090516992

https://twitter.com/_/status/941392566347583489

https://twitter.com/_/status/941372365941944320



https://twitter.com/_/status/941377871108505601


Next Friday, December 22 Netflix will release their biggest budget-movie to date with Bright, starring Will Smith & Joel Edgerton. But before that arrives next week, Netflix & Atlantic records have compiled a star-studded soundtrack in its support that surfaced online today via iTunes & other digital platforms.

Laced with 13 tracks in total, the soundtrack to Netflixs Bright features guest appearances from Migos, Future, Ty Dolla Sign, Logic, Meek Mill, YG, Snoop Dogg, Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Rocky, DRAM, Machine Gun Kelly, Marshmello, X Ambassadors, RagnBone Man, Bebe Rexha, Camila Cabello, and more. Meanwhile production is reportedly handled by Ayer and Atlantic Records Kevin Weaver.

Having already heard several of the hip-hop records, fans can now stream the soundtrack in its entirety for free thanks to the good folks at Spotify. Hit play and sound off in the comments (below).

Tracklist:

1. Logic and RagnBone Man  Broken People

2. Bastille  World Gone Mad

3. Machine Gun Kelly, Bebe Rexha and X Ambassadors  Home

4. Camila Cabello and Grey  Crown

5. Ty Dolla $ign and Future Feat. Kiiara  Darkside

6. Migos and Marshmello  Danger

7. Meek Mill, Snoop Dogg and YG  Thats My N****

8. Lil Uzi Vert and Steve Aoki  Smoke My Dope 

9. A$AP Rocky and Tom Morello  FTW (F*** The World)

10. Portugal. The Man  Cheer Up

11. Alt-J  Hares On The Mountain

12. Neil Young and D.R.A.M.  Campfire

13. Sam Hunt  This Land Is Your Land
For the past few months, youve probably heard about Tekashi 6ix9ine. His rainbow colored hair and matching grillz as well as the number 69 tatted across his body and face make him hard to miss or forget. However, his song Gummo has really launched his career. It received co-signs from the likes of Chance the Rapper and Swizz Beatz and landed him a climbing position on the Billboard Hot 100 (currently at No. 13 on the week of Dec. 23rd).

However, with all this success comes controversy. It has come to light that the rapper pleaded guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance. This charge is defined as (via Jezebel), A person is guilty of the use of a child in a sexual performance if knowing the character and content thereof he employs, authorizes or induces a child less than seventeen years of age to engage in a sexual performance or being a parent, legal guardian or custodian of such child, he consents to the participation by such child in a sexual performance.

This information was first unpacked by former collaborators/current beef partners, Trippie Redd and Zillakami (1400 dont promote pedophiles, Trippie said). Hes since responded to the beef with both artists and on multiple occasions, he and his lawyer have continue to claim his innocence. More on that below, though.

Despite all of this, his career is still budding. Prior to the beef and the release of his viral, GUMMO, he was working with Trippie Redd, Zillakami and Famous Dex, which helped make his serious wave on the Internet. And with the new wave of attention hes received, hes been spotted in the studio with the likes of Swizz Beatz and Fetty Wap.

Heres everything you need to know about Tekashi 6ix9ine.

He kicked his career off as a viral internet figure

Prior to becoming a rapper, Tekashi would wear t-shirts that said Pussy and HIV to garner attention on platforms such as Instagram for shock value. That aspect would eventually launch his SCUMGANG69 campaign. He says scum stands for Society Cant Understand Me.

After people started noticing his unique style, hed eventually start rapping because of it.

He doesnt have his own YouTube account

Despite the fact that hes amassed over 69M views off of both GUMMO and KOODA, he doesnt have his own YouTube account. Since jumping on the scene in 2015, hes dropped off a handful of music videos through the YouTube channel FCK THEM. The only video he hasnt dropped through the channel is his most recent, KOODA which was released through WorldStarHipHop.

Hes been involved in several beefs over the past few months

Between Zillakami, Trippie Redd and most recently, Pierre Bourne, Tekashi 6ix9ine has found himself in the midst of beefing each one of them. The most notable ones are Trippie Redd and Zillakami.

Zillakami originally exposed Tekashi6ix9ine on an Instagram post for allegations of pedophilia with 6ix9ines arm around a 13 year old girl in just a bra. He later sarcastically responded in a Snapchat video to Kamis remarks in with an admission of sorts. Trippie Redd later denounced 69 because of it. He said, Im sorry brozay, 1400 dont promote pedophiles If we give n*ggas clout, we give n*ggas clout. It was an accident.

It spawned into violence after Redd claimed one of Tekashis people punched him in the head in his New York City hotel lobby.

His beef with Pierre Bourne stems from the release of GUMMO which allegedly involves Trippie. Bourne wasnt aware that 6ix9ine had the beat for GUMMO until it actually dropped and he wasnt happy that he used it. Pierre later referred to Trippie and 6ix9ine as opps on a since-deleted Twitter post but later reiterated it on Instagram when he said, Fuck that Gummo shit. From the rumors that surfaced, Trippie gave the beat to 69. Most recently, Pierre subliminally claimed to have birthed Tekashis career and 69 later responded by saying Pierre hasnt even launched his own.

He pleaded guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance

In a ever-evolving story with new information surfacing regularly, Tekashi 6ix9ine plead guilty to one count of using a child in a sexual performance. In the way he recounts the story with DJ Akademiks, it happened when he was 17 and the girl told him she was 19. However, court files with his statement that have surfaced reveal that he was 18 at the time and he also said that she came in she asked me how old I was, and I told her I was 18, and I assumed she was older. The way she was asking made me think she was older.

There were pictures of him and another rapper, Tay Milly, with the thirteen year old girl without a shirt on. While hes denied that he was involved in any sexual activity with the girl, he did admit that it was him in the photos and videos with the girl.

He has a list of conditions he has to complete, including community hours, completing his GED and not posting any sexually explicit or violent images with women or children to social media. If he completes those, he will not be required to register a sex offender.

Hes been working with Swizz Beatz and Fetty Wap

Swizz Beatz and Fetty Wap have both been spotted with Tekashi in the studio. While Tekashis been working on an upcoming project, its likely the Swizz Beatz and Fetty Wap features land on it. Hes previously teased both songs on social media.

The first time he performed in his hometown was at the Diplomats reunion

On a video he posted to Instagram, the first time the viral sensation performed in his hometown of New York City was during Diplomats reunion show with A$AP Mob for RapCaviar. DJ SpinKing was holding it down in between sets and brought out a slew of artists including Fat Joe, Uncle Murda and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. However, the reported highlight was Tekashis entrance to Gummo at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where he also switched a line to fire shots at Trippie Redd. Tell Trippie Redd shut, I fucked that n*gga bitch.

Tekashi
Cop-turned-politician Silwal in the dock?

The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the government to take action against those involved in forging performance evaluation documents of former deputy inspector general Nawaraj Silwal who has been elected to the House of Representatives on the CPN-UML ticket in the recently held elections.
Deuba says eager to hand over power

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has said he is eager to hand over power to a new leader but added that he would not resign as demanded by the CPN-UML, whose Chairman KP Oli appears set to succeed him.
French man dies in rafting accident

A 24-year-old French national died in a rafting accident in the Karnali river in Kalikot district on Thursday.
Some of the EU leaders, including Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, back row, right, take part in a photo-call after a meeting on the first day of the European summit

The Taoiseach has sent his strongest warning yet there can be no reneging on the Brexit deal on the Irish Border.

His comments come as EU leaders from the remaining 27 member states back Britain's entry in to the next phase of Brexit negotiations today.

While Leo Varadkar gave his public support for the premiership of UK Prime Minister Theresa May, he rebuked those within the British government who appeared to undermine the legality and substance of the deal.

"I've absolute faith and confidence in her that she speaks for the government of the UK and so long as that is the case, so long as she is prime minister, we will deal with her," he said in Brussels.

The UK agreed to maintain "regulatory alignment" after Brexit. Essentially it ensures the UK won't diverge from the same standards and rules it applies as a member of the EU. This is necessary to keep an invisible customs Border on the island of Ireland.

Some in the British government, including Brexit Secretary David Davis, said the deal was merely a "statement of intent" rather than a binding agreement. There was also come confusion as to how the term "regulatory alignment" could be interpreted in the context of Britain conducting third-party trade deals.

Mr Davis received strident disapproval from EU quarters, and upon arrival at this week's two-day EU summit, the Taoiseach offered his own reproach.

Binding

"What has to happen now is turning the commitments and principles in the joint report from last week in to the withdrawal agreement which is a legally binding international agreement that allows the UK to leave the EU," he said.

He then clarified Ireland's position on the meaning of regulatory alignment.

"In terms of maintaining full alignment, in our view that's very strong language.

"Maintain, which is keep the same; full, as in not partial; and alignment, meaning in-line with.

"That's the language used and I've no need to interpret or spin it, it's pretty clear to me."

The Taoiseach also spoke to those who accused him and Tanaiste Simon Coveney of underhandedly pursuing a united Ireland through the Brexit talks.

"I want to continue exactly what we've had for the last 20 years, which is peace and freedom of movement and free trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and indeed between Ireland and Britain."

He said that Brexit was "disrupting that".

"I'd hoped that some of the people who perhaps supported Brexit and campaigned for it would realise, or at least acknowledge, that they're the ones who created this problem.

"And I'm one of the people who's trying to resolve it; trying to retain now what we've had now for 20 years - peace on our island and, for the most part, power-sharing."

In the meantime, Mrs May reiterated the UK's desire to move on to the deep negotiations involving a two-year transitional or "implementation" period after the UK's departure date of March 2019.

During dinner last night, she said she makes "no secret of wanting to move onto the next phase and to approaching it with ambition and creativity".

Sources close to the meeting said: "A particular priority should be agreement on the implementation period, so we can bring greater certainty to businesses in the UK and across the 27."

But EU Council President Donald Tusk warned the complexities on Brexit which lie ahead will prove to be the "real test of EU unity".

He was speaking before the start of the summit. "Only when we are united can we successfully perform even the most difficult tasks, like with European defence, for example, or with Brexit. I have no doubt that the real test of our unity will be the second phase of Brexit talks," he said.
Donald Tusk did not bother shoehorning fragments of pop songs into his message. Not this time.

The EU summit's permanent chairman, and former Polish premier, likes to garnish his outpourings with throwaway adaptations like 'I do like Mondays'.

At one point he had even cannibalised Neil Sedaka's 'Breaking up is hard to do' in efforts to popularise the daunting challenge that is Brexit. For President Tusk, the EU and UK not only have to divorce - they have to forge a new post-divorce relationship at much the same time.

But this time the man mercifully avoided showbiz allusions and said the next phase of Brexit talks will prove to be the real test of European Union unity. He stressed that success will only come if the 27 remaining EU countries stick together.

Going into day one of this summit in Brussels, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was conveying much the same message in slightly different terms. Ireland is on an EU high at present.

The prestigious Brussels-based EU news service, Politico, yesterday noted: "Ireland will enjoy its moment of peak EU power today and Friday", in an article previewing the summit yesterday. Perhaps the only way is down.

The Taoiseach was probably emboldened by categorical and supportive comments like that of European Parliament president, Antonio Tajani. He said last week's Brexit Border deal is a binding document, not an exercise in sleight-of-hand.

Mr Varadkar made light work of brushing aside signs that the UK may be "backsliding" on that EU-UK Brexit Border deal. He said the Irish Government was happy there will be 'full regulatory alignment' between the North's rules and those of the EU after Brexit happens - and this effectively meant no Irish Border. But then came the rub, putting him right on song with Donald Tusk warnings of tough times ahead. "We're not complacent either. You know, this is politics and we're going to need to stay very engaged in the months and years ahead and be vigilant too," the Taoiseach said.

EU leaders will, as expected, today give the go-ahead to start negotiations on a transition period and a future trade deal with Britain after it leaves the EU in March 2019. Tusk added his warning about the need for unity, saying: "Only when we are united can we successfully perform even the most difficult tasks, like with European defence for example or with Brexit. I have no doubt the real test of our unity will be the second phase of Brexit talks."

He said divisions among EU countries were very visible on other issues which would be centre stage without Brexit. These include reforms of the economic and monetary union, and the continuing migration crisis which has only been lowered in the public view.

Brussels diplomats doubt on the durability of the Brexit Border deal. It will be stress-tested in 2018.
Conditions limiting access to the new nursing home care deal for farmers, in situations where land is leased out, have been described as "unfair".

The changes to the Fair Deal scheme for farmers and business owners have been welcomed by farm lobby groups after sustained campaigning for several years.

A new three-year cap on contributions, based on the percentage of a farmers' assets that will go towards nursing home care, will shave tens of thousands of euro off of the cost for families.

Up to now, the cap has only applied to the family home - but runs indefinitely for farm or business assets.

This has been a major deterrent for these families. Now, the same cap will apply across the board.

However, it is understood the deal will be "conditional" and only apply to farmland and business premises that are used by the family and not leased out to a third party.

If land or premises are leased out, it will then be deemed an "investment asset" and the cap will not apply.

Lorcan McCabe from the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) said they welcomed the cap of three years as a "huge" relief for farmers and it means the farm won't be "eaten away" for many years.

"It is a little bit unfair if the farm is leased as maybe the son or daughter or person who gets it is young and has particular reasons to be leasing it. Perhaps they are not up to farming it at that point in their lives," he said.

"For genuine farmers, who are not able to farm it, maybe through health or other reasons, it should be looked at."

The ICMSA pointed out it may result in a person keeping a small number of cattle on the land because of the rule rather than perhaps leasing it to an expanding dairy farmer next door who is looking for more land.

Under the scheme at present, the 7.5pc annual contribution on a principal residence is capped at three years.

However, there is no cap when it comes to farmland or a business premises so the sum can escalate rapidly.

Mr McCabe said they would be having further meetings with Minister for Older People Jim Daly on the legislation, with expectations it could be enacted as early as next September.

In relation to farmland, assets that have been transferred within a five-year period prior to application for the scheme are included in the financial assessment.

Mr McCabe said they feel they got "halfways there" on the deal but would continue to ask Mr Daly that this five-year period for exclusion of the assets be reduced to three years similar to a private house.

Mr Daly is understood to have received legal clearance following months of wrangling over the new deal for nursing home care.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) candidate who said, in a joke, that women's feet are smaller so they can be closer the kitchen sink, has failed in his bid to become the next Ulster/North Leinster Chairman.

James Spears found himself in hot water this week after it emerged that he had made the remarks at a hustings for the election.

Tonight, poultry farmer Nigel Reneghan was elected Chairman of the Ulster/North Leinster section of IFA. He won 1111 votes, compared to Spears' 787 votes, in a two-candidate race.

Spears later apologised for his remarks, but he had come in for strong criticism from the Associations' members.

In the seven country election, Reneghan won a majority of votes in every country, bar Cavan - Spears' home county.

At the meeting in Mullingar, Westmeath, IFA Councy Chairman Kenneth Bray asked the two candidates about how the organisation could get more women and young people involved.

"James said he was going to crack a joke," according to Mr Bray, and the joke was that 'women's feet are smaller, so they can get closer to the kitchen sink', but it did not go down well with the room.

"He also said that women do a lot of work behind the scenes on farms, including mountains of paperwork and raising families, but the remark went down like a lead balloon.

"Neither candidate came up with ideas on how to get more women or young people into the organisation," the County Chairman said and that the mood in the room after the debate was not appreciative of the remark.

One source said: This might be a storm in a tea-cup but it has certainly ruffled a number of very dedicated female IFA members throughout the region".
Investing in inclusion

Inclusion is a term that has been accorded much importance over the past couple of years.
An investor coalition that presses for corporate responsibility is calling on US food companies McDonalds Corp, Dennys Corp and Sanderson Farms Inc to stop buying or producing meat raised with medically important antibiotics.

Members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) have filed shareholder resolutions at each of the companies, ICCR said in a statement on Thursday.

If the resolutions are not successfully challenged by the companies, they will come up for vote at the companies next shareholders meetings.

ICCR members, alongside other campaigners, have had previous success in convincing most U.S. chicken producers to stop using medically important antibiotics.

Scientists and public health experts for years have warned that the regular use of antibiotics to promote growth and prevent illness in healthy farm animals contributes to the development and spread of drug-resistant superbugs that can infect people.

The World Health Organization earlier this year recommended that meat producers end such practices.

Fast-food chain McDonalds USA last year shifted to chicken raised without medically important antibiotics. The latest shareholder resolution, sponsored by the Congregation of Benedictine Sisters of Boerne, Texas, calls on McDonalds Corp to adopt a similar sourcing policy for beef or pork.

Adopting such a policy would move McDonalds closer to rivals Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc and Panera Bread Co, which serve chicken, pork and beef from animals raised without antibiotics important to human health.

The Benedictine Sisters also want restaurant chain Dennys to make a starter commitment to reduce the use of such drugs in its chicken supply, said Nadira Narine, senior program director at ICCR.

McDonalds and Dennys did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

ICCR member As You Sow is pressuring Sanderson Farms to shift its stance on antibiotics. Sanderson is the only large U.S. chicken producer that has not committed to curbing the use of the drugs.

A similar proposal at Sandersons annual meeting in February 2017 received the backing of around 30 percent of shareholder votes.

Sanderson declined to comment.

In the past, the low-cost chicken producer has said that the preventative use of antibiotics in food animals has not been shown to harm human health.
The Cork campus is responsible for shipping hundreds of millions of products across 13 time zones around the world

The Cork campus is responsible for shipping hundreds of millions of products across 13 time zones around the world

To the European Commission and financial newspaper pages, Apple's Cork presence is often spoken of primarily in terms of tax.

But what does the tech giant actually do at its Hollyhill campus? Other than finance, what else goes on behind its gleaming glass panels?

This week, the Irish Independent gained access to all corners of the facility, which is hosted on an expanding campus within Cork's tough northside neighbourhood.

It yielded a rare look behind the curtain of one of the most talked-about technology operations in Europe.

Officially, Apple's listed activities include manufacturing, finance, customer care, sales support, logistics and transport management.

Other functions include iTunes and localisation (including some testing of Siri voice services).

But only in walking around the giant campus does one get an idea of the vast scale of its operations.

The facility's huge onsite Applecare team serves 134 countries across Europe and Africa and India.

Hollyhill is also responsible for shipping "hundreds of millions" of products annually to 51 countries.

Most surprising of all is the large manufacturing factory in the middle of the campus. Apple actually builds iMac computers in Cork, its only self-owned manufacturing facility around the world. This is Apple's longest-running business activity in Ireland, a direct inheritance of the company's original iteration in 1980.

But for a company that pioneered Chinese manufacturing techniques, why continue with a factory in a small western European island?

"Cork is regarded as a manufacturing centre of excellence," said one senior executive.

"It's often the team from this facility that is called upon to help out in other parts of the world. You have to understand that manufacturing skills are very scarce and specialised. What we have collected at this base is invaluable."

This theme - the concentration of skilled, older managers with years of critical experience - is a common one throughout the various halls, lobbies and offices of Hollyhill.

It is why so much of the logistics in getting products sorted around the globe is now run from the Cork facility.

"As soon as Tim [Cook, Apple CEO] leaves the stage, we're in action," said one senior logistics manager.

Read more: 6,000 workers, 90 nationalities: 8 facts about the key Irish plant

Product launches and the pre-Christmas period emphasise the point.

Every time a new iPhone is formally unveiled, it is Hollyhill that acts as the company's brain in sorting it all out. Millions of devices have to be sourced, steered and delivered from the factory in China to the far corners of 13 time zones.

"From the time the products leave the factory, it's a huge operation to manage right across Europe," said the logistics manager.

The figures are staggering. In the month of December alone, over 300,000 delivery details, involving thousands of delivery depots and flights, have to be overseen in painful detail.

In most cases, the person on the phone calling the shots has a Cork accent. This promotion of local talent is one of the most striking features of management working around Apple's Cork campus.

Apple's profile in tax affairs will not fade away any time soon. The company is in talks with the Irish Government on starting the process of setting up an escrow account to pay back some 13bn of back tax to Ireland. Both Apple and the Irish Government are appealing the original European Commission decision, handed down last year.

But whatever the outcome of that case, it's hard to see the company shifting from Cork anytime soon. It has too much at stake in the Hollyhill neighbourhood.

Adrian Weckler
Ryanair has made a dramatic U-turn and agreed to recognise pilots' unions for the first time in its history, after it was threatened with a potentially-crippling strike just days before Christmas.

The low-cost carrier sent the offer to representative bodies in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal - the only time Michael O'Leary has sought such a deal in the 32 years of the airline.

One day of industrial action had been planned for Wednesday December 20 and would have mostly involved captains.

Mr O'Leary said the pilots should call off the threat.

"Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week," he said.

"If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so, and we have written today to these unions inviting them to talks to recognise them and calling on them to cancel the threatened industrial action planned for Christmas week."

Expand Close Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Ryanair chief executive Michael OLeary

Ryanair's offer is conditional on unions in the six countries setting up special committees to deal with issues related to the airline.

It says it will not deal with pilots flying for other airlines.

Mr O'Leary, who has been outspoken about the role of unions at other carriers in the past, said he wanted to avoid the threat of disruption to customers.

"We have delivered radical change before," Mr O'Leary said.

"Putting the needs of our customers first, and avoiding disruption to their Christmas flights, is the reason why we will now deal with our pilots through recognised national union structures and we hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the New Year."

The threat of industrial action in Ireland was issued through Impact, to which the Irish Airline Pilots' Association (Ialpa) is affiliated.

A spokesman said it had not yet received any correspondence from Ryanair with the offer.

"Obviously, when we do we will be giving it full consideration," he said.

Impact had warned Mr O'Leary that the threatened industrial action would either ground flights or generate substantial losses for the company.

It had been expected that the number of Ryanair employees involved in next Wednesday's planned strike would be fewer than the total number of Irish-based Ryanair pilots.

But because it primarily involved captains it had the potential to cause severe disruption as planes cannot legally or safely fly without the senior pilot.

A spokesperson for IMPACT trade union said: "IMPACT has indicated its belief that an immediate meeting, between management and the union, is now necessary to clarify issues and make progress.

"IMPACT has indicated its availability to meet with Ryanair management today - or at any time over the coming weekend - to discuss these matters."
Major institutions such as Goldman Sachs have been tipped as potential buyers

AIB has launched the sale of its mammoth 3.7bn Redwood loan portfolio in the largest transaction of its type ever undertaken by the bank.

The bailed-out lender pulled the trigger on the sale process on Wednesday and aims to complete a deal by mid-June.

First-round bids are due by the end of January with the book expected to attract over 20 suitors in the initial phase.

Mid-April is understood to be pencilled in as a deadline for second-round bids, when the field will be cut to fewer than half a dozen bidders.

Private equity firms Oaktree, Cerberus, CorVal, Deutsche and Goldman Sachs are all tipped as potential buyers.

However sources said AIB, and its advisers, KPMG, have stipulated the book will be sold only to a regulated entity, fuelling predictions that some distressed debt funds and private equity houses will need to strike partnerships with domestic or international banks to qualify.

The precise restrictions imposed on bidders remain unclear and there is some speculation that the decision to limit the sale of the portfolio to a regulated entity was influenced by the Department of Finance.

AIB remains over 70pc owned by the taxpayer.

So-called vulture funds and private equity firms were first on the ground after the crash but the string of large-scale loan sales, which have generated hefty profits for investors, also provoked widespread controversy and debate.

AIB's Redwood portfolio does not contain principal home owner mortgages. It does however hold some 2,712 buy-to-let loans with a gross value of 702m.

As this newspaper has reported, the portfolio is a mix of impaired loans, including buy-to-let mortgages, SME loans, and revolving facilities as well as commercial real estate developments, construction loans and debts tied to land and residential developments.

The launch of Redwood takes AIB closer to its aim of reducing its burden of impaired loans and is likely to fuel expectations the lender will be in a position to fund a special dividend or share buy-back in 2019.

In its latest quarterly results AIB cut its stack of impaired loans, its most troubled exposures, to 7.3bn.

The loan sale is the latest since Goldman Sachs joined forces with US fund manager Pimco to acquire Danske's 1.8bn retail book.

AIB shares have risen around 10pc in recent week. The stock closed at 5.51 a share yesterday.
JICA to support construction of Disaster Management Park in Lalitpur

JICA Nepal will be providing technical assistance to Lalitpur Metropolitan City for building the Guita Domar Disaster Management Park in Lalitpur as a part of its Quick Impact Project program.
Uber's food-delivery business will begin offering an insurance package to its couriers in Europe, a move to address the conditions of "gig economy" workers.

Riders for food-delivery companies such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are typically self-employed and the firms have come under fire for how they treat their workers.

Uber Eats said on Friday it would start offering all its couriers in Europe an insurance package with AXA with coverage for personal accidents, cash benefits for hospitalisation, property damage and cover for third-party injury.

"Uber Eats couriers can now enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working on their own schedule with the peace of mind provided by additional security and protection," said Filip Nuytemans, Uber Eats general manager for Europe.

The couriers will be able to benefit from the policy whether they are fully independent or employed via a third party, and the company will pay for the insurance.

Uber Eats currently operates in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain. The plan will be introduced January 8 next year, the company said.

The gig economy, where individuals work for multiple employers day-to-day without having a fixed contract, has expanded with the arrival of apps such as Uber and Deliveroo, who say their workers have the full flexibility to work when they want and for how long they want.

But companies in the gig economy come under fire from unions and politicians for what they call exploitative practices and riders for Deliveroo have gone to court in the UK to seek employment rights such as the minimum wage.

Two drivers for Uber's ride-hailing app successfully argued at a tribunal in London that the San Francisco company had responsibilities in terms of workers' rights.

The plan offered by Uber Eats will reimburse couriers up to 7,500 euros ($8,847.75) for medical expenses from an accident that results in hospitalisation or 3,000 euros if the hospitalisation is for three consecutive nights or more.

Couriers will also get a cash benefit for severe sickness or injury and cover for third party bodily injuries and property damage. ($1 = 0.8477)
BMW could face upwards of 50 legal actions over an alleged defect that caused cars to suddenly lose power and stop.

Three of the cases were before Dublin District Court yesterday, which heard upwards of 50 more similar actions were in the offing. It is understood summonses in 20 of those cases have just been issued.

In the three cases before the court, BMW Automotive (Ireland) Ltd is accused of negligence by motorists who bought different models of 2008-reg BMWs, all of which are alleged to have experienced timing chain failures.

Andrew Walker BL, for the claimants, instructed by solicitor Dermot McNamara, said the timing chains were "defective" and did not fail as a result of "wear and tear". He said the claimants were seeking discovery of various records from BMW in order to determine what the company knew about the scale of the defect, when it knew about it and what it did when it found out.

The court heard one of the claimants, Finglas man Gary Ashe, had been offered the costs of repairing his BMW 5 series car and his legal costs.

Mr Walker said Mr Ashe had to decide if he was going to accept the offer and one of things which would inform his decision was whether or not the records sought from BMW would be disclosed.

John O'Regan BL, for BMW Automotive (Ireland) Ltd, opposed the discovery motion and said the claimants had sued the wrong entity as the company was a distributor rather than a manufacturer.

However, Judge Michael Coghlan said the company was a BMW subsidiary and that he was minded to grant discovery as long as the request was refined to deal with certain models, engine sizes and years of manufacture.

The proceedings were adjourned to next month.

In one of the cases, Monaghan man John McConville has sued the company for damages of up to 15,000 for negligence, breach of duty and breach of warranty. He has claimed that he was travelling on an extremely busy motorway between Limerick and Dublin when his BMW X5 suddenly lost power.

He said he had to take emergency measures to get the vehicle off the main motorway onto the hard shoulder and was left sitting there in darkness for an hour waiting for a tow truck.

Mr McConville said the car needed extensive repairs costing 8,700 and alleged defective engine design prevented the inspection and maintenance of the car's timing chain.
A "terrified" elderly man was threatened that he would be knee-capped before he was forced to withdraw 15,000 from his bank after a couple armed with a hammer broke into his home, it has been alleged.

The 65-year-old was told his extended family was being watched and he was struck in the face before the raiders brought him to the bank and made him take out the cash, gardai said.

Mother-of-two Catherine Dempsey (25) was refused bail after she appeared in Dublin District Court charged in connection with the alleged raid on the mans house in Terenure.

Her partner Carlos Lawrence (26) also appeared in court earlier today and was remanded in custody for a week after he made no bail application.

Mr Lawrence from Rosary Road, Maryland and Ms Dempsey of Michael Malin House, Vicar Street, in the south inner city, are both charged with burglary while being in possession of a wedge hammer at Wainsfort Manor Grove, Terenure.

Garda John Walsh said he was objecting to bail in Ms Dempsey's case citing the nature and seriousness of the charge. He handed a written outline of his objections to the judge.

Defence solicitor Richard Young said a co-accused was mentioned in the objections and I think there is a bit of a difference in the roles between the two of them.

He asked Judge Brian OShea to take credence of that fact.

Garda Walsh said in the early hours of December 13, it was alleged Carlos Lawrence and his partner Ms Dempsey forcibly entered the home of a 65-year-old man.

Glass was broken in the rear patio door with a hammer, Carlos Lawrence opened the door and the accused both had their faces covered at this point, the garda said.

It was alleged Mr Lawrence had the hammer, demanded money and threatened the alleged victim with it, the garda said.

The man was threatened he would be knee-capped if he did not comply, that his extended family were being watched, and he was struck in the face, Garda Walsh continued.

It was alleged the mans phone was taken and 150 was taken from his wallet.

He was then forced to go to two ATMs where he withdrew his daily maximum of 1,200 and the next morning was further threatened and brought to AIB in Rathgar, where he withdrew 15,000 which was handed over to the suspects.

Garda Walsh said the maximum sentence on conviction for aggravated burglary was life imprisonment.

He said it was a premeditated crime and an extremely frightening ordeal for the [alleged] injured party.

Further charges of false imprisonment or robbery could be brought, he said.

Garda Walsh said the accused were allegedly covered up, but as time went on they dispensed with the items that concealed their identities.

They were known to the man and were positively identified by him, it was alleged.

The prosecution would say Ms Dempsey was in possession of 12,455 in cash when gardai searched her home under warrant, half of which was in her handbag and the rest on her person.

A backpack containing the hammer used to break in was found in a car, Garda Walsh said, and witnesses would say Carlos Lawrence tried to buy a vehicle in the Rathgar area with a bundle of cash on the morning of December 13.

The garda said there was also corroborative CCTV evidence.

The court heard Ms Dempsey had twins aged three years.

Cross-examining Garda Walsh, Mr Young said it was alleged that it was Mr Lawrence who smashed the patio door and let Ms Dempsey in. The allegations put to her were that it was her co-accused who had the hammer, made the threats and struck the man.

She indicated in interview that she was under pressure, duress or threat, Garda Walsh agreed.

Mr Young argued there was a clear distinction between the roles of each accused, saying it was not alleged his client ever had possession of the hammer, or threatened anybody.

Judge OShea said it seemed to him the allegation was one of joint enterprise. Mr Young also said the alleged victim was not in court to give evidence or be challenged on it.

Is it not reaonable for me to infer that he would be terrified beyond comprehension at this stage? Judge OShea said.

Mr Young said Ms Dempsey was willing to abide by conditions if granted bail, including signing on at a garda station, surrendering her passport and staying away from the alleged victim.

Judge OShea said the starting off point was that all accused enjoyed a presumption of innocence and right to liberty. However, he said the garda's concern that Ms Dempsey would not turn up in court was a legitimate concern.

Refusing bail, he remanded her in custody to appear in court again on December 20.

Earlier, Garda Walsh said Ms Dempsey made no reply after caution.

Garda Sergeant Jason Miley told Judge OShea he arrested Mr Lawrence for the purpose of charge at Terenure Garda Station at 1.22am this morning.

Mr Lawrence was charged at 1.28am and made no reply to the charge after caution.

Sgt Miley said he would be objecting to bail in Mr Lawrences case, but defence solicitor Claire Barry said she was not making a bail application at this time.

Sgt Miley said a file was being prepared and further charges being sought. Judge OShea granted free legal aid after there was no garda objection.

Judge OShea remanded Mr Lawrence in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on December 22.

Neither accused has indicated how they intend to plead.
One of three pilots being sued by Ryanair has denied that an allegedly defamatory email was an "attempt to bring the company to its knees".

Captain Ted Murphy said the email, which the airline says falsely implied management misled the market, was part of an effort to get the company to establish meaningful negotiations with a single representative body of pilots.

It was not an attempt to agitate pilots to rise up against management, but was an effort to organise them, said Mr Murphy, who is a former president of the Irish Airline Pilots' Association and of the International Federation of Airline Pilots.

He was under cross examination at the High Court in Ryanair's ongoing action against him, Evert Van Zwol and John Goss. The three deny the September 2013 "pilot update" email to 2,289 pilots about "what the markets are saying about Ryanair" was defamatory.

Earlier, Mr Murphy said he had repeatedly written to Ryanair, asking it to engage, and was told that the airline does not deal with unions and non-Ryanair pilot groups.

However, shortly after the September 2013 pilot update was published, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said at a press conference in Stockholm he would deal with a trade union when the majority of his pilots were members, and he specifically mentioned a figure of 1,602 pilots, Mr Murphy said.

At its own subsequent press conference in Berlin, the Ryanair Pilot Group invited Mr O'Leary to honour his statement because it had the 1,602.

Counsel for Ryanair, Thomas Hogan SC, asked: "You published what they believed was a gravely defamatory statement and expected him to come and meet you?"

Mr Murphy said he did not consider any defamatory statement had been made.

The case continues.
Prosecutors are seeking increased prison sentences for two men involved in a "fatal burglary".

John O'Donoghue (62) collapsed and died as he was about to confront two intruders, who ran away without offering assistance at Toomaline, Doon, Co Limerick, on August 27, 2015.

On an earlier occasion a prosecuting counsel referred to the case as a "fatal burglary".

Mr O'Donoghue's sister had to watch her brother "drop dead in front of the family home".

Cousins Michael Casey (34), of Clonlong Halting Site, Southill, Limerick, and David Casey (22), of Carragh Park, Belcamp, Dublin, had pleaded guilty to a series of burglaries.

Judge Tom O'Donnell sentenced both men at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court to four-and-a-half years imprisonment with the final year suspended on December 15, 2016.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close DPP wants longer terms for Michael Casey, pictured, and David Casey DPP wants longer terms for David Casey, pictured / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp DPP wants longer terms for Michael Casey, pictured, and David Casey

The Director of Public Prosecutions is now seeking a review of the men's sentences on grounds that they were "unduly lenient". The three-judge Court of Appeal reserved judgment.

Counsel for the DPP, Thomas O'Malley BL, submitted the sentence was too low for the burglary of the O'Donoghue household when one considered the harm that was caused.

"Of course they didn't for a moment intend to harm anybody," Mr O'Malley said, but "they had to take their victim as they found him".

He said offenders who engage in residential burglary must take account of the fact that "this kind of thing can happen. Somebody could become ill or die as a result of the fright".

There was an "inherent risk" and there had to be a punishment that reflected that harm, he submitted. He said David Casey was on bail at the time the burglaries were committed.

Counsel for David Casey, Michael Bowman SC, said what happened after the incident couldn't aggravate the offence and there was no evidence the cousins deliberately walked past Mr O'Donoghue as he was having a "fit or a heart attack".

Counsel for Michael Casey, Vincent Heneghan SC, said the final year of the sentences were suspended on condition both cousins be of good behaviour for six years. That indicated the judge had measured the gravity of the offences, he submitted.
The sentencing of a man convicted of a sex attack on a woman during a date arranged through the Tinder dating app has been adjourned to allow the prosecution clarify his previous convictions.

The 36-year-old Dublin man was convicted last month by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of sexually assaulting the woman on UCD campus, south Dublin on July 23, 2014.

The jury of six men and six women took around 90 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of guilty on the single count.

Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, told Judge Cormac Quinn that the prosecution needed to get formal records of the man's previous convictions from another European country when he was a minor.

Defence lawyer Paul Flannery SC said they wanted to seek the opinion of a criminal lawyer from that country on whether these convictions were spent or expunged under that country's law and whether they can be taken into account in this case.

Mr Flannery also asked the court to order a psychiatric report.

The case will be back before the court next week for legal argument relating to the issue of previous convictions. Judge Quinn adjourned sentencing to March 2 and remanded the man in continuing custody.

The trial heard that the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had met the woman on Tinder and had chatted online for some weeks before arranging to meet up.

The English language student told the trial that she was using Tinder to meet Irish people to practice speaking. She said she believed they were meeting to go for a coffee.

After driving the complainant to a secluded field on the campus the woman said his demeanour changed completely and he became like a monster.

She said he attacked her and she was in fear of her life and thought the man was going to rape her.

The man had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the woman on UCD campus, south Dublin on July 23, 2014.
A MAN and woman have been charged with aggravated burglary with a wedge hammer after a man was allegedly forced by raiders to withdraw thousands of euros in cash from his bank.

Carlos Lawrence (26) and Catherine Dempsey (25) appeared in Dublin District Court this morning on a burglary charge after being arrested by gardai investigating the incident in Terenure on Wednesday morning.

Neither Mr Lawrence, from Rosary Road, Maryland nor Ms Dempsey of Michael Malin House, Vicar Street, both in the south inner city, made any reply when charged.

They are both charged with burglary while being in possession of a wedge hammer at Wainsfort Manor Grove, Terenure on December 13.

Mr Lawrence was remanded in custody for a week after no bail application was made on his behalf, while Ms Dempsey is due to make a bail application later today.

Garda Sergeant Jason Miley told Judge Brian OShea he arrested Mr Lawrence for the purpose of charge at Terenure Garda Station at 1.22am this morning.

Mr Lawrence was charged at 1.28am and made no reply to the charge after caution. He was handed a copy of the charge sheet, Sgt Miley said.

Sgt Miley said he would be objecting to bail in Mr Lawrences case, but defence solicitor Clare Barry said she was not making a bail application at this time.

Sgt Miley said a file was being prepared and further charges were being sought. Judge OShea granted free legal aid after there was no garda objection.

Judge OShea remanded Mr Lawrence in custody to appear in Cloverhill District Court on December 22.

Garda John Walsh then gave evidence of arresting Ms Dempsey at 1.44am. She also made no reply after caution, he said.

He said he was objecting to bail and Ms Dempseys solicitor Richard Young said he would be making a bail application on her behalf.

Judge OShea put the case back to later in the afternoon. He also granted free legal aid in her case after Mr Young said she was not working and was a lone parent.

Neither accused spoke during the brief proceedings and neither has indicated how they intend to plead to the charges.
Some families of dying patients were forced to bid farewell to their loved ones crammed together in a communal room to be shared by four patients at a time, a report by the Mental Health Commission has found.

An unannounced inspection of the Highfield Hospital in Whitehall, north Dublin last July found "residents' deaths were not always handled with dignity and propriety as residents were not always offered a single room to receive end of life care, the Commissions inspection report published yesterday reveals.

If single rooms were not available in the approved centre, the resident received end of life care in a four-bed shared room. The bed screens in the four-bed shared rooms did not afford privacy because the mobile screens were too low and this meant there was difficulty in accommodating the needs of each residents representatives, family, next of kin and friends during end of life care and at other times.

In one room, the large pull-across screen was broken which meant that only two of the beds could be given privacy, but only one at a time.

The hospital, which provides nursing home and mental health facilities to 110 patients with dementia, was found to be non-compliant in regulations concerning care of the dying.

The risk rating was listed as high.

The centre was also found to be non-compliant regarding privacy of patients. In one instance, security cameras were unintentionally used to observe and record residents, although the issue was resolved on inspection.

The inspectors also found that on a number of occasions, there had been two male members of staff on duty at night and these were the only staff members available to wash a female resident who needed assistance. The relative came in to wash the resident as they felt that the residents dignity was not being appropriately respected because there were no female staff members on the ward to do this.

The hospital was also found to be non-compliant in regulations concerning the ordering, prescribing, storing and administration of medicine which also posed a high risk.

The inspectors also found that the hospital was non-compliant in regulations over staffing because not all health care professionals had received up-to-date training in basic life support as well as the Mental health Act 2001, posing a moderate risk to patients.

Inspectors found that the centres discharge policy was also non-compliant because it failed to include a protocol for discharging homeless people.

Meanwhile, another inspection report also released on Thursday by the Mental Health Commission found the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, south Dublin was non-compliant in eleven areas of inspection.

Among areas of non-compliance, the hospital, run by the Health Service Executive, was found to be below standards in areas of kitchen hygiene, with dirty ward kitchens, open bins and uncovered food, which attracted flies.

Inspectors found that patients were not served food after 5pm meaning that they were not provided with food and drink in quantities adequate for their needs.

They also found that the centre was non compliant regarding the use of physical restraints.

There was no documentary evidence that staff had read and understood the policy on the use of physical restraint, the report stated.

In one episode, the registered medical practitioner did not complete a physical examination of the patient within three hours after the initiation of physical restraint.
Anup Ojha is a reporter for The Kathmandu Post primarily covering social issues and human interest stories. Before moving to the social beat, Ojha covered arts and culture for the Post for four years.
The family of a young teacher who is currently on life-support in a Dubai hospital has raised over 90,000 following an online campaign to "bring Aisling home".

Aisling Brady (26) from Trim, Co Meath suffered three seizures, three cardiac arrests and a stroke as a result of a pulmonary embolism.

She has been in hospital in the UAE since November 27.

The physics and maths teacher fainted at her school, hit her head on the floor and was knocked out for around three minutes.

Expand Close Aisling Brady with her parents Terry and Antoinette Picture: GoFundMe / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Aisling Brady with her parents Terry and Antoinette Picture: GoFundMe

After being put in an ambulance and quickly transported to hospital, she then suffered three seizures, three cardiac arrests and a stroke.

As of today, the family has raised 87,229 after setting a goal of 80,000 goal.

More than 1,000 people had made donations via Go Fund Me. The fundraising campaign was set up by Aisling's boyfriend Kristian Mansfield, who she met in England while on a trip away in Swindon visiting a friend.

Aisling's mother, Antoinette Brady, explained that Aisling suffered a pulmonary embolism which had formed in her leg over a long period of time, eventually causing clots to travel to her heart, lungs and brain.

Speaking to Independent.ie, Mrs Brady said every day since then has been a positive as they were initially given "no hope".

"She is the fittest person in the world. She is seriously into her sport, her gym, she plays rugby out here in Dubai and she is a very healthy eater, and we think that is what is helping her to keep on fighting," she said.

"We received a call at half-five in the morning while back in Ireland and we had to try keep our heads, book the flights and at the same time comprehend what happened to our beautiful daughter."

Mrs Brady said if the ambulance had arrived a minute later, she doesn't think Aisling would have made it.

She is extremely thankful for the "wonderful" support they've received from her daughter's school and the hospital where she's being treated.

Aisling moved to the UAE in 2016 and has travelled on a number of long-haul flights this year, which doctors believe may have worsened the pulmonary embolism.

"She arrived home in April and surprised us, she just arrived at the door out of nowhere and that was absolutely fabulous. Then we had a family wedding in Connecticut and she also went to Bali with her friends in August - she loves to travel."

Mrs Brady said Aisling had been complaining of a pain in her leg and had visited doctors, but unfortunately the problem wasn't picked up.

The Brady family is now trying to raise the necessary funds to bring Aisling home to Ireland.

She will need to travel by air ambulance which is not covered by her medical insurance. The jet will need to fly at a much lower altitude and will essentially be a "hospital in the sky".

A cardiac specialist, neuro specialist, a doctor and nurses will need to travel on board.

"Because of the different complications, there were so many fireballs thrown at her. Trying to get her home in a safe way is going to be complicated, but we're hopeful we can do it.

"I want to raise awareness and warn people going away to work abroad that you should check your medical insurance, nobody tends to check these things as you never think you will need it.

"Aisling has everything on her side, and we are so grateful she is still with us. We are hoping she will become fully conscious in the next few days."

Aisling's boyfriend Kristian praised her "fighting" spirit.

"Everybody that knows Aisling understands she is resilient, driven, stubborn and tenacious and she will not settle for anything less than getting her life back up to speed," he wrote.

"With the right help and support, there is every hope we can together get her back to her loving and caring self. She has left huge footprints in the world, on our lives, let's make sure she can keep doing that."

You can donate to the GoFundMe page here.
Gardai have been instructed to release suspects detained on suspicion of withholding evidence after the High Court ruled the offence was unconstitutional.

The order was issued following the decision last month by Ms Justice Marie Baker.

She said she believed the offence, which has been in force for almost two decades, affected the constitutional right to silence and was "impermissibly vague and uncertain". The judge deferred making a formal declaration until December 21.

However, the Irish Independent has learned gardai have already taken action.

An instruction issued by An Garda Siochana's legal section stated anyone who was being held in custody on suspicion of withholding information should be immediately released.

Any officers with ongoing prosecutions for the offence were instructed to consult with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

A further instruction was given that no one was to be arrested for the offence until further notice.

Ms Baker's ruling strikes down Section 9(1)(b) of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1998.

This made it an offence for a person to fail to disclose information that might lead to the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person for a serious offence.

The offence was a major investigative tool for gardai probing serious crime and arrests under the section helped crack difficult cases where individuals were uncooperative.

It is not yet clear whether the DPP will appeal the ruling.

The Garda circular said the DPP was considering its position on the matter.

The constitutionality of the offence was successfully challenged by Michael Sweeney, of Bog Road, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo. He was a suspect in the Garda investigation into the killing of 23-year-old Tom Ward Jnr in Cranmore, Co Sligo, in August 2007.

While he was never charged in relation to the killing, Mr Sweeney was charged in 2011 with withholding information that might have led to arrest or prosecution of another person in relation to it.

He was sent forward for trial but this was placed on hold pending the outcome of his challenge to the constitutionality of the law.

In the High Court challenge Mr Sweeney argued that the offence created by the section breached his rights. He said it allowed for a situation where a person could be prosecuted for exercising their constitutionally protected right to silence.

Ms Justice Baker found in his favour. She determined it was "constitutionally impermissible" to create an offence of remaining silent in regard to the possible commission of an offence by another person. The judge said the section of the act made "silence of itself an offence".

She quoted Professor Dermot Walsh in her ruling. He described the section as "fundamentally objectionable in a society which seeks to strike a fair balance between the autonomy of the individual and the intrusive demands of the State".

Mr Sweeney was twice interviewed informally by gardai before he was arrested and detained for questioning in connection with the killing.

At no time during his interviews was he told his failure to answer questions could lead to a charge against him.
Four in 10 families becoming homeless had been issued with notices to quit by landlords, a new report shows.

The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) report, seen by the Irish Independent, detailed that 450 families became newly homeless in the first six months of the year.

It revealed that notices to quit were issued to 180 families by landlords.

The report found family circumstances - such as relationship breakdowns or overcrowding - were the most common reason for becoming homeless.

This was followed by forced departure from a tenancy in private rented accommodation.

In all, some 96pc of newly homeless families have entered into emergency accommodation related to an inability to secure a rented home or because of family circumstances.

Expand Close Tents where homeless people live along the Royal Canal in Dublin / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Tents where homeless people live along the Royal Canal in Dublin

The DRHE says that the busiest month for those presenting as homeless came in January. Many will defer from presenting themselves over the Christmas period.

The figure for last January was 87. However, over the course of the six months, the number of new families only dropped below 65 once, which was in February.

Over the six-month period - from the end of December 2016 to June 2017 - the number of families in emergency accommodation in Dublin rose from 1,028 to 1,115.

Of the 180 notices to quit given by landlords, reasons were not provided by 114 families, but of those remaining, the bulk of reasons were spread between tenant rent arrears and plans for the property to be sold. Only two were listed for anti-social behaviour.

Last month, DRHE head Eileen Gleeson was widely criticised after she said "it takes years of bad behaviour" to become homeless. She later acknowledged she could "probably have used better language".
John Nolan, 70, who died after being found on fire in unexplained circumstances

An Irish pensioner has died of his injuries after bursting into flames in unexplained circumstances in a London street.

Police are appealing for information on the blaze that killed 70-year-old John Nolan, a retired construction worker originally from Ireland.

Emergency services were called to reports of a man ablaze near his home in Haringey on 17 September.

Horrified members of the public tried to put the fire out and alerted police but the flames were not extinguished until firefighters arrived on the scene.

Mr Nolan was taken to a specialist hospital by air ambulance but died of severe burns, with an inquest due to open in March.

The London Fire Brigade investigated the cause of the fire but found no evidence of an accelerant that would have spread the flames.

Police have now taken charge of the investigation but have made no arrests, with Mr Nolans death being treated as unexplained.

The investigating officer, PC Damien Ait-Amer, said: We have spoken with a number of witnesses who saw Mr Nolan ablaze, but we have yet to establish how the fire started.

"Mr Nolan was a well-liked member of the community and none of our enquiries so far have indicated that he had been involved in a dispute of any sort.

"Nor does any account given by witnesses suggest that he had been in contact with another person at the time of the fire."

Anyone who witnessed the incident but has yet to speak with police is urged to contact investigators by calling 101 or tweeting @MetCC.
Frank (71) said he hopes to have a new home soon (Stock picture)

A 71-year-old man has spoken out about how he will be homeless for Christmas.

The man, who was only identified as Frank, said that he still has to work just to keep a roof over his head and that items like milk and bread are now luxuries for him.

Frank has been renting in his two-bed terraced house for seven years but his landlord has evicted him and he has to be out by next week.

Speaking on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One, he said: "This is my home for the next week or so and after that it's gone, as someone else told me someone else's house is my home.

"It's just the way it fell, that's the circumstances and there's nothing I can do about it.

"I pay 1250 per month, my pension is 150 per week so I have to go out and work, whatever I can get - a few odd jobs here and there.

"Whatever I get is to pay the rent and anything else covers food, electricity else and whatever else I need.

"I'm running to standstill, some weeks I don't have work and other weeks the weather is against me.

"Thank God though, I've been lucky for the past twelve years or so and there are other people who are worse off than I am.

"At least I can get out of bed in the morning but I fear the day I can't get out of bed to make money and pay."

Read More

Although he is set to be homeless for Christmas, he is optimistic that he will have a roof over his head.

Frank explained: "Do I believe in the system? Yes, because I have to believe in it.

"I don't think it's uncertain, like a famous person at Christmas, there'll be a room in the stable, I'll get a bed, I do believe that will happen.

"They have said hopefully I'll get a B&B, they said that because of my age a B&B is more suitable than a hostel or a hotel.

"I don't know if I'd be allowed to stay in the B&B during the day, it's all new ground to me.

"I hope for Christmas I'll be somewhere with a roof over my head and then in January I hope I'll have a home."

Frank has been approve for the Housing Assistant Payment scheme but he said he thinks his age and surging rents are holding him back from finding somewhere new to live.

He said: "I've been approved for HAP, I've gone to a few places and the landlords just look at me because of my age and ask themselves what's wrong, they have my number but I don't hear back.

"I have been looking around, I've tried to see can I get anywhere for 600 but they just laugh at me.

"For a single bed apartment, you're looking at anywhere from 1200, so double my pension and I have to get 600 a month just for a roof over my head, anything like a bottle of milk and a loaf is extra."

Frank has been divorced for 25 years and is no longer in contact with his family, he said that some of his friends know about his housing situation and one has offered him somewhere to stay temporarily but he doesn't want to burden them as they have a young family.

He stressed that he is grateful for the support given to him by Dublin City Council and various charities.

He said: "All the organisations like The Peter McVerry Trust, the Simon Community, Focus Ireland and so on, they are all working together but they must pick out who is the priority, so where am I on the list?

"I'm on the list but I'm not on the top or on the bottom.

"I'm not saying that the TDs do nothing, because they are listening to these organisations and they are doing things."

Read More

Alone, a charity which supports older people, said there has been a surge in people aged over 60 who are on the waiting list for social housing.

That figure grew 11.4 per cent each year between 2013 and last year, soaring by 18pc in Dublin in 2015 and 2016.

Sean Moynihan, Chief Executive of Alone, said that more must be done to tackle this issue.

He said: "Frank is extremely brave to speak out for himself and the problem is that there are so many Franks out there.

"Remember when someone like Frank loses his home he loses his community - his doctor, his friends, his church, his locality.

"At the moment he's in a situation where he doesn't know where he is going.

"I think the whole conversation surrounding housing for older people has been focused on downsizing for some reason.

"The reality of it is that for every house we have, you have 50 older people looking for a house.

"Frank is very young and able and still working but we have a lot of people with disabilities who cannot work."

He added: "Frank's story could be any of our stories."
One of the most senior civilians in An Garda Siochana has been called upon to clarify evidence he gave at an Oireachtas committee - which has since been contradicted by the Policing Authority.

Labour Party TD Alan Kelly last night said he is both "surprised and bemused" that the chief administrative officer of the force Joe Nugent has given testimony that has been disputed.

Mr Nugent, an ally of former Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan, told the Oireachtas Justice Committee that management failed to provide a written report on the use of the Gmail account by Ms O'Sullivan, which was the subject of major controversy.

The report itself was requested by the Policing Authority at a meeting with management in December 2016. But Mr Nugent - who examined the use of the Gmail account by the former Commissioner - told TDs and senators at the committee earlier this month that no report was provided.

He instead said a verbal report was provided. This claim was disputed in a statement given by the Policing Authority to the Irish Independent.

"Consequent to the detailed discussions at the authority's meeting in public in November 2016, regarding email/ICT usage and security, a short report was received from the Garda Siochana on January 25, 2017, just in advance of the authority's meeting," the statement said.

Last night, Mr Kelly criticised the failure by Mr Nugent to address the apparent flaw in his evidence.

"I am both bemused and confused that the evidence given by Mr Nugent has apparently been contradicted by the Policing Authority," the Tipperary TD told the Irish Independent.

"It is essential - in the interests of full clarity and transparency - that Mr Nugent addresses this apparent contradiction as a matter of urgency."

Queries to the Garda Press Office about the apparent contradiction once again yielded no response last night.

Instead, the press office released a brief statement, which said a report on a revised email policy for the force will be provided to the Policing Authority before the end of the year.

"An Garda Siochana is currently finalising a draft Internet and Email Policy. It is expected that the final draft will be forwarded to the Policing Authority for consideration by year end," the statement said.

In the statement this week, the Policing Authority said it was "disappointed" at the length of time it has taken for the new Gmail policy to be released.

"The Garda Commissioner was requested to provide detailed timelines for the publication of a new email policy and for the implementation of certain technical solutions identified in the report," it said.

"The authority is disappointed that the new email policy has not yet been published by the Garda Siochana and it continues to press for this to be done," the statement added.
There were scenes of jubilation at Leinster House as members of the deaf community celebrated the quick passage through the Dail of a bill that officially recognises Irish Sign Language (ISL) as a language of the State.

The Recognition of Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill 2016 is to be signed into law in the next few days by President Michael D Higgins.

There is an estimated 5,000 people for whom Irish Sign Language is their first or only language.

The bill will significantly enforce their right to use ISL as their native language and place a duty on public bodies to provide ISL interpretation free of charge whenever they seek to access State services and avail of their statutory entitlements. It will also give them the right to use ISL in legal or court proceedings.

Fianna Fail Senator Mark Daly had initiated the legislation through a private member's bill.
A 27-year-old old career criminal who has been arrested for a horrific 17k aggravated burglary of a vulnerable man in south Dublin is out on bail over three separate knife offences.

The south inner city criminal has links to the group led by jailed crimelord Brian Rattigan and previously served a lengthy jail sentence for a horrific incident in which an imitation firearm was produced during the course of a terrifying robbery of a woman.

This drug addict and his 24-year-old female companion remained in custody in Terenure Garda Station where they were being questioned about the sickening aggravated burglary of the shy and retiring gentleman who is aged in his 60s.

The violent drama began to unfold at around 10.30pm on Tuesday when a balaclava wearing duo gained entry to the mans house by smashing in a downstairs window.

The drug addicted pair were armed with a hammer and issued a number of threats to their unfortunate victim before he suffered facial injuries in a vicious assault.

The thugs took their victims bank card and mobile phone from him in the property.

The victim was held against his will in his own home before being driven to the Crumlin area shortly before midnight.

When they reached that locality, he was frogmarched to an ATM at the Bank of Ireland in Walkinstown and forced to withdraw 600  believed to be his maximum daily withdrawal limit.

A short time later, and in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the victim was forced to go to another bank-link and withdraw a further sum of 600 before he was brought back to his home.

It is understood that as the hours passed in that property, at least one of burglars revealed their faces when they took off their balaclavas.

Then shortly after 10am on Wednesday, the unfortunate man was driven from his home to the AIB in Rathgar where he has a bank account.

The female criminal walked into the bank with her victim who attempted to withdraw 16,000 in cash while her partner-in-crime waited in a car outside.

A bank employee informed the man that it would be up to an hour before the bank could deal with the transaction and the man was forced back into the car which was then driven around the area for around an hour.

Shortly after 11am, the man was forced to the return to the bank where he made a withdrawal of over 16,000 which he handed over to the duo who then fled the area in their car.

Gardai in Terenure were made aware of the situation at around 4pm on Wednesday when the man reported the crime after he had told family members what happened.

Officers immediately began to gather CCTV in the area and the suspects who are well known to gardai were quickly identified.

A search warrant was obtained to search a number of properties in the south inner city and a male and female were arrested late on Wednesday night at a flats complex in the Inchicore area.

Gardai recovered over 12,000 in cash.

A car was also seized as part of the investigation and was being forensically examined last night.

The victim of the crime is understood to be extremely distraught after his ordeal but is being comforted by family members.

It is understood the vulnerable man had taken in a number of lodgers into his Terenure property in recent times and gardai are working on the theory that one of these people received key information about his financial situation.

This victim was preyed upon by absolutely remorseless criminals, this was a planned crime, a senior source said last night.

This gentleman was taken advantage of and he suffered a horrible ordeal. Gardai are very confident of charges in this case and it is a great result that so much money as recovered, the source added.

The 27-year-old in custody is a volatile crack cocaine addict who was previously jailed for five years for unlawfully seizing a car and producing an imitation firearm with the intention of unlawfully seizing a car when he targeted a woman in north Dublin.

Sources confirmed to the Herald that the thug who has around 30 previous convictions is linked to the lower levels of the feared Brian King Ratt Rattigan gang and is considered an extremely volatile and dangerous drug addict who was previously involved in water charges protests in the south inner city.

He is currently on bail in relation to three separate charges of knife possession which occurred in the city earlier this year.

The female suspect is also known to gardai and she lives in a south inner city flats complex.
Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has joined Minister, Regina Doherty in publicly backing proposals to allow abortion up to 12 weeks for all women.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said he believes abortion should be available in more circumstances, but wants to read the full report of the abortion committee before making his full views known.

A cross-party committee voted in favour of a proposal allowing terminations without restriction up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.

The recommendations by the committee set the stage for a referendum on the issue next year.

"We all have our own personal views on this and I won't have a problem accepting the recommendations of the committee from what I understand to date," Mr Murphy said.

Read More

"For me I think it's an issue between a woman and her doctor and I look forward to looking at the report's recommendations in detail but from what I understand, I'll be supporting," he added.

His Cabinet colleague, Mr Donohoe said he wants to read the committee's full report before he makes his views known.

"I've outlined my views already on a number of occasions in relation to the change of our abortion regime here in Ireland, I do believe that it should be available in more circumstances than it is available at the moment," Mr Donohoe said.

"The commission have now concluded their work. I think many members who are on that committee have changed their own views on the issue as they've heard evidence and enquired into it.

"Like Eoghan I will be reading the report myself, I will be supporting the referendum bill. We do need a referendum on the matter and I'll outline my own views on the issue more fully when I've read the report in the New Year," he added.
Left alliance isnt authoritarian, says Maoist chief

CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has lashed out at those who call the left alliance to be authoritarian and autocratic.
TWO men have been arrested by gardai investigating the assault and false imprisonment of an Irish Rail security guard earlier this month.

The alleged incident occurred at approximately 5am on Tuesday morning, December 5, in the Kilbricken, Mountrath area in Co Laois.

The assault occurred when the victim, who arrived for work, was approached by a number of men who assaulted him and locked him into his car boot before they escaped.

It is understood he was locked in for up to nine hours, and suffered a serious injury to one of his eyes. He is said to be deeply traumatised by the incident.

Gardai investigating the incident arrested two men on the 13th of December and detained them at Portlaoise Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 as amended.

Both are still being detained at Portlaoise Garda station.
Winter had been enduring something of a bad rep until the Scandinavians came along and saved it. Thanks to hygge (pronounced 'heurgha'), the phenomenon that took the world by storm last year, the colder months became less about scraping windshields and broken boilers, and more about cashmere blankets, comfort food by the fire and a general sense of toasty, cosy calm.

Hygge has become so popular that Scotland has now declared its own homespun brand of lifestyle. VisitScotland has declared cosagach - an old Celtic word for feeling snug and sheltered - as the new hygge. Want to get away from it all and settle into a Highland pub with a hot toddy? Welcome to cosagach.

It does raise the question: what might Irish hygge look like? In terms of battling against the cold with warmth, cosiness and humour, we could probably give the Scandis and the Scots a run for their money. And taking a leaf out of Scotland's book, we could upcycle hygge into 'teolai', the Irish word for cosy.

If you fancy giving teolai a go this winter, here are a few pointers to get you started.

1. Michael D Higgins

Try as we might, we have been unable to locate Trump/May/Merkel tea cosies (or any kitchen accoutrements for that matter). But there's something perfectly fitting about our own president Michael D Higgins being turned into a tea cosy: he's warming, toasty and looks cute in knitted wool. In time, it will become a lasting artefact of legacy on par with the Mary Robinson tapestry rug. And Darach O Seaghdha, who runs the Twitter account @theirishfor, appears to have already recognised the warming qualities of our president. "Maybe the Irish for hygge should be O hUiginn?" he tweeted last year.

2. Tea

Whether it comes from under a woolly president or not, our enduring love affair - nay, dependence - on tea is pure teolai. You'd be hard pushed to find something as toasty for the soul as a proper, stand-your-spoon-in-it cup of Barry's or Lyons). Add in a chocolate Kimberley and, really, what more could you want?

Expand Close There's something perfectly fitting about our own president Michael D Higgins being turned into a tea cosy: he's warming, toasty and looks cute in knitted wool / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp There's something perfectly fitting about our own president Michael D Higgins being turned into a tea cosy: he's warming, toasty and looks cute in knitted wool

3. The Guinness Christmas advert

There's snow every which way you look in this Christmas Eve advert, yet even the deer in the Phoenix Park and the couple throwing ice at each other on St Patrick's Hill seem thoroughly toasty. Now airing on Irish screens for over 15 years, this ad, showing the Irish winter in the very best light, is as cosy as it comes. (See also, the iconic ESB ad where every light and electric blanket is put up to 90 before the homecoming of a beloved son).

4. Irish family

Blood is thicker than even Guinness in Ireland and while we bicker and fight like mad, we place a huge emphasis on family. From grannies to babbies, we love the calm - and the occasional chaos - that being around your family creates. Can there be anything more teolai in the world than a cup of tea with your mammy (especially if she has the aforementioned tea cosy)?

5. The snug

The clue is of course in the name. Where snugs were originally a place for ladies, gardai and the parish priest to enjoy a drink away from prying eyes in a public bar, now a pub snug is the hottest seat in the house. A place of pure perfection, far from the madding crowd, to sink a few pints (or, if you're going the whole teolai hog, an Irish coffee). You'll find no shortage of great cosy snugs in Ireland - The Sadler's Well in Athboy, O'Shea's in Borris and The Lord Edward or Kehoe's in Dublin.

6. Aran jumpers

The Scandis have their own famous Nordic knits, so it stands to reason that for real cosiness, Aran jumpers would feature quite prominently in teolai. Originally created for fishermen to wear at sea, Aran jumpers are well able to withstand the vagaries of any Irish winter. By all accounts, real Aran jumpers were knitted using unscoured wool that would make them water resistant and wearable, even when wet. Which sounds very Irish to us.

Expand Close The Lord Edward snug / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The Lord Edward snug

7. The all-day breakfast

Whatever about its actual health benefits, the 'full Irish' can always be counted on to invoke a particular feeling of wellness and calm. For even more teolai points, add Ballymaloe Relish, soda bread or a deliciously doughy Waterford blaa.

8. The 40 Foot (and other sea swimming spots)

This may not strike you as being immediately teolai, what with the freezing cold water bit, but come Christmas Day, you'd be hard pressed to find people as happy as those who have managed to take a dip in the Irish Sea before tucking into Christmas dinner. The body produces even more endorphins than usual once you plunge it into cold water, and according to sea swimming disciples, there's no better feeling than leaving your problems on the shore. Given the interaction with nature, it definitely beats a treadmill as a way to stay healthy. The 40 Foot, with its close-knit community, is synonymous with wellness, but there's also Malin Beg in Donegal, Hook Head in Wexford and Derrynane in Kerry for anyone keen to check out the myriad benefits of sea swimming.

9. The Irish temperament

When it comes to cosiness and warmth, our very way of being would put the Scandis in the shade. Irish people are sunny side out, preferring to err on the side of optimism each and every time.

When it comes to strangers, we Irish treat them merely as friends we haven't yet met. If you want to be enveloped in the warmth of easy companionship and bonhomie well, we're pretty good at that. And never underestimate the teolai qualities of a good sense of humour. Wellness and contentment guaranteed.

Expand Close Aran jumpers would feature quite prominently in teolai. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Aran jumpers would feature quite prominently in teolai.

10. Panto

There's nothing more reassuringly cosy than tradition and come winter, panto barrels to town as sure as night follows day.

Song, dance, slapstick, in-jokes and sexual innuendo - it's all there as part of a much-loved institution that parents and kids alike bond over and enjoy.
There is increasing recognition that air pollution is not just an outdoors problem, it is important to also consider indoor air quality. Indoor air quality is significant because it can affect our comfort, productivity and, most importantly, our health. You can influence your indoor air quality in three main ways: source control (ie limiting the source of pollutants), ventilation, and cleaning of any pollutants that may be present. Here we break those three main strategies down even further to list 10 things you can do to improve your indoor air quality.

1 Be air aware

Although you may think of pollution as being "outside", indoor air can be more polluted than outdoor air. This is because unlike the open outdoors, indoor spaces are contained, any pollution or contaminants that may be present can accumulate. You should be conscious of the indoor air quality, especially as nowadays people spend, on average, 90pc of their time indoors - eg at home, at work, in other public buildings such as shops or in a vehicle.

2 Be Goldilocks and keep your relative humidity 'just right'

If you keep track of the relative humidity at home or at work, you should aim for levels between 30pc and 50pc. Below 30pc relative humidity, your eyes and skin may become dry. Above 50pc relative humidity dust mite populations increase and above 60pc relative humidity, mould growth can increase.

3 Think before you buy

Every fixture and fitting that makes up your home or workplace, and every other item that you bring into the indoor space, can influence your indoor air quality. The paint on the walls, the flooring, the furniture and many other daily items can be sources of chemicals known as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). You may have come across VOCs when you experience that 'new car smell'. That source of that smell is often VOCs released from the plastic, adhesives and sealants in the new car's interior. VOCs can also be emitted from building materials and household products. Look out for labels such as "low VOC" or "no added formaldehyde" on products like paint and furniture. Even better, check if the products have been independently tested to back up these claims.

4 Don't smoke indoors

One of the best ways to limit the introduction of pollutants in your indoor space is to never smoke indoors. Extend the smoking ban already present in workplaces and other enclosed public spaces to your own home. A recent study in Scotland found that over a lifetime, a non-smoker who lives with a smoker can inhale as much of a pollutant called PM2.5 (potentially dangerous fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres) as a non-smoker who lives in a very polluted city like Beijing. Source: tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/24/e3/e205

5 Try to cut down on the candles

Although they add to a cosy atmosphere, burning candles produce both particulate matter and gaseous pollutants. Scented candles can also release VOCs, even when unlit. If you do light a candle indoors, be sure to keep the room well ventilated

6 Ventilation

In recent years, there has been a trend towards increased air tightness, insulation and double glazing and other strategies designed to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. However, the drive for improved energy efficiency does not necessarily have to come at the expense of reduced indoor air quality. The way to achieve this balance is to focus on ventilation. In the old days, increasing ventilation simply meant opening a window. Nowadays there are more sophisticated ventilation strategies available such as heat recovery ventilation or mechanical ventilation heat recovery that can both provide fresh air without the loss of heat, thus saving energy.

7 Don't Cook up a Storm

Have you ever noticed a smoky cloud in the kitchen after frying a steak? This is because cooking, especially frying, is an important source of airborne particles in the home. Counteract this with an effective exhaust hood above your cooker, and remember to regularly change the filter. Another tip is to use the back rings where possible.

8 Don't be fooled by claims that plants clean the air

Plants have many benefits, including brightening up indoor spaces, but claims that they can clean the air are often overstated. In fact, there have only been a few studies of the effect of plants in indoor air quality in homes and offices and results have been mixed. It is definitely not advisable to rely on plants alone to clean your indoor air as by one estimate, 680 plants would be needed to clean the air in a 1,500 square foot house.

9 Vacuum Clean

Expand Close Regular vacuum cleaning can improve air quality at home / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Regular vacuum cleaning can improve air quality at home

Regular vacuum cleaning can help to improve indoor air quality by removing dust and allergens from the floor. Removal of these particles prevents them from being resuspended from the floor into the air when people walk around their homes or office. But make sure the vacuum cleaner itself isn't a contributor to poor indoor air quality. An Australian study in 2012 found that vacuum cleaners can release dust, bacteria and allergens back into the air. Look for a model with a filter to ensure that what you clean up is not simply being released back out. And again, look for vacuum cleaners that have been independently tested to back up any advertising claims.

10 Cleaning

Vacuuming is only part of the solution. To truly tackle indoor air quality, you need a multifaceted approach. Regular cleaning can also make a valuable contribution. But thinking back to the issue of source control, be careful about the products you use and only use the amount of cleaning product necessary to do the job. Read the label and ventilate the area when using cleaning products.

 Dr Bruce Mitchell is a consultant physician and clinical immunologist at Blackrock Clinic and CEO & founder of airmid healthgroup which specialises in aerobiology, microbiology, allergy and immunology
Last year, John Ennis (83) from Kilmainham was left reeling when Prince, his King Charles spaniel and pet of 11 years, died.

"I'd loads of friends from when I'd walk the dog and now people think that, because they've not seen me, I've been sick," says John. "When I would be out in the evening and come back, it was a positive dose having a dog there to greet me and when I watched telly he'd be on the settee beside me and I'd be rubbing his hair. It was therapy. I miss all that."

Prince gave John a sense of security and purpose. "It's a hobby, it keeps your mind sharp and you have to be well in yourself because it's a big responsibility," he explains. "He was also a good little watchdog, he'd bark at shadows. I feel at the moment there's something missing in the house. I'm still not over the loss of him."

psychologist Owen Connolly, who runs the Connolly Counselling Centre in Stillorgan, Dublin, who previously ran pet bereavement counselling sessions, says John's sense of loss is very familiar, but that he firmly believes the fear of dealing with the loss of a loved furry friend shouldn't put people off having a pet because the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

In fact, in addition to the many health benefits already outlined, he would also argue that owning an animal can even help stave off dementia and senility.

"Your mind needs activity and difference. With a pet you can have different experiences with them each time, they're unpredictable. That kind of thing also helps us not fall into a 'standard' thinking. It helps your brain to continue functioning in a positive way."

Roisin Quilty (54) was recovering from breast cancer when a rough-haired lurcher called Lady Petal came into her life.

"I had never had anything to do with dogs my whole life," she reveals. "Then Lady arrived in an awful state. She needed a lot of TLC to come back from the life that she'd had."

But it wasn't just Lady who benefited from the nurturing relationship. According to Roisin from Rathfarnham, Dublin, she too began to feel benefits from caring for a rescue dog.

"Together we both went down the road of total recovery," says Roisin. "She was a lifeline."

They've long been known as man's best friend but an increasing body of evidence shows that owning a pet pooch doesn't just bring companionship but also multiple health benefits.

A new study by scientists in Sweden followed 3.4 million people and discovered that not only does keeping a dog make you happy, it could also lead to a longer life.

The long-term study by Uppsala University analysed Swedish men and women, aged between 40 and 80 and with no history of cardiovascular disease for 12 years, and found that dog owners who lived alone had a 33pc lower risk of death than those living alone without a canine companion. The risk of cardiovascular-related death (from heart-attacks, heart failure, strokes and other circulatory diseases) also fell by 35pc for dog owners.

Benefits also exist for dog owners in a full house: an 11pc decrease in chance of death and a 15pc lower chance in death due to cardiovascular disease.

Considering the fact that cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in Ireland - killing 10,000 people every year according to the HSE - the Swedish research into canine benefits is hugely relevant to would-be dog owners here.

The reasons for these health benefits are often complex. For Roisin, who rehomed Lady four years ago, it was the focus that having a dog gave her that proved so healing. Encouraged by her son, Roisin got involved with the DSPCA as part of her cancer-recovery programme. Before her diagnosis she'd worked in the private sector, but the trauma of her cancer battle and the debilitating effects of chemotherapy meant she had to give up work.

"It was horrendous," says Roisin. "I wasn't in a position to work so my lifeline became coming to the DSPCA. It gave me a focus, physical exercise and mental stimulation."

She agreed to foster Lady over Christmas but decided she couldn't bear to part with her once the festive period was over. "Who would get up and go out on any morning for an hour before they go to work if they didn't have a dog?" she laughs. "Lady really puts a spring in my step, both mentally and physically. It's incredibly invigorating to be out and about getting all that cardiovascular exercise." Twelve months ago Roisin got the all clear from cancer and now works with the adoptions team at the DSPCA.

An interesting fact is that the pets themselves might be aware of the helping paw they can play in an owner's recovery. According to Dr Connolly, a dog can sense a physiological change in the human body and react to it.

"We need to understand that they give back more than we've ever given to them," says Dr Connolly. "Dogs can actually read your mind to the point that, when you are in a down place the biology in your own body changes and your oxygen to blood mix becomes much lower giving you a different type of circulation. Dogs can actually recognise that better than any instrument and come alongside you and wag their tail and that can bring you out of that situation."

For Lauren Fay (17) from Galway City, walking her dog Eve not only helped her cope with the emotional impact of weighing 18 stone but the physical exercise from walking her adorable small terrier mix also enabled her to lose nine stone in just under two years. She credits her sensitive pooch with helping her get to a happier place.

"I was 12 when we rescued Eve from a shelter," reveals only child Lauren. "She was the only dog there who was friendly towards me." Throughout her childhood, Eve helped Lauren deal with the difficulties around being overweight.

"I was always heavier but it became out of hand when I started secondary school as I often got bullied for my size which led to me comfort eating a lot," she explains. "Being overweight made me very insecure and shy and I rarely went out. Eve was my favourite company. She could always cheer me up if I'd had a hard day in school."

When Lauren decided to lose weight, it wasn't a doctor she turned to but Eve. "Eve gave me a reason to go out and exercise," she says. "Walking helped clear my head. I taught myself that instead of eating, if something bad happened, I could just take Eve out for a few minutes."

From ambles around her local area, Lauren, her mam and Eve soon upped the pace to strolls along the 2km stretch at Salthill Prom. "As soon as I started seeing results my confidence went up loads and I started feeling so much happier in myself. Now I still include walking Eve in my exercise routine. I don't consider it a chore, it's become part of my new life and I never see myself going back to my old habits."

The deadly effects of a sedentary lifestyle are something we are learning more and more about but having a dog might be even better than having a gym membership.

"In overweight individuals, almost two-thirds of their daily activity is based around walking their dog," explains Janis Morrisey, Health Promotion Manager at the Irish Heart Foundation. "We know that sedentary time is an independent risk for increased waist circumference and clustered metabolic risk." But while many exercise routines can lose momentum because of their lack of 'purposeful activity' - it's easy to put off a run or a swim if you've had a long day or the weather's bad - dog walking is more sustainable quite simply because it has to be done. A dog's needs can't be sidelined like a trip to the gym can.

Moreover, prioritizing a pet's routine can have a beneficial impact on your own. Busy businesswoman Glenda Byrne (41) from Ballsbridge, Dublin leads a sales team of seven for a multinational company but she believes that getting her French Bulldog, Lulu, as a puppy earlier this year, has helped reduce her stress levels and curb her longstanding unhealthy habits.

"Before getting Lulu I'd work all day, come home and turn the laptop back on again and work until midnight or later," she explains. "Now I get home and if I'm on my phone and Lulu wants to play, she'll put her ball on my phone to stop me texting!"

She adds: "The feelgood vibe is enormous but she also forces me to have a routine. I sleep better now because having her lying on me is so comforting and I get up more easily because I know I have to let her outside. When you're stressed you're always thinking about all the stuff you should be doing, but a dog pulls you into the 'now' and that gives your brain a break. It's like mindfulness."

Dr Mary Favier, a Cork-based GP, recommends interacting with dogs as a source of comfort and therapy for her patients. "It's about meeting and serving someone else's needs," she says. "It's good for us all to have to help someone else."

It's a message that's particularly true for those living alone. But the flipside is the devastating loss that can be caused when a beloved furry companion passes away.

Contact Alone.ie on (01) 679 1032 for support and advice on living Alone
The New York Times' travel section has been foraging in Dublin, and this week it shared five city shopping picks with its readers.

Skipping the "international brands" dominating most of Grafton Street, it zeroes in on a tasty mix of independent businesses creating "a concentrated destination for contemporary Irish design" around nearby South William, Clarendon and Drury Streets.

So which stores does it recommend to its readers?

[Made] Store & Gallery, in the Powerscourt Centre, gets the nod for its "fashion-forward" clothes lines and Chupi jewellery. On Drury Street, the Irish Design Shop is name-checked, as is vintage-inspired Carousel on Exchequer Street.

Were loving the new collection from @madedublin filled with tons of cute staple pieces perfect for your summer wardrobe. #IrishDesign pic.twitter.com/sCeCTOd8fB  Powerscourt Centre (@ShopPowerscourt) June 23, 2017

MoMuse, featuring the jewellery of Margaret O'Rourke, gets a hat tip (it's also in the Powerscourt Centre), while the Westbury Hotel's Wilde restaurant is recommended for a shopping break... with blankets and G&Ts if that's your bag.

With some 1.6 million digital subscribers and a massive daily circulation, The New York Times is one of the most influential titles in global journalism - even the briefest of mentions is capable of creating huge exposure for businesses.

Its 'Foraging' column is just the latest visit to Dublin. Last month, a travel feature zeroed in on Portobello, the city's historical Jewish hub and now "a culinary hotbed" thanks to the likes of Eatyard, Bastible, the Bretzel Bakery and Picado Mexican.

Read the full Foraging column here.
Making a mad dash to snag a spot for your carry-on bag could be a thing of the past for American Airlines (AA) passengers following its latest cabin upgrade.

The worlds largest airline will be now be equipped with Airbuss new Airspace XL bins, which are designed to provide 40pc more storage space and accommodate bigger and heavier bags stowed on their side.

The new overhead lockers - first introduced back in 2016 on the A330neo and A350 and earlier this year on the A320 - allow the storage of up to eight bags (three more than the current capacity of five), each measuring up to 61cm x 40.6cm x 25.4cm in size.

The oversized bins, which will be retrofitted on 202 of AAs A321 aircraft (marking the largest cabin retrofit in Airbus history), will create a faster and improved travel experience for both passengers and cabin crew, the airline says.

Expand Close American Airlines A321. Photo: Airbus / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp American Airlines A321. Photo: Airbus

The manufacturer has yet to confirm by when the new bins will be available on AAs A321 aircraft. But theyre expected to be delivered for A320s by late next year from FACC (the Austria-based aircraft interiors manufacturer), while all new A321 planes currently in production will also be built with them.

There's a catch, however

Not all fliers will be able to benefit from all this extra space. Those who purchase one of AAs basic economy fares (its lowest priced seat offering, introduced at the start of the year) dont have access to the overhead lockers and are only allowed one small carry-on (no larger 45cm x 35cm x 20 cm), to be placed under the seat in front of them.

Will Ryanair introduce them?

Expand Close Boeing's new 'Space Bins'. Credit: Boeing / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Boeing's new 'Space Bins'. Credit: Boeing

Due to a lack of space in the overhead bins, Ryanair only guarantees that the first 90 carry-on bags will be allowed on board - the rest face being put in the hold (subjecting their owners to a tiresome wait at the luggage carousel).

The issue, common to budget airlines, means passengers resort to queueing long before the gate opens just to ensure their case is permitted. So surely these extra big Airbus bins would be welcomed by the carrier?

Unfortunately, the Ryanair fleet consists of Boeing 737s - so no Airspace XL.

However, back in 2015 Boeing introduced Space Bins (above) on its 737 MAX aircraft, which are designed to provide 50pc more storage space, holding up to six standard size cabin bags - two more than Boeings Sky Interior pivot bins. Ryanair is waiting on 110 737 MAXs, the first of which will be delivered in early 2019, so an easing of the carry-on nightmare could be on the horizon.

One thing Ryanair still refuses to give passengers, alas, is seat-back pockets. The seats on its new 737 MAXs will not have them, it has confirmed.

Read more:

Read More

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Flightradar24.com's view of Ireland and the UK at 10.53am on August 23, 2017. Screengrab: Flightradar24.com.

Thats the 1055 BA flight from Copenhagen, I say to my colleagues, pointing out of the window from our London Victoria office.

No one seems interested. But I am.

As the Airbus A320 begins its final approach to Heathrow, its running about five minutes late, travelling around 185 knots and at 4,000 feet. I wonder whos on board and what awaits them once they arrive in west London.

Unfortunately, thats one thing Flightradar24 cant tell me. Everything else the aircraft-tracking website has covered  the registration number of the aircraft, model, time spent in the air, distance to destination (a subscription fee unlocks even more info, including aircraft age, wind speed and temperature).

I look at the planes on my computer screen then watch them pass overhead. Another BA flight, this time from Marseilles, appears through the clouds.

Im just one of two million people around the world who use Flightradar24 to follow any of the 16,000 flights that are flying through the air at any given moment.

Thanks to @flightradar24 I'm becoming a planespotter. Oh, what's this? Just @British_Airways' BA8 Boeing 777 arriving from Tokyo. pic.twitter.com/r21yoQNVHJ  Hugh Morris (@horatiomo) June 23, 2017

Head to the site now and youll see Ireland, the UK, Europe, North America, the whole world, awash with tiny, yellow planes of various shapes and sizes. Theres something satisfying about spotting an A380, the worlds largest passenger jet, as it completes a seven-hour flight from Doha. It may seem dull, but its oddly addictive.

CEO Fredrik Lindahl remembers how the site was born.

It was 2006 and internet entrepreneurs Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg had just launched Flygresor.se - a Swedish flight comparison website, not dissimilar to the likes of Skyscanner, which still exists - and they needed a way to drive traffic to it from Google.

Back then - and to a certain extent still today - getting a lot of other websites to link to your website was important to rank well, says Fredrik.

Expand Close In 2016, a United Airlines flight from Belfast to Newark made an emergency diversion to Shannon Airport. Pic: Flightradar24.com / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp In 2016, a United Airlines flight from Belfast to Newark made an emergency diversion to Shannon Airport. Pic: Flightradar24.com

Mikael and Olov saw that these ADS-B receivers (flight tracking technology) were available and decided that making a website showing what air traffic looks like at any given time would be something that would attract a lot of links.

Though it was only intended to support Flygresor, the tracking site soon overtook its maker in popularity.

To avoid Google starting to think that Flygresor was about flight tracking over Sweden rather than finding the cheapest plane tickets to New York, the flight tracking component was moved to a separate domain, says Fredrik, and Flightradar24 was born.

But it was in 2010 that the site got its big break: the Icelandic ash cloud.

The April eruption of Eyjafjallajokull (below) led to the grounding of some 100,000 flights across Europe and North America - as many as 19,000 a day - throwing thousands of holiday plans, and the profit margins of airlines, into disarray. It also drove people online to look at how the volcanic dust was affecting their holiday.

Expand Close Ash plume from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull crater on May 15, 2010. Photo: Getty / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Ash plume from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull crater on May 15, 2010. Photo: Getty

Since then, Flightradar24 has grown inordinately, increasing the number of data receivers it uses around the world from 500 to 15,000 and launching an app.

Based predominantly in Stockholm, it employs more than 30 people around the world, several of whom manage its Twitter account, which has helped highlight the sites uses to the social media savvy.

Earlier this month, Boeing drew a massive outline of a Dreamliner in the sky over the course of a 17-hour flight, starting and finishing in Seattle, the manufacturers headquarters. Such a stunt would not have been possible without Flightradar24, which monitored the 787s progress. Boeing later used the website for a playback of the flights route in a tweet which has since been retweeted 3,500 times.

Flightradar24s Twitter account, which boasts 375,000 followers, splits its time between genuine aviation updates (storms, drones, emergencies and delays), airline activity (deliveries of new aircraft) and quirky content (bizarre holding patterns, interesting planes or mesmerising air traffic flows).

Who knew aviation could be so fun?

Fredrik breaks down users of the site into four categories: professionals, aviation enthusiasts, laymen tracking the flight of a loved one, or people like me, who spot a plane overhead and want to know where its going.

Whenever media reports on a specific flight, theres a spike in traffic, he says. For example, whenever the Pope is going somewhere on a plane, that tends to draw a big crowd.

Additionally, when there is a crash or an emergency diversion, the public flocks to the website to see the details, while sometimes crash investigation teams request data from the site.

In the wake of a number of high-profile incidents (MH370, for example), the media is increasingly ready to report on any issues affecting aircraft, with Flightradar24 providing minute-by-minute details of where a plane is at any given time.

But on a daily basis, its more fun for glancing at the sky and instead of wondering where that jet is going, knowing.

How does Flightradar24 work?

Expand Close Contrails in a blue sky. Photo: Deposit / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Contrails in a blue sky. Photo: Deposit

Flightradar24 uses a number of data sources to track planes, including ADS-B, MLAT and radar. Broadly speaking, it is GPS navigation sources used by aircraft, sent from satellites to receivers around the world that feed into Flightradar24.

Accordingly, there are some parts of the world where the receivers cannot pick up signals for aircraft. Flightradar24 estimates it tracks around 70 per cent of all commercial passenger aircraft using ADS-B through some 10,000 receivers. It says that 100 per cent of Europe and the US is covered, with good coverage across a host of nations, including much of Asia and South America.

When an aircraft is out of radar, its position is estimated (for up to two hours).

Some aircraft without ADS-B transponders do not appear on Flightradar24, especially light aircraft in general aviation. Many private jets, military aircraft and helicopters do not appear, while some aircraft - like Air Force One - have their paths blocked for security reasons.

For more information visit flightradar24.com/how-it-works.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Bed bugs are increasing in Ireland due to the increased movement of people internationally. (Rentokil Pest Control/PA)

Bed bugs in the UK are resistant to poison such that entire communities have given up attempting to eradicate them and are learning to live alongside them, experts warned earlier this week.

Residents in Govanhill in Glasgow had chosen to accept the insects after running out of ways to kill them.

Here in Ireland, Colm Moore, area technical manager at Rentokil in Ireland says that while there is no scientific proof that bed bugs are becoming more resistant in Ireland, infestations are on the rise.

The number of callouts Rentokil made this year in relation to bed bugs represented a 14-fold increase since 1997.

Our parents and grandparents were aware of bed bugs. We all know the saying, night night, dont let the bed bugs bite. That generation knew what bed bugs looked like. Now people dont - they think theyre dust mites or beetles, but theyre not.

We see a lot of them. Theyve been on the increase since the early noughties. We probably link that most likely to the movement of people.

When travelling abroad, Mr Moore warns, there are ways to spot bed bugs in your accommodation. There are two tell tale signs in particular - and they don't involve bites on human skin.

Shed skins. As the animal grows it has to shed its exoskeleton. These are left in the corners of mattresses, in picture frames, and they look like very light coloured see-through plastic.

When youre at home, and changing the bed sheets and the duvet covers, look for things that look like coffee grounds.

Youre looking for blood spotting. A bed bug is an ectoparasite, it feeds on the host - you or me - and it gets rid of the blood that it cant digest. This blood will look like spilt coffee grounds in the corner of the bed.

They dont actually live in the mattress. They will harbour on the mattress, in the seams or the buttons. If you lift up the seams, youll see eggs or nymphs.

Mr Moore added: Theyre not microscopic, the adults are about five to 6mms and theyre discoid in shape. Eggs are milky white so difficult to spot.

People with bed bug infestations in their homes wont always know theyve been bitten, Moore warned.

You may not actually react for several weeks If there are two people in a bed, I guarantee both of them are getting bitten, its just that one person is showing up with bites.

For them to fully develop into adults they need at least five blood feeds.

If theyre there, females will produce 250 to 300 eggs in a lifetime and will live a year without a blood feed.

There are several things people can do to prevent bed bug infestations, he says, especially when travelling abroad.

When youre abroad and travelling around the place, which I do a lot, I check my bed. Its knowing what the signs are.

He added: If people store furniture and get second-hand furniture, you can import the problem into your home.

Varying several chemical treatments can be effective in eradicating them, Mr Moore said.

If you use insecticide, use a three-part treatment. First, inspect and treat, follow up and treat, follow up and treat again."

Weve no scientific proof in Ireland that we have resistant bed bugs. But if youre trying to get rid of them, use different chemical ingredients to prevent resistance.
Multi-sector nutrition plan 2 in force

The government has launched the Multi-Sector Nutrition Plan (MSNP)-2, aiming to wipe out malnutrition among women, children and adolescents in the next 10 years.
Actor Idris Elba attends the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince Harry and his fiancee, US actress Meghan Markle, visit the Nottingham Academy as part of their first official public engagements togetheron December 1, 2017 in Nottingham, England

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales chats to actor Idris Elba as he hosts the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Prince Harry and his fiancee, US actress Meghan Markle, visit Nottingham for their first official public engagement together on December 1, 2017 in Nottingham, England

Meghan Markle meets well-wishers as she arrives with Prince Harry at the Nottingham Contemporary in Nottingham, to attend a Terrence Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair on their first official engagement together

Prince Harry and fiancee Meghan Markle attend the Terrence Higgins Trust World AIDS Day charity fair at Nottingham Contemporary on December 1, 2017 in Nottingham, England

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales chats to actor Idris Elba and his partner Sabrina Dhowre as he hosts the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Throughout Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's whirlwind engagement, one thing has become clear - she is the summation of the next generation of princesses.

Like Kate Middleton before her and others around Europe like Spain's Queen Letizia and Sweden's Princess Sofia who married into royalty, she has to quickly learn the rules of her new way of life: the etiquette, the curtseying and not holding her fiance's hand in public. But it's clear that in a relatively short space of time, she has already earned legions of fans around the world, particularly within the UK.

Expand Close Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle visit a school in Nottingham, December 1, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle visit a school in Nottingham, December 1, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Even Idris Elba isn't immune to her obvious charm and praised her qualities as a role model, while fittingly at an event at Buckingham Palace with her future father-in-law Prince Charles to mark the work of The Prince's Trust, which supports young people aged 11 to 30 through, education and training.

"Meghan Markle, as a person, regardless of her colour, is a role model," he said, reports the Press Association. As a strong woman marrying into our royal family, she's going to be a role model for any woman - black, white.

"The point is that of course our society is one of mixed heritage and it's nice to see Meghan within the royal family.

"It's great. And of course she's going to be a beacon and of course she's going to be someone that people look towards."

Expand Close Actor Idris Elba attends the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Actor Idris Elba attends the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

And it turns out that he is, unsurprisingly, a royalist. "Our country is built on our monarchy, we love our monarchy and it's good to be connected," he added.

While Meghan and Harry haven't revealed the exact date of their wedding, they will exchange vows in May at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. And the former Suits star made a surprise appearance at the venue last week for the annual staff Christmas party.

Queen Elizabeth was the expected guest of honour for the 900-person event, but it was Markle's brief appearance alongside her future husband that sent guests into a flurry. It's believed the couple were scoping out the venue to see what it looks like with a crowd in order to better plan their wedding.

Harry has confidence in her too - much like their first joint appearance at Nottingham earlier this month, she was trusted to work the room alone, speaking to people and shaking hands.

Expand Close US actress Meghan Markle visits Nottingham for her first official public engagement with fiancee Prince Harry on December 1, 2017 in Nottingham, England / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp US actress Meghan Markle visits Nottingham for her first official public engagement with fiancee Prince Harry on December 1, 2017 in Nottingham, England

Video of the Day

"She asked everyone she met their names and what they did. It was very natural," a source told the Daily Mail.

In addition to their PDA-filled public appearances, Meghan and Harry are breaking protocol once again - she will be spending Christmas Day with the British royals at Sandringham, the first time a fiancee has been invited to join. Kate wasn't included until after her wedding to Prince William in 2011 and neither was Mike Tindall before his wedding to wife Zara.

"You can expect to see the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and Ms Markle at Sandringham on Christmas Day," a Kensington Palace spokesperson confirmed.

It means Markle will also take part in the family's annual festive walkabout, shaking hands and speaking with well-wishers after the service at St Magdalene Church and it's believed Markle's carefully chosen public appearances will be used as opportunities to further charm the British public before the wedding.

Expand Close Prince Charles, Prince of Wales chats to actor Idris Elba as he hosts the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Prince Charles, Prince of Wales chats to actor Idris Elba as he hosts the 'One Million Young Lives' dinner at Buckingham Palace on December 14, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, back at Buckingham Palace, Elba credited Prince Charles for his efforts with his charity, describing himself as a "success story" who benefited from the organisation when he was growing up in the 1980s.

The star previously said "good old Prince Charles" helped him get his big break as he made a speech in Parliament about diversity in television.

"If I hadn't got that money I wouldn't ever have gone into that theatre show, I wouldn't have had that experience of being in a professional theatre, and I probably wouldn't be standing here today," he said.

"So I know that The Prince's Trust is a great charity and a great place to nurture children, young people, that just need a little direction.

"And they've proved it for 40 years. I'm partly one of their success stories if you like, and it's good that I can be a beacon for others."
A manhunt is under way for Indias first ever Happiness Minister after he fled an arrest for murder charges, say police.

Lal Singh Arya, 53, disappeared on Tuesday after being named a suspect in the murder of opposition politician Makhanlal Jatav.

Mr Jatav, from the Congress party, was shot dead while out campaigning for another candidate in April 2009.

An arrest warrant was issued last week by a court in Bhind.

Mr Arya has previously denied the charges.

He is the head of Indias only Department for Happiness. Set up by the government in the central state of Madhya Pradesh in 2016, it is tasked with improving the happiness and tolerance of its citizens and putting a smile on everyones face through services such as free yoga and meditation classes.

Mr Arya, of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had been due to appear before court on December 19th.

Police were unable to find him at his home, his official residence or in his home town.

Police teams are still looking for him. We are positive that we will track him down by then, Superintendent Prashant Khare told AFP.
The final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Jeremy Piper/Australian Government Royal Commission via AP)

An Australian inquiry into child abuse has recommended the Catholic Church stop demanding clergy be celibate and said there were "catastrophic failures of leadership" within it for decades.

It also says priests should be prosecuted for failing to report evidence of paedophilia heard in confession.

Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has delivered its final 17-volume report and 189 recommendations following a wide-ranging investigation.

The longest-running royal commission, its highest form of inquiry, has been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The report heard the testimonies of more than 8,000 survivors of child sex abuse. Of those who were abused in religious institutions, 62% were Catholics.

"We have concluded that there were catastrophic failures of leadership of Catholic Church authorities over many decades," the report said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a Catholic, recommended all Australians read the report.

"What that commission has done is exposed a national tragedy. It's an outstanding exercise in love and I thank the commissioners and those who had the courage to tell their stories," he said.

Recommendations include that the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request that the Vatican consider introducing voluntary celibacy for clergy.

It said the bishops' body should also request clarity on whether information received in the confessional that a child has been sexually abused is covered by the seal of secrecy.

It also wants it to ask whether absolution of a perpetrator should be withdrawn until the perpetrator confesses to police.

Catholic clerics who testified to the royal commission gave varying opinions about what a priest could divulge of what was said in a confessional about child abuse.

The commission's recommendations, which with interim reports total 409, include making failure to report child sexual abuse a criminal offence.

Clerics would not be exempt from being charged. The law should exclude any existing excuse or privilege relating to a religious confessional, it said.

The commission found that the church's responses to complaints and concerns about clerics in Australia were "remarkably and disturbingly similar".

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said many of the commission's recommendations "would have significant impact on the way the Catholic Church and others operate in Australia".

He said the Vatican is already giving "serious consideration" to questions raised by the commission about the extent of the seal of the confession and whether child molesters who did not confess to police could be absolved.

"I cannot break the seal. The penalty for any priest breaking the seal is excommunication; being passed out of the church," Archbishop Hart said.

"I revere the law of the land and I trust it, but this is a sacred, spiritual charge before God which I must honour, and I have to try and do what I can do with both."

He said the Australian bishops would put the celibacy recommendations to the Vatican, but added: "I believe that there are real values in celibacy."

The commission found that celibacy was not a direct cause of child sexual abuse, but was a contributing factor, especially when combined with other risk factors.

"We conclude that there is an elevated risk of child sex abuse where compulsorily celibate male clergy or religious [oreders] have privileged access to children in certain types of Catholic institutions, including schools, residential institutions and parishes," the report said.

AP
Bargain Booze-owner Conviviality is buying more than 100 convenience stores from collapsed wholesaler Palmer & Harvey in a 25 million deal funded by a share placing.

The alcohol wholesaler and distributor has tabled a bid for Central Convenience, which includes franchise rights, 127 convenience stores, 20 linked to petrol stations and 47 including Post Offices, and 18 franchisee operated stores.

The group is underpinning the deal by raising 30 million on the London Stock Exchange by placing 8,000,000 new ordinary shares at 375p each.

Shares in Conviviality rose more than 2% in response to the potential acquisition from P&H subsidiary WS Retail (WSR).

Conviviality chief executive Diana Hunter said: We are pleased to have finalised terms for a potential acquisition of Central Convenience as it provides a clear opportunity to accelerate the growth and reach of the existing Conviviality Retail business, notably broadening our geographic footprint in the south and south west of England.

The acquisition, if effected, will support our strategic goal to be the drinks and impulse sectors leading independent distributor and we believe that potential exists for a range of synergies and increased returns for Convivialitys shareholders.

The move comes after a further 400 P&H staff were made redundant on Tuesday after 2,500 people immediately lost their jobs when the troubled wholesaler crashed into administration at the end of last month.

The 90-year-old firm appointed PwC as administrators after challenging trading conditions heaped pressure on its cash flow and efforts to revive the business failed to take hold.

P&H was the UKs biggest supplier of cigarettes, employing about 3,400 people and providing alcohol, groceries and frozen food to 90,000 retail accounts.

WSR booked turnover and earnings of 75.7 million and 3.5 million respectively in the 53 weeks to April 8, Conviviality said.
Rohingya are seen after arriving on a boat to Bangladesh in Shah Porir Dip back in September

At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims were killed in the first month of a Myanmar army crackdown on rebels in Rakhine state that began in late August, Doctors Without Borders, an international medical humanitarian organisation, said yesterday.

The figure is the highest estimated death toll yet of violence that erupted on August 25 and triggered a massive refugee crisis, with more than 620,000 Rohingya fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh over a three-month period.

The UN and US have described the military operation as "ethnic cleansing" of the Muslim minority, but have not released specific death tolls.

"At least 6,700 Rohingya, in the most conservative estimations, are estimated to have been killed, including at least 730 children below the age of five," Doctors Without Borders said yesterday.

The group's findings come from six surveys of more than 11,426 people in Rohingya refugee camps.

They cover the first month after the crisis erupted.

"We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh," said the group's medical director, Sidney Wong.

"What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured."

Rohingya refugees have told consistent stories of security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhist mobs driving them out of their homes with bullets, rape and arson that reduced hundreds of villages to ash.

Earlier this month the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, said the military-led crackdown appeared to include "elements of genocide".

The Doctors Without Borders survey puts a number to the horrors. Gunshot wounds were the cause of death in 69pc of the cases, according to the survey. Another 9pc were reported burned alive inside houses, while 5pc died from fatal beatings.

For children under five, nearly 60pc died after being shot, the survey found.

It said the peak in deaths coincided with the launch of "clearance operations" by the army and local militias in late August, and showed "that Rohingya have been targeted".

Myanmar's government did not respond to a request for comment.

But it has consistently denied abuses in Rakhine and puts the official death toll at 400 people - including 376 Rohingya "terrorists", according to the army.
A playwright who has made allegations against Dustin Hoffman says she spent years in guilty silence and took pains not to dress suggestively in professional contexts as she assumed the incident was her fault.

Cori Thomas said the actor exposed himself to her and had her massage his feet in a hotel room when she was 16.

She was a classmate of Hoffman's daughter in 1980 when she says she met the actor, who invited her to his New York hotel room to wait for her mother after dinner with the teenagers.

After his daughter left, Hoffman went to take a shower, Ms Thomas - now 53 - said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I was just sitting there waiting for my parents. He came out of the bathroom and had a towel around him and that was the first, 'Hmm, that is kind of weird'," she said.

"And then he dropped the towel and I think I just like... I had never seen a naked man. I had never kissed a man."

Entertainment trade outlet Variety first reported Ms Thomas' account in a story published on Thursday.

That report included another woman's allegation that Hoffman pushed his hand down her trousers in a recording studio while working on the 1987 movie Ishtar.

The publicist and lawyer for the 80-year-old Oscar winner did not return email messages seeking comment.

Actress Anna Graham Hunter also has alleged that Hoffman groped her and made inappropriate comments when she was a 17-year-old intern on the set of the 1985 TV movie Death Of A Salesman.

Hoffman said in an earlier statement that the incident "is not reflective of who I am".

During an interview with the AP in Rome, where she had attended an event for Italian and American playwrights, Thomas described her shock and confusion in the hotel room.

She said she was with "a pretty huge star" who she thought of at that moment "as my friend's dad".

She said that after dropping his towel, Hoffman put on a robe and asked her to massage his feet.

"I didn't know what to do. I acted my age. I was 16. I thought, 'Eewww, yuck'," Ms Thomas said.

"I didn't know what to do really. He made a call to someone and he said, 'Oh I have the most beautiful girl massaging my feet. How old are you?' and I said 16, and he said 'She is 16.' So he knew my age."

The uncomfortable encounter continued after the call with Hoffman repeatedly asking if she wanted to see him naked again, Ms Thomas said.

"I was in a state of shock, not knowing what to do," she said. "He kept saying, 'You know I am naked. You know I am naked. If you look, you will see I am naked'."

"I didn't want to be rude. I was trying to be polite. This was so weird and wrong. ... There was a part of me worried about what might happen," she continued.

After her mother picked her up, Ms Thomas said she did not tell her about what had happened but was quiet enough to make her mother suspicious.

"She kept asking, 'What happened, is everything OK?' I kept saying 'I am fine'. I was afraid of making a fuss. I didn't want to embarrass my friend. I didn't want to embarrass myself. I didn't want to tell her," Ms Thomas said.

"I just kept thinking it was my fault."

Ms Thomas said it would be years before she would talk about the experience and that she just tried to push it aside.

The effect on her lingered, though, she said.

"Especially because I thought it was an isolated incident, I took more guilt and blame onto myself. I think I have always behaved in a way not to act suggestive," Ms Thomas said.

"In the professional world, I try to be very refined and not in any way look seductive or seem as if I am trying to be."

Ms Thomas said she decided to come forward publicly to support Ms Hunter and counter attacks on the actress's credibility.

"He is 80 years old. I don't think anything is going to change with him," she said.

"I do think that he should know that he did something wrong and it is not OK with me that he did something wrong. People also need to know that it is not OK to do these things."

The Variety report included the account of Melissa Kester, who said Hoffman pushed his hand down her trousers while he was recording music for Ishtar.

She said it happened behind a partition while others, including her boyfriend, were nearby.

The report came a week after Hoffman was pointedly questioned about his treatment of women by late-night host John Oliver.

Hoffman appeared blindsided by Oliver's questioning. He said Ms Hunter's accusation was 40 years old and maintained that he did nothing wrong.

AP
Britain must secure a fair share of the EU's thousands of bottles of wine and fine art collection during the Brexit negotiations, a Tory MP has suggested.

Edward Leigh said the EU is estimated to have a wine cellar boasting more than 42,000 bottles and artwork worth almost 15m.

He urged ministers to "promise to take back control of our fair share of this art and wine".

British negotiators are expected to demand around 5,000 bottles of wine, 250 bottles of spirits, and 2.25m worth of artwork.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Leigh said the alcohol and art should not be left for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to "enjoy".

"The EU is estimated to have a wine cellar of over 42,000 bottles and artwork worth more than 13m, some might say metaphorically looted from the capitals of Europe," he said.

"After we leave the party, will the minister promise to take back control of our fair share of this art and wine and not leave it for Mr Juncker to enjoy."

Robin Walker, the UK's parliamentary under-secretary of state for exiting the EU, said it was an "interesting question".

In 2012, a question in the European Parliament revealed the European Commission had 15,500 bottles of wine in its cellar.
Rescue workers on the site of the collision between a train and a school bus in Millas, France, yesterday. Photo: France Bleu Roussillon/Handout via Reuters

Four children were killed and seven seriously injured after a train smashed into a school bus, splitting it in two, outside the town of Perpignan in south-western France yesterday, the interior ministry said.

Four children were killed and seven seriously injured after a train smashed into a school bus, splitting it in two, outside the town of Perpignan in south-western France yesterday, the interior ministry said.

Television images showed a long line of ambulance and emergency service vehicles near the crossing where the collision occurred, with the bus cut in half, highlighting the ferocity of the impact.

"All my thoughts to the victims and their families of this terrible school bus accident," French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he was travelling to the scene, more than 850km from Paris.

"All emergency services have been mobilised and a crisis co-ordination unit set up," an official at the local Millas town hall said.

The interior ministry said seven people in the bus, which was carrying students aged 13 to 17, were seriously injured among the 16 aboard.

The reasons for the crash are not yet known, officials said.

A spokeswoman from state-owned rail operator SNCF said the train was running at 80kmh at the time of the accident and 25 people were on board.

Three of those were slightly injured.

"It was a classic crossing, well equipped and lit. Several witnesses confirmed that the barrier had come down so it worked," the spokeswoman said, adding that the investigation would have to clarify what had happened.

France has suffered several train incidents in the past few decades.

In 2013, a train derailment in central France killed at least six people.

One of the deadliest was in 1988, when a commuter train heading into Paris' Gare de Lyon crashed into a stationary train, killing 56 people, after its brakes failed.
Need to aim higher

There has been increasing involvement of women in public life in recent years, which certainly is a good step. Women, too, have proved themselves, scaling new heights and transforming society for the better.
Hamas supporters take part in a rally marking the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Islamist movement, in Gaza City yesterday. Photo: Mohammed Abedmohammed/Getty

Israel sealed the entrances and exits to Gaza yesterday after a week of rocket fire from Palestinian militants in the wake of Donald Trump's announcement on Jerusalem.

Palestinian factions have fired rockets from Gaza on five of the seven days since the US president's Jerusalem speech, prompting Israeli forces to use the Iron Dome missile defence system and carry out air strikes in retaliation.

Two Palestinian fighters have been killed so far, and the shooting exchanges have been the most serious since the 2014 Gaza war and raised fears that the two sides may stumble into a full-blown conflict.

Israel closed the Erez and Kerem Shalom border crossings in response to the shooting, leaving the two million people of Gaza completely cut off from the world and halting deliveries of food and fuel.

As well as the two-Israeli controlled border crossings, Gaza also has a southern border crossing with Egypt at Rafah, which is almost always closed.

The crossings may open today or else will stay closed until at least Sunday.

Israeli officials believe the rockets are being fired by Islamic Jihad, a smaller faction, with the tacit permission of Hamas, the Islamist militant group which controls Gaza.

Israeli policy is to hold Hamas responsible for any rockets from Gaza and Israeli strikes have targeted Hamas outposts. Two Hamas fighters were killed last week and on Wednesday night Israel reportedly struck a naval site and a military base.

"The Israeli defence forces hold Hamas responsible for the poverty, destruction and despair among the citizens of the Gaza Strip," a spokesman said.

Thousands of people gathered in central Gaza to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Hamas' founding. "We demand the Islamic world make every Friday a day of anger and revolution in every city until we bring down Trump's decision," said Ismail Haniya, Hamas' leader.

The Palestinians have said they will no longer accept any US role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process but the Arab world's main powers - Egypt and Saudi Arabia - remain supportive of Mr Trump's efforts to reach what he calls the "ultimate deal".

The White House is expected to unveil its peace proposals early next year.

Mike Pence, the US vice president, is due to travel to the Middle East next week for meetings with the Egyptians and the Israelis. The Palestinians have said they will refuse to meet him. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
China's premier Li Keqiang, right, meets Chancellor Philip Hammond at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (Fred Dufour/Pool Photo via AP)

Chancellor Philip Hammond has told the Chinese premier there are "many opportunities" for closer commercial ties as he started a visit aimed at developing trade while Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

British leaders are looking to China for trade and investment as they try to fashion a new global role and offset reduced access to the European common market.

Chinese officials believe a post-Brexit Britain needs China more than ever but its companies are uneasy about the future of a market they see as one of Europe's most welcoming.

Mr Hammond was in Beijing for an annual "economic dialogue" that has taken on added significance this year.

He was accompanied by an unusually large delegation of business representatives and economic officials.

Premier Li Keqiang, China's top economic official, expressed confidence in "steady and sound growth" of Chinese-British relations regardless of what happens between London and the EU.

"We see many opportunities to build on our strong relationship," said Mr Hammond in the meeting at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing, the symbolic seat of China's government.

Mr Hammond's delegation includes Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange and the ministers for international trade and business and energy.

They are accompanied by executives from banks Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered, engineering firm Arup and law firms.

The sides plan to conclude agreements on more than a billion pounds of trade and investment deals during the event.

Beijing announced in November it will allow 100% foreign ownership of Chinese banks, securities firms and insurers for the first time - a move that could be a boon to Britain's financial industries.

Business groups said, however, it might be too late for foreign institutions to get more than a sliver of a market dominated by China's state-owned banks.

They said potential investors need details before they can know whether that will be commercially attractive.

This weekend, the two governments also plan to discuss expanding cooperation in industrial strategy, according to Mr Hammond.

Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said they would discuss cooperation in renewable energy.

Britain also wants to talk about a possible role in Beijing's "Belt and Road Initiative", an ambitious project aimed at expanding trade across Asia to Europe by building railways and other infrastructure.

Prime Minister Theresa May and Chinese president Xi Jinping affirmed their desire for closer ties during a meeting in July at a gathering of G20 leaders in Hamburg, Germany.

AP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that second phase Brexit talks could be "tougher" than the first (Matt Cardy/PA)

The pound slid on Friday as investors worried about the prospects of a swift Brexit trade deal after EU leaders suggested the second phase of negations would be tougher than the first.

Sterling was down nearly 0.9% against the US dollar to trade at 1.331 and was hovering near two-and-a-half week lows versus the euro at 1.130.

Leaders of the remaining 27 EU member states have agreed to allow Brexit negotiations to move onto the second phase  which is set to include post-Brexit trade relations.

However, markets were spooked after European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was not likely to be an easy ride.

Connor Campbell, a financial analyst at SpreadEx, said: The formal shift from phase one to phase two of negotiations between the UK and EU only intensified the pounds Brexit migraine this Friday.

What we just went through was meant to be the easy part.

Now the UK heads into the new year facing an even tougher (Angela Merkel) and significantly harder (Jean-Claude Juncker) set of Brexit talks as the country tries to work out what its future trade relationship will look like with the EU while desperately seeking avoid a no deal scenario by the March 29 2019 divorce deadline.

Expand Close EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said second phase Brexit talks would be / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said second phase Brexit talks would be

The formal process is also likely to run to a slower timetable, with official EU guidelines for trade talks not due to be approved until March 2018, when Mr Juncker said the real negotiations would begin.

The FTSE 100, meanwhile, ended the day up 0.57%, or 42.45 points, at 7,490.57 while the French Cac 40 fell 0.15% and the German Dax rose 0.27%.

In oil markets, Brent crude prices were flat at about 63.33 US dollars (47.57) per barrel as forecasts for higher US output in 2018 worried investors who have been hoping for an end to the years-long oil glut.

In UK stocks, Unilevers London-listed shares ended the day up 1.35%, or 56p, to 4,196p after the consumer goods giant confirmed it had struck a 6.8 billion euro (6 billion) deal to sell its under-performing spreads business to private equity firm KKR.

Persimmon fell 26p to 2,626p after announcing that chairman Nicholas Wrigley intends to resign following concerns over excessive executive pay at the firm.

Sky rose 28p at 1,018p while BT shares ended the day up 3.7p at 277.55p after the rival broadcasters announced a deal to sell their channels on each others platforms.

Trinity Mirror jumped 1.25p to 73p as the publisher of the Daily Mirror newspaper said it was making good progress in its efforts to acquire the Express titles from Northern & Shell, while reporting a slump in revenues.

Shares in Bargain Booze owner Conviviality rose 8.5p to 386.5p amid news it was buying more than 100 convenience stores from collapsed wholesaler Palmer & Harvey in a 25 million deal funded by a share placing.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Sky up 28p at 1,018p, WPP up 35p at 1,389p, Mondi up 43p at 1,818p and Fresnillo up 31p at 1,336p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were NMC Health down 68p to 2,800p, Next down 99p to 4,246p, Mediclinic International down 12.5p at 609p and Marks and Spencer Group down 5.5p at 303.8p
New Delhi, Dec 15 (IBNS): Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley said that in order to strengthen the banks, which are the key pillars of the economy, the Central Government has decided to take a massive step to recapitalize the Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in a front-loaded manner.

He said that the government has decided to infuse capital worth Rs.2.11 lakh crore in PSBs in next two years through budgetary provisions of Rs.18,139 crore, and Rs. 1,35,000 crore through Re-capitalisation Bonds, and the balance through raising of capital by banks from the market.

Jaitley was making the opening remarks during his 7th Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting with the representatives of the Banks and the Financial Institutions (FIs) in the national capital here on Friday.

Jaitley said that capital adequacy of the banks will help in credit growth and job creation among others.

Various suggestions were given by the representatives of the banking and financial institutions.

It was suggested that TDS limit for Bank interest should be raised from the current Rs.10,000/- especially for senior citizens and pensioners given the current scenario.

The limit of Rs.10,000/- was last set in the year 1997. It was also suggested to have a Credit Guarantee Fund to encourage investment in agriculture sector.

It was suggested that premium up to Rs. 1 lakh on life Insurance policies be exempted from income tax.

Small and marginal farmers have come together to form FPOs rather than Cooperatives  should get the same benefits as those of companies; Incentives should be given for investments to promote agriculture and infrastructure; Crop Insurance benefits and interest subvention on agriculture credit be given through DBT to avoid misuse; Incentives for incremental jobs among others.

Among other suggestions include to encourage affordable housing, even rental properties need to be given tax benefits; Time limit of recognition of bad debts should be aligned  RBI gives 180days and IT Act 90 days; Monthly reporting by banks to Income Tax Department should be waived  only annual reporting;

It was suggested to incentivise digital transactions to make 2018 as a year of Paperless Access to Finance; it was suggested to extend the date of Masala Bond TDS which expires in June 2018 among others.


The foreign hand

Located between the two most populous countries, India and China, which are also among the fastest growing economies in the world, Nepal can benefit greatly from her position.
New Delhi, Dec 15 (IBNS): Defence Minister of State, Dr. Subash Bhamre, inaugurated the four-day 49th Annual Conference of the Society of Nuclear Medicine  India (SNMICON), in New Delhi, on Friday.

Dr. Bhamre said that advances in medical science have led to significant improvements in quality of life. Increase in life expectancy, cure of hitherto incurable diseases and the ability to understand the human body can all be attributed to these advancements.

He also added that the role of nuclear medicine has gained significant momentum over the past few years.

He said a dedicated research laboratory of DRDO Life Cluster, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) is making considerable contribution in the research of nuclear medicine, thereby exemplifying the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

INMAS has always taken a lead with academic developments in the areas of radiation and imaging sciences. The contributions of INMAS are a clear example of how research supported by the Ministry of Defence has significant benefits for society at large, he said.

Dr. Bhamre said that scientists of INMAS are active members for various SNM activities, be it educational programmes, policy drafting or training activities.

He called for furthering the close association of INMAS with SNM, hospitals and national universities along with industries and private players to advance nuclear medicines diagnostic and therapeutic applications through research and training.

President, Society of Nuclear Medicine (India) Dr. Anshu Rajneesh Sharma, Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi Prof (Dr.) Randeep Guleria and others also spoke on the occasion.
Srinagar, Dec 15 (IBNS): Jammu and Kashmir Police, on Friday, detained Hurriyat Conference Chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq after he tried to come out from his residence in Srinagar to proceed towards South Kashmirs Anantnag district.

Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik had called for a Jalsa in Anantnag on Friday; however, authorities imposed curfew in the district and blocked internet while it also imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar.

Reports said that Mirwaiz who is under house detention tried to come out from his residence Nigeen but -- police deployed in large numbers outside his residence -- foiled his attempt and detained him.

Earlier in a tweet, Mirwaiz wrote Will defy house arrest today at 12.30 and try to march towards Islambad as per the programme of JRL to show solidarity with the people of south Kashmir who continue to bear the severe brunt of occupation!

(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)
New Delhi, Dec 15 (IBNS): President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday addressed the 14th convocation of the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology in Allahabad.

Speaking on the occasion, the President expressed happiness at the fact that since 2007 the Institute has the status of an Institute of National Importance.

He noted that talented students from this institution are contributing impressively across the country and abroad.

MNNIT, he said, should now set itself the goal of figuring in global rankings of best technology institutions.



Kovind added that education is the foundation of our country.

"True education, apart from providing technical skills, makes us aware of our responsibilities towards society by building an ethical character. And this is the real contribution of education to the nation," said he.



The President said that if students use their talent and knowledge in everyday life, they will be able to advance their prospects in a balanced and rounded manner and also contribute to society.

He counselled that MNNIT should help find comprehensive solutions to problems related to its surroundings.

"For instance, its students could contribute to the Namami Gange campaign by making technical suggestions," said he.

He was also happy to note that MNNIT has set up an Entrepreneurship Cell, the aim of which is to produce job creators.




Image: Wallpaper

Sanaa, Dec 15 (IBNS): At least 15 people, including Houthi rebels and civilians, have been killed in airstrikes conducted by Saudi-led coalition in several parts of Yemen, reports said.

According to Turkey based Anadolu Agency, 10 Houthi rebels were gunned down western Yemen's Al-Hudeidah province.

The strikes were conducted in the province's Hays district.

In a separate operation, at least five civilians were killed when the coalition forces fired in Taiz province's Mawzi district.

The Houthis are a rebel group who captured several parts of Yemen in 2014, including Sanaa, the capital.

Image: Wallpaper
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): A golden opportunity has been missed to decide the future of Syria at the end of the latest round of United Nations-supported talks in Geneva, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday.

de Mistura was speaking to journalists in the Swiss city where he has been meeting Syrian Government representatives and for the first time  a united opposition delegation.

He added that he was disappointed at the Government's lack of engagement on any issue other than counter-terrorism, before adding that he intended to call a new round of talks in January.

One of the main goals of this eighth round of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva was to get the still-warring parties to consider a new constitution for the war-ravaged country and UN-backed elections.

The opposition delegation had engaged on these issues  and others  with UN negotiator Staffan de Mistura, he told journalists.

But the Syrian Government representatives chose to focus solely on fighting terrorism, prompting the UN envoy to point out: A big missed opportunity, a golden opportunity at the end of this year, when in fact there is a clear indication from many sides that the military operations are coming to a close, the Da'esh [also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL] territory is reduced to close to zero.

de Mistura went on to say that at the same time everybody knows [] that without a clear political process we risk to not have learned the lesson of Mosul, and we risk to not have what should be winning the peace not only winning the war against Da'esh.

While the talks have been taking place in Geneva, the dire humanitarian situation inside parts of Syria has remained unchanged  particularly in Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus.

de Mistura said he had spoken to the Government delegation about the need to evacuate hundreds of sick people from the besieged area on medical grounds, but he failed to get a satisfactory answer from them.

While acknowledging that this round of discussions with the parties had not seen the progress he would have liked, the UN envoy insisted that the Geneva talks had given an opportunity to hear from Syrian civil society, including the Women's Advisory Board.

He maintained that his efforts to secure peace in the country will continue, until those with the power to stop the fighting realized that there can be no reconstruction in Syria  devastated as it is by nearly seven years of war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives  without a political

Photo by Violaine Martin

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): The head of United Nations peacekeeping operations on Thursday attended a ceremony in the port city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in honour of the countrys peacekeepers recently killed during their mission in a neighbouring country.

We are here on Thursday to honor 14 fallen peacekeepers from Tanzania who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of peace, said Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

The Greek Philosopher Thucydides once said, The bravest are surely those that have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet not notwithstanding go out to meet it, he added.

These peacekeepers were killed in the attack by suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) elements that took place at the base of the peacekeepers in Semiliki in North Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 7 December.

These peacekeepers are the bravest, he said, offering condolences to the Government and the people of Tanzania.

Lacroix said to the members of their families that no word can express your sorrow but we also know that you can be very, very proud of them.

Perhaps better than any of us, they knew the dangers they would face in this troubled region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo  a country that is so important for the security of the region, he said.

They knew that these armed groups that are preying on the population have no qualms about attacking UN peacekeepers and yet they placed their lives on the lines to serve the people of this region and of the DRC, he added.

He stressed that to truly honor these brave men, we must ensure that the sacrifice was not made in vain.

As we mourn this terrible loss, we must work together to ensure that our peacekeepers have the means to achieve our common goal of bringing peace back to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he added.

Lacroix will also attend a ceremony in Goma, DRC, on Friday to honour the peacekeepers.

Photo/UNIC Dar es Salaam

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): Respiratory diseases from seasonal influenza takes up to 650,000 lives annually, according to new estimates released Thursday by the United Nations health agency and global partners.

These figures indicate the high burden of influenza and its substantial social and economic cost to the world, Dr. Peter Salama, Executive Director of the World Health Organizations (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme said on Thursday.

They highlight the importance of influenza prevention for seasonal epidemics, as well as preparedness for pandemics, he added.

This marks an increase of the previous global estimate of 250,000  500,000 from over ten years ago, which covered all influenza-related deaths, including cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

The new figures of 290,000  650,000 deaths are based on recent data from more diverse countries and exclude deaths from non-respiratory diseases. They consider findings from recent influenza respiratory mortality studies, including by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

According to CDC, most deaths occur among people aged over 75 years, and in the worlds poorest regions. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the worlds greatest flu mortality risk, followed closely by the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia.

All countries, rich and poor, large and small, must work together to control influenza outbreaks before the arrival of the next pandemic, continued Dr. Salama. This includes building capacity to detect and respond to outbreaks, and strengthening health systems to improve the health of the most vulnerable and those most at risk.

Nearly all deaths among children under five with influenza-related lower respiratory tract infections occur in developing countries, but the effects of seasonal influenza epidemics on the worlds poorest are not fully known.

WHO is working with partners to measure the global influenza burden and its economic consequences, and to provide guidance and expertise to Member States.

Further surveillance and laboratory studies of other diseases, which can be influenza-related, are expected to yield substantially higher estimates over the next few years.

WHO encourages countries to prioritize influenza prevention and produce national estimates to inform prevention policies.

Photo: Kristy Siegfried/PlusNews/IRIN

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrapped up a short visit to Tokyo on Thursday with an appeal to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and other countries to implement relevant Security Council resolutions to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

I think we all want to avoid that things get out of control and that misperceptions and mishandling of situations make us sleepwalk into a war that will have devastating consequences, Guterres told a press conference held at Japan National Press Club, stressing the need for the implementation of all Council resolutions, first by the DPRK and then all the other countries that have such obligations.

The objective is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and it is extremely important to preserve the unity of the Security Council, he added.

Guterres is set to brief the Security Council on the DPRK, tomorrow, Friday, 15 December.

Asked about the outcome of a recent visit to Pyongyang by UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, Guterres said that in diplomacy and especially in discreet diplomacy, it is difficult to measure an immediate result of any initiative but the message was conveyed.

He said that the message was that not only that Security Council resolutions must be implemented, but there must be a sense of urgency in creating the conditions for a meaningful dialogue to achieve the denuclearization of the Peninsula.

On questions about a possible military strike against the DPRK by the United States, he refused to comment on things that have not happened but said he is a believer that a military solution would have dramatic negative consequences and that we need to be able to achieve the goal to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and to achieve it through diplomatic engagement.

Asked what the UN can do in a concrete manner about the situation, he said that the Security Council has taken the right decisions, and the Secretariat has to explore all ways to convey the messages that are necessary for those decisions to be implemented peacefully.

We are not miracle makers. We are people committed to a cause, and that cause is the cause of peace and security in line with international law, he said.

To a question about a possible visit to the DPRK by himself, the Secretary-General said he would go anywhere at any time when it is useful.

But I am not aiming at a protagonism just to appear in the cameras of the televisions, he said. We are available, but we can only mediate when both parties accept our mediation.

The main purpose of the Secretary-General trip to Japan was to address the global Universal Health Coverage Forum 2017 held in Tokyo.

Photo: OSSG

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Dec 15(Just Earth News): The United Nations Security Council will on Friday hold a ministerial-level meeting on the threat and challenges posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to international peace and security.

The briefing, organized by Japan, which holds the presidency of the 15-member Council for the month of December, is expected to focus on DPRK's nuclear and missile development programmes; other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological weapons; and other related threats and challenges.

It is also expected to discuss ways and means to maximize pressure to change the course of the country's action towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, including the full implementation of relevant Security Council resolutions as well as additional sanction measures in response to further provocations.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 10:00 AM EST.

UN Photo/JC McIlwaine (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Toronto, Dec 15 (IBNS): Francisco Suarez Abeleira, a stateless man, who was born in Mexico has been granted a chance by the court to live in Canada permanently, media reports said.

Abeleira was born in Mexico and moved to the US and later shifted to Canada. However, his birth in Mexico is not confirmed may be because his name was not registered since Abeleira's parents fled to the Franco dictatorship in 1950s.

The court has quashed the decision of immigration officials who had refused to allow the 66-year old man to live in Canada. The court sent the case back to reconsideration.

The court even said the man must be granted a chance to start his life afresh and stay permanently in Canada considering there is no ground to deport him.

Abeleira, who was born in Mexico, reportedly spent his adulthood in the US and then was caught by the American immigration officials in 2009.

After the release from the immigration detention, he crossed the border and entered into Canada to seek asylum later.

Justice E. Susan Elliott said: "The only four countries to which Mr. Abeleira has any connection at all (Canada being the fourth such country) do not want him because he has no status in any of them. Yet, the Immigration Minister says Mr. Abeleira has not shown sufficient humanitarian and compassionate grounds to be permitted to apply for permanent residence from within Canada."

"He must therefore apply for that status from another country. The conundrum is that there does not appear to be any other country who will accept him. Not only is Mr. Abeleira in a state of legal limbo, there is no way out of it."

"He appears trapped in an endless loop of you have to leave Canada to apply for permanent residence, however you cant leave Canada because no country will take you," the justice was quoted by Toronto Star.

Abeleira, who had lost his parents at an age of 3, was brought up by neighbours and then fled to the US. He used to smuggle goods at US-Mexican border and sell American goods to Mexico.

He moved to the US in 1975 and bought a birth certificate of a legal US citizen who died in 2008.

With the help of the assumed identity, Abeleira completed his high school diploma and got a bachelors' degree in 1989.

Both the Immigration Department and the minister refused to speak to Toronto Star.



(Reporting by Suman Das)
UN peacekeepers from Nepal honoured

The members of Nepali UN peacekeeping contingent deployed at Rumbek in Western Lakes state of South Sudan has been awarded with the UN peacekeeping medals in recognition of their outstanding work in South Sudan.
Markets end the day in red It was a day in red for Indian equity markets, today. Nifty 50 ended, down by 65.75 points. Sensex ended, down by 230.12 points. Top Gainers today were Tata Consumer, Adani Enterprises and L&am... November 17, 2022 | 17-11-2022 3:42 pm

Bangalore Airport IPO could be valued at ~$3.7 Billion As per the reports of various news publications, Fairfax India Holdings Limited is considering the initial public offer for Bangalore International Airport. It could value the asset of the airp... November 17, 2022 | 17-11-2022 2:59 pm

Timken India to set up new manufacturing facility at Bharuch, Gujarat; Stock hits 52-week high Timken India Ltd stock hits 52-week high on Thursday after it has announced that new manufacturing facility will be set up at Bharuch, Gujarat to manufacture Spherical Roller Bearings ('SR... November 17, 2022 | 17-11-2022 2:41 pm

Tata Motors bags supply order of 1,000 buses to Haryana Roadways Tata Motors on Thursday has announced that it has bagged a prestigious order of 1000 buses from Haryana Roadways. The Company will supply the 52-seater fully built BS6 diesel buses i... November 17, 2022 | 17-11-2022 1:55 pm

Ind Ra assigns Biocon credit rating at 'IND AA+' with Stable outlook India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has assigned Biocon Ltd a Long-Term Issuer Rating of IND AA+. The Outlook is Stable. Further, the proposed commercial paper ratings ass... November 17, 2022 | 17-11-2022 1:07 pm
We cannot get over the fact that Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli are now married. We cannot stop obsessing over their pictures too. The duo looks adorable together. They just cannot get enough of each other.

After their dreamy wedding, they are off to Rome reportedly for their honeymoon, and Anushka Sharma just posted their first picture together after the wedding, and once again, we cannot stop gushing over it.

(Also Read: Virat-Anushka's Wedding Planner Reveals Panic Moments During Their 'Shaadi Wala Ghar' In Tuscany)

The couple has not disclosed the destination, but if rumours are to be believed, they might be honeymooning in Rome for their honeymoon post a hush-hush wedding in Tuscan. What's more? Grapevine also has it,that they might have come back to India yesterday to prepare for their wedding receptions in Delhi and Mumbai respectively.

Yes, the couple has organised two receptions. First one on Dec. 21 in Delhi for their family, and the other one on Dec. 26 in Mumbai for their friends from the tinsel town.

(Also Read: Virat Kohli And Anushka Sharma Thank Wedding Planners For Making Their Most Memorable Day Beyond Beautiful)

Instagram

It is said that they will head to South Africa for another week-long honeymoon and also to celebrate New Years. Well, we cannot wait for more pictures!

Sitting in front of my computer screen, I can only say that's what dreams are made of and thats exactly how happily ever after looks like! Cheers to the power couple.

(Also Read: From Engagement To Jaimala, Here Are Some Highlights From Anushka & Virat's Grand Italy Wedding)
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered a blanket ban on plastic items including carry bags, plates and cutlery in towns located on the banks of the River Ganga like Haridwar and Rishikesh.

The bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also banned the sale, manufacture and storage of such items till Uttarkashi.

BCCL/ Representational Image

The environment watchdog, while hearing a plea of environmentalist M.C. Mehta, also imposed Rs 5,000 fine on those violating the order and said action will be taken against erring officials too.

The order was passed after the Green Panel taking note that despite its earlier order, plastic was being used in these areas causing pollution to the river.

BCCL

Many, including traders and locals have however expressed apprehension over the practical implementation of the ban.

They also argue that plastic waste only makes a small portion of the garbage that is dumped into the river considered sacred by Hindus.

BCCL

They say that more than the plastic, some 30 drainages which pump 701 million litres/day (MLD) of wastewater into Ganga between Haridwar and Kanpur and some 400 tanneries in Kanpur are to be blamed for polluting the river.

Earlier this week, the NGT had also passed orders banning the chants of Bam Bhole in Amarnath citing deterioration of sensitive ecology in surrounding areas.
New York police have arrested a woman for allegedly trying to fund dreaded terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS) through Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. The accused, identified as 27-year-old Zoobia Shahnaz, conned financial institutions of about $85,000, including about $60,000 in Bitcoin, to help fund the terror group, the New York Daily News quoted the prosecutors as saying on Thursday.

She wired more than $150,000 to shell entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey with the intention of helping IS.

reuters/representational image

Shahnaz allegedly got the $85,000 by making misrepresentations to get a $22,500 bank loan and by applying for six credit cards. She converted the credit card funds to buy more than $60,000 in Bitcoins and other digital currencies, the prosecutors said.

The Brentwood resident faces up to 20 years on charges that include bank fraud and money laundering to support a foreign terrorist organisation, reports the New York Daily News.

reuters/representational image

She was also allegedly planning to travel to Syria. Federal agents intercepted her at the JFK Airport ahead of a July flight to Islamabad with a layover in Turkey. She was carrying $9,500 in cash and gave vague answers on her travel plans, according to court papers.

She was let go after the questioning and subsequently arrested on Wednesday. Arraignment and detention documents released on Thursday showed that Shahnaz, a US citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested on Wednesday.

She was "Intending to put thousands of dollars into the coffers of terrorists," acting Brooklyn US Attorney Bridget Rohde said.
What does Daniel Ilario think of Governor Brown? I dont have anything against him as a person, but in fact he is no climate hero. Im thankful that activists in Bonn sacrificed their time and energy to secure a livable future for generations to come, he stated.



"Saving forests sounds great, but at the end of the day we get more pollution at home while indigenous people lose their land in the Amazon and abroad with carbon trading and carbon pricing, he concluded.



Photo: Daniel Ilario and Maria De Lime Dorsey of Idle No More, San Francisco Bay, protest Jerry Brown's speech at the New York Times Climate Tech Summit in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of Idle No More, San Francisco Bay.

Bay Area Idle No More activist reflects on protesting Governor Jerry Brown's speech in Bonnby Dan BacherOn the evening of November 29, over a dozen climate justice activists protested Governor Jerry Browns speaking appearance at the New York Times ClimateTECH summit at the Metreon in San Francisco.They called out the hypocrisy of Brown claiming to be a climate leader while he promotes fracking and other extreme oil extraction methods in the state.One of the organizers of the San Francisco protest was twenty-nine-year-old Daniel Gustavo Ilario of Castro Valley, who was in Bonn as a part of an indigenous delegation and was one of the protestors who interrupted his speech. Ilario, who is of Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Brasilian heritage, is a member of Idle No More San Francisco Bay, an indigenous-women-led climate justice organization.Governor Brown is no climate hero, Ilario said before the protest. He takes millions from the oil industry and then allows fossil fuel lobbyists to write legislation. We do not have time for half measures and false solutions like Californias cap-and- trade program.We stand in solidarity today because it is our responsibility to provide a livable future for generations to come. Instead of allowing the oil and gas industry to create policy that kicks the can down the road, we need brave leaders and legislation that implement a just transition from a destructive, extractive economy to a regenerative one that respects the sacred system of life, said Ilario.Other groups represented at the protest include Rootskeeper, Californians Against Fracking, Oil Money Out, Food and Water Watch.This is the second time that Brown has faced protests for what activists call his climate hypocrisy over the past month. While in Bonn, Germany for the international climate talks, COP 23, indigenous and climate justice advocates disrupted Browns talk, yelling Keep It In the Ground and other chants.They were referring to the governors strong support of fracking, both offshore and on land in California, and cap-and-trade policies that could prove catastrophic to the Huni Kui People of Acre, Brazil and other indigenous communities around the globe.Ilario was leading chants in the first group, carrying a banner when they marched into the room. He was on a delegation with It Takes Roots, a national multiracial alliance of alliances, led by women gender oppressed people of color and Indigenous Peoples on the frontlines of racial, housing & climate justice across the US and Canada.The chant went:Governor Brown. Still in for what?Northern California refineries expand pollution.Carbon trading, a false solution.Keep it in the ground.We are here to shut it down."Obviously surprised as Ilario and others disrupted his speech, Brown stated, "I wish we could have no pollution, but we have to have our automobiles."In the ground, I agree with you, Brown said. In the ground. Lets put you in the ground so we can get on with the show here.This is very California. Thanks for bringing the diversity of dissent here, the visibly disturbed Brown continued.Reflecting on his experience in Bonn, Ilario said he went to Bonn for the second week of the conference. A total of 30 people in four different groups, carrying banners and chanting, marched around the room, to the surprise of Brown and others.The four groups focused on four separate topics: (1) California refineries; (2) carbon trading and protecting the rainforest and South America; 3) fracking and (4) natural gas and oil carbon trading, said Ilario.When Brown responded to the protesters, Ilario said, I was initially completely shocked  his response was unbelievable. Afterwards his inability to apologize for his comment speaks to the integrity of Brown and other politicians that theyre are willing to sacrifice our health and safety for corporate profits. Everybody else I was with was also extremely surprised and upset that he said what he did. A lot of people told me they were upset that Brown, in interviews with reporters, said his statement it was a joke  but what were going through is NOT a joke.Ilarios delegation was also part of a major action against Trump administration representatives when youth in the Sustain Us Delegation stood up and sang as they challenged Trumps pro-fossil fuel policies. Other notable events during the conference included the release of a carbon pricing guide by a coalition of climate justice groups.This is first time that Ilario has been to either Germany or COP23, but there were several takeaways he received from going to the conference:First, the nation states are really longing to discuss how to profit off the situation of carbon pricing. And their real concern is not the future. Their real concern is allowing the extractive industries to pollute and profit.Second, were building a global resistance and especially indigenous people are coming together to protect Mother Earth.Third, It is time for everyone to stand up against the fossil fuel industry. The future is at stake and we dont have time for half measures and false solutions like carbon trading and carbon pricing. Its an accounting trick where polluters are given permission to expand pollution at the source while pretending their protecting a forest that will offset their carbon.Fourth, I think it is important grass roots front line communities are involved in the UN meetings even though nation states dont work in our best interests. We need to be there and exert our power.Ilario said that he become involved in climate justice issues when he joined the Bay Area resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline after hearing Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More San Francisco Bay speak at a No Dakota Access Pipeline meeting last year. In addition to attending the local Idle No More refinery walks and other events, he also supported the Winnemem Wintus Run4Salmon, attending its opening ceremony at Sogorea Te, a sacred site in Vallejo.I think the campaign to restore salmon is an essential movement because salmon used to live here and deserve a home just as much as us, he noted.What does Ilario think of Governor Brown? I dont have anything against him as a person, but in fact he is no climate hero. Im thankful that activists in Bonn sacrificed their time and energy to secure a livable future for generations to come, he stated.Saving forests sounds great, but at the end of the day we get more pollution at home while indigenous people lose their land in the Amazon and abroad with carbon trading and carbon pricing, he concluded.While Jerry Brown receives largely fawning coverage in the mainstream and alternative media touting his supposedly green credentials, he is an enthusiastic promoter of many environmentally destructive policies, including fracking by Big Oil and Big Gas, oil industry-backed carbon trading, pollution of groundwater supplies with oil wastewater and the construction of the salmon-killing Delta Tunnels.On February 6 of this year, twelve public interest groups, led by Consumer Watchdog and Food & Water Watch, unveiled a comprehensive "report card on Jerry Brown's environmental record showing he falls short in six out of seven key areas, including oil drilling, fossil fuel generated electricity, toxic emissions, the California Environmental Quality Act, coastal protection and water.The report calls for a moratorium on the building of natural gas powered electricity plants, given what they described as the glut of electric capacity, and calls for an outside audit of the states energy needs. The groups showed how California can improve its environmental protections to meet standards set in other states. The document also urged Brown to abandon his Delta Tunnels project and to make water conservation a priority.Read the report How Green Is Jerry Brown? at: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/isbrowngreen
Red Thursday for Cotton Barchart - 40 minutes ago Cotton futures closed off their lows on Thursday, but still gave back 122 to 148 points across the front months. New crop cotton ended the day firmer with only 25 to 33 point losses. Cotton bookings from... CTZ22 : 87.04s (-1.58%) CTH23 : 85.28s (-1.71%) CTK23 : 84.39s (-1.72%)

Cattle Rally on Strong Feeder Market Barchart - 40 minutes ago Front month feeder cattle futures finished the day with $0.95 to $1.17 gains. Cash trade picked up on Thursday; the USDA confirmed $148 to $156 sales on Thursday, citing $152 as the bulk of business in... LEZ22 : 152.750s (+0.63%) LEG23 : 155.400s (+0.75%) LEJ23 : 158.900s (+0.74%) GFX22 : 175.850s (+0.09%) GFF23 : 179.975s (+1.41%)

Hogs Gain on Thursday Barchart - 40 minutes ago The lean hog market continued to work higher through the Thursday session, save for the Dec contract which gave back 60 cents. The other nearbys added 5 to 12 cents to the move. The USDA National Average... HEZ22 : 84.975s (-0.70%) HEJ23 : 96.000s (+0.39%) KMZ22 : 95.500s (-0.42%)

Soy Futures Continue Lower, Beans Down Double Digits Barchart - 40 minutes ago Soybean futures ended the day 11 3/4 to 12 3/4 cents in the red, as Jan printed a 25 cent range on the day. Meal stayed weaker as well with $0.90 to $1.50/ton losses to close. BO futures closed off their... ZSF23 : 1417-0s (-0.86%) ZSPAUS.CM : 13.9182 (-0.86%) ZSH23 : 1422-2s (-0.87%) ZSK23 : 1428-4s (-0.85%)

Red Thursday for Wheat Futures Barchart - 40 minutes ago Domestic wheat prices ended the day with 10 3/4 to 12 cent pullbacks in the SRW market. KC futures faded by 11 1/4 to 17 1/2 cents in the front months. Spring wheat futures were down 11 3/4 to 13 1/2 cents... ZWZ22 : 806-6s (-1.31%) ZWH23 : 825-0s (-1.46%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.4110 (-1.43%) KEZ22 : 938-0s (-1.83%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9632 (-1.92%) MWZ22 : 953-6s (-1.22%)

Corn Pushes Into Positive Territory Late Barchart - 40 minutes ago After trading lower through midday on Thursday, the corn market rebounded and closed fractionally to 2 1/4 cents in the black. New crop prices stayed 1 1/4 to 3 cents lower, which widened the Dec-Dec inverse... ZCZ22 : 667-4s (+0.34%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.7075 (+0.52%) ZCH23 : 669-0s (+0.22%) ZCK23 : 667-2s (+0.15%)
It adds new members to growing health line-up
Over in the US theres a significant insurtech player disrupting the field of insurance and zeroing in on on-demand cover. However, this two-year-old disruptor does not use brokers.



In fact, the digital insurer describes the process of getting covered as easy as 1-2-3, with approximately three minutes of signing up and providing a few details. Slice Labs provides pay-per-use insurance to homeshare hosts, while its rideshare product is currently in beta phase.



In addition, a policy with Slice is primary and non-contributory  meaning it is independent of annual homeowners insurance. Slice, currently operating in 36 US states, issues non-admitted policies in the excess and surplus lines market.



You tap a button you become a business, you tap a button again you become a person again, said Slice cofounder and chief executive Tim Attia at a forum, as quoted by a report by The Royal Gazette. We are insuring and protecting that period of time where they are acting as a business.



With on-demand insurance, we wanted to reimagine insurance. We were playing with time, so we removed the annual policy.



The firm  whose CEO said they took an insurance company and put it in the cloud  has the backing of Horizons Ventures, XL Innovate, Sompo, and Munich Re.





Related stories:

Will 2018 be the year of insurtech?

SSP forges new tech deal
Where do you stand on the gun debate? Its an issue that has divided the US with many firmly of the belief that it is their constitutional right to own a firearm for protection; and others believing it has led to a surge in gun-related deaths across the country.Now, the worlds leading insurance market has found itself embroiled in the controversy.Lloyds of London has been criticised for providing what some have dubbed murder insurance to gun owners across the USA  by potentially footing the bill in cases where an insured has shot someone.According to a report in The Times newspaper, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is currently promoting a policy on its website which is underwritten by Lloyds. It covers legal costs and offers to pay out as much as US$1 million for civil suits and $100,000 for criminal cases. The move has prompted criticism from campaigners who believe that offering insurance for such circumstances may ultimately lead to an increase in firearm related fatalities by effectively encouraging people to shoot.The kinds of policies that the NRA offers are being sold in a way that tells people there is a threat around every corner, said Igor Volsky of Guns Down America, as quoted by The Times. When you have policies that proactively protect shooters, you now have an incentive to shoot first, ask questions later.The group also likened the policies to murder insurance.On the flipside of the coin, of course, gun rights advocates have hit back stating that such insurance products protect law-abiding citizens who simply want to defend themselves. Still, the issue has prompted an investigation from state regulators in New York as to how the policies are marketed.Lloyds of London told the publication that its commercial decisions were in line with ethical standards and consistent with the regulations within the market and territories concerned.Where do you stand on these insurance policies? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
Underwriting agency ProRisk has announced two major appointments, as it anticipates a positive and exciting year ahead for the Australian firm.



Joining ProRisk this December are Joe Lou as the new southern regional manager, based in Melbourne; and Aimee Pozoglou as the northern regional manager, in North Sydney.



Lou brings to his new role as southern regional manager more than 30 years of extensive underwriting experience in casualty and financial lines, most recently as senior underwriter for casualty lines at Pen Underwriting, said Hamish McDonald Nye, executive director of ProRisk.



As northern regional manager, Pozoglou will have at her disposal great technical and product development skills and broad relationships collected over an impressive 20-year career working in both the Australian and Lloyds' markets, to drive the firm's expansion into the northern region, McDonald Nye said.



McDonald Nye said the appointments are part of the positive and exciting changes brokers can expect from ProRisk in the years ahead.



As we approach our 15th year of servicing brokers with innovative insurance solutions matched by terrific in-house claims service, ProRisk continues to invest in our people, product development, and market relationships, he said. 2018 will be an exciting year with further key appointments and solutions to be announced.





Related stories:

ProRisk appoints new exec director






In a bid to attract more millennials, some firms have resorted to creating a more homey environment in their offices, Such designs mimic the warm and comfortable environment of homes and are meant to get employees to want to spend more time at work.This is partly to counter the growing work-at-home trend as millennial workers seek greater work-life balance. Advocates say they save time on commuting, they can choose the type of space they want to work in, and they feel more at ease.Theres been corporate pushback: Former Yahoo chief Marissa Meyer, in banning remote work, said some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. IBM, Bank of America and Best Buy are also scaling back their remote-work policies. Wharton Business School professor Peter Capelli says face-to-face communication and collaboration are essential drivers of information. Other studies say stay-at-home workers can have a negative impact on the rest of the workforce and that engagement levels drop the more time employees spend outside.But the trend continues, prompting creative ways to get employees to want to go to work. Other ideas are shower areas, bike racks and places for breakout sessions. General Electric even has an office free complex in Cincinnati for an open layout designed to be refreshing and conducive to working.Lets give them places where if they want to curl up on sofa and do email for half hour thats acceptable, Gordon Wright of global design firm HOK told Quartz.Some officers also recreate the college feel  gyms, coffee shops, and bars. At a recent furniture trade show in Chicago, customers are presented with a palette of postures where they can work from traditional desks to cozy couches.Some workers have expressed preference for a quiet, partitioned area to solve problems and think creatively.Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to designing workspaces, even for a particular demographic group. The safest bet would be surveying employees about the design and layout they prefer before actually spending precious cash on renovations.Surveying employees about the type of office design and layout they prefer might be worth doing before investing money in renovations.Then again, employers would not want really want their workers to be spending all their time in the office, however it is designed. That would just be missing out on a lot thats happening outside.This article is from HRD Asia by Adelle Chua.
Wildfires continue to rage in California, adding to one of the costliest wildfire seasons in US history. There have been reports of wildfire damages exceeding over $12 billion so far  and there are still several fires plaguing southern counties like Ventura and Santa Barbara.By far the greatest impact has been on the residency population of California . Approximately 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes due to the fires and many will not find the same structure upon their return.But what about Californias world-famous wine industry?Insurance Business spoke to Ron Abram, president and CEO of Abram Interstate Insurance Services , based in Rocklin, CA, to find out how hard Californian wineries have been hit and what long-lasting impacts this catastrophic fire season could have.There have been quite a few winery losses in the area, but at present we have no actual figure to say X amount of dollars has been lost in wineries specifically because the loss data hasnt been accumulated in that way - its based more on property losses, Abram explained. Wineries are finding that their losses have been substantial but not overwhelming. Many wineries have multiple locations, of which they might have lost one but not their entire policy.The wildfires struck at the peak of the grape crush and bottling season. Many grapes were already off the vine or in the process of being picked and then bottled. This timing was a stroke of fortune for the Californian wine industry because it meant the fires did not  decimate the entire industry .Other wineries were lucky through their use of wine caves, which were virtually unaffected by the wildfires across the state, according to Abram. By their nature, wine caves exist under ground level and therefore were not exposed to fire or smoke damage. Wineries who stored product in more vulnerable locations (first and second floor, etc.) might have faced more significant losses.In general, the greatest wildfire losses to Californian wineries were in property, said Abram. Some sustained damages to tasting rooms, on-site shops and even to high-value homes situated on winery grounds. At present, its difficult to segregate home property losses from winery losses, he added.In some areas there have been significant losses in general (not just specific to wineries), which could lead to eventual rate hikes for property lines, Abram told Insurance Business. We dont know what the future looks like as rate increases have to be approved, but those writing non-admitted insurance are already pushing rates up significantly  somewhere in the range of 10-20%.Business income interruption is probably the biggest exposure yet to be quantified. In some cases, its going to take wineries a while to rebuild. If you look at property losses alone (excluding the vines), its going to take a while to rebuild everything and material costs are climbing as a result of all the catastrophes weve seen throughout the country. The biggest question is: how long is it going to take these businesses to get back up and running?
Chubb has announced the appointment of Brian Church as executive vice president and head of international property for the companys overseas general business. Church will assume the role on January 01. Church succeeds Jarrod Hill, who has been appointed Chubbs country president of Australia and New Zealand.



In his new role, Church will be responsible for Chubbs retail commercial property insurance business throughout Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He will relocate from New York to London for the position, and will report to David Furby, division president of commercial property and casualty at Chubb Overseas General.



Church has more than 17 years of industry experience. He joined Chubb in 2005 as a property underwriter, and has since held various underwriting and management roles across both domestic and multinational property business. His current role, which he assumed in 2012, is as head of major accounts property. Prior to joining Chubb, Church worked as an underwriter at Zurich and AIG.



(Church) brings extensive experience and property expertise, which will prove invaluable in the future development of our business internationally, Furby said.


Munich Re has agreed to purchase an additional 11% of the shares in aerospace insurance provider Global Aerospace Underwriting Managers Limited. Global is the company that manages the Global Aerospace Pool.



Munich Re already had a significant stake in Global. Following the acquisition, Munich will own 51% of the company. A subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway will continue to own the remaining 49%. Munich Res share of the Global Aerospace Pool will increase by 5% starting January 01, 2019.



We are fortunate in having the backing of two such strong and committed shareholders, said Nick Brown, group CEO of Global. Munich Re has long had a strategic interest in increasing its investment in Global, and this deal achieves that, while ensuring that Berkshire Hathaway continues to have a very significant interest.



Brown said that the acquisition should be practically invisible to Global customers and employees.



For our customers, pool-members and employees it is business as usual, he said.


US Coast Guard officials have said that for this year, about 1,000 icebergs drifted into North Atlantic shipping lanes  the fourth consecutive extreme ice season the maritime service has observed.The Coast Guards International Ice Patrol held its annual meeting in New London earlier this week to discuss the issue, and how to prepare for next year. The US National Ice Center, as well as the Canadian Ice Service and the Danish Meteorological Institute, were present for the meetingAccording to Ice Patrol leader Cmdr. Kristen Serumgard, the increase in drifting icebergs could be the result of retreating Greenland glaciers and storms breaking up significant amounts of sea ice. Serumgard said that, specifically, 1,008 icebergs were detected in the shipping lanes, compared to 687 icebergs last year.Based on the number of icebergs it has observed, the Ice Patrol classifies each ice season as light, moderate, or extreme. This year was the 19th most severe season since 1900, The Associated Press reported.When asked whether ships still hit icebergs despite navigational innovations such as modern radar, Serumgard warned that ships can still miss them.We dont want another Titanic, she added.The Associated Press noted that the Ice Patrol has started to rely more on satellite imagery to spot drifting icebergs. For this year, 22% of the icebergs spotted by the taskforce were found using satellites, compared to the 2% of icebergs recorded in 2016.Serumgard is hopeful that the Ice Patrol will eventually transition to relying solely on satellites to spot icebergs, which would leave Coast Guard planes free to pursue other missions.
A recreational drone operator whose device smashed into a U.S. Army helicopter in September flew undetected into a no-fly zone over New York set up to protect President Donald Trump and the United Nations.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday said the drone flew in air space closed because of the visit by Trump, highlighting gaps in safety and security protections involving the devices that are the size of a medium pizza box. Moreover, the pilot was in Brooklyn but the drone was 2.5 miles away, offshore of Staten Island, violating a rule that operators must keep drones in their sight.

This incident reveals a soft underbelly of drone safety: were putting very sophisticated drones in the hands of unsophisticated operators, with no training, certificates, or knowledge requirements, said Kenneth Quinn, former chief counsel for the Federal Aviation Administration who now works at the law firm Baker McKenzie.

The incident highlighted the need for drones to be treated more like traditional aircraft, such as requiring them to send an identifying radio beacon so they can be tracked, Quinn said. The current situation is a recipe for disaster, he said.

The crash occurred on Sept. 21 as light was fading in the evening. The Black Hawk helicopter suffered damage to one of its rotor blades, but was able to land safely. The collision was the first confirmed midair impact in the U.S. between a manned aircraft and one of the millions of drones sold in recent years. Reports of safety incidents involving drones have climbed steadily, and averaged more than 200 a month last summer, according to federal data.

The helicopter was one of two flying in the area as part of the security efforts for the United Nations General Assembly, which was meeting that week. Trump had spoken to the UN two days earlier and security restrictions for his visit were still in effect.

The NTSB report comes as the FAA is wrestling with multiple drone-safety issues. They include whether to allow routine flights over people, which drones should be required to send radio beacons with their identity and location, and how to build a low-level air-traffic system for the small consumer flying devices.

The recreational operator told investigators he didnt know that federal authorities had temporarily banned all drone flights in New York.

A notification system included with the device, made by SZ DJI Technology Co., didnt advise him of those flight restrictions, the NTSB said.

While the accident occurred at an altitude of 274 feet (84 meters), the drone operator had earlier flown to a height of 547 feet, above the FAAs 400-foot flight limit, the NTSB said. When it reached that height the device was 1.8 miles away from the operator, where it would have been difficult to see any other aircraft, according to the report.

Even though the sUAS pilot indicated that he knew there were frequently helicopters in the area, he still elected to fly his sUAS beyond visual line of sight, demonstrating his lack of understanding of the potential hazard of collision, the report said.

The leading U.S. group for model aircraft operators called on the FAA to act against the drone operator.

Careless and reckless operators should be held accountable, Chad Budreau, spokesman for the Academy of Model Aeronautics, said in a statement. The rogue drone operator involved in this incident violated Part 107 of the Federal Aviation Regulations and a temporary flight restriction, among other irresponsible behavior.

The FAA regulates drones and has fined operators in the past.

We will take appropriate action upon the completion of our investigation, the FAA said in a statement. The FAA provides education and resources for operators to safely and responsibly operate their drones.

The drone was a DJI Phantom 4, a small device made by the worlds largest civilian unmanned aircraft manufacturer.

Its equipped with whats known as geo-fencing, designed to prevent operators from flying in prohibited zones. However, this feature is intended for advisory use only, and sUAS pilots are responsible at all times to comply with FAA airspace restrictions, the NTSB said.

In addition, DJI had temporarily shut off its flight-restriction advisories as it worked to resolve glitches in the system, according to the report.

Even if the system had been functioning, it wouldnt have alerted the drone operator, the NTSB said. He was guiding the drone with a tablet computer, but it wasnt connected to the internet and thus couldnt download the information on the FAAs flight restrictions.

DJI believes pilot education is the most important factor to ensure drones share the skies safely with other aircraft, and has led the industry with technology to accomplish this goal, the company said in a statement.

The company recently began an educational initiative that requires new drone pilots to pass a safety quiz before taking initial flights. The quiz was developed in collaboration with FAA, the company said.

Metal Motors

Small drones like the one involved in the New York collision weigh only a few pounds, but they contain metal motors and cameras that can cause significant damage to a jetliner at high speeds, a study commissioned by the FAA found in November. While the study found it was unlikely a drone impact alone could take down an airliner, it could cause enough damage to shut down a jet engine.

FAA incident reports include numerous examples of drones flying close to passenger airplanes or beyond legal restrictions. For example, on Sept. 28, pilots on a Boeing Co. 737-800 that had just taken off from Chicago OHare International Airport reported spotting a drone at 9,000 feet altitude. The aircraft is a widely used airliner; the name of the carrier wasnt identified.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is also looking into an incident in Quebec on Oct. 12 in which a small drone struck a charter flight carrying six passengers. The plane suffered minor damage to its left wing and landed safely.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics USA New York Aviation Training Development
Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., a New York, N.Y.-headquartered, global professional services firm, has appointed Stacy Mills as vice president and controller, effective January 1, 2018.

In this role, Mills will serve as the firms chief accounting officer and report to Mark McGivney, chief financial officer of Marsh & McLennan Companies.

Since January 2015, Mills has served as vice president and deputy controller of Marsh & McLennan Companies. Mills joined Marsh & McLennan in 1999 as controller of Putnam Investments, and her prior finance leadership roles include leading the firms Finance Transformation program and serving as controller of Marsh, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan.

Previously, she served in corporate accounting and financial reporting roles at State Street Corporation, and in public accounting for Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young.

As controller and chief accounting officer, Mills succeeds Robert Rapport, who is retiring from Marsh & McLennan after having served as controller since 1999. Rapport joined the Company in 1986 as vice president of Audit and Control, responsible for Marsh & McLennans global internal audit function. Prior to joining Marsh & McLennan, Rapport was a partner with Deloitte & Touche.

Source: Marsh & McLennan

Topics New York
A bipartisan bill introduced by two U.S. senators would change truck safety standards to prevent crashes like the one that killed four people in northern New York this summer.

The law introduced by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican Marco Rubio would require underride guards to prevent cars from slamming under tractor-trailers in a collision.

In July, two cars slid under a jackknifed milk tanker on Interstate 81 in Oswego County, killing all four occupants. Sen. Charles Schumer called for new safety standards when he met with co-workers and family members of the crash victims.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says side guards could prevent hundreds of deaths annually in the U.S.

The trucking industry supports other efforts to avoid crashes, such as automatic emergency braking and collision warning systems.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Auto New York
Chubb announced the appointment of Brian Church as executive vice president and head of International Property for Chubbs Overseas General business, effective Jan. 1, 2018.

In this role, Church will have responsibility for all of Chubbs retail commercial property insurance business throughout Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Formerly executive vice president and head of Major Accounts Property for Chubb in the United States, Church will relocate from New York to London and report to David Furby, division president, Commercial Property & Casualty, Chubb Overseas General.

Church succeeds Jarrod Hill, who in a separate announcement was appointed country president of Australia and New Zealand.

Church has more than 17 years of experience in the insurance industry. Since joining the company in 2005 as a property underwriter, he has held various underwriting and management roles working extensively across domestic and multinational property business in the U.S. He assumed his current responsibilities as head of Major Accounts Property in 2012.

Prior to joining Chubb, he worked as an underwriter at Zurich and AIG.

Source: Chubb

Topics Property Chubb
Ubers food-delivery business will begin offering an insurance package to its couriers in Europe, a move to address the conditions of gig economy workers.

Riders for food-delivery companies such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are typically self-employed and the firms have come under fire for how they treat their workers.

Uber Eats said on Friday it would start offering all its couriers in Europe an insurance package with AXA with coverage for personal accidents, cash benefits for hospitalization, property damage and cover for third-party injury.

Uber Eats couriers can now enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working on their own schedule with the peace of mind provided by additional security and protection, said Filip Nuytemans, Uber Eats general manager for Europe.

The couriers will be able to benefit from the policy whether they are fully independent or employed via a third party, and the company will pay for the insurance.

Uber Eats currently operates in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Britain. The plan will be introduced Jan. 8 next year, the company said.

The gig economy, where individuals work for multiple employers day-to-day without having a fixed contract, has expanded with the arrival of apps such as Uber and Deliveroo, who say their workers have the full flexibility to work when they want and for how long they want.

But companies in the gig economy come under fire from unions and politicians for what they call exploitative practices and riders for Deliveroo have gone to court in the UK to seek employment rights such as the minimum wage.

Two drivers for Ubers ride-hailing app successfully argued at a tribunal in London that the San Francisco company had responsibilities in terms of workers rights.

The plan offered by Uber Eats will reimburse couriers up to 7,500 euros ($8,847.75) for medical expenses from an accident that results in hospitalization or 3,000 euros if the hospitalization is for three consecutive nights or more.

Couriers will also get a cash benefit for severe sickness or injury and cover for third party bodily injuries and property damage.

($1 = 0.8477 euros) (Reporting by Julia Fioretti; editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Topics Europe
The massive explosion that shut down natural gas flows for half a day in Austria this week was caused by a loose cap seal on a newly installed filtering unit, according to investigations by the operator of the Baumgarten hub.

The cap was on an installation that removes solid or fluid parts from the gas stream. The incident triggered a chain of events that culminated in a blast that halted flows through the facility about 9 a.m. on Dec. 12, according to a statement from the pipelines owner, OMV AGs Gas Connect Austria GmbH. Gazprom PJSC, the hubs biggest user, suggested safety breaches were involved, a claim denied by Gas Connect.

Its totally unclear whether this was caused by human failure, faulty material or anything in between, Gas Connect spokesman Armin Teichert said by telephone Thursday. Anything on damages or impact on other pipelines is speculation until the final investigation report is here.

The pipeline is one of the key entry points for gas flowing from Russia into central Europe. The incident pushed up gas, power and oil prices across Europe and triggered a short-lived emergency in Italy, which draws much of its supply through the line. Flows had resumed by the evening.

The cap had come loose and was propelled with great force against another part, causing damage to this part as well, Gas Connect said in the statement following an investigation by the company and Austrian authorities. The gas which subsequently escaped was then ignited, leading to a gas fire at two points of origin.

The explosion triggered an emergency plan that led to a shutdown of the entire hub, according to the statement. The Baumgarten facility is Austrias largest reception point for gas and is about 31 miles northeast of Vienna. It has units that purify gas, removing any liquids or solids in the flow, and units for metering and compressing streams for shipment into other pipelines.

Once the damaged parts could be isolated from the rest of the hub, gas flows could resume from around 9 p.m. on Tuesday, the statement said.

Gazproms deputy head Alexander Medvedev said on Thursday that safety violations during works were to blame for the accident, according to Russian news agency Interfax. Gas Connects Teichert responded in an e-mailed comment that the preliminary results of the companys and Austrian authorities probes didnt confirm such a claim.

With assistance from Elena Mazneva.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
PolyMet Mining Corp. is offering the state a $544 million package of financial assurances to serve as an insurance policy to protect taxpayers from potentially having to cover the costs of closing and cleaning up a controversial copper-nickel mine it wants to build in northeastern Minnesota.

The company said the package of surety bonds, irrevocable letters of credit and a trust fund would be sufficient to cover all costs, including treating the mines wastewater as long as necessary, if the mine were to close and the company couldnt cover the costs.

PolyMet used an estimate of 100 years in its financial modeling, spokesman Bruce Richardson said. But the company isnt saying thats how long the water would need treatment. He said new purification technologies, as theyre developed, may shorten the required time.

The financial assurances package has been one of the most contentious issues in the fight over the proposed mine near Babbitt and processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, which would be Minnesotas first copper-nickel mining operation. PolyMets critics say copper-nickel mines elsewhere have a long track record of environmental damage from acid mine drainage _ and of going bankrupt  and leaving taxpayers stuck with the cleanup costs.

The package is a key component of PolyMets updated application for a permit to mine , which was released Wednesday by the state and runs about 22,000 pages, including appendices. The permit to mine is one of the most important of the roughly 20 state and federal permits that PolyMet needs to obtain.

The revisions reflect feedback from technical experts with the Department of Natural Resources and its outside consulting company.

Minnesota law requires PolyMet to submit bankruptcy-proof assurances before the department can approve the permit to mine. The plan is meant to ensure that the state has enough money to close the mine and reclaim the site if PolyMet cant, and it must cover costs for long-term monitoring and water treatment.

Were pretty excited about this, PolyMet President and CEO Jon Cherry told The Associated Press. This is the last thing we believe is required before the state can release the draft permit for comment.

Toronto, Canada-based PolyMet expects to operate the mine for about 20 years. But how long the wastewater will require treatment has been a hard-fought issue. Mine opponents contend it could be 500 years or more, and are demanding the state ask for $934 million up from the company. Cherry strongly disputes both numbers.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, which is trying to block the mine, issued a statement late Wednesday saying it was going through the companys application revision.

Were having our experts review it and will let Minnesotans know what is in it as soon as we are able, the group said, noting that the state has not yet deemed the application complete.

Cherry said the companys cost estimate is high because the water treatment plant is designed to meet the states tough water-quality standard for protecting wild rice. The state currently limits discharges of sulfates into waters where wild rice grows to 10 milligrams per liter.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources said Wednesday that it will review the revised application. If the department determines the application meets all legal requirements, it will schedule a public comment period.

Once the department puts the draft permit out for public comment, Cherry said, PolyMet will begin working with lenders and investors on an overall financing package that will include the financial assurances. Swiss commodities giant Glencore owns 29 percent of PolyMets stock and has the option to raise its stake to 35 percent.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Wisconsin Minnesota Mining
A suburban Detroit insurance agent has been sentenced to at least six years in prison for embezzling more than $800,000 from a dozen elderly clients.

Paul Garceau Jr. of Grosse Pointe Park had pleaded guilty to embezzlement by an agent of greater than $100,000 and two counts of embezzlement by an agent of between $50,000 and $100,000. He was sentenced on Dec. 12.

WJKB-TV reports the state attorney generals office says Garceau embezzled nearly $801,000 between 2008 and 2015 from 12 elderly clients in Wayne, Macomb, Oakland and Livingston Counties.

Prosecutors say Garceau convinced them to withdraw funds from legitimate investments, saying he would reinvest the funds in opportunities with higher returns, but instead spent the money on himself or his embezzlement scheme.

Garceau has agreed to pay about $613,000 in restitution.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Agencies Michigan
A.M. Best announced it has has downgraded the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating (Long-Term ICR) to bbb from bbb+ and affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of B++ (Good) of Affinity Mutual Insurance Co. (AMIC) in Lima, Ohio.

The outlook of the Long-Term ICR has been revised to stable from negative, while the FSR outlook remains stable.

The ratings reflect AMICs balance sheet strength, which A.M. Best categorizes as very strong, as well as its marginal operating performance, limited business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management.

The rating actions reflect the volatility in AMICs underwriting and operating performance over the past five years, most significantly in 2012, 2014, and 2015.

The companys underwriting results were impacted by weather-related events and fire losses, coupled with a historically elevated underwriting expense structure.

The rating actions also reflect AMICs risk-adjusted capitalization being at the strongest level, low underwriting leverage and strong balance sheet liquidity. These positive rating attributes are offset somewhat by AMICs exposure to weather-related events due to geographic concentration of risk, as well as high product risk of the business it typically writes.

Source: A.M. Best

Topics Ohio
One guest at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle opened his door naked and urged housekeeper Ely Dar to come in. Another offered her money in exchange for a massage. A guest once told her she was beautiful, then grabbed her in a hug from behind and called after her when she ran away.

In 17 years as a hotel housekeeper, Dar has been propositioned and pursued, and leered at by guests too many times to count. A 60-year-old immigrant from the Philippines, shes worked at the same Seattle hotel for most of her time in the U.S. because the pay and health benefits beat the alternatives. But she goes to work each day worried about what a customer might try to do: I dont trust any of the guests, she said.

Jeff Flaherty, the senior director of global communications for Westin parent company Marriott International, declined to comment on Dars experiences, but said the company has zero tolerance for harassment. If we receive an allegation of inappropriate conduct, we take it very seriously and take appropriate responsive action, he said.

Stories like Dars are newly resonant as a wide swath of industries are confronting the powerful men who harass and abuse women at work. The cases getting most attention so far have described abuses suffered by educated professionals; the experiences of low-wage, service industry workers havent triggered the same outcry.

Hotels Responsibility

Hotel housekeepers are particularly vulnerable. When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission studied the factors that foster sexual harassment, it identified a series of conditions that define hotel housekeeping: language differences, significant power disparities between employees and management, reliance on customer satisfaction, physical isolation, alcohol consumption.

We dont know if the predators are there, said Juana Melara, a room attendant in Long Beach, Calif. She says a former employer took more than 20 minutes to respond after she alerted them that a man exposed himself to her in a hallway. They feel they have a right to the lady who cleans the room.

Hotels are under new scrutiny when it comes to keeping their employees safe at work, even when the threat dont come from other workers. A California court in October ruled that a hotel worker could sue her employer under state law after she was allegedly raped by a trespasser on the property. Workers advocates have been pushing hotels to equip housekeepers with panic buttons to protect them from guests. And managements responsibility is likely to be an issue in collective bargaining next year, when contracts covering roughly half the unionized hotel workers across the country are up for re-negotiation.

The employer is responsible for having a harassment-free workplace, even if the harassment is coming from a customer or client, said EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum. In addition to federal law that bars sexual harassment, state and local laws may applyand may result in much bigger awards for successful plaintiffs.

Panic Buttons

Since 2013, New York City housekeepers in all unionized hotels  hundreds of properties across the city  have been equipped with panic buttons that summon help. Unite Here, the hotel workers union, made the devices an issue after a housekeeper accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then the head of the International Monetary Fund, of sexual assault. (Strauss-Kahn denied the allegations and reached a settlement with the housekeeper in 2012.)

The union hasnt completed compiling aggregate data, but a representative said the devices were used at least twice last month at one large midtown hotel by room attendants who were threatened by guests. In both cases the guest was ejected from the hotel.

In Seattle, hotel workers now carry electronic whistles, GPS-equipped buttons that alert security, or iPads with new emergency alert functions. Voters in the city approved legislation last year requiring that hotels provide such devices for workers and keep track of guests who have been accused of abuse. Chicagos City Council in October voted unanimously to require similar devices.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association, whose members include top brands like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt as well as owners, management companies, and independent properties, praised the Chicago ordinance, which gives hotels until next summer to implement the panic buttons. Safety and security  whether our employees or our guests is top priority, said Rosanna Maietta, vice president for communications at the trade group.

Endless Scenarios

A year ago, the association had a different perspective. In internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News, AHLA wrote that the union-backed panic button message was deemed by many experts and hoteliers to be a solution in search of a problem. At the time, the trade group also said it planned to combat municipal proposals like Seattles and those expected in Chicago and Long Beach, Calif.

The AHLA said those comments were made specifically in the context of the Seattle proposal, which the industry criticized for combining the panic buttons with other workplace rules like restrictions on housekeepers daily workload.

The hotel industry ended up compromising with the Chicago City Council, and the proposed ordinance in Long Beach failed to pass. But the association has mounted a legal challenge to Seattles new law, saying it infringes on customers rights by requiring hotels to keep logs of complaints against guests.

You might have just gotten out of the shower, and the room attendant walks into the room  there could be endless scenarios, said AHLAs vice president for government affairs Brian Crawford. Forcing hotels to just keep a running list of guests who are accused of harassment is not something that we want to be involved in.

Legal Liability

For hotels, the challenge is to mitigate the risk to their workers and to their business. In October, Californias state appeals court ruled that a housekeeper could bring a claim against her employer under the states Fair Employment and Housing Act. She alleged she was raped by a trespasser whose presence was known to management.

If an employer knows a particular persons abusive conduct places employees at unreasonable risk of sexual harassment, the judges wrote, the employer cannot escape responsibility to protect a likely future employee victim merely because the person has not previously abused that particular employee.

An attorney for the womans employer, Pacific Pearl Hotel Management LLC, said he couldnt comment while the case was under review by the California Supreme Court.

Prevention and Response

Hotels liability can depend on whether theyre sufficiently aggressive in responding to allegations from employees and on the policies they have in place to prevent harassment in the first place, said civil rights attorney Debra Katz, a partner at Katz, Marshall & Banks who represents employees in harassment cases. Failing to take appropriate preventative measures to protect people from things even occurring could very well lead to liability.

Julie Yap, a Sacramento-based partner at Seyfarth Shaw, which represents employers, said she advises companies to emphasize their policies against harassment by non-employees as well as employees, to encourage reporting of incidents, and to require robust training.

The hotel industry is continuing its court fight against Seattles legislation. Meanwhile, the hotel workers union says it will push hotels in more cities to provide devices like the panic buttons.

It would have been really good if all the hotels would have had these things before the law passed, said Nuris Deras, a housekeeper at the Loyal Inn in Seattle. Now the guests know that were carrying a panic button. Now theyll probably think twice if theyre trying to do anything bad.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics California Legislation
Looks like a potentially market-roiling La Nina will last through the new year, threatening to bring a colder, snowier winter to the northern U.S., drought to Latin Americas soybean-growing regions and rain to Australias coal mines.

The odds of the weather phenomenon, characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Pacific, lasting through February are 92 percent, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said Thursday. Thats up from 73 percent just a month ago. The center said the pattern will probably fade in mid- to late-spring.

The kind of weather La Nina tends to bring could spur a rally for heating fuels including natural gas and electricity and for commodities from corn to soybeans to coal. Wheat-rich Argentina has already been dealing with drier weather, and forecasters including World Weather Inc. have raised La Nina as an even bigger threat later this month. The operator of Americas largest power market has warned of the coldest winter in at least three years because of the phenomenon, and gas bulls have been holding out hope for frigid temperatures.

La Nina is predicted to persist through the Northern Hemisphere winter by nearly all models, according to the Climate Prediction Center outlook issued Thursday. Forecasters favor the peak of a weak-to-moderate La Nina during the winter.

Taking Hold

While states in the northern half of the U.S. could get colder, the south may be warmer and dryer than usual.

A U.S. study of November weather conditions across the U.S. show La Ninas impact already taking hold, perfectly matching the typical conditions of the phenomenon, said Michelle LHeureux, a forecaster with the Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. It was just a one-month map, and it was strikingly La Nina-like, she said by telephone.

The first part of December brought some unexpected weather, however, with record snowfalls and frigid temperatures plaguing the U.S. South. This was probably the result of another, shorter-lived weather phenomenon called the Madden Julian Oscillation, LHeureux said.

Once the Madden Julian Oscillation fades, a more predictable pattern of cold in the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes and milder weather across the South and Mid-Atlantic states will return, she said.

Skiers Delight

The pattern is set to be a skiers delight over the northern U.S., according to a blog post by Stephen Baxter, a Climate Prediction Center meteorologist. Weaker events tend to bring more snow in the Pacific Northwest, northern Rocky Mountains and northern New England, based on an analysis of data from the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, he said.

Its harder to predict what La Nina means for New York and Boston because theyre at the edge of where the snow typically falls. The fate of that region will probably hinge on where the rain-snow line forms during every winter storm that strikes.

The recent deluge of rain in Argentina could offset the impacts of La Nina on crops by leaving enough water reserves to keep up yields this season. But JPMorgan Chase & Co. has already forecast higher prices and volatility due in part to La Nina that, it said, will help to curb the recent multi-year gain in global corn and wheat yields.

The phenomenon could offer natural gas bulls some relief, too. Gas futures plunged earlier this week to the lowest settlement in 10 months on mild temperature forecasts. Volatility for next-month contracts has rebounded to the highest levels since February amid uncertainty in weather outlooks.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics USA
Hackers likely working for a nation-state recently invaded the safety system of a critical infrastructure facility in a watershed attack that halted plant operations, according to cyber investigators and the firm whose software was targeted.

FireEye Inc. disclosed the incident on Thursday, saying it targeted Triconex industrial safety technology from Schneider Electric SE.

Schneider confirmed that the incident had occurred and that it had issued a security alert to users of Triconex, which cyber experts said is widely used in the energy industry, including at nuclear facilities, and oil and gas plants.

FireEye and Schneider declined to identify the victim, industry or location of the attack. Cyber-security company Dragos said the hackers targeted an organization in the Middle East, while a second firm, CyberX, said it believe the victim was in Saudi Arabia.

It marks the first report of a safety system breach at an industrial plant by hackers, who have in recent years placed increasing attention on breaking into utilities, factories and other types of critical infrastructure, cyber experts said.

Compromising a safety system could let hackers shut them down in advance of attacking other parts of an industrial plant, potentially preventing operators from identifying and halting destructive attacks, they said.

Safety systems could be fooled to indicate that everything is okay, even as hackers damage a plant, said Galina Antova, co-founder of cyber-security firm Claroty.

This is a watershed, said Sergio Caltagirone, head of threat intelligence with Dragos. Others will eventually catch up and try to copy this kind of attack.

In the incident, hackers used sophisticated malware to take remote control of a workstation running a Schneider Electric Triconex safety shutdown system, then sought to reprogram controllers used to identify safety issues. Some controllers entered a fail safe mode, which caused related processes to shut down and caused the plant to identify the attack, FireEye said.

FireEye believes the attackers actions inadvertently caused the shutdown while probing the system to learn how it worked, said Dan Scali, who led FireEyes investigation.

The attackers were likely conducting reconnaissance to learn how they could modify safety systems so they would not operate in the event that the hackers intended to launch an attack that disrupted or damaged the plant, he said.

PUBLIC WARNINGS

The U.S. government and private cyber-security firms have issued public warnings over the past few years about attempts by hackers from nations including Iran, North Korea and Russia and others to attack companies that run critical infrastructure plants in what they say are primarily reconnaissance operations.

CyberX Vice President Phil Neray said his firm found evidence that the malware was deployed in Saudi Arabia, which could suggest that Iran may be behind the attack.

Security researchers widely believe that Iran was responsible for a series of attacks on Saudi Arabian networks in 2012 and 2017 using a virus known as Shamoon.

Schneider provided Reuters with a customer security alert, dated Wednesday, which said it was working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate the attack.

While evidence suggests this was an isolated incident and not due to a vulnerability in the Triconex system or its program code, we continue to investigate whether there are additional attack vectors, the alert said.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell said the agency was looking into the matter to assess the potential impact on critical infrastructure.

The malware, which FireEye has dubbed Triton, is only the third type of computer virus discovered to date that is capable of disrupting industrial processes.

The first, Stuxnet, was discovered in 2010 and is widely believed by security researchers to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Irans nuclear program.

The second, known as Crash Override or Industroyer, was discovered last year by researchers who said it was likely used in a December 2016 attack that cut power in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Toronto; Editing by Susan Thomas)

Topics USA Cyber
American Family Insurance said it intends to accelerate its use of data, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) with its purchase of Chicago-based data and analytics software company Networked Insights.

American Family is a Networked Insights client and has been a minority investor in the company since 2013, increasing its investment over time. With the acquisition, American Family became its sole owner. The purchase price is not being disclosed.

The insurer has been investing in technology and data platforms for the past three years including through its own data science and analytics lab, a strategic data analytics division, an innovation team and collaborative data-science projects with the University of Wisconsin.

American Family said it has also acquired HomeGauge, a home inspection software company with 21 employees, based in Asheville, North Carolina.

American Family Chairman and CEO Jack Salzwedel said the Networked Insights acquisition allows it to strengthen its agency distribution and build on its current advanced analytics capabilities to improve how it serves customers.

These investments are part of our commitment to innovation through the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence for our customers and in ways that complement and improve the personal service we deliver to them, said Peter Gunder, American Family Insurance chief business development officer, in prepared remarks.

Networked Insights uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to understand what is relevant to people, allowing companies target their audiences with their preferred content and media. A 2015 Networked Insights study of social media posts of millennials found that when millennials share financial concerns online their anxiety decreases significantly even when a purchase or transaction is a completely new experience.

The insurance company of the future will be all about using data analytics to enhance the customer experience and be a trusted brand, said Networked Insights founder and Chief Executive Officer Dan Neely, who praised American Family for doing a remarkable job at building a trusted brand.

In addition to its Chicago headquarters, Networked Insights also has operations in New York City and Madison, Wisconsin, where American Family is headquartered.

The companies said that Networked Insights will operate as a stand-alone subsidiary of American Family Insurance. In addition to serving its customers, Networked Insights employees will collaborate with American Family data scientists on projects using advanced analytic capabilities to improve customer interactions and business value.

According to the firms, all 74 Networked Insights employees including Neely and Gerry Komlofske (president and chief operating officer) will continue in their positions with the company. Neely will also join the American Family senior executive team.

American Familys venture capital arm, American Family Ventures, has been active in supporting technology-focused insurance and risk management startups including Rings home security system; CoverHounds auto insurance quoting system; Hover, which creates 3D models of properties; One, a cloud-based insurance payments platform; Leaselock, a rent payment insurance platform; and Katasi, a tool to prevent texting while driving.

American Family is among a number of carriers that have developed service packages for automated home monitoring. Concerning its acquisition of home inspection software firm HomeGauge, the insurer said the aggregate information HomeGauge provides will enable it to enhance its role in this area.

American Family is also an investor in Bunker, a startup digital insurance broker focused on independent contractors.

A year ago, policyholders approved the conversion of 90-year old American Family from a mutual to a mutual holding company, providing the company with the additional flexibility to invest or acquire non-insurance companies or other mutual insurance companies.

The company sells American Family-brand products, including auto, homeowners, life, business and farm/ranch insurance, primarily through exclusive agents in 19 states. Two affiliates, The General and Homesite, also sell directly to consumers over the internet or by phone.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions InsurTech Tech Data Driven
Arkansas lawmakers have recommended a regulatory panel look at revising its proposed ban of an herbicide farmers in several states say has drifted onto their crops and caused damage, nearly a month after a maker of the weed killer asked a judge to halt the prohibition.

A subcommittee of the Legislative Council voted to delay considering the proposed rules by the state Plant Board to prohibit dicambas from April 16 through Oct. 31 next year. The subcommittees recommendation is set to go before the full council, which is the Legislatures primary governing body when lawmakers arent in session. The council has the power to approve or reject the proposed ban.

State Sen. Bill Sample said he wanted the Plant Board to come up with a new cutoff date based on scientific evidence and potentially a dividing line based on geography in the state.

An arbitrary date will not do any good because you will either set it too early or too late, Sample said.

Dicamba has been around for decades, but problems arose over the past couple of years as farmers began to use it on soybean and cotton fields where they planted new seeds engineered to be resistant to the herbicide. Because it can easily evaporate after being applied, the chemical sometimes settles on neighboring fields. The state earlier this year approved a temporary ban on the herbicides sale and use, and has received nearly 1,000 complaints about dicamba this year.

How can we be assured this is not going to happen again without this cutoff date? David Wildy, a farmer from northeast Arkansas who has seen damage from dicamba drifting onto his crops, told lawmakers

Monsanto, which makes dicamba, has filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court challenging the ban and claiming the Plant Board exceeded its authority in prohibiting the weed killer. The Missouri-based company has asked a judge to block the state from enforcing the ban, and a hearing in the case is scheduled next month.

Were pleased for the growers of Arkansas that the legislative committee has hit the pause button and said go study the science and follow the science, said Scott Partridge, Monsantos vice president for global strategy.

Farmers have also complained about dicamba causing damage to their crops in other states, including Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee. Minnesota on Tuesday set a June 20 cut-off date for applying the herbicide and prohibited applications when the temperature or forecast high for the day is above 85 degrees.

The Environmental Protection Agency in October announced a deal with Monsanto and two other makers of dicamba herbicides, BASF and DuPont, for new voluntary restrictions on the weed killers use.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Agribusiness Pollution Arkansas
More Texas businesses are providing workers compensation insurance as the cost of coverage continues to decline, according to the Texas Department of Insurance  Division of Workers Compensation (TDI-DWC).

Premiums have fallen by 63 percent since 2005 as department has worked to reduce costs and improve care through health care networks, a drug formulary, safer workplaces, and other reforms.

In Texas, the average premium for each $100 of payroll dropped from $2.32 in 2003 to 86 cents in 2015, according to the National Council on Compensation Insurance.

The fact that fewer employees are filing workers compensation claims  a 28 percent drop since 2004, has contributed to the decline in premium costs. Non-fatal injury rates are also down 36 percent since 2005, an indication that employers are making workplaces safer.

With premium costs down more than 60 percent, more employers have opted to provide workers compensation insurance, which means financial resources are there for injured employees when they need help the most, Texas Commissioner of Workers Compensation Ryan Brannan said in the agencys announcement. And in Texas, employees are also getting better care.

More employees are getting treatment sooner. About 84 percent of injured employees receive non-emergency medical care within seven days of their injuries, compared to 76 percent in 2000. The average number of claims treated by physicians decreased over the last decade, from 21 claims per physician in 2000 to about 15 per physician in 2016.

In Texas, more injured employees are back at work within six months of their injury, and the average number of days off work has decreased by more than 30 percent since 2005.

Source: TDI-DWC

Topics Trends Texas Workers' Compensation
The Louisiana Department of Insurance (LDI) estimates that the states property insurer of last resort has gone from the third largest property insurance company to the 35th in 10 years.

The eleventh round of depopulation is underway for the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. (Citizens) and Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon points to the programs ongoing success as a sign of the strength of the Louisiana homeowners insurance market.

We have been able to stabilize our homeowners market and find an equilibrium where even consumers in high-risk areas can find better rates in the private market than with Citizens, Donelon said in the agencys announcement.

As the states insurer of last resort, Citizens offers property insurance to any home or business owner that cannot otherwise obtain it at rates adjusted annually to keep it noncompetitive with the private market.

During the annual depopulation process Citizens is required to open up its book of business and offer to transfer policies to the private market. This results in lower premiums for policyholders and reduces the potential need for future assessments charged to all property insurance consumers across the state.

According to Citizens, this year five companies requested 10,072 residential policies, dropping the personal lines policy count to about 39,000 residential policies. For the first time, commercial lines policies were also requested in depopulation.

One company, Safepoint, is authorized to receive 161 commercial lines policies. Including commercial policies, Citizens total policy count in 2018 will be about 40,800, down from 174,000 in 2008. The LDI estimates Citizens will have an estimated 0.5 percent of the Louisiana homeowners market  down from 9.8 percent in 2008.

All five companies participating in this years round of depopulation have previously participated in the program. Access Home Insurance Company, Maison Insurance Company, Ocean Harbor Casualty Insurance Company, Safepoint Insurance Company, and Spinnaker Insurance Company are participating.

A letter from Citizens notifies consumers whose policies are selected for depopulation. Policyholders have until February 28, 2018 to opt out of moving to a private company and choose to stay with Citizens.

Source: LDI

Topics Carriers Louisiana Property Homeowners
Lockton has added Brett Gillmon to its Property team as senior vice president. Gillmon will serve as a national resource working closely with the U.S. Property leader Mike Andler, and will provide service and property options for Locktons clients throughout the United States, with a focus on the Southeast.

Gillmon joins Lockton after a 20-year career at Marsh, most recently as managing director leading their Southeast Property team, which included work in London, New York, Dubai and Atlanta.

Gillmons expertise includes the placement and servicing of complex global property insurance programs.

In his new role at Lockton, Gillmon will advise clients on managing their property risk to meet their business goals. He has particular expertise in the implementation of global programs and has extensive experience across a number of industry sectors which include manufacturing, hospitality, real estate and retail.

Gillmon will be based out of Locktons Atlanta office.

Lockton is a global professional services firm and privately held, independent insurance broker.

Topics Property
A settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit over $750,000 in unpaid utility bills at a shuttered Tennessee glass plant.

The Kingsport Times News reports insurer North American Specialty sued Heritage Glass and its officers in Greeneville federal court last year after paying the money owned by the company to electric utility AEP.

Heritage Glass had been formed to make glass for the solar industry at the AGC plant that closed in 2012. The 2014 deal was supported through $700,000 in state grants and $2.6 million from the city of Kingsport.

The company had envisioned hiring 120 people in the short term, plus another 300 later.

According to court documents, the company went out of business in 2015 because it ran out of money, leaving its utility bills unpaid.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Carriers Tennessee
Solvang, Calif.-based Westcap Insurance Services, LLC has expanded its admitted program for contractors to now include Arizona domiciled risks. Westcap also announced increased limits and other product enhancements to the program in the state of Washington.

Westcap will now offer Arizona domiciled risks general liability coverage for General Contractors along with a broad appetite of subcontractor classes on admitted paper. Residential and commercial contractors, new ventures, risks with tract exposure and condominium work will all be considered.

Westcap recently received approval for a Washington State filing that includes increased limits to $1 million/$2 million/$2 million as well as other program enhancements.

Westcap, a commercial lines program administrator, with the addition of Arizona now offers its admitted market Contractor General Liability program in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Washington to Wholesale Brokers.

Topics Washington Contractors Arizona
By Ann OLoughlin

A scheme of survival allowing seven companies controlled by Galway businessman Gerry Barrett and employing over 330 people to survive as going concerns has been approved by the High Court.

Ms Justice Marie Baker said she was satisfied to approve the scheme which will see the seven companies connected to businesses including the Five Star G Hotel, 4-star Meyrick Hotel, apartments a retail park and the Eye Cinema which are all located in Galway City formally exit the examinership on December 21 next.

The court approved the schemes which were put in place by the examiner insolvency practitioner Neil Hughes of Baker Tily Hughes Blake, following lengthy talks between the companies and the firms main creditors Deutsche Bank.

Paul Gallagher SC for the bank, which had supported the examiners proposals. said an agreement had been reached with the Barretts who were withdrawing their objections to the scheme.

The terms of that agreement the court heard are confidential.

The settlement was welcomed by the Judge.

The companies sought the protection of the courts last September..

However, the firms opposed the schemes of arrangement proposed by the examiner on grounds including that the schemes were unfair to one class of impaired creditors.

The companies, whose directors are Mr Barrett and Catherine Barrett of Drimbawn House, Chestnut Lane, Lower Dangan, Galway sought the protection of the court after Deutsche Bankappointed a receiver over the firms in late August.

Deutsche Bank (DB), represented in court by Paul Gallagher SC and Neil Steen SC had supported the scheme.

The bank which is owed more than 690m by the group after acquiring its loans from Nama in 2015, had initially opposed the appointment of an examiner.

It had done so on grounds including it was an attempt by the companies to renege on a 2016 debt settlement agreement which would have resulted in the sale of the groups assets to reduce its debt to the bank.

However following rulings by both the High Court and Court of Appeal the examiner was appointed to all seven companies.

The companies, which are all part of Mr Barretts Edward Capital Group are KHKitty Hall Holdings Ltd, Ml Meyrick Ltd and Mono Trading Ltd, Edward Leisure Assets Unlimited Company, Niche Hotels Unlimited Company, Style City Limited and Radical Properties Unlimited Company.

Previously the court heard that under the scheme an investor called Waltzfire Ltd will put 89m, plus an additional 9m as working capital, into the companies

Afterwards Mr Hughes said that the approval by the court of the scheme "showed the benefits of the examinership process."

He said that it was "an unusual case" where under the scheme all 33O full and part time workers employed by all the firms "had been saved and "all the creditors had been paid."

Mr Hughes also thanked the Barrett family, the companies and the creditors for their assistance in formulating the schemes.

In a joint statement Mr Gerry Barrett, the investor in the companies and the bank welcomed the courts decision to approve the seven schemes.

The successful examinership, the statement added, had secured full payment for all trade creditors and had provided security of employment for all the various firms employees.

The companies will continue to trade as normal, the joint statement concluded.
By Padraig Hoare

The Irish Government could benefit from Brexit by encouraging multinationals already based here to put through more Asian business through the country, the Oireachtas has been told.

Executive director of Asian business think-tank Asia Matters, Martin Murray told the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee that there were considerable worries among business and investment leaders in Asia because of US protectionism and Brexit.

Ireland could become a safe harbour for Asian business after Brexit, he said.

The global business climate has become unstable, so many executives in Asia are very worried about risk management in global expansion, particularly in the West. This creates an opportunity for Ireland to present itself as a safe harbour, given Irelands pro-business environment and global talent pool within an English speaking, common law EU country, Mr Murray said.

The Cork native added that a key question was how Ireland was positioned as a strategic location for Asian businesses that operate globally between Asia, the EU and the US.

Given new US protectionism, Ireland should encourage existing US multinationals in Ireland with EMEA responsibility to also take on Asia responsibilities. This has already started internally with some US companies. The more such activities are embedded in Ireland, the more this increases the commitment of these US companies to stay in Ireland, Mr Murray said.
The 18 remaining members of the committee agreed to a 14-page report detailing Wednesdays historic votes during an hour-long private meeting of the group yesterday.

After three months of public hearings, the committee on Wednesday voted to recommend the repeal of the Eighth Amendment and its removal from the Constitution.

It also recommended new legislation allowing for unrestricted access to abortion up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy, the decriminalisation of abortion for women and licensed medics who provide it, and abortion in cases of rape, incest, and fatal foetal abnormalities.

In addition, it recommended that abortions should also be allowed when there is a risk to the life and physical and mental health of the woman.

Speaking during a short public meeting to confirm the recommendations have now been agreed by the committee and will be published by the Oireachtas next Wednesday, Fine Gael senator and committee chair Catherine Noone said: The amendments that we have made are to reflect the votes we took and the evidence we heard overall. It has been a very, very challenging experience.

I personally found it challenging. Were handing over to the Oireachtas along with our colleagues in facilitating a vote of the Irish people who will ultimately be the decision-makers on this. And thats very important to clarify.

While she was given a round of applause by the 17 other remaining committee members, the view was contradicted by three pro-life members, who yesterday quit in protest at the committees recommendations and announced plans to publish an unofficial minority report next week.

In a joint statement yesterday afternoon, Independent senator Ronan Mullen, Independent TD Mattie McGrath, and Fine Gael TD Peter Fitzpatrick said they will not put their names to the official report.

While all three took part in Wednesdays votes  a move which means their concerns will be formally recognised in the official report  they said they will not sign off on the document as it is biased and does not represent their views.

As members of the committee, we have attempted at all times to seek a fair and thorough analysis of issues pertaining to the Citizens Assembly report and recommendations on the Eighth Amendment, they said in a joint statement.

Despite our efforts, and our reservations expressed from the outset, the committee failed to do its job.

The systemic imbalance in the functioning of the committee precluded any fair assessment of the issues. An unacceptably flawed process has led inevitably to cruel and unjust recommendations.

We believe yesterdays votes represented a tragic denial of the human rights of unborn children. We think the votes reflect badly on the committee and on those who voted to recommend stripping unborn children of legal protection.

We will not associate ourselves with any report basing itself on such an unacceptably discriminatory and exclusivist view of human rights and human dignity as these votes represent.

No process and no report has the right to recommend the denial of anybody elses human rights.

Mr Mullen, Mr McGrath, and Mr Fitzpatrick are due to draw up and publish their own findings and recommendations in an unofficial report next week.

While it will be made publicly available, it will not be sent to the Dail and Seanad like the official report from the committee  in a similar manner to former Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins minority report on the banking inquiry.
Burma Analysis: Government Turning Back the Clock on Press Freedom

Reuters journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were charged under the Official Secrets Act

On the evening of Dec. 13, an image of two detained reporters appeared on the Ministry of Informations Facebook page. It showed the two men handcuffed to each other and made to stand behind a table. In a departure from the ministrys usual practice, their faces were clearly visible. The photo has prompted an angry reaction on the part of many Myanmar journalists toward the MOI. On the table in front of the pair are two mobile phones and a number of documents found in their bags. To many observers, the ministrys treatment of the pair as common criminals  or worse, given that it did try to conceal their identities  is a step too far.

According to the MOI, Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained on Tuesday night in Yangon after approaching police who had recently participated in clashes against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in Maungdaw, about obtaining documents to assist in their coverage of the conflict.

The MOI claims the reporters tried to steal documents in order to sell them to international media. In fact, as reporters for an international news agency, they were planning to share the information with senior editorial staff, which is part of their job. The MOI, which has been criticized as a government propaganda arm, deliberately distorted the facts of the case.

On social media, some people posted messages urging a boycott of state-run newspapers. Some people even said the MOI violated media ethics by posting the photos without obscuring the reporters identities. The Yangon Journalism School has stopped training MOI personnel to protest the dissemination of the photograph.

U Than Oo, editor of the state-run Myanmar News Agency, said that the MOI cannot change the facts it receives from the Interior Ministry. We report the news according to journalistic ethics and based on the facts. We cant change the facts.

Regarding the decision not to black out the reporters faces, U Than Oo suggested The Irrawaddy consult the news editors of the newspapers that ran the picture. At any rate, he added, Everyone knows who the perpetrators were, so it was unnecessary to black out their faces in the photo.

He said the MOI usually blacks out the faces of people who have been accused of a crime but not yet convicted.

We know [the reporters] were the perpetrators. This is my understanding, he said.

The MOI initially posted the image online, without obscuring the faces. It later blacked them out after the post drew harsh criticism. On Thursday, however, the image appeared with the faces visible in two state-run newspapers, Myanmar Alin and The Mirror Daily.

The MOI normally blacks out the faces of arrested people in photos posted online.

The director of the Yangon Journalism School said the MOIs action had damaged the reporters reputations. In protest, two trainers from the school had decided to cancel a weeklong training session for MOI staff in Naypyidaw.

This wasnt a joint training program with the MOI, but they had asked us for help. Some of our trainers had agreed to help by holding a training session this month. But, when we saw the report attacking Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, and the way the photo of the pair was used, in our view this offends their dignity.

Our trainers felt bad, so they decided not to provide the training, which was supposed to have lasted for a week in Naypyidaw, YSJ director U Ye Naing Moe told The Irrawaddy.

The MOI is trying to create problems between the people and the media. It uses taxpayers money but makes propaganda for the government, said U Zay Yar Hlaing, editor of Maw Kun (Archive) magazine.

The MOIs action was inappropriate and aimed at turning the people against the media. Their report was an act of government propaganda, he said.

Direct censorship of news media no longer exists in Myanmar, but journalists come under pressure in other ways as they try to fulfill the two aspects of their job; gathering and publishing facts. Instead of censoring articles as in the past, these days authorities are more likely to, for example, block reporters from traveling to areas like Maungdaw to report.

Another form of censorship is charging reporters with serious offenses. This is censorship through intimidation. Authorities also publish false information in order to mislead the public about the media.

Parliament cannot control the government. So when the media tries to exert pressure, the government acts against it, said U Zay Yar Hlaing.

This shows that Myanmar is still subject to serious censorship, he said, adding that things were occurring on the ground in Maungdaw that the government did not want the domestic or international media to know.

Myanmar appears to be turning back the clock on press freedom, critics say, with authorities using various charges to prosecute journalists, just as previous military governments did. The government has used articles including 66 (d) (defamation law), 17 (1) (unlawful association), the trespassing law, and, as in the case of the Reuters reporters, the Official Secrets Act.

The arrest of the two reporters showed that the media in Myanmar is under threat, said Mratt Kyaw Thu, a reporter from Frontier Myanmar.

Personally, I didnt expect much in the way of media reform from this government, especially for our journalism industry, much less the Army. But when I saw [the arrested journalists] in the paper and on government social media, I was just.damn! he said.
Burma Ava Tailor Shop Family Sentenced in Abuse Case

The Ava case was decided at the Western district court in Yangon on Dec. 15, 2017. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Yangons western district court sentenced four family members who own the Ava Tailor Shop to 13 years and up for torturing two young domestic workers. Two other family members were acquitted.

The verdicts came after more than one year of testimony from both sides totaling some 20 witnesses since October 2016.

The case of the two abused teenagers was first reported by Myanmar Now editor Ko Swe Win. The girls were freed from the home of their abusers, and the family was arrested after a widespread public outcry.

In May, six family members were charged. Tin Thuzar, her daughter Su Mon Latt and son Tin Min Latt, and son-in-law Yar Zar Tun were charged under the Anti-trafficking in Persons Law, Penal Code 326 for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons and means, and the 1993 Child Law.

Tin Thuzar and Su Mon Latt received 16 years and one month each, Yar Zar Tun was sentenced to 13 years and one month and Tin Min Latt received nine years and one month.

Father and husband U Ko Latt and daughter Thiri Latt were charged under the first two laws but they were acquitted as the court found no evidence tying them to the case.

Lawyer Daw Hnin Su Aung said she shared mixed feelings as her client, Thiri Latt, was freed but the others were sentenced with harsh punishments.

The district judge said the culprits could appeal at the regional court in regard to the Friday verdicts.

Daw Thandar, the mother of Yar Zar Tun, told The Irrawaddy that she would file an appeal to a higher court.

My son is not guilty and I will appeal at higher courts as long as possible, she said.

The two victims, Ma San Kay Khaing 17, and Ma Thazin, 18, had to undergo numerous operations for injuries sustained from years of torture, but they are recovering. The pair is from a village on the outskirts of Yangon. They had worked for the Ava Tailor Shop family since they were 10.

Prior to hearing the case, the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission tried to intervene in the case by telling the victims families to accept monetary compensation. Due to public outrage, commission member U Zaw Win left his position.

The Ava case has highlighted widespread inhumane treatment of housemaids, especially those who are underage in Myanmar. The case drew public condemnation and set an example for others to report similar cases in the future.
Burma Finance Minister Admits Economy is Underperforming

Finance Minister U Kyaw Win. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYITAW  Planning and Finance Minister U Kyaw Win has admitted that Myanmars economy has not improved as well as expected, six months after he compared the countrys economy to a jet plane about to take off.

There are suggestions that the countrys economy has not picked up as we expected. Considering the current situation, we have to accept that it is true, the minister said in his address to a meeting on small and medium enterprise (SME) development in Naypyitaw on Wednesday.

The address was a sharp contrast to his remarks at the Myanmar Investment Forum in June. We see that last year the countrys economy was like a plane moving on the runaway, he said at the time. Now this year we will defy gravity with jet power, meaning this is the year economic development will take off.

However, the minister declined to answer questions about exactly what was holding the economy back.

His address on Wednesday followed the recent release of a report stating that business confidence among entrepreneurs in Myanmar dropped drastically this year. The report was based on a survey conducted by the German consultancy Roland Berger and the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Roland Berger published the results of the first Myanmar business survey in December 2016. It found an enormous sense of optimism among both local and international investors  73 percent of businesspeople expected the countrys business landscape to improve. This year, those expectations were shared by only 49 percent of them.

The main reason for the drop in confidence was a lack of clear economic policies and plans from the government; of the roughly 500 local and international business owners in Myanmar surveyed, 77 percent of them flagged it as a significant or very significant concern.

Frustration with the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led governments management of the economy has grown over the past year as the administration has largely failed to flesh out its 12-point plan.

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its forecast for the growth of Myanmars gross domestic product this year from 7 to 6.7 percent.

The lack of clear policies and guidelines shows that leaders have no capacity. The NLD is also wrong to have continued with policies that were introduced by the previous government, before the power transfer, to increase taxes, said U Than Lwin, an adviser to Kanbawza Bank.

It doesnt make a difference to do what its predecessor has done. It needs to see if it is right or wrong, he added.

He suggested that the government establish economic think tanks and appoint advisers to ministries and to the chief ministers of the regions and states.

The government thinks that it will get more tax revenues if it increases the tax rates. It is wrong. While the economy is slow, taxes just increase the burden on the people, he said.

People dont want to pay high taxes and so they evade them. The government also needs to make sure taxpayers want to pay the tax, he added.

U Aung Hlaing Win, a former member of the Lower House Economic Committee, blamed longstanding monopolies for the countrys poorer-than-expected performance.

It is one of the legacies of the previous government that small businesses are not in a position to compete with much bigger businesses, he said.

Myanmars economy will not improve unless and until those monopolies are ended, he argued, citing the example of Yangon Bus Service (YBS).

In the case of YBS, in the past any bus owner could join the service. But then it was monopolized by individual companies. There are many monopolies in the country like this, he said.

The SME development meeting, proposed by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was attended by relevant Union ministers, chief ministers and department heads.

At the meeting, U Kyaw Win criticized the provision of 90 million kyats ($66,000) to a beauty parlor under an SME loan scheme. Yangon Division Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein argued that true SMEs do not get government loans.

Edited from the Burmese by That Ko Ko.
Burma At Least 6,700 Rohingya Killed in Horrific Myanmar Violence, Charity Says

Medecins Sans Frontieres says the first major survey on the scale of mortality was the clearest indication yet of the widespread violence.

KUALA LUMPUR  At least 6,700 Rohingya Muslims, including many children, were killed in the first month of violence that erupted in Myanmars troubled Rakhine State in August, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Thursday.

The medical charity said the first major survey on the scale of mortality was the clearest indication yet of the widespread violence that began on August 25, which has driven more than 600,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh.

Based on interviews at refugee settlements in Bangladeshs Coxs Bazar region, MSF estimated at least 6,700 Rohingya  including some 730 children below the age of five  were killed by violence between August 25 and September 24.

The charity, also known as Doctors without Borders, said the figures were the most conservative estimates.

We met and spoke with survivors of violence in Myanmar, who are now sheltering in overcrowded and unsanitary camps in Bangladesh, MSFs medical director Sidney Wong said.

What we uncovered was staggering, both in terms of the numbers of people who reported a family member died as a result of violence, and the horrific ways in which they said they were killed or severely injured.

Gunshots were the cause of death in most cases. Others were beaten or burned to death in their houses.

We heard reports of entire families who perished after they were locked inside their homes, while they were set alight, Wong said in a statement.

Mainly Buddhist Myanmar denies atrocities against Rohingya, and said in September that nearly 400 people died in the fighting, mostly Rohingya insurgents.

A top United Nations human rights official said last week that Myanmars security forces may be guilty of genocide against the Rohingya.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have agreed to cooperate on the repatriation of the displaced Rohingya but rights groups have cautioned against any hasty return before peace and stability is restored.

Responding to MSFs findings, the charity Save the Children said it was appalled by the loss of life.

The international community must work to end the violence, bring perpetrators to justice and insist on immediate, full and unfettered humanitarian access to all people in need in Rakhine State, Bangladesh director Mark Pierce said in a statement.

Violence against children cannot be tolerated and cannot remain unpunished.
Specials Timeline: Journalists Under Attack

Journalists campaign for press freedom in Yangon on Aug.4, 2012. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  The recent arrest of two Reuters journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act has raised anxieties about shrinking press freedom in Myanmar.

Local journalist networks and news organizations strongly criticized the arrest as the latest attack on the press and called for the pairs immediate release.

We journalists absolutely believe that journalists have the right to travel to conflict zones as well as gather information from relevant sources in order to produce accurate reports, a joint statement from 12 journalists networks said.

The pairs arrest is but the latest in a growing list of cases of journalists being taken to court by some of the countrys most powerful institutions, including the military.

A total of 11 journalists were arrested this year under various repressive laws, including the Official Secrets Act and the Unlawful Associations Act, and on defamation charges for gathering information or travelling to conflict areas for their work and for criticizing officials.

Here, The Irrawaddy has compiled a list of the reporters arrested in 2017.

Official Secrets Act

Two Reuters journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, were detained on Tuesday night after being invited to meet with police officials on Yangons outskirts for possessing police reports containing detailed information about the fighting between government troops and the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in late August 2017.

Two policemen were also arrested for allegedly providing the documents to the reporters.

The police opened the case under the Official Secrets Acts Article 3, which allows for prison sentences of up to 14 years. The policemen were charged under both the Official Secrets Act and the Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law.

Drone Case

Turkish state broadcaster TRT World Producer Mok Choy Lin, from Malaysia, freelance camera operator Lau Hon Meng, from Singapore, and two Myanmar citizens  their interpreter Ko Aung Naing Soe and driver U Hla Tin  were detained on Oct. 27 for attempting to fly a drone near Myanmars Parliament in Naypyitaw.

They were sentenced to two months in jail by a Naypyitaw court on Nov. 10 under the 1934 colonial-era Myanmar Aircraft Act for filming with a drone. They were also charged 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 prison.

The two foreign journalists were also charged with violating Section 13 (1) of the 1947 Immigration Act on Nov. 27, after their visas expired while in custody.

Unlawful Associations Act

The Irrawaddys senior reporter Lawi Weng, also known as U Thein Zaw, and Democratic Voice of Burma reporters U Aye Nai and Ko Pyae Phone Aung were arrested by the Myanmar Army on their way back from a reporting trip to northern Shan State on June 26. They traveled to an area controlled by the Taang National Liberation Army to cover a drug-burning ceremony marking a UN-designated day against drug abuse. The military filed the lawsuit against the journalists under Article 17 (1) of the Unlawful Associations Act and transferred them to Hsipaw Prison in Shan State on June 28, after they had been detained at an undisclosed location for nearly three days.

After detaining the journalists for more than two months, the military withdrew its case against them on Sept. 1.

Satirical Article

The Voice Daily Chief Editor U Kyaw Min Swe and satirical columnist Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing, also known by his pen name British Ko Ko Maung, were arrested by police on June 2 after the Myanmar Army filed a lawsuit against them. The pair was charged under Article 66 (d) of the Telecommunications Law and Article 25 (b) of the Media Law for allegedly defaming the military in a satirical article. Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing was later released and then acquitted of violating Article 66 (d) on June 16.

The military withdrew its case against them on Sept. 1.

Airport Arrest

Myanmar Now Editor-in-Chief Ko Swe Win was arrested at Yangon International Airport on July 30 on his way to Bangkok for a short work trip ahead of a court hearing in Myanmar and transferred to Mandalay to face defamation charges. He was released on bail the next day.

Ko Swe Win had two related cases filed against him in March. One was filed by a follower of ultranationalist monk U Wirathu in Mandalay. The other was filed by a nationalist in Yangon. Both accused him of insulting U Wirathu after he shared a Myanmar Now news story quoting a senior abbot saying the monk was no longer in the monkhood because he had praised the assassins who killed National League for Democracy legal adviser U Ko Ni. The latter case was later dismissed by a judge. The former is currently at trial.
News Companies Law to Take Effect August 1: DICA

Official Briefing on the new Myanmar Companies Law. / Myo Pa Pa San / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Myanmars new Companies Law replacing the colonial-era Myanmar Companies Act of 1914 will come into effect as of August 1 next year, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA).

All the preparations to apply the law should be completed before next August. So, the law will be brought into effect on August 1, said director-general of DICA U Aung Naing Oo at the briefing of the law on Wednesday in Yangon.

Until then, DICA will conduct a trial for electronic registration of companies, hold discussions with stakeholders and educate the public about the new piece of legislation, according to U Aung Naing Oo,

The new law combines elements of the Myanmar Companies Act of 1914 and the Special Companies Act of 1950, reworked in hopes of attracting foreign investment, Deputy Minister for Planning and Finance U Maung Maung Win told Parliament as he submitted the draft law in July.

The eight-part law was formulated with input from the attorney generals office, concerned ministries and economic partners plus technical assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

There are more than 60,000 companies registered with DICA under the old law, and those companies will have to register online under the new law over the next six months, he said.

Online registration is not complicated. It is just filling out forms, said U Aung Naing Oo.

The new law no longer defines any company in which a foreigner holds a minimum 1 percent of shares as a foreign-owned company, but only those where foreign ownership exceeds 35 percent, said U Aung Naing Oo.

The new law will also allow foreigners to own condominium flats and moveable property, according to U Aung Naing Oo.

The old law requires two persons to set up a private company. But the new law only requires one. The old law requires seven persons to set up a public company, now it only needs three. And companies with 35 percent of foreign ownership will be treated as citizen-owned companies, U Kyaw Thu, chairman of Myanmar Fruit, Flower and Vegetable Producers and Exporters Association, told The Irrawaddy.

The deregulation in the new law will allow Myanmar citizen businesspeople to gain technology and from foreign investors, according to DICA.
News Mandalay Govt to Confiscate Plots Granted by Prior Administration

The watchtower in downtown Mandalay. / Myat Pyae Phyo / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  The Mandalay regional government will take back control of 135 plots of land that were granted or leased by the previous government during last years power transfer and believed to have violated procedures.

Mandalay Region Chief Minister Zaw Myint Maung announced the plan in response to a report reviewing the division governments land grants during the power transfer. The review was carried out by Mandalay government officials and lawmakers and submitted to Parliament on Tuesday.

We should terminate the contracts that were awarded in violation of leasing procedures, national land use policy, and laws and regulations, and take the plots back, the chief minister said.

Parliament gave the regional government the green light to proceed.

We found that up to 20 grants were issued in a single day, as well as other suspicious things involving leasing procedures. So there are reasons to believe that there was some dishonesty, Mandalay Division Planning and Finance Minister U Myat Thu, who led the investigation, told The Irrawaddy.

The government will confiscate the plots and pay the owners back what they paid the previous government in rent. Most of the plots are in Pyi Gyi Tagun, Chanmyathazi and Maha Aungmyay townships.

Some paid the right price for rent, but some paid much less. We are still calculating the market price of the plots now, said U Myat Thu.

U Zaw Myint Maung said his government would also take action against department staff who were involved in the deals. He said the confiscated plots would be used for public projects.

In June last year, lawmaker U Myint Aung Moe, of Chanmyathazi Township, submitted a proposal to the regional Parliament suggesting a review of unused plots granted by the previous government during the power transfer. Parliament formed a team to investigate.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Commentary Press Freedom and the Invisible Line

Myanmar journalists staged a 'Stop Killing Press' campaign in Yangon in 2014. / The Irrawaddy

Do we have press freedom in Myanmar? Yes, we do, but with an invisible line. No one can know where that line is because its unseen. When you touch or cross it, youre finished.

Two journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, crossed that line, and they found themselves in custody on Tuesday.

Police charged the pair of Reuters reporters under the Official Secrets Act because they possessed leaked internal security reports related to fighting between border guard forces and a Muslim militant group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in August. If found guilty, they could face up to 14 years in prison.

Myanmars Official Secrets Act, enacted in 1923 under British colonial rule, is just one among many elements of the invisible line being used against the press and its practitioners.

The invisible line is now a threat to press freedom  a staple of democracy  just as the draconian censorship mechanism was under the former military regime.

In 2017 alone, 11 journalists from different publications were arrested after running critical and satirical stories about military and government officials. They crossed the invisible line.

They were charged with different laws, including Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, Article 17(1) of the Unlawful Associations Act, the Aircraft Act and now the Official Secrets Act. The previous administration used other laws, such as Article 502 of the Penal Code for defamation and Article 131 for abetting mutiny or attempting to seduce military officers and soldiers.

The prosecutors ranged from police officers to high-ranking military and government officials and nationalists. Their victims include journalists from different publications such as The Irrawaddy, Democratic Voice of Burma, Myanmar Now, The Voice, 7Days and Reuters.

Judging from the pattern, many more laws could be added to the invisible line whenever prosecutors feel the need to extend it. That is, the line can be moved to reach any journalist if needed, especially when someone in power feels annoyed with their reporting.

Back in September, when the military withdrew its cases against six journalists and two activists, clearing the way for the journalists release, we felt as though the press environment might be improving.

I personally hoped there would be no ugly cases like those again.

But the arrest of the two Reuters journalists on Tuesday signaled that Myanmar is still an unsafe environment for journalists to do their job  even simply to gather information.

Worse, the cases happened with a democratic government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) is power.

In 2015, the NLD clearly stated in its election manifesto: The news media is the eyes and ears of the people. We will ensure that the media has the right to stand independently in accordance with self-regulation of matters relating to ethics and dignity, and the right to gather and disseminate news.

Its a shame for the NLD government to have let nearly a dozen journalists be arrested  less than two years after coming to power. We havent seen any tangible attempt by the NLD government to stop such attacks against the media, which has played an important role in the countrys transition from military rule.

We are eager to find out how democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government will respond.

For now, we feel more vulnerable in doing our job professionally and properly than we did under military rule. In those days, with pre-censorship in place, we knew if we were crossing the line. The worst-case scenario was that our story would be scrapped by the then-censorship board.

This is the reality that we Myanmar journalists are facing in doing our job. The question now is whether the democratic government is truly aware of the risks journalists are facing and interested in getting rid of that invisible line.
Friday, Dec 15th, 2017 (12:46 pm) - Score 2,902

The Connected Nations 2017 report has today been published by Ofcom, which reveals a huge rise in the availability of fixed line 300Mbps+ ultrafast broadband services to 36% of the UK (up from 2% last year). Elsewhere 4% (1.1 million premises) still cannot receive speeds of 10Mbps+ (down from 6%).

The surge in ultrafast coverage may come as a surprise but its not due to the roll-out of a magical new technology. Instead the figure largely stems from Virgin Medias decision earlier this year to boost the top speed of their existing cable network from 200Mbps to 300Mbps (350Mbps on some tiers). Virgin are also in the process of expanding their network to cover around 60-65% of UK premises by the end of 2019, which means they should remain the driving force behind this figure for a while longer.

A Quick Note About Definitions Ultrafast Broadband The regulator has for awhile now almost arbitrarily chosen to define ultrafast speeds as starting at 300Mbps (Megabits per second), although its worth noting that the EU, UK Government, Openreach and many others have long preferred to define this as starting at 100Mbps+. Superfast Broadband The regulator defines this performance level as starting at 30Mbps, which is the same as the Scottish government and EU. The most recent Broadband Delivery UK contracts have also adopted the 30Mbps+ definition, although its worth noting that almost all of the earlier contracts adopted the Governments earlier definition of 24Mbps+. In the grander scheme of things 24Mbps vs 30Mbps only has a tiny impact upon coverage figures.

Meanwhile the only other ultrafast capable technologies in our residential fixed line market are full fibre FTTP/H networks, which Ofcom reports as now being able to cover 3% of the UK or 840,000 homes (up from 2% last year), and Openreachs new hybrid-fibre G.fast network that is only just getting started (i.e. too soon to impact this years report). G.fast will soon reach 1 million premises and should cover 20m by the end of 2020.

Similarly were expecting a huge surge in the coverage of Gigabit capable FTTP/H networks over the next few years as Openreach, Virgin Media, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, TrueSpeed, KCOM, B4RN, Cityfibre + Vodafone and others all plan significant deployments (here), which could expand it to around c.5-6 million premises by the end of 2020. However most of this expansion work will focus upon urban areas.

Superfast Speeds and the 10Mbps USO

The eagle-eyed among you will quickly spot that Ofcoms statistics for fixed line superfast broadband coverage (91% and thats up from 89% in 2016) are a a fair bit behind the most recent Government figure of 94%+, which is largely because their report is based on much older data from May-June 2017. Ofcom notes that their own figure would rise from 91% to 92% if they used the 24Mbps+ definition for superfast.

Naturally Virgin Medias network is a big contributor to the superfast figure too, although Openreachs now matured and up to 80Mbps capable VDSL2 based Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) service is the main driving force thanks to covering roughly 90% of all premises.

All of this has some relevance for the Governments proposed broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), which pledges to ensure that everybody can access a minimum download speed of 10Mbps from 2020 (here). In 2015 Ofcom reported that around 8% of the UK (2.4 million premises) were unable to receive speeds faster than 10Mbps, which fell to 6% in 2016 (1.6 million) and this year it sits at just 4% (1.1 million).

The on-going roll-out of fixed superfast broadband under the Governments 1.6bn+ Broadband Delivery UK programme has of course had a significant impact on the above improvements and the expectation is that such networks could cover 98% of the UK by around 2020 (here), with the USO catering for the rest.

Steve Unger, Ofcoms Chief Technology Officer, said: Broadband coverage is improving, but our findings show theres still urgent work required before people and businesses get the services they need. Everyone should have good access to the internet, wherever they live and work. So we are supporting plans for universal broadband, and promoting investment in full-fibre technology that can provide ultrafast, reliable connections.

In terms of take-up, some 38% of connections are now superfast services (up from 31% last year and 27% in 2015). The growth in take-up has naturally led to an increase in average speeds across the UK. The average download speed of all active connections is now 44Mbps (up from 37Mbps in 2016), although this falls to 6Mbps (up from 4Mbps) with uploads.

A Quick Note About Average Speeds Ofcoms analysis of average broadband speeds is based on the information provided by ISPs regarding the sync speed of each active line (i.e. not actual speed tests), which is arguably more of an optimistic estimate than the real-world testing that they do in their other annual broadband speeds report (that report uses a custom router installed in several thousand homes).

In addition, the average monthly data volumes per household on fixed broadband connections have also increased over the past year, jumping from 132 GigaBytes (GB) last year to 190GB now. We should add that the total data usage per household for superfast connections is even higher at 231GB (up from 169GB).

Rising data consumption is one of the key reasons why so many unlimited ISPs hike their prices each year because it impacts the cost of service provision.

Mobile Networks

The report also examines the coverage of mobile networks, such as via the usual 2G, 3G and 4G based platforms that almost everybody should now be familiar with. The UK also has four primary network operators via O2, Three UK, EE (BT) and Vodafone, plus lots of virtual operators (MVNO) and resellers that piggyback off those.

Crucially Ofcom has new approach for defining mobile coverage in this report, which reveals that 90% of premises (indoor) in the UK should be about to make a mobile call (up from 85% last year) and this drops to 86% for data connections (up from 80% last year). However the outdoor geographic coverage of 4G networks is a pitiful 43% (up from 21% in 2016).

Most network operators are currently reaching maturity in their 4G deployments, although EE has set itself a goal for landmass coverage of 95% by the end of December 2020. Clearly they have a long way to go.

Its worth highlighting that geographic 4G coverage in the UKs rural areas is even worse. While people inside 90% of UK premises can now make telephone calls on all four mobile networks, this falls to just 57% in rural areas. Likewise people can make outdoor calls from 70% of the geographic area of the UK, but only 40% of the geographic area of Scotland.

Meanwhile the growing coverage and rising take-up of 4G is also driving greater volumes of data downloads and uploads. The average volume of data consumed per subscriber is now 1.9GB per month, up from 1.3GB in 2016 and 0.9GB in 2015.

Otherwise you can find a full stats summary of the UK position below.
Friday, Dec 15th, 2017 (3:46 pm) - Score 3,053

Ofcom has published their final UK Code of Practice for the Governments reformed Electronic Communications Code (ECC), which aims to make it easier and cheaper for mobile and broadband operators to deploy new infrastructure (masts, fibre optic cables etc.) on public or private land.

At present when a fixed line broadband or mobile operator wants to deploy a new network, particularly into rural areas, then this can sometimes be hampered by an inability to reach a wayleave agreement for access to the land or the need to pay out a hefty rental fee.

Under the reformed Electronic Communications Code (ECC), which is part of the new 2017 Digital Economy Act, telecoms providers should be able to reach rental agreements that would see them paying about the same amount as utility providers (water, electricity etc.), who often pay a lot less than broadband and mobile operators.

The new ECC should also make it easier for operators to upgrade or share their equipment with rivals and it introduces standards for tackling related legal disputes. As such Ofcoms code sets out what conduct is expected from both the landowners and the telecoms companies.

Ofcom Statement Under the ECC, Ofcom can grant powers to certain companies to allow them to roll out communications infrastructure, such as phone masts, more easily. Companies with these powers are able to construct and maintain electronic communications equipment on public land, and apply to a court for permission to carry out work on private land if agreement cannot be reached with the landowner. Ofcom was asked by Government to develop this Code of Practice to assist future negotiations between operators and landowners. We have decided that the draft Code we proposed in March broadly remains appropriate, although we have made some changes following feedback to the consultation.

Understandably private landowners tend to be opposed to anything that will result in them having less control over their land or reducing their income from rentals. On the other hand if landowners force operators to pay more or reject them then it can result in local communities being left with poor connectivity, which also negatively affects the landowners.

The code itself remains non-binding (i.e. there is no statutory obligation on operators or landowners to comply with its provisions) and its future impact is still very much open to debate. Meanwhile landowners, such as the CLA, continue to complain about poor mobile coverage.

Mark Bridgeman, CLA Deputy President, said: It is ridiculous that eight out of ten people in rural areas still do not have access to more than one of the major mobile operators. The existing target for mobile coverage is pathetically unambitious, and as of January there will be no target at all. These figures are an indictment of the weak position the Government and Ofcom have taken with the industry. Time and again they have rolled over to industry demands and rural communities are still being cut off from the digital economy. Its time to look again at how the industry is being held to account for its performance on rural coverage. If we are to take seriously the promises made to rural people, it is imperative that new, stretching and legally binding targets are in place that match our ambition for the modern economy. We shall be seeking answers from the Government and the regulator and asking MPs to look at the issue in detail.

A recent report in Farmers Weekly claimed that the number of landowners seeking to remove operators from their property had increased by at least 30%, largely due to fears over the new codes impact. However we have yet to see any solid details on this.
The British Government has rounded on Twitter for revealing that the Russian-linked entities, in this case the broadcasting service RT, spent only a little over 1000 for advertising on the referendum, called in June last year to decide whether the UK should continue to remain a part of the European Union.

RT said Twitter had found minimal involvement by Russia in the referendum, with just six paid ads that were put out as tweets, all sent by RT itself, that could be judged as trying to influence the outcome.

In keeping with the sentiment in many other countries, primarily the US, where Russia has been blamed for events that affected them negatively, the UK Government had claimed that Russia had had an influence on the outcome of the referendum which voted to leave the EU.

The British Government is inquiring into allegations that Russian-linked entities tried to influence the Brexit vote.

RT took a dig at the UK for slamming Twitter's response as completely inadequate.

Not to fear, dear Tories. In the spirit of transparency, weve compiled all the tweets Twitter was talking about  so you dont have to, it said.

The first tweet, on June 22, said: #Brexit: EU in or EU out? Together or apart? Follow RTs special coverage June 23.

On 23 June, the day of the referendum, RT said it had tweeted: Together or apart? Follow RT special coverage.

It listed the other four tweets, none of which could be taken to be biased to one side or the other by a normal human being.

Three were sent on 24 and 25 June after the vote was held.

Conservative MP Damian Collins, who chairs the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport Committee, took offence at Twitters submission, claiming it should have also listed accounts connected to Russias Internet Research Agency.

The information you have now shared with us is completely inadequate, he was quoted as saying.

In the letter I sent to you on 3 November, I requested that Twitter provides to the committee a list of accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency and any other Russian-linked accounts that it has removed and examples of any posts from these accounts that are linked to the United Kingdom'.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said: We hope that all those in the UK media and political establishments who have spent the last year and a half trying to prove that Britain voted for Brexit because of RT are seeing their efforts vindicated with the Big Reveal.
The Federal Communications Commission in the United States has ended net neutrality rules which regulate access to the Internet and which required Internet Service Providers to treat all Web traffic equally.

In a 3-2 vote on party lines on Thursday (US time), the FCC voted to dismantle the Obama-era regulations put in place in 2015 and, simultaneously, also voted to eliminate the legal foundation that gives it oversight over ISPs.

Some media reporting in the US suggests the FCCs killing of the net neutrality regulations has handed the broadband and wireless industries a big victory in their fight against government oversight of the Internet.

And, as iTWire reported last month the repeal of the regulations could see ISPs given the power to charge websites large sums in order to be granted fast Internet access, whilst websites that do not pay the fees will have access to users slowed considerably.

But FCC chairman chairman Ajit Pai and other Republicans had argued that the Obama-era FCC overstepped its authority with the regulations by reclassifying the ISPs as common carriers.

Following Thursdays vote to repeal the regulations, Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr is reported as calling it "a great day for consumers, for innovation and for freedom."  and saying that the vote returns the FCC to a light regulatory regime that had worked for 20 years until they were changed in 2015.



On the flipside of the public debate in the US, supporters of net neutrality have said the protections are insufficient because the FTC only considers harm to consumers after it occurs, rather than trying to prevent harm, as the rules were designed to do.

The FCCs proposal comes just months after President Donald Trump signed a bill allowing ISPs to use or sell user information without requiring permission from users.

And, while 93.6% of House Republicans voted in favour of the bill, it only had a 6% approval rating  with Republicans, as well as ISPs overwhelmingly praising the FCC proposal.

The FCCs decision to repeal the net neutrality rules is somewhat contrary to a global trend to ensure all internet content is treated equally.

The EU has had net neutrality protections since 2015 and he Netherlands and Slovenia have adopted their own rules  while countries like Chile and India have adopted some form of net neutrality, and others are considering what to do.
Developers with blockchain skills have become the hottest commodity in the freelance marketplace, according to a new study.

Freelance employment website Upwork released its latest quarterly index of the 20 hottest job skills, which shows that job postings for workers with blockchain skills have grown exponentially this year.

In its last quarterly report, blockchain technologists were in second place behind those with skills in robotics.

"Blockchain appears to be the next uncharted, highly talked about technology similar to what the 'cloud' was back in the mid-2000's," the Upwork report says. "Its growth exceeded 2,000% for three quarters in a row on Upwork.com, and in Q1 it experienced more than 6,000% year-over-year growth, making it the fastest-growing skill out of more than 5,000 skills on the site."

According to another recent report from Upwork, 53% of hiring managers surveyed cite access to skills as their biggest hiring challenge, and the majority (59%) are already utilizing flexible talent.

Demand for workers with computer/mathematical skills exceeded supply by 17% this year, according to job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies.

There were 5,743 mostly full-time job openings calling for blockchain skills in the last 12 months, according to Burning Glass Technologies; that represents a growth of 320%.

The initial hype around blockchain has evolved as more enterprises take the distributed ledger technology seriously, according to Upwork. "Major companies such as Samsung and IBM are already leveraging it in innovative ways, while Salesforce is planning on unveiling a blockchain offering for its customers during Dreamforce in September," the report said.

Burning Glass Technologies

Bitcoin cryptocurrency developers were in third place for freelance skills in Upwork's previous quarterly report, but those technologists have since dropped out of the top 20 job skills list. Meanwhile, blockchain technologists are advertising their services for as much as $250 per hour, according to Upwork's listing site.

As skills become more specialized, companies either need to invest in re-skilling to prepare workers for the jobs of tomorrow or leverage freelance professionals who are nearly twice as likely as traditional employees to proactively take re-skilling upon themselves, Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork, said in a statement. Many of todays Fortune 500 companies are already doing this, and adoption of flexible workers will increase as hiring gets harder.

The median income for fulltime blockchain developers in the U.S. is $140,000 a year, compared to general software developers, whose annual median pay is $105,000, according to Matt Sigelman, CEO of Burning Glass Technologies.

In high-tech regions of the U.S. such as Silicon Valley, blockchain developers earn as much as $163,000; in New York City, they can earn as much as $150,000, according to Sigelman.

"Most of the demand for blockchain developers is still concentrated [in high-tech regions]," Sigelman said.

Upwork

Blockchain becomes a disruptive skill

It's not hard to imagine blockchain as a "disruptive skill" that is both fast-growing and hard to find, according to Burning Glass. While the technology and hiring patterns are in their early stages, employers need to start figuring out where they will find blockchain talent, "even as they are still considering how the technology will change their business.

"Because of its connection with 'cryptocurrencies,' blockchain is associated with finance, and major banks like Liberty Mutual, Capital One and Bank of America have posted openings," Burning Glass Technologies said in its blog. "There are also companies devoted to building blockchain applications, like Consensys Corporation. But the demand for blockchain is much broader, including major consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte and technology companies like IBM and SAP.

"This is additional evidence that the business world is starting to take blockchain seriously."

CME Group Inc., for example, announced this week it plans to launch bitcoin futures.

Cryptocurrency market capitalization has grown in recent years to $172 billion, with bitcoin representing $94 billion, or more than half of the total, according to CME Group.

Gartner forecasts the business value-add of blockchain will exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030, indicating that it shows promise in terms of utility for business and is a technology thats here to stay, the Upwork report said.

A recent survey by SAP found that 92% of business leaders view blockchain as an opportunity, with the most promising use cases ranked as:

Supply chain and IoT  63% Legal and regulatory  19% Cryptocurrency  8% Sustainability  3%

Additionally, the World Economic Forum just released a toolkit to help executives better understand whether blockchain is an appropriate and helpful tool for their business needs. As more executives try to navigate this technology, there is soaring demand for talented experts familiar with it who can help demystify it and explore potential uses, Upwork noted.

SAP

Enterprises are considering the ways blockchain distributed ledgers can create more efficiency by eliminating the need for central administration, as is required with a relational database.

Enterprises are also asking their tech vendors about blockchain for audit logging and/or verifiable logs, which is viewed as a reliable way of tracking what happened in an organization to satisfy regulatory auditors, according to Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO of RSA Security, a subsidiary of the Dell EMC Infrastructure Solutions Group.

"It's a very hot topic right now," Ramzan said in an earlier interview with Computerworld. "We are definitely getting a lot of inbound inquiries around blockchain and its implication within enterprise environments. I think it's driven largely by the fact that when there's a new technology out there, to some degree people want to be buzzword compliant with the latest and greatest."

The 20 fastest-growing freelance skills in the first three months of 2018 saw more than 130% year-over-year growth in demand, while demand for the top 10 skills grew more than 400% compared to the same time period last year (Q1 2017).

The top 20 fastest-growing skills, Q1 2018:

Blockchain Tensorflow Amazon DynamoDB Voice over Subtitling Art direction Content strategy Computer vision Microsoft Power BI Augmented reality Chatbot development React native Media buying Go development Information security Scala development Instagram API Adobe Premiere Machine learning AngularJS development

Banks are moving toward blockchain in droves for its ability to create an open, cross-border system for clearance and settlement of financial transactions. IBM, for instance, has built a new blockchain-based financial service for use as a cross-border currency exchange by several banks.

Last year, IBM partnered with a Polynesian payments system provider and an open-source FinTech payment network to implement a new international exchange based on the blockchain electronic ledger. The ledger will serve 12 different currencies across Pacific Islands as well as Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Mastercard is launching its own blockchain-based network to enable partner banks and merchants to make cross-border payments faster and more securely. The Mastercard blockchain service can be used to clear credit card transactions and eliminate administrative tasks using smart contract rules  thus, speeding transaction settlement.

JP Morgan Chase last October rolled out a blockchain pilot program for global payments. The financial services giant said the blockchain-based Interbank Information Network "will enhance the client experience, decreasing the amount of time  from weeks to hours  and costs associated with resolving payment delays."

Blockchain explained

Blockchain is an electronic ledger  similar to a relational database  that can be openly shared among disparate users to create an unchangeable record of their transactions, each one time-stamped and linked to the previous one. It can also be used as a private electronic ledger.

Each digital record or transaction in the thread is called a block (hence the name), and it allows either an open or controlled set of users to participate in the electronic ledger. Each block is linked to a specific participant.

Maersk Ninety percent of goods in global trade are carried by the ocean shipping industry each year. A new blockchain solution from IBM and Maersk will help manage and track the paper trail of tens of millions of shipping containers across the world by digitizing the supply chain process.

Blockchain can only be updated by consensus between participants in the system, and once new data is entered, it can never be erased. The blockchain contains a true and verifiable record of each and every transaction ever made in the system.

While blockchain skills initially showed up in artificial intelligence and automation fields, they've now spread into other, more traditional roles, such as software developers, financial quantatitive analysts, and network engineers.

"What's interesting here is what we refer to as the hybrid-job economy; that's the notion that increasingly jobs are combining skill sets. If you look at some of the jobs growing the fastest and are highest value to companies are those with a sort of mixed-skill genome," Sigelman said.

For example, mobile app developers may be asked if they have marketing and commerce skills that web developers aren't typically expected to have.

"And, blockchain is having a lot of the same characteristics for some reasons that aren't all that surprising becuase it's a foundational technology and fundemental re-think of the underpinnings of how we transact and connect," Sigeman said.

How to become a blockchain developer

The path to becoming a blockchain developer is relatively simple, said Sigelman, who has noticed online courses being offered by universities, such as Princeton, UC Berkeley and Stanford.

For example, Stanford University's Coursara, its venture-backed education-focused technology company, is offering online courses.

Many companies seeking blockchain developers are advertising for workers with Java Script and Python language coding experience, which are standard software skill sets. Others, however, are looking for developers with skills in cryptography and machine learning, Sigelman said.

"I think somebody who is on the leading edge of software development is not going to feel like these blockchain skill sets are new ground for them," Sigelman said.

While fiinancial services (see Bitcoin) was the first industry to jump on board the blockchain wagon, industries such as technology service providers, international shipping, healthcare, power utilities and real estate have been quick to explore its use, too, for everything from smart contracts that automatically execute when certain conditions are met to controlling security access to sensitive control systems.

One new company, ShelterZoom, created a blockchain for buying and selling real estate online thats in beta-testing now.

IBM Watson Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are exploring the use of blockchain for secure patient data exchange, including sensitive electronic medical records, clinical trials and data culled from mobile devices and wearables.

Blockchain is also making inroads into industries as diverse as retail sales, administrative services, transportation and warehousing, where it's being used as way to manage distributed supply chains.

Karim Lakhani, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, compared blockchain's impact to that of the Internet because it creates an open, distributed network that allows anyone to share data in a secure manner.

"Settlement of [stock trades] takes time because you're going from one system to the next... and it can take days and cost a lot to transfer money across the world and across multiple systems...versus a direct message system on a network," Lakhani said. "If we have an open, distributed ledger where we can verify transactions taking place and we can build in a programmed logic of how actions take place, that the reduction in transactions costs and increase in the number of new novel applications that can be developed far outweighs the purported benefits of relational database systems."

"It's a whole new paradigm for the way information is stored, shared and acted upon," Lakhani added.
Almost two years of preparation involving over 200 meetings, 30 subcommittees, and so on. Thats just a quick look at Joyce Rabins work as Chair of Together in Israel: Our Pride, Our Purpose. Hadassahs 100th National Convention. (Hadassah, which was founded in 1912, held its first conventi Read moreS'ville resident helps organize 100th national of Hadassah, The Womens Zionist Organization of America
Reddit Email 354 Shares

By Joey Ayoub | ( GlobalVoices.org) |  

US President Donald Trump's declaration that the country would move its embassy in Israel to the city of Jerusalem was met with shock throughout the world. Among Palestinians, however, it was outrage mixed with a distinctive lack of surprise.

Jerusalem is a controversial site of contention in the so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace process for the simple reason that both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine claim it as their capital. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered to be occupied Palestinian territory  Israel captured the city, previously under Jordanian rule, during the 1967 Six-Day War  and all embassies to Israel, up until this recent development, were located in Tel Aviv.

Palestinians living in the city have long experienced discrimination under Israeli control. According to the series entitled A City for All? produced by the collective Visualizing Palestine, as of October 2017, 10,000 Palestinians born in Jerusalem have no legal status because their parents hold different ID cards. Despite being 37% of the current population of Jerusalem, Palestinians have received only 10% of the city's budget for their neighborhoods.

And between 2004 and 2016, 685 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem were demolishedleaving 2,513 people homeless. Home demolitions are part of a broader Israeli policy to alter the demographic and geospatial makeup of Jerusalem, privileging Jewish settlers over the indigenous Palestinian population:

Jerusalem is a microcosm of the treatment that Palestinians face across the territories. Throughout Israel's 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, human rights groups, international organizations and governments have blasted Israel for human rights abuses, ranging from unlawful killings and forced displacement to discriminatory policies toward Palestinians.

With the US embassy decision, politicians across the world offered their rebukes. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example, declared that Jerusalem is a red line for Muslims. But over the years, condemnations haven't translated into any concrete change, especially when large sums of trade money with Israel have been on the line.

As for the US, Palestinians have long argued that the country's policies reflect an unmistakable pro-Israel bias. Despite the US claiming to be a neutral actor, its record at the United Nations, where it has used the veto in support of Israel several times (full list by the Jewish Virtual Library here), as well as the large amount in aid and weapons it sends to Israel every year (the most recent package in 2016 worth $38 billion over the course of a decade), speak for themselves.

In fact, so common was it to expect the US to use its veto in support of Israel that the Obama administration's 2016 decision to abstain from using it in a resolution condemning Israel's construction of settlements on Palestinian territory  declared illegal under international law  made headlines.

Who is America to declare the capital of Israel when it's Palestinian land?

This perhaps explains why, while definitely outraged, Palestinians reacting on social media were not necessarily surprised by the US move.

At the time of writing, at least two Palestinians were killed and over 200 were injured during protests opposing the Jerusalem decision across East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel launched at least one airstrike on Gaza, injuring at least 25 civilians.

Linah Al Saafin, a Palestinian producer at Al Jazeera, shared this image of a 14-year-old Palestinian boy being arrested by Israeli soldiers in Hebron, West Bank:

How many Israeli soldiers does it take to arrest a 14 year old Palestinian boy?

Photo taken yesterday in Hebron h/t @shejae3a pic.twitter.com/1eNM3CmfG8   (@LinahAlsaafin) December 8, 2017

Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian activist and commentator who was herself arrested at the age of 20 by Israeli forces, wrote in an Al Jazeera op-ed that the US administration's announcement did not happen in a vacuum:

It's a culmination of international failure to address Israeli human rights violations, perpetual US support to Israel, the incompetency of Palestinian leadership to achieve any solutions through diplomatic efforts, and more recently the new friendship the US administration is building with some Arab states.

She also denounced the focus of much of the mainstream media on reaction from Palestinian and Arab states rather than the very rights of Palestinians continuously violated:

Ya'll the issue to Trump declaring #Jerusalem the capital of Israel should not be the fear of reaction from Palestinians & Arab states,rather the fact that an international administration is once again ignoring Palestinian existence and right to self determination. #Palestine    (@MariamBarghouti) December 6, 2017

Barghouti finally pointed out that 2017 is the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, referring to a 1917 public statement issued by the British government during World War I announcing support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine:

A Palestinian man tells me as I interview him: Who is America to declare the capital of Israel when it's Palestinian land? We're marking 100 years of Balfour with another manifestation of it by @realDonaldTrump. #Palestine #Jerusalem    (@MariamBarghouti) December 5, 2017

. . .

In a long status, Palestinian-Syrian journalist Eyad Hamid said that moving the embassy does not make much of a difference as it'd be akin to moving it from one occupied city, Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv-Yafo where the current embassy is, to another, Jerusalem. . . .

Jerusalem-born and raised Leen Barghouti, who is currently a consultant to the Palestinian mission in Berlin, and previously a researcher at Georgetown University, viewed this as yet more proof of the Israeli government under President Benjamin Netanyahu isn't interested in peace:

There are not enough words to describe what on earth happened yesterday to my hometown Jerusalem, however it is clear the Israeli government is not interested in letting go of its domination, suppression and superiority. It is not interested in peace. Netanyahu's idea of peace is Palestinian servitude and submission. The US administration is basically rewarding theft, oppression, repression, violence and humiliation.

She then called on Palestinians to unite:

It's time now to unite and fight for our equal civil, cultural, religious and political rights. It's time to break our chains and retake our heritage that was stolen from us, it's time to fight for what is right rather than what is comfortable.



All anger that isn't accompanied by the dissolution to the Oslo regime [a reference to the Palestinian Authority established by the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation] and withdrawal from recognition of the occupation and the complete divestment from negotiations is just [an] empty act with no meaning, and the Palestinian Authority won't do any of this because its priority is to preserve its privileges

The Israeli government hasn't wasted much time since the announcement, with 14,000 new housing units planned for Jerusalem, including 4,000 across the Green Line, i.e. in the legal territory of the State of Palestine. . .

Joey Ayoub is the MENA Editor at Global Voices as well as a Lebanese researcher currently living in Edinburgh. He is the founder of Hummus For Thought and mostly writes on Syria, Israel-Palestine, and Lebanon. He has a BS in Environmental Health from the American University of Beirut, an MA in Cultural Studies from SOAS, University of London and is currently doing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. His MA thesis was on the politics of Hebrew and Yiddish in Zionist thinking and his PhD research is on the politics of cinema in postwar Lebanon.

For full reprinting of cited tweets, see the original article at GlobalVoices.org

Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
Reddit Email 244 Shares

By Nick Turse | ( Tomdispatch.com) |  

We dont know exactly where were at in the world, militarily, and what were doing, said Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in October. That was in the wake of the combat deaths of four members of the Special Operations forces in the West African nation of Niger. Graham and other senators expressed shock about the deployment, but the global sweep of Americas most elite forces is, at best, an open secret.

Earlier this year before that same Senate committee  though Graham was not in attendance  General Raymond Thomas, the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), offered some clues about the planetwide reach of Americas most elite troops. We operate and fight in every corner of the world, he boasted. Rather than a mere break-glass-in-case-of-war force, we are now proactively engaged across the battle space of the Geographic Combatant Commands providing key integrating and enabling capabilities to support their campaigns and operations.

In 2017, U.S. Special Operations forces, including Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, deployed to 149 countries around the world, according to figures provided to TomDispatch by U.S. Special Operations Command. Thats about 75% of the nations on the planet and represents a jump from the 138 countries that saw such deployments in 2016 under the Obama administration. Its also a jump of nearly 150% from the last days of George W. Bushs White House. This record-setting number of deployments comes as American commandos are battling a plethora of terror groups in quasi-wars that stretch from Africa and the Middle East to Asia.

Most Americans would be amazed to learn that U.S. Special Operations Forces have been deployed to three quarters of the nations on the planet, observes William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. There is little or no transparency as to what they are doing in these countries and whether their efforts are promoting security or provoking further tension and conflict.

Growth Opportunity



Americas elite troops were deployed to 149 nations in 2017, according to U.S. Special Operations Command. The map above displays the locations of 132 of those countries; 129 locations (in blue) were supplied by U.S. Special Operations Command; 3 locations (in red)  Syria, Yemen and Somalia  were derived from open-source information. (Nick Turse)

Since 9/11, we expanded the size of our force by almost 75% in order to take on mission-sets that are likely to endure, SOCOMs Thomas told the Senate Armed Services Committee in May. Since 2001, from the pace of operations to their geographic sweep, the activities of U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) have, in fact, grown in every conceivable way. On any given day, about 8,000 special operators  from a command numbering roughly 70,000  are deployed in approximately 80 countries.

The increase in the use of Special Forces since 9/11 was part of what was then referred to as the Global War on Terror as a way to keep the United States active militarily in areas beyond its two main wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, Hartung told TomDispatch. The even heavier reliance on Special Forces during the Obama years was part of a strategy of what I think of as politically sustainable warfare, in which the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to a few key theaters of war was replaced by a lighter footprint in more places, using drones, arms sales and training, and Special Forces.

The Trump White House has attacked Barack Obamas legacy on nearly all fronts. It has undercut, renounced, or reversed actions of his ranging from trade pacts to financial and environmental regulations to rules that shielded transgender employees from workplace discrimination. When it comes to Special Operations forces, however, the Trump administration has embraced their use in the style of the former president, while upping the ante even further. President Trump has also provided military commanders greater authority to launch attacks in quasi-war zones like Yemen and Somalia. According to Micah Zenko, a national security expert and Whitehead Senior Fellow at the think tank Chatham House, those forces conducted five times as many lethal counterterrorism missions in such non-battlefield countries in the Trump administrations first six months in office as they did during Obamas final six months.

A Wide World of War

U.S. commandos specialize in 12 core skills, from unconventional warfare (helping to stoke insurgencies and regime change) to foreign internal defense (supporting allies efforts to guard themselves against terrorism, insurgencies, and coups). Counterterrorism  fighting what SOCOM calls violent extremist organizations or VEOs  is, however, the specialty Americas commandos have become best known for in the post-9/11 era.

In the spring of 2002, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, SOCOM chief General Charles Holland touted efforts to improve SOF capabilities to prosecute unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense programs to better support friends and allies. The value of these programs, demonstrated in the Afghanistan campaign, he said, can be particularly useful in stabilizing countries and regions vulnerable to terrorist infiltration.

Over the last decade and a half, however, theres been little evidence Americas commandos have excelled at stabilizing countries and regions vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. This was reflected in General Thomass May testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The threat posed by VEOs remains the highest priority for USSOCOM in both focus and effort, he explained.

However, unlike Holland who highlighted only one country  Afghanistan  where special operators were battling militants in 2002, Thomas listed a panoply of terrorist hot spots bedeviling Americas commandos a decade and a half later. Special Operations Forces, he said, are the main effort, or major supporting effort for U.S. VEO-focused operations in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, across the Sahel of Africa, the Philippines, and Central/South America  essentially, everywhere Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are to be found.

Officially, there are about 5,300 U.S. troops in Iraq. (The real figure is thought to be higher.) Significant numbers of them are special operators training and advising Iraqi government forces and Kurdish troops. Elite U.S. forces have also played a crucial role in Iraqs recent offensive against the militants of the Islamic State, providing artillery and airpower, including SOCOMs AC-130W Stinger II gunships with 105mm cannons that allow them to serve as flying howitzers. In that campaign, Special Operations forces were thrust into a new role of coordinating fire support, wrote Linda Robinson, a senior international policy analyst with the RAND Corporation who spent seven weeks in Iraq, Syria, and neighboring countries earlier this year. This fire support is even more important to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a far more lightly armed irregular force which constitutes the major ground force fighting ISIS in Syria.

Special Operations forces have, in fact, played a key role in the war effort in Syria, too. While American commandos have been killed in battle there, Kurdish and Arab proxies  known as the Syrian Democratic Forces  have done the lions share of the fighting and dying to take back much of the territory once held by the Islamic State. SOCOMs Thomas spoke about this in surprisingly frank terms at a security conference in Aspen, Colorado, this summer. Were right now inside the capital of [ISISs] caliphate at Raqqa [Syria]. Well have that back soon with our proxies, a surrogate force of 50,000 people that are working for us and doing our bidding, he said. So two and a half years of fighting this fight with our surrogates, theyve lost thousands, weve only lost two service members. Two is too many, but its, you know, a relief that we havent had the kind of losses that weve had elsewhere.

This year, U.S. special operators were killed in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Sahelian nations of Niger and Mali (although reports indicate that a Green Beret who died in that country was likely strangled by U.S. Navy SEALs). In Libya, SEALs recently kidnapped a suspect in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. In the Philippines, U.S. Special Forces joined the months-long battle to recapture Marawi City after it was taken by Islamist militants earlier this year.

And even this growing list of counterterror hotspots is only a fraction of the story. In Africa, the countries singled out by Thomas  Somalia, Libya, and those in the Sahel  are just a handful of the nations to which American commandos were deployed in 2017. As recently reported at Vice News, U.S. Special Operations forces were active in at least 33 nations across the continent, with troops heavily concentrated in and around countries now home to a growing number of what the Pentagons Africa Center for Strategic Studies calls active militant Islamist groups. While Defense Department spokeswoman Major Audricia Harris would not provide details on the range of operations being carried out by the elite forces, its known that they run the gamut from conducting security assessments at U.S. embassies to combat operations.

Data provided by SOCOM also reveals a special ops presence in 33 European countries this year. Outside of Russia and Belarus we train with virtually every country in Europe either bilaterally or through various multinational events, Major Michael Weisman, a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command Europe, told TomDispatch.

For the past two years, in fact, the U.S. has maintained a Special Operations contingent in almost every nation on Russias western border. [W]eve had persistent presence in every country  every NATO country and others on the border with Russia doing phenomenal things with our allies, helping them prepare for their threats, said SOCOMs Thomas, mentioning the Baltic states as well as Romania, Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia by name. These activities represent, in the words of General Charles Cleveland, chief of U.S. Army Special Operations Command from 2012 to 2015 and now the senior mentor to the Army War College, undeclared campaigns by commandos. Weisman, however, balked at that particular language. U.S. Special Operations forces have been deployed persistently and at the invitation of our allies in the Baltic States and Poland since 2014 as part of the broader U.S. European Command and Department of Defense European Deterrence Initiative, he told TomDispatch. The persistent presence of U.S. SOF alongside our Allies sends a clear message of U.S. commitment to our allies and the defense of our NATO Alliance.

Asia is also a crucial region for Americas elite forces. In addition to Iran and Russia, SOCOMs Thomas singled out China and North Korea as nations that are becoming more aggressive in challenging U.S. interests and partners through the use of asymmetric means that often fall below the threshold of conventional conflict. He went on to say that the ability of our special operators to conduct low-visibility special warfare operations in politically sensitive environments make them uniquely suited to counter the malign activities of our adversaries in this domain.

U.S.-North Korean saber rattling has brought increased attention to Special Forces Detachment Korea (SFDK), the longest serving U.S. Special Forces unit in the world. It would, of course, be called into action should a war ever break out on the peninsula. In such a conflict, U.S. and South Korean elite forces would unite under the umbrella of the Combined Unconventional Warfare Task Force. In March, commandos  including, according to some reports, members of the Armys Delta Force and the Navys SEAL Team 6  took part in Foal Eagle, a training exercise, alongside conventional U.S. forces and their South Korean counterparts.

U.S. special operators also were involved in training exercises and operations elsewhere across Asia and the Pacific. In June, in Okinawa, Japan, for example, airmen from the 17th Special Operations Squadron (17th SOS) carried out their annual (and oddly spelled) Day of the Jakal, the launch of five Air Force Special Operations MC-130J Commando II aircraft to practice, according to a military news release, airdrops, aircraft landings, and rapid infiltration and exfiltration of equipment. According to Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Dube of the 17th SOS, It shows how we can meet the emerging mission sets for both SOCKOR [Special Operations Command Korea] and SOCPAC [Special Operations Command Pacific] out here in the Pacific theater.

At about the same time, members of the Air Forces 353rd Special Operations Group carried out Teak Jet, a joint combined exchange training, or JCET, mission meant to improve military coordination between U.S. and Japanese forces. In June and July, intelligence analysts from the Air Forces 353rd Special Operations Group took part in Talisman Saber, a biennial military training exercise conducted in various locations across Australia.

More for War

The steady rise in the number of elite operators, missions, and foreign deployments since 9/11 appears in no danger of ending, despite years of worries by think-tank experts and special ops supporters about the effects of such a high operations tempo on these troops. Most SOF units are employed to their sustainable limit, General Thomas said earlier this year. Despite growing demand for SOF, we must prioritize the sourcing of these demands as we face a rapidly changing security environment. Yet the number of deployments still grew to a record 149 nations in 2017. (During the Obama years, deployments reached 147 in 2015.)

At a recent conference on special operations held in Washington, D.C., influential members of the Senate and House armed services committees acknowledged that there were growing strains on the force. I do worry about overuse of SOF, said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, a Republican. One solution offered by both Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Republican Senator Joni Ernst, a combat veteran who served in Iraq, was to bulk up Special Operations Command yet more. We have to increase numbers and resources, Reed insisted.

This desire to expand Special Operations further comes at a moment when senators like Lindsey Graham continue to acknowledge how remarkably clueless they are about where those elite forces are deployed and what exactly they are doing in far-flung corners of the globe. Experts point out just how dangerous further expansion could be, given the proliferation of terror groups and battle zones since 9/11 and the dangers of unforeseen blowback as a result of low-profile special ops missions.

Almost by definition, the dizzying number of deployments undertaken by U.S. Special Operations forces in recent years would be hard to track. But few in Congress seem to be even making the effort, said William Hartung. This is a colossal mistake if one is concerned about reining in the globe-spanning U.S. military strategy of the post-9/11 era, which has caused more harm than good and done little to curb terrorism.

However, with special ops deployments rising above Bush and Obama administration levels to record-setting heights and the Trump administration embracing the use of commandos in quasi-wars in places like Somalia and Yemen, there appears to be little interest in the White House or on Capitol Hill in reining in the geographic scope and sweep of Americas most secretive troops. And the results, say experts, may be dire. While the retreat from large boots on the ground wars like the Bush administrations intervention in Iraq is welcome, said Hartung, the proliferation of Special Operations forces is a dangerous alternative, given the prospects of getting the United States further embroiled in complex overseas conflicts.

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. He is the author of the bestselling Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. His latest book is Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan. His website is NickTurse.com.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Alfred McCoys In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, as well as John Dowers The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, John Feffers dystopian novel Splinterlands, Nick Turses Next Time Theyll Come to Count the Dead, and Tom Engelhardts Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright Nick Turse 2017

Via Tomdispatch.com
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Dec. 15, 2017) - Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. ("Barkerville" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE:BGM) is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Haywood Securities Inc. and Canaccord Genuity Corp. as co-lead underwriters (together, the "Underwriters"), pursuant to which the Underwriters have agreed to purchase, on a "bought deal" private placement basis, 10,000,000 common shares of the Corporation that will qualify as "flow-through shares" (within the meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada)) (the "Flow-Through Shares") at a price of C$1.00 per Flow-Through Share, for aggregate gross proceeds of C$10,000,000 (the "Offering").

The Corporation has granted the Underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1,500,000 Flow-Through Shares at a price of C$1.00 per Flow-Through Share, for additional aggregate gross proceeds of C$1,500,000 (the "Underwriters' Option"), which is exercisable in whole or in part by the Underwriters at any time prior to 48 hours prior to the closing date.

The Corporation intends to use the gross proceeds from the sale of the Flow-Through Shares for "Canadian exploration expenses" (within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada)), related to the Corporation's Cariboo Gold Project in central British Columbia. The Corporation has also agreed to renounce such Canadian exploration expenses with an effective date of no later than December 31, 2017.

The closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about December 28, 2017 and is subject to the completion of formal documentation and receipt of regulatory approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. The Flow-Through Shares issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a statutory hold period in accordance with applicable securities legislation. In consideration for their services, the Corporation has agreed to pay the Underwriters a cash commission equal to 5.0% of the gross proceeds from the Offering, excluding gross proceeds received from the sale of Flow-Through Shares to Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd and Osisko Mining Inc.

About Barkerville

Barkerville is focused on developing its extensive land package located in the historical Cariboo Mining District of central British Columbia. Barkerville's mineral tenures cover 1,950 square kilometres along a strike length of 67 kilometres which includes several past producing hard rock mines of the historic Barkerville Gold Mining Camp near the town of Wells, British Columbia. The QR Project, located approximately 110 kilometres by highway and all weather road from Wells was acquired by Barkerville in 2010 and boasts a fully permitted 900 tonne/day gold milling and tailings facility. Test mining of the Bonanza Ledge open pit was completed in March of 2015 with 91,489 tonnes of material milled producing 25,464 ounces of gold. The Corporation has completed several drilling and exploration programs over the past 20 years and has compiled this data with all historical information in order develop geologic models which are assisting management in defining new deposits in the Cariboo Gold Project. An extensive drill program is currently underway with the goal of delineating additional high grade gold mineralization.
Civil engineering graduate receives prestigious Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship

Friday, Dec. 15, 2017

MANHATTAN  New Kansas State University civil engineering graduate Blake Moris, Manhattan, has been selected by the Federal Highway Administration to receive a Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship for 2018. The program provides fellowships and funding to students pursuing master's or doctoral degrees in transportation-related disciplines.



The U.S. Department of Transportation awards the fellowship annually to 150-200 exceptional students around the country. The 12-month, $31,900 award Moris received includes $10,000 for tuition, a $1,700 per month stipend, and $1,500 for travel to the upcoming annual meeting, Jan. 7-11, 2018, of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C.



Moris is a December 2017 graduate of Kansas State University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He will start work on his master's degree in civil engineering at the university in January 2018.



Under the supervision of Eric Fitzsimmons, assistant professor of civil engineering, Moris will research overweight and oversized freight flow and safety on the state's roadways, using the Kansas Truck Routing and Intelligent Permitting System, or K-Trips.



"I expect this research project to have far-reaching results within Kansas and the Midwest region, where transporting goods and services by truck is critical to the economy," Moris said.



As an undergraduate, Moris was a member of the Kansas State University Marching Band, serving as drum major in fall 2017  a position he will also hold in 2018.



The Center for Transportation Workforce Development, a part of the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, manages activities that integrate transportation into college and university programs, with the aim to increase the number of postsecondary students interested in pursuing transportation-related careers as well as helping to retain top talent in the U.S. transportation industry.






Seib recognized as National Academy of Inventors fellow

Friday, Dec. 15, 2017

MANHATTAN  The National Academy of Inventors is honoring Paul A. Seib, professor emeritus of grain science and industry at Kansas State University, for his prolific spirit of innovation.

Seib is one of 155 academic inventors and innovators named as the newest fellows of the National Academy of Inventors. The 912 total fellows represent more than 250 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes. The 2017 fellows are named inventors on nearly 6,000 issued U.S. patents.



"The best part of a professor's job is discovery  doing research with students and sharing new knowledge with others," Seib said.



"I feel honored to accept the award as a tribute to the K-State community," he said.



Seib brought his research expertise in carbohydrate chemistry to Kansas State University in 1970. He is named on 22 U.S. and several international patents that have generated more than $10 million in licensing revenue by the Kansas State University Research Foundation. Seib has published more than 200 journal articles and has been active in his profession. He served as chair of the Carbohydrate Division of the American Association of Cereal Chemists, now AACC International; was associate editor of the journal Cereal Chemistry; served as chair of the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of the American Chemical Society; and served as director of the American Association of Cereal Chemists. He has a bachelor's in chemical engineering and a doctorate in biochemistry from Purdue University. Seib retired from Kansas State University in 2008.



"Paul Seib is one of K-State's most prolific inventors," said Peter Dorhout, vice president for research at Kansas State University. "He has been adept at finding a need in industry and filling that need, especially in the field of developing ingredients for human and animal food. He used his expertise to improve people's lives and livelihoods."



Seib credits four groups of people for help in pursuing his inventions: graduate research assistants and faculty, staff in the department who "do chores and keep the building functioning," the university administration who set up the Kansas State University Research Foundation and created necessary infrastructure, and the citizens of Kansas who provide funds for the university.



He noted that inventions often fail, but the dedication of the Kansas State University community and the support it provides to researchers allowed him to succeed.



"Maybe one or two out of 20 inventions might mean something," Seib said. "It's an inefficient activity with many variables beyond investigators' control. But it was a learning experience working with a lawyer and looking at findings from a broad perspective. I think patenting achieved for both students and myself a broadened horizon when it comes to research."



Fellows must be named inventors on U.S. patents and nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to innovation in areas such as patents and licensing, innovative discovery and technology, significant impact on society, and support and enhancement of innovation.



The 2017 fellows will be inducted as part of the seventh annual NAI Conference of the National Academy of Inventors on April 5, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Andrew H. Hirshfeld, U.S. commissioner for patents, will provide the keynote address for the induction ceremony.






61 Shares Share

The fall is over, and winter has come, which means I have just wrapped up a busy season of medical school interviews. Most interviews are conducted in a similar fashion with an hour of introduction, speeches by the dean, presentations of facts I already knew from the website, and finally the interviews.

Within the first hour, I understand the reason: We are the best medical school at (fill in the blank). Though typically nestled between the Deans speech and interviews is a financial aid officer who briefly lectures on the options available to finance ones education (as if federal loans differ from one school to the next).

This quickly became my favorite part of the interview, and the easiest way to cross an acceptance off of my list. Much like fight club, at every school, the first, second, and third rule of medical school interviews: You dont talk about cost.

Youre here to become a physician; empathy must spill out of your rectum, and you had better be willing to enter into severe debt if you want to walk the noble, and often marble, halls of our medical school institution. You want to help people, how dare you even give thought to the cost of doing so.

In the midst of an outstandingly inefficient health care system, where cost-saving primary care medicine is in short supply, bright-eyed prospective medical students exacerbate the problem by fear of a denial.

When I buy a car, a home, hell even a laptop, I know the ins and outs of that purchase. I understand how much the processor, sunroof, or extra bedroom cost me. Each cost is plainly laid out for me to see. Yet with medical school, and really all secondary school and above, all the features of an education are rolled into one single cost: tuition.

I have no idea how much it cost Ford to make my Fusion or Microsoft to make my laptop. But why does medical school retain the same opaque transparency as private companies?

Where does my tuition go? How much does it cost to train me? Are you profiting? Is your property tax high? Are you subsidizing my education, giving me a killer deal? (I doubt it). It could very well be that no artificial driver is hiking tuition costs, thus my cost-benefit analysis now becomes much simpler from school to school. But one thing is sure: unless I do an insane amount of research, I will never know.

Why is nobody talking about this? I asked each of the schools I interviewed with why they were more expensive than the first, and cheapest, school I was accepted to. Each of the deans spoke as smooth and as fact-devoid as some politicians.

I gave this example (tuition cost only):

School A = $40,000 per year and therefore $160,000 at 6% interest.

School B = $56,000 per year and therefore $224,000 at 6% interest.

Why is school A $40,000 to begin with, and school B $16,000 more a year? Each is pretty comparable in location, board scores, residency placement rates per specialty, and student to faculty ratio. If it is because you need the extra money to function due to fewer public subsidies, I have a right to know.

Until students, prospective and current, begin to demand explanation, and quit accepting these costs as status quo, these costs will only rise. Each time I asked this question I was made to feel like the evil, heartless villain who only wants to be a doctor for the money. What a beautiful and cost-effective status quo: Make the students who actually care about cost feel like lepers.

Why are doctors broke? It begins with the first step of medical school soil, where acceptance into such a highly competitive field has become priceless. Students place the cost of education as the lowest factor in determining their future, when it should be the first.

I asked one of the student tour guides why he chose to attend school B, which will cost him much more than $64,000 over four years of training. He became irritated at the question, telling me he didnt go into medicine for the money. I dont blame him for his thinking, but in an age where primary care doctors, the most cost-saving measure of health care, are in huge deficiency because they are broke from medical school debt: Yes, my friend, it is about the money.

Nicholas S. Tito is a prospective medical student and can be reached on Twitter @Nicholas_Shane1.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
312 Shares Share

The media, politicians, celebrities, athletes and other groups have questioned the fitness and mental health of the president, but one group has largely refrained: mental health professionals.

This recently changed. One of the latest efforts is a book, a collection of assessments by 27 psychiatrists and mental health providers, called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump. Indeed, the books editor publicly renewed her concerns on Nov. 30, 2017 in a letter to The New York Times.

As an academic psychiatrist and advocate for those with mental illness, I want to discuss something important that has been missing in this debate: why bringing mental health, and mental health professionals, into politics in this way could end up causing substantial harm and be very dangerous.

Past perspectives, current concerns

When it comes to discussing the mental health of public figures, most psychiatrists and mental health professionals follow guidance  subsequently dubbed the Goldwater Rule that the American Psychiatric Association issued in 1973.

In 1964 Fact Magazine had polled APA members about the psychological fitness of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a conservative Republican senator from Arizona.

In the considerable fallout that followed Facts provocative cover story, the APA formally stated that is is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public.

On Oct. 17, 2017, the APA reaffirmed this stance.

Still, many mental health providers believe that commentaries about the current president fall within the realm of duty to warn. This principle basically says that if a patient is an imminent danger of harming another person, confidentiality should be broken, and the potential victim and legal authorities informed.

The APA, however, asserts that the duty to warn is a legal concept that does not apply if there is no physician-patient relationship.

A return of stigma?

Mental disorders are very common: Nearly one in five people experiences depression during their lives, one in four an anxiety disorder, nearly eight percent post-traumatic stress disorder, one percent schizophrenia and one percent bipolar disorder.

And yet, these patients have long been subject to different forms of discrimination, prosecution and dehumanization. Until recently, having a psychiatric illness or seeing a psychiatrist was something embarrassing to hide from others. That led to avoiding treatment, delays in seeking help and loss of potential for a prosperous life.

Stigma still affects political support and funding for mental health services and research. Our society has just begun to bring awareness to the public that, like any other medical condition, a psychiatric disorder is a disease that needs treatment and not to be embarrassed by. It has taken us centuries to gradually overcome the stigma, and we still have a long way to go.

When a politician calls a perceived enemy a paranoid schizophrenic, for example, as did former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, the public may see it as an uninformed and undignified insult. As a colleague and I recently wrote, however, the media and the medical professions should inform the public at such times that it is insensitive to use mental illness in this way.

Such insensitivity is harmful enough coming from a politician. A mental health professional should be even more cautious in using mental illness in the realm of politics. It could add to stigma. Psychiatrists need to keep in mind the first principle of medical practice: First, do not harm.

Understanding the medical nature of mental illness has been a very important public accomplishment for psychiatry and neuroscience. This should be valued and protected, as it lifts the social pressure off of the millions of people with mental illness.

Diagnosis should bring empathy, not scorn

Brain diseases can cause aberrations in behavior, thinking or emotions. A person with mental illness should not be blamed for these anatomical and functional differences. Mental health professionals are helping people develop empathy for patients with mental illness.

Coming back to the American president, using psychiatric diagnoses to address what is perceived as wrong with his behavior could work against decades of advocacy efforts. And it defeats its own purpose because it means he is not responsible for his actions, that a disease is to blame. This strategy is basically exonerating.

Furthermore, the last thing we psychiatrists need to tell a large group of the U.S. public and many others in the world is that the person they dislike is not likable because he has a mental illness.

Perception of psychiatrists affected, too

What is more, diagnosing public figures from afar could influence how millions of people perceive psychiatrists.

A large percentage of Americans support the current president. If mental health providers try to diagnose the president, his fans may conclude that psychiatrists are a group of entitled liberals who use their profession to push their own political agenda.

A clinical encounter is already a very sensitive event and takes place in a complicated context. The last things we want to add to it are questions about the psychiatrists political views and genuineness of their intentions. How would a loyal supporter of the president see his or her psychiatrist as a result? Will he or she lose confidence in the psychiatrists judgment or recommendations? Would he or she follow through treatment?

And this will not remain limited to one side of the political spectrum. If this public psychological analysis becomes a precedent, three years from now, another group of psychiatrists may decide to diagnose another candidate of having a mental illness, which can affect the way the other half of the country feel about mental health providers.

If psychiatrists can consider diagnosing the highest official in the country, why wouldnt they do it for a celebrity, an athlete, a CEO, a teacher or a bus driver? Who will then be immune to such approach? In this case, psychiatrists could either be seen as dangerous big brothers or, in a more likely scenario, substantially discredited.

No diagnosis needed to be unfit

Americans really do not need to give a person a mental health diagnosis to decide if he or she is unfit, irrelevant, inexperienced, unreliable or even stupid (indeed, there is no psychiatric diagnosis for stupidity). We did not need to diagnose Nixon to know that he was ethically compromised to serve as president.

When a voter assesses a persons ability to serve in office, a better benchmark, arguably, is a persons past behavior. If it seems unreasonable, chances are high it will be again and again. And knowing that does not require a medical degree or psychiatric training.

So in the end, to my psychiatrist colleagues: Please leave us out of this mess. And to our patients: You can still trust us psychiatrists to really care and advocate for you.

Arash Javanbakht is a psychiatrist. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Beijing's negligence toward Moon's visit angers Koreans

The early part of President Moon Jae-in's state visit to China this week was marred by Beijing's mistreatment of the Korean leader, who is making his first visit to the country since taking office in May.



Upon arrival in Beijing, President Moon was greeted by Kong Xuanyou, Chinese assistant minister of foreign affairs and special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs.



During a state visit last year by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, China sent Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the airport to greet him. Considering such a precedence, Beijing should have sent a higher official than one of its foreign ministry's assistant ministers to greet the Korean head of state.



Aside from the inappropriate airport greeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping was out of town on the day of Moon's arrival. Xi was in China's eastern city of Nanjing to preside over a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the 1937 Nanking Massacre by Japanese troops. Korean Ambassador to China Noh Young-min attended the event at the order of the President rather than greet him at the airport. The President reportedly told him it is more important for an ambassador to take part in a meaningful event in the host country. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and other key figures in Chinese government were also absent from Beijing as they were also taking part in the Nanjing ceremony.













Cheong Wa Dae dismissed the media reports of Moon getting mistreated by China, but one cannot help getting the impression so far that China is not very enthusiastic about Moon's visit.



Its negligence toward Moon's visit defies protocol, but the Korean government was also at fault. The foreign ministry should have chosen a date that does not coincide with a state event in China. It was premature to push for a visit amid the lingering bilateral conflict over the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system here. The two leaders have met twice already this year for summits which produced little progress on mending strained ties.



Since Xi and other leading government figures were absent from the capital, the Korea-China summit had to be scheduled for the second day of Moon's visit, Thursday. Moon spent the first day meeting businesspeople and the Korean community, including actress Choo Ja-hyun and her Chinese husband Yu Xiaoguang. Moon also took first lady Kim Jung-sook for a Chinese-style breakfast at a local restaurant Thursday and mingled with Chinese people. The President's public diplomacy efforts are important in bringing the two countries closer together. But since the two countries have already decided not to issue a joint statement after the summit, it will be hard for it to be seen as having had any impact on mending bilateral ties.


By Jhoo Dong-chan



Starbucks Korea will open its largest branch in central Seoul.



According to the U.S. coffee giant's affiliate here, Thursday, it will open its new two-story branch in Jongno Tower on Dec. 20. The venue area is expected to be 1,097 square meters.



It will be four times larger than other Starbucks coffee shops in Korea. The company official said it will also build a large triangle-shaped bar in the center of the branch.



Around 100 Starbucks coffees and merchandise are expected to be available there, 30 percent more items than at other Starbucks stores.



Launching its first branch near Ewha Womans University in western Seoul in 1999, Starbucks Korea opened 477 branches in Korea in 2012. It now has 1,100 branches to become the nation's largest coffee chain. The second-largest, A Twosome Place, has 910 branches.



Starbucks Korea has enjoyed surging sales for the last five years.



It marked 391 billion won ($359 million) in sales in 2012, but reached 910 billion won during the January-to-September period this year. Industry observers said Starbucks Korea's sales are expected to reach 1.2 trillion won this year.



Starbucks Korea's success is a stark contrast to other coffee chain brands.



According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, more than one out of three coffee shops in the city goes out of business within three years after opening.



Starbucks Korea said, however, it isn't the case for the company.



"We receive more than 50 inquiries every day from people considering starting a Starbucks branch," a Starbucks Korea official said.



Starbucks Korea has also expanded its menu into dessert foods. Its sales in dessert foods marked only 58 billion won in 2013, but jumped to 135 billion won last year.



The company said it donated 51.02 million won to earthquake victims in Pohang. It decided to collect profits of its 10 branches in the Pohang area to help those who lost their homes because of the earthquake that hit the region last month.



It also delivered its coffee and dessert foods twice a week to local shelters.


Seen are national identification cards, which will be exported to Iran. / Courtesy of Korea Minting, Security Printing and ID Card Operating Corp.



By Kim Yoo-chul







Korea Minting, Security Printing and ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) has struck a deal with Iranian authorities to supply 5 million integrated circuit chipsets for use in National Identity (NID) Cards in the Middle Eastern country, the Korean company said Thursday.







The contract calls for the Korean company to export the agreed volume of its in-house chip operating system-embedded chipsets, called JK21, to unidentified Iranian electronic passport manufacturers by next year.







"The latest deal is the second in the product category after KOMSCO won a similar contract from a company in Central Asia last year," a KOMSCO spokesman said. He also noted the Iranian deal was a result of collaboration with a Korea-based security solutions provider named SME Networks.







KOMSCO said efforts to clinch the deal have been ongoing for more than five years. The two companies developed what they called "customized technology" upon Iran's request. KOMSCO declined to disclose the monetary value of the agreement.







In Iran, every permanent resident above the age of 15, whether a citizen or not, is mandated to hold a valid NID Card. Also, the NID Cards are compulsory for many things in Iran and Iranian Missions abroad for obtaining a passport or driver's license or for any banking procedures.







The KOMSCO-patented chipsets have improved security, helping card holders to protect personal data even when the cards are stolen or missing, as the chipsets have security processors which have cutting-edge data encryption technology.







"The Iranian contract will help KOMSO find new customers. We are hoping many will find us. But we will try to find future customers to expand the business," a KOMSCO official said.







As of October this year, KOMSCO so far supplied about 3 million such chipsets in the Central Asian region.


As the festive celebrations begin, employers are encouraged to take sensible steps ahead of staff Christmas parties.

If a serious incident takes place between staff members, employers could be held responsible for it under the legal principle of vicarious liability. This broadly means that the employer is going to be held responsible if a member of staff causes injury or harm in circumstances which are sufficiently closely connected with employment.

Staff Christmas parties may be in something of a grey area here. If the party is an official work party and employees attendance is mandatory, that would definitely tend to suggest events would be sufficiently closely connected so that the employer would be responsible. But it is far less clear where to draw the line if some continue their festivities well into the late evening.

In 2011 an employee was seriously assaulted by his Managing Director after the companys Christmas Party, at a different hotel. He brought a claim against the company, arguing that it was legally responsible - vicariously liable - for the actions of the Managing Director because the events after the party were still connected to his employment.

The case went to trial and the judge concluded, just last December, that what happened at the hotel was independent, voluntary, and of a very different nature to the Christmas party and unconnected with the defendants business.

In this case the incident had happened after the conclusion of the Christmas Party but had it occurred during the officially sanctioned part of the night, the judge could well have found in favour of the victim and held the employer responsible. Although the claim did not succeed, the decision has been appealed and will be back court in April 2018.

All of this should act as a warning to employers that the Christmas Party - and perhaps events following on from it - is not necessarily disconnected from work and that employers need to ensure best practice when it comes to workplace interaction.
Irish Times journalist and local Carrick-on-Shannon native Ronan McGreevy will be signing copies of Centenary at 4pm in The Reading Room, Carrick on Saturday, December 16.



Centenary documents how 1916 was remembered last year at home and abroad and includes significant commemorative events in chronological order.



Each chapter includes testimonies from some of those involved in the events. The publication shows the breadth of events right across Ireland which took place to mark this pivotal moment in our history.



It also includes insights into the commemoration of WW1 and in particular the Battle of the Somme. In particular it captures how the commemorative events last year really tapped into the public imagination with over 3,500 events taking place across the country and abroad.



Centenary was described by historian Dr Marie Coleman in The Irish Times as one of the best souvenirs of the centenary year and as valuable a commentary on 2016 as on 1916.



This beautifully produced book features a unique linen green cover with gold embossed letters and tricolour ribbons and at 25 is the perfect Christmas present. It features the work of some of Irelands finest photographers and artists.

Mr McGreevy said: I am delighted and honoured to be able support our local bookshop, The Reading Room, with this event. Leitrim played its part in the commemorations particularly with the restoration of Sean MacDiarmadas cottage in the centenary year.



The commemorations brought some pride back to the country following the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and the subsequent loss of economic sovereignty.



It is clear that Irish people, when given the chance to express it, are proud of Irelands status as an independent nation and proud of the men and women whose vision brought it about. The evidence is in every page in this book.



About the author

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times. He is the author of the book Wherever the Firing Line Extends: Ireland and the Western Front. He is the editor of Centenary, Ireland remembers 1916 the official State book recalling the commemorations of 2016. He is also the editor of Was it for This? Reflections on the Easter Rising, an anthology of commentary on the Easter Rising from the pages of The Irish Times which was published in 2016.
Brave souls are being sought to enter the icy waters of the River Shannon for charity on Christmas Day.



The annual Carrick-on-Shannon Ice Breakers Christmas swim will take place at the slipway next to Emerald Star at 1.30pm, after 12 oclock mass.



Its a fun event for all ages and its up to participants whether they wish to swim a few strokes or just dip. Swimmers will be rewarded with some hot beverages and chocolates while they dry off and warm up.



One of the Ice Breakers' most loyal swimmers Bernard Murray passed away during the year so a special appeal has been made for people to take the plunge in his memory.



The event raises much-needed funds for the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind, the National Council for the Blind and the Leitrim Talking Newspaper.



Christmas swimmers and spectators are welcome to make a donation on the day. They are also encouraged to raise money and sponsorship cards are available from Mary OBoyle at 071-9620274 or Jim Gorman at 086-8286576.



Each week, groups of volunteers record the Leitrim Observer and distribute it to people with visual impairments or reading difficulties across the county.



There are 180 blind and partially sighted people living in Leitrim, 13 of whom are children. The Leitrim branch of the National Council for the Blind was founded in Carrick-on-Shannon in 1963.



If you would like to sign up to the Leitrim Talking Newspaper (LTN), please call Ann on 0861539699 or email pfmgriffin@gmail.com.



The recordings are put onto memory sticks and sent to recipients around the county and surrounding areas for free.



They can then be played on laptops and other devices or for a small charge the LTN can provide a specially adapted MP3 Player that allows the listener to go direct to each part of the paper at the push of a button.
There was great excitement, glitz and glamour last night at one of Irelands first look screenings of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI at Century Cinemas in Letterkenny.

Over 200 invited guests were treated to a sparkling reception and canapes before one of Irelands first look screenings of the much awaited film just after midnight.

In May 2016, Malin Head became one of a number of locations across the world where scenes from STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI was filmed. Aideen Doherty from the Donegal Film Office explained that last nights event was very much an appreciation screening and the invited guests included many of the crew who worked on the set of the film at Malin Head as well as local service providers who supported the production company from the word go.

In Lucasfilms STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

The screening was gifted by LucasFilm and Disney as a thank you to the people of Malin Head and Donegal.

Cathaoirleach of Donegal County Council Cllr. Gerry McMonagle thanked Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures for supporting this special First Look Screening at Century Cinemas in Letterkenny and he also paid tribute to Mark Doherty and his team at Century Cinemas.

This First Look Screening was a very special event for all of us here in Donegal. To see our beautiful county on the big screen and part of such an iconic production has been beyond marvellous. The impact that this film has had on Malin Head and indeed on Donegal in terms of raising our profile as destination of choice, not just in terms of film but also for those looking to visit, has been immense.

Speaking after the screening Seamus Neely Chief Executive with Donegal County Council acknowledged the role of the Donegal Film Office which acts as a resource for those who wish to film in Donegal from all over the world.

The Donegal Film Office was established by Donegal County Council in 2003 and has been working in co-operation with Bord Scannan na hEireann (The Irish Film Board) to promote Donegal as a first choice destination for national and international filmmakers. The Film Office has played a key role in showcasing the wonderful offering that is Donegal and works with filmmakers to find locations, cast and crew, technical services and local service providers. The success of our dedicated film office speaks for itself as does our ongoing commitment to its work.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI opens in Irish Cinemas on December 14, 2017.
Russian culture has a long and rich cultural history, steeped in literature, ballet, painting and classical music. While outsiders may see the country as drab, Russia has a very visual cultural past, from its colorful folk costumes to its ornate religious symbols. Here is a brief overview of Russian customs and traditions.

The Homeland

Russian culture places a high value on the homeland and on family, according to Talia Wagner, a marriage and family therapist with a specialty in cultural dynamics. "The Soviet rule left its impression on the culture, creating a fundamental fear and mistrust of those outside the family, extended family and other close familial connections," she told Live Science. The Communist Party ruled Russia and neighboring territories for more than 70 years, uniting them into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Soviet Union broke up in 1991.

"The challenges families faced under communism left individuals highly dependent on family support, which oftentimes required the combining of resources to survive," Wagner continued. "This created a culture that highly values extended family and maintaining close friendships."

When many people think of Russia, they think of vast, frozen tundra. That's not all there is to the country's geography. There are plains, taigas, steppes, plains and mountains. [Russia from Above: A Glimpse at a Vast Landscape]

For example, in 2017 the Russian volcano called Kambalny erupted after nearly 250 years of dormancy. The eruption was a surprise and the plume of smoke could be seen from space.

"Nothing pointed to a possible eruption of the Kambalny," Olga Girina, head of KVERT, told Russian news agency TASS, according to Russia Beyond the Headlines. "It is a pure surprise for us. We continue the monitoring and will analyze possible threats as data come in."

Another amazing feature of Russia's geography is Lake Baikal. It is the world's largest lake and holds 20 percent of the worlds supply of fresh water. It is also the world's oldest lake.

"Lake Baikal is the oldest lake in the world. It is home to approximately 1,700 to 1,800 endemic plant and animal species," said Jennifer Castner of Pacific Environment's Russia program.

Population and ethnic makeup

Russia is the largest country in the world in terms of territory, with a total area of 6,601,668 square miles (17,098,242 square kilometers). By comparison, the United States comprises 3,794,100 square miles (9,826,675 square km).

According to 2016 data by The World Bank, the population of Russia is more than 144,000,000, a decline since its peak of 148,689,000 in 1992.

Russia is home to at least 190 ethnic groups, according to the BBC. The Central Intelligence Agency (opens in new tab) (CIA) reports that 77.7 percent of Russians are of Russian descent. The rest of the population consists of 3.7 percent Tatar, 1.4 percent Ukrainian, 1.1 percent Bashkir, 1 percent Chuvash, 1 percent Chechen and 10.2 percent other, while 3.9 percent are unspecified.

Languages

While Russian is the official language, many Russians also speak English as a second language. More than 100 minority languages are spoken in Russia today, according to the BBC. The most popular is Dolgang, spoken by more than 5.3 percent of the country's population, according to the CIA. Other minority languages include Tartar, Ukrainian, Chuvash, Bashir, Mordvin and Chechen. Although these minority populations account for a small percentage of the overall Russian population, these languages are prominent in regional areas.

Religions

"Religion has always been a primary component of Russian life, even during times of oppression," Wagner said.

There are nearly 5,000 registered religious associations in Russia. More than half follow the Russian Orthodox Church, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Islam is the second largest religion; about 10 percent to 15 percent of Russians practice Islam, according to the CIA World Factbook.

"The third most popular religion in Russia after Christianity and Islam is Tengrism, a form of pagan, animistic and shamanic religion," said Christina de Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College in London. Tengrism originates from the Turk and Mongol populations of Central Asia and has enjoyed a revival in parts of Russia as it is seen as part of a certain Central Asian ethnic identity by some regional independence movements.

Arts, literature and architecture

Ballet is a popular notable art form coming out of Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi Ballet is a classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and known throughout the world. The Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg is another famous ballet company in Russia.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a 19th-century Russian composer, is world renowned for "Swan Lake" and the "1812 Overture," among other pieces. There are several museums, including his childhood home, showcasing his personal belongings and musical artifacts.

Russian literature has also had a worldwide impact, with writers such as Leon Tolstoy ("Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace") and Fyodor Dostoevsky ("Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov") still being read around the world.

Russian nesting dolls are well-known symbols of the country. These sets of dolls, known as matrioshka dolls, consist of a wooden figure that can be pulled apart to reveal another smaller version of the same image inside, and so on, often with six or more dolls nested inside one another. The painting of each doll, which can be extremely elaborate, usually symbolizes a Russian peasant girl in traditional costume.

Colorfully painted onion domes first appeared during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, according to Lonely Planet. They are commonplace in Russian architecture and are predominant atop church structures. It has been speculated that they represent burning candles or vaults to heaven and often appear in groups of three representing the Holy Trinity.

The onion-shaped domes of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow are emblematic of Russian architecture. (opens in new tab) Shutterstock) (Image credit: Vladitto Shutterstock)

Russian food and drink

One of the most well-known traditional Russian foods that may seem strange to an outsider is borshch, also spelled borscht. This is a beet soup that is full of vegetables and meat and is typically served with a dollop of sour cream, a staple of many Russian dishes.

Pirozhkis are small baked buns that can be filled with potatoes, meat, cabbage or cheese. (They should not be confused with pierogis, which are Polish dumplings, boiled and then fried and stuffed with meat, cheese, potatoes or sauerkraut.)

Caviar, or ikra, traditionally made from the eggs of sturgeon found in the Black Sea or Caspian Sea, is often served on dark, crusty bread or with blini, which are similar to pancakes or crepes. Blini are also served rolled up with a variety of fillings, ranging from jam to cheese and onions, or even chocolate syrup.

Vodka is a popular alcoholic drink traditionally made from the distillation of fermented potatoes. Beer and tea are also widely consumed.

Folklore & holidays

Russia has a rich tradition of folk tales that derive from a number of Slavic myths and traditions, according to de Rossi. Russian folk characters are very colorful, and they also betray ancient pagan roots: for example, the Baba Yaga is a witch-like old woman who lives in the forest in a house that rests on chicken legs and is surrounded by skulls and bones. Another tale tells of the Fire Bird, an enchanted creature with fiery plumage that is very difficult to catch, therefore its capture or that of one of its feathers is often the challenge facing the hero.

Both the Baba Yaga and the Fire Bird can either be good or bad, terrifying or benevolent, and they can bestow favorable or hostile enchantments, de Rossi said. Above all, they must never be antagonized!

Some Russians observe Christmas on Jan. 7 as a public holiday, according to the Julian calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church, while others celebrate on Dec. 25.

Russia Day is celebrated on June 12. This marks the day in 1990 that the Russian parliament formally declared Russian sovereignty from the USSR, according to the School of Russian and Asian Studies. Initially, it was named Russian Independence Day, but was renamed to Russia Day, a name offered by Boris Yeltsin, in 2002.

Additional resources
The discovery of an eighth planet around the star Kepler-90 marks the first time a star system has been found to have the same number of planets as our own solar system. NASA unveiled the discovery Dec. 14, 2017.

Our solar system is not alone atop the planet-harboring heap anymore.

Scientists have discovered another world orbiting the star Kepler-90, bringing that system's tally of confirmed planets to eight  the same number as in Earth's solar system (at least according to the International Astronomical Union, which stripped Pluto of its "ninth planet" status back in 2006).

That's one more than the previous extrasolar record, which had been held jointly by Kepler-90 and the TRAPPIST-1 system. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]

The research team found the new planet, known as Kepler-90i  as well as another world in a different system  after analyzing archival data from NASA's Kepler mission using Google machine-learning techniques.

"Just as we expected, there are exciting discoveries lurking in our archived Kepler data, waiting for the right tool or technology to unearth them," Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. "This finding shows that our data will be a treasure trove available to innovative researchers for years to come."

The Kepler space telescope launched in March 2009. During its four-year original mission, the spacecraft scanned 150,000 stars continuously, searching for the tiny brightness dips caused by planets crossing the stars' faces. In 2014, Kepler shifted to a second mission known as K2, during which it hunts for exoplanets on a more limited basis but also makes a variety of other observations.

This planet-hunting work has been incredibly successful. To date, Kepler has discovered more than 2,500 confirmed alien worlds  about two-thirds of all known planets beyond our solar system  as well as more than 2,000 "candidates" that await confirmation by follow-up observations or analysis. (The vast majority of these finds have come from the original-mission observations; the K2 confirmed-planet tally stands at 184.)

But the two new discoveries suggest that many more alien worlds may lurk undiscovered in Kepler's data sets.

The alien planet Kepler-90i, which orbits the star Kepler-90 2,545 light-years from Earth, is seen in this illustration from a NASA video. Kepler-90i is the eighth planet found around its parent star. (Image credit: NASA)

Researchers Christopher Shallue and Andrew Vanderburg  a senior software engineer with Google AI and an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, respectively  trained a computer to recognize weak, as-yet-unnoticed exoplanet signals in Kepler data. The duo used a machine-learning approach, basing it on the networks of neurons that populate the human brain.

"In my spare time, I started googling for finding exoplanets with large data sets and found out about the Kepler mission and the huge data set available," Shallue said in the same statement. "Machine learning really shines in situations where there is so much data that humans can't search it for themselves."

The scientists tested their software on 15,000 previously vetted Kepler signals, including both confirmed detections and false positives. Shallue and Vanderburg found that the artificial neural network identified such signals correctly 96 percent of the time. [Gallery: A World of Kepler Planets]

So the researchers directed the network to search for additional weak signals in 670 star systems already known to host multiple planets, reasoning that such systems had a good chance of hosting additional, undiscovered worlds.

The eight known exoplanets of the Kepler-90 star system mirrors the arrangement of our own solar system, with smaller planets closer to the parent star and larger worlds further away. NASA unveiled the discovery of the eighth known planet in the system, Kepler-90i, on Dec. 14, 2017. (Image credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Wendy Stenzel)

And they found two such planets, including Kepler-90i, which lies about 2,545 light-years from Earth. Kepler-90i is probably rocky, like Earth, and it's the third world out from its star, which is a bit hotter than our sun. But the similarities with our home planet probably end there: Kepler-90i completes one orbit every 14.4 Earth days and is therefore probably much too hot to host life. Indeed, average surface temperatures on the planet probably hover around 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius), Vanderburg said.

And the Kepler-90 system is far from an exact simulacrum of our own. Though its inner planets are rocky and outer ones are gaseous, this system is much more compact than our solar system  all eight Kepler-90 worlds are closer to their star than Earth is to the sun, the researchers said.

These planets may have migrated inward, toward their host star, over time, they added. But the current configuration, strange as it may seem to us, appears to be relatively stable, Vanderburg said.

The star may host even more planets, he added.

"There's a lot of unexplored real estate in the Kepler-90 system, and it would almost be surprising to me if there weren't any more planets around this star," Vanderburg said during a news conference today (Dec. 14).

The other newfound world, known as Kepler-80g, is the sixth planet known in its system, which is centered around a dwarf star that lies about 1,160 light-years from the sun. Again, this extrasolar system is quite compact; Kepler-80g also takes about two Earth weeks to complete one orbit.

Such work is probably just the beginning for machine-learning exoplanet discovery; Shallue and Vanderburg intend to apply their techniques to Keplerf's entire data set.

"These results demonstrate the enduring value of Keplers mission," Kepler project scientist Jessie Dotson, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said in the same statement.

"New ways of looking at the data  such as this early-stage research to apply machine learning algorithms  promises to continue to yield significant advances in our understanding of planetary systems around other stars," Dotson added. "I'm sure there are more firsts in the data waiting for people to find them."

The new study has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Headlines circulating on the internet today (Dec. 14) breathlessly described the discovery of a 512-year-old shark  but they're a little off the mark.

The creature in question  a Greenland shark  does, in fact, live to be several centuries old, according to a study that was published in August 2016 in the journal Science, and which was referenced in the news coverage.

But the researchers' analysis of 28 female Greenland sharks did not identify one of them as over 500 years old. Eye tissue analysis presented a probability range suggesting that the sharks were at least 272 years old, and could potentially be as much as 512 years old, Live Science previously reported. [Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures]

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) are native to the Arctic and North Atlantic, and can grow to be up to 24 feet (7 meters) long and weigh up to 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms), according to the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG). They are slow-moving fish, cruising at about 1 foot per second (0.3 meters/second), and reaching depths of 9,101 feet (2,774 m), GEERG reported.

For some shark species, scientists use bony structures such as calcified vertebrae to track their age, reading rings that form in the hardened tissue as the shark ages. But Greenland sharks are "soft sharks" whose vertebrae don't harden enough to form telltale age markers, so scientists needed a new method to determine how old the sharks were, Julius Nielsen, author of the 2016 study about the sharks, told Live Science that year.

The scientists used radiocarbon dating to measure carbon isotopes absorbed by Greenland sharks' eye tissue, working with sharks that were captured as bycatch, the study authors reported.

The tissue gave them a range for the sharks' ages  they were at least 272 years old, and as much as 512 years old. The two biggest sharks  and probably the oldest  were estimated to be 335 and 392 years old, respectively. And the midpoint of the range  "the most likely single-year age in the 272- to 512-year range"  was 390 years, Nielsen told Live Science. [Photos: The World's Oldest Living Things]

"It's important to keep in mind there's some uncertainty with this estimate," Nielsen said. "But even the lowest part of the age range  at least 272 years  still makes Greenland sharks the longest-living vertebrate known to science."

As long-lived as they may be, Greenland sharks don't even come close to the longevity of hydra  freshwater polyps. These unassuming-looking invertebrates continuously regenerate their own cells, and are thought to be able to live forever under the right conditions.

Creatures that swim the ocean depths are notoriously difficult to observe in their natural habitat, and there is still much to be learned about many species that have been known to science for decades  and Greenland sharks are no exception, Nielsen told Live Science in 2016.

"Almost all of their biology is a mystery," he said.

Original article on Live Science.
The intact graves of four children, the youngest just 2 or 3, have been discovered at an ancient quarry site in Egypt.

Gebel el Silsila was a source of stone for temples and tombs in Upper Egypt during the Thutmosid period, which ran from the beginning of Thutmose II's reign in about 1493 B.C. to the end of Amenhotep II's reign in about 1401 B.C. Since 2015, 69 tombs have been discovered at the site, though most are empty, having been looted in antiquity. The newly discovered children's tombs are different. The burials are intact, and some of the graves contain artifacts like bronze bracelets, scarab amulets, and bowls and plates.

"The team is excited about continuing the osteological analysis of the remains, which will hopefully provide us with more specific details regarding nutrition and the general health and well-being of the children," lead archaeologists Maria Nilsson and John Ward of Lund University in Sweden wrote in an email to Live Science. [Gallery: See Images of the Ancient Children's Graves]

Social complexity

Gebel el Silsila was once thought to be a place where workers toiled and not much else happened  a site of "slaves and simple workers," Nilsson and Ward said. But the excavations on the east bank of the Nile River have revealed a much richer picture of life at the quarry. In 2016, the same researchers reported the discovery of 42 tombs, mostly empty, and a shrine. They've also discovered the carved statues of a man named Neferkhewe and his family. In total, Nilsson and Ward said, the team has excavated almost 30 of the 69 tombs discovered, including two belonging to infants.

This season, the archaeologists were investigating an area of the necropolis where they'd previously found two tombs. They discovered nine more, three of which contained the remains of children. The first grave appeared to hold a child who died between the ages of 6 and 9. The child's coffin was barely present, having been eaten by beetles and rotted over time due to the annual flooding of the Nile, but alongside the skeleton lay ceramic beer jars, wine vessels, bowls and plates. The child wore a set of bronze bracelets and had four scarabs attached to his or her left risk. A bronze razor was tucked by his or her skull, and a nefer amulet, a symbol of happiness and good luck, was found near the chest.

A second crypt held the remains of a tot, who was 2 or 3 years old. The child had been wrapped in linen and possibly placed in a wooden coffin, though the remnants of the coffin had long since been destroyed by insects. There was nothing buried with the child.

In a third tomb, the research team found the remains of a 5- to 8-year-old, wrapped in linen and laid to rest on a reed mat. Along with the child were buried three scarab amulets.

Neglected burial

Finally, the researchers discovered a fourth tomb in a quarried area of the site. This child was also between 5 and 8 years of age, but seemed to have been buried without much care and was covered with spoil from the nearby quarry, the researchers said. This could indicate a social hierarchy at Gebel el Silsila, Nilsson and Ward said, with wealthier children receiving more lavish burials. The child buried in quarry spoil also showed more signs of injury than the others, a fact that requires further study, the archaeologists said.

A three-dimensional computer-generated scan of the grave of the 2- or 3-year-old. (Image credit: The Gebel el Silsila Project 2017)

The research team plans to further analyze the bones found in the graves, Ward and Nilsson said.

"The importance of these child burials is first and foremost that they provide the team with a possibility to study completely preserved inhumations, giving insights into the burial customs and pathological information, but they are also a strong indication of the existence and activity of complete families on site," they wrote to Live Science.

Original article on Live Science.
Music, Movies & Entertainment, Local News, Arts & Culture

By Long Island News & PR Published: December 14 2017

Scott Schwartz, Bay Streets Artistic Director, announced the 2018 Season.

Scott Schwartz, Bay Streets Artistic Director, announced the 2018 Season which includes the World Premiere of FELLOW TRAVELERS, FROST/NIXON, and EVITA. Executive Director Tracy Mitchell paid tribute to former 20 year employee Gary Hygom, who most recently served as Producer at Bay Street Theater.

Caroling was the hit of the evening, which was led by the legendary American musical theater lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz along with his spouse Carole, both of whom charmed the attendees with their wit and incredible voices.
Nature & Weather, Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: December 15 2017

AGs: Proposed Two-Year Suspension of Clean Water Rule Would Violate Federal Law and Rollback Decades of Clean Water Protections.

New York, NY - December 15, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, leading a coalition of 11 Attorneys General, challenged the legality of a Trump Administration proposed two-year suspension of the Clean Water Rule, a federal regulation that defines waters of the United States under federal law. In comments addressed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), the coalition charges that the proposed suspension of the Clean Water Rule  which is designed to ensure the nations lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands receive proper protection under the federal Clean Water Act  would violate federal law in multiple respects.

Click here to read the comments . Joining Attorney General Schneiderman in the comments are the Attorneys General of California, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Clean water is a basic right  fundamental to New Yorkers health, environment, and economy, Attorney General Schneiderman said. The Trump administrations proposed suspension of the Clean Water Rule is clearly illegal, and would jeopardize the clean, healthy water on which New Yorkers rely. Attorneys General will fight back against this reckless dirty water proposal, and the Trump administrations continued assault on our nations core public health and environmental protections.

A lake, river, stream, wetland, or any other kind of surface water is afforded protection under the Clean Water Act only if it is a water of the United States. Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006, and ambiguity in regulations dating back to 1980, led to substantial uncertainty as to whether some waters  particularly, small, seasonal, or rain-dependent streams, wetlands, and tributaries  are considered waters of the United States. As a result, roughly 20,000,000 wetland acres and 2,000,000 miles of streams in the Continental United States were lost, or were placed in jeopardy of losing, their protections under the Clean Water Act. These at-risk streams help provide drinking water to 117 million Americans  including 56 percent of New Yorkers.

The uncertain protection of waters put at risk 60 percent of our nations streams  and at least 55 percent of New Yorks stream miles  and millions of acres of wetlands nationwide of federal protection. This left these waters  and the downstream waters with which they connect  vulnerable to increased flooding, pollution, damage to hunting and fishing habitat, and fouling of the drinking water supplies.

The 2015 Clean Water Rule, which the Trump Administration wants to suspend, clarified what types of waters are covered by the Clean Water Act, thereby securing their protection. The Rule was based on over 1,200 peer-reviewed scientific studies that demonstrated how many waters are connected by networks of tributaries, intermittent streams, and wetlands. Because of this interconnectivity, physical, chemical, and biological pollution from wetlands and relatively small or infrequently-flowing upland streams often impact larger downstream waters, such as rivers, lakes, estuaries, and oceans. All of the lower 48 states have waters that are downstream of other states; New York, for example, is downstream of 13 states. As such, New York and other states are recipients of water pollution generated not only within their borders, but also from upstream sources outside their borders over which they lack jurisdiction.

On November 22, 2017, the EPA and ACOE proposed to suspend applicability of the Clean Water Rule for two years and reinstate the old and inadequate regulations  dating back to at least 1980  that had been in place prior to the Clean Water Rule. It was these nearly 40-year-old rules, whose dated science and lack of clarity as to which waters are waters of the United States, that had led to years of confusing and inconsistent interpretations by agencies and federal courts. If the suspension rule is finalized, the outdated 1980 regulations would replace the Clean Water Rule.

In their comments, the coalition of Attorneys General state that EPA and ACOE are in wholesale breach of foundational administrative law principles and that the suspension rule is in blatant violation of federal law requirements, and is otherwise arbitrary, capricious, and exceeds the agencies legal authority. The coalition charges that, among other things, the agencies have:

Failed to provide a meaningful opportunity for public comment on the substance of the suspension rule  allowing only a 21-day comment period during the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season, and specifically rejecting any comments on the content, basis, or impact of the reinstated four-decade-old regulations  demonstrating that the agencies lack the required flexible and open-minded attitude necessary for a proper rulemaking;

Failed to consider important aspects of defining waters of the United States, including the well-known ambiguities and inconsistencies that result from applying the 1980 regulations, and the further complications arising from Supreme Court and federal case law interpreting water of the United States, and

Disregarded the voluminous scientific basis and factual findings supporting the Clean Water Rule, including that the 1980 regulations do not specifically address the interconnectivity of waters and thereby leave many floodplains, wetlands, and tributaries without certain protection under the Clean Water Act.

Further, the coalition notes that while EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had pledged to recuse himself from the litigation he brought as Oklahoma Attorney General to repeal the Clean Water Rule, he has refused to recuse himself from this rulemaking involving the very same issues. Since becoming EPA Administrator, Pruitt has appeared in promotional videos for private organizations that have brought suit challenging the Clean Water Rule, and in those ads has clearly misstated the rules provisions. The coalition charges that Administrator Mr. Pruitts involvement in this rulemaking is illegal and renders a final rule invalid due to his refusal to follow ethics review procedures [under federal law] in light of his lack of impartiality, and because the clear and convincing evidence demonstrates his closed mind on the matter in violation of due process.

On September 27th, Attorney General Schneiderman, joined by the Attorneys General of California, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia, challenged the legality of a Trump Administrations previous proposal to outright repeal the Clean Water Rule. The coalition charged that the proposal was arbitrary and capricious and not in accordance with law. They also charged that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitts involvement in the effort, after suing to negate the Clean Water Rule as Oklahoma Attorney General, was illegal and would render any repeal invalid. Click here to read these comments
Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: December 15 2017

Overall Health in New York Ranks Among Top 10 in the Nation in 2017.

Albany, NY - December 15, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York has been designated the first age-friendly state in the nation by the AARP and the World Health Organization. This achievement is a result of the Governor's directive to include health in state agency policy-making, an effort that will result in more livable communities for people of all ages and enable more New Yorkers to age comfortably in their homes.

"This administration has worked to create livable communities that support the unique needs of seniors and improve quality of life for all New Yorkers," Governor Cuomo said. "As we continue to support community development efforts that deliver health and wellness opportunities for residents, we are honored to be recognized by two of the world's most prestigious organizations for establishing New York as the first age-friendly state in the nation."

In order to achieve this designation, New York ranked high in the eight age-friendly and livable community domains outlined by WHO and AARP, which include:

Outdoor spaces and buildings;

Transportation;

Housing;

Social participation;

Respect and social inclusion;

Work and civic engagement;

Communication and information; and

Community and health services.

New York also ranks among the top 10 states in the nation for health, up from its ranking as the 40th healthiest state in 1990. This marks the largest five-year gain of all 50 states in the 2017 annual America's Health Rankings report

Efforts to become an age-friendly state are supported by the Governor's new Health Across All Policies initiative, announced in the 2017 State of the State, to incorporate health and healthy aging into State Agency decision making. This approach utilizes the goals of the New York State Department of Health's Prevention Agenda , the blueprint to improve the health of all New Yorkers in five priority areas and reduce health disparities. Meeting these goals, which include reductions in obesity and diabetes, improvements in environmental health, and enhancements in mental health services, will require attention to factors outside of health care, such as access to outdoor spaces and healthy foods, and improvements in education, housing and jobs.

In the 2017 State of the State, Governor Cuomo tasked state agencies with earning designation as the first age-friendly state. The event marks the accomplishment and partners with the largest and one of the most active outreach organizations in America, signaling the reasons why Boomers should stay in and move to New York State. Municipalities throughout the country have earned the age-friendly designation, but so far, no state has achieved that honor.

Under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, New York has made great strides toward becoming an age-friendly state. Since 2012, the New York State Office for the Aging and the New York State Department of State have been working collaboratively on the Livable New York Initiative , which aims to support the development of more liveable communities across the state. This multi-agency effort resulted in the establishment of a technical assistance resource manual to guide municipalities as they seek to make planning decisions around improving livability and mobility.

In 2017, the Governor also announced the launch of the first in the nation statewide aging services mobile app to connect older adults and caregivers with valuable local resources and services, including information regarding health and wellness, housing, and transportation options, among others. The New York State Office for the Aging's Aging Services app puts easily understandable information into the hands of older New Yorkers, helping them remain healthy and connected to their communities.

As part of Governor Cuomo's $10 billion House NY 2020 commitment, 8,659 affordable housing units have already been created for older adults by New York State Homes and Community Renewal since 2011 - 1,270 of which are part of the House NY 2020 plan. The plan aims to establish and preserve over 100,000 units of affordable housing throughout the state by the end of 2020.

The Governor has awarded $10 million to 10 regional downtown areas twice as part of the state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative, in rounds one and two in 2016 and 2017. Many applications included planning and revitalization elements that will make downtown communities more livable, including the presence of mixed use spaces, housing at varying levels of affordability, and streets that are both walkable and bikeable to encourage healthy habits for residents of all ages.

In addition, 10 regional Sustainable Development and Collaborative Governance conferences were held last year to discuss the benefits of sustainable community planning and certification as an age-friendly community. The events helped promote collaboration by bringing together community development experts, local elected officials and business leaders. The culmination of these conferences was the release of a handbook for local governments and nonprofits that serves as a one-stop resource for state-funded grants and programs.

AARP Senior Vice President for Programs Jean Setzfand said, "New York will be the model, showing other states the way."

AARP New York State Director Beth Finkel said, "AARP New York is thrilled that ours has become the first state in the nation to be recognized with the Age-Friendly Network. Governor Cuomo is showing great vision, foresight and leadership. His action will prompt a rethinking of how all of our communities are structured for the benefit not only of the 50+ but for New Yorkers of all ages. Improvements across the state such as more bus stop shelters and benches, better sidewalks and pedestrian-friendly streets, and parks where grandparents can take their grandchildren during working hours will help all generations."

New York State Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said, "New York State is truly at its best when it meets the needs of all its residents. By making it the first age-friendly state in the nation, we are working to ensure that all New Yorkers will have access to safer, more livable, healthy communities that will serve as an inspiration to states throughout the country. This is another of example of how we are making NY the healthiest state for people of all ages."

New York State Office for the Aging Acting Director Greg Olsen said, "I applaud Governor Cuomo for his leadership in making New York the first age-friendly state. Older New Yorkers are a vital part of their families and communities, substantially contributing economically, socially, and intellectually through volunteerism, civic engagement, employment, and tourism. Communities that understand and adopt the principles of livability and smart growth are communities that are healthy and vibrant places to live for people of all ages that will attract new residents and retain existing residents."

New York State Secretary of State Rossana Rosado said, "Governor Cuomo has established New York at the forefront of the movement to create healthy, livable communities for all ages. We are excited to have AARP and the World Health Organization recognize New York State as the first official age-friendly certified state in the nation. The Governor's Downtown Revitalization Initiative is a major component of the state's livable community approach. That program's selection criteria and program goals focus on building downtowns with recreational, cultural, and employment opportunities that are attractive to all New Yorkers, especially the elders and millennials that are driving urban growth."

Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, Chair of Assembly Committee on Aging said, "I am thrilled with the Governor's commitment to New York as an Age-Friendly State. This designation shows just how far this state has come in terms of providing healthy living opportunities for all of our residents. I am proud to continue working with the Governor and my colleagues in the Legislature as we further advance sustainable and liveable community development in every region of the state."
Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: December 15 2017

Police: Gregory Jackson of Brooklyn, 18, was found to be in possession of credit cards and drivers licenses stolen from the vehicles.

NCPD report the arrest of Gregory Jackson of Brooklyn, 18, for multiple larcenies to autos in Nassau County.

Merrick, NY - December 15, 2017 - Seventh Squad detectives report the arrest of a Brooklyn man for multiple larcenies to autos that occurred in Seventh Squad detectives report the arrest of a Brooklyn man for multiple larcenies to autos that occurred in Merrick on Thursday, 12/14/17 at 4:00 A.M.

According to detectives, Seventh Precinct police officers responded to Central Ave. after a witness notified police of suspicious activity. The witness observed footprints in the snow around parked vehicles, in addition seeing cars parked in driveways with the doors left open.

Police searched the area and located defendant Gregory Jackson, 18, crouched behind a bush on a dead end road. The defendant stood up and fled. Police officers apprehended him on Edwards Pl., where he was placed under arrest. He was found to be in possession of credit cards and drivers licenses, proceeds from the larcenies. Subsequent investigation determined that Jackson was responsible for other larcenies from autos throughout Nassau County on different dates.

Jackson is being charged with thirteen counts of Grand Larceny 4th Degree, Burglary 2nd Degree, eight counts of Petit Larceny and Criminal Trespass 3rd Degree. He will be arraigned on Friday, 12/15/17 in First District Court, Hempstead
by Tanya Gazdik , December 15, 2017

Ford Motor Co. executives announced plans to relocate its forward-thinking electric and autonomous vehicle teams to a historic former factory in Detroits trendy Corktown neighborhood, long a magnet for Millennials and other urban pioneers.

The automaker wants to be part of Detroits turnaround activities, Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford told a gathering of journalists at the companys annual media party Thursday evening. Furthermore, it makes sense to do the autonomous vehicle development in the type of urban environment where it is most likely to be first applied, he said.

Fords global headquarters are seven miles west in suburban Dearborn, Mich.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan spoke at the gathering and said the city would welcome the 220 tech industry jobs.

advertisement advertisement

What better place for [Fords] most innovative and cutting-edge folks than in the City of Detroit, Duggan said, noting that it had been a long time since Ford had brought jobs to the city.

The 45,000-square-foot space will bring together Ford teams that are creating new business models. It will be up and running early next year.

One unit moving into the building is Team Edison, which is focused on driving its electric vehicle business forward, both with hybrid vehicles and full battery-electric vehicles. Team Edison also is focused on fostering partnerships with other companies to deliver smart solutions, following Fords global lead.

The Corktown location holds special meaning for Bill Ford, whose ancestors emigrated from County Cork, Ireland, to the Dearborn area years ago. Corktown, Detroits oldest neighborhood, derives its name from immigrants from County Cork who settled there.

The building was constructed in 1907, the year planning began on the Ford Model T at the nearby Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit.

Returning to Detroit is particularly meaningful, because it is where my great-grandfather originally set out to pursue his passion and where we have always called our home, Ford said. We are planting a special piece of our companys future in one of the citys great neighborhoods, because we believe in Detroit, its people and what we can build together.

The move is more than a relocation; its a strategic decision aligned with a mission. The company is committed to helping improve the entire system of transporting people and goods, especially in cities facing major challenges such as congestion, pollution, accidents and other transportation issues that affect everything from productivity to quality of life.

The team in Corktown will be led by Sherif Marakby, Ford vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification. Marakby is a Ford veteran who first joined the company in 1990, leaving briefly for a stint in Silicon Valley.

Fords autonomous vehicle business is built around deploying self-driving vehicles in partnership with leading companies that serve the movement of both people and goods. Working with these partners, such as Lyft and Dominos Pizza, Ford is conducting research and building out the infrastructure that will help in determining the design of the self-driving vehicle and the customer experience it will enable.

Planned for production beginning in 2021, Fords first autonomous vehicle is an all-new hybrid-electric vehicle with self-driving capability.
by Thom Forbes @tforbes, December 15, 2017

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the worlds largest manufacturer of generic drugs, will jettison a quarter of its 53,000-person workforce over the next two years  a total of about 14,000 jobs, including a significant reduction of its 7,000 employees who are based in the U.S. Analysts point to several factors in Tevas reversal of fortunes, including increased competition in the generic market overall, the expiration of its patent for its multiple-sclerosis drug Copaxone and acquisitions that have left it with a heavy debt load.

The announcement marked a stunning setback for a company seen as a national source of pride in Israel. With roots going back more than a century, Teva has grown into a major global player over the past 40 years with a series of acquisitions, and by developing original drugs and leading the move toward cost-saving generic medications, writes the APs Josef Federman.

advertisement advertisement

The U.S. closures include sites in Cambridge, Mass.; Washington, D.C.; Horsham, Pa.; and New York City, Teva spokesperson Kaelan Hollon said in an email, writes USA Todays Nathan Bomey. Some sites could be sold to competitors. The Cambridge site has already been shuttered and the other closures will occur over the next 12 to 24 months, Hollon said.

As Israelis contemplate the fate of Teva Pharmaceuticals in the wake of the massive cost-cutting exercise announced on Thursday, the date July 26, 2015 may go down as the beginning of what could be the end for the generic drugs giant, writes Hagai Amit for Haaretz. The acquisition of Actavis Generics, the generics division of Irish drugmaker Allergan, is ultimately the reason why Teva value shrank by 200 billion shekels ($57 billion) in two-and-a-half years.

Amit says the deal was pushed by then CEO Erez Vigodman, who believed he was turning into a generics giant whose profits would cover for the loss of exclusivity over Copaxone, for which generic rivals began to materialize in 2015. But intensifying competition in the generics market, chiefly in the United States, led Tevas profits to shrink.

Teva has been hit hard by declining generics prices in the U.S., Rory Jones and Austen Hufford point out in the Wall Street Journal. Investors have called for months for sweeping changes to Tevas sprawling operations and what critics have called an unwieldy supply chain, to better cope with the turbulent U.S. generics market. One in seven prescriptions in the U.S. is a Teva drug, they continue.

Teva has been buying up other generic manufacturers since its acquisition of the Canadian firm Novopharm in 2000. It went on to acquire the Ivax Corporation in 2006, Barr Pharmaceutical in 2008, and Ratiopharm in 2010. Much of Tevas purchases over the years were funded thanks to Copaxone, points out Marc Schulman for Newsweek, but its patent expired in June after a 20-year run.

Teva had hoped to extend its Copaxone patent by the well-known trick of changing the dosage and calling it a new drug. That effort failed and, starting in June, Tevas cash cow became just another generic drug, Schulman writes, with sales immediately plummeting.

Copaxone brought in just over $1 billion in sales in the first three quarters of this year, or about 19% of the companys total revenues, writes Chad Bray for the New York Times. Those sales included about $800 million in the United States, an 8% decline over the same period in 2016 that management said was because of the new generic competition in its third-quarter earnings release last month.

These are decisions I don't take lightly but they are necessary to secure Teva's future. We will implement these changes with fairness and the utmost respect for our colleagues worldwide. Today's announcement is about positioning Teva for a sustainable future, Tevas recently appointed president and CEO, Kare Schultz, says in yesterdays release announcing the layoffs, which are only part of a two-year restructuring plan.

The company is dramatically simplifying its business and is aiming for a substantial optimization of its generic drugs, which is expected to include price changes and the discontinuation of certain products, USA Todays Bomey summarizes. Its also suspending its dividends.

Schultz tells the Financial Timess David Crow and Ilan Ben Zion that the job cuts wont be done in a harvest way: weve looked at each function, each site, and made decisions on what we want to do.

But the Histadrut movement, which represents the majority of trade unionists in Israel, called a general strike for Sunday, they write. Meir Babayov, one of the groups officials, said: We will launch a total war. The entire country will tremble. We wont let the government sit quietly. We wont let this happen.

Tevas stock, meanwhile, was up 10.19% yesterday on the news.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, December 15, 2017

MadHive -- which develops blockchain technology for media and advertising, along with The Mad Foundation -- will generate the sale of "Mad tokens," a cryptocurrency to support an open blockchain network for the advertising industry.

The networks machine-learning strategy will initially focus on connected TV ad inventory and eventually will move to linear television, beginning with regional and local, and then add other online media, said Adam Helfgott. CEO at MadHive and project lead at the Mad Network. He said the company is in the process of raising $25 million in Bitcoin to fund the development of the Mad Network.

"The currency market cap is about half a trillion dollars," Helfgott said. "It's small in comparison to global finance, but it's still in its early stages."

A blockchain, which acts as a peer-to-peer network, facilitates the exchange of data without the need for third-party verification. The move will give advertisers more opportunities to establish new connections with consumers, and publishers will gain insight to better understand their audiences.

advertisement advertisement

The companies will use the funds to build the blockchain that supports the ad transactions. The network will use Ethereum to secure the financial transactions.

The company plans to distribute about 220 million tokens.

Helfgott believes this technology will change the media industry. "For every dollar spent on linear television that doesn't go through digital, about 80 cents goes to the publisher," he said. "As soon as I put that show on Hulu or anywhere online, I get 20 cents."

This gives Google and Facebook an incentive to enter the television space, which will create competition. Blockchain technology will help to redefine the economics, Helfgott said.

The Mad Network consists of three businesses: Books, Core, and Data. Books, an automated bookkeeping network, runs on top of Ethereum to house insertion orders. Core is an ad server, and Data supports a data management platform (DMP).

Government regulations could introduce challenges. The United States does not yet have many regulations, but South Korea is implementing new bitcoin guidelines that would prohibit minors from tom investing in cryptocurrencies and possibly taxing capital gains made from bitcoin trades.

South Korea, which banned initial coin offerings in September, is the third-largest market for bitcoin, and the biggest for bitcoin rivals Ethereum and Litecoin. The move follows bitcoins debut on a U.S. exchange, according to one report.
by Jess Nelson , December 15, 2017

Emotions are not strictly for relationships or when watching the news -- they can be powerful motivators in email marketing as well.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York City, Persado powers what the company describes as a Marketing Language Cloud. The marketing technology company has scored more than a million words and phrases in the English language by the emotions they trigger.

Love, for example, could generate feelings of affection, while ending soon could generate feelings of anxiety. Persado analyzes the diction marketers use, and with the help of AI-powered predictive intelligence, suggests subject lines that will most resonate with subscribers.

In a study of more than 3,500 subject lines, sent by 142 brands to an average mailing list of more than 1.5 million subscribers, Persado discovered that anxiety is actually one of the biggest motivators inspiring British and American subscribers to click on email campaigns.

advertisement advertisement

Both UK and US subscribers were more likely to react to messages that evoked a sense of anxiety, according to the report. Phrases such as read this very carefully, dont forget, and important update were tagged by Persado as generating feelings of anxiety.

British subscribers were also more likely to engage with emails that made them feel guilty, according to the report -- while Americans were more likely to click on campaigns that inspired feelings of achievement. Dont miss out and dont ignore this were phrases that prompted feelings of guilt and regret, according to Persado, while youve earned this and you are being rewarded inspired the emotion of achievement.

Europeans, on the other hand, most engaged with languages that generated feelings of gratification and gratitude. Phrases recommended by Persado that inspire gratification and gratitude include we are treating you, we appreciate your loyalty, and thank you.
The search for a cure for the most common form of hemophilia seems to have taken a giant leap forward following the striking results of a gene therapy trial in the United Kingdom. Share on Pinterest Could the insertion of a missing gene cure hemophilia? A report on the trial, which is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, describes how, more than a year after receiving a single dose of gene therapy to insert a missing gene, participants with hemophilia A had normal levels of clotting factor and significant reductions in bleeding. We have seen mind-blowing results which have far exceeded our expectations, notes paper co-author Prof. K. John Pasi, director of the Haemophilia Centre at Barts Health NHS Trust. Hemophilia is an inherited disease in which the blood does not clot properly due to a defect in a gene that controls the production of a clotting factor. The lower the level of clotting factor, the higher the chance that even the slightest injury will result in excessive bleeding, or even spontaneous internal bleeding  particularly in the joints. Bleeding in the joints can cause progressive damage, arthritis, and pain. When the bleeding occurs in the head, it can lead to seizures and paralysis. The bleeding can be fatal if it cannot be stopped or if it takes place in the brain or another vital organ.

Fixing genetic fault might cure hemophilia Hemophilia primarily affects males, and there are two main types. Hemophilia A, the most common type, results from deficiency of factor VIII, while hemophilia B results from deficiency of factor IX. Hemophilia A is four times more common than hemophilia B and occurs in around 1 in 5,000 males. Estimates suggest that there are more than 400,000 people with hemophilia worldwide, including 20,000 in the United States and more than 2,000 in the United Kingdom, where the trial took place. There is currently no cure for hemophilia. Effective treatments do exist, but they are expensive and involve lifelong injections several times per week to prevent bleeding. During the gene therapy trial, 13 people with hemophilia A from across the U.K. received injections of a copy of the gene that codes for factor VIII, the blood-clotting protein that is missing in people with hemophilia A. The participants, who were followed for up to 19 months, were treated at five hospitals: The Royal London, Guys and St Thomas, Birmingham, Hampshire, and Cambridge.

Amazing results Test results show that over 1 year after receiving their treatment, all 13 patients have been able to stop their previous treatment, and 11 are showing normal or near-normal levels of clotting factor. When we started out, Prof. Pasi says, we thought it would be a huge achievement to show a 5 percent improvement, so to actually be seeing normal or near-normal factor levels with dramatic reduction in bleeding is quite simply amazing. In a linked editorial, Dr. H. Marijke van den Berg, from the Julius Centre for Health Sciences and Primary Care at University Hospital Utrecht in the Netherlands, discusses the significance of this gene therapy trial, and also of another with hemophilia B patients. Dr. van den Berg has quite recently observed that hemophilia is approaching an era where clotting factor concentrates are abundant and gene therapy a reality. Of the new trial, she notes that while the obtained levels are impressive, the large variation among patients needs clarification.
It was a good couple of days without Virat and Anushka, but they're back again. Keeping their wedding a secret, they managed to get married without any disturbance from the fans and media.

The couple hogged all the attention when they finally released their much-awaited wedding pictures.

Today we have promised each other to be bound in love forever. We are truly blessed to share the news with you. This beautiful day will be made more special with the love and support of our family of fans & well wishers. Thank you for being such an important part of our journey. pic.twitter.com/Scobdiqk7l  Anushka Sharma (@AnushkaSharma) December 11, 2017

Today we have promised each other to be bound in love for ever. We are truly blessed to share the news with you.This beautiful day will be made more special with the love and support of our family of fans & well wishers. Thank you for being such an important part of our journey. pic.twitter.com/aobTUwMNAK  Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) December 11, 2017

Ever since we got the pictures from their fairy-tale wedding, everyone was just speculating about their honeymoon plans, and finally the wait is over. Anushka finally shared the first picture from her honeymoon, and it is better than what we could have expected. Actually, the caption is better than the picture  In heaven, literally. Yes, Anushka we can see that.

Even with the beautiful and snowy background, Anushka's intricate mehendi and that huge wedding ring on her hand completely stand out.

A couple of days ago, there were some pictures of Virat and Anushka floating around on the internet, apparently of them on their Honeymoon.

While we can see it's them, we're not sure if it's from thier Honeymoon, and we really can't tell where they are.

There were rumours that both of them were in Rome for their much talked about honeymoon, and then they were supposed to fly down to South Africa, but going by the picture, it seems like they are in Switzerland. While we don't really know where they are, and that was there exact intention, we sure can see that it really is heaven on earth, as Anushka said.

Virat is yet to update his 17.8 million followers on Instagram about his honeymoon, but we're patiently waiting. Will he also post the same caption as he did with the first wedding picture? We can just wait and see.
Till now, having a beard was just a part of vanity. Although some people take it a little too seriously (like their life depends on it), never in a man's life would he have thought that having a beard could give him thousands of rupees.



via GIPHY

If by now we haven't caught your interest, we are sure you are lying. Are you telling us that getting a thousand bucks an hour for having your beard stroked isn't a dream job? Agreed the stroking part can be a little, ummweird but still.

Let us tell you the details.

A male grooming brand called 'Mo Bro' is about to open the world's first beard stroking station. Honestly, it does sound a little absurd but we assure you they are basically just doing public service. The brand is recruiting bearded men to be the subjects of the station and will pay $40 per hour that roughly equals to Rs 2600.



via GIPHY

All of this would take place around Christmas because, apparently, Christmas shopping takes a toll on people and they would not miss out on the opportunity to do anything that can help relieve that stress. Reportedly 'warm touches' between humans release Oxytocin, the hormone that reduces the levels of the stress hormone.

Savan Dattani, co-founder of Mo Bro's, said, Christmas is a stressful time of year for most people. You're in a mad rush trying to buy presents, food and drink, whilst juggling work, a family and other commitments. We had a think of how we could make this situation more enjoyable, and it suddenly came to us - a beard stroking station! We have a few guys with fantastic beards already signed up, but we could do with a few more because we anticipate demand to be high. Santa beards preferred, but not essential!

But before you get way too excited, calm down your horses because here comes the not-so-fun part.

The pop-up will be opened at Highcross Shopping Centre in Leicester, England.



via GIPHY

But if by any chance you are in England, you can definitely take part. The beard stroking station will be open to people who register online beforehand. Prices for stroking a beard will cost 5 per 5 minutes, and all profits made will be donated to charity.

The brand does have a small condition though. Interested candidates should have a beard that's at least 2-inches long. You can apply here.
On the heels of two deadly ship collisions this summer that spurred waves of investigations into Navy culture and practices, one of the most shocking reports was that some members of ship crews in the Pacific were forced to work 100 hours or more a week because of undermanning and poor scheduling, particularly during in-port periods.

This account caused some outrage, with Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, calling on the service to abolish the practice immediately. But, Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer told reporters at the Pentagon this week, there might be more to those reports than meets the eye.

"The 'hundred-hour' work week was a self-reporting study that was done that has very little science to it," Spencer said. "If I'm not mistaken, I think eating your meal was considered work. Hmm, I don't know if I'd put there in a work week eating and relaxing."

The account of 100-hour work weeks comes from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, which cited a Navy internal study from 2014. That study surveyed standard work weeks of ship crews to pinpoint factors that would detract from sailors' ability to accomplish specific tasks.

"The Navy study found that sailors were on duty 108 hours a week, exceeding their weekly on-duty allocation of 81 hours," the study found. "This on-duty time included 90 hours of productive work -- 20 hours per week more than the 70 hours that is allotted in the standard work week."

The GAO report went on to warn that cutting into sailors' rest in such a way could lead to a "poor safety culture."

A chart showing the results of the Navy study shows sailors sleeping an average of 40 hours a week, or fewer than six hours per night. In addition to an average 90 hours of productive work, it found crews spend an average of 9 hours per week eating, 11 training, seven on administrative tasks, and just 10 in free time.

Anecdotal evidence makes clear that sailors deployed aboard ships do work long hours, with little dedicated free time allocated and few places to go when off-duty.

"In practice, we know most sailors work far more hours, often 80 to 90 per week or more, and are forced to prioritize what work will get done and what will not," wrote retired Capt. John Cordle in Proceedings Magazine in August.

Nor is the 100-hour work week implausible; divided by a seven-day week, it comes out to a little more than 14 hours per day of work.

And the Navy has already taken some steps to ease the strain on sailors, most notably by putting in place policies to allow those standing watch to get regular and guaranteed breaks for sleep.

In a strategic readiness review commissioned by Spencer and published Thursday, authors recommend against straining and exhausting sailors, regardless of the number of hours worked.

"Sailors being overworked, or perceiving themselves to be overworked, also affects retention, leading to a fleet with less average experience and requiring increased recruiting expense," the review states.

But Spencer said more study is needed to determine exactly how much work sailors are doing today.

"I know Senator McCain says, 'stop the 100 hour work week.' We need to go in and scientifically, with rigor, do a time management study on what a work week looks like," he said.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson talked up military options against North Korea Friday and also voiced no objection to South Korea's plan to develop a nuclear submarine.

"It's not empty words," he said of President Donald Trump's repeated warnings that the U.S. is prepared to act militarily against North Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear and Intercontinental Ballistic Missile [ICBM] programs.

In an interview Friday with South Korea's Yonhap news agency, Richardson also said the U.S. would not stand in the way if South Korea went ahead with a plan to add a nuclear submarine to its fleet as another deterrent against the North.

During his election campaign, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his nation needs a nuclear sub to bolster its defenses, and feasibility studies are underway by South Korea's Navy and Ministry of Defense. South Korea currently has about 16 conventional subs.

Richardson said the decision on acquiring a nuclear sub is one that "only the Republic of Korea can answer for itself," but he also pointed out the enormous costs and difficulties of managing a nuclear sub program.

Richardson, a nuclear submariner, said, "I can say from experience that a nuclear Navy requires a significant investment and initial investment, and continued investment in things like manpower, industry, safety.

"And so as any nation goes through the strategic calculus as to whether to develop a nuclear powered warship, whether it's a submarine or whatever, all of that has to be appreciated in the balance," he said.

North Korea would inevitably see a nuclear sub program in the South as cover for South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons, but the growing threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have forced both South Korea and Japan to reconsider their traditional opposition to the nuclear option.

In South Korea, polls show that 60 percent favor the South's development of nuclear weapons. Nearly 70 percent also want the U.S. to bring back tactical nuclear weapons, which were removed from South Korea in the 1990s.

Japan, as the only nation to have experienced a nuclear attack, has been adamantly opposed to developing its own nuclear weapons, but that opposition could change if South Korea acquired them.

Richardson spoke to Yonhap at the U.S. Yongsan Garrison after meetings with Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of U.S. Forces-Korea and the United Nations Command; Gen. Jeong Kyeong-doo, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Adm. Um Hyun-seong, commander of South Korea's Navy.

On the North Korean threat, Richardson said, "We're prepared" with military responses, but he echoed U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in stressing that diplomacy led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the first option.

Richardson said, "We in the military understand that we have to be prepared for any kind of increasing capability that could come from the North, that would threaten us from the North, so that we could prevail and that we provide a firm backstop to the diplomatic and economic efforts that are going on the lead."

At the United Nations on Friday, Tillerson backed off his previous offer to hold peace talks with North Korea without pre-conditions and said that "North Korea must earn its way back to the table."

Tillerson also called out China and Russia for failing to fully implement economic sanctions on North Korea.

He told a Security Council session on North Korea, "Each U.N. member state must fully implement all existing U.N. Security Council resolutions" sanctioning North Korea.

"For those nations who have not done so, or who have been slow to enforce Security Council resolutions, your hesitation calls into question whether your vote is a commitment to words only, but not actions," Tillerson said.

"We particularly call on Russia and China to increase pressure, including going beyond full implementation of the Security Council resolutions," he said.

Tillerson, who reportedly is out of favor with Trump, earlier this week rattled the White House by stating that the U.S. would be prepared to talk to the North even if North Korea refused to give up its nuclear programs as a precondition.

At the Atlantic Council on Tuesday, he said it is "not realistic to say we're only going to talk if you come to the table ready to give up your program. They've too much invested in it. The president is very realistic about that as well."

At the Security Council on Friday, Tillerson said the U.S. still hopes for dialogue with North Korea, but the North must commit to halting its nuclear programs first.

"We have been clear that all options remain on the table in the defense of our nation, but we do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea," he said.

"The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution," Tillerson said.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
Officials say the device was known as an "unexploded ordnance," or an explosive weapon that did not explode and still posed a...
The U.S. military is prepping for anti-surface warfare to make a comeback, and it's moved one step closer with another successful test of the latest air-launched Long Range Anti-Ship Missile.

Lockheed Martin Corp., the missile's manufacturer, recently launched the AGM-158C LRASM from a B-1B Lancer, at Point Mugu Sea Range, California, the company said.

The aircrew "simultaneously launched two LRASMs against multiple maritime targets, meeting the primary test objectives, including target impact," Lockheed said in a release.

Once launched from the aircraft, the missile -- based on the, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER -- will be able to autonomously sensor-locate and track targets while avoiding friendly forces.

Related content:

The estimated $1.5 billion Navy program is also being tested on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

"This continued success with LRASM provides confidence in its upcoming early operational capability milestone, putting a proven, unmatched munition into the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force inventories," said David Helsel, LRASM program director at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control.

"The successful flight demonstrates LRASM's continued ability to strengthen sea control for our forces," he said in the release.

Related Video: Lockheed Martin's Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)

The precision-guided, anti-ship standoff missile was first tested on a B-1B in August.

"The B-1 is the only Air Force platform scheduled to receive this, and we are the threshold platform for [it]," Maj. Jeremy Stover, B-1 program element monitor and instructor weapons systems officer, told Military.com in July.

The weapon will enhance not just the B-1, but the U.S. military's targeting capabilities while protecting at-risk assets in a high-threat environment, Stover said. The B-1 may be capable of carrying more than 20 LRASMs at a time.

The Air Force is scheduled to integrate LRASM onboard the B-1B in 2018 and the Navy on its F/A-18E/F in 2019, the release said.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at Oriana0214.
President Donald Trump bragged to the Marines Friday on the proposed 2.4 percent military pay raise, even though it's not a done deal.

In exuberant remarks to the Marines of Helicopter Squadron One, who fly the presidential helicopters, Trump also jokingly resurfaced the nickname "Mad Dog" -- for Defense Secretary and retired Marine general Jim Mattis.

"I love that name. I don't know if he likes it, actually. I've never figured out if he likes the name," Trump said, "but he really deserves the name."

Actually, he doesn't like it. Shortly after he took over as Defense Secretary, Mattis met off-the-cuff with a group of Pentagon reporters. He was asked about the "Mad Dog" nickname Trump had been using. Mattis made clear that "just Jim" was fine with him.

Trump's wide-ranging remarks on nicknames, pay raises, ballcaps, Afghanistan, the defense budget, the fight against ISIS, and his win over Hillary Clinton came in a stop at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, on his way to an FBI graduation ceremony.

"This week, I signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes major investments in weapon systems, equipment, and, most importantly, in you," Trump told the Marines.

"I'm pleased to report this legislation also includes the largest pay raise you have received in more than eight years," Trump said of the proposed 2.4 percent raise.

He joked that "I guess I'm a bad negotiator." He also did not mention that the White House initially proposed a pay raise of 2.1 percent.

However, the raise and the entire defense budget is caught up in the perennial battle in Congress over continuing resolutions and tradeoffs between military and domestic spending.

The military currently is operating at 2017 spending levels under a continuing resolution that expires on Dec. 22, raising another possibility of a government shutdown.

Congressional leaders have proposed another continuing resolution into next year that would fund the military at 2018 levels of nearly $700 billion, while keeping domestic spending at 2017 levels. It was unclear whether the administration had the votes in the Senate to pass the proposal.

The back and forth in Congress did not stop Trump from touting the $700 billion for defense.

"You know, we just approved -- our enemy is in trouble -- we just approved $700 billion, which is the largest ever approved," Trump said.

"We got it done, and we're giving you new equipment," he said. "We're giving you new everything, because we got depleted over the last eight years."

He said that a rebuilt military would have even more success against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria under the rules of engagement he has promoted giving field commanders wide latitude in their use of force.

"You know, we've made tremendous success and had tremendous success now with getting rid of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. I let them do their job," Trump said.

"You don't have to call the White House when you're getting ready to fight. You know, in the old times -- the last administration -- you called the White House and you get approval. Not anymore. Not anymore," he said.

Trump also had unstinting praise for the Marines of Helicopter Squadron One, whose helicopters become "Marine One" whenever the president is aboard.

"For more than half a century, Marine Helicopter Squadron One has served as one of the most visible symbols of the presidency," he said.

"Today, there are few sights more awe-inspiring than Marine One flying up the Potomac -- true, incredible -- past the Washington Monument and landing on the South Lawn of the White House. It's an incredible privilege to take that flight."

"I remember the first time I got on Marine One. Air Force One, Marine One -- I said, which was better? I wouldn't tell you. You know why? Because I don't want the word to get back to some other people," he said, prompting laughter from the Marines.

"But I felt very, very good about our country. I'm very proud of our country when I got that first flight and every time I get on it. So I appreciate the job you do," Trump said.

To show how much he appreciated it, Trump donned a ballcap. "So they gave me this hat. It says: 'Presidential Helicopter Squadron.' Would you wear it? Now, no other President would do this. But I will, because I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you -- what the hell."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
If you know the industry you want to enter for your new post-military civilian career, or even if you have no idea, informational interviews can be incredibly useful in determining and pursuing your next step.

What is an informational interview?

An informational interview is when you set up a fairly informal meeting with someone to discuss their job or expertise about an industry, and ask for career advice for the purpose of your career advancement.

It might start with a connection introducing you to the potential interviewee, reaching out to someone with a request to grab coffee together via social media, or any other way that you can connect with someone who has career expertise from which you can learn.

How can informational interviews be useful?

For those who know what industry, company or job they want to be in, the informational interview can be used to do the following:

Confirm you made the right choice and that this is a good fit.

Find out what the job is actually like and what the requirements are, so that you can better revise your resume to fit and prepare appropriate responses to interview questions.

Learn about the culture so you are mentally prepared when you start your new job.

The veteran who is still trying to figure out what industry or company is a good fit will find informational interviews useful for the following:

Find out what companies are the main players in specific industries.

Understand what types of jobs these companies have, so you can target your resume and begin career planning toward that newly discovered dream job.

Learn about the day-to-day specifics of a particular job to know early on if applying for it would be worth your time, or if doing the job would drive you insane.

Some questions for you to consider

Your next step is to know what you will discuss during your informational interview. To help you in this step, here are some questions that you might want to ask:

What is the day-to-day like? What do you actually do, and how does that contribute to the team?

How much do politics play into work life?

Is there much of a work-life balance?

How did you land your position, and what would you have done differently, if anything?

Have you seen anything applicants have done wrong in the job application or interview process?

What advice do you have for someone in their first year in the company, to help them stand out and advance their career?

Is there much growth potential? How do people in this company move up?

What is the culture of the industry/company/team? Does this fit well with military culture?

If you were to describe the CEO as a Disney villain, who would it be?

OK, that last one should probably not be asked. We included it here to remind you to keep it light.

This should be a conversation, not a boring ACTUAL interview. This is your chance to talk with someone who understands your potential industry, get to know them, and maybe gain a contact who will vouch for you down the road.

So approach the informational interview in a friendly yet professional manner, offer to pay for their coffee, and remember to thank them for their time. You will have, we hope, left a lasting impression with said person, but also come away with a better understanding of where you might want to take your career.

This is your career we're talking about -- do your homework. Don't simply jump in blind, or you might soon find yourself lost.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Ghanaian rapper Dr_Drilla has released his highly anticipated rap tune "Address" on Wedesday .

The young talent announced earlier on his social media handles that his latest work will address societal issues.

As the President of Ghana delivers a State of the Nation Address to update Ghanaians about the state of the economy, Dr_Drilla comes with his own version titled "Address".

He gives to us the State of the Nation Address in his own perspective and tends to express his feelings through his punch lines.

Dr_Drilla said, "As a matter of fact, Ghana and the African continent has been a country which has been dependent on others for far too long and its the responsibility of the citizenry to do the right to help build the nation".

Dr Drilla bringing to us this new tune will certainly change lives and how Ghanaians think.
Two women believed to be citizens of Ghana have reportedly tied the knot in a lesbian marriage in Holland, where reports suggest they reside.

Pictures of the couple (names withheld) believed to have been taken at their private wedding ceremony in a city in Holland have since gone viral on social media.

This has caused an uproar on social media with many users not sparing the lesbian couple their unprinted words.

This is coming at a time when President Akufo-Addo has made it clear that same sex marriage is not on the agenda of the country, as he considers it against the Ghanaian culture.

At the moment, I dont feel and I dont see that in Ghana there is that strong current of opinion that is saying that this is something that we need even deal with. It is not so far a matter which is on the agenda, Mr Akufo-Addo had told Aljazeera in an interview recently.

In one of the pictures that have gone viral, the two ladies who were beautifully dressed in what looks like a 'kente' cloth, a traditional Ghanaian wear, could be seen kissing passionately as they held each other's hand. In another picture, the ladies wore their white wedding apparel

This is not the first time a Ghanaian national residing overseas is reported to have engaged in homosexuality.

In September this year, reports surfaced of one of Ghanas foremost second cycle institution, Achimota Senior High School (Motown), of recording its first openly celebrated gay marriage.

That was when an alumnus of Motown (91 Year Group), Stephen Anertey Caesar, reportedly tied the knot with his Canadian male partner, Ryan Lathrum, at Sonoma Valley in America.
A Ghanaian modelling agency, Style Up With Kim (SUWK), has announced a casting call for models for its upcoming events and projects early 2018.

It will, as a result, be organising various auditions from January 20, 2018 at De Temple at Achimota to select models to fill up spaces, some of which are TV commercials.

Style Up With Kim model agency is recruiting and grooming models to be professionals in runway, commercials, photo and video shoots. The rest are event ushering and more! Dont miss this chance, application forms are available now at Fotostore, West Hills Mall and at Pills & Tabs Restaurant opposite the University of Legon campus, Ghana at a fee, Kimberly Chucks from SUWK Model Agency said on Thursday.

The modelling industry in Ghana is gradually taking shape with the rise in fashion shows, TV commercials, music videos and other activities that require the services of models.

SUWK is one the new agencies which have been working harder to give models a platform to excel in their chosen career.
Ghanaian designer of international repute, Ophelia Crossland, will this weekend be showcasing some of her scintillating creations made with crystals from Swarovski.

This will be at an exclusive fashion event scheduled for Sunday, December 17 at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

The event will bring together some of the biggest names in Ghana's fashion and showbiz industries, as well as personalities from the corridors of power to witness Ophelias Swarovski designs.

Swarovski is the world leader in precision-cut crystals for over 120 years. Ophelia Crossland in March 2017 was named West African ambassador for Swarovski for the second time.

She became the first Ghanaian and West African designer to represent the world brand in West Africa.

She is the only designer with right to Swarovski's tags and labels on her designs as a result.

In October 2017, she showcased her designs at the 2017 Swarovski Sparkling Couture Infinity Exhibition in Dubai.

The upcoming exhibition is her first to celebrate Swarovski designs back home.

Ophelia Crossland is one of the leading fashion brands in Africa. She has been around for over a decade and she has designed for some high-profile personalities, including former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, former Chief Justice Georgina Wood and a lot of Ghanaian celebrities.

She was one of the first fashion brands in Ghana in recent time to have done the whole merging of African fabrics and contemporary styles.
How to prepare for volunteering in Ghana

If you are thinking about traveling to Africa for the first time, Ghana is a great place to start. Here we have outlined some helpful tips to prepare you for your trip.

Be prepared to stand out!

You will stand out as a foreigner and the locals will want to know everything about you. Its not that they are nosey, they are genuinely curious about you and your life in a land so far from theirs. On the other hand, they love to see your efforts to fit in with their society. Try the local foods, participate in community events and try to learn some of their language. Most people will speak English, but its always recommended to learn some everyday language of the countries you visit.

Lighten up on your western concept of time!

If you arrive on time, be prepared to wait. If you think you have a schedule, be prepared for things to just happen. Things take time and your definition of time is not the same as theirs. Go with the flow and youll find that your time is being used, not wasted.

Get your Visa in order ahead of time!

US citizens, as most other countries, need a Visa to visit Ghana. Find your nearest Ghana Embassy or Consulate for the necessary information.

Vaccinations!

The only vaccination required by Ghana is Yellow fever. Check that you are up-to-date on your routine vaccines. Other recommended vaccines are hepatitis, meningitis and typhoid.

Its not the end of the world if you get sick!

There is Malaria in Ghana, but know that if you do get it, you are in good hands. Hospitals are experienced in treating Malaria and it usually isnt as bad as people think. Of course it doesnt mean you want to get it, so apply that bug spray/cream regularly and you should be fine. If you choose to take malaria medicine, research before you choose a brand, many are known to have horrible side effects. They do have pharmacies that provide basic medications, but its a good idea to bring those just in case basics like:

a general antibiotic

anti-diarrheals

antacid

cold medicine,

a full supply of any prescription medicine you require.

Water and electricity...sometimes you have it, sometimes you dont

There are occasional power outages in Ghana, however many places have back-up generators. Most hotels and hostels will have consistent power and water, but sometimes it just goes out for a bit. You will quickly adjust to candlelight or just relaxing in the darkness and youll find a new appreciation for those long showers back home.

Speaking of electricity

Power surges can damage your electronics so its a good idea to have a surge protector. Ghana uses 230V power, so if you are bringing your own electronics you will need a transformer and a plug adapter, you can find these items in Ghana.

How to get there

The Kotoka International airport in Accra is your destination. It is not only the biggest airport in Ghana, but also the most modern airport on Africas east coast. All volunteer projects are located in Ho, which is about another 4 hour bus drive from Accra. If your flight arrives at night, you will need to stay in a hotel close to the airport and then can depart the next day to Ho. We know, you are excited and would like to head to your volunteer house as soon as possible. We also know, that we have mentioned how safe Ghana is. However, travelling at night is never recommended, especially when its your first time in a new country!

Other little tips...

It is HOT in Ghana, so pack light, comfortable clothes that don't show too much skin, a light rain jacket and a sweater for cooler nights. You can shop for personal hygiene products there, but they will be very basic. Bring your own if you are particular about the products you use. For women, you will want to bring your sanitary items.

Most hotels do take credit cards, but it is highly recommended to use only cash and travelers checks, due to the high rates of credit card fraud. Make sure your bank knows where you are traveling.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Mr. John Kwadjo Teku, the Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has called on parents to prioritise girl child education to bridge poverty gaps.

He said education remained the best strategy to empowering individuals to attain higher heights and urged parents, especially rural dwellers to take advantage of government's interventions to educate female children.

Mr. Teku said this at the launch of a project by World Bicycle Relief, an NGO and World Vision Ghana with support from World Vision Italy dubbed: Bicycle Education Empowerment Programme (BEEP).

The project presented 1,080 bicycles to pupils at Odumase in the Nkwanta South District of the Volta Region.

Mr Sagane Thiaw, Operations Director, World Vision Ghana said the bicycles were to aid the vulnerable in the District who travel between two to five kilometers by foot to school daily and also to reduce school drop-out rates and to improve access to quality education.

He said about seven million children were out of school due to daily long distance trekking to and from school, which resulted in poor academic performance and appealed to Ghanaians to help create a safe and conducive environment for proper growth of children.

Mr. Eric Showell, Global Director of Programme, World Bicycle Relief, urged beneficiaries to handle the bicycles with utmost care and maintain them to prolong their lifespan.

Mr. John Thasun, Nkwanta South District Chief Executive, expressed gratitude to the benefactors and hoped the gesture would improve education in the District.

The 1,080 bicycles were valued at GH 648,000.00.

GNA

By Ebenezer Sowah, GNA
15.12.2017 LISTEN

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has reiterated its commitment to cooperate fully with the Department of Gender and Social Protection to drastically reduce the prevalence of Sexual and Gender based Violence (SGBV) in schools.

GNAT has also called for a broader stakeholder engagement on curbing the menace in the country saying, that the fight to curb the phenomenon required collective efforts of all stakeholders to bring it to the barest minimum.

Consequently, the Association has challenged the Department of Gender to constantly engage them on issues of teen pregnancies and SGBV involving teachers as they had the needed logistics to help address the issue.

Mr William Abedi Boadu, the Central Regional Secretary of GNAT, gave the assurance at a press conference to set the record straight about recent media reports that teachers in the Region were noted for impregnating teenage students.

Ghana Health Service (GHS) in collaboration with the Central Regional Department of Gender last year conducted a survey to find out which group of persons were impregnating the girls of which 301 teachers were found to be responsible.

The teaching profession had since received a lot of bastardisation though GNAT had challenged the authenticity of the data.

Mr Boadu explained at the press briefing that though GNAT would not assume that teachers were angels, it would be unfair to the teaching profession if isolated cases which were not proven and the allegation were thrown to the public that teachers were impregnating teenage students.

He therefore called on the GHS and the Department of Gender to furnish the secretariat with details of the teachers involved for the necessary disciplinary actions to be taken.

He added that 'in as much as we are partners, we would not want a situation where the image of the teacher will be dragged in the mud. We have code of conduct'.

Mr Boadu further appealed to Headteachers, P.T.A executives and School Management Committees to desist from serving as arbitrators in issues relating to teenage pregnancies involving teachers as they did not have the capacity to do so.

GNA

By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Traders within the Central Business District of the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis were left stranded at the market gate in order for the market gods to be appeased.

The market women who usually thronged the market at about 0530 hours had to wait till the rituals were completed around 9:30 Wednesday morning.

When the GNA visited the market around the time when the rituals were completed, traders were busily setting up their wares to attract customers who also had to endure the period of waiting for the rituals by a group of traditional priests.

The sacrifice to the gods, according to Mrs Veronica Arthur, the Market Secretary, was based on an allegation of possession by a fetish priest who visited the market sometime ago and said the low patronage in the market was because of continual neglect by traders.

The Market Secretary said the traders therefore contributed five cedis each to enable a group of fetish priests and priestesses from Amanful and New Takoradi both suburbs of Takoradi to perform the necessary rituals to appease the aggrieved god.

When the market was finally opened, the traders were cautioned not to sweep away the mashed yam which had been sprinkled all over the market.

GNA

By Mildred Siabi-Mensah GNA
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Eighty (80) children, who have being doing daily round trip of about 10 kilometres to attend school at Motokrodua in the Sekyere East District have had their suffering and troubles reduced by the free supply of bicycles.

They now ride their own bicycles from the Tetekaaso, New Apaso and Ampaedwa farming communities to their school at Motokrodua.

These were given to them by the World Vision (WV) Ghana, under its Bicycle Education Empowerment Program (BEEP).

The program is a collaboration between WV Ghana, its Italian counterpart and the World Bicycle Relief in the United States (US), with funding from Mondelez International, Australia.

Mr. Andrew Ofosu-Dankyi, Education Technical Programme Manager of the WV Ghana, said this bring to 4,900 the number of bicycles distributed since, last year.

He said 3,000 of these went to school children in the Kassena-Nankana District in the Upper East Region while 1,820 were made available to pupils in the Nkwanta South District of the Volta Region.

He added that the goal was to enhance mobility and accessibility of school children to school.

It is also targeted at helping to address the problem of child labour by keeping children in the classrooms.

Mrs. Thelma Thompson, Project Manager, Cocoa Life Program of WV Ghana, spoke of the setting up of a committee to closely monitor the use of the bicycles to achieve the intended outcomes.

Representatives of the chiefs, youth and women groups, the cocoa life farmers' society, parent teacher association and a bicycle repairer are serving on the committee.

Mrs. Thompson encouraged the beneficiary children to be inspired by the intervention to make the most of the opportunity and live their academic dreams.

The chief of Motokrodua, Nana Owuahene Acheampong, applauded WV Ghana and its partners for the support.

GNA

By Gideon D. Ebbah, GNA
Some residents of the West Mamprusi District Assembly (WMDA) have commended the Assembly for adhering to the Procurement Law in awarding contracts, which ensures transparency and accountability.

They mentioned a 10-seater water closet toilet at Wungu and the rehabilitation of culverts on the Kpasenkpe-Wulugu Road as some of the projects, whose award was done in accordance with the Procurement Law such as soliciting for bids.

However, they complained about the unnecessary delays in the execution of the projects, which was affecting their lives.

The toilet facility was awarded in 2016 whiles the rehabilitation of culverts on the Kpasenkpe-Wulugu Road started in 2013 but both projects were yet to be completed.

This came to light at a town hall meeting organized by the Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID) at Walewale as part of the Ghana's Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms (GSAM) project.

The GSAM project seeks to strengthen citizens' oversight of capital development projects in 100 districts to improve local government transparency, accountability and performance.

It is implemented by a consortium of three civil society organizations including Integrated Social Development Center, OXFAM Ghana and CARE, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development.

Based on the assessment of the projects by the citizens, the GSAM Consortium partners scored WMDA 100 per cent in project initiation, 100 per cent in procurement and contracting, 62 per cent in execution and zero per cent in project benefits, an assessment that put its (WMDA) overall score in terms of execution of capital projects at 66 per cent.

Mr Alhassan Nasiru, Assembly Member for Wungu-Nayirifong Electoral Area, said the delay in completing the toilet facility presented health challenges to the people as they did not have improved toilet facilities in their communities.

Some of the residents from Kpasenkpe were not happy that the culvert at their community was not completed, which was causing accidents in the area.

Mr Awal Suhuyini, West Mamprusi District Planning Officer, explained that both projects were not completed on schedule because of delay in the release of the District Assemblies' Common Fund and the non-disbursement of the of District Development Facility.

GNA

By Albert Futukpor, GNA
15.12.2017 LISTEN

The Central Region Office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), has urged the public to ensure that every food they ate was wholesome and safe.

It had in this regard intensified its pre-Christmas food safety education and training for food service operators on proper handling of food services ahead of the Christmas festivities to save people from falling ill through consumption of unhealthy food substances.

Addressing the participants John Odai-Tettey, the Acting Regional Director, who issued the advice discouraged consumers from buying and eating canned foods which were dented, rusted and without expiry dates.

Meat and fish sellers should also ensure that meat and fish and their products were kept well frozen to prevent micro-organism infestation whiles fresh fruits and vegetables should also be stored away from the sun, he sounded a reminder.

The participants were made up of 50 stakeholders at all levels of food processing - from purchasing, preparation, storage to consumption to draw their attention to non-compliance, regulations, precautions and adoption of best practices in their operations to reassure safe food.

The workshop which is in line with the FDAs mandate to protect public health and safety, gave them the privilege to learn and solicit ideas on strategies to counter emerging challenges in food chain services to promote safe food handling practices among Ghanaians.

Mr Odai-Tettey stated that some conditions and activities at market places contaminated food thereby compromising safety and health of the public and assured of his outfit's resolute to continually engage the public to draw food service providers' attention to non-compliances in their operations.

The practice of regular and proper hand-washing and the maintenance of good personal hygiene in food handling remained key, he noted, adding that food providers should keep the cooking environment and surroundings tidy to drive away rodents, insects and pests to prevent contamination.

Mr Odai-Tettey called for more collaborative efforts to promote good quality services delivery.

Mrs Francisca Obeng and Mrs Nana Korkoi Ewudzie, Facilitators at the programme took the participants through major topics including food and safety laws, general non-compliances, sanitation, personnel issues, storage practices among others.

GNA

By Isaac Arkoh, GNA
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Mr. Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, the Member of Parliament for Ellembelle, has donated 100 dual desks to the Uthman Bin Affan Islamic Senior High School (UBAISH) at Kamgbunli in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region.

This follows an appeal made by the headmaster to the MP to help address the numerous challenges militating against the smooth running of the school, especially in the wake of the implementation of the free Senior High School (SHS) policy.

The MP responded to the headmaster's call by paying a visit to the school to ascertain the situation there.

At a presentation ceremony at the school, Mr Buah used the opportunity to lead the school to observe a one minute silence for the souls of the departed students of the Kumasi Academy SHS emanating from the outbreak of N1H1 influenza.

According to the MP, the gesture formed part of measures to mitigate problems bedevilling the implementation of the free SHS as espoused by the sector Minister.

He, therefore, pledged his support to the School and advised the students to study hard to obtain good grades that would enable them to further their education at institutions of higher learning.

Alhaji Osman Zakari, the Headmaster on behalf of the staff and the students, expressed profound gratitude to the MP for the timely intervention to solve the furniture challenges facing the school.

In another development, Mr Buah visited a physically challenged person at Azuleloanu, Mr Stephen Mome, and donated a new wheel chair to aid his movement.

He also donated a hair dryer to Miss Kwasi Raale, one of the many youth he assisted to undergo apprenticeship training in hairdressing.

The beneficiaries thanked the MP for the kind gesture.

GNA
Mr. Kwasi Osei Hyeaman, MTN Area Sales Manager in charge of the three Regions of the north, has advised customers of the company's mobile money services to adhere to simple security tips in order to avoid being duped by fraudsters.

He mentioned protecting one's PIN Code and not sharing it with other people and loading one's own mobile money wallet before making transfers as some of the security tips subscribers must constantly adhere to, in order to avoid being duped.

Subscribers were not also to entertain calls concerning their mobile money account and must refuse to authorize transactions that they had not initiated by themselves.

Mr. Hyeaman, who gave the advice during an interaction with the media, Heads of Security Services and some financial institutions in Wa on Tuesday, revealed that the company had set up an internal anti-fraud unit to counter the spate of fraud cases in mobile money transactions.

'The Business Risk Management Unit, which also supervises anti-money laundering issues, is part of internal mechanisms adopted by the company to reduce the chances of fraudulent activities of criminals in the mobile money business,' he added.

The Area Sales Manager of the three Regions of the north said MTN was alarmed at the number of fraud cases in mobile money transactions that were being reported almost on daily basis.

Mr. Hyeaman said subscribers should be more careful with mobile money transactions since the procedure to track these fraudsters in order to apprehend them was difficult.

Notwithstanding the painstaking procedure, the help of the security agencies had led to the arrest and prosecution of over 100 cases at the courts across the country while others were still under investigation.

He, therefore, cautioned the public to be vigilant in order not to fall victims to criminals in the mobile money business.

The mobile money business was introduced in Ghana by MTN, but the terrain has become a fertile avenue for fraudsters who craft various stories to dupe unsuspecting subscribers.

Recently, MTN blocked about 300 agents from their mobile money list for activities that compromised the strict regulations of the company in the mobile money business.

Mrs. Georgina Fiagbenu, the Acting Corporate Services Executive of MTN, said subscribers should not entertain the kind of conversations about their mobile money transactions that allow criminals to exploit and dupe them.

She said the company believed in the corporate social responsibility, hence the many investments in the education and health sectors, as well as in direct human support, including scholarships.

GNA

By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA
The pathologist who conducted autopsy on Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North, J.B Danquah-Adu again on Thursday failed to appear before court.

The Accra District Court has therefore asked that another subpoena should be served on Dr Lawrence Edusei, so that he could furnish the court with the full autopsy report on the deceased.

This would be the fourth time that the Court has subpoenaed him.

When the matter was called, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) George Amegah mentioned Dr Edusei's name aloud on three occasions but no one owned up in open court as being him.

The court presided over Ms Aret Nsemoh adjourned the matter to January 4, next year.

The Police at the various court sittings expressed difficulty in obtaining the Pathologist full report.

The court has made several times to get the Pathologist to appear in court and furnish it with full report on the late MP but to no avail.

J.B Danquah Adu was murdered in his apartment in 2016 at Shiashie.

Two suspects, Daniel Asiedu and Vincent Bosso, were subsequently arrested and charged with murder following the incident. Their pleas have not been taken and they have been remanded into Prison custody.

The facts of the case, as presented by DSP Amegah, were that the deceased MP lived with his family in a one-storey house at Shiashie, near East Legon, a suburb of Accra, whilst Asiedu and Bosso lived at Agbogbloshie, also in Accra.

About 11:40 p.m. on February 8, 2016, the MP arrived home in his private car driven by his driver.

The driver had handed over the ignition keys of the car to Danquah-Adu and left for home, after which the MP retired to bed in a room located on the first floor of his house.

At about 1 a.m. on the same night, Asiedu and Bosso, armed with a catapult, a cutter and a sharp knife, went to the legislator's house.

Bosso is said to have assisted Asiedu to enter the house by scaling the fence wall on the blind side of a security man who was fast asleep.

On entering the house, Asiedu picked a ladder and climbed onto a porch on the top floor and entered the MP's bedroom through a window, whilst Mr. Danquah-Adu was sleeping.

Whilst Asiedu was searching the room, the MP woke up and held him. There ensued a struggle, during which Asiedu stabbed the MP in the right chest above the breast.

The MP consequently held the knife, and Asiedu pulled it through the MP's hand, making a deep cut in his palm.

The legislator, who bled profusely, fell by his bed, after which Asiedu stabbed him several times on his right chest and neck.

On realizing that the MP was dying, Asiedu left the room and took with his three iPhone smart phones.

Meanwhile, the struggle between the MP and Asiedu had drawn the attention of the security man in the house, who alerted other security men in the neighbourhood.

Having been alerted of an impending danger, Bosso took to his heels, leaving Asiedu behind.

However, Asiedu managed to descend from the top of the house and jumped over the electric fencing on the walls of the house into an adjoining house and escaped

GNA

By Joyce Danso, GNA
The Ashanti Regional Police Command has deployed about 4,200 police officers to clamp down on criminal activities before, during and after the Christmas and New Year festivities.

The Regional Police Commander, COP Ken Yeboah, has since charged the officers to be professional in the discharge of their duties.

He said the Command will deal ruthlessly with any officer found extorting monies from suspects and those found misconducting themselves in the course of duty.

During this period, we have the criminals also trying to infiltrate to take away from people. They are also going to give us problems, and that is what we are going to prevent. We are not going to allow anybody to tarnish the reputation that we have built. I expect you to work hard. Be professional in whatever you are going to do. I will not tolerate any form of indiscipline from you. Let us give our best to mother Ghana, he said.

While urging the officers to be tough and arrest lawbreakers, he said anyone found guilty of any crime will not be spared.

Arrest them

COP Ken Yeboah also charged the police officers to arrest anyone found riding in unregistered vehicles, particularly motorbikes.

Wherever you found anybody riding a motorbike which is unregistered, please arrest and impound the motorbike and bring it here. Unregistered vehicles, if it is after 6 pm, arrest the person and bring the vehicle here. We are going to organize swoops from tomorrow, everywhere in the city, so that we allow residents enjoy the Christmas period. We will not allow the criminals to put fear in anybody, he said.

I do not want to hear anybody extorting money from anybody. If you do that and I get you, you know what I will do to you, he said.

COP Yeboah reminded the police that the ban on the use of explosives was still in force and urged them to be on the lookout.

He also urged the public to cooperate with the police by giving credible information as they aim to maintain law and order throughout the festivities.

A combined team from the Formed Police Unit, the Motor Traffic and Transport Department and the Anti-robbery squad are currently on an admission float on the principal streets of Kumasi to assure the residents of their readiness to fight crime.



By: Hafiz Tijani/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post A/Region: 4,200 police officers deployed ahead of Christmas appeared first on Ghana News .
President of the Christian Service University College in Kumasi says private tertiary institutions still face threatening financial challenges, despite recent tax rebate announced by the government.

Professor Sam Afrane notes the cost of accreditation and affiliation processes, in particular, are disincentives to the growth of private universities.

The two processes he says, are expensive and compel managers of such institutions to pay double for the same product draining them financially.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced in the 2018 budget private institutions will no longer be required to pay corporate tax.

Though Prof Afrane describes governments gesture as welcoming news, he indicates corporate tax is the least of problems confronting institutions.

Affiliation and accreditation sometimes dont fully complement each other. The two could have worked together if government could reform it. They are characterized by delays, they are cumbersome and they are also very expensive.

The universities, we must submit ourselves to them in terms of they approving what we want to teach and sometimes the process can take one and a half to two years to get one program approved, he told Luv FMs Erastus Asare Donkor.

Whatever programme you want to introduce you must find a university which has done it before. We have introduced Monitoring and Evaluation, we have introduced Corporate Planning, no university in West Africa is doing it but because of the rule, we must find a mentor in Ghana. It does not allow initiative and creativity, he said.

This MSc Monitoring and Evaluation, we pay to the mentoring institution, the university, and we pay once again to the NAB. So, if nothing at all, you are paying twice for one product. That calls for a reform. Prof. Afrane noted.

He was speaking at the launch of four new academic programmes introduced by the Christian Service University College; Postgraduate programme in Corporate Planning, and three undergraduate programmes, Early Childhood Education, Basic Education, and Physician Assistant Studies.

Christian Service University College established in 1974 is in the process of adding a new faculty of Education to four existing faculties; Humanities, Business Administration and Health and Applied Sciences.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com | Erastus Asare Donkor | Luv News
The Eastern Regional Minister says the country's fight against illegal mining may be compromised because some youth are bribing members of the Operation Vanguard team in the region.

Eric Kwakye Darfour who also doubles as the chairman of the Regional Security Council (REGSEC) said the development has encouraged the illegal miners to continue with their trade.

He said the anti-galamsey efforts will be affected when those arrested are let go after they pay bribes to the police, adding it is taking a heavy toll on the communities affected by activities of the illegal miners.

The governments resolve to end illegal mining received further impetus with the deployment of security men to three regions considered to be the most affected areas.

Dubbed Operation Vanguard, the 400 security men made up of personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and the Ghana Police Service have been divided into three groups to cover the Ashanti, Eastern and Western regions.

The teams have been tasked to stay in their assigned regions until all forms of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, have been stopped and unauthorised mining pits permanently destroyed.

But the Eastern Regional Minister has accused the National Anti-Galamsey Taskforce in the region of taking bribes.

Responding to the claims, outgoing Commander of the Taskforce, Colonel William Agyapong told Joy FM the team is not influenced by anyone including the government.

One of the major successes of this operation is the fact that we have not had any major interference whatsoever, he said.

He was emphatic no one in authority has so-far called to allow a group or individual found culpable to go free.

From the operations, we have been conducting so far, I want to state emphatically that no Operation Vanguard personnel has stooped so low to be compromised as being reported, Mr Agyapong added.

According to him, they have seized a lot of items and monies from those arrested which were used as exhibits in court.

Col Agyapong said although people have made attempts to bribe the officers, they have not changed their stance.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com | Abubakar Ibrahim| [email protected]
Vice president Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has stated the government is opened to ideas from individuals, irrespective of political affiliation that will help transform the economy.

Dr. Bawumia noted although the Akufo-Addo-led government has the capable hands to run the economy, it will not assume the know-it all philosophy.

As a government, we do not assume the know-it all philosophy but rather believe that a great rich set of ideas are inherent in people like you, and we are ready to tap into that, Dr. Bawumia emphasised at the launch of the Economic Club of Ghana on Wednesday.

He added: The Club indeed comes in at an appropriate time, and I can assure you of the support and commitment of the government. We shall be open to ideas, recommendations, and suggestions in relation to the formulation and implementation of economic and social policies, to the extent that they support both the short and long term development agenda of Ghana.

While welcoming the Economic Club initiative, the former deputy Governor of the Central Bank, advised members of such clubs to be apolitical.

I challenge you not to be partisan. I challenge you to be firm and unwavering in your analyses and discourses. Be problem solvers. Let your commentary be a source of public economic education, not just commentators to score points.

Let us think outside the box of standard economic paradigms. Let us ask old questions anew and seek new solutions. That is the recipe for progress, innovation and growth, Dr. Bawumia stressed.

There should be no fear whatsoever in the presentations of your views, critical or not because that is what makes democracy, and our kind of democracy beautiful and allows for economic development to be carried out in a free and fair society.

To all those gathered here to witness such a memorable occasion, I urge you also to become members of this club. Don't be intimidated by its name. Economics is after all a social science of the way we go about our economic affairs for the greatest public good. Contribute to its growth in kind, in ideas and backbone support because the growth of this club will mean that Ghana is equally growing, the vice president opined.

Dr. Bawumia averred the government is ever ready to pool Ghanaians together to build a resilient and stable economy on the strength of our own human and non-human resources, guided by well-thought out policies and strategies.

He observed that constant engagement with the private sector is one of the surest means to achieve the ambitious industrialization agenda.

We are embarking on an ambitious but achievable industrialization agenda, with the private sector at its heart. We have set the ball in motion, but will require commitment and alignment of the private sector and all Ghanaians to realizing this objective.

We believe that consistent engagement, dialogue and discussions among relevant stakeholders will be key to the structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy going forward. The Economic Club could be a strong source of ideas and well researched innovative thinking to inform and to complement governance ideas in building the economy, recognizing that a weak economy and a low capacity economy will not take us into the desired Middle Income status. We are becoming a low middle income for too long, Dr. Bawumia remarked.

-Starrfmonline
Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid has rebuffed claims by some members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), the government is plotting the removal of Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Osei, from office.

Speaking on Joy FM, Thursday, December 14, 2017, Mr. Hamid described attempts at politicising the matter as very, very unfortunate.

Mrs. Osei is facing investigations by a committee set up by the Chief Justice following accusations levelled against her staff of the elections governing body who petitioned the president for her removal.

She is also facing the same committee after the President, Nana Akufo-Addo forwarded a petition by some staff at the EC for her impeachment in relation to alleged corruption and mismanagement.

Her two deputies are to also answer for their alleged roles in the disappearance of some GHS480,000 from the EC's Endowment Fund, among other allegations.

But Abraham Amaliba, a member of the legal team of the opposition NDC is reported to have said there will be chaos in the country if the Chair of the Electoral Commission, Mrs Charlotte Osei, is removed from office.

What has the woman done? She has declared election results in your favour and so what again do they want from her that they are using the process to harass her? Where are the CDDs? Where are the Occupy Ghanas?

If it were to be the NDC government all these people would be speaking by now. Where is Emile Short? Where is Professor Martey? This country will burn and we will see where all of us will be and so they should continue doing it, he said on Accra FM.

But Mustapha Hamid said the government had no hand in the issues leading to the constitution of the committee to investigate the EC Boss.

He said it is public knowledge that Mrs. Osei and her two deputies  Amadu Sulley and Georgina Amankwa do not have a good working relationship and expressed surprise that the government is being accused of hatching a plan to persecute one of the three.

What about the two deputies? They are also under investigation, too, [so] why are they not saying that they are being hounded, Hamid interrogated.

He added: Everybody knows that this is happening because of their own public disagreements.

Deputy BoG Governor

Commenting on claims government is trying to push Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Johnson Assiama, Mustapha Hamid said the development is mainly an issue between the deputy Governor and his employers at the central bank.

Reports suggest Dr Asiama may be having challenges working with the Akufo-Addo administration and some of his colleagues because he is perceived as an outsider.

According to Mustapha Hamid, the current happenings at the central bank have everything to do with the deputy governor and his employers therefore the government would leave that for management of the bank to handle.

He, however, said the government will intervene only when it becomes necessary.

Myjoyonline
The Rebecca Foundation has donated a 66-seater bus to the New Ningo community in the Ningo-Prampram district in the Greater Accra Region to facilitate the transportation of schoolchildren in the area.

Schoolchildren, especially senior high students, often travel about three to four miles to Prampram to attend the only senior high school in the district.

The presentation, which was with support from the Svani Group Limited, the largest distributor of Russian vehicles, was in fulfilment of a promise the First Lady made to the people when she visited the community last November during which she was enstooled as Naana Djangmakuor I by the chiefs and people of New Ningo.

Advice

Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, the founder of the foundation, advised the community to ensure that all children of school age in New Ningo benefited from the bus.

She pledged the commitment of the foundation to help with the servicing of the bus but advised the people to ensure its proper maintenance.

The First Lady explained that she was touched by the plight of the children due to the distance they had to travel to and from school.

Appreciation

The acting Paramount Chief of Ningpo, Nene Kanor Atiapa III, who is also the acting President of the Ningo Traditional Council, thanked the First Lady for her love for the children in the community.

Appeal

Nene Atiapa III also appealed to the First Lady to help in elevating the Ningo area into a district on its own.

For her part, the Divisional Queen Mother of Ningo, Naana Dede Akewey II, appealed to the First Lady to help them construct a new market in the area, saying because there was no market in the area, young women found it difficult to go into any kind of business venture to support their families.

Condition

The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Hahama, said their request could only be granted when the Electoral Commission (EC) designates Ningo and Prampram as two separate constituencies.

She, therefore, entreated the people to exercise patience, since there were several factors the EC takes into consideration before designating constituencies.

Source: Daily Graphic
The Ghana Education Service (GES) has declined to give a timeline for the decongestion of senior high schools (SHSs).

The congestion has been blamed for the outbreak of meningitis which has claimed scores of lives at the country's Senior High Schools.

GES Public Relations Officer, Reverend Jonathan Bettey told Evans Mensah on Joy FMs Newsnite Thursday, solving that issue cannot be done today or tomorrow.

But he said contracts have been awarded for structures in the various SHSs to be improved.

Related Article : Congestion at SHSs exposes students to meningitis  Ghana Health Service

At least four students have died from what experts have identified as meningitis, with more than eight others on admission.

A student of Tempane SHS is reportedly in a critical condition after he was rushed to the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital Wednesday for contracting the disease.

Sections of Ghanaians have blamed the Free SHS educational policy rolled out in September, for the congestion and by extension for the deaths in the Senior High Schools.

Days after the programme was launched, social media was awash with pictures purportedly taken from schools that showed some students sleeping in makeshift structures.

Critics say the government is implementing a Free SHS policy, that is poorly conceptualized and executed.

Although Education Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has said the programme is not responsible for the congestions, there are plans to put up new classrooms in the schools.

Mr Bettey said construction of the projects will commence when the students are on vacation, adding the Minister and Ghana Education Service (GES) boss have been working to address the problem.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | AKABP
International war crimes judges will hand down on Friday landmark reparations to former child soldiers conscripted into a Congolese militia about 15 years ago, who were left brutalised and stigmatised by their horrific experiences.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was found guilty in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was jailed for 14 years, and has been transferred to a prison in the DR Congo to serve the rest of his sentence.

The judges also ruled that Lubanga was personally liable for the compensation due his victims, who at the time of the crimes in 2002-2003 were all under 15, with some as young as 11.

But the question of how to calculate the value of a lost childhood, which descended into a fog of violence, bloodshed and chaos, is one that has bedevilled the courts.

With the passage of time, many of the victims are now in their 30s and have children of their own.

Lost childhoods

"How do you calculate a lost youth? What it is worth? A million, half a million, five thousand euros, a thousand euros?" lawyer Luc Walleyn asked the tribunal in The Hague during hearings in 2016.

Many of the girls forced into the militia's ranks became sex slaves and returned home with babies.

The nongovernmental organisation Child Soldiers International, which works to stop children being used in conflicts, said girls they had interviewed in DR Congo recounted "indescribable hardships, loneliness and terror -- including daily threats of death".

Many rehabilitation projects have focused on helping victims to become independent financially, by learning to sew or raise cattle. But they have not always proved the most efficient.

Being able to finish their schooling was "the most ardent wish of the girls, and the most powerful factor in promoting their social acceptance", the group said in a court submission.

"The main issue for these girls were the stigmatisation and rejection when they came back home," Sandra Olsson, project manager for Child Soldiers International, told AFP.

"The first thing wasn't the fact that they needed to learn how to sew, to earn a living. The main thing was that neighbours, family, old friends would not talk to them."

A public apology by Lubanga, who has never admitted any responsibility, would go a long way towards their reintegration.

An apology would "mean the perpetrators take on the blame", Olsson said, highlighting the "huge guilt carried by the girls for what they had been forced to do."

Scapegoat?

The judges will also decide Friday on the number of victims entitled to reparations.

Estimates vary, but some say up to 3,000 children may have been recruited into Lubanga's militia.

But Lubanga's lawyer, Jean-Marie Biju-Duval, argues that his client should not pay anything.

He says that it would be difficult to identify victims and that any payouts risked reviving tensions in Ituri, which has been "overwhelmed by the phenomenon of child soldiers".

Lubanga risked becoming "a scapegoat" for all child soldiers, Biju-Duval said.

The Trust Fund for Victims, which administers the ICC reparations, has proposed a three-year plan and set aside one million euros ($1.2 million) for projects aimed at "reconciling the victims with their families and affected communities".

Lubanga's is the third reparations case to be decided at the ICC. In March, judges awarded $250 each to 297 victims of another Congolese warlord, Germain Katanga.

And in August, the court ruled that a Malian jihadist had caused 2.7 million euros in damage when he destroyed several shrines in Timbuktu in 2012.

But Liesbeth Zegveld, a legal expert who directs the War Reparations Centre at the University of Amsterdam, questioned how effective collective reparations could be.

"If you look at the applicants, almost all of them are after individual reparations," she told AFP.

"At the end of the day, that's what is going to empower them. They can decide for themselves about their lives, rather than being dependent on some decision-maker far away."
The African National Congress was lauded for its moral authority in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, but many veterans of that era are deeply disillusioned by the party's actions today.

As delegates prepare to elect a new leader to succeed Jacob Zuma, the ANC faces falling public support, a reputation for corruption and the threat of a damaging split between rival factions.

The celebrated activists who stood alongside ANC leader Nelson Mandela in the struggle against white-minority rule say the party bears little semblance to its storied glory days, given its current reputation for putting personal interests above national needs.

"I am not proud of being an ANC member that is led by this lot. I am proud of the history of the ANC," Frank Chikane, a prominent figure in the anti-apartheid fight, told AFP.

Chikane, a priest who grew up in Soweto, led protests through the 1970s and 1980s, and was regularly detained by the state -- as well as being targeted in an assassination attempt when police poisoned his clothes.

"What is happening out there now is not the ANC," he said. "In the past we thought the enemy was outside, now the enemy is inside."

He urged party members to "stop the rot" when they gather to elect a leader and other senior officials at a five-day conference starting Saturday.

The Zuma legacy

This file photo taken on December 9, 2017 shows candidate for South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party leadership Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma speaking on her campaign

Much of the criticism of the current ANC focuses on Zuma, who is seen as backing his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him as party chief.

Her main rival is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, with the vote result expected on Sunday or early next week.

Zuma, who has ruled South Africa since 2009, will remain as the country's president ahead of the 2019 general election.

He has been engulfed by multiple graft scandals, including being found guilty in 2016 of violating the constitution after he resisted paying back public money used to lavishly upgrade his private residence.

The ANC has consistently shrugged off calls to act against Zuma and its lawmakers have voted down several motions of no confidence against him.

"The leadership of the last decade has ridden roughshod over the ANC constitution," Trevor Manuel, another ANC stalwart, said in a stinging speech last month.

"We need an ANC that will recognise that it has lost its way," added Manuel, who campaigned against apartheid governments before becoming Mandela's respected finance minister.

"Right now, it appears too self-serving to be interested in the future of South Africa and the needs of its people," he said.

Some analysts say the party risks a formal split between the Zuma and anti-Zuma camps before the 2019 election.

In local polls last year, its vote fell to 54 percent, its lowest ever, while it lost control of three key cities to the opposition Democratic Alliance, including the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg.

Stalwarts speak out

Cyril Ramaphosa is seeking the ANC leadership

In 2016, some veterans -- including Denis Goldberg, one of Mandela's closest allies dating back to the 1960s -- founded the "For the sake of our future" group to try to influence their party.

In an open letter ahead of the conference it said the "leadership of the ANC is paralysed and unable to deal with ill-discipline, incompetence and corruption that point directly to the highest office in the land".

Zuma himself is a so-called "stalwart" -- he was imprisoned with Mandela on Robben Island for 10 years.

But Sipho Pityana, a former activist who became a wealthy mining businessman, told AFP it was a "disgrace" that the ANC had failed to remove the president from power.

"The image of Zuma has become the image of the ANC," Pityana said.

"The ANC needs to accept that it is morally bankrupt and corrupt to the core, and reversing the damage is going to take years."

Dlamini-Zuma's critics say she would be a proxy for her husband and would protect him from prosecution over graft charges, as well as deepen the corruption that has marred his rule.

The great anti-apartheid hero archbishop Desmond Tutu was never a member of the ANC -- but in 2011 he launched an emotional attack on the party which helped to end white-minority rule.

"Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government," he said.

"You, President Zuma and your government, do not represent me. I am warning you... one day we will pray for the defeat of the ANC."
Researchers and Academia have been urged to conduct more studies in the biogas field to unearth the full potential of the biogas industry in the country.

The industry players are also to critically look at the optimization of the digestion process and the need to construct efficient but low-cost biogas plants to enable the replacement of septic tanks with bio digesters.

Nana Akua Owusu-Afriyieh, Member of Parliament for Ablekuma North Constituency, who made the call in Accra, also recommended the bridging of the gap between industry players, researchers and all regulatory bodies and consumers.

That, she said, would accelerate the country's achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and urged all practitioners to get on board.

Nana Owusu-Afriyieh was inaugurating the Biogas Association of Ghana (BAG), established in 2016 at a meeting organised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to bring together other stakeholders in the sector together to promote sustainable development of the biogas and biomass sectors in the country.

It is also to contribute to the development of policies and programmes aimed at improving sanitation, environment, access to energy and sustainable agricultural practices to improve livelihoods and mitigate climate change.

The MP, therefore, urged the Energy Commission, EPA, Ghana Standards Authority and other relevant stakeholders to develop an all-inclusive roadmap towards the regulation of commercial activities in the biogas industry.

Nana Owusu-Afriyieh, who is also a Board Member of Energy Commission, said the biogas technology has tremendous advantages, which were key to the sustainable development of the country's economy, particularly in accelerating the country's quest to achieve its SDGs.

She noted that a successful biogas and biotechnology industry would fast-track the country's achievement of SDGs six, seven, 13, 14 and 15 and could as well serve as a solution to challenges with waste disposal and sanitation.

'In Ghana this same technology can be used to treat the city's liquid waste to produce electricity, heat, and organic fertilizer for agricultural purposes. This could also help to purify our polluted lagoons and turn them into tourist and recreational sites,' she said.

The MP expressed the hope that in a year or two, the Energy Commission would implement a certification programme of biogas installers, similar to the programme being run for certified electrical wiring professionals to bring sanity into the industry.

Dr Ellias Delali Aklaku, President of the Association, said they believed in the biogas technology as having the most sustainable solution to the country's environmental, sanitation, energy and agricultural challenges.

He said their core objective was to bring together key actors in the sector to share ideas on ways of promoting sanitation and the adoption of biogas technology in the domestic, institutional and industrial sectors.

He urged the public to ignore the assertion that the technology was not working in Ghana, adding, 'we should learn from the Roman Catholic Church, who are the first institution to start installing biogas in all its health and educational institutions'.

He said: 'if today, they are no more using it as source of energy, it has solved their sanitation problem' and urged all institutions and individuals to patronize the technology as an alternative to septic tanks.

Mr Lambert Faabeluon, Director, Ghana National Cleaner Production Centre, urged the practitioners not to depend only on local materials but must open up to reliable and cost effective materials to promote the technology.

Mrs Agnes Frimpong, Project Manager, GIZ Renewable Energy Project Development Programme, said associations were very important for development partners because it made it easier to share experiences and ideas and commended the leadership of the Association for its formation.

She said GIZ and the leadership of the Association were engaged in forming a partnership in terms of training and technical support for its members and urged members to adhere to good standards and quality to build public confidence in biogas technology.

GNA

By Patience Gbeze/ Ayisha Issaka, GNA
Mr. Mohammed Mumuni, the Team Leader for the Northern and Upper East Regions of SEND-Ghana, a Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO), has said client satisfaction plays a critical role in the quest to address healthcare needs.

He said it was based on this that the Ghana Health Services (GHS) made it mandatory for the various District Health Management Teams (DHMTs) and facilities to conduct client satisfaction surveys to assess how clients perceived their services, which formed the basis to improve on quality service delivery.

Mr Mumuni said this in an interview with the media after a Regional Policy Dialogue session held in Bolgatanga to present a Client Satisfaction Survey findings conducted by SEND-Ghana across 30 selected districts in the Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

He said it was the second in the series of the surveys conducted. 'We did one in 2015, and I should say that the 2016, 2017 years have recorded improvement of the issues that were raised. Generally we have satisfaction level to about 76 percent, which is a significant improvement'.

Mr Mumuni said that 24 per cent of citizens were still not satisfied with health service delivery and this is a significant number that needed to be addressed by stakeholders in health- 'it is not just about raising the issues, but once the issues are raised, the most important thing is, how do we deal with the issues'.

He attributed long queues at various health facilities to shortage of health professionals, and said in situations where only one doctor or nurse attended to so many patients, could account for the delays and long queues.

Mr Mumuni said the records department of most health facilities where the survey covered, staff had to flip through thousands of records to be able to pull out information of patients.

This, he said, would obviously not satisfy clients who needed emergency attention and called for the need for technology to help ease pressure, especially at the Out-Patient Departments of health facilities.

Mr Mumuni said although some facilities had computers, they did not have the right technology to enable them digitize the folders of patients adding that a computerised system would reduce the number of workers at the records department of hospitals and reduce the number of hours patients spent at health facilities.

He said it was important to pay attention to technology, 'We should look at how that translates into quality of service delivery because instances where people delay with emergencies, can lead to complications'.

Mr Mumuni expressed concern about the unequal distribution of health professionals especially doctors, and added that 'at the national level, we seem not to have a problem in terms of how we are churning out doctors. The problem is how we distribute them',

He said we need to institute a system whereby doctors who refused postings to particular regions where their services were most needed, would not receive their salaries.

Mr Mumuni underscored the need for motivational packages that would keep doctors at the rural areas.

He said some districts did not have accommodation for doctors, and said it would take lots of sacrifices for a doctor to live in such districts.

'So for us to be able to address these challenges, it requires us to address the huge infrastructural deficit at the district level before instituting sanctions on people who do not take postings'

He called for vigorous and stern policies to control doctor distribution in the country and questioned 'all those who refused postings to the Upper East Region, where did they go, if they went into private practice, that is not a problem, but if they went to Accra or Kumasi and are working in government facilities, and the tax payer is paying for those people, that is a challenge,'

GNA
The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has held a day's tax sensitization forum for drivers in Kumasi to encourage them to pay their taxes.

The programme, jointly organized with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), targeted members of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).

It is part of the scaled-up campaign to assist the people to have better understanding of why they should live up to their tax obligations - to promote voluntary compliance.

The Commission has already had similar engagements with operators of small-scale and medium enterprises and religious organizations.

Ms. Joana Aboagyewaah Appiah, a Senior Civic Education Officer of the Commission, called for all to make sure that they lived up to their civic responsibility of paying tax on the income they earned.

She said the reluctance of many Ghanaians to do this, was making it difficult for the nation to achieve its revenue target.

Ms. Appiah complained about size of the informal sector's contribution to the nation's total tax revenue, saying, that had remained below five per cent even though the economy was dominated by informal sector players.

The GRA estimates that only about 1.2 million of Ghanaians are currently registered for tax purposes and half of the number is in the formal sector.

Ms. Appiah underlined the need for everybody to change their attitude to tax and to recognize that it was the way forward for the nation's progress.

She added that efforts at developing the country's infrastructure would struggle if the people continued to dodge tax payment.

GNA

By Stephen Asante, GNA
The High Court sitting in Winneba, has found the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Professor Mawutor Avoke, and the schools Finance Officer, Dr. Theopholus Senyo Ackorlie, guilty of procurement and other financial irregularities.

The court subsequently ordered the retrieval of all monies paid to the contractors of the North Campus Road, Paa Badu Construction Ltd; and a forensic audit of the project.

It also awarded GHc 8,000 in damages against the University.

The University was dragged to Court by one Supi Kwayera for operating under what he argued was a defunct governing council.

He had also raised various allegations against the Management, including procurement and financial irregularities.

In the course of the suit, a new constituted Governing Council of the University asked its Vice Chancellor and four other top officials to step aside , after it emerged that some vital documents at some offices at the centre of an ongoing investigation had been removed at night.

The school's council subsequently set up a fact-finding committee to investigate the case.

Unfair hearing

But a former President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG, Dr. Samuel Bekoe, has described the judgment as absurd.

Dr. Bekoe complained that the Vice Chancellor and the Finance Officer had not been given a fair hearing in the matter.

He argued that the reliefs that were being sought by the plaintiffs on the procurement issues were all withdrawn, so if they were withdrawn, then it means there was no case on procurement issues before the court. So why would a judge be ruling on a case that was not before him?

 and if you are now also asking that forensic audit should be conducted, it means there is no evidence for the allegations made. So if there is no evidence for the allegations made, why would you now be passing judgement on people?

Dr. Bekoe also noted that, the University, and not the Vice Chancellor and the Finance Officer, was dragged to court.

Now if that was the case and you have not listened to their side, natural justice just shows that you dont have to rule against the two because you never gave them the opportunity to respond to the allegations that were made against them.



By: Sixtus Dong Ullo/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post UEW VC, finance officer found guilty of financial irregularities appeared first on Ghana News .
Seven persons, including a police officer, have been arrested by police in Wa in the Upper West Region, for alleged extortion and narcotics peddling.

The men were apprehended after one of the suspects led a team of policemen to their hideout.

Addressing the media on Thursday, the Upper West Regional Police Commander, DCOP Boapeah Okyere, said the police found the suspected narcotic substances after a search of the suspect's room.

One Hakeem Kasim, 28, was arrested in a residence at a suburb of Wa, after he was caught wrapping some substances suspected to narcotics drugs.

People found in the house with Hakeem were also arrested.

Hakeem subsequently led police to the room of Constable Nana Amako Donkor who was also arrested.

DCOP Boapeah Okyere also cautioned the public to beware of persons who come in cunning ways to extort from them.

The police would like to use this opportunity to caution the public to be wary and careful of such people parading as informants and defrauding high ranking personnel with sugar-coated information. Such people use the success stories of known arrests made elsewhere as their brainchild, he said.

This arrest follows the recent apprehension of another police officer, Corporal Raymond Amegashie, who is believed to be the leader of a robbery gang that attacked and robbed a supermarket in Nungua in the Greater Accra Region.

Corporal Raymond Amegashie is believed to be the leader of a robbery gang

Corporal Amegashie, who is with the Tema Police Special Weapons and Tactics Unit (SWAT), was apprehended alongside three other suspects after allegedly attacking and stealing GHc 54,000 from the Asante supermarket.

In other notable instances of police involvement in crime, an interdicted Police Constable, Samuel Asamoah of the Kasoa Police Station, was arrested for his alleged involvement in a GH7, 800 robbery at Swedru in September.

Also in September, a Corporal, Effah Kyere Williams Boadu, an officer with the Upper East Regional Arms and Ammunitions Unit of the Ghana Police Service, was arrested for illegally selling firearms to unauthorized persons.

In November, a Police officer and a supervisor at the Tema Motorway toll booth, were arrested in connection with a robbery incident were robbers on motorbikes broke into the toll booth and made away with about GHC 45,000.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Wa Police officer, 6 others arrested for drug peddling, extortion appeared first on Ghana News .
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Konkomba chiefs and some interested groups in the Yunyoo Constituency have again petitioned government and renewed their call for Namong to be considered as district capital of the yet to be created Yunyoo district in the Northern Region.

They insist that Namong deserves such status because it has met the requirements required for the siting of the district capital.

President of the Konkomba Students Union (Gbintiri chapter), Emmanuel Gulari, at a news conference in Tamale described Namong as the economic hub of the Yunyoo constituency, hence their incessant demands.

We know there were two communities and their leadership applied for the district capital of the yet to be created district in Yunyoo Constituency about six months ago. Yunyoo and Namong were the communities that applied for the district capital of which we the Konkombas form 76.84% of the total voter population in the constituency, unanimously chose Namong for the district capital to be sited after considering many factors.

The farming system in the area, facilities such as police station in Namong, building facilities to house the Assembly and its workers in Namong, Markets surrounding Namong, the catchment area of the community Namong, the secondary School in Namong and above all, the political interest of the people to have the district capital sited in Namong, and our total rejection if the district capital is sited at Yunyoo.

According to Emmanuel Gulari, they earlier petitioned President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Electoral Commission, the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye, Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama and all the relevant authorities over their demand.

On the 28th July, 2017, we petitioned the President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, stating our facts on why an economically viable community like Namong deserves the district capital.

On the 22nd September 2017, we again submitted our resolution adopted at Gbunkurugu on the 31st August, 2017 to the president of the Republic, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the stance of Konkombas in the constituency and beyond.

The President paid a courtesy call on Nayiri, the king of Mamprugu on the 6th of October, 2017, of which the office Konkomba Students Union presented a similar petition to His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, indicating why the union thinks the Konkombas in the Yunyoo constituency deserve the district capital of the yet to be created district.

Emmanuel Gulari emphasized their demand saying, To crown it all, we these groups upon several meetings and press conferences once again resolved that the district capital be given to a Konkomba community and Namong for that matter, and as a result, submitted another resolution through the Member of Parliament for Yunyoo Constituency, Hon. Joseph Bipoba Naabu and Konkomba Student Union President for Gbintiri Chapter, Mr. Emmanuel Gulari to the following offices.

He expressed their disappointment over the relevant authorities failure to respond to their petition, hence the second petition to echo their demand.

We expressly wish to make it known to the public that we have not received any responses from these offices as of now, yet the maturity date for the Legislative Instrument for creation of new districts is getting closer, as we are noticed it will be on Tuesday, the 19th of December, 2017.

We therefore wish to respectfully appeal to the President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, and the Minister for Local government, Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama, to kindly have a listening ear to our plea for the needed development, equity and a more united front to prevail in the area. To conclude, we wish to make it known and clear that any Konkomba community like Nasuan, apart from Namong, having been considered by the government and the president of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, could be awarded the district capital of the yet to be created district.



By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Yunyoo: Konkombas petition govt again over capital for new district appeared first on Ghana News .
The Ashanti Regional Director of Ghana Health Service, Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang has appealed to the public to welcome students of Kumasi Academy (KUMACA) with open arms, stop the stigmatization and discrimination against them because of their H1N1 influenza Type A, known as swine flu during the Christmas.

He said shunning them will make them feel isolated from the society and all the efforts aimed at improving their psychological trauma would be a farce, which can affect their academics negatively.

In an interview with Otec news, Dr. Tenkorang expressed his worry that after the death of the students who died of swine flu, some people have started stigmatizing them, believing they (people) will be infested with the virus, saying, all the students are clean and healthy.

Four students have died and a total of 85 students of the Kumasi Academy were affected with the H1N1 influenza Type A virus, popularly known as swine flu virus since November 30, 2017.

Health officials have announced at a news conference that the outbreak has been contained to prevent further spread.

Now there is no problem in the school, every student is in a good health, we have discharged all the students from the hospital except five students. The students have complained that some people have started distancing themselves from them whenever they go out to town with their uniforms, but please am appealing to the public to stop that because it wont help the students psychologically, he appealed.

He bemoaned that if the public continues to stigmatize the students and the school, the school will lose its image and final collapse which will have a toll in the educational delivery in the collage.

We shouldnt stigmatize the school and the students else the fighting of the disease will be difficult. If that continues it means nobody will send his or her ward to the school, eventually collapsing it. We all know the part KUMACA has played in our education system, in we all have to protect the school and the students, he said

Dr. Tinkorang assured that after that the five day incubation period, no student has fallen sick of the disease which according to him, it shows a good sign of free virus in the school.

I can assure that no student of KUMACA is infected with the disease now, for the past five days no KUMACA student has been to the hospital so there is no cause of alarm. So when we see them you shouldnt run away, he assured.
The Minister for Inner City and Zango Development, Hon. Boniface Abubakar Sidique, has called on Zango cheifs in the country to encourage their communities to be law abiding citizens and also contribute their quota to the socio-economic development of the country.

The Minister who doubles as the Member of Parliament for the Madina Constituency of the Greater Accra region, made the appeal when a 25 member delegation of the Ga Central Council of Zango Chiefs ,paid a courtesy call on him at his office in Accra recently.

The visit led by the Councils Chairman, Chief Sheikh Mohammed Jibril Sissy was to introduce the newly constituted Council to the Minister and to also discuss how to collaborate with the Ministry to undertake developmental projects within the Ga Central Municipality.

The Minister urged the Council under the Chairmanship of Cheif Sheikh M. Jibril Sissy to continue to play their role as the ambassadors of the Zangos effectively within their areas of jurisdiction. He further urged them to deal with issues brought before them fairly and judge cases transparently without fear or favour.

As chiefs you are expected to lead your subjects by example with fairness, generosity, kindness and transparently in accordance to the teachings of the Islamic faith without favoring or fearing anyone the Zango Minister stressed.

He also expressed his delight on the constitution of the Council and called on other Zango Chiefs to emulate the example of the Ga Central chiefs to help bring development to their people with a united voice

He assured them of his offices collaboration with the Council to seek their opinions on MATTERS relating to development of the Zangos and the Ga Central Municipality as a whole.

Hon. Boniface couldn't hide his joy on the commitment of the Council to provide resources for the development of their communities and further urged them to be citizens who supports the government to undertake developmental projects to build a better and befitting Ghana for all.

On his part, the leader and chairman of the delegation, Chief Sheikh Mohammed Jibril Sissy, pointed out that their visit was not to seek for help but to find ways of collaborating with the Zango and Inner City Ministry to bring development to the people of Ga Central.

He mentioned the urgent need for drainage systems, more educational institutes, hospitals and roads as some of the things they are lacking which theyre ready to commit resources and collaborate with the Ministry to undertake.

 We the Chiefs and our people are ready and willing to support your Ministry achieve its objectives the Chairman and veteran broadcaster promised.

Chief Sheikh M. Jibril Sissy, who also doubles as the Deputy Public Relations Office [PRO], for the National Council of Zongo Chiefs thanked the Minister for the warm reception accorded the delegation and promised to lead by example and ensure zangos in Ghana will live and coexist peacefully with other religious organizations as well as support the developmental agenda of the government.

The Secretary to the Council, Naana Khadidja Mohammed , explained that the aim of the Council is among other things to foster peace and unity amongst chiefs and the people of the Zangos within Ga Central, to collaborate and exchange ideas on preservation of various cultures within the various Zango communities, to prevent and solve conflicts in respective Zangos, as well as, join hands with government agencies and the National Council of Zango Chiefs to promote development within the respective Zango communities in Ghana.

Other members of the delegation include Yusif Nii Ayi Mensah I -Jaasetse Nii Boi Man/ Lapaz, Subdivision Asene Kotopong - Naa Kadee Anohuma I -Asene Kotopong, Queen mother Anohuma , Amidu Ali - Bisa Cheif Anyah zango , Musa Moba - Gurma chief Anyaa Zang , Head of Wangara community- Ablekuma, Abdul Rahman Salaudeen ( Head of Yoruba , Anyaa Zango) among others.uba , Anyaa Zango) among others.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

ECOWAS stands for the Economic Community of the West African States. It's very difficult to say whether the presidents of the 15 West African countries are intentionally undermining the role of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, or the actions of these 15 individuals are totally out of ignorance. The fact of our reality is, the heads of states of the ECOWAS member countries, are undermining the role meant for the President of the ECOWAS Commission. These individuals are leaving West Africans with no choice, than to question the role of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, if the members of the Assembly are actively acting in such capacity.

It's therefore important we raise these concerns on how the actions of the 15 presidents of the ECOWAS member states, are undermining the critical role best played by the president of the ECOWAS Commission, in order to draw the attention of all West Africans to such concerns.

We all know that the traditional role of the presidents of every one of the 15 West African states, is to act in the sovereign capacity of their respective government. This traditional role involve having each country managing their respective internal affair as well as international affairs, including interference in internal affairs of other West African countries, in the interest of their respective countries. This means, it falls within the responsibility of the president of Ghana, for example, to travel to the Gambia, Togo or Liberia, to try to mediate in the internal affairs of these countries, under the guise of international relations. Of course, this turn out to be understood as promoting the image of one's country, than interfering in the internal business of another sovereign country.

The challenge we face here is the definition of none domestic relationship among the West African countries. Under the traditional system, every West African country assumes the direct responsibility for the internal security of a neighbour, whether invited or not. So, multilateral and bilateral relations are muddled up, into one. The tradition of an individual West African sovereign state's president being responsible for the security of its neighbourhood, as several sovereign states, was necessary in the absence of a centralise authority as a regional union to play such role. Such approach was therefore the norm, out of the necessity of the period preceding 1975.

This approch to addressing issues by the presidents of the 15 West African countries took a different dimension with the establishment of the ECOWAS on the 28th of May 1975. The formation of the ECOWAS was to take away the duty of any sovereign country within West Africa, meddling directly in the internal affairs of another sovereign West African country, and placing such responsibility on the ECOWAS authority. The coming into being of ECOWAS therefore redefine the conception of international relations among the 15 member state, in which each country sustain a bilateral relation with another while the multilateral relation with all member states becomes the duty of the ECOWAS president.

Thus, whatever happens in the internal affairs of any of the 15 West African countries, it's expected of the ECOWAS authority to access the situation and decided how to address the issue. This further means, the role of the heads of states of the 15 member states of ECOWAS has been replicated into the head of the ECOWAS Commission, thus the title, President.

The ECOWAS principles also recognises the needed for transfer of a degree of ECOWAS member states' sovereignties to the ECOWAS authority. So with an assumption that the necessary or reasonable degree of such sovereign authority, from the 15 member states have migrated to the ECOWAS authority and the president of the Commission is playing such role, one expect the president to be be playing the active role of ensuring that the transferred power is being put to effective and proper use. The big question now is whether the president of the ECOWAS Commission is doing as expected?

Our understanding of the new development means the ECOWAS Commission President is expected to step in as the spokes person for the Union, whenever it is necessary to do so. The president of the ECOWAS Commission Marcel Alan De Sueza, is therefore expected to relieve any head of each of the 15 member states, in addressing the internal affair of another member state, when situation calls for this. This technically means, the tradition of having any head of state jumping at the slightest opportunity to be the spokes person for the ECOWAS, is suppose to be a thing of the past.

What was rather expected of any leader of an ECOWAS member state, who feels the president of the ECOWAS Commission is not engaging enough in addressing another member state internal affairs, to avoid an ensuing break down of law and order, is for such state leader to address the matter to the Commission with such concerns. Such act is expected to be given an urgent attention by the president of the ECOWAS commission. This is expected to even make the president of the ECOWAS Commission to be serious about the subject of concern, because each head of state of the 15 member Union, is also an automatic member of the ECOWAS Assembly that has the power to terminate the appointment of the ECOWAS president.

What we have is not the heads of the 15 ECOWAS member states raising their concerns with the president of the ECOWAS Commission, for an immediate action. The reality is, each of these heads of ECOWAS member states, is taking it upon itself to directly play the role of the "regional president". My president of Ghana, his excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is not an exception to this impersonation of the regional presidential role.

It is fair to acknowledge that President Nana Addo has been on the heat at the international level, since assuming his role as the president of Ghana and doing wonderful job without doubt. I honestly wish a person like president Nana Addo, occupies the position of the ECOWAS Commission president, based on his performance at the national, regional, continental and global levels. In fact, my president has earn more of my personal respect, than any living head of state of Ghana. He was able to display maturity and great wisdom in dealing with very sensitive issues, at both national and international levels.

Some of us however became a beat concern when the President of Ghana delivered the Commencement Address at the 98th Commencement Exercise of the University of Liberia, Monrovia.

In his address on the 13th December 2017, the president of Ghana affirmed the position of ECOWAS saying "we will do all we can to ensure that democracy is entrenched in Liberia, and we will not accept any other outcome".

It is without iota of doubt that my president Nana Addo spoke in his capacity as a member of the ECOWAS Assembly and did so rightly within his role. All Nana Addo emphasized is, they as the fifteen heads of ECOWAS member states cannot afford to sit by, for a member state of Liberia to subside back to the dark days of civil wars that dragged in the whole of the sub region, due to the current transitional democratic impass.

I have no doubt that the challenge lies in the choice of topic for the ocassion. Without doubt, His Execellency Nana Addo delivered the topic perfectly, given the brewing Liberian political concerns. The big question is, couldn't the President of the ECOWAS Commission have been the best person to deliver the speech on this particular subject? This would have been a great opportunity for West Africans to know who is responsible for the ECOWAS under the Commission and who to look up to at the regional authority.

It would have been better for President Nana Addo to refer the organizers of the event to the President of the ECOWAS Commission, to deliver such sensitive particular subject of regional concern, as its based on security of Liberia and ECOWAS at large. Sure, the rule of the new relationship among the 15 ECOWAS member state is in favour of bilateral relationship between member states. The challenge is in the relationship of multilateral nature that make the president of any particular member state to be mistaken for the president of the ECOWAS Commission, that is out of the bilateral relm. Therefore, assuming any form of role that betray such role, is unfortunate.

Nana Addo would have probably settle down for another topic of bilateral nature. Could one then not help than to conclude that Nana Addo addressed the Liberian situation by the traditional approach of regional responsibility, by which the security of Liberia is percieved as the direct business of the government of Ghana, instead of the business of the ECOWAS.

In actual fact, president Nana is one of the 15 members of the ECOWAS Assembly that elected Marcel Alan De Sueza to be the President of the ECOWAS Commmission for a term of four years. I believe these 15 heads of ECOWAS member states elected the president of the ECOWAS Commission to represent them on issues within the Union and outside the Union, as necessary. I believe that the principles behind having the members of the ECOWAS Assembly to directly elected the President of the Commission, is to make them comfortable and confident in the person, enough to depend on such person to address regional concern, without the same individuals jumping about, as has been the tradition before. One can also see how relieve the members of the ECOWAS Assembly will be, in having time to focus on their domestic challenges, while assured of regional concern in the capable of the President of the ECOWAS Commission.

Ironically, one cannot recalled any event where the president of the ECOWAS Commission has been invited to deliver a lecture, since his inception of office about a year ago and the video available to the public. It's interesting that no such event is recorded, even within Ajuba beyond. He is totally restricted to the secretariats. We cannot have President De Seuzi invited by students to be given the opportunity of explaining the challenges of the regional body and how he is addressing issues, with the assistance of his team. In fact, with almost thirty universities in Nigeria, none is on record to have a space for President De Seuzi's lectures. No wonder the rumour in my circle is, the ECOWAS commission President in Abuja is in captivity, and only speaks when given the permission. If this man is not available even within Nigeria for lectures on the state of the Union, then how can the ECRA dream of inviting the ECOWAS commission president to the University of Ghana, Lagon be fullfill?

I'm now becoming concern about the mandate given to the ECOWAS Commission President by the Assembly of the ECOWAS, if these same individuals are carrying out the very mandate they have given away. This look like earing ones cake and having it. If I cannot give my president of Nana Addo my mandate by participating in an election that resulted in him in becoming the president of Ghana, and at the same time have myself acting in the same capacity as the President of Ghana, how feasible is it then to have the president of Ghana acting in the capacity of the ECOWAS Commission president, when De Sueza has been given the same mandate?

As a Ghanaian, it's my duty to know my place when it come to conflict between my opinion and the opinion of the president of Ghana. Equally, it is the duty of the president of Ghana to start to know his place in the regional opinion expression and decision making, in relation to the president of the ECOWAS Commission.

We all have a duty of making the ECOWAS mean what we dream of, if this ECOWAS authority has to command the kind of respect we want the rest of the world to accord us. If our West African heads of states want anyone to take them serious on the claim of believing in democracy, then they must understand that democracy means giving out ones mandate to another, and obeying the leadership of the one to whom such mandate is given. Let's all be democrats, respect and recognise our respective places. It's not about who can speak very well. It's about who must speak for us all.

Kofi Ali Abdul-Yekin

Chairman ECRA

(ECOWAS Citizens Right Advocates)

[email protected]

+447737224787
Dominic Eduah, NPP Deputy National Youth Organizer has donated food items to the inmates of the Mothercare Orphanage Home, at Mampong yesterday.

The items included bags of rice, toilet rolls, plastic buckets, bowels, trays, mosquito nets, boxes of matches, plastics cups, boxes of soap and cartons of sugar and soft drinks.

The NPP National Youth Organizer Hopeful did not disclose the cost of the items.

Speaking, after presentation, Dominic Eduah, known within and outside the Party as Field Marshal asked the people in higher positions and well-to-do to donate to motherless and fatherless in the society for their up-keep.

He said the inmates through no faults of theirs have become orphans and have found themselves in the orphanage homes.

They therefore need the support of the society to live, he said.

The NPP National Youth Organizer Hopeful was accompanied by four Constituency Youth Organizers and some Party Executives.

Dominic Eduah urged the orphans not be disturbed and discouraged with their situation, but should strive hard to succeed in life.

He called on the kids to study hard, adding that education is the panacea to poverty reduction.

The Director of the Mother Care Orphanage Home who received the items on behalf of the orphans thanked the NPP Deputy Youth Organizer for his kind gesture and asked corporate bodies and other Ghanaians to come to the aid of the Home.

In an interview with the media after presentation, Dominic Eduah said, the exercise is not the first in the series of charity activities planned before and during Christmas but it's an annual project geared towards giving healthy prepared meals to thousands of needy persons which similar or more items were donated to Twin City Special School, Essipong last month.

Image1[1]

Image2[1]

Image4[1]
The Deputy General Secretary for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho has described the Education Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, as the worse minister for 2017 and has called for his immediate dismissal by President Nana Akufo Addo.

He said Dr. Opoku Prempeh has failed to address the challenges that have emanated from the implementation of the free Senior High School policy introduced this year that resulted in the death of Kumasi Academy (KUMACA) students.

Speaking in an interview with Otec news on Ministerial Performance Rating for 2017, Koku Anyidoho said the Education minister has performed poorly and should be held responsible for the death of the KUMACA students for his woeful performance in dealing with the provision of spacious dormitories, classrooms and other logistics for the smooth implementation of the policy.

NAPO has failed woefully and this government should have gotten rid of him long time ago because he failed to address the challenges of overcrowding classrooms and dormitories that have led to meningitis and deaths in some schools. Look at what has happened at KUMACA, the innocent students shouldnt have died if Dr. Opoku Prempeh had put proper measures in place to check those challenges, he said.

A news story about an imminent cabinet reshuffle in President Akuffu Addos administration has sent fear among Ministers, particularly those whose names have popped up as likely causalities.

Sources said the news story sent shockwaves in government circles, with jittery ministers making frantic calls to the seat of government, the Flag Staff House and to close associates of the president in order to get their way through in the confusing logjam.

The ministerial reshuffle, including changes in key posts, is likely to take place in the coming weeks after discussions between the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and some prominent persons in his party.

Source from the Presidency says the imminent reshuffle is to take place before the Christmas but upon a second thought, the President decided to allow the existing ministers to have a merry Christmas with their families.

Koku said the first minister he wished to be reshuffled is the Education minister because also of his arrogance position, refusing to release funds to the school matrons for the purchase of food items to feed the students.

Now go to the schools and check, the matrons are complaining of unavailability of foods to feed the over populated students at the various schools, all in the name of free SHS, and when they complain the Education minister will come out and say I dont care, what kind of arrogant person is he, in fact he should be sacked immediately, he said.

Some parents are going to celebrate the Christmas with sorrows instead of joy because they are going to bury their children, all because of NAPO, the Education minister who failed to protect their children due to his poor performance and arrogance. In fact the parents should send the dead bodies to him for him to them back to lives, what a bad minister he is, he added.
Jerusalem is not yours to give to anyone, says an anonymous author

Has President Trump made the worst political decision?

Gordon Offin-Amaniampong writes

Rochester Michigan attorney Daniel (Dan) Marchese in April 2015 penned down 15 worst political decisions ever made by some former US presidents. Mr. Marchese cites US invasion of Iraq by President George W Bush as blunder of all blunders. It comes as number two (No. 2) of the 15 worst decisions. According to him Mr. Bush will probably have to wait even longer than President James Buchanan (15th president 1857-61), to be cleared of blame as history hasnt vindicated Buchanans more than a century and half political blunder.

Surprisingly, he cites President Barack Obamas witch hunt of Edward Snowden as number one (No.1) worst decision made in the US political history. Snowden the whistleblower has since been exiled in Russia. But I tend to disagree with Marchese. The reason, we dont know how the fallout would be. How would Snowdens exile in Russia change the geopolitics or the cold war between the two world super powers? I think history will be the best judge.

And there was the Bay of Pigs --a political decision made by John F. Kennedy. It was a war between communist Cuba and the United States. US forces were defeated in that war and most captured American troops were put into Cuban prisons.

Remember the Iran Contra Affairs? President Ronald Reagan broke an arms embargo and supplied arms Iran and funding Nicaraguan revolutionaries. Almost century before that in 1870 Ulysses S. Grant made the Santo Domingo decision which would come back to haunt him. He decided to deport more than 4-million African Americans to Santo Domingo. Since he determined that freed slaves whites could not to coexist.

And theres this one that seems familiar to what today America is witnessing. President Adam Johnson was ushered in during the Election 1864 to create a national unity even though he and Lincoln represented opposing parties. Johnson spent his time in the White House embattled with Congress because he sided with southern whites refusing to expand social equality for freed slaves beyond abolition slavery itself.

Would Mr. Trump go down in history as American president who made the worst political decision regarding Jerusalem?

President Donald Trumps announced last week that the US recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has received international backlash, among them some of its key allies in the Arabian including the Great Britain and France. The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez and Pope Francis have also critised Mr. Trump on his on Tuesday 5 December 2017 announcement.

The Pontiff called for the status quo of Jerusalem to be respected and for wisdom and prudence to prevail in order to avoid further conflict.

Upon assumption into the presidency in the early days, president Trump tried hard to undo everything his predecessor, Obama did. Obama lifted a 50-year-old sanction on Cuba. Trump reinstated the restrictions or the embargo. Obama supported NAFTA. Trump is against NAFTA. Obama introduced affordable health care Act also known as Obamacare. Trump is fighting tooth and nail to undo Obamacare. The US has tried over the years to maintain neutrality in resolving conflict between Israel and Palestine. That long standing order that president after president has adopted seems to be in jeopardy.

The creation of Israel

The creation of the state of Israel dates back the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. After that war Britain took control over Palestine and in November 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declarationdeclaring its intention to help the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

Subsequent upon this, in 1922 the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine which included among other things, provisions calling for the establishment of a Jewish homelandfacilitating Jewish immigration and encouraging Jewish settlement on the land.

As expected there was resistance--- the Arabs were opposed to Jewish immigration to Palestine and increased their attacks against the Jews. There were incessant attacks almost from all fronts forcing Britain to look for plan B. The Brits appointed a royal commission in 1936 to investigate the Palestine situation. And in the aftermath of that the Peel Commission recommended the partition of the country between and Arabs and Jews.

What happened? The Jews accepted the deal but the Arabs rejected the idea of partition.

The attacks would continue. On the 29th of November 1947 after protracted debate and discussion, the UN recommended the partition of Palestine into two states---one Jewish and the other Arab. Once again the Arabs rejected the UN resolution while the Jews accepted it. Before this deal, Britain had told the UN that it could no longer manage Palestine and handed it over to the UN

The British mandate over Palestine officially ended at midnight May 1948. Earlier in the at 4:00p.m, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel and became the first prime minister On May 15, the United States recognised the state of Israel and the Soviet Union also endorsed it.

What has become of that proclamation and endorsement?

Since then Israelis and Palestinians have both claimed Jerusalem as their political capital and as sacred religious site. Israel controls a lions share of the disputed city. Officially, Jerusalem has been disputed since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Before that the United Nations had designated Jerusalem as a special international zone. During the war Israel seized the Jerusalems western half plus the eastern half during the next Arab-Israeli war in 1967.It is important to note that most people foresee a peace deal that gives western Jerusalem to Israel and eastern Jerusalem to a future Palestinians State. And I personally believe thats the way to go. God loves all his peopleJews, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists or Hindus.

How would Jesus react to this Jerusalem brouhaha?

Matthew 22:21 Jesus said: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods.

Remember the battle is the Lords and not by our military might.

How did Gideon win his battle against the Midianites?

An army of some 15,000 Midianites had invaded Israel for the purpose of hijacking their food supplies, according to the Old Testament. Gideon-- a judge called on Israelites to stand up and defend themselves. Some 30,000 showed up to form an army that was probably large enough to defeat the Midianites (Judges Chapter 7).

However, God told Gideon to downsize. It was scaled down to 10,000 men or smaller. The Lord said: The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me saying, my own hand has saved me.

Gideon was further asked to slash down the number. Gideon was told to use just 300 men. At the battle front they employed an unusual military tactic. They blew their trumpets, flashed their torches and threw stones rather than standard assault tacticssword and spear. When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every mans sword against his comrade and against all the army and they fled. Israel won the battle.

Remember the battle is the Lords and Jerusalem is not yours to give to anyone.

The Battle for Jericho

According to the book of Joshua the battle of Jericho was the first battle of the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan. The walls of Jericho fell after Joshuas Israelite army marched around the city blowing their trumpets. (Joshua 6:1-7)

And consider the Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur and Ramadan War also known as October war Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973. It was fought by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. Its also known as the 1973 Arab-Israel war. The war was fought around the Sinai and the Golan Heights territories that had been occupied by the Israelis since the six-day war of 1967. In both battles Israel won. They say, if you cannot beat them befriend or join them. Then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat saw the need to use diplomacy and it worked. And up to day Egypt has become the biggest or chief mediator in conflicts between Israel and the Arab world.

Anytime Israel goes her own way things dont go right.

The 2006 Lebanon War also called the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon. It was centred on Northern Israel and the Golan Heights.

The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and Israel Defence forces (IDF). The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006. I must note that it finally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Let me also add, it was a proxy war as Hezbollah got supplies from Iran.

Sometimes God causes your enemy to build for you, to feed you, to cloth you and to take care of you.. According to the Bible Cyrus the Great king of Persia was the monarch under whom Babylonian captivity ended. In the first year of his reign he was prompted by God to decree that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. He also gave Israel gold, silver and building materials to help build the city.

Did the refurbishment of the Temple at the time cause rapture?

Following Mr. Trumps announcement some religious leaders have given different interpretations to it. According to some this will follow the rebuilding of the Temple and then the apocalypse. If Jesus the Son of Man said he has no knowledge of the times and seasons that would happen why these men of God beating the End Time or the Apocalypse drum?

Like his predecessor president Obama, history will judge president Trump whether his announcement to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel would go down in US political history as the worst decision ever made since George Washington? Would the Arabs and the Palestinians continue to see US as neutral and unbiased arbiter in the Arab-Israel two state peace talks?
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Today, I want to tell you a story. It is not an Ananse story. Neither is it the story of the tortoise and antelope. It is also not the hackneyed tale of the dancing frog. Once upon a time, I mentioned the story of how tribal marks came into existence as captured by the great writer Ousmane Sembene in his Tribal Scars or the Voltaique. I am sorry to say I am not repeating that in this piece. This is a different story altogether.

This is a very powerful story. It is a story of hope in an atmosphere of hopelessness. A story that will put a smile on your face despite the anguish and agony many of our people are mirred in. A story that makes you believe in the potentialities of our communities albeit the thuggery and foolhardiness of a few. It is the story of Nima. The story of a young girl who crossed seas and oceans and left an indelible mark where she landed.

Few days ago, the Zongo Youth Chief, Alhaji Salisu Maude stated in a Facebook post that we should disregard those wet blankets that are working dishonorably to bedaub the image of our communities with objectionable behaviors. He subsequently mentioned those who are working honorably to raise high the banner of knowledge, industry and commerce in our communities. He subtly gave them a shot in the arm though he did not speak many words. I agree completely with him.

One looking from afar might think that our community is filled up with those hoodlums whose actions twang on the peaceful, harmonious and progressive atmosphere prevailing; but that is far from the truth. The community is made up of a majority of reasonable inhabitants who are unfortunately silent. However, the atmosphere is what Chinua Achebe reminded that this majority of reasonable citizens are like sane people who in some bizarre and unexplained way find themselves trapped in a dangerous and rowdy madhouse. The lunatics may be outnumbered but they own the place. The silent majority must therefore rise up to own the community and also highlight every singular honorable act before the loud minority begins encroaching on our border lines.

We must therefore highlight such stories. They may not be grandiose in the real sense of the word but we know a single spark can light up the darkness. The poet Max Ehrmann tells us in his Desiderata that however humble our pursuits are, they are real possessions in the changing fortunes of time. I therefore move to tell you the story of a small girl called Zulaiya Sakibu, a reliable altruist (as she describes herself) who was born in the town described by Kwame Nkrumah as  a city within a city. That city is Nima of course. The Presidential city.

In the early part of the year 2000, before the euphoria surrounding the world-spread jargons new millennium, Y2K died out, this young lady was birthed into this seemingly accursed world on 19th January. An extrovert and outspoken girl who is a final year student at Achimota Senior High School studying Economics, Geography, Government and Elective Maths, she has interest in what she calls the 3Cs. She savors the time she watches cartoons, relishes the time she reads comics and enjoys light and humorous drama with a happy ending. The English label that as comedy.

Her insatiable desire for reading is beyond reproach. And she is not just a passive reader; she tries to actuate what she reads and endeavors to bring everyone she knows to rally around the quest to brighten the corner they find themselves in. This is evidenced in her membership in organizations such as Star life Foundation (a foundation established to educate and train young children like her on manners and etiquettes, the honors of education, how to be courteous and also the improvement on sanitation) and Success Book Club, an organization established to give the youth a platform to develop themselves and make monumental impact in their communities. She acts as the secretary in the absence of the substantive.

Interestingly, I got to know her those days at Tafsiliyya School for Training and Educationwhen we were still wearing the green and white uniform with pride. We needed a young girl to play the role of an acolyte to a fetish priest in a Drama competition organized by One Ghana Production. She played the role par excellence and catapulted us into becoming the eventual winners of the competition. Funny it is that we began calling her mei tuuru (fetish priestess); a name she later told us she loves not.

Like the famed Zuweira Baba Mohammad, she also sat in my English class at the Ghana Muslim Academy Annual Vacation classes in the year 2015 and won the best student.

On July 3rd 2017, at exactly 10:14 am, I posted a picture of two young students of Achimota School and captioned it watch out for these two budding intellectuals from Nima. Little did I know that a monumental achievement beckons our young girl few months after. She got selected with four other students to represent Ghana in a leadership exchange programme in the United States of America later in the year. Perhaps I should let her speak for herself. Our elders say that a flute player must sometimes stop to wipe his nose. I therefore pause here.

Zulaiya Sakibu:

I wanted to see a different life which was nothing like I had for the past fifteen years in Ghana. I was seeking new experiences, new discoveries and new concepts. Hence my overwhelming elation when I got selected for the Pan-African Youth Leadership Programme in the United States of America in August 2017. My head was spinning like a rubber ball out of happiness as we flew from Ghana, transited in Amsterdam and finally landed in Washington.

In Washington DC people walk fast, they hardly smile or speak to others. Its a city of business, everyone is on the move. America only seen through a television screen is very different from the one experienced in person. An exchange program to the U.S can help you better understand yourself and the world around you. Each city has a unique quality and nature.

I engaged in many activities in Washington D.C, Austin, Texas and Chicago. And I remembered what I had read earlier that Washington D.C was designed by an African called Benjamin Banneker. We visited the memorials of the man of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson and also 1st President George Washington. My behavior was more than that of Osuofia in London when I got to the prominent building in the United States, the White House.

I participated in sports, brainstorming and other activities. I also did a voluntary work by going to Life Works (an institution were young teenage mothers and abandoned children are trained and educated)to give a presentation about my country and enlighten them about our great and wonderful African culture.

Another interesting part of this program was having lectures on social entrepreneurship, team building activities, the Pan-African Youth Leadership Programme News and Leadership series at the University of Texas.

The most stressful part of the whole enterprise was preparing for our Action plan. We had to work diligently, sit into the wee hours of the night to work on our PowerPoint Presentation. I had team-members who were so co-operative and industrious. I describe it as the best team ever. The memorable moment for me was when we were adjudged the best team in the inter-country competition. The competition was based on our Action plan among 26 African countries.

We won the competition in a grand style. I was so happy we made because it made me appreciate all the efforts we put into it. We were very excited and proud of our success.

Another thing worth talking about is how my experience was enriched by my interactions with my host family-which included my host mother, father and two lovely younger brothers, two dogs and two cats.

I believe I was extremely lucky to have spent my three weeks there.

I was their first exchange student but I'm 100% sure they were impressed by my utmost disposition. I hope they'll visit Ghana one-day or in another case I'll go to see them in America.

I really appreciate the opportunities the Pan-African Youth Leadership Programme has given me. I learnt not only about American culture but the culture of other African countries. I even learnt a little bit of French

I'm very thankful to every single person I met during that time and was part of my exchange program. I don't regret anything about what I've done and have a feeling it could not have been better than it was.

Fly higher, Mei Tuuru!

Inusah Mohammed

[email protected]

NB: The Writer is a Youth Activist and a Student of Knowledge.
International judges on Friday awarded $10 million (8.5 million euros) in damages to child soldiers recruited into the ranks of a brutal Congolese militia by former warlord Thomas Lubanga.

The judges at the International Criminal Court set "the sum of reparations for which Mr Lubanga is liable as the total sum of $10 million," presiding judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut said.

The court formally acknowledged 425 victims, setting the amount of harm they suffered at an average of $8,000 each, for a total of $3.4 million.

But the judges stressed that "hundreds or even thousands of additional victims" suffered at the hands of Lubanga's militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It therefore allocated another $6.6 million in compensation to help more victims once they have been identified.

Lubanga, 56, was found guilty in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region between 2002 and 2003.

He was jailed for 14 years, and has been transferred to a prison in the DR Congo to serve the rest of his sentence.

The reparations are a collective award, and will go towards paying for projects to help the victims rebuild their lives and re-integrate back into society.

The projects will be administered by the independent Trust Fund for Victims, and may include medical and psychological help, schooling and vocational training.
The lady at the centre of ejection allegation has said she was not involved in the operation by certain security personnel that threw out the belongings of some government workers staying in state bungalows in Accra.

Mrs. Grace Acheampong, a Protocol Officer in charge of housing at the office of the Chief of Staff, said she is being accused wrongly by the affected worker Abdulai Amin, a staff of the Accountant-Generals Department and added that officials at the Ministry of Works and Housing were not being fair to her in the matter.

Narrating what triggered the issue, she told DAILY GUIDE that the Chief of Staff Frema Osei Opare put her in charge of estates and was supposed to liaise with the sector ministry headed by Lawyer Samuel Atta Akyea to track all government bungalows and flats in the Greater Accra Region.

She said she was also tasked to find accommodation for staff working at the presidency and as a result her team has been working since January to make sure all government bungalows in the region are intact.

According to Mrs Acheampong popularly calle O'gre, the process they adopted was that a tenant-update form was designed and was signed by the Hon. Minister Atta Akyea and subsequently distributed to tenants in all the bungalows and flats visited, to be filled, adding the audit team went to all the areas in the region captured to administer the forms and then went back two weeks after administering them to collect the completed forms.

Tenants who could not submit their completed form to the team on the third and fourth visits were asked to submit them at room 56' of the Ministry of Works and Housing, she said.

According to the staffer, the tenants were requested to attach photocopies of their allocation letter, pay slip/rent payment receipts and appointment letter and based on the information provided the team sorted and classified them into Defaulters, Non-Defaulters and Retired Tenants.

She said that defaulting tenants were those who were not paying rent, or not being deducted rent at source according to their pay slips, or could not attach rent payment receipt from the Bank of Ghana and could not also prove an exemption of rent payments in their conditions of service.

There are tenants who have attained the age of statutory retirement (sixty (60) years) but are still occupying the bungalows whilst some have even passed them onto their children, she noted.

Mrs. Acheampong said the payment process was that the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) was supposed to do the rent deductions while in some category of government workers, they were supposed to go to the Bank of Ghana to make the monthly payments since they were not receiving their salaries through the Controller.

According to her, the data they collated showed that 65% of government workers were living in the various government bungalows and flats free of charge because they do not pay rent.

She said in the case of Amin, the records showed that he was employed at Controller and Accountant Generals Dept in 2013 and he moved into the property the same year, adding that he had not paid rent since 2013.

He rushed to pay an amount of GH625 at the BoG in August this year when he realized he was being found out. My team gave all these information to the ministry, adding he came to me begging me for time and turned around to accuse me of ordering the security agents to eject him.

I did not ask the security personnel to go and eject him. I only passed the information I gathered on him and others to the ministry for action. I don't have that power to order security personnel about.
The National Union of Ghana Students on Wednesday sent a petition to a number of agencies including the WHO, WAHO, UNICEF, Parliament of Ghana and other sector players to come to the aid of their Colleagues at the various senior high schools across the country.

A delegation of five led by President of NUGS (Leader) Frank Amoakohene in the company of the General Secretary Kabu Nartey ; the Treasurer, Derrick Abotsi, the Projects and Programs Secretary, Solomon Ananpansah and Mr Osei Yeboah Richard, the NAHSAG, presented the petition various agencies Wednesday, 14th December, 2017.

"The students of Ghana are in great shock and fear their lives averred the continuous mysterious death of over 25 students and the undetermined fate of over 40 others in some Senior High Schools in the country. Reports from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research confirms the outbreak of H1N1 influenza and meningitis in the country. Averred efforts by government and local authorities to controlling the outbreak, we have received calls from various schools aside its visit and have appreciated through the media that the situation is compounding by the day. We need not burry more of our brothers and sisters before appreciating the colossal damages. We need not be indifferent about the increasing deaths of our youth in this country".

Over 25 Ghanaian students have died, over 30 hospitalized and over a dozen under close surveillance in different parts of Ghana, in the spate of just 2-3 weeks. The spontaneity of these deaths has resulted in shock and horror among students of these schools, the public and the nation. More and more cases are reported each day. Whilst health officials are giving their word to keeping public order, it seems these are becoming damage controls to avert mass chaos which has already catch up with victims and the public. People fear there shall be a state emergency soon should this continue without timely any clearly defined effort by the Ministry of Health, to bringing the situation under control. The media has been left in these dark times to only report without little or no positive follow ups by relevant local and national bodies.

The causes of some of these deaths have been established following a test at the Nuguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. Sample-fluids of some victims were sent the center; tested and results confirmed positive.

The Kumasi Academy Senior High in the Ashanti Region ; the Koforidua Secondary Technical in the Eastern Region ( cause of death yet to established ) ; the St Martins School also in the Eastern corridors ; and recently the Damongo Senior High School in the Gonja West of the Northern Region

The Leadership of NUGS has further called on the Parliament of Ghana to summon the ministers of health and education to account for the measures put up to contain the situation.
Thirty-five young Ghanaian entrepreneurs were introduced to Quail farming at a workshop held at the Luxury West Hotel, Adentan, Accra last Wednesday.

It was held through the collaboration between Quail Masters Limited and Skills Development Fund (SDF), Forestry Commission and Echochicks of Kenya.

Themed, 'Quail Farming, The Most Rewarding Business for 21st century Youth,' the workshop was also attended by representatives of the Youth Enterprises Agency (YEA), National Youth Authority (NYA), National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NELIP), One District, One Factory (IDIF) Secretariat and Universal Merchant Bank (UMB), among other key agencies.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quail Masters Limited, Emmanuel Noah, indicated that the training was to boost the income of the youth.

Quail breeding, unlike poultry, is less expensive and offers returns to the farmer and consumer alike, he remarked.

Com.Emmanuel Noah reiterated that commercial Quail farming is fast gaining roots throughout the world in view of the rich nutritional value and its proven efficacy to the treatment of a number of diseases, including diabetes.

The demand for quail eggs and its products is equally on the increase, and it is for this reason that Quail Masters is carrying out this workshop, which will be extended to various parts of the country to get hard working youth involved, he stated.

Speaking on their achievements over this short period, he indicated that the company has about 5,000 birds on its demonstration farm located along the Adentan-Dodowa Road.

He stated that it has established distribution networks in seven regions of Ghana, including a number of hospitality industries.

Jeremiah Murimi and Jenah Gaclie, Training Manager and Supervisor for Echochicks of Kenya, who were resource persons for the workshop, stated that Ghanaian youth would benefit substantially if they invest in Quail farming.

One requires a permit from the Department of Wildlife to invest in Quail farming in other places, but in Ghana it is the other way round which makes it even more attractive for anyone, especially the youth, to invest in the business with just minimum capital, according to him.

Quails are wild birds found in Australia, Canada, Israel, Kenya and Uganda, among others.

Ato Simpson, Fund Manager of Skills Development Fund (SDF), was happy that Quail farming is being introduced into the country at a time when government is rolling out programmes to ensure that the majority of Ghanaian youth are properly employed.
The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama, has called on the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) to review its objectives and re-position itself to serve the needs of the people.

She said the institute was a strategic partner to the government and must, therefore, play a strategic role and function in the growth and development agenda of the government.

The minister made the call when she inaugurated an 11-member council of the institute in Accra yesterday and charged them to work hard in order to position the institute at its rightful place.

Council members

The council has Naba Moses Abaare Appiah IV, Binaba, of the Bawku Traditional Area as its Chairman.

It also has Mr Kwame Anyimadu Antwi, Ms Agnes Talata Chiravira and Rev. Mrs Eva Asare Bediako as government appointees.

Other members are the Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies, Dr Dadson Awunyo-Vitor; a representative of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC); Mr Jonathan Azasoo, a representative of the National Association of Local Authorities in Ghana Mr Kokro Amankwah; and a representative of the Public Service Commission, Dr Lawrence A Kannae.

The rest are Dr Stephen Nana Ato Arthur and Alhaji Yar Ishaq Alhassan from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) and Prof. Imoro Braimah from the National Council for Tertiary Education.

Diverse background

Hajia Mahama indicated that the ILGS was established with the aim of training members of the regional coordinating councils, district assemblies and lower local government units.

She emphasised that the ILGS was the only institution in Ghana that was devoted to building the capacity of the local government authorities to plan, coordinate, manage and execute policies.

The role of the ILGS was, therefore, extremely important, she observed, and urged the council to address the key challenges of the institute, including the inadequate support from some key stakeholders and the limited number of professionals on the staff.

Government subvention

The minister also said the institute had operated without government subvention, as well as critical investment, to perform the range of functions spelt out in the law establishing it she, therefore, charged the council members to rise above the challenges and provide support for the overall policy direction of the institute.

Your membership of the council is to tap into your expertise and experiences to ensure that management upholds high standards in the performance of their duties so that the institute stays relevant and competitive, she observed.

The chairman of the council, on behalf of other members, expressed appreciation to the President for the confidence reposed in them and assured all Ghanaians that they would work diligently to ensure that the objectives for which the institute was set up would be met.
Mr. Abraham Osei Aidooh, Former Majority leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, has stated that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has become the new voice of African People.

He therefore disagreed with the school of thought that states that the collapse of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has brought an end to Pan African activism.

According to him President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has become the new voice for the African people on the international geopolitical landscape.

His Excellency gave an appetizer to the world about the new era that he is bringing to Pan-Africanism when he met the French President here, Mr Aidooh said in an interview in Tema.

When Emmanuel Macron, President of France, visited Ghana, President Akufo-Addo made it clear to him that the time has come for Europe and the rest of the world to take their hands off Africa.

 Africa can no longer continue to make policies for ourselves, our regions and our continents on the basis of whatever the Western world or France or the European Union can give us.

 It has not worked and it will not work he added: Our responsibility is to charter a path which is about how we can develop our nations ourselves. It is not right for a country like Ghana  60 years after independence  to still have its health and education budgets being financed on the basis of the generosity of European tax-payers, President Akufo-Addo had told the French leader.

The French President's fidgety disposition was understood by those who knew about France' continues stranglehold on all former colonies in Africa; including neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire and Togo,

Leaders who have resisted the servitude to France rooted in the so-called Pact Francais, have been brutally uprooted, with former Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, as the latter most casualty.

The situation between France and its former colonies is totally unacceptable. This colonial arrangement is the reason that we cannot have a common currency, the ECO for West Africa, but none of our leaders has been able to confront France over this issue  until President Akufo-Addo recently did.

I think His Excellency's take on the issue was good enough for the French to see that we are not nitwits in Africa, we know what is going on and we don't approve of it, Mr Aidooh said.

He therefore slammed public opinion that had recently emerged claiming that the collapse of the regime of Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, essentially marked an end to Pan African activism because for some years now, only Mugabe had stood up against the dictatorship of the Western colonial metropolis..

Mr Aidooh prophesied that in the coming years, President Akufo-Addo, a respected human rights lawyer and activist, will project the pan African interest even more and be a thorn in the flesh of the Western powers.

The story is told of how Mr Abraham Osei Aidooh had carried the NPP from Accra to Tema, and figuratively, carried the party on his head like a local porter kayayoo to hawk it door to door.

Mr Aidooh served as the Majority Leader of Parliament during Former President John Agyekum Kufuors regime.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

A misguided government's agenda on Charlotte Osei and others at the helm of affairs at the EC won't grow Ghana's democracy.

We have already made our voices heard and are closely monitoring the nonsense going on.

No matter what the grossly confused and lacklustre Akufo-Addo government does against Mrs. Osei, she will remain in office.

Anything to the contrary will be fiercely resisted.

Let Akufo-Addo and his gang of thieves, liars, and murderers know that Ghana's challenges of development have nothing to do with Mrs. Osei.

She had no hand in crafting the NPP's electioneering campaign promises and shouldn't be used as a sacrificial lamb now that Team Akufo-Addo has found the kitchen to be too hot for them.

To her credit, she supervised credible polls to put Akufo-Addo in power despite all the dehumanizing and atrocious verbal attacks on her. And she is focused to conduct Election 2020 in accordance with her mandate.

All the nonsense trumped up against her won't wash with reasonable beings. Only those with their minds in the gutter will portray her as evil. But they will not succeed in their stupidity.

We are confident that pressure will mount to prove to Akufo-Addo that Mrs. Osei isn't any impediment to his government. The earlier he abandons this Quixotic venture, the better chances are that he will sleep soundly, even if dogged by his own "huhudious" promises.

Shouldn't a humane government be focused on how to solve the problems undermining its flagship promise of free seniour high school education instead of compounding them and hiding behind this Charlotte Osei smokescreen? It can't save it soon from being singed.

Empty BRAGGARTS they continue to be. Fooey!!!

I shall return
Ghana is an important fishing nation in Africa and the World because about 10% of its citizenry operates in the fisheries sector and produces about 450,000 metric tonnes of fish from both capture and culture.

It is also known to have high per-capita fish consumption higher than the world's average. Based on the characterization of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea, Ghana stands as a Coastal State, Flag State, Port State and also a Market State.

Ghana is therefore under international obligation to ensure that its own fishing fleets are regulated; has capacity to regulate fishing activity in its Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) and designated fish landing ports to avoid becoming a destination for illegally caught fish; and also to ensure that its fish products entering the international markets are certified.

In November 2013, Ghana's failure to take sufficient actions against illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing activities by Ghana flagged vessels, brought about the European Commission's issuance of a 'yellow card' sanction on Ghana. This yellow card effectively banned the export of fishery products from Ghana into the 28-nation trade bloc of the European Union.

Following this sanction which deprived the country of over US$150 million, Ghana made a significantly credible progress in improving the governance of the fisheries sector as well as combating IUU.

The government of Ghana through the West Africa Regional Fisheries Program (WARFP) has put in place appropriate fisheries legislative measures, interagency and international cooperation, collaboration, and coordination, as well as human and logistical resources to manage and regulate the fisheries sector and maritime domain.

After satisfying the several stringent requirements, the EC on 1 October 2015 removed Ghana from the IUU Watch list. Announcing the decision to lift the yellow card from Ghana, Karmenu Vella, the EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, extolled the significant reforms that have been carried out in Ghana to improve the governance and fight illegal fishing.

Today's decision, demonstrate the extraordinary potential of the EU market to bring important players on board in the fight against IUU. Both Ghana AND Papau New Guinea, have taken ownership of their fisheries reforms and now have robust legal and policy frameworks in place to fight IUU fishing activities. she said.

Commissioner Vella stressed on Ghana's development of new legislations, the increased sanctions, improved monitoring, control and inspections, and the strengthened traceability system.

Fisheries Enforcement Unit (FEU)

A major step in enforcing Ghana's fisheries laws and regulations came about in September 2013 with the establishment of the Fisheries Enforcement Unit (FEU), a little over a decade after the primary fisheries law, Fisheries Act, 2002 (Act 625) was passed.

The Fisheries Regulations, 2010 (L.I. 1968) preceded the FEU by three years. The FEU as prescribed under Section 94 of the Fisheries Act, 2002 was among the maiden covenants of the West African Regional Fisheries Program (WARFP; 2012-2017).

The FEU was established with personnel drawn from the Fisheries Commission, Ghana Navy, and Marine Police Unit of the Ghana Police Service, and is headed by a Captain from the Ghana Navy. The FEU's mandate is to enforce Ghana's fisheries and related laws in all its fishery waters. Currently, the FEU operates from two bases, Tema and Takoradi, and oversee the Eastern Sector and the Western Sector of the maritime zone, respectively.

The FEU's activities include sea patrols, beach combing, quayside inspections and electronic vessel monitoring, enforcing regulations on fishing gear, fishing zones, fishing documentation and fish landings.

With financial, technical and logistical support from WARFP, the FEU has undertaken over 200 sea patrols since 2013 both in the territorial waters as well as the EEZ and have undertaken over 300 boardings of fishing vessels comprising tuna vessels, trawlers, semi-industrial vessels and canoes. On land, the FEU undertakes daily, inspection of vessels in the harbours and also have undertaken over 200 beach combings.

In all over one hundred cases comprising of various fisheries offenses (use of monofilament nets, use of artificial light to aggregate fish, landing of small sized fish, fishing in the Inshore Exclusive Zone (IEZ), use of fraudulent documentation, transshipment at sea, as well as tampering of electronic monitoring devices) have been successfully prosecuted largely by the Fisheries Settlement Committees in Tema and Takoradi.

Over five million Ghana Cedis in fines have been paid by offenders into the Fisheries Development Fund. In addition, over 300 generator sets and 1,500 monofilament nets have been seized, whereas about 1000 metric tonnes of illegally caught fish has been confiscated.

Electronic Surveillance

In order to exercise its Flag State responsibilities satisfactorily, Ghana is required to effectively regulate vessels flying its flag. Regulation 40 of the Fisheries Regulation, 2010 (L.I.1968) prescribes that no Ghanaian flagged vessel can proceed to sea without a functioning Vessel Monitoring System (VMS).

By October 2012, all Ghanaian tuna vessels and by September 2014, all Ghanaian trawlers were fitted with VMS and in the case of the trawlers, Automatic Identification System (AIS), with funding from the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and WARFP-Ghana respectively.

Prior to being fitted with the electronic devices, some Ghanaian vessels operated illegally in third party states waters and in the IEZ without being noticed by the Fisheries Authorities. Currently, no Ghanaian flagged vessel is able to operate in restricted zones without it being observed and arrested.

For that matter, the FEU has been able to achieve almost 100% compliance with respect to Ghanaian vessels fishing within authorized zones. This has also paved the way for many of the operators of industrial vessels to request for valid fishing authorization from third party states before proceeding to fish in those waters.

The FEU extended electronic vessel monitoring using Advanced Class B Satellite Enabled AIS (ABSEA) to the semi-industrial fleet in the last quarter of 2016.

Also, all Ghanaian tuna purse seiners are fitted with closed-circuit video cameras to monitor their fishing activities through the support of the Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ)  Tuna pilot project in Ghana (2014-2019) being funded by the Global Environmental Fund (GEF) and partners (Food and Agricultural Organization, World Wildlife Fund, International Sustainable Seafood Foundation, etc.).

This project has improved reporting on catches and conservation practices regarding releases of dolphins, turtles and sharks caught accidentally at sea and also reduced discards of fish at sea by tuna vessels.

Fisheries Observer Missions

At-sea observer missions are requirements under international law to place trained observers on at least 30% of the industrial fleet as part of the country's Flag State and Coastal State responsibilities. With support from WARFP-Ghana, the FEU has trained 70 observers for deployment on Ghanaian flagged trawlers since August 2015.

Up until May 2016, 72 observer missions have been deployed on Ghanaian flagged trawlers to monitor mostly compliance with fishing regulations regarding fishing gear, fishing zones, fish and by-catch landings, crew composition, and transshipment at sea and pollution.

The reports submitted by the observers have been used to prosecute fifteen (15) vessel operators for various offences (transshipment at sea, landing of fish below the authorized minimum size, dumping of fish at sea and oil pollution). Some of these offenses could not have been detected by relying only on the VMS.

Fisheries Watch Volunteer Program

As part of efforts to create sufficient space for the participation of fishers in the enforcement of fisheries regulations, a Fisheries Watch Volunteer (FWV) programme was on May 5, 2017 launched at Otrokpe in the Ada East District by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. The volunteers are required to conduct sea-borne and land based patrols, collect evidence on fisheries infractions and report all forms of illegal activities to authorities.

Further, they are to help in educating fishers and raise sufficient awareness on the negative effects of illegal fishing practices as well as serve as witnesses in the prosecution culprits.

The programme is currently being piloted in Ada and Jamestown in the Greater Accra Region in collaboration with the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council (GNCFC). The establishment of the programme is in accordance with sections 59 and 94 (4) of the Fisheries Act (625).

Challenges and Prospects

The FEU is nevertheless challenged by the fact that it has only 16 Fisheries Commission personnel, 22 seconded personnel each from the Ghana Navy and Marine Police, and supported in prosecutions by 2 assigned State Attorneys from the Attorney General's Department in Tema and Takoradi. These personnel are directly involved in enforcing the fisheries laws in all the fishery waters of Ghana.

There is the urgent need for the staff strength of the FEU to be increased and new offices opened in Elmina on the coast in the Central Region and also in Kpando Torkor and Yeji on the Volta Lake.

The Fisheries Commission has recently been provided mobile communication vans with the support of WARFP and it would be imperative to resource the Communications Unit with requisite staff to intensify public education and sensitization programmes in the fishing communities.

This will have the added advantage of facilitating the establishment of Community Watch Volunteers in fisheries co-management currently being piloted in clustered communities around Jamestown and Patukope in the Greater Accra Region to assist the FEU to enforce fisheries laws in Ghana.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

One of Ghana's most popular gospel musician, Uncle Ato shook the Praise and Worship Centre, Bogoso Assemblies of God Church in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality of the Western Region with his fine gospel tunes on 14th December 2017, day four of the 'EXPLOSION OF PRAISE 2017'.

during the word of ministration, Head Pastor Efavi spoke about making praise a lifestyle as the Bible as the Bible says in Psalm 34:1.

Uncle Ato, reiterated the point in his song ministration, "If I travel outside Ghana my language still identifies me as an Efutu, if you neglect your culture, you lose your foundation.

According to him, "If you refuse to praise God, you lose abundant blessings but if you sing praises unto the lord, all other things fall in place".

Uncle Ato who has been ordained by Bishop Dag Heward Mills as a Reverend Minister charged the audience to give praise to God at all times even in hard times.

He also used the occasion to pray for the audience and seek God's protection for them.

On Tuesday, Evangelist Diana Asamoah used the occasion advised that instead of Christians hopping from Pastor to another and Church to be sometimes bathed 'naked', should change their attitude of arrogance and the Lord will bless them beyond measure.

Among the notable Artistes who have performed since the inception of the program in 2912 were; Lady Sarah, Jack Alolome, Uncle Ato, Evangelist Diana Asamoah, Oware Junior, Powerful Moses among others.

Source: Daniel Kaku
The President of the Republic of Ghana, H. E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will embark on a 3-Day working visit to the Eastern Region from the 20th  22nd December 2017.

A statement signed by Eastern Regional Communications Director  New Patriotic Party(NPP), David Prah said the President will also be honoured with a Citation by the Regional Executive Committee of the NPP on the last day of the visit.

As part of the visit, the President will inspect some ongoing developmental projects and attend a durbar of the Chiefs and people of the Region in his honour.
Displaced and homeless Liberians, who were in the Budumburam refugee camp in the Central Region, have camped themselves at the Cantonments police station as part of a protest against the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for their resettlement package.

This follows a demolition exercise at the camp, which has rendered thousands of them, who had fled from Liberia during that countrys civil war from 1989 to 2003, homeless.

They say they were supposed to be resettled by the UNHCR, but that is yet to happen since 2012.

About 100 of the aggrieved Liberians had besieged the UNHCR Ghana headquarters in protest, but on Thursday, a patrol team forcefully removed them from the place, and relocated them to the Cantonments Police Station.

They have now threatened to stay at the Cantonments police station until their demands to be resettled are met.

The leader of Liberian refugees at Budumburam Camp, Moses F. Anderson, conveyed the frustration of his fellow Liberians to Citi News.

We were in a camp and the UNHCR turned the camp over to chiefs, so they were breaking down the houses Since 2012, they should have resettled us. But up till present, each time they say go and come.

The aggrieved Liberians chose to be resettled when presented with the option of integration, repatriation or resettlement as part of a global solution proposed by the UNHCR.

Those that you see here [at the police station], we are the ones who took the resettlement [package]. Our brothers and sisters went back home and some wanted to stay here. About 4,116 volunteered to stay here, he noted.

Thus, he clarified that their protests were against the UCHR for our global solution, which is the resettlement We are not protesting about the land issue. We are basing it on our resettlement that UNCHR has for us. They have given the integration people their package. Those that went home, they gave them their package too.

Cessation of refugee status

Some of these Liberians had appealed to the Ghana Refugee Board to exempt them from the 2012 cessation of their refugee status, which was denied in 2015.

The Interior Minister upheld the decision explaining to them that there is no compelling reason arising out of past persecution and or future risk of persecution or serious harm if you were to return to Liberia, according to documents sighted by Citi News.

They were told to regularize their stay in Ghana with the Ghana Immigration Service as an alternative.
Final year it was. We were busily preparing to write our exams. One friend was teasing another. The one who was being teased coincidentally had just opened his tin of sardine for lunch. The mocking climaxed. He couldnt contain it anymore.

Within a twinkling of an eye, he had gotten hold of the lid of his sardine tin and pounced on his friend, chopping him mercilessly. Before the two could be separated, the almost-dead victim was drenched in his blood. The same vehicle that rushed one to the hospital rushed the other to the police station. This thing called bad temper!

You see, having an uncontrollably bad temper is like driving a car with your TV license. Youll one day send your victims to the mortuary while you head for prison!

An umpteen times, I have been a witness of how bad temper has ruined people. It has wrecked businesses and marriages. Some relationships looked all blossomy until someones uncontrolled anger messed it all up. As a matter of fact, the devil that keeps sitting on the opportunities of others has always been their bad temper!

Getting angry is a usual phenomenon. Its normal to express your outburst when provoked. What really matters, however, is how we express such emotions. What matters most is how we respond to situations or people that get on our nerves. Fact is, how you react when angry is more important than what really got you angry!

What happens to us is cause. How we react to them is effect. Others have power over the cause. We have power over the effect. What matters in life is effect, not cause. The nonsense that gets in our way doesnt matter because it is cause. What matters is how we treat such with sense because it is effect. The garbage that people hurl at us doesnt really matter because it is cause. The most important thing is how we ignore such. Call it effect.

Effect determines how mature we are at handling issues. Effect tells whether we have lived beyond who and what is trying to taunt us. If youd have to get into the mud to fight every pig that grunts at you, youd make mud your home. Mind you, mud is the comfort zone of pigs!

If wed have to react explosively to every situation that seems unpleasing to us, wed leave our victims miserable while we even get more miserable. If our bad temper leads everywhere we go, it would eventually lead us to our death if not the death of others. We have no idea how dangerous our temper is until we see its effects. Cause doesnt matter. Effect does.

What others tell us doesnt matter. What matters is what we admit. Instead of responding in an explosive temper, we can just walk away. Instead of barking at situations that threaten our peace of mind, we can simply smile and walk away.

You may be right but the effect of your anger may prove you wrong. No one sees the cause of your anger. The effect is the evidence. The effect is the obvious. The effect is what matters so control your temper before it controls you. Tame that thing you call a bad temper before it ends you where you never imagined!

In my short stay on earth, I have seen people brag about how short-tempered they are. You see, bad temper makes you act without thinking. Unfortunately, its only a toddler whose actions are without thoughts. So speaking, its only bad temper that will reduce a fully grown adult to a toddler!

Many catastrophes would have been avoided if someone had just walked away from their bad temper. Some deaths would have been postponed indefinitely if another person could have just walked away when provoked. Prisons would have been less congested if others had not acted on the spur of a moment.

Sometimes, walking away is not an act of giving up. Its an act of growing up. Sometimes, letting others get away with their nonsense is not a showmanship of cowardice but a display of indescribable maturity. It may save you from a whole lot of unbudgeted-for drama.

Oftentimes, walking away from your bad temper actually means walking far away from jail. Managing your anger, sometimes, means managing your marriage. How we respond to some situations that provoke us will determine whether well spend the rest of our lives in regret or not.

You cant control what provokes you but you have all the control there can ever be on how you react to that provocation. You cant control the ridicule but how you respond to such is in your hands. That response will define you. Cause never matters. Effect does.

Anger can be a weapon of defense or attack. You choose. Many have used it as a weapon of attack and are yet to get over their regret. Its better to have peace than regrettably leave your victim in a half piece.

Bad situations happen to us all. However, what happens to us is not as important as how we react. When our temper gets in the way of our reaction all the time, we are bound to lose at the end of the day.

He who effected the cause doesnt matter as much as he who caused the effect. Those who cause you to throw tantrums when angered, dont matter as much as the effect of your tantrum. Dont pay attention to the cause of your infuriation. Just walk away because you care about its uncomfortable effects!

The writer is a playwright and Chief Scribe of Scribe Communications (www.scribecommltd.com), an Accra-based writing company which provides all writing services.
The outgoing Commander of Operation Vanguard, Colonel William Agyapong, has expressed worry about the weight of punishment meted out to illegal miners arrested by the anti-galamsey task-force.

According to him, the sentences given by the judiciary to the suspects were not deterrent enough, and was a major disincentive to the fight against illegal mining in the country.

The anti-galamsey task-force were deployed to three regions; Ashanti, Western and Eastern about five months ago, to help sustain and the fight against illegal mining.

Their operations have resulted in the arrest of at least 600 illegal miners including foreign nationals, particularly Chinese.

But according to Col. William Agyapong, authorities must pay attention to the kind of punishment given to the illegal miners because in his view, the menace will continue when people know they can escape stiffer punishment.

Government has done a lot but we will need more. The kind of sentences and fines that come out of the arrest are not helpful. We know that the onus is on the prosecution to prove somebody guilty, but if you know what we go through and after everything the sentencing and the fines are not so deterrent. If you fine somebody who is involved in small-scale illegal mining and you fine him GH1,000 or GH2,000, I think that it will not be deterrent enough. He will not see why he should not go back to the land. These are worrying issues that I hope that in due course, they are tackled by the appropriate authority, he said.

He added that the illegal miners were getting sophisticated with the weapons they use during the illegality.

He has since called on authorities to help address the issue before it gets out of hand.

One striking thing is the number of arms, weapons we came across. We came across as many of 58 different types of weapons. Pistols, single and double barrels, pump action guns both locally made and foreign ones. As a military personnel, it is worry that plying a simple trade like mining will have people come on board with weapons. It is a very worrying situation that we need to look at it because we don't know the number of weapons that are still in the hands of people, he said.

The deployment of the joint police and military task-force came as a major boost to governments fight against illegal mining in the country, following news of its devastating effects on the countrys land and water resources.

Government placed a six-month ban on all forms of mining until further notice, but later extended the ban to January 2018, because the needed result has not been achieved.
A Nigerian military court on Friday sentenced a soldier to death for killing five civilians rescued from Boko Haram.

The soldier, Lance Corporal John Godwin, was convicted by the General Court Martial in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State for killing the civilians in Yamteke town.

"The civilians were earlier rescued by troops of the soldier's battalion and were taken for investigation at the time the soldier shot and killed five of them," army spokesman Kinsley Mfon Samuel said in a statement.

He said other soldiers were also handed jail sentences for offences ranging from manslaughter to illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

"Sergeant Innocent Ototo was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter after torturing and killing a 13-year-old boy who he said stole his phone," he said, adding that the incident happened at Zamanbari area of Maiduguri.

He said Lance Corporal Benjamin Osage and Private Sunday Onwe were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment each for manslaughter and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

The offences ran against the Nigerian Army's Rules of Engagement as well as the Geneva Conventions to which Nigeria is a signatory.

The army did not say exactly when the offences were committed.

In June a soldier was sentenced to death for killing a Boko Haram suspect.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused Nigeria's military of a catalogue of abuses against civilians in the conflict with Boko Haram, including arbitrary arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing.

Thousands of people have been rounded up and held for long periods without charge on suspicion of links to the Islamist militants, whose insurgency has killed at least 20,000 since 2009.

Nigeria's civilian and Islamic courts retain capital punishment but the sentences are rarely carried out.
15.12.2017 LISTEN

Accra, December 15, 2017 - Ghanas leading telecommunications company, MTN Ghana, has extended its coverage of wireless mobile telephony to include 130 underserved and unserved communities in nine regions across the country as part of the roll out for 2017.

The regional breakdown of the new cell sites is as follows:

Ashanti - 16

BrongAhafo - 22

Central - 24

Eastern - 16

Northern - 9

Upper East - 2

Upper West - 14

Volta - 11

Western - 16

Furthermore, an additional 185 sites are at different stages of completion and will be going live within the next three months. This is in partnership with the Ghana Infrastructure Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC). The project is aimed at extending the coverage of wireless mobile telephone services as far as possible into all areas of the country.

Through the rural telephony project, mobile telephone coverage has been extended to communities with no access to telecommunication for mobile telephony and mobile financial services.

Speaking to the development, the Ag. CEO of MTN ModupeKadiri said, at MTN we know and understand that everyone deserves the benefits of a connected world. To this end we are committed to brightening the lives of every Ghanaian living in the country whether the location is commercially viable or not.

The plan to extend rural telephony to more underserved and unserved communities in Ghana requires the commitment of all telecom partners and MTN Ghana continues to demonstrate this through innovative solutions.

MTN Ghana, however, is looking beyond profit making and believes that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life, continues to champion the delivery of rural telephony in deprived areas across the country. The intervention will bridge the digital divide between the served and underserved while enhancing economic activities in rural communities.

Over the past years, MTN has more than doubled the number of Mobile Base Transceiver Stations across the country with close to 3,000 cell sites. We have invested over US$3.472 billion in our network infrastructure, including expanding our 3G network, deploying more fiber backbone and metro, deployment of fiber to the home, connecting to more international undersea cables, building world-class facilities and putting in place green initiatives for long-term sustainability.

MTN Ghana is committed to providing the best mobile services and enhanced customer experience. As such we would like to assure our valued customers of our commitment to the social contract we have with them. Brightening the lives of our customers through the benefits of ICT and our social investments represent MTNs mission.

About MTN Ghana

MTN Ghana is the market leader in the increasingly competitive mobile telecommunications industry in Ghana, offering subscribers a range of exciting options under Pay Monthly and Pay As You Go Services. The company has committed itself to delivering reliable and innovative services that provide value for subscribers in Ghanas telecommunications market. Since its entry into Ghana in 2006, MTN has continuously invested in expanding and modernizing its network in order to offer superior services to a broad expanse of the nation. Total network investments from 2006-2016 are about US$3.472 billion.

MTN has the widest network coverage across Ghana. With the recent commercial launch of 4G LTE services, MTN became the only mobile operator providing 4G services in all regional capitals and large cities. The company has also built three modern switch and data centres to deliver stable, reliable, efficient and robust Telecom and Data Services to customers.
Nollywood actor, Yul Edochie, has not disappointed many who had predicted his faith after the just concluded Anambra state election which saw him taking the least vote.

Yul had some months back joined the race for the powerful seat in Anambra state but could not get the needed votes that could have put him on the big seat.

He was actually running under the Umbrella of the Democratic People's Congress (DPC), and he took his campaign door to door to ensure that he uses his popularity to sanitize the people.

During his campaign, many had predicted that he was not going to win and there is possibility of him defecting to the winning party and indeed he has not failed as he has actually defected to the winning party which is APGA.

The actor shared pictures of the governor of the state, Willie Obiano, officially welcoming him to the party as they hope for better working days ahead.

According to him, So yesterday my State Governor His Excellency Chief Dr. Willie Obiano (Akpokue Dike) congratulated me for being brave enough to run for Governor at 35yrs old,

for running the race till the end and for being a worthy ambassador to Anambra/Nigerian youths. He officially welcomed me into the APGA family. (Nkea bu nke anyi).
13 May 2014, Melbourne Australia. Time to try a new exchange. Thus far weve used MtGox, Mintpal, Cryptsy. These had been fraught with turmoil  some of which we werent to find out about until some time later.

We set up an account with Bittrex. Actually, we set up two accounts. This is something we commonly do on exchanges. We hedge our bets by holding crypto in multiple accounts. Having been stung by account theft before, we found it manageable and a bit safer.

Bittrex seemed to be pretty reliable. It worked fast enough. Had a decent system. Support was quick to answer queries. Remember this was 2014, well before the mainstream caught wind of cryptocurrencies.

We did a little trading in some StealthCoin, Cloakcoin and Darkcoin that wed got a hold of throughout the year.

Ed note: Darkcoin back then had seen some pretty wild price swings. Wed traded in and out around the $15 range. Nothing huge, but enough for a small profit. Darkcoin went on to become Dash. Enough said.

But towards the end of 2014 none of these coins had much value to them. We threw things on the backburner and mostly left it alone.

We kept coming back to our Bittrex account every now and then. We sold out of most of our positions and withdrew most of our funds from Bittrex. We had a few fragments of BTC lying around, nothing much really.

Then we came back to Bittrex.

Reward for stupidity

Around May 2015 we found an altcoin project we liked the look of. It seemed like they had a good idea. Looked like the team was pretty solid. We thought there was a bit of potential. The price was also going nuts. It had almost double what it had been 10 days earlier.

Maybe this was the start of something. So we bought in.

We werent exactly big spenders back then. And with our fragments of bitcoin we amassed a total of 6,082 of this altcoin called Ripple (XRP).

At that point we probably paid over the odds. It was trading for 0.00004100BTC on Bittrex. But we bought in anyway. At the time Bitcoin was trading for roughly US$237. That meant each of our ripple altcoins cost us a whopping 0.009717 US cents.

And if youre good at maths youll realise 6,082 (and a bit) XRP costs us a grand total of US$59.10.

Told you we werent heavy hitters

We then moved on to other things. The price of our ripple had done nothing in those few months. We lost interest in it.

We didnt really think much of it for the next year. Then we came back to Bittrex again in 2016, using our other account. Wed been trading a bit more bitcoin in and out and then ethereum and then a bunch of other altcoins. Some small profits, some small loses.

Again, it wasnt anything huge. Not like we were about to become the third Winklevoss

As wed been trading more in our other Bittrex account, we somehow managed to completely forget about our first Bittrex account. You know, the one with ripple in it.

Then around four weeks ago we tried logging into Bittrex again. For some reason we typed in the email address wed used to register back in 2014.

But then we hit a roadblock. Wed set up two-factor authentication on the account. But wed done it with a phone wed had from 2014. Thinking back through our previous phones we fast realised we didnt have that one any more.

It had gone to the smartphone gods, along with our Google 2FA codes. And because we didnt think of it at the time, we didnt record our 2FA backup code anywhere.

We then had to go through the laborious process of contacting Bittrex support. Except today its much slower than it was in 2014. The sheer weight of numbers trying to get onto these exchanges now is off the chart.

We had to wait. We then also had to prove it was our account. One of the questions was, whats the value of the account. And to be fair, we didnt know. Actually we were pretty sure it had a zero balance in it. A value of US$0.

And thats what we told the Bittrex support. But then they came back to us and said they valued the account at over US$1,000. Wed have to provide some ID.

Bummer. We figured maybe they took their value estimations from historical trading. And wed traded over US$1,000 in there over the years.

We obliged and gave them our ID docs. They disabled the 2FA after a lot of too-and-fro. Finally we could jump into our old Bittrex account. Why? We werent sure. At this point it was just to prove we could get access and use it if need be.

Then we clicked on the Wallet tab. And to our surprise, sitting there all cherry ripe was 6,082 ripple.

Nice one. Happy days.

A timely reminder

This all went down about three weeks ago.

And to our pleasant surprise this was now worth over US$1,000. Bittrex support was right!

And then we tried to withdraw those ripple. No good. Account suspended. Since disabling the 2FA, Bittrex also suspended the account. That means no trading XRP, no withdrawing it. Not happy.

Ed note: were still trying to get our Bittrex account enabled to withdraw our XRP.

And then over the last week weve been kind of glad we havent been able to touch our ripple.

What was around US$1,500 a week and a half ago is now worth US$5,015. Thanks to completely forgetting about a Bittrex account, we are sitting on an 8,368% return on our initial US$59.10 outlay.

Its the biggest reward weve ever had for being stupid.

But its also a timely reminder.

Crypto is a long-term game. Weve done the trading in and out before. Its time consuming and stressful. Its not for us. Plenty of people make a killing off it. Good for them.

For us, if you see the big picture, stick to the big picture. Weve seen it with crypto repeatedly. The short-term volatility is bananas. But long term, these things have the potential to deliver gains youd rarely seen in any other opportunity.

Were playing the long game. With our ripple windfall and with our other crypto. Our plan is to hold one for at least another 510 years, and see what happens. We may end up in a stinking pile of worthless bits and bytes. Or well be crypto millionaires.

Well find out soon enough.

Regards,

Sam Volkering,

Editor, Secret Crypto Network
A former mortgage bank exec has been indicted for allegedly participating in a scam to cheat warehouse lenders out of more than $12 million.According to the US Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, John Reimer, a former vice president for an unnamed mortgage bank, was arrested in Florida Thursday. Reimer has been charged with bank fraud and mortgage fraud.As alleged, John Reimer, vice president of a mortgage bank, defrauded several other financial insitutions out of more than $12 million, Acting US Attorney Joon H. Kim said. Reimer allegedly falsified documents, kept funding for mortgages that never closed, and even acquired funding multiple times for the same loans as part of the scheme.Reimer, who acted as the comptroller of the mortgage bank, allegedly participated in a scheme to cheat warehouse lenders by convincing the lenders to fund loans based on phony documentation.In the ordinary course of business, a warehouse lender will advance money to a mortgage bank so that the mortgage bank can fund a loan. Once the loan closed, the mortgage bank generally sells the loan to an investor and uses the proceeds to pay back the warehouse lender.According to prosecutors, Reimer double-pledged certain properties, obtaining warehouse advances form more than one warehouse lender while leading each lender to believe, falsely, that the loan was fully collateralized.Reimer also allegedly told warehouse lenders that some loans were going to close imminently when they were not  or in some cases, told warehouse lenders that loans would close imminently that in fact never closed. In those cases, Reimers mortgage bank kept the warehouse advances meant to fund the mortgages. In others, loans acutally did close, but the bank used the warehouse advance to repay previous warehouse advances.If convicted, Reimer could face up to 60 years in prison.
I stuck to what the coaches ...
Yves here. This IEA report is more significant that it might seem at first blush, since the IEA has a bullish bias.

By Nick Cunningham, a freelance writer on oil and gas, renewable energy, climate change, energy policy and geopolitics, based in Pittsburgh, PA. Follow him on Twitter @nickcunningham1. Originally published at OilPrice

For the second month in a row, the IEA has poured cold water onto the oil market, publishing an analysis that suggests 2018 could hold some bearish surprises for crude.

The IEAs December Oil Market Report dramatically revises up the expected growth of U.S. shale, which goes a long way to torpedoing the excitement around the OPEC extension.

Late last month, when OPEC agreed to extend its production cuts through the end of 2018, the U.S. EIA came out with data  on the same day as the OPEC announcement  that showed an explosive increase in shale output for the month of September, up 290,000 bpd from the month before.

Although there is a time lag on publishing production data, the huge jump in output in September, plus the spike in rig count activity over the past few weeks, points to strength in the U.S. shale sector. Against that backdrop, the IEA predicted that non-OPEC supply would grow by 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2018, a rather significant upward revision of 0.2 mb/d compared to last months report.

Adding insult to injury for OPEC, the IEA sees oil demand growing by just 1.3 mb/d. In other words, supply will grow at a faster pace than demand next year, opening up a global surplus once again. So, on our current outlook 2018 may not necessarily be a happy New Year for those who would like to see a tighter market, the IEA said. The surplus will be front-loaded  the first half of the year will see a glut of about 200,000 bpd.

A lot could change in the next few months but it looks as if the producers hopes for a happy New Year with de-stocking continuing into 2018 at the same 500 kb/d pace we have seen in 2017 may not be fulfilled, the agency wrote. In the past few months, a sense of bullishness and optimism returned to the oil market for the first time in years, but the IEA warned that it wont last.

The news wasnt all bad for oil bulls. OPEC production fell by 130,000 bpd in November, due to lower output in Saudi Arabia, a rather large decline in Angola, and the continued erosion of output from Venezuela. It is the fourth consecutive month of falling output from OPEC, and the compliance rate for the cartel jumped to 115 percent in November, the highest rate so far this year. That bodes well for the extension of the deal  OPEC and its partners seem resolved to keep compliance high heading into 2018.

Inventories also continue to decline. The IEA said that OECD commercial stocks fell by 40.3 million barrels in October to 2,940 mb, the lowest level since July 2015. That decline was almost twice as large as usual for this time of year. And for crude inventories specifically, they fell counter-seasonally by 19.7 mb, including the first decline in China this year.

But even there, the IEA was quick to point out reasons to be bearish, noting that the inventory drawdowns will soon end. Going into 1Q18, our balances imply that global oil stocks will increase by 300 kb/d, assuming stable OPEC crude production of 32.5 mb/d, the IEA said in its report.

Those increases in inventories in 2018 largely come down to U.S. shale, which continues to grow at an impressive rate. Rystad Energy says that almost 1,000 horizontal wells were completed in October, the highest total since March 2015. That should ensure a rush of fresh supply will be added onto the market by the end of this year and into 2018.

Overall, the downbeat conclusions from the IEA report were largely backed up by OPEC itself a day earlier. The cartel published data that also anticipated large increases in U.S. shale output, including an upward revision for 2017 output by 150,000 bpd  an acknowledgement that shale drillers are adding supply at a faster rate than expected. More ominously, OPEC predicts that the U.S. will add more than 1 mb/d of new supply in 2018  a truly staggering figure.

Putting it all together, OPEC is essentially keeping 1.2 mb/d off of the market in 2018 so that the U.S. can add 1 mb/d. Its a quite a gamble; a bet that by doing so, the group can prevent oil prices from falling. But the payoff is debatable. OPEC is selling less oil and allowing the U.S. to sell more.

The bet is that next year inventories will fall and oil prices will gradually rise, but the IEAs report predicts that such a scenario may not play out.
The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Ms. Rose Gottemoeller, will visit the Republic of Armenia on Monday, 18 December 2017.

The Deputy Secretary General will participate in the final event of NATO Week in Yerevan - a workshop on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia. She will deliver a keynote speech at the workshop and will also engage with students at the Yerevan State University.

During her visit, Ms. Gottemoeller will meet with the President, H.E. Mr. Serzh Sargsyan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Edward Nalbandian, the Minister of Defence, Mr. Vigen Sargsyan and the President of the National Assembly, Mr. Ara Babloyan.

Media Advisory



+12:30 (local time) Joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs  Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The transcript of the press conference and the keynote speech will be available on the NATO website afterwards, together with still and video images.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @Gottemoeller)
The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, will travel to Paris on Monday, 18 and Tuesday, 19 December 2017.

During his visit, the Secretary General will meet the President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the Minister of Defence, Mrs. Florence Parly, the President of the Assemblee nationale, Mr. Francois de Rugy and the Chief of Defence, General Francois Lecointre.

The Secretary General will also meet the President of the National Defence and Armed Forces Committee, Mr. Jean-Jacques Bridey and French members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Mr. Stoltenberg will deliver a speech at lEcole militaire at the invitation of the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale and the Institut National des Hautes Etudes de la Securite et de la Justice, entitled Adapting NATO in an Unpredictable World followed by a Q&A session.

Media Advisory

Tuesday, 19 December

11:15 Secretary General joint press conference with President Emmanuel Macron at l'Elysee

The press conference and the speech will be webstreamed live on the NATO website.

Still and video imagery will be available on the NATO website after the event.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg)
(Natural News) Over the summer we began to hear reports of anti-Trump malfeasance involving agents and officials with the FBI and Department of Justice, the agency to which the FBI answers. In recent weeks, reports have intensified and in recent days hard evidence has emerged proving, beyond a doubt, that the FBI was overtly politicized and used by former President Barack Obama against his political enemies.

Tens of millions of Americans are dumbfounded after learning just how corrupt the FBI, especially, has become. The final straw for many was a report earlier this week that noted counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok cryptically discussed an insurance policy with FBI lawyer Lisa Page in a text message that also implicated current bureau deputy director Andrew McCabe.

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andys office  that theres no way [Trump] gets elected  but Im afraid we cant take that risk, Strzok wrote to Page, a reference to an insurance policy against a Trump victory.

Andy is believed to be McCabe.

Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40, Strzok added.

On Wednesday, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio blasted the DoJ official over that text message alone.

This is unbelievable, he said. I think the public trust in this whole thing is gone.

Later during an appearance with Lou Dobbs on Fox News, Jordan dropped another bombshell: He said he believes that text and other actions documented over the course of the past year prove once and for all that the FBI worked against the Republican Party during the 2016 presidential election cycle.

Listen you cant make this stuff up. It gets worse each and every day, Jordan told Dobbs. (Related: Heres the man who outed Trump-hating FBI agent Peter Strzok.)

What deep down scares me, if this actually happened the FBI had a concerted effort with the people at the top to go after one partys nominee to help the other partys nominee, he continued.

If that actually happened in the United States of America and everything each and every day points to more and more likely that that is what took place, it is sad for our country if that took place.

And I think it did based on everything I am seeing. All the evidence points to that, he noted.

Jordan, by far, is not alone. Tom Fitton, president of government watchdog group Judicial Watch, said he doesnt think special counsel Robert Mueller  who is leading an investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion that Rosenstein authorized  is the countrys biggest problem.

He says its the FBI. And it ought to be disbanded after it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration.

In an appearance on Fox News Wednesday night, Fitton added:

Fusion GPS was a Hillary Clinton campaign vendor and the DOJ was working hand and glove with itperhaps paying them moneythe suspicion is they were paying them moneytop DOJ officials wife was working with them. There was no distinction between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Department of Justice and the FBI.

Forget about the FBI investigation into Clinton and Trump being compromised by these conflicts. I think the FBIs been compromised. Forget about shutting down Mr. Muellerdo we need to shut down the FBI because it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration?

Its clear there was a nefarious conspiracy between federal officials to defeat Trump, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said earlier this week. But when the plot was not successful, the conspirators switched to Plan B, which he described this way: Lets just say theres a crime and then well just search for a crime.

Its time for the criminally corrupt FBI to be shut down. Thats become obvious. And its also time the conspirators were brought to justice by a real Justice Department.

Read more of J.D. Heyes work at The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

FrontpageMag.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
(Natural News) Hundreds of thousands of acres in Southern California are currently burning to a crisp  with no end in sight  and the states governor, Jerry Brown, has decided to politicize these unprecedented wildfires as being a direct consequence of man-made global warming.

During a recent speech he gave while touring neighborhoods in Ventura County, located north of Los Angeles, where most of the fires are taking place, Brown said that Californians should get used to such destruction because it represents a kind of new normal.

Climate changed caused by human activity is the reason why these disasters keep occurring, according to Brown, who also believes that President Donald Trump should be blamed for withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord.

With climate change, some scientists are saying that Southern California is literally burning up, Brown reportedly told CNN, as relayed by The Daily Caller.

So we have to have the resources to combat the fires and we also have to invest in managing the vegetation and forests  in a place thats getting hotter, he added, echoing the long held sentiments of Al Gore, who earlier in the year embarrassingly mistook high tides in Florida for apocalyptic, global warming-caused rise in ocean levels.

Time for Jerry Brown to step down and admit that hes completely out of touch with reality

As of this writing, only about 15 percent of Californias 155,000-acre Thomas fire is contained. Only one person has died, but many peoples homes are now in the path of destruction, including the mansion estates of television celebrities Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres.

The Rye fire, on the other hand, located to the west of Valencia, is reportedly 90 percent contained. The Creek fire, located north of the city of Los Angeles, is also about 90 percent contained, officials say. Both of these fires together cover more than 21,000 acres of land.

Another fire in San Diego that officials are referring to as Lilac that covers about 4,100 acres is said to be roughly 60 percent contained. Fire management crews in the area are said to be working hard to keep that one from spreading any further.

Meanwhile, continued dry weather throughout the region combined with some of the most aggressive Santa Ana winds in decades remains an ongoing threat throughout Southern California. At some points, these winds have been clocked at 55 miles per hour or more, which along with extremely dried out vegetation spells more potential disaster.

But is any of this actually being caused by humans burning fossil fuels and resisting global carbon taxes? Not a chance. But this is the latest narrative that alt-left climate fanatics like Jerry Brown want the people of California (and the rest of the country, for that matter) to believe in order to scare more of them into accepting the next phases of save the planet globalism.

Anyone whos been paying attention, however, will immediately see the hypocrisy of Jerry Brown in having the gall to make such claims, especially after the whole Oroville dam debacle revealed how his corrupt water management practices have resulted in disaster after disaster throughout the Golden State.

What really needs to happen is for Brown to step down from his position and admit to the public that his governorship has been an absolute failure. The people of California deserve better than this shlock, who will likely continue to spread even more climate lunacy every time a natural disaster occurs somewhere in his state. And these people think conservatives are anti-science?

Browns statements, though ominous, arent in line with the scientific consensus, writes Michael Bastasch for The Daily Caller. The latest National Climate Assessment report put a low to medium confidence on claims global warming was making wildfires worse across the western US.

Sources for this article include:

Newsweek.com

DailyCaller.com

MercuryNews.com

Breitbart.com
(Natural News) A radical communist administrator from Quinebaug Valley Community College (QVCC) in Connecticut was recently arrested and charged with attempted sixth-degree larceny and disorderly conduct after she decided to steal the speech notes of conservative speaker Lucian Wintrich during a recent Its OK To Be White lecture. Wintrich had tried to deliver his speech at the nearby University of Connecticut (UConn), before being maliciously interrupted and attacked by an angry mob of anti-white leftists  many of whom were college educators.

The deranged individual in question is being reported as Catherine Katie Gregory, who even after her embarrassing arrest is trying to defend her childish actions of thievery and assault by claiming that theyre important contributions to the fight against racism and fascism. Rather than feeling a sense of shame over her utter foolishness like any normal person with rational sensibilities would, Gregory is not only proud of what she did, but she also believes that everyone in the world should actually be praising her for them.

I want to thank everyone from around the world for their support and solidarity in the struggle against racism and fascism, the 33-year-old Associate Director of Career Services and Advising at GVCC is quoted as saying in the aftermath of her arrest, insinuating that shes some type of civil rights hero.

Black Lives Matter really means that white lives dont

In case you missed the story, Lucian Wintrich, a Gateway Pundit correspondent and American journalist, was in the process of trying to explain to his listening audience that having white skin doesnt mean that youre automatically evil, when all of a sudden alt-left extremists in the room erupted into chaos and violence. Reports indicate that windows were broken and smoke bombs were thrown  all over the fact that a white person had the audacity to stand up for himself and his fellow whites in the escalating climate of anti-white racism thats sweeping America.

As this ridiculous melee was unfolding, Gregory, who as an administrator of impressionable student minds should know better, decided it would be an opportune time to approach Wintrichs podium and steal his speech. As this Marxist sympathizer walked away in glee with the speech in hand, Wintrich attempted to retrieve it from the petty thief, upon which a horde of other radical domestic terrorists in the room proceeded to grab the speech from him and rip it apart. It was around this time when law enforcement reportedly stepped in and escorted Wintrich out of the room.

At first, Wintrich was the one who faced charges after he was accused of breaching the peace by trying to get his speech back. But thankfully reality set in and Gregory was pegged as the perpetrator in the whole thing. Video evidence also revealed that Wintrich was the victim in this whole saga, which began even earlier than Gregorys theft when radical extremists in the room disrupted his speech with racist chants like Go home, Nazi! and Black Lives Matter.

I obviously think its wonderful that finally the system corrected itself, Wintrich told the local media outside of the Superior Court in Rockville after the charges against him were dismissed. We dont want to create a precedent that people can walk up to speeches they find disagreeable and steal them. I mean thats really not what America is about.

According to reports, Gregory is currently free on a $1,000 bond and will soon have to appear in court for her crimes. Her lawyers will apparently try to argue that stealing personal property, in this case, was really just Gregory exercising her First Amendment rights.

Sources for this article include:

Courant.com

TheGatewayPundit.com

QVCC.edu

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) One phrase we in the media business have become very familiar with since Donald J. Trump dared to defeat the political establishments chosen candidate in November 2016, Hillary Clinton: Fake News.

Weve become familiar with it in the year that Trump has been president not because the establishment media never intentionally misreported the news, but because the term was created out of whole cloth by the same political and media establishment stung by Trumps election to explain to low-information voters how he managed to win.

Fake news was a big part of that, were now told, and if you recall shortly after the election, the spread of fake news was a big Russian operation (until that lie morphed into Trump-Russia collusion to steal the election from Hillary).

Shortly after Trumps victory we began hearing Democrat-leaning groups and politicians (and Hillarys failed campaign) blaming the big tech-media conglomerates like Facebook and Google for spreading fake news about Hillarys various scandals  even though most of the reporting wasnt fake, it was just harmful to her campaign (because reports were true).

Then, the Washington Post became the first legacy media outlet to officially proclaim that Russia-supplied fake news was very likely responsible for Clintons loss. Citing a bogus report from some obscure, never-before-heard-of group, the Post claimed that Russian-based anti-Clinton propaganda had been spread via hundreds of independent websites (including many within the Natural News Network).

Within a day of that Nov. 24 report the Post the papers editors were forced to issue a partial retraction (it should have been a full retraction), admitting that its reliance on a single document along with a couple of unsubstantiated allegations does not a Russian scandal make.

And poof! Just like that, the same legacy media complaining about so-called fake news became the first to create it in the Trump era. (Related: FAKE NEWS Media Censors Trump Ad That Accurately Describes Media As Fake News.)

The realization that this is how the Washington Post pursues journalism is a disgrace to the entire profession of journalism and an admission that the Washington Post has abandoned any semblance of journalistic integrity, wrote Natural News founder/editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at the time, decrying the fact that our news organization was on the list of 200 sites.

Since then the Post  along with CNN, ABC News, The New York Times and other legacy media outlets  have published multiple fake news stories regarding the Trump transition team and administration, generally in an attempt to continue trying to prove that the president colluded with Russia.

Theres no evidence of that  because it didnt happen. But that hasnt stopped networks and newspapers from continuing to look for the smoking gun evidence.

For example, just last week there was a pair of fake news stories published by CNN and ABC News, both of which attempted to prove the collusion angle:

 ABCs Brian Ross reported that during his campaign then-GOP nominee Donald J. Trump implored advisor Michael Flynn to make contact with Russian officials. Never happened that way. The president did indeed ask Flynn to make contact with Russian officials and Flynn did so, but only after Trump became president-elect. And incoming administrations always reach out to foreign governments during a transition, so they can hit the ground running.

For this latest blunder, Ross was suspended for a month.

 CNN reported that a Wikileaks representative reached out to Donald Trump Jr. Sept. 4, 2016, to offer a trove of emails and data belonging to the DNC and Clinton campaign that was hacked by Russia. In reality, the rep reached out to Don Jr. on Sept. 14, a day after Wikileaks published the entire trove online for all to see.

But rather than own up to the fact that its own reporter and several sources arent even competent enough to read a date on an email (or reach out to Don Jr. for a comment  standard journalistic practice), CNNs White House correspondent Jim Acosta tried defending the fake news in a back-and-forth with Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday.

She shut him down because he was wrong and because hes a buffoon.

Fake news exists now because the legacy media created it  as a way to ensnare Trump.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

NaturalNews.com
A military judge found United States Coast Guard Petty Officer Jimmy Barlow not guilty Thursday on multiple counts of child endangerment in connection to the death of his 3-year-old daughter Eden Lynch more than six years ago. Barlow elected to have a bench trial, which is why a judge, rather than a jury, determined the verdict.

It wasnt surprising at all, said Barlows defense attorney Colby Vokey, a retired lieutenant colonel from the United States Marine Corps. Grateful justice was done, but not surprising at all given the evidence.

Edens biological mother Erica Lynch, who lost custody of Eden in early 2011 while dealing with drug addiction, sobbed when the verdict was announced.

Our whole family is pretty much in shock, said Rhonda Lynch, Edens maternal grandmother. We werent expecting this. Its like were reliving a lot of really bad memories for an outcome that wasnt expected. Were disappointed.

Members of the Lynch family traveled from Maine and Southern California to watch the trial over the last two weeks. Rhonda Lynch was the last witness called by Coast Guard prosecutors before they rested their case last Saturday.

When a death is ruled a homicide you should expect somebody would be held responsible, Rhonda Lynch said, wiping away tears. I thought this would do it. For us, this is just disappointment. Its a sad day. Eden was the center of our universe.

Eden collapsed at the Alameda apartment Barlow shared with his girlfriend, now wife, Holli Barlow in August 2011 while Jimmy was on duty. Holli told first responders that Eden had been acting strange all morning, and her collapse may have been related to a fall down the concrete stairs outside the couples apartment the week before.

But first responders and hospital staff were suspicious of cuts and bruises they found on Edens face, neck and chest area and alerted police of suspected abuse. In the weeks following Edens death, the Alameda County coroner ruled her death a homicide and listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.

Although the Alameda police investigation into Jimmy and Holli seemed to stall, Jimmy was charged on four counts of child endangerment by Coast Guard prosecutors in the fall of 2016. Holli was arrested in September and is currently facing a felony count of child abuse for failing to obtain medical care for Eden in Alameda County Superior Court. She was released on bail and has not entered a plea. She attended most of Jimmys trial and exercised her Fifth Amendment right not to testify when she was called as a witness by prosecutors earlier in the trial.

On the morning before the verdict, both sides made final appeals to Judge Matthew Fay during closing arguments.

This case is not about assigning blame, its about accountability, said Coast Guard prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Geralyn Van de Krol. Its not about perfect parenting, its about the reasonable actions when a person is assigned care for the life of a 3-year-old.

Prosecutors argued Barlow failed to provide care for Eden by not seeking medical attention and leaving her in Hollis care despite seeing bruises and scratches on the toddlers face, neck and chest area, and being told that Eden had been acting slow, the morning of her death.

Mrs. Barlow repeatedly minimized injuries and delayed notification, Van de Krol said.

Van de Krol repeatedly referenced text messages displayed earlier in the trial that portrayed Holli as a stressed out, hot-tempered caregiver who was resentful that Jimmy placed the responsibility of Edens child care on her while she also raised her own daughter and attended school.

Van de Krol also said Jimmy repeatedly ignored troubling behavior Eden exhibited in the days leading up to her collapse, such as banging her head against the wall, pulling her hair, urinating and defecating on herself, and attempting to eat her own feces.

Instead of seeking professional care for Eden, Van de Krol said, Theyre just kind of winging it."

In the end, Van de Krol argued Jimmy should be found guilty because he had enough evidence to suggest that not seeking medical attention and leaving Eden in Hollis care would cause her to suffer foreseeable harm.

He abandoned his legal and arguably his moral duty to protect his 3-year-old daughter Eden Lynch, Van de Krol said.

Barlows defense team, however, argued a guilty verdict would set a dangerous precedent.

Theres nothing worse than losing a child, except for losing a child and being falsely accused for that death, Vokey said.

Vokey likened the case against his client to a tree that grew from a diseased seed. You cant tell theres anything wrong with it, but if you were to look inside, you would find it hollow and diseased, he said.

The diseased seed was planted, Vokey said, when first responders and police quickly concluded Edens injuries were suspicious.

Vokey said it was compounded when the medical staff at Childrens Hospital Oakland made the leap that child abuse factored into Edens condition because they found unusual bruising and brain trauma they could not explain.

Although the Alameda County coroners report stated Edens cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, several medical experts who testified for the defense disputed those findings.

Vokey said prosecutors made yet more leaps by concluding that Holli was abusing Eden and that Jimmy should have known and removed Eden from her care.

When asked what Holli and Jimmy Barlow would say happened to Eden, Vokey said, That it was an accident, that they loved Eden to death.

After the verdict, Holli cried in her seat in the front row of the courtroom and hugged several of the witnesses who testified on Jimmys behalf. She has not yet entered a plea in the case she faces in Alameda County. A trial date has not yet been set.

The Barlows have declined to be interviewed.

NBC Bay Area will continue to update the story as we learn more.
Ambulance use is dipping as Uber and other ride-hailing services continue to permeate an ever-growing swath of the United States, a study found.

The trend was examined in 766 cities in 43 states where Uber began service from 2013 to 2015, in a study co-authored by David Slusky, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Kansas, and Dr. Leon Moskatel, an internist at San Diegos Scripps Mercy Hospital.

Despite using research methodologies to arrive at the most conservative numbers, Slusky and Moskatel found the entry of UberX into the market resulted in "at least" a 7 percent decline of ambulance volume.

My guess is it will go up a little bit and stabilize at 10 to 15 percent as Uber continues to expand as an alternative for people, Moskatel told the Mercury News.

A cost-benefit analysis may play into peoples decision to search for an Uber driver  often a cheaper option  instead of dialing 911, according to the researchers.

Even as it provides a critical service in the emergency medical services (EMS) framework, modern ambulance transportation has grown ever costlier, the researchers wrote. Emergency medical transport in an ambulance can easily exceed over a thousand dollars, usually with great surprise to the patient  and with insurance often only partially covering the expense or outright refusing to pay for transport deemed not medically necessary.

Its also likely that patients assess their conditions and, determining how sick they feel, either call an ambulance or an Uber, according to the Mercury News.

However, Paul Kivela, an ER doctor at Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, California and medical director of a Solano County ambulance company, said that move is a risky one.

A paramedic has the training and the ability to deliver life-saving care en route, Kivela told the newspaper. What I really have a hard time believing is an Uber driver is going to attend to you.

Uber did not participate in this study, and a company spokesman echoed Kivelas point.

Were grateful our service has helped people get to where theyre going when they need it the most, Uber spokesman Andrew Hasbun told the Mercury News. However, its important to note that Uber is not a substitute for law enforcement or medical professionals. In the event of any medical emergency, we always encourage people to call 911.
The Mexican man acquitted of murder in the shooting death of a San Francisco woman that sparked a national immigration debate on Thursday sought a new trial for his conviction on illegal gun possession.

Lawyers for Jose Ines Garcia Zarate filed court papers arguing that the judge failed to properly instruct jurors before they found him not guilty last month of killing Kate Steinle on a popular pier in 2015.

Jurors did convict him of being felon in possession of a firearm. Garcia Zarate has previously been convicted of illegal re-entry into the United States and had been deported five times before Steinle was fatally shot.

The San Francisco sheriff's department released him from jail several weeks before the shooting, ignoring a request from federal immigration officials to detain him for a sixth deportation.

San Francisco's sanctuary city policy bars local officials from helping federal immigration authorities in deportation matters unless they have a warrant. Donald Trump pointed to the shooting during his presidential campaign as another reason to build a wall along the Mexican border and tighten immigration policies.

Defense lawyers argued in court papers that the judge improperly barred the jury from considering Garcia Zarate's claim that he didn't know he was holding a gun when it fired. They also argue that Garcia Zarate didn't hold the gun long enough to warrant a firearm possession conviction.

Jurors had asked for clarification during deliberations on what "intent" they had to determine from Garcia Zarate to convict him of illegal possession.

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Matt Gonzales explained why he believes a new trial is in order.

"Our whole defense is he picked up an object and didnt know what it was," Gonzales said. "That goes right to this. I think a properly instructed jury, whether it's in state court or in federal court, is going to find Mr. Garcia Zarate not guilty of this offense."

Garcia Zarate said he was sitting on a city pier when he found and picked up a gun wrapped in rags. His lawyer said Garcia Zarate didn't know it was a weapon until it accidentally fired, the bullet ricocheting of the pier's concrete walkway and striking Steinle in the back.

Mark Yates, a professor at Golden Gate University Law School, notes while the defense procedure is routine, there could be more at stake.

"If the defense can get rid of that conviction, that helps him very much in the federal case," Yates said. "I think it has some symbolic value. If the outcome of the case is no conviction on any crime whatsoever, thats hard for the public to take."

The motion for a new trial will be considered Jan. 5. If it's denied, Garcia Zarate is scheduled to be sentenced that day. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office declined to comment Thursday.

Garcia Zarate faces a maximum sentence of three years in jail. He has been in the San Francisco jail since his July 1, 2015, arrest.

A federal grand jury recently indicted Garcia Zarate on two felony charges of illegal gun possession. The San Francisco sheriff's department said it will turn him over to federal authorities after he has finished his state sentence.

NBC Bay Area's Christie Smith contributed to this report.
A judge on Thursday ruled that defendants Derick Almena and Max Harris will go to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges in the deaths of 36 partygoers in the worst building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner said prosecutors presented enough evidence to move forward with their criminal case against Almena and Harris. He said witnesses during the hearing described the Ghost Ship warehouse as a death trap.

"Whose responsibility was that? I think there is very strong evidence to support the conclusion that it was the responsibility of these two defendants,'' he said.

Almena rented the Oakland warehouse known as the Ghost Ship that burned on Dec. 2, 2016, during an electronic music concert. Harris also lived in the building, and a witness testified that Harris was in charge of the unpermitted concert.

The warehouse had been illegally converted into living space for artists, was cluttered and had no fire sprinklers. Prosecutors say the men knowingly created a firetrap and deceived the building's owner, police and fire officials about people living there. The two have pleaded not guilty and say they are being scapegoated.

Oakland was criticized following the blaze for a series of failures that allowed the warehouse to function illegally despite numerous complaints to city officials.

The judge ruled after several days of testimony that provided a glimpse at prosecutors' case against Almena and Harris.

Aaron Marin, a musician who lived at the warehouse, called it a "museum'' filled with musical instruments, trailers and other items. But he testified that he didn't consider it a fire hazard while he was there.

Marin was able to escape the flames the night of the fire by jumping out an upstairs window. He said the window was blocked by a giant projection screen, so it wasn't visible to most people.

A second witness, Jose Avalos, testified that he was among 15 to 25 people who lived at the warehouse at any given time and that he paid his rent of $565 a month to Harris.

But he disputed that Harris was second-in-command at the warehouse and said everyone pitched in to maintain the community.

Avalos also said police were called to the building several times to help with evictions before the fire and even knew the leaseholder by name.
A student was assaulted inside a residence hall at San Francisco State University Tuesday afternoon, according to the university.

The attack occurred around 4:15 p.m. inside Mary Ward Hall, according to the university. Arriving authorities had to force entry into the room on the sixth floor and found the 18-year-old suspect choking the 19-year-old victim.

The victim was transported to the hospital with serious injuries, including lacerations to his upper body, but the university said he is recovering.

Students who talked to NBC Bay Area said they didn't know the victim, but they were still shaken.

"Anytime you see something like that, it just reminds you that life is really fragile and it makes it kind of scary to realize that something like that can happen to someone on our campus," student Shea Stanford said.



The suspect, who has been identified as Samuel Mark Splinter, was taken into custody in connection with the attack and faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon that was not a firearm, first degree burglary and attempted murder, according to public records.

It is not yet clear what led up to the assault.

Further information was not available.
As a string trio played, a long stream of mourners filed past the body of the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to say goodbye to their leader of seven years.

His body lay in repose in a closed casket draped with the American flag, behind velvet ropes, and with two guards.

A string trio played, a long stream of mourners filed past the body of the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to say goodbye to their leader of seven years. Sam Brock reports.

A crowd gathered at City Hall early Friday, with thousands waiting to pay their respects. Inside the rotunda, where the maximum capacity is 3,000 people, mourners included former Mayor Willie Brown, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Acting Mayor London Breed, city staff, community activists, Lee's friends and more.

Some people prayed, others made the sign of the cross and still, others bowed three times  once to acknowledge heaven and earth, then to acknowledge the person who has passed away and finally for Lee's family. They also moved into a side hall to write their condolences.

San Francisco will honor late Mayor Ed Lee, who died suddenly Tuesday, in two public memorials.

Lee, 65, was San Francisco's first Asian-American mayor and presided over the city as it climbed out of a recession and into a boomtown driven by tech.

He died early Tuesday after collapsing at a Safeway, leaving the city reeling from shock and dealing with the logistics of selecting a new leader. The medical examiner has not released a cause of death.

A crowd gathered at City Hall early Friday, with thousands waiting to pay their respects for Ed Lee. Some people prayed, others made the sign of the cross, and still others bowed three times  once to acknowledge heaven and earth, then to acknowledge the person who has passed away and finally for Lees family. They also moved into a...

"I'm here to pay my respects to Ed Lee," said Matthew Saccomanno, 20, a nursing student at San Francisco State University. "He was a great mayor. He was a great man with a great heart."

Saccomanno said he respected the mayor for trying to make life affordable in an increasingly unaffordable city, and for tackling climate change, an issue important to young people.

[BAY JG] Mayor Ed Lee Remembered at San Francisco City Hall

"He actually had the ability to listen," Brown said. "Most politicians cannot listen. And I suspect that people reacted because he actually looked them in the eye, he heard their name that they gave him, he gave them his name and he absolutely listened to the next words they said."



Earlier Friday, a police motorcade escorted the body to City Hall, where a giant American flag has been hoisted up by the ladders of two firetrucks.

[BAY MC] Life and Times of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee

The funeral procession drove through several San Francisco neighborhoods, including Glen Park, where Lee lived. Police officers lined the steps and saluted, giving Lee full honors as his casket was carried up the steps and into City Hall just a few minutes before 7 a.m.

People who worked with Lee fondly recalled that their mayor always arrived for appointments a few minutes early. So, of course, on a solemn a day as Friday, he would be brought to City Hall similarly early. It was sort of a signature of the kind of person he was, they told NBC Bay Area.

[BAY JG] Procession Held For Late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee

The last mayor to lie in repose in the rotunda was George Christopher, who led the city from 1956 to 1964 and died in 2000. Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, both assassinated in 1978, also laid in repose in the rotunda.

Lee was elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2015 after being appointed to serve the remainder of former Mayor Gavin Newsom's term in 2011. He was a civil rights lawyer and longtime San Francisco administrator known for his corny sense of humor and dedication to public service.

San Francisco Mayor Ed lee was sworn in Jan. 9, 2012 and he laid out his vision for the city. He also did something that no other mayor has done before.

Supporters say Lee didn't receive enough credit for working to build affordable housing and battling homelessness. Critics say Lee didn't do enough to stand up to tech companies after he lured the industry to San Francisco with a tax break in 2011.

The casket will be on display until 7 p.m.

San Francisco will host a public memorial for Lee on Sunday.
Santa Clara County announced its intention to file a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission's vote Thursday to repeal regulations for net neutrality.

The decision from the FCC in a 3-2 vote in Washington, D.C., Thursday came down as the county held a news conference with members of the Board of Supervisors, county health officials and Sheriff Laurie Smith at the county building in San Jose.

Supervisor Joe Simitian said the county is seeking to keep net neutrality regulations intact so its residents can utilize the Internet without the potential of high-speed or low-speed "toll roads."

Opponents of Thursday's vote say the fear is that Internet service providers will throttle or slow speeds online for many to help those who are willing to pay a premium for the best speeds.

"We are here today that this issue remains a source of great concern to our county and to our county's 1.9 million residents," Simitian said. "This is a matter of economic vitality, it is a matter of democratic participation, and frankly, our concern is that it's a matter of our ability as a county to provide the residents of this county to be safe and secure."

County Counsel James Williams said the suit will move forward once the FCC officially repeals the regulations.

"The reversal of net neutrality is arbitrary and unjustified and therefore it is unlawful," Williams said. "Santa Clara County will not let the FCC's actions stand."

Smith said the sheriff's office depends on the Internet for communications purposes.

"Right now, our deputies have a tremendous amount of tools at their fingertips," she said. "They can know if someone is wanted or what crimes they've committed."

Smith admits there's a lot that remains to be seen but that is part of the problem.

"Because they can make different rules for different sectors for different rates, government doesn't have a lot of money to put into this and we want to make sure we're treated fairly and we can provide these functions," Smith said. "So much is unknown right now."

County Health Officer Sara Cody said the county relies on the Internet to take information in and release information out to the public.

"Any potential change or disruption in our ability to do that can both threaten public health as well as communication to provider and patient," Cody said.

She said it's hard to predict when the county will need to send out an advisory warning people about a health crisis and can't rely on potentially inconsistent speeds.

"Sometimes, something happens, and it's not as though you can give time to say, 'you know, could you turn it up on Tuesday?" Cody said. "We need it there all the time. It's a tool that we need to ensure we can communicate quickly and effectively with the public."

There were other responses by Bay Area politicians to today's net neutrality vote.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, announced that he plans to introduce legislation that would establish net neutrality protections in California once the state Legislature returns for session in Sacramento in January.

"If the FCC is going to destroy net neutrality and create a system that favors certain web sites just because they can pay more money, California must step in and ensure open Internet access," Wiener said.

San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell issued a statement saying the FCC's decision is another reason for why the city should create its own citywide fiber network.

"With San Francisco in control of our network, we can mandate net neutrality principles, provide more choice than the market offers, and higher quality Internet service for our residents and businesses," Farrell said.

Two local congresswomen, Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and Jackie Speier, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, also criticized the vote.

"Net neutrality is the backbone of a free and open Internet, and Congress must fight to ensure that every citizen -- not just those that can afford it -- has access to this fundamental right," Speier said.

Lee said, "The American people won't be silenced, censored or ignored. This fight is far from over."
A man swimming at San Francisco's Aquatic Park Thursday was bitten by a sea lion, officials said.

Police said the 56-year-old man was charged by a sea lion. After frantic efforts to splash and distract the animal, the man was bitten on the arm.

People onboard a nearby sailboat saw the attack and rescued the man, taking him on their boat and calling the United States Coast Guard.

The San Francisco Fire Department also responded to the attack and took the victim to Pier 45 to be treated by paramedics. A San Francisco police officer also applied a tourniquet.

The swimmer has a "severe extremity injury" that required immediate medical attention. The man was taken to the trauma center at San Francisco General Hospital, where his vital signs were reported as stable.

Dave Schreibman was swimming in bay during the attack.

"I saw a sailboat with a wounded swimmer on it," he said. "They were waving at me and screaming at me to not go out there. The wounded swimmer had deep puncture wounds in his upper arm, and there was blood running down. There was a Coast Guard there, too."

Michael Reiter, of the SFPD marine unit, was the officer who applied the tourniquet.

"I mean, the boat saved his life," Reiter said. "If the boat hadnt been there, who knows what would have happened They had rented the boat for the day, I believe, and they were on their way back when they saw this."

Some swimmers said theyve had their run-ins with sea lions. Arnie Thompson, a Dolphin Club member recalled being charged by a sea lion.

"And, of course, I swam across the top of the water like you wouldnt believe," he said.

Sergei Khorochev added: "Its happened like a few times over the past few days. One guy on the sound told us that he was swimming, and he got bumped like five times by the sea lion, right here in the cove!"
The United States Post Office cargo facility was evacuated Thursday afternoon due to a suspicious package.

USPS spokesman Gus Ruiz said a piece of mail coming in on an international flight was being screened at the postal center when something looked suspicious in the package. A San Francisco police bomb squad responded to the scene and after an investigation determined the package to be non hazardous.



SFO officials said passenger terminals and flights were not impacted during the investigation.

No other information was immediately available.
President Donald Trump on Friday refused to directly say whether he would pardon former national security adviser Michael Flynn, NBC News reported.

"I don't want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We'll see what happens," Trump told reporters as he departed the White House to deliver a speech to FBI academy graduates.

"Let's see. I can say this: When you look at what's gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry."

Flynn, who pleaded guilty in federal court to a charge of making false statements to the FBI about his communications with Russia earlier this month, is the first senior White House official to be charged in the special counsels investigation into Moscow's alleged meddling into the 2016 presidential election and the first to officially agree to cooperate.

"For the record there is no consideration at all for a pardon for Michael Flynn at this time," White House lawyer Ty Cobb told NBC News following the comments.


One person is unaccounted for as crews battle a 2-alarm house fire Thursday night in Oxford, Massachusetts.

The massive fire was reported shortly before 8 p.m. by a woman who arrived at the Sacarrappa Road home where she lives to find it on fire. The woman's mother, who also lives at the home, is unaccounted for.

"I could see the flames coming out of the house, and the smoke," recalled neighbor Ginette Bailey.

There are no hydrants on the street, so fire trucks and trucks from neighboring towns have had to bring water to the scene repeatedly.

When fire crews arrived, they tried to find the missing woman.

"We did a primary search real quick. Nothing was found at that point. Everybody had to be pulled out of the building," interim Oxford Fire Chief Paul Ford said. "It had gone through the roof, it was structurally unsound."

The fire is under control, but it will be a while before they can get back inside to do a full search.

"Once we get it to the point where we can get in there and do a thorough investigation, we'll move forward after that," Ford said.

One firefighter was injured in the response and taken to a hospital, but his injuries are not considered to be serious.
An employee at Pep Boys in Salem, New Hampshire, was greeted by an unexpected guest as he started work on a customers vehicle Friday.

It was the first car of the day to pull into the garage.

Roberto Valles thought the oil change would be like the thousands of others hes done, but it wasnt.

"I was in shock," he said Friday afternoon.

He was greeted by a small owl that had caught a ride under the hood on the engine of a car.

"It was very cute," Valles said.

Once he realized the owl was alive, he yelled to his coworkers.

"I thought he was playing around with me, I walked over and it was sitting right there," said Pep Boys employee Anthony Dilendick. Ive never seen anything like that in my life.

The employees then called Salem Police.

"I thought maybe it was hit by a car and it was in the grill," said Animal Control Officer Corie Bliss. "I wasnt expecting it to be sitting there."

Bliss says its a Red Morph Screech Owl native to New Hampshire, but apparently still not comfortable in such frigid temperatures.

"It was really cold, so it probably went up there to warm up or it couldve been chasing a mouse," Bliss explained.

While the owl recovers at a rehab facility, the Pep Boys crew is looking forward to telling the story about this wild animals wild ride.

"It definitely made my morning," Valles said.

"Im sure no one else will believe it, but weve got pictures to prove it," Dilendick said.

The guys say one wrong move and the owl wouldve been burned badly or even killed.

But police say the animal is expected to be just fine and will soon be released back into the wild.
The states top business leaders are working to put Connecticut on a path to better economic growth.

A new commission appointed by Governor Dannel Malloy and legislative leaders met for the first time Friday in Hartford.

Lawmakers created the 14-member Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth as part of their state budget.

"I worry this generation will be the first generation in American history to have less opportunity than their parents generation," Greg Butler, a commission member from Eversource Energys General Counsel, said.

Over the next two and half months, the private sector leaders will come up with strategies to stabilize the states finances and create a better business climate.

In a business, youre able to make these decisions and you dont have as many constituents, so this is going to be very challenging because you have very smart people on both sides of the aisle trying to do good work, commission member Cindi Bigelow said.

Bigelow is the third generation president and CEO of family-owned Bigelow Tea based in Fairfield.

"We have been able to hire a lot of great talent because of the quality of living in the state," Bigelow said. "But recently we are starting to see people that are little concerned coming into Connecticut working for us because of the taxes."

This newly formed commission will make recommendations to the governor and lawmakers on taxes, spending, debt and other administrative issues.

"We will invest in this state and we will create jobs, but we have to have a stable fiscal environment and once we establish that the ability to grow is there," Jim Loree, a commission member and CEO of Stanley Black & Decker, said.

Malloy would like the group to focus on funding for transportation work, having warned last week that the state needs a billion dollars in new revenue over five years or else projects could halt and bus and rail fares could go up.

"We need new revenue sources that will be there to fund the next generation of transportation infrastructure in Connecticut and those funds should be protected by an unbreakable constitutional lockbox," Malloy told the commission during his opening remarks.

The commission will hold several public hearings before submitting its recommendations on March 1. The General Assembly has made a commitment to vote on those recommendations.

"The governor is right transportation and infrastructure is also a big deal," Loree said.
Connecticut's child care subsidy program only recently reopened under the state's budget agreement but it is in jeopardy again.

Care 4 Kids could close until 2019 as part of the governor's deficit mitigation plan to fill a gap in the state budget.

State officials warn this is just a proposal that may not go into effect, but if it does, the Office of Early Childhood (OCE) estimates it could potentially impact 9,058 children across 6,038 families, according to Chris McClure with the Office of Policy and Management (OPM).

New Haven mom, Maria Frazier, is one of the thousands of parents that takes advantage of Care 4 Kids.

"It does help a lot with my family, in a sense, because childcare is very expensive. I can tell you, it's thousands of dollars a month you have to spend in childcare," Frazier said.

The single mother of three is frustrated to learn about Governor Dannel Malloy's proposal to close Care 4 Kids between 2018 and 2019 to new applicants.

Cutting the program will save almost $18 million in the fiscal year 2018 and $49 million in the fiscal year 2019, according to the budget line item in Malloy's deficient mitigation plan.

Irene Johnson is another single motherlike Frazier who works multiple jobs to support her family.



"I'm up for redetermination in January. If I make too much income, Ill be kicked out of Care 4 Kids because they change everything as far as income boundaries and application renewals and redetermination," Johnson said

Johnson told NBC Connecticut she's not sure how she will pay for childcare without the subsidy.

"I try my best to keep my family afloat with Care 4 Kids because if Care 4 Kids is gone how are we going to pay for this childcare?" Johnson said.

Both women have been sending their children to Babe's Day Care in New Haven for years.

Babe's owner, Queen Freelove, said if there's no funding to Care 4 Kids then parents like Johnson and Frazier have no reason to bring their children to her.

"Parents are going to have to stay home. They already have it hard, they can't afford childcare so if they can't afford to pay me, that means they're not going to bring the children and I'm going to be out of a job," Freelove said.

NBC Connecticut reached out to the governor about the childcare concern.

"We did open the list and there have been placements made, but there's a limited amount of money to make those placements with," Malloy said. "And when that money- when those positions are filled, that money- there will be no additional money to take people into the program."

Ben Phillips is with the union that represents thousands of child care providers in Connecticut.

"Its incredibly difficult for parents to find childcare. It's also damaging to the future of this state because having a good educational setting for these children is essential for school readiness," Phillips said.

"The governor and legislature have consistently supported strong investments in early childhood services because they know the critical importance of the early years. Care 4 Kids enables parents to work, provide for their children, and reduces demand on other safety net programs. With that said, the budget situation leaves both the governor and legislature with extremely difficult funding decisions," David Wilkinson, commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood said. "Reduction of care 4 kids funding is one such difficult decision the legislature must contemplate when considering how to mitigate the current deficit."
After about 10 years of being vacant, a new business is taking over 12,000 square feet along Main Street in Manchester.

For the last 26 years, Cecilia Boamah has been running Accra Market in East Hartford and is opening another business in Manchester named Accra Mall USA that sells household items and nonperishable food at a discounted price.

We have a lot of dollar stuff, OK. We have 50-cents stuff. we have as high as $150 items, especially when you go to the hair accessories and hair braiding and the hair extension, she said.

The store carries everything from groceries to household items and fabrics of all kinds, which are important to Boamah because the patterns are used in Africa. She is originally from Ghana.

I have right now about 240 varieties of fabrics, she said.

For Boamah, opening the store is more than just opening another business.

We want to bring life again to Manchester Main Street. Thats why I brought this business here, she said.

Boamah said the space has been vacant for about 10 years.

Manchester residents like Randy Rutka said they hope it brings traffic to Main Street.

Hopefully it brings some more people downtown in to shop, said Rutka.

The hope for Kristal Masters, who owns 41 Closets Boutique and Consignment across the street, is that the new store will benefit all the local businesses nearby.

I hope that they do very well, said Masters. I hope that they bring a bigger crowd to Main Street because we do need to support our Main Street because without a Main Street we dont have a nice town.

Boamah hopes the store will open sometime after Christmas.
A North Carolina man accused in the death of his 9-month-old daughter has been taken into custody in Waterbury.

The Jacksonville Police Department said in a news release sent to local media outlets that its investigators began looking into the child's death in September. At the end of the investigation, the sheriff's office charged 21-year-old TraQuan Curtis with an open count of murder.

On Thursday, Jacksonville police asked for help from U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and police in Waterbury, Connecticut, helped find Curtis, who was believed to have fled here. The task force and Waterbury police apprehended Curtis on Taylor Street Friday without incident.

Jacksonville police said he would be extradited back to North Carolina for prosecution. No additional details were available on Friday.
Those affected by cuts to the Medicare Savings (MSP) and Husky A Medicaid programs joined together on Thursday to demand the cuts be fully restored.

About 113,000 seniors and people with disabilities are expected to lose MSP coverage unless the legislature acts.

"This program is a lifeline for so many people across the state. It is a lifeline," Ann Pratt with CT Citizen Action Group said.

Organizers presented several revenue-raising options to make up the cost, including asking the state's highest earners to pay more.

"If we are to fix this budget without balancing it on the backs of people who are least able to handle it, we have to explore revenue options and revenue from people who are better able to afford it," Kathy Flaherty with Connecticut Legal Rights Project said.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Senate Democratic Caucus has submitted to the Secretary of the State's Office earlier this afternoon a petition with signatures of 17 members guaranteeing that we will come into special session to deal with the Medicare Savings Program before the end of the year," Senate President Martin Looney at the gathering said on Thursday.

Looney said they're going to have to be creative with how they find a solution and that raising rates on high earners hasn't yielded as much money as projected in years past. He said he believes they can come to a bipartisan solution.

Senate Republican President Len Fasano said that they'd put in their petition before Thursday.

"This is a truly bipartisan agreement to restore funding in full for the Medicare Savings Program that includes no tax increases and that cuts in other areas of government," Fasano wrote, in part, in a statement.

All four caucuses have submitted signatures for the special session. The special session would need to take place between December 24 and 29. Realistically, it's likely to occur after Christmas.
State police have arrested an 18-year-old Bloomfield man and charged a 15-year-old boy in connection with an altercation that ended in a fatal officer-involved shooting on Chapman Street in New Britain Thursday night.

New Britain police said they were attempting to stop a vehicle around 6:43 p.m. Thursday because it was suspected to have been involved in several carjackings over the last two weeks.

One of those carjackings was on Monday and one victim was pistol-whipped and the other was shot at, according to officials.

While police tried to stop the vehicle and arrest the three occupants inside, more than one New Britain officer fired a gun, police said.

One suspect, identified as 20-year-old Zoe Dowdell of Bloomfield, died from his injuries, while the other two people are expected to recover, New Britain police said.

State police identified one suspect as 18-year-old Noah Young, of Bloomfield. He was transported to a hospital in New Britain to be treated for a graze wound and has been released. Police arrested him on charges including illegal possession of a narcotic, possession of a narcotic with intent to sell and risk of injury to a child. Bond was set at $100,000.

A 15-year-old boy was issued a juvenile summons for carrying weapons in a motor vehicle, possession of a pistol without a permit and possession of narcotics.

Police said they found a handgun inside the vehicle and seized it.

Connecticut State Police are investigating. The officers involved are on restricted duty as the investigation continues.

Mostly importantly, we want our children and our families to know there is no immediate threat to them in the area at this time, New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart said.

Chamberlain Elementary School was closed Friday because of its proximity to the investigation. A notice on the Consolidated School District of New Britain said school will be open Monday.
Shocked and overwhelmed are the words to describe the moments when three kids were surprised by an early homecoming visit from their military father.

Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Mitchell surprised his three children at their schools Thursday. The youngest, Charlotte, 8, was in such shock she couldn't move from her chair.

Mitchell then went on to a nearby classroom to surprise his son Sawyer, 11, who was equally stunned and speechless.

The kids all thought their dad wasn't coming home until Dec. 20.

Mitchell then drove to the middle school where his 13-year-old son was pulled out of class and surprised in the library by his father who has been serving overseas in Bahrain for just over a year. He left after Thanksgiving last year, leaving the family separated during Christmas.

They're all looking forward to this spending this Christmas together. Mitchell says he's looking forward to cuddling on the couch with his kids the most.
After weeks of quarrels, qualms and then eleventh-hour horse-trading, Republicans revealed the details of their huge national tax rewrite late Friday  along with announcements of support that all but guarantee approval to give President Donald Trump the Christmas legislative triumph he's been aching for.

The legislation would slash tax rates for big business and lower levies on the richest Americans in a massive $1.5 trillion bill that the GOP plans to muscle through Congress next week before its year-end break. Benefits for most other taxpayers would be smaller.

"This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening," House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told rank-and-file members in a conference call. "Most critics out there didn't think it could happen. ... And now we're on the doorstep of something truly historic."

According to the 1,097-page bill released late Friday, today's 35 percent rate on corporations would fall to 21 percent, the crown jewel of the measure for many Republicans. Trump and GOP leaders had set 20 percent as their goal, but added a point to free money for other tax cuts that won over wavering lawmakers in final talks.

The legislation represents the first major legislative achievement for the GOP after nearly a full year in control of Congress and the White House. It's the widest-ranging reshaping of the tax code in three decades and is expected to add to the nation's $20 trillion debt. The tax cuts are projected to add $1.46 trillion over a decade.

The bill would repeal an important part of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act  the requirement that all Americans have health insurance or face a penalty  as the GOP looks to unravel a law it failed to repeal and replace this past summer.

Only on Friday did Republicans cement the needed support for the overhaul, securing endorsements from wavering senators.

Marco Rubio of Florida relented in his high-profile opposition after negotiators expanded the tax credit that parents can claim for their children. He said he would vote for the measure next week.

Rubio had been holding out for a bigger child credit for low-income families. After he got it, he tweeted that the change was "a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker."

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the only Republican to vote against the Senate version earlier this month, made the surprise announcement that he would back the legislation. Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly warned that the nation's growing debt is the most serious threat to national security.

"I realize this is a bet on our country's enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make," Corker said.

The White House said Trump "looks forward to fulfilling the promise he made to the American people to give them a tax cut by the end of the year."

The bill embodies a longstanding Republican philosophy that a substantial tax break for businesses will trigger economic growth and job creation for Americans in a trickle-down economy.

Skeptical Democrats are likely to oppose the legislation unanimously.

"Under this bill, the working class, middle class and upper middle class get skewered while the rich and wealthy corporations make out like bandits," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "It is just the opposite of what America needs, and Republicans will rue the day they pass this."

The bill would drop today's 39.6 percent top rate on individuals to 37 percent. The standard deduction  used by around two-thirds of households  would be nearly doubled, to $24,000 for married couples.

The $1,000-per-child tax deduction would grow to $2,000, with up to $1,400 available in IRS refunds for families who owe little or no taxes. Parents would have to provide children's Social Security numbers to receive the child tax credit, a measure intended to deny the credit to people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Those who itemize would lose some deductions. The deduction that millions use in connection with state and local income, property and sales taxes would be capped at $10,000. That's especially important to residents of high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California. Deductions for medical expenses that lawmakers once considered eliminating would be retained.

The bill would allow homeowners to deduct interest only on the first $750,000 of a new mortgage, down from the current limit of $1 million.

People who inherit fortunes would get a big break. The bill would double the exemption, meaning the estate tax would apply only to the portion of an estate over $22 million for married couples.

Members of a House-Senate conference committee signed the final version of the legislation Friday, sending it to the two chambers for final passage next week. They have been working to blend the different versions passed by the two houses.

Republicans hold a slim 52-48 majority in the Senate, including two ailing senators who have missed votes this past week.

John McCain of Arizona, who is 81, is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and 80-year-old Thad Cochran of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.
The Drug Enforcement Agency in Miami is warning Floridians about deadly contaminated cocaine that has become widespread throughout the state.

Forensic chemists discovered the opioid fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances in more than 180 samples of cocaine seized by law enforcement dating back to last year, according to a DEA news release.

Fentanyl is approximately 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and carries a high risk of overdose and can be lethal at the 2-milligram range, officials said.

Officials say drug dealers are mixing fentanyl into cocaine to increase the drugs potency or profitability, or it's inadvertently mixed into cocaine by dealers using the same blending equipment to cut various types of drugs, such as heroin.

The mixture poses a deadly danger to anyone who uses cocaine but people who use cocaine occasionally are at an extremely high risk of overdose, officials said.

Cocaine caused more deaths than any other drug in Florida in 2016, and cocaine-related deaths have more than doubled over the past four years, coinciding with a steady rise in cocaine production in Colombia and increasing drug flow through the Caribbean corridor, officials said.

Miami-Dade County averaged roughly 36 cocaine-related fatalities per month in 2016. At least 84 died with both cocaine and carfentanil in their system.
An ambulance helicopter caught fire while landing in the Florida Keys Friday morning, officials said.

The Trauma Star chopper was en route to Coral Shores High School for a trauma transport when it caught fire around 7 a.m., Monroe County officials said.

No one was injured and the patient on board was taken by ground to nearby Mariners Hospital and later airlifted by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue to another hospital.

The fire caused substantial damage to the 35-year-old aircraft, which had just undergone its complete annual maintenance as required by FAA, officials said. The chopper is the county's oldest and is one of three in the helicopter ambulance fleet.

The helicopter is used as a backup and was being used Friday because the second one is undergoing routine maintenance, officials said.

Officials said the incident will be investigated by the FAA and Monroe Countys Trauma Star aviation division.
What to Know House Speaker Paul Ryan is denying reports that he plans to leave Congress after the Republicans' treasured tax bill is approved

The Health Department says influenza is now prevalent in New York as 1,800 confirmed cases of influenza in 54 counties and all NYC boroughs

The NYPD has opened an investigation into Russell Simmons, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by a group of women, sources say

Get the top headlines of the day in your morning briefing from NBC 4 New York, Monday through Friday. Sign up for our newsletter here.

Paul Ryan Denies Reports He May Leave Congress

House Speaker Paul Ryan is denying reports that he plans to leave Congress after the Republicans' treasured tax bill is approved. Politico and The Huffington Post published stories speculating that Ryan would make this two-year Congress his last or even resign after lawmakers approve the $1.5 trillion tax bill, which could happen next week. Ryan took the job hesitantly in 2015 after John Boehner, R-Ohio, abruptly stepped aside as speaker under pressure from party conservatives, who remain a formidable and rebellious force. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump called Ryan and said he'd be unhappy if Ryan left Congress. Even so, several GOP operatives said privately that there have long been whispers that the 19-year House veteran wouldn't keep the post for a long time and a departure wouldn't be surprising.

Firefighter Dies Battling Massive California Blaze

A 32-year-old Cal Fire engineer from northern San Diego County was killed while fighting the massive Thomas Fire in Ventura County. Cory Iverson of Escondido died near Fillmore while helping battle the 10-day-old inferno, which has spread over about 242,500 acres and destroyed nearly 1,000 structures. Iverson, who leaves behind a pregnant wife and toddler daughter, had been with the state agency since 2009, according to Cal Fire Chief Ken Pimlott. Officials did not immediately disclose how Iverson died. Iverson, who was assigned to the Thomas Fire as part of a fire-engine strike team from Cal Fire's San Diego unit, is survived by his wife, Ashley; 2- year-old daughter, Evie; mother, Denise Butler; stepfather, Scott Butler; and father, Craig Iverson.

Flu Widespread in New York This Season, Health Department Says

The state Health Department says influenza is now prevalent in New York state, which means health care workers who haven't had a flu shot must wear procedural masks around patients. The agency says there have been over 1,800 confirmed cases of influenza in 54 counties and all boroughs of New York City. More than 600 required hospitalization. Influenza season typically runs from October through May, often peaking in February. Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker says everyone over 6 months old is encouraged to get a flu shot as soon as possible. He says the vaccine is especially important for people at high risk of complications from flu, including children under 2, pregnant women and adults over 65.

NY, NJ and CT Among Healthiest States, Annual Report Says

All three states in the tri-state are among the healthiest in the country, according to an annual report on the nations health. Connecticut was the top performer, coming in at number five on the list. New York was ranked 10 and New Jersey was ranked 12. The United Health Foundation publishes the state-by-state Americas Health Rankings report based on the World Health Organizations definition of health: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The report credited Connecticut and New York with having 200 primary care physicians per 100,000 people. And it recognized New Jersey for having 80 dentists per 100,000 people. Connecticut had the lowest number of cancer deaths in the tri-state at 173.7 per 100,000 people, but it had the highest number of drug deaths at 18.4 per 100,000.

NYPD Opens Investigation Into Russell Simmons, Sources Say

The NYPD has opened an investigation into music mogul Russell Simmons, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by a growing group of women, sources told NBC News. Two sources familiar with the matter say the department has opened a preliminary investigation into sexual assault allegations against Simmons based in part on public reporting. The Los Angeles Times was the first to report that detectives from the departments special victims unit are looking into accusations from New York. Simmons did not respond to a request for comment by the Times. Sherri Hines, known as Sheri Sher during her time in the hip-hop group Mercedes Ladies, told the Times the NYPD had contacted her after she said Simmons raped her at his New York office in 1983. Simmons has vehemently denied the allegations.

Dustin Hoffman Accused of New Incidents of Sexual Misconduct

More women are accusing Dustin Hoffman of sexual misconduct, including an incident in which a playwright says the actor exposed himself to her in a New York hotel room when she was 16-years-old. Playwright Cori Thomas described the 1980 incident in a story published by the trade outlet Variety. She confirmed the story in an email to The Associated Press. Thomas was a classmate of Hoffman's daughter when she says she met the actor, who invited her to his hotel room to wait for her mother after a dinner with the teenagers. Thomas says after Hoffman's daughter left, the actor took a shower and came out wearing only a towel, which she told Variety he dropped, exposing himself to her. Hoffman then put on a robe and asked Thomas to massage his feet, Thomas said, and repeatedly asked her if she wanted to see him naked again. The Variety report included the account of another woman. Hoffman's publicist and attorney did not return email messages seeking comment.
It really must be all in the family.

Democracy Prep Charter High School student Xaviera Zime was surrounded by her screaming classmates when she found out she was accepted to Harvard University on Tuesday  she follows in the footsteps of her two older sisters who both graduated from the Harlem school and currently attend Ivy League colleges.

Two years ago, her oldest sister Chris got into Dartmouth College, and a year later her sister Ella got into Yale University. Chris said she was ecstatic when she found out her younger sister's news.

I was so excited, she said. I was the one who lifted her up from the chair and almost body slammed her.

Even more impressive, the three sisters from the Bronx were immigrants from Cameroon and couldnt speak any English besides what they learned watching television shows.

We started learning English, going to the library, reading books and using dictionaries, Xaviera said.

Chris added, We essentially had to learn English within a period of six months before standardized exams.

The sisters attribute their college acceptances to their experience at Democracy Prep and their parents for encouraging them to prioritize education, even during tough times.

I think thats what motivated us to keep working and striving to work hard because its easy to get discouraged."

In the meantime, Xaviera says her Harvard acceptance has yet to set in.

It still hasnt processed, she said.
A former "Today" show production assistant says she had a brief, consensual relationship with Matt Lauer nearly two decades ago, explaining she felt too intimidated by his stature to turn down his advances after reaching out to NBC's star anchor for career advice.



Her account of a secret workplace affair when she was 24 years old and Lauer in his 40s is the latest accusation of sexual misconduct against Lauer, who was terminated from NBC News in November after a colleague's complaint of inappropriate sexual behavior. Other women have come forward with other alleged incidents of sexual misconduct.

Addie Zinone said that Lauer flirted with her by instant message, asked her to lunch when she asked for career advice then invited her to his dressing room for a quick encounter, the first of several, including one at the 2000 Democratic National Convention  a relationship that began a few weeks before she was scheduled to leave the show.

She said in an account in Variety, which was corroborated with a friend she told at the time and records she kept of the instant messages, that, "even though my situation with Matt was consensual, I ultimately felt like a victim because of the power dynamic." She said she left her subsequent job as a local news anchor in part because she "didn't want to start my career being known one of Matt Lauers girls."

"I was in shock," Zinone told NBC News. "One day I'm just a normal, hardworking PA ... and now I'm walking in a cloud of confusion."

Zinone confirmed to NBC News the account she provided to Variety. NBC News also confirmed that she worked at "Today" during the time in question.



A representative for Lauer had no comment on Zinone's account. Lauer has previously said he is "embarrassed and ashamed" and sorry for what he did to hurt people, though he also said some of what he's been accused of is "untrue or mischaracterized."

The Variety report includes print-outs of messages sent between Lauer and Zinone, who arrived at "Today" as an intern in 1999 and said she was close with the other anchors, Katie Couric, Al Roker and Ann Curry. She said she got the following message from Lauer out of the blue, after she accepted a position as an anchor for her hometown station.

"hey  i hope you won't drag me to personnel for saying this. but you look fantastic. i don't know what you have done, or what is going on in your life  but it's agreeing with you. just thought i would mention it," Lauer purportedly wrote.

He complimented her appearance in another message, then invited her to his room after their lunch, she said.

Zinone later left her job to become a journalist in the Army Reserve, then joined "Access Hollywood." She said that on a day when she was featured on the "Today" show for Veteran's Day years later, Lauer didn't come to work.

Her account of meeting with Lauer in his dressing room is consistent with what others told Variety, which previously reported that Lauer made use of a button under his desk that locked the door to give him privacy for such liaisons.

NBC News management declined to comment on Zinone's account to Variety. A representative has previously said that "current NBC News management was never made aware of any complaints about Matt Lauer's conduct" before hearing from the woman whose account on Nov. 27 resulted in Lauer's termination later that week.

An attorney for that woman, whose identity NBC News has not reported, told Stephanie Gosk that the network has not done enough to protect the confidentiality of his client. He wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Friday that he's received many questions about her identity, but that she wants to maintain her privacy.

NBC News responded with this statement: "The network has protected the victim's anonymity all along and will continue to do so."
SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket company, launched the first recycled rocket with a recycled capsule Friday in Florida to deliver groceries to the International Space Station for NASA, CNBC reported.

It was NASA's first use of a reused rocket and it holds nearly 5,000 pounds of goods, including mice for a muscle-wasting study, a first-of-its-kind impact sensor for measuring space debris as minuscule as a grain of sand and barley seeds for a germination experiment, CNBC reported.

SpaceX  one of two private shippers contracted by NASA  has been making station supply runs since 2012.

Musk's company is at the forefront of a global shift in rocket launches, with this year the first in history that commercial launches will outpace government-sponsored ones, CNBC reported.
A grand jury's report in the wake of a fraternity pledge's death said Friday that Penn State officials displayed "a shocking apathy" to dangers from excessive drinking and that its inaction allowed criminal acts to occur.

The long-awaited report on Greek culture released by outgoing Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller came after a 10-month long investigation set off by the February death of pledge Timothy Piazza during a fraternity party.

The 236-page report calls on state lawmakers to pass stronger laws to deter hazing and underage drinking. It also calls on Penn State to regulate drinking itself, rather than hold a fraternity council responsible, and for the university to expel students involved in hazing after they are "afforded full due process rights."

READ: Entire Penn State Greek Life Grand Jury Report



"Anything less will fail to operate as a truly effective deterrent," according to the report.

Penn State promised to not forget tragic deaths of students but raised its "disappointment" with the report in a statement they released later in the day.

"As the Universitys response makes clear, the report misunderstands or entirely disregards Penn States tangible commitment to improving safety, as well as public universities relationship with alumni boards, housing corporations and national organizations, which have oversight of these private organizations," Penn State said. "Widespread problems of binge drinking and hazing persist at universities across the country, as tragic headlines in recent weeks have shown. However, it is not a solution to simply point an accusatory finger."

Piazza died two days after consuming a dangerous amount of alcohol, suffering a series of falls and hitting his head during a pledge bid party at the Penn State chapter of Beta Theta Pi. Prosecutors characterized the incident as a hazing ritual.

Security camera footage documented how Piazza became visibly inebriated early in the evening, after which fraternity members made ineffective and even counterproductive efforts to help him. He had suffered a fractured skull, shattered spleen and other injuries.

Fraternity members found him unconscious in the basement the next morning, but waited about 40 minutes before summoning help.

The school permanently banned Beta Theta Pi in March, saying its investigation found a persistent pattern of excessive and forced drinking, hazing and drug use and sales.

Several fraternity members face charges that could result in prison terms, while others are accused of hazing and alcohol violations.

The Piazza family has pushed for sweeping reforms of Greek life, saying they want to prevent other hazing deaths and injuries on American college campuses.
A bill cracking down on liquor sales by the hundreds of "stop-n-go" corner stores throughout Philadelphia was approved 14-3 after long and heated debate Thursday in City Council.

Supporters and opponents of the legislation by Councilwoman Cindy Bass testified for more than an hour before the vote was held.

The bill would implement new regulations governing corner stores that have liquor licenses to sell single beers and shots of liquor. At the heart of the controversy is one of those regulations regarding bulletproof glass separating cashiers from customers in many of the stores. The glass may be required to be removed in stores after a three-year review by the city.

Mayor Jim Kenney will sign the bill into law, a spokesman said.

"The bill does not require the removal of plexiglass it gives L&I three years to convene a diverse group of stakeholders to decide how the plexiglass issue is to be handled  that could mean L&I ultimately decides to leave the plexiglass as is, to remove it completely or something in between," Kenney spokesman Mike Dunn said in an email.

A coalition of store owners argued that the glass is needed protection against robbery in high-crime neighborhoods. Several store owners testified before Council against the bill because of the glass regulation.

Supporters of Bass's bill testified that the broader effects of the bill would have effects ranging from decreasing public drunkenness and clamping down on those stop-n-go's selling liquor and beer without adhering to all state liquor law regulations.

Bass has said her legislation is meant to force the stores, which are also referred to as "beer delis," to maintain certain numbers of seats for customers, have accessible restrooms and sell food, as required by state regulations.

Often times stop-n-go establishments use loopholes to obtain restaurant-based liquor licenses. The establishments may have a restroom, but the restrooms are not accessible to customers. The establishments purport to sell food, but their food preparation areas are cold and food storage areas contain only ramen noodles or hot dogs and paper bowls, Bass said in a statement Nov. 2 when she introduced the bill. This legislation will close those loopholes and require businesses to either operate as respectable, standard restaurants or else stay out of our neighborhoods.

The controversial regulation on bulletproof glass was amended since its introduction to give the city Department of Licenses and Inspections until 2021 to decide store-by-store if each business could continue to have bulletproof glass enclosures.

Prior to the vote, Bass made an impassioned plea to fellow lawmakers.

"I know what a deli is and this isnt that. You cant get a pastrami and rye at these establishments," she said. "They only exist in vulnerable neighborhoods. They arent delis. Theyre illegal places to get high."

One of the "no" votes, Councilman David Oh vehemently defended store owners, many of whom believe the legislation will create a more dangerous environment inside their businesses.
Editors Note: NBC10 spoke with three sets of parents plus several lawmakers, advocates and medical experts for this story. All of the parents requested pseudonyms for either themselves or their children.

Rather than attend school as a teenage girl, 13-year-old Chris binds his breasts to avoid confusion. He is proud presenting male.

It wasnt always so. Chris is the kind of kid who doesnt like to be noticed, his mother, Jen, said. As a girl, he wore makeup, dressed in feminine clothing and went by his given name because thats what was expected.

Things started to change as Chris approached puberty. First, he came out as a lesbian and then, a month later, as transgender.

She felt more comfortable as a guy, Jen said.

Now, Chris crops his hair, uses male pronouns and wears mens clothes. He is taking medication to suppress menstruation because his period is emotionally traumatic, Jen said.

Chris, from Collegeville, Pennsylvania, is one of 180,000 kids enrolled in the Pennsylvania Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It is free for many low-income families, but is available at discounted rates for people who make a higher income yet struggle to pay their childrens coverage, like Chris parents.

But his subsidized insurance is in peril as the Pennsylvania House of Representatives weighs a bill to exclude transgender health care services from CHIP and Medical Assistance coverage.

House Bill 1933 would prohibit tax dollars from funding surgery, physician and counseling services, inpatient and outpatient hospital services and prescription drugs related to gender reassignment.

The language, written by Rep. Jesse Topper, a Republican who represents portions of Bedford and Franklin counties, goes further than previous attempts to limit subsidized health care for trans patients. Earlier versions of the bill merely limited CHIP coverage to exclude gender affirming surgery.

For Jen and her husband, health insurance already costs approximately $800 a month: nearly $200 for their three childrens CHIP coverage plus $600 for the parents private health insurance.

Chris coverage helps offset the cost of monthly counseling sessions at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Jen said. There, Chris and his siblings, plus Jen and her husband, undergo therapy sessions individually and as a family. The doctors want to ensure the five are adapting to Chris transition.

I dont know how we would be able to pay for it, Jen said.

Topper introduced the proposal last month after similar legislation was removed from the CHIP reauthorization bill. His was in response to a 2016 memo by the state Department of Human Services expanding coverage to include trans medical services.

I wanted to have a public policy debate, he said.

At the time of the DHS memo, the topic was never opened up to review by local lawmakers, he said.

Despite the attention by state lawmakers to trans services, only 34 CHIP recipients used their coverage in 2016 for behavioral or physical health services related to gender dysphoria, Department of Human Services (DHS) acting secretary Teresa Miller said.

She declined to give an exact tally for those who sought gender confirmation surgery, adding that if a policy impacts fewer than 10 people, thats when we dont give numbers.

Its a very difficult issue. Its a very emotional issue, Topper said. Im just trying to find out the most information as I can as we move forward.

Currently, there is no overwhelming consensus on how best to treat trans children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that without medical treatment or counseling, people diagnosed with gender dysphoria  a conflict between a persons physical sex and the gender they identify with  risk developing behavioral and emotional problems, including psychiatric disorders.

Another group, the American College of Pediatricians, suggest trans kids would be better served by aligning their gender identity with their anatomic sex.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of trans adults reported attempting suicide in their lifetime. More than 90 percent of those people said they made an attempt before the age of 25. Many of those respondents also reported higher instances of depression, abuse, homelessness and addiction.

Like many trans youth, Chris suffers from depression. He has contemplated suicide and was put into an inpatient program for 10 days. CHIP paid for that. CHIP also paid for ongoing counseling at CHOP and outpatient treatment at Deveraux Advanced Behavioral Health in Phoenixville.

It saved my kid, Jen said. Without it, I dont know how much money we would be in debt. I am forever grateful.

Regardless of their age, people choosing to transition undergo a rigorous screening process that begins with medical and mental health professionals. They conduct psychological tests on patients to ensure someone is truly suffering from gender dysphoria, not a passing phase, according to doctors at Philadelphias Hahnemann University Hospital's Transgender Surgical Program.

Once a doctor and a family gives consent, a young enough patient could be eligible for hormones known as puberty blockers.

People who wish to continue transitioning may then undergo hormone therapy to receive more estrogen or testosterone. Gender reassignment surgery becomes an option when a patient has stopped developing. At Hahnemann, cosmetic procedures are not performed on people under the age of 16.

The cost of these procedures can be overwhelming for many families. Some worry that if CHIP coverage lapses for trans-related services, it could have a ripple effect on private insurance companies.

When 9-year-old Zurie of West Philadelphia first showed signs of being trans, her family was cautious. Her mother, Amy, initially balked when her son asked to wear a My Little Pony T-shirt. At first, Amy only allowed him to wear it inside the house. She then put the shirt in the dirty laundry and eventually made it disappear.

Zurie persisted.

I dont feel like its a choice for her, Amy said. She did get a choice about transitioning and expressing herself, but she didnt get a choice about this innate sense that she is a girl.

Zuries transition, for now, is mostly a matter of changing her name and haircut. Even Amys private insurer agreed to change Zuries gender identity in their records.

Over time, Amy has come to accept that her daughter knew herself better than anyone else. The question of whether her son was old enough to understand the concept of gender vanished and a daughter rose in its wake.

Yet one of Rep. Toppers sticking points in writing his bill is that gender affirming treatment is a personal preference and should not be subsidized by the government. In a statement, he called gender affirming surgery not medically necessary and, in many cases, very harmful.

Parents like Harvey, from Wynnewood disagree.

There is a misconception that gender reassignment is elective, but its not, really, because the reason behind it is mental health, Harvey, a father from Wynnewood, said. To deny them is abusive.

Harveys daughter, Maya, was 2 years old when she declared herself a girl. Her parents thought it was a phase at first, but then started to sense something was different about their son.

Maya didnt exhibit the kinds of traditionally masculine traits that were so obvious in her brothers. She wanted long hair parted in pigtails. She asked to paint her nails.

When she turned 4, it really escalated, her father said. She asked why God made her a boy.

Last year, Mayas family had their first brush with bias after relocating to Memphis, Tennessee, for Harveys work. They bought a house, found a school and alerted the headmaster to Mayas gender preference. Things fell apart shortly after arriving in their new home, Harvey said.

Mayas school threatened to rescind her acceptance. The administration suggested introducing a PTSD expert for students disturbed by a trans child on campus. The headmaster called Maya a hermaphrodite, according to Harvey.

It was eviscerating, he said.

The family didnt last long in Tennessee. Harveys wife, Jamie, packed up their children and returned to Wynnewood. Harvey sold his new house and slept in his office for months until he was able to join his family. The experience left them shaken and worried for what could happen next.

With that in mind, Harvey and Jamie consulted a financial advisor shortly after Mayas revelation. They were told they should save an amount of money equal to a years tuition at a private college to have enough for future gender-affirming medication and procedures.

The reason we do this is because we want them to be healthy and happy, Jamie said.

Maya will enter puberty in a few years and the family will be forced to decide what additional phases of transition, if any, to pursue. The question of how to pay for it is never far behind.

The risks of not taking [gender affirming] medication is that my child would become so depressed she would kill herself, Harvey said.

The federal government funds nearly 90 percent of Pennsylvania's CHIP program. Currently, the program has enough money to operate through early February, according to DHS. It could cease to exist without a renewed promise from federal lawmakers.

With just two weeks until the deadline runs out, Gov. Tom Wolf on Tuesday joined 11 other governors from both parties in writing a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to authorize CHIP funds before recipients lose their coverage.

"Im joining bipartisan governors to insist that Congress stop putting our kids on the backburner and reauthorize funding for the Childrens Health Insurance Program," he said on Twitter.

State Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat who represents Montgomery County and is running for lieutenant governor, has introduced counter legislation to Toppers bill. The Taxpayer Protection of Gender and Sex Reassignment Services Act would guarantee all CHIP and Medicaid recipients receive federal aid for trans care.

This is not something that has great fiscal impact, Dean said. This is something born from ideology. It is certainly not something of science.

The point is not lost on current CHIP recipients, like Chris family.

I dont fight to get [breast augmentation] for Chris, his mom said. I fight to keep him alive.
Watch for black ice -- and roads that are still snow-covered -- until well into Saturday morning in the wake of Friday's snow.

The quick-moving weather system brought 1 to 3 inches of snow to most of the Philadelphia region. The NBC10 First Alert Weather Team issued a First Alert for the entire region for accumulating snow.

Saturday morning temperatures will be in the teens and 20s across the area, said First Alert Chief Meteorologist Tammie Souza. Stairs, sidewalks and roads may be icy in the morning.

By noon, sunshine and temperatures in the mid-30s will melt much of the ice and snow. But that slushy mess could refreeze Saturday night.

The snow made for a lousy commute on many Philadelphia-area roads Friday evening.

That coating was enough to lead to 50 crashes or other "traffic incidents" reported at one point in Montgomery County. SEPTA Regional Rail lines, city trolleys and the Norristown High Speed Line all ran up to 10 minutes behind schedule.

NBC10's Drew Smith found drivers at a gas station in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia letting air out of their tires, to better climb the neighborhood's hills.



Some highways and bridges reduced the maximum speed, though that couldn't have made a difference for many drivers who crawled in slow-moving traffic. Making matters worse, a power outage due to a problem with an underground transformer shut off power to traffic lights at some major Center City intersections.

No more snow for a while please @BillHenleyUSA ! The commute was horrible! 14 miles took 1 hr 45 minutes! Bring on the sun! Please pic.twitter.com/HO1OrRh6zX  Jeannine Gatti (@neenerg413) December 15, 2017

The snow started in the Philadelphia suburbs after noon and quickly spread across the region, ending Friday night.

This third snowfall in one week adds to a snow total that has already doubled the normal accumulation for December in Philadelphia.

These guys have spent the past two hours trying to get unstuck on a sheet of snow and ice. @NBCPhiladelphia pic.twitter.com/2FDdZLrwot  Drew Smith (@drewsmithtv) December 15, 2017

Stick with the NBC10 First Alert Weather Team for continuing coverage of the snow.
Starting in 2018, moms and dads working at small companies will be able to spend more time with their new children thanks to a new bill.

Senate Bill 63, which focuses on parental leave, will allow for those parents working at companies with 20 to 49 employees to receive 12 weeks of unpaid leave while they bond with their new baby, adopted or fostered child. Parents working at companies with more than 50 employees are already protected under federal law.

The new bill will impact about 2.7 million California parents, but it only protects parents from losing their jobs. They will have to figure out if they can go 12 weeks without receiving a paycheck.

Some people still call the bill a win for families with new additions.

"As a mom that would mean so much," Gena Payne said. "The first six weeks isn't enough at all for any mom so 12 weeks, that would be really great.

Pam Mathews of San Jose echoed that sentiment, applauding a rule that allows families with new members to stick together for a bit longer.

"I think that anything that can be done that makes it easier for a family to live a normal, good life, I think thats great," she said.

The Chamber of Commerce opposed the bill, calling it a burden on employees.
One in four children in California defy the dominant cultural and societal stereotypes of his or her gender to peers, according to a study released this week.

Close to 800,000 or 27 percent of Californias children, ages 12 to 17, report they are viewed by others as gender nonconforming at school.

The study, released by The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, analyzed data collected from nearly 1,600 California households in the 2015-2016 California Health Interview Survey.

The data shows that more than one in four California youth express their gender in ways that go against the dominant stereotypes, said lead author Bianca D.M. Wilson, the Rabbi Barbara Zacky Senior Scholar of Public Policy at The Williams Institute.

According to the results, 6.2 percent of those who responded consider themselves highly gender nonconforming. More than 20 percent consider themselves androgynous.

Researchers say the study also suggests these children and teenagers may experience higher levels of psychological distress than their peers but do not differ when it comes to rates of lifetime suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.

One of the studys co-authors suggested the states ban on bullying and discrimination against gender nonconforming people in schools and public accommodations may make teenagers feel safer to be gender nonconforming.

The Williams Institute is focused on issues regarding sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Under the final tax bill, agreed to after this article was published, losses from wildfires and other natural disasters are no longer deductible absent a federal disaster declaration.

With wildfires destroying hundreds of homes as they rampage across Southern California this week, Democrats are again chastising Republicans for eliminating a natural disaster deduction from the tax reform bill that the House passed last month.

The House bill, approved on Nov. 16, removes the deduction for personal losses from wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters not covered by insurance or other assistance. Victims of major disasters could still get tax breaks provided Congress passes special legislation particular to the disaster.

Several fires have been raging in the greater Los Angeles area down to San Diego, threatening lives, homes and businesses. They are being driven by dry conditions and the Santa Ana winds, forcing 190,000 to evacuate, shutting down highways and suspending Amtrak service. Overall, the state has faced one of its most destructive and deadly fire seasons in history.

The situation is unpredictable and stressful, and safety is the foremost concern, said Democratic Rep. Grace Napolitano of Norwalk. It is unreasonable to think those suffering losses from these natural disasters might not be compensated should the Republican tax bill become law. This is absolutely heartless and must be fixed.

The new fires are blazing just as insurance claims from the states wine country fires in the fall reached more than $9 billion, the bulk of it from hard-hit Santa Rosa, making those fires the costliest in Californias history. Forty-four people died and thousands of homes were destroyed.

The mayor of Santa Rosa, Chris Coursey, called the elimination of the natural disaster deduction unfathomably bad. Santa Rosa continues to deal with the states worst fire disaster, he said.

Weve got a serious humanitarian disaster, a serious infrastructure disaster, a serious economic disaster that were facing over the next several years, Coursey said.

Earlier, the states two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, noted in a statement that the elimination of the tax deductions in the House bill  among many to make up for cuts in corporate rates and other changes  comes during the worst fire season in the states history.

Asking victims of wildfires or earthquakes to suffer in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich is the height of cruelty, they said.

Democrats questioned whether residents would to be able to determine their losses in time for this years taxes, though they would be able to file for an extension or file an amended return. And Democrats were crying foul over tax benefits that victims of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria received but not those trying to rebuild from the recent wildfires.

Our tax code shouldnt pick winners and losers in natural disasters, Feinstein and Harris said. This is just another example of the extraordinary lengths Republicans will go to cut taxes for wealthy corporations and individuals at the expense of middle-class families.

Coursey criticized Republicans for singling out California, a blue state unlike Florida, Texas and other states hard hit by the hurricanes.

I dont know how anyone in Congress can justify taking on the victims of a disaster at a time like this, he said.

Texas Rep. Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has said that he plans to introduce legislation offering special tax relief for wildfire victims, too.

I am focused on securing funding for those impacted by this years devastating storms and wildfires while also working to wrap up the most transformational tax reform bill in a generation, he said in a statement on Thursday.

Current law allows deductions for uncovered losses if the amount exceeds 10 percent of ones income.

Congress earlier this year waived the 10 percent requirement for the hurricane victims and allowed them to withdraw money from their 401K retirement funds without penalty, among other benefits.

The Senate tax reform bill retains a deduction but only for federally declared natural disasters.

President Donald Trump on Friday declared a state of emergency over the fires, which allows for federal money to fight the fires. That is separate from a major disaster declaration, which would required under the proposed Senate bill and which would provide assistance for emergency and permanent recovery work.

Because wildfires often are smaller than other natural disasters and do not receive a federal designation, the elimination of the deduction would hurt California in particular. Feinstein's office points out that of the 57,981 wildfires in the United States this year, only the October fires in California have received a federal disaster declaration so far, according to data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Interagency Fire Center.

But the other fires are just as devastating to those affected, lawmakers noted.

Republicans have said that Americans should not be concerned about this change because if there is a major disaster, then Congress might pass a special bill to provide tax breaks, Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, of Sherman Oaks, said. If your home burns down without it being part of a major disaster  Congress wont act. And if there is a major disaster  Congress might not act.

Americans deducted $1.6 billion in 2015 for natural disaster losses, according to the IRS. The Treasury Department estimated that taxpayers would deduct $4.83 billion in losses beginning next year through 2027.

LA County has over 11 million residents, and we have recently experienced the worst years of wildfires in our history, Napolitano said. My district includes the Foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where three major fires over the past eight years have displaced residents, destroyed properties, and disrupted life in our communities. Financial relief has been vital for the recovery efforts of my constituents and the millions who have suffered from natural disasters nationwide.

The House and Senate must reconcile their two tax bills before a final version is sent to President Donald Trump. Republicans have said they want a bill by the end of the year.
A man arrested for attempting to illegally smuggle a Bengal tiger cub in the passenger side of his car across the U.S.-Mexico border through the San Ysidro Port of Entry pleaded guilty to federal charges Tuesday.

Luis Valencia, 18, admitted that he had contacted an individual in Mexico to get the tiger cub and smuggle it to the U.S., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He also admitted that he knowingly smuggled the Bengal tiger cub and neither he nor his passenger acknowledged the cub when they crossed the border--even though he knew the cub should have been declared.

Valencia also admitted that he planned on bringing the cub to the U.S. for a commercial purpose.

The cub was discovered on Aug. 23, around 1:30 a.m., at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, officers found a tiger cub lying on the floor of the front passenger side of Valencia's car during a secondary inspection.

When asked if it was a tiger, 21-year-old Eriberto Paniagua, a passenger in the vehicle, claimed it was just a cat, officials said.

Paniagua was charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of smuggling contrary to law.

The tiger cub was taken into the car of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It was then transferred to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido and is in good health.

The Bengal tiger, also known as Panthera tigris tigris, is native to India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. It is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Valencia will be sentenced on Feb. 20, 2018. He faces a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Paniagua was also charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of smuggling contrary to law. He will appear in court for a trial on Jan. 9, 2018.
A San Diego County firefighter was killed battling the massive Thomas Fire Thursday, leaving behind a two-year-old and his five-months pregnant wife.

Cal Fire Engineer Cory Iverson, 32, of Escondido was part of a strike team made up of five engines with Cal Fire San Diego that were in an active area of the Thomas Fire in Fillmore, California when an accident occurred at about 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

Iverson was killed in the accident. The circumstances surrounding the incident were not made clear.

He leaves behind his wife, Ashley and their two-year-old daughter. The couple was expecting their second child in May.

Cal Fire Capt. Jon Heggie knew Iverson personally and described him as a man of character.

"To put it bluntly hes the kind of man you want your daughter to marry and the type of fireman you want your son to grow up to be, Heggie said.

An online fundraising page was created to assist the family with funeral costs and other expenses they may have.

Cal Fire Capt. Jon Heggie said the death of one of their own while battling the massive Thomas Fire Thursday has shaken the agency to its core. NBC 7's Mackenzie Maynard reports.

Iverson spent much of his life fighting fires; he was an eight-year veteran of Cal Fire and before that, he spent seven years as a firefighter with the Harmony Grove Fire Department.

Heggie said it was a devastating loss for their department.

"We as a department are heartbroken," Heggie told NBC 7. "There is no easy way to say it  we have lost one of our brothers today."

Iverson's remains were taken in a procession to the coroner's office. Along the way, firefighters stood in salute on a freeway overpass and on top of fire department vehicles lining the side of a street.

This incident has shaken our organization to the core," Heggie said. "It has affected us statewide, but no more than here in San Diego County.

Heggie said it was up to his fire community to ensure Iverson's memory is not forgotten.

"Now to know his children arent going to have an opportunity to know what a wonderful person so thats our job as fire service family  to make sure they know the amazing man he was," Heggie said.

A firefighter and former Marine took down a would-be armed robber and it was all caught on camera at a Texas gas station.

California Governor Jerry Brown ordered Capitol flags be flown at half-staff in honor of Iverson.

"Anne and I are saddened by Engineer Cory Iversons tragic death," Brown said in a statement. "His bravery and years of committed service to the people of California will never be forgotten.

The death is the second attributed to the fire, which as of Thursday morning had surpassed the 2007 Zaca fire to become the state's fourth-largest wildfire on record.

The blaze first broke out as a brush fire on Monday, Dec. 4, and quickly grew larger and more destructive, destroying 930 structures and damaging another 193, according to Cal Fire. By Wednesday, containment was at 30 percent.

The October 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego County is the state's largest wildfire on record. The inferno burned more than 273,000 acres and 2,800 buildings. Fifteen fatalities were reported.

Active Santa Ana winds continued to fuel the out-of-control brush fire, which prompted mandatory evacuations for hundreds of thousands of people in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties.

High fire risk is expected to last into January, adding to fears that 2017's deadly and destructive wildfire danger will extend into early next year.
A coalition of Puerto Rican and Latino groups have told members of Congress that any tax increases on U.S. corporations operating on the island would devastate an already battered economy, NBC News reported.

The group #Power4PuertoRico went to the offices of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as well as the offices of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., as congressional negotiators hammered out a tax bill they hope to sign into law next week.

[NATL] In Photos: Total Devastation in Puerto Rico After Hurricane Maria

At issue are several tax proposals; the House proposal included a 20 percent excise tax on companies manufacturing under "foreign" jurisdictions. Puerto Rico was included in that definition, even though its citizens are American citizens. As a territory, Puerto Rico is taxed differently than states.

"If this becomes law," said Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) in a recent statement, "you can expect to see more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs disappear from the Island. And the government of Puerto Rico could lose one-third of its revenue."

if("undefined"==typeof window.datawrapper)window.datawrapper={};window.datawrapper["c84P0"]={},window.datawrapper["c84P0"].embedDeltas={"100":771,"200":568,"300":509,"400":467,"500":450,"600":450,"700":433,"800":433,"900":433,"1000":433},window.datawrapper["c84P0"].iframe=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-c84P0"),window.datawrapper["c84P0"].iframe.style.height=window.datawrapper["c84P0"].embedDeltas[Math.min(1e3,Math.max(100*Math.floor(window.datawrapper["c84P0"].iframe.offsetWidth/100),100))]+"px",window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if("undefined"!=typeof a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var b in a.data["datawrapper-height"])if("c84P0"==b)window.datawrapper["c84P0"].iframe.style.height=a.data["datawrapper-height"][b]+"px"});
Days after requesting millions of dollars in subsidies from the city government, the leaders of a troubled D.C. hospital that serves some of the citys poorest residents decided the hospital will no longer offer prenatal services or deliver babies.

United Medical Center (UMC), the only D.C. hospital east of the Anacostia River, announced Thursday that the hospitals board voted against reopening its obstetrics unit.

Women in the area had to go elsewhere to deliver babies after the D.C. Department of Health shuttered the ward in August, citing deficiencies.

The nearest hospitals -- Howard University Hospital in Northwest, D.C.; Providence Hospital in Northeast D.C. and Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly, Maryland -- are all more than 20 minutes away by car.

We remain committed to the residents and patients of this community, a UMC spokesperson said in a statement about Thursdays vote. The unfortunate reality about OB is this: long before the DOH decision to restrict OB, mothers made a conscious choice not to deliver their babies at United Medical Center.

The hospital has since announced a partnership with Howard University Hospital and Unity Health Care to provide women with prenatal care at community clinics in Southeast D.C.

The hospital said it may revisit the idea of opening a womens health care department in the future. But some people are unhappy about the gap faced by residents east of the Anacostia.

This decision is a step backward in creating a true health care system in Wards 7 and 8, and is entirely contrary to the Councils progressive agenda of advancing health equity for our East End residents, D.C. Council Member and former mayor Vincent Gray said. He accused hospital administrators of voting to keep the obstetrics department closed during a secret meeting.

Gray also said the current UMC board and Mayor Muriel Bowsers administration are inadequately leading the hospital, to the detriment of would-be mothers on the East End of the District who will be most disadvantaged from the resulting lack of essential obstetrical care.

City Council in November forced a change for the hospital by voting not to renew a contract with Veritas, the company that operates and manages UMC. Seven Council members voted to end the contract; six voted against the measure.

Ahead of that vote, News4 contributor Harry Jaffe implicated Veritas in the hospitals shortcomings. Jaffe wrote that great connections and campaign contributions, rather than stellar credentials won Veritas the contract to run UMC.

UMC is looking for another company to manage day-to-day operations at the hospital, and has already contracted with Axis Healthcare Group and The GW Medical Faculty Associates to take over the behavioral health unit, the emergency department and inpatient care.

The UMC board on Tuesday asked the city government for $7.5 million in subsidies to pay for the GW contract, according to a UMC statement. The board requested a total of $17.1 million in subsidies to settle a dispute with the nurses union over pay, repay the government after overcharging Medicare and compensate for revenues lost as patient numbers decline.
The FBI agent and state fire marshal who were hit by a car and killed in Montgomery County, Maryland, earlier this month are being remembered at funerals Thursday.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Carlos Wolff, 36, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Deputy Chief State Fire Marshal Sander Cohen, 33, died after they were stopped on I-270 and hit by a car.

The men were hit after Wolff's car hit the concrete barrier on the left side of the highway and became disabled in the fast lane. Cohen stopped to help him and was killed in the line of duty.

Cohen, who also was a volunteer firefighter, was remembered with full honors at B'nai Israel Congregation in Rockville. Fire and police personnel from across the state were in attendance, and Gov. Larry Hogan spoke.

"I'm here today as governor of Maryland, representing all the people of a grateful state, to honor the sacrifice of one our true heroes -- a man who dedicated his life to public service and never hesitated to offer a helping hand, right up to his last breath" Hogan said, wearing a yarmulke as a sign of respect.

Along Maryland Route 200, fire personnel stood outside their vehicles and saluted Cohen's casket as it passed, Chopper4 video shows.

"Sander was very, well well-known across the state as a whole," Chief James Vagonis of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department said. "He touched the lives of a lot of different people across the state."

Wolff was honored in a private service at Church of the Redeemer in Gaithersburg.

Police said Cohen called state police about 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8 and reported a single-car crash on I-270 southbound. He asked for assistance, blocked the lane with his personal vehicle and activated his emergency flashers.

As Wolff, the driver of the damaged vehicle, stood with Cohen on the shoulder of the lane, a Honda swerved and hit both men. They both were thrown over the jersey wall into northbound traffic. One of the men was then hit by an Acura headed northbound.

Cohen was pronounced dead the scene. Wolff was taken to Suburban Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Three other people were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The cause of the initial and subsequent crashes are under investigation by Maryland State Police. There is no preliminary indication that any of the drivers were under the influence of alcohol. No charges were filed.

Col. William Pallozzi, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, previously said Cohen had no idea Wolff was an FBI agent when he stopped to help him.

"He stopped, he helped someone in need, and now he has joined the ranks of Maryland's fallen heroes,'' Pallozzi said.

Cohen was a lieutenant with the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department. The call for the crash came in at Cohen's own fire station, and a fellow firefighter was the first one on the scene.

"[The firefighter] found him in the road and started CPR and started breathing for him and, unfortunately, she discovered, looked and recognized him," Eric Bernard, president of the Rockville Fire Department, previously said. "It was very traumatic for her and the shifts."

Cohen had volunteered since he was just 16.

Wolff leaves behind a wife and two children. He was a graduate of American University.

"Our Carlos was an amazing father, husband, uncle and brother who made us all very proud," his family said in a statement. "He loved serving his country as a part of the FBI. He was always so helpful and giving, not just to his friends but strangers too. Our hearts are broken. We appreciate your prayers during this difficult time."

Wolff worked for 11 years in the investigative division of FBI headquarters, a representative said.

Maryland's governor ended his remarks honoring Cohen with these words: "The state is grateful. We say thank you, God bless you and farewell."
The man accused of ramming a car into a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, this summer now faces a first-degree murder charge.

The charges against James Alex Fields Jr. were upgraded in court Thursday afternoon. Fields previously was charged with second-degree murder in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer.

Fields, a 20-year-old from Maumee, Ohio -- described as having a keen interest in Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler -- also faces charges including malicious wounding and felonious assault for the crash Aug. 12 that killed Heyer and injured dozens of others.

Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, was set to see for the first time the man accused of killing her daughter.

The crash occurred during a weekend of clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters that rocked the Virginia college town and renewed national debate over what to do with symbols of the Confederacy.

Citing intense media coverage and public interest surrounding the case, a judge moved the hearing from Charlottesville General District Court to a circuit courthouse, writing in the order that "no outbursts, gestures, comments or other disruptive behavior" would be tolerated.

Despite a quiet scene outside the courtroom in Charlottesville, street traffic around the courthouse was closed Thursday afternoon, and officers were posted around the premises, including an officer with a gun on a rooftop.



The preliminary hearing was to establish whether prosecutors had enough evidence to seek an indictment. Neither the commonwealth's attorney's office nor Fields' attorney responded to questions from The Associated Press ahead of the hearing.

Fields has been in custody since the rally and so far has made only brief court appearances by video link. His attorney, Denise Lunsford, has not spoken publicly about the case and has declined to make Fields available for an interview.

Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed by the crash, was a paralegal who worked at a law firm in Charlottesville. She attended the rally with friend Marissa Blair to march as counterprotesters against white nationalists.

I just smile when I think about Heather, Blair said earlier this year. "She always spoke with so much conviction, and she stood up for what she believed in, and she liked to make you laugh, and she didn't care what she said. It was Heather. She cared about people.

After several smaller rallies, hundreds of white nationalists and counter-protesters converged in downtown Charlottesville on Aug. 12.

Charlottesville became a target for white nationalists after its city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. The rally by a loosely connected mix of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists was the largest gathering of such groups in a decade.

Fighting broke out before the event officially began and the brawling went on for around an hour until an unlawful assembly was declared and the crowd was forced to disband.

Later, as counterdemonstrators were peacefully marching through downtown, the car barreled into the crowd. Video of the crash showed the car reversing and hitting more people amid a screech of tires.

The same day, a Virginia State Police helicopter deployed in the large-scale police response to the violence also crashed, killing two troopers on board.

Fields was photographed hours before the attack with a shield bearing the emblem of Vanguard America, one of the hate groups that took part in the rally, although the group denied any association with him. A former teacher, Derek Weimer, has said Fields was fascinated in high school with Nazism, idolized Adolf Hitler, and had been singled out by officials at his Union, Kentucky, high school for "deeply held, radical" convictions on race. Fields had recently moved to Ohio from Kentucky, where he grew up.

Fields' mother, Samantha Bloom, told The Associated Press on the evening of the rally that she knew her son was attending an event in Virginia but didn't know it was a white supremacist rally.

Marcus Martin, who was hit and upended by the car as it plowed through the crowd, said he planned to attend Thursday's hearing.

Martin's leg was broken in the attack, and his body was captured in a photograph as he tumbled over the car.

Martin, who had been marching with his fiancee and Heyer, a friend of theirs, said he's been improving physically but "living every day just trying to forget."

"I just want to stand and ask him, 'Why did you do that? What made you do that?'" Martin said.

Prosecutors are set to present their case against Fields to a grand jury of the Charlottesville Circuit Court on Monday, Dec. 18 at 9:30 a.m.
The Maryland high school student who was found dead in a wooded area in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday died from a combination of alcohol poisoning, drowning and hypothermia, officials said.

The body of Navid Nicholas Sepehri was found in Bethesda after he never got home Saturday night. He was 17 and a senior at Walt Whitman High School.

The Baltimore's chief medical examiner released an autopsy report on Friday listing the cause of death as acute alcohol intoxication complicated by drowning and hypothermia."

His death was accidental, the medical examiner ruled.

Sepehri disappeared after he left a party alone despite friends' concerns about his well-being, sources told News4.

The teen's father, Frank Sepehri, located his body in a small pool of water.

"I found him," Frank Sepehri said, his voice full of emotion.

Navid Sepehri was last seen about 11:30 Saturday, Montgomery County police said. He went to a party on Elgin Lane that was broken up by police after someone told police they suspected teens were drinking.

Some of the juveniles ran from the home as the officers approached. A teen who police later learned was Navid Sepehri spoke with police.

"Officers recognized that (Navid) Sepehri may have been under the influence and confirmed with the juveniles that Sepehri would leave when the juveniles left," police said in statement issued Tuesday night.

Navid Sepehri's friends offered to call him an Uber. But he said he was OK and disappeared on foot, sources said.

He never arrived home.

His father said he went to the Bethesda police station about 3 a.m. Sunday to talk with an officer. He said the officer told him to wait.

"She told me that kids, this happened. Just wait until tomorrow morning. 10, 11 o'clock. I'm sure he'll show up," he said the officer told him.

Police said they searched for Navid Sepehri. Then, his father found his body near nightfall, on the 6500 block of Laverock Lane. The family lived less than three miles away.

Frank Sepehri said police did not help his family.

"Police didn't do anything for us. Nothing. Zero," he said. "Sitting in the shopping center, drinking coffee."

Capt. Paul Starks said officers were looking for Navid Sepehri.

"When the father cried out, there were other officers nearby in the woods who heard Navid's father exclaim that he had found his son," Starks said.

The department is reviewing the case.

At least one teen told police the hosts of the party Navid Sepehri attended told the teens to call their parents and go home after learning uninvited guests brought alcohol to the party. One of the homeowners told police he believed the uninvited teens may have learned about the party on social media.
A Rockville, Maryland, woman is facing murder charges in the death of her newborn daughter.

Police said Rebecca Briones, 31, has admitted to shaking her 2-month-old daughter and throwing her on a bed on Feb. 18, 2017. Briones then called 911 after discovering her daughter, named Lissana, was unresponsive.

Lissana was flown to a hospital, where she died three days later.

Briones told police she had abused the child in a similar way three other times, police said.

An autopsy revealed the child died of blunt force injuries.

Police have charged Briones with second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death.

In court Friday, prosecutors said Briones is seven-months pregnant.

A judge ordered Briones to be held in jail and was concerned she could hurt the baby she's carrying.


New England politicians were quick to react Thursday to the Federal Communications Commission's vote to unravel sweeping net-neutrality rules that guaranteed equal access to the internet.

"This is an egregious attack on our democracy," independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Twitter. "The end of #NetNeutrality protections means that the internet will be for sale to the highest bidder. When our democratic institutions are already in peril, we must do everything we can to stop this decision from taking effect."

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he was "deeply disappointed" by the FCC's decision. "This will make it more difficult for residents & businesses to have fair and equitable access to the internet," he added.

"A free and open internet should be the standard, not something we have to fight for," Democratic Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton said. "This ruling sends us down a dangerous path, where a few large corporations can control access to something Americans and small business owners rely on every single day."

"The ONLY people benefitting from the repeal of #NetNeutrality are massive corporations that are already reaping in enormous profits," Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said on Twitter. "They want to end the internet as we know it to create a digital oligarchy that serves the wealthy few."

U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said the decision is "not acceptable," and said she will continue fighting for priorities "that put consumers first and help small businesses innovate and thrive."

Democratic New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said she is "very concerned" by the FCC's decision. "I urge the FCC to reconsider and recommit to upholding the principals of a free and open internet," she said.

Another New Hampshire Democrat, Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, said she strongly opposes the result of the vote and will work to restore net neutrality protections.

"The Internet has allowed the proud tradition of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship to reach every corner of the globe," she said. "Its openness has enabled a new generation of New Hampshire innovators to turn a bright idea and a laptop into a business. We cant stand by as the FCC and big corporations steal our right to equal access."

Independent Maine Sen. Angus King called the vote "a monumental mistake."

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, said the FCC "took a wrecking ball to the pillars of freedom and openness upon which the Internet was built." He added that the decision "has been a rushed, cynical and slipshod process that has been fundamentally flawed," and said the FCC has "shown a shocking disregard for the overwhelming input from the public, choosing instead to listen only to those with the deepest pockets."

Democratic Vermont Rep. Peter Welch said the vote is "a disaster for consumers," and said he plans to introduce legislation that will overturn the decision.

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, said he was "deeply disturbed" by the vote and will continue fighting to change the law and restore net neutrality.

Democratic Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree said the vote doesn't represent the voices of thousands of residents who told her they want to keep the internet free and open.

"Trump's FCC just ignored millions of Americans who spoke up for internet freedom, and sided with giant corporations," Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern said. "This fight is far from over."
A subcontractor doing work for Comcast in Massachusetts is accused of assaulting a woman in her home.

Police say the suspect, a Rhode Island man who has not been identified, was installing cable boxes in Abington. The victim, a 21-year-old woman, was home alone when he allegedly pushed her against a wall and tried to kiss her.

The woman quickly called police and officers identified the suspect. He was summonsed to Brockton District Court on charges of assault and accosting a person of the opposite sex.

"We take these allegations very seriously, and we can confirm the contractor in question has been pulled from Comcast work pending completion of the investigation," Comcast said in a statement. "We will, of course, cooperate fully with local law enforcement."

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns NBC Boston and necn.
A Massachusetts massage business owner is accused of raping at least four female clients, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Josh Bohrer, a 37-year-old man who runs Karma Body Work out of his Somerville apartment, was indicted Tuesday on rape charges in connection with the assaults of two customers at his business, according to Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan. He was arraigned in March on two counts of rape and one count indecent assault and battery in incidents with two different clients.

In each incident, Bohrer is accused of inappropriately touching first-time customers during their massages.

After being arraigned in connection to the first two victims' allegations, Bohrer was freed on personal recognizance, but not allowed to serve any female clients.

Months later, on Nov. 6, a third female client said Bohrer sexually assaulted her on Oct. 31. He has been held without bail since his arrest the following day, and a fourth woman came forward on Dec. 8. That alleged incident took place on Sept. 29.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Somerville Police Department's Family Services Unit at 617-625-1600 Ext. 7237.
A third grader in Methuen, Massachusetts, is accused of threatening to stab a staff member with a kitchen knife.

Police say the boy showed classmates a knife on the school bus, as they were headed to Tenney Grammar School around 8 a.m. Thursday.

One of the students told the driver, who then alerted the school's administration.

Officials were waiting for the boy when the bus arrived at school.

The elementary school will discipline the boy, and charges will be forwarded to Lawrence Juvenile Court for the threat and having a dangerous weapon on school property.

No other information was immediately available.
NatWest says closures are in response to changes in banking habits

THREE NatWest branches in West Berkshire are set to close next year.

Branches in Thatcham, Hungerford and Mortimer have been earmarked for closure as NatWest said it was adapting to radical changes in the way people banked.

Hungerford's branch is due to close on May 31 2018; Thatcham's on June 4; and Mortimer's on June 25.

Natwest said that the number of customers using branches across the UK had fallen by 40 per cent since 2014.

During the same period, mobile transactions have increased by 73 per cent.

And in the first half of 2017, there were 1.1 billion mobile and online transactions carried out by customers  a 41 per cent increase since 2014.

NatWest said that transactions in its Thatcham branch had reduced by 49 per cent since 2012, with only 34 customers visiting on a weekly basis.

It said that 67 per cent of customers were now banking digitally instead.

In Hungerford, transactions have reduced by 50 per cent since 2012, with now only 35 customers visiting the branch on a weekly basis.

And 62 per cent of customers were banking digitally instead.

In Mortimer, transactions have reduced by 53 per cent since 2012, with only 25 customers visiting the branch on a weekly basis and 63 per cent of customers banking digitally.

Customers will have to travel to the closest branch in Newbury, or Tilehurst for Mortimer, or conduct banking services at Post Office branches.

NatWest has also created a specialist TechXpert support team to train customers how to use online banking.

The banks impending closure follows HSBC shutting its branch in Thatcham Broadway last year.

Fears were raised at the time that Thatcham would become a ghost town if another bank closed.
No visit to the doctor's office is complete without a blood-pressure cuff squeezing your arm and a cold stethoscope placed on your chest. But what if your vital signs could be gathered, without contact, as you sit in the waiting room or the comfort of your own home?

Cornell University engineers have demonstrated a method for gathering blood pressure, heart rate and breath rate using a cheap and covert system of radio-frequency signals and microchip "tags," similar to the anti-theft tags department stores place on clothing and electronics.

The cracker-sized tags measure mechanical motion by emitting radio waves that bounce off the body and internal organs, and are then detected by an electronic reader that gathers the data from a location elsewhere in the room.

The system works like radar, according to Edwin Kan, professor of electrical and computer engineering. But unlike most radar systems that rely solely on radio waves to measure movement, Kan's system integrates "near-field coherent sensing," which is better at directing electromagnetic signals into body tissue, allowing the tags to measure internal body movement such as a heart as it beats or blood as it pulses under the skin.

The tags are powered by electromagnetic energy supplied by a central reader, and because each tag has a unique identification code it transmits with its signal, Kan said up to 200 people can be monitored simultaneously using just one central reader.

"If this is an emergency room, everybody that comes in can wear these tags or can simply put tags in their front pockets, and everybody's vital signs can be monitored at the same time. I'll know exactly which person each of the vital signs belongs to," said Kan.

Neuroscience eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

The idea originated after Kan and his graduate student, Xiaonan Hui, visited the Center for Sleep Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, where measuring vital signs can interrupt sleep patterns.

"We were thinking about the kind of technology we were already using in our lab and thought we could probably get a signal from those vital signs," said Hui. "But after we figured out the theory and did the experiments, the signal quality was better than our prediction."

The signal is as accurate as an electrocardiogram or a blood-pressure cuff, according to Kan, who said he believes the technology could also be used to measure bowel movement, eye movement and many other internal mechanical motions produced by the body.

Kan and Hui plan to do more extensive testing with Dr. Ana Krieger, medical director of the Center for Sleep Medicine and associate professor of clinical medicine, of medicine in clinical neurology and of clinical genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. They're also working with professor Jintu Fan and associate professor Huiju Park from Cornell's Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, who have demonstrated a way to embroider the tags directly onto clothing using fibers coated with nanoparticles.

Hui envisions a future in which clothing can monitor health in real time, with little or no effort required by the user.

"For every garment in our daily use, there could be a tag on them, and your cellphone will read your vital signs and will tell you some kind of information about your condition that day," said Hui.
Children who routinely eat their meals together with their family are more likely to experience long-term physical and mental health benefits, a new Canadian study shows.

Universite de Montreal doctoral student Marie-Josee Harbec and her supervisor, pyschoeducation professor Linda Pagani, made the finding after following a cohort of Quebec children born between 1997 and 1998.

The study is published today in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.

"There is a handful of research suggesting positive links between eating family meals together frequently and child and adolescent health," Pagani said. "In the past, researchers were unclear on whether families that ate together were simply healthier to begin with. And measuring how often families eat together and how children are doing at that very moment may not capture the complexity of the environmental experience."

The study looked at chilldren who had been followed by researchers since they were 5 months old as part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. At age 6, their parents started reporting on whether or not they had family meals together. At age 10, parents, teachers and the children themselves provided information on the children's lifestyle habits and their psycho-social well-being.

"We decided to look at the long-term influence of sharing meals as an early childhood family environment experience in a sample of children born the same year," Pagani said, "and we followed-up regularly as they grew up. Using a birth cohort, this study examines the prospective associations between the environmental quality of the family meal experience at age 6 and child well-being at age 10."

When the family meal environment quality was better at age 6, higher levels of general fitness and lower levels of soft-drink consumption were observed at age 10. These children also seemed to have more social skills, as they were less likely to self-report being physical aggressive, oppositional or delinquent at age 10.

"Because we had a lot of information about the children before age 6  such as their temperament and cognitive abilities, their mother's education and psychological characteristics, and prior family configuration and functioning  we were able to eliminate any pre-existing conditions of the children or families that could throw a different light on our results," said Harbec. "It was really ideal as a situation."

Added Pagani: "The presence of parents during mealtimes likely provides young children with firsthand social interaction, discussions of social issues and day-to-day concerns, and vicarious learning of prosocial interactions in a familiar and emotionally secure setting. Experiencing positive forms of communication may likely help the child engage in better communication skills with people outside of the family unit. Our findings suggest that family meals are not solely markers of home environment quality, but are also easy targets for parent education about improving children's well-being."

"From a population-health perspective, our findings suggest that family meals have long-term influences on children's physical and mental well-being," said Harbec.

At a time when fewer families in Western countries are having meals together, it would be especially opportune now for psycho-social workers to encourage the practice at home  indeed, even make it a priority, the researchers believe. And family meals could be touted as advantageous in public-information campaigns that aim to optimize child development.
Scholars from more than 25 universities across the United States have issued a Gambling Call to Action Statement regarding the need for more research on gambling and its mental and physical health consequences.

The action grew out of discussion following the October 1, 2017 mass shootings in Las Vegas when media reports suggested that the shooter exhibited behaviors suggestive of a severe gambling problem and that gambling may have been part of the shooter's motivation for his crime.

At the time of the shooting, several of the leading scholars on gambling disorder were in Las Vegas attending the National Center for Responsible Gaming's 18th Annual Conference on Gambling and Addiction. Many of the conference's sessions touched upon the same issues and themes the Gambling Call to Action Statement highlights, as these are long standing issues.

Legal gambling opportunities, both in-person and online, have expanded dramatically within the past 30 years and generate significant revenues for gambling operators, state and federal governments. Yet, the lack of resources devoted to study, treat and prevent gambling problems poses significant hurdles that only increase and perpetuate the human suffering associated with gambling disorder.

This letter is a collaboration led by Dr. Jeremiah Weinstock, an associate professor of psychology at Saint Louis University, and seeks to increase awareness and spur action by government and gaming leaders.

Weinstock says resources for gambling-related treatments and research are sparse.

"Our public health systems and funding for gambling disorder research have not kept pace with the legalization and expansion of gambling across the U.S.," Weinstock said. "The problems associated with gambling disorder are extremely damaging not only to the gambler, but to their families and our society. Yet, the National Institutes of Health, one of the world's leading medical research agencies, does not devote any money to studying the disorder and its treatment."

The group is calling for three primary initiatives:

The federal government needs to programmatically conduct research regarding gambling and its mental and physical health consequences.

The federal and state governments and the gambling industry need to improve access to prevention, treatment and recovery services for gambling disorders. The points of contact for offering a range of services for gambling problems are underdeveloped.

For the gambling industry to make greater investment in identifying and validating responsible gambling initiatives.

Source: https://www.slu.edu/
A perplexing question in immunology has been, how do immune cells remember an infection or a vaccination so that they can spring into action decades later? Research led by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, in collaboration with investigators at Emory University, has found an answer: A small pool of the same immune cells that responded to the original invasion remain alive for years, developing unique features that keep them primed and waiting for the same microbe to re-invade the body.

Before this study, scientists were not sure how cells can remember an infection from up to 30 years earlier. To tease apart this mystery, the research team tracked a specific kind of immune cell through the human body in the weeks, months and years following a vaccination that gives long-term protection.

The researchers tracked T cells inside people's bodies after they were given the long-lasting yellow fever virus vaccine, using a technology developed at Berkeley for monitoring the birth and death of cells in humans over long periods of time. The researchers found that CD8+ T cells, responsible for long-term immunity against yellow fever, proliferate rapidly on exposure to the vaccine but then evolve, beginning about four weeks after the vaccination, into a "memory pool" of cells that live more than 10 times longer than the average T cell.

"This work addressed fundamental questions about the origin and longevity of human memory CD8+ T cells generated after an acute infection," said Marc Hellerstein, senior coauthor and professor of nutritional science and toxicology at UC Berkeley. "Understanding the basis of effective long-term immune memory may help scientists develop better vaccines, understand differences among diseases and diagnose the quality of an individual person's immune responses."

The study will be published December 13 in the journal Nature. The work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

When someone gets a vaccine or is exposed to a new infectious agent, cells that recognize the invader but had never have been called into action before - called naive cells - respond by dividing like crazy and developing infection-fighting functions. This creates a large pool of so-called memory cells, named for their ability to remember the specific infectious agent and respond effectively to repeat threats later. Over time, the large pool shrinks to a small number of long-term memory cells, which are primed to provide late protection. But scientists have debated how these memory cells are maintained and ready to strike for so long after the initial exposure.

This study found that one way the pool is maintained for years after vaccination is through the development of several unique features. On the surface and through the actions of their genes, they look like cells that have never been exposed to an infection, but on their DNA the researchers found a fingerprint, called a methylation pattern, that identifies them as having been through battle as an infection-fighting cell, which are called effector cells.

"These cells are like veteran soldiers, camped in the blood and tissues where they fight their battles, waiting for yellow fever to show up," said Hellerstein. "They are resting quietly and they wear the clothes of untested new recruits, but they are deeply experienced, ready to spring into action and primed to expand wildly and attack aggressively if invaders return."

For the study, Hellerstein applied a technique that he developed for his HIV/AIDS research in the 1990s and has used widely since to track the birth and death of cells in the human body. The research team had subjects drink small amounts of water that had deuterium instead of hydrogen. Deuterium is non-toxic, but it is slightly heavier than hydrogen, so scientists can track it by mass spectrometry when it gets incorporated into newly replicated DNA in the body's cells, which occurs only during cell division. Using this method, scientists can learn if a pool of cells is new or old, because newly born cells will have deuterium in their DNA. Scientists or clinicians monitoring the cells over time will see that the deuterium levels in short-lived cells will be diluted after the patients return to drinking regular water, while the deuterium levels in long-lived cells will remain high. In the new study, people drank the deuterium water at different times after receiving the live yellow fever virus vaccine and researchers isolated T cells from the patients, then analyzed their deuterium content.

Yellow fever virus is not a threat in the United States, which means that all the subjects had not been previously exposed and would not get exposed after the tagging period, making the vaccine ideal for studying what happens to newly generated cells over a long period of time, when there is no longer any infectious agent to fight.

After a first acute exposure to an infectious agent or vaccine, the body has an initial phase with lots of short-lived infection fighting soldiers, called effector-memory cells. Then after the threat is cleared, effector cells go away and small numbers of long-term memory cells are present. One of the central questions in immunology was whether the long-term memory cells went through an effector stage or went on a separate pathway of their own. The research team found that that a subset of the effector-memory pool that had divided extensively during the first two weeks after vaccination stayed alive as long-term memory cells, dividing less frequently than once every year.

The extremely long life-span of the surviving memory cells allows them to specialize over time into a unique, previously unrecognized type of T cell. The long-term memory cells have some molecular markers that make them look like naive cells that have never activated, including a gene expression profile that looks like that in naive cells, yet have other molecular markers on their DNA of having gone through battle as effector cells.

"These results make it clear that true long-term memory cells were once effector cells that have become quiescent," Hellerstein said. "This apparently keeps them poised to respond rapidly as new effector cells upon re-exposure to the pathogen."

The research team calculated that the half-life of these long-term memory cells is 450 days, compared to a half-life of about 30 days for the average memory T cell in the body, during which they are in general repeatedly exposed to common antigens in the environment. So when the memory pool goes quiet, these unique cells retain a fingerprint stemming back to the original exposure, and remain primed to respond rapidly if there is re-exposure to the pathogen.

"The combination of molecular evidence of a unique life history with direct measurement of their long life span is what gives this study such power," Hellerstein said. "The technology to measure the dynamics of the birth and death of cells and advances allowing it to be applied to very small numbers of cells let this study happen."
Researchers at University College London have identified a rare gene mutation in an Italian family who have little sensitivity to some forms of pain. Chronic pain caused by conditions such as lower back pain and osteoarthritis is one of the most prominent causes of disability worldwide, as assessed by the Global Burden of Disease reviews.

Credit: Africa Studio/ Shutterstock.com

The members of this family can burn themselves or experience bone fractures without feeling any pain. But they have a normal intra-epidermal nerve fibre density, which means their nerves are all there, they're just not working how they should be. We're working to gain a better understanding of exactly why they don't feel much pain, to see if that could help us find new pain relief treatments". Dr James Cox, UCL Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research

In addition to severely impacting a patients quality of life, it can be associated with severe economic burden due to works days lost. Severe pain can also be a barrier to recovery and a cause of depression. Furthermore, chronic pain is suffered by a significant proportion of the population, with between one-third and one-half of the UK population having chronic pain.

However, despite the well documented wide-reaching negative impacts of chronic pain, there has been little progress in recent years in pain management strategies. These continue to be based on the administration of analgesic medication such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioid-based medications.

Novel strategies for pain management are thus being explored. One such area of research is congenital hypoalgesia, an inherited disorder which causes patients to have a severely reduced capacity to detect damage to their body that would usually cause extreme pain, such as biting off fingertips, lips and the tongue, and frequent bone fractures. Patients with such pain insensitivity are being assessed in the hope of identifying novel analgesic drug targets.

Researchers at University College London have been studying an Italian family, the Marsilis, which has six members with a distinctive pain response that has not been observed in any other people. These individuals do not feel noxious heat or the burn of capsaicin in chilli peppers, and have experienced pain-free bone fractures.

By mapping all the protein-coding genes in the genome of each family member, the researchers have identified a novel point mutation in the . The mutation occurs in a part of the gene sequence that is normally remarkably constant, even across different species.

To assess the function of this gene, they developed a mouse model in which the ZFHX2 gene was entirely absent. These mice had increased pain thresholds. Mice with the Marsilis' mutation were found to be insensitive to high temperatures. Further such analyses have shown that the ZFHX2 gene is responsible for regulating various other genes involved in pain signalling.

Dr Abdella Habib of Qatar University, who conducted the study while based at UCL, commented."We hope that our findings and the subsequent research projects will help find better treatments for the millions of people worldwide who experience chronic pain and don't get relief from existing drugs".

These findings will be used to identify new treatments for chronic pain, with one potential option being gene therapy.
Increased scrutiny of opioid prescribing for patients with chronic pain has led providers and healthcare organizations to consider opioid-dose reductions, known as tapering. Such actions can precipitate communication challenges for primary-care physicians. A new study, published in The Journal of Pain, examined patient-doctor conversations and explored best practices associated with opioid tapering. The Journal of Pain is the peer-review publication of the American Pain Society, www.americanpainsociety.org.

"Institutional mandates to tamper opioid doses can lead to communication challenges with patients, especially those who have achieved pain relief from taking long-term opioids and use them as prescribed," said lead author Marianne S. Matthias, PhD, a research scientist at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Researchers analyzed audio-recorded primary-care clinic visits by patients taking opioids. They conducted in-depth interviews with patients and their doctors to identify communication challenges and best practices for opioid tapering. The study was conducted in four primary-care clinics at an academic hospital serving low-income patients.

The recorded patient-doctor conversations and interviews revealed four distinct communication patterns associated with opioid tapering: explaining reasons for tapering, negotiating the tapering plan, managing difficult conversations, and assuring patients that they will not be abandoned during the tapering process.

"In clinic visits and interviews, patients acknowledged that opioids could be harmful but, in many cases, they did not see applicability to their own situations because they had legitimate pain and took their medications as prescribed," said Matthias. She added that, in interviews, doctors noted the benefits of shifting the conversation about tapering from the abstract opioid crisis to potential risks opioids pose to an individual based on his or her own unique medical history.

Involving patients in tapering decisions was viewed favorably by doctors and patients, as patients wanted input on the tapering decisions. Doctors said they were willing to work with patients on the rate of tapering.

When communication broke down, some difficult discussions occurred, including arguments in which patients threatened to obtain opioids illegally. Doctors were not always convinced tapering was best for certain patients despite mandates, but they tended to remain silent about this topic when confronted by patients about it.

Assuring patients they would not be abandoned during opioid tapering was viewed as critical by patients and physicians. "Patients need to know that their doctors are not going to reduce their opioid doses and then disappear," said Matthias. "When doctors showed genuine concern for their patients' health and well-being, and indicated that they would be with them for the duration of the tapering process, patients with chronic pain seemed more willing to accept reduction or discontinuation of opioids."

The authors concluded that when physicians tailor their messages to help patients understand why tapering may be beneficial to them, based on their unique clinical situations and histories, they provide opportunity for input into tapering, even if it only the rate of tapering.
Individuals with kidney failure have a much higher risk of dying prematurely than people in the general population, but a new analysis indicates that this excess risk is falling. The findings, which come from a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), are encouraging and suggest that efforts to improve care have resulted in improved survival.

Although rates of early death have decreased over time in patients with kidney failure, it is unknown if improvements merely reflect parallel improvements in the general population. To investigate, a team led by Bethany Foster, MD, MSCE (Montreal Children's Hospital and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre) and Benjamin Laskin, MD, MSCE (The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) examined changes in the excess risk of early death-;over and above the risk in the general population-;among people treated for kidney failure in the United States.

The analysis included 1,938,148 children and adults diagnosed with kidney failure from 1995 to 2013. The change over any 5-year interval between 1995 and 2013 in the excess risk of kidney failurerelated death varied by age, with decreases from 12% for 65 year olds to 27% for 0-14 year olds. Decreases in excess mortality over time were observed for all ages and both during treatment with dialysis and during time with a functioning kidney transplant, with the largest relative improvements observed for the youngest individuals with a functioning kidney transplant. Absolute decreases in excess kidney failurerelated mortality were greatest for the oldest patients.

"We showed that all age groups have had significant improvements in mortality risk over the past 22 years. Some of the improvements were due to improved access to kidney transplantation and to longer survival of kidney transplants, but there were also improvements that can only be attributed to improvements in the care provided to people treated with dialysis and to those with kidney transplants," said Dr. Foster. "This is important given the huge investment of resources in caring for these patients; we have shown that these investments have made a difference."

Dr. Foster noted that the investigators expected to find decreased mortality rates for all age groups except those in late adolescence and early young adulthood. This age group often has difficulty adhering to recommended treatments, and there is sometimes a breakdown in the continuity of care when young people are transferred from a pediatric healthcare facility to an adult care facility. "We discovered that young people in this age group had no improvements in mortality risk between 1995 and 2006, unlike all other age groups, but started to have significant improvements after 2006," said Dr. Foster. "This may be because healthcare professionals became more sensitized to these problems in the early 2000s and have changed the way they care for these young people."

Although individuals with kidney failure still have much higher risks of early death than people in the general population, it appears that the gap is gradually closing. "One of the best ways to improve health in people with kidney failure is for them to get a kidney transplant, and the limited supply of suitable organs is still a major impediment to more progress in outcomes for people with kidney failure, Dr. Foster said. "Everyone needs to think about organ donation and sign their organ donor cards."

In an accompanying editorial, Kirsten Johansen, MD (University of California, San Francisco) noted that the study provides a framework for future studies that are needed to examine which changes in practice patterns and clinical care may contribute to changes in mortality rates in patients with ESRD. "Analyses of differences in outcomes over time and across geographic regions are powerful tools we can apply to gain an understanding of the impact of changes or variations in practices on survival," she wrote.
Andrew Ng, who helped start the Google Brain project and previously served as the head of Baidus AI efforts, announced Landing.ai, a company aimed at helping businesses in the manufacturing sector transform themselves into AI companies. Ng picked manufacturing because it has a number of problems that machine learning techniques can help with, and AI has the potential to radically transform the industry.

Landing.ai hopes to do that by creating and providing software for manufacturing companies, as well as offering educational materials to those businesses to help employees and executives take advantage of new tools.

AI will transform the manufacturing industry. As an artificial intelligence talent and technology company, Landing.ai will provide solutions for partners in the manufacturing industry to turn AI into concrete value, and transform organizations into AI enterprises. They are developing a wide range of AI transformation programs, from the introduction of new technologies, to operational processes, to talent strategy.

One product that Landing.ai has developed is a visual inspection system that uses images from a camera to identify defects in products. That sort of work is typically done by humans, but Ng said that the companys software could solve the problem with greater accuracy and efficiency.

They are in process of pursuing a handful of early clients, with a focus on companies in the U.S., Japan, and China. One of its key early customers is Foxconn, a Chinese manufacturing giant that builds iPhones, among many other products.
LPP Fusion is nearing their minimum funding level for their latest round of financing.

LPPFusion has raised $370,000 out of a minimum $400,000 funding round.

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 money raised 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.

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).
Dramatic advances in laser technology are close to making the two-laser approach feasible, and a spate of recent experiments around the world indicate that an avalanche fusion reaction could be triggered in the trillionth-of-a-second blast from a petawatt-scale laser pulse, whose fleeting bursts pack a quadrillion watts of power. If scientists could exploit this avalanche, Hora said, a breakthrough in proton-boron fusion was imminent.

It is a most exciting thing to see these reactions confirmed in recent experiments and simulations, said Hora, an Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at UNSW. Not just because it proves some of my earlier theoretical work, but they have also measured the laser-initiated chain reaction to create one billion-fold higher energy output than predicted under thermal equilibrium conditions.

An Australian spin-off company, HB11 Energy, holds the patents for Horas process. If the next few years of research dont uncover any major engineering hurdles, we could have a prototype reactor within a decade, said Warren McKenzie, managing director of HB11.

From an engineering perspective, our approach will be a much simpler project because the fuels and waste are safe, the reactor wont need a heat exchanger and steam turbine generator, and the lasers we need can be bought off the shelf, he added.

Hora, H., Eliezer, S., Kirchhoff, G., Nissim, N., Wang, J., Lalousis, P., . . . Kirchhoff, J. (2017). Road map to clean energy using laser beam ignition of boron-hydrogen fusion. Laser and Particle Beams, 35(4), 730-740. doi:10.1017/S0263034617000799

With the aim to overcome the problems of climatic changes and rising ocean levels, one option is to produce large-scale sustainable energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen and other very light nuclei similar to the energy source of the sun. Sixty years of worldwide research for the ignition of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium (D) and tritium (T) have come close to a breakthrough for ignition. The problem with the DT fusion is that generated neutrons are producing radioactive waste. One exception as the ideal clean fusion process  without neutron production  is the fusion of hydrogen (H) with the boron isotope 11B11 (B11). In this paper, we have mapped out our research based on recent experiments and simulations for a new energy source. We suggest how HB11 fusion for a reactor can be used instead of the DT option. We have mapped out our HB11 fusion in the following way:

(i) The acceleration of a plasma block with a laser beam with the power and time duration of the order of 10 petawatts and one picosecond accordingly.

(ii) A plasma confinement by a magnetic field of the order of a few kiloteslas created by a second laser beam with a pulse duration of a few nanoseconds (ns).

(iii) The highly increased fusion of HB11 relative to present DT fusion is possible due to the alphas avalanche created in this process. (iv) The conversion of the output charged alpha particles directly to electricity.

(v) To prove the above ideas, our simulations show for example that 14 milligram HB11 can produce 300 kWh energy if all achieved results are combined for the design of an absolutely clean power reactor producing low-cost energy.

Summary of the two beam laser fusion method from the patent

These objects are achieved by a method for generating electrical energy and a nuclear fusion reactor having the features of the independent claims. Advantageous embodiments and uses of the invention result from the dependent claims.

According to a first broad aspect of the invention, the above object is achieved by a method for generating electrical energy by means of inertial nuclear fusion (inertial confinement fusion) in which a fusion fuel, preferably comprising hydrogen and boron 11, is held within a magnetic field in a cylindrical reaction chamber, and a nuclear fusion reaction is initiated in the fusion fuel by using fusion laser pulses (also referred to as block fusion laser pulses), the pulse duration of which is less than 10 ps and the power of which is more than 1 petawatt. The energy released during nuclear fusion from the nuclei that are produced is converted into electrical energy. According to the invention, the magnetic field has a field strength which is greater than or equal to 1 kilotesla. The nuclear fusion preferably produces an energy yield of more than 500, in particular tore than 1000 per laser energy of the fusion laser pulses used to initiate the fusion flame. The tern fusion flame refers to the fusion reaction by picosecond initiation with block ignition (as distinguished from thermal fusion detonation).

According to a second general aspect of the invention, the above object is achieved by a nuclear fusion reactor, which is configured for generating electrical energy, and a magnetic field device which is configured for holding fusion fuel and for generating a magnetic field in a cylindrical reaction chamber, a fusion laser pulse source, configured for emitting fusion laser pulses having a pulse duration of less than 10 ps and a power of more than 1 petawatt and for initiating nuclear fusion in the fusion fuel, and an energy conversion device, which is provided for converting the energy released in the nuclear fusion reaction from the nuclei that are produced into power plant power. The magnetic field device is preferably configured to hold the fusion fuel by means of electrically insulating fibers, e.g. made of quartz. According to the invention, the magnetic field device is configured for generating the magnetic field with a field strength that is greater than or equal to 1 kT.

According to the invention, magnetic fields having a field strength of equal to or greater than kilotesia are preferably used, with the fields more preferably being controlled by a laser-controlled discharge. Advantageously, with the magnetic fields used according to the invention, for the first time he radial losses from a magnetic cylindrical reaction chamber of HB11 with consecutive reactions are prevented such that high yields particularly of greater than 1000 and much more are achieved, with the ps laser pulses having a particularly preferred power of a least 10 PW. The inventors have found tha the magnetic fields are suitable for reliably containing the expansion of the reaction volume during ignition of the nuclear fusion.

The invention offers the advantage of providing, for the first time, a realistic and economically feasible realization of a fusion-based, practically inexhaustible and inexpensive energy source. The nuclear fusion reactor according to the invention is a fusion power plant for practical use. The invention provides highly efficient laser nuclear fusion with magnetic channeling, in which laser-powered nuclear fusion is achieved with yields greater than 500 by applying extremely high magnetic fields.

Advantageously, the ultrahigh magnetic fields [8] of greater than one kilotesla, previously known in only one case, are used, as compared with conventional methods for generating a more than thirty times higher magnetic field, however instead of fusion which is thermally driven in nanoseconds, a non-thermal block ignition achieved with picosecond pulses is used. In dramatic contrast to all previous methods and configurations, this method enables energy yields to be achieved which lead to the realization of economically operated power plants with overall negligible nuclear radiation.

According to preferred embodiments of the invention, the fusion fuel has at least one of the following features. According to a first variant, the fusion fuel preferably has a solid state density of up to 20 times the compression as compared with uncompressed fuel, similar to the case of fast ignition according to Nuckolls et al. [1]. According to a further variant, the fusion fuel preferably consists of 11B isotopes with up to a 15% deviation of light hydrogen in terms of stoichiometry. According to a further variant, the fusion fuel preferably consists of a mixture of light hydrogen and boron, each in at least a 20% atomic concentration.

If, accord g to a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, the energy of the nuclei generated is captured by electrostatic fields, further advantages in terms of energy yield are achieved. The fusion energy can be converted directly into electrical energy. Preferably, the kinetic energy of the alpha particles produced is converted directly into electrical energy.

To generate the electrostatic fields, the reaction chamber, more particularly the magnetic field device for forming the reaction chamber, is preferably surrounded by the energy conversion device, the reaction chamber having a negative high voltage relative to the energy conversion device. For this purpose, the reaction chamber, in particular the magnetic field device, is preferably connected to a high voltage source for generating a negative high voltage relative to the energy conversion device. Particularly preferably, the negative high voltage is at least 1 MV.

If, according to a further variant of the invention, the energy conversion device is at ground potential, advantages with respect to the configuration of the nuclear fusion reactor and the feeding thereof with fusion fuel are achieved. The energy conversion device is preferably in the form of a spherical, electrically conductive enclosure (housing) around the reaction chamber, in particular the magnetic field. Advantageously, the energy conversion device is thereby optimally adapted to the fusion geometry.

Particularly preferably, between the energy conversion device and the reaction chamber a Faraday cage is provided for shielding the static high voltage field from the reaction processes, preventing any penetration of the high-voltage field into the fusion reaction volume.

The magnetic field having a field strength of greater than or equal to 1 kilotesla can be realized by any available method for generating strong magnetic fields. According to a particularly preferred embodiment of the invention, the magnetic field is generated by means of an interaction with discharge laser radiation by a discharge current in electrodes which are coupled via at least one coil, in particular a single coil winding. The magnetic field device of the nuclear fusion reactor preferably has a pair of electrodes, two coils and a magnetic field pulsed laser source, which is provided for irradiating the electrodes with discharge laser radiation. Preferably, the magnetic field device is configured to hold the fusion fuel by means of electrically insulating fibers, z. B. made of quartz, on the coils or other support elements of the magnetic field device. Particularly preferably, the magnetic field device is implemented with the configuration described in [8] by S. Fujioka, et al. The discharge laser radiation preferably comprises laser pulses (hereinafter: magnetic field generating laser pulses or magnetic field laser pulses) having a pulse duration of less than 20 ns and energy of more than 100 J.

Advantageously, according to a further embodiment of the invention, the magnetic field can be intensified by designing the electrodes for generating the magnetic field to comprise two plates spaced from one another, between which a magnetic field laser pulse absorbing material is arranged, the form of which is adapted to a Rayleigh profile of generated plasma. The material particularly preferably comprises a foam material, such as polyethylene, and the bi-Rayleigh profile of electron density according to FIG. 10.17 of [2] (see FIG. 1 of [4]) is selected.

According to a further, particularly advantageous embodiment of the invention, block ignition is initiated by the fusion laser pulses. For this purpose, the fusion laser pulses preferably have a duration of less than 5 ps and/or a power of at least 1 petawatt. The fusion pulsed laser source for generating the fusion laser pulses having a duration of less than 5 ps preferably comprises the same type of source as the 10 PW-ps laser assembly known from the Institute of Laser Engineering at Osaka University.

The fusion laser pulses preferably have a contrast ratio of at least 106. To achieve this, advance pulses are particularly preferably suppressed up to a time of less than 5 picoseconds before the arrival of a (main) fusion laser pulse at the fusion fuel. Furthermore, benefits in terms of triggering the fusion reaction result when the fusion laser pulses have an intensity of at least 1017 watts per square centimeter upon arrival at the fusion fuel.

According to a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, the fusion fuel is partially or fully encapsulated by a cover layer, particularly on the side of laser-plasma interaction, the cover layer being made of a material which has an atomic weight of greater than 100. The pulse transmission for generating the fusion flame in the reaction fuel is advantageously increased as a result. The cover layer preferably has a thickness equal to or less than 5 microns, and/or it may be formed by vapor deposition.
When the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un celebrated the launch of a powerful new missile last month, he was surrounded by a group of top scientists and officials.

1 Jang Chang-ha Scientist 2 Jon Il-ho Scientist 3 Kim Rak-gyom Commander of rocket forces 4 Yu Jin Munitions industry official 1 Jang Chang-ha Scientist 3 Kim Rak-gyom Military commander 2 Jon Il-ho Scientist 4 Yu Jin Munitions official 3 Kim Rak-gyom Military commander 2 Jon Il-ho Scientist 1 Jang Chang-ha Scientist 4 Yu Jin Munitions official 3 Kim Rak-gyom Commander of rocket forces 1 Jang Chang-ha Scientist 2 Jon Il-ho Scientist 4 Yu Jin Munitions industry official Korean Central News Agency, via European Pressphoto Agency

State media did not identify them, but they have all been seen with Mr. Kim before.

6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 1 Jang Chang-ha 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 1 Jang Chang-ha 6 Kim Jong-sik 6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 1 Jang Chang-ha 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 6 Kim Jong-sik 1 Jang Chang-ha Korean Central News Agency, via Reuters

These men  known by nicknames such as the nuclear duo and the missile quartet  have built an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears capable of hitting any city in the United States, an extraordinary scientific achievement for the worlds most isolated country.

1 Jang Chang-ha 6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol 1 Jang Chang-ha 6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol 1 Jang Chang-ha 6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

At only 33, Mr. Kim has been ruthless about consolidating power, executing scores of senior officials, including his own uncle. But he has showered his regimes scientists with incentives and adulation, turning them into public heroes and symbols of national progress.

Korean Central Television, via Reuters

We have never heard of him killing scientists, said Choi Hyun-kyoo, a senior researcher in South Korea who runs NK Tech, a database of North Korean scientific publications. He is someone who understands that trial and error are part of doing science.

Analysts are still trying to explain how North Korea managed to overcome decades of international sanctions and make so much progress so quickly. But it is clear the nation has accumulated a significant scientific foundation despite its backward image.

Its new ICBM is a feat of physics and engineering that has stunned the world, and each of its six nuclear tests has been more powerful than the last, boosting Mr. Kims stature at home and his leverage abroad.

Still, it is unclear if the North has mastered the technology needed to keep a nuclear warhead intact as it re-enters the Earths atmosphere.

Science Worship

Mr. Kim has elevated science as an ideal in the regimes propaganda and put his fondness for scientists and engineers on prominent display across North Korea.

That is a departure from the practice of his predecessor and father, Kim Jong-il, who instead emphasized cinema and the arts as propaganda tools.

Four years after taking power in 2011, Kim Jong-un opened a six-lane avenue in Pyongyang known as Future Scientists Street, with gleaming apartment towers for scientists, engineers and their families.

Korean Central Television, via YouTube

He also opened a sprawling complex shaped like an atom that showcases the nations achievements in nuclear science.

Korean Central News Agency, via Reuters

Extravagant galas are held to celebrate scientific progress.

Korean Central Television, via Reuters

There is little doubt what is behind Mr. Kims passion for science. In ubiquitous propaganda posters, North Korean rockets soar into space and crash into the United States Capitol.

Korean Central News Agency, via Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

And after successful tests, scientists and engineers are honored with huge outdoor rallies. On their way to Pyongyang, their motorcades pass cheering crowds.

Korean Central Television, via Reuters

They are already pretty sophisticated in metallurgy, mechanical engineering, and to some extent chemistry, all areas tied to the nations civilian and military needs, said Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.

North Korea has imported scientific papers and journals from Japan for decades. And when it sends students abroad, it orders them to copy scientific literature and bring it home, said Michael Madden, who runs the North Korea Leadership Watch website.

United Nations sanctions prohibit the teaching of scientific material with military applications to North Korean students. Yet North Korea still sends students to countries such as China, India and even Germany, according to analysts and United Nations reports.

The internet has also been a gold mine for the North. While the state blocks public access, it allows elite scientists to scour the web for open-source data under the watch of security agents. The North has also built digital libraries of approved material that are accessible across the country.

North Korea funnels its top science students into military projects. Those selected for the nuclear and missile program are relocated from their hometowns and allowed to return for visits only with government minders, according to defectors and analysts.

But they are also given better food rations  and access to weapons designs and components obtained by the nations spies and hackers, who have focused on the former Soviet republics.

Familiar Faces

Scientists and engineers also enjoyed special privileges under Mr. Kims grandfather, Kim Il-sung, as he struggled to rebuild North Korea from the ruins of the Korean War. He embraced those trained in Japan when Korea was a Japanese colony and later sent hundreds of students to the Soviet Union, East Germany and other socialist states.

One of them was So Sang-guk, a nuclear scientist who emerged as a key figure in the nations nuclear program but seems to have retired.

Since taking power, Kim Jong-un appears to have overseen a generational shift at the top of the weapons program, elevating a group of scientists and officials about whom little is known.

He tends to assign officials to different projects, letting them compete for his attention and favor. But analysts have identified six figures who have repeatedly appeared alongside Mr. Kim at key moments  four tied to missile development and two associated with nuclear tests.

Two members of the missile quartet are scientists, according to state media. 1 Jang Chang-ha is 53 and president of the Academy of National Defense Science, and 2 Jon Il-ho, 61, is commonly described as an official in the field of scientific research.

1 2 1 2 AFP/Getty; Korean Central Television; Korean Central News Agency

5 Ri Pyong-chol appears to be the quartets highest-ranking member. A former air force commander, he serves as first deputy director of the ruling Workers Partys munitions industry department.

Korean Central News Agency; Korean Central Television

6 Kim Jong-sik, 49, first began appearing with Kim Jong-un in February 2016 and has an engineering background. His rise has coincided with an acceleration of test launches, but he and Mr. Ri did not attend last months launch.

Korean Central News Agency

7 Ri Hong-sop, the director of North Koreas Nuclear Weapons Institute, appears to be a leading figure in the nuclear program. He has been blacklisted by the United Nations since 2009.

Korean Central News Agency; Korean Central Television

8 Hong Sung-mu, the other member of the nuclear duo, is a former chief engineer at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, the birthplace of the Norths nuclear weapons program.

Korean Central Television; Korean Central News Agency

North Korea has also recruited scientists from the former Soviet Union, offering salaries as high as $10,000 per month, according to Lee Yun-keol, a defector who runs the North Korea Strategic Information Service Center in Seoul and has studied the history of the Norths nuclear program.

In 1992, a plane carrying 64 rocket scientists from Moscow was stopped before departing for North Korea. It is not clear how many, if any, former Soviet scientists made it to North Korea in the decades since.

Theodore A. Postol, a professor emeritus of science, technology and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the North has this fantastic record for flying rockets the first time and having them succeed.

We think its because they had rocket motors and designs that were basically Russian designs, and they had the expertise of Russian engineers who knew how to solve the problems, he said.

Father Figure

Little is left to chance in propaganda related to the weapons program. Even the smallest of details can be laden with significance.

By launching rockets and treating scientists like stars, Kim Jong-un gives his people a sense of progress, Mr. Lee said. Its not just a military project but also a political stratagem.

Mr. Kims annual visit to his grandfathers mausoleum is the most important ritual of his dynastic regime. The missile quartets proximity to him at the July event was a sign of their high status.

6 Kim Jong-sik 5 Ri Pyong-chol 1 Jang Chang-ha 2 Jon Il-ho 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 6 Kim Jong-sik 1 Jang Chang-ha 5 Ri Pyong-chol 2 Jon Il-ho 6 Kim Jong-sik 1 Jang Chang-ha Korean Central News Agency, via Reuters

Missile experts were shown sharing cigarettes with Mr. Kim after last months missile launch  an almost unimaginable privilege in a nation where he is portrayed as a godlike figure.

1 Jang Chang-ha 2 Jon Il-ho 3 Kim Rak-gyom 1 Jang Chang-ha 2 Jon Il-ho 3 Kim Rak-gyom 3 Kim Rak-gyom 1 Jang Chang-ha 2 Jon Il-ho Korean Central News Agency, via European Pressphoto Agency

After successful tests, Mr. Kim is sometimes even shown embracing his scientists, some of whom can be seen weeping.

Korean Central Television, via Reuters

Perhaps the most surprising photo came in March, when Mr. Kim carried an unidentified official on his back while celebrating the ground test of a new rocket engine.

Korean Central Television, via Yonhap News Agency

The image evoked an old Korean tradition in which young men give their aging parents piggyback rides as a symbolic gesture of gratitude for the hardship they have endured for their children. But others say Mr. Kim was actually playing the parent, carrying the scientist on his back as a father might a child.

In general, Mr. Kim is presented in the regimes propaganda as a father figure  a national patriarch whom the public is supposed to obey without question. That makes the symbolism of his interactions with these scientists and engineers even more striking.

In traditional Korean culture, it is generally inappropriate for a son to smoke with his father or even with a teacher. One would only do so with great reluctance  and gratitude  at the elders insistence. In effect, Mr. Kim is insisting that these scientists take a bow.

But even as he honors these men and celebrates their accomplishments, they remain bit players on the stage. Every scientist in North Korea, no matter how important, must credit Mr. Kim for his successes, just as the nations athletes never fail to cite him as inspiration for their achievements at the Olympics and other competitions.
Aadhaar Bill: SC notice to Centre on Jairam Ramesh's plea

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Dec 15: The Supreme Court sought a response from the Centre on a plea by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh challenging the government's decision to treat Aadhaar bill as a money bill and pass it during the budget session last year after rejecting amendments to it by the Rajya Sabha.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre and others, and tagged the plea of Ramesh with the clutch of petitions against the Aadhaar scheme itself for hearing by a five-judge Constitution bench on January 17 next year.

Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal, who appeared for Ramesh, said the government wrongly decided to term Aadhaar bill as a money bill and the issue needed to be debated and decided by the court. "Issue notice.

As similar matters are listed on January 17, let this matter be listed on the same day," the bench said. Earlier, the apex court had said that it was "tentatively not convinced" about the grounds cited by the Congress leader to challenge Lok Sabha Speaker's decision to certify a bill to amend Aadhaar law as a money bill.

The observation had come after the government contended that it fulfilled the criteria for certification as money bill as funds for welfare schemes for which the biometric identification number (Aadhaar) was necessary has to be drawn from the Consolidated Fund of India. The Centre took the stand that the decision of the Speaker cannot be brought under judicial scrutiny.

The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 was discussed and passed by the Lok Sabha on March 11 last year. It was then taken up in Rajya Sabha on March 16, where several amendments were made to it.

The bill was then returned the same evening to Lok Sabha which rejected all amendments proposed by the Upper House and passed it. A money bill contains provisions for various taxes and appropriation of funds, and can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha.

The Rajya Sabha cannot make amendments to such bills after passage by the Lok Sabha. The Rajya Sabha can suggest amendments but it depends on the Lok Sabha to accept or reject them. The NDA government chose to categorise the bill as a money bill as it lacked a majority in the Rajya Sabha.

PTI
RBI extends timelines for banks to use lockable cassettes in ATMs by March 2023

ATMs should not replenished with cash after 9 pm says govt

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The government has come up with a new set of rules to enhance security for ATMs. It has proposed that ATMS should not be replenished with cash after 9 pm in cities and private cash transportation agencies must collect money from the banks in the first half of the day.

The deadline for putting money in the ATMs in rural areas would be 6pm, and 4pm in Naxal-affected districts. Also, specially designed cash vans, fitted with CCTVs and GPS, must not carry more than Rs 5 crore per trip.

Two armed guards and a driver in each van must be trained to "disengage with the situation and drive vehicle to safety" in case of an attack, a home ministry official said.

These are part of the new SoPs proposed by the home ministry for private security agencies carrying out the task of replenishing ATMs. Nearly 8,000 private vans ferry around Rs 15,000 crore daily between banks, currency chests and ATMs across the country.

An additional Rs 5,000 crore is held up overnight by private security agencies in their private cash vaults on behalf of the banks.

The SoPs have been prepared after a spurt in attacks, hijacking and looting of cash vans which are seen as soft targets.

The SOPs have been sent to the law ministry for a detailed vetting and once approved, the guidelines will be issued to all state governments for implementation, the official said.

The government has proposed that for replenishment in ATMs, cash transportation agencies must collect money from the bank in the first half of the day and no cash loading of the ATMs or cash movement should be done after 9pm in urban centers across India.

Per trip, a cash van cannot carry more than Rs 5 crore, the new SOPs have proposed.

Specially designed and secure cash vans must be compulsorily deployed for carrying cash of over Rs 5 lakh per trip.

All cash transportation and ATM cash replenishment activities must only be carried out by operational staff who have undergone thorough antecedent check.

All state controlling authorities for Private Security Agencies Regulation Act, 2005 have been advised to enforce the above guidelines on all cash van agencies and review compliance from time to time.

Such vans must have two independent compartments, with the one for storing cash to be separated and locked from passenger compartment and the cash compartment being specially reinforced with steel and with one door which can be opened internally through a manual or electronic lock, another official said.

Every cash van must have the following minimum staff on board for every single cash transportation service -- one driver, two armed security guards and two ATM Officer or custodians, according to the guidelines

Cash van must always be escorted by two trained armed security guard on board.

More than two armed security guard may be deputed on a cash van depending on the amount of cash carried and as per individual company's insurance guidelines/ client contract/terrain of operation.

Antecedent check of all personnel involved in cash transportation operations is a must.

Licensed private security would be responsible to comply with the checks before an individual is allowed to participate in cash transportation and ATM cash replenishment operations.

All personnel involved in cash transportation and ATM cash replenishment activities must be adequately trained and certified, the guidelines said.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 6:36 [IST]
'Kantara' box office: Even as Bollywood's Akshays and Ajays struggle, this one hits Rs 75-crore mark

Bengaluru: Pro-Kannada group opposes Sunny Leone's participation in New Year event

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

A pro-Kannada organisation has planned protest against participation of Bollywood actress Sunny Leone in an event on the eve of new year in Bengaluru. The event titled as 'Sunny Night in Bengaluru NYE 2018' is scheduled to be held at White Orchid hotel.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene will protest in 15 districts in the state against Sunny Leone's participation. Last week, the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) had staged a demonstration and burnt the pictures of Leone, demanding the cancellation of her programme.

Karnataka: The members of pro- Kannada group Karnataka Rakshana Vedike Yuva Sene staged a demonstration protesting against actor Sunny Leone taking part in a new year eve event at Manyata Tech Park in Bengaluru pic.twitter.com/fwk7PetVP9  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

An advertising firm has organised the programme, which is scheduled to be held in a big hotel in the city, Harish, a KRV office-bearer, said. According to the pro-kannada group, Sunny Leone event is an "assault on the city's culture"

The company is hosting International DJ shows witnessing the performance of Sunny Leone for the first time in Bengaluru. The experiment of EDM, Bolly with Kannada Rappers. The highlight of the event is midnight Countdown by Sunny Leone.

OneIndia News
Is your debit/credit card expiring during the lockdown? Here are the options

Cabinet approves subsidizing of MDR charges on transactions less than Rs.2000

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

The Union Cabinet on Friday decided to bear Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) applicable on all debit card/BHIM UPI/ AePS transactions up to and including a value of Rs. 2000 for two years with effect from 1 January, 2018. The government will reimburse the amount to the banks.

A Committee comprising of Secretary Department of Financial Services, Secretary Ministry of Electronics & I.T. and the CEO, National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) will look into the industry cost structure of such transactions which will form the basis to determine the levels of reimbursement.

As a result of this approval, for all transactions less than Rs. 2000 in value, the consumer and the merchant will not suffer any additional burden in the form of MDR thereby leading to greater adoption of digital payment modes for such transactions. Since such transactions account for sizeable percentage of transaction volume, it will help to move towards a less cash economy.

It is estimated that the MDR to be reimbursed to the banks in respect of transactions less than Rs.2000 in value would be Rs.1,050 crore in FY 2018-19 and Rs.1,462 crore in FY 2019-20.

When payment is made at a merchant point of sale, MDR is payable by the merchant to the bank. Citing this, many people make cash payments inspite of having debit cards. Similarly, MDR is charged on payments made to merchants through BHIM UPI platform and AePS.

Also, following schemes and bills are approved by the cabinet.

Continuation of NLCPR scheme for North East till March 2020

Continuation of Centrally Sponsored Scheme of National Ayush Mission (NAM) from 01.04.2017 to 31.03.2020

Signing of MoU between India and Colombia in the field of agriculture and fisheries

Special package for employment generation in leather and footwear sector

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 17:53 [IST]
D-Syndicate shaken by split reports: Here is how they controlling the damage

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There have been a series of denials following the report about Chhota Shakeel breaking away from Dawood Ibrahim. An audio clips is now in circulation in which the news is being denied.

It comes on expected lines said an officer in the Mumbai police looking into the audio clip. The gang has been shaken up with the news of Shakeel breaking away from Dawood, the officer also said.

The Intelligence Bureau had said that Shakeel a close aide of Dawood had broken away from him owing to differences with the don's brother Anees.

Shakeel himself denied the report and said, " I am always with bhai."

The Mumbai police is now looking into the veracity of the several audio clips that have been doing the rounds since the story broke out.

An Intelligence Bureau official informed that the news has clearly sent panic waves among the gang members. Dawood who handled a succession crisis within the syndicate had asked Shakeel to oversee all the operations in India. He had instructed Anees to look into the international operations being carried out in other parts of the world.

An audio clip released by Shakeel's henchman Fahim Machmach was in circulation in Mumbai and other parts of the country where Dawood's network is strong. The news of a breakup had caused panic among the gang members and they had raised concerns about the future of the network. All the members in India were reporting to Shakeel, but carried out operations in the name of Dawood and hence there was absolute confusion.

IB sources informed that the news of the breakup is true and a visibly upset Shakeel has indeed moved away from Dawood's home in Clifton, Karachi. The IB says that the gang is now in damage control mode as such a split can affect operations of the gang adversely. For all practical purposes Shakeel was the boss of the Mumbai and Gujarat operations. All actions were being carried out in the name of Dawood. All these clarifications and audio clips are the doing of the Shakeel faction. This faction is aware that it cannot operate unless and until it used the name of Dawood.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 6:05 [IST]
Delhi: Bomb scare at Khan Market, sniffer dogs in action

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

A bomb disposal squad and sniffer dogs were rushed to Delhi's posh Khan Market area on Friday morning after the cops received a bomb threat call, said reports.

The sniffer dogs are literally searching every nook and cranny of the market for any trace of explosives. Nothing suspicious has been found till now.

A bus full of Delhi Police personnel and a couple of fire engines could also be spotted at the market which is located close to iconic India Gate.

In November, security forces sprung into action after an anonymous letter threatening to bomb Ahmedabad railway station was received by local authorities. The threat letter was later declared to be a hoax.

During Ivanka Trump's visit in November, the Hyderabad police arrested a mentally unstable man who made a hoax call about a bomb being planted in Falaknuma Palace where PM Modi was supposed to attend dinner with Ivanka.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 9:25 [IST]
"Every Hindu man must brandish a sword," says Telangana BJP MLA, booked

India

oi-Anusha

The Karnataka police have booked Telangana BJP MLA T. Raja Singh Lodh for inciteful speech made during a rally in Yadgir district of Karnataka. The BJP leader who is infamous for hate speeches had asked Hindu men to brandish swords in the future during his address.

"In the near future, every Hindu youth will have to brandish a sword to fight terrorism. You can do nothing with one sword. We need more. If needed, people should be ready to kill for the sake of religion," Raja Singh, MLA from Ghoshamahal in Telangana is heard saying in a video. (For video team: time code: 2.45- 3.17)

Raja Singh was at the Hindu Virat Samavesha organised on December 12 in Yadgir District of Karnataka. Speaking about Muslim population, he urged Hindu youth to have five children for every child in a Muslim household.

According to Raja Singh's 2014 election affidavit, there are 19 cases registered against him. Several cases of hate speech are also registered against the man who attacked the Karnataka government over Tipu Jayanti celebrations during his December 12 speech.

After the video of his inflammatory speech went viral, the Yadgir police conducted a probe and registered a case against the MLA. Raja Singh has been booked under IPC sections 143/145/147/149/153A and Indian arms act for brandishing a sword during his speech.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 22:54 [IST]
Cash transactions over the limit at hospitals, banquet halls may land you in trouble

Kerala to have online monitoring facility to check availability of medicines in govt hospitals

Private hospitals should take care of security issues on their own, says SC

GB Pant hospital winesses rush, had to reserve beds for Delhiites: Health minister

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Firmly backing his government's move to reserve 50% of the beds at GB Pant hospital for residents of Delhi, state Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Friday said that residents of the city were being deprived of the treatment at the super speciality hospital due to excessive rush.

A Delhi government order said that half of the beds at the GB Pant Hospital would be reserved for Delhiites requiring specialised treatment.

"When hospitals in Delhi get complicated cases, they refer it to GB Pant hospital. Lately, hospital is witnessing rush of patients due to which Delhi residents don't get time for treatment till 6 months or a year. So we took this decision," Health Minister Jain told ANI.

"It has been decided that 50 percent of the total beds shall be reserved for the patients who are the residents of Delhi and should have been referred by another Delhi Government Hospital," the government order said.

The state government runs more than 40 hospitals across the state. G B Pant Hospital has 714 beds and is the flagship super-specialty hospital of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD).

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 13:24 [IST]
Himachal was valued less on strength, more on Parliament seats before: PM Modi

Himachal: CBI announces Rs 10 lakh reward for info on Kotkhai gangrape-murder case

India

oi-Madhuri

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh to anyone from general public for providing credible information resulting in arrest of real culprits in Shimla rape and murder of a minor girl.

"The information can be given to the CBI over mobile numbers +919650394782 (Deputy SP, SC-I, CBI); 8219885920, 8219893590 (local numbers of Himachal Pradesh office); Landline numbers 011-24368637, 24368640 (SP, SC-I, CBI, Lodhi Road, New Delhi-), Mobile -9870530011 and email spscu2del@cbi.gov.in. The name and details of the informant will be kept secret," CBI spokesperson Abhishek Dayal said.

Earlier, CBI had arrested IG Zaidi, deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Manoj Joshi, sub-inspector (SI) Rajinder Singh, assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Deep Chand Sharma, head constables Surat Singh, Mohan Lal, Rafiq Ali and Ranjit Singh last Tuesday, and taken them to New Delhi.

The CBI registered two cases on the direction of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in July this year to probe the rape-and-murder of the 16-year-old girl and the second related to the custodial death of an accused, Suraj Singh, arrested by the Himachal Pradesh Police.

The girl, a Class X student, had gone missing on July 4 and her naked body was recovered from Haliala forests in Kotkhai on July 6.

The accused had lured her into the vehicle by offering a lift. They then took turns to rape her before the murder. Her body was found at a nearby forest two days later. Police have arrested all six people involved in the crime.

The accused were farm labourers, aged between 19 and 42 years, and settled in Kotkhai area. The police described the crime as a "blind rape-murder case".

The rape case created outrage in the state which went to the assembly polls last month.

OneIndia News
ED is 'completely independent' in what it does: Nirmala Sitharaman

FM Nirmala Sitharaman hints at possibility of Centre considering restoration of state status to J&K

India will continue to rely on close cooperation of US to address global economic challenges: Sitharaman

Major shake up on cards at Defence Ministry says Nirmala Sitharaman

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

In a bid to speed up various acquisition projects and ensure transperency a shake up is being given to the Defence Ministry, Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Defence said.

In an address at a industry chamber, she also said the government is seriously examining functioning of around 39 ordnance factories and possible ways to boost their productivity including through joining of hands by the private sector.

She said the efforts are on to ensure that the defence acquisition council (DAC) clears all the backlog relating to various procurements by December 31, emphasising that speeding up of decision making process has been one of her focus areas.

The DAC is defence ministry's highest decision making body on procurement.

"There is a sense of making sure that every aspect of this large ministry is given a shake up," Sitharaman said, adding the aim is to make a difference so that the ministry, which was sort of a cocooned, do things in a faster and transparent way.

On various acquisition projects, she said, "I may be confident enough to say that by December 31, at least DAC would be on the top of it in the sense that no more waiting list would be with me." She was addressing a FICCI event.

Sitharaman, who assumed charge of the ministry in September, also said ensuring transparency is a major priority area for her.

"The biggest compliance issue which we are definitely 100 per cent following is to have greater transparency, put everything in the public domain and make sure that every decision stands up to the principle of accountability," she said.

Her comments came in the backdrop of the Congress accusing the government of flouting laid down norms in sealing a deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France.

The party had recently raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer. The government had rejected the allegations.

Asked about handing over of the strategically located Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease by the Sri Lankan government, she only said India has been watchful of all the developments in the neighbourhood.

On ordnance factories, she said government was doing a major review of their work and examine whether they can have joint venture or benefit benefit from technology transfer.

Talking about the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Sitharaman said it should identify the patentable products so that they can be used commercially.

Referring to the strategic partnership model, she said it was brought to support the domestic defence industry and to ensure that India, which is now a leading importer of military hardware, becomes a defence exporter.

The strategic partnership was unveiled nearly four months back under which domestic defence manufacturers can tie up with leading global defence majors to manufacture specific military platforms like fighter jets.

Sitharaman also said the government was in the process of identifying "organically grown" defence industry clusters in various parts of the country so that they can be supported.

"We are planning to tell them about the requirement of the armed forces for the next 40-50 years so that they can lay a roadmap for their capacity building," she said.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 5:59 [IST]
Central Vista to be unveiled by PM Modi today | 7 things to know

Winter session of Parliament likely to commence from December first week in old building

Modi appeals for 'positive' debate, Opposition says govt should create 'conducive atmosphere'

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said that the Congress was in favour of positive discussions during the Winter Session of Parliament, but put the onus on the government to "create a conducive" atmosphere for it.

Kharge was reacting to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal for positive and innovative arguments in the House.

"We are always in favor of constructive suggestion,we are very much interested to run Parliament & issues to be discussed, provided the Govt should take interest and create such an atmosphere which is conducive for discussion. They should respect the opposition," Kharge told ANI.

Modi had earlier said that a fruitful and constructive Winter Session was in the best interest of the country.

"We look forward to having a fruitful session, hope to see positive approach this WinterSession . Democracy will surely strengthen," the PM had said.

After this, the Prime Minister introduced the newly inducted Cabinet Ministers in both the houses.

Uproar in Rajya Sabha Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar's disqualification issue was raised by the Opposition in Rajya Sabha. Some mebers raised slogans of 'Taanashahi nahin chalegi' (We oppose dictatorship). 'All in Well, not well!': Venkaiah Naidu Congress leader Ghulamnazad raises Sharad Yadav expulsion issue, Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman VenkaiahNaidu said it is not an issue of discussion. Naidu later adjourned the House till Monday after making obituary references. Congress demands apology from PM Modi The Congress also demanded the Prime Minister's apology for his remarks on former prime minister Manmohan Singh. The Congress also raked up the issue of PM Modi allegations of some Congress leaders having met Pakistan officials. For the first time a Prime Minister has accused Former PM, former Vice President and diplomats of conspiring with Pakistan for Gujarat elections. PM must clarify in the Parliament: Ghulam Nabi Azad,Congress on winter session of Parliament pic.twitter.com/SvfPUIj0fg  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017 Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Later, Azad, in Parliament, said 'ye sadharan aarop nahi hai' (these are not normal allegations).

(Images credit - ANI/Twitter)

The Lok Sabha was then adjourned till 11 am on Monday.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 12:24 [IST]
Rajasthan Love Jihad: 516 people donate Rs 2.75 lakh to wife of accused

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Recommended Video

Rajasthan Love Jihad : 516 donors had transferred Rs 2.75 lakh in accused's account | Oneindia News

The police have found that 516 donors had transferred Rs 2.75 lakh to the wife of Shambulal Regar who is in custody for killing a Muslim migrant labour and also filming the barbaric act.

The money was donated to the wife of the accused to fight the case. The police have swooped in and frozen the bank account.

Two local businessmen were also arrested for allegedly circulating images on social media of receipts acknowledging their donations to the account of Regar's wife, police said.

"Rs 2.75 lakh was deposited into Sita's bank account, details of which were circulated on social media. 516 people from across the country deposited the money for fighting Regar's case. Police have frozen the account," IG (Udaipur Range) Anand Shrivastava said.

SHO of Bhim police station, Gyanendra Singh said two businessmen, Prakash Singh and Dinesh Singh, were arrested under relevant sections of the law for circulating receipts of donations on social media.

The administration has imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC in Rajsamand after some right-wing groups announced to take out processions in support of Regar today.

"All processions, rallies and protests have been banned and those who defy the rule of law will be dealt with accordingly," Shrivastava said.

Regar, 36, had hacked Mohammed Afrazul to death and burnt the body on December 6.

Afrazul had migrated to Rajsamand from West Bengal for work. Regar had roped in his 14-year-old nephew to film the killing. After the barbaric act, Regar posted videos of the killing with inflammatory and communal comments to defend the act.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 6:51 [IST]
Places of Worship Act: SC gives more time to Centre to file affidavit by Dec 12

SC allows trial against Karunanidhis daughter in land grab case

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government which had questioned the discharge of Selvi, daughter of M Karunanidhi in a case of alleged land grabbing.

The Madras High Court had discharged Selvi in the case. The HC had allowed a petition filed by Selvi seeking her discharge from the case.

The case on hand pertained to a case of alleged land grabbing in the Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu. The case was initially filed before a court in Poonamalee. However Selvi filed an appeal and the case was transferred to the Madras High Court.

Following the HC order, the TN government went in appeal against the verdict. The government while citing the gravity of the case said that the appeal be allowed and Selvi face trial. The SC while allowing the appeal directed Selvi to undergo trial in the case.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 12:01 [IST]
Thank you Sushma Swaraj for once again granting medical visas to ailing Pakistani children

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, Dec 15: Whenever there is a talk about animosity between India and Pakistan, don't lose hope, just think about minister of external affairs Sushma Swaraj and her generosity that is not only assisting ailing Pakistanis to get a new lease of life, but is also helping to build bridges between the two neighbouring countries at loggerheads with each other for more than seven decades.

Since 2014 when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre and Swaraj became the external affairs minister, the veteran politician has made it a point to always open India's gates for anyone in need of medical assistance in Pakistan.

Thus it has been on innumerable occasions, even when the relationship between India and Pakistan experienced turbulent times, Swaraj never stopped granting medical visas for Pakistani patients.

Once again, Swaraj repeated her warm gesture towards Pakistanis by granting medical visas to seven persons, including five children.

On Thursday, the Union minister tweeted to announce that the Indian government has granted visas to five Pakistani children, including a 10-month-old baby, for medical treatment in India.

"There is a request for medical visas from some Pakistani children--Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 years), Mohit (7 years), Zainab Shahzadi (8 years) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 years). We grant visas for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India," Swaraj tweeted.

There is a request for medical visa from some Pakistani children - Muhammad Ahmad (10 months), Abuzar (7 yrs), Mohit (7 yrs), Zainab Shahzadi (8 yrs) and Muhammad Zain Aslam (9 yrs). We grant visa for all these Pakistani children for their treatment in India.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 14, 2017

She also announced accepting the request for medical visas of two other Pakistani nationals.

"Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visas. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too," Swaraj tweeted.

Pakistani nationals Altaf Hussain and Amir Raza have also requested for medical visa. On the recommendation of Indian High Commission in Pakistan, we accept their requests too. @IndiainPakistan  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 14, 2017

"I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visas for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery," she added.

I have received the report from Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will issue visa for your father Haji Ashique Hussain for his liver transplant surgery in India immediately and pray for his early recovery. @IndiainPakistan https://t.co/gI6TWt66i1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) December 14, 2017

At a time when the ruling BJP has been accused of promoting "hyper-nationalism" by its critics and political opponents, the senior cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi government keeps our hope in the country's secular and democratic fabrics.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 8:35 [IST]
Places of Worship Act: SC gives more time to Centre to file affidavit by Dec 12

Union cabinet clears triple talaq bill

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Recommended Video

Triple Talaq: Union cabinet clears bill making Islamic practice a criminal offense | Oneindia News

The Union cabinet on Friday cleared triple talaq bill which makes the Islamic practice a criminal offence. The controversial Islamic practice allows men to leave their wives immediately by stating "talaq" (divorce) three times.

The Supreme Court had on August 22 has struck down triple talaq, calling the Islamic practice unconstitutional and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, which provides for equality before the law.

But there have been reports of a number of divorces by way of 'talaq-e-biddat' even after the judgement. Despite advisories being issued to the members of the community against the archaic practice, there seemed to be no decline in the cases of divorce by 'talaq-e-biddat'.

Instant triple talaq to attract 3 year jail term: Draft law

In a recent case of 'talaq-e-biddat', a man working with a leading educational institution divorced his wife through WhatsApp and SMS.

Early this month, the Uttar Pradesh government became the first state to approve the Centre's draft law to end the practice of instant triple talaq under which a Muslim man trying to divorce his wife by uttering "talaq" three times would face three years imprisonment and a fine.

The draft 'Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill' was considered by the Union cabinet which gave its nod, the functionary said. The draft was prepared by an inter-ministerial group headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

The other members included External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and his junior in the ministry P P Chaudhary.

As per the draft, triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat will be a "cognisable and non-bailable" offence punishable with three years imprisonment and the wife will be entitled to maintenance and the custody of children if they are minor.

(With agency inputs)
Madrasa survey in UP complete, next up is meeting with government: Minister

Forcible conversion: 19 year old Nidhi pushed to death by Mohammad Sufiyan in UP

To boost connectivity in North-East, PM Modi to inaugurate first greenfield airport in Arunachal Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh Assembly adjourned for 15 minutes amid din

India

pti-PTI

Lucknow, December 15: The Question Hour in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly was derailed for the second day today due to strident criticism by the opposition Samajwadi Party of power tariff hike in the state.

As soon as the House met for the day, Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary raised the issue and wanted an immediate roll back.

Chaudhary was soon joined by other opposition members leading to din in the House. Speaker Hriday Narain Dixit urged the agitated members to allow him to take up the proceedings and raise their issues during the Zero Hour.

However, they did not relent and started raising slogans and soon trooped into the well of the House. The speaker urged them to take their seats, but his request went unheeded.

He then adjourned the House for 15 minutes. In the din, Parrliamentary Affairs Minister Suresh Khanna was heard telling the opposition SP that the UP electorate had rejected them in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 2017 Assembly elections and now in the civic body polls.

"They have nothing constructive to do but to raise non- issues in the House," he said, provoking the SP benches. Power Minister Shrikant Sharma, however, justified the hike.

PTI
This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how

With the number of anonymous rogues from Pak rising, here's how BSF is beating down the drones

When Operation Arjun forced the Pakistanis to wave the white flag

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

It is a well known fact that Operation Arjun was launched the Border Security Forces in the month of August to pay Pakistan back. There were incidents of unprovoked firing, cease fire violations being reported from across the border on a daily basis.

The border has gone relatively quiet now and this operation forced the Pakistan army to wave the white flag and also seeking Director General level talks.

The BSF launched Operation Arjun. This operation lasted all through September and October as a result of which the guns from Pakistan fell silent.

The operation targeted the farms, residences of the ISI officials and retired Paksitan army officers. Operation Arjun was launched in August after a BSF jawan was killed by a sniper of the Pakistan rangers.

In an official document, the BSF says that it used small and medium arms including aerial weapons through which it caused heavy casualties on the Pakistan side. At first Pakistan retaliated heavily especially at the Akhnoor sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

How India's 'Operation Arjun' made Pakistan squirm and beg for peace

However the operations by the BSF continued and in the months of August and September, seven Pakistan Rangers personnel and militant infiltrators as well as 11 Pakistani civilians were killed.

The document also states that Operation Arjun changed the situation dramatically. This led to a request being made by Pakistan Rangers at the level of the level of the Director General for bi-annual talks. The BSF agreed to the same and there were three days of talks held between November 8 and 11.

BSF officials say that they have managed to silence the Pakistanis. However the success of the talks cannot be fully guaranteed. Pakistan has come to the table out of fear and not in a friendly atmosphere.

OneIndia News
Who is triggering the mysterious explosions in Digha, West Bengal

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Another mysterious explosion was reported from the coastal town of Digha in West Bengal. This is the second time that such an explosion is being heard and the source remains unidentified.

This time around the sound was much lesser when compared to the twin explosion sounds that were heard in August. The explosion that took place on Thursday triggered a wave of panic among the tourists and residents of the area.

The police said that the sound was heard in some part of the coastal town in East Midnapore. It was however lesser in intensity when compared to the August explosions, the police also said.

There has been no injury or damage that was reported following the incident. In the August 26 explosion, window panes of some seaside hotels were shattered and cracked walls were reported. The police had at that time barred tourists from bathing in the sea. The police had also issued an alert in the area at that time.

On Thursday following the explosion several tourists bathing in the sea came out of the water. Many also came out of their homes after hearing the loud sound. The police however told the people not to panic and also added that necessary precautions had been taken following the August incident.

The source of the explosion is not known as yet. Sources however say that it could be due to the missile testing in Chandipur, Odisha which is around 50 kilometres from the area. However none of the officials were able to confirm the exact source of the explosion.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Friday, December 15, 2017, 6:59 [IST]
Central Vista to be unveiled by PM Modi today | 7 things to know

Winter session of Parliament likely to commence from December first week in old building

Parliament: Winter session begins, several key bills slated to be tabled

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

The Winter Session of Parliament, with 14 sittings of both the Houses, began on Friday. The session will end on January 5, 2018. The surrent session is the shortest in 20 years.

The session's first full day will be on Monday as the first day was adjourned after obituary references to three former parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the newly inducted Cabinet Ministers in Parliament after which both obituary references were made. Both the houses were adjourned till Monday.

During the session, the Muslim Women Right on Marriage Bill related to triple talaq issue and legislation on granting Constitutional status to the Backward Class Commission are among the important bills which will be taken up for discussion and passage.

41 items of Govt Business (40 Bills and 1 Financial Item) identified for being taken up in houses of Parliament during #WinterSession. List also includes The Central Goods & Services Tax(Compensation to States)Bill 2017,The Muslim Women(Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017  ANI (@ANI) December 15, 2017

The other important bills which are going to come for debate are:

The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Third Amendment) Bill, 2017

Law Prohibiting Triple Talaq

Bill To Legalise the Use of Marijuana

Bill Granting NRI The Power to Vote

Bill to Grant Rights to Transgenders

Indian Forest Amendment Act

Education for Children - The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017, proposes a 'regular examination' which will be held in class 5 and class 8 at the end of every academic year.

Citizenship for 'Minorities'

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Thursday said the Supplementary Demand for Grants and three ordinances including GST compensation to states will also be taken up.

In the Rajya Sabha, no government business is scheduled for today and private members business will be taken up being Friday.

In a message, Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has appealed to the government to give opportunity to the opposition to raise their issues. He also asked the opposition to co-operate with the ruling bench so that Parliament can fulfill the aspirations of people.

The session is likely to be stormy as the opposition is gearing up to raise several issues to corner the treasury bench even though the government has expressed its willingness to discuss any issue.

OneIndia News
43 Indian fishermen arrested by Pakistan authorities

International

pti-PTI

Karachi/Ahmedabad, Dec 15: Forty-three Indian fishermen have been arrested and seven of their boats seized by Pakistani authorities for allegedly fishing illegally in the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, officials said.

The fishermen were arrested yesterday and have been handed over to the Docks police, a spokesman for Pakistan's Maritime Security Force (PMSF) said. "The Docks police will now present them before a judicial magistrate who will most likely send them in judicial remand to jail," Commander Wajid Nawaz Chaudhary said.

The PMSF has arrested 144 Indian fishermen over the last one month for alleged illegal fishing in Pakistani waters. With the latest apprehensions, the number of such arrests of Indian fishermen this year has gone up to over 400. The PMSF spokesman said the Indian fishermen were arrested as the Pakistan maritime security forces were conducting exercises near Pakistan's Maritime border in the Arabian Sea. "Speedboats and helicopters were used in the exercise when the Indian fishermen were spotted in our waters," Chaudhary said.

Meanwhile, secretary of the Porbandar-based National Fishworkers' Forum (NFF) Manish Lodhari said that fishermen, who were from different parts of Gujarat, had sailed off the coastal town of Porbandar a few days ago. He said they were apprehended by the PMSF near Jakhau coast and then taken to Karachi port. Fishermen from Pakistan and India are frequently detained for illegally fishing in each other's territorial waters since the Arabian Sea does not have a clearly defined marine border and the wooden boats lack the technology to avoid drifting away.

Pakistani fishermen, mostly belonging to the Sindh province, are being apprehended by the Border Security Force (BSF) and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) for illegally fishing in the creek area along the Indo-Pak border in Kutch district in Gujarat. In November, both the BSF and the ICG had apprehended 23 Pakistani fishermen and seized 11 of their boats from creek area, while the PMSF had apprehended a total of 101 Indian fishermen and seized 15 their boats for allegedly enterning into Pakistani waters.

On November 10, the PMSF arrested 55 Indian fishermen and seized nine fishing boats while on November 12 four boats were seized and 23 Indian fishermen arrested for allegedly entering into Pakistani waters. Choudhary said on November 16 also the PMSA had arrested a batch of 23 Indian fishermen and seized four Indian boats.

In October, the PMSA had arrested two batches of 50 Indian fishermen. On October 29, the Pakistan government had released 68 Indian fishermen from Malir jail as a goodwill gesture. A total of 438 Indian fishermen were released in 12 days time in December 2016-January 2017 by Pakistani authorities from the Landhi and Malir jails in Karachi.

PTI
Man tries to kill woman colleague because she refuses to marry him

Dutch police: 2 dead, 3 hurt in stabbings in Maastricht

International

pti-PTI

The Hague, December 15: Two people were killed and three injured on Friday in two stabbing incidents in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht, authorities said. Police said in a tweet that one suspect had been detained on suspicion of involvement in the incidents.

They released no details on the suspect or the victims. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was not a terror attack, echoing comments from the police.

"It is terrible what happened there. People were killed and others were injured," Rutte said at an EU summit in Brussels.

The incidents happened in a residential neighborhood in the north of Maastricht, a city 215 kilometers south of the capital, Amsterdam, and close to the Netherlands' borders with Belgium and Germany.

Police said a man was stabbed to death during a fight around 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) and a suspect fled the scene.

Ten minutes later a woman was fatally stabbed and two men injured about a kilometer (about a half mile) away from the first incident. A third wounded person was later found at a local mosque. Police said the investigations are continuing.

PTI
Berlin has announced the completion of its first liquified natural gas terminal, the first of five facilities across the country as..

euronews (in English) 16 Nov 2022
euronews (in English) 16 Nov 2022

Berlin has announced the completion of its first liquified natural gas terminal, the first of five facilities across the country as..
Amsterdam is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the Dutch province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the "Venice of the North", for its large number of canals, now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Newsy 18 Oct 2022

Watch VideoThe U.S. has dozens of distinct regional accents reflecting not just place, but also race and ancestry. But these days,..
OK! Magazine 17 Nov 2022

An insider claims director Garrett Bradley was the one who walked out on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's upcoming project.
Rumble 17 Nov 2022

1.4 million votes left to be counted especially from Long Island. everyone knows all L. I is Republican zone and the fakenews..
Louisiana is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties, making it one of only two U.S. states not subdivided into counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans, with a population of roughly 383,000 people.
Montana is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan to the north. It is the fourth-largest state by area, the eighth-least populous state, and the third-least densely populated state. Its state capital is Helena. The western half of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges, while the eastern half is characterized by western prairie terrain and badlands, with smaller mountain ranges found throughout the state. In all, 77 named ranges are part of the Rocky Mountains.
Rumble 21 Oct 2022

Joe Biden is hitting the campaign trail (sort of) all over the country and luckily for us, everything he touches turns to sh*t-..
Rumble 17 Nov 2022

"It became clear to me from what people told me particularly officials who worked for the FDA, who worked for the NIH, who..
Hull Daily Mail 10 Nov 2022

The youngster discovered the stranger sitting in his seat when he boarded the flight from Budapest
autoevolution 17 Nov 2022

Its been only a few short months since the James Webb Space Telescope became operational, and weve already been treated with..
Utopian communities rarely last. How have the Hutterites done it over four centuries?



Hutterites in Alberta

(Image by Happy Money Saver) Details DMCA



Rooted in the Anabaptist movement, from which groups such as the Amish and the Mennonites also derive, the Hutterites first formed in what is now Austria's Tyrol in the 16th century under the leadership of Jakob Hutter. The sect fled persecution across the continent before ultimately relocating to Canada and the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For his film The Hutterites (1964), the Canadian director Colin Low was given rare access to a Hutterite colony in Alberta, where he detailed the community's history, beliefs and social structure, emphasising the ways in which the Hutterites both intersected with and insulated themselves from the modern world. The resulting documentary is a rich portrait of a resilient sectarian society characterised by its strict devotion to simplicity and community inspired by an idiosyncratic interpretation of New Testament Christian values.

1964 film from the National Film Board of Canada

Aeon article


Los Angeles March for Immigrant Rights

(Image by mollyktadams) Details DMCA



Fascism is all too often relegated to the history books.

The word conjures up a period in which civilized societies treated democracy with contempt, engaged in acts of systemic violence, practised extermination and elimination, supported an "apocalyptic populism," suppressed dissent, promoted a hyper-nationalism, displayed contempt for women, embraced militarism as an absolute ideal and insisted on obedience to a self-proclaimed prophet.

But the seeds that produced such fascist horrors have once again sprung to life, returning in new social and political forms.

Today, a culture of fear dominates American society, one marked by massive inequities in wealth and power that not only uphold structures of domination, but also view differences as threats, compassion as weakness and shared responsibilities --if not the common good itself -- as pathology.

Fascist thought is on the rise all over the world, but its most blatant and dangerous manifestation has emerged in the Trump administration.

Fear and the ethos of mass consumerism --coupled with widespread insecurity and ignorance --now drive people into a malignant notion of security, self-inflicted cynicism and into the arms of demagogues like Trump. For too many Americans, critical thinking and hope have given way to emotional bonding and the revival of the discourse of ultra-nationalism and bigotry.

Trump is not Hitler in that he has not created concentration camps, shut down the critical media or rounded up dissidents; moreover, the United States at the current historical moment is not the Weimar Republic.

But in the Trump era, remnants of fascism exist in different shapes and forms and include a celebration of the cult of the leader, systemic racism, the embrace of a toxic macho-populism and state support for ultra-nationalism, racism and the threat of violence against critics.

All of these elements are evident in Trump's rhetoric and policy initiatives.

Trump's corporate brand of neoliberal fascism is highly visible in right-wing policies that favour deregulation, corporate power and the interests of the ultra-rich.

Instead of draining the corporate swamp, Trump has embraced the merging of corporate and political power, and in doing so has turned the state into a battering ram designed to serve the most powerful and wealthiest members of society.

Trump's mode of fascism is a unique product of our times, our commercial culture, and a corporate controlled media, all of which saps the foundations of a viable democracy.

American culture is advertising-saturated and celebrity-based, and has permitted a rich self-promoter to abandon any pretense of civility, accountability or integrity in order to hype, scam and market his way to power.

Call it Fascism, American-Style. It's returned in the shadow of neoliberalism, with its celebration of the market as the template for governing all of society and its concentration of economic and political power in relatively few hands.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof;" - Constitution of the United States

When you and I read this fragment from the Constitution, it may not occur to us that it prohibits gerrymandering, but it doesn't authorize gerrymandering either. A small group of creative lawyers is challenging gerrymandering in Pennsylvania, based on the theory that this "Elections Clause" is meant to authorize only even-handed procedural provisions for facilitating elections. There are other, parallel challenges to gerrymandering proceeding through courts in several states, including Pennsylvania, but because of the way the political cards fall, this odd theory has a chance the others don't. In any case, after more than 200 years of historical gerrymandering, the subject has opened the question for discussion, both political and legal. We may hope that this challenge becomes the wedge that forces this issue, ultimately reversing one of the oldest ways in which American democracy has been subverted.

Gerrymandering's long history

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of political boundaries for the purpose of affecting electoral outcomes. It's a well-established American tradition:

Before the term "gerrymander" was coined and even prior to the U.S. Constitution taking effect, redistricting was already being employed for political gain. Late in 1788, just after Virginia voted to ratify the Constitution and join the union, former Governor Patrick Henry persuaded the state legislature to remake the 5th Congressional District, forcing Henry's political enemy James Madison to run against the formidable James Monroe. The ploy failed and Madison won anyway, eventually becoming the nation's fourth president. Monroe's career wasn't over, though: He succeeded Madison as president. The origin of the word "gerrymander" was a combination of "salamander" and the last name of Elbridge Gerry, who as governor of Massachusetts in 1812 signed into law a redistricting plan designed to benefit his political party. The term was put into print for the first time by the Federalist-leaning Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812. Printed alongside this cartoon, it described a newly formed district in Essex County, said to resemble the shape of a salamander. [ Emily Barasch, writing for The Atlantic ]

Beginning after the 2000 census, the Republican-dominated state legislature took gerrymandering to a new level in Pennsylvania. With databases that know the past voter performance of every precinct in the state, and a computer program that can draw lines in microscopic detail, they had the tools they needed to optimize the system to get the most House seats with the least number of voters. Pennsylvania is the posterchild for this practice. Most of the state's voters are in the Philadelphia,Pittsburgh, and smaller city metropolitan areas, where they trend Democratic, while most of the state's land area is in the farms and hills in between, which trends Republican.



Pennsylvania's Congressional Districts

(Image by Pennsylvania) Details DMCA



Historically, statewide elections tend to turn out D more often than R. But by computerized gerrymandering, the Republican legislature (also gerrymandered) has managed to divide the state into 13 solidly Republican districts and 5 Democratic districts (72% of the representation, with less than 50% of the votes).

In the Philadelphia suburbs, all of the available Republicans from three separate regions are rounded up to make a single district, connected by land bridges. Without this extreme contortion, the whole region would be Democratic territory,

One of the completely predictable outcomes of this practice is that it practically guarantees re-election prospects for Congressional representatives. Every seat is engineered to be secure against challenge. Designated Democratic CDs in Pennsylvania have up to 90% registered Democrats. Republican CDs have 55-60% Republican voters, which is just enough to make the incumbent un-challengeable, while spreading the Republican voters out for maximum impact.

Thus, even though the map favors Republicans to a maximum extent, Democratic incumbents are ultra-secure in their seats. Rep Bob Brady is a long-time political powerhouse in the PA Democratic party, and he approved the 2011 Republican redistricting on condition that his own CD be mapped with a solid white majority, insulating him against challenge in the primary by a candidate of color.

Challenges in State courts, based on 14th Amendment

Last month, the Public Interest Law Center and League of Women Voters, sued in PA state court, challenging gerrymandering based on a provision in the state Constitution that says counties and municipalities should not be broken up unless absolutely necessary. For example, Montgomery County could have one CD all its own, and the rest of the county could be combined with Philadelphia or Bucks to form a second; but instead, Montgomery is carved out and parceled among 5 CDs, largely along partisan lines. The law seems clear and the logic appears straightforward and explicit. It requires no inference or interpretation. Furthermore, the PA State Supreme Court now has a majority of Democrats. The fly in the ointment is that a similar court case is ongoing in Wisconsin, and it is currently on appeal, waiting for decision in the US Supreme Court. Defendants in the PA suit argued that trial should be delayed until SCOTUS makes a decision, to avoid having to go back and try the case over again with new rules that SCOTUS might lay out. The real motive is delay. SCOTUS often announces its decisions for the year in June, and if the PA suit can be held off until then, it will be too late to change the map for the 2018 primary and general elections. Last month, the PA Supreme Court said the trial should go forward expeditiously, so that an order for a new map could be issued as early as January. But if the order is issued, it may still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court, which could order the new map be put on hold during the appeal, which would again be too late for the 2018 election. [I'm not sure that the defendants have an automatic right of appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in the state Court case, since it doesn't implicate any federal rights.]

Challenge in Federal court based on Times, Places, and Manner

A second lawsuit was brought in parallel in Federal court, and was tried last week. It is the brainchild of Tom Geoghegan, a labor lawyer from Chicago. The idea is that the Constitution intended to give power to states about how to administer elections procedurally, but the idea that the states would use this power to rig the elections and determine the outcome demographically was never envisioned and never intended in the wording of the Constitution. Geoghegan teamed up with Alice Ballard, a Philadelphia employment lawyer, to bring his case in Pennsylvania, because of the combination of especially egregious gerrymandering and favorable political climate in the Executive branch. According Geoghegan and Ballard's complaint,

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
From Consortium News



The New York Times building in Manhattan.

(Image by (Photo credit: Robert Parry)) Details DMCA



If Russia-gate is the massive scandal that we are told it is by so many Important People -- across the U.S. mainstream media and the political world -- why do its proponents have to resort to lies and exaggerations to maintain the pillars supporting the narrative?

A new example on Thursday was The New York Times' statement that a Russian agency "spent $100,000 on [Facebook's] platform to influence the United States presidential election last year" -- when the Times knows that statement is not true.

According to Facebook, only 44 percent of that amount appeared before the U.S. presidential election in 2016 (i.e., $44,000) and few of those ads addressed the actual election. And, we know that the Times is aware of the truth because it was acknowledged in a Times article in early October.

As part of that article, Times correspondents Mike Isaac and Scott Shane reported that the ads also covered a wide range of other topics: "There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads."

As nefarious as the Times may think it is for Russians to promote a Facebook page about "adorable puppies," the absurdity of that concern -- and the dishonesty of the Times then "forgetting" what it itself reported just two months ago about the timing and contents of these "Russian-linked ads" -- tells you a great deal about Russia-gate.

On Thursday, the Times chose to distort what it already knew to be true presumably because it didn't want to make the $100,000 ad buy (which is not a particularly large sum) look even smaller and less significant by acknowledging the pre-election total was less than half that modest amount -- and even that total had little to do with the election.

Why would the Times lie? Because to tell the truth would undercut the narrative of evil Russians defeating Hillary Clinton and putting Donald Trump in the White House -- the core narrative of Russia-gate.

Another relevant fact is that Facebook failed to find any "Russian-linked" ads during its first two searches and only detected the $100,000 after a personal visit from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leading legislator on Internet regulation.

In other words, Facebook's corporate executives dredged up something to appease Warner. That way, Warner and the Democrats could blame Russia for the Trump presidency, sparing further criticism of Clinton's dreadful campaign (in which she labeled half of Trump's voters "deplorables") and her neo-liberal economic policies (and neo-conservative foreign policies) that have alienated much of America's working class as well as many progressives.

Leaving Out Context

The Times also might have put the $100,000 in "Russian-linked" ads over a two-year period in the context of Facebook's $27 billion in annual revenue, but the Times didn't do that -- apparently because it would make even the full $100,000 look like a pittance.

Trimming the total down to $44,000 and admitting that only a few of those ads actually dealt with Clinton and Trump would be even worse for the Russia-gate narrative.

Ironically, the Times' latest false depiction of the $100,000 in ads as designed "to influence" the 2016 election appeared in an article about Facebook determining that other Russian-linked ads, which supposedly had a powerful effect on Great Britain's Brexit vote, totaled just three ads at the cost of 97 cents. (That is not a misprint.)

According to Facebook, the three ads, which focused on immigration, were viewed some 200 times by Britons over four days in May 2016. Of course, the response from British parliamentarians who wanted to blame the Brexit vote on Moscow was to assert that Facebook must have missed something. It couldn't be that many Britons had lost faith in the promise of the European Union for their own reasons.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
See original here

On Thursday, another Democrat endorsed articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, a resolution presented in November by a half-dozen Democrats accusing Trump of obstruction of justice and other offenses. Democrat Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire is the latest official to join the effort and is one of 12 House Democrats who represent a district won by Trump in 2016. This comes as a petition for impeachment launched in October by Democratic donor Tom Steyer has garnered more than 3.5 million supporters. At least 17 communities around the country are now on record calling for impeachment proceedings against Trump. "It is not acceptable to say that we will simply kick the can down the road and wait until after an election cycle to lay the groundwork for the impeachment proceedings," says constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, co-founder and director of Free Speech for People. "We need to be laying that groundwork and making this call now."

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, as we turn now to an update on the movement to impeach President Donald Trump. In November, a half-dozen Democrats introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, accusing him of obstruction of justice and other offenses. Co-sponsors include Democratic Representatives Steve Cohen, Luis Gutie'rrez, Al Green, Marcia Fudge, Adriano Espaillat and John Yarmuth.

Well, on Thursday, another congressmember endorsed articles of impeachment. This time it was one of the 12 House Democrats representing a district won by Trump in 2016: Democratic Congressmember Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire. She said in a statement Thursday, "Many Members of Congress, including myself, agree with Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker that President Trump poses a dangerous threat to national security and the future of our democracy. ... I believe it is past time for Members of Congress to put country before party and bring these discussions out into the open," Shea-Porter said. Until now, other Democrats who have endorsed Trump's impeachment have hailed from safe blue districts. Porter plans to retire at the end of her term.

This comes as the House rejected an effort last week by Congressmember Al Green of Houston to move forward with articles of impeachment, even as some 58 Democrats voted in support of the resolution -- nearly a third of the caucus. Meanwhile, a petition for impeachment launched in October by Democratic donor Tom Steyer now has more than three-and-a-half million supporters, and at least 17 communities around the country are on record calling for impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.

Well, earlier this month, Democracy Now! spoke to constitutional attorney John Bonifaz, co-founder and director of Free Speech for People. I started by asking him about the movement to impeach Trump.

JOHN BONIFAZ: Well, to be clear, what we're doing here with this impeachment campaign that we launched with RootsAction on the day of the inauguration, because the president had refused to divest from his business holdings all across the world in defiance of the anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution -- what we're doing, Amy, is designed to defend our Constitution and our democracy.

This is not about being dissatisfied about certain policies of the president. This is about the Constitution and the basic fundamental principle in this country that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States. And he walked into the Oval Office that day already defying the rule of law, already refusing to comply with those two anti-corruption provisions of the Constitution.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what those two anti-corruption articles of the Constitution are and what he refused to do with his businesses.

JOHN BONIFAZ: So those two anti-corruption provisions are the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. The Foreign Emoluments Clause makes clear that the president shall not receive, nor any other federal elected official shall not receive, any payments or financial benefits of any kind from any foreign governments. The Domestic Emoluments Clause applies only to the president and says he shall not receive any financial benefits or payments of any kind from the federal government or the state government other than his federal salary.

This is a president who has 111-plus business interests all over the world, many of which involve illegal foreign benefits, foreign government benefits, to him personally, through his company, the Trump Organization, as well as having properties all over the United States that involve state government benefits and the federal government, through the leasing of the Post Office Square in Washington, D.C., that is now the place where the Trump International Hotel resides.

So, what we're dealing [with] here with is a president who knew, prior to taking the Oval Office, warned by constitutional scholars, that he needed to divest from his business interests in order to comply with those anti-corruption provisions. He refused to, and he is engaged in treating the Oval Office as a profit-making enterprise at the public expense.

AMY GOODMAN: How have things changed since January, when Donald Trump became president?

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
From Alternet

Trump adviser Stephen Moore finally concedes what we've known all along.





In the halls of Congress on Wednesday, 84 activists from progressive groups were arrested for seeking meetings with their representatives to protest the GOP tax plan.

Among those present was Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, which seeks to protect and expand the earned benefits program. Other participating groups were the Center for Popular Democracy, the Women's March, the Strong Economy for All Coalition, and Hedge Clipper.

Lawson noticed Stephen Moore, the conservative economist and tax-cut evangelist, walking past and pinned him down on camera, forcing him to admit that not everyone in the country is in line for a tax cut as the GOP has promised.

Watch the confrontation:

Lawson: Stephen, do you want to give a standup about the tax bill?

Moore: What is this for?

Lawson: This is for... a bunch of people are being arrested for protesting the tax bill.

Moore: Why are they protesting?

Lawson: They're protesting a handout to billionaires and robbing us. Well, you're not a billionaire, right?

Moore: Haha. I wish I were. I'm trying to be a billionaire.

Lawson: You just flack for them.

Moore: I think everybody should get a tax cut. It would be good for America.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).


(Image by Wissam Nassar | DPA) Details DMCA



Wissam Nassar | DPA









It's a clumsy, all-too-obvious unmasking of decades of bipartisan U.S. policy whose contempt for Palestinians has been cloaked with a smile and a handshake.



As such, it's an embarrassment for the Zionist political and media elite that prefers to operate behind smiles and handshakes, and not flaunt their power.



It's an embarrassment to liberal Zionists and "peace process" promoters everywhere--in the American political parties and media, in European conservative and social democrat governments, and in Jewish Zionist organizations. For fifty years, they have laser-focused attention on the post-'67 "occupation," and done all that they can [nothing concrete], in solidarity with the Israeli Jewish peace movement [dwindling to insignificance in an increasingly fascistic political culture], to end the occupation [ minimize its cost to the Jewish state, 'cause "no concessions, no withdrawals, no Palestinian state" is already proclaimed Israeli policy].



It's an embarrassment to the Arab monarchs and the Palestinian Authority functionaries, who for decades have collaborated in the task of subduing Palestinian rage as Israel went about its colonizing project, holding out the promise that the good American Daddy and his kinder, gentler Israeli Jewish progeny would one day reward the Palestinians for their good behavior.



It's an embarrassment to those liberals who want to portray Donald Trump as a uniquely evil interloper imposed on American politics by a foreign power, rather than understand him as the product of an American political culture that they helped to create while obtusely refusing to recognize what they were doing.



The only parties who are not embarrassed are the "hard"--that is, intellectually honest and consistent--Zionists in Israel and the United States (many liberal Democrats included) and Donald Trump himself, who is immune to embarrassment.



All this embarrassment provides a fine example of the positive repercussions of the "Trump-effect" that I discussed in a previous essay, which is steadily eroding the thin remaining patina of America's "soft power" in the world, an essential support of the Euro-American imperialist alliance.



After all, Israel's relentless Judaization of East Jerusalem, consistent with its long-held declaration of sovereignty over the entire city, was proceeding swimmingly, with only the feeblest occasional murmurs of protest, accompanied by massive countervailing deliveries of arms and money, from the peace-process-loving governments of Europe and America. Trump's gratuitous, self-aggrandizing gesture, by unmasking that as the de facto acceptance of annexation that it is, only brings unwanted attention to the whole rotten game, and to the hypocrisy of those governments especially.



Good riddance to the pretense! As Noura Erakat says: "Trump has removed the emperor's clothes to reveal the farce of the peace process"[He] has finally ended the United States' double-speak and should have ended any faith that the US will deliver Palestinian independence or that Israel is interested in giving up its territorial holdings captured in war." And Rashid Khalidi: "Trump may have inadvertently cleared the air. He may have smashed a rotten status quo of US 'peace processing' that has served only to entrench and legitimize Israel's military occupation and colonization of Palestinian land for a quarter-century."



In other words, Trump has suddenly and single-handedly destroyed American's pose as the "honest broker" in the Middle east and the Solomonic arbiter of world affairs in general, in a way that forces the European and Palestinian political leaders to make an explicit break from what is now declared American policy. For now, of course, that break is rhetorical, but should it remain so--if European and Palestinian leaders do not work a political strategy independent of, and in opposition to, the United States--there will be no denying their capitulation and servility.



Indeed, Europe, in the person of the German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, has already laid down the markers for itself: "Germany can no longer simply react to U.S. policy but must establish its own position...even after Trump leaves the White House, relations with the U.S. will never be the same." Even after Trump leaves the White House. This is a recognition that the American regime--not just Trump, but precisely what he is the culmination of--is not a trustworthy and reliable partner for the management of global capitalist stability. This is what Trump is wreaking. And it's a very good thing.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Quicklink Not Found

Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them.



To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here.
The news story of the year has not been Donald Trump; it has been the "#MeToo" movement, where brave women denounced sexual assault and harassment. This movement brought down Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. Now it has prompted new demands for Trump's resignation.

Sexual assault is one of many reasons why Trump should resign from the presidency. The most important reason is his lack of moral leadership.

Whether we like it or not, the President of the United States is an archetype. His behavior serves as a model for many Americans. The President is, by virtue of his position, someone that dominates the daily discourse of American society. We are influenced not only by his decisions but also by his daily actions. Good or bad, the President sets an example for our children and other impressionable members of our society. In addition, the President represents us to residents of foreign countries.

After Trump won a bitterly contested presidential election, many Americans resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Let us give him time in office," they said, "perhaps he will rise to the challenge."

Trump has not risen to the challenge. On January 20th, many of us believed that Trump was pathologically amoral. Eleven months watching him in the White House, have convinced us that our assessment is correct.

On December 12th, USA Today ( https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/) published a scathing editorial, "Will Trump's lows ever hit rock bottom?" The editorial was in response to Trump branding New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as a whore -- someone who would trade sexual favors for campaign cash -- with this tweet: "Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office "begging" for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them)..."

USA Today remarked: "Donald Trump, the man... is uniquely awful. His sickening behavior is corrosive to the enterprise of a shared governance based on common values and the consent of the governed... Trump's utter lack of morality, ethics and simple humanity has been underscored during his 11 months in office."

USA Today detailed six categories of Trump's "sickening behavior."

1. He lies nonstop. " As of mid-November, [Trump] had made 1,628 misleading or false statements in 298 days in office."

2. "Trump takes advantage of any occasion -- even Monday's failed terrorist attack in New York -- to stir racial, religious or ethnic strife."

3. He routinely demeans women. "When accused during the campaign of sexually harassing or molesting women in the past, Trump's response was to belittle the looks of his accusers."

4. "Trump has shown contempt for ethical strictures that have bound every president in recent memory. He has refused to release his tax returns, with the absurd excuse that it's because he is under audit. He has refused to put his multibillion dollar business interests in a blind trust and peddles the fiction that putting them in the hands of his sons does the same thing."

5. He hasn't done his job as President. "As of last week, Trump had failed to nominate anyone for 60% of 1,200 key positions he can fill to keep the government running smoothly."

6. He enthusiastically supported the deplorable Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore: "Trump summed up his willingness to support a man accused of criminal conduct: 'Roy Moore will always vote with us.'"

And, of course, we have every reason to believe that Trump cooperated with Russians to subvert the 2016 presidential election. Now Trump seems determined to undermine the Mueller investigation into this treachery.

Sadly, it's not surprising that Trump has failed as President. What is surprising is that he continues to have the support of the leaders of the Republican Party and that only a handful of Democratic Senators -- including Gillibrand -- have called for his resignation.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market 2017 Industry Trend and Forecast 2022

Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Industry

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1293910-2017-2022-semiconductor-fabrication-software-report-on-global-and-united-states

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1293910

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1293910-2017-2022-semiconductor-fabrication-software-report-on-global-and-united-states

https://www.linkedin.com/company/wise-guy-research-consultants-pvt-ltd-?trk=biz-companies-cym

https://www.wiseguyreports.com

Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software IndustryLatest Report on Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market Global Analysis & 2022 Forecast Research StudyThis report studies the Semiconductor Fabrication Software market status and outlook of global and United States, from angles of players, regions, product types and end industries; this report analyzes the top players in global and United States market, and splits the Semiconductor Fabrication Software market by product type and applications/end industries.The Asia-Pacific will occupy for more market share in following years, especially in China, also fast growing India and Southeast Asia regions.Try Sample Report @North America, especially The United States, will still play an important role which cannot be ignored. Any changes from United States might affect the development trend of Semiconductor Fabrication Software.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share (%) and growth Rate (%) of Semiconductor Fabrication Software in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificSouth AmericaMiddle East and AfricaThe major players in global and United States Semiconductor Fabrication Software market, including Applied Materials, PeerGroup, Comsol, Conventor, Cognex, Synopsys, JDA, Siemens, Lattice, NXP, Optimal.The On the basis of product, the Semiconductor Fabrication Software market is primarily split intoSupply PlanningProcess OptimizationTransportation Management SystemsOthersOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report coversElectronical IndustryOthersBuy Now @Some Major Points from Table of content:1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Semiconductor Fabrication Software1.2 Semiconductor Fabrication Software Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Flexible Packaging1.2.4 Rigid Plastic Packaging1.2.5 Glass Packaging1.2.6 Metal Packaging1.3 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Segment by Application1.3.1 Semiconductor Fabrication Software Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Dairy Products1.3.3 Fruits and Vegetables1.3.4 Meat, Fish and Poultry1.3.5 Snacks and Side Dishes1.3.6 Other1.4 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software 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 Semiconductor Fabrication Software (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Semiconductor Fabrication Software Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Semiconductor Fabrication Software Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansionIf you have any enquiry before buying a copy of this report @3 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.6 Europe Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.7 China Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.8 Japan Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.9 Southeast Asia Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.10 India Semiconductor Fabrication Software Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)4 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Semiconductor Fabrication Software Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Semiconductor Fabrication Software Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)Continued..For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comAbout Wise Guy ReportsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Norah Trent+1 646 845 9349 / +44 208 133 9349Follow on LinkedIn:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
Potato Chips Market Global Industry Analysis 2017  2022

Global Potato Chips Industry

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/558108-global-potato-chips-market-research-report-2021

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/558108-global-potato-chips-market-research-report-2021

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/558108-global-potato-chips-market-research-report-2021

https://www.linkedin.com/company/wise-guy-research-consultants-pvt-ltd-?trk=biz-companies-cym

https://www.wiseguyreports.com

Global Potato Chips IndustryLatest Report on Potato Chips Market Global Analysis & 2021 Forecast Research StudyThis report studies Potato Chips in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringLaysBAKLIWAYWAYPringlesOrionPanpan GroupQinqinTry Sample Report @Market Segment by Region, this report splits Global into several key Region, with sales, revenue, market share and growth rate of Potato Chips in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), likeNorth AmericaChinaEuropeJapanIndiaSoutheast AsiaSplit by product type, with sales, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoType 1Type 2Type 3Split by application, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Potato Chips in each application, can be divided intoApplication 1Application 2Application 3For Detailed Reading Please visit WiseGuy Reports @Some Major Points from Table of content:Global Potato Chips Market Research Report 20211 Potato Chips Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Potato Chips1.2 Potato Chips Segment by Types1.2.1 Global Sales Market Share of Potato Chips by Type in 20151.2.2 Type 11.2.3 Type 21.2.4 Type 31.3 Potato Chips Segment by Application/End User1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.3.3 Application 31.4 Potato Chips Market by Region1.4.1 North America Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Potato Chips (2011-2021)1.5.1 Global Potato Chips Sales and Revenue (2011-2021)1.5.2 Global Potato Chips Sales and Growth Rate (2011-2021)1.5.3 Global Potato Chips Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)2 Global Potato Chips Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Potato Chips Sales and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 Global Potato Chips Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.3 Manufacturers Potato Chips Manufacturing Base Distribution and Product Type2.4 Competitive Situation and Trends2.4.1 Expansions2.4.2 New Product Launches2.4.3 Acquisitions2.4.4 Other Developments3 Global Potato Chips Analysis by Region3.1 Global Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Market Share by Region (2011-2021)3.1.1 Global Potato Chips Sales Market Share by Region (2011-2021)3.1.2 Global Potato Chips Revenue Market Share by Region (2011-2021)3.2 North America3.2.1 North America Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.2.2 North America Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)3.3 Europe3.3.1 Europe Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.3.2 Europe Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)3.4 China3.4.1 China Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.4.2 China Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)3.5 Japan3.5.1 Japan Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.5.2 Japan Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)3.6 India3.6.1 India Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.6.2 India Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)3.7 Southeast Asia3.7.1 Southeast Asia Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Price (2011-2021)3.7.2 Southeast Asia Potato Chips Sales, Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)If you have any enquiry before buying a copy of this report @4 Global Potato Chips Analysis by Type4.1 Global Potato Chips Sales, Revenue, Market Share and Growth Rate by Type (2011-2021)4.1.1 Global Potato Chips Sales and Market Share by Type (2011-2021)4.1.2 Global Potato Chips Revenue, Market Share and Growth Rate by Type (2011-2021)4.2 Type 1 Sales, Revenue, Price and Growth (2011-2021)4.3 Type 2 Sales, Revenue, Price and Growth (2011-2021)4.4 Type 3 Sales, Revenue, Price and Growth (2011-2021)5 Global Potato Chips Market Analysis by Application/End User5.1 Global Potato Chips Sales and Market Share by Application (2011-2021)5.2 Major Regions Potato Chips Sales by Application in 2015 and 20165.2.1 North America Potato Chips Sales by Application5.2.2 Europe Potato Chips Sales by Application5.2.3 China Potato Chips Sales by Application5.2.4 Japan Potato Chips Sales by Application5.2.5 India Potato Chips Sales by Application5.2.6 Southeast Asia Potato Chips Sales by ApplicationContinued..For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comAbout UsWise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available.Contact Us:Norah Trent+1 646 845 9349 / +44 208 133 9349Follow on LinkedIn:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt LtdPune  411028Maharashtra, GlobalPh: +91 841 198 5042
Synchronous Condenser Market - Detailed Qualitative Analysis and Forecast 2017 - 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2021

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2021

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=2021

Global Synchronous Condenser Market: OverviewA synchronous condenser, which is also known as synchronous compensator or synchronous capacitor is a device similar to a synchronous motor. It is designed such that its shafts spin freely. Its primary function does not include conversion of electric energy to mechanical energy or vice versa, but to regulate conditions on the electric power transmission grid. The field in synchronous condenser is controlled by a voltage regulator, which either absorbs or generates reactive power as required to adjust the voltage of the grid, or to enhance power factor. Its installation and operation are same as that of large electric motors and generators.Global Synchronous Condenser Market: Key TrendsThe growing reliance on renewable energy sources for power generation is stoking the growth of the global synchronous condenser market. The soaring need for power correction factor is also stimulating the growth of the market. An over-excited synchronous condenser has a leading power factor, rendering it useful for power factor correction of industrial loads. Moreover, the rising emphasis on long service life is boosting the demand for synchronous condensers.Request Sample Copy of the Report @On the flip side, the high costs of equipment and maintenance are impinging on the growth of the market. In addition, the availability of low-cost alternatives is exacerbating the problem, thereby hampering the growth of the market. However, the expanding high-voltage direct current (HVDC) network is likely to create lucrative opportunities for players in the market.Global Synchronous Condenser Market: Market PotentialOver the past decade, there has been an impressive rise in the uptake of renewable energy sources for power generation. Governments worldwide and several organizations are paying high attention to cost effective solutions for renewable energy production. This, in turn, is working in favor of the growth of the global synchronous condenser market. Synchronous condenser manufacturers are benefiting from contracts for large power projects, leaving a massive impact on the market. For instance, in June 2015, Voith Hydro and its consortium partner received the contract from Manitoba Hydro for the Riel Synchronous Condenser. The project includes the design, supply, installation, and commissioning of four synchronous condensers rated 250 MVAR. These condensers will support Manitoba Hydro grid in reactive power and will be sealed to allow for hydrogen cooling.Request TOC of the Report @Global Synchronous Condenser Market: Regional OutlookThe key segments studied in the report on the basis of geography are Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. North America is expected to be a prominent destination for key players in the global market. Canada is witnessing a sharp rise in the demand for synchronous condensers, particularly new installations. In the U.S., the conversion of old power plants to synchronous condensers is driving the market. The operation of many thermal power plants is being shut down in the country to curtail pollution and encourage renewable power generation. This is also likely to create a staggering volume of demand for these condensers in the region. Asia Pacific is estimated to post a healthy CAGR during the forecast period, owing to the growing investments in the upgradation of existing power networks.Get Discount @Global Synchronous Condenser Market: Competitive LandscapeKey players in the global synchronous condenser market are striving to win contracts for new installments and for the refurbishment of old power plants in order to expand their businesses. Agreements and product innovation are also commonly adopted strategies by market participants to stay relevant. Some of the prominent companies operating in the market are General Electric, Eaton Co. Plc., Siemens AG, Voith GmbH, ABB Ltd., Toshiba Corporation, Fuji Electric Co. Ltd., and Hyundai Ideal Electric Co.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
Trimethylgallium (TMG) Market Intelligence Study for Comprehensive Insights 2014 - 2020

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=3971

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=3971

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Chemical beam epitaxy (CBE) is now recognized as a powerful growth technique for the realization of GaAs based heterojunction bipolar transistor devices. This because the capability of CBE to produce extremely high and stable p-type C-doping concentrations in GaAs using Trimethylgallium (TMG). Trimethylgallium (TMG), also known as TMG and TMGa is a favored metalorganic basis of gallium for metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) of gallium-containing semiconductor, such as GaAs, GaP, GaSb, GaN, InGaAs and InGaN among others. It is available in nature in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. It is a colorless, clear pyrophoic liquid. TMG has boiling point of 60 degree celcius. It reacts violently with compounds that provide active hydrogen and water. The hydrocarbon solutions of TMG, when saturated are known to catch fire when exposed to air. Hence, TMG is handled with utmost care and stored in a cool and dry place under inert atmospheres. TMG is prepared by the reaction of dimethylzinc with gallium trichloride. The most competitive base material for the production of semiconductor is gallium.TMG has applications in the electronic and metal industry including various other end-user industries. It is used in production of LED Lightning and in semiconductors that function as a metalorganic chemical vapor deposition precursor. It is majorly used in the production of LED lights in the electronic industry. TMG is a most preferred source of gallium used in semiconductors for opto-electronic applications.Request For Report Sample:Increasing demand from the electronic industry for LED lights is one of the major factors driving the global trimethylgallium (TMG) market. In addition, growing demand from the end user industries for opto-electronic applications is expected to boost demand for TMG in the market.Large handling capabilities of GaN technology which were used historically in the defence and military applications have recently begun to gain acceptance in the commercial wireless infrastructure and satellite markets in the near future. These applications are anticipated to create opportunities for trimethylgallium in the market.Eyes and skin are the major parts that are when exposed to trimethylgallium. TMG reacts with moisture in the air or on skin to produce chemical and thermal burns. Even though trimethylgallium is known to be relatively non-toxic, the vapors are irritating to the respiratory system. On ingestion, it may result in burning of mouth, throat and gastrointestinal system leading to nausea and vomiting. These factors are expected to hinder the growth of global trimethylgallium market. Moreover, liquids crystals made from organic compounds are used in visual displays as substitutes to LEDs. Some other components such as Indium phosphide components are also substitutes to GaAs infrared laser diodes in specific wavelength applications. These factors altogether have hampered the global trimethylgallium market.Asia Pacific is expected to boost demand for trimethylgallium owing to the growing electronic industry. As Asian government invests highly in LED technologies, the Republic of Korea initiated a LED lightning program that aimed to achieve a 100% adoption rate for LED lightning in the Korean Public sector. This led to major demand for TMG from Asia Pacific. North America and Europe are also expected to fuel demand for trimethylgallium due to rising demand from the end-user industries in the region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the key players profiled for global trimethylgallium (TMG) market include: Albemarle, Akzo Nobel Chemicals, The Dow Chemical Company, Panjiva, American Elements, Azelis Electronics, SAFC HiTech, NATA, Jiayin, Puyao and Chemtura among others.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
Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market - Overview Market Analysis and Forecast 2017 - 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2024

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2024

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=2024

Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market: OverviewTerrain awareness and warning systems (TWAS) are used to prevent controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) accidents. The technology provides an important layer of protection for aircraft navigation as it changes course as per the terrain and as per weather conditions.TAWS draws data from GPS pertaining to aircrafts position, speed, and direction as well data pertaining to aircrafts altitude and configuration. This information is used to compare data pertaining to Earths terrain and manmade hurdles.In the U.S., highly accurate GPS information is obtained as a combination of radar topography imagery captured by the U.S. space shuttle program, information from Department of Defense, and other data.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market: Key TrendsThe global TAWS market is primarily driven by the paradigm shift in transport sector leading to the increasing number of commercial flights. Furthermore, mandates for aircraft to be equipped with TAWS as laid out by stipulations of aviation regulation agencies is driving the growth of the TAWS market. The directives for use of hi-tech systems for aircraft protection are largely in place in developed countries such as the U.S., and the U.K. among several other countries.However, high deployment cost is limiting the adoption of this technology only by countries that have a strong technical base and large budgets for enhancing aircraft security system. Lack of skilled personnel and integrators for TWAS is also challenging the markets growth.Implementation of TAWS in private jets and cargo flights will extend growth opportunities to the TAWS market. The growth of international trade due to favorable business reforms in many countries worldwide is expected to benefit the markets growth.Request TOC of the Report @Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market: Market PotentialAcross the world, defense forces are vying for hi-technology systems to prevent CFIT accidents, which in turn, helps prevents loss of life and loss of property. In a breakthrough development, the Indian Air Force has announced about equipping its new convoy of six C-130J Hercules aircraft with TWAS, as per a solicitation by the U.S. Air Force.The U.S. Air Force, C-130J Division, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and Wright Patterson AFB has been seeking to identify potential bodies that possess the expertise, experience, and capabilities needed to enter a contract for six C-130J aircraft for a terrain awareness warning system. The subscription will be for 40 months commencing from May 31, 2017, through August 31, 2020.Prior to this, the Indian Air Force had procured six C-130Js, of which one was lost in an accident in 2014 and another damaged in February this year.Get Discount @Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is currently the leading market for terrain awareness and warning system and is expected to retain its position over the next few years mainly due to the factors favoring the adoption of TAWS. In North America, high government funding for hi-tech aircraft safety systems as per Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates, strong technical base, and the presence of key players in the region are favoring the regional markets growth. The presence of top companies for TAWS such as Universal Avionics Systems Corporation, L3 Technologies Inc., and Honeywell International Inc. enables the latest technical developments for aircraft navigation to be first implemented in the region.Terrain Awareness and Warning System Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the key companies operating in the global terrain awareness and warning system market are Honeywell International Inc., Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems LLC, Avidyne Corporation, Rockwell Collins, Aspen Avionics Inc., Universal Avionics Systems Corporation, L3 Technologies Inc., Garmin Ltd., Sandel Avionics Inc., Mid-Continent Instrument Co. Inc., and Genesys Aerosystems.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
Galley Equipment 2017 Global Industry Key Players - B/E Aerospace , JAMCO , Kang Li Far East , Loipart , Zodiac Aerospace , GN Espace Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Global Galley Equipment Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1646809-global-galley-equipment-market-research-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1646809-global-galley-equipment-market-research-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1646809

Global Galley Equipment MarketIn this report, the global Galley Equipment market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Global Galley Equipment market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingB/E AerospaceJAMCOKang Li Far EastLoipartZodiac AerospaceGN EspaceBucher GroupJEITEKDiehl AerosystemAeroluxNational Marine SuppliersMeili MarineRequest a Sample Report @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Galley Equipment 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 Equipment TypePreparation EquipmentCooking EquipmentRefrigerated EquipmentScullery EquipmentBy ComponentsGalley InsertsGalley CartsGalley FramesOn 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, includingAviationMarineTo enquire about this report visit @Table of Contents-Key Points CoveredGlobal Galley Equipment Market Research Report 20171 Galley Equipment Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Galley Equipment1.2 Galley Equipment Segment By Equipment Type1.2.1 Global Galley Equipment Production and CAGR (%) Comparison By Equipment Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Galley Equipment Production Market Share By Equipment Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Preparation Equipment1.2.4 Cooking Equipment1.2.5 Refrigerated Equipment1.2.6 Scullery Equipment1.3 Galley Equipment Segment By Components1.3.1 Galley Inserts1.3.2 Galley Carts1.3.3 Galley Frames1.4 Global Galley Equipment Segment by Application1.4.1 Galley Equipment Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.4.2 Aviation1.4.3 Marine1.5 Global Galley Equipment Market by Region (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Galley Equipment Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.5.2 North America Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.6 Global Market Size (Value) of Galley Equipment (2012-2022)1.6.1 Global Galley Equipment Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.6.2 Global Galley Equipment Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)..7 Global Galley Equipment Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 B/E Aerospace7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 B/E Aerospace Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 JAMCO7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 JAMCO Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Kang Li Far East7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Kang Li Far East Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Loipart7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Loipart Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Zodiac Aerospace7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Zodiac Aerospace Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 GN Espace7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 GN Espace Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Bucher Group7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Bucher Group Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 JEITEK7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 JEITEK Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Diehl Aerosystem7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Diehl Aerosystem Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Aerolux7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Galley Equipment Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Aerolux Galley Equipment Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.11 National Marine Suppliers7.12 Meili MarineContinued.Buy Report@Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
LED Lighting Driver Market To Grow At A Double-Digit CAGR Due To Green Initiatives And Power Saving Resolutions Till 2021 | Million Insights

Million Insights - World's Fastest Growing Market Research Database

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/led-lighting-driver-market?utm_source=pressrelease&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=openpr_dec15&utm_content=content

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/led-lighting-driver-market/request-sample

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry/consumer-electronics

The global LED lighting driver market, on the basis of driving method, is segmented into constant volume and current volume. In light bulbs, light is generated by a tungsten wire which only converts a small portion of energy into visible light. This principle was followed for many years due to its simple structure & pleasant light. LED lights although have a higher luminous efficacy than light bulbs, luminaires were not considered as a replacement for light bulbs. So, in comparison to light bulbs LEDs need special attention on the power source which means, if LEDs are insufficiently supplied with energythe light keeps flickering or is perceived as choppy.Special circuits are necessary to convert the mains voltage to a precisely matching voltage for connected luminaire. These circuits are power supplies mainly optimized for LEDs and are basically known as LED Lightning drivers. Increasing energy regulations and other factors are now resulting into energy savings associated with LEDs. LED requires driver mainly to run on a low voltage and direct current electricity; and also LED driver rectifies higher voltage, alternating current to low voltage and direct current. LED drivers also protect LEDs from voltage or current flickers. Change in voltage causes a change in current being supplied to the LEDs. Hence, too much or too little current can cause light output to vary or degrade rapidly owing to higher temperatures within the LED.Full Research Report On Global Analysis available at:At a glance, LED drivers convert higher voltage, alternating current to low voltage, direct current and LED drivers keep the voltage & current flowing through an LED circuit at its standard level. Also, it is important to make a wise selection between constant-current drivers, constant-voltage drivers and AC LED drivers.Commercially, the LED driver market is anticipated to grow at a higher CAGR owing to green initiatives and power saving resolutions. Ready availability of LED bulbs and LED lighting drivers result in saving millions of dollars on energy expenditure. Therefore, with the rising popularity and overwhelming response by the audience, the LED lightning driver market is estimated to grow at a double-digit CAGR during the assessment period.The key driving factors responsible for the growth of LED lighting drivers market includes growth in demand of LED in lighting applications such as retail outlets, street lights, residential complexes and rapidly growing usage within the commercial applications. Additionally, residential & commercial application of LED lighting propels the market demand for LED drivers.However, the market hindering factors is lack of understanding the gap between cost and benefit by the user.On the basis of end-user segment, the LED lighting drivers market is segmented into residential and commercial. On the basis of luminaire segment, the LED lighting drivers market is segmented into A-type Lamps and T-type Lamps.On the basis of geographic segmentation, the LED lighting drivers market spans North America, Europe, Japan, China, Southeast Asia and India. Southeast Asia is estimated to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period owing to faster growing economies like India & China. It has technologically and economically advanced economies of Japan and South Korea. India has a biggest consumer base for LED lighting products which is driving the LED market in Indian market.Strong presence of manufacturers in China is constantly enhancing consumption, conductivity and voltage aspect of LED is anticipated to upsurge the LED demand. The key players in the LED lighting drivers market includeTexas Instruments, Inc., Osram GmbH, Harvard Engineering, Maxim Integrated, Inc., Macroblock, Inc., Cree, Inc., Rohm Semiconductors, General Electric and Atmel Corp.,Request for Free Sample Copy at:This report studies LED Lighting Drivers 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 Vishay Panasonic TDK TE Connectivity API Delevan NXP Bourns Hammond Eaton Murata Phoenix Contract RECOM Qorvo Schurter ABRACONMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Region, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of LED Lighting Drivers 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 Type I Type II Type IIISplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of LED Lighting Drivers in each application, can be divided into Application 1 Application 2 Application 3Related Reports of this Category available at Million Insights:About Million InsightsMillion 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.Contact Details:Office No. 302, 3rd Floor, Manikchand Galleria,Model Colony, Shivaji Nagar, Pune, MH, 411016 IndiaPhone: 91-20-65300184Email: sales@millioninsights.com
Silicone Enamel Market: Opportunity Assessment Research Study 2015 - 2023

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4009

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=4009

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Silicone enamel is a silicone resin finish paint based on a combination of silicone resin and pigments. Silicone enamel is mainly used to coat aluminized steel pipes. It has excellent heat resistance, adhesion to steel surface and weathering resistance. Silicones are widely used in the coating industries as materials to protect and preserve but mainly for aesthetics. In silicone enamel silicone polymers are used as additives and silicone resins as the main component, or binder.Paints for exterior surfaces are exposed to sunlight in wet, dry, hot and cold conditions. The combination of UV radiation, variable temperature and humidity rapidly degrades organic polymers, roughening the coating surface and exposing the pigments. Hence, solvent-borne alkyds and acrylics are blended with silicone resins to improve their weathering performance.Request For Report Sample:Silicones enamel offers the decorative coating to improve the sustainability of products, and promise to deliver even greater performance in the near future. In the coatings market, silicone additives are well known for the surface properties they bring to the coatings formulator which includes slip, abrasion resistance, wetting, leveling and defoaming. These materials improve the sustainability of decorative coatings, for both architectural and wood coating applications. Improvements to increase the longevity of coatings and the ability to use fewer natural resources, such as titanium dioxide, are characteristics that Si-based materials can deliver.Almost all fields of construction industry require application of silicone enamel in various forms. The building & construction industry is one of the largest markets in the world in terms of revenue generation. The key drivers for the global building & construction market are the growing world population and growing urbanization in the Asia Pacific region. The growth of the building & construction market is fueled due to urbanization and changing lifestyles in emerging economies such as China and India. The rising population and changing lifestyles of consumers are expected to drive the market. Thus, the growing world population coupled with the rise in the building & construction market is anticipated to drive the silicone enamel market in the coming years. The consumption of paints is significantly rising due to their growing demand from various end user segments. Silicone enamels are consumed in various applications such as residential buildings, skyscrapers, bridges, sidewalks, highways, houses and dams among others. In addition, growing urbanization trend is expected to drive the demand for silicone enamel. Silicone enamels are required in abundance by manufacturing and construction industries, which have witnessed exemplary growth in the recently industrialized economies of the BRIC nations. Huge foreign investments into Brazil, Russia, India, and China have spurred the growth in infrastructure development in these countries. The growth of residential, non-residential and infrastructure development has been due to strong economic growth and population explosion in these parts of the world. The growth of the construction market has directly influenced the growth of the silicone enamel industry, which employs them in huge quantities. This trend is expected to continue over the foreseeable future as rapid urbanization is in progress. However, mature markets of the developed countries may hamper the demand for silicone enamel over the next few years.In 2013, Asia Pacific was the major contributor to the silicone enamel market followed by Middle-East on account of the growth in architectural designs, corporate offices and residential complexes. South Africa region is the third largest consumer of silicone enamel followed by Europe. North America witnessed a steady growth in the consumption of silicone enamel. This trend is expected to continue within the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the key players in the global silicone enamel market are Dow Corning, Wacker Chemie AG, Bluestar Silicones, MG Chemicals, Nippon Paints and Silicone Coatings (Pvt) Ltd among others.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
Sodium Borohydride Market Is Driven By Rising Demand for Pharmacological And Healthcare Manufacturing Till 2022 | Million Insights

Million Insights - World's Fastest Growing Market Research Database

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/sodium-borohydride-market?utm_source=pressrelease&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=openpr_dec15&utm_content=content

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry-reports/sodium-borohydride-market/request-sample

https://www.millioninsights.com/industry/chemicals-and-materials

The sodium borohydride market is driven by the increasing demand for this raw material in the pharmacological manufacturing. The growing emphasis on the healthcare manufacturing is expected to upsurge the funds in the research and development of antibiotics, which in sequence, is likely to create an optimistic replication on the demand for sodium borohydride.The finale consumers of sodium borohydride are manufacturing businesses for example paper and pulp, medicines, fabrics, metal retrieval, carbon-based chemical cleansing, and additional like electronic products and agrochemicals. Beyond these divisions, the paper and pulp manufacturing is likely to establish a most important portion of the global market. The general paper and pulp manufacturing is likely to be pushed by the increasing demand for wrapping products. This developing tendency is likely to donate meaningfully to the growing acceptance of sodium borohydride in the approaching ages.Full Research Report On Global Analysis available at:The stable progress proportion of the sodium borohydride market is probable to encounter a small number of difficulties in the prediction era. Such as, the general market will be confronted by the increasing alertness about the dangerous influence of sodium borohydride on humanoid fitness. It is a piece of renowned information that if protection rules relating to treating the chemicals are not shadowed it may tip to annoyance to eyes, breathing area, and skin. Therefore, in light of hazards relating to the treating of this chemical, industrialists might choose for harmless options.The Sodium Borohydride Market may be divided by Type of End Use, and the Area. The division of the Sodium Borohydride Market on the source of Type of End Use spans Metal Recovery, Pulp & Paper, Pharmaceuticals, Organic Chemical Purification, Textiles and Others that include electronic products and agrochemicals, etc. The division of the Sodium Borohydride Market on the source of Area spans North America [U.S., Canada, Mexico], South America [Argentina, Brazil, Rest of South America], Europe [Italy, France U.K., Rest of Europe], Asia-Pacific [Japan, India, China, and Rest of Asia Pacific] Middle East & Africa [ Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa], and Rest of Middle East & Africa.By means of layout, the sodium borohydride market is divided into areas for example North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Out of these areas, North America grasps a most important segment in the complete market. The prosperous paper and pulp manufacturing in North America is likely to increase the area'singestion of sodium borohydride in the nearby prospect.Some of the important companies operating in Sodium Borohydride Market on the international basis are Vertellus Specialties, Montgomery Chemicals, The Dow Chemical Company, and Kemira. Additional noticeable companies are Nantong Hongzhi Chemicals, Qingdao KYX, Shanghai Shenyu Pharmaceutical & Chemical, Shandong Guobang Pharmaceutical Industry, Guangxi Guilin Pharmaceutical, Jinyuan Biochemical, Zhangjiagang Jiangsu Huachang Chemical, and Anhui Jin'ao Chemical.Request for Free Sample Copy at:This report studies Sodium Borohydride in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and China, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering Vertellus Kemira Guobang Pharmaceutical MC Huachang Nantong Hongzi JSC AviaborMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Sodium Borohydride in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), like North America China EuropeSplit by Product Types, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into Powder Type Solution Type Granules Type Pellets TypeSplit by applications, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Sodium Borohydride in each application, can be divided into Pulp & Paper Pharmaceuticals Metal Reduction Fuel Cell OthersRelated Reports of this Category available at Million Insights:About Million InsightsMillion 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.Contact Details:Office No. 302, 3rd Floor, Manikchand Galleria,Model Colony, Shivaji Nagar, Pune, MH, 411016 IndiaPhone: 91-20-65300184Email: sales@millioninsights.com
Water Based Enamel Market Analysis, Forecast, and Assessment 2016 - 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4010

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=4010

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Global Water Based Enamel Market: OverviewThe demand for water based enamels is increasing on account of a need for protective coating for safeguarding against external environments. Water based enamels offer glazing, enhanced corrosion protection, superior wear resistance, abrasion resistance. They increase the life span of substrates by offering thermal protection, electrical resistivity, and insulation. Since water based enamel can be customized as per the environment of the substrate to be coated or in accordance to end-user application, their demand is increasing substantially. Some of the other advantages of water based enamel that is giving them a wider adoption rate over oil and solvent based enamel include, swift drying, ease of use, lower volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions, and ease of application. The fact that water-based enamels can be prepared using a wide range of chemistries such as acrylic, styrene butadiene, and polyurethane will also encourage their adoption.The report takes into consideration the past and present data to analyze or determine the future of the global water based enamel market. It discusses the various factors driving and hampering the market in detail. The impact of these drivers and restraints are also studied in the report. The degree of competition, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of substitutes, and bargaining power of buyers are included in the Porters five forces analysis.Request For Report Sample:Global Water Based Enamel Market: Drivers and TrendsThe global water based enamel market is majorly driven by the growing demand from various end-user industries such as furniture, construction, ancillaries, and automotive, among others. As windows, doors, railings, and other indoor applications such as floor board need a highly effective weather resistant, glossy, and opaque finish, the demand for water based enamel is high. In addition to this, water based enamel is extensively used in the furniture industry for cabinets and various other applications on account of their quick drying ability and lower volatile organic compounds emissions. One of the factors encouraging the use of water based enamel is strict government regulations across the globe regarding the use of chemicals that emit high amounts of volatile organic compounds. This is restricting the use of oil based and solvent based enamels, and promoting the use of water based enamel.Some of the factors challenging the growth of the water based enamel industry include difficulty in getting good quality water based enamel coating in dry and highly humid conditions and the increased number of coats required as compared to solvent based enamel. Water based enamels do not give the same glossy and hardness as offered by oil based enamels, and this will also hamper the growth of the market in the coming years. However, players in the water based enamel industry are striving hard and introducing products with improved performance even in extreme weather conditions. Players are striving to achieve products that require less number of coats, thus increasing making water based enamel viable.Global Water Based Enamel Market: SegmentationBy geography, Asia Pacific is expected to be a lucrative market owing to a surge in construction activities and growth in furniture industries. China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Malaysia are among the top countries fueling demand for water based enamel. The growing disposable incomes in these countries are also behind the growth of the market in the region. The North American market is also expected to be lucrative after Asia Pacific owing to high support from regulatory authorities for using products with lower emissions.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Key companies mentioned in the report are:The report profiles key manufacturers in the global water based enamel industry such as The Dow Chemical Company, AkzoNobel NV, Nippon Paint, Asian Paints, PPG Industries Inc., and BASF SE.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
Top 10 Power Generation Technologies Market - Top Scenario,Analysis & Forecast 2017 - 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2033

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2033

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=2033

Global Top 10 Power Generation Technologies: OverviewSome of the power generation technologies popular in todays market are gas engines, steam turbines, micro turbines, gas turbines, micro CHP, diesel and gas generators, nuclear power reactors, small wind, and concentrating solar power. Steam turbines, for example, generate electricity via thermal energy from fuel to raise steam. The thermal energy of the steam is transformed into kinetic energy in the turbine which is then converted into electrical energy.Similarly a gas turbine is a combustion engine that transforms natural gas or other liquid fuels to mechanical energy that is then converted into electrical energy.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Top 10 Power Generation Technologies Market: Key TrendsThe top 10 power generation technologies are witnessing a massive uptick in demand on account of a burgeoning world population and the rapid pace of urbanization and industrialization which have driven up the need for electricity significantly. This has stoked increasing investment in different power generation technologies. Other factors such as modernization of the current power generation infrastructure is also powering the global market.A few of the restraining factors hobbling the take-up of the top 10 power generation technologies are supply security, infrastructural worries, and price disparity across regional markets.Global Top 10 Power Generation Technologies Market: Market PotentialAmong the top 10 power generation technologies, the small wind market is slated to outpace all others in terms of growth rate in the foreseeable future. The U.S. and Canada present high growth opportunities to the small wind market on account of policy support, tanking cost of wind energy generation, and growing standardization.Request TOC of the Report @The micro CHP market is predicted to trail the small wind market in terms of growth rate. Again the U.S. and Canada offer high growth opportunities to the micro CHP market because of their efforts to reduce carbon footprints, favorable policies framed by the government, and autonomous heat and electricity generation at a lower cost.The micro turbine technologies are also anticipated to grow at a healthy clip along with the solar power technologies owing to environmental concerns primarily. At present, North America is the leading market for micro turbine with over half the share in it. Further, gas generators too are expected to see soaring demand on account of the pressing need for seamless and reliable power supply, strengthening healthcare infrastructure, rising demand for data centers and IT facilities, and rapid urbanization in emerging economies.Global Top 10 Power Generation Technologies Market: Regional OutlookFrom a geographical standpoint, Asia-Pacific is the primary market for most of the top 10 power generation technologies. This is mainly because of the spike in electricity consumption resulting in greater investment in power generation capacity, particularly in the fast-expanding populous and developing economies of India and China. Among the two countries, China is a major market driver on account of its industrial sector contributing more than 50% of its GDP. This has made China the most attractive market.Get Discount @Global Top 10 Power Generation Technologies Market: Competitive AnalysisTo assess the competition prevailing in market for top 10 power generation technologies, the report profiles prominent names such as Siemens AG, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Alstom S.A., Ansaldo Energia S.p.A, Caterpillar, Inc., and Cummins, Inc. Some of the common strategies adopted by astute players operating in the market are contracts and agreements, mergers and acquisitions, expansions, and product development.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
Zinc Stearate Market Report  Actionable Insights and Recommendation 2016 - 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=4027

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=4027

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Global Zinc Stearate Market: OverviewRapid industrialization and growing demand from various end-use industries are expected to boost the growth of global zinc stearate market in the coming years. In addition, increasing demand for polyvinyl chloride and other polymers that uses metallic stearates in different types of processing coupled with growing usage of metallic stearates during manufacturing of various polymers, such as polyolefin, phenolic resins, and polystyrene could lead the lead the zinc stearate market towards substantial growth. Moreover, metallic stearate can be used in variety of applications ranging from water repellence, foam inhibition, lubrication, stabilizing, separating properties, and gelling.Global Zinc Stearate Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe global zinc stearate market could witness a substantial growth on account of rising augmentation of zinc stearate in end-use industries. In addition to this, growing demand from emerging countries such as China and India is likely to further usage of zinc stearate. Zinc stearate can also applied in PVC in order to enhance the color along with effective impact. Zinc stearate also finds application in several products of lipsticks, face powders, eyeliner, foundations, and mascara. Furthermore, zinc stearate used in fragrances, deodorants, and other beauty products. The demand of zinc stearate in rubber industry and PVC is anticipated to boost the application of zinc stearate.Request For Report Sample:On the other side, availability of substitute stearate and health regulations could slow down the growth of zinc stearate market. In addition, lack of zinc stearate production in comparison with the growing demand could hamper the market.Global Zinc Stearate Market: Geographical OutlookIn terms of geography, Asia Pacific region is anticipated to acquire the largest share in the zinc stearate market in the coming years, owing to growing industries such as paints, coatings, and rubber along with increasing number of consumers. In addition, Europe and North America could experience a steady growth due to growing infrastructure and improving economic conditions of some countries. Governments in developing countries are concentrating on research and development activities to come up with advancement in the field in order to offer healthy life to the population.The Middle East and Africa region could increase their market share on account of political support in improving infrastructure along with increasing consumer base in the region.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Zinc Stearate Market: Competitive LandscapeSome key players such as Linan Huali Plastic Co., Ltd., Nikunj Chemicals, Krish Chemicals Pvt. Ltd., Pratham Stearchem Pvt. Ltd., and Plastics Material Factory could lead the zinc stearate market towards substantial growth in the coming years.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
Regenerative Medicine Market: Demand Growth, Industry Analysis, Research, and Forecast 2022.

Research Beam

https://www.researchbeam.com/regenerative-medicine-market/request-sample

https://www.researchbeam.com/regenerative-medicine-market/purchase-enquiry

https://www.researchbeam.com/regenerative-medicine-market

Global Regenerative Medicine Market to reach $30,237 Million, by 2022, projects that the market would reach $30,237 million by 2022, according to new research published by Allied Market Research. Cell therapy segment is expected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. North America led the global market in 2015, and is expected to remain dominant during the 2015-2022.Major factors boosting the market growth include technological advancements in tissue & organ regeneration, increase in prevalence of chronic diseases & trauma emergencies, prominent potential of nanotechnology, and emergence of stem cell technology. In addition, increase in incidence of degenerative diseases and limited availability of organs for transplants are expected to boost the market growth. The ability of regenerative medicine to replace, repair, and regenerate damaged tissues & organs stimulated the market growth.Request for Sample Copy at:The utilization of nano-materials in wound care, drug delivery, and immunomodulation would create new growth opportunities for the market. However, stringent regulations, operational inefficiency, lack of awareness about tissue engineering & regenerative medicine-based products and high cost restricts its growth. An analyst at Allied Market Research states, Advancements in stem cell technology and growing demand of regenerative medicine in the emerging economies would fuel the market growth. In addition, the developed nations are adopting technological advancements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine field at a rapid pace, which is expected to aid market expansion worldwide.The cell therapy segment accounted for over three-fifths of the overall regenerative medicine market in 2015. This was due to the wide adoption of cell therapy for the treatment of several diseases such as musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, oncology, wound healing, and others. Small molecules & biologics has emerged as the fastest growing segment and is projected to register a CAGR of 34.2% during the forecast period. This is due to biologics, which is a classic active substance, delivering a better overall economic return. These molecules have revolutionized the treatment of specific diseases such as cancer, musculoskeletal diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and non-healing wounds.Biologically derived materials, such as collagen and xenogeneic, are majorly applicable in the construction of protein membranes in connective tissues, surgical procedures for valvular diseases, liver tissue engineering, construction of biopolymer scaffolds for tissue engineering, and others. The growing demand for these biologically derived materials further boosts the market growth. The biologically derived material segment accounted for the major share in 2015, whereas, the synthetic material is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of 35.5% during the forecast period.Geographically, North America accounted for the majority of the market share in 2015, and is expected to maintain its lead throughout. This is attributed to the presence of higher capital investment, high disposable income of patients (increasing the buying potential), rise in clinical studies, and favorable government policies for the commercialization of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine products. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing region, owing to the improving healthcare infrastructure and healthcare expenditures in the emerging markets (such as India and China) to overcome the unmet medical needs. In addition, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine market is growing substantially due to the increasing incidence of accidental trauma injuries in this region. Increasing incidences of injuries and the ageing population also contributes to the market growth.Ask for Discount at:Key findings of Regenerative Medicines Market: Biologically derived materials led the market, accounting for almost four-sevenths of the overall market revenue in 2015, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 31.6% during the forecast period. Scaffold in synthetic material segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 42.4%, owing to the degradation properties and bioabsorbable polymer, which acts as a bone fixation device. U.S. is projected to maintain its lead in the regenerative medicine market until 2022. Musculoskeletal and wound healing applications together accounted for around 60% of the overall market shares in 2015. China and Japan are the major shareholders, jointly accounting for almost two-thirds in the Asia-Pacific market. The collagen segment constitutes a major share of the biologically derived materials market. Three-dimensional polymer technology is anticipated to grow at fastest rate, with a CAGR of 44% from 2016 to 2022.Key players in the regenerative medicine market are highly focused on expanding their business operations in the emerging countries with new product launches as a preferred strategy. Leading players profiled in the report include Stryker Corporation, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc., Medtronic plc, Baxter International Inc., DePuy Synthes, Organogenesis Inc. (Advanced Biohealing), Integra Lifesciences Holdings Corporation, Acelity Holdings, Inc., Ocata Therapeutics Inc. (Astellas Pharma Inc.), and CryoLife Inc.Access Full Summary at:About Us:With the arsenal of different search reports, Research Beam helps you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency. With the window of opportunity getting open and shut at a speed of light, it has become very important to survive in the market and only the fittest and competent enough can do so. So, we try and provide with latest changes in the market that can suit your needs and help you take decision accordingly.Contact Us:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesEmail: help@researchbeam.com
Conversational System 2017 Global Industry Key Players - Google , Apple , Microsoft , Amazon , IBM , Baidu Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Global Conversational System Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2614890-global-conversational-system-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/2614890-global-conversational-system-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=2614890

Global Conversational System MarketThis report studies the global Conversational System market, analyzes and researches the Conversational System development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeGoogleAppleMicrosoftAmazonIBMBaiduRequest a Sample Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Application, Conversational System can be split intoSMELarge EnterpriseTo enquire about this report visit @Table of Contents-Key Points CoveredGlobal Conversational System Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Conversational System1.1 Conversational System Market Overview1.1.1 Conversational System Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Conversational System 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 Conversational System Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 SME1.3.2 Large Enterprise2 Global Conversational System Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Conversational System 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 Google3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Apple3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Microsoft3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Amazon3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 IBM3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Baidu3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Conversational System Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent DevelopmentsContinued..Buy Report@Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Connected Car Market - Detailed Scenario and Forecast 2017-2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=2048

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=2048

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=2048

Global Connected Car Market: OverviewToday, connected car is the big buzz word in the automotive and car industry. A connected car is equipped with Internet connectivity to share information between devices within the vehicle or to share information with devices outside the car such as in other cars, office, home, or other physical spaces.Connected cars receive information pertaining to traffic, collisions, and other safety alerts in a timely manner. Connected car features can be categorized into safety, infotainment, payments, navigation, and diagnostics/efficiency.Typically, connected cars that have been introduced after 2010 has a head-unit, in-dash system equipped with a screen for the driver to view or manage operations of the connections, and an infotainment unit.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Connected Car Market: Key TrendsThe top factor driving the global connected car market include regulatory mandates on connected car modules. Moreover, rising demand for smartphone features in cars and real-time connectivity with cars to obtain vehicle data updates for vehicular safety is driving the connected car market.However, factors such as network coverage limitation and risk of misuse of customer data by cybercriminals for unscrupulous activities is challenging the markets growth.The connected car market is expected to be benefitted as connected car is considered to be a stepping stone for autonomous vehicles, consumer electronics providers for connected cars can offer telematics and infotainment devices at a cheaper cost, and insurance rate for connected cars is dependent on usage.The connected car market faces challenges with respect to disparity of product design procedures between OEMs, in-built solutions of cars, and smartphones. Also, the connected car market will benefit with reduced cost of telematics and infotainment equipment and services. In this scenario, creating an ecosystem that functions through cross-industry collaborations between OEMs, technology companies, and mobile network operators is poised to be the winning imperative for the industry.Request TOC of the Report @Global Connected Car Market: Market PotentialAt the recent Seoul Motor Show 2017, Hyundai Motors announced a multitude of future-vehicle initiatives, which includes connected cars and electric vehicles. Developed by a team of in-house experts Hyundais new Connected Car Service platform will diminish the lines between mobility, living, and working spaces by means of voice control and allow vehicle owners to connect their vehicles with global appliance service providers.Global Connected Car Market: Regional OutlookNorth America is the leading regional market for connected cars. The U.S. is the leading contributor to the North America connected car market due to regulations in place for monitoring telematics applications.Furthermore, in the U.S., the transportation system is reaching its capacity thus alternatives need to be sought to address the increasing traffic congestion issues. The transportation network in the U.S. is nearing saturation and infrastructure expansion by means of traditional methods is not a viable solution. Connected cars equipped with telematics and navigation tools is an ideal solution to address this issue. Moreover, the U.S. being home to some of the worlds major automobile companies such as General Motors Company, Ford Motor Company, and Tesla Motors Inc., along with the presence of software giants such as Microsoft Corporation and IBM Corporation and telecom providers such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and Sierra Wireless are favoring the growth of the connected car market in the region.Get Discount @Global Connected Car Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the key players in the global connected car market include Audi AG, General Motors Company, Google Inc.,Delphi Automotive Plc, AT&T Inc.,Robert Bosch GmbH, Wirelesscar, BMW AG,Tesla Motors Inc.,Volvo Car Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc., Denso Corporation,and Airbiquity 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
HostForLIFE.eu Launches nopCommerce 4.00 Hosting

http://hostforlife.eu

http://hosting.asp.net/hosting/hostingprovider/details/953

HostForLIFE.eu supports NopCommerce 4.00 hosting on their latest Windows Server and this service is available to all their new and existing customers. nopCommerce 4.00 is a fully customizable shopping cart. It's stable and highly usable. nopCommerce is an open source ecommerce solution that is ASP.NET (MVC) based with a MS SQL 2008 (or higher) backend database. Their easy-to-use shopping cart solution is uniquely suited for merchants that have outgrown existing systems, and may be hosted with your current web hosting. It has everything you need to get started in selling physical and digital goods over the internet.nopCommerce 4.00 is a fully customizable shopping cart. It allows a store owner to add notes to "Vendor" record. For example, this functionality can be used to record vendor payouts so that you always have you bookkeeping organized. Added a setting indicating customers should see "discontinued" message when visiting details pages of unpublished products.It was the biggest challenge for NopCommerce because they always try to follow the newest technology trends and give their users the better experience. We made a decision firstly target .NET Framework 4.6.1 and not .NET Core. The reason was that Nopcommerce plan to use .NET Core only when EF Core team starts supporting all ORM functionality from the classic Entity Framework 6. Such as lazy loading, etc (they plan to do it in Q1-Q2 2018). Significant performance enhancements. Its not just about migration to ASP.NET Core. Nop have made many other changes to increase performance.The most important improvements are here: Moved javascript files and inline scripts to the footer, Schedule tasks are rewritten to be run using HTTP requests (not in background), Response compression, Now generated bundles and minified files are stored on the file system, More SQL Server indexes, Cache stores, currencies, languages between requests (do not load them for each HTTP request), Faster Azure BLOB support (caching added) and A lot of other performance changes.HostForLIFE.eu hosts its servers in top class data centers that is located in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Seattle (US) and Frankfurt (Germany) to guarantee 99.9% network uptime. All data center feature redundancies in network connectivity, power, HVAC, security, and fire suppression. All hosting plans from HostForLIFE.eu include 247 support and 30 days money back guarantee.All hosting plans from HostForLIFE.eu include 247 support and 30 days money back guarantee. The customer can start hosting their NopCommerce 4.00 site on their environment from as just low 3.00/month only. HostForLIFE.eu is a popular online Windows based hosting service provider catering to those people who face such issues. The company has managed to build a strong client base in a very short period of time. It is known for offering ultra-fast, fully-managed and secured services in the competitive market. Their powerful servers are specially optimized and ensure NopCommerce 4.00 performance.For more information about this new product, please visitAbout HostForLIFEHostForLIFE.eu is awarded Top No #1 SPOTLIGHT Recommended Hosting Partner by Microsoft (see). Their service is ranked the highest top #1 spot in several European countries, such as: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and other European countries. Besides this award, they have also won several awards from reputable organizations in the hosting industry and the detail can be found on their official website.12-14 Mansion House PlaceLondon, EC4N 8BJUnited Kingdom
Aerosol Propellant Market worth 8.16 Billion USD by 2020

MarketsandMarkets Research

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsample.asp?id=35516484

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=35516484

The report Aerosol Propellant Market by Type (DME, HFC, HFO, Other Hydrocarbons, and Others), by Application (Personal Care, Household, Medical, and Others), and by Region - Global Forecast to 2020, defines and segments the concerned market with analysis and forecast of revenue.Browse more than 78 market data tables with 57 figures spread through 140 pages and in-depth TOC on "Aerosol Propellant Market by Type (DME, HFC, HFO, Other Hydrocarbons, and Others), by Application (Personal Care, Household, Medical, and Others), and by Region - Global Forecast to 2020"Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports.Aerosol Propellant: The global aerosol propellant market was valued at USD 5.70 Billion in 2014 and is expected to reach USD 8.16 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 6.17% from 2015 to 2020.Request For Sample:Europe  The most dominant region in the aerosol propellant marketThe aerosol propellant market in Europe accounted for the largest share of 37.22%, by volume, of the global aerosol propellant market in 2014. The European market is expected to register the largest share by 2020 owing to the increasing demand of personal care and homecare products, such as antiperspirants, hair gels, air fresheners, and other products from developing countries, such as India and China. Also, major propellant manufacturers are based in Europe, such as Akzo Nobel N.V. (The Netherlands), Arkema Group (France), Royal Dutch Shell (The Netherlands), and others. They manufacture and supply propellants to the personal care and homecare product manufacturing companies, such as Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, and other personal care & homecare product manufacturing companies.Asia-Pacific is one of the fastest-growing markets across the globe, and this trend is expected to continue in the near future as well. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for a share of 19.41%, in terms of volume, in 2014. Among all countries in the Asia-Pacific region, China contributed the maximum share in the Asia-Pacific aerosol propellant market. Growth in the Chinese market is mainly attributed to the increasing population, favorable investment policies, increase in total disposable income, and changing consumer lifestyle.Other hydrocarbons  The largest type segment in the global aerosol propellant marketThe other hydrocarbon type segment is one of the most significant types in the aerosol propellant market. It accounted for a share of 63.88% of the global aerosol propellant market in 2014. Other hydrocarbon propellants are easy to produce, has zero ozone depletion potential, and has a low cost as compared to DME, HFC, and HFO. They are used in the manufacturing of various consumer products, such as deodorants, hair mousse, air fresheners, food products, and other industrial and technical products.During the forecast period, the HFC type segment market will be replaced by the HFO due to the phase down of HFC under the Montreal Protocol. From January 2017, the use of HFC will be banned for applications, such as personal care, household, automotive, industrial, and technical products due to its high GWP. One third of HFCs market share will be taken by HFO and the rest will be covered by hydrocarbons and compressed gases.Download PDF Brochure:Among the applications, the personal care segment holds the largest share in the aerosol propellant market. In terms of volume, the personal care application segment accounted for a share of 61.81% in 2014. Household is projected to be the fastest-growing application segment of the aerosol propellant market between 2015 and 2020. This growth is attributed to the increasing usage of household products, such as oven cleaners, air fresheners, bathroom & kitchen cleaning mousse, and so on; the changing consumer lifestyle; and increase in the purchasing power of consumers.About MarketsandMarketsMarketsandMarkets is worlds No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors.M&Ms flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers.We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository.UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7,SEZ, Magarpatta city, Hadapsar
Controlled release fertilizers (CRFs), the latest and most technically advanced method of supplying nutrients to crops.

The CRF market size is estimated to record a CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast period of 2017-2022, from an estimated market value of USD 2,923 million in 2016.Leading Companies Focusing on Control Release Fertilizer TechnologyIn 2017, IFC and Kingenta jointly launched a new company, Jinfeng Agricultural Services Co. Ltd. Under this company several individual projects were planned, to be operated in the country, including upgrading conventional fertilizers into specialty fertilizers, especially focusing on CRF. Kingenta Ecological Engineering Group Co. Ltd, Shandong Shikefeng Chemical Industry Co. Ltd, Agrium, and Chisso Corporation were the top four players operating in the global controlled release fertilizer market, in 2015. These players collectively held a dominant share of 49.1% in 2015.Increase in Demand for High Efficiency FertilizersControlled release fertilizers are among the latest and most technically advanced methods of supplying nutrients to crops. The global controlled release fertilizer market is technology driven, and requires exhaustive capital requirements, and significant R&D investment for players to operate efficiently in the market.Get the Full Report Here: Global Controlled Release Fertilizer MarketOne of the major driving factors for the global controlled release fertilizer market growth will be the ever-increasing global population. According to the World Bank, the 2015 global population was estimated at 7.3 billion and will surpass 8 billion by 2024. With arable land per person reducing to less than 0.2 hectares, farm productivity must be enhanced by at least 50%, to satisfy the global food demand. This will promote the demand in the global controlled release fertilizer market. North America is the largest market for controlled release fertilizer products, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific.About Mordor IntelligenceMordor Intelligence is a market intelligence and business advisory firm. The company operates in the business of industry analysis & consulting, in over 16 verticals. In todays fast-paced and competitive business environment, every customer has unique information requirement. With an eye for such requirements, Mordor offers custom market intelligence and advisory services, along with syndicated reports, to help gain an edge over the competition. The company has successfully catered to over 500 (40% of whom are Fortune 500) clients, since 2013.For more information mail us at: info@mordorintelligence.comAbout the Author: Sanjay Singh works as a Research Associate with Mordor Intelligence, a market research and consulting firm based in Hyderabad, India, with expertise in accurate research and analysis.Mordor Intelligence is a market research and consulting firm with expertise in accurate research and analysis.9,000+ comprehensive reports across 60+ industry segments. Trusted by 300+ brands across the globe.5th Floor, Brigade Towers, Financial District, Gachibowli, Hyderabad - 500032, India
GoodFirms in their research has ranked Fingent as the #1 software development company in New York!

GoodFirms in their research has ranked Fingent as the #1 software development company in New York!Fingent Corporation is ranked as the top software development company in New York  GoodFirms in a research highlights top 10 performing software development companies in New York.WhitePlain, New York, United States, December 15, 2017  Fingent is pleased to announce that GoodFirms, the B2B rating and reviews platform, has named Fingent as the #1 Custom Software Development Company in New York. GoodFirms research highlights top 10 performing software development companies in New York according to the evaluation of work portfolio and client feedback.GoodFirms research involves rigorous evaluation that details market penetration, industry and technology expertise and client commitment. Talking about the research, GoodFirms spokesperson said, These hand-picked software development companies of New York are chosen based on their deliverables and customer satisfaction ratio.Fingent has consistently received praises for its commitment and innovative approach to projects. Talking about the recognitionDileep Jacob, Head of Operations saidWe are extremely pleased to be ranked as the top software developer in New York. It is a significant development that validates the effort and commitment of our employees. Such recognition continues to inspire us to raise the bar for ourselves. Our growth and sustained results show us that our industry and business-centric approach to customer challenges enables our clients growth and success. With high expectations, year-on-year we are setting new standards.These hand-picked software development companies of New York are chosen based on their deliverables and customer satisfaction ratio. GoodFirms ResearchThe analyst team of GoodFirms pursues a research methodology which includes many qualitative and quantitative parameters. Each company is inspected for their quality of work, ability to deliver the projects on client expectations, their market presence and verify the client reviews. After this process, the research team also compares all the firms to their peers in a specific industry and list them. The process mainly consists of thoroughly analyzing deciding factors like companys market penetration in the software industry, experience in the software domain, software design skills, proficiency in technical knowledge and client contentment quotient. GoodFirms also support the service providers by asking them to participate in the research process by showing the evidence of strong client satisfaction record.About GoodFirmsGoodFirms is a Washington, D.C. based research firm that aligns its efforts in identifying the most prominent and efficient custom software development companies that deliver results to their clients. GoodFirms research is a confluence of new age consumer reference processes and conventional industry-wide review & rankings that help service seekers leap further and multiply their industry-wide value and credibility.About Fingent CorporationEnterprise Software, Web & Mobile ApplicationsFingent has been in the IT software services industry since 2003 and we are a reliable and affordable Web and Mobile Development company for enterprise and mid-sized organizations.We are a full-service web and mobile development services provider with two offices in the United States (Boston and New York), India and the United Arab Emirates. Our global team of over 230 talented full-time employees has helped hundreds of mid and large size organizations implement software solutions that increase productivity and profits.Our services include Web Application Development, Mobile Application Development, Product Development (SaaS) and Enterprise Software Development. We will help you solve your business challenges through software in any technology area.Get a free consultation, email us at info@fingent.com.How we work -1. Tell us your requirement/Idea2. We will set up a short discovery call and get back to you with a ballpark estimate.3. Detailed proposal will be presented4. Proposal closure.We have worked with clients large and small, always delivering value through constant engagement. Most of our clients are not technology experts, , but that hasn't stopped us from empowering them with the latest of technologies. We work very closely with our clients to help them understand the complexities of technology and help them visualize proposed solutions through mock-ups, workflows and much more.Contact235 Mamaroneck Ave, Suite #301,White Plains, NY 10605+1 (914) 615-9170
Global Particleboard Market 2017-2023 Sierra Pine, Panel World, Kopine, Boise Cascade

Particleboard Market

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-particleboard-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022#request_for_sample

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-particleboard-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/

Particleboard Market Research 2017A market study "Global Particleboard Market" examines the performance of the Particleboard market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Particleboard market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Particleboard market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Particleboard Market 2017 report includes Particleboard market Revenue, market Share, Particleboard industry volume, market Trends, Particleboard Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Particleboard Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Particleboard Market 2017 :1. Roseburg2. Sierra Pine3. Associate Decor4. D&R Henderson Pty Ltd5. Pb China6. Panel World7. Boise Cascade8. Jayakuik Sdn Bhd9. Kopine10. Siam Riso Wood Products11. Green Land Particle Boards12. Krifor13. Gvk Novopan Industries Limited14. Segezga Group15. Kronoplus Limited16. Sahachai Particle Board17. AraucoParticleboard Market : By ApplicationConstruction IndustryFurniture IndustryParticleboard Market : By TypeRe-UseDisposalFirstly, the report covers the top Particleboard manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Particleboard report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Particleboard industry, Particleboard industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Particleboard Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Particleboard 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 Particleboard market revenue worldwide.Finally, Particleboard 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.5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAContact: +1-214-661-1669Web:
Corrosion Protection Packaging Market - New Tech Developments and Industry advancements to watch out for 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=31208

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/corrosion-protection-packaging-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Corrosion Protection Packaging Market OverviewVolatile corrosion inhibitor or vapour corrosion inhibitors (VCI) is a material used to protect the ferrous as well as non-ferrous components from oxidation or any type of corrosion. VCI coating is done on various packaging like pouches, bags, plastic films, papers and others. This packaging releases chemical compound in sealed space which inhibits the process of oxidation. The corrosion protection packaging is fruitful for protecting surfaces in narrow space or surfaces where it is not possible to apply corrosion resistant coating directly. For packaging of mechanical and industrial components made up of metal, which are prone to corrosion, the corrosion protection packaging can be considered as a necessity. The growing steel production throughout the world and profitability of the corrosion protection packaging indicates a good market potential for the same.For more information on this report, fill the form @Corrosion Protection Packaging Market DynamicsRust prevention is one of the major reasons of coating on the metal components. Sometimes, it is not possible to apply a coating on the surface directly. For transportation and temporary storage of metal components, VCI coated corrosion protective packaging is very useful as it does not require any direct coating over the components surface. Moreover, the coating can be done on most of the types of packaging. The vapour released by the coating is odourless and harmless to humans. These properties of the corrosion protection packaging have driven the market. This corrosion protection packaging is effective for most of the metals generally used mechanical components like brass, chrome, copper, steel, bronze, tin and others, the action of VCI vapours is completely opposite on some of the metals, that is the vapours increase the rate of oxidation of the metals such as zinc or zinc based alloys, cadmium, magnesium, lead and alloys of some other metals like brazing alloys. This makes corrosion protection packaging unsuitable for assemblies containing precision moving parts or optical systems. Moreover, direct exposure to sunlight or rise in temperature decomposes the vapour and makes the corrosion protection packaging ineffective. These factors have restricted the market for corrosion protection packaging.Corrosion Protection Packaging Market SegmentsCorrosion protection packaging market can be segmented on the basis of type of coated packaging asPaperHeat sealable bagsZip-lock bagsGusseted bagsPlastic film rollsOthersThe corrosion protection packaging market can be segmented on the basis of end-use industries asConstructionTransportationEquipment manufacturerAutomotiveShipbuildingOthersObtain Report Details @The corrosion protection packaging market can be segmented by global regions asNorth AmericaLatin AmericaWestern EuropeEastern EuropeMiddle East & AfricaAsia Pacific excluding JapanJapanCorrosion Protection Packaging Market Regional OutlookAsia Pacific is the largest producer as well as consumer of steel in the world. China alone contributes with half of the worlds steel production and consumption. These factors indicate a huge potential market for corrosion protection packaging in Asia Pacific, particularly China followed by India. Japan is the second largest producer of steel after China and also a prominent machinery producer in the world. The automobile industry is growing globally, especially in Asia Pacific, Western Europe, and North America. Construction industry of China is the largest, followed by the United States and then by India. Indonesia and India are two of the fastest growing construction industries in the world. Most of the facts and figures indicate a huge driving force for corrosion protection packaging market globally, especially in Asia Pacific, along with Japan.Corrosion Protection Packaging Market Key PlayersSome of the players of corrosion protection packaging market areSmurfit Kappa GroupNefab GroupGulmohar Pack-Tech India Pvt. Ltd.EnviroTech Europe LtdElles Oberflachen Systeme GmbHASAPack A/SMetPro GroupAGM Container Controls, 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:
Superyachts Market Research Report with Outlook, Strategies, Challenges, Geography Trends & Growth, Applications and Forecast 2022

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011189285/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/global-superyachts-market-research-report-2017-2022

http://www.reportsweb.com/buy&RW00011189285/buy/2900

Global Superyachts Market Research Report 2017-2022 newly adds in ReportsWeb.com database. This report covers leading key company profiles with information such as business overview, regional analysis, consumption, revenue and specification.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD) , market share and growth rate of Superyachts in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast) , covering North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India. Global Superyachts market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players including Azimut Benetti, Ferretti Group, Sanlorenzo Spa, Heesen, Lurssen, Feadship, Princess Yachts, Amels, Sunseeker International and Oceanco.Get Free Sample Copy atOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Motor Superyachts, Sailing Superyachts, Sport Fishing Superyachts, Expedition Superyachts and Other. On 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, including Military and Civilian.Browse Complete Report atTable of Content1 Superyachts Market Overview2 Global Superyachts Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Superyachts Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Superyachts Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)5 Global Superyachts Production, Revenue (Value) , Price Trend by Type6 Global Superyachts Market Analysis by Application7 Global Superyachts Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Azimut Benetti7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Superyachts Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Azimut Benetti Superyachts Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Ferretti Group7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Superyachts Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Ferretti Group Superyachts Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Sanlorenzo Spa7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Superyachts Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Sanlorenzo Spa Superyachts Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview8 Superyachts Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Superyachts Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and ConclusionPurchase this report at-Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comOrganization: ReportsWebPhone: +1-646-491-9876ReportsWeb.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.533, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Global Automotive Repair and Maintenance Services Market Expanding at a CAGR of 5.8% in 2017-2027

mrrse

https://www.mrrse.com/sample/4022

https://www.mrrse.com/automotive-repair-and-maintenance-services-market-102017

https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/4022

https://www.mrrse.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine Automotive Repair and Maintenance Services Market: Tires Services and Parts Segment to Lead in Terms of Market Share Through 2027: Global Industry Analysis (2012 - 2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017 - 2027) is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Request to view Sample Report @An introduction to the global automotive repair and maintenance services marketThe automotive aftermarket includes the maintenance and repair of various services and parts such as changing the engine oil, gear oil, brake oil, etc. Tire services include repair of flat tires, tire pressure monitoring, misalignment of tires, and replacement of tires. Battery services include automotive batteries replacement. Wear and tear parts include shock absorbers, brake wheel end, engine, driveline, and suspension. Collision body includes coating and painting, crash parts, refinishing, and repair materials. Starters and alternators include armature, field coil, brushes, end shield, and solenoid. Lighting includes automotive lighting and aftermarket services. Exhaust components include mufflers, exhaust manifold, catalytic convertor, and tail pipe. Spark plugs include spark plug- hot and cold, glow plug- metal, and ceramic.Automotive repairs and maintenance services is definitely a booming business at the global level. According to our research, the global automotive repair and maintenance services market is anticipated to be valued at US$ 479.3 Bn by 2017 end and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.8% over the forecast period, to exceed US$ 840.9 Bn in the coming decade.Increasing average age of vehicles likely to increase the demand of automotive repair and maintenance services over the forecast periodThere are several factors that are likely to impact the global automotive repair and maintenance services market. Increase in the average age of vehicles has led to a rise in demand for repair and maintenance services. The poor quality of road infrastructure in the developing countries of Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ) is expected to drive the market for automotive repair and maintenance services in this region. The increase in vehicle parc in regions such as North America, Western Europe, and APEJ has also led to a growth in automotive aftermarket services. With the declining oil and gas prices, the average miles driven has increased. This is closely associated with the wear and tear of parts thus requiring maintenance.One of the major trends likely to govern the global automotive repair and maintenance services market is remote diagnostics. This enables real-time monitoring of vehicle parameters to assess its performance against benchmarks. Another trend observed in the global automotive repair and maintenance services market is that the small locally owned shops are pairing up with fleet operators to gain more maintenance contracts. Having said this, an increase in repairs and maintenance services costs and a careless attitude on the part of vehicle owners towards structured maintenance and services may pose challenges to the growth of this market in the near future.View Specifics Report with Table of Content @Increasing annual mileage per vehicle is estimated to contribute significantly to the growth of the Tires Services and Parts segmentThe tires Services and Parts segment accounted for a major market share in terms of value in 2016 and is expected to expand at a significant CAGR over the forecast period (2017-2027). Along with another segment in the services and parts category, the tires segment is likely to represent more than two-third share in the total incremental opportunity created over the next 10 years. Our research indicates that the tires segment will reach a market valuation exceeding US$ 360 Bn by the end of the forecast period.Market analysis on the basis of regionThe North America automotive repair and maintenance services market is estimated to account for more than 27% of the market share in the global automotive repair and maintenance services market by 2017 end. The automotive repair and maintenance services market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a relatively high CAGR over the forecast period. North America and Western Europe are estimated to collectively account for about 50% of the total market share of the global automotive repair and maintenance services market by the end of 2017.Send an Inquiry @Market 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.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Solar Cable Market Growth Opportunities in Industry by 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/solar-cable-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=36419

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

A solar cable connects other electrical elements and solar panel in the photovoltaic systems. This cable is used for the interconnection wiring for solar panels in both ungrounded and grounded photovoltaic power system. Solar cables are built to be weather resistant and Ultra Violet resistant. Solar cable is specially designed for connecting photovoltaic system components.This cables can be used at a high temperature range and are generally kept outside and it is easy to strip, has a space saving outer diameter, and flexible. The solar cable is directly related to the distribution network system and solar electricity and this cable is made up of electron beam cross linked coating and insulation which gives them a high resistance against UV.The solar industry is a rapidly growing industry and the need for solar interconnect cables and solar wires is growing with it. Solar cables can be used in outdoor, indoor, agriculture, industry as well as in hazard explosion areas.The one common factor of solar cable is outdoor use which is characterized by high ultra violet radiations and high temperature. The different application in the solar industry are agriculture, residential, and commercial.Obtain Report Details:Solar cable has created enormous demand for transmission and generation related technologies and equipment. Solar cable has seen rapid growth inspiring cable companies to meet specifications as cables are the only medium for the specific cabling requirements and to transmit power. The main factors for the solar cable industry are quality and prices.The cost of solar cables has come down significantly over the last few years, and making it easier to realize these targets. With the huge demand for solar power, increase in demand for solar cables is expected during the forecast period. The increasing importance of solar cable is expected to boost the overall market growth in near future.However due to low efficiency, longevity problems, overheating, and technical cabling losses the markets growth is expected to slow down up to some extent.However, solar cable industry is estimated to grow in the future, demand for solar cable is rapidly growing with various installations. The availableness of insulating material at affordable prices would be driving factors in the solar cable market.The solar cable market is segmented on the basis of product, application and region. In terms of product the market is segmented into copper core and aluminum alloy core. Copper has a greater conductivity, it carries more current at the same size.Because of its high conductivity it has become the international standard to which all the electrical conductors are compared. In terms of application, the market is segmented into residential, commercial, and industrial.Make Enquiry @In terms of region market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Middle-East and Africa. China and the U.S. is expected to lead the solar cable market. India has seen an unforeseen rise in the solar cable market in previous few years. India is the third biggest solar market worldwide. India is also exporting its cables in Abu Dhabi, Morocco and Latin America.Some of the major key players in solar cable market are Lapp Group, Allied Wire & Cable, General Cable Technologies Corporation, Eldra B.V., HUBER+SUHNER, KBE Elektroteknik GmbH, Staubli Electrical Connectors AG (Multi Contact), Phoenix Contact, Renesola, Atkore International, and Amphenol Industrial Products Group among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size.The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Canned Baby Food Market Key Growth Factors and Industry Analysis 2017-2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=20981

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/canned-baby-food-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Fruits, vegetables, meat and sea food etc. foods are processed by heat treatment and preserved in metal canes are called canned foods, sometimes sugar and salt are added. In the process of canning sufficient heat is applied to food packed into airtight sealed containers to destroy microorganisms. The canned foods are heated under steam pressure at high temperatures. The amount of time and heat required for processing is different for each food type, depending on its density, acidity etc.Canned foods are always being consumers choice. However, increasing in number of working women and changing consumer lifestyle are driving market demand for canned baby food and gaining popularity in developed as well as developing regions.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Market segmentation:Canned baby food market is segmented on the basis of types, product origin, age group, distribution channel and regions.On the basis of types canned baby food market is segmented as fruits and vegetables, milk, beans and legumes, poultry, meat and fish, and soups and other prepared items. Amongst by type market segments fruits and vegetables market segment accounts for major market shares in canned baby food market followed by milk and sauces, and soups and other prepared items respectively. Increasing number of working women seeking healthy and nutritional fruits and vegetables options for their baby is major factor driving growth of canned fruits and vegetables. Increasing use of ready-to-eat foods such as sauces and other prepared food is driving market demand for this segment.On the basis of product origin it can be segmented as organic and conventional. Organic canned baby food is more preferred as compared to the conventional products. Under age group segment newborn (0-6 months), baby (6-12 months) and toddler (1-3 years) are considered.The market is further segmented on the basis of distribution channels such as, super markets/hyper markets, specialty stores, online retail channels and other retailers. Easy availability of canned food products through various offline and online distribution channels when compared to fresh products is factor driving growth of market. Manufacturers focuses on online product availability is fueling growth of online distribution channel.Obtain Report Details @Regional Market Outlook:On the basis of regions canned baby food market is segmented in to North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific & Japan and Middle East and Africa. The developed regions such as North America and Europe are major markets for canned baby food. Developing regions such as Asia Pacific and Middle East are rapidly growing regional markets for canned baby food.Market Drivers and restrains:Increasingly work-oriented and, consequently, hectic, consumer lifestyles people have less time to cook food. Therefore, they prefer the convenience of canned food products. Lower availability and inconvenience in buying fresh fruits and vegetables to cook is another major factor driving market demand for canned baby food. Increasing concerns related to ready to eat dried mixes and infant formula products is another factor driving consumers shift towards canned baby food.Increasing disposable income, growing number of working women, busy life style etc. factors expected to drive market demand for canned baby food in near future. Growth of various online as well as offline distribution channels is factor fueling market demand.Canned food is packed in cans and heated there is possibility that heating kills nutrients as well as metal can be melted and possibility of mixing of metal content in food item. Various canned foods are not up to the mark nutrient quality, leaking of cans is possible. These are various concerns related to safety and quality of canned baby food items, which are expected to restrain market growth in near future.Key Market PlayersThe growing global canned baby food market is encouraging entries of new players in the market. Few of the key players include Holle baby food, Gerber, HiPP Organic, Bolton Group, ConAgra Foods, Del Monte Foods, Kraft Heinz, Beech Nut, Earth's Best etc. These are only few prominent players however the emerging market for canned baby food products have fueled entry of local players into the particular regions.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Smart Railways Market Trends, Drivers, Strategies, Applications and Competitive Landscape(North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India) - 2017 to 2022

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011313336/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/global-smart-railways-market-research-report-2017-2022

http://www.reportsweb.com/buy&RW00011313336/buy/2900

Global Smart Railways Market Research Report 2017-2022 newly adds in ReportsWeb.com database. This report covers leading key company profiles with information such as business overview, regional analysis, consumption, revenue and specification.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Smart Railways in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India. Global Smart Railways market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players including ABB Group, General Electric, Huawei Technologies, Hitachi, Cisco Systems, Siemens, IBM Corporation, Indra Sistemas, Alstom, Alcatel-Lucent, Bombardier and Ansaldo STS.Get Free Sample Copy atOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Devices & Components, Services and Solutions. On 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, including Railway and Subway.Browse Complete Report atTable of Content1 Smart Railways Market Overview2 Global Smart Railways Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Smart Railways Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Smart Railways Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)5 Global Smart Railways Production, Revenue (Value) , Price Trend by Type6 Global Smart Railways Market Analysis by Application7 Global Smart Railways Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 ABB Group7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Smart Railways Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 ABB Group Smart Railways Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 General Electric7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Smart Railways Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 General Electric Smart Railways Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Huawei Technologies7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Smart Railways Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Huawei Technologies Smart Railways Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview8 Smart Railways Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Smart Railways Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and ConclusionPurchase this report at-Note: If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Contact Info:Name: Sameer JoshiEmail: sales@reportsweb.comOrganization: ReportsWebPhone: +1-646-491-9876ReportsWeb.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.533, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Global Life Science and Diagnostic Tools Market 2017-2021 - Thermo Fischer Scientific, Roche, Danaher Corp, Abbott Laboratories

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1374821

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-life-science-and-diagnostic-tools-market-size-trends-and-forecasts-2017-2021-report.html/toc

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

The report entitled Global Life Science and Diagnostic Tools Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2017-2021), provides analysis of the global life science and diagnostic tools market, with detailed analysis of market size and growth, and segmentation of the industry. The analysis includes the market by value, by end user and by segmentation.Moreover, the report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the overall global life science and diagnostic tools market has also been forecasted for the years 2017-2021, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.Thermo Fischer Scientific, Roche, Danaher Corp and Abbott Laboratories are some of the key players operating in the global life science and diagnostic tools market, whose company profiling has been done in the report. In this segment of the report, business overview, financial overview and business strategies of the companies are provided.Click to get Sample PDF:Company Coverage- Thermo Fischer Scientific- Roche- Danaher Corp- Abbott LaboratoriesExecutive SummaryLife science is defined as all the branches of science which consist of the scientific study of living organisms such as microorganisms, plants, animals, and human beings as well as related considerations like bioethics. All these branches are majorly segmented into three types: Biology, Medicine and others. Biology is the stream of study and analysis of life while medicine is the stream where drug development are done.View Complete TOC with Tables and Figures at:Life science diagnosis means the process of determining diseases using different life science and diagnostic tools. There are various types of life science diagnosis like differential diagnosis, pattern recognition, diagnostic criteria, clinical decision support system, and other diagnostic procedure methods.Life science and diagnostic tools market is segmented into majorly four end users: Biopharma, industrial & applied, healthcare and academic & government. There are various tools/technology used in life science diagnosis process such as sequencing, microarrays, PCR, synthesizer, flow cytometry, electrophoresis, etc.The global life science and diagnostic tools market is expected to increase at a significant growth rate during the forecasted period (2017-2021). The global life science and diagnostic tools market is supported by various growth drivers, such as increased use of mass spectrometry in clinical labs, continuous growth in the biopharma end market, increased spending on environmental and food safety, etc. Yet, the market faces certain challenges, such as, growing commodity prices, uncertainties in economies of Europe, China, and other emerging markets, etc. Few market trends are also provided such as, rapid pace of innovation in sequencing, increasing e-commerce sales, etc.ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Microphone Market Advanced Technologies & Growth Opportunities in Global Industry 2027

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22835

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/microphone-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Microphones or microphone chip or silicon microphones has extensive usage in high-quality audio output devices. These devices are mainly used in smartphones and tablets for the high-quality sound. Moreover, they can be integrated into compact electronic devices with its quick technological development and advanced miniature microphones. They are widely used in voice recognition, voice transmission, noise recognition and reduction of external noise.ustry and electronic products. Advancements in technology have also resulted into the invention of wireless microphone which is connected through a Bluetooth that works on the radio transmitter. These devices have large scope for mobile phones, medical equipment, military equipment and many others.Request Report Brochure @Global Microphone Market  Drivers and RestraintsThe Global Microphone Market is mainly driven by huge adoption of smartphones and tablets among the end users. There is a rapid decline in the prices of the microphones because of the increasing competition. Moreover, the manufacturers are now focussing on manufacturing microphones which are smaller in the size and more robust. The major restraints in the market are the noise or dead spots that appear during the call. Also, the integration of the microphone has restrained the global microphone market. The increase in demand from the emerging economies such as APEJ and MEA has shown to be good opportunity for global microphone Market.Global Microphone Market  SegmentationThe Global Microphone Market is segmented based on by type, by application, and by end market.Global Microphone Market by Type:Analogue MicrophoneDigital MicrophoneElectret MicrophoneOthersGlobal Microphone Market by application:Medical instrumentsConsumer electronicsAutomotiveMobile phonesCommercial security and surveillanceSensing ApplicationIndustrial devicesRead Report Overview @Global Microphone Market  Region Wise OutlookThe Global Microphone Market is divided into seven regions namely North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa.global microphone market because of the high usage of mobile and other electronic devices in this region. APEJ market is showing the dominance, in terms of CAGR during the forecast period because of China, which is biggest market for manufacturing of TV, smartphone, tablet, gaming, and other electronic devices. Europe has the third largest market share in the global microphone market which is followed by the Middle East and Africa.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Pickle Market - Global Industry Growth, Trends and Future Snapshot

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=26399

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pickle-market.html

Pickle is form of a relish that is made up of either vegetables or fruits that is preserved in brine or vinegar. Pickles are made my immersing the fruits or vegetables in the brine or vinegar solution and stored for a period of time during which the ingredients goes through the pickling process and acquire the desired taste. Pickles are usually sweet or sour in taste and are often spicy. They acquire the taste of the key ingredient which is the vegetable or fruit of which the pickle is made. Pickles are consumed both as savory items as well as accompaniments with main courses especially in the Indian cuisine.Download Study Brochure PDF@The global pickle market is segregated on the basis of type, distribution channel and region. Based on type, the global market for pickles is segmented into fruit and vegetables. Fruit pickles are further sub-divided into mango, cucumber, orange and others. Vegetable pickles are further sub-divided into chili, cabbage, carrots, bell peppers and others. Fruit pickles held majority market share in 2016 and is anticipated to hold its dominant market share throughout the forecast period. Vegetable pickles are anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate during the forecast period of 2017-2025.This is attributed to increased demand for these types of pickles in the Asia Pacific region as an accompaniment with food during meals. Based on distribution channel the global pickle market is segregated into supermarkets/hypermarkets, departmental stores and convenience stores. Supermarkets/hypermarkets held majority market share in 2016 and is anticipated to hold its position throughout the forecast period. This is attributed to large scale business that they do which leads to bigger revenue generation. This segment is also anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate during the forecast period of 2017-2025 owing to repeat business that they do through customers.Major drivers driving the global pickle market include health benefits that pickles offer. Apart from being a taste enhancer in everyday foods, pickles also have numerous health benefits which is triggering market growth globally. Pickles are proven antioxidants which prevents free radicals to attack the human body. They also help in digestion as they have probiotic properties in them. They are also a source of natural nutrients such as iron, vitamin, calcium, potassium and others. They are also proven to be reducing ulcers and provide protection. Therefore, they are driving the market positively. In addition, rising awareness about GMO products is also triggering market growth for organic pickles. The growing awareness about the harmful effects of GMO products is shifting the demand trends towards organic pickles which is in turn, triggering market growth. Lack of use of preservatives in organic pickles reduces their shelf-life due to which they cannot be stored for a longer period of time. This is acting as a major restraint to the global pickle market. Rising demand for pickles in countries of Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa will provide great opportunity to the global pickle market.Geographically, the global market for pickles is segregated to North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and Latin America. North America and Latin America combined makes the most dominant region in the global market for pickles. This is attributed to larger consumption of pickles among the consumers in North America due to their differentiating taste and taste enhancing capabilities. Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness the fastest growth rate during the forecast period owing to increased demand for pickles among consumers as a savory product and also as food enhancers. Developing nations such as China and India are showing substantial growth rate in this region.Browse Report@Major players of the global pickle market include ADF Foods (India), Del Monte Foods (U.S.), Mt. Olive Pickle Company (U.S.), Kraft Foods Inc. (U.S.), Reitzel International (Switzerland), Pinnacle Foods, Inc. (U.S) and Mitoku Company, Ltd. (Japan) among others.About Us:-Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact Us:-State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Security Cameras Market Segmentation and Company Analysis to 2027

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=23087

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/security-cameras-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Global Security Cameras (IR Illuminator) Market: OverviewA security camera is used to provide protection for private as well as commercial and industrial places. A security camera is powerful devices against burglars and thus helps individual to track the details live or happened in the past. The significant use of security cameras is for surveillance which delivers substantial evidence in the time of need for investigation purposes. The security camera market is growing at faster pace owing to increase of thefts across the globe. Although this is the prime reason for the security camera market to grow, another key aspect which is helping the security camera manufacturers to generate high sales revenues is the increasing demand for security cameras from home individuals to feel secured. As security camera in residential places aids in detecting the suspicious behavior of intruder, keeping a close check on kids or pets when away from home. In commercial or industrial entities, security cameras are of great help to check on the staff or workers. The security cameras are available in a wide variety depending upon the need. For instance, a PTZ (Pan, tilt, and zoom) camera are widely used by security companies to remotely access the places through turning off camera by 360 degrees, whereas for securing home a fixed camera con does the help. The other types include night vision, dome, bullet type camera, etc. The wireless security cameras are most widely used owing to the flexibility in installation.Request Report Brochure @Global Security Cameras (IR Illuminator) Market: Drivers and RestraintsNowadays security cameras are installed almost at every place with an objective to reduce the crime or suppress the fear of offence, to improve public safety and security. These are the prime targets taken into account which drives the global security cameras (IR illuminator) market. The growing urbanization, infrastructural developments, expansion of business across the globe has a positive impact on the security cameras market. Moreover, the government initiatives for public safety and security, organizations implementing security measures further boosts the global security cameras market.Global Security Cameras (IR Illuminator) Market: SegmentationBy security camera type, security cameras (IR Illuminator) market is segmented into:-Fixed security cameraPan-tilt-Zoom security cameraMini dome security cameraNight vision security cameraMotion direction security cameraOthers (Hidden/Covert, dome, etc.)By security camera use, security cameras (IR Illuminator) market is segmented into:-IndoorOutdoorOn the basis of application, security cameras (IR Illuminator) market is segmented into:-Border SecurityCommercialCity InfrastructureInstitutionalResidentialIndustrialRead Report Overview @By camera resolution, security cameras (IR Illuminator) market is segmented into:-Non HDHDFull HDUHDGlobal Security Cameras (IR Illuminator) Market: Region Wise OutlookThe global security cameras (IR Illuminator) market is divided into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA). The security cameras (IR illuminator) market in APEJ is expected to expand at healthy CAGR, regarding consumption owing to the increasing infrastructural developments coupled with increasing the crime rate. The market in North America and Western Europe is matured due to the use of open street camera surveillance. The Japan security cameras (IR illuminator) market is expected to grow at moderate CAGR over the forecast period.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Healthcare Automation Market Set to Surge Significantly During 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/23888

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=23888

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Transparency Market Research (TMR) states that Siemens AG, General Electric Company, Swisslog Holding AG, and Koninklijke Philips N.V. are some of the leading companies in the global healthcare automation market. These players have consistently worked toward expansion of product portfolio and reinforcing business through innovation product development. In the coming years, to beat the competition, players are expected to plan for mergers and acquisitions to expand their horizons to newer geographies.The research report states that The Global Healthcare Automation Market was valued at US$28.31 bn in 2016. However, over the forecast period of 2017 and 2025, the global market is likely to pace ahead at a CAGR of 8.8% to reach a valuation of US$58.98 bn by the end of 2025. Research institutes and labs have been identified as the key end users of healthcare automation. The need for fast-paced operations and precision is expected to propel this end-user segment at a CAGR of 8.2% in the global market over the forecast period. From a geographic point of view, North America is expected to dominate the global healthcare automation market despite a slight dip in its overall share. Analysts expect that this regional market will account for a share of 39.5% by 2025, which will be higher than the rest of the regional markets across the globe.Request to View ToC of Report -Wearable Technology to be an Emerging Trend in Global Healthcare Automation MarketAutomation has brought in a range of benefits across all industrial platforms. The healthcare industry has been steadily adoption automation in several areas such as research institutes and labs, pharmacies, and home care among others. The uptake of healthcare automation processes and systems is expected to remain persistent in the coming years as these solutions designed with smarter technologies tend to make operations significantly efficient. The superior quality of these systems has also garnered unprecedented support from governments across the globe, thereby bolstering market growth. A clear example of remarkable advantages rendered by application of healthcare automation are the lack of errors in maintaining inventory and medicine management in pharmacies. Owing to this very reasons, the pharmacies are also expected to offer the healthcare automation market lucrative growth opportunities in the near future.The high-tech solutions offered by healthcare automation also expands to material handling, transport, and disease management. The growing demand for wearable technology has been noted as an emerging trend in the global market. Smartwatches, an important aspect of wearable technology, has empowered both patients and physicians to closely monitor changes in health, intervene at an appropriate time, and ensure a better lifestyle. In light of these reasons, the global healthcare automation market has a bright future in the world economics.Request to View Sample of Report -Additional Maintenance Costs Discourage End UsersOn the flip side and despite the advantages, the cost of automation has turned out to be a major disappointment to the global healthcare automation market. The requirement of regular maintenance has also dissuaded several end users as it adds to the operational costs. Thus, the hesitation amongst end users is likely to hold back the market from achieving its potential in the near future.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Healthcare Information Systems Market Pegged for Robust Expansion During 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/1457

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=1457

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The leading players in the global healthcare information systems market are Cerner Corporation, McKesson, and All Scripts. Collectively, these players held a share of 26% in the global market in 2015, states Transparency Market Research. The diversified portfolio of these companies is expected to help them maintain a lead in the coming years. Several companies in the global healthcare information systems market are expected to focus on increasing geographical presence through mergers and acquisitions to increase their revenues.According to the research report, The Global Healthcare Information Systems Market is expected to reach a valuation of US$448 bn by the end of 2024 as compared to US$192 bn in 2015. During the forecast years of 2016 and 2024, the global market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.1%.Request to View ToC of Report -North America Poised to Acquire a Share of 36.6% by 2024The end users in the global market are hospitals, academic and research centers, and diagnostic centers. The report indicates that hospitals are expected to key users of healthcare information systems by the end of 2024. This end-user segment is projected to expand at a CAGR of 11.1% between 2016 and 2024. The increasing adoption of healthcare information systems in hospitals for storing a large amount of information and making it easily accessible to physicians is expected to boost the demand.In terms of geography, the global healthcare information systems market is segmented into North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and Europe. Of all these regions, North America is expected to dominate the global market in the coming years. This regional market is slated to acquire a share of 36.6% in the overall market by the end of 2024. Asia Pacific too is expected to offer the healthcare information systems market a significant boost in the near future.Need to Reduce Errors and Costs Ensures Swift Uptake of Healthcare Information SystemsGrowing number of government initiatives to digitize healthcare systems has led to the adoption of healthcare information systems. These systems are aimed at achieving an accurate analysis of the health of the patient by maintaining the records about patients disorders or diseases in an organized manner. Over the years, the usage of healthcare information systems has allowed improved the quality of medical assistance provided to the patients along with improving disease surveillance. These systems have also enabled reduction of medication error. The market for healthcare information systems is also expected to be fueled by the growing need to cut down on healthcare costs that are associated with paperwork and maintenance of physical records.Request to View Sample of Report -High Cost of Investments and Maintenance Likely to Discourage Growth of Global MarketThe high cost of investments in such as purchasing the systems, installing them, and the cost training labor to use them is discouraging many end users from adoption the new-age healthcare information systems. The maintenance cost of these systems includes software upgradation, hardware replacement, and support. Thus, all of these factors are acting as a major restraint for the global market. The report also points that concerns pertaining to cyber security are also likely to hamper the growth of the overall market in the coming years. Lastly, issues related to integration and interoperability are also likely to hold the market back to a noticeable extent.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Technology Spending on Core Administration in Healthcare Market Estimated to Flourish by 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/16961

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=16961

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The field of core administration solutions for the healthcare industry is highly fragmented owing to the presence of a large number of established players offering hardware, software, and services, says Transparency Market Research in a recent report. Considering the vast growth opportunities in developing regions such as India, Brazil, and China, players are focusing on diversification opportunities across these countries through mergers, acquisitions, and consolidation practices. To encash the vast growth opportunities in the core administration segment in the healthcare industry, owing to various government norms like Obamacare or Affordable Care Act (ACA), competitors are also focusing on extensive product development to offer differentiated services.According to Transparency Market Research, The Global Technology Spending On Core Administration In Healthcare Market sector will exhibit a 5.7% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024, rising from US$25,900 mn in 2015 to US$42,317 mn by 2024.Of the key end users of core administration solutions in the healthcare industry, the payers segment accounted for over 88% of the overall market in 2015 and is expected to remain the key driver of technology spending on core administration in the healthcare industry throughout the forecast period. Geographically, North America dominated, accounted for over 50% of the overall funds spent on enabling technologically advanced core administration solutions in the healthcare industry in 2015. The trend is expected to remain strong over the forecast period as well.Request to View ToC of Report -Rising Demand for Value-based Reimbursement Modules to Drive adoption of IT Solutions in HealthcareRising convergence of a variety of digital platforms for managing and processing the ever-expanding healthcare data, continuously changing healthcare reimbursement reforms and regulations, and digitally empowered consumers are collectively making the healthcare administration space increasingly complex. While at one point cost competition is at the peak in the healthcare industry, payers (insurance agencies) are pressing healthcare providers to switch from a volume-based (payment for service) to a value-based reimbursement module (payment for value).By requiring that healthcare providers deliver services at lowest costs to patients, value-based reimbursement modules entail more financial risks for providers and critically necessitate the effective management of core administrative processes to cut costs. The situation demands a robust IT infrastructure and an integrated platform wherein the payers can streamline workflows for provider contracting and engagement. In the next few years, the increased need for such platforms will emerge as one of the key drivers of technology spending on core administration in the healthcare sector.Request to View Sample of Report -Outdated Technology and Applications Discourage Technological Advancements in Healthcare IT InfrastructureHowever, the overall global spending on technology for core administration in the healthcare sector is expected to be negatively impacted due to factors such as the presence of outdated technology and applications across several data collection and delivery nodes, continuously changing healthcare reforms, and ever-changing ways of financial transactions.The inability of healthcare professionals in using complex or time-consuming features in technologically advanced digital healthcare applications is another key factor deterring the adoption of IT solutions for managing core administrative processes in the healthcare sector. The use of IT solutions by health professionals is growing at a steady pace globally, but it is not uniform. A substantial gap exists between the numbers of providers, which is relatively small presently, the number of consumers who actively use the Internet for any purpose, which is on rise at a rapid pace, and the much larger group of patients and healthcare providers that has not used it or cannot use it.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Asia Pacific Corporate Wellness Market Estimated to Expand at a Robust CAGR over 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/13988

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=13988

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific is led by a slew of global and local companies, such as Central Corporate Wellness, ComPsych Corporation, Optum, Inc., JLT Australia (Recovre Group), Truworth Wellness, SOL Wellness, Sodexo, ConneXions Asia, and Bupa Wellness Pty Ltd. Transparency Market Research has observed that the number of companies venturing into this avenue has been steadily rising owing to the growing presence of MNCs in several developing countries.The opportunity in The Corporate Wellness Market In Asia Pacific was pegged at US$3.4 bn in 2015 and is expected to be worth US$7.4 bn by the end of 2024 at a strong CAGR of 9.0%. Geographical expansions, expansion of product portfolio, mergers and acquisitions, and investing in extensive wellness programs are some of the key growth strategies adopted by the leading players in the Asia Pacific. For instance, in March 2016, Sodexo signed a 10-year contract with Rio Tinto to expand its operations in Australia.Request to View ToC of Report -Increase of Non-communicable Diseases Driving Need for Health and Wellness ProgramsThe prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer has increased significantly in Asia Pacific in recent years. The report has found that these diseases account for at least 8.5 million deaths in Southeast Asia each year. Employers are, as a result, driven to promote as well as maintain the health and well-being of their employees and offering corporate wellness programs and services has turned out to be the most effective method of doing so, the lead analyst states. These services not only boost productivity but also reduce overall medical costs.The corporate wellness market in Asia Pacific is also fueled by government support and initiatives, the rising number of white-collar employees, the willingness of employers to invest in wellness programs, and growing health consciousness among the population.High Cost of Implementation Restricting Widespread AdoptionImplementing corporate wellness programs in organizations is a costly affair and companies need to utilize a certain portion of their budget from the revenue generated, the author of the study comments. Services such as fitness and health risk assessment need high investments and as a result, are cut down by the companies. This restricts the growth of the corporate wellness market.In addition, the inefficient execution of corporate wellness services is a major restraint to the market and is likely to increase costs for the companies.Request to View Sample of Report -China to Lead APAC Corporate Wellness Market throughout Forecast PeriodBy type of service, the fitness segment led the overall corporate wellness market, accounting for a 38.6% share in 2015, reaching US$2,793.5 mn by 2024. The smoking cessation segment, although the smallest in terms of revenue in 2015, is anticipated to register a strong CAGR of 9.6% during the forecast period. By country, China emerged as the leading revenue generator in 2015 and is projected to retain its position throughout the forecast period. India, on the other hand, is expected to expand at the fastest pace by 2024.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Kartie Tree Extract Market - Industry Players Competition & Companies involved For 2017

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=14357

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/kartie-tree-extract-market.html

Kartie Tree is popularly known as Shea Tree, scientific name Vietellaria Paradoxa. It is the only tree in genus Vitellaria and it indigenous to Africa. Kartie is its French name meaning the tree of life. It has got its name due to its extensive healing properties.Kartie tree extract is commonly known as shea extract and traditionally being used for butter production i.e. shea butter. It has tremendous skin care, healing and medicinal properties which marks its demand in market by various industries. Kartie is being used and exported since ancient time from its origin region Africa. Kartie oil has low fat content and hence popularly being used as substitute of cocoa and palm oil, and that is why demanded in global market.Download PDF Brochure@Kartie Tree Extract Market Segmentation:Kartie tree extract market is segmented on the basis of its applications into different industries. This includes cosmetics & personal care, food, Medicinal and others. Its market demand is emerging in personal care and cosmetic industry due to its skincare, inflammatory and moisturizing properties. Kartie tree oil is considered as excellent substitute for palm and cocoa oil which has comparatively high fat contents, hence it is commonly used as substitute for high-fat oils. Applications of kartie oil in food industry is expected to increase in near future. Kartie tree extracts market is segmented on the basis of its purity and processing, as grades Grade A,B,C,D and E. A-Raw or unrefined, B-refined, C-highly refined or extracted with solvents, D-lowest uncontaminated grade katrie extract and E- kartie extract with contaminants. Grade A extract retain most natural properties as compared to other grades.Kartie tree extract market is further segmented on basis of regions which includes North America and Latin America, Middle East & Africa, Japan, Europe and Asia pacific excluding Japan. Europe and America possess demand of kartie extract for the cosmetics and personal care industry by volume. The major cosmetics and soap industry in the U.S. is most lucrative global market for kartie tree extracts.Kartie Tree Extract Market Drivers:Kartie extract is in high demand in several sectors in the world market. Principle factors driving market demand are continuous rising demand for cocoa equivalent products due to rising chocolate consumption by world population. Also rising market demand for natural products based cosmetics and skin care products is becoming another market driver for kartie tree extract.In Europe, Japan and North America markets kartie extract is highly sought due to its high healing and moisturizing properties. This demand mainly comes from cocoa butter equivalent (CBE) as kartie extracted butter is approved to be used in chocolates. India is also an important market for kartie tree extract. The Europe and North America are the main markets for shea butter use in cosmetics and natural products.Consumer awareness about hydrogenated oils containing trans fats has also played an important role in the increased use of kartie tree extract market. Emerging market demand for kartie extracted products in world market is proven employment source for villagers and the sector has got high economic important. And hence government taking initiatives to fulfill maximum market demand of kartie tree extract and related products, emerging from all over the world.Kartie Tree Extract Market Key Players:Maximum amount of kartie is exported to other market places other than Africa where it gets extracted, purified and converted into different required byproducts. Kartie processing takes two routes, the row nuts are exported to Asian oil companies in bulk who extract, refine and sell it to Europe. Unrefined kartie extract is locally processed and graded for purity and then pushed into the world market through distributors.Browse Report@Key players operating in kartie tree extract market are Aarhus United, Fuji Oils Co. Ltd, and Loders Croklaan. Some of the local players manufacturing kartie tree extract include, Inkuto Ltd., The Pure Company, Bosbel Vegetable oil mills, Trituraf S. A among others.About Us:-Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a next-generation provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact Us:-State Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Corn Gluten Meal Market Growth by Top Company, Geographical Region, Application, Driver & Forecast to 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=21044

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/corn-gluten-meal-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Global Corn Gluten Meal Market: SnapshotCorn gluten meal (CGM) is one of the useful byproducts obtained from the corn milling industry which has a variety of applications in the industries such as the food and beverages and agriculture. Owing to its high-protein content, corn gluten meal has been traditionally used as supplement in the hog feed industry and typically doesnt contain gluten. Recently, it has been popularly used as a cost-effective aquaculture feed, in making corn-based snack products, and in various common food and feed products. In recent years, there have been widespread interest in the usage of corn-gluten meal as a pre-emergent herbicide due to its weed-inhibiting properties. There is soaring popularity among agriculturists world over, especially in developed nations, for exploring the application of CGM as an organic alternative to common chemically-derived herbicides.Download exclusive Sample of this report:The scope has been highly debated in recent years and several studies and field trials in the U.S. majorly investigate the effectiveness of corn gluten meal as natural pre-emergent herbicide in controlling a variety of weeds and their superiority over chemical-based pesticides. Typically containing 10% nitrogen by weight, corn gluten meal released into the atmosphere over a period of three to four months. It prevents seeds from forming roots during germinating, and when already germinated, CGM can only act as a fertilizer for the weeds. In addition, unarguably, corn gluten meal is not helpful in providing post-emergent weed control. The timing of the application is also critical. Moreover, the failure to apply an adequate weed removal method prior to its application may actually act as counter-effective by boosting the growth of the weed.Corn Gluten Meal: Market OverviewCorn gluten meal is a byproduct of corn milling process and is a natural substitute for synthetic herbicides as it also prevents grass and weed seeds from sprouting without hurting existing plant. It has high value in pet food industry due to its natural high-protein content, it is used in aquaculture feed too as it is cost-effective than the fish meal. Corn gluten meal is a high source of carbohydrates, iron, and phosphorus. One of the major use of corn gluten meal is to add texture and taste to the product. Corn gluten meal is produced in different forms like dry-loose, dry-pellets and wet. Corn gluten meal contains 10% nitrogen by weight, which makes it a good fertilizer for plants with well-established roots. Corn gluten meal offers non-toxic weed and feed product which is more effective than traditional or chemical based weed and feed product.Browse Market Research Report @Corn Gluten Meal: Market Trends and DriversThe corn gluten meal market is primarily driven by the rise in demand for corn based snack products as well as gluten free products. Where current trend leads to continuous product innovation and development in terms of ingredients and product variants which is essential for the sustainability in the industry. Growing demand for the corn flour by snacks manufacturers worldwide is also responsible for driving the market growth. Due to long-term ecological effects of synthetic chemicals consumers are shifting towards the natural weed and feed control products which includes corn gluten meal. Also, in Ontario pesticides are banned due to unnecessary risk to human health which increased the demand for the corn gluten meal. One of the key driver for the increase in demand for the corn gluten meal is use of ethanol as a fuel is increasing worldwide which is obtained from corn gluten meal.Corn Gluten Meal: Market SegmentationCorn gluten meal can be segmented on the basis of its forms as, unprocessed corn gluten meal, granulated corn gluten meal and pelletized corn gluten meal. Unprocessed corn gluten meal have powder structure and is applied directly on the plantings, granulated form is a spreader which is mixed with water for use and pelletized can be broadcast by hand.Corn gluten meal is segmented on the basis of application as herbicides in lawns for feed and weed purposes. Corn gluten meal is used as animal/ pet feed and as taste enhancer. Also, it can be used as animal or pet food as it is source of proteins, energy and pigments. Corn gluten meal is typically used for poultry feed, cattle feed, pig feed and aqua feeds.Corn gluten meal is segmented on the basis of process as wet-milling process and dry-milling process. Wet-milling process is done to remove high value corn-oil and the remains are used as an animal feed. It has high processing cost but can produce variety of products. Dry-milling is less versatile and used in the ethanol production process, the end product for this process is ethanol and low-value animal feed.Corn Gluten Meal: Market by GeographyCorn gluten meal market can be segmented on the basis of regions as, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America. China is growing rapidly in the consumption of corn gluten meal using it as a crap feed, also China is largest producer of corn gluten meal as it owns large corn starch processing sector.Corn Gluten Meal: Key PlayersCorn gluten meal market is dominated by the some of the key players like Cargill, Ingredion Incorporated, A.D.M. Engineering, Tate & Lyle plc., Sodrugestvo Group S.a., Agridient Inc., Pawar Agro Industries, Paramesu Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Meihua Holdings Group Co., Ltd., Zhucheng Xingmao Corn Developing Co. Ltd., Zhucheng Dongxiao Biotechnology Co. Ltd. etc. among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
FMCG Labels Market Growth Opportunities in Industry by 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/fmcg-labels-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=11771

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Labelling is an indispensable part of marketing, which impulse and highly influence consumer buying behavior. In each product category under FMCG market, brand owners are looking for new approaches to develop labels in order to face competitive market.Labelling is used to differentiate or giving distinct looks from the other products available in the market. FMCG labels can be made in different design as per the specific demand of the customers. It includes self-adhesive labels, barcode, tag, sticker and others, available in different shape, size and colors.However government organizations across the world has established packaging labels guidelines for particular products and packaging type and it is required to meet those requirements.Increasing demand for grocery, personal care products and food and beverage is expected to drive consumption of FMCG products. In five years, FMCG market has become highly consolidated, majorly influenced by local players and retailers.Obtain Report Details:In such competitive environment, brand owners are more inclined towards having private labels so that to stand against competitor. Private labels are gaining trust among end-use consumers, and expected to be potential substitute for FMCG labels.FMCG Labels Market: Market DynamicsThe FMCG labels market is highly influenced by the performances of manufacturers who sells their products under FMCG domain. Following a recovery of the world economic turndown in 2010, the retail market of fast moving consumer goods has witness significant growth owing increasing per capita income across each geographies.Government regulations over packaging has forced manufactured to provide quality packaging and ensuring clean and persistence labels which represent all required contents of product and packaging materials.Owing to the demand and supply gap of FMCG products, the retailers has adopted a business strategy of expansion and number of retail store has increased significantly over the last five years. Market penetration of multinational companies like Walmart in emerging economies such as China and India is expected to drive the FMCG labels market in high potential market. Increasing disposable income and rapidly expanding retail sector are two key drivers to drive the global FMCG labels market.However private labels is a potential treat for FMCG labels and it is expected to restrain the growth of FMCG labels market. Additionally, the sustainability of FMCG labels market is highly dependent on innovation and product development.Make Enquiry @Growing demand for sustainable packaging and health conscious consumers is expected to augment the growth of FMCG labels market across the world. North America and Europe are expected to be most competitive market, owing to increasing industry preference for private labelling in these geographies.Owing to expansion of retail sectors and marketing strategies adopted by key players, Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as most attractive segment over the forecast period. This can offers an opportunity to multinational companies to penetrate in to high potential market of China and India.China is the largest market in Asia-Pacific followed by India in 2020, and is expected to grow rapidly in the near future. This is primarily because of growing industries such as food and beverages and pharmaceuticals which are highly rely on concise packaging labels.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email:sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
The Ultrapure Water Market is Projected to Grow at a Substantial Rate

QYResearchReports

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1401453&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-ultrapure-water-market-professional-survey-report-2017.htm/toc

http://www.qyresearchreports.com

Qyresearchreports include new market research report Ultrapure Water to its huge collection of research reports.The global market for Ultrapure Water is discussed in detail within a new research study added recently to QYResearchReports.com. The report has been carefully examined both qualitatively and quantitatively and the results are revealed in the research report for the forecast period of 2017 to 2022. In addition to this, the various drivers and restraints, regulatory conditions, and the segmentation of this global market have also been included in the study. All data is supported by primary and secondary research methodologies. Expert analysts from the industry have also expressed their opinions on the industrial and economic scenario, creating the report as an authentic guide to the global Ultrapure Water market.Get Sample Report of the Research Study at:The research report makes use of various market-tested analytical tools such as market attractiveness readings, SWOT analysis, and Porters Five Forces analysis in order to provide readers a qualitative as well as quantitative overview of the Ultrapure Water market. The information garnered from these research procedures is further investigated by seasoned industry analysts, who have made their contributions in the form of invaluable market insights on the workings of the global Ultrapure Water market.The biggest and the highly influential regions in the global Ultrapure Water market are determined and assessed in detail within the research report. The economic factors influencing the market are stated, along with a 360-degree overview of the current conditions that are influencing the direction and expansion rate of the market and the key operations in its various regional segments. Top market trends are analyzed to offer clients appropriate guidance in compiling their own market strategies for their and the Ultrapure Water markets growth trajectory. The report thus provides existing and established companies as well as new entrants all the relevant data they need to create business opportunities in lucrative and thriving economies. The report helps companies of any size and caliber establish a stronger foothold in the global Ultrapure Water market.This report studies Ultrapure Water 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, coveringAqua-ChemCrossbow WaterCulligan Reynolds H2O PlusDe Pure Water TechnologiesEfilterEMD Millipore CorporationEvoqua Water TechnologiesF.W Webb Company Thermoplastic Piping DivFlorida Ultrapure WaterGDSKurita Water IndustriesMar-Cor PurificationMazzei Injector CompanyUltrapure Water Treatment technologiesVector Engineering Group...Read Complete Table of Content of the Report at:Table of ContentsGlobal Ultrapure Water Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Ultrapure Water1.1 Definition and Specifications of Ultrapure Water1.1.1 Definition of Ultrapure Water1.1.2 Specifications of Ultrapure Water1.2 Classification of Ultrapure Water1.2.1 Reverse Osmosis(RO)1.2.2 Ion Exchange1.2.3 Ultrafiltration1.2.4 Tank Vent Filtration1.2.5 Resin Trap Filtration1.2.6 Degasification1.2.7 Electrode Ionization1.3 Applications of Ultrapure Water1.3.1 Semiconductors1.3.2 Pharmaceuticals1.3.3 Gas Turbine Power1.3.4 Coal Fired Power1.3.5 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 Ultrapure Water2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Ultrapure Water2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Ultrapure Water2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Ultrapure Water3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Ultrapure Water3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Ultrapure Water Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Ultrapure Water Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Ultrapure Water Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Ultrapure Water Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Ultrapure Water Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Ultrapure Water Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Ultrapure Water Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Ultrapure Water Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Ultrapure Water Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Ultrapure Water Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Ultrapure Water Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)...About QYResearchReports.comQyresearchreports.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 Qyresearchreports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Burritos Market to Grow at a CAGR of 5.64% to 2021

Burritos, Burritos Market, Burritos Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-burritos-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286878

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286878

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Burritos Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 78 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global burritos market to grow at a CAGR of 5.64% during the period 2017-2021.About BurritosA burrito is a type of Mexican food, which is wheat flour tortilla rolled or wrapped with a filling into a closed-ended cylinder, in contrast to a taco, where the tortilla is simply folded around the filling. The global packaged foods market is driven by factors such as convenience of packaged foods in terms of preparation and consumption, changing lifestyles. However, factors like risks of food contamination, stringent government regulations pertaining to the manufacture and sale of packaged foods, and emergence of local brands can limit the growth rate of the market over the next five years.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global burritos market for 2017-2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Burritos 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global burritos market: Amy's Kitchen, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ruiz Foods, and Yum! Brands.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Camino Real Kitchens, Del Taco, Tavistock Freebirds, JACK IN THE BOX, and Ramona's Food Group.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is extensive marketing activities and campaigns. A recent trend influencing the growth of the global burritos market is the increase in the promotional and marketing initiatives of the vendors of packaged burritos as well as burrito chains. Most consumer good marketers are now implementing social media campaigns for their product promotions or new product launches.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is growing popularity of Latin American cuisines. The popularity of Mexican food across the US is increasing and the Hispanic population base is growing in the country, which create new opportunities for the global burritos market. The number of consumers who prefer Mexican foods is growing rapidly in the US. Also, the growing demand for foods with fresh ingredients and exotic flavors is driving the growth of Mexican food items like burritos. Major restaurant chains in the US such as Yum! Brands (Taco Bell), Chipotle Mexican Grill, and others, which control a significant portion of the market's share, sell mainstream Mexican food. In addition, the increase in the number of Western and fast-food service restaurants in developing countries will also support the market's growth during the forecast period.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is fluctuations in raw material prices. A major challenge for almost all the types of foodservice outlets is the fluctuation in the prices of food commodities and raw materials. Also, in 2015, the prices of meat and vegetables surged to 3%-5% compared to 2014. The sudden spike in the prices of food commodities due to irregular climate and El Nino affected the profit margins of many restaurants across the globe. Such fluctuations in prices often create problems in production; thereby, causing demand and supply gap in the market. Foodservice outlets need to increase their budget to ensure that the hygiene standards are kept high during cooking and the quality of food is consistent. Health-conscious customers opt for affordable good-quality foods.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Electric Vehicle ECU Industry - Forecast and Analysis by Regions (2017-2022) Report at MarketResearchNest.com

Electric Vehicle ECU Industry, Electric Vehicle ECU Trends

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-electric-vehicle-ecu-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286943

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286943

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Electric Vehicle ECU Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 100 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global electric vehicle ECU market to grow at a CAGR of 46.26% during the period 2017-2021.About Electric Vehicle ECUAn electric vehicle (EV) is powered by an electric motor for propulsion. An electric vehicle uses a battery to store energy, which is supplied to the electric motor through a controller. The controller regulates the energy flow from the battery to electric motor based on the power requirement. EVs first appeared in the market during the 19th century. However, they have high cost and short range compared with internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and limited proliferation of the EV market. As it moved into the 20th century, increased greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from vehicles and environmental issues compelled countries to adopt alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), which had lower or near-to-zero emissions. This has led the automakers to switch to hybrid and electric powertrain technology.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global electric vehicle ECU market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated by the sales of electric vehicle ECUs across the geographies.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Electric Vehicle ECU 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global electric vehicle ECU market: DENSO, Delphi, Continental, Pektron, and Hitachi Automotive.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Mitsubishi Electric, Aradex, MAHLE, Bosch, Sigra Technologies, Keihin Corporation, Metric Mind, Fuji Electric, EVS, Fujitsu, and Minda Corporation.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is MAHLE Flexible ECU (MFE): A rapid prototyping engine controller. The MAHLE Flexible ECU (MFE) is an open architecture and robust controller based on the proven AFT PROtroniC platform. Any powertrain application can be controlled by utilizing MAHLE's highly optimized functional software. It can overcome traditional prototype controller development issues. It provides a cost-effective solution that is representative of a series production unit.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Higher electronic content in EVs to drive the market for ECUs. Electronic technology has played a significant role in the advancement of automotive performance and functionality. In case of EVs, the use of a motor as an actuator, many functionalities operated by mechanics in the past, have now moved into the realm of electronics. The number of electronic content in automobiles has been increasing rapidly and is expected to increase even further, mainly due to the appearance of hybrid and EVs.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Software issues force OEMs to bear hefty recall costs. Cars today have more lines of software code than any other complex system in this world. Some cars execute more than 100 million lines of code, which are almost three times more than those executed by a modern fighter jet. However, with increased lines of code, the complexity of the system increases. Today, the software quality is of utmost importance in the automotive sector to ensure interoperability of different system housed by a vehicle.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Key questions answered in this report: What 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;Enquiry before Buying atAbout us:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Key Trends, Challenges and Opportunities 2022

QYResearchReports

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1400817&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-waterproofing-roofing-membrane-sales-market-report-2017.htm/toc

http://www.qyresearchreports.com

Qyresearchreports include new market research report Waterproofing Roofing Membrane to its huge collection of research reports.The global market for Waterproofing Roofing Membrane is discussed in detail within a new research study added recently to QYResearchReports.com. The report has been carefully examined both qualitatively and quantitatively and the results are revealed in the research report for the forecast period of 2017 to 2022. In addition to this, the various drivers and restraints, regulatory conditions, and the segmentation of this global market have also been included in the study. All data is supported by primary and secondary research methodologies. Expert analysts from the industry have also expressed their opinions on the industrial and economic scenario, creating the report as an authentic guide to the global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market.Get Sample Report of the Research Study at:The research report makes use of various market-tested analytical tools such as market attractiveness readings, SWOT analysis, and Porters Five Forces analysis in order to provide readers a qualitative as well as quantitative overview of the Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market. The information garnered from these research procedures is further investigated by seasoned industry analysts, who have made their contributions in the form of invaluable market insights on the workings of the global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market.The biggest and the highly influential regions in the global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market are determined and assessed in detail within the research report. The economic factors influencing the market are stated, along with a 360-degree overview of the current conditions that are influencing the direction and expansion rate of the market and the key operations in its various regional segments. Top market trends are analyzed to offer clients appropriate guidance in compiling their own market strategies for their and the Waterproofing Roofing Membrane markets growth trajectory. The report thus provides existing and established companies as well as new entrants all the relevant data they need to create business opportunities in lucrative and thriving economies. The report helps companies of any size and caliber establish a stronger foothold in the global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market.Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Waterproofing Roofing Membrane sales volume, Price (USD/sqm), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingSika SarnafilSOPREMAKEMPER SYSTEMDe BoerPolyroofNipponARDEX New ZealandTriflexIcopalDuluxSOPREMASkyWaterproofer...Read Complete Table of Content of the Report at:Table of ContentsGlobal Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Market Report 20171 Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Waterproofing Roofing Membrane1.2 Classification of Waterproofing Roofing Membrane by Product Category1.2.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Liquid Waterproofing Membrane1.2.4 Bituminous Membrane1.2.5 Bituminous Coating1.2.6 Polyurethane Liquid Membrane1.3 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Indoor Application1.3.3 Decking & Roofing Application1.3.4 Others1.4 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market by Region1.4.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (Volume) by Application3 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Waterproofing Roofing Membrane Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)...About QYResearchReports.comQyresearchreports.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 Qyresearchreports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Rollator Walker Sales Market Shares, Competitive Landscape & Forecasts 2017

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1055922&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-rollator-walker-sales-market-report-2017.htm/toc

http://www.qyresearchreports.com

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Rollator Walker Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The global Rollator Walker market is influenced by a variety of regional and global factors and trends, a critical and elaborate assessment of which is covered in the report. The research presents a granular analysis of industry chain developments, notable trends and emerging prospects, and recent research and development activities shaping the growth trajectory. It further offers insights into the revenue share and size of various segments the global Rollator Walker market and the regulatory landscape prevailing in various regions affecting their growth. In addition, the analysis tracks recent investment trends and governmental policy changes affecting their growth. Furthermore, the study the global Rollator Walker market evaluates the impact of key drivers and restraints on shaping the dynamics.Recent industry developments likely to offer more room to technological innovations are offered in the analysis. Furthermore, the report offers insights into emerging strategic paradigms and disruptive technologies expected to significantly alter the course of the market in yet unexplored regions.Get Report Sample and Customization:The study takes a closer look at prominent business models adopted by players and their attractiveness in the overall regime is highlighted in the study. Recent industry collaborations and government initiatives expected to offer impetus to the global Rollator Walker market are adequately covered in the analysis. To make reliable estimations and forecast about the market sizing of various segments, the report gleans through vast volumes of industry data gathered through primary as well as secondary sources. Business executives, budding entrepreneurs, industry leaders, policy makers seeking clear analysis and concise insights on the global Rollator Walker market can peruse through the report. Emerging players looking to get cues of emerging opportunities in various segments and in untapped regions will find the research helpful. Using SWOT analysis and Porters five forces analysis, the study estimates the level of competition prevailing in the market and identifies imminent investment pockets in major regions.Table of ContentsGlobal Rollator Walker Sales Market Report 20171 Rollator Walker Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Rollator Walker1.2 Classification of Rollator Walker by Product Category1.2.1 Global Rollator Walker Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)2 Global Rollator Walker Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Rollator Walker Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Rollator Walker Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Rollator Walker Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Rollator Walker (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Rollator Walker Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)To Browse a Complete Report with TOC Visit @List of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of Rollator WalkerFigure Global Rollator Walker Sales Volume Comparison (K Units) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global Rollator Walker Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure Japan Rollator Walker Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Southeast Asia Rollator Walker Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure India Rollator Walker Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Rollator Walker Sales (K Units) Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Rollator Walker Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Market Major Players Rollator Walker Sales Volume (K Units) (2012-2017)Table Global Rollator Walker Sales (K Units) of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.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: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certification Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2022

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certification

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-secure-sockets-layer-ssl-certification-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286879

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286879

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certification Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 81 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global secure sockets layer (SSL) certification market to grow at a CAGR of 24.33% during the period 2017-2021.About Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) CertificationSecure socket layer (SSL) certification is used for setting up a secure connection between a web server and a web browser. This process of setting up a secure connection is known as SSL handshake. SSL handshake is a public key, and the private key is used to encrypt and decrypt the data. This helps in secure transmission of data between a web server and a web browser. An SSL certificate is provided by a certificate authority (CA). Its work is to authenticate and validate the organization providing a web server. After verification, this certificate is installed on the web server of the organization.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global secure sockets layer (SSL) certification market for 2017 -2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certification 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global secure sockets layer (SSL) certification market: ACTALIS, Certum, Comodo, DigiCert, Entrust Datacard, GlobalSign, GoDaddy, IdenTrust, Let's Encrypt, Network Solutions, Secom Trust, StartCom, Symantec, T-Systems, Trustwave, and TWCA.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is growing number of online transactions. An increase in online transactions has led offline retailers to move toward the e-commerce platform. To perform any transaction on an e-commerce platform, users must share their personal and financial information such name, contact number, credit card details. To secure customers' confidential data, it has become mandatory for e-commerce platform providers to use SSL certificates.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is increasing awareness of end-users. The SSL certification market is growing as the awareness about encryption is increasing among end-users. Google is supporting the growth of the market under discussion by flagging websites that are not secure, i.e., unencrypted sites. Unencrypted sites will be marked in red in the URL over the padlock to warn users that the site is not secure. Encrypted sites on are indicated with HTTPS in their URL, which basically secures layer over the usual HTTP web protocol. This will help end-users to distinguish between the protected site and unprotected sites before submitting any valuable information such as credit card information over the website.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is use of self-signed certificates. Self-signed certificates are the type of SSL certificates that are usually signed by the same entity whose identity it certifies. Many browsers do not support this certificate; hence, they show an error message when any user visits self-signed certificate verified websites. In that error message, the browser gives an option to the user for going back to the search page or continuing with the same website. These certificates are unregulated, so even if the website is compromised, it will appear to the end-user as secured. Self-signed certificate must be used while testing servers.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Future of Robotic Total Station Market Size 2022 Hexagon, Topcon, Trimble

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/718327/?utm_source=OPR-AN

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/718327/

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-north-america-europe-and-asia-pacific-south-america-middle-east-and-africa-robotic-total-station-market-2017-forecast-to-2022

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/world-damper-actuators-market-research-report-2022-covering-usa-europe-china-japan-india-south-east-asia-and-etc?utm_source=RR-AN

https://www.marketstudyreport.com

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/category/news-releases/

MarketStudyReport.com Add New Report Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Robotic Total Station Market 2017 Forecast to 2022 to its research database. The report presents a deep study of the market growth factors and drivers. The report spread across 123 pages with table and figures in it.Global Robotic Total Station Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 provides Market information about Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application. This Industry report also states Company Profile, sales, Robotic Total Station Market revenue and price, market share, market growth and gross margin by regions.Measuring robot, also known as robotic total station, is the measurement platform with automatic target recognition, automatic calibration, automatic angle measurement and distance measurement, automatic target tracking, automatic recording function. The primary use of robotic total stations is in surveying, which is critical and demands high precision. Robotic total stations are advanced, easy to install, reliable, and fast, due to which surveying applications contributed the largest share of over 44% in 2016.Request a Free sample PDF of this research to evaluate more:Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Global Robotic Total Station market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers Hexagon, Topcon, TrimbleMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.), Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers 0.5'' Accuracy, 1'' Accuracy, 2'' and Other AccuracyMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Surveying, Engineering and Construction, ExcavationRequest Discount for Global Robotic Total Station Market Research Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Robotic Total Station market.Chapter 1, to describe Robotic Total Station Market Size Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Robotic Total Station Market Size, with sales, revenue, and price of Robotic Total Station, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Robotic Total Station, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the Robotic Total Station Market Size by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Robotic Total Station market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Robotic Total Station sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceFor More Info on Market Research @Related Reports: -World Damper Actuators Market Research Report 2022 (covering USA, Europe, China, Japan, India, South East Asia and etc)Damper Actuators market research report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability.Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:News:
Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) IT Market to Reach a Valuation of US$18,664.0 mn by 2025

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404992

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404992

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404992/quick-service-restaurant-qsr-it-market-research-reports

Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) IT Market to Clock a CAGR of 7.6% during the Forecast Period Between 2017 and 2025.Quick Service Restaurant IT Market  OverviewQuick Service Restaurants (QSR) IT consist of hardware, software and service. These components are often used for automating various processes in quick service restaurants. QSR IT market report provides analysis for the period 2015  2025, wherein the period from 2017 to 2025 is the forecast and 2016 is the base year. The report covers all the major trends and recent developments playing influential role in the QSR IT markets growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to impact markets growth during the said period. Some of the factors supporting the growth of the market globally include supportive government policies, acts and regulations associated with QSR IT adopted by various industries in various regions around the world. With increasing demand for automation and advanced technology in quick service restaurants, the market is expected to experience high growth in coming decade. The impact of these and other macro-micro economic factors has been analyzed while developing the market growth models. The study provides a complete perspective on global QSR IT markets evolution throughout the above mentioned forecast period in terms of revenue (in US$ Mn).Get the sample copy of report :Quick Service Restaurant IT Market: Market DynamicsThe market overview section of the report establishes the market dynamics such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this market. Using these factors, the study identifies various trends prominent in the industry and are expected to influence the market growth during the forecast period from 2017 to 2025. An attractiveness analysis has also been provided for every segment in the report, in order to provide a thorough understanding of the overall scenario in the QSR IT market. In addition to this, the report provides an overview of various strategies adopted by the key players engaged in global market. Key market indicators included in the report provide significance of the factors which are capable of changing the market scenario. These indicators are expected to define the market position during the forecast period.Quick Service Restaurant IT Market: Market SegmentationThe report segments the market on the basis of component and region. On the basis of component the QSR IT market is segmented as hardware, software and service. In terms of hardware the QSR IT market is segmented as Digital Signage, Kiosks, Drive Thru Terminals, Point of Sales, Handheld Devices, Digital Menu Cards. The software segment is further classified into Front of House, Inventory Management, Reconcillation, Labor Management, HR Software, Data Analytics, Marketing, Restaurant Operation, Support Operation and Franchise Management. The global QSR IT market is segmented on the basis of region into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa and South America. North America is expected to hold the largest market share in the global QSR IT market.Send an enquiry here :Quick Service Restaurant IT Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also highlights the competitive landscape of the global QSR IT market. Abcom Pty Ltd., CAKE Corporation, Cognizant, Delphi Display Systems, Inc. GoFrugal Technologies Pvt. Ltd., HM Electronics, Inc., Imagine! Print Solutions, LG Display Co. Ltd., Microsoft Corporation, NCR Corporation, NEC Display Solutions of America, Inc., Oracle Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, PAR Technology Corporation, Restaurant Service Solutions, Revel Systems, Inc. and Verifone Systems, Inc. are some of the major players operating within the QSR IT market profiled in this study. Details such as financials, SWOT analysis, business strategies, recent developments, and other such strategic information pertaining to these players have been duly provided as part of company profiling. The report also provides a detailed competitive analysis of the key players in the market and identifies various business strategies adopted by them. Leading players are currently focusing on providing cost competitive and customized products to the customers. Moreover, as part of this strategy, the companies are engaging in various strategic partnerships, acquisitions, focusing on expanding their business through new service additions and geographical presence.View full report :Global QSR IT MarketGlobal Quick Service Restaurants IT Market, By ComponentHardwareDigital SignageKiosksDrive through terminalsPoint of SalesHandheld devicesDigital menu cardsSoftwareFront of HouseInventory ManagementReconciliationLabor ManagementHR SoftwareData AnalyticsMarketingRestaurant OperationSupport OperationFranchise ManagementServiceIn addition, the report provides analysis of the global Quick Service Restaurants IT market with respect to the following geographical segments:North AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificMiddle East and AfricaSouth AmericaMRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. 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
Automotive Keyless Entry System Industry - Forecast and Analysis by Regions (2017-2022) Report at MarketResearchNest.com

Automotive Keyless Entry System Industry, Automotive Keyless Entry System Trends

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-automotive-keyless-entry-system-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286947

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286947

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Automotive Keyless Entry System Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 79 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global automotive keyless entry system market to grow at a CAGR of 7.56% during the period 2017-2021.About Automotive Keyless Entry SystemAn automotive keyless entry system consists of two types of technologies: RKE system, whose functionality is entry into the vehicle, and PKE system, which operates as an entry-and-go functionality. A keyless entry system provides vehicle access without using the traditional mechanical key, offering better security and convenience. The global automotive keyless entry system market is segmented based on product type as RKE (remote keyless entry) and PKE (passive keyless entry) and by geography as the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global automotive keyless entry system market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the global unit sales of vehicles (passenger cars and commercial vehicles) installed with keyless entry system as well as aftermarket sales of keyless entry systems.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Automotive Keyless Entry System 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global automotive keyless entry system market: ZF Friedrichshafen, Continental, Delphi*, Valeo, and HELLA.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Alps Electric, DENSO, HYUNDAI MOBIS, Marquardt, Mitsubishi Electric, Lear Corporation, OMRON Corporation, and Advanced Keys.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is virtual key entry system. Research says that almost 68% of US adults used smartphones in 2016, which was 35% in 2011 and this number is expected to grow in the future. Moreover, there were about 210 million of connected car on roads in 2016, and this number is expected to double by 2021. With the era of the Internet of things, devices are getting connected. According to experts, there will be around 50 billion connected objects by 2020.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is increase of sales of automobiles in developing economies. The demand for keyless entry system is dependent on the sales of the vehicles. OEMs, such as Toyota, are planning to increase their production capacity. As a result, the firm has planned to relocate its auto production unit to Mexico by 2019 to meet the growing demand for SUVs and crossovers in the US and Canada. The new plant will also manufacture its flagship model, namely, Corolla. In 2016, General Motors launched SUVs, crossovers, and sedans in the US to capture the market. For the past few years, China has become the largest automotive market in the world. In 2016, the passenger cars market in China recorded a growth of about 4% with SUVs and crossovers contributing the most.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is risk associated with keyless entry systems. Keyless entry systems are a concern for vehicle security, as they use radiofrequency or microwave to be exchanged between the fob and the receiver unit in the vehicle, which is prone to hacking. Thus, although the system is convenient to use, it is riskier than the traditional key. Keyless entry systems have been perceived as secure and convenient, but the system is susceptible to various loopholes that can be misused. The system is a communication between the key fob and the vehicle, which is carried though radio frequency and can be easily hacked. At the DEF CON hacking convention held in Las Vegas in August 2015, ethical hackers discussed numerous techniques that could be used to hack into a vehicle that is equipped with either RKE or PKE systems.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Key questions answered in this report: What 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;Enquiry before Buying atContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | FacebookAbout us:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.
Global Load Balancer Market 2017 Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404683/global-north-america-europe-and-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404683

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404683

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

"The Report Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Load Balancer Market 2017 Forecast to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"This report studies the Load Balancer market. A load balancer is a device that acts as a reverse proxy and distributes network or application traffic across a number of servers.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Load Balancer in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.View Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversF5 NetworksCitrixA10 NetworksRadwareBrocadeKemp TechnologiesRiverbed TechnologySangforFortinetBarracudaArray NetworksHangzhou DPtech Technologies Co., Ltd.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers40 Gbps TypeMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoIT & TelecomBFSIGovernmentOthersGet Sample Copy Of This Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Load Balancer market.Chapter 1, to describe Load Balancer Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Load Balancer, with sales, revenue, and price of Load Balancer, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Load Balancer, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Load Balancer market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Load Balancer sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Load Balancer Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 40 Gbps Type1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 IT & Telecom1.3.2 BFSI1.3.3 Government1.3.4 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 F5 Networks2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.1.1 F5 Networks Load Balancer Description2.1.1.2 F5 Networks Load Balancer Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.1.2 F5 Networks Load Balancer Product Introduction2.1.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.1.2.2 F5 Networks Load Balancer Product Introduction2.1.3 F5 Networks Load Balancer Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.1.3.1 F5 Networks Load Balancer Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.3.2 F5 Networks Load Balancer Market Share in Global in 20162.2 Citrix2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.1.1 Citrix Load Balancer Description2.2.1.2 Citrix Load Balancer Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.2.2 F5 Networks Load Balancer Product Introduction2.2.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.2.2.2 Citrix Load Balancer Product Introduction2.2.3 Citrix Load Balancer Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.2.3.1 Citrix Load Balancer Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.3.2 Citrix Load Balancer Market Share in Global in 20162.3 A10 Networks2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.1.1 A10 Networks Load Balancer Description2.3.1.2 A10 Networks Load Balancer Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.3.2 A10 Networks Load Balancer Product Introduction2.3.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.3.2.2 A10 Networks Load Balancer Product Introduction2.3.3 A10 Networks Load Balancer Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.3.3.1 A10 Networks Load Balancer Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.3.2 A10 Networks Load Balancer Market Share in Global in 20162.4 Radware2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.1.1 Radware Load Balancer Description2.4.1.2 Radware Load Balancer Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.4.2 Radware Load Balancer Product Introduction2.4.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.4.2.2 Radware Load Balancer Product Introduction2.4.3 Radware Load Balancer Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.4.3.1 Radware Load Balancer Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.3.2 Radware Load Balancer Market Share in Global in 20162.5 Brocade2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.1.1 Brocade Load Balancer Description2.5.1.2 Brocade Load Balancer Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.5.2 Brocade Load Balancer Product Introduction2.5.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.5.2.2 Brocade Load Balancer Product Introduction2.5.3 Brocade Load Balancer Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.5.3.1 Brocade Load Balancer Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.3.2 Brocade Load Balancer Market Share in Global in 20162.6 Kemp TechnologiesAbout 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. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Global Market 2017: Key Players  ADT Security Services, Koninklijke Philips, Bay Alarm Medical, Tunstall, GreatCall

Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2601841-global-personal-emergency-response-system-medical-alert-system-market-professional-survey

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/2601841-global-personal-emergency-response-system-medical-alert-system-market-professional-survey

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=2601841

Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com adds Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Market Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Report Details:This report studies Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System 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, coveringKoninklijke Philips N.V.ADT Security ServicesBay Alarm MedicalVRI, Inc.Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc.TunstallMedical Guardian LLCAlertOne Services LLCGreatCallRescue AlertLogicMarkNortek Security and ControlRequest 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 intoLandline PERSMobile PERSStandalone PERSBy Application, the market can be split intoHome-based UseNursing HomeAssisted Living FacilitiesHospicesBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Complete Report Details@Major Key Points in Table of Content:1 Industry Overview of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.1 Definition and Specifications of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.1.1 Definition of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.1.2 Specifications of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.2 Classification of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.2.1 Landline PERS1.2.2 Mobile PERS1.2.3 Standalone PERS1.3 Applications of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System1.3.1 Home-based Use1.3.2 Nursing Home1.3.3 Assisted Living Facilities1.3.4 Hospices1.4 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 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System.8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System8.1 Koninklijke Philips N.V.8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Product A8.1.2.2 Product B8.1.3 Koninklijke Philips N.V. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.1.4 Koninklijke Philips N.V. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.2 ADT Security Services8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Product A8.2.2.2 Product B8.2.3 ADT Security Services 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.2.4 ADT Security Services 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.3 Bay Alarm Medical8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Product A8.3.2.2 Product B8.3.3 Bay Alarm Medical 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.3.4 Bay Alarm Medical 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.4 VRI, Inc.8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Product A8.4.2.2 Product B8.4.3 VRI, Inc. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.4.4 VRI, Inc. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.5 Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc.8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Product A8.5.2.2 Product B8.5.3 Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.5.4 Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc. 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.6 Tunstall8.6.1 Company Profile8.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.6.2.1 Product A8.6.2.2 Product B8.6.3 Tunstall 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.6.4 Tunstall 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.7 Medical Guardian LLC8.7.1 Company Profile8.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.7.2.1 Product A8.7.2.2 Product B8.7.3 Medical Guardian LLC 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.7.4 Medical Guardian LLC 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.8 AlertOne Services LLC8.8.1 Company Profile8.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.8.2.1 Product A8.8.2.2 Product B8.8.3 AlertOne Services LLC 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.8.4 AlertOne Services LLC 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.9 GreatCall8.9.1 Company Profile8.9.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.9.2.1 Product A8.9.2.2 Product B8.9.3 GreatCall 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.9.4 GreatCall 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Business Region Distribution Analysis8.10 Rescue Alert8.10.1 Company Profile8.10.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.10.2.1 Product A8.10.2.2 Product B8.10.3 Rescue Alert 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.10.4 Rescue Alert 2016 Personal Emergency Response System/Medical Alert System 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
Dec, 15 2017: Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market Forecast 2023 Cummins Westport, Landi Renzo, Honda, Renault

Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle

http://bit.ly/2Bsz9Yp

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-light-duty-natural-gas-vehicle-sales-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com

Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market Research 2017A market study "Global Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market" examines the performance of the Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market 2017 report includes Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle market Revenue, market Share, Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle industry volume, market Trends, Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market 2017 : CNH Industrial Daimler Trucks General Motors MAN Truck & Bus Volvo Trucks Beiqi Foton Motor BRC Gas Equipment Cummins Westport Dongfeng Motor Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Ford Motor GAZ Honda IMPCO Technologies ISUZU MOTORS KAMAZ Landi Renzo Navistar Renault VolkswagenLight Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market : By Application Light Commercial Vehicles Passenger CarsFirstly, the report covers the top Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle industry, Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle 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 Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle market revenue worldwide.Finally, Light Duty Natural Gas Vehicle 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
Craft Soda Market: Emergence of Advanced Technologies and Global Industry Analysis

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/craft-soda-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=32651

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Craft Soda Market: Introduction: Craft soda or micro manufacturers are traditional small batch manufactured soda products. Craft soda is flavored carbonated drinks widely categorized under soft drinks. The craft soda majorly comes under non-traditional soft drink flavoring to attract a lot of consumers looking for alternatives. The craft soda market has already seen a high growth is past few years with private labels and local players dominating the market over the globe.Over the forecast period, the craft soda market is expected to maintain such substantial growth rate. Craft soda market is expected to be driven by the rising youth population over the region with high youth population share and its placing over the market as an alternative to monotonous soft drinks offering globally.Craft Soda Market: Segmentation: The craft soda market is segmented on the basis of source, packaging, flavor and distribution Channel.Obtain Report Details @On the basis of source, the craft soda market is segmented into organic and conventional. The organic segment is expected to dominate the craft soda market over the forecast period owing to the global trend of organic food and beverage.On the basis of packaging, the craft soda market is segmented into glass, P.E.T, pouches, and cans. Glass segment is expected to dominate over the forecast period resulted by the traditional packaging used by the major producer to bring an ancient accent to their offerings.On the basis of flavor, the craft soda market is segmented into root beer, orange, passion fruit, berries, tropical fruits and others. Root beer an orange to hold a larger share over the forecast period.On the basis of the distribution channel, the craft soda market is segmented into direct and indirect. The indirect segment is further sub-segmented into modern trade, specialty stores, convenience stores, e-commerce, and other store formats. The indirect segment is expected to dominate over the forecast period.Request Sample @Craft Soda Market: Region-wise Outlook: North America is anticipated to capture a large share on the basis of value owing to its traditional market for crafts soda. Europe to follow North America in terms of value share for craft soda market. Asia-pacific to witness high growth rate in craft soda market due to the faster adoption of western market offerings into the region. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa to also witness significant growth over the forecast period in craft soda market.Craft Soda Market: Drivers and Restraints: The craft soda market is anticipated to be driven by the increasing demand for alternative offering in monotonous mature markets. The soft drink segment has not seen any significant new offering, been dominated by 2 major global players for decades. Also, clean labels and the organic source are anticipated to drive the craft soda market by the rising demand from ethical buyers over the globe.The craft soda market is expected to get restraint by the competitive offering by the major food and beverage manufacturers to capture the untapped market over the forecast period.Craft Soda Market: Key Players: The global player for the Craft Soda market are Tuxen Brewing Co., Justcraft Soda, Five Star Soda, Batch Craft Soda, Brooklyn Organics, Blue Sky, Dry Soda Co., Excel Bottling, and Bai brands.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:
Dec, 15 2017: Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market Forecast 2023 Carrington, Toyobo, Apexical, Xinda, TenCate

Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber

http://bit.ly/2AJHGX9

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-flame-retardant-polyester-fiber-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com

Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market Research 2017A market study "Global Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market" examines the performance of the Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market 2017 report includes Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber market Revenue, market Share, Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber industry volume, market Trends, Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market 2017 : Toyobo DuPont Teijin Films Kaneka Apexical TenCate SSM Industries Springfield Carrington Hangzhou Hanbang Chemical Fiber Hangzhou Bohong Xinda Corp Jinan Kerry Jinan Sanjiang Yibin Fuer Zhonghui Plant Fujian XinhuaFlame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market : By Application Textiles Shoes NonwovensFlame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market : By Type Staple Fiber FilamentFirstly, the report covers the top Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber industry, Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber 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 Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber market revenue worldwide.Finally, Flame Retardant Polyester Fiber 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
Salad Dressings and Mayonnaise Market Analysis and Forecast up to 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=2204

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2204

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The Global Salad Dressings And Mayonnaise Market is growing at a significant pace, owing to the rising popularity of different types of salad dressings and mayonnaise available in the global market. With improvements in the distribution network and channels, the global salad dressings and mayonnaise market is expected to witness rapid growth throughout the forecast period. With these factors, the market is anticipated to register a healthy growth in the near future.The research study offers a thorough overview of the global salad dressings and mayonnaise market and throws light on the major factors that are predicted to impact the development of the overall market in the next few years. In addition, the report talks about the product portfolio, major applications, key geographical segments, technological developments, and the latest trends in the global salad dressings and mayonnaise market. Furthermore, a detailed study regarding the competitive landscape of the global market has been presented in the research report, presenting insights into the company profiles, financial status, mergers and acquisitions, recent developments, and SWOT analysis. To offer a strong understanding of the market, the research study has included the key business strategies used by the prominent players in order to sustain in the stiff competition in the market.Request to View ToC of Report -Global Salad Dressings and Mayonnaise Market: Drivers and BarriersThe rising demand of salads, fast food, and soups is one of the important factors projected to fuel the growth of the global salad dressings and mayonnaise market in the forecast period. The rising consumer awareness regarding the use of salad dressing and mayonnaise products is expected to drive the demand in the coming years. In addition, the growing focus of key players on product innovation and attractive packaging is anticipated to encourage the development of the overall market in the near future.On the flip side, the strict regulations imposed by government regarding labeling, manufacturing, and food supply chain are expected to restrict the growth of the global salad dressing and mayonnaise market throughout the forecast period. Nevertheless, the rising investment of key players on advertising campaigns and marketing activities is predicted to supplement the growth of the global market in the next few years.Global Salad Dressings and Mayonnaise Market: Regional OutlookThe global salad dressing and mayonnaise market can be classified on the basis of geography into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. North America and Europe are considered as developed market and are expected to witness significant growth in the next few years. The presence of a large number of players in these two regions in another factor estimated to accelerate the growth of the salad dressing and mayonnaise market.Moreover, the rising focus of key players on enhancing their market presence across the globe is estimated to encourage the growth of the market in the Rest of the World segment.Furthermore,the rising popularity of fast food in emerging economies is one of the primary factors predicted to encourage the growth of the Asia Pacific market for salad dressing and mayonnaise. The changing food habits and the rising disposable income of consumers are projected to drive the demand for salad dressings and mayonnaise across Asia Pacific throughout the forecast period.Request to View Brochure of Report -Companies Mentioned in the Research ReportThe global market for salad dressing and mayonnaise is dynamic in nature and is expected to witness intense competition in the next few years. The increasing number of players and the rising focus on the expansion of product portfolio are some of the key factors anticipated to contribute extensively towards the development of the global salad dressing and mayonnaise market. Some of the prominent players operating in the market are Tostitos Salsa, Kraft Foods Group Inc., Frenchs Classic Mustard, Best Foods Mayonnaise, Hellmanns, Inc., and Heinz.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Alcohol Enzymes Market Outlook and Forecast Until 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=2247

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=2247

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Alcohol enzymes are found in organisms. They facilitate hydrolysis and ease the inter conversion between alcohol and aldehydes due to the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. They act as catalysts in the conversion of complex molecules in different metabolic reactions. Alcohol enzymes are crucial for the industrial processes as they facilitate yield optimization and improve chemical processes. These enzymes have the capacity to meet growing industrial product requirements due to their versatility. Alcohol enzymes find applications in different industries such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, bio-fuel production, animal feed, cleaning agents, and biotechnology.The report by Transparency Market Research on The Global Market For Alcohol Enzymes Market has been prepared after an exhaustive analysis of the current market trends and past and present figures. The report offers insights on the current competitive landscape and future growth prospects. It also profiles key players in the market and discusses their sales and revenues, market shares, strategies, and growth prospects in the near future. Leveraging market leading analytical tools, the report attempts to gauge where the opportunity lies in the market.Request to View ToC of Report -Global Alcohol Enzymes Market: Trends and OpportunitiesOne of the noteworthy growth drivers in the global alcohol enzymes market is the burgeoning world population and the increasing spending power of people both in developed and developing nations. This has led to a spike in the demand for cosmetics, food and beverages, bio-fuels, and cleaning agents, thereby upping the demand for alcohol enzymes. Another factor propelling growth in the market is the rising sales of various drugs due to the increasing awareness about proper healthcare among people worldwide. The industry has also seen strong growth on account of the specialty and industrial utilization of alcohol enzymes. Additionally, technological advancement in waste and energy saving logistics has brought about growth in alcohol enzymes market too.Countering the growth in the market is the regulations surrounding the production of alcoholic beverages and the use of synthetic food ingredients. Other restraints crimping the market growth are steep costs of manufacturing, supply chain problems, and lesser investments in research and development.Global Alcohol Enzymes Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global market for alcohol enzymes can be segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Among the four geographic regions, North America dominates the market on account of being the leading consumer for alcohol enzymes. Europe is another major market which trails North America in terms of market share. Europe has seen a sharp increase in demand for alcohol enzymes in the past couple of years due to the advent of new drugs implemented in enzyme replacement industry.In the years ahead, Asia Pacific is predicted to be a powerful engine of growth for the market because of the increasing use of bio-fuels in the region due to favorable government policies. Other factors slated to contribute to the market are the swift pace of industrialization, a conducive business environment, and a fast developing pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the emerging economies of China and India.Request to View Brochure of Report -Companies Mentioned in ReportSome of the prominent players in the global womens health therapeutics market profiled in the report are Abbott Laboratories, Novartis AG, Amgen, Inc., Eli Lilly Company, Bayer AG, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Merck & Co., Inc., Novo Nordisk A/S, and Pfizer, Inc. The report studies their sales and revenues, market shares, growth prospects, and strategies in-depth.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Military Vetronics Market Global Trends, Key Vendors Analysis, Import & Export, Revenue by Forecast 2021

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1429

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/military-vetronics-market

Market HighlightsThe Global Military Vetronics Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 7% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are modernization of military ground vehicles, low cost per mile military ground vehicle to reduce ownership cost, reduction of weight, size, and power consumption (SWaP) of electronics in military vehicles to expand internal space for accommodation and ammunition reserves.As per the MRFR analysis, cooling technologies within military land vehicles, challenges with SBC computing capability, and limited on-vehicle network scope are the key factors restraining the market growth.C3 systems demand is highest in North America and Europe, owing to growth in demand for military land vehicles systems with next generation vetronics systems. Also in APAC, rise in demand of technologically advanced military land vehicles and rise in defense spending in India and China is one of the major factors driving the market.Request a Sample Report @Military Vetronics Market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top playersCurtiss-Wright Corporation,Oshkosh Corporation,Ultra Electronics Ltd.,TE Connectivity,SAAB A.B.,Kongsberg Gruppen ASA,General Electric Company,BAE Systems plc,Rheinmetall Defence,Moog, Inc.,Lockheed Martin Corporation,Elbit Systems Ltd.,Thales Group,The Raytheon CompanyGeneral Dynamics CorporationStudy Objectives of Global Military Vetronics 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 Military Vetronics MarketTo provide insights about factors affecting the market growthTo analyse the Global Military Vetronics Market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, porters five force analysis etc.To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World (ROW)To provide country-level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospectiveTo provide country-level analysis of the market for segment are vehicle type and system.To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the 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 Military Vetronics MarketIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.For further information on this report, visit @Target Audience Military Vetronics OEMs Systems Suppliers Component Suppliers Aftermarket suppliers /MROs Research Institute / Education Institute Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerThe report also covers country level analysis:Americas (North & Latin) US Canada Brazil OthersEurope Germany France Italy Spain U.K Rest of EuropeAsia  Pacific China India Japan Australia/New Zealand Rest of Asia-PacificMiddle East & AfricaUAE,KuwaitIsraelRest of Middle East & AfricaThe market report for Global Military Vetronics 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.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research Future+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Chicory Market: Advanced Technologies & Growth Opportunities in Global Industry

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/chicory-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=33458

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Market Introduction:Chicory is a perennial herbaceous plant, which is woody in nature and belongs to dandelion family Asteraceae. Chicory leaves are mostly used for salads and roots when roasted are used as a coffee substitute as well as additive. Chicory is also grown as a feed crop for livestock. Chicory is a native plant of Europe and now is also commonly found in North America. In U.S. chicory is commonly known as Endive (Cichorium endivia).Chicory is famous for the health benefits it offers such as it has the ability to boost the immune system, ease digestive issues, reduce arthritis pains, prevent bacterial infections & heartburn, detoxify the liver and gallbladder and reduce the chance of heart disease. Chicory root is a natural source of prebiotics and is also helpful in reducing weight. Chicory plant is a great source of vitamin and minerals, folic acid, magnesium and potassium.Obtain Report Details @Market Segmentation:Chicory product market is segmented on the basis of nature, end use, distribution channel and region. On the basis of nature the market is segmented into organic and conventional. On the basis of end use applications chicory market is segmented into food and beverages industry, pharmaceutical industry and nutraceutical industry. The food & beverage industry segment can be further sub-segmented into bakery & confectionery products, energy bars, dairy & frozen desserts, breakfast cereals & granola products and beverages.On the basis of distribution channel the chicory market is segmented into hypermarket/supermarket, convenience stores, drug store, online store and others. Among the distribution channel hypermarket/ supermarket is expected to retain the maximum market share in the forecast period.Market Regional Outlook:Regional segment for the market of Chicory is divided into five different regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Europe, Asia Pacific and MEA. Among these segment Europe is expected to have the major market share globally, as it is the largest producer and consumer of Chicory.The North America market is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period, but is anticipated to account for a lower growth rate than the APEJ region, owing to a greater number of emerging economies in Asia Pacific. In Asia Pacific region the countries like India and China, are generating the major revenue. Moreover, the Asia Pacific region is estimated to account the highest CAGR, owing to a larger consumer base, combined with a higher number of retail outlets than any other region.Request Sample @Market Drivers:Regional integration was lacking in Latin America because of major economies such as Brazil and Argentina, which had not adapted free trade. Now the scenario has changed. After successful adoption of free trade agreements by Peru and Mexico and the benefits they received, other countries started adopting free trade. Free trade helps in integration of supply chain, which results in increasing trade activities and trade volume between countries. Chicory manufacturers can now get easy access to other countries in the region. This fact is expected to bolster growth of chicory market.Increasing demand for healthy beverages globally is expected to create opportunities for players in the global chicory market. Ever rising demand for drinks or bars with natural ingredients is expected to result in significantly high sales of chicory products. Food & beverage companies are highly focusing on the research & development activities to enhance the nutritional and multifunctional profile of food items, which offers high health benefits.Prebiotics have greater visibility in the health supplement market, which should have a positive spillover effect into the mass consumer market. There is a significant presence of large multinational manufacturers in Europe, who have the mature technology and capacity to service the needs of this market.Market Key Players:Some of the key players in Chicory Market are Prewett's Health Foods, Starwest Botanicals Inc, Leroux, Narasus Coffee Company, Pioneer Chicory and Chicobel Pvt Ltd among other.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:
Dec, 15 2017: Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market Forecast 2023 Lorom, Nexans, Belden, Yuandong, Huber & Suher

Photovoltaic (PV) Cables

http://bit.ly/2kviKrr

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-photovoltaic-pv-cables-market-2017-demand-insight-key-players-segmentation-and-forecast-to-2022

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com

Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market Research 2017A market study "Global Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market" examines the performance of the Photovoltaic (PV) Cables market 2017. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Photovoltaic (PV) Cables market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Photovoltaic (PV) Cables market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market 2017 report includes Photovoltaic (PV) Cables market Revenue, market Share, Photovoltaic (PV) Cables industry volume, market Trends, Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market 2017 : Nexans GeneralCable Lapp Group Belden Sumitomo Electric Industries LS Cable Group Bangkok Cable Lorom Yuandong Group Wuxi Jiangnan Cable Co.,Ltd. Hengtong Group Huber & Suher Micoe Dongguan Slocable Zhejiang Jiaming Tianheyuan Photovoltaic TechnologyFirstly, the report covers the top Photovoltaic (PV) Cables manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Photovoltaic (PV) Cables report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Photovoltaic (PV) Cables industry, Photovoltaic (PV) Cables industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Photovoltaic (PV) Cables Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Photovoltaic (PV) Cables 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 Photovoltaic (PV) Cables market revenue worldwide.Finally, Photovoltaic (PV) Cables 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
Sparkling Wine Market: Evolving Technology, Trends and Industry Analysis

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sparkling-wine-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=33587

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Sparkling Wine Market IntroductionSparkling Wine contains a significant amount of carbon dioxide which gives a bubbly effervescence to it. Sparkling Wine is produced by the double fermentation process due to which the carbon dioxide gas is formed. The first fermentation process usually takes place in the steel tanks, and the second fermentation takes place in the bottle. One of the best known sparkling wine is the Champagne, which is particularly produced in the Champagne region of France. Sparkling wine is mostly used in celebrations, success, luxury, and various other occasions. It can be alcoholic and non-alcoholic in nature and is consumed by all age group.Sparkling Wine Market SegmentationThe Sparkling Wine Market can be segmented on the basis of source, nature, type of wine, flavors, distribution channel, and region.By source, the sparkling wine market can be segmented by the types of grapes which include Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Petit Meslier, and Arbane. Among these, the Pinot Noir is the most widely used variety of grape followed by Pinot Meuniera and Chardonnay.Obtain Report Details @By nature, the sparkling wine market can be segmented as organic sparkling wine and conventional sparkling wine. The difference between them is the method of production. The organic sparkling wine is produced and fermented in bottles directly whereas the conventional sparkling wine is produced and fermented in high pressured tanks as well as in bottles.By types of wine, the sparkling wine market can be segmented as alcoholic and non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Comparatively, the alcoholic sparkling wine is experiencing a higher demand than the non-alcoholic sparkling wine and thus the alcoholic sparkling wine market is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period.By flavors, the market is segmented into brut, fruity flavor and others. Fruity flavor segment can further be sub-segmented into apple, nutty, pear, citrus, strawberry, vanilla and cream. The most popular style of sparkling wine today is the Brut. Brut sparkling wine has a dry taste, with very low sugar levels.By distribution channels sparkling wine market is segmented into modern trade units, specialty stores, and online stores. Supermarkets/hypermarkets are recently anticipated to hold a significant share in the sparkling wine market. Online stores also have contributed remarkably to the growth of sparkling wine market over the forecast period.By region, sparkling wine market can be segmented into different regions while Europe being the leader with the largest production of sparkling wine. Among the Europe region, Italy holds the first position in the production and export of sparkling wine closely followed by France, Germany, Spain, and Russia. Europe is followed by the production capacity of U.S. with an increased 30% volume over the past years. In terms of consumption, Germany, Russia, and U.S. till now are the biggest sparkling wine consumers while U.K is leading in the value terms.Request Sample @Sparkling Wine Market Drivers, Trends, and DriversAccording to the recent trends of premiumization, alcohol consumers are preferring sparkling wine instead of any other alcoholic drinks for celebrations and occasions. Following the recent past activities in various regions in the world, it can be concluded that consumption of sparkling wine has become an accompaniment for a number of reasons. In many developed regions such as Europe, Canada, the U.S., alcohol and sparkling wine is a socially accepted part of their daily life. Younger population of the world is influenced by their peer group or peer thinking, which is a factor driving the growth of sparkling wine market.Changing lifestyles, the influence of social media and Internet, increasing social parties, adolescents with high social network influence, greater family incomes, and others have easier access to alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, which is also driving demand for sparkling wine. Moreover, globally, the gender gap in terms of alcohol consumption is closing as there is increasing acceptance of female drinking in the societal norms. Because of all these factors, people are attracted towards alcohol, which is driving the growth of the sparkling wine market and this is expected to continue over the forecast period.In spite of the growing trends of alcohol consumption and product premiumization, the high cost of various sparkling wine inhibits alcohol consumers to buy it which in result restraining the sparkling wine market to grow.Sparkling Wine Market Key PlayersThe rise of demand for the Sparkling Wine in the various region is attracting key players to produce and sell sparkling wine in the market. Some the key players are ILLINOIS SPARKLING CO., The Sparkling Wine Co., Moet Hennessy USA, LANSON-BCC, Pernod Ricard, CALIFORNIA CHAMPAGNES, English Wine Producers, The Oxford Wine Company Limited, and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Market Study For Machinable Ceramic Market Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404684/global-north-america-europe-and-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404684

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404684

"The Report Global Machinable Ceramic Market 2017 Forecast to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.bizMachinable ceramic has a continuous use temperature of 800C and a peak temperature of 1000C. Its coefficient of thermal expansion readily matches most metals and sealing glasses. It is non-wetting, exhibits zero porosity, and unlike ductile materials, wont deform. It is an excellent insulator at high voltages, various frequencies and high temperatures. And, when properly baked out, it wont outgas in vacuum environments.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Machinable Ceramic in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.View Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversCorningTokuyamaFerrotecCrystex CompositesAremcoAriake MaterialsWuxi Creative CeramicINNOVACERAMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversFluorophlogopite Glass CeramicNon-oxide CeramicOtherMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoAerospace IndustryConstant & Ultra-high Vacuum EnvironmentsMedical IndustryWelding NozzlesSemi-conductor IndustryOtherGet Sample Copy Of This Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Machinable Ceramic market.Chapter 1, to describe Machinable Ceramic Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Machinable Ceramic, with sales, revenue, and price of Machinable Ceramic, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Machinable Ceramic, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Machinable Ceramic market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Machinable Ceramic sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Machinable Ceramic Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Fluorophlogopite Glass Ceramic1.2.2 Non-oxide Ceramic1.2.3 Other1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Aerospace Industry1.3.2 Constant & Ultra-high Vacuum Environments1.3.3 Medical Industry1.3.4 Welding Nozzles1.3.5 Semi-conductor Industry1.3.6 Other1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Corning2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.1.1 Corning Machinable Ceramic Description2.1.1.2 Corning Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.1.2 Corning Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.1.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.1.2.2 Corning Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.1.3 Corning Machinable Ceramic Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.1.3.1 Corning Machinable Ceramic Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.3.2 Corning Machinable Ceramic Market Share in Global in 20162.2 Tokuyama2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.1.1 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Description2.2.1.2 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.2.2 Corning Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.2.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.2.2.2 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.2.3 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.2.3.1 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.3.2 Tokuyama Machinable Ceramic Market Share in Global in 20162.3 Ferrotec2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.1.1 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Description2.3.1.2 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.3.2 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.3.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.3.2.2 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.3.3 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.3.3.1 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.3.2 Ferrotec Machinable Ceramic Market Share in Global in 20162.4 Crystex Composites2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.1.1 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Description2.4.1.2 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.4.2 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.4.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.4.2.2 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.4.3 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.4.3.1 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.3.2 Crystex Composites Machinable Ceramic Market Share in Global in 20162.5 Aremco2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.1.1 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Description2.5.1.2 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.5.2 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.5.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.5.2.2 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.5.3 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.5.3.1 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.3.2 Aremco Machinable Ceramic Market Share in Global in 20162.6 Ariake Materials2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.1.1 Ariake Materials Machinable Ceramic Description2.6.1.2 Ariake Materials Machinable Ceramic Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.6.2 Ariake Materials Machinable Ceramic Product Introduction2.6.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major CompetitorsAbout 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.State Tower 90 Sate Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-621-2074 USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948
Global Qualitative Analysis Energy Storage Market Research Report 2017

Energy Storage, Energy Storage Market, Energy Storage Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-energy-storage-market-for-satellites-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286887

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286887

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Energy Storage Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 90 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global energy storage market for satellites to grow at a CAGR of 5.04% during the period 2017-2021.About Energy Storage Market for SatellitesEnergy storage is crucial to proper functioning of satellites and a major requirement in the global satellite industry. In a satellite, energy storage equipment is incorporated with solar PV panels to store energy harnessed by solar panels directly. However, harnessing and storing solar energy is applicable only when batteries are used. Fuel cells and other energy storage technologies are based on chemical reactions; therefore, they do not require solar panels for recharging.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global energy storage market for satellites for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the energy storage market for satellites.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Energy Storage Market for Satellites 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global energy storage market for satellites: EaglePicher Technologies, EnerSys, GS Yuasa Lithium Power, Mitsubishi Electric, and SaftOther Prominent Vendors in the market are: FastCap Systems.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Development of microsatellites and next-generation batteries. Microsatellites can act as a resource to indirectly contribute to the functions of bigger satellites. These tiny satellites can be tailored as per the requirement of the mission. In 2015, a team comprising researchers from the Missouri University of Science and Technology focused its efforts to develop a microsatellite imagery for health monitoring of satellites with sensitive functions such as global security and weather monitoring.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Declining Li-ion battery prices. The market for Li-ion batteries has been witnessing rapid growth. Owing to this, there has been a decline in the demand for other battery types. The factor that discriminates between Li-ion batteries and other energy storage technologies, such as fuel cells, is the price. However, leading vendors in the manufacturing of Li-ion batteries are working on technological advances and are trying to reduce the price of Li-ion batteries.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Widening supply-demand gap for lithium. The global lithium market is facing a deficit of lithium, and this trend is expected to continue during the forecast period. This is owing to the tremendous demand from upcoming sectors such as EV, e-Bike battery, etc. According to the IEA, electric car stock increased from few hundreds in 2005 to more than 1 million in 2015. This led to increased lithium demand to produce Li-ion batteries for EVs, particularly because the battery type is more preferred by EV manufacturers. This sudden increase in demand resulted in a supply deficit in the global market.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Art and Sculpture Market Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/20695

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/20695

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/art-and-sculpture-market.asp

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

A new report published by Persistence Market Research titled Art and Sculpture Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012 to 2016) and Forecast (20172025) tracks the growth of the global art and sculpture market for the eight year period 2017  2025. The market is segmented by product type, sales channel, end user and region. According to the report forecast, the global art and sculpture market was valued at US$ 8,640.0 Mn in 2016 and is projected to reach US$ 24,632.1 Mn by 2025 end. The market is expected to witness high revenue growth during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to an increased awareness about art products as an investment and not just another decorative piece.Request to view Sample Report:Global Art and Sculpture Market: Important FactsIt is difficult to predict the direction of the global market, as there are several macroeconomic factors that could have an impact on the market in the coming yearsThere is a great risk of business in regions such as U.S, Brazil and Germany, which could impact the global marketThe art and sculpture market witnesses strong demand for best quality art and collectibles36% of the 400 private bankers and wealth advisors suggested that there will be increasing client demand for servicing this particular asset classThe total number of ultra-wealthy individuals is predicted to rise by 41% to 263,500 by 2025. The predicted growth rate varies widely on a regional basis, and the emerging economies are leading the way. A growing demand for quality art pieces can be expected from this class of the population.Global Art and Sculpture Market: Forecast by Product TypeProduct type segment is classified into artifacts that include manuscripts, decorative art pieces, and others. The sculpture segment holds a high market share and is estimated to grow significantly during the forecast period. Sculptures are typically sold along with paintings and this is increasing the customer base for sculptures.Global Art and Sculpture Market: Forecast by Sales Channel TypeOn the basis of sales channel type, the global art and sculpture market is segmented into auction houses, dealers, retail outlets, and individual sales. Dealers segment is sub-segmented into galleries, art fairs and online sales, while individual sales segment is further segmented into artists studio and others that includes consumer-to-consumer and advisors. Revenue growth and market share of the dealers segment is expected to remain high during the study period.Global Art and Sculpture Market: Forecast by End UserPrivate collectors, museums (local and international), real estate developers, interior designers, residential individual buyers and other professionals (art authenticators, restorers, and conservators) are some of the end users of art and sculptures. Most of the regions in the world are influenced by the U.S. perspective of art and sculpture and are either moving or changing their perspective for art. This has enhanced the significance for private collectors, thereby boosting market share of this segment.Request to download and view full ToC @Global Art and Sculpture Market: Forecast by RegionFive regions such as North America, Latin America, Europe, APAC and MEA have been covered in this report. In terms of value, North America market is projected to be the most attractive regional market for art and sculpture during the forecast period. The Europe art and sculpture market is anticipated to register steady increase in Y-o-Y growth rates throughout the forecast period. In terms of value, Europe is expected to expand at a CAGR of 10.6% during the forecast period.Global Art and Sculpture Market: Competition TrackingThis report provides detailed profiles of the key market players such as Sothebys, Christies, Bonham's 1793 Limited, Phillips Auctioneers LLC, China Guardian Auctions Co Ltd., Frith sculpture, Sculptured arts studio, WorldArtCommunity, Pundoles, Bid & Hammer, and AstaGuru.View Report @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:
Bubble Bag Market - Evolving Industry Trends and key Insights by 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=13559

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/bubble-bag-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Bubble Bag Market: IntroductionBubble bags are packaging products made up of resins such as high density polyethylene, low density polyethylene and recycled polyethylene, and contains numerous small air pockets. It comes with air retention technology which prevents bubble cell from losing air and provides extra protection while transportation and handling. Bubble bags are light weight, transparent and reduce freight and packaging costs. It also offers excellent moisture resistance, protection against abrasion, good insulation and great ease of handling. It is designed for packaging of fragile products such as electronic goods, pharmaceutical products, antiques and automobile parts among others. Bubble bags are economical, reusable, quick to use and ideal for faster wrapping, hence it widely used in packing industry.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Bubble bags are commercially available with different functionality such as antistatic bubble bags, water resistance bubble bags, bubble envelops, and heavy duty bubble bags. Antistatic bubble bags are widely used for packaging of electronics components in order to protect it from static damage. While bubble envelopes are used for packaging of CDs, DVDs, jewelry and antiques etc. Bubble bags are also available with adhesives and cohesive insulation, which provides self-sealing adhesive strip.Bubble Bag Market: Market DynamicsGrowing end-use industries such as electronics, FMCG, E-commerce and packaging are key drivers to promote continuous growth of the global bubble bags market. Owing to its value added applications from protection of goods to its safe distribution and transportation, it is expected to see new investments in its market especially in developing countries. The global bubble bags market is expected to grow steadily in developed nations, as consumers will continue to need this product for shopping and handling. Additionally, role of private consumers, retailer, and local packaging firms, who are more focus on delivering the goods in local market is expected to augment the demand of bubble bags.Obtain Report Details @However, sustainability of the global bubble bags market is majorly depends on the price and supply of raw materials. Presence of big and small packaging firms created highly competitive market environment for bubble bags market.Bubble Bag Market: Market SegmentationBased on types, the global bubble bag market can be segmented as follow as;Plain Bubble BagsAntistatic Bubble BagsMoisture Resistance Bubble BagsBubble EnvelopsHeavy Duty Bubble BagsBased on end-use industries, the global bubble bag market can be segmented as follow as;Electrical and ElectronicsAutomobilePackagingE-commerceOthersBased on geographies, the global bubble bags market can be segmented as follow as;North AmericaLatin AmericaAsia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ)Western EuropeEastern EuropeJapanMiddle East and Africa (MEA)Bubble Bag Market: Regional OutlookThe market is well established in North America and western countries, and it is expected to grow linearly over the forecast period. Growing economies such as China, India and Brazil are expected to emerge as most attractive geographical segment in global Bubble Bag Market. This is primarily because of shifting of industrial manufacturing of electronics and automobile components from North America and Europe to Asia Pacific, and rapidly expanding end-use industries such as e-commerce, FMCG and packaging in China and India. Similarly, Latin America and MEA are expected to create opportunities for the bubble bags manufacturers, because of increasing demand for consumer goods in these regions.Bubble Bag Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in global bubble bag market are as follow as;Miller Supply Inc.Desco Industries Inc.Tip Corporation Sdn. Bhd.Polybags Limited3A ManufacturingCarters Packaging Ltd.Abco Kovex Ltd.Weihai Fujingtang New Products Co., Ltd.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Oil Condition Monitoring Market to Witness a Pronounce Growth During 2017 to 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/oil-condition-monitoring-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=36209

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Oil is an important resource used in various machineries and engines in order to provide lubrication and for temperature regulation. After prolonged usage, oil starts to lose out on its properties and becomes less functional. Using such oil can damage the engine or machinery in which it is being used. Hence, it is necessary to keep a check on the condition of oil and replace or upgrade it after its optimum usage. Oil condition monitoring means keeping a timely check on the quality of oil that is being deployed in the system and taking the necessary steps so that the oil serves its purpose to the fullest. The monitoring also helps in increasing the efficiency of the machine, reduces downtime, and reduces cost, thereby increasing profits.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis:There are many factors driving the global oil condition monitoring market. Growing demand for cost effective solutions is expected to emerge as a major driver of the market. Increasing demand for electricity that drives the requirement for consistent oil monitoring in turbines is expected to boost the market growth.There are however some factors that are hampering the markets growth. Oil prices and geopolitical factors are expected to be major restraints of market growth. Moreover, unpredictable maintenance periods and lack of awareness are expected to restrain the growth.Furthermore, low adoption of oil condition monitoring solutions in emerging countries is expected to hamper the growth of the market. However, the condition of oil can be monitored real-time with the help of various sensors, which is likely to fuel market growth in the near future.Get PDF Brochure for more Professional & Technical industry insights:The oil condition monitoring market is segmented on the basis of sampling type, product type, measurement type, end user industry, and geography. On the basis of sampling type, the market can be segmented into on-site and off-site. On the basis of product type, the market can be segmented into engines, gear systems, turbines, compressors, and hydraulic systems. Based on the product type, turbines are used in different industry verticals, which work under high pressure. Due to high pressure the turbines may break or reduce the life span of the system. In order to prevent the breakdown of turbines, there needs to be continuous monitoring of oil quality to ensure the smooth operation of the system. Therefore, this factor is expected to drive the market growth in future. On the basis of measurement type, the market can be segmented into pressure, density, temperature, viscosity and others. On the basis of end user industry, the market can be segmented into oil and gas, energy and power, transportation, industrial, and mining. Based on end user industry, transportation is expected to show significant growth in near future, due to increasing demand for oil condition monitoring to avoid critical engine failures that may happen in ships and airplanes. On the basis of geography, the market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. North America is estimated to see strong growth, primarily due to rapid adoption of enhanced technologies, huge investments in research & development, and existence of large number of players across the region. Asia Pacific is anticipated to bring potential growth possibilities to stir the market in near term, due to growing expenditure on infrastructure, increasing demand for economical solutions, and rising technology saturation in multiple sectors such as industrial, oil and gas, energy and power, and transportation sectors across the region.Major players in the global oil condition monitoring market are Bureau Veritas, Intertek, Parker Hannifin Corporation, Castrol Limited, Spectro Analytical Instruments, General Electric Company, and Insight Services Unveils TestOilAbout UsTransparency Market Research 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. 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 data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact UsTransparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700Albany NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453E-mail: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Container Weighing Systems Market: Applications and Global Markets

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/container-weighing-systems-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=26222

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Container weighing system flawlessly integrates the container load monitoring methodology into the current container handling equipments for the purpose of delivering accurate weight verification data as a part of its regular lift cycle within the ports and the terminals. Container weighing system is a portable, lightweight, easy to access and fully transferrable container load weighing solution for the container freight forwarding industry.Container weighing system is being specifically developed to meet International Maritime Organizations amendments to Safety of Life at Sea safety guidelines, which delivers exact weight verified data on real-time basis, as part of ports regular container lifting cycle via rail mount gantry or rubber tire gantry.For purpose of doing in depth analysis, container weighing systems market is been divided on the basis of medium, offerings, end user and by geography. Based on medium the market has been categorized mainly into four types; they are like rail, road, ship and air. By offerings container weighing systems market is been segmented mainly into two types they are like hardware and software.Obtain Report Details @By end user the market has been segmented mainly into seven types they are like chemical, infrastructure, food and beverage, ports, transportation and logistics, mining among others. Furthermore, this report will also provide cross functional analysis of all above mentioned segments across he different regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Some of the key factors which are responsible for the growth of this market are the increasing emphasis on the maritime safety. Maritime Safety Office actually collects, assesses and then compiles the worldwide naval navigation products and the databases. It is mainly responsible for the maritime safety and the hydrographic activities which include providing support to the worldwide portfolio of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Oceanic and atmospheric Administration standards by providing nautical charts and the digital publications.Continuously increasing adoption in the ports for the purpose of overload protection and the non-disruptive ways of weight measurement is expected to drive the growth of Container Weighing Systems market. The increasing adoption of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulations for the shipping containers is driving the growth of this market during the forecasted period from 2017 to 2025.In addition to that, the growing automation across different ports and in the manufacturing areas enables the adoption of the container handling equipments which is integrated with the weight measurement system. In turn this will also expected to create an impact in Container Weighing Systems market in a positive way during the forecasted period of 2017-2025.Request Sample @Expensive nature of the maritime operations using container weighing system and the consequences of a load to become loose and the shift of containers within the ship during travel in sea are the key factors which is restraining the growth of the Container Weighing Systems market. The occurrence of unrestrained load shift and uneven weight distribution has a very strong impact on the vehicle performance; these constraints in the maritime shipping are also acting as a constraint for the container weighing systems market.By end user, ports held the largest market share because of the increasing stringent regulation for the purpose of enhancing maritime safety, which would require the usage of container weighing system for measuring verified gross figure of the containers. However, transportation and logistics is projected to achieve steady growth during the forecasted period.Geographically, container weighing systems market is being primarily driven by North America region. Rigid regulations for safety transportation and the increasing automation across various industry verticals are the main driving factors for the growth of container weighing system market in the North America region. This region is anticipated to maintain its dominance in the market during the forecasted period from 2017-2025 owing to the presence of huge number of large shipping companies in countries like the U.S.A and Canada among others.Some of the leading players operating in container weighing systems market includes Rice Lake Weighing Systems, Inc. (The U.S.), Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC (The U.S.), Fairbanks Scales, Inc.(The U.S.) ,LCM Systems Ltd.(The U.S.), TamtronOy (Finland), Weightron Bilanciai Ltd. (U.K.), Mettler-Toledo International Inc(The U.S.) among others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Automated Barriers and Bollards Market to 2025 - Omnitec, Automatic Systems, Avon Barrier, Magnetic Autocontrol, Houston System, Others

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011314235/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011314235/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/automated-barriers-and-bollards-market

Global Automated Barriers and Bollards Market Report 2017-2025 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.Request Sample Copy is Available atThe report firstly introduced the Automated Barriers and Bollards basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis. Global Automated Barriers and Bollards Market competition by top manufacturers with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturers.Global Automated Barriers and Bollards Market Top Players1. Automatic Systems2. Avon Barrier Corporation Ltd3. CAME S.p.A4. Houston System Inc.5. LA BARRIERE AUTOMATIQUE6. MACS Automated Bollard Systems7. Magnetic Autocontrol GmbH8. Nice S.p.A9. Omnitec Group10. RIB SrlInquire about this Report atObjectives of Automated Barriers and Bollards Market Report To provide overview of the global Automated Barriers and Bollards market To analyze and forecast the global Automated Barriers and Bollards market on the basis of components, application, size and technology To provide market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Automated Barriers and Bollards market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America (SAM), which are later sub-segmented across respective major countries To evaluate market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend To provide exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions To profiles key Automated Barriers and Bollards players influencing the market along with their SWOT analysis and market strategiesKey Insight of Automated Barriers and Bollards Market- Historical and Future Market- Supply and Demand- Price and Cost- Drivers and Challenges- Key Vendors- Market Strategies- Industry Value Chain- RegionsComplete Report is Available atContact Us:Phone: +1-646-491-9876Email Id: sales@reportsweb.comAbout ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb 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.533, 5th Floor, Amanora Chambers,Amanora Township, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Latest Development Of TD-LTE Ecosystem Market in Global Industry 2017

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1315173

https://www.researchmoz.us/tdlte-ecosystem-market-global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2017-2025-report.html/toc

https://www.researchmoz.us/tdlte-ecosystem-market-global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2017-2025-report.html

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

https://marketinfo247.wordpress.com/

Albany, NY, 15th December : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "TD-LTE Ecosystem Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025" globally.Long Term Evolution denotes fourth generation (4G) mobile communication technology, that is based on GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) or Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System or High Speed Packet Access technologies.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @At present, majority of LTE technology is centered on frequency division duplex or FDD-LTE. FDD-LTE uses dual bands i.e. one for downlink and the other for uplink operations, also recognized as paired spectrum allocation. The FDD-LTE is intended to decrease user planar latency, advance throughputs, and enhance the capacity of sectors. However, the increasing demand for faster technology has steered the growth of time division duplex (TDD) LTE.Global TD-LTE Ecosystem Market: Trends and OpportunitiesIncreasing demand for Internet of Things is an important trend in the global market. In the mobile ecosystem, Internet of Things (IoT) is the subsequent revolution. IoT services are expected to be an important driver for additional progress in the cellular market. Cellular IoT is likely to offer various services comprising vending machines, utility meters, automotive (smart traffic, fleet management, real time traffic information, security reporting and monitoring), medical alerting, and metering. At present, devices like GPS navigation aids, e-book readers, and digital cameras are connected to the internet. Presently, LTE supports IoT with Cat.1 devices, whereas LTE-Advanced prolongs device battery life up to ten years with a power saving mode. LTE-Advanced Pro optimizes device battery costs and life, and coverage as well as capability for a large number of connected devices with the introduction of two new technologies - NB-IoT (Narrow Band Internet of Things) and enhanced Machine Type Communication, often referred to as LTE-M.View Complete TOC with tables & Figures @The TD-LTE ecosystem market is primarily driven by the large scale adoption of LTE in Asia Pacific region. In Asian countries, regulatory bodies are directing to tackle the absence of digital dividend spectrum to fuel 4G LTE adoption. In the Asia Pacific region, mobile broadband is thriving and is significantly becoming the standard channel for accessing the internet. The growth in mobile data is primarily fuelled by the increasing investment and innovations across the overall mobile ecosystem that includes content and service providers offering content and applications; mobile operators offering data services and connectivity; device manufacturers offering data ready handsets; and enablers offering support services.Advancement in wireless infrastructure is likely to create opportunities in the global TD-LTE ecosystem market. Various standardization bodies are developing higher frequencies and higher data rates having shorter transmission ranges. Early use of some technologies like 802.11ac assures a Gigabit per second from a single access point. Moreover, LTE-A is leading a path out to full mobile broadband incorporated with smart spectrum reuse and direct local communications between devices is enabling the bandwidth crunch. Advancement in wireless infrastructure has set the stage for the upcoming 5G technology standards development. 5G is not yet open for use by anyone since it is still under development. However, most companies have started creating 5G products and field testing them. This is likely to create ample opportunities in the global market during the forecast period.Global TD-LTE Ecosystem Market: SegmentationOn the basis of equipment, the market has been bifurcated into macro cells and small cells. Based on device type the market has been segmented into notebooks, PCs, routers, smartphones, tablets and others. In terms of application the market is segmented into healthcare, retail, banking institutes, personal uses and others. Moreover, based on geography the market segmentation encompasses North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa and Latin America.Global TD-LTE Ecosystem Market: Competitive LandscapeSome of the key companies leading the global TD-LTE ecosystem market comprises Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.(China), Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland), AT&T, Inc.(U.S.), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.(South Korea), ZTE Corporation (China), MediaTek, Inc.(Taiwan), Qualcomm Inc.(U.S.), Broadcom Corporation (U.S.), Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (China).The market has been segmented as follows:TD-LTE Ecosystem Market, by Equipment:Macro CellsSmall CellsTD-LTE Ecosystem Market, by Devices:NotebooksPCsRoutersSmartphonesTabletsOthersTD-LTE Ecosystem Market, by Application:HealthcareRetailBanking InstitutesPersonal UsesOthersTD-LTE Ecosystem Market, by Geography:North AmericaU.S.CanadaRest of North AmericaEuropeU.K.GermanyFranceItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificIndiaChinaJapanRest of Asia PacificMiddle East & AfricaBrowse Report @South AfricaU.A.E.Rest of Middle East and AfricaLatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin AmericaResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :
Hand Geometry Biometric Market: Worldwide Industry Analysis and New Market Opportunities Explored

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/hand-geometry-biometric-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=27170

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

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.Obtain Report Details @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.Request Sample @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.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.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.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:
Future of the Ghanaian Defense Industry Size, Share | MarketResearchReports.biz

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404766/future-of-the-ghanaian-defense-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404766

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiryBuy/1404766

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

Latest industry research report on: Future of the Ghanaian Defense Market : Industry Size, Share, Research, Reviews, Analysis, Strategies, Demand, Growth, Segmentation, Parameters, ForecastsThe objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Acute Renal Failure Market: Industry Size, Share, Growth, Forecasts.Complete Report Details @The Future of the Ghanaian Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022, published by Strategic Defence Intelligence, provides readers with detailed analysis of both historic and forecast defense industry values, factors influencing demand, the challenges faced by industry participants, analysis of industry leading companies, and key news.SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Ghanaian defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.Request For Sample Report @In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- The Ghanaian defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Ghana defense industry during 2018-2022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patterns- Budget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the country- Porters Five Force analysis of the Ghanaian defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entry- Import and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five years- Market opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 years- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Ghanaian defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisHave Any Query? Ask Our Expert @Scope- The Ghanaian defense budget stood at GHS821.8 million in 2017 and registered a CAGR of 9.31% during 2013-2017. During 2013-2017, an average of 21.9% of the countrys total defense budget was allocated to capital expenditure, while an average of 78.1% was reserved for revenue expenditure. Capital expenditure touched 14.8% of the defense budget in 2017, and is projected to decrease to an average of 14% during the forecast period.- This is primarily due to the countrys plans to replace its obsolete military equipment and procure Mi-35 attack helicopters, and four more Super Tucanos. The remaining defense budget is allocated to revenue expenditure, which includes personnel salaries, and the operation and maintenance costs of equipment and defense facilities.Reasons to buy- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Ghanaian defense industry market trends for the coming five years- The market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast period- Detailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector- A deep qualitative analysis of the Ghanaian defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact UsState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Textile Coatings Market By Raw Material - Thermoplastics (Polyurethane, Polyvinylchloride, and Acrylics) - Worth Us$4,918.5 Mn By 2025

Market Research Report

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1315168

https://www.researchmoz.us/textile-coatings-market-global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2017-2025-report.html/toc

http://www.researchmoz.us/

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Textile Coatings Market By Raw Material - Thermoplastics (Polyurethane, Polyvinylchloride, and Acrylics) - Worth Us$4,918.5 Mn By 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.Textile coatings are special purpose coatings that are used for coating various textiles, fabrics and yarns to shield the materials from various environmental factors such as heat, dust, soil, water, oil, grease, etc. The coatings are specifically applied on the textiles to keep the material durable and away from damage. Rise in quality and performance standards from end-user industries and improvement in living standard in developing countries across the globe is observed to boost the demand for textile coatings.The report estimates and forecasts the textile coatings market on the global, regional, and country levels. The study provides forecast between 2017 and 2025 based on volume (Kilo Tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2016 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the product segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage. The study includes drivers and restraints for the textile coatings market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the textile coatings market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and opportunities mentioned in the report are justified through quantitative and qualitative data. These have been verified through primary and secondary resources.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Textile Coatings Market: Key Research AspectsThe report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the textile coatings market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein applications and countries have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market. The report comprises price trend analysis for textile coatings between 2017 and 2025.The study provides a comprehensive view of the textile coatings market by dividing it on the basis of end-use and geography segments. The textile coatings market has been segmented into geotextiles, upholstery fabric, industrial clothings, footwear, medical hygiene and others based on end-use. End-users segment have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends.Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.Browse TOC @In-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.Global Textile Coatings Market: Geographical SegmentationRegional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for textile coatings in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Additionally, the report comprises country-level analysis in terms of volume and revenue for application segments. Key countries such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil have been included in the study. Market segmentation includes demand for individual applications in all the regions and countries.Global Textile Coatings Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report includes Archroma, Aurora Specialty Textiles Group Inc., BASF SE, Clariant AG, The Dow Chemical Company, Huntsman International LLC and others. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable).The global textile coatings market has been segmented as follows:Textile Coatings Market  Raw Material AnalysisThermoplasticsPolyurethanePolyvinylchlorideAcrylicsOthersThermosetsNatural RubberStyrene Butadiene RubberSiliconesOthersTextile Coatings Market  Technology AnalysisDot Coating TechnologyFull Surface Coating TechnologyTextile Coatings Market  End-user AnalysisGeotextilesUpholstery FabricIndustrial ClothingsFootwearMedical HygieneOthersTextile Coatings Market  Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyFranceU.K.ItalySpainRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanASEANAbout 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 @
Future of the Venezuelan Defense Industry Size, Share | MarketResearchReports.biz

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404767/future-of-the-venezuelan-defense-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404767

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiryBuy/1404767

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

Latest industry research report on: Future of the Venezuelan Defense Market : Industry Size, Share, Research, Reviews, Analysis, Strategies, Demand, Growth, Segmentation, Parameters, ForecastsThe objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Acute Renal Failure Market: Industry Size, Share, Growth, Forecasts.Complete Report Details @The Future of the Venezuelan Defense Industry - Market Attractiveness, Competitive Landscape and Forecasts to 2022, published by Strategic Defence Intelligence, provides readers with detailed analysis of both historic and forecast defense industry values, factors influencing demand, the challenges faced by industry participants, analysis of industry leading companies, and key news.SynopsisThis report offers detailed analysis of the Venezuelan defense industry with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyze factors that influence demand for the industry, key market trends, and challenges faced by industry participants.Request For Sample Report @In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following -- The Venezuelan defense industry market size and drivers: detailed analysis of the Venezuelan defense industry during 2018-2022, including highlights of the demand drivers and growth stimulators for the industry. It also provides a snapshot of the countrys expenditure and modernization patterns- Budget allocation and key challenges: insights into procurement schedules formulated within the country and a breakdown of the defense budget with respect to capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. It also details the key challenges faced by defense market participants within the country- Porters Five Force analysis of the Venezuelann defense industry: analysis of the market characteristics by determining the bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitution, intensity of rivalry, and barriers to entry- Import and Export Dynamics: analysis of prevalent trends in the countrys imports and exports over the last five years- Market opportunities: details of the top five defense investment opportunities over the next 10 years- Competitive landscape and strategic insights: analysis of the competitive landscape of the Venezuelan defense industry. It provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysisScope- With a defense budget of US$8.6 billion in 2017, Venezuela is amongst the largest arms importers in Latin America and accounts for nearly one-third of the military goods imported in the region. The increasing military expenditure is largely supported by revenues from the worlds largest proven oil reserves in the country. This burgeoning defense expenditure can be attributed to the modernization of the armed forces, re-armament programs, border disputes, and a strong focus on the development of the indigenous military sector.- The countrys capital expenditure (CAPEX) is anticipated to increase during the forecasted. A number of procurements have fueled growth of the capital budget allocation, including the Shannxi Y-8 transport aircraft, Norinco VN-4 armored vehicles, T-72BIV MBTs (Russian tanks) and BTR-80 armored vehicles, S-125 Pechora-2M SAM systems, Sukhoi fighter jets, 2S23 Nona-SVK self-propelled guns, Stan Patrol 5009 offshore patrol vessels, Stan Patrol 4207 coastal patrol vessels, Enstrom 480 helicopters, and Diamond Aircraft DA40NG Star trainers. Key opportunities for equipment suppliers are expected in areas such as multi-role aircraft, naval vessels, missile systems, surveillance systems, and UAVs.- The Venezuelan homeland security expenditure is primarily driven by the need to respond to growing threats from organized crime, current civil unrest, and cyber threats. At the same time, a growing economic crisis is expected to cut down HLS expenditure. The country will invest in biometric systems, border protection and training, CCTV systems, electronic surveillance systems, radar systems, and UAVs. Additionally, opportunities in security systems and platforms are expected to arise as a result of the country concentrating on strengthening border security.Have Any Query? Ask Our Expert @Reasons to buy- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Venezuelan defense industry market trends for the coming five years- The market opportunity section will inform the user about the various military requirements that are expected to generate revenues during the forecast period. The description includes technical specifications, recent orders, and the expected investment pattern by the country during the forecast period- Detailed profiles of the top domestic and foreign defense manufacturers with information about their products, alliances, recent contract wins, and financial analysis wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector- A deep qualitative analysis of the Venezuelan defense industry covering sections including demand drivers, Porters Five Forces Analysis, Key Trends and Growth Stimulators, and latest industry contractsAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact UsState Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Website:Email: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Offshore Lubricants Market Will Grow Steadily At A CAGR Of 3.86% Between The Period 2017 - 2021

Market Research Report

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1307191

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-offshore-lubricants-market-2017-2021-report.html/toc

http://www.researchmoz.us/

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Offshore Lubricants Market Will Grow Steadily At A CAGR Of 3.86% Between The Period 2017 - 2021" to its huge collection of research reports.The offshore lubricant is a substance that reduces friction and wears at the interface of the two materials. It helps in reducing the friction by lowering the shear strength of interface. Lubrication is a process of using materials to improve the smoothness of the movement of one surface over other. A lubricant reduces the wear and friction at the interface of two materials. It helps in reducing the adhesive friction by lowering the shear strength of the interface. Lubricants can be solids, liquids or semi-liquids, and gases, or a combination of solids, liquids, and gases.Technavios analysts forecast the global offshore lubricants market to grow at a CAGR of 3.86% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global offshore lubricants market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaROWTechnavio's report, Global Offshore Lubricants Market 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Key vendorsBPChevronExxonMobilShellTotalOther prominent vendorsAEGEAN MARINE PETROLEUM NETWORKFUCHSGULF OILIdemitsu KosanJX Nippon Oil & EnergyKlber LubricationLUKOILPANOLINPetroliam Nasional Berhad(PETRONAS)PLUSCOQuepet LubricantsRS Clare & CoSinopecUnimarineBENJN R. VICKERS & SONSBrowse TOC @Market driverIncrease in offshore exploration and production investmentsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeFluctuation in crude oil pricesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendGrowth of bio-based lubricantsFor 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?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 @
Cloud BPO Market to Grow at a CAGR of 22.1% to 2025 - Capgemini, WNS, ADP, Atos, Sungard and Other Key Players

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011264361/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011264361/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/cloud-bpo-market

Global Cloud BPO Market Report 2017-2025 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.Request Sample Copy is Available atThe report firstly introduced the Cloud BPO basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis. Global Cloud BPO Market competition by top manufacturers with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturers.Global Cloud BPO Market Top Players1. Firstsource Solutions Ltd.2. WNS (Holdings) Ltd.3. Infosys Ltd.4. HCL Technologies Ltd.5. Genpact Ltd.6. Capgemini SE7. CA Inc.8. Atos SE9. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.10. DXC Technology Company11. Sungard12. Accenture PLC13. ADP LLC14. IBM Corporation15. Oracle Corporation16. SAP SE17. Xerox Corp.18. HPEInquire about this Report atObjectives of Cloud BPO Market Report To provide overview of the global Cloud BPO market To analyze and forecast the global Cloud BPO market on the basis of components, application, size and technology To provide market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Cloud BPO market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America (SAM), which are later sub-segmented across respective major countries To evaluate market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend To provide exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions To profiles key Cloud BPO players influencing the market along with their SWOT analysis and market strategiesKey Insight of Cloud BPO Market- Historical and Future Market- Supply and Demand- Price and Cost- Drivers and Challenges- Key Vendors- Market Strategies- Industry Value Chain- RegionsComplete Report is Available atContact Us:Phone: +1-646-491-9876Email Id: sales@reportsweb.comAbout ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb 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.533, 5th Floor, Amanora Chambers,Amanora Township, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Language Learning Games Market: Quantitative Market Analysis, Current and Future Trends

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/language-learning-games-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=27188

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Language analysts and experts have shifted their focus from creating individual linguistic abilities to the utilization of language to accomplish the speaker's goals. Gaming-based learning is a field of training that has been getting a considerable measure of consideration recently.Statistical surveying hub has recently declared the expansion of a review to its wide database which offers a comprehensive outline of this fast expanding market and enables readers to comprehend the current situation of the market as well as its future development prospects. Language learning gaming process is gaining popularity among kids for the last few years.The use of games in the learning process can be a powerful tool, and these games are primarily designed to help students with very easypronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, and verb conjugations. Language learning games offer a relaxing and fun-filled learning atmosphere for kids as well as adults. The language learning games are basically used by adults and kids.Obtain Report Details @Recently, the global language learning games market is growing surprisingly due to this new teaching methods have been created. Additionally, the manufacturing cost of language learning games depends on the raw materials price and market concentration rate along with price trends of the key suppliers. The pricing variation is affecting the expansion of the language learning games market and it acts as a restraint for the market.The impact of this factor in this market is medium in recent times and is expected to be low during the forecast period. Therefore, new entrants are ready to invest in this particular market. This factor is boosting the expansion of the language learning games market and is estimated to expand at a robust growth rate during the forecast period.The language learning games market can be segmented into type of language learning game and end-use. In terms of type, the market of language learning games can be segmented into multiple language choice and one language choice. In terms offend-use, the language learning games market can be segmented into kids and adults.Request Sample @In terms of geography, the global language learning games market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East &Africa, and Latin America. The North America language learning games market held a prominent share of the market in 2016. Itis anticipated maintaining its dominant position during the forecast period. The Asia Pacific (APAC) language learning games market is projected to expand at a prominent CAGR during the forecast period. Increasing adoption of this new technology in language learning process and rising number of language learners is fueling the expansion of the market in the region.Moreover, in Europe and Asia Pacific, many organizations are redesigning and modernizing their learning process. Asia Pacific is anticipated to expand significantly due to the rising economics such as China and India the demand of language learning technology is growing. The language learning games market in Middle East &Africa has witnessed considerable growth in recent years. Latin America followed Middle East & Africa in terms of market growth in recent years.The global language learning games market is consolidated due to key players operating in the market. Mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and partnership agreements, product innovations, research and development, and geographical expansion are major strategies adopted by key players to ensure long-term sustenance in the market.Key players operating in the global language learning games market include are Duolingo, shotgun. experiments, Rosetta Stone Ltd, Innovative Language Learning USA, LLC, SignSchool Technologies LLC, Duy Hong Studio, IXL Learning, Smooth HQ, Knowledge Adventure, DOMOsoft, GoKids!, Emilia Genadieva, Sovereign Communication Solutions, LLC, SMARTSTUDY, Jehovah's Witnesses, Geek Apps, Mr. YDM, and Alpha Edu.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Automotive Piston Market to Grow at a CAGR of 2.06% to 2021

Automotive Piston, Automotive Piston Market, Automotive Piston Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-automotive-piston-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286892

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286892

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Automotive Piston Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 70 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global automotive piston market to grow at a CAGR of 2.06% during the period 2017-2021.About Automotive PistonThe automotive piston mostly functions by transferring force from the expanding gas in the cylinder to the crankshaft via the piston rod or with the help of connecting rod, which produces the required power to drive the shaft and consequently the automobile. The automotive piston consists of piston rings which restrict the leakage of gas. The piston also acts as a valve in some engines for ports in the cylinder wall. A piston facilitates the intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust stroke of an IC engine. The piston moves in upward and downward motion inside an engine cylinder. The motion transmits the energy into the camshaft connected between cam and the piston. The power is transferred from the engine cylinder causing the movement of the vehicle.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of global automotive piston market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the new sales and shipments.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Automotive Piston 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global automotive piston market: Rheinmetall Automotive, AISIN SEIKI, MAHLE, and Federal-Mogul.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: KS Kolbenschmidt US, TIK Piston Taiwan, Menon Piston, and Wiseco.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Increasing introduction of innovative engines such as Renault Powerful. The approach of Renault on cleaner and efficient vehicles is quite new. The company has developed a new two-stroke engine named Powerful that stands for powertrain for the future light-duty vehicle. The engine can also be used in cars and light trucks. It is a two-cylinder engine and not the conventional four-cylinder engine from Renault.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Increasing demand for vehicles. The global automotive industry is growing at a significant rate. This is attributed to the high demand for passenger cars, specifically from emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil. These regions have shown significant economic growth over the past few years. The market growth in these regions has been dynamic due to industrialization and global trade activity, especially in Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) countries. With the increasing number of passenger vehicles in these countries, the automotive piston market will also grow.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is High requirement for engine downsizing. The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is working toward a status that enables reduced GHG emissions and better fuel efficiency for vehicles and engines. This plan includes all types of vehicles from entry-level passenger cars to heavy-duty trucks. To meet the regulations on emissions by different governments and to meet the fuel efficiency demands, the automakers followed the procedure of engine downsizing. Downsizing of the engine can be done in two ways: by reducing the dimension of the cylinders and by reducing the number of cylinders.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Latest News About Global Subsea Equipment Market: Key Players - Aker Solutions, FMC Technologies, Inc. & Technip

Market Research Report

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=760232

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-subsea-equipment-market-size-trends-and-forecasts-2016-2020-report.html/toc

http://www.researchmoz.us/

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Latest News About Global Subsea Equipment Market: Key Players - Aker Solutions, FMC Technologies, Inc. & Technip" to its huge collection of research reports.The report titled Global Subsea Equipment Market: Size, Trends & Forecasts (2016-2020), provides an in-depth analysis of the global subsea and subsea equipment market. The report also gives an insight of the global subsea equipment market by segments.Furthermore, it assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the overall global subsea equipment market has also been forecasted for the period 2016-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends.The competition in the global subsea equipment market is dominated by the three big players Aker Solutions, FMC Technologies, Inc. and Technip, who are also profiled with their financial information and respective business strategies.Company CoverageAker SolutionsFMC Technologies, Inc.TechnipTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Executive SummaryThe oil industry has been witnessing a major downturn for the first time in 30 years. This downturn has impacted the industry revenue for 2015 which was estimated to be lower than 2014, thus, making industry profits to shrink. The return on capital employed fell for the companies and it followed from falling commodity prices driven by a global supply of oil and natural gas and increased spending on more-complex capital intensive projects.The subsea refers to the processes, technology, method or equipment that are used in the oil industry/ employed in undersea geology, under water mining, offshore oil and gas developments, etc. In the oil & gas industry, subsea relates to the drilling, exploration and development of oil & gas fields in underwater locations at shallow and deep water level. The subsea equipment market can be divided into four different sectors: the SURF, the subsea trees, the manifolds and the subsea control module system.The global subsea equipment market has been estimated to increase at a significant CAGR during the years 2015-2020. The subsea and subsea equipment market is expected to increase due to increasing global energy demand, rising global population, discovery of deep water and undeveloped fields, etc. Yet the market faces some challenges such as, falling global oil prices, high maintenance of subsea equipment, supply chain constraints and harsh environmental conditions.Browse TOC @Table Of Content1. Executive Summary2. Introduction2.1 Onshore Production2.2 Deep water Production/Offshore Production2.3 Subsea Equipment Market: An Overview2.3.1 Subsea Equipment3. Global Market Analysis3.1 Global Subsea Equipment Market: An Analysis3.1.1 Global Subsea Equipment Market by Value3.1.2 Global Subsea Equipment Market by Geography3.1.3 Global Subsea Equipment Market by CAPEX3.1.4 Global Subsea Equipment Market by Backlog3.2 Global Subsea Equipment Market by Segments3.2.1 Global SURF Market: An AnalysisBy ValueBy CAPEXBy CAPEX by RegionBy CAPEX by Water DepthAbout 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 @
Future Trend of Global Stone Paper Market, Key Players- Stone Paper Company Ltd., Kapstone Paper, Gaia-Concept BV, Taiwan Lung Meng Technology Co. Ltd.

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1378

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/stone-paper-market-1378

Market ScenarioThe growth in global stone paper market is driven by the increased demand from the packaging and labelling industries. The stone paper has an increased application across industries like packaging and labelling which fuels the demand for stone paper globally. The growing e-commerce and organized retails has widened the scope for packaging and in turn for stone paper.SegmentsGlobal stone paper market is segmented on the basis of Material used, Application, and Region. On the basis of Material used it is segmented Calcium Carbonate, High-density Polyethylene, and others. On the basis of Application it is segmented as Labelling paper, Packaging paper, Self-adhesive paper, and others. Additionally on the basis of Region, it is segmented as North America, Europe, APAC and Rest of the World.Request a sample @Key PlayersThe key players of global stone paper Market report include- Stone Paper Company Ltd., Kapstone Paper, Gaia-Concept BV, Taiwan Lung Meng Technology Co. Ltd., Soluz Stone Paper S.A., and Packaging Corporation and Parax Paper.Regional Analysis of Global Stone Paper MarketThe share is attributed to the increasing e-commerce platforms, organized retails and rapidly growing economies. This further induces the demand for packaging and labelling which in turn fuels the market for stone paper in APAC countries.The report for Global Stone Paper 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 market segments and regions.Browse report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, 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.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312
IoT Node and Gateway Market : An Insight On the Important Factors and Trends Influencing the Market

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/iot-node-gateway-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=27296

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The global IoT node and gateway market is expected to witness a huge growth in the forecast period from 2017 to 2025 as there lies immense growth potential in its end-use applications such as defense, BFSI, retail, and aerospace. The growing IP address space, improved security offered by IPv6, and improvement in internet connectivity worldwide are some of the drivers of the growth of the global IoT node and gateway market.The increasing shipment of logics devices on account of the growing adoption of wearable devices by the tech savvy consumers of today has boosted the growth of this market. Wearable technology has gained high traction in recent times in countries such as Brazil, China, and India and is fueling the growth prospects of the overall IoT node and gateway market.In telecommunication, gateway means the networking hardware. Computers or computer networks perform the task of gateways. A computer that is used by internet service providers helps to connect with internet users and that is referred to as gateway nodes. Increasing application of internet of things (IoT) is expected to drive the growth of the IoT node and gateway market during the forecast period.Obtain Report Details @The growth of the IoT node and gateway market is influenced by considerable advancement in telecommunication networks. Governments of emerging economies such as China, India, and South Korea are increasing their investment in telecommunication, and being attractive investment destinations, these regions attract significant foreign investment. Higher internet penetration in these regions is triggering the growth of the IoT node and gateway market in recent years.On the basis of hardware, the IoT node and gateway market is segmented into five types. These include processor, connectivity IC, memory device, logic device, and sensors. IoT node and gateway market for connectivity IC held the dominant market share as there is increasing demand for low profile connectivity technology such as Bluetooth low energy (BLE), Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.IoT node and gateway find substantial usage in different industry verticals such as healthcare, wearable devices, building automation, consumer electronics, retail, and banking, financial service & insurance (BFSI). IoT node and gateway market for BFSI industry segment is likely to expand at the fastest rate over the forecast period. Advent of digitization has encouraged increasing application of technology in the banking and financial sector. Online banking, installation of mobile banking apps, and contactless payment has become popular owing to the considerable application of technology in the banking sector.The objective of banks and other financial institutions is to widen their customer base, thus offering them the opportunity of easy and hassle-free transactions. Rising user base of consumer electronic goods broadens the prospect for mobile point of sale devices. Internet penetration coupled with rising use of smartphones and tablets facilitates online payments and this factor will help to trigger the IoT node and gateway market during the forecast period. Healthcare and building automation also commands considerable market share in the IoT node and gateway market.Request Sample @Internet of things facilitates interconnection among physical devices such as buildings, healthcare equipment, and vehicles with software, sensors and others. This kind of inter-connectivity promotes automation in physical devices. Growing popularity of automation in automobile, real estate, and healthcare increases demand for IoT node and gateway in these industries, thus propelling the market opportunity during the forecast period.On the basis of geography, the IoT node and gateway market is segmented into five regions - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America. North America held the leading market share as Internet of Things has maximum usage in this region. Automation in vehicles and healthcare has been emphasized owing to rising government initiatives and lump sum investment. These factors promote the growth trajectory of this market in this region.Asia Pacific is the fastest growing segment in the IoT node and gateway market as there has been considerable growth in infrastructure which trigger utilization of IoT node and gateway in retail, real estate, and automobile industries.Some of the key market players in the IoT node and gateway market include Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd., Texas Instruments Inc., NXP Semiconductor N.V, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Rising Trends and Demand for Hospital Furniture in the Market: Research Insights by MRFR

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1007

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/1007

Hospital Furniture Market Analysis, by End User, By Key Companies, by Type, its various sub-segments; by type include Hospital Bed, Hospital Chair, Hospital Table, Hospital Trolley and othersGlobally the market for Hospital Furniture is increasing rapidly the main reason for this is the growth is the increase Hospitals. The factors that influence the growth of Hospital Furniture market are the increasing development in technology and advancement, increasing number of medical infrastructure and many more.Get a Copy of Sample Report @Key Players: Stryker (US) Bio Medical Solutions (India) KI (US) GPC Medical (India) Chang Gung Medical Technology (China) Hill-Rom (US) Narang Medical (India) Beaver Healthcare Equipment (UK) Renray Healthcare(UK) Bristol Maid Hospital Metalcraft (UK) The Brewer Company (US)SegmentsThe market for Hospital Furniture is segmented in mainly two parts i.e. by Type, by end users and its various sub-segments; by type include Hospital Bed, Hospital Chair, Hospital Table, Hospital Trolley and others. Whereas by End Users include Hospitals, Clinics, Path Labs and others.Study Objectives of Hospital Furniture Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 10 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Hospital Furniture market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To Analyze the Hospital Furniture 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- Americas, 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 Type, End Users and its 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 Hospital Furniture marketGet Discount @The report for Hospital Furniture of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Global Hospital Furniture Market Research Report - Forecast to 2027 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
Passenger Vehicles Market in India 2017

Reportsweb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011190719/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/passenger-vehicles-market-in-india-2017

ReportsWeb.com has announced the addition of the Global Passenger Vehicles Market Research Report The report focuses on global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification.Publisher' latest market research report titled Passenger Vehicles Market in India 2017 states that the passenger vehicles in India is expected to reach 5.4 mn units by FY 2022, expanding at a CAGR of 12%. The passenger vehicles market is segmented into Passenger Cars, Utility Vehicles and Vans. Passenger cars has 69% share and occupies the larger pie of the passenger vehicles market. Utility Vehicles and Vans have 25% and 6% share respectively. With advancements in technology, car manufacturers are gearing efforts to bring cutting edge technology to their vehicles. New technological developments such as connected cars, autonomous driving systems, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and IoT related technologies is redefining the automotive industry in India.In Mar 2017, ban on sale and registration of BS III vehicles put pressure on several vehicle manufacturing companies in India. Demonetization has severely affected the domestic sales of passenger vehicles in India. The major players in the market such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., Honda Cars India Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd. have witnessed a sharp decline in sales of vehicles across the country. However, several government initiatives such as implementation of GST and Make in India campaign is fueling the passenger vehicles segment in the country. Implementation of GST is expected to act as an antidote against demonetization.Get Free Sample of this ReportCoverage:Overview of the passenger vehicles market, and historical and forecasted market size data over FY 2011 to FY 2026eOverview of the passenger cars market, and historical and forecasted market size data over FY 2011 to FY 2026eOverview of the utility vehicles market, and historical and forecasted market size data over FY 2011 to FY 2026eOverview of the vans market, and historical and forecasted market size data over FY 2011 to FY 2026eTrade analysis of passenger vehicles in IndiaQualitative analysis of the major drivers and challenges affecting the passenger vehicles marketAnalysis of the competitive landscape and profiles of major public and private players operating in the marketKey recent developments in the Indian passenger vehicles marketWhy Buy-Get a broad understanding of the passenger vehicles market in India, the dynamics of the market and the current state of the industryDevise market-entry strategies by understanding the factors driving the growth of the marketUnderstand major competitors' business and market dynamics, and respond accordinglyGet complete access of this report@Passenger Vehicles Market Company ProfilingPublic Companies1. Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.2. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.3. Tata Motors Ltd.Private Companies1. Ford India Pvt. Ltd.2. Honda Cars India Ltd.3. Hyundai Motor India Ltd.4. Renault India Pvt. Ltd.5. Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd.6. Volkswagen India Pvt. Ltd.About ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queriesContact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
Global Shaft Drive Bike Market Size, Share And Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404688/global-north-america-europe-and-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404688

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404688

"The Report Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Shaft Drive Bike Market 2017 Forecast to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"A shaft-driven bicycle is a bicycle that uses a drive shaft instead of a chain to transmit power from the pedals to the wheel. Shaft drives were introduced over a century ago, but were mostly supplanted by chain-driven bicycles due to the gear ranges possible with sprockets and derailleurs. Recently, due to advancements in internal gear technology, a small number of modern shaft-driven bicycles have been introduced.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Shaft Drive Bike in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.View Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversMobikeTDJDCDynamic BicyclesBrikbikesBeixoMaruishi Cycle Ltd.E-Cruiser BikesMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversMountain BikeRoad BikeCommuter BikeTouring BikeOthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoPersonalSharing ServiceGet Sample Copy Of This Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Shaft Drive Bike market.Chapter 1, to describe Shaft Drive Bike Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Shaft Drive Bike, with sales, revenue, and price of Shaft Drive Bike, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Shaft Drive Bike, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Shaft Drive Bike market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Shaft Drive Bike sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Shaft Drive Bike Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Mountain Bike1.2.2 Road Bike1.2.3 Commuter Bike1.2.4 Touring Bike1.2.5 Others1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Personal1.3.2 Sharing Service1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Mobike2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.1.1 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Description2.1.1.2 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.1.2 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.1.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.1.2.2 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.1.3 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.1.3.1 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.3.2 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.2 TDJDC2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.1.1 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Description2.2.1.2 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.2.2 Mobike Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.2.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.2.2.2 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.2.3 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.2.3.1 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.3.2 TDJDC Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.3 Dynamic Bicycles2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.1.1 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Description2.3.1.2 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.3.2 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.3.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.3.2.2 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.3.3 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.3.3.1 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.3.2 Dynamic Bicycles Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.4 Brikbikes2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.1.1 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Description2.4.1.2 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.4.2 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.4.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.4.2.2 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.4.3 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.4.3.1 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.3.2 Brikbikes Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.5 Beixo2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.1.1 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Description2.5.1.2 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.5.2 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.5.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.5.2.2 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.5.3 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.5.3.1 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.3.2 Beixo Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.6 Maruishi Cycle Ltd.2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.1.1 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Description2.6.1.2 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.6.2 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.6.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.6.2.2 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.6.3 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.6.3.1 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6.3.2 Maruishi Cycle Ltd. Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20162.7 E-Cruiser Bikes2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.1.1 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Description2.7.1.2 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.7.2 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.7.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.7.2.2 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Product Introduction2.7.3 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.7.3.1 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7.3.2 E-Cruiser Bikes Shaft Drive Bike Market Share in Global in 20163 Global Shaft Drive Bike Market Competition, by Manufacturer3.1 Global Shaft Drive Bike Sales and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2017)3.2 Global Shaft Drive Bike Revenue and Market Share by Manufacturer (2016-2017)3.3 Global Shaft Drive Bike Price by Manufacturer (2016-2017)3.4 Market Concentration Rate3.4.1 Top 3 Shaft Drive Bike Manufacturer Market Share3.4.2 Top 5 Shaft Drive Bike Manufacturer Market Share3.5 Market Competition TrendAbout 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.State Tower 90 Sate Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-621-2074 USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948
Global Energy Storage Market Forecast to 2021 Published by Research Team

Energy Storage, Energy Storage Market, Energy Storage Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-energy-storage-market-for-drones-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286893

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286893

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Energy Storage Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 92 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global energy storage market for drones to grow at a CAGR of 11.56% during the period 2017-2021.About Energy Storage for DronesDrones are UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), controlled by handheld remote or mobile devices. Drones are equipped with GPS so that the user can track the drone. They also come with sensors such a gyro meter and accelerometer, which are used to control and stabilize the drone during flight. Drones can be classified into three types based on end-users: personal, commercial, and military. Drones have evolved over the years in terms of design, flight time, range and tenure, and data processing. Modern-day drones can process high-resolution videos and images and other surveillance data in real time.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global energy storage market for drones for 2017-2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Energy Storage Market for Drones 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global energy storage market for drones: Amperex Technology, Ballard Power Systems, DJI, Highpower International, and Kokam.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Grepow, H3 Dynamics, Intelligent Energy, Lumenier, MicroMultiCopter Aero Technology, Shenzhen Herewin Technology, Vcanz, and Vertical Partners West (Venom Group International).Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is increasing strategic partnerships. A drone is a complex assortment of hardware, software, and mechanics meant to work together. Several drone companies specialize in one aspect alone, which require interdisciplinary expertise. The huge potential drones hold in commercial applications has led to the formation of strategic partnerships and investment by vendors and technology providers alike to develop more capable devices.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is growing commercial use. Applications of drones have expanded beyond the initial use in the military sector to commercial use in segments such as agriculture, construction, power and water utility, real estate, journalism, cinematography, transportation, and the energy sector, which includes the mining, oil and gas, and clean energy sectors. Drones are being used in these segments for monitoring, mapping, surveying, and maintenance activities to increase productivity with greater efficiency than conventional methods.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is uncertain market conditions limiting market growth potential. With the rapid rise in demand for consumer drones in the historical period, the number of unregistered, unmonitored, and untraceable drones has increased. The tracking of unregistered drones is difficult, which is a major concern for governments and the general masses. For instance, in 2015, an unregistered consumer drone crashed into the White House grounds. In 2016, British Airways' international passenger carrier was reported to have apparently hit a flying drone while landing at the Heathrow International Airport, London, UK. Since then, stringent rules have been drawn, which makes it illegal to fly drones near the UK airport, and those found violating the rules can face up to five years in prison.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
2017-2022 Global Urology Disposable Market Status and Forecast by Players : Coloplast, Rocamed

QYResearchReports

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1200057&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/2017-2022-urology-disposable-report-on-global-and-united-states-market-status-and-forecast-by-players-types-and-applications.htm/toc

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "2017-2022 Report on Global and United States Urology Disposable Market Status and Forecast by Players, Types and Applications" to its huge collection of research reports.The report, titled 2017-2022 Report on Global and United States Urology Disposable Market Status and Forecast by Players, Types and Applications, is a professional overview of the global Urology Disposable market. While the report presents an overview of the current state of the market and aids, through analytical data of key drivers, restraints, trends and opportunities, efficient decision making and development of effective business strategies, the report also presents important details regarding the markets overall development in the past years.Enter your information below to receive a free sample copy of this report @The report studies the market with a ground-up approach, beginning with core definitions specific to the industry, and moving further to the applications of Urology Disposable, demand and supply chain of the Urology Disposable market across key geographical areas, industry overview, regulatory and policy framework of the market, and recent news.The major players in global and United States Urology Disposable market, including Coloplast, Rocamed, Cook Medical, Narang Medical Limited, GPC Medical Ltd, Olympus, Allen Medical, Stryker, L-A Medical, Boston Scientific, Bard Medical, Urotech.The report includes data that is gathered with the help of primary as well as secondary research techniques, and filtered and polished with the use of a number of industry-best analytical methods. The report discusses various details regarding the manufacturing cost structure of the market, technical data and manufacturing plants, and analysis of production capacity and actual production values by region, technology, and application. The report examines the regulatory framework of the market, allowing the reader a clear understanding of the key rules, regulation, plans, and policies related to the Urology Disposable market. With this data, the reader also gains an understanding of the factors that affect the process of decision-making in the Urology Disposable market.The report also discusses details regarding sales and revenue of the market, wherein on the basis of a regional segmentation, details such as price, cost, gross margins of Urology Disposable manufacturers are given. The report presents a comprehensive overview of the vendor landscape of the Urology Disposable market, wherein the business profiles of some of the leading vendors in the market, recent development, instances of mergers and acquisitions, and other financial details of the market are discussed.Table of Contents1 Methodology and Data Source1.1 Methodology/Research Approach1.1.1 Research Programs/Design1.1.2 Market Size Estimation1.1.3 Market Breakdown and Data Triangulation1.2 Data Source1.3 DisclaimerRead Complete Table of Content @2 Urology Disposable Market Overview2.1 Urology Disposable Product Overview2.2 Urology Disposable Market Segment by Type2.3 Global Urology Disposable Product Segment by Type2.3.1 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Growth (%) by Types (2012, 2016 and 2022)2.3.2 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Market Share (%) by Types (2012-2017)2.3.3 Global Urology Disposable Revenue (Million USD) and Market Share (%) by Types (2012-2017)2.3.4 Global Urology Disposable Price (USD/Unit) by Type (2012-2017)2.4 United States Urology Disposable Product Segment by Type3 Urology Disposable Application/End Users3.1 Urology Disposable Segment by Application/End Users3.2 Global Urology Disposable Product Segment by Application3.2.1 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and CGAR (%) by Applications (2012, 2016 and 2022)3.2.2 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Market Share (%) by Applications (2012-2017)3.3 United States Urology Disposable Product Segment by Application3.3.1 United States Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and CGAR (%) by Applications (2012, 2016 and 2022)3.3.2 United States Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Market Share (%) by Applications (2012-2017)4 Urology Disposable Market Status and Outlook by Regions4.1 Global Market Status and Outlook by Regions4.1.1 Global Urology Disposable Market Size and CAGR by Regions (2012, 2016 and 2022)4.2 Global Urology Disposable Sales and Revenue by Regions4.2.1 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)4.2.2 Global Urology Disposable Revenue (Million USD) and Market Share (%) by Regions (2012-2017)4.2.3 Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)4.2.4 North America Urology Disposable Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)4.2.5 Europe Urology Disposable Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)List of Tables and FiguresTable Research Programs/Design for This ReportFigure Bottom-up and Top-down Approaches for This ReportFigure Global Urology Disposable Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure United States Urology Disposable Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Figure Global Urine Catheter Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2017)Figure Global Urine Collection Bags Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2017)Figure Global Male External Catheter Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (%) (2012-2017)Table Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Types (2012, 2016 and 2022)Table United States Urology Disposable Sales (K Units) and Growth Rate (%) Comparison by Types (2012, 2016 and 2022)Table Global Urology Disposable Sales (K Units), Revenue (Million USD), Price (USD/Unit) and Gross Margin (%) (2012-2017)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.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 SerDes IP Core Sales Market Report 2017 Top Manufacturers : Avago, Intel

QYResearchReports

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=1394296&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-serdes-ip-core-sales-market-report-2017.htm/toc

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global SerDes IP Core Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The global market for SerDes IP Core market has been extensively assessed in this research report on the basis of the market boosters, obstacles, opportunities, and challenges, this market faces. The study estimates the current size of the SerDes IP Core market in as well as what it will be after the forecast period by evaluating its historical and present performance. The size of the SerDes IP Core market is provided in terms of volume and revenue. The market revenue for all the regions is determined in US$ Mn and the volume is measured in kilo tons. The market size of each of the segments is offered in the context of the global and the regional markets.Get Complimentary Research Summary of the Report:The market estimations for this study have been based on the revenue and the volume. The factors for the usage of SerDes IP Core in each of the applications have been taken care of in assessing the revenue of this market. The demand for SerDes IP Core has been derived by examining the global as well as regional demand for SerDes IP Core in each of the application segments. The SerDes IP Core market has been evaluated keeping the expected demand in mind.Global SerDes IP Core market competition by top manufacturers/players, with SerDes IP Core sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingSTMicroelectronicsAvago (Broadcom)IntelCredo SemiconductorINNOSILICON TechnologyFaraday Technology CorporationAnalog Circuit WorksThe market data for each of the segments is based on their respective revenues and production volume. The predictions have been made upon the projected demand from SerDes IP Core applications. Researchers have utilized the top  down and bottom - up approaches to calculate the market, divided into regions.The report further provides a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape in the market for SerDes IP Core in a bid to highlight the level of the competition between the leading players. In this process, researchers review the profiles of the prominent market participants and identify the key strategies they have taken up for the progress of their businesses.Table of Contents1 SerDes IP Core Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of SerDes IP Core1.2 Classification of SerDes IP Core by Product Category1.2.1 Global SerDes IP Core Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global SerDes IP Core Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.3 Global SerDes IP Core Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global SerDes IP Core Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.4 Global SerDes IP Core Market by Region1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of SerDes IP Core (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global SerDes IP Core Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global SerDes IP Core Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Obtain Table of Content @2 Global SerDes IP Core Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global SerDes IP Core Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global SerDes IP Core Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global SerDes IP Core Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global SerDes IP Core (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global SerDes IP Core (Volume and Value) by Region2.4 Global SerDes IP Core (Volume) by Application3 United States SerDes IP Core (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States SerDes IP Core Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States SerDes IP Core Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States SerDes IP Core Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States SerDes IP Core Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China SerDes IP Core (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China SerDes IP Core Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China SerDes IP Core Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China SerDes IP Core Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China SerDes IP Core Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China SerDes IP Core Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationList of Tables and FiguresFigure Product Picture of SerDes IP CoreFigure Global SerDes IP Core Sales Volume Comparison (K Units) by Type (2012-2022)Figure Global SerDes IP Core Sales Volume Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016Figure Global SerDes IP Core Sales Comparison (K Units) by Application (2012-2022)Figure Global Sales Market Share of SerDes IP Core by Application in 2016Figure Global SerDes IP Core Market Size (Million USD) by Regions (2012-2022)Figure United States SerDes IP Core Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure China SerDes IP Core Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Europe SerDes IP Core Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Japan SerDes IP Core Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.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
Forklift Trucks Market Will hit at a CAGR of 6.9% by the end of 2021

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/3552

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/3552

www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Persistence Market Research (PMR), delivers key insights on the forklift truck market in its latest report titled Global Market Study on Forklift Trucks: Asia-Pacific to Witness Highest Growth by 2021 According to the report, the global forklift trucks market was valued at US$ 35.3 Bn in 2014 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.9% during the forecast period to reach US$ 55.9 Bn by the end of 2021.Request For Report Sample:Key driving factors identified in the global forklift truck market include expansion of warehouse space globally, growing e-commerce business across the globe, strong demand for forklift truck replacement in developed markets, and bulk investments in purchase of low-cost forklift trucks in emerging markets.Assessing the various factors driving the market growth, PMR analyst opined, The global material handling equipment market is growing significantly at an annual growth rate of 3%7%. Electric type forklift truck is one of the prominent segments in this market. These trucks are gaining traction due to the implementation of various advanced technologies and their growing application across various industries worldwide. The China market is projected to exhibit the fastest growth over the forecast period due to various factors, such as favorable economic environment and a need for technological advancements in in-house logistics in the country.From a regional perspective, Asia-Pacific was the largest market for forklift trucks in 2014, accounting for approximately 41.4% volume share of the overall market. Europe is projected to account for the second largest volume share of the global forklift truck market and expand at a CAGR of 4.6% over the forecast period, due to the positive outlook of the economy in Western Europe and expected rise in trade of goods, in turn leading to a significant growth in demand for forklift trucks in the region in the near future.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Key market participants covered in the report include Kion Group AG, Jungheinrich AG, Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc., Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO), Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Co., Ltd., Crown Equipment Corporation, Anhui HeLi Co., Ltd., CLARK Material Handling Co., Ltd., and UniCarriers Americas Corporation.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:
New Market Research Report Announced on Position Sensors Market ; Global Industry Analysis 2017 2022

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1404728

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-position-sensors-detailed-analysis-report-2017-2022-report.html/toc

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-position-sensors-detailed-analysis-report-2017-2022-report.html

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

https://marketinfo247.wordpress.com/

Albany, NY, 15th December : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "Global Position Sensors Detailed Analysis Report 2017-2022" globally.This report mainly introduces volume and value market share by players, by regions, by product type, by consumers and also their price change details. As a Detailed Analysis report, it covers all details inside analysis and opinion in Position Sensors industry.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @This report splits Position Sensors market by Position Sensor Type, by Contact Type, by Position Sensor Technology, by Output Signal, which covers the history data information from 2012 to 2016 and forecast from 2017 to 2022.This report focuses Global market, it covers details as following:Major CompaniesAB Elektronik (Germany)ALPS Electric (Japan)Altheris sensors & controls (Netherlands)ASM Automation Sensorik Messtechnik GmbH (Germany)ATEK SENSOR TECHNOLOGIE (Turkey)Bourns (USA)burster (Germany)View Complete TOC with tables & Figures @Celesco (USA)Crouzet (France)DAS Co., Ltd. (Korea)ELAP (Italy)ELCIS ENCODER (Italy)ELEN Srl (Italy)ELOBAU (Germany)Gefran (Italy)Gentech International (UK)Gimatic (Italy)ifm electronic (Germany)MCB industrie (France)Micro-Epsilon (Germany)MTS Sensor Technologie GmbH & Co . KG (Germany)Novotechnik (Germany)OPKON Optik Electronic (Turkey)PENNY GILES CONTROLS (USA)Sensata Technologies (USA)SENSOR SYSTEMS SRL (Italy)SICK (Germany)SIKO GmbH (Germany)Soway Tech Limited (China)TME (France)Main RegionsNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaLatin AmericaMexicoBrazilArgentinaOthersEuropeGermanyUnited KingdomFranceItalySpainRussiaNetherlandOthersAsia & PacificChinaJapanIndiaKoreaAustraliaSoutheast AsiaIndonesiaThailandPhilippinesVietnamSingaporeMalaysiaOthersAfrica & Middle EastSouth AfricaEgyptTurkeySaudi ArabiaIranOthersMain Product TypePosition Sensors Market, by Position Sensor TypeLinear Position SensorAngular Position SensorPosition Sensors Market, by Contact TypeContactNon-contactPosition Sensors Market, by Position Sensor TechnologyMagneticPotentiometerHall EffectMechanicalOther (Inductive, Resistance, LVDT, Optical, Laser)Position Sensors Market, by Output SignalAnalogFieldbusDigitalIO-Link InterfaceAmplified OutputBrowse Report @Main ApplicationsElectronic EquipmentIndustrial AutomationIndustrial RobotAutomotive ApplicationsOthersResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :
Automotive Engine Degreasers Market 2015-2021 Shares, Trend and Growth Report

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/4397

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/4397

www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Automotive engine degreasers are used to remove grime and grease from engines. It is a blend of surfactants, emulsifiers and solvents. Choice of degreasers depends on the engine type to be cleaned and motor placement in the vehicle. Degreasers create a foamy effect on the motor, which can be easily washed with water. This process helps to remove oil and dirt from the engine parts. Automotive engine degreasers can be divided into foam or aerosol forms. The oil and dirt is removed by chemical reactions on the surface.Request For Report Sample:The market for automotive engine degreasers was mainly driven by huge demand for cleaning agents for engines from automotive market. Automotive engine degreasers are used in various vehicles which include passenger and commercial vehicles. There are different types of engines in the market such as V-type engine, diesel engine, straight or inline engines and boxer or falt engines among others. The growing market for biodegradable and bio-based degreasers is likely to be major opportunity for the automotive engine degreasers market. However, health issues and regulations can be major restraint for the automotive engine degreasers market.In terms of demand, North America was the leading region in automotive degreasers market. The demand is high due to the huge demand for engine cleaning chemicals, especially from Canada and the U.S. North America was followed by Europe. The market for automotives is huge in European countries and has substantial demand for automotive engine degreasers. Asia Pacific is anticipated to be emerging market for automotive engine degreasers market and is likely to show greater demand in upcoming years owing to huge automotive market in India, Japan and China. The Rest of the World market, especially the Middle East region is likely to potential market for automotive engine degreasers in next few years.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Some of the key manufacturers in the automotive engine degreasers market are 3M Company, ABRO Industries Inc., A.I.M. Chemicals Inc., BG Products Inc., BASF SE, The Dow Chemical Company and Radiator Specialty Company among others.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:
Mobile Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Apps Global Market Other Key Strategies By Type & Geography 2016 Analysis & Forecast to 2020

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001508352/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001508352/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/global-mobile-augmented-reality-and-virtual-reality-apps-market-2016-2020

AR technology offers an experience of reality enhanced with virtual images and a virtual environment. AR technology blends digital content with the physical world. AR technology, with the help of a mobile app, displays computer-generated images in the user's field of vision, offering relevant information about real-world objects. It allows users to scan the physical environment while providing an enhanced, or augmented, experience by adding virtual computer-generated information. End-users can use this technology through mobile apps. VR is an artificial environment that is created using software and hardware. The content is in 3D form, giving users a virtual experience. The 3D image is the simplest form of VR that can be explored on a PC by using a keyboard or mouse as a controller to move the image or zoom in or out. The more advanced technologies include actual rooms that are augmented with wearable computers, VR headsets that allow users to feel display images, and wrap-around display screens.Publisher's analysts forecast the global mobile AR and VR apps market to grow at a CAGR of 74.4% during the period 2016-2020.Request Sample Copy atCovered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global mobile AR and VR apps market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from mobile AR and VR app downloads by the following end-users:- Enterprises- ConsumersThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Americas- APAC- EMEAPublisher's report, Global Thoracic Surgery Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors- Augmented Pixels- Aurasma- Blippar- Catchoom- DAQRI- WikitudeInquire before Buying atOther prominent vendors- 8i- Alphaeon- AltspaceVR- Alchemy VR- Apple (Metaio)- Blippar- CCP Games- EEVO- Facebook- Google- GoPro- High Fidelity- HTC- Improbable- Infinity Augmented Reality- Inglobe Technologies- Jaunt- Legend3D- Linden Lab- Marxent- Matterport- Movidius- MyDreamVR- NextVR- NGRAIN- Nod Labs- Reload Studios- Resolution Games- uSens- Virtalis- Virtuix- Viscira- VividWorks- VRideo- Seabery- Snaploader- Total Immersion- WorldVizMarket driver- High penetration of AR technology in advertising sector- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- Lack of interoperability of mobile AR and VR apps across mobile platforms- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend- Growing collaboration with mobile AR content providers- For a full, detailed list, view our reportFor more information about this report:Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer 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
6 Key Takeaways from Fact.MRs Report on Drip Coffee Machine Market for Forecast Period 2017-2026

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=350

https://www.factmr.com/report/350/drip-coffee-machine-market

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=D&rep_id=350

https://www.factmr.com/

A drip coffee machine is the most basic type of coffee machine used across the world. Most of the drip coffee machines have very few programmable features, but they are still easy to use. Drip coffee machine is used on a large scale as it produces quality brewed coffee. However, drip coffee machine manufacturers are adding various advanced features. Keeping coffee warm for a long time is one of the many features that manufacturers are focusing on. Technological advancements are also leading towards the development of smart drip coffee machine that can be controlled with the help of the mobile application. With an app, the person can set a schedule, get the status, notification and control the machine from anywhere.Request Free Sample Report-As per the latest report compiled by Fact.MR, the global drip coffee machine market is expected to witness sluggish growth. The market is expected to register 3.1% CAGR during the forecast period 2017-2026. The global drip coffee machine market is also projected to bring in US$ 213.0 million revenue by the end of 2026. Advanced technologies are being used to make drip coffee machines smart and easy to use. Manufacturers of drip coffee machines are also adding various programming features, auto-start timers that let the user set time at the night to get the cup of coffee early in the morning without the need of starting the machine and waiting for the coffee. Following insights show how the global drip coffee machine market will perform in the coming years.Browse Full Report with TOC-6 Forecast Highlights on Global Drip Coffee Machine Market Europe is anticipated to remain dominant in the global drip coffee machine market during the forecast period 2017-2026. Owing to the increase in consumption of coffee, and customers willing to pay more for fresh ground coffee with good quality and taste are some of the factors driving the growth of the drip coffee machine in Europe. North America is also anticipated to witness growth in the global drip coffee machine market. Increasing number of people consuming coffee in the U.S. is driving the demand for drip coffee machine market. Also, consumers in North America are very loyal to their favorite hot drink brands and are ready to pay a premium for coffee machines. Drip coffee machine that can produce more than 10 cups of coffee is expected to account for more than half of the revenue share towards the end of 2017. It is also anticipated to exceed US$ 100 million revenue by the end of 2026. Glass drip coffee machine is expected to account for nearly two-third of the revenue share by 2017 end. By 2026 end, glass drip coffee machine is projected to exceed US$ 100 million revenue. Residential segment is anticipated to be the largest user of drip coffee machine. Residential segment is anticipated to account for over three-fifth of the revenue share by the end of 2017. Metal drip coffee machine is expected to witness growth during the forecast period 2017-2026. By the end of 2026, metal drip coffee machine is projected to reach nearly US$ 200 million revenue.The report also offers a detailed profile of some of the leading companies in the global market for drip coffee machine that are expected to remain active through 2026. These include companies such as Krups GmbH, Koninklijke Philips N.V., De' Longhi S.p.A, Siemens AG, Melitta Unternehmensgruppe Bentz KG, BUNN-O-Matic Corporation, Jura Elektroapparate Ag, Technivorm BV, Bravilor Holding B.V., and The Black & Decker Corporation.Check Discount-About Fact.MRFact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Contact UsFact.MRSuite 988427 Upper Pembroke Street,Dublin 2, IrelandTelephone: +353-1-6111-593Email: sales@factmr.com/Web:
Insight on Global L Carvone Sales Market: Trends in Demand, Supply and Sales, Forecasted till 2022

Market Research HUB

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1398367

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/global-l-carvone-sales-market-report-2017-report.html

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1398367

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

The research study examines the global L Carvone sales market on the basis of a number of criteria, such as the product type, application, and its geographical presence. The whole supply chain of this market has been explained with statistical details with a special emphasis on various upstream and downstream components. The current trends pertaining to the demand, supply, and sales of global L Carvone sales market, together with the recent developments have been given here to provide an exhaustive picture of this market.Request Free Sample Report@Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of L Carvone for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal L Carvone market competition by top manufacturers/players, with L Carvone sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingParamount AromachemRenessenzGem AromaticsShree Bankey Behari Lal AromaticsWanxiang InternationalJishui County Shunmin MedicinalLvchang Chemical...On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoPharmaceutical GradeFood GradeIndustrial GradeOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate of L Carvone for each application, includingDaily Use Chemical EssenceFood AdditivePharmaceuticalAgriculturalOthersBrowse Full Report with TOC@Table of ContentsGlobal L Carvone Sales Market Report 20171 L Carvone Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of L Carvone1.2 Classification of L Carvone by Product Category1.2.1 Global L Carvone Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global L Carvone Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Pharmaceutical Grade1.2.4 Food Grade1.2.5 Industrial Grade1.3 Global L Carvone Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global L Carvone Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Daily Use Chemical Essence1.3.3 Food Additive1.3.4 Pharmaceutical1.3.5 Agricultural1.3.6 Others1.4 Global L Carvone Market by Region1.4.1 Global L Carvone Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India L Carvone Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of L Carvone (2012-2022)Continued..Enquire About this Report@About Market Research HubMarket Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of Chemicals 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 :-
Medical Adhesive Tapes Industry - Forecast and Analysis by Regions (2017-2022) Report at MarketResearchNest.com

Medical Adhesive Tapes Industry, Medical Adhesive Tapes Trends

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-medical-adhesive-tapes-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286925

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286925

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Medical Adhesive Tapes Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 89 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global medical adhesive tapes market to grow at a CAGR of 5.56% during the period 2017-2021.About Medical Adhesive TapesMedical adhesive tapes, also known as surgical adhesive tapes, are used for closing wounds and holding bandages in place. They are available in a variety of widths, lengths, and styles and are designed to meet a wide range of bandaging requirements. Medical tape is an essential first aid product. Some medical adhesive tapes are prepared with zinc oxide to reduce the risk of infection. They are designed in a way that allows air circulation around the wound. Acrylic, silicon, rubber, PET (polyethylene terephthalate), PE (polyethylene) are various types of resins used in the preparation of medical adhesive tapes. Silicon resin usage is increasing due to increased applications in the stick-to-skin medical products.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global medical adhesive tapes market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of medical adhesive tapes from various derivative types.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Medical Adhesive Tapes 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global medical adhesive tapes market: 3M, Johnson & Johnson Services, Scapa Group, NITTO DENKO CORPORATION, Smith & Nephew, and Medtronic.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Adchem, AVERY DENNISON CORPORATION, CCT Tapes, DermaMed Coatings Company, GERGONNE INDUSTRIE, Jiangsu Nanfang Medical, LIBATAPE PHARMACEUTICAL, Lohmann, Mactac, Mercator Medical, NICHIBAN, Paul HARTMANN Medical, and Seyitler Kimya.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Shift to environment-friendly, green products. Developed countries such as the US, Canada, and Germany, emphasize the use of medical adhesive tapes as they are environment-friendly. These environment-friendly tapes are also known as green tapes and are either recyclable, biodegradable, or made from recycled materials. They do not contain harmful hydrocarbons or solvents. Bio-based medical adhesive tapes are increasingly becoming popular in developing countries such as India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Flourishing medical tourism industry in APAC. The global medical tourism industry is growing in popularity, owing to the presence of skilled healthcare professionals and doctors and availability of low-cost treatments. This industry is expected to reach $8 billion by 2020. The outbound medical tourism originated primarily in the US due to the implementation of the US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which opened avenues in the global medical industry.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Increasing cost pressure on manufacturers. Identifying the suitable adhesive and backing material for an application is a crucial step. Standard acrylate-based tapes exhibit higher moisture resistance than silicone-based tapes and are used in medical applications that involve exposure to cleaning solutions or excessive secretions. The amount of adhesive and its concentration used in the manufacturing process should be carefully examined. Care should be taken during the initial mixing procedure and manual or automated circulation of the medical adhesive tapes. Factors such as the type of skin and age are the key factors that determine the price of these tapes.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Key questions answered in this report: What 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;Enquiry before Buying atAbout us:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Stone Processing Machines Market Forecast Report by Persistence Market Research Offers Key Insights 2017  2022

Stone Processing Machines, Stone Processing Machines Market, Stone Processing Machines Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-stone-processing-machines-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286895

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286895

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Stone Processing Machines Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 96 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global stone processing machines market to grow at a CAGR of 4.58% during the period 2017-2021.About Stone Processing MachinesStone processing machines are used for processing natural stones, such as marble and granite, to produce the desired shape, size, quality, and finish of the product, with the highest form of precision and accuracy. There are several types of stone processing machines, such as computer numerical control (CNC) bridge saws, work centers, cutting centers, shaping and milling machines, waterjet cutting machine, and polishing machines. These machines incorporate flexibility in the production line to perform varied operations.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global stone processing machines market for 2017-2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Stone Processing Machines 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global stone processing machines market: Biesse Group, Breton, DONATONI MACCHINE, SCM Group.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Gaspari Menotti, Prussiani Engineering, Thibaut, and Yonani Industries.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is innovation in stone processing machines. Technological advances help create better stone processing machines as they are manufactured with more precision, quality, and speed. Various stone processing machine manufacturers are investing in R&D to offer innovative products to various end-users, thereby spurring the demand for stone processing machines globally.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is growing preference for natural stone. Most residential and commercial building owners have shied away from using synthetic building materials to reduce carbon footprint. This has led to the growth in demand for natural stones, such as marble and granite, in commercial and residential construction projects. It is expected that the number of commercial buildings, such as office space, hotels, hospitals, and recreation centers, is likely to grow significantly during the forecast period. Similarly, the rise in new residential construction projects, driven by eco-conscious millennials that prefer natural stones to synthetic stones, is expected to drive the demand for stone processing machines.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is shortage of skilled labor and increasing labor cost. Granite processing or marble processing requires skilled manpower as understanding the patterns and joints present in stones is of crucial importance. Developing countries, such as India, are witnessing the shortage of skilled labor. As per the Government of India's survey, in 2017, the present skilled workforce constituted only 2% of the overall workforce in the country. The lack of skilled manpower will eventually lead to increased labor costs, thereby increasing the cost of production in the stone processing sector. In addition, the shortage of skilled labor will result in low manpower productivity.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Rising Advanced Technologies For IoT Security Market Size & Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1357512

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1357512/iot-security-global-industry-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1357512

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/checkdiscount/1357512

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of "IoT Security Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 ".The objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Global IoT Security Market: SnapshotThe global Internet of Things (IoT) security market is slated to witness a tremendous growth during the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. The growth can be traced to a growing adoption of cloud based services for authentication process. Cloud is being used for the storage of biometrics information. As most organizations today are adopting cloud technology for storing their confidential data, there arises need for developing security measures to protect the cloud against unauthorized access. The high adoption of cloud based services by small and medium scale enterprises such as pay per use model, is offering flexibility and scalability to these enterprises and this has resulted in a staggering increase in the adoption of cloud based services for the purpose of data storage. This is expected to create a heightened need for IoT security solutions and drive the market worldwide.The introduction of integrated security solutions is expected to fuel the growth prospects of the global IoT security market. The demand for IoT security solutions will increase among end users as there is a need for providing overall security to networks and devices. Since stand-alone IoT security solutions are expensive, most end users are opting for integrated IoT security solutions. Integrated IoT security solutions offer enhanced support and greater functionality to customers and this will provide the market a boost. Data loss prevention and firewalls are being integrated with IoT security solutions and this will further boost the growth of this market. This will decrease the IoT security solutions.Global IoT Security Market: OverviewAs the Internet of Things (IoT) is gradually moving from being a centralized structure to a more complex network of innumerable decentralized smart devices, the need for security of data will be acknowledged to a greater degree, thereby promoting the expansion of the global IoT security market. The larger the volume of the data transferred over to IoT, the bigger the risk of device manipulation, IP theft, identity theft, data falsification, and network or server manipulation.By type, endpoint security, cloud security, network security, and application security could be the key segments of the global market for IoT security. Manufacturing, energy and utilities, government, defense, information technology (IT) and telecommunication, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), transportation, logistics, and retail can be the major segments of the market based on application.All facets of the global IoT security market pertaining to the growth drivers, challenges, supply and demand, and current trends have been discussed in the report. The market size, historical developments, present scenario, and projected estimations have been revealed, together with relevant statistical data, charts, and figures. The progress of the key market players has also been mapped under the competitive landscape.View Report @Global IoT Security Market: Drivers and RestraintsWith the emergence of technologies such as cloud, a large volume of data faces threat from cyber-crime. The exceeding popularity of social media has also resulted in vulnerability to identity theft and data theft. Consequently, stronger platforms that combat cyber threats are being continuously developed by several firms. Moreover, the excessive usage of smartphones, laptops, and tablets has further led to the exposure of personal data.The prevalence of concepts such as Bring Your Own Phone (BYOP), Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and Bring Your Own PC (BYOPC) has undoubtedly boosted the productivity of business enterprises, but has also raised data security concerns. Several enterprises and organizations are therefore in the quest for more efficient security solutions. All this has stoked the growth of the global IoT security market.Antithetically, lack of knowledge about the availability and benefits of IoT security solutions might inhibit growth. However, the towering demand for data security has led to the formulation of stringent laws and regulatory compliances by several governments, ensuring that the market would continue to expand at a significant pace over the next few years.Global IoT Security Market: Regional OutlookBy geography, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, North America, and the Middle East and Africa are the key segments of the global market for IoT security. In terms of revenue, North America appears to be the dominant market. The growth of this region can be attributed to the extensive deployment of IoT devices across several domains and countries and the enforcement of regulatory frameworks. For example, the implementation of laws such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) have been propelling the market.The IoT security market in Asia Pacific has been growing rapidly, thanks to the greater number of business organizations, rise in mobile workforce, and the unregulated usage of the Internet. The expanding economy, social transformation, and the new national security policies in countries such as Japan, India, and Singapore have also been responsible for the growth of IoT security solutions across this region.Request For Enquiry @ Companies mentioned in the research reportIBM Corporation, Symantec Corporation, Infineon Technologies, Cisco Systems, Inc., Hewlett Packard Development Company L.P., Sophos Plc, NSIDE Secure SA, ARM Holdings, Gemalto NV, and Intel Corporation are some of the major companies operating in the global market for IoT security.Major regions analyzed under this research report are:EuropeNorth AmericaAsia PacificRest of the WorldThis report gives you access to decisive data such as:Market growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for the coming yearsCheck Discount @Key highlights of this reportOverview of key market forces propelling and restraining market growthUp-to-date analyses of market trends and technological improvementsPin-point analyses of market competition dynamics to offer you a competitive edgeAn analysis of strategies of major competitorsAn array of graphics and SWOT analysis of major industry segmentsDetailed analyses of industry trendsA well-defined technological growth map with an impact-analysisOffers a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and key product segmentsAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Focuses on the Switches Market Size, Share And Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404690/global-north-america-europe-and-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404690

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404690

"The Report Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) Switches Market 2017 Forecast to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"Whenever a switching mechanism relies on a mechanical action to change the direction or orientation of path continuity within its terminal base, it is referred to as an electromechanical switch. These switches can often be hampered by a short cycle life due to the inherent wear and tear associated with mechanical operation, but there are many switches that still can maintain a significant amount of cycles before signal and mechanical degradation.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Switches in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.View Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversITT IndustriesNKK SwitchesTE ConnectivityALPSOmronAPEME-SwitchElectroswitchCTSCarling TechnologiesHoneywellTOPLYChannel ElectronicBulginPanasonicGrayhillITW SwitchesOTTOArcolectricBournsCopal ElectronicsEatonSchurterSchneiderPhoenix ContactELMAEAONOVALorlinLEVITONMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversTactileSlideRotaryEncoderTogglePushDetectMicroPowerOtherMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoMilitaryAerospaceCommercialIndustrialHealthcareAutomotiveWhite GoodsGet Sample Copy Of This Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Switches market.Chapter 1, to describe Switches Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Switches, with sales, revenue, and price of Switches, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Switches, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the market by countries, by type, by application and by manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Switches market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Switches sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Switches Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Tactile1.2.2 Slide1.2.3 Rotary1.2.4 Encoder1.2.5 Toggle1.2.6 Push1.2.7 Detect1.2.8 Micro1.2.9 Power1.2.10 Other1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Military1.3.2 Aerospace1.3.3 Commercial1.3.4 Industrial1.3.5 Healthcare1.3.6 Automotive1.3.1 White Goods1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 ITT Industries2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.1.1 ITT Industries Switches Description2.1.1.2 ITT Industries Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.1.2 ITT Industries Switches Product Introduction2.1.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.1.2.2 ITT Industries Switches Product Introduction2.1.3 ITT Industries Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.1.3.1 ITT Industries Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.1.3.2 ITT Industries Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.2 NKK Switches2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.1.1 NKK Switches Switches Description2.2.1.2 NKK Switches Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.2.2 ITT Industries Switches Product Introduction2.2.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.2.2.2 NKK Switches Switches Product Introduction2.2.3 NKK Switches Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.2.3.1 NKK Switches Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2.3.2 NKK Switches Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.3 TE Connectivity2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.1.1 TE Connectivity Switches Description2.3.1.2 TE Connectivity Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.3.2 TE Connectivity Switches Product Introduction2.3.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.3.2.2 TE Connectivity Switches Product Introduction2.3.3 TE Connectivity Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.3.3.1 TE Connectivity Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3.3.2 TE Connectivity Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.4 ALPS2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.1.1 ALPS Switches Description2.4.1.2 ALPS Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.4.2 ALPS Switches Product Introduction2.4.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.4.2.2 ALPS Switches Product Introduction2.4.3 ALPS Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.4.3.1 ALPS Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4.3.2 ALPS Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.5 Omron2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.1.1 Omron Switches Description2.5.1.2 Omron Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.5.2 Omron Switches Product Introduction2.5.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.5.2.2 Omron Switches Product Introduction2.5.3 Omron Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.5.3.1 Omron Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5.3.2 Omron Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.6 APEM2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.1.1 APEM Switches Description2.6.1.2 APEM Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.6.2 APEM Switches Product Introduction2.6.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.6.2.2 APEM Switches Product Introduction2.6.3 APEM Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.6.3.1 APEM Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6.3.2 APEM Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.7 E-Switch2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.1.1 E-Switch Switches Description2.7.1.2 E-Switch Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.7.2 E-Switch Switches Product Introduction2.7.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major Competitors2.7.2.2 E-Switch Switches Product Introduction2.7.3 E-Switch Switches Sales, Revenue and Market Share2.7.3.1 E-Switch Switches Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7.3.2 E-Switch Switches Market Share in Global in 20162.8 Electroswitch2.8.1 Business Overview2.8.1.1 Electroswitch Switches Description2.8.1.2 Electroswitch Switches Headquarter, Main Business and Finance Overview2.8.2 Electroswitch Switches Product Introduction2.8.2.1 Production Bases, Sales Regions and Major CompetitorsAbout 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.State Tower 90 Sate Street, Suite 700 Albany, NY 12207 Tel: +1-518-621-2074 USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948
Aviation Coatings Market Opportunity Assessment Research Study 2017 - 2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=35315

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=35315

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Coating is a layer of covering applied on the surface of objects not only for appearance, but also for functional purposes. Temperature variation in the air impacts the structural dimensions of an aircraft; therefore, aviation coatings are applied to exteriors and interiors of the aircraft to protect it from the environment, thereby reducing corrosion and erosion. These coatings are used by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and players in the maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) industry as well. Demand for lightweight products is a major criteria for components in an aircraft, especially in airframe and outer skin of the aircraft. Metals such as aluminum and its alloys are used to make the airframe and skin. These metals are subjected to corrosion. Protective coatings are applied on metal components to prevent or reduce corrosion and to provide an appealing appearance to the aircraft. Coatings with low volume of volatile organic component (VOC) tend to reduce the release of organic solvents in the atmosphere, thereby protecting the environment.Aviation coating consists of a primer and a top coat. Corrosion of the substrate is inhibited by the primer and the appearance of the component is enhanced by top coat. The top coat also helps to increase durability of coatings. Coating can be applied as one layer or as multiple layers. The primer present in the multi-layer coating is an organic polymer and has anti-corrosion property due to the presence of dispersed chromate corrosion-inhibiting compounds in it. Uni-layer coating, also known as unicoat, contains compounds inhibiting corrosion and other colored pigments that provide a decorative and appealing appearance to the aircraft.Request For Report Sample@Coatings in the aviation industry are applied on different sections of an aircraft, such as combustion chamber, turbine, and compressor. Coatings are applied to aircraft components such as combustion flame tubes, compressor air foils, turbine air foils, fuel nozzles, fuel swirlers, compressor drums, discs and shafts, and bearings and accessories. The objective of coatings is not the same for all components, for instance coatings on blades, stators, vanes of compressors provide corrosion resistance. Whereas, coatings are used as sealing on compressor cases. Other aircraft components subjected to coatings include gas generator case, diffuser case, spacers, hubs, shafts in the compressor, blade tips, brush seals, thrust frame boss & clevis, and exhaust fairing pins & bushings in the turbine, among others.Regulations on eco-efficiency have influenced recent developments in the aviation coatings industry. Innovations in the coating products are focused mainly to address toxicity, emissions, hazardous potential, etc. Newly launched aviation coatings have longer shelf-life and contain low volume of toxic ingredients, which meet the regulatory standards. Europe and the Government in Canada, the U.S, and Australia have stringent regulations to curb coating-related VOC emissions. These regulations have given rise to research & development in the coating industry.Currently, major demand for aviation coating is witnessed in North America followed by Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Rest of the World. However, the market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a rapid pace in the coming years and is likely to hold a significant share of the aviation coatings market. The reason behind Asia Pacific occupying a major share is the rising demand for aviation coatings in commercial airlines and military sector of countries such as China.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Key players operating in the global aviation coating market include AkzoNobel N.V, PPG Industries, Inc., Aerospace Coatings International, BASF SE, Aerospace Coating Systems, Inc., Sherwin-Williams Aerospace Coatings, Henkel AG & Co., Mapaero, Tennant Coatings, National Coatings and Supplies, Hohman Plating, MankiewiczGebr. & Co., Ionbond AG and Hentzen Coatings.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
Headphones Market - Global Industry Analysis, Trends, & Forecast 2023

https://www.arizton.com/market-reports/headphones-market-report

https://www.arizton.com/market-reports/headphones-market-report

https://www.arizton.com/market-reports/headphones-market-report

The global headphones market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.31% during 20172023 and cross $20 billion in revenue by 2023.As mobile devices are getting affordable, the demand for entry-level headphones is also increasing globally. On the other hand, there is also a huge demand for specialized, high-end, best sound quality headphone.Beats Electronics, Bose, Sennheiser, Sony, and Skullcandy are the leading players in the market.View report:The report provides a holistic view of the global market, the companies involved in the market, and the factors driving its growth. It also provides information on some of the latest trends that have started to surface and are likely to become strong market driving forces over the next five years. This report also provides the Porters Five Forces analysis along with a description of each force and its impact on the market. Further, the report also provides complete value chain analysis of the market.Global Headphones Market: Key Manufacturer AnalysisThere are more than 3,000 companies engaged in manufacturing of headphones. Although, most of these companies are small scale and has limited market research, there are many multinational, global companies which are engaged in designing and manufacturing. The top five manufacturers, Beats, Bose, Sennheiser, Sony, and Skullcandy have two-thirds of the global market share in terms of value and 50% of the market share in terms of volume.The major manufacturers included in the report, are as follows:Beats ElectronicsBoseSennheiserSonySkullcandyOther prominent manufacturers include AIAIAI, AKG Acoustics, Apple, Audio-Technica Corp., Beyerdynamic, Creative Technology., Denon, Grado Labs, The House of Marley, Jays AB, JBL, JVCKenwood, Logitech International, Molami, Monster Cable Products, Panasonic, Parrot, Pioneer, Shure Incorporated, SMS Audio, Sol Republic, Urbanears, and Westone Laboratories.Headphones Market: DynamicsAffordable technological sophistication to propel market growthRising demand for new technology, increasing sophistication in headphones, growing interoperability with smartphones and tablets, and growing increased partnerships with mobile device manufacturers are likely to propel the growth of the global market.Increased disposable income, enhanced technological awareness, and growth of multi-faceted consumer requirements have contributed to the growth of the global headphones market over the last decade and is expected to propel the market growth in the future.Order a report sample:Headphones Market: Segmental AnalysisInnovators and early adopters to facilitate market growthCurrently, the wired headphones segment leads the global market with 59% share compared to 41% by the wireless technology segment. This is, however, expected to change over the next few years, making the wireless segment the pre-dominant market segment.The smart and non-smart headphones segments are expected to follow a similar trend to the wired and wireless segments. Currently, the non-smart segment, which is leading the market, is expected to lose its market share to the smart devices segment over the next few years.Analysts at Arizton also anticipate innovators and early adopters, who are highly social, tech-savvy, affluent, young, and close to new scientific inventions to be the largest consumers of the technologically advanced and multi-faceted wireless headphones in the future.Another segment of potential users is the people who use them while running or doing workout to keep themselves boosted and energized. The rise in the health conscious and fitness-aware population and the increased number of gym goers are also expected to aid the growth of the market globally.Headphones Market: Geographical AnalysisLatin American market to witness growth at a rate faster than other markets in terms of shipmentIn terms of volume (shipment) and value (revenue), the European market is strongly influenced by the popularity of music in Western Europe and Scandinavian countries. The penetration of smart headphones is high in these countries as they are technologically advanced.The second largest market, in terms of volume (shipment) and value (revenue), is the North American market that is heavily influenced by technology adoption in the US. The APAC market is driven by high population and increased disposable income of the middle-class population, which is prominent in developing countries in the region. Developed countries such as Japan and South Korea are considered as innovators in the market. The MEA market is witnessing a surge, and the demand for earbuds and headphones that are noise cancelling specific are expected to significantly rise among audiophiles who are increasing in the region in the future. The Latin America market is expected to grow more quickly than the overall global market in terms of shipment, which is closely linked to device adoption growth.Order a report on discount:About Arizton Advisory & IntelligenceArizton  Advisory and Intelligence is an innovation and quality-driven firm, which offers cutting-edge research solutions to clients across the world. We excel in providing comprehensive market intelligence reports and advisory and consulting services.Arizton has gained a paramount standpoint in the market research arena as it offers top of the line solutions to clients to assess market landscape and to finalize foolproof business strategies. We are committed to provide inclusive market research reports and consulting services to clients from diversified industries including Consumer Goods & Retail Technology, Automotive and Mobility, Smart Tech, Healthcare and Lifesciences, Industrial Machinery, Chemicals and Materials, IT and Media, Logistics and PackagingArizton comprises a team of exuberant and well-experienced analysts who have mastered in generating incisive reports. Our specialist analysts possess exemplary skills in market research. We train our team in advanced research practices, techniques, and ethics to outperform in fabricating impregnable research reports.Arizton Advisory & IntelligenceChicago, Illinois, 60605Mail: enquiry@arizton.comCall: +1-312-465-7864
Rising Advanced Technologies For Integrated Systems Marke Size & Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1357472

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1357472/integrated-systems-global-industry-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1357472

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/checkdiscount/1357472

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of "Integrated Systems Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 ".The objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @Integrated Systems Market: OverviewIntegrated systems are known as the class of data center systems which are used to deliver a combination of server, network and shared-storage devices in a pre-integrated stack. These systems are used to combine networking, storage and compute as well as data center applications. With the help of integrated systems, different storage, server and networking vendors are now started offering a list of services which can resonate well with their data center operations, thereby boosting their infrastructure efficiency for high virtualized environments.It provides customers with more loosely coupled environment which is safe from all the complex interdependencies in order to bring more agility and automation in business processes. Thus, enterprises can effectively carry out all their process innovations without constantly modifying and maintaining diverse application programs. The adoption of integrated systems are aligned both with the maturity of service component provider and the operational dynamics of the customer environment.Integrated Systems Market: Key Growth EnablersThe rising demand to integrate deployment techniques and modern application development are boosting the integrated systems market. Furthermore, emergence of more advanced forms of data management over the traditional models is another key driver for the global integrated systems market. Thus, opportunity lies in monetizing data center infrastructure functionalities owing to the rapid advances taking place in the social, mobile and real-time communication devices. Moreover, speed to market is another important characteristic of integrated systems.It deals with building an entire data center consisting of load balancers, virtual machines, firewalls and networking within an hour or two which was not possible with the traditional methods. In addition, other factors like business and global expansion, financial efficiency and core competency are further fueling the growth of integration systems market. However, the offerings provided by integrated systems are really complex regarding management of business ecosystem as well as technology integration.View Report @Integrated Systems Market: SegmentationThe global integrated systems market is segmented on the basis of its type, business enterprise size, end-use industries and geographies. Based on its types, the integrated systems market is segmented into integrated workload systems, integrated infrastructure systems, and integrated reference architectures. Based on business enterprise size, integrated systems market is classified into small, medium and large business organizations.Based on end-use industries, the global integrated systems market is segmented into IT and telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, defense and energy, and others. The market is gaining huge penetration in small and medium sized enterprises due to low-cost and efficient services provided by integrated systems for B2B integration. Moreover, the growing intra-region integration is fueling the demand of integrated services in Asia Pacific region, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Geographically, the market is most dominant in the North America region due to high demand of IT infrastructure services by small, medium and large industries in this region.Integrated Systems Market: Key CompetitorsSome of the leading players in the global integrated systems market include ActiveState Software Inc., IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, Red Hat Inc., SAP SE, EMC Corporation, Hubspan, Inc., and Cordys B.V., Fujitsu Limited and Cisco Systems, Inc., among othersThe report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth insights, understanding market evolution by tracking historical developments, and analyzing the present scenario and future projections based on optimistic and likely scenarios. Each research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology developments, types, applications, and the competitive landscape.Request For Enquiry @ The study is a source of reliable data on:Key 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 insightsOpportunity mapping in terms of technological breakthroughsThe 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)TMR estimates the market size of various sectors using a combination of available data on the number and revenue of companies within each sub-sector and tiers of companies. The basic components used to determine market size and forecast for a specific product area are not only limited to supply-side data, but are also related to demand, industry trends, and the economic outlook. All the above data points are utilized to generate a statistical model targeting the sector marketplace. More than 300 TMR analysts across the world integrate these elements into a framework to determine the subsector market size for a base year and then forecast growth within each market.Check Discount @TMR regularly interviews technology and business professionals as an ongoing effort to track the latest developments within each sector. These continuous surveys are stratified by company size and industry segment and weighted to reflect the global market place. All data are collected on an ongoing effort through a structured questionnaire rolled over the web or conducted via telephones. This provides the TMR team opportunities to request for detailed question sets, complex skip patterns, and real-time calculations, which assists respondents in answering questions involving numbers and percentages. Respondents, who are interviewed as experts, are screened and qualified based on certain criteria in addition to their decision-making authority and the scope of activity within their organizations.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.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Rising Advanced Technologies For Data Brokers Market Size & Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1357448

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1357448/data-brokers-global-industry-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1357448

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/checkdiscount/1357448

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of " Data Brokers Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024".The objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @ Data Brokers Market: OverviewData broker is a business that collects and stores the personal information about consumers and sells to organizations who require that data to design their marketing strategy based on the preferences of the customer. The data brokers collect this information from a variety of sources such as government records, browser cookies and credit/debit card transactions. The brokers integrate and synthesize the data using advanced analytics tools such as rapid miner and Google fusion tables to formulate individual profiles of the customers.These individual profiles are updated regularly and are sold as per the demand of the buying organizations. The data brokers collect various kinds of data such as consumer data (personal information such as name and contact detail), commercial data (companies data), scientific data (weather information & drugs composition), real estate data (homes, farms or properties) and location data (global positioning, traffic and landmarks).Data Brokers Market: Key Growth EnablersThe data brokers store every bit of the information such as Internet activity, bulk transaction records and personal data such as date of birth, and books read. Various businesses are looking forward for that data to target the customers accordingly. This is the major driver for the growth of the market. Absence of data protection compliances in the emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil supports the growth of data brokers market. The data broker organizations support the companies in analyzing the buying pattern of the customers, thus support the organizations in developing products according to demand of the customers.Growth of Internet of Things (IoT) and rising demand of data analytics is anticipated to create immense opportunities for data brokers market. However, the customers are unaware of data being collected, thus privacy issues occur consistently. This is expected to provide hurdles in the growth of the data brokers market. The sector specific compliances pertaining to data privacy such as Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is further anticipated to present challenges to the players in this market.View Report @Data Brokers Market: SegmentationData brokers market is broadly segmented on the basis of product type, data type, insight level, and geography. On the basis of product type, the data brokers market is segmented into marketing products, risk mitigation products and people search products. Various data types associated with this market include consumer data, commercial data, scientific data, real estate data and geo-location data. On the basis of insight level, the data broker market is segmented into basic insights, smart insights and adaptive insights. Moreover, in terms of geographies, the global data brokers market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (MEA) and Latin America.North America has been the key contributor to the revenue generated by data brokers market during the last few years. This is attributed to presence of highly digit tech savvy population in the region which generates huge amount of data. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region in terms of adoption of data broking services as it enables the businesses to design personalized promotional campaigns to target the mass population present in the region.The major participants in the data brokers market include Acxiom Corporation, CoreLogic Inc., DataLogix Inc., eBureau LLC, Experion Plc, Intellius Inc., Peekyou LLC, Databroker Ltd., Pipl Inc. and Epsilon Data Management LLC.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Request For Enquiry @The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, 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.Check Discount @Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Rising Advanced Technologies For Vehicle Security System Market Size & Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1357447

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1357447/vehicle-security-system-global-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1357447

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of "Vehicle Security System Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 ".The objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @ Global Vehicle Security System Market: OverviewThe global vehicle security system market is projected to grow at a robust pace between 2016 and 2024. Globally, the demand for hybrid vehicles has risen considerably, boosting vehicle manufacturing worldwide. Due to increase in the sales and production of vehicles, instances of hijacking and car theft have also increased. This, in turn, is fuelling the demand for vehicle security systems.Vehicle security systems such as alarms, central locking, remote keyless entry, passive entry systems, and immobilizers are designed to protect cars from hijacking or theft. Recent technologies such as RFID, GPS, and RTLS have also come to into use for tracking down stolen cars. Regionally, Asia Pacific has been showing attractive opportunities for the market, trailed by North America and Europe. Growing awareness about vehicle safety and the increasing installation of state-of-the-art safety gadgets in vehicles have been driving the global vehicle security system market.The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global vehicle security system market. It covers the prevailing trends influencing the market and its growth prospects between 2016 and 2024. Revenue generated from the sale of vehicles across various categories has been considered in order to calculate the markets size. The report also compiles exhaustive information relating to the impact of the latest technological advancements in market. Some of the leading enterprises operating in the market are also profiled in the report to present a holistic overview of the competitive landscape.Global Vehicle Security System Market: Opportunities and Market SegmentationBased on vehicle type, the global vehicle security system market can be segmented into commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, and off-highway vehicles. On the basis of product type, the market is expected to witness increasing demand for immobilizers and remote keyless entry. In terms of technology, the market can be segmented into global positioning systems, real-time location systems, face detection systems, and GPS. Of these, the demand for face detection and face positioning systems is expected to increase at a robust pace.Regionally, Asia Pacific is expected to emerge as the leading segment. The expansion of the automotive industry in China is expected to drive the Asia Pacific market for vehicle security systems. Despite witnessing robust growth around the world, the high cost of premium security features will restrain its growth to an extent. Additionally, irrespective of the utilities they offer to users, developing security features such as passive entry systems is a costly affair. This also reflects negatively on the overall market sales. This is mainly because developing these systems requires a customized approach for each vehicle model, besides a complex process of installation.Nevertheless, the introduction of the latest technological advancements will provide lucrative opportunities for enterprises in the market to capitalize on. The pressing need to ensure adequate vehicle security to theft will also fuel demand from the global vehicle security system market.View Report @ Global Vehicle Security System Market: Competitive InsightTo study the competition prevailing in the market, the report also profiles companies such as Robert Bosch GmbH, Delphi Automotive, and Mitsubishi Electric. The products offered by these companies are driver assistance systems and components mainly for passenger and commercial vehicles. Using SWOT analysis, the report weighs out strengths and weaknesses of the companies profiled. The analysis also provides insights into the opportunities and threats that these companies could witness in the near future.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.Request For Enquiry @ Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketAbout usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Tractor Rental Market 2017 Industry Key Players -Pacific Rentals, Sunbelt Rentals, John Deere,..

Tractor Rental Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/928777-global-tractor-rental-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/928777-global-tractor-rental-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=928777

Tractor Rental Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Tractor Rental Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies the global Tractor Rental market, analyzes and researches the Tractor Rental development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likePacific RentalsSunbelt RentalsJohn Deere...Request Sample Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Tractor Rental can be split intoLow- Powered EnginesHigh- Powered EnginesMarket segment by Application, Tractor Rental can be split intoHousehold UseIndustrial UseFor further information on this report, visit Table of Content:Global Tractor Rental Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Tractor Rental1.1 Tractor Rental Market Overview1.1.1 Tractor Rental Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Tractor Rental 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 Tractor Rental Market by Type1.3.1 Low- Powered Engines1.3.2 High- Powered Engines1.4 Tractor Rental Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Household Use1.4.2 Industrial Use2 Global Tractor Rental Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Tractor Rental Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)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 Pacific Rentals3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Tractor Rental Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Sunbelt Rentals3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Tractor Rental Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 John Deere3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Tractor Rental Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments4 Global Tractor Rental Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Tractor Rental Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Tractor Rental Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Tractor Rental in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Tractor Rental5 United States Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)7 Japan Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)7.2 Japan Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)8 China Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook8.1 China Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)8.2 China Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)9 India Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook9.1 India Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)9.2 India Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)10 Southeast Asia Tractor Rental Development Status and Outlook10.1 Southeast Asia Tractor Rental Market Size (2012-2017)10.2 Southeast Asia Tractor Rental Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)11.1 Global Tractor Rental Market Size (Value) by Regions (2017-2022)11.1.1 United States Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.2 EU Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.3 Japan Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.4 China Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.5 India Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.6 Southeast Asia Tractor Rental Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.2 Global Tractor Rental Market Size (Value) by Type (2017-2022)11.3 Global Tractor Rental Market Size by Application (2017-2022)12 Tractor Rental Market Dynamics12.1 Tractor Rental Market Opportunities12.2 Tractor Rental Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 Tractor Rental Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 Tractor Rental Market Driving Force12.4.1 Growing Demand from Emerging Markets12.4.2 Potential Application13 Market Effect Factors Analysis13.1 Technology Progress/Risk13.1.1 Substitutes13.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry13.2 Consumer Needs Trend/Customer Preference13.3 External Environmental Change13.3.1 Economic Fluctuations13.3.2 Other Risk Factors14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixContinuousBuy this Report @Contact Us:Norah Trentsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +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:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042
Recent Market Report: Intelligent Polymers Market Size & Share, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1357514

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1357514/intelligent-polymers-global-industry-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1357514

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/checkdiscount/1357514

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

MarketResearchReports.Biz is providing you Retail Market Research report of "Intelligent Polymers Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 ".The objective of this report is to define, describe, and forecast the market on the basis of type, application, medical condition, and region. It provides detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the market. This report also tracks and analyzes competitive developments of the key players in terms of market developments, product portfolios, and financials.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @ Intelligent Polymers Market: OverviewIntelligent polymers, also known as smart polymers or stimuli-responsive polymers, are high-performance polymers that are sensitive to the slightest environmental changes. These change according to the temperature, humidity, pH, and electrical, or magnetic field. They are synthesized by combining reactive functional groups to backbone chains during polymerization. Based on the selection of backbone chain and functional group, intelligent polymers possess different properties such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and optical.They are flexible, easy to color, strong, easy to mold, and tough. Intelligent polymers are primarily used in the production of hydrogels, biodegradable packaging, and biomedical engineering products. They are also employed in the manufacture of daily-usage products such as nappies, helmets, plastic bags, plastic bottles, and chewing gums.Based on physical features, intelligent polymers can be classified into free linear chain solutions, reversible gels covalently cross linked and polymer chain grafted on a surface. Based on stimuli, these polymers can be classified into physical stimuli (temperature, ultrasounds, light, and mechanical stress), chemical stimuli (pH and ionic strength) and biological stimuli (enzymes and biomolecules).Intelligent Polymers Market: Trends SnapshotIntelligent polymers are used in various industries such as biomedical, tissue engineering, textile engineering, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. These polymers are employed in drug delivery systems, where they can safely transport a pharmaceutical compound into the body, in the biomedical industry. This is done automatically without the use of sensors, transducers, switches, or pumps. When the polymers are exposed to critical temperature they show certain changes in their properties, which is used in tissue culture application. Certain category of new polymers are being developed by companies; these have the ability to return to their original shape from the deformed shape once exposed to external stimuli. These polymers are known as shape-memory polymers and are used in textile engineering. Smart polymers are employed in biotechnology and pharmaceutical formulations, as they get physically mixed or chemically conjugated to biomolecules. These are used for yielding other products.View Report @Intelligent Polymers Market: Region-wise InsightNorth America and Europe have been dominating the intelligent polymers market since the last few years. These polymers are used extensively in the biomedical sector, which is expanding significantly in North America and Europe. These regions have been considered among the most technologically advanced across the globe. Companies operating in the intelligent polymers market in North America and Europe focus on product innovation through research and development.Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing region in the intelligent polymers market in the near future. The emerging economies of developing countries in Asia Pacific region, like India and China are expected to drive the growth of this market. Other regions such as Middle East & Africa and Latin America are expected to provide growth opportunities for intelligent polymers market during the forecast period.Intelligent Polymers Market: Competitive LandscapeIntelligent polymers have the potential to drive the growth of all the industries, as they can adapt to the environmental changes. This increases product performance and extends its lifespan. Various companies are applying the concept of intelligent polymers to their products to improve their performance and quality. Autonomic Materials, Inc. uses intelligent polymers as self-healing agents in products such as elastomers, thermosets, and powder coatings. This allows the use of products for customized solutions and various applications. High Impact Technology, LLC uses intelligent polymers in its resin systems for self-sealing technology. This provides superior corrosion and abrasion protection to prevent leakages.Key players operating in the intelligent polymers market include The Dow Chemical Company, Huntsman International LLC, Akzo Nobel N.V., Covestro AG, Autonomic Materials Inc., and High Impact Technology LLC.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth insights, understanding market evolution by tracking historical developments, and analyzing the present scenario and future projections based on optimistic and likely scenarios. Each research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology developments, types, applications, and the competitive landscape.Request For Enquiry @The study is a source of reliable data on:Key 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 insightsOpportunity mapping in terms of technological breakthroughsThe 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)TMR estimates the market size of various sectors using a combination of available data on the number and revenue of companies within each sub-sector and tiers of companies. The basic components used to determine market size and forecast for a specific product area are not only limited to supply-side data, but are also related to demand, industry trends, and the economic outlook. All the above data points are utilized to generate a statistical model targeting the sector marketplace. More than 300 TMR analysts across the world integrate these elements into a framework to determine the subsector market size for a base year and then forecast growth within each market.Check Discount @ TMR regularly interviews technology and business professionals as an ongoing effort to track the latest developments within each sector. These continuous surveys are stratified by company size and industry segment and weighted to reflect the global market place. All data are collected on an ongoing effort through a structured questionnaire rolled over the web or conducted via telephones. This provides the TMR team opportunities to request for detailed question sets, complex skip patterns, and real-time calculations, which assists respondents in answering questions involving numbers and percentages. Respondents, who are interviewed as experts, are screened and qualified based on certain criteria in addition to their decision-making authority and the scope of activity within their organizations.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.Contact usMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Digital Elevation Models Market Sees Promising Growth, Demand & Forecast

Digital Elevation Models Market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/257255-global-digital-elevation-models-market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/257255-global-digital-elevation-models-market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=257255

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/257255-global-digital-elevation-models-market

https://www.linkedin.com/company/13388569/

HTF MI published a new industry research that focuses on Digital Elevation Models market and delivers in-depth market analysis and future prospects of Global Digital Elevation Models 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 [Telecommunications Industry, Planning & Construction Industry, Air Traffic Routes & Navigation, Weather Service & Geological Exploration Industry], products type [Digital Surface Model (DSM) & Digital Terrain Model (DTM)] 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 Digital Elevation Models market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data along with company profile of key players/manufacturers such as Harris MapMart, National Map, AltaLIS, Intermap Technologies, LAND INFO Worldwide Mapping, CompassData, DHI GRAS A/S, Apollo Mapping, CATUAV, NIRAS Gruppen A/S, GAMMA Remote Sensing Research, Consulting AG & GAMMA Remote Sensing AG. The in-depth information by segments of Digital Elevation Models 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 Digital Elevation Models Market.The study provides company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of key manufacturers of Global Digital Elevation Models Market, some of them listed here are Harris MapMart, National Map, AltaLIS, Intermap Technologies, LAND INFO Worldwide Mapping, CompassData, DHI GRAS A/S, Apollo Mapping, CATUAV, NIRAS Gruppen A/S, GAMMA Remote Sensing Research, Consulting AG & GAMMA Remote Sensing AG. 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 Digital Elevation Models (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Digital Surface Model (DSM) & Digital Terrain Model (DTM). Further the research study is segmented by Application such as Telecommunications Industry, Planning & Construction Industry, Air Traffic Routes & Navigation, Weather Service & Geological Exploration Industry 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 Digital Elevation Models 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 @What this Research Study Offers:Global Digital Elevation Models Market share assessments for the regional and country level segmentsMarket share analysis of the top industry playersStrategic recommendations for the new entrantsMarket forecasts for a minimum of 5 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional marketsMarket Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimationsCompetitive landscaping mapping the key common trendsCompany profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developmentsSupply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsBuy this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Digital Elevation Models market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Digital Elevation Models , Applications of Digital Elevation Models , 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 Elevation Models , 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 Elevation Models Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Digital Elevation Models Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Digital Elevation Models ;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Digital Surface Model (DSM) & Digital Terrain Model (DTM)], Market Trend by Application [Telecommunications Industry, Planning & Construction Industry, Air Traffic Routes & Navigation, Weather Service & Geological Exploration Industry];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Digital Elevation Models ;Chapter 12, to describe Digital Elevation Models Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Digital Elevation Models 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
Electronic Goods Packaging Market Global Research Report 2017 Analysis & Forecast to 2023

Electronic Goods Packaging Market 2017

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3118

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/electronic-goods-packaging-market-3118

Electronic Goods Packaging Market 2017Summary:Global Electronic Goods Packaging Market Information Report By Material (Corrugated Boxes, Foamed Plastic, Paperboard, Bubble Packaging, Others), By Product Size (Small Appliances, Large Appliances), By Technology (Authentication Packaging, Track And Trace Packaging) And By Region - Global Forecast To 2023Market Scenario:The proper packaging of all electronic goods is becoming necessary with the increasing competition in the electronics industry owing to factors such as diversified product offerings and product differentiation among others.The growth of the electronic goods packaging market is majorly driven by the boom in the e-commerce retail industry. The shipment of electronic goods across huge distances is further driving the need for effective packaging solutions. The proper packaging of electronic goods will ensure that the products are protected from getting destroyed. Thus, this need for the protection of products is further driving the growth of the electronic goods packaging market. The increase in the production of various kinds of electronic devices is further contributing to the growth of the electronic goods packaging market.The Electronic goods packaging market is expected to grow over the CAGR of around 5% during the period 2017 to 2023.Key Players:The key players of Electronic goods packaging market are DS Smith Plc. (U.K.), International Paper Company (U.S.), Mondi plc. (Austria), Sealed Air Corporation (U.S.), Smurfit Kappa (Republic of Ireland), Dunapack Packaging (Austria), Georgia-Pacific LLC (U.S.), Graham Packaging (U.S.), Pregis LLC (U.S.), Sonoco Products Company (U.S.), Stora Enso (Finland) and others.Request For Sample Report @Study Objectives of Electronic goods packaging market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Electronic goods packaging market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyse the global Electronic goods packaging market based on various tools such as Supply Chain Analysis, and Porters Five Force Analysis To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to regions and their respective key countries To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segments by material, product size, technology and region To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global Electronic goods packaging market.Regional Analysis:The Asia-Pacific region is expected to dominate the electronic goods packaging market. The growth of this region can be attributed to the growth of the developing nations such as India and China and the increase in purchasing power amongst the people in that region. the increase in the production activities for all kinds of electronic devices in the countries such as Japan is also contributing to the growth of the electronic goods packaging market in the region.Intended Audience: Distributer & Supplier companies End Users consultants and Investment bankers Government as well as Independent Regulatory AuthoritiesProduct Analysis: Product matrix which gives a detailed comparison of the market for different recycled product typesAdditional Information: Regulatory Landscape Pricing Analysis Macroeconomic IndicatorsGeographic Analysis: Geographical analysis across 15 countriesCompany Information: Profiling of 10 key market players In-depth analysis including SWOT analysis, and strategy information of related to report title Competitive landscape including emerging trends adopted by major companiesThe report for Electronic goods 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 Summary..8 Competitive Analysis8.1 Introduction8.2 Competitive Scenario8.2.1 Market Share Analysis8.2.2 Market Development Analysis8.2.3 Material/Service Benchmarking8.3 DS Smith Plc. (U.K.)8.3.1 Overview8.3.2 Material/Service Offering8.3.3 Strategy8.4 International Paper Company (U.S.)8.4.1 Overview8.4.2 Material/Service Offering8.4.3 Strategy8.5 Mondi Plc. (Austria)8.5.1 Overview8.5.2 Material/Service Offering8.5.3 Strategy8.6 Sealed Air Corporation (U.S.)8.6.1 Overview8.6.2 Material/Service Offering8.6.3 Strategy8.7 Smurfit Kappa (Republic Of Ireland)8.7.1 Overview8.7.2 Material/Service Offering8.7.3 Strategy8.8 Dunapack Packaging (Austria)8.8.1 Overview8.8.2 Material/Service Offering8.8.3 Strategy8.9 Georgia-Pacific LLC (U.S)8.9.1 Overview8.9.2 Material/Service Offering8.9.3 Strategy8.10 Graham Packaging (U.S.)8.10.1 Overview8.10.2 Material/Service Offering8.10.3 StrategyContinued.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 US:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Carbon Fiber Prepreg Industry - Forecast and Analysis by Regions (2017-2022) Report at MarketResearchNest.com

Carbon Fiber Prepreg Market

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-carbon-fiber-prepreg-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286936

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286936

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Carbon Fiber Prepreg Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 88 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global carbon fiber prepreg market to grow at a CAGR of 10.62% during the period 2017-2021.About Carbon Fiber PrepregCarbon fibers are fibers composed mostly of carbon atoms and have a diameter of about 3-15 micrometers. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals, which are aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber. This alignment gives the fiber a high strength-to-volume ratio. Prepregs are materials consisting of reinforcing fibers that are pre-impregnated with thermoset and thermoplastic resins. These products are cured under high temperature and pressure and have properties that can be useful for a wide range of applications. Carbon fiber prepreg materials are used in aerospace and defense, wind energy, sports, and automotive applications. Composite prepregs in various fields have increased substantially over the last 10 years.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global carbon fiber prepreg market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the retail selling price as the average selling price of the product.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Carbon Fiber Prepreg 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global carbon fiber prepreg market: Cytec Solvay Group, Gurit, Hexcel, TEIJIN, and TORAY INDUSTRIESOther Prominent Vendors in the market are: Axiom Materials, Dexcraft.com, DowAksa, ,Formosa Plastics Corporation, GMS COMPOSITES, HC Composite, Koninklijke Ten Cate, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Nippon Graphite Fiber, Plastic Reinforcement Fabrics, SGL Group, SK chemicals, TCR Composites, andUNICARBON.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Population growth, urbanization, and growing power requirement. In recent years, the movement of population from rural to urban areas has been a cause of concern for many nations. This has led to improved living standards and people accepting urban lifestyles. This trend is being monetized by the automotive, construction, and general industrial sectors. The substantial expenditure is still considered insufficient to meet the needs of the infrastructure sector.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Growth of wind power capacities. Wind energy is a low-cost renewable source of energy for the generation of electricity. The developed regions such as North America and Western Europe have accounted for the highest investments in the total wind power installations across the globe. Carbon fiber composites have high-potential applications in the wind energy sector, with turbine blades being the fastest-growing segment.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is High cost related to carbon composites. The manufacturing and processing of carbon fiber composites involve high R&D cost. Also, the testing of carbon fiber composites for applications such as aerospace and defense is time-consuming, expensive, and have long cycle process. The cost of carbon fiber composites is higher than metals and is eight times more when compared to steel, which restricts the market growth. An increase in the cost of raw materials such as resins and carbon fibers can lead to high procurement costs for vendors. The manufacturing cost and the R&D cost associated with the carbon-fiber composites can reduce the demand for carbon-fiber composites and can increase the demand for the substitute products. Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is the raw material used to manufacture carbon-fiber composites, whose cost is very high when compared to its substitute such as steel. The high manufacturing cost associated with carbon-fiber composite is mainly due to the increased raw material cost. As carbon fiber composites are costly, OEMs will shift to cheaper alternatives, which will lower the demand for carbon fiber prepreg used in carbon fiber composites.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Key questions answered in this report: What 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;Enquiry before Buying atAbout us:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Penoxsulam Market to Grow at CAGR of 5.0% through 2020

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=3689

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3689

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

Transparency Market Research, in its latest report, forecasts that by 2020, the highest demand for penoxsulam will come from the Asia Pacific region - a region where agrarian economies will see increased consumption of the herbicide. In 2013 as well, the Asia Pacific region stood as the foremost demand generator in the global penoxsulam market, creating about 55% of the global demand for the herbicide. The report, titled Penoxsulam Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2014 - 2020, states that leading crop producers such as China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia will consume large amounts of penoxsulam.Request For TOC @According to the website of the Statistics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2013, Asia accounted for about 90.6% of the total amount of rice and paddy produced globally. The rice cultivation sector creates the highest demand (85%) for penoxsulam as compared to other types of crops globally.The findings of the report state that the Rest of the World (RoW) region comes second only to the market leader - Asia Pacific - in terms of demand. Analysts who created the report expect that the RoW region will report a significant rate of growth as far as the consumption of penoxsulam goes. The report further notes that North America is the smallest market, because the amount of rice grown in the region is insignificant as compared to the market leaders. Thus, the North America penoxsulam market will put up a lackluster performance through the current decade.Europe, on the other hand, will experience an expansion of the penoxsulam market, but not at a very remarkable rate. Rice is grown in a few European countries that experience temperate climate, but the availability of several other herbicides will likely eat into the market share of penoxsulam in Europe. Some of the other herbicides that compete with penoxsulam are acetochlor, butachlor, and clomazone; but penoxsulam remains the most widely used herbicide for weed control.Request For Sample @Desirable attributes of penoxsulam-such as its mobility when used in both terrestrial and aqueous environments and its ability to prevent weed growth without harming fauna and animals-will encourage farmers to use this herbicide. This will impel growth in the penoxsulam market over the forecast period of this report.But one aspect that could potentially disrupt the global penoxsulam market is the expiry of Dow AgroSciences LLCs patent on the herbicide somewhere around 2017. This will encourage many new entrants in the market, creating an interesting competitive mix over the next year or two. Besides profiling the company that launched penoxsulam in 2005 (Dow AgroSciences LLC), this report also profiles other strong contenders in the penoxsulam market, such as Hangzhou Tianlong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and Shijiazhuang Xingbai Bioengineering Co., Ltd.The study offers a comprehensive analysis of the market in terms of both revenue and volume, and offers market estimates for the period between 2015 and 2020.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 USTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Website:Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market to Incur Rapid Extension During 2017 - 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1508

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1508

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=1508

Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: SnapshotMajority of the DME manufactured these days is an end-product of two-step process where the first step involves methanol generation with the help of natural gas or coal being used a feedstock. And the second step involves dehydration of methanol for the production of DME. Dimethyl Ether has the potential of replacing diesel in the conventional engines with small modifications that need to be made in the fuel injecting systems. The market potential of DME as a fuel for transport is huge as consumption of diesel in growing at a great pace because of the boom in the transportation sector.Among the variety of applications of DME, blending of LPG is considered to be the biggest market for dimethyl ether. Scarcity of LPG is a great cause of concern in the nations that have small gas reserves and thus have a very limited options of using natural gas instead of LPG. DME has proven to be a trustworthy source in such nations to cut down their imports of LPG by combining a prescribed amount of dimethyl ether in LPG without altering the current infrastructure. DME can also be used as a propellant of aerosol under the category of liquefied gas propellants. The numerous other applications of DME includes its utilization in the form of solvent, refrigerant, chemical feedstock, and for brazing and welding operations. Some of the prominent companies in the global DME market include names such as Azko Nobel N.V., Mitsubishi Corporation, Jiutai Energy Group, and Zagros Petrochemical Company among others.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: OverviewDimethyl ether (DME), also known as methoxymethane, is the simplest ether which has widespread applications in chemicals industry and is extensively used as aerosol propellant. DME can be produced using a variety of feedstock such as biomass, methanol, and fossil fuels. The most prominent feedstock are natural gas, particularly in North America, or coal, especially in various Asian countries. The compound has several properties similar to LPG and is therefore extensively used as an excellent substitute for traditional fuels. In addition, various characteristic fuel properties of DME, particularly high cetane number and energy efficiency, make it attractive to be used in several diesel engines. Other popular applications of DME are as transportation fuel, power generation fuel, and domestic gas, thus it forms a crucial element stimulating the growth of transportation, agriculture, and construction industries.The largest producer and consumer of DME is China, where it is produced commercially. In countries such as in Japan, Korea, Egypt, and Brazil, DME has been a key energy source for decades.Global Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: TrendsThe widespread use of dimethyl ether as a non-petroleum based alternative fuel is propelling the market. Since it is considered as a clean and high-performance compression ignition fuel, it can be extensively used in diesel engines; its use eliminates particulate exhaust emissions of automobiles and can significantly save the high cost of diesel particulate filters. This has spurred the demand for DME across transportation sector, especially in the North America.Request TOC of the Report @Most frequently, DME is blended with LPG, usually in equal proportion, to be used in domestic cooking and heating applications. Currently, more than 65% DME produced globally is blended with LPG. Blending offers many benefits in terms of its use as ultra-clean fuel for several domestic applications. China has upped the production of DME blended with LPG by using methanol as feedstock; commercial production of DME has helped China reduce the reliance on LPG-based fuel. Dehydrating methanol enhances the combustion efficiency of DME and hence is used as cost-effective fuel alternatives in heavy-duty trucks and ships. These trends are offering lucrative avenues for the market players to capitalize on.Global Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: Market PotentialConcurrent applications of DME as transportation fuel in several regions such as in Europe, Japan, and North America, portend well for the market. The use of DME, either standalone or blended with LPG, is proliferating in large number of automobiles in industrialized nations as they are considered as cleaner energy. This has in turn increasingly reduced the dependency on LPG to fuel their economies. Various performance evaluation plans are underway, especially in North America, to assess the viability of DME as alternative fuel in large commercial vehicles and urban fleets. Producers of DME source the raw materials from natural organic waste found in urban landfills, which is expected to considerably reduce the carbon footprint in the coming years. Led by these promising developments, Oberon Fuels, a producer of the Dimethyl Ether (DME) fuel, has recently announced the start of a customer demonstration of a Pinnacle-series heavy duty trucks from Mack Trucks. Oberon has partnered with the American truck manufacturing company and they are working with the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to test the vehicle operation at the Fresh Kills Landfill to evaluate fuel performance and viability. If this drives become successful, DME will expectedly reduce GHC emissions by as much as 80% by 2050. Initiatives such as these expand the potential of the market in developed and emerging nations.Request Discount of the Report @Global Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: Regional OutlookCurrently, Asia Pacific is a major market for DME where it is primarily used for blending with LPG and as aerosol propellant. Advancement in infrastructure for providing domestic fuel supply to several Asian countries coupled with the surge in demand for cost-effective, clean, and alternative fuels in transportation sector have stimulated the use of DME fuels. Increasing R&D activities related to DME production in advanced nations of Asia Pacific along with increasing production capacity in Japan and China are anticipated to boost the regional market.North America market is poised to show impressive growth over the forecast period. The increasing adoption of bio-based fuel in automobiles and continued improvements in vehicular emission technology have led to the wide demand for DME as a viable alternative. Increasing R&D investment by several automobile manufacturers have contributed to the growth momentum.Global Dimethyl Ether (DME) Market: Competitive AnalysisKey automakers and fuel producers are making substantial investments in various programs meant for evaluating the viability of DME as a cost-effective and environmental-friendly fuel. Out of large number of companies exploring lucrative avenues in the DME market, major players include Akzo Nobel NV, Korea Gas Corporation, China Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell plc, Mitsubishi Corporation, Oberon Fuels, Inc., Shenhua Ningxia Coal Industry Group Co., Ltd., Fuel DME Production Co., Ltd., and Grillo-Werke AG.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
Future of Security and Vulnerability Management Market: Microsoft, McAfee, EMC, HP, IBM

Security and Vulnerability Management Market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/842614-global-security-and-vulnerability-management-market-3

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/842614-global-security-and-vulnerability-management-market-3

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=842614

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/842614-global-security-and-vulnerability-management-market-3

HTF MI comprehensive and detailed 98-page research study on Global Security and Vulnerability Management provides a significantly expanded scope with deeply analyzed conclusions and content that includes an industry relevant database of major existing Security and Vulnerability Management manufacturers/players in each region, analysis of 11 leading national markets, important regions [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia], a description of major geopolitical trends, analysis of the influencing factors and regulatory policies leading to the volatile dynamics.If you are involved in the Security and Vulnerability Management industry or intend to be, then this study is for you. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization accordingly.Get Access to PDF Sample of Global Security and Vulnerability Management Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 @:The research document will answer following questions such as: How is the Global Security and Vulnerability Management market evolving? What are the key next-generation Security and Vulnerability Management technologies/applications? What are the main applications of Security and Vulnerability Management ? How do the Security and Vulnerability Management fit into the market? At what stage of development are the key Security and Vulnerability Management ? Are there any planned, existing or successful demonstration and pilot projects going? What key challenges do Global Security and Vulnerability Management have to overcome to become fully commercially viable? Is their development and commercialization dependent on cost reductions or seeks technological/application wise breakthroughs? What is the outlook for key emerging Security and Vulnerability Management ? What difference does performance characteristics of Security and Vulnerability Management creates from those of established entities? Which companies, organizations are involved with Global Security and Vulnerability Management growth story? Which market spaces are the most active in the development of Global Security and Vulnerability Management market? How do the conditions for the development and deployment of differ in key regional markets? What is driving and restraining factors affecting the development and commercialization?Browse for Full Report synopsis at:Briefing about some major insights that are included in the study are Global Security and Vulnerability Management Sales (K Units) and Revenue (Million USD) by Top manufacturers that includes EMC, HP, IBM, Qualys, Symantec, Microsoft, McAfee, NetIQ, Rapid7 & Tripwire for forecasted period 2017-2022. Each 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.Global Security and Vulnerability Management (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) xx xx xx xx% xx%IT and Telecom xx xx xx xx% xx%Government and Defense xx xx xx xx% xx%Retail xx xx xx xx% xx%Energy and Utilities xx xx xx xx% xx%Healthcare xx xx xx xx% xx%Others xx xx xx xx% xx%Total xx xx xx 100% xx%Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with Sales, revenue, Market Share (%) and Growth Rate (%) of Security and Vulnerability Management in regions/countries such as United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast).Market 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%Buy Single User License of Global Security and Vulnerability Management Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 @In addition to this Global Security and Vulnerability Management Market Split by Product Type such as Consulting, Support & Integration and also presented nicely through graphs and tables.Global Security and Vulnerability Management (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Consulting, Support & IntegrationMarket Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022Consulting xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Support xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Integration xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Security and Vulnerability Management market.Chapter 1, to describe Security and Vulnerability Management Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Security and Vulnerability Management , with sales, revenue, and price of Security and Vulnerability Management , in 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Global Security and Vulnerability Management , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), IT and Telecom, Government and Defense, Retail, Energy and Utilities, Healthcare & Others], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Security and Vulnerability Management market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Security and Vulnerability Management sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.This brand new research report with title Global Security and Vulnerability Management Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 provides 100+ in-depth tables, charts and graphs that will help you make better informed strategic decisions.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218
Automotive In-Vehicle Air Purifier Market Reach $2,010 Million By 2022

http://bit.ly/2Av8NAX

http://bit.ly/2j8XbwN

http://bit.ly/2jWHn0J

The Global Automotive In-Vehicle Air Purifier Market size is projected to reach $2,010 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 9.4% during the forecast period (20162022). The automobile industry is dynamic in nature, and it continuously adopts advanced technologies for enhancing the customer experience. Interior cabin space of automobiles has evolved rapidly in terms of upholstery, automation of seats, and infotainment. This cabin space faces the most challenging environment as it is prone to polluted air, smoke, toxic fumes, bad odor, food smell, and pollens, which either get absorbed to the upholstery or float the air, making passengers prone to diseases. Globally, major cities are prone to smog and high pollutant concentrations owing to traffic congestion and increased emissions, which gives rise to the need for installation of onboard air purifiers or ionizers to purify the cabin air from harmful toxicants. Demand for clean & toxin-free cabin air and increase in air pollution level worldwide are the key drivers of automotive in-vehicle air purifiers. However, non-standardized products act as a major restraint to this growth.For More Info, Get Sample :The consumer base of automotive in-vehicle air purifiers has expanded from passenger cars to light and heavy commercial vehicles. Cab owners, school buses, private & public transport vehicles (bus and vans), and truck operators are vigilantly installing these purifiers to provide better service to their customers and are taking precautionary measures to safeguard the health of the passengers and vehicle drivers. According to a study conducted by researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in March 2015, an onboard air filtration system developed specifically for school buses resulted in reduced exposure to vehicular pollutants by up to 88%, thus safeguarding the health of passengers.Various types of onboard air purifiers are available in the in-vehicle air purifier market, such as standalone air purifiers, air ionizers, or a combination of both. Majority of the products are aftermarket products; however, in the near future, owing to increase in pollutant levels in air and standardization of such air purifiers, it is expected that automobile manufacturers will provide onboard air purifiers as standard accessory in their vehicles, providing growth opportunity for OEMs.Asia-Pacific leads the automotive in-vehicle air purifier marketAdoption of in-vehicle air-purifier in automobiles is comparatively higher in Asia-Pacific than other regions. This owes to the fact that developing countries in Asia-Pacific are largely affected by air pollution, and automobile manufacturers and the government are taking initiatives to promote the technologies that will help reduce the harmful effects of toxic air. Asia-pacific is the region with fastest growing economies such as China and India, with the former accounting for around 60% of the Asia-Pacific in-vehicle air purifier market revenue. The market of automotive in-vehicle air purifier would be strong in next six years. Also, the vehicle production in this region is the highest in the world and is estimated that Asia-Pacific would show a promising growth in the air purifier market from 2014 to 2022. Moreover, countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia are taking initiatives to induce awareness in people regarding usage of these technologies. Due to all these factors, Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit a high growth rate in terms of adoption of advance air purifier systems.Rise in air pollution level drives the market growthAir pollution is the emission of toxic elements into the atmosphere by natural or anthropogenic sources. These sources can be further differentiated into either mobile or stationary sources. Anthropogenic air pollution is often summarized as being mainly related to motorize street traffic (especially exhaust gases and tire abrasion). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 2.4 million fatalities due to air pollution every year. As intake of polluted air can have severe health effects such as asthma, COPD, or increased cardiovascular risks, most countries have strengthened laws to control the air quality and mainly focus on emissions from automobiles. Air quality in vehicle cabins is usually found to be worse than those typically found in homes or workplaces. Pollutants enter into the cabin via the ventilation system, also known as the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system. Studies have shown that vehicle cabins commonly show concentrations of toxic gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) higher than safety limits set by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and World Health Organization (WHO). Inhibition of all these pollutants in the vehicle drives the growth of the air purifier market.Enquire About Report :Active Carbon Systems has the highest growth rateActive carbon systems are anticipated to witness the highest growth rate over the next five to six years, in comparison to the other technologies used in in-vehicle air purifier systems. This owes to the fact that it is more efficient than HEPA systems in automobiles in terms of removing cabin air pollution. The effectiveness of activated carbon as an adsorbent is attributed to its unique properties, including large surface area, a high degree of surface reactivity, universal adsorption effect, and pore size. Due to its higher porosity, a single gram of activated carbon contains 5002,000 m2 aggregate surface area. Activated carbon, the universal adsorbent, has a capacity for virtually all vapor contaminants and will adsorb and retain a wide variety of chemicals at the same time. Due to these factors, manufacturers are gradually shifting towards the production of air purifiers incorporated with active carbon systems.The leading market players in the automotive in-vehicle air purifier market focus to expand their business operations in emerging countries. These companies have consistently introduced innovative solutions to enhance their product portfolio. Expansion and product launch are the prominent growth strategies adopted by these players. The major players profiled in this report include Kent RO Systems Ltd, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Sharp Electronics Corporation, Eureka Forbes, Honeywell, Diamond Air Purifiers, ADA Electrotech (Xiamen) Co., Ltd, Panasonic Corporation, Purafil, Inc., and Livpure Private Limited.Other players in value chain include Powerseed, Mann+Hummel Filter Technology (S.E.A) Pte Ltd, Amke Technology Co., Ltd, Xiaomi, and Airbus Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.Key Benefits The study provides an in-depth analysis of the global automotive in-vehicle air purifier market, with current trends and future estimations to elucidate the imminent investment pockets. The report offers a quantitative analysis from 2014 to 2022, which is expected to enable the stakeholders to capitalize on prevailing market opportunities. The report provides historical figures for 2014 and 2015 and Year-on-Year forecasts from 2016 to 2022, considering 2015 as base. Competitive intelligence highlights the business practices followed by leading players across various regions.AUTOMOTIVE IN-VEHICLE AIR PURIFIER MARKET KEY SEGMENTSBY PRODUCT TYPE Air Purifier Air Ionizer HybridAlso Request For Discount :BY TECHNOLOGY High-Efficiency Particulate Arrestor (HEPA) Filters Active Carbon Systems Photo CatalyticBY VEHICLE TYPE Passenger Cars Light Commercial Vehicles Heavy Commercial VehiclesBY GEOGRAPHY North America U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany France Italy UK Rest of Europe Asia-Pacific China Australia Japan India Rest of Asia-Pacific LAMEA Latin America Middle East AfricaMARKET PLAYERS IN VALUE CHAIN Kent RO Systems Ltd Koninklijke Philips N.V. Sharp Electronics Corporation Eureka Forbes Honeywell Diamond Air Purifiers ADA Electrotech (Xiamen) Co., Ltd Panasonic Corporation Purafil, Inc. Livpure Private Limited Powerseed Mann+Hummel Filter Technology (S.E.A) Pte Ltd Amke Technology Co., Ltd Xiaomi Airbus Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.Table Of ContentCHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 3 MARKET OVERVIEW CHAPTER 4 GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE IN-VEHICLE AIR PURIFIER MARKET, BY PRODUCT TYPE CHAPTER 5 GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE IN-VEHICLE AIR PURIFIER MARKET, BY TECHNOLOGY CHAPTER 6 GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE IN-VEHICLE AIR PURIFIER MARKET, BY VEHICLE TYPE CHAPTER 7 GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE IN-VEHICLE AIR PURIFIER MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER 8 RELATED INDUSTRY INSIGHTSAbout UsWe have a large database of quality and precise market research reports that will be very beneficial for your organization. Reports that we sell our authentic in nature and from reputed publishers, hence it can definitely help you with your growth opportunities. Research Beam will always make sure to bring most ethical and high quality reports. We value your relationship with us and look forward for a long term relation.Contact UsGlobal Head Quarters5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States+1 (800) 910-6452help@researchbeam.com
Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems Market Dynamics, Forecast, Analysis and Supply Demand 2017  2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4547

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4547

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems, are advanced systems which enhances control and safety of vehicles. These systems can also incorporate human touch or some other gesture to get activated, and perform the required action. Increasing safety regulations, and efforts to reduce driver distraction are key factors kept in mind while developing and installing an automotive gesture recognition system.The global demand for automotive gesture recognition systems is expected to see an unprecedented growth over the forecast period.Automotive Gesture Recognition SystemsMarket: Drivers & RestraintsThe major factors boosting the growth of Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems market is rising automation across automobile industry. With rising disposable income, the global automobile market is expected to continuously increase over the forecast period. A large chunk of this demand is anticipated to come from the developing nations of Asia pacific and Latin America. This coupled with increasing focus on improving driver and car safety coupled with enhancing fuel efficiency and incorporating automation for better control, together will drive the market for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems.Request for TOC @Also, as local and regional car manufacturers also increasingly incorporate Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems, demand is on the go. Furthermore, it is anticipated that many countries will mandate the incorporation of automotive gesture controls to some extent in passenger automotive vehicles, on the backdrop of increasing driver safety, which will significantly fuel the global market for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems.Further, with the advent of driverless and automated electric cars demand for some kind of Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems become unavoidable and the factor is expected to fuel the global Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems market over the end years of forecast period. However, high cost of Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems, still keeps the technology tapered with high end vehicles.Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems market has been categorized into seven key regions including North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.North America anticipated to be the global leader in terms of demand for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems. The region has endorsed some of the most advanced technologies in vehicle automation, and caters wide-scale technological adoption rate.Further with the advent of companies into driverless and electric vehicles, demand in the regions Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems market is anticipated to shoot up over the end of forecast period. Western Europe being home to some of the most prominent global car manufacturers also caters huge demand for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems, as many passenger cars and buses in the regions comes equipped with this technology, adding significantly to driver and vehicle safety.With increasing demand for cars in Asia Pacific Exc. Japan (APEJ) region, amid rising disposable income, demand for cars with high end features such as Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems is also on the rise. A large chunk of demand for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems is expected to come particularly from China and India based automobile manufacturers, as they shift their vehicle models towards global standards. Further, many governments in the region have set bold targets to increase usage of electric vehicle in their respective countries.Make an Enquiry @Latin America, on similar lines as APEJ is expected to boost its demand for automotive vehicles over the forecast period, fuelling more demand for Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems in the region. Eastern Europe and Middle East & Africa, Automotive Gesture Recognition Systems market is also expected to witness gradual growth over the forecast period, as global car manufacturers are expected to gradually set up their manufacturing bases in the region, over the last years of the forecast period.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.Contact UsFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email:sales@futuremarketinsights.comWeb:
Global Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine Market 2017- Husqvarna, Xingyi Polishing, NSS, HTC Group

Global Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine Market

https://goo.gl/dvempY

https://goo.gl/gRCCpc

www.apexmarketreports.com

Apex Apex Market Reports, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine 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 Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine industry, and estimates the future trend of Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportHusqvarnaXingyi PolishingNSSHTC GroupLinaxBartellXtreme Polishing SystemsIndutrade(Scanmaskin)OnyxBlastracKlindexEDCOSASE CompanySubstrate TechnologyNational Flooring EquipmentSuperabrasiveThe market research report explores the Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine 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 Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine 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 Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The Global Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine market 2017 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine production volume, data pertaining to demand and Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine 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 Remote Control Floor Grinding Machine 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 -
Global Electronic PC Accessories Market Size, Share by Type, Application, Products Regions to 2022

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1404665/global-electronic-pc-accessories-by-market-research-reports

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1404665

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1404665

http://www.marketresearchreports.biz/

"The Report Global Electronic PC Accessories Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"In this report, the market value is calculated in 100 million USD, which is equivalent to 0.1 billion USD.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Electronic PC Accessories in Global market, especially inNorth America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.View Report @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversWestern Digital CorporationLogitechLenovoMicrosoftASUSTeKAOCGIGABYTE TechnologyIntel CorporationAdvanced Micro DevicesNVIDIAKingston Technology CorporationRamaxelAdataSeagate TechnologyToshiba CorporationMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversHard Disk DriveDisplayMainboardGraphics CardMemoryOthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoCommercial EnterprisesPersonalsGet Sample Copy Of This Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Electronic PC Accessories market.Chapter 1, to describe Electronic PC Accessories Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Electronic PC Accessories, with sales, revenue, and price of Electronic PC Accessories, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Electronic PC Accessories, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Electronic PC Accessories market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Electronic PC Accessories sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceSend An Enquiry Request @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Electronic PC Accessories Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Hard Disk Drive1.2.2 Display1.2.3 Mainboard1.2.4 Graphics Card1.2.5 Memory1.2.6 Others1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Commercial Enterprises1.3.2 Personals1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force2 Manufacturers Profiles2.1 Western Digital Corporation2.1.1 Business Overview2.1.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.1.2.1 Type 12.1.2.2 Type 22.1.3 Western Digital Corporation Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.2 Logitech2.2.1 Business Overview2.2.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.2.2.1 Type 12.2.2.2 Type 22.2.3 Logitech Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.3 Lenovo2.3.1 Business Overview2.3.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.3.2.1 Type 12.3.2.2 Type 22.3.3 Lenovo Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.4 Microsoft2.4.1 Business Overview2.4.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.4.2.1 Type 12.4.2.2 Type 22.4.3 Microsoft Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.5 ASUSTeK2.5.1 Business Overview2.5.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.5.2.1 Type 12.5.2.2 Type 22.5.3 ASUSTeK Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.6 AOC2.6.1 Business Overview2.6.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.6.2.1 Type 12.6.2.2 Type 22.6.3 AOC Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.7 GIGABYTE Technology2.7.1 Business Overview2.7.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.7.2.1 Type 12.7.2.2 Type 22.7.3 GIGABYTE Technology Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.8 Intel Corporation2.8.1 Business Overview2.8.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.8.2.1 Type 12.8.2.2 Type 22.8.3 Intel Corporation Electronic PC Accessories Sales, Price, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share (2016-2017)2.9 Advanced Micro Devices2.9.1 Business Overview2.9.2 Electronic PC Accessories Type and Applications2.9.2.1 Type 1About 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. NachiketaState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market To Make Great Impact In Near Future by 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1511

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1511

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=D&rep_id=1511

Global Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market: OverviewAnti-corrosion coatings protect various metal components from oxidation, exposure to industrial and environmental chemicals, moisture, and salt sprays. Preventing contact between corrosive materials and chemical compounds, these coatings might also feature nonstick properties. As rust and corrosion prevention is a key concern of a number of industries that have high humidity, salt, water, and mist, the global market for anti-corrosion coatings market is expected to soar.Global Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market: Key TrendsWidespread usage in oil and gas equipment such as drill pipes and oil storage tanks is fuelling the demand for anti-corrosion coatings. As these equipment are exposed to underground water and marshy land, they need to be protected from corrosion from moisture. Moreover, the increasing demand for energy generation via oil sands, tar sands, shale gas, and oil shale is likely to further provide an impetus to the market.The polyurethane coatings segment has been exhibiting significant growth thanks to the availability of a wide range of colors and glossy finish that attracts consumers. These products can endure temperatures up to 110 degrees Celsius. By application, the solvent based coatings might emerge at the fore due to government regulations emphasizing the use of low volatile organic compounds in products.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market: Market PotentialIn February 2017, NEI Corporation announced that the patent and trademark regulatory body of the U.S. has issued allowance for two patent applications of the firm. These two products possess hydrophobic coatings, displaying high corrosion resistance, apart from their excellent adhesive properties.In the same month, Guntner launched a new coil protector designed for the food industry. The product possesses powder coating that is highly resistant to corrosion apart from being food safe.U.S.-based manufacturer of grapheme, Applied Graphene Materials (AGM) has been aiding James Briggs Ltd, a paints manufacturer, in the development of anti-corrosion grapheme coatings.A group of engineers and scientists has developed a hexagonal boron nitride monolayer that exhibits exceptional resistance to corrosion. Although this product needs to be developed further for it to be introduced in the commercial market, the future potential for it is immense, experts believe. Both anodic and cathodic currents were found to be unsuccessful at penetrating the automatically thin layer coating.Request TOC of the Report @Global Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market: Regional OutlookNorth America dominates the anti-corrosion coatings market, which is supported by rising volume of military investment. The U.S., flaunting one of the worlds largest fleet bases, is likely to represent maximum share of the anti-corrosion coatings market in North America.Asia Pacific is likely to emerge as a leading regional market owing to the foreign investments that have been pouring in. The extensive growth of the end-use industries such as oil and gas, power and energy, marine, tanks and pipes, and construction are responsible for increasing demand for anti-corrosion coatings in the developing countries of this region such as India, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, and China. China is slated to emerge at the fore, as a vast population, immense production base, and growing volume of foreign investments propel its expansion.Global Anti-Corrosion Coatings Market: Competitive AnalysisSome of the leading companies operating in the global anti-corrosion coatings market are Hempel, The Sherwin-Williams Company, BASF, RPM International, PPG Industries, Chugoku Marine Paints, AICA Kogyo, Jotun, Axalta Coating, Kansai Paints, Ashland, Tnemec, Akzonobel, Sokema, Valspar, Nippon Paints, and AnCatt.Request Discount of the Report @Japan-based Kansai Paint is planning to acquire Sadolin Tanzania, Sadolin Kenya, and Sadolin Uganda, with a view to tap the vast potential of the market in this region.Several companies are also making sure that they improve their production capabilities. For example, PPG Industries completed a new production line at Wuhu, China. The plant produces highly efficient high solids and waterborne coatings.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
Retail E-Commerce Packaging Market Anticipate Growth During 2017-2026

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5803

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-5803

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/retail-e-commerce-packaging-market

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Retail e-commerce packaging is gaining increased traction owing to expanding e-commerce sector. The cross border shopping has picked up steam and is pushing the growth of the e-commerce sector. This in turn has led to the emergence of innovative packaging solutions, thus giving a boost to the global retail e-commerce packaging market. Several key players in the market are focusing on developing efficient packaging solutions with a view to promote safety of the product, marketing of the product as well as enhance the visibility of the product.Retail E-Commerce Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012-2016) and Opportunity Assessment (2017-2026), a new research report by Future Market Insights covers present and future projections of the global market. According to this research, the global market is poised to grow at a steady CAGR throughout the period of assessment and is estimated to reflect a market valuation of more than US$ 21 Bn by the end of the year of assessment.Request for Sample @Global Market for Retail E-Commerce Packaging: Factors Influencing GrowthSeveral factors are pushing the growth of the global retail e-commerce packaging market. To name a few, aspects such as increasing cross-border shopping and parcel deliver y driving the demand for retail e-commerce packaging products, increasing penetration of e-commerce in tier 2 and rural areas, increasing adoption of e-commerce by retail chains, medium business to consumer business as well as in small scale B2C businesses, rising consumer preferences towards inexpensive and reusable components that are easy to load and reload and development of innovative packaging solutions driving the sales owing to increased customer satisfaction thus pushing the growth of e-commerce packaging are contributing to the growth of the global retail e-commerce packaging market.Global Market for Retail E-Commerce Packaging: Key Segmental HighlightsThe global retail e-commerce packaging market is segmented on the basis of product type, market type, merchandise type and by region.By market type, the third party fulfilment and logistics companies segment is the largest and expected to showcase high market attractiveness. This segment is expected to lead the global market with a high market valuation by the end of the year of assessmentRequest for Table of Contents @By region, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) shows high lucrativeness. The retail e-commerce packaging market in this region is projected to grow at a significant CAGR and is estimated to reach a value of more than US$ 7700 Mn by the end of the forecast period. The retail e-commerce packaging market in Latin America is projected to grow at the fastest rate in the coming yearsBy product type, protective packaging segment is projected to grow at a high rate throughout the period of assessment and also reflect a high market value by the end of the assessment year (2026) and is a highly lucrative segment. The boxes segment is the second largest in terms of market strengthBy merchandise, the food and beverage segment is projected to grow at a higher pace as compared to other merchandise segments during the period of forecast. The fashion (clothing, footwear, etc.) segment is expected to dominate the global market with a high valuation of more than US$ 6 Bn by the end of the year of assessment (2026)Global Market for Retail E-Commerce Packaging: Competition AnalysisThe research report on global retail e-commerce packaging market includes a separate section on competitor analysis. It covers various aspects of the companies involved in the global retail e-commerce packaging market. Major players such as Dynaflex Private Limited, Intertape Polymer Group, WestRock Company, 3M Co., Sealed Air Corporation, Mondi plc., International Paper Company, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Pregis Corporation and DS Smith Plc., are profiled in this exhaustive research report.Report Overview @ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Cloud Based Simulation Application Market Technology Growth, Latest Trend

Cloud Based Simulation Application Market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/826497-global-cloud-based-simulation-application-market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/826497-global-cloud-based-simulation-application-market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=826497

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/826497-global-cloud-based-simulation-application-market

HTF MI comprehensive and detailed 100-page research study on Global Cloud Based Simulation Application provides a significantly expanded scope with deeply analyzed conclusions and content that includes an industry relevant database of major existing Cloud Based Simulation Application manufacturers/players in each region, analysis of 11 leading national markets, important regions [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia], a description of major geopolitical trends, analysis of the influencing factors and regulatory policies leading to the volatile dynamics.If you are involved in the Cloud Based Simulation Application industry or intend to be, then this study is for you. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization accordingly.Get Access to PDF Sample of Global Cloud Based Simulation Application Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 @:The research document will answer following questions such as: How is the Global Cloud Based Simulation Application market evolving? What are the key next-generation Cloud Based Simulation Application technologies/applications? What are the main applications of Cloud Based Simulation Application ? How do the Cloud Based Simulation Application fit into the market? At what stage of development are the key Cloud Based Simulation Application ? Are there any planned, existing or successful demonstration and pilot projects going? What key challenges do Global Cloud Based Simulation Application have to overcome to become fully commercially viable? Is their development and commercialization dependent on cost reductions or seeks technological/application wise breakthroughs? What is the outlook for key emerging Cloud Based Simulation Application ? What difference does performance characteristics of Cloud Based Simulation Application creates from those of established entities? Which companies, organizations are involved with Global Cloud Based Simulation Application growth story? Which market spaces are the most active in the development of Global Cloud Based Simulation Application market? How do the conditions for the development and deployment of differ in key regional markets? What is driving and restraining factors affecting the development and commercialization?Browse for Full Report synopsis at:Briefing about some major insights that are included in the study are Global Cloud Based Simulation Application Sales (K Units) and Revenue (Million USD) by Top manufacturers that includes ANSYS Inc., Autodesk Inc., Dassault Systemes, Exa Corporation, Fieldscale, MSC Software, Rescale Inc., Siemens PLM Software, SimCore Technologies, SOASTA Inc. & SimScale for forecasted period 2017-2022. Each 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.Global Cloud Based Simulation Application (Thousands Units) by Application (2017-2022)Market Segment by Application 2012 2017 2022 Market Share (%)2022 CAGR (%)(2017-2022)Customer Relationship Management (CRM) xx xx xx xx% xx%Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) xx xx xx xx% xx%Human Resource Management (HRM) xx xx xx xx% xx%Supply Chain Management (SCM) 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 Sales, revenue, Market Share (%) and Growth Rate (%) of Cloud Based Simulation Application in regions/countries such as United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast).Market 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%Buy Single User License of Global Cloud Based Simulation Application Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 @In addition to this Global Cloud Based Simulation Application Market Split by Product Type such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) & Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and also presented nicely through graphs and tables.Global Cloud Based Simulation Application (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) & Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)Market Segment by Type 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022Software as a Service (SaaS) xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Platform as a Service (PaaS) xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) xx xx xx xx xx Xx xx-Change (%) xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx% xx%There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Cloud Based Simulation Application market.Chapter 1, to describe Cloud Based Simulation Application Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Cloud Based Simulation Application , with sales, revenue, and price of Cloud Based Simulation Application , in 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2017;Chapter 4, to show the Global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Global Cloud Based Simulation Application , for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application [Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Human Resource Management (HRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) & Other], from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Cloud Based Simulation Application market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Cloud Based Simulation Application sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.This brand new research report with title Global Cloud Based Simulation Application Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022 provides 100+ in-depth tables, charts and graphs that will help you make better informed strategic decisions.Get customization & check discount for report @Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218
Thermal Interface Materials Global Analysis & Forecast to 2023 Market Research Report

Thermal Interface Materials Market 2017

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3135

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/thermal-interface-materials-market-3135

Thermal Interface Materials Market 2017Summary:Global Thermal Interface Materials Market Information Report by Type (Greases & Adhesives, Gap Fillers, Elastomeric Pads, Metal Based, Others), By Application (Telecommunications, Computer, Automotive, Industrial Machinery, Others) and By Region - Global Forecast To 2023Market Scenario:The thermal interface materials are the materials which possess very high thermal conductivity. They act as a link between heat sink and the source of heat generation.The major driver for the growth of the thermal interface materials market is the emerging need of very fast computing services. The increase in the awareness for the efficient lighting systems has increased with the increase in use of LED lights over the conventional lights, which is in turn driving the thermal interface materials market. The key features of thermal interface materials such as high thermal conductivity, no leakage from interface and minimum thickness are making it suitable for use across various end-user industries such as computer, automotive and industrial machinery among others. This is in turn, leading to the growth of the thermal interface material market.The Thermal interface materials market is expected to grow over the CAGR of around 10% during the period 2017 to 2023.Key Players:The key players of Thermal interface materials market are 3M Company (U.S.), Henkel Corporation (U.S.), Bergquist Company (U.S.), Indium Corporation (U.S.), Parker Chomerics (U.S.), Dow Corning (U.S.), Laird Technologies (U.S.), Momentive Performance Materials Inc. (U.S.), and Zalman Tech Co., Ltd. (South Korea) among others.Request For Sample Report @Study Objectives of Thermal Interface Materials Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the global Thermal Interface Materials Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyse the global Thermal interface materials market based on various tools such as Supply Chain Analysis, and Porters Five Force Analysis To provide historical and forecast revenue of the market segments and sub-segments with respect to regions and their respective key countries To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective To provide country level analysis of the market for segments by type, application and region To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the global thermal interface materials market.Company Information: Profiling of 10 key market players In-depth analysis including SWOT analysis, and strategy information of related to report title Competitive landscape including emerging trends adopted by major companiesThe report for global thermal interface materials 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 Summary..7 Competitive Analysis7.1 Introduction7.2 Competitive Scenario7.2.1 Market Share Analysis7.2.2 Market Development Analysis7.2.3 Type/Service Benchmarking7.3 3M Company (U.S.)7.3.1 Overview7.3.2 Type/Service Offering7.3.3 Strategy7.4 Henkel Corporation (U.S.)7.4.1 Overview7.4.2 Type/Service Offering7.4.3 Strategy7.5 Bergquist Company (U.S.)7.5.1 Overview7.5.2 Type/Service Offering7.5.3 Strategy7.6 Indium Corporation (U.S.)7.6.1 Overview7.6.2 Type/Service Offering7.6.3 Strategy7.7 Parker Chomerics (U.S.)7.7.1 Overview7.7.2 Type/Service Offering7.7.3 Strategy7.8 Dow Corning (U.S.)7.8.1 Overview7.8.2 Type/Service Offering7.8.3 Strategy7.9 Laird Technologies (U.S.)7.9.1 Overview7.9.2 Type/Service Offering7.9.3 Strategy7.10 Momentive Performance Materials Inc. (U.S.)7.10.1 Overview7.10.2 Type/Service Offering7.10.3 Strategy7.11 Zalman Tech Co., Ltd. (South Korea)7.11.1 Overview7.11.2 Type/Service Offering7.11.3 StrategyContinued.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 US:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Biotech Flavors Market Trends,Outlook and Opportunity Report 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/biotech-flavor-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=16178

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

According to a research report by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the global biotech flavor market is highly consolidated and competitive in nature, with Naturex occupying the dominant position. The leading companies in this market mostly rely on mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships to improve their visibility and the trend is likely to continue over the forthcoming years, increasing the competition between the players, reports the research study.Read Report Overview @As per the report, the global market for biotech flavors, which stood at US$430.6 mn in 2015, is expected to proliferate at a CAGR of 9.70% during the period from 2016 to 2024, increasing the opportunity in this market to US$991.0 mn by the end of the forecast period. The market is projected to touch 23,980.3 tons in terms of volume over the same period of time. The demand for biotech flavors is higher in beverages compared to other end-use segments. On account of the surging consumption of flavored beverages, globally, analysts predict this segment to continue as the leading end user of biotech flavors over the period of the forecast.The research report further evaluates the worldwide market for biotech flavors on the basis of its regional classification. The Middle East and Africa, North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America and is led by North America, thanks to the high awareness among consumers regarding the benefits of biotech flavors. In 2015, the regional market, followed by Europe, acquired a share of more than 32% in the overall market. Researchers anticipate the North America market for biotech flavors to retain its leadership over the forthcoming years.On the other hand, Asia Pacific is anticipated to exhibit a high-paced growth in its market for biotech flavors in the near future, thanks to the strong demand for biotech flavors from emerging economies, such as China and India. The health and wellness trend is also expected to support the growth of the Asia Pacific biotech flavor market and prompt manufacturers to apply innovative strategies across the supply chain to ensure wide availability of biotech flavors for consumers over the years to come. Apart from this, the increasing demand for beverages in this region is expected to create vital opportunities for the players in the global market.Request to view Sample Report:The rising health consciousness among consumers has augmented the demand for natural ingredients and biotech-based flavors in food products and beverages, which, resultantly, is boosting the global biotech flavor market, says a TMR analyst. The growing awareness among consumers in developed economies concerning the negative impact of artificially-produced food flavors and the increased knowledge of consumers pertaining to the nutritional advantages of biotech flavors is projected to propel this market in the years to come.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Hydropower in Chile Market Outlook to 2030

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011075717/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011075717/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/hydropower-in-chile-market-outlook-to-2030

ReportsWeb.com published Hydropower Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market."Hydropower (Large, Small and Pumped Storage) in Chile, Market Outlook to 2030, Update 2017-Capacity, Generation, Regulations and Company Profiles", is the latest report from Publisher, the industry analysis specialists that offer comprehensive information and understanding of the hydropower market in Chile.The report provides in depth analysis on global renewable power market and global hydropower market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Chile (includes conventional thermal, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) and provides future outlook with forecasts up to 2030. The research details renewable power market outlook in the country (includes hydro, small hydro, biopower and solar PV) and provides forecasts up to 2030. The report highlights installed capacity and power generation trends from 2006 to 2030 in Chile hydropower market. A detailed coverage of renewable energy policy framework governing the market with specific policies pertaining to hydropower is provided in the report. The research also provides company snapshots of some of the major market participants.The report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, secondary research and in-house analysis by Publisher's team of industry experts.Request a sample copy atScope:The report analyses global renewable power market, global hydropower market, Chile power market, Chile renewable power market and Chile hydropower market. The scope of the research includes--A brief introduction on global carbon emissions and global primary energy consumption.-An overview on global renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends, generation trends and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources. The information is covered for the historical period 2006-2016 (unless specified) and forecast period 2017-2030.-Renewable power sources include wind (both onshore and offshore), solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), small hydropower (SHP), biomass, biogas and geothermal.-Detailed overview of the global hydropower market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity split by major hydropower countries in 2016 and key owners information of various regions.-Power market scenario in Chile and provides detailed market overview, installed capacity and power generation trends by various fuel types (includes thermal conventional, nuclear, large hydro and renewable energy sources) with forecasts up to 2030.-An overview on Chile renewable power market, highlighting installed capacity trends (2006-2030), generation trends(2006-2030) and installed capacity split by various renewable power sources in 2016.-Detailed overview of Chile hydropower market with installed capacity and generation trends and major active and upcoming hydro projects.-Deal analysis of Chile hydropower market. Deals are analyzed on the basis of mergers, acquisitions, partnership, asset finance, debt offering, equity offering, private equity (PE) and venture capitalists (VC).-Key policies and regulatory framework supporting the development of renewable power sources in general and hydropower in particular.-Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Inquire for Report atReasons to buy:-The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.-Identify key growth and investment opportunities in Chile hydropower market.-Facilitate decision-making based on strong historic and forecast data for hydropower market.-Position yourself to gain the maximum advantage of the industry's growth potential.-Develop strategies based on the latest regulatory events.-Identify key partners and business development avenues.-Understand and respond to your competitors' business structure, strategy and prospects.Companies Mentioned:Pacific Hydro Pty Ltd.HydroChile S.A.Hidroelectrica Guardia Vieja S.A.Empresa Nacional de Electricidad S.A.Duke Energy International, LLCColbun S.A.AES Gener S.A.For more information about this report atAbout ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Phone : +91-20-67278686E-Mail : info@reportsweb.com
New Report on Global Zero-Energy Buildings Industry 2017 at Market Research Nest

Zero-Energy Buildings, Zero-Energy Buildings Market, Zero-Energy Buildings Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-zero-energy-buildings-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286905

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286905

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Zero-Energy Buildings Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 94 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global zero-energy buildings market to grow at a CAGR of 39.02% during the period 2017-2021.About Zero-energy BuildingsZero-energy buildings consume only as much energy as they generate within a year. They are the target for green building construction and modification over the next several years. Green building practices have become common in the global construction industry. The aim is to utilize only as much energy as buildings produce onsite through renewable energy systems. With growing GHG emission levels and increasing energy costs, residential and commercial building owners are taking initiatives to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global zero-energy buildings market for 2017-2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Zero-energy Buildings 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global zero-energy buildings market: Daikin Industries, GE, Honeywell International, Schneider Electric, and Siemens.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: altPOWER, Altura Associates, Canadian Solar, Centrosolar America, Danfoss, ertex solartechnik, First Solar, Hanergy Holding Group, Heliatek, Johnson Controls, Masdar, Meritage Homes, SunPower, SHARP, Trane, Trina Solar, Wuxi Suntech, View, Yingli Solar, and Zero Energy Systems.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is net-zero buildings in India. In 2016, the World Green Building Council (WGBC) announced its plan of advancing the Net Zero initiative, which aims at achieving 100% net-zero buildings by 2050. The pilot sites chosen by WGBC for developing net zero certifications for existing and new buildings are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Sweden.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is growing use of sustainable energy. Fossils fuels are gradually losing preference as a source of primary energy, owing to their limited supply and their detrimental impact on the environment. The demand for energy will be unmet because of the lack of fossil fuels. The amount of fossil fuel present is uncertain. However, the amount of proven reserves can be determined. Proven reserves are the quantity of fossil fuels that are available for extraction. Fossil fuel resources are finite, allowing human societies to sustain for approximately another two centuries.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is absence of BIPV-specific standards and regulations. As BIPV modules serve dual functions, they should follow codes and standards of two separate industries, i.e., the PV industry and the construction industry. Currently, all PV modules must abide by the design and qualification standards devised by the Underwriters Laboratory and the International Electro-Technical Commission. In addition, BIPV needs to meet other criteria as a structural component, which can act as a market inhibitor. For instance, pervasive International Building Codes of the International Code Council has been adopted and implemented by all 50 states in the US.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Polyurethane Adhesive Market to be at Forefront by 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=18623

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=18623

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/

An adhesive is a substance that holds materials together by surface attachment. It is used for the joining of two substrates. Adhesives are made up of raw materials such as fillers, softeners, tackifiers, cross-linking agents, and antioxidants. Acrylic, natural rubber, silicone, and polyurethane are the different types of adhesives depending upon the degree of their composition.Polyurethane adhesives offer flexible curing time at room and extreme temperature. This is the major advantage of polyurethane adhesives. They can be applied either manually or with the help of dispensing equipment. Polyurethane adhesives offer excellent bonding characteristics for surfaces such as ceramics, rubber, plastic, glass, and wood. Polyurethane adhesives are widely employed in applications where higher efficiency is required at lower operating cost. Fast curing time, excellent strength, good abrasion & chemical resistance, good optical clarity, and good strength & impact resistance are some of the key characteristics of polyurethane adhesives. These adhesives are employed in industries such as automobile, building & construction, packaging, aerospace, electrical & electronics, locomotives, and optical due to their versatility in operations. Based on technology, the polyurethane adhesive market can be segmented into solvent borne, reactive, dispersion, and hot melt. Solvent borne accounts for the dominant share of the polyurethane adhesive market, as these provide instant bonding with good adhesion characteristics. In terms of type, the market for polyurethane adhesive can be segmented into thermoplastic and thermoset. Thermoplastic polyurethane adhesives are comparatively expensive; however, these are widely used in structural and load bearing applications due to their properties such as adjustable sealing temperature, high tack, and ability to adhere to different surfaces such as metal, PVC, rubber, wood, and leather. Thus, the segment is expected to witness significant growth rate in the near future.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Growth in the construction industry, proliferating use of adhesive in automotive applications to reduce the weight of vehicles, and rise in demand in emerging countries of Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa are driving the market for polyurethane adhesives. Increase in middle class population and accelerated rate of urbanization in developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil is also propelling the construction industry and hence the demand for polyurethane adhesive. The building & construction industry dominates the polyurethane adhesive market. Expansion in the building & construction industry in countries such as the U.S., China, Germany, India, Japan, and South Korea is expected to boost the demand for polyurethane adhesives in the next few years. Polyurethane adhesives are increasingly used in place of traditional fasteners for joining and sealing applications. The need to reduce the overall weight of vehicles in order to achieve better fuel efficiency and curb exhaust emission is also propelling the demand for polyurethane adhesives in countries such as India, China, Brazil, and Mexico. Footwear is also a lucrative segment of the polyurethane adhesive market, led by the rising demand for innovative footwear design, particularly in countries in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and Vietnam. Increase in usage of polyurethane adhesive in various end-user industries is likely to drive the demand for these adhesives; however, fluctuation in prices of crude oil, which is a basic raw material, may hamper market growth in the near future.Major players operating in the polyurethane adhesive market are 3M, BASF AG, Avery Dennison Corporation, Arkema S.A., Ashland Inc., H.B. Fuller, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Huntsman Corporation, Illinois Tool Works Inc., Scott Bader Company Ltd., Sika AG, and The Dow Chemical Company.A sample of this report is available upon request @The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.About USTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a 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 USTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Website:Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com
Global Cleaning Robots Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 17.7% by value during 2017-2023

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011180029/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011180029/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/global-cleaning-robots-market-2017-2023-by-application-end-user-distribution-channel-and-region-segment-analysis-trend-outlook-and-business-strategy

Robotic cleaning technology has been evolving and transforming the cleaning landscape in both residential environment and commercial settings. An increasing presence of cleaning robots has been observed in global market because these smart equipment can lower labor cost, improve cleaning efficiency, and reduce working accidents. Robovacs are more accepted by elderly population, disabled people, and tech-savvy households who prefer a modern lifestyle. Professional cleaning robots are increasingly adopted by manufacturing plants, healthcare facilities, education buildings, retails, logistics, business centers, etc. Global total sales revenue of cleaning robots registering a CAGR of 17.7% between 2016 and 2023. This represents a cumulative revenue during 2017-2023 owing to a fast-growing adoption of robots for cleaning floor, pool, window, lawn, and other places.Highlighted with 33 tables and 82 figures, this 186-page report "Global Cleaning Robots Market 2017-2023 by Application, End-user, Distribution Channel and Region: Segment Analysis, Trend Outlook and Business Strategy" is based on a comprehensive research of worldwide robotic cleaner market by analyzing the entire global market and all its sub-segments through extensively detailed classifications. Profound analysis and assessment are generated from premium primary and secondary information sources with inputs derived from industry professionals across the value chain. The report provides historical market data for 2014 and 2015, revenue estimates for 2016, and forecasts from 2017 till 2023.Request a Sample Report@In-depth qualitative analyses include identification and investigation of the following aspects:-Market Structure-Growth Drivers-Restraints and Challenges-Emerging Product Trends & Market Opportunities-Porter's Fiver ForcesThe trend and outlook of global market is forecast in optimistic, balanced, and conservative view. The balanced (most likely) projection is used to quantify global cleaning robots market in every aspect of the classification from perspectives of application, end-user, distribution channel and region.Based on application, the global market is segmented into the following sub-markets with annual revenue included for 2014-2023 (historical and forecast) for each section.-Floor Cleaning-Pool Cleaning-Lawn Cleaning-Window Cleaning-Other CleaningOn basis of end-user, the global market is analyzed on the following segments with annual revenue in 2014-2023 provided for each segment.-Residential Sector-Industrial Sector-Healthcare-Other Commercial SectorsOn basis of distribution channel, the global market is analyzed on the following segments with annual revenue in 2014-2023 provided for each segment.-Online Sales-Supermarkets and Retail Stores-Other ChannelsGeographically, the following regions together with the listed national markets are fully investigated:-APAC (Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, India, and Rest of APAC)-Europe (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe)-North America (U.S. and Canada)-Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Rest of Latin America)-RoW (UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa)Inquire Before Buying@For each of the aforementioned regions and countries, detailed analysis and data for annual revenue are available for 2014-2023. The breakdown of all regional markets by country and split of some key national markets by robot application & end-user over the forecast years are also included.The report also covers current competitive scenario and the predicted manufacture trend; and profiles global cleaning robot vendors including market leaders and important emerging players.Specifically, potential risks associated with investing in global cleaning robots market are assayed quantitatively and qualitatively through Publisher's Risk Assessment System. According to the risk analysis and evaluation, Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are generated as a guidance to help investors & stockholders manage and minimize the risks, develop appropriate business models, and make wise strategies and decisions.Companies Mentioned:AB ElectroluxADLATUS Robotics GmbHAlfred Karcher GmbH & Co. KGAqua Products, Inc.Avidbots Corp.BSH Bosch Und Siemens Hausgerate Altersfursorge GmbHCleanfix Reinigungssysteme AGDanduct CleanDyson LtdECOVACS Robotics Co., Ltd.GE Inspection RoboticsHanool Robotics Corp.Hayward Industries, Inc.HOBOTHusqvarna GroupIBC RoboticsIntellibot Robotics LLCiRobot CorporationKoninklijke Philips N.V.LG ElectronicsMaytronics Ltd.Metapo, Inc.Miele & Cie. KGMoneual USA, Inc.Neato Robotics, Inc.Panasonic CorporationPentair Ltd.RobomowSamsung ElectronicsScantron RoboticsSharp CorporationToshiba CorporationWindowmateYujin Robot Co., Ltd.Zodiac Pool Systems, Inc.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 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
Global Iron oxide Pigments Market Expanding at a CAGR of 5.0% in 2017-2025

MRRSE

https://www.mrrse.com/sample/4025

https://www.mrrse.com/iron-oxide-pigments-market

https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/4025

https://www.mrrse.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine Iron oxide Pigments Market - Global Industry, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Request to view Sample Report @Global Iron oxide Pigments Market: OverviewIron oxide pigments improve the physical and mechanical properties of substrates. They offer properties such as good color strength, heat & light stability, opacity, weather & chemical resistance, and durability to substrates. Iron oxide pigments provides colors to varieties of end user applications and are employed in numerous industries around the globe to provide permanent and stable coloring effects to the substrates. Pigments are also known as colorants, which are insoluble products that can be employed to impart colors to construction materials, paints, inks, plastics, papers, cosmetics, rubbers, concrete blocks, tiles, etc. Growing construction activities, recovering economy in developed countries, and expanding infrastructure programs in combination with growing urbanization in developing economies, are the prime factors responsible for the growing consumption of iron oxide pigments around the globe.Global Iron oxide Pigments Market: Key SegmentsIron oxide pigments can be sub-divided into synthetic and natural iron oxide pigments. Synthetic iron oxide pigments are made from petrochemicals and waste metal ore slurry. Synthetic iron oxide pigments are cheap as compared to organic iron oxide pigments owing to low cost of raw material as well as synthetic iron oxide pigments have good dispersibility, high tinting strength, UV stability, excellent color intensity, and non-toxic properties. Natural iron oxide pigments are costly as compared with its synthetic counterpart owing to high cost of raw material. Natural iron oxide pigments are more durable and have excellent tinting strength as compared with synthetic pigments. Most of the natural iron oxide pigments are employed in paints & coatings and other automotive applications. Synthetic iron oxide pigments are consumed in concretes, mortar, render, paving stones, tiles, laminate flooring, cosmetics, rubber, corrosion paints, industrial paints, architectural paints, and plastic materialsIron oxide pigments are found in various colors and textures to impart coloring and tinting effects to majority of substrates. On the basis of consumption iron oxide pigments are sub-divided into red, yellow, and black colors. Red color iron oxide pigments are consumed in majority followed by yellow and black pigments. These are the basic color pigments and are used in combinations to produce other colors. The most commonly used methods of manufacturing iron oxide pigments includes the Laux process. This process can produce black, red, and yellow colored pigments of iron oxide. Red iron oxide pigments can also be prepared using the copperas process, which entails the calcination of iron sulfate at high temperature.Raw material use for the red iron oxide pigments are the waste slurry of hematite, limonite, and iron hydroxide mineral ores. Growing environmental regulations regarding emissions and soil pollution would restrain the growth of the iron oxide pigments market in the forecasted period. Growing infrastructure projects, increasing demand of iron oxide pigments from automotive industry, and urbanization in developing countries would drive the market for iron oxide pigments around the globe.Global Iron oxide Pigments Market: Scope of the StudyThe report estimates and forecasts the Iron oxide Pigments market on the global and regional levels. The study provides forecast between 2017 and 2025 based on volume (Kilo Tons) & revenue (US$ Mn) with 2016 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the segments with detailed iron oxide manufacturing process. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage with list of major customers. The study includes drivers and restraints for the Iron oxide Pigments market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the Iron oxide Pigments market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and key trends mentioned in the report are justified through quantitative and qualitative data. These have been verified through primary and secondary resources. Furthermore, the report analyzes production scenario of Iron oxide Pigments and global import- export analysis.The report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the Iron oxide Pigments market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users and regions have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market.The study provides a comprehensive view of the Iron oxide Pigments market by dividing it into Iron oxide Pigments by color type, by type, by end-use application, and by geography segments. The Iron oxide Pigments market by color type has been segmented into below red, yellow, black, and other sub-segments. The type segment is divided into synthetic and natural sub segments. The end-use application type segment is divided into construction, paints & coatings, textiles, inks, plastics, and others sub-segments. These segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast consumption of Iron oxide Pigments in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Market segmentation includes demand for consumption in all the regions individually.Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to, European Printing Ink Association, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Color Pigments Manufacturers Association, Inc. (CPMA), The European Chemical Industry Council, World Paint & Coatings Industry Association (WPCIA), United States Geological Society (USGS), National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.In-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.View Specifics Report with Table of Content @The global Iron Oxide Pigments market has been segmented as follows:Iron Oxide Pigments Market  By Color TypeRedYellowBlackOthersIron Oxide Pigments Market  By TypeSyntheticNaturalIron oxide Pigments Market  By End-userConstructionPaints & CoatingsTextilesInksPlasticsOthersIron oxide Pigments Market  By RegionNorth AmericaS.CanadaLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaEuropeGermanyK.FranceItalySpainRussiaCIS CountriesRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaIndiaJapanASEANRest of Asia PacificMiddle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaSend an Inquiry @Market 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.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Iraq Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011280214/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011280214/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/iraq-midstream-oil-and-gas-industry-outlook-to-2022

ReportsWeb.com published Oil and Gas Market from its database. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market."Iraq Midstream Oil and Gas Industry Outlook to 2022-Market Forecasts for Oil Storage, Pipelines and Gas Processing", is a comprehensive report on midstream oil and gas industry in Iraq. The report provides details such as name, type, operational status and operator for all active and planned (new build) oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in Iraq till 2022. Further, the report also offers recent developments and latest contracts awarded in the country's midstream sector.Request a Sample Report@Report Scope:-Updated information related to all active and planned oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in the country, including operator and equity details-Key mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, private equity and initial public offerings in the country's midstream oil and gas industry, where available-Latest developments and awarded contracts related to midstream oil and gas industry in the countryReasons to buy:-Gain a strong understanding of the country's midstream oil and gas industry-Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of capacity data-Assess your competitor's major oil storage terminals, major trunk pipelines and gas processing plants in the country-Analyze the latest developments and awarded contracts related to the country's midstream oil and gas industryInquire before Buying@Table of Contents:1 Table of Contents 11.1. List of Tables 31.2. List of Figures 42. Introduction 52.1. What is This Report About-52.2. Market Definition 53. Iraq Oil Storage Industry 73.1. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Key Data 73.2. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Overview 73.3. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Storage Operations 73.3.1. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Total Storage Capacity 73.4. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity Share by Area 93.5. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Major Companies 103.6. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Storage Capacity by Terminal 123.7. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Asset Details 133.7.1. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Active Asset Details 133.7.2. Iraq Oil Storage Industry, Planned Asset Details 214. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry 244.1. Iraq Oil Pipelines 244.2. Iraq Oil Pipelines, Overview 244.3. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Crude Oil Pipeline Length by Major Companies 254.4. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Crude Oil Pipelines 274.5. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Petroleum Products Pipeline Length by Company 294.6. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Petroleum Products Pipelines 294.7. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Asset Details 324.7.1. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Active Asset Details 324.7.2. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Oil Pipelines Planned Asset Details 854.8. Iraq Gas Pipelines, Key Data 954.9. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Natural Gas Pipeline Length by Company 954.10. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Natural Gas Pipelines 974.11. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Asset Details 994.11.1. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Active Asset Details 994.11.2. Iraq Oil and Gas Pipelines Industry, Gas Pipelines Planned Asset Details 1115. Iraq Gas Processing Industry 1185.1. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Key Data 1185.2. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Overview 1185.3. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Gas Processing Capacity by Major Companies 1185.4. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Processing Plant Number by Plant Type 1205.5. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Capacity Contribution of Various Provinces 1215.6. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Active Gas Processing Capacity 1235.7. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Planned Gas Processing Capacity 1245.8. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Asset Details 1255.8.1. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Active Asset Details 1255.8.2. Iraq Gas Processing Industry, Planned Asset Details 1316. Recent Contracts 1426.1. Detailed Contract Summary 1426.1.1. Awarded Contracts 1427. Recent Developments 1477.1. Other Significant Developments 1477.1.1. Oct 18, 2017: Rosneft Develops Projects In Iraqi Kurdistan 1477.1.2. Jun 23, 2017: PEDEC: Iran Begins Exporting Natural Gas To Iraq 1477.1.3. Oct 01, 2016: Iraq Reports Increase In Oil Exports From Southern Ports In September 2016 1487.2. New Contracts Announcements 1487.2.1. Nov 07, 2016: Mott MacDonald To Design New Xarajyan Oil Terminal, Iraq 1488. Appendix 149For 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 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
Nuclear Power in Brazil Market Outlook to 2030

ReportsWeb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011280265/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW00011280265/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/nuclear-power-in-brazil-market-outlook-to-2030

"Nuclear Power in Brazil, 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 Brazil.The report provides in depth analysis on global nuclear power market with forecasts up to 2030. The report analyzes the power market scenario in Brazil (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 Brazil 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.Request a Sample Report@The report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, secondary research and in-house analysis by Publisher's team of industry experts.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 Brazil 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 Brazil nuclear power market with installed capacity and generation trends, installed capacity by reactor type, installed capacity share by contractor/owner and information on major active and upcoming projects.-Key policies and regulatory framework supporting nuclear power development.-Company snapshots of some of the major market participants in the country.Reasons to buy:-The report will enhance your decision making capability in a more rapid and time sensitive manner.-Identify key growth and investment opportunities in Brazil 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.Inquire before Buying@Companies Mentioned:Westinghouse Electric Company, LLCEletrobras Termonuclear S.A.Areva SATable of Contents:1 Table of Contents 22 Executive Summary 63 Introduction 84 Nuclear Power Market, Global, 2006-2030 145 Power Market, Brazil, 2006-2030 276 Nuclear Power Market, Brazil, 2006-2030 417 Power Market, Regulatory Scenario, Brazil 548 Nuclear Power Market, Brazil, Company Profiles 619 Appendix 74For 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 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
New Report on Global Digital Publishing Industry 2017 at Market Research Nest

Digital Publishing, Digital Publishing Market, Digital Publishing Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-digital-publishing-market-for-education-sector-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286906

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286906

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Digital Publishing Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 86 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global digital publishing market for education sector to grow at a CAGR of 12.60% during the period 2017-2021.About Digital Publishing for Education SectorDigital publishing is the use of the electronic or online method to publish any book, magazine, and catalog, and develop digital libraries. Digital publishing in the education sector creates content that can be accessed across devices, operating systems, and classroom and off-campus environments. The global publishing market is witnessing continuous growth with rising awareness and importance of education across the globe. Growing demand for quality content is one of the key factors contributing to the growth of global publishing market.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global digital publishing market for education sector for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of digital educational publications such as e-books, e-magazines, e-journals, e-papers, and other educational publications sold in different regions, including the Americas, APAC, and EMEA.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Digital Publishing Market for Education Sector 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global digital publishing market for education sector: Georg von Holtzbrinck, Hachette Livre, McGraw-Hill Education, and Pearson.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Cambridge University Press, Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, and Thomson Reuters.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: One trend in the market is emergence of new technologies in digital publishing for education sector. Technologies such as Big Data, cloud computing, and social media hold a significant opportunity for vendors. The number of activities that can be performed by students on online and mobile platforms will offer a significant growth opportunity to vendors. These technologies can be embedded in systems for enhancing customer experience.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one driver in the market is growing digitization contributing to change in learning methods in education sector. As educational institutions are highly focused on increasingly investing in ICT, there will be a rise in the shift in the method used to impart knowledge. The shift will be from traditional modes such as printed textbooks to digital modes such as e-readers, smartphones, and tablets. With the emergence of digitization in the education sector, a significant change has been observed in the learning and teaching methods. With the help of advanced technologies, education has become stress-free both for educators and students.Further, the report states that one challenge in the market is threat from open educational resources and alternative textbook sources. The market growth will be hindered owing to the availability and accessibility of free and inexpensive sources of information on the web. The emergence of free content available online has reduced the revenue of published products. Moreover, the subscription to a comprehensive database is expensive, therefore, open educational depository websites are created online. The information available in these resources is extremely high in scientific and technical publishing, with as much as 35% of the information available online in fields such as earth science. Since a large number of journals are freely available on the online platform; customers do not purchase a subscription for paid journals.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
World Forklift Trucks Market Demand and Forecast by 2023, Key Players- Komastu Ltd, Toyota Industries Corporation, KION Group AG, Hyster-Yale Material handling Inc.

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2920

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/forklift-trucks-market-2920

Market ScenarioForklift trucks are used to lift and move materials within short distances. Forklift trucks are used across various industries such as automotive, food and beverages, construction, consumer goods, e-commerce, and retail. Growing demand from manufacturing industry is the primary driving factor of the forklift trucks market. Increase in productivity, reduced injuries & accidents along with operator comfort are some major factors that have positive influence on the market growth. However, high cost of electric powered forklift trucks is the factor that may hamper the growth of market.Global Forklift Trucks Market is projected to reach USD 41.73 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 5.9% from 2017 to 2023.Request a sample @Key PlayersThe key players of global forklift trucks market are Komastu Ltd. (Japan), Toyota Industries Corporation (Japan), KION Group AG (Germany), Hyster-Yale Material handling Inc. (U.S.), Jungheinrich Group (Germany), Mitsubishi Nichiyu Forklift Corporation (Japan), Crown Equipment Corporation (U.K), The Raymond Corporation (U.S.), Anhui HELI Co., Ltd (China), and Kalmar Global (Finland).Regional Analysis of Global Forklift Trucks Market:Asia-Pacific dominates the global forklift trucks market followed by Europe. Growth in industrialization in this region, is the primary factor that increases the demand of forklift trucks market. This region is expected to grow at the fastest pace during the forecast period. Europe is another important market and is expected to contribute significantly during the forecast period.Target Audience Manufacturing Organizations Distributors & Suppliers Government as well as Independent Regulatory Authorities Research Institute / Education Institute Potential InvestorsProduct Analysis Product matrix which gives a detailed comparison of the market for different recycled product typesAdditional Information Regulatory Landscape Pricing Analysis Macroeconomic IndicatorsGeographic Analysis Geographical analysis across 15 countriesCompany Information Profiling of 10 key market players In-depth analysis including SWOT analysis, and strategy information of related to report title Competitive landscape including emerging trends adopted by major companiesThe report for Global Forklift Trucks 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 market segments and regions.Browse report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, 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.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Aeronautic Propeller Market Intelligence Report for Comprehensive Information 2017-2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-3693

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-3693

Aeronautic propellers are used to convert rotary motion into propulsive force. In aerospace, the evolution of improved application specific products coupled with the development of new lightweight materials have significant importance. Increasing demand for lightweight propellers is expected to have positive impact on the growth of global aeronautic propeller market. Developing compatible propellers to match hybrid technology is anticipated to be the key opportunity in the global aeronautic propeller market during the forecast period. Furthermore, initiatives taken for advancement in technology together with the R&D programs are also expected to fuel the growth of global aeronautic propeller market during the forecast period.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @Based on the number of blades, the 4 blades segment is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. Based on propeller type, the controllable pitch propeller segment is expected to dominate the global aeronautic propeller market during the forecast period. Controllable pitch propellers require less maintenance in comparison to fixed pitch propellers and hence, they are widely preferred in the global aeronautic propeller market. Based on material type, the metal segment is expected to dominate the market. However, the composite or plastic material is projected to be fastest growing segment in near future. Within the metal segment, aluminum is expected to dominate over stainless steel segment due to its lightweight and its ability of cupping.Aeronautic Propeller Market: DynamicsThe global aeronautic propeller market is being primarily driven by the increasing demand for aircrafts in emerging economies. Countries like India, China, Korea and Brazil, among others, are expected to bolster the demand for aircrafts, which in turn, is expected to fuel the demand for aeronautic propellers during the forecast period. Additionally, designing of new aeronautics propulsion system in order to reduce the fuel intake is expected to fuel the demand of aeronautics propellers in the near future.Aeronautic Propeller Market: SegmentationThe global aeronautic propeller market can be segmented on the basis of number of blades, propeller type, material type and configuration type. On the basis of number of blades, the market can be further segmented into two, three, four, five and more than five. On the basis of propeller type, the global aeronautic propeller market can be further segmented into fixed pitch propeller, ground adjustable pitch propeller, two position propeller, controllable pitch propeller, constant speed propeller, full feathering propeller, reversing propeller and beta control propeller. The fixed pitch propeller type can be further segmented into fixed pitch wooden propeller and fixed pitch metal propeller. On the basis of material type, the market can be further segmented into wood, metal and composite material. Based on metal segment, the market can be further segmented into stainless steel and aluminum. On the basis of configuration type, the global aeronautic propeller market can be segmented into pusher configuration and tractor configuration.Aeronautic Propeller Market: Regional OutlookBased on regions, Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the global aeronautic market. China, India and South Korea are expected to contribute largely to the growing demand for aeronautic propellers. Moreover, increasing demand for aircrafts in this region is also expected to escalate the growth of global aeronautic propeller market. North America is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. Europe and Latin America are also expected to show positive growth in the near future. Middle East & Africa is projected to witness moderate growth during the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Aeronautic Propeller Market: Key PlayersSome of the prominent players identified in the global aeronautic propeller market are as mentioned below:Hartzell Propeller Inc.Aero Performance Propellers Ltd.Sensenich Propeller Manufacturing Co., Inc.MT-Propeller Entwicklung GmbHHoffmann Propeller GmbH & Co. KGUTC Aerospace SystemsMcCauley Propeller SystemsWarp Drive, Inc.POWERFIN PropellersGT PropellersAbout 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.U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, ,
Rising Trends for Connected Logistics Market Across the Globe by FMI

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4287

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4287

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/connected-logistics-market

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Connected logistic through internet of things (IoT) is a new and increasingly growing technological trend in the transport sector, supported by increasing number of digital technologies and the need of devices, peoples, sensors, and objects to stay connected and exchange information with each other.Connected logistics aids in monitoring the entire operational cycle of transport sector, from warehousing and transportation to the final delivery and provides improved features in terms of improved security and operational productivity.Connected Logistics Market: Market DynamicsTypically, the connected devices and sensors were been installed in warehouses and movable containers in order to capture the real time data, but with growing availability of Wi-Fi networks and devices, application of IoT in the logistic sector has been increasing. While most developed nations have implemented connected logistics to manage their international and domestic supply chains and networks, developing countries are in the process of revamping their supply chain & networks by increasing their network infrastructures which will drive the demand for connected logistics.Request for Sample @Connected Logistics Market SegmentationSegmentation of connected logistics market on the basis of component:HardwareSoftware & platformsServicesSegmentation of connected logistics market on the basis of vertical:HealthcareManufacturingTransportationRetailOthersSegmentation of connected logistics market on the basis of geography:North America (U.S., Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil)Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, U.K, Spain, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia-Pacific Excluding Japan (China, India, ASEAN, Australia & New Zealand)JapanThe Middle East and Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa)Sub-segmentation of connected logistics market on the basis of the sector:Private sectorPublic sectorRequest for Table of Contents @Regional OverviewOn the basis of geography, connected logistics market can be segmented into seven key regions namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Among various regions, the connected logistics market in North America is expected to dominate during the forecast period because of heavy investment in region in the field of IoT and connected logistic solutions. North America region is expected to be followed by Western Europe and APEJ. APEJ is expected to drive the demand for connected logistics market, supported by improving networking services and increasing adoption of IoT devices by different verticals in the region.Increasing adoption of IoT networks and devices supported by benefits offered by connected solutions to logistic systems are some of the factors driving the demand of connected logistics market. Other factors driving the demand for connected logistics includes decreasing costs of technologies that supports connected logistics including sensors, RFID, barcode, GPS, cloud services etc. Some of the factors restraining the growth of connected logistics market includes security aspects of the IoT devices and lack of uniform standards in terms of IoT technologies.Competitive LandscapeSome of the major players in the field of connected logistics market include International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation (U.S.), Intel Corporation (U.S.), AT&T Inc. (U.S.), Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.), etc.Report Overview @ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Quantum Computing Market Trends,Outlook and Opportunity Report 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/quantum-computing-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=36212

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Quantum computing make use of significant subatomic particle capability to be present in more than one state at any given point of time. Due to the peculiar behavior of these particles, processing can be done in a faster manner and with minimal power requirement than traditional computers. Traditional computers encode information in bits with the values 1 or 0. These values act as on/off switches that eventually drive computer functions. On the other hand, quantum computing uses quantum bits i.e. qubit. However, they can store more information than 1s or 0s. It works on the two very important principles of quantum physics i.e. entanglement and superposition. When each qubit can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time, it is known as superposition. Furthermore, if the state of one bit (whether it is a 0 or a 1) can depend on the state of another bit, it is known as entanglement. Quantum computers are significantly powerful and processes information in a novel way.Read Report Overview @Increasing cybercrimes across the globe and growing implementation of quantum computing technology across the banking & finance, defense, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and healthcare markets is expected to drive the global quantum computing market. Governments of various countries are investing in quantum computing technology to expand their knowledge base related to quantum computing technologies. The increasing government investment to develop quantum computing solutions is projected to support the growth of the global quantum computing market. For instance, the European Commission plans to launch a US$ 1.1 billion initiative in 2018 on quantum technologies. This will help Europe to be at the forefront of the second quantum revolution. Furthermore, in 2017, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba disclosed that it is planning a US$ 15 billion investment in R&D projects. This investment is part of the companys DAMO (Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, and Outlook) Academy, and will include the opening of new labs, to be located in different places such as Singapore, Moscow, Seattle, China, and California.Shortage of desired skillsets for quantum computing can hamper the growth of this market globally. However, with rising government investment and intervention, quantum computing is expected to overcome this restraint. For instance, the New South Wales (NSW) government announced funds of US$ 26 million for the development of quantum computing and this is anticipated to help NSW become a global hub for innovative training in the field of quantum computing.The quantum computing market can be segmented based on components, end-use industry, and regions. On the basis of component, the market can be segmented into hardware, software, and services. In terms of end-use industry, the market can be segmented into banking & finance, defense, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and others.Geographically, the quantum computing market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. North America and Europe are expected to lead due to the growing government investment in the field of quantum computing. However, the market in Asia Pacific is expected to expand at a significant pace due to the increasing research and development activities across emerging economies such as China, India, and Japan.Request to view Sample Report:Some of the key players in the quantum computing market are IBM Corporation, D-Wave Systems Inc., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., QbitLogic, Alibaba Group Holding Limited, SPARROW QUANTUM, Qubitekk, Inc., Tokyo Quantum Computing, Cambridge Quantum Computing Ltd, Anyon Systems Inc., 1QB Information Technologies Inc., Rigetti & Co, Inc., and moreAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.ContactTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Online Grocery Market Key Players, Growth, Analysis, 2017  2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=36494

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/online-grocery-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The trend of online shopping is rising significantly as consumers are becoming familiar with buying things online. Online grocery refers to a grocery store that enables the businesses or individuals to purchase grocery products online. Online grocery shopping enables consumers to select the delivery timing as per their convenience. This ensures the timely delivery of products as per the requirement and availability of the consumers.Download exclusive Sample of this report:Increase in dependence of consumers on smart devices and digital media to get thorough information about products before buying enables them to have a laid-back decision-making process. Accordingly, the budding rate of digital consumerism on grocery retail sales is estimated to positively influence the global online grocery market in the next few years. Key factors driving the growth of the online grocery market include high adoption rate of smart devices, increase in number of social media users, and rise in penetration of wireless broadband Internet that enables consumers to access information about grocery shopping and interact with a brand or business online. Furthermore, rise in awareness about the attractive discounts offered on grocery items propels the rate of revenue generation of the enterprises in the online grocery market due to increased sales volume. Moreover, increase in demand for functional food and beverages is predicted to drive the growth prospects of the global online grocery market in the next few years.The online grocery market can be segmented based on order type, product type, end-user and region. Based on order type, the online grocery market can be divided into desktop-based and app-based orders. The app-based online model segment is estimated to account for the dominant share of the global online grocery market owing to the rising usage of smartphones. Segmentation, on the basis of product type, includes food products and non-food products. The online grocery non-food products segment accounted for the leading online grocery market share in 2016 and is anticipated to continue with its dominance in the online grocery market during the next four years. On the basis of end-user, the online grocery market can be classified into large enterprises and small & medium sized enterprises (SMEs).Obtain Report Details @Based on region, the global online grocery market can be bifurcated into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and South America. The online grocery market in North America is expected to expand at a significant growth rate and constitute a prominent share of the market during the forecast period as compared to the market in the other regions. The U.S. and Canada are projected to drive the online grocery market in North America. A key factor responsible for the flourishing online grocery market in the region is the rise in the leading Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) manufacturers through online distribution. The online grocery market in Asia Pacific is also expected to expand significantly owing to the increasing adoption of online shopping for baby products, personal care, and household supplies in the developing markets such as China, India, Japan, and Malaysia. Moreover, online grocery enterprises are focusing on emerging economies such as Bangladesh, India, China, Thailand, and Malaysia as these countries present significant opportunities due to rise in the standard of living.Key players in the global online grocery market focus on introduction of advanced solutions and services in order to improve their offerings. Major players in the online grocery market include Alibaba Group, Aldi, Amazon.com, BigBazaar, Big Basket, METRO AG, Coles Supermarkets, EDEKA, AEON, Costco Wholesale, More, REWE, Schwarz, Safeway, Inc., and Tengelmann Group. Vendors are also focused on enhancing their distribution network in order to strengthen their position in the global online grocery market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Fermentation Chemicals Market Forecast to 2021 Published by Research Team

Fermentation Chemicals, Fermentation Chemicals Market, Fermentation Chemicals Industry

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-fermentation-chemicals-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286909

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286909

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Fermentation Chemicals Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 93 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global fermentation chemicals market to grow at a CAGR of 5.98% during the period 2017-2021.About Fermentation ChemicalsThe commercial fermentation of natural and renewable materials produces fermentation chemicals. These chemicals act as a catalyst or initiator in chemical and biochemical reactions to modify the rate of the reaction process. These chemicals can also be manufactured by using biodegradable products such as pulp, starch, paper, wood, and other biochemicals. The increasing demand from the alcohol industry is one of the driving factors. The rising demand for renewable energy fuel and consumption of alcohols such as ethanol and methanol as a substitute for conventional fuels are the major factors prompting the growth of the global fermentation chemicals market. Fermentation chemicals help increase the overall productivity by lowering the processing time and manufacturing costs.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global fermentation chemicals market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the retail selling price as the average selling price of the product.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Fermentation Chemicals 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global fermentation chemicals market: AJINOMOTO, Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Cargill, Evonik Industries, and The Dow Chemical CompanyOther Prominent Vendors in the market are: Amano Enzyme, AB Enzymes, Chr. Hansen Holding, Novozymes, and Royal DSM.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Emerging use of enzymes in nutraceuticals. The insufficiency of adequate nutrients in dairy foods and the growing health consciousness are driving the consumption of nutraceutical products globally. The developed regions such as the Americas and Europe are the main markets for nutraceutical products. The high cost of these products previously hindered their acceptance in the developing markets. However, the rising disposable incomes and the increasing awareness about such products are fostering their consumption in emerging markets such as India and China.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Rising need for renewable and clean fuel. Globally, there is a growing interest to substitute fuels because of the uncertainty of global fuel prices, energy security, and the continued rise in CO emission levels. There is a demand for industrial and automotive fuels that can reduce CO emissions. The gradual depletion of fossil fuel reserves has given rise to the need for renewable sources of energy such as biofuels. The continuous R&D has led to the use of alternative fuels such as ethanol and methanol, which is gradually moving toward large-scale commercialization because their performance is like that of gasoline and diesel for transportation and industrial applications.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Fall in crude oil prices. Various alcohol fuels are one of the main substitutes of crude oil products such as gasoline and diesel. The sudden change in the global crude oil prices has resulted in a steep decline in oil trading prices. Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices have dropped nearly 50% from 2014 to 2015. The remarkable decline in oil prices is attributed to a systemic demand-supply imbalance in the global crude oil market. This has made ethanol, methanol, and other alternative renewable fuels less lucrative. The low crude oil prices have increased the difference in prices between conventional fuels and renewable fuels. Generally, the governments subsidize renewable fuels to make them attractive to consumers. However, if crude oil prices continue to decline, governments must increase the subsidies to make alcohol fuel products competitive and more attractive. This will require additional funding from governments, failing which the sales of alcohols as fuel will decrease and subsequently affect the growth of the fermentation chemicals market.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Enquiry before Buying atAbout:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Global Anesthesia Gas Blender Market Is Expected To Be Worth US$663.3 Mn By 2025 At A CAGR Of 5.8%

Anesthesia Gas Blender Market

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1401332

https://www.researchmoz.us/anesthesia-gas-blender-market-global-industry-analysis-size-share-growth-trends-and-forecast-2017-2025-report.html/toc

https://www.researchmoz.us/

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Anesthesia Gas Blender Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025" to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the anesthesia gas blender market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Increase in number of surgeries, development of enhanced anesthesia delivery machines and rise in prevalence of chronic conditions primarily deriving the anesthesia gas blender market globally.The global anesthesia gas blender market report comprises a detailed elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the countrys market with respect to the segments based on technology, system type and end user. An elaborated qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, opportunities, and trends has been provided in the market overview section. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of country, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global anesthesia gas blender market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Anesthesia Gas Blender Market: SegmentationBased on technology, the market has been segmented into tube flow meter and dual tube flow meter. The market segments have been analyzed based on efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and increase in preferences for gas blending during prolonged anesthesia delivery. The market size (Value and Volume) and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025, along with their respective CAGR for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, considering 2016 as the base year.Based on system type, the market has been segmented into electronic and manual. The market segments have been extensively analyzed based on the rise in demand for surgical procedure and adoption of newly launched advanced products. The market size and forecast in terms of (value and volume) for each segment have been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025. The report also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, considering 2016 as the base year. On the basis of end user, the market has been segmented into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and others. This segmentation has been done on the basis of usage of particular anesthesia gas blander in various healthcare organization for chronic condition and surgeries.Global Anesthesia Gas Blender Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global anesthesia gas blender market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The market size and forecast (value and volume) for each of these regions have been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, considering 2016 as the base year.Get Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Global Anesthesia Gas Blender Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also profiles major players in the global anesthesia gas blender market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report are medin Medical Innovations GmbH, HEYER Medical AG, Farstar (Wuxi) Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., EKU Electronics GmbH, Armstrong Medical, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Dameca A/S, Heyer Aerotech GmbH, flow-meter S.p.A.and Smith MedicalThe global anesthesia gas blender market is segmented as given below:Global Anesthesia Gas Blender Market, by Technology (Value and Volume)Tube Flow MeterDual Tube Flow MeterGlobal Anesthesia Gas Blender Market, by System Type (Value and Volume)ElectronicManualGlobal Anesthesia Gas Blender Market, by End-user (Value and Volume)HospitalsAmbulatory Surgical CentersOthersGlobal Anesthesia Gas Blender Market, by Geography (Value and volume)North America- U.S.- CanadaEurope- Germany- France- U.K.- Italy- Spain- Russia- Rest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)- China- Japan- India- Rest of APACLatin America (LATAM)- Brazil- Mexico- Rest of LATAMMiddle East & Africa (MEA)- GCC- South Africa- Rest of Middle East & AfricaAbout 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 @
Hydrazine Industry - Forecast and Analysis by Regions (2017-2022) Report at MarketResearchNest.com

Hydrazine Market

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/global-hydrazine-market-2017-2021.html

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/purchase.php?reportid=286964

https://www.marketresearchnest.com/enquirybuy.php?reportid=286964

MarketResearchNest.com adds Global Hydrazine Market 2017-2021 new report to its research database. The report spread across 89 pages with table and figures in it.Research analysts forecast the global hydrazine market to grow at a CAGR of 6.11% during the period 2017-2021.About HydrazineHydrazine is a secondary amines family member. It is an inorganic chemical compound with the formula N2H4. It is a colorless liquid with an ammonia-like odor and is manufactured by the same industrial process that produces ammonia. Hydrazine exhibits physical properties like that of water. It is highly unstable and toxic and is thus handled with care. It is used as a foaming agent in the preparation of polymer foams. Other applications include pharmaceutical and precursor to polymerization catalysts. Hydrazine can be produced by the Raschig process, Bayer process, and H2O2 process. Ammonia, urea, sodium hypochlorite, and hydrogen peroxide are the basic raw materials used in the production of hydrazine.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global hydrazine market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of the marine coating from various derivative types.Browse full table of contents and data tables atThe market is divided into the following segments based on geography: Americas APAC EMEATechnavio's report, Global Hydrazine 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.Technavio recognizes the following companies as the key players in the global hydrazine market: Arkema, Arrow Fine Chemicals, Bayer, Chemtex Speciality Limited, Japan Finechem, Lansdowne Chemicals, LANXESS, Lonza, NIPPON CARBIDE INDUSTRIES, and Palm Commodities International.Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: BOC Sciences, Charkit Chemical Company, Chemicals Incorporated, GFS Chemicals, Haviland, Laysan Bio, Mil-Spec Industries, Seidler Chemical, and Spectrum Chemical Manufacturing Corporation.Commenting on the report, an analyst from Research team said: The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Capacity expansion in APAC. Factors such as the increase in the number of end-user industries in APAC rising urbanization, especially in China, India, Indonesia, and other developing countries are expected to have a positive influence on the global hydrazine market.Order a Purchase Report Copy atAccording to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Surge in demand for high quality agrochemicals. The global demand for hydrazine is expected to witness a steady growth primarily due to the increased production of pesticides and herbicides in China, the Netherlands, Germany, and India. Many large players in the market are investing in the development and manufacturing of crop protection chemicals. The increasing demand for these products urges global players to enhance their portfolio by offering new crop protection products. The increasing use of 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid promotes agriculture and the global hydrazine (derivatives) market. In Australia, 2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid is the second-most popular weed control. The increasing number of agriculture-based industries in China, India, and Brazil, owing to favorable government policies and easy availability of raw materials, is expected to accelerate the demand for pesticide and herbicides.Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Use of alternative solutions. Chemical alternatives to hydrazine are used in the boiler plants of some industries for long-term operations. Currently, the use of such alternative chemicals by power utilities is prevalent only in Europe and the US. The use of such chemicals power plants in Asia is in the initial stages. Sodium sulfite (common in low- and medium-pressure systems) and sodium erythorbate are some of the few alternatives to scavenger chemicals. Hydrazine is hazardous and harmful to the environment. R&D activities undertaken by players focus on developing alternatives to hydrazine. Accepta has developed a high-performance carbohydrazide-based boiler water oxygen scavenger that is used as a direct replacement for hydrazine. These replacements adversely affect the consumption of hydrazine and pose a challenge to the global hydrazine market.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Key questions answered in this report: What 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;Enquiry before Buying atAbout us:MarketResearchNest.com is the most comprehensive collection of market research products and services on the Web. We offer reports from almost all top publishers and update our collection on daily basis to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and recent database of expert insights on industries, organizations, products, and trends.ContactMr. Jeet JainSales Managersales@marketresearchnest.com+1-240-284-8070(U.S)+44-20-3290-4151(U.K)Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
Twist Wrap Packaging Market Research Study for Forecast Period 2017 - 2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4922

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4922

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/twist-wrap-packaging-market

www.futuremarketinsights.com

In recent years, there has been an increase in importance for packaging. Food packaging is considered to be one of the most important segment over the past few years. Consumers give importance for the convenience and aesthetic packaging solutions. Such type of packaging is used for bakery and confectionary items. Twist wrap is being used from 1950s for packaging of confectionery items. Twist wrap packaging is used for packaging of confectionaries such as toffees, chocolate bars, etc. Twist wrap packaging is used so that there is no need for using adhesive for wrapping the packaging. Another advantage of twist wrap packaging is the high tensile strength and excellent stiffness characteristic. In addition to, twist wrap packaging also possesses excellent barrier against heat and moisture. Twist wrap packaging is also eco-friendly which are enhancing the importance of this type of packaging for confectionaries.Request For Report Sample:The market for twist wrap packaging is increasing due to increase in the preference for this type of packaging by consumers. Another factor which is augmenting twist wrap packaging market is excellent twist retention quality of the wrap. Twist wraps made from aluminium and wax paper are getting a scope for increasing sales for the twist wrap packaging market. Furthermore, the demand for twist wrap packaging market is increasing due to its waterproof ability. In addition, twist wrap packaging also has features such as heat protection capability of the packaging which would keep food items safe. Twist wrap packaging is getting preference as it increases the appearance and aesthetic quality of food items. Moreover, due to strict norms of the government regarding plastic use is hampering the market for twist wrap packaging.North America is expected to dominate the market for twist wrap packaging market over the forecast period 2017-2025. It is followed by Europe, which is expected to be the second dominant market for twist wrap packaging. Asia Pacific region is anticipated to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period for global twist wrap packaging market due to increasing preference for confectionaries in the young generation. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are expected to witness above average growth over the forecast period for the twist wrap packaging market.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Global Twist Wrap Packaging Market  Key players:Few of the key players in the twist wrap packaging market are Exxon Mobil Corp, Clondalkin Group Holdings B.V., TOPAS Advanced Polymers GmbH, Catty Corporation, Elif Plastik Ambalaj San. ve Tic. A.?., Stratex Group Limited, Swiss Pack U.K., Foil Packaging Pvt Ltd, Multifilm Packaging Corporation, Ester Industries Ltd., BPM Inc., Varipack AG, Polysack Flexible Packaging Ltd., etc.Browse Premium Industry Research Report with Analysis: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 US:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesTel: +1-347-918-3531Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Oil Spill Management Market 2017 Industry Key Players -Cameron International, Control Flow, National Oilwell Varco, Fender & Spill Response Services, Northern Tanker Company Oy, SkimOil,..

Oil Spill Management Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/926562-global-oil-spill-management-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/926562-global-oil-spill-management-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=926562

Oil Spill Management Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Oil Spill Management Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies the global Oil Spill Management market, analyzes and researches the Oil Spill Management development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeCameron InternationalControl FlowNational Oilwell VarcoFender & Spill Response ServicesNorthern Tanker Company OySkimOilHyundai Heavy IndustriesGE Oil & GasCosco Shipyard GroupCURA Emergency ServicesEcolabRequest Sample Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Oil Spill Management can be split intoMechanical MethodsChemical and BiologicalPhysicalMarket segment by Application, Oil Spill Management can be split intoOnshoreOffshoreFor further information on this report, visit Table of Content:Global Oil Spill Management Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Oil Spill Management1.1 Oil Spill Management Market Overview1.1.1 Oil Spill Management Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Oil Spill Management 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 Oil Spill Management Market by Type1.3.1 Mechanical Methods1.3.2 Chemical and Biological1.3.3 Physical1.4 Oil Spill Management Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Onshore1.4.2 Offshore2 Global Oil Spill Management Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Oil Spill Management Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)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 Cameron International3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Control Flow3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 National Oilwell Varco3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Fender & Spill Response Services3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Northern Tanker Company Oy3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 SkimOil3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Hyundai Heavy Industries3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 GE Oil & Gas3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Cosco Shipyard Group3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 CURA Emergency Services3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 Oil Spill Management Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 Ecolab4 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Oil Spill Management in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Oil Spill Management5 United States Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)7 Japan Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)7.2 Japan Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)8 China Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook8.1 China Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)8.2 China Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)9 India Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook9.1 India Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)9.2 India Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)10 Southeast Asia Oil Spill Management Development Status and Outlook10.1 Southeast Asia Oil Spill Management Market Size (2012-2017)10.2 Southeast Asia Oil Spill Management Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)11.1 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size (Value) by Regions (2017-2022)11.1.1 United States Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.2 EU Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.3 Japan Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.4 China Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.5 India Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.6 Southeast Asia Oil Spill Management Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.2 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size (Value) by Type (2017-2022)11.3 Global Oil Spill Management Market Size by Application (2017-2022)12 Oil Spill Management Market Dynamics12.1 Oil Spill Management Market Opportunities12.2 Oil Spill Management Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 Oil Spill Management Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 Oil Spill Management Market Driving Force12.4.1 Growing Demand from Emerging Markets12.4.2 Potential Application13 Market Effect Factors Analysis13.1 Technology Progress/Risk13.1.1 Substitutes13.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry13.2 Consumer Needs Trend/Customer Preference13.3 External Environmental Change13.3.1 Economic Fluctuations13.3.2 Other Risk Factors14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixContinuousBuy this Report @Contact Us:Norah Trentsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +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:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042
Global Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market 2017-2024: 4 Big Vendors Such as DJO global, Zimmer Biomet, Medtronic & Smith and Nephew and Forecast Report

Global Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market Outlook to 2024

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-orthopedic-braces-and-supports-market

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-orthopedic-braces-and-supports-market/

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/speak-to-analyst/?dbmr=global-orthopedic-braces-and-supports-market

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-dermatology-treatment-devices-market/

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/blog/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/data-bridge-market-research

The new report titled Global Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market is expected to reach USD 5.91 billion by 2024 from USD 3.62 billion in 2016, at a CAGR of 6.6% in the forecast period 2017 to 2024.Global Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market, By Product Type (Upper Extremity, Lower Limb Neck and Spine, Pelvis-Hip-Femur), By End-User (Hospitals, Clinics, Home Healthcare and Other End-Users), By Distribution Channel (Orthopedic Clinics, Hospitals, Over The Counter (OTC), E-Commerce, Prescription), By Geography (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin, America, MEA (Middle East & Africa))- Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Request for Free Sample Report @Report Analysis:The main restrains regarding the orthopedic braces and support is lack of knowledge. New technologies are upgrading from time to time. Although innovative surgery has currently increased the adoption of knee, ankle and joint braces, those same improvements could potentially pose a challenge to the orthopedic device sector in the future. By wearing a brace and decreasing the load on the injured area, may indeed increase the load on another area of the body, which could lead to injury. Unawareness regarding the new orthopedic braces and support lead to restrain the market. Misleading leads to restrain regarding orthopedic braces and support and lack of trust among the general public.View Full Report @Report Segmentation:By product type the market for Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market is segmented into upper extremity, lower extremity, spine and neck and pelvis-hip and femur braces and supports.The Global Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market segment is further categorized on the basis of application into injury rehabilitation, injury prevention, osteoarthritis care, post-operative care and more. The unloader b (valgus) knee brace is recommended for pain reduction in patients with osteoarthritis of the medial compartment of the knee.The Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market is segmented on the basis of end-User like hospitals, Clinics, home health care and other end-users.Based on geography the market is segmented into 5 geographical regions, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, MEA (Middle East & Africa).The geographical regions are further segmented into 24 major countries such as U.S. Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, U.K., Belgium, Switzerland, Belgium, Turkey, Japan, China, Singapore, Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa and many others.The Orthopedic Braces and Supports Market is highly fragmented with various companies operating in local regions. The major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market.Speak to Analyst @Key Points:The global orthopedic braces and support market report contains an in-depth profiling of the key market players, along with the recent developments (New product launches, partnerships, agreements, collaborations, and joint ventures) and strategies adopted by them to sustain and strengthen their positions in the market.Some of the major players operating in this market are: DJO global, Zimmer Biomet, Medtronic, Smith and Nephew, Stryker, Ossur, NuVasive, Integra LifeSciences, Globus Medical, DePuy Synthes, Ottobock., AC Mould, Johnson&Johnson, Weber Orthopedic Inc., Bledsoe Brace Systems, FLA Orthopedics, Bauerfeind USA Inc., OPPO Medical Inc., Langer Biomechanics and BSN medical.Table of Contents:1 INTRODUCTION1.1. OVERVIEW OF THE GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACESAND SUPPORT MARKET1.2. MARKET SEGMENTATION & COVERAGE1.2.1. CURRENCY AND PRICING1.2.2. LIMITATION1.2.3. STAKEHOLDERS2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1. KEY TAKEAWAYS2.2. ARRIVING AT THE GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACESAND SUPPORT MARKET SIZE2.2.1. MARKET CRACKDOWN APPROACH2.2.2. COMPANY REVENUE AND MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS2.2.3. DATA TRIANGULATION2.2.4. KEY DATA POINTS FROM PRIMARY SOURCES2.2.5. KEY DATA POINTS FROM SECONDARY SOURCES2.2.6. PORTERS FIVE FORCES MATRIX2.3. GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:RESEARCH SNAPSHOT2.4. ASSUMPTIONS3 MARKET LANDSCAPE SUMMARY4 PREMIUM INSIGHTS4.1. OVERVIEW4.2. GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:KEY PRIMARY INSIGHTS4.3. MARKET OVERVIEW4.3.1. DRIVERS4.3.1.1 INCREASE IN AGING POPULATION4.3.1.2 TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT4.3.1.3 HIGH PREVELANCE OF CHRONIC DISEASES4.3.2. RESTRAINTS4.3.3. OPPOTUNITIES4.3.4. THREATS4.4. KEY MARKET TRENDS AND UPCOMING TECHNOLOGIES5 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET,BY PRODUCT TYPE5.1. OVERVIEW5.2. UPPER EXTREMITY5.3. LOWER EXTREMITY5.4 NECK AND SPINE5.5. PELVIS-HIP-FEMUR brACES AND SUPPORT6 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET, BY END USER61. OVERVIEW6.2. HOSPITALS6.3. CLINICS6.4 HOME HEALTHCARE6.5 OTHER END USERS7 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET,BY DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL7.1. OVERVIEW7.2. Orthopedic Clinics7.3. Hospitals7.4 Over The Counter (OTC)7.5 E-COMMERCE7.6 PRESCRIPTION8 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET, BY GEOGRAPHY8.1. COUNTRYWISE ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET,(ALL SEGMENTATION PROVIDED ABOVE IS REPRESENTED IN THIS CHAPTER BY COUNTRY)8.1.1. NORTH AMERICA8.1.1.1. U.S.8.1.1.2. CANADA8.1.1.3. MEXICO8.1.2. EUROPE8.1.2.1. GERMANY8.1.2.2. FRANCE8.1.2.3. U.K.8.1.2.4 ITALY8.1.2.5 SPAIN8.1.2.6 RUSSIA8.1.2.7 TURKEY8.1.2.8 BELGIUM8.1.2.9 NETHERLANDS8.1.2.10 SWITZERLAND8.1.2.11 REST OF EUROPE8.1.3 ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC)8.1.3.1 JAPAN8.1.3.2 CHINA8.1.3.3 SOUTH KOREA8.1.3.4 INDIA8.1.3.5 AUSTRALIA8.1.3.6 SINGAPORE8.1.3.7 THAILAND8.1.3.8 MALAYSIA8.1.3.9 INDONESIA8.1.3.10 PHILIPPINES8.1.3.11 REST OF APAC8.1.4. LATIN AMERICA8.1.4.1. BRAZIL8.1.4.2. REST OF LATIN AMERICA8.1.5. MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA8.1.5.1. SOUTH AFRICA8.1.5.2. REST OF MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA8.2. KEY PRIMARY INSIGHTS: BY MAJOR COUNTRIES9 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE9.1. GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.2. U.S. ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.3. EUROPE ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.4. APAC ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET:COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.5. SOUTH AMERICA ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET: COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.6. MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET: COMPANY SHARE ANALYSIS9.7. MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS9.8. NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & APPROVALS9.9. EXPANSIONS9.10. REGULATORY CHANGES9.11. PARTNERSHIP AND OTHER STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENTS10 GLOBAL ORTHOPEDIC BRACES AND SUPPORT MARKET,COMPANY PROFILES10.1. DJO GLOBAL10.1.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.1.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.1.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.1.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.1.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.1.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.2 ZIMMER BIOMET10.2.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.2.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.2.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.2.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.2.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.2.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.3 MEDTRONIC10.3.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.3.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.3.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.3.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.3.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.3.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.4 SMITH AND NEPHEW10.4.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.4.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.4.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.4.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.4.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.4.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.5 STRYKER.10.5.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.5.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.5.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.5.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.5.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.5.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.6 NuVasive10.6.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.6.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.6.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.6.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.6.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.6.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.7 LifeSciences10.7.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.7.2 WOT ANALYSIS10.7.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.7.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.7.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.7.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.8 GLOBUS MEDICAL10.8.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.8.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.8.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.8.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.8.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.8.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.9 DePuy Synthes10.9.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.9.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.9.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.9.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.9.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.9.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.10 Ottobock.10.10.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.10.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.10.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.10.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.10.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.10.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.11 AC Mould10.11.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.11.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.11.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.11.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.11.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.11.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.12 JOHNSON&JOHNSON10.12.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.12.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.12.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.12.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.12.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.12.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.13 Weber Orthopedic Inc.10.13.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.13.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.13.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.13.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.13.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.13.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.14 Bledsoe Brace Systems10.14.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.14.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.14.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.14.4 RODUCT PORTFOLIO10.14.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.14.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.15 FLA Orthopedics10.15.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.15.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.15.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.15.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.15.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.15.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.16 Bauerfeind USA Inc.10.16.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.16.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.16.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.16.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.16.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.16.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.17 OPPO MEDICAL INC.10.17.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.17.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.17.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.17.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.17.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.17.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS10.18 LANGER BIOMECHANICS AND BSN MEDICAL.10.18.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW10.18.2 SWOT ANALYSIS10.18.3 REVENUE ANALYSIS10.18.4 PRODUCT PORTFOLIO10.18.5 RECENT DEVELOPEMENTS10.18.6 DATA BRIDGE ANALYSIS11 APPENDIX11.1. RELATED REPORTS11.2. CUSTOMIZABLE OPTIONS11.3. SOURCE SHEET12 ABOUT DATA BRIDGE MARKET RESEARCHRelated ReportGlobal Dermatology Treatment Devices Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Dermatology Treatment Devices Market By Product Type, End User, Geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, MEA)Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024About 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:Follow us on LinkedIn:
Smart Money Investing in the Financial Services Industry Market 2017 -Develop Market-Entry and Market Expansion Strategies

Smart Money Investing in the Financial Services Industry

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2516010-smart-money-investing-in-the-financial-services-industry-tracking-m-a

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/conferences

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/seminars

SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Financial Services Smart Money Investing in the Financial Services Industry"Smart Money Investing in the Financial Services Industry - Q3 2017", report provides detailed analysis of investment activities in financial services industry globally during the third quarter of 2017.The report provides comprehensive coverage of investment activities including mergers, acquisitions, asset transactions, venture financing and private equity, both in terms of deal value and volume. It also provides a global snapshot of investment trends in sectors including banking, payments, insurance and wealth management, and information on best practices followed by market participants in the form of case studies.The report brings together research and analysis expertise to allow stakeholders to identify investment dynamics in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions.The report provides insights into investment activities in the financial services industry around the world in Q3 2017, including -- A global snapshot of investment trends in the global financial services industry.- Comprehensive coverage of deal types including mergers, acquisitions, asset transactions, venture financing and private equity.- Detailed insights into deal activities in sectors including banking, payments, insurance and wealth management.- Information on the regional dynamics of investments in the financial services industry.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- The financial services industry registered a 10% drop in merger and acquisition (M&A) deals announced in Q3 2017, with deal count declining from 469 in Q2 2017 to 421 in Q3 2017.- There was a decline in deal count across the financial services industry, the insurance segment registered 6% growth in Q3 2017. This was driven by increasing M&A activities in the brokerage and distribution networks.- The growth potential in new business models such as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and online-only banks are now attracting investment in the banking segment.Key points- Gain insights into emerging areas of investment in the financial services industry.- Identify products and services that are likely to make an impact on the market.- Gain information about key investors operating in the financial services industry.- Understand the best practices followed by market participants in the form of case studies.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
Unique Device Identification Market Estimated to Experience a Hike in Growth by 2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19915

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/19915

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/unique-device-identification-market.asp

www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Unique Device Identification intends to assign a unique identification to medical devices sold within the United States. It was signed into law on 27th September 2007 as a part of the Food And Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007. It requires the label of each device to bear a unique identification unless another location is specified by the F.D.A or an exception is made for that particular device or its grouping. It should be able to identify the device through distribution and use and also include the serial number if specified. The main motive of the Unique Device Identification market is to make a common vocabulary which will enhance tracking of medical devices electronically. When fully implemented, it will label most medical devices with a UDI readable by both people and machines. Some of the main advantages are improved patient safety by helping identify counterfeit products and improving the ability of medical staff to differentiate between devices that look similar but serve different functions. The Unique Device Identification market will better device post-market surveillance by helping streamline a recall process if required and also foster medical device innovation.There are a few key drivers for the Unique Device Identification market one of which is the desire to adopt a single global standard. If all medical devices manufacturers conform to it, it makes life easier for both them and consumers. For UDI, the standard considered is GS1 which already has 110 member organisations. GS1 has been accredited by the U.S. FDA as an issuing agency for UDIs. The unique device identification market also helps to reduce medical errors by allowing healthcare experts to rapidly identify a device & obtain important information about its characteristics.Request Sample Report @This is of particular relevance in the case of product recalls where a defective batch unit may need to be withdrawn from the market. The battle against counterfeit medicines is another factor ensuring the continued growth of the Unique Device Identification market. UDIs can allow the foundation of a secure, global supply chain to be laid and also nip counterfeiting in the bud by instantaneously identifying them. The Unique Device Identification market is also driven by the rising importance of IT adoption in healthcare. It provides a clear, standardised way of documenting devices in electronic records, information systems, data sources & patient registries. A robust post-market surveillance system can quickly clear new medical devices or new uses of existing ones.There are some challenges in the Unique Device Identification market which are cost, the time required & effort. Some medical devices or medicines like those meant for treating different forms of cancer, for example, are already prohibitively expensive. If manufacturers are forced to add a UID to them, they will simply pass on the cost to the end consumer causing them more heartache. A second issue is a time & effort required. Several smaller organisations will have to invest in this expensive technology to comply with governmental norms, further hitting their bottom line. The Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA) agrees with this and has lobbied the FDA to provide greater compliance flexibility. The transition to UID will require significant investment and with smaller medical companies facing a medical tax, increased user fees and reduced capital investment, greater flexibility will be required to comply.Request to view table of content @The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, types and applications.Read Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Power Lead-Acid Battery 2017 Global Key Players  Johnson Control, GS Yuasa, Saft Batteries, EnerSys, Exide Technologies Market Analysis And Forecast To 2022

Power Lead-Acid Battery Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1685520-global-power-lead-acid-battery-market-research-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1685520-global-power-lead-acid-battery-market-research-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1685520

Power Lead-Acid Battery Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Power Lead-Acid Battery  Global Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Description:In this report, the global Power Lead-Acid Battery market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Power Lead-Acid Battery in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Power Lead-Acid Battery market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingJohnson ControlGS YuasaSaft BatteriesEnerSysExide TechnologiesEast Penn ManufacturingStorage Battery Systems (SBS)PanasonicAxion Power InternationalLeoch International TechnologyHoppecke BatterienNavitas SystemTrojan BatteryChloride Batteries S E AsiaCrown BatteriesSebangSailMidac BatteriesRequest for Sample Report@On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoFlooded Lead-Acid BatteryVRLA Lead-Acid BatteryOn 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, includingAutomotiveMarineMachinery & EquipmentOtherEnquiry before Buying @If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of Contents:Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Research Report 20171 Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Power Lead-Acid Battery1.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Flooded Lead-Acid Battery1.2.4 VRLA Lead-Acid Battery1.3 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Segment by Application1.3.1 Power Lead-Acid Battery Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Automotive1.3.3 Marine1.3.4 Machinery & Equipment1.3.5 Other1.4 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery 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 Power Lead-Acid Battery (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)2 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.4 Manufacturers Power Lead-Acid Battery Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion..7 Global Power Lead-Acid Battery Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Johnson Control7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Johnson Control Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 GS Yuasa7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 GS Yuasa Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Saft Batteries7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Saft Batteries Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 EnerSys7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 EnerSys Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Exide Technologies7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Exide Technologies Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 East Penn Manufacturing7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 East Penn Manufacturing Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Storage Battery Systems (SBS)7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Storage Battery Systems (SBS) Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Panasonic7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Panasonic Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Axion Power International7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Axion Power International Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Leoch International Technology7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Power Lead-Acid Battery Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Leoch International Technology Power Lead-Acid Battery Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.11 Hoppecke Batterien7.12 Navitas System7.13 Trojan Battery7.14 Chloride Batteries S E Asia7.15 Crown Batteries7.16 Sebang7.17 Sail7.18 Midac BatteriesContinued..Buy now @Contact US:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)About Us:Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:: Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt Ltd: Pune  411028: Maharashtra,: Ph: +91 841 198 5042
Medical Suction Device Market to 2021: Opportunities, Investment Trends, Historical Analysis

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/546

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/medical-suction-device-market-546

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/546

Medical Suction Devices Market is Booming In around the world. The global Medical Suction Devices Market is expected to grow at a steady CAGR of 4.5% during the forecasted period. Medical Suction Devices are introduced into healing centers for various medicinal reasons.Exclusive Sample Report @In pharmaceutical, gadgets are some of the time important to make suction. Suction might be utilized to clear the aviation route of blood, spit, upchuck, or different discharges so a patient may relax. Suctioning can avert pneumonic desire, which can prompt lung contaminations. In pneumonic cleanliness, suction is utilized to expel liquids from the aviation routes, to encourage breathing and avoid development of microorganisms.A Medical suction gadget utilized as a part of respiratory conditions when emission of mucous and serum must be expelled from the body. At the point when the patient can't oust serum or mucous out of the body, these gadgets help them to evacuate it physically.They are also used during different surgical procedures such as respiratory surgery, delivery of baby, and others. Increasing prevalence of respiratory diseases, increasing birth rate and rapid development in technology drive the growth of the market.According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 32% of all deliveries in America was caesarean. In addition to this, rising geriatric population, increasing pollution, and increasing need for the advanced technology fuel the growth of the medical suction device market.Medical Suction Device Regional analysis:The Asia Pacific locale is the quickest developing business sector inferable from the nearness of colossal patient populace, expanding predominance of the respiratory sicknesses, high birth rate, and the nearness of quickly creating economies. Europe is the second biggest market took after by Asia Pacific because of expanding government bolster and changing repayment arrangements in Europe. Then again, the Middle East and Africa is required to have a restricted however unfaltering development over the anticipated period.Competitive Analysis for Medical Suction Device:Olympus Corporation (Japan), Medico, Inc. (US), SSCOR, Inc. (US), ATMOS MedizinTechnik GmbH & Co. KG (Germany), Allied Healthcare (UK), Drive Medical (US), INTEGRA Biosciences AG (Switzerland), Precision Medical, Inc. (US), ZOLL Medical Corporation (US), Labconco (US), Amsino International, Inc. (US), Siemens Healthcare Private Limited (Germany), Welch Vacuum (US), and Laerdal Medical (Norway).Medical Suction Device Market Segmentation:However, stringent reimbursement policy for suction devices may hamper the growth of the global medical suction device market over the forecast period.The global market of medical suction device market is segmented on the basis of types, applications, suction parts and end users.Get Full Report @On the basis of types the market is segmented: electric powered, battery-powered, dual, manual and others.Suction parts, it is segmented: vacuum pump, bacterial filter, vacuum gauge, moisture or debris trap, suction catheter and others.End users the market is segmented into homecare, hospital, clinics, and others.Applications, the market is segmented into surgical, research and other. Surgical is further segmented into respiratory diseases, childbirth and others.Table of Contents:1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction3 Research Methodology4 Market Dynamics5 Market Factor Analysis6. Global Medical Suction Device Market, By Type7. Global Medical Suction Device Market, By Application8. Global Medical Suction Device Market, By Suction9. Global Medical Suction Device Market, By End Users10. Global Medical Suction Device Market, By Region11 Competitive Landscape12 Company Profile13 Conclusion14 AppendixIn growth of Medical Suction Device Market Many things are important just like Medical Suction Device Manufacturers, Medical Suction Device Suppliers & Distributers, Suction Device, Parts Manufacturers, Research and Development (R&D) Companies, Medical Research Laboratories, Academic Medical Institutes and UniversitiesAsk for this Report @At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Powder Bed Fusion Market is likely to register single digit CAGR during 2017 - 2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/20002

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/20002

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/powder-bed-fusion-market.asp

www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Additive manufacturing is a unique process which manufactures parts directly from a digital 3D blueprint. It uses a layering approach to building up materials step by step. It is also known as 3D printing and can be effectively utilised to produce dense metallic parts with a high degree of precision. It has the advantages of part customization, complexity, consolidation and light building material. It is of great importance in the aerospace, defence, automobile manufacturing, and oil & gas industries. The powder bed fusion market is one part of the overall metal 3D printing processes, the other being Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technology. In this method, each powder bed layer is selectively fused together by using laser or electron beams. It includes Direct Metal Laser sintering (DMLS), Selective heat sintering (SHS), Selective laser sintering (SLS), and Electron beam melting (EBM) and Selective laser melting (SLM). All these processes involve spreading the powder material over various layers. They can use any powder based materials, but commonly used examples are Nylon, Stainless Steel, Titanium, Cobalt Chrome, Steel, and Aluminium.3D printing in the powder bed fusion market is most suited for places where there are low volume and high geometric complexity. With increasing technology and decreasing cost, though, the powder bed fusion market is only likely to grow. Some of the drivers include the greater complexity of devices required in a faster time period. Powder bed fusion manufacturing allows more complex designs with a lighter building material. This can allow rapid prototyping, vital in industries like aerospace, defence and even the automobile industry. It is also vital in cost and weight reduction, which can dramatically improve cost savings over the lifetime of the product. These cost-savings can also be passed onto consumers, benefiting both them and manufacturers. It has also made significant inroads in the medical and oil & gas industries. It is used to build medical instrumentation like guides to assist proper surgical placement, medical implants like hip joints and external prostheses like hands. Thus, the booming aerospace industry worldwide along with the ageing population requiring medical devices can be considered the two main drivers of the powder bed fusion market.Request Sample Report @Substantial progress has been made in the powder bed fusion market, however, some challenges still remain. Reduction in cost will benefit any industry and the price of the powder bed fusion equipment is still prohibitively high. Performance in terms of speed, process control and accuracy will also go a long way in boosting adoption of devices sold in the powder bed fusion market. In-process quality control, monitoring and closed loop control systems will also help to improve the consistency, reliability and uniformity of the equipment. Greater speed in building the machines, designing more complex variations and reducing assembly line requirements could also widen the scope of the powder bed fusion market in the years to come.The powder bed fusion process finds widespread application in the aerospace, medical and oil & gas industries. Therefore, the powder bed fusion market will have the greatest growth opportunities in those regions where these respective industries are dominant. For the aerospace & medical industries, the main regions to target include the U.S, the E.U, China, Japan and India. The Middle East accounts for 3/5th of global crude oil production, so manufacturers would be well-advised to not ignore this dynamic region either. Hence, there is great growth potential for the powder bed fusion market across the world.Request to view table of content @The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data. It also contains projections using a suitable set of assumptions and methodologies. The research report provides analysis and information according to market segments such as geographies, types and applications.Read Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Consumer Payments Country Snapshot Indonesia Market 2017 -Develop Market-Entry and Market Expansion Strategies

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1705950-consumer-payments-country-snapshot-indonesia-2016

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/conferences

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/seminars

SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, title Consumer Payments Country Snapshot: Indonesia."Consumer Payments Country Snapshot: Indonesia 2016", report examines the consumer payments market in Indonesia, considering payment cards, online payments, P2P payments, and newer payment technologies such as mobile wallets and contactless. The report also examines the main regulatory players overseeing the market.Indonesia remains a cash-driven economy, although new payment technologies are expected to gradually increase in importance, with e-commerce and mobile payments in particular predicted to drive significant growth and opportunities through 2021. The modernization of the countrys payments infrastructure and the National Non-Cash Movement promoted by Bank Indonesia will support the transition to digital payments. However, this change will take time to spread throughout the market.Specifically the report - Analyzes consumer attitudes to financial services by lifestage.- Analyzes the major payment card types in terms of both card holding and usage.- Identifies the major competitors in card issuing and how their position in the market has changed over the last five years.- Considers consumer attitudes towards P2P tools, mobile payment tools, and contactless cards, and how companies in Indonesia are deploying these tools to meet customer needs.- Explores the online payment market in Indonesia by merchant type and payment tool, as well as providing a five-year forecast for the development of the market.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- While cash remains an important traditional payment tool in Indonesia, cards will be used more frequently as the move to non-cash payments accelerates.- There is significant future growth potential in e-commerce, which will be driven by an increase in mobile internet penetration as well as the emerging middle class.- In spite of recent progress, Indonesias payment acceptance network is still underdeveloped, with only 1 point of sale terminal per 246 people and 1 ATM per 2,501 people in 2015.Key points to buy- Understand the key facts and figures in the consumer payments market in Indonesia.- Learn what trends drive consumer behavior at the macro level and plan your strategy accordingly.- Find out what products the major competitors are launching in the market.- Discover consumer sentiments towards various payment tools in the Indonesian market and use this knowledge to inform product design.Table of ContentsMegatrendsProximity PaymentsRemote PaymentsPayments Infrastructure & RegulationAppendixFor 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
Global Data Acquisition Software Market 2017 Key Players -HBM, National Instruments, Yokogawa, Texas Instruments, Accurate Technologies, Fluke, Lovibond,..

Data Acquisition Software Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/928792-global-data-acquisition-software-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/928792-global-data-acquisition-software-market-size-status-and-forecast-2022

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=928792

Data Acquisition Software Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Data Acquisition Software Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies the global Data Acquisition Software market, analyzes and researches the Data Acquisition Software development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeHBMNational InstrumentsYokogawaTexas InstrumentsAccurate TechnologiesFlukeLovibond...Request Sample Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Application, Data Acquisition Software can be split intoApplication 1Application 2For further information on this report, visit Table of Content:Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Data Acquisition Software1.1 Data Acquisition Software Market Overview1.1.1 Data Acquisition Software Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Analysis by Regions1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Data Acquisition Software Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 22 Global Data Acquisition Software Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Data Acquisition Software Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)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 HBM3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 National Instruments3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Yokogawa3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Texas Instruments3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Accurate Technologies3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Fluke3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Lovibond3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Data Acquisition Software Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments4 Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.2 Potential Application of Data Acquisition Software in Future4.3 Top Consumer/End Users of Data Acquisition Software5 United States Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)7 Japan Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)7.2 Japan Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)8 China Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook8.1 China Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)8.2 China Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)9 India Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook9.1 India Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)9.2 India Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)10 Southeast Asia Data Acquisition Software Development Status and Outlook10.1 Southeast Asia Data Acquisition Software Market Size (2012-2017)10.2 Southeast Asia Data Acquisition Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)11 Market Forecast by Regions and Application (2017-2022)11.1 Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size (Value) by Regions (2017-2022)11.1.1 United States Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.2 EU Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.3 Japan Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.4 China Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.5 India Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.6 Southeast Asia Data Acquisition Software Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.2 Global Data Acquisition Software Market Size (Value) by Application (2017-2022)11.3 The Market Drivers in Future12 Data Acquisition Software Market Dynamics12.1 Data Acquisition Software Market Opportunities12.2 Data Acquisition Software Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 Data Acquisition Software Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 Data Acquisition Software Market Driving Force12.4.1 Growing Demand from Emerging Markets12.4.2 Potential Application13 Market Effect Factors Analysis13.1 Technology Progress/Risk13.1.1 Substitutes13.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry13.2 Consumer Needs Trend/Customer Preference13.3 External Environmental Change13.3.1 Economic Fluctuations13.3.2 Other Risk Factors14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixContinuousBuy this Report @Contact Us:Norah Trentsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +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:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042
Discover J.P. Morgan Private Banks Financial Performance and Growth Strategy

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2401016-super-league-in-depth-analysis-j-p-morgan-private-bank-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/conferences

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/seminars

Pune, India, 06th November 2017: WiseGuyReports announced addition of new report, titled Super League In-Depth Analysis: J.P. Morgan Private Bank 2017 - Tracking the worlds major competitors in wealth managementJP Morgan Chase & Company is an American-based financial services company. J.P. Morgan and Chase. J.P. Morgan Private Bank both of them are controlled by JP Morgan Chase & Company. The names have spread across the globe in such way that it has been used as a brand by the Department of Asset and Wealth Management (AWM) business so that people and institutions can invest more than $ 10 million for investment.GET SAMPLE REPORT @The report covers a complete evaluation of J.P. Morgan Private Banks including major market drivers, challenges, investment capabilities, vertical market opportunities and usage issues, future roadmaps, value chain, big data analytics, vendor market share, and case studies on policies. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global J.P. Morgan Private Banks market in terms of volume for 207 and coming years.The study of report also provides insights into company's policies, financial results and marketing activities. It includes the latest merger and acquisition (M & A) activities, customer targeting and product innovation.As per report study in 2016, the company focused on HNW's Private Banking Focus, which exceeds $ 10m in Liquidate, compared to the previous cutoff of $ 5m. JP Morgan already started growing in the US and global. In 2017, they announced that he would launch property management operations in Mexico and Colombia. J.P. Morgan's concentrating more on technical advancement in order to improve its AWM division's performance and provide better services to customers.The major highlight of the report are, the analysis of JP Morgan Private Bank's production and service proposal and how it is unique compared to its competitors. A clear explanation of its geographical scope and expansion policy with M & A activity. J.P. Bank's Marketing Review Branding and Social Media Activities. The examination of key target client groups. Review of the firm's organizational structure.The major players cover in the report are J.P. Morgan, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Quorum and Invest Cloud.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
Payments Landscape in India Market 2017- Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Research Report 2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2431243-payments-landscape-in-india-opportunities-and-risks-to-2021

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/conferences

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/seminars

SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Payments Landscape in India"Payments Landscape in India: Opportunities and Risks to 2021", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in Indian cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, direct debit, cash, payment cards, and cheques during the review-period (2013-17e).The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, transaction values and volumes during the review-period and over the forecast-period (2017-21f). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.The report brings together research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.This report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Indian cards and payments industry, including - Current and forecast values for each market in the Indian cards and payments industry, including debit, credit, and charge cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, direct debit, cheques, cash, and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing Indian cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit, and charge cards.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Scope- To tackle the issue of black money and counterfeit currency, the Indian government decided to cancel the INR500 and INR1,000 notes as legal tender from midnight of November 8, 2016; these are now being replaced with new notes. These notes accounted for more than 85% of the total currency in circulation in value terms, and the move has resulted in a shortage of cash as a result of logistical issues in making the new notes available. The shortage of cash is expected to encourage the use of payment cards and digital wallets in the country.- Uptake of alternative payments among Indian consumers is gaining traction due to the availability of options such as PayPal, Paytm, FreeCharge, and airtel Money. Most recently, in March 2017 Samsung Pay entered the Indian market. Supporting banks and card issuers include Axis Bank, Citibank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India (SBI), Standard Chartered Bank, and American Express. Other digital wallets launched by banks include Pockets by ICICI Bank in February 2015 and Lime by Axis Bank in September 2015. The entry of new payment solutions is likely to intensify competition in Indias alternative payments market.- The emergence of mobile-only banks is likely to further accelerate the shift towards electronic payments in India. Singapore-based DBS Bank launched Indias first mobile-only bank, digibank, in April 2016; the zero-balance savings account comes with a Visa debit card. Customers are entitled to an unlimited number of cash withdrawals, and are offered cashback and discounts on in-store and online purchases. Customers can open accounts at any of the banks partner outlets by providing their Aadhaar Card details and biometrics for authentication.Key points to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to Indian cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in Indian cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Indian cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in India.- Gain insights into key regulations governing Indian cards and payments industry.Table of ContentsMarket OverviewExecutive SummaryCard-based PaymentsE-commerce PaymentsAlternative PaymentsPayments Infrastructure & RegulationAppendixFor 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
Global Venous Stents Market Value Expanding at a CAGR of 9.95 % in 2017- 2025

MRRSE

https://www.mrrse.com/sample/4028

https://www.mrrse.com/venous-stents-market

https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/4028

https://www.mrrse.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

A new report added to the repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine Venous Stents Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025 is a comprehensive repository of information, providing market share, size, and forecast.Request to view Sample Report @Global Venous Stents: SnapshotVenous Stents are mesh tubes, implanted in the veins for chronic symptomatic venous diseases. The venous stents function the same way as that of the arterial stents. They expand against the narrowed or obstructed veins and keep them open. They are the flexible devices used in the peripheral as well as central veins, and act as a scaffold for the vascular walls. Emergence of various efficient technologies for the precise placement of stents in veins, and rising investment of key players in the development of flexible venous stents with high radial strength are the major factors expected to drive the market of venous stents during the forecast period. However, low awareness about the venous interventional procedures in the developing countries is likely to restrain the market growth of venous stents during 2017-2025.Iliac Vein Stent Technology to Maintain Lead throughout Forecast PeriodThe global venous stents market has been segmented on the basis of technology, application, and disease indication. On the basis of technology, the global venous stents market is divided into iliac vein stent technology, wallstent technology, and such as stenting techniques for long deep veins such as femoral veins, popliteal veins, and veins in the arms. The iliac vein stent technology accounted for the highest market share in terms of revenue in 2016, and is likely to remain leading by 2025. The dominance of Iliac vein stent technology is attributed to the improved access to the deep veins located in the iliac portion with the help of advanced surgical tools. However, Wallstent technology is likely to witness relatively significant CAGR during the forecast period, owing to the pre-marketing approval of Wallstent Endoprosthesis in the U.S. in 2016.Based on application, the global venous stent market is segmented into leg, chest, abdomen, and arm. The leg application segment accounted for highest revenue in 2016, owing to the emphasis of key players on the venous stents development specifically for femoral & popliteal veins. Chest application segment is estimated to witness maximum CAGR during 2017-2025, which is attributed to the green signal by regulatory authorities for the approval of venous stents for superior vena cava.On the basis of disease indication, the global venous stents market is divided into chronic deep vein thrombosis (DVT), Post thrombotic syndrome (PTS), May-Thurner Syndrome, Hemodialysis/Arteriovenous Fistulae, and others. Other disease indication segment is comprised of venous occlusion, re-stenosis, and nutcrackers syndrome. The others segment accounted for highest revenue in 2016, and is likely to remain dominant during the forecast period. However, chronic DVT is projected to register highest CAGR during 2017-2025, owing to the government participation in the venous disease management across the globe.View Specifics Report with Table of Content @Strong Presence of Players Puts Europe at ForefrontGeographically, global venous stents market is divided into five major regions, which are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Europe dominated the global venous stents market in terms of value in 2016. The region is estimated to remain dominant during the forecast period, due to strategic presence of key venous stents manufacturers in Europe. Ongoing clinical trials of venous stents in the U.S., and rising demand for clinically efficient venous interventional devices are the major factors for the estimated growth of venous stents in North America by 2025. However, Asia Pacific is likely to grow with relatively significant CAGR during 2017-2025, due to rising investment by public & private players for the betterment of healthcare services in Asia Pacific region.Globally, major players operating in the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of venous stents are Boston Scientific Corporation, C. R. Bard, Inc., Jotec GmBH, Veniti, Inc., Gore Medical, Cook Medical, and Optimed Medizinische Instrumente GmBH.Send an Inquiry @Market 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.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:Read More Industry News At:
Payments Landscape in Mexico Market 2017  By Analyzing the Performance of Various Competitors 2021

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2431245-payments-landscape-in-mexico-opportunities-and-risks-to-2021

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/conferences

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/seminars

SUMMARYWiseGuyReports published new report, titled Payments Landscape in Mexico"Payments Landscape in Mexico: Opportunities and Risks to 2021", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Mexican cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, direct debit, cash, payment cards, and cheques during the review-period (2013-17e).The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, transaction values and volumes during the review-period and over the forecast-period (2017-21f). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.The report brings together research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.This report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Mexican cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Mexican cards and payments industry, including debit, credit, and charge cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, direct debit, cheques, cash, and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis and payment methods.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Mexican cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit, and charge cards.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Cash remains the preferred form of consumer payments, especially among the rural population, primarily due to limited knowledge of payment cards or limited access to banking infrastructure. Cash is primarily used for making small-value payments at retailers, and for the payment of utility bills, taxes, and transport fares. A significant proportion of the population is engaged in informal activities, including farmers, street vendors, domestic servants, and self-employed workers. The payment card market is growing strongly but not explosively, and current trends make it unlikely that there will be a major shift in the near future. Various charges on cards and bank accounts also reduce the appeal of payment cards for most Mexican consumers. Contactless cards and mobile proximity payments are not widely used in Mexico, although the major banks have made some attempts to boost adoption of these technologies.Key findings:To further enhance financial inclusion, Mexico joined the UNs Better Than Cash Alliance in June 2016. The move comes after the government introduced a national policy on financial inclusion to promote the use of electronic payments across the country and reduce the dependence on cash. With 86% of the 124.6 million population owning mobile phones, Better Than Cash Alliance aims to harness the popularity of mobile phones for digital payments.The uptake of alternative payments is gradually increasing in Mexico, with banks launching new solutions in the market. In partnership with Mastercard, Banamex launched its digital wallet, Banamex Wallet, in February 2016. The Android-compatible mobile app can be used to make contactless m-payments, which are authorized by a four-digit PIN. Users can add all Mastercard-branded credit cards to the wallet. Earlier in June 2014, BBVA Bancomer launched its mobile wallet BBVA Wallet in Mexico. The wallet allows secure NFC payments at merchant locations that accept contactless payments. Available on phones with Android 4.4 and above, other phones can use the wallet through NFC stickers.To combat fraudulent payment activities in Mexico, banks and scheme providers are taking a number of measures, with one example being Mastercards introduction of the Identity Check Mobile solution in November 2016. The solution allows card holders to verify online payment by scanning their fingerprint or taking a selfie. Unlike existing identity verification methods - which take shoppers away from a merchants website or mobile app and often require them to remember and enter a password - Mastercard Identity Check Mobile verifies the user via technologies such as biometrics and one-time passwords. Earlier in January 2015, Oberthur Technologies (OT) partnered with Mexican payment processing services provider Promocion y Operacin SA (PROSA) to launch OT Motion Code technology. With Motion Code the cards CVV code is replaced with a mini-screen on which the CVV code changes automatically at regular intervals, making it impossible for fraudsters to misuse.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
Demand of Chinese Access Control Systems in Global Industry : Overview, Size, Share, Trends, Analysis and Research 2017-2022

Market Research Report

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1402055

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-and-chinese-access-control-systems-industry-2017-market-research-report-report.html/toc

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global and Chinese Access Control Systems Industry, 2017 Market Research Report" to its huge collection of research reports.The 'Global and Chinese Access Control Systems Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Access Control Systems industry with a focus on the Chinese market.The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Access Control Systems manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including its definition, applications and manufacturing technology. Then, the report explores the international and Chinese major industry players in detail. In this part, the report presents the company profile, product specifications, capacity, production value, and 2012-2017 market shares for each company. Through the statistical analysis, the report depicts the global and Chinese total market of Access Control Systems industry including capacity, production, production value, cost/profit, supply/demand and Chinese import/export.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The total market is further divided by company, by country, and by application/type for the competitive landscape analysis. The report then estimates 2017-2022 market development trends of Access Control Systems industry. Analysis of upstream raw materials, downstream demand, and current market dynamics is also carried out. In the end, the report makes some important proposals for a new project of Access Control Systems Industry before evaluating its feasibility. Overall, the report provides an in-depth insight of 2012-2022 global and Chinese Access Control Systems industry covering all important parameters.Chapter One Introduction of Access Control Systems Industry1.1 Brief Introduction of Access Control Systems1.2 Development of Access Control Systems Industry1.3 Status of Access Control Systems IndustryChapter Two Manufacturing Technology of Access Control Systems2.1 Development of Access Control Systems Manufacturing Technology2.2 Analysis of Access Control Systems Manufacturing Technology2.3 Trends of Access Control Systems Manufacturing TechnologyMake an Enquiry about TOC @Chapter Three Analysis of Global Key Manufacturers3.1 Company A3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Product Information3.1.3 2012-2017 Production Information3.1.4 Contact Information3.2 Company B3.2.1 Company ProfileChapter Four 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Market of Access Control Systems4.1 2012-2017 Global Capacity, Production and Production Value of Access Control Systems Industry4.2 2012-2017 Global Cost and Profit of Access Control Systems Industry4.3 Market Comparison of Global and Chinese Access Control Systems Industry4.4 2012-2017 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Access Control Systems4.5 2012-2017 Chinese Import and Export of Access Control SystemsChapter Five Market Status of Access Control Systems Industry5.1 Market Competition of Access Control Systems Industry by Company5.2 Market Competition of Access Control Systems Industry by Country (USA, EU, Japan, Chinese etc.)5.3 Market Analysis of Access Control Systems Consumption by Application/TypeAbout 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.For More Information Kindly Contact:ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @ResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.us
Acoustic Insulation Market is projected to Reach USD 14.10 Billion and CAGR of 5.6% by 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2862

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/acoustic-insulation-market-2862

Market Scenario:Acoustic insulation is used either for noise reduction or for noise absorption. The rising construction & infrastructural activities across the globe, is the major driving factor of the market. Stringent government regulations regarding noise pollution adds to the market growth. Increasing consumer awareness regarding energy consumption has a positive influence on the market. However, the lack of awareness of acoustic insulation material, is a restraint that may hamper the market growth.The Global Acoustic Insulation Market is projected to reach USD 14.10 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 5.6% during the forecast period.Regional AnalysisAsia-Pacific region dominates the global acoustic insulation market, followed by North America. Growing demand from construction and infrastructure sector driving the demand of the market in Asia-Pacific region. Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at the fastest pace during the forecast period. Europe is another major market for acoustic insulation. Building safety codes in countries such as U.K., Germany, and France is driving the demand of the market in the region.Request a sample @Key PlayersThe key players of Acoustic Insulation Market are - ROCKWOOL International A/S (Denmark), Knauf Insulation GmbH (Germany), Saint-Gobain S.A. (France), Owens Corning Corporation (U.S.), Johns Manville Corporation (U.S.), BASF SE (Germany), Paroc Group Oy (Finland), Kingspan Group PLC (Ireland), Fletcher Insulation (Australia), and Armacell GmbH (Germany).Intended Audience Manufacturing Industries Distributer & Supplier companies consultants and Investment bankers Government as well as Independent Regulatory Authorities Research OrganizationsProduct Analysis Product matrix which gives a detailed comparison of the market for different recycled product typesAdditional Information Regulatory Landscape Pricing Analysis Macroeconomic IndicatorsGeographic Analysis Geographical analysis across 15 countriesCompany Information Profiling of 10 key market players In-depth analysis including SWOT analysis, and strategy information of related to report title Competitive landscape including emerging trends adopted by major companiesThe report for Global Acoustic Insulation 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.Browse report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, 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.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market to Register Steady Growth During 2017-2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19879

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/19879

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market: IntroductionPrefabricated glass blocks are one of the most versatile building interior and exterior design solution that are available from a vast array of sizes, colors and design to find the ideal utilization for the building indoor and outdoor design applications. Prefabricated glass block is manufactured by simple process. Silica sand, soda ash and limestone are used in the manufacturing of prefabricated glass blocks. Coating of polyvinyl butyral is applied on the glass block for expansion and contraction cycle of the block as well as to increase the mortar bond. Each block is tested for clarity and consistency. Furthermore, prefabricated glass block has a dynamic relationship with both natural and artificial light, as the light changes so do the materials appearance and surrounding environment changes and its also depend on the transparency and pattern of the prefabricated glass block. Prefabricated glass block are also available according to the need and demand of consumer. They are used in various applications such as parking garages, subway terminals, schools and gymnasiums etc.A sample of this report is available upon request @Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market: Market DynamicsMarket of Pre-Fabricated Glass Block is on upward scale, owing to increase in uses of prefabricated glass block for home interior solution such as window and floor application. Excellent fire rating, good sound reduction quality, high thermal insulation as well as good light conductivity with increased security are some built in advantages that are estimated to boost the growth of prefabricated glass block market in the forecast period. U.S. Green Building council (USGBC) and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) are widely using the prefabricated glass blocks for the green building project which in turn, has increased the demand of prefabricated glass blocks in the market. Moreover, glass block is made of glass and typically bonded together with mortar, it does not require any maintenance or special care this factor is anticipated for the growth of said market.It is crucial to become familiar with the technical properties of glass block because working with glass block requires a certain level of skill and a thorough understanding of the material. This factor can act as restraint for the prefabricated glass block market.Now a days, these glass blocks are used in hospitals, clinics, government construction projects and polices stations owing to its health, safety and environmental benefits as well as resistance to surface condensation. These factors become the driver for the prefabricated glass block market in the upcoming years.Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market: SegmentationPre-Fabricated Glass Block Market can be segmented by design, by types and by End User:-On the basis of design it can be further segmented into:Clear designEtched designOthersOn the basis of type it can be further segmented into:End BlockDouble End BlockCorner BlockOthersOn the basis of End User it can be further segmented into:ResidentialCommercialIndustrialOthersPre-Fabricated Glass Block Market: Regional OverviewThe Global Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market can be segmented into five geographical regions such as North America, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The Asia-Pacific market is estimated to grow in the forecast period, owing to increase in disposable income, household activity and infrastructural development. Asia pacific region is also projected to hold a prominent market share in the Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market. Furthermore, the market in North America is expected to grow with high CAGR, due to high standard of living and increase in construction activity. European market is one of the prominent region for the said market due to increase in industrialization. The Middle East and Africa market is expected to grow with moderate pace in the upcoming years, owing to growing construction and building that boost the growth of Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Pre-Fabricated Glass Block Market: Market participantsExamples of some of the market participants identified across the value chain of the global Pre-Fabricated Glass Block market includes:Nippon Electric Glass Co., LtdELECTRIC GLASS BUILDING MATERIALS CO., LTD.Shackerley (Holdings) Group LtdCircle RedmontSEVES GLASSBLOCKCincinnati Glass Block (RGF Industries)Global Glass Block Co.Mulia IndustrindoHebei Jihengyuan Industrial Group Co., LtdDezhou Jinghua Group co.ltdSierra Glass Block and Hawaii Glass BlockAbout 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:
Rapidly Developing Spinal Implant to Rigorously Expand at an Exceptional CAGR Rate

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2050

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/spinal-implants-market-2050

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/2050

www.marketresearchfuture.com

Chronic back pain is one of the primary reasons for the increase in cases for spinal related injuries. Spinal injuries and diseases are increasing due to rise in sedentary lifestyle patterns. A vast majority of adults will have faced spine related issues at least once in their life, some of which will require surgical intervention. In cases where the severity level of pain is high and the pain does not dissipate with the use of correctional therapies, exercises and medication; surgery may the best option to treat the situation. Spinal implants are utilized in this case to correct the factor causing pain and rectify the issue.Get a sample report atSpine surgery carries a high level of healthcare expenditure in which spinal implants expenses represent a hefty portion of the total cost of a spine surgery budget. One of the main drivers of this cost are expensive implant costs in a relatively new market in which surgeons choose the implant and hospitals and third party payers foot the bill such as insurance companies or medical aid providers. Spinal implants demand is on the rise due to certain factors such as increased cases detected related to spinal disorders and demand for minimally invasive procedures. Spinal implants are progressively being used in spine related cases like arthritis of the spine, scoliosis and other deformities of the spine, broken vertebrae, spondylolisthesis and herniated disk to name a few.Growing number of cases of spine related disorders, availability of technologically enhanced, cost effective and safer spinal devices and a large portion of geriatric population are adding to the demand that is generated for this market. Development of minimally invasive surgery procedures due to enhancement of medical expertise is further causing expansion of the demand of spinal implants. Furthermore, evolution of this sector in the emergent economies and rise in the number of hospitals and surgical centers are expected to offer decent growth opportunities in the coming time period. The sector can be restricted due to strict product approval guidelines laid down by governments and regulatory bodies. Lack of skilled surgeons and low awareness levels of the benefits of spinal implants can hamper growth of the sector.Browse complete Report atLatest Industry Updates:Nov 2017 Medical device-maker DiFusion Technologies chose Zeniva ZA-500 polyetheretherketone (PEEK) as the base polymer for its ZFUZE osteoconductive PEEK composite for spinal implants from Solvay, a leading global supplier of specialty polymers.Nov 2017 Medicrea received FDA clearance for its IB3D range of 3-D printed titanium interbody devices and introduced AdapTEK. This adds to Medicreas 30 FDA approved spinal implant technologies, which have been used in more than 150,000 spinal surgeries.Nov 2017 Titan Spine, a medical device surface technology company focused on developing innovative spinal interbody fusion implants announced recently the first surgeries in Australia using the Companys proprietary Endoskeleton interbody fusion devices and surface technology, marking the Companys entry into a robust new market.Dec 2017 ChoiceSpine LP, a privately-held spinal device manufacturer based in Knoxville, USA announced the first clinical use of HAWKEYE Ti, a 3D-printed, titanium Vertebral Body Replacement (VBR) device. The HAWKEYE Ti device has been designed to stabilize and fuse the vertebral column with elegantly simple implants in a variety of shapes and sizes.Study Objectives of Spinal Implants Market:Providing detail analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 7 years of various segments and sub-segments of the spinal implants market.Giving insights about factors which are affecting the market growth.Analyzing the market based on various factors- price analysis, supply chain analysis, Porters Five Force Analysis etc.Providing record about the past along with estimated future revenue of the markets segments and sub-segments with respect to four main geographies and their countries- Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa.Giving country level analysis of the market with respect to current market size and estimated future growth of the same.Providing country level analysis of the market segments by type, by procedure, by material and its sub-segments.Providing an overview of key players along with their strategic profiling in the market, comprehensively analyzing their core competencies and drawing their current status in the market with respect to competition.Tracking and analyzing competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments along with research and developments currently happening in the global spinal implants market.Get a discount atThe report for spinal implants 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 regionsAbout usAt Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureP: +1 646 845 9312W:sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Global Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) Market - Industry Size, Share, Development, Growth, Key Players and Demand Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/653800/?utm_source=OPR-PSR

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/653800/

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-vector-network-analyzer-vna-market-by-manufacturers-countries-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/united-states-vector-network-analyzer-market-report-2017/?utm_source=RR-PSR

https://www.marketstudyreport.com

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/category/news-releases/

Market Study Report Add New Global Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 to its research database presenting a deep study of the market growth factors and drivers. The report spread across 120 pages with table and figures in it.The Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), VNA is a form of RF network analyzer widely used for RF design applications. A Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is a test system that enables the RF performance of radio frequency (RF) and microwave devices to be characterized in terms of network scattering parameters, or S parameters. The information provided by the Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) is then used to ensure that the RF design of the circuit is optimized to provide the best performance.Get Free Sample Copy of this Report:Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Global Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) Market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Keysight Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz, Anritsu, Advantest, The 41st Institute of CETC, Transcom Instruments, Copper Mountain Technologies, National Instrument, GS Instrument, OMICRON Lab,AWT Global, Chengdu Tianda Instrument, Nanjing PNA Instruments.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.), Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa).Market Segment by Type, covers:0-10GHz, 10-50GHz, 50+ GHzMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Communications, Automotive, Electronic Manufacturing, Aerospace and Defense, Others.Get Discount on this Report:There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) market.Chapter 1, to describe Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), with sales, revenue, and price of Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Get More Details On this Report:Related Report:United States Vector Network Analyzer Market Report 2017In this report, the United States Vector Network Analyzer market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:News:
Aircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market to Develop Rapidly by 2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19861

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/19861

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Aircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market: IntroductionFire break out is one of the most hazardous threat to an aircraft for which fire protection system has been devised to extinguish the combustion and arrest the potential collateral damage. A complete fire protection system includes a fire or smoke detection system and a fire extinguishing system. Fire or smoke detection system is generally provided in engines, baggage compartment, lavatory, jet pipes, APU, and main landing gears etc. Monitoring of the aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system can be done from the cockpit itself. The growing air passenger traffic is leading towards the expansion of existing fleets into larger number of new fleets. Increasing frequency of flight accidents is leading towards increased demand for more innovative and efficient technologies in safety and security of the flights which in turn is expected to drive the market for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system across the globe.A sample of this report is available upon request @Aircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market: DynamicsIncreasing number of passengers opting for air travel is causing an increase in the global aircraft fleet which is expected to be the key driver for global aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market over the forecast period. Increasing safety concern and implementation of various regulations such as compulsory use of fire extinguishing system in different zones of an aircraft is also expected to drive the market for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market. The application of fiber optics in the aircrafts temperature sensing or smoke detection system is anticipated to influence the growth of aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market positively. Growing need of new and advanced technologies for better safety and protection is anticipated to propel the demand for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system in the coming years. Owing to the above factors, the global demand for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system is expected to grow at a significant pace during the forecast period.The implementation of environmentally feasible fire extinguishing system is an ongoing trend which is expected to gain traction in the aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market in the upcoming years.Aircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market: SegmentThe aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market can be segmented based on product type, and applicationBy application, the aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market can be segmented as:Passenger jetsCargo jetsBy product type, the aircraft fire extinguishing system market can be segmented as:HandheldSensor basedBy product type, the aircraft smoke detection system market can be segmented as:IonizationphotoelectricAircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market: Regional OutlookIncreasing air traffic across the globe is expected to contribute to the growth of aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market over the forecast period. Increased requirement for in flight passenger and goods safety due to increasing number of air accidents has led to the rising demand for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system all over the world contributing to the growth of the fire protection system market during the forecast period. Significant investment made by the manufacturers in the field of research and development for obtaining better technologies concerning safety of the aircraft has substantially propel the demand for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system. Presence of large number of manufacturers in the region of North America and Europe is contributing to the growth of the aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system market. Growing economy and foreign investment in Japan and various countries of Asia pacific is influencing the growth of aviation industry which in turns is driving the market for aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system in the region during the forecast period.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Aircraft Smoke Detection and Fire Extinguishing System Market: Key ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants identified across the value chain of the global aircraft smoke detection and fire extinguishing system includeAdvanced Aircraft ExtinguishersDiehl StiftungMeggittSiemensUTC Aerospace SystemsAmerexFFE LimitedGielleH3R AviationVentura AerospaceAbout 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:
Social Media Analytics Global and United States Industry Analysis and Latest Research Report 2017-2022

Social Media Analytics

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1295156

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-and-united-states-social-media-analytics-in-depth-research-report-2017-2022-report.html/toc

https://www.researchmoz.us/

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global and United States Social Media Analytics In-Depth Research Report 2017-2022" to its huge collection of research reports.The report is based on the market historical data from 2012 to 2016 and forecast the market trend from 2017 to 2022.This report focuses on the U.S. market and presents volume and value of market share by players, by regions, by product type, by consumers and also changes in prices. As an in-depth report, it covers all details inside analysis and opinions in Social Media Analytics industry.Major CompaniesInternational Business Machines Corporation (US)Oracle Corporation (US)Salesforce (US)Adobe Systems Incorporated (US)SAS Institute Inc. (US)Clarabridge, Inc. (US)Netbase Solutions, Inc. (US)Brandwatch (UK)Talkwalker Inc., (Luxembourg)GoodData Corporation (US)Crimson Hexagon, Inc. (US)Simply Measured, Inc. (US)Sysomos (Canada)Digimind (US)Unmetric Inc. (US)Cision US Inc. (US)Simplify360, Inc. (India)Hootsuite Media Inc. (Canada)Meltwater (US)Germinait Solutions Private Limited (India)Socialbakers (US)Spredfast, Inc. (US)Sprinkler, Inc. (US)Synthesio (US)Lithium Technologies, Inc. (US)Tableau Software Inc. (US)Tencent (China)To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Key RegionsNorth AmericaUnited StatesCaliforniaTexasNew YorkOthersCanadaLatin AmericaMexicoBrazilArgentinaOthersEuropeGermanyUnited KingdomFranceItalySpainRussiaNetherlandOthersAsia & PacificChinaJapanIndiaKoreaAustraliaSoutheast AsiaIndonesiaThailandPhilippinesVietnamSingaporeMalaysiaOthersAfrica & Middle EastSouth AfricaEgyptTurkeySaudi ArabiaIranOthersMain types of productsSocial Media Analytics Market, by Analytics TypePredictive analyticsPrescriptive analyticsDiagnostic analyticsDescriptive analyticsSocial Media Analytics Market, by Deployment ModelOn-premisesCloudSocial Media Analytics Market, by ComponentSoftwareServicesManaged servicesProfessional servicesSupport and maintenance servicesSocial Media Analytics Market, by Key ConsumersSmall and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)Large enterprisesGet Complete TOC With Tables and Figures @Table of ContentsGlobal and United States Social Media Analytics In-Depth Research Report 2017-2022Chapter One Global Social Media Analytics Market Overview1.1 Global Social Media Analytics Market Sales Volume Revenue and Price 2012-20171.2 Social Media Analytics, by Analytics Type 2012-20171.2.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Analytics Type 2012-20171.2.2 Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Analytics Type 2012-20171.2.3 Global Social Media Analytics Price by Analytics Type 2012-20171.2.4 Predictive analytics1.2.5 Prescriptive analytics1.2.6 Diagnostic analytics1.2.7 Descriptive analytics1.3 Social Media Analytics, by Deployment Model 2012-20171.3.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Deployment Model 2012-20171.3.2 Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Deployment Model 2012-20171.3.3 Global Social Media Analytics Price by Deployment Model 2012-20171.3.4 On-premises1.3.5 Cloud1.4 Social Media Analytics, by Component 2012-20171.4.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Component 2012-20171.4.2 Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Component 2012-20171.4.3 Global Social Media Analytics Price by Component 2012-20171.4.4 Software1.4.5 Services1.4.6 Managed services1.4.7 Professional services1.4.8 Support and maintenance servicesChapter Two United States Social Media Analytics Market Overview2.1 United States Social Media Analytics Market Sales Volume Revenue and Price 2012-20172.2 Social Media Analytics, by Analytics Type 2012-20172.2.1 United States Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Analytics Type 2012-20172.2.2 United States Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Analytics Type 2012-20172.2.3 United States Social Media Analytics Price by Analytics Type 2012-20172.2.4 Predictive analytics2.2.5 Prescriptive analytics2.2.6 Diagnostic analytics2.2.7 Descriptive analytics2.3 Social Media Analytics, by Deployment Model 2012-20172.3.1 United States Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Deployment Model 2012-20172.3.2 United States Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Deployment Model 2012-20172.3.3 United States Social Media Analytics Price by Deployment Model 2012-20172.3.4 On-premises2.3.5 Cloud2.4 Social Media Analytics, by Component 2012-20172.4.1 United States Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Component 2012-20172.4.2 United States Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Component 2012-20172.4.3 United States Social Media Analytics Price by Component 2012-20172.4.4 Software2.4.5 Services2.4.6 Managed services2.4.7 Professional services2.4.8 Support and maintenance servicesChapter Three Social Media Analytics by Regions 2012-20173.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Regions 2012-20173.2 Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Market Share by Regions 2012-20173.3 Global Social Media Analytics Price by Regions 2012-20173.4 North America3.4.1 United States3.4.1.1 California3.4.1.2 Texas3.4.1.3 New York3.4.1.4 Others in United States3.4.2 Canada3.5 Latin America3.5.1 Mexico3.5.2 Brazil3.5.3 Argentina3.5.4 Others in Latin America3.6 Europe3.6.1 Germany3.6.2 United Kingdom3.6.3 France3.6.4 Italy3.6.5 Spain3.6.6 Russia3.6.7 Netherland3.6.8 Others in Europe3.7 Asia & Pacific3.7.1 China3.7.2 Japan3.7.3 India3.7.4 Korea3.7.5 Australia3.7.6 Southeast Asia3.7.6.1 Indonesia3.7.6.2 Thailand3.7.6.3 Philippines3.7.6.4 Vietnam3.7.6.5 Singapore3.7.6.6 Malaysia3.7.6.7 Others in Southeast Asia3.8 Africa & Middle East3.8.1 South Africa3.8.2 Egypt3.8.3 Turkey3.8.4 Saudi Arabia3.8.5 Iran3.8.6 Others in Africa & Middle EastChapter Four Global Social Media Analytics by Companies 2012-20174.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Volume Market Share by Companies 2012-20174.2 Global Social Media Analytics Revenue Share by Companies 2012-20174.3 Global Top Companies Social Media Analytics Key Product Model and Market Performance4.4 Global Top Companies Social Media Analytics Key Target Consumers and Market PerformanceChapter Five United States Social Media Analytics by Companies 2012-20175.1 United States Social Media Analytics Sales Volume Market Share by Companies 2012-20175.2 United States Social Media Analytics Revenue Share by Companies 2012-20175.3 United States Top Companies Social Media Analytics Key Product Model and Market Performance5.4 United States Top Companies Social Media Analytics Key Target Consumers and Market PerformanceChapter Six Global Social Media Analytics by Consumer 2012-20176.1 Global Social Media Analytics Sales Market Share by Consumer 2012-20176.2 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)6.3 Large enterprises6.4 Consuming Habit and PreferenceContinue...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 @
Mobile Phone Connector Market Forecasts  TASER International (AXON), Digital Ally, VIEVU, Reveal, Safety Innovations

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/718297/?utm_source=OPR-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/718297/?utm_source=PAID-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-mobile-phone-connector-market-by-manufacturers-countries-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022/?utm_source=SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-north-america-europe-and-asia-pacific-south-america-middle-east-and-africa-e-paper-display-epd-market-2017-forecast-to-2022/?utm_source=RR-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/category/news-releases/

MarketStudyReport.com Add New Global Mobile Phone Connector Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 to its research database. The report presents a deep study of the market growth factors and drivers. The report spread across 117 pages with table and figures in it.This report studies the Mobile Phone Connector market; Mobile Phone Connector plays a role in connecting the various components inside the phone.Request a sample copy of Mobile Phone Connector Market Research Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Global Mobile Phone Connector market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers  TE Connectivity, Amphenol, Hirose Electric, Molex, FOXCONN, LUXSHARE-ICT, JAE, LS Mtron, LINKCONN, Acon, UJU, JST, Alps Electric, Shenzhen Everwin Precision, SMK, Electric Connector Technology, KYOCERA, Shanghai Laimu Electronic.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Table of Contents:Global Mobile Phone Connector Market OverviewGlobal Mobile Phone Connector Market Manufacturers ProfilesGlobal Mobile Phone Connector Market Competition, by ManufacturerGlobal Mobile Phone Connector Market Analysis by RegionsGlobal Mobile Phone Connector by CountriesGlobal Mobile Phone Connector Market Segment by TypeGlobal Mobile Phone Connector Market Segment by ApplicationMobile Phone Connector Market Forecast (2017-2022)Sales Channel, Distributors, Traders and DealersResearch Findings and ConclusionAppendixMarket Segment by Type, covers  FPC Connector, Board to Board Connector, I/O Connector, Card Connector, Power Connector, RF Connector,Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into  Feature Phone, Smart Phone.Enquire For Discount on Mobile Phone Connector Market Research Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Mobile Phone Connector market.Chapter 1, to describe Mobile Phone Connector Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Mobile Phone Connector, with sales, revenue, and price of Mobile Phone Connector, in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2016 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Mobile Phone Connector, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Mobile Phone Connector market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Mobile Phone Connector sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceFor More Info on Market Research @Related Reports: -Global (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa) e-Paper Display (EPD) Market 2017 Forecast to 2022E-paper display also known as electronic paper or electronic ink display. They are display devices that mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Unlike conventional backlit flat panel displaysCentralize market research purchases across your entire organization in one place.Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:News:Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter
Market Growth of Warehouse Robotics to Remain Sluggish through 2025

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-842

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-842

Warehouse robots are gaining a lot of popularity and its rising importance due to its usage in varied number of applications such as food and beverage, automotive, pharmaceuticals, electronics, construction, defense, oil and gas. Companies are investing huge in research and development activities in the warehouse robotics market, especially developed countries for product innovation and also to automate it in a more advanced way. With rapid advancement in technology and increasing demand of warehouse robotics to improve product quality, production and space utilization, the market for warehouse robotics market is growing at a positive rate globally.Request a Sample Copy of Keyword Research Report @In December 2014, Amazon installed almost 15,000 robots in its US warehouse to cut operation cost by one-fifth and to meet up the increasing consumer demand during festive seasons. They also wanted to compete with the brick and mortar stores and to deliver items to customers on time and at a faster rate. The technology was developed by Kiva Systems, a robotics company. Recently, Amazon announced that it would renamed Kiva systems to Amazon Robotics and also hire a head of Robotics.Warehouse Robotics Market: Drivers & RestraintsIncreased demand of automation, time saving and reduction in cost, increasing number of stock keeping units, increasing demand and awareness towords quality and safety production, advancement in technology, increased use in various applications and industries such as food and beverage, electronics, are the important market drivers for the warehouse robotics market.Initial high adoption cost related to training, deployment, lack of awareness and difficulty in interacting with robots for some end users are some of the barriers which is hampering the growth of warehouse robotics market.Warehouse Robotics Market: SegmentationWarehouse robotics market is broadly classified on the basis of the following segment By Product:Fixed RobotsMobile RobotsGantry RobotsStationery Articulated RobotsBy Application:AutomotiveFood and BeveragePharmaceuticalElectronicsConstructionDefenseOil and GasOthersWarehouse Robotics Market: OverviewThe warehouse robotics market has grown substantially at a healthy CAGR due to recent advancements in the technology and increasing demand in its applications. Asia Pacific will emerge as the fastest growing region for warehouse robotics market due to increasing demand for automation and increasing awareness about quality production.Warehouse Robotics Market: Region-wise OutlookThe warehouse robotics market is expected to register a double-digit CAGR for the forecast period. Depending on geographic regions, warehouse robotics market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, South America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for warehouse robotics market due to increasing research and development and increasing investment made by the automotive companies.Visit For TOC@Warehouse Robotics Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in warehouse robotics market are ABB Robotics, Kiva Systems, Foxconn Technology Group, Seegrid, SSI Schaefer, Swisslong, Fanuc Corporation.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.U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, ,
Radar Simulator Market Significant Profits Estimated to be Generated by 2025

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/19870

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/methodology/19870

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Radar simulator market is on upward scale, owing to increase in adaptation of modern technologies for the training purpose in commercial and military aircrafts & ships. Radar simulator is either software solution or combination of both software and hardware. Radar simulators emulate various radars and initiate their working to provide users with an artificial and apt environment for radar training and functional/system testing. The software solutions can be installed in any computer with minimum required configuration and hardware solution is come with installed software which are utilized in the control room of aircraft, ship and ground base radar stations. The hardware segment consist of antenna, transmitters, receiver, waveform generator and micro controller, among others. The demand of radar simulator is increasing due to increase in budget of military and high concern about the safety and security. Radar simulator basically utilized for the purpose of training to train the commercial aircraft and ship pilots and commanders & officers of military. Some organizations that are using radar simulator are military, the British Royal navy, U.S coast guard and police units throughout the U.S and Britain. Radar simulator display the intuitive graphical controls for its operation and for scenario creation as well as simulate radar video and target.A sample of this report is available upon request @Radar Simulator Market: Market DynamicsGrowing demand of radar simulator in military for the training with the emergence or modern warfare systems and also the necessity to check and test the radar system is one of the prominent driver for the growth of the radar simulator market. Radar simulator simulates the variety of functions that are found in modern marine radar such as control over traffic density, waterways, sea state and weather conditions. This factor is expected to accelerate the growth of radar simulator market in the upcoming years. Some factor that provide highly realistic environmental features during training such as True and Relative Motion Displays, Target Data Display, Roll and Pitch Effects, Set and Drift Effects, among others are the important factor that boosted the growth of radar simulator market. Radar simulator can be used in various application such as for airborne application radar simulator is used for training the fighter pilots and radar operators. For Marine and ground application this is used for training centers for training electronic warfare personnel. These factor are responsible for the growth of said market.Nowadays, commercial aircrafts and ships are also utilizing radar simulator for security & safety and also for the purpose of training the pilots and operators of the ships and aircrafts. This factor will become the driver in the future.However, the high cost of installation and limited use in developed countries is consider to be as a restraint for the growth of radar simulator market in the forecast period.Radar Simulator Market: SegmentationRadar Simulator Market can be segmented by Product type, Component and End Use.On the basis of Product type it can be further segmented in to:System testingOperator testingOn the basis of Component it can be further segmented in to:HardwareSoftwareOn the basis of End Use it can be further segmented in to:Commercial ships and aircraftsMilitaryMarine forcesRadar Simulator Market: Regional OverviewThe Radar Simulator Market in North America region is expected to grow with healthy pace, owing to presence of prominent manufacturers in the region and adaptation of advanced technology by military aircraft and marine forces. The countries in Asia Pacific are progressively increasing their military budget for the safety, security and training purposes. This factor in turn contribute a significant growth for radar simulator market in the upcoming years. Moreover, Commercial aircraft carriers also uses this technology for enhance the training of their pilots. Europe and other regions are also projected to grow with moderate rate in the upcoming years.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @Radar Simulator Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global Radar Simulator market identified across the value chain includes:-Ultra Electronics Inc.Textron SystemsRockwell CollinsPresagis Canada Inc.Micro Nav LimitedMercury Systems, Inc.Harris CorporationCambridge Pixel LtdBuffalo Computer GraphicsARI SimulationAdacel Technologies LimitedAceWavetechAbout 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:
Flexible High Temperature Hoses Market to Record an Exponential CAGR by 2026

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/10999

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/10999

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Flexible high temperature hoses are a class of the industrial hoses which can withstand high amount of pressure under high temperature conditions. Flexible high temperature hoses are not affected by wear & tear cases such as bursting, cracking, crushing etc. Flexible high temperature hoses are highly ductile, vibration & flame resistant and is used as a medium of transfer of liquids & gases, for example, discharge of exhaust gases from automobile and industrial plants. The flexible high temperature hoses has varied industrial applications and exists in different morphologies based on required operating criteria, for example, weight, resistivity to air/ moisture/ chemicals, flexibility, and operating temperature range among others.Request For Report Sample:Flexible High Temperature Hoses Market DynamicsApart from the flexible high temperature hoses types, electrically heated hoses are also finding acceptance in industries such as Oil & Gas and Explosives & Chemicals. The polymeric hose type segment, particularly thermoplastics is poised to grow higher than other segments due to its superior performance & durability. The value chain consists of raw material suppliers, OEMs, regional distributors, suppliers and the end industry user. Heating, Ventilation, & Air-Conditioning (HVAC), Automotive, Oil & Gas industry are the largest application sub-segments. Due to the increase in the application of flexible high temperature hoses in food processing industry, it is becoming an emerging segment for the flexible high temperature hoses market. The industry is dependent on supply side drivers such as raw material price, macroeconomic factors such taxes on goods produced, import-export duties and demand side drivers such as consumption rate.Flexible High Temperature Hoses Market SegmentationThe global flexible high temperature hoses market is segmented on the basis of material type, application, and region.The flexible high temperature hoses can be classified on basis of material type as: Metallic Hoses, Rubber Hoses, Polymeric Hoses, Insulated Hoses, and Fabric Hoses.On the basis of application, the global flexible high temperature hoses market is segmented into: Automotive, Food Processing, Hotels & Hospitality, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Defence, General Engineering, Furnace & Foundry, Power Generation, and Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning (HVAC).The global automotive windshield market is segmented on the basis of region as: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific exc. Japan (APEJ), Japan, and Middle East & Africa (MEA).Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Flexible High Temperature Hoses Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global flexible high temperature hoses market can be divided by major regions which include North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. The major manufacturers of flexible high temperature hoses are based in North America & European regions, whereas the Asian region has the major raw materials hub especially from China & India. Though China doesnt boast of large scale OEMs, yet it has a considerable market size consisting of mid-sized manufacturers, distributors and suppliers. Currently, the American & European regions are witnessing a slow rate of production as well exports, on the other hand the Asian markets are having higher growth rates for the same. The market is expected to grow on a stable note as per existing demand pattern from end industries within a single digit growth rate.Flexible High Temperature Hoses Market: Key Market PlayersThe major players identified for the global flexible high temperature hoses market include Masterduct Inc., Novaflex Inc., Flexicraft Industries, Dunham Rubber & Belting Corporation, Flexaust Inc., Masterflex Technical Hoses Limited, Parker Hannifin Corp., Neptech Inc., and Eaton Corporation among others apart from regional distributors & suppliers etc.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:
Rack Ends Market to Witness Comprehensive Growth by 2026

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11008

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/11008

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Rack ends also called as inner tie rods or axial joints is a part of rack and pinion steering gear system, which converts circular motion of the steering wheel to straight line motion at the wheels The rack ends are the connections between steering rack and the outer tie rod ends which is connected to the steering knuckles joined to the wheels. The one end of the rack end which is connected to the steering rack is inside the steering track and the end is threaded onto which the outer tie rod is mounted with a locknut. Toe adjustment is done by loosening this locknut and turning the rack end to increase or decrease the length of the rack. They have a flexible rubber cover known as boot or bellows or bellow boots. The rack ends play a pivotal role in absorbing the vibrations due to improper roads and thus stabilizes the vehicle.Request For Report Sample:Rack Ends Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe rack and pinion steering gear system in which the rack ends are used, is commonly used in all types of gear systems from conventional manual systems to the modern power steering systems, which is the major driving force for the global rack ends market. The steering system with racks and pinions are compact in size, cheap and with relatively easy mechanism as compared to other steering systems, which is anticipated boost the global rack ends market.The global rack ends market can be divided into seven regions, namely North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Western and Eastern Europe hold the largest market share in the global rack ends market due to the large number of automobile industries in the region. North America holds the second position in global rack ends market. The leading markets are expected to show moderate growth, while on the other end the emerging market APEJ is expected to project high growth rate in the global rack ends market, owing to the increased sales of automobiles in the region. Regions such as Latin America, MEA are projected to represent trends of lower growth rates in global rack ends market as compared to other regions.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Rack Ends Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players in the global rack ends market are as follows:Roadsafe AutomotiveHlGH LINK AUTO PARTS CO., LTDATEKGMB Corporation JapanAupart Suspension Co., Ltd.Ultimate Power SteeringArora UdyogF-tek Auto EngineeringCCYSAbout 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:
Hydrodynamic Couplings Market to Witness Comprehensive Growth by 2026

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/11017

https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/11017

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com

Hydrodynamic couplings are fluid coupling devices used in power transfer of mechanical devices involved in heavy industrial machinery, mining & automotive equipment. Various types of mechanical device are conveyor systems, centrifuges, mixers, crushers, shredders, bucket wheel excavators, shaft generators, and drum drives etc. The device has experienced intense consumption by replacing the mechanical clutch systems which were subjected to abrasions. Other pivotal reason for the rapid emergence of hydrodynamic couplings market is that they can operate at variable speeds, have controlled start-up without experiencing shocks & vibrations during power transmission load intervals. The product also employs low input & maintenance costs. Revenue generated from sales of hydrodynamic coupling market is expected to increase at a moderate pace over the forecast period.Request For Report Sample:As stated, the product finds its consumer base in heavy industries segment & those industries which require high running torque machines, crushing, milling & excavating operations. Apart from standard prototypes, the OEMs are providing customized solutions to address the specific needs of customer as well. Technological & product developments to achieve cost effective operations and environment protection are being considered by the manufacturing companies. Various mergers & acquisitions have taken place between global & regional players or strategic alliances between large scale manufacturers and small business unit specialized in particular component/operation over the past few years. The value chain starts from the raw materials supplier to OEMs to distributors and suppliers to end customer completing the chain. Sometimes for customized requirements, the role of project management & design consultants comes into the act as well.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Hydrodynamic Couplings Market: Regional Outlook & DriversGeographically, the hydrodynamic couplings market is primarily based in Western Europe, North America & Asia Pacific regions. Germany consists of the top companies owing to their established technical expertise built over more than five decades. The industry is dependent on supply side drivers such as raw material availability & related prices, skilled workforce and demand drivers such as target industrys scope of operations. Currently the market is witnessing a modest growth affected by demand slowdown from industries & volatile production costs. New product applications would drive the business to some extent. The market is expected to grow on a stable note as per existing demand pattern from end industries within a single digit growth rate with ASEAN region having higher rates & the developed economies having a lower one.Hydrodynamic Couplings Market: Key Market PlayersThe key market players identified across the value chain are Siemens AG, Voith GmBH, KTR International, Rexnord Corporation, and Fluidomat Limited apart from regional distributors & suppliers etc.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:
The global car rental market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 6.6% over the forecast period 2017 to 2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-5086

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/car-rental-market-092017/toc

Future Market Insights (FMI) presents a revised forecast of the global car rental market for the period 2017-2027 in its published report titled Car Rental Services Market: Global Industry Analysis (2012  2016) and Opportunity Assessment (20172027). In terms of revenue, the global car rental market is estimated to expand at a CAGR of 6.6% over the forecast period, owing to numerous factors, about which FMI offers thorough insights and forecasts in this informative report. The market is segmented on the basis of end use, customer type, sector, booking type and car type.Request a Sample Copy of Keyword Research Report @Increased Global Affluence to Make Leisure Travellers Demand Car Rental ServicesBy customer type, the global car rental market is segmented into business and leisure customers. The leisure segment is expected to dominate over the forecast period due to expansion of global tourism market, increasing disposable income, and improved infrastructure for rental service. The leisure segment is anticipated to record a high CAGR growth rate of 7.8% over the forecast period with the total market valued at US$ 51,734.7 in 2017. On the other hand, the business segment has low growth rate of 4.3% CAGR with market valued at US$ 52,365.3 in 2017.Online Booking Unlikely to Outpace Offline Booking in the Car Rental MarketBy booking type, the market is segmented into offline access, mobile application, and other internet access. Offline booking is projected to be the higher revenue generator compared to online bookings and mobile apps. The offline booking segments is estimated to account for approximately 68% of the car rental market i.e. a value of US $ 44,871.6 Mn in 2016. Online bookings for car rentals have increased globally with the development of mobile applications and IT infrastructure advancements making it easy to book car rental services online or via mobile apps. Therefore, the car rental market is thriving. An updated report of the International Telecommunication Union, 2015 WSIS Forum states that Internet users have increased rapidly worldwide on account of continuous developments in Information & Communication Technologies. This is estimated to further increase the demand for car rental services. The proportion of households with the internet access at home increased from 18% in 2005 to 46% in 2015; whereas in 2000 the penetration rate was 6.3%.On-Airport End Use has Maximum Potential in the Car Rental MarketOn the basis of end use, global Car Rental Services is segmented into Intercity, Intracity, On-Airport, and others. On Airport segment has highest growth rate of 7.3% CAGR followed by intercity with a CAGR of 5.3% in the forecast period. Air travel has skyrocketed mainly because of the plummeting prices of airline tickets, leading to a substantial increase in air travelers across the globe. The increasing air trips for business and leisure purpose is fuelling the growth of car rentals to airports.Booming Economic Growth makes APEJ Car Rental Market Critical in the Long TermThe North America market has been estimated to dominate the Global car rental market, accounting for maximum revenue share of 45.9% by 2027 end. In terms of value, North America and Western Europe collectively accounted for more than 57% share in the global market in 2027. Although APEJ has a relatively lower market share of 17.5%, all the stars are in its favor making it likely to witness high growth rate in the medium term. Latin America, Japan and Middle East are also anticipated to show substantial amount of growth over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Competition Dashboard in the Global Car Rental MarketSome of the key players in the global car rental market include Enterprise Holdings Inc., The Hertz Corporation, Avis Budget Group Inc., Europcar S.A., Carzonrent India Pvt Ltd., Sixt Rent a Car, Al-Futtaim, Localiza Rent a Car S / A, Eco Rent a Car, and GlobalCARS.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.U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, ,
Solar Water Heater Market 2017 by Grade, Application, End use Industry, and Region  Global Forecast 2024

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/request-a-sample/312350/?utm_source=OP-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-body-worn-camera-market-by-manufacturers-countries-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022/?utm_source=SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/check-for-discount/312350/?utm_source=PAID-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/reports/global-energy-storage-market-for-drones-2017-2021/?utm_source=RR-SL

https://www.marketstudyreport.com

https://www.marketstudyreport.com/category/news-releases/

MarketStudyReport.com Add New Global Luffing Jib Tower Crane Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 to its research database. The report presents a deep study of the market growth factors and drivers. The report spread across 250 pages with table and figures in it.MaketStudyReport.com adds a New Solar Water Heater Market Research Report for the period of 2017 - 2024 that shows the growth of the market is rising at 2024.Solar Water Heater Market will cross USD 4 billion by 2024, according to a new research report.Rising concern to maintain fossil fuel sustainability along with stringent government norms to reduce carbon emissions will stimulate the solar water heater market growth. Introduction of several targets to reduce carbon emissions and encourage the development of renewable energy will further complement the industry growth. In 2016, the government of UK sets target to reduce carbon emissions up to 57% by 2030 from 1990 levels.Growing demand for environment friendly, cost effective and reliable systems for water heating purposes across commercial, industrial, and residential sector will augment the solar water heater market. Ability to reduce electricity bill by 50% to 80% will encourage the product penetration over the forecast timeline.Increasing investment toward renewable energy development will augment the Jordan solar water heater market. In 2016, the EU invested USD 170.56 million to support the development of green energy including Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency II program in Jordan under the 2014-2017 bilateral strategy.Get sample Copy of this report:China solar water heater market is predicted to exceed 45GWth by 2024. Introduction of green building regulations and standards to curb greenhouse gas emissions will positively impact the business landscape. Technological innovation in evacuated tube collector design to reduce the cost and improve efficiency of solar thermal system will further boost the product demand.Thermosyphon solar water heater market is predicted to witness strong growth owing to its wide application across commercial and residential buildings. Cost effectiveness, ease of installation and simple design are some of the primary benefits which will boost the product penetration.Favorable measures to encourage the deployment of solar energy along with strict government regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will propel the U.S. solar water heater market share. Under the Obama administration, the country set target to reduce GHG emissions up to 28% by 2025 from 2005 level. Positive outlook towards housing sector will further complement the business growth.For More Info on Market Research @Growth drivers:North America: Growing demand for energy efficient water heatersEurope: Rising demand for replacement of existing water heaters and Growing measures to reduce energy billAsia Pacific: Regulation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and Increasing demand for water heating systemsLatin America and Middle East & Africa: Replacement of conventional water heating systems, Industry pitfalls & challenges, High upfront cost, Lack of consumer awareness.Solar Water Heater Market, By Collector: Evacuated Tube, Flat Plate, Unglazed Water.Solar Water Heater Market, By Product: Thermosyphon, Pumped.Solar Water Heater Market, By Application: Swimming Pool Heating, Domestic Water Heating, Large Domestic Water Heating, Others.The above information is provided on a country basis for the following:North America: U.S., Canada.Europe: UK, Germany, Austria, Spain, Turkey, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, France.Asia Pacific: China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea.Middle East and Africa: Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan.Latin America: Brazil, Mexico.Get Discount on this Report:Italy in 2016, accounted for over 5% of the Europe solar water heater market share. Introduction of building code with an aim to reduce the overall emissions will further boost the product demand. In March 2011, the government of Italy introduced law number 28 according to which all new building and buildings that are under construction have been required to fulfil up to 50% of hot water demand with renewable energies since June 2012.Revamp of social housing program for lower income families will drive the Brazil solar water heater market. In August 2016, the United Nation relaunched the Minha Casa, Minha Vida, a social housing program for lower income group which mandated installation of SWH in new buildings.Industry giants across solar water heater market include Wagner, Bosch, Alternate Energy Technologies, V Guard Industries, Himin Solar Energy, SunTank, Viessmann, EMMVEE, Rinnai, Chromagen, Linuo Ritter, A.O. Smith, Rheem, Racold and Bradford White.Related Report:Global Energy Storage Market for Drones 2017-2021About Energy Storage for Drones Drones are UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), controlled by handheld remote or mobile devices. Drones are equipped with GPS so that the user can track the drone. They also come with sensors such a gyro meter and acceler...Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Market Study ReportThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:News:
Global Performance Oil Market 2017 Industry Key Players -Royal Dutch Shell, DOW Chemical, Idemitsu Kosan, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, Huntsman, Fuchs Petrolub, Exxon Mobil,..

Performance Oil Market

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/1331274-global-performance-oil-market-professional-survey-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/1331274-global-performance-oil-market-professional-survey-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=1331274

Performance Oil Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Performance Oil Market 2017 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2022reports to its database.Executive SummaryThis report studies Performance Oil 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, coveringRoyal Dutch ShellDOW ChemicalIdemitsu KosanPetroliam Nasional BerhadHuntsmanFuchs PetrolubExxon MobilBPChevronBASFRequest Sample Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoProcess OilHydraulic & Transmission FluidMetal Working FluidHeat Transfer FluidOthersBy Application, the market can be split intoIndustrialConstructionTransportationOthersBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.For further information on this report, visit Table of Content:Global Performance Oil Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Performance Oil1.1 Definition and Specifications of Performance Oil1.1.1 Definition of Performance Oil1.1.2 Specifications of Performance Oil1.2 Classification of Performance Oil1.2.1 Process Oil1.2.2 Hydraulic & Transmission Fluid1.2.3 Metal Working Fluid1.2.4 Heat Transfer Fluid1.2.5 Others1.3 Applications of Performance Oil1.3.1 Industrial1.3.2 Construction1.3.3 Transportation1.3.4 Others1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Performance Oil2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Performance Oil2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Performance Oil2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Performance Oil3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Performance Oil3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Performance Oil Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Performance Oil Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Performance Oil Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Performance Oil Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Performance Oil Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Performance Oil Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Performance Oil Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Performance Oil Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Performance Oil Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Performance Oil Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)5 Performance Oil Regional Market Analysis5.1 North America Performance Oil Market Analysis5.1.1 North America Performance Oil Market Overview5.1.2 North America 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.1.3 North America 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.1.4 North America 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis5.2 China Performance Oil Market Analysis5.2.1 China Performance Oil Market Overview5.2.2 China 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.2.3 China 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.2.4 China 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis5.3 Europe Performance Oil Market Analysis5.3.1 Europe Performance Oil Market Overview5.3.2 Europe 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.3.3 Europe 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.3.4 Europe 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis5.4 Southeast Asia Performance Oil Market Analysis5.4.1 Southeast Asia Performance Oil Market Overview5.4.2 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.4.3 Southeast Asia 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.4.4 Southeast Asia 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis5.5 Japan Performance Oil Market Analysis5.5.1 Japan Performance Oil Market Overview5.5.2 Japan 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.5.3 Japan 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.5.4 Japan 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis5.6 India Performance Oil Market Analysis5.6.1 India Performance Oil Market Overview5.6.2 India 2012-2017E Performance Oil Local Supply, Import, Export, Local Consumption Analysis5.6.3 India 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales Price Analysis5.6.4 India 2016 Performance Oil Market Share Analysis6 Global 2012-2017E Performance Oil Segment Market Analysis (by Type)6.1 Global 2012-2017E Performance Oil Sales by Type6.2 Different Types of Performance Oil Product Interview Price Analysis6.3 Different Types of Performance Oil Product Driving Factors Analysis6.3.1 Process Oil of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.2 Hydraulic & Transmission Fluid of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.3 Metal Working Fluid of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.4 Heat Transfer Fluid of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis6.3.5 Others of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis7 Global 2012-2017E Performance Oil Segment Market Analysis (by Application)7.1 Global 2012-2017E Performance Oil Consumption by Application7.2 Different Application of Performance Oil Product Interview Price Analysis7.3 Different Application of Performance Oil Product Driving Factors Analysis7.3.1 Industrial of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.2 Construction of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.3 Transportation of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor Analysis7.3.4 Others of Performance Oil Growth Driving Factor AnalysisContinuousBuy this Report @Contact Us:Norah Trentsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +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:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042
How the Global Aircraft Actuator Market is Projected to Grow During 2017 - 2027?

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4065

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4065

An actuator is a device which controls the movement and mechanism of the system and requires an energy source or a control signal. Where the energy source or control signal can be electric voltage, hydraulic pressure, pneumatic pressure or mechanical power. The aircraft actuator is consists of a reduction gear, which is used to control and maintain the rotating motion. It is a key component of an aircraft of a spacecraft, it plays an important role for control and flight. Additionally, their actions ensure the aircraft safety as well as passengers safety. Above the use of electric aircraft actuators, the use of piezoelectric concepts is also used for the application in vibration control and noise control.Request a Sample Copy of Keyword Research Report @Aircraft actuator has many applications such as flaps, landing gear, weapons systems, etc. Traditionally, hydraulic actuators were used in landing gear, but owing to the advancement of technology and reliability, use of electric actuators is increasing. Also, for the same application, heavy-duty linear actuators are being used, which can tolerate high pressure, as the weight of the aircraft creates a difference in its efficiency. Flap actuators are positioned on the wings in order to maintain flight efficiency also at the low speed of air. As the large aircraft (for e.g. commercial aircraft) are required to maintain the speed of air during landing.Electric actuators and hydraulic actuators are the most reliable actuators for fighter planes, in order to effectively control the bay doors, which hold weapons. They are used because they are technologically advanced, have stop modules for emergency and sensors are mounted on the device.Aircraft Actuator Industry:Market DynamicsSome of the factors which are driving the market of the aircraft actuator industry are increasing passenger traffic across the world, increasing aircraft capability of reducing weight limits, etc. are influencing the manufacturing of aircraft. Additionally, the growth of aircraft actuator market is directly proportional to the growth in aircraft manufacturing industry. This has added rise to the procurement of low weight and power-efficient aircraft actuator. Increasing use of electromechanical actuators due to its high efficiency and reliability as compared to other products is the trend of the aircraft actuator market. Additionally, increasing focus on the use of piezoelectric actuators and magnetic actuators, which are small in size and provide high energy density and support to the aircraft system, are the trend of the industry. Some of the factors such as excessive system topologies, safety issues, technological up gradations, government regulations, etc. can be considered as the restraints for the market of aircraft actuator industry.Aircraft Actuator Industry: SegmentationSegmentation of the Aircraft actuator market on the basis of product type:ElectricElectromechanicalElectrohydraulicPiezoelectricSegmentation of the Aircraft actuator market on the basis of application:Landing GearAircraft FlapsWeapons SystemsOthersSegmentation of the Aircraft actuator market on the basis of aircraft type:AirbusJet planesCargo planesAircraft Actuator Market: Regional OutlookNorth America region dominates the market for aircraft actuator systems followed by Asia-Pacific and Europe. And the growth in North America region is expected to grow with rising CAGR over the forecasted period. And the growth in the region is owing to the factors such as less price of oil, upgraded fiscal & monetary policy, supportive private sector, and low labor cost available in this region. Additionally, North America is leading the market of the military and fighter aircraft. Also, Asia-Pacific region holds the large market as compared to other regions, in terms of revenue.According to the product type, in Asia-Pacific and North America regions, electrohydraulic sub segment dominates the market of aircraft actuator industry, followed by electro-hydrostatic sub segment. The rising growth of above-mentioned sub segments is attributable to their benefits such as low investing costs, energy efficient, high power density and capacity, easy implementation, etc. Additionally, the market share of Latin America and The Middle East and Africa is expected to increase over the period of forecast.Visit For TOC@Aircraft Actuator Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the Aircraft actuator market, identified across the value chain, include, Moog Inc., maxon motor ag, Sitec Aerospace GmbH, Progressive Automation Inc., Tamagawa seiki Co,.Ltd., PARKER HANNIFIN CORP, Aero Space Controls Corporation, Beaver Aerospace & Defense, Inc., Eaton Corporation PLC, Rockwell Collins, Price Wheeler Corp., etc.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.U.S. Office616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, ,
Global Vinyl Tile Market Report 2017 with Industry Leading Players : Metroflor, Milliken, Polyflor

QYResearchReports

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=915241&type=S

https://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/global-vinyl-tile-sales-market-report-2017.htm/toc

Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Vinyl Tile Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The global market for Vinyl Tile is discussed in detail within a new research study added recently to QYResearchReports.com. The report has been carefully examined both qualitatively and quantitatively and the results are revealed in the research report for the forecast period of 2017 to 2022. In addition to this, the various drivers and restraints, regulatory conditions, and the segmentation of this global market have also been included in the study. All data is supported by primary and secondary research methodologies. Expert analysts from the industry have also expressed their opinions on the industrial and economic scenario, creating the report as an authentic guide to the global Vinyl Tile market.Enter your information below to receive a free sample copy of this report @The research report makes use of various market-tested analytical tools such as market attractiveness readings, SWOT analysis, and Porters Five Forces analysis in order to provide readers a qualitative as well as quantitative overview of the Vinyl Tile market. The information garnered from these research procedures is further investigated by seasoned industry analysts, who have made their contributions in the form of invaluable market insights on the workings of the global Vinyl Tile market.This report studies sales (consumption) of Vinyl Tile in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringArmstrongMannington MillsTarkettNOX CorporationHanwhaShawLG HausysThe biggest and the highly influential regions in the global Vinyl Tile market are determined and assessed in detail within the research report. The economic factors influencing the global Vinyl Tile market are stated, along with a 360-degree overview of the current conditions that are influencing the direction and expansion rate of the market and the key operations in its various regional segments. Top market trends are analyzed to offer clients appropriate guidance in compiling their own market strategies for their and the global Vinyl Tile markets growth trajectory. The report thus provides existing and established companies as well as new entrants all the relevant data they need to create business opportunities in lucrative and thriving economies. The report helps companies of any size and caliber establish a stronger foothold in the global Vinyl Tile market.Table of Contents1 Vinyl Tile Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Vinyl Tile1.2 Classification of Vinyl Tile1.3 Application of Vinyl Tile1.4 Vinyl Tile Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2011-2021)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Vinyl Tile (2011-2021)Read Complete Table of Content @2 Global Vinyl Tile Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Vinyl Tile Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2011-2016)2.1.2 Global Vinyl Tile Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2011-2016)2.2 Global Vinyl Tile (Volume and Value) by Type2.3 Global Vinyl Tile (Volume and Value) by Regions2.4 Global Vinyl Tile (Volume) by Application3 United States Vinyl Tile (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Vinyl Tile Sales and Value (2011-2016)3.1.1 United States Vinyl Tile Sales and Growth Rate (2011-2016)3.1.2 United States Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2016)3.1.3 United States Vinyl Tile Sales Price Trend (2011-2016)3.2 United States Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers3.3 United States Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by Application4 China Vinyl Tile (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Vinyl Tile Sales and Value (2011-2016)4.1.1 China Vinyl Tile Sales and Growth Rate (2011-2016)4.1.2 China Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2016)4.1.3 China Vinyl Tile Sales Price Trend (2011-2016)4.2 China Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by Manufacturers4.3 China Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by Type4.4 China Vinyl Tile Sales and Market Share by ApplicationList of Tables and FiguresFigure Picture of Vinyl TileTable Classification of Vinyl TileFigure Global Sales Market Share of Vinyl Tile by Type in 2015Figure Global Sales Market Share of Vinyl Tile by Application in 2015Figure United States Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)Figure China Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)Figure Europe Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)Figure Japan Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)Figure Southeast Asia Vinyl Tile Revenue and Growth Rate (2011-2021)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.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
Electric Vehicles Charging Stations Market 2017: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, Forecast to 2023

Electric Vehicles Charging Stations Market 2017

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/4647

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/electric-vehicles-charging-stations-market-4647

Electric Vehicles Charging Stations Market 2017Summary:Global Electric Vehicles Charging Stations Market Information Report, By Charging Type (AC Charging and DC Charging), By Connector (CHAdeMO, Combined Charging System and Others), by Application (Residential and Commercial) and By Region - Forecast To 2023Market Synopsis of Global Electric Vehicles Charging Station MarketOver the last couple of years, the automotive industry has undergone various technological advancements in electric vehicles, and the global market has acknowledged these advancements, while adopting electric vehicles. As a result, the demand for electric vehicles has increased enormously in various regions such as North America, APAC and Europe. Also the continuous rise in the sales of electric vehicles, has increased the need for charging stations.During the last few years, the global electric vehicle charging stations market has seen remarkable growth due to the rise in the sales of electric vehicles. It has been observed that the market demand will grow on a rapid pace during the forecast period. This market is expected to grow at ~ 30% CAGR during forecast period. The global electric vehicle charging station market has been largely influenced by the growth in the number of electric cars and trucks, and government initiatives on reducing vehicles emissions. Focus on renewable forms of energy and government regulations on tax exemptions on electric vehicles also lead to the growth of the market. In spite of the growth factors, the global market could face the challenges such as high installation cost, non-availability of public charging stations and slow charging time.The prominent players in the electric vehicle charging station market include Bosch Automotive Service Solutions (Germany), Bollore Group (France), Chargemaster Plc (UK), Delphi Automotive (UK), ABB Ltd (Switzerland), General Electric Company (US), Tesla Motors Inc (US), Siemens AG (Germany), Eaton Corporation (Ireland), and Schneider Electric (France).Request For Sample Report @For the purpose of this study, the global electric vehicle charging stations market has been divided into three segments such as by charging type, by connector and by application. On the basis of charging type, the market has been segmented as AC charging and DC charging. As per the market analysis, DC charging has accounted the largest market share in 2016. DC charging tend to charge electric car much faster than AC charging. As a result, the demand for DC charging is augmenting the demand as it consume less time and are easily available. On the basis of connector, it has been segmented as CHAdeMO, combined charging system, and others. Among the connector types, CHAdeMO has accounted for the largest market share in 2016, followed by CSS and others. However, the application segments of the electric vehicle charging station are residential, and commercial.Geographically, the global market has been divided into four major regions, and they are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Asia-Pacific, of all the regions, has accounted for the largest market share, in 2016, followed by North America and Europe. In Asia Pacific, China has emerged as one of the leading markets for electric cars, in terms of sales. As per reforms the government has planned to ban the sale of all the petrol and diesel vehicles by 2019. However, the demand for electric cars is expected to increase in the future, thus expected to propel the growth here. Moreover, Japan, Singapore and South Korea government are also planning to take such initiatives.The report for Global Electric Vehicle Charging Station 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 market segments and regions.Complete Report Details @Table of Contents1 Executive Summary.7 Competitive Analysis7.1 Introduction7.2 Competitive Scenario7.2.1 Market Share Analysis7.2.2 Market Development Analysis7.2.3 Material/Service Benchmarking7.3 Bosch Automotive Service Solutions7.3.1 Overview7.3.2 Material/Service Offering7.3.3 Strategy7.4 Bollore Group7.4.1 Overview7.4.2 Material/Service Offering7.4.3 Strategy7.5 Chargemaster7.5.1 Overview7.5.2 Material/Service Offering7.5.3 Strategy7.6 Delphi Automotive7.6.1 Overview7.6.2 Material/Service Offering7.6.3 Strategy7.7 ABB Ltd7.7.1 Overview7.7.2 Material/Service Offering7.7.3 Strategy7.8 General Electric Company7.8.1 Overview7.8.2 Material/Service Offering7.8.3 Strategy7.9 Tesla Motors Inc7.9.1 Overview7.9.2 Material/Service Offering7.9.3 Strategy7.10 Siemens AG7.10.1 Overview7.10.2 Material/Service Offering7.10.3 Strategy7.11 Eaton Corporation7.11.1 Overview7.11.2 Material/Service Offering7.11.3 Strategy7.12 Schneider Electric7.12.1 Overview7.12.2 Material/Service Offering7.12.3 StrategyContinued.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 US:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Bluetooth Smart SoC Market - Demand, Supply, Cost structure along with Industrys Competitive Landscape 2025

The Insight Partners

http://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPTE100000142

http://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPTE100000142

The Insight Partners added Bluetooth Smart SoC Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Device Type and Application to its research database. The report is spread across 150 pages and supported by 25 company leaders.Bluetooth has become a key communication technology as a result of its place in smartphone and tablet computer. Availability of Bluetooth smart phone which means developers dont need to create any separate gateways that requires other IoT wireless connections. Bluetooth is wireless technology and offers information exchange over short range from mobile and fixed devices. Bluetooth connection opens up the internet and cloud services to the developer allowing data to collect automatically and compiled. Bluetooth technology with low energy features is developing as a standard choice or tracking, wearable or IoT application. It has enabled an extended range of application to benefits Bluetooth wireless technology including tracking tags, fitness sensors, connected watches, healthcare sensors and remote control.One of the major driving factor fueling the growth of Bluetooth smart SoC is development of smart wireless sensors. Low power requirement results in adoption of Bluetooth smart technology, wireless sensors are embedded in many consumer wearable device and electronic gadget. In addition to this there are several other factor surging the growth of Bluetooth smart SoC are low cost coupled with low power requirement, increasing demand for tablets, smartphone and other wearable device. However, the factors hindering the growth of Bluetooth smart SoC are lack in transferring heavy data and low streaming capacity, privacy and security. Increasing adoption of Bluetooth and Bluetooth smart enabled gadgets and a connected infrastructure has formed which is expected to boost the market over the forecasted period.Request Sample Copy atBluetooth Smart SoC Market is segmented on the basis of device type which further includes Bluetooth Smart and Bluetooth Smart Ready. Similarly, the market is segmented on the basis of application such as Automotive, Healthcare, Building & Retail, Wearable Electronics and Consumer Electronics.The market is segmented into major regions that include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM). The major countries included are considered in the scope of the study such as U.S, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, China, Japan, India, Australia, South Arabia, UAE, South Africa and Brazil. Some of the key players which dominate Bluetooth smart SoC market are Bluegiga Technologies Oy, Nordic Semiconductor ASA, Qualcomm Inc., Dialog Semiconductor PLC, Broadcom Corporation, Texas Instruments Inc., Mediatek Inc., NXP Semiconductors, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, CSR PLC and Marvell Technology Group, Ltd.Inquire and Speak to Expert for More Details atTheInsightPartners.com is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township, Amanora Chambers, East Block, Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Signaling Devices Market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast 2017-2025

The Insight Partners

http://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPTE100000157

http://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPTE100000157

http://www.theinsightpartners.com/reports/signaling-devices-market

The Insight Partners added Signaling Devices Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type, Application, End-users to its research database. The report is spread across 150 pages and supported by 16 company leaders.Signaling device generates an alarm to warn or indicate somebody or somebody by producing an audible sound or visible alert in case of emergency or other alert applications. The devices are linked with control panel and are installed at precise locations in such a way that when needed the people can be alerted and corrective measures can be taken. With a motive to minimize the losses that occur due to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcano eruptions and others, safety measures can be taken by using signaling devices. Signaling devices are proved to be very important in security and safety management such as earthquake warning system, mining safety system, heavy rainfall warning system, Fire alarm system & traffic signaling. Signaling device monitors the parameters and generates safety alarm during undesirable situation. These devices are designed according to the requirements for specific applications such as fire alarms are designed using fireproof material.Technological advancements of signaling devices is the prime trend for signaling devices market. Upsurge in the urbanization, government attention on enhancing industrial safety by implying safety rules & regulations and rising demand for safety equipment are the major driver, propelling the growth of global signaling devices market. Whereas, high installation-cost and deficiency of skilled professionals are few of the factors hindering the growth of this market. Several industries such as warehouse, manufacturing, mining and marine use machinery that are dangerous to operate and can be unsafe if not handled correctly. The safety of the workers is always a priority in all industries. This demand for safety resulted in development of a range of products identified as signaling devices. These devices are competent of sensing errors or faults and sending warning signals to evade or decrease the chances of accident. These devices have proven to be suitable in mitigating the expected accidents and detection of malfunctions in smooth running of the manufacturing or production processes.Request Sample Copy atThe global signaling market is segmented by type into control devices, audible signaling devices and others. The market is further divided by application include fire & industrial signaling, hazardous area signaling and wide area signaling. The market is bifurcated on the basis of end-users into warehouse & factories, mining, commercial, marine and others. Also, the global signaling device market is segmented by regions into North America, APAC, Europe, South America and Middle East & Africa.Inquire and Speak to Expert for More Details atThe global market for signaling devices is dominated by North America followed by APAC region. In the coming years, APAC is expected to take over the market for signaling devices owing to increase in the number of manufacturing industries. Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation, Emerson Electric Co., Honeywell International Inc., ABB Ltd., Werma Signaltechnik, Thales Group, Cooper Industries, L3 communications Holdings, Inc., R.STAHL Inc., NHP Electrical Engineering Products, Auer Signalgerate, E2S Warning Signals, Thomas & Betts, Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd., Patlite Corporation and others are some of the main market players operating in global signaling devices market.Table of Contents1 Introduction2 Key Takeaways3 Market Landscape4 Signaling Devices Market - Key Industry Dynamics5 Signaling Devices Market Analysis- Global6 Signaling Devices Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Five Forces Analysis7 Signaling Devices Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Application8 Signaling Devices Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025  Type9 Signaling Devices Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 - Geographical Analysis11 Industry Landscape12 AppendixView Complete Company Profile and Table of Contents atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comAbout Us:TheInsightPartners.com is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township, Amanora Chambers, East Block, Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Smart Contact Lenses Market Running to a Greater Success of USD 7.2 Billion by 2027

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1186

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/smart-contact-lenses-market-1186

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/1186

Smart devices are now gaining popularity across the globe due to their various advantages such as continuous monitoring of various health indicators. Devices such as smart watches, smart lenses and smart lenses are mostly widely used for fitness and diabetes monitoring. In August 2015, smart contact lenses have received U.S approval for monitoring intraocular pressure. Global Smart Contact Lenses Market is expected to reach USD 7.2 billion in 2023 from USD 4.5 billion in 2016 with a CAGR of approximately 10.4% during the forecast period 2017-2023.Get a Sample Report @Contact lens are thin lenses are worn to improve vision or for aesthetic use. An increase in the trend of using contact lens has been noticed in last few years. Contact lenses eliminate the need of using spectacles. Technological advancement in smart contact lenses is on the verge of creating something innovative with a goal to minimize vision problems in people. Smart contact lenses have sensors that detect glucose levels in tears and intraocular pressure. Most of the youth are attracted towards the use of contact lenses with changing lifestyle and awareness about trending cosmetic products. The youth is also influenced by the growing trend of smart medical devices, thus influencing the market growth.The growth of smart contact lenses market is attributed to increasing prevalence of diabetes, changing trends in eye wear, replacement of smart glasses by smart lenses and demand of wearable medical devices for continuously monitoring health condition of patients. The restrain for this market is the price of smart contact lenses. Also, fierce competition among major market players creates barriers for new entrants in the market. Key players in eth market are engaged in innovative product development to withstand their position in the market.Top Key Player of Smart Contact Lenses Market:Some of the key players in this market are: Samsung (South Korea), Sony (Japan), Alcon (Us), Google (Us), othersOrder Single User License Copy of 80 Premium Pages is Available @Regional Analysis:America is the largest market for Smart Contact Lenses Industry. Increasing diabetic population, demand of eye care solutions with innovative technology, increasing adoption of upgraded wearable medical devices and trends in cosmetics drive the growth of this market in America. Additionally, rising awareness about fitness and availability of wearable medical devices. Furthermore, according to the American Diabetes Association, in 2015, approximately 30.3 million Americans which is 9.4% of the American population were suffering from diabetes.Europe is the second largest market due to an increase in expenditure on research in smart medical devices. Extensive use of smart contact lenses in the European countries also drives the market growth. According to the report published by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, over 60 million people were suffering from diabetes in the European Region.Asia Pacific the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes is increasing from last few years, creating growth opportunities for the market. However, market shows steady growth in this region because smart medical devices are not affordable for most of the developing countries, and unawareness regarding the use of smart devices. China and India are expected to show exponential growth in the market.The market shows slow growth in Middle East and Africa because of low technology penetration. In Africa, there is an increasing demand for primary care services and unavailabity of medical care restrains the growth of the market.Ask to Expert @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through 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.com
Weapons Suspension & Release Systems 2017 Market Segmentation,Application,Technology & Market Analysis Research Report to 2022

Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Market 2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/2626894-global-weapons-suspension-release-systems-market-professional-survey-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/enquiry/2626894-global-weapons-suspension-release-systems-market-professional-survey-report-2017

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/checkout?currency=one_user-USD&report_id=2626894

WiseGuyReports.Com Publish a New Market Research Report On - Weapons Suspension & Release Systems 2017 Market Segmentation,Application,Technology & Market Analysis Research Report to 2022.This report studies Weapons Suspension & Release Systems 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, coveringCobhamHarris CorporationAVICRaytheonMoogUltra ElectronicsCircor Aerospace & DefenseSystima TechnologiesMarotta ControlsAEREA S.p.AGet a Sample Report @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoAir-to-GroundAir-to-AirBy Application, the market can be split intoAir ForceNavyOtherBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaAsk Query @Table Of Contents  Major Key PointsGlobal Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.1 Definition and Specifications of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.1.1 Definition of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.1.2 Specifications of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.2 Classification of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.2.1 Air-to-Ground1.2.2 Air-to-Air1.3 Applications of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems1.3.1 Air Force1.3.2 Navy1.3.3 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 India.8 Major Manufacturers Analysis of Weapons Suspension & Release Systems8.1 Cobham8.1.1 Company Profile8.1.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.1.2.1 Product A8.1.2.2 Product B8.1.3 Cobham 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.1.4 Cobham 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.2 Harris Corporation8.2.1 Company Profile8.2.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.2.2.1 Product A8.2.2.2 Product B8.2.3 Harris Corporation 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.2.4 Harris Corporation 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.3 AVIC8.3.1 Company Profile8.3.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.3.2.1 Product A8.3.2.2 Product B8.3.3 AVIC 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.3.4 AVIC 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.4 Raytheon8.4.1 Company Profile8.4.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.4.2.1 Product A8.4.2.2 Product B8.4.3 Raytheon 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.4.4 Raytheon 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.5 Moog8.5.1 Company Profile8.5.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.5.2.1 Product A8.5.2.2 Product B8.5.3 Moog 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.5.4 Moog 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.6 Ultra Electronics8.6.1 Company Profile8.6.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.6.2.1 Product A8.6.2.2 Product B8.6.3 Ultra Electronics 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.6.4 Ultra Electronics 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.7 Circor Aerospace & Defense8.7.1 Company Profile8.7.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.7.2.1 Product A8.7.2.2 Product B8.7.3 Circor Aerospace & Defense 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.7.4 Circor Aerospace & Defense 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution Analysis8.8 Systima Technologies8.8.1 Company Profile8.8.2 Product Picture and Specifications8.8.2.1 Product A8.8.2.2 Product B8.8.3 Systima Technologies 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin Analysis8.8.4 Systima Technologies 2016 Weapons Suspension & Release Systems Business Region Distribution AnalysisContinue.Buy 1-User PDF @For more information or any query mail at sales@wiseguyreports.comABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.Office No.528,Amanora Chambers,Magarpatta Road,Hadapsar,Pune-411028.
Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market Report for Period 2011 till 2023 Flexpipe Systems, Airborne Oil & Gas, Wienerberger(Pipelife) and Others

Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market

https://goo.gl/UiZcFb

http://www.marketreportscompany.com/report.php?report=chemicals-and-materials/global-reinforced-thermoplastic-pipes-rtp-market-research-report-2011-2023/5182

https://goo.gl/UiZcFb

Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market report emphasizes on detailed analysis of companies and manufacturers like Flexpipe Systems, Airborne Oil & Gas, Wienerberger(Pipelife) and Others.This market study includes data about global market statistics, market share, company performances, historical analysis 2012 to 2016, market forecast 2017 to 2023 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2017 to 2023, etc. The Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market report provides detailed segmentation of Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market based on product type, application, end user and regional segmentation. The regional segment is further bifurcated on country level.Request for Free Sample Copy of Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market 2017 @Top Manufactures of Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market:TechnipGE Oil & Gas(Wellstream)National Oilwell Varco(NKT Flexibles)Flexpipe SystemsAirborne Oil & GasWienerberger(Pipelife)CosmoplastPolyflowPES.TECAerosun CorporationChangchun Gaoxiang Special PipeOthers(Note: We can profile additional players without extra charges)Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market: Key Product Type:Non-metallic RTPMetallic RTPOthersKey Application Types for Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market:Gas distribution networks.Water injection linesothersKey Regions for Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market:Asia-PacificNorth AmericaEuropeSouth AmericaMiddle East & Africa(Note: We can provide specific country or region specific report on request)The Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market analysis report provides detailed value chain for analysis of Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market. The value chain helps to analyze major upstream in raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. The report also provides Porter analysis, PESTEL analysis and market attractiveness which helps to better understand the market scenario. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities occurred in current and past few years. The Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors. The report also covers import/export data across all major regions covered in this report. Moreover, import/export data across any particular country as per requirement.The report finally provides detailed research report conclusion, which provides summary of entire report and vital suggestions from analysts particular to Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market which will help existing as well as new players who wish to enter this market.Enquire before Buying @ put actual website like for exampleTable of Contents:1 Market Overview1.1 Objectives of Research1.1.1 Definition1.1.2 Specifications1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 Upstream1.2.2 Downstream1.2 Market Segment1.2.1 by Type1.2.1.1 Non-metallic RTP1.2.1.2 Metallic RTP1.2.2 by Application1.2.2.1 Gas distribution networks........................Continue (Global Reinforced Thermoplastic Pipes (RTP) Market Research Industry Report is prepared with the help of extensive primary and secondary sources, directories, journals, newsletters and with the help of third-party application like Hoovers, Factiva, Bloomberg, Businessweek, etc.About Market Reports Company:Market Reports Company delivers high quality precise research studies which include data about top manufacturers and market survey of various industries. We also work as a consulting company and publisher of market research reports. We are specialized in providing customized reports according to clients needs and requirements which ultimately help them grow in industry and beat their competition.What We Offer:Customized Reports: We provide customized research reports on your demand.Region Specific Study: We have resources all over the world so, if you are Interested in region specific study please contact us.How we work: Perfect blend of primary and secondary research to provide best result.Expertise: Team of Industry experienced research associates and experts, primary and secondary sources, 24*7 customer care service and post-sale support.Contact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website: marketreportscompany.comEmail: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United States
Bystanders rescue man from truck driven into Charlevoix's Round Lake

Several bystanders helped save the life of the driver who ended up in Round Lake in a Nov. 11 incident.
Vanishing. Its a powerful word, that

Northern Ireland, Rural Derry, 1981, nighttime. The local ringleader of the Irish Republican Army gun-toting comrades ambushes a priest and tells him that the body of one Seamus Carney has been recovered. It is said that the man had spent a full ten years rotting in a bog. The IRA gunslinger, Muldoon, orders the priest to arrange for the Carney family not to utter a word of what had happened to the wretched man.

Morning at the home of the Carney family. Quinn and Caitlin Carney enjoy a peaceful dawn of a new day. Quinn, a sturdy farmer, preparing for the celebration of the Harvest, a most joyous day, playfully teases Caitlin about a seemingly impossible decision: if she only had one car with her to save four people in mortal peril, who would she save, The Beatles, The Stones, or Led Zeppelin? Led Zeppelin, prompts Caitlin, much to Quinns dismay. He implores, she reconsiders. Finally, she agrees to combine and take Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and any one of The Beatles members with her  and Keith Richards, but only if he takes a bath!

The pastoral is interrupted by little Honor, who reminds her father that its time for breakfast. The curtains are drawn apart, and the light comes in; the entire family is fast awakened, among them Uncle Pat, Aunt Pat, the pensive Aunt Maggie Far Away, Quinns seven children, and his wife, Mary. Swiftly and quietly, Caitlin withdraws from the scene. She is not Quinns wife, but Seamus, and for the past decade, shes been pining under Quinns roof, with her teenage son Oishin, waiting for news of her husband.

Lamentably, soon we will find out that the fate of all 17 members of the Carney family is plagued by far more than Quinns and Caitlins doomed longing for each other, or even Seamus sudden disappearance.

Jez Butterworth, aptly described by the Guardian as a visionary fast becoming a theatrical great, has scored another triumph with The Ferryman, a mesmerizing, all-encompassing, three-and-a-half-hour-long epic meditation on the passage of time, the fickleness of idea(l)s, and the catastrophe of living with loss and uncertainty. Staggeringly multi-layered, dangerously fast-paced and rich in characterizations, dialogue and context, Butterworths new hit leaves the audience breathless, sweaty and tearful, in a nightmarish, dry-heaving haze.

Butterworth, no stranger to fame and praise, scored his latest massive hit in 2009, with the brilliant Jerusalem, written for and brought to life by Mark Rylance. This time the maverick of satire and lifes many mishaps teams up with the always reliable and manic Sam Mendes, who flawlessly brought the scale and scope of this familys existence to life. Butterworth previously collaborated with Mendes on two James Bond films, Skyfall and Spectre, where Butterworth was on call to polish the script. The play, which premiered on 27 April 2017, at the Royal Court Theatre in London, became a modern classic in record time, having scored 15 five-star reviews from all major British publications within days; it has also since become the fastest-selling play in the 61 years of theaters history. A West End relocation was immediately in sight, and the current run is comfortably occupying the stage of the Gielgud Theatre, where the performance will be extended for a third run until 19 May 2018, due to overwhelming demand.

With both the critics and the audiences raving, it came as little surprise that on 3 December, the play won three gongs at this years London Evening Standard Theatre Awards, including the accolades for Best Play, Best Director, and the Emerging Talent Award, picked up by the incredible Tom Glynn-Carney.

At first glance, and typical for the elusive depth of Butterworths writing, The Ferryman seems to be a formulaic family dramedy, an extraordinary story about ordinary people who live their lives quietly and inconsequentially, longing for the bygone times, inertly wrapped in their own little, 50-acre rural estate world. Mendes immaculate scenography and choreography purposefully intend to fully immerse us in the world of the mundane, the uneventful and especially the relatable nature of these peoples lives; however ,Butterworths script effortlessly expands and dives head first to explore the topics of war, politics, poverty, social tension, justice, undisclosed desires, and vanishing.



The current cast of The Ferryman in Londons West End. Photo by Johan Persson. (Courtesy of The Corner Shop)

The inspiration for the deeply moving story came from the disappearance of Eugene Simons, the uncle of Butterworths wife, Laura Donnelly, who played Caitlin during the first run. Simons was a former IRA activist who disappeared in 1981, only to be found dead in 1984. Eventually he was added to the list of the 18 Disappeared, the people believed to have been abducted, murdered and secretly buried during the Troubles. By exploring a deeply personal tragedy, the writer succeeds in creating a universal tale of loss, uncertainty, and the avoidance of facing the demons from ones past.

Adequately and purposefully, the story is fully centered around the common folk of Northern Ireland, farmers, the old and the innocent, people who want nothing to do with violence but who, like so many others, have been dealt a bad hand. While they prepare for the Harvest of 1981, ten republican prisoners die of hunger at the Maze prison, among them Bobby Sands, whose name is brought up when the elders heatedly quarrel over the nature and endurance of political ideals. In the infamous hunger strike and the attention it received from the international community, the IRA saw an opportunity for advancing its own fight, but the cause is tarnished by the ever-expanding list of The Disappeared.

Among The Disappeared is Seamus Carney, Quinns brother and Caitlins husband. His decade-long absence has reduced his wifes life to waiting and quiet desperation; her memory of him is fickle and malleable, like that of a woman speaking of her former lover, unsure of the quality of the relationship gone by. At times it seems as though she loved him, as though she still does. Often she recites the instances in which she heard someone speak about seeing him, where they saw him, what he was wearing and where he was going. Other times she claims she knew he was dead all along  a profoundly poignant vignette about Seamus car and the way he always parked it is nothing short of heart-crushing. To avoid raising a small child on her own, Caitlin sought shelter under the roof of another former IRA crony, Quinn Carney, and his family of 11, but little did she know that she would become a hostage of love and her memory in that home. Quinn is now a reformed, withdrawn and responsible family man, one who believes in a better tomorrow through work and simple life; both he and Caitlin are honest and considerate people, their love is purely platonic.

Please dont ad block PopMatters.

We are wholly independent, with no corporate backers.

Simply whitelisting PopMatters is a show of support. Thank you.

However, the family love triangle is fully fleshed out by Quinns peculiarly ill wife, Mary, who has spent years ailing in the confines of her bedroom, while her seven children are mostly raised by Caitlin and the elders, the charming Uncle and Aunt Pat (Patrick and Patricia, respectively), with occasional help from the mostly quiet Aunt Maggie Far Away. While the family joyously prepares for The Harvest, the celebration is interrupted by an unexpected visitor, Father Horrigan, Carneys harbinger of doom. The gut-wrenching discussion between him, Caitlin and Quinn is overheard by the young Oishin, and the drama takes a turn for the worse from then on. We end up spending about two more hours guessing and dissecting the proverbial Enemy of each and every one of the concerned: Is it the English? Is it the IRA? Is it the next-door cousins? Is it your priest? Is it yourself?

Butterworth may be English (albeit with two Irish grandparents), still he manages to deliver not only a Great Irish Tragedy, but a Great Tragedy as such. With his impeccable sense of character development and stories which flesh his protagonists out, in more than three hours (and two intermissions between acts), he imbues every single one of his 20+ characters with life and gives them a space of their own. The authors accomplishment is made all the greater when we find out that the majority of characters are children and teenagers  it is through their naive eyes that we witness the horrors of violence and other peoples hidden agendas. The girls dont want to think about war but about boys, while the boys are divided between those who would prefer not to end up in a ditch with a bullet to the back of their head, and those who believe the IRA is the only way out from the misery they live in. Their innocence and frenzied enthusiasm, regardless of their stance, are touching and frightening at once. Through their interactions with the elders the audience gains insight into the human spirit, the love, the dreams, and the vanishing of it all.

Irvin Yalom recently said in an interview that life is about slowly losing everything, and The Ferryman is exactly that, a drama about the two most horrific, universal human fates, that of the vanishing of love, joy, trust and life, and the only worse fate, that of uncertainty and anticipation of something that will never happen. Though The Troubles is a complex socio political problem which could be difficult to explain to audiences from outside Britain, the final proof that Butterworth earns a spot among the great playwrights of our time comes from the simple manner in which he presents all this, through the lives of everyday people, whose stories we recognize and can identify with, anywhere in the world.

Butterworths and Mendes efforts are best supported by an astonishing cast. The performances are uniformly strong, though some stand out, notably William Houston as Quinn, Sarah Greene as Caitlin, Laurie Davidson as Shane Corcoran, and Maureen Beattie as Aunt Maggie Far Away. I wish I had the opportunity to see Paddy Considine as Quinn and Laura Donnelly as Caitlin, but their successors are so good, so ferocious and primal, theres no need to wish for anyone else to be in their shoes.

If Butterworth managed to aptly show the attitude toward life, death and vanishing through the eyes of four generations of ordinary people, then Mendes, one of the most celebrated modern British theater auteurs, really pushed the envelope with his direction here. His eye for detail and the desire for full authenticity are unparalleled  the kitchen of the Carney household is reminiscent of most other cookeries, with messy tabletops and pantries suggesting someone has a bit of a hoarding problem. The level of realism is impressive, which means we get live bunnies literally pulled out of sleeves, a live goose chased around the house, and a real nine-month-old infant, the youngest member of the household. Designer Rob Howell went out of his way to accommodate every one of Mendes and producer Sonia Friedmans whims, but the real star of the creative team is the lighting designer, Peter Mumford. His rendition of natural light, especially during dusk, is extraordinary.

While most playwrights and creative teams struggle to make even a 90-minute play compelling, here three and a half hours fly by. Seamus Carney may have vanished, but his soul is still forced to wander the Earth and haunt the living. Unsurprisingly, toward the end every line brings Ancient Greece to mind. During some 30 years of The Troubles, more than 3,500 people vanished  over half were civilians. As in every other armed conflict, it is mostly the innocent who get hurt. It is refreshing to see that someone took the time to tell all those stories through the eyes of the commoners.

The Ferryman is at the Gielgud Theatre in London, currently booking until 19 May 2018.
Now I am just more tired and poor. So no, I havent changed. Im just older and more tired, says French radio journalist and documentarian Sonia Kronlund, as she looks back on the experience of making The Prince of Nothingwood (2017).

Joining Salim Shaheen, the most popular and prolific actor-director-producer in Afghanistan on his 111th no budget feature, Kronlund documents the week-long shoot and the events surrounding it. She crafts an insight into a larger than life persona, yet amidst the comedy and theatricality of Shaheen and his troupe of collaborators, she uncovers the heavier tones of the everyday reality of war and patriarchal oppression. If The Prince of Nothingwood will popularly be remembered for celebrating the creative spirit of its star, it is equally an important communication on Afghanistan, its culture and its people. Alongside the awareness of the country cultivated by mainstream media news outlets, Kronlunds film offers an insight into a country that can humanise the prejudice and xenophobic tendencies of a western perspective towards Afghanistan.

In October of this year at the UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, Kronlund spoke with PopMatters about being driven by questions rather than inspiration. She also reflected on the subjective nature of documentary filmmaking, the necessary artistic compromises of filming in Afghanistan, and feeling a satisfaction with imperfections.

Why filmmaking as a means of expression? Was there an inspirational or defining moment?

Not really, no. I have always done documentary. I used to write scripts and TV series but I only make documentaries myself for radio and television. For this story, I figured out after a while that it deserved a bigger ambition and a bigger screen and thats why I dont very much believe in inspiration. To be honest, I made this film because I had to do something. I didnt have a big project where I thought: I want to make this. I went there and I found a little money and at the end the ambition and the inspiration came along the way. But there was not an urgent necessity to make this film. It fits with a lot of things that Im interested in, like popular culture  What does art stand for and why do we go to the cinema? What is the purpose? This is a question Im interested in, but inspiration, not so much.

Has The Prince of Nothingwood provided you with the answers to those questions?

It has, and I hope it helps people to think about this question. It tells you that there is an urgent need to make images, to make films, even during war,and even if you dont have the money. And even if the films are not very good, they will find somebody who will like them. So something is going to happen, and I think thats very touching. I dont like Shaheens films, I hardly watched them  I paid somebody to watch them. But Im very moved by all these people that do like his films, and it makes you think about the value of art and the purpose of why we make cinema. I used to study aesthetics in London, so it was one of the questions I had and while the film is lighter than this, thats what was in mind.

The film uses Shaheen as a doorway, beginning as a story about one man which becomes a story about Afghanistan, its people and culture.

Yeah, but its not so much about Afghanistan and its not my purpose is to say things about the country. Theres one guy like him in Iran who makes cowboy movies in the Iranian desert and theres also a guy like that in Tunisia. I mean you have this person with an urgent need to film whatever they have under their hand and since its war, then it tells you something about the war. But its not so much interested in him.

There was a lot of editing, 148 hours that you havent seen [laughs]. Making a documentary is really telling a story and I dont have any idea of objectivity  it is my point of view on Shaheen. Some people say to me that they would like to show his films, that they really want to see his films, and I say: You dont see how much I have edited. I show you the very nice parts of his films. People think hes a great filmmaker and thats the story I wanted to tell  but I could have told another story.

To my mind, objectivity is a human construct, a falsity that does not exist.

Except mathematics maybe, and sometimes physics.

The purist opinion of documentary as objective is therein built on a faulty premise. From the subjective choices of the filmmakers that bleed into the film to the subjectivity of the subjects, its not purely objective. Hence, it calls into question the traditional dividing line of the objectivity of documentary and the subjectivity of narrative fiction.

Totally! Its the editing, and why you chose this guy, how you film it and what you show, or what you dont show. Its not only subjectivity, its storytelling. Not many people ask me about this, they take it for granted that its the real Shaheen. But Im not lying, Im not saying things that arent true, but I am telling a story, a fictional story out of what I filmed. I took scenes that happened one day and I put them with another story that happened three months later and thats why we had seven months of editing with three editors. So it was a lot of work.

One of the striking aspects of the film are the light and comedic moments offset by a darker and heavier sensibility, which include moments when, for example, Shaheen talks about arranged marriages.

We made 70rough cuts and there was one version we tested and you couldnt believe you were in Afghanistan. People would say: Oh this is too funny. You dont see Afghanistan, its just a bunch of crazy guys. I then said: Lets put in a little more darkness. You then have to strike a balance and to me, if its not perfect, Im happy.

Shooting the film in a dangerous and volatile part of the world, was the approach that once you had enough footage you then looked to shaping the film in the edit?

Its not when you feel you have enough, its finding a balance between security and artistic concerns. Thats it. You have a plan and you have an agenda. There are things you want to do, but it has to be balanced with security concerns. The real story I was going to tell about Shaheen I found in the editing room and in the end, I only kept five days of the shoot. The whole film takes place in Bamyan (Province), nothing in Kabul, although I had weeks and weeks of footage there that I had to take away.

Theres a moment when Shaheen asks if you are scared, which sees him verbalise our silent recognition of your boldness and courage to bring this story to the screen.

Its very difficult and its not like you are walking in the street and theres a bomb. This is not whats difficult. The difficulty is to cope with your fear and to have rules and to follow or to not follow those rules. There are many foreign people that never go out at all in Kabul  it is forbidden. You have British diplomats who do not even drive their car from the airport to the embassy  they will take an helicopter that costs 2,000 each way. Then you have foreign people who walk in the street without a scarf  these girls get kidnapped.

In between these you have Shaheen, who is telling me all the time that Im too scared, because its a mans value to be brave and hes a brave guy, theres no question about that. He was in an attack two weeks ago. There was a bomb in a Shia Mosque and he helped to carry out the bodies. So theres no kidding about the fact that hes a brave guy and he has to be because hes been fighting to make his films. But you are in the middle of this and Im not a brave person at all and I dont think being brave is a very important question. It is, but Im not brave, Im very scared and so in the middle of all of this stress its enough just to manage to not go crazy, or to not drink too much [laughs].
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 36F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 36F. Winds light and variable.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the attack on her husband, Paul, by an intruder in their family home made her think about staying on as the House Democratic leader. She says she almost thought about being leader again because she couldnt give them that satisfaction of intimidating her out of politics. Pelosi spoke to reporters Thursday at the Capitol after announcing she would step aside for a new generation of leaders. She will remain the congresswoman from California. Pelosi says shes not sad about her choice to step aside but feels balanced in her decision. She has no plans to endorse a successor and no desire to meddle with the new leadership's vision. Read morePelosi's big decision: 'Theres a life out there, right?'
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 09:07:01

SAN JOSE, Calif. and LONDON, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Syed Zaeem "Z" Hosain, a founder and the Chief Technical Officer at Aeris, was named the new chairman of the IoT M2M Council (IMC) by the trade association's Board of Governors at their annual meeting, held in November in Boston. With more than 25,000 members worldwide, covering 24 different vertical-market sectors, the IMC is the largest and fastest-growing trade organization serving the Internet of Things (IoT) industry.

Hosain has been with Aeris - a technology leader in IoT - since 1996, when the company was founded, and has more than 38 years of experience in the semiconductor, telecommunications and computer industries. He has held leadership positions for several industry associations and technical standards bodies, and is the author of the IoT eBook, "The Definitive Guide: The Internet of Things for Business."

"By reaching out to buyers of IoT technology on such a large scale, the IMC can provide solutions providers with a natural platform to promote their products and services, and also learn about enterprise users and OEMs that are deploying the technology. For example, we have data that show a plurality of them self-identify as 'operations' - not 'IT' or 'R&D' - and now we're digging deeper, and tracking if there are movements in these categories," said Hosain.

To cultivate interaction between buyers and sellers in the IoT sector, the IMC has recently introduced a number of new programs, including a software widget survey-tool that tests a user's readiness for IoT deployments and a template request for proposal (RFP) program for its members that are interested in sourcing IoT software platforms. The group has also been named as the exclusive organizer of the CES new area dedicated to IoT infrastructure - more than 6,500 square feet of exhibition space already has been booked for the January 2018 event to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"This is the first time CES will host a dedicated IoT area of this kind, and it's a major achievement for the IMC. Our IMC mission is about bringing buyers and sellers together, and CES attracts tens of thousands of OEMs from markets that are crucial to the IoT," said Hosain.

CLICK TO TWEET: Aeris (@AerisCTO) Syed Zaeem Hosain elected chair of @iotm2mcouncil. #M2M #IoT #AerisIoT @AerisM2M http://www.aeris.com/news/

Digital Asset

Supporting Resources

About IoT M2M Council (IMC)

The London-based IMC is the largest and fastest-growing trade group dedicated to the global IoT/M2M sector - with over 25,000 members joining since February of 2014. Board Member-Companies include Aeris, Arrow, Avnet, Digi International, HPE, Ingenu, Inmarsat, Intel, KORE, Laird Corp., ORBCOMM, MultiTech, PTC, Re-Teck, Semtech, SIGFOX, Telit, U-Blox, Verizon, and Vodafone. For more information, visit www.iotm2mcouncil.org.

About Aeris

Aeris is a global technology partner with a proven history of helping companies unlock the value of IoT. For more than a decade, we've powered critical projects for some of the most demanding customers of IoT services. Aeris strives to fundamentally improve businesses by dramatically reducing costs, accelerating time-to-market, and enabling new revenue streams. Built from the ground up for IoT and road tested at scale, Aeris IoT Services are based on the broadest technology stack in the industry, spanning connectivity up to vertical solutions. As veterans of the industry, we know that implementing an IoT solution can be complex, and we pride ourselves on making it simpler.

For more information, contact:

Kevin Petschow

Aeris

+1.312.985.9182

Kevin.Petschow@aeris.net

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cb8ebad3-a295-4c9b-a692-ea3bfc636d7

2
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 21:35:02

BALTIMORE, Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Algeco/Scotsman Holding S.a r.l. (together with its subsidiaries, the "Algeco Group") today announced the successful closing of the acquisition by the Algeco Group's subsidiary, Target Logistics Management, LLC ("Target Logistics"), of Iron Horse Ranch from funds managed by TDR Capital LLP ("TDR").

The acquisition solidifies Target Logistics' position as the single largest provider of turnkey workforce housing in the U.S., including a network of eight lodges and 2,119 beds in the Permian Basin. With the acquisition, Target Logistics' Permian Basin lodge network now includes Texas lodges in Pecos, Mentone, San Angelo and two in Odessa, along with two lodges in Carlsbad and Lovington, New Mexico. Additionally, Target Logistics adds Eagle Ford lodges in Cameron and Yorktown, Texas.

Diarmuid Cummins, CEO Algeco Scotsman: "Today we announce the completion of the second of two strategic acquisitions which we flagged earlier in the year as important steps forward for the Algeco Group. This transaction materially enhances our leading position in the Permian Basin and expands our presence in the Eagle Ford Basin."

Brad Archer, CEO Target Logistics: "We are proud to officially welcome Iron Horse Ranch to our team as part of our continued effort to build on our extensive network of turnkey workforce lodges in the United States. Iron Horse Ranch not only complements our existing footprint in the Permian Basin, but also shares our commitment to helping customers realize their full potential by providing a safe and comfortable environment away from the job site."

Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the securities laws of certain applicable jurisdictions, which reflect the Algeco Group's expectations regarding its future operational and financial performance. By their nature, the forward-looking events described in this press release may not be accurate or occur at all. In particular, we may not be able to realize the anticipated benefits of the acquisition of Iron Horse. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which the statements were made. Although any forward-looking statements contained in this press release reflect management's current beliefs based upon information currently available to management and upon assumptions which management believes to be reasonable, actual results may differ materially from those stated in or implied by these forward-looking statements. A number of factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation, and specifically decline any obligation, to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Algeco Scotsman

Algeco Scotsman is the leading global business services provider focused on modular space, secure portable storage solutions, and remote workforce accommodation management. Headquartered in Baltimore, Algeco Scotsman has operations in 24 countries with a modular fleet of approximately 245,000 units and 11,400 remote accommodations rooms. The company operates as Target Logistics in North America, Algeco in Europe, Elliott in the United Kingdom, Ausco in Australia, Portacom in New Zealand, and Algeco Chengdong in China.

About Target Logistics

Target Logistics, an Algeco Scotsman company, is one of the largest providers of turnkey housing solutions in North America. It operates globally in some of the most remote environments, supporting oil, gas and mining with workforce housing, mobile crew camps and extended-stay hotels; government departments and organizations with temporary lodging and refugee integration; and capital projects. Target Logistics was named by Inc. magazine in 2012 and 2013 as one of "America's Fastest Growing Private Companies." Visit www.TargetLogistics.net or call (800) 832-4242.

About Iron Horse Ranch

Iron Horse Ranch is an industry leader in workforce housing for the Oil, Gas and Construction industries. Iron Horse Ranch specializes in turn-key remote camp installation, operation, project management and land acquisition. Iron Horse Ranch has one of the highest standards in workforce and temporary housing, winning awards for Service, Quality and Operational Excellence. Iron Horse Ranch operates 6 workforce lodging facilities in North America with over 1000 beds. For more information on Iron Horse Ranch, please visit http://www.ironhorseranch.com.

Investor Relations Contact:

Scott Shaughnessy

Vice President, Finance

Algeco Scotsman

410-933-5921

Scott.Shaughnessy@as.willscot.com

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: Algeco Scotsman via Globenewswire


PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 12:02:01

Ardshinbank Signs $25 Million Trade Finance Facility with Citi and ADB

Citi Media Contact:

Belinda Marks, +44 20 7508 3082

belinda.marks@citi.com

Ardshinbank has signed a $25 million one-year Club Trade Finance Facility arranged by Citi with Asian Development Bank (ADB). ADB is supporting a portion of the facility through their Trade Finance Program (TFP) in the form of a guarantee.

This is the first Club Trade Finance Facility arranged by Citi for Ardshinbank. Proceeds of this will support import and export transactions for top corporate customers of Ardshinbank, increasing the volume and value of trade transactions in Armenias key economic sectors, including energy, mining, and services.

We are pleased to be at the forefront of providing much needed trade finance products to our corporate and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) clients. It will not only diversify and strengthen our client base, but also serve our purpose to contribute to sustainable economic growth in Armenia, said Mher Grigoryan, Ardshinbanks Chief Executive Officer. I would like to thank Citi, our long-term partner, and ADB for a fruitful collaboration and successful completion of the transaction.

We aim to deliver bespoke and best in class trade solutions at Citi. The firms global reach and expertise in financing trade flows puts us in the ideal position to help support progress and growth in developing markets, said Chafic Haddad, EMEA Head of Financial Institutions and Correspondent Banking, Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi. By facilitating this landmark Club Trade Finance Facility for Ardshinbank, we have been able to form a partnership with a number of industry professionals to ensure we can provide the ideal solution for Ardshinbanks trade financing needs.

ADB is delighted to be part of this transaction with Ardshinbank and Citi, said Nana Khurodze, Relationship Manager at ADB. Through this facility, Ardshinbank will be able to grow its trade finance operations to support more importing and exporting companies, including small and medium-sized businesses. This will support growth and job creation in Armenia.

ADB's TFP in Armenia has supported over $55.9 million in trade through 159 transactions since 2012, 95.6% of which have been SME-related deals.

About Ardshinbank

Ardshinbank is a leading Armenian bank with a wide sales network comprising of 64 branches. It offers a broad range of services to corporations, SMEs, and individuals. It is the only private entity in Armenia with assigned ratings from two international major rating agenciesMoodys and Fitchequal to the rating of Sovereign. Additional information may be found at www.ardshinbank.am/en

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com

About Asian Development Bank

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, ADB is celebrating 50 years of development partnership in the region. It is owned by 67 members48 from the region. In 2016, ADB assistance totaled $31.7 billion, including $14 billion in co-financing.

The Trade Finance Program (TFP), backed by ADB's AAA credit rating, provides guarantees and loans to over 200 partner banks to support trade, enabling more companies throughout Asia to engage in import and export activities. With dedicated trade finance specialists and a 24-hour response time, the program has established itself as a key partner in the international trade community, providing fast, reliable, and responsive support to fill gaps in the regions most challenging markets. Since 2009, TFP has supported more than 9,200 small and medium-sized businesses across developing Asiathrough over 14,000 transactions valued at over $26 billionin sectors ranging from commodities and capital goods, to medical supplies and consumer goods. For more information, visit the TFP website: http://www.adb.org/tfp

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201712150052
Asia Pacific Cakes, Pastries And Sweet Pies (Bakery And Cereals) Market By Category (cakes, Pastries, Sweet Pies), By Distribution Channel (Bakeries, Supermarkets/Hypermarkets, Convenience Stores, Others) And By Region

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 11:38:32

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

Hyderabad



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com



Published by

chaitanya inampudi

+917680952236

e-mail

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/







# 465 Words

HyderabadSales Manager (International Business Development)1-888-702-9626chaitanya inampudi+917680952236

Asia Pacific Cakes, Pastries and Sweet Pies (Bakery and Cereals) Market was worth USD XX billion in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of XX%, to reach USD XX billion by 2021. Pastries are small buns made using whipped cream  a stiff dough enriched with fat. Some dishes, such as pies, are made of a pastry casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savory ingredients. A cake is made with flour & often is made with more than one layer and it rises. And it has icing on it. A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Pies are defined by their crusts.View Full Report @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-cakes-pastries-and-sweet-pies-market-4951/ The growth of the Asia-Pacific Cakes, Pastries and Sweet Pies (Bakery and Cereals) Market is mainly driven by the rising demand, increase in urbanization leading to higher availability of bakeries. However, health concerns are a major factor restraining market growth. Therefore, to attract the health conscious populace, the vendors introduced healthier varieties with lesser fat content. Also, the rapid growth in home baking also acts as a restraint on market growth as it reduces the demand for packaged Cakes, Pastries and Sweet Pies (Bakery and Cereals).Request Sample @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-cakes-pastries-and-sweet-pies-market-4951/request-sample Market SegmentationCategory Introduction Cakes Pastries Sweet Pies Y-o-Y Growth Analysis, By Category Market Attractiveness Analysis, By Category Market Share Analysis, By CategoryThe Asia-Pacific region is geographically segmented into China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Asia-Pacific is predicted to grow with the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Factors such as growing consumption coupled with the rapid growth in distribution channels are anticipated to lead the growth of the market in this region.Inquire Before Buy @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-cakes-pastries-and-sweet-pies-market-4951/inquire The major players operating in the Asia Pacific Cakes, Pastries and Sweet Pies industry include Rich Product, Betty Crocker, CSM Bakery Solutions, Pinnacle Foods, Wilton Industries, Dawn Food, Real Good Food and Lawrence Foods.Buy Now @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/cart/buy-now/asia-pacific-cakes-pastries-and-sweet-pies-market-4951 About Market Data Forecast:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, they cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. From all-encompassing umbrella markets to extremely specific niche markets covering all the major regions across the globe as part of the research scope, their research services offer one of a kind specialities with competitive pricing options. For more info kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com
"Browse And Choose From Our World Class Research Reports"

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 11:18:31

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

USA



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/





# 553 Words

USASales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

The Asia Pacific Redskin Peanuts Sales Market was worth USD xx million in 2016, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of xx%, to reach USD xx million by 2021. Peanut is a large scale commercial crop. It is majorly grown for its seeds which are edible. It is also popular for its high oil content. Peanuts contain several nutrients such as carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, protein and fat. Most of the peanuts produced in the world are redskin peanuts.Full report at: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4156/ Most of the manufacturers were using blanched peanuts to prepare other food products. However, according to a study, peanut skins contain up to 17% of its oil and it also contains several fatty acids which are useful in other industries. Also, peanut skin offers high fiber content and an antioxidant called resveratrol. Antioxidants are increased in peanuts when they are roasted with their skin on rather than blanched. Apart from food products, redskin peanuts are also used in beverages and for medical purposes.Increasing popularity for peanuts, both with and without skin and growing awareness regarding the health benefits of peanuts with skin are the major factors driving the market. Shifting of product manufacturers towards peanuts with skin and advancements in food processing industries are also propelling the market growth. However, high fat and cholesterol content in peanuts and allergic reactions due to eating them are restraining the market growth.The Redskin Peanuts Sales Market is categorized based on the type, application and region. Based on type, the market is categorized into Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts, Processed Redskin Peanuts. Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts holds the largest market share but processed redskin peanuts are expected to be the fastest growing segment due to the high demand for processed food around the globe. Based on application, the market is categorized into Food, Medical, Drink and Others. Food is the major application of peanuts as they are used to prepare food products in large extent due to their high nutritional content.Based on geography, the market is categorized into China, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea. China and India are the worlds first and second largest peanut producers in the world and the demand is also high due to the large population base. This resulted in Asia Pacific becoming the market leader in sales of redskin peanuts.Request sample: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/asia-pacific-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4156/request-sample Some of the major players in this region are Golden Peanut, Hubs Virginia Peanuts, Durham-Ellis Pecan Company, Wakefield Peanut Company LLC, Whitley's Peanut Factory, Feridies, Fisher, and Superior Nuts.About Market Data Forecast:The publisher of this report is Market Data Forecast whose forte lies in Market research and Business Intelligence. Handling both individual and corporate clients across multiple business domains they offer syndicated/customized research to suit the clients research objective. Their research reports section offers a wide variety of market studies ranging from all-encompassing comprehensive market studies to product specific niche markets covering North America among other regions of the global market as well. For more info kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com Visit MarketDataForecast Blog @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/blog/ View latest Press Releases of MDF @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/press-releases
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 01:17:14

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 387 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Bacanora Minerals Ltd.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Bacanora Minerals Ltd. (TSX Venture:BCN). has issued a press release with the following headline:Bacanora Announces Strategic Cornerstone Investor and Offtake AgreementTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Bacanora Minerals Ltd., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Bacanora Minerals Ltd.Source: Bacanora Minerals Ltd. (TSX Venture: BCN, AIM: BCN)Date: December 14, 2017Time: 7:17 PM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Bacanora Minerals Ltd. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 13:23:02

Bitcoin Romania and Twispay Announce Integration Partnership Providing Users with the Ability to Purchase Bitcoin with Bank Cards

Bitcoin Romania

Mirona Noru

+40760431063

contact@bitcoinromania.ro

or

Twispay

Sorin Despot

+40373782729

press@twispay.com

Bitcoin Romania, leading Eastern European Bitcoin exchange & brokerage firm, and Twispay, Swiss-owned European payment processor and FinTech pioneer, today announced the availability of a payment integration that allows a global clientele to acquire Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies using Visa and Mastercard bank cards.

Unprecedented in Romania, this is one of the first East-Central European integration partnerships that allow consumers to use their cards to purchase cryptocurrency. Until recently, investors could only acquire cryptocurrencies through bank transfers and cash deposits, but the volatility of cryptocurrency markets dictates the need for additional operational flexibility. Investors require faster, safer, more reliable, and more comfortable ways to complete purchases.

One minute can make the difference between a million lost and a million earned. That is precisely why providing the ability to purchase Bitcoin and Ether through credit cards is crucial in our quest to offer a competitive edge to Bitcoin Romania users. Working alongside a tech-driven financial institution such as Twispay, we are going to provide clients with further financial flexibility and functionality. Together, we will tackle every user-related and regulatory challenge the crypto world can throw at us, stated George Rotariu, Bitcoin Romania CEO.

In time-pressured industries, the reliability of payment processing integrations can make or break a company. The ability to accept online payments quickly, safely, and with ease is crucial to any online venture, let alone a cryptocurrency exchange. We are happy to contribute to the consolidation of our partners leading position on the Romanian crypto market and their steady rise to the top of the European crypto scene, said Cristi Gheorghe, Twispay CMO.

Bitcoin Romania is a leading Romanian Bitcoin exchange & brokerage firm, offering a wide range of services, such as online cryptocurrency trading and crypto-to-local-currency cash withdrawal. In 2014, Bitcoin Romania brought to Bucharest the first Bitcoin ATM in continental Europe. More details on https://trade.bitcoinromania.ro/.

Backed by its own acquiring bank  Capital Financial Services  Twispay is a Swiss-owned European payment processor and FinTech pioneer, providing online merchants with lean access to a complete portfolio of payment services at the most competitive rates. Learn more on https://www.twispay.com/.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201712150052

Bitcoin Romania and Twispay provide users with the ability to purchase Bitcoin with bank cards.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 09:05:12

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 397 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for E3 Metals Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - E3 Metals Corp. (TSX Venture:ETMC). has issued a press release with the following headline:E3 Metals New Assay Results Outline Lithium Concentration Consistency and the Company Files Clearwater Technical ReportTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on E3 Metals Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/E3 Metals Corp.Source: E3 Metals Corp. (TSX Venture: ETMC)Date: December 15, 2017Time: 3:05 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of E3 Metals Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 13:57:04

11th Consecutive Win for Delivering Value Across Clients' Supply Chains

WAYNE, Pa., Dec. 15, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Elemica, the leading Business Network for the process industries, announces the company has been named to Food Logistics magazine's FL100+ Award for the 11th year. The FL100+ list recognizes leading software and technology providers in the food and beverage industry. Elemica was chosen for helping agricultural and food ingredient businesses conduct more efficient and error free commerce across their community of suppliers, customers and logistics providers - delivering value through lower operating expenses and working capital costs.

"We are honored to be included for the past eleven years on the Food Logistics FL100+ list for helping companies improve efficiencies and generate value from their supply chains," said John Blyzinskyj, CEO of Elemica. "Automating business processes, enabling end-to-end visibility, and providing a platform for meaningful collaboration enables active participants on Elemica's Business Network to make faster and more intelligent decisions about their business."

"New developments and innovations in the software and technology sector are making sizeable impacts on the global food supply chain," notes Lara L. Sowinski, editorial director for Food Logistics and its sister publication, Supply & Demand Chain Executive. "The result is a greater visibility, improved regulatory compliance, enhanced shelf life for perishables, and the emergence of a more proactive and nimble food supply chain that benefits both the food industry and its logistics partners, as well as the end consumer."

Companies on this year's 2017 FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list will be profiled in the November/December 2017 issue of Food Logistics, as well as online at www.foodlogistics.com.

Elemica's Business Network allows food & beverage ingredient companies to track their products through the supply chain, with visibility from raw materials to end-users. By implementing Business Network capabilities, clients become easier to do business with, are able to clearly differentiate themselves through service, quickly realize significant cost advantages, and are better able to respond rapidly to either market opportunities or supply disruptions.

About Food Logistics

Food Logistics is published by AC Business Media, a business-to-business media company that provides targeted content and comprehensive, integrated advertising and promotion opportunities for some of the world's most recognized B2B brands. Its diverse portfolio serves the construction, logistics, supply chain and other industries with print, digital and custom products, events and social media.

About Elemica

Elemica is the leading Business Network for the process industries. Elemica transforms supply chains by replacing manual and complex approaches with efficient and reliable ones. Launched in 2000, customers like BASF, BP, Continental, The Dow Chemical Company, DuPont, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, LANXESS, Michelin, Shell, Solvay, Sumitomo Chemical, Wacker and more process nearly $400B in commerce value annually on the network. Elemica drives bottom line results by promoting reduced cost of operations, faster process execution, automation of key business processes, removal of transactional barriers, and seamless information flow between trading partners. For more information, visit www.elemica.com.

For More Information, Contact:

Becky Boyd

MediaFirst

(770) 642-2080 x 214

becky@mediafirst.net
Dr. Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman and Managing Director of the Eram Group, received the award from the Minister of State for Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, S. S. Ahluwalia in New Delhi.

Dr. Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman and Managing Director of the Eram Group receives the award

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 10:31:37

Press Information

Eram Group

Dubai, UAE



Nirmala Dsouza

PR Consultant

+971507343840

email

http://www.eramgroup.com





# 981 Words

Dubai, UAEPR Consultant+971507343840

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 15, 2017: Eram Group, a diversified business conglomerate headquartered in Dubai, announced that its group company - Eram Scientific Solutions has won the Swachhathon 1.0 award in Indias first-ever Swachh Bharat Hackathon, organized by the Indian Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Dr. Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman and Managing Director of the Eram Group received the award from the Minister of State, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri S. S. Ahluwalia in New Delhi in the presence of Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India and other senior delegates including cabinet ministers.Eram won the maiden Swachhathon 1.0 award in a hotly contested competition by trumping both domestic and foreign firms working on the sanitation technology space. The Hackathon received a massive response in six categories. Eram won the award in the `Monitoring Usage of Toilets category."The creation of an urban sanitation infrastructure is as important as other infrastructures for citizens. Eram Scientific has taken on the challenge of addressing public sanitation by developing a product that is portable, hygienically maintained, and eco-friendly. e-Toilet is India's first electronic public toilet and we are proud and honored to receive the maiden Swachhathon 1.0 award from the government of India in the Monitoring Usage of Toilets category, said Dr. Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman and Managing Director of the Eram Group.This award is a testimony of Erams relentless efforts to bring new innovations and practices in the sanitation and hygienic space. I thank government of India for recognizing our efforts as well as our R&D team for spearheading innovation. Eram remains committed to integrating technology and network connectivity to provide improved sanitary and hygiene conditions for the public at large," Dr. Ahmed added.Eram Scientific Solutions has been a pioneer in introducing the concept of technology integrated toilets to address challenges associated with public sanitation in society. The company has tied up with several global universities including Duke University and University of South Florida, for joint studies and field trials for effective waste processing.e-Toilets, developed by the company, are automated public toilets that take care of the sanitation needs of the public and add to the overall ambience of the location. The e-Toilet is Indias first unmanned electronic public toilet, which is portable, hygienically maintained, and eco-friendly. The e-Toilet concept incorporates the full cycle approach in sustainable sanitation by integrating electronics, mechanical, web-mobile technologies thereby controlling entry, usage, cleaning, exit, and remote monitoring, with revenue options.The e-Toilet has options to use solar power, use reduced amount of water as well as a sensor-enabled system to conserve water and electricity usage. The self-cleaning and water conservation mechanism in the toilet makes it unique. The insertion of a coin opens the door of the e-Toilet for the user, switches on a light, and the person with audio commands. The toilets are programmed to flush 1.5 liters of water after 3 minutes of usage or 4.5 liters if usage is longer. It can also be programmed to clean the platform with a complete wash down after every 5 or 10 persons use the toilet.Since 2012, Eram had been integrating the remote monitoring capabilities in all its public e-Toilets, which makes it a unique intelligent toilet system. With a presence in more than 22 states in India, the e-Toilet has had more than 12 million users till date and an average of 15,000 daily users.Eram Scientific Solutions has already won more than 44 national and international accolades for its inspiring contributions in introducing high-end, future proof and scalable technology in the sanitation space. The companys products made many a Smart Cities smarter by adopting its market tested and proven automated model.About Eram GroupEram Group is a diversified conglomerate, based in the Gulf Cooperation Council region, operating primarily in oil and gas, power and utilities, travel, food, healthcare and automotive sectors. The Group has its global headquarters in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia and regional headquarters in Dubai, UAE. Under the leadership of Dr Siddeek Ahmed, Chairman and Managing Director, Eram Group has grown to over 40 companies with strategic locations in Asia, Europe and North America. Eram Group has also established social enterprises in public sanitation and educational sectors, for which it has won acclaim.Group concerns such as ITL World, a travel management company, and Eram Scientific, a research firm providing sanitation solutions, are recognized for their quality service and innovation. Eram Group is committed to society and social causes. The group invests its resources in making the world a better place, through its own charitable ventures and in collaboration with organizations such as United Nations, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Governments and other NGOs.About Eram Scientific SolutionsEram Scientific Solutions is a private holding company based out of Kerala in India, which started operations in 2008. It is a social enterprise operating primarily in the water and sanitation sector. Eram Scientific introduced the concept of technology integrated toilets to address challenges associated with public sanitation in society.About Swachh Bharat HackathonSwachhathon 1.0, the first ever Swachh Bharat Hackathon, was organized by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation to crowd source solutions for some of the sanitation and hygiene challenges faced in various parts of the country. The Ministry invited application from schools and colleges, institutions, start-ups and others to come up with viable solutions for six categories challenges.These included the following: Monitoring usage of toilets; Triggering behavior change; Toilet technologies in difficult terrains; Working solutions for maintenance and operations of school toilets; Technological solutions for safe disposal of menstrual waste; and Solution for early decomposition of fecal matter.The Hackathon received a massive response from across the country, with 3053 entries received overall with 750 in monitoring usage of toilets. Based on the cumulative assessment by the jury, the winners were announced for each category in the Capital. The hackathon was open for all including international entries, and was hosted on the innovate.mygov.in portal.
"Browse And Choose From Our World Class Research Reports"

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 11:19:22

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

USA



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/





# 531 Words

USASales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

The Europe Redskin Peanuts Sales Market was worth USD xx million in 2016, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of xx%, to reach USD xx million by 2021. Peanut is a large scale commercial crop. It is majorly grown for its seeds which are edible. It is also popular for its high oil content. Peanuts contain several nutrients such as carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, protein and fat. Most of the peanuts produced in the world are redskin peanuts.Full report at: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/europe-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4155/ Most of the manufacturers were using blanched peanuts to prepare other food products. However, according to a study, peanut skins contain up to 17% of its oil and it also contains several fatty acids which are useful in other industries. Also, peanut skin offers high fiber content and an antioxidant called resveratrol. Antioxidants are increased in peanuts when they are roasted with their skin on rather than blanched. Apart from food products, redskin peanuts are also used in beverages and for medical purposes.Increasing popularity for peanuts, both with and without skin and growing awareness regarding the health benefits of peanuts with skin are the major factors driving the market. Shifting of product manufacturers towards peanuts with skin and advancements in food processing industries are also propelling the market growth. However, high fat and cholesterol content in peanuts and allergic reactions due to eating them are restraining the market growth.The Redskin Peanuts Sales Market is categorized based on the type, application and region. Based on type, the market is categorized into Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts, Processed Redskin Peanuts. Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts holds the largest market share but processed redskin peanuts are expected to be the fastest growing segment due to the high demand for processed food around the globe. Based on application, the market is categorized into Food, Medical, Drink and Others. Food is the major application of peanuts as they are used to prepare food products in large extent due to their high nutritional content.Based on geography, the Europe market is categorized into U.K, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Germany leads the redskin peanuts sales market as it is the largest producer and exporter of peanuts in this region.Request sample: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/europe-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4155/request-sample Some of the major players in this region are Golden Peanut, Hubs Virginia Peanuts, Durham-Ellis Pecan Company, Wakefield Peanut Company LLC, Whitley's Peanut Factory, Feridies, Fisher, and Superior Nuts.About Market Data Forecast:The publisher of this report is Market Data Forecast whose forte lies in Market research and Business Intelligence. Handling both individual and corporate clients across multiple business domains they offer syndicated/customized research to suit the clients research objective. Their research reports section offers a wide variety of market studies ranging from all-encompassing comprehensive market studies to product specific niche markets covering North America among other regions of the global market as well. For more info kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com Visit MarketDataForecast Blog @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/blog/ View latest Press Releases of MDF @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/press-releases
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 15:00:43

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 395 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Friday Night Inc--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Friday Night Inc (CSE:TGIF). has issued a press release with the following headline:Friday Night Inc. Expands Brand into California CBD MarketTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Friday Night Inc, or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Friday Night IncSource: Friday Night Inc (CSE: TGIF, OTCQB: TGIFF, FWB: 1QF, ISIN: CA74840V1004, WKN: A2ABE2)Date: December 15, 2017Time: 9:00 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Friday Night Inc and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
Proteomics Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 12:58:08

Press Information

Precision Business Insights

Kemp House,





152  160 City Road,





London EC1V 2NX



satya

Lead Marketing

+1-866-598-1553

email

https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.com





# 689 Words

Kemp House,152  160 City Road,London EC1V 2NXLead Marketing+1-866-598-1553

Proteomics is the investigation of proteome which is an arrangement of proteins show in the cell. Proteomes are not the same as one cell to another cell with prerequisites, push, distinctive time, and the creature. Proteomics help in the working and structure of the proteins utilized as a part of the analysis, treatment, and medication revelation of different maladies. Besides, proteomics likewise helps in the assessment of protein creation rate, connection between the proteins, protein change, and contribution in the metabolic pathways. Proteomics needs different hardware, instruments, media, reagents, and, programming for the recognizable proof, evaluation, and associations between the proteins.Increment popular for customized prescription, mechanical headways for recognizable proof, increment in R&D exercises by open and private parts, and ascend in the pervasiveness of hereditary issue anticipated that would help the proteomics showcase over the conjecture time frame. Besides, ascend in the quantity of biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical organizations, developing social insurance use, and expanding advancements in the genomics field anticipated that would impel the proteomics showcase. Be that as it may, stringent administrative strategies, absence of experts for R&D exercises, and high cost of the gadgets and medications may hose the proteomics advertise income development over the figure time frame.A sample of this report is available upon request @Proteomics market is segmented on the basis of product type, application, service type, and end userBased on the product type, proteomics market is segmented into the following: Instruments Protein micro array Spectroscopy X-ray Crystallography Chromatography Electrophoresis Protein fractionation system Others Reagents SoftwareBased on the service type, proteomics market is segmented into the following: Analytical laboratory services Protein sequencing Protein identification Protein separation Data analysis and maintenance OthersBased on the application, proteomics market is segmented into the following: Diagnosis Treatment Drug discovery OthersBased on the end user, proteomics market is segmented into the following: Biopharmaceutical and Pharmaceutical Companies Chemical industries Research institutes OthersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Proteomics market is growing at a significant CAGR owing to increase in the demand for personalized medicine and rise R&D activities by Biopharmaceutical companies and research institutes. Governments initiatives for prevention the genetic disorders are a key factor for fuel the proteomics market over the forecast period. Acquisitions & mergers, collaborations, and innovations are some key strategies followed by the companies for increase their revenue in the proteomics market. For instance, in April 2014, Thermo Fisher Scientific has collaborated with Harward Medical School for the innovation of newer techniques for proteomics quantification. Similarly, in January 2012, Merck Millipore (Merck KGaA) has collaborated with Proteomics International for the evaluation of newly identified protein biomarkers under Mercks multiplex immunoassays.Need more information about this report @Geographically, proteomics market is segmented into North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East and Africa. The major factors anticipated to drive the North America proteomics market include the increase in funding from public and private sectors, developed healthcare infrastructure, increase in R&D activities, and increase in the demand for personalized medicine. Europe holds a key share in proteomics market, which is attributed to increase in the R&D activities for preventing the genetic disorders, technological advancements of instruments, and innovation of newer techniques are expected to propel the market in the region. Asia Pacific expected to exhibit lucrative growth over forecast timeframe owing to increase in the funding from public and private sectors, rise in demand for quality healthcare and personalized medicine in the region.Some of the players in proteomics market are Merck KGaA (Germany), Waters Corporation (U.S.), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), Agilent Technologies Inc. (U.S.), Bruker Corporation (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.), PerkinElmer Inc. (U.S.), GE Healthcare (U.S.), Danaher Corporation (U.S.), and Luminex Corporation (U.S.) to name a few.Get access to full summary @Contact to Precision Business Insights,Email: sales@ precisionbusinessinsights.com Website @ https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.com
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 14:08:02

Guido Carlo Alleva Awarded Lawyer of the Year in White Collar Crime

Alleva & Associati

Guido Carlo Alleva

lawoffice@allevalaw.com



Guido Carlo Alleva, Founder and Senior Partner at law firm Alleva & Associati, triumphed at 7thannual edition of Le Fonti Awards celebrated on 20 October. This year the Gala Ceremony & CEO Summit was held at the London Stock Exchange, a prestigious location situated in The City of London.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201712150053

Guido Carlo Alleva, Founder and Senior Partner at law firm Alleva & Associati, triumphed at 7thannual edition of Le Fonti Awards celebrated on 20 October. (Photo: Business Wire)

Lawyer Alleva has been awarded Lawyer of the Year in White Collar Crime in Italy with the following official motivation: For his deep and complete understanding of corporate and financial crimes, especially in the banking sector. As well as for having assisted one of the major rating agencies against the charge of market manipulation, obtaining acquittal of all defendants; lawyer Alleva is nowadays a strong point of reference in Italy, in this field. The selection procedure has been conducted by the Scientific Committee of Le Fonti as well as by a team of financial, legal, and economic journalists from over 120 countries throughout the world. Guido Carlo Alleva has been indicated as one of the most influential Italian lawyers by a judging panel of journalists, members of the editorial staff.

This years CEO Summit was inspired on issues such as job, economy and smart working and how they are influenced by the fourth Industrial Revolution: renews experts graced on the stage for the round table The Digital Revolution and how Ceos should adapt to tech disruptors that preceded the Awards ceremony.

The legal systems continue to be based on their own principles and they reserve the right to say what is a crime and what is not: this creates problems in cross border situations, for instance with financial activities based in London and working on the global market with Italian, American and Chinese sides. For us lawyers there is the duty to try to be also cultural mediators declared lawyer Alleva regarding the globalization of business and economy.

Le Fonti Awards are held each year recognizing industry leaders in the fields of law, banking and finance, business and economics, sustainability and insurance. The roadshow event takes place in the most influential and strategic financial centers such as Hong Kong, Dubai, London, Singapore, Milan and New York.

Watch here the video interview with Guido Carlo Alleva

http://www.lefonti.tv/guido-carlo-alleva-awarded-l

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201712150053
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 11:16:42

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

531/MIG-II, Rd Number 1, Kukatpally Housing Board Colony, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, Telangana 500072.



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com





# 584 Words

531/MIG-II, Rd Number 1, Kukatpally Housing Board Colony, Kukatpally, Hyderabad, Telangana 500072.Sales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator Market size was around USD XX billion in 2017. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of XX% to reach USD XX billion by 2022. Wearable cardioverter defibrillator is a gadget that is non-invasive it is utilized to prevent sudden heart attack. It has two parts: A light weight jacket which is worn under regular clothes and a small mobile unit which includes recorder and generator. Sudden heart attack occurs when the heart's electrical system malfunctions. It directs the heart to relax and contract. Those conditions where there is abnormal rhythm in the ventricles of the heart is known as Ventricular Fibrillation. When VF occurs, a WCD sends an electrical current to the heart that is used to revive a normal heart rhythm. Defibrillators are used for the treatment of life-threatening ventricular fibrillation, heart dysrhythmias, and ventricular tachycardia.Get a comprehensive overview of the Market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/wearable-cardioverter-defibrillator-market-4565/ Rising prevalence of diseases, increasing geriatric population, growing number of training and awareness among the population base and, technological advancements are the primary drivers of the market.On the other hand, factors like problems related to the use of wearable cardioverter defibrillator devices, inadequate knowledge regarding sudden cardiac arrest, and the wearable cardioverter defibrillator does not monitor atrial arrhythmias thus this hinders the growth of the market.Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator Market segmentation by Conditions and by End User. By Conditions it is segmented into Peripartum Cardiomyopathy, Congenital Heart Disease, and Inherited Arrhythmias. By End User the market is segmented into Hospitals, Home Care Settings, and Cardiology Clinics.Request a sample to stay up-to-date on the main trends affecting this market: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/wearable-cardioverter-defibrillator-market-4565/ Market SegmentationConditionsIntroductionPeripartum CardiomyopathyCongenital Heart DiseaseInherited ArrhythmiasY-o-Y Growth Analysis, By ConditionsMarket Attractiveness Analysis, By ConditionsMarket Share Analysis, By ConditionsEnd UserIntroductionHospitalsHome Care SettingsCardiology ClinicsY-o-Y Growth Analysis, By End UserMarket Attractiveness Analysis, By End UserMarket Share Analysis, By End UserWearable Cardioverter Defibrillator Market geographical segmentation by Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. North America commands the largest market share of the overall industry and is likely to keep ruling the business sector due to growing incidence of diseases, enhancement in healthcare industry and extended growth. US and Canada contribute highest to the overall market in the region because of the awareness regarding the sudden cardiac arrest and defibrillators. Europe is the second largest market. The Market is majorly driven by rise in demand from developing economies in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions, where more workstations and business environments are introducing advancement in defibrillators. It is projected to benefit the defibrillators market in the aforementioned forecast period.Inquire Before Buying: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/wearable-cardioverter-defibrillator-market-4565/inquire The major Wearable Cardioverter Defibrillator Market leaders are LivaNova PLC (U.K.), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands), ZOLL Medical Corporation (U.S.), Cardiac Science Corporation (U.S.), Physio-Control, Inc. (U.S.), Medtronic PLC (Ireland), St. Jude Medical, Inc. (U.S.), Boston Scientific Corporation (U.S.), BIOTRONIK SE & Co. KG (Germany), and Nihon Kohden Corporation (Japan)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.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 08:40:04

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 395 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited (TSX Venture:XOP). has issued a press release with the following headline:Mozambique License Awarded and Nigeria UpdateTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited, or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Canadian Overseas Petroleum LimitedSource: Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited (TSX Venture: XOP, LSE: COPL, WKN: A1C29E, ISIN: CA13643D1078)Date: December 15, 2017Time: 2:32 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
"Browse And Choose From Our World Class Research Reports"

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 11:59:54

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

USA



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/





# 538 Words

USASales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

The North America Almond Oil Market was worth USD 390 million in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 12.6%, to reach USD 710 million by 2021. The market is showcasing evident potential in the mentioned forecasting period. The market continues to gain momentum with the rapid development in the cosmetics industry.Almond oil is vital oil obtained from extracting almonds and is used as an ingredient for cosmetic preparations, for adding flavour, and for its medicinal properties. The almond oil can be colourless or pale yellow or yellow, and is prepared by using various techniques.Full report at: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-almond-oil-market-4686/ The growing demand for aromatherapy is a major driver for market growth. Aromatherapy involves the usage of essential oils for a variety of health conditions and becoming popular among spa customers. Another drivers for the market growth are increasing preference for online shopping leading to higher profit margins, and rising number of retailing channels. However, lack of awareness and low affordability proves to be a major challenge for Almond Oil market in some regions.Market Segmentation: Product Application End use Distribution channelScope of the report: Global, regional and country-level analysis and forecasts of the study market; providing Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untapped Segment-level analysis in terms by type, packaging and meat type along with market size forecasts and estimations to detect key areas of industry growth in detail Identification of key drivers, restraints, opportunities and challenges (DROC) in the market and their impact on shifting market dynamics Study of the effect of exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the global market; which includes broadly demographic, economic and political, among other macro-environmental factors presented in an extensive PESTLE AnalysisThe North America Almond Oil Market is segmented on the basis of Product into Sweet Almond Oil and Bitter Almond Oil. On the basis of Application, the market is segmented into Cosmetics and Food.Request sample: http://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-almond-oil-market-4686/request-sample On the basis of geography, the North America market is analysed under various regions namely U.S.A and Canada. The North America Almond Oil Market dominated the global market with largest share and is expected to grow significantly owing to rise in disposable incomes.Some of the major companies dominating the market, by their products are AAK, Frontier Natural Products, Flora, Oil Seed Extractions, Proteco, Bajaj, Dabur and Caloy .About Market Data Forecast:The publisher of this report is Market Data Forecast whose forte lies in Market research and Business Intelligence. Handling both individual and corporate clients across multiple business domains they offer syndicated/customized research to suit the clients research objective. Their research reports section offers a wide variety of market studies ranging from all-encompassing comprehensive market studies to product specific niche markets covering North America among other regions of the global market as well. For more info kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com Visit MarketDataForecast Blog @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/blog/ View latest Press Releases of MDF @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/press-releases
North America Cell Sorting Market By Technology (FACS Based Droplet Sorting, MACS, Microfluidics), Product (Cell Sorters, Reagents, Consumables), Application (Research, Clinical), End User (Research Institutes, Biopharma Companies, Medical Schools) And By Region - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, And Forecasts (20162021)

We Think Through Different Layers, We Work Across Different Verticals

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 13:21:48

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

USA



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com





# 875 Words

USASales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

The North America Cell Sorting Market was worth USD 67.07 million in 2016 and estimated to be growing at a CAGR of 7.653%, to reach USD 96.97 million by 2021.View report: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-cell-sorting-market-2993/ Cells play a significant role in the fields of healthcare and pharmaceutical industries such as biotechnology, bioscience and microbiology. Since the cell therapies treat a wide range of chronic diseases, there has been an increase in research and development activities targeting various cell therapies in the previous decade.The properties on which cell sorting takes place can be extracellular or intracellular, where the former refers to the size, surface protein expression, and morphology, while the latter refers to protein molecule interactions, RNA, and DNA. The general methods of cell sorting have changed over the time. The more primitive methods, while still used and in some cases useful, are far too inaccurate and inefficient to meet with modern requirements. The overall methods can be segmented into single cell sorting, FACS, and magnetic cell sorting.Download free sample report: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-cell-sorting-market-2993/request-sample Cell-sorting system market is increasing its market widely because of newer technologies for cell isolation in cancer research and growing usage in biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies. Also, the rising chronic disease burden, rising use in research institutes, governments investment in research and development, technological advancement, recent launches of several newer digital cell sorting systems by various companies in the market, increased prevalence of cancer will help rise the cell sorting system market. However, lack of skilled professionals to regulate these systems and cost and size of the instruments may hinder the growth of cell-sorting system market over the forecast period.The Cell Sorting Market is categorised into Technology, Product, Application and End user. On the basis of technology, the market is segmented into FACS-based Droplet Sorting, MACS and Microfluidics. On the basis of Product, the market is further segmented into Cell Sorters, Reagents and Consumables. On the basis of Application, the market is segmented into Research and Clinical. On the basis of End user, the market is further segmented into Research Institutes, Biopharma Companies, and Medical Schools. On the basis of region, the North America market has been geographically segmented into segmented into US and Canada. As of 2016, North America leads the global cell sorting market, accounting for more than 36% of the entire market share. The increased government funding focused on enhancing the cell sorting is the prime growth driver for the market in this region. The North America market has a share of 38% of the entire market and rising at a CAGR of 7.653%.Inquire before buying: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-cell-sorting-market-2993/inquire Companies in Cell Sorting Market adopted product showcase, product launches, agreements and partnerships as the business strategies to increase the North america market. The key companies in this market are Becton, Dickinson and Company (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. (U.S.), Beckman Coulter, Inc. (U.S.), Miltenyi Biotec GmbH (Germany), Affymetrix Inc. (U.S.), Sony Biotechnology, Inc. (U.S.), Sysmex Partec GmbH (Japan), Cytonome/ST, LLC (U.S.), On-Chip Biotechnologies Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Union Biometrica, Inc. (U.S.)Cell Sorting Market Segmentation:Technology Introduction FACS MACS Microfluids Y-o-Y Growth Analysis, By Technology Market Attractiveness Analysis, By Technology Market Share Analysis, By TechnologyProduct Introduction Cell Sorters Reagents ConsumablesApplication Introduction Research ClinicalEnd user Introduction Research Institutes Biopharma Companies Medical SchoolsThe scope of the report: Global, regional and country-level analysis and forecasts of the study market; providing Insights on the major countries/regions in which this industry is blooming and to also identify the regions that are still untapped Segment-level analysis in terms of technology, component, and type along with market size forecasts and estimations to detect key areas of industry growth in detail Identification of key drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges (DROC) in the market and their impact on shifting market dynamics Study of the effect of exogenous and endogenous factors that affect the global market; which includes broadly demographic, economics, and political, among other macro-environmental factors presented in an extensive PESTLE Analysis Study the micro environment factors that determine the overall profitability of an Industry, using Porters five forces analysis for analysing the level of competition and business strategy development A comprehensive list of key market players along with their product portfolio, current strategic interests, key financial information, legal issues, SWOT analysis and analyst overview to study and sustain the market environment Competitive landscape analysis listing out the mergers, acquisitions, collaborations in the field along with new product launches, comparative financial studies and recent developments in the market by the major companies An executive summary, abridging the entire report in such a way that decision-making personnel can rapidly become acquainted with background information, concise analysis, and main conclusions Expertly devised analyst overview along with Investment opportunities to provide both individuals and organizations a strong financial foothold in the marketAbout Us:Market Data Forecast is a firm working in the area of market research and business intelligence. With rich experience in research across various business domains, we cater to the needs of both individual and corporate clients. Our analyst team comprises expert professionals in market research, who with their collective knowledge and skillset dedicatedly serve clients from various industries and regions.
"Browse And Choose From Our World Class Research Reports"

PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 09:28:16

Press Information

Market Data Forecast

USA



Abhishek Shukla

Sales Manager (International Business Development)

+1-888-702-9626

email

http://www.marketdataforecast.com/





# 552 Words

USASales Manager (International Business Development)+1-888-702-9626

The North America Redskin Peanuts Sales Market was worth USD xx million in 2016, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of xx%, to reach USD xx million by 2021. Peanut is a large scale commercial crop. It is majorly grown for its seeds which are edible. It is also popular for its high oil content. Peanuts contain several nutrients such as carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, protein and fat. Most of the peanuts produced in the world are redskin peanuts.Full report at: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4154/ Most of the manufacturers were using blanched peanuts to prepare other food products. However, according to a study, peanut skins contain up to 17% of its oil and it also contains several fatty acids which are useful in other industries. Also, peanut skin offers high fiber content and an antioxidant called resveratrol. Antioxidants are increased in peanuts when they are roasted with their skin on rather than blanched. Apart from food products, redskin peanuts are also used in beverages and for medical purposes.Increasing popularity for peanuts, both with and without skin and growing awareness regarding the health benefits of peanuts with skin are the major factors driving the market. Shifting of product manufacturers towards peanuts with skin and advancements in food processing industries are also propelling the market growth. However, high fat and cholesterol content in peanuts and allergic reactions due to eating them are restraining the market growth.The Redskin Peanuts Sales Market is categorized based on the type, application and region. Based on type, the market is categorized into Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts, Processed Redskin Peanuts. Original Flavor Redskin Peanuts holds the largest market share but processed redskin peanuts are expected to be the fastest growing segment due to the high demand for processed food around the globe. Based on application, the market is categorized into Food, Medical, Drink and Others. Food is the major application of peanuts as they are used to prepare food products in large extent due to their high nutritional content.Based on geography, the North America market is categorized into U.S and Canada. Asia Pacific leads the redskin peanuts market. U.S is the third largest producer of peanuts in the world and it leads the market in North America due to the presence of large number of manufacturers of peanut products in the country.Request sample: http://marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-redskin-peanuts-sales-market-4154/request-sample Some of the major players in this region are Golden Peanut, Hubs Virginia Peanuts, Durham-Ellis Pecan Company, Wakefield Peanut Company LLC, Whitley's Peanut Factory, Feridies, Fisher, and Superior Nuts.About Market Data Forecast:The publisher of this report is Market Data Forecast whose forte lies in Market research and Business Intelligence. Handling both individual and corporate clients across multiple business domains they offer syndicated/customized research to suit the clients research objective. Their research reports section offers a wide variety of market studies ranging from all-encompassing comprehensive market studies to product specific niche markets covering North America among other regions of the global market as well. For more info kindly visit, www.marketdataforecast.com Contact:Abhishek ShuklaSales Manager (International Business Development)Market Data ForecastDirect Line: +1-888-702-9626Mobile: +91 998 555 0206Mail: abhishek@ marketdataforecast.com Visit MarketDataForecast Blog @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/blog/ View latest Press Releases of MDF @ http://www.marketdataforecast.com/press-releases
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 15:50:15

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 403 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for South American Gold Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Las Vegas, NV (FSCWire) - South American Gold Corp. (OTC Pink:SAGD). has issued a press release with the following headline:South American Gold Corp Announces Development Partner for Launch of PotPonsTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on South American Gold Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/South American Gold Corp.Source: South American Gold Corp. (OTC Pink: SAGD, ISIN: US8363011011, WKN: A1H89U)Date: December 15, 2017Time: 9:50 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of South American Gold Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-12-15 15:00:33

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 393 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Synstream Energy Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Synstream Energy Corp. (TSX Venture:SHM). has issued a press release with the following headline:Synstream Energy Corp. Announces Agreement with Byte Power Group to Develop Cryptocurrency and ICO PlanTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Synstream Energy Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Synstream Energy Corp.Source: Synstream Energy Corp. (TSX Venture: SHM)Date: December 15, 2017Time: 9:00 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Synstream Energy Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
In the last few years, many Nollywood actors have undergone drastic physical transformations for movie roles. But, only few have actually looked the part. PREMIUM TIMES presents nine of such actors who were drastically transformed for a movie role and, convincingly.

1. Nollywood actor, Femi Branch, won many hearts for his role in a hilarious film titled, Aunty Maria released in 2015. The actor played the role of an old aunt in the upcoming movie. He looked ridiculously funny and unrecognisable having been transformed into a woman. In the film, the actor played two characters  an old woman and man.

2. Another Nigerian actor, Chiwetalu Agu, known for his villainous roles, was transformed into a woman in Akadi Ekwu Nka 2, released in 2015. In the movie, Chiwetalu, disguised as a female starring alongside Ngozi Ezeonu who plays a village tomboy.

3 Kemi Lala Akindoju featured as an old woman in Mildred Okwos movie Surulere also released in 2015. It was a very demanding role that put the actress movie prowess to the test.

4 In 2014, Nollywood actress, Eve Esin went from looking this young and pretty to old and wrinkled for movie role.

The makeover was outstanding; the wrinkled face and the dark pigmentation, which usually characterised an old impoverished woman, were spot on.

5. In 2015, Toyin Aimakhu completely transformed for a role in a film Iya Ibadan. The Yoruba actress looked nearly unrecognisable in the movie playing an old woman look with a walking stick to complement.

6 In 2014, Ini Edo was totally unrecognisable in Uchechi the Blind Cripple. Ini went totally blind in the film. Ini Edo played Uchechi a physically disfigured girl who found solace in the sound of music and her devoted boyfriend, until jealousy consumes the little family that she has left.

7. Not many will forget Funke Akindeles role in Maami released in 2014. Apart from delivering a touching and sincere performance, her transformation was so believable.

8. In 2012, Rita Dominic starred in her own movie titled, The Meeting. With make-up, which aimed to transform and accentuate her character, Rita found it easy to deliver on a good performance as a cantankerous secretary in a federal government ministry.

9. And last but certainly not least, Nollywood actress, Chacha Eke, played a weird but interesting role, of an old woman who was interested in fellow actor Mike Ezuruonye.
Before the coming of the present administration, the major security challenge confronting the country was the menace of Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria including Abuja. Kidnapping was also on the rise, especially in the South-east and South-south regions.

President Muhammadu Buhari during his swearing in, May 2015, promised Nigerians that his administration will tackle and bring an end to the activities of Boko Haram and insecurity in other regions.

For Mr. Buhari, tackling Boko Haram and achieving maximum security for Nigerians was his primary campaign promise.

Upon assuming office on May 29, 2015, the president ordered the immediate relocation of the Military Command Centre from Abuja to Maiduguri, Borno State, in June 2015.

Since then, the government has largely been able to curtail the activities of the terror group and ensured no attacks occur outside Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

However, while results are being achieved in the fight against Boko haram terrorists, residents of the North-east still suffer several attacks by terrorists in the region.

Other Nigerians are also suffering all forms of security challenges ranging from kidnapping, armed robbery and inter-communal clashes across the nation.

In November, for instance, over 200 persons lost their lives including soldiers and other security operatives in various Boko Haram, communal attacks, and by other armed bandits.

Adamawa Suicide Attacks

In November 21, at least 80 persons lost their lives in Adamawa state in two separate attacks that took place at different communities, hours apart.

The highest casualty recorded in the attacks was in Mubi where 50 people were killed during Islamic morning prayers by a suicide bomber.

At least, 30 women and children were also killed in a separate attacks launched by militiamen in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Mubi attack was carried out by a young man.

Residents, who spoke to this newspaper said they saw many lifeless bodies on the ground and dozens injured in the aftermath of the blast.

As people converged on Massalacin Madina at Anguwan Shuwa to observe Subh (morning prayer), an unknown man rammed himself into the mosque with IEDs , killing many people, a resident of the area who identified himself as Bello explained on how the attack occurred.

Also, police confirmed the killing of at least 30 women and children in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State, on November 21 by suspected militiamen.

Residents and security sources said the attacks on the mainly Fulani settlements were launched by armed gangs suspected to be of the predominant Bachama ethnic group in the area.

They said the death toll was possibly higher.

An affected resident, Oriwa Hammadu, said the militia members chanted songs as they launched attacks on the settlements in Shafaran, Shawal, Gumara, Kikam and Kadamti villages in the area.

The attacks came when all the men were out of the areas. Many had gone to the market and a wedding ceremony in Mayo-Belwa, so they took us by surprise, said Mr. Hammadu.

Borno Attacks

In November, at least 46 persons lost their lives including 17 suspected Boko Haram terrorists from different attacks in Borno State.

The highest casualty recorded in the state was that of the suicide bombers attack in Maiduguri the state capital on November 15.

Police confirmed that at least 18 persons were reportedly killed and 29 others injured when two suicide bombers attacked a crowded suburb of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

Deafening blasts were heard echoing over the Maiduguri metropolis late in the evening of Wednesday as the suspected Boko Haram attackers detonated explosives.

The spokesperson of the Borno police command, Victor Isukwu, who later provided details via a text statement, said the attacks were carried out by four suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers.

He said the suicide bombers  two male and two female  targeted some crowded locations of Muna Gari, a suburb of Maiduguri that falls under Konduga Local Government Area.

The second highest casualty recorded in the state was the beheading of six farmers at Dimge plantation in the Mafa Local Government Area of Borno by suspected Boko Haram on November 19.

On November 26, the Nigerian Army also confirmed the death of three soldiers in a battle with Boko Haram members after the insurgents invaded an army base and Magumeri community in Borno State.

However, the military killed at least 17 terrorists in different confrontations and rescued hundreds of persons held hostage by terrorists.

The Nigerian Army on November 25, in a joint operation with the Mobile Strike Team, MST, killed 14 terrorists and rescued 30 hostages.

The hostages were rescued from Boko Haram terrorists enclaves in Abusuriwa, Newchina, Bonzon, Usmanari, Goyayeri, Shitimari, Gashimari, Awaram amongst other villages in Bama Local Government Area of Borno State.

Again, on November 29, Nigerian soldiers rescued at least 212 persons held hostage by the terrorists after they cleared remnants of Boko Haram insurgents from some villages in the northern fringes of the Sambisa forest.

According to a statement by the army spokesperson, Sani Usman, the soldiers also captured one Boko Haram commander, Ameer of Chawa, Amman Judee, and killed four terrorists.

On November 26, a 5-year-old boy was reportedly killed in a Boko Haram attack on Magumeri town of Borno State.

Kidnappings

While Boko Haram insurgency is still a major security challenge this administration is facing, kidnapping activities is also another menace troubling Nigerians particularly those that ply roads across the six-geopolitical zones.

The Kaduna-Abuja highway in the northern region is perhaps one of the notorious routes where kidnapping activities are rampant.

A former minister of environment, Laurentia Mallam, and her husband, Pius were abducted along Bwari/Jere axis on Kaduna-Abuja highway on October 2.

On November 21, a Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, confirmed the death of one of its marshals by suspected armed kidnappers on the same highway.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reported how the attack occurred on November 21 at Sabo-Wuse Area on the Niger axis of the highway.

The report added that the deceased was traveling in a commercial bus alongside other passengers when the hoodlums struck at about 6.30 a.m.

The Corps Public Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, who confirmed the officials death to NAN, said two other marshals were abducted by the gunmen.

Mr. Kazeem identified the deceased as Ardo Njiga, a Marshal Inspector 1, and one of those kidnapped as Garba Bello, a Senior Road Marshal Assistant.

UNABATING ATTACKS ON COMMUNITIES

At least 77 persons have lost their lives via violent attacks by unknown gunmen in different communities in Benue, Zamfara and Plateau States between November 6 and 20.

The highest casualty recorded is the killing of at least 40 people in Zamfara.

Zamfara Attacks

The Police in Zamfara confirmed the killings of many people on November 6 by gunmen suspected to be cattle rustlers at a mining site in Gidan Ardo Village of Bindin district of Maru Local Government Area.

The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, in the state, Shehu Muhammad, disclosed the development to journalists in Gusau on November 8.

Mr. Muhammad, however, said the command was yet to ascertain the actual number of those killed during the mayhem; although residents said over 40 people were killed.

The police said investigation into the killings had begun.

It also said the anti-terrorism squad of the command had already been deployed to the area to join the Army in trailing the gunmen.

Similarly in another separate attack, at least 25 people were killed on November 20 when gunmen stormed three communities in the state.

The lawmaker representing Zurmi West in the Zamfara State House of Assembly, Yusuf Moriki, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the incident occurred at Dole, Tudun Bugaje and Kwangwami communities in Zurmi Local Government Area.

Mr. Moriki said 25 were killed, while many others were injured during the attack.

On November 17, another tragedy befell Zamfara State as about 40 people were kidnapped by gunmen suspected to be cattle rustlers.

Plateau Attacks

Similarly on November 7, eleven people were shot dead by gunmen along Rim, Riyom Local Government Area of northern Plateau State.

Other attacks by gunmen include the killing of three persons in Ukanafun Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State on November 19 when gunmen stormed the country home of the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in the state, Udo Ekpenyong.

Again, on November 17, a similar incident occurred where armed men, riding a motorcycle shot dead a policeman and two other persons at a filling station in the local government area.

The various cases of insecurity of lives and property across Nigeria in November point to the fact that the government still has a lot to do to achieve its primary purpose and promise.
U.S. banking giant, JP Morgan, is being sued by the Federal Republic of Nigeria for $875million (N315 billion) in the London courts over its alleged failure to block payments made from a massive oil deal that is subject to a string of international corruption investigations.

The Nigerian state quietly issued a civil claim in the High Court in late November, arguing JP Morgan had been grossly negligent when it was banker to a previous government.

The claim, which has been sanctioned by Nigerias attorney-general and seen by a PREMIUM TIMES partner, Finance Uncovered, alleges JP Morgan did not act with the reasonable care and skill to be expected of a bank in compliance with the laws of England and Wales when it authorised enormous payments resulting from an oil deal in 2011.

There was an abuse of the banking system, the claim adds.

The notorious deal, known as OPL245, involved Shell, Italian oil company ENI, a convicted money launderer and the government of former Nigeria president Goodluck Jonathan.

Nigeria alleges JP Morgan could and should have done enough reasonable due diligence to discover the deal involved the misappropriation of up to $1.1 billion from state coffers.

It is demanding that the bank repay $875 million it paid out to the money launderer, plus interest, and to account for the rest.

According to leaked FBI documents seen by Finance Uncovered, the money was later used to buy a private jet and armoured Cadillacs in the U.S., fine art and luxury shotguns in London, and allegedly to pay a series of kickbacks to various officials.

Asked to comment on Nigerias court move, a JP Morgan spokeswoman said: The firm considers the allegations made in the claim to be unsubstantiated and without merit.

The bank has until the end of March to file its defence.

The claim stems from a wider drive by President Muhammadu Buhari to recoup massive sums he believes were siphoned out of Nigeria by previous regimes.

The claim against JP Morgan centres on the prospecting licence OPL245, an untapped Nigerian offshore oil and gas block that is estimated to contain enough crude to power Africa for a decade.

During the last weeks of the General Sani Abachas military dictatorship in 1998, the then-oil minister, Dan Etete, awarded the licence to a week-old shell company called Malabu which subsequent legal action would reveal he co-owned with Abachas son.

The ownership of the licence then became the focus of years of legal and political disputes involving different Nigerian regimes, Malabu and oil giant Shell, which also believed it had a claim.

While Mr. Etete was negotiating with Shell, Eni and the Nigerian government to sell the licence in 2010, he was convicted of money laundering in an unrelated case in France.

This did not stop the OPL245 negotiations and in May 2011, a deal was struck.

It involved a series of back-to-back agreements. In the first, Malabu would surrender all rights to OPL245 to the Nigerian government in exchange for $1.1 billion.

And in parallel, Eni and Shell agreed to transfer a total $1.3 billion to the Nigerian government in exchange for OPL245.

According to the claim filed in the High Court, Nigerias lawyers argue that for this transaction to succeed, it was necessary to involve the Defendant [JP Morgan], which was asked to set up a number of accounts.

The system of new bank accounts in and of itself should have alerted [JP Morgan] to the illicit movement of funds which it was to facilitate, the lawyers say.

They argue JP Morgan shouldhave realised that the accounts were part of a scheme designed to siphon off funds.

The Nigerian state also says that JP Morgans bankers should have been further alerted by what happened over the next three months.

Once Eni and Shell had paid the money over, but while it still sat in JP Morgan, a feeding frenzy erupted as two fixers to the deal rushed to courts in New York and London claiming that Etete owed them each a substantial cut of the $1.1 billion.

The litigation, which dragged on into August 2011, pulled in JP Morgan as a respondent and resulted in more than $200 million being frozen.

The Nigerian state now argues that, as the circumstances in which Mr. Etete effectively awarded OPL245 to himself were revealed in court, the bank should have realised this was an abuse of his office and contrary to Nigerian law, thus rendering the award of the contract illegal.

It points out that JP Morgans attorney was present when the New York court heard that the OPL245 deal reeks of fraud, money Iaundering and corruption and that the same attorney later told the court that JP Morgan knew Malabu was the intended beneficiary.

Nigerias lawyers argue that this should have put the bank on notice for the need for further due diligence and even to make a report to the UK authorities.

It is not known whether JP Morgan raised a suspicious activity report with the UKs financial intelligence unit at this stage, as these are highly confidential. The bank believes it has the appropriate authorisations.

Meanwhile, the then Nigerian government on three occasions instructed JP Morgan to pay out the proceeds of the arrangement via banks in Switzerland and Lebanon according to the new court claim.

Each time, the payments failed. In one instance this was apparently due to the concerns of the receiving bank, who returned the money to JP Morgan.

At the fourth instruction, in late August 2011, JP Morgan successfully paid $801.5m to two Malabu accounts in Nigeria.

The Nigerian state now says the bank did so without carrying out further due diligence and in the face of the plain evidence that this was a transaction to facilitate the transfer of criminal property in a transaction wreaking [sic] of political corruption.

It argues JP Morgan should have been aware that Malabu was mired in a corrupt arrangement from the day of its formation and that Mr. Etete was later convicted of money laundering in an unrelated case and that he was known to be Malabus beneficial owner.

It also claims that JP Morgan paid a further $74 million out to Malabu two years later, in 2013, being the balance it held on account once all legal claims had been settled.

The Nigerian state makes an additional argument in its court claim: that the banking arrangement set up by JP Morgan to facilitate the initial payments was contrary to the laws of Nigeria.

Separate legal proceedings are ongoing in Italy against Shell and Eni. Both companies have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Etete could not be reached for comment, but has previously denied wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for President Muhammadu Buharis presidential advisory committee against corruption, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, told Finance Uncovered that the court claim was part of the governments determination to recover stolen funds  either directly from the principal actors or the middlemen who facilitated the looting.
The General Court Martial, GOC, sitting in Maiduguri, Borno State has sentenced a soldier serving in Operation Lafiya Dole to death for murder.

Other soldiers also bagged jail sentences for various offences ranging from manslaughter to illegal possession of fire arms and ammunition.

The soldier, Lance Corporal John Godwin, was charged with murder, which is punishable under Section 106 (a) of Armed Forces Acts (Cap A20), Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004, for killing five rescued civilians in Yamteke town of Borno State.

The civilians were earlier rescued by troops of the soldiers battalion and were taken for investigation at the time the soldier shot and killed five of them.

Another soldier, Sergeant Innocent Ototo, was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter after torturing and killing a 13-year-old boy who he said stole his phone. The incident happened at Zamanbari area of Maiduguri metropolis in Borno State.

While Lance Corporal Benjamin Osage and Private Sunday Onwe were also sentenced to 20 years imprisonment each for offences bordering on manslaughter and illegal possession of fire arms and ammunition.

Delivering the judgement, the President of the Court Martial, Gbenga Adesina, said that the offences run contrary to Nigerian Armys Rules of Engagement and also against Nigerian Laws and Geneva Conventions which Nigeria is signatory to and which the Nigerian Army as a professional army holds in high esteem.
President Muhammadu Buhari Friday met with the President of ECOWAS Commission and Chairperson of the African Union Commission, at the State House, Abuja, during which he emphasised the need for accountability and good neighbourliness in both the sub-region, and on the African continent.

Receiving Marcel de Souza, President of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Buhari said it was gladdening that the organisation was demanding accountability from its headquarters staff, which made it recently invite the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, from Nigeria, to look into its books.

Thanks for being firm, and for insisting on transparency and accountability at the ECOWAS headquarters, President Buhari said, adding that Nigeria would continue to fulfill its obligations to the sub-regional body.

Nigeria hosts the 52nd Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government on Saturday, in Abuja.

Mr. Buhari said he expected a formal report on the situation in Guinea Bissau at the meeting, noting: We need our troops back home, and I hope the president of that country will accept a constitutional way to resolve the situation there.

The ECOWAS Commission boss thanked Nigeria for agreeing to host the 52nd Ordinary Session at short notice, adding that the impact of Nigeria was quite strong in the organisation.

We are under financial pressure due to terrorist attacks in the sub-region, but Nigeria being out of recession will have an impact on the entire region, Mr. de Souza said.

He noted that Nigeria was the highest contributor of troops to Guinea Bissau, but admitted that the troops cant be there endlessly.

At the meeting with Moussa Mahamat of the African Union Commission, Mr. Buhari said good neighbourliness and relationship were important for security and economic development.

That was why I visited all our neighbours. Such relationship is crucial for security, and economic development, so that our youths can get jobs, the president noted.

On the situation in Libya, President Buhari reiterated that not every black man was a Nigerian, and it was, therefore, important to authenticate the origin of the people in distress, before they were evacuated.

We are trying to bring as many as possible from Libya. But not every Black man is a Nigerian. Others claim to be Nigerian, when they are not, and because they have destroyed their travel papers, we cant claim them, except there is proper documentation, the president said.

On recharging of the Lake Chad, which he has been in the vanguard of across the world, the president submitted: The earlier we get it done, the better, so that our youths dont continue to dare the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

The AU Commission boss congratulated President Buhari for what he was doing for Nigeria, and for Africa.

Without President Buhari, and without Nigeria, many things would not have been possible. I appreciate the role you played in my election, and all that you do in ECOWAS, Lake Chad Basin Commission, and the entire continent.

We follow your battle against corruption, and it is not by chance that you have been chosen by other African leaders to champion the battle in 2018.

Your commitment is notable, and I seek your support for reforms that we intend to introduce in AU. Your guidance is vital. We need Africa to speak with one voice, and the voice of Nigeria is preponderant.
Government officials, policy experts, transport operators and other stakeholders in the transport sector are meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, to examine issues related to road transport in Nigeria.

The meeting, which began on Thursday, is organised by the federal ministry of transportation under its Annual Stakeholders Workshop on Road Transport and Mass Transit Operations in Nigeria.

The workshop is in its second edition.

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who declared the meeting open on Thursday, told the participants that the 2016 edition of the workshop assisted the federal government to achieve some policy milestones like the National Road Transport Operators Manual which is a guide to the safety, security, and regulation of commercial motor vehicle operations in the country.

Other achievements derived from the previous workshop, according to Mr. Amaechi, include the creation of a platform for the private sector to showcase their innovations in transportation; the encouragement of effort towards the Inter-State-Road Transit Scheme approved by the ECOWAS; and the partnership with World Bank on the latters Rural Access Mobility Project.

The minister said that the objective of this years workshop is, to explore more opportunities to effectively engage the public, the private sector, and other stakeholders in the development of the much-needed sophisticated transportation infrastructure, and the enabling environment that will make road transportation contribute immensely to the nations economy.

Udo Udoma, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, in his address to the participants, admitted that the countrys transport infrastructure remained inadequate for the size of its economy.

He said the nation lags behind its peers in terms of scale and quality of road and rail transportation.

He identified poor sector governance and weak project execution as the major obstacles to expansion and improvement on the quality of infrastructure.

It is in recognition of these that the Buhari administration has placed the development of transport infrastructure at the heart of its policy agenda, Mr. Udoma said.

Beginning from 2016, we have continued to devote significant capital budgetary allocations in our annual budgets as government counterpart funding for the railways.

In the 2018 budget proposal, a total of N162.28 billion is proposed as counterpart funding for railway projects including Lagos-Kano, Calabar-Lagos, Ajeokuta-Itakpe-Aladja (Warri), Port Harcourt-Maiduguri, and Kano-Katsina-Jibiya-Maradi in Niger Republic, among others, Mr. Udoma said.

He added that the government was planning to dredge 1,000 kilometres of inland waterways and reinforce riverbanks to increase the capacity of inland waterways.
One of the contestants for the recently concluded national chairmanship election of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Rasheed Ladoja, has said South-west leaders will not leave the party despite losing out at the elections.

Mr. Ladoja, a former governor of Oyo state, said this at a meeting with the Governor Dickson Seriake-led reconciliation committee in Ibadan, Oyo State on Thursday. He confirmed that the South-west PDP leaders and members will remain in the party and work for its victory in 2019.

Governor Dickson, who had earlier promised to address grievances following the tense outcome of the convention earlier this week, reached out to another contestant, Tunde Adeniran.

Mr. Adeniran had advised the committee to reach out to other contestants who are also aggrieved one way or the other.

Before this, former president Goodluck Jonathan had led a reconciliation team to visit another aggrieved leader, Suleiman Abubakar, a former minister for national planning.

In spite of the disagreements over Saturdays elective National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), leaders of the party in the South-west zone have restated their resolve to remain in the party, Mr. Ladoja said.

I am in politics to make Nigeria work. In 1999 they begged me to be the gubernatorial candidate of the Alliance For Democracy (AD) and I refused. I wanted a mainstream party. I have seen it all in PDP both the ascension and descent. It is the people that make the party not the other way round. If we come together, we will make the government that the people deserve. We are back to PDP and we will remain in PDP.

Speaking on the controversy surrounding the national convention, Mr. Ladoja further said, a week to the National Convention, we started pruning and on the eve, we had decided that Prof. Tunde Adeniran was our consensus candidate but the delegates decided otherwise. However, we will remain in the PDP, we are not going anywhere.

In the PDP we have the chance of winning across board. I will work assiduously to make sure all the aspirants in the South-west remain in the party and work for the party. This PDP will win. If you think you hate PDP, try the APC and you will see that APC is worse, he said.

Governor Dickson thanked Mr. Ladoja for his commitment and sacrifice to the party and assured that the party remains one strong united family, where all members are equal stakeholders.
The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose has described the decision to withdraw $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fight Boko Haram insurgency as a means by the All Progressives

Congress, APC-led federal government to fund President Muhammadu Buharis re-election in 2019.

For posterity sake, I wish to place it on record that I was not among the governors who approved the withdrawal of almost half of our savings in the Excess Crude Account, which belongs to the three tiers of government to fight an already defeated insurgency, he declared.

In a press statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Friday, and signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said; Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1 billion (over N360 billion) for; if not to fund the 2019 elections?

The APC promised to wipe out Boko Haram within six months, now it is 31 months and what the APC government is wiping out is the economy of Nigeria and the means of livelihood of the people.

The governor said N360 billion was equivalent to what the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) share to the federal government, 36 States and 777 Local Councils monthly, nothing that Nigerians deserve proper explanations from the federal government on the rationale behind spending such huge sum of money to fight an already defeated Boko Haram.

He challenged the federal government to make available to Nigerians, how the money released by international donors for the fight against Boko Haram was spent.

Even the Transparency International (TI) once said in its report that some top military

officials in the country were feeding fat from the war against Boko Haram by creating fake contracts and laundering the proceeds in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere.

The governor also alleged that the N50 billion kept by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in different commercial bank accounts outside the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on the directive of President Buharis Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari was part of the fund being kept to fund President Buharis election in 2019.

Governor Fayose said, Nigerians are alarmed by the revelation from the House of Representatives that President Buhari exempted NNPC from transferring N50 billion to the TSA, and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), confirmation that a letter issued by the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the president, Abba Kyari conveyed the directive.

Also, they are miffed by the federal governments idea of withdrawing $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to fund an insurgency they said had been defeated.

They went on to tell Nigerians that the decision was taken by governors of the 36 States, whereas, it was solely the idea of the federal government, which they used the arranged National Executive Council meeting to achieve.

The question is; how can the federal government alone spend almost half of the Excess Crude money that belongs to the three tiers of government (i.e. Federal Government, States and Local Councils)?

The reality is that our treasury is daily being looted in readiness for the 2019 elections. Nigerians are therefore alerted to this lootings by the APC led federal government to amass huge fund for the 2019 elections under the pretense of fighting insurgency in the Northeast as well as other dubious means.

The governor, who is from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP is a vocal critic of the Buhari-led government.
At least eight persons have been arrested following the clash on Thursday between the police and illegal miners in Taraba State.

One death has also been confirmed while a police officer has been declared missing.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the incident with many people feared dead and others injured. The clash occurred in Mayo-Sina near Nguroje in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba.

The police spokesperson in the state, David Misal, who confirmed the incident and the arrests, also said one policeman was still missing.

Mr. Misal said the police had on Monday directed the illegal miners to vacate the site within 48 hours but that the miners did not comply.

On Thursday when units of Mobile Police arrived the site to enforce the directive, they were attacked by the miners, an action that cost the life of one person with several others injured and receiving treatment in Gembu General Hospital and other hospitals in the area.

Several efforts were made in the past to disperse the illegal miners from the Mayo-Sina mining site but all to no avail as the miners kept deaf ears and resisted, the police spokesperson said later on Friday.

Mr. Misal said the mining site was also suspected to be a breeding ground for criminals.

Some residents of the area said the bulk of the unskilled workers were indigenes of Sardauna LGA, with others coming from neighbouring states and West African countries like Niger.

Commenting on the development, the member representing Nguroje constituency in the State House of Assembly, Bashir Bape, said a joint task force from the federal ministry of mines had asked the illegal miners to vacate the site but they refused.

Police were deployed and the illegal miners were forced to disperse from the site on Thursday evening after a clash with the security operatives, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

Though I cant say the exact figures of the casualty, lives were feared lost and some persons who were injured are receiving treatment at the Gembu General Hospital, Mr. Bape said.

The lawmaker dispelled immediate rumours following the clash that it involved farmers and herders, pointing out that it was purely an illegal mining issue.

By Friday evening, the mining site had become calm as the illegal miners were moving out en-masse.
Two First Class graduates from the Nigerian Law School were on Wednesday honoured in Abuja for their exceptional academic performances.

The two graduates, Kuseme Iseh and Inyene John, both from the University of Uyo, were in the Class of 2017 who received the First Class degrees both in their final year examinations in the university and after the August 2017 final Nigerian Law School bar exams.

The duo were among a total of 4,294 law graduates from different universities in and outside Nigeria who were declared qualified by the Council of Legal Education to participate in the Call-to-Bar ceremony in Abuja on Wednesday.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters, Ita Enang, who hosted them in Abuja after the formalities, said he was proud of them for their excellent academic performance.

When one realises that this is the first time First Class law graduates will be emerging from the Law Department of the University of Uyo, you would appreciate why I and my family are proud to honour you for this unprecedented academic achievement, Mr. Enang, a former senator, told the attendees of the reception in honour of the graduates.

At a time the country is talking about falling standard of education in our higher institutions of learning, you have not only done your parents proud, by justifying their investments and sacrifices for you, but you have done Akwa Ibom State and UNIUYO the rare honour of flying their flags so high.

You have set a standard worthy of emulation. While I congratulate you for your achievement, I urge you to ensure that you deploy at all times the knowledge you have acquired towards the promotion of equity and justice, for the common good of all in Nigeria in general and Akwa Ibom State in particular, he said.

Mr. Enang, who hosted the new law graduates along with their parents and friends, urged them to be ready to take on the world and explore its abundant opportunities, either as legal practitioners, or law teachers committed to imparting knowledge on others.

The world is open to you. You can afford to be a lecturer and impart knowledge to the next generation, or go into law practice. You can get to the highest of heights by emulating your Vice Chancellor, Professor Aniefiok Essien, who is the Dean Emeritus, Faculty of Law, Vice Chancellor and SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria), the aide advised.

The Vice Chancellor of UNIUYO was represented at the occasion by the Dean, Faculty of Law in the university, Imo Udofa.

Mr. Udofa, a professor of Law, said the achievement of his two former students has raised the bar that would become a huge challenge to both the school and other students in their academic pursuits.

He said the school has now been challenged to work harder not only to keep the high standards set by the two graduates, but to ensure that more First Class lawyers emerge from the school in the future.

In her speech, Ms. Iseh thanked Mr. Enang for his kind gesture in recognising their achievement, saying they would strive to keep the flag flying, to justify the high confidence reposed in them.

She thanked her parents and the school authorities for all the support that helped her achieve her academic objectives.

Her colleague, Mr. John expressed delight for the privilege granted him by the University of Uyo and the Nigerian Law School, to realise his lifes ambition to become a lawyer.

He noted that although they were not the only bright students in the school, God gave them special favour by making it possible for him to emerge as one of the few with the top grade.

The University of Uyo was among 13 universities to produce First Class law graduates this year.

Other included the University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Obafemi Awolowo University, Babcock University, University of Ibadan and Osun State University.

Others are the University of Ilorin, Lagos State University, Ambrose Alli University, Afe Babalola University, Adekunle Ajasin University and Igbinedion University.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has said it is yet to receive a copy of the recent court judgement on the Anambra central senatorial election.

INEC had scheduled a re-run election for January 13, 2018 to fill the vacant seat, following a judgement by the appeal court.

However, a federal high court ruled on Wednesday that Obiora Okonkwo of the PDP be sworn in as senator for the zone.

Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES via telephone, INEC spokesperson, Rotimi Oyekanmi, confirmed that he is aware of the ruling but said the commission is yet to get a copy of to judgement to study and make a decision whether to go ahead with the re-run election or not.

The seat has been vacant since 2015 after the sack of Uche Ekwunife by the election tribunal. Ms. Ekwunife had earlier been declared winner of the election by INEC.

However following the judgement by the Federal High Court on Wednesday in Abuja, ordering the return of Obiora Okonkwo as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDPs candidate in Anambra State, as the duly elected member of the district in 2015, a twist was added to the legal tussle.

The suit was filed by Mr. Okonkwo, who was aggrieved that he was denied the slot even though he won the party primaries.

The courts judgement delivered by presiding judge, John Tsoho, granted the complainants request.

Mr. Oyekanmi said, of course we are aware of (ruling) but we havent received a copy of the courts order. I am not sure the commission has details. We need to see the judgement to know if its enough to alter our decision, he said.

INEC later released a stement on Thursday evening restating this stance.

It will be recalled that following the judgment of the Court of Appeal, the Commission announced that the outstanding election to fill the vacant seat for the Anambra Central Senatorial District would take place on 13th January 2018. However, the attention of the Commission has been drawn to the judgement of the Federal High Abuja on the issue, delivered on 13thDecember 2017. The Commission has applied for the Certified True Copy of the judgement to enable us take a decision, May Agbmuche-Mbu, National Commissioner of INEC said.
Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano, on Thursday warned his counterparts in the South-east that they will lose their seats in the 2019 general elections unless they join his party, the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA.

He gave the warning at a rally to celebrate his reelection and to campaign for the partys candidate, Victor Umeh, for the Anambra Central Senatorial District rerun election scheduled for January 13.

The rally held at the Alex Ekwueme Square in Awka, the state capital.

Describing APGA as the South-East hurricane, Mr. Obiano, who was reelected on the partys platform last month, asked governors in the geopolitical zone to join the party now as the it is poised to take over the other four states in the South-east.

Three of the governors, Okezie Ikpeazu, (PDP-Abia), David Umahi (PDP-Ebonyi) and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (PDP-Enugu) are up for re-election while Rochas Okorocha (APC- Owerri) is serving his second and final term.

What happened here on November 18 when APGA swept the entire poll in Anambra State will be replicated in Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi states in 2019, Mr. Obiano declared.

APGA is a hurricane that nobody can stop in the South-east. What I am telling my brother governors in the South-east is for them to join APGA now if they wish to be re-elected; otherwise, sorry for them, they must lose their seats to APGA in 2019, he said.

He further claimed that many serving senators and members of the House of Representatives from the zone had approached him to join APGA.

What we are telling everybody now is to join APGA within a reasonable time to be able to get the chance to contest election on our platform in 2019.

He said as chairman of Mr. Umehs senatorial campaign organization, he had already put in place strategies to crush any opposition in the January 13 senatorial rerun ordered by the Appeal Court.

Mr Umeh, a former National Chairman of APGA, in his own speech dismissed the judgement of Justice John Tsoho of the Abuja Federal High Court as dead on arrival.

Justice Tsoho had on Wednesday ordered that Ikechukwu Obiora of the Peoples Democratic Party be sworn in as the winner of the 2015 Anambra Central senatorial election.

But Mr. Umeh maintained that the January 13 rerun poll was sacrosanct, describing Mr. Tsohos decision as of no effect.

He argued that it would amount to judicial absurdity for a high courts decision to supersede that of the Court of Appeal which earlier ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct the poll within 90 days. INEC subsequently scheduled the rerun for January 13.

Mr. Umeh said: The January 13th datre as fixed by INEC for the Anambra Central Senatorial District election will hold. Nobody or court can challenge the ruling of the Appeal Court.
The Faculty of Physical Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, on Thursday, held a valedictory ceremony in honour of retiring professor of Chemistry and former Deputy vice-chancellor of the school, Austine Eboatu.

The ceremony held at the schools main auditorium, and was preceded by a fair service organised by Mr. Eboatus primary constituency, Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

The vice chancellor of the university, Joseph Ahaneku, speaking through the deputy vice-chancellor, Charles Esimone, said the event was in recognition of Mr. Eboatus immense contribution to the growth of his department, faculty and the institution.

The VC described Mr. Eboatu as a worthy Ambassador, teacher , professor and mentor who has produced many scholars and has made tremendous impact not only in the university but in his community, Umueze Anam West Local Government council.

Mr. Eboatu retired as a professor of chemistry, and had spent 37 years teaching, researching and contributing to the community.

In his remarks, he attributed his 37-year academic odyssey to the values of hard work, honesty, sincerity and charity.

Expressing gratitude to God, he said his journey so far had been a long one, but God saw him through.

He said the best he enjoyed as an academic was supervision of students, especially postgraduate, which he said he viewed as as a primary duty to contribute to manpower development.

His former students presented to the school, in honour of their former teacher, a 6.5 KVA power generating set, marking a highlight of the event.

Ending his speech ,he advised that people should always remember the God factor in all their doings while sowing the seeds of hard work ,honesty, sincerity and charity.
The Governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, has endorsed the Aare Ona Kakanfo designate, Gani Adams, describing him as a pride to the Yoruba race and well deserving of the title.

Mr. Ajimobi bared his mind when Mr. Adams led a large entourage to the Governors Office on a courtesy visit, in Ibadan, on Wednesday.

The governor said that the 15th Aare Ona Kakanfo designate had contributed immensely towards the unity and security of the Yoruba race, as well as the projection of its culture through sponsorship of pan-Yoruba festivals.

The governor assured Mr. Adams of his personal support and that of the state government towards his installation by the Alaafin of Oyo, Lamidi Adeyemi, in Oyo, in January, next year,

Mr. Ajimobi said, You are very deserving of the position, because in critical time of need for local security, you were there for the Yorubaland. You have brought respect to local security and the Yoruba culture through your humane and gentle disposition to socio-cultural issues in Yorubaland.

Oyo State is the political, intellectual and socio-cultural capital of the South-western Nigeria and by this, the installation of the 15th Aare Ona-Kakanfo is a thing of joy for us all.

There is no better time to entertain and welcome you all to Ibadan. Remember that war generals from all over Yoruba nation converged to form Ibadan. Ibadan and all the people of Oyo State are proud to receive the newest Yoruba generalissimo.

Mr. Adams had earlier told the governor that his visit was meant to apprise him of preparations for his installation in his capacity as the chief host, as well as to seek the support of the state government for the success of the ceremony.

Mr. Adams said that the event would be a veritable platform for the state to showcase its achievements to the whole world in the area of cultural and socio-economic development, which, he said, was visible across the state.

He said, I am here to hand over and review the schedule of events planned for the installation ceremony and to seek your full involvement and that of the whole state to enhance the success of the programme.

This is an opportunity to showcase your monumental achievements to the whole world. We appreciate the giant strides that have been made by your administration and I am happy to have the support of Oyo State government in this programme.

Let me use this opportunity to reiterate that I will use my position as Are Ona Kakanfo to further the interest of Yoruba race. Im overwhelmed by the support I have been receiving from far and near and I cannot thank Kabiyesi, Iku Baba Yeye enough for this great honour.
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.




NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 365 Connect, a leading provider of award-winning marketing, leasing, and resident technology platforms for the multifamily housing industry, announced today that the company has received a Digiday Signal Award for Best Display and Programmatic Advertising Platform. This prestigious award recognizes 365 Connect's Marketing Automation Platform, which the company provides to the multifamily housing industry.

The Digiday Signal Awards is an international competition recognizing technology platforms that are bringing efficiency, effectiveness, and creativity to modern marketing processes. The award program celebrates the excellence, achievement, and innovation of those who are transforming how we market various products and services. Winning entries for this year's awards were selected by an esteemed panel of judges, comprised of marketing and technology experts from global companies such as Tinder, Mindshare, and Sony.

365 Connect was recognized by the Digiday Signal Awards for its innovative Marketing Automation Platform. The fully-integrated solution delivers available apartment listings with real-time updates to high-traffic housing search engines and classified websites. The platform is proven to eliminate redundant marketing efforts and reduce operating expenses through seamlessly updating pricing, imagery, and content by unifying data gathered from fragmented systems.

"This year's group of Digiday Signal Awards winners represent the very best of our marketing and advertising technology providers," stated Digiday Media CEO, Nick Friese. "The third annual Signal Awards is proud to recognize these companies for their innovative solutions as well as their contribution to the advancement of our industry as a whole."

365 Connect CEO, Kerry W. Kirby, who was on hand to receive the award at the Digiday Awards Gala in New York City stated, "365 Connect is excited to have its technology acknowledged on an international level, and we are truly honored to receive this highly acclaimed award. Our focus is to continually innovate next generation technologies that deliver bottom line results for our clients. This award emphasizes the ability of our extremely talented team to build scalable applications that can leverage multiple platforms."

With an array of highly coveted technology awards, 365 Connect continues to revolutionize the multifamily housing industry with a dynamic platform built on modern-cloud architecture and flexible infrastructure. The platform consumes, integrates, and displays data to streamline operations without sacrificing a seamless user experience. Today, many of the nation's most respected multifamily housing operators utilize 365 Connect to unify processes and create efficient workflows.

ABOUT THE DIGIDAY AWARDS: Digiday Media leads many award programs within the media and marketing industries, celebrating excellence and achievement in innovation. The Digiday Awards program celebrates overall excellence and breakthrough achievements in media, marketing, advertising, and technology in the U.S. and Europe. For more information, visit www.Digiday.com

ABOUT 365 CONNECT: 365 Connect was founded in 2003 with an unwavering commitment to transforming how apartment communities market, lease, and retain residents. As a leading provider of award-winning technology platforms for the multifamily housing industry, 365 Connect delivers a fully-integrated suite of comprehensive solutions that automate marketing, simplify transactions, and serve residents after the lease is signed. The 365 Connect Resident Lifecycle Platform allows its clients infinite expansion, robust integrations, and the ability to revolutionize user experiences. Explore: www.365connect.com

Related Links

Like Us On Facebook

Follow Us On Twitter

SOURCE 365 CONNECT

Related Links

http://www.365connect.com


Aerion Chairman Robert M. Bass stated, "This relationship is absolutely key to creating a supersonic renaissance. When it comes to supersonic know-how, Lockheed Martin's capabilities are well known, and, in fact, legendary. We share with Lockheed Martin a commitment to the long-term development of efficient civil supersonic aircraft."

"We are excited to work with Aerion on their development of the next-generation, efficient supersonic jet that will potentially serve as a platform for pioneering future supersonic aircraft," said Orlando Carvalho, Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.

The MOU is the result of extensive discussions between Aerion and Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works Advanced Development Programs team. For close to 75 years, Skunk Works has existed to create revolutionary aircraft that push the boundaries of what is possible.

Lockheed Martin, known for developing the world's leading supersonic combat aircraft, the F-16, the F-35, and F-22, as well as the Mach 3+ SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, is committed to fostering new innovations and developing supersonic technologies with civil and commercial applications.

"Following our initial review of Aerion's aerodynamic technology, our conclusion is that the Aerion AS2 concept warrants the further investment of our time and resources," said Carvalho. "We are committed to remaining on the cutting edge of aerospace technology and are excited to examine the contribution we might make to working with Aerion on making aviation history."

During the last two and a half years, Aerion advanced the aerodynamics and structural design of the AS2 through a previous engineering collaboration agreement with Airbus. Through that effort, the two companies developed a preliminary design of wing and airframe structures, systems layout, and preliminary concepts for a fly-by-wire flight control system.

"We are grateful for Airbus' contribution to the program," said Brian Barents, Aerion Executive Chairman. "We could not have moved the program to this stage without their support."

In May 2017, GE Aviation announced an agreement with Aerion to define a supersonic engine for the AS2. The latest announcement with Lockheed Martin further positions Aerion as the leader in the nascent sector of civil supersonic aviation.

About Aerion Corporation

Aerion Corporation of Reno, Nevada, was formed in 2003 to introduce a new era of practical and efficient supersonic flight. Over more than a decade, Aerion has developed and demonstrated advanced wing technology in conjunction with NASA and other leading aeronautical institutions. This research includes breakthrough work in supersonic natural laminar flow, the key enabling technology behind the AS2 business jet.

The 12-passenger AS2 is expected to fly at a maximum speed of Mach 1.4 over water, and, where permitted by regulation, at speeds approaching Mach 1.2 without a sonic boom reaching the ground. Thanks to its unique supersonic natural laminar flow wing, the aircraft is expected to achieve long range (LA to Paris) and efficiency at supersonic and subsonic speeds. Once fielded, it will reduce trans-Atlantic trips by as much as three hours, enabling business leaders to fly roundtrip between New York and London in a day.

In November 2015, Aerion announced a fleet order from fractional aircraft fleet operator Flexjet for 20 AS2 aircraft. Aerion expects the AS2's first flight in 2023 and certification in 2025.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 97,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products, and services.

More information can be found at www.aerionsupersonic.com.

B-roll available at https://www.dropbox.com/s/rtl7b3xwwe9aukl/AERION_AS2_PRESS_B-ROLL_171212rev.mp4?dl=0.

Statements in this release about future actions and the consequences of these actions or not otherwise statements of historical fact are "forward-looking statements" and, to the extent attributable to Lockheed Martin, are based on Lockheed Martin's current expectations and assumptions. Forward-looking statements in this release include, but are not limited to, the potential that Lockheed Martin will enter into a binding commitment with Aerion, the nature and scope of any such commitment, Aerion's technology and the prospects of the AS2 program. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

Related Links

http://www.lockheedmartin.com


CITY OF INDUSTRY, Calif., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AIC announces its new line of servers, which work with Intel Xeon Scalable Processors, to optimize performance and improve power efficiency.

Each of the AIC server boards comes with a guaranteed 5+ years lifecycle to ensure that customers will get the best return on their investment.

AIC server boards (Virgo, Pavo and Lynx) AIC servers with Intel Xeon Scalable Processors (SB102-VG, SB201-VG, SB402-VG, SB122A-PV, SB405-PV and SB127-LX)

AIC's team is available to develop customized BIOS and BMC firmware for end users with special requirements. Thanks to the thermal simulation carried out by AIC's engineers, the motherboards have detail profiles of all components to support the creation of an optimized thermal solution.

Servers at a Glance:



1. SB102-VG

1U 10 x 2.5" High-Density Storage Server

Can be an Object Storage and All-Flash Array Server

2. SB201-VG

2U 24 x 2.5" High-Density Storage Server

Optimized for both performance and power efficiency

3. SB402-VG

4U 36 x 3.5" High-Density Storage Server

Optimized for both performance and power efficiency

4. SB122A-PV

1U 10 x 2.5" NVMe Storage Server

Supports PCIe SSD drives to provide a highly dense, all NVMe Flash storage array

5. SB405-PV

4U 102-Bay Ultra Density Storage Server

Supports OCP Mezzanine Card and provides significant performance

6. SB127-LX

1U 36-Bay NVMe Storage Server

Supports Next Generation Small Form Factor (NGSFF) PCIe NVMe SSD drives to provide a high density, all NVMe Flash storage array

AIC's servers with Intel Xeon Scalable Processors are great for enterprises, cloud computing and datacenter industries. Visit www.aicipc.com for more information.

Contact AIC:

Leslie Tran

[email protected]

www.aicipc.com

909-895-8989 ext.109

About AIC:

AIC is a leading provider of both standard OTS (off-the-shelf) and OEM/ODM server and storage solutions. With expert in-house design, manufacturing and validation capabilities, AIC's products are highly flexible and configurable to any form factor, standard or custom. AIC leads the industry with 20 years of experience in mechanical, electronic, system-level engineering as well as a dedication to innovation and customer satisfaction. Headquartered in Taiwan, AIC has offices and operations throughout the United States, Asia and Europe.

SOURCE AIC

Related Links

http://www.aicipc.com


LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Air Products (NYSE: APD), a world-leading industrial gases company, today announced it has signed an agreement with a subsidiary of Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group, China's leading coal mining conglomerate, for the supply of industrial gases to Phase One of Shanxi Jinmei Huayu Coal Chemical Co Ltd.'s (Jinmei Huayu's) coal-to-clean-fuels project in Jincheng City, Shanxi Province.

Previously, Air Products signed a sale of equipment agreement with Jinmei Huayu to supply two air separation units (ASUs)with a total capacity of over 4,000 tons per dayfor this project, which uses coal to produce clean fuels.

Now, Air Products intends to buy back the two ASUs for approximately $100 million and supply industrial gases via pipelines to Jinmei Huayu under a long-term supply agreement, subject to finalization of a buy-back agreement and any government and regulatory approvals. The ASUs are expected to be onstream in mid-2018.

Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products' chairman, president and chief executive officer, and Li Hongshuang, Party secretary and chairman of Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group, witnessed the contract signing.

Ghasemi said, "We are delighted to deepen our cooperation with one of China's leading energy groups, Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining, on this significant coal-to-clean energy project. This is another great example of our strategic focus to deploy capital on high-quality industrial gas projects for growth. Our valued customer has entrusted the ASU operation and supply of safe and reliable industrial gases to us. We appreciate their confidence in us and look forward to broader cooperation with the group in future."

Li said, "Air Products is a leading global industrial gases supplier and a most ideal partner for us. This strategic cooperation leverages both parties' advantages and positions us well for further development."

This agreement follows Air Products' recent major investments with Lu'An in Changzhi, Shanxi Province and Yankuang in Yulin, Shaanxi Province to support China's ongoing transformation and upgrade of its coal chemical industry that targets products with higher added-value and sustainability.

About Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group

Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Mining Group Co., Ltd. (Jinmei Group) is an important, high-quality anthracite producer, the largest CBM extraction and utilization group, the largest coal chemical industry group and CMM-fired power group in China, and the most energetic coal mining machinery manufacturing group in Shanxi Province. Currently, Jinmei Group has 68 subsidiaries and 10 branches in 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, 72 cities and counties. In 2017, it ranked 476th among top global 500 companies and 108th among top China companies. In recent years, basing on the resource advantages of Anthracite and CBM, Jinmei Group has changed the mode of development actively, upgraded industry levels steadily, and built the industrial pattern called "one focus four directions," which takes the coal industry as the fundamental and also develops Coal and CBM Co-mining, Coal and Chemical linkage, Coal electricity integration and Coal equipment manufacturing. It has formed the cross-regional, cross-industrial and cross-trade modern integrated energy enterprise group.

About Air Products in China

Air Products was one of the first multinational industrial gas companies to enter the China market when it set up its first plant in Shenzhen in 1987. Following 30 years of continuous

growth and investment, it has today around 2,700 employees, about 70 entities and more than 140 production facilities in the country, and continues to represent a key growth focus for Air Products. Most recently, the company announced a signed agreement to form a $1.3 billion joint venture, significantly expanding its scope of supply serving Lu'An Mining (Group) Co., Ltd.'s syngas-to-liquids production in Changzhi City, Shanxi Province. It also signed an agreement for a $3.5 billion coal-to-syngas production facility to be built in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading Industrial Gases company in operation for over 75 years. The Company's core industrial gases business provides atmospheric and process gases and related equipment to manufacturing markets, including refining and petrochemical, metals, electronics, and food and beverage. Air Products is also the world's leading supplier of liquefied natural gas process technology and equipment.

The Company had fiscal 2017 sales of $8.2 billion from continuing operations in 50 countries and has a current market capitalization of about $35 billion. Approximately 15,000 passionate, talented and committed employees from a diversity of backgrounds are driven by Air Products' higher purpose to create innovative solutions that benefit the environment, enhance sustainability and address the challenges facing customers, communities, and the world. For more information, visit www.airproducts.com.

NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's reasonable expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release regarding important risk factors, including finalization of all agreements and regulatory approvals. Actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors not anticipated by management, including risk factors described in the Company's Form 10K for its fiscal year ended September 30, 2017.

SOURCE Air Products

Related Links

http://www.airproducts.com


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Rowley Law PLLC is investigating potential claims for breach of fiduciary duty involving the directors and officers of Civitas Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: CIVI).

If you are a shareholder of Civitas Solutions, Inc. and are interested in obtaining additional information regarding this investigation, please visit us at: http://www.rowleylawpllc.com/investigation/civitas. You may also contact Danielle Rowland Lindahl, Esq. at Rowley Law PLLC, 2316 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20018, by email at [email protected] , or by telephone at 202-800-3501 or 844-400-4643 (toll-free).

Rowley Law PLLC represents shareholders nationwide in class actions and derivative lawsuits in complex corporate litigation. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://www.rowleylawpllc.com .

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

SOURCE Rowley Law PLLC

Related Links

http://rowleylawpllc.com


LAVAL, QC, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ("Couche-Tard") (TSX: ATD.A ATD.B) announces that it has obtained clearance from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") to acquire all of the issued and outstanding equity interest of Holiday Stationstores, Inc. and certain affiliated companies ("Holiday"). Closing is expected to occur on December 22, 2017.

Holiday's main assets consist of 522 company-operated and franchise locations in 10 U.S. states, two food commissaries, and a fuel terminal. Holiday, a privately owned company, is an important player in the U.S. Midwest region, and has top quartile convenience and fuel volumes under the Holiday brand.

"We are very excited to announce this new addition to the Couche-Tard family," says Brian Hannasch, President and CEO of Couche-Tard. "The Holiday assets are a strong strategic fit for our business and expands the Corporation's reach to 48 of the 50 U.S. states. Adding the Holiday stores, commissaries and fuel terminal as well as its highly successful programs and employees pushes us further in our journey to become the world's preferred destination for convenience and fuel."

Agreement to sell assets in the United States:

Following the review by the FTC of the acquisition of Holiday and in compliance with regulatory requirements, Couche-Tard has agreed to sell ten sites, including one Holiday site and nine CrossAmerica Partners LP (NYSE: CAPL) sites, to a buyer or buyers approved by the FTC within 120 days after the Decision and Order is issued. Until completion of the divestitures in accordance with the U.S. consent decree, the sites will be operated in the ordinary course of business by Couche-Tard.

About Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.

Couche-Tard is the leader in the Canadian convenience store industry. In the United States, it is the largest independent convenience store operator in terms of the number of company-operated stores. In Europe, Couche-Tard is a leader in convenience store and road transportation fuel retail in the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), and in Ireland and also with an important presence in Poland.

As of October 15, 2017, Couche-Tard's network comprised 9,465 convenience stores throughout North America, including 8,135 stores with road transportation fuel dispensing. Its North American network consists of 18 business units, including 14 in the United States covering 41 states and 4 in Canada covering all 10 provinces. Approximately 95,000 people are employed throughout its network and at its service offices in North America. In addition, through CrossAmerica Partners LP, Couche-Tard supplies road transportation fuel under various brands to more than 1,200 locations in the United States.

In Europe, Couche-Tard operates a broad retail network across Scandinavia, Ireland, Poland, the Baltics and Russia through ten business units. As of October 15, 2017, Couche-Tard's network comprised 2,750 stores, the majority of which offer road transportation fuel and convenience products while the others are unmanned automated fuel stations which only offer road transportation fuel. Couche-Tard also offers other products, including stationary energy, marine fuel, aviation fuel and chemicals. Including employees at branded franchise stores, approximately 25,000 people work in its retail network, terminals and service offices across Europe.

In addition, under licensing agreements, more than 1,800 stores are operated under the Circle K banner in 14 other countries and territories (China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Guam, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam), which brings the worldwide total network to more than 15,200 stores.

For more information on Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. or to consult its quarterly Consolidated Financial Statements and Management Discussion and Analysis, please visit: http://corpo.couche-tard.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

The statements set forth in this press release, which describe Couche-Tard's objectives, projections, estimates, expectations or forecasts, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities legislation. Positive or negative verbs such as "will", "plan", "evaluate", "estimate", "believe", "expect" and other related expressions are used to identify such statements. Couche-Tard would like to point out that, by their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties such that its results, or the measures it adopts, could differ materially from those indicated or underlying these statements, or could have an impact on the degree of realization of a particular projection. Major factors that may lead to a material difference between Couche-Tard's actual results and the projections or expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements include the effects of the integration of acquired businesses and the ability to achieve projected synergies, fluctuations in margins on motor fuel sales, competition in the convenience store and retail motor fuel industries, exchange rate variations, and such other risks as described in detail from time to time in documents filed by Couche-Tard with securities regulatory authorities in Canada. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Couche-Tard disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The forward-looking information in this press release is based on information available as of the date of the release.

SOURCE Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.

Related Links

http://corpo.couche-tard.com/


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The evidence recently presented by Ambassador Nikki Haley shines a bright light on the Iranian regime's blatant disregard for international agreements, and its persistent attempts to interfere in the affairs of other countries.

The transfer and use of Iranian military equipment in Yemen has been well-documented by the UAE government, other countries and third-party experts. With Tehran's backing, the Houthi militants have prolonged a war and humanitarian crisis in Yemen that has led to civilian deaths and destruction.

For a long time, Iran has undermined stability in the region through its support for terrorist and proxy groups. The US government's assessment further confirms that Iran continues to expand its damaging influence. It is time for the global community to hold Iran responsible for its destructive actions.

For media inquiries, please contact: [email protected]



SOURCE Embassy of the United Arab Emirates

Related Links

http://www.uae-embassy.org


Offered in a limited edition to only 97 pieces as a tribute to the year that ANONIMO was born 20 years ago, the breath taking summit of the Matterhorn, (which, like ANONIMO, has one foot in Italy and the other in Switzerland) has been stamped in relief on the solid titanium back of the watch.
DALLAS, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Alerian announced today that Arc Logistics Partners (NYSE: ARCX) is expected to be removed from the Alerian Small Cap MLP Index (AMSI) in a special rebalancing.

Special rebalancings are triggered by corporate actions such as mergers, bankruptcies, and liquidations. Pending unitholder approval, ARCX will cease to trade due to its merger with Zenith Energy. If approved, the rebalancing will take place one full trading day after the issuance of a press release indicating all needed merger votes have passed.

The index will be rebalanced in accordance with its existing methodology. Constituent additions to and deletions from the index do not reflect an opinion by Alerian on the investment merits of the respective securities.

About the Alerian Small Cap MLP Index

The Alerian Small Cap MLP Index is a composite of small-cap energy Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs). The capitalization-weighted index, which represents approximately 10% of total market capitalization, is disseminated real-time on a price-return basis (AMSI) and on a total-return basis (AMSIX).

About Alerian

Alerian equips investors to make informed decisions about Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) and energy infrastructure. Its benchmarks, including the flagship Alerian MLP Index (AMZ), are widely used by industry executives, investment professionals, research analysts, and national media to analyze relative performance. As of November 30, 2017, over $15 billion is directly tied to the Alerian Index Series through exchange-traded funds and notes, separately managed accounts, and structured products. For more information, including index values and constituents, research content, and announcements regarding rebalancings, please visit alerian.com.

SOURCE Alerian

Related Links

http://www.alerian.com


RIVERSIDE, Calif., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Attorney Zulu Ali of the Law Offices of Zulu Ali in Riverside, California and the Justice by Jury Reform Initiative Committee (JJRI Committee) will be hosting a conference as a nationwide initiative to address the rising crisis of wrongful convictions and police brutality against blacks and other citizens. Attorney Ali issued the following statement on behalf of the committee:

Attorney Zulu Ali

"I was born in 1967 in rural Tennessee. One year prior to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the same year that Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

At an early age, I was inspired by Thurgood Marshall, Avon Williams, Jr., and Z. Alexander Looby, who were all great civil rights attorneys who challenged the system to make changes in the law when the law was unjust. At that time, attorneys were agents of change.

Today, the court and justice system focuses on the procedure and not the people. The court process and convenience are more important than improvement and rights of citizens. Courts and agencies overseeing officers of the court have mechanisms in place to neutralize and eliminate those who challenge the system.

The system often serves to oppress than to protect. Lawyers who choose to challenge the system are subject to immense scrutiny by courts and agencies. Challenging the system in a meaningful way disrupts the system.

The system makes it very easy for agents of the system; however, the system is very difficult for those who challenge the system as agents of change. Black lawyers, who often have a different outlook and understanding of their responsibilities as lawyers and to the communities they serve, are much more often scrutinized much more harshly than their white counterparts. Many black lawyers are treated differently than white lawyers when they challenge the system or advance novel arguments or complaints. In many cases, black lawyers are scrutinized for challenging laws that their white counterparts are not scrutinized for.

The great civil rights attorneys Z. Alexander Looby and Avon Williams were actually arrested and jailed for contempt of court for challenging judges for being unfair. Today, they would have been disbarred for the same actions.

The act of being an agent of the system and working zealously for a client are diametrically opposed in many cases. It is extremely difficult to do both and the scrutiny attorney's face often lead to accepted but ineffective representation. Today, challenging Brown v. Board of Education; or even Dred Scott (a U.S. Supreme Court case justifying the enslavement of blacks) would have been a frivolous challenge by the courts for some attorneys.

Today, attorneys, as agents of change, are very scarce as far as numbers and are often overworked and lack the resources; as no one will take on these cases because no one wants the heat.

There is absolutely no reason that so many people are charged or overcharged unjustly; or public officials, who are often held to a lower standard than the average citizen, can be found not liable for clearly brutalizing our children and other citizens.

Our first initiative should be to reform our jury system to ensure that all men and women are tried by a jury of their peers that properly represents a cross-section of the community. I have been in predominantly black cities where a black person is tried by an all white jury in recent time. I oppose such jury makeup for anyone; white, black, or otherwise."

Attorney Ali and the JJRI Committee is issuing a nationwide call to attorneys, activists, clergy, public officials, and concerned citizens to rally for jury reform across the nation. Part of the discussion will include the need for both citizens and public officials to be tried by a jury makeup of a cross-section of the community. Conferences will be scheduled across the nation beginning on January 20, 2018 in Riverside, California. Interested individuals should email [email protected].

Contact:

Attorney Zulu Ali

[email protected]

951-782-8722

www.zulualilaw.com

SOURCE Law Office of Zulu Ali

Related Links

http://www.zulualilaw.com


FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- In recent days, the community clinic Bermudez Medical Group opened its doors, celebrating the occasion with a fair with giveaways, food, raffles, live music, among other attractions.

The new medical center is located at 2601 Davie Blvd, Fort Lauderdale 33312, in the Santa Barbara Shopping Center.

"The community needs a different service in Broward County," said the owner of Bermudez Medical Group, Abraham Alonso.

"Our goal is to offer a dynamic, personalized service," added Alonso in reference to the commitment to take care of patients at the new clinic quickly and offer them good service.

Dr. Lidia R. Bermudez, the clinic's director, with 25 years of professional experience in geriatric and general medicine, said the fact that "they speak Spanish and provide good service at very competitive prices" makes them different.

Bermudez Medical Group provides specialized services for the elderly, general medicine, complete lab work and podiatry.

A social worker is part of the team and will refer people to the various resources for the community, letting them know the rights and services of government programs available to them.

For medical appointments and more information, please call 754-216-2458 or visit the website: www.bermudezmedical.com

SOURCE Bermudez Medical Group

Related Links

http://www.bermudezmedical.com


VISUALS:

Thousands of poor and needy girls and boys will receive thousands of brand new toys including skateboards, dolls, balls, stuffed animals and every kind of toy imaginable. Each child will receive new toys, thanks to the toy drives conducted by generous companies, schools and churches throughout SoCal. For most of these children, these toys will be the first NEW Christmas toys they have ever received.
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ViaCyte, Inc., a privately-held regenerative medicine company, today announced that the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) approved a grant of $1.4 million to support the initial development of immune-evasive pluripotent stem cell lines. The focus of the project will be to genetically engineer the Company's CyT49 pluripotent stem cell line. ViaCyte's proprietary CyT49 cell line is well characterized and has been used to manufacture cell replacement product candidates that have been reviewed and allowed for use in clinical trials by multiple regulatory authorities.

One of the main challenges in developing an 'off-the-shelf' cell therapy is the potential for immune rejection of implanted cells. Genetic engineering of a pluripotent stem cell line may make it possible to generate cell therapies from a single source that will not be rejected by the immune system. For diabetes, pluripotent stem cells have the potential of providing an unlimited supply of differentiated cells to overcome the current limitations of donor islet transplants, which have been shown to be highly effective in stabilizing blood glucose and providing insulin-independence in these patients but require immunosuppression. Delivering immune-evasive pancreatic progenitor cells to patients with type 1 diabetes may provide the benefits of islet transplant without the need for pharmacological immune suppression.

"The universal donor pluripotent stem cell line will represent a tremendous asset to ViaCyte, and the regenerative medicine field in general, and we are grateful to CIRM for their continued support to advance this new approach," said Kevin D'Amour, PhD, Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer of ViaCyte. "Because all allogeneic cell therapies require some strategy to address patient immunity and potential rejection, and pluripotent stem cells can be made into any cell type in the body, we believe that an immune-evasive CyT49 line may potentially be used to manufacture not only replacement glucose-responsive insulin-producing cells for diabetes, but also cell therapies for numerous other unmet medical needs."

"ViaCyte is focused on the development of stem cell-derived cell replacement therapies to provide better treatment options for patients with diabetes and we are pleased to partner with them to pursue this innovative program," said Maria Millan, MD, President and CEO of CIRM. "Development of an immune-evasive cell therapy would increase the chances of engraftment and durable effect of a cell replacement therapy for diabetes. CIRM is currently funding ViaCyte's clinical stage program and is pleased to now fund this earlier stage research as it may lead to next generation versions of their therapeutic platform. CIRM's mission is to accelerate the delivery of stem cell-based treatments to patients with serious life-threatening conditions by funding research at all stages  discovery, translational, and clinical research."

Pluripotent stem cells have two important properties that make them extremely promising for biomedical cell therapy products. First, they have an effectively unlimited capacity for self-renewal and thus can be manufactured at large industrial scale. Second, they have the potential to be differentiated into any tissue in the body, provided the appropriate 'recipe' for directed differentiation is figured out. ViaCyte has spent the last decade developing the recipe for production of human islets; establishing the know-how, methods, controls, and protocols to generate large quantities of replacement pancreatic endocrine cells reproducibly under GMP conditions that could be used as a functional cure for type 1 diabetes. In parallel, ViaCyte has established a robust patent estate to protect the intellectual property assets of stem cell propagation and differentiation, and delivery of the cell replacement therapies. Immune-evasive pluripotent cells would further extend the many possible applications of this technology.

About ViaCyte

ViaCyte is a privately-held regenerative medicine company developing novel cell replacement therapies as potential long-term diabetes treatments to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia and diabetes-related complications. ViaCyte's product candidates are based on the derivation of pancreatic progenitor cells from stem cells, which are then implanted in durable and retrievable cell delivery devices. Once implanted and matured, these cells are designed to secrete insulin and other pancreatic hormones in response to blood glucose levels. ViaCyte has two product candidates in clinical-stage development. The PEC-Direct product candidate delivers the pancreatic progenitor cells in a non-immunoprotective device and is being developed for type 1 diabetes patients who have hypoglycemia unawareness, extreme glycemic lability, and/or recurrent severe hypoglycemic episodes. The PEC-Encap (also known as VC-01) product candidate delivers the same pancreatic progenitor cells in an immunoprotective device and is being developed for all patients with diabetes, type 1 and type 2, who use insulin. ViaCyte is headquartered in San Diego, California. The Company is funded in part by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and JDRF.

For more information please visit www.viacyte.com. Connect with ViaCyte here: www.twitter.com/viacyte and www.facebook.com/viacyte.

SOURCE ViaCyte, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.viacyte.com


PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation and commercialize ideas, announced today that Mike Morhardt has joined the company as Head of Global Sales.

In this role, Morhardt is responsible for leading the sales strategy and direction of 700+ sales staff around the globe supporting the Life Sciences, CompuMark, Intellectual Property & Standards, and Scientific and Academic Research business units of Clarivate Analytics. He will be based in Boston, where he will report to Robert Lemmond, Chief Commercial Officer.

Prior to joining Clarivate Analytics, Morhardt served as Chief Sales Officer at influential research and advisory firm, Forrester Research for four and a half years. During this time he led the successful transformation of a 500-person global sales organization while revamping the entire go-to-market approach. Morhardt has also served as Managing Director of North American Financial Services Sales at Gerson Lehrman Group. In his early career Morhardt ascended to numerous sales leadership positions at research and data company Gartner, ultimately becoming the Group Vice President of Americas Sales.

"With over 25 years of leading sales of several of the most notable brands in the information industry, Mike's experience and track record will be vital as we enhance and expand our sales organization," said Lemmond. "As we continue to grow, we are delighted to have a leader of his caliber join the business. With his impressive record of leading and inspiring sales professionals, Mike is well-poised to lead our sales team to even greater success."



Morhardt added, "Clarivate Analytics is a newly independent company with an impressive host of heritage brands and a truly global footprint. Since the acquisition I have watched the company with interest and am honored to join them at this pivotal time in their expansion."

Clarivate Analytics

Clarivate Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than a century and a half, we have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including the Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, CompuMark, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company on a bold entrepreneurial mission, to help our clients radically reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.

SOURCE Clarivate Analytics
ATLANTA, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Clark Howard and Cox Media Group (CMG) Atlanta's News 95.5 and AM750 WSB (WSB-AM/WSBB-FM), in partnership with the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) and St. Vincent de Paul Georgia, successfully fulfilled Christmas lists from more than 9,100 children in foster care during Clark's Christmas Kids. In the program's 27-year history, it was the most ambitious goal to date.

Events to collect donations and gifts took place over the course of two weeks at seven Walmart locations in the metro Atlanta area. Each event included a live broadcast on News 95.5 and AM750 WSB featuring Clark Howard with special appearances from other WSB Radio hosts, as well as news anchors from Channel 2 (WSB-TV) and on-air talent from CMG's 97.1 The River (WSRV) and KISS 104.1 (WALR). The outpouring of support from the community was overwhelming. In addition to the number of gifts purchased and donated at each location, more than $265,000 in monetary donations was raised in just four days to make up the difference resulting from three canceled events due to snow.

Virginia Pryor, the Interim Director of Georgia DFCS, said, "Days ago, we were concerned that weather may have put a damper on our efforts to provide gifts for youth in foster care this holiday season. But Georgians showed up  raising more than $265,000 in four days  and made sure we put a smile on the faces of more than 9,100 of our kids who are spending this year's holiday away from home." She continued, "I am blown away by the response to our call for help and by the demonstration of pure love and compassion by each person who stepped up and gave of themselves for this cause. I am especially grateful for Clark Howard, who has been tireless in his efforts to support Georgia's foster children for more than 25 years, and for our partners at Walmart and St. Vincent de Paul Georgia who make this event possible each year."

"Once again the people of Georgia demonstrated their incredible care and generosity in helping over 9,100 kids have a special Christmas," said John A. Berry, Chief Executive Officer of St. Vincent de Paul Georgia. "Despite snow that cancelled three of our events, our amazing volunteers made it happen from shopping to warehouse sorting and delivery. It was an unbelievable team effort led, as always, by the one and only Clark Howard, the heart and soul of Christmas Kids for 27 years."

Clark Howard said of the accomplishment, "I am grateful and stunned. I was amazed at the enormous response Sunday, our largest ever single donation day, but at the same time, I was deflated knowing that we finished Sunday with 2,000 of Georgia's foster children having the prospect of no gifts to open on Christmas morning. But our listeners responded! Their incredibly generous cash donations have closed the gap, and now more than 9,100 children will have their Christmas wishes fulfilled."

Condace Pressley, WSB Radio's Manager of Program Operations and Community Affairs, added, "Like Clark, I was worried for the kids. As of Sunday, there were still so many Christmas wish lists and so few people to shop for them after the snow. But WSB listeners are the BEST PEOPLE EVER  coming through for Clark's Christmas Kids yet again. May God bless each and every donor."

CMG Atlanta and WSB Radio thank Walmart and St. Vincent de Paul Georgia for their invaluable help in coordinating this year's effort, as well as our sponsors, SCANA Energy and The Goddard School.

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
CALGARY, Dec. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Compass today announced the appointment of a new Executive role designed to position the Company Divisions for long-term growth. In early 2018 Compass will officially launch a new website and branding initiative in step with its newly minted Divisions: Compression, Process, Service, Rental and Retrofit Divisions.

Bill Moore will be joining the Compass team in January 2018 as Chief Operating Officer based in Calgary. With over 25 years of global energy services experience in private and public markets, Bill spent 20 years with Enerflex in a variety of leadership positions. His roles included President International, responsible for the development and execution of global growth objectives, Senior Vice President of Operations, Vice President of Service and General Manager, Asia Pacific, based in Sydney Australia. Bill holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Sydney.

Bill will be responsible for supporting the continued operational growth of the business across all markets and product lines along with developing and implementing strategy with the experienced and talented team at Compass.

Compass President, John Forgeron said; "Bill is excited to be back in the Compression and Process business. He brings a depth of experience to our core areas of growth at an opportune time. We will be breaking into new markets with new product lines at a time where we have little restriction on growth internally. We are thrilled to have another strong industry pillar join our team. I know our people, customers and partners will be pleased to be working with Bill again."

About Compass Compression Services Ltd.

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Compass is a leading fabricator of compression and process package solutions for oil & gas applications. The Compass team offers industry leading expertise, delivering the full range of small to large horsepower projects of the highest quality, with an exceptional client experience. Value is maximized for clients by supporting the full lifecycle of equipment  retrofit, surplus equipment and parts & service teams ensure optimal performance now, and into the future. The Compass rental team provides the fleet and flexibility to support almost any project. For additional information about Compass go to http://www.compassnrg.com/.

SOURCE Compass
LONDON, December 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

New Deezer SongCatcher Tool Brings Music Closer to the Fans

Today Deezer, the world's most diverse, dynamic and personal music streaming service, has launched its own song recognition feature SongCatcher, offering a greater choice for consumers who want to find out the names of particular songs or artists when listening to music.

This innovative feature, powered by ACRCloud, has been in the works for many months and is already available in BETA to a subsection of Deezer's user base. Designed so that music fans can identify forgotten songs or discover unknown tracks on their mobile, users simply hold up their phone and let the search function do the work for them.

Deezer SongCatcher delivers:

Quick identification and sourcing of unknown tracks within the Deezer app through the use of the search function that directs users to "identify sound"

Newly identified tracks that can be added directly to your favorites and/or playlist

The ability to play all saved and favorite tracks from SongCatcher

"Deezer SongCatcher is something that our product team has been working on for some time as we recognize that there is clear demand from music fans to find out the name of an unknown track or artist when they are listening to music. The BETA has proven very positive and so we are excited to be able to officially communicate the launch of Deezer SongCatcher to all music fans around the world," said Alexander Holland, Chief Product and Content Officer.

Deezer SongCatcher will be rolled out over the coming months and will be open to Premium+ subscribers. Rolling out initially on Android users, it will be coming to iOS next year.

About Deezer

Deezer connects 12 million active users around the world to more than 44 million tracks. Available in 185 countries worldwide, Deezer gives instant access to the most diverse global music streaming catalogue on any device. Deezer is the only music streaming service with Flow, the unique mix of all your old favourites and new recommendations in one ever-changing stream. Based on an intuitive, proprietary algorithm and created by people who love music, it's the only place to hear all your music back-to-back with fresh discoveries tailored to you. Deezer is available on your favorite device, including smartphone, tablet, PC, laptop, home sound system, connected car or smart TV.

Making music happen since 2007, Deezer is a privately held company, headquartered in Paris with offices in London, Berlin, Miami and around the world. Deezer is available as a free download for iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows devices or on the web at deezer.com. For the latest news on Deezer go to http://www.Deezer.com/company/press

SOURCE Deezer
NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- E-J Electric Installation Co. (E-J Electric) is in the process of expanding the Bayonne Energy Center's electrical capacity. This expansion will help meet the electricity needs of over 500,000 New York City homes and businesses through an underwater transmission cable. With this project, E-J Electric is growing its Power Construction Services in New Jersey and it is the fourth power generation project in the area.

Power Generation Plant Methods

The range of services provided by the E-J Electric team include installation of two Siemen's 64 MW Gas Turbine Generators, Medium Voltage Cable Bus, Medium and Low Voltage Feeders and Control and Instrumentation Cabling. Additionally, E-J Electric is completing site lighting, heat tracing, fire alarm, and a plant wide grounding grid as part of the turn-key expansion at the Bayonne Energy Center. The project consists of over 100,000 feet of multi-conductor power cable installations, over 2,000 feet of cable tray and close to 22,000 feet of conduit.

"E-J Electric's dedication to its communities have been the driving force in providing quality electric construction for over 100 years," said E-J Electric President & CEO Anthony Mann. "We were chosen for this project because of our reputation for completing highly technical work on time and on budget. Our history and expertise in construction and engineering of power generation plants distinguish us from other firms. We are dedicated to each part of every job and our methodical, comprehensive approach keeps us an industry-leader."

About E-J Electric Installation Co.

E-J Electric Installation Co., is active in all facets of electric contracting. Projects vary in size to over $200 million. Typical installations include: office buildings, hospitals, power plants, co-generation facilities, roadway and outdoor specialty, airports, industrial plants, universities, sport stadiums, transit facilities and high voltage distribution. At E-J Electric Installation Co., three family generations of practical expertise have created an organization keyed to the most modern technological advances in providing rapid and efficient solutions to today's lighting, power, energy and communication needs. E-J has a 118-year reputation for unparalleled integrity, quality and service in the electrical field. Please visit our website at www.ej1899.com to learn about the company.

SOURCE E-J Electric Installation Co.

Related Links

http://www.ej1899.com


SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Dec. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Epica International Inc., the California-based advanced CT and robotics company, announced the appointment of Stefano Severini to the position of external advisor.

Mr. Severini will report to Epica International Inc. CEO, Frank D'Amelio, in support of existing and future company goals, with a particular focus on funding opportunities, financial oversight, and operational excellence. In addition, he will act as an advisor on all matters of Italian corporate management, marketplace trends, and long-term financing strategies.

Mr. Severini will be based primarily in Italy, where Epica International's manufacturing and R&D operations are located. Mr. Severini will continue his day to day support of Epica's industrial robotics, medical robotics, and imagery divisions. He has been actively involved with both of Epica's Italian-based subsidiaries since 2013 and played an integral role in their merger with Epica International in 2015.

Through his private investment company, Mr. Severini has created and participated in numerous highly profitable financial transactions over the past twenty-five years. He completed a Bachelor of Business Administration degree at the University of Pisa and also holds a master's degree in business management. Mr. Severini obtained the title of official business consultant with the O.D.E.C., a national association overseen by the Italian Ministry of Justice in the province of Lucca, where he was born and currently resides.

Related Links

Epica International

SOURCE Epica International Inc.

Related Links

https://epicainternational.com


Utilizing a light-weight design and narrow frame, Hazl weighs less than 3,600 pounds. It includes a pivoting rear axle, a zero-degree turn capability, and a 12-foot usable stroke on a unique telescopic tower. Powered by an energy efficient 26 horsepower Kohler engine, complemented by a proprietary hydraulic system, Hazl moves fast and freely, making it a powerful machine operable in any environment. The rig is built for performance, combining mobility and economy without sacrificing power or efficiency, according to company officials.

"The launch of Hazl will not only accelerate the development of our various environmental technologies, but also greatly benefit other applications such as geothermal, geotechnical, or water well drilling," said Andrew Niemczyk, Hazl's creator and Exlterra's founder. "There is nothing in the world like this machine, I guarantee you that."

The rig was tested for two years in numerous locations in the United States and Switzerland, with operators at various levels of drilling experience. "To our entire satisfaction, Hazl handled every difficulty thrown at her impeccably," said Niemcyzk, adding that only one task remained, which was to determine its name.

"During the development of the drill rig we had the opportunity to interact with many companies and people in Hazel Park. We continuously received strong support from city officials," said Frank Muller, Exlterra's CEO. "When determining a name that fit our drilling rig, it just felt right that it be named after the city where it was born."

Exlterra Inc. has already revolutionized water management with the invention and introduction of the energy-passive groundwater recharge product in 2010. Today, Exlterra continues to develop new technologies and products to tackle the planet's leading environmental challenges. It is the objective of Exlterra to invent powerful solutions and generate significant environmental, economic, and social value. Visit www.exlterra.com to learn more.

Contact: Frank Muller / [email protected] T. +1 (248) 268-2336

SOURCE Exlterra Inc.

Related Links

http://www.exlterra.com


After attending ProColombia's first e-commerce events in Bogota and Medellin , Colombia , Export Portal would like to thank Carolina Hincapie, Textiles and Apparel Representative in Medellin, and Isabela Zarzur, Textiles and Apparel Representative in Bogota, for allowing Export Portal to meet the lingerie, shapewear, swimwear, surgical garment companies as well as other clothing manufacturers in Colombia . We want to especially thank Fajate in Medellin and Diane & Geordi in Bogota for our factory visits.

Based on our conversations, there is a general mistrust of e-commerce in different parts of the world. India is currently going through this exact same issue due to fraudulent business practices and undelivered parcels. Because of this mistrust, Export Portal is purpose-built from the ground up to accommodate first-time international business transactions. ExportPortal.com does not allow just any business to join. Our strict adherence to the basic tenets of business will continue to drive interest across South America and around the globe.

Ms. Spinu continues, "We are still looking for interested parties that want to represent Export Portal as a Country Ambassador across Central and South America. This position requires someone who has their home country at the heart of everything they do and want their trade and exports to increase across every industry. The split of profits that result from the use of our ecosystem will only be successful because of a few choice individuals. We look forward to hearing from all interested parties who think they are ready for our country-wide outreach challenge."

About Export Portal & ExportPortal.com

Export Portal is a fast-moving international ecosystem based on a blockchain technology that seeks to turn small businesses into medium sized companies and medium sized ones into global trading machines. Our outreach in 2018 will start with India and Vietnam. To read more about Export Portal and to submit a video for the South American Country Brand Ambassador, please go to our Facebook page to learn more and to upload your bio in English: https://www.facebook.com/ExportPortal.

Media contact:

John Zahaitis

818-691-0079

[email protected]

SOURCE Export Portal
"The Simple Payment Plan takes the stress out of paying monthly bills. We help our clients identify which bills they should put onto the platform. Then, they set it and forget it," says Kristen Holt, GreenPath president and CEO. "During testing, clients told us the program simplified their payment process, and saved them time and late fees. We just earned an Innovative Practice Award from the Council on Accreditation for this service."

The EarnUp platform works by breaking up the client's monthly loan payments into smaller withdrawals taken on the days that they get paidmaking it easier for the client to manage spending and avoid late fees. Clients can also opt to round up payments to save significant amounts of interest over the life of the loan. Combining EarnUp's FinTech tool with GreenPath's strong track record in financial counseling creates a premium service tailored to each individual.

"Our experience shows that people are more likely to stay current on their loan payments if we make it quick and easy for them to do so. The app gives them control of their plan right at their fingertips," said Matthew Cooper, co-founder and CEO of EarnUp. "By working with GreenPath, we can provide people with innovative tools to improve their financial health."

The Simple Payment Plan is currently free for the first year thanks to a sponsorship from Freddie Mac. Consumers can sign up for the Simple Payment Plan by calling GreenPath Financial Wellness at 877-663-0143.

"The increasing rate of consumer debt and the low homeownership rate lead us to believe average Americans can use help managing their debts," said Danny Gardner, vice president of affordable lending and access to credit in Freddie Mac's Single-Family Business. "Offering free access to EarnUp's technology is one of the many ways we're building on our broader community mission, which includes our efforts to stabilize communities, responsibly expand credit and educate borrowers."

For more information, call 877-663-0143 or go to greenpath.org.

GreenPath Financial Wellness is a national nonprofit organization that provides financial counseling, education and products to empower people to lead financially healthy lives. In working directly with individuals, and through partnerships with other organizations, GreenPath aims to remix the American dream so it works for everyone. Headquartered in Farmington Hills, Mich., GreenPath has nearly 500 employees and operates about 60 branch offices in 19 states. GreenPath is a member of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), and is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA). For more information, visit greenpath.org.

EarnUp is a consumer-first platform that intelligently automates loan payments and identifies earning opportunities. Based in San Francisco, EarnUp is backed by prominent Venture Capital firms Blumberg Capital, Kapor Capital, Camp One Ventures, and Fenway Summer Ventures plus other leading angels and entrepreneurs. EarnUp is a winner of the prestigious Financial Solutions Lab in partnership with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the Center for Financial Services Innovation. For more information, visit www.earnup.com, email [email protected], and follow on Twitter @EarnUp.

Freddie Mac makes home possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since our creation by Congress in 1970, we've made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. We are building a better housing finance system for homebuyers, renters, lenders and taxpayers. Learn more at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac's blog.

SOURCE GreenPath Financial Wellness

Related Links

http://www.greenpath.com


DALIAN, China, Dec. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global automotive supplier Hanon Systems (KS:018880) is today announcing it has signed an investment agreement with the Dalian municipal government in China to expand its automotive compressor operations to support business growth in the China market.

This agreement secures active government support and grants permission for the company to invest in the construction of a third plant in Dalian, which will increase the total site space to more than 105,000 square feet (98,000 square meters).

A signing ceremony commemorating the agreement was held in Dalian, Jinshui District, which was attended by Dalian plant leadership, the Dalian Development Administration Committee and Chinese government officials of the Economic and Technological Development Zone. The ceremony was preceded by a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which was established in June at the World Economic Forum (WEF) between Hanon Systems and the Dalian Development Zone Investment Promotion Bureau.

"We are pleased to receive this formal approval to invest and expand our Dalian operations, which is critical to support our business growth with local China automakers and global vehicle manufacturers operating in China," said In-Young Lee, president and chief executive officer of Hanon Systems. "We appreciate this support from the China government, and from our customers in terms of trust in our company and the innovative compressor solutions that Hanon Systems offers to the market."

Established in 2004, the Hanon Systems Dalian plant produces electric, and fixed and variable swashplate compressors for automotive applications. The plant first expanded its operations in 2011, and today produces 2.7 million compressors annually. It also is the largest Korean company in terms of sales in the Dalian area in China.

About Hanon Systems

Hanon Systems is a full-line supplier of automotive thermal and energy management solutions. Products include heating ventilation and air conditioning; powertrain cooling; compressors; fluid transport; and thermal and emissions solutions for conventional and electric, hybrid, fuel cell and autonomous vehicles. With 40 manufacturing and 18 engineering sites across 20 countries, the company employs more than 16,500 people. To learn more, visit hanonsystems.com.

SOURCE Hanon Systems

Related Links

http://www.hanonsystems.com


In advance of the upcoming 59 th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, the campaign, created by BBDO New York, launched with a powerful 60-second spot video that features Cuban-American actor Raul Esparza, best-known for his roles on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Hannibal , reciting "Island Body," a poem written exclusively for the campaign by world-renowned Cuban poet Richard Blanco. Through the poem and the spot, HAVANA CLUB rum speaks to its Cuban roots, establishes its authenticity and boldly tells adversaries "Don't tell us we're not Cuban." Written, produced and directed entirely by Cuban exiles in Miami, and available in both English and Spanish, the film culminates with the tagline "Forced from home. Aged in Exile. Forever Cuban."

In 1960, the revolutionary Cuban government illegally seized without compensation the Arechabala family businesses, including their HAVANA CLUB distillery, and jailed, then forced the family to flee the country in exile. But, they could not steal the Arechabala's recipe or strip the family of their soul, which is rooted in the craftsmanship of their product and solidifies their continued family legacy. The family sought refuge in the U.S., where the recipe was personally transcribed by Ramon Arechabala and given to Bacardi as part of an agreement between the two families. As a result, Bacardi has sold HAVANA CLUB rum exclusively in the U.S. since 1995.

"We recently debuted the 'Forever Cuban' campaign to reaffirm our place as the true HAVANA CLUB rum. Pernod Ricard, a French company, continues to partner with the Cuban dictatorship to produce rum under a stolen name. That does not make the Pernod Ricard and Cuban government's rum brand 'real,' or 'authentic,' it makes it an imposter," said Ned Duggan, Vice President of Rums for Bacardi. "Bacardi will continue selling HAVANA CLUB rum using the recipe based on the original, which was created by the Arechabalas in 1934 and is part of their family heritage."

The ultimate convergence of two Cuban families coming together to continue an iconic brand's legendary heritage with an authentic product, Bacardi is committed to continuing this legacy, having experienced the same oppression and exile from Cuba. Its authenticity is based on the original recipe, great-taste, craftsmanship, technique and passion since the brand was crafted by the Arechabala's in 1934. The Arechabala family has entrusted Bacardi with their recipe, and the brand's goal is to carry on this legacy with the same passion and perseverance that the Arechabala and the Bacardi families are known for, having experienced the same hardship and sharing a common goal.

"My father's family was exiled by the Cuban regime and their factories seized without warning or compensation," said Paola Arechabala Consuegra, second-generation Arechabala family member. "After expulsion from their country, my family took our rum recipe  the one that has been in our family for nearly 85 years  and sought refuge in the U.S., a place where their original recipe would be safe from imposters and the Cuban regime. Through our agreement with Bacardi, we found a way to maintain our legacy by having our recipe and brand live on."

HAVANA CLUB rums are premium, aged rums, distilled and finely crafted in Puerto Rico, comprised of HAVANA CLUB Anejo Blanco and HAVANA CLUB Anejo Clasico.

HAVANA CLUB Anejo Clasico and HAVANA CLUB Anejo Blanco are carefully crafted by the brand's Maestros de Ron to mirror the original processes and liquid style of the Arechabala family from 1934. To maintain the authenticity and originality of the rum in both taste and bottle design, HAVANA CLUB rum, distilled in Puerto Rico, is based on the Arechabala family recipe and archival bottle design. In homage to the 1934 original, HAVANA CLUB Anejo Clasico is a golden liquid with robust notes of sweet fruits akin to pineapple and apricot, complemented by oaky notes with hints of almond and vanilla, and HAVANA CLUB Anejo Blanco boasts sweet notes reminiscent of tropical fruits and florals.

From the small screen to reality, the "Forever Cuban" campaign encourages consumers who share similar stories of exile to reclaim their heritage and recognize that there is nothing anyone can do to take their identity away through a range of advertising and digital channels, including online video and mass and targeted social (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). Out-of-home will run in Florida and New York markets in December. Watch the spot video here.

For more information on HAVANA CLUB Rum, distilled in Puerto Rico, and cocktail recipes, visit https://www.therealhavanaclub.com/.

About HAVANA CLUB Rum

HAVANA CLUB rum is based on the original recipe created by the Arechabala family in Cuba in 1934. The recipe was personally transcribed by Ramon Arechabala and given to Bacardi as part of the agreement between the two family companies. In 1995, with the Arechabalas' agreement, Bacardi re-launched HAVANA CLUB in the United States. HAVANA CLUB is comprised of HAVANA CLUB Anejo Blanco and the newly released HAVANA CLUB Anejo Clasico, two ultra-smooth, premium, aged rums, distilled and finely crafted in Puerto Rico. www.therealhavanaclub.com

The HAVANA CLUB brand is part of the portfolio of Bacardi Limited, headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.

SOURCE HAVANA CLUB Rum, Distilled in Puerto Rico

Related Links

http://www.therealhavanaclub.com


GUALACO, Honduras, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- This week, Honduras's Special Prosecutor's Office Against Organized Crime, or FESCCO, indicted Honduran nationals Carlos Ramiro Chirinos Solix and Selvin Efrain Henriquez Escobar in connection with the trafficking of 429 kilograms of cocaine to Gualaco, a municipality in the Honduran department Olancho, via plane.

"Drug trafficking and organized crime have no place in Honduras," President Hernandez said. "My administration will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who engages in these criminal activities."

An undercover Honduran police team detected a suspicious plane flying over Gualaco on Sunday night. According to police reports, the flight crew incinerated the plane after it landed.

After an exhaustive search, Honduran police located cocaine from the plane on Mr. Chirinos's property in La Higuera, a village in Gualaco.

In recent months, the Hernandez administration has taken several steps to reduce transnational drug trafficking in Honduras. Earlier this year, the administration opened a new maximum-security prison designed to detain drug traffickers. Last month, the Honduran National Inter-Agency Security Force arrested Geffrey Dario Guzman Tobar, a Libre Alliance mayoral candidate wanted on drug trafficking charges in the United States. Salvador Nasralla and Manuel Zelaya lead the Libre Alliance.

Since taking office in 2014, President Hernandez has extradited 17 drug lords to the United States, destroyed 150 airstrips used by drug traffickers, and reduced the homicide rate by nearly 50 percent. According to U.S. State Department data, the number of inbound flights carrying drugs to Honduras dropped 30 percent from 2015 to 2016.

"These latest arrests should serve as a warning to anyone who tries bringing drugs into Honduras," President Hernandez said. "My administration will do all in our power to keep our citizens safe -- and our nation free of illicit drugs."

Media Contact:

Andrew Grafton

[email protected]

(202)-471-4228 ext. 119

www.keybridgecommunications.com

SOURCE Republic of Honduras
SHENZHEN, China, Dec. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Huntkey, a global leading provider of power solutions, has recently released a 60W USB-C notebook adapter to meet the increasing charging demands of USB-C powered devices.

After launching many different notebook adapters, such as X-Man 65W, Slim 65W II, and Mini 45W, Huntkey has come up with a new generation notebook adapter equipped with a USB-C connector for superspeed charging and convenient use.

What is USB-C?

USB-C is a new standard which is tailored for the next generation of electronic devices. It features a horizontally symmetrical design that can be plugged into the any USB-C powered device in either direction for easy access.

What is the Huntkey USB-C notebook adapter capable of?

1) Delivers a much faster charging speed

When it comes to fast charging, USB Power Delivery which is a charging protocol applied in the field of power delivery. It enables much higher power delivery speed for both host-to-device and device-to-host. Implemented this technology, the Huntkey USB-C notebook adapter can not only charge a device with a faster charging speed, but also easily meet the demands of devices with larger power consumption.

2) Compatible with multiple USB-C powered devices

The Huntkey USB-C notebook adapter can accordingly charge different devices at different voltage levels of 5 V, 9 V and 20 V. With this intelligent charging feature, it is able to charge a wide range of devices ranging from smartphones to power banks, tablets, laptops and drones.

3) Fully protects the charging device

Based on deep research and development, Huntkey created the USB-C notebook adapter with strong charging performance as well as reliable protective functions to safeguard the charging device. It is equipped with SCP (Short Circuit Protection), OVP (Over Voltage Protection), OTP (Over Temperature Protection) and OCP (Over Current Protection) to give the users peace of mind.

The Huntkey USB-C notebook adapter:

https://en.huntkey.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/usb-type-c-adapters.jpg

For more product information, please visit Huntkey website: https://en.huntkey.com/

About Huntkey

Huntkey Group, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Shenzhen, is a member of The International Power Supply Manufacturer's Association (PSMA) and a member of The China Power Supply Society (CPSS). With branch companies in the USA, Japan and other areas, and cooperating factories in Brazil, Argentina, India and other countries, Huntkey has specialized in the development, design, and manufacturing of PC power supplies, industrial power supplies, surge protectors, adapters and chargers for many years. With its own technologies and manufacturing strength, Huntkey has served Lenovo, Huawei, Haier, DELL, ZTE, Bestbuy and many other large enterprises for years, and has received unanimous recognition and trust from many customers.

Media contact:

Homer

Phone: +86-755-8960-6545 / +86-137-6337-3238

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Huntkey Enterprise Group

Related Links

http://en.huntkey.com/


Invest Forward is a white-label technology solution for advisors. It provides advisors with a customized website, online brokerage and account management tools and the back-office technology necessary to offer investors a robo advisor experience. Invest Forward also helps advisors to digitally offer term life insurance, loans and estate planning.

"Our firm needed a partner that would support our initiatives and growth and that was committed to focusing on our business. We needed a technology firm that could offer API brokerage technology, seamless trade execution, online client onboarding, low-cost trading, integrated custody and model management. Folio was able to provide all of this," said Matt Cohen, CEO and founder of Invest Forward.

Cohen added, "Folio was ahead of the curve in meeting all of our needs. For example, Folio was the best equipped to handle Dimensional Advisors funds, which are a core to our institutional offering. There were a few other firms in the market making a big push to work with us, but we very early on decided to work with Folio. We've been very happy with the relationship."

(Read more about how Folio is helping Invest Forward launch and manage its business.)

In addition to Invest Forward, several other "digital first" firms (read more) have turned to Folio for its patented trading platform and API Service that offers more than 100 endpoints. Folio's API Service helps large firms and enterprises bring a custom, fully branded advisor-guided or stand-alone online investing program to market.

Folio Institutional's API Service makes it easy for firms to build their own unique digital investing platform that includes custom online account opening, document management and securities trading, along with account performance and reporting solutions. Folio's clients have complete control over their robo service's look and feel, and, because Folio owns its technology, clients receive seamless system enhancements without having to "bolt on" multiple third-party software solutions.

"We are pleased to be a trusted partner for Invest Forward and look forward to helping them meet the needs of their rising number of clients," said Greg Vigrass, president of Folio Institutional. "Folio's nearly two decades of trading and custody experience conveys to our clients that they're in good hands. Our innovative online investing tools enable end-to-end control over the investing experience, and these tools are flexible enough to grow as our clients grow. We look forward to working with many more cutting-edge firms."

Firms may contact Folio Institutional for a demo of its online brokerage, custody and FinTech platform.

About Folio Institutional

Folio Institutional is a leading brokerage, custody and financial technology company, all in one. Investment advisors, financial institutions and retirement plans use our innovative technology and modular solutions to build and precisely manage customized portfolios for their entire client base, regardless of account size. Our clients use our state-of-the-art trading, portfolio management tools, digital investing services and alternative investment capabilities to create a better client experience, scale their business and improve profitability. We empower the financial services industry on both a full-service and technology-licensed basis, servicing billions of dollars of investor assets nationwide. www.folioinstitutional.com

2017 FOLIOfn, Inc. All rights reserved. Securities products and brokerage and clearing services are offered by Folio Investments, Inc., a registered broker-dealer and member FINRA/SIPC.

SOURCE Folio Institutional

Related Links

http://www.folioinstitutional.com


MEXICALI, Mexico, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Furukawa Electric LatAm, with the guidance of Mexico manufacturing consultants IVEMSA, opened its new 6,000-square meter manufacturing facility in Mexicali last Friday, December 8. Furukawa LatAm, a Furukawa Electric Group company that produces products and equipment for indoor and outdoor network infrastructure solutions, worked closely with IVEMSA to select the facility and set up their business entity in Mexico.

IVEMSA president Sergio Tagliapietra attended the new facility's ribbon-cutting as an honored guest and joined mayor of Mexicali, Gustavo Sanchez, and Furukawa Electric executives at the presidium. Mayor Sanchez welcomed Furukawa Electric to Mexicali and thanked IVEMSA for their continuing efforts to bring more foreign businesses to Mexicali and Mexico. He also recognized IVEMSA's long history of supporting foreign companies through shelter services and its benefits for Mexicali's economic development.

The new facility will have two operating units: one to produce fiber optic cables and cordages, and the other to connect and assemble optical equipment, cordages and accessories. Furukawa Electric expects to generate 150 direct and 30 indirect jobs through the new plant in just the first year.

Furukawa selected IVEMSA to guide them throughout the project, a process that took about two years and included numerous visits to Mexicali. IVEMSA advised the company on site selection, helped them navigate the city and explained best-case scenarios for setting up in Mexico. IVEMSA also provided guidance on fiscal, trade compliance and environmental regulations.

Roberto Durazo, Director of Business Development for IVEMSA said, "We are very proud to support the new Furukawa Electric operations with our hands-on management services. We are offering all our support for ongoing project management, recruiting, HR compliance, trade compliance, logistics coordination, accounting and finance services."

Founded in 1982, IVEMSA provides shelter and administrative services to foreign companies that want to move manufacturing operations to Mexico. Based in Mexicali and with six locations throughout Baja and Central Mexico, IVEMSA guides companies through the entire process of establishing and conducting operations in Mexico, including site selection, trade compliance, human resources, recruiting, accounting and environmental health and safety.

For more information on IVEMSA, visit ivemsa.com.

For more information on Furukawa Electric LatAm, visit furukawalatam.com

SOURCE IVEMSA

Related Links

http://www.ivemsa.com


TURLOCK, Calif., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- If you or someone you love are one of the millions of Americans with a chronic disease or a life-threatening condition, pharmaceutical manufacturers and their partners offer you a gift of hope this holiday season.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers are often criticized as Scrooge or the Grinch in our country's health care system. Elected officials and advocacy organizations want to blame somebody for rising Rx costs, and the most obvious target is the Big Pharma.

But in this blame game, very little attention is given to the help the pharmaceutical industry and its partners quietly provide to patients in need through a variety of programs.

Such programs are often based on the patient's household income, but not always. Patients with no health insurance coverage are often the first group considered eligible. Likewise, those with one or more chronic or life-threatening conditions are a high priority.

If you fall into one of these categories, check out the Patient Assistance Programs (PAPs) found on individual pharmaceutical company websites or through Partnership for Prescription Assistance (www.pparx.org/), the website created by PhRMA, the trade association representing pharmaceutical manufacturers, linking patients to more than 475 different assistance programs.

On most of these websites, you can be connected with a customer support team member who can help determine if you are eligible and get you enrolled. You will be asked to verify that you are insured or uninsured and, in some cases, provide proof of income. You may need your physician to validate your condition. But once approved, access to medication is granted almost immediately.

(Note: Patients enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid /Medi-Cal may not be eligible.)

Pharmaceutical manufacturers also offer co-pay assistance, in which the patient is offered help with the cost of medication copayments. Some co-pay assistance programs do not limit who is eligible. And, it is important to know that some co-pay assistance programs will not help people on Medicare. Each program sets its own rules.

People searching for an online provider should check out www.RxAssist.org. This site was developed by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, with the sole purpose of helping people access needed medications. It is one of the best sites available.

The California Chronic Care Coalition (CCCC) launched this website www.mypatientrights.com in California and is taking it nationwide to help people who have been denied treatment or medicines, experienced delays or are dis satisfied with the decisions made by their health plan. Today, this program is operating in 17 states. It helps patients get the care or treatment they need if denied. Or, if their plans don't cover their meds and force them to pay full price.

For patients of nonprofit healthcare providers with pharmacies built into their clinics or hospitals, the Dispensary of Hope (DOH) website should be at the top of the list (http://dispensaryofhope.org/). DOH is a non-profit distributor whose mission is to create pathways for donated medicine to reach individuals in need and without access. DOH receives medication from pharmaceutical manufacturers and re-distributes it to nonprofit healthcare providers across the United States. Eligible patients receive their medications for free.

Direct Relief (https://www.directrelief.org/usa/safety-net-support/) helps nonprofit safety net providers by delivering no-cost pharmaceuticals and medical supplies on an ongoing basis. The Safety Net Support program leverages Direct Relief's partnerships with companies that donate medicine and medical products with the sole purpose of caring for low-income patients who do not have health insurance.

For people taking medications for cancer, diabetes, AIDs and other chronic diseases, there are many sources of help. For example, Pfizer offers a program for cancer patients (https://www.pfizeroncologytogether.com/) that provides not just medication but also access to a social worker to help them navigate the complexities of dealing with numerous health providers as well as their insurance company.

Lilly offers a program for people with diabetes (http://www.lillycares.com/) and Novo Nordisk offers a program as well (http://www.novonordisk-us.com/content/dam/USA/AFFILIATE/www-novonordisk-us/Home/Patients/Documents/PAP_Application_English.pdf). Abvie also offers a diabetic assistance program (1 800 222 6885).

Publix grocery stores lead the nation in offering free medications for customers. Their pharmacies offer  at no charge  up to a 14-day supply of medications, such as metformin for diabetics, and antibiotics, such as amoxicillin and ampicillin are offered at no charge. Visit the Publix website http://www.publix.com/pharmacy-wellness/pharmacy/pharmacy-services/free-medication-program for more information.

And, Meijer, a supermarket chain with stores located in Michigan's Lower Peninsula and additional locations in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin, offers a free antibiotics program for amoxicillin, cephalexin, SMZ-TMP (excludes suspension), ciprofloxacin in 250, 500 and 750mg strengths (excludes suspension), ampicillin, and penicillin VK. In 2017, Meijer pharmacies surpassed $500 million in savings for customers through this free drug program. https://www.meijer.com/content/content.jsp?pageName=free_prescriptions&icid=LP:Meijer:080617:Feature:FreePrescriptions.

This holiday season if you need help with your medications, you are not alone. Go to the websites cited throughout this article. They can help connect you with low cost and free alternatives. It is worth your time to explore these options. And, if you get frustrated, feel free to email me with your questions.

Jeffrey Lewis, CEO of Legacy Health Foundation in Turlock, can be reached at [email protected] The views expressed our his own.

SOURCE Legacy Health Endowment

Related Links

http://www.legacyhealthendowment.org


BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase authorization of up to $1.5 billion, under which the Company may buy back Kellogg shares at its discretion from January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019.

The Company uses buybacks as a way to offset dilution from options exercises and other stock grants, as well as to opportunistically return cash to share owners. Its previous $1.5 billion authorization expires on December 31, 2017.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclosure

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" about share repurchases. These statements are made on the basis of the Company's views and assumptions as of this time and the Company undertakes no obligation to update this statement unless required by law. This statement is not a guarantee of future performance; and actual events or results may differ materially from this statement. Investors should consult the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (including the information set forth under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016) for information about certain factors that could cause such differences. Copies of these filings may be obtained upon request from the Company's Investor Relations Department or on the Company's web site at http://www.kelloggcompany.com."

About Kellogg Company

At Kellogg Company (NYSE: K), we are driven to enrich and delight the world through foods and brands that matter. With 2016 sales of more than $13 billion, Kellogg is the world's leading cereal company; second largest producer of cookies and crackers; a leading producer of savory snacks; and a leading North American frozen foods company. Every day, our well-loved brands nourish families so they can flourish and thrive. These brands include Kellogg's, Keebler, Special K, Pringles, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Kashi, Cheez-It, Eggo, Coco Pops, Mini-Wheats, and many more. To learn more about our responsible business leadership, foods that delight and how we strive to make a difference in our communities around the world, visit www.kelloggcompany.com.

[K-FIN]

SOURCE Kellogg Company

Related Links

http://www.kelloggcompany.com


KINGWOOD, Texas, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kimberly Anne Johnson, RRT, MBA, is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the field of Healthcare in recognition of her role as Respiratory Therapist at Kingwood Hospital.



Providing quality, cost-effective healthcare for over twenty five years, Kingwood Hospital is a 360-bed, acute-care facility that is home to an accredited cardiovascular center, women's center and brain and spine center. Dedicated to the health and wellness of their patients, the staff at Kingwood Hospital utilizes their state of the art technologies and treatments to better serve local residents. The team at Kingwood Hospital is devoted to, "to the care and improvement of human life." With Commitment, Integrity, Respect and Excellence at the forefront of the organizations values, the hospital ensures that they treat each individual with fairness, compassion and kindness. The healthcare facility ensures that they, "act with absolute honesty, integrity and fairness in the way we conduct our business and the way we live our lives."

Amassing over thirty years of experience in the healthcare field, Johnson holds board certification as a Registered Respiratory Therapist with additional certificates in Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support.

Currently serving the Northeast Houston area for over four years, Johnson was formerly a therapist for twenty seven years at Riley Hospital for Children of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Throughout the course of her education and training, Johnson attended Sinclair Community College, located in Indiana and Purdue University of Indianapolis where she attained her Master of Business Administration degree.

To further her professional development, Johnson is an affiliate of several organizations including the International Association of Healthcare Professionals, American Association of Respiratory Care and National Board for Respiratory Care.



Outside of work, Kimberly enjoys reading mysteries and Christian novels as well as various crafts and shadow boxes.

For more information, please visit www.kingwoodmedical.com

Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


CINCINNATI, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kroger (NYSE: KR) announced today it has added its Prep+Pared Meal Kits to four new divisions: Central, Columbus, Fry's and Nashville, joining Cincinnati, Louisville and Ralphs.

"Prep+Pared Meal Kits are a growing part of Kroger's Our Brands portfolio. As we focus on redefining the grocery customer experience, as outlined in our Restock Kroger plan, we will rapidly grow the footprint of Prep+Pared Meal Kits in 2018," said Robert Clark, Kroger's senior vice president of merchandising. "Since introducing Prep+Pared Meal Kits earlier this year, our customers have responded favorably to having a convenient solution that makes dinner easy."

Prep+Pared Meal Kit ingredients are fresh, seasonal, prepped and measured to precisely provide customers with only what is needed for each recipe so there is no waste. Cooking time for each meal kit is about 20 minutes. Prep+Pared Meal Kits feed two adults and range in price from $14 to $20, and there is no required subscription. Prep+Pared Meal Kits are available for purchase in stores and through ClickList.

Current recipes customers can enjoydeveloped by Kroger's culinary innovation teaminclude Bacon and Honey Mustard Glazed Chicken with Broccolini Radish and Wheatberry, Shrimp Scampi with Lemon Garlic Fettuccini, and Carne Asada with Fajita Vegetables and Refried Black Beans.

Prep+Pared Meal Kits are now available in nearly 200 stores across the country and will arrive early next year in several new divisions.

About Kroger

At The Kroger Co., we are dedicated to our purpose: to Feed the Human Spirit. We are 453,000 associates who serve nearly nine million customers every day in 2,793 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Our Family of Companies operates an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized order online service  in addition to 2,258 pharmacies, 783 convenience stores, 307 fine jewelry stores, 222 retail health clinics, 1,472 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Our Company has been recognized as one of America's most generous companies for our support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. As a leader in supplier diversity, we are a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com


NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, reminds investors in Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. ("Omega" or the "Company") (NYSE: OHI) of the January 16, 2018 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company.

If you invested in Omega stock or options between February 8, 2017, and October 31, 2017 and would like to discuss your legal rights, click here : www.faruqilaw.com/OHI. There is no cost or obligation to you.

You can also contact us by calling Richard Gonnello toll free at 877-247-4292 or at 212-983-9330 or by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

CONTACT:

FARUQI & FARUQI, LLP

685 Third Avenue, 26th Floor

New York, NY 10017

Attn: Richard Gonnello, Esq.

[email protected]

Telephone: (877) 247-4292 or (212) 983-9330

The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all those who purchased Omega securities between February 8, 2017, and October 31, 2017 (the "Class Period"). The case, Gronich v. Omega Healthcare Investors, Inc. et al, No. 1:17-cv-08983 was filed on November 16, 2017.

The lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by failing to disclose that: (1) financial and operating results of certain of the Company's operators were deteriorating; (2) certain of the Company's operators were experiencing worsening liquidity issues that were significantly impacting the operators' ability to make timely rent payments; and (3) as a result, certain of the Company's direct financing leases were impaired and certain receivables were uncollectible.

Specifically, on July 26, 2017, the Company reported its second quarter 2017 financial results. During a conference call held the next day by the Company, Chief Operating Officer Daniel Booth stated that the Company continued "to see certain regional operators struggle with various operational pressures" and that two of the Company's top ten private operators had seen margins and coverages decline, which created liquidity concerns.

On this news, the Company's share price declined from $33.45 on July 26, 2017, to $32.10 on July 27, 2017  a $1.35 or a 4.04% drop.

Then, on October 30, 2017, Omega announced its third quarter 2017 financial results. The next day, the Company held a conference call to discuss its results, wherein Daniel Booth disclosed that the Company "[continued] to experience specific operator performance issues" in addition to issues with Signature Healthcare, due to "liquidity issues [that] are impacting the ability of these operators to pay rent on a timely basis." During the same call, Robert Stephenson, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, stated that the Company's decrease in operating revenue "was primarily a result of placing Orianna on a cash basis".

Following the announcement, Omega's share price fell from $30.97 per share on October 30, 2017 to a closing price of $28.86 on October 31, 2017 - a $2.11 or a 6.81% drop.

The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not.

Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Omega's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.

Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner.

SOURCE Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP

Related Links

http://www.faruqilaw.com


SHANGHAI, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- DTise, a leading global technology company of enterprise-class business innovation, announced the official launch of the DTise Premium Platform 1.2 (short for DTise 1.2) in Shanghai. Through integration multi-channels consumer data resources, DTise empowers brands to establish self-owned DT infrastructures, build a complete and independent data asset for brands and corporations. Therefore, brands connect with consumers by real-time communication and in-depth understanding, to achieve business transformation.

Digitalization revolution and enterprise transformation is changing the whole world. As to global brands, digitalization reform is their first priority at the moment, DT infrastructures have been the core driving force to make business innovation happen. According to Gartner 2017 CEO survey, forty-seven percent of CEOs are being challenged by the board of directors to make progress in digital business, and 56 percent said that their digital improvements have already improved profits.1

Integrating multi-channels data resources, DTise 1.2 enables brands access consumers' multiple touchpoints across PC, mobile, APP, digital media, social media, CRM, IoT, ERP and offline channels. These real-time, complete and multi-dimensional big data assets are completely owned by brands themselves. With the help of previous assets, high-potential industries including new retailer, intelligence manufacturing enterprises are able to deeply understand consumer groups, and make consumer effective sense and respond possible. The "Parashorea Chinensis" and "Trochilidae", data processing matrix developed by DTise, enhance the efficiency of process optimization across almost all the aspects of business, including marketing research, decision-making, manufacturing and procurement, as well as further ensuring the visual tracking and real-time analysis of business tactics.

Mr. Hong Zhao, founder of DTise, said: "We are fully aware that more and more global leaders have realized that big data assets are playing a significant role through enterprise manufacturing, operation and development, the only way to survive in the fast-changing Internet ecosystem is establishing self-owned data scope independently. As a company composed of big data talents and AI professionals, DTise is committed to empowering brands to build their own and independent DT infrastructures to facilitate brands and manufacturer accelerate the digital transformation, and develop new business in a leading position. "

1.sources: Gartner, 2017 CEO Survey, https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/2017-ceo-survey-infographic/

About DTise Hi-Tech

DTise Hi-Tech is a leading global technology company of enterprise-class business innovation. With self-developed "DTise Premium Platform" and unique business innovation module, DTise facilitates global brands to transform from IT to DT successfully. Through fully integrating, digging, extending multi-channels consumer data, DTise empowers enterprises to build self-owned DT infrastructures, and achieve innovation in a leading position in the era of DT.

Media Contact

Contact person: Doris Xiong

Position: PR Manager

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE DTise Hi-Tech
LANSING, Mich., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lisa Corless, president of AF Group, has been named one of 30 "Women to Watch" in 2017 by Business Insurance.

Now in its 12th year, Business Insurance's Women to Watch Awards & Leadership Conference is the only recognition program that celebrates leading women from every facet of the commercial insurance industry. The program was created in 2006 to recognize leading women in commercial insurance, risk management, employee benefits and related fields such as consulting and law.

"It is a tremendous honor to be recognized by Business Insurance," said Corless. "I've spent much of my life in insurance and this industry is very important to me. The fact that this award celebrates the contributions of so many great women before and alongside me makes it even more special. And it is truly a reflection of who we are as a team at AF Group. I am privileged to work alongside the most amazing people and I thank them for being integral to this special acknowledgment."

In her role at AF Group, Corless is responsible for all organizational operations across AF Group brands and for developing strategies to diversify the company's portfolio. Prior to her current position, Corless was a key member of the executive team, serving as senior vice president, chief administration officer and chief of staff.

Recognized for her volunteer and philanthropic efforts, Corless is a passionate supporter of national and local charitable causes and currently serves on the boards for the Sparrow Foundation of Lansing and Mid-Michigan chapter of the American Red Cross.

Corless holds an executive Masters of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin  The Red McCombs School of Business.

About AF Group

AF Group (Lansing, Mich.) and its subsidiaries are a premier provider of innovative insurance solutions. Insurance policies may be issued by any of the following companies within AF Group: Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Accident Fund National Insurance Company, Accident Fund General Insurance Company, United Wisconsin Insurance Company, Third Coast Insurance Company or CompWest Insurance Company.

Contact:

Bob Lapinski

(517) 708-5664 or (517) 331-4890

[email protected]

AFGroup.com

SOURCE AF Group

Related Links

http://www.afgroup.com


BRAMPTON, ON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - MDA, a business unit of Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.), (NYSE and TSX: MAXR), today announced that it has signed four contracts with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) with a total value at approximately CA$53.75 million. The award includes:

Two contract amendments to provide funding for continued support to the robotic operations of the Mobile Servicing System (MSS). The enhancements will streamline operations and reduce operator communication load. The MSS is an essential component of the International Space Station (ISS) and its continued operations enables the Canadian Space Agency to achieve Canada's obligations and goals as a partner on the ISS.

obligations and goals as a partner on the ISS. One contract under the Space Technology Development Program for CA$800,000 to develop technology to enable autonomous control of future space hardware such as robotic arms, rovers, scientific instruments, and satellites.

One contract for CA$450,000 for a concept study for two rover types: a pressurized rover to transport astronauts on the Moon's surface and a smaller rover that would first be sent to the Moon to collect lunar samples and test the technologies required for the pressurized rover.

"Canadian robotics play a key role on the International Space Station and the advances in space robotics associated with this project not only enhances the MSS capabilities, but also provides a long term benefit in ensuring Canadian technology retains its best-in-class status," said Marc Donato, MDA's general manager responsible for this business. "The technologies being developed under this contract offer direct spin-offs related to commercial initiatives that MDA has undertaken, such as robotically servicing satellites in space."

The Mobile Servicing System is comprised of the Canadarm2, a highly dexterous two-armed robotic arm known as "Dextre," and the Mobile Base System. These three robotic systems perform a variety of operations ranging from resupply, maintenance, and servicing tasks on the space station that are critical to the on-going operations of the ISS.

About MDA

MDA is an internationally recognized leader in space robotics, satellite antennas and subsystems, surveillance and intelligence systems, defense and maritime systems, and geospatial radar imagery. MDA's extensive space expertise and heritage translates into mission-critical defence and commercial applications that include multi-platform command, control and surveillance systems, aeronautical information systems, land administration systems and terrestrial robotics. MDA is also a leading supplier of actionable mission-critical information and insights derived from multiple data sources, both owned and operated within the Maxar group and by customer and third party sources. Founded in 1969, MDA is recognized as one of Canada's most successful technology ventures with locations in Richmond, Ottawa, Brampton, Montreal and Halifax. MDA is a business unit of Maxar Technologies (TSX: MAXRNYSE: MAXR). For more information visit www.mdacorporation.com.

About Maxar

Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) is a leading global provider of advanced space technology solutions for commercial and government markets including satellites, Earth imagery, geospatial data and analytics. As a trusted partner, Maxar Technologies provides unmatched end-to-end advanced systems capabilities and integrated solutions expertise to help our customers anticipate and address their most complex mission critical challenges with confidence. With more than 6,500 employees in over 20 locations, the Maxar Technologies portfolio of commercial space brands includes: SSL, MDA, DigitalGlobe, and Radiant Solutions. Every day millions of people rely on Maxar Technologies to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that empower a better world. Maxar trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information visit maxar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements and information, which reflect the current view of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. ("MDA" or the "Company") with respect to future events and financial performance. The forward-looking statements in this regard include statements regarding the award and amendment of various government contracts. Any such forward-looking statements are based on MDA's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends. The factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this release include contracts with any government agency not being terminated. Any such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. MDA cautions readers that should certain risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. The risks that could cause actual results to differ from current expectations include, but are not limited to: risks inherent with performance on fixed price contracts, particularly the ability to contain cost overruns and schedule delays; changes in government priorities, mandates, policies, funding levels, contracts and regulations; failure of third parties and subcontractors; failure of systems to meet performance requirements; and failure to anticipate changes in technology, technical standards and offerings or compliance with the requisite standards, or failure to maintain technological advances and offer new products to retain customers and market position.

For additional information with respect to certain of these risks or factors, plus additional risks or factors, reference should be made to the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com.

Contact

Wendy Keyzer | MDA Media Contact | 1-604-231-2743 | [email protected]

Marissa Poratto | Maxar Investor Relations | 1-604-331-2044 | [email protected]

SOURCE Maxar Technologies Ltd.

Related Links

www.maxar.com


GREEN BAY, Wis., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Manifestation Machine, a personal growth and development brand based out of Green Bay, Wisconsin, is proud to announce that its founder, Cory Groshek (also known as Low Carb Cory in the "YouTube Fitness" community and Cory Crush in musical circles) has, as part of his plan to "make the world a better place, one person at a time", donated over $3,000 worth of his debut children's book, "Breaking Away: Book One of the Rabylon Series" (ISBN: 978-1946029003), to seven different charitable organizations this holiday season.

Cory Groshek, author of children's book "Breaking Away: Book One of the Rabylon Series" and founder of Manifestation Machine, with Meg Deem of the Friends of the Brown County Library, who is accepting copies of "Breaking Away" on behalf of the annual Give a Kid a Book campaign at the Central Library in downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin.

When asked for comment about his donations, Groshek had the following to say:

"My goal, with the Rabylon Series, is, and always has been, to eradicate poverty all around the world, by teaching our children and their parents the mindset required to shift from a 'poverty consciousness' to what I call a 'prosperity consciousness'in other words, by teaching them to run toward what they want in life, as opposed to away from what they don't want. And I can't think of a better way for me to accomplish that goal than by donating my book, which is all about achieving abundance, to children and families all across America, just in time for Christmas."

Groshek, who, for the last year, has been manually distributing free copies of his book across his home state of Wisconsin via a network of Little Free Libraries, says that while placing books one-by-one into what he affectionately refers to as "our little, local libraries on poles" is a great way for authors to give back to their local communities, it wasn't going far enough for him, hence why he's decided to take his "giving" to the "next level" this year, by personally mailing hundreds of copies of his book to what could ostensibly be described as "book charities."

The seven "book charities" Groshek has donated to so far include: Bernie's Book Bank (Illinois), Better World Books (Indiana), Book Harvest/Books to Go (North Carolina), Books for Africa (Minnesota), Children's Book Project (California), Give a Kid a Book (Green Bay, Wisconsin), and Next Door MKE (Milwaukee, Wisconsin).

To learn more about Cory Groshek, his debut children's book, or how you, too, can make a financial or book donation to the organizations mentioned above, visit www.ManifestationMachine.com/charity today.

SOURCE Manifestation Machine

Related Links

http://www.manifestationmachine.com


Zaretsky has 19 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Union Bank, he was a branch manager at Golden 1 Credit Union in Sacramento. Zaretsky is committed to the community and volunteers his time with Meals on Wheels and the Elk Grove Food Bank.

"We are thrilled to welcome Michael to Union Bank," said Debra Taylor, Managing Director and Greater Sacramento Region Manager. "His extensive banking and leadership experience and his passion for our community make him a wonderful addition to our team."

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 305.5 trillion (JPY) or $2.7 trillion (USD)1, as of September 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=112.7 (JPY) as of September 29, 2017

2017 MUFG Union Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Member FDIC Union Bank is a registered trademark and brand name of MUFG Union Bank, N.A., Equal Housing Lender.

SOURCE Union Bank

Related Links

http://www.unionbank.com


PITTSBURGH, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Federated Investors, Inc. today announced that monthly fund composition and performance data for Federated Premier Municipal Income Fund (NYSE: FMN) as of Nov. 30, 2017, is now available in the Products section of FederatedInvestors.com. To order hard copies of this data or to be placed on a mailing list, call 800-245-0242 x5587538, email [email protected] or write to Federated Investors, 1001 Liberty Avenue, Floor 23, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Federated Investors, Inc. (NYSE: FII) is one of the largest investment managers in the United States, managing $363.7 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, 2017. With 119 funds and a variety of separately managed account options, Federated provides comprehensive investment management to approximately 8,500 institutions and intermediaries including corporations, government entities, insurance companies, foundations and endowments, banks and broker/dealers. For more information, visit FederatedInvestors.com.

###

SOURCE Federated Investors, Inc.

Related Links

http://FederatedInvestors.com


HAMPTON, Va., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA, in partnership with the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), has whittled down to five finalist teams its selections for the final phase of the 2018 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge.

Teams were asked to develop concepts for a reliable operating power source that could be put in place on Mars ahead of the arrival of the first humans. The challenge sought concepts for unique designs, installation and sustainable operation of a large solar-power system. Teams could address:

Novel packaging, deployment, retraction and dust-abatement concepts.

Lightweight, compact components including booms, ribs, substrates and mechanisms.

Optimized use of advanced ultra-light-weight materials and high-efficiency solar cells.

Validated modeling, analysis and simulation techniques.

High-fidelity, functioning laboratory models and test methods.

Norwich University offers the Norwich Inflatable Mars Solar Array (NIMSA) using Mars' CO2 to fill inflatable channels that extend from a central boom to deploy eight, large rectangular solar panels.

Princeton University's origami-inspired solar array design is called Horus, named after the Egyptian god for sunlight. It merges innovative design and sound engineering to deploy a large monolithic array from a tiny stowed volume.

Texas A&M's Applied Photovoltaic Power Array (APPA) system concept includes four 18-meter diameter solar array "umbrellas" using tethered telescoping booms.

The University of Colorado, Boulder proposes the Mars Autonomous and Foldable Solar Array (MAFSA) which utilizes flexible booms wrapped around a central hub to support four circular photovoltaic array segments.

The University of Virginia concept includes two large, carbon-dioxide filled balloons that utilize the top-surface for flexible solar array blankets that maximize solar input and minimize dust accumulation.

Judges chose the finalists based on a review of competitive proposals from universities around the nation.

"I am really impressed by the number of proposals and the diversity of ideas," said Lee Mason, principal technologist for power and energy storage in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. "I can honestly say that the proposals introduced new and innovative ideas for solar array packaging that we haven't thought about before."

Over the next three months, teams will refine their proposed concepts into a 15-page technical paper, complete with original engineering and analysis. On March 6, 2018, they will convene at the 2018 BIG Idea Forum hosted at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, to present their concepts in an evaluative design review.

For the five teams, the stakes are high. They are competing for a prize that could change their lives, as winning team members will receive offers to participate in paid summer internships with NASA.

"Harvesting the sun's power for life, exploration and work on Mars is a critical hurdle in our journey to becoming a two-planet species," said Shelley Spears, director of education and outreach at the NIA. "Engaging and challenging the next generation of bright minds to tackle this important technology gap moves us closer and closer to this goal. The excitement and enthusiasm the students bring to the opportunity is infectious and inspiring, and we are eager to see their final innovative engineering designs in March."

The BIG Idea Challenge falls under the purview of NASA's Game Changing Development Program under the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

For more information about the challenge, and details on how to apply, visit the BIG Idea Challenge website at http://bigidea.nianet.org

For more information about NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An experiment in space manufacturing and an enhanced study of solar energy are among the research currently heading to the International Space Station following Friday's launch of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 10:36 a.m. EST.

Dragon lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida with more than 4,800 pounds of research equipment, cargo and supplies that will support dozens of the more than 250 investigations aboard the space station.

NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba will use the space station's robotic arm to capture Dragon when it arrives at the station. Live coverage of the rendezvous and capture will air on NASA Television and the agency's website beginning at 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 17. Installation coverage is set to begin at 7:30 a.m.

Research materials flying inside Dragon's pressurized area include an investigation demonstrating the benefits of manufacturing fiber optic filaments in a microgravity environment. Designed by the company Made in Space, and sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the investigation will attempt to pull fiber optic wire from ZBLAN, a heavy metal fluoride glass commonly used to make fiber optic glass. Results from this investigation could lead to the production of higher-quality fiber optic products for use in space and on Earth.

NASA's Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor, or TSIS-1, will measure the Sun's energy input to Earth. TSIS-1 measurements will be three times more accurate than previous capabilities, enabling scientists to study the Sun's natural influence on Earth's ozone, atmospheric circulation, clouds and ecosystems. These observations are essential for a scientific understanding of the effects of solar variability on the Earth system.

The Space Debris Sensor (SDS) will measure the orbital debris environment around the space station for two to three years. Once mounted on the exterior of the station, this one-square-meter sensor will provide near-real-time debris impact detection and recording. Research from this investigation could help lower the risks posed by orbital debris to human life and critical hardware.

This is SpaceX's 13th cargo flight to the space station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. Dragon is scheduled to depart the station in January 2018 and return to Earth with more than 3,600 pounds of research, hardware and crew supplies.

For more than 17 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. A global endeavor, more than 200 people from 18 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 2,100 research investigations from researchers in more than 95 countries.

Get breaking news, images and features from the space station on social media at:

https://instagram.com/iss

and

https://www.twitter.com/Space_Station

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


WELLESLEY, Mass., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Distance Education State Almanac 2017, conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group and the Digital Learning Compass organization, reveals very different patterns of distance enrollments among the fifty states. Distance education enrollments, as a proportion of all higher education students, range from a low of 13 percent in Rhode Island to a high of over fifty percent in Arizona, New Hampshire, and West Virginia. Nevada has the highest proportion of their distance students (93 percent) coming from within the state. These and other findings were published today in the report, "Digital Learning Compass: Distance Education State Enrollment Report 2017."

The report is being released both as a comprehensive single report with information for all fifty states, as well as fifty individual state reports.

This is one in a series of publications from Digital Learning Compass, a research partnership of the Babson Survey Research Group, e-Literate, and WCET. Digital Learning Compass partnered with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), Pearson, and Tyton Partners to produce this report, providing the first-ever detailed examination of the state-level differences in distance education.

"New for this report are insights into where students are receiving their educations - traditional on-campus, exclusively distance or a combination. Nationally, since 2012, we have seen a slow but steady decline of traditional on-campus students," said study co-author Julia Seaman, Research Director of the Babson Survey Research Group. "Almost half the states have had negligible changes to their on-campus student enrollment, while another 19 match the national decreasing trend. However, four states - Utah, Idaho, Arizona and New Hampshire - had double digit decreases to their percent of on-campus students in favor of exclusively distant enrollment. "

"Institutions nationwide have made impressive progress offering distance learning programs for students from all stages of life," said Kevin Capitani, president, Pearson North America. "These programs offer students access to flexible, high-quality, education opportunities that prepare them for employment in growing career fields. Pearson is excited to put to use this insightful research report on state-level enrollment patterns to analyze and uncover opportunities to reach and support more students than ever before."

"As the overall higher education landscape continues to shift, it's helpful to understand how regional trends in digital education are contributing," said Jill Buban, Ph.D., senior director, research and innovation, for the Online Learning Consortium. "This state-by-state data provides an instructive and comprehensive picture of the state of postsecondary education across the country."

The complete survey report, "Distance Education State Enrollment Report 2017" and individual state reports are available at digitallearningcompass.org

Partners

Pearson is the world's learning company, with expertise in educational courseware and assessment, and a range of teaching and learning services powered by technology. Our mission is to help people make progress through access to better learning. We believe that learning opens up opportunities, creating fulfilling careers and better lives. For more, visit www.pearson.com.

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) is the leading professional organization devoted to advancing the quality of online learning worldwide. The member-sustained organization offers an extensive set of resources for professional development and institutional advancement of online learning. Visit onlinelearningconsortium.org for more information.

Tyton Partners provides investment banking and strategy consulting services to companies, foundations, post-secondary institutions, and investors as they navigate the complexities of the global knowledge sector. For more information about Tyton Partners visit www.tytonpartners.com or follow us @tytonpartners.

e-Literate is a weblog about educational technology and related topics that is co-published by Michael Feldstein and Phil Hill, who are also partners at MindWires, an educational technology analyst and consulting firm. It covers a broad range of topics related to trends in education--particularly teaching and learning in higher education--that are impacted by technology. mfeldstein.com.

WCET is the leader in the practice, policy, & advocacy of technology-enhanced learning in higher education. WCET is a national, member-driven, non-profit which brings together colleges and universities, higher education organizations and companies to collectively improve the quality and reach of e-learning programs. Visit http://wcet.wiche.edu.

The Babson Survey Research Group at Babson College conducts regional, national, and international research projects, including survey design, sampling methodology, data integrity, statistical analyses and reporting. Visit www.onlinelearningsurvey.com.

About Babson College



Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(r). The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action(r) as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.

Media Contacts: Michael Chmura

Public Relations Director

[email protected]

Phone: 781-239-4549

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.

SOURCE Babson College

Related Links

http://www.babson.edu


BOSTON, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Priscilla and C. David Seuss, executives at Boston-based Northern Light (www.northernlight.com), were honored by The Salvation Army of Massachusetts at its annual luncheon Dec. 13 with the 2017 William Booth Award for their service to the community.

The Salvation Army of Massachusetts

The William Booth Award is one of the highest awards conferred upon an individual by The Salvation Army. Nominees for the award are chosen on the basis of dedication to The Salvation Army's goals of service to people; outstanding service to the community through the donation of time, expertise and energy; outstanding humanitarian effort within the community; and/or substantial contributions to the work of The Salvation Army.

This week's annual luncheon marked only the second time the William Booth Award has been bestowed by The Salvation Army of Massachusetts.

The Seusses have supported The Salvation Army for 28 years, including expansion of the Our Place daycare center for homeless children and providing computers for graduates of the Bridging the Gap program for at-risk youth. For the past five years, Northern Light has made a $50,000 annual challenge grant to help fund The Salvation Army's distribution of Thanksgiving food baskets to needy individuals and families in the Greater Boston area. Over the five-year period of the challenge grant, more than $500,000 has been raised from Northern Light and the matching donors.

"These baskets bring thousands of people into the joyous holiday celebration who would otherwise be left out, so the best thing in them is not the delicious food -- it is a sense of normalcy, dignity, and family," C. David Seuss, Northern Light's CEO, said. "For example, I remember one woman who was just beaming as she received her basket, picturing in her mind's eye how she was going to put on a feast for her family and a neighboring family on Thanksgiving Day. 'I can be the hostess again!' she exclaimed."

"David and Priscilla Seuss define the meaning of the prestigious William Booth Award because of their incredible giving to the Massachusetts Division and their commitment to ensuring that The Salvation Army is able to transform lives on a daily basis," said Major David B. Davis, Salvation Army Massachusetts Divisional Commander. "Their motives are similar to those of Salvation Army founder William Booth  'an awareness of human need and a compassionate response.'"

About The Salvation Army

Whether it is shelter for a displaced family or a hot cup of coffee for our brave first responders  hope and healing is the message of The Salvation Army. Since 1865, The Salvation Army has been providing social and spiritual services to communities throughout the world. People given purpose, hearts given hope and souls finding redemption  this has been The Salvation Army's mission for more than a century. With heart to God and hand to man, The Salvation Army  an international movement  is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.

About Northern Light

Northern Light has been providing strategic research platforms for competitive intelligence and market research insights to global enterprises since 1996. In addition, Northern Light pioneered the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence for the automated analysis and extraction of meaning from large collections of market research and competitive intelligence. Northern Light's current clients include 10 of Boston Consulting Group's 50 "Most Innovative Companies" of 2016, and Fortune 1000 leaders across multiple industries such as information technology, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, and life sciences. Northern Light has over 250,000 users of its strategic research portals. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Northern Light has unique content aggregation partnerships with more than 150 of the world's leading syndicated technology and industry research publishers, aggregates business and technology news from over 6,000 news sources, and is a charter member of the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

Media Contact:

David Domeshek

(508) 873-7068

[email protected]

SOURCE Northern Light

Related Links

https://northernlight.com


SAN DIEGO, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Nuvve Corporation, a San Diego based company focused on vehicle-to-grid (V2G) solutions, today announced it has completed its series A financing.

Led by two strategic investors, EDF Renewable Energy (EDF RE) and Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), with additional participation from a private equity fund, this round of financing will allow Nuvve to accelerate the commercialization of its NUVVEgivesTM solutions.

Nuvve offers the world's first and only commercially available true V2G solution enabling select electric vehicles to store and resell energy to the electric grid.

The NUVVEgives aggregation technology is a cloud connected application that ensures each vehicle has sufficient charge for its next trip before calculating how much remaining capacity is available to sell to the grid. Nuvve's Chief Technology Officer, Willett Kempton, PhD, developed this technology at the University of Delaware beginning in 1996. The proceeds of this round of financing also enabled Nuvve to acquire full rights to the V2G intellectual property developed by Prof. Kempton.

Gregory Poilasne, CEO of Nuvve remarked, "We're delighted to have two strategic partners leading this financing round. We anticipate our partners will help us build on our successes in Western Europe and North America and open up new markets like Japan."

Raphael Declercq, VP Portfolio Strategy at EDF RE added, "Commercial and industrial organizations are increasingly asking for electric vehicle charging infrastructure to offer the onsite benefit to employees and customers. EDF RE can deliver cost-effective, clean and reliable solar power to charge the EVs, while Nuvve brings a V2G solution that can reduce the cost of the kWh for the growing number of EV drivers while serving the local grid."

Soichiro Matsudaira, CTO at TTC said, "We are looking forward to a great partnership with Nuvve and EDF RE. The electrification of transportation has brought forth innovative and important technologies and we believe Nuvve's transformational technology enables electric vehicles to become more affordable while assisting in balancing the grid and reducing the overall CO2 emissions."

About Nuvve Corp.

Nuvve's mission is to lower the cost of electrical vehicle (EV) ownership while supporting the integration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. The NUVVEgives Grid Integrated Vehicle platform transforms EVs into grid assets when charging while guaranteeing the expected level of charge when the vehicle owner needs it. The NUVVEgives platform aggregates thousands of electric vehicles into a virtual power plant, allowing Nuvve to participate in electricity markets with a power capacity comparable to traditional generators. Based on "Vehicle-to-Grid" technology or "V2G" the NUVVEgives platform benefits public organizations, businesses and homes by reducing the cost of electric infrastructure and reducing CO2 emissions. www.nuvve.com

About Toyota Tsusho Corp.

Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC), based in Nagoya and Tokyo, is a trading company and member of the Toyota Group. Toyota Tsusho has a worldwide presence through its many subsidiaries and operating divisions, including over 150 offices, and 900 subsidiaries and affiliates around the world. While its primary role is to support its automotive partners, Toyota Tsusho's business is very diverse, spanning industrial, commercial, and consumer sectors. Business areas include industrial raw materials, agricultural products, high technology, and renewable energy. www.toyota-tsusho.com

About EDF Renewable Energy

EDF Renewable Energy is a leading US independent power producer with over 30 years of expertise in the renewable industry, covering a range of services from project origination, development, sales and marketing, to long-term asset management. EDF Renewable Energy specializes in wind and solar photovoltaic with presence in other segments of the renewable energy market: distributed electricity, storage, biogas, and biomass. EDF Renewable Energy's North American portfolio consists of 9 gigawatts of developed projects with 4.4 gigawatts of installed capacity throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. The operations and maintenance subsidiary, EDF Renewable Services, operates 13 gigawatts globally. EDF Renewable Energy is a subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles. EDF Energies Nouvelles is the renewable energy arm of the EDF group, the leading electricity company in the world. For more information visit: www.edf-re.com

SOURCE Nuvve Corporation

Related Links

http://www.nuvve.com


"Since 1932, OnPoint has had the privilege of serving our community, which is made possible by our loyal members and dedicated employees," said Rob Stuart, President and CEO of OnPoint. "There's no better way to celebrate this milestone than by honoring our valuable employees, thanking our members for trusting us as their financial partner, and giving back to local nonprofits who share in our commitment to community."

Stuart and OnPoint employees recently visited each of the nonprofits to present a check and thank the organization for its critical work in Oregon and SW Washington.

"This campaign is yet another way in which OnPoint supports and celebrates its community," said Ed Ramsey, Senior Database Administrator at OnPoint. "Over the last several years, I've also had the honor of serving on the Community Relations Committee  a group of employees who direct a portion of OnPoint donations to local charities  helping to connect the company with non-profits making an impact in our region. The passion for community and trust in employees are important reasons why I'm so proud to work at OnPoint."

In total, OnPoint gave $160,000 to five organizations:

OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital offers the region's broadest range of pediatric treatments  to more children in more places than any other hospital in Oregon or Southwest Washington . OnPoint's gift will support the Gary and Christine Rood Family Pavilion, a five-story guest house providing temporary lodging for patients and families who travel long distances to OHSU for specialized care.

or . OnPoint's gift will support the Gary and Christine Rood Family Pavilion, a five-story guest house providing temporary lodging for patients and families who travel long distances to OHSU for specialized care. The Oregon Food Bank collects food from farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, individuals and government sources, and distributes that food through a statewide network of 21 regional food banks and approximately 970 partner agencies serving all of Oregon and Clark County, Washington . OnPoint's donation will provide 100,000 meals to local families.

and . OnPoint's donation will provide 100,000 meals to local families. The Oregon Humane Society rescues, heals and adopts more than 11,000 pets each year. Donations to OHS support adoption, education and animal cruelty investigation programs. OnPoint's gift will feed every pet in the shelter for six months, equip three OHS Humane Investigators to rescue pets, fund the OHS animal hospital for one day, and spay and neuter 65 pets.

Schoolhouse Supplies supports public education by providing free school supplies to students in need. Donations help ensure that all children have equal access to tools that allow them to achieve academic success and feel confident. OnPoint's gift will support the Free Store for Teachers program, which distributes free school supplies to 65,000 local schoolchildren each year.

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working in Oregon and Washington , and around the world, to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. OnPoint's donation will help this organization to achieve its goal to restore 4 million acres of Oregon forests by 2026.

"The gift from OnPoint employees will go a long way in rescuing, sheltering and finding homes for animals, especially during the cold winter months," said Sharon Harmon, CEO of the Oregon Humane Society. "We deeply value our partnership with OnPoint and its support for OHS."

To learn more about OnPoint's community partnerships and watch short videos of OnPoint's celebration of these organizations, visit www.onpointcu.com/giving.

ABOUT ONPOINT COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION

OnPoint Community Credit Union is the largest credit union in Oregon, serving more than 336,000 members and with assets of $5 billion. Founded in 1932, OnPoint Community Credit Union's membership is available to anyone who lives or works in one of 13 Oregon counties (Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Crook, Deschutes, Jefferson, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Washington and Yamhill) and two Washington counties (Skamania and Clark) and their immediate family members. More information is available at www.onpointcu.com or 503-228-7077 or 800-527-3932.

SOURCE OnPoint Community Credit Union

Related Links

http://www.onpointcu.com


BALA CYNWYD, Pa., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SES Advisors/Steiker, Greenapple & Fusco, P.C., a nationally recognized firm focusing on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and other employee-centered ownership transition and compensation strategies, was recently awarded a certificate of appreciation from the Employee Ownership Foundation.

"We are proud of our long and close association with the Employee Ownership Foundation, a group that is critical in the field of employee ownership," said James G. Steiker, Chairman and CEO of Steiker, Greenapple & Fusco, P.C. "We are honored to have the value of this relationship recognized by an organization that is so important to firms like ours across the country."

According to the Employee Ownership Foundation, SG&F and affiliate SES Advisors were given the certificate "in recognition and appreciation of its long term, consistent support and its commitment to the foundation goals and programs." It was presented to the firm at the ESOP Association's 2017 Las Vegas Conference and Trade Show in November.

The Employee Ownership Foundation, which was established in 1997, is an organization whose primary purpose is to support programs that will increase the level of awareness and appreciation of the benefits of employee ownership, and increase the number of employees who have access to this benefit.

ABOUT US

Steiker, Greenapple & Fusco, P.C. is an experienced, nationally recognized law firm focusing on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and other employee-centered ownership transition and compensation strategies. Since 1987, our attorneys have represented companies, selling shareholders, plan fiduciaries and lenders in hundreds of transactions nationwide. Our approach for structuring and maintaining ESOPs focuses on balancing the needs of the owners, company and employees to create successful, sustainable employee ownership outcomes.

In addition to creating new ESOPs, we provide ongoing guidance to our clients on IRS and DOL compliance, the impact of repurchase liability, legislative and regulatory changes, follow-on stock purchase and sale transactions, ESOP company mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance.

Our experienced attorneys install and advise on the maintenance of worker cooperatives, executive compensation plans and qualified retirement plans.

SG&F, together with our sister consulting firm of SES Advisors, Inc., has one of the largest core groups of ESOP attorneys, consultants and administrators in the country, with offices in Pennsylvania, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, and Ohio.

SOURCE SES Advisors

Related Links

http://sesadvisors.com


POMONA, Calif., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Southern California Teamsters Joint Council 42, the Teamsters Union's largest regional body with 250,000 workers and retirees, has unanimously endorsed Kevin de Leon for next year's United States Senate seat election in California. De Leon is the California Senate's president pro tem.

"Kevin de Leon has been consistently great for working people and organized labor in Southern California," said Randy Cammack, Joint Council 42 President. "If it wasn't for Kevin, a lot of good union meat packing industry jobs in the city of Vernon would have been outsourced and destroyed. Among many, many things he also has been instrumental in immensely aiding Hollywood jobs through the state tax credit system."

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States and Canada. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Jacqueline Korgan, (909) 908-7480

[email protected]

SOURCE Teamsters Joint Council 42

Related Links

http://www.teamster.org


BURBANK, Calif., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Walt Disney Records releases the original motion picture soundtrack for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The album features a new score conducted and composed by five-time Academy Award-winning composer John Williams.

Lucasfilm and director Rian Johnson join forces as Star Wars returns to the big screen with Star Wars: The Last Jedi releasing in U.S. theaters today.

Oscar-winning composer John Williams' ubiquitous Star Wars "Main Title" theme has become part of popular culture since it was first heard accompanying Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. It is no surprise that Williams' orchestral compositions for Star Wars are among the most beloved and recognizable themes in cinematic history, from the classic "Main Title" theme introduced in Star Wars: A New Hope to the ominous "Imperial March" from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back to the stirring "Duel of the Fates" from the prequel trilogy.

After creating the scores for the seven previous Star Wars films, Williams returns to compose and conduct his signature sweeping music for The Last Jedi.

The Last Jedi score was recorded in Los Angeles. Williams worked with members of the highly regarded freelance orchestra with which he's recorded numerous film scores over the years. The music for The Last Jedi was recorded over several months while working in tandem with the film's editorial and special effects teams on the West Coast.

As with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, audiences can expect to hear quotations from earlier Star Wars themes. For Williams, incorporating the previous themes is part of the fun of scoring the Star Wars movies and helps create what he calls "the fabric of the films."

As with previous Star Wars films, many of the characters have their own musical themes. Williams explains, "Rey has a theme, Kylo Ren has a theme, Finn has one, Rose has oneThese thematic elements infuse the whole score and are part of what moves the film along, giving its sonic outline. In the Star Wars films, the orchestra can be as extrovert as it wants to be at given times, so it really becomes a big part of the fun and imagination of it all."

In Lucasfilm's Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Skywalker saga continues as the heroes of The Force Awakens join the galactic legends in an epic adventure that unlocks age-old mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

The film stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is written and directed by Rian Johnson and produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman. J.J. Abrams, Tom Karnowski and Jason McGatlin are the executive producers.

The soundtrack for Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now available wherever music is sold or streamed, http://disneymusic.co/TheLastJedi.

Enjoy Star Wars on repeat with the official Star Wars radio on Apple Music Radio now. All Star Wars music on repeat, 24 hours day: http://smarturl.it/starwarsradio

For more information on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, please visit www.starwars.com. For more information on Walt Disney Records' releases, like us on Facebook.com/disneymusic, follow us at Twitter.com/disneymusic and Instagram @disneymusic. For more information on Disney Music Emporium, please visit, DisneyMusicEmporium.com become a fan at Facebook.com/ disneymusicemporium or follow us at Twitter.com/DisneyMusicEmp.

SOURCE Walt Disney Records
NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Susan Matorin is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a 2017 Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the field of Social Work.

Ms. Matorin serves as a Clinical Social Worker who practices in New York City. She is part of a group of specialists at Weill Cornell Medicine through which she runs her clinical practice, also sits on the Social Work Faculty through the Department of Psychiatry through the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

In her clinical practice, Ms. Matorin specializes in individual, couples and family treatment in which one member has a severe psychiatric disorder. She brings more than 51 years of diverse field experiences to her role  especially within the area of clinical social work  to her role.

In addition to teaching at Weill Cornell Medical College, Ms. Matorin is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Columbia School of Social Work, where she teaches a course titled "Social Work With Families." She is also the "author of publications" on relevant topics "ranging from family treatment with adolescents, collaboration with pastoral care, psychopharmacology for social workers, the corporatization of mental health care, and stigma," according to her Weill Cornell faculty bio.

Ms. Matorin earned her Master of Science degree from Columbia School of Social Work with honors in 1966, and earned her ACSW credentials following her studied. Prior to her current position, she has held numerous professional titles including the Former Director of Social Work at Payne Whitney, from 1981-1997.

To further her professional development, Ms. Matorin is a Board Member for the Helen Rehr Center for Social Work Practice, sits on the Education/Research Committee of the HealthCare Chaplaincy and is affiliated with the New York City Chapter of the Society for Social Work Leaders in Healthcare. She also volunteers her time to the Jewish Board of Children and Family Services, and can be seen in a video titled "Any Given Day," a marketing campaign established for Help Starts Here  a project of the National Association of Social Work.

In looking to the future, Ms. Matorin intends to complete more professional writing projects, on a national and international level. She dedicates this recognition to her granddaughter, Tess Vivienne.

For more information, visit www.med.cornell.edu and www.weillcornell.org/susanmatorin.

Contact: KatherineGreen, 516-825-5634, [email protected]

SOURCE Continental Who's Who

Related Links

http://www.continentalwhoswho.com


GREENVILLE, S.C., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX), a leading business process services company, today announced that Peter Larocque, President, North American Technology Solutions, was presented with the Order of the Palmetto Award, South Carolina's highest civilian honor, during a check presentation event yesterday for the company's fundraising initiative, SYNNEX Share the Magic. The Order of the Palmetto is awarded to South Carolina citizens for extraordinary lifetime service and achievements of national or statewide significance.

South Carolina

Governor Henry D. McMaster presented the award to Larocque at the end of the ceremony, where SYNNEX Share the Magic announced that more than $1.8 million was raised for four Upstate charities this year:

,

,

and

.

"I am honored to receive the Order of the Palmetto Award," said Larocque. "In addition to making a significant economic impact in South Carolina, my team and I feel fortunate to have made a positive impact on the lives of children and families in need. Each year, we aim to do more, and I look forward to continuing to raise the bar for South Carolina."

"This is a state with a big heart, and I think Peter Larocque has demonstrated that again and again," McMaster told the audience in acknowledgement of Larocque's many years of community service.

McMaster also underscored the importance of Larocque's decision to increase community impact through the creation of SYNNEX Share the Magic, saying, "One thing Larocque recognizes is there will never be enough money in government to do all that needs to be done, so we have to have private organizations and individuals that are willing to step up to the plate."

Larocque has celebrated more than 33 years with SYNNEX. He moved to Greenville in 1996 and led the opening of the company's North American distribution headquarters in 2003. During his time overseeing SYNNEX' North American distribution business, he has worked tirelessly to make a significant impact both economically and in the lives of countless children and their families.

Under Larocque's leadership, SYNNEX has been selected as one of the Best Places to Work in South Carolina for the past seven years. As a result of the efforts of Larocque and his leadership team, SYNNEX' Greenville campus added 40,000 square feet in 2016 and approximately 150 knowledge-based, IT-related jobs. Larocque also personally supports fundraising efforts through SYNNEX' Community Involvement Committee, which generates funding for non-profits in the Upstate of South Carolina.

Larocque previously served on the board of Make-A-Wish South Carolina, which grants the wishes of children diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions. In 2011, Larocque founded SYNNEX Share the Magic. The annual fundraiser has raised more than $8.5 million for South Carolina children and their families  making it one of the largest charity initiatives in the state. In 2018, the SYNNEX Canada team will bring SYNNEX Share the Magic to Toronto to benefit Kids Help Phone and FIRST Robotics Canada.

Larocque has received several recognitions for his passionate and impactful community engagement. These include the Community Foundation and Community Journals Philanthropic Spirit Award for charitable giving in the Upstate; and the 2016 Eva P. Hunt Visionary Award by A Child's Haven. He has also been named one of Greenville Business Magazine's 50 Most Influential.

To learn more about SYNNEX Corporation, visit www.synnex.com. For more information about SYNNEX Share the Magic, visit www.synnexcorp.com/sharethemagic.

About SYNNEX Corporation

SYNNEX Corporation is a Fortune 500 corporation and a leading business process services company, providing a comprehensive range of distribution, logistics and integration services for the technology industry and providing outsourced services focused on customer engagement strategy to a broad range of enterprises. SYNNEX distributes a broad range of information technology systems and products, and also provides systems design and integration solutions. Concentrix, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SYNNEX Corporation, offers a portfolio of strategic solutions and end-to-end business services around customer engagement strategy, process optimization, technology innovation, front and back-office automation and business transformation to clients in ten identified industry verticals. Founded in 1980, SYNNEX Corporation operates in numerous countries throughout North and South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Additional information about SYNNEX may be found online at www.synnex.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements in this news release that are forward-looking involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause the Company's actual results in future periods to be materially different from any future performance that may be suggested in this release. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this release.

Copyright 2017 SYNNEX Corporation. All rights reserved. SYNNEX, the SYNNEX Logo, CONCENTRIX, and all other SYNNEX company, product and services names and slogans are trademarks or registered trademarks of SYNNEX Corporation. SYNNEX, the SYNNEX Logo, and CONCENTRIX Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. Other names and marks are the property of their respective owners.

SNX-G

SOURCE SYNNEX Corporation

Related Links

http://www.synnexcorp.com


COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NetJets aircraft technicians and related employees ratified a new six-year collective bargaining agreement with the Columbus-based business jet operator. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Teamsters Airline Division and Teamsters Local 284 represent 212 aircraft mechanics, maintenance controllers, stock clerks, aircraft fuelers and aircraft cleaners at the company.

"After more than six years of negotiations, our members secured a new contract with major improvements, including an immediate 20 percent wage increase, additional pay increases every year of the contract, premium-free health insurance that can't be cut or reduced, retirement improvements and many other benefits," said Capt. David Bourne, Teamsters Airline Division Director. "The union and its members stand ready to work with NetJets to help ensure a successful company and the highest standards of air safety now and in the future."

More than 94 percent of the members voted on the proposed contract which goes into effect tomorrow. NetJets will pay signing bonuses of up to $30,000 by the end of the month. NetJets workers are also eligible for employer matching contributions if they direct some or all of their bonus into their 401(k) accounts.

"The new labor agreement was made possible by membership solidarity and the support of unionized NetJets pilots, flight attendants and dispatchers, as well as the hard work and dedication of a long line of Teamsters representatives at every level of our union who pulled out all the stops for these men and women," said Local 284 President Mark Vandak. "This contract demonstrates what strong unions can accomplish for working people across the United States."

The new contract runs through December 2023. NetJets has the right to extend the contract for an additional two years if it provides additional wage increases, hires additional aircraft technicians at its Columbus maintenance facility and satisfies other negotiated requirements.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Kara Deniz, (202) 624-6911

[email protected]

SOURCE Teamsters Local 284

Related Links

https://tdr.teamster.org


BEAVERTON, Ore., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tektronix, a leading worldwide provider of measurement solutions, today announced that the new 5 Series MSO mixed signal oscilloscope has won a 2017 ACE (Annual Creativity in Electronics) Award in the Ultimate Awards category, Test and Measurement Systems and Boards. Offered in partnership with EE Times and EDN, UBM's ACE Awards showcase the best of the best in today's electronics industry, including the hottest new products, start-up companies, design teams, executives, and more.

Tektronix 5 Series MSO Wins 2017 UBM ACE Award for Test and Measurement Innovation

"Winning a prestigious ACE Award validates the impact the 5 Series MSO is already having on the industry and the tremendous value in terms of increased productivity for embedded systems and IoT designers," said Chris Witt, vice president and general manager, Time Domain Business Unit at Tektronix. "As a clean-slate design, the 5 Series MSO stands out from the crowd in the mid-range oscilloscope market by delivering real innovations that benefit users and allow them to bring new designs to market faster and more efficiently."

To better meet modern electronics design challenges, the 5 Series MSO redefines the midrange oscilloscope with a number of important firsts, including the industry's first FlexChannel technology that allows 4, 6 or 8 analog channels and up to 64 digital channels, integrated protocol analysis and signal generator, a new 12-bit signal acquisition system, a massive high-definition capacitive touch display, and a highly intuitive Direct Access user interface  delivering unprecedented flexibility and unmatched visibility into complex embedded systems.

A new low-profile version of the 5 Series MSO intended for machine diagnostics and ATE bench-to-manufacturing applications is also available. The 5 Series MSO Low Profile oscilloscope features a best-in-class combination of channel density, performance and cost per channel at 1 GHz bandwidth.

Further extending the 5 Series MSO, Tektronix also recently introduced a series of productivity boosting options for the 5 Series MSO including a power analysis solution, an Automotive Ethernet testing solution, and serial trigger and decode solutions for the aerospace and automotive markets. Engineers in these segments are among the biggest users of mid-range oscilloscopes.

"We're excited to honor this robust group for their dedication to their craft and efforts in bettering the industry for years to come," said Nina Brown, vice president of events, UBM Americas. "The judging panel was given the difficult task of selecting winners from an incredibly talented group of finalists and we'd like to thank all of those participants for their amazing work and also honor their achievements. These awards aim to shine a light on the best in today's electronics realm and this group is the perfect example of excellence within both an important and complex industry."

A panel of Design News, EE Times and EDN editors narrowed down the entries based on the criteria set forth in an online submission form. Winners are determined from among the finalists by Design News editors and a panel of independent judges.

For more information on the awards program visit http://ubm-ace.com/ .

Wondering what else Tektronix is up to? Check out the Tektronix Bandwidth Banter blog and stay up to date on the latest news from Tektronix on Twitter and Facebook.

About Tektronix

Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix delivers innovative, precise and easy-to-operate test, measurement and monitoring solutions that solve problems, unlock insights and drive discovery. Tektronix has been at the forefront of the digital age for over 70 years. Join us on the journey of innovation at TEK.COM.

Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Tektronix, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.tektronix.com


BEAVERTON, Ore., Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tektronix, a leading worldwide provider of measurement solutions, today announced that a broad cross section of its new products launched this year have been selected to the EDN Hot 100 Products of 2017 in the Test and Measurement category. The impressive showing in the annual list of the most important new products in the electronics industry was by far the strongest showing by any test and measurement manufacturer. Tektronix products making the list include the following:

Tektronix Honored with Seven EDN Hot 100 Products of 2017 in Test & Measurement Category

5 Series MSO mixed-signal oscilloscope AWG5200 arbitrary waveform generator BSX BERTScope BER testers PAM4 transmitter analysis software HSSLTA 100 GbE Link-Training option for high-performance DPO70000SX oscilloscope Keithley S540 power semiconductor test system TTR500 USB-based vector network analyzer

EDN's Hot 100 products celebrate the electronics industry's most significant products of the year based on innovation, usefulness, and popularity. Readers and editors of EDNan electronics community for engineers, by engineersselect the Hot 100 list of products across eight categories. Winners were recognized in the article, "EDN Hot 100 products of 2017."

"Whether its next generation smartphones, electric vehicles, faster data center networks, or more energy efficient Internet of Things devices, the need for innovative test and measurement solutions that keep pace with the latest challenges has never been greater," said Tami Newcombe, Commercial President, Tektronix. "A key part of our vision as a company is to deliver on the promise of "RevolutioneeringTM" with new solutions that help break down the barriers to innovation by our customers. The fact that seven of our products  by far the best showing of any test and measurement manufacturer -- landed on the EDN Hot 100 is a clear indication of our steadfast commitment to deliver innovations our customers need as they bring world-changing technologies to market."

Here are details of the seven Tektronix product breakthroughs included in EDN's Top 100 Products of 2017:

The 5 Series MSO mixed-signal oscilloscope redefines the midrange oscilloscope with a host of innovations including the industry's first FlexChannel technology that allows 4, 6 or 8 analog channels and up to 64 digital channels, integrated protocol analysis and signal generator, a new 12-bit signal acquisition system, a massive high-definition capacitive touch display, and a highly intuitive Direct Access user interface  delivering unprecedented flexibility and unmatched visibility into complex embedded systems.

The AWG5200 series of arbitrary waveform generators offers high signal fidelity and scalability at an affordable price point to meet demanding signal generation needs in advanced research, electronic test, and radar and electronic warfare (EW) system design and test. The AWG5200 offers an impressive set of capabilities not previously available in the market all in one instrument, including a 10 GS/s sample rate, 16-bit resolution and up to 8 channels per unit along with support for multiple unit synchronization. It includes a flexible waveform generation plug-in suite with comprehensive coverage for a wide variety of standards and digital modulation techniques. By offering this set of combined capabilities, it also lowers the cost of ownership for complex multi-signal environments starting at a list price of about $11,000 per channel for the 8-channel instrument.

series of arbitrary waveform generators offers high signal fidelity and scalability at an affordable price point to meet demanding signal generation needs in advanced research, electronic test, and radar and electronic warfare (EW) system design and test. The offers an impressive set of capabilities not previously available in the market all in one instrument, including a 10 GS/s sample rate, 16-bit resolution and up to 8 channels per unit along with support for multiple unit synchronization. It includes a flexible waveform generation plug-in suite with comprehensive coverage for a wide variety of standards and digital modulation techniques. By offering this set of combined capabilities, it also lowers the cost of ownership for complex multi-signal environments starting at a list price of about per channel for the 8-channel instrument. Tektronix BSX series BERTScope is the industry's first 32 Gb/s protocol-aware bit error rate test and analysis system. It not only helps characterize the receiver in Gen3 and Gen4 devices  it enables users to shorten the time needed to debug link training and bit error rate issues. As fourth generation serial protocols such as PCIe 4.0, USB3.1, and SAS4 become more complex, it has become increasingly difficult to place a receiver being tested into an appropriate state (such as a loopback state) for testing without protocol handshaking between the instrument and the device under test. With its protocol-aware functions, the BSX Series provides the tools and flexibility needed to visualize and control the handshaking and link training process for devices running up to 32 Gb/s."

Tektronix PAM4 test solutions now deliver comprehensive 400G electrical compliance testing for OIF-CEI-56G VSR/MR/LR PAM4 standards. The new 400G-TXE software package runs on high-performance DPO70000SX Real-Time Oscilloscopes, a lineup of models that go up to 70 GHz in bandwidth. The automated turnkey solution performs PAM4 compliance test sweeps in a single pass for shorter test times, more reliable and repeatable results, and greater ease of use.

High Speed Serial Link Training Analysis (Option HSSLTA) is a tool for 100G electrical datacom designers to use with the ultra high-speed DPO70000SX series of oscilloscopes. It offers a powerful debugging capability for network equipment providers and silicon vendors concerned about interoperability issues in their designs. Link training is a complex sequence of negotiations between transmitter and receiver to determine optimal transceiver settings. HSSLTA uses the power of DPO70000SX triggering to identify link training exchanges between devices, then analyzes and displays the protocol, timing, and PHY signaling associated with negotiation of 100 Gb/s links.

The Keithley S540 Power Semiconductor Test System is a fully-automated, 48 pin parametric test system for wafer-level testing of power semiconductor devices and structures up to 3kV. Optimized for use with the latest compound power semiconductor materials including silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN), the fully integrated S540 can perform all high voltage, low voltage, and capacitance tests in a single probe touch-down. As a standard commercial product, the S540 offers fully traceable system specifications, safety compliance, diagnostics, and worldwide service and support, features that are often missing in home-built or custom systems.

The TTR500 Series USB Vector Network Analyzer adds to the growing Tektronix portfolio of disruptive USB-based RF test instruments. Like Tektronix' highly successful USB-based spectrum analyzers, the new TTR500 Series delivers a combination of low price and performance  40 percent lower cost than alternatives capable of matching its 122 dB dynamic range and 6 GHz frequency range. It also includes advanced features like VectorVu-PC analysis software and a built-in bias tee for biasing active devices, a feature you may have had to pay extra for in the past.

Wondering what else Tektronix is up to? Check out the Tektronix Bandwidth Banter blog and stay up to date on the latest news from Tektronix on Twitter and Facebook.

About Tektronix

Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix delivers innovative, precise and easy-to-operate test, measurement and monitoring solutions that solve problems, unlock insights and drive discovery. Tektronix has been at the forefront of the digital age for over 70 years. Join us on the journey of innovation at TEK.COM.

Tektronix is a registered trademark of Tektronix, Inc. All other trade names referenced are the service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE Tektronix, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.tektronix.com


DENVER, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ucroo Incorporated and Colorado State University-Global Campus (CSU-Global) today announced the launch of a new partnership. Beginning in January 2018, CSU-Global - the premier provider of innovative, higher learning opportunities for nontraditional students in Colorado and beyond - will implement Ucroo's web and mobile platform to increase connection, collaboration and communication among its student cohort. This partnership is a major step in Ucroo's, an Australian-based company, U.S. expansion.

Ucroo puts each student at the center of their university community - intelligently connecting users with relevant people, announcements and events. The platform makes it easier for students to connect and interact with their university community and integrates with existing systems to keep them updated on the things critical to success.

James McCubbin, chief executive officer of Ucroo, said, "CSU-Global has an exceptional reputation in online course delivery. At Ucroo our goal is to help universities all over the world create a contemporary digital experience for their students. This partnership with CSU-Global, a leading provider of online education, is a clear indication that our platform is central to a quality experience for online students. Of course, having just opened our first U.S. office in Denver, we are particularly excited to be partnering with a local education provider with a global outlook."

Maria Jump, assistant vice president of Student Services at CSU-Global, said, "Ucroo's technology will enrich the online student experience at CSU-Global by facilitating collaborations and partnerships across our digital campus. We believe that nurturing a vibrant online student community will positively impact student success at CSU-Global."

Colorado State University-Global Campus provides academically authoritative, career-focused degree and certificate programs in an adaptive environment beyond traditional higher education models. Designed for working adults, its professionally relevant degrees undergo continual evaluation to ensure alignment with the fast-changing market and industry practices and innovation.

About Ucroo

In a digital age dominated by social media and mobile apps, university students expect to be seamlessly, intelligently and constantly connected with the people, content and resources relevant to them.

Ucroo is a secure web and mobile platform that integrates with existing college systems to provide a thriving digital campus where students are better connected, supported and engaged.

About Colorado State University-Global Campus

Colorado State University-Global Campus (CSU-Global) offers career relevant bachelor's and master's degree programs for working adults and nontraditional learners. As the first and only 100 percent online, fully accredited public university in the United States, CSU-Global is focused on student success as its number one priority. Embracing the land grant heritage as part of the Colorado State University System, CSU-Global sets the standard for quality and innovation in higher education through its expert faculty who are recognized as industry leaders and trained in working with adults in an online learning environment. CSU-Global offers a streamlined enrollment process with accelerated eight-week courses that start every four weeks. Visit CSUGlobal.edu or call 1-800-920-6723 for more information.

Contacts:

United States

Ucroo

Chase Williams

[email protected]

(720) 410-2177

CSU-Global

Scott Kozak

[email protected]

(303) 565-4764

Australia

James McCubbin

[email protected]

+61 422 224 788

Related Links

Ucroo

CSU-Global

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_u6qRga1kA

SOURCE Ucroo

Related Links

https://www.ucroo.com.au


ODESSA, Texas, Dec. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VanZandt Controls, LLC ("VanZandt" or the "Company"), an OFS Energy Fund ("OFS") portfolio company, has acquired the machining assets of Flatland Forge, Inc. ("Flatland"). The acquisition represents a vertical integration of VanZandt's supply chain, allowing VanZandt to internally machine key components utilized in the packaging of automated valves. With its new machining capabilities, VanZandt will have greater control of the quality and delivery time of its products to better support its customers.

"We are thrilled to acquire these premier machining assets and have the exceptional machinists of Flatland join our team. By bringing machining capabilities in-house, we can more quickly and reliably supply products to our customers," said Larry Richards, VanZandt's President and CEO.

Since its founding in January 2015, VanZandt has quickly grown into one of the top providers of automated valves in west Texas. It serves blue chip upstream, midstream, and downstream customers active in the construction of energy-related infrastructure throughout the Permian Basin. VanZandt was acquired by OFS in partnership with Larry Richards, former CEO of Hy-Bon Engineering, in mid-2017. In acquiring VanZandt, OFS and Richards planned to utilize the Company as a platform to create a market-leading provider of premier automated valve, flow measurement, and instrumentation components. Since the acquisition, VanZandt has added regional distribution centers in Hobbs, New Mexico and Canyon, Texas.

"The VanZandt team has done a great job executing on the operating plan we underwrote to at the time of our initial investment in the Company. The fast-paced growth at VanZandt has been truly exciting to see," said Jerad McMayon, Partner at OFS.

About VanZandt

VanZandt Controls, LLC specializes in valve automation, flow measurement, instrumentation, and process controls. The Company is headquartered in Odessa, Texas. For more information, please visit www.vanzandtcontrols.com.

About OFS

OFS Energy Fund is a Houston-based private equity firm specializing in acquisitions and recapitalizations of middle-market companies in the energy industry with enterprise values between $5 million and $100 million. For more information, please visit www.ofsfund.com.

SOURCE VanZandt Controls, LLC

Related Links

https://www.vanzandtcontrols.com


Bloomsbury Childrens Books has just acquired the DarkDeep, a middle-grade duology scheduled to debut in fall 2018, which the publisher is describing as Stranger Things meets The Goonies with the heart of Stand By Me. The books are being co-written in alternating chapters by bestselling YA authors Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs, who describe themselves, in Reichss words, as super-duper best friends. The two will also write, as part of the deal, a stand-alone novel. After Reichs moderated a keynote panel featuring Condie that concluded the YALLFEST literary festival in 2014, they cemented their relationship the following year at YALLWEST, when they found themselves the sole occupants of a table and ended up eating lunch together. The two have been buddies since, and disclosed that they even decided at that fateful 2015 lunch to attend the same program at Vermont College of Fine Art in pursuit of M.F.A. degrees in Creative Writing for Children and Adults.

Asked how their friendship survived, first, being in the same M.F.A. program, and, secondly, collaborating on a series, Condie responded that its easier to write with somebody else, because when you have someone who cares about the book as much as you do, you have access to double the ideas. The collaboration has only made them closer: they are planning a ski trip in Utah with their families over the holidays.

The DarkDeep is a paranormal mystery set in Still Cove, an eerie mill town in the Pacific Northwest. After four children discover a hidden island in the middle of town, they come across a gateway to another dimension that turns figments of their imaginations into reality. While, at first, this discovery is wondrous, things quickly take a turn for the worse, as nightmares and frightful imaginings emerge and begin spreading out of control.

The DarkDeep is a uniquely exciting mash-up of contemporary middle grade genres, explained Cindy Loh, publisher of Bloomsbury Childrens Books. The characters are lulled deeper and deeper into the fringe and its their internal journeyswith a little help from their friendsthat leave me both dying to know what will happen next and asking the same question they do: if your dreams could come true, is that actually a good thing?

We mesh well, Reichs recently told PW, and the two demonstrated the truth of this declaration by conducting a Q&A with each other about the series and how it came about.

Condie: Brendan, since youre the fun one of the two of us, tell everyone how we came up with the idea for our new book and make them excited about it.

Reichs: Ally and I were both looking to write something a little different from our current projects, just for fun, and we thought it would be really cool if we could do something together. I think it was Ally who first had the idea for The DarkDeep, and it spiraled quickly from there. As we were discussing things we liked in kids books, this whole framework kind of fell into place.

Reichs: Ally, since youre the smart one, please explain how we came up with our heroes in The DarkDeep.

Condie: We both knew right away we wanted two main characters, a girl and a guy. We knew we wanted them to have been friends in the pasttrue friendswho have drifted apart. So theres that tension, but theres also a certain level of past trust they can draw upon. As we brainstormed the characters, we decided that Opal was tough, and had recently become part of the popular group at schoolbut felt conflicted about it. We also realized that Nico had a tight-knit group of friends and that hes dealing with some fallout from something his father has done.

Condie: Brendan, how do we know each other, anyway?

Reichs: Because we never dont hang out. Ally and I have been friends for years, having done dozens of panels on the festival circuit together and through our involvement in YALLWEST, a literary festival in Santa Monica. It was there three years ago that we both decided to attend Vermont College of Fine Art and get MFAs in creative writing for children and adults. And it was on the VCFA campus that we first started planning The DarkDeep.

Ally, are any of the friendships in The DarkDeep based on those in our real, amazing, incredible lives?

Condie: So far, they arent completely based on anyone in our real lives, but they are based on the kind of buddy movies that we connected to as kids and still love as adultsThe Goonies and E.T., for example. The mysterious elements are important to the story, but the most important part to us is the connections between the characters, and to the reader.

Reichs: There is danger. You eat danger for breakfast. Are you flight or fight?

Condie: Im actually fall. As in, fall to the ground and curl up in a ball. I know this because my dad, who was a judge, wanted to find out if I had good survival instincts and could escape danger. So he hid in my closet when I was a teenager and jumped out to surprise me. He was really annoyed that I fell down instead of running or punching him. He has since realized that this is a terrible parenting technique and apologized.

Both: In a friend group you are usually the

Condie: Ill answer for Brendan. Brendan is a great friend because he has a big heart and a way of making everything fun. Hes funny and smarthes the friend who always gets the party started and cracks everyone upbut hes different from a lot of people in that he genuinely wants everyone to be part of it all.

Reichs: Im answering for Ally, because she wont say that shes the best. Shes the kindest, warmest person in every room, someone that everyone is happy to see at all times. Ally is actually interested in you, and what you have to say, and she makes everyone feel heard and appreciated. I could have no better partner for writing a book.

Condie: Brendan, is there anything else you totally naturally want to say about this new series?

Reichs: This has been the most fun Ive ever had working on a project. Ally and I seem to naturally get each others humor and pick up where the other one left off. We cover each others weak spots really well and the drafts have been surprisingly fun to write. I cant wait to do more books together and see where this series goes. We can only promise that it will be shocking, interesting, and a little weird, and that we will always pay attention to our characters.
The Quarto Group and Quarto Distribution Services have announced plans to distribute Clever Publishings titles in the U.S., marking the Russian childrens publishers entry into the North American market.

Clever, which launched in 2010 in Moscow, specializes in books and games for readers ages one through seven. The debut list is set for fall 2018 and will feature 50 titles, including Clevers bestselling mini board books and flash cards, and Look-and-Find books. The house has a backlist of 1,000 titles, and runs both a bricks-and-mortar and online store in Russia. With 10 million books sold throughout Europe and Asia, it is one of the fastest growing European publishers.

John Groton, director of distribution services at the Quarto Group, told PW the partnership emerged from an unscheduled meeting between the publishers at BookExpo this past June in New York City. We were very impressed with their presentation, he said. Though Russia is its primary market, Clever has had books translated into more than 25 languages. Groton also spoke of a previous connection between the two publishers, as Clever has published co-editions of a selection of Quartos QED and Wide Eyed Editions titles, including atlases and encyclopedias.

Quarto currently handles North American distribution for some 25 publishers, and continues to expand its childrens list. Groton said, Weve grown our childrens publishing greatly in the last four years, with Frances Lincoln, Wide Eyed Editions, and Walter Foster Jr. Its the fastest growing part of our publishing program, so this [partnership] is a great addition.

Alexander Alperovich, CEO and co-founder of Clever, told PW, We thought about the U.S. market for several years, doing thorough research and discussing market trends with our U.S. publishing partners. Last year, we decided we were ready to test the waters, so we developed the entry strategy and went ahead. Alperovich said his team believes the time is right for expansion, saying, We saw that interactive, board, and educational books for younger kids were showing considerable growth and that there was a market opportunity. Moreover, we saw several successful examples of European publishers entering the U.S. market that proved that the American customer was looking for some fresh ideas. And we already had a large backlist and felt comfortable that we would have enough content not only for a launch in the U.S. market, but also to support sustainable growth going forward.

Alperovich said of the debut titles, We have carefully looked through our backlist and chosen those titles that were bestsellers both in the Russian market as well as in the international arena in terms of foreign rights sales. And we have also consulted with our U.S. editorial consultant, William Luckey, who has done tremendous work compiling and customizing the list. Publicity efforts include a U.S. website with a full catalogue, and social media, digital, and trade marketing.

Clever plans to open a U.S. office in New York City in January. The team will bring on three to five new employees in 2018, growing to about 20 employees within the next three years. Alperovich said the team is also considering the possibility of opening a Clever retail store in the U.S.

The new line will be previewed for the first time at BookExpo 2018. Tony Davis, director of sales and marketing for North America, will be highlighting the fall list at the Quarto booth, as well as hosting two book giveaways.
Members of the Association of American Publishers Young to Publishing Group gathered on December 7 in New York City for a panel discussion on the role of sensitivity readers in bringing diverse and authentic stories to children and teens. The panelists were Patrice Caldwell, associate editor at Disney-Hyperion and founder of People of Color in Publishing, Tiffany Liao, editor at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers; and Namrata Tripathi, editorial director at Dial Books. Phoebe Yeh, v-p and publisher of Crown Books for Young Readers, moderated the discussion, which addressed the challenges and rewards of working with beta readers throughout the editorial process.

Yeh observed the growing number of sensitivity readers being hired to assist in evaluating diverse kids books. In adult lit, it doesnt seem to crop up the way it does for childrens, she said.

The panelists were in agreement that bringing on additional readers for a manuscript can provide context and personal insight, especially when authors are writing about a character outside of their own lived experience. Tripathi suggested, The term authenticity reader better encapsulates the work they do, because they are providing critical feedback about matters of accuracy. Caldwell also spoke to the importance of soliciting informed criticism, adding, The best sensitivity readers are strong critical readers.

The editors cautioned, however, against viewing sensitivity reading as a box to be checked off while preparing a book for publication. Liao emphasized that working with a reader is not a quick fix or precaution, but rather an important part of the mission to foster more accurate representation in childrens literature. Were looking for hard-and-fast rules for something that isnt one size fits all. Building on this statement, Tripathi said, When we want single, easy answers to big questions, my response keeps coming back to it dependswe have to actually engage with the specifics of the question.

Yeh asked the panelists when in a books production schedule do they enlist the help of an authenticity reader. She pointed out that some authors and editors may be wary of sharing a manuscript in its earliest stages, when significant changes may still remain to be made. Even so, all felt that a book could benefit from early feedback. Liao said she sometimes consults with multiple readers, over the course of successive drafts. My philosophy is early and often. Regardless of where a book stands in the publication process, Tripathi said the question to consider when working with an authenticity reader is: Are we asking for feedback or permission?

Doing the Work

Caldwell, who is also a writer, added that authors must consider their intentions and limitations, and whether they are the right person to tell a story. You shouldnt be writing so far outside your own culture that you dont know anyone whos a part of your characters culture, she said. Tripathi echoed her comment, saying, Its not about whos allowed. Its about whether you do it well. While they recognize that not all of todays diverse stories are Own Voices stories, the editors aim to help their authors craft authentic and accurate representations.

Yeh then asked the panelists about in-house conversations and contentions that may arise regarding diverse storytelling. One source of internal discussion relates to the copyediting of diverse titles. Citing the house style for some publishers of italicizing words in foreign languages, Tripathi described the problem this poses for books told from the perspective of a native or fluent speaker. This is indicating otherness, she said. Yeh said that, in these cases, she will ask for the authors preference. When discussing approaches to diverse content, Tripathi said, I think its important to have a vigorous debatebut she believes that discussion should take the shape of a rich, thoughtful, generous conversation as opposed to one that is defensive.

While editorial approaches may vary, the speakers agreed on the importance of gathering as much information and insight as possible to bring authentic stories to light. Tripathi said, As editors, we cant have knowledge of all experiences, but we need enough knowledge and facility with the language of examining non-dominant narratives to be able to ask good questions of the author. Caldwell stated the need for thoughtful and thorough research, regardless of the genre. I see just as many problems in fantasy or sci-fi because people forget how their own biases come into play when crafting their worlds. If authors can imagine worlds, it bothers me how some dont put in the same amount of work to get cultures right.

Wrapping up the discussion, Yeh brought up the issue of handling feedback from sensitivity readers. In many situations, the suggested edits will entail more than simply removing or adjusting a line. After considering a readers notes, Liao said, Its important to have in-depth conversations with both the reader and the author to think critically about the feedback. Its not just about omitting anything that could be problematic. Its about examining and addressing the root of the issues, rather than doing triage or troubleshooting. Liao encouraged publishers, authors, and readers to continue engaging in these kinds of dialogues. Its important to push through the discomfort. We will only move forward if we keep talking about it.
This is the second in a two-part series, providing an in-depth look at new and soon-to-open childrens bookstores.

Todays childrens bookstore owners are drawn from many walks of life, including previous stints in childrens bookselling. Andy Laties, author of Rebel Bookseller (Seven Stories), previously owned two childrens bookstores, since closed, and in 1987 received the prestigious Pannell Award for excellence in childrens bookselling. He was most recently manager of New York Citys Bank Street Books before he and his wife, Rebecca Migdal, author of the forthcoming picture book Mermaids Fast Asleep (Feiwel and Friends), opened Book and Puppet Company in Easton, Pa.

What makes Laties and Migdals 1,800 sq. ft. store stand out among other recent childrens bookstores is not just the depth of the bookselling knowledge that they bring to it, but their decision to position it as a progressive voice in a state that voted for Trump. Both of us thought its a concept store, Laties said. But people [were excited that] Easton is getting an indie bookstore. Right now the store, which is 70% childrens, has a strong selection of social justice and pop culture titles for adults. If customers want a general independent bookstore, he and Migdal said they would adjust the inventory.

Initially the pair had planned to open the store in New Yorks Hudson Valley. Unable to find an affordable location, they looked at Easton, where a good friend of Migdals had moved 15 years earlier. The town is located in Lehigh Valley, one of the fastest growing areas in the country, and is about an hour and a half drive from Philadelphia and New York City. Easton also has the longest-running farmers market in the country and one of the oldest colleges, Lafayette College.

Despite the many positives, Laties acknowledged that its definitely challenging to do this. People here are willing to pay for experiences, but not stuff. But its still early days. In addition to catering to young families with 26-year-olds, the store carries a strong selection of sidelines for their parents, including political postcards, James Baldwin votive candles, and Obama finger puppets. And Migdal and Laties have brought their kids puppetry program on Fractured Fables, which was successful at Bank Street, to Book and Puppet. Theyve also introduced an adult version, Mangled Myths.

For most new childrens bookstores, simply promoting literacy is political. But art plays a key role, too, at 1,100 sq. ft. Read with Me, A Childrens Book and Art Shop, which Christine Brenner opened in Raleigh, N.C. in April. The store has a designated area for crafts and offers classes in book making and hand lettering. A local muralist decorates the chalkboard that covers the back wall, and pictures by local artists, including an eight-year-old boy, are on display above the book cases. One of Brenners long-term goals is to start a childrens literature and art festival.

A former teacher and school librarian, Brenner describes running the store as a constant learning process. The stores location, near the Marbles Kids Museum downtown has been good for us, Brenner said. We get a lot of Marbles traffic. Shes about to begin offering in-store book fairs. Books are arranged face out by age. Board books are located on the bottom row, picture books one shelf up; and YA is on the top shelf. Popular books like Wonder and authors like Mo Willems get their own sections. And Brenner tries to make sure all types of people are represented on the shelves. I have parents thank me, she said, for having board books with people of color.

Former educator Kimberly Cake and her mother, Sandy Loomis, opened 1,800 sq. ft. Enchanted Passage in a Victorian house in Sutton, Mass., almost exactly one year ago in December 2016. Like Zsame Morgan, who will open the mobile bookstore Babycakes Bookstack in the spring, a life event, in this case the premature birth of Cakes daughter, Kristiana, at 24 weeks, caused her to search for a profession that would allow her to spend more time with her daughter. We love being able to do this as a family. And the store is becoming a family, said Cake. My favorite part is finding kids the books they want to read.

As a new bookseller, one of Cakes challenges has been learning the shopping rhythms of her community and adjusting store hours to meet expectations. Many families were away for the summer, which was slow. She also struggles with getting the word out that the area now has a childrens bookstore. Were really trying to work on being a destination, said Cake, who hosts birthday parties and storytimes, including sensitive storytimes with softer lighting and a different selection of books for kids that need to avoid over stimulation. Bestselling books range from Chris Colfers Land of Stories series (Little, Brown), which one eight-year-old chose for the theme of a birthday party; R.J. Palacios Wonder (Knopf); Tui T. Sutherlands Wings of Fire series (Scholastic Press); and Gitty Daneshvaris School of Fear series (Little, Brown).

Melissa Music decided to open a childrens bookstore after homeschooling her four children for seven years. I wanted to open a place that would inspire kids to read, where it seems like stories come to life, she said, describing the 3,000 sq. ft. Story Shop in Monroe, Ga. She got the idea a year ago last May and opened the store five months later, in October 2016.

In keeping with the story theme, kids go through a Narnia wardrobe to get to the events room. Store activities range from a Fancy Nancy Fashion Show during New York Fashion Week to a family fiesta for the publication of Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieris Dragons Love Tacos 2 (Dial). Musics oldest daughter leads the toddler storytime.

Im having fun and the community has welcomed us, said Music, who estimates that she sells more picture books than anything else. The store does well with Donald Lemke and Bob Lentzs Wearable Books series (Capstone) with Book-O-Hats, Book-O-Beards, and Book-O-Masks; and Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenhelds Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (Chronicle). Fairy and pirate books, which have their own table displays, are also strong sellers.

Coming Soon

Several childrens booksellers hope to launch physical bookstores sometime in 2018, including one of the only ones geared specially to older kids, Flashlight Books in Walnut Creek, Calif. College friends Shoshana Smith and Marian Adducci, who worked together at the Reading Bug in San Carlos, Calif., would like to find a way to drive sales to preteens and teens, an age group that many kids stores have trouble reaching. We know that the moneys in board books and picture books, said Smith. Well still have storytimes and craft times. Our decor is going to be a little less babyish, while still having a play space. We want to host tutoring sessions and get teachers to work with us. We want to host open mic nights. Thats our dream.

An Indiegogo fundraiser last spring netted just over $14,000 toward Smith and Adduccis fundraising goal of $50,000 for renting and stocking a 2,000 sq. ft. store. But they are planning to go ahead with their idea for a childrens store that integrates used, new, and remainder books. They are considering a second fundraiser coupled with a loan and hope to find a space by next spring.

Lorielle Hollaway is also looking for a space to open Cultured Books in St. Petersburg, Fla.s historic 22nd Street South District, once the citys main black street. She was inspired to start the bookstore after taking a class at Hillsborough Community College on public speaking and anthropology with a teacher who wanted students to be part of their communities. It was then that Hollaway realized that she wanted to better shape the world through picture books. Her tag line for the store is: Fostering a reading culture by exposing children to the world; through art, music, and picture books!

Maureen McDole, founder of Keep St. Pete Lit, has been acting as a mentor to Hollaway, who has opened a succession of pop-up shops this fall, beginning with one in late October at the Soul on the Deuces Street Festival in St. Petersburg, while she looks for a permanent location. For Indies First/Small Business Saturday, Hollaway ran a pop-up shop at The Well, which is located in her desired location of 22nd Street South. Poet Useni Eugene Perkins and Bryan Colliers Hey Black Child (Little, Brown) was her bestselling book. Hollaways young daughters, Nadia and Ava, help her decide what books to source.

That former booksellers, educators, and home school mothers are opening new childrens specialty stores is not only a good thing for the book business as a whole, but for the next generation of readers. As Cover to Covers new owner Melia Wolfe noted when asked why she wanted to have a childrens bookstore, My goal is to inspire children to become lifetime readers.

For more about other new and soon-to-open bookstores, click here to read part one of this story.
The challenge of a lifetime. Thats how American Library Association executive director Keith Fiels described the situation facing libraries at the ALAs annual National Library Legislative Day in Washington, D.C., in May of this year. Speaking just weeks ahead of his July retirement, and after 15 years leading the organization, Fiels took a moment to congratulate librarians on their many political successes over the last two decades. Then he left them with a warning: It could all go away with a stroke of a pen.

He wasnt exaggerating. As the library community prepares to gather in Denver for the 2018 Midwinter Meeting, February 913, librarians are facing some of its most serious challenges to their work in memory, from funding threats, to key tech and education policy changes, aw well as the Trump administrations attacks the free press, and on some of the library profession's core values, including equity and diversity.

In 2017, the library community was able to successfully push back against some of the administrations more draconian policies, including a Trump proposal to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and virtually all federal library funding. But the funding threat remains, especially with the administrations tax bill, which is now in conference.

Those tax cuts are going to have be paid for in some way, warns ALA president Jim Neal, who noted that the current tax bill, which independent analysts say would add about a trillion dollars to the national debt over the next decade, could ultimately put all federal programs at risk, including library programs. Theres a lot bundled up in the law that could have both a primary impact on libraries, in the case of the IMLS, and a secondary impact on the work of libraries in various types of settings, he says.

In January of 2017, the ALA Midwinter Meeting, which was held in Atlanta the same weekend as Trumps inauguration, helped set the tone for a year of engagement and resistance from the library community. And as librarians prepare to gather in Denver for the 2018 Midwinter Meeting, ALA leaders will seek to keep librarians engaged for what looks like another tough year.

Highlights



Once again, library values will be on display in a typically strong program of authors and speakers. The main program will officially kick off on Friday, February 9, with a conversation between Marley Dias and Patrisse Cullors (4:00-5:15 p.m.).

In 2013, Cullors co-founded a global movement around the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which has since become an international organization fighting anti-black racism worldwide. Her memoir, When They Call You A Terrorist (Macmillan), comes out in January 2018. Dias, meanwhile, made headlines as a sixth grader, when she started the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign to collect and donate 1,000 books that featured black girls as the main characters. Her new book, Marley Dias Gets It Done (Scholastic), is also out in January. The two will discuss the kinds of issues and thinking that motivated them to take action.

The Auditorium Speaker Series kicks off on Saturday, February 10, with a talk by acclaimed author and McSweeneys founder Dave Eggers (10-11 a.m.). Eggers will discuss his latest picture book, Her Right Foot (Chronicle), with art from debut illustrator Shawn Harris. The book was inspired by Eggerss realization of a little-known fact: the Statue of Liberty is actually in mid-stride.

The Statue of Liberty is not a symbol of xenophobia, fear, or isolationism, Eggers writes. The symbol of America is a symbol of welcome. Its a woman in a robe walking out to sea, to light the way for those coming to our shores. In addition, Eggerss new adult nonfiction book The Monk of Mokha (Knopf) will be released in late January. The book explores the struggles of everyday Yemenis living through a civil war through the courageous journey of, Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a young Muslim man born in the U.S., who starts a coffee business against all odds.

Later on Saturday, poet Elizabeth Acevedo will deliver the Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture. Raised in New York City, the youngest child of Dominican immigrants, Acevedo is the author of two poetry collections: Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths and Medusa Reads La Negras Palm, winner of the 2016 Berkshire Prize. Her novel The Poet X (HarperCollins Childrens Books) is scheduled for release in early 2018.

On Sunday, February 11, acclaimed author Junot Diaz takes the stage (10-11 a.m.). Diaz will discuss his new book, Islandborn (Penguin Young Readers), illustrated by Leo Espinosa, his first work of fiction for young readers, which is scheduled for release in February 2018.

And on Sunday afternoon, dont miss what promises to be a lively ALA Presidents Program (3:30-5:30 p.m.). In a departure, this years event will not feature a keynote speaker, but will instead be a debate on an important question in todays fractious political climate: Are libraries neutral? Have they ever been? Should they be? In the formal debate, moderated by ALA president Jim Neal, two speakers will argue in the affirmative and two in the negative, followed by commentary from a panel and audience participation.

On the affirmative side will be Em Claire Knowles, assistant dean for student and alumni affairs at the Simmons School of Library and Information Science, and James LaRue, director of the ALAs Office for Intellectual Freedom. Arguing in the negative will be Chris Bourg, director of libraries at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and R. David Lankes, director of the University of South Carolinas School of Library and Information Science.

The panel of commentators will feature: Emily Drabinski, coordinator of library instruction at Long Island University, Brooklyn; Kathleen de la Pena McCook, professor at the School of Information, University of South Florida in Tampa; Emily Knox, assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Kelvin Watson, director of the Broward County Libraries Division.

The historical approach has been to have an invited speaker, and I gave a lot of thought to that, but I became very interested in this passionate debate around library neutrality, and we really need to have a community conversation about this, Neal said. The issue of library neutrality is coming up in all sorts of waysfor example, librarians being asked to provide space for groups whose politics or philosophy they may not agree with, or challenges to what they are putting into the collection. Its going to be very informative, and hopefully entertaining, to get these arguments out on the table.

On Monday, February 12, Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy!) and Gregory Mone will be keynote speakers at the closing session (2-3 p.m.). A bestselling author and TV personality, Nye, who now appears in the Netflix series Bill Nye Saves the World, has been on a mission to help foster a scientifically literate societyno easy feat in todays fact-denying political climate. Nye will take the stage with Mone, his co-author for the new book Jack and the Geniuses, the first in their new middle-grade series from Amulet Books that takes middle-grade readers on a scientific adventure featuring real-world science.

Awards and More

The highlight of every ALA Midwinter, of course, is the announcement of the coveted Youth Media Awards, which will take place from 8 to 9 a.m. on Monday, February 12. The ALA Youth Media Awards, including the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and Coretta Scott King awards, are recognized worldwide as the most prestigious awards celebrating childrens and young adult literature and media.

And on Sunday, February 11, from 5 to 7 p.m., the ALAs adult book awards, the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, will be announced. This years shortlist for fiction: Jennifer Egan for Manhattan Beach (Scribner); National Book Awardwinner Jesmyn Ward for Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner); and Booker Prizewinner George Saunders for Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House). The nonfiction finalists are Daniel Ellsberg for The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (Bloomsbury); David Grann for Killers of the Flower Moon (Doubleday); and Sherman Alexie for his memoir You Dont Have to Say You Love Me (Little, Brown).

And dont forget the exhibitorssome 350 vendors and organizations will exhibit at ALA Midwinter, showing off a range of new library products, services, books, tools, and technologiesin addition to the author readings, signings, and professional presentations held at multiple pavilions and on stages on the show floor. The exhibit hall opens with a reception on Friday evening, February 9, immediately following the opening general session.
Well, that was quite a year, wasnt it? I dont know what all the "words of the year are going to be, though Dictionary.com has gone for complicit. Id nominate disorienting myself, mainly because covfeve feels too much like shooting fish in a lexicographical barrel.

Its been quite a year for us in Libraryland as well, raising issues we wouldnt have thought we would have to deal with in 2017, questions we thought were long settled, and generally shaking up a lot of assumptions underlying what we do, why, and who we are as a profession. Exhibit A: for the 2018 ALA Midwinter conference, ALA president Jim Neal has organized his presidents program as a debate around the questions Are libraries neutral? Have they ever been? Should they be?

I applaud Jim for doing thisits great to see ALA raising a little hell now and then, particularly at a time when the stakes feel pretty high. And this is a topic of some currency in the library world, although, for many of us who have been around for awhile, its a little stunning to entertain the notion that libraries as institutions might view themselves as something other than neutral.

In fact, the library profession actually has a somewhat checkered history when it comes to responding to issues in the broader society. Historically, collective action always seems to come more easily for librarians around matters of intellectual freedom. For example, the Freedom to Read Statement, issued in 1954 with the American Book Publishing Council (a precursor to the Association of American Publishers) came as a rejoinder to Joseph McCarthy. And then there are the professions strong responses to the rather clownish Library Awareness Program of the 1980s, and the considerably less clownish PATRIOT Act (which famously led to thenAttorney General John Ashcrofts immortal 2003 characterization of librarians as exhibiting baseless hysteria.) Ah, those were the days.

Librarians were less nimble and notably less courageous when it came to the civil rights movement. It took years for ALA leaders to finally grow a spine and insist that not only should libraries be open to all, but our professional associations should be as wella shameful period we dont always talk enough about.

I can imagine much of how Jim Neals discussion will go in Denver, particularly since its arranged as a debate with a responder panel, and there are some very fine people involved. There will be those who argue for a familiar vision of libraries as unbiased, and those who say that is folly in a world that seems turned upside down. And there are valid points to be raised on both sides.

But the answer to the fundamental question Are libraries neutral? seems pretty predictable. As is so often the case: maybe. Or better still, it depends.

Really? Maybe?

Yeah, I know, maybe feels like a cop-out. But in this case I dont think it is, because the question of library neutrality actually conflates two questionsone about the political lives of librarians and libraries as institutions, and another about their professional work. Trying to think about these questions together often muddies the waters and causes confusion and consternation. Pulling them apart, however, reveals a more complicated and therefore fraught environment.

 Lets face it: the 19th-century vision of American libraries as providing worthy reading for moral improvement and fostering an informed electorate might not entirely cut the mustard any more. 

The political part of this discussion today covers a lot of ground, much of which is well trodden. The fight to preserve net neutrality, for example, fits with a long pattern of policy advocacy efforts regarding a range of issues that affect how librarians do our business and serve our communities, which librarians and our organizations have taken on for decades. And, while there might not always be perfect agreement on specific policy stances, that the library profession would undertake this kind of policy advocacy is neither shocking nor controversial.

The second sense in which people raise the question of neutrality is in the day-to-day work of libraries and librarians: offering services, acting as community meeting places, and especially building and maintaining collections of materials. Here we have a long tradition as well, of representing and encouraging multiple points of view, seeking balance, and enabling a reflection of the tastes and interests of the communities we serve. Its an imperfect process, to be sure, and nobodys ever 100% happy. But this is what we do, weve done it for a long time, and we still do it all the time.

Today, however, it sure does seem like the questions are getting thornier. Do the neo-Nazis get to reserve the community room? Should we have materials in the collection describing and advocating conversion therapy? Or placing creationism on an equal footing with, like, science? Some among us seem to be suggesting that we must draw lines, or even choose sides, and articulate the kinds of people or ideas that are simply beyond the pale, unacceptable, and not welcome in libraries. And, Ill admit, it is oh-so-tempting to say something like lets just stick to the facts. But in todays environment, in which facts seems to be up for grabs on a regular basis (and not in a cool virtual-reality or Blade Runner kind of way either), what hope would we ever have of resting our work on objective facts?

The good news is that the library world is accustomed to changein technology, demography, policy, the economic environment, and society. Weve had little choice. But still, the kind of shift in the political environment were experiencing today feels different, which is why so many librarians are feeling so uncomfortable. When the ground feels like its shifting under your feet, its hard to stand upright.

With that in mind, it strikes me that the debate in Denver wont really be around the question of neutrality so much as a broader reconsideration of the role of libraries and librarians. Lets face it: the 19th-century vision of American libraries as providing worthy reading for moral improvement and fostering an informed electorate might not entirely cut the mustard any more. Rather, we are witnessing a new phase in a decades-long recalibration of libraries from a passive, repository model to a more activeactivist, evencommunity-engagement model.

Thus, the more relevant question may not be whether libraries are neutral, but rather what role or roles they should play in fostering or creating change. There is no easy answer to that question, and there is no single answer to that question, and there never will be.

Our Common Mission

Which brings me back to Libraryland. That name has been around forever, certainly as long as Ive been around, an affable, cozy, slightly-too-cutesy, tote-bag-flavored characterization.

But to extend the metaphor, if we want to think of the library community as a land, we should recognize that Libraryland is not a continent, but an archipelagodozens, hundreds of islands big and small representing a dizzying gamut of types, perspectives, purposes, and clienteles, from tiny volunteer-run reading rooms open a few hours a week to offer a few hundred donated books in isolated communities, to the grandest and most richly appointed palaces in the largest cities and the greatest universities holding the treasures of thousands of years of human exploration.At first glance, it would seem that little could unify a profession this diverse and fractious, and there are days when we all probably think thats true. And yet, here we are, in all our rambunctious glory.

As we gather in Denver for the 2018 Midwinter Meeting, and as we debate our roles in an American society that sometimes feels like it is being torn apart, we can at least start our discussions from this point of agreement: What drives us allvast and tiny, academic and public, school and special, urban and rural, left and rightis a deep-seated desire, a calling even, to serve our communities. And its that commonality of purpose that must guide us now.

Joseph Janes is associate professor in the University of Washington Information School and author of Documents That Changed the Way We Live (Rowman & Littlefield).
I vividly remember my first ALA Midwinter Conference. It was January 1979 in Washington, D.C.and I was on the hunt for a job. As a relatively new MLS graduate, I was fortunate to have a position at the Cook Memorial Library in Libertyville, Ill., and I couldnt believe I was actually getting paid to promote books to teens. But I was homesick and wanted to get closer to my parents and siblings by finding a position in the east.

At that time, Midwinter was a purposeful conference designed more for committee meetings and the work of the association, with just a few programs and speakers. Had I not been on a job search, I probably would not have attended. But Im glad I did. And the networking I did at that conference led me to my next great professional opportunity (as well as the one after that).

Decades later, as I prepare to travel to Denver for this years meeting, Im still relishing the opportunity to connect with colleagues and friends. Like many conference participants, I will be traveling with a big suitcase. Even though as director of a large library system I have access to a wealth of books, I admit that Im a greedy hoarder of advanced reader copies (ARCs). Yes, I will be standing in the crush of librarians at the opening of the exhibits and rushing publishers booths for a chance to pick up buzzed-about titles.

I will also spend time perusing the tech and digital side of the exhibit floor as well. Often my library is looking for a specific kind of product to advance our work or improve service to customers, and I do use the exhibit time to engage with library vendors. In fact, some of my most productive conference experiences have involved relationship building with vendors, and I hope more conference participants take advantage of this part of Midwinter.

Among this years program highlights, I hope every attendee can make the opening session on Friday, February 9 (4-5:30 p.m.) to hear the conversation featuring Marley Dias, the creator of the #1000blackgirlbooks campaign, and Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Listening to these two women talk about their efforts to combat racism locally and globally will help attendees better understand the fight against inequity and injustice. Librarians and library workers grapple with these issues every day, in all types of libraries, and we must recognize how diverse, powerful voices can lead and influence our work.

 Im no longer looking for a job, but I am always looking for ways to do my job better... 

In my role as senior fellow to the ALA Office of Information Technology Policy (OITP), Im particularly interested in the OITP events at Midwinter. On Friday, February 9, OITP will be hosting a discussion called Creating Inclusive CS/Coding Programs for Youth (1:30-4 p.m.). People from the ALAs Libraries Ready to Code initiative, Google, and the National Center for Women and Information Technology will lead a workshop exploring how libraries can increase youth participation from groups underrepresented in the tech field. And Jim Neals ALA Presidents Program will have a creative twist: rather than a keynote speaker, it features a debate that will address the thought-provoking question of library neutrality.

As a former ALA president (who is still active in ALA), I truly care about the future of libraries and our association, so I will be at the candidates forum on Saturday, February 10, (4:30-5:30 p.m.) to hear the 20192020 ALA presidential candidates Wanda Brown and Peter Hepburn. Politically, we are at a critical moment for libraries in this country, and good leadership at ALA is vital.

Wanda is the director of library services at the C.G. OKelly Library at North Carolina State University, Winston-Salem, and Peter is the head librarian at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. I speak from experience when I say that the candidates forum is a milestone in the ALA election cycleand hats off to Wanda and Peter for stepping up for our association. I also plan to attend an ALA Council debate or two.

What programs and events are you most interested in this year? How do you do ALA Midwinter? How Ive used the meeting has certainly changed over the years. Im no longer looking for a job, but I am always looking for ways to do my job better, and Midwinter always provides me an opportunity to hear new ideas and to renew and refresh my professional commitment.

PW columnist Sari Feldman is executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Cleveland, Ohioone of the nations largest and highest-rated public library systemsand a former president of both the Public Library Association (20092010) and the American Library Association (20152016).
1. The Resistance



In his opening keynote at the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta, W. Kamau Bell, the popular podcaster and host of the CNN show United Shades of America, set the tone for what would be a very political year for librarians. Everything thats happening right now in America, Bell told librarians, youre on the front lines of that.

The good news is that the library community took Bells message to heart, and showed that it is activated and engaged politically. The not-so-good news: the political challenges facing the library community in the age of Trump will only intensify in the coming weeks and months.

We knew things were going to be potentially very threatening for libraries, said ALA executive director Keith Fiels, in an interview ahead of the 2017 ALA Annual Conference. But the administration has exceeded expectations in that regard, with a wholehearted attack on just about everything we value.

Indeed, the challenges for the libraries began before Trump even took the oath of office. In the days immediately following the election last November, ALA officials penned a rather generic letter in which they offered to work with the incoming Trump administration on issues of common interest. Such letters are an ordinary occurrence after any election. But 2016 was no ordinary election, and many ALA members were quick to express their displeasure to ALA officials through angry letters, blog posts, and editorials pointing out how Trumps rhetoric and his proposed agenda stood in stark contrast to many of the library communitys most fundamental values.

In response, ALA leaders arranged a town hall at the 2017 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta in January, where librarians had a chance to publicly express their concerns. And by spring, the controversy had a silver liningit had engaged ALA membership.

With strong public support, librarians mounted a stout grassroots defense in 2017 on issues including funding, net neutrality, copyright, tech and education policy, and the administrations ongoing assaults on the press and some of the library professions core values, including diversity, equity of access, inclusiveness, and information literacy.

The one thing Mr. Trump has done for us, if nothing else, Fiels told PW ahead of the ALA annual conference, is focus us. In 2018, the library community will need to keep that focus.

2. Leadership Changes at ALA

As if the incoming Trump administration wasnt enough to give the library community a jolt in 2017, the library profession also saw changes in its own national leadership. In May, ALA Washington Office executive director Emily Sheketoff retired after 17 years on the job, during which she helped deliver an impressive string of legislative and budget victories for libraries and established the library community as a force on Capitol Hill. Two months later, in July, ALA executive director Keith Michael Fiels also stepped away after 15 years leading the organization.

Its fair to say that Fiels was called to lead ALA through what will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary periods in the organizations history. When Fiels took over in 2002, the country was still reeling in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and would become bitterly divided over the war in Iraq. In 2003, the ALAs opposition to the USA Patriot Act would become a defining public moment for the association, and for librarians, with then ALA president Carla Hayden (now serving as the nations 14th librarian of Congress) clashing publicly with attorney general John Ashcroft over the governments warrantless searches of library records, and gag orders.

Things were also tense within the profession. As the pace of digital change quickened, librarians found themselves at once evangelizing for digital technology and wrestling with its implications. There was the cost and complexity of licensing digital resources, not to mention the hardware. Peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Napster had elevated copyright issues to a full-fledged moral panic, and libraries were later sued for partnering with Google to digitize out-of-print library books, and for facilitating e-reserves on college campuses.

Meanwhile, libraries of all kinds were busy remaking their physical spaces to serve this new digital information age, often over the complaints of their print users, while battling the perception that Google and Wikipedia were making them obsolete. And just as it was becoming clear that, no, libraries wouldnt be done in by Second Life, along came the iPhone, iPad, the Kindle, and, of course, social media, all of which hold major implications for the work of libraries. And as if that wasnt enough, the financial crisis and a global recession hammered library budgets, spurring massive layoffs and denting the ALA membership rolls.

As librarians gather for the 2018 ALA Midwinter Meeting, ALA membership numbers have stabilized and in recent years have been crawling back up. Thats good news, as the library community needs a strong professional association in such challenging times.

As for what's next, the Washington Office hasn't missed a beat. After a nationwide search, Kathi Kromer, previously the president of strategy and outreach for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association, was named to replaced Sheketoff at the Washington Office and began almost immediately after Sheketoff's departure, on June 5.

But some five months after Fiels stepped away, the ALA is still looking for his full-time replacement. ALA officials told PW the plan was to present finalists for the job at this years Midwinter Meeting, but that is not happening. After a nationwide search, the process now appears to be hung up on whether the new executive director should be required to hold an MLS degree.

3. Carla Hayden's Strong Start

Our top library story of last year was the historic swearing-in of Carla Hayden as the 14th U.S. librarian of Congress. In 2017, its clear that Hayden is already making a difference.

In her first full year on the job, Hayden is addressing a number of the critical challenges facing the library. But perhaps more importantly, she is proving to be a powerful and visible ambassador for both the Library of Congress and the library community at large, attending library conferences, winning accolades for her work, and actively engaging librarians in a way that has energized the profession and reassured local librarians that they finally have an engaged partner at the national level.

Our commitment to the library community is that the Library of Congress is going to share our experiences, Hayden told attendees at the OCLCs November Americas Regional Council meeting in Baltimore. And that means the failures, false starts, and all of that, because as you innovate you can learn from what worked and what didnt work. And we want to be partners with everyone and make sure that we are part of [the library] ecosystem.

The public outside the library profession has taken note as well. Last month, in what must have been a fun 36 hours in New York, Hayden 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.

The next morning, she accepted her 2017 Womens National Book Association Award, accompanied by her mother. The WNBA 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. Hayden certainly fits that bill.

4. The Publishing Community Steps Up for Library Funding

After the Trump administration proposed the elimination of virtually all federal library funding in its initial budget blueprint this spring, Americas libraries got a major boost on Capitol Hill in May from the publishing community.

Publishing organizationsincluding two Big Five publishers (Penguin Random House and Macmillan), Baker & Taylor, and a number of national trade associations, such as the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)launched the Corporate Committee for Library Investment (CCLI). After starting with eight founding members, within days the CCLIs ranks had swelled to nearly 100.

Members of CCLI are united by the common belief that Americas libraries are business building, job creating, workforce preparing engines of the U.S. economy in every corner of the country, stated the press release announcing the effort. And a CCLI letter to lawmakers urged them to fully fund libraries and to assure that any infrastructure investments authorized by Congress both include library facilities and leverage the nations 120,000 libraries to make high-speed broadband service available in every corner of America.

The show of solidarity from publishers was especially welcome in an age when the relationship between publishers and libraries has at times been tense. Although one organization was noticeably absent from the CCLI letterthe Association of American Publishers. Instead, the AAP sent its own separate letter that expressed strong support for libraries, but needed to point out that publishers and libraries still do not always agree on law and policy objectives. You know, in case there was any confusion about that.

5. The Next Register of Copyrights

Its been more than a year since Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden removed Maria Pallante from her post as register of copyrightsa move that sent shock waves through the content industries. But as 2018 approaches, it is still unclear when we will see a permanent appointee to lead the Copyright Office, or who will make that appointment.

Thats because, in April of this year, the U.S. House of Representatives rushed through the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act (HR 1695), a bill that proposes to do one thing: take the register of copyrights position out of the purview of the librarian of Congress, (who has oversight over the Copyright Office) and make it a presidential appointment.

Supporters of HR 1695 insist the bill is necessary to modernize the Copyright Office. Critics, however, note that the bill does nothing to modernize the Copyright Officeit merely tweaks the top of the Copyright Office's org chart.

So what's really behind the bill? In short, it's fallout from Hayden's sudden removal of Pallante, who was considered a strong ally of the content industries, and whose 2013 policy tract "The Next Great Copyright Act" provided the inspiration and the framework for House Judiciary Committee's now concluded review of our nation's copyright laws.

After being rushed through the House in April, HR 1695 is now stuck in the Senate (SB 1010), which has shown little desire to move on it. But the bill nevertheless seems to be serving its purpose: it is keeping Hayden, who the content industries have portrayed as an "anti-copyright" librarian, from permanently replacing Pallante.

The worst part of this story: there is broad agreement that the Copyright Office is in dire need of resources and modernization. But the only fix weve seen proposed by Congress is this bill, which seeks only to politicize the register of copyrights positiona proposal that makes little sense on the merits, and even less sense when you consider the state of our politics today.

There is a slim chance, however, that the ice could start to break on a permanent replacement by the end of next year. Thats because Rep. Bob Goodlatte and Rep. John Conyers, the authors of HR 1695 (and the leaders of that Judiciary Committee copyright review) are leaving Congress. Conyers is already gone, in fact, abruptly retiring earlier this month in the wake of troubling allegations of sexual harassment. And Goodlatte announced he will retire at the end of the year. Perhaps new leadership will bring a fresh perspective to the copyright debate.



6. A Second Appeal in the GSU E-reserves Case

In his opening statement before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in July, plaintiff publishers attorney Bruce Rich called the litigation over e-reserves at Georgia State University a seemingly never-ending case. Still going strong in its 9th year, it sure feels that way.

First filed in April of 2008 by three academic publishers (Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage Publications with support from the Copyright Clearance Center and the AAP), the suit alleges that GSU administrators systematically encourage their faculty to offer unlicensed digital copies of course readings (known as e-reserves) as a no-cost alternative to traditionally licensed course packs.

In 2012, Judge Orinda Evans first ruled against the publishers, finding that GSUs copying was fair use in all but five of 48 instances presented at trial. In 2014, the 11th Circuit reversed and sent the case back to Evans with instructions to give the fourth fair use factor (market effect) additional weight in her remand decision. And in 2016, Evans again found fair usein fact, she found even fewer infringements than in her original verdict.

Which brings us to round two before the 11th Circuit, which was held on July 27. At that hearing, one member of the three-judge appeals panel appeared skeptical of Evans, questioning how she could originally find that the fourth factor tilted strongly toward infringement in 31 claims, but in her remand decision suddenly find those claims now tilt toward fair use. Another judge on the panel questioned the publishers contention that the mere presence of a market for digital licenses automatically tips the fourth factor for the publishers. That cant possibly be the be-all and end-all of the test, the judge observed.

There is no timetable on when the 11th Circuit might rule this time around. But barring a settlement, however the 11th Circuit decides, this case could still be far from a resolution.

7. Sci-Hub

In 2017, U.S. courts landed two solid blows against Sci-Hub, the site founded by Kazakhstani neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan that proudly bills itself as the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers.

In May of this year, Elsevier won a default judgment against the site and was awarded $15 million in damages. And later this fall, the American Chemical Society (ACS) won a similar $4.8 million default judgment against Sci-Hub. But more significantly, the court in the ACSs case ordered that internet service providers (ISP) and search engines block access to Sci-Hubs domains, and as of this writing, those domains are in fact shut down.

But can the court orders stop Sci-Hub? Given that Elbakyan runs the site from Russia, outside the reach of U.S. courts, it's hard to see how. While the domain problems may temporarily make the site harder to find for some, reports the web site TorrentFreak, its not likely to be the end for Sci-Hub.

No question, the scholarly publishing community finds itself in a tough spot here. Academics and librarians respect copyright. But the fact remains, most researchers actually support Sci-Hubs goal of open access to scientific research (if not Sci-Hub's practices).

Take the followng statement, for example: Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding. No, those words are not Elbakyans. They belong to to famed physicist Stephen Hawking, from a statement made during Open Access Week this past October.

Publishers can treat Sci-Hub like it is a copyright enforcement problem, which it is. But the central problem Sci-Hub presents is far more complex. In a blog post last month on The Conversation, Patrick Burns, dean of libraries and v-p for information technology at Colorado State University laid it out, suggesting that a financially unsustainable scholarly publishing system is in fact the oxygen that sustains Sci-Hub.

Efforts like [Sci-Hub] to bypass paywalls are only symptoms of the problem, Burns concluded. If we are to maintain healthy education and research environments, changes are incipient and imperative.

8. Net Neutrality



On December 14, the Federal Communications Commission voted to scrap net neutrality rules, the Obama-era protections that forbade Internet Service Providers (like Verizon, or Comcast) from controlling the content on their networks.

Specifically, the new FCC rules reclassify high-speed broadband as an information service rather than a telecommunications service. And since the FCC is forbidden from imposing neutrality obligations on information services, explains the EFFs Corynne McSherry, your ISP is now free to set itself up as an Internet gatekeeper.

In other words, the FCC has paved the way for ISPs to work more like cable television, McSherry writes, potentially turning the open Internet into a pay-to-play service where companies will be forced to negotiate with ISPs to avoid their content being buried, degraded, or even blocked.

The library community has been an early, bedrock proponent of net neutrality protections, and ALA president Jim Neal told PW that the ALAs Intellectual Freedom Committee is studying how the loss of net neutrality impacts our First Amendment protections, a subject that Change.orgs Jonathan Perri addressed last week in a Mashable editorial.

Net neutrality levels the playing field so that anyone with any idea or story, regardless of how much money they have, will be able to share it, just by having access to the internet, Perri wrote. Its a form of democracy, not unlike the right to vote or speak up at a town hall, that should be protected, not attacked.

In fact, one of the most disturbing aspects of the FCC decision is how undemocratic it is: the American public overwhelmingly supports net neutrality rules, which was made clear in the public comment period, while just a handful of big companies lobbied against them. Expect that fact to play a key role as the battle now shifts to the courts and Congress. And expect the library community, which often represents the publics interest on the Hill, to play a key role in reestabslihing net neutrality protections.

9. NYPL Tries Again with Historic Renovation Project

After an earlier attempt was scuttled, in November the New York Public Library unveiled a new $317 million master plan for the renovation of the New York Public Librarys historic Stephen A. Schwarzman main library.

We do this for a very simple reason, NYPL president and CEO Tony Marx told constituents at a November 20 public hearing, the first of many to be held as the plan progresses. We believe that this library, the research library, and the public use of a great research library is more important now than its ever been.

In 2014, library officials were forced to abandon their controversial Central Library Plan after a public outcry. But this time around, Marx says NYPL leaders have taken that experience to heart and promise a more open, transparent process.

Two things I think weve learned in particular: one is to listen to our great library staff, library users, and the public at large, and to do that in an iterative processto keep developing plans and perfecting them and refining them as those conversations continue, Marx said. And the other is to be totally respectful of the amazing, iconic architecture of this building.

10. Progress on Library E-books?

For years, e-book access was the hot issue for libraries and publishers, and a source of simmering tension. But, since 2014, when all the major publishers were finally allowing libraries to license and lend e-books, theres been little motivation to improve how the library e-book market operates. But is a small measure of progress coming in 2018?

Ahead of the 2017 ALA Annual Conference this summer, HarperCollins became the first major publisher to make a portion of its backlist available to multiple users simultaneously, sparking hope that more publishers might finally begin to explore options for improving the library e-book experience.

In a post on the ReadersFirst website, Michael Blackwell, director of the St. Marys County (Md.) Library, thanked HarperCollins for the gesture. Will other publishers follow? Could high-demand frontlist titles follow? What will it look like in library catalogs? Great questions, he wrote. We can hope for continued progress.

Meanwhile, on that score, ReadersFirst completed a survey of its member libraries in November that offers great insight into what kinds of changes libraries are looking for. Among its findings, some 94% of respondents said that multiple license types would be beneficial. Ideally, the survey suggests, librarians would like to be able to mix-and-match different license models on a title-by-title basis to better serve patrons, reduce hold times, and to make the most efficient use of their librarys limited budgetsfor example, simultaneous use to meet a period of peak demand, perpetual access to keep a few copies in the collection, and some kind of metered access to provide routine service. The survey also addressed the elephant in the digital stacks: high prices for e-books remain a major impediment for libraries.

But another question looms for 2018 as well: In 2017, the ALAs Digital Content Working Group finished its five-year charter and disbanded. The groups work was credited with helping to break the impasse with publishers over e-books, and it was praised for opening critical lines of communication between publishers and librarians. In 2018, without the DCWG, how will publishers and librarians keep those lines of communication open?
Two book business veterans have joined forces to launch Apollo Publishers, a topical adult nonfiction publisher based in New York, with an inaugural list of books covering food, politics, war, and religion, among other subjects.

The press, led by co-publishers Alex Merrill and Julia Abramoffwho also serve as directors of sales and editorial, respectivelywas founded in 2016 and its debut list of seven titles will be released in spring 2018. The publisher is aiming to publish 20 books in its first publishing year. "The thing with having seven books per season," Abramoff said, "is you only publish books you believe in. It's enough books to make people notice us and care about us and yet small enough to do each book justice." That said, Merrill added, "we plan to double our size from year one to year two, and we'd like to keep growing."

Apollo's books will be distributed by Ingram Publisher Servicesfor now, exclusively in the U.S. and Canadian markets, although Apollo retains world rights for each of its books. Publicity will be handled by Justin Loeber and Janelle Dunbar and social media by Cydnie Lunsford, all of Mouth: Digital + Public Relations.

Among the press's first titles are A Taste of Cuba: A Journey Through Cuba and Its Savory Cuisine, by Cynthia Carris Alonso, Jose Luis Alonso, and Valerie Feigen; Bittersweet: The Life and Times of the Worlds Leading Chocolate Taster, by Angus Kennedy; The Colored Waiting Room: Empowering the Original and New Civil Rights Movements, by Kevin Shird and Nelson Malden; and Days of Lead: Defying Death During Israels War of Independence by Moshe Rashkes, a 1960s Israeli title to be published in English and outside Israel for the first time in conjunction with Israels 70th anniversary. Print run numbers have yet to be finalized for any of the titles.

The publisher, which is self-funded, intends to take a new approach to what some may call "current events" publishing, but which Abramoff instead refers to as books that are "timely and topical"books that cover the sort of topics "people talk about at the water cooler." Merill concurs: "We're not pigeonholing ourselves to one small area of timely books. This is not current events publishing. This is topical publishing."

Apollo hopes to take full advantage of Ingram's large slate of publishing tools, with Merrill mentioning its email marketing platform and digital book marketing platform, Aerio, as tools it hopes to put to good use in promoting its authors.

Merrill and Abramoff met at Skyhorse Publishing, where Merrill served as COO and Abramoff as senior editor; before that, Merill served as publisher of Globe Pequot Press following a career in magazine publishing, while Abramoff had previously spent seven years as an editor at HarperCollins. Merrill and Abramoff will work with a familiar group of editors, and copy editors, plus art director Rain Saukas.

"Alex and Justin and Rain and I work with the same editors over and over again," Abramoff said. "It's a larger family."

This article has been updated for clarity and to correct spelling errors.
The Pardee RAND Graduate School (PardeeRAND.edu) is home to the only Ph.D. and M.Phil. programs offered at an independent public policy research organizationthe RAND Corporation.
Mathematics and reading are standard subjects in every public-school education. But students need more than proficiency in reading or mathan increasing amount of research tells us that qualities like perseverance, active listening, empathy and good decision-making help our youth succeed both academically and in life. This has prompted more schools to become interested in integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) into their curriculum.

State and school district education leaders can find support for SEL programs under the federal law that governs K-12 public education policy, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). While it does not explicitly reference SEL, the law does support programming that improves school conditions for learning, peer interactions, volunteerism, community involvement and instructional practices for developing relationship-building skills. These all build social and emotional learning in students.

RAND's recent review of SEL interventions, funded by The Wallace Foundation, identified many SEL-related activities and programs that are backed by evidence. This is important not only because educators want to use programs that have been shown to benefit students, but also because an evidence base can open up funding opportunities under ESSA.

Our research found that having an evidence base allows leaders to pursue three potential funding streams for SEL interventions. First, Title I (Improving the Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged) provides opportunities to incorporate SEL into school operations through school-wide assistance programs, targeted assistance programs and school support and improvement activities. Second, states may consider Title II (Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High-Quality Teachers, Principals, or Other School Leaders) to seek funds for building educators' capacity to provide SEL instruction or SEL-related professional development of school leaders. Third, Title IV (21st-Century Schools) could be used to support SEL interventions that improve the educational opportunities of students.

The legislation defines three levels of evidence from empirical research: strong (Tier I), moderate (Tier II), and promising (Tier III) evidence. Districts and schools have a variety of options for SEL interventions that meet ESSA evidence requirements, facilitating the possibility of finding an evidence-based SEL intervention that meets local needs. The U.S. Department of Education published nonregulatory guidance ( PDF ) that provides more information about the evidence tiers.

Overall, our review of the research literature found 60 SEL interventions that have recently been evaluated in U.S.-based, K12 public schools and meet ESSA evidence requirements for Tiers I-III. Most interventions showed positive effects on building students' intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. Several interventions also had positive effects on other critical outcomes, such as academic attainment and achievement and civic attitudes and behaviors. Many of the interventions were paired by professional development and implementation support for school staff, and several interventions have a dedicated website for implementation support.

ESSA offers flexibility for educators to implement interventions that are designed to address local needs but may lack empirical research. ESSA's Tier IVdemonstrating a rationaledoes not require existing empirical evidence but requires (1) that the intervention is supported by a strong rationale for believing the intervention is likely to improve the targeted outcomes and (2) that an evaluation of the intervention is under way. Tier IV encourages evaluation of local experimentationssuch as creating new programs or altering existing programs to fit with local conditionswhich could ultimately enable states and local education agencies to contribute to the evidence base for SEL interventions.

When seeking ESSA funding to support social and emotional learning, schools and districts could consider carrying out needs assessments to identify which SEL interventions would best address their needs. Schools and districts also need to make sure broader conditionssuch as professional development, a supportive school culture, and sufficient time and resources for SELare in place to support high-quality implementation of chosen interventions. Educators might benefit from professional development or other support to help them better understand how to incorporate the use of evidence in their decisions about school policies and practices interventions.

Although ESSA enables states to include measures of SEL in their accountability or indicator systems, so far no states have taken this step. An increasing variety of high-quality SEL measures is available, but, most have been validated to either further research or to inform instruction and continuous improvement, rather than for external reporting or accountability. Moreover, there are gaps in the availability of measures for some SEL outcomes and grade levels. Access to high-quality SEL assessment measures in the near-future is a pressing need to ensure the programs being contemplated by a school, district, or state will actually improve student learning and their futures.

Sean Grant is a behavioral and social scientist and Laura S. Hamilton is associate director of RAND Education at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on The Measuring SEL Blog on December 13, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
In her new book, RAND's Susan Marquis takes readers inside the fight to improve working conditions in the Florida tomato fields, once some of the most brutal workplaces in American agriculture.

The book, I Am Not a Tractor! How Florida Farmworkers Took on the Fast Food Giants and Won, was released today by Cornell University Press. It traces the history and victories of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a grassroots group of farmworkers and community leaders who wrested better wages and working conditions from major tomato growers and their corporate buyers.

The coalition saw that those corporate buyersmostly grocery and fast food chainsheld the real power to improve their conditions. Through public protests and boycotts, they convinced those buyers to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and to uphold a code of conduct prohibiting physical violence, sexual harassment, and other abuses in the fields. That comprehensive approach, Marquis says, transformed Florida's tomato fields into some of the best agricultural workplaces in America, without the need for new legislation, regulation, or government participation.

Cornell University Press

Her book is the product of years of independent research and personal interest. Essential support from RAND enabled her to begin writing during a two-month fellowship at RAND Europe.

I Am Not a Tractor! is not the only recent recognition of the coalition's success. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has put on display a papier-mache model that the coalition used in its protests, of the Statue of Liberty holding a bucket of tomatoes. In October, group cofounder Greg Asbed received a genius grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on behalf of the coalition.
English-language Japanese news, culture and lifestyle channel NHK WORLD TV has formally announced its availability to 6.4 million households in Germany on the cable network of Unitymedia.





The free-to-air channel has been automatically added to the channel list on digital receivers provided by Unitymedia. It joins the basic, unencrypted line-up accessible by all cable TV households, and will feature original programming from Japanese public broadcaster NHK. This, said the channel, would be a unique and diverse blend of programming featuring the hourly live international news from Tokyo and news bureaux around the globe and programmes on Japanese society, politics, scientific advancement, culture, history, food and lifestyle.Programmes include: Dining with the Chef, a weekly cookery show with world-famous Japanese chef Tatsuo Saito which provides viewers with the latest techniques, fundamentals and practical advice on authentic Japanese cooking; technology programme Great Gear focuses on new products based on Japanese ideas and technologies from a wide range of industries, from cars to consumer electronics; and Journeys in Japan follows English-speaking travellers across Japan exploring local culture, meeting the people and offering hints rarely found in guidebooks.Germany is one of the most significant markets in the world, said Yoshihiko Shimizu, president and CEO of Japan International Broadcasting. We are honoured to share Asian culture with its people through our high quality and captivating programming.We are happy about the addition of NHK WORLD TV to our line-up, added Christian Hindennach, chief commercial officer.at Unitymedia. The channel will give our customers an inside view into Japanese news, culture and lifestyle and increase the choice and variety on our cable network.
Sony Pictures Television Networks (SPTN) has unveiled a new mobile app brand POP FUN, featuring digital content for its portfolio of kids channels POP, Tiny Pop and POP MAX.





The app brings together shows, games, galleries and competitions from SPTNs three networks and will be available on iOS and Android devices acting as a free, one-stop digital destination. The company promises that kids will be able to find their favourite shows as easily as if holding a remote control.Suitable for boys and girls aged there to ten, POP FUN will feature a range of shows on demand including Power Rangers Dino Super Charge, LEGO Nexo Knights, Zak Storm, PJ Masks, Rabbids Invasion, Miffys Adventures Big and Small and Alvinnn!!! And the Chipmunks.From launch, kids will also be able to get creative with POP FUNs exclusive Artpad, a creative drawing tool which includes colour-ins and stickers of their favourite characters; and interact with specially created games including Match-Up and Spot the Difference. POP FUN also allows parents to submit birthday mentions for their children to be featured on TV within the Tiny Pop Birthdays video.The app, created in partnership with creative agency Jollywise , is said to have been developed to be a safe space and provides customisation and personalisation features, to ensure a safe environment for children. Profile customisation allows users to select their age and favourite channel which then filters appropriate content.Commenting on the launch, Kate Marsh, executive vice president, Western Europe, Sony International Networks, said: With more and more children turning to tablets and mobile apps to engage with their favourite content, we are hugely excited to be launching this app to further champion our already successful kids portfolio in the UK. Now kids and parents will be able to engage with and enjoy their favourite content on all types of screens - on TV, mobile and tablet, at home and on-the-go.
Digital distributor and content management company MoMedia has entered into a content strategy partnership with consultancy Andromedia to bring hit series Insectibles and shorts of the One Animation's Emmy-nominated series, Oddbods, to iTunes and Google Play for the first time.





Co-produced with partners KIKA, Discovery Kids and ZDFE, Insectibles is a 3D animated comedy adventure show for 6 to 9-year-olds. It is currently the number one kids show in Germany. Emmy-nominated Oddbods is a sketch-based show following the adventures of seven very different, relatable and lovable characters. Together, despite their differences, they survive the perils of everyday life, unintentionally turning ordinary situations into unexpected, extraordinary and humorous events. The Oddbods YouTube channel is said to be one of the fastest growing kids channels globally with over 2.4 billion views and 1.2 million subscribers and continues to exceed expectations across its TV broadcast partners which span over 100 markets worldwide. One Animation is a CG animation studio and consumer products company that has produced a portfolio of animation titles that are broadcast on global networks such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Commenting on the deal, Maxim de Wit, head of digital strategy, said: We continuously aim to expand the availability of our content across all platforms to ensure that kids everywhere can enjoy our shows. We chose MoMedia to work with as it has an excellent track record in ensuring this within a dynamic marketplace moving at warp speed. Key partnerships with quality specialists are crucial for a creative company to reach these new and highly engaged audiences.
The U.S. position on North Korea is becoming increasingly incoherent. On Dec. 12, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington is ready for a first meeting with Pyongyang without preconditions. The next day, a White House spokesperson told Yonhap news agency that now is not the time for talks with North Korea. Pyongyang has yet to respond. After months of U.S. military drills and North Korean missile tests, it may seem odd that the U.S. would even consider unconditional talks. But somethings got to give, and the U.S. is being forced to choose between two bad options.

Tough Choices

Pyongyang has proved its ability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the continental U.S., and it is well on its way toward having a deliverable nuclear weapon. The U.S. must respond, and so far, sanctioning North Korea and pressuring China havent worked. This has left Washington with two choices: eliminate the threat or reduce it.

To eliminate the threat, the U.S. would have to destroy all of North Koreas nuclear and missile facilities. To reduce it, it would have to accept a nuclear North Korea and try to deter Pyongyang from using its missiles offensively. The first option would likely result in high military and civilian casualties. The U.S. Air Force would face strong anti-aircraft fire, and short of a nuclear first strike, there would be no guarantee that the U.S. could eliminate the Norths capabilities. The second option would leave the U.S. mainland vulnerable to a nuclear attack but allow it to avoid launching a strike that may or may not succeed. This option comes at a higher risk in the long term but at a much lower cost.

Though the conflicting messages from the White House and the secretary of state complicate the issue, they do not change the options available to the United States. Its no secret that there are differences of opinion between the White House and the State Department. Its possible that these differences are getting in the way of the U.S. defining a unified approach to North Korea. Its also possible that the government is playing good cop-bad cop to improve its bargaining position. In any case, Tillersons offer to hold talks was an acknowledgement of the constraints the U.S. is facing when it comes to North Korea, and the White Houses rebuff wont change that reality.

In his comments, Tillerson not only addressed U.S. constraints but also acknowledged North Koreas limitations. The North Koreans already have too much invested in their nuclear program to give it up now, he said. Agreeing to dialogue on the condition that Pyongyang abandon the program would be unrealistic, as this would undermine the countrys military defense and its regime.

From the U.S. perspective, pursuing unconditional talks would give Washington more control and would offer potentially acceptable results at a much lower cost than launching an attack. From the North Korean perspective, unconditional talks represent a capitulation on the part of the U.S., which the regime could frame domestically as a victory. But if North Korea agreed to unconditional talks, it would be backtracking on previous comments about requiring conditions, like ending U.S.-South Korean military drills, before coming to the table. If it declined, then Pyongyang  not Washington  would appear to be the uncooperative party, and if war did break out, the U.S. could tell its allies that it exhausted all options to find a peaceful resolution.

Where Do Others Stand?

South Korea, unsurprisingly, supports unconditional talks. In the event of war, South Korea would have a lot to lose and would be the easiest target for the North Koreans. Its minister for unification has already said he would support this move and encouraged North Korea to accept the offer.

U.S. and South Korean military officials are reportedly considering delaying annual joint military exercises scheduled for February, during the 2018 Winter Olympics, which will be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Though this move might be motivated by security concerns  Washington and Seoul likely want to avoid angering North Korea during the Olympics  it could also be seen as a gesture that both countries are willing to hold off on military exercises if the North freezes its nuclear program. This is essentially the proposal put forth by Russia and China, but the U.S. doesnt want to publicly accept a plan proposed by these two countries. By temporarily suspending exercises and presenting the possibility of talks without preconditions, the U.S. is suggesting that it would be open to this solution.

Japan will be less willing to accept unconditional talks. The Japanese government has strongly supported Washingtons past strategies, including sanctions. It still believes sanctions could persuade North Korea and, at the very least, force it to come to the negotiating table in a weak position. But opening up talks might result in lifting sanctions, and Japan cant accept this. Negotiations could take months and may not even work in the end; in the meantime, North Korea would just grow stronger without sanctions in place.

But the U.S. has subtly suggested to Japan that sanctions alone will not solve the crisis. There is evidence that the North is finding ways around them. On Dec. 12, the U.S. national security adviser asserted that North Korea still receives fuel products from ship-to-ship transfers offshore. In addition, U.S. think tank C4ADS and South Korean think tank Sejong Institute released a joint report claiming that North Korea, though hurt by sanctions, has managed so far to navigate around them.

As for China, the prospect of talks with North Korea could mark an end to U.S. pressure on Beijing. This is welcome news for the Chinese, who have had to face the threat of sanctions against Chinese companies and other members of the business community with ties to North Korea. Tillerson claimed that the U.S. and China have discussed how to secure North Koreas nuclear weapons if Kim Jong Uns regime falls. He said Beijing was given assurances that if U.S. forces had to enter North Korea, they would not cross the Chinese border. The Chinese government avoided directly answering any questions about this comment.

Washingtons limitations are becoming increasingly apparent, and holding talks without preconditions would ultimately be an acknowledgement of those limitations. It would place the pressure back on North Korea and help cement Seouls support for Washington. If the U.S. can learn to live with a nuclear North Korea, future U.S. moves will focus on measures to discourage further development or offensive use of North Koreas nuclear and ICBM programs.
On April 7, Old Dominion, a country rock band from Nashville, will return to Athens to play at the Classic Center. A lot has happened to the b
The Athens-Clarke County Police Department was one of multiple entities involved in the arrest of nine individuals involved in a child sex investigation. All nine were arrested in Clarke County. (File/Staff)
Bridget Thompson, 19, passed away due to a pedestrian accident on the Georgia State Route 10 Loop on Friday, May 5. (Photo/Courtesy via Facebook)
Monrovia set for semistate battle with Lawrenceburg. Here's what to know.

Here's all the information you need to know before Friday's IHSAA semi-state football showdown between Monrovia and Lawrenceburg.
International aid groups that have been ordered out of Pakistan say that hundreds of thousands of victims of violence and natural disasters might stop receiving life-saving assistance as a result of the move.

Pakistani authorities have ordered more than 20 global charities to wind up their operations within two months, including billionaire George Soros' Open Society Foundations and the ActionAid womens' charity, the aid groups and Interior Ministry officials said on December 14.

Open Society said the charities were given 90 days to appeal the orders, but it was "not clear how this process will be managed." The Soros group has provided $3 million for earthquake relief and $6 million for flood relief since 2005.

The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum, which represents foreign aid groups, says their work directly benefits about 29 million people in Pakistan.

Foreign aid groups contributed some $285 million in funding for development and emergency relief in 2016, and employ over 5,000 local staff, it said.

The government's latest move against charities appears to be part of a drive that began two years ago against such foreign-funded groups, citing suspicions that some of them were being used as fronts for spying by Western countries.

Already expelled last month was the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which was forced to close its last remaining facility in the tribal region along the Afghan border where the government has waged a bloody battle against extremist groups in recent years.

The doctors group warned that many victims of violence in the region would go without medical treatment as a result of the move.

"It will complicate the humanitarian situation for communities displaced by the war or marginalized by the social norms," Taimur Kamal, a rights activist in the city of Peshawar, told dpa.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people who depend on aid for shelter, food, health care, and sanitation," Kamal said, "and the funding comes from the groups being expelled."

Inayat Khan, an aid worker in the northern town of Mansehra where a deadly earthquake in 2005 displaced millions of people, echoed those concerns.

I am not sure if the government alone can help people still needing assistance more than a decade after the earthquake," Khan, who works for a local group funded by a British charity, told dpa.

"Expelling groups behind the vital operation will not be appreciated," Khan said.

The Interior Ministry has not said how the government will manage humanitarian fallout from the expulsions.

Pakistan has adopted increasingly harsh restrictions on charities ever since it cited suspicions that the Save the Children charity ran a fake vaccination drive to help the U.S. CIA find out where Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was living in 2011.

American Navy SEALs flew in on helicopters and killed bin Laden inside the compound where he had been hiding in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad after learning his whereabouts.

Save the Children denied the allegations, but a Pakistani doctor who Islamabad charges acted as a spy for the CIA while conducting a vaccination campaign remains in jail.

With reporting by AP and dpa


A court in the Russian city of St. Peterburg has sentenced a Central Asian man arrested in connection with a high-profile April bombing that killed 16 people on a subway train in the city.

Obod Abdyraimov from Kyrgyzstan pleaded guilty to recruiting men and women to join the Islamic State (IS) extremist organization and was sentenced to five years in jail on December 14.

Investigators said that one of the men recruited by Abdyraimov was Makhamadyusuf Mirzaalimov, an ethnic Uzbek from Kyrgyzstan, who is a suspect in the subway bombing case.

Russian authorities have said that 10 Central Asians were arrested after a 22-year-old Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen, Akbarjon Jalilov, detonated a bomb on the St. Petersburg subway on April 3, killing himself and 15 passengers.

The Russian Investigative Committee said the suspects were involved in masterminding and implementing the attack.

Based on reporting by Rapsinews, TASS, and Interfax


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. Im joined by the Royal United Services Institutes Raffaello Pantucci to talk about Xi and Putin. Listen to the first episode here or below.

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.
A Moscow court has found former Russian Economy Minister Aleksei Ulyukayev guilty of taking a "large bribe" in a high-profile corruption case and sentenced him to eight years in a strict-regime prison.

Ulyukayev called the sentence "unfair" as he was led from the courtroom in handcuffs after the December 15 hearing, and another prominent former government minister tweeted that the verdict was "horrible."

Judge Larisa Semyonova read out the verdict and sentence after a delay of some 90 minutes in starting the hearing. The court barred media from broadcasting the hearing live.

"Ulyukayev knew and was aware of the character of his actions," Semyonova said during the reading of the verdict, which lasted nearly three hours.

Ulyukayev is the highest-ranking official to be arrested since the Stalin era, and the case underscored rifts in Russia's ruling elite ahead of an election that seems certain to hand President Vladimir Putin a six-year term that could be his last.

Ukyukayev was accused of taking a $2 million bribe from Igor Sechin -- the CEO of state oil giant Rosneft and a longtime associate of Putin -- in exchange for his ministry's approval of the sale of regional oil company Bashneft to Rosneft.

'Unfounded'

Shortly after the hearing, former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said on Twitter that the verdict was "horrible" and "unfounded."

"Alas, one often encounters such injustice these days," he wrote.

In addition to the prison sentence, the judge ordered Ulyukayev to pay a fine of 130 million rubles ($2.2 million) and barred him from holding public office for eight years after he is released from prison.

Ulyukayev was handcuffed and taken from the courtroom into custody following the sentence.

Considering the 13 months he has already served in custody, mostly under house arrest, he would be released in 2023.

As guards removed the former minister, he shouted to journalists that the sentence was "unfair" but that he "continues to hope."

Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence Ulyukayev to 10 years in prison and to fine him some $8.5 million.

Defense attorneys told journalists after the hearing that they would appeal the conviction and the sentence to the Moscow City Court.

As he waited for the judge to appear and start the hearing at the Zamoskovetsky district court, Ulyukayev told journalists that he expected "justice."

'Cruel Provocation'

Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Ulyukayev to 10-years in a "harsh regime" prison and to fine him some $8.5 million.

Ulyukayev, 61, has denied the accusation and said he was the victim of a set-up.

"All the materials collected in the case prove that I did not commit any crime," he said during his trial. "I am a victim of a monstrous and cruel provocation."

Ulyukayev claimed he was tricked by Sechin and believed that a bag full of money that he accepted from Sechin contained a gift of rare wine -- not $2 million in cash.

Sechin is a powerful, longtime ally of Putin, who is all but certain to win a fourth presidential term in a March 18 election.

Prominent liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky, who has declared his candidacy in the election, wrote on Twitter that the conviction was "an act of intimidation" and compared it to the 2015 killing of former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin.

"One can be a person like Nemtsov and one can be a person like Ulyukayev," Yavlinsky wrote. "The outcome is the same.... This trial is not to be trusted at all. And it is only the beginning."

'Clear Warning'

Former Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Aleksashenko posted on Twitter that the conviction was "a clear warning about the rules of the game" to all who believe in trying to change the system from within.

In the state's closing argument on December 7, prosecutor Pavel Filipchuk said evidence proved that Ulyukayev took the money as a bribe in exchange for his ministry's approval of the sale of the state-owned regional oil company Bashneft to Rosneft.

Filipchuk dismissed as "groundless" Ulyukayevs allegations that the case was a set-up by Sechin and Russias Federal Security Service (FSB).

In reading the verdict, the court accepted all the prosecution's arguments and said there was no reason to doubt the motives or actions of the FSB.

Ulyukayev is seen as a member of the liberal camp in the Russian ruling elite, while Sechin -- a longtime former deputy chief of staff at the Kremlin -- is perceived as a hard-liner and one of Putin's closest allies.

Caught 'Red-Handed'

Ulyukayev was arrested at Rosneft's Moscow headquarters early on November 15, 2016, hours after a meeting with Sechin.

Putin fired him the following day, but not before he became the only serving minister to be arrested since Josef Stalin's henchman, Lavrenty Beria, was detained and executed after the dictator's death in 1953.

Putin weighed in on the trial during his annual press conference on December 14, responding to a journalist who asked about case and about Sechin's refusal to appear in court and testify as a witness despite being summoned four times.

Putin said Sechin's failure to testify was not illegal, but the president seemed to suggest he was displeased by the refusal, saying at the Rosneft chief "could have come" to the trial.

Speaking after the verdict, Rosneft spokesman and former pro-Kremlin television personality Mikhail Leontyev claimed that Ulyukayev had been caught "red-handed" and "there wasn't really any need for further proof."

"Ulyukayev's guilt is obvious," Leontyev told the Interfax news agency.

Prosecutors said on December 15 that it was possible Sechin would be summoned again when Ulyukayev's appeal is heard.

With reporting by Merhat Sharipzhan, Rapsi, Interfax, Gazeta.ru, Kommersant, and Vedomosti
WASHINGTON -- NATO has accused Russia of developing a missile system in violation of a key Cold War arms treaty, the latest accusation from the West in a dispute that some fear will lead to the treatys demise.

The statement from the alliance, released on December 15, comes days after the United States signaled a tougher stance in its approach toward Moscow and the missile system, which a U.S. official identified publicly for the first time last month.

The statement wasnt the first time the alliance's main political decision-making body -- the North Atlantic Council-- has weighed in on the dispute over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF). But it was the most forceful to date and followed a briefing that U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave to allied defense ministers last month.

"Allies have identified a Russian missile system that raises serious concerns, the December 15 statement said.

It urged Russia "to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States.

It's the first [North Atlantic Council] statement as such, but allies have been discussing these issues for some time," a NATO official who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity said.

Signed in 1987, the treaty eliminated an entire class of missiles from Europe and is considered a bedrock agreement for arms control between Washington and Moscow.

Three years ago, Washington publicly accused Moscow of developing a ground-launched cruise missile that fell within the treatys prohibitions. Russia has repeatedly rejected the accusations, demanded more information, and leveled its own accusations at U.S. missile-defense systems in Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 14 insisted again that Moscow was complying with the INF and accused Washington of trying to set up a way to withdraw from it altogether.

The United States European allies have in the past been frustrated that Washington hasnt shared more technical evidence of Moscows violations.

The NATO statement was issued one day after a special technical commission, established under the treaty rules, met to discuss the dispute and other issues related to the INF treaty.

The State Department said in a statement late on December 14 that participants expressed the view that the INF treaty continues to play an important role in the existing system of international security, nuclear disarmament, and nonproliferation, and that they will work to preserve and strengthen it.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also issued a statement on December 15 that was a word-for-word translation of the State Department's remarks.

The State Department on December 8 warned that Washington was taking military and economic measures against Moscow, the first announcement of its sort by President Donald Trump's administration, signaling a more determined approach to the treaty dispute.

Late last month, a top White House official for the first time confirmed long-standing suspicions about the type of missile Washington alleged Moscow had deployed.

Christopher Ford, a National Security Council official involved in arms control, identified the missile designation -- 9M729 -- which outside arms-control experts have been focusing on for some time now.

That has led to concerns that the new missile could be indistinguishable from an existing system that is not covered by the INF treaty: the highly sophisticated Iskander-M. That would pose a challenge for inspecting and verifying the weapon is in compliance.

Ford also made some eyebrow-raising comments about officials previously involved in U.S. arms control policy in the administration of Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama.

Let me start with arms control with Russia, about which I am proud to say that we in the new team are proving ourselves tougher-minded and more rigorous than our predecessors, Ford said, according to the written transcript.

By contrast to our predecessors, the new administration decided that the INF status quo we inherited was unacceptable and that we must make unavailable to the Russians the option of continuing to see us constrained while they remain free to do as they wish, he said.

RFE/RL correspondent Rikard Jozwiak contributed to this report from Brussels.
Russia has hit back at a decision by leaders of the European Union to extend for another six months the economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over its destabilizing actions in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on December 15 described the sanctions as illegal and unjust and said Russia did not consider such decisions beneficial to either EU member states or the Russian Federation.

"Despite this, we, of course, are still set on improving relations with Brussels, which currently leave something to be desired," he added.

EU leaders on December 14 agreed at a Brussels summit to extend the sanctions against Russia for six months, until July 30, 2018.

The EU, along with the United States, has hit Moscow with sanctions over its annexation of Ukraines Crimea region in March 2014 and for its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since its start in April 2014.

When imposing the sanctions, the EU said they were in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and deliberate destabilization of a neighboring sovereign country.

Russia denies interfering in Ukraine's internal affairs, despite compelling evidence that Moscow has provided military, economic, and political support to separatists fighting against Kyiv.

The sanctions, which mainly target the Russian banking, defense, and energy sectors, have been extended every six months since they were imposed.

The sanctions extended on December 14 are among three sets of EU measures against Moscow for various Ukraine-related activities.

The other two sets -- one in force through March 2018 and the other through June -- are eligible to be extended independently.

Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, and TASS
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has arrested seven suspected Islamic extremists and thwarted plans for bomb attacks in St. Petersburg on December 16.

The FSB said on December 15 that the suspects were detained in St. Petersburg on December 13-14, and alleged that they were planning to set off several explosions, including a suicide bombing.

It said they were suspected members of the extremist group Islamic State (IS) and that they were being directed from abroad via the messaging app Telegram.

The statement comes just three days after the FSB announced that three suspected members of a similar group were arrested outside Moscow, where they were allegedly plotting attacks during the New Year holidays and the upcoming presidential campaign.

The FSB frequently announces that it has foiled terrorist plots ahead of holidays and important events.

President Vladimir Putin announced last week that he would seek a new six-year term in the March 18 election.

A blast that the authorities said was a suicide bombing killed 16 people on a subway train in St. Petersburg in April.

Based on reporting by RIA and Interfax


BISHKEK -- The father of two suspects in a deadly subway bombing in St. Petersburg has lost his Russian citizenship and will be deported to Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry says.

Ministry spokeswoman Aiymkan Kulukeeva told RFE/RL on December 15 that Akhral Azimov, an ethnic Uzbek from Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Osh, had been informed of the decision by Russian authorities and ordered to leave Russia as soon as possible.

Since Azimov also holds a Kyrgyz passport, he will come back to Kyrgyzstan, Kulukeeva said, rejecting earlier reports saying that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Azimov in Moscow.

Azimov's two sons -- Abror and Akram Azizov, also Russian citizens -- are among several people of Central Asian origin who have been arrested in connection with the April 3 bombing that killed 16 people on a St. Petersburg subway train, including the attacker.

Investigators say the suicide attack was carried out by Akbarjon Jalilov, who was also an ethnic-Uzbek Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan.

On December 14, a court in St. Petersburg sentenced one of the suspects in the case, Obod Abdyraimov, to five years in prison after the defendant pleaded guilty to recruiting men and women to join the Islamic State (IS) extremist organization.
MOSCOW -- Three months before a presidential election, Russian truck drivers who oppose a road tax are mounting a nationwide protest despite the jailing of two of their leaders and a "foreign agent" designation from the government.

Thirty truck drivers in the Siberian city of Chita started the protest action on December 15, but many of them remained in their garages due to frigid temperatures in the region some 4,700 kilometers east of Moscow.

Truckers have set up protest encampments on the outskirts of Moscow and St. Petersburg, said Maria Pazukhina, a coordinator for the protesting United Truckers of Russia group who is based in the northern city of Murmansk.

Smaller, single-truck protest "pickets" were being held in cities including Yekaterinburg in the Urals and Kirov, Ryazan, and Vologda in European Russia, Pazukhina told RFE/RL, adding that many other truckers were protesting simply by striking.

"The main part of the strike is that people aren't working, they aren't transporting cargo," she said by telephone, adding that the protest action would last 10 days.

Photographs posted on the United Truckers website showed clusters of several trucks, some bearing protest slogans, in a parking lot on the outskirts of Moscow and on the side of St. Petersburg's ring road.

They also depicted small truck protests in the cities Pazukhina named, as well as others including Saratov on the Volga River, Orenburg near the Kazakh border, and Komsomolsk-On-Amur in the Far East.

Since 2015, long-haul drivers from the United Truckers of Russia have been rolling out onto streets and highways periodically to protest the imposition of the Platon road-tax system.

The group says the tax system is overly onerous for drivers and ineffective. It announced in October that members planned to resume the protests on December 15, ahead of the registration of candidates for Russia's March 18 presidential election.

Trucker Leaders Arrested

Two United Truckers leaders, Andrei Bazhutin and Sergei Vladimirov, were detained near St. Petersburg on December 12 and accused of driving without licenses.

Both were ordered jailed for 15 days -- rulings they said were aimed at thwarting the plans for a fresh protest.

Their arrests came after the Justice Ministry designated the group a "foreign agent" under a law Kremlin critics say President Vladimir Putin uses as a tool to silence dissent and suppress opposition.

Photographs shared on the United Truckers of Russia website on December 15 showed clusters of several trucks, some bearing protest slogans, in a parking lot on the outskirts of Moscow and on the side of St. Petersburg's ring road.

Truckers in Chita also said they plan to protest until December 25 and hope that more drivers will join them.

They are protesting against gasoline price hikes in addition to the road tax system.

Platon is managed by company owned by a son of Arkady Rotenberg, a tycoon who was once Putin's judo sparring partner and is seen as a close ally of the president.

Putin, who has been president or prime minister since 1999, announced on December 6 that would seek a new six-year term in the March 18 election.

His high approval ratings and control over the levers of power make his victory a foregone conclusion.

With reporting by RFE/RL Correspondent Tom Balmforth in Moscow and Zab.ru
Ukraines prosecutor-general says opposition figure Mikheil Saakashvili will likely be extradited to Georgia, where he is wanted on charges linked to when he was that countrys president.

Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko on December 15 told reporters that "the biggest likelihood is extradition to Georgia.

We have an official request from the country, which we do not have the right to refuse," he said.

However, Russian state-run TASS news agency quoted senior Georgian officials as saying the Caucasus country had not issued an extradition request and denying press reports that an official had traveled to Belarus to negotiate with Ukrainian authorities.

Saakashvili faces separate charges in Ukraine, and Lutsenko left open the possibility he could still be tried in the country should the extradition process to Tbilisi be delayed.

Saakashvili was president of Georgia from 2004-13. He lost his Georgian citizenship in 2015 when he accepted Ukrainian citizenship and took the post of Odesa governor.

Saakashvili resigned his Odesa position in November 2016, complaining of rampant corruption, and has since turned his outspoken rhetoric on former ally President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine.

Ukraine later filed charges against Saakashvili, accusing him of abetting an alleged "criminal group" led by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his ouster in February 2014.

Saakashvili denied the charges, which he says are fabricated to undermine his campaign to unseat Poroshenko. He has also denied the charges in Georgia as being politically motivated.

Saakashvili has been detained multiple times in Ukraine -- most recently on December 8. But he was released from detention on December 11 after a judge refused the prosecutors request to put him under house arrest.

Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and The Financial Times
WASHINGTON -- An American stockbroker who made a fortune in the Russian market in the 1990s and 2000s and later co-founded a posh Moscow nightclub before leaving the country died of blunt force injuries suffered as a result of a fall from a Washington, D.C. building.

The findings, released on November 16 by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME), confirm that Dan Rapoport died on August 14 after falling from a height, but do not conclusively explain the circumstances leading up to his death.



Washington police told RFE/RL that an investigation into his death had ended and declined further comment. Earlier this year, a police spokeswoman told RFE/RL that foul play was not suspected, but that final conclusions were pending the autopsy.

Rapoport's untimely death triggered much speculation because he had voiced support for ardent Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny before leaving Russia and, while living in Kyiv in recent years, had been a vocal supporter of Ukraine and an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.



Washington metropolitan police found Rapoport's body on August 14 on the sidewalk outside 2400 M Street, a nine-story apartment building in the northwest part of the city.



The medical examiner's report said Rapoport, 52, died of multiple blunt force injuries due to fall from height and described the death as sudden/unexplained. The report also said the manner of his death was undetermined.



The OCME said no other information would be immediately released.



A preliminary police report said officers responded to a report of a jumper on the evening of August 14, and the man, later identified as Rapoport, was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead.



The apartment building has an open rooftop with a pool, running track, and seating area for residents.

The police report said officers found $2,620 in cash on Rapoport when they discovered his body on the sidewalk, along with headphones, a cracked cell phone, a Florida drivers license, and other items.



He was wearing flip-flops, perhaps indicating he had been at the pool on the roof prior to falling.



Brianna Burch, a police spokesperson, told RFE/RL in August that there did not appear to be anyone with Rapoport at the time and there were no listed witnesses. In follow-up correspondences with RFE/RL through early November, the police continued to say they did not suspect foul play.



Rapoport had recently moved back to Washington after spending several years working in finance in Ukraine. He told RFE/RL in an interview in Washington in June that business had been tough due to the countrys high political risk and war with Russia.



While some friends said they did not believe he would have committed suicide, others said he had appeared depressed.



Go-To Location



A native of Latvia and a fluent Russian speaker, Rapoport emigrated with his family to the United States in 1980. After graduating from a U.S. university, he moved to Russia in the early 1990s as a wave of privatizations swept across the country.



The sale of former state-owned companies created a booming stock market, minting a new generation of millionaires, Russian and foreign.



Rapoport was respected within Russian financial circles, where he worked for more than a decade at a local brokerage called CenterInvest, making his way up to managing partner. He claimed his clients included some of the nation's wealthiest tycoons.

In 2007, he opened a swanky nightclub in downtown Moscow called Soho Rooms, which became the go-to location for Moscows elite.



In 2012, he left Russia and returned to the United States, saying the stock brokerage industry that had made him a fortune "had died" as commission fees shrunk with improvements in technology.

But in a media interview prior to his departure, he also criticized the direction Russia had taken under Putin and expressed support for Navalny, who was jailed last year on what Western governments say were trumped-up charges.

It has really become unbearable to live in Russia, Rapoport told media outlet FinParty in June of that year. We are all now dependent on one ruler. If this person decides that you will give birth to his child, then you will give birth, and if he decide to put you in prison, then you will serve time.

He told FinParty that he would give up his American citizenship and return to Russia if Navalny became president, saying the opposition leader was sincere in his desire to fight corruption.

He is a real hero of our time and deserves respect, Rapoport said of Navalny.

Rapoports frustration with Russia and his decision to leave may have been triggered by pressure on his businesses, friends and family have said.

Under Putin, the raiding of profitable businesses by -- or with the help of -- the nations security services has flourished. Rapoport allegedly lost his stake in Soho Rooms when his partners teamed up with security officials.

"Our flight to Washington is in 12 hours. It's sad to leave Russia, but for thoughtful people, living here has become unbearable and disgusting," Rapoport wrote on his Facebook page on June 13, 2012.

When Rapoport moved to Washington, where he said his parents lived, he set up a company called Rapoport Capital to advise and assist technology startups as well as venture capital funds on fundraising options.

In 2016, four years after leaving Russia, Rapoport set up an office in Kyiv and opened a private equity fund. It was tough going. Ukraines economy struggled amid an ongoing war with Russia-backed separatists in two eastern regions and the slow implementation of Western-backed reforms.

In social-media posts over the ensuing years, he was a vocal supporter of Ukraine and an outspoken critic of Putin.

Rapoport gained a degree of publicity in January 2017 after The New York Times reported that the daughter and son-in-law of newly elected President Donald Trump had purchased a mansion owned by him and his first wife. The mansion was located in an exclusive neighborhood of the U.S. capital.

In 2018, the open-source investigative organization Bellingcat reported that Rapoport, who was Jewish, had been the creator of a fictional persona named David Jewberg, who was frequently quoted in Ukrainian media as a senior Pentagon analyst.

With reporting by Todd Prince in Washington, D.C. and Mike Eckel in Prague
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the crisis over North Korea's nuclear program in a phone call in which Trump also thanked Putin for praising his management of the U.S. economy.

The two heads of state discussed "the situation in several crisis zones, with a focus on solving the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula," the Kremlin said in a statement late on December 14 that noted Trump had initiated the phone call.

The White House said the two "discussed working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea."

But the White House emphasized Trump's gratitude to Putin for defending and praising him at his hours-long yearly press conference held at the Kremlin earlier in the day.

"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America's strong economic performance," it said.

Putin had cited the sharp rise in U.S. markets since Trump took office in January as evidence of Trump's "fairly serious achievements" during his first year in office.

"Look at how the markets are reacting, they are growing. This shows confidence in the American economy. With all due respect to [Trump's] opponents, these are objective facts."

Putin also criticized the U.S. investigations into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and accused Trump's opponents of "incapacitating the president and showing a lack of respect to voters who cast their ballots for him."

Trump during his campaign often heaped praise on Putin, holding his Russian counterpart up as an example of a "strong leader." With all the mutually expressed warmth, some commentators have described their relationship as a budding "bromance."

On North Korea, the phone call was one of several signs from Washington and Moscow that officials that high-level officials are making efforts to broach negotiations with Pyongyang over its accelerating program to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Russia sent a military delegation to North Korea this week, while U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he is willing to "have the first meeting without preconditions" the United States has pushed in the past because, he said, they are now "unrealistic."

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on December 15 that Putin and Trump "spoke in favor of establishing dialogue and setting up contacts with the North Korean side, and agreed to exchange information and initiatives" regarding such efforts.

Apparently in response to Tillerson's comments, Putin at his press conference hailed what he called a new "awareness of reality" in Washington on North Korea.

But he also accused the United States of "aggravating the situation" with North Korea and noted that the United States had used nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II. He said any nuclear strike on Pyongyang would have "catastrophic" consequences.

Putin also mocked members of the U.S. Congress who he said have equated Russia with what they call "rogue regimes" in North Korea and Iran, yet at the same time have called on Russia to help resolve the North Korean crisis.

Russia has less influence with North Korea than China does, but Moscow has clout as a permanent, veto-wielding UN Security Council member that has been involved in diplomacy over Pyongyang's actions for decades, and Moscow's ties with North Korea are much warmer than relations between Washington and Pyongyang.

At the same time, many U.S. officials and lawmakers see Russia as aggressive and dangerous due in part to its seizure of Crimea, its support for separatists in a deadly war in eastern Ukraine, and its military campaign backing President Bashar al-Assad's government in the war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in Syria.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters, Interfax, and TASS


WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump says he is not satisfied with Russias cooperation in efforts to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump on December 15 said that "China is helping; Russia is not helping."

"We would like to have Russia's help -- very important," he added.

The comments came hours after Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone. U.S. and Russian officials said the two leaders discussed North Korea during the call, which the Kremlin said Trump initiated.

Outside the White House, Trump repeated comments made earlier in the day that Putin had complimented him on his efforts regarding the U.S. economy but also had said some negative things in terms of what is going on elsewhere."

"But the primary point was to talk about North Korea, because we would love to have his help on North Korea," Trump added.

Immediately following Trump's comments, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also criticized Moscow during a UN Security Council meeting.

"Continuing to allow North Korean laborers to toil in slavelike conditions inside Russia in exchange for wages used to fund nuclear weapons programs calls into question Russia's dedication as a partner for peace," he said.

He also "questioned China's commitment to solving" the crisis, citing the "continued flows" of crude oil to North Korean refineries.

"We ask every nation here to join us...in a unified effort to achieve a complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Tillerson said.

Tensions have increased on the Korean Peninsula amid Pyongyangs continued testing of nuclear and ballistic missiles in violation of United Nations resolutions.


Turkish media reports have said a new suspect has been arrested in connection with the 2016 assassination of Russias ambassador to Turkey.

Authorities arrested former police officer Ramazan Yucel in the capital, Ankara, after questioning him, reports said on December 13.

Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead while speaking at a photography exhibit in Ankara on December 19, 2016, by an attacker who shouted "Don't forget Aleppo" and other words that seemed to refer to Russia's involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Turkish authorities said Karlov's killer was Mevlut Mert Altintas, a 22-year-old policeman who was off duty at the time. Altinas was later shot dead by police at the scene.

In November, a former producer at the state-run TRT television channel, Hayreddin Aydinbas, was arrested in connection with the assassination.

Turkish officials have said they have arrested several other men suspected of involvement in the murder.

Based on reporting by Sabah and Halk TV
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has hit the delete button on domestic rules protecting net neutrality.

The FCC voted 3-2 on December 14 to end the 2015 Open Internet Order and enact the Restoring Internet Freedom initiative, which is widely seen as giving Internet service providers (ISPs) more power to selectively limit Internet access while favoring certain data streams.

In large part, this is an internal battle within the United States over consumer choice and how the Internet will operate. Nonetheless, it also could have a significant impact beyond America's borders, especially for those who routinely interact with U.S.-based Internet services in their daily or professional lives.

Though you may not see the changes overnight, many critics say that, in the long run, Internet users around the world may not know what products or services they are missing out on because of the rollback of net neutrality in the United States.

What exactly is net neutrality?

Coined in 2003 by Columbia University professor Tim Wu, the phrase "net neutrality" refers to the principle that ISPs should treat all data provided to customers equally and without restriction to block out competitors. In essence, it keeps ISPs from choosing which data gets streamed at a faster rate and which websites are blocked or throttled.

Net neutrality was made official policy in 2015 through new FCC regulatory rules that treated ISPs as a public utility following extensive industry and public debate.

Why does net neutrality matter?

Net neutrality is the law in more than 40 countries, including the United States and the European Union. But with the shackles for U.S.-based ISPs off, equality in cyberspace may disappear.

Companies or individuals willing to pay more may get a freer, faster Internet service, which could lead to two classes of Internet user: one rich in money and information, the other poor in both.

The ending of net neutrality in the U.S. could be the beginning of the end of the open, interoperable, free Internet, said Quinn McKew, deputy executive director of ARTICLE 19 in the United Kingdom.

It is now a question of how much, not if, freedom of expression online will be undermined around the world as a result of this shortsighted decision to enrich the entrenched near-monopolies who control Internet access in the United States.

For example, if a company from the Balkans, Russia, or Central Asia develops its own video-streaming service, an ISP may slow its delivery because the provider has a competing service of its own unless the company agrees to pay additional fees to have its product streamed at higher rates.

And obviously its not only about entertainment.

The Public Library of Science (PLOS), a U.S.-based nonprofit open-access publisher and advocate dedicated to progress in science and medicine through a transformation in research communication, warned that allowing ISPs to sort traffic based on content, sender and receiver, opens the door for corporate and government censorship that would greatly hinder access to scientific information around the globe.

"If you want to promote any other culture in the U.S., and you start driving lots of [Internet] traffic through the U.S., and you have to go through these ISPs, they can throttle you," according to Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa and director of the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project.

Or, as Andrew McDiarmid, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Democracy and Technology, put it: I think its a case that the U.S. remains a model for Internet policy for the world. Not having it here may make it less likely to have it in other places.

Could dismantling it affect human rights?

As with many things, the United States is seen as a global leader on the Internet. Thus, many critics fear that a loosening of its regulatory system may embolden others to crack down on a completely open Internet.

Estelle Masse, senior policy analyst at Access Now, a digital-rights advocacy group, said the repeal of net neutrality rules would make the U.S. an outlier on an issue of critical importance to the future of the Internet, both as an engine for innovation and a platform for human rights, to the detriment of users.

Some critics say the erosion of net neutrality in world leaders such as the United States could prevent events such as the 2010 Arab Spring, when social media played an integral part in the movement to overthrow oppressive regimes.

Americans arent the only ones who would be harmed by a U.S. decision to repeal net neutrality rules, Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said in response to the move to end net neutrality.

He says that as the most economically advanced country in the world, such a move by the United States could give the green light to repressive countries like Iran to continue applying the same policies.

The Internet is the most valuable invention of the 20th century, and we should all be fighting to keep it free. As the birthplace of the Internet, the U.S. should be carrying the torch on net neutrality, not following in the footsteps of autocrats, he said.

Could there be any benefits for foreign countries?

One of the arguments for rolling back net neutrality is that it hindered investment and innovation that threatened to harm the Internets continued ability to grow and evolve to meet consumers needs.

The ruling could end up being a boon to innovators outside the United States if American entrepreneurs find they are at a disadvantage because large companies are spending heavily to dominate fast-lane Internet access.

Jennifer Yeh, a policy counsel at Free Press, a Washington-based public interest group that advocates for an open Internet, noted that while the decision may limit supply of new content and developments for users outside the United States, it could push innovators to leave for better opportunities elsewhere."

To that end, it appears as though some are ready to pounce on the opportunity.

Maybe I shd [should] invite newly disadvantaged US startups to EU, so they have a fair chance, tweeted Neelie Kroes, the European Union's commissioner for the digital agenda, during the debate in the United States on ending net neutrality.


Following complaints from citizens, citing specifically modified silencers on board Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles, traffic police in Pune, Mysore, Bengaluru and in some regions of Kerala, have started fining owners. Traffic police are stopping Royal Enfield riders and checking their vehicles for modifications. If these motorcycles are found with loud exhaust notes, offenders are being charged under Section 190 (2) of MVA.

Photo below was shared by Bangalore Police on Facebook. They had to say this  Special squad of @AcpSe traffic police has seized 11 bikes & fined them after removing their modified defective silencers.

Changes to the silencer, which causes a public nuisance, attracts a fine upto INR 1,000. In addition to this, traffic cops in Bangalore have started breaking the illegal exhausts on the spot. Below are the photos where a modified exhaust is being removed and being hammered on the spot.

While Bullet owners think owning an Enfield Bullet and modifying its sound as a status symbol, they are oblivious to the sound disturbance it causes. Deputy Commissioner of Pune Traffic Police, Sarang Awad initiated a noise pollution reduction drive last year.

Last month he started this drive for three days. On the first day, of the fine being introduced saw 43 cases being registered, while INR 11,200 was collected while on second day 88 cases were registered and INR 17,700 was collected. 3rd day saw 49 cases being registered with INR 7,300 collected as fines, bringing total fines to INR 36,200.

In Adugodi police station.. Posted by Sanil Kt on Sunday, 10 December 2017

Police crushing Royal Enfield silencers RE Owner  Can I know the status of my seized defective silencer ?BENGALURU CITY POLICE  Yes sure, status updated. Thank you! Posted by RushLane on Tuesday, 12 December 2017

Exhausts being crushed by special equipment!#rebc Posted by Royal Enfield Bullet CLUB on Monday, 11 December 2017

In a matter of three days, a total of INR 36,200 was collected in fines by the traffic police in Pune. This suggests that there are a large number of Royal Enfield users with illegal exhausts. Bangalore Police too is on a drive to remove such illegal exhausts from the Royal Enfield bikes. Traffic police are also on the lookout for garages where these bikes are being modified promising stern action and severe fines against them as well.
Mishawaka youth give needy families reason to be thankful

Their effort was more challenging but also more important this year because of inflation.
Pictured from left are: Gentle Dentistry staff members, Dr. Donald Ricker; Allen Altman, Lori Phelan and Kelli Parsons of Strovis; and Chamber President and CEO Beth Stedman.
Letter to the editor: Goldfinch is out of touch
Letter to the editor: We are tired, not stupid
The Hubble Space Telescope's iconic view of the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula.

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has provided a dazzling array of images that have awed and inspired the public.

But Hubble's about far more than just pretty pictures. The mission has gathered dozens of terabytes of data over the decades, providing key insights into the universe, from objects as close as the moon to the most remote galaxies, with observations of supernovas and nebulas in between.

Here we explore the history of the telescope and its many discoveries, provide interesting Hubble facts and link to some of the orbiting observatory's best images.

Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time!

Getting Hubble off the ground

When Galileo Galilei first turned a spyglass to the heavens in 1610, he had trouble making out the rings of Saturn that are visible in inexpensive telescopes today. Advances in optics eventually improved scientists' views of the planets, stars and distant galaxies, but Earth's atmosphere still blocked or distorted much of the light for observers on the ground. Larger telescopes were, and still are, placed atop mountains, where the thinner atmosphere at higher elevations allows clearer pictures.

In 1946, soon after World War II, astronomer Lyman Spitzer proposed launching a space telescope, which could overcome the limitations of ground-based observatories. It took a couple more decades before the idea garnered enough support for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to organize a committee of scientists to evaluate the potential of a "Large Space Telescope." With Spitzer at the helm, the committee published a document in 1969 that outlined the scientific uses of a Large Space Telescope and advocated for its construction, according to a Hubble history written by Gabriel Olkoski for NASA (opens in new tab).

The National Academy of Sciences took the pitch to NASA  the only agency capable of making the Large Space Telescope a reality. NASA was already considering a space telescope of some type, but the agency was undecided about how big to make it and where to start. In 1971, George Low, the agency's acting administrator at the time, greenlit the Large Space Telescope Science Steering Group, and NASA soon began lobbying Congress for funding for the endeavor.

Hubble facts and figures  Hubble is 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) wide with a maximum diameter of 14 feet (4.2 m). On Earth, it would weigh 24,500 pounds (11,110 kilograms).

 The solar-powered telescope launched on April 24, 1990 on board the space shuttle Discovery and was deployed one day later.

 Hubble orbits about 340 miles (547 kilometers) above Earth, on a path inclined 28.5 degrees to the equator. Its average speed is 17,000 mph (27,000 kph), and it takes 95 minutes to complete one orbit.

 Hubble transmits about 120 gigabytes of science data every week. That would be roughly 3,600 feet (1,097 m) of books on a shelf. The collection of pictures and data is stored on magneto-optical disks.

 The telescope's primary mirror is 94.5 inches (2.4 m) wide and weighs 1,825 pounds (828 kg). Its secondary mirror is 12 inches (0.3 m) wide and weighs 27.4 pounds (12.3 kg).

 Astronauts have serviced Hubble five times, on missions that launched in December 1993, February 1997, December 1999, February 2002 and May 2009.

The Hubble Space Telescope went through many years of development. Here, astronauts practice servicing the telescope in the weightless environment of the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. (Image credit: NASA/MFSC)

(opens in new tab)

The expensive project was a tough sell, and funding was initially denied by the House Appropriations Subcommittee in 1975. NASA then upped its lobbying efforts and got buy-in from European Space Agency, which shared the costs. Congress eventually granted funding for NASA's portion of the Large Space Telescope in 1977.

Development began almost immediately. NASA planned to launch the telescope in 1983, but various production delays pushed the launch date back to 1986.

In the meantime, the Large Space Telescope was renamed Hubble in honor of Edwin Hubble , an American astronomer who, among other things, determined that the universe extended beyond the borders of the Milky Way.

Hubble's planned liftoff was delayed again after the space shuttle Challenger exploded a minute after takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986, killing all seven astronauts on board. It was more than 2.5 years before shuttle flights resumed and NASA could begin planning Hubble's launch again.

Hubble finally launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990 and a day later was deployed into low Earth orbit, about 340 miles (545 kilometers) above our planet. Getting Hubble developed and launched cost $1.5 billion, but there would be ongoing costs as well  both expected and unexpected.

The Hubble Space Telescope is deployed from NASA's space shuttle Discovery on April 25, 1990. (Image credit: NASA)

(opens in new tab)

Blurry initial images  and a much-needed fix

Initial instruments on Hubble included the Wide Field Planetary Camera, the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS), the Faint Object Camera (FOC), the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) and the High Speed Photometer.

Hubble experienced equipment issues right off the bat. For example, the telescope's first images came back so blurry that they were close to useless scientifically. It turned out that Hubble's 7.9-foot-wide (2.4 meters) main mirror had a defect  a spherical aberration caused by a manufacturing error. The flaw was minute, at just 1/50th the thickness of a sheet of paper, but that was big enough to cause major imaging problems.

Hubble became a laughingstock, the butt of jokes that spread through popular culture. For instance, the 1991 film "Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (opens in new tab)" features a photo of Hubble. It appears on the wall of an establishment called Loser's Bar, along with pictures of the Hindenburg, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Ford Edsel and other famous disasters.

But all was not lost, for Hubble was designed to be serviced by astronauts. On Dec. 2, 1993, the space shuttle Endeavour ferried a crew of seven to fix Hubble during five days of spacewalks. Two new cameras, including the Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2), which later took many of Hubble's most famous photos, were installed during the fix. In December 1993, the first new images from Hubble reached Earth, and they were breathtaking.

Spacewalking astronauts repaired, maintained and upgraded Hubble on four additional servicing missions, which took place in February 1997, December 1999, March 2002 and May 2009.

The 1997 mission replaced some failed or degraded hardware and installed two new instruments, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer. The new instruments, which replaced the GHRS and FOS, extended Hubble's vision into the near-infrared wavelength range, NASA officials wrote in a servicing mission explainer (opens in new tab).

The next astronaut visit was originally intended to be a relatively routine maintenance trip that lifted off in June 2000. But the fourth of Hubble's orientation-maintaining gyroscopes failed in November 1999, sending the observatory into a protective "safe mode." (Hubble has six gyros but needs at least three functioning ones to collect science data.) In response, NASA revised its servicing mission plans, splitting the next one into two parts, the first of which launched in December 1999.

On that 10-day mission, astronauts replaced all of Hubble's gyros, as well as one of its three fine guidance sensors, and performed other maintenance work as well.

The next crewed Hubble visit, known as Servicing Mission 3B (following from 1999's Servicing Mission 3A), occurred in December 2002. During that 11-day trip, "astronauts replaced Hubble's solar panels and installed the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which took the place of Hubble's Faint Object Camera, the telescope's last original instrument," NASA officials wrote in the servicing mission explainer.

Like Hubble's launch, the fifth and final servicing mission was delayed by a shuttle tragedy  the February 2003 breakup of Columbia during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere, which killed all seven astronauts on board. That tragic accident ended up pushing the servicing flight back from its initial 2005 target date to May 2009. During the mission, astronauts put in new batteries and gyroscopes and installed two new instruments, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. Among other tasks, the spacewalkers also revived the ACS and STIS, both of which had failed. "With these efforts, Hubble was brought to the apex of its scientific capabilities," NASA officials wrote.

Ever since, Hubble has continued to provide unprecedented information about our universe and inspire curious minds around the world.

Related: Hubble quiz: How well do you know the famous telescope?

A view of the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit. (Image credit: NASA)

(opens in new tab)

Hubble discoveries

Hubble's elevated perspective and advanced optics allow it to peer farther away than ground-based optics are able to see.

Because light takes time to travel long distances, Hubble functions like a time machine: the light it views from remote objects reveals how those objects appeared when the light left them, not how they appear today. For example, when we look at the Andromeda galaxy, which lies about 2.5 million light-years from Earth, we see it as it was 2.5 million years ago.

This Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) image shows primordial dwarf galaxy candidates circled in green. Three enlargements at right show several dwarf objects that are at the limits of Hubble's present instrument capabilities. The Hubble UDF is a small region of sky in the direction of the southern constellation Fornax. The faintest objects are less than one four-billionth the brightness of stars that can be seen with the naked eye. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, R. Windhorst (Arizona State University) and H. Yan (Spitzer Science Center, Caltech))

(opens in new tab)

And with Hubble, distant objects are revealed that otherwise can't be seen at all.

When astronomers pointed the HST to a seemingly empty patch of sky in Ursa Major in 1995, for instance, they captured an image of over 3,000 galaxies too distant to be detected by other telescopes. (This was later called the Hubble Deep Field). Some of the galaxies were so young, they had not yet begun serious star formation. Other deep field observations in the same area were performed, peering deeper into space each time. These were called the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (released in 2004) and the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (released in 2012).

In addition to gazing at the early universe, Hubble also helped astronomers gauge how much time had passed since the Big Bang. By measuring a special kind of pulsing star known as a Cepheid variable, researchers were able to narrow down the age of the universe from its pre-HST range of 10 to 20 billion years to a more precise 13.7 billion years.

And in the late 1990s, Hubble observations of supernovas helped astronomers make a startling find  the universe's ongoing expansion is accelerating, apparently driven by a mysterious force known as dark energy. We still don't know what dark energy is, even though it makes up most of the universe.

Astronomers have used Hubble to create a 3D map of dark matter, which remains mysterious even though it's six times more abundant than the "normal" matter that makes up stars, planets and everything else we can see and touch. The iconic scope has also discovered that most, if not all, major galaxies harbor supermassive black holes at their cores.

Hubble also examines individual stars in various stages of their evolution, from the clouds of dust that form infant stars to the corpses of those long since detonated. It has even been able to study stars beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and into its neighbors, the Magellanic Clouds and Andromeda Galaxy.

Related: The most amazing Hubble Space Telescope discoveries

Hubble has even photographed planets orbiting other suns. In 2008, for example, Hubble captured imagery of the exoplanet candidate Fomalhaut b (opens in new tab), the first time such an object had been directly imaged in visible light. Fomalhaut b has since been reclassified as a likely dust cloud (opens in new tab), but Hubble has snapped photos of a number of other alien worlds since then.

Most of Hubble's exoplanet observations, however, have been more indirect. As alien worlds pass in front of their suns from Hubble's perspective, their atmospheres filter out certain wavelengths of starlight, a change that the observatory can detect. This information can reveal key details of the atmospheres' composition.

Hubble may spend much of its time peering light-years from Earth, but astronomers also use it to study objects in our own solar system. High-resolution images taken of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto have provided insights that can only be topped by planetary probes circling the planets. Four of Pluto's five moons were discovered using Hubble observations, for example.

Images from the HST also allow scientists on Earth to monitor changes in planets' atmospheres and on their surfaces. When fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter in 1994, for example, Hubble photographed the fatal collision. The aftermath revealed a great deal about the gas giant's atmosphere.

Further, Hubble has seen what appear to be water plumes erupting from Europa, a potentially life-hosting moon of Jupiter. The telescope made an initial observation in March 2014 and then saw a follow-up candidate plume in the same location in February 2016.

That's just a taste of what Hubble has done over the past three decades. To give you a better sense of the breadth and depth of the observatory's achievements, here's a brief rundown of some Hubble highlights from recent years:

Showing its age

Hubble has been showing signs of its advanced age. For example, the telescope went offline for a month in the summer of 2021 after experiencing an issue with its main payload computer. The Hubble team fixed the problem by switching to backup hardware.

But just a few months later, in October 2021, a problem arose with the synchronization of Hubble's internal messaging, sending all five of the observatory's science instruments into a protective "safe mode." The mission team managed to get all of the instruments back online over the next few months.

If you're a pessimist, you can look at such glitches and conclude that Hubble may be on its last legs. If you're an optimist, you can focus on the success of the troubleshooting efforts and the fact that the Hubble team has faced many such challenges over the past three decades and overcome them all.

The truth is, nobody knows for sure how much longer Hubble will be able to keep studying the cosmos. Engineering studies suggest that Hubble's various systems will endure through 2025 and perhaps beyond, but that's just an estimate.

Hubble's highly anticipated successor, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, is already aloft. Webb launched on Dec. 25, 2021 and arrived at its final destination, the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2, a month later.

Webb is expected to begin science operations in the summer of 2022. Astronomers are excited to use Webb and Hubble in tandem. Webb will view the universe in infrared light whereas Hubble is strongest in optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, so studying the same objects and phenomena with both observatories will provide a wealth of insight and information, NASA officials have said.

Spectacular Hubble pictures

Below are some of the best images taken by Hubble over the years. You can find many more in this gallery of awesome Hubble pictures.

The Helix Nebula, a planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius also known as the "Eye of God." (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University))

(opens in new tab)

This massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee)

(opens in new tab)

Hubble caught the most detailed view of the Crab Nebula, in one of the largest images ever captured by the space-based observatory. (Image credit: NASA/ESA and Jeff Hester (Arizona State University).)

(opens in new tab)

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment G with Jupiter on July 18, 1994. (Image credit: NASA)

The planetary nebula NGC 6891 glows in this Hubble Space Telescope image. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Hajian (University of Waterloo), H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University), and B. Balick (University of Washington); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America))

The rings of Saturn and four of its moons take center stage in this portrait by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 taken on June 20, 2019. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/A. Simon/M.H. Wong)

A Hubble Space Telescope image of a nebula called N44. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, V. Ksoll and D. Gouliermis (Universitat Heidelberg), et al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America))

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows galaxy NGC 6984, which is located about 200 million light-years from Earth. (Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Milisavljevic)

Hubble catches Jupiter changing its stripes. High and low elevation clouds switch places, changing their shape and color as they do so. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon-Miller (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), A. SAnchez-Lavega, R. Hueso, and S. PArez-Hoyos (University of the Basque Country), E. GarcAa-Melendo (Esteve Duran Observatory Foundation, Spain), and G. Orton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory))

(opens in new tab)

Hubble catches an instantaneous glimpse of many hundreds of thousands of stars moving about in the globular cluster M13. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

(opens in new tab)

Additional resources

Here are 30 incredible Hubble photos (opens in new tab) in honor of the telescope's 30th anniversary, from NASA. On the agency's Hubble page, you can find out what Hubble saw on your birthday (opens in new tab). And it's definitely worth following Hubble on Twitter @NASAHubble (opens in new tab)  you'll see lots of pretty pictures and get updates about the observatory's latest activities and discoveries.

Bibliography

Bell, J. "Hubble Legacy: 30 Years of Discoveries and Images." Sterling, 2020. https://www.amazon.com/Hubble-Legacy-Years-Discoveries-Images/dp/1454936223

English, N. "Hubble: The People's Telescope." Pp. 47-61 in "Space Telescopes: Capturing the Rays of the Electromagnetic Spectrum," Springer, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27814-8_3

Gainor, C. "Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations." NASA Office of Communications, NASA History Division, 2021. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/not_yet_imagined_tagged.pdf

Okolski, G. "A brief history of the Hubble Space Telescope." NASA. https://history.nasa.gov/hubble/

This article was updated on April 20, 2020 by Space.com Reference Editor Kimberly Hickok and again on Jan. 30, 2022 by Space.com Senior Writer Mike Wall.
Over the Desert

The Geminid meteor shower of 2017 peaked overnight on Dec. 13 and 14 and thrilled stargazers able to see it with dazzling meteors. Read our full story and see a video here. See photos from the meteor shower by Space.com readers here. This Photo: Photographer Tyler Leavitt captured this image of a Geminid meteor dashing through the sky over the Mojave desert just south of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bright Geminid Over Alaska

A gorgeous, green meteor flies toward the northern lights in this stunning image by astrophotographer Matthew Skinner. He captured the meteor over a mountain range near Palmer, Alaska just after midnight on Dec. 14, when the Geminid meteor shower was at its peak. To the left of the meteor, a lime-green aurora peeks out from the top of the mountain range.

Tarantula Photobombs the Geminid Meteor Shower

During a live webcast of the Geminid meteor shower, hosted by the Virtual Telescope Project, a tarantula crept across the camera as a meteor streaked across the sky in the upper edge of the image.

Las Vegas Burst

A Geminid meteor bursts through the night sky in this image taken by photographer Tyler Leavitt near Las Vegas, Nevada. Above the meteor, you can see the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor.

Behind a Tree

A Geminid meteor crosses the sky behind a tree in the Mojave desert in this photo by Tyler Leavitt.

Tuscon Desert Meteor

A giant Geminid meteor bursts into the edge of the frame in this shot taken by astrophotographer BG Boyd in Tucson, Arizona.

Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico Show

Photographer Jorge Colomer captured this shot of a Geminid meteor over Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico.

Paris, Texas Streaks

Multiple Geminid meteors streak through the sky in this photo captured by Tony Corso just south of Paris, Texas.

Clear Skies

Photographer Tony Corso captured a bright Geminid meteor under clear, starry skies just south of Paris, Texas.

Geminid Meteors over the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Three small Geminid meteors streak through the evening sky over snow-capped mountains at Donner Pass, a mountain range in the northern Sierra Nevadas. Photographer Tony Fuentes captured this image during the peak of the Geminid meteor shower on Dec. 13.

Through the Branches

Photographer Jorge Colomer captured this shot of a Geminid meteor over Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico.
The best meteor shower of 2017 peaked overnight last night and early Thursday (Dec. 14), producing stunning light displays of up to 100 "shooting stars" per hour. Night-sky photographers stayed up late to catch some of the shooting stars on camera, and they captured some amazing views.

Known as the Geminid meteor shower, this celestial show happens every year in mid-December as Earth passes through a stream of particles associated with the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. Astronomers believe the asteroid crashed into another space rock long ago, producing a cloud of meteoroids that brilliantly burn up as they rain down on Earth's atmosphere.

This year's Geminids put on an especially beautiful show for skywatchers and astrophotographers. Although a bright, full supermoon washed out the light display in 2016, the thin, crescent moon didn't obstruct the view with moonlight this year. Here are some of the most spectacular photos of the 2017 Geminid meteor shower. [See more amazing 2017 Geminid Meteor Shower photos by stargazers]

Photographer Tyler Leavitt captured this image of a Geminid meteor dashing through the sky over the Mojave desert just south of Las Vegas, Nevada. (Image credit: Tyler S. Leavitt

"A truly awesome display of Geminid meteors this year," astrophotographer Victor Rogus, who shot the video above, told Space.com in an email. "Cool, clear nights here in De Soto County, Florida, allowed me to capture at least 10 Geminids on video all in the vicinity of Orion. I have always had good luck capturing Geminids in that constellation," Rogus said. "Orion has been a favorite meteor hunting ground for me."

A Geminid meteor bursts through the night sky in this image taken by photographer Tyler Leavitt near Las Vegas, Nevada. Above the meteor, you can see the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor. (Image credit: Tyler S. Leavitt

In Nevada's Mojave Desert, just south of Las Vegas, photographer Tyler Leavitt captured several photos of Geminid meteors dashing through the starry sky. In one of Leavitt's shots, you can see the Andromeda galaxy shining high and bright in the sky. To find it, follow the tail of the meteor about two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the photo. [December Lights: 6 Facts for the Geminid Meteor Shower]

A Geminid meteor crosses the sky behind a tree in the Mojave desert in this photo by Tyler Leavitt. (Image credit: Tyler S. Leavitt

In another one of Leavitt's shots, a Geminid meteor appears to pierce a Joshua tree like a fluorescent spear falling from the sky. "It was a little breezy and cold for us in the desert," Leavitt told Space.com in an email.

A giant Geminid meteor bursts into the edge of the frame in this shot taken by astrophotographer BG Boyd in Tucson, Arizona. (Image credit: BG Boyd

A bit further south in Tucson, Arizona, astrophotographer BG Boyd just barely managed to capture an especially large meteor as it flashed through the night sky. "This was one of the biggest meteors I have seen in recent memory and the largest I have ever captured," Boyd told Space.com in an email. "Sadly, there was still more of it outside of the frame that I missed."

Photographer Jorge Colomer captured this shot of a Geminid meteor over Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. (Image credit: Jorge Colomer

In Puerto Rico, photographer Jorge Colomer was thrilled to have captured an enormous Geminid meteor on camera. "When I saw how big and long this one was, I looked to the monitor of my camera to see if I got it inside the frame, and wow, I got it!!! One of the best experiences of my life, it felt like an adrenaline type of rush with a lot energy," Colomer told Space.com in an email.

Multiple Geminid meteors streak through the sky in this photo captured by Tony Corso just south of Paris, Texas. (Image credit: Tony Corso

In northeast Texas, photographer Tony Corso woke up early this morning (Dec. 14) to capture some Geminid meteors on camera. "What a show it was," Corso told Space.com in an email. He managed to capture several meteors on camera, including the three in the photo above.

Editor's note: If you have an amazing night-sky photo you'd like to share with us and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, it seems, is a Vader fan.

When Bezos' private spaceflight company, Blue Origin, launched the first test flight of its New Shepard Crew Capsule 2.0 this week, it had a very special passenger aboard: a dummy named "Mannequin Skywalker"  which bears a striking resemblance to Anakin Skywalker, aka Darth Vader himself. [The Greatest Star Wars Villains Ever]

Blue Origin's test flight dummy, named Mannequin Skywalker, reclines inside the company's New Shepard Crew Capsule 2.0 after a successful test launch in West Texas on Dec. 12, 2017. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

In photos, the dummy can be seen reclining inside the New Shepard capsule (through the largest windows ever on a spacecraft) in photos from Blue Origin's Dec. 12 test flight in West Texas. A YouTube video released by Blue Origin Thursday (Dec.14) shows a view of Mannequin Skywalker from inside the capsule as well.

"Full video of Mannequin Skywalkers ride to space. Unlike him, youll be able to get out of your seat during the zero gee part of the flight," Bezos wrote on Twitter of the video. "And ignore the pinging sound  it's just from one of the experiments on this flight."

The dummy was just one of 12 payloads to ride on New Shepard during the Blue Origin launch. A medical device designed to help astronauts in space recover from a collapsed lung also made the trip as part of a NASA-funded experiment. Artwork and an Arduino Nano circuit board sensor package programmed by students at DCS Montessori Middle School in Castle Pines, Colorado, was also among the payloads, as were two experiments from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to study different effects of weightlessness on mice T cells and genes.

"#NewShepard had a successful first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0 today. Complete with windows and our instrumented test dummy," Bezos wrote on Twitter after the flight. "He had a great ride."

Blue Origin's Mannequin Skywalker test dummy can be seen inside the company's upgraded New Shepard crew capsule through the largest windows ever built for a spacecraft. The dummy was one of 12 payloads on a maiden test flight of the New Shepard Crew Capsule 2.0 in West Texas on Dec. 12, 2017. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin's New Shepard crew capsule is a suborbital spacecraft designed to launch six passengers on short trips into space without entering Earth orbit. The company has not revealed how much such a spaceflight would cost. The capsule features the largest windows ever made for space, launches atop a propulsion stage and parachutes back to Earth while its booster makes its own vertical landing. Both booster and capsule are reusable.

Meanwhile, the science fiction franchise that spawned Mannequin Skywalker's namesake will make a giant leap of its own this week.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" opens in theaters nationwide Friday (Dec. 15).

Editor's note: This story was updated at 4:37 p.m. EST to include new comments by Bezos on the new Mannequin Skywalker video.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
B P has rediscovered the power of the sun and is spending $200 million (149 million) to get back into solar energy.

The oil giant seemed to give up on this alternative energy source six years ago, writing off billions on its attempt to make solar panels.

Today it said it will buy 43% of Holborn-based Lightsource, which develops and manages solar farms.

BP chief executive Bob Dudley said: Were excited to be coming back to solar, but in a new and different way. Lightsource aims to complete large-scale solar projects rather than just make panels.

Lightsource chief executive Nick Boyle said BPs financial firepower will help it expand beyond the UK. He said: BP has relationships around the world built up over 100 years and we can piggyback on that.

BP struggled last time to compete with cheap kit made in China. The affordability of those panels has now helped boost the size of the sector, making a once-mocked energy source seem highly viable.

It is 20 years since BP set out to move beyond oil, marketing its future as Beyond Petroleum.

The final price for the stake could rise to $500 million. BP will get two seats on the board of the company, to be renamed Lightsource BP.

The deal comes a day after the Australian government blocked a deal that would have made BP the biggest consumer-fuel retailer in that country.

Aussie watchdogs said BP buying petrol stations from Woolworths would hurt competition.
B udget airline Ryanair dropped its long-standing hostility to trade unions on Friday by promising to recognise them for the first time in a bid to head off planned strikes this Christmas.

The carrier, Europes biggest, has written to pilot unions in Ireland, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, inviting them to establish pilot committees to solve industrial disputes. In return, it wants strike threats abandoned.

Ryanair passengers faced disruption in the run-up to Christmas after almost a third of Ryanairs Dublin-based pilots threatened a walkout on December 20. Pilots in Italy were due to strike for four hours today. German and Portuguese pilots had also threatened industrial actions.

Chief executive Michael OLeary said recognising unions was a significant change for the group, which has shunned workers groups during its 32-year history. Shares were down 18 cents, or 1.1%, to 16.21. Christmas flights are very important to our customers and we wish to remove any worry or concern that they may be disrupted by pilot industrial action next week, OLeary said.

The policy change marks a major U-turn by the outspoken OLeary, who said in September that hell will freeze over before Ryanair is unionised. He has triggered bad blood from enraged pilots by saying they have a very easy job, and computers do most of the flying. They have nicknamed him, the clown in return.

However, the company will only engage with Ryanair-employed pilots. Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines in Ireland or elsewhere, it said.

The airline has been under increasing staffing pressure after cancelling 20,000 flights when a holiday scheduling cock-up left it short of pilots.

In the midst of the row, Ryanair had faced political pressure in Italy after warning striking pilots that they could miss out on pay rises.

The Irish action is led by the Irish Air Line Pilots Association and the Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union (Impact).
R upert Murdochs break-up of his global media business could have been a source of concern for President Donald Trump.

But once assured his beloved Fox News would remain part of the Murdoch empire, he spoke to the media mogul to back the deal, say reports in the US.

Yesterday Murdoch sold most of 21st Century Fox to Disney in a 50 billion deal.

But he will keep Fox News, one of Trumps biggest cheerleaders and the Presidents favourite channel. He regularly bashes Fox rival CNN for fake news.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: I know that the president spoke with Rupert Murdoch earlier today, congratulated him on the deal... to use one of the presidents favourite words, this could be a great thing for jobs, and certainly looks forward to and hoping to see a lot more of those created.

Murdoch insists New Fox, which will focus on news and sport, will be a growth company.

I am a news man with a competitive spirit, he said.

The future of Sky remains contentious. As part of the deal Disney gets Foxs 39% stake in Sky, which was bidding to take control of the rest.

That deal could be blocked by UK regulators. It is not yet clear if Disney would launch its own bid for the rest of Sky.
I ts that time of year when the weeks blend into one another as the days get shorter and the nights get longer. The long-running Brexit soap opera continues with its predictable twists and turns, while this mornings batting collapse in the Ashes after yesterdays promising start has its ring of familiarity. Even the arrival of snowfalls was followed by the usual pattern of a public-transport melt-down, mass closure of schools and the perpetual query of whether, for once, Bing Crosbys promise of a white Christmas might come true.

Needless to say, the real action in the world is happening elsewhere. As the nation waits to see just how similar the post-Brexit deal will be to the one we already have, a major reconfiguration of large parts of the Middle East is under way. Aligned interests between Russia, Turkey and Iran have produced a blueprint for Syria whose significance lies as much in what will happen in the war-torn country as it does for how presidents Putin, Erdogan and Rouhani will co-operate and collaborate both on Syria and elsewhere.

Running in parallel is the US, which sits at the centre of a remarkable new web that ties Israel and Saudi Arabia together. Despite being a furious critic of Saudi Arabia before being elected, Donald Trump has become almost evangelical in his support for the regime and for the ambitious crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman. A visit to Riyadh in May was trumpeted by both sides as a strong endorsement of US support for Saudi, underscored by Jared Kushner being dispatched to spend long nights in discussion with the crown prince. They know exactly what they are doing, Trump tweeted, as Saudi security forces started rounding up members of the ruling elite last month.

Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has marked a decisive intervention in the thorny politics of the Middle East under the presidency of a man who claims to be interested only in putting US interests first. As Tom Fletcher, the former British ambassador to Beirut, put it, A White House that cared about the security of the Middle East would be trying to put out existing fires, not start new ones.

At the heart of this is the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. There are historic roots to this, partly, but not exclusively, linked to the large Sunni and Shia majorities in each country. There is geopolitical and strategic competition, too, over the Gulf region and for expressing a wider vision for the Middle East.

While it can be tempting to think that Iran and Saudi are driven by ideology and doctrine, it is also important to recognise that there are multiple, often competing, voices within each state  from the military, for example, but also from within the religious authorities.

The US sits at the centre of a remarkable new web that ties Israel and Saudi Arabia together

It is also more fruitful to look at pragmatism, rather than ideology, as a driving force. In the case of Iran, the secular, atheist and socialist government of Assad proved no barrier to striking agreements to support Baathist control of Syria; while no clearer sign of the shifting tectonic plates can be shown than the reported invitation extended to the Saudi crown prince this week to visit Jerusalem by the Israeli intelligence minister, Yisrael Katz.

The rivalry between Saudi and Iran is being played out through a variety of proxies. Riyadh has little to show for its efforts to demonstrate its competence and capability. The attempts to isolate Qatar have backfired, prompting a warming of relations between Doha and Tehran. Clumsy intervention in Lebanon which saw the prime minister, Saad Hariri, kidnapped in all but name, failed to deliver the promised fruits of curtailing Iranian influence and again proved counterproductive.

And then there is Yemen, scene of the worlds most pressing humanitarian crisis  where 50,000 children alone are expected to die this year from starvation and disease  and where Saudi attempts to intervene have failed to deliver results quickly or effectively.

Part of the reason lies in the inexperience of Saudi Arabia, where the default setting has been to remain disengaged and introspective  to the point of suffocation. That is something that the crown prince is trying to change.

He is up against a Tehran that has built up networks since the 1979 revolution and has the expertise of being involved in low-cost, high-visibility involvement across the region. The rivalry is one that is uneasy to the point of dangerous.

Mohammad bin Salmans recent comparison of Iran with Hitlers Germany drew a stinging response from Tehran, as did his comment earlier this year about rising military tension between the two countries. Asked about a possible attack on Saudi Arabia by Tehran, the prince declared that he would order a first strike. We will work to have the battle in Iran, rather than in Saudi Arabia, he said.

Seasoned watchers do not set much store by such showboating, which is as much intended for domestic audiences as for the other side. Nevertheless, what is striking  and new  is the growing sense in the Middle East, just as across much of the rest of Asia, that the time has come for problems to be solved locally. Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone badly wrong. Then there are the uncertainties about commitments such as the Iran nuclear deal that now looks in jeopardy as Trump picks sides, rather than tries to conciliate and lead.

This new age is summed up by the increasingly strident role that Iran sees itself playing. The US and Russia cannot decide for Iran, stated Mohammad Javad Zarif in November. Its our region. The Saudis would dispute that. But the rivalries are real, sharp and dangerous.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are in transition as well as in competition. That makes what happens extraordinarily important, both because of the roles they play as oil producers, but also in determining the shape of the Middle East, Asia and global affairs. It serves to underline what a sideshow Brexit really is.

Peter Frankopans The Silk Roads: A New History of the World is published by Bloomsbury
S ome people swim in icy waters on New Years Day. Some people dont get up until 1pm.

May we suggest some middle ground? Whether you wake on the first morning of 2018 with a spring in your step, or are perhaps not feeling your best (we cant think why), theres nothing like a good brunch to shake off the cobwebs and start the New Year right.

These restaurants in London are open bright and early-ish on New Years Day  Auld Lang Syne may still be ringing in your ears, but thats nothing an eggs benedict cant sort.

Duck and Waffle

Forty floors above the City, Duck and Waffle prides itself on being open 365 days of the year. New Years Day is naturally no exception, as the restaurant will be elevating your start to 2018 with a sky high four course brunch menu for 49. After a welcome glass of prosecco, tuck into foie gras creme brulee with pork crackling and marmalade brioche, bacon wrapped dates and, of course, the eponymous duck and waffle dish: a waffle topped with a confit leg duck, fried duck egg and mustard maple syrup.

duckandwaffle.com

Bunga Bunga Battersea

The party rarely stops at Bunga Bunga. In fact, you almost need not leave. Their first floor club may have been alive and kicking until the early hours of the morning but that wont stop this Berlusconi-inspired restaurant from opening its doors to punters for its New Years Day party brunch, serving pastries and preserves, cured meats and sharing pizzas accompanied by live music, karaoke and, of course, bottomless Bellinis. Get it all for 44 per person.

bungabunga-london.com

GBR at Dukes

If you enjoyed one or two of Dukes Bars famed martinis the night before you can continue the celebrations the next morning at GBR, the Dukes hotel restaurant. For 35, get three courses, including choices of venison and black pudding Scotch egg to start, a smoked haddock omelette main and waffles with maple syrup and vanilla cream for pudding.

gbrrestaurantslondon.com

The Landmark

The Landmark is getting you in the pink for 2018 with their champagne brunch with a difference. In the true spirit of one of 2017s biggest foodie buzzwords, all the bubbles served over this brunch will be strictly rose. Enjoy unlimited fizz along with fresh seafood, traditional roasts and puddings, in the hotels grand surroundings.

landmarklondon.co.uk

Mercante

Say Buon anno! to 2018 with a morning trip to Mercante in Piccadilly  they love a bottomless brunch all year round, so why not on New Years Day? For 45 get unlimited drinks and three courses with an Italian twist. Start off with bruschetta topped with tomato, avocado and poached egg, followed by Italian sausages with Borlotti beans and roasted potatoes, and strawberry champagne jellies to finish.

mercanterestaurant.com

The best brunches in London - in pictures 1 /33 The best brunches in London - in pictures Kolamba Far from starting the weekend quietly, Kolamba kicks it off with a bang. Big flavours from a small island, says the Sri Lankan restaurant, and its menu doesnt get any more timid at brunchtime. Its granola is toasted with kithul palm syrup and served with mango puree and turmeric coconut yoghurt, and kithul is used again to glaze the bacon served with its a bowl-shaped hopper pancake, finished with a fried egg at the centre. Alternatively, string hoppers (rice flour noodles) come in a turmeric gravy with egg hodhi and spicy pol sambol relish, and guests are encouraged to order sides of monkfish and parripu red lentil curries. Eggbreak How do you like your eggs in the morning? At Notting Hills Eggbreak, you can get them in pretty much any way imaginable. Keep it traditional with an eggs Benedict topped with brown butter hollandaise and hardwood smoked bacon, get a little fancy with burrata and truffle scrambled eggs on top of challah bread with chives, or get a little filthy with the Spicy piggy Bun, which features a Gochujang-spiced pork patty, homemade chilli jam, a fried egg and American cheese, all squished into a potato brioche bun. Even better? The restaurant serves its egg-centric menu up until 3pm every day that they're open  in the evenings, the Notting Hill dining room transforms into a the new location for Indian restaurant Tandoor Chop House. Barboun Levantine restaurant Barboun is bringing a bit of morning goodness to Shoreditch. Fruits and grains get care and attention, as coconut porridge is topped with orange and grapefruit, and banana pancakes are drizzled with tahini cream and scattered with almonds. Turkish eggs  a dish of poached eggs steeped in thick yoghurt and chilli butter  leads the way, while a menu of flatbreads come topped with the likes of pastirma ham, kasar cheese and iskender sauce, as well as whipped cods roe with black olive and dill. Leave room for burma baklava: walnuts are drenched in cinnamon syrup and rolled in filo pastry for an exhilaratingly sweet finale. Jikoni Ravinder Bhogals cooking is clever, different and defiantly multicultural  and the brunch menu is no different. Tamarind and maple-glazed bacon is served with fenugreek waffles and fennel slaw, while a spicy fish cake is topped with a poached egg and curry hollandaise. More favourites from Jikoni are also on the menu at brunchtime, including the prawn toast scotch egg, which is served with banana ketchup and pickled cucumber. Kudu One of the highlights of Peckhams pickings, the brunch at South African-inspired Kudu is just as sprightly as the rest of its acclaimed menu. Sourdough waffles come with home cured bacon or trout, and a brioche roll is stuffed to breaking point with densely meaty, spiced boerewors sausage, fried egg, German mustard and crunchy frazzled onions. Even if youre not one for a sweet brunch, leave room to share the babka after  served as French toast, the chocolate-swirled brioche is topped with hazelnuts, candied kumquats and lashings of miso-infused caramel. Gloria The Italians are experts in luxurious and leisurely dining experiences  this popular trattoria may be run by two Frenchmen, but theyve got the atmosphere on the nose for an indulgent Mediterranean brunch. Within the bounds of Glorias decadent Capri-inspired decor, weekend diners can tuck into a compact afternoon menu: the eggs alla Fiorentina tops warm brioche with poached eggs, spinach and hollandaise salsa, and allows diners to add 18-month Tuscan ham as an extra, while the Big Boy French Toast comes smothered with mascarpone whipped cream and raspberries. Allegra This is brunch, elevated  and in more ways than one. Patrick Powells restaurant sits part-way up Manhattan Gardens in Stratford, at the point where the gravity-defying skyscraper appears to have had a chunk sliced out of it. As delicately balanced as both the building and the rest of Powells menus, brunch dishes include Cornish crab with potato latke, pickled fennel and sesame, and cod brandade with poached egg, pickled onion and light-as-a-feather potato chips. For something with a little more oomph, go for the drool-inducing black pudding burger with pickles and shallots  the ultimate fancy hangover food. Granger & Co Queues out the door at all Granger & Cos restaurants can be seen of a brunch time, as Londoners flock to try Bill Grangers bright and breezy dishes  he is, after all, the man credited with the avocado toast's gobsmacking popularity. Tuck a Fresh Aussie, featuring jasmine tea hot smoked salmon, poached eggs, furikake and avocado, or for a sweet something, order the famed ricotta hotcakes, topped with slices of banana and a good drenching of honeycomb butter. Honey & Smoke Middle Eastern cuisine has made a big impact on Londons brunch scene in recent years, and Israeli duo Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich do both brilliantly at their Fitzrovia grill house Honey & Smoke. Shakshuka is naturally on offer on the brunch menu, alongside sabich pittas filled with Italian aubergines and fried egg dressed with a chilli garlic dressing and tahini, as well as a grilled peach salad dressed with almond tahini, smoked almonds and thyme honey. Brunch cocktails are available too, including a Honey & Smokarita made with tequila and smoked honey, as well as a Ramallah mule with vodka, ginger beer and dried Persian lime. Berber & Q Berber & Q fans will know the restaurant for its slow-cooked meats, but a largely vegetarian brunch menu shows a different side to the barbecue restaurants talents. There's just two items on the menu: Middle-Easter favourite shakshuka sees poached eggs swim in Spanish-influenced piperade sauce with feta and chilli, while The Full Israeli  for two to share  is an enlivening platter of hummus, honeyed feta, boiled eggs, avocado, roasted beetroot and much more. Those craving a meaty morning can add merguez sausages on the side, while the restaurant also offers its full lunch menu alongside. The Good Egg The array of brightly flavoured dishes at these Middle Eastern-influenced restaurants  one in Soho and one up north in Stoke Newington  are sure to spark up a morning. The offering includes pita and challah for dipping in labneh, butterbean hummus and more. Unsurprisingly, eggs are also a major player: you'll find shakshuka with za'atar sourdough, and an egg and cheese bagel with chilli, chive and smoked cheddar. Bagel fans should head to the Stoke Newington branch where there is a whole menu dedicated to the Montreal version. Milk If you know, you know  and a lot of south Londoners know about Milk. Balhams neighbourhood brunch hero has built up a cult following over the years, with the resulting queues resulting in its diminutive, rustic quarters needing to spill out onto al fresco tables. Go green with the Gaia, which tops toast with avocado and bay carrot puree, along with pickled courgettes and pumpkin seed pesto, or get the full morning-after treatment with the Convict muffin, which comes topped with a Gloucester Old Spot pork patty, bacon, egg, Lincolnshire poacher cheese and hangover sauce. Darcie & May Green Brunch is great, but brunch on a boat is even better. Aussie-inspired spot Darcie & May Green welcomes brunchers on board all week long, allowing them to dine in the unique surrounds of a barge decorated by legendary pop artist Sir Peter Blake. Fresh flavours come in the form of sweetcorn fritters and poached eggs served with veggies including smashed avocado and corn ribs, as well as Graceburn feta and a habanero and almond puree. Meat-craving diners can tuck into The Bondi, a fry-up featuring chilli and fennel sausage and activated charcoal sourdough toast. If youre concerned about the sturdiness of your sea legs after last nights escapades, dont worry, the boat doesnt move. Chicama Peruvian bites and pretty pastel colours make Chelsea haunt Chicama a particularly pleasant brunch spot. Fish is the focus here, but expect more than the standard salmon and scrambled eggs. Breakfast-like dishes on the menu include sweetcorn pancakes with crab, aji amarillo hollandaise and pickled chilli, alongside a brioche bun filled with fish and red cabbage. If you're craving salmon, have it here in its ceviche form, with turmeric and chilli-marinated pineapple, fried leeks and avocado. A must-order is an opening snack of savoury tapioca marshmallows, that are flavoured with parmesan, fried and served with ocopa sauce. Caravan What you eat at Caravan will depend on how virtuous youre feeling. Fresh fruits and almond milk overnight oats rub shoulders with eggs, spreads or smashed avocado with soy pumpkin seeds. Alternatively, theres fried jalapeno cornbread with fried egg and chorizo, the house fry-up or a stack of vanilla pancakes with date molasses and stewed apple. The restaurant also famously roasts its own coffee, so a cup of java or an Espresso Martini with your meal is a must. The brand boasts restaurants across the capital, and west Londoners can also check out sister digs Vardo in Chelsea. Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings Brunch is the best time to be at Bourne & Hollingsworth Buildings: light and bright industrial-chic surroundings are bedecked with tumbling cascades of greenery, making it an invigorating spot for refuelling (alongside a glass of prosecco or three). Brunch is a classic affair with contemporary twists: a "huevos benedictos" option is on offer alongside your average Benedict and Royale, topping poached eggs with chorizo, avocado, bearnaise sauce, pico de gallo, while courgette pancakes come with roasted tomato and a caper dressing. Lantana Cafe This Antipodean cafe group serves up indulgent yet reasonably healthy brunches, with a menu spanning corn fritters with avocado, streaky bacon and fresh spinach to a duck hash made with sweet potato, edamame beans, kale and a plum ketchup. Vegetarians are also well served with wild mushrooms and poached egg on toast, served with sun-blushed tomato, white bean hummus and a shallot crumb. Add on bottomless prosecco or mimosas to any brunch option for an extra 30. Pizza East Cant decide between a fancy members club and McDonalds for brunch? Pizza East has got you. The Shoreditch pizzeria from the Soho House team has recently revamped its brunch menus, which feature an Italian-American twist on some London breakfast favourites. The Full PE fry-up features datterini tomatoes, pancetta, Tuscan sausage, cannellini beans and focaccia, and the PE muffin comes neatly filled with a fennel sausage patty, a fried egg and chilli, in a manner that bears striking resemblance to a famed breakfast item sold by a certain fast food outlet Mac and Wild Brunch at Scottish restaurant Mac and Wild is no wee undertaking. Its passion for meat and game from north of the border is played out in the Full Scottish breakfast: consuming bacon, a homemade tattie scone, haggis, Lorne sausage, black pudding, bone marrow beans and more is a considerable endeavour. If youre not quite full, however, Big Jims breakfast doubles up most of the meat on offer and adds two slices of venison toast for good measure. If youre not quite up to Big Jims challenge, the mega brunch can also be ordered to share. The brunch menu is currently only available at its Devonshire Square restaurant. Dirty Bones Do it NYC-style at Dirty Bones, which has reopened its Soho and Kensington restaurants and is ready to throw a brunch party. Theres no clean eating here: fried chicken thighs and fried eggs top waffles drenched in maple syrup; crumpets come with poached-egg and 12-hour-cooked short rib, and a buttermilk pancake stack comes with fresh clotted cream, blueberries and yet more maple syrup. For 14, diners can also enjoy a package of three brunch cocktails, with options including an espresso martini and a Hip Monkey, made with rum, red vermouth, and Ting grapefruit soda. Dishoom - WEEKEND BREAKFAST If I told you 10 years ago that the most famous dish on a London Indian restaurants menu was a bacon sandwich, you wouldnt have believed me. Dishoom changed all that, and showed Brits a thing or two about their cherished breakfast favourite. The restaurants version wraps bacon in a freshly baked naan with cream cheese, chilli sauce, coriander, and a fried egg if you so fancy. Its popular breakfast menu also includes kerijiwal, a dish of fried eggs atop the restaurants chilli cheese toast; akuri, which serves spiced scrambled eggs and tomato with house-baked soft bread buns. The Wolseley - WEEKEND BREAKFAST The finest days  weekend ones or otherwise  begin at The Wolseley. The Piccadilly restaurant is the stuff of London breakfast legend: impeccable service, quietly superb food and an elegant room with an atmosphere that is at once grand and intimate, particular but unfussy. Among a menu of classics to suit all mornings, signature serves include omelette Arnold Bennett with haddock and hollandaise, and a rich portion of fried haggis with duck eggs and whisky sauce. Too much? If simpler starts call for caramelised pink grapefruit and a croissant, then that is exactly what you shall have. Hide - WEEKEND BREAKFAST Ollie Dabbous's Michelin-starred restaurant used to dabble in brunch, but its currently catering for (slightly) earlier risers. The weekend breakfast menu at its more casual Ground dining room (head upstairs later in the day for tasting menus at Above) has all the usual suspects with some ingredient-led twists. Viennoiseries include a birch sap croissant and a Danish pastry flavoured with peach, almond milk and lemon verbena, while avocado on toast comes with Angelica seeds and chervil. There's a lot of luxury on offer too: the restaurant's signature croque monsieur comes with the option to add shaved black truffle, while Beluga caviar on toasted crystal bread is available for 240 per 30g. Morito Hackney Road - WEEKEND BREAKFAST Cretan chef Marianna Leivaditaki heads up this Moro spin-off, with two sites in Exmouth Market and Hackney Road. The latter hosts relaxed weekend morning spreads packed with eastern Mediterranean treats. Leivaditakis breakfast menu takes the breakfast sandwich to the next level: sarnies come filled with the likes of tetilla cheese, Iberico lomo pork, summer truffle and quails eggs, or sujuk sausage with eggs and sweet peppers. Morning guests can also tuck into dishes of charred anthotyros cheese with fresh peaches and honey, or spicy Turkish menemen eggs. Cafe Murano Bermondsey - WEEKEND BREAKFAST Angela Hartnett brought Cafe Murano  the charming casual offshoot to her Michelin-starred Italian restaurant  to Bermondsey late last year, and now shes bringing breakfast with her too. On the weekend, tuck into lighter bites of roasted, thyme-laced mushrooms with focaccia, or cavolo nero and spring onion foccacia. Meaty treats include a chicken Milanese bun stuffed with slow-roasted tomatoes and spicy mayonnaise, and those looking to start with something sweet can enjoy chocolate croissants or a melon and strawberry fruit salad.

The Schoolhouse

You might have been listening out for Big Bens bongs the night before, but the next day its the school bell you wont want to be late for. This Battersea bar and restaurant will host a bottomless brunch where you can get a main course and unlimited prosecco, Bellinis, Mimosas or Kir Royales. Choose between the like of The Naughty Schoolboy pancakes or the Headmasters Big Breakfast and youll never want to bunk off again.

theschoolhouse.london

Holborn Dining Room

The Holborn Dining Room

Start 2018 in style with a trip to the endlessly stylish Rosewood London hotel and its British brasserie Holborn Dining Room. On New Year's Day, head chef Calum Franklin will be serving up a hearty three course brunch, featuring choices including a starter of burrata with "colossal" olives and Pedro Cimenez vinegar, a main of roast suffolk pork belly with bramley apple and sage jus and a dessert of Valrhona chocolate fondant, sour cherry fondant and vanilla ice.

holborndiningroom.com
O nce upon a time, it was all so simple: youd go to the theatre to watch plays and to the cinema to watch films.

Now, you can watch National Theatre shows beamed live into your local multiplex, and if you head to the National itself, the hot ticket is a movie: the cult media satire Network, adapted for the stage by Lee Hall, starring Bryan Cranston and Michelle Dockery.

In the West End you can see The Exorcist, Strictly Ballroom, School of Rock and Young Frankenstein rebooted with greasepaint and jazz hands (or, in the case of The Exorcist, 360-degree head spinning). And though theres nothing new about films being converted into bankable stage musicals, more surprising is the number of cult celluloid classics being reignited for Londons off-West End theatres. Theres the Almeidas transformation of the spooky 1960s TV show, The Twilight Zone, while waiting in the wings are adaptations of Ingmar Bergmans Fanny & Alexander at The Old Vic and Derek Jarmans Jubilee at the Lyric Hammersmith. That weird TV series that gave you nightmares as a kid, that beloved art-house classic: beady theatre producers are working out how to give them three acts and sell ice cream in the intervals.

The theatre is omnivorous and its always taken stories from outside and dramatised them, says Lee Hall. Is there anything really that different from translating a Moliere from 400 years ago and taking a film and doing the same? Hall made his name writing Billy Elliot, later translating it into a hit musical in collaboration with Sir Elton John and director Stephen Daldry. Ive done three adaptations in a row, which have come from really different sources. Its not that I dont have any ideas for original plays  Ive got loads of ideas  but each adaptation was a passion project for me because they were a vehicle for saying what I wanted to say about the world.

Facetime: Network on stage

He was drawn to Network, Paddy Chayefskys 1976 script about a TV anchorman who becomes an angry populist prophet, because of how it anticipated reality TV, Twitter spats and fake news. I wanted to write a play about the internet but feared it would date quickly. It was better to explore that idea indirectly through Network.

For the production, director Ivo Van Hove has constructed a dazzling on-stage TV studio, complete with a restaurant where a handful of ticket-holders experience the show while theyre served dinner. Cameras swarm over audience members, who watch themselves watching. Network is a film I love but on stage it does loads of things that film cant do, says Hall. Theatre is not pretending to be real, its theatre. Its a unique place to question the stories youre telling.

Theatre has been cannibalising the plots of existing stories for centuries  Shakespeare plundered Plutarch and Ovid, among others  yet many critics still treat these reworkings with suspicion, assuming they are merely money-making ventures and holding them up as evidence that theatre is stagnating and risk-averse. Adaptations used to be a way of trying to guarantee an audience, says Rupert Goold, artistic director of the Almeida. But when you look at plays like Network or The Twilight Zone, these are not necessarily obvious adaptations.

Dan Chiswall and Kimberley Walsh in Shrek the Musical / Dan Wooller/REX/Shutterstock

What has changed is not only the work being chosen but the way writers and directors are approaching them. The attitude is less linear and dutiful to the original source and more freewheeling. As Henry Hitchings, the Evening Standards chief theatre critic, puts it: Fidelity to the spirit of a work matters more to theatre-makers than fidelity to its structures.

Goold believes that a collective approach to scriptwriting chimes with the current political mood. The rise of populism and scepticism towards leadership means its inevitable that theatre-makers might want to break down the fascism of the single-author playwright. His own productions have included musical versions of Graham Greenes novel The End of the Affair and the film Made in Dagenham. This means there are more voices in the mix so a composer or filmmaker or sound designer might be as involved as a writer or director. Tom Morris, director of War Horse and new play, The Grinning Man (a musical adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel using puppets), believes we have technology to thank. Even if you were only considering the development of lighting, sound and set design since the 1970s, the number of ways in which a play can set out to tell its story is infinitely more varied.

These changes arent welcome in all quarters. Playwright David Hare has complained of a wave of European theatre-makers coming over and infecting British theatre with a dangerous disrespect towards texts. The Guardians theatre critic, Michael Billington, who has consistently expressed his dismay at adaptations, has damned Rufus Norriss National Theatre for its staggering dereliction of duty in abandoning the classic canon.

Below, Diana Rigg as Huma Rojo in All About My Mother / Geraint Lewis/REX/Shutterstock

Goold agrees that the bottom has fallen off the canon of plays in the past 10 or 15 years. When I started out in theatre, there was an understanding that if you ran into trouble, you could do Alan Ayckbourn or Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward or Alan Bennett. Now revivals are a lot harder. Instead of artistic directors thinking, Oh its 20 years since weve done this Rattigan play, its more likely that theyll say, Lets dig out this Krzysztof Kieslowski film.

Goold programmed The Twilight Zone because the original tapped into Americas Cold War nightmares in ways that are likely to resonate again. He reveals that he is planning a curated season  possibly lasting up to a year  of adaptations for the Almeida (slated for 2020). He has already secretly picked a piece of European cinema that he wants to stage, and intends to adapt a poem and a piece of art, too. What we wont be doing is Dickens and Bronte and Forster because you see it all over the TV and we dont need to at the Almeida.

Backstage moments at the 63rd London ESTA 1 /34 Backstage moments at the 63rd London ESTA Co-hosts of the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards Evgeny Lebedev in Gucci, DAME Anna Wintour in custom Margiela, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cate Blanchett in Alexander McQueen Christian Louboutin in Sabyasachi and POPPY DELEVINGNE in Prada with rings by Messika Compere of the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE in Burberry Nominees for the Emerging Talent Award SHEILA ATIM in Ralph Lauren with necklace and ring by Messika and LUKE THALLON in Burberry Keira Knightley in Valentino Winner of Best Musical Performance AMBER RILEY with cuff by Messika Winner of Best Play in partnership with Hiscox, Official Arts Partner of the Evening Standard (for The Ferryman) JEZ BUTTERWORTH in Prada DAME SHIRLEY BASSEY in Blumarine Nominee for Best Play in partnership with Hiscox, Official Arts Partner of the Evening Standard, JAMES GRAHAM (for Ink) in Burberry CHRISTOPHER KANE in Christopher Kane, ANYA HINDMARCH, LAURA CARMICHAEL in Christopher Kane, ARIZONA MUSE and Erdem Moralioglu both in Lanvin Co-presenter of the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical ALLISON WILLIAMS in Alexander McQueen with bracelet by Messika Nominee for Best Actor in partnership with Ambassador Theatre Group BERTIE CARVEL in Lanvin The winners of the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical (for Bat out of Hell  The Musical) MICHAEL COHL in Ermenegildo Zegna, ANDREW POLEC in Gieves & Hawkes, CHRISTINA BENNINGTON in Self-Portrait and DAVID SONENBERG in Calvin Klein Winner of the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS and nominee for the award AL SMITH Winner of the Emerging Talent Award TOM GLYNN-CARNEY in Ermenegildo Zegna Presenter of Best Actor in partnership with Ambassador Theatre Group RUTH NEGGA in Valentino Winner of the Milton Shulman Award for Best Director SAM MENDES in Prada and presenter of the award HELEN McCRORY in Roksanda Nominee for Best Musical Performance JANIE DEE and MATILDA WICKHAM in Lipman & Sons FLORENCE PUGH in Armani with bracelet and ring by Messika and ARINZE KENE in Brooks Brothers and Christian Louboutin JONATHAN ANDERSON in Loewe and ELISA LASOWSKI in JW Anderson LYDIA LEONARD in Racil with earrings by Messika and nominee for Best Play with Hiscox, Official Arts Partner of the Evening Standard, JT Rogers (for Oslo) Co-presenter of the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical JEREMY IRVINE in Hugo Boss and ELLIE BAMBER in Chanel Nominee for the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress in partnership with Christian Louboutin Laura Donnelly in Emilia Wickstead Presenter of the Emerging Talent Award CUSH JUMBO in Michael Kors with earrings and bracelet by Messika Winner of Best Actor in partnership with Ambassador Theatre Group ANDREW GARFIELD in Gucci and nominee for the award ANDREW SCOTT in Thom Browne Winner of the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress in partnership with Christian Louboutin GLENDA JACKSON in Marks & Spencer

Caro Newling, producer and co-founder of Neal Street Productions, has worked on adaptations as diverse as Shrek The Musical and Pedro Almodovars All About My Mother. She says that a truly great adaptation will start from the beginning and make something in its own pool of light, which you hope you might capture the imagination of an audience.

You cant copy and paste what an audience wants to see, she says, singling out Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for praise. An audience will spot fake a mile off. If youre going in with a cynical attitude about making money, you cant really get a show on.

Stephen Beresford, who has adapted Fanny & Alexander for The Old Vic, sees the appetite for celluloid classics on stage as a sign of confidence on the part of the theatre world, which is providing a home for the film-length drama. At a time when cinema is really struggling, and theres a crisis with TV taking all the interesting, wild and creative stories, its fascinating to see people turning up for the theatre. Theatre is like that character Lady Bertram, in Mansfield Park, who is always lying on a sofa saying, Im so terribly ill, Im going to die, but never actually expires of anything.

While passionate about the potential for unusual adaptations, Goold believes we must never abandon the idea of the playwright as the lead artist. My position is that writers are the most important thing and we cannot risk losing great new writing as a theatre culture. But after that, anythings game. He disputes the idea that the playwrights days are numbered. There are up to 10 new plays this year you could make a case for getting an award. Its an extraordinary time for new writers.

Hall is also untroubled. Im the very opposite of those people who worry about what adaptations mean for theatre because theatre has been around longer than most forms and will continue to be. It will see off all other ways of telling stories.
Fashion brands Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo have pledged to stop using real fur in their products.

The American company Michael Kors, which acquired the luxury shoemaker earlier this year, will phase out using real fur by the end of 2018.

The designer said on Friday: "Due to technological advances in fabrications, we now have the ability to create a luxe aesthetic using non-animal fur.

"We will showcase these new techniques in our upcoming runway show in February."

The company is the latest in a series of major fashion brands to shun animal fur.

Jimmy Choo shoes, as pictured here in Berlin earlier this year, will also no longer carry fur. / Getty Images

Humane Society International praised the decision, with its president Kitty Block saying: "Killing animals for fur is cruel and outdated, and so it's hugely exciting to see forward-looking fashion designers such as Michael Kors take fur out of their collections.

"It's clear that consumer demand for ethical fashion includes a strong desire for an end to fur, and so we are delighted to welcome Michael Kors as a fur-free leader in luxury fashion alongside the likes of Gucci, Armani, Yoox Net-a-Porter, Stella McCartney, Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss."

It comes after Old Spitalfields Market in London banned the sale of fur from January in what was called a victory for animal rights campaigners.

Last month, crowds of activists protested outside the opening of Canada Gooses newly-opened Regent Street store over the high-end brands use of coyote fur.



Additional reporting by Press Association.
A h, December. That month of schlepping from one work do to another, boozy set-menu lunches with colleagues, dinners with old friends, weekend parties and impromptu visits from neighbours and family.

So many social occasions to navigate  and, potentially, a lot of the same-old, same-old going on in your glass.

The next few weeks are a marathon for your taste buds. Start too strong and youll have palate fatigue - and most likely the flu - by week two. So, whether youre throwing a party from the comfort of your own home, or reluctantly organising one for the office, help is at hand.

Here are six alternative spirits and aperitifs to revive and inspire, plus the perfect cocktail recipes to use them in.

And even if you decide to say: Bah, humbug! to all the festive get-togethers, no one should be a Grinch to themselves. These recipes are all single-serve, so why not make one or two, just for you?

Rutte Celery Gin

For the gin buff whose drinks cabinet is starting to resemble a rather large pharmacy, this is for you - a generations-old gin from small-batch distillery Rutte, based in Dordrecht. Founded in 1872 by Simon Rutte, it is the smallest distillery in the Netherlands.

The recipes have been passed down through seven generations, the fathers each holding on to their passion until their last breath. Still handmade in the same tiny back room behind the sweetshop-for-adults-style frontage, this celery gin is distilled with traditional juniper plus celery, coriander, angelica root, sweet orange peel and cardamom.

But celery haters neednt give this one the swerve - the celery flavour is so subtle that if it wasnt mentioned on the label, I wonder how many would be able to pick it out from the taste. This is light and well-rounded, with subtle herbaceous notes of mint, fresh coriander and parsley. Refreshing ripe citrus keeps everything clean and balanced.

Buy now, 34.55, The Whisky Exchange

Perfect cocktail: Celery Basil Smash

Created by Jorg Meyer, owner of Le Lion Bar de Paris, Hamburg

Ingredients:

2 parts Rutte Celery Gin

3/4 part fresh lemon juice

2/3 part simple syrup

Handful of fresh basil (eight torn leaves)

Method: Add all ingredients and shake vigorously, then double strain into a tumbler over ice. Garnish with a sprig of fresh basil.

Italicus Rosolio di Bergamotto

Dating back to the 15th century, Rosolio was once a fashionable Italian liquor, the perfect toasting tipple among townsfolk and royalty alike. Popular up and down the country and made with locally sourced ingredients from each area, practically every Italian nonna would carry a recipe to her grave.

The concept for Italicus, created by Giuseppe Gallo (previously the brand ambassador for Martini Rossi) dates back to a royal recipe made in the 1800s for the King of Savoy and later fused into his familys own rosolio-making tradition. Gallos floral and aromatic aperitif is primarily based on Calabrian bergamot peel with Roman chamomile, Sicilian Cedro citrus fruit, lavender, gentian, yellow rose and Melissa balm.

In keeping with tradition, the bergamot and Cedro are cold pressed separately to extract the highest-grade essential oils, then blended with neutral grain spirit while the remaining botanicals are macerated for over a week before being added. No essences are used, making this product completely natural, somewhat expensive to create and most certainly a labour of love. The stylish azure glass bottle is eye-catching.

Buy now, 29.95, The Whisky Exchange

Perfect cocktail: Gallicus

Created by Giuseppe Gallo

Floral, with a slightly bitter, spicy edge and with notes of ripe citrus, Italicus makes a great partner for Prosecco, enhancing the flavours and keeping the sweetness and acidity levels refreshing.

Ingredients:

50ml Italicus

50ml Prosecco DOC

Ice cubes

Three green olives to garnish

Method: In a large wineglass, pour Italicus over ice. Top up with Prosecco and stir. Garnish with three green olives.

Hands down the easiest cocktail on the list, this ones your party tipple sorted. Serve in a coupette or as a long drink, depending on how generous you are feeling. Can also be topped with soda water for a less-boozy burst.

Nikka from the Barrel

Founded by Masataka Taketsuru in 1934, this Japanese whisky is not only a marriage of styles and continents but is also one of love, inspired by Taketsurus wife Rita, a Scot. The couple wed in 1920 in Glasgow during his apprenticeship in whisky production.

Made from matured malt and grain whiskies blended together, the spirit is then re-casked to combine the two different styles. Its similar in method and taste to Scotch, but with maturation taking place in the cooler mountainous climate of Hokkaido to impart gentler notes to an already big character. The result is both complex and refined.

Copper gold in the glass, with notes of milk chocolate, cinnamon, leather, vanilla-infused oak, walnut, caramelised apple, chocolate-enrobed clementine, stewed apricot and prunes served with a dollop of cream (there really is this much and more). The finish is dry and rich, with a comforting warmth of peppery spice that stays tingling on your lips for a long while after. A love letter in a bottle, this is also a go-to cocktail mixer for top London bartenders.

Buy now, 37.99, Waitrose

Perfect cocktail: Shimbashi (a twist on the Brooklyn)

Created by Amaury Guyot, head bartender at Dersou, Paris

Ingredients:

45ml Nikka From the Barrel

20ml Fino sherry

15ml house bitters mix (Luxardo, Amaro and Angostura bitters)

Method: Place a martini glass in the freezer to chill for 10 to 15 minutes. Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until chilled. Strain into the chilled martini glass and add lemon zest to garnish.

Rutte Old Simon Genever

Apparently all gins were born from Genever - a slightly off-clear spirit made from malt wine and a juniper-based distillate. A cross between whisky (with its velvety mouth-feel and malty, smoky nuttiness) and gin (for its herbal notes), this Old Simon has a lot to offer.

Created by Simon Rutte himself, he was experimenting way back in 1872 by distilling malt wine with grain alcohol and adding 11 different botanicals including roasted walnuts, hazelnuts, angelica root, coriander, oris root, mace, celery, carob, liquorice and fresh fruit. Served neat, it will appeal to die-hard whisky fans and used in cocktails it adds a depth of complexity.

Buy now, 28.45, The Whisky Exchange

Perfect cocktail: Old Martinez

Created by Simon Difford

Ingredients:

2 parts Rutte Old Simon Genever

1 part sweet Vermouth

1/3 part Dry Vermouth

1/3 part orange liqueur

A dash of Angostura orange bitters

Zest of one orange

Method: Combine all the ingredients, apart from the zest, and stir in a mixing glass until cold. Strain into a chilled coupette glass and garnish with a sprinkling of orange zest.

Kamm & Sons

A truly British aperitif, this bittersweet ginseng spirit is made in a similar way to gin and contains 45 natural botanicals including ginseng, fresh grapefruit peel, elderflower, juniper berries, fennel seeds, echinacea, hibiscus, goji berries and manuka honey. Essentially, everything you need for good health bottled. Kamm & Sons can be added to a plethora of different cocktails to increase the taste quota.

For something short and strong, you cant beat the Grosvenor cocktail, made by founder Alex Kammberling himself, using 50ml Kamm & Sons, 25ml Punt e Mes and 5ml Islay Whisky, served with ice and a twist of lemon peel. For group glugging or for something to warm the cockles after a long winters walk, the Hot Kammberry will have you ditching the mulled wine in no time.

Buy now, 26, Master of Malt

Perfect cocktail: Hot Kammberry

Created by Alex Kammerling

Ingredients:

35ml Kamm & Sons

10ml Bourbon

15ml maple syrup

150ml cranberry juice

Method: Warm all the ingredients in a saucepan and strain into a heatproof glass. Garnish with lemon peel.

Cocchi Americano Bianco

This was created in 1891 by Giulio Cocchi, then a young pastry chef from Florence who upped sticks to discover the food and wine culture of Asti. His white wine vermouth uses a base of moscato wine, fortified and infused with gentian flowers and leaves, wormwood, cinchona (used to make quinine), citrus peel and elderflower.

After 12 months ageing, the rich, fruity appeal (marmalade, peach and white cherry) and honeyed sweetness is balanced with spicy bitterness. Sometimes compared to Lillet Blanc but with more kick, this wont be collecting dust on your shelf any time soon - although with its slick, Thirties-designed label, it certainly has that collectors appeal.

Buy now, 21.95, The Whisky Exchange

Perfect cocktail: Dutch Negroni

Created by Chi Ho Ta, bar manager at Dr. in Rotterdam

Ingredients:

30 ml Rutte Old Simon

25 ml Tempus Fugit Kina l'Aero d'Or

25 ml Cocchi Americano

Method: Stir and strain into a tumbler on an ice block. Garnish with grapefruit zest.
D ominic Grieve protests that he is a most unlikely rebel leader.

The former Attorney General and Conservative MP hasnt stopped working, or seen his wife, since Wednesday, when he and 10 other MPs defied a three-line whip to secure a vote for MPs on the final deal to leave the EU, in the Prime Ministers first defeat on Brexit.

Thanking his assistant for the mince pie shes brought him to cheer me up, Grieve, aged 61, says he has had two death threats this week. One by email and one was an answerphone message. Its not very nice, and worrying. There are people who are mad, bad or both who are homicidal. What worries me is that when you have a political atmosphere that becomes fevered, with vitriol directed at certain figures; those mad people start to be disinhibited by the atmosphere, which can lead to criminal acts.

Going against the Government troubles me, he says, straightening his tie. Ive been in Parliament for 21 years and in that time I have only voted against the Government once, over HS2. But this is the riskiest thing that the Government has done in its entire history outside of going to war; its as serious as that. Therefore we should try to manage it successfully.

He sees himself as a victim of circumstance. I have lost sleep due to the issues posed by the Brexit problems. I am troubled about how this great risk to the countrys well-being is going to be successfully managed. I get constituents who say youre much too negative but Im sorry, it should be something we are concerned about. Regretful as I am that I had to do it, I have no regrets at having done it at all.

His amendment states that the Government can only make provision for implementing the withdrawal agreement if it is subject to the prior enactment of a statute by Parliament approving the final terms: The Government could have avoided rebellion if it had listened and done what I asked.

Theresa May has noted Grieves argument that setting a final date for Brexit is damaging  she is now expected to back away from plans to do this, in order to avoid a second Commons defeat next week.

There were reports of MPs left agitated by the whips at the vote. Vicky Ford, Tory MP for Chelmsford, was seen wavering between both voting lobbies before Philip Hammond guided her to the government lobby.

Some colleagues felt the whips had acted in a bullying manner, says Grieve. I hope it doesnt escalate, its counter-productive. In the debate I felt there had been a closing down of reasonable discussion, and once you get to that point where the temperature rises it starts to feel like a trial of strength, which it shouldnt be. You close down sensible discussion.

Boris Johnson: Commons defeat will not stop Brexit

Afterwards Grieve found himself with people who had voted the other way. We had a perfectly amicable conversation. Some people criticised me but they are entitled to that. The colleagues with whom I had been working were down the corridor with a glass of wine waiting for me, which was fortuitous, so I then wandered along for a glass of wine with them. Ive been surprised to see how resilient colleagues have been, particularly new recruits who are generally more susceptible to pressure.

Colleagues have told him hes trending on Twitter. I wont do social media so Im unable to see whether trending is good or bad.

Grieve campaigned for Remain. He felt gloomy about the referendum result and the splits it revealed between the political class and the electorate, which we must take responsibility for. But while he sees it as a historic mistake with no benefits in the short or medium term, he has no intention of sabotage. The only people who can stop Brexit are the public.

He admires Gina Miller for challenging the Governments authority to implement Brexit without Parliament. She is a courageous lady. I told anyone who asked me that she was going to win her case. What was regrettable is that she was subjected to far worse vilification than Ive ever encountered. The Government was not robust enough in countering the vitriol thrown at her.

Brexit: What happens next?

Grieves office is packed with trinkets  a figurine of St Ivo (a good man, patron saint of lawyers, a Breton, he pronounces it with a French accent) and a clock that belonged to a French doctor ancestor. He assures me: I have plenty of British things as well. The shelves are full of books, including Call Me Dave, the biography of the former PM and A A Milnes poetry book Now We Are Sixty.

He chuckles at the pastiche of the Daily Mails front page yesterday, which turned its headline about the rebels Proud of yourselves? into Proud of our elves. That was delightful, it made us all happier. The Daily Mail is the Grinch. Its vitriol doesnt help the national debate.

A spoof of the Daily Mails front page criticising him and 10 other MPs for defying the whip this week

Its not that Grieve is afraid of confrontation, rather that he wants debate and due process. The Government is having to take some of the most extensive powers ever obtained by government in peace time to carry the Brexit process through. Weve got to be capable of having a reasonable dialogue on that, to accommodate difference. Its not so much that a cultural change is needed, although it might be helpful, but people should pay attention to what we are discussing. That means the nitty gritty of Article 50. We need to debate on how to leave the EU in a way that minimises risk and maximises opportunities.

Before Wednesdays vote he discussed his actions with his wife, the barrister Caroline Hutton. Shes a helpful sounding board. She applies her take, and it wont necessarily be identical to my own. I dont think she disagrees with me on this, though.

Setting a date for Brexit, which we are voting about next Wednesday, is a big mistake. It unnecessarily fetters the Governments range of action at the end of the Brexit process. Its noteworthy that a few colleagues who supported the Brexit vote agree. This is not just a leave/remain split. The idea is counter-productive to Brexit.

Theres already a date for Brexit provided in Article 50. Its two years after we trigger the official notice period, or indeed it can be earlier. Article 50 does provide for that being extended. Thats why I think its silly to prevent that process being available if necessary by insisting we have to leave as a matter of law by March 29, 2019.

Would he prefer us not to leave? Going against the votes of 17.4 million would be extraordinary and I wouldnt support it under any circumstances.

My ideal scenario is that we wouldnt be where we are but the best we can hope for is that the Government is able to arrive at a good deal with the EU.

Does he think the other prominent rebel of the moment, Jeremy Corbyn, could be the next Prime Minister? I hope not. He is undoubtedly very Left- wing, if not Marxist, and a Corbyn-led Labour government would be catastrophic. He has a long history of rebellion and hes leading a party thats disunited. The risk to us is that we dont get re-elected because the challenges that Brexit poses are so dominant that other important issues like economic growth, that affect things like spending on the NHS, are ones we cant deliver on so people go to another party, or worse lose faith in mainstream politics and go to extremes.

In a sense, Jeremy Corbyn represents an extreme group within Labour thats become dominant. Thats the real challenge, not an individual defeat for the Government at the committee stage.

Still, it will take more than a rebel MP from Islington to defeat the Tories. The Conservative Party has been around for more than 200 years. Its a rather resilient organism. Clearly, how we manage Brexit has put immense strain on the entire political system.

Hes off for a panel discussion about human rights. Over Christmas he plans a break from Brexit with cliff top walks at our house in Brittany, snoozes by the fire and a swim in the sea to celebrate New Years Eve. He might even take his two grown-up sons to see the other rebel army, in the new Star Wars film, but thats as close to a coup as he plans to get. I hope this is the last of me being an unlikely rebel, he smiles.
A moving art installation has been created out of hundreds of salvaged items discarded by refugees from the Greek Island of Lesbos.

British war artist Arabella Dormans work is called "Suspended" and currently hangs in St James's church in Piccadilly.

Ms Dorman told the Standard that she wanted to create something that reflected the current refugee crisis.

She collected the pieces for this project after travelling to Lesbos in 2005.

She said: I travelled there two years ago when I heard about all the Afghans and Iraqis that were migrating there.

I was completely overwhelmed by the scale of human tragedy that I saw there.

After noticing the huge amount of discarded clothing that had been left abandoned on the island, she was inspired to create "Suspended".

She said: Each item holds a potent secret story about the person who wore it.

Ms Dorman said that she wanted to create an installation that explored the implication of the hidden plight of refugees.

She said: Its one of the most urgent crises of our time.

"Suspended" is made of hundreds of pieces of clothing which hang in the air. Ms Dorman said that the decision to suspend the clothes was a deliberate one as she wanted to reflect how many refugees remain in limbo when they are forced to flee their home countries.

Hundreds of thousands of people are stuck, they are suspended in cities and camps around the world. Ms Dorman said.

However, the work is also supposed to be hopeful as well as informative.

A circuit of lights within the installation brighten and dim as you look at it. Ms Dorman said that the lights represent the hope that refugees carry with them and also the potential that we have to validate this hope.

The light in the installation represents hope / AP

Suspended is a follow up project from Ms Dorman's previous work, "Flight", which received critical acclaim.

The piece was hung in St Jamess over Christmas last year.

Ms Dorman said that she was inspired to create the series after visiting Afghanistan.

Afghanistan made me focus on the person behind the headlines," she said.

She said that she hopes her latest work will evoke a sense of the people who wore the clothes to begin with.

When you pick up an item of clothing you are coming face to face with a person she said.

Suspended is a fundraising initiative for the Starfish Foundation which helps refugee children and families in Lesbos and beyond.

The grassroots organisation provided Ms Dorman with all the clothes used in the installation.

Melinda McRostie, the founder of Starfish, said that she thought the installation was absolutely amazing and that she hoped it would help to make people realise what is happening in Lesbos and elsewhere in the world.
T he Royal Borough of Greenwich has "barred" Donald Trump after councillors called for his visit to the UK to be abandoned.

Earlier this week, America's ambassador in London signalled that Mr Trump is due to visit early next year - sparking fresh calls for mass demonstrations against the president.

And at a meeting on Tuesday night, the Labour council added its voice to the protests by calling on the Government to abandon the plans.

Greenwich Council said it adopted a motion calling for a state visit to be abandoned, while also declaring that should a state visit go ahead, President Trump would not be welcome in the Borough.

US President Donald Trump's tweets in 2017

The council expressed alarm at the decision of President Trump to retweet islamophobic propaganda and sadness at the President's bigoted attitude towards women and ethnic minorities.

It comes after Mr Trump sparked a global backlash last month after retweeting a string of unverified anti-Islamic videos posted by far-right group Britain Firsts deputy leader.

Donald Trump shares 'Muslim crime' videos tweeted by Britain First leader

He also blasted London Mayor Sadiq Khan's response to the London Bridge terror attack earlier this year, branding it pathetic.

Just hours after the attack, he tweeted: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!

Councillor Denise Hyland, leader of the council said: "On a daily basis we work hand in hand with residents from all communities to ensure this borough is a peaceful and welcoming place that celebrates difference and diversity, but in the case of President Trump we are willing to make an exception.

We are one of 32 London boroughs, all different, all individual but all home to people from across the world.

"This diversity strengthens our borough. It enriches our lives on a daily basis. And it reminds us all that we have so much more in common than divides us.

As one of the most multi-cultural London boroughs, we are a place that has worked tirelessly to break down barriers. We have no time for people who want to build walls, when we have done so much to break them down."

Cllr Chris Kirby, who presented the motion said: "President Trump has regularly expressed abhorrent and aggressive views and in doing so has enabled the spread of division and hatred.

We have worked incredibly hard in this borough to build strong community ties across all faiths and backgrounds - President Trump's views, attitude and policies are totally incompatible with that work."

Anti-Trump protest outside Downing Street - London Live

He went on to say that: "As a council we hold responsibility for more than 270,000 residents. We took the view that we could not stand by and watch the level of public debate be poisoned by the rhetoric that the President and others like him have continued to use.

We have stood up and made our position clear: there is no place for aggressive, bigoted and hateful rhetoric in the Royal Borough of Greenwich."
F inding a parking space in the West End is never easy.

But this motorist and his passenger were lucky to escape unscathed after careering through railings to end up nose-down in the basement of a luxury apartment block.

Families staying in the serviced block opposite Hyde Park today told of their miracle escape as the 30,000 Mercedes came crashing into the building.

Pictures show the driver climb from his up-ended Mercedes C-Class and clamber out of the lightwell after the accident in Lancaster Terrace just after 5.15am today.

Car crashes into basement in Lancaster Gate

A receptionist at Fountain House where serviced apartments sell for over 2 million, said it was very lucky that no-one was killed.

A man believed to be the driver clambers free from the crashed vehicle / Evening Standard

He said: I heard the very loud screeching of tyres as he tried to brake at the last moment. I looked up and saw him go through the railings and down.

The car was still in position at midday today after the crash / PA

The driver had pulled himself out of the car and was having an argument with himself. He was pretty angry.

Crash barrier: the car plunged through railings and down into a lightwell / PA

There was a woman in there too who was shaken up but fine its a very lucky escape for both of them.

He wasnt going crazy over the speed limit and wasnt being chased, he just never made the turn.

A man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of drink driving / Evening Standard

Swedish tourist Alexander Bergman, 27, was staying in the basement flat with his girlfriend Linn Byman, her sister, Olivia, and her partner, Gustaf Svensson.

The car plunged into a basement recess in the West End / Jeremy Selwyn

Mr Bergman said: We were all asleep, then was this huge crash of broken metal.

We feel very lucky, thats my bedroom window he came through. We didnt notice how close it was until we pulled back the curtain and saw this car. We only arrived in London yesterday.. what a welcome.

The driver was said to be angry when he was pulled from the driver's seat / Jeremy Selwyn

His girlfriend Linn Byman, 27, said: This doesnt happen every day in Sweden. I hope he drives safely from now on.

The receptionist said there had been no structural damage to the building.

Police at the scene of the car crash on Lancaster Terrace

He added: The firefighters said there is no danger to our guests or the building so there was no need to wake them. But if the crash didnt, then I dont know what will.

A passing TfL worker, 23, said: I offered to help him out but he did it on his own. The woman was shaken up but was fine, its a miracle no-one was hurt.

A Met spokesman said the driver did not require medical treatment. He was arrested on suspicion of drink driving and was being interviewed this morning at a south west London police station.
T heresa May has reassured EU leaders she is still on course to deliver Brexit despite suffering her first Commons loss in a key vote.

The Prime Minister addressed fellow leaders over dinner in Brussels on Thursday night, where she stressed her desire to get on with shaping a deep and special future partnership.

The night before, MPs claimed to have taken back control of Brexit after defeating the government to secure a meaningful vote on the final EU withdrawal deal.

But Mrs May reaffirmed her intentions in Brussels, saying she makes no secret of wanting to move on to the next phase and to approaching it with ambition and creativity.

MPs celebrated after the Government suffered its first defeat over Brexit / PA

I believe this is in the best interests of the UK and the European Union, she added. A particular priority should be agreement on the implementation period so that we can bring greater certainty to businesses in the UK and across the 27.

EU leaders are today expected to give the green light for negotiations to move onto the next phase, nine months after Article 50 was triggered.

However, the leaders of the 27 remaining member states are set to approve guidelines which would set a slow timetable for talks on trade.

First priorities will be to translate last week's agreement on the "divorce" issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's 39 billion exit bill into a legally binding Withdrawal Agreement and to work out the terms for a transition period to follow the official date of Brexit in March 2019.

Boris Johnson: Commons defeat will not stop Brexit

EU leaders said it was for Britain to put forward concrete proposals for the kind of trade deal they want, with Dutch PM Mark Rutte saying Mrs May had so far been "holding her cards close to her heart" but it was now time for her and the UK Government to make clear exactly what relationship they are seeking with the single market and customs union.

Senior ministers are due to have their first discussion of the "end state" relationship Britain is seeking with the EU in a Cabinet meeting next Tuesday which threatens to expose deep divisions between their visions of the UK's future.

Meanwhile, Mrs May is facing a further challenge to her authority next week when MPs vote on a Government amendment to enshrine the Brexit date of March 29 2019 in law.

Amid predictions that the PM is heading for a second defeat, after 11 Tories rebelled on Wednesday to back a successful motion calling for MPs to be given a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal, a senior Government source denied that Mrs May was preparing to dump the provision.

The official also said that "no politician should face intimidation or threats" after rebel ringleader Dominic Grieve reported receiving death threats amid calls from hardline Brexiteers for the deselection of those who voted against the Government.

Mrs May left the EU summit early after dinner on Thursday, leaving her 27 counterparts to discuss Brexit and the future of the eurozone on Friday.

May 'disappointed' by Commons defeat but 'on course to deliver Brexit'

With European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier having declared that last week's divorce deal amounts to "sufficient progress" to clear the way to the second phase of talks, and the European Parliament overwhelmingly offering its support on Wednesday, the decision on Brexit is little more than a formality expected to be approved in short order by the EU27.

Addressing her fellow leaders over dinner, Mrs May said she "makes no secret of wanting to move on to the next phase and to approaching it with ambition and creativity".

She added: "I believe this is in the best interest of the UK and the EU. A particular priority should be agreement on the implementation period so that we can bring greater certainty to businesses in the UK and across the 27."

But she made no bones about the long road that lies ahead before a deal is sealed, saying that both sides would need to show perseverance and commitment in the months to come.

Brexit was not the focus of attention for EU27 leaders at the two-day summit, as they debated measures to stem the flow of migrants over the Mediterranean, rolled over sanctions on Russia and confirmed their support for a two-state solution in the Middle East with Jerusalem as capital for both Israelis and Palestinians.

They also launched the new Permanent Structured Co-operation (Pesco) arrangement, backed by the UK, which aims to enhance defence collaboration and investment across the Union.

In London, Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach suggested Britain should "keep the door open" to joining Pesco.

"As Brexit becomes a reality, we remain committed to European security, capability development and future plans," he said.

"What I don't know yet is how we will do that. My analogy would be do keep the door open to contribute in our national interest to a new way of cooperation with our European friends and partners."
C abinet ministers are set to endorse Theresa Mays opening moves for Brexit trade talks on Tuesday, at a special session marking the shift from the divorce phase to negotiations on a future EU/UK relationship.

Soundings among ministers by the Standard suggest a majority in the Cabinet for her broad approach, which ministers see as alignment with EU rules in some areas in order to maximise trade opportunities.

Differences are emerging, however, with some Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove urging a looser alignment to allow trade deals elsewhere.

Others, like Home Secretary Amber Rudd, want to maintain maximum trade with the EU, currently Britains biggest market.

But there seems to be little appetite for a hard Brexit on World Trade Organisation terms, nor significant opposition even among soft Brexit supporters to Mrs Mays vow to quit the single market and the customs union.

The definition of soft Brexit has hardened in the past six months, a senior minister who backed Remain said. It used to mean staying in the single market but now it means aligning outcomes rather than harmonising rules.

Another senior minister, who backed Brexit, said: Nobody wants a no-deal outcome. I suspect there will be a great deal more unanimity than people realise. Mrs May has scheduled a 90-minute debate on Tuesday to give every member of the Cabinet an opportunity to air their views.

The door to trade talks starting in March was opened when leaders of the 27 other EU countries at a summit in Brussels endorsed the divorce deal agreed by Mrs May last week. She was applauded at a dinner last night  but EU leaders today urged her to make clear what sort of trade deal she wants.

On Monday, the PM will chair a 90-minute meeting of the Brexit war cabinet.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling wants to send a message that Britain could not give full access to French farm produce if there is no reciprocal access for City of London services.

In an interview with the Evening Standard today, rebel former Attorney General Dominic Grieve urged Mrs May to abandon her bid to set the Brexit date in law.
T heresa May hailed an important step to Brexit today after EU leaders cleared the way for talks on a transition period and a trade deal.

The Prime Minister was jubilant after the divorce phase of talks ended officially in Brussels.

Congratulations @theresa_may! tweeted EU Council president Donald Tusk after the bloc rubber-stamped the first phase, covering the exit terms. EU sign off phase one of the #Brexit talks, now they can move on to trade.

Mrs May tweeted back: Today is an important step on the road to delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit and forging our deep and special future partnership.

But both sides said there would be tough negotiating, as European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker warned Phase 2 talks would be significantly harder.

The spotlight now moves to a special meeting of Mrs Mays Cabinet next week where ministers are set to broadly endorse her opening moves for trade talks. Soundings among ministers by the Standard suggest a majority in Cabinet support her broad approach, described as alignment with EU rules in some areas in order to maximise trade opportunities.

Differences are emerging, however, with Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove urging a looser alignment to allow trade deals elsewhere.

Others, like Home Secretary Amber Rudd, want to maintain maximum trade with the EU.

But there seems to be little appetite for a hard Brexit on World Trade Organisation terms, nor significant opposition even among soft Brexit supporters to Mrs Mays vow to quit the single market and the customs union.

Donal Tusk: Real test will be second phase of Brexit talks

The definition of soft Brexit has hardened in the past six months, a senior minister who backed Remain in 2016 said. It used to mean staying in the single market but now it means aligning outcomes rather than harmonising rules.

Another senior minister, who backed Brexit, said: Nobody wants a no-deal outcome. I suspect there will be a great deal more unanimity than people realise.

Mrs May, who has scheduled a 90-minute debate on Tuesday to give every member of the Cabinet an opportunity to air their views, was applauded by EU leaders at a dinner last night.

On Monday she will chair a 90-minute meeting of the Brexit war cabinet, as Transport Secretary Chris Grayling urges that Britain should not give full access to French farm produce without reciprocal access for the City of Londons services.

Mrs Mays spokesman this morning denied she is abandoning her bid to fix the Brexit date as March 29, 2019, amid fears of a new Commons defeat.

In an interview with the Standard today, rebel former Attorney General Dominic Grieve urged her to drop the attempt to set the date.
T ory rebels who helped inflict the first major Brexit defeat on Theresa May said they received death threats following the vote.

Dominic Grieve, who led the rebellion, said he had been forced to report the most serious threats to the police after leading a rebellion forcing the Prime Minister to give Tory MPs a "meaningful vote" over the final withdrawal bill.

The former attorney general told the Guardian: "The thing which continues to cause me concern is not that people will disagree vigorously with the positions we take but that the atmosphere is so febrile that it leads firstly to people not listening to what the debate is about, secondly suggests that any questions around Brexit amount to an intention to sabotage and thirdly result in some people expressing themselves in terms that at times include death threats."

Antoinette Sandbach, who also joined Labour, Lib Dem and SNP lawmakers to vote in Amendment 7, which guarantees Parliament a vote on the final Brexit deal, said she had received "oblique" threats including the comment: "You'll get what's coming to you."

PM suffers humiliating Brexit vote defeat

The threats came after images emerged of four of 11 rebels in the Commons tearoom appearing to sit around a table containing bottles of wine.

Shared online after the vote, it fuelled accusations that the rebels celebrated their victory with champagne.

Anna Soubry angrily denied the heckles in the Commons, saying: "Nobody drank champagne, not on these benches, so let's just nail that one."

No champagne is visible in the image and it isn't clear exactly when it was taken.

Wednesday's shock result has sparked anger among some Tory MPs who branded the rebels "treacherous".

Nadine Dorries MP wrote on Twitter: "The Tory rebels have put a spring in Labours step, given them a taste of winning, guaranteed the party a weekend of bad press, undermined the PM and devalued her impact in Brussels. They should be deselected and never allowed to stand as a Tory MP, ever again."

Cabinet ministers meanwhile sought to calm tensions. Michael Gove endorsed the "wise words" of Nick Boles, who voted with the Government but said: "I respect their position and deplore the accusations of treachery and calls for deselection. Nothing could be less British."
A nimal welfare groups are calling for companies to ban pugs and French bulldogs from advertising campaigns over fears marketing increases demand for pets bred with deformities.

The rise in ownership of the breed has been fuelled by their increased prominence in advertising and the wider media, they claim.

The animals faces have been so flattened and distorted by selective breeding that they suffer severe health problems, including breathing difficulties and infections.

Despite this, the popularity of flat-faced, brachycephalic breeds continues to sky rocket.

Celebrity owners include David Beckham, Lady Gaga and Holly Willoughby.

The warning came from the Brachycephalic Working Group (BWG), which includes the British Veterinary Association, Royal Veterinary College, University of Cambridge, Dogs Trust, PDSA, RSPCA and the Kennel Club.

The group said advertisers have an important role to play in promoting animal welfare and working with us to reduce the inappropriate promotion of flat-faced breeds.

French bulldogs, pugs and other breeds are increasingly starring in adverts for mobile phones, skin care products and train tickets.

In a letter to companies involved, the group asked them to stop using such breeds, even in cartoon form, to prevent a welfare crisis.

Images they want removed include animated nodding bulldog Churchie used by Churchill insurance.

Other companies being targeted include Amazon, which used French bulldogs to advertise its Echo speakers, Walls, which used the same breed to market sausages, and Virgin Media after it ran an advert featuring Barry the pug.

Halifax, a company which the group wrote to due to the display of a pug on its banking app, agreed to stop using the animal in advertisements and changed its policy.

A spokesman for the bank said: Since being made aware of the health issues associated with flat-faced dogs, we have reviewed our marketing and advertising materials and will be removing any use of these breeds from our imagery at the earliest opportunity.

Churchill insurance, which has been represented by a British Bulldog for 23 years, said: "We have and continue to use his profile to advocate responsible pet ownership and animal welfare."

Wall's said: "We have not used a dog in our Walls advertising for many years now and we are not intending to in the future."

Amazon and Virgin Media have not commented.
T he boyfriend of an Irish teacher who is fighting for life in a Dubai hospital has raised more than 50,000 following a desperate plea to bring her home.

Aisling Brady, 26, from Trim, collapsed at school in the UAE, suffering a head injury, three seizures, three cardiac arrests and a stroke due to a pulmonary embolism.

The Physics and Maths teacher was rushed to hospital on November 27 after she was knocked out for three minutes due to fainting in the classroom.

Her family asked for support to fly Ms Brady back to Ireland in an Air Ambulance via a GoFundMe page set upon Wednesday.

After being put in an ambulance and quickly transported to hospital, Ms Brady's condition deteriorated - she had three seizures while on the journey.

Pulmonary Embolism A pulmonary embolism is a blockage in the blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the lungs, known as the pulmonary artery. Usually a blood clot, the blockage can be life-threatening because it can stop blood from reaching your lungs. The symptoms of a pulmonary embolism include: Chest pain  a sharp, stabbing pain that may be worse when you breathe in

Shortness of breath  which can come on suddenly or develop gradually

Coughing  this is usually dry, but may include coughing up blood or mucus that contains blood

Feeling faint, dizzy or passing out

At hospital she then had three cardiac arrests in quick succession, and a stroke, caused by a number of clots in her brain, her boyfriend Kristian Mansfield explained on the fundraising page.

The cause of her condition, Mr Mansfield said, was a pulmonary embolism that had formed in her leg over a long period of time, before rushing up to her heart and catching in her lungs.

Ms Aisling moved to the United Arab Emirates in 2016 and it is understood that frequent long-haul flights since the move caused the embolism to move rapidly.

Since Wednesday, Mr Mansfield and Ms Brady's family have raised more than 50,000 (60,000) of their 70,000 (80,000) goal.

Mr Mansfield set up a fundraising page in the hope of transporting Ms Brady from Dubai in an Air Ambulance, which will fly at a low altitude, around 10,000 feet, and is essentially "a hospital in the sky". She will have a cardiac specialist, neurological specialist, doctor and nurses on board.

Writing on the page, Mr Mansfield said: "We are extremely lucky to be able to start this page today, as just over two weeks ago we were given no hope. If the ambulance was a minute later, we wouldn't be here."

"We are praying that soon we can leave the acute phase, which currently totals sixteen days.

"Everybody that knows Aisling understands she is resilient, driven, stubborn and tenacious and she will not settle for anything less than getting her life back up to speed.

"With the right help and support, there is every hope we can together get her back to her loving and caring self."
E uropean leaders have given the go-ahead for the second round of Brexit negotiations to begin.

EU chief Donald Tusk announced on Friday that the next round of negotiations will start after "sufficient progress" had been made - in a tweet where he personally congratulated PM Theresa May.

It comes after Theresa May was applauded by fellow leaders in Brussels on Thursday, where she stressed her desire to get on with shaping a deep and special future partnership.

Mrs May reassured EU leaders that she is still on course to deliver Brexit despite suffering her first Commons loss on Wednesday.

But the leaders of the 27 remaining member states are set to approve guidelines which would set a slow timetable for talks on trade.

Follow our live coverage of Friday's events here:
P rince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding will be on May 19 next year, Kensington Palace has announced.

The Palace revealed the date on Friday. The month and location of the wedding had previously emerged following the couple's engagement last month.

Kensington Palace said in a tweet: "His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms. Meghan Markle will marry on 19th May 2018.

"Today's announcement follows earlier confirmation of the month of the wedding and its location at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle."

May 19 is a Saturday and the same day as next year's FA Cup final.

Prince Harry's older brother the Duke of Cambridge, who is President of the Football Association, usually attends the match and presents the trophy.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle engagement announcement 1 /36 Prince Harry and Meghan Markle engagement announcement Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Eddie Mulholland-WPA Pool/Getty Images Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace AFP/Getty Images Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle photo call today on the announcement of their engagement in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Getty Images Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace AP Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace PA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace EPA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace AP Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Getty Images Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Reuters Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Sky News Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace PA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace EPA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace EPA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Getty Images Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace AFP/Getty Images Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace EPA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace AP Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace, London, after the announcement of their engagement PA Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave following a photocall after announcing their engagement in the Sunken Garden in Kensington Palace EPA Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle during an official photocall to announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace Jeremy Selwyn Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk away after posing for the media in the grounds of Kensington Palace AP

But Prince William, who is tipped to be best man, looks likely to be otherwise engaged with wedding duties next year.

Prince Harry and Ms Markle have gone against tradition by choosing a Saturday, while also avoiding the issue of whether the royal celebration should be a bank holiday.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle carry out first royal engagement together

Royal weddings usually take place on a weekday. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wed on a Friday and the Queen on a Thursday.

The May wedding will also have been picked to give Kate time to recover after the birth of her third child, which is due in April.

Palace aides have already said that the prince and Ms Markle's wedding will "reflect their characters and personalities" and be a moment of "fun and joy".

They will say "I do" in the historic surrounds of the Windsor Castle's 15th century St George's Chapel.

Ms Markle, who is to become a British citizen, is being both baptised and confirmed ahead of the religious ceremony.

The Queen will be there, as will the rest of the royal family, along with Ms Markle's parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland.

Prince George and Princess Charlotte look set take on the roles of pageboy and bridesmaid.

Highlights from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's first interview

The couple, who have enjoyed a 16-month whirlwind romance after being introduced by mutual friends in London, revealed they were engaged on November 27.

After the wedding, they will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace.

Two years before they began dating, Prince Harry told a friend on a night out that Ms Markle was his "ideal woman".

In their first interview after revealing their engagement they gave the world a glimpse of their life as a couple.

Meghan Markle - In pictures 1 /53 Meghan Markle - In pictures Actress/model Meghan Markle attends the pARTy! - celebrating 25 years of P.S. ARTS on May 20, 2016 in Los Angeles, California Getty Images Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Street artist Pegasus' art work which appeared in Highbury and Islington. @pegasusart Meghan Markle in Ibiza Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle attends Glamour and L'Oreal Paris Celebrate 2016 College Women Of The Year at NoMad Hotel Rooftop on 27 April 2016 in New York City Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images Actress Meghan Markle attends P.S. Arts' The pARTy at NeueHouse Hollywood on 20 May 2016 in Los Angeles, California Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Meghan Markle.. 'Today' Show, New York in 2016 MediaPunch/Rex Features Meghan Markle, Lexus-mosphere, Lexus Street Style, Day Two, MADE Fashion Week, New York in 1015 BFA/Rex Features Meghan Markle Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle attends the NBC's 2015 New York Summer Press Day at Four Seasons Hotel New York on 24 June 2015 in New York City Robin Marchant/Getty Images Meghan Markle attends Wes Gordon runway show during MADE Fashion Week Fall 2015 at Milk Studios on 13 February 2015 in New York City Getty Images Meghan Markle attends the 12th annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards at Spring Studios in 2015 Getty Images Model Meghan Markle attends the Elton John AIDS Foundation's 13th Annual An Enduring Vision Benefit at Cipriani Wall Street on October 28, 2014 in New York City Larry Busacca/Getty Images Meghan Markle attends the Elton John AIDS Foundation's 13th Annual An Enduring Vision Benefit at Cipriani Wall Street powered by CIROC Vodka on 28 October 2014 in New York City Getty Images Meghan Markle poses backstage at the Herve Leger By Max Azria fashion show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall 2014 at The Theatre at Lincoln Center on 08 February 2014 in New York City Bryan Bedder/Getty Images Meghan Markle arriving for the World Premiere of The Hunger Games : Catching Fire, at the Odeon Leicester Square, London in 2013 Matt Crossick/PA Meghan Markle attends the London Global Gift Gala at ME Hotel on 19 November 2013 in London Getty Images Meghan Markle attends the ELLE Women in Television Celebration presented by Hearts on Fire Diamonds and Wella Professionals held at Soho House on 24 January 2013 in West Hollywood, California Getty Images Actress Meghan Markle attends the Rising Stars: 2012 Producers Ball during the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2012 in Toronto, Canada Getty Images Meghan Markle Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle Meghan Markle/Facebook Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits Meghan Markle in Anti-Social: Special Edition - Trailer Meghan Markle in Anti-Social: Special Edition - Trailer Meghan Markle in Anti-Social: Special Edition - Trailer Meghan Markle in Anti-Social: Special Edition - Trailer Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane in Suits (Season 5) NBC Universal Media

They revealed how Harry popped the question during a night in cooking a roast chicken at their cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace.

They also told how they holidayed together in Botswana and camped out under the stars after just two dates in London.

Prince Harry, 33, said he believed the 36-year-old bride-to-be and his late mother Diana would have been best friends and thick as thieves.

Meanwhile Ms Markle called her meeting with the Queen in October at Buckingham Palace "incredible" as Prince Harry added the corgis "took to her straight away".

Ms Markle will join the Queen and other senior members of the royal family for Christmas at Sandringham, it was confirmed earlier this week.

She and Prince Harry will be seen in public with other royals when they attend the traditional Christmas Day church service on the Queens private estate in Norfolk.

They will attend the morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on December 25.

The move is a break with tradition as the invitation to spend Christmas with the royal family is not usually extended to partners until they are married.

It was previously reported that Prince Harry had asked the Queen to make an exception in order for Ms Markle to join the family for Christmas.
H otel rooms across Windsor have already been snapped up by royal enthusiasts just hours after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed the date of their wedding.

Kensington Palace announced on Friday the couple's union will take place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on Saturday, May 19 next year.

Almost immediately, rooms everywhere from budget inns to luxury hotels saw royalist tourists purchasing whatever was on offer.

A quick search on price comparison sites such as TripAdvisor and Expedia shows almost all hotels are sold out, with most others saying there is "only one room left".

The Castle Hotel in Windsor, Berkshire, has sold out of rooms for the royal weekend / PA Archive/PA Images

Places without a room to spare on the weekend include Gothic country house Oakley Court, the Castle Hotel in Berkshire, and the Windsor Holiday Inn.

Prince Harry and Ms Markle have gone against tradition by choosing a Saturday to wed, avoiding the issue of whether the royal celebration should be made into a Bank Holiday.

Royal weddings usually take place on a weekday. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge previously wed on a Friday and the Queen married on a Thursday.

The May wedding will also have been picked to give the Duchess of Cambridge time to recover after the birth of her third child, which is due in April.

Ms Markle, who is to become a British citizen, is being both baptised and confirmed ahead of the religious ceremony.

Prince Harry reportedly told one friend Ms Markle was his 'dream woman'

The Queen will be there, as will the rest of the royal family, along with Ms Markle's parents Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland.

Prince George and Princess Charlotte look set take on the roles of pageboy and bridesmaid.

The couple, who have enjoyed a 16-month whirlwind romance after being introduced by mutual friends in London, revealed they were engaged on November 27.

After the wedding, they will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace.

Two years before they began dating, Prince Harry told a friend on a night out that Ms Markle was his "ideal woman".

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle carry out first royal engagement together

In their first interview after revealing their engagement they gave the world a glimpse of their life as a couple.

She and Prince Harry will be seen in public with other royals when they attend the traditional Christmas Day church service on the Queens private estate in Norfolk.

They will attend the morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on December 25.

The move is a break with tradition as the invitation to spend Christmas with the royal family is not usually extended to partners until they are married.

It was previously reported that Prince Harry had asked the Queen to make an exception in order for Ms Markle to join the family for Christmas.
M ore than 20 flood alerts have been issued in the UK as snow starts to thaw following days of freezing weather.

The Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales issued 27 alerts across a swathe of the England and Wales, warning residents to be prepared.

On Friday most places will experience a mix of sunshine and wintry showers, with further snow possible in the west, according to the Met Office.

A fresh yellow weather warning for ice will be in place in parts of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales from 5pm.

This blog is currently paused but check back soon for more weather updates.
I sraeli soldiers shot dead a wheelchair-bound Palestinian protester with no legs on Friday, according to reports.

Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh, 29, was taken to Shifa hospital, in Gaza, after being shot in the head during protests along the eastern border with Israel.

Mail Online reports that another man was also killed nearby in similar circumstances.

The deaths are the latest in an ongoing outbreak of violence prompted by US President Donald Trump's decision to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel.

Jerusalem is regarded as a capital by both Israelis and Palestinians, making it the highly combustible centre of the decades-long Israeli-Arab conflict.

Local media reports that Mr Thurayeh lost his legs during the 2014 Gaza war with Israel, but this has not yet been confirmed.

The Israeli military said that about 3,500 Palestinians demonstrated near the Gaza border fence today.

A spokesman for the Israel Defence Force said: "During the violent riots IDF soldiers fired selectively towards the main instigators."

Theresa May said she disagreed with the move and described Mr Trumps actions as unhelpful.
N azareth has cancelled its Christmas celebrations in protest over Donald Trumps move to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital, according to reports.

The Arab towns traditional festive singing and dancing has been dropped this year by authorities, made furious by the US leaders decision that caused unrest across the Middle East.

With a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, Nazareth is the largest Arab town in Israel and is one of the Holy Lands focal points of Christmas festivities.

Palestinian towns of Bethlehem and Ramallah briefly switched off their Christmas lights to join in the protest following the announcement by Nazareths mayor.

Protests erupted across the Middle East following Trump's move / AFP/Getty Images

We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem, a Nazareth city spokesman told Reuters news agency.

He added that the towns market stalls and Christmas church services would be held as normal.

Nazareth is traditionally thought to be where Jesus grew up, and Bethlehem is where he is thought to have been born.

Protests erupt after Trump's Jerusalem decision 1 /62 Protests erupt after Trump's Jerusalem decision Palestinian protestors clash with Israeli forces near an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Ramallah AFP/Getty Images Israeli forces take position during clashes with Palestinian protestors near an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Ramallah AFP/Getty Images Palestinian protesters burn an effigy of U.S. President Donald Trump AP AFP/Getty Images Palestinians burn posters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump, during a protest against the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, in Gaza City AP Israeli forces disperse Palestinian protestors outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City AFP/Getty Images Palestinian youths take part in a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Pakistanis burn a representation of the U.S. flag during a protest rally in Hyderabad, Pakistan AP Palestinian protestors set fire to a picture of US president Donald J. Trump during a protest in the West Bank City of Nablus EPA Smoke billows from burning tyres as Palestinian demonstrators clash with Isralei troops AFP/Getty Images Palestinian youths take part in a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Jordanian police stand guard near the American Embassy in Amman, Jordan REUTERS Palestinian demonstrators clash with Israeli troops during protests in the West Bank city of Ramallah AFP/Getty Images Palestinians paint an 'X' over the face of a picture of US president Donald J. Trump on the Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem, West Bank EPA Supporters of a Pakistani religious party rally against the United States and Israel, in Lahore, Pakistan AP A supporter of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) an Islamic organization burns US flags Reuters A view from Armon Hanaziv promenade on the old city of Jerusalem, EPA Palestinian protesters chant angry slogans as one burns a representation of the American flag AP Palestinian protestors shout slogans against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the West Bank city of Nablus AFP/Getty Images Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr gestures as he delivers a speech over U.S.President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Baghdad, Iraq Reuters Children stand on U.S. and Israeli flags during a protest following U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, in Islamabad, Pakistan Reuters Protests erupt in Middle East after Donald Trump declares Jerusalem capital of Israel AP Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh gestures as he delivers a speech over U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City Reuters Protesters chant anti-American slogans in Gaza city AP Young Palestinians wave flags in protest at Mr Trump's decision in Gaza EPA People gather in protest to wave flags and chant in Gaza EPA Protesters pray in the street outside the US Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey Getty Images The Christmas tree in front of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity had its lights turned off in protest EPA Protesters burn posters of Donald Trump in Manger Square, Bethlehem AFP/Getty Images A demonstration against the US and Israel at Fatih Mosque in Istanbul AFP/Getty Images Protesters wave Palestinian and Turkish flags during a demonstration in Istanbul AFP/Getty Images Protesters burn the Israeli flag in Cairo, Egypt EPA Pro-Palestinian protesters in Berlin, Germany EPA Palestinians burn Israeli and US flags and posters of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during protest against the US intention to move its embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip EPA Protesters wave flags and shout slogans outside the U.S. Consulate on December 6, 2017 in Istanbul, Turkey Getty Images The Hamas organization's top leader Sheikh Ismaeil Haneiya (C) attends a protest against the US decision to recognize the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City, Gaza Strip EPA US President Donald J. Trump signs his proclamation about his controversial decision to formally recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and his plan to relocate the US embassy to that city, in the Diplomatic Room of the White House in Washington, DC EPA The US and Israeli flags hang at the entrance of Jerusalem Municipality building following US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise the city as the capital of Israel AFP/Getty Images Christian worshipers carry a wooden cross through an alley of Jerusalem's old city EPA Israeli policemen scuffle with a Palestinian man during a protest following U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City Reuters Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses an international conference on digital diplomacy at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem AFP/Getty Images Palestinians shout slogans during a protest following U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement that he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City Reuters Protesters chant slogans and wave Palestinian flags during a demonstration against the US and Israel in front of the US consulate in Istanbul AFP/Getty Images Palestinians take part in a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images A wounded Palestinian protester is evacuated during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the border with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip Reuters Israel policemen stand guard at the Damascus gate of Jerusalem's old city EPA Palestinian youths take part in a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images

The decision to cancel the events comes after Mr Trump announced plans to ended decades of US neutrality on Jerusalem and promised to relocate the US embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The move sparked fury among Palestinians, who immediately took to the streets in protest at a decision that they claim shatters hopes for peace in the war-torn region.

Defying worldwide warnings, Mr Trump insisted that after repeated peace failures it was time for a new approach.

Palestinian protesters carry a wounded young during a protest against US President decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel / EPA

Following the speech, Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem  areas occupied by Israel  began protests by burning flags, pictures and chanting anti-American slogans.

In Gaza - the thin coastal strip cut off by Israel - groups were also pictured setting fire to American flags.

Protesters also took to the streets in Amman, the capital of neighbouring Jordan, where Palestinian refugees in the Baqqa refugee camp denounced Mr Trumps actions. Similar displays were seen in Egypt's capital Cairo.

Meanwhile, Palestinian factions agreed to a general strike and midday rallies.
S cientists analysing the huge cigar-shaped object currently hurtling past Earth have found no signs of alien life from initial scans.

The celestial body - named Oumuamua - was scanned for radio signals after its unusual shape prompted scientists to consider the possibility it could be an alien ship.

Researchers at SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, used a telescope in West Virginia to listen in on the body.

A statement from the 75 million project said that while monitoring and analysis of the data continues, initial signs are that there is "no evidence of artificial signals emanating from the object".

The Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia, US, which is going to track the object. / PA

The Green Bank telescope - the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world - "listened" to the object across four radio frequency bands spanning one to 12 gigahertz and accumulated more than 90TB of data in two hours.

The first of the four bands has been analysed and has been made available for public inspection.

Andrew Siemion, director of Berkeley Seti Research Centre, said: "It is great to see data pouring in from observations of this novel and interesting source.

"Our team is excited to see what additional observations and analyses will reveal."

Astronomers from the University of Hawaii spotted Oumuamua - named after the Hawaiian term for "scout" or "messenger" - in October passing the Earth at about 85 times the distance to the moon.

It is the first object discovered in the solar system that appears to have originated from another part of the galaxy.

Although thought to be an asteroid, Oumuamua's elongated cigar shape hundreds of metres in length but only one tenth as wide is highly unusual for a typical space rock.

Travelling at up to 196,000 mph, the object's high speed also suggests that it is not gravitationally bound to the sun but is destined to head back out of the solar system.

The object is currently about two astronomical units (AU) from Earth, or twice the distance between the Earth and sun.

Breakthrough Listen aims to survey a million nearby stars and 100 nearby galaxies looking for alien signals.

Since the 1960s, there have been more than 98 Seti projects around the world, none of which have turned up any convincing evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations.
V ladimir Putin has revealed he and Donald Trump are on first-name terms as it emerged the pair are working together to solve the North Korea nuclear crisis.

The Russian leader spoke to the media for four hours in his end-of-year news conference on Thursday, explaining: "This is how relations should be between people like us."

He added: "I'm not the one to evaluate the president's work. That needs to be done by the voters, the American people.

"(But) we are objectively seeing that there have been some major accomplishments, even in the short time he has been working.

"Look at how the markets have grown. This speaks to investors' trust in the American economy."

He went on to say that allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections had been invented by enemies of Mr Trump.

He said: "The people who do this are dealing a blow to the state of (US) domestic politics.

Later on Thursday, the two leaders spoke on the phone to discuss the very dangerous situation in North Korea.

The White House said Mr Trump also thanked the Russian leader for "acknowledging America's strong economic performance" in his news conference.

The Kremlin said in a statement that Mr Trump and Mr Putin discussed bilateral relations and the situation in the Korean Peninsula.
Countries & Areas

Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe
This page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable. To help you find what you are looking for:

Enter Search Term(s):

Still cant find what youre looking for? Send us a message using our contact us form. To report a broken link or other problems with the website, please include the URL.

Thank you for visiting state.gov.
In early November South Korea held a live fire exercise off the west coast featuring its newly organized force of AH-64E helicopter gunships. Eight AH-64Es flew sixty kilometers to the coast and then each of them fired at an offshore target using a Hellfire guided missile. This exercise was more for North Korea than anyone else because the 36 South Korea AH-64s began arriving in mid-2016 and were all in service by January 2017. What makes the AH-64 so effective is that it is combat proven, reliable and carries sixteen Hellfire missiles. Each one can be used to destroy individual vehicles (including tanks) or ships (especially the small, fast ones North Korea depends on).

The current Hellfire II weighs 48 kg (106 pounds), carries a 9 kg (20 pound) warhead, and has a range of 8,000 meters. The Hellfire is fast, travelling at about 450 meters a second, meaning that it can hit a target at maximum range in less than 20 seconds. Hellfire is popular for use in urban areas because the small warhead (with only about a kilogram/2.2 pounds of explosives) reduces casualties among nearby civilian (collateral damage). Hellfire was introduced in early 1980, shortly before the AH-64 entered service. Both systems were successful and remain in high demand worldwide.

South Korea ordered the AH-64E in 2013 and they arrived a year ahead of schedule because of the growing threat from North Korea. The South Korean AH-64Es are equipped with the new TADS/PNVS (Arrowhead) all-weather targeting systems. This cost an extra $6.8 million per helicopter but was considered worth it because South Korean Army aviators had seen Arrowhead in action on U.S. 48 AH-64Es stationed in South Korea and urged adoption of the system because they could see how effective it was along the DMZ, which is hilly and often covered in low clouds or mist. Moreover the Arrowhead system had proved itself during combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Army began installing Arrowhead in its AH-64s in 2005 after two years of development and testing. Arrowhead uses the latest night vision devices (light enhancement and thermal, or heat, based) and fire control electronics to enable AH-64 crews to operate more safely, and effectively, at lower altitudes and in any weather. This is particularly critical in urban areas, where South Korea expects a lot of combat to take place if the North Koreans manage to get across the border (DMZ).

Work on Arrowhead got a boost after the Iraq invasion in 2003, which was followed by a growing amount of urban fighting. This created the need for an AH-64 that could hover at 800 meters (2,500 feet) altitude (safe from most small arms fire) and use its high resolution sensors to see who was doing what for out to eight kilometers (five miles) away. Arrowhead could do that, and now most American AH-64s have Arrowhead and many transport helicopters as well (to make night flying safer). Whatever an AH-64 can see (or detect via Arrowhead) it can hit with a Hellfire missile.

Arrowhead was a major shift from the previous Longbow fire control system developed in the 1990s. Longbow was designed for the original AH-64 mission: flying at higher altitudes and looking for and destroying distant enemy armored vehicles. The Longbow allowed the AH-64 to go after armored vehicles at night and in bad weather. In the past, potential American enemies practiced moving their armor at night and bad weather, to avoid helicopters armed with long range missiles (like Hellfire or TOW). Longbow was doubly lethal because it was designed to avoid giving away its position when using its radar. AH-64s also had electronic countermeasures. Arrowhead, on the other hand, made night and bad weather deadly for enemy troops thinking they could sneak through urban areas unobserved. Longbow could not spot these guys, but Arrowhead could and did. South Korea had plenty of evidence that North Korean troops trained to use tactics that Arrowhead proved it could handle. The latest AH-64E exercise using Hellfire missiles made it clear that South Korea was now ready to handle North Korean gunboats and high speed hovercraft North Korea had stationed on the west coast for landing commandos.

Both American and South Korean forces are using the latest version of the AH-64. This model was originally designated the AH-64D Block III. But the changes proved to be so extensive that the name was changed to AH-64E. The E version had its first flight in 2008 entered service in 2011. The U.S. Army decided to upgrade all 634 of its AH-64s to the new E standard, a process that won't be completed until 2020.

The E version had a lot of improvements. One of the notable ones is a more powerful and fuel efficient engine, as well as much improved electronics. This includes Internet like capabilities with other aircraft and ground troops. The E version is able to control several UAVs and launch missiles at targets spotted by its UAVs. The E version radar has longer range and onboard computers are much more powerful. The electronics are easier to upgrade and maintain. The combination of Longbow, Arrowhead, and Internet capabilities greatly increased the capabilities of the AH-64. That and all the combat experience it gained after 2001 made it the most popular helicopter gunship design and nations that could afford to (and were on good terms with the U.S.) ordered the AH-64 or the Arrowhead upgrades.

The 10 ton AH-64E carries a pilot and a weapons officer, as well as about a ton of weapons. The AH-64 can operate at night and has a top speed of 260 kilometers an hour. Sorties average 90 minutes but can be extended to three hours or more by replacing weapons with fuel tanks. Most of the existing 1,100 AH-64s (American and foreign) will eventually be upgraded to the E standard. AH-64Es can fly several sorties a day, for at least a few days. This is the kind of weapon North Korea fears most and the South Koreans are trying to keep their new AH-64s safe from North Korea artillery or commando attack on the first day of any war.
A California Air National Guard C-130J Hercules drops fire retardant over the hills above Santa Barbara, Calif., Dec. 13, 2017, while helping fight the Thomas Fire. The aircraft is assigned to the 146th Airlift Wing. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Nieko Carzis

X

0 20

Help Keep Us Soaring





We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling. We need your help in reversing that trend. We would like to add 20 new subscribers this month.

Each month we count on your subscriptions or contributions. You can support us in the following ways:
Russia and Iran are both deploying their considerable disinformation and Information War capabilities in (or about) Syria. Both countries have used the disinformation for a long time and Russia is considered something of a pioneer in the development of modern disinformation techniques. In Syria (and the Middle East in general) the most effective disinformation techniques are the barely plausible but unverifiable lie. Most disinformation is based on some real events. For example Russian claims that their new Su-35 fighter has encountered and chased away American F-22 fighters more than once. What is really going on is an effort to shift attention away from daily efforts by Russian warplanes to interfere with American air operations east of the Euphrates River. Russia and the United States agreed that this river in eastern Syria would serve to define the deconflicition zone boundary that neither nation would cross except by prior agreement. Yet Russia has been violating that agreement several times a day as their aircraft accidentally wanders across the river or chases American warplanes back to where they belong. Russia insists that it is the Americans who are deliberately crossing the line and being chased away by Russian aircraft.

This sort of thing was a favorite Russian tactic during the Cold War, at least until American fired back (sometimes literally). That led to binding treaties and the incidents disappeared. Thats what happened in late 2015 when Turkish F-16s shot down a Russia fighter-bomber that entered Turkish air space despite multiple warnings to not do so. Russia still denies they were at fault but there were no more navigation errors involving Russian warplanes and the Turkish border. In general Russia is doing what it can to persuade the Americans to get out of Syria and the navigation errors are part of the playbook. Other persuasions include declarations of victory in Syria and holding peace conferences with the Assads and trusted foreign allies to make it look real.

The Israelis know about this Russian tactic as it was widely used in the Middle East long before Russia existed. So despite previously negotiated deconfliction agreements with Russia over use of Syrian air space by Israeli and Russian aircraft the agreements were tested using Iranian and Russian UAVs operating in southern Syria. When any of these UAVs get too close to the Israeli border the Israelis shot them down without comment. The Russians keep trying, especially in situations they have nothing to lose. Thus the recent claims that Russian air defense systems have shot down Israeli ballistic missiles used against Iranian targets in Syria. Russia also continues to test it electronic weapons near American aircraft, with frequent GPS jamming and less frequent efforts to jam radars and other sensors. This actually serves another purpose; to test the capabilities of electronic warfare equipment on both sides. If nothing else this has been a big help increasing Russian arms exports.

Another ancient but still useful technique is the secret conspiracy. Thus Russia has been propagating several versions of how the United States secretly got 4,000 ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) members out of Raqqa and out of Syria before the U.S. backed (and mainly Kurdish) SDF rebels completed their capture of the ISIL capital. This disinformation item is particularly popular in the Middle East because many Moslems (especially Arabs) believe al Qaeda and ISIL were created by the U.S. and Israel and that major ISIL attacks (like the September 11, 2001 ones) were staged by the CIA.

Increasingly these disinformation efforts are proved false. But that is a minor setback because disinformation succeeds because the original lie persists, to a certain degree, forever. One recent example of how this works in Syria occurred when Russia accused the United States of committing atrocities in Syria by using American warplanes disguised as Russian ones while bombing civilians, hospitals and the like. To carry out this disinformation the Russians used photos from an American pilot training exercise in which some F-18s, which are somewhat similar in appearance to Russian Su-30s, were given a Russian Air Force paint job and flown by American pilots who knew Russian fighter tactics and techniques. This was part of the dissimilar training the U.S. Navy revived (from a World War II practice) in the late 1960s to better prepare American pilots to deal with North Vietnamese fighter aircraft encountered over North Vietnam. This led to regular Red Flag and Top Gun training programs that evolved as potential enemy air forces did. The Russians claimed these photos showed American aircraft operating over Syria and bombing forbidden (by international law) targets, in order to blame Russia. Because of widespread use of cell phone cameras and the Internet many disinformation efforts are encountering this sort of thing. Iran and the Palestinians have been busted so often that intelligence analysts find it best to assume that surprising claims by Russia, Iran or the Palestinians are disinformation and insist on verification. Usually what is found is proof of another lie but that is a minor setback for those who regularly employ disinformation because the lie flies while the truth never seems to catch up much less get ahead of the distorted version of reality. Thats why among Russians the concept of trust but verify has long been applied because one of the frequent victims of disinformation are the Russians themselves.

The prevalence of disinformation is one reason for secret negotiations, especially in the Middle East. During such meetings it is understood that nothing serious can be accomplished unless both sides have a rare moment of honesty with each other. It is understood that once the meeting is over everyone resumes whatever distorted reality they normally operate in. This is Russia is trying to decide who is the best long-term partner in the wreckage that was once Syria. For Russia it is still unclear who to move forward with.

War Goes On

Nationwide the fighting is killing about 1,000 people a month at the end of 2017, which is about half the number of monthly dead earlier in the year. The fighting was pretty intense until October, especially in the east, as ISIL control of that third of the country ended as did the ability of ISIL to operate as a major military or terror force in Syria (or Iraq). But the fighting continues because most of the rebels were not ISIL or allies of ISIL. Since 2011 the fighting in Syria has killed about 350,000. Some 33 percent of the dead are civilians while 35 percent are split evenly between Syrian security forces and pro-government irregulars (local militias, Iranian mercenaries) and 32 percent various rebel factions (many killed fighting other rebels). About half the rebel dead belonged to ISIL.

Russia has lost about 40 military personnel plus about twice as many Russian military contractors (usually working for the Wagner Group). The Russian losses, both military and contractor, are reported or discussed in the Russian language Internet and the government apparently does not interfere with that as long as the Internet chatter is about morning the departed, not criticizing the government or its foreign policy.

The secular rebels and Islamic terror groups that opposed ISIL still want the Assads gone and Iran has 24,000 fighters in Syria to make sure that does not happen. Some 62 percent of the Iranian forces are Shia mercenaries from Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Another 35 percent are Hezbollah (Lebanese Shia) and the rest are Iranian trainers and technical advisors. The Syrian armed forces have about 200,000 men on the payroll but most are not effective for offensive operations (thats what Hezbollah and other Iranian mercenaries are for) and useful mainly to provide local security. As ISIL loses control of eastern Syria the Assads are finding it more difficult to provide enough loyal Syrians to maintain order in the expanding Assad territory. Iran sees this as an opportunity to provide Iranian Shia mercenaries on a long term basis to deal with that. This gives Iran more control over eastern Syria and the Iraqi border. This is key to maintaining a land route from Iran to Lebanon for the coming battle with Israel. Finally Russia has about 5,000 military and contractor personnel in Syria providing the Assads with air, intel and logistical support. This plays a major role in keeping the Syrian army and air force operational, if nothing else.

It is unclear what Russia hopes to gain in Syria and the Russians appear uncertain as well. Turkey and Iran are their traditional enemies, while Israel and the Gulf Arabs are not. What to do? Israel and Russia are trying to negotiate a deal to prevent a war between Iran and Israel over Iranian plans (already announced and underway) to establish bases in Syria and organize anti-Israeli forces. Thus for Israel any long term Iranian presence in Syria is intolerable. Russia says it can work out such a deal but many Israelis are skeptical and Iran says such a deal is not possible. When it comes to opposing Iran Israel has some very public backing from Russia despite the fact that this puts Russia at odds with their two other allies (Turkey and Iran) in Syria. The Russians see the Israelis as a more powerful and reliable ally than the Turks or Iranians. Russia is also backing the Kurds in Syria and that is causing problems with Turkey.

The Israelis keep pointing out that Iran and their dependency Syria have, since the 1980s, openly called for the destruction of Israel. Many Westerners saw this as absurd while Russia sees it as an opportunity and the Israelis point out that they have nukes, the most effective military (and economy) in the region and no tolerance for more Iranian forces moving into Syria or agreeing that the Assads are a legitimate government. For Russia this is a challenge since as outsiders they realize that Israel is right and long-term a more dependable and desirable ally. But the current Russian government is getting by on uncertainty, deception and hope that something will work.

While Russian and Turkish officials have privately disapproved of Iranian plans to establish more direct control in Syria and Lebanon the U.S. and most European nations openly object to this Iranian strategy. France has been particularly opposed to the Iranian plans, in part because France has itself been involved in what is now Syria and Lebanon (the Levant) for nearly a thousand years. Over the last century Islamic radicals in the region have been more energetically trying to drive all non-Moslems out.

December 14, 2017: Lebanon and Syria agreed to reopen a major border crossing (Al Qaa/Jussiyeh) that was closed in 2012 when the Assads lost control of their side of the border. Since then various Islamic terror groups have controlled the area, until the last few months when the Assads and Lebanese troops cleared Syrian rebels from the area.

December 11, 2017: Russian leaders announced that the withdrawal of Russian forces in Syria was beginning. Some warplanes and their ground crews will be gone by the end of the year and most of the troop reductions will take place by mid-2018. At least half the Russian forces are expected to remain, including about 1,200 military contractors from the Wagner Group. Russia will concentrate on its new naval base and air base in western Syria. The naval base will be able to handle about ten large warships at a time, including nuclear powered ones. The U.S. has noted that Russian ground troops, including special operations ones and contractors, are deliberately avoiding ISIL forces as long as those Islamic terrorists leave the Russians alone and appear to be heading for a border and leaving Syria. The Americans believe there are still about 2,000 ISIL fighters in Syria, scattered throughout the country, many of them seeking to leave.

December 10, 2017: Neighboring Iraq officially celebrated the defeat of ISIL in Iraq. The U.S. believes there are still 500-1,000 ISIL members active in Iraq and because of that threat plus a growing Iranian presence, the Iraqis are fine with most of the 5,300 American troops now in Iraq remaining.

December 7, 2017: In eastern Syria SDF reported it had received another shipment of weapons and ammo from the United States. These came with more detailed instructions about which SDF faction was to get what.

December 4, 2017: In the south Israeli missiles struck three military facilities on the outskirts of Damascus. Two are believed to be rebuilt or under the control of Iran while the third target was an SA-5/S-200 SAM (Surface to Air Missile) base. The SA-5 is a 1960s Russian design that Russia has updated and Syria received the latest S-200 version of the missile in 2010. Each seven ton S-200 missile has a range of 300 kilometers but Israel has apparently developed effective countermeasures for the anti-aircraft capabilities.

December 3, 2017: In the south (Golan Heights) another mortar shell fired from Syria landed in Israel. It was apparently not intentional.

General Qassem Soleimani was proclaimed (via Iranian TV) the best Iranian armed forces commander during the last year. Soleimani commands the IRGC Quds Force and has been regularly praised as responsible for victories in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Soleimani is seen as some sort of master of mayhem and an ideal Iranian hero. The United States and many other nations consider Soleimani an international terrorist. To that end the head of the CIA recently warned Soleimani that he and his Quds Force associates would be held personally responsible if the Iran backed forces in Iraq or Syria attacked American troops. Soleimani had recently said that would happen if American troops did not leave Iraq and Syria. Most Iraqis want the Americans to stay until the Iranian threat is diminished.

December 1, 2017: In the south (Damascus) several Israeli missiles struck a new Iranian base under construction south of Damascus. Later reports indicated that seven building were destroyed, seven heavily damaged and twelve Iranian personnel killed (plus a larger number of non-Iranian personnel). Russia said its anti-aircraft systems shot down some of the Israeli missiles but presented no proof (like missile fragments that can be identified as Israeli).

November 27, 2017: The U.S. announced that it would be reducing shipments of military equipment to the Kurdish led SDF rebels in northeast Syria. The Americans were also asking for SDF help in preventing one of the Kurd factions (the YPG separatists) from getting any additional military supplies. This is apparently part of a deal with Turkey to enable American military forces to remain in northeast Syria without interference from the Turks. This unannounced arrangement means the Turks will hold the U.S. forces responsible to prevent Kurdish separatists (especially the Turkish PKK) from using Syria for bases. The U.S. still has about 2,000 troops in Syria, most of them working with the SDF. The Americans have been one of the few major powers to support Kurdish statehood and have done so since the early 20th century. But without much success. The Russians and Israelis have also been helpful at times. Then there is the key problem of the Kurds inability to agree among themselves. Nevertheless the Kurds played a key role in defeating ISIL in Iraq and Syria and the U.S. is using that to persuade others to show some gratitude. Along those lines the U.S. points that to keep ISIL (and similar groups) away you need some American presence in Iraq and Syria and the American prefer to operate from bases in Kurdish controlled territory because it is safer.

In the south (the Ghouta suburbs 15 kilometers east of Damascus) two weeks of heavy fighting have left some 300 people dead (most of them civilians) as the Assads seek to capture what is one of the last rebel strongholds around Damascus and was the scene of the chemical weapons attack in 2013. In mid-2017 the Ghouta area was controlled by over 10,000 armed rebels and still contains about 350,000 civilians. Despite ceasefires and heavy losses (mainly from civilians leaving the area and fleeing as far from all the fighting as possible) at least half of the civilians are still there. Also present are about six rebel factions, most of them Islamic terror groups divided between those associated with al Qaeada and the rest supported by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil states. These factions have spent a lot of time fighting, or feuding, with each other. This has tied down a lot of Assad forces to keep an eye on them and the rebels will cooperate in defending the area if attacked. In July Russian military police established about a dozen checkpoints in the Ghouta area and that was as much to reassure the people in the area that Russian and Syrian air strikes would not return but to also monitor movements of known rebels. But the rebels kept shooting, despite ceasefires and more pro-government forces set up patrols around the rebel controlled area. By October nearly all the smuggling routes were no longer safe (or reliable for regular use) and since early November airstrikes and artillery fire intensified, against both military and civilian targets. But the government forces could not make major gains and the government tightened the blockade in an effort to literally starve the rebels out. This works better during the cold weather, which will be the norm for the next four months.

November 25, 2017: Iranian, Russian and Turkish leaders met in southern Russia (Sochi) to work out how the three nations will continue to cooperate in Syria. More of these meetings will be held and will become more contentious as Iran carries out its plan to take complete control of Syria.

November 22, 2017: Russia has shut down the UN investigation into violations of the 2013 deal Russia negotiated with the Assads to get rid of Syrian chemical weapons. Russia used its UN veto twice in the last week to prevent continued UN investigation of the violations of that agreement. Russia apparently concluded that UN investigators were getting too close. This became obvious when the UN investigators released another report a month ago on continued chemical weapons use in Syria. The report confirmed that the Assad government used nerve gas against a pro-rebel village in Idlib province during April 2017, an attack that killed over 83 (30 of them children) and left over 300 with nerve gas related injuries. This is a war crime that many UN members are demanding be prosecuted. As expected the Assads denied the charges safe in the knowledge that their ally Russia would use their veto to block any major war crimes prosecution. The UN investigators had concluded early on that the April attack used nerve gas but the latest report confirms that the nerve gas was delivered by the Assad forces. Another part of this report confirmed that ISIL used mustard gas in several September 2016 attacks.

Nerve gas was first used in combat during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) and Syrian patron Iran was believed to have let the Syrians know details of how nerve gas worked in combat. In 2013 the Assads knew that once they defeated the rebels they could rebuild the plants that manufacture the nerve and mustard gas and rebuild their pre-rebellion stocks in a few years. It was believed that the Assads would not hold onto a secret stash of mustard and sarin as using it would get them in even more trouble. It is doubtful that the Assads would sell any secret stash because it would likely be used against them. But in late 2013 there were suspicions that some of the Assad chemical weapons were not accounted for. The Americans doubt that ISIL had any success manufacturing chemical weapons. It was already known that ISIL was creating primitive chemical weapons by filling 120mm mortar shells with potentially lethal industrial chemicals (like chlorine or grain fumigant). Chemicals like this can be lethal to humans in large quantities, but when used in a mortar shell or as part of a vehicle bomb the amounts victims might be exposed to only have temporary effects ranging from nausea to poor vision, problems breathing and so on.

Nerve gas is different and the effects are unmistakable, gruesome and often fatal. Moreover the ability to accurately identify the composition or chemical weapons residue has improved greatly since the 1980s. Each batch of chemical weapons is a little different, especially rarely manufactured items like mustard or the various nerve agents (some are a gas some are an aerosol). Chemical analysis can quickly identify the type and identifying profile of the samples taken from a victim or the vicinity of the attack. This analysis was done to some of the Syrian stuff surrendered and destroyed in 2014. That means any use of chemical weapons leaves an informative data trail that can be read and followed.

November 21, 2017: The Assad government began another effort to persuade thousands of men in pro-government communities to report for duty in an army reserve unit. Nearly all of these deserters are men who completed the mandatory military service before 2011 and subsequently sided with the government (as did at least 20 percent of the population). But as the rebellion went on the Assad government called up just about all reservists and a growing number of reservists realized they could get killed or maimed in combat and could either flee the country or bribe some official (or call in a favor) to be kept off the list of those citizens eligible to be called up. The government tolerated this for a long time realizing that it needed all the pro-government civilians it could get. But now the civil war is apparently ending and the government will have a lot of former rebel territory to police and would prefer that this was done by pro-government Syrians and not the Iranian mercenaries who have been doing most of the fighting since 2013. Many reluctant reservists have turned up for duty and sent off to man checkpoints or patrol some largely depopulated area that used to be home for pro-rebel civilians who have fled the country to escape the government tactic of deliberately using airstrikes and artillery against pro-rebel civilians to persuade them to leave the country.

November 19, 2017: In the south (Golan Heights) Israeli tanks fired on Syrian troops attempting to build a fortified outpost in the UN mandated demilitarized zone. This was the second day in a row Israeli forces fired on this illegal outpost.

In the east Syria (Deir Ezzor province) five IRGC personnel were killed over the last few days. One of them, Kheirollah Samadi, was a general and another was a retired colonel. The five all appear to be involved with a fierce battle with a group of ISIL fighters holding Bukamal a small town on the Euphrates River near the Iraq border. Earlier Iran had declared the area free of ISIL presence.

The Arab League held an emergency meeting in Egypt to condemn Iran backed Hezbollah for gradually taking control of Lebanon. Arabs also noted that most (about 80 percent) of the Assad forces in Syria are Iranian mercenaries. They are mostly Arab and Afghan Shia recruited, led, armed, trained and sustained by Iran.

November 17, 2017: In the east (Deir Ezzor province) across the Iraqi border in Anbar province Iraqi troops drove ISIL out of the border town of Rawa. This is the last large town ISIL controlled on the Syrian border.

November 15, 2017: In the east (Deir Ezzor province) s ix Russian Tu-22M3 bombers hit ISIL targets after flying from Russian bases and then over Iran and Iraq on their way to and from the target. Tu-22s have been doing this since mid-2016. The Iraqis believe it best not to complain.

The U.S. revealed that since late October they had found and killed four more senior ISIL personnel in Syria and Iraq. Two of the confirmed kills took place in Iraq (Anbar, near the Syrian border) and the other two in eastern Syria. The latest four dead were known to deal mainly with ISIL recruiting, training and finance outside Iran and Iraq. Before that (from August to late October) 11 senior ISIL officials in Iraq and Syria had been killed and confirmed. Most of these were specialists in areas like weapons development, finance, media and transportation. This is why the ISIL program of arming commercial UAVs with explosives suddenly disappeared and why so many ISIL dead appeared malnourished while captured (or surrendered) ISIL fighters talked of growing shortages of food and all manner of supplies. Large stockpiles of these supplies are being captured in Syria and Iraq but the organization that once arranged for distribution of this stuff was in disarray, in large part because the few senior ISIL officials who knew how it worked had recently been killed (while the few others have disappeared and appear to have used their resources to get out of the region). Another purpose of this decapitation (going after key leaders) campaign was to reduce the number of ISIL fighters getting home, especially if they came from the West. It was also noted that these decapitation attacks were hurting ISIL media operations, which were once the most successful among many Islamic terror groups. As suspected the last of the ISIL media experts were in Raqqa because after that city was captured by Kurd led rebels two weeks ago, ISIL media activity took a sharp drop. It is believed that ISIL still has some media experts out there and that they are seeking a new base of operations.

November 14, 2017: Iranian media featured a photo of Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani in eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) at a recently captured border crossing (Bukamal) into Iraq. Suleimani proclaimed that Iran now had a clear land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coasts in Syria and Lebanon. Suleimani has been appearing in Iranian media since late 2014 visiting Iraq and Syria.

November 13, 2017: Without admitting it, Iran has been spotted building a military base in Syria, about 15 kilometers south of Damascus and too close (50 kilometers) to the Israeli border as far as the Israelis are concerned. The base is not large and appears to have facilities for about 500 troops. Israel believes this will be a headquarters for Iranian operations against Israel. Normally Israel waits for construction to finish before launching an attack (usually an air strike).

Further south the head of the Russian intelligence agency (the FIS) visited Israel to discuss how to handle the dispute between Israel and Iran over the continued presence of Iran controlled (and often led) irregular forces. There are still as many as 3,000 armed ISIL fighters in Syria and they are scattered in over a dozen locations, none of them close to Israel. Turkey wants Russia to pressure the United States to stop providing weapons and other assistance to Syrian Kurds, something the U.S. has been doing more of since mid-2016 when it became obvious that the Kurdish led SDF rebel coalition had the best chance of driving ISIL out of Raqqa, which the SDF proceeded to do by late 2017. The SDF is still the most effective armed group fighting ISIL in Syria and the U.S. will continue supporting the SDF until ISIL no longer has a presence in Syria. That is fine with Israel but not with Turkey or Iran. Russia is trying to negotiate a peace deal between all the major antagonists and is having some success. But ultimately Israel sees this as a fools errand.

November 11, 2017: In the south (Israeli border) Israeli air defenses shot down a Russian UAV carrying out a surveillance mission of the Israeli Golan Heights. Apparently Hezbollah was controlling the UAV and the Israelis continue to investigate who was doing what for whom on the Syrian side of the border to make this happen.
Federal minister and Pakistan Muslim League  Nawaz (PML-N) leader Daniyal Aziz on Friday said that Jahangir Tareen was sacrificed to save Imran Khan and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf.

Azizs remarks came after the Supreme Court disqualified PTI Secretary General Jahangir Tareen but ruled in favour of PTI Chairperson Imran Khan in its judgment on the disqualification case against the two party leaders.

Aziz alleged that political engineering is in play as the apex court has said it, Khursheed Shah and Farooq Sattar have said it too.

If the decision was fair, then Imran Khan and PTI would not be around anymore, said Aziz.

The PML-N leader, further criticising the opposition party, stated that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has been ordered to probe PTIs foreign funding for the last five years, while in Nawazs case, the probe went back decades.

He further asked why millions of dollars received by Imran Khan earlier were hidden.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Maryam Aurangzeb added to Azizs statement and said the decision was not surprising.

Nawaz Sharif, during his GT road rally, had also said that one law can not have two sides, said the minister.

She added that on one hand Nawaz was disqualified on the basis of an Iqama and receivable income which he did not withdraw, while on the other hand, existence of an offshore company and foreign funding was said to have no bearing on the case.

Aurangzeb also alleged that Imran and PTI receive funds from Jews and Hindus and that money is uded to conduct sit-ins and slow the progress in the country.

The three-member bench had reserved the verdict in the disqualification petition against the two PTI leaders on November 14.

Reading the judgment, the chief justice ruled that Imran is not disqualified as a parliamentarian as the petitioner was not directly affected in the foreign funding case.

The court also ruled that the ECP will impartially investigate the foreign funding claims against the PTI chief by scrutinising accounts up till five years ago.

The judgment states that Imran wasnt bound to declare his offshore company, declared his London flat in an amnesty scheme and that his former wife Jemima gave Imran the funds for buying the Bani Gala estate.

Jahangir Tareen disqualified from Parliament

The judgment stated that the PTI secretary general had pleaded guilty to insider trading.
Hours after the Supreme Court disqualified Jahangir Tareen for life, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday denotified the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader from his NA-154 (Lodhran) seat.

Earlier today, a three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Sadiq Nisar and comprising Justice Umar Atta Bandial and Justice Faisal Arab had announced its decision pertaining to petitions filed by PML-N leader Hanif Abbasi seeking the disqualification of PTI Chairman Imran Khan and Tareen.

The apex court rejected Abbasi's petition for Imran Khan's disqualification, but disqualified Tareen for life. The bench found Tareen to have been dishonest to the court and thus unworthy to hold public office under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution and Section 99 of Representation of People Act.

"The respondent [Tareen] is disqualified in terms of Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution read with Section 99(1)(f) of ROPA for the non-declaration of his property/asset i.e. 'Hyde House' in his nomination papers, and in making untrue statement before this Court, that he has no beneficial interest in SVL [offshore company]; therefore, he should cease to hold the office as the member of the National Assembly with immediate effect," the apex court's judgement, read out by the chief justice, read.

However, after the verdict was announced, Tareen said that the court had disqualified him on a "mere interpretation of the trust deed." He was referring to a trust deed that names Tareen as a settler and was used to buy property in the UK.

In a tweet, Tareen went on to note that the apex court had rejected four of the allegations levelled against him by the PML-N leader, including misuse of authority to write off loans and insider trading.

Accusations Rejected by SC



1) Misuse of authority,loan writeoff



2) Insider Trading



3) Misdeclared Agri income



4) London Property Full money trail accepted not hidden, declared in children's assets since 2011.



And SC disqualifies me on mere interpretation of the trust deed???  Jahangir Khan Tareen (@JahangirKTareen) December 15, 2017

The tweet also noted that the court had accepted the money trail provided by Tareen for his property in London and that it had rejected the allegation that he had mis-declared his agricultural income.
Five children have died after a train and a school bus collided outside the town of Perpignan in southwestern France, according to the interior ministry.

The collision occurred at 4pm local time on Thursday afternoon on a railway crossing at the small town of Millas some 9 miles west of Perpignan, close to the border with Spain.

Photos from the scene tweeted by a local television station showed the train derailed and the bus shorn in half.

The dead pupils were reportedly between eight and 14 years old.

Another 20 people were injured in the crash, 11 of them seriously, according to French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who travelled immediately to the scene. Most of the injured were schoolchildren aboard the bus, aged 13-17.

Philippe Vignes, state prefect for the Pyrenees-Orientales region, called it an accident of "national proportions" that required "national security reinforcements".

Some 70 emergency workers with 10 vehicles were at the site, where a field hospital has been set up. Four helicopters are at hand.

Families of passengers rushed to the scene but were not allowed to approach the bus, according to AFP. Police asked them to gather at the local school. Some were received at the town hall.

It was not immediately clear how the accident occurred.

SNCF, the national rail operator, said the level crossing where the collision took place "was not on the list of sensitive crossings". It was, a spokesman told Le Figaro, "well-equipped, in good working order and classic".

The train was travelling at 80 kilometres per hour, a "normal speed at this place," it said.

According to witnesses cited by Le Figaro, the crossing barriers were down when the crash occurred.

But the big sister of a pupil in a second school bus behind the one struck by the train said: "She just told us that the bus was cut in two down the middle, and that it had crossed because the barriers were not down."

She added: "She saw her friends under white sheets, school bags scattered all over the place. That's all she wanted to tell us."

Another witness called Barbara who was in the train told local newspaper l'Independant: "The shock was so violent we got the impression the train was going to derail and keel over."

Elisabeth Borne, the French transport minister, described the crash as a "terrible accident".

"All emergency services have been mobilised and a crisis coordination unit set up," an official at the local Millas townhall told Reuters.

President Emmanuel Macron reacted to the news by tweeting: "All my thoughts are with the victims of this terrible accident of a school bus and with their families. The state is fully mobilised to come to their aid."

Video images showed a long line of ambulance and emergency service vehicles near the crossing where the collision occurred.

France has suffered several train incidents in the past few decades. In 2013, a train derailment in central France killed at least six people. One of the deadliest was in 1988, when a commuter train heading into Paris Gare de Lyon crashed into a stationary train, killing 56 people, after its brakes failed.

The country has 11,000 level crossings and safety groups regularly complain that many are dangerous.
Despite several arrests, the English Defence Leagues planned march in opposition to the building of a new 13 million mosque in Mill Road, and the significantly larger counter-protest it attracted, went ahead with little drama last Saturday.

The afternoon was punctured by only a handful of violent outbursts. There was some agitation between police and protestors, several incidents of bottle-throwing, and stall owners on Sidney Street had their own Korans hurled at them. At least seven arrests were made, for offences ranging from the drunk and disorderly to the more serious public order offence.

The individuals arrested included a 36 year old man from Norwich, on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly, an 18 year old man from Peterborough on suspicion of affray; and a 28 year old man from Cambridge, arrested on suspicion of a racially-aggravated public order offence.

Nonetheless, Inspector Robin Sissons of the Cambridgeshire Constabulary said: In the end it was a largely peaceful protest with only minor disorder and some minor disruption to residents, visitors and businesses in the city.

Turnout for the EDL demonstration has been estimated at about 200, somewhat lower that the 400 figure EDL leader Tommy Robinson previously said he was expecting. Most appear to have been from outside Cambridge, arriving especially for the protest.

The group congregated at Queens Backs to begin the march at 2pm. Their conspicuously out of the way route through Silver Street, Pembroke Street, Corn Exchange Street, Benet Street, and then back down Silver Street for a finish on Queens Backs, was followed by a rally on Queens Backs, where not much more than 100 of the protestors gathered around a podium, encircled by rings of police and curious tourists. The speakers seemed raw with emotion about the loss of family, friends or acquaintances in the July 7th bombings, and from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which some of them had previously served in the military. Such losses were blamed on the so-called Islamification of Britain. Angry chants of E-E-EDL and Burn the mosques! could be heard.

The Cambridge demonstration coincided with similar protests by the EDL in Middlesbrough, Halifax and Plymouth.

Both the EDL march and counter-demonstration were closely policed by over 650 officers from six different forces including Warwickshire, City of London and Suffolk, who lined both routes. In addition, the existing Mawson Road mosque, which is set to be replaced by the much larger Mill Road mosque to serve Cambridges 4000-strong Muslim community, was cordoned off from the EDL.

As expected, there was a far greater mobilisation for the earlier Unite Cambridge counter-protest by supporters of anti-racist group Unite Against Fascism and the Trade Union Council, which grew through the course of the day from 300 to 1,500. Avoiding any violent clashes with EDL members that occurred previously in other cities, the counter-protest followed an altogether different route. From 11.45am protestors marched from Market Street to Sidney Street then St Johns Street, Market Square, Sussex Street, King Street, New Square, Fitzroy Street, Burleigh Street, Norfolk Street, Gwydir Street, and finally Mill Road near the site of the proposed mosque. A loud chorus of Whose streets? Our Streets! was repeated.

East of England MEP Richard Howitt spoke at the counter-demonstration. He argued: We publicly attest that the EDL is not welcome in this city because we cannot let the poison of their ideas seep in to the body of our community.

I am proud to live and work in this, the most international of cities, where one in 10 of my neighbours comes from black or ethnic minority communities.

Cambridge MP Julian Huppert previously condemned the protests. He said: Our city is a very special place where people from a diverse range of nationalities and cultures live and work together. This multi-racial mix makes our city very unique and we are proud of the strong community spirit that exists here.

We want to promote and protect that diversity and there is no room for people who dont understand our citys special qualities.

EDL have since hinted at the possibility of a further march in Cambridgeshire. Ross Ground, a member of EDLs Cambridge Division, told Cambridge News: I cannot confirm there will be a march in Ely but members of the East Anglian branch who came on Saturday said they were looking into it if the plans for a mosque go ahead.

Jack Euesden & Judith Welikala

Image: Jemima Willcox
Despite attempts to prevent the return of the Cambridge College Programme (CCP), the summer school still intends coming to Cambridge later this year as a pupil from the USA based National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS) has recently been awarded a place on the scheme.

Bradley Ivan DSouza, a student from Cincinnati, has been invited to attend the programme in 2013 in light of his highly successful academic performance. The Chairman of the NSHSS, Claes Nobel, commended the CCP summer school, commenting to local newspapers that: The National Society of High School Scholars is very pleased to partner with The Cambridge College Programme, which promotes an outstanding experience for high school students to become immersed in the academic and cultural life of the University of Cambridge.

The programme, as previously reported in The Cambridge Student (see The Grinch Who Stole Cambridge, 28/1/13 and Fake Dons Debt-dodging Summer Camp, 17/1/13), is owned and run by Ms Taryn Edwards and offers talented scholars from across the world the opportunity to spend three weeks in Cambridge, living and studying at the University. However, the programme has attracted much negative attention as Ms Edwards frequently refuses to pay the Cambridge students who work for her.

Despite asking for confirmation from the University and individual colleges that they will not accommodate Ms Edwards and her students, TCS is yet to receive universal assurance that Ms Edwards will not be allowed to return this summer. Pembroke and Queens colleges have not stated whether they are willing to accommodate the CCP.

However, TCS understands that the programme and its founder have been experiencing financial difficulties which may partially explain why so many students have been, and still are, owed money by Ms Edwards. A source who wished to remain anonymous informed TCS that JP Morgan have initiated foreclosure proceedings on her home in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Jenny Buckley  News Editor

Related Stories:

Cambridge College Programme story update  The Grinch who stole Cambridge

Disgraced fake dons debt-dodging summer camp set to return to Cambridge

Students swindled by shocking summer-camp scam
The iPhone 8 and iPhone X ranked No. 2 and No. 3 respectively in overall searches on Google this year, and No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in the consumer tech search category on the Google Trends Year in Search 2017 list released Tuesday.

Bitcoin ranked No. 2 in global news searches, and how to buy bitcoin ranked No. 3 among how-to searches on Google in 2017.

The Nintendo Switch, Samsung Galaxy S8, and Xbox One X were the third, fourth and fifth most frequently used consumer tech search terms.

The lists are based on search terms that had a high spike in traffic in 2017 as compared to 2016.

Those issues that directly touch the consumer, or are perceived to do so, will rise in search popularity, said Michael Jude, research manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

A Few Surprises

The findings probably correlated with the marketing budgets of the various vendors, Jude told TechNewsWorld.

However, I would have thought that some of the tech services  connected home stuff, automatic backup services, etc.  would have made the list, he said.

The inclusion of the Nintendo Switch came as a surprise to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

I wouldve thought handheld gaming-focused devices went obsolete years ago, he told TechNewsWorld.

Nintendo has proven that they have a unique ability to bring concepts back from the dead, Enderle noted. The Nintendo Switch looks like a crippled tablet in that it doesnt support things most tablets do, but folks really like it as a dedicated gaming device.

Given the tie-in of Lenovos Star Wars: Jedi Challenges smartphone-powered augmented reality headset to The Last Jedi, Enderle thought it might make the list, but I expect it came out too late to get enough search volume to move ahead of the Xbox X or any of the smartphones, he said.

Still, the AR headset, which is compatible with some iPhones and Android phones, is selling very well and will go through updates  so watch it for next year, Enderle predicted.

The Bitcoin Boom

Bitcoin has been hyped tremendously in the press as everything from the next universal currency to a hedge against government debt default, Frosts Jude said. Its no wonder that the general public is starting to take notice.

Interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is surging, and various commentators and investors predict bitcoins price could close in on the $1 million mark.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange launched trading in bitcoin futures Dec. 10 with the ticker symbol XBT. Trading was halted twice that day as the futures surged.

The CBOEs bitcoin futures fell 10 percent Wednesday, triggering a two-minute halt to trading.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will launch bitcoin futures trading on Dec. 17.

Stories of people starting with (US)$100 of bitcoin and ending up multimillionaires likely contributed to the massive feeding frenzy on the cryptocurrency right now, Enderle suggested. Anything that looks like a valid get-rich-quick path will almost always get a lot of attention.

Search Stats as Predictors

Search result statistics might indicate future trends, but given the rapidity of technological change, that might not hold less true for tech products.

Googles 2017 search terms list indicates point trends and shows that Apple still has a huge base of loyal buyers, Enderle said.

It shows that in 2018, folks will likely get excited about anything that looks to make them rich, and they likely will still have an affinity for hot consumer devices, he added.

The search terms list is a good bellwether, but you cant really predict far into the future with it, Enderle said. People are mercurial in this regard, and whats hot this month may every well be anything but next month.
Although the FCC just voted to kill Net Neutrality regulations initially put in place back in 2015, the fight is far from over. The 3-2 vote to dismantle Title II internet protections has faced heavy criticism from tech companies and government officials alike, with many calling on congress to overturn the FCC's decision.

Netflix and Google were quick to fire off tweets confirming their support of strong net neutrality protections.

We're disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large & small, to oppose this misguided FCC order. --- Netflix US (@netflix) December 14, 2017

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was one of the first to release a statement regarding the FCC's decision, informing the public that he will lead a multi-state lawsuit to stop the commission's "illegal rollback" of Net Neutrality regulations. "New Yorkers deserve the right to a free and open Internet," Schneiderman said. "That's why we will sue to stop the FCC's illegal rollback of net neutrality."

Schneiderman has been a defender of Title II net neutrality regulations in the past, recently conducting an investigation into reports of widespread FCC comment fraud - despite the commission's alleged refusal to cooperate in his investigation. His investigation revealed that over two million comments were made using stolen American identities.

"New Yorkers deserve the right to a free and open Internet. That's why we will sue to stop the FCC's illegal rollback of net neutrality."

The American Civil Liberties Union has also come out against the FCC's vote. "The fight now shifts to Congress," ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said in a statement. "[Pro-network neutrality members] will press to use something called the Congressional Review Act to undo this hasty and misguided action."

Representative of Pennsylvania's 14th Congressional District, Mike Doyle, has announced plans to introduce legislation under this very Act to overturn the FCC's order:

"The Open Internet Order has been effective at preserving a level playing field where consumers have access to the content and services they want - and online businesses are able to compete on the basis of cost and quality of their product rather than how much they can pay Internet Service Providers to block or throttle their competition. I've tried repeatedly to convince Chairman Pai to abandon his plans to dismantle the Open Internet Order - most recently by organizing a letter from 118 Members of Congress urging him not to take this vote today - and now that the FCC has voted to kill Net Neutrality and give ISPs a green light to control access to the Internet, I will introduce legislation under the Congressional Review Act to overturn today's order and restore Net Neutrality."

Doyle's statement has already garnered support and promises of co-sponsorship for future legislation from several congressional representatives, including Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Representative Betty McCollum and others.
Earlier this week, biometrics company Synaptics announced the development of Clear FS9500, the "world's first in-display fingerprint sensor for smartphones." The firm said a top 5 phone manufacturer would use its technology in a "Tier 1" handset next year. As the press release made several mentions of a "bezel-free infinity display," some thought it would first appear in a Samsung device, but it will actually be in a Vivo phone.

As noted in the original article, recent leaks showing the fingerprint sensor on the rear of the handset suggested Synaptics' tech wouldn't debut in the Galaxy S9. More likely, it would first arrive in the Note 9 or another manufacturer's device. Forbes contributor Patrick Moorhead has revealed it to be the latter scenario after he got to use a pre-production unit from Vivo and test Clear ID.

The sensor is a small CMOS device placed below an AMOLED screen. It uses high-res optical scanning through the display itself. The OLED screen illuminates the fingerprint, and the sensor scans it and sends it back to the processor.

Synaptics said Clear ID is twice as fast as 3D facial recognition systems such as Apple's Face ID. It seems the company was telling the truth; the process takes 0.7 seconds, faster than face recognition's advertised 1.4 seconds. Moorehead calls it "fast and simple;"

While Vivo might not be the first name people think of when it comes to top 5 phone manufacturers, IDC reports that it was behind only Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and OPPO in Q1 2017. Vivo fell one position in Q2 but, thanks to its success in India, is expected to quickly regain a top five position.

What's slightly surprising is that Vivo has been here before. Back in June, the Chinese company showed off an "under display" fingerprint sensor made by Qualcomm. It used ultrasonic waves to read prints, but was reportedly slow and never made it beyond the prototype demo unit.
Huawei and Xiaomi, two of China's largest smartphone makers, are looking to take on Apple on its home turf.

Sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg the two companies are in talks with wireless carriers in the US with regard to selling their handsets to American consumers in 2018. AT&T and Verizon were mentioned specifically in the report although sources claim the talks are still "fluid" and it's possible that things could fall through entirely.

Data from Strategy Analytics shows that Apple's US smartphone market share sat at 30.4 percent in the third quarter followed closely by Samsung at 25.1 percent and LG at 17.2 percent.

As Bloomberg highlights, Huawei already sells at least one phone (the Mate 9) in the US via e-commerce sites like Amazon. By working directly with wireless carriers to get into retail stores, however, the company would gain exposure to US consumers that might not otherwise be familiar with the brand (the same goes for Xiaomi).

The Chinese smartphone manufacturers have a solid shot at making a dent in the US market. Whereas most new flagships from companies like Apple and Samsung now start around the $1,000 mark, the aforementioned Mate 9 is available on Amazon for under $400 (that's a solid price for a quality phone).

Apple, meanwhile, has struggled in China as of late and given the iPhone X's hefty price tag, things may not improve any time soon.
People are calling their strike the "Red Cup Rebellion" and handing out red Starbucks Workers United cups to customers. | Read More
Photo: Sarah Shatz/Amazon Studios

Last year, I bought a pink cocoon coat. It is the color of Pepto-Bismol, of the sky before dawn. I spotted it when walking by the holiday windows of Ann Taylor (of all places!) in midtown and I felt that rare shopping pang that can only be described as a bizarre homesickness, like you already miss a thing that you dont even own. I lingered in front of that window, picturing other women who were not me wearing the coat, bouncing down the avenues like giddy sticks of bubblegum. I longed to join their ranks, whoever they were.

The piece was not an expensive purchase (and it is, unfortunately, sold out  try Ebay?), but it photographs like a dream and it has been totally worth it for the glee I get every time I put it on. I had never seen a garment quite like it before  a vibrant, milky rose, at once swingy and tailored  and it felt like a true find, inasmuch as anything purchased from a chain retailer on Fifth Avenue ever does. For a whole year, I never ran into anyone else with one.

And then I watched the pilot of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, the daffy, delightful new Amy Sherman-Palladino comedy set in 1950s Manhattan that is currently streaming in full on Amazon, and there it was: the lead actress was wearing my jacket. Well, not exactly. Her coat was truly one-of-a-kind, made from scratch by the Maisel costume designer Donna Zakowska based on a spread of pastel outerwear from the pages of mid-century French Vogue. But it was close. Midge Maisel, played by the great Rachel Brosnahan, spends a great deal of the pilot running around town in a Pepto-pink swing coat, including during the raucous denouement of the episode.

Photo: Nicole Rivelli

When the show opens, we learn that Midge is a contented young mother and housewife living on the Upper West Side in a classic six. But after her husband leaves her for his secretary, she goes into a tailspin and finds herself wet, drunk, and ranting onstage in a Greenwich Village comedy club in a pale blue peignoir covered only by that coat. The scene is a riot. She grabs her breasts in front of an unsuspecting crowd of beatniks, a move that launches her comedy career. The first time I watched it, I realized Brosnahan was a star. The second time, my eyes were glued to her clothes.

The costuming on Maisel is one of the more joyful revelations of this year. Somehow, despite the fact that the show is set in a New York of 60years ago, the outfits manage to feel fresh as hell. There is a swoon-y magical realism to the wardrobe, as there is to the entire show  these are clothes of their time, but they also feel timeless. Midges outfits, full of mock turtlenecks and high-waisted, slim Capri pants, feel kicky and crisp, shiny as a new coin. The first thing I hear from most friends who have watched the show is that they wish they could live, even just for a day, inside Midges closet.

Photo: Nicole Rivelli

Donna Zakowska and her team made about 90 percent of the costumes for the principal characters on the show. They are brand-new creations meant to evoke an old moment; she couldnt find vintage offerings in the poppy jewel tones that she hoped would convey Midges radiant self-confidence.

I think of it as minimal couture, she told me. As a character, Midge has this incredible optimism and identity, and I think she would have gone in for the interesting use of color in that period. The colors of the time were strong, and there was an unpredictability to it, which was something I loved. Color was the rhythmic device for her emotional landscapes.

Indeed, the Crayola palette is the first thing you notice about Midges wardrobe: she flounces around in bright magenta, royal blue, kelly green, mustard yellow, electric teal, and one stunning cherry-red dress.

Photo: Nicole Rivelli

In a scene from episode six, in which Midge is working the party circuit, a.k.a. testing out material for her act at various cocktail hours uptown, she wears a particularly inspired color-blocking experiment: a slim, red-orange three-quarter-length sleeve top, a pair of maroon shorts (with a matching belt!), and bright red tights underneath. So many crimson shades should clash, but they look fascinating together; Midge is the person your gaze is suctioned to at the party, which is the very point of the scene.

I found some very strange old advertisements with outfits like that, said Zakowska. There is a playful hipness to that outfit. She is trying to fit in with women who are a bit younger than her and shes taking a risk.

Photo: Nicole Rivelli/Amazon Studios

Zakowska looked to the elegant designs of Charles James and Jacques Fath for her silhouettes, but also to Audrey Hepburns jaunty style in Funny Face, which she says was really the beginning of everything when it came to outfitting Midge.

A quirky aspect of Midges wardrobe is that it has a split personality  she has one look for the Upper West Side (impeccable tea dresses, a coat with an impressionistic Monet-esque trim, two-piece skirt suits, felted hats, suede evening gloves) and a completely different attire doing her act at smoky Village clubs (pedal pushers, mock turtlenecks, pencil skirts with pockets).

The huge distinction in 1950s New York fashion was between uptown and downtown, Zakowska said. I had to develop two wardrobes. Still, she never goes full Bohemian. I remember telling my team, we are never going to do berets. No berets.

Photo: Sarah Shatz/Amazon Studios

I keep wondering why the clothes on Maisel feel so invigorating onscreen  looking at them is the visual equivalent of biting into a lemon  especially because being a woman in those clothes was likely anything but buoyant at the time. Women were stuffed into perma-girdles, hoisted onto heels, and cinched within an inch of their spleens. The trappings of mid-century femininity were called trappings for a reason.

In episode two, Midge and her best friend attend a ridiculous exercise class (modeled after real photographs from Helena Rubensteins wellness studio), where the women are doing calisthenics in boatneck shirts, sweaters, and twill shorts. Even the athleisure was uncomfortable.

And yet, the ceaseless energy that Midge brings to the world in her clothes  she is a a woman who fully attacks her day in a Peter Pan collar  makes them look seductive as a new kind of daily armor. I feel a pure sense of joy looking at them, the same way I did when I spied that pink coat.

Photo: Nicole Rivelli

Zakowska told me that she spent the most time on Midges outerwear, importing rare fabric from London to get the colors just right, because every jacket had to be a moment. She had to round a corner and your eyes go right to her. Its operatic.

There is an acute pleasure in dressing theatrically in times of high anxiety; it snaps you back into your body. Midges life was falling apart, and so she put on a red dress. It feels apropos in 2017 to find an updated way to do the same.
3-Year-Old Girl Passes Away Days Later After Being Beaten by Mothers Boyfriend

A 3-year-old girl from Phoenix, Arizona, who was allegedly beaten by her mothers boyfriend has died.

Morgan Koepp was taken off life support on the afternoon of Wednesday, Dec. 13, her family told FOX 10 Phoenix.

#BREAKING  an absolutely terrible update  the family tells me 3-year-old Morgan has passed away #Fox10phoenix https://t.co/yIYFkj2sWf  Matt Galka Fox 10 (@MattGalkaFox10) December 14, 2017

Not long after the news, mother Brianna Williams updated her daughters GoFundMe page with a touching tribute. According to the page, Morgan passed away at 3:19 p.m.

To my beautiful baby girl who taught me so much in these last 3 years. I saw you fighting and fighting as hard as you could. I saw how much pain you were in and I am so sorry you had to endure such a tragedy, Williams wrote, in part.

It breaks my heart and to see you laying there fighting so hard for mommy shows me how much you tried and how much you love me. I hate that I will never be able to watch you grow and see you again or hold you again until I one day get to heaven, she added.

The mother first started the GoFundMe page to pay for her daughters medical expenses.

On Sunday, Dec. 10, Morgan sustained the injuries that led to her death. At the time Williams left her daughter with her boyfriend, Sidney Michael Landers, who took her out for the day, KTVK reported.

But when the boyfriend arrived home with the girl, Williams noticed that her daughter had swelled up near her mouth and cheek. The swelling was not there earlier in the day.

According to an arrest statement, the defendant did not provide a reasonable explanation when asked about the injuries.

When the mom took her daughter to the hospital the staff found multiple bruises on the front and back of her torso and multiple broken ribs.

Landers told police later that he was frustrated because the child  had several accidents in her pants and would not sit still when he tried to clean her.

The injuries made Morgan suffer heart failure and she also had to have surgery to remove a flesh-eating bacteria. The injuries later became too much for her to handle.

Landerss charges will likely be heavier now that the girl has died.

Dear reader,

We have a little favor to ask of you. We work hard to deliver important and interesting articles to you. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you! From NTD.tv
Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton, from the Skelton Brothers website. (http://skeltonbrothers.org) next to their father John Skeltons booking photo from the Michigan Department of Corrections. (mdocweb.state.mi.us)

Box of Bones Found in Montana Might Be Remains of Three Missing Michigan Boys

A cleaning crew alerted police on Sept. 27 when they discovered a box containing human skeletal remains while working on a vacant property in Missoula, Montana.

Loose teeth, there was what appeared to be bone from a lower jaw, and others that were not as specifically described, but I would call them pieces of bones, Missoula Police spokesman Sgt. Travis Welsh told KRTV. There were also rocks in this box.

The police said they couldnt link the remains to any open cases. Nothing weve been able to connect them to yet, however, we are working with the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children, and other missing person databases to see if thats a possibility, Welsh said.

The thing is, there are missing children all over the world. And the thing is, we dont know that this particular case is isolated to the city of Missoula.

We dont know where the bones came from, and if they were transported from one area to another, and ended up here.

An anthropology professor from the University of Montana reported that the bones were contemporary, not archeological, and that they came from three children estimated to be 6 to 10 years old, 5 to 8 years old, and 2 to 4 years old, respectively, at the time of death.

When the news was made public in December, police in the small town of Morenci, Michigan took note.

Three boys, Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner Skelton, 5, went missing while in their fathers care over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The father, John Skelton, was in a bitter divorce dispute with his wife, Tanya Zuvers. Zuvers had full custody but allowed her husband to take the boys for the holiday.

He never gave them back.

KidnappingPossibly Murder?

Skelton originally claimed that he had left the children with a friend. Then he claimed that he had taken the boys to an organization which protects children at risk. He claimed that they were facing potential abuse by their mother.

In 1998, Zuvers, then 32, had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual conduct. She had been accused of having relations with a 14-year-old boy. Zuvers maintains that she never harmed her children in any way. There are no reports in any way indicating that she did.

Skelton used that old conviction as his reason for not providing any data whatsoever about the whereabouts of the boys. Police were able to track his activities via cell phone data. Over the holiday Skelton had driven south to Ohio and back. They were never able to locate the mysterious child welfare organization which supposedly had custodyillegallyof the three children.

Skelton was charged with three counts each of unlawful imprisonment and parental kidnapping. He pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment in exchange for the kidnapping charge being dropped, and was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison.

After the sentencing, Morenci police chief Larry Weeks said, I believe that John Skelton murdered those boys.

A Mothers Suffering

Through all this, the boys mother, Tanya Zuver, has tried to remain hopeful.

She spoke with the Detroit Free Press shortly before a 2015 Thanksgiving Day candlelight vigil she organized in honor of her missing boys.

The past five years I have been to hell and am on my way back, but wont be completely there until I have answers, Zuvers said.

Today is a much better day than last year. I remain strong in my faith and rely on that faith to get me through each day.

When she heard about the news out of Montana, Zuvers posted on Facebook.

This information has just been presented to our family within the last several hours, Zuvers wrote. We are processing it and hopeful that we will have answers soon. We are thankful for all your thoughts and prayers.



Kathye Herrera, a friend of Tanya Zuvers, said that even if the remains proved to be those of the missing children, it would be better for her friend to know that than to go on not knowing.

Answers. Weve been praying for answers, she said. If that could give the family peace of mind, it may not be the answer we want, but it would just enable the family to have some closure.

Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you!

From NTD.tv
David Sepehri, 17, was found dead in a body of water near his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on Dec. 10, 2017. (Stock Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

Details Revealed in Death of Maryland Boy, 17, Who Died After Party

After wandering into a ravine about three miles from his house, a Maryland dad found what he had been searching for and what he feared mostthe body of his 17-year-old son face up in a pond.

Frank Sepehri had been searching all Sunday for his son after he wandered off from a group of friends in Bethesda on the night of Saturday, Dec. 9. He was last seen about 11:30 p.m., NBC 4 reports.

My best friend Navid Sepehri has been missing since last night at around 11:00pm. He was last seen in the Bannockburn neighborhood near Pyle Road wearing a red flannel and khakis. If you have or did seen him or know anything about where he may be please contact me or the police. pic.twitter.com/PaCc4pABC5  Lucas? (@llukewalkerr) December 10, 2017

Sepehri knew his son Navid was going to a friends house that night, and in retrospect, he believes Navid was planning to drink, as he noticed the new Mazda he and his wife had just given Navid was left at home. Navid was clear about not drinking and driving, Sepehri said.

At about 8 p.m that night, bank records show Navid withdrew $20 from an ATM that Sepehri believes was used to buy alcohol.

According to a press release, Navid next went to a house where his friends younger brother was hosting a party. He was with a group of other seniors and likely found out about the party on social media, one of the homeowners told police.

The parents of the student hosting the house party sent the teens away after finding out that there was alcohol at the party.

Police were called to the house on reports of underage drinking, and while they noted that some of the teenagers appeared intoxicated, they made no arrests.

Instead, body camera footage shows that they asked the teens to go homeand to make sure a visibly intoxicated Navid was taken care of.

NEW: @mcpnews admits they should have taken missing persons report for Whitman senior Navid Sepehri earlier. Sepehri, 17, was found dead by his father about 17 hrs after he was last seen by officers breaking up party w/ underage drinking. @fox5dc pic.twitter.com/hohEBg9wLD  Evan Lambert (@EvanLambertTV) December 14, 2017

He was talking to my son  and my son was drunk. He was kind of like, shaking around. He asked [Navids] friends, Get this kid out of here before I get him in trouble, Sepehri told WTOP, describing the body camera footage.

The teens then went to a 7-Eleven store where they hung out in the parking lot, WTOP reports, before ordering an Uber to drive them home.

Navid told friends he was OK and started off into the snowy night on foot toward his home, about a mile away, according to WTOP.

That was the last anyone saw of him.

At about 3 a.m., Sepehri went to the Montgomery County police station in Bethesda after becoming concerned that his son hadnt come home. An officer told him to wait till morning, saying he was likely at a friends house and that sooner or later, he would show up.

.@mcpnews: #Whitman HS teen was found in ravine / stream, no foul play. #Bethesda police BWC showed Navid Sepehri spoke w ofc after teen drinking party. Was told to go home w friends. @fox5dc pic.twitter.com/jJV7KMbame  Melanie Alnwick (@fox5melanie) December 13, 2017

He went home, hoping to hear from his son, but when he didnt hear from him by 8 a.m. the next day, he decided to go search for Navid himself.

On foot and by car, Sepehri looked for Navid using the Find My iPhone app, which he used to check on his sons whereabouts, WTOP reported.

At 12:46 p.m., police finally received an official missing persons report from someone who they have not named.

Just before 5 p.m., Sepehri had made his way to a wooded ravine where his sons phone last pinged before running out of battery.

There, Sepheri saw his son, face up, in a six-foot pond at the end of a stream.

As you can imagine, I went crazy. I pulled him out of the water. I stayed there with him, thinking, ya know, Hes alive and all that, Sepehri recalled to WTOP.

Sepehri yelled so loud that a neighbor came out to see what was happening. He tried to give Navid CPR, but it was too late.

When I pushed his stomach, there was blood coming out and alcohol. Just imagine. I could smell the alcohol. Youre talking about major drinking, he told WTOP.

A bottle of vodka was found in his pocket.

At this point, investigators with the Montgomery County Police say they dont suspect foul play, but as of Tuesday when they spoke to the media, the autopsy results were still pending.

Navid grew up in Bethesda and was planning to study computer science after he graduated this coming spring from Walt Whitman High School, The Washington Post reports. He would have been 18 in January.

Whitman students mourn the loss of their friend Navid Sepehri at swim club where body was found. Some in tears. Others hugging. Several brought flowers. pic.twitter.com/W1rq6YPcCz  Paul Wagner (@Fox5Wagner) December 11, 2017

Friends leave tokens of remembrance for 17-year-old Navid Sepehri who they say died after leaving an underage drinking party @WUSA9 pic.twitter.com/Y0TX0gOhqu  Delia Goncalves (@deliangoncalves) December 12, 2017

Colleen Harkins Carter, the mother of one of Navids good friends, comforted Navids mother as they stood in a parking lot nearby where his body was found on Sunday.

Carter said to the Post she told his friends that the loss was every mothers worst nightmare.

This could be any of us, she said. Dont leave each other alone, and dont encourage binge drinking.

Please support independent journalism by sharing this article on social media.

From NTD.tv
Drunk Off-Duty Firefighter Kills Pregnant 18-Year-Old in Dallas Car Crash

An off-duty firefighter from Dallas was drunk-driving when he crashed into another vehicle on Wednesday, Dec, 13.

The collision killed the driver of the car he hita pregnant teen and her unborn child.

According to Fox4, the crash took place about 12:45 a.m at the 200 block of southbound Highway 67 in Cedar Hill, a city in Texas.

Alyssa Pimentel, 18 was driving with her boyfriend Isaiah Perez, 21 in a suburb through Dallas. As she was merging onto traffic a car rear-ended herthe collision sent both of them out of their seats. Her boyfriend was injured in the crash.

At the time, firefighter Horace Shaw III, 45, was driving a two-door white Mercedes when he struck the couples Mazda SUV, Fox4 reported.

According to the Cedar Hill Police Department, Shaw is a fireman with the City of Dallas. The department said that Pimentels family has been notified.

Police believe that Shaw was speeding and under the influence of alcohol. Investigators said Shaw had been drinking at a bar before just before the crash, according to the Cedar Hill Police department.

A passenger in Shaws car told police that he was speeding a little bit and showing off before the crash, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Police said a witness at the scene told them that the Mercedes seemed to be driving between 100 and 110 mph.

Perez, suffering from a fractured neck and leg said he was still in shock over what occurred.

It hurts when you have someone in your arms, and youre just holding them and you dont want to let go, he told Fox4.

She already got the bassinet and bought all the baby stuff, Perez told Fox4. Thats the one thing she was really happy about and proud.

He planned to propose and had already bought a ring for Pimentel before the tragedy changed everything.

Updated Release to this mornings fatal crash. We send our condolences to the Pimentel family for their losses. pic.twitter.com/KJu0LTDDGD  Cedar Hill Police (@CedarHillPolice) December 13, 2017

I just remember getting picked up from work and then stopping on the side of the road to change her tire or check if it had air in it. Then we got back on the highway, he recalled to Fox4. I blacked out, and I woke up on the side of the highway. And Id seen her laying on the other side of the highway with her belly sticking out.

The boyfriend said the pair met at Midlothian High School.

Records say that after the crash Shaw got out of his car and walked to where Pimentel was lying on the ground. He told the witness that he was a paramedic himself before he too, lay down, according to the Dallas Morning News.

According to the newspaper, Shaw is facing one count of intoxication manslaughter. On Wednesday evening, he was booked into the Dallas County Jail.

The City of Dallas has placed Shaw on administrative leave, while the department conducts an internal investigation.

Pimentels mother, Jayne Pimentel wrote a touching message to her family and friends on Facebook.

We are currently shaken and saddened by the tragic events that occurred today, Jayne wrote, in part. Alyssa was our one and only daughter carrying our grandson with their whole lives ahead of them.

We are very disappointed with the fact that an individual who is tasked with saving lives is responsible for taking the lives of our family members, she added.

Just days ago on Friday, Dec. 8, Jayne posted a photo of her daughter captioned with Coming soon Alyssa! in reference to her baby.

Dear reader, We have a little favor to ask of you. We work hard to deliver important and interesting articles to you. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you! From NTD.tv
The Thomas Incident blaze consumed the life of a second firefighter on Dec. 14. (Images via Cal Fire / compositing by Tom Ozimek / Epoch Times)

Firefighter Dies Battling Enormous California Blaze

A San Diego firefighter was killed battling an enormous blaze in Californiacalled the Thomas Incidentas it continues to burn in parts of Californias Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

I am very saddened to report that a firefighter fatality has occurred on the Thomas Incident, a Cal Fire statement read.

Cal Fire Director Chief Ken Pimlott expressed his condolences to the family.

No details on the firefighters death were provided in the statement, which was released on Thursday, Dec. 14, on the CAL FIRE Facebook page. In the statement, the serviceman was identified as a CAL FIRE Engineer from the San Diego Unit.

Please join me in keeping our fallen firefighter and his loved ones in your prayers, all the responders on the front lines in your thoughts, as they continue to work under extremely challenging conditions, said Pimlott.

Regional firefighting units are also weighing in with condolences.

This is a sad day for all. We stand shoulder to shoulder with support for our brothers and sisters. Our prayers go out to the families and friends for our shared loss, a Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit statement reads.

We stand strong to support our brothers and sisters to the south. Our prayers go to the family, friends and coworkers, reads another from the Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit.

As of now, the Thomas fire has claimed the lives of two firefighters.

A series of Red Flag Warnings remain in effect in the south, extending into central California due to low chance of rain and high winds.

#RedFlagWarnings in effect across Southern CA extending up into the central part of the state due to low humidity and gusty winds. With no chance of precipitation forecasted fire danger remains high. #SantaAnaWinds in Southern CA will provide challenges. https://t.co/3Or0ygzF3r pic.twitter.com/fNSQpSpHvk  CAL FIRE (@CAL_FIRE) December 14, 2017

The 242,500-acre Thomas fire broke out as a brush fire on Monday, Dec. 4. In the last 10 days ablaze, the fire has destroyed 930 structures and damaged another 193, according to Cal Fire.

According to a Cal Fire statement issued on Thursday, Dec. 14, at 9:26 a.m., containment of the Thomas Incident blaze stood at 30%.

Below is a list of the 10 largest wildfires to take place in California after 1932, excluding the complex of wildfires in Northern California called the October Fire Siege. The list is based on a document prepared and published by Cal Fire titled Top 20 Largest California Wildfires

1. Cedar

Cause: Human Related

Date: October 2003

Location: San Diego County

Acres: 273,246

Structures: 2,820

Fatalities: 15

2. Rush

Cause: Lightning

Date: August 2012

Location: Lassen County

Acres: 271,911 California/43,666 Nevada

Structures: None

Fatalities: None

3. Rim

Cause: Human Related

Date: August 2013

Location: Tuolumne County

Acres: 257,314

Structures: 112

Fatalities: None

4. Thomas

Cause: Undetermined

Date: December 2017

Location: Ventura, Santa Barbara counties

Acres: At least 242,000

Structures: At least 900

Fatalities: 1

5. Zaca

Cause: Human Related

Date: July 2007

Location: Santa Barbara County

Acres: 240,207

Structures: 1

Fatalities: 0

6. Matilija

Cause: Undetermined

Date: September 1932

Location: Ventura County

Acres: 220,000

Structures: 0

Fatalities: 0

7. Witch

Cause: Powerlines

Date: October 2007

Location: San Diego County

Acres: 197,990

Structures: 1,650

Fatalities: 2

8. Klamath Theater Complex

Cause: Lightning

Date: June 2008

Location: Siskiyou County

Acres: 192,038

Structures: 0

Fatalities: 2

9. Marble Cone

Cause: Lightning

Date: July 1977

Location: Monterey County

Acres: 177,866

Structures: 0

Fatalities: 0

10. Laguna

Cause: Powerlines

Date: September 1970

Location: San Diego County

Acres: 175,425

Structures: 382

Fatalities: 5

And a final message from your friendly neighborhood news reporter. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article far and wide on social media. Thanks!
Former Police Officer Convicted of Long-Term Abuse

A former sheriffs deputy from Fresno, California, was found guilty of abusing a child. It only came about after the father of the child placed a hidden camera in her room.

Former Fresno County Sheriffs Deputy Rex Garcia was on trial earlier this week on molestation charges, and he gave a firm denial of the charges, ABC30 reported. The channel reported that he was found guilty of long-term child molestation.

The girl previously accused Garcia, her step-grandfather, in court, the Fresno Bee reported. He faces as many as 16 years in prison during the sentencing.

Former sheriffs deputy Rex Garcia now on the witness stand in the child molestation case against him.

This morning, his wife testified and 5 of their friends came in as character witnesses to support him. @ABC30 pic.twitter.com/t2y1iyvwo2  Corin Hoggard (@corinhoggard) December 12, 2017

Garcia married his wife Josephine in 2000, and he lived with her, her mother, her son, and his daughter in a three-bedroom home in Fresno.

ABC30 reported that the father said that his teen daughter told him. She told me, she goes Dad, Papas been touching me, the father said of her step-grandfather, who as affectionately called Papa.

The father feared no one would believe Garcia was capable of the abuse, which lasted years, as he was a convicted thief, and Garcia is a former police officer.

He then placed a hidden camera in the bedroom to get proof, reported Dearly.com.

Rex Garcia walks into court for the verdict in his child molestation case. A friend tried to block my camera. Garcia told her not to do it. @ABC30 pic.twitter.com/btOdvcbhsZ  Corin Hoggard (@corinhoggard) December 13, 2017

#NEW: Rex Garcia, accused of molesting step-granddaughter, arrives to court. @corinhoggard is in courtroom where verdict is expected to be announced soon pic.twitter.com/iiQJqEOaaE  Cory James (@CoryABC30) December 13, 2017

A video from 2015 apparently showed him going into her room at night while she slept before he abused her. He came in and he sat on the edge of the bed and then got up and walked out, the father said.

Two nights later, Garcia went back the room, which was captured on camera. The father then went to the police with the evidence.

Look at those videos. Doesnt show anything nefarious. Nothing at all, Garcias defense attorney, Antonio Alvarez, argued.

Pretty simple, Garcia said. Im trying to adjust. Shes got two or three blankets and Im trying to adjust the blankets.

And while youre here 

We have a small favor to ask of you. If you can, please share this article on Facebook so you can help The Epoch Times. It takes less than a minute. Thank you very much!
A 17-year-old horse named Bushman visiting the residents of a retirement home in Sydney has gone viral. (Christadelphian Aged Care/screenshot via YouTube)

Horse Pops Into Australian Retirement Village to Make a Visit

The residents of a retirement home in Sydney had a pleasant surprise recently when a horse dropped by to pay them a visit.

The 17-year-old horse named Bushman visited a retirement home run by Christadelphian Aged Care in the suburb of Padstow Heights on Dec. 5, reported ABC News.

The below video shows how the Appaloosa horse was welcomed by residents. Many of them used to get around via horse when they were younger.

Pet therapy is an important part of our lifestyle program at Southhaven as it brings such joy to residents and helps start conversations about the past, but we had never had a horse visit before! the homes manager Peter Jessing told ABC News.

Jessing said Bushman rekindled fond memories for those who grew up with horses on farms and used to ride them.

They are still talking about it now, said the manager of the horses visit. Nearly everyone has some sort of connection with horses, having used to ride them to school, taken lessons or had an experience with them when they went on holidays.

The video on the Christadelphian Aged Care Facebook page has so far had over 50,000 shares and attracted comments from around the world.

Why cant more pets visit hospitals and resident homes!! Its proven that it bright[ens] up the spirits of every one!! We should fight for that!! For kindness and happiness, wrote one Facebook user in California.

Horses are such healing giants, said another from Arizona.

Simply awesome. I hope someone does that for me someday! said a Canadian from Ontario.

Jessing said they have been encouraged by the responses the video has received.

We are so excited that the visit was able to bring joy to more people than just our residents, said Jessing.

Bushman is a specially trained horse who is a part of the Travelling Horse organization, which sees him visiting retirement homes around the Australian state of New South Wales.

Watch this video below on how horses can help veterans overcome PTSD.

Please support independent journalism by sharing this article. Thank you!

From NTD.tv
A police sergeant with the Indian Head Park police department allegedly shot and critically wounded his son in an argument over a bottle of vodka on Tuesday, Dec. 12. (Chicago Police Department)

Illinois Police Sergeant Shot Son Over Bottle of Vodka, Prosecutors Say

A former police chief of Indian Head Park, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and current sergeant with the force, shot his son on Tuesday, Dec. 12, after an argument over a bottle of vodka, a Cook County court heard on Thursday, Dec. 14, reports Chicago Tribune.

The 22-year-old son sustained serious injuries after Raymond Leuser, the second-highest ranking member in the department, shot him in the stomach, shoulders, and thigh, after his son allegedly drank his vodka and replaced it with water.

The son is in the hospital in critical condition and is expected to undergo several more surgeries to remove bullets lodged in his body.

Police discovered two .45 caliber guns, one empty and one loaded, as well as spent shell casings in the home, located in the 6200 block of South Nashville Avenue in the citys Clearing neighborhood, reports ABC7.

The Cook County judge called the prosecutors account of what happened disturbing.

Cop shoots son for drinking his vodka, prosecutors say https://t.co/5HwaEXUcA6  Zyite.com (@zyiteblog) December 15, 2017

The court heard from Assistant States Attorney Erin Antonietti that Raymond Leuser allegedly called in sick on Monday, Dec. 11 and was spotted in a store buying vodka and other items, the Tribune reports.

Later that day, Leusers son drank some of the vodka and topped up the bottle with water, Antoinietti said.

The son then approached his father in the kitchen of the home, at which point Leuser allegedly made a guttural type of yell and began firing, Antoinietti said, hitting his son in the stomach, both shoulders, and left thigh.

Leuser called 911 to report the incident and surrendered to the police without incident.

Officers found Leusers son in the basement covered in blood, the court heard. The wounded son was taken to hospital in critical condition.

The judge ordered Leuser held without bail on charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery, both felonies. He is also prohibited from having any contact with his son.

Leuser has been with the Indian Head Park police force for the last 20 years, according to ABC7, and reportedly served as interim police chief from May 2015 to May 2016.

He has been placed on unpaid leave.

Indian Head Park police said the department is cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation by the Chicago Police Department, ABC7 reports.

The Indian Head Park police department is relatively small, with about 20 full and part-time officers on staff, the Tribune reports.

We have a little favor to ask of you. We work hard to deliver important and interesting articles to you. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you!
An incompletely defined space object that NASA says is "potentially hazardous" will zoom past Earth on Dec. 16. (NASA / modified by Tom Ozimek / Epoch Times)

Massive, 3-Mile-Wide Potentially Hazardous Asteroid will Skim past Earth Tomorrow

A space object considered potentially hazardous by NASA, about half the size of the asteroid that allegedly wiped out the dinosaurs, is going to zoom past Earth tomorrow, Saturday, Dec. 16.

Named Phaethon after the Greek god who nearly destroyed the world, the giant rock careening through space is a potentially hazardous asteroid whose path misses Earths orbit by only 2 million miles, says NASA.

But astronomers disagree over what Phaethon actually is.

According to NASA, its technically defined as an asteroid, in fact, the first ever to be discovered by satellite. But its also the parent object that produced a unique meteor shower called the Geminids, something asteroids are incapable of producing. Other theories say that its a dead comet or a rock comet.

So what it comes down to is that the Geminid parent object is a mystery, says NASAs Marshall Space Flight Centers fact sheet.

But one thing astronomers do agree on is that the object will be making a near approach on Dec. 16, passing within 6.4 million miles of Earth. Thats 27 times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

Phaethon is expected to come even closer in 2093to within 1.8 million miles.

The object measures 5 km wide, about half the size of the asteroid or comet that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, writes Dr. Tony Phillips, production editor of NASA Science.

For NASA to classify a space rock as hazardous, it must not only have the potential to make close approaches to Earth, but cause serious damage in the event of impact.

A meteor that didnt make landfall but merely exploded in the atmosphere 18.6 miles (30 km) above Russias Chelyabinsk region in 2013, caused over 1,000 injuries and extensive damage to property, reports NTD.

The force of the explosion of the Chelyabinsk meteor is said to have been about 400  600 kilotones of TNT, so about 30 times greater than Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to National Geographic.

Hubert Foy of Space Safety Magazine estimates that if a meteor the size of the Chelyabinsk one were to strike a populated city, the devastation would be horrific.

The blast waves and sonic boom could have instantly destroy[ed] roughly 9,000 of 13,000 buildings, killed and injured around 5 million of the 8 million people in New York City. That would be a natural disaster of epic proportion, and the Russian meteor event demonstrates that such a disaster is real and it could one day occur in any city on Earth.

Russian astronomers are keeping a close eye on Phaethons orbit. Scientists from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University have published a video which tracks the asteroids travel path.

NASA also monitors objects that could come perilously close to Earth through its Near Earth Object Program. New PHAs are being discovered every month and still, there are tens of thousands of uncharted PHAs of significant size, according to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project. Best estimates are that there are 10,000 to 20,000 PHAs larger than 328 feet.

Whatever Phaethon technically is, NASA says it will pass a safe distance away from Earth. In fact, the agency is quick to point out that none of the PHAs on NASAs threat watch list, called the Sentry Risk Chart, are currently worrisome, according to NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

But that assurance may not be much consolation, says Alex Filippenko, astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, in an interview with Discovery.

The kinds of asteroids that can extinguish much of the life on Earth and most of the species, come around every 100 million years or so. And its not a periodic phenomenon, it doesnt happen every 100 million years. It could happen at any time. Just on average, roughly every 100 million years. So its not a question of if it will happen, its a question of when it will happen.

But according to CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood, there is almost no situation in any foreseeable future where asteroid 3200 Phaethon will collide with the planet Earth.

Any body thats bigger than about 500 feet across and its orbit carries it within about 4.6 million miles of Earth at any point in its orbit is classified as a potentially hazardous object, he explained.

Meaning over millennialots and lots of timegravitational interactions with the outer planets, you know, other objects in the solar system might perturb the orbit enough that it could actually impact the Earth.

Now in the case of this asteroid, thats not the case, he concluded. They think this asteroidand its orbit is very well knownwill never get closer than about 1.8 million miles of the Earth.

Even at 6.4 million miles, 3200 Phaethon should be visible to people with access to small telescopes when it makes its closest approach on Dec. 16, according to Michael Mendillo, a professor of astronomy at Boston University.

Benefit of Near Approach

Citizens of Earthenjoy your light show! The coming of 3200 Phaethon heralds the arrival of the Geminids meteor shower, which will light up the night skies in mid-December, peaking on the night of Dec. 13 and the morning of Dec. 14 with about 120 objects per hour, according to Space.com.

Most meteor showers are caused by cometsbasically, ice-balls with rocks and dust stuck to it. The Gemenid shower is unusual because it comes from an asteroid.

The Gemenid shower is also unusual because it is extremely recentin astronomical terms.

The first recorded observation of the shower was in 1833 from a riverboat on the Mississippi River, Space.com reports.

According to NASAs Bill Cook, it is likely that 3200 Phaethon collided with another chunk of rock a few centuries ago, and over time, Jupiters gravitational field pulled the resulting debris into the path of Earths orbit.

Not all scientists are certain that 3200 Phaethon collided with another orbiting object hundreds of years ago. A paper published in 2013 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters says that, based on three years of observations from NASAs STEREO spacecraft, when 3200 Phaethon gets close to the Sun, the heat or solar wind breaks off portions of the rock.

Slowly Disintegrating

3200 Phaethon gets closer to the Sun than any other named orbiting body, sometimes coming as close as 17 million mileshalf the distance from the Sun to the planet Mercury. Its surface temperature reaches 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Sky and Telescope.

Scientists discovered in 2013 that 3200 Phaethon has a tail like a cometbut comet tails are produced by ice turning to gas. 3200 Phaethons tail seems to be dust pulled off by the Suns heat and gravitational field.

If 3200 Phaethon is composed of carbonaceous materialscompounds containing a lot of water and carbonthe compounds might get brittle in the extreme heat and break apart when tugged one way by the Sun and another way by momentum.

Phaethon may be a breakup in slow motion, Paul Wiegert, an astronomer at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California.

Chris Jasurek from NTD contributed to this article.

And while youre here 

We have a small favor to ask of you. More people are reading The Epoch Times than ever, but ad revenues are declining across the industry. If you can, please share this article on Facebook. It takes less than a minute. Thank you very much!
L: Miss Israel 2017 Adar Gandelsman during the 2017 Miss Universe Pageant at The Axis at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on Nov. 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nev.; R: Miss Iraq 2017 Sarah Idan during the 2017 Miss Universe Pageant at The Axis at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on Nov. 26, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nev. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Miss Iraqs Family Forced to Flee Country Over Her Instagram Post: Report

Family members of Miss Universe Iraq have fled their country after the beauty contestant posted a picture on Instagram of her posing with Miss Universe Israel. The relatives have received death threats, according to Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman.

Gandelsman has been in contact with Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, and said some people in Iraq had a problem with the two of them posing together as well as with Idan posing in a bikini.

The two of those things together caused a mess for her back home where people made threats against her and her family that if she didnt return home and take down the photos, they would remove her [Miss Iraq] title, that they would kill her, Gandelsman told Israeli TV, The Times of Israel reported.

Out of fear, they left Iraq at least until the situation calms down, she added.

Idan now lives in the US, according to her Facebook page.

Im not the first nor the last person to face prosecution over a matter of personal freedom. Millions of Iraqi women live in fear, she tweeted in response to the news of her family fleeing.

Im not the first nor the last person to face prosecution over a matter of personal freedom. Millions of Iraqi women live in fear. #freeiraqiwomen https://t.co/Vt0YjFbyf4  Sarai (Sarah Idan) (@grrrciara) December 15, 2017

There doesnt seem to be any photo of Idan in a bikini on her Instagram, though she did participate in such a photoshoot for the pageant.

The photo of her with Gandelsman is still up.

Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel, Idan wrote on the Nov. 13 post.

On Nov. 14, she posted a response to the criticism shes received online:

I received many criticisms because of a photo taken of me as the beauty queen of Iraq with the beauty queen of Israel. When I faced the beauty queen of Israel for the photo of Miss Universe she greeted me and told me that she hopes that the day will

come when there will peace between the two religions and when she will not watch her children being forced into military service. She asked me if I wanted to take a photo with her. I told her I too hope for peace and I will be pleased to spread the message of peace. I would like to point out that the purpose of the photo was only to express hope and desire for peace between all countries and our presence in the same place during Miss Universe, as beauty queens and ambassadors for peace, and wanted to spread this message. This publication is not an endorsement of the Israeli government and it does not mean agreeing or accepting their policies in Arab world. I want to apologize to everyone who considered this as undermining the Palestinian cause since this was not the objective of the publication. It was a call for peace and hope for a solution to the crisis.

Iraq doesnt recognize the Jewish state and is still technically at war with Israel.

Gandelsman also posted a picture with Idan on Instagram, writing, Get to know, this is Miss Iraq and shes amazing.

She did it  so that people can understand that its possible to live together, Gandelsman later said.

Idan, 27, grew up in Baghdad during the war with the United States. She wanted to leave the country, so she approached the U.S. troops and offered to work with them.

I knew that if you work with them then theres a chance you can go to the U.S., she said in the introduction video presented during the pageant.

That was back in 2008. She was 18 at the time.

I served both countriesIraq and the United States. It made me grow up. It made me a better person. Im just happy and honored that I had this opportunity, she said in a Miss Universe video.

She described herself as brave.

I always knew what I wanted to do in my life. I knew I wanted to travel the world. I knew I wanted to be musician. I always speak my mind. Im not afraid, she said.

Shes is the first Iraqi beauty queen to participate in Miss Universe since 1972.

While youre here Share!

We work hard to deliver the most important and interesting news every day for you, but would like to ask a little favor in return: Would you please share this story with your friends? You can just click the share button below. Thank you!
New Jersey Grandmother Threatened with Eviction over Son

A New Jersey grandmother was threatened with an eviction for allowing her grandson to visit her, according to reports.

Rose DiMaria, 87, said her 40-year-old grandson Gregory Ciccione visits her nearly every day to deliver her breakfast to her, helps with chores around the house, and also gets her mail, the New York Daily News reported.

The Lodi Public Housing Authority of New Jersey sent a letter to DiMaria, 87, who was also recently treated for breast cancer, that shes violating her lease agreement by allowing an unauthorized visitor to visit too frequently, NBC4 reported. Its referring to her grandson, she said.

Its nice to have company  I dont understand what is wrong with that, she told the media outlet.

The housing authority administrators also told police that her grandson served three years in prison for mail fraud, as NBC4 reported.

Its absolutely targeted at me, Ciccione was quoted as saying. Therere outside family members who I no longer interact with.  In their attack on me, its affecting my grandmother.

Taking care of an elder should not be something that I am forced to stop doing or be bullied into not doing because of past history, he said, NBC reported.

The Lodi Public Housing Authority told the NBC affiliate that its priority is the health, safety, and well-being of tenants at the building.

I think the intent was that they allegedly would make things difficult for me, Ciccone added to News 12. But in turn theyre making things difficult for my grandmother.

A housing authority attorney told the outlet that Dimaria would have to face a hearing before any action is taken on her eviction.

I feel bullied, DiMaria told NJ.com in November. I want them to leave me alone.

DiMarias attorney, Anthony Fiorello, told the website that theres clause in the lease that one person can visit no more than 14 times per year.

If you stop there to bring her a bagel, thats a visit, Fiorello said. If you stop there to drive her to a doctors appointment, thats considered a visit.

NJ.com in November also reported that a second relative, James DiGiulio, was banned from the property.

You wont find anyone with a more sterling character than him, but now hes a trespasser, said Fiorello of DiGiulio. Im sure, when I go for the hearing, Ill also be considered a trespasser. Fiorello added that DiGiulio is a retired federal agent with the Internal Revenue Service and DiMarias power of attorney.

Its just a shame, Fiorello said. The family treats her the way you would want to be treated as a senior citizen. Im not sure what the philosophy is here.

And while youre here 

We have a small favor to ask of you. If you can, please share this article on Facebook so you can help The Epoch Times. It takes less than a minute. Thank you very much!
New Law Stops Pedophiles Leaving Australia

"Those child rape holidays for Aussie deviates are over"

A convicted child sex criminal was stopped at Sydney Airport as he attempted to leave Australia on the day new laws on child sex tourism laws came into effect.

Australian foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop said on Wednesday, Dec. 13 that the arrest was proof the law is effective but gave few details on the man arrested.

The man is currently being interviewed by the federal police, so I dont want to go into any more details, said Bishop reported The Australian.

I dont wish to prejudice the interview, but he was stopped here at the smart gate, because of these laws, because his name appeared on the watch list, she said.

Authorities stop a convicted pedophile at Sydney airport-as laws preventing registered child sex offenders travelling o/s come into effect pic.twitter.com/SsjaufmDZv  Julie Bishop (@JulieBishopMP) December 12, 2017

A joint statement put out by Bishop and the countrys Minister for Justice, Michael Keenan, said the new laws are designed to prevent registered child sex offenders from travelling overseas to abuse children.

They will also have their passports cancelled at the request of state or territory authorities, said the ministers statement.

The government said that Australia has knowledge of about 20,000 child sex offenders who have served their sentences but are subject to reporting obligations that help to protect the community.

For too long, these predators have traveled overseas undetected, including to countries where weaker laws mean they have opportunities to commit heinous crimes, the ministers said in the joint statement.

From today, it is illegal for registered child sex offenders to travel overseas. Already, one man has been caught. @AusFedPolice pic.twitter.com/qxT6DD6l0z  Michael Keenan MP (@MichaelKeenanMP) December 13, 2017

The government said that last year, some 800 Australian-registered child sex offenders travelled overseas. Around 40 percent did so without informing authorities of their travel. This will no longer be the case, said the government.

The ministers said this law is a world first in addressing the problem.

A report put out by ECPAT International said that nearby Southeast Asia and certain countries in South Asia have long been the target of child sex tourists.

The new law was championed by Australian senator Derryn Hinch.

A convicted child sex offender [was] turned back at Sydney Airport today under [a] new passport ban law that I got passed this year. Those child rape holidays for Aussie deviates are over, tweeted Hinch, a former broadcaster.

Super proud moment. A convicted child sex offender turned back at Sydney Airport today under new passport ban law that I got passed this year. Those child rape holidays for Aussie deviates are over.  Derryn Hinch (@HumanHeadline) December 13, 2017

Please support independent journalism by sharing this article. Thank you very much!

From NTD.tv
North Koreas Hwasong-15 ICBM launched on Nov. 28, 2017. North Korea claims the missile is capable of carrying a miniaturized nuclear warhead like the one it claims to have tested on Sept. 3. (REUTERS/KCNA)

North Korea Warns Country Is on Brink of War

North Koreas communist regime warned that it is on the brink of war.

In an article published in its official mouthpiece KNCA, the regime in Pyongyang complained about sanctions imposed on it and the potential of a naval blockade.

The Korean Peninsula is more and more close to the brink of war, said the article.

The Trump administration is looking to impose additional sanctions on North Korea following a controversial ICBM test late last month.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in response to that test that nations have the right to interdict maritime traffic transporting goods to and from the DPRK.

A blockade on naval transports to North Korea is expected to put significant pressure on the North Korean regime.

Crew members spread out lights on the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier during a port visit in Hong Kong on Oct. 2, 2017. (ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump has also instructed the Treasury department to impose new sanctions on North Korea. So far the Treasury department has already sanctioned North Korean shipping companies and vessels.

The Treasury deparment also put sanctions on Chinese trading companies over their shipments for importing a combined worth of $100 million in goods from North Korea.

Trump is also looking to other countries to take stronger measures following North Koreas latest provocation.

North Korean vessels targeted under new Treasury Department sanctions imposed last month. (Treasury Department)

However, China, North Koreas biggest ally, has indicated that it is unwilling to do more.

In September, both China and Russia had agreed under pressure from Trump to approve and impose new sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.

Chinese state-media, however, have since reported that the Chinese regime has hit their limit of what they are willing to do.

The Chinese regime has provided North Korea with financing and advanced technology over the years that have made their nuclear weapons program possible.

It appears that while China is keen to keep good relations with the United States over fears of a trade war, it is also unwilling to give up North Korea, a fellow communist state, as a strategic asset.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and wife Peng Liyuan and U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania attend a state dinner at the Great Hall of the People on Nov. 9, 2017 in Beijing, China. (Thomas Peter  Pool/Getty Images)

Since coming to office in January, Trump has used a combination of diplomatic efforts as well as economic sanctions and the threat of military force in an effort to get North Korea to the negotiating table.

Trump has demanded a complete denuclearization of North Korea.

Earlier this week Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which increases overall military spending, and if funded by Congress in the budget would allow the military to buy new equipment such as F-35 fighter jets and Virginia-class submarines.

Two Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealth fighter jets fly to the Avalon Airshow in Victoria, Australia, March 3, 2017. (Australian Defence Force/Handout via REUTERS)

North Korea has raised concerns about a renewal of American might on multiple occasions in recent months.

However, while seemingly intimidated by the threat of a war, which it is guaranteed to lose, the Kim regime has continued to issue threats of nuclear attacks against the U.S. mainland as well as Japan and South Korea.

If you enjoyed reading this article, support our independent journalism and share it on social media.
A pharmacy manager retrieves a from the shelf, in Miami, Florida in this file photo. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Oklahoma Dad Calls for Regulation of Household Drug That Killed His Son

29-year-old died after taking massive overdose in rare, but increasingly common tragedy

To opioid addicts, it is known as the poor mans methadone. To chemists, it is known as loperamide. To most people, it is known by the popular brand name Imodium.

This anti-diarrhea medication is freely available on supermarket shelves without restriction.

But now an Oklahoma man is adding his voice to growing calls for loperamide to be regulated after his son died of an overdose, the latest tragedy in a minor, but growing, trend.

Joel Hild told KFOR his son, Mitch, had struggled with opioid drug addiction for 15 years.

Oklahoma man wants over-the-counter drug that killed his son to be regulated https://t.co/kZGkSwBscX pic.twitter.com/6LMD04fR22  KFOR (@kfor) December 13, 2017

Mitchs tragic death in July at the age of 29 from an overdose was something the family had long dreaded.

We were waiting for it. He had disappeared. He had tried to get better a lot of times, he said.

But the toxicology report didnt reveal what they expected.

There were no traces of illegal drugs, or of prescription opioids prone to misuse. Instead, the medical examiner listed Mitchs cause of death as acute loperamide toxicity.

Loperamide is the ingredient in many over-the-counter anti-diarrhea drugs. What most people dont realiseexcept for many drug addicts and doctors is that loperamide is technically an opiate.

This is a pharmaceutical opiate that is manufactured to be put in an over-the-counter drug. And, its available for people to get as much as they want, any time they want. And, that doesnt make sense, Hild said.

Now he is campaigning for a change.

We need to make people aware that this is a thing. Its available.

Unlike most opiates, loperamide cannot get into the brain to cause the addictive opiate high, except in massive doses, according to research.

Instead, its action is limited to slowing the bowels, where, like other opiates, it causes constipationor, in the case of diarrhea, slows gut function to normal levels.

Its growing use amongst opioid addicts was first picked up and researched in 2012.

Addiction centers, researchers, and drug users have reported an increase in the last several years.

Since 2015 calls about loperamide exposure to the Oklahoma Center for Poison & Drug Information have doubled. #PoisonHelp https://t.co/QPZ0swrRAx  OKPoison Center (@OKPoisonCenter) December 13, 2017

In 2016 a study into the deaths of 2 young men showed that in massive doses it could have had an unexpected lethal effect on the heart in a warning echoed by the FDA.

Opioid addicts use loperamide for two reasons.

Firstly, they use it to manage the symptoms of withdrawal, which include diarrhea, neatly mimicking the effect of the opioid in the body but without the addictive high in the brain.

Secondly, addicts are increasingly using it simply to get high. To do so, however, they are sometimes taking over 100 times the maximum dose, and mixing with other drugs, breaking through the mechanism that normally stops it reaching the brain.

Drug users, opioid seekers, they are desperate, Nardine Nakhla, a lecturer at the faculty of pharmacy at the University of Toronto, told CBC. They need this medication to help with the withdrawal, or to achieve that euphoric state. So they disregard the warning and still use the drug if it means they get their fix.

Imodium carries a warning that taking more than directed can cause serious heart problems or death. The directions state that adults should take no more than 4 (2mg) tablets a day. However, some people are taking hundreds of them a day, according to researchers and former addicts.

Its been likened to a poor mans methadone, Dr. David Juurlink, a drug safety researcher at Sunnybrook Hospital told CBC. At high doses, it will cause effects like methadone or oxycontin. The problem is the doses you need to achieve that is really, really dangerous.

It can cause your heart to stop, Juurlink added. Its the sort of thing people can do for weeks or months at a time, with no symptoms at all, then suddenly they just drop dead.

This is what happened to British father of two Aaron McCaffrey, who would buy 15 packets of tablets whenever he went to the supermarket.

On January 13, 2017, the 27-year-old took a large number of pills whilst on a shopping errand and later collapsed in the bathroom of the supermarket. He never recovered.

His girlfriend, Leanne Harvey, told the Manchester Evening News that there had been no warning. He was a fit young man. He didnt smoke, he didnt drink, and he walked everywhere, she said. There were no side-effects that we saw in him.

Like Hild, she is now campaigning for a change to the regulations in the UK, where, as in the United States, the drug is freely available on store shelves.

I just want people to take it more seriously, she said.



I believe 100 percent that if he had been addicted to heroin or cocaine or illegal drugs he would have got a lot more help.

She has set up an online petition on Change.org calling for sales to be restricted to 2 packs per person.

Back in Oklahoma, Hild is hoping to get the state to regulate the sale of Imodium in the same way it does pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in Sudafed.

Just slide it in with Sudafed and, the second they do that, it will save a life. That minute that the kid cant go in there and get a box full of Imodium, hes going to live that day, Hild told KFOR.

Itd be something good that came out of my son dying.

What do you think? Comment and share by hitting the button below.
Former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il inspects what could be a miniaturized atomic bomb in a photograph that hung inside the hall of a Pyongyang arms conference on Dec. 11, 2017. (Screenshot via Stimme Koreas/YouTube)

Photo May Reveal North Korea Miniaturized a Nuclear Weapon in 2006

North Koreas nuclear missile program has made explosive progress in the recent years, culminating in a nuclear bomb test in September and an intercontinental ballistic missile test two weeks ago that proved North Korea can strike the entirety of the U.S. mainland.

Now an image captured by North Korean state media and incidentally released to the world reveals that North Koreas nuclear program may have been much more advanced under former leader Kim Jong Il than previously believed.

Video of Kim Jong Un walking through a munitions industry exhibition in North Korea has captured a picture of the North Korean leaders father and predecessor Kim Jong Il looking at a circular, disco-ball-sized device that some experts believe could be a nuclear bomb.

If it is, it would suggest the communist regime had managed to miniaturize its atomic weapon as far back as 2006.

That capability would lend further credence to the current Kims claims to have developed a miniaturized hydrogen bomb small enough to fit inside the warhead of an ICBM.

The regimes claims about its nuclear program, including claims it has exploded two hydrogen bombs, which are far more powerful than regular atomic bombs, are frequently discounted.

Some experts believe the photograph, which is mounted on the wall of the exhibition hall as Kim walks through, could be doctored. If so, the image would represent an attempt by North Korea to lead international observers to believe the regimes nuclear weaponry is further along that it is.

According to North Korean state media and Kim Jong Uns broadcast statements, the regime has now completed its state nuclear force.

The regime claimed last Septembers nuclear bomb test was a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear device 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Experts remain skeptical of that claim and many suggest that the test, which triggered a 5.6 magnitude earthquake on Sept. 3, was a boosted fission weapon rather than a hydrogen bomb.

Hydrogen bombs use a second stage of nuclear fusion reactions to exponentially magnify the destructive force of a typical atomic explosion. A boosted fission bomb, however, simply adds some thermonuclear gas to amplify a normal atomic bomb.

The image with the photo is only seen for a moment, making a detailed analysis difficult with only a few frames of grainy video showing the device.

It is similar in size to more recent pictures of Kim Jong Un inspecting what North Korea state media claim to be the regimes first hydrogen bomb.

The photograph of Kim Jong Il inspecting the device was not previously released. If it is an atomic weapon, it would suggest the regime has kept its nuclear program secretive during the Obama administration, perhaps out of fear of invoking the kind of sanctions and attention the regime is now experiencing.
Attorney Lisa Bloom announces the cancellation of a press conference for alleged Trump accuser 'Jane Doe' on Nov. 2, 2016 in Woodland Hills, California. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Report: Prominent Lawyer Arranged Payments for Trump Accusers

Lisa Bloom, a prominent lawyer, was seeking payments from donors and media organizations for women who had made allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump, or those who were considering making such allegations.

The Hill reported on Friday that in one case, Bloom arranged a donor to pay off the mortgage of one of Trumps accusers.

In another case, Bloom tried to sell the story of a woman to media organizations.

One woman was offered as much as $750,000 to come forward with allegations, The Hill reported based on contractual documents, emails, and text messages. The women reportedly decided not to accept the offer in the end.

The bombshell report may call into question the allegations that have been leveled against Trump.

Bloom herself also benefitted financially from the arrangement, receiving as much as 33 percent of the money the women received for media appearances, according to The Hill.

The Hill also reported that the emails and text messages showed that Bloom held a strong dislike of Trump.

One exchange of text messages between Bloom and one woman reportedly showed that political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted during the effort.

When contacted by The Hill, Bloom refused to name the donors. She claimed that she had not been in contact with the Clinton campaign, but refused to tell the media whether she has been in contact with super PACs supporting then-Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

While Bloom has defended women in prominent harassment cases in the past, she has also defended controversial celebrities accused of wrongdoing.

Kathy Griffin (R) and her attorney Lisa Bloom speak during a press conference at The Bloom Firm on June 2, 2017 in Woodland Hills, California. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Earlier this year, she represented Hollywood Mogul Harvey Weinstein who has since been accused by over 50 women of improper sexual behavior.

Bloom also represented Kathy Griffin following public outrage over a photo-shoot she did with a fake, bloody severed head of President Trump. Griffin was investigated by the Secret Service following the incident.

Bloom is the daughter of Gloria Allred, who has also represented women making allegations against Trump.

Allred also represented one of the women accusing Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. A yearbook inscription presented by Allred as proof came under question after accuser Beverly Young Nelson said last week that she had written part of the message herself.

President Trump called out Allred last Friday at a rally in Pensacola, Florida, saying Gloria Allred, anytime you see her, you know something is going wrong.

Trump has said that the accusations against him have been fabricated and that he has never met any of the women in question.

Despite thousands of hours wasted and many millions of dollars spent, the Democrats have been unable to show any collusion with Russia  so now they are moving on to the false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I dont know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017

If you enjoyed reading this article, support our independent journalism by sharing it on social media.
Shoplifting Attempt With Empty Stroller at Best Buy Ends in Car Crash

A brazen shoplifting attempt at a Florida Best Buy ended in a car crash on Monday, Dec. 11, after a woman was caught on her way out of the store with a baby stroller filled with electronics.

Police say they arrested Donald Carter, Marcelous Thomas, and Sheeronnye Pendergrass on Monday after the trio led them on a wild chase that ended in a crash.

Surveillance video from the Best Buy shows Pendergrass and Thomas allegedly entering the store with a small stroller. The women are then seen taking electronics off a shelf and tossing them into a stroller.

While in the store, both females began to select items and place them aside which were later loaded into the stroller and covered with a blanket, Sgt. Mark Leone told Local 10.

The video from a different camera then shows Thomas come face to face with a Best Buy loss prevention employee, who opens the stroller and discovers the unpaid-for items. Thomas is then seen shoving past the employee and fleeing the store.

While holiday shopping, they decided that they were exempt from paying for their items so they loaded them up in a baby stroller and walked out, the Davie Police Department wrote on Facebook.

Police believe Carter was the womens getaway driver.

As they fled out of the parking lot, Davie police officers attempted to stop them, the department wrote.

The trio then attempted to flee and crashed into several vehicles. In the process, Carter climbed into the back seat and Thomas took over for him at the wheel. Pendergrass exited the vehicle at some point and was caught by police.

The way that they were driving through this parking lot seriously put a lot of peoples lives in jeopardy, Leone told WSVN. Trying to get away for, you know, a criminal act like this in the manner that they did  its unexplainable.

Drivers of the car that the suspects crashed into began to move away in fear and Thomas and Carter fled the parking lot, police say.

A short police pursuit then ensued which ended after the attempted shoplifting suspects crashed into the entrance of a nearby neighborhood. Footage from the propertys camera shows two of the suspects climb out of the car and run away as smoke fills the cabin.

They were walking around lost in the neighborhood, Leone said.

Support NTD.tv. Share this article.

From NTD.tv
The approximate location where the body of Kailey Vijil was found in West Valley City, Utah, on July 17, 2015. (Screenshot via Google Maps)

Teen Takes Plea Deal Over Murder, Rape of 12-Year-Old

A Utah teen has stricken a plea deal admitting to raping and murdering a 12-year-old girl in 2015.

The blended plea deal will allow Jayden Sterzer, 18, to stay in a juvenile detention center until hes 21. He will then be sentenced in an adult court and face 15 years to life in prison.

Sterzer pleaded in juvenile court he lured his neighbor Kailey Vijil out of her home before midnight July 16, 2015, with a story that he needed help looking for his cat.

Vijil was found dead hours after, at about 1:30 a.m., in an overgrown pasture West Valley City, Utah, about half-mile from her home.

Sterzers attorneys told the judge that Sterzer raped the girl and then strangled her with his tank top, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

His lawyer Michael Sikora said Sterzer suffered intellectual impairments as a result of being exposed to alcohol while in his mothers womb.

Because of these impairments, Sikora said, because he operates at such a young ageintellectually he operates about at the level of a third-graderit was very important to do what we could to keep him in the juvenile system for the next three years.

District Juvenile Court Judge James Michie ruled a year ago Sterzer wasnt competent to stand trial with the caveat that his competence may be restored. Earlier this year the judge decided Sterzer was competent to stand trial after all.

The judge said his focus will now focus on the victims family.

Now the tide has turned, finally, Michie said, and our focus is not going to be just on you anymore. Our focus is also going to be on Kailey and her family and what you took from them.

Its been an unbearable 2 years that theyve had to go through, said Spencer Banks, attorney for the victims family.  [The plea deal] assures he will be in custody for an extremely long time, and thats where they take the most comfort.

Sterzers next court appearance was set on Jan. 19, 2018, Fox 13 reported.

While youre here Share!

We work hard to deliver the most important and interesting news every day for you, but would like to ask a little favor in return: Would you please share this story with your friends? You can just click the share button below. Thank you!
The Australian People Stand Up: PM Turnbull Rebukes Beijing for Meddling in Domestic Politics

Proposed laws target public officials and their Chinese patrons

On Dec. 9, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull responded to claims by the Chinese regime and opposition politicians that he had made China-phobic remarks and was catering to irresponsible reports.

The backlash comes after Turnbull raised concern about widespread and high-placed infiltration of Australias government and society by agents serving the Chinese Communist Party.

Foreign powers are making unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process, Turnbull told reporters in Canberra, the Australian capital, on Dec. 7 as he pushed for legislation that would more strictly regulate Chinese individuals and firms attempting to sway Australian politicians using donations and other incentives.

On Dec. 8, a spokesman for the Chinese regime said that Beijing was astounded by the relevant remarks of the Australian leader. Such remarks simply cater to the irresponsible reports by some Australian media that are without principle and full of bias against China.

For months, Australia media and state bodies have been scrutinizing the Chinese regimes attempts to spread political influence within Australias borders, from the communist tactics of coercion used to subvert the large Chinese-Australian community to the funding of well-placed politicians.

The Australian People Stand Up

Foreign governments are entitled to make their point of view known, Prime Minister Turnbull said on Dec. 9. But covert lobbying, particularly of the kind weve seen recently, that is not acceptable and were updating our laws to deal with it.

On Dec. 7, Turnbull had presented a set of bills to parliament designed to counter influence by foreign governments in Canberra.

A recent report by Australian intelligence said that that China has been running a patchy but deep operation to insert friendly politicians and other public figures into positions of influence.

Responding to Beijings strong dissatisfaction, to his earlier statements, Turnbull referenced a quote by founding Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, who said, the Chinese people have stood up.

So we say the Australian people stand up, Turnbull said, speaking in unpolished Mandarin.

Turnbulls new laws would introduce the criminal offense of intentional foreign interference, covering situations where a political or state process is covertly or deceptively influenced on behalf of a foreign client.

One of the Australian politicians who has found himself in the spotlight is Senator Sam Dastyari of the left-leaning Labor Party. Dastyari was sponsored by Huang Xiangmo, a Chinese billionaire with ties to the Communist Party.

Because of his conflicts of interest, Dastyari was demoted from his position as opposition deputy whip in the Senate and the government is now calling for his removal from parliament. Turnbull has called his actions a failure of loyalty.

Dastyari was long viewed as suspiciously close to China, but it wasnt until late November that audio recordings showed he had once met Huang Xiangmo and told him his phone was possibly being tapped by Australian intelligence.

Sam Dastyari is a very clear case of somebody who has literally taken money from people closely associated with the Chinese government and, in return for that, has delivered essentially Chinese policy statements, Turnbull said on Dec. 9.

Domestic Splits

Opposition politicians have criticized Turnbull, accusing him of Sinophobia and burning bridges in the countrys relationship with Asia and Asian-Australians.

Kristina Keneally, a Labor Party politician, said Turnbull was fueling suspicion of Asian-Australians and was more interested in his own day-to-day survival than Australias future relationships in Asia.

Its not just Chinese-Australians, but Korean-Australians too who know theyre getting tarred by Malcolm Turnbulls assertion that Asian-Australians are not fully-fledged members of Team Australia, Keneally said.

Kristina Keneally is currently running for a parliamentary representative seat in a tight race against the prime ministers Liberal Party in Bennelong, New South Wales. Keneally once served as premier of New South Wales, and Sam Dastyari was formerly the Labor Partys general secretary for the state.

Friend of the Chinese People

Turnbull rebuked assertions he was anti-China, pointing to his granddaughter, who is half-Chinese by descent. To suggest that somebody whose granddaughter is one of those one million Australians of Chinese ancestry, is anything other than a friend of Chinese people is absurd, completely absurd. It just shows you how desperate they are, Turnbull said.

Links to China, whether the people or its ruling Communist Party, can be found among the Liberals as well.

According to Labor Party representative Anthony Albanese, Liberal members of the Australian parliament had also received sponsorship from Chinese sources.

We found out that a notice had gone out asking people to attend a fundraiser for the Liberal party where the guest speakers werent Liberal party ministers or shadow ministers, they were representatives of the Chinese government.

Bill Shorten, Labor leader in parliament, suggested that Turnbull was using strong rhetoric against the Chinese regime to strengthen his political position against Labor.

I wish that Senator Dastyari hadnt given him the ammunition to do some of those attacks, Shorten said.

Alex Turnbull, the prime ministers son, is married to Chinese-born Yvonne Wang. According to Christopher Joye of the Australian Financial Review, the elder Turnbull was skeptical of Australian intelligence, a sentiment reciprocated in spades with Australian and US spooks insinuating Malcolm is soft on national security and the China threat while noting his Sinophile son is married to the princeling daughter of senior Chinese Communist Party officials.

The accusation that the younger Turnbulls wife was the daughter of Chinese regime officials was later removed from Joyes article upon complaints by the prime ministers family.

What Beijing Wants

Experts say that Chinas diplomatic goal is to threaten and coax Australia out of its alliance with the United States. Doing so would make it easier for the communist regime to advance its strategic interests across Asia, in hotspots such as the South China Sea or Taiwan, which Beijing sees as its own territory.

In 2016, the Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled Chinese tabloid, ran an article chiding Australia for opposing Chinas claims to the South China Seamost of which is legally part of international waters.

Australia is not even a paper tiger, its only a paper cat at best  Australia has unexpectedly made itself a pioneer of hurting Chinas interest, the Global Times said. If Australia steps into the South China Sea waters, it will be an ideal target for China to warn and strike.

Malcolm Davis, senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The New Daily that Australia could not let itself be pushed around by China.

Our population is changing. In 20 to 30 years time, well be a more diverse and multi-cultural population that will include Chinese and other ethnic components, Dr. Davis said. China hopes to influence the future Australian population in people who are young, coming into the political scene and over time [want to] cultivate this influence.

The prime minister would appear to agree: Australia needs to maintain a strong atmosphere of sovereignty and political openness.

On Dec. 5, when Turnbull brought out his new laws, he said that what Labor is doing with Dastyari will result in nothing more than complete contempt of Australia and particularly the Australian Labor party in Beijing.
Hip-hop artist Chinx attends BET 106 and Park on June 11, 2014 in New York City. (Brad Barket/Getty Images for BET)

Two Convicts Arrested for 2015 Murder of Rapper Chinx

New York City Police have arrested two men in connection with the 2015 drive-by shooting death of rapper Lionel Pickens, whose stage name was Chinx.

Pickens and a friend were shot as they sat in his silver Porsche at a red light. Pickens was shot 15 times and died of his wounds. His friend was also hit but survived.

In another example of the mindless gun violence plaguing our country, a young, up-and coming musician had his life and career dramatically cut short by a burst of senseless shooting that also wounded an acquaintance, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement.

The two arrested for the shooting were already in police custody on unrelated charges.

Im very relieved that were at this point, Pickenss widow, Janelli Caceres, told the Daily News. Weve been waiting for this day for 2 1/2 years.

Post-Performance Attack

Pickens had performed at Club Red Wolf in Brooklyn, on May 17, 2015, finishing up after 2:30 a.m. He and a friend and two security guards drove to a nearby bar, which was closed, and then headed on to other locations.

Pickens was driving with his friend, 27-year-old Antar Alziadi, known as Yemen Chee$e, in a silver Porsche Panamera. Pickens normally had his security guard drive; on this night, however, he opted to drive himself, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told the Daily News.

Pickenss Porsche was stopped at a traffic light near Queens Blvd. at 84th Drive in Briarwood when another car pulled up alongside and at least one gunman opened fire. The second car had tailed the Porsche from the club, it later turned out.

Pickens was hit 15 times. Alziadi was shot in the back. Both were transported to Jamaica Hospital where Pickens died.

Detective Work

NYPD detectives worked for more than two years to identify the people responsible for the crime. On Thursday, Dec. 14, police arrested Quincy Homere, 32, and Jamar Hill, 26, for the 2015 murder.

NYPD Commissioner James ONeill praised the detectives who cracked the case.

This indictment shows that the two defendants essentially stalked their victims before shooting them and making a getaway, ONeill said.

But through the talent and tenacity of the Queens South detectives, working closely with the office of the Queens District Attorney, they have now been brought back to answer for this violent act.

Hill had apparently been out on bail from a July 2014 armed robbery in Queens on the night he helped kill Pickens. Hill pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to five years in Cape Vincent Correctional Facility in Jefferson County.

Homere was serving time in a federal penitentiary for the Nov. 9, 2015, robbery of a Long Island bank. He had been identified by DNA and arrested in Florida, then sent to New York.

Homere had also done federal time for passport fraud in 2006.

In 2005, Homere was arrested for assaulting a New York City firefighter named William Carberry with a hammer during an incident of road rage. During the incident, a Nassau County police officer arrived at the scene and stopped the assault before Carberry could be more seriously injured.

Homere was charged with second-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Hill and Homere face charges of second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon for the killing of Pickens. Each faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

New York City police thought Pickens murder might be related to the similar 2007 murder of Pickenss rap mentor, Rayquan Elliott, who called himself Stack Bundles.

They were friends, Stack Bundles and Chinx. They were friends, so were looking at all hip-hop angles, NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.

Theres always the issue of retaliation in these things, Boyce added.

Bundles was also shot early in the morning after a late-night performance. Bundles was also driving a Porsche when he was shot.

Pickens was in jail at the time of that murder, serving four years for an armed robbery committed in 2002 and selling crack cocaine in 2003.

Pickens was part of French Montanas Coke Boys group. Bundles ran with Jim Jones of the Dipset and ByrdGang groups.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please share it with your friends.

From NTD.tv
Reuters journalists Wa Lone (L) and Kyaw Soe Oo, who are based in Burma, pose for a picture at the Reuters office in Burma on Dec. 11, 2017. (Reuters/Antoni Slodkowski)

Two Reuters Journalists Arrested in Burma, Facing Official Secrets Charges

YANGONBurmas government said on Wednesday that police had arrested two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. The reporters had been working on stories about the long conflict and horrific humanitarian situation still unfolding in Burmas Rahkine State that has caused almost 650,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Ministry of Information said in a statement on its Facebook page that the journalists and two policemen face charges under the Official Secrets Act. The 1923 law established during Burmas British colonial-era carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The reporters illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media, said the statement, which was accompanied by a photo of the pair in handcuffs.

It said they were detained at a police station on the outskirts of Yangon, the southeast Asian nations main city.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo went missing on Tuesday evening after they had been invited to meet police officials over dinner.

Reuters driver Myothant Tun dropped them off at Battalion 8s compound at around 8 pm and the two reporters and two police officers headed to a nearby restaurant. The journalists did not return to the car.

Blatant Attack

The refugee exodus to Bangladesh was triggered by a military counter-offensive in Rakhine state after attacks on police and army posts in the northern Rakhine by the Islamic extremist group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on Aug. 25.

Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been reporting on events of global importance in [Burma], and we learned today that they have been arrested in connection with their work, said Stephen J. Adler, president and editor-in-chief of Reuters.

We are outraged by this blatant attack on press freedom. We call for authorities to release them immediately, he said.

A spokesman for Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi confirmed that the two journalists had been arrested.

Not only your reporters, but also the policemen who were involved in that case, spokesman Zaw Htay said. We will take action against those policemen and also the reporters.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert emphasized that the agency was following this closely. She said that U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel on Wednesday had a conversation with two government officials in Burma who seemed genuinely unaware of the situation.

We care about the safety and security of international reporters who are simply just trying to do their jobs. So were going to continue to try to stay on that, Nauert said.

The U.S. embassy in Yangon said in a statement posted on its website on Wednesday it was deeply concerned by the highly irregular arrests of two Reuters reporters after they were invited to meet with police officials in Yangon last night.

For a democracy to succeed, journalists need to be able to do their jobs freely, the embassy said. We urge the government to explain these arrests and allow immediate access to the journalists.

The European Unions mission in Yangon also voiced concern.

The EU delegation is closely following their case and we call on the Myanmar authorities to ensure the full protection of their rights, it said in a statement. Media freedom is the foundation of any democracy.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called for the reporters immediate and unconditional release.

These arrests come amid a widening crackdown which is having a grave impact on the ability of journalists to cover a story of vital global importance, said Shawn Crispin, CPJs senior Southeast Asia representative.

The Foreign Correspondents Club in neighbouring Thailand said it was alarmed by the use of this draconian law with its heavy penalties against journalists simply doing their jobs.

Wielding such a blunt legal instrument has an intimidating effect on other journalists, and poses a real threat to media freedom, the Bangkok-based club said in a statement, calling for the journalists to be released.

Texted Four Words

Wa Lone, who joined Reuters in July 2016, has covered a range of stories, including the flight of Rohingya refugees from Rakhine in 2016 and, in much larger numbers, this year.

He has written about military land grabs and the killing of ruling party lawyer Ko Ni in January. This year he jointly won an honorable mention from the Society of Publishers in Asia for Reuters coverage of the Rakhine crisis in 2016.

He previously worked for The Myanmar Times, where he covered Burmas historic 2015 elections, and Peoples Age, a local weekly newspaper, where his editor was Burmas current Minister of Information Pe Myint.

Kyaw Soe Oo, an ethnic Rakhine Buddhist from state capital Sittwe, has worked with Reuters since September.

He has covered the impact of the Aug. 25 attacks on police and army posts in the northern Rakhine, and reported from the central part of the state where local Buddhists have been enforcing segregation between Rohingya and Rakhine communities.

He previously worked for Root Investigation Agency, a local news outlet focused on Rakhine issues.

I have been arrest were the four words that Wa Lone texted to Reuters Burma Bureau Chief Antoni Slodkowski on Tuesday evening to let him know what was happening. Very soon after that Wa Lones phone appeared to have been switched off.

Over the next 24 hours, Reuters colleagues in Yangon filed a missing persons report, went to three police stations, and asked a series of government officials what had happened to the two reporters. They got no official information until Wednesday evening.

Life in Rakhine State Has Stopped

After a three-day visit to northern Rakhine, director of operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Dominik Stillhart told the press, What indeed struck me is that its not just the Muslim communities from Rakhine that are scared. Its very much all the communities.

Stillhart continued, In one (of the) Rakhine villages in which I was, the people told me, Look, we are very scared since the 25th of August because the police station of our village was attacked, but we know that our neighbors that are just 500 meters away in a Muslim village, they are also scared. So, you really get a sense of both main communities deeply scared of each other.

Buddhists are the majority in Rakhine state, although there are also Hindu and Muslim communities, as well as the Rohingya stateless minority. The majority of Rohingya are Muslims, with a minority of Rohingya Hindus.

Stillhart described a situation in which life has stopped in its tracks because those that remain in the Rakhine state are simply too scared to leave their villages, access their fields or go to the markets.

He said all communities were deeply traumatised following the violence that erupted in August, and that Rohingya people continue to flee, although on a much lower scale.

In my discussions with the communities in the north of Rakhine, when I ask them why are there still people leaving, the main reason is really fear and anxiety for their future. They dont know what [the] future holds in store and therefore, there are still people who think it is better for them to cross the border.

An estimated 180,000 Rohingya remain in the Rakhine state after violence drove 650,000 to flee.

The ICRC is one of the only aid agencies to operate in northern Rakhine.

Myanmar and Bangladesh signed an agreement last month for the voluntary repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya within several months. The returns must be voluntary and safe, Stillhart said. Bangladesh, now hosting about 800,000 Rohingya, also denies them citizenship.

By Tim Kelly, William James, and John Chalmers
Scott Sargent was sentenced to between 179 and 358 years in prison at a sentencing hearing in Wilkes-Barre on Thursday, Dec. 14. He also shocked the courtroom with a disturbing tattoo with names of his victims. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

Walmart Shooter Gets over 100 Years in Jail, Shocking New Tattoo Revealed

A man convicted of firing an AR-15 rifle at police officers outside a Pennsylvania Walmart in 2015 arrived in court for his sentencing on Thursday, Dec. 14. He was displaying a shocking new jailhouse tattoo on his forearm, with a skull and tombstones over the names of his would-be victims, Fox61 reports.

The chilling tattoo shocked the courtroom as Scott Sargent, of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, was led into a Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to face sentencing for his role in an October 2015 shootout at the Walmart parking lot in Wilkes-Barre Township.

A court found the Shenandoah man guilty in October of nearly two dozen charges, including attempted murder of a police officer, aggravated assault, and reckless endangering.

Walmart shooter with shocking tattoo gets up to 358 years in prison.

https://t.co/Ha5wfIomQZ  thaiparampil (@thaiparampil) December 15, 2017

On Thursday, Sargent was ordered to serve sentences on most of the charges consecutively, the Daily Mail reported. This means he will spend a minimum of 179 years in jail, putting his earliest eligibility for parole in the year 2196.

In practice, Sargent will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Im pleased that hes not coming out of jail at all, said Stacy Bouton, the wife of officer Brian Bouton, whose police vehicle was hit by rounds from Sargents AR-15, according to WNEP16.

Boutons 11-year-old son, Conor, is well-aware he nearly lost his father in the shootout. The boy was given the opportunity to testify in court and address his fathers would-be killer.

When hes in jail, hes going to remember that those people are still alive today and hes just going to remember it for the rest of his life, Conor Bouton said, WNEP16 reported.

But a disturbing new aspect of the case was revealed at the sentencing hearing. A prosecutor in the case announced that Sargent recently had someone ink a morbid tattoo, which depicts a skull hovering over five tombstones bearing the names of his would-be victims.

Walmart shooters chilling tattoo shocks courtroom as hes sentenced to life in prison https://t.co/6M6JTOkDNb pic.twitter.com/MKLoEupHql  CA Process Service (@CAPROSVC) December 15, 2017

We learned that he received a tattoo with five tombstones with the names of his victims that survived his attack, with a skeleton skull over the tombstones. We had investigators photograph it and that was used in his sentencing today. I thought the tattoo was deplorable. I think its disrespectful but it speaks volumes of who he is and what his intentions were that day, said prosecutor Jarrett Ferentino, WNEP16 reported.

But Ferentino added that the ink on Sargents forearm will remind him that he tried, and failed, to murder five officers in the Walmart parking lot, Times Leader reported.

I want him to be reminded every day of his failure; I want him to remember every day that his last act as a free man was a failure, said Ferentino.

Wilkes-Barre police officer Alan Gribble, who hit Sargent with a shotgun blast in October and brought the escapade to an end, said the tattoo highlights Sargents deadly intent in firing at police officers.

When I first heard about the tattoo, I didnt know if it was a joke or not, but obviously, as it turns out, its very real, said Gribble, WNEP16 reports. It just shows exactly what kind of person he is and he has absolutely no remorse for what he did that day.

That tattoo is very appalling. Im very disturbed that someone could actually do something like that, said Stacy Bouton, WNEP16 reports.

Sargent did not make any statements during the hearing, and left the courtroom expressionless.

Here are the details of Sargents sentence:

 10 to 20 years for each of five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, each to be served consecutively, or one after the other.



 20 to 40 years for each of six counts of assault on a law enforcement officer, each to be served consecutively.



 Seven to 14 years on an aggravated assault charge, to be served consecutively to the other terms.



 One to two years for each of several reckless endangerment charges.

 90 days for a harassment count.



Sargent also received a fine of several thousand dollars.

We have a little favor to ask of you. We work hard to deliver important and interesting articles to you. Please help support independent journalism by sharing this article with your friends and family. It takes less than a minute. Thank you!
The area in Sarpy County, Nebraska, where Cheri Langill was found alive. (Screenshot via Google Maps)

Woman Found Alive Six Days after Husband Shot her in the Head

A Nebraska sheriffs deputy found a woman in her basement six days after her husband reportedly shot her in the head, KMBC reported.

Sarpy County sheriffs deputies went to check on Cheri and Karl Langill after a friend concerned for their well-being called the police, Omaha World-Herald reported.

The first deputy to arrive at the home immediately sensed that something was wrong and forced his way into the home. He announced that he entered the house and Cheri Langill, 67, screamed for help in response.

The deputy went down into the basement and found the woman with a bullet wound in her head. Langill told investigators that her husband shot her once in the head when the couple had a domestic dispute.



Cheri Langill (Facebook)

Sarpy County Chief Deputy Sheriff Greg London told World-Herald that he wasnt sure why the deputy decided to break in.

The deputy realized that this was not your typical check well-being call, London told World-Herald.

The woman told the deputy she did not know where her husband was. The deputy then searched the house and found Karl Langill, 68, in the garage. The man died of carbon monoxide poisoning, according to a preliminary autopsy.



Karl and Cheri Langill (Facebook)

Investigators believe that Karl Langill shot Cheri Langill in the head with a .22-caliber pistol on Dec. 7. Investigators found the weapon inside the home.

Cheri Langill stayed in the basement because she was afraid that her husband would be upstairs, according to London. She had food and fluids downstairs, but no access to a phone.

The sheriff also said that the woman had a broken ankle, but it is unclear how.

She doesnt know how she broke it, London said.



Karl and Cheri Langill (Facebook)

Cheri Langill was being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center on Thursday. The woman was listed in good condition and talking, according to the sheriff.

Considering she got shot in the head, London said, I think shes in pretty decent shape.

Deputies who reviewed the incident were puzzled how Cheri Langill survived the gunshot to the head and carbon monoxide poisoning.

It was an extremely unusual call, the sheriff said.

Cheri Langills friend Trudie Lemon was shocked to hear the news.

Just a little overwhelmed, Trudie Lemon told KMBC. Devastating, devastating. Words cant explain how I feel right now. Very sad.

Lemon worked with Langill at a local thrift store.

She had a big heart, very big heart. When it came to people in need, she was always there. Always, Lemon said. This, I would have never guessed would have happened. You know, she was a real good woman.

When Lemon learned about Langills survival, she thought about her friends faith.

I knew she had that God in her. Because I think thats what kept her going. He wasnt ready to take her yet, Lemon said.

Cheri Langill worked at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for more than 30 years before retiring in 2013, according to her Facebook page. She attended the Holy Name High School in Omaha and graduated in 1968.

From NTD.tv

Support The Epoch Times. Share this article.
The following companies are subsidiares of NRG Energy: 3279405 Nova Scotia Company, 3283764 Nova Scotia Company, 7549709 Canada Inc., 7644868 Canada Inc., 7711565 Canada Inc., AC Solar Holdings LLC, Ace Energy Inc., Agua Caliente Borrower 1 LLC, Agua Caliente Solar Holdings LLC, Agua Caliente Solar LLC, Allied Home Warranty GP LLC, Allied Warranty LLC, Arthur Kill Gas Turbines LLC, Arthur Kill Power LLC, Astoria Gas Turbine Power LLC, Bayou Cove Peaking Power LLC, Beheer-en Beleggingsmaatschappij Plogema B.V., Berrians I Gas Turbine Power LLC, BidURenergy Inc., Big Cajun I Peaking Power LLC, Bluewater Wind Delaware LLC, Bluewater Wind Maryland LLC, Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy LLC, Boquillas Wind LLC, Cabrillo Power I LLC, Cabrillo Power II LLC, Camino Energy LLC, Carbon Management Solutions LLC, Carlsbad Energy Center LLC, Carlsbad Energy Holdings LLC, Chester Energy LLC, Chickahominy River Energy Corp., Cirro Energy Services Inc., Cirro Group Inc., Citizens Power Holdings One LLC, Commonwealth Atlantic Power LLC, Connecticut Jet Power LLC, Cottonwood Development LLC, Cottonwood Energy Company LP, Cottonwood Generating Partners I LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners II LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners III LLC, Cottonwood Technology Partners LP, Delaware Power Development LLC, Devon Power LLC, Doga Enerji Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isi Satis Hizmetleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isletme ve Bakim Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Dunkirk Gas Corporation, Dunkirk Power LLC, EHI Development Fund LLC, EME Eastern Holdings LLC, EVgo Services LLC, Eastern Sierra Energy Company LLC, Ecokap Power LLC, El Segundo Energy Center II LLC, El Segundo Power II LLC, El Segundo Power LLC, Elkhorn Ridge Wind II LLC, Energy Alternatives Wholesale LLC, Energy Choice Solutions LLC, Energy Curtailment Specialists, Energy Plus Holdings LLC, Energy Plus Natural Gas LLC, Energy Protection Insurance Company, Everything Energy LLC, Forward Home Security LLC, GCP Funding Company LLC, GenOn Energy, Geostellar Inc., Gladstone Power Station Joint Venture, Goal Zero, Goal Zero Europe GmbH, Goal Zero LLC, Granite II Holding LLC, Granite Power Partners II L.P., Green Mountain Energy, Green Mountain Energy Company, Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, Gregory Partners LLC, Gregory Power Partners LLC, Hanover Energy Company, Huntley IGCC LLC, Huntley Power LLC, Independence Energy Alliance LLC, Independence Energy Group LLC, Independence Energy Natural Gas LLC, Indian River Operations Inc., Indian River Power LLC, Intellastar LLC, Ivanpah Master Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project I Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project II Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project III Holdings LLC, James River Power LLC, Kaufman Cogen LP, LSP-Nelson Energy LLC, Long Beach Generation LLC, Long Beach Peakers LLC, Long Beach Power LLC, Louisiana Generating LLC, MEC Esenyurt B.V., MEC San Pascual B.V., Maplekey UK Finance Limited, Maplekey UK Limited, Meriden Gas Turbines LLC, Middletown Power LLC, Midway-Sunset Cogeneration Company, Midwest Finance Company LLC, Midwest Generation EME LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings I LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings II LLC, Midwest Generation LLC, Midwest Generation Procurement Services LLC, Midwest Peaker Holdings LLC, Mission Bingham Lake Wind LLC, Mission Del Cielo LLC, Mission Energy Construction Services LLC, Mission Energy Holdings International LLC, Mission Energy Wales LLC, Mission Funding Zeta LLC, Mission Midway-Sunset Holdings LLC, Mission Midwest Coal LLC, Mission Minnesota Wind LLC, Mission Watson Holdings LLC, Mission Wind Boquillas LLC, Mission Wind New Mexico II LLC, Mission Wind Owaissa LLC, Mission Wind Pinnacle LLC, Mission del Sol LLC, Montville IGCC LLC, Montville Power LLC, NEO Chester-Gen LLC, NEO Corporation, NRG Acquisition Holdings Inc., NRG Advisory Services LLC, NRG Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Alexandria LLC, NRG Arroyo Nogales LLC, NRG Arthur Kill Operations Inc., NRG Asia-Pacific Ltd., NRG Astoria Gas Turbine Operations Inc., NRG Astoria Power LLC, NRG Audrain Generating LLC, NRG Audrain Holding LLC, NRG Bayou Cove LLC, NRG Berrians East Development LLC, NRG Bluewater Holdings LLC, NRG Bluewater Wind Massachusetts LLC, NRG Bourbonnais Equipment LLC, NRG Bourbonnais LLC, NRG Brazoria Energy LLC, NRG Business Services LLC, NRG CTA Holdings LLC, NRG Cabrillo Power Operations Inc., NRG Cadillac Inc., NRG Cadillac Operations Inc., NRG California Peaker Operations LLC, NRG Capital II LLC, NRG Carbon 360 LLC, NRG Cedar Bayou Development Company LLC, NRG Chalk Point CT LLC, NRG CleanTech Investments LLC, NRG Coal Development Company LLC, NRG ComLease LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance I LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance II LLC, NRG Connected Home LLC, NRG Connecticut Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Connecticut Peaking Development LLC, NRG Construction LLC, NRG Cottonwood Tenant LLC, NRG Curtailment Solutions Canada Inc., NRG Curtailment Solutions Inc., NRG DG Development LLC, NRG Development Company Inc., NRG Devon Operations Inc., NRG Dispatch Services LLC, NRG Distributed Energy Resources Holdings LLC, NRG Distributed Generation PR LLC, NRG Dunkirk Operations Inc., NRG ECOKAP Holdings LLC, NRG ESA Joint Development LLC, NRG El Segundo Operations Inc., NRG Energy Center Eagles LLC, NRG Energy Center Oxnard LLC, NRG Energy Fuel LLC, NRG Energy Fuel Services LLC, NRG Energy Gas & Wind Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Holdings II Inc., NRG Energy Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Inc., NRG Energy Labor Services LLC, NRG Energy Petroleum LLC, NRG Energy Services Group LLC, NRG Energy Services International Inc., NRG Energy Services LLC, NRG Equipment Company LLC, NRG Fuel Cell CA1 LLC, NRG Fuel Resources LLC, NRG Fuel Transportation LLC, NRG GTL Holdings LLC, NRG Gas Development Company LLC, NRG Generation Holdings Inc., NRG Gladstone Operating Services Pty Ltd, NRG Granite Acquisition LLC, NRG Greenco LLC, NRG HQ DG LLC, NRG Holding Leasing Vehicle 7 LLC, NRG Home & Business Solutions LLC, NRG Home Services LLC, NRG Home Solutions LLC, NRG Home Solutions Product LLC, NRG Homer City Services LLC, NRG Huntley Operations Inc., NRG Identity Protect LLC, NRG Ilion LP LLC, NRG Ilion Limited Partnership, NRG Independence Solar LLC, NRG International LLC, NRG Kaufman LLC, NRG Latin America Inc., NRG Lease Co LLC, NRG Lease Development LLC, NRG Limestone 3 LLC, NRG Maintenance Services LLC, NRG Mesquite LLC, NRG Mextrans Inc., NRG MidAtlantic Affiliate Services Inc., NRG MidCon Development LLC, NRG Middletown Operations Inc., NRG Middletown Repowering LLC, NRG Midwest Holdings LLC, NRG Midwest II LLC, NRG Montville Operations Inc., NRG NE Development LLC, NRG Nelson Turbines LLC, NRG New Roads Holdings LLC, NRG NewGen LLC, NRG North Central Operations Inc., NRG Northeast Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Norwalk Harbor Operations Inc., NRG Ohio Pipeline Company LLC, NRG Operating Services Inc., NRG Oswego Harbor Power Operations Inc., NRG Oxbow Holdings LLC, NRG PacGen Inc., NRG Peaker Finance Company LLC, NRG Portable Power LLC, NRG Potrero Development LLC, NRG Power Marketing LLC, NRG Procurement Company LLC, NRG Project Company LLC, NRG Reliability Solutions LLC, NRG Renter's Protection LLC, NRG Repowering Holdings LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions Leasing II LLC, NRG Retail LLC, NRG Retail Northeast LLC, NRG Rockford Acquisition LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment II LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment LLC, NRG Saguaro Operations Inc., NRG Security LLC, NRG Services Corporation, NRG Sherbino LLC, NRG SimplySmart Solutions LLC, NRG Solar Arrowhead LLC, NRG Solar CVSR Holdings 2 LLC, NRG Solar Dandan LLC, NRG Solar Guam LLC, NRG Solar Ivanpah LLC, NRG Solar Ring LLC, NRG Solar SC Stadium LLC, NRG Solar Sunrise LLC, NRG South Central Affiliate Services Inc., NRG South Central Generating LLC, NRG South Central Operations Inc., NRG South Texas LP, NRG Sterlington Power LLC, NRG Storage Fabrication & Delivery LLC, NRG Storage on Demand NY LLC, NRG SunCap Leasing I LLC, NRG Telogia Power LLC, NRG Texas C&I Supply LLC, NRG Texas Gregory LLC, NRG Texas Holding Inc., NRG Texas LLC, NRG Texas Power LLC, NRG Texas Retail LLC, NRG Trading Advisors LLC, NRG Transmission Holdings LLC, NRG ULC Parent Inc., NRG Victoria I Pty Ltd, NRG Warranty Services LLC, NRG West Coast LLC, NRG Western Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Wind Development Company LLC, NRG Wind Force LLC, NRG Wind LLC, NRG dGen Advisory Services LLC, NRGenerating German Holdings GmbH, NRGenerating International B.V., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 1) S.a.r.l., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 2) S.a.r.l., New Genco GP LLC, New Jersey Power Development LLC, Norwalk Power LLC, O'Brien Cogeneration Inc. II, ONSITE Energy Inc., One Block Off The Grid Inc., Oswego Harbor Power LLC, Pacific Generation Company, Petra Nova CCS I LLC, Petra Nova Holdings LLC, Petra Nova LLC, Petra Nova Parish Holdings LLC, Petra Nova Power I LLC, Pure Energies Group, Pure Energies Group ULC, Pure Energies Installation Inc., Pure Energies Solar Services Inc., Pure Group Inc., RDI Consulting LLC, RERH Holdings LLC, Reliant Charitable Foundation, Reliant Energy, Reliant Energy Northeast LLC, Reliant Energy Power Supply LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Holdings LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Services LLC, Restoration Design LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar Holdings LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric of NY LLC, Saguaro Power Company a Limited Partnership, Saguaro Power LLC, San Gabriel Energy LLC, San Joaquin Energy LLC, San Juan Energy LLC, San Pascual Cogeneration Company International B.V., Sherbino I Wind Farm LLC, Solar Partners I LLC, Solar Partners II LLC, Solar Partners VIII LLC, Solar Power Partners, Solar Pure Energies ULC, Somerset Operations Inc., Somerset Power LLC, South Texas Wind LLC, Station A LLC, Sunrise Power Company LLC, Sunshine State Power (No. 2) B.V., Sunshine State Power B.V., TCV Pipeline LLC, Tacoma Energy Recovery Company, Taloga Wind II LLC, Texas Coastal Ventures LLC, Texas Genco GP LLC, Texas Genco Holdings, Texas Genco Holdings Inc., Texas Genco LP LLC, Texas Genco Services LP, US Retailers LLC, Valle Del Sol Energy LLC, Vienna Operations Inc., Vienna Power LLC, WCP (Generation) Holdings LLC, Watson Cogeneration Company, West Coast Power LLC, XOOM Alberta Holdings LLC, XOOM British Columbia Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy BC ULC, XOOM Energy California LLC, XOOM Energy Canada ULC, XOOM Energy Connecticut LLC, XOOM Energy Delaware LLC, XOOM Energy Georgia LLC, XOOM Energy Global Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy Illinois LLC, XOOM Energy Indiana LLC, XOOM Energy Kentucky LLC, XOOM Energy LLC, XOOM Energy Maine LLC, XOOM Energy Maryland LLC, XOOM Energy Massachusetts LLC, XOOM Energy Michigan LLC, XOOM Energy New Hampshire LLC, XOOM Energy New Jersey LLC, XOOM Energy New York LLC, XOOM Energy ONT ULC, XOOM Energy Ohio LLC, XOOM Energy Pennsylvania LLC, XOOM Energy Rhode Island LLC, XOOM Energy Texas LLC, XOOM Energy Virginia LLC, XOOM Energy Washington D.C. LLC, XOOM Ontario Holdings LLC, XOOM Solar LLC, and eV2g LLC.

Read More
Keywords Studios plc provides integrated outsourced creative and technical services to the video game industry. The company offers art creation services related to the production of graphical art assets for inclusion in the video game, including concept art creation, as well as 2D and 3D art asset production and animation. It also provides marketing services, which include game trailers, marketing art and materials, PR, and brand campaign services; and audio/voice-over services, including script translation, actor selection, and talent management through pre-production, audio direction, recording, and post-production, as well as offers music licensing or music soundtracks selling services. In addition, the company offers localization services related to translation and cultural adaptation of in-game text and audio scripts in various game platforms and genres; and localization testing services consisting of testing the linguistic correctness and cultural acceptability of computer games. Further, it provides functional testing services related to quality assurance services provided to game producers to ensure game functions. Additionally, the company provides player support services related to the live operations support, such as community management, player support, and associated services to producers of games, as well as software engineering services for developing video games. It serves game developers and publishers. The company operates in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Japan, Poland, China, India, Ireland, the Philippines, Spain, France, Singapore, Australia, and internationally. Keywords Studios plc was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.
Schlumberger Limited provides technology for the energy industry worldwide. The company operates through four divisions: Digital & Integration, Reservoir Performance, Well Construction, and Production Systems. It offers software, information management, and IT infrastructure services; consulting services for reservoir characterization, field development planning, and production enhancement; petro technical data services and training solutions; reservoir interpretation and data processing services; asset performance solutions; open and cased-hole services; exploration and production pressure and flow-rate measurement services; pressure pumping, well stimulation, and coiled tubing equipment for downhole mechanical well intervention, reservoir monitoring, and downhole data acquisition; and integrated production systems. The company also provides mud logging and engineering support services; drilling equipment and services for shipyards, drilling contractors, energy companies, and rental tool companies; land drilling rigs and related services; drilling tools; well cementing products and services; and well planning and drilling, engineering, supervision, logistics, procurement, contracting, and drilling rig management services, as well as supplies engineered drilling fluid systems; and designs, manufactures, and markets roller cone and fixed cutter drill bits. In addition, it offers well completion services and equipment; artificial lift production equipment and optimization services; valves; process systems; and integrated subsea production systems comprising wellheads, subsea trees, manifolds and flowline connectors, control systems, connectors, and services, as well as designs and manufactures onshore and offshore platform wellhead systems and processing solutions. The company was formerly known as Societe de Prospection Electrique. Schlumberger Limited was founded in 1926 and is based in Houston, Texas.
To help us keep this website secure, please wait while we verify you're not a robot! It will only take a few seconds...

Loading...
Ivanka Trumps fashion company on Thursday opened a new store in the lobby of Trump Tower, where it plans to sell handbags, jewelry and candles as part of broader push to bypass retailers and sell directly to consumers.

The store in Midtown Manhattan  currently the companys only bricks-and-mortar location  comes after a number of high-profile retailers, including Nordstrom and Sears, stopped carrying the presidential daughters line earlier this year. The company also recently began selling its wares, including $25 (U.S.) earrings, $34 candles and $298 handbags directly on its website.

In the ever changing retail landscape, the Ivanka Trump brand is committed to engaging with the customers directly, a spokesperson for the company said in an email. Trump is a senior adviser to her fathers administration.

Read more:

Nordstrom plans to drop Ivanka Trump clothing, accessories amid boycott

Growing online backlash over Ivanka Trump brand offered at The Bay

Ivanka Trumps brand distances itself from China shoemaker after activists detained

The expansion is yet another example, ethics experts say, of the Trump familys efforts to tap the wallets of their supporters. Ivanka Trump made more than $5 million from her fashion company between January 2016 and March 2017, according to financial disclosures released this summer. She has since handed over day-to-day operations to Abigail Klem, but continues to own the company she founded a decade ago.

This is another in a long line of conflicts of interests, said Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under then-president George W. Bush. By selling directly to diehard Trump supporters, who are already hanging out at Trump Tower, she gets to pocket even higher [profit] margins.

The company is one of many that are thinking beyond department stores, as Americans increasingly shop online and in specialty boutiques, says Paula Rosenblum, managing partner of Retail Systems Research, consultancy based in Miami.

Who are customers more loyal to: The brand or the retailer? Increasingly, its the brand, she said. Plus, shes probably getting a good deal on rent at Trump Tower.

The store, which will be open seven days a week, will carry handbags, jewelry and candles, as well as a holiday ornament that will be sold exclusively at Trump Tower, a spokeswoman said.

Trumps first store, a fine jewelry boutique in Manhattan, closed in 2015 after an eight-year run. She also for a time sold fine jewelry from the lobby of Trump Tower, but has since discontinued that line and shifted to lower-priced jewelry.

Nordstrom in February dropped Ivanka Trumps clothing and shoes from its stores after a period of declining sales. Soon after that, Kmart and Sears, also citing slow sales, announced they would be removing some Trump-branded products from their websites. There was also pressure from left-leaning groups to boycott retailers that carried Trumps brands. (Among those that still do: Macys, Lord and Taylor, Zappos and Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

In September, the website Racked reported that sales of Ivanka Trump-branded items had steadily fallen earlier in the year. Order volume, which rose 771 per cent in February, had tapered off by August, when orders were down 1 per cent from a year earlier.

We heard from many retailers that these items just werent selling, Rosenblum said. But with this store, shell able to find out  politics aside  whether there is a market for this in New York.

Read more about:

SHARE:
At the beginning of December, Joe Alexander suddenly left The Martin Agency, a prize-winning advertising house based in Richmond, Va. Alexander was the agencys chief creative officer and had been lauded as one of the 100 advertising greats by an industry organization.

Ad types in Toronto may recall Alexander from his days here circa 1990, working for Chiat/Day on such accounts as the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo and Canadian Airlines International (R.I.P.). His career appears to have taken off like a rocket after that.

A week after his departure Adweek published a story documenting numerous allegations of sexual harassment, including those of an unnamed former Martin employee who accused Alexander of firing her because she rejected his sexual advances.

Another past employee, senior art director Daniela Montanez, told Adweek that she took her concerns about Alexanders behaviour to human resources. I was told to speak directly to Joe, Montanez said. Another woman who had worked at the agency added that Alexanders nickname was HR Joe.

Alexander denies the harassment charges. The allegations you are reporting on are false, he told Adweek.

The upheaval that has followed at the agency is another example of a problem that should send reverberations through corporate cultures everywhere. Im not addressing here the at-long-last reckoning over sexual abuse in the workplace. Im highlighting the too often overlooked role played by complicit human resource departments.

Lets spin back to Susan Fowlers blog post of February recounting her experiences as a site reliability engineer at Uber, where she worked for a little more than a year. Remember, on her first day working with her team she received a string of messages over company chat from her manager. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.

The response: she was told it was the managers first offence. (Not true, as she later learned.) She was told that her boss was a high performer. (Companies have the insidious habit of protecting their stars.) She was even told that if she chose to stay with her existing work team her manager would undoubtedly give her a poor performance review. (There was nothing to be done about that, she was told.)

I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain, Fowler wrote, joining with other women who had reported the manager in the past. It all came to naught. We all gave up on Uber HR and our managers after that.

Giving up on HR is one option, and understandable in Fowlers case. But that does no good for the workers left behind.

Rethinking HR is another.

A little history is in order. The archives of B. F. Goodrich confirm that the rubber company established an employee management department in 1900, which numerous historians cite as the first example of personnel administration. National Cash Register established a personnel department two years later. Evolving labour regulations were part of the impetus, but soon enough efficiency management  time and motion studies  was seen as the measure by which to align the interests of the corporation with the interests of the worker.

Frederick Winslow Taylors scientific management was designed to achieve the development of each man to his state of maximum efficiency. The advantage was to the corporation, of course, in an authoritarian, hierarchical corporate structure. The worker, in this scenario, is a widget, couched in Taylors goal of directing the worker to the highest grade of work for which his natural abilities fit him.

Administratively, the HR function took on payroll, benefits, training, et cetera, functions we recognize today, with a primary responsibility to protect the companys interests first.

Academics and management experts in recent years have weighed in on remaking HR, a point made not so subtly by a Harvard Business Review cover line in 2015: Its Time to Blow up HR. Departments should be less administrative (ruled by rote functions) and more strategic in the same way that finance outgrew its former accounting function, playing a key role in corporate decision making.

Placing the chief human resources officer on equal footing with the CEO and CFO is one idea. In this scenario, the unimaginative administrative functions would be shuffled lower in the organizational structure.

What gets missed in this, or at least it seems to me, is the role of HR as employee advocate. Perhaps thats the point. Perhaps that was never a proper fit.

This is the time when employee advocacy should emerge as a distinct function. A safe place. A trustworthy reporting mechanism.

At The Martin Agency, a new CEO has been hired and employees have been notified about a rollout of unconscious bias training and workplace conduct training for the entire agency.

A note to all employees added, But this time calls for more than the basics. Were committed to building an accountable and transparent workplace. So well use Tiny Pulse, an anonymous feedback platform rolling out in January, to track our progress on categories like safe place to work, inclusive workplace, diversity and morale, in real time. And well share that feedback at every step, so you can hold us accountable. Where were falling short, well work to get better.

All organizations should be reaching out to their employees. And ensuring that their voices are truly heard.

jenwells@thestar.ca

Read more about:

SHARE:
OTTAWACanada has persuaded the Trump administration to consider backing a climate change-related initiative that it wants to showcase when it hosts the G7 summit next year, The Canadian Press has learned.

The June gathering of leaders from the G7 countries at a resort in Quebecs Charlevoix region will mark U.S. President Donald Trumps first trip to Canada.

Trump has shown disdain for international multilateral groups, disparaging alliances such as NATO, pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate change agreement and tearing up trade deals such as the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Read more:

U.S. refuses to sign G7 Paris climate accord pledge, says its taking action on its own

Thomas Walkom:Donald Trump, Paris and the melodrama of climate change

President Macron lures 13 U.S. climate scientists after promise to make our planet great again

But when it comes to the club of like-minded Group of Seven democracies  rounded out by the Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan  Trump is engaged and wants the Charlevoix summit to succeed.

Hes looking forward to coming. He wants to have a successful summit, Peter Boehm, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus deputy minister for the summit, said in an interview Thursday.

Trudeau formally launched Canadas G7 presidency on Thursday with a live Facebook event and said Canada will make preservation of the worlds oceans a major agenda item.

The Trump administration has given the green light to developing the theme in the pre-summit meetings during the first half of 2018, Boehm said.

Thats because the conversations will focus on how to preserve and bolster coastal areas that have been devastated by natural disasters, or face major threats in the future, said Boehm.

I think there is a certain relevance there. I know that the people Ive talked to  and I have not talked to the president on this  there is an interest in pursuing this as one of our themes, he said.

The U.S. felt the full force of the most recent tropical storm season as hurricanes battered Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Boehm said it was too early to say whether Trumps trip to the G7 would be expanded to included a bilateral Canadian visit. Trudeau has made several trips to Washington, but Trump has yet to set foot in Canada.

While gender will be an overarching theme, cybersecurity, terrorism, jobs of the future, climate and energy will also be key agenda items. Discussions about North Koreas nuclear ambitions, Russias growing influence and Chinas rapid economic rise and political assertiveness will also be key topics of discussion.

The G7 is a consensus-based group, but it found itself badly divided last year when Trump made his debut at the gathering in Italy.

A rift emerged when the U.S. found itself an outlier on climate change, which led to that summit being branded as the G6 plus 1.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said afterwards Europe could no longer rely on its traditional American ally, saying: The times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent, over.

Boehm is off to Germany on Friday to meet his counterparts there. Boehm is a former ambassador to Germany and said he will also get a first-hand look at Merkels ongoing struggle to build a governing coalition following her countrys September election.

I cant speculate on coalition building, he said.

Germany is a valued partner really on all of these issues, and has shown leadership in the G20 which they hosted in August.

Merkel is the longest-serving G7 leader, followed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trudeau.

Read more about:

SHARE:
OTTAWABeverley McLachlin left her position as the country's top judge Friday, cheering the work that the Supreme Court has done on Aboriginal issues while cautioning that more must be done to improve access to the legal system for all Canadians.

On the day she left the bench 28 years on the Supreme Court, including 17 as chief justice, McLachlin reflected on the courts work, the countrys justice system and social trends that could imperil the independence and respect for the judiciary.

She deflected questions about her own legacy, saying only that she was especially proud of the work the court had done in developing Aboriginal rights.

Were all as a nation I think engaged in the project of reconciliation with First Nations. We know that historically  everybody knows that  that wrongs were done, that there was a policy of undermining . . . Indigenous cultures, she said.

McLachlin  who started her tenure as chief justice with a news conference and said she wanted to end it that way  said shes tried to be circumspect in public remarks, avoiding comment on past cases, potential future ones or anything political.

But she said too that she saw a role for the chief justice to comment on the justice system, shortcomings and all, and help explain it to Canadians.

McLachlin returned to one of those shortcomings on Friday, saying that while jurisprudence is solid in Canada, problems remain.

We have a problem with access to justice, which is a broad term that covers delays, costs, anything that prevents people from getting ready access to justice, McLachlin said, returning to an issue she has spoken out on before.

The top court itself has ruled on the issue, recently in the so-called Jordan decision that sought to put limits on time an accused had to wait for trial.

She said there have been considerable efforts made to make courts more accessible and timely, such as information in the courtrooms, access to legal advice, and pro bono work.

Theres much being done and theres much more we can do, said McLachlin, adding that she hopes to remain active on the topic.

She did say that the courts have made progress in how they deal with offenders suffering from mental illness through diversion programs to direct them to medical treatment rather than the revolving door of prison.

She said there is increasing recognition that we have to find other ways to deal with this considerable problem of mental health in the justice system.

She stuck to her rules on not commenting on political matters, even old ones. McLachlin would not say much about her 2014 tussle with former prime minister Stephen Harper, who had suggested that McLachlin was guilty of improperly lobbying his justice minister against his pick of Marc Nadon to the top court.

It was an unprecedented spat to have a prime minister call into question the actions of the chief justice. But McLachlin defended herself at the time, saying she only sought to flag potential problems with the process.

On Friday, McLachlin declined to say anything more about the episode. I have spoken about it as much as I was prepared to at the time, which is very little, she said.

She leaves just shy of 75, the mandatory retirement age. Governor General Julie Payette will swear in Richard Wagner, the senior Quebec judge in the court, as the next chief justice during a Rideau Hall ceremony on Monday.

McLachlin joined the Supreme Court in 1989, at a time when judges were dealing with the wave of cases prompted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Today, she said the court grapples with issues arising from new technologies, such as privacy concerns.

We live in a very rapidly changing society that is throwing up new problems all the time, said McLachlin, who had been feted the previous night at an Ottawa event featuring tributes by former governor general Adrienne Clarkson and former prime minister Brian Mulroney, who named her to the top court.

Asked to pick the one case that she most wrestled with, McLachlin said she struggled with almost every one.

The Supreme Court gets, by definition, only difficult legal issues. Almost always there are very good arguments on both sides, she said.

But she singled out the courts landmark ruling in 1998 around Quebec secession  a reference from the Liberal government at the time  as very challenging.

The court ruled that Quebec could separate from Canada, but only if a clear majority of Quebecers voted to secede on a clear question.

It was at the fine line between constitutional law and political matters. We had to be very careful what we said and what we did. We had a very difficult question to answer, she said.

McLachlin was asked to comment on trends seen in some countries to undermine the independence of the judiciary.

While she said there can be subtle erosions everywhere, she suggested that Canada is well-protected against such trends by constitutional safeguards, a deep respect for the charter and a public that values an independent judiciary.

Public support for judiciary is the best way in a democracy to preserve the rule of law and judicial independence, she said.

Read more about:

SHARE:
A young Inuk woman suffering from acute liver failure is being assessed at an organ transplant centre in Toronto after her family from Labrador launched a campaign to overturn earlier refusals to put her on a transplant waiting list.

According to friends and family, doctors had told Delilah Saunders she was not eligible to go on a waiting list in Ontario because the advocate for Indigenous rights had not abstained from alcohol for a minimum of six months.

However, her younger brother said Friday she was transferred from The Ottawa Hospital late Thursday to the University Health Network, where she is undergoing tests at the transplant clinic.

Garrett Saunders said his sisters condition seems to be improving, and he said doctors told him they are assessing whether her liver is showing signs of recovery.

Basically ... they are going to do a couple of tests to see where shes at and see how necessary it would be for a liver transplant and see if shes eligible, said the 22-year-old younger brother, who was with her at the hospital.

Garrett Saunders said doctors have told him the liver is not significantly better, but its seeing improvement.

The 26-year-old women was admitted to The Ottawa Hospital on Saturday, and friends and family members have said during the early days of her treatment they were told she didnt meet criteria for the transplant program as she hadnt remained sober for the previous six months.

Transplant physicians have said the six-month abstinence policy is widely applied in Canada and abroad, in part because there is research showing that some alcoholics resume drinking after a transplant, leading to liver failure or damage.

Dr. Atul Humar, director of transplantation at the University Health Network, has said that up to 30 per cent of those on the waiting list for a liver typically die while waiting for a donor.

He said an acute shortage of organs is one of the reasons that doctors need to determine if a patient can stop drinking before they enter the waiting list.

Theres a huge shortage of livers here and across the country, he said.

The doctor has also said that livers are resilient organs, and if a patient can abstain from alcohol, the organ may recover to the point where a transplant isnt necessary.

He said he was speaking in general, and was not referring specifically to the Saunders case.

Garrett said if the transplant remains necessary, the abstinence policies shouldnt exclude his sister from the list.

The sibling said his sister has made concerted efforts to stop drinking, and had been sober four months before a relapse that occurred after she delivered difficult testimony before the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

She was on a waiting list to be accepted into another treatment program to deal with all the stuff she was going through and as a result of sitting on that list for so long, she had nobody to turn to and it all spiralled out of control for her, he said.

It feels incredibly wrong. ... It feels criminal.

Amnesty International issued a statement supporting Delilahs Saunders inclusion on the waiting list, and praised her for her work advocating for the human rights of Innu and other Indigenous women.

Saunders began advocating for the rights and missing and murdered Indigenous women following the murder of her sister Loretta in 2014 in Halifax.

SHARE:
MONTREALThe fate of a Montreal couple who allegedly planned to construct a bomb and flee the country to join Daesh is in the hands of a jury following a three-month trial.

But the 11 men and women will be deciding the guilt or innocence of El Mehdi Jamali and Sabrine Djermane without key information that led RCMP national security investigators to arrest the couple in April 2015.

The jury heard evidence of a handwritten recipe for a homemade bomb found in the apartment the couple shared in Montreal; that nails, batteries, glue and other ingredients for an explosive device were found in Jamalis family home; that the couple had reported their Canadian passports stolen and applied for replacement travel documents; and that a computer seized in the investigation had been used to access propaganda material created by radical Islamic terror groups.

But the jury did not hear the most alarming declarations that the couple allegedly made to friends and family members before they were arrested: that they intended to join the terrorist group Daesh (also known as Islamic State) in Syria and would commit a terrorist act in Canada if they couldnt make it to the Middle East.

Read more:

Montreal couple on trial for terror answered Daesh propaganda call, prosecutor says

Terror probe into Montreal couple found recipe, ingredients for bomb

Terrorism charges against young Montreal pair after RCMP probe

Between the time of the arrests and the trial, which began in September, key witnesses used to build the case against Jamali and Djermane stopped co-operating with prosecutors or changed their version of events.

This led Djermanes sister, Rania, to be charged with obstruction of justice last month, in the midst of the criminal trial. Police alleged that she claimed in May 2016 to have lied about her previous statements in the case.

In a search-warrant application submitted to the court by RCMP investigators, police laid out the facts that led to the couples arrest on April 14, 2015. The case relied heavily on comments that Jamali and Djermane had made to confidantes.

But those individuals who co-operated with police were never called as witnesses in the trial, so their initial declarations could not be presented as evidence.

As a result, the jury never heard how Djermane had openly discussed carrying out a terrorist act in Canada, according to her best friend.

It is a good thing to go and fight four our religion. And if we cant go there, we have to do it here, Djermane said, according to the police summary contained in the search-warrant application.

The friend also told police that Djermane later said: We wanted to leave, but now we are no longer able to. The friend understood this to be a reference to the RCMP investigation.

Djermane told her other sister, Rania, that even if she did 15 to 20 years in prison here, she would still go to fight in Syria,

One of Djermanes sisters told police that Jamali was filling (Djermanes) head with ideas about the women of the Islamic State.

Another of Jamalis friends also told police that he had shared his intention to leave for Syria and that he was currently conducting research related to his departure.

These crucial witnesses could not be compelled to testify at the trial, nor could their earlier statements be submitted as evidence because investigators did not record their sworn statements at the time of the couples arrest in 2015.

Neither Djermane nor Jamali testified in their own defence at the trial. But in a closing address to the jury, Djermanes lawyer, Charles Benmouyal, said the evidence submitted in the case indicated that Sabrine knew nothing of the homemade bomb plot and that she never wanted to join the Islamic State.

Jamalis lawyer, Tiago Murias, said there was only proof that the couple planned to travel to Greece.

Murias also questioned the charges that Jamali had purchased the ingredients necessary to build a bomb, noting that the materials were found in a bag with a receipt four days after police first searched the house.

Ask yourself the question, he said in his closing address to the jury. Would they have been acting that way if they had the intention to do something?

Translated by and with files from Allan Woods.

Read more about:

SHARE:
Every political year brings its share of new players, emerging trends and surprises. 2017 in Canada was no exception. Here are five of the more meaningful ones for the shape of things to come.

1. Montreal mayor Valerie Plante scored the biggest electoral upset of the past political year in Canada. Her victory against Denis Coderre  one of the countrys most combative and most seasoned politicians  resonated from coast to coast to coast.

She landed on Googles 2017 list of the top 10 trending political personalities in Canada. It is more customary for municipal politicians to make that list for the wrong reasons. On that score, think of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

A month before the Montreal November vote, few believed Plante could win. Coderre  who ran what can only be described as a non-campaign  was apparently among that majority. Her victory was yet another reminder that in the digital age, campaigns matter more than they ever did and that sunny ways continue to trump the alternative.

Plantes campaign played on the same hopeful themes that allowed late NDP leader Jack Layton to sweep Quebec in 2011 and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to vault from third to first place in the last election.

One of the more corrosive contributions of the social media to the political conversation has been a near-constant flow of negativism. Could it be that voters are reacting to this saturation by increasingly turning off campaigns that are not designed to appeal to their better instincts?

2. The Green party had a coming-of-age year of sorts in 2017. In British Columbias spring election, Green leader Andrew Weaver ended up with the balance of power in a legislative assembly led by a minority NDP government.

The duo whose combined forces ended a 16-year Liberal reign on Canadas Pacific coast could yet make history in another way. Subject to the result of a provincial plebiscite next fall, B.C. could yet lead Canada by example by adopting a more proportional voting system.

The B.C. election was not the only Green party breakthrough. In a byelection this fall in P.E.I., Green candidate Hannah Bell took a riding from the ruling Liberals and beat provincial NDP leader Mike Redmond on the way to claiming a second seat for her party in the legislature.

3. Generation X entered the major political leadership leagues this year. The federal Conservatives and the New Democrats both effected generational change and picked leaders who are not yet 40.

Come 2019, Trudeau will be the oldest on the three main leaders and baby boomers will, for the first time in their voting lifetimes, not make up Canadas largest voting cohort. And if you think that is a small detail in the larger scheme of politics, consider that in Quebec the younger cohorts rising electoral weight combined with its comparatively low appetite for referendum politics has gone a long way to force the sovereignty issue off the radar.

4. Provincial conservative leaders had a busy year in Alberta and Quebec.

Jason Kenney, Stephen Harpers former go-to minister, won the leadership of Albertas Progressive Conservative party in the spring; beat his former federal colleague Brian Jean for the top job of a reunified provincial Conservative party in the fall and, in December, secured a seat and the job of leader of the official opposition in the legislature with a crushing byelection victory.

Francois Legault, the leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, enters Quebecs election year with the wind in his back. On the heels of a headline-catching byelection win in a formerly impregnable Liberal Quebec City riding in the fall, next Octobers election has become his to lose.

Who says history does not repeat itself? It was then-premier Lucien Bouchard who recruited Legault to the Parti Quebecois as a star candidate 20 years ago. Now, as the head of a party he founded, Legault could be about to deal to the PQ as lethal an electoral blow as his mentor Bouchard once inflicted on Brian Mulroneys federal Tory party.

5. Quebec came back in force on the federal scene in 2017. At years end, the prime minister, the governor-general and the incoming chief justice of the Supreme Court all hail from that province.

If Trudeaus Liberals are re-elected in two years that rare trifecta will be in place for a long haul. As rocky as the last part of the first half of the mandate was, Trudeau still is ending it in a sweeter spot in voting intentions than any of his recent predecessors at the same juncture. Quebec is turning out to be a bigger factor in his success than many had anticipated on the night of his election victory.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about:

SHARE:
WASHINGTONU.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet Canadian cabinet members during a visit to Ottawa next week where he will discuss a variety of international issues, including the North Korea nuclear crisis.

Tillersons schedule includes a session with the ministerial committee on Canada-U.S. relations, in addition to meeting with his Canadian counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, during his visit Tuesday.

The two are co-hosting an international conference in the new year on the North Korea standoff.

Tillerson has been seeking non-military solutions to the impasse, while other members of the administration, including President Donald Trump, have expressed skepticism about whether diplomacy can work.

The secretary of state told the United Nations on Friday that China and Russia need to exert more pressure on their sometimes-ally  China by stopping the flow of crude oil to North Korean refineries, and Russia by ending the employment of North Korean migrants in that country, under slave-like conditions, with wages sent back home to fund the nuclear weapons program.

We do not seek, nor do we want, war with North Korea, Tillerson said.

The United States will use all necessary measures to defend itself against North Korean aggression, but our hope remains that diplomacy will produce a resolution. As I said earlier this week, a sustained cessation of North Koreas threatening behaviour must occur before talks can begin. North Korea must earn its way back to the table . . . We will, in the meantime, keep our channels of communication open.

He said the U.S. will not accept, as a precondition of talks, ending existing sanctions.

His visit to Ottawa comes amid a series of lower-stakes tensions with Canada over trade: disputes over softwood lumber and aerospace duties are winding their way through various legal complaints, and the countries are preparing for an intense series of NAFTA talks in the new year.

I look forward to welcoming Secretary Tillerson to Ottawa next week for his first official visit to Canada as secretary of state, Freeland said in a statement.

His visit is an opportunity to discuss issues of importance to Canadians and Americans and to strengthen our collaboration in addressing regional and global issues.

Read more about:

SHARE:
In the wake of the fatal Toronto police shooting of Andrew Loku, a Black mentally ill man killed in his home in 2015, the civilian police board is establishing an anti-racism committee  a direct response to a recommendation from this summer's coroners inquest into the controversial death.

In July, a five-member jury made 39 recommendations aimed at avoiding fatal police shootings, including that the civilian board form a committee to identify differences in how police interact with racialized people, including those in the Black community.

Lokus three-week coroners inquest raised questions about the role anti-Black racism may have played in Toronto police Const. Andrew Doyles decision to pull the trigger; among the testimony jurors heard was that implicit bias can make a young Black man appear taller, heavier and more dangerous.

But precisely who will sit on the anti-racism committee was subject to criticism at a police board meeting Thursday, after police board chair Andy Pringle announced he would lead it alongside Notisha Massaquoi, a Black community advocate and executive director of the Womens Health in Womens Hands community health centre.

(Massaquoi) brings an approach grounded in trauma-informed anti-racism and anti-oppressive practice, Pringle told the board, adding that the process of choosing other members, no more than 12, would begin after hearing from the public.

The inquest recommendation provided only a vague description of who should be on the committee, saying it should include subject matter experts, representatives of the Toronto Police Service and members of racialized communities, including the Black community.

Aseefa Sarang, executive director of Across Boundaries  an organization that provides mental health support for racialized communities in Toronto, and had served Loku  raised concerns about Pringle being co-chair of the anti-racism committee, saying that it circumvents an open and transparent process and will result in an imbalance of power.

It would also create a sense of the committee being surveilled, contrary to the intent and spirit of the recommendation, Sarang told board members.

Community member Ruben Charles, too, questioned Pringles role while also raising concerns that no resources had been allocated to the committee in order to compensate members of the public who may want to participate.

Are people just expected to volunteer? For folks who are racialized I think we all know that that makes it a lot harder for people to participate, Charles said.

Board members in response passed a motion to allow for the creation of an interim steering committee consisting of Massaquoi and a to-be-determined nominee put forward by the Andrew Loku coalition, which consists of more than three dozen groups including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Anti-Black Racism Network, the Canadian Mental Health Association and more.

That steering committee will then recommend to the board other potential members of the committee, as well as develop its terms of reference and suggest financial resources.

While board members discussed the implementation of the Loku recommendations directed specifically to the civilian police board, the Toronto Police Service has yet to respond to the 15 recommendations directed at the service. That includes the divisive recommendation that conducted energy weapons, better known as Tasers, be expanded to all front line officers.

Pringle said the Toronto police response is expected in February, if not earlier.

Activist and freelance journalist Desmond Cole also made a deputation to the board on the Loku recommendations, but prior to starting asked that a moment of silence be observed for Loku, the 45-year-old father of five from Sudan whose death has prompted a slew of changes to police oversight, training and more.

We have, through this board process, very much overlooked the value of Andrews life. The fact that he was a father, a survivor of a lot of incredible violence before he came to this country, and that now hes gone.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca

SHARE:
Two men from Toronto are facing drug charges after getting lost near the Canada-U.S. border.

The RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency say in a joint statement that the men were travelling in a rental vehicle in the Niagara Region on Nov. 22, near the Peace Bridge, when they took a wrong turn to the U.S. border.

Officials say that to avoid crossing into the U.S., the men turned around and tried to return to Canada through a NEXUS lane, but they were not members of the trusted-traveller program.

The statement says border officials stopped the car and conducted a full search of the vehicle, resulting in the seizure of 120 grams of suspected cocaine and $10,000. The men and the seized material were then turned over to the RCMP.

The driver of the vehicle, who officials identified as a 24-year-old man, was charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, possession of proceeds obtained by crime, obstruction of justice and breach of probation.

The passenger, a 25-year-old man, was charged with possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, possession of proceeds obtained by crime and breach of probation.

Both men have been released from custody and are to appear in a St. Catharines, Ont., court Dec. 21.

SHARE:
When Monique Jilesen arrived at the downtown courtroom Friday morning, she sat at the front and took the lead  talking shop with the judge, and hammering down dates for future court appearances. Her colleague Kate Costin took a more discreet role, sitting at the back.

Meet Harvey Weinsteins lawyers in Toronto.

Theyll be representing him in a $14-million sexual assault lawsuit filed by an unnamed Toronto actress, and they got straight to work Friday.

When could they meet to discuss the womans anonymity?

I would propose not to deliver a statement of defence until this issue is resolved, Jilesen said.

All parties agreed.

When should they return to court? Feb. 9? Yes.

Then, as quick as they came, they were gone. But who are Jilesen and Costin?

And how did they come to represent Hollywoods tarnished tycoon?

I really probably cant speak to you, even about myself, Jilesen told the Star over the phone Friday. In any kind of case where a client doesnt particularly have an interest in media coverage, I dont engage in it.

Its ultimately about the case before the courts.

Read more:

Toronto judge says Harvey Weinstein needs to respond soon to unnamed actress sexual assault lawsuit

Toronto actress suing Harvey Weinstein says shes been unable to serve notice of lawsuit

Toronto actress sues Weinstein for two alleged sexual assaults

Jilesens professional history has been well-documented. Shes the more senior representation on the case  a partner at Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP. Jilesen attended Queens University, then Osgoode Law.

Jilesens case history has spanned major financial, pharmaceutical, political and technology institutions, from Pfizer to the Canadian government. She represented former Ontario premier David Peterson in 2002, and has worked on several cross-border disputes before the Weinstein case.

Jilesen and a team of lawyers from her firm are currently working pro-bono to represent Douglas Cardinal, an architect and Anishinaabe elder, in a discrimination case over the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo logo.

Ryan Breedon, a trial lawyer based in Barrie, worked with Jilesen for several years. Over the years, he said, shes worked on several civil sexual assault cases.

First and foremost, Monique is a professional, he said. Shes going to do her job regardless of the public perception.

When Jilesen won the Advocates Societys Douglas K. Laidlaw Medal this year for advocacy, Lenczner Slaght partner Tom Curry lionized her work.

Her contribution to legal and advocacy training is matched by her commitment to mentorship, equality and the advancement of women and racialized lawyers in the profession, according to a draft of Currys remarks, shared with the Star by Breedon.

Costin is newer to the field. She was in law school at Dalhousie until 2016, and was an articling student at Lenczner Slaght before becoming an associate there in September this year.

Her background before law school gives her a unique position to view the Weinstein case. Costin worked on and off Broadway in costume and prop design, and in the costume departments of NBC, HBO and F/X network.

Last year, Marie Henein of Henein Hutchinson LLP made headlines for representing former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi on sexual assault charges by three women.

In October, Jilesen took to Twitter with a photograph of Henein delivering remarks at the Advocates Society. Marie @HeneinHutchinson calls out law firms to take the lead to advance women in the profession  who shall heed the call?

Henein declined on Friday to comment on Jileson and Costins task ahead  because, she wrote in an email, her law firm is the one representing Jane Doe.

Correction  December 17, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Kate Costin wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the Star in 2012. In fact, she did not. The letter was written by a different woman.

Read more about:

SHARE:
With less than six months to go before Ontarians head to the polls, alarms are being raised over whether the provinces new campaign finance rules have succeeded in getting big money out of politics.

The tighter laws came into force in January with an eye to bringing more transparency and accountability to political fundraising after criticism in the press and public over so-called cash-for-access fundraisers.

Among other things, union and corporate donations are outlawed and individual donations to a party are capped at $1,200 a year, down from $9,975. (People can also donate $1,200 each to a candidate in an election period, and to riding associations and nomination contestants in a year.)

For the first nine months under the new rules, a significant chunk of donations to the governing Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives came from a small group of donors giving $1,000 or more, according to Democracy Watch, a national advocacy organization.

Co-founder Duff Conacher said thats undemocratic and a lot more than the average voter can afford. He contends wealthier contributors could still try to influence politicians at Queens Park.

A democratic system would not allow anyone to donate more than what the average person can afford to donate, he said.

According to Democracy Watch, the Liberals came in last of the major parties and raised $420,133 between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of this year from 1,501 donors. Nearly 29 per cent of that was donated by 103 people, or 6.8 per cent of donors, who gave at least $1,000.

The PCs far outpaced the Liberals and received more than $1.39 million from 4,151 donors over the same time period. Almost 33 per cent of the pot came from 391 people, or 9.4 per cent of contributors, donating $1,000-plus.

Those are big impact donations, Conacher said.

New Democrats bucked the trend somewhat. The party had raised $647,763 from 4,299 people, with only 22 people, or 0.5 per cent, donating more than $1,000 and accounting for 3.8 per cent of the total amount raised over those nine months.

Its important to note that Elections Ontario has not yet audited political contributions and that parties have 10 days to disclose donations. Elections Ontario then posts that to its website in real time.

The most recent figures available from Elections Ontario show that as of Nov. 28, the PCs locked in more than $2 million and the NDP about $914,350. As of Dec. 12, the Liberals had brought in over $1 million.

Conacher wants the individual donations capped at $100, which is what it is in Quebec. The limit there was lowered from $1,000 to prevent corruption and address straw man donations from private companies.

Conacher warned such donations could occur in Ontario  for instance, a corporation could use its employees to funnel contributions to parties. He said Elections Ontario should be auditing specifically for that possibility.

Some experts are less concerned about the limits and more concerned with the potential for straw man-esque donations.

Canadas former chief electoral officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who gave input on Ontarios revamped election finances act, said a $1,200 donation is a reasonable amount.

A $1,200-donation does not buy you strong access necessarily. (Parties) need a lot more than that to run a campaign, Kingsley said. Our system is based on a fine balance of public financing and financing from other sources.

As such, the new act  which got all-party support  also introduced a $2.71 per-vote subsidy for parties that got at least two per cent of the popular vote in the previous election. That annual allowance will be gradually reduced over the next five years, and then be reviewed.

Perfection is the enemy of the good. Here, we have something which is very good, Kingsley said.

He agreed donations should be closely monitored.

The only concern we have to have is to make sure theyre only individuals acting on their own, and not part of a group of people working together and who get reimbursed through some means by a firm, for example. It has to come genuinely from their own resources, he said.

Kingsley was backed up by U of T political science professor Nelson Wiseman, who also helped inform the legislation. Wiseman said concerns raised by Democracy Watch about the limits are over the top.

Its just not a lot of money, he said.

The attorney generals office maintained the relatively new rules are robust.

Ontario demonstrated its leadership in election finance regulation by introducing a number of measures that transformed the provinces political fundraising and spending rules, spokesman Andrew Rudyk said in an email.

Election day is June 7, 2018.

SHARE:
The provincial workers compensation board will reverse a controversial policy that slashed benefits by blaming injuries on pre-existing conditions, even if they had no physical impact on workers before they got hurt on the job, the Star has learned.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board will also review 4,500 claims made by workers whose compensation may have been unfairly reduced as a result of the policy.

Implemented in 2012, the policy represented a significant  and some argued illegal  departure from the founding tenets of the workers compensation system in Canada: the so-called thin-skull principle, which says workers cannot be discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition that caused no symptoms before a workplace accident.

The issue was also the subject of a class action lawsuit filed in 2014 by Toronto lawyers Richard Fink and Alan McConnell. The suit argued that injured workers were being denied the full extent of benefits to which they were entitled as a result of a secret policy to aggressively reduce the lump sums awarded to people with work-related permanent injuries.

A Star investigation also found that the workers compensation independent appeals tribunal systematically overturned WSIB decisions to slash benefits based on alleged pre-existing conditions. Between 2012 and 2016, about 80 per cent of injured workers appeals on that issue were successful, according to a tally of tribunal rulings.

As part of our commitment to service excellence, we regularly review our policies and their application to make sure we are applying them consistently and fairly. We also monitor WSIAT decisions to look for trends, said Christine Arnott, a spokesperson for the WSIB.

Brian Jarvis, the WSIBs chief operating officer, said the decision was prompted by feedback from stakeholders.

We want to make sure if we made a mistake, we correct it, he said.

Fink and McConnell will now drop the class action lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of representative plaintiff Pietro Castrillo.

This is a historic move by the WSIB to address the issues raised in the class action lawsuit. The board has listened to our concerns, Fink said. It is good news for Ontarios workers.

As of Friday, the board will no longer cut benefits for people who had what it calls non-measurable, asymptomatic pre-existing conditions before a workplace injury. A review of the 4,500 claims is expected to be completed by mid-2018. Those affected by the review will be notified by the WSIB and could see an increase in the lump sum payments they received as a result of a permanent injury.

Maryth Yachnin, a lawyer with the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario, said the move was a step in the right direction, describing the 2012 policy as having no principled justification other than to save money on the backs of injured workers.

But she said she was concerned that the review will only result in changes to workers benefits if the board decides their pre-existing condition is non-measurable.

For example, she said, a worker who had the tip of a finger amputated as a child may be perfectly capable of working. But if that hand is cut off in a workplace accident, they would still have a measurable pre-existing condition  even if it didnt affect their ability to do their job.

Its not a solution because people are still going to lose benefits for something that did not affect them as workers, she said.

Jarvis said the board would review each case on its own merits.

To the extent that the measurable issue was not affecting (workers) ability to do their work, I would expect that would be taken into account moving forward, he said.

As previously reported by the Star, the 2012 policy was introduced after the WSIB contracted American consultant Christopher Brigham to help staff accurately rate the severity of permanent injuries and to maximize the efficiency of the process.

Brigham was the subject of congressional hearings in the United States two years before being hired by the WSIB. In the hearings, critics claimed a medical guide written by Brigham, which was used by numerous U.S. compensation boards to evaluate workers injuries, was developed in near secrecy and that it dramatically reduced impairment ratings for many types of conditions without apparent medical evidence and transparency.

In the hearings, lawyer Frederick Uehlein spoke in Brighams defence, and said his guides were evidence-based and afforded consistency and ease of use. Brigham has described himself as a strong advocate for those who are recovering from injury or illness.

Toronto tractor-trailer driver Fernando Paul injured his lower spine in a 2010 workplace accident that left him almost completely immobile. But in 2012, after an MRI found he might have a mild degenerative disc disease in a completely different part of his spine, the WSIB halved Pauls permanent impairment rating, which meant he was not eligible for additional supports through the boards serious injury program.

Years later, Paul is still appealing parts of his case. He does not know whether his claim will be eligible for the boards forthcoming review, but he said he welcomed the decision if it means workers will not need to go through what he has endured.

If theyre going to reverse things to the right people  and Ill keep saying, to the right people  I agree with that, he said. Quite a few guys like me had the same problems.

A report this year by the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario found 38 cases in 2016 alone where the provinces independent appeals tribunal for compensation claims overturned WSIB decisions to reduce benefits based on asymptomatic pre-conditions.

Yachnin said that figure was a drop in the bucket.

Youre talking thousands of people  I believe the board is (now) acknowledging that  who had their benefits because of this illegal practice.

Those with questions about the WSIB review can call 1-800-387-0750 for information.

SHARE:
The Federal Court has chided immigration officials for refusing to let a 66-year-old stateless man be a permanent resident on humanitarian grounds even though there is no prospect of deporting him to any country.

In quashing the immigration decision and sending the case back to the department for reconsideration, Justice E. Susan Elliott said Francisco Suarez Abeleira cant continue to be trapped in limbo in Canada and deserves a chance to have a new life.

Abeleira was born in Vigo, Spain, but his parents fled the Franco dictatorship in the 1950s, shortly after his birth and the family moved to Mexico. Spain has no record of his birth, likely because he was never registered or the record was destroyed during the dictatorship.

After spending his formative years in Mexico and most of his adulthood in the United States, he was caught by American border officials in 2009. After being released from immigration detention, he crossed the unguarded land border between Vermont and Quebec seeking asylum in Canada a year later.

Although the refugee judge accepted he was stateless, Abeleira was found not to be at risk of persecution in the U.S. and his claim was rejected. A subsequent humanitarian application was also refused.

The only four countries to which Mr. Abeleira has any connection at all (Canada being the fourth such country) do not want him because he has no status in any of them. Yet, the Immigration Minister says Mr. Abeleira has not shown sufficient humanitarian and compassionate grounds to be permitted to apply for permanent residence from within Canada, Elliott wrote in a recent decision.

He must therefore apply for that status from another country. The conundrum is that there does not appear to be any other country who will accept him. Not only is Mr. Abeleira in a state of legal limbo, there is no way out of it. He appears trapped in an endless loop of you have to leave Canada to apply for permanent residence, however you cant leave Canada because no country will take you.

Abeleira declined the Stars interview request through his lawyer in Toronto, Daniel Radin.

According to the court, Abeleira was orphaned at the age of 3 when his parents died in a car accident in Mexico. He was later raised by neighbours until he turned 12 and ran away allegedly because of their mistreatment of him.

He began making a living smuggling goods across the U.S.-Mexican border, selling American electronics and clothing in Mexico before he moved to the U.S. in his late teens and lived as an undocumented person, said the court.

Abeleira told the court he moved to New York City in 1975 and purchased a birth certificate in the name of Angel Lagomasini, a legal U.S. citizen who lived in Puerto Rico and died in 2008. He used the birth certificate to obtain a drivers licence, social security number and a U.S. passport.

Under his assumed identity, he obtained a high school diploma, got a bachelors degree in education in 1989, and a master of science degree in education in 1995. He worked for the New York City Board of Education for almost two decades from 1987 to 2006.

In 2009, he and his second wife divorced when she discovered that his purported identity was false. He was later arrested at JFK International Airport when he was leaving for Spain where he taught English and Spanish as a freelance instructor. He confessed to the authorities his identity was false.

Abeleira was ordered removed from the U.S. and detained in an immigration holding centre until late 2009 when it was determined that there is no prospect to remove him to either Spain or Mexico. A letter from the Spanish consulate concluded he had no status in Spain.

Abeleiras humanitarian application in Canada was based on the grounds he could not be removed to the U.S. and would face undue hardship if he continued to be held stateless in Canada. The application was first rejected in 2014, but the decision was successfully challenged in court and sent back for reconsideration. The application was refused again last year.

Mr. Abeleiras (humanitarian) application submissions centred on his statelessness and especially the fact that he cannot be removed from Canada. The officer never determined whether Mr. Abeleira can be removed to another country in order to apply for permanent residence from abroad, wrote Elliott.

Whether the country of origin was Spain or Mexico or the United States  the country of his last habitual residence  the circumstances are shown on the record to be that Mr. Abeleira cannot be removed to any of those countries.

Although Elliott fell short on ordering the government to approve Abeleiras humanitarian application, she did have some strong words for Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen.

While I am very mindful and sympathetic to the legal limbo within which Mr. Abeleira finds himself, I am satisfied that this matter will turn on the facts once they are properly considered, said Elliott.

I do, however, strongly urge the (immigration) minister to come to grips with whether there is a country to which Mr. Abeleira may be deported . . . If there is no such country, then I strongly urge the minister and Mr. Abeleira to engage in meaningful discussions to try to find a way to resolve this application without the ongoing intervention of the court.

Neither the Immigration Department or the minister would comment on the court decision when reached by the Star.

Read more about:

SHARE:
LONDONAt a time when support for same-sex marriage seems to be slowly advancing in some parts of the world, legislators in Bermuda have restored a ban on the unions, just six months after the islands highest court approved them.

The Senate in the wealthy, self-governing British territory voted 8-3 in favour of a new law to allow only domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. The vote represented a rare reversal of an international trend broadening the number of jurisdictions that recognize same-sex marriage.

The vote Wednesday came less than a week after the House of Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, voted 24-10 in favor of the same proposal. To take effect, the Atlantic islands governor, John Rankin, would have to sign the bill into a law, but that is usually a formality.

Most of mainland Britain legalized same-sex marriage in 2014, but Northern Ireland has not followed suit.

Read more:

Opinion: No amount of queer hospitality will change bakers prejudice about same-sex wedding cakes

Opinion: Gay-marriage win for Australia compromises gay rights worldwide

Andrew Simons, a senator from the party One Bermuda Alliance, which opposed the new law, said the change in legislation was an affront to peoples dignity, according to the Royal Gazette, a local news outlet.

As human beings, we should have the ability to enter into a marriage between two people who love each other, and this relationship should be recognized by the state, he said.

But Kathy Lynn Simmons, the Senate leader, said the new legislation reflected the majority sentiment. She added, We have a bill that gives rights to the minority; it also protects the interests of the majority.

The new law, known as the Domestic Partnership Act, is not retroactive. There have been at least six same-sex marriages in Bermuda since May, when Judge Charles-Etta Simmons ruled that banning the unions was inconsistent with the provision of the Human Rights Act as they constitute deliberate different treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.

In July, however, the Progressive Labor Party, which is backed by many traditionally conservative church organizations, took power and began to mobilize legislative support for a reversal of the ruling.

The development in Bermuda recalled a comparable sequence of events in California in November 2008, when the state constitution was amended to define marriage as between a man and a woman, ending five months of legalized same-sex marriage and reversing a ruling by the state Supreme Court in June of that year. That law, known as Proposition 8, was later overturned in the courts.

In June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

A survey this month by the Pew Research Center found that 26 countries recognize same-sex marriage. The most recent addition was Australia, where Parliament voted this month to legalize the marriages. (If a recent court ruling in Austria takes effect in 2019 as expected, the number would rise to 27.)

Worldwide, roughly two-thirds of the countries that allow gay marriage  17 of 26  are in Western Europe, Pew said. Still, a number of Western European nations, particularly Italy and Switzerland, do not allow same-sex unions. And, so far, no countries in Central and Eastern Europe have legalized gay marriage.

South Africa is the only African nation to have made the unions legal, and New Zealand and Australia are the only countries in the Asia-Pacific region to have done so. Pew noted that Taiwans highest court ruled in favor of gay unions this year but gave Parliament two years to implement the ruling.

Not surprisingly, it added, same-sex marriage has advanced mostly in countries and regions where acceptance of homosexuality is high.

SHARE:
MILWAUKEEOn the verge of his biggest political victory, House Speaker Paul Ryan finds himself at the centre of reports that he may step down after the 2018 midterm elections.

Politico reported in a speculative piece on Thursday that Ryan would like to serve through election day 2018 and retire ahead of the next Congress. The House is soon to take up a final version of a GOP tax overhaul, something Ryan has for years clamoured for.

CNN offered a more measured report that Ryan has had soul searching conversations about his future with friends.

Read more: House, Senate Republican leaders reach deal on Trumps tax reform package

When asked during a Thursday morning news conference if he was leaving soon, Ryan chuckled and said, Im not. No. His comment came before the two stories had been posted.

Later on Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Ryan assured U.S. President Donald Trump that the stories about his future were not accurate.

The president did speak to the speaker not too long ago and made sure that the speaker knew very clearly and in no uncertain terms that if that news was true, he was very unhappy with it, Sanders said.

Advisers to the House speaker sought to tamp down the reports that Ryan may be on his way out the door.

This is pure speculation, Ryan spokesperson AshLee Strong said. As the speaker himself said today, hes not going anywhere anytime soon.

Speaking on background, a handful of aides and advisers close to Ryan were dismissive of the Politico story. This is Beltway speculation  nothing more, said one.

At the same time, his office said Ryan would not give an interview to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the subject. The statements from his advisers also stopped short of saying whether Ryan, first elected in 1998, would be on the ballot again next year for his 11th term.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker tweeted Thursday afternoon that Ryan said hes not going anywhere.

One Wisconsin Republican who had spoken with Ryans team in recent days said that the congressman was moving forward with the 2018 campaign.

The source said of the Politico report: Not true.

The Janesville Republican recently gave $1.9 million (U.S.) to the National Republican Campaign Committee at the end of November and fully geared up for re-election next year. He also helped the NRCC win four special elections in 2017.

In its story, Politico said: More recently, over closely held conversations with his kitchen Cabinet, Ryans preference has become clear: He would like to serve through election day 2018 and retire ahead of the next Congress.

This would give Ryan a final legislative year to chase his second white whale, entitlement reform, while using his unrivaled fundraising prowess to help protect the House majority  all with the benefit of averting an ugly internecine power struggle during election season.

At his weekly news conference, Ryan talked Thursday about the GOP tax plan and talked at length on issues he would like to tackle next year, including reforming entitlement programs and criminal justice.

Multiple Wisconsin GOP sources said that those close to Ryan see his goal as passing major legislation, not remaining in office indefinitely. Since being elected speaker in 2015, Ryan has led a fractious caucus pitched between moderates and hard-right conservatives, making it difficult to pass significant legislation.

They always told me he was not going to die in office, that he had other things he wanted to accomplish, one source said.

Two Republicans went further, saying their contacts and information had made it appear Ryan was going to step aside. But they cautioned that they didnt have any definitive information.

CNN reported Tuesday that people close to Ryan reported that its possible he will leave after the 2018 elections, if not sooner.

Some friends indicate that Ryan may be suffering from a bout of Trump-haustion, but others believe there is serious contemplation of leaving Congress in 2018, the CNN story said.

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said: Any speculation about Speaker Ryans retirement is just a distraction from enacting the speakers Better Way agenda, which still includes completing tax reform, an overhaul of our health care system, and meaningful welfare reform.

Sensenbrenners statement didnt dismiss out of hand the reports, as he added: Im grateful to the speaker for his friendship and leadership and look forward to serving alongside him for however long we are blessed to do so.

Read more about:

SHARE:
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y.A Long Island woman is accused of laundering bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and wiring the money overseas to help the Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, according to federal prosecutors.

Zoobia Shahnaz, a 27-year-old Pakistani-born resident of Brentwood, was being held without bail following her Thursday arraignment on charges of bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering, prosecutors said.

The former lab technician worked in Manhattan and had no known criminal history, according to prosecutors who said that beginning in March she fraudulently obtained more than $85,000 (U.S.) through a bank loan and credit cards to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online.

She then made several wire transactions to individuals and opaque entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey, which were designed to avoid transaction reporting requirements and conceal the identity, source and destination of the illicitly-obtained monies, court documents said.

These transactions were motivated to benefit ISIS (Daesh), which the defendant ultimately sought to join in Syria, the documents said.

During this period, prosecutors said Shahnaz accessed numerous Daesh propaganda websites and message boards. In January 2016, she travelled to Jordan to volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.

Prosecutors said Shahnaz quit her job in June without telling her family and was stopped by authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July while attempting to board a flight to Islamabad, Pakistan. Her flight included a layover in Istanbul, Turkey, a common point of entry for individuals trying to join Daesh in Syria, prosecutors said.

Her lawyer, Steve Zissou, said she was sending money overseas to help Syrian refugees.

... what she saw made her devoted to lessening the suffering of a lot of the Syrian refugees and everything she does is for that purpose, Zissou said outside the courthouse.

Read more about:

SHARE:
GENEVAThe eighth round of Syrian peace talks brokered by the United Nations fizzled to a close Thursday without progress toward a deal to end seven ruinous years of war, and with the chief mediator saying the Syrian government was not really looking to find a way to have a dialogue.

The UN mediator, Staffan de Mistura, had called the parties to Geneva hoping for the first real negotiations in two years, but he acknowledged to reporters that negotiations in reality did not take place.

The two-week exercise, he said, was a golden opportunity missed.

Read more:

Putin, Assad meet in Russia to talk possible peace initiatives in Syrian civil war

New peace talks off to a rocky start as Syrian government, rebel leader trade jabs

De Mistura said he planned to convene another round of talks in Geneva in January but needed an infusion of new ideas and would sound out the major powers when he briefs the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday.

But in a television interview broadcast Wednesday night, de Mistura had already made clear one critical requirement for progress: urging President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the key ally of President Bashar Assad of Syria, to have the courage to pressure the Syrian government into concessions.

De Mistura had insisted the two sides travel to Geneva without preconditions, and he said he would assess whether any party was sabotaging the peace process. They had not done so, he told reporters, but he did not disguise the main obstacle to progress.

I did not see the government really looking to find a way to have a dialogue, he told reporters. I did see the opposition trying to.

De Mistura had called the Syrian parties to Geneva hoping to capitalize on a slowdown in fighting across much of the country, the military demise of the Islamic State and an uptick in international diplomacy exemplified by talks on Syria between U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Putin in Vietnam last month.

Once-fractious opposition groups, cut down on the battlefield by the combined muscle of Russian air power, Iranian militias and the Syrian military, arrived in Geneva with a unified platform after issuing a communique that said Assad had to give up power at the start of any political transition.

As a result, the Syrian governments chief negotiator, Bashar al-Jaafari, delayed his arrival at the talks, broke off for a weeklong trip to Damascus, Syrias capital, in the middle and left on Thursday denouncing the opposition for setting preconditions in a bid to blackmail the process.

De Mistura expressed disappointment with the oppositions insistence on ruling out a role for Assad but said 11 meetings with opposition negotiators in the course of two weeks had constructively explored approaches to holding elections and drafting a new constitution.

His seven meetings with the government delegation never moved beyond terrorism, a topic that has stalled discussion of a political transition in all the previous rounds of talks in Geneva.

Serious negotiation on a political solution required real political will, not this kind of Ping-Pong, particularly from the government side, de Mistura said.

In a breach of diplomatic protocol, the government delegation this week posted a video clip showing Jaafari in front of a map instructing de Mistura on terrorist trouble spots across the country.

Read more about:

SHARE:
A new report, three years in the making, describes Daesh as a shrewd manufacturing and logistical planning operation that moved weapons, munitions and bomb-making materials throughout its war zone on a scale unprecedented for a terror organization.

Conflict Armament Research (CAR), a weapons-tracking group based in Britain, documented more than 40,000 firearms and munitions across Iraq and Syria by dispatching field investigators in an arc stretching from the northern Syrian city of Kobani to south of Baghdad, Iraqs capital  a rough tracing of Daeshs path to conquer wide swaths of territory and establish its caliphate.

The report, which the researchers call the most comprehensive to date about how Daesh, also known as ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State group, obtained and fielded its weapons, was published Thursday. Observers feel it could become a vital tool for understanding the terror groups deadly industrial proficiency. Here are a few of its findings:

Daesh used rockets supplied by the United States.

The Washington Post reported in July that the Trump administration ended a secretive CIA operation to arm moderate Syrian rebels battling President Bashar Assad. Few details on what arms they received are known publicly, but researchers found rockets in Iraq that appear to have been purchased by the United States and supplied to Syrian groups.

In one instance, PG-9 73 mm rockets, sold by Romanian arms manufacturers to the U.S. army in 2013 and 2014, were found sprinkled across both battlefields. Containers with matching lot numbers were found in eastern Syria and recovered from an Islamic State convoy in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the report says.

It took only weeks for Daesh to get its hands on U.S. anti-tank missiles.

On Dec. 12, 2015, Bulgaria exported anti-tank missile launcher tubes to the U.S. army through an Indiana-based company called Kiesler Police Supply. Fifty-nine days later, Iraqi federal police captured the remains of one such weapon after a battle in Ramadi, Iraq, the report says. In another instance, a U.S.-backed rebel group in Syria was photographed using a launcher tube with an identical lot number, indicating it probably came from the same batch, the report says.

Industrial-scale operations and experimentation were important factors in the spread of death and fear.

CAR investigators noted materials such as aluminum paste and other precursor chemicals from Turkey used to make charges for mortars and rockets were found in Tikrit, Mosul, Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq. That signifies a robust logistical operation for delivering raw materials to Daesh researchers and engineers manning captured industrial machines and churning out components for munitions, the report says.

It confirms my theory that this is the industrial revolution of terrorism, Damien Spleeters, head of CAR operations in Iraq and Syria, recently told Wired. And for that they need raw material in industrial quantities.

Daesh propaganda showing off U.S. rifles was overblown.

Videos and images of U.S.-made small arms captured by the Islamic State, particularly M16 and M4 service rifles, are featured prominently in propaganda videos to tout defeat over groups supplied and trained by U.S. personnel.

While those weapons appear to be diverted to senior commanders as war trophies, CARs documentation concluded there was not a big influx of U.S.-made rifles on the battlefield.

Read more about:

SHARE:
QUANTICO, VA.Taking aim at the credibility of the FBI, U.S. President Donald Trump unleashed a blistering attack on the bureaus leadership even as he praised state and local police officers as a bulwark against rising violence and crime.

Trump denounced the bureau for its handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, calling it really disgraceful and continuing his questioning of his countrys intelligence and law enforcement institutions as no president before.

Its a shame whats happened with the FBI, the president said. Were going to rebuild the FBI, itll be bigger and better than ever, but it is very sad when you look at those documents, and how theyve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

The presidents broadside appeared to reflect his anger over revelations that senior FBI officials exchanged anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages while working on last years Clinton probe and during special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with Russian officials in the 2016 election.

Trump laced into the bureau as he was departing for its training academy in Virginia, where he lavished praise on graduates of a weeks-long FBI National Academy program for law enforcement leaders from around the country.

He praised the graduates, who were trained on FBI standards, touting their accomplishments and pledging his unwavering support. Trump told law enforcement leaders he is more loyal than anyone else could be to police.

Anti-police sentiment is wrong and its dangerous, he added. Anyone who kills a police officer should get the death penalty.

Read more:

Rick Salutin: Fire Mueller, forget Russiagate, do some real politics

Republicans accuse Justice Department of bias after release of FBI officials text messages

Inside the legal team trying to protect Trump from Muellers killers

Trump depicted a nation besieged by violence, using dark rhetoric that was a stark departure from the language of his predecessors. He evoked this weeks attempted terror attack in New York when he called for stricter immigration policies. He also delivered a stern warning to members of the international gang MS-13 that his administration will root them out and arrest them.

Trump celebrated his decision to make it easier for local police forces to purchase surplus military equipment, and questioned rising violence in Chicago.

What the hell is going on in Chicago? What the hell is happening there? asked Trump returning to a favourite campaign target.

The law enforcement crowd often chuckled and applauded its approval. Trump has often appeared at ease in front of police groups and loves to suggest that they supported him in last years campaign.

Violent crime has increased nationally the last two years but has dropped precipitously over the last quarter century. Gun violence in Chicago has dropped in 2017 from 2016 and of Dec. 10 there had been 620 homicides compared to 730 at the same time last year.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whose has faced Trumps wrath after recusing himself from the Russia probe, distanced himself from Trumps criticism of the bureau, saying he does not share a view that the FBI is not functioning at a high level all over the country. He praised the bureaus crime-fighting efforts and stopped short of saying he agreed with Trumps assessment that the reputation of the agency is in tatters.

Hours before Trumps speech, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox News Channel that edits to former FBI Director James Comeys statement on Clintons private email server and anti-Trump texts from a top agent are deeply troubling.

There is extreme bias against this president with high-up members of the team there at the FBI who were investigating Hillary Clinton at the time, Gidley charged, as Mueller pushes on with a probe of possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Gidley says Trump maintains confidence in the FBIs rank-and-file.

Edits to the Comey draft appeared to soften the gravity of the bureaus finding in its 2016 investigation of Hillary Clintons use of a private email server while secretary of state.

It is very sad when you look at those documents, how theyve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of really angry people who are seeing it, Trump said of the document.

Gidley said the disclosure of politically charged text messages sent by one of the agents on the Clinton case, Peter Strzok, were eye-opening. Strzok, who was in the room as Clinton was interviewed, was later assigned to special counsel Robert Muellers team to investigate potential co-ordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. He was reassigned after the messages were uncovered this summer.

With the attack, the White House joined a growing movement among the conservative media and some Republicans to question the integrity of Muellers investigation.

About 200 leaders in law enforcement from around the country attended the weeks-long FBI National Academy program at Quantico aimed at raising law enforcement standards and co-operation. Coursework included intelligence theory, terrorism and terrorist mindsets, law, behavioural science, law enforcement communication, and forensic science.

Read more about:

SHARE:
MOSCOWRussia and Egypt signed a deal on Friday to resume flights between Moscow and the Egyptian capital of Cairo starting from February, after more than a two-year break, officials announced.

Moscow suspended flights to Egypt after a bomb by the local Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, affiliate brought down a Russian airliner over Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board.

The attack decimated Egypts vital tourism industry. Egyptian authorities have since spent millions of dollars to upgrade security at its airports, hoping to get Moscow to change its mind.

Russian Transportation Minister Maxim Sokolov said he and Egyptian Minister of Civil Aviation Sherif Fathi signed a protocol on security co-operation that would allow direct flights between Moscow and Cairo to resume, starting from February.

Russia, however, is not yet talking about resuming charter flights to Egyptian resorts on the Red Sea, once a popular destination for Russian tourists, Sokolov said, adding that this would be the next stage of negotiations.

President Vladimir Putin on a visit to Cairo on Monday said the deal on the resumption of flights could be signed in the nearest time and praised Egypts efforts to boost security at its airports.

In the wake of the Daesh bombing, Britain, another major source of visitors to Egypt, suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort in Sinai from which the doomed Russian airliner took off.

Putins visit to Egypt was part of the Russian presidents blitz day-trip to the region that kicked off with a visit to a Russian airbase in Syria, then to Cairo and concluded with a stop in Turkey. It was his second visit to Egypt in as many years, and Putin and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi appeared keen to cement their countries ties, which have deepened in recent years as Moscow has expanded its reach across the region.

El-Sissi, who has visited Russia twice since taking office in 2014, has signed deals to buy billions of dollars worth of Russian weapons, including fighter jets and assault helicopters. Last month, Russia approved a draft agreement with Egypt to allow Russian warplanes to use Egyptian military bases.

On Thursday, Fathi headed to Moscow to finalize the agreement on the resumption of flights.

Later Friday, Egypt's civil aviation ministry said in a statement that the two sides will hold talks in April on the resumption of Russian flights to Egyptian resorts.

Read more about:

SHARE:
LAGOS, NigeriaIn this sprawling city, a strip of concrete homes sits along the edge of one of Lagoss largest slums. It is just one of many such streets in the West African megacity, and tricky for outsiders to find; but for a few Nigerian naira, a local motorbike taxi will deliver you to Amodu St.

Follow the smoke of the grilled-corn vendor and there is a squat compound with a corrugated metal roof, the home of a 30-something woman with a warm smile and animated gesticulations. Her name is Florence Onwuasoanya. But on Amodu, they sometimes call her the woman who loses all the babies.

Onwuasoanya lost her first baby by choice, when she aborted an unplanned pregnancy. But her second pregnancy was a blessing because this time she was married.

When she lost that baby, she was devastated. When she lost two more, including an early stillbirth, she became desperate.

So when her next pregnancy stretched into its final trimester, Onwuasoanya allowed herself the simple pleasure of going to the market to buy baby clothes. That day, her water broke and her daughter died shortly after being delivered by caesarean section. Onwuasoanya named her Chidera, or what God has written.

People began thinking she was cursed. Her husband no longer celebrated her pregnancies, telling her That babys not going to stay. He asked to take a second wife, eventually fathering a child with another woman.

Florence Onwuasoanya is known in her Lagos neighbourhood as "the woman who lost all the babies." After her nine unsuccessful attempts to have a child, someone finally explained: her mysterious affliction might not be a mystery after all.







Onwuasoanya was determined to have her live baby and because her doctors had no answers, she turned to other remedies. She prayed, fasted and visited churches; she swallowed herbal concoctions, including a mixture that teemed with live maggots.

When someone said she had an ogbanje  a spirit child that repeatedly dies and returns  Onwuasoanya travelled three hours to perform rituals at the Niger River, where she narrowly escaped a crocodile attack.

I wanted people to believe that I had no hand in what was happening to me, she said.

After nine attempts to conceive, Onwuasoanya was still a mother without a child. Only in 2009 did someone finally explain: her mysterious affliction might not be a mystery after all.

In fact, a solution had been known for nearly half a century. It had simply failed to reach her.

The story of Florence Nneka Onwuasoanya is the story of a job unfinished.

She will never have scientific proof for why she lost each baby; their deaths were not investigated. But today, she knows she and her husband have a biological mismatch that can gravely endanger pregnancies. She knows her story fits the profile of a disease that kills fetuses and newborns.

And every year, millions of women like her are spared what she endured  but they live in wealthy nations where Rh disease is considered a problem of the past.

One of the symptoms of Rh disease  also known as Rhesus disease, or hemolytic disease of the newborn  is believed to have been first described as early as 400 BC. It wasnt until two millennia later that doctors identified a surprising link between many sick and dead babies: their parents had clashing blood.

'I wanted people to believe that I had no hand in what was happening to me' Florence Onwuasoanya Woman with Rh- blood on why she tried numerous remedies and rituals to become a mother

The potential consequences of this mismatch were vividly described in a 1973 book: a baby who died convulsing as his skull filled with blood; gasping newborns with swollen bodies; survivors rendered physically helpless, unable to support their heads or sit.

Those whom it kills all die before birth, or shortly thereafter, wrote medical journalist David Zimmerman. Some of the survivors recover; others are left crippled for life in mind and body.

Rh disease once killed or disabled as many as 100,000 babies every year in the U.S. alone, often occurring again and again in the same family. But within the career span of a single scientific generation, as Zimmerman wrote, researchers developed a weapon to defeat it: a single injection that prevents the disease.

Today, Rh disease is extremely rare in countries like Canada, where screening and prevention have become routine. Many women who get the injection are oblivious to its purpose or the heartache theyve been spared.

As far as the western medical establishment is concerned, Rh disease is gone.

Rarely is a disease dealt with so effectively in so little time, Zimmerman wrote in Rh: The Intimate History of a Disease and its Conquest.

But four decades after the cure was found, while Onwuasoanya was mourning Chidera, a doctor in Toronto had a startling realization.

Dr. Alvin Zipursky is a former pediatric hematologist with the Hospital for Sick Children, an 87-year-old prone to friendly hugs and ending his anecdotes with Isnt that something? Though technically retired for more than 20 years, he remains scientifically active and is still a fixture at his cramped office at Sick Kids.

Dr. Alvin Zipursky is a former pediatric hematologist with the Hospital for Sick Children. He is one of Canadas Rh disease pioneers, having contributed to the Canadian eradication effort.

Zip, as hes known to friends, is one of Canadas Rh disease pioneers. He contributed to the Canadian eradication effort and in his desk, Zipursky still keeps a glass vial that once held the countrys first experimental dose of the prophylactic injection.

The Winnipeg-born physician relocated to Ontario in the late 1960s and as he moved on to new jobs and medical puzzles, he came to believe that Rh disease had been eradicated worldwide.

Then one day in 2008, he had a sudden thought that woke him from what he calls a 40-year sleep. Is Rh disease really gone?

It cant be right, he realized.

After Zipursky retired, he turned his attentions to addressing problems in lower-income countries, founding a program for global pediatric research at Sick Kids.

But until that day, it had not occurred to him to consider whether Rh disease might still affect the developing world.

It didnt seem to have occurred to the global health establishment either. The World Health Organization does not have global statistics for Rh disease. There is also a pervasive assumption that Rh disease isnt a major concern in lower-income countries, where the Rh-negative blood type is less common.

But researchers from those countries were still reporting cases in the scientific literature. So in 2013, Zipursky teamed with 17 researchers to produce the first global estimates for Rh disease and severe jaundice, a common symptom.

The numbers, published in Pediatric Research, disturbed Zipursky: an estimated 373,300 Rh disease cases in 2010, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. An estimated 141,000 babies died or were stillborn and another 27,000 were at risk of permanent disability.

The study has major limitations. Because so many lower-income countries lack data, researchers used assumptions and estimates based on other estimates. But the very fact that we are forced to rely on data from Europe and the United States, now 70 years old, shows the low priority given to this condition, the paper noted.

It was a start, and enough to convince co-author Joy Lawn, a leading researcher of global newborn health, that Rh disease is a major problem.

The (estimates) of deaths from Rhesus disease  particularly if you were to include stillbirths as well as the neonatal deaths  thats as many as the child deaths from HIV, says Lawn, a professor with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. But I think the political difference is that HIV has big political momentum and Rhesus hasnt.

The task of eradicating Rh disease was far from over and nobody seemed to care. So Zipursky, then just shy of 80, decided to get cracking.

The medical puzzle that launched his career will likely become his final act. This time, the world already has the cure  but the fix, in many ways, will prove much harder.

Rh is the most important blood group next to the ABO types and nearly every human can be categorized as Rh positive or Rh negative. When a Rh-negative woman becomes pregnant with an Rh-positive baby, deadly consequences can occur. (Toronto Star)

The prologue to Rh disease is always the same: a woman with an uncommon blood type meets a man who is her hematologic opposite. They have a baby, who inherits the fathers Rh-positive blood.

Rh is the most important blood group next to the ABO types and nearly every human can be categorized as Rh positive or Rh negative. The latter is rarer, but prevalence varies. In China, fewer than 1 per cent of people are Rh negative; in Caucasian populations, about 15 per cent.

When Rh disease occurs, its always when an Rh-negative woman has an Rh-positive baby.

Mother and child, therefore, are calamitously mismatched. So when the fetuss blood seeps into the mothers circulation  this can occur during delivery, abortion, miscarriage or throughout pregnancy  the mothers immune system detects its red blood cells as invaders, deploying antibodies to destroy them.

The problem? These antibodies can cross the placenta and attack the fetus.

The odd thing is the first baby is usually fine, delivered before the mother produces enough antibodies to cause harm.

But her second Rh-incompatible pregnancy, and each one after, is at risk. This is because once her immune system has been sensitized to the Rh-positive blood cells, it will be ready to attack the next time. In the 1940s, half of all sensitized pregnancies ended in death in Manitoba, Canadas centre of Rh disease research.

The discovery of the Rh blood group in the late 1930s led to a scientific frenzy.

To save fetuses, doctors would pierce the womb with a large needle and infuse the baby with healthy blood. Others induced early delivery, removing sick babies from hostile environments.

When Rh disease caused severe jaundice  the build-up of a yellow compound called bilirubin, produced after red blood cells break down  a babys blood would be removed and replaced through exchange transfusions.

But the Holy Grail was a prophylaxis to stop the disease before it starts. In the early 60s, scientists tested an audacious idea: injecting women with the antibody that was hurting their babies.

They harvested anti-D antibodies from human donors and used a dose small enough to be safe, but potent enough to stop the mothers immune system from reacting. Trials were conducted  and they worked.

In 1968, New Jersey scientists debuted an anti-D injection called Rhogam, quickly followed by competitors like Canadian-developed WinRho. In Manitoba, where Rh disease once killed 100 babies a year, deaths fell to just one every few years by the 90s.

The war in the West had been won. But in many parts of the world, it had not even started.

In Lagos, home to about 21 million, nobody has to tell pediatricians like Chinyere Ezeaka that Rh disease is still a problem.

On this summer morning, the power in the emergency room has gone out, so nurses fill out forms with the glow of their cellphones. The blue lights of phototherapy machines, where yellow-tinged babies are sleeping, have gone dark.

Ezeaka is on the phone, talking to a colleague about a baby with jaundice, which can cause brain damage if untreated.

The mother was Rhesus negative, she explains after hanging up. But the bill accumulated and they dont have money to pay. So theyre afraid the mother will run away with the baby.

Rh disease is a recurring story here at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, where she runs one of Nigerias largest neonatal wards.

The underlying problem is poverty. Most women who need the injection cant afford it. Others abscond when they run out of money before their babies can be treated.

Many of the women dont even know their blood group, Ezeaka sighs. They keep (losing babies) not knowing its the sensitization they had earlier.

But Rh disease has received very little attention from policymakers, both in Nigeria and globally. The WHO has no programs specific to Rh disease, in part because there is no good-quality data, says Dr. Metin Gulmezoglu with the UN agencys department of reproductive health.

In our research and in our contact with member states, it has not come up as a major concern, says Gulmezoglu, co-ordinator of the maternal and perinatal health team.

He agrees the problem could be under-diagnosed but this is not a research question for WHO to address but for the maternal and neonatal health community.

He is not yet convinced by the estimates provided by Zipursky and his co-authors, noting concerns with their data and methodology.

Sometimes when people are very close to a cause and are obviously passionate, he cautions, the numbers can be slightly exaggerated.

But in Nigeria, where Zipursky and his co-authors estimate 33,075 cases of Rh disease per year, front-line doctors say the numbers sound plausible, if not conservative.

Pediatrician Dr. Zubaida Farouk sees cases of Rh disease every month at her hospital in the northern city of Kano. But she suspects they are only the tip of the iceberg.

In Nigeria, seven million babies a year are born but only 36 per cent of them in a health facility. More than half of rural Nigerian women do not see a health worker before giving birth, according to UNICEF.

While Rh-negative prevalence is low in Nigeria (believed to be 5 to 8 per cent), this means affected women are more likely to have partners with the opposite blood type.

Considering Nigerias soaring fertility rate  up to eight children per woman in some parts of Kano  Rh disease is likely a bigger problem than many realize, Farouk says.

Policymakers are not looking for this, she believes. And if youre not looking for something, you wont see it.

Rh disease is particularly difficult to see in a developing country like Nigeria, where the government is battling everything from Boko Haram terrorism to extreme poverty, corruption and a major HIV epidemic.

About 660 newborns die each day in Nigeria. How does Rh disease fit in? Difficult to say, as so many deaths are not even recorded.

We talk about the invisible Nigerian child, says pediatrician Peace Toritseju, who works in the capital, Abuja. He has never been to a hospital, never been to school; no one has ever even written his name.

Globally, newborns also have an invisibility problem. The adult mans death is very visible, says researcher Joy Lawn, who has published agenda-setting studies on newborn mortality. But if you have a babys death  there wont be a funeral. Its not socially visible.

Since the 60s, the number of children who die by age 5 worldwide has been cut in half thanks to targeted campaigns. But global progress for neonates, or babies in their first month, has been harder and slower.

Newborns now make up 46 per cent of all under-5 deaths, a proportion that has grown in recent decades. Stillbirths are even more invisible, Lawn adds, further obscured by stigma and sometimes even hidden by the family.

In Nigeria, many women deliver babies with minimally trained birth attendants, not necessarily educated on Rh disease.

Even doctors knowledge may be lacking. Dr. Vinod Bhutani, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University, has travelled to Nigeria many times in the past decade and recalls hospital officials who said Africans didnt have the Rh blood factor. Others believed the disease was no longer an issue.

One explanation is that Rh disease is being misdiagnosed. It often leads to jaundice, which can have many other causes, including prematurity and G6PD deficiency, an inherited condition.

Jaundice itself is a grossly neglected problem, even though Nigerian pediatricians ranked it as a top issue in a 2012 survey. As many as 30 exchange transfusions are performed weekly on severely jaundiced babies at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital; in California, Stanfords Bhutani says he hasnt performed the emergency procedure in a decade.

Rh disease is certainly not the leading cause of neonatal jaundice in Nigeria but it has a clear, ready-made cure.

Farouk, the doctor from Kano, believes the major barrier is cost. The injection costs about $80 (U.S.), well beyond most Nigerians, who live on less than a dollar a day. And in the north, many fathers sacrifice a ram on a babys seventh day, Farouk says. The animal costs about the same as the injection and most men would rather buy the ram.

A lot of women, you prescribe  and they wont get it, she says. Its very painful because some mothers come over and over again with severe jaundice, and they never receive the injection.

Farouk sees babies every week with brain damage caused by jaundice and if they survive, she knows their futures are grim. Many will have normal intelligence but will be locked in a palsied body, unable to walk or speak. They will require specialists; their families often cant even afford hearing aids. Disabled children are sometimes abandoned or left to beg.

For others, it is a matter of time before death catches up. This year, Farouk lost a 12-year-old patient, who died of malnutrition. She blames the severe jaundice he suffered as a baby, which left him brain-damaged and unable to easily swallow.

Farouk has advocated for these patients for a decade, but capturing the attention of policymakers has been difficult. Which is why she was surprised to meet two North American doctors who showed not only an interest in Rh disease, but had formed an organization to defeat it.

One was Bhutani, the doctor from Stanford. The other was Zipursky.

In 2013, Hans-Ole Hedegaard was strolling through Denmarks Kronborg castle, the setting of Hamlet, talking to a man from California about blood.

The Dane was hosting a former blood bank director who had contacted him to learn more about his company, Eldon Biologicals.

As they toured Denmarks scenic northern coast, Hedegaard explained the Eldon card  a plastic rectangle, roughly the size of a credit card, that can diagnose blood types using a drop from a finger prick. No need for labs, liquid solutions or specially trained workers.

Dr. Shaun Morris, a clinician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, explains how to test for blood type and Rh status using the Eldon card and a drop of blood from the prick of a finger. (Toronto Star)

His Californian guest was intrigued. He also said he knew someone who had been looking for this very thing.

He was a friend of Dr. Alvin Zipursky in Toronto, Hedegaard says. And he knew that Alvin took a lot of interest in finding a way to easily identify women who were Rhesus-negative.

Since his 2008 wake-up call, Zipursky has become an evangelist for Rh disease eradication, contacting scientists and companies around the world to recruit them to the cause.

At Stanford, he found an eager ally in Bhutani, an expert in newborn jaundice with silvery hair and a regal bearing. They formed the Consortium for Universal Rh disease Elimination, or CURhE, with an Italian pediatrician, Dr. Giuseppe Buonocore, soon brought on board.

Their mission is to advocate and educate, while supporting lower-income countries interested in tackling the disease. While CURhEs first few years have been somewhat amorphous, its goal is clearly defined: eliminating Rh disease.

This is not rocket science. We just need to do it, Bhutani says. But at the same time, its a mammoth task because its bringing infrastructure to the community.

Rh disease can only be stopped if women are first able to identify their blood type, even in countries where laboratory services are scarce or expensive. Zipursky wanted a point of care diagnostic  something that functions like a pregnancy test, but for Rh-negative blood.

The Eldon card caught his attention. The card is already being used at Planned Parenthood, according to an Eldon spokesperson, as well as by army medics and Antarctic expeditions.

Zipursky contacted Hedegaard and his son Kasper, head of sales and marketing. Soon they were meeting him and Bhutani in Vancouver.

Theyre damn convincing, says Kasper Hedegaard. It came as an aha experience. Is this really a problem? Because its so simple  to do something about it.

The second challenge is making the injection affordable for every woman. Zipursky contacted all the major manufacturers but only one showed interest.

Kedrion is the pharmaceutical company that now owns Rhogam, the worlds first anti-D immune globulin, which it acquired in 2012. They are also headquartered in Tuscany, not far from the University of Siena, where Buonocore works.

Zipursky got on a plane. The story starts with Alvin, says Gioacchino de Giorgi, one of the companys marketing directors. He came to visit our facilities in Italy, and this is where Kedrion joined CURhE.

The company gave an initial $100,000 (U.S.) grant and made several commitments, including to provide Rhogam for pilot studies. With Kedrion on board, Zipursky now had the tools to screen for and prevent Rh disease affordably.

The next step is to test whether this model could work. He and Bhutani began contacting scientists around the world, looking for local advocates to lead the fight. It has been our goal to have programs in developing countries planned and implemented by those in the countries, Zipursky says.

Nancy Glover crosses the U.S.-Canadian border twice a week to donate her rare blood plasma. Each donation is enough to make roughly 40 doses of an injection that prevents Rh disease, a deadly newborn condition. Glover has been donating regularly since 2009. (Toronto Star)

A number of initiatives are underway. In rural Pakistan, Zipursky plans on launching a pilot, led by researchers with Sick Kids Centre for Global Child Health and the Aga Khan University. They are testing a system for screening women and treating Rh disease using the Eldon card and a smartphone app that will further simplify the process.

CURhE is also supporting research in countries like Mexico and India, where the story of Rh disease is always different. A Chinese scientist, for example, told CURhE he anticipates a rise in Rh disease in his country, estimating as many as 16,600 cases a year.

Fewer than 1 per cent of people in China are Rh-negative. But this means an affected womans partner is almost guaranteed to belong to the other 99 per cent. And last year, China relaxed its one-child policy, so many couples will have second babies.

Zipursky is still struggling to get the attention of global health leadership, however, often finding cynicism or apathy. He recalls a U.S. government scientist, who asked how many babies died from Rh disease every year.

I said probably over 100,000, and she said, Well, thats not many. I couldnt believe what I heard. Thats not many.

He understands global health bodies are grappling with illnesses that kill by the million. He also knows he can be an unrelenting optimist  Thats me, Pollyanna! he will sometimes say.

But prevention is cheaper than treatment, he says. And Zipursky cant help returning to the central facts: Rh disease has a solution. We know how to stop it. Why wouldnt we try?

Its stupid for a woman in Canada to have no problems, while a woman in a developing country goes through hell, he says matter-of-factly. One baby is too many.

There is another secret to ending Rh disease: educate the women.

Olufunmilayo Banire, a 50-year-old Lagos businesswoman, knows that a woman who understands Rh disease will stop at nothing to save her baby.

When she was 10, a doctor told her she had a peculiar blood so she would have to marry an Rh-negative man. The warning stuck and later Banire demanded to know the blood type of every prospective love interest before agreeing to a date.

Eventually, she learned there was an injection available that would help her have healthy children with any man. (She wound up marrying an Rh-positive man.) She was still worried, however, and delivered her first baby in New York, even bringing doses of the anti-D injection from Nigeria.

But most Nigerian women cant afford the injection, let alone treatment abroad. This point was first driven home for Banire when her nanny confided she had been chased off by her husband and accused of witchcraft after losing several babies. Banire urged her to test her blood; it was Rh-negative.

'Its stupid for a woman in Canada to have no problems, while a woman in a developing country goes through hell' Dr. Alvin Zipursky Rh prevention pioneer

Then, while visiting a relative in hospital, Banire was approached by a desperate man, who said his wife had unfortunate blood and needed an injection. After helping the couple, Banire donated injections to the hospital to give to needy patients but realized the staff had other intentions. They wanted to sell them off, she says.

Banire decided to start a non-profit, Rhesus Solution Initiative (RSI), which would give the injection to women directly. With one employee and a shoestring annual budget of four million naira ($14,000 Canadian), RSI has become perhaps the closest thing Nigeria has to a public health system for Rh disease, providing more than 5,000 blood tests and donating nearly 1,500 doses to impoverished women since 2007.

Many women who come to RSI are already desperate after losing several babies and will travel for hours to reach the charitys two-room office at the Unique Shopping Mall in the city of Ikeja. Banire regularly finds herself not just counselling women, but explaining to husbands that their wives are not cursed or abnormal.

Some women have lost their homes, their marriages because of this, Banire says.

Modupe Odumade, an English teacher with a stern manner and husky voice, breaks down when she recalls how her husband abandoned her more than 15 years ago after she lost several babies. He had to leave, she recalls through tears, her mascara tracing a watery black line down her cheek. There was no child to show for it.

Her father, however, demonstrated the lengths some men will go once they learn about Rh disease. After seven years of going from doctor to doctor, she finally met one who explained the issue with her blood type. Her father wept at the revelation, demanding that her siblings get tested, too.

When Odumade remarried and became pregnant, her father was determined to see this baby survive. He procured blood, in case she needed a transfusion. He bought fuel for the hospitals generators, in case the power went out.

After her jaundiced baby was born and sent for treatment in a neighbouring state, Odumades father made the six-hour round trip every day, delivering pumped breast milk from mother to child.

The baby survived, and Odumade named him Daniel. Her father called him mercy boy.

He felt responsible, she says. He thought that as a father  he should have discovered my blood Rhesus factor.

Like many women who learn about Rh disease, Odumade has become an ardent advocate, convincing her principal to hold educational sessions for their schoolkids. Banire believes awareness is key and devotes resources to organizing marches, hosting school assemblies and printing flyers with messages in English and Nigerian pidgin: You sabi your Blood group? You wan be beta mama?

She has largely given up on the media in Nigeria, however, where journalists often charge for coverage. Its really discouraging, she says. Everything here is money, money, money.

But RSI has methodically built a small army of ambassadors, not just women affected by the disease but people like 54-year-old Rhoda Olumuyiwa in Lagos.

Olumuyiwa says she started delivering babies in 1984 after an old man came to her in a dream and showed her how. She is now among the hundreds of community and traditional birth attendants who have been trained by RSI.

Today, during the rainy season, women with swollen bellies will flip-flop along mud-slick paths and cross garbage-strewn canals to reach the Christ Apostolic Church, where Olumuyiwa delivers babies in a spare concrete room.

When a woman is at risk of Rh disease, Olumuyiwa will notify RSI as soon as the baby is born. Within hours, a white minivan emblazoned with the words Live Baby for Every Mother will pull up and RSI employee Razaq Olorunnimbe will climb out, an injection in his hand.

Any Rhesus negative women I have, Olumuyiwa says, I call him.

When Banire launched her non-profit, she had a dream that now seems naive. We actually thought from inception that the government would appreciate what we were doing and they would take it to the next level.

For 10 years, she waited for the needle to move. But this summer, she travelled to a meeting in Abuja and finally heard the words she has been waiting for.

The federal government, through the federal ministry of health, is determined to ensure the elimination of Rhesus disease in Nigeria, the governments director of family health announced, as refrigerator-sized air conditioners hummed in the corners.

This statement represents a sea change in the governments attitude towards Rh disease, say pediatricians who attended the meeting. It was also the culmination of two years of effort by CURhE and its Nigerian task force, a network of local doctors across the country.

The Abuja meeting ended with a plan: to conduct a nationwide pilot study to finally yield some hard data and test Zipurskys model for screening women with the Eldon card and preventing Rh disease. If successful, they want to scale up the program and screen 70 per cent of women within five years.

This goal is ambitious, perhaps overly so. The group is also hitting roadblocks; the task force hoped to have some preliminary data by now but some doctors are still waiting for ethics approvals to get started.

Money, as always, is a problem. Although the government expressed clear support, it made clear that the pilot must be funded by CURhE.

They must come with the money, says Dr. Bose Adeniran, federal director of child health. When we see the evidence, then the domestic resources will be factored in.

Outside Nigeria, other challenges lie ahead. Zipurskys study in Pakistan with Sick Kids was intended to launch this past spring but has been delayed by technical issues. In Ghana, efforts to launch a pilot stalled after the lead researcher died.

Zipursky and Bhutani also acknowledge the potential for conflicts of interest when it comes to alliances between industry and academia, increasingly common in global health endeavours.

A successful eradication effort will obviously open new markets for companies like Kedrion and CURhE. But Bhutani says the consortium has clear principles and any partner unwilling to adhere to them is no longer welcome at this table.

Representatives from CURhEs corporate partners say their primary concern is eradicating a neglected disease. This bothers me personally, says Eldons Kasper Hedegaard. I would like to see change ASAP.

Kedrion echoes the sentiment and says it is prepared to provide Rhogam at cost to lower-income countries, once they are ready to implement nationwide programs. The company aims to keep costs low by selling directly to governments, cutting out any middlemen lining their pockets.

But in Nigeria, this could be a recipe for disaster, says professor Jillian Kohler, director of the WHO collaborating centre for governance, transparency and accountability in the pharmaceutical sector at the University of Toronto.

The problem of corruption is endemic to Nigeria, particularly in the health sector, particularly when it comes to (drug) procurement, she says. Thats not to say that the government is not to be trusted always, but you have to be smart.

There is another lingering worry. Zipursky will turn 88 next year and eventually, he will no longer be able to continue this work.

But his co-founders will continue driving the effort and the first seeds have now been scattered, Bhutani says. At least one has taken root in Nigeria, where a newfound hope for eradicating Rh disease has begun to bloom.

Like all good teachers, (Zipursky) is a farmer, Bhutani says. He finds fertile soils and germinates the seeds. Some take, even when others dont.

On Amodu St., Florence Onwusoanyas living room is cheerfully painted in the pink and green shades of a cartoon watermelon. The main wall is decorated with wedding photos but in the middle, the most prominent spot, is a gold-framed portrait of a diapered baby, smiling and draped in orange beads.

In 2009, someone finally told Onwuasoanya about the injection for preventing Rh disease. She decided to get one after losing her ninth baby, though scientists say it doesnt help women who are already sensitized.

She did not fully understand Rh disease until the next year, however, when a woman from church introduced her to RSI. She was pregnant again but this time, she knew what to expect.

Her baby came early and did not cry. He also developed severe jaundice. But after 11 days in hospital, Onwuasoanya returned home with Franklin bundled in her arms.

Her neighbours were astonished, some even accusing her of buying the baby. But they clambered to catch a glimpse of the miracle child.

The first (thought) that came was, Me, Florence, holding a live baby,  she says.

Onwuasoanya has now become an Rh disease evangelist, telling anyone who will listen to get tested and take the injection if they are at risk.

She and her husband still have struggles, mostly financial; she spent so much money on her long search for answers. But her child is here now and he has made her whole.

If Franklin hadnt come, I dont think I will still be alive. I would have been long buried, because the pain then was too much, she says. Im happy now because we are happy together.

Correction  December 22, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said pregnancies after the first are at risk because the womans immune system has been sensitized to the Rh-negative blood cells after the first pregnancy. In fact, it is become the immune system has been sensitized to the Rh-positive blood cells.

This story was made possible through the Aga Khan Foundation of Canadas Fellowship for International Development Reporting.

Read more about:

SHARE:
LONDONA prominent British surgeon who etched his initials onto the livers of two patients, in a case that shocked many with its audacity, has been convicted of assault.

The surgeon, Simon Bramhall, who gained fame in 2010 after successfully transplanting a plane-crash victims liver into a patient, pleaded guilty in Birmingham, England, on Thursday to two counts of assault by beating.

The case divided opinion in Britain. Many have expressed outrage, while others  including some former patients  have defended him.

According to British news reports, Bramhall, 53, admitted to using an argon beam  an electrified gas jet that liver surgeons typically employ to stanch bleeding or to mark an area of operation on an organ  to etch SB, his initials, onto the livers.

Argon beam marks are usually not harmful and would normally disappear. But they were apparently discovered by a colleague when one of the patients underwent a followup operation.

Bramhall was subsequently suspended from his position as a consultant surgeon at Birminghams Queen Elizabeth hospital in 2013. He resigned a year later, and said his act had been a mistake.

Joyce Robins, who represented Patient Concern, a campaign group, was quoted by The Guardian as saying at the time: This is a patient we are talking about, not an autograph book.

At Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday, the lead prosecutor, Tony Badenoch, said that Bramhalls guilty pleas represent an acceptance that that which he did was not just ethically wrong but criminally wrong.

The surgeons actions, he said, were a highly unusual and complex case without precedent in criminal law.

It was an intentional application of unlawful force to a patient whilst anesthetized, he said. His acts in marking the livers of those patients were deliberate and conscious acts.

Prosecutors said they had accepted a plea submitted by Bramhall denying a more serious charge, assault causing actual bodily harm.

Earlier this year, the General Medical Council issued a formal warning to Bramhall, saying that while his actions were not serious enough to require any restriction on his registration, his conduct had not met the standards required of a doctor.

It risks bringing the profession into disrepute and it must not be repeated, the council said.

On Thursday, according to British news reports, Bramhall was released on unconditional bail, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for January. Assault can be punished with a fine, community service, or in the most serious cases a jail sentence of up to six months.

Bramhall could not be reached for comment this week.

Tracy Scriven, one of Bramhalls former patients, came to his defence.

Even if he did put his initials on a transplanted liver, is it really that bad? she told The Birmingham Mail in 2014, after Bramhall was suspended. I wouldnt have cared if he did it to me. The man saved my life.

SHARE:
BRUSSELSLeaders of 27 European Union nations gave British Prime Minister Theresa May an early Christmas present on Friday, declaring that Brexit talks can move on to their next phase: transition and future relations. But there is hard work and uncertainty ahead when negotiations resume in the new year.

Heres a look at whats next.

WHEN DO THE TALKS START AGAIN?

Talks on phase two are set to begin in January. The early priority is to establish a transition period, probably of about two years, to ease Britain out of the EU. But the EU also wants to hear more from London about how it sees their future relations  a subject on which the British government itself is divided. Once that becomes clearer, more negotiating guidelines will have to be endorsed, probably at a summit in March.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD?

After Britain officially exits the EU on March 29, 2019 it will lose its seat on the European Council, the body representing the 28 member states. It will have no more lawmakers in the European Parliament, and any judges it has on EU courts will be removed. At the same time, the EU is demanding that Britain respect all EU laws, and that Europes top court, the European Court of Justice, should remain the arbiter of any disputes. In essence, it means that Britain will have to obey the rules without having any say until 2021.

WHAT KIND OF TRADE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE EU DOES BRITAIN WANT?

Thats unclear. The British government says it doesnt want to adopt any existing model for trade: not the Norway model, which involves adhering closely to EU regulations in return for access to the single market; and not a more limited Canada-style free trade deal with the bloc. Brexit Secretary David Davis has suggested a Canada plus plus plus deal.

The British government itself is divided on how much economic autonomy it is willing to give up to secure close economic relations with the EU.

CAN BRITAIN FINALIZE A NEW TRADE DEAL WITH THE EU BEFORE BREXIT?

The short answer is no. It can negotiate with its EU partners, and establish the terms of its future trade relations, but no agreement can be concluded until it is completely out. By the same token, Britain cannot formalize trade agreements with other countries until it has left altogether. The EU is also wary of granting the U.K. any special trade concessions, because it has clauses in trade pacts with other countries that would force the bloc to update those deals to match.

WILL THE SECOND PHASE BE HARDER THAN THE FIRST?

Thats unclear. European Council President Donald Tusk has suggested this will be the case. It seems the most complex issue remains the border between EU member state Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. A separate stream of negotiations on this issue alone will continue throughout the second phase. At the moment, no one appears to know how Britain can leave the European single market and customs union, yet maintain free movement and trade across that border.

And time is tight. Everything has to be wrapped up next fall to leave time for parliaments to ratify any final Brexit deal before March 2019.

Read more:

Lawmakers hand Britains Theresa May humiliating loss with veto-power vote on Brexit deal

Ireland gets rare chance to hold power over Britain amid Brexit negotiations

U.K. government facing doubts over its level of preparedness for Brexit

Read more about:

SHARE:
WASHINGTONAs the spooling drama of Omarosa Manigault Newmans White House departure spun into its 36th hour, Washington began asking itself: Does it actually matter whether Omarosa quit or was fired?

Dumbest story ever, tweeted John Harwood, the CNBC reporter.

His message was liked more than 17,000 times, but still the saga of her dramatic exit Tuesday night from the Trump administration churned on through Thursday  a reality television show that just couldnt find its way to the closing credits.

Read more:

Omarosa says she saw things in the White House that made her uncomfortable

Former Apprentice contestant Omarosa leaving role in Trump White House

Journalist says Omarosa bullied her in White House

Omarosa continued trending on social media. The name crawled across cable news chyrons and resurfaced at the White House daily press briefing. It more than held its own in a pair of news cycles already plenty busy with the Alabama Senate race upset, the troubled tax reform plan and the massive Disney-Fox deal.

Omarosa. Omarosa. Omarosa.

All the players in the meta-soap opera surrounding the former reality TV stars departure from the relatively unconsequential job of director of communications at the White House Office of Public Liaison kept the story going. Anonymous White House officials shared details of her exit with political reporters. Manigault Newman gave an exclusive morning show interview. White House correspondents kept trying to get to the bottom of the story.

Why are the taxpayers continuing the pay her salary for another month if she resigned? CNNs Jeff Zeleny asked press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the White House press briefing.

The president likes Omarosa, Sanders said. She confirmed again that Manigault Newman had resigned but would be paid until Jan. 20 because theres a lot of different protocols that take place in the government.

Other White House sources were quoted in gossipy stories detailing how Manigault Newman had tripped the alarm while trying to barge into the White House residence to take up her case with President Trump before she was escorted out. The New York Post ran an illustration on its cover of Manigault Newman being dragged from the executive mansion.

Manigault Newman disputed those stories in her interview with ABCs Good Morning America, saying she left of her own volition but hinting that certain aspects of her 11-month stay made her unhappy.

When I have my story to tell as the only African-American woman in this White House; as a senior staff and assistant to the president, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people, Manigault said. And when I can tell my story, it is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear.

The political narrative on her time in the White House has already been written  and it doesnt reflect well on her. Story after story described her wandering the halls of the White House aimlessly or ineffectively representing Trump before the groups she was hired to cultivate. Her appearance during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists convention devolved into a screaming match, for instance.

She seemed cast in the same role in the White House that she had on The Apprentice, where she was the shows elegant and icy villain competing for Trumps favour against 15 other contestants. Im not here to make friends, she said then, and butted heads with almost everyone else on the show.

Manigault Newman has long disputed her depiction as an anti-hero.

What you see on the show is a gross misrepresentation of who I am, she told The Washington Post in 2004. This show is about ratings, she noted, and she was pitted against the other female contestants because it was dramatic.

Still, at different points during her White House tenure Manigault Newman has referred to herself as the Honourable Omarosa Manigault and Lady Omarosa Manigault Newman, which prompted cackles in Washington. And she seemed to make few friends during her time in the West Wing. On Thursday, she complained of White House Chief of Staff John Kellys militaristic style.

As the story of her exit her wore on, annoyance grew in many corners. The usually upbeat GMA co-host Robin Roberts looked exasperated to even have to discuss the matter. She said she has a story to tell and Im sure shell be selling ... Bye, Felicia, said Roberts, using a catchphrase from the movie Friday to summarily dismiss Manigault Newman.

Roland Martin, the host of a morning news show on TV One, arrived in the studio to tape his show Thursday morning and learned his producers had reserved a segment to assess her resignation. Martin cut it down to three minutes and began the conversation by saying three times: I dont give a damn.

Here we were the day after black women in particular were on the ground in Alabama helping to raise money and get out the vote to defeat Roy Moore [and] I simply was not going to debase myself by having a back and forth over what happened to Omarosa, Martin said later. I was choosing to bask in the glory of what black folks did in Alabama.

But Manigault Newmans friend Monique Pressley called the entire episode a shame. Pressley, who was a bridesmaid in Omarosas wedding and her friend of 20 years, sees racism and sexism in both the gawking fascination and backlash that has greeted the story.

We see the highest-ranking African American female in our current administration being disrespected, dehumanized and minimized  not just by people at large, but by first and foremost other African Americans, said Pressley, an attorney. I wonder if it were Kellyanne Conway [who resigned] ... if she would have gotten a Later Becky the way Omarosa received a Bye Felicia, or do we just reserve these guttural colloquialisms for people who look like us?

Missing in the conversation, said Pressley, is a larger concern about representation in the Trump administration.

Now, I look at a table of 30 senior staffer and there are no people of colour, she said. She was in the room, [but] now what? Shes someone who has served in the National Guard, has been a professor; shes someone who has multiple degrees, a member of the clergy. I just refuse to see her as some Celebrity Apprentice person ... I dont have a doubt that shell be fine.

Read more about:

SHARE:
Hitler was inspired by Islam, according to Pamela Geller. As if this alternative fact was not outrageous enough, the woman dubbed by hate researchers as the worlds top Islamophobe, also told The New York Times that when Muslims pray five times a day that theyre cursing Christians and Jews five times a day.

Mademoiselle anti-Muslim Hate has been invited by the Jewish Defence League of Canada (one of whose members was arrested for a hate inspired assault in Washington, D.C earlier this year) to affirm their views at the Canadian Christian College in Toronto. The event on Monday will also feature Canadas own hate prophet Rebel Commander Ezra Levant.

Geller was banned from the U.K. in 2013 and some groups are calling on Ottawa to do the same. Canada has in the past barred for hate, national security and public safety reasons. National security poses its own constitutional and political concerns, while public safety is a double-edged sword. If we censor to prevent opponents from using violence, then what message are we sending to those (both on the right and the left) who wish to shut down contrary views?

Her defenders are quick to use free speech, but some appear to be selective. In fact, a few years ago, her host the JDL, successfully called on Ottawa to ban British MP George Galloway. The open letter urged the government to do everything possible to keep this hater away.

While other supporters minimize the hate she fuels.

The key is to strike a balance that protects expression, but also safeguard communitarian values  such as preventing social unrest, promoting societal inclusiveness, and upholding anti-harassment and anti-discrimination.

Limitations to speech may be based on the harm principle or the offence principle.

The former was advocated by John Stuart Mill, who argued for the fullest liberty in expression but nonetheless acknowledged that it can be limited to prevent harm to others.

To many this did not go far enough. While accepting that the penalties for harming someone should be greater, Joel Feinberg, for instance, argued that certain types of offensive speech must also be restricted.

Given the subjectivity as to what may be considered offensive, they conceded that a number of factors must be considered in weighing offence, including: the extent, duration and social value of the speech, the ease with which it can be avoided, the motives of the speaker, the number of people offended, the intensity of the offence, and the general interest of the community at large.

Geller has a long track record of hate and is a darling of the alt-right with more than 1.2 million fans on Facebook, many of whom are at her beck and call to harass and intimidate especially on social media.

Freedom of expression is alive and well in Canada, but there is no carte blanche. We have libel laws and censorship of various forms in keeping with community standards. Moreover, criminal and human rights legislation also restricts speech in the interest of protecting minorities and maintaining harmony.

Section 319 of the Criminal Code proscribes statements that incite or promote hate. Convictions have been fewand far between because of the requirement of specific intent and consent of the Attorney General, but it has withstood constitutional challenges.

Subsection 319(1) makes it an offence to incite hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.

The second and more relevant offence is set out in subsection 319(2) which makes it an offence to communicate statements, other than in private conversation, that wilfully promotes hatred against an identifiable group  The Supreme Court of Canada held in R. v. Keegstra that wilful blindness (knew or strongly suspected) as to the consequences of the statements is sufficient.

Geller has made a profession out of vilifying and demonizing Muslims. She believes a Muslim dangerous per se. In fact, after a broad swath of Muslims protested her Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in 2015, she told the press that this was your everyday, run of the mill moderates praising mind-numbing savagery.

She has defended the 2011 actions of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people, some as young as 14, as targeting future leaders who were allowing Muslim rapists into the country. Not surprisingly, the alt-right terrorist praised her in his Manifesto.

Geller is not the champion of free speech. Her hate has moved from the realm of expressive activity to promoting harm, harassment, and possibly even violence. She is actually sacrificing many other values and principles we cherish at the altar of free speech.

Faisal Kutty is counsel to KSM Law, an associate professor at Valparaiso University Law School in Indiana and an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. @faisalkutty.

SHARE:
A Dec. 8 article about Samara Canada's Everyday Political Citizen said Calgary resident Nabaa Alam was behind a project that received $10 million in funding from the Alberta government that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 112,000 tonnes by 2020. In fact, he helped work on a project sponsored by SBI BioEnergy that used a conversion process developed by Dr. Inder Pal Singh that turns canola into renewable sources of energy.

SHARE:
Donald Trump may be flailing politically. But Thursday brought a reminder that even as the presidents stumbles dominate the daily headlines his administration is pulling the United States sharply to the right.

The latest example is the decision by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to give broadband companies much greater power to control what Americans see and hear online.

The Republican majority on the FCC voted to scrap Obama-era rules that enshrine the principle of net neutrality  the idea that the big broadband companies must treat websites equally. They shouldnt be allowed to block some sites, charge more to let consumers access some sites faster than others, or discriminate against some content.

In other words, there should be equal access to the internet and all the information that flows through it.

Ending that principle is a terrible idea. It opens the door to all sorts of abuse by the handful of giant companies that dominate the market for broadband services. One of the two Democrats on the FCC warns that Republicans are handing the keys to the internet to a handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.

In principle, those providers could favour their own content over others. Or they could rig the system so that web companies that pay them a fee can deliver content faster to consumers, giving them a crucial edge over competitors who wont pay up.

They could even choke off free speech for political reasons. Thats what already happens in countries like China, where the government makes sure citizens can easily access approved sites while making it painfully slow or even impossible to get information from sites deemed unreliable or hostile.

Canada, fortunately, is a strong supporter of net neutrality, regarded as a world leader in upholding the principle that the internet should be an open, free-flowing network.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated that principle as the FCC moved toward its decision. I am very concerned about the attacks on net neutrality, he said last month. Its essential to keep the freedom associated with the internet alive.

But Canadians should not be complacent that the American decision will leave us untouched, even with a government so firmly committed to maintaining a level playing field on the internet.

For one thing, Canadians rely heavily on all sorts of digital content from U.S.-based sites  from social media to streaming services to news providers. If access to content in the United States is manipulated, its bound to affect us.

And if U.S. providers really do take advantage of the new rules to favour some content over others (for a fee, naturally), it would be quite predictable for Canadian companies to seek similar treatment in this country in the name of harmonization. Pressure on Ottawa to bend the rules could well increase down the road.

Theres no reason to believe things will change overnight. The FCCs move has been sharply contested, and the big U.S. broadband companies like Comcast and Verizon know they will be under intense scrutiny not to abuse the new powers they are being handed. Consumers and internet advocates will be on guard.

But many billions of dollars are at stake. And over time it may prove irresistible for the providers to take advantage of the rules and bend the internet more and more to their commercial needs. It may start small, but as consumers get used to differentiated services the trend could pick up. Smaller companies and start-ups that cant pay the freight may be squeezed out.

Thats why citizens should not have to rely on the goodwill, or even the common sense, of giant companies to guarantee an open, neutral internet. The FCCs decision should be challenged and rolled back.

And even in Canada, where the government stands firm in favour of net neutrality, the principle should not depend on political whim. It should be enshrined in law and made more difficult for future governments to change.

SHARE:
Ottawa restarts fighter jet purchase, Dec. 13

A little perspective on the F18 Super Hornet: the fighter doesnt carry enough fuel to fly from St. Johns to Vancouver. Canada is big.

At $500 million for the proposed Australian deal, five times Ontarios hospital deficit and ten times the cost of moving assisted living out of hospitals and into homes, the cost is unconscionable.

Canada is a peacekeeping nation. Peacekeeping requires helicopters, not death-dealing Hornets. We do not now, and never will, need jet fighter interceptor/bomber aircraft. The F18 is designed to kill, inflict harm and avoid being struck by the enemy. We have no use for them. Search and rescue requires helicopters.

Our armed forces should be trained in defensive, covert action within our borders. Canada should be hostile toward invaders. It works for Switzerland. The F18 drains us dry.

Hugh McKechnie, Newmarket

Did we not learn our lesson buying aged, used submarines from England? Are our politicians so stupid they would now repeat themselves and buy used jets from Australia? If a private citizen makes a mistake and buys a pig in a poke, he alone pays the price. If a politician buys a pig in a poke, every taxpaying Canadian pays the price.

Gord Lefort, Abbotsford, B.C.

Why not build our own fighter aircraft, with an eye to cost reduction and technical efficiency without too many bells and whistles. We have both the know-how and the investment capacity and we can do it cheaper. But we need to get on with it. As the world grows more dangerous, we need to develop our independent defence system now, with the sheer vastness of our country in mind.

Rose DeShaw, Kingston, Ont.

SHARE:
Canadian medias coverage has erased Palestinian suffering, Kanji, Dec. 14

Sadly, Azeezah Kanjis hostility to Israel has blinded her from understanding that peace among people can only be achieved through mutual recognition and a quest for co-existance.

In her column, nowhere does she acknowledge the historical connection between Jerusalem and the Jewish people. Jewish connection to the Holy city predates Islam by more than 2,000 years, while Jewish presence in Jerusalem is more than 3,000 years old.

Unfortunately, thinkers like Kanji and leaders like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are failing to bring about peace and change to the mindset of their people  by continuing to disregard Jewish history and promote false narratives and biased resolutions and studies to serve their agenda. Its called denial.

The rightful place for the capital of the Jewish people naturally is Jerusalem  where else would it be? Judging by this past weekends demonstration in Toronto, Khanjis column could have been better used to dispel hateful anti-Semitic myths, bring truth to the foreground and focus on how to bring the parties together for the benefit of humanity.

Avi Benlolo, President & CEO, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, Toronto

This column demonstrates that Azeezah Kanji is a good warrior. She talks of injustice done by one group, Israel, while the other side, Palestinian, remains unblemished. Is there an irony in the very publishing of this essay: Kanji is claiming that media coverage of Palestinian suffering is practically non-existent while her article is featured opposite the editorial page of the Toronto Star. Kanji must hold a mirror to herself, evaluating both sides of the question, to provide a worthwhile perspective.

Joan Yolleck, Toronto

SHARE:
The two most enigmatic people in Andrew Scheers new TV ad are the couple at the end of the 30-second spot, who breeze right past the Conservative leader without saying hello.

Now we know where that couple may have been headed  back home, to their laptops, to do a Google search; something along the lines of who is Andrew Scheer?

According to figures released by Google Trends this week, Scheer was the Canadian politician who prompted the biggest surge in online-search curiosity in this country in 2017. Jagmeet Singh, the new leader of the New Democratic Party, also made the top 10 list of Google searches in the past year.

It seems that being new or American was the way to get on the Canadian political figures list. U.S. President Donald Trump was at the number one spot, but Canadians were also curious about Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Senator John McCain and failed Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore. The new French president, Emmanuel Macron, was at number five on Googles most-searched list.

Canadians also showed considerable interest in women on the way up or on the way out of prominence: new Governor General Julie Payette was at the number seven spot, new Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante was at number nine and former B.C. premier Christy Clark was number 10.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not make the top-10 list at all. Then again, this list is a measure of curiosity and whats unfamiliar to online searchers. After two years in office, Trudeau is a more of a known commodity. People obviously dont feel the need to run to Google to learn more about him  hes everywhere.

In fact, if that couple in the Scheer ad had run across Trudeau, they likely would have had him pose for a picture with them. Reportedly, the lineup for photos with the prime minister was massive at the annual Liberal Christmas party in Ottawa this week; still snaking around the room as some partygoers were heading home.

Traditionally, popularity like this can be perilous. Canadians have a habit of turning on political figures when theyre in their face all the time. Long ago, former prime minister Jean Chretien even counselled Bill Clinton to adopt a lower profile as U.S. president  telling him that the best way to extend political popularity is to stay out of the headlines. There was a lot of truth in that advice.

Trudeau would not likely offer the same counsel, however. He didnt make the top 10 list of Google searches in 2017, simply because the list was based on short-term spikes in interest. Overall, in the long haul of the past year, Trudeau still enjoys steady, enduring interest in the world of Google searches.

In fact, if you put the names of Trudeau, Scheer and Singh into the search box at the Google Trends site, Trudeaus chart lines hover well above his counterparts in rival parties.

The prime ministers big moment in 2017, according to that chart, came in February, coinciding with his trip to meet Trump. Related search terms with Trudeau in this context included handshake and Ivanka Trump. Clearly, Google searches are linked to vivid images  the two most memorable photo opportunities of that Trudeau trip happened when he shook Trumps hand and when he sat next to the presidents daughter at a meeting with Canadian and American businesswomen.

Trudeau has a way of turning images into online popularity.

This also isnt new. In fact, if you looked at the same Google Trends charts back in 2013, you got a sneak preview of how the 2015 election would unfold. Trudeaus own people showed me the trends graph while he was still running for leader in early 2013, to explain why they were so sure he would end up as prime minister. If you had put the names of Trudeau, Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair into the search box, it showed massive Google-search curiosity for Trudeau  not so much for the other two guys.

So Scheer and Singh might take some heart from the Google Trends list released this week. They may not be household names in Canada yet and they certainly arent celebrities on the cocktail circuit  that same circuit the Conservative leader ridicules in his home-in-the-suburbs TV ad.

But the new party leaders did at least garner some curiosity this year  and gaining political fame is a long-term project, as Singh told reporters in Ottawa this week. Its not going to be something thats going to happen overnight and thats OK, the new NDP leader said.

Who knows? Maybe next year, that couple in the Scheer had will know him well enough to say hello.

sdelacourt@bell.net

Read more about:

SHARE:
The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., MMC 28 State Street Holdings Inc., MMC Borrower LLC, MMC Brazilian Holdings B.V., MMC Capital Inc., MMC Cascade Regional Holdings LLC, MMC FINANCE (EUROPE) LIMITED, MMC FINANCE HOLDINGS LTD, MMC Finance (Australia) Limited, MMC Finance (Singapore) Limited, MMC France Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., MMC GP III Inc., MMC Group Services sp. z o.o., MMC Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, MMC Holdings (New Zealand) ULC, MMC Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC International Finance (Barbados) SRL, MMC International Holdings LLC, MMC International Limited, MMC International Treasury Centre Limited, MMC Middle East Holdings Limited, MMC Poland Holdings B.V., MMC Realty Inc., MMC Regional Asia Holdings B.V., MMC Regional Caribbean Holdings Ltd., MMC Regional Europe Holdings B.V., MMC Regional LATAM Holdings B.V., MMC Securities (Europe) Limited, MMC Securities LLC, MMC Treasury Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC UK Group Limited, MMC UK Pension Fund Trustee Limited, MMOW Limited, MMRC LLC, MOW Holding LLC, MPIP III GP LLC, MPIP IV GP LLC, MPIP V GP LLC, MPIP VI GP LLC, Mangrove Insurance Europe PCC Limited, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC Limited, Manoel Management Services Ltd, Marchant McKechnie Insurance Brokers Limited, Marine Aviation & General (London) Limited, Marsh & McLennan (PNG) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agencies AS, Marsh & McLennan Agencies Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency A/S, Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, Marsh & McLennan Agency Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency Pty Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Argentina SA Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh & McLennan Colombia S.A., Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Funding Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Asia Pacific Treasury Center Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies BVBA/SPRL, Marsh & McLennan Companies Finance Center (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies France S.A.S., Marsh & McLennan Companies Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies Regional Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Services B.V., Marsh & McLennan Companies UK Limited, Marsh & McLennan Europe S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan GP I Inc., Marsh & McLennan Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Holding GmbH, Marsh & McLennan Holdings (Canada) ULC, Marsh & McLennan Holdings Inc., Marsh & McLennan Incorporated (for dissolution), Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings II, Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Limited, Marsh & McLennan Insurance Services Limited, Marsh & McLennan Ireland Limited, Marsh & McLennan Management Services (Bermuda) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Risk Capital Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Servicios S.A. De C.V., Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Canada Limited, Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Corporation, Marsh (Bahrain) Company SPC, Marsh (Beijing) Risk Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Marsh (China) Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh (Insurance Brokers) LLP, Marsh (Insurance Services) Limited, Marsh (Malawi) Limited, Marsh (Middle East) Limited, Marsh (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh (Pty) Ltd, Marsh (Risk Consulting) LLP, Marsh (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Marsh A/S, Marsh AB, Marsh AG, Marsh AS, Marsh Advantage Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd, Marsh Advantage Insurance Pty Ltd., Marsh Africa (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Argentina S.R.L., Marsh Associates (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Austria G.m.b.H., Marsh Aviation Insurance Broking Pty Ltd (for dissolution), Marsh B.V., Marsh Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh Brockman y Schuh Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Marsh Broker Japan Inc., Marsh Broker de Asigurare-Reasigurare S.R.L., Marsh Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh Brokers Limited, Marsh Canada Limited/Marsh Canada Limitee, Marsh Company Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Compensation Technologies Administration (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Isle of Man Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Malta Limited, Marsh Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Marsh EOOD, Marsh Egypt LLC, Marsh Emirates Consultancy LLC, Marsh Emirates Insurance Brokerage LLC, Marsh Employee Benefits Limited, Marsh Employee Benefits Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Marsh Eurofinance B.V., Marsh Europe S.A., Marsh FJC International Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh For Insurance Services S.A.E., Marsh Franco Acra S.A., Marsh GSC Servicos e Administracao de Seguros Ltda., Marsh GmbH, Marsh Holding AB, Marsh Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Marsh Insurance & Investments LLC, Marsh Insurance Brokers, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Macao) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers AO, Marsh Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh Insurance Consulting Saudi Arabia (in liquidation), Marsh Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers LLC, Marsh Intermediaries Inc., Marsh International Broking Holdings Limited, Marsh International Holdings II Inc., Marsh International Holdings Inc., Marsh Investment B.V., Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited, Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited (UK Branch), Marsh Ireland Holdings Limited, Marsh Israel (1999) Ltd., Marsh Israel (Holdings) Ltd., Marsh Israel Consultants Ltd., Marsh Israel Insurance Agency Ltd., Marsh Israel International Brokers Ltd. (in liquidation), Marsh JCS Inc., Marsh Japan Inc., Marsh Kft., Marsh Kindlustusmaakler AS, Marsh Korea Inc., Marsh LLC, Marsh LLC Insurance Brokers, Marsh LLC [Ukraine], Marsh Lda., Marsh Limited, Marsh Limited [Fiji], Marsh Limited [New Zealand], Marsh Limited [PNG], Marsh Ltd. [Wisconsin], Marsh Management Services (Bahamas) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Dublin) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Labuan) Limited, Marsh Management Services (MENA) Limited, Marsh Management Services (USVI) Ltd., Marsh Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, Marsh Management Services Inc., Marsh Management Services Isle of Man Limited, Marsh Management Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Marsh Management Services Malta Limited, Marsh Management Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Marsh Management Services Sweden AB, Marsh Marine & Energy AB, Marsh Marine Nederland B.V., Marsh Medical Consulting GmbH, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Nest Inc., Marsh Oman LLC, Marsh Oy, Marsh PB Co. Ltd., Marsh Philippines Inc., Marsh Privat A.I.E., Marsh Private Client Life Insurance Services, Marsh Pty. Ltd., Marsh Qatar LLC, Marsh RE S.A.C. Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh Rehder Consultoria S.A. (MRC), Marsh Rehder S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Marsh Resolutions Pty Limited, Marsh Risk Consulting B.V., Marsh Risk Consulting Limitada, Marsh Risk Consulting Ltda., Marsh Risk Consulting S.L., Marsh Risk Consulting Services S.r.L., Marsh Risk and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, Marsh S.A. Corredores De Seguros, Marsh S.A. Mediadores de Seguros, Marsh S.A.S., Marsh S.p.A., Marsh SA [Argentina], Marsh SA [Belgium], Marsh SA [Luxembourg], Marsh SA [Uruguay], Marsh SIA, Marsh Saldana Inc., Marsh Saudi Arabia Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Marsh Secretarial Services Limited, Marsh Semusa S.A., Marsh Services Limited, Marsh Services Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Marsh Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Szolgaltato Kft., Marsh Takaful Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Treasury Services (Dublin) Limited (in liquidation), Marsh Treasury Services Limited, Marsh Tunisia S.a.r.l., Marsh UK Limited, Marsh USA (India) Inc., Marsh USA Borrower LLC, Marsh USA Inc., Marsh Uganda Limited, Marsh Venezuela C.A. Sociedad de Corretaje de Seguros, Marsh Vietnam Insurance Broking Company Ltd, Marsh Zambia Limited, Marsh Zimbabwe Holdings (Private) Limited, Marsh d.o.o. Beograd, Marsh d.o.o. za posredovanje u osiguranju, Marsh for Insurance Services - Jordan, Marsh i-Connect (Pty) Ltd, Marsh s.r.o., Matthiessen Assurans AB, Mercer (Argentina) S.A., Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer (Austria) GmbH, Mercer (Belgium) SA-NV, Mercer (Canada) Limited/Mercer (Canada) Limitee, Mercer (China) Limited, Mercer (Colombia) Ltda., Mercer (Danmark) A/S, Mercer (Finland) OY, Mercer (France) SAS, Mercer (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Mercer (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Mercer (N.Z.) Limited, Mercer (Nederland) B.V., Mercer (Norge) AS, Mercer (Polska) Sp.z o.o., Mercer (Portugal) Lda, Mercer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer (Sweden) AB, Mercer (Taiwan) Ltd., Mercer (Thailand) Ltd., Mercer (US) Inc., Mercer Administration Services (Australia) Pty Limited, Mercer Africa Limited, Mercer Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Mercer Asesores de Seguros S.A., Mercer Asesores es Inversion Independientes S.A. de C.V., Mercer Broking Ltd., Mercer Career Unipessoal Lda, Mercer Consultation (Quebec) Ltee., Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Mercer Consulting (France) SAS, Mercer Consulting (India) Private Limited, Mercer Consulting B.V., Mercer Consulting Group Inc., Mercer Consulting Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Mercer Consulting Limited, Mercer Consulting Middle East Limited, Mercer Consulting S.L.U., Mercer Consulting Venezuela C.A., Mercer Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Mercer Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercer Danismanlik Anonim Sirketi, Mercer Deutschland GmbH, Mercer Employee Benefits - Medicacao de Seguros Unipessoal Lda., Mercer Employee Benefits Limited, Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Financial Services Limited, Mercer Financial Services Limited liability company, Mercer Financial Services Middle East Limited, Mercer Global Investments Europe Limited, Mercer Global Investments Management Limited, Mercer HR Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer HR Services LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, Mercer Holdings Inc., Mercer Holdings Inc. [Philippines], Mercer Human Resource Consulting Ltda, Mercer Human Resource Consulting S.A. de C.V., Mercer ICC Limited, Mercer Investment Consulting Limited, Mercer Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mercer Investment Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited, Mercer Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer Investments (Japan) Ltd, Mercer Investments (New Zealand) Limited, Mercer Investments LLC, Mercer Ireland Holdings Limited, Mercer Italia Srl Socio Unico, Mercer Japan Ltd., Mercer Korea Co. Ltd., Mercer LLC, Mercer Limited, Mercer MC Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer Master Trustees Limited, Mercer Mauritius Ltd., Mercer Oliver Wyman Holding B.V., Mercer Outsourcing (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Outsourcing S.L.U., Mercer Pensionsfonds AG, Mercer Pensionsraadgivning A/S, Mercer Philippines Inc., Mercer Private Investment Partners IV General Partner S.a.r.l., Mercer Private Markets AG, Mercer Private Markets Advisers (US) AG, Mercer Services Poland Sp. z.o.o., Mercer Sigorta Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Mercer South Africa (Pty) Limited, Mercer Superannuation (Australia) Limited, Mercer Switzerland Inc., Mercer System Services LLC, Mercer Technology Acquisitions Limited, Mercer Treuhand GmbH, Mercer Trust Company LLC, Mercer Trustees Limited, Mercer WorkforcePro LLC, Mercury Insurance Services Pty Ltd, Moola Systems Limited, Mountlodge Limited, Muir Beddal (Zimbabwe) Limited, NERA Australia Pty. Ltd., NERA Economic Consulting GmbH, NERA Economic Consulting Limited, NERA S.R.L., NERA SAS, NERA UK Limited, NERA do Brasil Ltda. (for dissolution), National Economic Research Associates Inc., NetComp Insurance Corp., Neuburger Noble Lowndes GmbH, Normandy Reinsurance Company Limited, Northern Alliance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), OWL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co.KG, OWL Marine Verwaltungs GmbH, Oliver Wyman (Bermuda) Limited, Oliver Wyman (Hong Kong) Limited, Oliver Wyman AB, Oliver Wyman AG, Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting Inc., Oliver Wyman B.V., Oliver Wyman Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Oliver Wyman Consultoria em Estrategia de Negocios Ltda., Oliver Wyman Energy Consulting Limited, Oliver Wyman FZ-LLC, Oliver Wyman Group KK, Oliver Wyman Inc., Oliver Wyman LLC, Oliver Wyman Limited, Oliver Wyman Limited Liability Company, Oliver Wyman Limited/Oliver Wyman limitee, Oliver Wyman Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pte. Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pty. Ltd., Oliver Wyman S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman S.A.S., Oliver Wyman S.L., Oliver Wyman S.r.l., Oliver Wyman SNC, Oliver Wyman SPRL/BVBA, Oliver Wyman Sdn. Bhd., Oliver Wyman Services Limited, Oliver Wyman Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman sp. z o.o., Omega Indemnity (Bermuda) Limited, Organizacion Brockman y Schuh S.A. de C.V., Osbornes Insurances Oxford Limited (in liquidation), PFT Limited, PI Indemnity Company Designated Activity Company, PT JLT Reinsurance Brokers, PT Jardine Lloyd Thompson, PT Marsh Indonesia, PT Marsh Reinsurance Brokers Indonesia, PT Mercer Indonesia, PT Nexus Asia Pacific, PT Oliver Wyman Indonesia, PT Quantum Computing Services, PT Quantum Investments, PT Quantum Support Services, Pallas Marsh Servicos Ltda., Pavilion Alternatives Group (Singapore) PTE. Ltd, Pavilion Financial Corporation Holdings UK Limited, Pavilion U.S. Investments Holdco LLC, Pension Trustees Limited, Pensionsservice Benefit Network Sverige AB, Perils AG, Personal Pension Trustees Limited, Pet Animal Welfare Scheme Limited, Portsoken Trustees (No. 2) Limited, Portsoken Trustees Limited, Potomac Insurance Managers Inc., Premier Pension Trustees Limited, Premium Services Australia Pty Limited, Professional Claims Handling Limited (in liquidation), Profund Solutions Limited, Promerit AG, Promerit Hungary Kft, Promerit Schweiz AG, Pymetrics Inc., R G Ford Brokers Limited, R R B Beratungsgesellschaft fuer Altersversorgung mbh, R. Mees & Zoonen Holdings B.V., Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters LLC, Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters Limited, Resource Benefit Associates, Rightpath Reinsurance SPC Ltd., Risk Management Australia Pty Limited, Rivers Group Limited, Rockefeller Risk Advisors Inc., Rutherfoord International Inc., SAFCAR-Marsh, SBJ Holdings Limited, SCIB (Bermuda) Limited, SCM Global Real Estate Select GP LLC, SCM Infrastructure General Partner S.a r.l., SCM International Private Equity Select III GP LLC, SCM LT General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE II GP Ltd., SCM PE II Scotland GP Ltd, SCM Strategic Capital Management (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., SICAR Marsh S.a.r.l., SME Insurance Services Limited, Sail Insurance Company Limited, Scalene Re Ltd, Seabury & Smith Borrower LLC, Seabury & Smith LLC, Secure Limited, Sedgwick (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Consulting Group Limited, Sedgwick Dineen Group Limited, Sedgwick Financial Services Limited, Sedgwick Forbes Middle East Limited, Sedgwick Group, Sedgwick Group (Australia) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Group (Bermuda) Limited, Sedgwick Group (Zimbabwe) Limited, Sedgwick Group Limited, Sedgwick Internationaal B.V., Sedgwick Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Singapore) Pte Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes (UK) Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Group Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Limited, Sedgwick Overseas Investments Limited, Sedgwick Private Limited, Sedgwick Re Asia Pacific (Consultants) Pte Ltd (for dissolution), Sedgwick Trustees Limited, Sedgwick UK Risk Services Limited, Sedgwick Ulster Pension Trustees Limited, Settlement Trustees Limited, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Company Ltd., Shorewest Insurance Associates LLC, Sirota Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Sirota Consulting UK Limited, Smith Long Term Disability Management Group Inc., Societe d'Assurances et de Participation Guian SA, Software Underwriting Systems Limited (in liquidation), Southern Marine & Aviation Inc., Southern Marine & Aviation Underwriters Inc., Sudzucker Versicherungs-Vermittlungs GmbH, Sumitomo Life Insurance Agency America Inc., Sylvite Financial Services, TBX Solutions Limited, Talent Tech Labs LLC, The Benefit Express Holdings Limited, The Benefit Express Limited, The Carpenter Management Corporation, The Insurance Partnership Holdings Limited, The Insurance Partnership Services Limited, The Positive Ageing Company Limited, The Purple Partnership Limited, The Recovre Group Pty Ltd, Thomsons Online Benefits (HK) Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits Inc., Thomsons Online Benefits Limited, Thomsons Online Benefits Pte Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits S.R.L, Torrent Government Contracting Services LLC, Torrent Insurance Services LLC, Torrent Technologies, Torrent Technologies Inc., Tower Hill Limited, Tower Place Developments (West) Limited, Tower Place Developments Limited, U.T.E. AMG, U.T.E. Marsh - Caja Castilla La Mancha Junta de Comunidades, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus (in liquidation), U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus 2012, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Vila-Seca 2010, UAD BB Marsh Lietuva, Vezina & Associes Inc., Vezina Assurances Inc., Victor Insurance Europe B.V., Victor Insurance Holdings Inc., Victor Insurance Italia S.r.l., Victor Insurance Managers Inc., Victor Insurance Managers Inc./Gestionnaires d'assurance Victor inc., Victor O. Schinnerer & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Limited, Victoria Hall Company Limited, Wellnz Limited, William M. Mercer (Canada) Limited/William M. Mercer (Canada) Limitee, William M. Mercer AB, William M. Mercer Comercio Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., Wortham Insurance & Risk Management, everBe SAS, and realright GmbH.

Read More
AutoZone, Inc. retails and distributes automotive replacement parts and accessories. The company offers various products for cars, sport utility vehicles, vans, and light trucks, including new and remanufactured automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products. Its products include A/C compressors, batteries and accessories, bearings, belts and hoses, calipers, chassis, clutches, CV axles, engines, fuel pumps, fuses, ignition and lighting products, mufflers, radiators, starters and alternators, thermostats, and water pumps, as well as tire repairs. In addition, the company offers maintenance products, such as antifreeze and windshield washer fluids; brake drums, rotors, shoes, and pads; brake and power steering fluids, and oil and fuel additives; oil and transmission fluids; oil, cabin, air, fuel, and transmission filters; oxygen sensors; paints and accessories; refrigerants and accessories; shock absorbers and struts; spark plugs and wires; and windshield wipers. Further, it provides air fresheners, cell phone accessories, drinks and snacks, floor mats and seat covers, interior and exterior accessories, mirrors, performance products, protectants and cleaners, sealants and adhesives, steering wheel covers, stereos and radios, tools, and wash and wax products, as well as towing services. Additionally, the company provides a sales program that offers commercial credit and delivery of parts and other products; sells automotive diagnostic and repair software under the ALLDATA brand through alldata.com; and automotive hard parts, maintenance items, accessories, and non-automotive products through autozone.com. As of August 27, 2022, it operated 6,168 stores in the United States; 703 stores in Mexico; and 72 stores in Brazil. The company was founded in 1979 and is based in Memphis, Tennessee.
American Water Works Company, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides water and wastewater services in the United States. It offers water and wastewater services to approximately 1,700 communities in 14 states serving approximately 3.4 million active customers. The company serves residential customers; commercial customers, including food and beverage providers, commercial property developers and proprietors, and energy suppliers; fire service and private fire customers; industrial customers, such as large-scale manufacturers, mining, and production operations; public authorities comprising government buildings and other public sector facilities, such as schools and universities; and other utilities and community water and wastewater systems. It also provides water and wastewater services on various military installations; and undertakes contracts with municipal customers, primarily to operate and manage water and wastewater facilities, as well as offers other related services. In addition, the company operates approximately 80 surface water treatment plants; 480 groundwater treatment plants; 160 wastewater treatment plants; 52,500 miles of transmission, distribution, and collection mains and pipes; 1,100 groundwater wells; 1,700 water and wastewater pumping stations; 1,300 treated water storage facilities; and 76 dams. It serves approximately 14 million people with drinking water, wastewater, and other related services in 24 states. American Water Works Company, Inc. was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a life sciences company, focuses on the provision of preparedness and response solutions that address accidental, deliberate, and naturally occurring public health threats (PHTs) in the United States. The company's products address PHTs, which include chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives; emerging infectious diseases; travel health; and emerging health crises and acute/emergency care. It offers BioThrax, an anthrax vaccine; ACAM2000, a smallpox vaccine; Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent to treat botulinum disease; vaccinia immune globulin intravenous that addresses complications from smallpox vaccine; raxibacumab for the treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax; Anthrasil to for inhalational anthrax; reactive skin decontamination lotion kits; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate; and Trobigard, a combination drug-device auto injector product candidate. The company also provides NARCAN, a nasal spray for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose; Vivotif, an oral vaccine for typhoid fever; and Vaxchora, a single-dose oral vaccine to treat cholera. In addition, it is developing AP003, a Naloxone multidose nasal spray; AP007, a sustained release Nalmefene injection for treatment of opioid use disorder; AV7909, an anthrax vaccine; CGRD-001, a pralidoxime chloride/atropine auto-injector; CHIKV VLP, a chikungunya virus VLP vaccine; COVID-HIG for the treatment of SARS-CoV2; EGRD-001, a diazepam auto-injector; SIAN, an antidote for the initial treatment of acute poisoning of cyanide; and UniFlu, a universal influenza vaccine. Further, the company provides contract development and manufacturing services comprising drug substance and product manufacturing, and packaging, as well as technology transfer, process, and analytical development services. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
How many steps will it take to walk off Thanksgiving dinner?

Study: You'd need to walk nearly 80,000 steps to walk off the calories associated with the 10 most popular Thanksgiving Day dishes.
The Ministerial Group for the Encouragement and Participation of the Private Sector in the Economic Development Projects of Qatar has revealed a number of investments worth more than QR4 billion ($1.085 billion) in different fields, said a report.



The accouncement was made in accordance with the directives of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani for achieving self-sufficiency and reliance. The Prime Minister and Interior Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani revealed the plans, added the Gulf Times report.



The group said in a statement yesterday that the new investments are part of the governments efforts to enhance the private sectors role in the countrys economic development.



The projects will mainly be in the health, education, logistical support, agricultural produce, industry, and environmental fields.



In the education sector, the group chose a group of investors to establish seven schools.



The group already allocated the land and provided it with the necessary infrastructure.



A total of 116 investors competed over winning those lands, added the report.
Al Jenaibi International Automobiles, the exclusive importer for BMW, MINI and authorized dealership for Rolls-Royce in Oman, has unveiled the new Rolls-Royce Phantom in the Sultanate.



The New Phantom features a spectacular bespoke advancement with The Gallery. An unprecedented new concept in luxury, The Gallery reinterprets the motor cars dashboard for the first time in 100 years. Owners will be able to commission a truly individual work of art that spans the width of The Gallery and sits behind a single pane of glass in their New Phantom.



Phantom is the epitome of effortless style, a historical nameplate that occupies its very individual space in the luxury constellation, said Ayman Ghanem, general manager of Sales for Middle East and Africa.



Every one of our customers  each a connoisseur of true luxury  was asking for something even more individual to them, and we are proud to present New Phantom as a modern yet timeless masterpiece which allows to make your motor car truly as unique as your fingerprint, Ghanem added.



New Phantom offers a wholly new, contemporary design interpretation of Rolls-Royce Phantom DNA. The all-new aluminium Architecture of Luxury underpinning the New Phantom is lighter, stiffer, quieter and more technologically advanced. The many years of engineering ensures the architectural and proportional lineage of Rolls-Royce while delivering a whole new level of Magic Carpet Ride.



An all-new 6.75 litre twin-turbo V12 engine is the heart of New Phantom, providing a perfectly tuned level of power and performance. Engineers have also discreetly applied Satellite Aided Transmission, rear-wheel steering and a myriad of behind the scenes technology to provide an effortless experience. The New Phantom is the most technologically advanced Rolls-Royce ever, a statement said.



From the moment Sir Henry Royce introduced the Rolls-Royce Phantom in 1925 it was judged The Best Car in the World by the cognoscenti. As a result it has conveyed some of the worlds most influential and powerful men and women to the most defining historical moments over the last 92 years.



Vinay Piparsania, CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Al Jenaibi, said: With this new car a new benchmark has now been set. The eighth generation of its nameplate, the 2018 Phantom heralds a new luxury business model, demonstrating that Rolls-Royce operates in the luxury goods industry like no other. As this new chapter in the Rolls-Royce story begins, it is the new Phantom that points the way forward for the global luxury industry.  TradeArabia News Service
Turkish Airlines has announced a special one day promotion in celebration of Bahrain's 46th National Day.



Passengers can avail a 46 per cent discount when flying from Bahrain to 46 destinations on Turkish Airlines destination network including London, Sarajevo, Lisbon and more.



The offer is valid for passengers booking a flight on December 14 for travel between December 14 and April 30.



Turkish Airlines has been providing excellent services to its passengers through its business class services, its Flagship CIP Lounge which can be accessed by Business Class travellers at Ataturk Airport, and its strong reputation for Turkish hospitality and convenience on all levels. - TradeArabia News Service








East Africans urged to take advantage of regional opportunities to grow their businesses

The second edition of East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference & Exhibition themed Accelerating Industrialization, Innovation and Investment in the EAC was held from 14th-16th November 2017 at Serena Hotel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The conference looked at Creating an Enabling Environment for Businesses to Foster Industrialization, Innovation and Investment in the EAC and Towards a Single EAC Investment Destination as cross cutting issues.

Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassan, Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania, graced the 2nd East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference & Exhibition during the official opening ceremony on the 14th of November 2017. The conference attracted participation of more than 330 high-level government and private sector decision makers from the EAC Partner States as well as business leaders, East African Diaspora, Entrepreneurs & investors from the region and abroad.

More raw materials for East African industries should be sourced from within the EAC Partner States and there is need for employment creation for the growing youth population in the region, said H.E Samia Suluhu Hassan, Vice President of United Republic of Tanzania.

Amb. Dr. Augustine Mahiga, Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, United Republic of Tanzania and Amb. Liberat Mfumukeko Secretary General, East African Community, Dr. Detlef Waechter Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Republic of Tanzania and to the East African Community; Mr. Vijay Pillai Adviser to Vice President for Africa, World Bank; Mr. Dennis Karera, Managing Director, Kigali Heights, Rwanda; Dr. Samuel Nyantahe, Chairman, Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI), Tanzania; Mr. Olivier Lambert, Lead Operations Officer, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, Worldbank Group and Mr. Felix Mosha, Managing Director IBM Holdings, Tanzania set the stage for discussions on the current policies and missing links in bid to accelerating industrialization, innovation and investment in the EAC.

The second day of the conference was marked by the launch of Creating Perspectives: Business for Development project that aims to improve economic perspectives for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in East Africa through scaling up of production and thus growth of businesses.

Hon Christophe Bazivamo, EAC Deputy Secretary General Productive and Social Sector EAC alongside with Mr. Jim Kabeho, Chairman, East African Business Council (EABC), Mr. Ernst Hustaedt, Country Director, GIZ, Tanzania and Mr. Matthias Wachter Head of Department Security, Raw Materials and Africa Federation of German Industries (BDI), Germany officially launched the new project.

A lot of companies in Africa are SMEs facing challenges in enhancing competitiveness and growth, said Mr. Matthias Wachter. SMEs in Germany would like to know the processes of investing in Africa.

We are happy to be spearhead this new project that will support the growth of SMEs in the region, said Mr. Jim Kabeho, EABC Chairman.

Also, the East African Business Council signed an affiliation agreement with the World SME Forum to support and enhance African SMEs integration to global markets so as to contribute to economic development, job creation and inclusive growth in EAC countries. The agreement was signed by Ms. Lilian Awinja, Executive Director of the EABC and Dr. Tunc Uyanik, President of the World SME Forum.

This conference offered an opportunity for the region to dialogue critically on how to encourage entrepreneurship and attract more foreign & cross border investments. It played a key role to inspire entrepreneurship spirit among East Africans with aim to support start-ups to set up businesses, small enterprises to grow, the medium to scale up and the large enterprises to outsource to small ones.

The simultaneous exhibition offered a platform for the EAC Investment Authorities to showcase investment opportunities in the region and firms and entrepreneurs show cased their products and services and shared bankable project proposals ready for investment not only from foreign but also local investors.

Key industry experts and relevant public decision makers led deliberations on the current policies and missing links in the conference sectors sessions namely: Information Communication Technology (ICT), Agri-Business, Urbanization, Cotton and Textile, Patents and Copyrights in the Creative Industry, Trade and Gender, Health, Banking and Finance, e-Commerce and Start-Ups.

Arising issues from the deliberations include:

Lack of viable strategies, policies and systems of coherent laws and regulations to stir up industrialization Failure to fully implement the EAC Customs Union and Common Market Protocols Different investment incentives across the region leading to competition instead of cooperation Lack of a Regional Local Content Policy

Indeed, the conference allowed for exchange of ideas, expertise, B2B (Business to Business) and B2G (Government to Business) networking and offered a platform to learn about latest developments in the region. Below are key recommendations that arose from the conference in bid to trigger more cross border investments and enhance the business environment.

Creating an Enabling Environment for Business to Foster Industrialization, Innovation and Investment in the EAC

Diversifying the manufacturing base and raising local value add from existing rate of below 10% to at least 40%. This can be achieved through promoting the development and investment in strategic regional industries with sectors in which EAC has potential comparative advantage Partner States should accelerate promotion of cross boarder investment (CBI) and double their efforts to encourage East Africans to take advantage of regional opportunities to grow their businesses instead of over-depending on FDI outside the region. Create a credible, rules based regional investment regime that enhance predictability for investment policies and laws with mechanism to resolve trade disputes and enhance awareness about and promotion the EAC region as a single investment destination Transforming Micro Small and Medium Enterprises capable of contributing up to 50% of manufacturing GDP from 20%

Towards a Single EAC Investment Destination

Implement fully the EAC Customs and Common Market Protocols Formulate an EAC Investment Policy & Strategy

Amb. Celestine Mushy, Director of Multilateral in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, United Republic of Tanzania, urged the business community to collectively champion free trade as well as movement of capital and people during the official closing ceremony of the 2nd East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference & Exhibition.

We will read your views expressed during your discussions keenly with the aim of identifying what more we can do to strengthen business activities in the region and to speed up wealth creation for our people, said Amb. Mushy who noted the recommendations of the conference.

EABC through our Observer Status with the East African Community (EAC), we are committed to follow closely the implementation of the recommendations in order to amplify investments in to the region.

EABC appreciates the support received form all key players in organizing the 2nd East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference & Exhibition in particular, Tanzania Investment Center, Burundi Investment Promotion Agency (API), Kenya Investment Authority (KenInvest), Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and Uganda Investment Authority as well as EABC members, National Focal Points (NFPs) and sector associations for their continued support and commitment to the regional agenda, namely Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Federal Chamber of Commerce Industries Burundi, Kenya Private Sector Alliance, Rwanda Private Sector Federation, Private Sector Foundation Uganda, Confederation of Tanzania Industries, Association of Burundi Industries, Kenya Association of Manufacturers, Rwanda Association of Manufacturers and Uganda Manufacturers Association. Our sincere gratitude goes to SBC Pepsi, DEG, HEVA Fund, Oxford Business Group, ALAF Ltd Tanzania, Kenya Commercial Bank  Tanzania, JC Decaux, Zoom Tanzania and Strathmore Business School our knowledge partner and Jumia Travel our Travel partner.

Much appreciation to development partners German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Federation of German Industries (BDI), and the EAC-German Cooperation particularly the GIZ-EAC integration Programme was expressed.
Egypt looks to play a key role in driving regional integration in Africa

The Africa 2017 Forum wrapped up in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el Sheikh with a clear message of intent from President Al Sisi to bring Africa closer together. The business and investment Forum, titled Driving investment for inclusive growth, was convened from 7th to 9th December 2017 to increase intra-African investments and cross-border collaboration.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi hosted five African heads of state and top business leaders from across the continent, including President of the Republic of Guinea Alpha Conde, President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Cote DIvoire Alassane Ouattara, and President of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

The second edition of the Forum was another clear statement of intent from the Egyptian President, who, in his opening remarks, highlighted the strong bond Egypt has with the rest of the continent, saying it has always been a partner in African development. Putting Africa on the global map and paving the way for a prosperous future can be achieved by working harder to attract investment and collaborating more closely.

African presidents reached a strong consensus to focus on regional integration, inclusive growth and youth empowerment in order to achieve continued and sustained growth on the continent. The message from the Forum was that entrepreneurship and private sector would be the driving force to transform the continent.

The Heads of State stressed the need for self-reliance and domestic resource mobilisation. The event offered business owners with an opportunity to meet investors, engage with political leaders and policy makers and explore new ideas to improve business environment across the continent.

In two private roundtables held on the sidelines of the event that the President held alongside other African heads of state and business leaders from Egypt and the rest of the continent, it was said that Al Sisi would do whatever he could to bring the continent together, both politically and economically.

The Forum had a strong focus on increasing intra-Africa trade, inclusive growth and stronger China-Africa cooperation, especially in terms of technology transfer.

During the event, Egypt also has signed a deal with the World Bank for a US$1.15 billion development policy loan to fund the governments plan to boost economy. It is the last one in a series of three annual loans provided from 2015 to 2017 totalling US$3.15 billion. The deal supports the Egyptian economic reform program aimed at creating jobs, ensuring energy security, strengthening public finances and enhancing business competitiveness.

The final day of the Forum focused on industrial revolution for Africa and China-Africa economic relations. It was agreed that China-Africa relationship was a win-win one. Ambassador Helen Hai, CEO, Made in Africa initiative, China, said China had a clear strategy for Africa but the continent needs to be in the driving seat when it comes to discussions about the China-Africa relationship.

She said the relationship was moving on from resources to partnerships with African countries but they needed to be clear about what they wanted from China. She said 85 million jobs were likely to be exported from China in the next few years as labour costs increased in that country and Africa was well placed to attract them. If Africa can capture those jobs they can enjoy the same economic transformation China had.

However, Carlos Lopes, Former Executive Secretary, UNECA, and Professor, Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, University of Cape Town, Guinea-Bissau, said it was not inevitable that the jobs would migrate to Africa.

He warned that many jobs that could move out of China could be replaced by robots and automation, not Africans, and that other regions would also compete for the kind of jobs that Africa seeks  those at the lower end of the value chain. A few African countries will make it, but not all, he said.

This huge move to get jobs can be elusive if we are not fast enough in creating opportunities. The window is closing very fast. We need to move quickly and do so in a way that is commensurate with the interests of Chinas strategy.

The three-day event, organised by Egypts Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation and the COMESA Regional Investment Agency (RIA), saw over 2,000 delegates from 75 countries attend the Forum. Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr said that the forums sessions offered a chance to exchange expertise and showcase investment opportunities in Egypt and Africa.

The conference has put forward five recommendations:

Pumping new investments in Africa to boost economic growth and development The establishment of joint projects, particularly in infrastructure, to support investment and trade among African states. Enhancing the role of the African private sector to increase investment rates in the continent. The execution of programs that encourage entrepreneurship and the adoption of programs that would increase youths participation in the African economy. Empowering women in all fields of economic activity, considering them as active members in the process of developing Africa and achieving economic stability.

The Forum was preceded by a Young Entrepreneurs Day which brought together over 200 young African entrepreneurs who were meeting investors to pitch their businesses over the two days of the Forum. Al Sisi highlighted the importance of African youth, saying they should be the cornerstone of development plans in the continent as governments strive to promote innovation and technology.

President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, co-chair of the Young Entrepreneurs Day, reiterated the need for more urgency: We cannot afford to waste opportunities because of unnecessary red tape and associated delays. Citing the launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area in Egypt in 2015, he added it was important that African leaders drive the institutional reform of the African Union in order to get the FTA fully operational.

Heba Salama, Director of the COMESA Regional Investment Agency, co-conveners of the Forum, in an emotional address reminded the young and the leaders in the room that if your dreams dont scare you, theyre not big enough. This did not go unheeded by the entrepreneurs in the room many of whom had scaled up businesses that were ripe for take-off.
Featured infographic, @TradeNewsCentre: Which 70 members have formed e-commerce group at WTO? Related: Too early to regulate e-commerce: Jack Ma

Project Syndicate commentary by UNIDOs Li Yong: Africas must-do decade

Recommendations from the 2nd EA Business and Entrepreneurship Conference (EABC)

Arising issues from the deliberations include: (i) Lack of viable strategies, policies and systems of coherent laws and regulations to stir up industrialization; (ii) Failure to fully implement the EAC Customs Union and Common Market Protocols, (iii) Different investment incentives across the region leading to competition instead of cooperation; (iv) Lack of a regional local content policy. Highlighted recommendations (pdf): Creating an enabling environment for business to foster industrialization, innovation and investment in the EAC: (i) Diversifying the manufacturing base and raising local value add from existing rate of below 10% to at least 40%. This can be achieved through promoting the development and investment in strategic regional industries with sectors in which EAC has potential comparative advantage, (ii) Partner States should accelerate promotion of cross border investment and double their efforts to encourage East Africans to take advantage of regional opportunities to grow their businesses instead of over-depending on FDI outside the region, (iii) Create a credible, rules-based regional investment regime that enhance predictability for investment policies and laws with mechanism to resolve trade disputes and enhance awareness about and promotion the EAC region as a single investment destination, (iv) Transforming micro, small and medium enterprises capable of contributing up to 50% of manufacturing GDP from 20%. Towards a single EAC investment destination: (i) Implement fully the EAC Customs and Common Market Protocols, (ii) formulate an EAC Investment Policy and Strategy.

Namibia: Third Quarter Trade Statistics Bulletin (pdf, NSA)

Chart 1 depicts that from q4-2012 to q3-2017, the country experienced continuous trade deficits that averaged N$6,857m. The highest deficit of N$12,084m was recorded in q2-2015, while the lowest of N$1,002m was registered in q1-2016. The chart also shows an unsteady growth trend with the most significant growth of 773.8% recorded in q2-2016. On average, over a period of 20 quarters, the trade deficit grew by 54.6%. The persistent deficits are mostly driven by Namibias high demand for high-valued manufactured commodities and machinery from the rest of the world as opposed to exporting mainly primary commodities that are of low value. Namibias exports [in Q3] were mostly absorbed by African regional groupings and the EU, with SACU absorbing 43.8%, the EU with 18.7%, EFTA with 13.4%, and SADC-Non-SACU with 8.9% and BRIC with 7.9%. Equally, imports were also sourced from the same economic regions with SACU accounting for the largest share of 60.3% of total imports, EU with 22%, BRIC with 9.4%, COMESA with 4.2% and SADC-Non-SACU with 3.9%. .

South Africa Economic Overview: recent developments in the global and South African economies (IDC)

The Low Road scenario for the South African economy outlined in this report brings to the fore some of the potential consequences if politico-economic developments result in a more unfavourable growth trajectory than that presented in the IDCs baseline forecasts. All sectors of the economy would face increased strain in such an adverse scenario. Many business enterprises would likely face serious financial difficulties, which could compromise their sustainability and employment. [Related: SARB Q3 Bulletin and tables; TIPS Real Economy Bulletin: Third Quarter 2017]

South Africa: Measuring shadow banking activities and exploring its interconnectedness with banks in South Africa (SARB)

Shadow banking entities or activities and its interconnectedness with financial intermediaries raise important policy concerns. However, research in this area in South Africa remains limited. Accordingly this paper maps the financial landscape in South Africa, focusing on non-bank financial intermediaries as well as the narrower shadow banking measure for South Africa, measured in line with guidance provided by the Financial Stability Board. The interconnectedness between financial intermediaries in South Africa is also explored and key financial stability risks in the South African financial system are highlighted. One of the most notable risks currently is the lack of data. Whilst the shadow banking system in South Africa remains relatively small when compared to global peers, its assets under management are growing at a faster pace than those of banks. Furthermore, banks in South Africa obtain a relatively large portion of their funding from non-bank financial intermediaries and generally interconnectedness among financial intermediaries in South Africa is relatively high.

China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation Exhibition: updates

(i) Kenya to China: Open your markets for our goods. Kenya has asked China to open up its market for Kenyan commodities in order to mitigate the widening trade imbalance in favor of the second largest economy in the world. Speaking while opening the three day China-Africa Expo on Wednesday at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Industry Trade and Cooperatives Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed welcomed Chinese investors to visit the country and sample Kenyan products needed in their markets. China is a leading economic partner to Kenya, financing and overseeing landmark infrastructural transformation in the country. We have created a conducive investment environment for Chinese investors in the country and we hope that China will reciprocate and open its over 1.3 billion people market for Kenyan products, said Mohamed. He asked Chinese firms to explore opportunities and invest in President Uhuru Kenyattas big four economic areas of food security, affordable housing, health and manufacturing. [China-Africa Development Fund, ITC, CCPIT roundtable: Africa eyes enhanced China ties to boost industrial growth]

(ii) Kenyan special economic zone to launch Chinese industrial park. A Kenyan special economic zone Tatu City is set to launch a Chinese industrial park to accommodate firms from the Asian nation, officials said Wednesday. Nick Langford, Country Head of Tatu City, told Xinhua that the city, located 15 km northeast of Nairobi, has so far attracted three Chinese firms into its industrial park. Due to increasing interest by Chinese investors, we are seeking to set aside 50 acres out of the 900 acres of industrial park to Chinese firms, Langford said. Tatu city is a 5,000-acre mixed-use city that will house over 150,000 residents when fully developed. [Chinese battery firm, Ritar Power and Kenyas Chloride Exide sign MoU to promote renewable energy in East Africa]

At MC11, new research shows convergence on rules of origin is happening (UNCTAD)

Although deliberations on rules of origin werent on the agenda at MC11, the WTO has been dealing with the issue since the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in 1947. Despite multilateral attempts within the WCO, UNCTAD and, most recently, the WTO, it has proven impossible to reach consensus on a multilateral discipline on rules of origin for the last half a century, Mr Inama said. Although progress towards convergence hasnt been possible though formal negotiations at the WTO, the study shows that for some products it has naturally happened between the rules of origin contained in different free trade agreements. We have to take this information to the public  that such progress exists and that we can build upon it. We have to break the kind of curse that exists on rules of origin. [Download: Rules of origin as non-tariff measures: towards greater regulatory convergence]

Global e-commerce policy work to continue despite no deal at WTOs MC11 meeting (UNCTAD)

The lack of progress on the digital economy negotiation at the WTO has been disappointing but we must not give up, Swedens trade minister Ann Linde said. With the world on the cusp of a new digital economy in which e-commerce and automation will transform production, trade, investment patterns  as well as helping meet the Sustainable Development Goals  the need for new policies to be adopted is clear. The gains of digitalization are not automatic and there will be major challenges for countries, enterprises and people to adapt, but we must start somewhere, UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said. UNCTADseTrade for All offers an important platform to support policymaking in developing countries and to champion successful initiatives, said Torbjorn Fredriksson, chief of UNCTADs Information and Communication Technology Analysis Section. Increasingly, the contribution of digitalization to sustainable development will require a concerted, holistic, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder approach, he said.

The global costs of protectionism (World Bank)

This paper quantifies the wide-ranging costs of potential increases in worldwide barriers to trade in two scenarios. First, a coordinated global withdrawal of tariff commitments from all existing bilateral/regional trade agreements, as well as from unilateral preferential schemes coupled with an increase in the cost of traded services, is estimated to result in annual worldwide real income losses of 0.3%, or $211bn, relative to the baseline after three years. An important share of these losses is likely to be concentrated in regions such as East Asia and Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean which together account for close to one-third of the global decline in welfare. Highlighting the importance of preferences, the impact on global trade is estimated to be more pronounced, with an annual decline of 2.1%, or more than $606bn, relative to the baseline if these barriers stay in place for three years. Second, a worldwide increase in tariffs up to legally allowed bound rates coupled with an increase in the cost of traded services would translate into annual global real income losses of 0.8%, or more than $634bn, relative to the baseline after three years. The distortion to the global trading system would be significant and result in an annual decline of global trade of 9%, or more than $2.6 trillion, relative to the baseline in 2020.

ECOWAS Commission President pleads for prompt payment of community levy

Making the appeal on Wednesday at the opening of the 79th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers in Abuja, Mr de Souza indicated that the non-payment or delay of the Community Levy by member states remains a major challenge. He urged the Ministers to continue to plead with their respective governments to respect their primary obligation for the survival of ECOWAS. Marcel de Souza also provided update on the institutional reform in ECOWAS, noting that the collective commitment and resolve of the entire Commission would be required to successfully complete the reform within the shortest possible time, despite the opposition and challenges encountered at various stages of its implementation. [ECOWAS to delay discussion of Moroccos admission until early 2018 at extraordinary summit]

Africa 2017 Forum sets strong development agenda (African Business)

Intra-African trade was on the agenda in almost every session at Africa 2017. A continent-wide trading zone has the potential to enhance export competitiveness, create employment, contribute to economic diversification and reduce vulnerability to global shocks. China-Africa discussions also featured heavily throughout the forum. With other Asian players entering the African market, it is clear China-Africa relations are changing and African nations and businesses are querying how to get the most out of Chinese investment and the One Belt One Road initiative. [African presidents draw strong consensus for inclusive growth at Africa 2017]

Egypt launches its first locally-built smartphone with Chinas help

Last week, in a lavish ceremony President Abdel Fattah El Sisi was handed the first locally made smartphone called Nile X, which is designed for the Egyptian consumer. In his push for investment in the technology sector, Sisis administration has supported an Egyptian Silicon Valley in Assiut, deep in the countrys impoverished southern region, to jump start local manufacturing. SICO, the Egyptian firm behind the 4G enabled smartphone, has been eyeing a growing consumer base of tech savvy Egyptians. With a population of over 95 million, mobile phone subscriptions topped 99 million. Only 32% of Egyptians though have smartphone making it a burgeoning market that the firm would like capitalize on through affordable handsets. SICO is looking to expand in Africa with plans to build an East African regional hub in Nairobi and to expand to Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa.

Mozambique: IMF Completes 2017 Article IV Mission

On the structural front, the mission urges the authorities to take decisive steps to strengthen the business environment and to restructure financially-weak SOEs that pose significant fiscal and financial sector risks. The mission commends the authorities for submitting to Parliament the SOE law and for approving a decree providing a regulatory framework to the issuance of public debt and guarantees. In this context, the mission encourages the authorities to continue developing their action plan to strengthen governance, transparency, and accountability. Regarding the follow up to the audit of Ematum, Proindicus and MAM companies, the mission reiterates the need to fill the information gaps in the audit report and takes note of the Governments recommendation to wait for the outcome of the ongoing investigations by the Prosecutor General Office.

International commodity prices and domestic bank lending in developing countries (IMF)

We study the role of the bank-lending channel in propagating fluctuations in commodity prices to credit aggregates and economic activity in developing countries. We use data on more than 1,600 banks from 78 developing countries to analyze the transmission of changes in international commodity prices to domestic bank lending. Our results also show that there is no significant difference in the behavior of foreign and domestic banks in the transmission process, reflecting the regional footprint of foreign banks in developing countries.

Please note: This is the final Daily News Selection for 2017. Updates will resume in early 2018. Wishing our readers a wonderful festive season and a Happy New Year.

* * *
And they are not alone...

As the United States was fixated on the political upset in Alabama, there were several chunks of good news coming out of the Paris One Planet Summita conference designed to follow up on the Paris Climate Accord, with a specific focus on finance. Principal among these announcements, I think, was news that the World Bank will stop financing upstream oil and gas projects from 2019 onwards. (The bank did say rare exceptions may be made for gas in the poorest of countries.) Also worthy of note was insurance giant AXA announcing it would divest a further 3 billion euros from coal and tar sands projects, quadruple green investments to 12 billion euros by 2020, and also stop insuring new coal construction projects or oil sands businesses.

Alongside the many, many other such commitments from corporations, nation states and non-profits, it's fair to say thatregardless of what's happening in Washington, D.C.strong messages are being sent about the direction of travel of the world's economy. Of course, it's also fair to say that this news comes at a time of record wildfires in California and unprecedented sea ice melt in the Arctic, so even the ambitious levels of commitment currently emerging will need to be ramped up further.

But let's not underestimate the significance.

Whenever I write about the growing fossil fuel divestment movement, critics tend to offer two counter arguments:

1) The scale of divestment is too small to make a difference

2) Divesting is meaningless, because someone else will invest instead

The first of those arguments is already seeming moot, given the obvious scale of divestment that's already taken place, and the growing number of institutions willing to jump onboard. But a new study from the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED) at the University of Waterloo suggests the second argument is inaccurate too. You see fossil fuel divestment announcements are having a statistically significant impact on the price of fossil fuel shares. And because low share prices increase the cost of capital, this means there is a direct impact on a company's capacity for exploration and new production.

Yes, we have a long way to go before the divestment movement topples Big Energy. And yes, divestment and investment must always go hand in hand. But don't let anyone tell you it doesn't make a difference:

The markets are shifting, and they are shifting in our direction.
Now that vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, farmers need to rely on armed guards to protect crops.

The vanilla situation is getting more dire by the day in Madagascar. The world's top vanilla producer has been tightly squeezed by a combination of factors, from cyclone damage to increased demand for natural flavoring from food companies. But now, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the situation is getting violent.

Vanilla growers have hired guards and are sleeping in their fields, tending bonfires by night, in order to deter thieves. Thefts are up because of the enormous increase in value of vanilla pods. At $600 per kilogram, vanilla is now worth more than its weight in silver; only saffron is still more expensive. At least four thieves have been killed by angry farmers.

While a cyclone destroyed a chunk of Madagascar's vanilla crop earlier this year, creating anxiety about shortages, it's mostly the growing demand for natural flavorings that has affected the market. Customers no longer want artificial flavorings in foods, and their pressure has led large food companies, such as Nestle, McDonald's, and Hershey Co., to change their ingredients lists.

While customers' motivations makes sense, it does not take into consideration how vanilla is produced. WSJ cites Jean Christophe Peyre, a vanilla producer and exporter based in Madagascar. He says that food manufacturers "have mostly forgotten that the production of vanilla in Madagascar is a craft work that cannot withstand a high world demand." One source says that "less than 1% of vanilla flavor comes from actual vanilla orchids. With demand on the upswing, trade in the coveted flavor is out of balance."

Dinesh Valke -- A vanilla pod/CC BY 2.0

Indeed, the production process is lengthy, involved, and difficult to streamline. Vanilla plants, from the orchid family, take three months to start producing beans and they flower for only one day, at which point they must be pollinated by hand. If this opportunity is lost, the flower dies. In Mexico, where vanilla originated, the pollination is done by native bees, but Madagascar lacks these little helpers.

"About nine months after pollination, farmers pick the green pods and dry them in a complicated process that includes blanching the beans, sweating them and drying them in the sun, generally over another three to six months."



MaxPixel -- Vanilla beans drying in the sun in Mauritius/Public Domain

Lately, farmers have been picking their vanilla before it's ripe, just to lessen the chance of its being stolen. This, however, reduces the quality and quantity:

"It normally takes 5 to 6 pounds of green vanilla beans to make 1 pound of cured beans," says Craig Nielsen, vice president of sustainability at Nielsen-Massey Vanillas Inc., a family-owned manufacturer in Waukegan, Ill. "If they are picked early, it can take 8 to 10 pounds."



Demand will eventually catch up, once plants have 3 to 4 years to mature, then prices will adjust accordingly. But what's unfortunate about all this is that the farmers miss out on the high times, receiving only about one-third of market price. Most of the profit goes to middlemen. You can avoid this by buying Fairtrade-certified vanilla. Nielsen-Massey sells it in USA and Ndali Vanilla in UK.

You can also buy vanilla from other countries, such as Tahiti, Mexico, or Indonesia. The vanilla's flavor isn't as prized as that from Madagascar, but supporting these different economies helps to grow the industry across the globe, resulting in more vanilla for all, at the end of the day.
When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site.
I am not aware of the "atmosphere" in Jamaica but would it be "safer" to book a ride through the hotel or just any taxi around the area?

We are traveling with a 3 yr old and just want to be as safe as possible.

Thanks
I see you are also posting about the GOR. I think you get more wow for less distance along the GOR than between Melbourne and Sydney. The so-called coastal route between those cities is mostly a mediocre and not very scenic highway and you need to detour off it to find all the places of interest. It is a very good road trip in the right circumstances, but travelling with such young ones I'm not sure the effort to see the whole coast is worthwhile.

Canberra has been mentioned a few times, could I have some indication of your feelings about that please?

Edited: 4 years ago
I will be in NYC in January and currently working on an itinerary. I had Bryant Park in there however when I google things to do I find most things end before January. Can you tell me if its worth the trip to Bryant Park (I would like to possibly Skate there but may save that for Central Park or Rockefeller ) but what else is in the area> I am also planning on taking subway to Brooklyn, walk around DUMBO and walk back to Manhattan, is any of this near Bryant Park? would it make sense to do this on the same day?

( I know i need to map this , just trying to get my barrings here first as the maps are so big and confusing)

Thanks for any help.
Hanoi to Hue is mostly over sea but you come back toward the coast in the last third of the flight and, weather permitting, you can see some nice coastline, then Hue City and the river and lagoons from the right side of the plane. Every flight I've taken has gone past Phu Bai and approached to land from the SE. When you swing around, from the left side you can see the mountains meeting the sea, Lang Co and its lagoon, Bach Ma mountains.

Danang to HCMC, I prefer the left side, you might get good views of the coastline early, and landing you look south across the city centre,

Regards

rayza

Edited: 4 years ago
Would like to get my teeth whitened and will be visiting Vietnam and Thailand next month

Is this procedure safe to get done in Vietnam. I will be vising HCMC and Hoi An, does anyone have any positive recommendations or even where not to go

Would I be better to get it done in Thailand......or even neither

Any advice welcome
hi

We are planning an itinerary for our visit to Japan in September 2018. We will use trains and would like to travel Tokyo to Hakone to Takayama. We are seeking advice as to the best options for train travel from

Tokyo to Hakone and then

Hakone to Takayama.

Are there direct train services and which station do we goto in Tokyo to Hakone, and which station do we depart Hakone to go to Takayama.

Also can we get the approximate cost of the train fares for these routes.

We will have a Japan rail pass for 7 days for our travelling from Takayama to other parts of Japan including Kyoto, Kanazawa and Hiroshima

Thanks

Paul

Australia
Hello. Just want to check if there is any one out there who has applied for Japan tourist visa as a Permanent Resident from Adelaide.

I am searching online and the instructions are a little confusing.

Questions:

1. Can you courier all documents and other things to the consulate?

2. Do you have to personally go and collect the passport from tge consulate in Melbourne?

Just needed some guidance as to how to go about the process.

TIA
Hello,

I'm flying from Panama City to Guatemala City with a layover in SJO of only 49 minutes. Both flights are on Avianca. Do I need to go through immigration/customs in this case? Because if I do, there is no way I can catch that flight to Guatemala City... The ticket was sold like this, so I hope they knew what they were doing and that such a short layover is standard at SJO, but I need to check here if someone already had a similar experience.

Thanks a lot!
On tours, free tours by foot is mostly walking tours I think although they may have a bus tour. Real Tours uses subway too which gets you farther afield. Given the dates you,re here, I think a bus tour will wind up just sitting in traffic.

If you want MY must sees for a 3 day visit, I would see if Real New York tours has a tour and availability for day 1. I would spend some time at Union Square Market after the tour and eat in Greenwich Village. After dinner I'd walk around the village.

On day 2 I'd head to Central Park for a bit then head to a museum that interested me most. If you're not a museum person, then I would do something that interests you. Btw, yes there,s a Central Park map both online and a paper one available as you enter the park from Central Park South. I would go to Top of the Rock before sunset and see a show on night 2.

On day 3 I'd spend time in a neighborhood that interests you and/or walk the Xmas windows, do a cruise of some sort to see the Statue and go to either Washinton Square Park or Gramercy Park for caroling. In the evening I'd go hear some live music.
How do I get from the airport (JFK, LGA, or EWR) to Manhattan?

What To Do During Layovers?

Vacation Apartment Rentals Violate NYC Laws

Hotels: Kitchenettes and kitchens in 100+ Manhattan Hotels

Hotels: Two queen beds plus a kitchen/kitchenette

Hotels: Guests under 21 years old (but at least 18)

Hotels: Which ones charge an additional Resort or Facilities Fee

Hotels: When is the best time to go for cheaper rates?

What are the Must-See's and Must-Do's?

How Do I Ride the Subway (UPDATED)?

Tips, Hint and Suggestions for First Timers

SCAMS to avoid in NYC

What Will the Weather Be Like During My Trip?

Any Good Websites for Researching My Trip?

How Safe is New York?

Where to Eat in NYC

Where to eat in NYC - Part 2

Celiac in the City? (gluten free)

Which Area Should I Stay In?

Is There Cheaper Lodging Outside Manhattan?

How Much Do I Tip People?

Are the New York Pass, Explorer Pass or CityPass worth it?

How Do I Hail a Taxi?

Public restrooms/toilets. Where do you go when you GOTTA GO?

Where are the best areas for shopping?

How do I find Discount Tickets for Broadway Shows?

What are the NYC Halloween events for 2021?

Thanksgiving 2021 in NYC: What to Do & Where to Eat

Christmastime in NYC 2021: Dates for the Trees-Windows-Markets-Ice Skating+MORE!

Christmas Day 2021 in NYC: What to Do & Where to Eat

What Should I Do on New Year's Eve?

How Will I Survive the Cold Weather?

Where are the Farmers Markets and Street Fairs?

What is there to see and do near WTC/SOL/Brooklyn Bridge/SI ferry?

What should I know about visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum?

What Is There to See and Do in Brooklyn?

How Do I Get to the Brooklyn Bridge?

What Is There to See and Do in Queens?

Exploring neighborhoods - where should I go and what should I see?

Which is the best? ESB or TOTR or OWO?

Which are the significant churches in Manhattan?

Hidden Gems in the city - not so touristy

How do I get from NYC to the Meadowlands and back?

I'm Getting Married in NYC...what do I need to do?

Should I Buy Knock-Off Purses?

What to Do with Kids and How to Do It?

What should we do at night -- especially with kids or under 21's?

Places to eat (and drink) with a view

Where is the Old FAQ?

Trip Reports: Families with Young Kids - Add yours!

Trip Reports: Groups of Friends - Add yours!

Trip Reports: Couples - Add yours!

Trip Reports: Families with Teenagers - Add yours!

Trip Reports: Solo Travelers - Add yours!

Trip Reports: Families of Adults - Add yours!
Is your company in need of the most reliable and efficient best Best Jasmine Tea s in the market? Your good luck led you to the ideal situation, so congratulations! You are in the best possible place. By eliminating the need to read through dozens of Best Jasmine Tea reviews, we are saving you time and stress.

Many customers find it difficult to decide which Best Jasmine Tea product to buy. The dilemma is brought about by the many types of Best Jasmine Tea in the market. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a clear understanding of how you may choose the most suitable Best Jasmine Tea available in the market.
In this episode of Morning Edition, many have expressed concern over the path of some of our
Four 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 Oleksandr Motuzianyk said this at a press briefing on Friday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

Four our soldiers were wounded and injured in enemy attacks: two near Marinka, one near Pisky, and another one near Luhanske. They were immediately taken to military hospitals he said.

Motuzianyk added that Russian-backed militants violated the ceasefire 24 times. The Ukrainian Armed Forces returned fire 18 times.

iy
The US Department of Treasury will continue to provide advisory services to the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Ukraine regarding the removal of insolvent banks from the market, the Funds press service reports.

"The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Technical Assistance (UST-OTA) will continue to provide advisory services on the removal of insolvent banks from the market of the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Ukraine," reads the letter on the annual renewal of technical assistance.

The document was signed by Managing Director of the Deposit Guarantee Fund, Kostiantyn Vorushylin, and Director of the Banking and Financial Services Program off the U.S. Treasury, Paul Leonovich.

Responsibilities and tasks of the project will be outlined in the action plan that the parties will develop within 30 days after the day of signing this letter on the annual extension of the project.

iy
The State Aviation Service of Ukraine and the State Inspection of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Safety Oversight agreed to resume direct regular flights between Kyiv and Tashkent.

The parties reached an agreement at a meeting in Tashkent on December 12, 2017, avianews.com reports.

"During the talks, the parties approved the previous flight quota - twice a week for each of the parties, which was applied before the termination of flights in 2015," the report reads.

According to Ambassador of Ukraine in Uzbekistan Yuriy Savchuk, the representatives of UIA and Uzbekistan Airways took part in the meeting.

ish
Ukraine and Argentina will jointly plan work in the priority sectors of bilateral trade, including power engineering, cattle breeding and beef production, information and communication technologies, and agricultural machinery.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine reported this on Facebook following a meeting of Deputy Minister of Economic Development  Ukraines Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina on Economic Support and Trade Strategy.

"After the end of the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference, Ukraine's Trade Representative Natalia Mykolska continued to work for the growth of Ukrainian exports to Argentina. At a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina on Economic Support and Trade Strategy, the parties discussed a plan to increase the trade between Ukraine and Argentina, joint projects from 2018 to EXPO-2023 in Buenos Aires. Ukraine is also preparing to participate in this exhibition. The sides agreed on joint planning of work in the priority sectors of bilateral trade, including power engineering, cattle breeding and beef production, information and communication technologies, and agricultural machinery," the report said.

The parties also reached an agreement on exchanging experience in export promotion.

"This is important for us now, since we are working on creating a system to support exporters in Ukraine, and we are planning to establish an institute to support and promote exports in 2018. This is also stipulated by the export strategy of Ukraine," the Economic Development Ministry reported.

ish
The United States House of Representatives approved at the level of the relevant committee a draft law on cooperation with Ukraine in the field of information protection and recommended it to further voting procedure.

The Embassy of Ukraine in the United States announced this on Thursday.

"The House Foreign Affairs Committee reviewed and recommended for approval the draft law on cybersecurity cooperation with Ukraine," the statement reads.

The document, in particular, determines that US policy is to assist the Government of Ukraine in the improvement of its own cybersecurity strategy.

In addition, the draft law confirms the US commitment to the Charter on Strategic Partnership between Ukraine and the United States, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, the support of cooperation between our state and NATO.

The implementation of the legislative initiative "will be an important contribution" in Ukraine's fight against Russias hybrid war, the embassy stressed.

ish